15307	----	Proofreading Team. [Illustration: Frontispiece.] The Narrative of +Gordon Sellar+ who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 HUNTINGDON, QUE. THE GLEANER BOOK ROOM 1915 _Copyright, Canada, by Robert Sellar, 1915._ +GORDON SELLAR+ CHAPTER I. While my mother was a servant in Glasgow she married a soldier. I have only a faint remembrance of my father, of a tall man in a red coat coming to see us in the afternoons and tossing me up and down to the ceiling. I was in my fourth year when his regiment was hurried to Belgium to fight Bonaparte. One day there rose a shouting in the streets, it was news of a great victory, the battle of Waterloo. At night mother took me to Argyle street to see the illuminations, and I never forgot the blaze of lights and the great crowd, cheering. At the Cross there were men with bottles, drinking the health of Wellington. When my mother caught me up to get past the drunken men she was shivering. Long afterwards, when I was able to put two and two together I understood it was her fear of what had happened father. She went often to the barracks to ask if any word had come, but except that the regiment was in the thick of the fight they could tell nothing. It might be three weeks after the battle that a sergeant came to our room. Mother was out working He left a paper on the table and went away. When mother came home late, she snatched the paper up, gave a cry that I hear yet, and taking me in her arms fell on the bed and sobbed as if her heart would break. I must have asked her what had happened, for I recall her squeezing me tighter to her bosom and saying My fatherless boy. Long after, I met a comrade of my father, who told me he acted bravely all day and was cut down by a dragoon when the French charged on the infantry squares at the close of the battle. My mother got nothing from the government, except the pay that was coming to him, which she told me was 17s 6d. Mother kept on working, mostly out of door jobs, washing or house-cleaning, a neighbor being asked to look after me. When I got old enough, she would tell me, while I was in bed, where she was going, and in the evening I would go and meet her. Sometimes, not often, she got sewing to do at home and these were bright days. We talked all the time and she taught me much; not simply to read and write and cast little sums, but about everything she knew. My reading book was the gospel of John, which she said was fullest of comfort, and it was then my faith in Christ took root. There could not be a more contented or cheerful mother, and her common expression was that when we did our duty everything was for the best. She had a sweet voice, and when she sang one of Burns' songs neighbors opened their doors to hear her. I was nearly ten when a bad time came. Mills closed, the streets were full of idle workmen, and provisions got dear. Mother got little to do, and I know she often went hungry that I might be fed. She might have got her share of the relief fund, but would not think of it. She told me time and again, to be independent. That hard winter made all the families in our close draw nearer to one another, and every hour there was some deed of helpfulness. The best friends of the poor are the poor. We were struggling on, hopeful and unmurmuring, when the word passed from landing to landing one morning that the boy who was sick in the first flat had been visited by a doctor, who said he had typhus. Mother took her turn in sitting up with him at night until he got the change and it was for the better. It might be a week after, I went to meet her on her way home from the place where she had been at work, and saw how slow she walked and the trouble she had in getting up the stair to our room. She gave me my supper and lay down on the bed to rest, for she said she was tired. Next morning she complained of headache and did not rise. Neighbors came in to see her now and then. I stayed by her, she had never been thus before. When it became dark she seemed to forget herself and talked strange. The woman next door gave her a few drops of laudanum in sugar and she fell asleep. When she woke next day she did not know me and was raving. Word was taken to the hospital and a doctor came. He said it was a bad case, and she must be taken to the hospital at once, and he would send the van. It came, the two men with it lifted her from her bed and placed her on a stretcher. A crowd had gathered on the street to see her brought out and placed in the van. I thought I was to go with her, and tried to get on the seat. The helper pushed me away, but the driver bent over and gave me a penny. The horse started and I never saw my mother again. I ran after the van, but it got to the hospital long before I was in sight of it. I went to the door and said I wanted my mother; the porter roughly told me to go away. I waited in front of the building until it got dark, and I wondered behind which of the rows of lighted windows mother lay. When cold to the bone I went back to our room. A neighbor heard me cry and would have me come to her kitchen-fire and she gave me some gruel. Sitting I fell asleep. I was told I must not go into our room, it was dangerous, so I went to the hospital and waited and watched the people go in and out. One gentleman with a kind face came out and I made bold to speak to him. When I said mother had fever he told me nobody could see her, and that she would be taken good care of. I thought my heart would burst. I could not bear to stay on the Gallowgate, and so weary days passed in my keeping watch on the hospital. On Sunday coming, the neighbor who was so kind to me, said she would go with me, for they allowed visitors to see patients on Sunday afternoon. We started, I trotting cheery in the thought I was about to see my mother. The clerk at the counter asked the name and disease. He said no visitors were admitted to the fever-ward. Could he find out how she was? He spoke into a tin tube and coming back opened a big book. 'She died yesterday,' he said quite unconcerned. I could not help it, I gave a cry and fainted. As we trudged home in the rain, the woman told me they had buried her. I had now no home. The landlord fumigated our room with sulphur, took the little furniture for the rent, and got another tenant. Everybody was kind but I knew they had not enough for themselves, and the resolve took shape, that I would go to the parish where my mother was born. Often, when we took a walk on the Green, Sunday evenings, she would point to the hills beyond which her father's home once was, and I came to think of that country-place as one where there was plenty to eat and coals to keep warm. How to get there I tried to plan. I must walk, of course, but how was I to live on the road? I was running messages for the grocer with whom mother had dealt, and he gave me a halfpenny when he had an errand. These I gave to the woman where I slept and who was so kind to me despite her poverty. I was on London street after dark when a gentleman came along. He was half-tipsy. Catching hold of my collar he said if I would lead him to his house he would give me sixpence. He gave a number in Montieth row. I took his hand, which steadied him a little, and we got along slowly, and were lucky in not meeting a policeman. When we got to the number he gave me, I rang the bell. A man came to the door, who exclaimed, At it again. The gentleman stumbled in and I was going away when he recollected me. Fumbling in his pocket, he picked out a coin and put it into my hand, and the door closed. At the first lamp I looked at it; sure enough, he had given me a sixpence. I was overjoyed, and I said to myself, I can leave for Ayrshire now. I wakened early next morning and began my preparations. I got speldrins and scones, tying them in the silk handkerchief mother wore round her neck on Sundays. That and her bible was all I had of her belongings. Where the rest had gone, a number of pawn tickets told. I was in a hurry to be off and telling the woman I was going to try the country I bade her goodbye. She said, God help you, poor boy, and kissed my cheek. The bells at the Cross were chiming out, The blue bells of Scotland, when I turned the corner at the Saltmarket. It was a beautiful spring-day and when I had cleared the city and got right into the country everything was so fresh and pleasant that I could have shouted with joy. The hedges were bursting into bloom, the grass was dotted with daisies, and from the fields of braird rose larks and other birds, which sang as if they rejoiced with me. I wondered why people should stay in the city when the country was so much better. It had one draw-back, the country-road was not as smooth as the pavement. There was a cut in my left foot from stepping on a bit of glass, and the dust and grit of the road got into it and gave me some pain. I must have walked for three hours when I came to a burn that crossed the road. I sat on a stone and bathed my foot, and with it dangling in the water I ate a speldrin and a scone. On starting to walk, I found my foot worse, and had to go slow and take many a rest. When the gloaming came I was on the look out for a place to pass the night. On finding a cosey spot behind a clump of bushes, I took my supper, lay down, and fell asleep, for I was dead weary. The whistling of a blackbird near my head woke me and I saw the sun was getting high. My foot was much worse, but I had to go on. Taking from my bundle of provisions as sparingly as my hunger would let me, I started. It was another fine day and had my hurt foot been well I thought I would reach my mother's parish before long. I could not walk, I just limped. Carts passed me, but would not give me a lift. My bare feet and head and ragged clothes made them suspicious, and as for the gentlemen in gigs they did not look at me. When I came to spring or burn I put my foot in it, for it was hot and swollen now. At noon I finished the food in my bundle and went on. I had not gone far when I had to stop, and was holding my sore foot in a spring when a tinker came along. He asked what was wrong. Drawing a long pin out of his coat collar he felt along the cut, and then squeezed it hard. I see it now, he remarked, and fetching from his pouch a pair of pincers he pulled from the cut a sliver of glass. Wrapping the cloth round it he tied it with a bit of black tape, and told me if I kept dirt out it would heal in a day or two. Asking me where I was going, we had some talk. He told me the parish of Dundonald was a long way off and he did not know anybody in it by the name of Askew. I was on the right road and could find out when I got there. He lit his pipe and left me. I walked with more ease, and the farther I went the hungrier I grew. Coming to a house by the side of the road I went to the open door and asked for a cake. I have nothing for beggars, cried a woman by the fire. I am no beggar, I answered, I will pay you, and held out a halfpenny. She stared at me. Take these stoups and fill them at the well. The hill was steep and the stoups heavy, but I managed to carry them back one at a time and placed them on the bench. She handed me a farl of oatcake and I went away. It was the sweetest bite I ever got. It was not nearly dark when I climbed a dyke to get into a sheltered nook and fell asleep. Something soft and warm licking my face woke me. It was a dog and it was broad day. What are you doing here, laddie? said the dog's master who was a young fellow, perhaps six or seven years older than myself. His staff and the collie showed me he was a shepherd. I told him who I was and where I was trying to go. Collie again smelt at me and wagged his tail as if telling his master I was all right. I went with the lad who said his name was Archie. He led to where his sheep were and we sat down in the sunshine, for it was another warm day. We talked and we were not ten minutes together when we liked each other. He unwrapped from a cloth some bannocks and something like dried meat, which he said was braxie. It was his noon-bite, but he told me to eat it for he said, we go back to the shelter to-day, and by we he meant collie. He had been lonesome and was glad of company and we chattered on by the hour. At noon, leaving collie in charge of the sheep, we went to the hut where he stayed and had something to eat. He said his father was shepherd to a big farmer, who had sent him with two score of shearling ewes to get highland pasture. We talked about everything we knew and tried to make each other laugh. He told me about Wallace, and we gripped hands on saying we would fight for Scotland like him, and I told him about Glasgow, where he had not been. A boy came with a little basket and a message. The message was from his father, that he was to bring the sheep back early on Monday, and the basket was from his mother with food and a clean shirt for the Sabbath. We slept on a sheepskin and wakened to hear the patter of rain. After seeing his sheep and counting them, Archie said we must keep the Sabbath, and when we had settled in a dry corner of the hillside he heard me my questions. I could not go further than Who is the Redeemer of God's elect? but he could go to the end. Then I repeated the three paraphrases my mother had taught me, but Archie had nearly all of them and several psalms. A shepherd would be tired if he did not learn by heart, he said; some knit but I like reading best. Then he took my mother's bible and read about David and Goliath. That over he started to sing. Oh we had a fine time, and when a shower came Archie spread his plaid like a tent over the bushes and we sat under it. He told me what he meant to do when he was a man. He was going to Canada and get a farm, and send for the whole family. As we snuggled in for the night, he told me he would not forget me and he was glad collie had nosed me out in the bushes. If I found in the morning he was gone, I was to take what he left me to eat. Sure enough I slept in; he was gone with the sheep. I said a prayer for him and took the road. It was shower and shine all day. I footed on my way as fast as I could, for the cut was still tender. Towards night I neared a little village and saw an old man sitting on the doorstep reading. I asked him if I was on the right road to Dundonald. He replied I was, but it was too far away to reach before dark, and he put a few questions to me. Asking me to sit beside him we had a talk. Did you ever see that book? holding out the one he was reading. 'It is A Cloud of Witnesses, and gives the story of the days of persecution. I wish every man in Scotland knew what it contains, for there would be more of the right stuff among us. I was just reading, for the hundredth time, I suppose, the trial of Marion Harvie, and how he who was afterwards James King of England consented to send her, a poor frail woman, to the gallows'. From the Covenanters he passed to politics. He was a weaver and did not like the government, telling me, seeing where I came from, I must grow up to be a Glasgow radical. Seeing I was homeless, he said he would fend me for the night, and, going into the house, he brought out a coggie of milk and a barley scone. When I had finished, he took me to the byre and left me in a stall of straw, telling me to leave early for his wife hated gangrel bodies and would not, when she came in, rest content, if she knew there was anybody in the stable. When daylight came it was raining. I started without anybody seeing me from the house. I was soon wet to the skin, but I trudged on, saying to myself every now and then You're a Scotchman, never say die. There were few on the road, and when I met a postman and asked how far I was from Dundonald, his curt reply was, You are in it. I was dripping wet and oh so perished with cold and hunger that I made up my mind to stop at the first house I came to. As it happened, it was a farm-house a little bit from the road. I went to the kitchen-door where there was a hen trying to keep her chicks out of the rain. There were voices of children at play and of a woman as if crooning a babe to sleep. I stood a while before I ventured to knock. There was no answer and after waiting a few minutes I knocked again. A boy of my own age opened the door. An old woman came towards me and asked what I wanted. I am cold, I said, and, please, might I warm myself? She was deaf and did not catch what I said. 'Whose bairn are you?' she asked me. Mary Askew's, I replied, I noticed the younger woman who had the child in her lap fixed her gaze on me. Where are you from? grannie asked. From Glasgow and I am so cold. Laying down the child in the cradle, the younger woman came to me and sitting on a stool took my hands. 'Where did your mother belong?' she asked in a kind voice. She came from the parish of Dundonald. 'And where is your father?' He is dead. 'And is your mother in Glasgow?' She died in the hospital, and the thought of that sad time set the tears running down my cheeks. 'You poor motherless bairn!' she exclaimed, 'can it be you are the child of my old school companion? Have you any brothers or sisters?' No, I have nobody in the world. 'Did your mother leave you nothing?' In my simplicity, not understanding she meant worldly gear, I untied my bundle, uncovered the cloth I had wrapped round it to keep it dry, and handed her the bible. She looked at the writing. 'I remember when she got it, as a prize for repeating the 119th psalm without missing a word.' Putting her arms round my neck she kissed me and holding me to the light she said 'You have your mother's eyes and mouth.' The boy and girl took me to the fire, and, when grannie was got to understand who I was, she bustled round to heat over some of the broth left from dinner and while it was warming the little girl forced her piece into my mouth. The other boy came to me full of curiosity. Feeling my legs he whispered, You're starvit. By-and-by a cart drove into the yard. It was the master with his hired man. When he was told who I was, he called me to him and patted me on the head. That night I slept with Allan, the name of the older boy. His brother's name was Bob, and the girl's Alice. The baby had not been christened. The name of the master of the house was Andrew Anderson. CHAPTER II. Hating to be a burden on the family I was eager to work. Too weak for farm duties, I helped about the house and came, in course of time, to earn a good word from grannie. Tho of the same age, there was a great difference between Allan and myself. He could lift weights I could not move, did not get tired as I did, and as the stronger took care of me We were all happy and getting-on well when trouble came from an unlooked for quarter. The master got notice from the factor that, on his lease running out the following year, the rent would be raised. He did not look for this. During his lease he had made many improvements at his own cost and thought they would more than count against any rise in the value of farm lands. He remonstrated with the factor, who said he could do nothing, his lordship wanted more revenue from his estate and there was a man ready to take the farm at the advanced rent. He was sorry, but the master had to pay the rent asked or leave the place. If I go, what will be allowed me for the improvements I have made? Not a shilling; he had gone on making them without the landlord's consent. You saw me making them and encouraged me, said the master, and I made them in the belief I would be given another tack to get some of the profit out of them. The factor replied, Tut, tut, that's not the law of Scotland. The master felt very sore at the injustice done him. On his lordship's arrival from London, accompanied by a party of his English friends, for the shooting, the master resolved to see him. On the morning he left to interview him we wished him good luck, confident the landlord would not uphold the factor, and we wearied for his return. The look on his face as he came into the kitchen showed he had failed. He told us all that passed. On getting to the grand house and telling the flunkey he had come to see his master, the flunkey regarded him with disdain, and replied his lordship was engaged and would not see him. Persisting in refusing to leave the door and telling that he was a tenant, the flunkey left and returned with a young gentleman, who asked what was his business, saying he was his lordship's secretary. On being told, the young man shook his head, saying his lordship left all such matters to his factor, and it would do no good to see him. Just then a finely dressed lady swept into the hall. Pausing, she cried, 'Tompkins, what does that common-looking man want here? Tell him to go to the servants' entry.' 'He wants to see his lordship,' was the reply. 'The idea!' exclaimed the lady as she crossed the floor and disappeared by the opposite door. The master could hear the sounds of laughter and jingle of glasses. 'My, good man,' said the secretary, 'you had better go: his lordship will not see you today.' 'When will he be at liberty to see me?' asked the master, 'I will come when it suits his pleasure. I must have his word of mouth that what the factor says is his decision.' The secretary looked perplexed, and after putting a few questions, among them that he had paid his rent and wanted no favor beyond renewal of his lease on the old terms, he told my father to wait a minute and left. It might be half an hour or more when a flunkey beckoned the master to follow him. Throwing open a door he entered what he took to be the library, for it had shelves of books. His lordship was alone, seated by the fireplace with a newspaper on his lap. 'Now, say what you have to say in fewest words,' said the nobleman. Standing before him the master told how he had taken the farm 19 years ago, had observed every condition of the lease, and had gone beyond them in keeping the farm in good heart, for he had improved it in many ways, especially during the past few years when he had ditched and limed and levelled a boggy piece of land, and changed it from growing rushes into the best pasture-field on the farm. 'Gin the farm is worth more, it is me who has made it and I crave your lordship to either give me another tack at the same rent or pay me what my betterments are worth.' His Lordship turned and touched a bell. On the flunkey appearing, he said to him, 'Show this fellow to the door,' and took up his newspaper. As the master finished, he said to us, 'Dear as every acre of the farm is to me, I will leave it and go where the man who works the land may own it and where there are no lords and dukes, nor baronets. I am a man and never again will I ask as a favor what is my due of any fellow-mortal with a title.' We went to bed that night sorrowful and fearing what was before us. When he took anything in hand the master went through with it. Before the week was out he had given up the farm, arranged for an auction sale, and for going to Canada. My heart was filled with misgivings as to what would become of me. I knew crops had been short for two years, and, though he was even with the world, the master had not a pound to spare, and depended on the auction-sale for the money to pay for outfit and passage to Canada. I had no right to expect he would pay for me, and all the more that he would have no use for a lad such as I was in his new home. It was not so much of what might happen to myself after they were gone that I thought about, as of parting with the family, for I loved every one of them. I knew they were considering what to do with me, and one day, on the master getting me alone, he seemed relieved on telling me the new tenant of the farm was going to keep me on for my meat. I thanked him, for it was better than I looked for. These were busy days getting ready. Alice noticed that, in all the making of clothes, there were none for me, and I overheard her ask her mother, who answered in a whisper, that they had not money enough to take me along with them. Alice was more considerate than ever with me. To their going grannie proved an obstacle. She would not leave Scotland, she declared, she would be buried in it, she would go to no strange country, let alone a cold one like Canada, nor cross the sea. Her favorite of the family was Robbie, on whom she doted. 'You will not leave him?' asked the mistress. 'Ou, he'll gang with me to Mirren's,' the name of her daughter in Glasgow. 'Oh, no; Robbie goes with us to Canada.' It was a struggle with the dear old soul, and in the end she decided she would brave the Atlantic rather than part with her boy. The last day came. The chests, and plenishing for the home they looked forward to in Canada, had gone the day before and been stowed in the ship at Troon, and the carts stood at the door to receive the family and their hand-bags. The children and all were seated and the master turned to me before taking his place. He shook my hand, and tried to say something, but could not, for his voice failed. Pressing half a crown in my little fist he moved to get beside the driver, when Robbie cheeped out astonished, 'Is Gordie no to go wi' us?' 'Whist, my boy; we will send for him by-and-by.' At this Robbie set up a howl, and his brothers and sisters joined in his weeping. The master was sorely moved and whispered with his wife. 'His passage-money will make me break my last big note,' I heard him say to her. 'Trust in the Lord,' she answered, 'I canna thole the thought of leaving the mitherless bairn to that hard man, John Stoddart; he'll work the poor weak fellow to death.' Without another word, the master hoisted me on top of the baggage, the carts moved on, and Robbie looked up into my face with a smile. We were driven alongside the ship as she lay at the quay. She was a roomy brig, and was busy taking on cargo. Our part of the hold was shown to us, and the mistress at once began to unpack the bedding, and to make the best of everything. 'Is it not an awful black hole to put Christians into?' asked a woman who was taking her first survey. 'Well, no, I do not think so; it is far better than I expected.' She had a gracious way, the mistress, of looking at everything in the best light. In the afternoon a man came on board to see the captain about taking passage, and they agreed. He had no baggage, and as the ship only supplied part of the provisions he had to go to buy what he needed for the voyage. He asked the master to let me go with him to help to carry back his bedding and parcels. We went from shop to shop until he had got everything on his list; last of all he visited a draper and bought cloth. On getting back to the ship he was tapped on the shoulder by a seedy looking fellow who was waiting for him, and who said, 'You are my prisoner.' The man started and his face grew white. I thought it strange he did not ask what he was a prisoner for. 'Will you go quietly or will I put these on?' asked the man, showing a pair of handcuffs in his coat pocket. 'I will give you no trouble,' was the answer, 'only allow the boy to stow these parcels and bags in my berth.' 'I think the boy had better come with you; I will wait till he is ready.' I wondered what he could want with me. He led us up the street to a large building where he placed us in charge of a man even more greasy and with a worse look than himself. It was quite a while before he returned and led us into a large room. There was a long table, at its head sat two well-dressed gentlemen, and at each side men with papers before them. 'May it please your lordship and Bailie McSweem, the prisoner being present we will now proceed.' He went on to explain that the prisoner was a member of one of those political associations that were plotting to subvert the government of the country, even thinking they could organize a revolution and drive his majesty from the throne. He need not dwell on the danger State and Church were in from the plottings of those desperate men, and the need of all upholders of the Crown and Constitution suppressing them with a firm hand. The gentleman who was addressed as his lordship nodded in approval, and said, 'There is no need, Mr Sheriff, of referring to those unhappy matters as we are fully cognizant of them. What about the prisoner?' 'He is a member of the Greenock union, proceedings were about to be taken for his arrest on a charge of sedition, when somehow he got wind of what was about to take place and, knowing he was guilty, attempted to flee the country. I can produce, if you say so, witnesses to prove that he skulked into Troon by back streets and secured passage to Canada on the Heatherbell, which sails in a few hours. I have one witness now present.' His lordship remarked the Sheriff deserved credit for his vigilance and the promptitude with which he acted. 'I suppose,' he added, 'we have nothing more to do than order his being sent to Greenock for examination and trial?' 'That is all we need do.' answered the Sheriff. Just then a loud voice was heard in the hall demanding admission, a sound as if the door-keeper was pulled aside, and a sharp-featured man came in. 'What business have you to enter here?' demanded the Sheriff. 'I will soon show you. What are you doing with that man?' pointing to the prisoner. 'Leave at once, or I will order you to be ejected.' The man, who was quite composed, said to the prisoner, 'Mr Kerr, do you authorize me to act as your attorney?' 'Yes,' he answered. 'Very well, then, I am here by right. Now, Mr Sheriff, hand me over the papers in the case.' The Sheriff, who was red in the face, 'I shall not, you have no right here; you're not a lawyer.' Addressing the magistrates the man said he was a merchant, a burgess of the city of Glasgow, had been chosen by the accused as his attorney and was acting within his rights in demanding to see the papers. The magistrates consulted in a whisper and his lordship remarked there could be no objection. The Sheriff, however, continued to clutch them. 'You ask him,' was the order of the stranger to Kerr, 'he dare not refuse you.' Reluctantly the Sheriff handed them to the stranger, who quickly glanced over them. 'Is this all?' he demanded. 'Yes, that is all,' snapped the Sheriff. 'Where is the warrant for Kerr's arrest?' 'None of your business where it is.' Speaking to the bench, the stranger said there was neither information nor warrant among the papers he held in his hand. The only authority they had for holding Kerr was a letter from a clerk at Greenock, stating one Robert Kerr, accused of sedition, had fled before the papers could be made out for his arrest, and that, if he was found trying to take ship at Troon, to hold him. 'I warn you,' said the stranger, shaking his fist, 'that you have made yourselves liable to heavy penalties in arresting Robert Kerr on the strength of a mere letter. There is no deposition whatever, no warrant, and yet a peaceable man, going about in his lawful business, has been seized by your thief-takers and made prisoner. If you do not release him at once I go forthwith to Edinburgh and you will know what will happen you by Monday.' He went on with much more I do not recall, but it was all threats and warnings of what would befall all concerned if Kerr was not released. The Sheriff at last got in a word. 'The charge is sedition and ordinary processes of procedure do not apply.' 'You might have said that 30 years ago when you infernal Tories sent Thomas Muir of Huntershill to his death, and William Skirving and others to banishment for seeking reform in representation and upholding the right of petition, but you are not able now to make the law to suit your ends. You are holding this man without shadow of law or justice, and I demand his being set at liberty.' 'Quite an authority in law!' sneered the Sheriff. 'Yes, I have been three times before the court of session and won each time. I knew your father, who was a decent shoemaker in Cupar, and when he sent you to learn to be a lawyer he little thought he was making a tool for those he despised. Pick a man from the plow, clap on his back a black coat, send him to college, and in five years he is a Conservative, and puckers his mouth at anything so vulgar as a Reformer, booing and clawing to the gentry and nobility. Dod, set a beggar on horseback and he will ride over his own father, and your father was no lick-the-ladle like you, but a Liberal who stood up for his rights.' The bitterness and force with which the stranger spoke cowed his hearers. 'These insults are too much,' stammered the Bailie. The stranger at once turned upon him. 'O, this is you McSweem, to whom I have sold many a box of soap and tea when you wore an apron and kept a grocer's shop. Set you up and push you forward, indeed. You have got a bit of an estate with your wife's money and call yourself a laird! The grand folk having taken you under their wing, you forget that you once sat, cheek-by-jowl, with Joseph Gerrald, and now you sit in judgment on a better man than a dozen like you.' 'Mr Sheriff,' shouted his lordship. 'Remove this man to the cells.' 'I dare you to put a finger on me,' and he grasped a chair ready to knock down the officer who advanced to obey the order. 'I am within my lawful rights. Dod, wee Henderson would ask nothing better than to prosecute you before the lords of session were you to keep me in jail even for an hour. Release this innocent man Kerr, and let us go.' 'You are a vulgar bully,' exclaimed his lordship haughtily. The stranger dropped his bitter tone, and asked smoothly, 'May I ask your lordship a question? Will you condescend to say how many of your lordship's relatives are in government offices, and is it true your wife's mother draws a pension, all of them living out of taxes paid by the commonalty whom you despise?' His lordship affected not to hear him, and beckoning the Sheriff to draw near, he conferred with the magistrates in whispers. I overheard Bailie McSweem say, 'I know him, he's a perfect devil to fight; better have nothing to do with him,' and the Sheriff's remark, 'He has got a legal catch to work on.' When the Sheriff went back to his seat, h is lordship said curtly, 'The accused is discharged,' and he and McSweem hurriedly left. The stranger gripped Kerr by the shoulder and pushed him before him until we reached the street. 'Now, I must leave you, for I must see what my customers are out of.' 'Tell me your name?' asked Kerr, 'that I may know who has done me such service.' 'Never mind; you are under no obligation to me. A wee bird told me you were in trouble and I am glad to have been in time to serve you.' 'You do not know all the service you have done; you have saved more than myself from jail, and an innocent wife and children from poverty. Do let me know your name that I may remember it as long as I live.' 'Daniel M'farlane, and my advice is to quit Scotland right off, for these devils are mad angry at your giving them the slip. They will get the papers they need from Greenock and have you in jail if you are here tomorrow.' A grip of the hand, and the stranger was gone. The whole scene was such a surprise, so novel to me, that every part of it fastened on my memory. On reaching the brig we found the sailors stowing away casks of water. Kerr and myself had been given the same berth, and Allan and Robbie had the next one. Saying he was dead-tired, for he had been on his feet since leaving Greenock, Kerr turned in though the sun had not set. An hour or so after, a number of men came to the wharf to see him. I found him asleep. They asked if I was the lad the officer took along with him to be a witness. Gathering in a quiet corner they had me repeat all that took place. They said they were Liberals and glad to hear the black nebs had won. The noise overhead of washing the deck awoke me, and I knew by the motion of the ship we were sailing. On getting up I saw Troon several miles behind and Ailsa Craig drawing near. Allan and myself, with Robbie between us, were snuggled on the lee side of the longboat when Kerr appeared. He was interested on hearing of the men who came to visit him and said it was hard to be hounded out of Scotland, which he did not wish to leave, for saying constitutional reforms were called for. 'I am no worse used,' he added, 'than the man whom that county we are looking at starved when he was among them and built monuments to him when he was dead.' The town of Ayr was in sight and he named several of the points Burns had named in his songs. 'Think, my laddies, of a man like Burns being told by the officials over him to keep his Liberal views to himself, that it was not for him to think but to be silent and obedient. And he had to swallow their order to prevent his losing the petty office which stood between his children and starvation.' The breeze that had taken the brig so far down the firth soon died away, and we rocked gently south of Ailsa Craig. In the hold folk were busy getting things in some sort of order, while on deck the sailors were putting everything in shipshape. This breathing spell was fortunate, for at dark the wind came in squalls, and on rounding the Mull of Cantyre the ocean swells sent most of the passengers to their berths seasick. I escaped and was able to help the family and Mr Kerr, who almost collapsed, and was not himself for a week. His first sign of recovery was his craving for a red herring. The mistress was early up and bustling round to find she had to face an entire change in the methods of housekeeping to which she had been used. There was a little house between the two masts named the galley, and here the cooking was done. The cook was an old man, gruff and crusty, who had spent most of his life in a Dundee whaler. In the Arctic region his good nature had got frozen and was not yet thawed out. He would allow nobody near and got angry when suggestions were tendered. He made good porridge and tasty soup, anything else he spoiled. As these alone were cooked in bulk and measured out, the passengers took to the galley the food they wished to be cooked. That each family get back what they gave in, the food was placed in bags of netted twine and then slipped into the coppers of boiling water. The mistress was a famous hand at roley-poley, and for the first Sunday after sea-sickness had gone, she prepared a big one as a treat. It looked right and smelled good, but the first spoonful showed it had a wonderful flavor. In the boiler the net beside it held a nuckle of smoked ham. The laughter and jokes made us forget the taste of the ham and not a scrap of the roley-poley was left. Our greatest lack was milk for the children, and we all resented being scrimped in drinking-water, though before the voyage ended we became reconciled to that, for the water grew bad. CHAPTER III. There were 43 passengers. There were two families besides our own, and outside of them were a number of young men, plowmen and shepherds, intent on getting land and sending for their people to join them the next spring. There was an exception in a middle-aged man, brisk and spruce, who held himself to be above his fellow-passengers, and said nothing about where he came from or who he was. The only information he gave was, that he had been in the mercantile line, and that he was to be addressed as Mr Snellgrove. He waved his right hand in conversation and spoke in a lofty way, which to Allan and myself was funny. When he had got his sealegs and his appetite, he began lecturing the passengers as to what they ought to do, enlarging on organizing a committee, of which he was to be head. I think I see him, strutting up and down the deck by the side of the captain with whom it gratified him to walk. The only other passenger besides him who was not connected with farming was Mr Kerr, to whom I became much attached. He was well-informed on subjects I had heard of but knew nothing, and we talked by the hour. His companionship was to me an intellectual awakening. Among his purchases in Troon was material for a suit of clothes, which he made during the voyage, for he was a tailor. He had left Greenock in such haste that he had not time to go to his lodging for any of his belongings. Mr Snellgrove affected to despise him both for his trade and his political principles, and never missed an opportunity to sneer at him; Mr Kerr never replied. Day followed day without relieving the monotony. At times we would get a glimpse of the topsails of a ship gliding along the horizon, but usually the ocean seemed to have no other tenant than our own stout brig. One afternoon the cook rushed out of his den with the shout 'There she spouts!' and looking where he pointed we saw a whale cleaving the waves. We were in our third week out when we ran into a fog. The wind fell and the brig rolled in the swell, causing her tackle to rattle and sails to flap as if they would split. The second day the fog was thicker, and the ocean smooth as glass. For fear of collision with another ship, the lookout man kept blowing a horn which had a most dismal sound. The captain and mate tried to get the sun at noon but could not find the faintest trace. After dinner a gull flew past, which made the cook say he smelt danger. A few were below but the most of us were on deck when a slight bump was felt and then another. The rattling in the rigging stopped and the ocean swell broke on our stern. The mate started to the companion scuttle and shouted to the captain, that the ship was grounded. In a minute he appeared, his face white and twisted with anguish. His anxiety was not alone for the passengers and crew but for himself. He was owner of the brig and if she was wrecked he was ruined. The mate was casting the lead and when he shouted 'We are on a sandbank' there was a sigh of relief deepened by the carpenter's report that the ship was not making water. Grannie, who had managed to creep up the ladder from the deserted hold, remarked 'We are sooner in Canada than I expectit.' Her exclamation brought the reaction from our dread and we burst into laughter. 'It is not Quebec,' shouted Allan in her ear, 'we are aground.' 'A weel,' she replied, 'I will cling to the rock o' my salvation.' The order was given to get ready the boats. There were two, the yawl that had been hauled on top of the house on deck, and lay keel up. Oars were mislaid and on hanging her to the davits it was noticed in time there was no plug in the hole for drainage. The other boat, which was our reliance, was the long boat abaft the foremast. Its cover was torn off and we saw it was filled with all sorts of odds and ends that had been stowed there to be out of the way. These were pitched aside by willing hands and the tackle had been fastened to hoist her overboard, when there was a shout from the fog of Ahoy. We saw a man in yellow oil skins rowing towards us. Jumping on board, he asked 'What is keeping you here?' 'You tell us,' replied the captain, who was overjoyed to see him. The fisherman said we had been drifted by the current towards Newfoundland, and had the ship not grounded she would in a few hours, have been dashed against the cliffs that line the shore and every soul been lost. It was the most wonderful escape he had ever known. 'How are we to get off?' asked the captain. 'You will float off when the tide makes.' 'And then what will we do if there is no wind?' 'You will go on the cliffs, but there will be a capful of wind at ebb tide.' The captain had sent for his chart, and the fisherman pointed out where the brig stood. He said if a breeze did not come in time for her to make a slant southwards we were to take to the boats and row to the cove which he covered with his thumb. 'If you can get your anchor over the side, it may help you,' he added. He and his comrades were out catching bait. He heard our horn and then saw our lump of a brig loom through the fog. We were sorry to see him leave and row off to his schooner, of which he had the bearings. To hoist the anchor from where it had been stowed when we lost sight of Tory island and bitt it to the chain was tedious work but it was begun. We waited hopefully for the tide and, sure enough, it lifted us gently. On feeling we were afloat once more we gave a cheer. Soon after a faint breath of air was felt, the ship got steerage way, and we slowly hauled off the dreaded coast. The breeze cleared the fog and in the rays of the setting sun we saw the cliffs against which we might have been shivered and the fishing-boats to which our friend belonged. On gathering in the hold our talk was of our escape. The master said it was proof to him God was with us; we thought we were lost when we grounded, yet that sandbank was what had saved us. Just then Mr Snellgrove came down the ladder. 'I have just bade the captain good night,' he said, 'and I am authorized by him to inform you all danger is past. Had an executive committee been appointed the moment the vessel struck matters would have gone on with less confusion. We are safe, however, notwithstanding we have a Jonah on board.' Mr Kerr who was, like all of us, excited by the accident, asked, 'You mean me?' Yes, you are a fugitive from the justice which would have punished you as you deserve for sedition. The world has come to a strange pass when tailors would dictate to the Powers ordained by God how the realm is to be governed. For one I am loyal to my King and his advisers in all they ordain. England's glorious bulwark is her throne and the nobility who surround it.' The little man stood on the lower rungs of the ladder, in front of the lantern that swung from a beam, so I saw him clearly. To our surprise Mr Kerr came forward and spoke slowly and quietly. 'I do not wish you, my fellow passengers, to look upon me any longer as a fugitive from justice, and will explain how it comes that circumstances give color to the charge. I have a brother, older than myself and father of a large family. One day in April, a clerk in the sheriff's office, who is a cousin, came to me at night to tell me that a spy who had attended a meeting of the Liberal club, had laid an information that my brother had spoken disrespectfully of the King, George the Fourth, and his advisers. On the strength of this, a warrant was prepared for his arrest on the charge of sedition. The spy had made a mistake in the first name and had given mine instead of my brother's. My cousin said, if I would disappear the prosecution would be baffled. To save my brother, for a prosecution would ruin him, I fled at once, going to Troon, where I knew a ship was ready to sail for Canada. On the officers going to my lodging to arrest me, they found I had gone. How they came to know I had gone to Troon I cannot say. Probably they sent word to all ports where ships were ready to sail. As you know, I was arrested on board this boat and discharged, because the magistrate had no authority to hold me. It was to save my brother that I am here. What he said at the club I do not know, for I was not there.' 'A plausible story,' said Mr Snellgrove, 'but you told a lie when you answered to a false name before the Troon magistrate.' 'I told no lie,' answered Mr Kerr in a calm voice, 'for I was not asked to plead, but I knew I could have saved myself and have sent my brother to jail by correcting the mistake of the spy.' Mr Snellgrove was about to say more when a murmur of disapproval caused him to slink to his berth. My master came forward and taking Mr Kerr by the hand said, 'I respected you before; I honor you now,' and all, men and women, pressed to shake his hand. After breakfast next morning there was much talk over our escape from death, and the more light thrown on it in discussion the stronger grew the feeling that we had been saved by the interposition of Providence. Had the brig not struck the sandbank and done so at low tide, not a soul would have reached land, and relatives would never have known what became of the Heatherbell unless part of her wreckage was picked up. There ought to be public acknowledgment of our rescue and expression of our united thanks. The captain agreed it would be right, so, that afternoon, all hands assembled, except Mr Snellgrove, who sat at the bow pretending to read a book. The impression made on me, by the sight of the sailors joining in the psalms and the children gathering round their mothers' skirts in wonder, has survived these fifty-five years. The master at the request of the captain, took charge. He read the story of Paul's shipwreck and then prayed with a fervor that made me cry. To the surprise of all, he asked Mr Kerr to improve the occasion. He began by saying it was not for mortals to judge the ways of God, to complain of visitations or to condemn acts that are inscrutable, but it was the bounden duty of man, when good did befall him, to ascribe the praise to God. They had a marvellous escape from a cruel death, and without inquiring into the how or wherefore it was our part to acknowledge the hand that saved us. After a good deal more in that strain of thought he changed to the purpose of our voyage. We were crossing the ocean to escape conditions in the Old Land that had become a burden to us, hoping, in the New Land before us, there would be brighter surroundings. To preserve that New Land from the mistakes and evils that blast the Old was a duty. To try and reproduce another Scotland such as they had left would be to reproduce what we were leaving it for. What we ought to try is to create a new Great Britain in Canada, retaining all that is good and dropping all that is undesirable. I want, he said, to see a land where every man is free to secure a portion of God's footstool and to enjoy the fruits he reaps from it, without an aristocracy taking toll of what they did not earn, and a government levying taxes on labor to support soldiers or to subsidize privileged classes of any kind whatever their pretences. How much more the speaker would have said I do not know, for Mr Snellgrove, who had come forward on his beginning to speak, here shouted 'Treason!' The master to prevent a scene, for a young shepherd moved to catch hold of the offender, gave out the 100th psalm, and we closed in peace. The hold was so dark that Mr Kerr could not see to sew, so on fine days he worked on deck. Sitting beside him he taught me how to hold a needle, for he said every man should be able to make small repairs. He advised me to seize every opportunity to learn. When a boy he could have learned to speak Gaelic and regretted he had let the chance go by. Should he get work in Montreal, he would study French. A man's intellect grows by learning whatever accident throws in his way, and the man who, from foolish conceit, refuses to take advantage of his opportunities remains a dolt. Read and observe, he said, and you will be able to say and do when your fellows are helpless. He got cuttings of canvas from the bosun, shaped them into a blouse, and got me to sew them together. The other boys laughed at me, and called me the wee tailor, but the blouse did me good service for many a day. While so much with him, I asked Mr Kerr about his political trouble. Though a Liberal he belonged to no club and was against using other than constitutional means to bring about reforms, and these reforms must come. It could not continue that Great Britain was to be ruled by a parliament composed of aristocrats and their creatures, for the great mass of the people had no voice in it. No Methodist, Baptist, or other dissenter was allowed a seat in parliament, and there were noblemen who controlled the election of more members than the city of Glasgow. Manchester and Birmingham have no members. Half of Scotland is owned by a dozen aristocrats. Whenever you hear men shout disloyalty and claim to be the only true-blue supporters of their country, you may be sure they are selfishly trying to hold some privilege to which they have no right. He told of many of his acquaintances who had been prosecuted for petitioning for the mending of political grievances, of a few who had been ruined by imprisonment and law costs, of the men who had been banished to Australia, and the three men who had been hanged. Hundreds had fled, like himself, to escape prosecution. After our misadventure off Newfoundland our voyage was prosperous. Coming on deck one sunny morning we saw land, which was Cape Ray, and before the sun set we were in the Gulf of St Lawrence. We were not alone now, for every few hours we sighted ships. They were part of the Spring fleet to Quebec, now on their voyage home with cargoes of timber. One passed us so close that the captains spoke, and when the homeward captain shouted he was for the Clyde there were passengers who wished they were on board her, and the tear came to their eyes when they thought of Scotland and of those who were there. The Bird Rocks were quite a sight to us, but the Ayrshire folk held they were not to be compared with Ailsa Craig. On the Gulf narrowing until we could see land on both sides, a white yacht bore down to us and sent aboard a pilot. He was a short man, with grizzled hair. Being the first Frenchman we had seen, we gathered round him with curiosity and listened to his broken English with pleasure, for the tone was kindly and he was so polite, even to us boys. He brought no very late news, for he had left Quebec ten days before, when the weather was so hot that laborers loading ships dropped in the coves from sunstroke. Each tack that brought the brig higher up the river changed the scenery, a range of forest-clad trees on the north bank, and on the south bank a row of whitewashed cottages, so closely set that they looked as if they lined a street, broken at intervals by the tin-covered roof and steeple of a church. There were discussions among our farmers as to the narrowness of the fields and what kind of crops were on them, for they looked patchy and were of different colors, which the pilot was generally called on to decide, and it was funny to watch his difficulty in understanding their broad Scottish speech. Reaching where the ebb tide was stronger than the breeze, anchor was dropped for the first time. Before the tide turned, the pilot cried to dip up water, and there was a shout of delight when we tasted it and found the buckets were filled with fresh water. Wasn't there a big washing that day! As much splashing as the porpoises made who gambolled at a distance. Cool, northerly breezes helped us on our way, and exactly five weeks from the day we left Troon we came to anchor off Cape Diamond, which disappointed us, for we looked for a higher rock and a bigger fort. On the ship mooring, the pilot sat down, and in a frenzy of delight at his success in bringing her up safely, flourished his arms and chuckled in his own language. Darting from a wharf came a fine rowboat with four oarsmen, and an official in blue with gilt buttons holding the helm. We were so engrossed in watching it, that we did not notice Mr Snellgrove had joined us, decked out grandly in finest clothes. Before the captain could say a word to the customs-officer, Mr Snellgrove asked him whether the governor-general was at his residence, and on being told he was, said he would accompany his majesty's official on shore, and, so saying stepped on the boat and seated himself in silent dignity in the stern, turning his back to us who were looking on. The officer's visit was brief; the boat pushed off and we had our last look of Mr Snellgrove, transformed from a steerage-passenger into a dandy expecting to mix with the grandees of Quebec. Next day, in talking with the captain, he told the master Snellgrove had kept a draper's shop at Maybole, failed for a big sum, and had come to Canada expecting to get, with the letters of introduction he had from a number of noblemen, a government situation. The intention being to weigh anchor on the tide flowing, leave to go on shore was refused to the passengers. The captain, having to report at the customs, he, however, took Mr Kerr with him, to get materials for repairs he was making to the captain's clothes. Mr Kerr caught hold of me, and I had a hurried look at what appeared to me to be a foreign town, leaving out the street that ran along the harbor, which seemed to be lined with taverns frequented by soldiers and sailors. Mr Kerr bought a fancy basket from a squaw, as a present to the mistress, who had been kind to him. While we were gone, the ship was visited by boats offering bread for sale, and willing to take in exchange split peas or oatmeal. Black lumps were held up as maple sugar. They were so dirty that curiosity was soon satisfied. The boat that brought us a pilot, went back with Snellgrove's trunk. On the tide beginning to flow the anchor was lifted and we were borne upwards, passing the crowd ashore, among whom were many soldiers. A gun was fired from the citadel and the flag fluttered down, for it was sunset when we got into the stream. Everything being new and strange nothing escaped us, and every passenger was on deck watching. The number of ships surprised all. There were rows of them for two or three miles, in the midst of fields of the logs which were to form their cargoes. As I sat beside Mr Kerr in the twilight, he spoke of the sights I could not help seeing in the street along the waterfront of Quebec, or hearing the language used. There was evil in the world of which a man should try to keep ignorant. It was not knowledge of the world to look into, much less to dabble in its filth. A lad who kept his thoughts clean was repaid by health and happiness, while entertaining evil imaginings led to a weak intellect and discontent with oneself. I had noticed before, when anybody began a dirty story that Mr Kerr rose and left. Another time he told me, his constant effort was to think of only pleasant things, to try and relieve what was disagreeable by looking from a sunny standpoint and to meet disappointments by searching if there was not some good in them. On the tide beginning to turn, the anchor was dropped. The tide is felt as high as Three Rivers and it is possible for a ship to go that far by floating up with it. The second night after leaving Quebec we were startled by a loud knocking on the companion of the forecastle and an imperative shout to tumble up. An east wind had come and every minute was valuable. The anchor was lifted and sails set, and before the sun appeared we were sweeping past Three Rivers. Interest was kept up by the villages and fields we passed, and it was the decision of the farmers that it was poor land badly worked. More novel to us, was the succession of rafts we met, each covering acres, with masts and houses on them, and men along their sides keeping them in midstream by means of long oars. As we passed up lake St Peter the wind freshened, the clouds came lower and the rain poured. The captain and pilot were in great glee, for they told us if the wind held we would pass up the St Mary's current and anchor off Montreal before dark. Strong as the wind was and with every sail set that would draw, it was found we could not stem the current without help, so the ship was brought close to the bank, a rope passed ashore, and a string of oxen appeared, who helped to draw her into calmer water. The night was dark and rainy but we kept on deck and watched the lights of Montreal. They had not been at sea a week when the three farmers had agreed they would keep together on reaching Canada and take up land side by side. They were also of one mind in making Toronto (it was not so named then) their starting-point in search of new homes. The captain's advice was, that one of them should take the stage at Montreal; by so doing he would get to Toronto at least a week ahead of the rest of the party, in which time he could hunt up land. This would save delay and the expense of staying in lodging while looking for a place to settle. It was arranged the master should go. At daylight he got ashore and was in time for the stage that left for Prescott. We were all up early that morning, eager to see Montreal. The clouds had gone and the mountain looked fresh and green. The town consisted of a few rows of buildings along the river. There being no wharf or dock the ship was hauled as close to the shore as her draft allowed, and a gangway of long planks on trestles set up. Nearly every passenger walked over it to say they had set foot on Canada. A number of the men went into the town to see it. In two hours one of them was brought back drunk and without a copper in his pockets. Mr Kerr told me he would stay in Montreal if he got a place. He returned in the afternoon to tell us he had got work and to take away his few belongings. He bade all good-bye. On coming to me, I went with him, for he had asked the mistress that I go with him to see the town. The narrowness of the streets and the foreign look of the houses with their high-pitched roofs impressed me less than the muddy roadways, for I had never thought there could be a town with unpaved streets and no sidewalks. Mr Kerr, on his way to his boarding-house, showed me the shop where he was to begin work next morning. While we were in his bedroom a gong sounded for supper. It was all new to me, the people, their talk, and the food. I wondered to see meat and potatoes for supper, hot buns, and apple-pies. After supper we had a walk, and in going along one of the streets there was a man before us carrying a baby. Raising her head above his shoulder the child looked at us and said something to him. Without reflecting, I wondered how a child could have learned French so early in life. On turning back to the ship Mr Kerr took me into a shop and bought me a cap, and I had need of one. On coming in front of the ship, he shook my hands as if he did not want to let me go, and made me promise I would write him and tell where we had settled. For himself, he would stay in Montreal at least long enough to get his belongings by ship from Greenock. The captain having given notice that everybody must leave the ship next day, there was early bustling in finishing packing and arranging for the next stage in our journey, which was to be by a Durham boat to Prescott. Carts were on hand to haul our luggage to the canal, where lay the boat that had been hired for our party. A carter hoisted a chest on his little vehicle and hurriedly drove off. Instead of taking the direction of the other carts, he went straight up the dump that led into the town. I shouted to him to stop. He laid his whip on the horse and drove faster. It flashed on me he was a thief, and I ran after him. I could never have caught up to him had it not been market day and the street was crowded with people and carts. I jumped up beside him and pulled at his collar to make him stop. He tried to push me on to the road, but I clung to him, when he lashed me with the whip. I shouted for help, but all being French they did not know what I said, but they saw something was wrong and with many exclamations the crowd stood staring at us. Just then a little, stout man, in a black gown, elbowed his way through the crowd, and asked me in English what was the matter. I told him the carter had stolen the chest. He spoke to the carter in French. 'The man denies it,' said the priest, for such I now guessed he was. I hurriedly narrated what had happened, and for proof pointed to the name painted on the chest. Speaking with severity to the carter, the fellow turned his horse towards the river and the priest told me he would take the chest back to where he got it. 'But he may not do so,' I exclaimed. The priest gave me a sharp look, as if surprised that I should be ignorant of his power. 'He dare not disobey me.' I thanked the priest from the bottom of my heart, and in a few minutes the carter had dumped the chest on the spot where he had taken it and drove away. On telling the mate what had happened, he said it was common for emigrants, both at Quebec and Montreal, to be robbed by fellows who regarded them as fair game. We followed the cart that took the last of our luggage, forming quite a procession, and each one of us who was able carried something. I had a bag in one hand and an iron pot in the other. Grannie held a firm grip of Robbie, who she feared might be lost in Montreal, for the puir laddie hadna a word of French. On coming to the canal we were disappointed with both it and the boat. The canal was a narrow ditch and as to the boat, it was short and narrow and had no deck, except a few feet at either end. 'We cannot live in that cockle-shell!' exclaimed Mrs Auld. Her owner replied 'She was one fine boat, new, built by Yankee.' He was the only one of the crew who understood English, and was quick in his motions. He soon had all we brought with us stowed, and when a corner was found for the last chest, it was a surmise where the crew and passengers could find standing-room. The decked portions were allotted the women and children, the men and boys roosted on top of boxes and bales as they could. When all was ready, the conductor took the helm, the crew lined up on the bank with a tow-line over their shoulders, and off we started. The weather was fine and the country we passed beautiful. At the first locks we came to, the mistress stepped to a farmhouse beside the canal, and came back with the pail she had taken with her full of milk. It was the first the children had since we left Scotland. It was late in the day when the boat got to the end of the canal; the conductor, who told us to call him Treffle, said we would wait and have supper before going on the lake. Driftwood was gathered and fires made, pots and pans being set on stones. The crew fried fat pork, which, with bread, was their supper. We made porridge, for we had still a good supply of oatmeal, and of ship-biscuit. The sails were hoisted and we got away before it was quite dark. The wind was westerly, so we had to tack. Had it not been that the boat had a centreboard we would have made small progress. The centreboard was a novelty to us, and we could see how close it helped the little vessel to sail in the eye of the wind. The size of the lake surprised everybody and all the more when Treffle told us it was the St Lawrence. 'My, it is a big river and it is in a big country!' exclaimed Mrs Auld. Everybody had to sleep as they best could; some slept sitting, more by leaning against one another, nobody had room to stretch himself. We were tired and glad to rest in any way. Mrs Auld said we were like herring in a barrel, packed heads and thraws. In waking at daylight we heard the sound of water dashing and roaring, and looking upwards saw the river tumbling downwards in great waves, which were, for all the world, like those of the Atlantic in a gale, except that they stayed in the same place. Treffle said these waves were due to the rushing water striking big rocks in the bed of the river, over which they kept pouring, and gave the name Cascades to the rapid. The boat was tied up, as the crew were to have breakfast before their hard work in making a passage past the rapids. I went with the mistress to a house that was not far away for milk. A smiling woman met us at the door and asked us inside; the house was clean and neat. We tried to make her understand what we wanted but failed until I put the pail between my knees and imitated milking a cow. She laughed heartily and by signs made us know she did not have a cow. Stepping to the fireplace she dipped a tin into a big pot that simmered in a corner and handed it to the mistress. It was soup. Holding out some money, she made signs to fill the pail. Having done so she picked out five coppers from the money offered, and bade good-by with many a smile and nod. The soup proved to be fine, just one drawback, its flavor of garlic. 'They use no split peas to make their pea-soup here,' remarked Mrs Auld, 'and it is an improvement.' 'No, no,' interjected Treffle, 'soup be good because all time kept boiling; pot by the fire Sunday to Sunday.' The chill in the morning air made the hot soup grateful. CHAPTER IV. Our curiosity as to how our boat was to get up the rapid was soon satisfied. Along both sides of the boat ran a stout plank, to which were securely fastened a row of cleats, about two feet apart. The crew gathered at the bow, each man holding a long pole with an iron point. On the order being given by the conductor, who held the helm, two men stepped out and took their place on the planks, one on each side, and dropped the iron points of their poles into the river, until they struck bottom. Then, pressing the end they held against their shoulders, pushed with all their might. As the boat yielded to their thrust, they stepped backward down their planks, making room for another man in front, until there were four on each side of the boat, pushing with their utmost strength. As the men who first got on the planks reached the end, they jumped aside and made their way to the bow to begin anew the same operation, of dropping their poles into the water, tucking the head of them into the hollow of their shoulders, and, leaning forward, push as they did before, receding step by step, the cleats giving the needed purchase to their feet. The current was swifter than any millstream, yet the boat was pushed slowly up until we reached the entrance to a canal, smaller than that at Lachine, for it was only 2-1/2 feet deep and so narrow that the crew jumped it when they wished to cross. It served the purpose, however, of enabling the boat to pass the worst part of the rapid, where it foamed in great billows. Quitting the canal the swift current was again met and the setting poles again put into use. Our lads were eager to try their hands, but a few minutes was enough, their shoulders being too soft for the work. Those of the crew were calloused almost like bone, but even to them it was hard work, for the sweat rolled down their faces, as they struggled along the planks bent double. On reaching the next rapid, Treffle asked all who could to get out and walk along the bank, as the boat was drawing too much water. Robbie wanted to go with us, but grannie clung to him. 'Should the boatie cowp, who would save him gin I was na at hand?' she asked. To help the crew, we pulled at a towline until she got to another small canal. As we went on, we had the excitement of watching boats pass us on their way to Montreal, shooting the rapids. They were heavily loaded, mostly with bags of flour, yet ran down the foaming waters safely. To us boys, was more exciting the passage of rafts, for they splashed the water into spray. Having overcome that rapid, we all got on board, and the crew had an easier time in pushing along until we got in sight of a church perched above a cluster of cottages. The mistress asked Treffle how they made the passage before the small canals were cut where the rapids were most dangerous. He explained, that at the first rapid all the freight was unloaded and conveyed in carts to the landing-place on lake St Francis, while the empty boats were poled and towed close alongside the edge of the bank, avoiding the boiling water. In those days the boats were lighter and sailed in companies, and their crews united to take them up one by one. The village, the Cedars, was to be the resting-place of the boatmen until next day, and scattering among the houses, where a few of them had their families, they left the boat to the passengers. Treffle led the way to houses where provisions could be bought and at prices so low that the women wondered. Saying nothing so good to make men strong, he bought for the mistress a big piece of boiled pork, which, sliced thin, we enjoyed either with bread or our ship-biscuit. We watched the baking of bread. It was fired in queer little white plastered ovens set in front of each house, looking somewhat like beehives placed on top of strong tables. The ovens are filled with wood, which is set on fire, and when the oven is hot enough the wood is raked out, the loaves shoved in, and the door shut. We youngsters gathered round one on seeing the woman was about to open it. When she drew out the first loaf, with a fine crust and an appetizing smell, we could not help giving a cheer, it was so wonderful to us. We went back to the boat with a lot of food, to which was added fish, bought from a man as he landed from his canoe, which we fried. That evening we had the best meal since we left home, and at night had plenty of room to sleep, for the air being hot a number of us slept beneath the trees. We safely got past the fourth and last of the rapids, floating out of a little canal into a large lake. The wind was still in the west, so we had to keep tacking, and it was afternoon when we passed Cornwall and steered for the south side of the St Lawrence. Allan was pointing out to Grannie what was British and what was American; she remarked, on comparing the houses on the two banks, 'That gin Canadians wad build houses of wood, they ocht to hae the decency to paint them.' On nearing the landing-place at the foot of the rapids, Allan pointed to a group of people and told her they were Yankees. She shook her head, she did not believe him, they were too like our ain folk to be Yankees. The Soo is the longest rapid of the St Lawrence measuring nine miles, but is not nearly so wild as those we had passed, having fewer waves and intervals of smooth water. There was no canal to help in getting to the head of it, and it was beyond the strength of our crew to push the boat up with setting-poles. There was a towpath along the U.S. bank on which stood three yoke of oxen. A stout cable was hooked to their whiffle-tree and they started. On getting fairly into the strength of the current the crew dropped their poles into the water, and it was all men and oxen, strained to the utmost, could do at times to stem the sweep of the mighty tide. It was slow work but we won to smoother water and the boat tied up for the night. It was hot when we entered lake St Francis, it was sultry now. Alongside us was a Durham boat like ours, but longer. It was packed worse than our own, men, women, and children huddled as close as captives on a slaveship, and like ourselves worn out with fatigue and facing the thunderstorm that we heard coming without covering of any kind. The quiet determination to endure much in the belief that we were coming to a country where we would better our condition sustained all in doing our best to make light of our trials. To a young woman, who was trying to get a fretful baby to sleep, the mistress sent me with a tin of milk and we had some talk. I asked if she was not sorry she had left the Old Land. 'No, no,' she replied, 'we had no prospect there; here, with hard work we have the prospect of comfort and of depending on nobody for work or help.' She kissed her babe and speaking to him said, 'Yes, Willie, you will never know in this country what your mother came through.' It was this hope that sustained us all. There was only a small house in sight and the near bush was scrub, so we did not ask to go on shore and had to wait, patiently, for the heat and mosquitoes kept us awake. The storm did not last long, but wetted all to the skin who could not creep under the decked parts of the boat. It brought great relief in freshening the air. The boatmen were astir before daylight, hoisting the sails, for the wind had turned to the north, as it often does after a thunderstorm. There were places, where the current ran so fast that setting-poles had to be used, but we got on well, and, by-and-by, sighted two towns--Ogdensburg and Prescott, the one bright and tidy, the other with a weather-beaten uninviting look. We rejoiced to see a small steamboat at the Prescott wharf. It was waiting for the stage from Montreal. A bargain was made to take our party to Kingston. On the boat we had met at the Soo coming in, she had too many emigrants for the steamer to take on board, but her captain agreed to tow her. The offer was made to let any of the women change boats, but none accepted. Like ourselves, they were travelling in families and feared to be parted. We were real sorry in bidding good-by to the crew of the Durham boat, for they had been kind and made companions of the children. As one wee tot came up to her special favorite, she pursed her lips to be kissed; the Canadian took the pipe out of his mouth and gave the queerest cry of delight I ever heard. We could not speak to each other, but in the language of grimace and expression of countenance the French Canadian excels. The Montreal stage at last appeared, drawn by four horses, and on its passengers getting settled in the cabin, the steamer began her voyage. She was not like the steamboats of later days, which are houses built on hulls. She was just a good-sized barge with an engine and two paddle-wheels, which sent her along at a slow rate, all the more slowly on account of her towing the Durham boat. Our party crowded her fore deck and our baggage, piled on the freight she had when we got on, was higher than her paddle-boxes. We stopped three times to take on wood during the passage, reaching Kingston next morning, where we were to get a steamer for Toronto, but had to wait for her arrival. She was a larger boat but of the same pattern as the one we left, having her cabins below deck. There were over a hundred emigrants, and we so crowded the steerage that we were packed as close as in the Durham boats. The prospect of being so near our journey's end made us endure discomfort cheerfully. I remember how the great size of lake Ontario impressed us all, having an horizon like that of the Atlantic. We had wondered at the width of the St Lawrence and at where all the water came from to dash down its rapids, but this great lake surprised us more, with its sea-gulls and big white painted ships bowling along. Mr Auld remarked the county of Ayr would be but an island in it, and Mr Brodie that you might stick Glasgow in a corner and never know it was there were it not for the reek. Many were the surmises as to how the master had got on, if he had got land, if he would meet us, and what our next move would be. The mistress shared in none of their anxiety. She was calm in her confidence of her husband's ability and energy. She was convinced he had secured land and that he would be waiting on the wharf when the steamer sailed into Toronto. They were what every married couple ought to be--of one mind and one heart. Our first sight of Toronto pleased us all, and we had a long view of it, sailing round the island before reaching the entrance to the harbor. Our eyes were strained as we came near the wharf in the hope of picking out master among the people who crowded it. All of a sudden Robbie shouted Father, and a man waved his hand, whom, as the boat drew closer in we all recognized. The sailors were still hauling the steamer into her berth, when Mr Brodie shouted 'Have you got land?' Yes, was the reply. 'Thank God!' ejaculated Mr Brodie, and we all said the same in our hearts; the relief we felt only emigrants, after a weary journey, to a strange country can know. Pressing round the master, with Ruth in his arms and Robbie pulling at his coat tails, he said he had got land, not far from Toronto, and had secured carts to move us that day to take possession. First of all, he said, we will have dinner. Here I stopped. It was my youngest daughter who insisted on my telling How I Came to Canada, and I had consented on condition she would write down what I said, for I am a poor penman and no speller. Recalling what had happened in my early life, and I did so generally as I lay in bed in my wakeful hours, I dictated to Mary as she found leisure. On reading over what she had written I had only one fault to find with her work--she had not taken down the Scotch as I had spoken it. She had put my words, so she said, into proper English. She protested against my halting in my narrative with the arrival at Toronto, and insisted I go on and tell of our life in the backwoods. I cannot resist her pretty way of pleading with me when she wants anything, for she is so like my sainted mother that I often start at the resemblance. To me, in her young face and figure my mother lives again. The agreement was to tell How I Came to Canada. To that I now add, How we Got On in its Backwoods. HOW WE GOT ON IN THE BACKWOODS CHAPTER V. SEEKING FOR LAND Leaving Mr Auld and Mr Brodie to see to the unloading of the baggage, we followed the master up the brae to the street that faces the lake, and entered a tavern. While waiting for dinner he told us of his experience in Toronto, not all, for he added to it for a week afterwards, but the substance of his complete story I will tell at once. The morning after his arrival be went to the office of the surveyor-general, and found several in the waiting-room; three he recognized as having come with him in the steamboat from Kingston. Like himself they all wanted land. Talking among themselves, an Englishman, who said he had been in Toronto four days, declared he had got sick coming to the office; he had thought there would be no difficulty in getting a lot and going to it at once, but found it was not so. The money he had to carry them to their new home was going in paying for board of his family. Unless he was assigned a lot that day, he would cross to the States. All were eager to get their lots at once; Canada invited emigrants yet, when they came to her door, there was no hurry in serving them. The master asked the reason, and got a number of answers. One was that there was too much formality and redtape, another that the officials were above their business and treated emigrants as if they were inferior animals, but the reason that struck the master most was that given by the emigrant who said this was his fourth day, which was, that if an emigrant had any money they wanted him to buy land, instead of giving him a government grant. While they were talking the headman of the office walked past them, accompanied by a gentleman in military uniform, and went into the inner room. Both gentlemen were speaking loudly. 'Yes,' said the surveyor-general, 'we are building a future empire here, and would like more recognition from the Home government of our services. We are doing a great work with imperfect means.' 'Ah!' exclaimed the officer, 'what do you need?' 'We need more money and more officials to direct the stream of immigration.' So they went on gabbling, while by this time there were over fifty of us in the waiting-room and round the door outside. Getting tired, the master asked a clerk who was passing in to see the surveyor, to tell him there were a number of emigrants wanting lots and if he would be pleased to help them. We heard the message given and the reply 'I am engaged with Colonel Rivers, and cannot possibly see them today; go and take their names and the places where they are staying.' So we gave our names, said the master, and came away sick at heart. While waiting in the tavern at a loss what to do a man came into the barroom and asked if he was Mr Anderson. He had heard he wanted land and could introduce him to a party who would supply him at a reasonable price. 'I have not come all the way from Scotland to pay for land; I expect to get a lot on the government's conditions.' You can get such a lot, replied the stranger, but when you see it you would not take it. All the government lots are in the back country, and often wet or stony. What you want is good land and near a market. He talked on, trying to persuade the master to go with him and make a purchase, but he said he would take time to think over what he had told him. The stranger pressed him to come to the bar and have a treat; the master said No. After he was gone the master asked the tavern-keeper if he knew the man. 'Oh, yes, he is a runner for the big bugs who have land for sale.' 'How came he to know I wanted land?' 'Were you not at the surveyor-general's office this morning and left your name? There is a regular machine to get all the money out of you emigrants that can be squeezed.' The landlord said nearly all the desirable land was held by private persons, who had got large grants under one pretence or another and who were selling it for cash, when the emigrant had any, or on mortgage if he had none, for if he failed in his payments they got the lot back with all the improvements the emigrant and his family had made. After dinner the master took a walk, and passing along the street the thought struck him that he should call at the post-office, for there might be a letter from Scotland. Asking a gentleman to direct him to the office, the reply was he was going that way and would show him. 'You're a Scotchman,' remarked the gentleman, 'What part are you from?' From Ayrshire. 'That is my native county.' So they talked until the office was reached. Standing at the door, the master told him of his perplexity about getting land. 'Ask if there is a letter for you,' directed the stranger. There was none. 'Now come with me and I will try to find out some way to help you.' They entered a large store, opposite the market-place, of which the gentleman was owner. The place was crowded with customers waiting their turn to be served. Taking him into a cubby-hole of an office he asked the master to speak frankly, to tell him how much land he wanted, what money he had, and the number of his family. When he had learned all, Mr Dunlop, for that was his name, said, 'You may give up your notion of getting land for the fees. All the good land, so far surveyed, is in the hands of our gentry, who live by selling it, or of speculators. The lots the surveyor-general would give you would be dear for nothing, they are so far away. You want to be as near the lake, or a town or village as you can manage, so that you can buy and sell to advantage. Many who go on remote lots have to leave them after undergoing sufferings no Christian man or woman should endure. I am busy now; come back at four o'clock and I will find out what can be done.' On returning to the store at that hour he found Mr Dunlop had been called away, but had left a letter, which he was to deliver. With some difficulty the master found the house. There was a man and woman sitting in the shade on the stoop. Reading the letter he was asked to sit down. The master described the man as short and thin and well up in years, but wiry and active. His wife was comely for her years, with a placid expression. In reply to his first question, the master addressed him as Sir. 'Use not that word again; all men are equal before God; use not the vain distinctions by which so many try to magnify themselves and set themselves apart from their fellows.' The master was taken aback. The wife explained that they were Friends, whom the world named Quakers, and that their yea and nay meant what they expressed; they desired directness and sincerity in speech. Both took much interest in what the master told them, for they kept questioning him until they learned how he came to leave Scotland and of the voyage. They were struck by his account of the ship grounding off Newfoundland and the wife remarked 'Thee did well to give thanks to Him who saved you.' The address of Mr Kerr they asked for, and the master promised to get it. 'He has suffered as we Friends have and still do, for we have no voice in the government of the country and can hold no office.' A girl came to the door who said supper was ready. The master rose to leave. 'Nay, thee must break bread with us; thee art a stranger in a strange land,' said the wife, as she took hold of his arm. The evening passed too quickly, for the master enjoyed his company. On rising to go, the Quaker told him he had a block of land he had taken for a bad debt. 'And what is the price you put on it?' asked the master. 'I do not sell in that way. Thou must see the land and if it suits thee, come back, and I will tell thee its price. Thee take breakfast as early as they can give it, and you will find a man whom we call Jabez waiting to lead thee where the land is.' Next morning as the sun was rising over the lake, the master overheard a man in the barroom asking for him, and hurried from the table. He was tall and gaunt, with a set mouth that spoke of decision of character. At the door were two saddled horses and in a few minutes they were trotting up Yonge street. When they had to slow down, on account of the road becoming full of yawning holes, Jabez had much to say about backwoods farming. He had not the personal experience of a settler, but had seen much of backwoods life and had known scores who had tried it. 'Not one in five succeeds,' he said, 'some fail from not having money to feed their families until enough land is under crop to maintain them, others from going on stony or sandy lots that yield only poor crops, and not a few from going where it is marshy and fever-and-ague prevail. Many go into the backwoods who have not the muscle for its hard work or who will not be content to live on pork and potatoes, until they can get better, yet even they might do had they perseverance and self-denial. The Scotch and the North of Ireland people, accustomed to hard work and spare living, seldom fail.' They were riding past much land in bush, generally without a strip of clearing. Jabez remarked the curse of Canada was giving land to people who would not go to live upon it, who had no intention of clearing it, but held it to sell. A deal of that land you see was given as grants to old soldiers. A colonel could claim 1200 acres, a major 800, a captain 600 acres, and a private 100 acres. Not one in twenty who drew their lots meant to live on them, and of the few who tried most of them failed and left. Speculators had their agents round taverns and stores ready to buy soldiers' tickets, and got transfers for a few dollars, sometimes for a keg of whiskey or a hundredweight of pork. If you want to kill a country, deal out its land as grants to old soldiers. It does the soldiers no good and keeps back settlement, for the grants they got are left by speculators unimproved, to the hurt of the genuine settlers, who want roads opened, fences put up, and ditches dug. You will find out this yourself when you begin to clear a lot. This giving away land to soldiers is well meant, but soldiers wont go on it and it is just a way to make speculators rich. No man should get an acre from the government unless he binds himself to live on the land and clear it. On the master saying he was told much land was got by politicians, Jabez grew warm in denouncing them. Whatever party was in office, used the land as a means of bribery. They bought the support of members by grants of land and, when an election came round, got the settlers to vote as they wished under threats of making them act up to the letter of their settlement duties or offering back-dues and clear titles in return for their support. No candidate opposed to the government can be elected for a backwoods county. With such talk Jabez relieved their journey until they came to a side-road, which was a mere bridle-path. Up this they turned, passing through solid bush. It was a bright, hot day in the clearings, but under the trees it was gloomy and chill, with a moist odor of vegetation which was grateful to the master, and this was his first experience of the bush. Fallen trees, which lay across the track, their horses jumped, as they also did on meeting wet gullies. Jabez said the path had been brushed by an Englishman, rumored the son of a lord, who had bought the block of land intending to stay on it. That was the only improvement he made. He came late in the Fall and society in Toronto was more agreeable than felling trees. He bet on horse-races that took place on the ice and spent the evenings at cards. In the spring his money was gone; had to sell his land to pay his debts, and returned to England. On reaching the end of the bridle-path the horses were hitched. Jabez searched among the brush until he found a surveyor's stake. Placing a compass on top of it, he cut with his jackknife three rods which he pointed. He pushed two into the soil on either side of the stake, and went ahead with the third. Posting the master behind the first, he told him to keep the three in range and to shout to him if he stepped on either side. Producing from the bag behind his saddle a hatchet, he went forward, cutting down the brush where it blocked his straight course. When some hundred yards away, he cried to the master to come on, it was all right. On joining him Jabez pointed to a scar made in the bark of a maple. 'That is the surveyor's blaze, made five years ago. I was in doubts where to find it, for the weather has blackened it. We are all right now, and will find another farther on.' So they did, several more, though they were so faint only the trained eye of Jabez could detect them. As he came to each tree, he used the hatchet to make a fresh blaze, while any branch that obstructed the view between the blazed trees was lopped off. Suddenly it grew lighter: they were again in the sunshine and before them was a sheet of water. It was too small to be called a lake; it was just a pond, set in the heart of the woods. The master was greatly taken with it and leaning over a log drank heartily, for the water was clear and sweet, though warm. 'We may as well rest and take our bite here,' remarked Jabez, producing from the pouch slung at his back some soldiers' hard tack, with thin sliced pork between instead of butter. He explained it was hard to tell the quality of the soil in the woods, and many were deceived, especially as regards stones. The forest litter covers them, and it is only when the plow is started that the settler finds he has a lot that will give him many a tired back in trying to get rid of the worst of them. When you find big trees, maple or any other kind of hard wood, it is a sure sign the soil is rich, but if the trees are scrub or of soft wood it is certain to be poor. Pine is not to be relied on as indicating good land for the settler. The tallest and finest pines are often on the top of stony ridges. Starting anew, they came to the streamlet that fed the pond and a short tramp beyond it Jabez spied another surveyor's stake. 'This is the western limit of Bambray's lot; between the two stakes he has 400 acres.' He asked the master if he wanted to cross the lot lengthways and see the two ends, but he saw no need, for so far as he could judge the land was all of the same quality. 'Supposing I buy the lot, how am I to get into it?' 'You will have to continue the bridle-path to where you place your house, and that is enough for an ox-sledge.' 'That means some work?' 'Yes,' replied Jabez smiling 'there is nothing to be had in the bush without hard work; it is hard work and poor grub.' Coming back to the horses, they found they had finished the oats Jabez had brought, and were nibbling at the leaves within reach. On regaining Yonge street, the horses were watered at a tavern, Jabez dropping five coppers on the counter, the price of two drinks. 'You are expected to drink when you stop to water a horse, but I want no whiskey, I prefer to pay for what the horse drinks.' Arrived in Toronto the master said he would go and see Mr Bambray after supper. Jabez asked him to remember that Quakers do not dicker, so if the price was too high for him to pay to come away at once. The master found Mr Bambray reading a newspaper, told him he was satisfied with the land and would buy it were the price within his ability. The Quaker took from a desk a sheet of paper; pointing to the figures written on it he said, 'I do not deal in land, believing it not to be agreeable with the teaching of the Gospel to make merchandize of what God intended for all his children. I do not consider it right to buy land you are not able or do not mean to make use of, but secure with a view to sell at an advanced price to the man who will cultivate it. These 400 acres were transferred to me for a just debt which the man could not otherwise pay. On this line is the amount of that debt, here are the legal charges paid by me in the transaction, and here is interest. The whole totals $472, which is the price.' The master was surprised, for from what he had heard of the prices asked for land so close to Toronto at least double would have been sought. 'My friends and I are able to pay that sum to you and we take the land.' The Quaker moved not a muscle. Taking up a quill he wrote out a promise of sale, and was given a bank of Scotland note for ten pounds as surety. Inquiring what steps he would next take, the master was advised to secure the services of Jabez for a month at least. 'Thee are ignorant of bush-farming and need an instructor, otherwise loss will befall thee and much trouble.' Arranging for the final transfer of the land, the master sought out Jabez. He and two brothers carried on a cartage business. Jabez said there would not be more calls than his brothers could attend to until August, and he would go if he was willing to pay two dollars a day for himself and an ox-team. 'That is settled,' replied the master. 'Now what is to be done first?' 'To cut out a sledge-road across your lot, so that you may get your freight in.' To help he was to hire a man, and it was arranged to start at daylight. Next morning Jabez appeared at the door of the tavern with an ox-team, and seated beside him in the wagon was a youth. 'This is Jim Sloot, who can handle an axe with any man. You have that to learn. It is the axe that has made Canada.' Arrived at the bridle-path that led to their lot, they had a day's work on it brushing and prying off fallen trees. On reaching the lot master had bought, trees had to be felled to continue the path. These Jabez and Jim assailed, while master trimmed their branches off with a hatchet. On the evening of the third day they were in sight of the pond, when the master left, for the Kingston boat might arrive next morning, and he must be on hand to meet his family. How he met us I have already told. CHAPTER VI. FIRST DAYS IN THE BACKWOODS Our freight, as Jabez termed it, filled three wagons and started up Yonge-street. A fourth wagon came to the door of the tavern for the women and children, I being left to help them. We were told to stop at Mr Dunlop's store for supplies that had been bought. He came out to see us and in a minute was thick in talk with the women about Ayrshire. On the team starting he declared meeting them was like a visit to Scotland. The driver pointed out to us how straight Yonge-street was; runs forty miles to Lake Simcoe straight as the handle of my whip. It was a jolty, hot drive but we enjoyed it hugely; everything was new to us and we were all in high spirits at the prospect of our long journey being about to end and in coming into possession of our estates, about which there was no end of jokes. Mrs Auld was in doubts as to what name they would give their hundred acres, while Mrs Brodie settled on Bonnybraes for hers. 'But we have not seen a hill since we left Montreal,' remarked the mistress. 'I dinna care,' rejoined Mrs Brodie, Bonnybraes was the name of the farm we left and it will make the woods hamelike.' When we spied at a distance several men standing by the roadside we gave a shout of joy and were soon reunited. The laughing and talking might have been heard half a mile away. Jabez now took the lead. As the wagons arrived he had caused them to be unloaded under a clump of hemlocks, the chests and packages being arranged to make a three-sided enclosure. In front he had started a fire, over which, slung from a pole resting on crotched sticks, was a pot, and soon the mistress was preparing supper. It was dark before we had settled for the night, which was so warm that sleeping under the trees was no hardship. Jabez covered the dying fire with damp litter, the smoke of which kept off the mosquitos, which pestered us dreadfully. In the morning Jabez was the first to be stirring. Giving me two pails he directed me to go to a house I would find a bit down Yonge-street to get water, and, if they had it, some milk. The house I found and also the well, but how to draw water out of it I knew not. There was nobody stirring until my awkward attempts to work the bucket brought a man out. I told him who I was. 'You are an emigrant and this is the first sweep-well you have tried to work. Well, now, you have got to learn,' and he showed me how simple it was. He was much interested when he heard of our party and of their camping out. 'Stay a minute till I tell mother.' Coming back to the door he cried to me to go on with the water and he would fetch milk after a while. The porridge was ready when he and his wife appeared with the milk. He called his wife mother, which we thought strange. She was a smart, tidy woman and was soon deep in advice to our housekeepers about bush ways of doing things and bush cookery. After they had gone their children, three in number, came shyly round and watched us with open-eyed curiosity. Jabez was in haste to get us moved to our own location, and to do so had provided two oxsleds. Taking charge of one and Sloot of the other they dragged the first loads over the bush track, all the men, except the master, following. On returning for a second load, Jabez reported Brodie and Auld were pleased with the land and that Allan and the children were having a wash in the pond. How to get grannie through the woods concerned the master. Jabez solved the difficulty by making a comfortable couch on his sled, on which she rested, with the master on one side, Robbie running alongside of the ox, and myself following. So slowly and carefully did the ox step that grannie was little discomposed. On stepping from her rude conveyance, she gazed in wonder on the pond and the forest that encompassed it. 'This is our new farm,' shouted Allan in her ear, 'A' this ground and the lakie?' 'Yes,' answered Allan. 'An thae trees?' 'Yes,' replied her grandson, 'father is laird of it all.' She stood for a minute or two as if dazed; and then a light came to her face as if she had suddenly comprehended it all. She stepped to the master, and laying her hands on his shoulders said, 'You have been a good and true son and weel you deserve to be a laird.' Seeing a black squirrel jump from tree to tree Robbie darted off with a shout of glee. Jabez cut a number of poles, and with them and blankets made two roomy tents, which were to give shelter until shanties were built. Before sites for them could be picked out it was necessary to divide the 400 acre lot. Brodie and Auld were to get each a hundred acres and they were agreed in choosing the portion of land that lay south of the road and included the pond. The master, as I found later, would have liked that part for himself, but willingly agreed to their choice. The next point was to divide the 200 acres between Auld and Brodie. Covered equally with heavy bush there was no apparent difference, yet a division had to be made. Jabez, seeing that one waited on the other to decide, cut two twigs and held them out between his fingers. 'The man who draws the long one, gets the east half, and the short one the west.' Brodie drew the long bit of stick and Auld the short. It was agreed to raise Brodie's shanty first, as he had young children, and the Aulds could stay with them until their own shanty was ready. Brodie selected the spot for his home, and we began at once to cut the trees that stood upon it. Saturday evening Jabez and Jim returned to Toronto to stay over Sunday. The weather had been warm with two showers and camping was no discomfort beyond the inconvenience to the women. There was no complaining, for we were all in good spirits, buoyed up with the prospect of future prosperity, and determined, if hard work would ensure it, we would not spare ourselves. Our tasks for the week were ended and we gathered on the site of Brodie's house, sitting on the felled trees. It was a calm night with soft air, the moonbeams making a pathway of light across the pond. None seemed inclined to speak, just wanting to rest and enjoy the peaceful hour. It was Alice who broke the silence by starting to sing, and song followed song, all joining when there was a chorus. It was a strange thought that came into my mind, that for all the ages these woods and lakelet had existed this was the first time they had echoed back our Scottish melodies. When Alice started Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon, we helped in the first verse, but as the scenes we had left rose before our minds voices quavered, until all became silent, tears flowed, and Mrs Auld was sobbing. 'This wont do,' cried the master, 'we have come here as to a land of promise and there must be no looking backward. We go forward. Alice, start the second paraphrase and then to bed.' I have seen many a fine Sabbath morning but none to me like that one which was our first in the bush. The serenity of air and sky, the solemnity of the woods, the stillness sweetened by the song of birds, struck even the children, who were quieter than usual. After breakfast and things were tidied up we had worship. The master read selections from the closing chapters of Hebrews, and his prayer was one of thankfulness to the Hand that had preserved us on our journey and brought us to a quiet resting-place. Mrs Auld heard the children their questions and had a lively time in scolding and coaxing them by turns to never mind the squirrels but attend to what she was saying. The dinner things had been cleared away when a visitor came out of the woods. He had a red, flabby face, framed in a thick whisker turning grey. The chief feature of his dress was a long surtout, that had been part of a gentleman's dress-suit in its day and a shabby tile hat. Addressing the master with deliberate ceremony, he told how he had heard of new-comers and felt it his duty to welcome them and tender his services. He had been four years in Canada and his experience would be of high value in directing them what to do. Growing voluble he pointed out what he considered were the mistakes we had already made, ending with a plump proposal that, for his board and a certain money consideration, he would take the direction of the settlement and guarantee its immediate prosperity. He paused and asked for a drink. Mrs Auld handed him a dipper. Smelling it, he said experience had taught him the prudence of never drinking lake water without its being qualified by a few spoonfuls of whisky. 'If you will be so kind,' he said to Mrs Auld, 'as to bring your greybeard, I shall have pleasure in giving a toast to your new settlement.' 'Whisky! cried Mrs Auld, 'there's no a drop to be found here.' Turning to the master he said, 'This will never do; you will need bees to raise the shanties, to chop, and to fallow, and not a man will come unless there is whisky and plenty to eat. A keg of Toronto's best will be to you a paying investment.' The master, who had remained silent, carefully measuring the stranger, now spoke. 'I thank you for your advice, as to your help we do not need it, for, as you see, we are strong in ourselves.' The Englishman, for such he was, grew angry. 'You unmannerly Scot, you will have cause to regret scorning my services. I never had such a reception, for in the poorest shanty they greet you with a cup of welcome.' So saying he disappeared. In telling Jabez of him next day, he said the master had done well to come out squarely. Bees had grown to be a nuisance and a loss. When they heard of one, drinkers would travel ten miles to attend and others came just for the sport of the day. The settler would run in debt to lay in a stock of food and whisky. Out of the crowd that would come several would not do a hand's turn, but drink and eat; part would work during the forenoon and then, after dinner, join in the talk and drinking; while the remainder would put in a faithful day's labor. It often happened that bees ended in quarrels, sometimes in fights. A settler, Jabez said, would do better to use the cost of drink and food in hiring labor. In the afternoon the women began writing letters to Scotland, using the tops of chests to rest the paper on. The sheets were crossed and recrossed, for postage was high, fifty cents the half ounce. Allan and I walked into the bush to see what it was like. The trees were all large and well set apart with little underbrush. Fallen trees and decaying logs abounded. Whether it was jumping or going round these that caused us to lose our way I cannot say, but after a long walk we failed to sight the pond. We made a fresh start and tried another direction without success. 'We are lost, for sure,' exclaimed Allan. Putting his hands to his mouth he let out a yell that startled the crows from a tree-top. We listened, there was no answering sound. Then he whistled long and sharp. Again no answer. Jabez had pointed out to me that the north could always be known by more moss growing on that side of trees, and I decided we had been travelling in that direction. If we could have got a glimpse of the sun we would have known for sure the points of the compass, but the foliage of the tree-tops prevented a ray getting through. We walked smartly, as we thought southwards, when Allan again yelled with all his might. Strange to say, an hillo came from the woods on our left and quite close to us. We hurried in the direction of the sound and came out on a small clearance with a shanty in the middle. A well-made young fellow stood at the door. 'Lost your bearings, eh?' he asked. 'Yes,' answered Allan, 'and glad you heard my yell.' He led us into the shanty; the table was spread for supper and a man and woman were seated ready to begin 'These two fellows are Scotties, new-come out, and got wandered,' was our introduction. Responding to a hearty invitation, seats were found and we helped to dispose of the dried venison and bread that was on the board. 'Did you ever taste coffee like that?' asked the woman as Allan passed in his tin for a second supply. 'That is bush-coffee and better than the storestuff. It is made from dandelion roots and I will tell your folk how to make it.' They were Americans and had led a wandering life, for the father was a trapper. Game becoming scarce from growing settlement on the American side he had crossed into Canada and had spent the last two winters round lake Simcoe. 'There is no hunting after February' he said, 'for every critter then begins nursing and the fur is not worth paying for, so we came south and took this shanty, setting to work to make axhelves and shingles, there being ready sale in Toronto. We move back to the lakes in the Fall.' I asked him about the shanty. He replied that it was not his nor did he know whose it was. 'Like enough some poor emigrant drew the lot and after breaking his back with hard work in making a clearance, found he could not pay the price and just lit out. You will find deserted shanties everywhere in the bush left by families who lost heart.' He showed much interest in our coming and we had difficulty in getting him to recognize our location. It was not until I mentioned the pond that he recognized the spot. 'Why, you aint much over a mile to go.' When we were about to start the whole family got ready to go with us. 'The sun won't set for an hour yet, and there is good moonlight,' said Simmins, for that he told us was his name. 'Did you never get lost?' I asked. 'That is a foolish question to ask of anybody born in the woods for they never lose their sense of direction.' He advised me to carry a compass and take its bearings in going and follow them in returning. Suddenly Mrs Simmins burst into song. It was a hymn, sung in a style I never heard before, but have since at many a campmeeting. Her voice was strong, rising to a shriek at high notes. The husband and son joined in, enjoying it as much as she did. In telling me of the alarm felt at our not returning to supper, Alice said they sat fearing something had befallen us, and that, if the night set in, we might be lost and never be found alive, when suddenly they heard from the depths of the woods the words Then let our songs resound And every heart be love; We're marching through Emmanuel's ground To fairer worlds above. Distance mellowed the harshness of the voices and the words sounded like a message from heaven. Their distress was that neither Allan's voice nor my own was distinguishable. Glad they were when we emerged from the trees and joined them round the fire that had been made to blaze as a guide to us. Our visitors made themselves at home at once. 'Why do you call your son Sal?' asked the mistress, 'that is a girl's name.' The reply was, 'His Sunday came is Salvation Simmins; we call him Sal for short.' 'And your husband addresses you as Jedu; what name is that?' 'I was a girl of sixteen before I was baptised, and the preacher gave me the name Jeduthan, because I was the chief musician.' 'Jeduthan was a man, the friend of David.' 'Bible don't say he was a man, and for years and years I was the chief musician at the campmeetings. Guess it was the same in David's time as in ours--the women did the heft of the singing?' Then she began singing, husband and son helping. 'Why don't you all sing?' she asked, 'aint you got religion yet? My, if you heard Elder Colver you would be on your knees and get converted right away.' The mistress said they did not know the words of the hymns she sang, when she became curious to hear us. Alice struck up Come, let us to the Lord our God, and we all joined. 'Whew!' exclaimed Mrs Simmins, very pretty, but that aint the stuff to bring sinners to the penitent-bench--you have to be loud and strong. Ever hear a negro hymn? No, well we will give you one, Whip the ole devil round the stump.' As they sang they acted the words. We parted with mutual good wishes, the mistress remarking, after they left, that God spoke in divers ways and their presentation of His truths, though rude and wild to us, doubtless suited the frontier population among whom they had lived and did good. 'The ax before the plow, the ox-drag before the smoothing harrow,' added the master. On Jabez appearing next morning he had six bags of potatoes on the ox-sled, which were for seed as well as eating, and said he had left a load of pine-boards to be hauled through the bush to floor the shanties. They now had to decide what kind of shanty they wanted. The cheapest, he told us, for all, men, women, and children, had gathered to hear about the building,--was a house twelve feet by twelve, with basswood staves for flooring or the bare soil, an opening that served both as door and window, with a blanket to keep out the cold, basswood scoops or elm bark for the roof, in which a hole was left to let out the smoke. There were many such shanties, but living in them was misery. From that sort they varied in size and finish, all depending on the settler's means. With $25 a good deal could be done. Size and finish were agreed on, it being understood the master, who had most money, would have a larger house. This being decided, Mr Brodie set to work to dig his cellar and I was sent to Simmins to see if he could supply shingles for the three shanties and to ask Sal if he would hire until they were finished. I took the compass and found their clearance without trouble. In returning Sal, who carried his axe, blazed the trees, so that it would be easy to know the way. The following morning his mother accompanied Sal. She came to show how they made bread in the bush, and had brought a dishful of bran-risings. Explaining what yeast was and how to treat it, she set a panful of dough. When the mass had risen, she kneaded it, and moulded it into loaves. The bake kettle having been warmed, the loaves were placed in it, and when they had risen enough, she put the cover on, and planted the kettle in a bed of glowing embers. The bread was sweet and a welcome change to the cakes made on the griddle or frying-pan. We had more than bread that day. Mrs Simmins pointed out plants, like lambs quarter and dandelion, whose leaves made greens that added relish to our unvarying diet of pork. How much more she taught I do not know, but her visit was a revelation to our women-folk. Grannie was delighted with her singing because she could hear it. CHAPTER VII. ANDREW ANDERSON'S DIARY In Scotland it had been the master's custom to keep a record of work done, and of money paid or received. On parting with a neighbor, a farmer who had a notion of emigrating, he was asked, as a favor, to keep notes of his own daily experience. He had his doubts as to accounts of Canada he had read being correct, and knew whatever the master set down as to climate and other conditions he could depend upon. The book in which these notes were made was never sent, the master having learnt his friend had taken a new tack of his farm. From this journal I will now quote. June 21.--Rushing work in getting up the shanties. Four men felling trees and sawing their trunks into the desired length. Awkward in chopping, I took the job of squaring the logs with the adze-ax. Gordon notched the ends as I finished them. Digging his cellar Brodie struck clay, which Jabez tells me is worth money to us. Under Ailie's direction, the children planted potatoes round the stumps of the trees as they were cut down, and made a garden on a bare strip of land on the pond bank. Have got all the boards drawn from Yonge-street. Slow-work with an ox-sled, having to dodge to avoid striking trees. June 22.--Jabez helped Brodie to finish his cellar, lining it with red-cedar poles. Great heat. Oxen drawing logs for the shanty. June 23.--Began raising today. Jabez, never at a loss in finding the easiest way, had left standing two trees at the site of the house. Placing a stout pole in their crotches, long enough to reach across from one to the other, he attached a pulley. An ox, hitched to the end of the pulley-rope, hauled the logs to the spot and pulled them up as needed. This saved much lifting and the walls went up quickly. Gordon had notched the ends of the logs so exactly that they went together without trouble. June 24--Have got Brodie's house up to the square and began putting up the rafters. Cloudy; heat more bearable. June 25--Saturday; eager to get the shanty finished all hands turned to the work, got the shingling finished and the ground floor laid. Mrs Brodie moved in at dark. Though there was neither door nor windows in place, she said she was prouder of her shanty than the Duchess of Hamilton could be of her palace. June 26--The heat of this country surpasses anything we ever knew in Scotland. All very tired and glad to rest in the shade, with a smudge to keep off the mosquitoes. Strange to say, the children do not seem to care much about the heat. June 27--Jabez arrived with a wagon loaded with lumber. Drew on sled first the doors and sashes, which he had got a carpenter to make for Brodie's house, which Gordon fitted in. Afternoon being wet, we helped to lay the loft floor and to chink the house from the inside. Gordon put up two wide shelves in the corners for beds, and is making a table with benches on each side to sit on. The table has crossed legs; the benches have no backs. June 28--Everything being ready, began on my house. June 29--Made good progress, for we have been gaining experience. July 1--The roof being on, moved into our shanty; well we did, for it poured at night. July 2--Had a long talk about chimneys for our houses. The right way is to have a mason build them. There may be stones on our land, but there are none in sight. Jabez says we will have to put up with stick chimneys. In the hot weather we are having, cooking out of doors is all right unless when it rains. July 3--The Sabbath rest beneath our own roof was sweet. Mary pleased and happy and mother proud of the house. July 4--Leaving to Gordon the finishing of our shanty, the rest of us tackled with might and main Auld's. How quickly Jabez and Sal can hew down a tree is a wonder to me. July 5--Auld moved his belongings into his shanty this evening, though it is not half done. Gave Jabez money to bring out with him on Monday morning the iron-fixtures for our fire-places and the lime for the chimneys. July 6--On going out this morning saw a deer with her hind drinking at the far end of the pond; beautiful creatures. Thank God for the Sabbath. Without it we would have broken down with our hard toil. July 7--Jabez brought word from Mr Bambray that he wanted us on the 9th to give us our deeds. Told me he could not finish out a month, as he had expected. Business had become brisk in Toronto, and his brothers needed his help. He started at once to build the chimney in Brodie's house, so that we could see how to do the other two. In laying the floor a 6-foot square had been left uncovered for the fire-place. In a frame of heavy elm logs that fitted the spot, puddled clay mixed with sand was rammed hard. Two jambs were built with brick which Jabez had brought and across them a thick plate of cast iron, which was to support the front of the chimney. The back of the chimney and sides had the few stones found in digging the cellars, and on top of them was laid more brick until the ceiling was reached. Care had been taken to build in a crane to hang pots. From the floor of the loft squarely cut pieces of cedar, 2 inches thick, were laid in clay mortar, and as the work went on were plastered with the same mortar inside and out, until the top was two feet above the ridge-board. Jabez said there was no danger of the cedar sticks taking fire. They were so well-beded in the clay that when it hardened the chimney was all one piece. If it fell, it would not break. July 11--Brodie, Auld, and myself accompanied Jabez on his going to Toronto. Mr Bambray had arranged everything and in an hour we had paid him and each of us had his deed. We asked him about securing a road to our lots. He said two blocks of bush lay between them and Yonge-street. Both were owned by a man who was holding to sell, and he was afraid any influence we could exert would not compel him to make the road, though that was the condition on which the government had given the land. Met in the tavern several emigrants eager to get lots, all discontented with their treatment at the government office. One said he would go to Illinois. Asked how he would get there. Told me by Buffalo and lake Erie; land sold there at $1.25 an acre and no bush to clear. July 12--Tired and rainy. Auld and Brodie came over to square our accounts. From the time we left the ship till we got into our shanties, we lived in common. Found Brodie had least money and more mouths to fill. His wife said she did not fear--they would strachle through until they got a crop. We had a long talk about getting a yoke of oxen, which we must have. Offered, if I got them, they would pay me in days' work. I decided to put up a stable to be ready when I bought a yoke. July 13--Took a tramp to see rear of my lot, Gordon guiding with a compass. All of a sudden the bush ceased, and on finding I stood on the edge of a swamp, I got angry at my being fooled into paying for a cattail marsh. There is quite a stretch not very wide, angling across the width of my lot. On thinking it over, am satisfied Bambray knew no more about its existence than I did. Returning home I followed the creek, which starts from it. There was a little water flowing. Noticed, where the creek leaves the marsh, a stretch of tall wild grass. July 14--Could not sleep thinking about the swamp. Got Gordon to make a dozen cross-staffs and started for it to take levels. Found the marsh sloped towards the creek, and between where it entered and a hundred yards down the creek there is a fall of three feet, so the marsh can be drained. Dug down in several places and found the marsh to be a deposit of black soil on top of clay. July 17--The Simmins family spent the afternoon with us. He knew about the swamp, and called it a, beaver-meadow. The grass that grew at the head of the creek would make hay good enough for cattle. Said I would find the dam the beavers had made if I searched a while, and if I got out the logs that formed it, the water would have a free course into the creek. July 18--Spent all Saturday cutting grass at the head of the creek. It is fine but long. Turned it today and, if rain keeps off, will be ready to cock tomorrow afternoon, the sun is so hot and the grass so ripe. July 19--Had Sal, Gordon, and Archie come and help to find the dam the beavers had built. On a crowbar showing us where the logs were buried, shovelled off the dirt and pried them out. It was wet, dirty work but we managed it. Cleared the bed of the creek of the rubbish that choked it at its head. Sal found a turtle, which he carried home. July 20--Brodie and Auld came early and we set to work to get logs ready for the ox-stable. Very dry and hot. July 21--Piled the hay in two stacks and thatched them as well as we could. We had just finished when a thunderstorm burst. July 23--Gordon, who has made furniture for all the houses, set up a cupboard for Ailie, of which she is quite proud. The lad has a wonderful knack, and can copy anything he has a chance to examine. A deluge of rain; never saw such a downfall in Scotland. Lasted six hours and then came out sultry. July 24--Sal stepped in while we were at breakfast with the hind quarter of a deer, his father had come on during the heavy rain and shot. First fresh meat we have had. Found it dry eating. Sunday though it was, walked with Sal to head of creek and found water was running freely into it from the marsh. Coming back Sal spied bees round a tree and said he would get the honey next month. Told me the names of the different squirrels and birds we saw and he had fun with a ground hog. July 30--Although the weather has been warm have worked steadily chopping down trees; the sound of the axe coming from the three lots. On each of them there is now quite a clearance. Jabez had shown us how to make plan-heaps, and we so fell the trees, which will save hard work when we come to burn. Except myself, all are getting to be expert with the axe, though Sal, with less exertion, can chop down two to Allan's one. August 1--Growth far outstrips that of Scotland, and no wonder, there is no such heat there. In thinning turnips and the like Ailie kept what is pulled for boiling; they make good greens. We had a long talk about buying a yoke of oxen at once, and Brodie and Auld agreed to help me with the stable for them. August 3--Fixed on spot for stable and began preparing logs for it, choosing cedar and pine as being easier to handle. August 8--Began raising stable. Gordon made very neat corners. August 9--Had stable up to the square when we dropped work. August 11--Got the rafters on. Having no sawed lumber or shingles, will have to cut basswood staves and scoops. August 13--Stable finished and all proud of it. There is a roomy loft which will be useful for more than fodder, for I am told when there is no bed in the shanty for a visitor they 'loft him.' August 14--Had arranged to walk to Toronto, for none of us have been inside a church since we left Scotland, but the sun came out with such a blistering heat that we had to give up our intention. It is awfully lonesome in the bush, and were it not for the work you are forced to do, we would get vacant-minded. It has been a great blessing in every way that the three families settled together. I can believe the report that a family planted in the depths of the bush, without a neighbor nearer than three miles, abandoned all they had accomplished to get company. August 15--While chinking the stable, Gordon helping, I heard a crash and a cry from where Allan was chopping. We ran to the spot, and my heart jumped into my mouth, when I saw him lying as if he were dead under a big branch. I was for dragging him out, when Gordon showed me the movement would bring down the butt of the branch on his body. He ran for help. Ailie came first and then Brodie, and while the three of us held up the limb of the tree, Ailie pulled him out. She was calmer than any of us. Carrying him to the house, we had the satisfaction of finding there was no bone broken. A blue mark above the right eye showed where he had been struck. As he was breathing easily we had hopes he would come to, but it was long before he did, and it was the most anxious hour Ailie and I had ever known. When he opened his eyes, and looking wonderingly round asked, 'What is a' the steer aboot?' we never before thanked God with such fervor. Gordon had run for Mrs Simmins, and while we were keeping wet cloths on Allan's head, she hurried in. Looking at the mark, which was now swollen, and feeling all round it, Mrs Simmins declared there was no fracture of the skull and that the blow had only stunned him. 'Well for him that he is a thick-headed Scotchman or he would have been killed,' she remarked. Taking a fleam from her pocket, she lanced the lump and let it bleed freely. 'If bruised blood is left to get into the system, there will be a fever, in which many a man has died.' Allan fell asleep and when he woke it was to ask for a drink. Aug. 16--Allan woke this morning all right, except feeling giddy. He will never again have as narrow an escape with his life. The tree he was felling, a big maple, in falling toppled over a dead tree beside it, which was so rotten that it fell in a shower of pieces. Aug. 18.--Went to see the swamp and glad to find it was drier. The water has got vent and is seeping into the creek. Could walk on parts that would not carry before. Looked it over to plan how to drain it. Gordon, who was with me, said, Cut a ditch up the centre. I showed him that would not do when the swamp came to be plowed. The right way was to cut a ditch across the head and have it empty into another along the south side to the creek. Looked at me in wonder as he asked if I ever expected to plow it. Said I would grow grain on it before other three years. On returning he and I did a bit of underbrushing, piling as much of the brush as we could round the felled timber to help to burn it. Aug. 19--Kept underbrushing all day. Aug. 20--So hot gave the ax a rest. In the afternoon a thunderstorm. The downpour tested the roof of the stable, which leaked in only one place, where a scoop had split. Aug. 21--Quite cool with a brisk northerly breeze. Wife and myself started for Toronto, and never enjoyed a walk more. Did us good to watch the clearances as we passed along. Fall wheat all cut and stacked. Barley being cradled and oats looking extra heavy though short in the straw. The sight of gardens and patches of potatoes pleased Ailie, and we both were surprised by the Indian corn, which we never saw before. It was tasseling. The bell was ringing when we reached Toronto and had to ask our way to the Presbyterian church. The crowd was going to the Episcopal and Methodist churches. The service was dry and cold, but it did us both good to worship with our fellows once more and join in the psalms. As we were walking away I heard somebody behind us call, Andrew Anderson, and looking back saw Mrs Bambray. Told her we were going to the tavern for dinner. 'Thee shall go to no tavern on the seventh day,' and slipping her arm into my wife's, led us to her house. Pointing to a door she told me to go in and I would see what I never saw in Scotland, and led my wife upstairs. Opening the door I found myself in a backshed, with Bambray rubbing ointment on a negro's arm. The man was a runaway slave and had arrived that morning on a schooner from Oswego. Bambray had washed him and dressed him in clean overalls. He bade the negro pull off his shirt so that I might see the marks of the welts made by a whipping he had got with a blacksnake whip and his master's brand, made with a hot iron, on his right arm. The left arm had got injured in his flight and had an unhealed wound. The poor fellow said he came from Maryland and had known no trouble until his wife had been taken from him and sold. His master ordered him to pick on another woman, but he loved his wife and ran away to find her; had been caught and whipped to within an inch of his life. Hearing slaves were free in Canada, he took the first chance to slip away. He hid during the day, and at night, guided by the plow in the sky, kept northwards. He got some food by visiting negro huts, and at one of these he was told how a band of white people helped negroes seeking their liberty. Finding a house he was directed to call at, he found it was true. The man fed him and ferried him across a river and gave him the landmarks of the next house he was to call at for help, and from one to another he was passed along until he got to Oswego, where he was hid in the hold of a schooner whose captain was an Englishman. It had taken him a long time to make the journey, he could not tell me how long, for he did not know the days of the week much less the months. On getting to Toronto he was guided by a sailor boy to Bambray's house, which was one of several where runaways were sure of help. Asked Bambray what he would do with the man. When fit for work he would be given an ax, saw, and sawhorse and was sure of earning a living. 'Me strong,' said the man, standing up, 'and me free.' Left Bambray's late in the afternoon and got home before sunset. Aug. 27--A week of steady work chopping. We must get clearances big enough to raise crops for next year's living no matter how hot the days are. Aug. 28--The Simmins family spent the day with us. They leave for the lake Simcoe country. All three like the free life of fishing, trapping, and hunting, and spoke as if they were going on a holiday. If they did well and got a big pack of furs, they intend in the spring to try Illinois, so we may not meet again. They sang and talked all day and we parted with sorrow. The days are still hot but the nights are cool with heavy dews. Aug. 30--Each day hard at work felling trees. When I first saw our lot and how thick the trees stood on it I could hardly believe it possible we could clear the land of them, yet we have been here scarce three months and there is a great slash. Taking the trees one by one and perseverance has done it. Burning the felled trees that cumber the ground is the next undertaking. This cutting out a home from the bush is work that exhausts body and mind, but the reward is what makes life sweet to right-minded people--independence. September 1--Had new potatoes to-day. They are dry and mealy and abundant in yield. I may say this is the first food the land has given us. Sept. 2--Had a chance to send a note to Jabez to look out a suitable yoke of oxen. On going to Yonge-street found a long building going up. It is a tavern. The street is lined with them all the way to Toronto and how far north they go cannot say. Being the leading outlet there is much traffic on it. Saw several parties of emigrants pass. Imprudent to come so late in the season. They will have their sufferings when winter sets in for they have not time to prepare for it. Experience has shown me emigrants should come early in spring. I spoke with one lot. They sailed from Liverpool to New York and thence by the Erie canal to Oswego, avoiding the ordeal of the St Lawrence rapids. It seems strange but it is so, the United States is Upper Canada's market. In comparison, little freight either goes or comes by Montreal. This ought not to be. The reason given is, that Lower Canada will not help to improve the St Lawrence route as it would not be to her benefit. Sept. 5--There is a plague of squirrels--black, red and grey. Bobby keeps killing them and we have them on the table every day. Pushing the chopping, for our next year's living depends on the size of our clearances. Weather being cooler, work not so exhausting. Had a scare yesterday from a bear trotting to the pond. It had its drink and fled on seeing us. Sept. 9--Had word from Jabez to come to town as he had a yoke of oxen bought for me. Sept. 10--Walked to Toronto, taking Gordon to help. Am no judge of oxen. They cost $60. Besides them had to pay for logging-chain and an ox-sled. Gordon spent the time in the wheelwright's shop where I bought the sled. On Jabez telling me we would need somebody to teach us how to handle oxen and to burn a fallow, I went to see Sloot, and bargained with him for a week's work. On getting all that was needed for my neighbors and myself the sled was heaped up; we walked, Sloot driving. It was near midnight when we reached home, but Ailie and the family got up to see the oxen by candle-light. Sept. 11--Sunday though it was, Sloot, taking the boys to clear the way, had to go to the stacks near the swamp for hay to feed the oxen. It was a work of necessity. They came back in the afternoon with a small load, for the track was rough. Sept. 12--Sloot and all hands were up at sunrise to set fire to the brushpiles. The day was cool with a breeze that helped the fires. Burning the logs was next taken in hand, and being green and thick they were slow to burn. Sept. 13--The weather was again favorable for our work of burning the logs but, despite a strong wind, they burned slowly and we had to keep poking and turning them to get a hot blaze. The smoke and heat were like to overcome me, but Sloot went ahead. He was born in the bush and all its work is second nature to him. Washed in the pond and got to bed late. Sept. 14--Auld and Sloot, Allan helping, worked all night with the logheaps, which I found this morning much reduced in size. The logging-chains and the oxen today came into play, the partly consumed logs being hauled to form fresh piles. By dark there was quite a clearance. Sept. 15--Light white frost this morning. Helping neighbors. Sun came out on our starting to burn at Auld's but the wind blew a gale, and we had a splendid burn. Sept. 16--Pouring rain and glad of it, for all of us except Sloot are dead-tired. He says the rain will wash the charred logs and make them easier to handle. Sept. 17--Spent the day hauling the biggest of the partly burned logs to make a fence across the clearing. The smaller stuff we heaped up and set on fire. Allan handles the oxen very well considering. Wanted Sloot to stay another week, but he could not. He is a civil fellow and not greedy. Ailie sent a queer present to his wife. Before Mrs Simmins left she explained and showed how to secure and dry dandelion roots to make coffee. In lifting potatoes, when a dandelion root is seen, it is pulled carefully, or, if scarce among potatoes, dug up carefully in the fall so as to get the entire root. The roots are washed, dried in the sun and stored away. As wanted for use, a root or so is chopped small, roasted in a pan until crisp, then ground, and made like ordinary coffee. Sept. 24--All week we worked at getting crop into the fallow. After clearing it of sticks, we used spade, grape, and rake to get it something near level. Gordon studded a log with wooden spikes which we dragged over the worst of it. On getting the best seedbed possible, sowed wheat. The soil had a topdressing of charcoal cinders and ashes that I thought would help. If the seed gives an average yield, will not have to buy flour next year. Sept. 26--Rained all day yesterday; at night cleared with quite a touch of frost. Busy chopping to enlarge clearance. The young fellow who came out with us from Scotland and got drunk at Montreal, appeared at our door this morning. He had lived chiefly in Toronto and his appearance showed had done no good. Wanted a job. Agreed with him to dig ditch in the swamp, the understanding being if he got drunk he need not come back. Leaves are turning color. Oct. 2--Sat most of the day on front step taking in the beauty of the trees that overhang the pond on three of its sides. I can compare them to nothing but gigantic flowers. Steeped in the haze of a mellow sun the sight was soothing. Nothing like this in Scotland. The birds have gone; the swallows left in August. Oct. 9--Been a sorrowful week. On unpacking our baggage on arrival in the bush, found my mother's spinning-wheel was broken. Gordon managed to mend it and I bought ten pounds of wool. This she washed, teased, and carded, and proud she was when she sat down and began to spin the rolls into yarn. Tuesday afternoon Ailie and Ruth went to pick wild grapes, and the rest of us were at our work in the bush. Grannie was left alone. She had moved her wheel to the door to sit in the sunshine, where she could see the brightness of the trees and enjoy the calm that prevailed. How long she span we do not know. On Ailie's return she was startled at the sight of her bending over the wheel. She was dead. While stooping to join a broken thread God took her. Next day buried her on a rising bit of ground overlooking the pond. What a mother she was I alone can know. I shall never forget her. Last evening there was to us a marvellous display of northern lights. When daylight faded pink clouds appeared in the sky mixed with long shooting rays of white light. The clouds changed shape continually, but the color was always a shade of red. At times the clouds filled the entire northeastern sky. Oct. 10--Crying need for rain; everything dry as tinder; air full of smoke. Oct. 15--My worker at the ditch insisted he had to go to Toronto. Gave him his pay and knew he would not come back, despite his promise. There are more slaves than black men. The man of whom whiskey has got a grip is the greater slave. Oct. 17--Closed the house on Sunday morning and all walked to Toronto to attend worship. Today yoked the sled to an ox, for our path to Yonge-street is too narrow for two, in order to find settlers who had produce to sell. Bought corn in cob, apples, pumpkins, and vegetables, but only one bag of oats, few having threshed. Was kindly received and learnt much. In one shanty found a shoemaker at work. He travels from house to house and is paid by the day, his employers providing the material. Agreed with him to pay us a visit and he gave me a list of what to get in Toronto. Oct. 18--Spent day in trying to make everything snug for winter. Oct 19--Went to Toronto determined to find out whether there is no way of compelling the man who owns the land that blocks us from Yonge-street to open a road. First of all I called upon him, and he received me civilly. I told him how our three families were shut in. Asked if we would not buy his lot, he would sell the 1200 acres cheap and give us time. Answered we could not, we had all we could manage. He thought we were unreasonable in asking him to make a road which he did not need. It would be of use to us but not to him. Asked him if the conditions on which the lot was granted did not require him to open a road? Replied, that was like many other laws the legislature made, and which were disregarded everywhere in the province. When I said, since it is law it could be enforced, he smiled and said there was no danger of that. Was pleased to hear of our settlement behind his land and hoped it would help to bring him customers. Turning from his door, I made straight for a lawyer's office, to make sure whether the owner of vacant land could not be forced to open a road. The lawyer, an oldish man, listened to my story and told me to give up the idea of compelling the making of the road we needed. You are a stranger and ignorant of how matters stand. The law is straight enough, that whenever the government grants a lot, the receiver must do his part to open a road, but the law has become a dead letter. Two-thirds of the granted land is held by men who have favor with the government and who are holding to sell. Did you ever hear of Peter Russel? When a surveying party came in, he found out from their reports where the lots of best land were, and made out deeds to himself. 'I, Peter Russel, lieutenant-governor, etc., do grant to you, Peter Russel,' such and such lots. If you sued the gentleman you visited this forenoon you would lose. The court officials all have lots they expect to turn into money and would throw every obstacle in the way. Should your case come to trial, it would be before a judge who is a relative, and who holds patents for thousands of acres of wild land. The condition in their titles about cutting out roads, is like those that require a house to be built and so many acres of land in crop before a patent is issued. There are thousands of settlers worse off than you are, for you say you have a sled-path to your house. The lawyer spoke candidly and showed his sincerity and goodwill by refusing to take the fee I offered. Oct. 20--A real cold day; fine for chopping and the sound of trees falling was heard every hour. Wheat is growing finely. Had a talk with Auld and Brodie at night and agreed we would improve the sled-track to Yonge-street, seeing there was no prospect of the owner doing anything. Oct. 22--Surprised by a message that there was a bull-plow waiting for me at the corner-house on Yonge-street. Jabez had told Mr Bambray about the swamp, and he sent the plow to help to bring it into cultivation. Oct. 24--Took the plow out to the swamp, which I found pretty dry at one side. Yoked the oxen to it and I plowed all afternoon. Felt good to grip the stilts once more. Oct. 29--Spent three days on the sledroad and the three families joined in the work. Cut a great many roots, filled hollows, and felled trees whose branches obstructed. It is now fairly smooth but far too narrow for a wagon. Oct. 30--Surprised by a visit from Jabez, who came on horseback. Said he had a chance to give Gordon a few weeks' training with a carpenter. He was not now busy himself, as the shipping season was over. Brought Ailie a basket of fresh water herring. Left after dinner. Oct. 31--Gordon started early for Toronto, with his bundle over his shoulder. We shall miss him sadly. In the evening our neighbors came and we held Halloween as heartily as if we had been in Ayrshire. Nov. 1--Bright and frosty. Took the oxen back to the swamp; found there was not frost enough to interfere and turned over a few ridges, and cast waterfurs leading to the ditch. Nov. 2--White frosts fetch rain in this country and a cold rain fell all day. Sawing and splitting the logs we had set aside for firewood. Nov. 3--The rain turned to snow during the night and there are fully four inches. The youngsters hitched an ox to the sled and started off, shouting and laughing, for Yonge-street to have their first sleigh drive. Came home in great glee in time for supper. Robbie says he wants a sleigh bell. Nov. 5--Snow gone; clear and fine. Chopping down trees. Nov. 6--A peaceful autumn day. Heard a robin and wondered how it came to be left behind by its comrades. Had a walk in the bush in the afternoon thinking of mother and the land I shall never forget. Nov. 7--Shoemaker arrived. A great talker. Tells of families where the children had to stay in all winter for lack of boots. Nov. 12--A week of steady clearing of the land; we shall have a great burning in the spring. Have had hard frosts every night. Going to Yonge-street to see if I could get oats for the oxen, for the swamp hay is not nourishing and they are young and growing, found provisions remarkably plenty and cheap, especially pork. Bargained for a two-year old steer which the farmer promised not to kill until steady frost set in. Thankful we did not go farther into the bush. It is a blessing to be near older settlers who have a surplus to sell. There was a smoky haze over the bush today, and the sun shone with a subdued brightness; very still with a mellow warmth. Was told it was the Indian summer. Nov. 20--Had four days of Indian summer and then a drenching rain from the east, which stopped chopping. A black frost today, dark and bleak. Had a letter from Gordon yesterday, who is happy in learning so much that is new to him. He was at Bambray's for dinner last Sabbath and spent an evening at Dunlop's. He will make friends wherever he goes. December 3--There has been nothing worth setting down. Have had a long spell of grey, cloudy days, which just suited felling trees and underbrushing. Have got our patch of wheat well fenced in, not to keep cattle out, there are none near us, but to help to keep a covering of snow on the wheat. Bobbie trapped a coon that haunted the barn and it made fine eating. He says the pelt will make a neck-wrap for his mother. Dec. 7--Went to get the steer I had bargained for. The farmer suggested instead of butchering the beast and hauling the carcase it would be easier to drive it on foot and kill it at home, which I did. Dec. 8--Killed the steer, which dressed well. Auld and Brodie took away their portions to salt down, but Ailie followed Mrs Bambray's advice. After the pieces are hard frozen she will pack them in snow. Dec. 10--Began to snow gently yesterday and continues. There are now about six inches. Dec. 11--Bitterly cold; never felt the like. What Burns calls cranreuch cauld gets into the bones, but this frost seems to squeeze body and bones, pinching and biting the exposed skin. Dec. 13--Ailie is never at a loss. On Mrs Brodie telling the children woke at night crying from cold, she had no blankets to give her. Having sheets we brought from Scotland she took two and placed as an inside lining the skins of the squirrels Robbie had killed. Simmins had taught him how to tan and give them a soft finish. Brodie and Auld's houses are cold because they only half chinked them. Mrs Auld said the blankets were frozen where the breath struck them and the loaf of bread could be sawn as if it were a block of wood. Both now believe Canada's cold is not to be trifled with and are scraping moss off the trees to caulk between the outside logs the first warm spell. Dec. 14--The frost holds. Worked all day with Allan. Does not feel cold in the bush. The trees break the wind that is so piercing in the clearings. Dec. 15--Milder; in the sun at noon almost warm. Got out ox-sled and went with Brodie along Yonge-street to buy pork. Bought three carcases. People are kindly. Have never called at a house where we were not invited to return and pay a family visit. Dec. 19--Have had a three day snap of frost, Either getting used to the cold or are adapting ourselves to meet it, for do not feel the discomfort we did. Ruth going to the ox-stable without putting a wrap over her head got her cheeks and ears frozen. Robbie trapped a hare. Pleads for a gun. Ailie will give him a surprise New Year's morning. Dec. 24--The snow helps greatly in hauling fallen trees and logs. Give them their own time, and oxen beat horses in handling difficult loads. Gordon came walking in this afternoon, quite unexpectedly, for we did not look for him until this day week. He says Christmas is the big day in Toronto, and not New Year's day. His master had shut his shop for a week. He gave him a deerskin jerkin as a Christmas present. Dec. 27--Gordon has been busy making snowshoes. His first pair was for Ruth, who can now walk in them. Snowed all day; not cold. He has taught her to ride one of the oxen. Dec. 28--A thaw, much needed to settle the snow, which was getting too deep. Youngsters shovelled a strip on the pond and made a fine slide. Dec. 31--Made preparation to keep Hogmanay, inviting our two neighbors. Had built a big fire, with a beech back-log, so heavy that an ox had to haul it to the door, and put a smaller one on top, while in front split wood blazed, and made the shanty so light that no candle was needed. The young folk had a great night of it, and braved the frost to go to the stable door and sing their old Hogmanay rhymes. The feast was plain as plain could be, but contented and merry hearts care not for dainties. January 1, 1826--All gathered again in our shanty after dinner, when we had a fellowship meeting to thank God for all his mercies, and surely, when I review all the dangers he has led us through, and the mercies he has bestowed on us during the year that has gone, we have good cause to adore him. Gave Star and Bright an extra feed of oats. Jany. 2--Ailie had just sat down after clearing the dinner dishes away, when Ruth came running in crying she heard sleighbells coming up our road. I went out and was astonished when a sleigh came in sight, the horse dashing the snow into powder breast high. It was Mr Dunlop and his wife, who had come to pay us a New Year's call. They stayed an hour and it was a happy one, for Mr Dunlop is a heartsome man. Was greatly taken with the improvements we had made. His wife brought a package of tea for Ailie. She made them a cup of dandelion coffee which, after their drive, they relished with her oatmeal cakes. In parting took me aside and told me if I ran short of cash to come to him. He is a friend. After they were gone, Robbie and Allan came home. They had to have a tramp in the bush to try the gun their mother had got for Robbie. They brought in three partridge and two hares, and were in great spirits. Gordon had bought the gun from an English lad who had come to Canada with the notion that it was full of wild beasts and Indians. He found he had no need of it. Jany. 4--Have had a heavy snowstorm with a gale of wind. The snow here is not flaky, but fine and powdery, fills the air so you cannot see ahead, and sifts through every crevice. Thankful when the blast died down. Mrs Auld declares if the summer heat and the winter cauld were carded through ane anither Canada would have a grand climate. The two extremes are indeed most trying. Jany 5--Work in the bush stopped by the snow, is so deep that when a tree is felled half is buried. CHAPTER VIII. THE EPISODE OF TILLY Jany 7--All were in bed last night when I was aroused by a knock at the door. Thought one of my neighbors needed help, but on opening was surprised to see it was Jabez. Excused himself for alarming us by saying his errand was a matter of life or death. A negro girl, who had fallen into evil hands at Buffalo, had escaped to Canada and was followed by desperate men trying to retake her. An attempt had been made to kidnap her from the family that sheltered her in Toronto. She had to be hid until the search was given up, and he could think of no place so safe as with ourselves. Mr Bambray asked us, in God's name, to take care of her for a while. 'Where is she?' I asked. 'In the sleigh at the door.' I told him to fetch her in, or she might freeze. He lifted her in, for she was numb. It was a bitter night. Laying aside her wraps, we saw, for Ailie and the whole family were now looking on, a mulatto of perhaps sixteen years of age. Alice and Ruth chafed her hands and feet to restore her circulation, while Ailie was getting a hot drink ready. Looking at the poor child I guessed her miserable story and told Jabez we would keep her. After getting warmed he drove off. * * * * * Here I have to break into the master's diary in order to give what happened afterwards, which he did not write down. The girl, who said her name was Tilly, got quite reconciled to us next day. She was from Kentucky, had been sold to a saloonkeeper at Black Rock, and rescued. She shuddered whenever she spoke of him. Passed from one friendly hand to another she reached Toronto, and was living quietly there as a servant. One evening there was a rap at the door and she went to answer. On opening it she beheld the fellow who claimed to own her. She screamed. Putting his hand over her mouth he lifted her to a sleigh, which drove off. Two passersby, who saw what happened, ran after the sleigh and on its halting at a tavern, one hurried off for a constable while the other kept watch. Entering the tavern they demanded the girl, and under threat of arrest the fellow had to let her go. If he had not, the crowd in the barroom would have piled on to him, for in Toronto Yankee slavehunters are detested. Mr Bambray, on being told of what had occurred, made her case his own. He consulted Jabez who suggested burying her in the bush with the master's family until the search was given up. Tilly was modest and eager to help, and at worship showed she had a beautiful voice. The day passed quietly and so did Sunday. The master had meant to go to Toronto to church, being the first Sunday after New Year's day, but the frost was too intense for an ox-drive. Tilly had a great collection of hymns, and in the afternoon we sat and listened. It was a peaceful Sabbath and we went to bed happy and feeling secure. I was lying awake, thinking of the poor slave-girl so unexpectedly thrown among us, when I thought I heard the crunching of the frozen snow under horse's feet and sleighrunners. I jumped out of bed and looking through the window that faced our road, saw a sleigh with two men. I hurried down stairs and wakened the master. He had just got on his feet when the door was forced in with a crash. A tall fellow entered, whom we could see distinctly, for the fire was glowing bright. 'I have come for my nigger, and it will be worse for you if you make a fuss.' Without a word, the master rushed at the fellow and was thrusting him out of the door, when he used a trick, doubtless learned in a hundred barroom fights, of thrusting his foot forward and tripping the master, who fell on his back. In a flash the fellow had him by the throat, forcing back his head with his left hand while his right fumbled under his coat. I guessed he was after his bowie-knife. I gripped his arm and gave it a twist that made him let out a yell. Jumping straight up, he made to grab me, when Allan, who had just appeared, swung out his right arm and dealt him a terrific blow on the face. He fell like a tree that had got its last cut. The other man now looked in, and seeing his comrade insensible and bleeding, cried out to us, 'You will hang for this!' 'Take the brute away and begone,' shouted the master, 'or you will answer for this if there be law in Canada.' Taking hold of the fallen man he dragged him to the sleigh. Lifting his head in first, he got into the sleigh and pulled the rest of the body into the box. Hurriedly pitching a robe over him he drove off, afraid we would arrest him. Just as the sleigh got on to the road, there was a shot above our heads, it was Robbie who had loaded his gun and fired out of the window. As it was only shot, it probably did no harm, but showed the driver we had firearms. The excitement over, the master staggered to a bench and fell down. Examining his throat we saw how the fellow had squeezed it so tight that his fingernails had torn the flesh, and the thrust backwards had strained the muscles of the neck. We got him into bed and the mistress and Alice sat up all night, applying cloths wrung out of hot water to ease the piercing pain. None of us slept much, and Tilly was greatly excited. I should have mentioned, when the affray was over, and I am sure it did not last five minutes, she went to Allan and kissed the hand that had knocked down her persecutor. We talked at breakfast over what we should do next, when it was agreed I should go to Toronto with word of what had happened. On reaching Yonge-street I got a ride on the first sleigh that came along. Jabez was astounded at my news and took me to see Mr Bambray and others interested in Tilly. Jabez at once started to find out what had become of the fellow, and all agreed that nothing should be decided until he reported. He was not long in getting trace of him and when he came in after dinner it was to tell the bird had flown. Fearing arrest, his face bandaged, he had been lifted into a long sleigh, and lying in it as a bed, had been driven westward. 'He will get to Hamilton this afternoon,' said Jabez, 'and is likely by sunset to be safe on Yankee soil.' It was suggested Jabez should go next morning and arrange with the master to keep Tilly for a few weeks. 'Will the fellow, who knows now where she is, not plan a second attempt?' 'No danger,' said Jabez, 'the doctor who dressed his face told me he would not be able to go out for weeks, and was disfigured for life. He damned the Scotties who had done it.' When Jabez told how he had received his injuries, the doctor, an Englishman, got hotly indignant. 'Had I known, the fellow would have been now in prison.' He would see his friend, the Chief Justice, to have him outlawed. I stayed with Jabez overnight and our drive in the morning was most enjoyable. There was no wind and just frost enough to make the air crisp, the sun shone on the snow until it sparkled, while the sleighing was splendid. Jabez had taken one of his best horses and the swiftness of the drive was exhilarating. The road was crowded with farmers' teams heading for Toronto, Jabez knew them all and they all knew him. One question troubled him, and that was, How the Buffalo scoundrel had come to know where Tilly was hid? To satisfy a surmise, he drew up at the tavern that had been opened opposite our road to question its owner, who frankly gave the desired information. The two men stopped at the tavern to get warmed and had several drinks. One of them said he was looking for his daughter, who had run away from home. He had traced her, he thought, by being told a man and a young girl had been seen driving up Yonge-street Friday night. The tavern-keeper said he saw such a couple turn into the byroad in front of his place, and wondered at it, for it was rare to see anybody enter that road. Question followed question and the men learned all they needed to find the house, and to attack it. On taking a parting drink, the tall fellow exclaimed, 'I have got her.' Reaching home we found all well except the master, whose neck was still swollen and painful. He was lying on the bench near the fire. Jabez explained his errand and the message he brought. The master pulled the head of Jabez close to his mouth, for he could only whisper, and said, 'You tell Mr Bambray that what happened Sabbath night made me an abolitionist, and the girl will stay here until she wants to leave. Is not that your mind, Ailie?' 'You have spoken what was in my own mind, Andrew.' Tilly, who was standing by, burst into tears, and clasping the mistress by the neck kissed her saying, 'I will serve you good.' She was the most grateful creature I ever met. Jabez stayed until after dinner, and, on leaving, promised to give us a hand when it was time to burn our brushpiles. Tilly made herself useful not only in our home but those of Brodie and Auld and proved to be a real help. * * * * * Jany 16--Thankful I can again bend my head without pain. The woods are a glorious sight. It snowed yesterday morning. Before dark the snow turned to rain, which froze as it fell, encrusting everything. On the sun coming out bright this morning the trees sparkled as if made of crystal and the branches of the evergreens hung in masses of radiant white. So Alice described them, and we all agreed a sight so beautiful we never saw. Jany 17--Robbie and Allan set off on snowshoes for a day's hunting and came back in the afternoon carrying a deer, which they had run down, being enabled to do so by the crust on the snow breaking under the poor animal's hoofs. There are more than men hunting deer. Last night we heard the wolves in full cry as they were chasing them. Jany. 21--Astonished by a visit from Mr and Mrs Bambray. They visited all the houses and seemed pleased by what they saw. Had a long talk with him about how the province is being governed. Mrs Bambray brought clothes for Tilly. The thaw we have had has lowered the snow, and chopping down trees has been going on. Jany 22--The day being moderate and the sleighing splendid drove to Toronto, the oxen going faster than a man could walk. Sought to see the minister, who accepted certificates of Ailie and myself. Sacrament is March 26. Jany. 25--Visited the farmer from whom I bought the steer. We had a hearty welcome. Ailie much taken with their stove and its oven, and curious about Canadian ways of housekeeping. Ruth was given a kitten. Jany 27--Great snowstorm. Jany 28--Quite mild this morning, a warm wind from the south. Snow melting. At noon there was a sudden change of the wind to the northwest, which rose to a tempest, overturning trees and making most doleful sounds as it swept through the woods, where it broke off branches by the thousand. Became piercingly cold. Such quick changes cannot be healthy. Jany 30--More snow with strong east wind. Feby. 9--After ten days of stormy weather, today is fine and bright. The snow is over three feet on the level. Impossible to work in the bush. Gordon is preparing for sugaring, making spouts and buckets. I have to get a kettle to make potash and will buy one now, for it will serve for boiling sap. Feby 14--Rain, snow sinking fast. Feby 18--Went with the three boys to Toronto and bought potash kettles. They cost $12. Feby 24--Sun is gaining strength and days are lengthening. Can see the snow wasting in the sun. In the shade, freezing hard. Are doing good work in the bush. Feby 26--Snowing thick and fast, but not cold. Feby 28--Sky without a cloud and mild. Gordon tapped a tree or two, but there was no sap. March 6--Roused by a hallo so hearty that nobody except Jabez could utter it. The fine weather had made him tired of the town and recalled the sugar-time of his youth. He picked out the maples to be tapped, those most sheltered and facing the sun, and quickly their bark was bored and spouts inserted. In the afternoon there was a fair run. By that time the large kettle had been slung and the fire started. It was a big play for the youngsters, and their shouting, when Jabez poured sap on the snow and it turned to candy, might have been heard a mile away. March 11--Jabez left, taking as part of his spoil a jar of syrup and a lot of cakes of sugar. Under his teaching Ailie quickly learned to sugar off, and did it over the kitchen fire in the biggest pot. Sent cakes as presents to Mrs Bambray and Mrs Dunlop. March 12--All tired after the week's sugar-making. Surprising what a quantity was made, due to the Aulds and Brodies helping, who got their share. March 18--Have had no sugar-weather this week; frosty with strong winds, and some snow. Allan, with help of Mr Auld, began hauling boards from sawmill, which we will need for barns. March 20--Gordon awakened us by shouting 'A sugar snow.' There had been a light shower of it during the night, and the air was soft. Holes were rebored and there was a fine run of sap. Likely the last, for there is now hard frost. March 25--Have made preparations for the sacrament. Weather has been fickle, sometimes snow, then rain, but always blowy with cold nights. March 26--Fair overhead but sleighing heavy. Got to Toronto in time and had a solemn and, I hope, a profitable season. Recalling past occasions, Ailie was much affected on taking the cup in her hand. She was anxious about there being no word from Scotland. Before leaving Toronto I went to the postmaster and got a letter. It was from her sister, whose husband had a rented farm at Lochwinnoch. They have decided to follow us to Canada, and ask that I look out a farm for them. They hope to have over a thousand dollars after paying their passage. When we got home Robbie's news was that he had seen a robin. March 27--Gladdened, when I woke to hear the sound of birds. The robin here is not the Scottish redbreast, being much larger and with a different note. People I spoke to at church yesterday said we are having an unusually late season. I am weary of the sight of the snow, which is now wasting in the sun. Heard frogs at a distance last night. The long winter is a serious offset to farming in Canada. April 3--Jabez with Sloot came this morning to start burning our fallow, and before dark we had made great progress. There is enough snow and ice left to make it easy for the oxen to haul logs. April 8--By ourselves once more; the burning and the making of potash finished yesterday. There is now clearance enough on all three lots to make sure of raising sufficient crop to keep us, so it will not be so much a work of life and death to keep at the felling of trees. Chopping them is most laborious, but burning them is worse--as much as flesh and blood can bear. The burning we had in the fall was to get a patch of land cleared for sowing. This time we were prepared to save the ashes. Gordon set up three leaches on the edge of the pond, and as the logs were burned the ashes were gathered and hauled by ox-sled to fill them. Ramming the ashes into the leaches as solid as possible and then pouring water upon them fell to me and the women, the men attending to the burning, the raking of the ashes together, and hauling them. After soaking all night, or longer, the leaches are tapped, when the lye runs into a trough, made by hollowing as big a pine as we could find. From the trough the lye is dipped into the kettle, under which a fierce fire had to be kept. As the lye boiled, the water in it passed off in clouds of steam, more lye being poured in to keep it full. By-and-by a sticky mass could be felt at the bottom of the kettle, which was ladled into cast iron coolers, and became solid. This is called black salts, is barreled, and shipped to Britain, where it is in great demand. The quantity of lye needed to make a hundred-weight of black-salts astonished me. I got ten cents a pound for what we made and that will keep us in provisions until we have our own wheat to take to mill. April 9--All glad of the Sabbath rest. Warm, the soft maples red with buds. April 15--Been busy all week, mostly in clearing and levelling the burned land for sowing. Sowed two bushels of oats this afternoon. Drying winds and a hot sun. April 20--The rain needed to start grain came last night. Moist and warm today with rapid growth. April 22--Planted potatoes. Ailie and Alice getting the garden stuff in. April 26--Wonderful growth; nothing like it in Scotland. There is no spring here; the jump is from winter to summer. Our bridle-path to Yonge-street is so soft that oxen cannot be put on it. Gordon goes back to Toronto on Monday to join the tradesman he was with in the fall, and who has sent for him. He will have to walk, for Yonge-street, I am told, is a chain of bog-holes. May 13--Have had changeable weather; rather too dry and a few cold nights. The standing bush keeps frost off the braird, which could not look better. Busy preparing logs for building barns; we are all working together. Three will be needed. Except for the ground logs we are using cedar, which is light to handle and easy to hew. Mrs Bambray sent a bundle of apple-trees and another of berry bushes. All planted and look as if they have rooted. June 3--Gordon along with Sloot came this evening to help in raising the barns. Planted corn today; an entirely new crop to us. The heads will be food for our table and the stalks the oxen are fond of. The winter-wheat is in the shot-blade. Went back to the swamp and found what had been plowed in fine shape. Seeded down with oats. I hope for a good return. June 14--Barns are finished. Much easier to build than were our shanties. Using block and tackle in hoisting was a great help. Wheat is beginning to color. Robbie saw a deer browsing in the oats, got his gun, and shot it. Deer flesh is dry any time but at this season is poor eating. Potatoes and corn have got their first hoeing. June 27--A dry hot spell. Scotland gets too much rain; Canada too little. Wheat is ripening too fast. It will be fit to cut on Monday. July 8--Wheat is safe; drying winds and a hot sun made it quickly fit to lead. In Scotland it might have been out three weeks before fit to stack. Fine quality and abundant yield. Will not need to buy more flour. July 12--Have had a plentiful rain that has saved the crops, for oats are filling. I answered my sister's letter at once, with directions how to come. Have spent any time I could spare in trying to find a lot for them. Gordon walked in this morning with a letter mailed from Greenock, stating they were to take ship that week. As they may be here next week must decide quickly on a home for them. July 15--Allan and myself have been on the trudge for three days, looking for a lot. Finally decided on one with a clearance of nearly ten acres and a shanty with an outbuilding. It is far north on Yonge-street, but all nearer Toronto were held at prices they could not afford. The owner leaves on account of sickness and sold the lot with its betterments and growing crop for $600. July 22--Left home on Monday to wait in Toronto for arrival of my brother-in-law and family. They came on the 19th, sound and hearty. As I had directed them, they took a ship for New York and thence by the Hudson and Erie canal to Oswego, where they got the steamer for Toronto. Thus they avoided the hardships of the St Lawrence route and saved a fortnight in time. Looking at the map, I can see New York is Toronto's nearest ocean port. The teams got started early in the afternoon, but the road was rough and the horses had to walk all the way. It was growing dark when we reached the shanty, from whose one window gleamed a light, and at the door were Ailie, Alice, and Robbie, who had spent two days cleaning and making the place as decent as possible. A table of boards, with benches at its side, was spread with supper. A joyous hour was cut short by the teamsters crying out horses were fed and they were ready to return. They dropped us at the end of our lane. July 26--Finished cutting the oats on the swamp while green and stacked them. There is a fair catch of grass. Aug. 4--All the grain is ripe; cutting is slow on account of the stumps. Today there were four of us busy with the hook. Oats are not as plump as in Scotland; they fill too quickly. CHAPTER IX. THE AFTER YEARS Further extracts from the master's diary would not help the story I am telling you, for it becomes such a record as many farmers keep,--when they sowed and reaped, what they sold and bought. Having completed the account of his first year's experience in the bush for his friend in Scotland, he ceased noting down his daily happenings, which for him no longer had the interest of novelty. The forest had been sufficiently subdued to enable him to gain a living from the land, and his life partook more and more of the routine of Canadian farmers. He was, however, much more successful than the majority of them, due to his energy and skill. His first decided start was due to the existence of that swamp whose discovery filled him with dismay. The forage he got off it enabled him to start keeping stock long before he otherwise could have done. In the fall of 1826 he bought a cow and a couple of two-year old heifers, and the following spring there was enough milk to enable the mistress to make a few cheese. These gave the farm a reputation which established a steady demand at a paying price. More cows were got, no grain was sold, everything was fed, and the master, with the help of the mistress, led in dairying. In Ayrshire she had the name of making the best cheese in the parish and her skill stood the family in good stead in Canada. That second summer the entire swamp was brought into cultivation, and it proved to be the best land on the farm for grass. When other pastures were dried up, cattle had a bite on the swamp, for so it continued to be called long after it had lost all the features of a swamp. The clearing of the forest went on steadily, so that each fall saw a larger yield of grain and roots. In the fifth year the master was rejoiced to find many of the stumps could be dragged out by oxen, and a field secured on which he could use the long-handled plow as in Scotland. An unlooked for result of the draining of the swamp and the sweeping away of the forest in every direction was the gradual drying up of the pond. A more striking instance was told me by a settler who was led to choose a lot near lake Simcoe on account of a brook prattling across it and which reminded him of Scotland. In twenty years the brook was gone, the plow turning furrows on its bed. The one great drawback to the progress of the three families was the lack of a road to Yonge-street. In winter there was little difficulty for then snow made a highway, but the rest of the year no wheeled vehicle could go over it. At one of the sessions of the legislature, when the estimates for roads and bridges was up, the owner of the 1200 acre block of land that was the cause of our trouble, made a pathetic appeal for a grant to give an outlet to three of the thriftiest and most deserving families he had any acquaintance with, and his appeal resulted in a hundred dollars being voted. Two years later, on being questioned by the master about the grant, the honorable gentleman (for he had Hon. before his name) told him he had drawn the money but there was no condition as to the time he should start the work. In 1830 there set in an unprecedented influx of immigrants, who wanted land. The honorable gentleman saw his opportunity and sold every acre of the 1200. Those who bought had to cut out the road, and making it passable for travel was hard work for years, on account of the size of the stumps and of many parts having to be corduroyed. With the coming of these new neighbors, a school became necessary and in it services were held on Sunday. The master sought the help of a Presbyterian minister in Toronto. He came once; on finding how rude everything was, he declined to return. A North of Ireland family was no more successful with an Anglican minister. He had newly come out from a cathedral city in the south of England and was shocked to find the log school had not a robing-room. The end was that a Methodist circuit-rider took in our settlement in his rounds, which resulted in a majority of those who attended his services uniting with the Methodist church. The ministers who came from the Old Country in those early days were singularly unfit for new settlements. The Anglican on landing assumed he was the only duly accredited clergyman, and was offended at his claim being slighted, while his feelings were jarred by the lack of conditions he considered essential to the proper conducting of worship. The Presbyterian ministers were more amenable to the changes, yet their ideals were of the parishes they had known in Scotland--a church, a manse, a glebe, tiends, and a titled patron. The effects of State established churches in the Old Land were thus felt in the backwoods, which was shown more markedly in the strife to reproduce State churches in Canada. I look back with distress to the bitter controversy which went on from year to year over the possession of the revenue from the clergy reserves. The cause of strife was not altogether the money, but the proof of superiority the possession of the fund would give. With many it was as much pride as covetousness. When we recall the energy that characterized the agitation over the clergy reserves, I think of what the same effort would have accomplished had it been directed to evangelize the province. Another agitation, less prolonged but fiercer while it lasted, was that which reached its head in the rebellion year. As was unavoidable, the rule of the province on its being organized, fell into the hands of the people who first came. They divided its public offices among themselves and managed its affairs. In time these first-comers were outnumbered by immigrants, but there was no change--the first-comers held to the reins. Had they used their power in the public interest, that would have been submitted to, but they did not--they abused their power for their own interests. They multiplied offices, increased salaries, grabbed the public lands, and laid the foundation of a national debt by borrowing money. There were instances of stealing of public funds, with no punishment following. Farmers became restless under an iniquitous administration of public lands. The discontent, which was as wide as the province, was taken advantage of by men who designed Canada should become a republic, and began an agitation to bring that about. Men, like the master, who ardently wished reforms, were repelled when they found the main object of the leaders of the agitation was the separation of Canada from Britain and would have nothing to do with them. The first time the master met Mackenzie he took a dislike to him, perceiving his overweening vanity, his habit of contradiction, and his lack of judgment. He said he was a specimen of the unpleasant type of Scot who meddled and denounced to attract attention and make himself of consequence. When he saw him shaping a rebellion he declared it would be a ridiculous failure, that no such whitrick of a creature could lead in the people's cause. There were grievous wrongs to be righted, but he held the advocacy of the changes called for by such men as Mackenzie was a hindrance instead of a help to their being secured. Brodie's oldest son was somewhat conceited, and had come to believe he was born to be something else than a farmer. I think the isolation of farm life conduces to develop that notion. The boy brought little in contact with his fellows, does not have his pretensions rubbed down, and comes to think he is superior to them. I have seen many such, who thinking they were business men, or would shine in some public capacity, or were fitted to adorn a profession, made shipwreck of their lives in leaving the plow. Hugh was one of those. A good fellow and a good worker with his father, he began by frequenting corner-stores at night and before long considered himself an authority in politics and was ready to argue in a long-winded and dreary fashion with any who disputed his crude assertions. Taken notice of by leaders in the agitation going on, appointed to committees and consulted as to plans on foot, he became carried away and neglected his home duties. When the explosion took place in December, 1837, he was one of those who met at Montgomery's tavern. A decisive blow could have been struck had the men there gathered marched to Toronto and seized the guns stored in the city hall. There was no man to take the lead. Mackenzie vapored and complained of others, formed plans one hour to change the next, and demonstrated the weakness of his shallow nature. Seeing this, farmers sincerely desirous of a change in the rule of the province, left for their homes, and the handful left were routed without trouble. Hugh was among those made prisoners and placed in Toronto jail. His father was in great distress and implored me to help to get him released. My stay in Toronto had given a knowledge of its officials and I told him if he was willing to pay it might be done. We went to the home of the prosecutor for the crown. The father told his tale and, in piteous terms, begged the return of his son to his distracted mother. Perceiving what he said had no effect, I took the gentleman aside and told him the father might give cash bail. 'How much is he ready to deposit?' was asked. I thought he had $25 in his pocket. 'Not enough,' he replied. 'The lad can be indicted for treason which means hanging.' 'You cannot get evidence against him on that charge. Say what you want?' Turning to Brodie he said if he would deposit ten pounds, and enter into the proper recognizances he would give him an order to the jailor for his son's release. Without a word of demur the father counted out $40 of his painfully gathered savings and the chancellor scribbled the order. On reaching the prison the jailor raised objections. It was now dark and after hours and the lad had been boarded four days and the fees of the constables who had arrested him had to be paid. I cut him short by asking 'How much?' The fellow eyed the father as if calculating the extent of his ability to pay. 'Two pound ten,' he said. 'Nonsense,' I replied, 'farmers have not that much money to give away; say one pound ten and I will advance it for him.' He nodded and I passed the money. Going upstairs he threw open a door, and we saw in the hall, or rather corridor, a crowd of men. They were silent with the exception of one who was denouncing his being held as an outrage, for he was as loyal as the governor himself. The rest of them were enduring their condition in sullen silence. Among them were industrious farmers who had warrants issued against them because they had been known to threaten officials in the land-office for not getting patents for the lots they had paid for, farmers arrested on informations lodged by men who owed them, others by officials who expected to share in their property when confiscated, and barroom politicians who had expressed their opinions too freely about those in power. A few, however, were thoughtless young fellows who had been drawn to visit Montgomery's tavern from mere curiosity and love of excitement. The room was lighted dimly by two lamps hung on the walls; the heat was stifling, the odor sickening. We looked among the throng for Hugh. His father pulled my sleeve and pointed to a far corner, where he was squat on the floor with his face to the wall in the stupor of despair. The jailer jostled his way to him, and grasped his collar. Hugh turned his face in agonized apprehension of his fate, for he told us afterwards he expected to be hanged, and that he was wanted. Dragging him to where we stood the poor fellow collapsed at sight of his father and fell on his neck. Hastening downstairs the jailer opened the wicket and we were on the street. Hugh was dazed when he saw the jailer did not follow 'Where are we going, father?' 'Going home.' 'Have I not to go back to prison?' 'No, you are free.' Hugh broke down and cried. 'We will have supper and then we will hitch up.' 'No, no,' sobbed Hugh, 'let us go home now.' On shaking hands with them as the horse started, I saw poor Hugh was thuroly humbled and penitent. It was not for a brief time, for on going home he proved what his boyhood had promised, an obedient son and steady worker. 'He never has now a word of complaint about what is set on the table,' whispered his mother to me. This ridiculous attempt at a revolution had one good and one bad effect. The good, was a change in the government that made conditions more tolerable; the bad, was in giving color to fastening upon Liberals the stigma of disloyalty. The leaders in the attempted rising had declared for separation from Britain, and those of them who escaped across the frontier became avowed annexationists. What they were the Tories asserted all Liberals were and the maintenance of British connection depended upon their being kept out of office. The many years that have passed have made that pretension traditional, and whenever there is an election, I hear the charge of disloyalty imputed to Liberals and the claim to exclusive loyalty made by their opponents. The passing years have wrought a marvellous change in the face of the country. Our drive up Yonge-street in 1825 was like a boat tracing a narrow channel of the sea. On either hand was a continuous wall of forest, and where an attempt had been made to push it back the uncarved bush projected like rocky promontories. The houses passed at wide intervals were shanties; the clearances in which they were set cluttered with stumps. How different now. Handsome residences have replaced the log-shanties, the bush has become a graceful fringe in the background of smooth, well-tilled fields. Like the ocean which keeps no trace of the keels that have furrowed its wastes, these beautiful fields are the speechless bequest of the men and women who redeemed them from savagery at the cost of painful privations, of exhausting, never ceasing toil, of premature decay of strength. They fought and overcame and succeeding generations enjoy the fruits of their labors--fruits they barely lived to taste. These were the men and women who made Canada, the founders of its prosperity, the true Makers of the nation to which it has grown. It is common for politicians and their newspapers to steal for their party-idols credit to which they have no claim, by styling them the Makers of Canada, but no suppression of facts, no titles the crown is misled to confer, no Windsor uniforms, no strutting in swords and cocked hats, no declarations and resolutions of parliament, no blare of party conventions, no lies graven on marble, nor statues of bronze, can change the truth, that the True Makers of Canada were those who, in obscurity and poverty, made it with ax and spade, with plow and scythe, with sweat of face and strength of arm. I would not imply that being first is necessarily a merit in itself. There must be a beginning to everything and to magnify the man who felled the first tree or reared the first shanty is no honor if unaccompanied by moral worth. I have seen many townships come into existence and have known the men who first went into them, and my sorrow is, that so few of them are worthy of remembrance. Recognizing this, I pay no honor to a man who boasts he was the first to do this or that, and who, though first, threw away his opportunity to benefit himself and those who followed. I am tired of men who posture as pioneers and founders and who have nothing else to claim. Unless they also had moral worth, strove to give the right tone to the settlement of which, by accident, they started, they are not deserving of more than passing notice. Scores of times I have been struck by the differences in settlements, how one is thrifty, and its neighbor shiftless; one sending into the world young men and women of intelligence and high aspiration; the other coarse people who gravitate downward. If a first settler is of sterling character he moulds the community that gathers around him and he deserves honor, but the first settler of gross habits it is well to forget. The government that tries to make a selection among those who seek its land acts wisely in the interest of coming generations. To give land to all who ask it, regardless of what they are, will indeed till the country, but will be of no benefit in the long run. I know of townships where laziness, ignorance, prejudice, and gross habits prevail to such a degree that it would have been better had the land remained in bush. The bullet strikes as the rifle is pointed, and Canada has never aimed to secure the best people as settlers. We need population, has been the cry, get it and never mind of what quality it is. What is more blamable, our legislature does not even try to secure settlers who will assimilate. Business called me to a township one summer where few of the settlers knew a word of English. Is that the way to build up Canada as British? Nature has designed Canada as an agricultural country and such it must remain. It will prosper as its farmers prosper, and languish when they are not doing well. It follows their welfare should be the first consideration, and a mistake will be made if the fact is not recognized when they work under unfavorable conditions. The farmer in the Old Country can plow every month in the year and his flocks and herds only need supplementary rations to keep them in condition. How different it is here, where winter locks the soil in iron bonds half the year and animals must be fed from October to May. What our farmers raise in six months is consumed in the other six, so that their labor half the year is to store up food for the other half. The result is, that the earnings of our farmers are less than half of what they would be had we England's climate. The public man who argues that because the Old Country farmer can pay heavy rent to his landlord, bear the burden of severe taxation, and yet make a living, the Canadian farmer should be able to do likewise, shuts his eyes to the kind of winter he has to fight against. That winter cuts his earnings more than half, for, during the months the land is frozen he is unable to do any kind of profitable farm work, indeed has spells of enforced idleness. The Old Country farmer can keep hired help the year round, for he has employment for them; the Canadian farmer needs extra hands only during summer. The result is that his margin of profits is so narrow that he can never pay such taxes as are collected from the agricultural class in England. When public burdens draw on his income to the extent that he is not left a living profit, the Anglo-Saxon will leave the land to be occupied by an unenterprising class of people who are content to vegetate, not to live. The pre-eminent essential in Canada's policy is to make farming profitable and keep it so. While the statement, that agriculture is the foundation of Canada's life, is so often repeated that it has become a commonplace remark, is it not extraordinary that none of its public men since Simcoe's day have acted upon it? With the words on their lips, Canada rests upon the farmer, it would be expected the welfare of the farmer would be their solicitous concern. In the first element of agricultural prosperity, the settlement of the land, they have kept back the progress of the country by bestowing it, not on the men ready and anxious to cultivate it, but upon individuals and companies who expect to make a profit by reselling to the actual settler. By making the land a commodity to buy political support, the settlement of the country has been kept back. The rule, that the land be given only to those who will live upon it and crop it, would have saved heartbreak to thousands of willing men who came to our shores asking liberty to till its soil, and would have placed an occupant on every lot fit to yield a living. The individuals and companies who have been given grants of blocks of land under the pretence that they would settle them, have been blights on the progress of the country. As to the danger of taxation increasing to a degree that will make the working of the land unattractive to the intelligent and enterprising, that menace comes from two classes--the projectors of public works who agitate for them from self-interest, and from those who have raised a clamor to encourage manufacturers by giving them bonuses in the form of protective duties. Should a levy ever be made on the earnings of the farmer to help a favored class, there will be a leaving of the land for other countries and for better-paying occupations. My desire is, to see Canada a land where every man who wishes may own a part of God's footstool and, by industry, secure a decent living. Surely it is a patriotic duty to make Canada a nation where toil and thrift fetch the reward of independence, a nation without beggars or of men willing to work and cannot get it, a nation of happy homes where there is neither wealth nor luxury but enough of the world's means to ensure comfort and to develop in its men and women what is best in human nature. CHAPTER X. PARTING WITH OLD FRIENDS My story of how I came to Canada and how the family which made me one of their number got on in its backwoods has taken a long time to tell, yet I must lengthen it to make known what became of some of the people mentioned in the course of it. Tilly remained with us a year, when she went to live with the Bambrays, who needed her help. When they, later on, decided to end their days in their native town, Huddersfield, she went with them to England. Once a year a letter came from Mr Bambray, with a long postscript by Tilly, overflowing with good wishes, and in each letter was a draft to help escaped slaves get a fresh start in life. The worthy couple died several years ago, making Tilly their chief legatee. She married a man for whom she described herself as unworthy and who makes her happy every day. When Ruth married she sent her a gift of $250 to furnish her house. Ruth's husband is a capable farmer, who is doing well. They are an evenly matched team, pulling together and happy in each other. When Robbie came of age the master divided his farm equally between his two sons, and bought for himself six acres fronting Yonge-street. On this he built a commodious house and a large greenhouse, for he designed carrying on market-gardening. In an excavation deep enough to be below the frost line the greenhouse was built, and there were other devices to do with as little stove-heat as possible. Sloot, who had been left a widower, and having no family, became the hired man and made his home for the remainder of his life with the master and mistress, to whom he was deeply attached. Twice a week he drove to market the produce that was for sale, and though occupation not beyond their strength was their purpose, remarkable profits were made off these six acres. The mistress was happy in tending the greenhouse and flower-beds, and in entertaining visitors, for they had many apart from their own children and grand-children. They were honored far and wide and a drive to their house, which they named Heatherbell cottage, to have a chat and get a bouquet was a common recreation with many Torontonians. Of your mother I need not speak; you know how happy we are in each other. We never had any courtship--our lives from the first sight of her when I ventured to seek shelter in her father's house on that rainy day has been one long dwelling in each other's affections. As trees strengthen with years, our attachment has grown deeper and purer. Just as soon as I made my footing good in Toronto, our marriage took place. Lovers before the ceremony we are lovers still. Ah, my dear lassie, do not think love is a brief fever of youth--a transient emotion that fades before the realities of wedded life like the glow from a cloud at morn. Where love is of the true quality, it becomes purer and tenderer with the passing years. Death may interrupt, but cannot end such affection as ours. Love is eternal. With Mr Kerr I kept up the exchange of letters he asked, and the information and advice his contained have helped to shape my character and opinions. The year after his arrival he started in business for himself and prospered. His wife is the girl whom he was courting when he fled from Greenock. Our visits to them are delightful memories and you know how we enjoy their sojourns with us. Jabez also became a Montrealer. The business of himself and brothers as carters naturally merged into forwarders. As trade grew it was found needful one should be in Montreal, and Jabez went. Levelheaded and full of resource he soon came to the front in the shipping-trade. With Mr Snellgrove we had an unlooked for encounter. The master was on a visit to us at Toronto. On reading notices of a meeting to be held in favor of Protection and of the government issuing paper currency instead of gold, we decided to attend. The first speaker was Isaac Buchanan, who deluged us with figures about Bullionism and the balance of trade. We were relieved when he ended. Then a college professor read a paper on the Co-relation of Great Britain and her Colonies. It was difficult to follow him. He was one of those theoretical men who think forms of government and names can make a country great. We started with astonishment on the chairman saying he had pleasure in introducing Mr Snellgrove as the next speaker. It was he sure enough, older but still spruce, and resplendent in full evening dress. He did not touch on currency, but confined himself to advocating a protective tariff so high that it would shut out foreign goods. That would enable manufacturers to establish themselves in Canada, and instead of a stream of gold going to Britain and the United States the money would be spent for goods made in Canada. See what a rich country we would become if we kept our money here, he said; our great lack is capital to develop our immense resources. We had the capital in our own hands but, blind to our own interests, sent it away to Great Britain or, what was worse, to the United States to build up a country that was hostile to us. Like the Gulf Stream, which sweeping through the Atlantic enriches every country it touches, he would have a golden circuit established in Canada--the farmers would sell to the manufacturers and the money paid them would continue to flow backward and forward to the enrichment of both. The flowing of gold from our midst would be stopped, and the farmers, with a home-market for all they could raise, would become rich and view with delight factories rising on every hand. All this could be accomplished by enacting a judiciously-framed tariff and delay in doing so was not only keeping Canada poor but endangering her future as a British dependency. Applause followed Mr Snellgrove's sitting down, and the chairman praised him as a gentleman who had carefully thought out his proposals, which commended themselves to every patriotic mind. We wanted diversity of occupation and retention of the earnings of the farmers in Canada; here was a method of effecting both these desirable ends. The master got on his feet and begged permission to be heard in reply. He was invited to the platform and, with his usual directness and force, at once assailed what Mr Snellgrove had advanced. He says, let us have a law that will compel us to cease buying goods abroad, for thereby the money now sent away will be kept in Canada. What right has any government to pass such a law? With the money I get for my wheat may I not buy what I need where I see fit? Such an arbitrary law as he pleads for would undoubtedly help the manufacturer, but would it help me, who am a farmer? The question I ask, is not will the money stay in Canada, but will the money I have justly earned stay in my pocket? I will be none the richer if the money goes into the pocket of the owner of a factory. In the Old Country the farmers carry the aristocracy who own the land on their backs, are the laws of Canada to be so shaped that the farmers here are to carry the manufacturers? It may not be plain to you city gentlemen, but it is to me, that under the system you have heard advocated, factories would increase and their owners grow rich while the farmers would become poor, for they would have to pay more than they now do for the goods necessity makes them buy. My family needs about $300 worth of store-goods in a year. That is what I pay now. Under Protection these same goods would cost me $400, perhaps more. The Canadian manufacturers would be the richer by the hundred extra dollars I would pay, and I would be the poorer by a hundred dollars. The point at issue, is not keeping money in the country, but of keeping it in the pockets of the men who first earned it by cultivating the soil. Canada is a farming country and always will be, and taxing each farmer's family on an average of say a hundred dollars a year is going to discourage the farmer. Let every tub stand on its own bottom. If any commodity can be made in Canada at a profit under present conditions, I wish all success to the man who undertakes to make that commodity, but to tax me to give the man a bonus to do so is to rob me of my honest earnings. We have been told we want more population. Yes, if it be of the right kind, of people who will go, as I did, into the bush and carve out farms. These will add to our strength, but hordes drawn from cities who cannot and will not take to the plow, will prove in the long run a weakness. If you knew the poverty and misery that exists among the factory operatives of the Old World you would not entertain a project to bribe them to come here and reproduce the same conditions. Today you have not a beggar on Toronto's streets; adopt Protection and you will have thousands of paupers. This is a new country and our aim should be to make it one where honest industry can find a sure reward in its forests and not be creating factories by artificial means. As an Old Countryman, I take exception to the land I came from being treated as foreign and a ban placed on the goods it has to export. When I go into a store I like to think what I am buying is helping those I left behind, and when I pay for the cloth and other goods they made, do they not in return buy the grain, the butter and cheese, and the pork I have to sell? I protest against our government abusing its power to tax the farmers to benefit the manufacturers. That is tyranny, and when farmers understand that Protection is one of the meanest forms of despotism, they will revolt. This must be a free country, with no favor shown to any class. We saw gentlemen on the platform urging the chairman to stop the master; he seemed reluctant to make a scene. Finally he did pull him down, stating he was not speaking to the subject before the meeting. The best reply to the disloyal outpouring to which they had listened he considered was contemptuous silence. After votes of thanks the meeting ended. The master advanced towards Mr Snellgrove to renew his acquaintance. Mr Snellgrove turned his back upon him and left with a group of gentlemen. I learned he held a government office. I have a more unexpected meeting to relate. The sixth year after my marriage, it had been arranged Christmas should be celebrated at Allan's and New Year's at the master's. We had been looking for what people in Scotland dread, a Green Yule, for the ground was bare. When we rose the morning before Christmas we were pleased to see it white, and a gentle sifting of snow falling. Allan came for us early in the afternoon and we filled his big sleigh with children and parcels. We had just got into the house when the clouds lowered and it became suddenly dark. You have seen in summer a gentle rain prevail, until, all at once, a plump came that covered the ground with streams of water. Once in a number of years the like happens with snow, and a gentle fall turns into a smothering stream of snowflakes. In an hour the ground was so cumbered that it reached to the knees of those who ventured out. Supper was over and the romping of the children was in full swing when Robbie cried he thought he heard somebody shouting outside. There was a pause in the merriment as he flung open the door. The snow had ceased to fall and the air was calm and soft. A black object was seen on the road to the left, from which came cries for help. Allan and Robbie dashed into the snow and struggled through it. We watched them but it was too dark to see what they did on reaching the road. Our suspense was ended on seeing them returning with a stranger, and leading a horse. Robbie took the horse to the stable; Allan and the stranger, covered with snow entered. After brushing him and taking off his wraps the stranger stood before us, a good-looking man past middle life. He explained he had left home that morning for Toronto, his chief errand to get the supplies and presents the lack of sleighing had hindered his going for sooner. Overtaken by the unlooked for downfall, he had halted at a tavern undecided what to do. The barroom was crowded. A man told him, on hearing where he was going, if he took the first turn to his left, he would find a road that would be passable, for it was sheltered by bush. Anxious to get home, and the tavern accommodation not inviting, he had, after watering his horse, started anew. Half an hour or so later, while pushing slowly along, a runner of his cutter had struck some obstacle, the horse plunged forward, tipping the rig. On getting on his feet, on lifting the cutter, he found a runner had been wrenched off, and there he was helpless. Seeing the lights of our house, he shouted, and, for a long time, he thought in vain. While he was speaking, my memory was groping to place a voice that seemed an echo of one I had heard in the past. I looked at the face, but in the firm-set features that told of wrestling with the world, I found no aid. It was not until the house-colley went up to sniff at him and he stooped to pat its head that it flashed on me the stranger was the shepherd-lad who had befriended me in my weary tramp across Ayrshire. Facing him, I said, 'Is not your name Archie?' 'It is,' he replied, looking surprised. 'And do you not remember the ragged boy your dog found under a bush, how you shared your bite with him; how we sat under your plaid and read the bible and heard each other the questions?' As I spoke I could tell by his face his memory too was at work. 'Yes, yes,' he exclaimed, 'it all comes back to me, and you are curly-headed Gordon Sellar.' Had we been of any other race the right thing to do would have been to have fallen into each other arms, but seeing we were undemonstrative Scots we gripped hands though I could not hold back the tears of gratitude on seeing the man who had been so kind to me. His coming was no damper to the evening's joy. He made himself at home at once, and before he was ten minutes among us the children were clambering over him, for he had joined them in their play. He was the same free-hearted, easily-pleased lad I had known. When, late in the evening, I took him to his room, we had a long talk, and the fire of friendship kindled on the Ayrshire braeside burned again. We had breakfast together long before daylight, for he was anxious to get home. It had been settled Allan would lend his team and long sleigh, and that I drive. The sound of sleighbells brought us to our feet, and at the door was the sleigh with the broken cutter piled into it with all the parcels that had been picked out of the snow, and tied to the seat was Archie's mare. I hesitated leaving Alice on such a day, but she insisted I must go with my friend. It was not a long drive but it was a slow one. I turned back into Yonge street, where there would be a track broken, and kept on it until we reached the corner to turn westward. We halted an hour at the corner-tavern to feed and rest the horses, which could not have made the headway they were making had they not been a noble team, Allan's pride. The way, however, was not long to us, for we had much to talk about. Archie narrated his past life, and, curious about mine, I had to tell him my simple story. Reserve there was none. Once again we were boys, rejoicing in each other, and warming to one another as true friends do in exchanging their inmost confidences. I will not relate what he told, for I will weave into his narrative what I got afterwards from his sister and his father and mother, and present it in connected form. We were passing down a concession, which had every indication of being a prosperous settlement, when Archie pointed to a brick house in the far-distance as his. On drawing near we found its inmates had been on the watch, for tumbling through the snow came four children, who clambered in beside us, rejoiced to see their father and anxious to know what he had brought for them. On reaching, at last, the house there was gathered at the door the two oldest of the family, a fine-looking girl and a tall lad, with the mother, and behind them an aged couple. A hired man took the team, but the mare, looking to the lad at the door, whinnied. He jumped forward and led her to her stall. 'That is his pony,' remarked Archie. What a scene of rejoicing on that day of joy the world over! Mrs Craig, to give her name, told how they had waited the night before for the coming of Archie until the younger members fell asleep in their chairs, how they had kept supper warm, and how, not until two in the morning, they had gone to bed, convinced he had stayed overnight somewhere on the road, for the possibility of misadventure they would not admit The forenoon had been of more anxious waiting, for as time slipped they began to dread an accident had befallen him. To have him back safe, and the parcels safe, was perfect joy, and the two youngest darted from the house to try the sleds Santa Claus had sent them by their father. Mrs Craig, a tidy purpose-like woman, was profuse in thanks to me for helping her husband. Archie's father and mother struck me, at the first glance, as the finest old couple my eyes had ever rested upon. He was tall and rugged in frame, as became an old shepherd, but his face was a benediction--so calm, so composed, such a look of perfect content. His companion recalled grannie, only more alert. Burns might have taken them as models for his song, John Anderson, my jo. As the sun was setting there was a shout of 'Auntie,' and the youngsters bounded down the long lane to meet a sleigh that was dragging its way through snow as high as the box. Auntie was Archie's sister--like him yet unlike, the same features of softer mould, lighted up with merry smiles that told of a happy heart. And there were children with her, and her husband, a stout hearty man with a loud voice. Sleigh after sleigh drove up the lane, each hailed with shouting and laughter, for each one brought not only the elders of the household but their children. What a shaking of hands and interchange of good wishes there was, and then came supper. There were over fifty guests, but there was ample preparation in the big back kitchen, where supper was served. When all had enough, including the dogs and Maisie's pussies, the older folk moved to the front room. In a jiffy dishes and temporary tables disappeared in that big back kitchen, and the youngsters began their games. By-and-by a fiddle was heard, and I am afraid there was dancing. We had a happy evening. Two-handed cracks, stories, jokes, songs, made the time pass too quickly. It was a novelty to me that all the guests were either Irish or English; fine people, intelligent, wide-awake as to the necessity of advancing and making improvements. Plates of apples and fruit cake appearing notified the time for parting had come, and in more than one mother's arms rested a little one who had crept in from the big kitchen too sleepy to remain longer. In shaking hands with my new-found acquaintances, they all pled with me to pay them a visit. Before I fell asleep, I thought of what a fine yeomanry dwelt in the settlement, and the misfortune it would be if, by any legislative mis-step, they were constrained to leave the farm. Next morning I had, of course, to visit the stables and see the live-stock, and to judge as far as was possible, with two feet of snow resting upon it, of the farm and its surroundings. Every detail told of a capable and energetic farmer, who knew a good horse and the best use that could be made of pig and cow. There were no loose ends, everything was in its place and in the best of order. The hour I was left alone with Archie's father and mother was as refreshing as a breeze from Scotia's heath-clad hills. On asking grannie whether Mirren and Archie were her only children she answered, 'There are two biding with the Lord.' After listening to what they told me of how they came to Canada, of what Mirren and Archie had done for them, my heart swelled in thanking God that filial piety still cast luster on humanity. After an early dinner I left and reached Allan's in time to share in the after-feast of the fragments of Christmas good things. Many a visit I have since that day paid to Archie, and many he has to me. It may be that neither of us having a brother we crept so close together that we are supremely happy in each others company even if we utter not a word. CHAPTER XI. MIRREN AND ARCHIE A shepherd's wage is small, and grows smaller as age creeps on. The young and active get the preference and the old have to take a lower fee at each hiring fair to secure employment. That was the experience of Archie's father. At the best, it had been only with thrift ends could be got to meet, but as he aged it was a struggle. The children had to help. Archie hired with a farmer and in time rose to be ploughman; Mirren after learning to be a dressmaker, found to be in service was preferable. What they could spare of their earnings it was their pride to give in order to keep a home for their parents. While still a boy Archie had shaped in his little head a plan of going to Canada, where there was a possibility of becoming independent, and had begun early to try and save enough to take him across the Atlantic. He had fixed on $50 as the sum he must have, but found, with all the self-denial he could exercise, difficult to scrape together. Emergencies arose that required his breaking in on his little hoard of savings, and spring after spring he was disappointed in being unable to sail. His sister encouraged him. Like him, she was determined to break with the conditions that bound them in the chain of poverty. On Sunday afternoons, when they met, their talk was of the future that awaited them across the sea. It was not for themselves they planned and saved. Their ambition was to give a comfortable home to their parents, for they foresaw that, unless Archie carved a farm out of the Canadian bush, they would end in becoming a charge to the parish, which was revolting to them and which they knew would break their parents' hearts. Of all misfortunes that can overtake them, to the independent-minded Scot the acceptance of poor relief is the lowest degradation conceivable. It was in the month of March, the time when ships were getting ready for the St Lawrence, that brother and sister had an anxious consultation. Archie had $40. Would he venture to go on that amount? The risk of longer delay, the doubt if another twelvemonth would increase the sum, were considered. Archie was for risking all--he wanted to end their suspense. 'Go,' replied the sister, 'father might not be able to stand the voyage if we waited two years more,' and so it was settled. While Archie had been scraping together the money needed for his passage, his mother and sister had been doing what they could to provide his outfit. The mother span and knitted stockings, a chest was got, and shirts and other clothing cut and sewed. To eke out the ship-rations provisions must be had, and in this neighbors helped--the wife of the farmer he worked for presented him with a cheese, she called it a kebbuck, and his father's master insisted on his accepting two stone of meal, part of which was baked into oatcakes. The step Archie was to take was not only serious but dangerous, for many ships in those days were wrecked, a few never heard of, and the fear that he might not reach Canada oppressed those who bade him good-by. The morning he left was trying. He kept a cheery countenance and was profuse in his expressions of confidence of success and that before long they would be re-united. The father, sternly repressing his emotions in parting with his only son, wrung his hand. 'When I am on the hillside alone with the yowes I will be praying God may be with you--when you are in the bush, will you not be praying for us?' 'That I will, father.' 'Then,' said the old man, 'though the ocean roll between us we will be united in spirit.' Taking his watch out of his pocket, the father held it out. 'No, no,' said Archie, 'I cannot take your watch.' 'You must take it; my companion for many a year it will cheer you in the woods, and keep you in mind of the promise you have just made.' The sister went with him to the turn of the road. She treasured his last words and they were her comfort. 'Mirren, I have covenanted with God, that I will never forget our father and mother and will do all that in me lies to help and comfort them.' He strode on his way to Greenock, whither his chest had gone by the carrier. The ship made a good voyage and in time he got to Toronto, where, with some trouble, he was given a location-ticket for a lot. Bargaining with a teamster who was taking a load to a settlement in the neighborhood of his lot, to leave his chest on his way, he started on foot. It was well he did, for from what he saw on the road he learnt much of what settlers have to do. He watched the chopping of trees, the making of potash, the hoeing in of the first crop, and the building of shanties, for in succession he came upon settlers engaged in all these operations, and he was not backward in asking questions, or slow in observing. The afternoon of the second day he reached where the local land-agent lived. There was a small gristmill, a sawmill, a blacksmith shop, an ashery and half a dozen houses, all rudely built, planted in a surrounding of stumps, with the bush encircling all. Asking at the largest shanty for Mr Magarth, the woman he spoke to pointed to a man, bareheaded and in his shirtsleeves, piling boards. On hearing his business Magarth said, 'You're the man whose chest was left here yesterday. Well, it is too late in the day to show you what lot you have been given. Can you count?' On being told he could, Magarth got a shingle and a piece of chalk and told him to mark down as he called out the measurements of the boards. On finishing the pile, Archie reported the number of feet. 'Just what I guessed,' said Magarth, 'now come with me.' He led to the door of an extension at the end of his house, which Archie saw was a primitive shop, there being, in a confused heap, everything settlers could call for. Explaining his daughter who kept his books was on a visit to Toronto, he handed Archie an account-book and asked him to write down the entries he would call off. Seated on an empty box and smoking, Magarth recalled all the transactions since the last entry on the book, which Archie set down, astonished at the accuracy of the memory of the man, who gave dates, names, and quantities with as much ease as if reading them from a list before him. This done, he got him to fill out his report to the crown lands department, to write several letters to the firms he dealt with in Toronto, and one to his daughter, which was original in matter and expression. Archie recognized the shrewdness and ability of this unlettered man, who carried on with ease several lines of business in addition to his farm. After supper he made Archie sit beside him and asked if he would not give up his notion of taking up land and hire with him. Finding he was determined to have a home of his own, Magarth gave him much advice as to how he should begin, not concealing, on learning he had only a few dollars, that he was sure he would fail. After breakfast Magarth told him what he could not do without, and laid in a bundle an ax, a saw, a spokeshave, an auger, a hammer, nails, and would have added a grindstone had there been any way of carrying it. 'You'll have to come out to us when your ax needs grinding.' In a pail he put some flour, peas, and a lump of pork, tying a frying-pan to the handle. 'But I have not money enough to pay for all this,' said Archie. 'I know you haven't,' was the reply, 'you are to pay me in ashes.' Sending a man with him to point out the lot, and to stay long enough to help to raise a shelter, Archie started. Their way lay across the country, through a dense forest, for the concession his lot was on lay to the north and no side road had been opened to it. His guide, whose name was Dennis, had his ax over his shoulder and blazed the trees as they tramped on their way. Archie wondered why he should have been given a lot so far back when they were going over so much land that was unoccupied. Finally Dennis halted, and, after a little searching for surveyor's posts, which were not hard to find, for the concession had been laid out within a year, he showed Archie his limits. 'The road allowance is here,' said Dennis, 'and if I were you I would put my shanty close to it, cut the logs for it off the allowance, and kill two birds with one stone, make a beginning on your road and have a shanty.' Archie was willing but made a poor fist in felling trees, and before an hour his hands were blistered. Dennis left to him the rolling of the logs to the chosen site and notching their corners. At noon they rested, Dennis lighting a fire and showing Archie how to cook flour cakes and fry pork at the same time. Towards nightfall a like meal was cooked, and creeping into a thicket of cedars they were soon fast asleep. Next morning Dennis picked out ash-trees and hickories small enough to make handspikes and skids and the rearing of the shanty began. It was small, 10 by 12 feet, in front 7 feet high sloping backward. Showing how to lay poles to make a roof, and cover them with sheets of elm and basswood bark, Dennis left while there was daylight enough to show him the way. Archie was alone, buried in the bush, yet was in high spirits. The land he stood on he owned. Everything had gone well with him so far and he looked with steady confidence into the future. When the shanty was finished he had to admit it was only a hovel, which he would replace by one fit to be the home of the father and mother whose figures were often before his mind's eye. With hands still tender, he went on felling trees, selecting the smaller, and when he had got a heap together he set fire, for he needed a clearance in which he wanted to plant potatoes. On Saturday coming he left for Magarth's, for he had promised to post up his accounts of the week. On finishing all Magarth had to do, Archie wrote his mother. When he landed at Montreal he had sent a letter to his father telling of the voyage and his safe arrival. Now he had to send them word of his having got a lot and that he had made a start in clearing it. Sunday the little hamlet was deserted. The hired men had gone to visit friends and had taken Magarth's boys with them. 'Tis the only outing they get,' explained Magarth, who was surprised on Archie's preparing to return to his shanty, for he expected he would stay till evening. Not wishing to be beholden too much to his kind friend, he shouldered what supplies he had bought the night before and started. Among the supplies was a hoe and a bag of potatoes to plant amid the stumps. The routine of his daily life was monotonous--up with the sun to attack the trees which stood between him and a livelihood. It was lonely but he never grew despondent. Singing, whistling, shouting, he kept at his work. Two of the songs of Burns were his favorites--a Man's a Man for a' that and Scots wha hae. On coming to the line, Liberty with every blow, he drove his ax into the tree with vim, and, indeed, the trees at that time were the enemies he had to fight. Saturdays he went to Magarth's to do what writing he might have, for his daughter was in no hurry to leave Toronto. Each Monday found Archie more handy with the ax, and neither heat nor mosquitoes caused him to slacken in extending his clearance. Wet days alone made him take rest in his shanty, in a corner of which was his bed of hemlock boughs and fern leaves. When summer waned and the nights grew cold the lack of a chimney in his shanty made living in it intolerable, for the smoke circulated round until it found the hole in the roof intended for its escape. He thought over plans to get a chimney, but could hit on none that he could carry out without some one to help him. From time to time he had burnings of brush-heaps, storing the ashes in a hole he had dug in the side of a hillock and covering them with big sheets of bark to keep them dry. The end of September, on making his customary visit to Magarth's, he found a letter waiting for him. It was from his sister, who expressed the delight they felt on hearing of his having got a farm and built a house, and how his letter, like the one he had mailed from Montreal, had passed from house to house until everybody in the parish had read them, and they had raised quite a 'furore' about Canada and of emigration to its woods, for the acquisition of farms of their own dazzled all. Father and mother were well and were kept in good spirits by anticipating the day when they would be able to join him in his fine house. He read the letter a hundred times and vowed anew he would not turn aside until those it came from were beside him. On speaking to Magarth of the store of ashes he had saved and of the slash of trees that were ready for burning, it was arranged he would send two men if Archie would clear a way through the woods by which a one ox-sled could pass. His frequent comings and goings across the lot had made a foot-path, but there were decayed logs to push aside, brush to cut here and there, and a few branches that hung low. It took three days' work before he was satisfied a sled would have free passage. On a Monday morning the men with the sled and oxen appeared and the burning began. There had been a month's drouth, so the burning went well, and when the men went back at nights the big box on the sled was filled with ashes. At Magarth's the ashes were measured in a bushel box and emptied into the leaches that stood beside the creek. On coming to square accounts the ashes paid what Archie was due and left a few dollars to his credit. Taking advantage of the return trips of the sled, he had got his chest taken to his shanty, a quantity of short boards to make a door and a bed, a bag of seed wheat, and a grindstone. Elated by his progress he went to the scraping and hoeing of his clearance with a will, lifted his potatoes, pitted them, and sowed all his seed-wheat. Then he tackled enlarging his clearance and his daily task was again felling trees. The weather was now often cold. He chinked the shanty but with a gaping hole in the roof to let out the smoke it made little difference, and often he could not get to sleep for shivering. To light a fire made it worse, for, not being used to it, he could not stand the smoke, which choked him and made his eyes smart. The second week in November there came a frosty snap. Before shouldering his ax he had put the potatoes and bit of pork he intended for dinner in a tin pail and buried it in hot ashes to slowly cook. When he came back late in the afternoon, cold and tired and hungry, he opened the pail and found it full of cinders. The heat had been too great. For the first time he lost heart, and starting up, with what daylight remained, made his way to Magarth's, where supper and a welcome awaited him. The daughter having been back for some time, he had given up his Saturday visits. She was big and plump, and like her father voluble and fond of a joke. When all the others had retired for the night, Magarth and Archie sat by the fire. Magarth guessed how it was going with Archie and told him he could not stand out the winter. Then, with kindly humor, he gave Archie to understand that if he and Norah would make it up, he would take him as a partner in his business, which was growing too large for him to manage alone. Archie was astounded, making no reply beyond thanking him for the hint. When he turned into a bunk in the corner of the store he was so tired that he fell asleep and dreamt not of Norah but of the daily misery he was enduring. In the morning Archie rose and, without waking anybody, slipped out and made his way to his comfortless shanty. Those who love the forest know in how many tones it speaks, varying with the season and the force of the wind. When in full leaf and swayed by a summer breeze the sound is of falling water, of a phantom Niagara; in the winter, when the trees are bare, the Northwest blast shrieks through their tops and there are groanings diversified by sharp cries as some decayed branch is snapped or tree falls. It was amid these doleful sounds Archie swung his ax. He was not conscious of the bitter cold for his work kept him warm, but his brain was full of racking thoughts. He had toiled like a slave for nigh six months and had accomplished little, with every imaginable deprivation he had saved nothing, and for the next six months he foresaw cold and hunger, which he doubted he could survive. Here was an offer that meant comfort, and relief from a penniless condition. Should he not accept it? Was it not selfishness that whispered his doing so? Did he not come to these woods to hew out from the heart of them a home for those he loved? Was he going to throw up his purpose to benefit himself? Would that be right? There was a whisper, You will be able to help them by sending money. Is money-help all they can claim from me? Is sending them so many dollars a month all the command to honor father and mother means? Do they not desire to be beside me and is it not my duty to sustain and comfort them while life lasts? Shall I place other cares between them and me, leaving them second instead of first? So he went on arguing mentally, until the larger consideration came uppermost, Was it justifiable to marry a woman for whom he had no special regard, because by so doing it would be to his worldly advantage? Then he, for the first time in his life, tried to define what marriage was. Was marriage for comfort and ease such a union as his conscience could approve? It was a searching question, and while he swung the ax he argued it aloud. What was marriage without love? No marriage, he shouted, as his ax delved into the side of a tree. Love alone can blend two lives, and without love marriage is sacrilege. No, he would not think of Magarth's offer, he would cast it behind him, and go on as he was doing. Then peace came to him, and he dwelt on the communings with his sister, and the pledge he had given her on parting. For the first time that day he began to sing, and when he sat on a log to eat the bread he had brought for his dinner, he threw crumbs to a squirrel that left her hole to survey him. Two days later he found he would have to go to Magarth's to get the steel of his ax renewed, for it had chipped. He found only Mrs Magarth at home, her husband and Norah had left on a visit. In the store were two men, and he listened to their talk with interest, for one was telling how a thriving nearby settlement had built a school and were unable to find a teacher. Asking the name of the man who had the engaging of one, and where he lived, Archie's resolution was made, he would go and offer himself. A tramp of over a mile brought him to the house. In five minutes he was engaged at a salary of six dollars a month and to board round. The engagement was for four months. He spent the night with the settler and left in the morning to get what clothes he needed and to set his shanty in order. Word had gone round that a teacher had been secured, and on his return in the afternoon there were several callers curious to see him. His host was a North of Ireland man, with a large family, who he was determined should learn to read and write. He had been the leader in the building of the school-house, to which he walked with Archie the following forenoon. It was a log building, about twenty feet square. There were no desks and the seats were plank set on blocks of wood. Every child able to walk was there full of curiosity as to what school was like. Archie's difficulties began at once. Not one of the would-be scholars had a book of any kind; those who said they wanted to learn to write had no paper and no slates. Had they anything they could recite from memory? A little girl forthwith began, Now I lay me down to sleep. With great patience, Archie taught them the first verse of the 23rd psalm, and, trying if they could sing it, found there were several good voices. He felt encouraged. Telling them to bring books of any kind next day, he ended the lessons by one in arithmetic, using the fingers. The second day was better. The children came with all kinds of books except school-books, mostly bibles. One girl had a copy of the crown lands rules and regulations. Only six could read a sentence by spelling each word. They had to be started from the beginning, and Archie had provided for that by producing a smoothly planed board on which he had printed, with a carpenter's pencil, the alphabet on one side and figures on the other. The children, with a few exceptions, were eager to learn. Then he got them to memorize the second verse of the 23rd psalm, and taught them a simple hymn, singing both. They were strong on singing, and a boy volunteered to give them a song he had heard, which had a chorus of Derry Down. So it went on. A supply of smooth shaved shingles was got and with bits of chalk the scholars learned to write simple words and cast up sums. At the close of each day Archie told them a story and questioned to see how much of it they remembered and understood. At the end of a fortnight three of the settlers visited to see how matters were progressing and left satisfied. Shifting his boarding-place each Saturday Archie came to know the settlers intimately, and perceived how little outside their daily toil there was to engage their minds. He proposed a singing-class for the young fellows and the girls, and set a date for the first meeting. The evening came and there was so great a crowd that the school could not hold them so a number clustered round the open door. Archie knew nothing about musical notation, but he had a good voice and a great store of songs. The difficulty was knowledge of the words, which he overcame by singing whatever any number of them knew and by repeating in concert verse by verse before he raised the tune. On the novelty wearing off a number ceased to come, but no matter how cold or stormy was the night the schoolhouse was filled by young people who heartily enjoyed those two evenings in the week. On a preacher arranging to hold a fortnightly service, they applied themselves to learning hymns. Without knowing it, Archie had become popular. Taking pleasure in his work the winter passed quickly. As his term drew towards its close there was a move to show him some substantial token of regard. There being little money, it took the form of a donation in kind, so, on leaving the third week of March, he was driven to his shanty in a sled laden with parcels of flour, lumps of pork, butter, cookies, doughnuts, and the like. His small wage had been paid him and out of it he sent $15 to his mother. His shanty he found buried in snow, the drift against its west end overtopping it. Everything was as he had left it, and when he had dug away the snow and got at the potatoes he had pitted he was glad to find them untouched by frost. He again assailed the trees but in a different spirit from the day when he had left. He was again hopeful of conquering and there was much to encourage him. The weather was milder and the daylight longer. More than anything else that cheered him on to his lonely task was the spring sunshine. It was awakening new life in the forest, and why not in him? On the size of his clearing depended whether he would be able to have his parents and sister join him when spring returned next year, and so, early and late, he attacked the trees. The only break in his toil was when he had to go to Magarth's for something he could not do without and those few hours of social talk were sweet to the solitary man. Not the least interesting topic he heard was that Norah was engaged to a wealthy produce-dealer in Toronto. On leaving the settlement where he had taught school, the young fellows told him to send them word when he was ready to burn, and they would come and help him. The middle of May he walked to attend the preaching there, and before leaving next morning had arranged they should come the following Monday. The number who flocked into his clearance astonished him, for almost every acquaintance he had saluted him. They came with ox-sleds and chains and, what surprised him beyond measure, was three women in one of the sleds who had come to make dinner and took possession of his shanty. They worked with a will. The logs were hauled and built into heaps and fire set, and every art the backwoodsman knows was used to make them burn. As ashes were scraped they were shovelled into the boxes on the sleds and started for Magarth's, returning with small loads of boards. With so many hands the small clearance was, late in the afternoon, put in such a shape that Archie and two men who remained could do the rest. Before the week was out, he had oats and peas sown, and a patch reserved for corn and potatoes. At Magarth's $10 had been placed to his credit for ashes delivered. As he was cooking his breakfast Archie was surprised by a sound at a distance which he recognized as the strokes of an ax. Listening with rapt attention, there came, in a few minutes, the familiar crash of a tree falling. 'That means I have got a neighbor: somebody has taken a lot at the end of the concession,' said Archie, and he set about his day's work in high spirits. It was as fine a day as a June day can be, and there is no finer the world over. The brilliant blue of the sky was brought out by a few snowy cloudlets drifting before a gentle breeze, which tempered the warmth of the glorious sunshine. The heart of the young man was glad and found expression in song and whistling as he wielded the ax. What caused him to pause in blank astonishment? From the woods behind him, came a voice singing 'O whistle and I will come to you my lad.' It was a woman's voice, it was a familiar voice. Dropping his ax he bounded towards the figure emerging from the bush where the sled-road entered his clearance. 'It is my own sister!' he shouted in a scream of joy, and clasped her in his brawny arms. 'O, Mirren, have you dropped from the sky? I would have as soon expected to meet an angel.' 'I am just a sonsy Ayrshire lass and have come on my feet and not on wings. Eh, but you've changed--ye've worked over hard.' 'It has been sweet work, for it was for father and mother. Nothing wrong with them that sent you here?' 'I left them well, and hoping to join us next spring.' 'And how did you come--what started you--where did you get the passage money--how did you find your way here?' 'I'll tell you after I have seen this grand house of yours. An' this is the shanty you wrote about with everything out and inside higgle-de-piggeldy! Ye are a great housekeeper to be sure. Why, your house has not got a lum! (chimney). Did you have breakfast yet? Poor fellow, no wonder your cheeks are thin.' 'Never mind, Mirren, I have planned a new house and with your help it will soon be built.' 'That it will, Archie; it is to help you I have come.' Sitting side by side on a pile of boards, Mirren told how she had come. On Archie's letter reaching his mother with three pounds enclosed she saw the possibility of Mirren going to Canada. 'The passage money is four pounds, mother, and there is the buying of what cannot be done without. We will have to wait for another remittance.' 'Listen, and I will tell you what I never even let on to your father. When he had that accident six years ago that laid him up and we feared he would never go to the hills again, the thought came to me that if he died the parish would have to bury him. I set it down that no such disgrace would ever fall on our family if I could help it, and when he got better I set to put-by every penny that could be spared, and many a hank I have spun and stocking knitted to get the pennies. After thinking over Archie's letter, I counted what I put by and I have one pound, seven shillings, and tenpence. Your passage, you see, is paid.' 'But I dare not leave you alone.' 'Mirren, you will do as your mother asks you. Your brother needs help: go, and we will follow you a year sooner.' 'I thought it all over,' said Mirren, 'and it was settled I should go. It was quite a venture for a young lass to go alone so far, but I was not afraid, seeing there were the plain markings of what was my duty. So we set to work to get ready, and here I am.' 'Bless you, Mirren, you have a brave heart and God helping us, we will have father and mother with us in another twelve month, and the black dog. Want will never frighten them more.' Mirren was curious to see what Archie had been doing, but he took her first to the rising ground, back in the bush, where he had decided to build his house, and then showed her his crops. The rest of the day he spent in cutting and setting up poles to make a shelter that would serve as a cookhouse during the day and a sleeping-place for himself at night. At supper she told of her journey, of the voyage, the slow ascent of the St Lawrence, and the steamboat that landed her at Toronto. The mate undertook to forward her chest, and pointed out Yonge-street, at the head of the wharf. Without a minute's delay she gained it and began her long walk. Late in the day she asked at a shanty that stood beside the road how far she was from the corner where she had to turn. The woman, on hearing where she was going, said she could not be there before dark and asked her to stay overnight. Her husband with the two oldest of the family had gone to visit his uncle and she was alone with the younger children. Mirren gladly took her offer and tarried next morning to help in cutting and fitting a dress for one of the girls. There were many wagons on the road, but all were loaded with the baggage of immigrants, who, men, women, and all except the very young, trudged their weary way behind or alongside of them. It was late in the afternoon when Magarth's was reached. On telling her name, she was cordially welcomed. In the morning she was shown the sledroad that led to the lot of her brother. The first sign that she was near him was hearing his whistling. Of the money she had started with she had still $2.25. With daylight next day they started to work. Mirren insisted on taking an ax with her and began brushing the trees Archie had felled. He remonstrated that it was not woman's work. Her reply was, she had come to help him and she was going to do so. 'Well, then,' he said, 'we will go to the spot where the house is to be built and work there.' On the evening arriving on which the preacher visited the schoolhouse, they both set out to attend the service.' Mirren had a welcome that astonished her, and when they heard her sing her welcome was redoubled. Archie's friend insisted on their staying until next day. It was late that night before Mirren got to bed, for the neighbors crowded to speak with her and hear her sing. As they walked to their humble home next forenoon, Mirren expressed her amazement at the heartiness with which she had been received, remarking it was her first experience with the Irish. In reply Archie said we ought to judge people as we find them putting away all prejudices. His sojourn among them during the winter had made him ashamed of his misconceptions--you have to come close to people to estimate their worth, and he could say from his soul, 'God bless the Irish: kinder hearts do not beat in human breasts,' and told Mirren what they had done for him. The ox-sled that brought Mirren's chest also brought a crosscut saw, and they tried it at once in cutting the logs for the new shanty. Archie's saying he did not like to see her pulling the saw, brought out the retort that she would not do it for other house than one for father and mother. That summer was the happiest they had ever known. Their toil was exhausting but the purpose of it and their mutual company bore them up. To hear them singing and joking it would be thought felling trees and sawing them into log lengths was a recreation. Such progress was made that a bee for the raising was set for the end of August, for the season had been early and grain was harvested. It was a bee that was the talk of the neighborhood for months afterwards. Young and old came, more with a desire to help the brave lassie who had won their hearts than for Archie's sake, well-liked as he was. With her watching them, the young men vied with one another and never did log walls mount faster nor rafters span them than when they had reached their height. On a green maple branch being stuck in a gable peak to indicate progress, a wild huroo arose that woke the forest echoes. When the bee broke up all the rough work was done; what was left Archie could do himself with the aid of a carpenter and mason, for a regular fireplace and chimney needed the latter. The brother and sister agreed that a less remittance than ten pounds would not do to bring their parents to Canada, and how to raise the $50 was a subject of concern to them. What produce they had to spare would fetch little. Their perplexity was relieved at the close of October by a visit from two men, who had come to find out if Archie would again, be their schoolmaster. There were more families now and more scholars and they would pay $7 a month and board round. He hesitated, he could not leave his sister alone. 'Take the offer,' she eagerly cried, 'I will go to the settlement with you.' 'What would you do there?' 'You forget, Archie, I learned dressmaking. I will cut and fit and add a little to our savings.' The second week in November the school was opened, this time under better conditions, for a storekeeper had brought books and slates, and Archie fetched with him a blackboard he had contrived to put together. With the day-school the singing school was resumed, to which Mirren added fresh interest. She got all the work she could do, for few of the women knew how to cut clothes for their children, let alone for themselves, and were glad to pay for cutting and fitting, doing the sewing at home. The winter sped quickly and the middle of March saw brother and sister back to their clearance and to the felling of trees. On counting their earnings in February they found they were able to send to their parents the desired ten pounds, with the urgent advice to take the first ship. How they would do on arriving at Toronto perplexed them, until Mr Magarth gave them the address of his son-in-law to enclose in their letter, assuring them Norah would care for them and see to their finishing their journey. When June came Mirren expected them each day and made every preparation for their reception. The spot in the bush where the sled-road ended and by which they must come, she watched with unflagging eagerness, but day after day passed and July came without their appearance. She was stooping in the garden cutting greens for dinner when a voice behind her asked, 'Hoo is a' wi' ye, Mirren?' With a scream of joy she clasped her father and mother. A loud shout brought Archie from the end of the clearance where he was at work with the ax. The reward of their toil and strivings had come at last, they were once again a re-united family. In the evening they sat in front of their new shanty, the clearance before them filled with crops that half-hid the stumps and promised abundance. 'Praise God,' exclaimed the old shepherd as he reverently raised his bonnet, 'we are at last independent and need call no man master.' For his age he was strong and active and his assistance made Archie independent of outside help. The four working together, and working intelligently and with a purpose, speedily placed them on the road to prosperity. * * * * * One defect in the backwoods life troubled the conscience of the old shepherd, and that was the practical disregard for religious observances. He was not satisfied with occasional services and, when harvesting was over, made a house-to-house visit to see if sufficient money could be got to mend the situation. Nobody said him nay yet none gave him the encouragement he had hoped. In the Old Land the only free contributions they had made for religious purposes was the penny dropped on the plate on Sunday, so the appeal to make a sacrifice to secure stated ordinances, was to them a novelty. An Englishman asked, 'When had the King become unable to pay the parson?' His visits also made him aware that there were many children unbaptised and that not one of those who told him they were church members had received the communion since they had left the Old Country. His resolution was taken--he would go to Toronto and seek out a minister, he did not care of what denomination, to spend a week or more in this new but fast-growing cluster of settlements. Though they did not say so to him, the settlers thought his errand a crazy one. As chance would have it, he did happen on a man as zealous for the cause as himself and with no pressing engagement for the time being. On his arriving he started with the shepherd on a round of visits, exhorting and baptizing, and announcing he would celebrate the Lord's supper, the last Sunday before his return to Toronto. So many promised to come that it was seen the school-house could not hold them. The minister fell in with the suggestion that the meeting be held out-of-doors and there were men found who agreed to make ready. It was now October, and the trees, as if conscious of their departure for their long sleep, arrayed themselves in glorious apparel to welcome the rest that awaited them. The spot selected for the meeting was the wide ravine hollowed out by the creek that flowed sluggishly at the bottom. On the flat that edged the east side of the creek planks were laid on trestles to form the table, while the people were expected to sit under the trees on the sloping bank that rose from it. From an early hour the people began coming. Word had spread far beyond the houses visited, and there were a few who had walked ten miles and over. The solemnity of the occasion was heightened by the weather. Not a breath stirred the air and the yellow or scarlet leaves that flecked the glassy surface of the creek had fluttered downward because their time for parting with the branches had come. A bluish haze tempered the rays of the sun, which was mounting a cloudless sky. When the minister rose to begin, he faced a motley crowd, for while all had done their best to be clean and neat, with rare exceptions, all were in their every day dress, worn and patched, for to get clothes is one of the difficulties of the new-come settlers. There were few aged, for the young and active lead the way into the bush. There were women with babes in their arms, and there were many children, gazing with open-eyed curiosity. The hundredth psalm was given out and the silence of the woods was broken by a volume of melody. The reading from St John where is told the institution of the last supper, was followed by a prayer of thanksgiving, that even in the forest-wilderness heaven's manna was to be found by those who seek for it, with passionate entreaty for forgiveness and cleanness of heart. Then singing and the sermon, a loving call to remember heavenly things in the eager seeking for what is needed for the body; the old truth that God is a spirit and can be approached only by each individual spirit, that no man, whatever his pretensions, can come between the soul and its Maker, and no ceremony or oblation effect reconcilement. The invitation to come to the table was that all who loved the Lord should do so. Slowly and reverently those who responded moved downward to take their seats on a bench fronting the table of a single plank. Looking across the creek there faced them a luxuriant vine, clinging high on the trees that supported its mass of purple foliage. Amid these surroundings of Nature the love of Him who condemned formalism and who was simplicity's very essence, was recalled. When the parting song was sung, and the people began to leave to attend the home-duties that could not wait, the old shepherd expressed himself satisfied that seed had been sown that would bear fruit, and so it did. THE END Lines on the Gordon Sellar who was drowned in his boyhood O that day of desolation! O that hour of dumb despair! Why, instead, was I not taken-- The fading leaf the bud to spare? Why thy joyous life thus ended? Why wert born thus to die? Whither hast thy spirit wended-- Here a moment then to fly? Come, O Faith, in all thy gladness, Lift me high above my woe; Leave with God this hour of darkness, Seeking not the cause to know. Nevermore, my son, I'll clasp thee, Nevermore thy voice I'll hear. Till I scan the towers of Salem See thee and the Saviour dear. * * * * * HISTORY OF THE SETTLEMENT of the Counties of Huntingdon, Chateauguay, and Beauharnois, 584 pp. $2. THE QUEBEC MINORITY; collection of pamphlets relating thereto. MORVEN: How a Band of Highlanders reached Glengarry during the U.S. Revolution. 50c. THE TRUE MAKERS OF CANADA. $1 or $1.25 as to binding Any of above sent by mail on receipt of price. Address--THE GLEANER Huntingdon, Que. THE TRAGEDY OF QUEBEC is out of print. Announcement will be made when the fourth edition is ready. 
13559	----	B A C K W O O D S O F C A N A D A ===================================== UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL INFORMATION THE LIBRARY OF ENTERTAINING KNOWLEDGE BACKWOODS OF CANADA. -------- THE LIBRARY OF ENTERTAINING KNOWLEDGE THE BACKWOODS OF CANADA BEING LETTERS FROM THE WIFE OF AN EMIGRANT OFFICER, ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE DOMESTIC ECONOMY OF BRITISH AMERICA. [Catharine Parr Traill] LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE STREET. MDCCCXXXVI. -------- LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, 14, CHARING CROSS. -------- CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION LETTER I.--Departure from Greenock in the Brig _Laurel_.--Fitting up of the Vessel.--Boy Passenger.--Sea Prospect.--Want of Occupation and Amusement.--Captain's Goldfinch LETTER II.--Arrival off Newfoundland.--Singing of the Captain's Goldfinch previous to discovery of Land.--Gulf of St. Laurence.--Scenery of the River St. Laurence.--Difficult navigation of the River.--French Fisherman engaged as Pilot.--Isle of Bic.--Green Island.--Regular Pilot engaged.--Scenery of Green Island.--Gros Isle.--Quarantine Regulations. --Emigrants on Gros Isle.--Arrival off Quebec.--Prospect of the City and Environs LETTER III.--Departure from Quebec.--Towed by a Steam-vessel.--Fertility of the Country.--Different Objects seen in sailing up the River.--Arrival off Montreal.--The Rapids LETTER IV.--Landing at Montreal.--Appearance of the Town.--Ravages of the Cholera.--Charitable Institutions in Montreal.--Conversation at the Hotel.--Writer attacked with the Cholera.--Departure from Montreal in a Stage-coach.--Embark at Lachine on board a Steam-vessel. Mode of travelling alternately in Steam-vessels and Stages.--Appearance of the Country.--Manufactures.--Ovens at a distance from the Cottages.--Draw- wells.--Arrival at Cornwall.--Accommodation at the Inn.--Departure from Cornwall, and Arrival at Prescott.--Arrival at Brockville.--Ship-launch there.--Voyage through Lake Ontario.--Arrival at Cobourg LETTER V.--Journey from Cobourg to Amherst.--Difficulties to be encountered on first settling in the Backwoods.--Appearance of the Country.--Rice Lake.--Indian Habits.--Voyage up the Otanabee.--Log- house, and its Inmates.--Passage boat.--Journey on foot to Peterborough LETTER VI.--Peterborough.--Manners and Language of the Americans.-- Scotch Engineman.--Description of Peterborough and its Environs.-- Canadian Flowers.--Shanties.--Hardships suffered by first Settlers.-- Process of establishing a Farm LETTER VII.--Journey from Peterborough.--Canadian Woods.--Waggon and Team.--Arrival at a Log-house on the Banks of a Lake.--Settlement, and first Occupations LETTER VIII.--Inconveniences of first Settlement.--Difficulty of obtaining Provisions and other necessaries.--Snow-storm and Hurricane.-- Indian Summer, and setting-in of Winter.--Process of clearing the Land LETTER IX.--Loss of a yoke of Oxen.--Construction of a Log-house.-- Glaziers' and Carpenters' work.--Description of a new Log-house.--Wild Fruits of the Country.--Walks on the Ice.--Situation of the House.--Lake and surrounding Scenery LETTER X.--Variations in the Temperature of the Weather.--Electrical Phenomenon.--Canadian Winter.--Country deficient in Poetical Associations.--Sugar-making.--Fishing season.--Mode of Fishing.--Duck- shooting.--Family of Indians.--_Papouses_ and their Cradle-cases.-- Indian Manufactures.--Frogs LETTER XI.--Emigrants suitable for Canada.--Qualities requisite to ensure Success.--Investment of Capital.--Useful Articles to be brought out.--Qualifications and Occupations of a Settler's Family.--Deficiency of Patience and Energy in some Females.--Management of the Dairy.-- Cheese.--Indian Corn, and its Cultivation.--Potatoes.--Rates of Wages LETTER XII.--"A Logging Bee."--Burning of the Log-heaps.--Crops for the Season.--Farming Stock.--Comparative Value of Wheat and Labour.--Choice of Land, and relative Advantages.--Clearing Land.--Hurricane in the Woods.--Variable Weather.--Insects LETTER XIII.--Health enjoyed in the rigour of Winter.--Inconvenience suffered from the brightness of the Snow.--Sleighing.--Indian Orthography.--Visit to an Indian Encampment.--Story of an Indian.--An Indian Hunchback.--Canadian Ornithology LETTER XIV.--Utility of Botanical Knowledge.--The Fire-Weed.-- Sarsaparilla Plants.--Magnificent Water Lily.--Rice Beds.--Indian Strawberry.--Scarlet Columbine.--Ferns.--Grasses LETTER XV.--Recapitulation of various Topics.--Progress of Settlement.-- Canada, the Land of Hope.--Visit to the Family of a Naval Officer.-- Squirrels.--Visit to, and Story of, an Emigrant Clergyman.--His early Difficulties.--The Temper, Disposition, and Habits of Emigrants essential Ingredients in Failure or Success LETTER XVI.--Indian Hunters.--Sail in a Canoe.--Want of Libraries in the Backwoods.--New Village.--Progress of Improvement.--Fire flies LETTER XVII.--Ague.--Illness of the Family.--Probable Cause.--Root- house.--Setting-in of Winter.--Insect termed a "Sawyer."--Temporary Church LETTER XVIII.--Busy Spring.--Increase of Society and Comfort.-- Recollections of Home.--Aurora Borealis APPENDIX --- ILLUSTRATIONS. 1. Falls of Montmorenci 2. Rice Grounds 3. Sleigh-driving 4. Silver Pine 5. Spruce 6. Log-house 7. Log-village.--Arrival of Stage-coach 8. Road through a Pine Forest 9. Newly-cleared Land 10. Chart showing the Interior Navigation of the Districts of Newcastle and Upper Canada 11. Papouses 12. Green Frogs 13. Bull-frog 14. The Prairie 15. Red-bird 16. Blue-bird 17. Snow-Bunting 18. Baltimore Oriole defending her Nest against the Black Snake 19. Red Squirrels 20. Flying Squirrel INTRODUCTION AMONG the numerous works on Canada that have been published within the last ten years, with emigration for their leading theme, there are few, if any, that give information regarding the domestic economy of a settler's life, sufficiently minute to prove a faithful guide to the person on whose responsibility the whole comfort of a family depends-- the mistress, whose department it is "to haud the house in order." Dr. Dunlop, it is true, has published a witty and spirited pamphlet, "The Backwoodsman," but it does not enter into the routine of feminine duties and employment, in a state of emigration. Indeed, a woman's pen alone can describe half that is requisite to be told of the internal management of a domicile in the backwoods, in order to enable the outcoming female emigrant to form a proper judgment of the trials and arduous duties she has to encounter. "Forewarned, forearmed," is a maxim of our forefathers, containing much matter in its pithy brevity; and, following its spirit, the writer of the following pages has endeavoured to afford every possible information to the wives and daughters of emigrants of the higher class who contemplate seeking a home amid our Canadian wilds. [Illustration: Peter, the Chief] Truth has been conscientiously her object in the work, for it were cruel to write in flattering terms calculated to deceive emigrants into the belief that the land to which they are transferring their families, their capital, and their hopes, a land flowing with milk and honey, where comforts and affluence may be obtained with little exertion. She prefers honestly representing facts in their real and true light, that the female part of the emigrant's family may be enabled to look them firmly in the face; to find a remedy in female ingenuity and expediency for some difficulties; and, by being properly prepared, encounter the rest with that high-spirited cheerfulness of which well- educated females often give extraordinary proofs. She likewise wishes to teach them to discard every thing exclusively pertaining to the artificial refinement of fashionable life in England; and to point out that, by devoting the money consumed in these incumbrances to articles of real use, which cannot be readily obtained in Canada, they may enjoy the pleasure of superintending a pleasant, well-ordered home. She is desirous of giving them the advantage of her three years' experience, that they may properly apply every part of their time, and learn to consider that every pound or pound's worth belonging to any member of an out-coming emigrant's family, ought to be sacredly considered as _capital_, which must make proper returns either as the means of bringing increase in the shape of income, or, what is still better, in healthful domestic comfort. These exhalations in behalf of utility in preference to artificial personal refinement, are not so needless as the English public may consider. The emigrants to British America are no longer of the rank of life that formerly left the shores of the British Isles. It is not only the poor husbandmen and artisans, that move in vast bodies to the west, but it is the enterprising English capitalist, and the once affluent landholder, alarmed at the difficulties of establishing numerous families in independence, in a country where every profession is overstocked, that join the bands that Great Britain is pouring forth into these colonies! Of what vital importance is it that the female members of these most valuable colonists should obtain proper information regarding the important duties they are undertaking; that they should learn beforehand to brace their minds to the task, and thus avoid the repinings and discontent that is apt to follow unfounded expectations and fallacious hopes! It is a fact not universally known to the public, that British officers and their families are usually denizens of the backwoods; and as great numbers of unattached officers of every rank have accepted grants of land in Canada, they are the pioneers of civilization in the wilderness, and their families, often of delicate nurture and honourable descent, are at once plunged into all the hardships attendant on the rough life of a bush-settler. The laws that regulate the grants of lands, which enforce a certain time of residence, and certain settlement duties to be performed, allow no claims to absentees when once the land is drawn. These laws wisely force a superiorly-educated man with resources of both property and intellect, to devote all his energies to a certain spot of uncleared land. It may easily be supposed that no persons would encounter these hardships who have not a young family to establish in the healthful ways of independence. This family renders the residence of such a head still more valuable to the colony; and the half-pay officer, by thus leading the advanced guard of civilization, and bringing into these rough districts gentle and well-educated females, who soften and improve all around them by _mental_ refinements, is serving his country as much by founding peaceful villages and pleasant homesteads in the trackless wilds, as ever he did by personal courage, or military stratagem, in times of war. It will be seen, in the course of this work, that the writer is as earnest in recommending ladies who belong to the higher class of settlers to cultivate all the mental resources of a superior education, as she is to induce them to discard all irrational and artificial wants and mere useless pursuits. She would willingly direct their attention to the natural history and botany of this new country, in which they will find a never-failing source of amusement and instruction, at once enlightening and elevating the mind, and serving to fill up the void left by the absence of those lighter feminine accomplishments, the practice of which are necessarily superseded by imperative domestic duties. To the person who is capable of looking abroad into the beauties of nature, and adoring the Creator through his glorious works, are opened stores of unmixed pleasure, which will not permit her to be dull or unhappy in the loneliest part of our Western Wilderness. The writer of these pages speaks from experience, and would be pleased to find that the simple sources from which she has herself drawn pleasure, have cheered the solitude of future female sojourners in the backwoods of Canada. As a general remark to all sorts and conditions of settlers, she would observe, that the struggle up the hill of Independence is often a severe one, and it ought not to be made alone. It must be aided and encouraged by the example and assistance of an active and cheerful partner. Children should be taught to appreciate the devoted love that has induced their parents to overcome the natural reluctance felt by all persons to quit for ever the land of their forefathers, the scenes of their earliest and happiest days, and to become aliens and wanderers in a distant country,--to form new ties and new friends, and begin, as it were, life's toilsome march anew, that their children may be placed in a situation in which, by industry and activity, the substantial comforts of life may be permanently obtained, and a landed property handed down to them, and their children after them. Young men soon become reconciled to this country, which offers to them that chief attraction to youth,--great personal liberty. Their employments are of a cheerful and healthy nature; and their amusements, such as hunting, shooting, fishing, and boating, are peculiarly fascinating. But in none of these can their sisters share. The hardships and difficulties of the settler's life, therefore, are felt peculiarly by the female part of the family. It is with a view of ameliorating these privations that the following pages have been written, to show how some difficulties may be best borne and others avoided. The simple truth, founded entirely on personal knowledge of the facts related, is the basis of the work; to have had recourse to fiction might have rendered it more acceptable to many readers, but would have made it less useful to that class for whom it is especially intended. For those who, without intending to share in the privations and dangers of an emigrant's life, have a rational curiosity to become acquainted with scenes and manners so different from those of a long-civilized county, it is hoped that this little work will afford some amusement, and inculcate some lessons not devoid of moral instruction. LETTER I. Departure from Greenock in the Brig. _Laurel_.--Fitting-up of the Vessel.--Boy Passenger.--Sea Prospect.--Want of Occupation and Amusement.--Captain's Goldfinch. Brig. _Laurel_, July 18, 1832 I RECEIVED your last kind letter, my dearest mother, only a few hours before we set sail from Greenock. As you express a wish that I should give you a minute detail of our voyage, I shall take up my subject from the time of our embarkation, and write as inclination prompts me. Instead of having reason to complain of short letters, you will, I fear, find mine only too prolix. After many delays and disappointments, we succeeded at last in obtaining a passage in a fast-sailing brig, the _Laurel_, of Greenock; and favourable winds are now rapidly carrying us across the Atlantic. The _Laurel_ is not a regular passenger-ship, which I consider an advantage, for what we lose in amusement and variety we assuredly gain in comfort. The cabin is neatly fitted up, and I enjoy the luxury (for such it is, compared with the narrow berths of the state cabin) of a handsome sofa, with crimson draperies, in the great cabin. The state cabin is also ours. We paid fifteen pounds each for our passage to Montreal. This was high, but it includes every expense; and, in fact, we had no choice. The only vessel in the river bound for Canada, was a passenger-ship, literally swarming with emigrants, chiefly of the lower class of Highlanders. The only passengers besides ourselves in the _Laurel_ are the captain's nephew, a pretty yellow-haired lad, about fifteen years of age, who works his passage out, and a young gentleman who is going out as clerk in a merchant's house in Quebec. He seems too much wrapped up in his own affairs to be very communicative to others; he walks much, talks little, and reads less, but often amuses himself by singing as he paces the deck, "Home, sweet home," and that delightful song by Camoens, "Isle of beauty." It is a sweet song, and I can easily imagine the charm it has for a home-sick heart. I was much pleased with the scenery of the Clyde; the day we set sail was a lovely one, and I remained on deck till nightfall. The morning light found our vessel dashing gallantly along, with a favourable breeze, through the north channel; that day we saw the last of the Hebrides, and before night lost sight of the north coast of Ireland. A wide expanse of water and sky is now our only prospect, unvaried by any object save the distant and scarcely to be traced outline of some vessel just seen at the verge of the horizon, a speck in the immensity of space, or sometimes a few sea-fowl. I love to watch these wanderers of the ocean, as they rise and fall with the rocking billows, or flit about our vessel; and often I wonder whence they came, to what distant shore they are bound, and if they make the rude wave their home and resting- place during the long day and dark night; and then I recall to mind the words of the American poet, Bryant,-- "He who from zone to zone Guides through the boundless air their certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone Wilt guide my steps aright." Though we have been little more than a week on board, I am getting weary of the voyage. I can only compare the monotony of it to being weather- bound in some country inn. I have already made myself acquainted with all the books worth reading in the ship's library; unfortunately, it is chiefly made up with old novels and musty romances. When the weather is fine I sit on a bench on the deck, wrapped in my cloak, and sew, or pace the deck with my husband, and talk over plans for the future, which in all probability will never be realized. I really do pity men who are not actively employed: women have always their needle as a resource against the overwhelming weariness of an idle life; but where a man is confined to a small space, such as the deck and cabin of a trading vessel, with nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to do, and nothing to read, he is really a very pitiable creature. There is one passenger on board that seems perfectly happy, if one may judge from the liveliness of the songs with which he greets us whenever we approach his cage. It is "Harry," the captain's goldfinch--"the _captain's mate_," as the sailors term him. This pretty creature has made no fewer than twelve voyages in the _Laurel_. "It is all one to him whether his cage is at sea or on land, he is still at home," said the captain, regarding his little favourite with an air of great affection, and evidently gratified by the attention I bestowed on his bird. I have already formed a friendship with the little captive. He never fails to greet my approach with one of his sweetest songs, and will take from my fingers a bit of biscuit, which he holds in his claws till he has thanked me with a few of his clearest notes. This mark of acknowledgment is termed by the steward, "saying-grace." If the wind still continues to favour us, the captain tells us we shall be on the banks of Newfoundland in another week. Farewell for the present. LETTER II Arrival off Newfoundland.--Singing of the Captain's Goldfinch previous to the discovery of Land.--Gulf of St. Laurence.--Scenery of the River St. Laurence.--Difficult navigation of the River.--French Fisherman engaged as a Pilot.--Isle of Bic.--Green Island.--Gros Isle.--Quarantine Regulations.--Emigrants on Gros Isle.--Arrival off Quebec.--Prospect of the City and Environs. Brig _Laurel_, River St. Laurence. August 6, 1832. I LEFT off writing, my dear mother, from this simple cause;--I had nothing to say. One day was but the echo, as it were, of the one that preceded it; so that a page copied from the mate's log would have proved as amusing, and to the full as instructive, as my journal provided I had kept one during the last fortnight. So barren of events has that time been that the sight of a party of bottle-nosed whales, two or three seals, and a porpoise, possibly on their way to a dinner or tea party at the North Pole, was considered an occurrence of great importance. Every glass was in requisition as soon as they made their appearance, and the marine monsters were well nigh stared out of countenance. We came within sight of the shores of Newfoundland on the 5th of August, just one month from the day we took our last look of the British isles. Yet though the coast was brown, and rugged, and desolate, I hailed its appearance with rapture. Never did any thing seem so refreshing and delicious to me as the land breeze that came to us, as I thought, bearing health and gladness on its wings. I had noticed with some curiosity the restless activity of the captain's bird some hours previous to "land" being proclaimed from the look-out station. He sang continually, and his note was longer, clearer, and more thrilling than heretofore; the little creature, the captain assured me, was conscious of the difference in the air as we approached the land. "I trust almost as much to my bird as to my glass," he said, "and have never yet been deceived." Our progress was somewhat tedious after we entered the gulf. Ninety miles across is the entrance of this majestic river; it seems an ocean in itself. Half our time is spent poring over the great chart in the cabin, which is constantly being rolled and unrolled by my husband to gratify my desire of learning the names of the distant shores and islands which we pass. We are without a pilot as yet, and the captain being a cautious seaman is unwilling to risk the vessel on this dangerous navigation; so that we proceed but slowly on our voyage. August 7.--We were visited this morning by a beautiful little bird, not much larger than our gold-crested wren. I hailed it as a bird of good omen--a little messenger sent to bid us welcome to the New World, and I felt almost a childish joy at the sight of our little visitor. There are happy moments in our lives when we draw the greatest pleasure from the most trifling sources, as children are pleased with the most simple toy. From the hour we entered the gulf a perceptible change had taken place in all on board. The captain, a man of grave, quiet manners, grew quite talkative. My husband was more than usually animated, and even the thoughtful young Scotchman became positively an entertaining person. The crew displayed the most lively zeal in the performance of their duty, and the goldfinch sung cheerily from dawn till sunset. As for me Hope was busy in my heart, chasing from it all feelings of doubt or regret that might sadden the present or cloud the future. I am now able to trace distinctly the outline of the coast on the southern side of the river. Sometimes the high lands are suddenly enveloped in dense clouds of mist, which are in constant motion, rolling along in shadowy billows, now tinted with rosy light, now white and fleecy, or bright as silver, as they catch the sunbeams. So rapid are the changes that take place in the fog-bank, that perhaps the next time I raise my eyes I behold the scene changed as if by magic. The misty curtain is slowly drawn up, as if by invisible hands, and the wild, wooded mountains partially revealed, with their bold rocky shores and sweeping bays. At other times the vapoury volume dividing, moves along the valleys and deep ravines, like lofty pillars of smoke, or hangs in snowy draperies among the dark forest pines. I am never weary of watching these fantastic clouds; they recall to me the pleasant time I spent in the Highlands, among the cloud-capped hills of the north. As yet, the air is cold, and we experience frequent squalls of wind and hail, with occasional peals of thunder; then again all is serene and bright, and the air is filled with fragrance, and flies, and bees, and birds come flitting past us from the shore. August 8.--Though I cannot but dwell with feelings of wonder and admiration on the majesty and power of this mighty river, I begin to grow weary of its immensity, and long for a nearer view of the shore; but at present we see nothing more than long lines of pine-clad hills, with here and there a white speck, which they tell me are settlements and villages to the south; while huge mountains divested of verdure bound our view on the north side the river. My admiration of mountainous scenery makes me dwell with more interest on this side the river, and I watch the progress of cultivation along these rugged and inhospitable regions with positive pleasure. During the last two days we have been anxiously looking out for a pilot to take us up to Quebec. Various signals have been fired, but hitherto without success; no pilot has condescended to visit us, so we are somewhat in the condition of a stage without a coachman, with only some inexperienced hand to hold the reins. I already perceive some manifestations of impatience appearing among us, but no one blames the captain, who is very anxious about the matter; as the river is full of rocks and shoals, and presents many difficulties to a person not intimately acquainted with the navigation. Besides, he is answerable for the safety of the ship to the underwriters, in case he neglects to take a pilot on board. * * * * * * * While writing above I was roused by a bustle on deck, and going up to learn the cause was informed that a boat with the long looked-for pilot had put off from the shore; but, after all the fuss and bustle, it proved only a French fisherman, with a poor ragged lad, his assistant. The captain with very little difficulty persuaded Monsieur Paul Breton to pilot us as far as Green Island, a distance of some hundred miles higher up the river, where he assured us we should meet with a regular pilot, if not before. I have some little difficulty in understanding Monsieur Paul, as he speaks a peculiar dialect; but he seems good-natured and obliging enough. He tells us the corn is yet green, hardly in ear, and the summer fruits not yet ripe, but he says, that at Quebec we shall find apples and fruit in plenty. As we advance higher up the river the country on both sides begins to assume a more genial aspect. Patches of verdure, with white cottages, are seen on the shores and scattered along the sides of the mountains; while here and there a village church rears its simple spire, distinguished above the surroundings buildings by its glittering vane and bright roof of tin. The southern shores are more populous but less picturesque than those of the north, but there is enough on either side to delight the eye. This morning we anchored off the Isle of Bic, a pretty low island, covered with trees and looking very pleasant. I felt a longing desire to set my foot on Canadian ground, and must own I was a little disappointed when the captain advised me to remain on board, and not attempt to make one of the party that were preparing to go on shore: my husband seconded the captain's wish, so I contented myself with leaning over the ship's side and feasting my eyes on the rich masses of foliage as they waved to and fro with the slight breeze that agitated them. I had soon reason to be thankful that I had not followed my own wayward will, for the afternoon proved foggy, and on the return of the boat I learned that the ground was swampy just where the party landed, and they sunk over their ankles in water. They reported the island to be covered knee-deep with a most luxuriant growth of red clover, tall trees, low shrubs, and an abundance of wild flowers. That I might not regret not accompanying him, my husband brought me a delightful bouquet, which he had selected for me. Among the flowers were fragrant red roses, resembling those we call Scotch burnet-leaved, with smooth shining leaves and few if any thorns; the blue flower called Pulmonaria or Lungwort, which I gathered in the Highlands, a sweet pea, with red blossoms and wreaths of lovely pale green foliage; a white orchis, the smell of which was quite delicious. Besides these were several small white and yellow flowers, with which I was totally unacquainted. The steward furnished me with a china jar and fresh water, so that I shall have the pleasure of a nosegay during the rest of the voyage. The sailors had not forgotten a green bough or two to adorn the ship, and the bird-cage was soon as bowery as leaves could make it. Though the weather is now very fine, we make but slow progress; the provoking wind seems determined to blow from every quarter but the right. We float up with the flood tide, and when the tide fails cast anchor, and wait with the best grace we can till it is time to weigh anchor again. I amuse myself with examining the villages and settlements through the captain's glass, or watching for the appearance of the white porpoises tumbling among the waves. These creatures are of a milky whiteness, and have nothing of the disgusting look of the black ones. Sometimes a seal pops its droll head up close beside our vessel, looking very much like Sinbad's little old man of the sea. It is fortunate for me that my love of natural history enables me to draw amusement from objects that are deemed by many unworthy of attention. To me they present an inexhaustible fund of interest. The simplest weed that grows in my path, or the fly that flutters about me, are subjects for reflection, admiration and delight. We are now within sight of Green Island. It is the largest, and I believe one of the most populous we have passed. Every minute now seems to increase the beauty of the passage. Far as the eye can reach you see the shore thronged with villages and farms in one continuous line. On the southern side all are gay and glittering with the tin roofs on the most important buildings; the rest are shingles, whitewashed. This I do not like so well as the plain shingled roofs; the whiteness of the roofs of the cottages and homesteads have a glaring effect, and we look in vain for that relief to the eye that is produced by the thatched or slated roofs. The shingles in their natural state soon acquire the appearance of slates, and can hardly be distinguished from them. What would you say to a rose-coloured house, with a roof of the same gaudy hue, the front of the gay edifice being garnished with grass green shutters, doors, and verandah. No doubt the interior is furnished with corresponding taste. There is generally one or more of these _smart_ buildings in a Canadian village, standing forth with ostentatious splendour above its more modest brethren. August 11.--Just below Green Island we took on board a real pilot, who, by the way, I do not like half so well as Monsieur Paul. He is a little bit pragmatical, and seems evidently proud of his superior knowledge of the river. The good-natured fisherman relinquished his post with a very good grace, and seems already excellent friends with his more able rival. For my part I was very sorry when the new pilot came on board; the first thing he did was to hand us over a pamphlet, containing regulations from the Board of Health at Quebec respecting the cholera, which is raging, he tells us, like a fearful plague both at that place and Montreal. These regulations positively forbid the captain and the pilot to allow any person, whether of the crew or passengers, to quit the vessel until they shall have passed examination at the quarantine ground, under the risk of incurring a severe penalty. This was very annoying; as the captain, that very morning, had proposed taking us on shore at a lovely spot called Crane Island, to spend the afternoon, while we waited for the return of the tide, at the house of a Scotch gentleman, the owner of the prettiest settlement I had yet seen, the buildings and grounds being laid out with great taste. The situation of this island is of itself very beautiful. Around it are the waters of the St. Laurence, bearing on its mighty current the commerce of several nations: in the foreground are the populous and lively settlements of the southern shores, while behind and far, far above it rise the lofty range of mountains to the north, now studded with rural villages, pleasant farms, and cultivated fields. The island itself showed us smooth lawns and meadows of emerald verdure, with orchards and corn-fields sloping down to the water's edge. After a confinement of nearly five weeks on board, you may easily suppose with what satisfaction we contemplated the prospect of spending a few hours on this inviting spot. We expect to reach the quarantine ground (Gros Isle) this evening, where the pilot says we shall be detained three days. Though we are all in good health, yet, having sailed from an infected port, we shall be detained on the quarantine ground, but not allowed to land. August 12.--We reached Gros Isle yesterday evening. It is a beautiful rocky island, covered with groves of beech, birch, ash, and fir-trees. There are several vessels lying at anchor close to the shore; one bears the melancholy symbol of disease, the yellow flag; she is a passenger- ship, and has the smallpox and measles among her crew. When any infectious complaint appears on board, the yellow flag is hoisted, and the invalids conveyed to the cholera-hospital or wooden building, that has been erected on a rising bank above the shore. It is surrounded with palisadoes and a guard of soldiers. There is also a temporary fort at some distance from the hospital, containing a garrison of soldiers, who are there to enforce the quarantine rules. These rules are considered as very defective, and in some respects quite absurd, and are productive of many severe evils to the unfortunate emigrants. When the passengers and crew of a vessel do not exceed a certain number, they are not allowed to land under a penalty, both to the captain and the offender; but if, on the contrary, they should exceed the stated number, ill or well, passengers and crew must all turn out and go on shore, taking with them their bedding and clothes, which are all spread out on the shore, to be washed, aired, and fumigated, giving the healthy every chance of taking the infection from the invalids. The sheds and buildings put up for the accommodation of those who are obliged to submit to the quarantine laws, are in the same area as the hospital. [* It is to be hoped that some steps will be taken by Government to remedy these obnoxious laws which have repeatedly entailed those very evils on the unhappy emigrants that the Board of Health wish to avert from the colony at large. Many valuable lives have been wantonly sacrificed by placing the healthy in the immediate vicinity of infection, besides subjecting them to many other sufferings, expenses, and inconvenience, which the poor exile might well be spared. If there must be quarantine laws--and I suppose the evil is a necessary one--surely every care ought to be taken to render them as little hurtful to the emigrant as possible.] Nothing can exceed the longing desire I feel to be allowed to land and explore this picturesque island; the weather is so fine, and the waving groves of green, the little rocky bays and inlets of the island, appear so tempting; but to all my entreaties the visiting surgeon who came on board returned a decided negative. A few hours after his visit, however, an Indian basket, containing strawberries and raspberries, with a large bunch of wild flowers, was sent on board for me, with the surgeon's compliments. I amuse myself with making little sketches of the fort and the surrounding scenery, or watching the groups of emigrants on shore. We have already seen the landing of the passengers of three emigrant ships. You may imagine yourself looking on a fair or crowded market, clothes waving in the wind or spread out on the earth, chests, bundles, baskets, men, women, and children, asleep or basking in the sun, some in motion busied with their goods, the women employed in washing or cooking in the open air, beside the wood fires on the beach; while parties of children are pursuing each other in wanton glee rejoicing in their newly-acquired liberty. Mixed with these you see the stately form and gay trappings of the sentinels, while the thin blue smoke of the wood fires, rising above the trees, heightens the picture and gives it an additional effect. On my husband remarking the picturesque appearance of scene before us to one of the officers from the fort who had come on board, he smiled sadly, and replied, "Believe me, in this instance, as in many others, 'tis distance lends enchantment to the view." Could you take a nearer survey of some of those very picturesque groups which you admire, I think you would turn away from them with heart sickness; you would there behold every variety of disease, vice, poverty, filth, and famine--human misery in its most disgusting and saddening form. Such pictures as Hogarth's pencil only could have pourtrayed, or Crabbe's pen described. August 14.--We are once more under weigh, and floating up the river with the tide. Gros Isle is just five and twenty miles below Quebec, a favourable breeze would carry us up in a few hours; as it is we can only make a little way by tacking from side to side when we lose the tide. I rather enjoy this way of proceeding, as it gives one a close view of both sides the river, which narrows considerably as we approach nearer towards Quebec. To-morrow, if no accident happens, we shall be anchored in front of a place rendered interesting both by its historical associations and its own native beauty of situation. Till to-morrow, then, adieu. I was reckoning much on seeing the falls of Montmorenci, which are within sight of the river; but the sun set, and the stars rose brilliantly before we approached within sound of the cataract; and though I strained my eyes till they were weary of gazing on the dim shadowy scene around me, I could distinguish nothing beyond the dark masses of rock that forms the channel through which the waters of the Montmorenci rush into the St. Laurence. At ten last night, August the 15th, the lights of the city of Quebec were seen gleaming through the distance like a coronet of stars above the waters. At half-past ten we dropped anchor opposite the fort, and I fell asleep dreaming of the various scenes through which I had passed. Again I was destined to be disappointed in my expectations of going on shore. The visiting surgeon advised my husband and me by no means to land, as the mortality that still raged in the town made it very hazardous. He gave a melancholy description of the place. "Desolation and woe and great mourning--Rachel weeping for her children because they are not," are words that may well be applied to this city of the pestilence. [Illustration - Falls of Montmorenci] Nothing can be more imposing than the situation of Quebec, built on the sides and summit of a magnificent rock, on the highest point of which (Cape Diamond) stands the fortress overlooking the river, and commanding a most superb view of the surrounding scenes. I did, indeed, regret the loss of this noble prospect, the equal of which I suppose I shall never see. It would have been something to have thought on and recalled in after years, when buried in the solitude of the Canadian woods. The opposite heights, being the Point Levi side, are highly picturesque, though less imposing than the rock on which the town stands. The bank is rocky, precipitous, and clothed with trees that sweep down to the water's edge, excepting where they are cleared away to give place to white cottages, gardens, and hanging orchards. But, in my opinion, much less is done with this romantic situation than might be effected if good taste were exercised in the buildings, and on the disposal of the ground. How lovely would such a spot be rendered in England or Scotland. Nature here has done all, and man but little, excepting sticking up some ugly wooden cottages, as mean as they are tasteless. It is, however, very possible there may be pretty villas and houses higher up, that are concealed from the eye by the intervening groves. The river is considered to be just a mile across from Point Levi to the landing-stairs below the custom-house in Quebec; and it was a source of amusement to me to watch the horse ferry-boats that ply between the two shores. The captain told me there were not less than twelve of these comical-looking machines. They each have their regular hours, so that you see a constant succession going or returning. They carry a strange assortment of passengers; well and ill-dressed; old and young; rich and poor; cows, sheep, horses, pigs, dogs, fowls, market-baskets, vegetables, fruit, hay, corn, anything and everything you will see by turns. The boat is flat, railed round, with a wicker at each end to admit the live and dead stock that go or are taken on board; the centre of the boat (if such it can be called) is occupied by four lean, ill-favoured hacks, who walk round and round, as if in a threshing machine, and work the paddles at each side. There is a sort of pen for the cattle. I am told there is a monument erecting in honour of Wolfe, in the governor's garden, looking towards the St. Laurence, and to be seen from Point Levi: the inscription has not yet been decided upon*. -------------------- [* Since the period in which the author visited Quebec, Wolfe's monument has been completed. Lord Dalhousie, with equal good feeling and good taste, has united the names of the rival heroes Wolfe and Montcalm in the dedication of the pillar--a liberality of feeling that cannot but prove gratifying to the Canadian French, while it robs the British warrior of none of his glory. The monument was designed by Major Young of the 97th Regiment. To the top of the surbase is fourteen feet from the ground; on this rests a sarcophagus, seven feet three inches high, from which rises an obelisk forty-two feet eight inches in height, and the apex is two feet one inch. The dimensions of the obelisk at the base are six feet by four feet eight inches. A prize medal was adjudged to J.C. Fisher, LL.D. for the following inscription on the sarcophagus:-- Mortem virtus communem Famam Historia Monumentum Posteritas Dedit. On the surbase is an inscription from the pen of Dr. Mills, stating the fact of the erection of the monument at the expense of Lord Dalhousie, Governor of Lower Canada, to commemorate the death of Wolfe and Montcalm, Sept. 13 and 14, 1759. Wolfe fell on the field; and Montcalm, who was wounded by the single gun in the possession of the English, died on the next day after the battle.] -------------------- The captain has just returned from the town. He very kindly brought on board a basket of ripe apples for me, besides fresh meat, vegetables, bread, butter, and milk. The deck is all bustle with custom-house officers, and men unloading a part of the ship's freight, which consists chiefly of rum, brandy, sugar, and coals, for ballast. We are to leave Quebec by five o'clock this evening. The _British America_, a superb steam-vessel of three decks, takes us in tow as far as Montreal. I must now say farewell. LETTER III. Departure from Quebec.--Towed by a Steam-vessel.--Fertility of the Country.--Different Objects seen in sailing up the River.--Arrival off Montreal.--The Rapids. Brig _Laurel_, St. Laurence, below Montreal, August 17, 1832 IT was after sunset, and a glorious evening, when we left Quebec, which we did in company with a fine steam-vessel, whose decks and gallery were crowded with passengers of all descriptions. A brave sight she was to look upon; ploughing the bright waters which foamed and sung beneath her paddles; while our brig, with her white sails, followed like a butterfly in her wake. The heavens were glowing with the richest tints of rose and saffron, which were reflected below on the bosom of the river; and then came forth the stars, in the soft blue ether, more brilliant than ever I saw them at home, and this, I suppose, I may attribute to the superior purity of the atmosphere. My husband said this evening resembled the sunsets of Italy. Our voyage has proved a very pleasant one; the weather moderately warm, and the air quite clear. We have within the last few days emerged from a cold, damp atmosphere, such as we often experience in Britain in the spring, to a delightful summer, moderated by light breezes from the river. The further we advance up the country the more fertile it appears. The harvest is ripening under a more genial climate than that below Quebec. We see fields of Indian corn in full flower: it is a stately-looking crop, with its beautiful feathery top tinted with a rich purple hue, below which tufts of pale green silk are waving in the breeze. When fully ripe they tell me it is beautiful to see the golden grain bursting from its silvery sheath; but that it is a crop liable to injury from frost, and has many enemies, such as bears, racoons, squirrels, mice, fowls, &c. We saw several fields of tobacco along the banks of the river, which looked healthy and flourishing. I believe tobacco is cultivated to some extent in both provinces; but the Canadian tobacco is not held in such high esteem as that of Virginia. There is a flourishing and very pretty town situated at the junction of the Richelieu river with the St. Laurence, formerly called Sorel, now called Fort William Henry. The situation is excellent. There are several churches, a military fort, with mills, and other public buildings, with some fine stone houses. The land, however, in the immediate vicinity of the town seems very light and sandy. I was anxious to obtain a near view of a log-house or a shanty, and was somewhat disappointed in the few buildings of this kind that I saw along the banks of the river. It was not the rudeness of the material so much as the barn-like form of the buildings of this kind, and the little attention that was paid to the picturesque, that displeased me. In Britain even the peasant has taste enough to plant a few roses or honeysuckles about his door or his casement, and there is the little bit of garden enclosed and neatly kept; but here no such attempt is made to ornament the cottages. We saw no smiling orchard or grove to conceal the bare log walls; and as to the little farm-houses, they are uglier still, and look so pert and ungraceful stuck upon the bank close to the water's edge. Further back a different style of building and cultivation appears. The farms and frame-houses are really handsome places, and in good taste, with clumps of trees here and there to break the monotony of the clearing. The land is nearly one unbroken level plain, apparently fertile and well farmed, but too flat for fine scenery. The country between Quebec and Montreal has all the appearance of having been under a long state of cultivation, especially on the right bank of the river. Still there is a great portion of forest standing which it will take years of labour to remove. We passed some little grassy islands on which there were many herds of cattle feeding. I was puzzling myself to know how they got there, when the captain told me it was usual for farmers to convey their stock to these island pastures in flat-bottomed boats, or to swim them, if the place was fordable, and leave them to graze as long as the food continued good. If cows are put on an island within a reasonable distance of the farm, some person goes daily in a canoe to milk them. While he was telling me this, a log-canoe with a boy and a stout lass with tin pails, paddled across from the bank of the river, and proceeded to call together their herd. We noticed some very pleasant rural villages to the right as we advanced, but our pilot was stupid, and could not, or would not tell their names. It was Sunday morning, and we could just hear the quick tinkling of the church bells, and distinguish long lines of caleches, light waggons, with equestrians and pedestrians hastening along the avenue of trees that led to the churchyard; besides these, were boats and canoes crossing the river, bound to the same peaceful haven. In a part of the St. Laurence, where the channel is rendered difficult by shoals and sand-banks, there occur little lighthouses, looking somewhat like miniature watermills, on wooden posts, raised above the flat banks on which they are built. These droll little huts were inhabited, and we noticed a merry party, in their holiday clothes, enjoying a gossip with a party in a canoe below them. They looked clean and smart, and cheerful enough, but I did not envy them their situation, which I should think far from healthy. Some miles below Montreal the appearance of the country became richer, more civilized, and populous; while the distant line of blue mountains, at the verge of the horizon, added an interest to the landscape. The rich tint of ripened harvest formed a beautiful contrast with the azure sky and waters of the St. Laurence. The scenery of the river near Montreal is of a very different character to that below Quebec; the latter possesses a wild and rugged aspect, and its productions are evidently those of a colder and less happy climate. What the former loses in grandeur and picturesque effect, it gains in fertility of soil and warmth of temperature. In the lower division of the province you feel that the industry of the inhabitants is forcing a churlish soil for bread; while in the upper, the land seems willing to yield her increase to a moderate exertion. Remember, these are merely the cursory remarks of a passing traveller, and founded on no personal experience. There was a feeling of anxiety and dread upon our minds that we would hardly acknowledge to each other as we drew near to the city of the pestilence, as if ashamed of confessing a weakness that was felt; but no one spoke on the subject. With what unmixed delight and admiration at any other time should we have gazed on the scene that opened upon us. The river here expands into a fine extensive basin, diversified with islands, on the largest of which Montreal is situated. The lofty hill from which the town takes its name rises like a crown above it, and forms a singular and magnificent feature in the landscape, reminding me of some of the detached hills in the vicinity of Inverness. Opposite to the Quebec suburbs, just in front of the rapids, is situated the island of St. Helens, a spot of infinite loveliness. The centre of it is occupied by a grove of lofty trees, while the banks, sloping down to the water, seem of the most verdant turf. The scene was heightened by the appearance of the troops which garrison the island. The shores of the river, studded with richly cultivated farms; the village of La Prairie, with the little island of St. Anne's in the distance; the glittering steeples and roofs of the city, with its gardens and villas,--looked lovely by the softened glow of a Canadian summer sunset. The church bells ringing for evening prayer, with the hum of voices from the shore, mingled not inharmoniously with the rush of the rapids. These rapids are caused by a descent in the bed of the river. In some places this declination is gradual, in others sudden and abrupt. Where the current is broken by masses of limestone or granite rock, as at the Cascades, the Cedars, and the Long Sault, it creates whirlpools and cataracts. But the rapids below Montreal are not of this magnificent character, being made perceptible only by the unusual swiftness of the water, and its surface being disturbed by foam, and waving lines and dimples. In short, I was disappointed in my expectation of seeing something very grand; and was half angry at these pretty behaved quiet rapids, to the foot of which we were towed in good style by our faithful consort the _British America_. As the captain is uncertain how long he may be detained at Montreal, I shall send this letter without further delay, and write again as soon as possible. LETTER IV. Landing at Montreal.--Appearance of the Town.--Ravages of the Cholera.-- Charitable Institutions in Montreal.--Catholic Cathedral.--Lower and Upper Town.--Company and Conversation at the Hotel.--Writer attacked with the Cholera.--Departure from Montreal in a Stage coach.--Embark at Lachine on board a Steam-vessel.--Mode of travelling alternately in Steam-vessels and Stages.--Appearance of the Country.--Manufactures.-- Ovens at a distance from the Cottages.--Draw-wells.--Arrival at Cornwall.--Accommodation at the Inn.--Departure from Cornwall, and Arrival at Prescott.--Arrival at Brockville.--Ship-launch there.--Voyage through Lake Ontario.--Arrival at Cobourg Nelson Hotel, Montreal, August 21. Once more on terra ferma, dearest mother: what a strange sensation it is to tread the land once again, free from the motion of the heaving waters, to which I was now, in truth, glad to bid farewell. By daybreak every creature on board was up and busily preparing for going on shore. The captain himself obligingly escorted us, and walked as far with us as the hotel, where we are at present lodged. We found some difficulty in getting on shore, owing to the badness of the landing. The river was full of floating timbers, between which it required some skill to guide the boat. A wharf is now being built--not before it was needed*. [* Some excellent wharfs have since been completed.] We were struck by the dirty, narrow, ill-paved or unpaved streets of the suburbs, and overpowered by the noisome vapour arising from a deep open fosse that ran along the street behind the wharf. This ditch seemed the receptacle for every abomination, and sufficient in itself to infect a whole town with malignant fevers*. [* This has since been arched over. A market has been erected above it.] I was greatly disappointed in my first acquaintance with the interior of Montreal; a place of which travellers had said so much. I could compare it only to the fruits of the Dead sea, which are said to be fair and tempting to look upon, but yield only ashes and bitterness when tasted by the thirsty traveller**. .......... [** The following description of Montreal is given by M'Gregor in his British America, vol. ii. p. 504:--"Betwixt the royal mountain and the river, on a ridge of gentle elevation, stands the town. Including the suburbs, it is more extensive than Quebec. Both cities differ very greatly in appearance; the low banks of the St. Laurence at Montreal want the tremendous precipices frowning over them, and all that grand sublimity which characterizes Quebec. "There are no wharfs at Montreal, and the ships and steamers lie quietly in pretty deep water, close to the clayey and generally filthy bank of the city. The whole of the lower town is covered with gloomy-looking houses, having dark iron shutters; and although it may be a little cleaner than Quebec, it is still very dirty; and the streets are not only narrow and ill-paved, but the footpaths are interrupted by slanting cellar doors and other projections." "It is impossible (says Mr. Talbot, in his Five Years' Residence) to walk the streets of Montreal on a Sunday or holiday, when the shops are closed, without receiving the most gloomy impressions; the whole city seems one vast prison;"--alluding to the window-shutters and outer doors of iron, that have been adopted to counteract the effects of fire.] .......... I noticed one peculiar feature in the buildings along the suburb facing the river--that they were mostly furnished with broad wooden balconies from the lower to the upper story; in some instances they surrounded the houses on three sides, and seemed to form a sort of outer chamber. Some of these balconies were ascended by flights of broad stairs from the outside. I remember when a child dreaming of houses so constructed, and fancying them very delightful; and so I think they might be rendered, if shaded by climbing shrubs, and adorned with flowers, to represent a hanging- garden or sweet-scented bowery walk. But nothing of this kind gladdened our eyes as we toiled along the hot streets. Every house of public resort was crowded from the top to the bottom with emigrants of all ages, English, Irish, and Scotch. The sounds of riotous merriment that burst from them seemed but ill-assorted with the haggard, careworn faces of many of the thoughtless revellers. The contrast was only too apparent and too painful a subject to those that looked upon this show of outward gaiety and inward misery. The cholera had made awful ravages, and its devastating effects were to be seen in the darkened dwellings and the mourning habiliments of all classes. An expression of dejection and anxiety appeared in the faces of the few persons we encountered in our walk to the hotel, which plainly indicated the state of their minds. In some situations whole streets had been nearly depopulated; those that were able fled panic-stricken to the country villages, while others remained to die in the bosom of their families. To no class, I am told, has the disease proved so fatal as to the poorer sort of emigrants. Many of these, debilitated by the privations and fatigue of a long voyage, on reaching Quebec or Montreal indulged in every sort of excess, especially the dangerous one of intoxication; and, as if purposely paving the way to certain destruction, they fell immediate victims to the complaint. In one house eleven persons died, in another seventeen; a little child of seven years old was the only creature left to tell the woful tale. This poor desolate orphan was taken by the nuns to their benevolent institution, where every attention was paid that humanity could suggest. The number both of Catholic and Protestant benevolent societies is very great, and these are maintained with a liberality of principle that does honour to both parties, who seem indeed actuated by a fervent spirit of Christian charity. I know of no place, not even excepting London itself, where the exercise of benevolent feelings is more called for than in these two cities, Quebec and Montreal. Here meet together the unfortunate, the improvident, the helpless orphan, the sick, the aged, the poor virtuous man, driven by the stern hand of necessity from his country and his home, perhaps to be overtaken by sickness or want in a land of strangers. It is melancholy to reflect that a great number of the poorest class of emigrants that perished in the reign of the cholera have left no trace by which their sorrowing anxious friends in the old country may learn their fate. The disease is so sudden and so violent that it leaves no time for arranging worldly matters; the sentinel comes, not as it did to Hezekiah, "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live." The weather is sultry hot, accompanied by frequent thunder-showers, which have not the effect one would expect, that of cooling the heated atmosphere. I experience a degree of languor and oppression that is very distressing, and worse than actual pain. Instead of leaving this place by the first conveyance for the upper province, as we fully purposed doing, we find ourselves obliged to remain two days longer, owing to the dilatoriness of the custom-house officers in overlooking our packages. The fact is that everything and everybody are out of sorts. The heat has been too oppressive to allow of my walking much abroad. I have seen but little of the town beyond the streets adjacent to the hotel: with the exception of the Catholic Cathedral, I have seen few of the public buildings. With the former I was much pleased: it is a fine building, though still in an unfinished state, the towers not having been carried to the height originally intended. The eastern window, behind the altar, is seventy feet in height by thirty-three in width. The effect of this magnificent window from the entrance, the altar with its adornments and paintings, the several smaller altars and shrines, all decorated with scriptural designs, the light tiers of galleries that surround the central part of the church, the double range of columns supporting the vaulted ceiling, and the arched windows, all combine to form one beautiful whole. What most pleased me was the extreme lightness of the architecture though I thought the imitation of marble, with which the pillars were painted, coarse and glaring. We missed the time- hallowing mellowness that age has bestowed on our ancient churches and cathedrals. The grim corbels and winged angels that are carved on the grey stone, whose very uncouthness tells of time gone by when our ancestors worshipped within their walls, give an additional interest to the temples of our forefathers. But, though the new church at Montreal cannot compare with our York Minster, Westminster Abbey, and others of our sacred buildings, it is well worthy the attention of travellers, who will meet with nothing equal to it in the Canadas. There are several colleges and nunneries, a hospital for the sick, several Catholic and Protestant churches, meeting-houses, a guard-house, with many other public edifices. The river-side portion of the town is entirely mercantile. Its narrow, dirty streets and dark houses, with heavy iron shutters, have a disagreeable appearance, which cannot but make an unfavourable impression on the mind of a British traveller. The other portion of the town, however, is of a different character, and the houses are interspersed with gardens and pleasant walks, which looked very agreeable from the windows of the ball-room of the Nelson Hotel. This room, which is painted from top to bottom, the walls and ceiling, with a coarse imitation of groves and Canadian scenery, commands a superb view of the city, the river, and all surrounding country, taking in the distant mountains of Chamblay, the shores of St. Laurence, towards La Prairie, and the rapids above and below the island of St. Anne's. The royal mountain (Mont Real), with its wooded sides, its rich scenery, and its city with its streets and public buildings, lie at your feet: with such objects before you the eye may well be charmed with the scenery of Montreal. We receive the greatest attention from the master of the hotel, who is an Italian. The servants of the house are very civil, and the company that we meet at the ordinary very respectable, chiefly emigrants like ourselves, with some lively French men and women. The table is well supplied, and the charges for board and lodging one dollar per day each*. [* This hotel is not of the highest class, in which the charge is a dollar and a half per day. Ed.] I am amused with the variety of characters of which our table is composed. Some of the emigrants appear to entertain the most sanguine hopes of success, appearing to foresee no difficulties in carrying their schemes into effect. As a contrast to these there is one of my countrymen, just returned from the western district on his way back to England, who entreats us by no means to go further up this horrid country, as he emphatically styles the Upper Province, assuring us he would not live in it for all the land it contained. He had been induced, by reading Cattermole's pamphlet on the subject of Emigration, to quit a good farm, and gathering together what property he possessed, to embark for Canada. Encouraged by the advice of a friend in this country, he purchased a lot of wild land in the western district; "but sir," said he, addressing my husband with much vehemence, "I found I had been vilely deceived. Such land, such a country--I would not live in it for all I could see. Why, there is not a drop of wholesome water to be got, or a potato that is fit to eat. I lived for two months in a miserable shed they call a shanty, eaten up alive with mosquitoes. I could get nothing to eat but salted pork, and, in short, the discomforts are unbearable. And then all my farming knowledge was quite useless-- people know nothing about farming in this country. Why, it would have broken my heart to work among the stumps, and never see such a thing as a well-ploughed field. And then," he added, in a softer tone, "I thought of my poor wife and the little one. I might, for the sake of bettering my condition, have roughed out a year or so myself, but, poor thing, I could not have had the heart to have brought her out from the comforts of England to such a place, not so good as one of our cow-houses or stables, and so I shall just go home; and if I don't tell all my neighbours what sort of a country this is they are all crazing to throw up their farms and come to, never trust a word of mine again." It was to no purpose that some persons present argued with him on the folly of returning until he had tried what could be done: he only told them they were fools if they staid an hour in a country like this; and ended by execrating those persons who deceived the people at home by their false statements, who sum up in a few pages all the advantages, without filling a volume with the disadvantages, as they might well do. "Persons are apt to deceive themselves as well as to be deceived," said my husband; "and having once fixed their minds on any one subject, will only read and believe those things that accord with their wishes." This young man was evidently disappointed in not finding all things as fair and pleasant as at home. He had never reflected on the subject, or he could not have been so foolish as to suppose he would encounter no difficulties in his first outset, in a settlement in the woods. We are prepared to meet with many obstacles, and endure considerable privations, although I dare say we may meet with many unforeseen ones, forewarned as we have been by our Canadian friend's letters. Our places are taken in the stage for Lachine, and if all is well, we leave Montreal to-morrow morning. Our trunks, boxes, &c. are to be sent on by the forwarders to Cobourg.--August 22. Cobourg, August 29.--When I closed my last letter I told you, my dear mother, that we should leave Montreal by sunrise the following day; but in this we were doomed to be disappointed, and to experience the truth of these words: "Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what an hour may bring forth." Early that very morning, just an hour before sunrise, I was seized with the symptoms of the fatal malady that had made so many homes desolate. I was too ill to commence my journey, and, with a heavy heart, heard the lumbering wheels rattle over the stones from the door of the hotel. I hourly grew worse, till the sister of the landlady, an excellent young woman, who had previously shown me great attention, persuaded me to send for a physician; and my husband, distracted at seeing me in such agony, ran off to seek for the best medical aid. After some little delay a physician was found. I was then in extreme torture; but was relieved by bleeding, and by the violent fits of sickness that ensued. I will not dwell minutely on my sufferings, suffice to say, they were intense; but God, in his mercy, though he chastened and afflicted me, yet gave me not over unto death. From the females of the house I received the greatest kindness. Instead of fleeing affrighted from the chamber of sickness, the two Irish girls almost quarrelled which should be my attendant; while Jane Taylor, the good young woman I before mentioned, never left me from the time I grew so alarmingly ill till a change for the better had come over me, but, at the peril of her own life, supported me in her arms, and held me on her bosom, when I was struggling with mortal agony, alternately speaking peace to me, and striving to soothe the anguish of my poor afflicted partner. The remedies applied were bleeding, a portion of opium, blue pill, and some sort of salts--not the common Epsom. The remedies proved effectual, though I suffered much from sickness and headache for many hours. The debility and low fever that took place of the cholera obliged me to keep my bed some days. During the two first my doctor visited me four times a day; he was very kind, and, on hearing that I was the wife of a British officer emigrating to the Upper Province, he seemed more than ever interested in my recovery, evincing a sympathy for us that was very grateful to our feelings. After a weary confinement of several days, I was at last pronounced in a sufficiently convalescent state to begin my journey, though still so weak that I was scarcely able to support myself. The sun had not yet risen when the stage that was to take us to Lachine, the first nine miles of our route, drove up to the door, and we gladly bade farewell to a place in which our hours of anxiety had been many, and those of pleasure few. We had, however, experienced a great deal of kindness from those around us, and, though perfect strangers, had tasted some of the hospitality for which this city has often been celebrated. I omitted, in my former letter, telling you how we formed an acquaintance with a highly respectable merchant in this place, who afforded us a great deal of useful information, and introduced us to his wife, a very elegant and accomplished young woman. During our short acquaintance, we passed some pleasant hours at their house, much to our satisfaction. I enjoyed the fresh breeze from the river along the banks of which our road lay. It was a fine sight to see the unclouded sun rising from behind the distant chain of mountains. Below us lay the rapids in their perturbed state, and there was the island of St. Anne's, bringing to our minds Moore's Canadian boat song: "We'll sing at Saint Anne's our parting hymn." The bank of the St. Laurence, along which our road lay, is higher here than at Montreal, and clothed with brushwood on the summit, occasionally broken with narrow gulleys. The soil, as near as I could see, was sandy or light loam. I noticed the wild vine for the first time twining among the saplings. There were raspberry bushes, too, and a profusion of that tall yellow flower we call Aaron's golden rod, a _solidago_, and the white love-everlasting, the same that the chaplets are made of by the French and Swiss girls to adorn the tombs of their friends, and which they call _immortelle_; the Americans call it life-everlasting; also a tall purple-spiked valerian, that I observed growing in the fields among the corn, as plentiful as the bugloss is in our light sandy fields in England. At Lachine we quitted the stage and went on board a steamer, a fine vessel elegantly fitted up with every accommodation. I enjoyed the passage up the river exceedingly, and should have been delighted with the journey by land had not my recent illness weakened me so much that I found the rough roads very unpleasant. As to the vehicle, a Canadian stage, it deserves a much higher character than travellers have had the candour to give it, and is so well adapted for the roads over which it passes that I doubt if it could be changed for a more suitable one. This vehicle is calculated to hold nine persons, three back, front, and middle; the middle seat, which swings on broad straps of leather; is by far the easiest, only you are liable to be disturbed when any of the passengers choose to get out. Certainly the travelling is arranged with as little trouble to the traveller as possible. Having paid your fare to Prescott you have no thought or care. When you quit the steam-boat you find a stage ready to receive you and your luggage, which is limited to a certain proportion. When the portage is passed (the land carriage), you find a steam-vessel ready, where you have every accommodation. The charges are not immoderate, considering the comforts you enjoy. In addition to their own freight, the steamers generally tow up several other vessels. We had three Durham boats at one time, beside some other small craft attached to us, which certainly afforded some variety, if not amusement. With the exception of Quebec and Montreal, I must give the preference to the Upper Province. If not on so grand a scale, the scenery is more calculated to please, from the appearance of industry and fertility it displays. I am delighted, in travelling along the road, with the neatness, cleanliness, and comfort of the cottages and farms. The log- house and shanty rarely occur, having been supplanted by pretty frame houses, built in a superior style, and often painted white-lead colour or a pale pea-green. Around these habitations were orchards, bending down with a rich harvest of apples, plums, and the American crab, those beautiful little scarlet apples so often met with as a wet preserve among our sweetmeats at home. You see none of the signs of poverty or its attendant miseries. No ragged, dirty, squalid children, dabbling in mud or dust; but many a tidy, smart-looking lass was spinning at the cottage-doors, with bright eyes and braided locks, while the younger girls were seated on the green turf or on the threshold, knitting and singing as blithe as birds. There is something very picturesque in the great spinning-wheels that are used in this country for spinning the wool, and if attitude were to be studied among our Canadian lasses, there cannot be one more becoming, or calculated to show off the natural advantages of a fine figure, than spinning at the big wheel. The spinster does not sit, but walks to and fro, guiding the yarn with one hand while with the other she turns the wheel. I often noticed, as we passed by the cottage farms, hanks of yarn of different colours hanging on the garden or orchard fence to dry; there were all manner of colours, green, blue, purple, brown, red, and white. A civil landlady, at whose tavern we stopped to change horses, told me these hanks of yarn were first spun and then dyed by the good wives, preparatory to being sent to the loom. She showed me some of this home- spun cloth, which really looked very well. It was a dullish dark brown, the wool being the produce of a breed of black sheep. This cloth is made up in different ways for family use. "Every little dwelling you see," said she, "has its lot of land, and, consequently, its flock of sheep; and, as the children are early taught to spin, and knit, and help dye the yarn, their parents can afford to see them well and comfortably clothed. "Many of these very farms you now see in so thriving a condition were wild land thirty years ago, nothing but Indian hunting-grounds. The industry of men, and many of them poor men, that had not a rood of land of their own in their own country, has effected this change." I was much gratified by the reflection to which this good woman's information gave rise. "We also are going to purchase wild land, and why may not we see our farm, in process of time," thought I, "equal these fertile spots. Surely this is a blessed country to which we have emigrated," said I, pursuing the pleasing idea, "where every cottage abounds with the comforts and necessaries of life." I perhaps overlooked at that time the labour, the difficulties, the privations to which these settlers had been exposed when they first came to this country. I saw it only at a distance of many years, under a high state of cultivation, perhaps in the hands of their children or their children's children, while the toil-worn parent's head was low in the dust. Among other objects my attention was attracted by the appearance of open burying-grounds by the roadside. Pretty green mounds, surrounded by groups of walnut and other handsome timber trees, contained the graves of a family, or may be, some favoured friends slept quietly below the turf beside them. If the ground was not consecrated, it was hallowed by the tears and prayers of parents and children. These household graves became the more interesting to me on learning that when a farm is disposed of to a stranger, the right of burying their dead is generally stipulated for by the former possessor. You must bear with me if I occasionally weary you with dwelling on trifles. To me nothing that bears the stamp of novelty is devoid of interest. Even the clay-built ovens stuck upon four legs at a little distance from the houses were not unnoticed in passing. When there is not the convenience of one of these ovens outside the dwellings, the bread is baked in large iron pots--"_bake-kettles_" they are termed. I have already seen a loaf as big as a peck measure baking on the hearth in one of these kettles, and tasted of it, too; but I think the confined steam rather imparts a peculiar taste to the bread, which you do not perceive in the loaves baked in brick or clay ovens. At first I could not make out what these funny little round buildings, perched upon four posts, could be; and I took them for bee-hives till I spied a good woman drawing some nice hot loaves out of one that stood on a bit of waste land on the roadside, some fifty yards from the cottage. Besides the ovens every house had a draw-well near it, which differed in the contrivance for raising the water from those I had seen in the old country. The plan is very simple:--a long pole, supported by a post, acts as a lever to raise the bucket, and the water can be raised by a child with very trifling exertion. This method is by many persons preferred to either rope or chain, and from its simplicity can be constructed by any person at the mere trouble of fixing the poles. I mention this merely to show the ingenuity of people in this country, and how well adapted all their ways are to their means*. [* The plan is pursued in England and elsewhere, and may be seen in the market-gardens on the western suburb of London. It can only be done when the water is near the surface.] We were exceedingly gratified by the magnificent appearance of the rapids of the St. Laurence, at the cascades of which the road commanded a fine view from the elevation of the banks. I should fail in my attempt to describe this grand sheet of turbulent water to you. Howison has pictured them very minutely in his work on Upper Canada, which I know you are well acquainted with. I regretted that we could not linger to feast our eyes with a scene so wild and grand as the river here appears; but a Canadian stage waits for no one, so we were obliged to content ourselves with a passing sight of these celebrated rapids. We embarked at Couteau du Lac and reached Cornwall late the same evening. Some of the stages travel all night, but I was too much fatigued to commence a journey of forty-nine miles over Canadian roads that night. Our example was followed by a widow lady and her little family. We had some difficulty obtaining a lodging, the inns being full of travellers; here, for the first time we experienced something of that odious manner ascribed, though doubtless too generally, to the American. Our host seemed perfectly indifferent to the comfort of his guests, leaving them to wait on themselves or go without what they wanted. The absence of females in these establishments is a great drawback where ladies are travelling. The women keep entirely out of sight, or treat you with that offensive coldness and indifference that you derive little satisfaction from their attendance. After some difficulty in obtaining sight of the landlady of the inn at Cornwall, and asking her to show me a chamber where we might pass the night, with a most ungracious air she pointed to a door which opened into a mere closet, in which was a bed divested of curtains, one chair, and an apology for a wash-stand. Seeing me in some dismay at the sight of this uninviting domicile, she laconically observed there was that or none, unless I chose to sleep in a four-bedded room, which had three tenants in it,--and those gentlemen. This alternative I somewhat indignantly declined, and in no very good humour retired to my cabin, where vile familiars to the dormitory kept us from closing our weary eye-lids till the break of day. We took an early and hasty breakfast, and again commenced our journey. Here our party consisted of myself, my husband, a lady and gentleman with three small children, besides an infant of a month old, all of whom, from the eldest to the youngest, were suffering from hooping- cough; two great Cumberland miners, and a French pilot and his companion--this was a huge amphibious-looking monster, who bounced in and squeezed himself into a corner seat, giving a knowing nod and comical grin to the driver, who was in the secret, and in utter defiance of all remonstrance at this unlooked-for intrusion, cracked his whip with a flourish, that appeared to be reckoned pretty considerably smart by two American travellers that stood on either side of the door at the inn, with their hats not in their hands nor yet on their heads, but slung by a black ribbon to one of their waistcoat buttons, so as to fall nearly under one arm. This practice I have seen adopted since, and think if Johnny Gilpin had but taken this wise precaution he might have saved both hat and wig. I was dreadfully fatigued with this day's travelling, being literally bruised black and blue. We suffered much inconvenience from the excessive heat of the day, and could well have dispensed with the company of two out of the four of our bulky companions. We reached Prescott about five the same afternoon, where we met with good treatment at the inn; the female servants were all English, and seemed to vie with each other in attention to us. We saw little in the town of Prescott to interest or please. After an excellent breakfast we embarked on board the _Great Britain_, the finest steamer we had yet seen, and here we were joined by our new friends, to our great satisfaction. At Brockville we arrived just in time to enjoy what was to me quite a novel sight,--a ship-launch. A gay and exciting scene it was. The sun shone brilliantly on a concourse of people that thronged the shore in their holiday attire; the church bells rang merrily out, mingling with the music from the deck of the gaily painted vessel that, with flags and streamers, and a well-dressed company on board, was preparing for the launch. To give additional effect, a salute was fired from a temporary fort erected for the occasion on a little rocky island in front of the town. The schooner took the water in fine style, as if eager to embrace the element which was henceforth to be subject to her. It was a moment of intense interest. The newly launched was greeted with three cheers from the company on board the _Great Britain_, with a salute from the little fort, and a merry peal from the bells, which were also rung in honour of a pretty bride that came on board with her bridegroom on their way to visit the falls of Niagara. Brockville is situated just at the entrance of the lake of the Thousand Islands, and presents a pretty appearance from the water. The town has improved rapidly, I am told, within the last few years, and is becoming a place of some importance. The shores of the St. Laurence assume a more rocky and picturesque aspect as you advance among its thousand islands, which present every variety of wood and rock. The steamer put in for a supply of fire-wood at a little village on the American side the river, where also we took on board five-and-twenty beautiful horses, which are to be exhibited at Cobourg and York for sale. There was nothing at all worthy of observation in the American village, unless I except a novelty that rather amused me. Almost every house had a tiny wooden model of itself, about the bigness of a doll's house, (or baby-house, I think they are called,) stuck up in front of the roof or at the gable end. I was informed by a gentleman on board, these baby- houses, as I was pleased to call them, were for the swallows to build in. It was midnight when we passed Kingston, so of course I saw nothing of that "key to the lakes," as I have heard it styled. When I awoke in the morning the steamer was dashing gallantly along through the waters of the Ontario, and I experienced a slight sensation of sickness. When the waters of the lake are at all agitated, as they sometimes are, by high winds, you might imagine yourself upon a tempest-tossed sea. The shores of the Ontario are very fine, rising in waving lines of hill and dale, clothed with magnificent woods, or enlivened by patches of cultivated land and pretty dwellings. At ten o'clock we reached Cobourg. Cobourg, at which place we are at present, is a neatly built and flourishing village, containing many good stores, mills, a banking- house, and printing-office, where a newspaper is published once a week. There is a very pretty church and a select society, many families of respectability having fixed their residences in or near the town. To-morrow we leave Cobourg, and shall proceed to Peterborough, from which place I shall again write and inform you of our future destination, which will probably be on one of the small lakes of the Otanabee. LETTER V. Journey from Cobourg to Amherst.--Difficulties to be encountered on first settling in the Backwoods.--Appearance of the Country.--Rice Lake.--Indian Habits.--Voyage up the Otanabee.--Log-house, and its Inmates.--Passage boat.--Journey on foot to Peterborough. Peterborough, Newcastle District. September 8, 1832. We left Cobourg on the afternoon of the 1st of September in a light waggon, comfortably lined with buffalo robes. Our fellow travellers consisted of three gentlemen and a young lady, all of whom proved very agreeable, and willing to afford us every information respecting the country through which we were travelling. The afternoon was fine--one of those rich mellow days we often experience in the early part of September. The warm hues of autumn were already visible on the forest trees, but rather spoke of ripeness than decay. The country round Cobourg is well cultivated, a great portion of the woods having been superseded by open fields, pleasant farms, and fine flourishing orchards, with green pastures, where abundance of cattle were grazing. The county gaol and court-house at Amherst, about a mile and a half from Cobourg, is a fine stone edifice, situated on a rising ground, which commands an extensive view over the lake Ontario and surrounding scenery. As you advance farther up the country, in the direction of the Hamilton or Rice Lake plains, the land rises into bold sweeping hills and dales. The outline of the country reminded me of the hilly part of Gloucestershire; you want, however, the charm with which civilization has so eminently adorned that fine county, with all its romantic villages, flourishing towns, cultivated farms, and extensive downs, so thickly covered with flocks and herds. Here the bold forests of oak, beech, maple, and bass-wood, with now and then a grove of dark pine, cover the hills, only enlivened by an occasional settlement, with its log-house and zig-zag fences of split timber: these fences are very offensive to my eye. I look in vain for the rich hedge rows of my native country. Even the stone fences in the north and west of England, cold and bare as they are, are less unsightly. The settlers, however, invariably adopt whatever plan saves time, labour, and money. The great law of expediency is strictly observed;--it is borne of necessity. Matters of taste appear to be little regarded, or are, at all events, after-considerations. I could see a smile hover on the lips of my fellow travellers on hearing of our projected plans for the adornment of our future dwelling. "If you go into the backwoods your house must necessarily be a log- house," said an elderly gentleman, who had been a settler many years in the country. "For you will most probably be out of the way of a saw- mill, and you will find so much to do, and so many obstacles to encounter, for the first two or three years, that you will hardly have opportunity for carrying these improvements into effect. "There is an old saying," he added, with a mixture of gravity and good humour in his looks, "that I used to hear when I was a boy, 'first creep* and then go.' [* Derived from infants crawling on all-fours before they have strength to walk.] Matters are not carried on quite so easily here as at home; and the truth of this a very few weeks' acquaintance with the _bush_, as we term all unbroken forest land, will prove. At the end of five years you may begin to talk of these pretty improvements and elegancies, and you will then be able to see a little what you are about." "I thought," said I, "every thing in this country was done with so much expedition. I am sure I have heard and read of houses being built in a day." The old gentleman laughed. "Yes, yes," he replied, "travellers find no difficulty in putting up a house in twelve or twenty-four hours, and so the log-walls can be raised in that time or even less; but the house is not completed when the outer walls are up, as your husband will find to his cost." "But all the works on emigration that I leave read," replied I, "give a fair and flattering picture of a settler's life; for, according to their statements, the difficulties are easily removed." "Never mind books," said my companion, "use your own reason. Look on those interminable forests, through which the eye can only penetrate a few yards, and tell me how those vast timbers are to be removed, utterly extirpated, I may say, from the face of the earth, the ground cleared and burnt, a crop sown and fenced, and a house to shelter you raised, without difficulty, without expense, and without great labour. Never tell me of what is said in books, written very frequently by tarry-at- home travellers. Give me facts. One honest, candid emigrant's experience is worth all that has been written on the subject. Besides, that which may be a true picture of one part of the country will hardly suit another. The advantages and disadvantages arising from soil, situation, and progress of civilization, are very different in different districts: even the prices of goods and of produce, stock and labour, vary exceedingly, according as you are near to, or distant from, towns and markets." I began to think my fellow-traveller spoke sensibly on the subject, with which the experience of thirteen years had made him perfectly conversant. I began to apprehend that we also had taken too flattering a view of a settler's life as it must be in the backwoods. Time and our own personal knowledge will be the surest test, and to that we must bow. We are ever prone to believe that which we wish. About halfway between Cobourg and the Rice Lake there is a pretty valley between two steep hills. Here there is a good deal of cleared land and a tavern: the place is called "Cold Springs." Who knows but some century or two hence this spot may become a fashionable place of resort to drink the waters. A Canadian Bath or Cheltenham may spring up where now Nature revels in her wilderness of forest trees. We now ascended the plains--a fine elevation of land--for many miles scantily clothed with oaks, and here and there bushy pines, with other trees and shrubs. The soil is in some places sandy, but varies, I am told, considerably in different parts, and is covered in large tracks with rich herbage, affording abundance of the finest pasture for cattle. A number of exquisite flowers and shrubs adorn these plains, which rival any garden in beauty during the spring and summer months. Many of these plants are peculiar to the plains, and are rarely met with in any other situation. The trees, too, though inferior in size to those in the forests, are more picturesque, growing in groups or singly, at considerable intervals, giving a sort of park-like appearance to this portion of the country. The prevailing opinion seems to be, that the plains laid out in grazing or dairy farms would answer the purpose of settlers well; as there is plenty of land that will grow wheat and other corn-crops, and can be improved at a small expense, besides abundance of natural pasture for cattle. One great advantage seems to be, that the plough can be introduced directly, and the labour of preparing the ground is necessarily much less than where it is wholly covered with wood. [Illustration: Rice Grounds] There are several settlers on these plains possessing considerable farms. The situation, I should think, must be healthy and agreeable, from the elevation and dryness of the land, and the pleasant prospect they command of the country below them, especially where the Rice Lake, with its various islands and picturesque shores, is visible. The ground itself is pleasingly broken into hill and valley, sometimes gently sloping, at other times abrupt and almost precipitous. An American farmer, who formed one of our party at breakfast the following morning, told me that these plains were formerly famous hunting grounds of the Indians, who, to prevent the growth of the timbers, burned them year after year; this, in process of time, destroyed the young trees, so as to prevent them again from accumulating to the extent they formerly did. Sufficient only was left to form coverts; for the deer resort hither in great herds for the sake of a peculiar tall sort of grass with which these plains abound, called deer- grass, on which they become exceedingly fat at certain seasons of the year. Evening closed in before we reached the tavern on the shores of the Rice Lake, where we were to pass the night; so that I lost something of the beautiful scenery which this fine expanse of water presents as you descend the plains towards its shores. The glimpses I caught of it were by the faint but frequent flashes of lightning that illumined the horizon to the north, which just revealed enough to make me regret I could see no more that night. The Rice Lake is prettily diversified with small wooded islets: the north bank rises gently from the water's edge. Within sight of Sully, the tavern from which the steam-boat starts that goes up the Otanabee, you see several well-cultivated settlements; and beyond the Indian village the missionaries have a school for the education and instruction of the Indian children. Many of them can both read and write fluently, and are greatly improved in their moral and religious conduct. They are well and comfortably clothed, and have houses to live in. But they are still too much attached to their wandering habits to become good and industrious settlers. During certain seasons they leave the village, and encamp themselves in the woods along the borders of those lakes and rivers that present the most advantageous hunting and fishing grounds. The Rice Lake and Mud Lake Indians belong, I am told, to the Chippewas; but the traits of cunning and warlike ferocity that formerly marked this singular people seem to have disappeared beneath the milder influence of Christianity. Certain it is that the introduction of the Christian religion is the first greatest step towards civilization and improvement; its very tendency being to break down the strong-holds of prejudice and ignorance, and unite mankind in one bond of social brotherhood. I have been told that for some time drunkenness was unknown, and even the moderate use of spirits was religiously abstained from by all the converts. This abstinence is still practised by some families; but of late the love of ardent spirits has again crept in among them, bringing discredit upon their faith. It is indeed hardly to be wondered at, when the Indian sees those around him that call themselves Christians, and who are better educated, and enjoy the advantages of civilized society, indulging to excess in this degrading vice, that he should suffer his natural inclination to overcome his Christian duty, which might in some have taken no deep root. I have been surprised and disgusted by the censures passed on the erring Indian by persons who were foremost in indulgence at the table and the tavern; as if the crime of drunkenness were more excusable in the man of education than in the half-reclaimed savage. There are some fine settlements on the Rice Lake, but I am told the shores are not considered healthy, the inhabitants being subject to lake-fevers and ague, especially where the ground is low and swampy. These fevers and agues are supposed by some people to originate in the extensive rice-beds which cause a stagnation in the water; the constant evaporation from the surface acting on a mass of decaying vegetation must tend to have a bad effect on the constitution of those that are immediately exposed to its pernicious influence. Besides numerous small streams, here called _creeks_, two considerable rivers, the Otanabee and the Trent, find an outlet for their waters in the Rice Lake. These rivers are connected by a chain of small lakes, which you may trace on any good map of the province. I send you a diagram, which has been published at Cobourg, which will give you the geography of this portion of the country. It is on one of these small lakes we purpose purchasing land, which, should the navigation of these waters be carried into effect, as is generally supposed to be in contemplation, will render the lands on their shores very advantageous to the settlers; at present they are interrupted by large blocks of granite and limestone, rapids, and falls, which prevent any but canoes or flat-bottomed boats from passing on them, and even these are limited to certain parts, on account of the above-named obstacles. By deepening the bed of the river and lakes, and forming locks in some parts and canals, the whole sweep of these waters might be thrown open to the Bay of Quinte. The expense, however, would necessarily be great; and till the townships of this portion of the district be fully settled, it is hardly to be expected that so vast an undertaking should be effected, however desirable it may be. [Illustration: Sleigh driving] We left the tavern at Rice Lake, after an unusual delay, at nine o'clock. The morning was damp, and a cold wind blew over the lake, which appeared to little advantage through the drizzling rain, from which I was glad to shroud my face in my warm plaid cloak, for there was no cabin or other shelter in the little steamer than an inefficient awning. This apology for a steam-boat formed a considerable contrast with the superbly-appointed vessels we had lately been passengers in on the Ontario and the St. Laurence. But the circumstance of a steamer at all on the Otanabee was a matter of surprise to us, and of exultation to the first settlers along its shores, who for many years had been contented with no better mode of transport than a scow or a canoe for themselves and their marketable produce, or through the worst possible roads with a waggon or sleigh. The Otanabee is a fine broad, clear stream, divided into two mouths at its entrance to the Rice Lake by a low tongue of land, too swampy to be put under cultivation. This beautiful river (for such I consider it to be) winds its way between thickly-wooded banks, which rise gradually as you advance higher up the country. Towards noon the mists cleared off, and the sun came forth in all the brilliant beauty of a September day. So completely were we sheltered from the wind by the thick wall of pines on either side, that I no longer felt the least inconvenience from the cold that had chilled me on crossing the lake in the morning. To the mere passing traveller, who cares little for the minute beauties of scenery, there is certainly a monotony in the long and unbroken line of woods, which insensibly inspires a feeling of gloom almost touching on sadness. Still there are objects to charm and delight the close observer of nature. His eye will be attracted by fantastic bowers, which are formed by the scarlet creeper (or Canadian ivy) and the wild vine, flinging their closely-entwined wreaths of richly tinted foliage from bough to bough of the forest trees, mingling their hues with the splendid rose-tipped branches of the soft maple, the autumnal tints of which are unrivalled in beauty by any of our forest trees at home. The purple clusters of the grape, by no means so contemptible in size as I had been led to imagine, looked tempting to my longing eyes, as they appeared just ripening among these forest bowers. I am told the juice forms a delicious and highly-flavoured jelly, boiled with sufficient quantity of sugar; the seeds are too large to make any other preparation of them practicable. I shall endeavour, at some time or other, to try the improvement that can be effected by cultivation. One is apt to imagine where Nature has so abundantly bestowed fruits, that is the most favourable climate for their attaining perfection with the assistance of culture and soil. [Illustration: Silver Pine] The waters of the Otanabee are so clear and free from impurity that you distinctly see every stone-pebble or shell at the bottom. Here and there an opening in the forest reveals some tributary stream, working its way beneath the gigantic trees that meet above it. The silence of the scene is unbroken but by the sudden rush of the wild duck, disturbed from its retreat among the shrubby willows, that in some parts fringe the left bank, or the shrill cry of the kingfisher, as it darts across the water. The steam-boat put in for a supply of fire-wood at a clearing about half-way from Peterborough, and I gladly availed myself of the opportunity of indulging my inclination for gathering some of the splendid cardinal flowers that grew among the stones by the river's brink. Here, too, I plucked as sweet a rose as ever graced an English garden. I also found, among the grass of the meadow-land, spearmint, and, nearer to the bank, peppermint. There was a bush resembling our hawthorn, which, on examination, proved to be the cockspur hawthorn, with fruit as large as cherries, pulpy, and of a pleasant tartness not much unlike to tamarinds. The thorns of this tree were of formidable length and strength. I should think it might be introduced with great advantage to form live fences; the fruit, too, would prove by no means contemptible as a preserve. As I felt a great curiosity to see the interior of a log-house, I entered the open door-way of the tavern, as the people termed it, under the pretext of buying a draught of milk. The interior of this rude dwelling presented no very inviting aspect. The walls were of rough unhewn logs, filled between the chinks with moss and irregular wedges of wood to keep out the wind and rain. The unplastered roof displayed the rafters, covered with moss and lichens, green, yellow, and grey; above which might be seen the shingles, dyed to a fine mahogany-red by the smoke which refused to ascend the wide clay and stone chimney, to curl gracefully about the roof, and seek its exit in the various crannies and apertures with which the roof and sides of the building abounded. The floor was of earth, which had become pretty hard and smooth through use. This hut reminded me of the one described by the four Russian sailors that were left to winter on the island of Spitzbergen. Its furniture was of corresponding rudeness; a few stools, rough and unplaned; a deal table, which, from being manufactured from unseasoned wood, was divided by three wide open seams, and was only held together by its ill-shaped legs; two or three blocks of grey granite placed beside the hearth served for seats for the children, with the addition of two beds raised a little above the ground by a frame of split cedars. On these lowly couches lay extended two poor men, suffering under the wasting effects of lake-fever. Their yellow bilious faces strangely contrasted with the gay patchwork-quilts that covered them. I felt much concerned for the poor emigrants, who told me they had not been many weeks in the country when they were seized with the fever and ague. They both had wives and small children, who seemed very miserable. The wives also had been sick with ague, and had not a house or even shanty of their own up; the husbands having fallen ill were unable to do anything; and much of the little money they had brought out with them had been expended in board and lodging in this miserable place, which they dignified by the name of tavern. I cannot say I was greatly prepossessed in favour of their hostess, a harsh, covetous woman. Besides the various emigrants, men, women, and children, that lodged within the walls, the log-house had tenants of another description. A fine calf occupied a pen in a corner; some pigs roamed grunting about in company with some half- dozen fowls. The most attractive objects were three snow-white pigeons, that were meekly picking up crumbs, and looking as if they were too pure and innocent to be inhabitants of such a place. Owing to the shallowness of the river at this season, and to the rapids, the steam-boat is unable to go up the whole way to Peterborough, and a scow or rowboat, as it is sometimes termed--a huge, unwieldy, flat- bottomed machine--meets the passengers at a certain part of the river, within sight of a singular pine tree on the right bank; this is termed the "Yankee bonnet," from the fancied resemblance of the topmost boughs to a sort of cap worn by the Yankees, not much unlike the blue bonnet of Scotland. Unfortunately, the steamer ran aground some four miles below the usual place of rendezvous, and we waited till near four o'clock for the scow. When it made its appearance, we found, to our discomfort, the rowers (eight in number, and all Irishmen) were under the exciting influence of a cag of whiskey, which they had drunk dry on the voyage. They were moreover exasperated by the delay on the part of the steamer, which gave them four miles additional heavy rowing. Beside a number of passengers there was an enormous load of furniture, trunks, boxes, chests, sacks of wheat, barrels of flour, salt, and pork, with many miscellaneous packages and articles, small and great, which were piled to a height that I thought very unsafe both to goods and passengers. With a marvellous ill grace the men took up their oars when their load was completed, but declared they would go on shore and make a fire and cook their dinners, they not having eaten any food, though they had taken large potations of the whiskey. This measure was opposed by some of the gentlemen, and a fierce and angry scene ensued, which ended in the mutineers flinging down their oars, and positively refusing to row another stroke till they had satisfied their hunger. Perhaps I had a fellow-feeling for them, as I began to be exceedingly hungry, almost ravenous, myself, having fasted since six that morning; indeed, so faint was I, that I was fain to get my husband to procure me a morsel of the coarse uninviting bread that was produced by the rowers, and which they ate with huge slices of raw pickled pork, seasoning this unseemly meal with curses "not loud but deep," and bitter taunts against those who prevented them from cooking their food like _Christians_. While I was eagerly eating the bit of bread, an old farmer, who had eyed me for some time with a mixture of curiosity and compassion, said, "Poor thing: well, you do seem hungry indeed, and I dare say are just out from the _ould_ country, and so little used to such hard fare. Here are some cakes that my woman (i.e. wife) put in my pocket when I left home; I care nothing for them, but they are better than that bad bread; take 'em, and welcome." With these words he tossed some very respectable home-made seed-cakes into my lap, and truly never was anything more welcome than this seasonable refreshment. A sullen and gloomy spirit seemed to prevail among our boatmen, which by no means diminished as the evening drew on, and "the rapids were near." The sun had set, and the moon and stars rose brilliantly over the still waters, which gave back the reflections of their glorious multitude of heavenly bodies. A sight so passing fair might have stilled the most turbulent spirits into peace; at least so I thought, as, wrapped in my cloak, I leant back against the supporting arm of my husband, and looking from the waters to the sky, and from the sky to the waters, with delight and admiration. My pleasant reverie was, however, soon ended, when I suddenly felt the boat touch the rocky bank, and heard the boatmen protesting they would go no further that night. We were nearly three miles below Peterborough, and how I was to walk this distance, weakened as I was by recent illness and fatigue of our long travelling, I knew not. To spend the night in an open boat, exposed to the heavy dews arising from the river, would be almost death. While we were deliberating on what to do, the rest of the passengers had made up their minds, and taken the way through the woods by a road they were well acquainted with. They were soon out of sight, all but one gentleman, who was bargaining with one of the rowers to take him and his dog across the river at the head of the rapids in a skiff. Imagine our situation, at ten o'clock at night, without knowing a single step of our road, put on shore to find the way to the distant town as we best could, or pass the night in the dark forest. Almost in despair, we entreated the gentleman to be our guide as far as he went. But so many obstacles beset our path in the form of newly- chopped trees and blocks of stone, scattered along the shore, that it was with the utmost difficulty we could keep him in sight. At last we came up with him at the place appointed to meet the skiff, and, with a pertinacity that at another time and in other circumstances we never should have adopted, we all but insisted on being admitted into the boat. An angry growling consent was extorted from the surly Charon, and we hastily entered the frail bark, which seemed hardly calculated to convey us in safety to the opposite shore. I could not help indulging in a feeling of indescribable fear, as I listened to the torrent of profane invective that burst forth continually from the lips of the boatman. Once or twice we were in danger of being overset by the boughs of the pines and cedars which had fallen into the water near the banks. Right glad was I when we reached the opposite shores; but here a new trouble arose: there was yet more untracked wood to cross before we again met the skiff which had to pass up a small rapid, and meet us at the head of the small lake, an expansion of the Otanabee a little below Peterborough. At the distance of every few yards our path was obstructed by fallen trees, mostly hemlock, spruce, or cedar, the branches of which are so thickly interwoven that it is scarcely possible to separate them, or force a passage through the tangled thicket which they form. Had it not been for the humane assistance of our conductor, I know not how I should have surmounted these difficulties. Sometimes I was ready to sink down from very weariness. At length I hailed, with a joy I could hardly have supposed possible, the gruff voice of the Irish rower, and, after considerable grumbling on his part, we were again seated. Glad enough we were to see, by the blazing light of an enormous log- heap, the house of our friend. Here we received the offer of a guide to show us the way to the town by a road cut through the wood. We partook of the welcome refreshment of tea, and, having gained a little strength by a short rest, we once more commenced our journey, guided by a ragged, but polite, Irish boy, whose frankness and good humour quite won our regards. He informed us he was one of seven orphans, who had lost father and mother in the cholera. It was a sad thing, he said, to be left fatherless and motherless, in a strange land; and he swept away the tears that gathered in his eyes as he told the simple, but sad tale of his early bereavement; but added, cheerfully, he had met with a kind master, who had taken some of his brothers and sisters into his service as well as himself. Just as we were emerging from the gloom of the wood we found our progress impeded by a _creek_, as the boy called it, over which he told us we must pass by a log-bridge before we could get to the town. Now, the log-bridge was composed of one log, or rather a fallen tree, thrown across the stream, rendered very slippery by the heavy dew that had risen from the swamp. As the log admitted of only one person at a time, I could receive no assistance from my companions; and, though our little guide, with a natural politeness arising from the benevolence of his disposition, did me all the service in his power by holding the lantern close to the surface to throw all the light he could on the subject, I had the ill luck to fall in up to my knees in the water, my head turning quite giddy just as I came to the last step or two; thus was I wet as well as weary. To add to our misfortune we saw the lights disappear, one by one, in the village, till a solitary candle, glimmering from the upper chambers of one or two houses, were our only beacons. We had yet a lodging to seek, and it was near midnight before we reached the door of the principal inn; there, at least, thought I, our troubles for to-night will end; but great was our mortification on being told there was not a spare bed to be had in the house, every one being occupied by emigrants going up to one of the back townships. I could go no further, and we petitioned for a place by the kitchen fire, where we might rest, at least, if not sleep, and I might dry my wet garments. On seeing my condition the landlady took compassion on me, led me to a blazing fire, which her damsels quickly roused up; one brought a warm bath for my feet, while another provided a warm potation, which, I really believe, strange and unusual to my lips as it was, did me good: in short, we received every kindness and attention that we required from mine host and hostess, who relinquished their own bed for our accommodation, contenting themselves with a shakedown before the kitchen fire. I can now smile at the disasters of _that_ day, but at the time they appeared no trifles, as you may well suppose. Farewell, my dearest Mother. LETTER VI. Peterborough.--Manners and Language of the Americans.--Scotch Engineman.--Description of Peterborough and its Environs.--Canadian Flowers.--Shanties.--Hardships suffered by first Settlers.--Process of establishing a Farm. Peterborough, Sept. 11, 1832. IT is now settled that we abide here till after the government sale has taken place. We are, then, to remain with S------ and his family till we have got a few acres chopped, and a log-house put up on our own land. Having determined to go at once into the bush, on account of our military grant, which we have been so fortunate as to draw in the neighbourhood of S------, we have fully made up our minds to enter at once, and cheerfully, on the privations and inconveniences attending such a situation; as there is no choice between relinquishing that great advantage and doing our settlement duties. We shall not be worse off than others who have gone before us to the unsettled townships, many of whom, naval and military officers, with their families, have had to struggle with considerable difficulties, but who are now beginning to feel the advantages arising from their exertions. In addition to the land he is entitled to as an officer in the British service, my husband is in treaty for the purchase of an eligible lot by small lakes. This will give us a water frontage, and a further inducement to bring us within a little distance of S------; so that we shall not be quite so lonely as if we had gone on to our government lot at once. We have experienced some attention and hospitality from several of the residents of Peterborough. There is a very genteel society, chiefly composed of officers and their families, besides the professional men and storekeepers. Many of the latter are persons of respectable family and good education. Though a store is, in fact, nothing better than what we should call in the country towns at home a "_general shop_," yet the storekeeper in Canada holds a very different rank from the shopkeeper of the English village. The storekeepers are the merchants and bankers of the places in which they reside. Almost all money matters are transacted by them, and they are often men of landed property and consequence, not unfrequently filling the situations of magistrates, commissioners, and even members of the provincial parliament. As they maintain a rank in society which entitles them to equality with the aristocracy of the country, you must not be surprised when I tell you that it is no uncommon circumstance to see the sons of naval and military officers and clergymen standing behind a counter, or wielding an axe in the woods with their fathers' choppers; nor do they lose their grade in society by such employment. After all, it is education and manners that must distinguish the gentleman in this country, seeing that the labouring man, if he is diligent and industrious, may soon become his equal in point of worldly possessions. The ignorant man, let him be ever so wealthy, can never be equal to the man of education. It is the mind that forms the distinction between the classes in this country-- "Knowledge is power!" We had heard so much of the odious manners of the Yankees in this country that I was rather agreeably surprised by the few specimens of native Americans that I have seen. They were for the most part, polite, well-behaved people. The only peculiarities I observed in them were a certain nasal twang in speaking, and some few odd phrases; but these were only used by the lower class, who "_guess_" and "_calculate_" a little more than we do. One of their most remarkable terms is to "_Fix_." Whatever work requires to be done it must be _fixed_. "Fix the room" is, set it in order. "Fix the table"--"Fix the fire," says the mistress to her servants, and the things are fixed accordingly. I was amused one day by hearing a woman tell her husband the chimney wanted fixing. I thought it seemed secure enough, and was a little surprised when the man got a rope and a few cedar boughs, with which he dislodged an accumulation of soot that caused the fire to smoke. The chimney being _fixed_, all went right again. This odd term is not confined to the lower orders alone, and, from hearing it so often, it becomes a standard word even among the later emigrants from our own country. With the exception of some few remarkable expressions, and an attempt at introducing fine words in their every-day conversation, the lower order of Yankees have a decided advantage over our English peasantry in the use of grammatical language: they speak better English than you will hear from persons of the same class in any part of England, Ireland, or Scotland; a fact that we should be unwilling, I suppose, to allow at home. If I were asked what appeared to me the most striking feature in the manners of the Americans that I had met with, I should say it was coldness approaching to apathy. I do not at all imagine them to be deficient in feeling or real sensibility, but they do not suffer their emotion to be seen. They are less profuse in their expressions of welcome and kindness than we are, though probably quite as sincere. No one doubts their hospitality; but, after all, one likes to see the hearty shake of the hand, and hear the cordial word that makes one feel oneself welcome. Persons who come to this country are very apt to confound the old settlers from Britain with the native Americans; and when they meet with people of rude, offensive manners, using certain Yankee words in their conversation, and making a display of independence not exactly suitable to their own aristocratical notions, they immediately suppose they must be genuine Yankees, while they are, in fact, only imitators; and you well know the fact that a bad imitation is always worse than the original. You would be surprised to see how soon the new comers fall into this disagreeable manner and affectation of equality, especially the inferior class of Irish and Scotch; the English less so. We were rather entertained by the behaviour of a young Scotchman, the engineer of the steamer, on my husband addressing him with reference to the management of the engine. His manners were surly, and almost insolent. He scrupulously avoided the least approach to courtesy or outward respect; nay, he even went so far as to seat himself on the bench close beside me, and observed that "among the many advantages this country offered to settlers like him, he did not reckon it the least of them that he was not obliged to take off his hat when he spoke to people (meaning persons of our degree), or address them by any other title than their name; besides, he could go and take his seat beside any gentleman or lady either, and think himself to the full as good as them. "Very likely," I replied, hardly able to refrain from laughing at this sally; "but I doubt you greatly overrate the advantage of such privileges, for you cannot oblige the lady or gentleman to entertain the same opinion of your qualifications, or to remain seated beside you unless it pleases them to do so." With these words I rose up and left the independent gentleman evidently a little confounded at the manoeuvre: however, he soon recovered his self-possession, and continued swinging the axe he held in his hand, and said, "It is no crime, I guess, being born a poor man." "None in the world," replied my husband; "a man's birth is not of his own choosing. A man can no more help being born poor than rich; neither is it the fault of a gentleman being born of parents who occupy a higher station in society than his neighbour. I hope you will allow this?" The Scotchman was obliged to yield a reluctant affirmative to the latter position; but concluded with again repeating his satisfaction at not being obliged in this country to take off his hat, or speak with respect to gentlemen, as they styled themselves. "No one, my friend, could have obliged you to be well mannered at home any more than in Canada. Surely you could have kept your hat on your head if you had been so disposed; no gentleman would have knocked it off, I am sure. "As to the boasted advantage of rude manners in Canada, I should think something of it if it benefited you the least, or put one extra dollar in your pocket; but I have my doubts if it has that profitable effect." "There is a comfort, I guess, in considering oneself equal to a gentleman." "Particularly if you could induce the gentleman to think the same." This was a point that seemed rather to disconcert our candidate for equality, who commenced whistling and kicking his heels with redoubled energy. "Now," said his tormentor, "you have explained your notions of Canadian independence; be so good as to explain the machinery of your engine, with which you seem very well acquainted." The man eyed my husband for a minute, half sulking, half pleased at the implied compliment on his skill, and, walking off to the engine, discussed the management of it with considerable fluency, and from that time treated us with perfect respect. He was evidently struck with my husband's reply to his question, put in a most discourteous tone, "Pray, what makes a gentleman: I'll thank you to answer me that?" "Good manners and good education," was the reply. "A rich man or a high-born man, if he is rude, ill-mannered, and ignorant, is no more a gentleman than yourself." This put the matter on a different footing, and the engineer had the good sense to perceive that rude familiarity did not constitute a gentleman. But it is now time I should give you some account of Peterborough, which, in point of situation, is superior to any place I have yet seen in the Upper Province. It occupies a central point between the townships of Monaghan, Smith, Cavan, Otanabee, and Douro, and may with propriety be considered as the capital of the Newcastle district. It is situated on a fine elevated plain, just above the small lake, where the river is divided by two low wooded islets. The original or government part of the town is laid out in half-acre lots; the streets, which are now fast filling up, are nearly at right angles with the river, and extend towards the plains to the northeast. These plains form a beautiful natural park, finely diversified with hill and dale, covered with a lovely green sward, enamelled with a variety of the most exquisite flowers, and planted, as if by Nature's own hand, with groups of feathery pines, oaks, balsam, poplar, and silver birch. The views from these plains are delightful; whichever way you turn your eyes they are gratified by a diversity of hill and dale, wood and water, with the town spreading over a considerable tract of ground. The plains descend with a steep declivity towards the river, which rushes with considerable impetuosity between its banks. Fancy a long, narrow valley, and separating the east and west portions of the town into two distinct villages. [Illustration: Spruce] The Otanabee bank rises to a loftier elevation than the Monaghan side, and commands an extensive view over the intervening valley, the opposite town, and the boundary forest and hills behind it: this is called Peterborough East, and is in the hands of two or three individuals of large capital, from whom the town lots are purchased. Peterborough thus divided covers a great extent of ground, more than sufficient for the formation of a large city. The number of inhabitants are now reckoned at seven hundred and upwards, and if it continues to increase as rapidly in the next few years as it has done lately, it will soon be a very populous town*. [*Since this account of Peterborough was written, the town has increased at least a third in buildings and population.] There is great water-power, both as regards the river and the fine broad creek which winds its way through the town and falls into the small lake below. There are several saw and grist-mills, a distillery, fulling- mill, two principal inns, beside smaller ones, a number of good stores, a government school-house, which also serves for a church, till one more suitable should be built. The plains are sold off in park lots, and some pretty little dwellings are being built, but I much fear the natural beauties of this lovely spot will be soon spoiled. I am never weary with strolling about, climbing the hills in every direction, to catch some new prospect, or gather some new flowers, which, though getting late in the summer, are still abundant. Among the plants with whose names I am acquainted are a variety of shrubby asters, of every tint of blue, purple, and pearly white; a lilac _monarda_, most delightfully aromatic, even to the dry stalks and seed- vessels; the white _gnaphalium_ or everlasting flower; roses of several kinds, a few late buds of which I found in a valley, near the church. I also noticed among the shrubs a very pretty little plant, resembling our box; it trails along the ground, sending up branches and shoots; the leaves turn of a deep copper red*; yet, in spite of this contradiction, it is an evergreen. I also noticed some beautiful lichens, with coral caps surmounting the grey hollow footstalks, which grow in irregular tufts among the dry mosses, or more frequently I found them covering the roots of the trees or half-decayed timbers. Among a variety of fungi I gathered a hollow cup of the most splendid scarlet within, and a pale fawn colour without; another very beautiful fungi consisted of small branches like clusters of white coral, but of so delicate a texture that the slightest touch caused them to break. [* Probably a _Gaultkeria_.--Ed.] The ground in many places was covered with a thick carpet of strawberries of many varieties, which afford a constant dessert during the season to those who choose to pick them, a privilege of which I am sure I should gladly avail myself were I near them in the summer. Beside the plants I have myself observed in blossom, I am told the spring and summer produce many others;--the orange lily; the phlox, or purple _lichnidea_; the mocassin flower, or ladies' slipper; lilies of the valley in abundance; and, towards the banks of the creek and the Otanabee, the splendid cardinal flower (_lobelia cardinalis_) waves its scarlet spikes of blossoms. I am half inclined to be angry when I admire the beauty of the Canadian flowers, to be constantly reminded that they are scentless, and therefore scarcely worthy of attention; as if the eye could not be charmed by beauty of form and harmony of colours, independent of the sense of smelling being gratified. To redeem this country from the censure cast on it by a very clever gentleman I once met in London, who said, "the flowers were without perfume, and the birds without song," I have already discovered several highly aromatic plants and flowers. The milkweed must not be omitted among these; a beautiful shrubby plant with purple flowers, which are alike remarkable for beauty of colour and richness of scent. I shall very soon begin to collect a hortus siccus for Eliza, with a description of the plants, growth, and qualities. Any striking particulars respecting them I shall make notes of; and tell her she may depend on my sending my specimens, with seeds of such as I can collect, at some fitting opportunity. I consider this country opens a wide and fruitful field to the inquiries of the botanist. I now deeply regret I did not benefit by the frequent offers Eliza made me of prosecuting a study which I once thought dry, but now regard as highly interesting, and the fertile source of mental enjoyment, especially to those who, living in the bush, must necessarily be shut out from the pleasures of a large circle of friends, and the varieties that a town or village offer. On Sunday I went to church; the first opportunity I had had of attending public worship since I was in the Highlands of Scotland; and surely I had reason to bow my knees in thankfulness to that merciful God who had brought us through the perils of the great deep and the horrors of the pestilence. Never did our beautiful Liturgy seem so touching and impressive as it did that day,--offered up in our lowly log-built church in the wilderness. This simple edifice is situated at the foot of a gentle slope on the plains, surrounded by groups of oak and feathery pines, which, though inferior in point of size to the huge pines and oaks of the forest, are far more agreeable to the eye, branching out in a variety of fantastic forms. The turf here is of an emerald greenness: in short, it is a sweet spot, retired from the noise and bustle of the town, a fitting place in which to worship God in spirit and in truth. There are many beautiful walks towards the Smith town hills, and along the banks that overlook the river. The summit of this ridge is sterile, and is thickly set with loose blocks of red and grey granite, interspersed with large masses of limestone scattered in every direction; they are mostly smooth and rounded, as if by the action of water. As they are detached, and merely occupy the surface of the ground, it seemed strange to me how they came at that elevation. A geologist would doubtless be able to solve the mystery in a few minutes. The oaks that grow on this high bank are rather larger and more flourishing than those in the valleys and more fertile portions of the soil. Behind the town, in the direction of the Cavan and Emily roads, is a wide space which I call the "squatter's ground," it being entirely covered with shanties, in which the poor emigrants, commuted pensioners, and the like, have located themselves and families. Some remain here under the ostensible reason of providing a shelter for their wives and children till they have prepared a home for their reception on their respective grants; but not unfrequently it happens that they are too indolent, or really unable to work on their lots, often situated many miles in the backwoods, and in distant and unsettled townships, presenting great obstacles to the poor emigrant, which it requires more energy and courage to encounter than is possessed by a vast number of them. Others, of idle and profligate habits, spend the money they received, and sell the land, for which they gave away their pensions, after which they remain miserable squatters on the shanty ground. The shanty is a sort of primitive hut in Canadian architecture, and is nothing more than a shed built of logs, the chinks between the round edges of the timbers being filled with mud, moss, and bits of wood; the roof is frequently composed of logs split and hollowed with the axe, and placed side by side, so that the edges rest on each other; the concave and convex surfaces being alternately uppermost, every other log forms a channel to carry off the rain and melting snow. The eaves of this building resemble the scolloped edges of a clam shell; but rude as this covering is, it effectually answers the purpose of keeping the interior dry; far more so than the roofs formed of bark or boards, through which the rain will find entrance. Sometimes the shanty has a window, sometimes only an open doorway, which admits the light and lets out the smoke*. A rude chimney, which is often nothing better than an opening cut in one of the top logs above the hearth, a few boards fastened in a square form, serves as the vent for the smoke; the only precaution against the fire catching the log walls behind the hearth being a few large stones placed in a half circular form, or more commonly a bank of dry earth raised against the wall. [* I was greatly amused by the remark made by a little Irish boy, that we hired to be our hewer of wood and drawer of water, who had been an inhabitant of one of these shanties. "Ma'am" said he, "when the weather was stinging cold, we did not know how to keep ourselves warm; for while we roasted our eyes out before the fire our backs were just freezing; so first we turned one side and then the other, just as you would roast a _guse_ on a spit. Mother spent half the money father earned at his straw work (he was a straw chair maker,) in whiskey to keep us warm; but I do think a larger mess of good hot _praters_ (potatoes,) would have kept us warmer than the whiskey did."] Nothing can be more comfortless than some of these shanties, reeking with smoke and dirt, the common receptacle for children, pigs, and fowls. But I have given you the dark side of the picture; I am happy to say all the shanties on the squatters' ground were not like these: on the contrary, by far the larger proportion were inhabited by tidy folks, and had one, or even two small windows, and a clay chimney regularly built up through the roof; some were even roughly floored, and possessed similar comforts with the small log-houses. [Illustration: Log house] You will, perhaps, think it strange when I assure you that many respectable settlers, with their wives and families, persons delicately nurtured, and accustomed to every comfort before they came hither, have been contented to inhabit a hut of this kind during the first or second year of their settlement in the woods. I have listened with feelings of great interest to the history of the hardships endured by some of the first settlers in the neighbourhood, when Peterborough contained but two dwelling houses. Then there were neither roads cut nor boats built for communicating with the distant and settled parts of the district; consequently the difficulties of procuring supplies of provisions was very great, beyond what any one that has lately come hither can form any notion of. When I heard of a whole family having had no better supply of flour than what could be daily ground by a small hand-mill, and for weeks being destitute of every necessary, not even excepting bread, I could not help expressing some surprise, never having met with any account in the works I had read concerning emigration that at all prepared one for such evils. "These particular trials," observed my intelligent friend, "are confined principally to the first breakers of the soil in the unsettled parts of the country, as was our case. If you diligently question some of the families of the lower class that are located far from the towns, and who had little or no means to support them during the first twelve months, till they could take a crop off the land, you will hear many sad tales of distress." Writers on emigration do not take the trouble of searching out these things, nor does it answer their purpose to state disagreeable facts. Few have written exclusively on the "Bush." Travellers generally make a hasty journey through the long settled and prosperous portions of the country; they see a tract of fertile, well-cultivated land, the result of many years of labour; they see comfortable dwellings, abounding with all the substantial necessaries of life; the farmer's wife makes her own soap, candles, and sugar; the family are clothed in cloth of their own spinning, and hose of their own knitting. The bread, the beer, butter, cheese, meat, poultry, &c. are all the produce of the farm. He concludes, therefore, that Canada is a land of Canaan, and writes a book setting forth these advantages, with the addition of obtaining land for a mere song; and advises all persons who would be independent and secure from want to emigrate. He forgets that these advantages are the result of long years of unremitting and patient labour; that these things are the _crown_, not the _first-fruits_ of the settler's toil; and that during the interval many and great privations must be submitted to by almost every class of emigrants. Many persons, on first coming out, especially if they go back into any of the unsettled townships, are dispirited by the unpromising appearance of things about them. They find none of the advantages and comforts of which they had heard and read, and they are unprepared for the present difficulties; some give way to despondency, and others quit the place in disgust. [Illustration: Log-Village--Arrival of a Stage-coach] A little reflection would have shown them that every rood of land must be cleared of the thick forest of timber that encumbers it before an ear of wheat can be grown; that, after the trees have been chopped, cut into lengths, drawn together, or _logged_, as we call it, and burned, the field must be fenced, the seed sown, harvested, and thrashed before any returns can be obtained; that this requires time and much labour, and, if hired labour, considerable outlay of ready money; and in the mean time a family must eat. If at a distance from a store, every article must be brought through bad roads either by hand or with a team, the hire of which is generally costly in proportion to the distance and difficulty to be encountered in the conveyance. Now these things are better known beforehand, and then people are aware what they have to encounter. Even a labouring man, though he have land of his own, is often, I may say generally, obliged to _hire out_ to work for the first year or two, to earn sufficient for the maintenance of his family; and even so many of them suffer much privation before they reap the benefit of their independence. Were it not for the hope and the certain prospect of bettering their condition ultimately, they would sink under what they have to endure; but this thought buoys them up. They do not fear an old age of want and pauperism; the present evils must yield to industry and perseverance; they think also for their children; and the trials of the present time are lost in pleasing anticipations for the future. "Surely," said I, "cows and pigs and poultry might be kept; and you know where there is plenty of milk, butter, cheese, and eggs, with pork and fowls, persons cannot be very badly off for food." "Very true," replied my friend; "but I must tell you it is easier to talk of these things at first than to keep them, unless on cleared or partially cleared farms; but we are speaking of a _first_ settlement in the backwoods. Cows, pigs, and fowls must eat, and if you have nothing to give them unless you purchase it, and perhaps have to bring it from some distance, you had better not be troubled with them, as the trouble is certain and the profit doubtful. A cow, it is true, will get her living during the open months of the year in the bush, but sometimes she will ramble away for days together, and then you lose the use of her, and possibly much time in seeking her; then in the winter she requires some additional food to the _browse_* that she gets during the chopping season, or ten to one but she dies before spring; and as cows generally lose their milk during the cold weather, if not very well kept, it is best to part with them in the fall and buy again in the spring, unless you have plenty of food for them, which is not often the case the first winter. As to pigs they are great plagues on a newly cleared farm if you cannot fat them off-hand; and that you cannot do without you buy food for them, which does not answer to do at first. If they run loose they are a terrible annoyance both to your own crops and your neighbours if you happen to be within half a mile of one; for though you may fence out cattle you cannot pigs: even poultry require something more than they pick up about the dwelling to be of any service to you, and are often taken off by hawks, eagles, foxes, and pole-cats, till you have proper securities for them." [* The cattle are supported in a great measure during the fall and winter by eating the tender shoots of the maple, beech and bass, which they seek in the newly-chopped fallow; but they should likewise be allowed straw or other food, or they will die in the very hard weather.] "Then how are we to spin our own wool and make our own soap and candles?" said I. "When you are able to kill your own sheep, and hogs, and oxen, unless you buy wool and tallow"--then, seeing me begin to look somewhat disappointed, he said, "Be not cast down, you will have all these things in time, and more than these, never fear, if you have patience, and use the means of obtaining them. In the mean while prepare your mind for many privations to which at present you are a stranger; and if you would desire to see your husband happy and prosperous, be content to use economy, and above all, be cheerful. In a few years the farm will supply you with all the necessaries of life, and by and by you may even enjoy many of the luxuries. Then it is that a settler begins to taste the real and solid advantages of his emigration; then he feels the blessings of a country where there are no taxes, tithes, nor poor-rates; then he truly feels the benefit of independence. It is looking forward to this happy fulfillment of his desires that makes the rough paths smooth, and lightens the burden of present ills. He looks round upon a numerous family without those anxious fears that beset a father in moderate circumstances at home; for he knows he does not leave them destitute of an honest means of support." In spite of all the trials he had encountered, I found this gentleman was so much attached to a settler's life, that he declared he would not go back to his own country to reside for a permanence on any account; nor is he the only one that I have heard express the same opinion; and it likewise seems a universal one among the lower class of emigrants. They are encouraged by the example of others whom they see enjoying comforts that they could never have obtained had they laboured ever so hard at home; and they wisely reflect they must have had hardships to endure had they remained in their native land (many indeed had been driven out by want), without the most remote chance of bettering themselves or becoming the possessors of land free from all restrictions. "What to us are the sufferings of one, two, three, or even four years, compared with a whole life of labour and poverty," was the remark of a poor labourer, who was recounting to us the other day some of the hardships he had met with in this country. He said he "knew they were only for a short time, and that by industry he should soon get over them." I have already seen two of our poor neighbours that left the parish a twelvemonth ago; they are settled in Canada Company lots, and are getting on well. They have some few acres cleared and cropped, but are obliged to "_hire out_", to enable their families to live, working on their own land when they can. The men are in good spirits, and say "they shall in a few years have many comforts about them that they never could have got at home, had they worked late and early; but they complain that their wives are always pining for home, and lamenting that ever they crossed the seas." This seems to be the general complaint with all classes; the women are discontented and unhappy. Few enter with their whole heart into a settler's life. They miss the little domestic comforts they had been used to enjoy; they regret the friends and relations they left in the old country; and they cannot endure the loneliness of the backwoods. This prospect does not discourage me: I know I shall find plenty of occupation within-doors, and I have sources of enjoyment when I walk abroad that will keep me from being dull. Besides, have I not a right to be cheerful and contented for the sake of my beloved partner? The change is not greater for me than him; and if for his sake I have voluntarily left home, and friends, and country, shall I therefore sadden him by useless regrets? I am always inclined to subscribe to that sentiment of my favourite poet, Goldsmith,-- "Still to ourselves in every place consign'd, Our own felicity we make or find." But I shall very soon be put to the test, as we leave this town to- morrow by ten o'clock. The purchase of the Lake lot is concluded. There are three acres chopped and a shanty up; but the shanty is not a habitable dwelling, being merely an open shed that was put up by the choppers as a temporary shelter; so we shall have to build a house. Late enough we are; too late to get in a full crop, as the land is merely chopped, not cleared, and it is too late now to log and burn the fallow, and get the seed-wheat in: but it will be ready for spring crops. We paid five dollars and a half per acre for the lot; this was rather high for wild land, so far from a town, and in a scantily-settled part of the township; but the situation is good, and has a water frontage, for which my husband was willing to pay something more than if the lot had been further inland. In all probability it will be some time before I find leisure again to take up my pen. We shall remain guests with ------ till our house is in a habitable condition, which I suppose will be about Christmas. LETTER VII. Journey from Peterborough.--Canadian Woods.--Waggon and Team.--Arrival at a Log-house on the Banks of a Lake.--Settlement and first Occupations. October 25, 1832. I SHALL begin my letter with a description of our journey through the bush, and so go on, giving an account of our proceedings both within- doors and with-out. I know my little domestic details will not prove wholly uninteresting to you; for well I am assured that a mother's eye is never weary with reading lines traced by the hand of an absent and beloved child. After some difficulty we succeeded in hiring a waggon and span (i.e. pair abreast) of stout horses to convey us and our luggage through the woods to the banks of one of the lakes, where S------ had appointed to ferry us across. There was no palpable road, only a blaze on the other side, encumbered by fallen trees, and interrupted by a great cedar swamp, into which one might sink up to one's knees, unless we took the precaution to step along the trunks of the mossy, decaying timbers, or make our footing sure on some friendly block of granite or limestone. What is termed in bush language a _blaze_, is nothing more than notches or slices cut off the bark of the trees, to mark out the line of road. The boundaries of the different lots are often marked by a blazed tree, also the concession-lines*. These blazes are of as much use as finger- posts of a dark night. [* These concession-lines are certain divisions of the townships; these are again divided into so many lots of 200 acres. The concession-lines used to be marked by a wide avenue being chopped, so as to form a road of communication between them; but this plan was found too troublesome; and in a few years the young growth of timber so choked the opening, that it was of little use. The lately-surveyed townships, I believe, are only divided by blazed lines.] The road we were compelled to take lay over the Peterborough plains, in the direction of the river; the scenery of which pleased me much, though it presents little appearance of fertility, with the exception of two or three extensive clearings. About three miles above Peterborough the road winds along the brow of a steep ridge, the bottom of which has every appearance of having been formerly the bed of a lateral branch of the present river, or perhaps some small lake, which has been diverted from its channel, and merged in the Otanabee. On either side of this ridge there is a steep descent; on the right the Otanabee breaks upon you, rushing with great velocity over its rocky bed, forming rapids in miniature resembling those of the St. Laurence; its dark, frowning woods of sombre pine give a grandeur to the scenery that is very impressive. On the left lies below you a sweet secluded dell of evergreens, cedar, hemlock, and pine, enlivened by a few deciduous trees. Through this dell there is a road-track leading to a fine cleared farm, the green pastures of which were rendered more pleasing by the absence of the odious stumps that disfigure the clearings in this part of the country. A pretty bright stream flows through the low meadow that lies at the foot of the hill, which you descend suddenly close by a small grist-mill that is worked by the waters, just where they meet the rapids of the river. [Illustration: Road through a Pine Forest] I called this place "Glen Morrison," partly from the remembrance of the lovely Glen Morrison of the Highlands, and partly because it was the name of the settler that owned the spot. Our progress was but slow on account of the roughness of the road, which is beset with innumerable obstacles in the shape of loose blocks of granite and limestone, with which the lands on the banks of the river and lakes abound; to say nothing of fallen trees, big roots, mud-holes, and corduroy bridges, over which you go jolt, jolt, jolt, till every bone in your body feels as if it were going to be dislocated. An experienced bush-traveller avoids many hard thumps by rising up or clinging to the sides of his rough vehicle. As the day was particularly fine, I often quitted the waggon and walked on with my husband for a mile or so. We soon lost sight entirely of the river, and struck into the deep solitude of the forest, where not a sound disturbed the almost awful stillness that reigned around us. Scarcely a leaf or bough was in motion, excepting at intervals we caught the sound of the breeze stirring the lofty heads of the pine-trees, and wakening a hoarse and mournful cadence. This, with the tapping of the red-headed and grey woodpeckers on the trunk of the decaying trees, or the shrill whistling cry of the little striped squirrel, called by the natives "chitmunk," was every sound that broke the stillness of the wild. Nor was I less surprised at the absence of animal life. With the exception of the aforesaid chitmunk, no living thing crossed our path during our long day's journey in the woods. In these vast solitudes one would naturally be led to imagine that the absence of man would have allowed Nature's wild denizens to have abounded free and unmolested; but the contrary seems to be the case. Almost all wild animals are more abundant in the cleared districts than in the bush. Man's industry supplies their wants at an easier rate than seeking a scanty subsistence in the forest. You hear continually of depredations committed by wolves, bears, racoons, lynxes, and foxes, in the long-settled parts of the province. In the backwoods the appearance of wild beasts is a matter of much rarer occurrence. I was disappointed in the forest trees, having pictured to myself hoary giants almost primeval with the country itself, as greatly exceeding in majesty of form the trees of my native isles, as the vast lakes and mighty rivers of Canada exceed the locks and streams of Britain. There is a want of picturesque beauty in the woods. The young growth of timber alone has any pretension of elegance of form, unless I except the hemlocks, which are extremely light and graceful, and of a lovely refreshing tint of green. Even when winter has stripped the forest it is still beautiful and verdant. The young beeches too are pretty enough, but you miss that fantastic bowery shade that is so delightful in our parks and woodlands at home. There is no appearance of venerable antiquity in the Canadian woods. There are no ancient spreading oaks that might be called the patriarchs of the forest. A premature decay seems to be their doom. They are uprooted by the storm, and sink in their first maturity, to give place to a new generation that is ready to fill their places. The pines are certainly the finest trees. In point of size there are none to surpass them. They tower above all the others, forming a dark line that may be distinguished for many miles. The pines being so much loftier than the other trees, are sooner uprooted, as they receive the full and unbroken force of the wind in their tops; thus it is that the ground is continually strewn with the decaying trunks of huge pines. They also seem more liable to inward decay, and blasting from lightning, and fire. Dead pines are more frequently met with than any other tree. Much as I had seen and heard of the badness of the roads in Canada, I was not prepared for such a one as we travelled along this day: indeed, it hardly deserved the name of a road, being little more than an opening hewed out through the woods, the trees being felled and drawn aside, so as to admit a wheeled carriage passing along. The swamps and little forest streams, that occasionally gush across the path, are rendered passable by logs placed side by side. From the ridgy and striped appearance of these bridges they are aptly enough termed corduroy. Over these abominable corduroys the vehicle jolts, jumping from log to log, with a shock that must be endured with as good a grace as possible. If you could bear these knocks, and pitiless thumpings and bumpings, without wry faces, your patience and philosophy would far exceed mine;-- sometimes I laughed because I would not cry. Imagine you see me perched up on a seat composed of carpet-bags, trunks, and sundry packages, in a vehicle little better than a great rough deal box set on wheels, the sides being merely pegged in so that more than once I found myself in rather an awkward predicament, owing to the said sides jumping out. In the very midst of a deep mud-hole out went the front board, and with the shock went the teamster (driver), who looked rather confounded at finding himself lodged just in the middle of a slough as bad as the "Slough of Despond." For my part, as I could do no good, I kept my seat, and patiently awaited the restoration to order. This was soon effected, and all went on well again till a jolt against a huge pine-tree gave such a jar to the ill-set vehicle, that one of the boards danced out that composed the bottom, and a sack of flour and bag of salted pork, which was on its way to a settler's, whose clearing we had to pass in the way, were ejected. A good teamster is seldom taken aback by such trifles as these. He is, or should be, provided with an axe. No waggon, team, or any other travelling equipage should be unprovided with an instrument of this kind; as no one can answer for the obstacles that may impede his progress in the bush. The disasters we met fortunately required but little skill in remedying. The sides need only a stout peg, and the loosened planks that form the bottom being quickly replaced, away you go again over root, stump, and stone, mud-hole, and corduroy; now against the trunk of some standing tree, now mounting over some fallen one, with an impulse that would annihilate any lighter equipage than a Canadian waggon, which is admirably fitted by its very roughness for such roads as we have in the bush. The sagacity of the horses of this country is truly admirable. Their patience in surmounting the difficulties they have to encounter, their skill in avoiding the holes and stones, and in making their footing sure over the round and slippery timbers of the log-bridges, renders them very valuable. If they want the spirit and fleetness of some of our high-bred blood-horses, they make up in gentleness, strength, and patience. This renders them most truly valuable, as they will travel in such places that no British horse would, with equal safety to their drivers. Nor are the Canadian horses, when well fed and groomed, at all deficient in beauty of colour, size, or form. They are not very often used in logging; the ox is preferred in all rough and heavy labour of this kind. Just as the increasing gloom of the forest began to warn us of the approach of evening, and I was getting weary and hungry, our driver, in some confusion, avowed his belief that, somehow or other, he had missed the track, though how, he could not tell, seeing there was but one road. We were nearly two miles from the last settlement, and he said we ought to be within sight of the lake if we were on the right road. The only plan, we agreed, was for him to go forward and leave the team, and endeavour to ascertain if he were near the water, and if otherwise, to return to the house we had passed and inquire the way. After running full half a mile ahead he returned with a dejected countenance, saying we must be wrong, for he saw no appearance of water, and the road we were on appeared to end in a cedar swamp, as the farther he went the thicker the hemlocks and cedars became; so, as we had no desire to commence our settlement by a night's lodging in a swamp-- where, to use the expression of our driver, the cedars grew as thick as hairs on a cat's back,--we agreed to retrace our steps. After some difficulty the lumbering machine was turned, and slowly we began our backward march. We had not gone more than a mile when a boy came along, who told us we might just go back again, as there was no other road to the lake; and added, with a knowing nod of his head, "Master, I guess if you had known the bush as well as I, you would never have been _fule_ enough to turn when you were going just right. Why, any body knows that _them_ cedars and himlocks grow thickest near the water; so you may just go back for your pains." It was dark, save that the stars came forth with more than usual brilliancy, when we suddenly emerged from the depth of the gloomy forest to the shores of a beautiful little lake, that gleamed the more brightly from the contrast of the dark masses of foliage that hung over it, and the towering pine-woods that girt its banks. Here, seated on a huge block of limestone, which was covered with a soft cushion of moss, beneath the shade of the cedars that skirt the lake, surrounded with trunks, boxes, and packages of various descriptions, which the driver had hastily thrown from the waggon, sat your child, in anxious expectation of some answering voice to my husband's long and repeated halloo. But when the echo of his voice had died away we heard only the gurgling of the waters at the head of the rapids, and the distant and hoarse murmur of a waterfall some half mile below them. We could see no sign of any habitation, no gleam of light from the shore to cheer us. In vain we strained our ears for the plash of the oar, or welcome sound of the human voice, or bark of some household dog, that might assure us we were not doomed to pass the night in the lone wood. We began now to apprehend we had really lost the way. To attempt returning through the deepening darkness of the forest in search of any one to guide us was quite out of the question, the road being so ill defined that we should soon have been lost in the mazes of the woods. The last sound of the waggon wheels had died away in the distance; to have overtaken it would have been impossible. Bidding me remain quietly where I was, my husband forced his way through the tangled underwood along the bank, in hope of discovering some sign of the house we sought, which we had every reason to suppose must be near, though probably hidden by the dense mass of trees from our sight. As I sat in the wood in silence and in darkness, my thoughts gradually wandered back across the Atlantic to my dear mother and to my old home; and I thought what would have been your feelings could you at that moment have beheld me as I sat on the cold mossy stone in the profound stillness of that vast leafy wilderness, thousands of miles from all those holy ties of kindred and early associations that make home in all countries a hallowed spot. It was a moment to press upon my mind the importance of the step I had taken, in voluntarily sharing the lot of the emigrant--in leaving the land of my birth, to which, in all probability, I might never again return. Great as was the sacrifice, even at that moment, strange as was my situation, I felt no painful regret or fearful misgiving depress my mind. A holy and tranquil peace came down upon me, soothing and softening my spirits into a calmness that seemed as unruffled as was the bosom of the water that lay stretched out before my feet. My reverie was broken by the light plash of a paddle, and a bright line of light showed a canoe dancing over the lake: in a few minutes a well- known and friendly voice greeted me as the little bark was moored among the cedars at my feet. My husband having gained a projecting angle of the shore, had discovered the welcome blaze of the wood fire in the log- house, and, after some difficulty, had succeeded in rousing the attention of its inhabitants. Our coming that day had long been given up, and our first call had been mistaken for the sound of the ox-bells in the wood: this had caused the delay that had so embarrassed us. We soon forgot our weary wanderings beside the bright fire that blazed on the hearth of the log-house, in which we found S------ comfortably domiciled with his wife. To the lady I was duly introduced; and, in spite of all remonstrances from the affectionate and careful mother, three fair sleeping children were successively handed out of their cribs to be shown me by the proud and delighted father. Our welcome was given with that unaffected cordiality that is so grateful to the heart: it was as sincere as it was kind. All means were adopted to soften the roughness of our accommodation, which, if they lacked that elegance and convenience to which we had been accustomed in England, were not devoid of rustic comfort; at all events they were such as many settlers of the first respectability have been glad to content themselves with, and many have not been half so well lodged as we now are. We may indeed consider ourselves fortunate in not being obliged to go at once into the rude shanty that I described to you as the only habitation on our land. This test of our fortitude was kindly spared us by S------, who insisted on our remaining beneath his hospitable roof till such time as we should have put up a house on our own lot. Here then we are for the present _fixed_, as the Canadians say; and if I miss many of the little comforts and luxuries of life, I enjoy excellent health and spirits, and am very happy in the society of those around me. The children are already very fond of me. They have discovered my passion for flowers, which they diligently search for among the stumps and along the lake shore. I have begun collecting, and though the season is far advanced, my hortus siccus boasts of several elegant specimens of fern; the yellow Canadian violet, which blooms twice in the year, in the spring and fall, as the autumnal season is expressively termed; two sorts of Michaelmas daisies, as we call the shrubby asters, of which the varieties here are truly elegant; and a wreath of the festoon pine, a pretty evergreen with creeping stalks, that run along the ground three or four yards in length, sending up, at the distance of five or six inches, erect, stiff, green stems, resembling some of our heaths in the dark, shining, green, chaffy leaves. The Americans ornament their chimney-glasses with garlands of this plant, mixed with the dried blossoms of the life-everlasting (the pretty white and yellow flowers we call love-everlasting): this plant is also called festoon-pine. In my rambles in the wood near the house I have discovered a trailing plant bearing a near resemblance to the cedar, which I consider has, with equal propriety, a claim to the name of ground or creeping cedar. As much of the botany of these unsettled portions of the country are unknown to the naturalist, and the plants are quite nameless, I take the liberty of bestowing names upon them according to inclination or fancy. But while I am writing about flowers I am forgetting that you will be more interested in hearing what steps we are taking on our land. My husband has hired people to log up (that is, to draw the chopped timbers into heaps for burning) and clear a space for building our house upon. He has also entered into an agreement with a young settler in our vicinity to complete it for a certain sum within and without, according to a given plan. We are, however, to call the "bee," and provide every thing necessary for the entertainment of our worthy _hive_. Now you know that a "bee," in American language, or rather phraseology, signifies those friendly meetings of neighbours who assemble at your summons to raise the walls of your house, shanty, barn, or any other building: this is termed a "raising bee." Then there are logging-bees, husking-bees, chopping-bees, and quilting-bees. The nature of the work to be done gives the name to the bee. In the more populous and long-settled districts this practice is much discontinued, but it is highly useful, and almost indispensable to the new settlers in the remote townships, where the price of labour is proportionably high, and workmen difficult to be procured. Imagine the situation of an emigrant with a wife and young family, the latter possibly too young and helpless to render him the least assistance in the important business of chopping, logging, and building, on their first coming out to take possession of a lot of wild land; how deplorable would their situation be, unless they could receive quick and ready help from those around them. This laudable practice has grown out of necessity, and if it has its disadvantages, such for instance as being called upon at an inconvenient season for a return of help, by those who have formerly assisted you, yet it is so indispensable to you that the debt of gratitude ought to be cheerfully repaid. It is, in fact, regarded in the light of a debt of honour; you cannot be forced to attend a bee in return, but no one that can does refuse, unless from urgent reasons; and if you do not find it possible to attend in person you may send a substitute in a servant or in cattle, if you have a yoke. In no situation, and under no other circumstance, does the equalizing system of America appear to such advantage as in meetings of this sort. All distinctions of rank, education, and wealth are for the time voluntarily laid aside. You will see the son of the educated gentleman and that of the poor artisan, the officer and the private soldier, the independent settler and the labourer who works out for hire, cheerfully uniting in one common cause. Each individual is actuated by the benevolent desire of affording help to the helpless, and exerting himself to raise a home for the homeless. At present so small a portion of the forest is cleared on our lot, that I can give you little or no description of the spot on which we are located, otherwise than that it borders on a fine expanse of water, which forms one of the Otanabee chain of Small Lake. I hope, however, to give you a more minute description of our situation in my next letter. For the present, then, I bid you adieu. LETTER VIII. Inconveniences of first Settlement.--Difficulty of obtaining Provisions and other necessaries.--Snow-storm and Hurricane.--Indian Summer, and setting-in of Winter.--Process of clearing the Land. November the 20th, 1832. OUR log-house is not yet finished, though it is in a state of forwardness. We are still indebted to the hospitable kindness of S------ and his wife for a home. This being their first settlement on their land they have as yet many difficulties, in common with all residents in the backwoods, to put up with this year. They have a fine block of land, well situated; and S------ laughs at the present privations, to which he opposes a spirit of cheerfulness and energy that is admirably calculated to effect their conquest. They are now about to remove to a larger and more commodious house that has been put up this fall, leaving us the use of the old one till our own is ready. We begin to get reconciled to our Robinson Crusoe sort of life, and the consideration that the present evils are but temporary, goes a great way towards reconciling us to them. One of our greatest inconveniences arises from the badness of our roads, and the distance at which we are placed from any village or town where provisions are to be procured. Till we raise our own grain and fatten our own hogs, sheep, and poultry, we must be dependent upon the stores for food of every kind. These supplies have to be brought up at considerable expense and loss of time, through our beautiful bush roads; which, to use the words of a poor Irish woman, "can't be no worser." "Och, darlint," she said, "but they are just bad enough, and can't be no worser. Och, but they aren't like to our iligant roads in Ireland." You may send down a list of groceries to be forwarded when a team comes up, and when we examine our stores, behold rice, sugar, currants, pepper, and mustard all jumbled into one mess. What think you of a rice- pudding seasoned plentifully with pepper, mustard, and, may be, a little rappee or prince's mixture added by way of sauce. I think the recipe would cut quite a figure in the Cook's Oracle or Mrs. Dalgairn's Practice of Cookery, under the original title of a "bush pudding." And then woe and destruction to the brittle ware that may chance to travel through our roads. Lucky, indeed, are we if, through the superior carefulness of the person who packs them, more than one-half happens to arrive in safety. For such mishaps we have no redress. The storekeeper lays the accident upon the teamster, and the teamster upon the bad roads, wondering that he himself escapes with whole bones after a journey through the bush. This is now the worst season of the year;--this, and just after the breaking up of the snow. Nothing hardly but an ox-cart can travel along the roads, and even that with difficulty, occupying two days to perform the journey; and the worst of the matters is, that there are times when the most necessary articles of provisions are not to be procured at any price. You see, then, that a settler in the bush requires to hold himself pretty independent, not only of the luxuries and delicacies of the table, but not unfrequently even of the very necessaries. One time no pork is to be procured; another time there is a scarcity of flour, owing to some accident that has happened to the mill, or for the want of proper supplies of wheat for grinding; or perhaps the weather and bad roads at the same time prevent a team coming up, or people from going down. Then you must have recourse to a neighbour, if you have the good fortune to be near one, or fare the best you can on potatoes. The potatoe is indeed a great blessing here; new settlers would otherwise be often greatly distressed, and the poor man and his family who are without resources, without the potatoe must starve. Once our stock of tea was exhausted, and we were unable to procure more. In this dilemma milk would have been an excellent substitute, or coffee, if we had possessed it; but we had neither the one nor the other, so we agreed to try the Yankee tea--hemlock sprigs boiled. This proved, to my taste, a vile decoction; though I recognized some herb in the tea that was sold in London at five shillings a pound, which I am certain was nothing better than dried hemlock leaves reduced to a coarse powder. S------ laughed at our wry faces, declaring the potation was excellent; and he set us all an example by drinking six cups of this truly sylvan beverage. His eloquence failed in gaining a single convert; we could not believe it was only second to young hyson. To his assurance that to its other good qualities it united medicinal virtues, we replied that, like all other physic, it was very unpalatable. "After all," said S------, with a thoughtful air, "the blessings and the evils of this life owe their chief effect to the force of contrast, and are to be estimated by that principally. We should not appreciate the comforts we enjoy half so much did we not occasionally feel the want of them. How we shall value the conveniences of a cleared farm after a few years, when we can realize all the necessaries and many of the luxuries of life." "And how we shall enjoy green tea after this odious decoction of hemlock," said I. "Very true; and a comfortable frame-house, and nice garden, and pleasant pastures, after these dark forests, log-houses, and no garden at all." "And the absence of horrid black stumps," rejoined I. "Yes, and the absence of horrid stumps. Depend upon it, my dear, your Canadian farm will seem to you a perfect paradise by the time it is all under cultivation; and you will look upon it with the more pleasure and pride from the consciousness that it was once a forest wild, which, by the effects of industry and well applied means, has changed to fruitful fields. Every fresh comfort you realize around you will add to your happiness; every improvement within-doors or without will raise a sensation of gratitude and delight in your mind, to which those that revel in the habitual enjoyment of luxury, and even of the commonest advantages of civilization, must in a great degree be strangers. My pass-words are, 'Hope! Resolution! and Perseverance!'" "This," said my husband, "is true philosophy; and the more forcible, because you not only recommend the maxim but practise it also." I had reckoned much on the Indian summer, of which I had read such delightful descriptions, but I must say it has fallen far below my expectations. Just at the commencement of this month (November) we experienced three or four warm hazy days, that proved rather close and oppressive. The sun looked red through the misty atmosphere, tinging the fantastic clouds that hung in smoky volumes, with saffron and pale crimson light, much as I have seen the clouds above London look on a warm, sultry spring morning. Not a breeze ruffled the waters, not a leaf (for the leaves had not entirely fallen) moved. This perfect stagnation of the air was suddenly changed by a hurricane of wind and snow that came on without any previous warning. I was standing near a group of tall pines that had been left in the middle of the clearing, collecting some beautiful crimson lichens, S------ not being many paces distant, with his oxen drawing fire-wood. Suddenly we heard a distant hollow rushing sound that momentarily increased, the air around us being yet perfectly calm. I looked up, and beheld the clouds, hitherto so motionless, moving with amazing rapidity in several different directions. A dense gloom overspread the heavens. S------, who had been busily engaged with the cattle, had not noticed my being so near, and now called to me to use all the speed I could to gain the house, or an open part of the clearing, distant from the pine-trees. Instinctively I turned towards the house, while the thundering shock of trees falling in all directions at the edge of the forest, the rending of the branches from the pines I had just quitted, and the rush of the whirlwind sweeping down the lake, made me sensible of the danger with which I had been threatened. The scattered boughs of the pines darkened the air as they whirled above me; then came the blinding snow-storm: but I could behold the progress of the tempest in safety, having gained the threshold of our house. The driver of the oxen had thrown himself on the ground, while the poor beasts held down their meek heads, patiently abiding "the pelting of the pitiless storm." S------, my husband, and the rest of the household, collected in a group, watched with anxiety the wild havoc of the warring elements. Not a leaf remained on the trees when the hurricane was over; they were bare and desolate. Thus ended the short reign of the Indian summer. [Illustration: Newly-cleared Land] I think the notion entertained by some travellers, that the Indian summer is caused by the annual conflagration of forests by those Indians inhabiting the unexplored regions beyond the larger lakes is absurd. Imagine for an instant what immense tracts of woods must be yearly consumed to affect nearly the whole of the continent of North America: besides, it takes place at that season of the year when the fire is least likely to run freely, owing to the humidity of the ground from the autumnal rains. I should rather attribute the peculiar warmth and hazy appearance of the air that marks this season, to the fermentation going on of so great a mass of vegetable matter that is undergoing a state of decomposition during the latter part of October and beginning of November. It has been supposed by some persons that a great alteration will be effected in this season, as the process of clearing the land continues to decrease the quantity of decaying vegetation. Nay, I have heard the difference is already observable by those long acquainted with the American continent. Hitherto my experience of the climate is favourable. The autumn has been very fine, though the frosts are felt early in the month of September; at first slightly, of a morning, but towards October more severely. Still, though the first part of the day is cold, the middle of it is warm and cheerful. We already see the stern advances of winter. It commenced very decidedly from the breaking up of the Indian summer. November is not at all like the same month at home. The early part was soft and warm, the latter cold, with keen frosts and occasional falls of snow; but it does not seem to possess the dark, gloomy, damp character of our British Novembers. However, it is not one season's acquaintance with the climate that enables a person to form any correct judgment of its general character, but a close observance of its peculiarities and vicissitudes during many years' residence in the country. I must now tell you what my husband is doing on our land. He has let out ten acres to some Irish choppers who have established themselves in the shanty for the winter. They are to receive fourteen dollars per acre for chopping, burning, and fencing in that quantity. The ground is to be perfectly cleared of every thing but the stumps: these will take from seven to nine or ten years to decay; the pine, hemlock, and fir remain much longer. The process of clearing away the stumps is too expensive for new beginners to venture upon, labour being so high that it cannot be appropriated to any but indispensable work. The working season is very short on account of the length of time the frost remains on the ground. With the exception of chopping trees, very little can be done. Those that understand the proper management of uncleared land, usually underbrush (that is, cut down all the small timbers and brushwood), while the leaf is yet on them; this is piled in heaps, and the windfallen trees are chopped through in lengths, to be logged up in the spring with the winter's chopping. The latter end of the summer and the autumn are the best seasons for this work. The leaves then become quite dry and sear, and greatly assist in the important business of burning off the heavy timbers. Another reason is, that when the snow has fallen to some depth, the light timbers cannot be cut close to the ground, or the dead branches and other incumbrances collected and thrown in heaps. We shall have about three acres ready for spring-crops, provided we get a good burning of that which is already chopped near the site of the house,--this will be sown with oats, pumpkins, Indian corn, and potatoes: the other ten acres will be ready for putting in a crop of wheat. So you see it will be a long time before we reap a harvest. We could not even get in spring-wheat early enough to come to perfection this year. We shall try to get two cows in the spring, as they are little expense during the spring, summer, and autumn; and by the winter we shall have pumpkins and oat-straw for them. LETTER IX. Loss of a yoke of Oxen.--Construction of a Log-house.--Glaziers' and Carpenters' work.--Description of new Log-house.--Wild Fruits of the Country.--Walks on the Ice.--Situation of the House.--Lake, and surrounding Scenery. Lake House April 18, 1833 BUT it is time that I should give you some account of our log-house, into which we moved a few days before Christmas. Many unlooked-for delays having hindered its completion before that time, I began to think it would never be habitable. The first misfortune that happened was the loss of a fine yoke of oxen that were purchased to draw in the house-logs, that is, the logs for raising the walls of the house. Not regarding the bush as pleasant as their former master's cleared pastures, or perhaps foreseeing some hard work to come, early one morning they took into their heads to ford the lake at the head of the rapids, and march off, leaving no trace of their route excepting their footing at the water's edge. After many days spent in vain search for them, the work was at a stand, and for one month they were gone, and we began to give up all expectation of hearing any news of them. At last we learned they were some twenty miles off, in a distant township, having made their way through bush and swamp, creek and lake, back to their former owner, with an instinct that supplied to them the want of roads and compass. Oxen have been known to traverse a tract of wild country to a distance of thirty or forty miles going in a direct line for their former haunts by unknown paths, where memory could not avail them. In the dog we consider it is scent as well as memory that guides him to his far-off home;--but how is this conduct of the oxen to be accounted for? They returned home through the mazes of interminable forests, where man, with all his reason and knowledge, would have been bewildered and lost. It was the latter end of October before even the walls of our house were up. To effect this we called "a bee." Sixteen of our neighbours cheerfully obeyed our summons; and though the day was far from favourable, so faithfully did our hive perform their tasks, that by night the outer walls were raised. The work went merrily on with the help of plenty of Canadian nectar (whiskey), the honey that our _bees_ are solaced with. Some huge joints of salt pork, a peck of potatoes, with a rice-pudding, and a loaf as big as an enormous Cheshire cheese, formed the feast that was to regale them during the raising. This was spread out in the shanty, in a _very rural style_. In short, we laughed, and called it a _pic-nic in the backwoods_; and rude as was the fare, I can assure you, great was the satisfaction expressed by all the guests of every degree, our "_bee_" being considered as very well conducted. In spite of the difference of rank among those that assisted at the bee, the greatest possible harmony prevailed, and the party separated well pleased with the day's work and entertainment. The following day I went to survey the newly-raised edifice, but was sorely puzzled, as it presented very little appearance of a house. It was merely an oblong square of logs raised one above the other, with open spaces between every row of logs. The spaces for the doors and windows were not then chopped out, and the rafters were not up. In short, it looked a very queer sort of a place, and I returned home a little disappointed, and wondering that my husband should be so well pleased with the progress that had been made. A day or two after this I again visited it. The _sleepers_ were laid to support the floors, and the places for the doors and windows cut out of the solid timbers, so that it had not quite so much the look of a bird-cage as before. After the roof was shingled, we were again at a stand, as no boards could be procured nearer than Peterborough, a long day's journey through horrible roads. At that time no saw-mill was in progress; now there is a fine one building within a little distance of us. Our flooring-boards were all to be sawn by hand, and it was some time before any one could be found to perform this necessary work, and that at high wages--six- and-sixpence per day. Well, the boards were at length down, but of course of unseasoned timber: this was unavoidable; so as they could not be planed we were obliged to put up with their rough unsightly appearance, for no better were to be had. I began to recall to mind the observation of the old gentleman with whom we travelled from Cobourg to Rice Lake. We console ourselves with the prospect that by next summer the boards will all be seasoned, and then the house is to be turned topsy-turvy, by having the floors all relaid, jointed, and smoothed. The next misfortune that happened, was, that the mixture of clay and lime that was to plaster the inside and outside of the house between the chinks of the logs was one night frozen to stone. Just as the work was about half completed, the frost suddenly setting in, put a stop to our proceeding for some time, as the frozen plaster yielded neither to fire nor to hot water, the latter freezing before it had any effect on the mass, and rather making bad worse. Then the workman that was hewing the inside walls to make them smooth, wounded himself with the broad axe, and was unable to resume his work for some time. I state these things merely to show the difficulties that attend us in the fulfilment of our plans, and this accounts in a great measure for the humble dwellings that settlers of the most respectable description are obliged to content themselves with at first coming to this country, --not, you may be assured, from inclination, but necessity: I could give you such narratives of this kind as would astonish you. After all, it serves to make us more satisfied than we should be on casting our eyes around to see few better off than we are, and many not half so comfortable, yet of equal, and, in some instances, superior pretensions as to station and fortune. Every man in this country is his own glazier; this you will laugh at: but if he does not wish to see and feel the discomfort of broken panes, he must learn to put them in his windows with his own hands. Workmen are not easily to be had in the backwoods when you want them, and it would be preposterous to hire a man at high wages to make two days' journey to and from the nearest town to mend your windows. Boxes of glass of several different sizes are to be bought at a very cheap rate in the stores. My husband amused himself by glazing the windows of the house preparatory to their being fixed in. To understand the use of carpenter's tools, I assure you, is no despicable or useless kind of knowledge here. I would strongly recommend all young men coming to Canada to acquire a little acquaintance with this valuable art, as they will often be put to great inconvenience for the want of it. I was once much amused with hearing the remarks made by a very fine lady, the reluctant sharer of her husband's emigration, on seeing the son of a naval officer of some rank in the service busily employed in making an axe-handle out of a piece of rock-elm. "I wonder that you allow George to degrade himself so," she said, addressing his father. The captain looked up with surprise. "Degrade himself! In what manner, madam? My boy neither swears, drinks whiskey, steals, nor tells lies." "But you allow him to perform tasks of the most menial kind. What is he now better than a hedge carpenter; and I suppose you allow him to chop, too?" "Most assuredly I do. That pile of logs in the cart there was all cut by him after he had left study yesterday," was the reply, "I would see my boys dead before they should use an axe like common labourers." "Idleness is the root of all evil," said the captain. "How much worse might my son be employed if he were running wild about streets with bad companions." "You will allow this is not a country for gentlemen or ladies to live in," said the lady. "It is the country for gentlemen that will not work and cannot live without, to starve in," replied the captain bluntly; "and for that reason I make my boys early accustom themselves to be usefully and actively employed." "My boys shall never work like common mechanics," said the lady, indignantly. "Then, madam, they will be good for nothing as settlers; and it is a pity you dragged them across the Atlantic." "We were forced to come. We could not live as we had been used to do at home, or I never would have come to this horrid country." "Having come hither you would be wise to conform to circumstances. Canada is not the place for idle folks to retrench a lost fortune in. In some parts of the country you will find most articles of provision as dear as in London, clothing much dearer, and not so good, and a bad market to choose in." "I should like to know, then, who Canada is good for?" said she, angrily. "It is a good country for the honest, industrious artisan. It is a fine country for the poor labourer, who, after a few years of hard toil, can sit down in his own log-house, and look abroad on his own land, and see his children well settled in life as independent freeholders. It is a grand country for the rich speculator, who can afford to lay out a large sum in purchasing land in eligible situations; for if he have any judgment, he will make a hundred per cent as interest for his money after waiting a few years. But it is a hard country for the poor gentleman, whose habits have rendered him unfit for manual labour. He brings with him a mind unfitted to his situation; and even if necessity compels him to exertion, his labour is of little value. He has a hard struggle to live. The certain expenses of wages and living are great, and he is obliged to endure many privations if he would keep within compass, and be free of debt. If he have a large family, and brings them up wisely, so as to adapt themselves early to a settler's life, why he does well for them, and soon feels the benefit on his own land; but if he is idle himself, his wife extravagant and discontented, and the children taught to despise labour, why, madam, they will soon be brought down to ruin. In short, the country is a good country for those to whom it is adapted; but if people will not conform to the doctrine of necessity and expediency, they have no business in it. It is plain Canada is not adapted to every class of people." "It was never adapted for me or my family," said the lady, disdainfully. "Very true," was the laconic reply; and so ended the dialogue. But while I have been recounting these remarks, I have wandered far from my original subject, and left my poor log-house quite in an unfinished state. At last I was told it was in a habitable condition, and I was soon engaged in all the bustle and fatigue attendant on removing our household goods. We received all the assistance we required from ------, who is ever ready and willing to help us. He laughed, and called it a "_moving_ bee;" I said it was a "fixing bee;" and my husband said it was a "settling bee;" I know we were unsettled enough till it was over. What a din of desolation is a small house, or any house under such circumstances. The idea of chaos must have been taken from a removal or a setting to rights, for I suppose the ancients had their _flitting_, as the Scotch call it, as well as the moderns. Various were the valuable articles of crockery-ware that perished in their short but rough journey through the woods. Peace to their manes. I had a good helper in my Irish maid, who soon roused up famous fires, and set the house in order. We have now got quite comfortably settled, and I shall give you a description of our little dwelling. What is finished is only a part of the original plan; the rest must be added next spring, or fall, as circumstances may suit. A nice small sitting-room with a store closet, a kitchen, pantry, and bed-chamber form the ground floor; there is a good upper floor that will make three sleeping rooms. "What a nut-shell!" I think I hear you exclaim. So it is at present; but we purpose adding a handsome frame front as soon as we can get boards from the mill, which will give us another parlour, long hall, and good spare bed-room. The windows and glass door of our present sitting-room command pleasant lake-views to the west and south. When the house is completed, we shall have a verandah in front; and at the south side, which forms an agreeable addition in the summer, being used as a sort of outer room, in which we can dine, and have the advantage of cool air, protected from the glare of the sunbeams. The Canadians call these verandahs "stoups." Few houses, either log or frame, are without them. The pillars look extremely pretty, wreathed with the luxuriant hop-vine, mixed with the scarlet creeper and "morning glory," the American name for the most splendid of major convolvuluses. These stoups are really a considerable ornament, as they conceal in a great measure the rough logs, and break the barn-like form of the building. Our parlour is warmed by a handsome Franklin stove with brass gallery, and fender. Our furniture consists of a brass-railed sofa, which serves upon occasion for a bed, Canadian painted chairs, a stained pine table, green and white curtains, and a handsome Indian mat that covers the floor. One side of the room is filled up with our books. Some large maps and a few good prints nearly conceal the rough walls, and form the decoration of our little dwelling. Our bed-chamber is furnished with equal simplicity. We do not, however, lack comfort in our humble home; and though it is not exactly such as we could wish, it is as good as, under existing circumstances, we could have. I am anxiously looking forward to the spring, that I may get a garden laid out in front of the house; as I mean to cultivate some of the native fruits and flowers, which, I am sure, will improve greatly by culture. The strawberries that grow wild in our pastures, woods, and clearings, are several varieties, and bear abundantly. They make excellent preserves, and I mean to introduce beds of them into my garden. There is a pretty little wooded islet on our lake, that is called Strawberry island, another Raspberry island; they abound in a variety of fruits--wild grapes, raspberries, strawberries, black and red currants, a wild gooseberry, and a beautiful little trailing plant that bears white flowers like the raspberry, and a darkish purple fruit consisting of a few grains of a pleasant brisk acid, somewhat like in flavour to our dewberry, only not quite so sweet. The leaves of this plant are of a bright light green, in shape like the raspberry, to which it bears in some respects so great a resemblance (though it is not shrubby or thorny) that I have called it the "trailing raspberry." I suppose our scientific botanists in Britain would consider me very impertinent in bestowing names on the flowers and plants I meet with in these wild woods: I can only say, I am glad to discover the Canadian or even the Indian names if I can, and where they fail I consider myself free to become their floral godmother, and give them names of my own choosing. Among our wild fruits we have plums, which, in some townships, are very fine and abundant; these make admirable preserves, especially when boiled in maple molasses, as is done by the American housewives. Wild cherries, also a sort called choke cherries, from their peculiar astringent qualities, high and low-bush cranberries, blackberries, which are brought by the Squaws in birch baskets,--all these are found on the plains and beaver meadows. The low-bush cranberries are brought in great quantities by the Indians to the towns and villages. They form a standing preserve on the tea-tables in most of the settlers' houses; but for richness of flavour, and for beauty of appearance, I admire the high-bush cranberries; these are little sought after, on account of the large flat seeds, which prevent them from being used as a jam: the jelly, however, is delightful, both in colour and flavour. The bush on which this cranberry grows resembles the guelder rose. The blossoms are pure white, and grow in loose umbels; they are very ornamental, when in bloom, to the woods and swamps, skirting the lakes. The berries are rather of a long oval, and of a brilliant scarlet, and when just touched by the frosts are semi-transparent, and look like pendent bunches of scarlet grapes. I was tempted one fine frosty afternoon to take a walk with my husband on the ice, which I was assured was perfectly safe. I must confess for the first half-mile I felt very timid, especially when the ice is so transparent that you may see every little pebble or weed at the bottom of the water. Sometimes the ice was thick and white, and quite opaque. As we kept within a little distance of the shore, I was struck by the appearance of some splendid red berries on the leafless bushes that hung over the margin of the lake, and soon recognized them to be the aforesaid high-bush cranberries. My husband soon stripped the boughs of their tempting treasure, and I, delighted with my prize, hastened home, and boiled the fruit with some sugar, to eat at tea with our cakes. I never ate any thing more delicious than they proved; the more so perhaps from having been so long without tasting fruit of any kind, with the exception of preserves, during our journey, and at Peterborough. Soon after this I made another excursion on the ice, but it was not in quite so sound a state. We nevertheless walked on for about three- quarters of a mile. We were overtaken on our return by S------ with a handsleigh, which is a sort of wheelbarrow, such as porters use, without sides, and instead of a wheel, is fixed on wooden runners, which you can drag over the snow and ice with the greatest ease, if ever so heavily laden. S------ insisted that he would draw me home over the ice like a Lapland lady on a sledge. I was soon seated in state, and in another minute felt myself impelled forward with a velocity that nearly took away my breath. By the time we reached the shore I was in a glow from head to foot. You would be pleased with the situation of our house. The spot chosen is the summit of a fine sloping bank above the lake, distant from the water's edge some hundred or two yards: the lake is not quite a mile from shore to shore. To the south again we command a different view, which will be extremely pretty when fully opened--a fine smooth basin of water, diversified with beautiful islands, that rise like verdant groves from its bosom. Below these there is a fall of some feet, where the waters of the lakes, confined within a narrow channel between beds of limestone, rush along with great impetuosity, foaming and dashing up the spray in mimic clouds. During the summer the waters are much lower, and we can walk for some way along the flat shores, which are composed of different strata of limestone, full of fossil remains, evidently of very recent formation. Those shells and river-insects that are scattered loose over the surface of the limestone, left by the recession of the waters, are similar to the shells and insects incrusted in the body of the limestone. I am told that the bed of one of the lakes above us (I forget which) is of limestone; that it abounds in a variety of beautiful river-shells, which are deposited in vast quantities in the different strata, and also in the blocks of limestone scattered along the shores. These shells are also found in great profusion in the soil of the Beaver meadows. When I see these things, and hear of them, I regret I know nothing of geology or conchology; as I might then be able to account for many circumstances that at present only excite my curiosity. [Maps: Charts shewing the Interior Navigation of the District of Newcastle and Upper Canada.] Just below the waterfall I was mentioning there is a curious natural arch in the limestone rock, which at this place rises to a height of ten or fifteen feet like a wall; it is composed of large plates of grey limestone, lying one upon the other; the arch seems like a rent in the wall, but worn away, and hollowed, possibly, by the action of water rushing through it at some high flood. Trees grow on the top of this rock. Hemlock firs and cedars are waving on this elevated spot, above the turbulent waters, and clothing the stone barrier with a sad but never-fading verdure. Here, too, the wild vine, red creeper, and poison- elder, luxuriate, and wreathe fantastic bowers above the moss-covered masses of the stone. A sudden turn in this bank brought us to a broad, perfectly flat and smooth bed of the same stone, occupying a space of full fifty feet along the shore. Between the fissures of this bed I found some rosebushes, and a variety of flowers that had sprung up during the spring and summer, when it was left dry, and free from the action of the water. This place will shortly be appropriated for the building of a saw and grist-mill, which, I fear, will interfere with its natural beauty. I dare say, I shall be the only person in the neighbourhood who will regret the erection of so useful and valuable an acquisition to this portion of the township. The first time you send a parcel or box, do not forget to enclose flower-seeds, and the stones of plums, damsons, bullace, pips of the best kinds of apples, in the orchard and garden, as apples may be raised here from seed, which will bear very good fruit without being grafted; the latter, however, are finer in size and flavour. I should be grateful for a few nuts from our beautiful old stock-nut trees. Dear old trees! how many gambols have we had in their branches when I was as light of spirit and as free from care as the squirrels that perched among the topmost boughs above us.--"Well," you will say, "the less that sage matrons talk of such wild tricks as climbing nut-trees, the better." Fortunately, young ladies are in no temptation here, seeing that nothing but a squirrel or a bear could climb our lofty forest-trees. Even a sailor must give it up in despair. I am very desirous of having the seeds of our wild primrose and sweet violet preserved for me; I long to introduce them in our meadows and gardens. Pray let the cottage-children collect some. My husband requests a small quantity of lucerne-seed, which he seems inclined to think may be cultivated to advantage. LETTER X. Variations in the Temperature of the Weather.--Electrical Phenomenon.-- Canadian Winter.--Country deficient in Poetical Associations.--Sugar- making. Fishing Season.--Mode of Fishing.--Duck-shooting.--Family of Indians.--_Papouses_ and their Cradle-cases.--Indian Manufactures.-- _Frogs_. Lake House, May the 9th. 1833. WHAT a different winter this has been to what I had anticipated. The snows of December were continually thawing; on the 1st of January not a flake was to be seen on our clearing, though it lingered in the bush. The warmth of the sun was so great on the first and second days of the new year that it was hardly possible to endure a cloak, or even shawl, out of doors; and within, the fire was quite too much for us. The weather remained pretty open till the latter part of the month, when the cold set in severely enough, and continued so during February. The 1st of March was the coldest day and night I ever experienced in my life; the mercury was down to twenty five degrees in the house; abroad it was much lower. The sensation of cold early in the morning was very painful, producing an involuntary shuddering, and an almost convulsive feeling in the chest and stomach. Our breaths were congealed in hoar-frost on the sheets and blankets. Every thing we touched of metal seemed to freeze our fingers. This excessive degree of cold only lasted three days, and then a gradual amelioration of temperature was felt. During this very cold weather I was surprised by the frequent recurrence of a phenomenon that I suppose was of an electrical nature. When the frosts were most intense I noticed that when I undressed, my clothes, which are at this cold season chiefly of woollen cloth, or lined with flannel, gave out when moved a succession of sounds, like the crackling and snapping of fire, and in the absence of a candle emitted sparks of a pale whitish blue light, similar to the flashes produced by cutting loaf-sugar in the dark, or stroking the back of a black cat: the same effect was also produced when I combed and brushed my hair*. [* This phenomenon is common enough everywhere when the air is very dry.--Ed.] The snow lay very deep on the ground during February, and until the l9th of March, when a rapid thaw commenced, which continued without intermission till the ground was thoroughly freed from its hoary livery, which was effected in less than a fortnight's time. The air during the progress of the thaw was much warmer and more balmy than it usually is in England, when a disagreeable damp cold is felt during that process. Though the Canadian winter has its disadvantages, it also has its charms. After a day or two of heavy snow the sky brightens, and the air becomes exquisitely clear and free from vapour; the smoke ascends in tall spiral columns till it is lost: seen against the saffron-tinted sky of an evening, or early of a clear morning, when the hoar-frost sparkles on the trees, the effect is singularly beautiful. I enjoy a walk in the woods of a bright winter-day, when not a cloud, or the faint shadow of a cloud, obscures the soft azure of the heavens above; when but for the silver covering of the earth I might look upwards to the cloudless sky and say, "It is June, sweet June." The evergreens, as the pines, cedars, hemlock, and balsam firs, are bending their pendent branches, loaded with snow, which the least motion scatters in a mimic shower around, but so light and dry is it that it is shaken off without the slightest inconvenience. The tops of the stumps look quite pretty, with their turbans of snow; a blackened pine-stump, with its white cap and mantle, will often startle you into the belief that some one is approaching you thus fancifully attired. As to ghosts or spirits they appear totally banished from Canada. This is too matter-of-fact country for such supernaturals to visit. Here there are no historical associations, no legendary tales of those that came before us. Fancy would starve for lack of marvellous food to keep her alive in the backwoods. We have neither fay nor fairy, ghost nor bogle, satyr nor wood-nymph; our very forests disdain to shelter dryad or hamadryad. No naiad haunts the rushy margin of our lakes, or hallows with her presence our forest-rills. No Druid claims our oaks; and instead of poring with mysterious awe among our curious limestone rocks, that are often singularly grouped together, we refer them to the geologist to exercise his skill in accounting for their appearance: instead of investing them with the solemn characters of ancient temples or heathen altars, we look upon them with the curious eye of natural philosophy alone. Even the Irish and Highlanders of the humblest class seem to lay aside their ancient superstitions on becoming denizens of the woods of Canada. I heard a friend exclaim, when speaking of the want of interest this country possessed, "It is the most unpoetical of all lands; there is no scope for imagination; here all is new--the very soil seems newly formed; there is no hoary ancient grandeur in these woods; no recollections of former deeds connected with the country. The only beings in which I take any interest are the Indians, and they want the warlike character and intelligence that I had pictured to myself they would posses." This was the lamentation of a poet. Now, the class of people to whom this country is so admirably adapted are formed of the unlettered and industrious labourers and artisans. They feel no regret that the land they labour on has not been celebrated by the pen of the historian or the lay of the poet. The earth yields her increase to them as freely as if it had been enriched by the blood of heroes. They would not spare the ancient oak from feelings of veneration, nor look upon it with regard for any thing but its use as timber. They have no time, even if they possessed the taste, to gaze abroad on the beauties of Nature, but their ignorance is bliss. After all, these are imaginary evils, and can hardly be considered just causes for dislike to the country. They would excite little sympathy among every-day men and women, though doubtless they would have their weight with the more refined and intellectual members of society, who naturally would regret that taste, learning, and genius should be thrown out of its proper sphere. For myself, though I can easily enter into the feelings of the poet and the enthusiastic lover of the wild and the wonderful of historic lore, I can yet make myself very happy and contented in this country. If its volume of history is yet a blank, that of Nature is open, and eloquently marked by the finger of God; and from its pages I can extract a thousand sources of amusement and interest whenever I take my walks in the forest or by the borders of the lakes. But I must now tell you of our sugar-making, in which I take rather an active part. Our experiment was on a very limited scale, having but one kettle, besides two iron tripods; but it was sufficient to initiate us in the art and mystery of boiling the sap into molasses, and finally the molasses down to sugar. The first thing to be done in tapping the maples, is to provide little rough troughs to catch the sap as it flows: these are merely pieces of pine-tree, hollowed with the axe. The tapping the tree is done by cutting a gash in the bark, or boring a hole with an auger. The former plan, as being most readily performed, is that most usually practised. A slightly-hollowed piece of cedar or elder is then inserted, so as to slant downwards and direct the sap into the trough; I have even seen a flat chip made the conductor. Ours were managed according to rule, you may be sure. The sap runs most freely after a frosty night, followed by a bright warm day; it should be collected during the day in a barrel or large trough, capable of holding all that can be boiled down the same evening; it should not stand more than twenty-four hours, as it is apt to ferment, and will not grain well unless fresh. My husband, with an Irish lad, began collecting the sap the last week in March. A pole was fixed across two forked stakes, strong enough to bear the weight of the big kettle. Their employment during the day was emptying the troughs and chopping wood to supply the fires. In the evening they lit the fires and began boiling down the sap. It was a pretty and picturesque sight to see the sugar-boilers, with their bright log-fire among the trees, now stirring up the blazing pile, now throwing in the liquid and stirring it down with a big ladle. When the fire grew fierce, it boiled and foamed up in the kettle, and they had to throw in fresh sap to keep it from running over. When the sap begins to thicken into molasses, it is then brought to the sugar-boiler to be finished. The process is simple; it only requires attention in skimming and keeping the mass from boiling over, till it has arrived at the sugaring point, which is ascertained by dropping a little into cold water. When it is near the proper consistency, the kettle or pot becomes full of yellow froth, that dimples and rises in large bubbles from beneath. These throw out puffs of steam, and when the molasses is in this stage, it is nearly converted into sugar. Those who pay great attention to keeping the liquid free from scum, and understand the precise sugaring point, will produce an article little if at all inferior to muscovado*. [* Good well-made maple-sugar bears a strong resemblance to that called powdered sugar-candy, sold by all grocers as a delicate article to sweeten coffee; it is more like maple-sugar in its regular crystallizations.] In general you see the maple-sugar in large cakes, like bees' wax, close and compact, without showing the crystallization; but it looks more beautiful when the grain is coarse and sparkling, and the sugar is broken in rough masses like sugar-candy. The sugar is rolled or scraped down with a knife for use, as it takes long to dissolve in the tea without this preparation. I superintended the last part of the process, that of boiling the molasses down to sugar; and, considering it was a first attempt, and without any experienced person to direct me, otherwise than the information I obtained from ------, I succeeded tolerably well, and produced some sugar of a fine sparkling grain and good colour. Besides the sugar, I made about three gallons of molasses, which proved a great comfort to us, forming a nice ingredient in cakes and an excellent sauce for puddings. The Yankees, I am told, make excellent preserves with molasses instead of sugar. The molasses boiled from maple-sap is very different from the molasses of the West Indies, both in flavour, colour, and consistency. Beside the sugar and molasses, we manufactured a small cask of vinegar, which promises to be good. This was done by boiling five pails-full of sap down to two, and fermenting it after it was in the vessel with barm; it was then placed near the fire, and suffered to continue there in preference to being exposed to the sun's heat. With regard to the expediency of making maple-sugar, it depends on circumstances whether it be profitable or not to the farmer. If he have to hire hands for the work, and pay high wages, it certainly does not answer to make it, unless on a large scale. One thing in its favour is, that the sugar season commences at a time when little else can be done on the farm, with the exception of chopping, the frost not being sufficiently out of the ground to admit of crops being sown; time is, therefore, less valuable than it is later in the spring. Where there is a large family of children and a convenient sugar-bush on the lot, the making of sugar and molasses is decidedly a saving; as young children can be employed in emptying the troughs and collecting fire-wood, the bigger ones can tend the kettles and keep up the fire while the sap is boiling, and the wife and daughters can finish off the sugar within-doors. Maple-sugar sells for four-pence and six-pence per pound, and sometimes for more. At first I did not particularly relish the flavour it gave to tea, but after awhile I liked it far better than muscovado, and as a sweetmeat it is to my taste delicious. I shall send you a specimen by the first opportunity, that you may judge for yourself of its excellence. The weather is now very warm--oppressively so. We can scarcely endure the heat of the cooking-stove in the kitchen. As to a fire in the parlour there is not much need of it, as I am glad to sit at the open door and enjoy the lake-breeze. The insects are already beginning to be troublesome, particularly the black flies--a wicked-looking fly, with black body and white legs and wings; you do not feel their bite for a few minutes, but are made aware of it by a stream of blood flowing from the wound; after a few hours the part swells and becomes extremely painful. These "_beasties_" chiefly delight in biting the sides of the throat, ears, and sides of the cheek, and with me the swelling continues for many days. The mosquitoes are also very annoying. I care more for the noise they make even than their sting. To keep them out of the house we light little heaps of damp chips, the smoke of which drives them away; but this remedy is not entirely effectual, and is of itself rather an annoyance. This is the fishing season. Our lakes are famous for masquinonge, salmon-trout, white fish, black bass, and many others. We often see the lighted canoes of the fishermen pass and repass of a dark night before our door. S------ is considered very skilful as a spearsman, and enjoys the sport so much that he seldom misses a night favourable for it. The darker the night and the calmer the water the better it is for the fishing. It is a very pretty sight to see these little barks slowly stealing from some cove of the dark pine-clad shores, and manoeuvring among the islands on the lakes, rendered visible in the darkness by the blaze of light cast on the water from the jack--a sort of open grated iron basket, fixed to a long pole at the bows of the skiff or canoe. This is filled with a very combustible substance called fat-pine, which burns with a fierce and rapid flame, or else with rolls of birch-bark, which is also very easily ignited. The light from above renders objects distinctly visible below the surface of the water. One person stands up in the middle of the boat with his fish-spear--a sort of iron trident, ready to strike at the fish that he may chance to see gliding in the still waters, while another with his paddle steers the canoe cautiously along. This sport requires a quick eye, a steady hand, and great caution in those that pursue it. I delight in watching these torch-lighted canoes so quietly gliding over the calm waters, which are illuminated for yards with a bright track of light, by which we may distinctly perceive the figure of the spearsman standing in the centre of the boat, first glancing to one side, then the other, or poising his weapon ready for a blow. When four or five of these lighted vessels are seen at once on the fishing-ground, the effect is striking and splendid. The Indians are very expert in this kind of fishing; the squaws paddling the canoes with admirable skill and dexterity. There is another mode of fishing in which these people also excel: this is fishing on the ice when the lakes are frozen over--a sport that requires the exercise of great patience. The Indian, provided with his tomahawk, with which he makes an opening in the ice, a spear, his blanket, and a decoy-fish of wood, proceeds to the place he has fixed upon. Having cut a hole in the ice he places himself on hands and knees, and casts his blanket over him, so as to darken the water and conceal himself from observation; in this position he will remain for hours, patiently watching the approach of his prey, which he strikes with admirable precision as soon as it appears within the reach of his spear. The masquinonge thus caught are superior in flavour to those taken later in the season, and may be bought very reasonably from the Indians. I gave a small loaf of bread for a fish weighing from eighteen to twenty pounds. The masquinonge is to all appearance a large species of the pike, and possesses the ravenous propensities of that fish. One of the small lakes of the Otanabee is called Trout Lake, from the abundance of salmon-trout that occupy its waters. The white fish is also found in these lakes and is very delicious. The large sorts of fish are mostly taken with the spear, few persons having time for angling in this busy country. As soon as the ice breaks up, our lakes are visited by innumerable flights of wild fowl: some of the ducks are extremely beautiful in their plumage, and are very fine-flavoured. I love to watch these pretty creatures, floating so tranquilly on the water, or suddenly rising and skimming along the edge of the pine-fringed shores, to drop again on the surface, and then remain stationary, like a little fleet at anchor. Sometimes we see an old duck lead out a brood of little ones from among the rushes; the innocent, soft things look very pretty, sailing round their mother, but at the least appearance of danger they disappear instantly by diving. The frogs are great enemies to the young broods; they are also the prey of the masquinonge, and, I believe, of other large fish that abound in these waters. The ducks are in the finest order during the early part of the summer, when they resort to the rice-beds in vast numbers, getting very fat on the green rice, which they eagerly devour. The Indians are very successful in their duck-shooting: they fill a canoe with green boughs, so that it resembles a sort of floating island; beneath the cover of these boughs they remain concealed, and are enabled by this device to approach much nearer than they otherwise could do to the wary birds. The same plan is often adopted by our own sportsmen with great success. A family of Indians have pitched their tents very near us. On one of the islands in our lake we can distinguish the thin blue smoke of their wood fires, rising among the trees, from our front window, or curling over the bosom of the waters. The squaws have been several times to see me; sometimes from curiosity, sometimes with the view of bartering their baskets, mats, ducks, or venison, for pork, flour, potatoes, or articles of wearing-apparel. Sometimes their object is to borrow "kettle to cook," which they are very punctual in returning. Once a squaw came to borrow a washing-tub, but not understanding her language, I could not for some time discover the object of her solicitude; at last she took up a corner of her blanket, and, pointing to some soap, began rubbing it between her hands, imitated the action of washing, then laughed, and pointed to a tub; she then held up two fingers, to intimate it was for two days she needed the loan. These people appear of gentle and amiable dispositions; and, as far as our experience goes, they are very honest. Once, indeed, the old hunter, Peter, obtained from me some bread, for which he promised to give a pair of ducks, but when the time came for payment, and I demanded my ducks, he looked gloomy, and replied with characteristic brevity, "No duck-- Chippewa (meaning S------, this being the name they have affectionately given him) gone up lake with canoe--no canoe--duck by-and-by." By-and-by is a favourite expression of the Indians, signifying an indefinite point of time; may be it means to-morrow, or a week, or month, or it may be a year, or even more. They rarely give you a direct promise. As it is not wise to let any one cheat you if you can prevent it, I coldly declined any further overtures to bartering with the Indians until my ducks made their appearance. Some time afterwards I received one duck by the hands of Maquin, a sort of Indian Flibberty-gibbet: this lad is a hunchbacked dwarf, very shrewd, but a perfect imp; his delight seems to be tormenting the brown babies in the wigwam, or teazing the meek deer-hounds. He speaks English very fluently, and writes tolerably for an Indian boy; he usually accompanies the women in their visits, and acts as their interpreter, grinning with mischievous glee at his mother's bad English and my perplexity at not being able to understand her signs. In spite of his extreme deformity, he seemed to possess no inconsiderable share of vanity, gazing with great satisfaction at his face in the looking glass. When I asked his name, he replied, "Indian name Maquin, but English name 'Mister Walker,' very good man;" this was the person he was called after. These Indians are scrupulous in their observance of the Sabbath, and show great reluctance to having any dealings in the way of trading or pursuing their usual avocations of hunting or fishing on that day. The young Indians are very expert in the use of a long bow, with wooden arrows, rather heavy and blunt at the end. Maquin said he could shoot ducks and small birds with his arrows; but I should think they were not calculated to reach objects at any great distance, as they appeared very heavy. 'Tis sweet to hear the Indians singing their hymns of a Sunday night; their rich soft voices rising in the still evening air. I have often listened to this little choir praising the Lord's name in the simplicity and fervour of their hearts, and have felt it was a reproach that these poor half-civilized wanderers should alone be found to gather together to give glory to God in the wilderness. I was much pleased with the simple piety of our friend the hunter Peter's squaw, a stout, swarthy matron, of most amiable expression. We were taking our tea when she softly opened the door and looked in; an encouraging smile induced her to enter, and depositing a brown papouse (Indian for baby or little child) on the ground, she gazed round with curiosity and delight in her eyes. We offered her some tea and bread, motioning to her to take a vacant seat beside the table. She seemed pleased by the invitation, and drawing her little one to her knee, poured some tea into the saucer, and gave it to the child to drink. She ate very moderately, and when she had finished, rose, and, wrapping her face in the folds of her blanket, bent down her head on her breast in the attitude of prayer. This little act of devotion was performed without the slightest appearance of pharisaical display, but in singleness and simplicity of heart. She then thanked us with a face beaming with smiles and good humour; and, taking little Rachel by the hands, threw her over her shoulder with a peculiar sleight that I feared would dislocate the tender thing's arms, but the papouse seemed well satisfied with this mode of treatment. In long journeys the children are placed in upright baskets of a peculiar form, which are fastened round the necks of the mothers by straps of deer-skin; but the _young_ infant is swathed to a sort of flat cradle, secured with flexible hoops, to prevent it from falling out. To these machines they are strapped, so as to be unable to move a limb. Much finery is often displayed in the outer covering and the bandages that confine the papouse. There is a sling attached to this cradle that passes over the squaw's neck, the back of the babe being placed to the back of the mother, and its face outward. The first thing a squaw does on entering a house is to release herself from her burden, and stick it up against the wall or chair, chest, or any thing that will support it, where the passive prisoner stands, looking not unlike a mummy in its case. I have seen the picture of the Virgin and Child in some of the old illuminated missals, not unlike the figure of a papouse in its swaddling-clothes. The squaws are most affectionate to their little ones. Gentleness and good humour appear distinguishing traits in the tempers of the female Indians; whether this be natural to their characters, the savage state, or the softening effects of Christianity, I cannot determine. Certainly in no instance does the Christian religion appear more lovely than when, untainted by the doubts and infidelity of modern sceptics, it is displayed in the conduct of the reclaimed Indian breaking down the strong-holds of idolatry and natural evil, and bringing forth the fruits of holiness and morality. They may be said to receive the truths of the Gospel as little children, with simplicity of heart and unclouded faith. The squaws are very ingenious in many of their handiworks. We find their birch-bark baskets very convenient for a number of purposes. My bread- basket, knife-tray, sugar-basket, are all of this humble material. When ornamented and wrought in patterns with dyed quills, I can assure you, they are by no means inelegant. They manufacture vessels of birch-bark so well, that they will serve for many useful household purposes, such as holding water, milk, broth, or any other liquid; they are sewn or rather stitched together with the tough roots of the tamarack or larch, or else with strips of cedar-bark. They also weave very useful sorts of baskets from the inner rind of the bass-wood and white ash. Some of these baskets, of a coarse kind, are made use of for gathering up potatoes, Indian corn, or turnips; the settlers finding them very good substitutes for the osier baskets used for such purposes in the old country. The Indians are acquainted with a variety of dyes, with which they stain the more elegant fancy-baskets and porcupine-quills. Our parlour is ornamented with several very pretty specimens of their ingenuity in this way, which answer the purpose of note and letter-cases, flower-stands, and work-baskets. They appear to value the useful rather more highly than the merely ornamental articles that you may exhibit to them. They are very shrewd and close in all their bargains, and exhibit a surprising degree of caution in their dealings. The men are much less difficult to trade with than the women: they display a singular pertinacity in some instances. If they have fixed their mind on any one article, they will come to you day after day, refusing any other you may offer to their notice. One of the squaws fell in love with a gay chintz dressing-gown belonging to my husband, and though I resolutely refused to part with it, all the squaws in the wigwam by turns came to look at "gown," which they pronounced with their peculiarly plaintive tone of voice; and when I said "no gown to sell," they uttered a melancholy exclamation of regret, and went away. They will seldom make any article you want on purpose for you. If you express a desire to have baskets of a particular pattern that they do not happen to have ready made by them, they give you the usual vague reply of "by-and-by." If the goods you offer them in exchange for theirs do not answer their expectations, they give a sullen and dogged look or reply, "_Car-car_" (no, no), or "_Carwinni_," which is a still more forcible negative. But when the bargain pleases them, they signify their approbation by several affirmative nods of the head, and a note not much unlike a grunt; the ducks, fish, venison, or baskets, are placed beside you, and the articles of exchange transferred to the folds of their capacious blankets, or deposited in a sort of rushen wallets, not unlike those straw baskets in which English carpenters carry their tools. The women imitate the dresses of the whites, and are rather skilful in converting their purchases. Many of the young girls can sew very neatly. I often give them bits of silk and velvet, and braid, for which they appear very thankful. I am just now very busy with my garden. Some of our vegetable seeds are in the ground, though I am told we have been premature; there being ten chances to one but the young plants will be cut off by the late frosts, which are often felt through May, and even the beginning of June. Our garden at present has nothing to boast of, being merely a spot of ground enclosed with a rough unsightly fence of split rails to keep the cattle from destroying the vegetables. Another spring, I hope to have a nice fence, and a portion of the ground devoted to flowers. This spring there is so much pressing work to be done on the land in clearing for the crops, that I do not like to urge my claims on behalf of a pretty garden. The forest-trees are nearly all in leaf. Never did spring burst forth with greater rapidity than it has done this year. The verdure of the leaves is most vivid. A thousand lovely flowers are expanding in the woods and clearings. Nor are our Canadian songsters mute: the cheerful melody of the robin, the bugle-song of the blackbird and thrush, with the weak but not unpleasing call of the little bird called _Thitabecec_, and a wren, whose note is sweet and thrilling, fill our woods. For my part, I see no reason or wisdom in carping at the good we do possess, because it lacks something of that which we formerly enjoyed. I am aware it is the fashion for travellers to assert that our feathered tribes are either mute or give utterance to discordant cries that pierce the ear, and disgust rather than please. It would be untrue were I to assert that our singing birds were as numerous or as melodious on the whole as those of Europe; but I must not suffer prejudice to rob my adopted country of her rights without one word being spoken in behalf of her feathered vocalists. Nay, I consider her very frogs have been belied: if it were not for the monotony of their notes, I really consider they are not quite unmusical. The green frogs are very handsome, being marked over with brown oval shields on the most vivid green coat: they are larger in size than the biggest of our English frogs, and certainly much handsomer in every respect. Their note resembles that of a bird, and has nothing of the creek in it. The bull-frogs are very different from the green frogs. Instead of being angry with their comical notes, I can hardly refrain from laughing when a great fellow pops up his broad brown head from the margin of the water, and says, "_Williroo, williroo, williroo_," to which another bull-frog, from a distant part of the swamp, replies, in hoarser accents, "_Get out, get out, get out_;" and presently a sudden chorus is heard of old and young, as if each party was desirous of out-croaking the other. In my next I shall give you an account of our logging-bee, which will take place the latter end of this month. I feel some anxiety respecting the burning of the log-heaps on the fallow round the house, as it appears to me rather a hazardous matter. I shall write again very shortly. Farewell, dearest of friends. LETTER XI Emigrants suitable for Canada.--Qualities requisite to ensure success.-- Investment of Capital.--Useful Articles to be brought out.-- Qualifications and Occupations of a Settler's Family.--Deficiency of Patience and Energy in some Females.--Management of the Dairy.--Cheese. --Indian Corn, and its Cultivation.--Potatoes.--Rates of Wages. August 9, 1833 WITH respect to the various questions, my dear friend, to which you request my particular attention, I can only promise that I will do my best to answer them as explicitly as possible, though at the same time I must remind you, that brevity in epistolary correspondence is not one of my excellencies. If I become too diffuse in describing mere matters of fact, you must bear with mine infirmity, and attribute it to my womanly propensity of over-much talking; so, for your comfort, if your eyes be wearied, your ears will at least escape. I shall take your queries in due rotation; first, then, you ask, "Who are the persons best adapted for bush-settlers?" To which I reply without hesitation--the poor hard-working, sober labourers, who have industrious habits, a large family to provide for, and a laudable horror of the workhouse and parish-overseers: this will bear them through the hardships and privations of a first settlement in the backwoods; and in due time they will realize an honest independence, and be above want, though not work. Artisans of all crafts are better paid in village-towns, or long-cleared districts, than as mere bush- settlers. "Who are the next best suited for emigration?" Men of a moderate income or good capital may make money in Canada. If they have judgment, and can afford to purchase on a large scale, they will double or treble their capital by judicious purchases and sales. But it would be easier for me to point out who are not fit for emigration than who are. The poor gentleman of delicate and refined habits, who cannot afford to employ all the labour requisite to carry on the business of clearing on a tolerable large scale, and is unwilling or incapable of working himself, is not fitted for Canada, especially if his habits are expensive. Even the man of small income, unless he can condescend to take in hand the axe or the chopper, will find, even with prudent and economical habits, much difficulty in keeping free from debt for the first two or even three years. Many such have succeeded, but the struggle has been severe. But there is another class of persons most unsuited to the woods: these are the wives and families of those who have once been opulent tradesmen, accustomed to the daily enjoyment of every luxury that money could procure or fashion invent; whose ideas of happiness are connected with a round of amusements, company, and all the novelties of dress and pleasure that the gay world can offer. Young ladies who have been brought up at fashionable boarding schools, with a contempt of every thing useful or economical, make very indifferent settlers' wives. Nothing can be more unfortunate than the situations in the woods of Canada of persons so educated: disgusted with the unpleasant change in their mode of life, wearied and discontented with all the objects around them, they find every exertion a trouble, and every occupation a degradation. For persons of this description (and there are such to be met with in the colonies), Canada is the worst country in the world. And I would urge any one, so unfitted by habit and inclination, under no consideration to cross the Atlantic; for miserable, and poor, and wretched they will become. The emigrant, if he would succeed in this country, must possess the following qualities: perseverance, patience, industry, ingenuity, moderation, self-denial; and if he be a gentleman, a small income is almost indispensable; a good one is still more desirable. The outlay for buying and clearing land, building, buying stock, and maintaining a family, paying servants' wages, with many other unavoidable expenses, cannot be done without some pecuniary means; and as the return from the land is but little for the first two or three years, it would be advisable for a settler to bring out some hundreds to enable him to carry on the farm and clear the above-mentioned expenses, or he will soon find himself involved in great difficulties. Now, to your third query, "What will be the most profitable way of employing money, if a settler brought out capital more than was required for his own expenditure?" On this head, I am not of course competent to give advice. My husband and friends, conversant with the affairs of the colonies, say, lend it on mortgage, on good landed securities, and at a high rate of interest. The purchase of land is often a good speculation, but not always so certain as mortgage, as it pays no interest; and though it may at some future time make great returns, it is not always so easy to dispose of it to an advantage when you happen to need it. A man possessing many thousand acres in different townships, may be distressed for twenty pounds if suddenly called upon for it when he is unprepared, if he invests all his capital in property of this kind. It would be difficult for me to enumerate the many opportunities of turning ready money to account. There is so little money in circulation that those persons who are fortunate enough to have it at command can do almost any thing with it they please. "What are the most useful articles for a settler to bring out?" Tools, a good stock of wearing-apparel, and shoes, good bedding, especially warm blankets; as you pay high for them here, and they are not so good as you would supply yourself with at a much lower rate at home. A selection of good garden-seeds, as those you buy at the stores are sad trash; moreover, they are pasted up in packets not to be opened till paid for, and you may, as we have done, pay for little better than chaff, and empty husks, or old and worm-eaten seeds. This, I am sorry to say, is a Yankee trick; though I doubt not but John Bull would do the same if he had the opportunity, as there are rogues in all countries under the sun. With respect to furniture and heavy goods of any kind, I would recommend little to be brought. Articles of hardware are not much more expensive here than at home, if at all, and often of a kind more suitable to the country than those you are at the trouble of bringing; besides, all land-carriage is dear. We lost a large package of tools that have never been recovered from the forwarders, though their carriage was paid beforehand to Prescott. It is safest and best to ensure your goods, when the forwarders are accountable for them. You ask, "If groceries and articles of household consumption are dear or cheap?" They vary according to circumstances and situation. In towns situated in old cleared parts of the country, and near the rivers and navigable waters, they are cheaper than at home; but in newly-settled townships, where the water-communication is distant, and where the roads are bad, and the transport of goods difficult, they are nearly double the price. Where the supply of produce is inadequate to the demand owing to the influx of emigrants in thinly-settled places, or other causes, then all articles of provisions are sold at a high price, and not to be procured without difficulty; but these are merely temporary evils, which soon cease. Competition is lowering prices in Canadian towns, as it does in British ones, and you may now buy goods of all kinds nearly as cheap as in England. Where prices depend on local circumstances, it is impossible to give any just standard; as what may do for one town would not for another, and a continual change is going on in all the unsettled or half-settled townships. In like manner the prices of cattle vary: they are cheaper in old settled townships, and still more so on the American side the river or lakes, than in the Canadas*. [* The duties on goods imported to the Canadas are exceedingly small, which will explain the circumstance of many articles of consumption being cheaper in places where there are facilities of transit than at home; while in the Backwoods, where roads are scarcely yet formed, there must be taken into the account the cost of carriage, and increased number of agents; the greater value of capital, and consequent increased rate of local profit, &c.--items which will diminish in amount as the country becomes settled and cleared.--Ed.] "What are necessary qualifications of a settler's wife; and the usual occupations of the female part of a settler's family?" are your next questions. To the first clause, I reply, a settler's wife should be active, industrious, ingenious, cheerful, not above putting her hand to whatever is necessary to be done in her household, nor too proud to profit by the advice and experience of older portions of the community, from whom she may learn many excellent lessons of practical wisdom. Like that pattern of all good housewives described by the prudent mother of King Lemuel, it should be said of the emigrant's wife, "She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff." "She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands." "She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness." Nothing argues a greater degree of good sense and good feeling than a cheerful conformity to circumstances, adverse though they be compared with a former lot; surely none that felt as they ought to feel, would ever despise a woman, however delicately brought up, for doing her duty in the state of life unto which it may have pleased God to call her. Since I came to this country, I have seen the accomplished daughters and wives of men holding no inconsiderable rank as officers, both naval and military, milking their own cows, making their own butter, and performing tasks of household work that few of our farmers' wives would now condescend to take part in. Instead of despising these useful arts, an emigrant's family rather pride themselves on their skill in these matters. The less silly pride and the more practical knowledge the female emigrant brings out with her, so much greater is the chance for domestic happiness and prosperity. I am sorry to observe, that in many cases the women that come hither give way to melancholy regrets, and destroy the harmony of their fire- side, and deaden the energies of their husbands and brothers by constant and useless repining. Having once made up their minds to follow their husbands or friends to this country, it would be wiser and better to conform with a good grace, and do their part to make the burden of emigration more bearable. One poor woman that was lamenting the miseries of this country was obliged to acknowledge that her prospects were far better than they ever had or could have been at home. What, then, was the cause of her continual regrets and discontent? I could hardly forbear smiling, when she replied, "She could not go to shop of a Saturday night to lay out her husband's earnings, and have a little chat with her _naibors_, while the shopman was serving the customers,--_for why?_ there were no shops in the bush, and she was just dead-alive. If Mrs. Such-a-one (with whom, by the way, she was always quarrelling when they lived under the same roof) was near her she might not feel quite so lonesome." And so for the sake of a dish of gossip, while lolling her elbows on the counter of a village-shop, this foolish woman would have forgone the advantages, real solid advantages, of having land and cattle, and poultry and food, and firing and clothing, and all for a few years' hard work, which, her husband wisely observed, must have been exerted at home, with no other end in view than an old age of poverty or a refuge from starvation in a parish workhouse. The female of the middling or better class, in her turn, pines for the society of the circle of friends she has quitted, probably for ever. She sighs for those little domestic comforts, that display of the refinements and elegancies of life, that she had been accustomed to see around her. She has little time now for those pursuits that were ever her business as well as amusement. The accomplishments she has now to acquire are of a different order: she must become skilled in the arts of sugar-boiling, candle and soap making, the making and baking of huge loaves, cooked in the bake-kettle, unless she be the fortunate mistress of a stone or clay oven. She must know how to manufacture _hop-rising_ or _salt-rising_ for leavening her bread; salting meat and fish, knitting stockings and mittens and comforters, spinning yarn in the big wheel (the French Canadian spinning-wheel), and dyeing the yarn when spun to have manufactured into cloth and coloured flannels, to clothe her husband and children, making clothes for herself, her husband and children;--for there are no tailors nor mantua-makers in the bush. The management of poultry and the dairy must not be omitted; for in this country most persons adopt the Irish and Scotch method, that of churning the _milk_, a practice that in our part of England was not known. For my own part I am inclined to prefer the butter churned from cream, as being most economical, unless you chance to have Irish or Scotch servants who prefer buttermilk to new or sweet skimmed milk. There is something to be said in favour of both plans, no doubt. The management of the calves differs here very much. Some persons wean the calf from the mother from its birth, never allowing it to suck at all: the little creature is kept fasting the first twenty-four hours; it is then fed with the finger with new milk, which it soon learns to take readily. I have seen fine cattle thus reared, and am disposed to adopt the plan as the least troublesome one. The old settlers pursue an opposite mode of treatment, allowing the calf to suck till it is nearly half a year old, under the idea that it ensures the daily return of the cow; as, under ordinary circumstances, she is apt to ramble sometimes for days together, when the herbage grows scarce in the woods near the homesteads, and you not only lose the use of the milk, but often, from distention of the udder, the cow is materially injured, at least for the remainder of the milking season. I am disposed to think that were care taken to give the cattle regular supplies of salt, and a small portion of food, if ever so little, near the milking-place, they would seldom stay long away. A few refuse potatoes, the leaves of the garden vegetables daily in use, set aside for them, with the green shoots of the Indian corn that are stripped off to strengthen the plant, will ensure their attendance. In the fall and winter, pumpkins, corn, straw, and any other fodder you may have, with the browse they get during the chopping and underbrushing season, will keep them well. The weanling calves should be given skimmed milk or buttermilk, with the leafy boughs of basswood and maple, of which they are extremely fond. A warm shed or fenced yard is very necessary for the cattle during the intense winter frosts: this is too often disregarded, especially in new settlements, which is the cause that many persons have the mortification of losing their stock, either with disease or cold. Naturally the Canadian cattle are very hardy, and when taken moderate care of, endure the severest winters well; but owing to the difficulties that attend a first settlement in the bush, they suffer every privation of cold and hunger, which brings on a complaint generally fatal, called the "_hollow horn_;" this originates in the spine, or extends to it, and is cured or palliated by boring the horn and inserting turpentine, pepper, or other heating substances. When a new comer has not winter food for his cattle, it is wise to sell them in the fall and buy others in the spring: though at a seeming loss, it is perhaps less loss in reality than losing the cattle altogether. This was the plan my husband adopted, and we found it decidedly the better one, besides saving much care, trouble, and vexation. I have seen some good specimens of native cheese, that I thought very respectable, considering that the grass is by no means equal to our British pastures. I purpose trying my skill next summer: who knows but that I may inspire some Canadian bard to celebrate the produce of my dairy as Bloomfield did the Suffolk cheese, yclept "Bang." You remember the passage,--for Bloomfield is your countryman as well as mine,--it begins: "Unrivalled stands thy county cheese, O Giles," &c. I have dwelt on the dairy information; as I know you were desirous of imparting all you could collect to your friends. You wish to know something of the culture of Indian corn, and if it be a useful and profitable crop. The cultivation of Indian corn on newly cleared lands is very easy, and attended with but little labour; on old farms it requires more. The earth is just raised with a broad hoe, and three or four corns dropped in with a pumpkin-seed, in about every third or fourth hole, and in every alternate row; the seed are set several feet apart. The pumpkins and the corn grow very amicably together, the broad leaves of the former shading the young plants and preventing the too great evaporation of the moisture from the ground; the roots strike little way, so that they rob the corn of a very small portion of nourishment. The one crop trails to an amazing length along the ground, while the other shoots up to the height of several feet above it. When the corn is beginning to branch, the ground should be hoed once over, to draw the earth a little to the roots, and cut down any weeds that might injure it. This is all that is done till the cob is beginning to form, when the blind and weak shoots are broken off, leaving four or five of the finest bearing shoots. The feather, when it begins to turn brown and dead, should also be taken off; that the plant may have all the nourishment to the corn. We had a remarkable instance of smut in our corn last summer. The diseased cobs had large white bladders as big as a small puff-ball, or very large nuts, and these on being broken were full of an inky black liquid. On the same plants might be observed a sort of false fructification, the cob being deficient in kernels, which by some strange accident were transposed to the top feather or male blossoms. I leave botanists to explain the cause of this singular anomaly; I only state facts. I could not learn that the smut was a disease common to Indian corn, but last year smut or dust bran, as it is called by some, was very prevalent in the oat, barley and wheat crops. In this country especially, new lands are very subject to the disease. The ripe corn is either shocked as beans are at home, or the cobs pulled and braided on ropes after the manner of onions, and hung over poles or beams in the granaries or barns. The stripping of the corn gives rise among some people, to what they call a husking-bee, which, like all the other bees, is one of Yankee origin, and is not now so frequently adopted among the more independent or better class of settlers. The Indian corn is a tender and somewhat precarious crop: it is liable to injury from the late frosts while young, for which reason it is never put in before the 20th of May, or beginning of June, and even then it will suffer; it has also many enemies; bears, racoons, squirrels, mice, and birds, and is a great temptation to _breachy_ cattle; who, to come at it, will even toss down a fence with stakes and riders for protection, i.e. a pole or cross-bar, supported between crossed stakes, that surmounts the zig-zag rail fences, for better securing them from the incursions of cattle. Even in Canada this crop requires a hot summer to ripen it perfectly; which makes me think Mr. Cobbett was deceiving the English farmer when he recommended it as a profitable crop in England. Profitable and highly useful it is under every disadvantage, as it makes the richest and sweetest food for all kinds of granivorous animals, even in its green state, and affords sound good food when ripe, or even partially ripe, for fattening beasts and working oxen. Last summer was very favourable, and the crops were abundant, but owing to the failure of the two preceding ones, fewer settlers grew it. Our small patch turned out very good. The flour makes a substantial sort of porridge, called by the Americans "_Supporne;_" this is made with water, and eaten with milk, or else mixed with milk; it requires long boiling. Bread is seldom if ever made without a large portion of wheaten flour, mixed with the corn meal. With respect to the culture of other grain, I can tell you nothing but what every book that treats on emigration will give you. The potatoe instead of being sown in drills is planted in hills, which are raised over the sets; this crop requires hoeing. With respect to the usual rate of wages, this also differs according to the populousness of the place: but the common wages now given to an active able man are from eight to eleven dollars per month; ten is perhaps the general average; from four to six for lads, and three and four for female servants. You may get a little girl, say from nine to twelve years, for her board and clothing; but this is far from a saving plan, as they soon wear out clothes and shoes thus bestowed. I have once tried this way, but found myself badly served, and a greater loser than if I had given wages. A big girl will go out to service for two and two and a half dollars per month, and will work in the fields also if required, binding after the reapers, planting and hoeing corn and potatoes. I have a very good girl, the daughter of a Wiltshire emigrant, who is neat and clever, and respectful and industrious, to whom I give three dollars only: she is a happy specimen of the lower order of English emigrants, and her family are quite acquisitions to the township in which they live. I think I have now answered all your queries to the best of my ability; but I would have you bear in mind that my knowledge is confined to a small portion of the townships along the Otanabee lakes, therefore, my information after all, may be but local: things may differ, and do differ in other parts of the province, though possibly not very materially. I must now say farewell. Should you ever feel tempted to try your fortune on this side the Atlantic, let me assure you of a warm welcome to our Canadian home, from your sincerely attached friend. LETTER XII. "A Logging Bee."--Burning of the Log-heaps.--Crops for the Season.-- Farming Stock.--Comparative Value of Wheat and Labour.--Choice of Land, and relative Advantages.--Clearing Land.--Hurricane in the Woods.-- Variable Weather.--Insects. November the 2d, 1833. MANY thanks, dearest mother, for the contents of the box which arrived in August. I was charmed with the pretty caps and worked frocks sent for my baby; the little fellow looks delightfully in his new robes, and I can almost fancy is conscious of the accession to his wardrobe, so proud he seems of his dress. He grows fat and lively, and, as you may easily suppose, is at once the pride and delight of his foolish mother's heart. His father, who loves him as much as I do myself; often laughs at my fondness, and asks me if I do not think him the ninth wonder of the world. He has fitted up a sort of rude carriage on the hand-sleigh for the little fellow--nothing better than a tea-chest, lined with a black bear-skin, and in this humble equipage he enjoys many a pleasant ride over the frozen ground. Nothing could have happened more opportunely for us than the acquisition of my uncle's legacy, as it has enabled us to make some useful additions to our farm, for which we must have waited a few years. We have laid out a part of the property in purchasing a fine lot of land adjoining our home lot. The quality of our new purchase is excellent, and, from its situation, greatly enhances the value of the whole property. We had a glorious burning this summer after the ground was all logged up; that is, all the large timbers chopped into lengths, and drawn together in heaps with oxen. To effect this the more readily we called a logging-bee. We had a number of settlers attend, with yokes of oxen and men to assist us. After that was over, my husband, with the men servants, set the heaps on fire; and a magnificent sight it was to see such a conflagration all round us. I was a little nervous at first on account of the nearness of some of the log-heaps to the house, but care is always taken to fire them with the wind blowing in a direction away from the building. Accidents have sometimes happened, but they are of rarer occurrence than might be expected, when we consider the subtlety and destructiveness of the element employed on the occasion. If the weather be very dry, and a brisk wind blowing, the work of destruction proceeds with astonishing rapidity; sometimes the fire will communicate with the forest and run over many hundreds of acres. This is not considered favourable for clearing, as it destroys the underbush and light timbers, which are almost indispensable for ensuring a good burning. It is, however, a magnificent sight to see the blazing trees and watch the awful progress of the conflagration, as it hurries onward, consuming all before it, or leaving such scorching mementoes as have blasted the forest growth for years. When the ground is very dry the fire will run all over the fallow, consuming the dried leaves, sticks, and roots. Of a night the effect is more evident; sometimes the wind blows particles of the burning fuel into the hollow pines and tall decaying stumps; these readily ignite, and after a time present an appearance that is exceedingly fine and fanciful. Fiery columns, the bases of which are hidden by the dense smoke wreaths, are to be seen in every direction, sending up showers of sparks that are whirled about like rockets and fire-wheels in the wind. Some of these tall stumps, when the fire has reached the summit, look like gas lamp-posts newly lit. The fire will sometimes continue unextinguished for days. After the burning is over the brands are collected and drawn together again to be reburnt; and, strange as it may appear to you, there is no work that is more interesting and exciting than that of tending the log- heaps, rousing up the dying flames and closing them in, and supplying the fires with fresh fuel. There are always two burnings: first, the brush heaps, which have lain during the winter till the drying winds and hot suns of April and May have rendered them sear, are set fire to; this is previous to forming the log-heaps. If the season be dry, and a brisk wind abroad, much of the lighter timber is consumed, and the larger trees reduced during this first burning. After this is over, the rest is chopped and logged up for the second burning: and lastly, the remnants are collected and consumed till the ground be perfectly free from all encumbrances, excepting the standing stumps, which rarely burn out, and remain eye-sores for several years. The ashes are then scattered abroad, and the field fenced in with split timber; the great work of clearing is over. Our crops this year are oats, corn, and pumpkins, and potatoes, with some turnips. We shall have wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, and corn next harvest, which will enable us to increase our stock. At present we have only a yoke of oxen (Buck and Bright, the names of three-fourths of all the working oxen in Canada), two cows, two calves, three small pigs, ten hens, and three ducks, and a pretty brown pony: but she is such a skilful clearer of seven-railed fences that we shall be obliged to part with her. _Breachy_ cattle of any kind are great disturbers of public tranquillity and private friendship; for which reason any settler who values the good-will of his neighbours would rather part with the best working yoke of oxen in the township, than keep them if they prove _breachy_. A small farmer at home would think very poorly of our Canadian possessions, especially when I add that our whole stock of farming implements consists of two reaping-hooks, several axes, a spade, and a couple of hoes. Add to these a queer sort of harrow that is made in the shape of a triangle for the better passing between the stumps: this is a rude machine compared with the nicely painted instruments of the sort I have been accustomed to see used in Britain. It is roughly hewn, and put together without regard to neatness; strength for use is all that is looked to here. The plough is seldom put into the land before the third or fourth year, nor is it required; the general plan of cropping the first fallow with wheat or oats, and sowing grass-seeds with the grain to make pastures, renders the plough unnecessary till such time as the grass-lands require to be broken up. This method is pursued by most settlers while they are clearing bush-land; always chopping and burning enough to keep a regular succession of wheat and spring crops, while the former clearings are allowed to remain in grass. The low price that is now given for grain of every kind, wheat having fetched only from two shillings and nine-pence to four shillings the bushel, makes the growing of it a matter of less importance than rearing and fatting of stock. Wages bear no proportion to the price of produce; a labourer receives ten and even eleven dollars and board a month, while wheat is selling at only three shillings, three shillings and six pence or four shillings, and sometimes even still less. The returns are little compared with the outlay on the land; nor does the land produce that great abundance that men are apt to look for on newly cleared ground. The returns of produce, however, must vary with the situation and fertility of the soil, which is generally less productive in the immediate vicinity of the lakes and rivers than a little further back from them, the land being either swampy or ridgy, covered with pines and beset with blocks of limestone and granite, the sub-soil poor and sandy. This is the case on the small lakes and on the banks of the Otanabee; the back lots are generally much finer in quality, producing hard wood, such as bass-wood, maple, hickory, butter-nut, oak, beech, and iron- wood; which trees always indicate a more productive soil than the pine tribe. In spite of the indifference of the soil the advantage of a water frontage is considered a matter of great importance in the purchasing of land; and, lots with water privileges usually fetch a much higher price than those further removed from it. These lands are in general in the possession of the higher class of settlers, who can afford to pay something extra for a pretty situation, and the prospect of future improvements when the country shall be under a higher state of cultivation and more thickly settled. We cannot help regarding with infinite satisfaction the few acres that are cleared round the house and covered with crops. A space of this kind in the midst of the dense forest imparts a cheerfulness to the mind, of which those that live in an open country, or even a partially wooded one, can form no idea. The bright sunbeams and the blue and cloudless sky breaking in upon you, rejoices the eye and cheers the heart as much as the cool shade of a palm-grove would the weary traveller on the sandy wastes of Africa. If we feel this so sensibly who enjoy the opening of a lake of full three-quarters of a mile in breadth directly in front of our windows, what must those do whose clearing is first opened in the depths of the forest, hemmed in on every side by a thick wall of trees, through the interminable shades of which the eye vainly endeavours to penetrate in search of other objects and other scenes; but so dense is the growth of timber, that all beyond the immediate clearing is wrapped in profound obscurity. A settler on first locating on his lot knows no more of its boundaries and its natural features than he does of the northwest passage. Under such disadvantages it is ten chances to one if he chooses the best situation on the land for the site of his house. This is a very sufficient reason for not putting up an expensive building till the land is sufficiently cleared to allow its advantages and disadvantages to become evident. Many eligible spots often present themselves to the eye of the settler, in clearing his land, that cause him to regret having built before he could obtain a better choice of ground. But circumstances will seldom admit of delay in building in the bush; a dwelling must be raised speedily, and that generally on the first cleared acre. The emigrant, however, looks forward to some no very distant period when he shall be able to gratify both his taste and love of comfort in the erection of a handsomer and better habitation than his log-house or his shanty, which he regards only in the light of a temporary accommodation. On first coming to this country nothing surprised me more than the total absence of trees about the dwelling-houses and cleared lands; the axe of the chopper relentlessly levels all before him. Man appears to contend with the trees of the forest as though they were his most obnoxious enemies; for he spares neither the young sapling in its greenness nor the ancient trunk in its lofty pride; he wages war against the forest with fire and steel. There are several sufficient reasons to be given for this seeming want of taste. The forest-trees grow so thickly together that they have no room for expanding and putting forth lateral branches; on the contrary, they run up to an amazing height of stem, resembling seedlings on a hot- bed that have not duly been thinned out. Trees of this growth when unsupported by others are tall, weak, and entirely divested of those graces and charms of outline and foliage that would make them desirable as ornaments to our grounds; but this is not the most cogent reason for not leaving them, supposing some more sightly than others were to be found. Instead of striking deep roots in the earth, the forest-trees, with the exception of the pines, have very superficial hold in the earth; the roots running along the surface have no power to resist the wind when it bends the tops, which thus act as a powerful lever in tearing them from their places. The taller the tree the more liable it is to being uprooted by storms; and if those that are hemmed in, as in the thickly-planted forests, fall, you may suppose the certain fate of any isolated tree, deprived of its former protectors, when left to brave and battle with the storm. It is sure to fall, and may chance to injure any cattle that are within its reach. This is the great reason why trees are not left in the clearing. Indeed, it is a less easy matter to spare them when chopping than I at first imagined, but the fall of one tree frequently brings down two, three, or even more smaller ones that stand near it. A good chopper will endeavour to promote this as much as possible by partly chopping through smaller ones in the direction they purpose the larger one to fall. I was so desirous of preserving a few pretty sapling beech-trees that pleased me, that I desired the choppers to spare them; but the only one that was saved from destruction in the chopping had to pass through a fiery ordeal, which quickly scorched and withered up its gay green leaves: it now stands a melancholy monument of the impossibility of preserving trees thus left. The only thing to be done if you desire trees, is to plant them while young in favourable situations, when they take deep root and spread forth branches the same as the trees in our parks and hedge-rows. Another plan which we mean to adopt on our land is to leave several acres of forest in a convenient situation, and chop and draw out the old timbers for fire-wood, leaving the younger growth for ornament. This method of preserving a grove of trees is not liable to the objections formerly stated, and combines the useful with the ornamental. There is a strange excitement created in the mind whilst watching the felling of one of the gigantic pines or oaks of the forest. Proudly and immoveably it seems at first to resist the storm of blows that assail its massy trunk, from the united axes of three or even four choppers. As the work of destruction continues, a slight motion is perceived--an almost imperceptible quivering of the boughs. Slowly and slowly it inclines, while the loud rending of the trunk at length warns you that its last hold on earth is gone. The axe of the chopper has performed its duty; the motion of the falling tree becomes accelerated every instant, till it comes down in thunder on the plain, with a crash that makes the earth tremble and the neighbouring trees reel and bow before it. Though decidedly less windy than our British isles, Canada is subject at times to sudden storms, nearly approaching to what might be termed whirlwinds and hurricanes. A description of one of these tempests I gave you in an early letter. During the present summer I witnessed another hurricane, somewhat more violent and destructive in its effect. The sky became suddenly overcast with clouds of a highly electric nature. The storm came from the north-west, and its fury appeared to be confined within the breadth of a few hundred yards. I was watching with some degree of interest the rapid movements in the lurid, black, and copper-coloured clouds that were careering above the lake, when I was surprised by the report of trees falling on the opposite shore, and yet more so by seeing the air filled with scattered remnants of the pines within less than a hundred yards of the house, while the wind was scarcely felt on the level ground on which I was standing. In a few seconds the hurricane had swept over the water, and with irresistible power laid low not less than thirty or forty trees, bending others to the ground like reeds. It was an awful sight to see the tall forest rocking and bowing before the fury of the storm, and with the great trunks falling one after the other, as if they had been a pack of cards thrown down by a breath. Fortunately for us the current of the wind merely passed over our open clearing, doing us no further damage than uprooting three big pine-trees on the ridge above the lake. But in the direction of our neighbour ------ it did great mischief, destroying many rods of fencing, and crushing his crops with the prostrate trunks and scattered boughs, occasioning great loss and much labour to repair the mischief. The upturned roots of trees thrown down by the wind are great nuisances and disfigurements in clearings, and cause much more trouble to remove than those that have been felled by the axe. Some of the stumps of these wind-fallen trees will right again if chopped from the trunk soon after they have been blown down, the weight of the roots and upturned soil being sufficient to bring them back into their former places; we have pursued this plan very frequently. We have experienced one of the most changeable seasons this summer that was possible. The spring was warm and pleasant, but from the latter part of May till the middle of harvest we had heavy rains, cloudy skies, with moist hot days, and frequent tempests of thunder and lightning, most awfully grand, but seemingly less destructive than such storms are at home. Possibly the tall forest-trees divert the danger from the low dwellings, which are sufficiently sheltered from the effect of the lightning. The autumn has also proved wet and cold. I must say at present I do not think very favourably of the climate; however, it is not right to judge by so short an acquaintance with it, as every one says this summer has been unlike any of its predecessors. The insects have been a sad annoyance to us, and I hailed the approach of the autumn as a respite from their attacks; for these pests are numerous and various, and no respecters of persons, as I have learned from sad experience. I am longing for home-letters; let me hear from you soon. Farewell, friends. LETTER XIII. Health enjoyed in the rigour of Winter.--Inconvenience suffered from the brightness of the Snow.--Sleighing.--Indian Orthography.--Visit to an Indian Encampment.--Story of an Indian.--An Indian Hunchback.--Canadian Ornithology. Lake Cottage, March 14, 1834. I RECEIVED your affectionate and interesting letter only last night. Owing to an error in the direction, it had made the round of two townships before it reached Peterborough; and though it bore as many new directions as the sailor's knife did new blades and handles, it did at last reach me, and was not less prized for its travelling dress, being somewhat the worse for wear. I rejoiced to hear of your returning health and increased happiness--may they long continue. Your expressions of regret for my exile, as you term my residence in this country, affected me greatly. Let the assurance that I am not less happy than when I left my native land, console you for my absence. If my situation be changed, my heart is not. My spirits are as light as ever, and at times I feel a gaiety that bids defiance to all care. You say you fear the rigours of the Canadian winter will kill me. I never enjoyed better health, nor so good, as since it commenced. There is a degree of spirit and vigour infused into one's blood by the purity of the air that is quite exhilarating. The very snow seems whiter and more beautiful than it does in our damp, vapoury climate. During a keen bright winter's day you will often perceive the air filled with minute frozen particles, which are quite dry, and slightly prick your face like needle-points, while the sky is blue and bright above you. There is a decided difference between the first snow-falls and those of mid-winter; the first are in large soft flakes, and seldom remain long without thawing, but those that fall after the cold has regularly set in are smaller, drier, and of the most beautiful forms, sometimes pointed like a cluster of rays, or else feathered in the most exquisite manner. I find my eyes much inconvenienced by the dazzling glitter of the snow on bright sunny days, so as to render my sight extremely dull and indistinct for hours after exposure to its power. I would strongly advise any one coming out to this country to provide themselves with blue or green glasses; and by no means to omit green crape or green tissue veils. Poor Moses' gross of green spectacles would not have proved so bad a spec. in Canada*. [* Oculists condemn coloured spectacles, as injuring weak eyes by the heat which they occasion. Coloured gauze or coloured shades are preferable.--Ed.] Some few nights ago as I was returning from visiting a sick friend, I was delighted by the effect produced by the frost. The earth, the trees, every stick, dried leaf, and stone in my path was glittering with mimic diamonds, as if touched by some magical power; objects the most rude and devoid of beauty had suddenly assumed a brilliancy that was dazzling beyond the most vivid fancy to conceive; every frozen particle sent forth rays of bright light. You might have imagined yourself in Sinbad's valley of gems; nor was the temperature of the air at all unpleasantly cold. I have often felt the sensation of cold on a windy day in Britain far more severe than I have done in Canada, when the mercury indicated a much lower degree of temperature. There is almost a trance-like stillness in the air during our frosty nights that lessens the unpleasantness of the sensation. There are certainly some days of intense cold during our winter, but this low temperature seldom continues more than three days together. The coldest part of the day is from an hour or two before sunrise to about nine o'clock in the morning; by that time our blazing log-fires or metal stoves have warmed the house, so that you really do not care for the cold without. When out of doors you suffer less inconvenience than you would imagine whilst you keep in motion, and are tolerably well clothed: the ears and nose are the most exposed to injury. Gentlemen sometimes make a singular appearance coming in from a long journey, that if it were not for pity's sake would draw from you a smile;--hair, whiskers, eyebrows, eyelashes, beard, all incrusted with hoar-frost. I have seen young ladies going to evening parties with clustering ringlets, as jetty as your own, changed by the breath of Father Frost to silvery whiteness; so that you could almost fancy the fair damsels had been suddenly metamorphosed to their ancient grannies; fortunately for youth and beauty such change is but transitory. In the towns and populous parts of the province the approach of winter is hailed with delight instead of dread; it is to all a season of leisure and enjoyment. Travelling is then expeditiously and pleasantly performed; even our vile bush-roads become positively very respectable; and if you should happen to be overturned once or twice during a journey of pleasure, very little danger attends such an event, and very little compassion is bestowed on you for your tumble in the snow; so it is wisest to shake off your light burden and enjoy the fun with a good grace if you can. Sleighing is certainly a very agreeable mode of travelling; the more snow, the better the sleighing season is considered; and the harder it becomes, the easier the motion of the vehicle. The horses are all adorned with strings of little brass bells about their necks or middles. The merry jingle of these bells is far from disagreeable, producing a light, lively sound. The following lines I copied from the New York Albion for you; I think you will be pleased with them:-- SLEIGH BELLS. 'Tis merry to hear at evening time By the blazing hearth the sleigh-bells chime; To know each bound of the steed brings near The form of him to our bosoms dear; Lightly we spring the fire to raise, Till the rafters glow with the ruddy blaze. 'Tis he--and blithely the gay bells sound, As his steed skims over the frozen ground. Hark! he has pass'd the gloomy wood; He crosses now the ice-bound flood, And sees the light from the open door, To hail his toilsome journey o'er. Our hut is small and rude our cheer, But love has spread the banquet here; And childhood springs to be caress'd By our beloved and welcome guest; With smiling brow his tale he tells, They laughing ring the merry bells. From the cedar swamp the wolf may howl, From the blasted pine loud whoop the owl; The sudden crash of the falling tree Are sounds of terror no more to me; No longer I list with boding fear, The sleigh-bells' merry peal to hear*. [* This little poem by Mrs. Moodie has since been printed in a volume of "Friendship's Offering," with some alterations by the editor that deprive it a good deal of the simplicity of the original.] As soon as a sufficient quantity of snow has fallen all vehicles of every description, from the stage-coach to the wheelbarrow, are supplied with wooden runners, shod with iron, after the manner of skates. The usual equipages for travelling are the double sleigh, light waggon, and cutter; the two former are drawn by two horses abreast, but the latter, which is by far the most elegant-looking, has but one, and answers more to our gig or chaise. Wrapped up in buffalo robes you feel no inconvenience from the cold, excepting to your face, which requires to be defended by a warm beaver or fur bonnet; the latter, I am surprised to find, is seldom if ever worn, from the nonsensical reason that it is not the fashion. The red, grey, and black squirrels are abundant in our woods; the musk-rat inhabits little houses that he builds in the rushy parts of the lakes: these dwellings are formed of the roots of sedges, sticks, and other materials of a similar nature, and plastered with mud, over which a thick close thatch is raised to the height of a foot or more above the water; they are of a round or dome-shape, and are distinctly visible from the shore at some distance. The Indians set traps to ensnare these creatures in their houses, and sell their skins, which are very thick and glossy towards winter. The beaver, the bear, the black lynx, and foxes are also killed, and brought to the stores by the hunters, where the skins are exchanged for goods or money. The Indians dress the deer-skins for making mocassins, which are greatly sought after by the settlers in these parts; they are very comfortable in snowy weather, and keep the feet very warm, but you require several wrappings of cloth round the feet before you put them on. I wore a beautiful pair all last winter, worked with porcupine-quills and bound with scarlet ribbon; these elegant mocassins were the handicraft of an old squaw, the wife of Peter the hunter: you have already heard of him in my former letters. I was delighted with a curious specimen of Indian orthography that accompanied the mocassins, in the form of a note, which I shall transcribe for your edification:-- SIR, Pleas if you would give something; you must git in ordir in store is woyth (worth) them mocsin, porcupine quill on et. One dollers foure yard. [Illustration: The Prairie] This curious billet was the production of the hunter's eldest son, and is meant to intimate that if I would buy the mocassins the price was one dollar, or an order on one of the stores for four yards of calico; for so the squaw interpreted its meaning. The order for four yards of printed cotton was delivered over to Mrs. Peter, who carefully pinned it within the folds of her blanket, and departed well satisfied with the payment. And this reminds me of our visit to the Indian's camp last week. Feeling some desire to see these singular people in their winter encampment, I expressed my wish to S------, who happens to be a grand favourite with the old hunter and his family; as a mark of a distinction they have bestowed on him the title of Chippewa, the name of their tribe. He was delighted with the opportunity of doing the honours of the Indian wigwam, and it was agreed that he, with some of his brothers and sisters-in-law, who happened to be on a visit at his house, should come and drink tea with us and accompany us to the camp in the woods. A merry party we were that sallied forth that evening into the glorious starlight; the snow sparkled with a thousand diamonds on its frozen surface, over which we bounded with hearts as light as hearts could be in this careful world. And truly never did I look upon a lovelier sight than the woods presented; there had been a heavy fall of snow the preceding day; owing to the extreme stillness of the air not a particle of it had been shaken from the trees. The evergreens were bending beneath their brilliant burden; every twig, every leaf, and spray was covered, and some of the weak saplings actually bowed down to the earth with the weight of snow, forming the most lovely and fanciful bowers and arcades across our path. As you looked up towards the tops of the trees the snowy branches seen against the deep blue sky formed a silvery veil, through which the bright stars were gleaming with a chastened brilliancy. I was always an admirer of a snowy landscape, but neither in this country nor at home did I ever see any thing so surpassingly lovely as the forest appeared that night. Leaving the broad road we struck into a bye-path, deep tracked by the Indians, and soon perceived the wigwam by the red smoke that issued from the open basket-work top of the little hut. This is first formed with light poles, planted round so as to enclose a circle of ten or twelve feet in diameter; between these poles are drawn large sheets of birch bark both within and without, leaving an opening of the bare poles at the top so as to form an outlet for the smoke; the outer walls were also banked up with snow, so as to exclude the air entirely from beneath. Some of our party, who were younger and lighter of foot than we sober married folks, ran on before; so that when the blanket, that served the purpose of a door, was unfastened, we found a motley group of the dark skins and the pale faces reposing on the blankets and skins that were spread round the walls of the wigwam. The swarthy complexions, shaggy black hair, and singular costume of the Indians formed a striking contrast with the fair-faced Europeans that were mingled with them, seen as they were by the red and fitful glare of the wood-fire that occupied the centre of the circle. The deer-hounds lay stretched in indolent enjoyment, close to the embers, while three or four dark-skinned little urchins were playing with each other, or angrily screaming out their indignation against the apish tricks of the hunchback, my old acquaintance Maquin, that Indian Flibberty-gibbet, whose delight appeared to be in teazing and tormenting the little papouses, casting as he did so sidelong glances of impish glee at the guests, while as quick as thought his features assumed an impenetrable gravity when the eyes of his father or the squaws seemed directed towards his tricks. There was a slight bustle among the party when we entered one by one through the low blanket-doorway. The merry laugh rang round among our friends, which was echoed by more than one of the Indian men, and joined by the peculiar half-laugh or chuckle of the squaws. "_Chippewa_" was directed to a post of honour beside the hunter Peter; and squaw Peter, with an air of great good humour, made room for me on a corner of her own blanket; to effect which two papouses and a hound were sent lamenting to the neighbourhood of the hunchback Maquin. The most attractive persons in the wigwam were two Indian girls, one about eighteen, Jane, the hunter's eldest daughter, and her cousin Margaret. I was greatly struck with the beauty of Jane; her features were positively fine, and though of gipsey darkness the tint of vermilion on her cheek and lip rendered it, if not beautiful, very attractive. Her hair, which was of jetty blackness, was soft and shining, and was neatly folded over her forehead, not hanging loose and disorderly in shaggy masses, as is generally the case with the squaws. Jane was evidently aware of her superior charms, and may be considered as an Indian belle, by the peculiar care she displayed in the arrangement of the black cloth mantle, bound with scarlet, that was gracefully wrapped over one shoulder, and fastened at her left side with a gilt brooch. Margaret was younger, of lower stature, and though lively and rather pretty, yet wanted the quiet dignity of her cousin; she had more of the squaw in face and figure. The two girls occupied a blanket by themselves, and were busily engaged in working some most elegant sheaths of deer-skin, richly wrought over with coloured quills and beads: they kept the beads and quills in a small tin baking-pan on their knees; but my old squaw (as I always call Mrs. Peter) held her porcupine-quills in her mouth, and the fine dried sinews of the deer, which they make use of instead of thread in work of this sort, in her bosom. On my expressing a desire to have some of the porcupine-quills, she gave me a few of different colour that she was working a pair of mocassins with, but signified that she wanted "'bead' to work mocsin," by which I understood I was to give some in exchange for the quills. Indians never give since they have learned to trade with white men. She was greatly delighted with the praises I bestowed on Jane. She told me Jane was soon to marry the young Indian who sat on one side of her in all the pride of a new blanket coat, red sash, embroidered powder-pouch, and great gilt clasps to the collar of his coat, which looked as warm and as white as a newly washed fleece. The old squaw evidently felt proud of the young couple as she gazed on them, and often repeated, with a good-tempered laugh, "Jane's husband--marry by and by." We had so often listened with pleasure to the Indians singing their hymns of a Sunday night that I requested some of them to sing to us; the old hunter nodded assent; and, without removing his pipe, with the gravity and phlegm of a Dutchman, issued his commands, which were as instantly obeyed by the younger part of the community, and a chorus of rich voices filled the little hut with a melody that thrilled to our very hearts. The hymn was sung in the Indian tongue, a language that is peculiarly sweet and soft in its cadences, and seems to be composed with many vowels. I could not but notice the modest air of the girls; as if anxious to avoid observation that they felt was attracted by their sweet voices, they turned away from the gaze of the strangers, facing each other and bending their heads down over the work they still held in their hands. The attitude, which is that of the Eastern nations; the dress, dark hair and eyes, the olive complexion, heightened colour, and meek expression of face, would have formed a study for a painter. I wish you could have witnessed the scene; I think you would not easily have forgotten it. I was pleased with the air of deep reverence that sat on the faces of the elders of the Indian family, as they listened to the voices of their children singing praise and glory to the God and Saviour they had learned to fear and love. The Indians seem most tender parents; it is pleasing to see the affectionate manner in which they treat their young children, fondly and gently caressing them with eyes overflowing and looks of love. During the singing each papouse crept to the feet of its respective father and mother, and those that were too young to join their voices to the little choir, remained quite silent till the hymn was at an end. One little girl, a fat brown roly-poly, of three years old, beat time on her father's knee, and from time to time chimed in her infant voice; she evidently possessed a fine ear and natural taste for music. I was at a loss to conceive where the Indians kept their stores, clothes, and other moveables, the wigwam being so small that there seemed no room for any thing besides themselves and their hounds. Their ingenuity, however, supplied the want of room, and I soon discovered a plan that answered all the purposes of closets, bags, boxes, &c., the inner lining of birch-bark being drawn between the poles so as to form hollow pouches all round; in these pouches were stowed their goods; one set held their stock of dried deer's flesh, another dried fish, a third contained some flat cakes, which I have been told they bake in a way peculiar to themselves, with hot ashes over and under; for my part I think they must be far from palatable so seasoned. Their dressed skins, clothes, materials for their various toys, such as beads, quills, bits of cloth, silk, with a thousand other miscellaneous articles, occupied the rest of these reservoirs. Though open for a considerable space at the top, the interior of the wigwam was so hot, I could scarcely breathe, and was constrained to throw off all my wrappings during the time we staid. Before we went away the hunter insisted on showing us a game, which was something after the manner of our cup and ball, only more complicated, and requires more sleight of hand: the Indians seemed evidently well pleased at our want of adroitness. They also showed us another game, which was a little like nine-pins, only the number of sticks stuck in the ground was greater. I was unable to stay to see the little rows of sticks knocked out, as the heat of the wigwam oppressed me almost to suffocation, and I was glad to feel myself once more breathing the pure air. In any other climate one would scarcely have undergone such sudden extremes of temperature without catching a severe cold; but fortunately that distressing complaint _catchee le cold_, as the Frenchman termed it, is not so prevalent in Canada as at home. Some twenty years ago, while a feeling of dread still existed in the minds of the British settlers towards the Indians, from the remembrance of atrocities committed during the war of independence, a poor woman, the widow of a settler who occupied a farm in one of the then but thinly-settled townships back of the Ontario, was alarmed by the sudden appearance of an Indian within the walls of her log-hut. He had entered so silently that it was not till he planted himself before the blazing fire that he was perceived by the frightened widow and her little ones, who retreated, trembling with ill-concealed terror to the furthest corner of the room. Without seeming to notice the dismay which his appearance had excited, the Indian proceeded to disencumber himself from his hunting accoutrements; he then unfastened his wet mocassins, which he hung up to dry, plainly intimating his design was to pass the night beneath their roof, it being nearly dark, and snowing heavily. Scarcely daring to draw an audible breath, the little group watched the movements of their unwelcome guest. Imagine their horror when they beheld him take from his girdle a hunting-knife, and deliberately proceed to try its edge. After this his tomahawk and rifle underwent a similar examination. The despair of the horror-stricken mother was now approaching a climax. She already beheld in idea the frightful mangled corpses of her murdered children upon that hearth which had so often been the scene of their innocent gambols. Instinctively she clasped the two youngest to her breast at a forward movement of the Indian. With streaming eyes she was about to throw herself at his feet, as he advanced towards her with the dreaded weapons in his hands, and implore his mercy for herself and her babes. What then was her surprise and joy when he gently laid the rifle, knife, and tomahawk beside her, signifying by this action that she had nothing to fear at his hands*. [* It is almost an invariable custom now for the Indians on entering a dwelling-house to leave all their weapons, as rife, tomahawk, &c., outside the door, even if the weather be ever so wet; as they consider it unpolite to enter a family dwelling armed.] A reprieve to a condemned criminal at the moment previous to his execution was not more welcome than this action of the Indian to the poor widow. Eager to prove her confidence and her gratitude at the same time, she hastened to prepare food for the refreshment of the now no longer dreaded guest; and, assisted by the eldest of her children, put clean sheets and the best blankets on her own bed, which she joyfully devoted to the accommodation of the stranger. An expressive "Hugh! hugh!" was the only reply to this act of hospitality; but when he went to take possession of his luxurious couch he seemed sorely puzzled. It was evident the Indian had never seen, and certainly never reposed on, an European bed. After a mute examination of the bed-clothes for some minutes, with a satisfied laugh, he sprang upon the bed, and, curling himself up like a dog, in a few minutes was sound asleep. By dawn of day the Indian had departed; but whenever he came on the hunting-grounds in the neighbourhood of the widow, she was sure to see him. The children, no longer terrified at his swarthy countenance and warlike weapons, would gather round his knees, admire the feathered pouch that contained his shot, finger the beautiful embroidered sheath that held the hunting-knife, or the finely-worked mocassins and leggings; whilst he would pat their heads, and bestow upon them an equal share of caresses with his deer-hounds. Such was the story related to me by a young missionary. I thought it might prove not uninteresting, as a trait of character of one of these singular people. _Chiboya_ (for that was the name of the Indian) was one of the Chippewas of Rice Lake, most of whom are now converts to Christianity, and making considerable advancement in civilisation and knowledge of agriculture. Hunting and fishing, however, appear to be their favourite pursuits: for these they leave the comfortable houses at the Indian villages, and return at stated times to their forest haunts. I believe it is generally considered that their numbers are diminishing, and some tribes have become nearly if not totally extinct in the Canadas*. The race is slowly passing away from the face of the earth, or mingling by degrees with the colonists, till, a few centuries hence, even the names of their tribes will scarcely remain to tell that they once existed. [* It is stated that the North-West Company had a census of all the tribes, and that the whole Indian population of that immense continent did not now exceed 100,000 souls. In a Parliamentary document of 1834, the Indians of Lower Canada are estimated at 3,437, and those of Upper Canada at 13,700, which latter number is stated to include those on the shores of Lake Huron, and to the westward.-Ed.] When next you send a box or parcel, let me have a few good tracts and hymn-books; as they prize a gift of this sort extremely. I send you a hymn, the one they sang to us in the wigwam; it is the Indian translation, and written by the hunter, Peter's eldest son: he was delighted when I told him I wanted him to copy it for me, that I might send it across the seas to my own country, that English people might see how well Indians could write. [Illustration: Red-bird] [Illustration: Blue-bird] The hunchback Maquin has made me a miniature canoe of birch-bark, which I send; you will prize it as a curiosity, and token of remembrance. The red and black squirrel-skins are for Jane; the feather fans, and papers of feathers, for Sarah. Tell the latter the next time I send a packet home, she shall have specimens fit for stuffing of our splendid red- bird, which, I am sure, is the Virginian nightingale; it comes in May or April, and leaves us late in the summer: it exactly corresponds to a stuffed Virginian nightingale that I saw in a fine collection of American birds. The blue-bird is equally lovely, and migrates much about the same time; the plumage is of a celestial blue; but I have never seen one otherwise than upon the wing, so cannot describe it minutely. The cross-bills are very pretty; the male and female quite opposite in colour, one having a lovely mixture of scarlet and orange on the breast and back, shading into greenish olive and brown; the other more like our yellowhammer, only it is not quite so bright in colour, though much softer, and more innocent-looking: they come to our windows and doors in the winter as familiarly as your robins. During the winter most of our birds depart; even the hollow tapping of the red-headed and the small speckled grey and white woodpecker ceases to be heard; the sharp chittering of the squirrel, too, is seldomer distinguished; and silence, awful and unbroken silence, reigns in the forest during the season of midwinter. I had well nigh forgotten my little favourites, a species of the titmouse, that does not entirely forsake us. Of a bright warm, sunny day we see flocks of these tiny birds swinging among the feathery sprigs of the hemlocks or shrubby pines on the plains or in the forest; and many a time have I stayed my steps to watch their playful frolics, and listen to their gay warbling. I am not quite certain, but I think this is the same little bird that is known among the natives by the name of Thit-a- be-bee; its note, though weak, and with few changes, is not unpleasing; and we prize it from its being almost the only bird that sings during the winter. I had heard much of the snow-bunting, but never had seen it till the other day, and then not near enough to mark its form or colours. The day was one of uncommon brilliancy; the sky cloudless, and the air almost warm; when, looking towards the lake, I was surprised by the appearance of one of the pine-trees near the shore: it seemed as if covered with stars of silver that twinkled and sparkled against the blue sky. I was so charmed by the novelty, that I ran out to observe them nearer; when, to my surprise, my stars all took flight to another tree, where, by the constant waving and fluttering of their small white wings against the sunlight, they produced the beautiful effect that had at first attracted my observation: soon all the pines within sight of the window were illuminated by these lovely creatures. About mid-day they went away, and I have seen them but once since. They never lit on the ground, or any low tree or bough, for me to examine them nearer. Of our singing-birds, the robin; the blackbird, and a tiny bird, like our common wren, are those I am most intimate with. The Canadian robin is much larger than our dear robin at home; he is too coarse and large a bird to realize the idea of our little favourite, "the household-bird with the red stomacher," as he is called by Bishop-Carey, in a sonnet addressed to Elizabeth, the daughter of James I., on her marriage with the unfortunate Frederic Prince Palatine. The song of the Canadian robin is by no means despicable; its notes are clear, sweet, and various; it possesses the same cheerful lively character that distinguishes the carol of its namesake; but the general habits of the bird are very dissimilar. The Canadian robin is less sociable with man, but more so with his own species: they assemble in flocks soon after the breeding season is over, and appear very amicable one to another; but seldom, if ever, approach very near to our dwelling. The breast is of a pinkish, salmon colour; the head black; the back of a sort of bluish steel, or slate colour; in size they are as big as a thrush. [Illustration: Snow-Bunting] The blackbird is perhaps our best songster, according to my taste; full as fine as our English blackbird, and much handsomer in its plumage, which is a glossy, changeable, greenish black. The upper part of the wing of the male bird of full growth is of a lively orange; this is not apparent in the younger birds, nor in the female, which is slightly speckled. Towards the middle of the summer, when the grain begins to ripen, these birds assemble in large flocks: the management of their marauding parties appears to be superintended by the elders of the family. When they are about to descend upon a field of oats or wheat, two or three mount guard as sentinels, and on the approach of danger, cry _Geck-geck- geck_; this precaution seems a work of supererogation, as they are so saucy that they will hardly be frightened away; and if they rise it is only to alight on the same field at a little distance, or fly up to the trees, where their look-out posts are. They have a peculiarly melancholy call-note at times, which sounds exactly like the sudden twang of a harp-string, vibrating for a second or two on the ear. This, I am inclined to think, they use to collect their distant comrades, as I have never observed it when they were all in full assembly, but when a few were sitting in some tree near the lake's edge. I have called them the "_harpers_" from this peculiar note. I shall tire you with my ornithological sketches, but must enumerate two or three more birds. The bald eagle frequently flies over our clearing; it has a dark body, and snow-white head. It is sometimes troublesome to the poultry-yards: those we have seen have disdained such low game, and soared majestically away across the lake. The fish-hawk we occasionally see skimming the surface of the water, and it is regarded as an enemy by those who take delight in spearing fish upon the lakes. Then we have the night or mosquito-hawk, which may be seen in the air pursuing the insect tribe in the higher regions, whilst hundreds of great dragonflies pursue them below; notwithstanding their assistance, we are bitten mercilessly by those summer pests the mosquitoes and black flies. The red-headed woodpecker is very splendid; the head and neck being of a rich crimson; the back, wings, and breast are divided between the most snowy white and jetty black. The incessant tapping of the woodpeckers, and the discordant shriek of the blue jay, are heard from sunrise to sunset, as soon as the spring is fairly set in. I found a little family of woodpeckers last spring comfortably nested in an old pine, between the bark and the trunk of the tree, where the former had started away, and left a hollow space, in which the old birds had built a soft but careless sort of nest; the little creatures seemed very happy, poking their funny bare heads out to greet the old ones, who were knocking away at the old stumps in their neighbourhood to supply their cravings, as busy as so many carpenters at work. [Illustration: Baltimore Oriole defending her Nest against the Black Snake.] A very curious bird's-nest was given me by one of our choppers; it was woven over a forked spray, so that it had all the appearance of having been sewn to the bough with grey thread. The nest was only secured at the two sides that formed the angle, but so strong was it fastened that it seemed to resist any weight or pressure of a moderate kind; it was composed of the fibres of the bass-wood bark; which are very thready, and may be drawn to great fineness: on the whole it was a curious specimen of the ingenuity of these admirable little architects. I could not discover the builder; but rather suspect the nest to have belonged to my protege, the little winter titmouse that I told you of. The nest of the Canadian robin, which I discovered while seeking for a hen's nest in a bush-heap, just at the further edge of the clearing, is very much like our home-robin's, allowing something for difference of size in the bird, and in the material; the eggs, five in number, were deep blue. Before I quit the subject of birds, I must recall to your remembrance the little houses that the Americans build for the swallow; I have since found out one of their great reasons for cherishing this useful bird. It appears that a most rooted antipathy exists between this species and the hawk tribe, and no hawk will abide their neighbourhood; as they pursue them for miles, annoying them in every possible way, haunting the hawk like its evil genius: it is most singular that so small a creature should thus overcome one that is the formidable enemy of so many of the feathered race. I should have been somewhat sceptical on the subject, had I not myself been an eyewitness to the fact. I was looking out of my window one bright summer-day, when I noticed a hawk of a large description flying heavily along the lake, uttering cries of distress; within a yard or two of it was a small--in the distance it appeared to me a very small--bird pursuing it closely, and also screaming. I watched this strange pair till the pine-wood hid them from my sight; and I often marvelled at the circumstance, till a very intelligent French Canadian traveller happened to name the fact, and said so great was the value placed on these birds, that they had been sold at high prices to be sent to different parts of the province. They never forsake their old haunts when once naturalized, the same pairs constantly returning year after year, to their old house. The singular fact of these swallows driving the hawk from his haunts is worthy of attention; as it is well authenticated, and adds one more to the many interesting and surprising anecdotes recorded by naturalists of the sagacity and instinct of these birds. I have, however, scribbled so many sheets, that I fear my long letter must weary you. Adieu. LETTER XIV. Utility of Botanical Knowledge.--The Fire-Weed.--Sarsaparilla Plants.-- Magnificent Water-Lily.--Rice Beds.--Indian Strawberry.--Scarlet Columbine.--Ferns.--Grasses. July 13, 1834 OUR winter broke up unusually early this year: by the end of February the ground was quite free from snow, and the weather continued all through March mild and pleasant, though not so warm as the preceding year, and certainly more variable. By the last week in April and the beginning of May, the forest-trees had all burst into leaf, with a brilliancy of green that was exquisitely lovely. On the 14th, 15th, and 16th of May, the air became suddenly cold, with sharp winds from the north-west, and heavy storms of snow that nipped the young buds, and destroyed many of the early-sown vegetable seeds; fortunately for us we were behindhand with ours, which was very well, as it happened. Our woods and clearings are now full of beautiful flowers. You will be able to form some idea of them from the dried specimens that I send you. You will recognize among them many of the cherished pets of our gardens and green-houses, which are here flung carelessly from Nature's lavish hand among our woods and wilds. How often do I wish you were beside me in my rambles among the woods and clearings: you would be so delighted in searching out the floral treasures of the place. Deeply do I now regret having so idly neglected your kind offers while at home of instructing me in flower-painting; you often told me the time would come when I should have cause to regret neglecting the golden opportunity before me. You proved a true prophetess; for I daily lament that I cannot make faithful representations of the flowers of my adopted country, or understand as you would do their botanical arrangement. With some few I have made myself acquainted, but have hardly confidence in my scanty stock of knowledge to venture on scientific descriptions, when I feel conscious that a blunder would be easily detected, and expose me to ridicule and contempt, for an assumption of knowledge that I did not possess. The only botanical work I have at my command is Pursh's North American Flora, from which I have obtained some information; but must confess it is tiresome blundering out Latin descriptions to one who knows nothing of Latin beyond what she derives through a knowledge of Italian. I have made out a list of the plants most worthy of attention near us; there are many others in the township that I am a stranger to; some there are with whose names I am unacquainted. I subjoin a slight sketch, not with my pencil but my pen, of those flowers that pleased me particularly, or that possessed any remarkable qualities. The same plants do not grow on cleared land that formerly occupied the same spot when it was covered with forest-trees. A distinct class of vegetation makes its appearance as soon as the fire has passed over the ground. The same thing may be remarked with regard to the change that takes place among our forests. As one generation falls and decays, new ones of a different character spring up in their places. This is illustrated in the circumstance of the resinous substance called fat-pine being usually found in places where the living pine is least abundant, and where the ground is occupied by oak, ash, buck, maple, and bass-wood. The fire-weed, a species of tall thistle of rank and unpleasant scent, is the first plant that appears when the ground has been freed from timbers by fire: if a piece of land lies untilled the first summer after its being chopped, the following spring shows you a smothering crop of this vile weed. The next plant you notice is the sumach, with its downy stalks, and head of deep crimson velvety flowers, forming an upright obtuse bunch at the extremity of the branches: the leaves turn scarlet towards the latter end of the summer. This shrub, though really very ornamental, is regarded as a great pest in old clearings, where the roots run and send up suckers in abundance. The raspberry and wild gooseberry are next seen, and thousands of strawberry plants of different varieties carpet the ground, and mingle with the grasses of the pastures. I have been obliged this spring to root out with remorseless hand hundreds of sarsaparilla plants, and also the celebrated gingseng, which grows abundantly in our woods: it used formerly to be an article of export to China from the States, the root being held in high estimation by the Chinese. Last week I noticed a succulent plant that made its appearance on a dry sandy path in my garden; it seems to me a variety of the hour-blowing mesembryanthium. It has increased so rapidly that it already covers a large space; the branches converging from the centre of the plant; and sending forth shoots from every joint. The leaves are rather small, three-sided and pointed, thick and juicy, yielding a green liquor when bruised like the common sedums. The stalks are thick and round, of a bright red, and trail along the ground; the leaves spring from each joint, and with them a constant succession of yellow starry flowers, that close in an hour or so from the time they first unfold. I shall send you some of the seed of this plant, as I perceived a number of little green pods that looked like the buds, but which, on opening, proved to be the seed-vessels. This plant covers the earth like a thick mat, and, I am told, is rather troublesome where it likes the soil. I regret that among my dried plants I could not preserve some specimens of our superb water-lilies and irises; but they were too large and too juicy to dry well. As I cannot send you my favourites, I must describe them to you. The first, then, is a magnificent water-lily, that I have called by way of distinction the "queen of the lakes," for she sits a crown upon the waters. This magnificent flower is about the size of a moderately large dahlia; it is double to the heart; every row of petals diminishing by degrees in size, and gradually deepening in tint from the purest white to the brightest lemon colour. The buds are very lovely, and may be seen below the surface of the water, in different stages of forwardness from the closely-folded bud, wrapped in its olive-green calix, to the half- blown flower, ready to emerge from its watery prison, and in all its virgin beauty expand its snowy bosom to the sun and genial air. Nor is the beauty of the flower its sole attraction: when unfolded it gives out a rich perfume not unlike the smell of fresh lemons. The leaves are also worthy of attention: at first they are of a fine dark green, but as the flower decays, the leaf changes its hue to a vivid crimson. Where a large bed of these lilies grow closely together, they give quite a sanguine appearance to the waters, that is distinguishable at some distance. The yellow species of this plant is also very handsome, though it wants the silken texture and delicate colour of the former; I call this the "water-king." The flower presents a deep golden-coloured cup, the concave petals of which are clouded in the centre with a dark reddish- brown, that forms a striking contrast to the gay anthers, which are very numerous, and turn back from the centre of the flower, falling like fringes of gold one over the other, in successive rows, till they fill up the hollow flower-cup. The shallows of our lakes abound with a variety of elegant aquatic plants: I know not a more lovely sight than one of these floating gardens. Here you shall behold near the shore a bed of azure fleur-de- lis, from the palest pearl colour varying to the darkest purple. Nearer in shore, in the shallowest water, the rose-coloured persecaria sends up its beautiful spikes trailing below the surface; you see the red stalks and smooth dark green leaves veined underneath with rosy red: it is a very charming variety of this beautiful species of plants. Then a bed of my favourite white lilies, all in full bloom, floating on the water, with their double flowers expanding to the sun; near these, and rising in stately pride, a tall plant, with dark green spear-shaped leaves, and thick spike of bright blue flowers, is seen. I cannot discover the name of this very grand-looking flower, and I neglected to examine its botanical construction; so can give you no clue by which to discover its name or species. Our rice-beds are far from being unworthy of admiration; seen from a distance they look like low green islands on the lakes: on passing through one of these rice-beds when the rice is in flower, it has a beautiful appearance with its broad grassy leaves and light waving spikes, garnished with pale yellow green blossoms, delicately shaded with reddish purple, from beneath which fall three elegant straw- coloured anthers, which move with every breath of air or slightest motion of the waters. I gathered several spikes when only just opened, but the tiresome things fell to pieces directly they became dry. Next summer I will make another attempt at preserving them, and it may be with better success. The low shore of the lake is a complete shrubbery. We have a very pretty St. John's-wort, with handsome yellow flowers. The white and pink spiral frutex also abounds with some exquisite upright honeysuckles, shrubby plants about three feet in height; the blossoms grow in pairs or by fours, and hang beneath the light green leaves; elegant trumpet-shaped flowers of a delicate greenish white, which are succeeded by ruby- coloured berries. On gathering a branch of this plant, you cannot but be struck with the elegant arrangement of the flowers along the under part of the stalks. The two blossoms are connected at the nectary of each in a singular manner. The Americans call this honeysuckle "twinflower." I have seen some of the flowers of this plant pale pink: on the whole it is one of the most ornamental shrubs we have. I transplanted some young trees into my garden last spring; they promise to live and do well. I do not find any description of this shrub in Pursh's Flora, but know it to be a species of honeysuckle, from the class and order, the shape and colour of the leaves, the stalks, the trumpet-shaped blossom and the fruit; all bearing a resemblance to our honeysuckles in some degree. There is a tall upright bush, bearing large yellow trumpet-shaped flowers, springing from the extremities of the branches; the involucrum forms a boat-shaped cup that encircles the flowers from which they seem to spring, something after the manner of the scarlet trumpet- honeysuckle. The leaves and blossoms of this plant are coarse, and by no means to compare to the former. We have a great variety of curious orchises, some brown and yellow, others pale flesh-coloured, striped with crimson. There is one species grows to the height of two feet, bearing long spikes of pale purple flowers; a white one with most fragrant smell, and a delicate pink one with round head of blossoms, finely fringed like the water-pinks that grow in our marshes; this is a very pretty flower, and grows in the beaver meadows. Last autumn I observed in the pine-wood near us a very curious plant; it came up with naked brown stems, branching off like some miniature tree; the stalks of this plant were brown, slightly freckled and beset with little knobs. I watched the progress of maturity in this strange plant with some degree of interest, towards the latter end of October; the little knobs, which consisted of two angular hard cases, not unlike, when fully opened, to a boat in shape, burst asunder and displayed a pale straw-coloured chaffy substance that resembled fine saw-dust: these must have been the anthers, but they bore more resemblance to seeds; this singular flower would have borne examination with a microscope. One peculiarity that I observed, was, that on pulling up a plant with its roots, I found the blossoms open under ground, springing up from the lowest part of the flower-stems, and just as far advanced to maturity as those that grew on the upper stalks, excepting that they were somewhat blanched, from being covered up from the air. I can find no description of this plant, nor any person but myself seems to have taken notice of it. The specimen I had on being dried became so brittle that it fell to pieces. I have promised to collect some of the most singular of our native flowers for one of the Professors of Botany in the Edinburgh University. We have a very handsome plant that bears the closest affinity to our potatoe in its floral construction; it grows to the height of two or three feet in favourable situations, and sends up many branches; the blossoms are large, purely white, freckled near the bottom of the corolla with brownish yellow spots; the corolla is undivided: this is evidently the same plant as the cultivated potatoe, though it does not appear to form apples at the root. The fruit is very handsome, eggshaped, of a beautiful apricot colour when ripe, and of a shining tempting appearance; the smell, however, betrays its poisonous nature: on opening one of the fruits you find it consists of a soft pulp filled with shining black seeds. The plant continues in blossom from June till the first frosts wither the leaves; it is far less coarse than the potatoe; the flower, when full blown, is about the size of a half crown, and quite flat; I think it is what you call salver-shaped: it delights in light loamy soil, growing on the upturned roots of fallen trees, where the ground is inclined to be sandy. I have never seen this plant elsewhere than on our own fallow. The hepatica is the first flower of the Canadian spring: it gladdens us with its tints of azure, pink, and white, early in April, soon after the snows have melted from the earth. The Canadians can it snow-flower, from its coming so soon after the snow disappears. We see its gay tufts of flowers in the open clearings and the deep recesses of the forests; its leaves are also an enduring ornament through the open months of the year; you see them on every grassy mound and mossy root: the shades of blue are very various and delicate, the white anthers forming a lovely contrast with the blue petals. The wood-cress, or as it is called by some, ginger-cress, is a pretty white cruciform flower; it is highly aromatic in flavour; the root is white and fleshy, having the pungency of horseradish. The leaves are of a sad green, sharply notched, and divided in three lobes; the leaves of some of them are slightly variegated; the plant delights in rich moist vegetable mould, especially on low and slightly swampy ground; the flower-stalk is sometimes naked, sometimes leafed, and is crowned with a loose spike of whitish cruciform flowers. There is a cress that grows in pretty green tufts at the bottom of the waters in the creeks and small rivulets: it is more delicate and agreeable in flavour than any of the land-cresses; the leaves are of a pale tender green, winged and slender; the plant looks like a green cushion at the bottom of the water. The flowers are yellow, cruciform, and insignificant; it makes a very acceptable salad in the early spring, and at the fall of the year. There are also several species of land- cress, and plants resembling some of the cabbage tribes, that might be used as spring vegetables. There are several species of spinach, one known here by the name of lamb's quarter, that grows in great profusion about our garden, and in rich soil rises to two feet, and is very luxuriant in its foliage; the leaves are covered with a white rough powder. The top shoots and tender parts of this vegetable are boiled with pork, and, in place of a more delicate pot-herb, is very useful. Then we have the Indian turnip; this is a very handsome arum, the root of which resembles the cassava, I am told, when boiled: the leaves of this arum are handsome, slightly tinged with purple. The spathe is of a lively green, striped with purple: the Indians use the root as a medicine, and also as an esculent; it is often eaten by the settlers as a vegetable, but I never tasted it myself. Pursh calls this species _Arum atropurpureum_. I must not pass over one of our greatest ornaments, the strawberry blite, strawberry-bearing spinach, or Indian strawberry, as it is variously named. This singular plant throws out many branches from one stem, these are garnished with handsome leaves, resembling in appearance our long-leaved garden spinach; the finest of this plant is of a bright crimson, pulpy like the strawberry, and containing a number of purple seeds, partially embedded in the surface, after the same manner as the strawberry. The fruit grows close to the stalk, completely surrounding it, and forming a long spike of the richest crimson berries. I have gathered branches a foot in length, closely covered with the beautiful looking fruit, and have regretted that it was so insipid in its flavour as to make it uneatable. On the banks of creeks and in rich ground, it grows most luxuriantly, one root sending up twenty or thirty branches, drooping with the weight of their magnificent burden. As the middle and superior stems ripen and decay, the lateral ones come on, presenting a constant succession of fruit from July till the frosts nip them off in September. The Indians use the juice of this plant as a dye, and are said to eat the berries: it is often made use of as a substitute for red ink, but it is liable to fade unless mingled with alum. A friend of mine told me she had been induced to cross a letter she was sending to a relative in England with this strawberry ink, but not having taken the precaution to fix the colour, when the anxiously expected epistle arrived, one-half of it proved quite unintelligible, the colours having faded nearly to white; so that instead of affording satisfaction, it proved only a source of vexation and embarrassment to the reader, and of mortification to the writer. The blood-root, sanguinaria, or puccoon, as it is termed by some of the native tribes, is worthy of attention from the root to the flower. As soon as the sun of April has warmed the earth and loosened it from its frozen bonds, you may distinguish a number of purely white buds, elevated on a naked footstalk, and partially enfolded in a handsome vine-shaped leaf, of a pale bluish green, curiously veined on the under side with pale orange. The leaf springs singly from a thick juicy fibrous root, which, on being broken, emits a quantity of liquor from its pores of a bright orange scarlet colour: this juice is used by the Indians as a dye, and also in the cure of rheumatic, and cutaneous complaints. The flowers of the sanguinaria resemble the white crocus very closely: when it first comes up the bud is supported by the leaf, and is folded together with it; the flower, however, soon elevates itself above its protector, while the leaf having performed its duty of guardian to the tender bud, expands to its full size. A rich black vegetable mould at the edges of the clearings seems the favourite soil for this plant. The scarlet columbine is another of my favourite flowers; it is bright red, with yellow linings to the tubes. The nectaries are more elongated than the garden columbines, and form a sort of mural crown, surmounted with little balls at the tips. A tall graceful plant, with its brilliant waving blossoms, is this columbine; it grows both in the sunshine and the shade, not perhaps in deep shady woods, but where the under brush has been removed by the running of the fire or the axe of the chopper; it seems even to flourish in poor stony soils, and may be found near every dwelling. The feathered columbine delights in moist open swamps, and the banks of rivulets; it grows to the height of three, and even four and five feet, and is very ornamental. Of Violets, we have every variety of colour, size and shape, lacking only the delightful _viola odorata_ of our home woodlands: yet I know not why we should quarrel with these meek daughters of the spring, because they want the fragrance of their more favoured sisters. Many of your wood-violets, though very beautiful, are also devoid of scent; here variety of colour ought to make some amends for want of perfume. We have violets of every shade of blue, some veined with purple, others shaded with darker blue. We have the delicate white, pencilled with purple: the bright brimstone coloured with black veinings: the pale primrose with dark blue veins; the two latter are remarkable for the luxuriance and size of the leaves: the flowers spring in bunches, several from each joint, and are succeeded by large capsules covered with thick white cottony down. There is a species of violet that grows in the woods, the leaves of which are exceedingly large; so are the seed-vessels, but the flower is so small and insignificant, that it is only to be observed by a close examination of the plant; this has given rise to the vulgar belief that it blooms under ground. The flowers are a pale greenish yellow. Bryant's beautiful poem of the Yellow Violet is descriptive of the first-mentioned violet. There is an elegant _viola tricolor_, that blooms in the autumn; it is the size of a small heart's-ease, and is pure white, pale purple, and lilac; the upper petals are white, the lower lip purple, and the side wings a reddish lilac. I was struck with the elegance of this rare flower on a journey to Peterborough, on my way to Cobourg; I was unable to preserve the specimens, and have not travelled that road since. The flower grew among wild clover on the open side of the road; the leaves were small, roundish, and of a dark sad green. Of the tall shrubby asters, we have several beautiful varieties, with large pale blue lilac, or white flowers; others with very small white flowers and crimson anthers, which look like tufts of red down, spangled with gold-dust; these anthers have a pretty effect, contrasted with the white starry petals. There is one variety of the tall asters that I have seen on the plains, it has flowers about the size of a sixpence, of a soft pearly tint of blue, with brown anthers; this plant grows very tall, and branches from the parent stem in many graceful flowery boughs; the leaves of this species are of a purple red on the under side, and inclining to heart-shape; the leaves and stalks are hairy. I am not afraid of wearying you with my floral sketches, I have yet many to describe; among these are those elegant little evergreens, that abound in this country, under the name of winter-greens, of which there are three or four remarkable for beauty of foliage, flower, and fruit. One of these winter-greens that abounds in our pine-woods is extremely beautiful; it seldom exceeds six inches in height; the leaves are a bright shining green, of a long narrow oval, delicately notched like the edges of a rose-leaf; and the plant emerges from beneath the snow in the early part of the year, as soon as the first thaw takes place, as fresh and verdant as before they were covered up: it seems to be a shy blossomer. I have never seen specimens of the flowers in bloom but twice; these I carefully preserved for you, but the dried plant will afford but an imperfect idea of the original. You always called, you know, your dried specimens corpses of plants, and said, that when well painted, their representations were far more like themselves. The flower-stalk rises two or three inches from the centre of the plant, and is crowned with round crimson buds and blossoms, consisting of five petals, deepening from the palest pink to the brightest blush colour; the stigma is of an emerald greenness, forming a slightly ribbed turban in the centre, around which are disposed ten stamens of an amethyst colour: in short, this is one of the gems of the floral world, and might aptly be compared to an emerald ring, set round with amethysts. The contrast of colours in this flower is exceedingly pleasing, and the crimson buds and shining ever-green leaves are scarcely less to be admired than the flower; itself it would be considered a great acquisition to your collection of American shrubs, but I doubt if it would flourish when removed from the shade of the pine-woods. This plant appears to be the _Chimaphila corymbosa_, or winter-green, described by Pursh, with some trifling variation in the colour of the petals. Another of our winter-greens grows in abundance on the Rice-Lake plains; the plant does not exceed four inches; the flowers are in little loose bunches, pale greenish white, in shape like the blossom of the arbutus; the berries are bright scarlet, and are known by the name of winter- berry, and partridge-berry; this must be _Gaultheria procumbens_. But a more beautiful little evergreen of the same species is to be found in our cedar swamps, under the name of pigeon-berry; it resembles the arbutus in leaf and flower more closely than the former plant; the scarlet berry is inserted in a scarlet cup or receptacle, divided at the edge in five points; it is fleshy, seeming to partake of the same nature as the fruit. The blossoms of this elegant little shrub, like the arbutus, of which it looks like the miniature, appear in drooping bunches at the same time the ripened berry of the former year is in perfection; this circumstance adds not a little to the charm of the plant. If I mistake not, this is the _Gualtheria Shallon_, which Pursh likens to the arbutus: this is also one of our winter-greens. There is another pretty trailing plant, with delicate little funnel- shaped flowers, and a profusion of small dark green round buds, slightly variegated, and bright red berries, which are produced at the extremities of the branches. The blossoms of this plant grow in pairs, closely connected at the germen, so much so, that the scarlet fruit that supersedes the flowers appears like a double berry, each berry containing the seeds of both flowers and a double eye. The plant is also called winter-green, or twin-berry; it resembles none of the other winter-greens; it grows in mossy woods, trailing along the ground, appearing to delight in covering little hillocks and inequalities of the ground. In elegance of growth, delicacy of flower, and brightness of berry, this winter-green is little inferior to any of the former. There is a plant in our woods, known by the names of man-drake, may- apple, and duck's-foot: the botanical name of the plant is Podophyllum; it belongs to the class and order _Polyandria monogynia_. The blossom is yellowish white, the corolla consisting of six petals; the fruit is oblong; when ripe, of a greenish yellow; in size that of an olive, or large damson; when fully ripe it has the flavour of preserved tamarind, a pleasant brisk acid; it appears to be a shy bearer, though it increases rapidly in rich moist woodlands. The leaves come up singly, are palmated and shade the ground very much when a number of them grow near each other; the stalk supports the leaf from the centre: when they first appear above the ground, they resemble a folded umbrella or parasol, all the edges of the leaves bending downward, by degrees expanding into a slightly convex canopy. The fruit would make a delicate preserve with sugar. The lily tribe offer an extensive variety from the most minute to the very largest flowers. The red martagon grows abundantly on our plains; the dog's tooth violet, _Erythronium_, with its spotted leaves and bending yellow blossom, delicately dashed with crimson spots within, and marked with fine purple lines on the outer part of the petal, proves a great attraction in our woods, where these plants increase: they form a beautiful bed; the leaves come up singly, one from each separate tuber. There are two varieties of this flower, the pale yellow, with neither spots nor lines, and the deep yellow with both; the anthers of this last are reddish-orange, and thickly covered with a fine powdery substance. The daffodil of our woods is a delicate bending flower, of a pale yellow; the leaves grow up the flower-stalk at intervals; three or more flowers usually succeed each other at the extremity of the stalk: its height is from six to eight inches; it delights in the deep shade of moist woods. This seems to unite the description of the jonquil and daffodil. A very beautiful plant of the lily tribe abounds both in our woods and clearings; for want of a better name, I call it the douri-lily, though it is widely spread over a great portion of the continent. The Americans term the white and red varieties of this species, the "white" and "red death." The flower is either deep red, or of a dazzling white, though the latter is often found stained with a delicate blush-pink, or a deep green; the latter appears to be caused by the calix running into the petal. Wherefore it bears so formidable a name has not yet transpired. The flower consists of three petals, the calix three; it belongs to the class and order _Hexandria monogynia_; style, three-cleft; seed-vessel of three valves; soil, dry woods and cleared lands; leaves growing in three, springing from the joints, large round, but a little pointed at the extremities. We have lilies of the valley, and their cousins the Solomon's seals, a small flowered turk's-cap, of pale primrose colour, with an endless variety of small flowers of the lily tribe, remarkable for beauty of foliage or delicacy of form. Our Ferns are very elegant and numerous; I have no less than eight different specimens, gathered from our immediate neighbourhood, some of which are extremely elegant, especially one that I call the "fairy fern," from its lightness. One elastic stem, of a purplish-red colour, supports several light branches, which are subdivided and furnished with innumerable leaflets; each leaflet has a footstalk, that attaches it to the branch, of so slight and hair-like a substance that the least breath of air sets the whole plant in motion. Could we but imagine Canada to have been the scene of fairy revels, we should declare that these graceful ferns were well suited to shade the elfin court of Oberon and Titania. When this fern first appears above the ground, it is scarcely to be distinguished from the decaying wood of the fallen pines; it is then of a light reddish brown, curiously curled up. In May and June, the leaves unfold, and soon assume the most delicate tint of green; they are almost transparent: the cattle are very fond of this fern. The mocassin flower or lady's-slipper (mark the odd coincidence between the common name of the American and English species) is one of our most remarkable flowers; both on account of its beauty and its singularity of structure. Our plains and dry sunny pastures produce several varieties; among these, the _Cypripedium pubescens_, or yellow mocassin, and the _C. Arietinum_ are the most beautiful of the species. The colour of the lip of the former is a lively canary yellow, dashed with deep crimson spots. The upper petals consist of two short and two long; in texture and colour resembling the sheath of some of the narcissus tribe; the short ones stand erect, like a pair of ears; the long or lateral pair are three times the length of the former, very narrow, and elegantly twisted, like the spiral horns of the Walachian ram: on raising a thick yellow fleshy sort of lid, in the middle of the flower, you perceive the exact face of an Indian hound, perfect in all its parts, the eyes, nose, and mouth; below this depends an open sack, slightly gathered round at the opening, which gives it a hollow and prominent appearance; the inside of this bag is delicately dashed with deep crimson, or black spots: the stem of the flower is thick towards the upper part, and takes a direct bend; the leaves are large oval, a little pointed and ribbed; the plant scarcely exceeds six inches: the elegant colour and silken texture of the lower lip or bag renders this flower very much more beautiful to my taste than the purple and white variety, though the latter is much more striking on account of the size of the flower and leaves, besides the contrast between the white and red, or white and purple colours. The formation of this species resembles the other, only with this difference, the horns are not twisted, and the face is that of a monkey; even the comical expression of the animal is preserved with such admirable fidelity, as to draw a smile from every one that sees the odd restless-looking visage, with its prominent round black eyes peering forth from under its covering. These plants belong to class and order _Gynandria diandria_; are described with some little variation by Pursh, who, however, likens the face of the latter to that of a sheep: if a sheep sat for the picture, methinks it must have been the most mischievous of the flock. There is a curious aquatic plant that grows in shallow, stagnant, or slow-flowing waters; it will contain a full wine-glass of water. A poor soldier brought it to me, and told me it resembled a plant he used to see in Egypt, that the soldiers called the "Soldier's drinking-cup" and many a good draught of pure water, he said, I have drank from them. Another specimen was presented me by a gentleman who knew my predilection for strange plants; he very aptly gave it the name of "Pitcher-plant;" it very probably belongs to the tribe that bear that name. The flowers that afford the most decided perfumes are our wild roses, which possess a delicious scent: the milk-weed, which gives out a smell not-unlike the night-blowing stock; the purple monarda, which is fragrance itself from the root to the flower, and even after months' exposure to the wintry atmosphere; its dried leaves and seed-vessels are so sweet as to impart perfume to your hands or clothes. All our Mints are strong scented: the lily of the valley is remarkable for its fine smell; then there is my queen of the lakes, and her consort, the water- king, with many other flowers I cannot now enumerate. Certain it is that among such a vast assemblage of flowers, there are, comparatively, very few that are gifted with fragrant scents. Some of our forest-trees give out a fine perfume. I have often paused in my walks to inhale the fragrance from a cedar swamp on some sunny day while the boughs were still wet with the dew-drops or recently fallen shower. Nor is the balsam-poplar, or tacamahac, less delightfully fragrant, especially while the gummy buds are just beginning to unfold; this is an elegant growing tree, where it has room to expand into boughs. It grows chiefly on the shores of the lakes and in open swamps, but it also forms one of the attractions of our plains, with its silver bark and waving foliage; it emits a resinous clear gum in transparent globules on the bark, and the buds are covered with a highly aromatic gummy fluid. Our Grasses are highly interesting; there are varieties that are wholly new to me, and when dried form the most elegant ornaments to our chimney-pieces, and would look very graceful on a lady's head; only fashionists always prefer the artificial to the natural. One or two species of grass that I have gathered bear a close but of course minute resemblance to the Indian corn, having a top feather and eight-sided spike of little grains disposed at the sidejoints. The _sisyrinchium_, or blue-eyed grass, is a pretty little flower of an azure blue, with golden spot at the base of each petal; the leaves are flat, stiff, and flag-like; this pretty flower grows in tufts on light sandy soils. I have given you a description of the flowers most worthy of attention; and, though it is very probable some of my descriptions may not be exactly in the technical language of the correct botanist, I have at least described them as they appear. My dear boy seems already to have a taste for flowers, which I shall encourage as much as possible. It is a study that tends to refine and purify the mind, and can be made, by simple steps, a ladder to heaven, as it were, by teaching a child to look with love and admiration to that bountiful God who created and made flowers so fair to adorn and fructify this earth. Farewell, my dear sister. LETTER XV. Recapitulation of various Topics.--Progress of Settlement.--Canada, the Land of Hope.--Visit to the Family of a Naval Officer.--Squirrels.-- Visit to, and Story of, an Emigrant Clergyman.--His early Difficulties. --The Temper, Disposition, and Habits of Emigrants essential Ingredients in Failure or Success. September the 20th, 1834. I PROMISED when I parted from you before I left England to write as soon as I could give you any satisfactory account of our settlement in this country. I shall do my best to redeem that promise, and forward you a slight sketch of our proceedings, with such remarks on the natural features of the place in which we have fixed our abode, as I think likely to afford you interest or amusement. Prepare your patience, then, my dear friend, for a long and rambling epistle, in which I may possibly prove somewhat of a Will-o'-the-wisp, and having made you follow me in my desultory wanderings,-- Over hill, over dale, Through bush, through briar, Over park, over pale, Through flood, through fire,-- Possibly leave you in the midst of a big cedar swamp, or among the pathless mazes of our wild woods, without a clue to guide you, or even a _blaze_ to light you on your way. You will have heard, through my letters to my dear mother, of our safe arrival at Quebec, of my illness at Montreal, of all our adventures and misadventures during our journey up the country, till after much weary wandering we finally found a home and resting-place with a kind relative, whom it was our happiness to meet after a separation of many years. As my husband was anxious to settle in the neighbourhood of one so nearly connected with me, thinking it would rob the woods of some of the loneliness that most women complain so bitterly of, he purchased a lot of land on the shores of a beautiful lake, one of a chain of small lakes belonging to the Otanabee river. Here, then, we are established, having now some five-and-twenty acres cleared, and a nice house built. Our situation is very agreeable, and each day increases its value. When we first came up to live in the bush, with the exception of S------, here were but two or three settlers near us, and no roads cut out. The only road that was available for bringing up goods from the nearest town was on the opposite side of the water, which was obliged to be crossed on a log, or birch-bark canoe; the former nothing better than a large pine-log hollowed with the axe, so as to contain three or four persons; it is flat-bottomed, and very narrow, on which account it is much used on these shallow waters. The birch canoe is made of sheets of birch bark, ingeniously fashioned and sewn together by the Indians with the tough roots of the cedar, young pine, or larch (tamarack, as it is termed by the Indians); it is exceedingly light, so that it can be carried by two persons easily, or even by one. These, then, were our ferry-boats, and very frail they are, and require great nicety in their management; they are worked in the water with paddles, either kneeling or standing. The squaws are very expert in the management of the canoes, and preserve their balance with admirable skill, standing up while they impel the little bark with great velocity through the water. Very great is the change that a few years have effected in our situation. A number of highly respectable settlers have purchased land along the shores of these lakes, so that we no longer want society. The roads are now cut several miles above us, and though far from good can be travelled by waggons and sleighs, and are, at all events, better than none. A village has started up where formerly a thick pine-wood covered the ground; we have now within a short distance of us an excellent saw-mill, a grist-mill, and store, with a large tavern and many good dwellings. A fine timber bridge, on stone piers, was erected last year to connect the opposite townships and lessen the distance to and from Peterborough; and though it was unfortunately swept away early last spring by the unusual rising of the Otanabee lakes, a new and more substantial one has risen upon the ruins of the former, through the activity of an enterprising young Scotchman, the founder of the village. But the grand work that is, sooner or later, to raise this portion of the district from its present obscurity, is the opening a line of navigation from Lake Huron through Lake Simcoe, and so through our chain of small lakes to Rice Lake, and finally through the Trent to the Bay of Quinte. This noble work would prove of incalculable advantage, by opening a direct communication between Lake Huron and the inland townships at the back of the Ontario with the St. Laurence. This project has already been under the consideration of the Governor, and is at present exciting great interest in the country: sooner or later there is little doubt but that it will be carried into effect. It presents some difficulties and expense, but it would be greatly to the advantage and prosperity of the country, and be the means of settling many of the back townships bordering upon these lakes. I must leave it to abler persons than myself to discuss at large the policy and expediency of the measure; but as I suppose you have no intention of emigrating to our backwoods, you will be contented with my cursory view of the matter, and believe, as in friendship you are bound to do, that it is a desirable thing to open a market for inland produce. Canada is the land of hope; here every thing is new; every thing going forward; it is scarcely possible for arts, sciences, agriculture, manufactures, to retrograde; they must keep advancing; though in some situations the progress may seem slow, in others they are proportionably rapid. There is a constant excitement on the minds of emigrants, particularly in the partially settled townships, that greatly assists in keeping them from desponding. The arrival of some enterprising person gives a stimulus to those about him: a profitable speculation is started, and lo, the value of the land in the vicinity rises to double and treble what it was thought worth before; so that, without any design of befriending his neighbours, the schemes of one settler being carried into effect shall benefit a great number. We have already felt the beneficial effect of the access of respectable emigrants locating themselves in this township, as it has already increased the value of our own land in a three-fold degree. All this, my dear friend, you will say is very well, and might afford subject for a wise discussion between grave men, but will hardly amuse us women; so pray turn to some other theme, and just tell me how you contrive to pass your time among the bears and wolves of Canada. One lovely day last June I went by water to visit the bride of a young naval officer, who had purchased a very pretty lot of land some two miles higher up the lake; our party consisted of my husband, baby, and myself; we met a few pleasant friends, and enjoyed our excursion much. Dinner was laid out in the _stoup_, which, as you may not know what is meant by the word, I must tell you that it means a sort of wide verandah, supported on pillars, often of unbarked logs; the floor is either of earth beaten hard, or plank; the roof covered with sheets of bark or else shingled. These stoups are of Dutch origin, and were introduced, I have been told, by the first Dutch settlers in the states, since which they have found their way all over the colonies. Wreathed with the scarlet creeper, a native plant of our woods and wilds, the wild vine, and also with the hop, which here grows luxuriantly, with no labour or attention to its culture, these stoups have a very rural appearance; in summer serving the purpose of an open ante-room, in which you can take your meals and enjoy the fanning breeze without being inconvenienced by the extreme heat of the noon-day sun. The situation of the house was remarkably well chosen, just on the summit of a little elevated plain, the ground sloping with a steep descent to a little valley, at the bottom of which a bright rill of water divided the garden from the opposite corn-fields, which clothed a corresponding bank. In front of the stoup, where we dined, the garden was laid out with a smooth plot of grass, surrounded with borders of flowers, and separated from a ripening field of wheat by a light railed fence, over which the luxuriant hop-vine flung its tendrils and graceful blossoms. Now I must tell you the hop is cultivated for the purpose of making a barm for raising bread. As you take great interest in housewifery concerns, I shall send you a recipe for what we call hop- rising*. [* See Appendix.] The Yankees use a fermentation of salt, flour, and warm water or milk; but though the _salt-rising_ makes beautiful bread to look at, being far whiter and firmer than the hop-yeast bread, there is a peculiar flavour imparted to the flour that does not please every one's taste, and it is very difficult to get your salt-rising to work in very cold weather. And now, having digressed while I gave you my recipes, I shall step back to my party within the stoup, which, I can assure you, was very pleasant, and most cordially disposed to enjoy the meeting. We had books and drawings, and good store of pretty Indian toys, the collection of many long voyages to distant shores, to look at and admire. Soon after sun-set we walked down through the woods to the landing at the lake shore, where we found our bark canoe ready to convey us home. During our voyage, just at the head of the rapids, our attention was drawn to some small object in the water, moving very swiftly along; there were various opinions as to the swimmer, some thinking it to be a water-snake, others a squirrel, or a musk-rat; a few swift strokes of the paddles brought us up so as to intercept the passage of the little voyager; it proved to be a fine red squirrel, bound on a voyage of discovery from a neighbouring island. The little animal, with a courage and address that astonished his pursuers, instead of seeking safety in a different direction, sprung lightly on the point of the uplifted paddle, and from thence with a bound to the head of my astonished baby, and having gained my shoulder, leaped again into the water, and made direct for the shore, never having deviated a single point from the line he was swimming in when he first came in sight of our canoe. I was surprised and amused by the agility and courage displayed by this innocent creature; I could hardly have given credence to the circumstance, had I not been an eye-witness of its conduct, and moreover been wetted plentifully on my shoulder by the sprinkling of water from his coat. Perhaps you may think my squirrel anecdote incredible; but I can vouch for the truth of it on my own personal experience, as I not only saw but also felt it: the black squirrels are most lovely and elegant animals, considerably larger than the red, the grey, and the striped: the latter are called by the Indians "chit-munks." We were robbed greatly by these little depredators last summer; the red squirrels used to carry off great quantities of our Indian corn not only from the stalks, while the crop was ripening, but they even came into the house through some chinks in the log-walls, and carried off vast quantities of the grain, stripping it very adroitly from the cob, and conveying the grain away to their storehouses in some hollow 1og or subterranean granary. These little animals are very fond of the seeds of the pumpkins, and you will see the soft creatures whisking about among the cattle, carrying away the seeds as they are scattered by the beasts in breaking the pumpkins: they also delight in the seeds of the sunflowers, which grow to a gigantic height in our gardens and clearings. The fowls are remarkably fond of the sunflower-seeds, and I saved the plants with the intention of laying up a good store of winter food for my poor chicks. One day I went to cut the ripe heads, the largest of which was the size of a large dessert-plate, but found two wicked red squirrels busily employed gathering in the seeds, not for me, be sure, but themselves. Not contented with picking out the seeds, these little thieves dexterously sawed through the stalks, and conveyed away whole heads at once: so bold were they that they would not desist when I approached till they had secured their object, and, encumbered with a load twice the weight of their own agile bodies, ran with a swiftness along the rails, and over root, stump, and log, till they eluded my pursuit. [Illustration: Red-squirrel] Great was the indignation expressed by this thrifty little pair on returning again for another load to find the plant divested of the heads. I had cut what remained and put them in a basket in the sun, on a small block in the garden, close to the open glass-door, on the steps of which I was sitting shelling some seed-beans, when the squirrels drew my attention to them by their sharp scolding notes, elevating their fine feathery tails and expressing the most lively indignation at the invasion: they were not long before they discovered the Indian basket with the ravished treasure; a few rapid movements brought the little pair to the rails within a few paces of me and the sunflower-heads; here, then, they paused, and sitting up looked in my face with the most imploring gestures. I was too much amused by their perplexity to help them, but turning away my head to speak to the child, they darted forward, and in another minute had taken possession of one of the largest of the heads, which they conveyed away, first one carrying it a few yards, then the other, it being too bulky for one alone to carry it far at a time. In short, I was so well amused by watching their manoeuvres that I suffered them to rob me of all my store. I saw a little family of tiny squirrels at play in the spring on the top of a hollow log, and really I think they were, without exception, the liveliest, most graceful creatures I ever looked upon. The flying squirrel is a native of our woods, and exceeds in beauty, to my mind, any of the tribe. Its colour is the softest, most delicate tint of grey; the fur thick and short, and as silken as velvet; the eyes like all the squirrel kind, are large, full, and soft; the whiskers and long hair about the nose black; the membrane that assists this little animal in its flight is white and delicately soft in texture, like the fur of the chinchilla; it forms a ridge of fur between the fore and hind legs; the tail is like an elegant broad grey feather. I was agreeably surprised by the appearance of this exquisite little creature; the pictures I had seen giving it a most inelegant and _batlike_ look, almost disgusting. The young ones are easily tamed, and are very playful and affectionate when under confinement. [Illustration: Flying Squirrel] How my little friend Emily would delight in such a pet! Tell her if ever I should return to dear old England, I will try to procure one for her; but at present she must be contented with the stuffed specimens of the black, red, and striped squirrels which I enclose in my parcel. I wish I could offer you any present more valuable, but our arts and manufactures being entirely British, with the exception of the Indians' toys, I should find it a difficult matter to send you any thing worth your attention; therefore I am obliged to have recourse to the natural productions of our woods as tokens of remembrance to our friends _at home_, for it is ever thus we speak of the land of our birth. You wish to know if I am happy and contented in my situation, or if my heart pines after my native land. I will answer you candidly, and say that, as far as regards matters of taste, early association, and all those holy ties of kindred, and old affections that make "home" in all countries, and among all nations in the world, a hallowed spot, I must ever give the preference to Britain. On the other hand, a sense of the duties I have chosen, and a feeling of conformity to one's situation, lessen the regret I might be inclined to indulge in. Besides, there are new and delightful ties that bind me to Canada: I have enjoyed much domestic happiness since I came hither;--and is it not the birthplace of my dear child? Have I not here first tasted the rapturous delight arising from maternal feelings? When my eye rests on my smiling darling, or I feel his warm breath upon my cheek, I would not exchange the joy that fills my breast for any pleasure the world could offer me. "But this feeling is not confined to the solitude of your Canadian forests, my dear friend," you will say. I know it; but here there is nothing to interfere with your little nursling. You are not tempted by the pleasures of a gay world to forget your duties as a mother; there is nothing to supplant him in your heart; his presence endears every place; and you learn to love the spot that gave him birth, and to think with complacency upon the country, because it is _his_ country; and in looking forward to his future welfare you naturally become doubly interested in the place that is one day to be his. Perhaps I rather estimate the country by my own feelings; and when I find, by impartial survey of my present life, that I am to the full as happy, if not really happier, than I was in the old country, I cannot but value it. Possibly, if I were to enter into a detail of the advantages I possess, they would appear of a very negative character in the eyes of persons revelling in all the splendour and luxury that wealth could procure, in a country in which nature and art are so eminently favourable towards what is usually termed the pleasures of life; but I never was a votary at the shrine of luxury or fashion. A round of company, a routine of pleasure, were to me sources of weariness, if not of disgust. "There's nothing in all this to satisfy the heart," says Schiller; and I admit the force of the sentiment. I was too much inclined to spurn with impatience the fetters that etiquette and fashion are wont to impose on society, till they rob its followers of all freedom and independence of will; and they soon are obliged to live for a world that in secret they despise and loathe, for a world, too, that usually regards them with contempt, because they dare not act with an independence, which would be crushed directly it was displayed. And I must freely confess to you that I do prize and enjoy my present liberty in this country exceedingly: in this we possess an advantage over you, and over those that inhabit the towns and villages in _this_ country, where I see a ridiculous attempt to keep up an appearance that is quite foreign to the situation of those that practise it. Few, very few, are the emigrants that come to the colonies, unless it is with the view of realising an independence for themselves or their children. Those that could afford to live in ease at home, believe me, would never expose themselves to the privations and disagreeable consequences of a settler's life in Canada: therefore, this is the natural inference we draw, that the emigrant has come hither under the desire and natural hope of bettering his condition, and benefiting a family that he has not the means of settling in life in the home country. It is foolish, then, to launch out in a style of life that every one knows cannot be maintained; rather ought such persons to rejoice in the consciousness that they can, if they please, live according to their circumstances, without being the less regarded for the practice of prudence, economy, and industry. Now, we _bush-settlers_ are more independent: we do what we like; we dress as we find most suitable and most convenient; we are totally without the fear of any Mr. or Mrs. Grundy; and having shaken off the trammels of Grundyism, we laugh at the absurdity of those who voluntarily forge afresh and hug their chains. If our friends come to visit us unexpectedly we make them welcome to our humble homes, and give them the best we have; but if our fare be indifferent, we offer it with good will, and no apologies are made or expected: they would be out of place; as every one is aware of the disadvantages of a new settlement; and any excuses for want of variety, or the delicacies of the table, would be considered rather in the light of a tacit reproof to your guest for having unseasonably put your hospitality to the test. Our society is mostly military or naval; so that we meet on equal grounds, and are, of course, well acquainted with the rules of good breeding and polite life; too much so to allow any deviation from those laws that good taste, good sense, and good feeling have established among persons of our class. Yet here it is considered by no means derogatory to the wife of an officer or gentleman to assist in the work of the house, or to perform its entire duties if occasion requires it; to understand the mystery of soap, candle, and sugar-making; to make bread, butter, and cheese, or even to milk her own cows; to knit and spin, and prepare the wool for the loom. In these matters we bush-ladies have a wholesome disregard of what Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so thinks or says. We pride ourselves on conforming to circumstances; and as a British officer must needs be a gentleman and his wife a lady, perhaps we repose quietly on that incontestable proof of our gentility, and can afford to be useful without injuring it. Our husbands adopt a similar line of conduct: the officer turns his sword into a ploughshare, and his lance into a sickle; and if he be seen ploughing among the stumps in his own field, or chopping trees on his own land, no one thinks less of his dignity, or considers him less of a gentleman, than when he appeared upon parade in all the pride of military etiquette, with sash, sword and epaulette. Surely this is as it should be in a country where independence is inseparable from industry; and for this I prize it. Among many advantages we in this township possess, it is certainly no inconsiderable one that the lower or working class of settlers are well disposed, and quite free from the annoying Yankee manners that distinguish many of the earlier-settled townships. Our servants are as respectful, or nearly so, as those at home; nor are they admitted to our tables, or placed on an equality with us, excepting at "bees," and such kinds of public meetings; when they usually conduct themselves with a propriety that would afford an example to some that call themselves gentlemen, viz., young men who voluntarily throw aside those restraints that society expects from persons filling a respectable situation. Intemperance is too prevailing a vice among all ranks of people in this country; but I blush to say it belongs most decidedly to those that consider themselves among the better class of emigrants. Let none such complain of the airs of equality displayed towards them by the labouring class, seeing that they degrade themselves below the honest, sober settler, however poor. If the sons of gentlemen lower themselves, no wonder if the sons of poor men endeavour to exalt themselves about him in a country where they all meet on equal ground; and good conduct is the distinguishing mark between the classes. Some months ago, when visiting a friend in a distant part of the country, I accompanied her to stay a few days in the house of a resident clergyman, curate of a flourishing village in the township of ------. I was struck by the primitive simplicity of the mansion and its inhabitants. We were introduced into the little family sitting-room, the floor of which was painted after the Yankee fashion; instead of being carpeted, the walls were of unornamented deal, and the furniture of the room of corresponding plainness. A large spinning-wheel, as big as a cart-wheel, nearly occupied the centre of the room, at which a neatly- dressed matron, of mild and lady-like appearance, was engaged spinning yarn; her little daughters were knitting beside the fire, while their father was engaged in the instruction of two of his sons; a third was seated affectionately in a little straw chair between his feet, while a fourth was plying his axe with nervous strokes in the court-yard, casting from time to time wistful glances through the parlour-window at the party within. The dresses of the children were of a coarse sort of stuff, a mixture of woollen and thread, the produce of the farm and their mother's praiseworthy industry. The stockings, socks, muffatees, and warm comforters were all of home manufacture. Both girls and boys wore mocassins, of their own making: good sense, industry, and order presided among the members of this little household. Both girls and boys seemed to act upon the principle, that nothing is disgraceful but that which is immoral and improper. Hospitality without extravagance, kindness without insincerity of speech, marked the manners of our worthy friends. Every thing in the house was conducted with attention to prudence and comfort. The living was but small (the income arising from it, I should have said), but there was glebe land, and a small dwelling attached to it, and, by dint of active exertion without-doors, and economy and good management within, the family were maintained with respectability: in short, we enjoyed during our sojourn many of the comforts of a cleared farm; poultry of every kind, beef of their own killing, excellent mutton and pork: we had a variety of preserves at our tea-table, with honey in the comb, delicious butter, and good cheese, with divers sorts of cakes; a kind of little pancake, made from the flour of buck-wheat, which are made in a batter, and raised with barm, afterwards dropped into boiling lard, and fried; also a preparation made of Indian corn-flour, called supporne-cake, which is fried in slices, and eaten with maple-syrup, were among the novelties of our breakfast-fare. I was admiring a breed of very fine fowls in the poultry-yard one morning, when my friend smiled and said, "I do not know if you will think I came honestly by them." "I am sure you did not acquire them by dishonest means," I replied, laughing; "I will vouch for your principles in that respect." "Well," replied my hostess, "they were neither given me, nor sold to me, and I did not steal them. I found the original stock in the following manner. An old black hen most unexpectedly made her appearance one spring morning at our door; we hailed the stranger with surprise and delight; for we could not muster a single domestic fowl among our little colony at that time. We never rightly knew by what means the hen came into our possession, but suppose some emigrant's family going up the country must have lost or left her; she laid ten eggs, and hatched chickens from them; from this little brood we raised a stock, and soon supplied all our neighbours with fowls. We prize the breed, not only on account of its fine size, but from the singular, and, as we thought, providential, manner in which we obtained it." I was much interested in the slight sketch given by the pastor one evening, as we all assembled round the blazing log-fire, that was piled half-way up the chimney, which reared its stone fabric so as to form deep recesses at either side of its abutments. Alluding to his first settlement, he observed, "it was a desolate wilderness of gloomy and unbroken forest-trees when we first pitched our tent here: at that time an axe had not been laid to the root of a tree, nor a fire, save by the wandering Indians, kindled in these woods. "I can now point out the identical spot where my wife and little ones ate their first meal, and raised their feeble voices in thankfulness to that Almighty and merciful Being who had preserved them through the perils of the deep, and brought them in safety to this vast solitude. "We were a little flock wandering in a great wilderness, under the special protection of our mighty Shepherd. "I have heard you, my dear young lady," he said, addressing the companion of my visit, "talk of the hardships of the bush; but, let me tell you, you know but little of its privations compared with those that came hither some years ago. "Ask these, my elder children and my wife, what were the hardships of a bush-settler's life ten years ago, and they will tell you it was to endure cold, hunger, and all its accompanying evils; to know at times the want of every necessary article of food. As to the luxuries and delicacies of life, we saw them not;--how could we? we were far removed from the opportunity of obtaining these things: potatoes, pork, and flour were our only stores, and often we failed of the two latter before a fresh supply could be procured. We had not mills nearer than thirteen miles, through roads marked only by blazed lines; nor were there at that time any settlers near us. Now you see us in a cleared country, surrounded with flourishing farms and rising villages; but at the time I speak of it was not so: there were no stores of groceries or goods, no butchers' shops, no cleared farms, dairies, nor orchards; for these things we had to wait with patience till industry should raise them. "Our fare knew no other variety than salt pork, potatoes, and sometimes bread, for breakfast; pork and potatoes for dinner; pork and potatoes for supper; with a porridge of Indian corn-flour for the children. Sometimes we had the change of pork without potatoes, and potatoes without pork; this was the first year's fare: by degrees we got a supply of flour of our own growing, but bruised into a coarse meal with a hand- mill; for we had no water or windmills within many miles of our colony, and good bread was indeed a luxury we did not often have. "We brought a cow with us, who gave us milk during the spring and summer; but owing to the wild garlic (a wild herb, common to our woods), on which she fed, her milk was scarcely palatable, and for want of shelter and food, she died the following winter, greatly to our sorrow: we learned experience in this and in many other matters at a hard cost; but now we can profit by it." "Did not the difficulties of your first settlement incline you to despond, and regret that you had ever embarked on a life so different to that you had been used to?" I asked. "They might have had that effect had not a higher motive than mere worldly advancement actuated me in leaving my native country to come hither. Look you, it was thus: I had for many years been the pastor of a small village in the mining districts of Cumberland. I was dear to the hearts of my people, and they were my joy and crown in the Lord. A number of my parishioners, pressed by poverty and the badness of the times, resolved on emigrating to Canada. "Urged by a natural and not unlawful desire of bettering their condition, they determined on crossing the Atlantic, encouraged by the offer of considerable grants of wild land, which at that period were freely awarded by Government to persons desirous of becoming colonists. "But previous to this undertaking, several of the most respectable came to me, and stated their views and reasons for the momentous step they were about to take; and at the same time besought me in the most moving terms, in the name of the rest of their emigrant friends, to accompany them into the Wilderness of the West, lest they should forget their Lord and Saviour when abandoned to their own spiritual guidance. "At first I was startled at the proposition; it seemed a wild and visionary scheme: but by degrees I began to dwell with pleasure on the subject. I had few ties beyond my native village; the income arising from my curacy was too small to make it any great obstacle: like Goldsmith's curate, I was 'Passing rich with forty pounds a year.' My heart yearned after my people; ten years I had been their guide and adviser. I was the friend of the old, and the teacher of the young. My Mary was chosen from among them; she had no foreign ties to make her look back with regret upon the dwellers of the land in distant places; her youth and maturity had been spent among these very people; so that when I named to her the desire of my parishioners, and she also perceived that my own wishes went with them, she stifled any regretful feeling that might have arisen in her breast, and replied to me in the words of Ruth:-- "'Thy country shall be my country; thy people shall be my people; where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.' "A tender and affectionate partner hast thou been to me, Mary," he added, turning his eyes affectionately on the mild and dignified matron, whose expressive countenance bespoke with more eloquence than words the feelings passing in her mind. She replied not by words, but I saw the big bright tears fall on the work she held in her hand. They sprang from emotions too sacred to be profaned by intrusive eyes, and I hastily averted my glance from her face; while the pastor proceeded to narrate the particulars of their leaving England, their voyage, and finally, their arrival in the land that had been granted to the little colony in the then unbroken part of the township of ------. "We had obtained a great deal of useful advice and assistance from the Government agents previous to our coming up hither, and also hired some choppers at high wages to initiate us in the art of felling, logging, burning, and clearing the ground; as it was our main object to get in crops of some kind, we turned to without any delay further than what was necessary for providing a temporary shelter for our wives and children, and prepared the ground for spring crops, helping each other as we could with the loan of oxen and labour. And here I must observe, that I experienced every attention and consideration from my friends. My means were small, and my family all too young to render me any service; however, I lacked not help, and had the satisfaction of seeing a little spot cleared for the growth of potatoes and corn, which I could not have effected by my single exertions. "My biggest boy John was but nine years old, Willie seven, and the others still more helpless; the two little ones you see there," pointing to two young children, "have been born since we came hither. That yellow-haired lassie knitting beside you was a babe at the breast;--a helpless, wailing infant, so weak and sickly before we came here that she was scarcely ever out of her mother's arms; but she grew and throve rapidly under the rough treatment of a bush-settler's family. "We had no house built, or dwelling of any kind to receive us when we arrived at our destination; and the first two nights were passed on the banks of the creek that flows at the foot of the hill, in a hut of cedar and hemlock boughs that I cut with my axe, and, with the help of some of my companions, raised to shelter my wife and the little ones. "Though it was the middle of May the nights were chilly, and we were glad to burn a pile of wood in front of our hut to secure us from the effects of the cold and the stings of the mosquitoes, that came up in myriads from the stream, and which finally drove us higher up the bank. "As soon as possible we raised a shanty, which now serves as a shed for my young cattle; I would not pull it down, though often urged to do so, as it stands in the way of a pleasant prospect from the window; but I like to look on it, and recall to mind the first years I passed beneath its lowly roof. We need such mementos to remind us of our former state; but we grow proud, and cease to appreciate our present comforts. "Our first Sabbath was celebrated in the open air: my pulpit was a pile of rude logs; my church the deep shade of the forest, beneath which we assembled ourselves; but sincerer or more fervent devotion I never witnessed than that day. I well remember the text I chose, for my address to them was from the viiith chapter of Deuteronomy, the 6th, 7th, and 9th verses, which appeared to me applicable to our circumstances. "The following year we raised a small blockhouse, which served as a school-house and church. At first our progress in clearing the land was slow, for we had to buy experience, and many and great were the disappointments and privations that befel us during the first few years. One time we were all ill with ague, and not one able to help the other; this was a sad time; but better things were in store for us. The tide of emigration increased, and the little settlement we had formed began to be well spoken of. One man came and built a saw mill; a grist-mill followed soon after; and then one store and then another, till we beheld a flourishing village spring up around us. Then the land began to increase in value, and many of the first settlers sold their lots to advantage, and retreated further up the woods. As the village increased, so, of course, did my professional duties, which had for the first few years been paid for in acts of kindness and voluntary labour by my little flock; now I have the satisfaction of reaping a reward without proving burdensome to my parishioners. My farm is increasing, and besides the salary arising from my curacy I have something additional for the school, which is paid by Government. We may now say it is good for us to be here, seeing that God has been pleased to send down a blessing upon us." I have forgotten many very interesting particulars relating to the trials and shifts this family were put to in the first few years; but the pastor told us enough to make me quite contented with my lot, and I returned home, after some days' pleasant sojourn with this delightful family, with an additional stock of contentment, and some useful and practical knowledge, that I trust I shall be the better for all my life. I am rather interested in a young lad that has come out from England to learn Canadian farming. The poor boy had conceived the most romantic notions of a settler's life, partly from the favourable accounts he had read, and partly through the medium of a lively imagination, which had aided in the deception, and led him to suppose that his time would be chiefly spent in the fascinating amusements and adventures arising from hunting the forest in search of deer and other game, pigeon and duck-shooting, spearing fish by torchlight, and voyaging on the lakes in a birch-bark canoe in summer, skating in winter, or gliding over the frozen snow like a Laplander in his sledge, wrapped up to the eyes in furs, and travelling at the rate of twelve miles an hour to the sound of an harmonious peal of bells. What a felicitous life to captivate the mind of a boy of fourteen, just let loose from the irksome restraint of boarding-school! How little did he dream of the drudgery inseparable from the duties of a lad of his age, in a country where the old and young, the master and the servant, are alike obliged to labour for a livelihood, without respect to former situation or rank! Here the son of the gentleman becomes a hewer of wood and drawer of water; he learns to chop down trees, to pile brush-heaps, split rails for fences, attend the fires during the burning season, dressed in a coarse over-garment of hempen cloth, called a logging-shirt, with trousers to correspond, and a Yankee straw hat flapped over his eyes, and a handspike to assist him in rolling over the burning brands. To tend and drive oxen, plough, sow, plant Indian corn and pumpkins, and raise potatoe-hills, are among some of the young emigrant's accomplishments. His relaxations are but comparatively few, but they are seized with a relish and avidity that give them the greater charm. You may imagine the disappointment felt by the poor lad on seeing his fair visions of amusement fade before the dull realities and distasteful details of a young settler's occupation in the backwoods. Youth, however, is the best season for coming to this country; the mind soon bends itself to its situation, and becomes not only reconciled, but in time pleased with the change of life. There is a consolation, too, in seeing that he does no more than others of equal pretensions as to rank and education are obliged to submit to, if they would prosper; and perhaps he lives to bless the country which has robbed him of a portion of that absurd pride that made him look with contempt on those whose occupations were of a humble nature. It were a thousand pities wilfully to deceive persons desirous of emigrating with false and flattering pictures of the advantages to be met with in this country. Let the _pro_ and _con_ be fairly stated, and let the reader use his best judgment, unbiassed by prejudice or interest in a matter of such vital importance not only as regards himself, but the happiness and welfare of those over whose destinies Nature has made him the guardian. It is, however, far more difficult to write on the subject of emigration than most persons think: it embraces so wide a field that what would be perfectly correct as regards one part of the province would by no means prove so as regarded another. One district differs from another, and one township from another, according to its natural advantages; whether it be long settled or unsettled, possessing water privileges or not; the soil and even the climate will be different, according to situation and circumstances. Much depends on the tempers, habits, and dispositions of the emigrants themselves. What suits one will not another; one family will flourish, and accumulate every comfort about their homesteads, while others languish in poverty and discontent. It would take volumes to discuss every argument for and against, and to point out exactly who are and who are not fit subjects for emigration. Have you read Dr. Dunlop's spirited and witty "Backwoodsman?" If you have not, get it as soon as you can; it will amuse you. I think a Backwoods-woman might be written in the same spirit, setting forth a few pages, in the history of bush-ladies, as examples for our sex. Indeed, we need some wholesome admonitions on our duties and the folly of repining at following and sharing the fortunes of our spouses, whom we have vowed in happier hours to love "in riches and in poverty, in sickness and in health." Too many pronounce these words without heeding their importance, and without calculating the chances that may put their faithfulness to the severe test of quitting home, kindred, and country, to share the hard lot of a settler's life; for even this sacrifice renders it hard to be borne; but the truly attached wife will do this, and more also, if required by the husband of her choice. But now it is time I say farewell: my dull letter, grown to a formidable packet, will tire you, and make you wish it at the bottom of the Atlantic. LETTER XVI. Indian Hunters.--Sail in a Canoe.--Want of Libraries in the Backwoods.-- New Village.--Progress of Improvement.--Fire-flies. HAVING in a former letter given you some account of a winter visit to the Indians, I shall now give a short sketch of their summer encampment, which I went to see one beautiful afternoon in June, accompanied by my husband and some friends that had come in to spend the day with us. The Indians were encamped on a little peninsula jutting out between two small lakes; our nearest path would have been through the bush, but the ground was so encumbered by fallen trees that we agreed to go in a canoe. The day was warm, without being oppressively hot, as it too often is during the summer months: and for a wonder the mosquitoes and black- flies were so civil as not to molest us. Our light bark skimmed gaily over the calm waters, beneath the overhanging shade of cedars, hemlock, and balsams, that emitted a delicious fragrance as the passing breeze swept through the boughs. I was in raptures with a bed of blue irises mixed with snow-white water-lilies that our canoe passed over. Turning the stony bank that formed the point, we saw the thin blue smoke of the camp curling above the trees, and soon our canoe was safely moored alongside of those belonging to the Indians, and by help of the straggling branches and underwood I contrived to scramble up a steep path, and soon found myself in front of the tent. It was a Sunday afternoon; all the men were at home; some of the younger branches of the families (for there were three that inhabited the wigwam) were amusing themselves with throwing the tomahawk at a notch cut in the bark of a distant tree, or shooting at a mark with their bows and arrows, while the elders reposed on their blankets within the shade, some reading, others smoking, and gravely eyeing the young rival marksmen at their feats of skill. Only one of the squaws was at home; this was my old acquaintance the hunter's wife, who was sitting on a blanket; her youngest, little David, a papouse of three years, who was not yet weaned, was reposing between her feet; she often eyed him with looks of great affection, and patted his shaggy head from time to time. Peter, who is a sort of great man, though not a chief, sat beside his spouse, dressed in a handsome blue surtout-coat, with a red worsted sash about his waist. He was smoking a short pipe, and viewing the assembled party at the door of the tent with an expression of quiet interest; sometimes he lifted his pipe for an instant to give a sort of inward exclamation at the success or failure of his sons' attempts to hit the mark on the tree. The old squaw, as soon as she saw me, motioned me forward, and pointing to a vacant portion of her blanket, with a good-natured smile, signed for me to sit beside her, which I did, and amused myself with taking note of the interior of the wigwam and its inhabitants. The building was of an oblong form, open at both ends, but at night I was told the openings were closed by blankets; the upper part of the roof was also open; the sides were rudely fenced with large sheets of birch bark, drawn in and out between the sticks that made the frame-work of the tent; a long slender pole of iron-wood formed a low beam, from which depended sundry iron and brass pots and kettles, also some joints of fresh-killed venison and dried fish; the fires occupied the centre of the hut, around the embers of which reposed several meek deer-hounds; they evinced something of the quiet apathy of their masters, merely opening their eyes to look upon the intruders, and seeing all was well returned to their former slumbers, perfectly unconcerned by our entrance. The hunter's family occupied one entire side of the building, while Joseph Muskrat with his family, and Joseph Bolans and his squaw shared the opposite one, their several apartments being distinguished by their blankets, fishing-spears, rifles, tomahawks, and other property; as to the cooking utensils they seemed from their scarcity to be held in common among them; perfect amity appeared among the three families; and, if one might judge from outward appearance, they seemed happy and contented. On examining the books that were in the hands of the young men, they proved to be hymns and tracts, one side printed in English, the other the Indian translation. In compliance with our wishes the men sang one of the hymns, which sounded very well, but we missed the sweet voices of the Indian girls, whom I had left in front of the house, sitting on a pine-log and amusing themselves with my baby, and seeming highly delighted with him and his nurse. Outside the tent the squaw showed me a birch-bark canoe that was building; the shape of the canoe is marked out by sticks stuck in the ground at regular distances; the sheets of bark being wetted, and secured in their proper places by cedar laths, which are bent so as to serve the purpose of ribs or timbers; the sheets of bark are stitched together with the tough roots of the tamarack, and the edges of the canoe also sewed or laced over with the same material; the whole is then varnished over with a thick gum. I had the honour of being paddled home by Mrs. Peter in a new canoe, just launched, and really the motion was delightful; seated at the bottom of the little bark, on a few light hemlock boughs, I enjoyed my voyage home exceedingly. The canoe, propelled by the Amazonian arm of the swarthy matron, flew swiftly over the waters, and I was soon landed in a little cove within a short distance from my own door. In return for the squaw's civility I delighted her by a present of a few beads for working mocassins and knife-sheaths, with which she seemed very well pleased, carefully securing her treasure by tying them in a corner of her blanket with a bit of thread. With a peculiar reserve and gravity of temper, there is at the same time a degree of childishness about the Indians in some things. I gave the hunter and his son one day some coloured prints, which they seemed mightily taken with, laughing immoderately at some of the fashionably dressed figures. When they left the house they seated themselves on a fallen tree, and called their hounds round them, displaying to each severally the pictures. The poor animals, instead of taking a survey of the gaily dressed ladies and gentlemen, held up their meek heads and licked their masters' hands and faces; but old Peter was resolved the dogs should share the amusement of looking at the pictures and turned their faces to them, holding them fast by their long ears when they endeavoured to escape. I could hardly have supposed the grave Indian capable of such childish behaviour. These Indians appear less addicted to gay and tinselly adornments than formerly, and rather affect a European style in their dress; it is no unusual sight to see an Indian habited in a fine cloth coat and trousers, though I must say the blanket-coats provided for them by Government, and which form part of their annual presents, are far more suitable and becoming. The squaws, too, prefer cotton or stuff gowns, aprons and handkerchiefs, and such useful articles, to any sort of finery, though they like well enough to look at and admire them; they delight nevertheless in decking out the little ones, embroidering their cradle wrappings with silks and beads, and tacking the wings of birds to their shoulders. I was a little amused by the appearance of one of these Indian Cupids, adorned with the wings of the American war-bird; a very beautiful creature, something like our British bullfinch, only far more lively in plumage: the breast and under-feathers of the wings being a tint of the most brilliant carmine, shaded with black and white. This bird has been called the "war-bird," from its having first made its appearance in this province during the late American war; a fact that I believe is well authenticated, or at any rate has obtained general credence. I could hardly help smiling at your notion that we in the backwoods can have easy access to a circulation library. In one sense, indeed, you are not so far from truth, for every settler's library may be called a circulating one, as their books are sure to pass from friend to friend in due rotation; and, fortunately for us, we happen to have several excellently furnished ones in our neighbourhood, which are always open to us. There is a public library at York, and a small circulating library at Cobourg, but they might just as well be on the other side of the Atlantic for any access we can have to them. I know how it is; at home you have the same idea of the facility of travelling in this country as I once had: now I know what bush-roads are, a few miles' journey seems an awful undertaking. Do you remember my account of a day's travelling through the woods? I am sorry to say they are but little amended since that letter was written. I have only once ventured to perform a similar journey, which took several hours _hard_ travelling, and, more by good luck than any other thing, arrived with whole bones at my destination. I could not help laughing at the frequent exclamations of the teamster, a shrewd Yorkshire lad, "Oh, if I had but the driving of his excellency the governor along this road, how I would make the old horses trot over the stumps and stones, till he should cry out again; I warrant he'd do _summut_ to mend them before he came along them again." Unfortunately it is not a statute-road on this side the river, and has been cut by the settlers for their own convenience, so that I fear nothing will be done to improve it, unless it is by the inhabitants themselves. We hope soon to have a market for our grain nearer at hand than Peterborough; a grist-mill has just been raised at the new village that is springing up. This will prove a great comfort to us; we have at present to fetch flour up at a great expense, through bad roads, and the loss of time to those that are obliged to send wheat to the town to be ground, is a serious evil; this will soon be remedied, to the joy of the whole neighbourhood. You do not know how important these improvements are, and what effect they have in raising the spirits of the emigrant, besides enhancing the value of his property in no trifling degree. We have already experienced the benefit of being near the saw-mill, as it not only enables us to build at a smaller expense, but enables us to exchange logs for sawn lumber. The great pine-trees which, under other circumstances, would be an encumbrance and drawback to clearing the land, prove a most profitable crop when cleared off in the form of saw-logs, which is easily done where they are near the water; the logs are sawn to a certain length, and dragged by oxen, during the winter, when the ground is hard, to the lake's edge; when the ice breaks up, the logs float down with the current and enter the mill-race; I have seen the lake opposite to our windows covered with these floating timbers, voyaging down to the saw-mill. How valuable would the great oaks and gigantic pines be on an estate in England; while here they are as little thought of as saplings would be at home. Some years hence the timbers that are now burned up will be regretted. Yet it is impossible to preserve them; they would prove a great encumbrance to the farmer. The oaks are desirable for splitting, as they make the most durable fences; pine, cedar, and white ash are also used for rail-cuts; maple and dry beech are the best sorts of wood for fires: white ash burns well. In making ley for soap, care is taken to use none but the ashes of hard wood, as oak, ash, maple, beech; any of the resinous trees are bad for the purpose, and the ley will not mingle with the fat. In boiling, to the great mortification of the uninitiated soap-boiler, who, by being made acquainted with this simple fact, might have been spared much useless trouble and waste of material, after months of careful saving. An American settler's wife told me this, and bade me be careful not to make use of any of the pine-wood ashes in running the ley. And here I must observe, that of all people the Yankees, as they are termed, are the most industrious and ingenious; they are never at a loss for an expedient: if one thing fails them they adopt another, with a quickness of thought that surprises me, while to them it seems only a matter of course. They seem to possess a sort of innate presence of mind, and instead of wasting their energies in words, they _act_. The old settlers that have been long among them seem to acquire the same sort of habits, insomuch that it is difficult to distinguish them. I have heard the Americans called a loquacious boasting people; now, as far as my limited acquaintance with them goes, I consider they are almost laconic, and if I dislike them it is for a certain cold brevity of manner that seems to place a barrier between you and them. I was somewhat struck with a remark made by a travelling clock-maker, a native of the state of Ohio. After speaking of the superior climate of Ohio, in answer to some questions of my husband, he said, he was surprised that gentlemen should prefer the Canadas, especially the bush, where for many years they must want all the comforts and luxuries of life, to the rich, highly cultivated, and fruitful state of Ohio, where land was much cheaper, both cleared and wild. To this we replied that, in the first place, British subjects preferred the British government; and, besides, they were averse to the manners of his countrymen. He candidly admitted the first objection; and in reply to the last observed, that the Americans at large ought not to be judged by the specimens to be found in the British colonies, as they were, for the most part, persons of no reputation, many of whom had fled to the Canadas to escape from debt, or other disgraceful conduct; and added, "It would be hard if the English were to be judged as a nation by the convicts of Botany Bay." Now there was nothing unfair or rude in the manners of this stranger, and his defence of his nation was mild and reasonable, and such as any unprejudiced person must have respected him for. I have just been interrupted by a friend, who has called to tell me he has an opportunity of sending safe and free of expense to London or Liverpool, and that he will enclose a packet for me in the box he is packing for England. I am delighted by the intelligence, but regret that I have nothing but a few flower-seeds, a specimen of Indian workmanship, and a few butterflies to send you--the latter are for Jane. I hope all will not share the fate of the last I sent. Sarah wrote me word, when they came to look for the green moth I had enclosed in a little box, nothing of his earthly remains was visible beyond a little dust and some pink feet. I have, with some difficulty, been able to procure another and finer specimen; and, for fear it should meet with a similar annihilation, I will at least preserve the memory of its beauties, and give you a description of it. It is just five inches from wing to wing; the body the thickness of my little finger, snow-white, covered with long silken hair; the legs bright red, so are the antennae, which are toothed like a comb on either side, shorter than those of butterflies and elegantly curled; the wings, both upper and under, are of the most exquisite pale tint of green, fringed at the edges with golden colour; each wing has a small shaded crescent of pale blue, deep red, and orange; the blue forming the centre, like a half-closed eye; the lower wings elongated in deep scollop, so as to form two long tails, like those of the swallow-tail butterfly, only a full inch in length and deeply fringed; on the whole this moth is the most exquisite creature I have ever seen. We have a variety of the peacock butterfly, that is very rich, with innumerable eyes on the wings. The yellow swallow-tail is also very common, and the black and blue admiral, and the red, white, and black admiral, with many other beautiful varieties that I cannot describe. The largest butterfly I have yet seen is a gay vermilion, marked with jet black lines that form an elegant black lace pattern over its wide wings. Then for dragon-flies, we have them of every size, shape, and colour. I was particularly charmed by a pair of superb blue ones that I used to see this summer in my walk to visit my sister. They were as large as butterflies, with black gauze wings; on each pair was marked a crescent of the brightest azure blue, shaded with scarlet; the bodies of these beautiful creatures were also blue. I have seen them scarlet and black, yellow and black, copper-coloured, green, and brown; the latter are great enemies to the mosquitoes and other small insects, and may be seen in vast numbers flitting around in all directions of an evening in search of prey. The fire-flies must not be forgotten, for of all others they are the most remarkable; their appearance generally precedes rain; they are often seen after dark, on mild damp evenings, sporting among the cedars at the edge of the wood, and especially near swamps, when the air is illuminated with their brilliant dancing light. Sometimes they may be seen in groups, glancing like falling stars in mid-air, or descending so low as to enter your dwelling and flit about among the draperies of your bed or window curtains; the light they emit is more brilliant than that of the glowworm; but it is produced in the same manner from the under part of the body. The glowworm is also frequently seen, even as late as September, on mild, warm, dewy nights. We have abundance of large and small beetles, some most splendid: green and gold, rose-colour, red and black, yellow and black; some quite black, formidably large, with wide branching horns. Wasps are not so troublesome as in England, but I suppose it is because we cannot offer such temptations as our home gardens hold out to these ravenous insects. One of our choppers brought me the other day what he called a hornet's nest; it was certainly too small and delicate a piece of workmanship for so large an insect; and I rather conjecture that it belonged to the beautiful black and gold insect called the wasp-fly, but of this I am not certain. The nest was about the size and shape of a turkey's egg, and was composed of six paper cups inserted one within the other, each lessening till the innermost of all appeared not larger than a pigeon's egg. On looking carefully within the orifice of the last cup, a small comb, containing twelve cells, of the most exquisite neatness, might be perceived, if anything, superior in regularity to the cells in the comb of the domestic bee, one of which was at least equal to three of these. The substance that composed the cups was of a fine silver grey silken texture, as fine as the finest India silk paper, and extremely brittle; when slightly wetted it became glutinous, and adhered a little to the finger; the whole was carefully fixed to a stick: I have seen one since fastened to a rough rail. I could not but admire the instinctive care displayed in the formation of this exquisite piece of insect architecture to guard the embryo animal from injury, either from the voracity of birds or the effect of rain, which could scarcely find entrance in the interior. I had carefully, as I thought, preserved my treasure, by putting it in one of my drawers, but a wicked little thief of a mouse found it out and tore it to pieces for the sake of the drops of honey contained in one or two of the cells. I was much vexed, as I purposed sending it by some favourable opportunity to a dear friend living in Gloucester Place, who took great delight in natural curiosities, and once showed me a nest of similar form to this, that had been found in a bee-hive; the material was much coarser, and, if I remember right, had but two cases instead of six. I have always felt a great desire to see the nest of a humming-bird, but hitherto have been disappointed. This summer I had some beds of mignionette and other flowers, with some most splendid major convolvuluses or "morning glories," as the Americans call them; these lovely flowers tempted the hummingbirds to visit my garden, and I had the pleasure of seeing a pair of those beautiful creatures, but their flight is so peculiar that it hardly gives you a perfect sight of their colours; their motion when on the wing resembles the whirl of a spinning-wheel, and the sound they make is like the hum of a wheel at work; I shall plant flowers to entice them to build near us. I sometimes fear you will grow weary of my long dull letters; my only resources are domestic details and the natural history of the country, which I give whenever I think the subject has novelty to recommend it to your attention. Possibly I may sometimes disappoint you by details that appear to place the state of the emigrant in an unfavourable light; I merely give facts as I have seen, or heard them stated. I could give you many flourishing accounts of settlers in this country; I could also reverse the picture, and you would come to the conclusion that there are many arguments to be used both for and against emigration. Now, the greatest argument, and that which has the most weight, is NECESSITY, and this will always turn the scale in the favour of emigration; and that same imperative dame Necessity tells me it is _necessary_ for me to draw my letter to a conclusion. Farewell, ever faithfully and affectionately, your attached sister. LETTER XVII. Ague.--Illness of the Family.--Probable Cause.--Root-house.--Setting in of Winter.--Insect termed a "Sawyer."--Temporary Church. November the 28th, 1834. You will have been surprised, and possibly distressed, by my long silence of several months, but when I tell you it has been occasioned by sickness, you will cease to wonder that I did not write. My dear husband, my servant, the poor babe, and myself, were all at one time confined to our beds with ague. You know how severe my sufferings always were at home with intermittents, and need not marvel if they were no less great in a country where lake-fevers and all kinds of intermittent fevers abound. Few persons escape the second year without being afflicted with this weakening complaint; the mode of treatment is repeated doses of calomel, with castor-oil or salts, and is followed up by quinine. Those persons who do not choose to employ medical advice on the subject, dose themselves with ginger-tea, strong infusion of hyson, or any other powerful green tea, pepper, and whiskey, with many other remedies that have the sanction of custom or quackery. I will not dwell on this uncomfortable period, further than to tell you that we considered the complaint to have had its origin in a malaria, arising from a cellar below the kitchen. When the snow melted, this cellar became half full of water, either from the moisture draining through the spongy earth, or from the rising of a spring beneath the house; be it as it may, the heat of the cooking and Franklin stoves in the kitchen and parlour, caused a fermentation to take place in the stagnant fluid before it could be emptied; the effluvia arising from this mass of putrifying water affected us all. The female servant, who was the most exposed to its baneful influence, was the first of our household that fell sick, after which, we each in turn became unable to assist each other. I think I suffer an additional portion of the malady from seeing the sufferings of my dear husband and my beloved child. I lost the ague in a fortnight's time,--thanks to calomel and quinine; so did my babe and his nurse: it has, however, hung on my husband during the whole of the summer, and thrown a damp upon his exertions and gloom upon his spirits. This is the certain effect of ague, it causes the same sort of depression on the spirits as a nervous fever. My dear child has not been well ever since he had the ague, and looks very pale and spiritless. We should have been in a most miserable condition, being unable to procure a female servant, a nurse, or any one to attend upon us, and totally unable to help ourselves; but for the prompt assistance of Mary on one side, and Susannah on the other, I know not what would have become of us in our sore trouble. This summer has been excessively hot and dry; the waters in the lakes and rivers being lower than they had been known for many years; scarcely a drop of rain fell for several weeks. This extreme drought rendered the potatoe-crop a decided failure. Our Indian-corn was very fine; so were the pumpkins. We had some fine vegetables in the garden, especially the peas and melons; the latter were very large and fine. The cultivation of the melon is very simple: you first draw the surrounding earth together with a broad hoe into a heap; the middle of this heap is then slightly hollowed out, so as to form a basin, the mould being raised round the edges; into this hollow you insert several melon-seeds, and leave the rest to the summer heat; if you water the plants from time to time, it is well for them; the soil should be fine black mould; and if your hills are inclining to a hollow part of your ground, so as to retain the moisture, so much the finer will be your fruit. It is the opinion of practical persons who have bought wisdom by some years' experience of the country, that in laying out and planting a garden, the beds should not be raised, as is the usual custom; and give us a reason, that the sun having such great power draws the moisture more readily from the earth where the beds are elevated above the level, and, in consequence of the dryness of the ground, the plants wither away. As there appears some truth in the remark, I am inclined to adopt the plan. Vegetables are in general fine, and come quickly to maturity, considering the lateness of the season in which they are usually put into the ground. Peas are always fine, especially the marrowfats, which are sometimes grown in the fields, on cleared lands that are under the plough. We have a great variety of beans, all of the French or kidney kind; there is a very prolific white runner, of which I send you some of the seed: the method of planting them is to raise a small hillock of mould by drawing the earth up with the hoe; flatten this, or rather hollow it a little in the middle, and drop in four or five seeds round the edges; as soon as the bean puts forth its runners insert a pole of five or six feet in the centre of the hill; the plants will all meet and twine up it, bearing a profusion of pods, which are cut and boiled as the scarlet-runners, or else, in their dry or ripe state, stewed and eaten with salt meat; this, I believe, is the more usual way of cooking them. The early bush-bean is a dwarf, with bright yellow seed. Lettuces are very fine, and may be cultivated easily, and very early, by transplanting the seedlings that appear as soon as the ground is free from snow. Cabbages and savoys, and all sorts of roots, keep during the winter in the cellars or root-houses; but to the vile custom of keeping green vegetables in the shallow, moist cellars below the kitchens, much of the sickness that attacks settlers under the various forms of agues, intermittent, remittent, and lake-fevers, may be traced. Many, of the lower class especially, are not sufficiently careful in clearing these cellars from the decaying portions of vegetable matter, which are often suffered to accumulate from year to year to infect the air of the dwelling. Where the house is small, and the family numerous, and consequently exposed to its influence by night, the baneful consequences may be readily imagined. "Do not tell me of lakes and swamps as the cause of fevers and agues; look to your cellars," was the observation of a blunt but experienced Yankee doctor. I verily believe it was the cellar that was the cause of sickness in our house all the spring and summer. A root-house is indispensably necessary for the comfort of a settler's family; if well constructed, with double log-walls, and the roof secured from the soaking in of the rain or melting snows, it preserves vegetables, meat, and milk excellently. You will ask if the use be so great, and the comfort so essential, why does not every settler build one? Now, dear mamma, this is exactly what every new comer says; but he has to learn the difficulty there is at first of getting these matters accomplished, unless, indeed, he have (which is not often the case) the command of plenty of ready money, and can afford to employ extra workmen. Labour is so expensive, and the working seasons so short, that many useful and convenient buildings are left to a future time; and a cellar, which one man can excavate in two days, if he work well, is made to answer the purpose, till the season of leisure arrives, or necessity obliges the root-house to be made. We are ourselves proof of this very sort of unwilling procrastination; but the logs are now cut for the root-house, and we shall have one early in the spring. I would, however, recommend any one that could possibly do so at first, to build a root- house without delay, and also to have a well dug; the springs lying very few feet below the surface renders this neither laborious or very expensive. The creeks will often fail in very dry weather, and the lake and river-waters grow warm and distasteful during the spring and summer. The spring-waters are generally cold and pure, even in the hottest weather, and delightfully refreshing. Our winter seems now fairly setting in: the snow has twice fallen, and as often disappeared, since the middle of October; but now the ground is again hardening into stone; the keen north-west wind is abroad; and every outward object looks cold and wintry. The dark line of pines that bound the opposite side of the lake is already hoary and heavy with snow, while the half-frozen lake has a deep leaden tint, which is only varied in shade by the masses of ice which shoot out in long points, forming mimic bays and peninsulas. The middle of the stream, where the current is strongest, is not yet frozen over, but runs darkly along like a river between its frozen banks. In some parts where the banks are steep and overhung with roots and shrubs, the fallen snow and water take the most fantastic forms. I have stood of a bright winter day looking with infinite delight on the beautiful mimic waterfalls congealed into solid ice along the bank of the river; and by the mill-dam, from contemplating these petty frolics of Father Frost, I have been led to picture to myself the sublime scenery of the arctic regions. In spite of its length and extreme severity, I do like the Canadian winter: it is decidedly the healthiest season of the year; and it is no small enjoyment to be exempted from the torments of the insect tribes, that are certainly great drawbacks to your comfort in the warmer months. We have just received your last packet;--a thousand thanks for the contents. We are all delighted with your useful presents, especially the warm shawls and merinos. My little James looks extremely well in his new frock and cloak; they will keep him very warm this cold weather: he kissed the pretty fur-lined slippers you sent me, and said, "Pussy, pussy." By the way, we have a fine cat called Nora Crena, the parting gift of our friend ------, who left her as a keepsake for my boy. Jamie dotes upon her; and I do assure you I regard her almost as a second Whittington's cat: neither mouse nor chitmunk has dared intrude within our log-walls since she made her appearance; the very crickets, that used to distract us with their chirping from morning till night, have forsaken their old haunts. Besides the crickets, which often swarm so as to become intolerable nuisances, destroying your clothes and woollens, we are pestered by large black ants, that gallop about, eating up sugar preserves, cakes, anything nice they can gain access to; these insects are three times the size of the black ants of Britain, and have a most voracious appetite: when they find no better prey they kill each other, and that with the fierceness and subtilty of the spider. They appear less sociable in their habits than other ants; though, from the numbers that invade your dwellings, I should think they formed a community like the rest of their species. The first year's residence in a new log-house you are disturbed by a continual creaking sound which grates upon the ears exceedingly, till you become accustomed to it: this is produced by an insect commonly called a "sawyer." This is the larvae of some fly that deposits its eggs in the bark of the pine-trees. The animal in its immature state is of a whitish colour, the body composed of eleven rings; the head armed with a pair of short, hard pincers: the skin of this creature is so rough that on passing your finger over it, it reminds you of a rasp, yet to the eye it is perfectly smooth. You would be surprised at the heap of fine saw- dust that is to be seen below the hole they have been working in all night. These sawyers form a fine feast for the woodpeckers, and jointly they assist in promoting the rapid decomposition of the gigantic forest- trees, that would otherwise encumber the earth from age to age. How infinite is that Wisdom that rules the natural world! How often do we see great events brought about by seemingly insignificant agents! Yet are they all servants of the Most High, working his will, and fulfilling his behests. One great want which has been sensibly felt in this distant settlement, I mean the want of public worship on the Sabbath-day, promises to be speedily remedied. A subscription is about to be opened among the settlers of this and part of the adjacent township for the erection of a small building, which may answer the purpose of church and school-house; also for the means of paying a minister for stated seasons of attendance. ------ has allowed his parlour to be used as a temporary church, and service has been several times performed by a highly respectable young Scotch clergyman; and I can assure you we have a considerable congregation, considering how scattered the inhabitants are, and that the emigrants consist of catholics and dissenters, as well as episcopalians. These distinctions, however, are not carried to such lengths in this country as at home; especially where the want of religious observances has been sensibly felt. The word of God appears to be listened to with gladness. May a blessing attend those that in spirit and in truth would restore again to us the public duties of the Sabbath, which, left to our own guidance, we are but too much inclined to neglect. Farewell. LETTER XVIII. Busy Spring.--Increase of Society and Comfort.--Recollections of Home.-- Aurora Borealis THIS has been a busy spring with us. First, sugar-making on a larger scale than our first attempt was, and since that we had workmen making considerable addition to our house; we have built a large and convenient kitchen, taking the former one for a bedroom; the root-house and dairy are nearly completed. We have a well of excellent water close beside the door, and a fine frame-barn was finished this week, which includes a good granary and stable, with a place for my poultry, in which I take great delight. Besides a fine brood of fowls, the produce of two hens and a cock, or _rooster_, as the Yankees term that bird, I have some ducks, and am to have turkeys and geese this summer. I lost several of my best fowls, not by the hawk but a horrid beast of the same nature as our polecat, called here a scunck; it is far more destructive in its nature than either fox or the hawk, for he comes like a thief in the night and invades the perch, leaving headless mementos of his barbarity and blood-thirsty propensities. We are having the garden, which hitherto has been nothing but a square enclosure for vegetables, laid out in a prettier form; two half circular wings sweep off from the entrance to each side of the house; the fence is a sort of rude basket or hurdle-work, such as you see at home, called by the country folk wattled fence: this forms a much more picturesque fence than those usually put up of split timber. Along this little enclosure I have begun planting a sort of flowery hedge with some of the native shrubs that abound in our woods and lake- shores. Among those already introduced are two species of shrubby honeysuckle, white and rose-blossomed: these are called by the American botanists _quilostium_. Then I have the white _Spiroea frutex_, which grows profusely on the lake-shore; the Canadian wild rose; the red flowering raspberry (_rubus spectabilis_), leather-wood (_dircas_), called American mezereon, or moose-wood; this is a very pretty, and at the same time useful shrub, the bark being used by farmers as a substitute for cord in tying sacks, &c.; the Indians sew their birch-bark baskets with it occasionally. Wild gooseberry, red and black currants, apple-trees, with here and there a standard hawthorn, the native tree bearing nice red fruit I named before, are all I have as yet been able to introduce. The stoup is up, and I have just planted hops at the base of the pillars. I have got two bearing shoots of a purple wild grape from the island near us, which I long to see in fruit. My husband is in good spirits; our darling boy is well, and runs about everywhere. We enjoy a pleasant and friendly society, which has increased so much within the last two years that we can hardly regret our absence from the more populous town. My dear sister and her husband are comfortably settled in their new abode, and have a fine spot cleared and cropped. We often see them, and enjoy a chat of home--sweet, never-to-be-forgotten home; and cheat ourselves into the fond belief that, at no very distant time we may again retrace its fertile fields and flowery dales. With what delight we should introduce our young Canadians to their grandmother and aunts; my little bushman shall early be taught to lisp the names of those unknown but dear friends, and to love the lands that gave birth to his parents, the bonny hills of the north and my own beloved England. Not to regret my absence from my native land, and one so fair and lovely withal, would argue a heart of insensibility; yet I must say, for all its roughness, I love Canada, and am as happy in my humble log-house as if it were courtly hall or bower; habit reconciles us to many things that at first were distasteful. It has ever been my way to extract the sweet rather than the bitter in the cup of life, and surely it is best and wisest so to do. In a country where constant exertion is called for from all ages and degrees of settlers, it would be foolish to a degree to damp our energies by complaints, and cast a gloom over our homes by sitting dejectedly down to lament for all that was so dear to us in the old country. Since we are here, let us make the best of it, and bear with cheerfulness the lot we have chosen. I believe that one of the chief ingredients in human happiness is a capacity for enjoying the blessings we possess. Though at our first outset we experienced many disappointments, many unlooked-for expenses, and many annoying delays, with some wants that to us seemed great privations, on the whole we have been fortunate, especially in the situation of our land, which has increased in value very considerably; our chief difficulties are now over, at least we hope so, and we trust soon to enjoy the comforts of a cleared farm. My husband is becoming more reconciled to the country, and I daily feel my attachment to it strengthening. The very stumps that appeared so odious, through long custom, seem to lose some of their hideousness; the eye becomes familiarized even with objects the most displeasing till they cease to be observed. Some century hence how different will this spot appear! I can picture it to my imagination with fertile fields and groves of trees planted by the hand of taste;--all will be different; our present rude dwellings will have given place to others of a more elegant style of architecture, and comfort and grace will rule the scene which is now a forest wild. You ask me if I like the climate of Upper Canada; to be candid I do not think it deserves all that travellers have said of it. The summer heat of last year was very oppressive; the drought was extreme, and in some respects proved rather injurious, especially to the potatoe crop. The frosts set in early, and so did the snows; as to the far-famed Indian summer it seems to have taken its farewell of the land, for little of it have we seen during three years' residence. Last year there was not a semblance of it, and this year one horrible dark gloomy day, that reminded me most forcibly of a London fog, and which was to the full as dismal and depressing, was declared by the old inhabitants to be the commencement of the Indian summer; the sun looked dim and red, and a yellow lurid mist darkened the atmosphere, so that it became almost necessary to light candles at noonday. If this be Indian summer, then might a succession of London fogs be termed the "London summer," thought I, as I groped about in a sort of bewildering dusky light all that day; and glad was I when, after a day or two's heavy rain, the frost and snow set in. Very variable, as far as our experience goes, this climate has been; no two seasons have been at all alike, and it is supposed it will be still more variable as the work of clearing the forest goes on from year to year. Near the rivers and great lakes the climate is much milder and more equable; more inland, the snow seldom falls so as to allow of sleighing for weeks after it has become general; this, considering the state of our bush-roads, is rather a point in our favour, as travelling becomes less laborious, though still somewhat rough. I have seen the aurora borealis several times; also a splendid meteoric phenomenon that surpassed every thing I had ever seen or even heard of before. I was very much amused by overhearing a young lad giving a gentleman a description of the appearance made by a cluster of the shooting-stars as they followed each other in quick succession athwart the sky. "Sir," said the boy, "I never saw such a sight before, and I can only liken the chain of stars to a logging-chain." Certainly a most natural and unique simile, quite in character with the occupation of the lad, whose business was often with the oxen and logging-chain, and after all not more rustic than the familiar names given to many of our most superb constellations,--Charles's wain, the plough, the sickle, &c. Coming home one night last Christmas from the house of a friend, I was struck by a splendid pillar of pale greenish light in the west: it rose to some height above the dark line of pines that crowned the opposite shores of the Otanabee, and illumined the heavens on either side with a chaste pure light, such as the moon gives in her rise and setting; it was not quite pyramidical, though much broader at the base than at its highest point; it gradually faded, till a faint white glimmering light alone marked where its place had been, and even that disappeared after some half-hour's time. It was so fair and lovely a vision I was grieved when it vanished into thin air, and could have cheated fancy into the belief that it was the robe of some bright visitor from another and a better world;--imagination apart, could it be a phosphoric exhalation from some of our many swamps or inland lakes, or was it at all connected with the aurora that is so frequently seen in our skies? I must now close this epistle; I have many letters to prepare for friends, to whom I can only write when I have the opportunity of free conveyance, the inland postage being very high; and you must not only pay for all you receive but all you send to and from New York. Adieu, my kindest and best of friends. Douro, May 1st, 1833. APPENDIX [The following Communications have been received from the Writer of this Work during its progress through the Press.] MAPLE-SUGAR. THIS spring I have made maple-sugar of a much finer colour and grain than any I have yet seen; and have been assured by many old settlers it was the best, or nearly the best, they had ever met with: which commendation induces me to give the plan I pursued in manufacturing it. The sap having been boiled down in the sugar-bush from about sixteen pailsful to two, I first passed it through a thin flannel bag, after the manner of a jelly-bag, to strain it from the first impurities, which are great. I then passed the liquor through another thicker flannel into the iron pot, in which I purposed boiling down the sugar, and while yet cold, or at best but lukewarm, beat up the white of one egg to a froth, and spread it gently over the surface of the liquor, watching the pot carefully after the fire began to heat it, that I might not suffer the scum to boil into the sugar. A few minutes before it comes to a boil, the scum must be carefully removed with a skimmer, or ladle,--the former is best. I consider that on the care taken to remove every particle of scum depends, in a great measure, the brightness and clearness of the sugar. The best rule I can give as to the sugaring-off, as it is termed, is to let the liquid continue at a fast boil: only be careful to keep it from coming over by keeping a little of the liquid in your stirring- ladle, and when it boils up to the top, or you see it rising too fast, throw in a little from time to time to keep it down; or if you boil on a cooking-stove, throwing open one or all the doors will prevent boiling over. Those that sugar-off outside the house have a wooden crane fixed against a stump, the fire being lighted against the stump, and the kettle suspended on the crane: by this simple contrivance, (for any bush-boy can fix a crane of the kind,) the sugar need never rise over if common attention be paid to the boiling; but it does require constant watching: one idle glance may waste much of the precious fluid. I had only a small cooking-stove to boil my sugar on, the pots of which were thought too small, and not well shaped, so that at first my fears were that I must relinquish the trial; but I persevered, and experience convinces me a stove is an excellent furnace for the purpose; as you can regulate the heat as you like. One of the most anxious periods in the boiling I found to be when the liquor began first to assume a yellowish frothy appearance, and cast up so great a volume of steam from its surface as to obscure the contents of the pot; as it may then rise over almost unperceived by the most vigilant eye. As the liquor thickens into molasses, it becomes a fine yellow, and seems nothing but thick froth. When it is getting pretty well boiled down, the drops begin to fall clear and ropy from the ladle; and if you see little bright grainy-looking bubbles in it, drop some on a cold plate, and continue to stir or rub it till it is quite cold: if it is ready to granulate, you will find it gritty, and turn whitish or pale straw colour; and stiff. The sugar may then safely be poured off into a tin dish, pail, basin, or any other utensil. I tried two different methods after taking the sugar from the fire, but could find little difference in the look of the sugar, except that in one the quantity was broken up more completely; in the other the sugar remained in large lumps, but equally pure and sparkling. In the first I kept stirring the sugar till it began to cool and form a whitish thick substance, and the grains were well crystallised; in the other process, --which I think preferable, as being the least troublesome,--I waited till the mass was hardened into sugar, and then, piercing the crust in many places, I turned the mass into a cullender, and placed the cullender over a vessel to receive the molasses that drained from the sugar. In the course of the day or two, I frequently stirred the sugar, which thus became perfectly free from moisture, and had acquired a fine sparkling grain, tasting exactly like sugar-candy, free from any taste of the maple-sap, and fit for any purpose. I observed that in general maple-sugar, as it is commonly made, is hard and compact, showing little grain, and weighing very heavy in proportion to its bulk. Exactly the reverse is the case with that I made, it being extremely light for its bulk, all the heavy molasses having been separated, instead of dried into the sugar. Had the present season been at all a favourable one, which it was not, we should have made a good quantity of excellent sugar. VINEGAR. By boiling down five gallons of sap to one, and when just a little above the heat of new milk, putting in a cupful of barm (hop-rising will do if it be good), and letting the vessel remain in your kitchen chimney- corner during the summer, and perhaps longer, you will obtain a fine, cheap, pleasant, and strong vinegar, fit for any purpose. This plan I have pursued successfully two years. Care must be taken that the cask or keg be well seasoned and tight before the vinegar is put in; as the dryness of the summer heat is apt to shrink the vessel, and make it leak. If putty well wrought, tar, or even yellow soap, be rubbed over the seams, and round the inner rim of the head of the cask, it will preserve it from opening. The equal temperature of the kitchen is preferred by experienced housewives to letting the vinegar stand abroad; they aver the coldness of the nights in this country is prejudicial to the process, being as speedily perfected as if it underwent no such check. By those well skilled in the manufacture of home-made wines and beer, excellent maple-wine and beer might be produced at a very trifling expense; i.e. that of the labour and skill exercised in the making it. Every settler grows, as an ornament in his garden, or should grow, hops, which form one of the principal components of maple-beer when added to the sap. HOP-RISING. This excellent, and, I might add, indispensable, article in every settler's house, is a valuable substitute for ale or beer-yeast, and is made in the following simple manner:--Take two double handfuls of hops, boil in a gallon of soft water, if you can get it, till the hops sink to the bottom of the vessel; make ready a batter formed by stirring a dessert-platefull of flour and cold water till smooth and pretty thick together; strain the hop-liquor while scalding hot into the vessel where your batter is mixed ready; let one person pour the hop-liquor while the other keeps stirring the batter. When cooled down to a gentle warmth, so that you can bear the finger well in it, add a cup or basinful of the former barm, or a bit of leaven, to set it to work; let the barm stand till it has worked well, then bottle and cork it. Set it by in a cellar or cool place if in summer, and in winter it is also the best place to keep it from freezing. Some persons add two or three mealy potatoes boiled and finely bruised, and it is a great improvement during the cool months of the year. Potatoes in bread may be introduced very advantageously; and to first settlers, who have all their flour to buy, I think it must be a saving. The following method I found made more palatable and lighter bread than flour, mixed in the usual way:--Supposing I wanted to make up about a stone and half of flour, I boiled (having first pared them carefully)-- say three dozen good-sized potatoes in about three quarts or a gallon of water, till the liquor had the appearance of a thin gruel, and the potatoes had become almost entirely incorporated with the water. With this potatoe-gruel the flour was mixed up, no water being required, unless by chance I had not enough of the mixture to moisten my flour sufficiently. The same process of kneading, fermenting with barm, &c., is pursued with the dough, as with other bread. In baking, it turns of a bright light brown, and is lighter than bread made after the common process, and therefore I consider the knowledge of it serviceable to the emigrant's family. SALT-RISING. This is a barm much used by the Yanky settlers; but though the bread is decidedly whiter, and prettier to look at, than that raised in any other way, the peculiar flavour it imparts to the bread renders it highly disagreeable to some persons. Another disadvantage is, the difficulty of fermenting this barm in the winter season, as it requires a temperature which is very difficult to preserve in a Canadian winter day. Moreover, after the barm has once reached its height, unless immediately made use of, it sinks, and rises again no more: careful people, of course, who know this peculiarity, are on the watch, being aware of the ill consequences of heavy bread, or having no bread but bannocks in the house. As near as I can recollect, the salt-rising is made as follows:--For a small baking of two or three loaves, or one large bake-kettle-loaf, (about the size of a London peck loaf,) take about a pint of moderately warm water, (a pleasant heat to the hand,) and stir into the jug or pot containing it as much flour as will make a good batter, not too thick; add to this half a tea-spoon of salt, not more, and set the vessel in a pan of moderately warm water, within a little distance of the fire, or in the sun: the water that surrounds the pot in which your rising is, must never be allowed to cool much below the original heat, more warm water being added (in the pan, not to the barm) till the whole is in an active state of fermentation, which will be from six to eight hours, when the dough must be mixed with it, and as much warm water or milk as you require. Knead the mass till it is tough, and does not stick to the board. Make up your loaf or loaves, and keep them warmly covered near the fire till they rise: they must be baked directly this second rising takes place. Those that bake what I term a _shanty loaf_, in an iron bake-pot, or kettle, placed on the hot embers, set the dough to rise over a very few embers, or near the hot hearth, keeping the pot or pan turned as the loaf rises; when equally risen all over they put hot ashes beneath and upon the lid, taking care not to let the heat be too fierce at first. As this is the most common method of baking, and the first that a settler sees practised, it is as well they should be made familiar with it beforehand. At first I was inclined to grumble and rebel against the expediency of bake-pans or bake-kettles; but as cooking-stoves, iron ovens, and even brick and clay-built ovens, will not start up at your bidding in the bush, these substitutes are valuable, and perform a number of uses. I have eaten excellent light bread, baked on the emigrant's hearth in one of these kettles. I have eaten boiled potatoes, baked meats, excellent stews, and good soups, all cooked at different times in this universally useful utensil: so let it not be despised. It is one of those things peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of settlers in the bush before they have collected those comforts about their homesteads, within and without, that are the reward and the slow gleaning-up of many years of toil. There are several other sorts of rising similar to the salt-rising. "Milk-rising" which is mixed with milk, warm from the cow, and about a third warm water; and "bran-rising," which is made with bran instead of flour, and is preferred by many persons to either of the former kinds. SOFT SOAP. Of the making of soft soap I can give little or no correct information, never having been given any _certain_ rule myself, and my own experience is too limited. I was, however, given a hint from a professional gentleman, which I mean to act upon forthwith. Instead of boiling the soap, which is some trouble, he assured me the best plan was to run off the ley from a barrel of ashes: into this ley I might put four or five pounds of any sort of grease, such as pot skimmings, rinds of bacon, or scraps from frying down suet; in short any refuse of the kind would do. The barrel with its contents may then be placed in a secure situation in the garden or yard, exposed to the sun and air. In course of time the ley and grease become incorporated: if the grease predominates it will be seen floating on the surface; in such case add more ley; if the mixture does not thicken, add more grease. Now, this is the simplest, easiest, and clearest account I have yet received on the subject of soap-making, which hitherto has seemed a mystery, even though a good quantity was made last spring by one of my servants, and it turned out well: but she could not tell why it succeeded, for want of being able to explain the principle she worked from. CANDLES. Every one makes their own candles (i.e. if they have any materials to make them from). The great difficulty of making candies--and, as far as I see the only one, is procuring the tallow, which a bush-settler, until he begins to kill his own beef, sheep, and hogs, is rarely able to do, unless he buys; and a settler buys nothing that he can help. A cow, however, that is unprofitable, old, or unlikely to survive the severity of the coming winter, is often suffered to go dry during the summer, and get her own living, till she is fit to kill in the fall. Such an animal is often slaughtered very advantageously, especially if the settler have little fodder for his cattle. The beef is often excellent, and good store of candles and soap may be made from the inside fat. These candles, if made three parts beef- and one part hogs-lard, will burn better than any store-candles, and cost less than half price. The tallow is merely melted in a pot or pan convenient for the purpose, and having run the cotton wicks into the moulds (tin or pewter moulds for six candles cost three shillings at the stores, and last many, many years), a stick or skewer is passed through the loops of your wicks, at the upper part of the stand, which serve the purpose of drawing the candles. The melted fat, not too hot, but in a fluid state, is then poured into the moulds till they are full; as the fat gets cold it shrinks, and leaves a hollow at the top of the mould: this requires filling up when quite cold. If the candles do not draw readily, plunge the mould for an instant into hot water and the candles will come out easily. Many persons prefer making dip-candles for kitchen use; but for my own part I think the trouble quite as great, and give the preference, in point of neatness of look, to the moulds. It may be, my maid and I did not succeed so well in making the dips as the moulds. PICKLING. The great want of spring vegetables renders pickles a valuable addition to the table at the season when potatoes have become unfit and distasteful. If you have been fortunate in your maple-vinegar, a store of pickled cucumbers, beans, cabbage, &c. may be made during the latter part of the summer; but if the vinegar should not be fit at that time, there are two expedients: one is to make a good brine of boiled salt and water, into which throw your cucumbers, &c. (the cabbage, by the by, may be preserved in the root-house or cellar quite good, or buried in pits, well covered, till you want to make your pickle). Those vegetables, kept in brine, must be covered close, and when you wish to pickle them, remove the top layer, which are not so good; and having boiled the vinegar with spices let it stand till it is cold. The cucumbers should previously have been well washed, and soaked in two or three fresh waters, and drained; then put in a jar, and the cold vinegar poured over them. The advantage of this is obvious; you can pickle at any season. Another plan, and I have heard it much commended, is putting the cucumbers into a mixture of whiskey* and water, which in time turns to a fine vinegar, and preserves the colour and crispness of the vegetable; while the vinegar is apt to make them soft, especially if poured on boiling hot, as is the usual practice. [* In the "Backwoodsman," this whiskey-receipt is mentioned as an abominable compound: perhaps the witty author had tasted the pickles in an improper state of progression. He gives a lamentable picture of American cookery, but declares the badness arises from want of proper receipts. These yeast-receipts will be extremely useful in England; as the want of fresh yeast is often severely felt in country districts.] APPENDIX B. [In the wish to render this Work of more practical value to persons desiring to emigrate, some official information is subjoined, under the following heads:--] STATISTICS OF EMIGRATION. I. The number of Sales and Grants of Crown Lands, Clergy Reserves, Conditions, &c. II. Information for Emigrants; Number of Emigrants arrived; with extracts from Papers issued by Government Emigration Agents, &c. III. Abstract of the American Passengers' Act, of Session 1835. IV. Transfer of Capital. V. Canadian Currency. VI. Canada Company. VII. British American Land Company. =================================== I. SALES AND GRANTS OF CROWN LANDS. The following tables, abstracted from Parliamentary documents, exhibit-- 1. The quantity of Crown lands _sold_ in Upper and Lower Canada from 1828 to 1833, inclusive, with the average price per acre, &c. 2. Town and park lots sold in Upper Canada during the same period. 3. The quantity of Crown lands granted without purchase, and the conditions on which the grants were given, from 1824 to 1833, inclusive. 4. The amount of clergy reserves sold in each year since the sales commenced under the Act 7 and 8 Geo. IV., c. 62. --------------------------------------- CROWN LANDS SOLD FROM 1828 TO 1833, LOWER CANADA [Transcription note: The data presented below was originally in the conventional tabular row / column format.] Table Row 1, Column Headings Column 1: Year. Column 2: Number of acres sold. Column 3: Average price per acre. Column 4: Amount of purchase money received within the first year. Column 5: Amount of purchase money remitted to military purchasers within the first year. Column 6: Amount of quit-rent at 5 per cent on the purchase money received within the first year. Column 7: Whole amount of purchase money. Row 2 Column 1: 1828 Column 2: 20,011 acres Column 3: 4 shillings, 11 pence Column 4: 1,255 pounds, 14 shillings, 10 pence Column 5: -, -, - Column 6: 39 pounds, 12 shillings, 6 pence Column 7: 5,044 pounds, 9 shillings, 9 pence Row 3 Column 1: 1829 Column 2: 31,366 acres Column 3: 5 shillings, 2-3/4 pence Column 4: 466 pounds, 2 shillings, 11 pence Column 5: -, -, - Column 6: 307 pounds, 11 shillings, 0 pence Column 7: 7,469 pounds, 17 shillings, 7 pence Row 4 Column 1: 1830 Column 2: 28,077 acres Column 3: 5 shillings, 8-3/4 pence Column 4: 273 pounds, 10 shillings, 5 pence Column 5: -, -, - Column 6: 322 pounds, 3 shillings, 0 pence Column 7: 7,461 pounds, 13 shillings, 5 pence Row 5 Column 1: 1831 Column 2: 51,357 acres Column 3: 6 shillings, 1-3/4 pence Column 4: 815 pounds, 19 shillings, 8 pence Column 5: -, -, - Column 6: 484 pounds, 14 shillings, 7 pence Column 7: 12,442 pounds, 8 shillings, 0 pence Row 6 Column 1: 1832 Column 2: 24,074 acres Column 3: 6 shillings, 9-1/4 pence Column 4: 1,013 pounds, 1 shillings, 11 pence Column 5: 555 pounds, 11 shillings, 0 pence Column 6: 119 pounds, 2 shillings, 7 pence Column 7: 6,139 pounds, 0 shillings, 10 pence Row 7 Column 1: 1833 Column 2: 42,570 acres Column 3: 4 shillings, 2 pence Column 4: 1,975 pounds, 10 shillings, 11 pence Column 5: 1,936 pounds, 9 shillings, 3 pence Column 6: -, -, - Column 7: 7,549 pounds, 1 shillings, 5 pence Row 8 Column 1: Totals Column 2: 197,455 Column 3: -, - Column 4: -, -, - Column 5: -, -, - Column 6: -, -, - Column 7: 46,106 pounds, 11 shillings, 0 pence The conditions on which the land was sold were--on sales on instalments, to be paid within three years; or on sales on quit-rent, at 5 per cent., capital redeemable at pleasure. N.B. Sales on quit-rent ceased in 1832. --------------------------------------- CROWN LANDS SOLD FROM 1828 TO 1833, UPPER CANADA [Transcription note: The data presented below was originally in the conventional tabular row / column format.] Table Row 1, Column Headings Column 1: Year. Column 2: Number of acres sold. Column 3: Average price per acre. Column 4: Amount of purchase money received within the first year. Column 5: Whole amount of purchase money. Row 2 Column 1: 1829 Column 2: 3,893 acres Column 3: 15 shillings, 1-3/4 pence Column 4: 760 pounds, 6 shillings, 10 pence Column 5: 2,940 pounds, 17 shillings, 3 pence Row 3 Column 1: 1830 Column 2: 6,135 acres Column 3: 13 shillings, 8-1/2 pence Column 4: 1,350 pounds, 16 shillings, 6 pence Column 5: 4,209 pounds, 3 shillings, 0 pence Row 4 Column 1: 1831 Column 2: 4,357 acres Column 3: 11 shillings, 3-1/2 pence Column 4: 1,626 pounds, 15 shillings, 0 pence Column 5: 2,458 pounds, 1 shillings, 8 pence Row 5 Column 1: 1832 Column 2: 10,323 acres Column 3: 9 shillings, 1-1/2 pence Column 4: 2,503 pounds, 3 shillings, 5 pence Column 5: 4,711 pounds, 2 shillings, 9 pence Row 6 Column 1: 1833 Column 2: 26,376 acres Column 3: 8 shillings, 9-1/4 pence Column 4: 5,660 pounds, 8 shillings, 3 pence Column 5: 11,578 pounds, 19 shillings, 3 pence Row 7 Column 1: Totals Column 2: 51,074 acres Column 3: - Column 4: - Column 5: 25,898 pounds, 3 shillings, 11 pence Interest is now exacted on the instalments paid. Three years is the number within which the whole amount of the purchase money is to be paid. The sales of town lots, water lots, and park lots, in Upper Canada, are not included in this table, on account of the disproportionate effect which the comparatively large sums paid for these small lots would have on the average price per acre. They are given, therefore, separately, in the following table:- --------------------------------------- TOWN AND PARK LOTS SOLD IN UPPER CANADA FROM 1828 TO 1833 [Transcription note: The data presented below was originally in the conventional tabular row / column format.] [TABLE] Row 1, Column Headings Column 1: Year. Column 2: Number of acres sold. Column 3: Average price per acre. Column 4: Amount of purchase money received within the first year. Column 5: Whole amount of purchase money. Row 2 Column 1: 1828 Column 2: 2 acres Column 3: 126 pounds, 0 shillings, 0 pence Column 4: 63 pounds, 0 shillings, 0 pence Column 5: 252 pounds, 0 shillings, 0 pence Row 3 Column 1: 1829 Column 2: - Column 3: -, - Column 4: 63 pounds, 0 shillings, 0 pence Column 5: -, -, - Row 4 Column 1: 1830 Column 2: 19 acres Column 3: 10 pounds, 10 shillings, 6-1/2 pence Column 4: 55 pounds, 0 shillings, 0 pence Column 5: 20 pounds, 0 shillings, 0 pence Row 5 Column 1: 1831 Column 2: 3 acres Column 3: 8 pounds, 7 shillings, 6-1/2 pence Column 4: 95 pounds*, 12 shillings, 8 pence Column 5: 25 pounds, 2 shillings, 8 pence Row 6 Column 1: 1832 Column 2: 30 acres Column 3: 15 pounds, 18 shillings, 6 pence Column 4: 81 pounds, 18 shillings, 9 pence Column 5: 327 pounds, 15 shillings, 0 pence Row 7 Column 1: 1833 Column 2: 114 acres Column 3: 14 pounds, 13 shillings, 9 pence Column 4: 634 pounds, 8 shillings, 6 pence Column 5: 1,674 pounds, 9 shillings, 0 pence Row 7 Column 1: Totals Column 2: 168 acres Column 3: -,-,- Column 4: -,-,- Column 5: 2,479 pounds, 6 shillings, 8 pence There were no sales in 1829. The 63 pounds currency paid that year was paid as instalments on lots sold in the previous year. The whole amount of the purchase money to be paid within three years. *Note.--It is so given in the Parliamentary Return, but probably the 9 should be 1. --------------------------------------- The following exhibits the quantity of Crown Lands granted, and the conditions on which the grants were given, from 1823 to 1833. [TABLE] LOWER CANADA [Transcription note: The data presented below was originally in the conventional tabular row / column format.] Row 1, Column Headings Column 1: Year. Column 2: Number of acres granted to militia claimants. Column 3: Number of acres granted to discharged soldiers and pensioners. Column 4: Number of acres granted to officers. Column 5: Number of acres granted, not coming within the previous descriptions. Column 6: Total number of acres granted. Row 2 Column 1: 1824 Column 2: 51,810 Column 3: - Column 4: 4,100 Column 5: 34,859 Column 6: 90,769 Row 3 Column 1: 1825 Column 2: 32,620 Column 3: - Column 4: 1,000 Column 5: 16,274 Column 6: 49,894 Row 4 Column 1: 1826 Column 2: 3,525 Column 3: 5,500 Column 4: - Column 5: 48,224 Column 6: 57,249 Row 5 Column 1: 1827 Column 2: 7,640 Column 3: 6,300 Column 4: 800 Column 5: 38,378 Column 6: 53,118 Row 6 Column 1: 1828 Column 2: 7,300 Column 3: - Column 4: 4,504 Column 5: 9,036 Column 6: 20,840 Row 7 Column 1: 1829 Column 2: 3,200 Column 3: - Column 4: - Column 5: 5,282 Column 6: 8,482 Row 8 Column 1: 1830 Column 2: 81,425 Column 3: - Column 4: 2,000 Column 5: 10,670 Column 6: 94,095 Row 9 Column 1: 1831 Column 2: 9,400 Column 3: 8,273 Column 4: 3,408 Column 5: 9,900 Column 6: 30,981 Row 10 Column 1: 1832 Column 2: 10,116 Column 3: 19,000 Column 4: 4,000 Column 5: 4,000 Column 6: 37,116 Row 11 Column 1: 1833 Column 2: 5,200 Column 3: 22,500 Column 4: 1,200 Column 5: - Column 6: 28,900 Row 12 Column 1: Totals Column 2: 212,236 Column 3: 61,573 Column 4: 21,012 Column 5: 176,623 Column 6: 471,444 _Settler's Conditions_.--That he do clear twenty feet of road on his lot within the space of ninety days. Military & Militia conditions.--That he do, within the space of three years, clear and cultivate four acres of his lot, and build a dwelling- house thereon. --------------------------------------- [TABLE] UPPER CANADA [Transcription note: The data presented below was originally in the conventional tabular row / column format.] Row 1, Column Headings Column 1: Year. Column 2: Number of acres granted to militia claimants. Column 3: Number of acres granted to discharged soldiers and pensioners. Column 4: Number of acres granted to officers. Column 5: Number of acres granted, not coming within the previous descriptions. Column 6: Number of acres granted to U.E. Loyalists.* Column 7: Total number of acres granted. Row 2 Column 1: 1824 Column 2: 11,800 Column 3: 5,800 Column 4: 5,500 Column 5: 134,500 Column 6: 30,200 Column 7: 187,800 Row 3 Column 1: 1825 Column 2: 20,300 Column 3: 5,700 Column 4: 8,100 Column 5: 149,060 Column 6: 45,000 Column 7: 228,160 Row 4 Column 1: 1826 Column 2: 16,600 Column 3: 3,100 Column 4: 4,700 Column 5: 19,390 Column 6: 24,800 Column 7: 68,590 Row 5 Column 1: 1827 Column 2: 10,900 Column 3: 4,200 Column 4: 7,200 Column 5: 33,600 Column 6: 20,200 Column 7: 76,100 Row 6 Column 1: 1828 Column 2: 10,800 Column 3: 900 Column 4: 3,000 Column 5: 4,304 Column 6: 30,800 Column 7: 49,804 Row 7 Column 1: 1829 Column 2: 5,300 Column 3: 7,500 Column 4: 8,400 Column 5: 3,230 Column 6: 22,600 Column 7: 47,030 Row 8 Column 1: 1830 Column 2: 6,400 Column 3: 12,500 Column 4: 12,600 Column 5: 9,336 Column 6: 27,400 Column 7: 68,236 Row 9 Column 1: 1831 Column 2: 5,500 Column 3: 58,400 Column 4: 7,200 Column 5: 8,000 Column 6: 34,200 Column 7: 113,300 Row 10 Column 1: 1832 Column 2: 19,300 Column 3: 97,800 Column 4: 7,600 Column 5: 6,100 Column 6: 62,600 Column 7: 193,400 Row 11 Column 1: 1833 Column 2: 35,200 Column 3: 46,000 Column 4: - Column 5: 9,100 Column 6: 135,600 Column 7: 225,900 Row 12 Column 1: Totals Column 2: 142,100 Column 3: 241,900 Column 4: 64,300 Column 5: 376,620 Column 6: 433,400 Column 7: 1,258,320 _Condition_. - Actual settlement. * U.E. Loyalists means United English Loyalists--individuals who fled from the United States on the breaking out of the American war of independence. The grants in the above column are mostly to the children of these individuals. --------------------------------------- The conditions in force in 1824, the time from which the Returns take their commencement, were enacted by Orders in Council of 20th October, 1818, and 21st February, 1820, applied equally to all classes of grantees, and were as follows:-- "That locatees shall clear thoroughly and fence five acres for every 100 acres granted; and build a house 16 feet by 20 in the clear; and to clear one-half of the road, and chop down, without charring, one chain in depth across the lot next to road. These road duties to be considered as part of the five acres per 100. The whole to be completed within two years from date of the location, and upon proof of their fulfilment patents to issue. "On the 14th of May, 1830, an additional stipulation was made in locations to discharged soldiers, which required an actual residence on their lots, in person, for five years before the issue of their patents. "On the 14th of November, 1830, the then existing Orders in Council, respecting settlement duties, were cancelled, and it was ordered that in lieu thereof each locatee should clear half the road in front of his lot, and from 10 feet in the centre of the road cut the stumps so low that waggon wheels might pass over them. Upon proof of this, and that a settler had been resident on the lot two years, a patent might issue. Locatees, however, were at liberty, instead of placing settlers on their lands, to clear, in addition to half the road on each lot, a chain in depth across the front, and to sow it and the road with grass seed. "Upon discharged soldiers and seamen alone, under this order, it became imperative to reside on and improve their lands three years before the issue of the patent. "On the 24th of May, 1832, an Order in Council was made, abolishing, in all cases except that of discharged soldiers and seamen, the regulations previously existing; and which directed that, upon proof of an actual settler being established on a lot, a patent should issue without the condition of settlement duty." The following extract is taken from "official information" circulated by Mr. Buchanan, and other Government emigration agents in Canada:-- "Emigrants, wishing to obtain fertile lands in the Canadas in a wild state by purchase from the Crown, may rely on every facility being afforded them by the public authorities. Extensive tracts are surveyed and offered for sale in Upper Canada monthly, and frequently every 10 or 14 days, by the Commissioner of Crown lands, at upset prices, varying according to situation from 10 shillings to 15 shillings per acre, excepting in the townships of Sunnidale and Nottawasaga, where the upset price of Crown lands is 5 shillings only. In Lower Canada, the Commissioner of Crown lands at Quebec puts up land for sale, at fixed periods, in various townships, at from 2 shillings 6 pence to 12 shillings 6 pence Halifax currency, per acre, payable by instalments. Wild lands may also be purchased from the Upper Canada Company on very easy terms, and those persons wanting improved farms will find little difficulty in obtaining such from private proprietors. On no account enter into any final engagement for your lands or farms _without personal examination_, and be certain of the following qualifications:-- "1. A healthy situation. "2. Good land. "3. A pure spring, or running stream of water. "4. In the neighbourhood of a good, moral, and religious state of society, and schools for the education of your children. "5. As near good roads and water transport as possible, saw and grist mills. "6. A good title." ======================================= Clergy Reserves sold in each year since the sales commenced under the Act 7 and 8, Geo. IV. c. 62 LOWER CANADA [TABLE] [Transcription note: The data presented below was originally in the conventional tabular row / column format.] Row 1, Column Headings Column 1: Year. Column 2: Number of acres sold. Column 3: Average price per acre. Column 4: Amount of purchase-money received within the first year. Column 5: Whole amount of the purchase-money. Row 2 Column 1: 1829 Column 2: 1,100 acres Column 3: 4 shillings, 6 pence Column 4: 10 pounds, 0 shillings, 0 pence Column 5: 230 pounds, 0 shillings, 0 pence* Row 3 Column 1: 1830 Column 2: 9,956 acres Column 3: 4 shillings, 9 pence Column 4: 543 pounds, 17 shillings, 0 pence Column 5: 1,610 pounds, 3 shillings, 0 pence* Row 4 Column 1: 1831 Column 2: 11,332 acres Column 3: 7 shillings, 2-3/4 pence Column 4: 541 pounds, 7 shillings, 6 pence Column 5: 2,665 pounds, 9 shillings, 3 pence* Row 5 Column 1: 1832 Column 2: 6,873 acres Column 3: 5 shillings, 8-1/2 pence Column 4: 533 pounds, 2 shillings, 2 pence Column 5: 1,278 pounds, 11 shillings, 8 pence Row 6 Column 1: 1833 Column 2: 37,278 acres Column 3: 8 shillings, 2-1/4 pence Column 4: 3,454 pounds, 11 shillings, 6 pence Column 5: 12,791 pounds, 17 shillings, 5 pence Row 7 Column 1: Totals Column 2: 66,539 acres Column 3: - Column 4: - Column 5: 18,576 pounds, 1 shillings, 4 pence The number of years within which the whole amount of the purchase-money is to be paid is three. * On sales on quit rent, at 5 per cent., the capital redeemable at pleasure. N.B. Sales on quit-rent ceased in 1832. --------------------------------------- UPPER CANADA [TABLE] [Transcription note: The data presented below was originally in the conventional tabular row / column format.] Row 1, Column Headings Column 1: Year. Column 2: Number of acres sold. Column 3: Average price per acre. Column 4: Amount of purchase-money received within the first year. Column 5: Whole amount of the purchase-money. Row 2 Column 1: 1829 Column 2: 18,014 acres Column 3: 14 shillings, 8-1/4 pence Column 4: 2,464 pounds, 14 shillings, 0 pence Column 5: 13,229 pounds, 0 shillings, 0 pence Row 3 Column 1: 1830 Column 2: 34,705 Column 3: 13 shillings, 6 pence Column 4: 6,153 pounds, 5 shillings, 9 pence Column 5: 23,452 pounds, 4 shillings, 0 pence Row 4 Column 1: 1831 Column 2: 28,563 acres Column 3: 12 shillings, 1-3/4 pence Column 4: 8,010 pounds, 2 shillings, 11 pence Column 5: 17,362 pounds, 12 shillings, 1 pence Row 6 Column 1: 1832 Column 2: 48,484 acres Column 3: 13 shillings, 3-3/4 pence Column 4: 10,239 pounds, 9 shillings, 7 pence Column 5: 32,287 pounds, 19 shillings, 0 pence Row 7 Column 1: 1833 Column 2: 62,282 acres Column 3: 14 shillings, 4-1/2 pence Column 4: 14,080 pounds, 16 shillings, 8 pence Column 5: 44,747 pounds, 19 shillings, 9 pence Row 8 Column 1: Totals Column 2: 192,049 acres Column 3: - Column 4: - Column 5: 131,079 pounds, 14 shillings, 10 pence The whole amount of the purchase-money to be paid in nine years. In addition to the purchase-money paid, interest has also been paid with each instalment, a statement of which is as follows:-- Interest received in 1829: 1 pound, 7 shillings, 3 pence currency. Interest received in 1830: 62 pound, 16 shillings, 1 pence currency. Interest received in 1831: 259 pound, 14 shillings, 9 pence currency. Interest received in 1832: 473 pound, 17 shillings, 2 pence currency. Interest received in 1833: 854 pound, 4 shillings, 3 pence currency. ======================================= II. INFORMATION FOR EMIGRANTS In the year 1832 a little pamphlet of advice to emigrants was issued by his Majesty's Commissioners for Emigration*, which contained some useful information in a small compass. The Commission no longer exists. In lieu of it, J. Denham Pinnock, Esq., has been appointed by Government His Majesty's agent for the furtherance of emigration from England to the British Colonies. Letters on the subject of emigration should be addressed to this gentleman at the Colonial Office, under cover to the Colonial Secretary of State. One chief object of his appointment is to afford facilities and information to parish authorities and landed proprietors desirous of furthering the emigration of labourers and others from their respective districts, especially with reference to the emigration clause of the Poor Laws Amendment Act. The following Government emigration agents have also been appointed at the respective ports named:-- Liverpool ...Lieut. Low, R.N. Bristol ... Lieut. Henry, R.N. Leith ... Lieut. Forrest, R.N. Greenock ... Lieut. Hemmans, R.N. Dublin ... Lieut. Hodder, R.N. Cork ... Lieut. Friend, R.N. Limerick ... Lieut. Lynch, R.N. Belfast ... Lieut. Millar, R.N. Sligo ... Lieut. Shuttleworth, R.N. And at Quebec, A. C. Buchanan, Esq., the chief Government emigration agent, will afford every information to all emigrants who seek his advice. [* "Information published by His Majesty's Commissioners for Emigration, respecting the British Colonies in North America." London, C. Knight, 1832. Price _twopence_.] The following is an extract from the pamphlet published in 1832:-- "Passages to Quebec or New Brunswick may either be engaged _inclusive_ of provisions, or _exclusive_ of provisions, in which case the ship- owner finds nothing but water, fuel, and bed places, without bedding. Children under 14 years of age are charged one-half, and under 7 years of age one-third of the full price, and for children under 12 months of age no charge is made. Upon these conditions the price of passage from London, or from places on the east coast of Great Britain, has generally been 6 pounds with provisions, or 3 pounds without. From Liverpool, Greenock, and the principal ports of Ireland, as the chances of delay are fewer, the charge is somewhat lower; this year [1832] it will probably be from 2 pounds to 2 pounds, 10 shillings without provisions, or from 4 pounds to 5 pounds, including provisions. It is possible that in March and April passages may be obtained from Dublin for 1 pound, 15 shillings or even 1 pound, 10 shillings; but the prices always grow higher as the season advances. In ships sailing from Scotland or Ireland, it has mostly been the custom for passengers to find their own provisions; but this practice has not been so general in London, and some shipowners, sensible of the dangerous mistakes which may be made in this matter through ignorance, are very averse to receive passengers who will not agree to be victualled by the ship. Those who do resolve to supply their own provisions, should at least be careful not to lay in an insufficient stock; fifty days is the shortest period for which it is safe to provide, and from London the passage is sometimes prolonged to seventy-five days. The best months for leaving England are certainly March and April; the later emigrants do not find employment so abundant, and have less time in the colony before the commencement of winter." From a printed paper, issued by Mr. Buchanan at Quebec, the following statements are taken: (the paper is dated July, 1835). "There is nothing of more importance to emigrants, on arrival at Quebec, than correct information on the leading points connected with their future pursuits. Many have suffered much by a want of caution, and by listening to the opinions of interested, designing characters, who frequently offer their advice unsolicited, and who are met generally about wharfs and landing-places frequented by strangers: to guard emigrants from falling into such errors, they should, immediately on arrival at Quebec, proceed to the office of the chief agent for emigrants, Sault-au-Matelot Street, Lower Town, where every information requisite for their future guidance in either getting settlements on lands, or obtaining employment in Upper or Lower Canada, will be obtained _gratis_. On your route from Quebec to your destination you will find many plans and schemes offered to your consideration, but turn away from them unless you are well satisfied of the purity of the statements: on all occasions when you stand in need of advice, apply only to the Government agents, who will give every information required, _gratis_. "Emigrants are informed that they may remain on board ship 48 hours after arrival, nor can they be deprived of any of their usual accommodations for cooking or berthing during that period, and the master of the ship is bound to disembark the emigrants and their baggage _free of expense_, at the usual landing places, and at seasonable hours. _They should avoid drinking the water of the river St. Lawrence, which has a strong tendency to produce bowel complaints in strangers_. "Should you require to change your English money, go to some respectable merchant or dealer, or the banks: the currency in the Canadas is at the rate of 5 shillings the dollar, and is called Halifax currency; at present the gold sovereign is worth, in Quebec and Montreal, about 1 pound, 4 shillings, 1 pence currency. In New York 8 shillings is calculated for the dollar, hence many are deceived when hearing of the rates of labour, &c.--5 shillings in Canada is equal to 8 shillings in New York; thus 8 shillings New York currency is equivalent to 5 shillings Halifax currency. "Emigrants who wish to settle in Lower Canada or to obtain employment, are informed that many desirable situations are to be met with. Wild lands may be obtained by purchase from the Commissioner of Crown Lands in various townships in the province, and the British American Land Company are making extensive preparations for selling lands and farms in the Eastern Townships to emigrants. "Farm labourers are much wanted in all the districts of Upper Canada, and, if industrious, they may be sure of obtaining very high wages; mechanics of almost every description, and good servants, male and _female_, are much in request. "Emigrants proceeding to Upper Canada, either by the Ottawa or St. Lawrence route, are advised to supply themselves with provisions at Montreal, such as bread, tea, sugar, and butter, which they will purchase cheaper and of _better quality_, until they reach Kingston, than along the route. They are also particularly cautioned against the use of _ardent spirits or drinking cold river water_, or lying on the banks of the river exposed to the night dews; they should proceed at once from the steam-boat at Montreal to _the entrance of the Canal_ or Lachine, from whence the Durham and steam-boats start for Prescott and Bytown daily. The total expense for the transport of an adult emigrant from Quebec to Toronto and the head of Lake Ontario, by steam and Durham-boats, will not exceed 1 pound, 4 shillings currency, or 1 pound, 1 shilling sterling. Kingston, Belleville, up the Bay of Quinte, Cobourgh, and Port Hope, in the Newcastle district, Hamilton and Niagara at the head of Lake Ontario, will be convenient stopping-places for families intending to purchase lands in Upper Canada. "There is considerable competition among the Forwarding Companies at Montreal; emigrants therefore had better exercise a little caution before agreeing for their transport to Prescott or Kingston, and they should avoid those persons that crowd on board the steam-boats on arrival at Montreal, offering their services to get passages, &c. Caution is also necessary at Prescott or Kingston, in selecting regular conveyances up Lake Ontario. I would particularly advise emigrants destined for Upper Canada, not to incur the expense of lodging or delay at Montreal, but to proceed on arrival of the steam-boat to the barges for Bytown or Prescott. "Labourers or mechanics dependent on immediate employment, are requested to proceed immediately on arrival into the country. The chief agent will consider such persons as may loiter about the ports of landing beyond _four days_ after their arrival, to have no further claims on the protection of his Majesty's agents for assistance or employment, unless they have been detained by sickness or some other satisfactory cause." --------------------------------------- Comparative Statement of the number of Emigrants arrived at Quebec from 1829 to 1834 inclusive:-- [TABLE] [Transcription note: The data presented below was originally in the conventional tabular row / column format.] England and Wales 1829: 3,565 1830: 6,799 1831: 10,343 1832: 17,481 1833: 5,198 1834: 6,799 Ireland 1829: 9,614 1830: 18,300 1831: 34,133 1832: 28,204 1833: 12,013 1834: 19,206 Scotland 1829: 2,643 1830: 2,450 1831: 5,354 1832: 5,500 1833: 4,196 1834: 4,591 Hamburg & Gibraltar. 1832: 15 Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, West Indies, &c. 1829: 123 1830: 451 1831: 424 1832: 546 1833: 345 1834: 339 Totals 1829: 15,945 1830: 28,000 1831: 50,254 1832: 51,746 1833: 21,752 1834: 30,935 The total number of emigrants arrived at Quebec, from 1829 to 1834, is 198,632. It will be remarked, that the number rose high in 1831 and 1832, and fell very low in 1833. --------------------------------------- Distribution of the 30,935 Emigrants who arrived at Quebec during 1834:- LOWER CANADA. City and District of Quebec: 1,500 District of Three Rivers: 350 District of St. Francis and Eastern Townships: 640 City and District of Montreal: 1,200 Ottawa District: 400 Total to Lower Canada: 4,090 UPPER CANADA. Ottawa, Bathurst, Midland and Eastern Districts, as far as Kingston, included: 1,000 District of Newcastle, and Townships in the vicinity of the Bay of Quinte: 2,650 Toronto and the Home District, including Settlements around Lake Simco: 8,000 Hamilton, Guelph, and Huron Tracts, and situations adjacent: 2,660 Niagara Frontier and District, including the line of the Welland Canal, and round the head of Lake Ontario, to Hamilton: 3,300 Settlements bordering on Lake Erie, including the London District, Adelaide Settlement, and on to Lake St. Clair: 4,600 Total to Upper Canada: 22,210 Died of cholera in Upper and Lower Canada: 800 Returned to United Kingdom: 350 Went to the United States: 3,485 [Total:] 4,635 --------------------------------------- Of the number of 30,935 Emigrants who arrived at Quebec in 1834, there were of:-- Voluntary emigrants: 29,041 Assisted by parochial aid: 1,892 Number of males: 13,565 Number of females: 9,683 Number of children under fourteen years of age: 7,681 Emigrants who prefer going into Canada by way of New York will receive advice and direction by applying to the British Consul at New York (James Buchanan, Esq.) Formerly this gentleman could procure for emigrants who were positively determined to settle in the Canadas, permission to land their baggage and effects free of custom-house duty; but in a letter dated 16th March, 1835, he says:-- "In consequence of a change in the truly liberal course heretofore adopted at this port, in permitting, without unpacking or payment of duty, of the personal baggage, household, and farming utensils of emigrants landing here to pass in transit through this state to his Majesty's provinces, upon evidence being furnished of the fact, and that such packages alone contained articles of the foregoing description, I deem it my duty to make known that all articles arriving at this port accompanying emigrants in transit to Canada, will be subject to the same inspection as if to remain in the United States, and pay the duties to which the same are subjected. I think it proper to mention that all articles suited to new settlers are to be had in Canada on better terms than they can be brought out--and such as are adapted to the country." The difference between proceeding to Upper Canada by way of Quebec and New York, consists chiefly in the circumstance that the port of New York is open all the year round, while the navigation of the St. Lawrence up to Quebec and Montreal is tedious, and the river is only open between seven and eight months of the year. The latter is, however, the cheapest route. But to those who can afford it, New York is the most comfortable as well as the most expeditious way of proceeding to Upper Canada. The route, as given in a printed paper, distributed by the British consul at New York, is as follows:-- "Route from New York and Albany by the Erie Canal to all parts of Upper Canada, west of Kingston, by the way of Oswego and Buffalo:-- New York to Albany, 160 miles by steam-boat. Albany to Utica, 110 do. by canal or stage. Utica to Syracuse, 55 do. by canal or stage. Syracuse to Oswego, 40 do. by canal or stage. Syracuse to Rochester, 99 do. by canal or stage. Rochester to Buffalo, 93 do. by canal or stage. Total expense from Albany to Buffalo, by canal, exclusive of victuals for an adult steerage passenger--time going about 7 or 8 days--3 dollars 63 cents; ditto by packet-boats, and found, 12-1/4 dollars, 6 days going. "Ditto do. by stage, in 3-1/2 and 4 days--13 to 15 dollars. "Ditto do. from Albany to Oswego by canal, 5 days going, 2-1/2 dollars. "Ditto do. by stage, 2 days--6-1/2 to 7 dollars. "No extra charge for a moderate quantity of baggage. "Route from New York to Montreal, Quebec, and all parts of Lower Canada:-- "New York to Albany, 160 miles by steam-boat, 1 to 3 dollars, exclusive of food. "Albany to Whitehall, by canal, 73 miles, 1 dollar; stage 3 dollars. "Whitehall to St. John's, by steam-boat, board included, cabin 5 dollars; deck passage 2 dollars without board. "St. John's to Laprairie, 16 miles per stage, 5 shillings to 7 shillings 6 pence. "Laprairie to Montreal, per ferry steam-boat, 8 miles. 6 pence. "Montreal to Quebec, by steam-boat, 180 miles, cabin, found, 1 pound, 5 shillings; deck passage, not found, 7 shillings 6 pence. "Those proceeding to the eastern townships of Lower Canada, in the vicinity of Sherbrooke, Stanstead, &c., &c., will proceed to St. John's, from whence good roads lead to all the settled townships eastward. If they are going to the Ottawa River, they will proceed from Montreal and Lachine, from whence stages, steamboats, and batteaux go daily to Grenville, Hull, and Bytown, as also to Chateauguay, Glengary, Cornwall, Prescott, and all parts below Kingston. "Emigrants can avail themselves of the advice and assistance of the following gentlemen:--at Montreal, Carlisle Buchanan, Esq.; Prescott, John Patton, Esq." --------------------------------------- Number of Emigrants who arrived at New York from the United Kingdom for six years, from 1829 to 1834:-- [TABLE] [Transcription note: The data presented below was originally in the conventional tabular row / column format.] Row 1. Headings Column 1: Year. Column 2: England. Column 3: Ireland. Column 4: Scotland. Column 5: Total. Row 2 Column 1: 1829 Column 2: 8,110 Column 3: 2,443 Column 4: 948 Column 5: 11,501 Row 3 Column 1: 1830 Column 2: 16,350 Column 3: 3,497 Column 4: 1,584 Column 5: 21,433 Row 4 Column 1: 1831 Column 2: 13,808 Column 3: 6,721 Column 4: 2,078 Column 5: 22,607 Row 5 Column 1: 1832 Column 2: 18,947 Column 3: 6,050 Column 4: 3,286 Column 5: 28,283 Row 6 Column 1: 1833 Column 2: - Column 3: - Column 4: - Column 5: 16,000 Row 7 Column 1: 1834* Column 2: - Column 3: - Column 4: - Column 5: 26,540 Row 8 Column 1: Total Column 2: - Column 3: - Column 4: - Column 5: 126,464 * The returns for 1834 are made up to the 20th November of that year. ======================================= III. AMERICAN PASSENGERS' ACT. The 9th Geo. IV., c. 21, commonly called the "American Passengers' Act," was repealed during the Session of 1835, by an Act then passed, the 5 and 6 Will. IV., c. 53. The intention of the new Act is, of course, to secure, as effectually as possible, and more effectually than the previous Act did, the health and comfort of emigrants on board of passenger ships. By a clause of the Act, copies or abstracts are to be kept on board ships for the perusal of passengers, who may thus have an opportunity of judging whether the law has been complied with; but the discovery of any infractions of the Statute may be made at a time when, in the particular instance, it may be too late to remedy it, so far as the comfort and even the health of the passengers are concerned. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the humane intentions of the legislature will not be frustrated by any negligence on the part of those (especially of the officers of customs) whose business it is to see that the regulations of the Act have been complied with before each emigrant ship leaves port. No passenger ship is to sail with more than three persons on board for every five tons of registered burthen. Nor, whatever may be the tonnage, is there to be a greater number of passengers on board than after the rate of one person for every ten superficial feet of the lower deck or platform unoccupied by goods or stores, not being the personal luggage of the passengers. Ships with more than one deck to have five feet and a half, at the least, between decks; and where a ship has only one deck, a platform is to be laid beneath the deck in such a manner as to afford a space of the height of at least five feet and a half, and no such ship to have more than two tiers of berths. Ships having two tiers of berths to have an interval of at least six inches between the deck or platform, and the floor of the lower tier throughout the whole extent. Passenger ships are to be provisioned in the following proportion:--pure water, to the amount of five gallons, to every week of the computed voyage, for each passenger--the water to be carried in tanks or sweet casks; seven pounds' weight of bread, biscuit, oatmeal, or bread stuffs, to every week for each passenger; potatoes may be included to one-third of the extent of supply, but seven pounds' weight of potatoes are to be reckoned equal to one pound of bread or bread stuffs. The voyage to North America is to be computed at ten weeks, by which each passenger will be secured fifty gallons of water, and seventy pounds weight of bread or bread stuffs for the voyage. Where there are 100 passengers, a medical practitioner is to be carried; if under 100, medicines of sufficient amount and kind are to be taken out as part of the necessary supplies. Passenger ships are not to be allowed to carry out ardent spirits as merchandise beyond one-tenth of the quantity as would, but for this restriction, be allowed by the officers of the customs upon the victualling bill of such ship for the outward voyage only, according to the number of passengers. [An important restriction, which ought to be enforced to the letter of the law. The strong temptation which the tedium of a voyage presents to numbers pinned up in a small space to resort to drinking, has frequently made sad havoc of the money, comfort, and health of emigrants, when, especially, the ship steward has contrived to lay in a good stock of strong waters.] In the enumeration of passengers, _two_ children above seven, but under fourteen, or _three_ under seven years of age, are to be reckoned as one passenger. Infants under 12 months are not to be included in the enumeration. Passengers are entitled to be maintained on board for 48 hours after the ship has arrived at her destination. [Emigrants whose means are limited may thus avoid much inconvenience and expense, by planning and executing with promptitude the route which they mean to take, instead of landing, and loitering in the expensive houses of entertainment of a sea-port.] Masters of ships are to enter into bonds of 1,000 pounds for the due performance of the provisions of the Act. The penalty on any infraction of the law is to be not less than 5 pounds, nor more than 20 pounds for each offence. [The government emigration agents at the various ports, or the officers of customs, will doubtless give every facility to passengers who seek their advice relative to any violation of the provisions of the Act, and point out the proper course to be taken.] If there be any doubt that a ship about to sail is not sea-worthy, the collector and comptroller of the customs may cause the vessel to be surveyed. Passengers detained beyond the time contracted for to sail, are to be maintained at the expense of the master of the ship; or, if they have contracted to victual themselves, they are to be paid 1 shilling each for each day of detention not caused by stress of weather or other unavoidable cause. ======================================= IV. TRANSFER OF CAPITAL. It is, of course, of the greatest importance to emigrants that whatever capital they may possess, over the necessary expenses of the voyage, &c., should be remitted to Canada in the _safest_ and most _profitable_ manner. Both the British American Land Company and the Canada Company afford facilities to emigrants, by receiving deposits and granting letters of credit on their agents in Canada, by which the emigrants obtain the benefit of the current premium of exchange. It is unsafe and injudicious to carry out a larger amount of specie than what will defray the necessary expenses of the voyage, because a double risk is incurred,--the danger of losing, and the temptation of squandering. The emigrant, therefore, who does not choose to remit his money through either of the before-mentioned companies, should procure a letter of credit from some respectable bank in the United Kingdom on the Montreal bank. ======================================= V. CANADIAN CURRENCY. In all the British North American colonies accounts are kept and prices are quoted in pounds, shillings, and pence, as in England. The accounts are contra-distinguished by calling the former currency, or Halifax currency, and the latter sterling or British sterling. The one pound Halifax currency, or currency, as it is more commonly called, consists of four Spanish dollars. The dollar is divided into five parts--called in Spanish pistoreens--each of which is termed a shilling. Each of these shillings or pistoreens is again subdivided into twelve parts, called pence, but improperly, for there is no coin answering to any such subdivision. To meet the want a great variety of copper coins are used, comprising the old English halfpenny, the halfpenny of later coinage, the penny, the farthing, the American cent.; all and each pass as the twenty-fourth part of the pistoreen or colonial shilling. Pence in fact are not known, though almost anything of the copper kind will be taken as the twenty-fourth part of the pistoreen.* [* The Americans also have their 1 shilling, which is the eighth part of a dollar, or 12-1/2 cents. It is no uncommon thing to hear the emigrant boast that he can get 10 shillings per day in New York. He knows not that a dollar, which is equal to eight of these shillings, is in England equivalent but to 4 shillings 2 pence, and that the American shilling is, therefore, when compared with the English shilling in value, only 6-1/4 pence, and consequently, that 10 shillings a day is, in fact, but ten 6-1/4 pence or 5 shillings 2-1/2 pence. This rate of payment it may be said is still great; so it is, but it is not often obtained by the labourer; when it is, it is for excessive labour, under a burning sun in sea-port towns, during the busy shipping season.] At a time when the Spanish dollar, the piece of eight, as it was then called, was both finer and heavier than the coin now in circulation, its value at the mint price of silver** was found to be 4 shilling 6 pence sterling. Accordingly, the pound currency was fixed at 18 shillings sterling, and 90 pounds sterling was equal to 100 pounds currency, the rules of conversion being, _add one-ninth to sterling to obtain currency, and deduct one tenth from currency to find the sterling_. This was called the par of exchange, and was so then. So long as it continued correct, fluctuations were from a trifle above, to a trifle below par, and this fluctuation was a real _premium_ or _discount_, governed by the cost of the transportation of bullion from the one to the other side of the Atlantic, an expense which now does not exceed, and rarely equals, 2 per cent. 4 shilling 6 pence has long ceased to be the value of the dollar. Both the weight and purity of the coin have been reduced, until its value in the London market*** is not more than 4 shillings 2 pence, the pound currency being consequently reduced to 16 shillings 8 pence sterling and 100 pounds sterling become equivalent to 120 pounds currency, or 480 dollars, the common average rate now given for the 100 pounds sterling bill of exchange in England. [** The mint price then coincided more nearly with the market price than at present.] [*** It is necessary to use the market price, as the difference between the mint and the market price is 4 per cent., and as the Spanish dollar possesses no conventional value, it is only worth what it will bring as an article of traffic.] The Government, however, still sanction, nay, will not change, the old language, so that the difference is made up by adding what is commonly termed a _premium_. The difference between the _real_ par, 4 shillings 2 pence, and the nominal par, 4 shillings 6 pence, is 4 pence or eight per cent. Thus the fluctuations, instead of being from 1 to 2 per cent. below, to 1 or 2 per cent. above the _real_ par, are from 1 to 2 per cent. below, to 1 to 2 per cent. above 8 per cent. _premium_ as it is called on the _nominal_ par, or from 6 or 7 to 9 or 10 per cent. _premium_ on the par. This leads to gross deception, and the emigrant in consequence is not unfrequently outrageously cheated by parties accounting to him for money obtained by sale of bills, minus this or some portion of this nominal premium. Nothing is more common than to hear the new comer boast that he has sold his bill on England for 8 per cent. premium, while in fact he has not received _par_ value. As by the above changes 100 pounds sterling is shewn to be equal to 120 currency, or 480 dollars, the rule of conversion, in the absence of a law, where no understanding to the contrary existed, should be, _add one-fifth to sterling money, and currency is obtained, or deduct one-sixth from currency, and sterling is found._ An examination of the exchanges for ten years has proved this to be correct. ======================================= VI. THE CANADA COMPANY. The Canada Company was incorporated by royal charter and Act of Parliament in 1826. The following are extracts from the prospectus of the Company:-- "The Canada Company have lands for sale in almost every part of the province of Upper Canada, on terms which cannot fail to be highly advantageous to the emigrant, as from the Company requiring only one- fifth of the purchase-money to be paid in cash, and allowing the remainder to be divided into five annual payments, bearing interest, the settler, if industrious, is enabled to pay the balance from the produce of the land. "The lands of the Canada Company are of three descriptions, viz.-- Scattered reserves: Blocks or tracts of land, of from 1,000 to 40,000 acres each; The Huron tract, containing upwards of 1,000,000 acres. "_Scattered reserves_. The scattered crown reserves are lots of land of from 100 to 200 acres each, distributed through nearly every township in the province, and partaking of the soil, climate, &c., of each particular township. These lands are especially desirable for persons who may have friends settled in their neighbourhood, and can be obtained at prices varying from 8 shillings 9 pence to 25 shillings currency an acre. "_Blocks of Land._ The blocks or tracts lie entirely in that part of the province situated to the westward of the head of Lake Ontario, and contain lands which, for soil, climate, and powers of production, are equal, and perhaps superior, to any on the continent of America. These are worthy the attention of communities of emigrants, who from country, relationship, religion, or any other bond, wish to settle together. "The largest block of this kind in the Company's possession is the township of Guelph, containing upwards of 40,000 acres, of which the greater part has been already sold, and, in the space of a few years only, a town has been established, containing churches, schools, stores, taverns, and mills, and where there are mechanics of every kind, and a society of a highly respectable description. "_The Huron Territory_. This is a tract of the finest land in America, through which the Canada Company have cut two roads of upwards of 100 miles in extent, of the best description of which a new country admits. The population there is rapidly on the increase. "The town of Goderich, at the mouth of the river Maitland, on Lake Huron, is very flourishing, and contains several excellent stores, or merchants' shops, in which any article usually required by a settler is to be obtained on reasonable terms. There is a good school established, which is well attended; a Church of England and a Presbyterian clergyman are appointed there; and as the churches in Upper Canada are now principally supported by the voluntary subscriptions of their respective congregations, an inference may be drawn of the respectable character of the inhabitants of this settlement and the neighbourhood. The town and township of Goderich contain about 1,000 inhabitants; and since the steam-boat, built by the Company for the accommodation of their settlers, has commenced running between Goderich and Sandwich, a great increase has taken place in the trade and prosperity of the settlement. In this tract there are four good saw-mills, three grist-mills, and in the neighbourhood of each will be found stores well supplied. And as the tract contains a million acres, the greater portion of which is open for sale, an emigrant or body of emigrants, however large, can have no difficulty in selecting eligible situations, according to their circumstances, however various they may be. The price of these lands is from 11 shillings 3 pence to 15 shillings provincial currency, or about from 11 shillings to 13 shillings 6 pence sterling per acre." Emigrants wishing to communicate with the Company should address the secretary, John Perry Esq., St. Helen's-place, Bishopsgate-street, London, or the Company's agents at outports. ======================================= VII. THE BRITISH AMERICAN LAND COMPANY. The British American Land Company state, in their prospectus, that they have purchased from the British Government "nearly 1,000,000 of acres in the counties of Shefford, Stanstead, and Sherbrooke," in what are termed "the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada." These townships comprise "a tract of country, lying inland, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, between 45 degrees and 46-1/2 degrees north latitude, and 71 degrees and 73 degrees west longitude. This tract, containing between five and six millions of acres, is divided into eight counties, and these again are subdivided into about one hundred townships. These townships enjoy an important advantage in their geographical position. On the one side, they are of easy access from Montreal, Quebec, and Three Rivers, the shipping ports and great markets of the Canadas; on the other, from New York up the Hudson River and through Lake Champlain, as well as from Boston and other parts on the seaboard of the Atlantic. By their compact and contiguous position, facility of intercourse and mutual support are ensured throughout the whole, as well as a general participation in all local improvements." The terms on which the Company propose to dispose of these lands "vary according to the situation, quality, and advantages which the different lots may possess; but in the first instance they will generally range from 4 shillings to 10 shillings currency per acre, and in all cases a deposit of part of the purchase-money will be required, viz.:--On the higher priced lots one-fifth; on the lower priced lots one-fourth. "The terms of payment for the balance will be six annual instalments, bearing the legal interest of the province from the date of sale; but should purchasers prefer anticipating the payments, they will have the option at any time of doing so. "The price of a building lot at Port St. Francis, for the present season (1835), is 12 pounds 10 shillings, payable 5 pounds cash down, and the balance in one year, with interest. "Deposits of purchase-money may be made with the Company in London for lands to be selected by emigrants on their arrival in the country. "By the agreement between his Majesty's Government and the Company, upwards of 50,000 pounds of the purchase-money paid by the latter are to be expended by them in public works and improvements, such as high roads, bridges, canals, school-houses, market-houses, churches, and parsonage-houses. This is an extremely important arrangement, and must prove highly beneficial to settlers, as it assures to them the improvement and advancement of this district. The formation of roads and other easy communications are the great wants of a new country; and the application of capital on works of this nature, which are beyond the means of private individuals, is the best mode by which the successful settlement may be promoted and accomplished. "The expenditure of the large sum above mentioned, will offer at the same time an opportunity of employment to honest and industrious labourers, immediately on arrival." The office of the British American Land Company is at 4, Barge-yard, Bucklersbury, London: they have also agents at the various outports. ======================================= Transcription note: Except for the tables in the Appendix, which have been reformatted to accommodate the presentation of tables in plain text, this transcription attempts to faithfully reproduce the text and punctuation found in the 1836 printed version of the book. As a consequence, numerous instances of spelling and punctuation may appear incorrect by current standards. 
16343	----	BETH WOODBURN. BY MAUD PETITT. TORONTO: WILLIAM BRIGGS, 29-33 RICHMOND STREET WEST. MONTREAL: C.W. COATES. HALIFAX: S.F. HUESTIS. 1897. ENTERED according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, by WILLIAM BRIGGS, at the Department of Agriculture. To my mother THIS MY FIRST BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Beth at Eighteen 9 CHAPTER II. A Dream of Life 21 CHAPTER III. Whither, Beth? 30 CHAPTER IV. Marie 42 CHAPTER V. "For I Love You, Beth" 47 CHAPTER VI. 'Varsity 55 CHAPTER VII. Ended 64 CHAPTER VIII. The Heavenly Canaan 78 CHAPTER IX. 'Varsity Again 95 CHAPTER X. Death 113 CHAPTER XI. Love 124 CHAPTER XII. Farewell 137 BETH WOODBURN. CHAPTER I. _BETH AT EIGHTEEN._ In the good old county of Norfolk, close to the shore of Lake Erie, lies the pretty village of Briarsfield. A village I call it, though in truth it has now advanced almost to the size and dignity of a town. Here, on the brow of the hill to the north of the village (rather a retired spot, one would say, for so busy a man), at the time of which my story treats, stood the residence of Dr. Woodburn. It was a long, old-fashioned rough-cast house facing the east, with great wide windows on each side of the door and a veranda all the way across the front. The big lawn was quite uneven, and broken here and there by birch trees, spruces, and crazy clumps of rose-bushes, all in bloom. Altogether it was a sweet, home-like old place. The view to the south showed, over the village roofs on the hill-side, the blue of Lake Erie outlined against the sky, while to the north stretched the open, undulating country, so often seen in Western Ontario. One warm June afternoon Beth, the doctor's only daughter, was lounging in an attitude more careless than graceful under a birch tree. She, her father and Mrs. Margin, the housekeeper--familiarly known as Aunt Prudence--formed the whole household. Beth was a little above the average height, a girlish figure, with a trifle of that awkwardness one sometimes meets in an immature girl of eighteen; a face, not what most people would call pretty, but still having a fair share of beauty. Her features were, perhaps, a little too strongly outlined, but the brow was fair as a lily, and from it the great mass of dark hair was drawn back in a pleasing way. But her eyes--those earnest, grey eyes--were the most impressive of all in her unusually impressive face. They were such searching eyes, as though she had stood on the brink scanning the very Infinite, and yet with a certain baffled look in them as of one who had gazed far out, but failed to pierce the gloom--a beaten, longing look. But a careless observer might have dwelt longer on the affectionate expression about her lips--a half-childish, half-womanly tenderness. Beth was in one of her dreamy moods that afternoon. She was gazing away towards the north, her favorite view. She sometimes said it was prettier than the lake view. The hill on which their house stood sloped abruptly down, and a meadow, pink with clover, stretched far away to rise again in a smaller hill skirted with a bluish line of pines. There was a single cottage on the opposite side of the meadow, with white blinds and a row of sun-flowers along the wall; but Beth was not absorbed in the view, and gave no heed to the book beside her. She was dreaming. She had just been reading the life of George Eliot, her favorite author, and the book lay open at her picture. She had begun to love George Eliot like a personal friend; she was her ideal, her model, for Beth had some repute as a literary character in Briarsfield. Not a teacher in the village school but had marked her strong literary powers, and she was not at all slow to believe all the hopeful compliments paid her. From a child her stories had filled columns in the Briarsfield _Echo_, and now she was eighteen she told herself she was ready to reach out into the great literary world--a nestling longing to soar. Yes, she would be famous--Beth Woodburn, of Briarsfield. She was sure of it. She would write novels; oh, such grand novels! She would drink from the very depths of nature and human life. The stars, the daisies, sunsets, rippling waters, love and sorrow, and all the infinite chords that vibrate in the human soul--she would weave them all with warp of gold. Oh, the world would see what was in her soul! She would be the bright particular star of Canadian literature; and then wealth would flow in, too, and she would fix up the old home. Dear old "daddy" should retire and have everything he wanted: and Aunt Prudence, on sweeping days, wouldn't mind moving "the trash," as she called her manuscripts. Daddy wouldn't make her go to bed at ten o'clock then; she would write all night if she choose; she would have a little room on purpose, and visitors at Briarsfield would pass by the old rough-cast house and point it out as Beth Woodburn's home, and--well, this is enough for a sample of Beth's daydreams. They were very exaggerated, perhaps, and a little selfish, too; but she was not a fully-developed woman yet, and the years were to bring sweeter fruit. She had, undoubtedly, the soul of genius, but genius takes years to unfold itself. Then a soft expression crossed the face of the dreamer. She leaned back, her eyes closed and a light smile played about her lips. She was thinking of one who had encouraged her so earnestly--a tall, slender youth, with light curly hair, blue eyes and a fair, almost girlish, face--too fair and delicate for the ideal of most girls: but Beth admired its paleness and delicate features, and Clarence Mayfair had come to be often in her thoughts. She remembered quite well when the Mayfairs had moved into the neighborhood and taken possession of the fine old manor beside the lake, and she had become friends with the only daughter, Edith, at school, and then with Clarence. Clarence wrote such pretty little poems, too. This had been the foundation of their friendship, and, since their tastes and ambitions were so much alike, what if-- Her eyes grew brighter, and she almost fancied he was looking down into her face. Oh, those eyes--hush, maiden heart, be still. She smiled at the white cloud drifting westward--a little boat-shaped cloud, with two white figures in it, sailing in the summer blue. The breeze ruffled her dark hair. There fell a long shadow on the grass beside her. "Clarence--Mr. Mayfair! I didn't see you coming. When did you get home?" "Last night. I stayed in Toronto till the report of our 'exams' came out." "I see you have been successful," she replied. "Allow me to congratulate you." "Thank you. I hear you are coming to 'Varsity this fall, Miss Woodburn. Don't you think it quite an undertaking? I'm sure I wish you joy of the hard work." "Why, I hope you are not wearying of your course in the middle of it, Mr. Mayfair. It is only two years till you will have your B.A." "Two years' hard work, though; and, to tell the truth, a B.A. has lost its charms for me. I long to devote my life more fully to literature. That is my first ambition, you know, and I seem to be wasting so much time." "You can hardly call time spent that way wasted," she answered. "You will write all the better for it by and by." Then they plunged into one of their old-time literary talks of authors and books and ambitions. Beth loved these talks. There was no one else in Briarsfield she could discuss these matters with like Clarence. She was noticing meanwhile how much paler he looked than when she saw him last, but she admired him all the more. There are some women who love a man all the more for being delicate. It gives them better opportunities to display their womanly tenderness. Beth was one of these. "By the way, I mustn't forget my errand," Clarence exclaimed after a long chat. He handed her a dainty little note, an invitation to tea from his sister Edith. Beth accepted with pleasure. She blushed as he pressed her hand in farewell, and their eyes met. That look and touch of his went very deep--deeper than they should have gone, perhaps; but the years will tell their tale. She watched him going down the hill-side in the afternoon sunshine, then fell to dreaming again. What if, after all, she should not always stay alone with daddy? If someone else should come--And she began to picture another study where she should not have to write alone, but there should be two desks by the broad windows looking out on the lake, and somebody should-- "Beth! Beth! come and set the tea-table. My hands is full with them cherries." Beth's dream was a little rudely broken by Mrs. Martin's voice, but she complacently rose and went into the house. Mrs. Martin was a small grey-haired woman, very old-fashioned; a prim, good old soul, a little sharp-tongued, a relic of bygone days of Canadian life. She had been Dr. Woodburn's housekeeper ever since Beth could remember, and they had always called her "Aunt Prudence." "What did that gander-shanks of a Mayfair want?" asked the old lady with a funny smile, as Beth was bustling about. "Oh, just come to bring an invitation to tea from Edith." Dr. Woodburn entered as soon as tea was ready. He was the ideal father one meets in books, and if there was one thing on earth Beth was proud of it was "dear daddy." He was a fine, broad-browed man, strikingly like Beth, but with hair silvery long before its time. His eyes were like hers, too, though Beth's face had a little shadow of gloom that did not belong to the doctor's genial countenance. It was a pleasant little tea-table to which they sat down. Mrs Martin always took tea with them, and as she talked over Briarsfield gossip to the doctor, Beth, as was her custom, looked silently out of the window upon the green sloping lawn. "Well, Beth, dear," said Dr. Woodburn, "has Mrs. Martin told you that young Arthur Grafton is coming to spend his holidays with us?" "Arthur Grafton! Why, no!" said Beth with pleased surprise. "He is coming. He may drop in any day. He graduated this spring, you know. He's a fine young man, I'm told." "Oh! Beth ain't got time to think about anything but that slim young Mayfair, now-a-days," put in Mrs. Martin. "He's been out there with her most of the afternoon, and me with all them cherries to tend to." Beth saw a faint shadow cross her father's face, but put it aside as fancy only and began to think of Arthur. He was an old play-fellow of hers. An orphan at an early age, he had spent his childhood on his uncle's farm, just beyond the pine wood to the north of her home. Her father had always taken a deep interest in him, and when the death of his uncle and aunt left him alone in the world, Dr. Woodburn had taken him into his home for a couple of years until he had gone away to school. Arthur had written once or twice, but Beth was staying with her Aunt Margaret, near Welland, that summer, and she had seen fit, for unexplained reasons, to stop the correspondence: so the friendship had ended there. It was five years now since she had seen her old play-fellow, and she found herself wondering if he would be greatly changed. After tea Beth took out her books, as usual, for an hour or two; then, about eight o'clock, with her tin-pail on her arm, started up the road for the milk. This was one of her childhood's tasks that she still took pleasure in performing. She sauntered along in the sweet June twilight past the fragrant clover meadow and through the pine wood, with the fire-flies darting beneath the boughs. Some girls would have been frightened, but Beth was not timid. She loved the still sweet solitude of her evening walk. The old picket gate clicked behind her at the Birch Farm, and she went up the path with its borders of four-o'clocks. It was Arthur's old home, where he had passed his childhood at his uncle's--a great cheery old farm-house, with morning-glory vines clinging to the windows, and sun-flowers thrusting their great yellow faces over the kitchen wall. The door was open, but the kitchen empty, and she surmised that Mrs. Birch had not finished milking; so Beth sat down on the rough bench beneath the crab-apple tree and began to dream of the olden days. There was the old chain swing where Arthur used to swing her, and the cherry-trees where he filled her apron. She was seven and he was ten--but such a man in her eyes, that sun-browned, dark-eyed boy. And what a hero he was to her when she fell over the bridge, and he rescued her! He used to get angry though sometimes. Dear, how he thrashed Sammie Jones for calling her a "little snip." Arthur was good, though, very good. He used to sit in that very bench where she was sitting, and explain the Sunday-school lesson to her, and say such good things. Her father had told her two or three years ago of Arthur's decision to be a missionary. He was going away off to Palestine. "I wonder how he can do it," she thought. "He has his B.A. now, too, and he was always so clever. He must be a hero. I'm not good like that; I--I don't think I want to be so good. Clarence isn't as good as that. But Clarence must be good. His poetry shows it. I wonder if Arthur will like Clarence?" Mrs. Birch, with a pail of fresh milk on each arm, interrupted her reverie. Beth enjoyed her walk home that night. The moon had just risen, and the pale stars peeped through the patches of white cloud that to her fancy looked like the foot-prints of angels here and there on the path of the infinite. As she neared home a sound of music thrilled her. It was only an old familiar tune, but she stopped as if in a trance. The touch seemed to fill her very soul. It was so brave and yet so tender. The music ceased; some sheep were bleating in the distance, the stars were growing brighter, and she went on toward home. She was surprised as she crossed the yard to see a tall dark-haired stranger talking to her father in the parlor. She was just passing the parlor door when he came toward her. "Well, Beth, my old play-mate!" "Arthur!" They would have made a subject for an artist as they stood with clasped hands, the handsome dark-eyed man, the girl, in her white dress, her milk-pail on her arm, and her wondering grey eyes upturned to his. "Why, Beth, you look at me as if I were a spectre." "But, Arthur, you're so changed! Why, you're a man, now!" at which he laughed a merry laugh that echoed clear to the kitchen. Beth joined her father and Arthur in the parlor, and they talked the old days over again before they retired to rest. Beth took out her pale blue dress again before she went to sleep. Yes, she would wear that to the Mayfair's next day, and there were white moss roses at the dining-room window that would just match. So thinking she laid it carefully away and slept her girl's sleep that night. CHAPTER II. _A DREAM OF LIFE._ It was late the next afternoon when Beth stood before the mirror fastening the moss roses in her belt. Arthur had gone away with her father to see a friend, and would not return till well on in the evening. Aunt Prudence gave her the customary warning about not staying late and Beth went off with a lighter heart than usual. It was a delightful day. The homes all looked so cheery, and the children were playing at the gates as she went down the street. There was one her eye dwelt on more than the rest. The pigeons were strutting on the sloping roof, the cat dozed in the window-sill, and the little fair-haired girls were swinging under the cherry-tree. Yes, marriage and home must be sweet after all. Beth had always said she never would marry. She wanted to write stories and not have other cares. But school girls change their views sometimes. It was only a few minutes' walk to the Mayfair residence beside the lake. Beth was familiar with the place and scarcely noticed the great old lawn, the trees almost concealing the house: that pretty fountain yonder, the tennis ground to the south, and the great blue Erie stretching far away. Edith Mayfair came down the walk to meet her, a light-haired, winsome creature, several years older than Beth. But she looked even younger. Hers was such a child-like face! It was pretty to see the way she twined her arm about Beth. They had loved each other ever since the Mayfairs had come to Briarsfield three years ago. Mr. and Mrs. Mayfair were sitting on the veranda. Beth had always loved Mrs. Mayfair; she was such a bright girlish woman, in spite of her dignity and soft grey hair. Mr. Mayfair, too, had a calm, pleasing manner. To Beth's literary mind there was something about the Mayfair home that reminded her of a novel. They were wealthy people, at least supposed to be so, who had settled in Briarsfield to live their lives in rural contentment. It was a pretty room of Edith's that she took Beth into--a pleasing confusion of curtains, books, music, and flowers, with a guitar lying on the coach. There was a photo on the little table that caught Beth's attention. It was Mr. Ashley, the classical master in Briarsfield High School, for Briarsfield could boast a High School. He and Edith had become very friendly, and village gossip was already linking their names. Beth looked up and saw Edith watching her with a smiling, blushing face. The next minute she threw both arms about Beth. "Can't you guess what I was going to tell you, Beth, dear?" "Why, Edith, are you and Mr. Ashley--" "Yes, dear. I thought you would guess." Beth only hugged her by way of congratulation, and Edith laughed a little hysterically. Beth was used to these emotional fits of Edith's. Then she began to question-- "When is it to be?" "September. And you will be my bridesmaid, won't you, dear?" Beth promised. "Oh, Beth, I think marriage is the grandest institution God ever made." Beth had a strange dream-like look in her eyes, and the tea-bell broke their reverie. Mr. Ashley had dropped in for tea, and Clarence sat beside Beth, with Edith and her betrothed opposite. It was so pleasant and home-like, with the pink cluster of roses smiling in at the window. After tea, Edith and Mr. Ashley seemed prepared for a _tête-à-tête_, in which Mrs. Mayfair was also interested; and Clarence took Beth around to the conservatory to see a night-blooming cirius. It was not out yet, and so they went for a promenade through the long grounds toward the lake. Beth never forgot that walk in all her life to come. Somehow she did not seem herself. All her ambition and struggle seemed at rest. She was a child, a careless child, and the flowers bloomed around her, and Clarence was at her side. The lake was very calm when they reached it; the stars were shining faintly, and they could see Long Point Island like a long dark line in the distant water. "Arthur is going to take me over to the island this week," said Beth. They had just reached a little cliff jutting out over the water. It was, perhaps, one of the most picturesque scenes on the shores of Lake Erie. "Wouldn't it be grand to be on this cliff and watch a thunderstorm coming up over the lake?" said Beth. "You are very daring Beth--Miss Woodburn. Edith would rather hide her head under the blankets." "Do you know, I really love thunderstorms," continued Beth. "It is such a nice safe feeling to lie quiet and sheltered in bed and hear the thunder crash and the storm beat outside. Somehow, I always feel more deeply that God is great and powerful, and that the world has a live ruler." She stopped rather suddenly. Clarence never touched on religious subjects in conversation-- "Dear, what a ducking Arthur and I got in a thunderstorm one time. We were out hazel-nutting and--" "Do you always call Mr. Grafton Arthur?" interrupted Clarence, a little impatiently. "Oh, yes! Why, how funny it would seem to call Arthur Mr. Grafton!" "Beth"--he grew paler and his voice almost trembled,--"Beth, do you love Arthur Grafton?" "Love Arthur! Why, dear, no! I never thought of it. He's just like my brother. Besides," she continued after a pause, "Arthur is going away off somewhere to be a missionary, and I don't think I could be happy if I married a man who wasn't a writer." That was very naive of Beth. She forgot Clarence's literary pretensions. "Then can you love me, Beth? Don't you see that I love you?" There was a moment's silence. Their eyes met in a long, earnest look. An impulse of tenderness came over her, and she threw both arms about his neck as he clasped her to his breast. The stars were shining above and the water breaking at their feet. They understood each other without words. "Oh, Clarence, I am so happy, so very happy!" The night air wafted the fragrance of roses about them like incense. They walked on along the shore, happy lovers, weaving their life-dreams under the soft sky of that summer night. "I wonder if anyone else is as happy as we are, Beth!" "Oh, Clarence, how good we ought to be! I mean to always be kinder and to try and make other people happy, too." "You are good, Beth. May God bless our lives." She had never seen Clarence so earnest and manly before. Yes, she was very much in love, she told herself. They talked much on the way back to the house. He told her that his father was not so wealthy as many people supposed; that it would be several years before he himself could marry. But Beth's brow was not clouded. She wanted her college course, and somehow Clarence seemed so much more manly with a few difficulties to face. A faint sound of music greeted them as they reached the house. Edith was playing her guitar. Mrs. Mayfair met them on the veranda. "Why, Clarence, how late you've kept the child out," said Mrs. Mayfair with a motherly air. "I'm afraid you will catch cold, Miss Woodburn; there is such a heavy dew!" Clarence went up to his mother and said something in a low tone. A pleased look lighted her face. "I am so glad, dear Beth, my daughter. I shall have another daughter in place of the one I am giving away." She drew the girl to her breast with tender affection. Beth had been motherless all her life, and the caress was sweet and soothing to her. Edith fastened her cape and kissed her fondly when she was going home. Clarence went with her, and somehow everything was so dream-like and unreal that even the old rough-cast home looked strange and shadowy in the moon-light. It was perhaps a relief that her father had not yet returned. She was smiling and happy, but even her own little room seemed strangely unnatural that night. She stopped just inside the door and looked at it, the moonlight streaming through the open window upon her bed. Was she really the same Beth Woodburn that had rested there last night and thought about the roses. She took them out of her belt now. A sweetly solemn feeling stole over her, and she crossed over and knelt at the window, the withered roses in her hand, her face upturned to heaven. Sacred thoughts filled her mind. She had longed for love, someone to love, someone who loved her; but was she worthy, she asked herself, pure enough, good enough? She felt to-night that she was kneeling at an unseen shrine, a bride, to be decked by the holy angels in robes whiter than mortal ever saw. Waves of sweet music aroused her. She started up as from a dream, recognizing at once the touch of the same hand that she had heard in the distance the night before, and it was coming from their own parlor window, right beneath hers! She held her breath almost as she stole out and leaned over the balustrade to peer into the parlor. Why, it was Arthur! Was it possible he could play like that? She made a striking picture as she stood there on the stairs, her great grey eyes drinking in the music: but she was relieved somehow when it ceased. It was bright, quick, inspiring; but it seemed to make her forget her new-born joy while it lasted. CHAPTER III. _WHITHER, BETH?_ Beth was lying in the hammock, watching the white clouds chase each other over the sky. Her face was quite unclouded, though the morning had not passed just as she had hoped. It was the next afternoon after she had taken tea at the Mayfair's, and Clarence had come to see her father that morning. They had had a long talk in the study, and Beth had sat in her room anxiously pulling to pieces the roses that grew at her window. After a little while she was called down. Clarence was gone, and she thought her father did not look quite satisfied, though he smiled as she sat down beside him. "Beth, I am sorry you are engaged so young," he said gently. "Are you sure you love him, Beth?" "Oh, yes, papa, dear. You don't understand," and she put both arms about his neck. "I am in love, truly. Believe me, I shall be happy." "Clarence is delicate, too," said her father with a grave look. They were both silent for a few minutes. "But, after all, he cannot marry for three or four years to come, and you must take your college course, Beth." They were silent again for a moment. "Well, God bless you, Beth, my darling child." There were tears in his eyes, and his voice was very gentle. He kissed her and went out to his office. What a dear old father he was! Only Beth wished he had looked more hopeful and enthusiastic over the change in her life. Aunt Prudence had been told before dinner, and she had taken it in a provokingly quiet fashion that perplexed Beth. What was the matter with them all? Did they think Clarence the pale-faced boy that he looked? They were quite mistaken. Clarence was a man. So Miss Beth reasoned, and the cloud passed off her brow, for, after all, matters were about as they were before. The morning had been rather pleasant, too. Arthur had played some of his sweet old pieces, and then asked as a return favor to see some of her writing. She had given him several copies of the Briarsfield _Echo_, and he was still reading. In spite of her thoughts of Clarence, she wondered now and again what Arthur would think of her. Would he be proud of his old play-mate? He came across the lawn at last and drew one of the chairs up beside the hammock. "I have read them all, Beth, and I suppose I should be proud of you. You are talented--indeed, you are more than talented: you are a genius, I believe. But do you know, Beth, I do not like your writings?" He looked at her as if it pained him to utter these words. "They are too gloomy. There is a sentimental gloom about everything you write. I don't know what the years since we parted have brought you, Beth, but your writings don't seem to come from a full heart, overflowing with happiness. It seems to me that with your command of language and flowing style you might bring before your reader such sweet little homes and bright faces and sunny hearts, and that is the sweetest mission a writer has, I believe." Beth watched him silently. She had not expected this from Arthur. She thought he would overwhelm her with praise; and, instead, he sat there like a judge laying all her faults before her. Stern critic! Somehow he didn't seem just like the old Arthur. "I don't like him any more," she thought. "He isn't like his old self." But somehow she could not help respecting him as she looked at him sitting there with that great wave of dark hair brushed back from his brow, and his soulful eyes fixed on something in space. He looked a little sad, too. "Still, he isn't a writer like Clarence," she thought, "and he doesn't know how to praise like Clarence does." "But Arthur," she said, finally speaking her thoughts aloud; "you speak as though I could change my way of writing merely by resolving to. I can write only as nature allows." "That's too sentimental, Beth; just like your writing. You are a little bit visionary." "But there are gloomy and visionary writers as well as cheerful ones. Both have their place." "I do not believe, Beth, that gloom has a place in this bright earth of ours. Sadness and sorrow will come, but there is sweetness in the cup as well. The clouds drift by with the hours, Beth, but the blue sky stands firm throughout all time." She caught sight of Clarence coming as he was speaking, and scarcely heeded his last words, but nevertheless they fastened themselves in her mind, and in after years she recalled them. Clarence and Arthur had never met before face to face, and somehow there was something striking about the two as they did so. Arthur was only a few years older, but he looked so manly and mature beside Clarence. They smiled kindly when Beth introduced them, and she felt sure that they approved of each other. Arthur withdrew soon, and Beth wondered if he had any suspicion of the truth. Once alone with her, Clarence drew her to his heart in true lover-like fashion. "Oh, Clarence, don't! People will see you." "Suppose they do. You are mine." "But you mustn't tell it, Clarence. You won't, will you?" He yielded to her in a pleasant teasing fashion. "Have you had a talk with your father, Beth?" "Yes," she answered seriously, "and I rather hoped he would take it differently." "I had hoped so, too; but, still, he doesn't oppose us, and he will become more reconciled after a while, you know, when he sees what it is to have a son. Of course, he thinks us very young; but still I think we are more mature than many young people of our age." Beth's face looked changed in the last twenty-four hours. She had a more satisfied, womanly look. Perhaps that love-craving heart of hers had been too empty. "I have been looking at the upstair rooms at home," said Clarence. "There will have to be some alterations before our marriage." "Why, Clarence!" she exclaimed, laughing; "you talk as though we were going off to Gretna Green to be married next week." "Sure enough, the time is a long way off, but it's well to be looking ahead. There are two nice sunny rooms on the south side. One of them would be so nice for study and writing. It has a window looking south toward the lake, and another west. You were always fond of watching the sun set, Beth. But you must come and look at them. Let's see, to-day's Saturday. Come early next week; I shall be away over Sunday, you know." "Yes, you told me so last night." "Did I tell you of our expected guest?" he asked, after a pause. "Miss Marie de Vere, the daughter of an old friend of my mother's. Her father was a Frenchman, an aristocrat, quite wealthy, and Marie is the only child, an orphan. My mother has asked her here for a few weeks." "Isn't it a striking name?" said Beth, "Marie de Vere, pretty, too. I wonder what she will be like." "I hope you will like her, Beth. She makes her home in Toronto, and it would be nice if you became friends. You will be a stranger in Toronto, you know, next winter. How nice it will be to have you there while I am there, Beth. I can see you quite often then. Only I hate to have you study so hard." "Oh, but then it won't hurt my brain, you know. Thoughts of you will interrupt my studies so often" she said, with a coquettish smile. Clarence told her some amusing anecdotes of 'Varsity life, then went away early, as he was going to leave the village for a day or two. Beth hurried off to the kitchen to help Aunt Prudence. It was unusual for her to give any attention to housework, but a new interest in domestic affairs seemed to have aroused within her to-day. The next day was Sunday, and somehow it seemed unusually sacred to Beth. The Woodburn household was at church quite early, and Beth sat gazing out of the window at the parsonage across the road. It was so home-like--a great square old brick, with a group of hollyhocks beside the study window. The services that day seemed unusually sweet, particularly the Sunday-school hour. Beth's attention wandered from the lesson once or twice, and she noticed Arthur in the opposite corner teaching a class of little girls--little tots in white dresses. He looked so pleased and self-forgetful. Beth had never seen him look like that before; and the children were open-eyed. She saw him again at the close of the Sunday-school, a little light-haired creature in his arms. "Why, Arthur, I didn't think you were so fond of children." "Oh, yes, I'm quite a grandfather, only minus the grey hair." It was beautiful walking home that afternoon in the light June breeze. She wondered what Clarence was doing just then. Home looked so sweet and pleasant, too, as she opened the gate, and she thought how sorry she should be to leave it to go to college in the fall. Beth stayed in her room a little while, and then came down stairs. Arthur was alone in the parlor, sitting by the north window, and Beth sat down near. The wind had ceased, the sun was slowly sinking in the west, a flock of sheep were resting in the shadow of the elms on the distant hill-slope, and the white clouds paused in the blue as if moored by unseen hands. Who has not been moved by the peace and beauty of the closing hours of a summer Sabbath? Arthur and Beth were slow to begin conversation, for silence seemed more pleasing. "Arthur, when are you going out as a missionary?" asked Beth, at last. "Not for three or four years yet." "Where are you going, do you know?" "To the Jews, at Jerusalem." "Are you sure you will be sent just where you want to go?" "Yes, for I am going to pay my own expenses. A bachelor uncle of mine died, leaving me an annuity." "Don't you dread going, though?" "Dread it! No, I rejoice in it!" he said, with a radiant smile. "One has so many opportunities of doing good in a work like that." "Do you always think of what you can do for others?" "That is the best way to live," he answered, a sweet smile in the depths of his dark eyes. "But don't you dread the loneliness?" "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." "Oh, Arthur!"--she buried her face for a moment in the cushions, and then looked up at him with those searching grey eyes of hers--"you are brave; you are good; I wish I were, too." He looked down upon her tenderly for a moment. "But, Beth, isn't your life a consecrated one--one of service?" "It is all consecrated but one thing, and I can't consecrate that." "You will never be happy till you do. Beth, I am afraid you are not perfectly happy," he said, after a pause. "You do not look to be." "Oh, yes, I am quite happy, very happy, and I shall be happier still by and by," she said, thinking of Clarence. "But, Arthur, there is one thing I can't consecrate. I am a Christian, and I do mean to be good, only I can't consecrate my literary hopes and work." "Oh, why not, Beth? That is the very thing you should consecrate. That's the widest field you have for work. But why not surrender that, too, Beth?" "Oh, I don't know. I couldn't write like 'Pansy' does, it isn't natural to me." "You don't need to write like 'Pansy.' She has done splendid work, though, and I don't believe there is a good home where she isn't loved. But it may not be your place to be just like 'Pansy.'" "No; I want to be like George Eliot." A graver look crossed his face. "That is right to a certain extent. George Eliot certainly had a grand intellect, but if she had only been a consecrated Christian woman how infinitely greater she might have been. With such talent as hers undoubtedly was, she could have touched earth with the very tints of heaven. Beth, don't you see what grand possibilities are yours, with your natural gifts and the education and culture that you will have?" "Ah, yes. Arthur, but then--I am drifting somehow. Life is bearing me another way. I feel it within me. By-and-by I hope to be famous, and perhaps wealthy, too, but I am drifting with the years." "But it is not the part of noble men and women to drift like that, Beth. You will be leaving home this fall, and life is opening up to you. Do you not see there are two paths before you? Which will you choose, Beth? 'For self?' or 'for Jesus?' The one will bring you fame and wealth, perhaps, but though you smile among the adoring crowds you will not be satisfied. The other--oh, it would make you so much happier! Your books would be read at every fire-side, and Beth Woodburn would be a name to be loved. You are drifting--but whither, Beth?" His voice was so gentle as he spoke, his smile so tender, and there was something about him so unlike any other man, she could not forget those last words. The moon-beams falling on her pillow that night mingled with her dreams, and she and Clarence were alone together in a lovely island garden. It was so very beautiful--a grand temple of nature, its aisles carpeted with dewy grass, a star-gemmed heaven for its dome, a star-strewn sea all round! No mortal artist could have planned that mysteriously beautiful profusion of flowers--lily and violet, rose and oleander, palm-tree and passion-vine, and the olive branches and orange blossoms interlacing in the moon-light above them. Arthur was watering the tall white lilies by the water-side and all was still with a hallowed silence they dared not break. Suddenly a wild blast swept where they stood. All was desolate and bare, and Clarence was gone. In a moment the bare rocks where she had stood were overwhelmed, and she was drifting far out to sea--alone! Stars in the sky above--stars in the deep all round and the winds and the waters were still! And she was drifting--but whither? CHAPTER IV. _MARIE._ "Isn't she pretty?" "She's picturesque looking." "Pretty? picturesque? I think she's ugly!" These were the varied opinions of a group of Briarsfield girls who were at the station when the evening train stopped. The object of their remarks was a slender girl whom the Mayfairs received with warmth. It was Marie de Vere--graceful, brown-eyed, with a small olive face and daintily dressed brown hair. This was the girl that Beth and Arthur were introduced to when they went to the Mayfairs to tea a few days later. Beth recalled the last evening she was there to tea. Only a few days had since passed, and yet how all was changed! "Do you like Miss de Vere?" asked Clarence, after Beth had enjoyed a long conversation with her. "Oh, yes! I'm just delighted with her! She has such kind eyes, and she seems to understand one so well!" "You have fallen in love at first sight. The pleasure on your face makes up for the long time I have waited to get you alone. Only I wish you would look at me like you looked at Miss de Vere just now," he said, trying to look dejected. She laughed. Those little affectionate expressions always pleased her, for she wondered sometimes if Clarence could be a cold and unresponsive husband. He was not a very ardent lover, and grey-eyed, intellectual Beth Woodburn had a love-hungering heart, though few people knew it. "Do you know," said Beth, "Miss de Vere has told me that there is a vacant room at her boarding-house. She is quite sure she can get it for me this winter. Isn't she kind? I believe we shall be great friends." "Yes, you will enjoy her friendship. She is a clever artist and musician, you know. Edith says she lives a sort of Bohemian life in Toronto. Her rooms are littered with music and painting and literature." "How nice! Her face looks as if she had a story, too. There's something sad in her eyes." "She struck me as being remarkably lively," said Clarence. "Oh, yes, but there are lively people who have secret sorrows. Look, there she is walking with Arthur toward the lake." Clarence smiled for a moment. "Perhaps fate may see fit to link them together," he said. "Oh, no, I don't think so! I can't imagine it." "Grafton's a fine fellow, isn't he?" "I'm glad you like him so well, Clarence. He's just like my brother, you know. We had such an earnest talk Sunday night. He made me feel, oh, I don't know how. But do you know, my life isn't consecrated to God, Clarence; is yours?" They were walking under the stars of the open night, and Clarence looked thoughtful for a moment, then answered unhesitatingly: "No, Beth. I settled that long ago. I don't think we need to be consecrated. So long as we are Christians and live fairly consistent lives, I think that suffices. Of course, with people like Arthur Grafton it is different. But as for us we are consecrated to art, you know, in the shape of writing. Let us make the utmost of our talents." "Yes, we are consecrated to art," said Beth with a sigh of relief, and began talking of Marie. Since Beth was to leave home in the fall, she did not go away during the summer, and consequently saw much of Marie during the few weeks she stayed at Briarsfield. It is strange how every life we come in contact with leaves its impress upon ourselves! It was certainly so with Marie and Beth. Marie had seen so much of the world and of human life, and Beth had always lived so quietly there in her own village, that now a restlessness took possession of her to get away far beyond the horizon of Briarsfield. The days passed on as days will pass. Clarence was home most of the time, and he and Beth had many walks together in the twilight, and sometimes in the morning. What delightful walks they were in the cool of the early summer morning! There was one especially pretty spot where they used to rest along the country road-side. It was a little hill-top, with the ground sloping down on either side, then rising again in great forest-crowned hills. Two oak trees, side by side, shaded them as they watched the little clouds sailing over the harvest fields. Arthur was with them a great deal of the summer, and Beth was occupied with preparations for leaving home. She used to talk to Arthur about Marie sometimes, but he disappointed her by his coldness. She fancied that he did not altogether approve of Marie. CHAPTER V. _"FOR I LOVE YOU, BETH."_ It came soon, her last Sabbath at home, and the sun was sinking in the west. Beth sat by her favorite window in the parlor. Do you remember that last Sabbath before you left home? Everything, the hills outside, the pictures on the walls, even the very furniture, looked at you in mute farewell. Beth leaned back in her rocker and looked through the open door into the kitchen with its maple floor, and the flames leaping up in the old cook-stove where the fire had been made for tea. She had always liked that stove with its cheery fire. Then she turned her eyes to the window and noted that the early September frost had browned her favorite meadow where the clover bloomed last June, and that the maples along the road where she went for the milk every evening, were now all decked in crimson and yellow. Her father was sitting at the table reading, but when she looked around she saw his eyes were fixed upon her with a tender look. Poor father! He would miss her, she knew, though he tried not to let her see how much. Aunt Prudence, too, dear old soul, seemed sorry to have her go, but she had her own peculiar way of expressing it, namely, by getting crosser every day. She did not approve of so much "larnin'" for girls, especially when Beth was "goin' to be married to that puny Mayfair." Aunt Prudence always said her "say," as she expressed it, but she meant well and Beth understood. Beth was not to go until Friday, and Clarence was to meet her at the station. He had been called away to the city with his father on business more than a week before. Arthur was with them to-day, but he was to leave on the early morning train to join a college mate. He was to be at Victoria University that winter and Beth expected to see him often. They had an early supper, and the September sunset streamed through the open window on the old-fashioned china tea-set. Beth was disappointed after tea when her father's services were required immediately by a patient several miles away. Arthur and she sat down by that same old parlor window in the hush of the coming night; a few white clouds were spread like angel wings above and the early stars were shining in the west. They were silent for a while. Arthur and Beth were often silent when together, but the silence was a pleasing, not an embarrassing one. "Are you sorry to leave home, Beth?" asked Arthur. "Yes, I am; and would you believe it, I thought I'd be so glad to have a change, and yet it makes me sad now the time is drawing near." They were silent again for a while. "Arthur, do you know, I think it seems so hard for you to go away so far and be a missionary when you are so fond of home and home life." He smiled tenderly upon her, but she did not know the meaning of that smile then as she knew a little later. "It is my Father's will," he said with a sweeter, graver smile. "Beth, do you not see how your talent could be used in the mission field?" "He does not know I am going to marry Clarence," she thought with a smile, "and he is going to map out a life work for a maiden lady." "No, I don't see how," she answered. "You know there is a large proportion of the world that never read such a thing as a missionary book, and that if more such books were read, missions would be better supported. Now, if someone with bright talents were to write fascinating stories of Arabian life or life in Palestine, see how much interest would be aroused. But then you would need to live among the people and know their lives, and who would know them so well as a missionary?" Beth smiled at his earnestness. "Oh, no, Arthur; I couldn't do that." His eyes filled in a moment with a sad, pleading look. "Beth, can you refuse longer to surrender your life and your life's toil? Look, Beth," he said, pointing upward to the picture of Christ upon the wall, "can you refuse Him--can you refuse, Beth?" "Oh, Arthur, don't," she said drooping her face. "But I _must_, Beth! Will you enter your Father's service? Once again I ask you." Her eyes were turned away and she answered nothing. "Beth," he said softly, "I have a more selfish reason for urging you--for I love you, Beth. I have loved you since we were children together. Will you be my own--my wife? It is a holy service I ask you to share. Are you ready, Beth?" Her pale face was hidden in her hands. He touched her hair reverently. Tick! tick! tick! from the old clock in the silence. Then a crimson flush, and she rose with sudden violence. "Oh, Arthur, what _can_ you mean? I thought--you seemed my brother almost--I thought you would always be that. Oh, Arthur! Arthur! how can you--how dare you talk so? I am Clarence Mayfair's promised wife." "Clarence Mayfair's--" The words died away on his white lips. He leaned upon the mantel-piece, and Beth stood with her grey eyes fixed. His face was so deathly white. His eyes were shaded by his hand, and his brow bore the marks of strong agony. Oh, he was wounded! Those moments were awful in their silence. The darkness deepened in the old parlor. There was a sound of voices passing in the street. The church bell broke the stillness. Softly the old calm crept over his brow, and he raised his face and looked at her with those great dark eyes--eyes of unfathomable tenderness and impenetrable fire, and she felt that her very soul stood naked before him. She trembled and sank on the couch at her side. His look was infinitely tender as he came toward her. "I have hurt you--forgive me," he said gently, and he laid his hand on her head so reverently for a moment. His white lips murmured something, but she only caught the last words, "God bless you--forever. Good-bye, Beth--little Beth." He smiled back upon her as he left the room, but she would rather he had looked sad. That smile--she could never forget it, with its wonderful sweetness and sorrow. She sat motionless for a while after he left the room. She felt thrilled and numbed. There are moments in life when souls stand forth from their clayey frames and touch each other, forgetful of time and space. It was one of those experiences that Beth had just passed through. She went to her room and crouched down at her window beneath the stars of that autumn night. Poor Arthur! She was so sad over it all. And he had loved her! How strange! How could it have been? Loved her since they were children, he had said. She had never thought of love coming like that. And they had played together upon that meadow out there. They had grown up together, and he had even lived in her home those few years before he went to college. No, she had never dreamed of marrying Arthur! But oh, he was wounded so! She had never seen him look like that before. And he had hoped that she would share his life and his labor. She thought how he had pictured her far away under the burning sun of Palestine, bathing his heated brow and cheering him for fresh effort. He had pictured, perhaps, a little humble home, quiet and peaceful, somewhere amid the snow-crested mountains of the East, where he would walk with her in the cool of night-fall, under the bright stars and clear sky of that distant land. Poor, mistaken Arthur! She was not fitted for such a life, she thought. They were never made for each other. Their ambitions were not the same. She had found her counterpart in Clarence, and he understood her as Arthur never could have done. Arthur was a grand, good, practical man, but there was nothing of the artist-soul in him, she thought. But she had hoped that he would always be her own and Clarence's friend. He was such a noble friend! And now her hope was crushed. She could never be the same to him again, she knew, and he had said farewell. "Good-bye, Beth--little Beth," he had said, and she lingered over the last two words, "little Beth." Yes, she would be "little Beth" to him, forever now, the little Beth that he had loved and roamed with over meadow and woodland and wayside, in the sunny, bygone days. "Good-bye, Beth--little Beth." Poor Arthur! CHAPTER VI. _'VARSITY._ Friday morning came, the last day of September, and the train whistled sharply as it steamed around the curve from Briarsfield with Beth at one of the car-windows. It had almost choked her to say good-bye to her father at the station, and she was still straining her eyes to catch the last glimpse of home. She could see the two poplars at the gate almost last of all, as the train bore her out into the open country. She looked through her tears at the fields and hills, the stretches of woodland and the old farm-houses, with the vines clambering over their porches, and the tomatoes ripening in the kitchen window-sills. Gradually the tears dried, for there is pleasure always in travelling through Western Ontario, particularly on the lake-side, between Hamilton and Toronto. Almost the first one Beth saw, as the train entered Toronto station, was Clarence, scanning the car-windows eagerly for her face. Her eyes beamed as he came toward her. She felt as if at home again. Marie had secured her room for her, and Beth looked around with a pleased air when the cab stopped on St. Mary's street. It was a row of three-storey brick houses, all alike, but a cheery, not monotonous, row, with the maples in front, and Victoria University at the end of the street. A plump, cheery landlady saw Beth to her room, and, once alone, she did just what hundreds of other girls have done in her place--sat down on that big trunk and wept, and wondered what "dear old daddy" was doing. But she soon controlled herself, and looked around the room. It was a very pretty room, with rocker and table, and a book-shelf in the corner. There was a large window, too, opening to the south, with a view of St. Michael's College and St. Basil's Church. Beth realized that this room was to be her home for the coming months, and, kneeling down, she asked that the presence of Christ might hallow it. She was not a very close follower of Christ, but the weakest child of God never breathed a prayer unheard. It was such a pleasant treat when Marie tapped at the door just before tea. It would be nice to have Marie there all winter. Beth looked around the tea-table at the new faces: Mrs. Owen, at one end of the table, decidedly stout; Mr. Owen, at the other end, decidedly lean. There were two sweet-faced children, a handsome, gloomy-browed lawyer, and Marie at her side. The next day, Clarence took Beth over to 'Varsity--as Toronto University is popularly called--and she never forgot that bright autumn morning when she passed under the arch of carved stone into the University halls, those long halls thronged with students. Clarence left her in the care of a gentle fourth-year girl. Beth was taken from lecturer to lecturer until the registering was done, and then she stopped by one of the windows in the ladies' dressing-room to gaze at the beautiful autumn scenery around--the ravine, with its dark pines, and the Parliament buildings beyond. Beth was beginning to love the place. We must not pause long over that first year that Beth spent at 'Varsity. It passed like a flash to her, the days were so constantly occupied. But her memory was being stored with scenes she never forgot. It was so refreshing on the brisk, autumn mornings to walk to lectures through the crimson and yellow leaves of Queen's Park: and, later in the year, when the snow was falling she liked to listen to the rooks cawing among the pines behind the library. Sometimes, too, she walked home alone in the weird, winter twilight from the Modern Language Club, or from a late lecture, her mind all aglow with new thoughts. Then there were the social evenings in the gymnasium, with its red, blue and white decorations, palms and promenades, and music of the orchestra, and hum of strange voices. It was all new to Beth; she had seen so little of the world. There was the reception the Y.W.C.A. gave to the "freshettes"--she enjoyed that, too. What kind girls they were! Beth was not slow to decide that the "'Varsity maid" would make a model wife, so gentle and kindly and with such a broad, progressive mind. Still Beth made hardly any friendships worthy of the name that first year. She was peculiar in this respect. In a crowd of girls she was apt to like all, but to love none truly. When she did make friends she came upon them suddenly, by a sort of instinct, as in the case of Marie, and became so absorbed in them she forgot everyone else. This friendship with Marie was another feature of her present life that pleased her. She had dropped out of Sunday-school work. She thought city Sunday-schools chilly, and she spent many a Sunday afternoon in Marie's room. She liked to sit there in the rocker by the grate fire, and listen to Marie talk as she reclined in the cushions, with her dark, picturesque face. They talked of love and life and books and music, and the world and its ways, for Marie was clever and thoughtful. In after years Beth looked back on those Sunday afternoons with a shadow of regret, for her feet found a sweeter, holier path. Marie prided herself on a little tinge of scepticism, but they rarely touched on that ground. The twilight shadows gathered about the old piano in the corner, and the pictures grew dimmer on the wall, and Marie would play soft love-songs on her guitar, and sometime Beth would recite one of her poems. "Have you finished the novel you were writing last summer, Beth?" asked Marie, one day. "No, there are just three more chapters, and I am going to leave them till holidays, next summer, so I can give them my full time and attention." "Tell me the story." Then Beth sat by the fire with a dreamy look on her face and told the plot of her story. Marie leaned forward, a bright, delighted sparkle in her dark eyes. Beth had never interested her like that before. She felt encouraged, and Marie was in raptures when she had finished. "It's just splendid! Oh, Beth, how clever you are; you will be famous soon. I shall be proud of your friendship." Beth did not enjoy as much of the company of Clarence as she had hoped during these days, though he always brought her home from church on Sunday evening. Marie was always with them. Beth never thought of leaving her, and Clarence, too, seemed to enjoy her company. Beth was pleased at this; she liked to have Clarence appreciate her friends. Then, they three often went to the musical concerts; Beth liked those concerts so much, and Marie's face would fairly sparkle sometimes, and change with every wave of music. "Just look! Isn't Marie's face grand?" said Clarence one night in a concert. Beth only smiled. That night she sat in the rocker opposite her mirror and looked at her own reflection. "What a grave, grey-eyed face it is!" she thought. She loved music and beautiful things, and yet she wondered why her eyes never sparkled and glowed like Marie's. She wished they had more expression. And yet Marie was not a pretty girl: no one would have thought for a moment of calling her pretty. But what of Arthur? Beth was surprised that during all this time she had seen him but once, though she lived so near to Victoria. That once was in the University hall. She had studied late one afternoon, in the reading-room, after the other girls were gone, and it was just where the two corridors met that she came face to face with Arthur. He stopped, and inquired about her studies and her health, and his eyes rested kindly upon her for a moment; but he did not speak to her just like the old Arthur. "Good-bye, Beth--little Beth." She recalled the words as she passed down the long, deserted hall, with its row of lights on either side. There was another thing that touched Beth. It was when Marie left them just before the examinations in the spring; she was going to visit some friends. Sweet Marie! How she would miss her. She sat by the drawing-room window waiting to bid her good-bye. It was a bright April day, with soft clouds and a mild breeze playing through the budding trees. Marie came down looking so picturesque under her broad-brimmed hat, and lifted her veil to receive Beth's farewell kiss. Beth watched her as she crossed the lawn to the cab. Clarence came hurrying up to clasp her hand at the gate. He looked paler, Beth thought; she hoped he would come in, but he turned without looking at her window and hurried away. Beth felt a little sad at heart; she looked at the long, empty drawing-room, and sighed faintly, then went back upstairs to her books. And what had that winter brought to Beth? She had grown; she felt it within herself. Her mind had stretched out over the great wide world with its millions, and even over the worlds of the sky at night, and at times she had been overwhelmed at the glory of earth's Creator. Yes, she had grown; but with her growth had come a restlessness; she felt as though something were giving way beneath her feet like an iceberg melting in mild waters. There was one particular night that this restlessness had been strong. She had been to the Modern Language Club, and listened to a lecture on Walt Whitman, by Dr. Needler. She had never read any of Whitman's poetry before, she did not even like it. But there were phrases and sentences here and there, sometimes of Whitman's, sometimes of Dr. Needler's, that awakened a strange incoherent music in her soul--a new chord was struck. It was almost dark when she reached her room, at the close of a stormy winter day. She stood at her window watching the crimson and black drifts of cloud piled upon each other in the west. Strife and glory she seemed to read in that sky. She thought of Whitman's rugged manliness, of the way he had mingled with all classes of men--mingled with them to do them good. And Beth's heart cried out within her, only to do something in this great, weary world--something to uplift, to ennoble men, to raise the lowly, to feed and to clothe the uncared for, to brighten the millions of homes, to lift men--she knew not where. This cry in Beth's heart was often heard after that--to be great, to do something for others. She was growing weary of the narrow boundaries of self. She would do good, but she knew not how. She heard a hungry world crying at her feet, but she had not the bread they craved. Poor, blinded bird, beating against the bars of heaven! Clarence never seemed to understand her in those moods: he had no sympathy with them. Alas, he had never known Beth Woodburn; he had understood her intellectual nature, but he had never sounded the depths of her womanly soul. He did not know she had a heart large enough to embrace the whole world, when once it was opened. Poor, weak, blinded Clarence! She was as much stronger than he, as the star is greater than the moth that flutters towards it. CHAPTER VII. _ENDED._ June was almost over, and Beth had been home a full month on that long four months' vacation that university students are privileged to enjoy. She was very ambitious when she came home that first vacation. She had conceived a fresh ideal of womanhood, a woman not only brilliantly educated and accomplished, but also a gentle queen of the home, one who thoroughly understood the work of her home. Clarence was quite pleased when she began to extol cooking as an art, and Dr. Woodburn looked through the open kitchen-door with a smile at his daughter hidden behind a clean white apron and absorbed in the mysteries of the pastry board. Aunt Prudence was a little astonished, but she never would approve of Beth's way of doing things--"didn't see the sense of a note-book and lead-pencil." But Beth knew what she was doing in that respect. Then there were so many books that Beth intended to read in that vacation! Marie had come to the Mayfair's, too, and helped her to pass some pleasant hours. But there was something else that was holding Beth's attention. It was Saturday evening, and that story was almost finished, that story on which she had built so many hopes. She sat in her room with the great pile of written sheets before her, almost finished; but her head was weary, and she did not feel equal to writing the closing scene that night. She wanted it to be the most touching scene of all, and so it had to be rolled up for another week. Just then the door-bell rang and Mrs. Ashley was announced, our old friend Edith Mayfair, the same sweet, fair girl under another name. They sat down by the window and had a long chat. "Have you seen the new minister and his wife yet?" asked Edith. "No; I heard he was going to preach to-morrow." The Rev. Mr. Perth, as the new Methodist minister, was just now occupying the attention of Briarsfield. "It's interesting to have new people come to town. I wonder if they will be very nice. Are they young?" asked Beth. "Yes. They haven't been married so very long." "Edith"--Beth hesitated before she finished the quietly eager enquiry--"do you still think marriage the best thing in the world?" Edith gave her friend a warm embrace in reply. "Yes, Beth, I think it the very best thing, if God dwell in your home." "That sounds like Arthur," said Beth. "Do you ever hear of him. Where is he?" "I don't know where he is," said Beth, with a half sigh. Clarence walked home with Beth to dinner, after church, the next morning. "How do you like the new minister?" Beth asked. "Oh, I think he's a clever little fellow." "So do I," said Beth. "He seems to be a man of progressive ideas. I think we shall have bright, interesting sermons." Marie was slightly ill that Sunday, and did not come out. Clarence and Beth took a stroll in the moonlight. The world looked bright and beautiful beneath the stars, but Clarence was quieter even than usual, and Beth sighed faintly. Clarence was growing strangely quiet and unconfidential. He was certainly not a demonstrative lover. Perhaps, after all, love was not all she had dreamed. She had painted her dreamland too bright. She did not acknowledge this thought, even to her own soul; but her heart was a little hungry that summer night. Poor Beth! Before another Sabbath she was to know a greater pain than mere weariness. The flames were being kindled that were to scorch that poor heart of hers. It was about ten o'clock the next night when she finished her novel. Somehow it gave her a grave feeling. Aunt Prudence was in bed, and Dr. Woodburn had gone out into the country to a patient, and would not return till midnight. The house was so still, and the sky and the stars so beautiful; the curtains of her open window just moved in the night air! It was all ended now--that dreamland which she had lived and loved and gave expression to on those sheets of paper. Ended! And she was sitting there with her pen in her hand, her work finished, bending over it as a mother does over her child. She almost dreaded to resign it to a publisher, to cast it upon the world. And yet it would return to her, bringing her fame! She was sure of that. The last scene alone would make her famous. She could almost see the sweet earnest-eyed woman in her white robes at the altar; she could hear the sound of voices and the tread of feet; she was even conscious of the fragrance of the flowers. It was all so vivid to her! Then a sudden impulse seized her. She would like so much to show it to Clarence, to talk to him, and feel his sympathy. He never retired much before midnight, and it was scarcely ten minutes' walk. She would get back before her father returned, and no one would know. Seizing her hat, she went quietly out. It was a freak, but then Beth had freaks now and then. A great black cloud drifted over the moon, and made everything quite dark. A timid girl would have been frightened, but Beth was not timid. She knew Clarence was likely to be in the library, and so went around to the south side. The library window was quite close to the door of the side hall, and as Beth came up the terrace, through the open window a picture met her eyes that held her spell-bound. Clarence and Marie were sitting side by side on the sofa, a few feet from the window. Marie's dark face was drooping slightly, her cheeks flushed, and her lips just parted in a smile. There was a picture of the Crucifixion on the wall above them, and rich violet curtains hanging to one side. One of Marie's slender olive hands rested on the crimson cushions at her side, the other Clarence was stroking with a tender touch. Both were silent for a moment. Then Clarence spoke in a soft, low tone: "Marie, I want to tell you something." "Do you? Then tell me." "I don't like to say it," he answered. "Yes, do. Tell me." "If I were not an engaged man,"--his voice seemed to tremble faintly, and his face grew paler--"I should try and win you for my wife." Beth drew back a step, her young cheek colorless as death. No cry escaped her white lips, but her heart almost ceased its beating. It was only a moment she stood there, but it seemed like years. The dark, blushing girl, the weak, fair-haired youth in whom she had placed her trust, the pictures, the cushions, the curtains, every detail of the scene, seemed printed with fire upon her soul. She was stung. She had put her lips to the cup of bitterness, and her face looked wild and haggard as she turned away. Only the stars above and the night wind sighing in the leaves, and a heart benumbed with pain! A tall man passed her in the shadow of the trees as she was crossing the lawn, but she paid no heed. The lights in the village homes were going out one by one as she returned up the dark, deserted street. The moon emerged from the clouds, and filled her room with a flood of unnatural light just as she entered. She threw herself upon her pillow, and a cry of pain went up from her wounded heart. She started the next instant in fear lest some one had heard. But no, there was no one near here, save that loving One who hears every moan; and Beth had not learned yet that He can lull every sufferer to rest in His bosom. The house was perfectly still, and she lay there in the darkness and silence, no line changing in the rigid marble of her face. She heard her father's step pass by in the hall; then the old clock struck out the midnight hour, and still she lay in that stupor with drops of cold perspiration on her brow. Suddenly a change came over her. Her cheeks grew paler still, but her eyes burned. She rose and paced the room, with quick, agitated steps. "Traitress! Traitress!" she almost hissed through her white lips. "It is _her_ fault. It is _her_ fault. And I called her _friend_. Friend! Treachery!" Then she sank upon her bed, exhausted by the outburst of passion, for it took but little of this to exhaust Beth. She was not a passionate girl. Perhaps, never in her life before had she passed through anything like passion, and she lay there now still and white, her hands folded as in death. In the meantime something else had happened at the Mayfair dwelling. She had not noticed the tall man that passed her as she crossed the lawn in the darkness, but a moment later a dark figure paused on the terrace in the same spot where she had stood, and his attention was arrested by the same scene in the library. He paused but a moment before entering, but even his firm tread was unheard on the soft carpet, as he strode up the hall to the half-open curtains of the library. Marie's face was still drooping, but the next instant the curtains were thrown back violently, and they both paled at the sight of the stern, dark face in the door-way. "Clarence Mayfair!" he cried in a voice of stern indignation. "Clarence Mayfair, you dare to speak words of love to that woman at your side? You! Beth Woodburn's promised husband?" "Arthur Grafton!" exclaimed Clarence, and Marie drew back through the violet curtains. A firm hand grasped Clarence by the shoulder, and, white with fear, he stood trembling before his accuser. "Wretch! unworthy wretch! And you claim _her_ hand! Do you know her worth?" "In the name of heaven, Grafton, don't alarm the house!" said Clarence, in a terrified whisper. His lip trembled with emotion, and Arthur's dark eyes flashed with fire. There was a shade of pitiful scorn in them, too. After all, what a mere boy this delicate youth looked, he thought. Perhaps he was too harsh. He had only heard a sentence or two outside the window, and he might have judged too harshly. "I know it, I know I have wronged her," said Clarence, in a choked voice; "but don't betray me!" There was a ring of true penitence and sorrow in the voice that touched Arthur, and as he raised his face to that picture of the Crucifixion on the wall, it softened gradually. "Well, perhaps I am severe. May God forgive you, Clarence. But it is hard for a man to see another treat the woman he--well, there, I'll say no more. Only promise me you will be true to her--more worthy of her." "I will try, Arthur. Heaven knows I have always meant to be honorable." "Then, good-bye, Clarence. Only you need not tell Beth you have seen me to-night," said Arthur, as he turned to leave; "I shall be out of Briarsfield before morning." Poor Arthur! Time had not yet healed his wound, but he was one of those brave souls who can "suffer and be still." That night, as he was passing through Briarsfield on the late train, a desire had seized him to go back to the old place just once more, to walk up and down for a little while before the home of the woman he loved. He did not care to speak to her or to meet her face to face. She was another's promised wife. Only to be near her home--to breathe one deep blessing upon her, and then to leave before break of day, and she would never know he had been near. He had come under cover of the darkness, and had seen her descending the great wide stairway in her white muslin dress, and going down the dark street toward the Mayfairs'. After a little while he had followed, even approached the windows of Clarence Mayfair's home, hoping for one last look. But he had passed her in the shadow of the trees, and had only seen what filled his heart with sorrow. A meaner man would have taken advantage of the sight, and exposed his rival. But Arthur had anything but a mean soul. He believed Beth loved Clarence, as he thought a woman should love the man to whom she gives her life. He believed that God was calling him to the mission-field alone. He had only caught a few words that Clarence had said to Marie, and he fancied it may, after all, have been mere nonsense. Surely he could not have ceased to love Beth! Surely he could not be blind to her merits! Arthur saw only too truly how weak, emotional and changeable Clarence was, but it was not his place to interfere with those whom God had joined. So he argued to himself. But the night was passing, and Beth still lay there, no tear on her cold white cheeks. The clock struck one, a knell-like sound in the night! Beth lay there, her hands folded on her breast, the prayer unuttered by her still lips--one for death. The rest were sleeping quietly in their beds. They knew nothing of her suffering. They would never know. Oh, if that silent messenger would but come now, and still her weary heart! They would come in the morning to look at her. Yes; Clarence would come, too. Perhaps he would love her just a little then. Perhaps he would think of her tenderly when he saw her with the white roses in her hands. Oh, was there a God in heaven who could look down on her sorrow to-night, and not in pity call her home? She listened for the call that would bear her far beyond this earthly strife, where all was such tangle and confusion. She listened, but she heard it not, and the darkness deepened, the moon grew pale and the stars faded away. The house was so still! The whistle of a steam-engine broke the silence, and she saw the red light as the train swept around the curve. It was bearing Arthur away, and she did not know that one who loved her had been so near! Then she saw a grey gleam in the east. Ah, no! she could not die. The day was coming again, and she would have to face them all. She would sit in the same place at the breakfast table. She would meet Clarence again, and Marie--oh--oh, she could not bear the thought of it! She sat up on her bedside with such a weary, anguished look in her eyes! Then she went to kneel at the open window, where her mother had taught her to kneel long years ago. Her sweet-faced, long-dead mother! When she raised her eyes again the east was all aglow with the pink and purple dawn, and the rooks were cawing in the pines across the meadow. She paced the floor for a moment or two. "Yes, it must be done. I will do it," she thought. "He loves her. I will not stand in the way of his happiness. No; I had rather die." And she took a sheet of note-paper, and wrote these simple words: "DEAR CLARENCE,--I do not believe you love me any more. I can never be your wife. I know your secret. I know you love Marie. I have seen it often in your eyes. Be happy with her, and forget me. May you be very happy, always. Good-bye. BETH." She took it herself to the Mayfair home, knowing that her father would only think she had gone out for a morning walk. The smoke-wreaths were curling upward from the kitchen chimneys as she passed down the street, and Squire Mayfair looked a little surprised when she handed him her note for Clarence, and turned to walk away. That sleepless, tearless night had told upon her, and she was not able to come down to breakfast. Her father came in, and looked at her with a professional air. "Just what I told you, Beth. You've worked too hard. You need rest. That's just what's the matter," he said, in a brusque voice, as he put some medicine on the table and left the room. Rest! Yes, she could rest now. Her work was done. She looked at the sheet of manuscript that she had taken last night to show Clarence. Yes, the work was done. She had reached the end of her story--the end of her prospect of marriage. Ended her labor--ended her life-dream! As for Clarence, he read her note without any emotion. "Humph! I didn't think Grafton was the fellow to make mischief so quickly. A tale-bearer! Well, it's all for the best. I made a mistake. I do not love Beth Woodburn. I cannot understand her." Beth slept, and seemed much better in the afternoon, but she was still quite pale when she went into her father's room after tea. "Dear old daddy," she said, putting her arms about his neck, "you were always so kind. You never refuse me anything if you can help it. I wish you would let me go away." "Why, certainly, Beth, dear!" he said briskly. "Isn't that just what I've been telling you? Stop writing all day in that hot room up-stairs. Go off and have a frolic. Go and see your Aunt Margaret." And so it was settled that if Beth were well enough she should start for Welland next afternoon. She did not see Clarence during the next morning. It surprised her that he sought no explanation, and before three o'clock Briarsfield was a mere speck in the distance. CHAPTER VIII. _THE HEAVENLY CANAAN._ Nearly two months later Beth returned home. Marie had broken off her visit abruptly, and Clarence had gone away. It was a rainy Saturday, and Beth sat waiting for her father to finish his rounds. Her visit had refreshed her, and she looked fairly well again. After all, she had so many bright prospects! She was young and talented. Her novel was finished. She would read it through at once, making minor corrections, and then publish it. With all youth's hopefulness, she was sure of fame and worldly success, perhaps of wealth too. She seemed to see a rich harvest-field before her as she sat listening to the rain beat on the roof that summer afternoon. But, after all, she was not happy. Somehow, life was all so hollow! So much tangle and confusion! Her young feet were weary. It was not simply that her love was unreturned. That pained her far less than she would have thought. It was that her idol was shattered. Only in the last few weeks had she begun to see Clarence Mayfair as he really was. It was a wonderfully deep insight into human nature that Beth had; but she had never applied it where Clarence was concerned before, and now that she did, what was it she saw?--a weak, wavering, fickle youth, with a good deal of fine sentiment, perhaps, but without firm, manly strength; ambitious, it was true, but never likely to fulfil his ambitions. The sight pained her. And yet this was the one she had exalted so, and had believed a soaring genius. True, his mind had fine fibre in it, but he who would soar must have strength as well as wings. Beth saw clearly just what Clarence lacked, and what can pain a woman more deeply than to know the object she has idealized is unworthy? Beth had not told her father yet that all was at an end between her and Clarence. She dreaded telling him that, but she knew he must have learned it from the Mayfairs during her absence. She sighed as she thought of it all, and just then Dr. Woodburn came in and sat down on the couch beside her. They talked until the twilight of that rainy afternoon began to deepen. Then they were silent for a while, and Beth saw her father looking at her with a tender look in his eyes. "Beth, my dear child, what is wrong between you and Clarence?" She had believed she could tell him all with perfect calmness, but there was something so very gentle in his look and voice that it disarmed her, and she threw both arms about his neck, and burst into tears. "Oh, father, dear, I could not marry him. It would not be right. He loves Marie de Vere." Dr. Woodburn turned away his face, tenderly stroking her hair as she leaned upon his breast. He spoke no word, but she knew what he felt. "Oh, daddy, dear, don't think anything about it," she said, giving him a warm embrace as she looked up at him, smiling through her tears. "I'm not unhappy. I have so many things to think of, and I have always you, you dear old father. I love you better than anyone else on earth. I will be your own little daughter always." She pressed her arms about him more tightly, and there were tears in his eyes as he stooped to kiss her brow. Beth thought of all his tenderness that night as she lay in bed, and then slept, with the rain beating on the roof overhead. It was a bright sunshiny Sabbath morning when she awoke. She remembered with pleasure how much she had liked Mr. Perth, the new minister, that Sunday. She had heard him before she went away. He had seemed such an energetic, wide-awake, inspiring man! Beth liked that stamp of people. She meant to be a progressive girl. She meant to labor much and to have much success. She was quite early at church that morning, and interested herself by looking at Mrs. Perth, whom she had never seen before. She was a fair, slender, girlish creature--very youthful indeed for a married woman. She had a great mass of light hair, drawn back plainly from a serenely fair forehead. The fashion became her well, for, in fact, the most striking thing about her face was its simplicity and purity. She was certainly plain-looking, but Beth fancied her face looked like the white cup of a lily. She had such beautiful blue eyes, too, and such a sweet smile. "I think I shall love her. I believe we shall be great friends," thought Beth, after she had had an introduction to Mrs. Perth; and they did become fast friends. Beth had seldom been at Sunday-school since she left home, but an impulse seized her to go this afternoon. She was quite early, and she sat down in a seat by herself to muse awhile. She gazed at the lilies about the altar and the stained-glass windows above the organ. How long it seemed to look back to that Sunday of two months ago! She shuddered slightly, and tried to change her thoughts, but she could not help going back to it. It seemed as though years had since passed. So it is always. We go about our daily tasks, and the time passes swiftly or slowly, according as our lives are active or monotonous. Then a crisis comes--an upheaval--a turn in the current. It lasts but a moment, perhaps, but when we look back, years seem to have intervened. Beth gave a half sigh, and concluded she was a little weary, as the people poured into the Bible-class. Mrs. Perth came and sat beside Beth. Is it not strange how, in this world of formality and convention, we meet someone now and again, and there is but a look, a word, a, smile, and we feel that we have known them so long? There is something familiar in their face, and we seem to have walked beside them all along the way. It was just so with Beth and Mrs. Perth. Sweet May Perth! She soon learned to call her that. Beth was never to forget that Sunday afternoon. Mr. Perth taught the Bible-class. He was an enthusiastic man, reminding her somewhat of Arthur. They were studying, that day, the approach of the Israelites to Canaan, and as Mr. Perth grew more earnest, Beth's face wore a brighter look of interest. Soon he laid aside historical retrospect, and talked of the heavenly Canaan toward which Christ's people were journeying, a bright land shining in the sunlight of God's love, joy in abundance, joy overflowing! He looked so happy as he talked of that Divine love, changeless throughout all time, throughout all eternity--a love that never forsakes, that lulls the weary like a cradle-song, a love that satisfies even the secret longings! Oh, that woman heart of hers, how it yearned, yea, hungered for a love like that love, that could tread the earth in humiliation, bearing the cross of others' guilt, dying there at Calvary! She knew that old, old story well, but she drank it in like a little wondering child to-day. What were those things He promised to those who would tread the shining pathway? Life, peace, rest, hope, joy of earth, joy of heaven! Oh, how she longed to go with them! The tears were standing in her eyes, and her heart was beating faster. But this one thing she must do, or turn aside from the promised land of God's people. Down at the feet of Jesus she must lay her all. And what of that novel she had written? Could she carry that over into this heavenly Canaan? "The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." Hers would perish, she knew that well. Highly moral, highly refined and scholarly, but what of its doubts, its shadows, its sorrows without hope, its supernatural gloom? Beth was a master-artist in the field of gloom. She knew how to make her readers shudder, but would that story of hers bring more joy into the world? Would it sweeten life and warm human hearts? Ah, no! And yet, could she destroy it now, before its publication? Could she bear the thought of it? She loved it almost as a mother loves her child. A look of indecision crossed her face. But, just then, she seemed to hear the bells of heaven ringing forth their sweet Gospel call. The bright sunshine and the angel voices of a higher life seemed to break in on her soul. In a moment--she never knew how it was--she became willing to surrender all. It was hardly a year since she had said nay to Arthur, when he asked her to lay her life at the feet of that same Jesus of Nazareth. She refused then, and even one hour ago she would still have refused; but now she would have trudged the highways, poverty-stricken, unknown and obscure, for His dear sake. She would have gone forth, like St. Paul, to the uttermost ends of the earth, she felt she loved Him so! There were tears in her eyes, and a new joy seemed to throb in her heart. She felt so kindly to everyone about her. Was it an impulse or what? She laid her hand softly on May Perth's as she sat beside her, and May, looking into her eyes, seemed to read her heart. She held her hand with a warm, loving pressure, and they were friends from that hour. Even the sunlight looked more golden when Beth stepped out into it that afternoon. Everything had caught a tint from the pearly gates, for that hour had been a turning-point in her life. She had found the secret of life--the secret of putting self utterly into the background and living for others' happiness; and they who find that secret have the key to their own happiness. The old tinge of gloom in her grey eyes passed away, and, instead, there came into them the warmth and light of a new life. They seemed to reach out over the whole world with tender sympathy, like a deep, placid sea, with the sunlight gilding, its depths. "Beth, you are growing beautiful," her father said to her one day; and there were something so reverential in his look that it touched her too deeply to make her vain. The four weeks that remained before the first of October, when she was to return to college, passed quickly. Clarence did not return, and she heard that he had gone to England, intending to take his degree at Cambridge. The Ashleys, too, had left Briarsfield, as Mr. Ashley had secured a principalship east of Toronto. Beth heard nothing more of Marie, though she would so gladly have forgiven her now! Beth soon became quite absorbed in her new friend, May Perth. She told her one day of her fancy that her face looked like a lily-cup. Mrs. Perth only laughed and kissed her, in her sweet, unconscious way. Beth always loved to kiss May Perth's brow; it was so calm and fair, it reminded her of the white breast of a dove. Just three or four days before Beth was to go away, Aunt Prudence came into her room at a time when she was alone. "Did you ever see this picture that Arthur left in his room when he went away last fall?" she asked. "I don't know whether he did it himself or not." She placed it in the light and left the room. Beth recognized it almost instantly. "Why, it's that poem of mine that Arthur liked best of all!" she thought. Yes, it was the very same--the grey rocks rising one above another, the broad white shore, and the lonely cottage, with the dark storm-clouds lowering above it, and the fisherman's bride at the window, pale and anxious, her sunny hair falling about her shoulders as she peered far out across the sea--the black, storm-tossed sea--and far out among the billows the tiny speck of sail that never reached the shore. Beth was no connoisseur of art, but she knew the picture before her was intensely beautiful, even sublime. There was something in it that made her _feel_. It moved her to tears even as Arthur's music had done. No need to tell her both came from the same hand. Besides, no one else had seen that poem but Arthur. And Arthur could paint like this, and yet she had said he had not an artist soul. She sighed faintly. Poor Arthur! Perhaps, after all, she had been mistaken. And she laid the picture carefully away among her treasures. Her last evening at home soon came. It was a clear, chilly night, and they had a fire in the drawing-room grate. It was so cosy to sit there with her father, resting her head on his shoulders, and watching the coals glowing in the twilight. "Beth, my child, you look so much happier lately. Are you really so happy?" he said, after they had been talking for a while. "Oh, I think life is so very happy!" said Beth, in a buoyant tone. "And when you love Jesus it is so much sweeter, and somehow I like everyone so much and everybody is so kind. Oh, I think life is grand!" Dr. Woodburn was a godly man, and his daughter's words thrilled him sweetly. He brushed away a tear she did not see, and stooped to kiss the young cheek resting on his coat-sleeve. They were silent for a few moments. "Beth, my dear," he said in a softer tone, "Do you know, I thought that trouble last summer--over Clarence--was going to hurt you more. How is it, Beth?" She hesitated a moment. "I don't believe I really loved him, father," she said, in a quiet tone, "I thought I did. I thought it was going to break my heart that night I found out he loved Marie. But, somehow, I don't mind. I think it is far better as it is. Oh, daddy, dear, it's so nice I can tell you things like this. I don't believe all girls can talk to their fathers this way. But I--I always wanted to be loved--and Clarence was different from other people in Briarsfield, you know, and I suppose I thought we were meant for each other." Dr. Woodburn did not answer at once. "I don't think you would have been happy with him, Beth," he said, after a little. "All has been for the best. I was afraid you didn't know what love meant when you became engaged to him. It was only a school-girl's fancy." "Beth, I am going to tell you something," he said a moment later, as he stroked her hair. "People believe that I always took a special interest in Arthur Grafton because his father saved my life when we were boys, but that was not the only reason I loved him. Years ago, down along the Ottawa river, Lawrence Grafton was pastor in the town where I had my first practice. He was a grand fellow, and we were the greatest friends. I used to take him to see my patients often. He was just the one to cheer them up. Poor fellow! Let's see, it's seventeen years this fall since he died. It was the first summer I was there, and Lawrence had driven out into the country with me to see a sick patient. When we were coming back, he asked me to stop with him at a farm-house, where some members of his church lived. I remember the place as if I had seen it yesterday, an old red brick building, with honeysuckle climbing about the porch and cherry-trees on the lawn. The front door was open, and there was a flight of stairs right opposite, and while we waited for an answer to the bell a beautiful woman, tall and graceful, paused at the head of the stairs above us, and then came down. To my eyes she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, Beth. She was dressed in white, and had a basket of flowers on her arm. She smiled as she came towards us. Her hair was glossy-black, parted in the middle, and falling in waves about her smooth white forehead; but her eyes were her real beauty, I never saw anything like them, Beth. They were such great, dark, tender eyes. They seemed to have worlds in them. It was not long before I loved Florence Waldon. I loved her." His voice had a strange, deep pathos in it. "She was kind to me always, but I hardly dared to hope, and one day I saw her bidding good-bye to Lawrence. It was only a look and a hand-clasp, but it was a revelation to me. I kept silent about my love from that hour, and one evening Lawrence came to my rooms. "'Congratulate me, Arthur!' he cried, in a tone that bubbled over with joy. I knew what was coming, but the merciful twilight concealed my face. 'Congratulate me, Arthur! I am going to marry Florence Waldon next month, and you must be best man.' "I did congratulate him from the depth of my heart, and I was best man at the wedding; and when their little son was born they named him Arthur after me. He is the Arthur Grafton you have known. But poor Lawrence! Little Arthur was only a few months old when she took sick. They called me in, and I did all I could to save her, but one night, as Lawrence and I stood by her bedside--it was a wild March night, and the wind was moaning through the shutters while she slept--suddenly she opened her eyes with a bright look. "'Oh, Lawrence, listen, they are singing!' she cried, 'it is so beautiful; I am going home--good-bye--take care of Arthur,' and she was gone." Dr. Woodburn paused a moment, and his breath came faster. "After that I came to Briarsfield and met your mother, Beth. She seemed to understand from my face that I had suffered, and after we had become friends I told her that story, that I had never told to mortal before or since till now. She was so very tender, and I saw in her face that she loved me, and by-and-by I took her to wife, and she healed over the wound with her gentle hands. She was a sweet woman, Beth. God bless her memory. But the strange part of the story is, Florence Waldon's brother, Garth, had settled on that farm over there, the other side of the pine-wood. She had two other brothers, one a talented editor in the States, the other a successful lawyer. Garth, too, was a bright, original fellow; he had a high standard of farm life, and he lived up to it. He was a good man and a truly refined one, and when poor Lawrence died he left little Arthur--he was three years old then--to him. The dear little fellow; he looked so much like his mother. He used to come and hold you in his arms when you were in long dresses, and then, do you remember a few years later, when your own sweet mother died, how he came to comfort you and filled your lap with flowers?" Yes, Beth remembered it all, and the tears were running down her cheeks as she drooped her head in silence. The door-bell broke the stillness just then. Dr. Woodburn was wanted. Bidding Beth a hasty but tender good-bye, he hurried off at the call of duty. Beth sat gazing at the coal-fire in silence after her father left. Poor dear old father! What a touching story it was! He must have suffered so, and yet he had buried his sorrow and gone about his work with smiling face. Brave, heroic soul! Beth fell to picturing it all over again with that brilliant imagination of hers, until she seemed to see the tall woman, with her beautiful dark eyes and hair, coming down the stairs, just as he had seen her. She seemed to hear the March winds moan as he stepped out into the night and left the beautiful young wife, pale in death. Then she went to the window and looked out at the stars in the clear sky, and the meadow tinged with the first frost of autumn; and the pine-wood to the north, with the moon hanging like a crescent of silver above it. It was there, at that window, Arthur had asked her to be his wife. Poor Arthur! She was glad her father did not know. It would have pained him to think she had refused the son of the woman he had loved. Beth lingered a little, gazing at the clear frosty scene before her, then rose with a firm look on her face and went up to her room. There was one thing more to be done before she left home to-morrow. She had resolved upon it. It was dark in her room, but she needed no light to recognize that roll of manuscript in her drawer. She hesitated a moment as she touched it tenderly. Must she do it? Yes, ah, yes! She could not publish that story now. Just then the picture of Arthur seemed to flash through her mind, reading it and tossing it down with that cold, silent look she had sometimes seen on his face. It was dark in the hall as she carried it down to the drawing-room grate. She crouched down on the hearth-rug before the coals, and a moment later the flames that played among the closely-written sheets lighted her face. Nothing but a blackened parchment now for all that proud dream of fame! The room grew dark again, and only the coals cracking and snapping, and the steady ticking of the old clock on the mantel piece above her head, broke the stillness. It was done. She went to the window and knelt down. "Father, I have sacrificed it for Thee. Take this talent Thou hast given me and use it for Thy honor, for I would serve Thee alone, Father." She slept that night with a smile on her lips. Yes, friend, it was a hero's deed, and He who alone witnessed it hath sealed her brow with a light such as martyrs wear in heaven. As for the world, oh, that every book filled with dark doubts and drifting fears and shuddering gloom had perished, too, in those flames! CHAPTER IX. _'VARSITY AGAIN._ In a few days Beth was settled again at Mrs. Owen's, on St. Mary's Street, and tripping to her lectures as usual. Marie was not there, of course, and Beth knew nothing of her whereabouts. In fact, there had been a complete change of boarders. The house was filled with 'Varsity girls this year, with the exception of Marie's old room, a change which Beth appreciated. One of the girls was a special friend of hers, a plump, dignified little creature whom most people called pretty. Hers was certainly a jolly face, with those rosy cheeks and laughing brown eyes, and no one could help loving Mabel Clayton. She belonged to the Students' Volunteer Movement, and as this was her last year at college, Beth thought sometimes a little sorrowfully of the following autumn when she was to leave for India. Beth meant to have her spend a few days at Briarsfield with her next summer. But a good many things were to happen to Beth before the next summer passed. A Victoria student was occupying Marie's old room, but as he took his meals out of the house Beth never even saw him. One of the girls who saw him in the hall one day described him as "just too nice looking for anything," but Beth's interest was not aroused in the stranger. That was a golden autumn for Beth, the happiest by far she had ever known. She was living life under that sweet plan of beginning every day afresh, and thinking of some little act of kindness to be done. Beth soon began to believe the girls of University College were the very kindest in the world; but she would have been surprised, to hear how often they remarked, "Beth Woodburn is always so kind!" There was another treat that she was enjoying this year, and that was Dr. Tracy's lectures. "I think he is an ideal man," she remarked once to Mabel Clayton. "I'm not in love with him, but I think he's an ideal man." Mabel was an ardent admirer of Dr. Tracy's, too, but she could not help laughing at Beth's statement. "You are such a hero-worshipper, Beth!" she said. "You put a person up on a pedestal, and then endow him with all the virtues under the sun." A peculiar look crossed Beth's face. She remembered one whom she had placed on the pedestal of genius, and the idol had fallen, shattered at her feet. She was still the same emotional Beth. There were times when without any outward cause, seemingly from a mere overflow of happiness, she almost cried out, "Oh stay, happy moment, till I drink to the full my draught of joy!" Arthur's painting hung above Beth's study table, and sometimes a shadow crossed her face as she looked at it. She missed the old friendship, and she wondered, too, that she never met him anywhere. Beth did not go home at Thanksgiving that year, and she almost regretted it the evening before. She was a little homesick for "daddy," and to dispel her loneliness she shut up her books and went to bed early. Her head had scarcely touched the pillow when, hark! there was a sound of music in the drawing-room down-stairs. She rose in bed to listen, it was so like Arthur's music. She was not at all familiar with the piece, but it thrilled her somehow. There was a succession, of sweet, mellow notes at first; then higher, higher, higher, broader, deeper, fuller, it was bearing her very soul away! Then sweeter, softer, darker, tint of gold and touch of shadow, the tears were standing in her eyes! Clearer again, and more triumphant! Her lips parted as she listened. One sweet prolonged swell, and it died away. She listened for more, but all was silent. She looked out of the window at the stars in the clear sky, and the dark shadow of St. Michael's tower on the snow-covered college roof, then fell back among the pillows to sleep and dream. She was walking again on the old path by the road-side at home, just as she used to go every evening for the milk. The dusk was deepening and she began to hurry, when she noticed a tall, dark figure ahead. As she drew nearer she recognized Arthur's broad shoulders and well-set head. Then a strange, indefinable fear seized her. She did not want to overtake him, to meet him face to face. She tried to slacken her steps, but a mysterious, resistless wind seemed to bear her forward against her will. Not a leaf stirred. All was still around her, and yet that uncanny, spirit-like wind urged her on. She struggled, and although Arthur never looked back, she felt that he knew all about her struggles. At last she made one mighty effort and tore herself free. She took the path on the other side of the road. It was all quiet there, and she walked on slowly. The darkness grew thicker, and she lost sight of Arthur. Then the country became quite new to her. There were bridges every little way--old rickety bridges, that creaked beneath her step, with holes where she caught her feet, and she could hear the great wild torrents rushing below in the darkness. She grew frightened. Oh, how she wished Arthur were there! Then suddenly it grew lighter, and she saw that her path was turning, and lo! there was Arthur! A moment more and their paths would meet. He reached the spot a few steps before her, and turning, looked at her just once, but she saw in his look that he knew all that had passed in her heart. "Follow me," he said, with a tender look; and she followed in silence where the path led between the steep, high banks, where strange flowers were clinging in the dim light. She was quite content now, not frightened any longer. Then the bank opened by their pathway, and he led her into a strange, sandy, desert-looking place. They entered a shadowy tent, and in the dim light she could see strange faces, to whom Arthur was talking. No one noticed her, but she did not feel slighted, for though he did not look at her, she felt that he was thinking of her. Then suddenly the strange faces vanished, and she was alone with Arthur. He came toward her with such a beautiful smile, and there was something in his hand of bright gold--the brightest gold she had ever seen. It was a golden spear with a tiny ring on one end and a mass of chain hanging to it; but lo! when she looked around her she saw it had filled the place with a beautiful mystic light, a golden halo. Then he drew her nearer, nearer to his bosom, and in a moment she felt the spear point touch her heart! An instant of pain, then it pierced her with a deep, sweet thrill. She felt it even to her finger tips. She awoke with a start, but she could almost feel that thrill even after she was awake. She could not sleep again quickly, but lay watching the stars and the moonlight growing paler on her book-case. Sleep came at length, and when she awoke again it was at the sound of Mr. Owen's jolly "Heigho! Everybody up! Everybody up!" This was a way he had of waking the children in good time for breakfast, and it had the merit of always arousing the boarders, too. Beth naturally supposed that the musician she had heard the night before had been a caller, and so made no enquiries. The following Sunday evening Beth went to church alone. It was only three or four blocks up to the Central, and Beth was never timid. She did not look around the church much, or she would have recognized a familiar face on the east side. It was Clarence Mayfair's; he was paler than usual, and his light curly hair looked almost artificial in the gaslight. There was something sadder and more manly in his expression, and his eyes were fixed on Beth with a reverent look. How pure she was, he thought, how serene; her brow looked as though an angel-hand had smoothed it in her slumber. She seemed to breathe a benediction on everything around her; she reminded him of an image of an angel bending in prayer, that he had seen in one of the old cathedral windows across the sea. And yet, after knowing a woman like that, he had fancied he could--even fancied he did--love Marie de Vere. What folly had blinded him then, he wondered? Marie had her charms, to be sure, with those dark, bewitching eyes of hers, so kind and sympathetic, so bright and witty and entertaining. But there was something about Marie that was fleeting, something about Beth that was abiding; Marie's charms bewitched while she was present and were soon forgotten, but Beth's lingered in the memory and deepened with the years. It was well, after all, he thought, that Marie had refused his offer of marriage that morning he received Beth's note, and went to her in the heat of his passion. He was but a boy then, and yet it was only a few months ago. What was it that had changed him from boyhood to manhood so suddenly? He did not try to answer the question, but only felt conscious of the change within. He realized now that he had never known what it meant to love. Marie had shed her lustre on him as she passed; Beth he had never fully comprehended. He had a dim feeling that she was somehow too high for him. But would this reverence he felt for her ripen into love with the maturer years of his manhood? We never can tell the changes that time will weave in these hearts of ours. It is to be feared Clarence was not a very attentive listener throughout the service that night. At the close he waited for Beth in the moonlight outside, but she did not notice him till he was right beside her. "Clarence!" she exclaimed, in a tone of astonishment. "Why, I thought you were in England." "So I was; but I am back, you see." "I thought you were going to take a year at Cambridge." "I did intend to, but I found it too expensive. Besides, I thought I wouldn't bother finishing my course. I am doing some work along the journalistic line at present. I just came to Toronto last night, and intend to leave Tuesday or Wednesday." In the first moment of her surprise she had forgotten everything except that Clarence was an old friend from home; but now, as he walked beside her, it all came back like a flash--the memory of that night last summer when she had seen him last. She grew suddenly silent and embarrassed. She longed to ask him about Marie; she wondered if they were engaged, and if so where she was, but she soon controlled herself and asked him about his trip to England, about his mother, about his work, about Edith and everything else of possible or impossible interest. She was relieved, without knowing why, that it was only a few blocks to her boarding-place. He lingered a moment as he said good-night, and something in his look touched her a little. Only the stirring of old memories. She hardly knew whether she was pleased or not to meet him again; but as she entered her room in the darkness her dream seemed to flash across her memory and a tender voice said, "Follow me." Clarence strolled a little way into the park, pondering on the past. He had never asked Beth for an explanation of her farewell note. He naturally supposed that Arthur Grafton had gone directly to her that night and caused the rupture. He wondered if Arthur were in love with her. Then he turned suddenly and walked back by St. Mary's Street to Yonge. The street was almost deserted; there was only one figure in sight, a tall man drawing nearer. There was No.----, where he had left Beth at the door. He had just passed a few more doors when a familiar voice startled him. It was Arthur Grafton! Clarence felt ill at ease for a moment, but Arthur's tone was so kind it dispelled his embarrassment. They talked for a few moments, then parted; and Clarence, looking back a moment later, saw Arthur ring the bell at Beth's boarding-place. A peculiar look, almost a sneer, crossed his face for a moment. "Ah, he is going in to spend the evening with his beloved," he thought. And Clarence resolved, then and there, not to call on Beth the following day, as he had intended. But Arthur proceeded absently to the room Marie had formerly occupied, without the slightest idea that Beth had lived in the house with him nearly two months. It was strange, but though he had seen all the other girls in the house he had never seen Beth. He had not enquired her address the year before, not wishing to know. He wished to have nothing to do with Clarence Mayfair's promised wife. She was nothing to him. Should he encourage the love he felt for another's wife? No! He had loved with all the strength of that love that comes but once to any human heart, and he had suffered as only the strong and silent can suffer; but he had resolved to bury his pain, and it had given his face a sterner look. So he lay down to rest that night all unconscious that Beth was in the room just overhead; that he had heard her footsteps daily, even listened to her humming little airs to unrecognizable tunes; but the sight of Clarence Mayfair had aroused the past, and he did not sleep till late. The following afternoon, as Beth sat studying in her room after lectures, she heard a faint tap at her door, a timid knock that in some way seemed to appeal strangely to her. She opened the door--and there stood Marie! In the first moment of her surprise Beth forgot everything that had separated them, and threw both arms about her in the old child-like way. She seated her in the rocker by the window and they talked of various things for a while, but Beth noticed, now and then, an uneasy look in her eyes. "She has come to tell me she is going to marry Clarence, and she finds it difficult, poor girl," thought Beth, with a heart full of sympathy. "Beth," said Marie at last, "I have wronged you. I have come here to ask you to forgive me." Beth belonged to the kind of people who are always silent in emergencies, so she only looked at her with her great tender eyes, in which there was no trace of resentment. "I came between you and Clarence Mayfair. He never loved me. It was only a fancy. I amused and interested him, I suppose. That was all. He is true to you in the depths of his heart, Beth. It was my fault--all my fault. He never loved me. It was you he loved, but I encouraged him. It was wrong, I know." Something seemed to choke her for a moment. "Will you forgive me, Beth? Can you ever forgive?" She was leaning forward gracefully, her fur cape falling back from her shoulders and her dark eyes full of tears. Beth threw both arms about her old friend tenderly, forgetting all the bitter thoughts she had once had. "Oh, Marie, dear, I love you--I love you still. Of course I forgive you." Then Beth told her all the story of the past, and of that night when she had learned that Clarence did not love her, of her wounded vanity, her mistaken belief in the genuineness of her own love for him, and her gradual awakening to the fact that it was not love after all. "Then it wasn't Mr. Grafton at all who made the trouble?" interrupted Marie. "Mr. Grafton? Why, no! What could he have to do with it?" "Oh, nothing. We thought, at least Clarence thought, he made the trouble." Beth looked mystified, but Marie only continued in a softened tone: "I am afraid you don't know your own heart, dear Beth. You will come together again, and all will be forgotten." "No, Marie, never! The past was folly. All is better as it is." A pained look that Beth could not fathom drifted across Marie's brow. "You think so now, but you will change," she said. A knock at the door interrupted them just then, as Mrs. Owen announced a friend of Beth's. Marie kissed her gently. "Good-bye, Beth," she said in her sweet low voice, and there was a tender sadness in her dark eyes. Beth did not know its meaning at the time, but a day was coming when she would know. Beth saw nothing more of Clarence during his few days in the city. She wondered sometimes if Marie had seen him, but though they saw each other occasionally during the rest of the winter, neither of them mentioned his name. That week had seemed eventful in Beth's eyes, but it was more eventful even than she thought. The following Saturday, after tea, as Beth and Mabel Clayton were going back upstairs, Beth had seated Mabel by force on the first step of the second flight to tell her some funny little story. Beth was in one of her merry moods that night. Beth was not a wit, but she had her vein of mirth, and the girls used to say she was growing livelier every day. The gas was not lighted in the hall, but Beth had left her door open and the light shone out on the head of the stairs. A moment later they started up with their arms about each other's waist. "Oh, Beth, I left that note-book down stairs. Wait, I'll bring it up to you." Beth waited, standing in the light as her friend scampered down again. She heard the door of Marie's old room open, and a tall man stepped into the hall, but as it was dark below she could not see his face. She wondered, though, why he stood so still, and she had a consciousness that someone was looking at her. Arthur Grafton--for it was he--stood for a moment as if stunned. There she was--Beth Woodburn! The woman he--hush! Clarence Mayfair's promised wife! She looked even beautiful as she stood there in the light, with a smile on her face and a pure white chrysanthemum at her throat. "You needn't hurry so, Mabel dear. I can wait," she said as her friend approached. It was over a year since he had heard that voice, and he had tried to believe his heart was deadened to its influence; but now to-night, at the first sound, it thrilled him again with its old-time music. A moment later she closed her door and the hall was dark, and his heart began to beat faster now that he grasped the truth. He turned again to his room, filled with the soft radiance of moonlight. He leaned back in his study chair, his eyes closed; he could hear the students of St. Michael's chanting an evening hymn, and an occasional cab rattled past in the street below. He noted it as we note all little details in our moments of high excitement. Then a smile gradually lighted up his face. Oh, sweet love! For one moment it seemed to be mastering him. She was there. Hark! Was that her footstep overhead? Oh, to be near her--to touch her hand just once! Then a stern, dark frown settled on his brow. He rose and paced the room with a sort of frenzied step. What is she to you--Clarence Mayfair's promised wife? Arthur Grafton, what is she to you? Oh, that love, deep and passionate, that comes to us but once! That heart-cry of a strong soul for the one being it has enshrined! Sometimes it is gratified and bears in after years its fruits, whether sweet or bitter; or again, it is crushed--blighted in one moment, perhaps--and we go forth as usual trying to smile, and the world never knows, never dreams. A few years pass and our hearts grow numb to the pain, and we say we have forgotten--that love can grow cold. Cold? Yes; but the cold ashes will lie there in the heart--the dust of our dead ideal! Would such a fate be Arthur's? No. There was no room in that great pulsing heart of his for anything that was cold--no room for the chill of forgetfulness. Strive as he might, he knew he could never forget. What then remained? Even in that hour a holier radiance lighted his brow. Strong to bear the burdens and sorrows of others, he had learned to cast all his care upon One who had never forsaken him--even his unrequited love. He laid it on the altar of his God, to bloom afresh, a beauteous flower transplanted by the River of Life, beyond the blight of envy and of care--beyond, yet near enough to earth to scatter its fragrance in blessings down upon the head of her whom he--loved! Dare he say that word? Yes, in a sweeter, holier sense than before, as one might love the beings of another world. His face was quite calm as he turned on the light to resume his studies, but before beginning his work he looked a little sadly around the room. Yes, he had spent pleasant hours there, but he must leave, now. It was better that the same roof should not shelter them both. He did not wish to see Beth Woodburn again; and he just remembered that a friend of his was going to vacate a room on the other side of the park. He would take it early next week. It was a week later, one afternoon, just before tea, that Beth and Mabel Clayton were sitting in the drawing-room with Mrs. Owen. "Do you know any of the girls over at the college who would like to get a room, Miss Clayton?" "No, but I might find some one." "Mr. Grafton has moved out of his room for some reason, I don't know what." "Mr.--whom did you say?" asked Beth. "Mr. Grafton. Did you know him? A tall, dark fellow! Goes to Victoria. Quite good-looking!" "Why, surely, can it be Arthur Grafton! That's just who it is! Why, how funny we never met each other coming in and out!" "Did you know him, Beth?" asked Mabel. "I met him once or twice in the halls, but I didn't know you knew him." "Yes, I have known him ever since we were children." "Oh, then you have heard him play," said Mrs. Owens. "He played for us Thanksgiving eve. He's a splendid musician." Beth felt just a tinge of disappointment that night as she passed the closed door of the room Arthur had occupied. She wondered why he never tried to find her. It was unkind of him to break the old friendship so coldly. It was not her fault she could not love him, she thought. She could never, never do that! In fact, she did not believe she would ever love any man. "Some people are not made for marriage, and I think I'm one of them." And Beth sighed faintly and fell asleep. CHAPTER X. _DEATH._ Christmas eve, and Beth was home for her two weeks' holidays. It was just after tea, and she and her father thought the parlor decidedly cosy, with the curtains drawn and the candles flaming among the holly over the mantel-piece. It seemed all the cosier because of the storm that raged without. The sleet was beating against the pane, and the wind came howling across the fields. Beth parted the curtains once, and peeped out at the snow-wreaths whirling and circling round. "Dear! such a storm! I am glad you're not out to-night, daddy." Beth came back to the fire-side, and passed her father a plate of fruit-cake she had made herself. "It's too fresh to be good, but you mustn't find any fault. Just eat every bit of it down. Oh, Kitty, stop!" They had been cracking walnuts on the hearth-rug, and Beth's pet kitten was amusing itself by scattering the shells over the carpet. Beth sat down on the footstool at her father's feet. "You look well after your fall's work, Beth; hard study doesn't seem to hurt you." "I believe it agrees with me, father." "Did you see much of Arthur while you were in Toronto, Beth? I was hoping you would bring him home for the Christmas holidays." "No, I never saw him once." "Never saw him once!" He looked at her a little sternly. "Beth, what is the matter between you and Arthur?" Ding! The old door-bell sounded. Beth drooped her head, but the bell had attracted her father's attention, and Aunt Prudence thrust her head into the parlor in her unceremonious way. "Doctor, that Brown fellow, by the mill, is wuss, an' his wife's took down, too. They think he's dyin'." "Oh, daddy, I can't let you go out into this dreadful storm. Let me go with you." "Nonsense, child! I must go. It's a matter of life and death, perhaps. Help me on with my coat, daughter, please, I've been out in worse storms than this." Beth thought her father looked so brave and noble in that big otter overcoat, and his long white beard flowing down. She opened the door for him, and the hall light shone out into the snow. She shuddered as she saw him staggering in the wind and sleet, then went back into the parlor. It seemed lonely there, and she went on to the kitchen, where Aunt Prudence was elbow-deep in pastry. A kitchen is always a cheerful place at Christmas time. Beth's fears seemed quieted, and she went back to the parlor to fix another branch of holly about a picture. Ding! Was any one else sick, she wondered, as she went to answer the bell. She opened the door, and there stood Mrs. Perth! It was really she, looking so frail and fair in her furs. "Why, May, dear! What are you doing out in this storm?" "Oh, I'm nearly half dead, Beth." She tried to laugh, but the attempt was not exactly a success. Beth took her in to the fire, removed her wraps, all matted with snow, and called to Aunt Prudence for some hot tea. "Is your father out to-night, Beth?" asked May. "Yes, he went away out to the Browns'. But wherever have you been?" "I've been taking some Christmas things to a poor family about two miles out in the country, and I didn't think the storm so very bad when I started; but I'm like the Irishman with his children, I've 'more'n I want'--of sleet, at any rate. Walter is away to-night, you know." "Mr. Perth away! Where?" "Oh, he went to Simcoe. He has two weddings. They are friends of ours, and we didn't like to refuse. But it's mean, though," she continued, with a sweet, affected little pout; "he'll not get back till afternoon, and it's Christmas, too." "Oh, May dear, you'll just stay right here with us to-night, and for dinner to-morrow. Isn't that just fine!" Beth was dancing around her in child-like glee. Mrs. Perth accepted, smiling at her pleasure; and they sat on the couch, chatting. "Did you say Dr. Woodburn had gone to the Browns'." "Yes, Mrs. Brown is sick, too." "Oh, isn't it dreadful? They're so poor, too. I don't believe they've a decent bed in the house." "Eight! There, the clock just struck. Father ought to be back. It was only a little after six when he went out." She looked anxiously at the drawn curtains, but the sleet beating harder and harder upon the pane was her only answer. "There he is now!" she cried, as a step entered the hall, and she rushed to meet him. "Oh, daddy, dear--why, father!" Her voice changed to wonder and fear. His overcoat was gone and he seemed a mass of ice and snow. His beard was frozen together; his breath came with a thick, husky, sound, and he looked so pale and exhausted. She led him to the fire, and began removing his icy garments. She was too frightened to be of much use, but May's thoughtful self was flitting quietly around, preparing a hot drink and seeing that the bed was ready. He could not speak for a few minutes, and then it was only brokenly. "Poor creatures! She had nothing over her but a thin quilt, and the snow blowing through the cracks; and I just took off my coat--and put it over her. I thought I could stand it." Beth understood it now. He had driven home, all that long way, facing the storm, after taking off his warm fur overcoat, and he was just recovering from a severe cough, too. She trembled for its effect upon him. It went to her heart to hear his husky breathing as he sat there trembling before the fire. They got him to bed soon, and Aunt Prudence tramped through the storm for Dr. Mackay, the young doctor who had started up on the other side of the town. He came at once, and looked grave after he had made a careful examination. There had been some trouble with the heart setting in, and the excitement of his adventure in the storm had aggravated it. Beth remembered his having trouble of that sort once before, and she thought she read danger in Dr. Mackay's face. That was a long, strange night to Beth as she sat there alone by her father's bedside. He did not sleep, his breathing seemed so difficult. She had never seen him look like that before--so weak and helpless, his silvery hair falling back from his brow, his cheeks flushed, but not with health. He said nothing, but he looked at her with a pitying look sometimes. What did it all mean? Where would it end? She gave him his medicine from hour to hour. The sleet beat on the window and the heavy ticking of the clock in the intervals of the storm sounded like approaching footsteps. The wind roared, and the old shutter creaked uneasily. The husky breathing continued by her side and the hours grew longer. Oh, for the morning! What would the morrow bring? She had promised May to awaken her at three o'clock, but she looked so serene sleeping with a smile on her lips, that Beth only kissed her softly and went back to her place. Her father had fallen asleep, and it was an hour later that she heard a gentle step beside her, and May looked at her reproachfully. She went to her room and left May to watch. There was a box on her table that her father had left before he went out that evening, and then she remembered that it was Christmas morning. Christmas morning! There was a handsome leather-bound Bible and a gold watch with a tiny diamond set in the back. She had a choked feeling as she lay down, but she was so exhausted she soon slept. It was late in the morning when she awoke, and May did not tell her of her father's fainting spell. Aunt Prudence was to sit up that night. The dear old housekeeper! How kind she was, Beth thought. She had often been amused at the quaint, old-fashioned creature. But she was a kind old soul, in spite of her occasional sharp words. Dr. Woodburn continued about the same all the following day, saving that he slept more. The next day was Sunday, and Beth slept a little in the afternoon. When she awakened she heard Dr. Mackay going down the hall, and May came in to take her in her arms and kiss her. She sat down on the bed beside Beth, with tears in her beautiful eyes. "Beth, your father has been such a good man. He has done so much! If God should call him home to his reward, would you--would you refuse to give him up?" Beth laid her head on May's shoulder, sobbing. "Oh, May--is it--death?" she asked, in a hoarse whisper. "I fear so, dear." Beth wept long, and May let her grief have its way for a while, then drew her nearer to her heart. "If Jesus comes for him, will you say 'no'?" "His will be done," she answered, when she grew calmer. The next day lawyer Graham came and stayed with Dr. Woodburn some time, and Beth knew that all hope was past, but she wore a cheerful smile in her father's presence during the few days that followed--bright winter days, with sunshine and deep snow. The jingle of sleigh-bells and the sound of merry voices passed in the street below as she listened to the labored breathing at her side. It was the last day of the year that he raised his hand and smoothed her hair in his old-time way. "Beth, I am going home. You have been a good daughter--my one great joy. God bless you, my child." He paused a moment. "You will have to teach, and I think you had better go back to college soon. You'll not miss me so much when you're working." Beth pressed back her tears as she kissed him silently, and he soon fell asleep. She went to the window and looked out on it all--the clear, cold night sky with its myriads of stars, the brightly lighted windows and the snow-covered roofs of the town on the hill-slope, and the Erie, a frozen line of ice in the distant moonlight. The town seemed unusually bright with lights, for it was the gay season of the year. And, oh, if she but dared to give vent to that sob rising in her throat! She turned to the sleeper again; a little later he opened his eyes with a bright smile. "In the everlasting arms," he whispered faintly, then pointed to a picture of Arthur on the table. Beth brought it to him. He looked at it tenderly, then gave it back to her. He tried to say something, and she bent over him to catch the words, but all was silent there; his eyes were closed, his lips set in a smile. Her head sank upon his breast. "Papa!" she cried. No answer, not even the sound of heartbeats. There was a noiseless step at her side, and she fell back, unconscious, into May's arms. When she came to again she was in her own room, and Mr. Perth was by her side. Then the sense of her loss swept over her, and he let her grief have its way for a while. "My child," he said at last, bending over her. How those two words soothed her! He talked to her tenderly for a little while, and she looked much calmer when May came back. But the strain had been too much for her, and she was quite ill all the next day. She lay listening to the strange footsteps coming and going in the halls, for everyone came to take a last look at one whom all loved and honored. There was the old woman whom he had helped and encouraged, hobbling on her cane to give him a last look and blessing; there was the poor man whose children he had attended free of charge, the hand of whose dying boy he had held; there was the little ragged girl, who looked up through her tears and said, "He was good to me." Then came the saddest moment Beth had ever known, when they led her down for the last time to his side. She scarcely saw the crowded room, the flowers that were strewn everywhere. It was all over. The last words were said, and they led her out to the carriage. The sun was low in the west that afternoon when the Perths took her to the parsonage--"home to the parsonage," as she always said after that. Aunt Prudence came to bid her good-bye before she went away to live with her married son, and Beth never realized before how much she loved the dear old creature who had watched over her from her childhood. Just once before she returned to college she went back to look at the old home, with its shutters closed and the snow-drifts on its walks. She had thought her future was to be spent there, and now where would her path be guided? "Thou knowest, Lord," she said faintly. CHAPTER XI. _LOVE._ In the soft flush of the following spring Beth returned to the parsonage at Briarsfield. It was so nice to see the open country again after the city streets. Mr. Perth met her at the station just as the sun was setting, and there was a curious smile on his face. He was a little silent on the way home, as if he had something on his mind; but evidently it was nothing unpleasant. The parsonage seemed hidden among the apple-blossoms, and Mrs. Perth came down the walk to meet them, looking so fair and smiling, and why--she had something white in her arms! Beth bounded forward to meet her. "Why, May, where did you--whose baby?" asked Beth, breathless and smiling. "Who does she look like?" The likeness to May Perth on the little one-month-old face was unmistakable. "You naughty puss, why didn't you tell me when you wrote?" "Been keeping it to surprise you," said Mr. Perth. "Handsome baby, isn't it? Just like her mother!" "What are you going to call her?" "Beth." And May kissed her fondly as she led her in. What a pleasant week that was! Life may be somewhat desert-like, but there is many a sweet little oasis where we can rest in the shade by the rippling water, with the flowers and the birds about us. One afternoon Beth went out for a stroll by herself down toward the lake, and past the old Mayfair home. The family were still in Europe, and the place, she heard, was to be sold. The afternoon sunshine was beating on the closed shutters, the grass was knee-deep on the lawn and terraces, and the weeds grew tall in the flower-beds. Deserted and silent! Silent as that past she had buried in her soul. Silent as those first throbs of her child-heart that she had once fancied meant love. That evening she and May sat by the window watching the sunset cast its glories over the lake, a great sheet of flame, softened by a wrapping of thin purplish cloud, like some lives, struggling, fiery, triumphant, but half hidden by this hazy veil of mortality. "Are you going to write another story, Beth?" "Yes, I thought one out last fall. I shall write it as soon as I am rested." "What is it--a love story?" "Yes, it's natural to me to write of love; and yet--I have never been seriously in love." May laughed softly. "Do you know, I am beginning to long to love truly. I want to taste the deep of life, even if it brings me pain." It was a momentary restlessness, and she recalled these words before long. Mr. Perth joined them just then. He was going away for a week's holiday on the following day. "I suppose you have a supply for Sunday," said Mrs. Perth. "Yes, I have. I think he'll be a very good one. He's a volunteer missionary." "Where is he going?" asked Beth. "I don't know." "I should like to meet him," and Beth paused before she continued, in a quiet tone, "I am going to be a missionary myself." "Beth!" exclaimed Mrs. Perth. "I thought you were planning this," said Mr. Perth. "Thought so? How could you tell?" asked Beth. "I saw it working in your mind. You are easily read. Where are you going?" "I haven't decided yet. I only just decided to go lately--one Sunday afternoon this spring. I used to hate the idea." Perhaps it was this little talk that made her think of Arthur again that night. Why had he never sent her one line, one word of sympathy in her sorrow? He was very unkind, when her father had loved him so. Was that what love meant? The supply did not stay at the parsonage, and Beth did not even ask his name, as she supposed it would be unfamiliar to her. The old church seemed so home-like that Sunday. The first sacred notes echoed softly down the aisles; the choir took their places; then there was a moment's solemn hush,--and Arthur! Why, that was Arthur going up into the pulpit! She could hardly repress a cry of surprise. For the moment she forgot all her coldness and indifference, and looked at him intently. He seemed changed, somehow; he was a trifle paler, but there was a delicate fineness about him she had never seen before, particularly in his eyes, a mystery of pain and sweetness, blended and ripened into a more perfect manhood. Was it because Arthur preached that sermon she thought it so grand? No, everybody seemed touched. And this was the small boy who had gone hazel-nutting with her, who had heard her geography, and, barefoot, carried her through the brook. But that was long, long ago. They had changed since then. Before she realized it, the service was over, and the people were streaming through the door-way where Arthur stood shaking hands with the acquaintances of his childhood. There was a soothed, calm expression on Beth's brow, and her eyes met Arthur's as he touched her hand. May thought she seemed a trifle subdued that day, especially toward evening. Beth had a sort of feeling that night that she would have been content to sit there at the church window for all time. There was a border of white lilies about the altar, a sprinkling of early stars in the evening sky; solemn hush and sacred music within, and the cry of some stray night-bird without. There were gems of poetry in that sermon, too; little gleanings from nature here and there. Then she remembered how she had once said Arthur had not an artist-soul. Was she mistaken? Was he one of those men who bury their sentiments under the practical duties of every-day life? Perhaps so. The next day she and May sat talking on the sofa by the window. "Don't you think, May, I should make a mistake if I married a man who had no taste for literature and art?" "Yes, I do. I believe in the old German proverb, 'Let like and like mate together.'" Was that a shadow crossed Beth's face? "But, whatever you do, Beth, don't marry a man who is all moonshine. A man may be literary in his tastes and yet not be devoted to a literary life. I think the greatest genius is sometimes silent; but, even when silent, he inspires others to climb the heights that duty forbade him to climb himself." "You've deep thoughts in your little head, May." And Beth bent over, in lover-like fashion, to kiss the little white hand, but May had dropped into one of her light-hearted, baby moods, and playfully withdrew it. "Don't go mooning like that, kissing my dirty little hands! One would think you had been falling in love." Beth went for another stroll that evening. She walked past the dear old house on the hill-top. The shutters were no longer closed; last summer's flowers were blooming again by the pathway; strange children stopped their play to look at her as she passed, and there were sounds of mirth and music within. Yes, that was the old home--home no longer now! There was her own old window, the white roses drooping about it in the early dew. "Oh, papa! papa! look down on your little Beth!" These words were in her eyes as she lifted them to the evening sky, her tears falling silently. She was following the old path by the road-side, where she used to go for the milk every evening, when a firm step startled her. "Arthur! Good evening. I'm so glad to see you again!" She looked beautiful for a moment, with the tears hanging from her lashes, and the smile on her face. "I called to see you at the parsonage, but you were just going up the street, so I thought I might be pardoned for coming too." They were silent for a few moments. It was so like old times to be walking there together. The early stars shone faintly; but the clouds were still pink in the west; not a leaf stirred, not a breath; no sound save a night-bird calling to its mate in the pine-wood yonder, and the bleat of lambs in the distance. Presently Arthur broke the silence with sweet, tender words of sorrow for her loss. "I should have written to you if I had known, but I was sick in the hospital, and I didn't--" "Sick in the hospital! Why, Arthur, have you been ill? What was the matter?" "A light typhoid fever. I went to the Wesleyan College, at Montreal, after that, so I didn't even know you had come back to college." "To the Wesleyan? I thought you were so attached to Victoria! Whatever made you leave it, Arthur?" He flushed slightly, and evaded her question. "Do you know, it was so funny, Arthur, you roomed in the very house where I boarded last fall, and I never knew a thing about it till afterward? Wasn't it odd we didn't meet?" Again he made some evasive reply, and she had an odd sensation, as of something cold passing between them. He suddenly became formal, and they turned back again at the bridge where they used to sit fishing, and where Beth never caught anything (just like a girl); they always went to Arthur's hook. The two forgot their coldness as they walked back, and Beth was disappointed that Arthur had an engagement and could not come in. They lingered a moment at the gate as he bade her good-night. A delicate thrill, a something sweet and new and strange, possessed her as he pressed her hand! Their eyes met for a moment. "Good-bye for to-night, Beth." May was singing a soft lullaby as she came up the walk. Only a moment! Yet what a revelation a moment may bring to these hearts of ours! A look, a touch, and something live is throbbing within! We cannot speak it. We dare not name it. For, oh, hush, 'tis a sacred hour in a woman's life. Beth went straight to her room, and sat by the open window in the star-light. Some boys were singing an old Scotch ballad as they passed in the street below; the moon was rising silvery above the blue Erie; the white petals of apple-blossoms floated downward in the night air, and in it all she saw but one face--a face with great, dark, tender eyes, that soothed her with their silence. Soothed? Ah, yes! She felt like a babe to-night, cradled in the arms of something, she knew not what--something holy, eternal and calm. And _this_ was love. She had craved it often--wondered how it would come to her--and it was just Arthur, after all, her childhood's friend, Arthur--but yet how changed! He was not the same. She felt it dimly. The Arthur of her girlhood was gone. They were man and woman now. She had not known this Arthur as he was now. A veil seemed to have been suddenly drawn from his face, and she saw in him--her ideal. There were tears in her eyes as she gazed heavenward. She had thought to journey to heathen lands alone, single-handed to fight the battle, and now--"Arthur--Arthur!" she called in a soft, sweet whisper as she drooped her smiling face. What mattered all her blind shilly-shally fancies about his nature not being poetic? There was more poetry buried in that heart of his than she had ever dreamed. "I can never, never marry Arthur!" she had often told herself. She laughed now as she thought of it, and it was late before she slept, for she seemed to see those eyes looking at her in the darkness--so familiar, yet so new and changed! She awoke for a moment in the grey light just before dawn, and she could see him still; her hand yet thrilled from his touch. She heard the hoarse whistle of a steamer on the lake; the rooks were cawing in the elm-tree over the roof, and she fell asleep again. "Good-morning, Rip Van Winkle," said May, when she entered the breakfast-room. "Why, is that clock--just look at the time! I forgot to wind my watch last night, and I hadn't the faintest idea what time it was when I got up this morning!" "Good-bye for to-night, Beth," he had said, and he was going away to-morrow morning, so he would surely come to-day. No wonder she went about with an absent smile on her face, and did everything in the craziest possible way. It was so precious, this newly-found secret of hers! She knew her own heart now. There was no possibility of her misunderstanding herself in the future. The afternoon was wearing away, and she sat waiting and listening. Ding! No, that was only a beggar-woman at the door. Ding, again! Yes, that was Arthur! Then she grew frightened. How could she look into his eyes? He would read her secret there. He sat down before her, and a formal coldness seemed to paralyze them both. "I have come to bid you good-bye, Miss Woodburn!" Miss Woodburn! He had never called her that before. How cold his voice sounded in her ears! "Are you going back to Victoria College?" she asked. "No, to the Wesleyan. Are you going to spend your summer in Briarsfield?" "Most of it. I am going back to Toronto for a week or two before 'Varsity opens. My friend Miss de Vere is staying with some friends there. She is ill and--" "Do you still call her your friend?" he interrupted, with a sarcastic smile. "Why, yes!" she answered wonderingly, never dreaming that he had witnessed that same scene in the Mayfair home. "You are faithful, Beth," he said, looking graver. Then he talked steadily of things in which neither of them had any interest. How cold and unnatural it all was! Beth longed to give way to tears. In a few minutes he rose to go. He was going! Arthur was going! She dared not look into his face as he touched her hand coldly. "Good-bye, Miss Woodburn. I wish you every success next winter." She went back to the parlor and watched him--under the apple trees, white with blossom, through the gate, past the old church, around the corner--he was gone! The clock ticked away in the long, silent parlor; the sunshine slept on the grass outside; the butterflies were flitting from flower to flower, and laughing voices passed in the street, but her heart was strangely still. A numb, voiceless pain! What did it mean? Had Arthur changed? Once he had loved her. "God have pity!" her white lips murmured. And yet that look, that touch last night--what did it mean? What folly after all! A touch, a smile, and she had woven her fond hopes together. Foolish woman-heart, building her palace on the sands for next day's tide to sweep away! Yet how happy she had been last night! A thrill, a throb, a dream of bliss; crushed now, all but the memory! The years might bury it all in silence, but she could never, never forget. She had laid her plans for life, sweet, unselfish plans for uplifting human lives. Strange lands, strange scenes, strange faces would surround her. She would toil and smile on others, "but oh, Arthur, Arthur--" All through the long hours of that night she lay watching; she could not sleep. Arthur was still near, the same hills surrounding them both. The stars were shining and the hoarse whistle of the steamers rent the night. Perhaps they would never be so near again. Would they ever meet, she wondered. Perhaps not! Another year, and he would be gone far across the seas, and then, "Good-bye, Arthur! Good-bye! God be with you!" CHAPTER XII. _FAREWELL._ Beth's summer at Briarsfield parsonage passed quietly and sweetly. She had seemed a little sad at first, and May, with her woman's instinct, read more of her story than she thought, but she said nothing, though she doubled her little loving attentions. The love of woman for woman is passing sweet. But let us look at Beth as she sits in the shadow of the trees in the parsonage garden. It was late in August, and Beth was waiting for May to come out. Do you remember the first time we saw her in the shadow of the trees on the lawn at home? It is only a little over two years ago, but yet how much she has changed! You would hardly recognize the immature girl in that gentle, sweet-faced lady in her dark mourning dress. The old gloom had drifted from her brow, and in its place was sunlight, not the sunlight of one who had never known suffering, but the gentler, sweeter light of one who had triumphed over it. It was a face that would have attracted you, that would have attracted everyone, in fact, from the black-gowned college professor to the small urchin shouting in the street. To the rejoicing it said, "Let me laugh with you, for life is sweet;" to the sorrowing, "I understand, I have suffered, too. I know what you feel." Just then her sweet eyes were raised to heaven in holy thought, "Dear heavenly Father, thou knowest everything--how I loved him. Thy will be done. Oh, Jesus, my tender One, thou art so sweet! Thou dost understand my woman's heart and satisfy even its sweet longings. Resting in Thy sweet presence what matter life's sorrows!" She did not notice the lattice gate open and a slender, fair-haired man pause just inside to watch her. It was Clarence Mayfair. There was a touching expression on his face as he looked at her. Yes, she was beautiful, he thought. It was not a dream, the face that he had carried in his soul since that Sunday night last fall. Beth Woodburn was beautiful. She was a woman now. She was only a child when they played their little drama of love there in Briarsfield. The play was past now; he loved her as a man can love but one woman. And now--a shadow crossed his face--perhaps it was too late! "Clarence!" exclaimed Beth, as he advanced, "I'm glad to see you." And she held out her hand with an air of graceful dignity. "You have come back to visit Briarsfield, I suppose. I was so surprised to see you," she continued. "Yes, I am staying at Mr. Graham's." She noticed as he talked that he looked healthier, stronger and more manly. Altogether she thought him improved. "Your father and mother are still in England, I suppose," said she. "Yes, they intend to stay with their relatives this winter. As for me, I shall go back to 'Varsity and finish my course." "Oh, are you going to teach?" "Yes; there's nothing else before me," he answered, in a discouraged tone. She understood. She had heard of his father's losses, and, what grieved her still more, she had heard that Clarence was turning out a literary failure. He had talent, but he had not the fresh, original genius that this age of competition demands. Poor Clarence! She was sorry for him. "You have been all summer in Briarsfield?" he asked. "Yes, but I am going to Toronto to-morrow morning." "Yes, I know. Miss de Vere told me she had sent for you." "Oh, you have seen her then!" "Yes, I saw her yesterday. Poor girl, she'll not last long. Consumption has killed all the family." Beth wondered if he loved Marie, and she looked at him, with her gentle, sympathetic eyes. He caught her look and winced under it. She gazed away at the glimpse of lake between the village roofs for a moment. "Beth, have you forgotten the past?" he asked, in a voice abrupt but gentle. She started. She had never seen his face look so expressive. The tears rose to her eyes as she drooped her flushing face. "No, I have not forgotten." "Beth, I did not love you then; I did not know what love meant--" "Oh, don't speak of it! It would have been a terrible mistake!" "But, Beth, can you never forgive the past? I love you _now_--I have loved you since--" "Oh, hush, Clarence! You _must_ not speak of love!" And she buried her face in her hands and sobbed a moment, then leaned forward slightly toward him, a tender look in her eyes. "I love another," she said, in a low gentle voice. He shielded his eyes for a moment with his fair delicate hand. It was a hard moment for them both. "I am so sorry, Clarence. I know what you feel. I am sorry we ever met." He looked at her with a smile on his saddened face. "I feared it was so; but I had rather love you in vain than to win the love of any other woman. Good-bye, Beth." "Good-bye." He lingered a moment as he touched her hand in farewell. "God bless you," she said, softly. He crossed the garden in the sunshine, and she sat watching the fleecy clouds and snatches of lake between the roofs. Poor Clarence! Did love mean to him what it meant to her? Ah, yes! she had seen the pain written on his brow. Poor Clarence! That night she craved a blessing upon him as she knelt beside her bed. Just then he was wandering about the weed-grown lawns of his father's house, which looked more desolate than ever in the light of the full moon. It was to be sold the following spring, and he sighed as he walked on toward the lake-side. Right there on that little cliff he had asked Beth Woodburn to be his wife, and but for that fickle faithlessness of his, who knew what might have been? And yet it was better so--better for _her_--God bless her. And the thought of her drew him heavenward that night. The next day Beth was on her way to Toronto to see Marie. She was in a pensive mood as she sat by the car window, gazing at the farm-lands stretching far away, and the wooded hill-sides checkered by the sunlight shining through their boughs. There is always a pleasant diversion in a few hours' travel, and Beth found herself drawn from her thoughts by the antics of a negro family at the other end of the car. A portly colored woman presided over them; she had "leben chilen, four dead and gone to glory," as she explained to everyone who questioned her. It was about two o'clock when Beth reached Toronto, and the whirr of electric cars, the rattle of cabs and the mixed noises of the city street would all have been pleasantly exciting to her young nerves but for her thoughts of Marie. She wondered at her coming to the city to spend her last days, but it was quiet on Grenville Street, where she was staying with her friends, the Bartrams. Beth was, indeed, struck by the change in her friend when she entered the room. She lay there so frail and shadow-like among her pillows, her dark cheeks sunken, though flushed; but her eyes had still their old brilliancy, and there was an indefinable gentleness about her. Beth seemed almost to feel it as she stooped to kiss her. The Bartrams were very considerate, and left them alone together as much as possible, but Marie was not in a talking mood that day. Her breath came with difficulty, and she seemed content to hold Beth's hand and smile upon her, sometimes through tears that gathered silently. Bright, sparkling Marie! They had not been wont to associate tears with her in the past. It was a pleasant room she had, suggestive of her taste--soft carpet and brightly-cushioned chairs, a tall mirror reflecting the lilies on the stand, and a glimpse of Queen's Park through the open window. The next day was Sunday, and Beth sat by Marie while the others went to church. They listened quietly to the bells peal forth their morning call together, and Beth noted with pleasure that it seemed to soothe Marie as she lay with closed eyes and a half smile on her lips. "Beth, you have been so much to me this summer. Your letters were so sweet. You are a great, grand woman, Beth." And she stroked Beth's hair softly with her frail, wasted hand. "Do you remember when I used to pride myself on my unbelief?" Her breath failed her for a moment. "It is past now," she continued, with a smile. "It was one Sunday; I had just read one of your letters, and I felt somehow that Jesus had touched me. I am ready now. It was hard, so hard at first, to give up life, but I have learned at last to say 'His will be done.'" Beth could not speak for the sob she had checked in her throat. "Beth, I may not be here another Sunday. I want to talk to you, dear. You remember the old days when that trouble came between you and--and Clarence. I was a treacherous friend to you, Beth, to ever let him speak of love to me. I was a traitor to--" "Oh, hush! Marie, darling, don't talk so," Beth pleaded in a sobbing tone. "I _must_ speak of it, Beth. I was treacherous to you. But when you know what I suffered--" Her breath failed again for a moment. "I _loved_ him, Beth," she whispered. "Marie!" There was silence for a moment, broken only by Marie's labored breathing. "I loved him, but I knew he did not love me. It was only a fancy of his. I had charmed him for the time, but I knew when I was gone his heart would go back to you--and now, Beth, I am dying slowly, I ask but one thing more. I have sent for Clarence. Let everything be forgotten now; let me see you happy together just as it was before." "Oh, hush, Marie! It cannot be. It can never be. You know I told you last fall that I did not love him." "Ah, but that is your pride, Beth; all your pride! Listen to me, Beth. If I had ten years more to live, I would give them all to see you both happy and united." Beth covered her face with her hands, as her tears flowed silently. "Marie, I must tell you all," she said, as she bent over her. "I love another: I love Arthur!" "Arthur Grafton!" Marie exclaimed, and her breath came in quick, short gasps, and there was a pained look about her closed eyes. Beth understood she was grieved for the disappointment of the man she loved. "And you, Beth--are you happy? Does he--Arthur, I mean--love you?" she asked, with a smile. "No. He loved me once, the summer before I came to college, but he is changed now. He was in Briarsfield this summer for a few days, but I saw he was changed. He was not like the same Arthur--so changed and cold." She sat with a grave look in her grey eyes as Marie lay watching her. "Only once I thought he loved me," she continued; "one night when he looked at me and touched my hand. But the next day he was cold again, and I knew then that he didn't love me any more." Marie lay for a few moments with a very thoughtful look in her eyes, but she made no remark, and, after a while, she slept from weakness and exhaustion. Beth went out for a few hours next morning, and found her very much weaker when she returned. Mrs. Bartram said she had tired herself writing a letter. She had a wide-awake air as if she were watching for something, and her ear seemed to catch every step on the stair-way. It was toward the close of day. "Hark! who's that?" she asked, starting. "Only Mrs. Bartram. Rest, dearest," said Beth. But the brilliant eyes were fixed on the door, and a moment later Clarence entered the room. Marie still held Beth's hand, but her dark eyes were fixed on Clarence with a look never to be forgotten. "You have come at last," she said, then fell back on her pillows exhausted, but smiling, her eyes closed. He stood holding the frail hand she had stretched out to him, then the dark eyes opened slowly, and she gazed on him with a yearning look. "Put your hand upon my forehead, I shall die happier," she said, softly. "Oh, Clarence, I loved you! I loved you! It can do no harm to tell you now. Kiss me just once. In a moment I shall be with my God." Beth had glided from the room, and left her alone with the man she loved; but in a few minutes he called her and Mrs. Bartram to the bed-side. Marie was almost past speaking, but she stretched forth her arms to Beth and drew her young head down upon her breast. There was silence for a few minutes, broken only by Marie's hoarse breathing. "Jesus, my Redeemer," her pale lips murmured faintly, then the heart-throbs beneath Beth's ear were still; the slender hand fell helpless on the counterpane; the brilliant eyes were closed; Marie was gone! When Beth came to look at her again she lay smiling in her white, flowing garment, a single lily in her clasped hands. Poor Marie! She had loved and suffered, and now it was ended. Aye, but she had done more than suffer. She had refused the man she loved for his sake and for the sake of another. Her sacrifice had been in vain, but the love that sacrificed itself--was that vain? Ah, no! Sweet, brave Marie! Her friends thought it a strange request of hers to be buried at Briarsfield, but it was granted. Her vast wealth--as she had died childless--went, by the provisions of her father's will, to a distant cousin, but her jewels she left to Beth. The following afternoon Mr. Perth read the funeral service, and they lowered the lovely burden in the shadow of the pines at the corner of the Briarsfield church-yard. There in that quiet village she had first seen him she loved. After all her gay social life she sought its quiet at last, and the stars of that summer night looked down on her new-made grave. The following day Mr. Perth laid a colored envelope from a large publishing firm in Beth's lap. They had accepted her last story for a good round sum, accompanied by most flattering words of encouragement. As she read the commendatory words, she smiled at the thought of having at least one talent to use in her Master's service. Yes, Beth Woodburn of Briarsfield would be famous after all. It was no vain dream of her childhood. Four weeks passed and Beth had finished her preparations for returning to college in the fall. In a few weeks she would be leaving May and the dear old parsonage, but she would be glad to be back at 'Varsity again. There came a day of heavy rain, and she went out on an errand of charity for May. When she returned, late in the afternoon, she heard Mr. Perth talking to someone in the study, but that was nothing unusual. The rain was just ceasing, and the sun suddenly broke through the clouds, filling all the west with glory. Beth went down into the garden to drink in the beauty. Rugged clouds stood out like hills of fire fringed with gold, and the great sea of purple and crimson overhead died away in the soft flush of the east, while the wet foliage of the trees and gardens shone like gold beneath the clouds. It was glorious! She had never seen anything like it before. Look! there were two clouds of flame parting about the sunset like a gateway into the beyond, and within all looked peaceful and golden. Somehow it made her think of Marie. Poor Marie! Why had Clarence's love for her been unreal? Why could she not have lived and they been happy together? Love and suffering! And what had love brought to her? Only pain. She thought of Arthur, too. Perhaps he was happiest of all. He seemed to have forgotten. But she--ah, she could never forget! Yet, "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight." And she pulled a bunch of fall flowers from the bush at her side, careless of the rain-drops that shook on her bare head as she touched the branches. She did not know that she was being observed from the study window. "She is going to be a missionary, isn't she?" said the stranger who was talking to Mr. Perth. "Yes; she hasn't decided her field yet, but she will make a grand one wherever she goes. She's a noble girl; I honor her." "Yes, she is very noble," said the stranger slowly, as he looked at her. She would have recognized his voice if she had been within hearing, but she only pulled another spray of blossoms, without heeding the sound of the study door shutting and a step approaching her on the gravelled walk. "Beth." "Arthur! Why, I--I thought you were in Montreal!" "So, I was. I just got there a few days ago, but I turned around and came back to-day to scold you for getting your feet wet standing there in the wet grass. I knew you didn't know how to take care of yourself." There was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Didn't I always take care of you when you were little?" "Yes, and a nice tyrant you were!" she said, laughing, when she had recovered from her surprise, "always scolding and preaching at me." He seemed inclined to talk lightly at first, and then grew suddenly silent as they went into the drawing-room. Beth felt as though he were regarding her with a sort of protecting air. What did it mean? What had brought him here so suddenly? She was growing embarrassed at his silence, when she suddenly plunged into conversation about Montreal, the Wesleyan College, and other topics that were farthest away from her present thought and interest. "Beth," said Arthur suddenly, interrupting the flow of her remarks in a gentle tone, "Beth, why did you not tell me last summer that you were going to be a missionary?" She seemed startled for a moment, as he looked into her flushed face. "Oh, I don't know. I--I meant to. I meant to tell you that afternoon you came here before you went away, but I didn't know you were going so soon, and I didn't tell you somehow. Who told you?" "Marie de Vere told me," he said, gently. "She wrote to me just a few hours before she died; but I didn't get the letter till yesterday. She left it with Clarence, and he couldn't find me at first." They looked at each other a moment in silence, and there was a tender smile in his eyes. Then a sudden flush crimsoned her cheek. How much did he know? Had Marie told him that she-- "Beth, why did you not tell me before that you were free--that you were not another's promised wife?" His voice was gentle, very gentle. Her face drooped, and her hand trembled as it lay on her black dress. He rose and bent over her, his hand resting on her shoulder. His touch thrilled her, soothed her, but she dare not raise her eyes. "I--I--didn't know it mattered--that; you cared," she stammered. "Didn't know I cared!" he exclaimed; then, in a softer tone, "Beth, did you think I had forgotten--that I could forget? I love you, Beth. Can you ever love me enough to be my wife?" She could not speak, but in her upturned face he read her answer, and his lips touched her brow reverently. Closer, closer to his breast he drew her. Soul open to soul, heart beating against heart! The old clock ticked in the stillness, and the crimson glow of the sunset was reflected on the parlor wall. Oh, what joy was this suddenly breaking through the clouds upon them! Beth was the first to break the silence. "Oh, Arthur, I love you so! I love you so!" she said, twining her arms passionately about his neck, as her tears fell upon his breast. It was the long pent-up cry of her loving womanhood. "But Arthur, why were you so cold and strange that day we parted last summer?" "I thought you were another's intended wife. I tried to hide my love from you." His voice shook slightly as he answered. One long, lingering look into each other's eyes, and, with one thought, they knelt together beside the old couch and gave thanks to the all-loving Father who had guided their paths together. That night Beth lay listening as the autumn wind shook the elm-tree over the roof and drifted the clouds in dark masses across the starry sky. But the winds might rage without--aye, the storms might beat down, if they would, what did it matter? Arthur was near, and the Divine presence was bending over her with its shielding love. "Oh, God, Thou art good!" She was happy--oh, so happy! And she fell asleep with a smile on her face. The autumn passed--such a gloriously happy autumn--and Christmas eve had come. The snow lay white and cold on the fields and hills about Briarsfield, but in the old church all was warmth and light. A group of villagers were gathered inside, most of them from curiosity, and before the altar Arthur and Beth were standing side by side. Beth looked very beautiful as she stood there in her white bridal robes. The church was still, sacredly still, but for the sound of Mr. Perth's earnest voice; and in the rear of the crowd was one face, deadly pale, but calm. It was Clarence. How pure she looked, he thought. Pure as the lilies hanging in clusters above her head! Was she of the earth--clay, like these others about her? The very tone of her voice seemed to have caught a note from above. No, he had never been worthy of her! Weak, fickle, wave-tossed soul that he was! A look of humiliation crossed his face, then a look of hope. If he had never been worthy of her hand he would be worthy at least to have loved her in vain. He would be what she would have had him be. It was over; the last words were said; the music broke forth, and the little gold band gleamed on Beth's fair hand as it lay on Arthur's arm. He led her down the aisle, smiling and happy. Oh, joy! joy everlasting! joy linking earth to heaven! They rested that night in Beth's old room at the parsonage, and as the door closed behind them they knelt together--man and wife. Sacred hour! Out beneath the stars of that still Christmas eve was one who saw the light shine from their window as he passed and blessed them. He carried a bunch of lilies in his hand as he made his way to a long white mound in the church-yard. Poor Marie! He stooped and laid them in the snow, the pure white snow--pure as the dead whose grave it covered! pure as the vows he had heard breathed that night! * * * * * Seven years have passed, and Beth sits leaning back in a rocker by the window, in the soft bright moonlight of Palestine. And what have the years brought to Beth? She is famous now. Her novels are among the most successful of the day. She has marked out a new line of work, and the dark-eyed Jewish characters in her stories have broadened the sympathies of her world of readers. But the years have brought her something besides literary fame and success in the mission-field. By her side is a little white cot, and a little rosy-cheeked boy lies asleep upon the pillow, one hand, thrown back over his dark curls--her little Arthur. There is a step beside her, and her husband bends over her with a loving look. "It is seven years to-night since we were married, Beth." There are tears in her smiling eyes as she looks up into his face. "And you have never regretted?" he asks. "Oh, Arthur! How could I?" and she hides her face on his breast. "My wife! my joy!" he whispers, as he draws her closer. "Arthur, do you remember what a silly, silly girl I used to be when I thought you had not enough of the artist-soul to understand my nature? And here, if I hadn't had you to criticise and encourage me, I'd never have succeeded as well as I have." He only kisses her for reply, and they look out over the flat-roofed city in the moonlight. Peace! peace! sweet peace! "Not as the world giveth, give I unto you." And the stars are shining down upon them in their love. And so, dear Beth, farewell! The evening shadows lengthen as I write, but there is another to whom we must bid farewell. It is Clarence. Father and mother are both dead, and in one of the quiet parts of Toronto he lives, unmarried, in his comfortable rooms. The years have brought him a greater measure of success than once he had hoped. The sorrow he has so bravely hidden has perhaps enabled him to touch some chord in the human hearts of his readers. At any rate, he has a good round income now. Edith's children come often to twine their arms about his neck; but there are other children who love him, too. Down in the dark, narrow streets of the city there is many a bare, desolate home that he has cheered with warmth and comfort, many a humble fireside where the little ones listen for his step, many little hands and feet protected from the cold by his benefactions. But no matter how lowly the house, he always leaves behind some trace of his artistic nature--a picture or a bunch of flowers, something suggestive of the beautiful, the ideal. Sometimes, when the little ones playing about him lisp their childish praises, a softness fills his eyes and he thinks of one who is far away. Blessed be her footsteps! But he is not sad long. No, he is the genial, jolly bachelor, whom everybody loves, so unlike the Clarence of long ago; and so farewell, brave heart--fare thee well! 
15245	----	TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS IN CANADA WEST; THE EXPERIENCE OF AN EARLY SETTLER. BY MAJOR STRICKLAND, C.M. EDITED BY AGNES STRICKLAND, Author of "The Queens of England,", etc. And when those toils rewarding, Broad lands at length they'll claim, They'll call the new possession, By some familiar name. Agnes Strickland. -- _Historic Scenes_. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty. 1853. ================= LONDON: Printed by Samuel Bentley & Co. Bangor House, Shoe Lane. ================= PREFACE. No one can give an adequate view of the general life of a colonist, unless he has been one himself. Unless he has experienced all the various gradations of colonial existence, from that of the pioneer in the backwoods and the inhabitant of a shanty, up to the epoch of his career, when he becomes the owner, by his own exertions, of a comfortable house and well-cleared farm, affording him the comforts and many of the luxuries of civilization, he is hardly competent to write on such a subject. I have myself passed through all these grades. I have had the honour of filling many colonial appointments, such as Commissioner of the Court of Requests, and Justice of the Peace. My commission in her Majesty's Militia, and my connection with the Canada Company, have also afforded me some opportunities of acquiring additional information. I was in the Company's service during the early settlement of Guelph and also of Goderich, in the Huron tract. I am, therefore, as intimately acquainted with those flourishing settlements as with the townships in my own county of Peterborough. Upon my return to my native country in August, on a visit to my venerable mother, I was advised by my family to give my colonial experience to the world in a plain, practical manner. I followed the flattering suggestions of relatives so distinguished for literary attainments, and so dear to my affections, and "Twenty-seven Years in Canada West; or, The Experience of an Early Settler," is the result of my compliance with their wishes. The subject of colonization is, indeed, one of vital importance, and demands much consideration, for it is the wholesome channel through which the superfluous population of England and Ireland passes, from a state of poverty to one of comfort. It is true that the independence of the Canadian settler must be the fruit of his own labour, for none but the industrious can hope to obtain that reward. In fact, idle and indolent persons will not change their natures by going out to Canada. Poverty and discontent will be the lot of the sluggard in the Bush, as it was in his native land--nay, deeper poverty, for "he cannot work, to beg he is ashamed," and if he be surrounded by a family, those nearest and dearest to him will share in his disappointment and regret. But let the steady, the industrious, the cheerful man go forth in hope, and turn his talents to account in a new country, whose resources are not confined to tillage alone--where the engineer, the land-surveyor, the navigator, the accountant, the lawyer, the medical practitioner, the manufacturer, will each find a suitable field for the exercise of his talents; where, too, the services of the clergyman are much required, and the pastoral character is valued and appreciated as it ought to be. To the artizan, the hand-loom weaver, and the peasant, Canada is indeed a true land of Goshen. In fact, the stream of migration cannot flow too freely in that direction. However numerous the emigrants may be, employment can be obtained for all. That the industrial classes do become the richest men cannot be denied, because their artificial wants are fewer, and their labours greater than those of the higher ranks. However, the man of education and refinement will always keep the balance steady, and will hold offices in the Colony and responsible situations which his richer but less learned neighbour can never fill with ease or propriety. The Canadian settler possesses vast social advantages over other colonists. He has no convict neighbours--no cruel savages, now, to contend with--no war--no arid soil wherewith to contend. The land is, generally speaking, of a rich quality, and the colonist has fire-wood for the labour of cutting, fish for the catching, game for the pleasant exercise of hunting and shooting in Nature's own preserves, without the expense of a licence, or the annoyance of being warned off by a surly gamekeeper. The climate of Canada West is healthier and really pleasanter than that of England or Ireland. The cold is bracing, and easily mitigated by good fires and warm clothing; but it is not so really chilling as the damp atmosphere of the mother-country. Those who have not visited the Canadas are apt to endow the Upper Province with the severe climate of the Lower one, whereas that of Western Canada is neither so extremely hot nor so cold as many districts of the United States. Emigration to Canada is no longer attended with the difficulties and disadvantages experienced by the early settlers, of which such lamentable, and perhaps exaggerated accounts have frequently issued from the press. The civilizing efforts of the Canada Company have covered much of the wild forest-land with smiling corn-fields and populous villages. Indeed, the liberal manner in which the Company have offered their lands on sale or lease, have greatly conduced to the prosperity of the Western Province. If the facts and suggestions contained in the following pages should prove useful and beneficial to the emigrant, by smoothing his rough path to comfort and independence, my object will be attained, and my first literary effort will not have been made in vain. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I. Embarkation for Canada. -- Voyage out. -- Sea-life. -- Icebergs. -- Passage up the St. Lawrence. -- Quebec. -- Memorials of General Wolfe. -- Cathedral. -- Hospitality. -- Earthquakes. -- Nuns. -- Montreal. -- Progress up the Country. -- My Roman Catholic Fellow-traveller. -- Attempt at Conversion. -- The Township of Whitby. CHAPTER II. Arrival at Darlington. -- Kind Reception. -- My Friend's Location. -- His Inexperience. -- Damage to his Land by Fire. -- Great Conflagration at Miramichi. -- Forest Fires. -- Mighty Conflagration of the 6th of October. -- Affecting Story of a Lumber-foreman. -- His Presence of Mind, and wonderful Preservation. -- The sad Fate of his Companions. CHAPTER III. Inexperience of my Friend. -- Bad State of his Land -- Fall Wheat. -- Fencing. -- Grasses. -- Invitation to a "Bee." -- United Labour. -- Canadian Sports. -- Degeneracy of Bees. CHAPTER IV. My Marriage. -- I become a Settler on my own Account -- I purchase Land in Otonabee. -- Return to Darlington. -- My first Attempt at driving a Span. -- Active Measures to remedy a Disaster. -- Patience of my Father-in-law. -- My first Bear-hunt. -- Beaver-meadows. -- Canadian Thunder-storms. -- Fright of a Settler's Family CHAPTER V. Canadian Harvest. -- Preparing Timber for Frame-buildings. -- Raising "Bee." -- Beauty of the Canadian Autumn. -- Visit to Otonabee. -- Rough Conveyance. -- Disaccommodation. -- Learned Landlord. -- Cobourg. -- Otonabee River. -- Church of Gore's Landing. -- Effects of persevering industry CHAPTER VI. Wood-duck Shooting. -- Adventure on Rice Lake. -- Irish Howl. -- Arrival at Gore's Landing. -- General Howling for the Defunct. -- Dangers of our Journey. -- Safe Arrival at Cobourg. -- Salmon-fishing. -- Canoe-building after a bad Fashion. -- Salmon-spearing. -- Canadian Fish and Fisheries. -- Indian Summer. -- Sleighs and Sleighing. -- Domestic Love CHAPTER VII. Employments of a Man of Education in the Colony. -- Yankee Wedding. -- My Commission. -- Winter in Canada. -- Healthiness of the Canadian Climate. -- Search for Land. -- Purchase Wild Land at Douro. -- My Flitting. -- Put up a Shanty. -- Inexperience in Clearing. -- Plan- heaps CHAPTER VIII. A Logging-Bee. -- Lime-burning. -- Shingling. -- Arrival of my Brother- in-law. -- Birth of my Son. -- Sad Journey to Darlington. -- Lose my Way. -- Am refused a Lift. -- My boyish Anger. -- My Wife's Death. -- The Funeral. -- I leave Darlington CHAPTER IX. Return to Otonabee. -- Benevolence of my Neighbour. -- Serious Accident to a Settler. -- His singular Misfortunes. -- Particulars of his Life CHAPTER X. Preparations for my second Marriage. -- Dangerous Adventure. -- My Wife's nocturnal Visitor. -- We prepare for the Reception of our uninvited Guest. -- Bruin's unwelcome Visit to an Irish Shanty. -- Our Bear-hunt. -- Major Elliott's Duel with Bruin. -- His Wounds and Victory CHAPTER XI. Canada the Poor Man's Country. -- Disadvantages of Inexperience. -- Township of Harvey Settlement. -- Pauper Emigration. -- Superior Advantages of the Labourer Colonist. -- Temperance and Temperance Societies. -- A dry Answer to watery Arguments. -- British and Foreign Temperance Society CHAPTER XII. Want of Home-pasturage in Canada. -- Danger of being lost in the Woods. -- Plain Directions to the Traveller in the Bush. -- Story of a Settler from Emily. -- An old Woman's Ramble in the Woods. -- Adventure of a Trapper. -- Fortunate Meeting with his Partner CHAPTER XIII. Directions for ascertaining the Quality of Land in the Bush. -- Site of Log-shanty. -- Chopping. -- Preparation for Spring-crops. -- Method of planting Indian Corn. -- Pumpkins and Potatoes. -- Making Pot-ash CHAPTER XIV. My first Shot at a Buck. -- Hunting and Shooting Parties. -- Destructiveness of Wolves. -- Loss of my Flocks. -- Cowardice of the Wolf. -- The Lady and her Pet. -- Colonel Crawford's Adventure. -- Ingenious Trick of an American Trapper. -- A disagreeable Adventure. -- How to poison Wolves. -- A stern Chase CHAPTER XV. Formation of the Canada Company. -- Interview with Mr. Galt. -- His personal Description and Character. -- Guelph. -- Dr. Dunlop. -- My Medical Services at Guelph. -- Dr. Dunlop and the Paisley Bodies. -- An eccentric Character. -- An unfortunate wife CHAPTER XVI. Porcupine-catching. -- Handsome Behaviour of Mr. Galt. -- Owlingale. -- Introduction to the Son of the celebrated Indian Chief, Brandt. -- Expedition to Wilmot. -- Sham Wolves. -- Night in a Barn with Dr. Dunlop. -- The Doctor and his Snuffbox. -- His Bath in the Nith. -- Louis XVIII. and his Tabatiere. -- Camp in the Woods. -- Return to Guelph CHAPTER XVII. A new Way of keeping a Birthday. -- Lost in the Woods. -- Kindness of Mr. Galt. -- Advice to new Settlers. -- Unexpected Retirement of Mr. Galt. -- I accompany him to the Landing-place. -- Receive orders to leave Guelph for Goderich. -- Whirlwinds at Guelph and Douro CHAPTER XVIII. The Huron tract. -- Journal of Dr. Dunlop. -- His Hardships. -- I leave Guelph for Goderich. -- Want of Accommodation. -- Curious Supper. -- Remarkable Trees. -- The Beverly Oak. -- Noble Butter-wood Trees. -- Goderich. -- Fine Wheat Crop. -- Purchase a Log-house. -- Construction of a Raft CHAPTER XIX. My new House at Goderich. -- Carpentry an essential Art. -- American Energy. -- Agreeable Visitors. -- My Wife's Disasters. -- Hints for Anglers. -- The Nine-mile Creek Frolic. -- The Tempest. -- Our Skipper and his Lemon-punch. -- Short Commons. -- Camp in the Woods. -- Return on Foot. -- Ludicrous termination to our Frolic CHAPTER XX. Choice of a Location. -- The Company's Lands. -- Crown Lands. -- Tables published by the Canada Company. -- Progressive Improvement of the Huron Tract CHAPTER XXI. The King proclaimed in the Bush. -- Fete and Ball in the Evening. -- My Yankee Fellow-traveller. -- Awful Storm. -- My lonely Journey. -- Magical Effect of a Name CHAPTER XXII. Visit of the Passenger-pigeon to the Canadas. -- Canadian Blackbirds. - - Breeding-places of the Passenger-pigeons. -- Squirrels CHAPTER XXIII. The Rebel, Von Egmond, the first agricultural Settler on the Huron. -- Cutting the first Sheaf ================= TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS IN CANADA WEST. CHAPTER I. EMBARKATION FOR CANADA. -- VOYAGE OUT. -- SEA-LIFE. -- ICEBERGS. -- PASSAGE UP THE ST. LAWRENCE. -- QUEBEC. -- MEMORIALS OF GENERAL WOLFE. -- CATHEDRAL. -- HOSPITALITY. -- EARTHQUAKES. -- NUNS. -- MONTREAL. -- PROGRESS UP THE COUNTRY. -- MY ROMAN CATHOLIC FELLOW-TRAVELLER. -- ATTEMPT AT CONVERSION. -- THE TOWNSHIP OF WHITBY. A PREFERENCE for an active, rather than a professional life, induced me to accept the offer made by an old friend, of joining him at Darlington, in Upper Canada, in the year 1825. I therefore took leave of my family and pleasant home, in Suffolk, and engaged a passage in the brig "William M'Gilevray," commanded by William Stoddart, an experienced American seaman. On the 28th of March we left the London Docks, and dropped down the river to Gravesend, and on the following day put our pilot ashore off Deal, and reached down as far as the coast of Sussex, where we were becalmed for two days. Here one of our cabin-boys, a German, met with a very serious accident by falling down the after hatchway, and fracturing several of his ribs. On this occasion I officiated as a surgeon, and bled him twice, with excellent effect, for he quickly recovered from the severe injury he had received. Before quitting Suffolk I had learned the art of blood-letting from our own medical attendant. Every person intending to settle in a distant colony ought to acquire this simple branch of surgery: I have often exercised it myself for the benefit of my fellow-creatures when no medical assistance could be procured. It blew so fresh for two or three days, that we made up for our lost time, and were soon out of sight of Scilly: then I bade a long farewell to old England. I had often been on the sea before, but this was my first long voyage; every object, therefore, was new to me. I caught some birds in the rigging they were of a species unknown to me, but very beautiful. Being in want, too, of something to do, I amused myself with cleaning the captain's guns, which I hoped to use for our joint benefit before the end of the voyage. The 18th and 19th of April were very stormy: the sea ran mountains high; we had a foot of water in the cabin, and all hands were at the pumps to lessen the growing evil. The gale lasted till the following morning. In the night the aurora borealis was particularly brilliant; but though the storm lulled, the wind was against us. On the 26th of April, I saw a whale, and, boy-like, fired at the huge creature: the shot must have hit him, for he made the water fly in all directions. To vary the monotony of a sea-life, I sometimes played draughts with the mate, whom I always beat; but he took his defeats in good part, being a very easy-tempered fellow. I awoke on the 21st of April literally wet to my skin by the deluge of water pouring down the cabin. I dressed myself in great haste and hurried upon deck to learn the cause of this disaster, which I found originated in the coming on of a terrible hurricane, which would not permit us to show a stitch of canvas, and found us continual employment at the pumps; my chest in the cabin shipped a sea which did not improve the appearance of my wardrobe. The following day we had calmer weather, and pursued our course steadily, no longer exposed to the fury of the elements. On the following day I killed several birds, and saw two whales and many porpoises. The weather was foggy, but the wind favourable for us. As we were near the bank of Newfoundland, we got our fishing tackle ready, with the hope of mending our fare with cod; but the water was not calm enough for the purpose, and the fish would not bite. We passed over the Great Bank without any danger, though the wind was high and the sea rough. On the 29th of April we fell in with some icebergs. A more magnificent and imposing spectacle cannot be conceived; but it is very fearful and sufficiently appalling. Suddenly, we found ourselves close to an immense body of ice, whose vicinity bad been concealed from us by the denseness of the fog. Our dangerous neighbour towered in majestic grandeur in the form of a triple cone rising from a square base, and surpassed the tallest cathedral in altitude. The centre cone being cleft in the middle by the force of the waves, displayed the phenomenon of a waterfall, the water rushing into the sea from the height of thirty feet. If the sun had pierced the vapoury veil which concealed it from our view, the refraction of his rays would have given to the ice the many-coloured tints of the rainbow. We took care to keep a good look out; but the fog was thick. We fell in with many other icebergs; but none so beautiful as this. We doubled Cape Ray, and entered, on the 5th of May, the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The thermometer fell many degrees a change caused by the vicinity of the ice. On the 5th of May we passed the Bird Rocks, three in number, to windward, so called from the immense number of geese and aquatic birds which resort thither to rear their broods. These rocks rise to the height of four hundred feet, perpendicularly from the sea. The fishermen, nevertheless, contrive to climb them for the sake of the eggs they find there. The 6th of May found us in the river St. Lawrence, between the westernmost point of Anticosti to the north, and Cape Gaspe to the south, in the middle of the channel, surrounded by ships tacking up the stream, bound for Quebec and Montreal. We had plenty of sea-room, as the river was more than ninety miles in breadth, and it is supposed to be full a hundred at its _embouchure_. The land was partially covered with snow, which fell throughout the day. On the 8th of May we sailed as far as the Seven Islands. The day was glorious, and the prospect most beautiful. Our vicinity to "the cold and pitiless Labrador," rendered the air chilly, and we could hear the howling of the wolves at night, to me a new and dismal sound. The aurora borealis was particularly splendid, for the air was clear and frosty. On the 10th of May we stood for the Island of Bic, and took on board a pilot. He was a handsome young man, a French-Canadian, under whose guidance we made the place, but we were becalmed before it for the whole forenoon. The beauty of the scenery atoned, however, for the delay. Nothing, indeed, could surpass it in my eyes, which had then only been accustomed to the highly-cultivated and richly-wooded tracts in Suffolk and Norfolk, and therefore dwelt with wonder and delight upon the picturesque shores and lofty heights that crowned the noble St. Lawrence. The wind changing in our favour, carried us swiftly up the stream, which was still thirty-six miles in breadth, though distant 280 miles from the Gulf. We passed Green Island and the Kamouraska Island, and Goose and Crane Islands. These beautiful islets, which stud the broad bosom of the St. Lawrence, are evidently of volcanic origin. That of Kamouraska displays vast masses of granite, which rise in the form of conical hills, one of which attains the height of five hundred feet. The same features are discernible in the Penguins, and even the strata about Quebec still indicate the same mysterious agency.* [* "Encyclopaedia of Geography," p. 1304.] Our progress through the river continually presented the new continent in an attractive point of view. The shores were dotted with farmhouses and adorned with fine gardens and orchards, while lovely islands, covered with lofty trees, rose from the river and delighted the eye. I thought Canada then and I have never changed my opinion since the most beautiful country in the world. On the 13th of May we passed the Island of Orleans, which we no sooner rounded than the Falls of Montmorenci burst upon my sight. I was unprepared for the scene, which I contemplated in silent astonishment. No words written down by the man, at this distance of time, can describe the vivid feelings of the boy. I have since beheld the mighty cataracts of Niagara, so finely described by its Indian name, "The Thunder of Waters;" but I concur in the general opinion, that if those of Niagara are more stupendous, the Falls of Montmorenci are more beautiful and picturesque. Quebec soon came in view, with its strong fortress crowning the imposing height of Cape Diamond. No one can look upon the old capital of Canada without remembering that the most gallant British soldier of the age fell in the battle that added the colony to the other dependencies of the English crown. I remembered, too, with some pleasure, that the paternal dining-room contained a looking-glass one of the fine old Venetian plates, framed with ebony, which had once formed a part of the General's personal property. It had been for two centuries in his family, but had since become a valued heirloom in mine. His manly features must often have been reflected on its brilliant surface, and that circumstance, which had formerly endeared it to his aged mother, had made it prized by mine. We have also a bureau, very complete, but evidently constructed more for use than ornament, which might have once contained the papers of this distinguished soldier, while the book-case, to which it was annexed, had probably held his little library. His cruet-stand, which looks as if it had been made in the patriarchal times, is still in use at Reydon Hall. The reader must pardon this digression, since distinguished worth and valour give an interest even to trivial objects. Quebec consists of two towns, the Upper and Lower, and is adorned with a cathedral, whose metallic roof glitters in the sun like a vast diamond. Indeed, the tin-roofs of the churches and public buildings give this city a splendid look on a bright sunshiny day, testifying, moreover, to the dryness of the air. Captain Stoddart took me all over this curious city, and kindly introduced me to one of the partners of a great mercantile house, who invited us both to dinner. We regaled ourselves on smelts, fillet of veal, and old English roast beef, to which hospitable meal we did ample justice, not forgetting to pledge our absent friends in bumpers of excellent wine. The inhabitants of Quebec are very kind to strangers, and are a fine race of people. French is spoken here not, however, very purely, being a _patois_ as old as the time of Henry IV. of France, when this part of Canada was first colonized; but English is generally understood by the mercantile classes. This city is visited, at intervals, with slight shocks of earthquake.* [* Lyell's "Elements of Geology."] Nothing serious has yet followed this periodical phenomenon. But will this visitation be only confined to the mountain range north of Quebec, where the great earthquake that convulsed a portion of the globe in 1663 has left visible marks of its influence, by overturning the sand-stone rocks of a tract extending over three hundred miles?* [* "Encyclopaedia of Geography."] Quebec contains several nunneries, for the French inhabitants are mostly Roman catholics. The nuns are very useful to emigrants, who have often been bountifully relieved by these charitable vestals, who employ themselves in nursing the sick and feeding the hungry. The inhabitants--or _habitans_, as the French Canadians are usually termed--are an amiable, hospitable, simple people, kind in manner, and generous in disposition. The women are lively and agreeable, and as fond of dress in Quebec as in other civilized places. They are pretty in early youth in the Lower Province, but lose their complexions sooner than the English ladies, owing, perhaps, to the rigour of the climate.* However, they possess charms superior to beauty, and seem to retain the affections of their husbands to the last hour of their lives. [* Mac Taggart's "Three Years' Residence in Canada."] Short as was my stay in Quebec, I could not leave without regret the hospitable city where I had received from strangers such a warm welcome. I have never visited the Lower Province since; but my remembrance of its old capital is still as agreeable as it is distinct. The next day our brig was taken in tow by the fine steam-boat, the "Richelieu de Chambly," and with a leading wind and tide in our favour we proceeded at a rapid rate up the river. I shall not attempt to describe the charming scenery of this most beautiful of all rivers, which has already been so amply described by abler writers. I was delighted with everything I saw; but nothing occurred worthy of narration. The next day saw us safely moored in the port of Montreal, just forty- five days from our departure from the London Docks. Montreal is a handsome town, well situated, and must eventually become the most important city in British North America. The river here is very broad. The Lachine rapids commence immediately above the town, which are an impediment to the navigation, now obviated by a canal terminating at the village of Lachine, I believe nine miles distant from Montreal. I took my passage in a Durham boat, bound for Kingston, which started the next day. We had hard work poling up the rapids. I found I had fallen in with a rough set of customers, and determined in my own mind to leave them as soon as possible, which I happily effected the next evening when we landed at Les Cedres. Here the great Otawa pours its mighty stream into the St. Lawrence, tinging its green waters with a darker hue, which can be traced for miles, till it is ultimately lost in the rapids below. I now determined to walk to Prescot, where I knew I should be able to take the steam-boat for Kingston, on Lake Ontario. At the Coteau du Lac I fell in with a Roman Catholic Irishman, named Mooney. We travelled in company for three days, and as I had nothing else to do, I thought I might as well make an effort to convert him. However, I signally failed; and only endangered my own head by my zeal. In the heat of argument and the indiscretion of youth, I used expressions which the Papist considered insulting to his religion. He was not one to put up patiently with this, so he would fire up, twirl his blackthorn round his head, and say, "By St. Patrick, you had better not say that again!" In everything else we agreed well enough; but I found, on parting, that all my eloquence had been entirely thrown away. Mr. Mooney remained just as firm a Roman Catholic as ever. Indeed, it was the height of presumption in me, a boy in my twentieth year, to attempt the conversion of such a strict Romanist as this Irishman. The weather was excessively fine. The trees were just bursting into leaf. The islands in the St. Lawrence, which are here numerous, wore the brightest hues, and presented a charming contrast to the foaming rapids. I remained two or three days at Prescot, waiting the arrival of my baggage, which I had left on board the Durham boat. I amused myself during the interval by taking walks in the neighbourhood. The land appeared very sandy, the timber being chiefly hemlock: the situation of the town is good. Steam-navigation commenced at this place, and now that the Welland Canal is completed, it affords an uninterrupted navigation be borne in mind that at the time of which I am to the head of Lakes Huron and Michigan. It must speaking (1825), the great St. Lawrence Canal and the Rideau were not commenced, but since their completion the Durham boats and small steamers have given place to a set of superb boats affording the best accommodation, whereby the passage from Montreal to Toronto can be performed at half the expense, and in one-third of the time. My baggage having arrived, I left Prescot by boat in the evening for Kingston, at that time the second town both in size and importance in Canada West. It must, on account of its situation as a military and naval post, always be a place of consequence. I fell in there with an old sea-dog, who had commanded a vessel, for many years trading between London and Quebec. He had had the misfortune to lose his vessel, which was wrecked on the rocks at Gaspe, near the mouth of the St. Lawrence. I was glad to find the friends I was going to reside with had come out passengers in his ship, and that the schooner he then commanded was bound for the Big-bay (now called Windsor), in the township of Whitby, within six or seven miles of my friends' residence, and that they would sail in two days at farthest. On our passage from Prescot to Kingston we passed Brockville, which looked very pretty from the river, and soon afterwards we were threading our way through the intricacies of the Thousand Islands.* Who has not heard of the far-famed Thousand Islands--the Archipelago of the St. Lawrence? Nothing can exceed the beauty of this spot. The river is here several miles in width, studded with innumerable islands, of every variety of form. The moon shone brightly on this lovely scene: not a ripple stirred the mirror-like bosom of the stream--"There was not a breath the blue wave to curl." [* "The Lake of the Thousand Isles. The expression was thought to be a vague exaggeration, till the Isles were officially surveyed, and found to amount to 1692. A sail through them presents one of the most singular and romantic succession of scenes that can be imagined--the Isles are of every size, form, height and aspect; woody, verdant, rocky; naked, smiling, barren; and they present as numerous a succession of bays, inlets, and channels as occur in all the rest of the continent put together." "Encyclopaedia of Geography," iv. 1321.] The reflection of the trees in the water enhanced the natural beauties I have endeavoured to describe. The next morning, June the 3rd, I embarked on board the schooner "Shamrock," on my way to Darlington. We passed the Duck islands towards evening, and found ourselves fairly launched on the bosom of the Great Ontario. We anchored next day opposite the town of Cobourg, then a small village, without a harbour, now a fine, handsome, well-built town, containing a population of nearly 4,000 inhabitants. A large sum of money has been laid out in the construction of a harbour, which appears to answer very well. Cobourg is the county-town for the counties of Northumberland and Durham, which comprehend the following townships: Darlington, Clarke, Hope, Hamilton, Haldimand, Cramache, Murray, Seymour, Percy, Alnwick, South Monaghan, Cavan, Manvers, and Cartwright. The soil of most of these townships is of excellent quality, particularly the fronts of Hamilton, Haldimand, and all Cavan, being generally composed of a deep rich loam. These townships are well watered by numerous spring creeks, bounded to the north and east by the river Trent, Skugog and Rice Lakes; and to the south, for about sixty miles, by Lake Ontario. The chief towns are Cobourg, Port Hope, and Bournauville. As I shall have occasion in another place to speak more fully respecting these counties, I shall take my readers again on board the "Shamrock." Our captain having to land some goods at Cobourg, we were detained there all night. He invited a few friends to pass the evening. A jolly set of fellows they were, and they initiated me into the mysteries of brewing whiskey-punch, a beverage I had never before tasted, and which I found very palatable. The song and the joke went round till the small hours warned us to retire. On Sunday morning, June the 5th, I landed at the Big-bay (Windsor), in Whitby, and after bidding adieu to my fellow-voyagers commenced my journey to my friends in Darlington on foot. Whitby, at the time of which I am speaking, was only partially settled, and chiefly by Americans. This township is justly considered one of the best between Toronto and Kingston. At present the township is well settled and well- cultivated. Nearly all the old settlers are gone, and their farms have, for the most part, been purchased by old country farmers and gentlemen, the log-buildings having given place to substantial stone, brick, or frame houses. The village of Oshawa, in this township, now contains upwards of one thousand inhabitants, more than double the number the whole township could boast of when I first set foot on its soil. CHAPTER II. ARRIVAL AT DARLINGTON. -- KIND RECEPTION. -- MY FRIEND'S LOCATION. -- HIS INEXPERIENCE. -- DAMAGE TO HIS LAND BY FIRE. -- GREAT CONFLAGRATION AT MIRAMACHI. -- FOREST FIRES. -- MIGHTY CONFLAGRATION OF THE 6TH OF OCTOBER. -- AFFECTING STORY OF A LUMBER-FOREMAN. -- HIS PRESENCE OF MIND, AND WONDERFUL PRESERVATION. -- THE SAD FATE OF HIS COMPANIONS. I WAS now very near to my ark of refuge, and the buoyant spirit of early youth, with its joyous anticipations of a radiant future, bore me exultingly forward. It might have been said of me in the beautiful lines of the poet: "He left his home with a bounding heart, For the world was all before him; And he scarcely felt it a pain to part, Such sun-bright hopes came o'er him." Alarie A. Watts. Two hours' brisk walking brought me to the long-looked-for end of my journey. I was received with the greatest kindness and hospitality; and, in a few days, felt quite at home and comfortable in my new quarters. After some days' rest, I commenced operations by assisting my friend on the farm and in the store. From my practical knowledge of farming, acquired upon my mother's estate, I was soon installed as manager in that department. Our farm contained upwards of two hundred acres of cleared land, the largest proportion of which consisted of meadows and pastures, but the soil was light and sandy, and altogether very indifferent. My friend, Colonel B----- had been imposed upon by the Yankee, of whom he had bought it, and no wonder, when I tell you that my friend had formerly held a situation under Government, and had lived in London all his life. Only the first three concessions of this township were settled at this time, the remainder of the land being generally in the hands of absentee proprietors. I am happy to say, the absentee tax has had the effect of throwing vast quantities of these lands into the market. This township, like Whitby, is now well settled, and though not generally equal in regard to soil, is still considered a good township. Bowmanville is the principal town, containing about twelve hundred inhabitants. In 1825 it only boasted a grist-mill, saw-mill, a store, and half-a-dozen houses. I mention this, merely to show how much the country has improved in a few years. This is not an isolated fact it applies to nearly all Canada West. My intention was, to stay with my friends till the ensuing spring, and to get a little insight into Canadian farming, clearing land, &c., that I might have some experience before commencing operations on my own account. The situation of my friend's house was close to the Toronto road, partly built of logs and framework: it had been designed by the former Yankee proprietor, and could certainly boast of no architectural beauties. We lived about a mile and a half from the lake shore, and I took advantage of my vicinity to the water to bathe daily. I found great refreshment in this, for the weather was very hot and dry. The drought lasted for some time, and among its consequences, I may mention the prevalence of extensive fires.* Several broke out in our neighbourhood, and, at last, the mischief reached our own farm. It destroyed several thousand rails, and spread over forty or fifty acres of meadow land. We ultimately stopped its further progress in the clearing, by ploughing furrows round the fire and a thunder-shower in the evening completed its extinction. Fire seldom runs in the woods on good land, and where the timber is chiefly deciduous, but on sandy, pine, or hemlock lands, or where evergreens chiefly prevail. [* Fires in Canada are of frequent occurrence, and are generally caused by the burning of brush-wood or log-heaps by the settlers. In dry weather, with a brisk wind, the fire is apt to run on the surface of the ground in the bush, where the dry leaves are thickest. In clearing the land a good deal of brush-wood and tops of trees are thrown into the edge of the woods. It follows, as a matter of course, that the greatest danger to be apprehended is the burning the boundary-fences of farms. I have heard it asserted that these fires are sometimes caused by spontaneous combustion, which I consider altogether a fallacy.] I have seldom known very serious damage by these fires done in Canada West, although occasionally a barn or house falls a sacrifice to the devouring element. Not so, however, in some parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where extensive conflagrations often devastate the country for miles round. Of such a character was the great fire at Miramichi, which nearly destroyed Fredericton, and was attended not only with an immense loss of property but with the sad loss of many valuable lives. I will presently give in his own forcible and feeling language the history of a lumberer who escaped from destruction after being for some time in imminent peril of his life. He was one of the few persons who had the good fortune of escaping the great conflagration in Miramichi, which broke out in the October after my arrival, and excited so much general sympathy. Fifteen of his comrades perished in the flames. The narrative which I introduce here, anticipating by a few months the proper order of narration, was related to me by the man himself with that native eloquence which often surprises, and always interests us in the uneducated. The class to which he belongs is one peculiar to America. Rough in manners, and often only half-civilized, the lumberer, as an individual, resembles little the woodsman of other lands. He is generally a Canadian Frenchman, or a breed between the Irish and the native of the Lower Province. However, some Yankees may be found among these denizens of the woods and wilds of Canada. The fearful conflagration to which our poor lumberer nearly fell a victim, has been thus ably described in M'Gregor's "British America." "In October, 1825, about a hundred and forty miles in extent, and a vast breadth of the country on the north, and from sixty to seventy miles on the south side of Miramachi river, became a scene of perhaps the most dreadful conflagration that has occurred in the history of the world. "In Europe we can scarcely form a conception of the fury and rapidity with which fires rage through the forests of America during a dry hot season, at which period the broken underwood, decayed vegetable substances, fallen branches, bark, and withered trees, are as inflammable as the absence of moisture can make them. To such irresistible food for combustion we must add the auxiliary afforded by the boundless fir forests, every tree of which in its trunk, bark, branches, and leaves contains vast quantities of inflammable resin. "When one of these fires is once in motion, or at least when the flames extent over a few miles of the forest, the surrounding air becomes highly rarefied, and the wind consequently increases till it blows a perfect hurricane. It appears, that the woods had been on both sides of the north-west partially on fire for some days, but not to an alarming extent until the 7th of October, when it came on to blow furiously from the westward, and the inhabitants along the river were suddenly surprised by an extraordinary roaring in the woods, resembling the crashing and detonation of loud and incessant thunder, while at the same instant the atmosphere became thick darkened with smoke. "They had scarcely time to ascertain the cause of this awful phenomenon before all the surrounding woods appeared in one vast blaze, the flames ascending from one to two hundred feet above the tops of the loftiest trees; and the fire rolling forward with inconceivable celerity, presented the terribly sublime appearance of an impetuous flaming ocean. In less than an hour, Douglas Town and Newcastle were in a blaze: many of the wretched inhabitants perished in the flames. More than a hundred miles of the Miramichi were laid waste, independent of the north-west branch, the Baltibag, and the Nappen settlements. From one to two hundred persons perished within immediate observation, while thrice that number were miserably burned or wounded, and at least two thousand were left destitute of the means of subsistence, and were thrown for a time on the humanity of the Province of New Brunswick. The number of lives that were lost in the woods could not at the time be ascertained, but it was thought few were left to tell the tale. "Newcastle presented a fearful scene of ruin and devastation, only fourteen out of two hundred and fifty houses and stores remained standing. "The court-house, jail, church, and barracks, Messrs. Gilmour, Rankin, and Co.'s, and Messrs. Abrams and Co.'s establishment, with two ships on the stocks, were reduced to ashes. "The loss of property is incalculable, for the fire, borne upon the wings of a hurricane, rushed on the wretched inhabitants with such inconceivable rapidity that the preservation of their lives could be their only care. "Several ships were burned on shore, while others were saved from the flames by the exertions of their owners, after being actually on fire. "At Douglas Town scarcely any kind of property escaped the ravages of the fire, which swept off the surface everything coming in contact with it, leaving but time for the unfortunate inhabitants to fly to the shore; and there, by means of boats, canoes, rafts of timber, logs, or any article, however ill calculated for the purpose, they endeavoured to escape from the dreadful scene and reach the town of Chatham, numbers of men, women, and children perishing in the attempt. "In some parts of the country all the cattle were either destroyed or suffering greatly, for the very soil was parched and burnt up, while scarcely any article of provision was rescued from the flames. "The hurricane raged with such dreadful violence, that large bodies of timber on fire, as well as trees from the forest and parts of the flaming houses and stores, were carried to the rivers with amazing velocity, to such an extent and affecting the water in such a manner, as to occasion large quantities of salmon and other fish to resort to land, hundreds of which were scattered on the shores of the south and west branches. "Chatham was filled with three hundred miserable sufferers: every hour brought to it the wounded and burned in the most abject state of distress. Great fires raged about the same time in the forests of the River St. John, which destroyed much property and timber, with the governor's house, and about eighty private houses at Fredericton. Fires raged also at the same time in the northern parts of the Province, as far as the Bay de Chaleur. "It is impossible to tell how many lives were lost, as many of those who were in the woods among the lumbering parties, had no friends nor connections in the country to remark on their non-appearance. Five hundred have been computed as the least number that actually perished in the flames. "The destruction of bears, foxes, tiger-cats, martens, hares, squirrels, and other wild animals, was very great. These, when surprised by such fires, are said to lose their usual sense of preservation, and becoming, as it were, either giddy or fascinated, often rush into the face of inevitable destruction: even the birds, except these of very strong wing, seldom escape. Some, particularly the partridge, become stupified; and the density of the smoke, the rapid velocity of the flames, and the violence of the winds, effectually prevent the flight of others." It was from this mighty destruction that the forecast and admirable presence of mind displayed by the lumberer, whose pathetic story I am about to relate, saved him. I could not fail, while rejoicing in his escape, to impute his self-possession to the compassion of the all-wise Being who had made him such an instance of His mercy. "The weather," said he, "had been unusually dry for the season, and there had been no rain for upwards of three weeks before this calamity took place. We had only just completed our shanty, and had commenced felling timber ready for squaring, when it occurred. We had heard from our teamsters, who had brought us out pork and flour, the day previous, that fires were raging in the woods some miles to the eastward of us. However, we paid but little attention to what appeared to us a common occurrence. "After supper, one of our men went out of the shanty, but immediately returned to tell us 'that a dreadful conflagration was raging within a mile or so of our dwelling.' We immediately rushed out to ascertain the truth of his assertion. I shall never forget," he continued, "the sight presented to our view: as far as the eye could reach we saw a wall of fire higher than the tree-tops, and we heard the mighty sound of the rushing flames mingled with the crashing fall of the timber. "A single glance convinced us that not a minute was to be lost; we did not stop even to try and secure our clothing, but made our way as quickly as possible to a small river about two hundred yards from our shanty, and which we knew was our only chance of preservation. "We reached the stream in safety, where I determined to take my stand. My comrades, however, were of a different opinion: they contended that the fire would not cross the river, which was upwards of thirty yards in width. Unfortunately, no argument of mine could induce them to stay, though I was well aware, and represented to them that such a body of flame would not be stayed a minute by such a barrier. "My comrades, hoping to reach an old clearance of some acres, about half a mile in advance, in spite of all entreaties crossed the stream, and were soon lost to my view never more to be seen alive by me. "I waded down the stream, till I found a place where the water was up to my arm-pits, and the bank of the river rose about six feet over my head. There I took my stand, and awaited the event in breathless anxiety. I had no time to look around me. The few minutes which had elapsed, had greatly added to the terrors of the scene. "As the wall of fire advanced, fresh trees in succession were enveloped by the flames. A bright glare crimsoned the clouds with a lurid glow, while the air was filled with a terrible noise. The heat now became intense. I looked up once more; the trees above me caught fire at that instant, the next, I was holding my breath a foot beneath the surface of the running stream. Every few seconds I was compelled to raise my head to breathe, which I accomplished with great difficulty. In a few minutes, which seemed ages to me, I was enabled to stand upright, and look around me. What desolation a short half hour had effected! In front, the conflagration was still raging with unabated fury, while in the rear the fire had consumed all the under-brush and limbs of the trees, leaving a forest of blackened poles still blazing fiercely, though not with the intense heat caused by the balsam and pine- brushwood. "It was several hours before I durst quit my sanctuary to search for my companions, the blackened remains of whom I found not a quarter of a mile from the river. "Our shanty,* and all that it contained, was utterly consumed. I, however, succeeded in finding in the cellar beneath its ruins, as much provisions uninjured as served to carry me through to the settlements, which I ultimately reached, though not without great difficulty." [* A shanty is a building made with logs, higher in the front than the back, making a fall to the roof, which is generally covered with troughs made of pine or bass-wood logs; the logs are first split fair in the middle, and hollowed out with the axe and adze. A row of these troughs is then laid from the front or upper wall-plate, sloping down to the back plate, the hollowed side uppermost. The covering-troughs is then placed with the hollow reversed, either edge resting in the centre of the under trough. A door in the front and one window complete the building. Such is commonly the first dwelling of the settler. The lumber-shanty differs both in shape and size, being much larger, and the roof sloping both ways, with a raised hearth in the centre of the floor, with an aperture directly above for the escape of the smoke. It has no window. One door at the end, and two tier of bed berths, one above the other, complete the _tout ensemble_. These shanties are generally constructed to accommodate from two to three gangs of lumber men, with shed-room for twelve or fourteen span of oxen or horses span being the Canadian term for pair.] CHAPTER III INEXPERIENCE OF MY FRIEND. -- BAD STATE OF HIS LAND. -- FALL WHEAT. -- FENCING. -- GRASSES. -- INVITATION TO A "BEE." -- UNITED LABOUR. -- CANADIAN SPORTS. -- DEGENERACY OF BEES. COLONEL B----- was an old and valued friend of my family, who had held a lucrative situation under Government for many years. His retirement from public life, on some disgust, had eventually led to his settlement in Canada. Now, his literary tastes and sedentary habits had ill-fitted him for the rough customs of the colony. Besides having scarcely seen a grain of corn in its progressive state from the blade to its earing and harvest, he knew nothing of agricultural operations. Of stock he was equally ignorant, and of the comparative goodness or badness of soil he was, of course, no judge. Such a man, in the choice of a farm, was sure to be shaved by the shrewd Yankee proprietor, and my poor friend was shaved accordingly. I found my friend's farm had been much neglected. His out-door labourers were all from the south of Ireland, and had never before followed farming operations. In consequence of their inexperience, half the clearing was quite overrun with raspberries and Canadian thistles. (The latter weed is far more troublesome to eradicate than any other I know. It is the same as the common corn-thistle, or _Serratula arvensis_, so well known to English agriculturists). As we intended to prepare a large piece of ground for summer-fallow, it was necessary to get rid of those stumps of the trees, which, according to the practice of chopping them two or three feet from the ground, present a continual obstacle to the advance of the plough. We, however, succeeded in getting clear of them by hitching a logging-chain round the stump near the top, when a sudden jerk from the oxen was generally sufficient to pull it up. For the larger, and those more firmly fixed in the ground, we made use of a lever about twenty feet long, and about eight or nine inches in diameter, one end of which was securely chained to the stump, the oxen being fastened to the other and made to go in a circular direction, a manoeuvre which rarely fails of the desired effect. This plan will not answer unless the roots are sufficiently decayed. During dry weather the application of fire produces more effectual results. A few embers shaken from a cedar-torch on the crown of the stump are sufficient for the purpose: some hundreds of these blazing merrily at night have a very pretty effect. In ten or twelve years the hard woods, such as oak, ash, beech and maple disappear; but the stumps of the evergreens, such as pine, hemlock and cedar, are much more difficult to eradicate. The land being of a sandy nature, we had but few stones to contend with. When such is the case, we raise them above the surface, by the help of levers. By these means, stones of half a ton weight can be easily lifted from their beds. The larger ones are generally drawn off the fields to make the foundations of fences, and those of a smaller size are used in the construction of French drains. To succeed well with your summer fallow, it is necessary to have the sod all turned over with the plough by the end of May, or sooner if possible. Shortly afterwards the fallow should be well harrowed; in July it should be crossed, ploughed and harrowed, and rolled at least twice before the final ploughing or ridging up, which should be completed by the last week in August. Fall-wheat should be sown between the first and fifteenth day of September.* The sooner the better, in my opinion, because the plant is stronger and better able to withstand the frost, and is decidedly less liable to rust. Our fallow having been prepared in this manner, and sown broad-cast with fall-wheat, the next object was to fence in the field securely, which is done in the following way. Trees of a straight growth and straight also in the grain are selected and cut into twelve feet lengths, and are then, by the means of a beetle and wedges, split into rails as nearly four inches square as possible. The rails are then laid in a zigzag direction, crossing each other about a foot from the end, making an angle of about six feet. Seven rails in height, crowned by a stake and rider, complete the fence. The best timbers for making rails, are pine, cedar, oak and black and white ash: these kinds of timbers will last about thirty years. Bass-wood is more commonly used for the first fences, because it is to be procured in greater abundance, and splits more easily; but as it will not last more than ten years, I would not recommend settlers to use it, if the other sorts can readily be obtained. [* "Fall" is the term usually applied to wheat sown in the autumn by the Canadian farmer, and will be used in this sense throughout a work especially written for the service of the inexperienced settler.] In this country, hay-cutting commences about the first or second week in July. Timothy-grass and clover mixed or timothy alone are the best for hay, and the most productive. The quantity of seed required for new land is six quarts of grass-seed and two pounds of clover to the acre; on old cleared farms nearly double this seed is required. Timothy is a solid grass with a bulbous root. If the weather is hot and dry, the hay should be carted the second day after cutting, for there is no danger in carting it at once into your barn, the climate being so dry that it never heats enough to cause spontaneous combustion. We have other sorts of grasses, such as red-top, blue-joint, &c.: these grasses, however, are inferior, and therefore never grown from choice. Soon after my arrival at Darlington, one of my neighbours residing on the lake-shore invited me to a mowing and cradling "Bee."* As I had never seen anything of the kind, I accepted the invitation. On my arrival at the farm on the appointed day, I found assembled about forty men and boys. A man with a pail of spring water with a wooden cup floating on the surface in one hand, and a bottle of whiskey and glass in the other, now approached the swarm, every one helping himself as he pleased. This man is the most important personage at the "Bee," and is known by the appellation of the "Grog-bos." On this occasion his office was anything but a sinecure. The heat of the weather, I suppose, had made our party very thirsty. There were thirty-five bees cutting hay, among whom I was a rather awkward volunteer, and ten cradlers** employed in cutting rye. [* What the Canadian settlers call a "Bee" is a neighbourly gathering for any industrious purpose a friendly clubbing of labour, assisted by an abundance of good cheer. ** The cradle is a scythe of larger dimensions than the common hay- scythe, and is both wider in the blade and longer. A straight piece of wood, called a standard, thirty inches long, is fixed upright; near the end of the snaith, or handle, are four fingers made of wood, the same bend as the scythe, and from six to seven inches apart, directly above the scythe, and fixed firmly into the standard, from which wire braces with nuts and screws to adjust the fingers. These braces are secured to the fingers about eight inches from the standard. The other end of the wire is then passed through the snaith and drawn tight by means of a screw-nut. These machines are very effective, and in the hands of a person who understands their use will cut from two to three acres a-day of either wheat, oats, barley, or rye.] At eleven o'clock, cakes and pailfuls of tea were served round. At one, we were summoned by the sound of a tin bugle to dinner, which we found laid out in the barn. Some long pine-boards resting on tressels served for a table, which almost groaned with the good things of this earth, in the shape of roast lamb and green peas, roast sucking-pig, shoulder of mutton, apple-sauce, and pies, puddings, and preserves in abundance, with plenty of beer and Canadian whiskey. Our bees proved so industrious, that before six o'clock all Mr. Burke's hay and rye were finished cutting. Supper was then served on the same scale of profusion, with the addition of tea. After supper a variety of games and gymnastics were introduced, various trials of strength, wrestling, running, jumping, putting the stone, throwing the hammer, &c. About nine o'clock our party broke up, and returned to their respective homes, well pleased with their day's entertainment, leaving their host perfectly satisfied with their voluntary labour. One word about bees and their attendant frolic. I confess I do not like the system. I acknowledge, that in raising a log-house or barn it is absolutely necessary, especially in the Bush, but the general practice is bad. Some people can do nothing without a bee, and as the work has to be returned in the same manner, it causes a continual round of dissipation if not of something worse. I have known several cases of manslaughter arising out of quarrels produced by intoxication at these every-day gatherings. As population increases, and labour becomes cheaper, of course there will be less occasion for them. CHAPTER IV. MY MARRIAGE. -- I BECOME A SETTLER ON MY OWN ACCOUNT. -- I PURCHASE LAND IN OTONABEE. -- RETURN TO DARLINGTON. -- MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT DRIVING A SPAN. -- ACTIVE MEASURES TO REMEDY A DISASTER. -- PATIENCE OF MY FATHER-IN-LAW. -- MY FIRST BEAR-HUNT. -- BEAVER-MEADOWS. -- CANADIAN THUNDERSTORMS. -- FRIGHT OF A SETTLER'S FAMILY. I MUST now say something of myself. During my domestication under my friend's roof, I became attached to one of his daughters. The affection was mutual; and our happiness was completed by the approbation of our friends. We were married; and it seemed that there was a goodly prospect of many years of wedded happiness before us. But it was necessary that I, who was now a husband, and might become a father, should become a settler on my own account, and look about for lands of my own. I examined, therefore, several locations in the neighbourhood; but one objection or another presented itself, and I declined fixing my settlement at Darlington. Ultimately, I bought two hundred acres of land in the township of Otonabee, within a mile of the newly laid out town of Peterborough. It was arranged that I should stop at Darlington, and assist my father-in-law, until it was time to commence operations in the spring. This arrangement proved very beneficial to me, as I was able to learn many useful things, and make myself acquainted with the manners and customs of the people with whom I was going to live. We kept two pair of horses and a yoke of oxen to work the farm. One pair of our horses were French Canadian. Generally speaking, they are rough-looking beasts, with shaggy manes and tails, but strong, active, and stout for their size, which, however, is much less than that of the Upper Canadian horse. I have seen, nevertheless, some very handsome carriage-horses of this breed. Of late years, both the Upper and Lower Canadian breed of horses have been much improved by the importation of stallions. The working oxen of this country are very docile and easily managed. They are extremely useful in the new settlement; indeed, I do not know what could be done without them. It is next to an impossibility to plough among the green stumps and roots with horses the plough being continually checked by roots and stones therefore, till these obstacles are removed, which cannot be effectually done for seven or eight years, oxen are indispensably necessary, particularly for logging up new fallows. Yet notwithstanding their usefulness, I do not know a worse treated set of animals than Canadian oxen. Their weight, when fat, varies from seven to eight hundred weight. A yoke and bows, made of birch or soft maple, is the only harness needed; and, in my opinion, for double draught, better, and certainly less troublesome than the collar and traces used in England. The ox-yoke is made of a piece of wood, four feet in length, and nine inches deep in the centre, to which a staple is fitted, and from which an iron ring depends, about a foot from the middle of the yoke each way, which is hollowed out, so as to fit on the top of the oxen's necks. A hole is bored, two inches in diameter, on each side of the hollow, through which the bow is passed, and fastened on the upper side of the yoke by a wooden pin. The bow is bent in the shape of a horse- shoe, the upper, or narrow ends being passed through the yoke. If the yoke and bows are properly made and fit the cattle, there is no fear of galling the beast. The bows are made of hickory, white or rock elm, in this way. Cut a piece of elm, five feet and a half long, large enough to split into quarters, each of which will dress to two inches in diameter; put them in a steam-box for an hour at least; take them out hot, and bend on a mould made on purpose; tie the two bent-up ends together until dry. Every settler should know how to do these things, and to make his own axe-handles, and many other articles which are constantly required in the bush. My first attempt at driving oxen was accompanied by an unfortunate accident, which gave me some trouble and mortification. My father-in- law had lent a neighbour a plough, of which we were much in want. I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to try my hand with the oxen, to fetch it home. Now, it happened the cattle were young, and not very well broken, so that I found some difficulty in yoking and attaching them to the cart. However, I succeeded at last, and drove up to the door of Mr. Stephens' house in great style. I found the family just going to dinner, which they courteously invited me to partake with them. I accepted their hospitality, and left the oxen standing before the door. I discussed my neighbour's good cheer with an excellent appetite, and was in the very act of pledging mine host, when I heard the cattle start off. We left the table with precipitation, but-were, alas! too late to stop the refractory oxen, which galloping down a steep hill, on the summit of which the house was built, stumbled in their descent, and fell to the bottom, where we found them struggling, apparently, in the agonies of death. We cut the bows from their necks as soon as possible, but not in time to save the life of poor Spot, the near ox, who was quite dead; and it was for some minutes doubtful if Dandy the off "critter," as the Yankees would style him would survive his companion. I killed the dead one over again to make its flesh fit for consumption, and bled the other, which happily saved its life. But, notwithstanding my careful endeavour to make the best of a foolish matter, I felt myself in an awkward predicament. To my worthy father-in-law the loss of an animal worth thirty dollars was, at that time, particularly inconvenient; but his moral justice was high and his temper mild; so he listened meekly to my account of the misfortune, quietly remarking, that it could not be helped, and that no blame attached to me. It is in these worrying affairs of every-day life that we discern the real beauty of the Christian character. My mother-in-law behaved as well, on this trying occasion, as any lady could do who found her larder suddenly stocked with a quantity of lean tough beef a prospect, indeed, by no means cheering to any member of the household. On my return home from my first essay in ox-driving, or rather ox- killing, I found Dennis, our Irish servant, waiting for me with the greatest impatience. "Och, sir," he exclaimed; "if you had but been with me you might have shot a bear. I was out in the bush searching for the cows, and just as I was crossing the Big creek, near the beaver meadow, I heard a noise from a thicket of cedar bushes close by me, and thinking it might be one of the lost cows I ran forward to see, when to my astonishment and dismay I came suddenly upon a large bear." "Well," said I, "what did you do?" "Faith, then, sir, to tell you the truth, I did not do much only took to my heels, and ran home as fast as I could to tell you; as I thought yer honour might perhaps get a shot at the baste, and, troth! he warn't in the laste bit of a hurry to get out my way, sure." "Well, Dennis, only show me the brute, and it shall be a hard case if I do not make the addition of fat bear to eat with the lean beef, with which I have already stocked the larder." I loaded my gun with ball, and in company with Dennis and his father started for the place where Master Bruin had been seen. I took Neptune with me a remarkably fine Irish greyhound one of the most powerfully built dogs of that breed I had ever seen, and well he proved his strength and courage this day, as you shall hear. After proceeding nearly two miles in an easterly direction close to the edge of the beaver meadow,* Neptune suddenly raised his head and looked round. In the next instant he was dashing along in full chase of Mr. Bruin, who was making the best of his way up a hill on the opposite side of the meadow. [* These meadows are to be found within two or three miles of each other on almost every creek or small stream in Canada West. Those industrious animals, the beavers, build their dams across the creeks in a very ingenious manner, with clay and brush-wood. It is very astonishing what ingenuity they display, and what sagacity, almost amounting to reason, they show in the choice of situation for the erection of these dams. It has been asserted that some years ago, when the French were masters of the country, the Indians cut away the dams, and killed all the beavers they could possibly find, as they did not wish the reservoirs where the beavers bred to fall into the hands of their white brethren. The size of these meadows varies from two or three acres to two or three hundred, and in some few cases is much larger.] We joined in the chase with the greatest alacrity, but not in time to witness the first set-to between these savage opponents; for while we were gaining the brow of the hill a desperate fight was going on only a few yards from us. Neptune sometimes having the best of it sometimes Bruin. I found it quite impossible to fire for fear of killing the dog. We then tried to pull him off so as to enable me to shoot the bear. This we found equally difficult, the dog had such fast hold of his throat. He was, indeed, perfectly furious. Dennis, by my direction, cut a strong pole twelve or fourteen feet long, which we laid across the brute's back, and pressed him down as tightly as we could, which, with the able assistance of Nep. kept my gentleman tolerably quiet till the old man cut and twisted a couple of withes, which he passed under the bear, near the hind and forelegs, and secured him firmly to the pole, which my companions lifted on their shoulders, from which the beast now hung suspended, and commenced our march homewards. I had great difficulty in keeping the dog off. He would rush in, every minute, in spite of all I could do, and seize poor Bruin by the side and shake him most unmercifully. I had enough to do with the help of a stout stick to keep him and the bear in order. The latter was equally violent striking with his fore-paws at the men who were luckily for them just out of his reach, and particularly so for Dennis, who marched in front, whose unmentionables not being in the best possible repair, appeared to excite Master Bruin's particular attention. I very much wished to preserve this creature alive, that I might try and tame him. In this, however, I was destined to be disappointed; for what with the beating I was obliged to give him to keep him quiet, and the savage attack of the dog, he died just as we came within sight of the clearing. When we skinned him, we found his side much lacerated where the dog had bitten him. From the exaggerated description Dennis had given me of his size, I fully expected to find him as big as a bullock. He, however, only weighed a hundred and fifty-seven pounds, which, for a bear of two years old, which appeared to be his age, is, I believe, the average weight. The summer of 1825 was warm, even for Canada, where this season is always hot. The thermometer often ranged above 90 degrees in the shade. Such weather would be quite unbearable, were it not for a fine breeze which almost invariably springs up from the westward between ten and eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and continues till sunset. The nights are cooler in proportion to the heat of the day, than in England. This climate is subject to violent thunder-storms, accompanied by vivid forked lightning and heavy rain, which greatly tend to cool the air and make the country more healthy. Fatal accidents, however, sometimes occur, and houses and barns are burnt down by the electric fluid, and I have no doubt that, were it not for the proximity of the woods, a great deal more damage would be done. The lofty trees serve as conductors, particularly the pine and hemlock, the former, from its great height above all the other trees of the forest, being much more likely to be struck by the lightning than any other. It is a curious fact that the electric fluid invariably follows the grain the wood. I have often noticed in pines which had been struck, that the fluid had followed the grain in a spiral form, encircling the tree three or four times in its descent to the earth. I have myself witnessed some extraordinary effects produced by lightning. I remember that, not more than two years since, I had occasion to go out into the township of Douro to attend the sitting of the Council of which I was then a member, and I had, on my way, to pass through a small clearing occupied by an Irish settler, one James Lynch. This man, to save trouble, had left several large hemlock trees near his house. These trees had been dead for some years, consequently the wood was tolerably dry.* The day before, there had been a terrific thunder-storm which struck the largest, which was fully four feet in diameter, shivering it from top to bottom, and throwing the pieces around for upwards of sixty yards in every direction. If a barrel of gunpowder had been placed under the tree, greater devastation could not have been made. Lynch told me that the storm had been very severe in that neighbourhood. [* It is well knows that dry timber offers a greater resistance to the electric fluid than the green.] "We were at dinner," he said, "when the dreadful flash came which shattered that tree. We were all knocked down by the shock, and narrowly escaped being killed, not only by the lightning, but by the pieces of timber which were, as you may observe, scattered in all directions." After a thunder-storm, attended by heavy rain, a substance very much resembling sulphur is left floating on all the pools, which many people believe to be sulphur. This, however, is quite a mistake, for it is, in reality, nothing more than the farina from the cone of the pine trees. I have observed this substance equally abundant on the Huron tract, many miles from any pine grove. It must, therefore, from its lightness, have been carried up into the air, from whence it has been beaten down by the rain. CHAPTER V. CANADIAN HARVEST. -- PREPARING TIMBER FOR FRAME-BUILDINGS. -- RAISING "BEE." -- BEAUTY OF THE CANADIAN AUTUMN. -- VISIT TO OTONABEE. -- ROUGH CONVEYANCE. -- DISACCOMMODATION. -- LEARNED LANDLORD. -- COBOURG. -- OTONABEE RIVER. -- CHURCH OF GORE'S LANDING. -- EFFECTS OF PERSERVING INDUSTRY. OUR harvest, with the exception of some late oats, was all carefully housed by the 18th of August. Very little grain is stacked out in this country: even the hay is put up in barns. As timber can be had for the cutting, log or frame-barns can be built very cheaply. I would certainly recommend frame in preference to log-buildings. Square timber, fit for framing, can be purchased from four to five dollars per hundred feet, running measure. Twelve hundred feet are sufficient, varying in size from four inches to a foot square. This quantity will frame a barn fifty feet long by thirty feet wide, and sixteen in height, from the sill to the plate which supports the roof. Twelve thousand feet of boards and plank, at five dollars per thousand, superficial measure, will be enough to enclose the frame, and lay the threshing-floor, and board the roof ready for shingling. The best and cheapest method of barn-building is as follows: In the winter season cut and square with the broad axe all the frame timber you require, and draw it home to the place you have fixed on for the building, and from the saw-mill all the lumber you require. As soon as the weather is warm enough hire a framer, whose business is to mark out all the tenons and mortices, and to make or superintend the making of them. When ready, the building is put together in what is called bents, each bent consisting of two posts, one on each side of the building, connected together by a strong beam running across the building. The foundation is composed of twelve cedar blocks, three feet long, sunk two-thirds of their depth into the ground, one under each corner of the barn, and under the foot of each post. These blocks support the sills, which are firmly united at the corner to the cross sills. The bents, four in number, are then laid on this foundation, and are ready for raising, which is done by calling a "bee." Thirty-five men are ample for this service--more are only in the way. Every two persons should be provided with a light balsam or cedar pole, fifteen feet in length, shod at the end with a ring and strong spike. These pike-poles are laid in order in front of the bent to be raised, one between each person. All being ready, the framer-gives the word "attention," when each man lays hold of the bent, one man being stationed at the foot of each post with a hand-spike, which he presses against it to prevent its slipping. "Yeo heave!" is then shouted by the framer, at which every man lifts, waiting always for the word, and lifting together. As soon as the bent is lifted as high as they can reach, the pike-poles are driven into the beam, and the bent is soon in a perpendicular position. Several pikes are then stuck into the opposite side to keep the bent from being swayed over, until the tenons on the foot of the post is entered into the mortice on the sill: it is then secured by stays, until the next bent is raised, when the girts connect them together. In this manner all the bents are raised: the wall-plates are then lifted upon the building which connect all the bents. The tenon on the top of each post goes through the plate, and is firmly pinned; the putting up the rafters completes the frame. The raising of a building of this size should not occupy more than three quarters of a-day. No liquor should be served out to the swarm of working bees till the raising is over, as many serious accidents having occurred for want of this precaution. I am particular in giving these descriptions, because I flatter myself they may prove useful to the future colonist. The first week in September we commenced sowing our fall-wheat, and finished on the tenth, which is considered in good season. I would by all means recommend early sowing, especially on old cleared farms. Late sown wheat is more liable to winter-kill and rust. In fact, you can hardly sow too early to ensure a good crop. September is the most beautiful month in the Canadian year. The weather is neither too hot nor too cold. Nothing can be more delightfully pleasant; for, in this month, the foliage of the trees begins to put on that gorgeous livery for which the North American continent is so justly celebrated. Every variety of tint, from the brightest scarlet and deepest orange, yellow and green, with all the intermediate shades blended together, form one of the most beautiful natural pictures you can possibly conceive. I received a very pressing invitation from my wife's brother-in-law, who resided near the foot of Rice Lake, in the township of Otonabee, to come and spend a few days with him. As an additional inducement, he promised to show me some capital duck-shooting. I was too fond of fowling to decline such an invitation as this. Besides, I wished to see that new settlement. The township lies north of Rice Lake, which forms its southern boundary: it is the largest in the county of Peterborough, with the exception of Harvey. Otonabee contains above eighty thousand acres, and is now the most populous as well as one of the most fertile townships in the county, which, at the time of which I am writing, had been just opened by the Government for location. The only practicable road then to this settlement was from Cobourg, distant twelve miles from the southern shore of Rice Lake, leading over a chain of hills, the highest of which is, I believe, about seven hundred feet above the level of Lake Ontario, and from whence, on a very clear day, the opposite shore may be seen, though the distance is nearly sixty-five miles. I have heard this statement disputed, but I am perfectly convinced of the truth from having myself seen, on several occasions, the United States' shore of the lake from White's Hill, which is several hundred feet lower. It was arranged that I should drive my wife as far as Cobourg, and leave her with some friends till my return. I was to take out with me from Cobourg the gentleman's sister, Miss Jane W-----, who was to return with me. We left Darlington in a one-horse pleasure-waggon so called, or rather mis-called, by the natives. For my part, I never could find in what the pleasure consisted, unless in being jerked every minute two or three feet from your seat by the unevenness of the road and want of springs in your vehicle, or the next moment being soused to the axletree in a mud-hole, from which, perhaps, you were obliged to extricate your carriage by the help of a lever in the shape of a rail taken from some farmer's fence by the roadside. You are no sooner freed from this Charybdis, than you fall into Scylla, formed by half a mile of corduroy-bridge, made of round logs, varying from nine to fifteen inches in diameter, which, as you may suppose, does not make the most even surface imaginable, and over which you are jolted in the roughest style possible, at the expense of your breath and injury of your person. I am happy to say that better roads and a better description of pleasure-carriages have superseded these inconvenient conveyances. Since the institution of county councils, and the formation of towns and townships into municipalities, great attention has been bestowed, and large sums of money voted, for the improvement of roads and bridges; and several Joint-stock companies, chartered by the Provincial Parliament, have completed sundry lines of plank and macadamized roads, on which toll-gates have been erected. What has already been done in this way has added greatly to the wealth and settlement of the province. No one can understand, indeed, except the early settler, what a blessing a good road is, especially to those who are too far back for the benefit of water communication. The day was fine and clear when we started, and we congratulated ourselves on the prospect of a pleasant journey, which, I am sorry to say, was not to be verified. Distant thunder soon warned us that we might expect a storm. We hurried on as fast as possible, in hope we might be able to get through the nine-mile woods, in the township of Clarke, before the bursting of the storm. In this, however, we were disappointed; for, before we were half through the woods, the rain fell in torrents, accompanied by the loudest thunder and most vivid lightning I had ever seen. After above an hour's most pitiless pelting, we found ourselves suddenly before a small log-house, in front of which, swinging between two upright posts, a cross-bar connecting them at the top, depended a sign, on which was described, in large characters, for the information of all way-worn or thirsty-travellers, "that good liquor, good beds, and good accommodations, both for man and horse, could be had from the proprietor, Thomas Turner Orton." Although from the outward appearance of the premises we did not expect the best accommodation, we thought anything better than being exposed longer to the fury of the storm, so giving our horse and waggon to the charge of the ostler, we entered Mr. Orton's tavern, and demanded to be shown into a private room, which request we found it was out of the power of mine host to comply with, seeing he had only one apartment, which answered the treble purpose of parlour, kitchen, and bar-room. Besides this general apartment there were two small bedrooms on the ground-floor. Luckily for us, a good fire blazed on the ample hearth, its only occupant, in the shape of a guest, being a gentleman from Port Hope, who, like ourselves, had just taken refuge from the storm. While our clothes were being dried, our hostess prepared dinner, which consisted of a boiled chicken, eggs, and fried ham, which we found excellent, and, as a preventive against catching cold, after the soaking we had got, I ordered some whiskey-punch, which I have always found very efficacious on such occasions. Some people recommend tea made from the boughs of the hemlock-pine, which, I dare say, is excellent for some constitutions; but it never agreed half so well with mine as the former antidote, which I can conscientiously recommend but, like all other medicines, an over-dose may do more harm than good. Our host, who appeared to make himself quite at home in his own house, joined in the conversation, and being very communicative about his own affairs, wanted us to be equally so about ours. His eccentricity greatly amused us. He informed me that he was by birth a Yorkshireman, and that he had been in business in London, where he had built some fine "place" or "terrace," which still bore his name. He spouted Latin occasionally, and showed me a Greek lexicon, which he told me was his constant companion. His real stock of Latin and Greek consisted only of a few words and sentences he had picked up, and which he quoted ostentatiously before the ignorant, who of course thought him a prodigy of learning. As it continued to rain all the evening, I was obliged to give orders to have my horse put up for the night, and also to see what accommodation could be had for ourselves. I found on examination that this was bad enough at least I thought so then, though many a time since I should have been happy to obtain any half as good. We started early next morning, and reached Cobourg, without any farther adventure, about noon on the same day. We halted there three days. I left my wife with our friends, and took charge of Miss W----- to escort her to her brother's house. We left Cobourg for Rice Lake which was distant about twelve or thirteen miles from thence. It was a delightful morning in October; and our road, though very bad, and in some places positively dangerous, where it descended into the deep ravines, was at the same time so picturesque that we were quite delighted with our drive, and particularly so when, emerging from the woods, we entered Hamilton- plains, and beheld in the distance the glittering waters of Rice Lake, and the gem-like islands which adorn its unruffled surface. Rice Lake, or the Lake of the Burning Plains, as it is called in the Indian language, is a fine sheet of water, twenty-seven miles in length from east to west, varying from two to three and a half miles in width. About six miles from its head on the northern shore it receives the waters of the Otonabee river, which, rising near the head-waters of the Madawaska, flows in nearly a westerly direction, into Balsam Lake, where it takes a more southerly direction, forming in its course a succession of beautiful lakes for upwards of sixty miles. Ten miles above Peterborough, and directly opposite my own farm in the township of Douro, it suddenly contracts its channel and becomes a rapid and impetuous stream. According to a survey ordered by the-government, it was ascertained that from a point on my farm, at the foot of Kawchewahnoonk Lake, and distant from Peterborough nearly ten miles, there is a fall of one hundred and forty-seven feet, affording an unlimited water-power, which has already been extensively applied not only in the town of Peterborough, where several fine flour and saw- mills have been erected, but also in the townships through which it flows. At Peterborough the rapids cease, from whence the river becomes navigable for steam-boats to the Rice Lake, at the distance of twenty- one miles, which it enters after a course of fully two hundred and fifty miles. The Indian river takes its rise close to Stony Lake, from which it is only divided by a narrow ridge of granite: this ridge has been cut across at the sole expense of the Hon. Zacheus Burnham and Dr. John Gilchrist, for the purpose of obtaining a larger supply of water for the use of their mills at Warsaw, in Dummer and Keane, in Otonabee, thus connecting the two rivers by this canal. This river flows through the townships of Dummer, Douro, and Otonabee, its whole course not exceeding thirty-five or forty miles, with the exception of a few small streams. No other river of consequence flows into Rice Lake. Our drive over the plains was truly delightful. New beauties presented themselves at every step. It can hardly be imagined what a relief it is to the eye, after travelling for miles through a dense forest, to see such a beautiful landscape suddenly burst on your sight. For nearly three miles our road lay through natural park-like scenery, flowery knolls, deep ravines, and oak-crowned hills, with every now and then the blue waters of the lake glittering through the trees. Our path now entered a deep and finely-wooded ravine, which wound round the base of steep hills on either hand, rising to a considerable height, their summits crowned here and there with beautiful clumps of oak. For nearly a mile we followed the sharp descent and windings of the beautiful valley, till a sudden turning of the road revealed to our sight the whole expanse of this fine sheet of water. Not a ripple dimpled the surface; but, mirror-like, it lay with all its lovely islands thickly wooded to their summits with the sugar-maple, which rose, tree above tree, up the steep ascent of these conical islets, which, reflected in the clear lake, added new beauties to the scene. A few minutes more brought us to the tavern, a small log-house, kept by one David Tidy, a very respectable Scotchman. The situation of this man's farm is one of the best on the lake shore. It is now the property of Mr. Alfred Hayward, whose good taste has added greatly to its natural beauties. Mrs. Hayward, who is an accomplished artist, has taken a view of the lake from her garden, and also one of Port Hope, both of which have been lithographed, and are much admired. Tidy's tavern, and two other log-houses, were at this time the only settlements on the Rice Lake plains, which extend for nearly twenty miles along the south shore, forming the rear of the townships of Hamilton and Alnwick, but which are now dotted over with fine productive farms, substantial stone, brick, or frame-houses, full- bearing orchards, and possessing in fact almost every comfort and convenience a farmer could wish. The pretty village of Gore's Landing is built partly on the lot formerly possessed by Tidy, and partly on the adjoining lot at present occupied by Captain Gore, from whom the village takes its name. The gentlemen in this neighbourhood have, nearly at their own expense, built a very neat church, which is romantically situated on the top of a high hill overlooking the lake. In summer time nothing can exceed the beauty of this spot, or be more suitable for the erection of a fane dedicated to Him "Whose temple is all space!" This village contains two excellent taverns, a large steam saw-mill, two stores, and several other buildings. Two steam-boats, the "Royal George" and "Forester," leave it daily for Peterborough, distant twenty-five miles, making their return-trip the same day. Another steamer is being constructed to run from the village of Keane, on the Indian river in Otonabee down the Trent as far as Heely's Falls and back to Gore's Landing. These boats meet Weller's line of mail stages at one o'clock, P.M. A fine line of plank road has been constructed from this place to Cobourg, avoiding all the high hills. The stage time is an hour and a half between lake and lake. As nearly all the lumber and shingles manufactured at Peterborough and the neighbouring townships intended for exportation to the United States, must be either landed here or at Bewdley, at the head of the lake, whence it is conveyed across in waggons to Port Hope or Cobourg, this village bids fair to become a stirring little place. One of my objects in writing this work is to point out what the country was twenty-seven years ago, and what it is now, showing clearly that what appeared to the pioneer of those days insurmountable difficulties, have by persevering industry been overcome, "and the howling wilderness made to blossom as the rose." The desolating torrent has been utilised and restrained; mills and factories have been erected; bridges span our broadest rivers, and magnificent steamers plough our inland seas. Nor is this all: the first sod of a railway has been turned, which is ultimately intended to connect Lake Huron with Halifax and Boston, bringing the riches of the Far West through its natural channel to the sea. Nothing, indeed, but industry and enterprise is needed to change the waste and solitary places of Upper Canada into a garden of Eden, which it is designed by the Supreme Architect to become. CHAPTER VI. WOOD-DUCK SHOOTING. -- ADVENTURE ON RICE LAKE. -- IRISH HOWL. -- ARRIVAL AT GORE'S LANDING. -- GENERAL HOWLING FOR THE DEFUNCT. -- DANGERS OF OUR JOURNEY. -- SAFE ARRIVAL AT COBOURG. -- SALMON-FISHING. -- CANOE-BUILDING AFTER A BAD FASHION. -- SALMON SPEARING. -- CANADIAN FISH AND FISHERIES. -- INDIAN SUMMER. -- SLEIGHS AND SLEIGHING. -- DOMESTIC LOVE. AFTER committing the care of my horse to our landlord, I ordered dinner to be got ready immediately, as we had thirteen miles to row, and I wished to reach Mr. W-----'s before dark. Our hostess exerted herself, and we soon sat down to a sumptuous feast, consisting of a brace of fine fat wood-ducks and fried black bass, two dishes I am particularly fond of, and which at this time of the year can always be obtained from the lake. The wood-duck is a delicious bird. It makes its appearance early in the spring, as soon as the ice breaks up. Its plumage is very fine--I should say the most beautiful of any of its species. Its head and upper part of the neck are dark green; from the top of the head a long crest depends, richly variegated with green, white, and dark purple feathers. The lower part of the throat and breast is cinnamon speckled with white, but under the wings and sides towards the tail, grey, speckled and fringed with black; the back of the wings dark blue and black feathers. The wood-duck frequents close-wooded streams, little bays, and nooks, sitting upon old logs or the limbs of trees which have fallen into the water. It feeds on the wild rice, and is very fat from the middle of August to November, when it migrates to a warmer climate. This kind of duck is more easily approached than any other. The sportsman should be seated near the centre of a small canoe, his gun lying before him ready cocked, when he should paddle very cautiously through the rice, keeping his head as low as possible. A person who understands the management of a canoe can generally get within twenty- five or thirty yards before he is seen, which gives him ample opportunity to put down his paddle and take his gun, in time to fire both barrels. In this manner I have often killed from fifteen to twenty brace in a few hours. After dinner we hired a skiff and proceeded on our voyage. The lake was calm, so we made good progress, passing the Indian village belonging to the Mississauga tribe of Indians, a branch of the Chippewas, which I shall have occasion to speak of hereafter, Pantaush's point, Designs Bay, and the _embouchure_ of the Indian river; and just at dusk landed opposite my friend's house, pretty well tired, though much delighted with our day's journey. We were received with a welcome such as only a backwoodsman knows how to give. In half an hour I felt as much at home as if I had belonged to the family. During my stay here, which was upwards of a week, I amused myself with fishing and shooting. The fall and winter duck were beginning to come in from the north, a sure sign that hard weather was close at hand. We had had an early spring and a long warm summer. Generally speaking, the ground does not close till about the middle of November; but this year the frost set in much earlier. It did not, however, continue, for the ground again opened, and we had nearly two weeks of beautiful Indian summer in the early part of November. On the 17th the ice was sufficiently strong to skate upon. On the 27th day of October the first hard weather commenced, and as there was some fear of the lake freezing, we determined to start for Cobourg the following morning. I accordingly made the necessary preparations, and hired an old man-of-war's-man, one Robert Redpath, to row us up the lake to Tidy's. It froze hard during the night. The ice was fully half an inch thick on the bays, and along the margin of the lake we were obliged to break a passage for the skiff for upwards of fifty yards before we got into clear water. It was cold, and blew fresh from the north-west, and the wind being directly down the lake, caused a heavy swell, which increased every minute. As the gale freshened, our skiff shipped so much water that we thought it prudent to put across to the Alnwick shore, which was more under the lee, being sheltered by islands. While passing near one of these, I observed some person walking to and fro, apparently making signals of distress. I called Redpath's attention to this, and bade him "row to the shore that we might ascertain what he wanted." This our boatman positively refused to do, saying that "he had hired himself to ferry us to Tidy's, and he was not bound to go half a mile out of his way to hunt after every infernal Ingine (Indian) we might see on our road." I, however, insisted on his immediately complying with my request. It was fortunate I did so, for on landing we found a man walking backwards and forwards, trying to keep himself warm. Indeed, the poor fellow looked nearly frozen. He seemed to have lost all power over his limbs, and was quite unable to articulate. I made Redpath light a fire, and in the meantime I gave the man a dram from our whiskey-bottle, which greatly revived him. We soon had a blazing fire, which had the desired effect of unloosing the tongue of our new acquaintance, and he informed us, "he was one of the Irish emigrants sent off by Government under the superintendence of the Honourable Peter Robinson; that several hundreds of them had been forwarded from Cobourg to Rice Lake, a few days before, on their way to the new settlements up the Otonabee River, and were now camped at Tidy's. He and his friend, a man of the name of Daly, a tailor by trade, wished to settle in the township of Asphodel, on the River Trent. They had accordingly taken a boat and had rowed down the lake in the hope of reaching Crook's Rapids on the Trent before nightfall. Irishman-like, their only stores for the voyage consisted of a bottle of whiskey, to which it appears they applied themselves more diligently than to the navigation of their boat, which they let drift at the mercy of the winds and waves while they slept. They did not wake up from their drunken slumbers till dark, when they found themselves stuck in a rice bed, and unable to extricate themselves from the dilemma in which they were placed; whereupon they again had recourse to the bottle, which this time proved fatal to Daly who, being very drunk, fell overboard. His companion, however, managed to catch hold of him and succeeded in getting him into the boat only to suffer a more lingering death, for he was frozen stiff before morning dawned. The survivor had covered his unfortunate companion with a blanket, the only one they had with them, in the hope it would keep him from perishing with cold during the night, which care, however, proved unavailing. He managed at dawn to extricate the boat from the rice bed, but not being able to row so large a boat, especially in his present condition, she drifted upon the point of the island on which we found him. As soon as he was well warmed and refreshed, we proceeded to the place pointed out by him, where we found the boat thumping in the surf, on a ledge of rocks. After hauling it up, we proceeded to lift the blanket, when a shocking sight presented itself. The dead man was sitting upright on the seat, with his mouth and eyes half-open. We lifted him out, laid him under a tree, and spread the blanket over him. We found our skiff too small to accommodate another passenger, so we determined to leave it behind and take the large boat, which we accordingly did; and we put our new-comer to the oar with Redpath, whilst I took the helm. We had a long, tedious row against the headwind, which now blew a gale. Our new acquaintance, every now-and-then, would throw down his oar, and howl and clap his hands to show his grief for the loss of his departed friend. These pathetic lamentations elicited no sympathy from Redpath, who abused him for "a lazy lubber," and ordered him "to pull and not make such an infernal howling, worse than a wild Ingin's yell." We made the landing at Tidy's, just before dark, and found several hundred emigrants in the tavern, and camped round about it. As soon as we came within hearing, our passenger commenced the loudest howl he had yet perpetrated, which had the immediate effect of bringing down to the landing the whole of his countrymen, who, as soon as they learned the loss of their friend, gave us a genuine Irish howl, in which the women took the most prominent part. On our way up to the house, we were met by the landlord, who, with a most woful look, informed us that our horse had strayed away from the pasture, and that he had searched the plains in every direction, and could hear no tidings of him, but as soon as he turned up he would send him home. "I am sorry, sir." he added, "this misfortune has happened, and particularly as I am unable to accommodate you and the young lady, for my house is full of drunken Irish, as you see. Indeed, the only chance you have of getting to Cobourg to-night is by an ox-cart, which will start about nine o'clock this evening." I was very angry with the landlord for his carelessness, and told him I should look to him for payment unless my horse was forthcoming. I found the owner of the ox-cart, and made a bargain with him to set us down at my friend's house in Cobourg. Our equipage was very unique of its kind, it having been constructed for the sole purpose of carrying barrels of flour and pork. The box was a kind of open rack, with two rows of upright stakes instead of sides: two long boards, laid on cross-bars, formed the bottom: we spread our buffaloes on these, and fastened a strong piece of rope across the cart, from stake to stake on either side, to hold on by. Thus equipped, we commenced our journey. It was pitch-dark, so our driver let the cattle go as they liked, for guiding them was perfectly out of the question. I shall never forget the way our oxen galloped down those steep hills. Miss W. was dreadfully frightened. All we could do was to hold on and trust in Providence. Luckily, the oxen kept the track; for had they deviated in the least, going down some of the steep pitches, the cart would have been upset to a certainty, and very likely we should have been seriously injured, or killed on the spot. It was past one in the morning before we reached Cobourg, thoroughly fatigued with our expedition. I heard no tidings of my horse for upwards of four months, and had given up all thoughts of beholding him again, when one morning I was surprised to see him, waggon, harness and all, drive into the yard. Upon inquiry, I found that the hard weather and snow had made him seek the clearings for food, when he was easily secured; but one of his fetlocks was cut almost to the bone by the piece of rope he had been tethered with, and which was still upon him when he was found. One of the most exciting amusements at this season of the year, is salmon-fishing. In order to enjoy this sport, I made a canoe sixteen feet in length, and two feet nine inches at its greatest breadth. It was my first attempt, and, certainly the thing looked more like a hog- trough than a boat. It, however, answered the purpose for which it was intended, and I can assure the reader I felt not a little proud of this, my first attempt at canoe-making. Salmon-fishing commences in October, when the fish run up the rivers and creeks in great numbers. The usual way of catching them is by spearing, which is done as follows.--An iron grate--or jack, as it is called by the Canadians--is made in the shape of a small cradle, composed of iron bars three or four inches apart. This cradle is made to swing in a frame, so that it may be always on the level, or the swell would cause the pine-knots to fall out. Fat pine and light-wood are used to burn in the jack, which give a very brilliant light for several yards round the bow of the canoe. The fish can be easily seen at the depth of from four to five feet. One person sits in the stern and steers with a paddle, propelling the canoe at the same time. The bowman either kneels or stands up with the spear poised ready for striking. An expert hand will scarcely miss a stroke. I have known two fishermen in this manner kill upwards of two hundred salmon in one night. I believe, however, the fishing is not nearly so productive as formerly. Mr. Stephens showed me a small stream running through his farm, which I could easily jump over. He told me that one afternoon he was watering his horses, when he perceived a shoal of salmon swimming up the creek. He had no spear at home, having lent it to a neighbour. He, however, succeeded with a pitchfork in capturing fifty-six fine fish. Thirty years ago, all the small streams and rivers, from the head of the lake downwards to the Bay of Quinte, used to abound with salmon. The erection of saw-mills on the creeks, and other causes, have tended materially to injure the fisheries. White fish and salmon-trout are, however, taken in vast quantities, particularly the former, which has become quite an article of commerce. The most extensive fisheries are on the Manitoulin island, in Lake Huron, and along the Canadian shore of Ontario, opposite the township of Haldimand, Crambe, and Murray, in the county of Northumberland, and part of the district of Prince Edward. Very large seine nets being used, many barrels of fish are often taken at a haul, which are cured and packed on the spot: the usual price of a barrel varies from five to six dollars. Lake Ontario abounds with herring, of much the same flavour as the sea species, but not so strong and oily, nor so large. Sturgeon, pike, pickerel, black bass, sheep-heads, mullets, suckers, eels, and a variety of other fish, are plentiful in these waters: the spring-creeks and mill-ponds yield plenty of spotted trout, from four ounces to a pound weight: they are easily caught either with the worm or fly. The best creek I ever fished in was the Speed, a branch of the Grand River, or Ouse, which runs through the township of Guelph. In winter you can catch them by fishing through a hole in the ice. The best way is to dig and store by in a box filled with earth, a quantity of worms, which must be kept in the cellar for use. A small piece of fat pork is commonly employed as bait, but is not nearly so good as the other. A friend of mine, living near Colborne, told me rather an amusing story of a Yankee, who was fishing through the ice with the usual bait, a piece of pork. He had been very unsuccessful, and tired of the sport, he walked over to where my friend was throwing out the trout as fast as possible, when the following colloquy took place: "Wal, how, under Heaven, did you get all them 'ere fish?" "Caught them." "Wal, I s'pose you did; but what kinder bait do you use?" "Worms." "Varms! Why, under Heaven, where do you get varms at this time of the year?" "I got these out of my cellar." "Get out! how you do talk!" "You may believe me or not, as you like; but I can assure you I did." "Wal, do tell. I guess I never thought of diggin' in the cellar; I will go to hum and try." My friend met him a few days afterwards, when the Yankee said--"I calculate, Mister, you told me a tarnation lie, the other day, about them 'ere varms. I went and dug up every bit of my cellar, and, I do declare, I never got a single varm." My friend laughed very heartily at this "Yankee diggin," but at the same time kindly informed his neighbour of the method he pursued, to provide worms for winter-fishing. Before the winter fairly sets in, we generally have ten days or a fortnight of the Indian summer; indeed, it is the sure harbinger of winter. The air is mild and temperate; a haze, resembling smoke, pervades the atmosphere, that at times obscures the sun, which, when visible, is of a blood-red colour. Various causes have been assigned for this appearance, but none very satisfactory. Towards the end of November this year, the ice was strong enough to bear the weight of a man, and the ground was soon whitened with snow, but not in sufficient depth to make good sleighing. Just a week before Christmas, we had a fall of eight or ten inches, which made pretty good going: the sleighs were, of course, in immediate requisition. A family sleigh is made to carry from six to ten persons; the more stylish ones from four to six; a cutter, or single sleigh, two. These are all for pleasure, but every farmer is obliged to have a lumber- sleigh for general use. A much larger load can be drawn on runners in winter than on wheels in summer. Sleighing is, without doubt, the most delightful mode of travelling you can possibly conceive, but it takes several falls of snow to make the sleighing good. All the inequalities must be filled up and levelled, but the snow soon packs solid by the constant friction of the sleigh-runner. The horses are each provided with a ring of bells, the sound of which is not unmusical; and I am assured is delightful indeed to the ears of the anxious wife, watching for the return of her husband from a winter journey. Some years ago, when the country was unsettled, the females of the family had some cause for fear, since the absence of the father, son, or husband, was not always followed by his safe return; and the snow-storm, or the wolves, were thought of with alarm, till the music of the sleigh-bells announced the safety of the beloved absentee. In no country on the face of the earth does the torch of wedded love beam brighter than in Canada, where the husband always finds "the wife dearer than the bride." I have seen many an accomplished and beautiful English girl, "forgetting with her father's house," the amusements of a fashionable life, to realize with a half-pay officer or "younger brother," the purer, holier pleasures of domestic love in this country, where a numerous issue, the fruits of their union, are considered a blessing and a source of wealth, instead of bringing with them, as in the old country, an increase of care. CHAPTER VII. EMPLOYMENTS OF A MAN OF EDUCATION IN THE COLONY. -- YANKEE WEDDING. -- MY COMMISSION. -- WINTER IN CANADA. -- HEALTHINESS OF THE CANADIAN CLIMATE. -- SERACH FOR LAND. -- PURCHASE WILD LAND AT DOURO. -- MY FLITTING. -- PUT UP A SHANTY. -- INEXPERIENCE IN CLEARING. -- PLAN- HEAPS. THE employments of a respectable Canadian settler are certainly of a very multifarious character, and he may be said to combine, in his own person, several professions, if not trades. A man of education will always possess an influence, even in bush society: he may be poor, but his value will not be tested by the low standard of money, and notwithstanding his want of the current coin of the realm, he will be appealed to for his judgment in many matters, and will be inducted into several offices, infinitely more honourable than lucrative. My friend and father-in-law, being mild in manners, good-natured, and very sensible, was speedily promoted to the bench, and was given the colonelcy of the second battalion of the Durham Militia. At this time there was no place of worship nearer than Port Hope, where the marriage ceremony could be legally performed. According to the Colonial law, if a magistrate resides more than eighteen miles from a church, he is empowered to marry parties applying to him for that purpose, after three written notices have been put up in the most public places in the township, with the names and residences of the parties for at least a fortnight previous to the marriage. I witnessed several of these marriages during my stay in Darlington, some of which were highly amusing. One morning a near neighbour presented himself and a very pretty young woman, as candidates for matrimony. He was an American by birth, and a shrewd, clever, sensible person. After the ceremony, the bridegroom invited me to partake of the wedding-dinner, and I went. The dinner was very good, though not served exactly in the English fashion. We, however, managed to enjoy ourselves very much. After tea, dancing commenced, to the music of two fiddles, when country-dances, reels, and French fours were all performed with much spirit. The music was very good, the dancing but indifferent. I could not help thinking "How ill the motion with the music suits, So Orpheus fiddled, and so danced the brutes." During the pauses between the dances; some lady or gentleman would favour the company with a song. Then plays--as they are called--were introduced; such as hunt the slipper, cross questions and crooked answers, ladies' toilette, and several others of the same kind, in which forfeits had to be redeemed by the parties making mistakes in the game--a procedure of course productive of much noise, kissing, and laughter. Refreshments were handed round in great profusion, and the entertainment wound up with a dance, which, I believe, is of purely American origin. A chair is placed in the middle of the room, on which a young lady is seated; the company then join hands, and dance round her, singing these elegant lines:-- "There was a young woman sat down to sleep, Sat down to sleep, sat down to sleep; There was a young woman sat down to sleep, Heigh-ho!--heigh-ho!--heigh-ho! "There was a young man to keep her awake, To keep her awake, to keep her awake; There was a young man to keep her awake, Heigh-ho!--heigh-ho!--heigh ho! "John R----- his name shall be, His name shall be, his name shall be; John R----- his name shall be, Heigh-ho!--heigh-ho!--heigh-ho! The gentleman named walks up to the lady, salutes her, raises her from the chair, and seats himself in her stead, the rest dancing round, and singing as before, only substituting the gentleman, and naming the lady who is to release the gentleman in the same way, till all the ladies and gentlemen have been seated in their turn. As soon as this queer species of Mazurka was concluded, the company broke up, seemingly well pleased with their entertainment. The introduction of English manners and customs during the last quarter of a century has tended greatly to improve society. It is now only amongst the lower orders that parties of this kind would be tolerated. On my return home, I found an official letter from the Adjutant-general of the Upper Canada Militia, in which I was informed I was appointed by his Excellency Sir P. Maitland to an Ensigncy in the first regiment of Durham Militia. The effective militia of this province is, I believe, about 150,000 men. All persons, from sixteen to sixty, must enrol their names once a year, and all from sixteen to forty, must muster for general training on the 28th of June in each year. The officers, in time of war, receive the same pay and allowances as those in the line. The winters of 1825 and 1826 were considered cold, even for Canada. The sleighing was good from the middle of December to the middle of March, with the exception of the January thaw, which continued for upwards of a week, and took away nearly all the snow. This thaw, though periodical, is not every year of the same duration, nor does it always take away the snow. Sometimes it is attended by strong gales of wind, from the southward, and with heavy thunder and lightning, which was particularly the case last January. The month of February is generally considered the coldest of the winter months. I have frequently known the thermometer range from 16 degrees to 20 degrees below zero, for a week together. On one day of the winter of which I am speaking, it was as low as 35 degrees. This, however, is unusual. The coldest day I ever remember was in the winter of 1833. It was called the "Cold Sunday." The quicksilver in Fahrenheit's thermometer was frozen in the ball, which marks 39 degrees below zero. It was, however, stated in the papers, both in Canada and the State of New York, that the real cold was 40 degrees below zero, or 72 degrees below freezing point. I dined at a friend's that day, who resided three miles from my farm in Douro. The day was clear, not a cloud being above the horizon. The sun was of a dull copper-colour, and the horizon towards the north-west tinged with the same hue. Not a breath of wind was stirring. The smoke from the chimneys rose straight up into the air, and appeared unable to disperse through the atmosphere. My horses were as white as snow from the steam of their bodies freezing upon them; the reins were frozen as stiff as rods; the air seemed to cut like a knife. I was only a quarter of an hour upon the road, but even in that time I felt the cold severely, and was very glad when I got into the house to a large wood fire. The cold obliged the whole party at dinner to take their plates upon their knees and sit round the fire. But, as I said before, this is only an extreme case, and might not happen again for twenty years. The excessive cold seldom lasts more than three days at a time, when it generally moderates, though not sufficiently to soften the snow. The dryness of the atmosphere and snow makes you feel the cold much less in proportion than in England. You do not experience that clinging, chilly, damp sort of cold in Canada that you do in the British Isles. For my part, I much prefer a Canadian winter, where the roads are good, the sleighing good, and your health good. Sickness is scarcely known here in the winter months. If I could have purchased land on the lakeshore, I should have liked to settle in Darlington; but I found the farms I fancied much too high- priced for my pocket. So at last I made up my mind to go back to the new settlement of Peterborough, and see what sort of a place it was, and what it was likely to become. Accordingly, I started on my journey, and travelled east, along the Kingston road, parallel with the shore of lake Ontario for about twenty-four or five miles to the boundary line, between the townships of Hope and Hamilton. After this I walked for twenty-seven miles through Cavan and Monaghan, to the town of Peterborough, which, at that time contained one log-house and a very poor saw-mill, erected some five or six years before by one Adam Scott to supply the new settlement of Smith with lumber. I found several hundreds of Mr. Robinson's Irish emigrants camped on the plains. Many had built themselves huts of pine and spruce boughs; some with slabs and others with logs of trees. Three or four Government store-houses and a house for the Superintendent, the Hon. Peter Robinson, were in course of erection. I had letters of introduction to that gentleman, and also to the Hon. T. A. Stewart, and Robert Reid, Esq. The two latter gentlemen resided in the township of Douro, and were at that time the only settlers in that part of Canada. As I did not much like the appearance of the lodgings I was likely to obtain in the new town, I went on to Mr. Stewart's house, and presented my credentials. Nothing could have been more cordial than the welcome I received from him. This gentleman and his brother-in-law, Robert Reid, Esq., obtained a grant of land from the Colonial Government, on condition that they would become actual settlers on the land, and perform certain settlement duties, which consisted in chopping out and clearing the concession lines.* Before the Crown patent could issue, the party contracting to perform the settlement duties was obliged to appear before a magistrate, and make an affidavit that he or they had chopped and cleared certain concession lines opposite the lots of land mentioned in the certificate. [* Every township is laid out by the surveyor in parallel lines, sixty- six chains apart. These lines are sixty-six feet in width, and are given by government as road allowances, for the use of the public, and are called concession lines. Cross lines run at right angles with the former every thirty chains, and are called lot-lines: they subdivide the township into two hundred acre lots: every fifth cross line is a road allowance.] This was a bad law, because many of these lines crossing high hills, swamps or lakes, were impracticable for road-purposes: many thousand pounds consequently were entirely and uselessly thrown away: besides, it opened a door for perjury. Land-speculators would employ a third party to perform their settlement duties; all they required to obtain the deed, or "lift" as it is called in Canadian parlance, was the sworn certificate for cutting the road, allowances, and the payment of certain fees to Government. The consequence of this was, that many false certificates were sworn to, as few persons or magistrates would be at the trouble and expense of travelling thirty or forty miles back into an uninhabited part of the country, to ascertain if the parties had sworn truly or not. A magistrate in my neighbourhood told me that a Yankee chopper came to him one day and demanded to be sworn on a settlement duty certificate, which he did to the following effect, "that he had cut a chain between two posts opposite lots so and so, in the concession of ----- township. The road allowances are a chain in width, and posts are planted and marked on each side of the concession, at the corners of each lot. "I had some suspicions," he said, "in my own mind that the fellow had sworn falsely, so I determined to ascertain the truth. I knew a person residing within a mile or two of the place, to whom I wrote for information, when I found, as I expected, that not a tree bad been cut on the line. I therefore summoned the Yankee, on the information of the farmer, to appear before a brother magistrate and myself to answer for his delinquency. "So, sir," I said, "you came before me and swore to a false certificate. Do not you know you have committed perjury, which is a very serious offence. What have you to say for yourself?" "Wal, I guess, Mister, I han't committed no perjury. I swore I cut a chain between two posts opposite them lots, and I can prove it by Ina Buck, for he was with me the hul time I was doing on't." "Now, Mr. Buck, what can you prove?" "Wal, gentlemen, I was along with Jonathan Stubbs when he went to chop the settlement duties, and when we got to the posts opposite the lots, he said, 'Wal, this looks plaguy ugly any how! I calculate I must fix these duties the short way,' so he pulled out of his pocket a short piece of trace-chain which he laid on a stone in a line between the two posts, and with a stroke or two of his axe severed it in two. 'Now,' said he, 'Ina Buck, I guess you are a witness that I cut a chain between two posts, so they can't fix me nohow?'" "He was, however, a little out of his calculation, for we did fix him, and sent him to jail, where I dare say he had ample time to plan some new device for performing settlement duties." My new friend advised me to purchase land adjoining his grant, which was very prettily situated on the banks of the Otonabee, in the township of the same name, within a mile of Peterborough. The price asked was fifteen shillings per acre, which was high for wild land at that time, but the prospect of a town so near had improved the market considerably. I took his advice, closed the bargain, and became a landed proprietor in Canada West. On the 16th of May, 1826, I moved up with all my goods and chattels, which were then easily packed into a single horse waggon, and consisted of a plough iron, six pails, a sugar kettle, two iron pots, a frying pan with a long handle, a tea kettle, a chest of carpenters' tools, a Canadian axe, and a cross-cut saw. My stock of provisions comprised a parcel of groceries, half a barrel of pork and a barrel of flour. The roads were so bad that it took me three days to perform a journey of little more than fifty miles. We (that is to say myself and my two labourers) had numerous upsets; but at last reached the promised land without any further trouble. My friend in Douro turned out the next day and assisted me to put up the walls of my shanty and roof it with bass- wood troughs, which was completed before dark. I was kept busy for more than a week chinking between the logs and plastering up all the crevices, cutting out a doorway and place for a window, casing them; making a door and hanging it on wooden hinges, &c. I also made a rough table and some stools, which answered better than they looked. Four thick slabs of lime-stone, placed upright in one corner of the shanty with clay well packed behind them to keep the fire off the logs, answered very well for a chimney with a hole cut through the roof directly above, to vent the smoke. I made a tolerably good bedstead out of some iron-wood poles, by stretching strips of elm-bark across, which I plaited strongly together to support my bed, which was a very good one, and the only article of luxury I possessed. I had very foolishly hired two Irish emigrants, who had not been longer in Canada than myself, and of course knew nothing either of chopping, logging, fencing, or, indeed, any work belonging to the country. The consequence of this imprudence was, that the first ten acres I cleared cost me nearly 5 pounds an acre*--at least 2 pounds more than it should have done. Experience is often dearly bought, and in this instance the proverb was fully verified. [* The usual price for clearing land, and fencing it fit for sowing, is, for hard wood, from eleven to twelve dollars per acre; for evergreen, such as pine, hemlock, cedar, or where that kind of timber predominates, from twelve to fourteen dollars per acre. There is no fixed price for swamp.] I found chopping, in the summer months, very laborious. I should have underbrushed my fallow in the fall, before the leaves fell, and chopped the large timber during the winter months, when I should have had the warm weather for logging and burning, which should be completed by the first day of September. So, for want of experience, it was all up-hill work with me. This was the season for musquitoes and black flies. The latter are ten times the worse of the two. This happened to be a bad fly year, and I, being a new comer, was nearly devoured by them. Luckily, they do not last more than a month, and it is only before rain that they are so very annoying. I have seen children whose necks were one mass of sores, from the poisonous nature of their bite: sheep, calves, and foals, are sometimes killed by them. Nor is this, indeed, an unfrequent occurrence. It must be, however, borne in mind that, as the country is cleared up, and the woods recede, the flies disappear. In the clearings along the front townships, the flies are not more troublesome than they are in England. The farm on which I now reside used to swarm terribly with flies, lying, as it does, near the water; but, for the last three years, it has been entirely free from them, especially from the black flies.* [* These insects are always much worse, and more numerous, when the spring is backward, and the floods are higher than usual. From close observation, I believe the larvae are deposited during high water on the rocks, when, as soon as the water falls, the heat of the sun hatches the insects. I have remarked large stones, which had been under water during the flood, covered over with small brown coloured cells, exactly the shape, and very little bigger than a seed of buckwheat. From out of these cells, on a sunny day, the flies rise in clouds, for they bite through the envelope, and emancipate themselves. Being provided with a sharp appetite, they will attack you the minute they are at liberty. These pests begin to appear between the 10th of May and 1st of June, according to the earliness or lateness of the season. Towards the end of June, numbers of small dragon-flies make their appearance, which soon eat up all the black-flies, to which repast, you may be sure, they are heartily welcome.] A person who understands chopping, can save himself a good deal of trouble and hard work by making what is called a plan-heap. Three or four of these may be made on an acre, but not more. The largest and most difficult trees are felled, the limbs only being cut off and piled. Then all the trees that will fall in the same direction, should be thrown along, on the top of the others, the more the better chance of burning well. If you succeed in getting a good burn for your fallow, the chances are, if your plan-heaps are well made, that they will be mostly consumed, which will save a great many blows of the axe, and some heavy logging. CHAPTER VIII. A LOGGING BEE. -- LIME-BURNING. -- SHINGLING. -- ARRIVAL OF MY BROTHER- IN-LAW. -- BIRTH OF MY SON. -- SAD JOURNEY TO DARLINGTON. -- LOSE MY WAY. -- AM REFUSED A LIFT. -- MY BOYISH ANGER. -- MY WIFE'S DEATH. -- THE FUNERAL. -- I LEAVE DARLINGTON. MY fallow was finished by the first week in July, but I did not put fire to it until the first week in August, because the timber was so green. Indeed, I did not expect the fire would run at all. I was, however, agreeably deceived, for I got a very respectable burn, which gave me great help. As soon as the ground was cool enough, I made a logging Bee, at which I had five yokes of oxen and twenty men, four men to each team. The teamster selects a good place to commence a heap, generally against some large log which the cattle would be unable to move. They draw all the logs within a reasonable distance in front of the large log. The men with hand-spikes roll them, one upon the top of the other, until the heap is seven or eight feet high, and ten or twelve broad. All the chips, sticks, and rubbish are then picked up and thrown on the top of the heap. A team and four good men should log and pick an acre a day when the burn has been good. My hive worked well, for we had five acres logged and set fire to the same evening. On a dark night, a hundred or two of these large heaps all on fire at once have a very fine effect, and shed a broad glare of light for a considerable distance. In the month of July in the new settlements, the whole country at night appears lit up by these fires. I was anxious to commence building my house, so that I might have it ready to receive my wife in before the winter commenced. My first step towards it was to build a lime-heap. I calculated I should require for plastering my walls and building my chimneys, about a hundred bushels. We set to work, accordingly, and built an immense log-heap of all the largest logs I could get together. It took at least the timber growing on half an acre of land for this purpose, and kept five men and myself busy all day to complete it. We made a frame of logs on the top of the heap, to keep the stone from falling over the side. We drew for this purpose twenty cart-loads of lime-stone, which we threw upon the summit of the heap, having broken it small with a sledge-hammer; fire was then applied to the heap, which was consumed by the next morning. But it left such a mass of hot coals, that it was a week before the lime could be collected and covered. This is the easiest and most expeditious way of burning lime; but the lime is not so white, and there are more pieces of unburnt stone, which make it not so good for plastering. I built my house of elm-logs, thirty-six feet long by twenty-four feet wide, which I divided into three rooms on the ground-floor, besides an entrance-hall and staircase, and three bed-rooms up stairs. I was very busy till October making the shingles,* roofing, cutting out the door and window-spaces, and hewing the logs down inside the house. [* Shingles are made either of pine or cedar. I prefer the white pine, because it is less liable to gutter with the rain, and makes an evener roof. Every settler in the bush should know how to make shingles, and how to choose a tree fit for that purpose, or much labour may be thrown uselessly away. I do not know anything more annoying than, after cutting down a tree, perhaps more than four feet in diameter, and sawing a block eighteen inches long out of the centre, to find that it will not split fair, or (if it does) that the wood eats, which means, that the grain, though straight in the length of the shingle, makes short deep curves, which render it bad to split, and cause holes to appear in the shingle when you come to shave them. The grain of most trees naturally inclines towards the sun, or the same way round the tree as the sun's course. Consequently, a tree may be perfectly straight in the grain, where you chop it down, yet, ten or twelve feet up, it may wind so much as to be totally useless. To obviate this difficulty, attend to the following hints.:--First, select a good-sized tree, the larger the better, perfectly clear of outside knots for fifty or sixty feet. The head should be luxuriant, and the large limbs drooping downwards. Peel off with your axe a stripe of bark as high as you can reach. If, on examination, the grain is the least inclined towards the sun, reject it. If, on the contrary, it curves slightly in the opposite direction, or against the sun, you may proceed to try it by cutting out a piece a foot long, and three or four inches deep. Place your axe in the centre, and split it open. Continue to do so till you have reduced the piece to the thickness of two shingles, which again divide neatly in the middle. If the timber is good and fit for your purpose, the pieces will fly apart with a sudden snap, and will be perfectly clear in the grain on both sides, while, if the timber be not good, the grain of the one piece will eat into the other, or run off without splitting clear the whole length of the block. The blocks should be cut eighteen inches long, and split into quarters, and the sap-wood dressed off. It is then ready for the frow--as the instrument used for splitting shingles is called. A good splitter will keep two men shaving and packing. The proper thickness is four to the inch: the packing-frame should be forty inches long, and contain fifty courses of shingles, which make a thousand. The price varies from five shillings to seven and sixpence, according to quality. The upper bar of the packing-frame should be wedged down very tightly across the centre of the bunch, which will keep them from warping with the sun.] I was anxious to complete the outside walls, roof, and chimneys before the winter set in, so that I might be able to work at the finishing part inside, under cover, and with the benefit of a fire. As soon as my little fallow was ready for sowing with wheat, I discharged my two Irishmen, of whom I was very glad to be rid. I would advise new colonists never to employ men who have not been some time in Canada: it is much better to pay higher wages than to be troubled with fellows who know nothing about the work of the country. Besides, these persons, though accustomed to bad wages and food at home, actually expect better provisions and wages than men who thoroughly understand their business: take the following for a fair example. One day, a stout able-bodied fellow, a fresh importation from the emerald isle, dressed in breeches open at the knees, long worsted stockings, rucked down to the ankles, and a great-coat with at least three capes, while a high-crowned black hat, the top of which opened and shut with every breeze like the lid of a basket, completed his costume--rather a curious one for July, with the thermometer above 80 degrees in the shade--accosted me with--"Does yer honor want to hire a boy to-day?" He stood at least six feet in his stockings. "What can you do, and what makes you wear that great coat this hot weather?" "Why, sure, yer honour, it's a good un to keep out the heat, and I can do almost anything." "Can you log, chop, or fence?" "No." "Can you plough?" "No; but I think I could soon larn." "Can you mow or cradle wheat?" "I can mow a trifle, but I don't know what the other thing is at all, at all." "Pray, then, what can you do?" "Well, then, yer honour, I am illigant at the spade entirely." "What wages do you expect?" "Twelve dollars, sir, and my boord, if it be plasing to you." "No, no, my good fellow; I do not please to do any such thing, and I do not think any one else in his senses will, either. I think you had better apply for work to the road-contractors, who require a good deal of spade-labour, which I think is at present all you are fit for." Upon returning to my shanty in the evening, I was surprised to find that my brother-in-law had just arrived with the intelligence of the birth of my first-born son, and the dangerous illness of my dear wife. Little hope was entertained of her recovery. My poor Emma had been safely delivered of a fine boy, and was supposed to be progressing favourably, when some alarming symptoms appeared which made it necessary to send immediately for me. Long before dawn I was some miles upon my sad journey to Darlington. I had no horse. The way was long and toilsome; and I had had neither time for rest nor appetite for food. I loved my amiable and excellent wife with all the warmth of a youthful husband united to the object of his affections. I am very fond of little children, and the idea of having one of my own to pet and work for had given a stimulus to all my labours. My first-born seemed dearly purchased now at the cost of his poor mother's peril. Still, my ardent temperament led me to hope that my dear wife would be spared. Her loss seemed an event too dreadful to realize, for the boy-husband had had no experience in sorrow then, and his buoyant spirits had never anticipated the crushing blow that had already annihilated his visions of domestic happiness. Fifty-five miles lay between me and my suffering wife. The roads were heavy from the effects of the late rains, and I had the misfortune to lose my way, which added three miles to my long pedestrian journey. Once I overtook a cart containing a boy and girl, whom I vainly entreated to give me a ride. I told them the painful circumstances which induced me to solicit their aid; but the boy was over-cautious, and the girl unusually hard- hearted for one of her kind and compassionate sex. I could easily have compelled them to give me a seat, but for a sense of moral justice which would not permit me to take that by force which they denied to pity. Mr boyish indignation, I recollect, was so great that I could scarcely help throwing stones after my unkind fellow-travellers. It was evening by the time I reached Darlington Mills, and I was still five miles from my father-in-law's house. It was quite dark, and I was so overpowered with my fifty miles' walk, that to proceed without refreshment and rest appeared then to be impossible. I stopped at the tavern and asked for some tea. I had scarcely been seated two minutes before some men entered, in whose conversation I became immediately and deeply interested. They were discussing what to them was merely local news, but the question, "When is the funeral to take place?" riveted my attention at once. Putting down the much-needed but untasted refreshment, I demanded of the speaker "Whose funeral?" My heart at once foretold from its inmost depths what the dreaded answer would be. Yes, she in whom I had placed my earthly hopes of a life-long happiness was, indeed, no more. She was snatched away in the bright morning of her existence with the rapturous feelings of maternity just budding into life. I never knew how I got out of the house, or in what manner I performed the last five miles of the journey. But I remember that in the excitement of that hour I felt neither hunger, thirst, nor weariness. Sometimes I doubted the truth of what I had heard. Indeed, it seemed really too dreadful to be true. On my arrival at my father-in-law's house, I found that the information I had accidentally heard was unfortunately a sad reality. My brother- in-law had not left Darlington an hour on his journey to Otonabee before my wife breathed her last. I had not even the consolation of bidding her a last adieu. Few can comprehend my feelings on this trying occasion, except those who have suffered under a similar bereavement. I was not yet twenty-one years of age. I was in a strange country--the tie severed between me and my only friends in a manner so afflicting and melancholy--all my hopes and future prospects in life dashed, as it were, to the ground. I had expended all my little capital in providing a comfortable home for her, who, alas! was doomed never to behold it; and I had a little son to bring up without the aid of my poor Emma, whose piety and sweet temper would have been so invaluable to our child. A nurse was obtained for my poor motherless babe, the babe over whom I shed so many tears--a sad welcome, this, to as fine a boy as ever a father's eye looked upon! I followed the remains of my beloved wife to the grave; and then tarried for a month in that house of sorrow. My only consolation was derived from my knowledge that Emma loved her Saviour, and put her trust in him while passing through the valley of the shadow of death. "How many hopes have sprung in radiance hence; Their trace yet lights the dust where thou art sleeping. A solemn joy comes o'er me, and a sense Of triumph blent with nature's gush of weeping." I left my little son in the care of his Irish nurse, and quitted my friend's house, with a heavy heart, for my new settlement at Otonabee. CHAPTER IX. RETURN TO OTONABEE. -- BENEVOLENCE OF MY NEIGHBOUR. -- SERIOUS ACCIDENT TO A SETTLER. -- HIS SINGULAR MISFORTUNES. -- PARTICULARS OF HIS LIFE. I RETURNED in sadness to my lonely and desolate home, feeling like a shipwrecked mariner, cast upon a desert shore. In fact, I had to begin life again, without the stimulus of domestic love to quicken my exertions. I had left my land unsown, and therefore the prospect of a crop of wheat for the next year's harvest was, I felt assured, entirely gone. Upon reaching my clearing, I was surprised to find my fallow not only sown but showing the green blade, for some friendly hands had been at work for me in my absence, that pecuniary losses might not be added to my heavy domestic bereavement. On inquiry, I found I was indebted to the considerate kindness of my excellent neighbour Mr. Reid and his sons, for this act of Christian benevolence. I hurried to his house to thank him for the important service he had rendered one, to whom he was almost a stranger. He considered, however, that he had done nothing more than a neighbourly duty, and insisted that I should take up my abode with him, instead of returning to my unfinished and melancholy home. My residence under his hospitable roof increased my esteem for his character, which my long experience of six-and-twenty years has never diminished. Mrs. Reid treated me with maternal kindness; and in their amiable family-circle my bruised heart recovered its peace, and my spirits their healthy tone. The kindly disposition of my host in all his domestic relations, his cheerful activity, pure morality, and unaffected piety, presented an admirable example to a young man left without guidance in a distant colony. But I did not at that time think about becoming his son-in-law, though I had been several months domesticated in his family, till the alacrity displayed by his eldest daughter in hastening to the assistance of a wounded neighbour, through the unknown intricacies of a Canadian forest, led me to consider her character in a new and endearing point of view. A Mr. G. and his family had just commenced a settlement, about four miles east of Mr. Reid's clearing, when, early one morning, his eldest son, a lad of twelve or thirteen, with a face full of trouble ran to tell us "that his father had nearly cut his foot off with an axe while chopping logs to build his house, that his mother could not stop the bleeding, and that they were afraid he would bleed to death." Mr. Reid's eldest daughter immediately volunteered to return with the boy, to render what assistance she could. Without any thought of fatigue, or danger, or trial to her feelings, she set out instantly with the proper bandages. Mr. Reid, his sons, and myself were all chopping in the woods when the lad came, so that Mary followed the spontaneous impulse of her own heart; but as soon as we heard what had happened, her father sent over the river for our nearest neighbour, a stout canny Scotchman, to assist us in carrying the wounded man through the woods to his (Mr. Reid's) house. John Morison readily obeyed the summons; and had we required any additional help we should have had no difficulty, in a case like this, of finding plenty of volunteers. The only road leading to Mr. G.'s was from the town, a mere bush-road, and full three miles farther than if we could go straight back through the woods. As the number of his lot was the same as the one* we resided on, we knew that a direct east course would bring us within call of his clearing. It was, therefore, agreed that Mr. Reid's eldest son should endeavour, with a pocket compass, to run a line in the direction which we wanted to go, and that I should blaze+ out the line with the axe, while the rest chopped out the under-brush and levelled the path sufficiently wide to allow the passage of a litter. [* Each concession is divided into two hundred acre lots, numbering from the boundary line from number one upwards. According to the new survey, the lots run nearly east and west; therefore, number one in the first concession will have a corresponding number west across every concession in the township. + Blazing is a term used by the backwoodsman for chopping off a portion of the bark from each side of a tree to mark a surveyor's line through the woods. All concession roads, or lot lines are marked in this manner; wherever a lot line strikes a concession, a short post with the number of the lot and concession is marked on each side of the post. If a tree comes directly on the line where the post should be planted, the tree is substituted. A blaze is made on each side, about three feet from the ground, and the numbers marked. I have frequently in the matter of disputed lines seen the surveyor cut the old blaze off, perhaps, of twenty years' growth, and discover the numbers perfect, although the wood had made such a growth over the original blaze.] We had some difficulty in avoiding one or two small swamps and a high hill, but finally succeeded in finding a good line of road; and so accurate was our surveyor and engineer in this, his first attempt, that his line actually struck the little chopping* of not more than a quarter of an acre where poor G. lay. [* This gentleman, John Reid, Esq. is now a deputy provincial surveyor and county engineer. As a land surveyor there are few better in the province.] It was past three o'clock in the afternoon before the road was completed and the litter made, the last being effected by cutting two iron-wood poles eight feet long, and fastening them together by broad straps of bass-wood bark three feet apart. A blanket, doubled, was then laid over these straps, upon which we placed the poor man, whose bleeding wound had been stopped with some difficulty. It appeared that a small twig had caught the axe, which caused it to glance in its descent, and struck the instep of his right foot, making a gash about five inches long, the edge of the axe coming out at the sole of the foot. It was a dreadful cut,--one of the worst I ever saw-- and I have seen and dressed a great many axe wounds since my residence in Canada. Mr. G. was a very heavy man, and as _only_ four persons could conveniently carry him at once, we found it very hard work. I was completely done up when we reached the house. Mr. Reid and his family did everything in their power to make him and his wife comfortable. Mr. Stewart, his brother-in-law, kindly sent for two of the children: the other two remained with their father and mother. It was ten months before the poor invalid was able to leave his hospitable host, and resume his settlement in the bush. I mention this little circumstance to show what kindly feelings exist between the settlers, especially in cases of this kind. I shall also relate some remarkable passages in this poor man's life which present an almost unparalleled train of misfortune. I shall tell his dismal story, as nearly as possible, in his own words. The experience of life proves to a certainty, that some persons are compelled to drink deeper of the cup of adversity than others, nay even to drain it to the dregs. We know that the Jews of old and the heathen world still suppose that such are visited for their sins by the judgment of Heaven; but the Divine Teacher has taught us better things, and warned us against such rash conclusions, instructing us indeed that "There surely is some guardian power That rightly suffers wrong; Gives vice to bloom its little hour, But virtue late and long." Poor G. was one of these unfortunate persons, whose melancholy history I will now relate, in his own words.--He was, it seems, a native of Ireland, from which country he emigrated soon after the last American war, with his wife and two children, leaving three other children at home with his father and mother, who were the proprietors of a small estate in the county of Cork. He arrived safely with his family at the Big Bay in Whitby (Windsor,) and purchased a lot of land close to the lake-shore. In those days, the emigrant's trials were indeed hard, compared with what they are now. The country was quite unsettled, excepting that here and there the nucleus of a small village appeared to vary its loneliness, for the clearings were mostly confined to the vicinity of the Great Lake. There were no plank, gravel, or macadamized roads then; saw and grist-mills were few-and-far-between. It was no uncommon thing then for a farmer to go thirty or forty miles to mill, which cause indeed sometimes detained him a whole week from his family; and, even more, if any accident had happened to the machinery. Besides this inconvenience, he had to encounter risks for himself and his cattle,-- from bad bridges, deep mud-holes, and many other annoyances--I might say, with truth, "too numerous to mention." The few farms in that neighbourhood were then chiefly occupied by Americans, some of whom had found it highly desirable to expatriate themselves; and might have exclaimed with the celebrated pick-pocket, Barrington, in a prologue spoken to a convict-audience in New South Wales,-- "Friends, be it understood, We left our country for our country's good." I have no intention of reflecting here on the national honour of the American nation; but it is a well-known fact, that many of the early frontier settlers were persons who had evaded the payment of their just debts or, perhaps, legal penalties for worse offences, by crossing the lines, and forming settlements in Canada. Such persons are not a fair specimen of American character. Individually, I have nothing to say against the Americans, but rather the contrary, for I have found them good and obliging neighbours. I have heard it generally asserted, that the Yankees are the greatest rogues under the sun. If _smartness_ in trading, or barter, be roguery, they richly deserve the epithet; but I deny that their intentions are one whit more dishonest than those of the persons with whom they trade. That their natural shrewdness and general knowledge give them an advantage, I am quite ready to admit; and perhaps they are not over- scrupulous in exercising it to the discomfiture of their less-gifted neighbours. Unfortunately, Mr. G. purchased his land of a squatter, who had no title himself, and consequently could give none to the purchaser, who, after three or four years of hard labour upon it--when he had fondly hoped he had surmounted the greatest difficulties--found that the Government had issued a deed for the benefit of another person before he came into possession, who could not be induced to give up his legal rights to the unfortunate cultivator. He was so disheartened by this occurrence, that he determined to sell all he had and leave the country, which resolution he put into immediate execution. He took a passage for himself and family in a ship, timber-laden, from Quebec, bound for Liverpool. It was late in the fall: the vessel was one of the last that sailed; consequently, they experienced very rough weather, accompanied with snow and sleet. Mid-way across the Atlantic, they encountered a dreadful storm, which left the ship a mere wreck on the ocean. To add to their misfortunes, a plank had started, owing, it was supposed, to the shifting of some part of the cargo during the gale; and so quickly did the vessel fill that they only saved two eight-pound pieces of salt pork and a few biscuits. "I had," he said, "also in my pocket, a paper containing two or three ounces of cream of tartar. Luckily, a cask of water, lashed on deck, was providentially preserved, amidst the general destruction. "Our ship's company consisted of the captain, mate, and six seamen, besides a medical man, myself, my poor wife, and two children, who were cabin passengers. We made several unsuccessful attempts to procure a supply of provisions; consequently, it became absolutely necessary to give out what we had in the smallest possible rations. "The fourth night was ushered in by another storm, more terrific even than the last. A heavy sea struck the vessel, sweeping overboard the captain and three seamen; and the poor doctor's leg was broken at the same time, by a loose spar. "We passed a fearful night; nor did the morning add to our comfort, for my daughter died from exposure and want, just as the day dawned. "On the seventh morning, the doctor, who had suffered the greatest agony from his swollen leg, sank at last; the paper of cream of tartar I had in my pocket being the only relief for his dreadful fever, during his misery. My poor wife and remaining child soon followed. We now had fine dry weather, which was some relief to our intolerable misery. "On the twentieth day, the last of our provisions was consumed. I had an old pair of deer-skin mocassins on my feet: these we carefully divided amongst us. We had now serious thoughts of drawing lots, to see which of us should die, for the preservation of the rest. I, however, begged they would defer such a dreadful alternative to the latest minute. "On the twenty-first night of our disaster, I had a most remarkable dream: I thought I saw a fine ship bearing down to our assistance, and that she was called "The London of London." I related my dream to my companions, in hopes it might raise their spirits, which, however, it failed to do; for nothing was to be seen on that dreary waste of water, though we scanned the horizon in every direction. For upwards of two hours after, we scarcely spoke a word, when suddenly the sun, which had been obscured all the morning, shone out brightly and warm for the season of the year. I mechanically raised myself and looked over the bulwarks, when, to my astonishment and delight, I beheld a ship, the very counterpart of the one I had seen in my dream, bearing down directly for the wreck. "It is not easy to describe our various feelings on this occasion: we could scarcely believe our senses when the boat came along side. We were so reduced by famine and exposure, that we had to be lifted into her. In this state of exhaustion every attention was paid us by the humane captain and crew. "As soon as I was on board, I asked the name of the vessel, when I was surprised to find she was called the 'Portaferry of Portaferry.' Although the name was not that borne by the vessel of which I had dreamed, it must be considered at least a remarkable coincidence. "Great care was taken to prevent us eating too ravenously at first: we received every kindness our weak condition required; but, notwithstanding these precautions, two of my companions in misery died before we reached Ireland. "When we arrived at Strangford, in the north of Ireland, I was entirely destitute--I had lost everything I possessed. Fortunately for me, I belonged to the honourable fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, who kindly furnished me with clothing, and money sufficient to take me home, which I reached in safety. "Like almost every person who has resided a few years in Canada, I found it impossible to content myself at home; and, although I had no great reason to be fond of the country on account of the treatment I had experienced, still, there is that indescribable charm in the free life of a Canadian settler, which is wanting in a more civilized country: I, therefore, determined once more to try my fortune. "I accordingly embarked with the young wife I had lately married, and the three children I had formerly left in Ireland with my parents. We sailed early in the spring of 1825. My ill luck still attended me; for owing to the dense fogs we experienced on the banks of Newfoundland, we got out of our course, and our ship struck the shore near Cape Ray: fortunately the sea was smooth and the weather fine: so that when daylight broke we were able, without much difficulty, to be landed on that most inhospitable shore, "Where the bones of many a tall ship lie buried." "We saved little or nothing from the wreck; for, as the day advanced, the wind freshened into a gale, which blowing on shore, soon settled the fate of our gallant bark. The shore was soon strewn with casks, bales, and packages, some of which we were able to secure. Our captain chartered a small fishing-vessel, which landed us at last safely at Quebec. And now, you see, after enduring almost unheard-of sufferings, I am again prostrated by this unfortunate accident." Such was the account given me by Mr. G-----, who put into my hand, at the same time, an old Belfast newspaper, containing the account of his first wreck and sufferings. So I have no reason to doubt the entire truth of his statement. After his foot healed he returned to his land, and, with the assistance of his family, cleared up a large farm. His location, however, was not well chosen; and, consequently, he was not a thriving settler. He, however, managed to bring up a large family, who are now sufficiently independent of him to maintain themselves and families comfortably. On his father's death, about three years since, he returned with his wife to Ireland, where I believe he intends to pass the remainder of his days. I wish to make one remark before closing this chapter: does it not speak well for Canada, when a person, who was neither an active nor a clever person, and who had suffered almost unheard-of misfortunes, was still able to gain a living and see his family settled in comparative comfort? Under such circumstances, what would have been the fate of these people in England or Ireland?--Abject pauperism. CHAPTER X. PREPARATIONS FOR MY SECOND MARRIAGE. -- DANGEROUS ADVENTURE. -- MY WIFE'S NOCTURNAL VISITOR. -- WE PREPARE FOR THE RECEPTION OF OUR UNINVITED GUEST. -- BRUIN'S UNWELCOME VISIT TO AN IRISH SHANTY. -- OUR BEAR HUNT. -- MAJOR ELLIOTT'S DUEL WITH BRUIN. -- HIS WOUNDS AND VICTORY. I SPENT the spring of 1827 very pleasantly in the company of my new friends. I used to go down to my farm every morning, and return in the evening to a cheerful fire-side and agreeable society, which rewarded me for the toils of the day. I had fenced in my fields, planted my spring crops, Indian corn, and potatoes, which looked promising; and I had my house nearly finished. I, therefore, considered it was time I should go and reside in it, and not trespass any longer on the hospitality of my kind and generous friends. As, however, I did not like the thought of living the life of a hermit, and my little boy; for whom I had sent, was weaned, and growing healthy and lovely under the kind hospitality of my friends, required now a watchful parental care, I proposed to, and was accepted by, my friend's eldest daughter, in whom I found what I sought--a faithful mother for my child, and the most devoted and affectionate wife for myself. A better woman, indeed, never existed. For upwards of twenty-two years she shared my various fortunes, and formed my greatest earthly blessing. A few days before my marriage--an event to which I naturally looked forward for an increase of happiness--an accident occurred, which might have been attended with fatal results to myself, and actually was so to a lad who was in my service. A kind Providence, however, watched over my life, and delivered me from this danger. My farm was situated on the east shore of the Otonabee river, the town of Peterborough being on the west of that line; and there was no bridge communication between us and that place, so that we were obliged to cross in skiffs, canoes, or any other craft we could get. When the river is flooded in the spring, it is dangerous for persons crossing, unless they are well acquainted with the management of a canoe. Several fatal accidents have indeed happened to the inexperienced at that time of the year, from this cause. Such was the state of the river, when I had to cross it to reach the store, where I wanted to purchase some articles for my intended marriage. The stream was then at its greatest height, running with extreme rapidity, and I had, to contend with its force, only a small log-canoe, about twelve feet in length, by thirty inches at its greatest breadth, in which three of us ventured upon the turbid water, namely, John Fontaine, a French boy; Michael Walsh, and myself. We crossed a little above the new mill-dam, which had been constructed at the expense of the Government for the Irish emigration, and we managed to get over pretty well. Not so, however, on our return. I was near the middle of the canoe, with a pair of small oars, one of the boys at each end, and all seated at the bottom for greater security. In this manner we got over the main channel; but owing to the swiftness of the current, we were carried down much nearer the dam than we intended. This alarmed the boys a good deal. I begged them to sit still, assuring them I should be able to fetch the canoe into an eddy a little lower down the stream. We were at this time close to an island, which was deeply flooded, owing to the raising of the water by the construction of the dam. From the point of this sunken island, a cedar tree had fallen into the river. It was therefore necessary that we should drop below this, before we could make the eddy. In the act of passing, the boy Walsh--I suppose from fright--caught hold of the tree, which caused the canoe to swing round broadside to the current, and it instantly filled and upset. A large quantity of timber had been cut on the island, for the use of the mill and dam. The workmen had piled the tops and limbs of these trees in large heaps, which now floated above the surface of the island. To one of these I immediately swam, and succeeded in getting upon it. I then perceived that Walsh had been swept from the tree to which he had clung, by the force of the current, into the middle of the river, and close to the edge of the falls. I saw at a glance, that his only chance was to swim for the opposite side, which I called on him to do, but he appeared to have lost all self-possession; for he neither swam for one shore nor the other, but kept his head facing up the stream, uttering wild cries, which, in a few seconds, were silenced for ever. In the meantime, John Fontaine, the French boy, had succeeded in getting partly across the canoe, which was floating past the heap on which I had taken refuge, and only a few yards from where I was standing. I immediately plucked a long stick from the brush-heap, and swam near enough to the lad for him to grasp one end of the pole, bidding him leave the canoe, which I told him would be carried over the dam to a certainty, and him with it, if he did not abandon his hold. He, with apparent reluctance, followed my directions, but I had a hard struggle to regain my former place of refuge, with the boy's additional weight. I had some trouble to persuade him to trust himself again in the water. And no wonder; for darkness was fast approaching, and both the island and a narrow channel of the river had still to be crossed. However, trusting to the mercy of God, we again committed ourselves to those wild, swollen waters, which, by the providence of the Almighty, we successfully accomplished. I was obliged to hold the stick between my teeth whilst crossing the channel, drawing along with me my terrified companion, it being necessary for our preservation, that I should have the free use of both my arms. I had on at the time a velveteen shooting coat, the large pockets of which were filled with things I had just purchased from the store; among which I remember there was a dozen cups and saucers, which added no inconsiderable weight to the swimmer. As soon as we made the shore, we ran down to the falls, to see if we could hear anything of the poor boy. We shouted, for it was now quite dark, but all in vain; indeed, I had not the slightest hope, as I had seen him carried backwards over the dam into the boiling rapids below, where the best swimmer would not have had the least chance. We failed to discover his remains then, but found his mangled body six days afterwards in a small lake, a mile and a half below the dam. I was much concerned at the fate of my poor young servant, but felt deeply grateful for my own preservation and that of Fontaine. A few weeks after my marriage, I was detained one night from home by business, leaving my wife, her little sister, and a small dog, called Suffolk--so named by me in honour of my native county--the sole occupiers of my house, of which the kitchen was still in an unfinished state, part of the floor only being laid. We, however, had to make use of it, until I could procure more boards to finish it, which, in those days, were not very easy to obtain. In the middle of the night, my wife and her sister were awakened and dreadfully alarmed by a terrible noise in the kitchen, accompanied by the sharp barking of the little dog. They were quite sure by the low growls and the fury of Suffolk, that it was some wild animal, but whether a bear or wolf they could not tell. Towards morning, this unwelcome visitor took himself off, to their infinite joy. When I came home, they told me the story, at which I laughed very heartily, for I thought their fears had magnified the visit of some neighbour's dog into a bear, or some other wild beast; but they appeared unconvinced, being both frightened and positive. My wife declared, that in the morning she found some of the salt-pork had been abstracted from the barrel, which stood in one corner of the kitchen, by the savage guest. Now, I knew very well that master Bruin was fond of fresh pork, and I thought it possible that he might think the salt an improvement. At all events, I resolved to be prepared, in case he should pay us a second visit. Accordingly, before going to bed, I loaded my gun with ball, and tied Suffolk up in the vicinity of the pork-barrel. At midnight we were suddenly awakened by the piteous howlings of the poor dog, and by a noise, as if everything in the room had been violently thrown down. I jumped out of bed instantly, and seizing my gun, crept cautiously along the passage, till I came to the kitchen-door, which I threw open, whereupon some large dark-looking object made a rush for the unfinished part of the floor. I immediately fired; but it was so dark, and the beast so quick in its movements, that I had little chance of hitting him. Whether or not, it had the effect of scaring him so much that he never resumed his nocturnal visitation. Indeed, I stopped his supplies from my larder by finishing the floor and building up the hole between the lower log of the house and the ground. But to return to my story. As soon as the beast had made his exit, we lighted a candle and examined the room, which we found in confusion and disorder. The barrel of pork was upset and the brine running in miniature rivers over the floor, while poor little Suffolk was bleeding from his wounds--indeed nearly killed. From what I could make out of the footprints outside I am inclined to think my unwelcome visiter was a bear; but this, of course, will for ever remain a mystery. I have heard many stories of their boldness, to some instances of which I have been an eye-witness. Not very long after the occurrence I have just related, the wife of an Irish emigrant saw a large bear walking very deliberately towards the shanty, which no doubt he mistook for a pigsty, and the inmates for pigs, for they were quite as dirty, therefore it was no great mistake, after all. The woman and her three children had barely time to get into the potato-cellar and shut down the trap-door, when his bear-ship made his forcible entrance through the feeble barrier the door opposed to his strength, much to the dismay and terror of the subterranean lodgers, who lay shaking and quaking for more than an hour, till the dying screams of their fatted pig told them he was after game of a more savoury nature. In the fall of the year it is no uncommon thing for farmers to have their pigs killed by the bears, particularly in the new settlements. Bears are, we know, very fond of good things. They are epicures in their way. They like honey, and love pork, and, you may be sure, often pay the settler a visit for the sake of his pigs. As Bruin makes very good eating himself, these visitations are sometimes made at the risk of his own bacon; his warm jacket, which makes comfortable robes for the settler's sleigh, keeping him warm during his journeys on pleasure or business throughout the long Canadian winters. One day, I was assisting my father-in-law and his sons in logging up his fallow, when we heard a great outcry among the pigs in a belt of woods between Mr. Reid's and Mr. Stewart's clearing, when, suspecting it was a bear attacking the swine, we ran for our guns, and made the best of our way towards the spot from whence the outcry proceeded. Near the edge of the clearing we met Mr. B-----, who was on a visit to his friend and relative Mr. Stewart, driving before him Mr. Reid's sow, which he had just rescued from the grip of an immense bear, that, alarmed by his shouts, dropped his prey and made off in the direction of a small cedar-swamp. We immediately proposed surrounding the place, as there were three of us provided with double-barrelled guns. Mr. B--- -- took up his station behind a large tree, close to where a small creek ran into the swamp. My brother-in-law John and myself went round to the opposite side, which we entered a few yards apart. We had not proceeded far, when an enormous brute popped up his head from behind some fallen logs and brush, for we had disturbed him in the act of devouring a pig. We both fired at the same instant, but apparently without effect; for he scampered off, passing within a few feet of where B----- was hid, who fired only one of his barrels, reserving his second in case the bear should turn on him. We ran as fast as we could to the river, for we knew he had gone in that direction. Indeed, Bruin took to the water in fine style, swimming across gallantly. Before we could get another shot at him he had gained the opposite bank. There we gave him a second volley, which did not appear in the least to retard his ascent, so we concluded that it was a regular miss all round. B----- maintained, however, that he had hit him, and wanted us to cross the river and follow the track. We only laughed at him for not firing his second shot, and returned home very much crestfallen at the ill success of our expedition. Had we but complied with B-----'s wish, we should have found our hunt had been more successful than we imagined, for eight or ten days afterwards John Morison was going on the opposite side of the river to Peterborough, when, upon crossing a small creek, he came quite unexpectedly on the carcass of a large bear, not thirty yards from the bank we had seen him climb. No doubt B-----'s shot was the fatal one, as he was not more than five or six yards from him when he fired. The stream, where the beast was found, is in the township of Smith, about a mile and a half from Peterborough, on the river road, and is well-known by the name of Bear Creek to this day. There is very little danger of being attacked by Bruin, unless you first molest him. An old she-bear, with cubs, is the most dangerous customer to meddle with. Major Elliott, of the Canadian Militia, a gentleman with whom I was well acquainted, residing near Rice Lake, in the township of Monaghan, was out one day in the woods partridge-shooting, near the big swamp on the boundary line between Monaghan and Cavan, when he fell in with several old bears and their cubs. He had only one ball with him which he fired at the biggest fellow he could see among them, and wounded him very severely, though not enough to stop him from following his companions. But Elliott was not the man to be baulked without an effort to capture his wounded adversary; so, being in want of a ball, he cut of from his waistcoat some open-work brass buttons, with which he loaded his gun, and followed the track of the wounded bear, which he soon overtook. Bruin, however, being possessed of considerable pluck, immediately faced about and attacked the major, who gave him a taste of the buttons, as he advanced. But the bear, nothing daunted, returned to the charge, which Elliott met with a blow from the butt-end of his gun, that was instantly struck from his hand by his formidable antagonist, who immediately closed with him. It now became a regular stand-up fight between Major Elliott and Ursus Major. For a long time it was doubtful which would come off victorious. Elliott was severely wounded about the breast and arms; notwithstanding which, he boldly maintained his ground, and ultimately succeeded in rolling the beast over the trunk of a large pine tree which lay on the ground beside them. Bruin was too much exhausted to climb over the tree, to renew the combat. Luckily, Elliott received no internal injury, though his flesh was severely lacerated in the contest, which only ended with the bear's life. Ireland, indeed, never sent from her shores a bolder hunter, braver man, or more active backwoodsman, than Major Elliott.* [* This gentleman was afterwards returned as Member of the Provincial Parliament for the county of Durham.] CHAPTER XI. CANADA THE POOR MAN'S COUNTRY. -- DISADVANTAGES OF INEXPERIENCE. -- TOWNSHIP OF HARVEY SETTLEMENT. -- PAUPER EMIGRATION. -- SUPERIOR ADVANTAGES OF THE LABOURER COLONIST. -- TEMPERANCE AND TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES. -- A DRY ANSWER TO WATERY ARGUMENTS. -- BRITISH AND FOREIGN TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. THERE is no colony belonging to the British Crown better adapted for the poor industrious emigrant than the Canadas, particularly the Upper Province, which is essentially the poor man's country. Twenty-five years ago, the expense of the voyage out to Quebec, and the difficulty, delay, and additional outlay of the inland journey put it completely out of the power of the needy agriculturist or artizan to emigrate; the very classes, however, who, from their having been brought up from their infancy to hard labour, and used to all sorts of privations, were the best fitted to cope with the dangers and hardships attending the settlement of a new country. The impossibility of the working hand raising funds for emigration, confined the colonists to a set of men less calculated to contend with difficulties--namely, half-pay officers and gentlemen of better family than income, who were almost invariably the pioneers of every new settlement. Many high-spirited gentlemen were, doubtless, tempted by the grants of land bestowed upon them by the Government, which made actual settlement one of the conditions of the grant. It followed, as a matter of course, that the majority of these persons were physically disqualified for such an undertaking, a fact which many deserted farms in the rear townships of the county in which I reside painfully indicate. Eighteen or twenty years ago a number of gentlemen located themselves in the township of Harvey. The spot chosen by them was one of great natural beauty; but it possessed no other advantages, except an abundance of game, which was no small inducement to them. They spent several thousand pounds in building fancy log-houses and making large clearings which they had neither the ability nor industry to cultivate. But, even if they had possessed sufficient perseverance, their great distance from a market, bad roads, want of knowledge in cropping after they had cleared the land, lack of bridges, and poor soil, would have been a great drawback to the chance of effecting a prosperous settlement. In a few years not a settler remained of this little colony. Some stayed till their means were thoroughly exhausted; others, more wise, purchased ready-cleared farms in the settlements or followed some profession more congenial to their taste, or more suited to their abilities. The only persons fit to undertake the hardships of a bush-life, are those who have obtained a certain degree of experience in their own country upon the paternal estate or farm. Men who have large families to provide for, and who have been successful in wood-clearing, are generally willing to sell their improvements, and purchase wild land for their families, whose united industry soon places them in a better farm than they owned before. They are thus rendered greater capitalists, with increased means of providing for their children, who soon take up their standing in society as its favoured class. Indeed, I would strongly advise gentlemen of small capital to purchase ready- cleared farms, which can be obtained in most parts of the country, with almost every convenience, for half what the clearing of bush-land would cost, especially by an inexperienced settler. In fact, since grants of land are no longer given to the emigrant, there is less inducement to go so far back into the woods. Since 1826, a steady influx of the working classes from Great Britain and Ireland has taken place. This has tended much to the prosperity of the country, by cheapening labour, and the settlement of vast tracts of wild land. Several experiments have been made by Government in sending out pauper emigration: that from the south of Ireland, under the superintendance of the late Hon. Peter Robinson in 1824, was the most extensive, and came more immediately under my own observation. I have understood that some most obnoxious and dangerous characters were shipped off in this expedition--no doubt to the great comfort of landlords, agents, and tithe-proctors. The Government behaved very liberally to these settlers. A grant of a hundred acres of good land was given to each head of a family, and to every son above twenty-one years of age. A good milch cow, and rations of pork and flour were assigned to each emigrant family. These provisions they continued to receive for upwards of eighteen months, besides a variety of stores, such as axes, hammers, saws, nails, grindstones, &c. A good log-shanty was also built on each settler's lot. These people have done as well as could be expected, considering the material of which they were composed. It has been observed that, whenever these people were located amongst the Protestant population, they made much better settlers than when remaining with Catholics. In fact, a great improvement is perceptible in the morality, industry and education of the rising generation, who grow up more virtuous and less bigoted to their exclusive religious opinions. As a general rule, the English, Scotch, and north of Ireland men make much better and more independent colonists than emigrants from the south of Ireland. Seven years after the location of Robinson's emigrants, a colony of Wiltshire people settled in the township of Dummer under many more disadvantages than those placed by Government in the township of Douro. The Dummer people had no shanties built for them, no cows, and were given much worse land; and yet they have done much more in a shorter time. An air of comfort and cleanliness pervades their dwellings, and there is a neatness about their farms and homesteads which is generally wanted in the former. It must, however, be borne in mind that paupers sent out by the Government, or by their own parishes, are not a fair specimen by which to judge the working classes, who emigrated at their own expenses. Of the latter, I know hundreds who, upon their arrival in the Upper Province, had spent their last shilling, and who, by persevering industry, are now worth hundreds of pounds. No person need starve in Canada, where there is plenty of work and good wages for every man who is willing to labour, and who keeps himself sober. The working man with a family of grown children, when fairly established on his farm, is fully on a par, as regards his prospects, with the gentleman, the owner of a similar farm, and possessing an income of 100 pounds per annum. The reason is obvious. The gentleman and his family have been used to wear finer clothes, keep better company, and maintain a more respectable appearance, and if he has children, to give them a more expensive education. Then, again, the gentleman and his family are physically less qualified to undergo the hardships and toil of a practical farmer's life. On the other hand, the working man thinks it no degradation to send his sons and daughters out to service, and the united product of their wages amount, probably to eight or ten pounds per month. He is contented with home-spun cloth, while the spinning and knitting--and sometimes weaving--required by the family, are done at home. Labour, indeed, is money; and hence in a few years the gentleman with his income is soon distanced, and the working hand becomes the man of wealth, while his children eventually form a part of the aristocracy of the country, if the father gives them a suitable education. There is one thing, however, to be said in favour of the gentleman-- namely, his education, which fits him for offices and professions which must remain for ever out of the reach of the half-ignorant. It is, therefore, only in agricultural pursuits, and mechanical operations, that the working man is able to obtain a superiority; and then only if he be sober and industrious, for whiskey has been the great bane of the colony. Hundreds of our cleverest mechanics, and many of gentler blood, have fallen victims to its influence. It is said that temperance societies have done a great deal towards checking this evil, and that the new society, the "Sons of Temperance," will complete what the others began. I am quite willing to admit it as a fact, because I believe that the practice of temperance has gained ground, both in Canada and the United States. But I am unwilling to allow that the means taken to effect that much-desired object are the best that might be adopted. Indeed, I think, in some instances, the endeavour to prohibit the use of fermented drink altogether, has been carried to unchristian lengths. I believe that, if the same amount of money had been expended in propagating the gospel, as has been laid out by these total abstinence societies, more real converts to temperance would have been gained, because principle and true religion would have been the bases on which the reformation was founded. Throughout the whole Bible and Testament, there is not a single command to abstain totally from either wine or strong drink; but there is a positive one respecting the abuse, and dreadful denunciations against the drunkard. Then in respect to the prohibition, the false prophet has, in the Koran, forbidden his followers to use wine at all. Now, which do we profess to follow,--the precepts of Jesus Christ, or those of Mahomet? But some will say, if your brother offends by his intemperate habits, you should abstain altogether, that you may become a good example to him. By the same rule, if my brother is a glutton, I should abstain from food also. Now, I believe with the Apostle, "that all the creatures of God are good," and lawful for us to use; but we are not to abuse them, "but to be temperate in all things," thus acting up to the rule of scripture, and setting a better example than if we wholly abstained from fermented drink. Any other rule, excepting in cases of notorious drunkenness, is, in my opinion, anti-scriptural, and therefore wrong. The new American society, "The Sons of Temperance," which now takes the lead of all other temperance or tee-total societies, is a secret and benefit society, having its signs and pass-words. In the hands of clever leaders and designing men, may not a society of this kind become a great political engine? Sometimes very ludicrous scenes occur at temperance meetings. A few years ago, when this question was first agitated in Canada, a meeting was held in a school-house on the English line, in the township of Dummer. The lecturer, on that occasion, was an itinerant preacher of the Methodist persuasion. After descanting some time in a very fluent manner, on the evils arising from intemperance, and the great numbers who had lost their lives by violent means, "for my part," said the lecturer, "I have known nearly three hundred cases of this kind myself." This broad assertion was too much for one of the audience, an old Wiltshire man, who exclaimed, in his peculiar dialect, "Now, I know that 'ere be a lie. Can you swear that you did ever see three out of them three hundred violent deaths you speak on?" "Well, I have heard and read of them in books and newspapers; and I once saw a man lying dead on the road, and a jar, half full of whiskey, beside him, which, I think, you will allow is proof enough." "I thought your three hundred cases would turn out like the boy's cats in his grandmother's garden. Now, I will tell thee, that I did know three men that did kill themselves by drinking of cold water. There was John H-----, that over-heated hisself, walking from Cobourg, and drank so much water at the cold springs, that he fell down and died in a few minutes. Then there was that workman of Elliott's, in Smith, who dropped in the harvest-field, from the same cause; and the Irishman from Asphodel, whose name I forget. So, you see, that more people do die from drinking cold water than whiskey." Then he turned round to a neighbour, who, like himself, was not over-fond of cold water, and said, "I say, Jerome, which would you rather have, a glass of cold water, or a drap of good beer?" "I know which I would take," exclaimed Jerome; "I would like a drap of good beer best, I do know." This dialogue raised such a laugh against the apostle of temperance, that the meeting was fairly broken up, leaving the Wiltshire man triumphing in his victory over cold water and oratory, in the person of the lecturer. The dryness of his arguments prevailed against the refreshing and copious draughts of the pure element recommended by his discomfited opponent. A good joke is not, however, a good argument, though it stood for one at this meeting. Total abstinence is the best plan to be adopted by habitual drunkards, who, if they can get at strong drink at all, seldom keep their pledge of sobriety. The British and Foreign Temperance Society, in fact, advises the habitually intemperate to abstain altogether, while, at the same time, it aims at bringing the man to repentance and reformation, by the renovating influence of the gospel. If I differ in some respects from that society, in its prohibition against the use of spirits altogether, in such a climate as Canada, I still must consider its views far more liberal, and more consistent with scripture rules, than that of any other for the promotion of temperance, as, indeed, possessing more of that charity, without which even the most fervent zeal is worse than useless. CHAPTER XII. WANT OF HOME-PASTURAGE IN CANADA. -- DANGER OF BEING LOST IN THE WOODS. -- PLAIN DIRECTIONS TO THE TRAVELLER IN THE BUSH. -- STORY OF A SETTLER FROM EMILY. -- AN OLD WOMAN'S RAMBLE IN THE WOODS. -- ADVENTURE OF A TRAPPER. -- FORTUNATE MEETING WITH HIS PARTNER. ONE of the greatest inconveniences belonging to a new settlement, for the first four or five years, is the want of pasturage for your working cattle and cows. Consequently, the farmer has to depend entirely on the Bush for their support, for at least seven months out of the twelve. The inconvenience does not arise from any want of food; for the woods, beaver meadows, and the margins of lakes and streams yield an abundance, and the cattle, towards the fall of the year, are sure to grow fat. But it is the trouble of seeking for your cattle. Sometimes, indeed, in the midst of your greatest hurry, your oxen are nowhere to be found. I have myself often spent two or three days in succession, searching the woods in vain; and it not unfrequently happens that, while looking for the strayed beasts, you lose yourself in the woods. As we generally carry a gun with us in these excursions, we often fall in with deer or partridges, which makes the way not only seem less fatiguing, but even pleasant, unless during the season of musquitoes and black flies, when rambling through the Bush is no pleasure to any one. New-comers are very apt to lose themselves at first, until they get acquainted with the creeks and ridges; and even then, on a dark day or during a snow-storm, they are very likely to go astray. If you have no compass with you, and the sun is obscured, the best way of extricating yourself is, to observe the moss on the trees, which--not every one knows--grows more luxuriantly and in greater quantities on the north side of the tree. It is of little use to look at any tree separately: this will perhaps only mislead you; but if you observe the general aspect of the woods around, the indications may be of great service to you. Towards the north, the trunks of the trees will appear light and cheerful, while the south side will look dark and spotted. This plan, however, will only answer amongst hard woods.* [* Deciduous trees are called hard-wood.] The ridges mostly run north-east and south-west, and the swamps parallel with them. Then, again, in pine woods the general inclination of the timber is from the north-west. All these indications have been successfully followed, and should be borne in mind. People who lose themselves in the Bush seldom persevere long enough in any one direction. They fancy they are going wrong, and keep changing their course; till probably, after four or five hours' walking, they find themselves near the spot from whence they started. This has occurred to me more than once, and I shall relate a melancholy incident which happened only a few years ago, and which proves what I have just stated. The person to whom I allude, resided in the township of Emily, and had been all the summer working at his trade in the village of Bowmanville, to earn money sufficient to pay for his land, which he had succeeded by the fall in doing. As the cold weather had set in, he determined to return home, and chop all the winter on his farm. He knew that by crossing the township of Darlington and Manvers in an oblique direction, twenty-five or six miles in length, he could reach his own house in half the time, the distance by the road being more than double that by which he proposed to travel. He therefore determined to try the short way, although he was well aware that the last eight or ten miles of his road was through the Bush, with not even a blazed line to guide him. He was, however, young and active, and moreover considered himself a good backwoodsman. He started one fine frosty morning early in December, expecting he should be able to reach his own house sometime before sundown. For the first ten or twelve miles he got on pretty well, as he had a sleigh-track to follow, and as long as the sun shone out he made a good course. Unfortunately for him, a snow-storm came on and obscured his only guide. He, however, struggled on manfully through cedar-swamps and over ridges, with the snow half-way up to his knees, till the approach of darkness compelled him to look out for some place to shelter him from the storm, where he might best pass the weary hours of the coming night. He selected a dry spot beneath some spreading cedars, and busied himself as long as daylight lasted in collecting as much fire-wood as would last till the morning. He then gathered a quantity of hemlock- brush for his bed, and by breaking off some large limbs from the surrounding evergreens, succeeded at last in forming a temporary shelter. For a long time he despaired of getting a fire, till he at length found some dry cedar-bark, which he finally succeeded in igniting with a piece of punk,* which every backwoodsman carries with him for that purpose. Though the poor fellow had only taken with him provisions for a day's journey, he made a hearty supper, merely reserving a portion for his breakfast, not suspecting that he should fail in reaching his destination. He fully expected he should see the sun in the morning, which would enable him to correct this course; for he knew that he was in the township of Manvers, and not more than seven or eight miles from his own home. [* A substance obtained from the sugar-maple, similar to German tinder.] Wearied with his day's journey, he slept the greater part of the night, although awakened occasionally by the cold. At such times he would heap fresh fuel on the fire, and again compose himself to sleep. To his infinite joy the morning beamed brightly--the sun shone out. With a light heart and renewed confidence he again shaped his course eastward, following the direction in which his house lay; and there is no doubt, had the day remained clear, he would in a few hours have extricated himself from the dilemma into which he had fallen. His disappointment was great when he again beheld the sky overcast, and the snow falling thickly around him. He pushed on, however, bravely, till at length a thick cedar-swamp lay before him. For some time he travelled along its edge, in the hope of finding a narrow spot to cross, but in this he was disappointed, so he determined to attempt the passage. He fully believed, once on the other side, he should know the face of the country, from his having so often hunted game, or searched for his cattle in that direction. For fully an hour he pressed on through a complete thicket of cedar; but it was all random work, for the evergreens were so loaded with snow, that it was quite impossible to go one hundred yards in a straight course. At last he saw the tops of hard-wood trees before him, which again revived his sinking spirits, for he thought he had crossed the swamp. Alas, poor fellow! he was mistaken. He had come out on the very side by which he had entered it, but of this he was not aware at the time. He, however, wondered that he did not recognize any part of the ground he was travelling over. At length, to his great joy, he came upon the fresh track of a man, which he had no doubt belonged to some person, who was then out from the settlement, still hunting;* for he knew that Manvers was the most celebrated township for deer in the Newcastle District. As he observed that the footprints were going in a contrary direction to what he was, this circumstance gave him increased confidence. Two or three times, however, he thought some of the small swamps and ridges looked vastly like what he had traversed in the early part of the day. At last, about an hour before dark, he saw a thin wreath of blue smoke in a thicket before him. Judge of his disappointment and dismay, when, on his nearer approach, he found he had actually followed his own track, which had brought him back to the spot where he had passed the night. To describe his feelings on this occasion would be difficult and painful. He thought of his wife and his young children, who were hourly expecting his return, and who had, no doubt, prepared some little treat to welcome the wanderer home. [* Canadian term for deer-stalking.] Bitter were his reflections during the waking hours of that long night! Hungry, tired, and unrefreshed, the morning's light saw him struggling through the snow, but whither he knew not; for though it had ceased snowing, the sky was still overcast, and continued so till the middle of the afternoon, when the wind suddenly veered round to the north- west, attended with intense cold. He now renewed every effort; for once or twice he thought he heard the sounds of civilized life--the distant supper-horn or cattle-bell--but the fierce howling of the wind, which blew half a gale, rendered his hearing indistinct. As long as daylight lasted he dragged on his wearied limbs, till utter exhaustion and coming darkness rendered his further progress impossible. To add to his misfortune, on attempting to kindle a fire, he found that his punk was damp, from the snow having come in contact with it when pressing his way through the swamp. He now gave himself up for lost, for the night was extremely cold, and he had neither fire to warm him, nor roof to shelter his head. To sleep thus he knew was certain death. He therefore paced up and down as long as he was able to stand, but his boots were frozen stiff, and his feet numb with the cold. After great difficulty he managed to pull off his boots, and having wrapped up his feet in his woollen cap, he lay down on the path he bad beaten in the snow, for he could no longer resist the inclination to sleep. While in the act of lying down, he distinctly heard a cock crow at no great distance. By a great effort he roused himself, and called as loudly as he was able. Once he thought he heard an answer to his cry-- again the horn seemed to ring in his ears,--and then all was blank. At daylight he was found by some of his own neighbours; one of whom was up early in the morning feeding his oxen, preparatory to a journey to the front, when he heard the shouts, which sounded to him like those of some person in distress. He immediately blew his dinner horn, that the sound might guide the lost person, and having collected three or four of his neighbours, they started into the woods in the direction from whence the shouts of the lost man had proceeded. Half a mile from the clearing, they came across his track, which they only followed for a few yards, when to their surprise they found their poor neighbour, whom at first they concluded to be dead. It was some time indeed before they could wake him, so overpowered was he with fatigue and the death-like sleep he had fallen into. His friends lost no time in carrying him home; but unfortunately they placed him near a large fire, instead of rubbing his hands and feet with snow. The too sudden reaction of the blood caused him the most excruciating agony, for both his hands and feet were badly frozen. At length Dr. Hutchinson* was sent for from Peterborough, who found mortification had commenced, and that there was no chance of the poor fellow's recovery which proved too true, for he expired the next day, a week from the morning he was found. [* Dr. Hutchinson, is a medical practitioner of great note, and one of the first settlers and oldest magistrates in that section of the country. I had the particulars of this story from him; though, as it was some years ago, I may have made some mistake as to the exact locality.] He, however, died in the arms of his afflicted wife, and was surrounded by his family, a privilege purchased at the expense of severe pain, but still one to the husband and father--even though he had been snatched from his pangless death-sleep to possess it, poor fellow! The mischances consequent upon being lost in the woods, which were so frequent in the early settlement of Western Canada, are of rare occurrence now. Since, roads have been cut, and the clearings have brought the Bush-settlers nearer together. In my young time I have often searched for missing persons, and indeed have sometimes been lost myself. I remember, the first summer I passed in Canada, making one of a party, who were for eight days looking for an old woman nearly eighty years of age, and her little grandson, who were lost in the Bush. The old lady was going by a foot-path across a piece of woodland between her son-in-law's house and a neighbour's, which, by-the-by, were almost within sight of each other. The little boy, it seems, ran a short distance off the path to gather some wild-flowers, and was followed by his grandmother, who, either from her defectiveness of sight, or, more probably, from having crossed without perceiving it, was, unable to regain the track. Her friends finding that she did not return, went over to their neighbour's house to see if she was there; but they only learned that neither she nor her grandson had found their way thither. Search was instantly made till night came on, but without success. The next day, all their friends and neighbours turned out, myself among the number, to search for the unfortunate woman and the boy. We concluded, from her advanced age and the tender years of the child, that they could not be very far off; consequently we confined our search for several days within a radius of two or three miles. On the fifth day, tracks were discovered near the edge of a small creek, which from being the prints of a small and large foot, left no doubt as to whom they belonged. Strange as it may appear, this was the only sure indication of the lost ones that we had yet seen. No further trail was seen till the evening of the seventh day, when fresh signs were found. Our party therefore determined to camp out all night, and follow these new indications early in the morning, which object they succeeded in effecting. The lost ones were then found, and both were discovered alive. The old woman had suffered the most; but the two had sustained themselves by eating roots and beech-mast: the little boy was quite frightened when he saw the men coming, and hid himself; such were the consequences of solitude and privation on his mind. The place where they were found was in the township of Beach, at least fourteen miles due east from the place where they were lost; and it is more than probable, in their wanderings, that they had more than doubled that distance--a most extraordinary circumstance, when the ages of the parties are considered. About three years since, two young men, with whom I was well acquainted, went back into the uninhabited township of Methuen, to trap for fur, and hunt deer. They set a line of marten-traps,* extending upwards of three miles. One or other of them used to go every alternate morning, to examine these traps--to re-set any that were sprung; and bring back to their camp any furry animal that might chance to be captured. [* The method pursued by the trappers and Indians is to blaze a line through the bush for several miles. Along this line is set, at intervals of one or two hundred yards, a kind of trap, called a dead fall, which is constructed thus:--Two rows of short sticks are driven into the ground about one foot apart, open only at one end, the top being covered with brush-wood at the entrance. A piece of wood two or three feet long is bedded into the ground, or snow, as the case may be. The falling pole is supported immediately over this by three pieces of stick notched together in the form of a figure of four. The centre- piece is made long and sharp at the point, to which the bait is attached, and projects well into the miniature house. The marten or fisher, allured by the bait, reaches in to snatch it, which springs the trap, and causes the pole to fall across the neck of the animal, which is instantly killed by the blow.] One morning, the less-experienced trapper of the two, this being his first season, went along the line to look at the traps, as usual. He had his gun with him, but only two or three charges of powder. After proceeding to the extreme end of the line, he thought he would go on and look for some partridges, which he heard "drumming"* some little distance a-head. [* This sound is made by the Canadian partridge (a species of the grouse) during its season of courtship. The cock-bird perches himself on the top of a large hollow log, or fallen tree, and with his wings produces a vibratory sound, like the distant roll of a drum, which, in still weather, can easily be heard at the distance of a mile in the woods.] In the pursuit of his game, he was induced to go further than he had at first intended. He never doubted that he should easily find his way back to the line. In this, however, he was woefully deceived, for the day was cloudy, and the face of the country was very rough. It formed, indeed, a part of the great granite range, which is said to cross the St. Lawrence, at the Lake of the Thousand Islands, traversing the rear of the Midland District and the counties of Hastings and Peterborough, through the unsurveyed lands north of Lake Simcoe, to the shores of Lake Huron. This granite formation is supposed to have an average breadth of ten or twelve miles, being intersected with small lakes, deep ravines and precipitous rocks. The woods of this region being composed principally of pine, hemlock, and cedar, are of a peculiarly gloomy character. In such a difficult country as this, it was no wonder that our inexperienced trapper went astray. After an hour's fruitless search for the line, he came to the conclusion that he was lost, and that his only chance was to fire off his gun, in the hope that his companion would hear and return it. As no answering sound greeted his ear, he durst not fire his only remaining charge of powder, for it was all he had to defend himself from wolves, or to obtain some animal or bird whereupon to sustain his life. For four days and three nights did this poor fellow wander through these rugged wilds. On the afternoon of the fourth day he came upon a ridge of land, which appeared better timbered and more open; so he determined to follow this route, expecting it might lead him to the lakeshore, where his camp was situated. He had not walked a hundred yards in this new direction, when to his surprise he saw quite a fresh blaze on a tree, and within a fear yards of the spot on which he stood, a newly constructed marten-trap. Words cannot express the joy he felt at this discovery; it was his own line he had so fortunately come upon. Had he only gone the smallest distance to his left, he would have missed it altogether; but he came, providentially, upon the very spot where he had set his last trap, and within a few feet of the place he had left four days before. On his way to the camp, a sudden fear came over him! Had his companion left it, supposing him to be irrecoverably lost? If so, what was to become of him on the north shore of Stony Lake, without a canoe to cross over to the settlement, food, or ammunition to procure any for his support. His fears were, however, groundless, as the report of a gun, and soon after the appearance of his companion convinced him; but the danger had been great; for, from the statement of his fellow- trapper, he found that the latter was then on his way to the end of the line, hoping that he might see or hear something of him before he broke up their camp, which he intended to have done in the morning, if he had not unexpectedly fallen in with his friend. Thus had Providence again interposed in his behalf, and a few days of rest restored him to his wonted health, spirits, and activity. CHAPTER XIII. DIRECTIONS FOR ASCERTAINING THE QUALITY OF LAND IN THE BUSH. -- SITE OF LOG-SHANTY. -- CHOPPING. -- PREPARATION FOR SPRING-CROPS. -- METHOD OF PLANTING INDIAN CORN. -- PUMPKINS AND POTATOES. -- MAKING POT-ASH. I SHALL now endeavour to give the emigrant some information to guide him in the selection of his land, and other matters connected with a settlement in the bush. In the first place, the quality of the land is the greatest consideration, and to make a good choice requires a practical knowledge as to the nature of the soils, and the different kinds of timber growing thereon. The best land is timbered with oak, ash, elm, beech, bass-wood, and sugar maple. A fair mixture of this species of trees is best, with here and there a large pine, and a few Canadian balsams scattered among the hard-wood. Too great a proportion of beech indicates sand or light loam: a preponderance of rock elm is a sign of gravel or limestone-rock near the surface. The timber should be lofty, clean in the bark and straight in the grain, and of quick growth. The woods should be open, free from evergreens, and with little under-brush. Generally speaking, the soil is of excellent quality, when timbered in the manner described. It however, often happens, that the best land is full of boulders, which are both troublesome and expensive to remove. Two-thirds of these stones are not visible above the surface, and the remainder are so covered with moss and leaves, that they require a practised eye to detect them. I have no objection to a small quantity of stones, as they are useful to construct French drains, or to roll into the bottoms of the rail-fences. When limestone-flag is near the surface, the stems of the trees will be shorter, their heads more bushy, and the roots spreading along the top of the ground. Such land is apt to burn in hot weather, and soon becomes exhausted. White pine, or hemlock ridges, are almost always sandy, and good for little--except the timber, which is valuable, if near enough to water. White-pine, mixed with hard-wood, generally indicates strong clay land, good for wheat; but the difficulty of clearing off such heavy timber, and the long time it takes to get rid of the stumps, render such a selection unprofitable, and add additional toil to the emigrant. The best land for wheat should be gently undulating soil, rich loam, on a clay bottom. In the summer months you can judge the quality of the land by the freshly turned-up roots of trees, which have fallen by the wind. In winter, when the surface of the ground is covered with snow, and frozen hard, the growth and quality of the timber, as before described, are your only mode of judging correctly. A constant supply of water is absolutely necessary, in a country liable to such extreme heat in summer. Canada West, abounding, as it does, in small spring-creeks, rivers, and lakes, is, perhaps, as well watered as any country in the world; and, in almost every section of the country, even on the highest ridges, good water can be obtained by digging wells, which seldom require to be sunk more than twenty feet; and in many townships, not half that depth is required. After the emigrant has selected a proper location, his next object is to choose the best situation to build his shanty, and chop his first fallow. Most settlers like to commence as near as possible to the concession-line or public road; but sometimes the vicinity of a stream of water or good spring is preferred. In fact, circumstances must, in some measure, guide them in their choice. The best time of the year to commence operations is early in September. The weather is then moderately warm and pleasant, and there are no flies in the Bush to annoy you. A log shanty, twenty-four feet long by sixteen, is large enough to begin with, and should be roofed either with shingles or troughs. A small cellar should be dug near the fire-place, commodious enough to hold twenty or thirty bushels of potatoes, a barrel or two of pork, &c. As soon as your shanty is completed, measure off as many acres as you intend to chop during the winter, and mark the boundaries by blazing the trees on each side. The next operation is to cut down all the small trees and brush--this is called under-brushing. The rule is to cut everything close to the ground from the diameter of six inches downwards. There are two modes of piling, either in heaps or in wind-rows. If your fallow is full of evergreens, such as hemlock, pine, balsam, cedar, and such description of timber, then I should say wind-rows are the best; but when the timber is deciduous, heaps are better. The brush should be carefully piled and laid all one way, by which means it packs closer and burns better. The regular price for underbrushing hard-wood land, and cutting up-all the old fallen timber- -which is always considered a part of the underbrushing--is one dollar per acre, and board. Rough land and swamp vary from seven shillings and sixpence to ten shillings. Your under-brush should be all cut and piled by the end of November, before the snow falls to the depth of four inches, for after that it would be both difficult and tedious. The chopping now begins, and may be followed without any interruption until the season for sugar-making commences. The heads of the trees should be thrown upon the heaps or wind-rows. A skilful chopper will scarcely ever miss a heap when felling the timber, besides it saves a great deal of labour in piling the limbs. The trunks of the trees must be cut into lengths, from fourteen to sixteen feet, according to the size of the timber. Now and then a large maple or beech, when felled, may be left without cutting up, with the exception of the top, which is called a plan-heap, and is left to log against: this is only done when the tree is too large to be cut through easily with the axe. All timber fit for making rails should be left in double and treble lengths, as it is less likely to burn. A good axe-man should be able, with fair chopping, to cut an acre in eight days after the under-brushing is done. The regular price of chopping is five dollars per acre, with board, or six without. The emigrant should endeavour to get as much chopping done as possible during the first three years, because after that time he has so many other things to attend to, such as increase of stock, barn and house- building, thrashing, ploughing, &c., which, of course, give him every year less time for chopping, particularly if his family be small, in which case fifty or sixty acres are enough to clear at first, till his boys are old enough to give him assistance. Clearing up too large a farm, when labour is so high, is not wise, for it will not answer to disburse much for hire, at the present prices. If, therefore, you are not able to cultivate what you have cleared properly, it will grow up again with raspberries, blackberries, small trees, and brush, and be nearly as bad to clear as it was at first. The size of the farm must, however, depend on the resources of the emigrant, the strength and number of his family, and the quantity of acres he may possess. In the month of May the settler should spring-burn three or four acres, and log them up for his spring-crops, such as potatoes and Indian-corn. The Indian-corn should be planted with the hoe in rows, three feet apart and thirty inches in the row. A pumpkin-seed or two should be sown in every second or third hole in each third row. The corn must be earthed or hilled up by drawing the mould close round the roots, and five or six inches up the stalks, which should be done when the plants are fifteen or sixteen inches high. No further cultivation is necessary until the time of cutting, except breaking off some shoots from the roots, if too many are thrown out. Potatoes on the new land are also planted with the hoe, and in hills of about five thousand to the acre. A hole is scraped with the hoe, in which four or five sets, or a whole potato is dropped. The earth is then heaped over them in the form of a mole-hill, but somewhat larger. After the plants have appeared above the surface, a little more mould is drawn around them. Very large crops of potatoes are raised in this manner. Two hundred and fifty bushels per acre are no uncommon crop. I have assisted in raising double that quantity; but of late years, since the disease has been prevalent, but poor crops have been realized. Both white turnips and swedes do well, and grow to a large size, particularly on new land: the roots must be either pitted or put in a root-house, or cellar, as the winter is too severe for them to remain unhoused. The remainder of the fallow should be burnt off and logged up in July, the rail-cuts split into quarters and drawn off to the site of the fences, ready for splitting into rails. After the log-heaps are burnt, you should either spread the ashes or rake them while hot into heaps, if you intend to make potash,* with which, by the by, I should advise the new-comer to have nothing to do until he has made himself thoroughly acquainted with the process. [* This article is very extensively made in nearly all the new settlements, and may be considered one of the staples of the country. The process is very simple; but great care must be taken in collecting the ashes clear of sand or dirt of any description. If your ashes are well saved and from good timber, ten acres should produce at least five barrels of potash, each barrel containing five hundred weight. Several things should be considered before the emigrant attempts the manufacture of this article. Firstly, his land should be well timbered with oak, elm, maple, and bass-wood. Secondly, it must have a stream of water, near which he may erect his works. And, lastly, it ought to be within reach of a market and a remunerating price, which, to pay the manufacturer, should not be less than twenty-five shillings, Halifax currency, per cwt. The best situation to erect an ashery upon, is the side of a bank, beside a running stream; and if there should be fall enough in the creek to bring a supply of water over head into the leaches, a great deal of labour will be saved. An ash-house, six or eight leach-tubs, a pot-ash kettle, and three or four coolers are all the requisites necessary. Most persons use a small portion of common salt and lime in the manufacture of pot-ash. After the lye is run off it is boiled down into black salts, which are melted into pot-ash, cooled off, and packed into air-tight barrels ready for market.] As soon as the settler has cleared up fifteen or twenty acres, his first care should be to erect a frame or log-barn; I should strongly recommend the former, if boards can be obtained in the neighbourhood, as it is undoubtedly the best and cheapest in the long run. If I were commencing life again in the woods, I would not build anything of logs except a shanty or a pig-sty; for experience has plainly told me that log buildings are the dirtiest, most inconvenient, and the dearest when everything is taken into consideration. As soon as the settler is ready to build, let him put up a good frame, roughcast, or stone-house, if he can possibly raise the means, as stone, timber, and lime, cost nothing but the labour of collecting and carrying the materials. When I say that they "cost nothing," I mean that no cash is required for these articles, as they can be prepared by the exertion of the family. With the addition of from a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds in money to the raw material, a good substantial and comfortable dwelling can be completed. Two or three years should be spent in preparing and collecting materials, so that your timber may be perfectly seasoned before you commence building. Apple and plum orchards should be planted as soon as possible, and well fenced from the cattle and sheep. The best kind of grafted fruit-trees, from three to seven years old, can be obtained for a shilling a tree; ungrafted, at four shillings the dozen. The apple-tree flourishes extremely well in this country, and grows to a large size. I gathered last year, out of my orchard, several Ribstone Pippins, each of which weighed more than twelve ounces, and were of a very fine flavour. The native plums are not very good in their raw state, but they make an excellent preserve, and good wine. Some of the particulars mentioned in this chapter have been glanced at in an earlier portion of the work; but I make no apology for the repetition. My object is, to offer instruction to the inexperienced settler, and to impress these important matters more firmly upon his mind and memory, that he may have his experience at a cheaper rate than if he purchased it at the expense of wasted time, labour, and capital. CHAPTER XIV. MY FIRST SHOT AT A BUCK. -- HUNTING AND SHOOTING PARTIES. -- DESTRUCTIVENESS OF WOLVES. -- LOSS OF MY FLOCKS. -- COWARDICE OF THE WOLF. -- THE LADY AND HER PET. -- COLONEL CRAWFORD'S ADVENTURE. -- INGENIOUS TRICK OF AN AMERICAN TRAPPER. -- A DISAGREEABLE ADVENTURE. -- HOW TO POISON WOLVES. -- A STERN CHASE. MY father-in-law had a large field of fall wheat, upon which, during the night, the deer were very fond of grazing. Just before dark, the herd used to make their appearance, and we tried repeatedly to get a shot at them, but in vain. At the least noise, or if they winded us, up went their tails, and they were off in an instant. I was determined, however, not to be so continually balked. I had observed, by the tracks, the direction they took in their way to the field; so, an hour before their usual time of coming, I sallied out, and concealed myself in the top of an old fallen tree which lay a few feet from the ground, and about twenty yards from a path which I suspected had been beaten by the deer, going backwards and forwards to the field. The place I had selected to watch for them was an old settlement duty- road, which had been cut out some years before, but was now partially grown up again with a second growth of timber and underbrush. Having seated myself very snugly, I took out of my pocket a volume of Shakespeare to pass away the time. I had not been half-an-hour so employed, before my attention was suddenly aroused by hearing a stick break near me, when upon looking up I beheld the head and horns of a large buck projecting from behind a thicket of trees. He appeared to be in a listening attitude, so I durst not stir till he should have lowered his head, as I knew the least movement then would make him start off in an instant. Luckily, however, the wind was blowing from his direction to mine. Presently, he walked into the open space; and whilst I was cautiously raising my gun, he disappeared beneath the brow of a small hill; but almost immediately, from the inequality of the ground, his head and shoulders again became visible. On this, I instantly fired. Astonished and mortified was I, when I saw him scamper off with his tail up, as if nothing had happened. Still, I was sure I must have hit him, as he was not forty yards from where I sat, his broadside being towards me. So I followed the track for about two hundred yards, but without seeing any blood; and was in the act of turning back, concluding, that as he had hoisted his tail, I had missed him altogether. Indeed, I had often heard, that if they show the white feather, as putting up their tail is called by Canadian sportsmen--they are not hit. This, however, is a mistake; for, in the act of turning round to retrace my steps, I saw a small drop of blood upon a dry leaf. I now felt quite certain that I had struck him. On proceeding a few yards further, I saw several large splashes of blood. There was now no room left for doubt; and, in another minute I was standing beside the first buck I had ever killed. On opening him, I found I had put a ball and five buck-shot into him, which had entered just behind the fore- shoulder; and though two of these shots had lodged in the lungs, he had, notwithstanding this, continued to run on the full jump, more than two hundred yards. Not long after this adventure, my brother-in-law shot a deer through the heart, which ran full a hundred yards before he dropped. Two or three years after, in the township of Douro, where I now reside, I was walking down to the saw-mill about half a mile from my house, with my American rifle in my hand, when, on coming close to the river, I saw a large buck swimming down the middle of the stream near the mill-dam. I ran down to the spot as fast as I could, for I expected he would land on the opposite shore, at the corner of the dam. The surmise proved to be correct. He was in the act of climbing up the bank when I fired, and he fell back into the river. Recovering himself, however, he scrambled out and made off. I crossed the bridge and went round to the spot where he landed, and followed on the track. While in chase I was joined by an old hunter, who had been out since day-light, still-hunting (deer-stalking); so he agreed to go with me and examine the track, which we followed for about half a mile without seeing any blood. But at last we came to a place where the buck had stood and pawed up the ground. My companion, remarking upon the circumstance, said-- "He was quite satisfied the fellow was hit; and you will find," added he, "if we get him, that he is hit on the top of the back, and that is the reason there is no blood to be seen." The track led us round nearly in a circle; for we came back to the river within a few yards of where I had fired at the buck. My companion now suggested that we should recross the river and follow up the stream on the opposite bank. "For," said he, "we shall probably find him on one of the islands opposite your house." Acting on his suggestion, we retraced our steps, and found, as he had predicted, that the buck, after taking the water, had swum up the river and taken refuge on the west side of the lower island. We saw him standing near the edge of the water, partially hidden by the trunk of a fallen pine, when we both fired our rifles at the same instant. This did not, however, drop him, for he bounded across the island, and took the opposite channel in gallant style. As the distance from which we fired was less than a hundred yards, we concluded that one of us at least had hit him. Reinforced by my old hound Towler, who, attracted by the firing, had joined us, we recrossed the river, and put the dog on the track. Towler was in high spirits, and soon made the wood ring with music pleasant to the hunter's ear. We momentarily expected to see our quarry again take the water; but from the continued howling of the hound in the same spot, I began to think the buck was standing at bay, which was really the case; for on my near approach he was busily employed with his head down, keeping off old Towler by making sudden plunges at him every now and then. The moment he saw me, he made a rush for the river, but as he passed me on the full bound, I fired at his fore-shoulder; and though he still continued his course to the river, I knew by the jet of blood which followed my shot that his fate was sealed. Near the river he made a sudden turn, striking his head against a hemlock tree, and at the same instant a shot from my companion stretched him lifeless on the ground. And thus concluded an exciting chase of more than two hours. This was the largest buck I ever killed, for he weighed, after he was skinned and dressed, two hundred and thirty pounds. We found that four out of the five shots had hit him. The last shot I fired, cut away the small end of his heart, though he actually managed to run thirty or forty paces afterwards. Deer-hunting is a very exciting sport; but I prefer still-hunting (or deer-stalling, as it is called in the Highlands of Scotland) to driving them into the lakes and rivers with hounds. The deer are not now nearly so numerous as they formerly were. Civilization has driven them back into the unsurveyed lands or less populated townships. To give my readers some idea how plentiful these wild denizens of the forest were, some years since, I need only mention that a Trapper with whom I was acquainted, and four of his companions, passed my house on a small raft, on which lay the carcasses of thirty- two deer--the trophies of a fortnight's chase near Stony Lake. The greater number of these were fine bucks. I once had seventeen deer hanging up in my barn at one time--the produce of three days' sport, out of which I had the good fortune to kill seven. Parties are now made yearly every October to Stony Lake, Deer Bay, or the River Trent. I do not know anything more pleasant than these excursions, especially if you have agreeable companions, a warm camp, and plenty to eat and drink. Indeed, poor hunters must they be who cannot furnish their camp-larder with wild-ducks and venison. This is one of the great charms of a Canadian life, particularly to young sportsmen from the mother-country, who require here neither license nor qualification to enable them to follow their game; but may rove about in chase of deer, or other game, at will. The greatest enemy the deer has to contend with is the wolf. In the spring of the year, when the snow is in the woods, and a crust is formed on the surface, the deer are unable to travel any distance, the snow not being sufficiently hard to bear their weight. Consequently, great numbers of them are destroyed by their more nimble adversaries, who from their lighter make and rounder-shaped feet, are able to run on the top of the crust, which gives the deer but little chance of escape. The wolves commonly hunt in packs, and generally at night. The deer, when pursued, always make straight for the water, which, if they succeed in reaching it, saves them for that time. When the wolves reach the shore and find their prey gone, they utter the most diabolical yells. One night I was awakened by a pack of these rascals, who were in chase of a deer. They ran through my wood-yard within sixty feet of the house in full chorus. I think I never heard in the stillness of the night a more wild and unearthly din. For some years, till the country became more settled, I was obliged to shut up my sheep at night for fear of these prowling wretches. The first flock I ever had were all killed by these thieves. One night I was awakened by my dog barking furiously, and from the manner in which he kept rushing against the door I was sure some wild animals were about the premises. At first I thought it was useless to get up; for the night was dark, and I knew the sheep were housed. However, the increased fury of my dog Grouse, who seemed intent on getting into the house, as if he were frightened, obliged me to dress and turn out. On my opening the door, Grouse rushed in looking dreadfully scared, so with a lantern in one hand and a gun in the other, I marched towards the sheep-pen, the door of which not having been securely fastened by my lad, I found open, and six sheep out, and for these I now commenced a cautious search. About twenty yards from the pen, I found one of my best sheep lying on the grass with his throat cut very scientifically just behind the ear. A few paces further on, I found another, and so on, till five were forthcoming. The sixth I did not get till the morning, which was the only one that escaped the teeth of the marauders. It seems that my appearance with the light drove the wolves from their prey. Luckily for me, the weather was cold, my sheep fat, and well-butchered, as far as bleeding was concerned, so that I was no great loser, except by having a rather larger supply of mutton at one time than was quite convenient for the housekeeping department. About eleven or twelve years since, I lost in one season a flock of sheep by the wolves. This misfortune occurred, unluckily for me, in the hottest month of the Canadian year, July. I had not housed my sheep, because I found that, in very sultry weather, during the fly-season, they would not feed in the day-time, but would creep under the fences and into the Bush for shade. I, therefore, thought it best to risk losing some, than to spoil the whole flock; for I knew the only time they would graze was during the night, or very early in the morning. Consequently, for three or four years previously, I had allowed them to run at large during the summer months. One morning, I observed from the veranda in front of my house, a sheep, which was standing on the opposite bank of the river. As I knew there was no farm within two or three miles of the river in that direction, I thought I would go over in a canoe, and see what brought it there. I had not gone half way to the river when I discovered the mangled carcass of one of my own sheep, and on further search found ten more, lying, half-devoured, in different directions--the murder was now out. The sheep I had seen on the opposite shore was one of my own, which had taken to the water, and had thus escaped the fangs of the wolves. I saw two more of my luckless flock on a shoal more than a mile down the river, which--less fortunate than their companion--had been swept down by the current and drowned. Exactly a week afterwards, I had a similar number destroyed by the wolves. As far as I was personally concerned, I may say that they were a total loss; for the weather was too hot to keep the meat any length of time, so I gave the greater part of the mutton to my neighbours. Since that time, I have had better luck, not having lost any part of my flock, although I have invariably left my sheep abroad during the night. Notwithstanding his ravenous propensities and cruel disposition, the wolf is a very cowardly animal in his solitary state. Indeed, it is only when he hunts in a pack, that he becomes formidable to man. Nature has, in some measure, checked his evil disposition, by rendering him timid. If he falls into a snare, he never attempts to get out of the scrape; but crouches in a corner, awaiting his fate, without the least intention of displaying any pluck to the trapper. That the cowardice of the wolf is very great, the following anecdote will sufficiently prove. My wife's youngest sister had a pet-sheep that she had brought up from a lamb, and to which she was much attached. One afternoon she was going down to the spring for a pitcher of water, when she saw a large dog--as she thought--worrying her sheep, upon which, being naturally courageous, she picked up a large stick and struck the beast two or three strokes with all her strength, thus compelling him to drop her favorite. This, however, he did very reluctantly, turning his head at the same time, and showing his teeth with a most diabolical snarl. She saw at once, when he faced her, by his pricked ears, high cheek-bones, long bushy-tail, and gaunt figure, that her antagonist was a wolf. Nothing daunted, she again bravely attacked him; for he seemed determined, in spite of her valiant opposition, to have her pet, which he again attacked. She boldly beat him off the second time; following him down the creek, thrashing him and calling for aid with all her might; when, fortunately, one of her brothers, attracted by her cries, ran down with the dogs and his gun, but was not in time for a shot; for when the felon wolf saw the reinforcement, he scampered off with all his speed. There are few dogs bred in the Canadas fit to cope with the wolf; indeed, they seem in general to have a great dread of him. Colonel Crawford, a gentleman with whom I am well-acquainted, for he was many years one of my nearest and best neighbours, was one day partridge-shooting, near Buckhorn Mills, in the township of Harvey, when his sporting-dog, which had been ranging the bush a little in advance, came running towards him, yelping in a most piteous manner, followed by a large wolf. So intent was the beast on his prey, that he did not perceive the gallant colonel, who met his advance with both barrels, which stopped his earthly career, and rescued poor Carlo from his impending fate. The colonel was very proud of this exploit, both because he had killed so large an animal with partridge-shot and had saved his dog at the same time. According to an act of the Provincial Parliament, six dollars must be paid by the county treasurer for every wolf-certificate, signed by a magistrate. No certificate now will be granted, unless the scalp of the animal is produced, which is then taken possession of by the magistrate. This precaution is absolutely necessary; for, previously to this arrangement, it was found that double the number of wolves were killed, or, rather twice the number of scalps were brought in--one wolf often furnishing two pates--a curious feature in Natural History. Many petty frauds of this kind have been brought to light; amongst other cases, that of a magistrate, not a hundred miles from the county town, who forged seventeen wolf certificates, and succeeded in getting the money for them; and, most likely, emboldened by his success, would have continued to drive a flourishing trade, had not his career been suddenly stopped in the following manner. One of the persons, whose name had been made use of in one or more of the certificates, was congratulated on his recent success. He, however, denied that he had either shot or trapped a wolf during the last year, and declared, "that there must certainly be some mistake." An inquiry was accordingly made, whereupon the whole nefarious transaction was brought to light. Our magistrate was not long in availing himself of the proximity of the United States; for the next day saw him an inhabitant of the good city of Rochester, in the State of New York, where, I make no doubt, over gin-cocktail, or mint-julep, he entertains the free and enlightened citizens with an account of his adroit manner of "sloping" the British Government. Luckily for Rochester, there are no wolves in that neighbourhood. A celebrated wolf-trapper, in the township of Smith, once caught a fine she-wolf, big with young. Her fore-paw broken below the knee, was the only injury she had sustained. So he thought, if he could but keep her alive till after her accouchement, he should be able to demand the bounty for every scalp; for he considered that as there was no mention made in the act respecting the size the wolves must be, he might as well have the benefit of that oversight. He put his scheme, accordingly, into effect, and it proved quite successful. Her wolfship in a few days was safely delivered of five fine whelps, whose scalps, with that of their mother, were duly presented to the magistrate. At first he demurred respecting the certificate, but upon referring to the statute, he found there was no provision to meet a case of this kind. He, however, satisfied his moral justice by the reflection, "that if the dam had remained at large a few days longer, and whelped in the Bush, it would have amounted to the same thing, and that, perhaps, many sheep had been saved from the greedy fangs of the growing family, by the ingenious plan of the trapper." It was a clever trick, no doubt--a real Yankee shave; but one for which the sternest moralist can scarcely get up an effective lecture. The Canadian wolf is not nearly so ferocious as the European animal, nor I believe quite so large. I have heard of very few well- authenticated accounts of persons having been destroyed by these creatures, though I must say I should not like again to be in their vicinity in a dark night, as more than once I have been. I was returning from Whitby after dark, and had just entered the woods, through which my path lay for a full mile and a half. The night being dark, and the road not particularly good, I gave Prince the rein, and allowed him to choose his own pace. Presently, I thought I heard a pattering on the leaves, like the tread of animals, at which sound my horse pricked up his ears, snorted, and shied nearly across the road, so suddenly that I was nearly thrown out of the saddle. Well for me was it, however, that I kept my seat; for instantly such an infernal howling was raised all round me as made my heart leap up to my mouth, and I must candidly own I felt horribly afraid I should fall into the clutches of devouring wolves. My good steed Prince, I fancy, was as scared as myself, for he galloped off, followed by the pack, who fairly made the woods ring with their unearthly yells. They did not chase us far, and ceased howling, having seemingly lost the scent; but in a few minutes a fresh burst in the direction of the lake-shore plainly told me they had regained it, and were on the track of a deer, which most probably had crossed the road at the time when I first heard their chorus. It is not very easy to describe one's feelings on such occasions. There is something particularly appalling in the full cry of a pack of wolves, especially when alone in the woods, and at night. I have frequently heard them at such times, when camped out on hunting expeditions. However, we mustered strong and were well armed, so we cared little for them or their yells. The only instance of any one being killed by wolves, to which I can speak with certainty, occurred a few years back in the township of Douro. A young lad of the name of M'Ewen was sent by his father to a shoemaker, one George Disney, for his shoes. The distance was not more than a mile by a path through the woods, and the boy was well acquainted with the road. It appears, he went to Disney's, and waited for his shoes till nearly dark, when he started for home. But nothing more was ever heard or seen of him till the thaw in the spring, although diligent search was made at the time. Owing to a snow-storm which fell the same night, he was lost. It was impossible to follow the boy's tracks, and as a pack of wolves had been heard the same night in the immediate neighbourhood, no doubt was entertained that he had been attacked and eaten by these ravenous monsters. Some bones and pieces of clothing, supposed to have belonged to the unfortunate youth, were the only memorials found of him. I have heard the old settlers say, that very few instances have occurred like this in their recollection, though from the many persons lost in the woods and never again discovered, it is more than probable that some of them, when weakened by fatigue and hunger and no longer able to defend themselves, may have fallen victims to their insatiable maws. Several plans have been devised by the inhabitants for the destruction of these animals. That most commonly resorted to, and which is considered the least troublesome and the most efficacious, is poison. The best and surest for that purpose is strychnine, one grain of which, if genuine, will kill the largest wolf in Canada. I have used this poison myself, when baiting for foxes. The properest method in the winter-season, is to take a piece of hog's-lard, about the size of a walnut, make a hole in the centre, and insert it carefully with a quill or the point of a small knife, taking care not to spill any on the outside, then to fill up the puncture with some fresh lard. If you have heard, or have reason to know, that wolves are in the vicinity, your best way is to bait with pieces of carrion of any description. This must be done at some distance from the clearing, or you will be sure to lose your own dogs, or kill those of your neighbours, when you come to lay your poison, which you need not do till you see some of your bait taken, and observe their fresh tracks. I know a gentleman who had lost an ox, which he had drawn away some distance into the Bush. In a few days, finding the wolves had paid their respects to the carcass, he laid out several poison-balls, and actually killed six of them before the carcass was eaten. The value of the wolves, including their skins and the bounty-money, amounted to forty-four dollars, a nice little sum for a few hours' trouble, not to speak of the satisfaction of having contributed to extirpate this devouring crew. I must, however, caution the uninitiated to be very careful in the use of this deadly poison: indeed it should only be used by the most experienced trappers, and then at some distance from the settlement. The price of the wolf-skin varies from 5 shillings to 7 shillings, 6 pence, Halifax currency, according to size and quality: they are always in good demand for sleigh-robes.* Those made of this species of fur are considered the most elegant and _distingue_. [* Sleigh-robes are commonly made of bear or buffalo skins dressed with the hair on. The most fashionable are racoon or wolf. Several of these skins are sewn together, with the tails of the animals stitched to the bottom of the robe. The inside lining is generally scarlet or purple cloth. A well equipped sleigh should have two robes for each seat, one of which should cover the cushions, and fall gracefully over the back of the seat, whilst the other is drawn over the passengers, and wraps them securely from the cold.] A perilous adventure once befel my brother-in-law, James. He was a bold brave boy, of ten years old at the time, and was on his return home with a pair of oxen, with which he had been assisting a neighbour residing about six miles from his father's house. His road lay by the river shore, which was dreary enough at the fall of the year and in the evening hour: but the child was fearless, and saw the deepening shades sink into night without experiencing anything like apprehension. He was trudging on steadily, singing cheerfully as he walked, when a sound came on the night-air that sent a shiver through the young pedestrian's frame--the war-cry of the wolves. At first he hoped he was not the object of pursuit; but the hideous uproar came nearer and nearer, and then he knew that he must instantly adopt some plan for his escape. His route lay by the river shore, and he could swim well; but the night was dark, and he might be hurried into the rapids; and to be dashed to pieces on the rocks was scarcely less dreadful than to be mangled and devoured by wolves. In this extremity, the child lifted up his brave young heart to God, and resolved to use the only chance left him of escape. So he mounted Buck, the near-ox, making use of his goad, shouting at the same time to the animal, to excite him to his utmost speed. In most cases, the horned steed would have flung off his rider, and left him for wolves' meat, without hesitation; but Buck set off with the speed of a race-horse, as if fully aware of his young rider's peril. Nor was his companion less tardy. Fast, however, as the trio fled, still faster came upon them the yelling pack behind; and James could ever hear-- "Their long hard gallop which could tire The hound's deep hate and hunter's fire." Fortunately for him, old Buck heard it too, and galloped on and on; but still the wolves came neater and nearer. James shouted to keep them off; the oxen almost flying; their chains rattling as they went. This clanking sound, to which the hateful pack were unaccustomed, made them pause whenever they came close upon the oxen, whilst the latter redoubled their speed, till at length these gallant racers left the wolves behind, and finding themselves within a short distance of home, never stopped till they brought the brave little fellow safely to his own door. He had felt afraid but once; and that was when those dismal yells first broke upon his ear--and _never_ lost his presence of mind. He trusted in God, and used the means within his reach for his preservation, and arrived safe at last. Few boys would have displayed so much sense and spirit--but the boy is almost always the father of the man; and what James was then, he is now. CHAPTER XV. FORMATION OF THE CANADA COMPANY. -- INTERVIEW WITH MR. GALT. -- HIS PERSONAL DESCRIPTION AND CHARACTER. -- GUELPH. -- DR. DUNLOP. -- MY MEDICAL SERVICES AT GUELPH. -- DR. DUNLOP AND THE "PAISLEY BODIES." -- AN ECCENTRIC CHARACTER. -- AN UNFORTUNATE WIFE. I REMEMBER on my first visit to the mouth of the river Maitland, now the site of Goodrich, a bridle-path for seventy miles through the trackless forest was the only available communication between the settlements and Lake Huron. This was only twenty-four years ago. This vast and fertile tract of more than one million acres, at that time did not contain a population of three hundred souls; no teeming fields of golden grain, no manufactories, no mills, no roads; the rivers were unbridged, and one vast solitude reigned around, unbroken, save by the whoop of the red-man, or the distant shot of the trapper. Reverse the picture, and behold what the energies and good management of the Canada Company have effected. Stage-coaches travel with safety and dispatch along the same tract where formerly I had the utmost difficulty to make my way on horseback without the chance of being swept from the saddle by the limbs of trees and tangled brushwood. A continuous settlement of the finest farms now skirts both sides of this road, from the southern boundary-line of this district to Goderich. Another road equally good, traverses the block from the western boundary. Thriving villages, saw and grist-mills, manufactories, together with an abundance of horses, cattle, sheep, grain, and every necessary of life enjoyed by a population of 26,000 souls, fully prove the success caused by the persevering industry of the emigrants who were so fortunate as to select this fruitful and healthy locality for their future homes. Much of this prosperity is due to the liberality and excellent arrangements of the Canada Company, who have afforded every facility to their settlers in regard to the payments for their land: I particularly refer to their system of leasing, which affords the best chance possible to the poor emigrant. "This spirited and enterprising" Company's principal tract of land lies nearly in a triangular form, commencing in latitude 43 degrees, and extending about sixty-miles along the coast. In 1824, this incorporated company contracted with Government for this line of country and some others, as well as for a portion of the clergy reserves, comprehending in all about two million acres, payable in fifteen years.* [* M'Gregor's "British America."] In the spring of 1827, a memorable year for Canada, the Company commenced their operations at Guelph, under the superintendence of John Galt, Esq. I had heard a great deal about the fertility of their lands, especially of those in the Huron tract, containing a million of acres in one block, of which I shall hereafter speak more particularly.* As I was enterprising, and fond of an active life, I resolved to go and judge for myself; and as I heard the superintendent was then at Toronto, I determined to call upon him there and collect all the information in my power. [* The territory from which the Huron tract has been selected, was explored previously to the selection being made, and the reports which were received from the parties employed on that mission were of the most satisfactory nature. This tract is bounded on the west by Lake Huron, along which it runs for nearly sixty miles, having within its limits one considerable river, at the mouth of which is a good harbour; another river, which may probably be rendered navigable, and numerous creeks and streamlets, many of which are large enough, and have fall sufficient to drive mills or machinery of any description.--Mac Taggart's "Three Years in Canada."] My first interview with Mr. Galt, the celebrated author of "Laurie Todd," took place at the Old Steam-boat Hotel, in February, 1828. He received me with great kindness, and asked me many particulars of Bush- life, connected with a first settlement. I suppose my answers were satisfactory, for he turned towards me abruptly, and asked me, "If I would like to enter the Canada Company's Service; for," said he, "I want a practical person to take charge of the out-door department in the absence of Mr. Prior, whom I am about to send to the Huron tract with a party of men to clear up and lay off the New-town plot of Goderich. You will have charge of the Company's stores, keep the labour-rolls, and superintend the road-making and bridge-building, and indeed everything connected with the practical part of the settlement." This was just the sort of life I wished; so I closed at once with his offer. No salary was to be named, till I had been three months in the Company's employ. Indeed, I left everything to Mr. Galt, who, I felt certain, would remunerate me according to my deserts. In person, Mr. Galt was, I should think, considerably above six feet in height, and rather of a heavy build; his aspect grave and dignified, and his appearance prepossessing. His disposition was kind and considerate; but at the same time he commanded respect; and I can say with sincerity, I always found him an upright and honourable gentleman. Of Mr. Galt's fitness for the office of superintendent of the Canada Company, it would, perhaps, be considered presumptuous in me to give an opinion. His position was an unfortunate one, and from his first residence in the country till his resignation, there appears to have been a serious misunderstanding between him, the Governor, and the Executive-council, in consequence of which, Galt's character was misrepresented at home as that of a meddling politician and troublesome person. Other charges regarding the wasteful expenditure of money in forming the new settlements were laid before the Directors, and these repeated complaints against him left him no other alternative than to resign his situation. My own opinion is, that Galt was ill-used by the Canadian Government. He says in his "Autobiography," that his whole and sole offence consisted of having accepted a file of the "Colonial Advocate," and shaken hands with the editor, the notorious William Lyon Mackenzie. In those days of ultra-toryism, such an instance of liberality and freedom from party-prejudice was sufficient to excite the displeasure of the Governor and his council. There is no doubt that Galt acted imprudently in this matter, though I fully believe without any intention of opposing the Government. In regard to the Company's affairs, more might be said to his prejudice--not in respect of his integrity, for, I believe him to have been a most honourable man, and incapable of any meanness--but in regard to his management. Although, as the original projector of the Canada Company, he evinced much cleverness, and afterwards displayed considerable judgment in the choice of the best situations for building towns and villages, yet he committed some grievous mistakes. His ideas were generally good; but often not well carried out in detail. His first error was in the selection of persons to fill the various offices belonging to the Company. For, instead of appointing men who had long experience in the country, and who were, therefore, practically qualified to superintend the workmen by their experience of all the requirements of a new settlement, he filled these situations, for the most part, with inexperienced young men, recently arrived from the old country, who, of course, could know nothing of road-making and bridge-building, and were, therefore, incapable of directing a number of workmen. Then, again, most of the hands employed on the Company's works were new settlers, and, of course, knew nothing of chopping, house-building, or clearing land; and yet these men were paid just as much as if they had served a long apprenticeship in the country. If Mr. Galt's appointments had been judicious, there is no doubt, in my mind, that half the outlay would have produced greater results. It was arranged that I should meet Mr. Galt at Toronto, in April, at the commencement of the spring operations. At the appointed time, I again waited upon him, when he ordered me to Guelph, to take charge of the department, as formerly agreed upon between us. He then introduced me to Dr. Dunlop and Mr. Prior, who kindly invited me to take a seat in their waggon, which would leave for Guelph in a few hours. The former gentleman is well known in the literary world, as the author of the "Backwoodsman." During our journey, I found that he deserved his celebrity for good companionship, which was fully borne out on this occasion. He could, indeed, speak well on any subject. He was full of sound information, and overflowed with anecdote--in fact, his way of telling a story was inimitable. He had a fund of wit, which seemed almost inexhaustible. My fellow-travellers left me at Mr. Galt's house, near Burlington Heights, where, after taking some refreshment, I again proceeded on my journey, and ultimately reached Guelph on the afternoon of the second day. The situation of the town I found exceedingly pleasant, and well watered. It was built in an angle, formed by the confluence of the rivers Speed and Eramosa. The town-plot also abounds with copious never-failing springs, of the purest water. I found some twenty or thirty log-houses, about as many shanties, a large frame-tavern building, a store, two blacksmiths' shops, and the walls of two stone-buildings, one of which was intended, when finished, for the company's office. Besides these edifices, Dr. Dunlop and Mr. Prior had each a good house, and there was the Priory, a large log- building, afterwards occupied by the superintendent. This was pretty well, considering that a year only had elapsed since the first tree was felled. Mr. Galt, in his "Autobiography," has given an account of the founding of the town of Guelph,* and how Mr. Prior, Dr. Dunlop, and himself, cut down the first tree--a large sugar-maple, whereupon the Dr. produced a flask of whiskey, and they named and drank success to the new town. This was on St. George's day, April 23rd, 1827. Eighteen months after this, by Mr. Galt's orders, I had the stump of that tree inclosed by a fence, though, I make no doubt, it has long since decayed. The name of the founder will, however, remain,--a better and more enduring memorial. [* "This name was chosen in compliment to the royal family, both because I thought it auspicious in itself, and because I could not recollect that it had ever been before used in all the king's dominions."--Galt's Autobioography.] On my arrival, I drove up to the only tavern in the place, a small log- house, kept by one Philip Jones, an Englishman--or, rather, by his wife--a buxom, bustling body, who was, undoubtedly, the head of the establishment. In answer to my inquiry for lodgings, she courteously informed me that she had neither bed nor blanket, but what was doubly occupied, and, moreover, that she was sure I could not obtain one in town, as every house was full of emigrants; but as the most of her lodgers would leave for the Huron tract on the morrow, she should be able and happy to accommodate me after their departure. With this promise I was obliged to be satisfied. I might, perhaps, have succeeded in obtaining a share of a bed, but as I did not know what population I might gain, or, indeed, what might be the unpleasant results of such an arrangement, I preferred a hay-loft, in which I slept soundly till the break of day. The superintendent and his staff arrived the next morning, when I was duly installed in my office. Mr. Galt's coach-house being unoccupied, I took immediate possession, and converted it into a very respectable store-house and office, till a building was completed for that purpose. I was thus fairly established as an _employe_ in the service of the Canada Company. The township of Guelph contains upwards of forty thousand acres of land, of a fair average quality, well timbered, and well watered. I believe the Company have disposed of all their saleable lots in this township. I was fully employed the whole summer in constructing two bridges, one over the Speed, and the other over the Eramosa branch, and also in opening a good road to each. These bridges were built of cedar logs, and on a plan of my own, which Mr. Galt highly approved. I should, however, have preferred square timber, framed in bents, which, I think, would have been more durable, and better adapted for the stream they were intended to cross. Amongst the men under my charge, I had two Mohawk Indians, both of whom were excellent choppers, and behaved themselves remarkably well. One of them was called Henhawk, and the other William Fish. The Mohawks are more civilized, and make better farmers than the Chippewas, and I think are a finer-looking race of men.* [* Benjamin West, the celebrated American painter, on being shown the Apollo Belvidere, astonished a number of Italian cognoscenti by comparing that _chef d'oeuvre_ of ancient Greek art to a young Mohawk warrior. But the fine proportions of these savage warriors, and their free and graceful action, rendered the remark of this great artist a just and beautiful critique, and of a complimentary not a depreciating character.] My time passed pleasantly enough at Guelph, for I had plenty of work to do, and in all labour there is profit. And what could be better for a healthy, active young man than the employment of assisting in settling a new country? The only drawback to my comfort was the temporary loss of the society of my wife; a pretty, sensible young woman, whose mental and personal charms had, since my union with her, formed the happiness of my life. We cannot, however, have every blessing at once, and I worked on cheerfully in the hope of getting things comfortably round me for my dear girl against the moment when she would join me. Besides the services rendered to the Company, I performed _con amore_ some gratuitous ones for the benefit of the township of Guelph, which will, doubtless, both surprise and astonish my readers. We had no medical man in Guelph for some months after my arrival, so, for want of a better, I was obliged to turn physician and surgeon, and soon became very skilful in bleeding and tooth-drawing, and, as I charged nothing, you may be sure I had plenty of customers. And so well pleased was Dr. Dunlop with my proficiency, that he invariably sent all his patients to me. I remember one time in particular, he came over to my office and inquired for me, when, on the store-porter telling him I had just gone out, he said, "Tell him when he comes back, to take the calomel and jalap down to my house, and treat those Paisley bodies with a dose apiece." "What! all of them, sir?" "Yes, to be sure; they are but just arrived, and have got as fat as pigs on the voyage. Some of their bacon must be taken off, or with this heat we shall have them all sick on our hands. And tell him not to spare the jalap." When I returned and heard the message, I literally obeyed his order by administering forty-two doses of various strengths to the men, women and children, designated by the Doctor as the "Paisley bodies." This wholesale way of medical treatment was in this instance attended with a good effect; for there did not occur a single case of sickness amongst them during the summer. Shortly after this, a medical man, a Mr. W-----, applied for a town-lot and commenced practice. This gentleman was certainly a great oddity. He never had but two patients that I ever heard of, and they both died. The settlers used to call him the "mad doctor," and I believe not without good reason. He built a log-house without any door, his mode of entrance being through a square hole he had cut out of the end of the house about six feet from the ground. I walked over to his place one day to speak to him on some business, and found him very busy in his garden, driving into the ground a great quantity of short sticks. I asked him "what all those sticks were for." "Why you see, sir, I have planted part of my garden with Indian corn, and I am putting sticks down to mark the places where I have planted them." A day or two afterwards I met him wearing his coat turned inside out, the rough seams and red-edging of which had a very curious effect. I inquired "what might be his reason for going about in such a costume?" "Well, you see I call this my morning attire; in the evening I have nothing to do but turn my coat, and, lo! I am dressed; a very capital arrangement, and quite good enough for the Bush. Do not you think so?" "As far as regards economy," I replied, "it may do well enough, and as you do not appear to care about being laughed at, your plan will answer: and who knows but that you may have the pleasure of introducing a new fashion into the colonies?" Amongst other odd characters I had to deal with, was a Mr. W-----, I believe a portrait and miniature painter by profession, who had travelled a good deal in Russia, and understood that language well. He purchased a lot of land from the company on the Waterloo-road, about a mile from the village. Under the ground-plot chosen by him to build on, he found there existed a good quarry of limestone; so he made up his mind to build a stone-house, although he had spent his last dollar, and his profession in a new and poor settlement would avail him very little. However, he went to work, excavating the stone which he had found when digging his cellar, for building the walls of his house: his only assistant in the undertaking was a delicate ladylike young woman, whom he had married in the United States, and brought here as a bride. He treated his unfortunate partner like a slave. She had to mix and carry all the mortar, and help him to raise the stone. I often, on an evening, walked down to see how they were getting on with their job, and was quite astonished to find how well they progressed. But, at the same time, I pitied the poor wife exceedingly, whom the neighbours said he treated very harshly, notwithstanding her conjugal devotion to him. At the end of three months his creditors began to threaten him. His land was still unpaid for, and the walls of his house unfinished. When too late, he counted the cost of completion, and found his best plan was to take a Yankee leave, and clear out, leaving his unfinished home as a legacy to his creditors. How to beat a retreat, and take his goods and chattels with him, without discovery, was a difficult matter. He, however, set his wits to work, and adopted the following plan, which, in theory, looked feasible enough, but, when put in practice, was found not quite so easy as he had anticipated. He knew that the river Speed, which ran at the rear of his lot, after a course of fourteen or fifteen miles, debouched into the Grand River, and was, from thence, navigable for boats to Lake Erie, a distance of some seventy or eighty miles further. He, therefore, conceived the plan of building a small scow,* large enough to hold his wife, himself, and his effects, and silently dropping down with the current, bade adieu to their sylvan retreat, and the great city of Guelph, which, however, he was destined to see again, much sooner than he expected. [* A long-shaped flat-bottomed boat of the same width the entire length, rising gently at each end, built of two-inch plank, and much used on shallow rivers and creeks.] He built his boat close to the river's edge, having, with the assistance of his wife, carried the planks down for that purpose. I suppose he took a lesson from Robinson Crusoe, not to build his scow too far from the water. Everything being ready, the boat was launched and freighted, our hero in the stern, with steering paddle in hand, and his patient _compagnon de voyage_ acting, as bowman. The Speed is a shallow, swift, running stream, seldom exceeding three feet in depth during the dry season. For the first mile they got on pretty well, till they came to a jam of drift wood; over this with great difficulty they hauled their scow; every few yards fresh obstructions occurred in the shape of snags, fallen trees, and drift wood, which caused them to upset twice before they had accomplished the second mile, till at last an extensive jam across the river many yards in length, put a complete barrier to their further advance. Wet and weary, half the day gone, and no chance of proceeding down the stream, they determined to retrace their course. This was not easy to accomplish, for the current was too swift to paddle against; so, tying a short piece of rope to the stem of the scow, he ordered his unfortunate wife to take the water and tow the boat, whilst he sat in state in the stern assisting with his paddle. In the evening, I was walking out with my wife; and as we were passing I thought we would look in and see how their work progressed, when to my astonishment I saw Mrs. W----- sitting on a stone, weeping bitterly. I perceived at once that something extraordinary had occurred, for her dress was sadly torn and saturated with wet. Upon making an inquiry respecting her appearance, and the causes of her grief, she told me the sad story I have just related, adding, that they had only just got back from their expedition, and that all her clothes, bed, and blankets were wringing wet. My wife, who had lately joined me, and was of a most kind disposition, always ready to help those in distress, offered her an asylum for a few days, and a change of apparel, which she thankfully accepted. Her brutal husband cleared out the next day, and she joined him the week following. Some time afterwards, I was told that Mrs. W----- had committed suicide, goaded, doubtless, to desperation by the ill usage of her partner, and the hardships she had to endure. As this, however, is only hearsay, I will not vouch for its truth; though from my knowledge of the parties I am afraid it was only too true. CHAPTER XVI. PORCUPINE-CATCHING. -- HANDSOME BEHAVIOUR OF MR. GALT. -- OWLINGALE. -- INTRODUCTION TO THE SON OF THE CELEBRATED INDIAN CHIEF, BRANDT. -- EXPEDITION TO WILMOT. -- SHAM WOLVES. -- NIGHT IN A BARN WITH DR. DUNLOP. -- THE DOCTOR AND HIS SNUFF-BOX. -- HIS BATH IN THE NITH. -- LOUIS XVIII. AND HIS TABATIERE. -- CAMP IN THE WOODS. -- RETURN TO GUELPH. ONE day, being out in the woods with an emigrant, examining a lot of land, I was attracted by the barking of my dog, who had treed some animal, which, upon coming up, I discovered was a porcupine. We cut down the tree, a small beech, in which he had taken refuge, and secured him alive. I did not notice my dog till I got home, when I found his mouth was full of quills, which the porcupine, in self-defence, had darted into him. The manner in which they accomplish this is, by striking the object that offends them with their tail, when the outside points of the quills, being finely barbed, if inserted ever so slightly, retain their hold, and are easily detached from the porcupine without pain. I once lost a fine Irish greyhound, who was stuck full of quills in this way, although I pulled out hundreds of them from his mouth, head, and different parts of his body, with a pair of pincers. In fact, some of these barbs had worked into him nearly their whole length, so that I had a difficulty in getting hold of the end of the quills to extract them; and I have no doubt, as the dog died, that many of them had completely buried themselves in some vital part, and caused his death. I took home my prize, and put it into a barrel in a dark corner of the store, which was half full of nails. A few minutes afterwards, Dr. Dunlop, as he often did, came in to see me, and drink a glass of cider, of which I had at that time some of excellent quality in bottle. The Doctor, as he said, used to "improve" it, making what he called, "a stone-fence," by inserting a small _soupcon_ of brandy from a pocket- pistol, which he was too much in the habit of carrying about with him in hot weather. "Now," said I, "Doctor, I know you like a bit of fun. When Fielding, the porter, comes in, ask him to go to that barrel in the corner and fetch you a nail; for I have got a live porcupine in it that I have just brought home from the woods." The Doctor was mightily tickled with the notion; so, as soon as poor Fielding made his appearance, he sent him off to the barrel. Quite unsuspiciously the man put in his hand for the nail, and as quickly drew it out again, with the addition of some half a score quills sticking to his fingers, to the no small delight of the Doctor, who greatly enjoyed Fielding's consternation, for the porter thought the devil himself was in the tub. Every one who came into the store during the afternoon was served the same trick by the Doctor, and it was certainly amusing to watch their countenances and hear their remarks, those who showed the most anger being of course the most laughed at for their pains. Shortly after, a Mr. Smith, an accountant, was sent out by the directors to examine the accounts, and report on the state of the Company's affairs in the colony. A few days after his arrival, he went round with the superintendent, and examined the works that had been completed, and those in progress. Mr. Galt and the accountant both expressed themselves much pleased with what I had done, especially with the bridge connecting the clergy-block (now called the township of Puslinch) with the town of Guelph. In the afternoon, Mr. Smith called upon me and said he was authorized by the superintendent to arrange with me as to the amount of salary I was to receive. He then informed me the amount that Mr. Galt had instructed him to offer me--a liberal income, and the use of a house rent-free, desiring him at the same time to express his satisfaction at the manner in which I had conducted the operations since my engagement with the Company, in which, he said, from what he had seen, he fully concurred. As this result was entirely unsolicited by me, and as it was generally understood that the accountant had been sent out partly as a check on the superintendent, to prevent extravagant expenditure, I took this as a compliment paid by both to my abilities and integrity. Several of the clerks had light neatly-made boats, in which we used to make excursions up the Speed for the purpose of trout-fishing. I think, without exception, this stream is the best for that species of fish I ever saw. I have frequently caught a pailful of these delicious trout in the space of two or three hours. For my own part, I found a small garden-worm the best bait; but one of our clerks, a Mr. Hodgett, was skilful with the fly, and consequently used to catch his fish in a more scientific manner. My native county, Suffolk, with the exception of that part watered by the Waveney, is not famed for its fly-fishing: therefore I was no adept in the gentle art, but in ground-bait angling I consider myself no contemptible performer. The small streams and creeks are so overarched with trees in Canada, that it is almost impossible, except in odd spots, to make a cast with the fly without endangering your tackle. The speckled trout in the river Speed vary in size from four ounces to a pound and a half, though it is seldom that one of the latter size is captured. Guelph I consider to be remarkably healthy, and for an inland town very prettily situated. I think, however, that the town-plot was laid out on too large a scale--especially the market-place, which is large enough for a city containing fifty thousand inhabitants. I have not been there since 1832. It has since become the assize-town for the Wellington district, and consequently has greatly increased both in size and population. Although I had been several months a resident in Guelph, I had neither seen nor heard a clergyman of the Established Church. Why are we always the last to send labourers into the vineyard? No sooner does a small village, composed of a mill, a black-smith's shop, and a few houses, spring up in the woods, than you find a Presbyterian, Methodist, or Baptist Church--or perhaps all three--settled there immediately. No wonder, then, that our church is losing ground when so little energy is displayed either in building churches or sending active and zealous men to preach the gospel. The first person I heard preach in Guelph was a tailor, who had made a professional visit to the city, and who had the reputation of being considered a very eloquent man. Due notice having been given, a large congregation assembled to hear Mr. H-----, who, to do him justice, was eloquent enough, though his sermon was all in his own praise from beginning to end. He said that "he had once been a great infidel and an evil liver, but now he was converted, and was as good as he formerly had been wicked; and be hoped that all his hearers would take example from him and do as he had done--forsake the crooked paths and steadfastly follow the straight." After this autobiographical discourse was at length over, and a brother snip invited him to dinner, I was also honoured with an invitation, which my curiosity induced me to accept. I found that the party consisted of a magistrate and his wife, from E-----, the mad Doctor, and Mr. Y-----, one of the Company's clerks. Our host-tailor, No. 1, took the head of the table; the preacher, tailor No. 2, sat at the foot. The dinner itself was quite a professional spread, and consisted of a fine fat roast goose at the top, and another at the bottom--a large dish of cabbage in the centre, and a plate of hard dumplings on each side. Mr. Y-----, who sat opposite, gave me such a comical look when the second goose made its appearance, that I found it impossible to suppress my risibility, which, unfortunately for me, exploded just as the preacher--who, of course, mentally consigned me to perdition--commenced a long grace; but if the Governor-General himself had been present, I do not think I could have restrained my inclination to laugh. The dinner was certainly excellent of its kind; and in a new settlement where nothing but salt pork and beef could be obtained, I might with truth say, that it was a great treat. After the cloth was removed, it was proposed by the magistrate's lady, that the company should sing a hymn, upon which the mad Doctor, who was considered the most pious, as well as the most scientific, singer of the company, sang like an owlingale, Pope's celebrated lines:-- "Vital spark of heavenly flame, Quit, O quit; this mortal frame. I am ashamed to say that I was obliged to stuff my handkerchief into my mouth to keep from laughing outright; and no wonder, for I never heard such an insane screeching in all my life. In the course of the summer, Mr. Buchanan, the British Consul, visited Guelph, when the superintendent gave a public dinner at the Priory, to which I had the honour of an invitation. Amongst other guests was John Brandt, the chief of the Mohawks, and son of the celebrated chief whom Campbell the poet, in his "Gertrude of Wyoming," has stigmatized as-- "The monster, Brandt, With all his howling, desolating band." And again-- "Accursed Brandt! he left of all my tribe, Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth." It is said that John Brandt was very angry when these lines were pointed out to him.* [* Campbell subsequently made an apology to him.] On his health being drunk, he acknowledged the courtesy in a short but eloquent speech. He was not handsome, though rather a fine-looking man. I believe he died of cholera in 1832. One day, Dr. Dunlop came to my house, and informed me that I was to accompany him on an expedition to the township of Wilmot, joining the Huron tract, to examine the site, and make a report of the probable cost of building a bridge over the river Nith--or "Smith's Creek," as it was then called--one of the tributaries of the Grand River. "The accountant," he said, "has taken it into his head that he will accompany us; and, as he has never been in the Bush before, won't we put him through his facings before he gets back? that is all. Mind, and keep your eye on me. When I am ready to play him off, I will give the signal to you." "Well, Doctor," said I, "if you will take the blame, I have no objection to the fun; but remember! I am a very young man, and if Mr. Smith should complain to the Company--" "Oh, never fear," was his reply, "for I will make it all right with Galt, if he do. In the meantime, order my man to saddle the horses. Let the Cockney have the roan-mare. You can take your own pony; and do not forget to tell Hinds to bring the brandy. Should we have to camp out all-night, a small _soupcon_ of the creature will do us no harm." Everything being in readiness, we started about two o'clock, P.M. Our route lay through the new settlement of Guelph and the fine townships of Upper and Lower Waterloo. This tract of land was originally bought and settled by a company of Dutch Pennsylvanians, upwards of fifty years ago. The Grand River, or Ouse, intersects these townships--a fine stream, spanned by several substantial bridges. This part of the country is densely populated and very fertile. The soil, for the most part, is a light rich loam. As soon as we had crossed the open country, we entered a narrow bush- road, only just wide enough for two persons to ride abreast. It must be remembered that Smith was a very bad rider, and looked as if he had never been on horse-back before; for every time he rose in his saddle you could see his horse's head under him. The Doctor now gave me the wink to fall into the rear; then riding up abreast of Smith, he commenced operations by slyly sticking his spur into the roan mare, exclaiming at the same time, "Come, man, if we don't push on a little, we shall not reach Blenheim to-night." As soon as the roan mare felt the spur, off she went at a rattling pace, the Dr. keeping close along-side, and applying the spur whenever he could get a chance. At first, Smith tried hard to pull in the mare; then he shouted to the Doctor to stop her; instead of which, the spur was only applied the sharper. At last, quite frightened, he seized the mane with both his hands. And then commenced a neck-and-neck race for nearly two miles--myself and the Doctor's man, John Hinds, bringing up the rear, and shouting with laughter. Smith was so frightened, and so intent on stopping his run-away steed, that he never suspected his persecutor who, looking quite grave, said, "He never remembered his roan running off in that extraordinary manner before; but," he added with a grin, "I suspect, Smith, she knew you were a Cockney." After this exploit, we went on soberly enough, until we entered the township of Blenheim. We had still some distance to travel through a dense forest, before we should reach Springer's--a farm-house where we intended to stop all night, and where the Doctor kept a store of good things, under the charge of Mrs. Springer; for this was always his halting-place, on his various journeys to Goderich. Darkness fell as we entered the Blenheim woods, and now the Doctor took the opportunity of asking me, "If I thought that I could howl?" I expressed confidence in my abilities that way. The Doctor then said, "Second any move of mine for pushing you on to Springer's. But mind," continued he, "you are to stop within half a mile of his clearing; and when you hear us coming, you must howl with all your might, and leave the rest to me." After a while, when it was quite dark, so that we could scarcely see our horses' heads, the Doctor proposed that I should take Hinds, and "ride on as hard as we could, and tell Mrs. Springer to have supper ready for us; and," said he, "let the old man tap the whiskey I forwarded to his house last week. We will follow you at our leisure; for my friend is not used to travel after dark on such roads as these." We accordingly rode on smartly, till we could perceive a slight glimmering of light through the trees, which we knew to be Springer's clearing. We then halted, one on each side of the road, but entirely concealed from view by the thick underbrush. As soon as we heard the party coming, we set up a most unearthly yell, which made the woods fairly ring again. We could hear the Doctor cry out, "The wolves! the wolves! ride for your life, man," and he then galloped off in the direction from which they had just come. Poor Smith shouted after him at the top of his voice, imploring the Doctor, for God's sake, not to leave him. "Oh Lord!" we heard him say, as he rode after the Doctor, "I shall surely be devoured by the ravenous wretches. Help--help! Doctor--stop!" and such like piteous ejaculations. The Doctor, who had ridden ahead, as soon as he heard his victim approach, commenced in the same key as we had done before, and a dismal howling we all made. Fear now compelled poor Smith to wheel the mare round and ride back, whereupon we again greeted him with a second edition, even--if that were possible--more diabolical than the first, which terminated the fun sooner than we expected; for, losing all presence of mind, he let his steed get off the track into the woods, and, consequently, he was swept off by the branches. We heard him fall and roar for help, which we left the Doctor to administer, and made the best of our way to Springer's, where, half an hour after, we were joined by our fellow-travellers, one of whom had scarcely recovered from his fright, and still looked as pale as a ghost. Two or three glasses of whiskey-punch, however, soon restored him to his natural complexion. I do not know if he ever found out the trick we had so successfully played him; but if he did, he kept it to himself, rightly judging that if the story got wind he would never hear the last of it. Springer had only one spare bed, which we resigned in favour of the accountant, as some little compensation for the fright he had sustained. The Doctor and I took possession of the barn, where we found plenty of fresh hay, which we infinitely preferred to the spare bed and its familiars. There we slept delightfully, till a chorus of cocks (or _roosters_, as the more delicate Americans would call them) awakened us from our repose, to the wrathful indignation of Dunlop, who anathematized them for "an unmusical ornithological set of fiends." We made an early breakfast off fried sausages, and the never-failing ham and eggs, and were soon again in the saddle. We took the nearest road to Plum Creek, where we left our horses, and proceeded for the remaining four miles on foot, through a magnificent forest. We were now in that part of the township of Wilmot belonging to the Canada Company, which did not then contain a single farm, but has been since completely settled. At length, we came to a narrow valley, some fifty or sixty feet below the level of the country through which we had been travelling, in the centre of which flowed the Nith, sparkling in the sun: the wild grapes hanging in rich festoons from tree to tree, gave an air of rural beauty to the scene. For the convenience of foot- passengers, some good Samaritan had felled a tree directly across the stream, which at that place was not more than fifty feet wide. The current was swift, though not more than four or five feet deep. Here a small misfortune happened to the Doctor, who was an inveterate snuff-taker, and carried a large box he called a coffin--I presume from its resemblance to that dreary receptacle. While in the act of crossing the temporary bridge, and at the same time regaling his olfactory nerves with a pinch of the best Irish, his famous coffin slipped from his grasp and floated away majestically down the swift-flowing waters of the sylvan Nith. The Doctor was a man of decision: he hesitated not even for a moment, but pitched himself headlong into the stream, from which he quickly emerged with his recovered treasure. It is but justice to my friend Dunlop, to remind the reader that his extravagant affection for his snuff-box is not without a parallel in history, since Louis XVIII has recorded with his own royal hand an attachment to his _tabatiere_, equally eccentric and misplaced. Scarcely had this Prince escaped three miles from Paris and its democrats, when, on putting his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, in order to take a consoling pinch, he missed his snuff-box, which, in his hurry, he had left upon his toilette, at the discretion of the mob. "Mon Dieu, ma tabatiere!" was his horrified exclamation, as he deliberated for a moment upon a misfortune so overwhelming. To go back to Paris was only to risk his life, while to proceed on his journey was to lose his snuff-box. His philo-tabatierishness triumphed: he returned, snatched up his beloved box, and made it the companion of his flight; and, in all his vicissitudes, from exile to a throne, he considered the possession of his favourite _tabatiere_ as his principal consolation. The Doctor was no less rash than the French monarch, and in recovering his _tabatiere_ equally fortunate. A good fire and some brandy soon made the Doctor all right again, after his cold bath in the Nith. We now prepared our camp for the night: this we had no trouble in doing, for we found plenty of poles and bark, which had been used by the labourers, whilst cutting out the road to the Huron tract. The Doctor's man had brought a bundle of blankets and an axe, from Springer's, and I, like Dalgetty, carried the provender. While Hinds was cooking the supper, I prepared our bed, by breaking a quantity of fine hemlock-brush to thatch the bottom of the camp, to keep us from the damp ground, which it did quite effectually. I have camped out, I dare say, hundreds of times, both in winter and summer; and I never caught cold yet. I recommend, from experience, a hemlock- bed, and hemlock-tea, with a dash of whiskey in it, merely to assist the flavour, as the best preventive. The Doctor was in first-rate humour, and seemed determined to make a night of it; and even the Cockney appeared to enjoy himself amazingly. I knew, by the wicked eye of the Doctor, that he was bent on mischief. Hinds was kept busy after supper in making brandy-punch, the Doctor keeping us in a roar of laughter with his amusing anecdotes. I knew by the long Latin quotations that Smith indulged in, that he was fast verging on intoxication. For my part, tired and drowsy, I soon fell into a state of pleasing forgetfulness, leaving my two companions in the middle of some learned discussion, the subject of which I have long forgotten. In the morning we examined the proposed site for building the bridge, which we found presented no unusual difficulties. I have since been informed that excellent mills and a thriving village now occupy the very spot where we bivouacked on this memorable occasion. At Plum Creek we again resumed our horses, and, at the village of Galt* we parted company. The Doctor and his man went on to Flamborough+ West; whilst Smith and I returned to Guelph, which we reached a short time after dark, without inflicting on him any more adventures. [* Galt is a thriving town, situated on the west bank of the Grand River, in the township of Dumfries. The town-plot originally belonged to the Honourable William Dixon, who gave it that name in compliment to the superintendent of the Canada Company. + One of the prettiest situations in Canada West, commanding a fine prospect of Ancaster and the surrounding country; and also the seat of the Hon. James Crooks.] CHAPTER XVII. A NEW WAY OF KEEPING A BIRTHDAY. -- LOST IN THE WOODS. -- KINDNESS OF MR. GALT. -- ADVICE TO NEW SETTLERS. -- UNEXPECTED RETIREMENT OF MR. GALT. -- I ACCOMPANY HIM TO THE LANDING-PLACE. -- RECEIVE ORDERS TO LEAVE GUELPH FOR GODERICH. -- WHIRLWINDS AT GUELPH AND DOURO. THE 6th of November was my birthday, so I determined to give myself a holiday, and go out _still-hunting_. I had been told by some of the workmen that deer were very plentiful in the Clergy-block, so I started early in the morning without waiting for my regular breakfast, merely taking a biscuit, as I was too eager for the sport to have much appetite; besides, I intended to be home to an early dinner. The sky was overcast, and a few flakes of snow were falling, but I did not dislike these signs; for I prefer a little dampness on the leaves, which causes less noise from the tread--an important point to the hunter; for when the leaves are crisp and dry, it is useless to attempt approaching the deer, who are sure to hear you long before you get within range. I considered myself a tolerably good woodsman, and was, therefore, not much afraid of being lost; but I reckoned without my host in this instance. After crossing the river, I proceeded for some distance along a hard-wood ridge, till I came to a thicket of brush-wood, out of which sprang three fine deer, a buck and two does. I fired at the buck as he scampered off, and had the satisfaction of finding blood on the track, which I followed for more than two miles. But I lost him at last in the middle of a cedar-swamp, owing to the quantity of soft snow, which was by this time falling heavily. I, therefore, thought it best to return home, and put off my hunt to a more propitious day. On emerging from the swamp, which I did on the wrong side--for I had no sun to guide me--I saw a fine doe within fifty yards of me, feeding on the side of a hill. I thought I was sure of this one at any rate; but, in this also, I was woefully disappointed; for the powder in the pan of the lock had got damp by the wet snow, and only flashed in the pan. My gun had the old flint-lock, percussion-caps being then hardly known in the colonies. My second disappointment decided me to return home. This, however, was sooner said than done; for, after walking for more than two hours, I found I had lost my way, a conclusion as to which there could be no mistake. At first, I thought it would be best to take my back-track, but I found this would not answer; for the snow was melting as fast as it fell. I could not even avail myself of the common indications for finding my way, because the under-brush was still loaded with snow, so that it was quite impossible to see fifty yards in any direction. Whilst I was debating what I had best do to extricate myself from this dilemma, I came upon a tolerably fresh blazed line, which I suspected was the boundary between the townships of Guelph and the Clergy- reserve-block of Puslinch. In this idea I was perfectly right; but the question now with me was, in which direction I should follow the line. After considering for some time, as ill-luck would have it, I took the wrong route, and, having walked at least three miles, came to the end of the blaze, where I found a surveyor's post, on which was legibly written, in red chalk, on each side, the names of the four townships, of which it was the corner-post; viz. Guelph, Puslinch, Nasagiweya, and Eramosa; and lower down on the post, "_seven miles and a half to Guelph_." I had, therefore, nothing for it, but to turn back on the line and retrace my steps. This I did in a smart run, for I saw the shades of night fast gathering around me. In less than an hour I had passed the place where I first found the blaze, but soon after came to a windfall,* where I found it impossible to follow the line through. I was, therefore, compelled to leave the blaze--my only sure guide--which, however, I still hoped to re-find, by keeping round the edge of the windfall, till I again struck the line. Just before dark, I saw a partridge sitting on a log, I believe. I fresh primed, and snapped half a dozen times at him, without effect, but the gun had got so wet, that at last I gave it up as a bad job; though I should have liked him very much for my supper, for which I had a ravenous appetite. [* A heap of great trees blown down by the wind.] Presently, I came to a nice little spring creek running under some fine shady cedars. The ground looked dry and mossy; and as it was nearly dark, I thought the best thing I could do was to camp for the night, for I knew it was impossible to find my way after dark. I immediately collected a large quantity of dry balsam-fir, which lay about in great profusion, and chose a cluster of spreading cedars for my camp. After this, I piled a large heap of wood against one of the trees; and rubbing some dry cedar-bark quite fine, put it under my wood. In order to light my fire, I tore up a piece of a cotton handkerchief, which I laid over the pan of my gun, newly primed. Having fired the cotton in this manner, I enclosed it in the cedar-bark, keeping up the flame--not by using that primitive bellows, my mouth--but, by waving the bark to and fro, after the method used by the Indians. Thus, I soon had a large cheerful fire, which I much needed, for I was thoroughly wet. My first care was to dry my gun and reload it, in case of wolves. Whilst I was busy doing this, I heard a shot, and then another; but the gunners were a long way off, as I knew by the sound--certainly not less than three miles; and as I was quite aware it was useless for me to attempt to make my way out, I contented myself with firing my gun in answer to their shots, which, not being repeated, I also ceased firing, though I had no doubt my neighbours were searching for me, but not near enough to find me out. However, I discovered the direction in which Guelph lay, by the sound of their volleys, so I did not despair, as I felt sure of being able to regain my home in the morning. The snow soon ceased to fall, and the night came out fine and clear, though rather sharp. I had a famous fire, and slept tolerably well, though awaking occasionally with the cold; when I would replenish the fire and turn my chilled side to the blaze, by which means I managed to pass the night as well as I could expect under the circumstances, considering, too, that I had eaten nothing from six o'clock the previous morning. By day-break, I was on my march in the direction in which I supposed Guelph to lie. The sun rose clear and bright, which enabled me to make a true course in half an hour; for I began to recognize ridges I had before traversed in former hunting excursions; and was soon confirmed in this opinion, by the firing of guns and blowing of horns in the direction I was going. In a few minutes, I heard two men in conversation, one of whom was a native of Somersetshire, living close to me. I stepped behind a large tree, directly in their path, when I heard my neighbour say to his companion--"This is the way he generally takes; I will warrant we shall find he." At that instant, I fired my gun close to them, which made them start with surprise. They then informed me that Mr. Galt had sent out all the workmen in search of me. This I was well-aware of, from the continual volleys which rang in all directions. We were soon out on the main-road leading to the bridge, where I found more than fifty of the inhabitants looking for me. This birthday hunting excursion turned out anything but a frolic; for the result was, twenty-six hours' starvation and the loss of a fine buck; besides my being hungry, weary, and stiff, from sleeping all night in the woods. Moreover, in common gratitude, I was bound to treat my neighbours and the workmen sent to look for me, and the treat cost me five gallons of whiskey. To add to this chapter of accidents, two of the party who turned out to hunt for me in the woods, lost themselves, and spent the night in as disagreeable a manner as I had myself done. I would advise all new settlers to provide themselves with a pocket- compass, which can be procured for a few shillings. This should be suspended round the neck by a ribbon, in the same manner as a watch-- and I need not add that in the Bush it is of infinitely more use. My employments in the Company's service often obliged me to leave home and take long journeys--fatiguing enough, indeed, they often were. But youth is the season of enterprise, and always have accustomed myself to look upon the bright side of everything, leaving to the grumblers the reverse of the picture, upon which I fear they are only too fond of dwelling. But I am sure a cheerful spirit is the best assistant in carrying a settler through every difficultly. Early in the spring of 1829, I made a tour of the Newcastle district, selling land and receiving payments for the Company. Whilst so employed, I received a letter from the superintendent, informing me of his resignation, and appointing me to meet him in Toronto with what money I had collected. I was very sorry to hear of Mr. Galt's retirement. He had always acted in a kind and liberal manner towards me; and, indeed, when he left the Company, I considered that I had lost a true and affectionate friend. I could not help, therefore, noticing with regret that, although most of the clerks belonging to the office were at that time in Toronto, only Dr. Dunlop, Mr. Reid* [* Mr. Galt's friend and ornate secretary.] and myself accompanied Mr. Galt to the landing-place to see him depart and cry "God speed!" But this is the way of the world. Those who should be most grateful when the hour of adversity dawns on their benefactor, are often the first to desert him. On the same day the Doctor introduced me to one of our new Commissioners, Thomas Mercer Jones, Esq., a fine gentlemanly-looking person. The other Commissioner was the Hon. William Allen. These gentlemen were appointed by the directors to supersede Mr. Galt in the direction of the Company's affairs in Canada. On my return to Guelph, I received an intimation that I must prepare to take up my residence in Goderich, as my services in future would be required in the Huron tract. A few days before my departure, I witnessed the most appalling land tornado (if so I may term it), I ever saw in my life. As this is a phenomenon seldom if ever witnessed in England, I think a particular description may possibly interest those readers who are unaccustomed to such eccentricities of Nature. In my hunting excursions and rambles through the Upper Canadian forests, I had frequently met with extensive windfalls; and observed with some surprise that the fallen trees appeared to have been twisted off at the stumps, for they lay strewn in a succession of circles. I also remarked, that these windfalls were generally narrow, and had the appearance of a wide road slashed through the forest. From observations made at the time, and since confirmed, I have no doubt Colonel Reid's theory of storms is a correct one, viz.:--"That all windstorms move in a circular direction, and the nearer the centre, the more violent the wind." Having seen the effects of several similar hurricanes since my residence in Canada West, I shall describe one which happened in the township of Guelph, during the early part of the summer of 1829. The weather, for the season of the year (May) had been hot and sultry, with scarcely a breath of wind stirring. I had heard distant thunder from an early hour of the morning, which from the eastward is rather an unusual occurrence. About ten A.M. the sky had a most singular, I may say, a most awful appearance; presenting to the view a vast arch of rolling blackness, which seemed to gather strength and density as it approached the zenith. All at once the clouds began to work round in circles, as if chasing one another through the air. Suddenly, the dark arch of clouds appeared to break up into detached masses, whirling and eddying through each other in dreadful commotion. The forked lightning was incessant, accompanied by heavy thunder. In a short space the clouds seemed to converge to a point, which approached very near the earth, still whirling with great rapidity directly under this point; and apparently from the midst of the woods arose a black column in the shape of a cone, which instantly joined itself to the depending cloud: the sight was now grand and awful in the extreme. Let any one picture to the imagination a vast column of smoke of inky blackness reaching from earth to heaven, gyrating with fearful velocity; bright lightnings issuing from the vortex--the roar of the thunder--the rushing of the blast--the crashing of timber--the limbs of trees, leaves and rubbish, mingled with clouds of dust, whirling through the air--a faint idea is then given of the scene. "Through all the sky arise outrageous storms, And death stands threatening in a thousand forms; Clouds charged with loud destruction drown the day, And airy demons in wild whirlwinds play; Thick thunder-claps, and lightnings' vivid glare Disturb the sky, and trouble all the air." I had ample time for observation as the hurricane commenced its desolating course about two miles from the town, through the centre of which it took its way, passing within fifty yards of the spot where a number of persons and myself were standing watching its fearful progress. As the tornado approached, the trees seemed to fall like a pack of cards before its irresistible current. After passing through the clearing made around the town, the force of the wind gradually abated, and in a few minutes died away entirely. As soon as the storm was over, I went to see what damage it had done. From the point where I first observed the black column to rise from the woods and join the cloud, the trees were twisted in every direction. A belt of timber had been levelled to the ground about two miles in length, and about one hundred yards in breadth: at the entrance of the town it crossed the river Speed, and up-rooted about six acres of wood which had been thinned out and left by Mr. Galt as an ornament to his house. The Eremosa road was completely blocked up for nearly half a mile, in the wildest confusion possible. In its progress through the town, it unroofed several houses, levelled the fences to the ground, and entirely demolished a frame-barn: windows were dashed in, and in one instance the floor of a log-house was carried up through the roof. Some hair-breadth escapes occurred, but, luckily, no lives were lost. About twelve years since, a storm of this kind occurred in the north part of the township of Douro, though of less magnitude. I heard an intelligent settler who resided some years in the township of Madoc state that, during his residence there, a similar hurricane to the one I have described, but of a more awful character, passed through a part of Marmora and Madoc, which had been traced in a north-easterly direction upwards of forty miles into the unsurveyed lands, the uniform width of which appeared to be upwards of three quarters of a mile. It appears very evident that storms of this description have not been unfrequent in the wooded regions of Canada; and it becomes a matter of interesting consideration, whether the clearing of our immense forests will not, in a great measure, remove the cause of these phenomena. Dark, heavy clouds were gathering in the west, Wrapping the forest in funereal gloom; Onward they roll'd and rear'd each livid crest, Like death's murk shadows frowning o'er earth's tomb: From out the inky womb of that deep night Burst livid flashes of electric flame: Whirling and circling with terrific might, In wild confusion on the tempest came. Nature, awakening from her still repose, Shudders responsive to the whirlwind's shock Feels at her mighty heart convulsive throes; Her groaning forests to earth's bosom rock. But, hark! what means that hollow rushing sound, That breaks the sudden stillness of the morn? Red forked lightnings fiercely glare around: What crashing thunders on the winds are borne! And see yon spiral column, black as night, Rearing triumphantly its wreathing form; Ruin's abroad, and through the murky light, Drear desolation marks the spirit of the storm. * * * * * * How changed the scene; the awful tempest's o'er; From dread array and elemental war The lightning's flash hath ceased, the thunder's roar-- The glorious sun resumes his golden car.* [* My description of this whirlwind, and the accompanying lines, have already appeared in the "Victoria Magazine," published in Canada West, under the signature of "Pioneer."] CHAPTER XVIII. THE HURON TRACT. -- JOURNAL OF DR. DUNLOP. -- HIS HARDSHIPS. -- I LEAVE GUELPH FOR GODERICH. -- WANT OF ACCOMODATION. -- CURIOUS SUPPER. -- REMARKABLE TREES. -- THE BEVERLY OAK. -- NOBLE BUTTER-WOOD TREES. -- GODERICH. -- FINE WHEAT CROP. -- PURCHASE A LOG-HOUSE. -- CONSTRUCTION OF A RAFT. I HAD always wished to go to the Huron tract, whose fine lake, noble forests, and productive soil, have made it a source of wealth to many a settler. The climate too, was mild, and I had heard a great deal about it from my gifted and facetious friend Dr. Dunlop, whose services in exploring that part of their possessions were not only useful but inestimable to the Company, and, in fact, to emigration in general. "Dr. Dunlop, the Warden of the Company's Woods and Forests, surveyed the great Huron tract in the summer of 1827, assisted by the Chief of the Mohawk nation, and Messrs. Sproat and MacDonald. They penetrated the huge untravelled wilderness in all directions, until they came out on the shores of the Huron, having experienced and withstood every privation that wanderers can possibly be subject to in such places."* [* Mac Taggart's "Three Years in Canada."] The Doctor himself has given a very accurate account of the valuable resources of the Huron tract. He says in his journal--"I have already adverted to its nature and fertility, and think I may be justified in adding, such is the general excellence of the land, that if ordinary care can be taken to give each lot no more than its own share of any small swamp in its vicinity, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find two hundred acres together in the whole territory, that would make a bad farm. Although the land may be capable of raising any kind of produce usual in that country, yet some spots are more particularly advantageous for particular crops. The black ash-swales (a kind of swamp) make the best ground for hemp; as by the scourging effect of two or three crops, the ground will be made more fit for the raising of wheat, for which, in the original state, it is too strong. The rich meadows by the side of the rivers, (more especially such as are annually overflowed,) are ready without farther preparation, for tobacco, hemp, and flax. The lower meadows, and meadows adjoining Beaver dams, which are abundant, produce at this moment enormous quantities of natural hay and pasture; and the rest of the land, for the production of potatoes, Indian corn, wheat, and other grain, is at least equal, if not superior, to any other land in the Canadas. Independent of the swamps, the timber on the land is very soon described. "The sugar-maple is the principal growth, and the size and height which it, as well as other trees, attains, sufficiently evince the strength and power of the soil. Next to this come the beech, elm, and bass-wood, in various proportions. In some instances, the beech and elm predominate over the maple, but this is rare. Near the streams the hemlock is found; and interspersed through the whole is the cherry, butter-nut, the different species of oak, and the birch."* [* Mac Taggart's "Journal of Dr. Dunlop."] In exploring this, then unknown, wilderness, Dr. Dunlop encountered many difficulties, and was more than once in danger of starvation-- though an Indian Mohawk Chief shared his risks and perils.* [* Mac Taggart's "Journal of Dr. Dunlop."] As he told a story admirably well, I was delighted to hear him discuss his peregrinations over a glass of brandy-punch, of which he was very fond. Whatever might have been his feelings at the time, he only made a joke of his trials at the period in which he related them to me. I should have experienced some regret in quitting Guelph, if the society had been more to my taste. The only persons of education in that town were, in fact, the Company's officers, many of whom I might reasonably expect to meet again at Goderich. Of course, I found some exceptions, but the average was not in favour of Guelph. Besides, the water was an attraction to me, as my Suffolk home was within a short distance of the German Ocean. Brought up so near a sea-port, my natural inclinations made me dislike an inland situation; and if I were not going to have a sea-side residence, at least the shores of the mighty Huron Lake came the nearest to it in my estimation. I left Guelph early in June with Mr. Prior, the Company's agent at Goderich. Our road after leaving Springer's in Blenheim lay through the township of Wilmot to the southern boundary of the Huron tract, and from thence nearly in a straight line to the town of Goderich at the mouth of the river Maitland, on Lake Huron, on our route for a distance of nearly seventy miles, being bounded on the east by the townships of North Easthope, Ellice, Logan, McKillop, Hullett, and the east part of Goderich to the west, by South Easthope, Downie, Fullarton, Hibbert, Tucker Smith, and the west part of Goderich. This road was a mere sleigh-track through the woods, newly cut out, and rarely exceeding twelve feet in width. At this time we saw only three log-cabins during the whole way, these being about twenty miles apart from each other. These three were kept by Dutch or German emigrants, who supplied travellers with whiskey and provisions--when they had any- -which was not always the case. Indeed, I can testify, to my sorrow, to the uncertainty of finding a decent table provided for guests by these foreigners; for I once had to stop at old Sebach's, the centre house, for the night, and being tired by a long day's march through the snow, I had calculated on making a capital supper. Not that I expected anything better than tea, fried pork and bread and butter, to which, hungry as I was, I should no doubt have done ample justice. Judge, then, of my astonishment and disappointment, when mine hostess placed before me a piece of dirty-looking Indian meal-bread, and a large cake of beef-tallow, and, to wash down this elegant repast, a dish of crust coffee without either milk or sugar, assuring me at the same time in her broken English, "That she had nothing better in the house till the return of her husband, who had gone fifty miles to the mill and store for a supply of flour, groceries, and other fixings." Not being a Russian, I rejected the tallow with disgust, and made but a sorry meal of the other delicacies. On our route, we crossed several pretty streams, the principal of which are the Avon, then called the Little Thames, the Big Thames, and the Black Water. The Bayfield does not cross the road, though it makes a bend close to it, and within sight. I believe I am correct in saying, that we did not cross a single cedar-swamp from the time we entered the Huron tract* till we reached Goderich, a distance of sixty-seven miles. I consider this block the finest tract of land I ever travelled over in Canada West. [* "This interesting portion of the Company's possessions contains a million of acres in one block, within the compass of which a bad farm could scarcely be found. The soil is a rich black loam, on clay or limestone; and as it is entirely timbered with the best kind of hard wood, no land in the Province is so well adapted for the manufacture of potash, an object of considerable importance to the industrious settler. It is bounded, for an extent of sixty miles, by Lake Huron; is a separate district; and Goderich, its principal town, where the district courts are held, is situated at the confluence of the river Maitland with Lake Huron, where it forms an admirable harbour. The population of the town is seven hundred, and there are several good stores and shops in it; mechanics carrying on some useful trades. There are also an episcopal church and other houses of religious worship, and a good school, where the higher branches of the classics are taught, as well as the more ordinary routine of education."--Statistics published by the Canada Company.] The land is well timbered with the best description of hard wood, amongst which is to be found in considerable abundance, the black cherry. This tree grows often to a large size, and is used extensively for furniture, particularly for dining-tables: if well made and polished, it is little inferior to mahogany, either in appearance or durability. I remember, on this very journey, that Mr. Prior and myself were much struck by the size and magnificent appearance of one of these cherry- trees, which grew close to the road side, not far from the Big Thames. Two years afterwards, passing the same tree, I got out of my sleigh and measured the circumference as high as I could reach, which I found to be ten feet seven inches, and, I should think, it was not less than fifty feet in height from the ground to the first branch: it is a great pity to see such noble trees as these either burned or split up into fencing rails. I think the largest tree of the hard wood species I ever saw in this country, was near Bliss's Tavern, in the township of Beverly, and it was called the Beverly-oak.* I was induced to visit this giant of the woods from the many accounts I had heard of its vast dimensions, and was, certainly, astonished at its size and symmetry. I measured it as accurately as I could about six feet from the ground, and found the diameter to be as nearly eleven feet as possible, the trunk rising like a majestic column towering upwards for sixty or seventy feet before branching off its mighty head. Mr. Galt, who was induced to visit this tree from my description has, in his "Autobiography," mentioned the height of the trunk from the ground to the branches, as eighty feet; but I think he has overrated it. I was accompanied to the tree by the landlord, who remarked, "that he calculated that he should cut that 'ere tree down some day, for he guessed it would make enough rails to fence the side of a ten acre field" * * * * * * [* "On the road to Guelph, a short distance from Galt, there is an uncleared portion of the primeval forest, on the edge of the township of Beverly, where, in those days, a small tavern, convenient to rest the horses of travellers, was situated. One day, when I stopped at this house, while my horse was taking his corn, I strayed into the woods, not many hundred yards, and came to a tree, the most stupendous I had ever seen. "At the first glance, the trunk reminded me of the London Monument, an effect of the amaze which the greatness of its dimensions produced. I measured its girth, however, at the height of a man from the ground, and it was thirty-three feet, above which the trunk rose without a branch to the height of at least eighty feet, crowned with vast branches. "This was an oak, probably the greatest known, and it lifted its head far above the rest of the forest. The trees around, myrmidons of inferior growth, were large, massy, and vigorous, but possessed none of the patriarchal antiquity with which that magnificent 'monarch of the woods' was invested. I think, therefore, that I was not wrong in imagining it the scion of a forest that had passed away, the ancestral predecessor of the present woods. "Had I been convinced it was perfectly sound, I would have taken measures for cutting it down and sending home planks of it to Windsor Castle. The fate that awaited it would have justified the profanation. The doubt of its soundness, however, and the difficulty of finding tools large enough to do it justice, procrastinated the period of its doom. I recommended the landlord of the tavern to direct his guests, from time to time, to inspect this Goliath of oaks."--Galt's "Autobiography."] * * * * * * I replied, "Surely, you would not be such a Goth as to cut down such a splendid oak merely for fence-wood, when you have plenty of rail-timber which will answer that purpose equally well; and, besides, it may be the means of drawing customers to your tavern." "I do not know what you mean by a Goth; but I do know, if I could get a crosscut saw long enough to cut that tree, I would not let it stand there long; for you see it is mighty straight in the grain, and would split like a ribbon." Thus was this gigantic specimen of the primeval forest preserved for a time, because there was not a saw long enough to cut it through in Canada. I dare say there are many old oaks in England that exceed this in diameter; but I do not believe one is to be found whose length of trunk can be at all compared to it. On the flats about a mile from the mouth of the Maitland, are some very large button-wood trees. There is one, in particular, growing near a fine spring of water, the circumference of which appeared very vast, though I did not measure it; but the tree was a complete shell, and had a sort of natural arched doorway, just high enough to admit a full- sized man. I was once inside this tree with Dr. Dunlop and eleven other persons, at the same time. The trunk of this tree forked at twelve or fourteen feet from the ground. There are several others of this species near to the one I have described, of very large growth, which apparently are sound, but not equalling it in size. I left a noble oak-tree standing in the middle of one of my fields in the township of Douro, which I hoped I should have been able to preserve, as it was such a remarkably fine tree. It, however, was doomed to destruction; for in the summer of 1838, it was twice struck with lightning in the space of a week. The first time, the bark only was furrowed by the electric fluid, but at the second stroke it was split from the top to the bottom, and thrown down by the violence of the shock. I measured this tree correctly, and found the diameter, twenty-four feet from the ground, to be five feet three inches. The length of the trunk was forty-eight feet up to the first branch, and it was perfectly sound to within three or four feet of the soil. Generally speaking, the white or American pine, from its vast length of trunk, contains a larger number of cubic feet than any other tree in the Canadian forest. I have seen several of these pines sold for masts, the trunks of which were upwards of one hundred feet in length, and full three feet in diameter, a third of the way up from the butt-end. There is very little pine-timber on the Huron tract, which, though a disadvantage in regard to building, is all the better in respect to the land, hard wood being the best indication of a good soil. I did not--as I have said--regret my transfer to Goderich, though that flourishing town was then in its infancy, the most unpleasant aspect in which any Canadian settlement can be viewed. Still, I am pleased that I have had the opportunity of tracing some of these important places from their dawn to their present prosperous condition. I found the general aspect of the country level. There is scarcely a rise of land sufficient to justify the appellation of hill from Wilmot to Goderich; but as you approach the lake, the land becomes more rolling, and better watered by fine spring streams. I was quite delighted with the situation of Goderich, though the town- plot was only just surveyed. Three frame-houses were in process of building. A log-house, beautifully situated on a bold hill, overlooking the harbour, called by Dr. Dunlop, the Castle,* and a dozen or so of log-cabins, comprised the whole town of Goderich, most of the latter being inhabited by French Canadians and half-breeds. The upper town is situated on a fine cliff fronting the lake and harbour, and upwards of one hundred feet above the level of the water. [* "In the afternoon of the following day, we saw afar off, by our telescope, a small clearing in the forest, and on the brow of a rising ground a cottage delightfully situated. The appearance of such a sight in such a place was unexpected, and we had some debate, if it could be the location of Dr. Dunlop, who had guided the land-exploring party already alluded to. Nor were we left long in doubt; for on approaching the place we met a canoe, having on board a strange combination of Indians, velveteens and whiskers, and discovered within the roots of the red hair, the living features of the Doctor. About an hour after, having crossed the river's bar of eight feet, we came to a beautiful anchorage of fourteen feet water, in an uncommonly pleasant small basin. The place had been selected by the Doctor, and is now the site of the flourishing town of Goderich."--Galt's "Autobiography."] The lower town comprises a few acres of alluvial flat, only a few feet elevated above the river. This piece of land was destitute of trees or stumps, and had evidently been cleared many years ago by the Indians, who had cultivated it with Indian corn. I ploughed up this flat of land for the benefit of the Company, and sowed it with oats in the spring of '29; and, therefore, I can justly claim the honour--for the sake of which I did it--of putting the first plough into the ground of the Huron tract. I also put in four acres of wheat on the top of the hill near the castle, in the fall of the same year, the yield of which was upwards of forty bushels to the acre--a good yield for any country, especially when it is considered that at least one-twelfth of the ground may be fairly deducted for stumps of trees, stones, and other obstructions, usually found in all new clearings. I believe, however, I may say without exaggeration, that the Company's tract may safely challenge any other block of land of the same dimensions either in Canada East or West, for fertility of soil, average yield per acre, or healthiness of the climate.* [* "The Canada Company's Huron tract is known to be one of the most healthy and fertile settlements in Canada. The tract in the year 1842 contained 7101 souls. In June last year (1849) the Huron district numbered 20,450 souls, according to official reports, exclusive of the townships of Bosanquet and Williams. The Canada Company's tract now contains a population of 26,000 souls, showing an increase of 18,900, and that the population has nearly quadrupled itself in seven years--a progress of settlement of a tract of country scarcely exceeded in any part of the North America."--Information to Emigrants by Frederick Widder, Esq.] I bought a small log-house and town-lot, or rather the good-will of them, from a French Canadian, putting myself in his place with the Company, with whom I completed the purchase. The situation was very pretty, commanding a fine view of the Lake. I immediately prepared to build a suitable house, to receive my wife and family, whom I had been under the necessity of leaving behind me in Guelph, till I could make suitable preparations to receive them here. At this time, there was only one saw-mill* in the whole Company's tract, and that was ten miles up the river, situated near the mouth of a large creek, which flowed into the Maitland. This mill was built close to one of the finest pine-groves in the block. [* "In no situation can settlers be distant from a mill, as there are at convenient places distributed throughout the tract twelve grist- mills and twenty saw-mills, and the facilities for communication are very great; for seventeen of the townships are bounded on the one side by the great roads traversing the tract in two directions for one hundred miles in extent, and six of them are bounded by the Lake on the other side."--Statistics published by the Canada Company.] I hired a man, who had been a raftsman on the Delaware, to go with me by land up to the mill, for a few thousand feet of boards, that I required for my new house. It was only seven miles to the mill by a new cut-out sleigh-track, through the township of Goderich as far as the Falls, which we crossed by wading the river just above them, which at that time we were able to do, though not without some caution; for, although the spring-floods were considerably abated, the water ran with great rapidity, and in some places was up to our middles; but with the help of a strong setting-pole, we got over with safety. We made our little raft in three cribs, of a thousand feet of boards in each crib, which we connected together by short pieces of scantling, which are bored near each end with a two-inch auger and strung on the corner-pickets of each crib, thus uniting them in one length. At each end of the raft, a long oar is securely fixed, in temporary rowlocks for that purpose. The whole course of the river, from the mill to the harbour at Goderich, is a strong rapid: two perpendicular falls occur in its course to the lake. The Upper, or Big Fall, is about six feet, and the Little Fall three. We made a capital run down, though in plunging over the first Fall we were up to our arm-pits in water. But our little raft rose gallantly to the surface; and we encountered no further difficulty. I enjoyed my trip down the river amazingly. I do not know anything more delightful, when all goes well than being borne over the foaming rapids at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour. The channel of the Maitland is wide, and the banks picturesque. Our voyage did not exceed an hour, though the distance was above nine miles. CHAPTER XIX. MY NEW HOUSE AT GODERICH. -- CARPENTRY AN ESSENTIAL ART. -- AMERICAN ENERGY. -- AGREEABLE VISITORS. -- MY WIFE'S DISASTERS. -- HINTS FOR ANGLERS. -- THE NINE-MILE-CREEK FROLIC. -- THE TEMPEST. -- OUR SKIPPER AND HIS LEMON-PUNCH. -- SHORT COMMONS. -- CAMP IN THE WOODS. -- RETURN ON FOOT. -- LUDICROUS TERMINATION TO OUR FROLIC. MY new house at Goderich was constructed with cherry-logs neatly counter-hewed both inside and out, the interstices between the logs being nicely pointed with mortar. I had no upstair-rooms, excepting for stowage. The ground-story I divided into a parlour, kitchen, and three bedrooms. After office-hours I used to work a good deal at the carpenter's bench--for I was always fond of it when a boy. I had made some useful observations, as well as tormenting our workmen on repairs at home, with the usual amount of mischief, and I now reaped the benefit of my juvenile experience. I was able to make the doors, and do nearly all the insidework of my house myself. Indeed, it is really essential for the well-doing of the emigrant, that he, or some members of his family, should have some knowledge of carpentry--in fact, be a jack-of-all-trades; and, in that excellent profession, educated persons, healthy in mind and body, excel the most. There is a very true saying, that necessity is the mother of invention, and in no country is it better exemplified than in Canada. The emigrant has there, especially when distant from a town or settlement, to make a hundred shifts, substituting wood for iron, in the construction of various articles, such as hinges for barn-door gates, stable and barn- shovels, and a variety of other contrivances whereby both money and time are saved. I have often heard young men say, they "could not" do this or do that. "Did you ever try?" is a fair question to such people. I believe that many persons, with average capacities, can effect much more than they give themselves credit for. I had no more been bred a carpenter than a civil engineer, in which last capacity I was holding office satisfactorily. My education had consisted of Latin, Greek, and French, and the mathematics. My time had been spent in my own country; riding, shooting, boating, filled up with a little amateur gardening. Want of energy is not the fault of the Americans; they will dash at _everything_, and generally succeed. I had known them contract to do difficult jobs that required the skill of the engineer or regular architect, and accomplish them cleverly too, although they had never attempted anything of the kind before; and they generally completed their task to the satisfaction of the parties furnishing the contract. "I cannot do it" is a phrase not to be found in the Yankee vocabulary, I guess. It is astonishing how a few years' residence in Canada or the United States brightens the intellects of the labouring classes. The reason is quite obvious. The agricultural population of England are born and die in their own parishes, seldom or never looking out into a world of which they know nothing. Thus, they become too local in their ideas, are awake to nought but the one business they have been brought up to follow; they have indeed no motive to improve their general knowledge. But place the honest and industrious peasant in Canada, and, no matter how ignorant he may be, when he sees that by his perseverance and industry he will in a short time better his situation in life, and most likely become the possessor of a freehold, this motive for exertion will call forth the best energies of his mind, which had hitherto, for want of a proper stimulus, lain dormant. Having to act and think for himself, and being better acquainted with the world, he soon becomes a theoretical as well as a practical man, and consequently a cleverer and more enlightened person, than he was before in his hopeless servitude in the mother-country. When I left Guelph, I had arranged with my wife that as soon as I could get the new house ready, I would send for her. I did not think that this could possibly be done before sleighing-time, as the newly-cut road was almost impassable for waggons. Judge, then, of my surprise when, on returning home from the store-house one day, I noticed the door of my log-cabin open, and saw a lovely curly-headed child sitting in the doorway. I could hardly believe my eyes--it was my own little Maria. My dear little boy had remained at Douro with my wife's sister Eliza, of whom he was so fond that my wife did not like to separate such friends from each other. On my entrance I found my wife surrounded by a pile of luggage, laughing heartily at my astonishment. She told me, she felt so lonely that she determined to brave all the dangers of the road in order to join me. Accordingly, she hired a settler who was the owner of a waggon and a yoke of oxen, which she loaded with the most useful articles we required--bedding and bed- clothes, &c.,--reserving room in the waggon for herself, the child, and nursemaid. During the whole of the first day's journey and part of the next, all went on smoothly enough, their route lying through settlements; but as soon as they entered the newly-cut road their difficulties commenced, and before they had traversed five miles, the waggon was twice upset. This so alarmed my poor wife, on account of the baby; that she durst not ride another step of the way, although the travellers had still upwards of sixty miles to go. Moreover, she was obliged to carry the child the entire distance; for their teamster had enough to do to look after and guide his cattle, and the servant girl was too young and too tired to render much assistance. Fifteen miles a day was the outside distance they could persuade the oxen to travel, consequently, they were compelled to camp out two nights out of the six in which they were on the road. Luckily, the weather was dry and warm. At night the musquitoes were dreadfully annoying, as my poor little Maria's neck and arms too plainly showed. During the afternoon of the second day, when within six miles of Trifogle's tavern, their intended resting-place for the night, they were overtaken by a man who was going in the same direction, who very politely--as my wife thought--offered to carry her baby part of the way. She was, of course, very glad to avail herself of his kind offer; nor did she perceive, till after he had got possession of the bairn, that he was intoxicated. She immediately demanded back her little treasure, but no inducement could persuade him to relinquish it, and he set off with the infant as fast as he could. In vain the poor mother besought him to stop--in vain she sobbed and cried. On he went, followed by my Mary, who found great difficulty in keeping up with him, which she did at first, till, at length, exhausted by the unusual fatigue, maternal anxiety, and the roughness of the road, she lost sight of him when about a mile from the tavern. He had walked off with his little burden. She was now dreadfully alarmed, for night was fast coming on, and she did not know whether she was on the right track or not. Fortunately, a light through the trees extricated her from this dilemma: her only uneasiness was now for her child. She was soon, however, relieved from this uncertainty; for, on entering the house, there sat the man with the baby on his knee. The child appeared to be on very friendly terms with him, and had, no doubt, enjoyed herself amazingly while her bearer was running away with her. He at once restored the child to her mother's arms, observing, "that he hoped she would give him the price of a quart of whiskey for his trouble, for the child was main heavy, God bless her." My wife, of course, did not dispute the payment. She was only too glad to recover her little pet, whom she took good care not again to trust to masculine keeping, however tired she might be. So Maria remained safely in her mother's arms, for the remainder of the journey. At length, when down-hearted and weary, the bright waters of the Huron gladdened their eyes, on the morning of the sixth day, and a few minutes afterwards they took possession of my log-cabin, and gave me the happy surprise already recorded. "I wonder you were not afraid of encountering such hardships, and even danger, in travelling so many miles through the wild woods and on foot, and with that heavy child to carry in your arms," was my remark to my enterprising wife. She replied, "that there had certainly been more difficulties than she had anticipated; but had they been double, it would not have prevented her from joining me." So much for woman's love and devotion. During the summer months, we were plentifully supplied with fish. On some days the harbour appeared to swarm with them. When the sun shone brightly, you could see hundreds lying near the surface. There was no difficulty in catching them, for the moment you threw in your bait, you had a fish on your hook. In the early part of the season, I used to make an imitation mouse of a piece of musk-rat fur. This is a killing bait for trolling either for black bass or maskilonge--as the season advances, a red and white rag, or a small green-frog. But the best bait for the larger fish, such as salmon-trout and maskilonge, is a piece of brass, or copper, about the shape and size of the bowl of a tablespoon, with a large hook soldered upon the narrow end. If properly made, and drawn fast through the water, it will spin round and glitter, and thus is sure to attract the fish. I have caught hundreds by this method, and can therefore recommend it as the most certain. Your trolling line, which is attached to your left arm, should not be less than eighty or a hundred feet in length, and sufficiently leaded to sink the bait three or four feet beneath the surface, this line following the canoe as you paddle it swiftly through the water. The scenery up the Maitland, from the harbour's mouth to the flats, or natural meadows, two miles from the lake, is very pretty and interesting. I think it would be difficult to find for a summer residence a more charming situation than the town of Goderich, and I might say with equal confidence, a more healthy one. The water is excellent, and the town-plot abounds with copious springs. About a mile from the town, there is one of the largest and purest springs of the coldest and best water I ever drank. It gushes out of the side of a hill, and rushes down the declivity with great swiftness over its pebbly bed, till it is joined in its course, a few yards below the hill, by another spring of nearly equal size, within half a mile of its source, turning a grist-mill on its way to swell the waters of the Maitland. Nine miles up the lake-shore, east of Goderich, a fine little stream empties its bright waters into the mighty Huron. A party of us had often expressed a wish to explore the outlet of this stream, and at length a day was fixed for the expedition. As we intended merely to pass one night at the river, and return the next day, we only supplied ourselves with as much provisions and grog as would last for that time--a great mistake, as it afterwards proved. However, I will not anticipate. A large piece-log canoe was furnished by Mr. W. F. Gooding, our Goderich store-keeper, who was one of the party, which consisted of nine persons, including myself. All things being in readiness, Mr. Fullarton was dubbed Captain for the occasion. At an early hour one fine sunny morning in June, we stood out of the harbour with a light breeze, having rigged up two blankets as sprit-sails. They answered very well, as long as we had any wind, which, however, unfortunately soon died entirely away. "Come, boys," said the Captain, "this won't do. We must raise a white- ash-breeze (meaning that we must have recourse to our paddles) or we shall not see the Nine-Mile Creek this day, I can tell you." The impetus given to our canoe by the vigorous application of eight paddles, independent of our steersman, made the De Witt Clinton (the name of our canoe) fly through the water, which was now as calm as a mirror. After the wind fell, the heat was intense; and, towards noon huge double-headed thunder-clouds showed themselves, slowly emerging out of the still waters of the Huron, far away to the north-west--a certain indication of a thunder-storm and change of wind. About noon, we entered the creek by a very narrow channel, not ten feet in width. Indeed, the lake has choked up the entrance of the little harbour with sand and gravel, which, the water, descending the creek in summer-time, is not sufficient to disperse. I think, however, by clearing out, and piling the channel, and erecting two piers a short distance from each other, carried out upon the lake, and curving towards each other, until only sufficient space is left between them for the entrance of steam-boats and schooners, it might yet be made navigable. The harbour at Cobourg has been built something on this plan, which answers tolerably well; but if it had had a creek only the size of this I am describing, it would have been much better, as the current is a great help in clearing out the sand and gravel. On crossing the bar, we found ourselves in a snug little basin, sufficiently deep for a vessel drawing six or seven feet water. We landed on a little peninsula, between the lake and the harbour, and commenced operations for cooking. After dinner, we paddled through the harbour, and up the river, as far as we could go, which was only a very short distance, the navigation being interrupted by a pretty fall of water, which tumbled from ledge to ledge, like a succession of stone stairs, stretching from bank to bank across the stream, and forming, as the Americans would say, an elegant mill-privilege. Since I left Goderich, a township, called Ashfield, has been laid out north of the Company's township of Colborne; the principal place of which is the village of Port Albert--the very spot we went to explore. What a difference a few years make in a new country like Canada! With the aid of a compass, or by following the course of some unknown stream, with much toil and difficulty we make our way back for miles, through dense forests, swamps, and creeks; scale the rocky precipice, or launch the light bark-canoe on some far distant lake. We travel the same route twenty-five years afterwards, and the forests have bowed their lofty heads--the swamps are drained--the rivers bridged, and the steamer ploughs the inland wave, where shortly before glided the canoe of the hunter. Such is no over-coloured picture. I have seen it in my day realized many a time. The Huron tract, and the county of Peterborough, are the proofs of my assertion; and various other settlements I could name, would equally bear me out. But to return to our expedition--or as I might with greater truth say-- our _pic-nic_, for we did little else than paddle up and down the creek, ramble about the falls, and eat and drink whenever we felt inclined. In this manner we spent the first day; till the coming night, and the distant growl of the thunder, warned us to prepare for our night-bivouac. One of our party, Mr. Brewster--the professor, as we generally called him--from the circumstance of his being a near relation of Sir David Brewster, the talented author of "Natural Magic," had a small tent- cloth with him, but not sufficiently large for the whole party. It was, therefore, determined that four of us should sleep under the canoe, and the remaining five under the tent. Quite a contention now arose between us, as to who should be the favoured possessors of the tent. Not liking the appearance of the weather, I resigned any pretensions I might have had to the canvas, knowing the canoe was, from its length and size, capable of effectually sheltering four persons. We, accordingly, turned the canoe bottom upwards, and raised one side of it sufficiently high to allow us to creep under. To keep it in that position, we supported the raised edge on some forked sticks; and a quantity of hemlock brush and fern, spread evenly under it, made as good a bed as I would care to sleep on in hot weather. Our companions pitched their tent close beside us, so that we might be more sociable. After supper, we amused ourselves by singing songs, telling stories, and--if the truth must be told--drinking whiskey-punch. The lightning was now incessant, illuminating the harbour and lake, and revealing dark masses of clouds, piled upon one another in endless succession. Few spectacles are more grand than the coming storm, or more awful when it bursts in its wildest fury. Such was its appalling character on this night. For the last hour I had been watching its progress, and admiring the brilliant forked lightning, and listening to the deep-toned thunder, which woke the lone echoes of the wood-crowned heights. A few large drops of rain warned us to seek the friendly shelter of our respective camps. I had just settled myself snugly, when our skipper came to me with a jug of lemon-punch fresh mixed. I declined taking any more. He was too old a stager, however, to be put off that way, and was proceeding to show me the necessity of taking a night-cap, when he was saved all the trouble of any farther solicitation, and me of refusal, by a blinding flash of lightning, followed by a succession of deafening reports. At the same instant, the wind burst upon us like a whirlwind, prostrating in its irresistible fury our unfortunate skipper, punch, and all. As for the tent, it was whisked half across the harbour, in one blast, and the unfortunate inmates were left exposed to all the pelting of the pitiless storm, which raged with unmitigated violence till the dawn of day. We made room under the canoe for the professor and our skipper, the utmost we could accommodate. The three remaining unfortunate fellows were left to brave the tempest as they best might. The next morning, the lake was white with breakers. The storm of the preceding night had brought a strong north-wester in its train, so that we found it impossible to launch our canoe--and, indeed, if we had, it would have been unsafe to have attempted the passage therein; there was nothing else for us but patience. But the worst part of the business was, that we had barely sufficient provisions for breakfast, and what the professor said--"Was worse than all--there was not a single horn of whiskey left in the jar." The merchant and three of our party now determined to take the woods, and endeavour to reach Goderich by that route, leaving us to follow with the canoe if the wind should fall, of which, however, there appeared but little chance. It now became expedient that we should look out for food of some description, as there was no doubt we should have to pass another night. On examining the state of our larder, we found that our whole stock consisted of half a loaf of bread, and a few ounces of sugar-- rather short commons for four hungry men, even for a single meal. We had no gun with us, or any fishing-lines. I had, it is true, a spear, but there was too much wind to fish in the harbour. Luckily, I bethought myself of the falls up the creek, where there was a pool sheltered by the woods. Thither we went with the canoe, and succeeded in spearing a number of suckers, which are, without exception, the softest and worst of all Canadian fish, especially in the hot months; but even bad suckers are better than nothing. Our first starvation- dinner consisted of a dish of boiled fish, a little bread, and a cup of hemlock-tea; our supper, boiled fish without bread, and hemlock-tea without sugar. To amuse ourselves, we built a nice camp on a wooded point overlooking the harbour, and arranged everything comfortably to pass the night; and, although we had such bad commons, we were merry enough, considering we had nothing stronger to drink than hemlock-tea. In the morning, as appearances were no better in respect to the weather, and as we were heartily sick of boiled suckers, we determined to do--as some of our party had done previously--take the bush-route for Goderich. Accordingly, we crossed the harbour in the canoe, which we hid amongst the bushes, and commenced our journey along the lake-shore. In some places we found tolerably good walking, while in others we were compelled to mount the cliffs to avoid the break of the surges, where headlands jutted out into the lake. For the most part, however, we were enabled to travel upon natural terraces about half way up the bank, which I should think averages nearly one hundred feet in height. To our great delight, we discovered an abundance of fine wild strawberries, the largest and most delicious I had ever seen. We found this a very seasonable refreshment. The day was fine, and we enjoyed the prospect, which, viewed from some of the highest points of land, was truly magnificent. About four o'clock in the afternoon we reached Goderich, weary and half-starved. Thus ended our memorable pic-nic to the Nine-Mile Creek. CHAPTER XX. CHOICE OF A LOCATION. -- THE COMPANY'S LANDS. -- CROWN LANDS. -- TABLES PUBLISHED BY THE CANADA COMPANY. -- PROGRESSIVE IMPROVEMENT OF THE HURON TRACT. AFTER twenty-seven years' residence in Canada West, it may be reasonably inferred that I am justly entitled, from my long experience, to give a fair opinion as to the best chances of location at present available to the emigrant. On mature consideration, I must give the preference to the Huron tract, as affording a greater facility for settlement, and this for three reasons. First, on account of the excellent roads constructed by the Company--an inestimable boon, which none but the early pioneer can fully appreciate. Secondly, because of the excellent quality of the soil, which is remarkably free from surface-stone, that every old settler knows is both troublesome and expensive to clear away. And, thirdly the low price of these lands, and the facility of payment. Indeed, their system of leasing affords the poor man every chance. I shall copy a table of the yearly rent of farms leased on this plan by the Company, for the information of those of my readers who contemplate emigrating to Canada West. The present price of the Company's lands in the Huron tract, is from 12 shillings 6 pence to 20 shillings currency per acre. The Company dispose of their lands, according to quality and situation, for ready cash, or by lease for a term of ten years. In the latter case no money is required to be paid down, the lease being granted upon the following terms:-- s.d. L. s. d. 100 acres, at 2 0 per acre, ann. rent 0 10 0 and no more. " 3 6 " " 0 12 0 " " 5 0 " " 0 18 0 " " 6 3 " " 1 4 0 " " 7 6 " " 1 10 0 " " 8 9 " " 1 17 0 " " 10 0 " " 2 5 0 " " 11 3 " " 2 12 0 " " 12 6 " " 3 0 0 " " 13 9 " " 3 7 6 " " 16 3 " " 3 15 0 " " 17 6 " " 4 2 6 " The rent is payable on the first day of February in each year, full power being reserved to the settler to purchase the freehold, and take his deed for the land he occupies, at any time during the lease, an arrangement, of course, saving all future payment of rent. Many persons unacquainted with the country, might object to pay from twelve shillings and six pence to twenty shillings for the Company's lands, when they see that the Government price on the wild lands belonging to the Crown, in most townships, is only eight shillings per acre. However, they must recollect, that all the choice lands belonging to the Crown have long since been located; and unless the emigrant is prepared to go back into the remote townships, he cannot expect to get land as good as that belonging to the Canada Company. Indeed, the only Crown-lands which could at all compete with the Company's lands are the townships lately surveyed north of the Huron track to the River Saugeen, and the new settlements of Owen's Sound and the Queen's Bush. In a report, drawn up and published by Daniel Lizars, clerk of the peace for the united counties of Huron, Perth, and Bruce, May, 1851, he says,-- "In this favoured portion of the province of Upper Canada, blest with a salubrious climate and a fertile soil, watered with crystal springs and brooks in every direction, reposing upon a table-land whose natural drainage flows uninterruptedly onwards to the streams and great rivers which intersect it in every quarter towards the noble Huron, or Lake St. Clair, the energies of the people have been steadily devoted to practical progress and improvement; having, in the short period above alluded to, brought upwards of eighty thousand acres of the wilderness into cultivation, erected five thousand dwelling-houses, fifty-six schools, fourteen churches, twelve grist mills, with nineteen run of stores, five oat and barley-mills, five distilleries, two breweries, eight tanneries, and twenty-four pot and pearl-ash factories." "Among other matters which crowned their industry in 1850, I may state the following productions:-- Wheat . . . . . 292,949 bushels. Barley . . . . . 13,012 " Rye . . . . . 2,181 " Oats . . . . . 215,415 " Peas . . . . . 54,657 " Indian Corn. . . . 5,352 " Potatoes. . . . . 210,913 " Buck-wheat . . . . . 673 " Mangel-wurzel . . . . 297 " Turnips . . . . . 143,725 " Hay . . . . . 12,823 tons. Flax or Hemp . . . . 7,359 pounds. Maple Sugar. . . . 351,721 " Wool . . . . 54,347 pounds. Fulled cloth . . . 10,303 yards. Linen, or cotton cloth 1,197 " Flannel, or other unfulled cloth 41,397 " Cheese for Market . . 7,761 pounds. Butter for Market . . 58,873 " Beef, or Pork for Market 1,308 barrels. "And they further rejoice in the possession of the following stock:-- Neat Cattle . . . 26,260 Horses . . . . . 2,646 Sheep . . . . . . 20,022 Hogs . . . . . . 14,655 "The above gratifying examples speak loudly for the industry of the settlers; and where hired labour can, with difficulty, be obtained at a high remuneration, notwithstanding the yearly increased ratio of new comers, and, moreover, where all are diligently employed in the onward march to happiness and independence, we may truly be thankful to a superintending Providence, that prosperity is in the ascendant." Mr. Lizars states in another part of his Report, that the population of the Huron district In 1841, was . . . . . 5,600 In 1847, six years afterwards 16,641 increase 11,043 In 1848, one year do . . . 20,450 " 3,807 In 1850, two years do. . . 26,933 " 6,483 According to this ratio of increase, we may safely infer the population at the present time (1852), to exceed thirty-two thousand souls; an increase almost incredible; as, upon reference to Smith's Work on Canada, it will be found that the Huron district has made more rapid progress since its first settlement in 1827, than Lower Canada did in one hundred and four years; its population then being (in 1721), 24,511. Many contradictory statements have been made and published in respect to what is the real actual grain average of Canada West. My own opinion is, that even could a truthful average be obtained, it would throw very little light on the real capability of the land--and for this reason. One-half of the emigrants who settle upon land in Canada, and adopt cultivation as their employment, are weavers, tinkers, tailors, sailors, and twenty other trades and professions. It must be the work of years to convert such settlers into good practical farmers. In such cases, how can a fair yield be extracted from land ignorantly cultivated? But I will venture to affirm, that wherever good farming is in practice, as good an average yield will be obtained, as in any country in the world. "The following average of ten years for the Huron tract, has been published:--Wheat, 25 bushels; barley, 30 bushels; oats, 40 bushels; rye, 30 bushels; potatoes, 250 bushels per acre. Swedish turnips, mangel-wurzel, and other roots of a similar kind, are not yet sufficiently cultivated, to enable an average yield to be given; but it may very safely be said, that, with similar care, culture, and attention, the produce will not be less per acre than in England. Indeed, it may be said with truth to apply to every grain except beans, which do not thrive well in the Canadian climate." CHAPTER XXI. THE KING PROCLAIMED IN THE BUSH. -- FETE AND BALL IN THE EVENING. -- MY YANKEE FELLOW-TRAVELLER. -- AWFUL STORM. -- MY LONELY JOURNEY. -- MAGICAL EFFECT OF A NAME. I WAS busy in the storehouse one afternoon, when Mr. Prior entered with a newspaper in his hand, which he had just received from the old country. "I see by this paper, Strickland, that George IV. is dead; and that his Majesty King William IV. has been proclaimed. Now, I think, we must give the workmen a holiday on this memorable occasion." "In what manner do you intend to celebrate the day?" was my rejoinder. "I have been thinking," he replied, "of making a little fete, and inviting all the settlers within reach to assemble on the Button-wood Flats. We will have some refreshments served round; and if the day is fine, I have no doubt we shall enjoy ourselves much." Due notice having been given, upon the appointed day every-one within ten miles assembled on the Flats, dressed in their best attire; and ready to show their loyalty in any way Mr. Prior might think proper to recommend. As soon as the squire made his appearance, he ascended a large stump; and, in a patriotic and loyal speech, informed us "that he had called this meeting to hear him proclaim his most gracious Majesty King William IV." He then read the proclamation, which was received with nine rounds of British cheers. Our party then formed a large circle by joining hands; and sang the national anthem, accompanied by the Goderich band, which was composed of two fiddles and a tambourine. "Rule Britannia" for our sailor-king was also played and sung--I was going to say in good style, but at all events with great loyalty and enthusiasm. As soon as this ceremony was over, a pail of whiskey, with a tea-cup floating on the surface, was handed round, followed by another pail containing spring-water. Every person present drank his Majesty's health; even the fair sex, on this propitious occasion, did not disdain to moisten their pretty lips with the beverage. The eating and drinking part of the festival now commenced in earnest. We had seated ourselves on the grass, under the shade of four or five immense button-wood trees, which effectually sheltered us from the scorching rays of the sun. In the centre of the group, the union-jack of Old-England waved gracefully above our heads-- "The flag that braved a thousand years The battle and the breeze." As soon as we had eaten and drunk to our satisfaction, a dance was proposed and acceded to by the party. The band struck up "The Wind Shakes the Barley:" country dances, Scotch reels, and "French fours," were kept up with great spirit on the level turf--"All under the greenwood tree." "For all that day to the rebeck gay They danced with frolicsome swains." Those of our party who did not patronize the dance, amused themselves with ball-playing and a variety of old English games. The day was lovely; and the spot chosen for our sports is one of the most beautiful natural meadows I ever beheld. We kept our fete in honour of King William on a smooth green semi-circular meadow, of large extent, ornamented here-and-there with clumps of magnificent button- wood trees.* Towards the north, skirting the meadow, a steep bank rises in the form of an amphitheatre, thickly-wooded--tree above tree, from the base to the crown of the ridge. The rapid waters of the Maitland form the southern and western boundary of this charming spot,--then not a little enhanced by the merry groups which dotted the surface of the meadow, and woke its lone echoes with music and song. [* Both the wood and the growth of this tree greatly resemble the sycamore.] I was much amused by a Yankee mill-wright, who had contracted to build a large grist-mill for the Company, both in Guelph and Goderich. He appeared enchanted with the whole day's proceedings. "I do declare," he said, "if this don't almost put me in mind of the 4th of July. Why, you Britishers make as much fuss proclaiming your king as we do celebrating our anniversary of Independence. Well, it does me good to look at you. I vow if I don't feel quite loyal. Come, let us drink the old gentleman's health agin. I guess, I feel as dry as a sand-bank after so much hollering." The setting sun warned us to discontinue our pastime and prepare for a move. Before doing so, however, the squire again came forward, and after thanking us for our attendance, loyalty, &c., he proposed "we should give three cheers more for the King, and three for Queen Adelaide," which were given with all the power of our lungs, not a little aided by sundry potations imbibed by the loyal in drinking their Majesties' healths during the day's proceeding. Three cheers were then given for the Canada Company, three for the Commissioners, and three for the old Doctor. Thus terminated the proclamation of our sovereign in the Bush. Mr. Prior had kindly issued invitations to the _elite_ to a ball and supper at Reid's Hotel, which was well attended. The refreshments were excellent, the supper capital; and the dancing was kept up with great spirit till day-light warned us to depart. The next day, I started for Guelph with the Yankee mill-wright, whom I found a clever, shrewd man. He told me he had travelled over a great part of the Western States and Canada; but in all his wanderings he had never seen a section of country, of the same size, that pleased him equal to the Huron tract. "I guess, when this country of your'n is once cleared up, and good roads made, and the creeks bridged, there won't be such another place in all creation." "What makes you think so?" I enquired. "Wal, just look what a fine frontage you have on that 'ere big pond (he meant Lake Huron) and good harbours and land that can't be beat not no how. All you want is 'to go a-head,' and you may take my word for it that this will be the garden of Canada yet." We had only one horse between us, which belonged to the Doctor, so that we were obliged to ride turn about. In this manner we got on pretty well, so that by four o'clock we were within two miles of old Sebach's. The day had been excessively hot, and for the last hour we had heard distant thunder. We, therefore, pushed on with redoubled energy, in hopes of escaping the storm. Ever since I had witnessed the devastating effects of the whirlwind which passed through Guelph, and which I have described in a previous chapter, I had a dread of being exposed in the woods to the fury of such a tempest. In this instance, however, we had the good fortune to reach the shanty just as the rain commenced; and well for us it proved that we had gained a shelter for ourselves and steed; for I seldom witnessed a more terrific storm. The lightning was awful, accompanied by the loudest thunder I ever heard. The volleys of heavy hail-stones on the shingled roof, together with the rushing sound of the wind, and the crash of falling trees, made it impossible for us to hear a word that was said. Indeed, I did not feel much inclined for conversation; for I could not help meditating on the peril we had escaped. Had the storm commenced an hour or two earlier or later, we should have bean exposed to its utmost fury, as there was no place of refuge nearer than twenty miles either way. To show the terrible danger we had avoided, I counted a hundred and seventy-six large trees that had fallen across the road between Sebach's and Trifogle's--a distance not exceeding twenty miles. What a contrast this road now presents to what it was when I used to be in the habit of travelling over it! I remember, once having been sent on some important business to the settlement, which admitted of no delay. It was late in November; the snow had fallen unusually early, and there was no horse then to be procured at Goderich; so that I was obliged to walk without even a companion to cheer the solitary way. I found the walking exceedingly laborious: the snow was fully a foot deep and unbroken, save by the foot-marks of some lonely traveller. I was very curious to learn who the person could be who had been necessitated to take such a long journey through the wilderness alone. The second day of my journey, my curiosity was gratified by seeing the name of the person written in large characters in the snow. I stopped and read it with much interest: it was that of a Scotchman I knew,--one James Haliday. After reading that name, it appeared as if half the loneliness of the road was gone; for I knew from the freshness of the track, that a human being was travelling on the same path, and that he was, perhaps, not far ahead. Not many minutes after this occurrence, whilst descending a slight hill, I saw nine fine deer cross the road, within a short gun-shot of the spot where I stood. I had no gun with me; for I thought, if I did kill a deer, I should be obliged to leave it in the woods. Nothing further occurred till within a short distance of Trifogle's, when a large wolf bounded close past me: he seemed, however, the more frightened of the two, which I was not at all sorry to perceive. When I arrived at the tavern, I told Trifogle what I had seen. He said, it was very lucky I had not fallen in with the pack; for only the night before he had gone to a beaver-meadow, about two miles distant, to look for his working oxen which had strayed, when he was surrounded by the whole pack of wolves, and was obliged "to tree," to save his bacon. He was, it seems, kept for more than three hours in that uncomfortable fix before he durst venture down--"when he made tracks," as the Yankees say, "for hum pretty considerably smart, I guess." My solitary journey was performed in the fall of 1830: at the present time (1853) you may travel at your ease in a stage-coach and four horses, with taverns every few miles, and more villages on the road than formerly there were houses. Such are the changes that a few short years have produced in this fast-rising country! CHAPTER XXII. VISIT OF THE PASSENGER-PIGEON TO THE CANADAS. -- CANADIAN BLACKBIRDS. - - BREEDING-PLACES OF THE PASSENGER-PIGEONS. -- SQUIRRELS. THE passenger-pigeon* visits the Canadas in the early spring-months, and during August, in immense flocks, bringing with them an agreeable change in the diet of the settler. [* The passenger-pigeon is not so large as the wild pigeon of Europe. It is slender in form, having a very long-forked tail. Its plumage is a bluish-grey, and it has a lovely pink breast. It is, indeed, a very elegant bird.] Persons unacquainted with the country and the gregarious habits of this lovely bird, are apt to doubt the accounts they have heard or read respecting their vast numbers: since my return to England I have repeatedly been questioned upon the subject. In answer to these queries, I can only say that, in some parts of the province, early in the spring and directly after wheat-harvest, their numbers are incredible. Some days they commence flying as soon as it is light in the morning, and continue, flock after flock, till sun-down. To calculate the sum-total of birds passing even on one day, appears to be impossible. I think, the greatest masses fly near the shores of the great Canadian lakes, and sometimes so low, that they may be easily killed with a horse-pistol, or even knocked down with a long pole. During the first spring in which I resided at Goderich, the store- keeper was out of shot, and the pigeons happened to be uncommonly numerous. I had a large fowling-piece with a wide bore; so I tried a charge of fine shingle off the beach at the first flock that came within close range, and had the satisfaction of bagging seven birds at the first shot--indeed, it was almost impossible to miss them, they flew in such thick clouds. I have frequently killed on the stubbles, from twenty to thirty at one shot. Directly after the wheat is carted, the pigeons alight on the stubble in vast flocks. As they are chiefly the young broods, they are very easily approached: the sportsman should creep up behind them; for they are so intent on feeding, that they will seldom notice his approach till he is within fair range of them. The hindmost ranks are continually rising from the ground, and dropping in front of the others. This is the proper time to fire, just as the hind-rank are a couple or three feet from the ground; firing the second barrel as the whole flock takes fight. In the vicinity of the towns, sometimes a regular _battue_ takes place, when all kind of firearms are in requisition, from the old Tower musket to the celebrated Joe Manton. In July, the pigeons feed a great deal on wild berries, such as raspberries, huckle-berries, blue-berries, and a variety of other kinds. Many people would naturally think that such vast flocks of birds would alight on the standing grain, and destroy the crop: such, however, is not the case. Sometimes, during the seed-time in the spring, they are a little troublesome; but I have never known them alight on the ripening grain. The Canadian blackbirds are far more destructive in that particular--especially that species with the orange-bar across the wings. These birds alight on the Indian corn crops and oats in such numbers, that they do a great deal of damage, particularly the oats, which they break down by their weight. There is another kind of blackbird, smaller than the former, and speckled very much like a starling. Indeed, I believe it is a species of that bird; for it frequents marshes, and lodges amongst the reeds at night. This bird is also destructive in the corn-fields. There is yet a third species of blackbird, larger than either of the above, whose colour is of a glossy blue-black, very like our rooks. These birds are just as troublesome as the rest; but it must be admitted that their destroy an immense quantity of caterpillars and grubs. They are easily frightened away by firing a few shots. There is, however, no doubt but that they are a greater plague to the farmers than the pigeons: besides, the latter are excellent eating. I once accompanied the Doctor on an exploring expedition through the tract. We encamped close to a breeding-place of these birds, when we were kept awake all night by the noise they made. Sometimes, too, a limb of a tree would break with the weight of the birds which had alighted on it, when there would be such fluttering and flapping of wings, as made it impossible for us to sleep. Towards morning, the sound of their departure to their feeding-grounds resembled thunder. For nearly two hours there was one incessant roar, as flock after flock took its departure eastward. The ground under the trees was whitened with their excrement, and strewn with broken branches of trees. The Americans have a plan of capturing these birds, by means of a decoy, or stool-pigeon, and nets. Thousands are often taken in this way during seed-time in the spring. When I first resided in the township of Douro, the pigeons used to be very plentiful at that time, their chief breeding-place being in the township of Fenelon, in a direct line west from my residence, some forty or fifty miles. And yet, soon after day- light, they would be passing eastward over my clearing, so vast is their swiftness and strength on the wing. It is a curious fact that, although thousands passed daily for many days in succession, yet not one of them returned by the same route they went. I have been informed that this breeding-place has been deserted for several years, owing to the settlements having approached too near to please the winged possessors. This satisfactorily accounts for the decrease I have noticed amongst these feathered denizens of the forest, during the last seven or eight years. In consequence of their having been disturbed, they have sought a more remote breeding-place. I am not at all certain whether this decrease is general through the province; but I feel quite convinced that, as civilization increases, all kinds of birds and wild animals will become less numerous, with the exception of crows and mice, which are greatly on the increase. Rats also have been imported, and appear to thrive well in the towns; though, I am happy to say, they have not found their way into my township yet--and long may they be ignorant of my location. There is also another animal, which I think is more numerous than formerly--I mean the black squirrel. These pretty little creatures are very destructive amongst the Indian-corn crops. I have seen them carrying off a whole cob of corn at once, which I will be bound to say was quite as heavy as themselves. The form of this animal is very elegant; the colour jet black--with a large bushy tail: the fur, however, is too open to be of any value. The flesh is excellent eating, far superior to that of the rabbit. In a good nut-season, in the western part of the province, the quantity of these animals is almost incredible. I have heard old hunters say that, if the squirrels are numerous in the summer, the bears will be plenty in the fall, and also that their numbers give a sure indication of a severe winter. This saying, I believe to be true; because neither the squirrels nor bears are plentiful, unless there is an abundant supply of beech-mast, butter- nuts, hickory-nuts, &c., which Providence has kindly provided in more superabundant quantity on the approach of a longer and severer winter than usual. Besides the _Niger_, or black squirrel, there are three other species in Canada West; first, the _Cinereus_, or grey squirrel, which is larger than the black squirrel. Its fur is something better, but the animal is not near so numerous. Secondly, the _Ruber_, or red squirrel, smaller than the last, but equally destructive. The chitmunck, or _Siriatus_, or ground squirrel, is much smaller and more mischievous than any of the former species. The ridge of the back is marked with a black stripe; the sides are of a reddish yellow, spotted with white; the feet and legs pale red; the eyes black and projecting. These pretty little creatures never run up trees, unless they are pursued. They burrow and form their habitations under ground with two entrances. During the maize-harvest, they fill their mouths so full of corn that their cheeks distend to the size of a hen's egg. The chitmunck sometimes inhabits hollow trees and logs. I have frequently cut down trees in which they had deposited their winter-store, to the amount of half-a-bushel of beech-mast, Indian corn, and grain of different descriptions. It is a very curious circumstance that, before storing away for the winter, they carefully skin every beechnut. Towards the spring, when the days begin to be a little warm, they leave their winter-holes and enter the barns--compelled, most probably, by the failure of their winter-store. Great numbers are then destroyed by the cats. Their fur is of little value, and their flesh uneatable. CHAPTER XXIII. THE REBEL, VON-EGMOND, THE FIRST AGRICULTURAL SETTLER ON THE HURON. -- CUTTING THE FIRST SHEAF. THE celebrated Anthony J.W.G. Von Egmond, who commanded the rebels at Gallows Hill during Mackenzie's rebellion, was the first agricultural settler on the Huron tract. He had formerly been a Colonel in the old Imperial Army; and after Buonaparte's abdication and retirement to Elba, he joined the Allies, and held the rank of an officer in one of the Belgian regiments at Waterloo. He was a pushing, clever sort of man; and had he but been contented, and stuck to his last, instead of troubling his head about politics, he would, in all probability, have become one of the richest and most independent farmers in the Huron tract. Within the short period of twenty months, Von Egmond had chopped and cleared, fit for a crop, nearly a hundred acres of land, fifty of which were sown wheat. As this was the first field ripe in the tract, the old man determined to celebrate the event by asking some of the gentlemen connected with the Canada Company to dinner, and to witness the cutting of the first sheaf. Thomas Mercer Jones, Esq., one of the Company's Commissioners, Dr. Dunlop, Mr. Prior, the Professor, and myself, composed the party on this important occasion. As the distance was little short of eighteen miles through the Bush, and we had no way of getting there--except by walking--it was arranged that we should start the day previous, and sleep all night at Von Egmond's. Accordingly, we left Goderich about eleven o'clock, A.M., by the newly cut-out road, through the forest. I wonder what our English friends would think of walking in their shirt-sleeves, with their coats and neckcloths thrown over their arms, eighteen miles to a dinner-party, with the thermometer ranging something like 90 degrees in the shade. The day was hot, though not unpleasantly so; for the leafy screen above our heads effectually protected us from the scorching rays of a July sun, which would otherwise have been very oppressive. The musquitoes were particularly civil--indeed the reign of these gentlemen was nearly over for the season. They begin to be troublesome in the middle of May. From the 1st of June to the middle of July, they are in the very height of their impertinence; and, although they have not sufficient strength in their proboscis to penetrate a top-boot, yet they easily pierce through a summer coat and shirt, and a wee bit into the skin beneath. From the middle of July to the middle of August, they become much less venomous; and are then only annoying for an hour or so in the evening, in the woods or marshes. By the 1st of September, they finally disappear for the season. Our long road was considerably shortened by the amusing stories and anecdotes of the Doctor, who kept us in good humour during the whole journey. Nearly mid-way between Goderich and Von Egmond's, a small rill crosses the road: here we stopped for an hour, and refreshed ourselves with beef-sandwiches and brandy and water--no bad things in the Bush. Close by the side of this little stream was a small log-shanty, which had been erected by the people who had been employed by the men cutting out the new road, which, from this to the southern boundary of the Huron tract, was already cleared out, the full width of sixty-six feet, preparatory to its being turnpiked.* [* This is merely an American term for a road which has been ploughed on each side, and the earth, so raised, thrown up in the centre by the means of a road-scraper, or turnpike shovel, worked either with horses or oxen. A road engineer or surveyor would call this grading, preparatory to gravelling or planking.] We reached our destination about five o'clock, where we were received with every mark of respect and hospitality. We were shown upstairs into a newly-finished room--the only apartment as yet completed in the tavern old Von Egmond was building. Here we found an excellent supper ready for us, to which, after a walk of eighteen miles, you may be sure we did ample justice. In the morning, we walked over the farm with the old Colonel, and were much gratified by seeing the prosperous condition of the crops, which argued well for the goodness of the land. I think I never saw a finer crop of oats, or better promise for turnips, in my life. The wheat also looked extremely well. It was certainly an interesting sight, after walking for miles through a dense forest, suddenly to emerge from the wooded solitude upon a sea of waving grain, white for the harvest. "The Harvest! the Harvest! how fair on each plain It waves in its golden luxuriance of grain! The wealth of a nation is spread on the ground, And the year with its joyful abundance is crowned. The barley is whitening on upland and lea, And the oat-locks are drooping, all graceful to see; Like the long yellow hair of a beautiful maid, When it flows on the breezes, unloosed from the braid. "The Harvest! the Harvest! how brightly the sun Looks down on the prospect! its toils are begun; And the wheat-sheaves so thick on the valleys are piled, That the land in its glorious profusion has smiled. The reaper has shouted the furrows among; In the midst of his labour he breaks into song; And the light-hearted gleaners, forgetful of care, Laugh loud, and exult as they gather their share. Agnes Strickland. About noonday, we all proceeded to the harvest-field, headed by our host and his lady, and her fair daughters. As soon as we arrived at the scene of action, a sickle was placed in the hands of Madame Von Egmond; and she was requested to cut and bind the first sheaf of wheat ever harvested in the Huron tract--an honour of which any person might be justly proud. "Lord! thou hast blessed the people, And made the plant of bread To spring, where'er beneath thine eye Fair Nature's carpet spread. Earth's thirst drank in thy freshening rain, Earth's bosom wooed thy sun, Beautiful grew the golden grain, Like prize of labour won!" What were the red battle-fields of Napoleon, in comparison to this bloodless victory, won over the forests of the Huron! The sight of that first sheaf, cut by the gentle hand of woman, was one that angels rejoiced to see; while the fruits of his conquests were such as might well make "the seraphs weep." Madame Von Egmond handled her sickle something better than a mere amateur, which make us conjecture it was not the first sheaf she had ever cut and bound. As soon as this interesting ceremony was over, we gave three hearty cheers for the Canada Company. A horn of whiskey was served round, in which we pledged our host and hostess, and drank success to the settlement. On our return to the house, we found a capital dinner awaiting us. Indeed, the old soldier had spared neither pains nor expense in providing handsomely on the occasion. After the cloth was removed, a nice dessert was laid out, consisting of almonds and raisins, oranges, and red and black raspberries. The two latter dishes are easily procured, for they grow more plentifully in the angles of the snake- fences in Canada than blackberries do in England. They are a delicious fruit, and particularly grateful in a hot day to the weary traveller. I need hardly describe our evening's entertainment, save that "we ate, drank, and were merry." Indeed, it would have been difficult to be otherwise with Doctor Dunlop as one of our companions. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. * * * * * LONDON: Printed by Samuel Bentley & Co. Bangor House, Shoe Lane. 
22363	----	file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org)) THE COUNTRY OF THE NEUTRALS (AS FAR AS COMPRISED IN THE COUNTY OF ELGIN) FROM CHAMPLAIN TO TALBOT BY JAMES H. COYNE. ST. THOMAS, ONT. TIMES PRINT. 1895. [Illustration: This is a copy of Galinee's map of 1670, the first made from actual exploration in which Lake Erie appears. It was printed in Faillon's "Histoire de la Colonie Française," and in "The History of the Early Missions in Western Canada." The plate was very kindly placed at the service of the Elgin Historical and Scientific Institute, for use in this work by the Very Reverend Dean Harris, the author of the last mentioned book. The following explanations refer chiefly to the western portion of the map: Title: "Map of the country visited by Messrs. Dollier de Casson and de Galinee, missionaries of St. Sulpice, drawn by the same M. de Galinee. (See M. Talon's letter 10th November, 1670)." L. Huron: "Michigan or Fresh-Water Sea of the Hurons." (These lakes were erroneously supposed to be but one). N. End: "Bay of the Pottawatamies." Islands near Mackinac: "I entered this bay only as far as these islands." W. of St. Clair River: "Great hunting ground." At Detroit: "Here was a stone, idol of the Iroquois, which we broke up and threw into the water." Essex Peninsula: "Large prairies." Lake Erie: "I mark only what I have seen." Long Point: "Peninsula of Lake Erie." North Shore Opposite: "Here we wintered." The Bay Opposite: "Little Lake Erie." Grand River: "Rapid River on Tina-Toua." East Side Grand River: "Excellent land." West Side Grand River: (up the river): "The Neutral Nation was formerly here." West of Burlington Bay: "Good land." Niagara River: "This current is so strong that it can hardly be ascended." At its Mouth: "Niagara Falls said by the Indians to be more than 200 feet high." Lake Ontario: "I passed on the south side, which I give pretty accurately." North Shore: "Mr. Perot's encampment. Here the missionaries of St. Sulpice established themselves."] THE COUNTRY OF THE NEUTRALS. BY JAMES R. COYNE. In that part of the township of Southwold included in the peninsula between Talbot Creek and the most westerly bend of Kettle Creek there were until a relatively recent date several Indian earthworks, which were well-known to the pioneers of the Talbot Settlement. What the tooth of time had spared for more than two centuries yielded however to the settler's plough and harrow, and but one or two of these interesting reminders of an almost forgotten race remain to gratify the curiosity of the archæologist or of the historian. Fortunately, the most important of all is still almost in its original condition. It is that, which has become known to readers of the Transactions of the Canadian Institute as the Southwold Earthwork. It is situated on the farm of Mr. Chester Henderson, Lot Number Four North on Talbot Road East. Mr. David Boyle in the Archæological Reports printed in 1891 has given the results of his examinations of the mounds. A carefully prepared plan made from actual survey by Mr. A. W. Campbell, C.E., for the Elgin Historical and Scientific Institute of St. Thomas, was presented by the latter to the Canadian Institute.[1] These will together form a valuable, and, it is hoped, a permanent record of this interesting memorial of the aboriginal inhabitants of South-western Ontario. [1] Mr. J. H. Scott, of St. Thomas, has made a number of photographs of the mounds at the instance of an American lady, who, it is understood, will reproduce them in a work about to be published by her. The writer of this paper has been acquainted with "the old fort," as it was called, since the year 1867. At that time it was in the midst of the forest. Since then the woods have been cleared away, except within the fort and north of it. Indeed, a considerable number of trees have been felled within the southern part of the enclosure. In the mounds themselves trees are abundant, and there are many in the moat or ditch between. The stumps of those which have been cut down are so many chronological facts, from which the age of the fort may be conjectured with some approach to accuracy. A maple within the enclosure exhibits 242 rings of annual growth. It was probably the oldest tree within the walls. A maple in the outer embankment shows 197 rings; between the inner and outer walls a beech stump shows 219 rings, and an elm 266. Many of the trees were cut down a good many years ago. Judging from these stumps, it would be safe to calculate the age of the forest at about two hundred years, with here and there a tree a little older. The area enclosed is level. In the field south there are numerous hummocks formed by the decayed stumps of fallen trees. The walls were manifestly thrown up from the outside. There is an exception on the south-east. Here the ground outside was higher, and to get the requisite elevation the earth was thrown up on both walls from the intervening space, as well as on the exterior wall from the outside. Each of the walls runs completely round the enclosure, except where the steep bank of the little stream was utilized to eke out the inner wall for five or six rods on the west side, as shewn on the plan. Opposite the south end of this gap was the original entrance through the outer wall. The walls have been cut through in one or two other places, doubtless by settlers hauling timber across them. The writer accompanied Mr. Campbell on his visits in the spring and fall of 1891. The members of the Elgin Historical and Scientific Institute made a pretty thorough examination of a large ash-heap south-east of the fort. It had, however, been frequently dug into during the last score or two of years, with ample results, it is said, in the way of stone implements of various kinds. There still remained, however, arrow-heads and chippings of flint, stones partially disintegrated from the action of heat, fragments of pottery whose markings showed a very low stage of artistic development, fish scales, charred maize and bones of small animals, the remains of aboriginal banquets. Within the enclosure, corn-cobs were found by digging down though the mould, and a good specimen of a bone needle, well smoothed, but without any decoration, was turned up in the bed of the stream where it passes through the fort. The original occupants were manifestly hunters, fishermen and agriculturists, as well as warriors. Nothing appears to have been found in the neighborhood, pointing to any intercourse between them and any European race. It would seem that the earth-work was constructed in the midst of a large clearing, and that the forest grew up after the disappearance of the occupants. A few saplings, however, may have been permitted to spring up during their occupancy for the sake of the shelter they might afford. These are represented by the oldest stumps above mentioned. The question, who were the builders, is an interesting one. To answer it we need not go back to a remoter period than the middle of the seventeenth century, when the Iroquois after destroying the Huron Settlements turned their attention to the southwest, and the Neutral Nation ceased to exist. The enclosure was, we may reasonably believe, a fortified village of the Neutrals at the time of their evacuation of this province, nearly a quarter of a millennium ago. Substantially all that is known of the Neutrals is to be found in Champlain's works, Sagard's History, the Relations and Journal of the Jesuits, and Sanson's map of 1656. A digest of the information contained therein is given in the following pages. The writer has availed himself of one or two other works for some of the facts mentioned. Mr. Benjamin Sulte's interesting and learned articles on "Le pays des grands lacs au XVIIe Siecle" in that excellent magazine, "Le Canada Francais," have been most valuable in this connection. The first recorded visit to the Neutrals was in the winter of 1626, by a Recollet father, De Laroche-Daillon. His experiences are narrated by himself, and Sagard, who includes the narrative in his history, supplements it with one or two additional facts. In company with the Jesuit Fathers Brebeuf and De Noue, Daillon left Quebec with the purpose of visiting and converting the Hurons, who were settled in villages between the Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe. After the usual hardships, journeying by canoe and portage, by way of the Ottawa and French Rivers, they arrived at their destination. The ill-fated Brule told wonderful stories of a nation, whom the French called the Neutrals, and Father Joseph Le Caron wrote Daillon urging him to continue his journey as far as their country. He set out accordingly on the 18th October, 1626, with two other Frenchmen, Grenolle and La Vallee. Passing through the territory occupied by the Tobacco Nation, he met one of their chiefs, who not merely offered his services as guide, but furnished Indian porters to carry their packs and their scanty provisions. They slept five nights in the woods, and on the sixth day arrived at the village of the Neutrals. In this as well as in four other villages which they visited, they were hospitably entertained with presents of food, including venison, pumpkins, "neintahouy," and "the best they had." Their dress excited the astonishment of their Indian hosts, who were also surprised that the missionary asked nothing from them but that they should raise their eyes to heaven, and make the sign of the cross. What excited raptures of admiration, however, according to his narrative was to see him retire for prayer at certain hours of the day: for they had never seen any priests beyond passing glimpses when visiting amongst the neighboring Hurons and Tobacco Indians. At the sixth village, Ounontisaston, in which Daillon had been advised to take up his abode, a council was held at his instance. He observes that the councils are called at the will of the chiefs, and held either in a wigwam or in the open air, the audience being seated on the ground; that silence is preserved whilst a chief is addressing the assembly, and that what they have once concluded and settled is inviolably observed and performed by them. Daillon explained that he had come on the part of the French to make alliance and friendship with them and to invite them to come and trade, and begged them to permit him to stay in their country "to instruct them in the laws of our God, which is the only means of going to Paradise." They agreed to all he proposed and in return for his gifts of knives and other trifles, they adopted him as "citizen and child of the country," and as a mark of great affection entrusted him to the care of Souharissen, who became his father and host. The latter was, according to Daillon, the chief of the greatest renown and authority that had ever been known in all the nations, being chief not only of his own village, but of all those of his nation, to the number of twenty-eight, besides several little hamlets of seven to eight cabins built in different places convenient for fishing, hunting, or cultivating the ground. Souharissen had acquired his absolute and extraordinary authority by his courage and his success in war. He had been several times at war with the seventeen tribes, who were the enemies of his race, and from all he had brought back the heads of those he had slain, or prisoners taken alive, as tokens of his prowess. His authority was without example amongst other tribes. The Neutrals are reported by Daillon as being very warlike, armed only with war-club and bow, and dexterous in their use. His companions having gone back, the missionary remained alone, "the happiest man in the world," seeking to advance the glory of God and to find the mouth of the river of the Iroquois, (probably the Niagara,) in order to conduct the savages to the French trading posts. He visited them in their huts, found them very manageable and learned their customs. He remarked that there were no deformed people amongst them. The children, who were sprightly, naked and unkempt, were taught by him to make the sign of the Holy Cross. The natives were willing that at least four canoes should go to trade if he would conduct them, but nobody knew the way. Yroquet, an Indian known in the country, who had come hunting with twenty of his tribe and secured five hundred beaver skins, declined to give him any indication of the mouth of the river; but he agreed with several Hurons in assuring Daillon that a journey of ten days would take him to the trading post. The missionary, however, was afraid of taking one river for another and getting lost or perishing of hunger. For three months he was treated with kindness. Then the Hurons became jealous lest the trade should be diverted from them. They accordingly circulated rumors through every village, that Daillon was a great magician, that he had poisoned the air in their country, and many had died in consequence, that if he was not killed soon, he would burn up their villages and kill their children, with other stories as extraordinary and alarming about the entire French nation. The Neutrals were easily influenced by the reports. Daillon's life was in danger on more than one occasion. The rumor reached Brebeuf and De Noue, that he had been killed. They at once despatched Grenolle to ascertain the truth, with instructions to bring Daillon back if alive. He acquiesced, and returned to the Huron country. He speaks of a Neutral village called Ouaroronon, one day's journey from the Iroquois, the people of which came to trade at Ounontisaston. Their village was the last of the Neutral villages, and was probably east of the Niagara River. Daillon, like every other traveller, was charmed with the Neutral country, which he pronounces incomparably greater, more beautiful and better than any other "of all these countries." He notes the incredible number of deer, the native mode of taking them by driving them into a gradually narrowing enclosure, their practice of killing every animal they find whether they needed it or not. The reason alleged was that if they did not kill all, the beasts that escaped would tell the others how they had been chased, so that afterwards when the Indians needed game it would be impossible to get near it. He enumerates moose, beaver, wild-cats, squirrels larger than those of France, bustards, turkeys, cranes, etc., as abundant, and remaining in the country through the winter. The winter was shorter and milder than "in Canada." No snow had fallen by the 22nd November. The deepest was not more than two and a half feet. Thaw set in on the 26th of January. On the 8th March the snow was gone from the open places, but a little still lingered in the woods. The streams abounded in very good fish. The ground produced more corn than was needed, besides pumpkins, beans and other vegetables in abundance, and excellent oil. He expresses his surprise that the Merchants' Company had not sent some Frenchman to winter in the Country: for it would be very easy to get the Neutrals to trade and the direct route would be much shorter than that by way of French River and the Georgian Bay. He describes the Neutrals' country as being nearer than the Huron to the French, and as being on one side of the lake of the Iroquois (Lake Ontario) whilst the Iroquois were on the other. The Neutrals, however, did not understand the management of canoes, especially in the rapids, of which there were only two, but long and dangerous. Their proper trade was hunting and war. They were very lazy and immoral. Their manners and customs were very much the same as those of the Hurons. Their language was different, but the members of the two nations understood one another. They went entirely unclad. Sagard adds that "according to the opinion of some," the Neutrals' country was eighty leagues (about 200 miles) in extent, and that they raised very good tobacco which they traded with their neighbors. They were called Neutrals on account of their neutrality between the Hurons and the Iroquois; but they were allies of the Cheveux Releves (the Ottawas) against their mortal enemies of the Nation of Fire. Sagard was dissuaded by some members of the French trading company from attempting to bring about a peace between the Hurons and the Iroquois. It was supposed that this would divert the trade of the Hurons from Quebec by sending it through the Iroquois country to the Dutch of the Hudson River. At so early a date did the question of closer trade relations between the territories north and south of the lakes agitate the minds of statesmen and men of commerce. In the winter of 1640-1, the Jesuit missionaries, Brebeuf and Chaumonot traversed the country of the Neutrals. The former composed a dictionary showing the differences between the kindred dialects of the Hurons and Neutrals. Chaumonot made a map of the country, which is not extant, but there is reason for believing that it was the authority for the delineation of the territory on Sanson's map of 1656 and Ducreux's Latin map of 1660. From the facts hereinafter detailed it is highly probable that they reached the Detroit River, and that they visited and named the Neutral village of which the Southwold Earthwork is the memorial. The first printed map in which Lake Erie is shown was made by N. Sanson d'Abbeville, geographer in ordinary to the King, and printed in Paris, with "privilege du Roy" for twenty years, in the year 1656. It is a map of eastern North America. The sources of information are stated in general terms, which may be translated as follows: "The most northerly portion is drawn from the various Relations of the English, Danes, etc. Towards the south the coasts of Virginia, New Sweden, New Netherlands and New England are drawn from those of the English, Dutch, etc. THE GREAT RIVER OF CANADA, or of St. Lawrence and all the neighboring regions (_environs_) are according to the Relations of the French." Now, we know that Father Raymbault visited Sault Ste. Marie in 1641 and mapped Lake Superior, and that Father Chaumonot in the same year rendered the same service for the Neutral Country. Sanson's map is fairly accurate for the upper lakes, when compared with some maps published at much later periods when the lakes had become tolerably well known to traders and travellers. It shows an acquaintance with the general contour of Lakes Erie, St. Clair and Huron, with several of the streams emptying into Lakes Erie and Huron on both the Canadian and the American sides, with the names of tribes inhabiting both shores, and with the locations of five towns of the Neutrals, besides some towns of the Tobacco Nation. The Neutral towns are given as S. Francois, (north-east of Sarnia) S. Michel, (a little east of Sandwich), S. Joseph, (apparently in the county of Kent), Alexis, (a few miles west of a stream, which flows into Lake Erie about midway between the Detroit and Niagara Rivers, and where the shore bends farthest inland),[2] and N. D. des Anges (on the West bank of a considerable river, probably the Grand River, near where Brantford now stands). The Detroit and Niagara Rivers and four streams flowing into Lake Erie between them are shown but not named. The great cataract is called "Ongiara Sault." The name Ongiara may, however, be that of the Neutral village east of the Falls. Lake St. Clair is called Lac des Eaux de Mer, or Sea-water Lake, possibly from the mineral springs in the neighborhood. The country of the Tobacco Nation includes the Bruce peninsula and extends from the Huron country on the east to Lake Huron on the west, and Burlington Bay on the southeast. The Neutral Country (_Neutre ou Attiouandarons_) would embrace the whole of southwestern Ontario south of a line drawn from the west end of Lake Ontario to a stream which flows into Lake Huron about midway between Point Edward and Cape Hurd, and which is probably the Maitland River. The tribes to the south of the lakes are indicated from the Niagara River to Lake Superior. The Eries or "Eriechronons, ou du Chat," are south-east of Lake Erie; the "Ontarraronon" are west of what is probably the Cuyahoga River; at the southwest of the lake appear the "Squenqioronon;" west of the Detroit River are the "Aictaeronon;" west of Port Huron the "Couarronon;" Huron County in Michigan is occupied by the "Ariaetoeronon;" at the head of Saginaw Bay and extending southward through Michigan are the "Assistaeronons ou du Feu;" in the peninsula extending north to Mackinac are the "Oukouarararonons;" beyond them Lake Michigan appears as "Lac de Puans;" then come the northern peninsula and "Lac Superieur." Manitoulin Island is marked "Cheveux Releves;" the old French name for the Ottawas. The Tobacco Nation called "N. du Petun on Sanhionontateheronons" includes villages of "S. Simon et S. Iude" in the Bruce promontory, "S. Pierre" near the south end of the County of Bruce, and "S. Pol," southwest of a lake which may be Scugog. [2] Alexis corresponds with the actual position of the Southwold Earthwork, and the stream with that of Kettle Creek. To return to the narratives, these agree in stating that the Neutrals, like their kinsmen of the Huron, Tobacco and Iroquois Nations, were a numerous and sedentary race living in villages and cultivating their fields of maize, tobacco and pumpkins. They were on friendly terms with the eastern and northern tribes, but at enmity with those of the west, especially the Nation of Fire, against whom they were constantly sending out war parties. By the western tribes it would appear that those west of the Detroit River and Lake Huron are invariably meant. Champlain refers to the Neutrals in 1616 as a powerful nation, holding a large extent of country, and numbering 4,000 warriors. Already they were in alliance with the Cheveux Releves (the Ottawas), whom he visited in the Bruce Peninsula, against the Nation of Fire. He states that the Neutrals lived two days' journey southward of the Cheveux Releves, and the Nation of Fire ten days from the latter. The Nation of Fire occupied part of what is now Michigan, probably as far east as the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers. Describing his visit to the Cheveux Releves, he adds:--"I had a great desire to go and see that Nation (the Neutrals), had not the tribes where we were dissuaded me from it, saying that the year before one of ours had killed one of them, being at war with the Entouhoronons (the Senecas), and that they were angry on account of it, representing to us that they are very subject to vengeance, not looking to those who dealt the blow, but the first whom they meet of the nation, or even their friends, they make them bear the penalty, when they can catch any of them unless beforehand peace had been made with them, and one had given them some gifts and presents for the relatives of the deceased; which prevented me for the time from going there, although some of that nation assured us that they would do us no harm for that. This decided us, and occasioned our returning by the same road as we had come, and continuing my journey, I found the nation of the Pisierinij etc." NOTE.--This is a literal translation, and shows the crudity of Champlain's sailor style of composition. Brebeuf, who reckoned the Hurons at more than 30,000, describes the Neutrals in 1634 as much more numerous than the former. The Relation of 1641 gives them at least 12,000, but adds that notwithstanding the wars, famine and disease (small pox), which since three years had prevailed in an extraordinary degree, the country could still furnish 4,000 warriors, the exact number estimated by Champlain a quarter of a century earlier. The name of the Neutrals is variously given as Attikadaron, Atiouandaronk, Attiouandaron, Attiwandaronk, but the last is the more common. The name signified "people who spoke a slightly different dialect," and the Hurons were known to the Neutrals by the same name. The latter are mentioned in the Relations as one of the twelve numerous and sedentary nations who spoke a common language with the Hurons. The Oueanohronons formed "one of the nations associated with the Neutral Nation." They are afterwards called in the same Relation (1639) the Wenrohronons, and are said to have lived on the borders of the Iroquois, more than eighty leagues from the Huron country. So long as they were on friendly terms with the Neutrals they were safe from the dreaded Iroquois; but a misunderstanding having arisen between them, they were obliged to flee in order to avoid extermination by the latter. They took refuge, more than 600 in all, with the Hurons, and were received in the most friendly and hospitable manner. The Relation of 1640 speaks of a Huron map communicated by Father Paul Ragueneau in which a large number of tribes, most of them acquainted with the Huron language, are shown, including the Iroquois, the Neutrals, the Eries, etc. The "Mission of the Apostles" was established among the Tobacco Nation by Garnier and Jogues in 1640. Nine villages visited by them were endowed by the missionaries with the names of apostles, two of which are given in Sanson's map of 1656.[3] In one "bourg" called S. Thomas, they baptized a boy five years old belonging to the Neutral Nation, who died immediately afterwards. "He saw himself straightway out of banishment and happy in his own country." The famine had driven his parents to the village of the Tobacco Nation. The devoted missionaries add that this was the first fruits of the Neutral nation. [3] The principal "bourg" was Ehwae, surnamed S. Pierre et S. Paul. If S. Pierre on Sanson's map is the same place, this most have been near the southern end of the county of Bruce. The other village or mission shown on the map is S. Simon et S. Iude. In the fall of the same year "The Mission of the Angels" was begun among the Neutrals. The lot fell upon Jean de Brebeuf and Joseph Marie Chaumonot. The former was the pioneer of the Jesuit Mission. He had spent three years among the Hurons from 1626 to 1629, and, after the restoration of Canada to the French by Charles I., he had returned in 1634 to the scene of his earlier labors. His associate had only come from France the year before. Brebeuf was distinguished for his mastery of the native tongues, and Chaumonot had been recognized as an apt student of languages. The plan of the Jesuits was to establish in the new mission a fixed and permanent residence, which should be the "retreat" of the missionaries of the surrounding country, as Ste. Marie was of those of the Huron mission. Lalemant from their report describes the Neutral Nation as exceedingly populous, including about forty villages ("bourgs ou bourgades.") The nearest villages were four or five days' journey or about forty leagues (100 miles) distant from the Hurons, going due south. He estimates the difference in latitude between Ste. Marie and the nearest village of the Neutrals to the south at about 1°55'. Elsewhere the distance is spoken of as about thirty leagues. From the first "bourg," going on to the south or south-west (a mistake for south-east it would seem,) it was about four days' journey to the mouth of the Niagara River. On this side of the river, and not beyond it, as "some map" lays it down, (Champlain's, doubtless,) were most of the "bourgs" of the Neutral Nation. There were three or four on the other side towards the Eries. Lalemant claims, and there is no doubt as to the fact, that the French were the first Europeans to become acquainted with the Neutrals. The Hurons and Iroquois were sworn enemies to each other, but in a wigwam or even a camp of the Neutrals until recently each had been safe from the other's vengeance. Latterly however the unbridled fury of the hostile nations had not respected even the neutral ground of their mutual friends. Friendly as they were to the Hurons and Iroquois, the Neutrals engaged in cruel wars with other nations to the west, particularly the Nation of Fire, as has been stated above. The previous year a hundred prisoners had been taken from the latter tribe. This year, returning with 2,000 warriors, the Neutrals had carried off more than 170. Fiercer than the Hurons, they burned their female prisoners. Their clothing and mode of living differed but little from those of the Hurons. They had Indian corn, beans and pumpkins in equal abundance. Fish were abundant, different species being met with in different places. The country was a famous hunting ground. Elk, deer, wild cats, wolves, "black beasts" (squirrels), beaver and other animals valuable for their skins and flesh; were in abundance. It was a rare thing to see more than half a foot of snow. This year there was more than three feet. The deep snow had facilitated the hunting, and, in happy contrast with the famine which had prevailed, meat was plentiful. They had also multitudes of wild turkeys which went in flocks through the fields and woods. Fruits were no more plentiful than amongst the Hurons, except that chestnuts abounded, and wild apples were a little larger. Their manners and customs, and family and political government, were very much like those of the other Indian tribes, but they were distinguished from the Hurons by their greater dissoluteness and indecency. On the other hand they were taller, stronger and better formed. Their burial customs were peculiar, although similar customs are reported at this day amongst some African tribes. The bodies remained in their wigwams until decomposition rendered them insupportable, when they were put outside on a scaffold. Soon afterward, the bones were removed and arranged within their houses on both sides in sight of the inmates, where they remained until the feast of the dead. Having these mournful objects before their eyes, the women habitually indulged in cries and laments, in a kind of chant. The Neutrals were distinguished for the multitude and quality of their madmen, who were a privileged class. Hence it was common for bad Indians to assume the character of maniacs in order to perpetrate crimes without fear of punishment. The Jesuits suffered very much from their malice. Some old men told them that the Neutrals used to carry on war "towards" a certain western nation, who would seem to have lived on the Gulf of Mexico, where the "porcelain, which are the pearls of the country," was obtained from a kind of oysters. It is an undoubted fact that a traffic was carried on with tribes as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, from whom shells used for wampum were obtained by successive interchanges of commodities with intervening tribes. They had also some vague notion of alligators, which are apparently referred to by the description, "certain aquatic animals, larger and swifter than elk," against which these same people had "a kind of war," the details of which are somewhat amusing, as given by Lalemant. The two Jesuits left Ste. Marie the 2nd November, 1640, with two French servants (probably "donnes,") and an Indian. They slept four nights in the woods. The fifth day they arrived at the first village ("bourg") of the Neutral Nation called Kandoucho, but to which they gave the name of All Saints. This is probably the same as N. D. des Anges on Sanson's map, and was not far perhaps from the site of Brantford. Owing to the unfavorable reports which had been spread through the country about the Jesuits, the latter were anxious to explain their purposes to a council of the chiefs and old men. The head chief, "who managed the affairs of the public" was called Tsohahissen (doubtless the same as Daillon's Souharissen). His "bourg" was "in the middle of the country;" to reach it, one had to pass through several other villages ("bourgs et bourgades.") In Sanson's map, Alexis is placed almost exactly "in the middle of the country" of the Neutrals. No other village is marked on the map, to which the expression could be applied. Its situation nearly midway between the Detroit & Niagara Rivers, a few miles west of a stream which flows into Lake Erie just where the mouth of Kettle Creek would appear in a map of our own century, corresponds with that of the Southwold earthwork. Was the latter the Neutrals' capital? We can only conjecture; but the evidence of the Relations, the map and the forest growth, all points to an affirmative answer. There is a strong probability that it was here Tsohahissen reigned (if the expression is allowable in reference to an Indian potentate) as head chief of the forty Neutral villages. Through the western gate, doubtless, his warriors set out to wage their relentless warfare against the Nation of Fire. Within these mounds, returning satiated with blood, they celebrated their savage triumph, adorned with the scalps of their enemies. Brebeuf's Huron surname "Echon" had preceded him. He was regarded as "one of the most famous sorcerers and demons ever imagined." Several Frenchmen had travelled through the country before him, purchasing furs and other commodities. These had smoothed the way for the Jesuits. Under the pretext of being traders, Brebeuf's party succeeded in making their way in spite of all obstacles interposed. They arrived at the head-chief's village, only to find that he had gone on a war party and would not return until spring. The missionaries sought to negotiate with those who administered affairs in his absence. They desired to publish the Gospel throughout these lands, "and thereby to contract a particular alliance with them." In proof of their desire, they had brought a necklace of two thousand grains of "porcelain" or wampum which they wished to present to "the Public." The inferior chiefs refused to bind themselves in any way by accepting the present, but gave the missionaries leave, if they would wait until the chief of the country returned, to travel freely and give such instruction as they pleased. Nothing could have suited the fathers better. First however they decided to return in their steps and reconduct their domestics out of the country. Then they would resume their journey for the second time, and "begin their function." As it had been the servants however, who had acted the part of traders, this pretext was now wanting to the Jesuits. They suffered everywhere from the malicious reports which had been circulated as to their purposes in visiting the nation and the acts of sorcery with which they were charged. The Hurons of the Georgian Bay alarmed for the monopoly they had hitherto enjoyed and jealous of the French traders, had sent emissaries amongst the Neutrals to poison their minds against the adventurous travellers, by the most extraordinary calumnies. For these reports two Huron Indians Aouenhokoui and Oentara were especially responsible. They had visited several villages, presented hatchets in the name of the Huron chiefs and old men, and denounced their white visitors as sorcerers who desired to destroy the Neutrals by means of presents. These representations were so effectual that a council was at length held by the chiefs and the present formally refused, although permission to preach was granted. From village to village they passed, but everywhere the doors were barred to them. Hostile looks greeted them wherever they went. No sooner did they approach a village than the cry resounded on all sides "Here come the Agwa." This was the name given by the natives to their greatest enemies. If the priests were admitted into their dwellings at all, it was more frequently from fear of the "sorcerers'" vengeance than for the hope of gain, "God making use of everything in order to nourish his servants." In the graphic language of Lalemant: "The mere sight of the fathers, in figure and habit so different from their own, their gait, their gestures and their whole deportment seemed to them so many confirmations of what had been told them. The breviaries, ink-stands and writings were instruments of magic; if the Frenchmen prayed to God, it was according to their idea simply an exercise of sorcerers. Going to the stream to wash their dishes, it was said they were poisoning the water: it was charged that through all the cabins, wherever the priests passed, the children were seized with a cough and bloody flux, and the women became barren. In short, there was no calamity present or to come, of which they were not considered as the source. Several of those with whom the fathers took up their abode did not sleep day or night for fear; they dared not touch what had been handled by them, they returned the strangers' presents, regarding everything as suspicious. The good old women already regarded themselves as lost, and only regretted the fate of their little children, who might otherwise have been able to repeople the earth." The Neutrals intimidated the fathers with rumors of the Senecas, who they were assured were not far off. They spoke of killing and eating the missionaries. Yet in the four months of their sojourn Brebeuf and Chaumonot never lacked the necessaries of life, lodging and food, and amidst difficulties and inconveniences better imagined than described they retained their health. Their food supply was bread baked under ashes after the fashion of the country, and which they kept for thirty and even forty days to use in case of need. "In their journey, the fathers passed through eighteen villages (_bourgs ou bourgades_), to all of which they gave a Christian name, of which we shall make use hereafter on occasion. They stayed particularly in ten, to which they gave as much instruction as they could find hearers. They report about 500 Fires and 3,000 persons, which these ten _bourgades_ may contain, to whom they set forth and published the Gospel." (Lalemant's Relation.)[4] [4] In another place it is stated that there were 40 villages of the Neutrals in all. Disheartened, the fathers decided to return to Kandoucho or All Saints to await the spring. Midway, however, at the village of Teotongniaton, or S. Guillaume, (perhaps in the vicinity of Woodstock) the snow fell in such quantities that further progress was impossible. They lodged here in the cabin of a squaw, who entertained them hospitably and instructed them in the language, dictating narratives syllable by syllable as to a school boy. Here they stayed twenty-five days, "adjusted the dictionary and rules of the Huron language to that of these tribes (the Neutrals), and accomplished a work which alone was worth a journey of several years in the country." Hurons from the mission of La Conception volunteered to go to the relief of the daring travellers. After eight days of travel and fatigue in the woods the priests and the relief party arrived at Ste. Marie on the very day of St. Joseph, patron of the country, in time to say mass, which they had not been able to say since their departure. Amongst the eighteen villages visited by them, only one, that of Khioetoa, called by the fathers Saint Michel, gave them the audience their embassy merited. In this village, years before, driven by fear of their enemies, had taken refuge a certain foreign nation, "which lived beyond Erie or the Cat Nation," named Aouenrehronon. It was in this nation that the fathers performed the first baptism of adults. These were probably a portion of the kindred Neutral tribe referred to above as having fled to the Huron country from the Iroquois. Their original home was in the State of New York. Sanson's map shows S. Michel a little east of where Sandwich now stands. Owing to their scanty number and the calumnies circulated amongst the Indians respecting the Jesuits of the Huron Mission the latter resolved to concentrate their forces. The Neutral mission was abandoned, but Christian Indians visited the Neutrals in 1643 and spread the faith amongst them with a success which elicits Lalemant's enthusiastic praises. Towards the end of the following winter a band of about 500 Neutrals visited the Hurons. The fathers did not fail to avail themselves of their opportunity. The visitors were instructed in the faith and expressed their regret that their teachers could not return with them. A different reception from that experienced by Brebeuf and Chaumonot three years before was promised. Lalemant relates that in the summer of 1643, 2,000 Neutrals invaded the country of the Nation of Fire and attacked a village strongly fortified with a palisade, and defended stoutly by 900 warriors. After a ten days' siege, they carried it by storm, killed a large number on the spot, and carried off 800 captives, men, women and children, after burning 70 of the most warlike and blinding the eyes and "girdling the mouths" of the old men, whom they left to drag out a miserable existence. He reports the Nation of Fire as more populous than the Neutrals, the Hurons and the Iroquois together. In a large number of these villages the Algonkin language was spoken. Farther away, it was the prevailing tongue. In remote Algonkin tribes, even at that early day, there were Christians who knelt, crossed their hands, turned their eyes heavenward, and prayed to God morning and evening, and before and after their meals; and the best mark of their faith was that they were no longer wicked nor dishonest as they were before. So it was reported to Lalemant by trustworthy Hurons who went every year to trade with Algonkin nations scattered over the whole northern part of the continent. Ragueneau in the Relation of 1648 refers to Lake Erie as being almost 200 leagues in circuit, and precipitating itself by "a waterfall of a terrible height" into Lake Ontario, or Lake Saint Louys. The Aondironnons a tribe of the Neutrals living nearest to the Hurons were treacherously attacked in their village by 300 Senecas, who after killing a number carried as many as possible away with them as prisoners. The Neutrals showed no open resentment but quietly prepared to revenge themselves. A Christian Huron, a girl of fifteen, taken prisoner by the Senecas, escaped from them and made her way to the Neutral country, where she met four men, two of whom were Neutrals and the others enemies. The latter wished to take her back to captivity; but the Neutrals, claiming that within their country she was no longer in the power of her enemies, rescued her and she returned in safety to Ste. Marie on the Georgian Bay. These incidents were the prelude to the storm which shortly afterward burst. In 1650 the principal part of the Iroquois forces was directed against the Neutrals. They carried two frontier villages, in one of which were more than 1600 men, the first at the end of autumn, the second early in the spring of 1651. The old men and children who might encumber them on their homeward journey were massacred. The number of captives was excessive, especially of young women, who were carried off to the Iroquois towns. The other more distant villages were seized with terror. The Neutrals abandoned their houses, their property and their country. Famine pursued them. The survivors became scattered amongst far-off woods and along unknown lakes and rivers. In wretchedness and want and in constant apprehension of their relentless enemy, they eked out a miserable existence. The Journal (April 22, 1651) adds that after the destruction of the Neutral village in the previous autumn, the Neutral warriors under the lead of the Tahontaenrat (a Huron tribe) had followed the assailants and killed or taken 200 of them; and 1,200 Iroquois warriors had returned in the spring to avenge this disaster. In August a Huron reported at Montreal the capture of Teot'ondiaton (probably the village in which Brebeuf composed his dictionary, and which is referred to in the Relation as having been taken in the spring). The condition of the Neutrals was desolate and desperate. In April, 1652, news reached Quebec that they had leagued with the Andastes against the Iroquois, that the Senecas had been defeated in a foray against the Neutrals, so that the Seneca women had been constrained to quit their village and retreat to the Oneida country; also that the Mohawks had gone on the war path against the Andastes during the winter, and the issue of the war was unknown. The last of July, 1653, seven Indians from the Huron country arrived at Quebec and reported a great gathering near Mackinac of all the Algonkin nations with the remains of the Tobacco and Neutral Nations at A'otonatendie three days above the Sault Ste. Marie (Skia'e) towards the south. The Tobacco Indians had wintered at Tea'onto'rai; the Neutrals to the number of 800 at Sken'chio'e towards Teo'chanontian. These were to rendezvous the next fall with the Algonkins, who were already on the spot to the number of 1,000. This is probably the last we hear of the Neutrals under their own name. Some of the survivors united with the remnant of the Hurons at Mackinac and on Lake Superior; and under the name of the Hurons and Wyandots they appear from time to time on the page of history. Their removal to Detroit on the establishment of the latter trading post by Cadaillac, is perpetuated by the name of Wyandotte, to the south of the City of the Straits. Parkman mentions the circumstance that an old chief named Kenjockety, who claimed descent from an adopted prisoner of the Neutral Nation, was recently living among the Senecas of Western New York. It is stated in the "History of the County of Middlesex" that over 60 years ago, "Edouard Petit, of Black River, discovered the ruins of an ancient building on the Riviere aux Sables, about 40 miles from Sarnia. Pacing the size, he found it to have been 40×24 feet on the ground. On the middle of the south or gable end, was a chimney eighteen feet high, in excellent preservation, built of stone, with an open fire place. The fire place had sunk below the surface. This ruin had a garden surrounding it, ten or twelve rods wide by twenty rods in length, marked by ditches and alleys. Inside the walls of the house a splendid oak had grown to be three feet in diameter, with a stem sixty feet high to the first branch. It seemed to be of second growth, and must have been 150 years reaching its proportions as seen in 1828-9." This must have been the mission of S. Francois shown on Sanson's map. THE IROQUOIS' HUNTING GROUND. After the expulsion of the Neutrals, the north shore of Lake Erie remained an unpeopled wilderness until the close of the last century. The unbroken forest teemed with deer, racoons, foxes, wolves, bears, squirrels and wild turkeys. Millions of pigeons darkened the sky in their seasons of migration. For generations after the disappearance of the Neutrals, the Iroquois resorted to the region in pursuit of game. The country was described in maps as "_Chasse de Castor des Iroquois_," the Iroquois' beaver ground. Numerous dams constructed by these industrious little animals still remain to justify the description. The French built forts at Detroit, Niagara and Toronto to intercept the beaver traffic, which otherwise might be shared by the English on the Hudson and Mohawk rivers; but for nearly a hundred and fifty years no settlement was attempted on the north shore. References to the region are few and scanty. Travellers did not penetrate into the country. Coasting along the shore in canoes on their way to Detroit, they landed as rarely as possible for shelter or repose. There were forest paths well known to the Indians, by which they portaged their canoes and goods from one water stretch to another. One of these led from the site of Dundas to a point on the Grand River near Cainsville; another from the latter stream to the Thames River near Woodstock; and a third from the upper waters of the Thames to Lake Huron. Besides these, there was a trail from the Huntly farm in Southwold on the River Thames (Lot 11, Con. 1,) to the mouth of Kettle Creek; and a fifth from the Rondeau to M'Gregor's Creek near Chatham. These were thoroughfares of travel and of such rude commerce as was carried on by the savages with their French and English neighbors. THE FRENCH EXPLORATION. Joliet was the first Frenchman to descend Lake Erie from Detroit. He had been sent by Talon to investigate the copper mines of Lake Superior. He returned to Quebec in the autumn of 1669 by way of the lower lakes, instead of taking the usual route by the French River and the Ottawa. At the mouth of Kettle Creek he hid his canoe. Thence he portaged, doubtless by the well-known trails to the Thames and Grand rivers, until he reached Burlington Bay.[5] [5] This is the most probable inference from the facts stated by Galinee. At the Seneca village of Tinaouatoua, midway between the Bay and the Grand River, he met La Salle and the Sulpician priests, Dollier de Casson and Galinee on their way to Lake Erie and the Ohio River. The result of the meeting and of the information given by Joliet was that the priests altered their purpose and decided to proceed to Sault Ste. Marie and then to the Pottamatamies, where they would establish their mission: whilst La Salle, who evidently was dissatisfied with his companions, went back with Joliet and, it is now pretty generally believed, discovered the Ohio by journeying overland from the Seneca villages south of Lake Ontario during the winter or the following spring. Joliet gave the missionaries a description of his route, from which Galinee was able to make a map which was of great assistance in the further progress of their expedition.[6] The priests descended the Grand River to Lake Erie, and wintered at the forks of Patterson's Creek, where Port Dover now stands. After a sojourn of five months and eleven days, during which they were visited in their cabin by Iroquois beaver hunters, they proceeded westward along the north shore of the lake. Losing one of their canoes in a storm, they were obliged to divide their party. Four men with the luggage proceeded in the two remaining canoes. Five of the party, including apparently the two priests, made the wearisome journey on foot from Long Point all the way to the mouth of Kettle Creek, where on the tenth of April, 1670, they found Joliet's canoe, and the party was reunited for the rest of the long journey to the Sault. Upon leaving their winter abode however the whole party had first proceeded to the lake shore, and there on the 23rd March 1670, being Passion Sunday, planted a cross, as a memorial of their long sojourn, and offered a prayer. The official record is as follows: "We the undersigned certify that we have seen affixed on the lands of the lake called Erie the arms of the King of France with this inscription: The year of salvation 1669, Clement IX. being seated in St. Peter's chair, Louis XIV. reigning in France, M. de Courcelle being governor of New France, and M. Talon being intendant therein for the King, there arrived in this place two missionaries from Montreal accompanied by seven other Frenchmen, who, the first of all European peoples, have wintered on this lake, of which, as of a territory not occupied, they have taken possession in the name of their King by the apposition of his arms, which they have attached to the foot of this cross. In witness whereof we have signed the present certificate." "FRANCOIS DOLLIER, Priest of the Diocese of Nantes in Brittany. DE GALINEE, Deacon of the Diocese of Rennes in Brittany." [6] Galinee's map is reproduced in Faillon's Histoire de la Colonie Francaise. Galinee grows enthusiastic over the abundance of game and wild fruits opposite Long Point. The grapes were as large and as sweet as the finest in France. The wine made from them was as good as _vin de grave_. He admires the profusion of walnuts, chestnuts, wild apples and plums. Bears were fatter and better to the palate than the most "savory" pigs in France. Deer wandered in herds of 50 to 100. Sometimes even 200 would be seen feeding together. In his enthusiasm the good priest calls this region "the terrestrial paradise of Canada." Fortunately for the explorers, the winter was as mild at Port Dover as it was severe at Montreal. Patterson's Creek was however still frozen over on the 26th March, when, having portaged their goods and canoes to the lake, they embarked to resume their westward journey. They had to pass two streams before they arrived at the sand beach which connected Long Point with the mainland. To effect the first crossing they walked four leagues inland before they found a satisfactory spot. To cross Big Creek, they were obliged to spend a whole day constructing a raft. They were further delayed by a prolonged snow storm and a strong north wind. On the west bank was a meadow more than 200 paces wide, in passing over which they were immersed to their girdles in mud and slash. Arriving at the sandy ridge which then connected Long Point with the mainland, they found the lake on the other side full of floating ice, and concluded that their companions had not ventured to proceed in their frail barques. They encamped near the sandbar and waited for the canoes, which had doubtless been delayed by the weather. The missionaries put themselves on short rations in order to permit the hunters to keep up their strength for the chase, and were rewarded with a stag as the result. As it was Holy Week the whole party decided not to leave the spot until they had kept their Easter together. On the Tuesday following, which was the eighth day of April, they heard mass and, although the lake had still a border of ice, they launched their canoe, and continued their journey as before, five of the party going by land. When they arrived at "the place of the canoe," on the 10th great was their disappointment to find that the Iroquois had anticipated them and carried it away. Later in the day however it was found, hidden between two large trees on the other side of a stream. The discoverers came upon it unexpectedly whilst looking for dry wood to make a fire, and bore it in triumph to the lake. The hunters were out the whole day without seeing any game. For five or six days the party subsisted on boiled maize, no meat being obtainable. Being provided now with three canoes, the party paddled up the lake in one day to a place where game was abundant. The hunters saw more than 200 deer in a single herd, but missed their aim. In their craving for flesh-meat, they shot and skinned a poor wolf and had it ready for the kettle, when one of their men perceived twenty or thirty deer "on the other side of a small lake on the shore of which we were."[7] The deer were surrounded and forced into the water, where 10 were killed, the rest being permitted to escape. Well supplied with fresh and smoked meat they went on nearly twenty leagues (about fifty miles) in one day, "as far as a long point which you will find marked in the map of Lake Erie. We arrived there on a beautiful sand-beach on the east side of this point."[8] Here disaster overtook them. They had drawn up their canoes beyond high water mark, but left their goods on the sand near the water, whilst they camped for the night. A terrific gale came up from the north-east, and the water of the lake rose until it swept with violence over the beach. One of the party was awakened by the roaring of the waves and wind and aroused the rest, who attempted to save their supplies. Groping with torches along the shore, they succeeded in securing the cargo of Galinee's canoe, and of one of Dollier's. The other canoe load was lost, including provisions, goods for bartering, ammunition, and, most important of all, the altar service, with which they intended establishing their mission among the Pottawatamies. The question was debated whether they should take up their mission with some other tribe, or go back to Montreal for a new altar service and supplies, and, returning at a later period, establish themselves wherever they should then determine. Deciding in favor of the latter view, they concluded that the return journey would be as short by way of the Sault and the French River as by the route which they had followed from the east. In favor of this decision was the further consideration that not only would they see a new country but they would have the escort of the Ottawas who were assembling at the Sault for their annual trading visit to Montreal and Quebec. Galinee continues: "We pursued our journey accordingly towards the west, and after having made about 100 leagues on Lake Erie arrived at the place where the _Lake of the Hurons_, otherwise called the _Fresh-water Sea of the Hurons_, or the Michigan, discharges itself into that lake. This outlet is perhaps half a league wide and turns sharply to the north-east, so that we were in a measure retracing our steps; at the end of six leagues we found a place that was very remarkable and held in great veneration by all the savages of these regions, because of a stone idol of natural formation, to which they say they owe the success of their navigation on Lake Erie when they have crossed it without accident, and which they appease by sacrifices, presents of skins, provisions, etc., when they wish to embark on it." [7] Evidently the Rondeau. [8] This was Point Pelee. "This place was full of huts of those who had come to pay homage to this idol, which had no other resemblance to a human figure than that which the imagination chose to give it. However it was painted all over, and a kind of face had been formed for it with vermillion. I leave you to imagine whether we avenged upon this idol, which the Iroquois had strongly recommended us to honor, the loss of our chapel." "We attributed to it even the scarcity of food from which we had suffered up to that time. In fine there was nobody whose hatred it had not incurred. I consecrated one of my hatchets to break this god of stone, and then having locked canoes we carried the largest piece to the middle of the river, and immediately cast the remainder into the water, that it might never be heard of again." "God rewarded us forthwith for this good act: for we killed a deer that same day, and four leagues farther we entered a little lake about ten leagues long and almost as wide, called by Mr. Sanson the _Lake of the Salted Waters_, but we saw no sign of salt. From this lake we entered the outlet of Lake Michigan, which is not a quarter of a league in width." "At last ten or twelve leagues farther on, we entered the largest lake in all America, called here "the Fresh-water Sea of the Hurons," or in Algonkin, _Michigan_. It is 600 to 700 leagues in circuit. We made on this lake 200 leagues and were afraid of falling short of provisions, the shores of the lake being apparently very barren. God, however, did not wish that we should lack for food in his service." "For we were never more than one day without food. It is true that several times we had nothing left, and had to pass an evening and morning without having anything to put into the kettle, but I did not see that any one was discouraged or put to prayers (_sic_) on that account. For we were so accustomed to see that God succored us mightily in emergencies, that we awaited with tranquility the effects of his goodness, thinking that He who nourished so many barbarians in these woods would not abandon his servants." "We passed this lake without any peril and entered the _Lake of the Hurons_, which communicates with it by four mouths, each nearly two leagues in width." "At last we arrived on the 25th May, the day of Pentecost, at Ste. Marie of the Sault, where the Jesuit fathers have made their principal establishment for the missions to the Ottawas and neighboring tribes." Here they found fathers D'Ablon and Marquette in charge of the mission, with a fort consisting of a square of cedar posts, enclosing a chapel and residence. They had cleared and seeded a large piece of ground. The Sulpicians remained only three days and then hired an experienced guide to take them to Montreal, where they arrived on the 18th June after a fatiguing journey of twenty-two days. They had been absent since the 6th July 1669, and were welcomed as if they had come to life again after being dead. It was their intention to return in the following spring and renew their search for the Ohio River, where they purposed establishing a mission; but this intention was never carried into effect. "This famous voyage," says Dean Harris in his interesting 'History of the Early Missions in Western Canada,' "stimulated to an extraordinary degree enthusiasm for discovery, and in the following year Talon sent out expeditions to the Hudson Bay, the Southern Sea, and into the Algonquin country to the north." Marquette, Tonty, Hennepin, Du Lhut, La Salle and Perrot explored the Mississippi valley, and the head waters of the St. Lawrence system, and almost the entire continent was claimed by the French as belonging to New France. As far as appears, there were no Indians having settled abodes on the north shore of Lake Erie for more than a century after the expulsion of the Neutrals. Nor does any attempt appear to have been made by the whites to explore south-western Ontario until the close of the last century. The Iroquois continued for a long period to range its forests for beaver in the winter. The rivalry between the French and the English for the control of the vast western fur trade led to the erection of outposts by the English at Oswego and by the French at Cataraqui, Niagara, Detroit and Michilimakinac, during the latter part of the 17th century. English traders sailed or paddled up the lakes to get their share of the traffic, and were from time to time summarily arrested and expelled by their rivals. Both parties tried to ingratiate themselves with the natives. The French were as eager to maintain a state of warfare between the Iroquois and the Indians of the upper Lakes--the Hurons, Ottawas, Pottawatamies, Ojibways etc.--as to induce the former to keep the peace with the white inhabitants of Canada. There were two great trade routes to Montreal, viz: by Mackinac, the Georgian Bay and the French and Ottawa River and by Detroit, Lake Erie and Niagara; the Lake Simcoe portage routes by the Trent River system, and the Holland River and Toronto were also used. Trading or military parties, under the leadership of La Salle, Tonty, Perrot, Du Lhut, Cadaillac, passed along the coast of L. Erie in canoes; but little record if any remained of their visits to the shores. Kettle Creek was long called the Tonty River. It is so named in one of Bellin's maps of 1755, and by the Canadian Land Board at Detroit as lately as 1793. The only northern tributaries of Lake Erie to which names are given on the map of 1755 are the Grand River, River D'Ollier (Patterson's Creek), which in some maps is called the River of the Wintering--a manifest reference to Galinee and Dollier de Casson's sojourn in 1669-70--the River a la Barbue (Catfish Creek), the River Tonty (Kettle Creek) a little east of P'te au Fort (Plum Point or else Port Talbot) and the River aux Cedres (M'Gregor's Creek in Essex). The Thames is described as a "River unknown to all geographers, and which you go up eighty leagues without finding any rapids (_saults_)." The Chenail Ecarte is indicated as the only outlet of the Sydenham river the map-makers assuming that Walpole Island was part of the mainland. The mouths of four or five streams are shown between Long Point and "the Little Lake" (Rondeau), and the shore is marked "The High Cliffs." "The Low Cliffs" were between the Rondeau and Point Pelee. In one of Bellin's maps of 1755 in the present writer's possession Long Point is shown as a peninsula, and the streams now in the County of Elgin are marked "Unknown Rivers," but the map firstly mentioned and published in the same year, is more complete, represents Long Point as an island, and names the Barbue and Tonty rivers and Fort Point, (_P'te au Fort_) which are not named in the other. The Tonty, moreover, is represented as an inlet by way of distinction from the other streams (including the Barbue) which appear as of equal insignificance. The naming of Kettle Creek after the great explorer and devoted lieutenant of La Salle indicates its consequence. Its harbor was of paramount importance to the navigation of these early days, but no doubt the portage route extending from its mouth to the Thames, exalted the little river in the eyes of the explorers who honored it with Tonty's name.[9] [9] General John S. Clarke, of Auburn, N.Y., in correspondence with the present writer, dwells upon the importance of the Kettle Creek portage route in the seventeenth century. He is a recognized authority upon the subject of Indian trade routes. THE INDIAN TITLE. On July 19th, 1701, the Iroquois ceded to the British the entire country between the lakes, "including the country where beavers and all sorts of wild game keep, and the place called De Tret,"[10] but this appears to have been a mere formality as no possession was taken by the purchasers. [10] History of Middlesex County, p. 17. The Ojibways have a tradition that they defeated the Iroquois (called by them the Nottawas or Nahdoways) in a succession of skirmishes, ending in a complete victory at the outlet of Burlington Bay, and the final expulsion of the Six Nations from that part of Ontario between the Great Lakes. The Ojibways then spread east and west over the country. "A treaty of peace and friendship was then made with the Nahdoways residing on the south side of Lake Ontario, and both nations solemnly covenanted, by going through the usual forms of burying the tomahawk, smoking the pipe of peace, and locking their hands and arms together, agreeing in future to call each other _Brothers_. Thus ended their war with the Nahdoways."[11] [11] "Peter Jones and the Ojebway Indians," p. 113. Whatever may be the truth of the details, there is no doubt of the fact that the Ojibways or their kindred the Mississagas were the sole occupants of Western Ontario at the time of the conquest in 1759, except near the Detroit River where the remnant of the Hurons or Wyandots had settled. It was with the Mississagas that the British negotiated in 1784 for the cession of the country from the "head of the Lake Ontario or the Creek Waghguata to the River La Tranche, then down the river until a south course will strike the mouth of Cat Fish Creek on Lake Erie." On the 21st May, 1790, Alexander M'Kee announced to the Land-board at Detroit the cession to the Crown by the Indians of that part of Upper Canada west of the former grant. The surrender of the Indian title opened the way in each division of the lake shore district for settlement.[12] NOTE.--The explanatory notes referring to the extract are by the late Leonidas Burwell, M.P.P., and are given by him in a letter to His Honor, Judge Hughes, which has been kindly presented by the recipient to the Elgin Historical and Scientific Institute. [12] The north shore of Lake Erie appears to have been so little known to the officials, that Kettle Creek and Cat Fish Creek were continually confused and taken as being one or different streams as chance would have it. The Land-board considered that a surrender of the lands west of Kettle Creek gave the Crown all the territory not previously ceded. The Indians at Detroit who made the cession were the Ojibways, Hurons, Ottawas and Pottawatamies. CHARLEVOIX'S DESCRIPTION. In the year 1721 the distinguished traveller, Charlevoix, passed through Lake Erie on his way up the Lakes and thence down the Mississippi to New Orleans. The north shore of Lake Erie, and chiefly that part now embraced within the limits of the County of Elgin, is singled out by him as the most beautiful country he met with in his passage. Many travellers since Charlevoix have admired the charming scenery at the mouths of Otter, Catfish, Kettle and Talbot Creeks, but few if any have described it so well. As Colonel Talbot was influenced mainly by Charlevoix's description of the country to establish his settlement at the outlet of Talbot Creek in 1803, the present writer makes no apology for reproducing the following extended passage from the celebrated and gifted traveller: "The 28th May, 1721, I went eighteen leagues and found myself over against the _great river_ which comes from the East in forty-two degrees fifteen minutes. Nevertheless the great trees were not yet green. This country appeared to me to be very fine. We made very little way the 29th and none at all the 30th. We embarked the next day about sun rise, and went forward apace. The first of June being Whitsunday, after going up a pretty river almost an hour which comes a great way, and runs between two fine meadows, we made a portage about sixty paces to escape going round a point which advances fifteen leagues into the lake: they call it the _Long Point_. It is very sandy and produces naturally many vines."[13] [13] This river is what is now known as "Big Creek" and, answers this description at the present day. It enters the lake a little above Fort Rowan. "The following days I saw nothing remarkable, but I coasted a charming country that was hid from time to time by some disagreeable skreens, but of little depth. In every place where I landed I was enchanted with the beauty and variety of landscape bounded by the finest forest in the world; besides this water fowl swarmed everywhere. I cannot say there is such plenty of game in the woods: but I know that on the south side there are vast herds of wild cattle."[14] [14] This charming country is evidently, the greater part of it, the County of Elgin, as the portage is not more than thirteen miles from the boundary line of Bayham. In passing up the lake one would meet with a great variety of landscape as the sand-hills in Houghton and the mouths of the Otter, Catfish and other creeks would be passed. The lofty pines and chestnuts and oaks along this coast, in their original state no doubt appeared like the "finest forest in the world." "If one always travelled as I did then, with a clear sky and charming climate on water as bright as the finest fountain, and were to meet everywhere with safe and pleasant encampings, where one might find all manner of game at little cost, breathing at one's ease a pure air, and enjoying the sight of the finest countries, one would be tempted to travel all one's life." "It put me in mind of those ancient patriarchs who had no fixed abode, dwelt under tents, were in some manner master of all the countries they travelled over, and peaceably enjoyed all their productions without having the trouble which is inavoidable in the possession of a real domain. How many oaks represented to me that of _Mamre_? How many fountains made me remember that of Jacob? Every day a situation of my own choosing, a neat and convenient house set up and furnished with necessaries in a quarter of an hour, spread with flowers always fresh, on a fine green carpet, and on every side plain and natural beauties which art had not altered and which it can not imitate. If the pleasures suffer some interruption either by bad weather or some unforseen accident, they are the more relished when they reappear." "If I had a mind to moralize, I should add, these alternations of pleasure and disappointment which I have so often experienced since I have been travelling, are very proper to make us sensible that there is no kind of life more capable of representing to us continually that we are only on the earth like pilgrims, and that we can only use, as in passing, the goods of this world; that a man wants but a few things; and that we ought to take with patience the misfortunes that happen in our journey, since they pass away equally, and with the same celerity. In short how many things in travelling make us sensible of the dependence in which we live upon Divine providence, which does not make use of, for this mixture of good and evil, men's passions, but the vicissitudes of the seasons which we may foresee, and of the caprice of the elements, which we may expect of course. Of consequence, how easy is it, and how many opportunities have we to merit by our dependence on and resignation to the will of God?" "They say commonly that long voyages do not make people religious, but nothing one would think should be more capable of making them so, than the scenes they go through." THE BRITISH OCCUPATION. The conquest of Canada in 1759 was followed by the occupation of Detroit and the upper forts by a British force under the famous Major Robert Rogers. He followed the south shore of Lake Erie, and near the site of Cleveland was met by the celebrated Ottawa chief, Pontiac, who challenged his right to pass through the country without the formal permission of its savage sovereign. The operations of the conspiracy of Pontiac (1763-5) are described in Parkman's glowing pages. The success of the American Revolution was followed by the settlement not only of the U.E. Loyalists but also of many of the disbanded British troops in the most fertile districts north of the lakes. To locate these advantageously a Land-board was established at Detroit by the Canadian Government and it continued to perform its functions until the surrender of that post to the United States under the provisions of the Jay Treaty of 1794. McNIFF'S EXPLORATION. The Indian title to the whole north shore region having been surrendered to the Crown, no time was lost in opening the territory for settlement. Patrick McNiff, an assistant surveyor attached to the Ordinance Department, was ordered by Patrick Murray, Commandant at Detroit, to explore the north shore from Long Point westward and investigate the quality and situation of the land. His report is dated 16th June 1790. The following extract is interesting: "From Pointe aux Pins to the portage at Long Point, no possibility of making any settlement to front on the Lake, being all the way a yellow and white sand bank from 50 to 100 feet high, top covered with chestnut and scrubby oak and no harbours where even light boats may enter except River Tonty and River a la Barbue.[15] A load boat may enter the latter having four and a half feet water on the bar; on each side of River a la Barbue are flats of excellent lands, but not above fifteen or twenty chains wide, before very high land commences, which in many places does not appear to be accessible for any carriage. On the tops of these very high hills, good land, timber, some very large chestnut, hickory and bass. These hills are separated by dry ravines almost impassable from their great depth--on the back of Long Point very good land, not so hilly as what I have passed. Timber bass, black walnut and hard maple, but marshy in front for twenty or thirty chains." [15] Kettle and Catfish Creeks. In consequence of this unfavorable report, townships were directed to be laid out on the River Thames, instead of the lake shore. LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR SIMCOE. In the year 1791 the Quebec Act was passed, dividing Quebec into two provinces, and Colonel John Graves Simcoe became the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada. Before the Bill was introduced into parliament, it was understood that Simcoe had been selected by Pitt to govern the new province, direct its settlement and establish constitutional government after the model of the British system. As early as January, 1791, he had written a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society,[16] in which after mentioning his appointment, he explained his own plans as to the administration, and stated his desire to profit by the ideas of his correspondent whom he would wait upon for that purpose. [16] Record book of the Land Board at Detroit, now in the Crown Lands Department at Toronto. "For the purpose of commerce, union and power, I propose that the site of the colony should be in that Great Peninsula between the Lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario, a spot destined by nature, sooner or later, to govern the interior world." "I mean to establish a capital in the very heart of the country, upon the River La Tranche, which is navigable for batteauxs for 150 miles--and near to where the Grand River, which falls into Erie, and others that communicate with Huron and Ontario almost interlock. The capital I mean to call Georgina--and aim to settle in its vicinity Loyalists, who are now in Connecticut, provided that the Government approve of the system." As a member of the House of Commons, Simcoe spoke in support of a provision in the bill for the establishment of an hereditary nobility, which Fox had moved to strike out. The report states that Colonel Simcoe "having pronounced a panegyric on the British constitution, wished it to be adopted in the present instance, as far as circumstances would admit." The provision was in the bill as finally passed. Having proceeded to Quebec to enter upon the performance of his duties, he appears to have utilized every opportunity for informing himself of his new domain. He writes to Hon. Henry Dundas from Montreal, December 7, 1791, in a letter marked "secret and confidential," as follows:-- "I am happy to have found in the surveyor's office an actual survey of the River La Tranche. It answers my most sanguine expectations, and I have but little doubt that its communications with the Ontario and Erie will be found to be very practicable, the whole forming a route which, in all respects, may annihilate the political consequences of Niagara and Lake Erie. * * * My ideas at present are to assemble the new corps, artificers, etc., at Cataraqui (Kingston), and to take its present garrison and visit Toronto and the heads of La Tranche, to pass down that river to Detroit, and early in the spring to occupy such a central position as shall be previously chosen for the capital." On the 16th July, 1792, the name of the River La Tranche was changed to the Thames by proclamation of the Governor, issued at Kingston. In the spring, he had written that "Toronto appears to be the natural arsenal of Lake Ontario and to afford an easy access overland to Lake Huron." He adds: "The River La Tranche, near the navigable head of which I propose to establish the Capital, by what I can gather from the few people who have visited it, will afford a safe, more certain, and I am inclined to think, by taking due advantage of the season, a less expensive route to Detroit than that of Niagara." At Quebec Simcoe had met the Hon. Thomas Talbot, who had joined the 24th Regiment as Lieutenant in the previous year. Talbot was then a young man of twenty, whilst Simcoe was in his fortieth year. A strong attachment sprang up between these two remarkable men, and Talbot accompanied the lieutenant-governor to Niagara, in the capacity of private and confidential secretary. After meeting the first Legislature elected in Upper Canada during the fall of 1792 Simcoe decided to make a journey overland to Detroit. He left Navy Hall on the 4th February, 1793, and returned on the 10th March. His travelling companions were Capt. Fitzgerald, Lieutenant Smith (previously Secretary to the Detroit Land Board, subsequently the first Surveyor General of Upper Canada, an M.P.P., Speaker of the House, etc., and afterward created a baronet), Lieutenants Talbot, Gray, Givens and Major Littlehales. All of these were prominent afterward in the history of the Province. Talbot became the founder of the Talbot Settlement. Gray was appointed Solicitor General; he perished in the schooner 'Speedy' on Lake Ontario in 1804 with Judge Cochrane, Sheriff Macdonell and others. Givens was afterward the well-known Colonel Givens, Superintendant of Indian Affairs at York. Littlehales was afterward Sir E. B. Littlehales, Secretary of War for Ireland, during the Lord-Lieutenancy of the Marquis of Cornwallis; he married in 1805 the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, daughter of the Duke of Leinster and sister of the unfortunate Lord Edward Fitzgerald.[17] [17] Dr. Scadding's notes to his reprint of Littlehales' Journal. The journey was made partly in sleighs, but chiefly on foot. Littlehales kept a diary of the occurrences on the way. The route was by Ten-mile Creek, Nelles' house at the Grand River, the Mohawk Indian village (a little below Brantford), the portage route to the Forks of the Thames (London), and then down or along the River to Detroit. Joseph Brant with about a dozen of his Indians accompanied the party from the Mohawk Village to Delaware, doubtless to furnish them with game and guide them over the long portage. The Indians excited admiration by their skill in constructing wigwams of elm bark to lodge the company. After leaving the Grand River the trail passed a Mississaga encampment, a trader's house, fine open deer plains, several beaver dams, "an encampment said to have been Lord Fitzgerald's when on his march to Detroit, Michilimackinac and the Mississippi," a cedar grove; crossed a small branch of the La Tranche, and the main branch soon afterwards; "went between an irregular fence of stakes made by the Indians to intimidate and impede the deer, and facilitate their hunting;" again they crossed the main branch of the Thames,[18] and "halted to observe a beautiful situation, formed by a bend of the river--a grove of hemlock and pine, and a large creek. We passed some deep ravines and made our wigwam by a stream on the brow of a hill, near a spot where Indians were interred. The burying ground was of earth raised, nearly covered with leaves; and wickered over--adjoining it was a large pole, with painted hieroglyphics on it denoting the nation, tribes and achievements of the deceased, either as chiefs, warriors, or hunters." This was on the 13th February. The food of the party consisted of soup and dried venison, to which squirrel and racoon meat added variety. Littlehales remarks about the latter: "The three racoons when roasted made us an excellent supper. Some parts were rancid, but in general the flesh was exceedingly tender and good." On the 14th they encamped a few miles above the Delaware village. During the day the diarist had "observed many trees blazed, and various figures of Indians (returning from battle with scalps) and animals drawn upon them, descriptive of the nations, tribes and number that had passed. Many of them were well drawn, especially a bison." [18] This was no doubt where London now is. "This day we walked over very uneven ground, and passed two lakes of about four miles in circumference, between which were many fine larch trees." Next morning they walked on the ice of the river five or six miles to the Delaware village, where the chiefs received them cordially and regaled them with eggs and venison. "Captain Brant being obliged to return to a council of the Six Nations, we stayed the whole day. The Delaware Castle is pleasantly situated upon the banks of the Thames; the meadows at the bottom are cleared to some extent, and in summer planted with Indian corn. After walking twelve or fourteen miles this day, part of the way through plains of white oak and ash, and passing several Chippawa Indians upon their hunting parties, and in their encampments, we arrived at a Canadian trader's; and a little beyond, in proceeding down the river the Indians discovered a spring of an oily nature, which upon examination proved to be a kind of petroleum. We passed another wigwam of Chippawas, making maple sugar, the mildness of the winter having compelled them in a great measure to abandon their annual hunting. We soon arrived at an old hut where we passed the night." On the 17th, after a journey of four or five miles, they passed the Moravian Village which had been begun in May, 1792. The Delaware Indians were "under the control, and in many particulars, under the command of four missionaries, Messrs. Zeisberger, Senseman, Edwards and Young." They were making progress towards civilization, and already had corn fields and were being instructed in different branches of agriculture. "At this place every respect was paid to the Governor, and we procured a seasonable refreshment of eggs, milk and butter. Pursuing our journey eight or nine miles, we stopped for the night at the extremity of a new road, cut by the Indians and close to a creek." "18th--Crossing the Thames and leaving behind us a new log house, belonging to a sailor named Carpenter, we passed a thick, swampy wood of black walnut, where His Excellency's servant was lost for three or four hours. We then came to a bend of the La Tranche (Thames)[19] and were agreeably surprised to meet twelve or fourteen carioles coming to meet and conduct the Governor, who, with his suite, got into them, and at about four o'clock arrived at Dolsen's, having previously reconnoitred a fork of the river, and examined a mill of curious construction erecting upon it. The settlement where Dolsen resides is very promising, the land is well adapted for farmers, and there are some respectable inhabitants on both sides of the river: behind it to the south is a range of spacious meadows--elk are continually seen upon them--and the pools and ponds are full of cray fish." [19] Afterwards referred to by the diarist as the high bank. "From Dolsen's we went to the mouth of the Thames in carioles, about twelve miles, and saw the remains of a considerable town of the Chippawas, where, it is reported, a desperate battle was fought between them and the Senecas, and upon which occasion the latter, being totally vanquished, abandoned their dominions to the conquerors. Certain it is, that human bones are scattered in abundance in the vicinity of the ground, and the Indiana have a variety of traditions relative to this transaction."[20] [20] Note Peter Jones' statement as quoted on page 28. We pass over briefly the Governor's reception at Detroit. The Canadian militia on the east bank fired a _feu de joie_. He crossed the river in boats amidst floating ice. The garrison of Detroit was under arms to receive His Majesty's representative. A royal salute was fired. The farms, the apple orchards, windmills and houses close together on the river bank gave an appearance of population and respectability. Talbot's regiment, the 24th, was stationed at Detroit. Fort Lenoult and the rest of the works were inspected. The party visited at the River Rouge a sloop almost ready to be launched. They went to see the Bloody Bridge, memorable for the slaughter of British troops by Pontiac 30 years before. On the 23rd, the Governor left Detroit on his homeward journey. Col. McKee, Mr. Baby and others escorting His Excellency as far as the high bank where the carioles had met the party on the 18th. "Here we separated; and each taking his pack or knapsack on his back, we walked that night to the Moravian village." On the 27th the chiefs at the village entertained the party with venison, and dancing, "a ceremony they never dispense with when any of the King's officers of rank visit their villages." "28th.--At six we stopped at an old Misissaga hut, upon the south side of the Thames. After taking some refreshment of salt pork and venison, well cooked by Lieutenant Smith, who superintended that department, we, as usual, sang God Save the King, and went to rest." "March 1st.--We set out along the banks of the river; hen, ascending a high hill, quitted our former path, and directed our course to the northward. A good deal of snow having fallen, and lying still on the ground, we saw tracks of otters, deer, wolves and bears and other animals many of which being quite fresh induced the Mohawks to pursue them, but without success. We walked 14 or 15 miles and twice crossed the river, and a few creeks, upon the ice; once we came close to a Chippawa hunting camp, opposite to a fine terrace, on the banks of which we encamped, near a bay. * * * 2nd.--We struck the Thames at one end of a low flat island enveloped with shrubs and trees; the rapidity and strength of the current were such as to have forced a channel through the main land, being a peninsula, and to have formed the island. We walked over a rich meadow, and at its extremity came to the forks of the river.[21] The Governor wished to examine this situation and its environs: and we therefore remained here all the day. He judged it to be a situation eminently calculated for the metropolis of Canada. Among many other essentials, it possesses the following advantages: command of territory,--internal situation,--central position,--facility of water communication up and down the Thames into Lakes St. Clair, Erie, Huron and Superior,--navigable for boats to near its source, and for small crafts probably to the Moravian settlement--to the northward by a small portage to the waters flowing into Lake Huron--to the south-east by a carrying place into Lake Ontario and the River St. Lawrence; the soil luxuriantly fertile,--the land rich, and capable of being easily cleared, and soon put into a state of agriculture,--a pinery upon an adjacent high knoll, and other timber on the heights, well calculated for the erection of public buildings,--a climate not inferior to any part of Canada." [21] Now the city of London. "To these natural advantages an object of great consideration is to be added, that the enormous expenses of the Indian Department would be greatly diminished, if not abolished; the Indians would, in all probability, be induced to become the carriers of their own peltries, and they would find a ready, contiguous, commodious, and equitable mart, honorably advantageous to Government, and the community in general, without their becoming a prey to the monopolizing and unprincipled trader." "The young Indians, who had chased a herd of deer in company with Lieutenant Givens, returned unsuccessful, but brought with them a large porcupine; which was very seasonable, as our provisions were nearly expended. This animal afforded us a very good repast, and tasted like a pig. The Newfoundland dog attempted to bite the porcupine, but soon got his mouth filled with the barbed quills, which gave him exquisite pain. An Indian undertook to extract them, and with much perseverance plucked them out, one by one, and carefully applied a root or decoction, which speedily healed the wound." "Various figures were delineated on trees at the forks of the River Thames, done with charcoal and vermillion; the most remarkable were the imitations of men with deer's heads." "We saw a fine eagle on the wing, and two or three large birds, perhaps vultures." "3rd.--We were glad to leave our wigwam early this morning, it having rained incessantly the whole night; besides, the hemlock branches on which we slept were wet before they were gathered for our use.--We first ascended the height at least 120 feet into a continuation of the pinery already mentioned; quitting that, we came to a beautiful plain with detached clumps of white oak, and open woods; then crossing a creek running into the south branch of the Thames, we entered a thick swampy wood, where we were at a loss to discover any track; but in a few minutes we were released from this dilemma by the Indians, who making a cast, soon descried our old path to Detroit. Descending a hill and crossing a brook, we came at noon to the encampment we left on the 14th of February, and were agreeably surprised by meeting Captain Brant and a numerous retinue; among them were four of the Indians we had despatched to him when we first altered our course for the forks of the River Thames." On the 4th, after crossing brooks and rivulets, much swollen by a thunder-storm, and passing the hut occupied by them on the 12th February they noticed "very fine beech trees." Next day:--"We again crossed one of the branches of the south-east fork of the Thames, and halted in a cypress or cedar grove, where we were much amused by seeing Brant and the Indians chase a lynx with their dogs and rifle guns, but they did not catch it. Several porcupines were seen." On the 6th they reached the Mohawk village, crossing the river at a different place and by a nearer route than before. The Indians had met the Governor with horses at "the end of the plain, near the Salt Lick Creek." The party finally arrived at Navy Hall on the 10th day of March. At this period the overland route from Detroit to Niagara was apparently well known. There was an annual "Winter-express" each way, which Simcoe met on his westward journey on the 12th February and on his homeward route on the 5th March. Littlehales mentions a Mr. Clarke as being with it on each occasion. On their first meeting, the express was accompanied by a Wyandot and a Chippawa Indian. The second time, Mr. Augustus Jones, the surveyor, was either with or following it. He surveyed the north-west part of Southwold in the following year. On the up trip, the Governor's party met one man, who afterward proved to be a runaway thief from Detroit. They were also overtaken by a traveller, who, as they were subsequently informed, had got himself supplied with provisions and horses to the Grand Rivet, and a guide from thence to Detroit, by the false representation that he had despatches for the Governor. "He quitted us under the plausible pretence of looking for land to establish a settlement." It appears that immediately after the capture of Niagara by Johnston in 1759, merchants from New England and Virginia had rushed in to participate in the fur-trade, which until that time had been largely monopolized by the French. As might be expected, many lawless acts were committed by these adventurers, and various proceedings were adopted by the Government to check and control them. After the American Revolution land-hunters came into the peninsula and undertook to purchase lands directly from the Indians. These purchases were ignored by the Land Boards, who always repudiated the idea that the Indians were proprietors of the land. No steps were taken however to locate settlers until the Indian title by occupancy was surrendered to the Crown. Even then, Simcoe's first step was to procure surveys for the purpose of establishing military roads, fortified posts, dockyards, etc., in order that when the settlers came they might be easily defended against hostile attacks, whether from the Indians, the United States troops, or the French or Spanish, who it was believed might invade the province by way of the Mississippi, the Ohio and the upper lakes. Patrick McNiff's survey of the River Thames, as far as the upper Delaware village, was finished in 1793. His map is dated at Detroit on the 25th June of this year. In it he mentions that "from the entrance to the 12th lot of the 3rd township was surveyed two years since, from the 12th lot * * * to the upper village was surveyed in April and May 1793." The map gives the "road leading from the Delawares to the Moravian village," "corn-fields" along the east bank of the river, an Indian village in the Southwold bend, and opposite on the southerly bank the "road leading to the entrance of Kettle Creek[22] on Lake Erie. Five hours' journey." It also shows the road leading to the Mohawk village on the Grand River. [22] This disposes of the story told by Colonel Talbot to Mrs. Jamieson in 1837. He informed her that the name originated from his men having lost a kettle in the creek. But the creek was called Riviere a la Chaudiere or Kettle River by the French, and that is one of the names given to it in D. W. Smith's Gazetteer, of Upper Canada published in 1799. The Moravian village is near the site of the battle field, and it is marked "commenced in May, 1792." The present location of Dundas Street and the Longwoods Road would appear to correspond with the roads east and west of Delaware as laid down.[23] Simcoe in forwarding McNiff's survey to Mr. Dundas on 20th September, 1793, thus refers to the Lake Erie region: [23] The writer has not been able to see Mr. McNiff's report upon this survey. "The tract of country which lies between the river (or rather navigable canal as its Indian name and French translation import) and Lake Erie, is one of the finest for all agricultural purposes in North America, and far exceeds the soil or climate of the Atlantic States. There are few or no interjacent swamps, and a variety of useful streams empty themselves into the lake or the river." The Governor makes frequent reference in his correspondence and state papers to his plans for establishing the capital of Upper Canada at the upper forks of the Thames, to be called Georgina, London or New London. Down to the very time of his departure in 1796, and after the seat of government had been transferred to York (now Toronto), he regarded the latter as but a temporary capital, the real metropolis having yet to be built at London in accordance with his original design. Talbot remained in the service of the Lieutenant Governor until June 1794, when as Major of the 5th Regiment he departed for England under orders for Flanders, carrying with him special letters of recommendation from Simcoe to Dundas and to Mr. King, the Under Secretary of State. He had been employed in various confidential missions. In 1793 he had been sent to Philadelphia to await news from Europe, when war with France was believed to be imminent. On the 22nd August, 1793, we find Talbot in "the most confidential intercourse with the several Indian tribes," as Simcoe expresses it, at the Miamis Rapids, where he had met the United States Commissioners and the Confederated Indians to consider the boundary question. In April, 1794; Simcoe was himself at the Falls of the Miami, and he repeated the visit during the following September, going by way of Fort Erie. This visit was a prolonged one; for we find that in October he met an Indian Council at Brown's Town in the Miami country. It is probable Talbot accompanied him in his capacity as military secretary. The construction by Simcoe of the fort at the foot of the rapids of the Miami in the spring of that year was an audacious step, which might easily have produced a new war between the United States and England, although Simcoe believed it had had the opposite result, and prevented war. All disputes between the two nations were however concluded by the treaty of 1794, usually called the Jay Treaty. Provision was made for the abandonment of the frontier posts hitherto occupied by English garrisons. Forts Niagara, Detroit, Miami and Michilimackinac received American garrisons in 1796 or shortly thereafter; English troops were stationed in new forts at St. Joseph's Island, Malden, Turkey Point, Fort Erie, Toronto, etc. The English flag floated no longer south of the great lakes. During the year 1796, Simcoe went to England on leave of absence, and he never returned to Canada. COLONEL TALBOT. The Honorable Thomas Talbot received his company and his majority in the same year, 1793. He was Colonel of the Fifth Regiment in 1795, at the early age of twenty-five. After eight years of military service on the Continent, partly in Flanders and partly at Gibraltar, he was still in 1803 a young man with every prospect that is usually considered alluring to ambition. Suddenly, to the amazement of his friends and the public, he abandoned the brilliant career upon which he had entered under so favorable auspices, cut himself loose from civilization itself, and buried himself in the recesses of the Canadian forest. He determined to settle on the north shore of Lake Erie, where he had previously selected a location on one of his journeyings with Governor Simcoe. Talbot had formed plans for diverting the stream of immigration from the United States, or rather for continuing its current as far as Upper Canada. He would attract settlers from New York, Pennsylvania and New England, who were dissatisfied with republican institutions or allured by the fertility of the Lake Erie region, and would build up a loyal British community, under the laws and institutions of the mother land. It was a memorable event in the history of the County of Elgin, when on the 21st day of May, 1803, landing at Port Talbot, he took an axe and chopped down the first tree, thus inaugurating what has since been known as the Talbot Settlement. Henceforward, Colonel Talbot, Port Talbot, the Talbot Road, and the Talbot Settlement, are names inseparably connected with the history of the making of Upper Canada. At that time the nearest settlement on Lake Erie was near Turkey Point, 60 miles away. In 1802 there was but one settled minister west of Niagara, Father Marchand, of Sandwich, a Roman Catholic priest. There were but seven clergymen settled in the whole Province. The record[24] states, however, that "Besides, there are several missionaries of the Methodistical order, whose residence is not fixed." Even at that early day the circuit-rider threaded the maze of forest between the Long Point clearings and those near the mouth of the Thames, and made his way down the Detroit River to the Essex shore of Lake Erie, where there was a fringe of settlement. But, generally speaking, the country north of Lake Erie to the borders of Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay was still a wilderness of continuous unbroken forest. [24] Tiffany's Upper Canada Almanac, Niagara, 1802. 
20557	----	ONTARIO TEACHERS' MANUALS HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE IN RURAL SCHOOLS [Illustration: Printer's mark.] AUTHORIZED BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION TORONTO WILLIAM BRIGGS Copyright. Canada. 1918. by The Minister of Education for Ontario CONTENTS PAGE Preface vii Three Short Courses in Home-making 1 Introduction 1 A Library on Home Economics for the Rural School 2 Twenty Lessons in the Care of the Home 4 Suggestions to the Teacher 4 Equipment 5 Reference Books 6 Lesson I: Arrangement and Care of the Kitchen 7 Lesson II: Care of Cupboards and Utensils 10 Lesson III: Care of Foods 12 Lesson IV: Disposal of Waste 14 Lesson V: Making Soap 17 Lesson VI: Setting and Clearing the Table 18 Lesson VII: Waiting on Table 21 Lessons VIII and IX: General Cleaning of a Room 23 Lesson X: Care of the Bed-room 25 Lesson XI: Care of Lamps 27 Lesson XII: Prevention of Pests 29 Lesson XIII: Removing Stains, Bleaching Fabrics, and Setting Colours 32 Lesson XIV: Washing Dish-Towels, Aprons, etc. 34 Lesson XV: Ironing 35 Lessons XVI and XVII: Care of the Baby 36 Lesson XVIII: Cost of Food, Clothing, and House 39 Lesson XIX: How to Keep Accounts 39 Lesson XX: Care of the Exterior of the House 41 Reference Books 44 Twenty Lessons in Cooking 45 Suggestions to the Teacher 45 Abbreviations and Measurements 48 Table of Level Measurements 48 Comparisons Between Weights and Measures 48 Reference Books 49 Lesson I: Discussion of Foods and Cooking 50 Recipes 52 Lesson II: Preparing and Serving Vegetables 53 Recipes 55 Lesson III: The Value of Carbohydrates in the Diet 58 Recipes 59 Lesson IV: Fruits and Vegetables 60 Recipes--Open-kettle Method; Cold-pack Method; Single Process Method; Intermittent Method 63 Lesson V: Fats--Vegetables--Continued 66 Recipes 68 Experiments in Using Starch for Thickening 69 Conclusions Based on the Foregoing Experiments 69 Lesson VI: Cereals 70 Recipes 71 Lesson VII: Classification of Foods--Reviewed 73 Black-board Summary 76 Lesson VIII: The Planning and Serving of Meals 76 Examples of Well-chosen Menus 77 Lesson IX: Milk 79 Recipes 81 Lesson X: Soups 82 Recipes 83 Lesson XI: Eggs 85 Recipes 86 Lesson XII: Simple Desserts--Custards 88 Recipes 89 Lesson XIII: Batters and Doughs 90 Recipes 91 Lesson XIV: Batters and Doughs--Continued 92 Recipes 93 Lesson XV: Meats 94 Recipes 95 Lesson XVI: Baked Pork and Beans--Baking-powder Biscuits 98 Recipes 98 Lesson XVII: Butter Cakes--Plain Yellow Cake--Cocoa Coffee--Tea 99 Recipes 101 Lesson XVIII: Yeast Bread 103 Recipes 104 Lesson XIX: Serving a Simple Dinner Without Meat--Baked Omelet--Macaroni and Cheese 106 Recipes 106 Lesson XX: Sugar 107 Recipes 108 Twenty Lessons in Sewing 110 Suggestions to the Teacher 110 Reference Books 112 Lesson I: Preparation for Sewing 113 Lesson II: Hemming Towels 115 Lesson III: Hemming Towels--Continued 116 Lesson IV: Bags 119 Lesson V: Bags--Continued 120 Lesson VI: Bags--Continued 122 Lesson VII: Bags--Continued 123 Lesson VIII: Bags--Continued 124 Lesson IX: Darning Stockings 127 Lesson X: Patching 128 Lesson XI: Cutting Out Aprons or Undergarments 130 Lesson XII: Aprons or Undergarments--Continued 132 Lesson XIII: Aprons or Undergarments--Continued 134 Lesson XIV: Aprons or Undergarments--Continued 135 Lesson XV: Aprons or Undergarments--Continued 136 Lesson XVI: Aprons or Undergarments--Continued 137 Lesson XVII: Methods of Fastening Garments 138 Lesson XVIII: Methods of Fastening Garments--Continued 140 Lesson XIX: A Padded Holder for Handling Hot Dishes Binding 142 Lesson XX: A Cap to Wear with the Cooking Apron 144 Household Science Equipment 146 Household Science Cabinet Materials Required, Stock Bill, Tools, Directions for Making 161 Equipment for Rural School Household Science Cabinet--No. I 173 Equipment for Rural School Household Science Cabinet--No. II 174 The Hectograph 177 The Rural School Lunch 178 The Box Lunch 179 Contents of the Lunch Box 181 Sandwich Making 182 Suggestions for Sandwich Fillings 182 Suggestions for Planning 183 Suggestions for Desserts 184 Packing the Lunch Box 184 Rules for Packing 184 Equipment for Packing 185 Serving a Hot Dish 186 The Method 186 Suggested Menus 189 Suggestions for Hot Dishes for Four Weeks 189 Recipes Suitable for the Rural School Lunch 191 Useful Bulletins 200 Household Science Without School Equipment 201 First Method 201 Second Method 204 The Fireless Cooker 208 Directions for Fireless Cooker--No. I 210 The Outside Container 210 The Insulating Material 212 The Inside Container 214 The Kettle 214 Extra Source of Heat 215 Covering Pad 215 Directions for Fireless Cooker--No. II 217 Method of Making 217 Directions for Fireless Cooker--No. III 217 Method of Making 218 Use of the Fireless Cooker in the Preparation of Lunches 218 Special Grants for Rural and Village Schools 221 PREFACE This Manual is issued for the purpose of encouraging the introduction and furthering the progress of Household Science in the rural schools of this Province. There are 903 urban and 5,697 rural schools, and 45.87% of the school population is in attendance at the latter schools. The value of Household Science as an educational and practical subject has been recognized, to some extent, in the urban schools of the Province but, up to the present, little attempt has been made to give the subject a place among the activities of the rural schools. There is a wide-spread impression that it is not possible in Household Science to give any instruction that is of value without the provision of separate rooms, elaborate equipment, and specially trained teachers. Where these conditions exist, of course, the best work can be accomplished; but, even where they cannot be realized, much may be done toward giving definite, useful instruction in the cardinal principles of home-making, which should be learned by every girl. There is certainly not a single rural school where some practical work in sewing and some valuable lessons in the care of the home may not be given. As for cookery, it is doubtful if there is a single school so small and so helpless that it is unable to use the hot noon-day lunch as a method of approach to this branch of the subject. Students of the physical welfare of children are rapidly coming to the conclusion that a warm mid-day meal greatly increases the efficiency of the pupil and determines to a large extent the results of the afternoon's study. There are other benefits to be derived from a school lunch well prepared under proper conditions. In many communities it has been the means of bringing about a healthy and satisfactory co-operation between the school and the home, of developing a higher social life in the neighbourhood, and of introducing into the school a Household Science course, which has proved as great a benefit to the farmer's wife as to his children. This Manual deals entirely with conditions that exist in our rural schools and outlines only such plans and schemes as can be carried out, even in adverse circumstances, by alert trustees, sympathetic inspectors, and resourceful teachers. Permission has been obtained from the Bureau of Education, Washington, U.S.A., to make use of a recently issued bulletin--"Three Courses in Home-making for Rural Schools", and of various bulletins issued by State Agricultural Colleges. The freest use has been made of this material, and the permission to do so is hereby gratefully acknowledged. Only such theory as can be readily assimilated has been given; and the teacher is advised for further information and help to consult the Manuals issued by the Department of Education on _Household Management_ and _Sewing_. Those who wish to become thoroughly competent and to earn the highest Departmental grants should attend the Summer Schools provided by the Department of Education. Under certain conditions the expenses of teachers attending these courses are paid by the Department. Nothing has been included or recommended that cannot be accomplished in the average rural school; and trustees, teachers, and inspectors are urged to make a beginning by selecting the lessons that appeal to them as being most suitable to the districts in which their schools are situated. By careful planning and a wise use of the time before and after school and during recess, the regular organization of the school need not be interfered with; and, in addition to the educational and social advantages to be derived from undertaking this work, much benefit will result from the increased interest taken in the school by the parents and the general public. It is not essential that the lessons in this Manual should be taken exactly in the order given. Any other arrangement called for by the peculiar circumstances of the school is admissible. The Inspector of Manual Training and Household Science is ready at all times to visit rural schools for the purpose of conferring with the Public School Inspectors, the trustees, and the teachers regarding the introduction of Household Science as a regular subject of the school curriculum. HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE IN RURAL SCHOOLS THREE SHORT COURSES IN HOME-MAKING INTRODUCTION The three brief courses in home-making outlined in this Manual have been especially prepared for use in elementary rural schools. They are in no sense complete outlines of the subjects with which they deal; rather, they indicate a few of the important phases of food study, sewing, and the care of the home with which the pupil in the elementary school should become familiar. The underlying thought for each problem should be: "Will this help the pupils to live more useful lives, and will it lead to better conditions in their homes?" The lessons are purposely made simple, and the plans are definitely outlined, so that even the inexperienced teacher may be able to achieve a certain measure of success. The experienced teacher will find in them suggestions that may be of value in the further development of the course. The teacher who desires to use this course will necessarily have to adapt it to her own community, and it is hoped that she may be able to do this with but little alteration. While conditions of living and choice of foods differ in various parts of the Province, the general principles of nutrition, the rules of sanitation, and the methods of cooking and serving are much the same for all. Owing to the difficulty of securing time on the programme for frequent lessons in home-making, each of the courses has been limited to twenty lessons. Some teachers may not be able to have a greater number of lessons during the school year, and they may find it well to carry the three courses through three successive years. In other schools, where more frequent lessons can be given, it may be well to offer all three courses during one year. The courses in cooking and the care of the home can be advantageously combined, as many of the problems in both are related. The lessons in sewing may be given on another day of the week, or it may be well to give them early in the year, to be followed, later, by the cooking lessons. Thus an opportunity will be furnished for the making of the cooking aprons and the hemming of the towels. It is most desirable that periods of at least forty minutes should be provided for all the practical lessons. Longer periods will be necessary for some of them, such as the preparation and the serving of a meal. If no practical work is undertaken in the lesson, a forty-minute period is sufficient. LIBRARY ON HOME ECONOMICS FOR THE RURAL SCHOOL In addition to the text-books recommended as sources of special reference for the rural teacher, the following books, bearing on home economics or on methods of teaching, are suggested for the rural school library. These books have been chosen with the threefold purpose of providing references for the teachers, reading matter for the pupils, and a lending library for the parents. _Laundering._ Balderston, L. Ray. Pub. by the Author. Philadelphia $1.25 _Country Life and the Country School._ Carney, M. Row, Peterson & Co., Chicago 1.25 _How the World is Fed._ Carpenter, F. O. American Book Co., New York .60 _How the World is Clothed._ Carpenter, F. O. American Book Co., New York .60 _How the World is Housed._ Carpenter, F. O. American Book Co., New York .60 _How We Are Clothed._ Chamberlain, J. F. Macmillan's, Toronto .45 _How We Are Fed._ Chamberlain, J. F. Macmillan's, Toronto .45 _How We Are Sheltered._ Chamberlain, J. F. Macmillan's, Toronto .45 _Bacteria, Yeasts, and Molds in the Home._ Conn, H. W. Ginn & Co., Boston 1.00 _The Boston Cooking-school Cook Book._ Farmer, F. M. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. (McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, Toronto) 1.80 _The Rural School Lunch._ Farnsworth, N. W. Webb Pub. Co., St. Paul, Minn. .25 _Clothing and Shelter._ Kinne, H., and Cooley, A. M. Macmillan's, Toronto 1.10 _Foods and Household Management._ Kinne, H., and Cooley, A. M. Macmillan's, Toronto 1.10 _Means and Methods of Agricultural Education._ Leake, A. H. Houghton, Mifflin Co., New York. (Thos. Allen, Toronto) 2.00 _Rural Hygiene._ Ogden, H. N. Saunders, Philadelphia 1.50 _Health and Cleanliness._ O'Shea, M. V., and Kellogg, J. H. Macmillan's, Toronto .56 _Rural Education._ Pickard, A. E. Webb Pub. Co., St. Paul, Minn. 1.00 _Manual of Personal Hygiene._ Pyle, W. L. Saunders, Philadelphia 1.50 _Feeding the Family._ Rose, M. S. Macmillan's, Toronto 2.10 _Food Products._ Sherman, H. C. Macmillan's, Toronto 2.00 TWENTY LESSONS IN THE CARE OF THE HOME SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER The purpose of this course is to give the pupils instruction in various household tasks, in order that better living conditions may be secured in the homes. The beauty and sacredness of an ideal home life should receive emphasis, so that the pupils may be impressed with the importance of conscientious work in the performance of their daily household duties. They should have some insight into the sanitary, economic, and social problems that are involved in housekeeping, so that they may develop an increased appreciation of the importance of the home-maker's work. The two most important things to be taught are "cleanliness and order". Too much emphasis cannot be placed on the value of fresh air and sunshine and the necessity for the free use of hot water and soap. The value of property should also be emphasized. Economy in the purchase and handling of house furnishings and equipment should be considered. Instruction should also be given in the care of foods and clothing and in the care and arrangement of furniture. Simple instruction in the care of babies should be given, since the older children are often responsible, to some extent, for the care of the younger members of their families. In some of the lessons more subjects may be suggested than the teacher will have time to take up in a single period. In that case it will be well for her to choose the subject which seems most vital to the immediate needs of the community. In many cases she may be able to give an increased number of lessons. Practice and drill in all of the processes involved in housewifery are essential to successful training. If a cupboard and a table have been arranged for the use of the cooking classes, most of the suggested work can be carried out with the school equipment. Where there is no equipment in the school and school conditions do not approximate home conditions, it may be possible to secure permission to give the lesson after school hours in the home of one of the pupils who lives nearby. In each lesson the teacher, while giving the pupils helpful general information on the subject under discussion, should strive to impress on them the importance of doing some one simple thing well. The rural teacher who is eager to make her school-room an attractive place may devote some time in these lessons to such problems as the hanging and the care of simple curtains, the care of indoor plants, the arrangement of pictures, the planning of storage arrangements for supplies and of cupboards for dishes, and the preparations for the serving of the school lunch. In order to teach these lessons effectively, it is desirable to have the following simple equipment on hand. Additional special equipment may be borrowed from the homes. EQUIPMENT Broom, 1 Cloths for cleaning, 6 Dish-cloths, 2 Dish-towels, 12 Dust-brush, 1 Dust-pan, 1 Garbage can (covered), 1 Lamp, 1 Oil-can, 1 REFERENCE BOOKS _Rural Hygiene._ Brewer, I. W. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia $1.25 _The Healthful Farmhouse._ Dodd, H. Whitcomb & Barrows, Boston .60 _Community Hygiene._ Hutchinson, Woods. Houghton, Mifflin Co., New York. (Thos. Allen, Toronto) .65 _Foods and Sanitation._ Forster, G. H., and Weigley, M. Row, Peterson &. Co., Chicago 1.00 _The Home and the Family._ Kinne, H., and Cooley, A. M. Macmillan's, Toronto .80 _Housekeeping Notes._ Kittredge, M. H. Whitcomb & Barrows, Boston .80 _Practical Home-making._ Kittredge, M. H. The Century Co., New York .70 _A Second Course in Home-making._ Kittredge, M. H. The Century Co., New York .80 LESSON I: ARRANGEMENT AND CARE OF THE KITCHEN SUBJECT-MATTER In arranging the kitchen, the three things of most importance are the stove, the sink, and the kitchen table. If there is no sink in the kitchen, there will be some other place arranged for washing the dishes, probably the kitchen table, and this must be taken into consideration when the furniture is placed. As most of the work is done at the stove and the table, both these must be placed where they will have a good light, and they should be close to each other, so that but few steps are necessary for the worker. In furnishing the kitchen, the housekeeper will find a high stool very useful, as it will enable her to wash dishes, prepare vegetables, and do other work while seated. All the furniture should be kept so clean and free from dust that the kitchen will have a neat and attractive appearance. A vase of flowers or a potted plant, and a washable table-cover to be used after the dishes have been put away, will help to make this room a pleasant place for the family. Special attention should be given to the ventilation. The kitchen should be thoroughly cleaned after each meal. If it has become dusty or disarranged, it should be put in order before the next meal is to be prepared. While the cooking is under way, everything should be kept in an orderly condition. As soon as the meal is completed, the left-over food should be covered and put away; the scraps and waste material should be gathered and disposed of; and the dishes, pots, and pans should be scraped, and washed in hot, soapy water, then rinsed in clear, hot water, dried, and put away. The table should be scrubbed, the stove cleaned, the floor swept and scrubbed whenever necessary, and everything put neatly in its place. _Care of the coal or wood range._--All spots should be removed from the range by wiping it with old paper. If it is in bad condition, it should be washed with soap and water. If it is oiled occasionally, blacking will not be necessary; but if blacking is used, it should be applied with a cloth and rubbed to a polish with a brush, just as the fire is being started. The ashes and soot flues back of the oven and underneath it should be cleaned out once a week. _Directions for building a fire._--To build and care for a fire in the coal or wood range, close all the dampers, clean the grate, and remove the ashes from the pan. Put on the covers and brush the dust off the stove. Open the creative damper and the oven damper, leaving the check damper closed. Lay some paper, slightly crumpled into rolls, across the base of the grate. Place small pieces of kindling wood across one another, with the large pieces on top. Lay pieces of hardwood or a shovelful of coal on top of the kindling, building so as to admit of the free circulation of air. If the stove is to be polished, rub it with blacking. Light the paper from below. When the fire begins to burn briskly, add coal or wood: then add more when that kindles. When the fire is well started and blue flame is no longer seen (about ten minutes), close the oven damper. Close the creative damper when the fire is sufficiently hot. Brush the stove and the floor beneath it as soon as the fire is started. Polish the stove. If the fire becomes too hot, open the check damper. Fill the tea-kettle with fresh water and set it on the front of the range. _Care of the sink, wash-basin, and garbage pail._--A neglected sink or garbage pail may be a fruitful source of disease, in addition to attracting water-bugs and other pests. Scraps should never be left in the sink. After washing the dishes it should be thoroughly cleaned, a brush and scouring material being used. The nickel part may be washed with hot soap-suds, wiped dry, and polished. Water should never be left in the wash-basin. Both the soap-dish and the wash-basin should be scoured daily. The garbage pail should be emptied and washed every day, and carefully scalded once or twice a week. PRELIMINARY PLAN It will be well to have this lesson succeed or follow a cooking lesson, for then the pupils will have a keener interest in the problems of the kitchen. (See Twenty Lessons in Cooking, Lesson I.) METHOD OF WORK Cleanliness and order are the two points to be considered in this lesson. The doing well of each simple household task and the thoughtful arrangement and planning of all parts of the house should be emphasized as being of great importance to the housekeeper's success. Begin the lesson with a discussion of the purpose of the kitchen; then discuss its arrangement from the standpoint of convenience for the work that must be done there. Emphasize the importance of having the furniture so arranged that the work may be done quickly and easily, and that the kitchen may be given a comfortable and attractive appearance. Let the pupils arrange the furniture in the school-room. Discuss and demonstrate the care of the stove by the use of the school stove. Assign each pupil a time when she is to look after the stove on succeeding days and grade her on her work. Let each pupil bring a report from home as to what she is doing to help in the care of the home kitchen. Make a specific assignment for home work. Questions Used to Develop the Lesson What is the purpose of the kitchen? What are the principal articles of furniture in the kitchen? How should we arrange these things? Can we make any general rules as to arrangements? Why is it difficult to keep the kitchen clean? At what times is the kitchen most apt to become disarranged? Why is it important to keep the kitchen in good order? In what order should the kitchen be at the time we begin the preparation of the meal? How should the floor be cleaned? The utensils? What should we do with any left-over food? How should we take care of the stove after the meal? LESSON II: CARE OF CUPBOARDS AND UTENSILS SUBJECT-MATTER It is of the utmost importance that cupboards and other places where food is stored should be kept free from dirt and scraps of food. Ants, cockroaches, mice, and other pests infest dirty places where food is kept, and render a house unfit for human habitation. It requires constant care and watchfulness on the part of the housewife to keep the cupboards clean. She must look over the shelves daily, wiping them off whenever they need it, and giving them a thorough cleaning at least once a week. The housekeeper should know how to care for the various utensils used and understand the simplest and best methods of keeping them clean. Utensils should never be put in the cupboards until perfectly clean and dry. Particular attention should be paid to the care of milk vessels. Pans, pails, pitchers, or bottles in which milk has been kept, should be rinsed in cold water, washed in strong, clean soap-suds, rinsed in clean, boiling water, and dried in the sun. If utensils have become discoloured or badly coated, they should be specially scoured. If something has been burned in a kettle, the kettle should be cleaned by filling with cold water, adding washing-soda, and boiling briskly for half an hour; after that a slight scraping ought to remove the burned portion. If the kettle is not yet clean, the process should be repeated. If a kettle has been used directly over a wood fire and becomes blackened with soot, it should be rubbed off with a newspaper and then with an old cloth. Kettles should be dried well before being put away. With proper care they seldom become rusty. If an iron kettle has rusted, it should be rubbed with kerosene and ashes, then washed in strong, hot, soda-water, rinsed in clear hot water, and dried on the stove. If a kettle is very rusty, it should be covered thoroughly with some sort of grease, sprinkled with lime, and left overnight. In the morning it should be washed out with hot soda-water and rinsed in clear, hot water. A new kettle is generally rusty, and should be greased thoroughly inside and out and allowed to stand for two days; then washed in hot soda-water. Bath-brick should be used for scouring iron utensils and steel knives and forks. If iron pots and frying-pans are scrubbed with a piece of bath-brick each time they are used and then washed in hot soap-suds, they can be kept in good condition. Tinware and steel knives and forks may be cleaned by scouring with ashes, but only fine ashes should be used on tinware. The brown stains on granite utensils should be scoured off; and this ware should be carefully handled, in order to avoid chipping. Coffee-pots and tea-pots should be cleaned daily, the grounds removed, and the interior of the pots washed out thoroughly. The tea-kettle should be washed and dried overnight and left uncovered to air. PRELIMINARY PLAN If school lunches are served or cooking lessons are given at the school, it will be well to use this lesson to get the cupboards in readiness. If it is impossible to do this at school, arrange to have such a lesson in one of the homes outside of school hours. Be sure that the housekeeper is in sympathy with the work and is willing to co-operate. METHOD OF WORK Assign each pupil a task in the cleaning, the scouring of the dishes, and the arrangement of the cupboard. Set a definite amount to be done and carry out the plans, leaving a clean and neatly arranged cupboard at the end of the lesson. LESSON III: CARE OF FOODS SUBJECT-MATTER Several important points must be borne in mind if foods are to be kept in a good condition. Most foods change easily. Vegetables and fruits lose water, wilt, and become unfit to eat. Flour and corn-meal become mouldy. Potatoes decay and sprout. Some foods, such as milk, turn sour. Eggs become tainted, and fat grows rancid. With proper care in handling, storing, and keeping, this spoiling can be prevented. The spoiling of foods is due to the presence of micro-organisms; and if foods are fresh and sound and kept cool and clean in every way, they will not spoil readily, because such conditions are unfavourable to the development of the micro-organisms. On the other hand, if foods are roughly handled and bruised, decomposition will take place readily, for micro-organisms develop in the bruised portions. Care must, therefore, be taken to select foods wisely, handle them carefully, wash them if they are not already clean, put them in clean receptacles, and keep them in a clean, cool place. All pots, pans, and dishes in which foods are kept or cooked should be thoroughly cleansed and rinsed well, so that no fragments stick to them which may decay and cause possible infection to the next food that is put in. Every part of the kitchen and store-rooms should be kept clean, dry, and well aired. Light is the best germicide and purifier known. Covered receptacles should be secured for all foods. Those that are mouse-proof and insect-proof are essential to a well-kept pantry. All bottles and cans should be neatly labelled and so arranged that each one can be conveniently reached. The outside of the bottle or case should always be wiped off after it has been opened and food has been removed from it. The shelves on which the cases are kept should be wiped off every day. If supplies of fruit or vegetables are kept on hand, they should be looked over frequently, and whatever shows even the slightest suggestion of spoiling should be removed. Bread should be kept in a covered tin box, and the box should be washed out once or twice a week and frequently scalded and aired. PRELIMINARY PLAN If cooking lessons are to be given, it will be well to take this lesson on the care of foods in connection with the first cooking lesson, and to make it a means of arranging for the materials that are to be kept on hand and of determining how everything is to be handled. METHOD OF WORK Devote a large part of the lesson to a discussion of the necessity for care in the handling, storing, and keeping of foods. If facilities permit, devote a few minutes to the putting away of foods that are to be used in the next cooking lesson or in the school lunch, discussing the reasons for such care. LESSON IV: DISPOSAL OF WASTE SUBJECT-MATTER If the daily disposal of waste is attended to, there will be no undesirable accumulation of garbage. Scraps of food that cannot be utilized for the table should be fed to the pigs or the chickens and should not be allowed to stand and gather flies. A covered pail or pan should be used for holding the garbage, until final disposal is made of it. Those portions that are badly spoiled and will be of no value in feeding the stock should be burned at once. Waste vegetable substances, if suitable, should be fed to the stock, and if not, should be buried in a thin layer on the ground at some distance from the house, so that they may enrich the soil. Old papers that are badly soiled should be burned, but all others should be kept for use in cleaning the stove, starting the fires, etc. Empty cans should be well washed and buried, so that they will not prove a breeding-place for flies. It is well to pierce them through the bottom immediately after opening them, so that they will not hold water. Dish-water should be emptied at some distance from the house, unless there is a drain nearby. All receptacles that hold water should be carefully emptied, and all depressions in the soil should be filled, in order to prevent mosquitoes from breeding. All waste water should be used on the garden. _Protection of the water supply._--Only the water from deep wells should be used for drinking purposes, because all surface water and water in shallow wells becomes dangerous through seepage from compost, pig-pens, privies, and other places where decayed organic matter may accumulate. In order that the water may be kept clean, the well must be supplied with a tight-fitting top which need not be opened and a metal pump to bring up the water. A well platform that allows the water spilled on it to run back into the well is unsafe, for any filth carried on the platform in any way will be washed directly into it. Rats, mice, and other animals get into the well if the top is not tight, and these, in addition to being unpleasant, are liable to introduce disease germs. _Simple disinfectants._--Sunshine and fresh air are nature's disinfectants and should be freely admitted to every part of the house. Windows should be left open whenever possible. The windows in the sleeping rooms should always be opened at night. The interior of the house should be kept perfectly dry. Decay does not easily take place in dry places. A damp cellar should be drained, and the grounds around the house should not be allowed to drain into the cellar. Coarse coal ashes should be used to fill in around the house, on the walks, etc., to help in securing thorough drainage. Wood ashes may be used as a simple disinfectant to cover decayed organic matter. Whitewash is a good disinfectant and should be frequently used both inside and outside the house and on all out-buildings. Kerosene and creosote also make good disinfectants. _Care of out-of-door closets._--The privy should be so arranged that it may be cleaned often and all excreta disposed of in a safe way. The building should be so well constructed that there will be no cracks for the admission of flies. In a poorly constructed building, old paper can be pasted over the cracks, to make the structure fly-proof. Dry earth, street dust, or lime should be frequently sprinkled over the excreta, and the seat should be closed, to prevent the entrance of flies or mosquitoes. The seat should be washed frequently, and both the seat and the floor scrubbed at least once a week. PRELIMINARY PLAN It will be well to teach this lesson at a time when improvements are necessary in the care of the school-house. The discussions in regard to out-of-door closets will, of course, be taken when the girls are alone with the teacher. METHOD OF WORK Discuss the disposal of waste, the care of garbage, etc., in the home and the school. Talk over the care of waste from the school lunch and discuss methods of keeping the school in a sanitary condition. Follow this by a general cleaning of the school-house. LESSON V: MAKING SOAP SUBJECT-MATTER _Home-Made Hard Soap_ 6 lb. fat 1 can lye 1 pt. cold water 1 tbsp. borax Melt the fat slowly. Mix the lye and water in a bowl or kettle (do not use a tin pan), stirring with a stick until the potash dissolves. Add the borax and allow the mixture to cool. Cool the fat and, when it is lukewarm, add the lye, pouring it in a thin stream and stirring constantly. Stir with a smooth stick until about as thick as honey, and continue stirring for ten minutes. Pour the mixture into a box and allow it to harden. Cut into pieces the desired size and leave in a cool, dry place for ten days, to ripen before using. When making the soap, be careful not to spill potash or lye on the hands, as it makes a bad burn. If the hands are burned, rub them with grease at once. Do not wet them. PRELIMINARY PLAN Some time before this lesson is given ask the pupils to bring scraps of fat from home. See that these are in good condition, and weigh them, to determine the portion of the recipe that can be made. Ask one of the pupils to bring sufficient borax for the recipe. METHOD OF WORK Let the pupils look the fat over and put it on to melt, watching it carefully. While it is heating and cooling, discuss the process of soap-making, the cost of materials, the care necessary in the making of soap, and the importance of its use. Get ready the other materials, and a box for moulding the soap, and let the pupils work together. After the soap has hardened and been cut, have it put away on a shelf to dry. LESSON VI: SETTING AND CLEARING THE TABLE SUBJECT-MATTER The following points must be remembered when a meal is to be served: The dining-room must be clean, well aired, sufficiently lighted, and in good order. The table must be perfectly clean and covered with a clean white cover (table-cloth, doilies, paper napkins, or oil-cloth). A vase of flowers or leaves or a small potted plant, in the centre of the table, will help to make it attractive. The table should be prepared with everything necessary for serving the meal, but only those foods should be placed on it that will not be spoiled by standing. If there is danger of the food attracting flies, cover it carefully. Plates for everyone who is to partake of the meal should be arranged at equal distances from one another, and half an inch from the edge of the table. The knife should be placed at the right of the plate with the cutting edge toward the plate, and one inch from the edge of the table. The fork should be placed at the left of the plate with the tines turned up, and one inch from the edge of the table. The spoon should be placed, bowl upward, at the right of the plate, to the right of the knife. It should be placed one inch from the edge of the table. Spoons and forks for serving should be placed at the right and left of the dish to be served, or in another convenient position. No one should have to use the personal fork or spoon for serving. The napkins should be folded simply and placed at the left of the fork. The tumbler should be placed at the upper end of the knife. The cups and saucers should be placed at the right of the plate with the handle of the cup toward the right. The bread-and-butter plate, if used, should be placed at the upper left hand of the fork. The salt-cellars and pepper-shakers should be placed near the centre of the table or at the sides, where they can be conveniently reached. Individual salt-cellars, if used, should be placed immediately in front of the individual plate. The chairs should be placed at the table after it is set. Care should be taken not to put them so close to it that it will be necessary to move them after they are occupied. PRELIMINARY PLAN If possible, arrange to give this lesson before Lesson VIII in the series of "Twenty Lessons in Cooking" is given; then the emphasis in that lesson may be put upon the food to be served, proper combinations, etc., while this lesson gives the drill in the arrangement and handling of the dishes. It is desirable to give the pupils a thorough drill in table setting and table service, since much of the pleasure derived from eating depends upon the attention paid to these processes. Be careful to see that everything necessary is on hand to set the table simply but daintily. For class practice a small table may be set for four. This will necessitate a table-cover, four or more dinner plates, four bread-and-butter plates, four tumblers, four cups and saucers, four knives, four forks, four teaspoons, four napkins, a salt-cellar, a pepper-shaker, a platter, one serving spoon, and one serving fork. If these things are not already in the school, probably they can be brought from home by the pupils. If linen cloths are not used and cannot be afforded on the tables in the homes, the pupils should be taught to use a white oil-cloth. Have a diagram made on the black-board by one of the pupils of the arrangement of an individual place at the table. [Illustration: _Fig. 1._--Arrangement of an individual place at table 1. Knife 2. Spoon 3. Tumbler 4. Fork 5. Napkin 6. Bread-and-butter plate 7. Dinner plate] METHOD OF WORK The process of table setting should be demonstrated with the materials at hand, and the work should be adapted to home conditions. If there is no available table in the school-room, the desk tops may be used for individual places. Reasons for the arrangement of the table should be given--the convenience of placing the knives and the spoons to the right, the forks to the left, the cup and saucer and the tumbler to the right, the use of the napkin, etc. LESSON VII: WAITING ON TABLE SUBJECT MATTER The one who is to wait on table must be careful to see that everything is in readiness before the meal is announced, so that she can do her work easily, without subjecting those at the table to unnecessary delay. She should have water, bread, and butter (if used), hot dishes ready for the hot foods, and dessert dishes conveniently at hand. She must see that her hands are perfectly clean and her hair and dress in order. A clean, neat apron will always improve her appearance. The room should be clean and neatly arranged. If the meal is to be a family one and all are to sit at the table together, plates will be passed from one to another as they are served: but it will still be well to have one person appointed to wait on the table. She should be ready to supply more bread, water, etc., when it is necessary, and to change the plates for the dessert course. She should rise from the table quickly and quietly, in order not to disturb others, and should take her place again as soon as the necessary service has been rendered. The following rules should be observed: Hold the tumblers near the bottom, being careful not to touch the upper edge. Fill only three-quarters full. Put the butter on the table just before the meal is announced, and serve in neat, compact pieces. Cut the bread in even slices, pile them neatly on a serving plate, and place it on the table, covering it with a clean napkin or towel, if there are flies about or there is danger of dust. If preferred, the bread may be cut at the table as required. Place the dessert dishes at one end of the table or, better still, on a side table, until it is time to use them. When carrying the dishes to and from the table, be careful not to let the fingers come in contact with the food. Learn to place the hand under the dish. In particular service a napkin is used between the hand and the dish, or a tray, if the dish is a small one. The tray should be covered with a napkin or doily. When a dish is being passed, hold it at the left of the person to be served and at a convenient height and distance. Be sure that each dish is supplied with a spoon or a fork for serving, and turn the handle of the spoon or the fork toward the one to be served. If a plate is to be placed in front of a person, set it down from the right. Never reach in front of others at the table. When a course is finished, remove the dishes containing the food first; then the soiled plates, knives, and forks. Be careful to handle only a few dishes at a time and not to pile them. If another course is to be served, remove the crumbs from the table, using for the purpose a napkin and plate, or a crumb tray and brush, and brushing the crumbs lightly into the plate. Fill the tumblers, and arrange the dishes and forks or spoons quickly for the next course. When the meal is over, the chairs should be moved back from the table, the dishes neatly piled and carried to the kitchen sink, the table wiped, the crumbs brushed from the floor, and the room aired. PRELIMINARY PLAN Let this lesson be a continuation of the previous one, placing emphasis on the method of waiting on table. The same articles will be required as were used in the last lesson. In addition to these the pupils must be careful to have clean aprons for this lesson. METHOD OF WORK Have the table set, as a review of the work of the last lesson; then have four or six of the pupils seat themselves and go through the forms of serving one another to any simple meal upon which the class may decide. Family meal service should be explained and demonstrated first; then service where there is one waitress. Have the pupils, in turn, act as waitresses and serve all the others, offering and placing the food, removing the soiled dishes, filling the tumblers, etc. LESSONS VIII AND IX: GENERAL CLEANING OF A ROOM SUBJECT-MATTER Rooms which are in constant use should be swept and dusted every day. A thorough cleaning of each room in the house will be necessary every week or two, even though the room is swept and kept in order daily. First, all cupboards, drawers, and other receptacles in which articles collect should be cleaned; then all large movable articles should be dusted and moved out of the room; those that are not readily movable should be dusted and covered. The floor should be swept with the windows open; the ceiling and walls should be brushed with a covered broom, and the dust allowed to settle. The floor should then be wiped with a damp cloth on the broom.[A] The woodwork should be cleaned with a damp cloth and a soap that is not too strong. Soda or sapolio should not be used. The furniture should be carefully uncovered, and everything arranged in perfect order. [A] If the floor is of unfinished-wood, it will require a thorough scrubbing. After sweeping the floor and allowing the dust to settle, a small portion at a time should be scrubbed with a floor-brush and soap. When scrubbing, the grain of the wood should be followed. The scrubbing-water should be changed frequently. For rinsing and drying the floor, a cloth should be wrung out of clear water. The things that are highest should be dusted first, and care should be taken to collect all the dust in the dust-cloth. After collecting the dust, the cloth should be shaken out-of-doors, washed thoroughly, and boiled. The dust-cloth should be dampened before using on all surfaces except the polished furniture and windows. Sweeping should be done with short strokes and the broom should be kept close to the floor, so that the dust will not be scattered. The corners of the room should be swept first, the dust gathered in the centre, and then swept into the dust-pan. The dust should be burned, for it may contain disease germs. Loose hairs and fluff should be removed from the broom after using, and it should also be washed periodically. Small rugs should be cleaned out-of-doors. They should be swept, beaten, and re-swept, then rolled until ready to be put on the floor. If the rug is a large one and cannot be removed, it should be wiped over with a damp cloth, rolled, and the under side of the rug and the floor beneath it should be wiped. After the room has been cleaned, the windows should be arranged so that a supply of fresh, clean air can come constantly into it. This is essential to every room in the house, if perfect health is to be maintained. PRELIMINARY PLAN It will be well to have Lesson IX given in one of the homes some day after school hours, if possible. If that cannot be arranged, the school-room may be utilized as the place for practice. METHOD OF WORK Devote Lesson VIII to a discussion of the methods of cleaning and to various short tasks in connection with the school-room. In Lesson IX have the pupils go through the entire process of cleaning a room. Assign some portion of the task to each one of them, so that all may take part in the work. Supervise the work carefully, assign home practice, and have each pupil clean a room at home once a week for a month. LESSON X: CARE OF THE BED-ROOM SUBJECT-MATTER As soon as one is dressed in the morning, the windows in the bed-room should be opened wide to air the room thoroughly, and the bed-clothes should be removed and put on chairs before the window to air. The night clothing should also be aired. The slops should be emptied, and the chamber should be washed with cold water, using a special cloth. The basin should be washed in warm, soapy water, which should then be poured into the chamber and used for washing it. The toilet articles should be washed, then the basin rinsed and wiped dry. The slop jar should be washed out thoroughly, and both the slop jar and the chamber should be cleaned frequently with chloride of lime or some other disinfectant. The pitcher should be filled with fresh water, and all the articles arranged neatly on the wash-stand. If the towels are soiled, clean ones should be supplied. The mattress should be turned and the bed made carefully; the lower sheet being tucked under the mattress all around, and the other covers tucked in at the bottom and sides of the bed. The bed should be kept free from wrinkles and smooth in appearance, and the pillows should be well shaken and arranged at the head of the bed. The floor should be swept, the furniture dusted, and everything put in place. The windows should be left partly opened, so that the bed-room may be well aired. Fresh air is always necessary, but especially during sleep, when the body is repairing itself, and it is important that the room should be well aired during the day and the windows left open at night. When the room is to be thoroughly cleaned, the frame of the bed should be dusted, the mattress turned, and the bed should be made. The window shades should be dusted and rolled up. The curtains should be well shaken and covered, if one has a dust sheet. All the small articles on the bureau, table, and shelf should be placed on the bed, and the whole covered with a sheet. The tables, chairs, and any other movable furniture should be dusted and placed outside the room or covered. The rugs should be rolled and cleaned out-of-doors. The room should be swept and dusted. As soon as the dust has settled, the covers should be removed, and the furniture, rugs, and all the small articles should be restored to their places. The shades should be adjusted, and the room left in perfect order. The broom and everything else that has been used in the work should be cleaned and put back into their places. PRELIMINARY PLAN It may be possible for the teacher to give this lesson in her own bed-room or in the bed-room of one of the neighbours. If this is not feasible, the only way to make it effective is to have the pupils report each day on the work they do at home. METHOD OF WORK Illustrate each process and give the reasons for everything that is done. Emphasize the importance of the sanitary care of the bed-room, a regular time for doing the work, and the benefit of having each member of the family care for her own personal belongings and her own portion of the bed-room. LESSON XI: CARE OF LAMPS It is assumed that the teacher is acquainted with the possibilities of electricity and other methods of better lighting in country homes, and will instruct her pupils in the economic use of modern lighting facilities. SUBJECT-MATTER _Directions for cleaning and filling lamps._--A bright light comes from clean burners that allow a good draught. This means constant care on the part of the one who looks after the lamps. In the daily cleaning, first dust the chimney shade and the body of the lamp. Wash the chimney. If sooty, clean with a newspaper before washing. Next, turn the wick high enough to show all the charred part; cut this off, making it perfectly even, then rub with a piece of soft paper. Wipe the burner and any other part of the lamp that may be oily. Dry with another cloth. Fill the body of the lamp with oil to within an inch of the top, leaving plenty of room for the gas that may be generated from the kerosene, as this gas, in a lamp that has been used many times without refilling, may be a source of danger. When lighting the lamp, turn the wick down, allowing the chimney to become heated gradually. If it is necessary to move the lighted lamp, turn the wick low. The flaring up of the flame smokes the chimney. Do not leave a lighted lamp in a room where there is no one to watch it. When putting out the light, blow across the chimney, never down into it, as this might send the flame down into the kerosene. About once a month give the lamp a thorough cleaning. Spread out a newspaper and take the lamp apart. Wash the chimney and the shade in hot water, dry with a towel, and polish, using soft paper. Boil every part of the burner in water to which two tablespoonfuls of soda have been added. Insert new wicks if the old ones are dirty, and put the parts all securely together again. Keep an old pan and some cloths exclusively for this purpose, and be very careful not to allow the dirty hands or a drop of kerosene to come near any food. Have a regular time in the day for cleaning the lamps, preferably immediately after all the morning work has been done after breakfast. Do not fill the lamps near the kitchen stove. Do not light a match while the oil-can is near, and never fill a lamp while it is lighted or while near another one which is lighted. If a fire is caused by kerosene, smother it with a heavy rug or a woollen garment, and do not attempt to put it out with water. PRELIMINARY PLAN It will be well to give this lesson just before some evening entertainment at the school-house. If there are no lamps at the school have a few brought in from neighbouring homes. Secure an old pan and some cloths to use in cleaning. METHOD OF WORK Discuss with the pupils the cost and properties of kerosene and the danger of having a light or too great heat near a can of kerosene. Explain the draught by means of which the kerosene can be made to burn on the wick and the danger if the burner becomes clogged up and the draught is cut off. Have the lamps taken apart, the burners boiled, the chimneys cleaned, and the body of the lamps filled and wiped off. Then have the lamps lighted, to see that they burn properly. LESSON XII: PREVENTION OF PESTS SUBJECT-MATTER Household pests are annoying, dangerous to health, and destructive to property. They carry disease germs from one person to another and from the lower animals to human beings. Absolute cleanliness is essential, if the house is to be kept free from pests. As a rule, they flourish in dark, damp, dirty places. With proper care the housekeeper can keep her house free from them and, if they are noticed, she should know how to exterminate them. A few simple methods of extermination are here given: _Bedbugs._--Kerosene should be poured into all the cracks, and a brush, dipped in kerosene, run briskly over all surfaces. Care must be taken to have no fire in the room while this is being done. The windows should be open, and the room should be kept free from dust. In four days this should be repeated, in order to kill any bugs that may have just hatched. _Cockroaches and water-bugs._--A solution of one pound of alum to three pints of water should be poured into all the cracks. Insect-powder and borax are also effective. Absolute cleanliness and freedom from dampness are necessary, if the house is to be kept free from cockroaches. _Ants._--Oil of cloves or pennyroyal on pieces of cotton-batting scattered about in the places where ants appear will drive them away. Saturating the nests with coal-oil will destroy them. Food which attracts ants should be removed from places which they are able to reach. _Rats and mice._--These are best exterminated by the use of a trap or some preparation such as "Rough on Rats". Traps should be set nightly and should be scalded and aired after a mouse has been caught. Rat holes may be stopped by sprinkling with chloride of lime and then filling with mortar or plaster of Paris. _Mosquitoes._--These breed in swampy places, or in old barrels or kegs or tin cans which hold stagnant water. Therefore, if the swampy places are drained and the grounds about the house are kept free from stagnant water, the housekeeper will, as a rule, not be troubled with mosquitoes. Empty barrels or kegs should be inverted, and old tin cans should have a hole punched in the bottom, so that they will not hold water. All high weeds near the house should be cut down and destroyed, so that they will not provide a damp place in which to harbour mosquitoes. If it is impossible to get rid of all standing water, the breeding of mosquitoes can be checked by pouring kerosene oil on the water. One ounce of oil on fifteen square feet of water is sufficient, and this will have to be renewed at least once in ten days. The doors, windows, and ventilators of the house should be well screened, as a protection against mosquitoes. _Flies._--These are one of the greatest carriers of typhoid and other germs, as well as filth of all sorts. They can be got rid of only by destroying the breeding places and killing the flies as rapidly as possible. Materials that attract them should not be exposed in and about the house. The house should be well screened with wire mesh or mosquito netting, in order to keep out the flies. A fly swatter should be kept at hand. The stables should be cleaned daily. Manure piles should be screened, and every effort should be made to kill the larvae by frequent spraying with kerosene, creoline (dilute creosote), or lime. _Fleas._--These will be troublesome if cats or dogs are kept in the house. These pets should be given frequent baths, the rugs on which they lie should be brushed and shaken daily, and the floors should be washed with soap and water and wiped with kerosene. _Moths._--These are apt to develop in woollen clothes unless the garments are thoroughly shaken and absolutely protected by wrapping in newspapers before being put away. Woollen garments that are used only occasionally should be kept in a light, dry place, examined frequently, and hung in the sun occasionally. Moths or carpet beetles can be exterminated by the use of kerosene. PRELIMINARY PLAN Give this lesson at a time when the pupils are asking about household pests or when the school is suffering from them. It would be well to have it in the spring, just before the school closes, so that the pupils may immediately put into practice what they learn. It may be desirable to devote their efforts to the destruction of one particular pest; for example, a fly crusade may be inaugurated. METHOD OF WORK If there are pests in the school-room, discuss their habits, what seems to attract them, where they come from, etc. Have the pupils report any that they may have at home. Explain why they are dangerous, tell how they can be exterminated, and assign to each pupil the task of exterminating one household pest. Have her report, each day, the success of her efforts. Continue this work for several weeks. LESSON XIII: REMOVING STAINS, BLEACHING FABRICS, AND SETTING COLOURS SUBJECT-MATTER As garments and household linens are apt to become stained and thus lose their attractiveness, it is well to know the remedies for the most common stains and the principle upon which their removal depends. All stains should be removed as soon as possible. Boiling water will loosen and remove coffee, tea, and fresh fruit stains. The stained spot should be held over a bowl, and the water should be poured upon it with some force. Cold water will remove stains made by blood or meat juice. Soaking will help in the removal of blood stains. Rust stains may be removed by wetting the stained spot with lemon juice, covering it with salt, and placing the stained fabric in the sun. Stains from stove blacking, paint, and grass may be removed by soaking in kerosene and washing well with soap and water. Ink stains may be removed by soaking in water, removing as much of the stain as possible, and then soaking in milk. Stains from cream and other forms of grease may be washed out in cold water, followed by warm water and soap. White cotton and white linen materials may be bleached by exposure to the sunshine while still damp. If they are left out overnight, the bleaching process is made effective by the moisture furnished by dew or frost. A stream of steam from the tea-kettle may also help in the bleaching process. Some colours are set by the addition of a small amount of acid to the first water in which they are soaked, while others are set by the use of salt. It is necessary to try a small amount of the material before dipping in the entire garment, in order to be sure of satisfactory results. Vinegar should be used for blues, one-half cup to one gallon of water. Salt is most effective for browns, blacks, and pinks. In most cases, two cups of salt to one gallon of cold water will be sufficient. PRELIMINARY PLAN The towels used for drying dishes or the linen used for some school entertainment may have become stained with coffee, fruit, or some other substance. Make this the basis of a lesson, and let the pupils bring from home other things which are stained. Each pupil should have an article on which to practise. This lesson should be preliminary to the lesson on laundry work. METHOD OF WORK Examine the various articles from which stains are to be removed. Discuss the method of removal, and let each pupil work at her own stain until it is as nearly removed as possible. LESSON XIV: WASHING DISH-TOWELS, APRONS, ETC. SUBJECT-MATTER Dish-towels should be thoroughly washed at least once a day. Wash one piece at a time (the cleanest first) in warm, soapy water and rinse in clear water in another pan. Hang in the sun, if possible, so that the air will pass through. Boil at least once a week in soapy water, to keep them fresh and white. Sunshine and fresh air are valuable for the purposes of bleaching and purifying. Wash the aprons in hot, soapy water; boil, rinse, and blue slightly. A small amount of thin starch may be desirable. A thin starch may be made as follows: _Recipe for Thin Starch_ 2 tbsp. starch 4 tbsp. cold water 1/2 tsp. lard, butter, or paraffin 1 qt. boiling water Add the cold water to the starch and lard, stir until smooth, then add the boiling water slowly, stirring constantly. Boil for several minutes in order to cook the starch thoroughly; then add one pint of cold water and a small amount of blueing. Dilute if necessary. Hang the articles in the sun to dry, shaking well before putting on the line, and folding the edge of each over at least six inches. Be sure to have the line clean. When dry, fold carefully. A short time before ironing, sprinkle well. PRELIMINARY PLAN It may be desirable to give this lesson earlier in the course, if cooking lessons are being given and dish-towels are in use, or if the aprons are badly soiled. Other articles may be washed, if time and facilities permit. METHOD OF WORK Discuss briefly the need for laundry work and the general principles. Let the pupils take turns at washing the towels or aprons; examine each article after it is washed, and give careful directions for the boiling, blueing, and starching. While these processes are being completed, let some of the pupils prepare the line. Let two of them be appointed to bring the towels in, before going home from school. LESSON XV: IRONING SUBJECT-MATTER To do good ironing it is necessary to have a firm, unwarped ironing board. This should be covered with some thick woollen material and a white cotton cover that is clean, smooth, and tightly drawn. The thick cover should be tacked on, while the top cover should be pinned, so that it may be easily taken off to be washed. A heavy iron-holder should be provided; and the irons should be clean and smooth. For this purpose paper should be kept at hand, as well as a piece of beeswax, sandpaper, or salt. A small cloth should be used to wipe the iron after using the beeswax. A newspaper should be spread on the floor, to protect any pieces that may hang down while being ironed. The coarser towels should be ironed first, as the longer the irons are used, the smoother they become. Starched pieces should not be ironed until the irons are very hot. If the article is first laid smooth, it will be easier to iron it and keep it in shape, and every piece should be ironed until it is perfectly dry. As soon as the ironing is completed, the articles should be hung up to air. PRELIMINARY PLAN Arrange to have the ironing lesson just as soon after the laundry lesson as possible. It will probably be easy to borrow the necessary equipment from homes near the school. Each pupil may be directed to bring something that will contribute toward the equipment, and one may be instructed to have the fire ready and another to put the irons on to heat before the lesson hour. METHOD OF WORK Call the pupils together early in the morning or at some time previous to the lesson period, and give them directions for sprinkling the articles to be ironed. When the class hour comes, demonstrate the method of ironing, folding, and hanging the articles, and let the pupils take turns in doing the work. LESSONS XVI AND XVII: CARE OF THE BABY SUBJECT-MATTER Because young girls are fond of little children and must help their mothers often with their baby brothers and sisters, they should know how to care for them. It is essential that they should understand the following points: The little body needs protection. The head is soft, and the brain may be injured by hard bumps or pressure. The skin is tender and is easily irritated by the bites of insects, friction, and so on. Kicking and wiggling are necessary to the development of the muscles, but the baby should not be played with all the time; and it is well for it while awake to lie quiet for part of the time. It should not be made to sit up until ready to do so. A desire to creep should be encouraged. Standing or walking should not be taught the baby until it tries to stand or walk itself, and then it must be helped very carefully. The baby should have plenty of fresh air and should be allowed to spend much of its time out-of-doors. In cold weather it must be warmly covered and sheltered from high winds. Its eyes should always be protected from strong sunlight. Regular hours should be observed for sleep, and the baby should be put to bed early in the evening. If the house is not well screened in summer, a mosquito bar should be put over the crib. The clothing should be light and loose, so that the body can move freely. Perfect cleanliness is necessary to keep the baby's skin in good condition; and a daily bath should be given. A morning hour, midway between the meals, is usually the best time for this. The baby should be taught to use the chamber before the bath and after the nap. Everything should be ready before it is undressed. The room should be very warm. The water should be only moderately warm, and should be carefully tested to make sure that it is not too hot. The towels and covers for the baby should be at hand. The head and the feet should be washed first, and the body soaped before putting the child into the bath. Little soap should be used, for even the best soap is strong and is apt to irritate the delicate skin. The bath should be given quickly, and the body wrapped at once in a blanket or towel and kept covered as much as possible while it is being dried. The baby should be fed in small quantities at regular intervals and given plenty of cold water to drink. Not until it is eleven or twelve months of age should it be given solid or semi-solid food. Even then, milk should continue to form the basis of its diet, and of this a considerable quantity should be used--about a quart a day from the twelfth month on. As the child grows older a more varied diet will be necessary. The most hygienic methods of food preparation should always be observed. Certain foods should never be given; for example, fried foods, pastries, condiments, pickles, preserves, canned meats, fish, pork, sausage, cheap candies, coarse vegetables, unripe and overripe fruits, stimulants, foods treated with a preservative or colouring matter, and half-cooked starches. PRELIMINARY PLAN The teacher should talk with the pupils, in order to see what points in connection with the care of the baby it is necessary for them to know, so that they may do their work at home intelligently. METHOD OF WORK It will probably not be possible to have anything more than a class discussion of the points in question, but the pupils' home experiences ought to make this discussion vital. If there is a nurse in the neighbourhood who can be secured to give one lesson on the care of the baby, the teacher should supplement her own lessons by an additional lesson given by the nurse. LESSON XVIII: COST OF FOOD, CLOTHING, AND HOUSE SUBJECT-MATTER It is of great importance that children should learn in an elementary way the value of property. This will prepare them for the knowledge of the cost of living that is essential. They should learn that the cost of food can be decreased by having gardens, and by the proper choice, care, and handling of foods; that taking care of clothing will reduce another item of expense; and that the owning of one's own house and lot is something worth working for, in order to obviate the necessity of paying rent. PRELIMINARY PLAN The teacher will have to acquaint herself thoroughly with conditions in the community, so that she can talk intelligently with the pupils, emphasize the right points, and give constructive help. METHOD OF WORK Begin with a discussion of the cost of food; how much the pupils earn or spend during the week; and why it is worth while to cook and sew well and to look after property. Continue such discussions from time to time, in connection with other school work. LESSON XIX: HOW TO KEEP ACCOUNTS SUBJECT-MATTER It is well for every one to keep a written record of all money received and all money spent. Children should be taught to do this as soon as they are old enough to have money in their possession. A simple little note-book in which all expenditures are entered on the right side and all receipts on the left side, with the balance drawn up each week or month, will prove an easy and satisfactory method of keeping accounts. If the little girl learns to do this with her pennies, she will be better able to take care of the more important household accounts when she is in charge of a home. However, there will be no real incentive for her to keep accounts unless she is endeavouring to save for some good purpose. If she learns to save for the future purchase of a book, a dress, or some little treat, she will feel that her account-keeping is worth while. As a housekeeper, she will appreciate the importance of saving for some future benefit to the family. PRELIMINARY PLAN In order to make the lesson of vital interest, introduce it at a time when the pupils are saving for some specific purpose--material for a dress to be made in the sewing class, refreshments for a party for their mothers, a school library, or something else that will be a pleasure and help in the work of the school. METHOD OF WORK After discussing the sources of income of the pupil and of her family, and the means of increasing and taking care of that income, discuss simple methods of keeping accounts, illustrate these on the black-board, show how to balance the accounts, and see that each pupil has a small book suitable for the purpose. It may be necessary to make or to rule this book as a portion of the class exercise. LESSON XX: CARE OF THE EXTERIOR OF THE HOUSE SUBJECT-MATTER Closely allied to the housekeeper's work within the home is the care of the exterior of the house and its surroundings. It is absolutely necessary that the grounds be kept neat and clean. In addition to this they should be made attractive by the careful selection of a few trees and shrubs suitably placed. While the gardens at the rear of the house may be planned solely for the pleasure and use of the family, in planning the lawn at the sides and front the neighbours and passers-by must be considered. The grounds should be a picture of which the house is the centre, the trees and shrubs being grouped to frame the picture. In placing shrubs, the effect of the whole landscape should be considered. As a rule, shrubs should be placed in corners, to hide outhouses from view, or to screen other places which should be shielded. The centre of the lawn should be left free, and in no case should a shrub be placed in the middle of an open space in a lawn or yard. A few flowers should be planted among the shrubs, to give colour at different seasons. The exterior of the house must be considered, if the picture framed by the shrubs and vines is to be a pleasing one. The house should be painted in a soft brown or dark green to blend with the landscape of oaks and pines. The paint will help to preserve the house, but its colour must be carefully chosen to give a pleasing effect. The general plan of the grounds and local conditions in regard to soil and climate will determine to a large extent the kind of shrubs to be used. Many beautiful shrubs which have been introduced from foreign countries do well in Ontario, but our native shrubs serve all decorative purposes. For damp ground there is no better shrub than the red osier dogwood. This shrub will do well on almost any kind of soil. The swamp bush honeysuckle grows quickly and is suitable for clay land; so are the black elderberry and several species of viburnum. The hazel which may be obtained from the woods makes a good dense shrub, and the wild rose also has possibilities. The common barberry is an attractive shrub; but, as it assists in the formation of wheat rust, it should not be used in rural sections. The lilac may be used where a high shrub is desirable. The common arbor vitae or cedar of the swamps makes a good evergreen shrub. It serves well as a shield for both winter and summer and thrives with moderate care. The weigela, forsythia, and spiraea are also excellent shrubs. The ground at the back of the house should be used for vegetable gardens with flower borders. For this purpose a deep, rich soil is necessary, and every square foot of space should be utilized. Every family should learn to make use of an increased number of vegetables and fruits and to cook them in a variety of ways. No crops should be allowed to go to waste. A family of five people could be entirely provided with vegetables for the summer and autumn from a garden less than fifty by seventy-five feet. The attractiveness, as well as the usefulness, of the borders depends upon the choice and arrangement of flowers. These should be chosen with due consideration as to height of plants, colour of blooms, and seasons of blooming. The tallest plants should be placed at the back of the border; for a border six feet wide none of the plants need be over five feet in height. There can be a riot of colours, if the flowers are arranged in clumps of four to six throughout the entire length of the border. In a well-planned flower border some flowers should be in bloom each month. Hardy perennial flowers should predominate, with enough annuals to fill up the spaces and hide the soil. The well-tried, old-fashioned flowers will give the best satisfaction. Every four years the flower borders need to be spaded, well manured, and replanted. The following lists of flowers for borders may be suggestive: _Perennials._--Bleeding-heart, carnations, chrysanthemums, columbine, coreopsis, dahlias, gaillardias, golden glow, iris, larkspur, oriental poppies, peonies, phlox, pinks, platycodon, snapdragon. _Biennials._--Forget-me-not, foxglove, Canterbury bells, hollyhock, sweet-william, wallflower. _Annuals._--African daisy, ageratum, aster, calendula, calliopsis, balsam, candytuft, cornflower, cosmos, marigold, mignonette, nasturtium, petunia, poppy, stock, sweet alyssum, sweet-pea, verbena, zinnia, annual phlox, red sunflower, cut-and-come-again sunflower. Each home gardener should study garden literature, in order to assist in solving the garden problems; for the day has passed when one needed only to scratch the soil with a shell, plant the seeds, and receive an abundant crop. Today successful gardening depends upon intelligent management of the soil and crop and upon persistent labour. PRELIMINARY PLAN The teacher should, if possible, visit the homes of all the pupils, in order to make herself familiar with the condition in which their grounds are kept. She may be able to secure permission from one of the housekeepers to use her grounds as the practice place for the lesson, or it may be more desirable to give this lesson at the school and to conduct a school garden as a model home garden. METHOD OF WORK Discuss the arrangement and care of the home or school grounds. Have the class tidy the lawn and garden chosen for the lesson, supervising the work carefully. Assign the tidying up of the home lawns or work in the home gardens for the coming week. Let this lesson serve as a means of interesting the pupils in home gardening, if that has not already been taken up, or of emphasizing the relation of gardening to the housekeeper's work, if they are already interested in the former. REFERENCE BOOKS _Bush Fruits._ Card. Macmillan's, Toronto $1.75 _When Mother Lets Us Garden._ Duncan. Moffat, Yard & Co., New York .75 _A Woman's Hardy Garden._ Ely. Macmillan's, Toronto 1.75 _The Beginner's Garden Book._ French. Macmillan's, Toronto 1.00 _Productive Vegetable Garden._ Lloyd. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia 1.50 TWENTY LESSONS IN COOKING SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER The teacher should learn how the pupils live in their own homes, what food produce is grown for home use, what foods they use, and how they prepare and serve their foods. The instruction given in the lessons should be based on this knowledge, and the possibilities for the improvement of accepted methods of cooking should be considered. Those foods should be used in the recipes which the pupils can afford to use at home. They should be encouraged to grow in their gardens a variety of garden produce, and to keep chickens, pigs, and cows. Elementary principles of nutrition and sanitation should be taught. Simple meals, with plain but well-cooked dishes, should be planned. Variations should be suggested, and the value of a mixed diet emphasized. Care should be taken not to waste time on points that are unrelated to the homes of the pupils, except as such points may be necessary to raise their ideals. All the work should be done carefully. The sanitary handling of food and care in the storage of foods should be insisted upon. Careful attention should be given to the dish-washing, care of the dish-towels, etc., emphasizing the points in sanitation involved. The pupils should be drilled faithfully in all points connected with the handling of anything that comes in contact with the food. Proper methods of sweeping and cleaning should be employed, and thoroughness must be practised in every detail of the work. Constant drill in these processes should be given. The order in which the lessons are to be given will be regulated, in part, by the season of the year in which they occur, the locality, the foods obtainable, and any special local needs. However, care must be taken that the lessons are given in proper sequence, so that the pupils may see the relation of one to another and may appreciate the value of each. It may be necessary to combine two lessons or to give only part of a lesson. In some of the lessons more recipes are suggested than can be prepared in a brief period. In every case the choice of a recipe will have to be made by the teacher. Wherever it is possible, simple experiments should be performed to show the composition of, and the effect of heat on, food. No attempt has been made to give a complete set of recipes; but those included here are chosen as illustrating the subjects to be discussed in the lessons. The teacher who desires to make use of a greater number of recipes will do well to supply herself with one of the text-books listed. Level measurements should be used in the preparation of all the recipes, and all the directions should be carefully followed. The first few lessons are more fully outlined than the others, furnishing suggestions for methods of procedure that may be adapted to later lessons. The teacher should have a detailed plan for every lesson, outlining her method of work, the leading questions for the discussion, and the home assignments which she desires to make. Foods that are in common use are suggested for the lessons outlined. There will necessarily be exceptions to their use in different localities. If any foods used in the homes are harmful because of the manner in which they are prepared, the teacher should do all in her power to correct the situation, but she must, at the same time, be careful not to be too radical. If the lessons given are not followed by home practice, the time devoted to them will be, to all intents and purposes, wasted. Simple meal service should be introduced wherever it is possible, and as much instruction on the furnishing and the care of the kitchen should be included as time permits. By the time the course is completed, the pupil should be able to keep her kitchen in a sanitary condition and should have a sufficient knowledge of food values and of the processes of cooking to enable her to provide simple, wholesome meals for her family. For the teaching of food values, it will be helpful to secure the set of sixteen food charts which may be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., price one dollar. It will be shown later how the school luncheon may be managed with very little interference with the ordinary organization of the school. Where definite instruction is given in Household Science, a place must be provided for it on the school time-table, as is the case with the other school subjects. In sewing and household management lessons of forty minutes each are sufficient, and these can be arranged for at the times found to be most convenient. If each pupil keeps her sewing in a box or bag, it may often be used as "busy work" when the pupil has finished her assigned work or while she is waiting for the teacher, who may be engaged with another class. Lessons in cookery should be, if possible, at least one hour in length, and should be given at a time when this period can be exceeded, if the character of the lesson renders it desirable; for example, in those cases where the cooking is not completed at the expiration of the time assigned. For this reason the last hour on Friday afternoon has proved a very suitable time. In some schools the lesson is commenced at half-past three and runs on until completed, and in this way only half an hour of the regular school time is taken. The possibilities of a Saturday morning cooking class should not be overlooked. ABBREVIATIONS AND MEASUREMENTS tbsp. = tablespoonful tsp. = teaspoonful c. = cupful qt. = quart pt. = pint oz. = ounce lb. = pound min. = minute hr. = hour TABLE OF LEVEL MEASUREMENTS 3 tsp. = 1 tbsp. 16 tbsp. = 1 c. (dry measure) 12 tbsp. (liquid) = 1 c. 2 c. = 1 pt. COMPARISONS BETWEEN WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 2 c. butter, packed solidly = 1 lb. 2 c. sugar (granulated) = 1 lb. 2 c. meat, finely chopped = 1 lb. 2-2/3 c. brown sugar = 1 lb. 2-2/3 c. oatmeal = 1 lb. 4-3/4 c. rolled oats = 1 lb. 4 c. flour = 1 lb. 2 tbsp. butter = 1 oz. 4 tbsp. flour = 1 oz. 9 or 10 eggs = 1 lb. 1 lemon (juice) = 3 tbsp. _Note._--The half-pint measuring cup and not the ordinary tea cup is the one to be used. REFERENCE BOOKS _Household Management._ Ontario Teachers' Manual. The Copp, Clark Co., Ltd., Toronto $0.19 _Domestic Science._ Austin, B. J. Lyons & Carnahan, Chicago. Vol. I .60 Vol. II .60 _Principles of Cooking._ Conley, G. American Book Co., New York .52 _Home Economics._ Flagg, G. P. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. (McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, Toronto). .75 _Lessons in Elementary Cooking._ Jones, M. C. Boston Cooking School Magazine Co., Boston 1.00 _Food and Health._ Kinne, H., and Cooley, A. M. Macmillan's, Toronto .65 _The School Kitchen Text-book._ Lincoln, M. J. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. (McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, Toronto) .60 _Food and Cookery._ Metcalf, M. L. Industrial Education Co., Indianapolis 1.00 _Household Science and Arts._ Morris, J. American Book Co., New York .60 _The Science of Home-making._ Pirie, E. E. Scott, Foresman & Co., Chicago .90 _Elements of the Theory and Practice of Cookery._ Williams, M. E., and Fisher, K. R. Macmillan's, Toronto 1.00 LESSON I: DISCUSSION OF FOODS AND COOKING _Management of the kitchen stove. Cooking by dry heat. Baked vegetable or fruit._ SUBJECT-MATTER _Foods._--The body uses food to build and repair its tissues, to provide heat and energy, and to regulate the body processes. Foods differ from one another in their composition and in their ability to assist the body in the performance of its varied functions. These differences have led to the classification of foods into five groups, which are spoken of as the five food-stuffs or food principles. _Cooking._--While some foods can be used as they occur in nature, most of them are made more acceptable by the application of heat. Heat softens the structure of vegetables and fruits, makes tender the tissues of meat, prepares starch for digestion, develops the flavour in many foods, and destroys the parasites and germs that may be present. The five food-stuffs are differently affected by heat--some require slow cooking, others require intense heat. Hence, it is necessary to study cooking, in order that each food may be properly prepared. _The stove._--A knowledge of the construction of the stove and the methods whereby heat is obtained is imperative if one is to be a successful cook. For all stoves three things are necessary--fuel, a supply of oxygen, and a certain degree of heat, known as the kindling point, whereby the fire is started. The supply of oxygen is regulated by dampers and checks so arranged as to admit or cut off the draught of air. The creative dampers are doors or slides that come below the fire box. When open, they admit the entrance of air, increase the draught, and facilitate combustion. The oven damper is a flat plate which closes the opening into the chimney flue, to decrease the drawing of the draught. When the oven damper is closed, the heat from the fire remains in the stove and passes around the oven. Checks are doors or slides higher than the fire-box, which, when open, allow the cold air to pass over the fire, retarding combustion. A stove is also provided with means for disposing of the ashes, soot, and the gases formed. All parts of the stove are so arranged that they may be kept clean. (See Twenty Lessons in the Care of the Home. Lesson I) PRELIMINARY PLAN There should be provided for this lesson (from the homes of the pupils or the school garden), some fruit or vegetable in season that can be cooked by dry heat. Each pupil may be able to bring an apple or a potato. The teacher should be sure to have an oven that can be well heated for baking and to have the fire well started before the lesson begins, so that the oven will be ready for use. Lessons in geography and nature study should be correlated with the cooking lesson, to give the pupils an opportunity to study the source of foods and the reasons for cooking them. One of the pupils should write the recipes on the black-board before the lesson hour. RECIPES _Baked Apples_ Wash the apples, core them, and cut through the skin with a knife, so that the apple can expand in baking without breaking the skin. Place the apples in a baking-dish and fill each cavity with sugar. Cover the bottom of the dish with water one quarter of an inch deep and bake until the apples are soft (20 to 45 minutes), basting them every 10 minutes. Place them in a serving dish and pour the juice over them. Serve hot or cold. _Baked Potatoes_ Select smooth potatoes of medium size, scrub carefully, and place in a baking-pan. Bake in a hot oven from 45 minutes to one hour. When soft, break the skin to let the steam escape and serve at once. METHOD OF WORK Discuss very briefly the food that is to be cooked and the method of cooking it. Have as many apples or potatoes baked as there are members of the class or as the baking-dish will hold. Assign tasks to special members of the class. As quickly as possible put the vegetable or fruit in the oven to bake. While the baking is in process, take up a general discussion of foods and cooking and a special discussion of the food which is being used and the method of cooking that is being employed. Give as thorough a lesson on the stove and combustion as time permits. Examine the baked article and discuss the methods of serving it, the time for serving, and so on. Use the finished product for the school lunch or have it served daintily in the class. Encourage the pupils to bring a dish to school in order to take the results of their work home for the family meal, if a school lunch is not served or if they do not need a lunch. Give careful directions for washing the dishes and supervise the housework carefully. (See pages 52, 53, _Household Management._) _Note._--It may be necessary to go on with some other recitation before the baking is completed, in which case one member of the class should be appointed to watch the oven. Questions Used to Develop the Lesson What food have we on hand for use to-day? Does this food need cooking? Why? How shall we prepare it for cooking? How shall we prepare the oven? How shall we care for the fire? How long will it be necessary to cook this food? (Time the baking carefully and discuss more thoroughly at the close of the lesson.) How can we tell when it is cooked? How shall we serve it? For what meal shall we serve it? Of what value is it to the body? _Home assignment._--The pupils should prepare the baked dish at home and at the next lesson report the result of their work. _Note._--The recipes given in this Manual are prepared for normal times; but in every case the Regulations of the Canada Food Board should be observed, and substitutes used wherever possible. LESSON II: PREPARING AND SERVING VEGETABLES _Water and mineral matter in vegetables. How to prepare and serve uncooked vegetables--lettuce, cress, cabbage, etc. Cooking by moist heat. How to boil, season, and serve beet tops, turnip tops, cabbage, sprouts, kale, spinach, mustard, or other vegetable greens._ SUBJECT-MATTER _Water._--All fluids and tissues of the body contain large quantities of water, therefore water is regarded as one of the most important food-stuffs required by the body. Practically all foods contain some water. Fresh vegetables and fruits provide the body with a high percentage of water. Water is a valuable medium for cooking. As it heats, small bubbles are formed, which continually increase in number and size, but gradually disappear. Some time before the boiling-point is reached, an occasional large bubble will rise to the surface and disappear. The water has then reached the simmering-point, 185°, a temperature frequently made use of in cooking. When many bubbles form and break, causing a commotion on the surface of the water, the boiling-point, 212°, has been reached. _Mineral matter._--Mineral matter is a second food-stuff that is needed by the body, but the amount required is very small. If a variety of food is used, there is generally sufficient mineral matter in the diet. Fruits and vegetables, especially fresh green vegetables, are comparatively rich in mineral matter. Mineral matter builds up the bones and certain tissues, such as the hair, teeth, and nails, and regulates the body processes by keeping the blood and digestive fluids in proper condition. _Green vegetables._--Green vegetables hold an important place in the diet, because they contain valuable mineral matter. They also contain a high percentage of water and considerable cellulose. With few exceptions they should be eaten raw, because the mineral salts, being soluble, are lost in the water in which they are cooked and because the cellulose serves its purpose best in the crisp form. Cabbage is rendered much more difficult of digestion by cooking. Spinach, beet tops, etc., are more palatable when cooked. The delicately flavoured vegetables should be boiled in a very small amount of water, so that they need not be drained. Thus the mineral matter will be retained when the vegetables are served. PRELIMINARY PLAN There should be provided for the lesson (from the homes of the pupils or the school garden), some fresh vegetables in season; one that can be cooked by boiling and one that can be served uncooked with a simple dressing. One of the pupils should write the recipes on the black-board before the lesson hour. RECIPES _Preparation of Fresh Green Vegetables_[A] Wash the vegetables thoroughly, leaving them in cold water to crisp, if wilted. Keep cool until ready to serve, then arrange daintily, and dress with salt, vinegar, and oil as desired, or prepare a dressing as follows: _Cooked Dressing_ 1/2 tbsp. salt 1 tsp. mustard 1-1/2 tbsp. sugar A few grains pepper 1/2 tbsp. flour 1 egg or yolks of 2 eggs 1-1/2 tbsp. melted butter 3/4 c. milk 1/4 c. vinegar Mix the dry ingredients, add the egg slightly beaten and the butter and the milk. Cook over boiling water until the mixture thickens. Add the vinegar, stirring constantly. Strain and cool. Note.[A]--It may be well to omit from this lesson the uncooked vegetable that is served in the form of a salad and to give it at some other time. It is not well to attempt to teach more than the pupils can master thoroughly. _Recipe for Boiling and Seasoning Fresh Green Vegetables_ Wash the vegetables carefully and put them on to cook in boiling water. Delicately flavoured vegetables (spinach, celery, fresh peas, etc.) will require but little water, and that should be allowed to boil away at the last. If spinach is stirred constantly, no water need be added. Starchy vegetables should be completely covered with water, and strongly flavoured vegetables (as turnips, onions, cabbage, and cauliflower) should be cooked in water at simmering temperature. After the vegetables have cooked for a few minutes, salt should be added, one teaspoonful to each quart of water. Cook the vegetable until it can be easily pierced with a fork. Let the water boil away at the last. If it is necessary to drain, do so as soon as the vegetable is tender. Season with salt, pepper, and butter (1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and 1/2 tablespoon butter to each cup of vegetable). _Note._--The water in which the vegetables are cooked should be saved for soups and sauces, as it contains most of the valuable mineral matter. METHOD OF WORK Discuss the heating of water and apply the facts to cooking. Have the pupils observe and describe the heating of water. If a new tin sauce-pan or other bright tin vessel is at hand in which to heat the water, the changes which take place as the temperature increases will be more readily apparent, and the pupils will enjoy watching the process. Discuss why one vegetable is to be cooked and another served uncooked. Emphasize the cleaning of the vegetable, its structure, composition, and the effect of the boiling water upon it. After the vegetable has been put on to cook, discuss the method of seasoning or dressing the vegetable which is to be served uncooked, and have it prepared attractively to serve on the plates. Especial emphasis should be placed on the use and importance of fresh, green vegetables. Continue the discussion of vegetables, letting the members of the class suggest others that may be prepared as salads or cooked in the manner being illustrated, and write the list on the black-board for the pupils to copy in their note-books. When the cooked vegetable is tender, have it drained, seasoned, and served, and serve the uncooked vegetable at the same time. When ready for serving, let the pupils arrange their plates and forks carefully, then let them all sit down except the two who pass the vegetables. Be sure that they eat carefully and daintily. Emphasize the careful washing of the dishes, etc., as on the previous day. _Questions Used to Develop the Lesson_ How shall we prepare our vegetables for serving? Of what value is hot water in cooking food? How must the vegetable be prepared for boiling? Does this vegetable contain any water? Will it be necessary to add any more? Will it be necessary to cover the sauce-pan? How hot must the water be kept? How can one tell when the water is sufficiently hot? How can we determine when the food has cooked long enough? How shall we serve this vegetable? How does boiling compare with baking-- In the time needed? In the matter of flavour? In the amount of fuel used? In the amount of work necessary? _Home assignment._--Practice in the boiling and the serving of vegetables. LESSON III: THE VALUE OF CARBOHYDRATES IN THE DIET _Potatoes as a source of carbohydrates. The choice, cost, care, composition, food value, and cooking of potatoes, baked squash, steamed squash._ SUBJECT-MATTER _Carbohydrates._--A third class of food-stuffs required by the body is known as the carbohydrates, or sugars and starches. This class of foods is used as fuel, for the production of heat and energy in the body. Excess of carbohydrates may be stored in the body as fatty tissue. _Potatoes._--Potatoes are a cheap source of carbohydrates. They are also valuable for their mineral matter and for the large quantity of water which they contain. Three fourths of the potato is water. The framework of the potato is cellulose, which is an indigestible carbohydrate material. Potatoes have only a small amount of cellulose, however, and they are comparatively easy of digestion. When dry and mealy, they are most digestible. When used for a meal, potatoes should be supplemented by some muscle-building food, such as milk, cheese, eggs, fish, or meat. PRELIMINARY PLAN At some previous period the teacher should have discussed with the pupils the use of potatoes and learned from them the different ways in which they cook them in their homes. She should determine upon some recipes for the lesson that will increase the variety of ways in which potatoes may be served and that will improve the methods used in the homes. Each pupil should be asked to bring one or two potatoes for the lesson. The best methods of cooking and the means of securing variety should be emphasized. RECIPES _Mashed Potatoes_ 6 potatoes 1/4 c. hot milk or cream 1 tbsp. butter 1 tsp. salt Wash and pare the potatoes, boil, drain, dry, and mash (with a potato masher) in the sauce-pan in which they were cooked. Beat them until very light and creamy; add hot milk, butter, and salt, and beat again, re-heat, and serve. Serves six to eight. _Browned Potatoes_ Wash, scrub, and pare potatoes of a uniform size. Parboil for 10 minutes, then put in a dripping-pan with the meat or on a rack in a baking-pan. Baste with fat every 10 minutes, when the meat is basted. Allow about 40 minutes for the potatoes to cook. EXPERIMENT TO SHOW THE PRESENCE OF STARCH IN POTATOES Scrub and pare a potato. Examine a thin cross-section. Grate the potato. Remove the coarse, shredded portion. Examine. Examine the liquid and note any sediment. Heat the liquid and stir until boiling. How has it changed? Examine the portion of the grater. How has the colour changed? Why? _Baked Squash_ Wipe the shell of the squash, cut it into pieces for serving, remove the seeds and stringy portion, place in a dripping-pan, and bake in a slow oven for three quarters of an hour (until tender). Serve at once. _Steamed Squash_ Prepare the squash as for baking, put in a steamer over boiling water, and cook for 30 minutes or until soft. Then scrape the squash from the shell, mash, and season with butter, salt, and pepper. METHOD OF WORK Discuss the composition and structure of the potato. Read over and discuss the recipes that are to be used. Make assignments of work. After the potatoes have been put on to cook, have the class examine a raw potato, following the directions given.[A] [A] Squash is another vegetable containing a high percentage of carbohydrate. The recipe for squash can be used at this time or in some other lesson. If one of the recipes requires the use of the oven, be careful to have the potatoes for it prepared first and as quickly as possible. It may be necessary to proceed with another class, assigning one pupil to take charge of the baking. Special attention should be given to the careful serving of the potatoes. _Home assignment._--Before the next lesson, each pupil should be able to report that she has cooked potatoes at home, using the recipes learned in class. LESSON IV: FRUITS AND VEGETABLES _Food value and use of fruits. Reasons and rules for canning. How to can and use such vegetables as beets, beans, tomatoes, and carrots, and such fruits as figs, grapes, apples, and peaches. The drying of fruits and vegetables._ SUBJECT-MATTER Fruits impart palatability and flavour to other foods and exercise a favourable influence upon the digestive organs, though their food value is low. They contain a high percentage of water and only a small percentage of nutrients. Most fruits are eaten raw and are exceedingly valuable to the body because of the fresh acids they contain. Cooking softens the cellulose of the fruit and, therefore, renders some fruits more easy of digestion. The cooking of fruit is of value chiefly for the purpose of preservation. _The drying of fruits._--Fruits are dried so that they may be preserved for use. Bacteria and moulds, which cause the decay of fruits, need moisture for development and growth. If the moisture is evaporated, the fruits will keep almost indefinitely. Fruits and vegetables can be easily and inexpensively dried. When dried fruits are to be used for the table, they must be washed thoroughly and soaked for several hours, or overnight, in water, so as to restore to them as much water as possible. They should be cooked, until soft, in the same water in which they are soaked. _Canning and preserving._--Other methods of preservation are desirable, in order that vegetables and fruits be made of value for a longer period of time than through their ripening season. Canning is one of the methods most commonly employed in the home, being both easy and satisfactory. Fruit which is to be canned is first sterilized by boiling or steaming, in order to destroy all germs and spores. This can be adequately accomplished by boiling for twenty minutes, but a shorter time is sometimes sufficient. In order to ensure complete success, all germs must also be destroyed on the cans and on everything which comes in contact with the food. This will be effected by boiling or steaming for twenty minutes. The jars, covers, dipper, and funnel should all be placed in cold water, heated until the water comes to the boiling-point, boiled five minutes, and left in the water until just before sealing. As for the rubbers, it will be sufficient to dip them into the boiling water. After the fruit has been put into the can, it must be sealed so that it is perfectly air-tight. In order to do this, it is necessary to have good covers, with new, pliable rubbers, and to see to it that they fit tightly. When the jar is to be filled, it should be placed on a board or wooden table, or on a cloth wrung out of hot water, and should be filled to overflowing. Sugar is not essential to sterilization and is used only to improve the flavour. Both fruits and vegetables can be canned without sugar. However, fruits canned with a large amount of sugar do not spoil readily, for germs develop slowly in a thick syrup. _Methods of canning._--The simplest method of canning is the "Open-kettle Method" employed for small, watery fruits, such as berries, grapes, tomatoes, etc. The fruit is boiled in an open kettle (which permits of the evaporation of some of the water in the fruit) and transferred at once to a sterilized jar, which is immediately sealed. Another and safer method, which secures more complete sterilization without serious change of flavour in the fruit, is that known as the "Cold-pack Method". After being transferred to the cans, the vegetable or fruit is subjected to an additional period of heating of considerable length, or to three periods of briefer length on three successive days. If the three periods of sterilization are used, the process is known as the "Intermittent Method". The Single Process Method is described in the recipe for canned beets. The Intermittent Process proves more satisfactory for canned beans. PRELIMINARY PLAN The teacher should ascertain what fruits and vegetables are most abundant and select for canning those that the class can provide. Each pupil should be asked to bring some vegetable or fruit, some granulated sugar, and a jar in which to can her fruit. If the school does not possess enough kettles or sauce-pans in which to do the cooking, they may be borrowed from the homes. Only one fruit or one vegetable should be taken up at a time, for the preparation necessarily varies slightly, and the different methods will prove confusing. It is not necessary to confine the choice of fruits and vegetables to those mentioned in the recipes included here. The teacher will find it better to base her instruction on the products of the particular time and place. The principles of canning should be taken up at some other period, if possible, in order that the cooking lesson may be devoted entirely to the practical work. RECIPES _Canned Tomatoes_ (Open-kettle Method) Scald and peel the tomatoes. Boil gently for 20 minutes. Sterilize the jars, covers, and rubbers. Stand the jars on a cloth in a pan of hot water or on a board or wooden table. Fill the jars with hot tomatoes, being careful to fill to overflowing and to expel all air bubbles from the jar. Adjust the rubbers and covers. Seal and allow to cool. Test, label, and set away in a cool, dry, dark place. (Cold-pack Method) Scald in water hot enough to loosen the skins. Plunge quickly in cold water and remove the skins. Pack whole or in pieces in the jars. Fill the jars with tomatoes only. Add 1 level teaspoonful of salt to each quart. Place the rubber and cover in position. Partially seal, but not tightly. Place the jars on a rack in a boiler. Pour sufficient warm water into the boiler to come half-way up the jars. Place the filled jars on the rack so as not to touch one another, and pack the spaces between them with cotton, to prevent the jars striking when the water boils. Sterilize for 22 minutes after the water begins to boil. Remove the jars from the boiler. Tighten the covers. Invert to cool, and test the joints. Wrap the jars in paper to prevent bleaching and store in a cool, dry, dark place. This method of cooking is also called "The Hot Water Bath". _Canned Grapes_ (Open-kettle Method) 6 qt. grapes 1 qt. sugar 1/2 c. water Pick over, wash, drain, and remove the stems from the grapes. Separate the pulp from the skins. Cook the pulp 5 minutes and then rub through a sieve that is fine enough to hold back the seeds. Put the water, skins, and pulp into the preserving kettle and heat slowly to the boiling-point. Skim the fruit and then add the sugar. Boil 15 minutes. Put into jars as directed. Sweet grapes may be canned with less sugar; very sour grapes will require more sugar. _Canned Peaches_ Choose firm, solid fruit. Scald long enough to loosen the skins. Peel and cut in halves. If clingstone peaches are used, they may be canned whole. Pack the fruit into sterilized jars, fill with boiling syrup (1 c. sugar to 1-1/2 c. water). Then put on the covers loosely and place on wooden racks in the boiler. Sterilize in hot water bath for 20 minutes. Remove the jars and tighten the covers. Invert to cool, and test the joints. Wrap the jars in paper to prevent bleaching; then store. _Canned Beets_ (Single Process) Wash the beets and boil them until they are nearly tender and the skins come off easily. Remove the skins and carefully pack the beets in a jar. Cover with boiling water, to which one tablespoonful of salt is added for each quart, and put the cover on the jar, but do not fasten it down. Place the jar on a rack or a folded cloth in a large kettle that can be closely covered. Pour enough water into the kettle to reach within two inches of the top of the jar, cover the kettle, bring the water to the boiling-point, and boil from one and one-half to two hours. As the water around the jar boils down, replenish with boiling water, never with cold. Remove the jars and tighten the covers. Invert to cool, and test the joints. Wrap the jars in paper to prevent bleaching; then store. _Note._--In canning beets, if vinegar is added to the water in the proportion of one part vinegar to four parts water, the natural bright colour will be retained. _Canned String Beans and Peas_ (Intermittent Method) Can on the same day that the vegetables are picked. Blanch in boiling water from 2 to 5 minutes. Remove, and plunge into cold water. Pack in sterilized jars. Add boiling water to fill the crevices. Add 1 level teaspoonful of salt to each quart. Place rubbers and covers in position. Set the jars on the rack in the boiler and bring gradually to boiling heat. At the end of an hour's boiling, remove the jars from the boiler. Tighten the clamps or rims and set the jars aside to cool until the following day. Do not let the vegetables cool off in the boiler, as this results in over-cooking. On the second day, loosen the clamps or unscrew the rims, place the jars in warm water, heat again to boiling temperature, and boil for an hour; then remove them again. On the third day, repeat the hour's boiling, as on the preceding day. Corn may be canned successfully in the same way. _Dried Corn_ Pick the corn early in the morning. Immediately husk, silk, and cut the corn from the cob. Spread in a very thin layer on a board, cover with mosquito netting which is kept sufficiently elevated so that it will not come in contact with the corn, place in the hot sun, and leave all day. Before the dew begins to fall, take it into the house and place in an oven that is slightly warm. Leave in the oven overnight and place out in the sun again the next day. Repeat this process until absolutely dry. _String Beans_ String beans are hung up to dry and kept for winter use. METHOD OF WORK If possible, let each pupil can a jar of vegetables or fruit for her own home. If the class is large, let the pupils work in groups of two or three. Begin the lesson with a very brief discussion of how to prepare fruit for canning. Let the pupils proceed with the practical work as quickly as possible. Demonstrate the method of filling and sealing the jars. Assign the care of the jars and the intermittent canning on succeeding days to members of the class, and hold them responsible for the completion of the work. The drying of some vegetables can be undertaken at school, and carefully followed from day to day. It will furnish the pupils with an interesting problem. LESSON V: FATS--VEGETABLES--Continued _Preparation of white sauce to serve with vegetables. How to boil, season, and serve such vegetables as lima or butter beans, string beans, onions, cabbage, corn, beets, turnips, or carrots._ SUBJECT-MATTER _Fats._--Butter belongs to the class of food-stuffs known as fats. It increases the fuel value of those dishes to which it is added. Fats supply heat and energy to the body in a concentrated form. For this reason they should be used in a limited quantity. Fats undergo several changes during the process of digestion, and the excessive use of them interferes with the digestion of other foods and throws a large amount of work upon the digestive organs. Cooked fats are more difficult of digestion than uncooked fats, and other foods cooked with hot fat are rendered more difficult to digest. _Vegetables._--Vegetables should be used when in season, as they are always best and cheapest then. They are better kept in a cold, dry, and dark place. If the vegetables contain starch or tough cellulose, they will require cooking; as raw starch is indigestible, and the harsh cellulose may be too irritating to the digestive tract. In old or exceedingly large vegetables the cellulose may be very tough; hence a long period of cooking is necessary. They should be cooked only until they are tender. Longer cooking may destroy the flavour, render the vegetables difficult of digestion, and cause the colour to change. In very young vegetables the cellulose is delicate and, if young vegetables do not contain much starch, they may be eaten raw. When cooked vegetables are served, they are usually seasoned and dressed with butter (for one cup of vegetables use 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, 1/8 teaspoonful of pepper, and 1/2 tablespoonful of fat), or a sauce is prepared to serve with them. PRELIMINARY PLAN It may be well to have a preliminary lesson devoted to simple experiments with flour, liquid, and fat, in order to determine the best method of combining the ingredients in the white sauce. However, if the lesson period is of sufficient length, a few of these experiments may be performed in connection with it. There should be provided for the lesson some vegetable that is improved by serving with white sauce, and sufficient milk, butter or other fat, flour, and salt for the sauce and the experiments. Discuss with the pupils the fat that is used in their homes, in order to know what is available. The recipes should be written on the black-board before the lesson hour. RECIPES _Stewed Onions_ 1 qt. onions White pepper 2 tbsp. butter 1/4 tsp. salt Peel the onions under cold water. Cover with boiling water, add salt, and simmer until tender. Drain and serve with one cup of white sauce; or omit the sauce and serve seasoned with butter and pepper. Serves six. _Cabbage_ Cut the cabbage into quarters and soak one-half hour in cold salt water to draw out any insects. Chop or shred, cover with boiling water, add salt, and simmer until tender. Drain, and serve with butter, salt, and pepper, or with a sauce. _Carrots_ Scrape the carrots and cut them into large dice or slices. Add boiling water and boil until tender (from 30 to 45 minutes). Drain, and season with butter, salt, and pepper, or serve with white sauce. _String Beans_ String the beans, if necessary, and cut into pieces. Boil in salted water until tender. Season with butter, salt, and pepper, and serve hot. Salt pork may be boiled with the beans, to give them an added flavour. EXPERIMENTS IN USING STARCH FOR THICKENING (Any powdered starch may be used) 1. Boil 1/4 cup of water in a small sauce-pan. While boiling, stir into it 1/2 tsp. of cornstarch and let it boil one minute. Observe the result. Break open a lump and examine it. 2. Mix 1 tsp. of cornstarch with 2 tsp. of cold water and stir into 1/4 cup of boiling water. Note the result. 3. Mix 1 tsp. of cornstarch with 2 tsp. of sugar and stir into 1/4 cup of boiling water. Note the result. 4. Mix 1 tsp. of cornstarch with 2 tsp. of melted fat in a small sauce-pan and stir into it 1/4 cup of boiling water. Note the result. CONCLUSIONS BASED ON THE FOREGOING EXPERIMENTS 1. Starch granules must be separated before being used to thicken a liquid: (1) By adding a double quantity of cold liquid, (2) By adding a double quantity of sugar, (3) By adding a double quantity of melted fat. 2. The liquid which is being thickened must be constantly stirred, to distribute evenly the starch grains until they are cooked. _White Sauce_ 2 tbsp. butter or other fat 2 tbsp. flour 1 c. milk 1/4 tsp. salt 1/8 tsp. pepper (Sufficient for 1 pint vegetables) Melt the butter, add the flour, and stir over the fire until frothy. Add the milk and stir constantly until it thickens. Stir in the seasonings. _Note._--Vegetable water may be substituted for part of the milk. METHOD OF WORK Review the facts on boiling vegetables learned in the previous lesson. Let the pupils put water on to boil and prepare a vegetable for cooking. If experiments are to be made, they can be performed while the vegetable is cooking. If the experiments have been made previously, they can be reviewed in discussion at this time. Prepare a white sauce by demonstration, using the method which seems most practical. Have the vegetables drained, dried, and added to the white sauce. When well-heated, serve. Questions Used to Develop the Lesson What facts regarding the boiling of vegetables did we learn in the last lesson? Does the vegetable that we are to cook to-day differ in any marked way from those we cooked before? Should we follow the same rule in cooking it? Should we add the flour directly to the cold milk? To the hot milk? How shall we combine the white sauce? With what other vegetables can white sauce be used? _Home assignment._--Each pupil should prepare some vegetable and serve it with white sauce, before the next lesson. LESSON VI: CEREALS _Kinds, composition, care, and general rules for cooking cereals. Oatmeal, cracked wheat, corn-meal porridge, rice. Fruits to serve with cereals--stewed prunes, stewed apples, or apple sauce._ SUBJECT-MATTER The term "cereals" is applied to the cultivated grasses--rice, wheat, corn, rye, oats, and buckwheat. They are widely grown throughout the temperate zone and are prepared in various forms for use as food. Cereals contain a high percentage of starch and a low percentage of water, with varying proportions of mineral matter and fat. In addition to the four food-stuffs already studied, cereals contain a small amount of another food-stuff known as protein--a muscle-building material. For the most part, the cereals contain a large amount of cellulose, which is broken up during the process of preparation for market and requires long cooking before being ready for use by the body. The digestibility of the cereals depends upon the amount of cellulose which they contain and the thoroughness of the cooking. Cereals are palatable, and they are valuable, because in cooking they can be blended in various ways with other substances. They are beneficial also to the body, because their cellulose acts mechanically on the digestive organs by stimulating them to action. Cereals are made more attractive by serving with fresh or cooked fruit. PRELIMINARY PLAN The cereals should be discussed in a nature study or geography lesson, and two or three kinds that are in common use should be brought from home by the pupils. If cereals are not generally used as breakfast foods, the lesson may be a means of introducing them. Some pupils should bring a little milk and sugar, to serve with the cooked cereal. Apples or prunes should be brought, to cook and serve with the cereal. RECIPES _Oatmeal_ 3 c. boiling water 3/4 c. oatmeal 3/4 tsp. salt Add the oatmeal slowly to boiling salted water. Boil for 10 minutes, stirring constantly, then cook slowly, preferably over water, at least one and one-half hours longer; the flavour is developed by longer cooking. Serves six. _Cracked Wheat_ Follow the recipe for oatmeal, using 3/4 c. of cracked wheat. _Corn-meal Porridge_ 4 c. boiling water 3/4 c. corn-meal 1 tsp. salt Add the corn-meal slowly to boiling salted water. Boil for 10 minutes, stirring constantly, then cook slowly for three hours longer, preferably over water. Serves six to eight. _Boiled Rice_ 3 qt. boiling water 1 c. rice 2 tsp. salt Pick the rice over carefully and wash thoroughly. Add it to the boiling salted water so gradually that it will not stop boiling. Partly cover and cook for 20 minutes, or until the grains are soft; turn into a colander, and pour cold water through it, drain, dry, and re-heat in a hot oven with door open. Serve hot as a vegetable or as a simple dessert with cream and sugar. Serves six to eight. _Stewed Prunes_ 1/2 lb. prunes 1 qt. cold water Wash the prunes in two or three waters; then soak them in cold water for several hours. Heat them in the water in which they are soaked and simmer until tender (an hour or more). Serves six to eight. _Stewed Apples_ 10 small apples 1/2 c. sugar 3/4 c. water Cook the sugar and water together until it boils. Wash, pare, and cut the apples into quarters; core, and slice the quarters lengthwise into 1/4-inch slices; put the apple slices into boiling syrup and cook slowly until tender. Remove from the syrup at once and let the syrup boil down to thicken. _Apple Sauce_ 10 small apples 1/2 c. sugar 3/4 c. water Wipe, quarter, core, and pare sour apples; add the water and cook until the apples begin to soften; add the sugar and flavouring, cook until the apples are very soft, then press through a strainer and beat well. Serves eight to ten. METHOD OF WORK As soon as the class meets, discuss the recipes briefly and put the cereals on to cook at once. Prepare the fruit. While the long cooking of the cereal is in progress, discuss the composition, food value, and methods of using cereals. Then go on with another lesson and call the class together, for serving, later in the day. Serve the fruit and the cereals together. LESSON VII: CLASSIFICATION OF FOODS--Reviewed SUBJECT-MATTER Those foods which build up and repair the muscular tissues of the body are called protein foods, muscle builders, or flesh formers. Meat, fish, eggs, cheese, milk, cereals, legumes, and nuts are classed as protein foods. Those foods which serve solely as fuel for the body--providing heat and energy--are classed under two groups: the carbohydrates (sugar and starches), which the body is able to use in relatively large quantities; and the fats, which the body cannot use in such large quantities, but which yield a large amount of heat and energy. Protein also serves as fuel, though tissue building is regarded as its special function. Sugars and starches are abundant in fruits and vegetables. Fats are found in meats, fish, milk, and in some vegetable foods. Heat-giving food may be stored in the body as fatty tissue. Mineral compounds must be present in our food, to help in the regulation of the body processes and to enter into the composition of the structure and the fluids of the body. Mineral compounds are best supplied by fresh green vegetables, fruits, and milk. Water is absolutely essential to the body, is present in large quantities in many foods, and is combined with many other foods during the processes of cooking. One or more of the food-stuffs sometimes predominate in a single food. For example, rice is almost entirely carbohydrate, and butter is almost pure fat. Occasionally, we find a food that contains all the five groups of food principles. Milk is an example of such a food, containing all five food principles in such proportions as to supply all the nourishment which a baby needs during the early months of its life. As the child grows older, foods rich in both carbohydrates must be added to the diet. Wheat contains all that the body needs for nourishment except water, which is easily added in cooking. _Protein foods_ _Carbohydrate foods_ Meats Sugar Fish Honey Poultry Syrup Eggs Vegetables: Cheese Potatoes Milk Parsnips Cereals: Peas Wheat Beets Oatmeal Carrots Rye Cereal preparations: Legumes: Meals Peas Flours, etc. Beans Fruits Lentils Prepared foods: Peanuts Bread Nuts Crackers Macaroni Jellies Dried fruits Candy Milk _Fat foods_ _Mineral foods_ Cream Fruits Butter Vegetables: Lard Spinach Suet Tomatoes Fat meats Onions Fish Turnip tops Salad oil Cauliflower Nuts Cereals: Chocolate Grits and other coarse preparations Milk Eggs _Choice of food._--The diet must be carefully chosen, to give a needed variety and to combine the foods properly so that one may have a right proportion of all the food-stuffs. Each meal should contain some protein food, some fats or carbohydrates, some mineral matter, and water. All five forms of food-stuffs should have a place in the day's diet. The greater part of the water which the body needs should be taken between meals. METHOD OF WORK Review the foods discussed in the previous lessons and sum up the classification of foods, being sure that the pupils can name common examples of each. Discuss simple combinations for the different meals, using dishes already prepared in the course and creating an interest in other recipes to be prepared in succeeding lessons. BLACK-BOARD SUMMARY There are five food principles: 1. _Water_--builds and repairs the tissues, regulates the system-- found in all food-stuffs. 2. _Mineral matter_--builds and repairs the tissues, regulates the system-- found in vegetables, fruits, cereal, and so on. 3. _Carbohydrates_--give heat and energy to the body-- found in sugar and starches. 4. _Fats_--give heat and energy to the body-- found in cream, nuts, pork, and so on. 5. Protein--builds and repairs the tissues-- found in meat, eggs, cheese, seeds. Always choose a diet carefully: 1. To give variety. 2. To combine the foods properly, so that they will contain adequate proportions of each food-stuff at every meal. LESSON VIII: THE PLANNING AND SERVING OF MEALS SUBJECT-MATTER Experience has shown that some foods are more acceptable at one time of day than other foods, and that certain combinations are more pleasing than others. The choice of foods will also depend upon the season of the year. For example, breakfast is, as a rule, made up of simple foods that are not highly seasoned nor subjected to elaborate methods of cooking. A fruit, a cereal, and bread, with, possibly, eggs or meat, are served at breakfast. A hot beverage is added by most people to this meal. Fundamentally, dinner consists of a hot meat or other protein dish, with one or two vegetables. Soup, salad, and a sweet dessert are often served. The soup is served before the meat course, and the salad and dessert follow it. The dessert may be a fruit, a cookie or other pastry, a pudding, or a frozen dish. Lunch or supper may be a very simple meal, consisting of a soup with crackers, one protein dish (eggs, milk, or meat) with bread and stewed fruit, or a salad, with a simple dessert. EXAMPLES OF WELL-CHOSEN MENUS _Breakfast_ No. I Apple sauce Sausage or bacon Oatmeal Toast No. II Baked apples Eggs in the shell Cracked wheat Corn muffins No. III Stewed figs or berries Poached eggs Corn-meal porridge Toast Note.--Eggs should be omitted from the breakfast menu if they are not cheap and easily obtainable. _Dinner_ No. I Pork chops Potatoes Fried apples Mashed turnips Bread Rice pudding No. II Beef or mutton stew Biscuits Spinach or turnip tops Cornstarch pudding No. III Baked beans Grape sauce Cabbage salad Bread or biscuits _Supper_ No. I Stewed apricots or other fruit Whole wheat bread Buttermilk or sweet milk Peanut cookies No. II Omelet Creamed potatoes Bread Fresh fruit No. III Cream of carrot soup Biscuits Cottage cheese Syrup The table should always be neatly set, with individual places arranged for each one who is to partake of the meal. Each place should be wide enough for a plate, with a knife and spoon at the right and a fork at the left side. A tumbler should be placed at the point of the knife and a napkin at the left of the fork. Everything on the table should be perfectly clean, the napkin should be neatly folded, and all the articles should be uniformly arranged, in order to give a neat appearance to the table. A flower or plant in the centre will add to its attractiveness. Salt, pepper, sugar, vinegar, and anything of the kind that may be needed with the meal should be arranged where it can be easily reached. Fresh water should be poured into the tumblers just before the meal is served. The bread, butter, and so on, may be put on the table several minutes before the meal is announced, but the hot dishes should be placed immediately before the family is seated. PRELIMINARY PLAN If Lesson VI, entitled "Setting and Clearing the Table" as outlined in the course on the Care of the Home has been given, this lesson may be devoted to what to serve and how to serve it, or it may precede the lesson on "Waiting on Table". The manner of serving may be demonstrated in the next lesson, in connection with the course on the Care of the Home. Simple equipment for family service will be required, if the form of serving is to be taken up. For class practice, a table for four may be arranged. This will necessitate a table-cover, four dinner plates, four bread-and-butter plates, four tumblers, four cups and saucers, four knives, four forks, four teaspoons, four napkins, a platter, one serving spoon, and one serving fork. METHOD OF WORK Discuss meal service from the standpoint both of choice and combination of foods and of the method of service. Let the class plan a meal, then go through the form of serving that meal at table. In the absence of a table, the top of a desk may be used. Later in the course, the teacher should plan to combine this lesson with one on cooking and have the food served. In each cooking lesson, suggestions for serving the food should be made, and each dish cooked should be carefully served. Interest in this lesson may be increased by allowing the pupils to make original menus, and, if they are having some lessons in drawing, simple menu cards may be planned and executed. LESSON IX: MILK _Care, cost, and food value of milk. Value and use of sour milk--cottage cheese, curdled milk. Rice or cornstarch pudding (plain, caramel, or chocolate)._ SUBJECT-MATTER Milk contains all the food-stuffs which the body requires, except starch, and, therefore, is capable of sustaining life for comparatively long periods. It is one of the most important protein foods; but it contains so small a percentage of carbohydrate (milk sugar) that for the adult it must be supplemented with carbohydrate foods. For the baby, milk is a perfect food, and it is a valuable adjunct to the diet of all children. One quart of milk should be allowed for the diet of each child daily, after the twelfth month; and the diet of the adult should be supplemented by the use of milk. The greatest care should be exercised in protecting milk from dust and dirt, for it is easily contaminated and may be the means of carrying disease germs to the body. The changes which milk undergoes when souring do not render it harmful. For many people buttermilk is more easy of digestion than sweet milk, because of the changes produced by souring, as well as the absence of fat. Sour milk is of value in cooking, producing a tender bread which can readily be made light by the addition of soda--one teaspoonful of soda to one pint of sour milk that has curdled. In the preparation of cheese, the whey is separated from the curds, thus extracting most of the water, sugar, and mineral matter, and leaving a substance rich in protein and fat. Cheese is of value in cooking, for it increases the food value of those foods to which it is added. PRELIMINARY PLAN The teacher should make inquiries a few days in advance, to be sure that one quart of sour milk can be secured, and, when it is brought, she should examine it to see that it is in proper condition to make cottage cheese. She should arrange to have about one quart of sweet milk and such other supplies as are necessary for the pudding, brought by the pupils. An opportunity may be afforded to discuss the use of left-over cereal by the preparation of a rice pudding, if the teacher provides some cold cooked rice for the lesson. In the absence of cold rice, the cornstarch pudding may be prepared. RECIPES _Cottage Cheese_ Heat sour milk slowly until the whey rises to the top, pour the whey off, put the curd in a bag, and let it drip for six hours without squeezing. Put the curd into a bowl and break into fine pieces with a wooden spoon; season with salt and mix into a paste with a little cream or butter. Mould into balls, if desired, and keep in a cold place. (It is best when fresh.) _Rice Pudding_ 1/2 c. rice 2 c. milk 2 eggs 1/3 c. sugar 1/8 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. vanilla Scald the milk in a double boiler. Add the prepared rice and cook until soft. Beat the egg-yolks, sugar, and salt together until well mixed. Stir into the rice and cook for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and serve cold. Serves eight. _Cornstarch Pudding_ 1/4 c. sugar 5 tbsp. cornstarch, or 1/2 c. flour 1 tsp. vanilla, or other flavouring 3 c. milk 1 egg Mix the sugar and cornstarch thoroughly. Add one cup of cold milk and stir until smooth. Heat the remainder of the milk in a double boiler; add the cornstarch mixture slowly, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken. Continue cooking for 20 minutes. Beat the egg well, add the hot pudding slowly, strain, and cool. Serve with milk or cream and sugar. (The egg may be omitted, if desired.) Serves eight. For chocolate cornstarch pudding, use 1/4 cup of sugar additional and two squares of chocolate. Melt the chocolate carefully, add the sugar, and add to the cornstarch mixture. For caramel cornstarch pudding, use 1 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of boiling water. Heat the sugar until it becomes a light-brown liquid, add the boiling water, and stir until the sugar is all dissolved. Let it cool; then add to the cornstarch mixture. METHOD OF WORK As soon as the class meets, demonstrate the method of making cottage cheese. Show the separation of curd and whey, by adding vinegar or lemon juice to sweet milk. While the cheese is draining, make assignments of work and have the rice or cornstarch pudding made. In this lesson and in those following emphasize the use of protein foods. Discuss also the food value of skimmed milk and sour milk and the purposes for which these may be used in cooking. Use the cottage cheese and the pudding for the school lunch. LESSON X: SOUPS _Cream soups. Cream of carrot, potato, or onion soup, green pea soup. Toast, croutons, or crisp crackers to serve with soup._ SUBJECT-MATTER _Cream soups._--The strained pulp of cooked vegetables or legumes, with an equal portion of thin white sauce, is the basis for cream soups. The liquid for the soup may be all milk, part vegetable water and part milk, or all vegetable water. A binding of flour is used to prevent a separation of the thicker and the thinner parts of the soup. This is combined as for white sauce and is stirred into the hot liquid just before the soup is to be served. The soup should be made in a double boiler and kept in this utensil until it is served. Four tablespoons of flour to each quart of soup is a good proportion to use for thickening all vegetable soups that are not of a starchy nature; half that amount will be sufficient for soup prepared from a very starchy vegetable. The value of the vegetable water should be impressed upon the pupils, and it should be pointed out that these soups are an excellent way of using the cooking water and any left-over vegetables. From these, attractive cream soups may be prepared, and a combination of flavours often gives good results. _Accompaniments._--Crisp crackers, croutons, soup sticks, or bread sticks are served with cream soups, and are valuable because they necessitate thorough mastication, thus inducing the flow of saliva and aiding in the digestion of the starchy ingredients of the soups. PRELIMINARY PLAN As a basis for the soup, the teacher should secure a vegetable that the pupils use in their own homes, and crackers or bread to serve with the soup. If dried peas are used, they should be allowed to soak overnight and be put on to cook early in the morning. It will be well to have the cooking of the carrots begun before the lesson period. If the carrots are cut up in small pieces, they will cook more quickly. RECIPES _Cream of Carrot Soup_ 1 c. cooked carrots 2 c. vegetable water 2 c. milk 4 tbsp. flour 2 tbsp. butter Salt and pepper to taste Press the vegetables through a sieve or chop finely; put the vegetable water on to heat. Mix the flour smoothly with an equal measure of milk and thin it with a little more of the milk. Stir into the steaming liquid, stirring constantly until it thickens. Stir in the butter, vegetable pulp, and remaining milk. Season to taste and serve hot. Serves six. _Cream of Potato Soup_ 1 pt. milk or milk and water 2 tsp. chopped onions 3 potatoes 1 tbsp. butter 1 tbsp. flour 1 tsp. salt 1/8 tsp. pepper 2 tsp. chopped parsley Put the milk to heat in a double boiler. Boil the potatoes and onion together until soft, then rub the liquid and pulp through a strainer into the hot milk. Bind with the flour, add the seasonings, and serve hot. Serves four. _Pea Soup_ 1 c. split peas 2-1/2 qt. water 2 tbsp. chopped onion 3 tbsp. butter 3 tbsp. flour 1-1/2 tsp. salt 1/8 tsp. pepper 1 pt. milk Wash the peas and soak them overnight in cold water, drain and rinse thoroughly, add 2-1/2 quarts of cold water and the onion, cook slowly until soft, rub the liquid and pulp through a strainer, and bind with the flour. Add the milk and the seasonings and serve hot. Serves six to eight. _Toast_ Cut stale bread into slices one quarter of an inch thick; put on the toaster or fork, move gently over the heat until dry, then brown by placing near the heat, turning constantly. Bread may be dried in the oven before toasting. Hot milk may be poured over dry toast. _Croutons_ Cut stale bread into one-half-inch cubes and brown in the oven. _Crisp Crackers_ Put the crackers into the oven for a few minutes, or split and butter thick crackers, and brown in a hot oven; serve with soup. METHOD OF WORK Devote a few minutes to a discussion of cream soups and a review of the cooking of vegetables and white sauce. Divide the work among the members of the class, assigning enough to each pupil to keep her busy, arranging the work so that the soup and its accompaniments will be ready for serving at the same time. LESSON XI: EGGS _Food value and general rules for cooking eggs. Cooked in shell, poached, scrambled, and omelet._ SUBJECT-MATTER Eggs are a very valuable food, because of the large amount of protein and fat they contain. Though lacking in carbohydrates, they furnish material for building up the muscles and provide heat and energy to the body. If cooked at a low temperature, eggs are very easily and very completely digested. Combined with other foods, they serve as a thickening agent (for sauces and soups) and as a means of making batters light (popovers and sponge cake). They add flavour and colour and increase the nutritive value of other foods. PRELIMINARY PLAN The lesson on eggs furnishes one of the best opportunities to teach the muscle-building foods. If eggs are scarce, it may be well to give this lesson at some other time. Each pupil should be asked to bring an egg; one or two should bring a little milk; and sufficient bread should be provided to toast for the poached eggs. The teacher should not undertake to give too many recipes in this lesson, but should try to make the pupils familiar with a sufficient variety of ways of using eggs to make egg cookery interesting. The necessity of having a moderate temperature for the cooking of eggs should be emphasized. RECIPES _Soft-cooked Eggs_ Put the eggs in boiling water sufficient to cover them, remove from the fire, cover, and allow them to stand from 5 to 8 minutes. _Hard-cooked Eggs_ Put the eggs in cold water, heat, and, when the water boils, reduce the heat, and let them stand for 20 minutes with water just below the boiling-point, then put them into cold water. _Poached Eggs_ Break each egg into a saucer carefully, slip the egg into boiling water, decrease the heat, and cook for 5 minutes, or until the white is firm and a film has formed over the yolk. Take up with a skimmer, drain, trim off the rough edges, and serve on slices of toast. Season. Poached eggs are attractive when covered with white sauce to which chopped parsley has been added. _Baked Eggs_ Line a buttered baking-dish with buttered bread crumbs or with cold mashed potatoes. Break the eggs in the dish without separating and add one tablespoon of milk or cream for each egg. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with grated cheese, if desired. Bake in a moderate oven until the eggs are set. _Creamed Eggs_ 3 hard-boiled eggs 6 slices toast 1 c. medium white sauce Prepare a white sauce. Add hard-boiled eggs cut in halves, sliced, or chopped and, when hot, serve on toast. Or separate the whites and yolks, chop the whites fine, add to the white sauce and, when hot, serve on toast and garnish with yolks run through a sieve or ricer. Season with salt and pepper. Serves four to six. _Creamy Omelet_ 1 egg 1/4 tsp. salt Pepper 1/2 tsp. butter 1 tbsp. milk Beat the egg slightly, add the milk and seasonings, put the butter in the hot omelet pan and, when melted, turn in the mixture. As it cooks, draw the edges toward the centre until the whole is of a creamy consistency, brown quickly underneath, fold, and turn on a hot platter. Serve at once. Serves one. _Scrambled Eggs_ Double the quantity of milk given for Creamy Omelet and stir all the time while cooking. _Foamy Omelet_[A] 1 egg 1/8 tsp. salt 1 tbsp. milk or water 1/2 tsp. butter Cayenne or white pepper Beat the yolk of the egg until creamy, add seasoning and milk. Beat the white until stiff, but not dry, cut and fold into the yolk carefully. Heat an omelet pan, rub the bottom and sides with the butter, and turn in the omelet, spreading it evenly on the pan. Cook gently over the heat until the omelet is set and evenly browned underneath. Put it into a hot oven for a few minutes, to dry slightly on top, fold, and serve immediately. Serves one. METHOD OF WORK Devote one half of the class period to a discussion of the structure of the egg and the effect of heat upon it. Use simple experiments or watch the poached egg, to make a study of the changes produced in the egg by the application of heat. If the pupils are sufficiently experienced, let them work together in small groups, first scrambling an egg, then making an omelet. Demonstrate the cooking of the omelet before the entire class. Serve the egg dishes carefully while hot. [A] The omelet recipes given are for individual portions. To make a large omelet, multiply the quantity of each ingredient by the number of eggs used. The best results will be obtained by making an omelet of not more than four eggs, as larger omelets are difficult to cook thoroughly and to handle well. A two-egg omelet will serve three people. A four-egg omelet will serve six people. LESSON XII: SIMPLE DESSERTS--CUSTARDS SUBJECT-MATTER A custard is a combination of eggs and milk, usually sweetened and flavoured, and either steamed, or baked as cup custard, or cooked in a double boiler as soft custard. The whole egg may be used or the yolks alone. The yolks make a smoother, richer custard. The eggs must be thoroughly mixed, but not beaten light, the sugar and salt added, and the milk scalded and stirred in slowly. The custard must be strained through a fine sieve and cooked at a moderate temperature. It is desirable to strain a custard, in order to remove the cords and pieces of the membrane which inclosed the yolk. The cup custard should be strained before cooking, the soft custard may be strained afterwards. A soft custard is cooked over water and is stirred constantly until done. When done, the froth disappears from the surface, the custard is thickened and coats the spoon and sides of the pan, and there is no sign of curdling. If the custard is cooked too long, it becomes curdled. If it becomes curdled, put it into a pan of cold water and beat until smooth. A steamed or baked custard is done when it becomes set and when a silver knife will come out clean after cutting it. PRELIMINARY PLAN This lesson will furnish an opportunity for a review of milk and eggs. The pupils should arrange to bring the necessary materials from their homes. RECIPES _Steamed Custards_ 1 qt. milk (heated) 4 eggs or 8 egg yolks 1/2 c. sugar 1/4 tsp. salt 2 tbsp. caramel or 1/2 tsp. nutmeg Beat the eggs sufficiently to mix them thoroughly; add the sugar, salt, and hot milk slowly. Strain into cups, flavour with caramel, or sprinkle nutmeg on top, and steam until firm over gently boiling water--from 20 to 30 minutes. _Baked Custards_ Prepare as for Steamed Custards, set in a pan of hot water, and bake in a slow oven until firm--from 20 to 40 minutes. _Chocolate Custards_ Use the recipe for Steamed Custards, adding 1 ounce of chocolate (melted) to the hot milk. Steam or bake as desired. _Soft Custard_ 1 pt. milk (heated) 4 egg yolks 1/16 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract 4 tbsp. sugar Beat the egg yolks sufficiently to mix them thoroughly, add the sugar, salt, and hot milk slowly. Cook over water that is boiling gently. Stir constantly until the custard thickens. Strain. Flavour when cool. For soft Chocolate Custard add 1/2 ounce chocolate (melted) to the hot milk. Serves six. _Floating Island_ Use recipe for Soft Custard and, when cold, garnish with a meringue made according to the following recipe: _Meringue_ 4 egg whites 1/4 c. powdered sugar Beat the egg whites very light, add powdered sugar, and continue beating. Drop in large spoonfuls on the cold custard. Serves eight to ten. METHOD OF WORK It may be possible to teach two or three recipes in this lesson. The baked custard may be put into the oven while the soft custard or floating island is being made. Serve at the school lunch. LESSON XIII: BATTERS AND DOUGHS _Griddle Cakes_ SUBJECT-MATTER _Batters._--Batters are mixtures of flour or meal and a liquid, with salt or sugar to give flavour, butter to make tender, and steam, air, or gas to make light. One scant measure of liquid is used with one measure of flour for thin, or pour, batter. One measure of liquid is used with two measures of flour for a thick, or drop, batter. One measure of liquid is used with three measures of flour for a soft, or bread, dough. One measure of liquid is used with four measures of flour for a stiff, or pastry, dough. Before mixing a batter, the oven or griddle should be at the proper temperature, with the fire well regulated and in good condition. The oven should be tested by putting in a piece of white paper or two tablespoonfuls of flour, which should brown in three minutes. The pans should be prepared by greasing with lard, salt pork, or beef dripping. All the materials should be measured and ready before beginning to combine the ingredients. When the batter has been mixed and beaten until smooth, it should be baked at once. PRELIMINARY PLAN The teacher will be better prepared to give the lesson on batters if she first makes herself familiar with the kinds of breads that are used in the homes of the pupils and the methods followed in their preparation. The simple, general methods of preparing batters should be taught. The teacher should not attempt the preparation of more than one or two batters in this lesson. RECIPES _Sour-milk Griddle Cakes_ 2-1/2 c. flour 1/2 tsp. salt 1-1/4 tsp. soda 1 egg 2 c. sour milk Mix and sift the flour, salt, and soda; add the sour milk and egg well beaten. Drop, by spoonfuls, on a greased hot griddle; cook on one side. When puffed full of bubbles and cooked on the edges, turn, and cook on the other side. Serve with butter and maple syrup. _Sweet-milk Griddle Cakes_ 3 c. flour 1-1/2 tbsp. baking-powder 1 tsp. salt 1/4 c. sugar 2 c. milk 1 egg 2 tbsp. melted butter Mix and sift the dry ingredients, beat the egg, add the milk, and pour on the first mixture. Beat thoroughly and add the butter. Cook the same as Sour-milk Griddle Cakes. METHOD OF WORK Discuss batters briefly. Have all measurements made, the fire regulated, the pans prepared, and so on. Demonstrate the mixing and cooking of Griddle Cakes. Serve the cakes daintily after they are cooked. LESSON XIV: BATTERS AND DOUGHS--Continued _Muffins--Baking-powder Biscuits_ SUBJECT-MATTER _Methods of making batters light._--Batters are made light by beating air into them, by adding eggs into which air has been beaten, or by entangling gas in the batter. Gas is secured by using soda and sour milk in a batter (one teaspoon of soda to one pint of sour milk), or soda with molasses (one teaspoon of soda to one cup of molasses), or soda with cream of tartar (one teaspoon of soda with two slightly rounding teaspoons of cream of tartar). The soda should be mixed well with the other dry ingredients, then the sour milk or molasses added, the whole beaten up quickly, and baked at once. Baking-powder is a preparation containing soda and cream of tartar, and may be used in place of soda if sweet milk is used. Two level teaspoonfuls of baking-powder should be used with one cup of flour. PRELIMINARY PLAN This lesson is a continuation of the lesson on batters. Care should be taken not to undertake more than can be done well in the time available. RECIPES _Graham Muffins_ 1 c. graham flour 1 c. flour 1/4 c. sugar 1 tsp. salt 1 c. milk 1 egg 1 tbsp. melted butter 4 tsp. baking-powder Mix and sift the dry ingredients. Gradually add the milk, the egg well-beaten, and the melted butter. Bake in a hot oven in greased gem pans for 25 minutes. _Plain Muffins_ 1/4 c. butter 1/4 c. sugar 1 egg 3/4 c. milk 2 c. flour 3 tsp. baking-powder Cream the butter, add the sugar and egg well beaten, sift the baking-powder with the flour, and add to the first mixture, alternating with the milk. Bake in greased gem pans for 25 minutes. _Baking-powder Biscuits_ 2 c. flour 4 tsp. baking-powder 1 tsp. salt 2 tbsp. fat 3/4 to 1 c. milk or water Sift the dry ingredients together, chop the fat into the flour with a knife, slowly add sufficient milk to make a dough not too soft to be handled. Toss and roll the dough gently on a slightly-floured board and cut into small biscuits. Moisten the tops with a little milk. Handle the dough quickly, lightly, and as little as possible. Place on a buttered sheet. Bake in a hot oven till brown--from 12 to 15 minutes. Either white or whole wheat flour may be used for the biscuits. Serves six to eight. Oven test--the oven should be hot enough to colour a piece of unglazed white paper to a golden brown in one minute. _Soda Biscuits_ 2 c. flour 1/2 tsp. soda (scant) 1/2 tsp. salt 1 c. sour milk (scant) 2 tbsp. shortening (lard or other fat) Proceed as for Baking-powder Biscuits. If the sour milk is not thick enough to curdle, it will not contain sufficient acid to neutralize the soda, and the biscuits will be yellow and bitter. To avoid this, cream of tartar may be mixed with the soda (1 teaspoonful). If there is no cream of tartar at hand, it will be wise to use the recipe for Baking-powder Biscuits. METHOD OF WORK Have the oven and pans prepared and all the measurements made. Demonstrate the mixing of the muffins and, while these are baking, the mixing of the biscuits. Have one pupil take charge of the baking of the muffins and another of the baking of the biscuits. When the breads are done, have the class sit down and serve them to one another, or to all the pupils at the school lunch hour. LESSON XV: MEATS _Composition and food value. How to make tough cuts of meat palatable. Pork chops with fried apples. Beef or mutton stew with vegetables and dumplings. Rabbit stew. Bacon._ SUBJECT-MATTER Meats are rich in protein and usually in fats, but are lacking in the carbohydrates. They build up the muscular tissue, furnish heat and energy, are more stimulating and strengthening than any other food, and satisfy hunger for a greater length of time. For the most part, meats are a very expensive food. One cannot perform more labour by the use of a meat diet than on a diet of vegetable foods. Those who use large quantities of meat suffer from many disturbances of the system. Hence it should form a very small part of the diet. The cuts of meat that come from those portions of the animal's body that are much exercised are tough, owing to the development of the connective tissues, but they contain a high percentage of nutrition. For the same reason, the meat from older animals is apt to be tough. The flesh of chickens, turkeys, and other fowls is very nutritious and is easily digested if not too fat. The flavour of meats is developed by cooking. Dry heat develops the best flavour, hence the tender cuts are cooked by the processes known as broiling and roasting. Tough cuts of meat require long, slow cooking in moist heat, hence they are prepared in the form of stews and pot roasts or are used in meat soups. PRELIMINARY PLAN After the teacher has found out what meats are used in the homes or what the school can afford to use, she should determine upon a method of cooking that will make the meat palatable, digestible, and attractive. If it can be prepared as a stew, she should use a recipe in which vegetables are also used and, if possible, have dumplings prepared to serve with the meat, as a review of the lesson on batters. RECIPES _Beef or Mutton Stew_ 2 lb. beef or mutton 1 qt. water Salt, pepper, flour to dredge 1 onion, cut in slices 1/2 c. turnip cut in dice 3/4 c. carrot cut in dice 4 potatoes cut in 1/2-inch slices 1 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper 1/2 c. flour 1/4 c. cold water Remove the fat and cut the meat into 1-inch pieces. Reserve half of the best pieces of meat, put the rest of the meat and the bone into cold water, soak for one hour, then heat until it bubbles. Season half the raw meat and roll it in the flour, melt the fat in a frying-pan, remove the scraps, brown the sliced onion and then the floured meat in the hot fat, add both to the stew, and cook for 2 hours at a low temperature. To this add the vegetables and cook 1/2 hour; then add the flour and seasonings, which have been mixed with one-half cup of cold water, and cook for 1/2 hour longer, until the meat and vegetables are tender. Remove the bone from the stew and serve. Serves six to eight. _Rabbit_ If beef and mutton are not commonly used and are not readily obtainable, but rabbit can be secured, substitute rabbit for beef in the stew. After the rabbit has been thoroughly cleaned, cut up in eight pieces (four leg and four body pieces), season, and dredge with flour, brown in the fat, and proceed as with Beef Stew. _Dumplings_ 2 c. flour 4 tsp. baking-powder 1/2 tsp. salt 2 tbsp. fat (lard or butter) 3/4 c. milk or water (about) Sift the dry ingredients together, cut in the butter, and add the milk gradually, to make a soft dough. Roll out on a floured board, cut with a biscuit cutter, lay on top of meat in a stew pan (they should not sink into the liquid), cover the kettle closely, keep the stew boiling, and cook the dumplings for 10 minutes without removing the lid. (Do not put the dumplings in to cook until the meat is tender.) _Note._--If desired, the rolling may be eliminated and, after mixing, the dough may be dropped by spoonfuls into the stew. _To Cook Bacon_ Place thin slices of bacon from which the rind has been removed in a hot frying-pan, and pour off the fat as fast as it melts. Cook until the bacon is crisp and brown, turning frequently. Another method of cooking is to lay the bacon on a rack in a baking-pan and bake in a hot oven until crisp and brown. _Pork Chops_ Wipe the chops with a damp cloth, and place in a hot frying-pan. Turn frequently at first and cook slowly until well browned on each side. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. _Fried Apples_ Wash and core the apples and slice to the centre. Roll in flour if very juicy. After the chops have been removed from the pan, lay the apples in and cook till tender. Serve around the chops. METHOD OF WORK If the meat is to require two or three hours' cooking, arrange to have the lesson divided and given at two periods through the day. Half an hour before opening the morning session or a portion of the morning or noon recess may be sufficient time to put the meat on to cook and to prepare the vegetables. When the second class period is called, the vegetables should be added to the partially cooked meat and the dumplings should be made. It would be well to serve the completed dish at the lunch period. There should be as much discussion regarding the kinds of meat, their food value, and the methods of cooking as time permits; but it may be necessary to complete this discussion at some other class period. Should it be possible for the teacher to give additional lessons on meat, it might be well to devote one lesson to the preparation and cooking of poultry, directions for which may be secured from any reliable cook-book. LESSON XVI: BAKED PORK AND BEANS--BAKING-POWDER BISCUITS SUBJECT-MATTER Peas, beans, and lentils which are dried for market contain a high percentage of protein, carbohydrate, and mineral matter. They form an excellent substitute for meat and are much cheaper in price. The digestion of leguminous foods proceeds slowly, involving a large amount of work: on this account they are not desirable for invalids, but they are satisfactory for those who are well and active. The dried legumes must be soaked overnight in water and then cooked for a long time, in order to soften the cellulose and develop the flavour. PRELIMINARY PLAN It will be necessary to plan this lesson several days in advance, if the beans are to be baked. As they will be prepared and put on to bake before the lesson period, the Baking-powder Biscuits may be made during the lesson, to serve with them. RECIPE _Boston Baked Beans_ 1 qt. navy beans 1 tbsp. salt 1/2 tbsp. mustard 3 tbsp. sugar 2 tbsp. molasses 1 c. boiling water 1/2 lb. fat salt pork Boiling water to cover Look over the beans and soak them in cold water overnight. In the morning drain, cover with fresh water, and simmer them until the skins will burst, but do not let the beans become broken. Scald one-half pound of fat salt pork. Scrape the pork. Put a slice in the bottom of the bean pot. Cut the remaining pork across the top in strips just through the rind, and bury the pork in beans, leaving the rind exposed. Add one cup of boiling water to seasonings and pour over the beans. Cover with boiling water. Bake slowly, adding more water as necessary. Bake from 6 to 8 hours, uncover at the last, so that the water will evaporate and the beans brown on top. Serves twelve. METHOD OF WORK Have the beans washed and put to soak the night before the lesson is to be given. Assign to one of the pupils the task of putting them on to simmer early the next morning. Call the class together for a few moments when the beans are ready to bake. Assign one of the pupils to attend to the fire and the oven. Let the beans bake all day. If the lesson is to be given late in the afternoon, the beans may be ready to serve, or the cooking may be continued on the second day and the lesson completed then. It would be well to serve the dish at the lunch period. Have the biscuits prepared to serve with the baked beans. LESSON XVII: BUTTER CAKES--PLAIN YELLOW CAKE--COCOA--COFFEE--TEA SUBJECT-MATTER _Cakes._--Cakes made with fat resemble other batters, except that the fat, sugar, and eggs are usually larger in amount and the texture of the baked batter is finer and more tender. When preparing cake, first get the pans ready. Grease them or line them with greased paper. Make sure that the oven is at the proper temperature. For a small cake, the oven should be hot enough to brown a piece of unglazed paper or a tablespoonful of flour in three minutes. Bake a small cake from twenty to thirty minutes. When done, the cake will shrink from the sides of the pan; the crust will spring back when touched with the finger; the loud ticking sound will cease; a fine knitting-needle will come out clean if the cake is pierced; and the crust will be nicely browned. When the cake is removed from the oven, let it stand in the pan for about three minutes, then loosen, and turn out gently. Do not handle while hot. Keep in a clean, ventilated tin box in a cool, dry place. _Cocoa._--Chocolate and cocoa are prepared from the bean of a tropical tree. This bean is rich in protein, fat, carbohydrate, mineral matter, and a stimulant called theobromine. In the preparation of chocolate the seeds are cleaned, milled, and crushed into a paste. In the preparation of cocoa much of the fat is removed, and the cocoa is packed for market in the form of a fine powder. Cocoa is more easily digested than chocolate, because it contains less fat. Though the amount of cocoa used in a cup of this beverage is not large, when prepared with milk it serves as a nutritious food. It is slightly stimulating as well, because of the theobromine present and because it is served hot. _Coffee and Tea._--Coffee and tea have no food value when prepared as beverages. They contain stimulating properties that are harmful to the body if taken in large quantities and, on this account, they should be used with discretion. They should never be given to children or to those troubled with indigestion. If carelessly prepared, both coffee and tea may be decidedly harmful to the body. Coffee should not be boiled for more than eight minutes. Tea should never be permitted to boil. Fresh, boiling water should be poured on the leaves and left for three minutes. It should then be strained off and kept hot until used. PRELIMINARY PLAN It may be wise to give this lesson on some special occasion, as it is well adapted to serve for the refreshments for a mother's club or a little class party. RECIPES _Plain Yellow Cake_ 1/2 c. butter 1 c. sugar 2 eggs 1/2 c. milk 2 tsp. baking-powder 1-1/2 c. flour 1 tsp. spice or 1-1/2 tsp. flavouring Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually, and mix well. Add the well-beaten yolks of eggs, then the flour and baking-powder alternately with the milk. Then add the flavouring and cut and fold in the whites of the eggs carefully. Turn into buttered pans and bake at once in a moderately hot oven. For chocolate cake, 2 ounces of melted chocolate may be added after the yolks of the eggs. Serves sixteen to twenty. _Gingerbread_ 1/4 c. butter 1/2 c. brown sugar 1 egg 1/2 c. molasses 1/2 c. milk (sour if possible) 1/2 tsp. soda 1-3/4 c. flour 1 tsp. ginger 1/2 tsp. cinnamon Salt Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually, then a well-beaten egg. Add the molasses. Sift all the dry ingredients together and add alternately with the milk. Bake in a buttered tin or in gem pans in a moderate oven for 25 or 35 minutes. Serves eight to ten. _Cocoa_ 1/4 c. cocoa 1/4 c. sugar 1 c. water 3 c. milk Mix the cocoa and sugar with the water and boil from 3 to 5 minutes. Stir into the hot milk and serve at once. If a scum forms, beat with a Dover egg-beater. Serves eight to ten. _Tea_ 1 tsp. green or 2 tsp. black tea 2 c. boiling water (freshly boiling) Scald the tea-pot, put the tea in the tea-pot, and pour boiling water over it; steep 3 minutes, strain, and serve. Serves four. _Coffee_ Take two tablespoonfuls of ground coffee for each cup of boiling water that is to be used. Put the coffee in the coffee-pot and add enough cold water to moisten the coffee and make it stick together--about one teaspoonful of water to each tablespoonful of coffee. Pour the boiling water over the coffee and boil it for 3 minutes. Place it where it will keep hot, but not boil, for 5 minutes or more, and then serve. If a small amount of egg white and shell is mixed with the coffee grounds and cold water, it will aid in clarifying and settling the coffee. _Note._--The recipes for coffee and tea are given, so that the teacher can discuss their preparation with the pupils and compare their value with that of cocoa. If coffee and tea are both commonly used in the homes, it may be well to have the pupils prepare both in the class, to be sure that they understand how to make them properly. METHOD OF WORK Begin the lesson period with a discussion of the methods of preparing cakes, and put the cake in the oven as soon as possible. While it is baking, prepare the cocoa. If the cocoa is not to be served for some time, it can be kept hot or re-heated over hot water. LESSON XVIII: YEAST BREAD SUBJECT-MATTER Yeast bread is made light by the presence of a gas produced by the action of yeast in the sponge or dough. Yeast is a microscopic plant which grows in a moist, warm temperature and feeds on starchy materials such as are present in wheat. A portion of the starch is converted into sugar (thus developing new and pleasant flavours), and some is still further changed, giving off the gas upon which the lightness of the bread depends. If the yeast is allowed to work for too long a time or the temperature is very hot, a souring of the dough may result. This souring can be prevented by kneading the dough thoroughly, as soon as it has risen well or doubled in bulk, or by putting it in a very hot oven to bake, when it has reached this stage. The yeast plant thrives in a heat of about the same temperature as our bodies. A little extra heat will only make it more active, but boiling temperature will kill it. Cold makes yeast inactive, though it does not kill the plants. Yeast develops in a natural state on hops and other plants. It is prepared for market in the form of dry or moist cakes. The latter must be kept very cold. For home use, a liquid yeast is often prepared from the dry cakes. This has the advantage of being more active. When the yeast has been added to a batter, it is spoken of as a sponge. When the batter has had enough flour added, so that it may be handled, it is called a dough. If the bread is to be made in a few hours, the yeast is made up at once into a dough. If it is to stand overnight, a sponge is often made first. More yeast is required for quick rising. In ordinary circumstances, one yeast cake is sufficient for one quart of liquid. Thorough kneading and baking are both essential to the success of the bread. PRELIMINARY PLAN Arrange to have the class meet the afternoon before, in order to begin the process by making the sponge, and to come early in the morning to care for the dough. Begin the study of flour, yeast, and bread in a previous class period, correlating the work with geography, nature study, or some other subject. Either white or whole-wheat flour may be used for the breads. RECIPES _Bread_ (Prepared with dry yeast) 1 dry yeast cake 1 c. warm water 1 c. flour 1 qt. water or milk (scalded) Flour enough to make a soft dough 2 tsp. salt 2 tbsp. sugar 2 tbsp. lard or butter At noon put a dry yeast cake to soak in a cup of warm water. When it is soft, add a cup of flour, cover, and put in a warm place to grow light. This will require several hours. In the evening, when ready to begin the dough, mix the salt, sugar, fat, and hot liquid in a large bowl; when lukewarm, add the cup of light yeast and enough flour to knead (about three quarts). Mix thoroughly and knead it into a smooth dough, and continue this process until it is soft and elastic. Return the dough to the bowl, moisten, cover, and set in a moderately warm place for the night. Be sure that the place is free from draughts. In the morning knead slightly; divide into loaves or shape in rolls; put into pans for baking; cover, and let it rise until double in bulk. Bake large loaves from 50 to 60 minutes. Rolls will bake in from 25 to 35 minutes, for they require a hotter oven. It is of the utmost importance that all yeast breads be thoroughly cooked. (Makes 4 loaves.) (Time required for making bread with dry yeast, from 16 to 20 hours.) _Bread_ (Prepared with compressed yeast) 2 c. milk or water (scalded) 2 tsp. salt 2 tsp. sugar 1 tbsp. lard or butter 1/4 cake compressed yeast (1 cake if set in morning) 1/4 c. water (lukewarm) Flour, white or whole wheat Put the hot water or milk, salt, sugar, and fat in a bowl; when lukewarm, and the yeast softened in the lukewarm water, then the flour gradually and, when stiff enough to handle, turn the dough out on a floured board and knead until soft and elastic (20 minutes). Return the dough to the bowl, moisten, cover, and let it rise in a warm place until double in bulk; then knead slightly, divide into loaves or shape into rolls, cover, and let rise in the pan in which they are to be baked until double in bulk, and bake from 50 to 60 minutes. (Makes 2 loaves.) (Time required for making bread, if one cake of compressed yeast is used, 6 hours.) METHOD OF WORK If the class is large, prepare two or three bowls of sponge, so that all can have some practice in stirring and kneading. Do not make too large a quantity of bread to bake in the oven, unless arrangements can be made to do some of the baking at the home of one of the pupils. Use the bread for the school lunch or divide it among the class to take home. Plan a bread contest, so that each pupil will be interested in making bread at home. LESSON XIX: SERVING A SIMPLE DINNER WITHOUT MEAT--BAKED OMELET--MACARONI AND CHEESE PRELIMINARY PLAN AND METHOD OF WORK At some previous time the teacher should discuss with the pupils the plans for the dinner. It may be well to let them invite the members of the school board or others interested in their work to partake of the dinner. They should decide on the menu, with the help and suggestions of the teacher, and should choose foods that they can bring from their homes. The main course should consist of such a vegetable dish as baked beans, an omelet, or macaroni with white sauce and grated cheese. To accompany this there should be potatoes and a fresh green vegetable, such as spinach or cabbage, and a hot bread. A simple dessert which the pupils know how to make should be chosen. One duty should be assigned to each pupil, and she should be entirely responsible for that portion of the dinner. The teacher should supervise all the work carefully. Instructions for making the menu cards may be given in a drawing lesson. RECIPES _Baked Omelet_ 2 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. flour 1/2 tsp. salt 1 c. milk, heated 4 eggs 2 tsp. fat Pepper Melt the butter, add the flour and seasonings, mix thoroughly, then add the hot milk slowly. Separate the eggs, beat the yolks, and add the white sauce to them. Beat the whites until stiff and cut and fold them carefully into the yolk mixture, so that the lightness is all retained. Turn into a greased baking-dish and bake in a moderate oven from 20 to 30 minutes. Serve hot. Serves six. _Macaroni and Cheese_ 1 c. macaroni, noodles, or rice 2 tbsp. fat 3 tbsp. flour 1/2 tsp. salt Pepper 1-1/2 c. milk 1 c. grated cheese 2 c. buttered bread crumbs (two tbsp. butter or other fat) Break the macaroni into 1-inch pieces and cook it in a large amount of salted boiling water from 30 to 45 minutes. Drain it well when tender and pour cold water through it. Break up the bread crumbs and add two tablespoonfuls of melted butter to them. Grate the cheese and make a white sauce of the fat, flour, seasonings, and milk. Mix the cheese with the sauce, add the macaroni, and pour it into a buttered baking-dish. Cover with the bread crumbs and bake 15 or 20 minutes, to brown the crumbs. Serves eight. LESSON XX: SUGAR _Food value and cooking. The use of peanuts in candy. Peanut cookies, or peanut, molasses, or fudge candies, to be made for a special entertainment._ SUBJECT-MATTER Sugar is valuable to the body as a source of heat and energy. While it is easy of digestion, it is very irritating to the body if taken in large quantities and, on this account, it should be taken in small quantities and preferably at meal time or with other food. Two or three pieces of candy taken at the end of the meal will not be hurtful, but when eaten habitually between meals, it is sure to produce harmful effects. Sugar is present in many fruits and in most vegetables. Milk contains a large percentage of sugar. In preparing foods to which the addition of sugar seems desirable, care should be taken not to add it in large quantities. PRELIMINARY PLAN As it is desirable to have a discussion regarding sugar and its value to the body, the preparation of cookies or candy for some school function or Christmas party may be undertaken in conjunction with this lesson, which should be given at a time when it will mean most to the pupils. The work should be so planned that they will learn something of the principles of sugar cookery, as well as the specific recipes they are using. RECIPES _Cookies_ 1 c. fat 1 c. sugar 2 eggs 1/4 c. milk 3 c. flour 3 tsp. baking-powder 1 tbsp. cinnamon 1/2 c. sugar Cream the butter and add the sugar and well-beaten eggs. Then add the milk alternately with the sifted dry flour (sifted with baking-powder). Mix to the consistency of a soft dough, adding more milk if necessary. Roll lightly, cut in shapes, and dip in the one-half cup of sugar and cinnamon that have been sifted together. Place on buttered sheets and bake in a hot oven for about 10 minutes. Slip from the pan and lay on the cake cooler. To make a softer cookie, use only one-half cup of butter. (Three to four dozen.) _Peanut Cookies_ 2 tbsp. butter 1/4 c. sugar 1 egg 1 tsp. baking-powder 1/8 tsp. salt 1/2 c. flour 2 tsp. milk 1/2 c. finely chopped peanuts 1/2 tsp. lemon juice 2 doz. whole peanuts shelled Cream the butter and add the sugar and the egg well beaten. Add the milk and sifted dry ingredients, alternately, to the first mixture, then the peanuts and lemon juice. Drop from a teaspoon on a baking sheet an inch apart and place 1/2 peanut on top of each. Bake from 12 to 15 minutes in a moderate oven. (Two and a half to three dozen.) _Peanut Brittle_ 1 c. sugar 1 c. peanuts in the shell Stir the sugar over the heat, constantly, until it becomes a clear liquid. Take at once from the heat, add the prepared peanuts, and pour on a warm, buttered tin. Mark in squares and cool. Serves ten. _Molasses Candy_ 2 c. molasses 2/3 c. sugar 1 tbsp. vinegar 1/4 tsp. soda 2 tbsp. butter Put the molasses, sugar, and butter into a thick sauce-pan or kettle and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Boil until the mixture becomes brittle when tried in cold water. Stir constantly at the last to prevent burning. Add vinegar and soda just before removing from the fire. Pour into a well-greased pan and let it stand until cool enough to handle. Then pull until light and porous and cut in small pieces with scissors, arranging on buttered plates. Serves sixteen to twenty. _Fudge_ 2 c. sugar 1 c. milk 1 tbsp. butter 1/2 c. nuts, broken up Put the sugar and the milk in a sauce-pan and stir over the heat until the sugar is dissolved. Add the butter and boil to the "soft ball" stage. Take from the heat and beat until creamy. Add the nuts and pour on buttered pans. When cool, cut in squares. Serves sixteen to eighteen. METHOD OF WORK Devote, if possible, a separate period to the discussion of the food value and cooking of sugar; then assign two recipes for the practical work, allowing the pupils to work in groups. Assign only as much work as can be carefully supervised. Do not undertake both the cookies and the candy. TWENTY LESSONS IN SEWING SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER The teacher should be familiar with the conditions in which the pupils live, should know how much money they can afford to pay for materials, what materials are available, what previous experience in hand work they have had, whether they can afford to have sewing-machines in their own homes, and to what extent they make their own clothes or buy them ready-made. The lessons should be planned to furnish hand training, to give pupils practical instruction in the care of their own clothes, and to provide an opportunity for preparing the apron for the cooking lessons. The lesson course should tend to develop habits of thrift, industry, and neatness. The pupils should be encouraged to learn to sew, both to improve their own home conditions and to give them suggestions as to a possible means of livelihood. If sewing-machines are available and are in use in the homes, it is well to have lessons given in machine sewing and to have the long seams run by machine. If the pupils cannot have sewing-machines in their own homes, the lessons given should be limited to sewing by hand. In some schools, it may be necessary to simplify the lessons; in others, an increased number of articles may be prepared in the time allotted. Should the apron and cap not be needed for the cooking class, an undergarment (corset cover) may well be substituted.[A] [A] Should the teacher feel that an apron or corset-cover is too large a piece for her pupils to undertake, and should she desire to have more time spent on the first ten lessons. Lessons XI to XVIII may be omitted, two periods each devoted to both Lessons XIX and XX, and three lessons used for the making of a simple needle-book or other small piece. For each lesson the teacher should have in mind a definite plan of procedure. The lesson should be opened with a brief and concrete class discussion of the new work that is to be taken up or the special stage that has been reached in work that is already under way. Though individual instruction is necessary, it should not take the place of this general presentation of the subject-matter, which economizes time and develops the real thought content of the work. Whenever possible, the teacher should endeavour to correlate this work with the other subjects on the curriculum. New stitches may be demonstrated on large pieces of scrim, with long darning-needles and coarse red or black yarn. The scrim should be pinned to the black-board with thumb tacks, and the stitches made large enough for all to see without difficulty. A variety of completed articles should be kept on hand, in order to show additional application of points brought out in the lesson. Each class may be given the privilege of preparing one article to add to this collection, and a spirit of class pride and valuable team work may be thereby developed. During the lesson, posture, neatness, and order should be emphasized. Application can be secured by making the problems of interest. Care must be taken that none of the work demands unnecessary eye strain. Each lesson should be closed in time to have one of the members of the class give a brief summary of the steps that have been covered. Since the class period for sewing in the rural school will necessarily be brief, the pupils should be encouraged to continue their work at some other period. However, no work outside of the class period should be permitted until the pupil has mastered the stitch and can be trusted to do the work in the right way. The privilege of sewing may be made the reward for lessons quickly learned, home practice may be assigned, or the class may meet out of school hours. All outside practice must be carefully supervised, the pupil bringing her work to the teacher for frequent inspection. If it is possible to keep on hand a permanent equipment for sewing, the following should be provided for a class of twelve: Approximate cost Scissors, 1 dozen $3.00 Thimbles, 1 dozen .50 Tape-measures, 1 dozen .60 Emery, 1 dozen .50 Boxes for work, 1 dozen 1.00 ------ $5.60 _Note._--Shoe or candy boxes may be used, but an effort should be made to have them uniform. The teacher who is to give lessons in sewing should secure a helpful elementary text-book or some bulletin that deals with the teaching of sewing. REFERENCE BOOKS. _School Sewing, Based on Home Problems._ Burton, I. R. and M. G. Vocational Supply Co., Indianapolis $1.00 _Handbook of Elementary Sewing._ Flagg, E. P. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. (McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, Toronto) .50 _Constructive Sewing, Book I._ (paper) Industrial Book & Equipment Co., Indianapolis .60 _School Needlework._ Hapgood, O. C. Ginn & Co., Boston .50 _Clothing and Health._ Kinne, H., and Cooley, A. M. Macmillan's, Toronto .65 _Handicraft for Girls._ McGlauflin, I. Manual Arts Press, Peoria. Ill. 1.00 _Home and School Sewing._ Patton, F. Newson & Co., New York .60 _A Sewing Course._ Woolman, M. S. Frederick A. Fernald, Washington 1.50 _Sewing._ Department of Education of Ontario .20 LESSON I: PREPARATION FOR SEWING _Preparation and use of working equipment: Needles, pins, thread, tape-measure, thimble, scissors, box for work. Talk on cleanliness and neatness (care of hands, etc.). Discussion of hemming. Hems folded on sheets of paper._ SUBJECT-MATTER A hem is made by twice turning over the edge of a piece of cloth toward the worker, and then sewing it down. It is used to finish a narrow edge. In turning a narrow hem the first fold must not be so deep as the second, in order that the hem may lie smoothly. If the hem is a wide one, the first fold can be much narrower than the second. PRELIMINARY PLAN The teacher should have interested the pupils in the sewing lessons before the first meeting of the class, and each pupil should be asked to bring with her the box in which to keep her materials and such other equipment as is required. If the school is to furnish the equipment, the teacher should be sure that there is an adequate supply on hand. It will probably be necessary to have the towels to be used in the cooking classes hemmed, and the pupils should be interested in doing this work. If some of them wish to hem towels for use in their own homes, it may be desirable to allow them to do so. Flour or meal sacks will answer. It may be well to have each pupil hem a towel for home use, as well as for school use, in order to impress upon her the desirability of having hemmed dish-towels for daily use. The towels may be planned during this lesson, and the pupils may arrange to bring the material from home, if they are to provide it; but it will be well for the teacher to have on hand material for one or two towels. Plain paper will answer for the practice folding of the hem in the first lesson. METHOD OF WORK The teacher should devote a few minutes to a talk on cleanliness, emphasizing its importance, and the necessity for exercising care in handling the sewing materials. This should be followed by a discussion regarding the care of the hands and the condition in which they should be for the sewing lesson. Each pupil should inspect her own hands and show them to the teacher. [Illustration: _Fig._ 2.--Gauge] When all the pupils have their hands in a proper condition for sewing, the teacher should look over their supplies with them, give them suggestions as to how they are to keep these, and let them arrange their boxes. Next, she should tell them what their first work is to be, show them the material for the towels, and discuss with them the best method of finishing the ends. (See Lesson II.) Before turning the hem, the pupils should make a gauge from heavy paper, notched to indicate the depth of the hem. A few minutes should be devoted to practice in measuring and turning a hem of the desired depth on a sheet of paper. This should give practice in the double turning necessary--first, the narrow turn to dispose of the cut edge; second, the fold to finish the edge. When the lesson is finished, the boxes should be put away in systematic order, and all scraps should be carefully picked up from the desks and the floor. LESSON II: HEMMING TOWELS _Turning and basting hems. Hemming towels of crash, sacking, or other material, for use in washing and drying dishes at home or in school._ [Illustration: _Fig._ 3.--Even basting] SUBJECT-MATTER Basting is used to hold two pieces of material together until a permanent stitch can be put in. It is done by taking long stitches (one-fourth inch) from right to left and parallel to the edges that are to be basted together. In starting, the thread is fastened with a knot; when completed, it is fastened by taking two or three stitches one over the other. PRELIMINARY PLAN The teacher should have the necessary materials on hand or should see that they are supplied by the pupils. The articles needed will include material for the towels, white thread for basting and hemming, and gauges for measuring. The teacher should also have a large square of unbleached cotton or canvas, 18 by 18 inches, and a large darning-needle and coloured worsted thread, to use for demonstration purposes. The canvas should be fastened to the black-board, where the class can see it easily. METHOD OF WORK As soon as the class is called, the supplies are at hand, and the hands are in a proper condition, the teacher should demonstrate the basting-stitch, with a large needle and thread, on the square of canvas that has been fastened on the wall. Materials for work should be passed. Each pupil should straighten the ends of her towel by drawing a thread. Then she should turn and baste a hem three eighths of an inch in depth. At the close of the lesson, the pupils should fold their work carefully and put it neatly in their boxes. LESSON III: HEMMING TOWELS--Continued _The overhanding stitch and the hemming stitch._ SUBJECT-MATTER _Overhanding_ (also called overseaming or top sewing).--The edges to be overhanded are held between the first finger and the thumb of the left hand, with the edge parallel to the first finger. The needle is inserted just below and perpendicular to the edge. The needle is pointed straight toward the worker. The stitches proceed from right to left, each stitch being taken a little to the left of the preceding stitch. The stitches should all be straight on the right side, but they will slant a little on the wrong side. They should not be deep. It may be desirable to use this overhanding stitch at the ends of hems, to hold the edges of the material together. The overhanding stitch is also used for seams, for patching, and for sewing on lace. [Illustration: _Fig._ 4.--Overhanding] The overhanding of narrow hems is not always necessary, but the ends may be made stronger thereby, and the stitch is a valuable one for the pupils to know. [Illustration: _Fig._ 5.--Hemming] _Hemming._--The hemming-stitch is placed on the inside of the hem. The end of the basted hem is laid over the first and under the second finger of the left hand, with the folded edge outside and the material toward the worker. It is held in place with the thumb. The stitch is begun at the end of the hem. The fastening of the thread is concealed by slipping it underneath the hem in the inside fold of the material. The needle is pointed over the left shoulder, a small stitch is taken by inserting the needle through the material just below the hem, then through the folded edge. This is repeated, making the next stitch nearer the worker and moving the goods away from the worker as necessary. Uniformity of slant, size, and spacing of the stitches is important. PRELIMINARY PLAN Before this lesson is given, all the pupils should report to the teacher, having both ends of their towels basted, so that they will all be ready to proceed at once with the new stitches. METHOD OF WORK The teacher should begin by demonstrating on the large square of canvas with the large needle and heavy thread the stitches to be used. After overhanding the end of the hem, the hemming-stitch should follow with the same thread. The pupils will probably not be able to finish the hemming in this first lesson, so provision should be made for additional time. This can be required as an outside assignment, if the pupils have mastered the method during the class period. The teacher may also be able to give them some supervision while she is looking after other classes. LESSON IV: BAGS _A school bag. Bag (made of material obtainable) to hold sewing materials. Measuring and straightening the material for the bag. Basting the seams._ SUBJECT-MATTER The basting-stitch will be used as a review of work in the second lesson. PRELIMINARY PLAN Some time before the lesson, the teacher should discuss with the pupils the kind of material they will be able to provide for their bags and, if the material has to be purchased, she should suggest something that is suitable, washable, and inexpensive. The bag should cost only a few cents. The dimensions of the finished bag should be about 12 by 18 inches. METHOD OF WORK The pupils should get out the materials they have brought and determine upon the size and shape of their bags. It will not be necessary to make them uniform. The teacher should help the pupils to use their material to the best advantage. It should be straightened, pulled in place, and measured carefully. When the bags have been cut out, the sides should be basted. LESSON V: BAGS--Continued _Sewing up the seams with a running-stitch and a back-stitch._ SUBJECT-MATTER Running is done by passing the needle in and out of the material at regular intervals. Small, even stitches and spaces should follow consecutively on both sides of the material. The stitches should be much shorter than those used for basting, the length being determined largely by the kind of cloth used. When running is combined with a back-stitch, two or more running-stitches and one back-stitch are taken alternately. The back-stitch is a stitch taken backward on the upper side of the cloth, the needle being put back each time into the end of the last stitch and brought out the same distance beyond the last stitch. PRELIMINARY PLAN The teacher should be sure that all the pupils are ready to report, having the sides of their bags basted ready for stitching. METHOD OF WORK The teacher should first demonstrate the running-stitch with the back-stitch, and the pupils should begin to sew the sides of the bag, using this stitch. They should commence sewing three quarters of an inch from the top of the bag, so that there will be a space left for slits in the hem through which to run the cord.[A] The seams will doubtless have to be finished outside of the class hour, and may be assigned for completion before the next lesson. [Illustration: _Fig._ 6.--Running-stitch with a back-stitch] [A] The draw-string, or cord, is to be run through the hem from the inside of the bag, and it will be necessary to leave three quarters of an inch of space at the ends of the seams, to provide slits as outlets for the cord. LESSON VI: BAGS--Continued _Overcasting the seams and turning the hem at the top of the bag._ SUBJECT-MATTER Overcasting is done by taking loose stitches over the raw edge of the cloth, to keep it from ravelling or fraying. PRELIMINARY PLAN The teacher should be sure that all the pupils are ready to report, having the sides of their bags neatly sewed with the running-stitch. [Illustration: _Fig._ 7.--Overcasting] METHOD OF WORK The teacher should demonstrate the method of overcasting and explain its use. She should have the pupils trim the edges of their seams neatly and overcast them carefully. After the seams have been overcast, she should discuss the depth of the hem that the pupils expect to use and the method of turning and basting it. They should then measure, turn, pin, and baste the hems, using the gauge for determining the depth of the hem. If the bags are deep enough to admit of a heading at the top, a deep hem (about 2-1/2 inches) can be made, and a running-stitch put in one-half inch (or more) above the edge of the hem, to provide a casing, or space, for the cord. If it is necessary to take a narrow hem, the hem itself can be made to answer as space for the cord; in this case the hem should be made about one-half inch deep. LESSON VII: BAGS--Continued _Hemming the top of the bag and putting in a running-stitch to provide a space for the cord._ SUBJECT-MATTER Review of the hemming-stitch and the running-stitch. PRELIMINARY PLAN The pupils, having the hems basted, should report to the teacher. METHOD OF WORK The teacher should review briefly the method of making the hemming-stitch and the running-stitch, asking the pupils to describe these stitches and to demonstrate them on the large square of canvas before the class. The basted hems should then be sewed with the hemming-stitch. After the hem is finished, the pupils should run a basting thread around the bag, to mark the location of the running-stitch, which is to be half an inch above the hem. They should measure for this carefully. If there is not time to do all the hemming in the class period, the hemming-stitch and the running-stitch (which is to provide space for the draw-string) should be assigned for outside work, and each pupil should bring in her finished hem at a designated time before the next class period. LESSON VIII: BAGS--Continued _Preparing a cord or other draw-string for the bag. Putting a double draw-string in the bag, so that it can easily be drawn up. Use of the bodkin._ [Illustration: _Fig._ 8.--Bag nearly completed] SUBJECT-MATTER To make a cord, it is necessary to take more than four times as much cotton as the final length of the cord will require, for some of the length will be taken up in the twisting of the cord. It will be easier for two to work together in making a cord. The cord should be doubled, the two lengths twisted together firmly, and the ends brought together again and held in one hand, while the middle is taken in the other hand, and the lengths are allowed to twist firmly together. The ends should be tied, and the cord run into the bag with a bodkin or tape-needle. If one cord is run in from one side and another is run in from the other side, each cord running all the way around, the bag can be drawn up easily. [Illustration: _Fig._ 9.--Bodkin] In place of the cord, narrow tape may be used. Take two pieces of tape, each piece being twice as long as the width of the bag plus two inches. Run one tape in from one side and a second from the other side, each tape running all the way around. Join the tape ends in the following manner: 1. Turn a narrow fold on one end of the tape to the _wrong_ side, and on the other end of the tape to the _right_ side. 2. Slip one fold under the other and hem down the folded edges. PRELIMINARY PLAN If the pupils are not able to supply cords for their own bags, the teacher should have a sufficient supply of cord on hand. She should be sure the bags are in readiness for the cord before the class period. [Illustration: _Fig._ 10.--- Completed bag] METHOD OF WORK The teacher should begin the lesson by describing the method of making the cord, estimating the amount necessary, and demonstrating the process with the assistance of one of the pupils. The pupils should be numbered, so that they may work in groups of two. After they have completed the cord and run it into the bag, methods of finishing the ends neatly should be suggested to them. LESSON IX: DARNING STOCKINGS _Use of a darning-ball or gourd as a substitute for a ball. Talk on the care of the feet and the care of the stockings._ [Illustration: _Fig._ 11.--Darning] SUBJECT-MATTER This lesson will involve running and weaving. Darning is used to fill in a hole with thread, so as to supply the part that has been destroyed or to strengthen a place which shows signs of weakness. A darning-ball, a gourd, or a firm piece of cardboard should be placed under the hole. The darn should extend one quarter of an inch beyond the edge of the material, beginning with fine stitches in the material, making rows running close together in one direction, then crossing these threads with rows that run at a right angle to them. Care should be taken alternately to pick up and drop the edge of the material around the hole, so that no raw edges will be visible, and to weave evenly in and out of the material and the cross threads. PRELIMINARY PLAN Each pupil should provide a pair of stockings with a few small holes and a gourd or ball of some sort that she can use as a darning ball. METHOD OF WORK When the class meets, the teacher should discuss briefly the care of the feet and of the stockings, and demonstrate the method of darning, on a large piece of coarse material, with heavy yarn and a needle. If the pupils finish one darn during the lesson period, more darning should be assigned for practice out of class. LESSON X: PATCHING[A] _Hemmed patches on cotton garments. Talk on the care of the clothes._ SUBJECT-MATTER This lesson will involve measuring, trimming, basting, and hemming. A patch is a piece of cloth sewed on to a garment to restore the worn part. The material used for the patch should be as nearly like the original fabric in colour and quality as possible. In placing the patch, the condition of the material about the hole must be taken into consideration, as well as the size of the hole. The worn parts around the hole should be removed, and the hole cut square or oblong. The patch should be, on all four sides, an inch larger than the trimmed hole. The corners of the hole should be cut back diagonally, so that the edges may be turned under. The patch should be matched and pinned to the wrong side of the garment, leaving the edges to project evenly on all four sides. The edges of the material around the hole should be turned in and basted to the patch. The edges of the patch should be turned in so that they extend, when finished, one-half inch from the edge of the hole. The patch and the cloth should be basted together and hemmed. [A] Used when special problem comes up. [Illustration: _Fig._ 12.--Patching] PRELIMINARY PLAN The lesson on patching should be given at any time in the course when it can be applied to an immediate need. If a pupil tears her dress while playing at school, or if she wears a torn apron, the teacher can announce a patching lesson for the next sewing class, and request each pupil to bring a torn garment and the material for the patch from home. It may be desirable to use two or three periods for this lesson. METHOD OF WORK The teacher should demonstrate the process of patching on a large piece of cotton. The pupils should practise placing a patch on a piece of paper with a hole in it. Each step should be assigned in succession--examination of the article to determine its condition, calculation of the size and preparation of the patch, placing the patch, trimming the article around the hole, basting the patch and material together, and hemming the patch. LESSON XI: CUTTING OUT APRONS OR UNDERGARMENTS SUBJECT-MATTER When cutting out an apron, the length of the skirt should first be measured, and to this measure 6 inches should be added for the hem and the seams. One length of the material corresponding to this length should be cut. This should be folded lengthwise through the middle. Three quarters of an inch should be measured on this fold, and the material cut from the end of the selvage to this point, in order to slope the front of the apron. When the waist measure is taken, 3 inches should be added to it (1 for the lap and 1 at each end, for finishing). This makes a strong piece at each end for the button and button-hole. Two pieces of this length and 2-1/2 inches wide should be cut lengthwise of the material for the belt. A measure should be made from the middle of the back of the waist line, over the shoulder, to a point 5 inches to the right to the centre front and on the waist line. Two pieces of the length of this measure and 4-1/2 inches wide should be cut lengthwise of the material for the shoulder straps. A piece 9 by 12 inches should be cut for the bib, the longer distance lengthwise of the material. These measurements allow one quarter of an inch for seams. PRELIMINARY PLAN Before the lesson the teacher should see if arrangements can be made to secure the use of one or two sewing-machines, so that the pupils may sew all the long seams by machine. At a previous lesson she should discuss the kinds of material suitable for the aprons. The pupils should consider whether their aprons shall be white or coloured, and whether they shall be of muslin, cambric, or gingham. Each pupil will need from 1-1/2 to 2 yards of material, according to her size. The taller ones will need 2 yards. [Illustration: _Fig._ 13.--Cutting out skirt of apron] There should be on hand a sufficient number of tape-measures, pins, and scissors, so that the pupils may proceed with the cutting of their aprons without unnecessary delay. The apron to be made is to have a skirt, with a bib and shoulder straps, in order to be a protection to the dress, the skirt, and the waist.[A] [A] If the pupils are very inexperienced and find the sewing difficult, it may be advisable to omit the bib and straps and to make the simple full-skirted apron. If a machine is not at hand to use for the long seams, the limited time may make the simpler apron necessary. This will give more time for the various steps. Lessons XIV and XV may then be omitted, Lesson XVI made more simple, and less outside work may be required. METHOD OF WORK As soon as the class meets, the pupils should take the measurements for their aprons. One measurement should be assigned at a time, and the reason for each measurement should be given. The pupils should have explicit directions as to the measurements, as they are apt to become confused if the directions are not clear. They should work carefully, so that the material does not become crumpled or soiled and, at the conclusion of the lesson, they should fold it carefully and put it away neatly. All threads and scraps of material should be carefully picked off the floor and the desks, and the room left in order. LESSON XII: APRONS OR UNDERGARMENTS--Continued _Basting the hem for hemming on the machine or by hand. Uneven basting._ SUBJECT-MATTER An uneven basting forms the better guide for stitching. In uneven basting, the spaces are made about three times as long as the stitches. The stitch should be about one eighth of an inch and the space three eighths of an inch. PRELIMINARY PLAN In addition to the apron material which has been cut out in the previous lesson, each pupil should provide her own spool of thread (number sixty white thread will probably answer for all the work), a piece of cardboard 5 inches wide for a gauge, and pins to use in fastening the hem. [Illustration: _Fig._ 14.--Uneven basting] METHOD OF WORK As soon as the class meets, the pupils should prepare a 5-inch gauge, to guide them in turning the hems of the skirts of their aprons. They should make a half-inch notch in the measure for the first turn in the material. A half-inch edge should be turned up from the bottom of the skirt, then a 5-inch hem should be turned, pinned, and basted carefully with uneven basting. The gauge should be used for both measurements. LESSON XIII: APRONS OR UNDERGARMENTS--Continued _Gathering the skirt and stitching to the belt._ SUBJECT-MATTER In gathering, a stitch much like running is employed. Small stitches are taken up on the needle, with spaces twice as great between them. The top of the skirt should be divided into halves, and each half gathered with a long thread, fine stitches one quarter of an inch from the edge being used. The middle of the belt and the middle of the top of the skirt of the apron should be determined upon. The belt should be pinned to the wrong side of the apron at these points, and the fulness drawn up to fit (approximately one half of the waist measure). The skirt and the belt should be pinned, basted, and sewn together. [Illustration: _Fig._ 15.--Gathering] PRELIMINARY PLAN If the hems have been completed in the skirts, the pupils are ready to gather the skirts and attach them to the belt. It will be well to have a supply of pins on hand, to use in fastening the skirt and belt together. METHOD OF WORK The teacher should first demonstrate the method of gathering and assign that portion of the lesson. When the skirts have all been gathered, she should show the pupils how to measure, pin, and baste the skirt to the belt. [Illustration: _Fig._ 16.--Sewing on the belt of the apron] LESSON XIV: APRONS OR UNDERGARMENTS--Continued _Making the bib._ SUBJECT-MATTER A 2-inch hem should be turned across one short end of the bib. This should be basted and hemmed. The bottom of the bib should be gathered, the method employed for the top of the skirt being used, and sufficient thread being left to adjust the gathers easily. PRELIMINARY PLAN If the pupils have completed the skirts and attached them to the belts, they are ready to make the bibs. They should be provided with a 2-inch marker, for use in making the hems in the top of the bibs. METHOD OF WORK The teacher should guide the pupils carefully in the making of the bibs, reviewing their knowledge of basting, hemming, and gathering. [Illustration: _Fig._ 17.--Bib and straps of apron] LESSON XV: APRONS OR UNDERGARMENTS--Continued _Making the straps._ SUBJECT-MATTER One end of one of the straps should be placed at the bottom of the bib. The edge of the strap should be pinned, basted, and sewed to the right side of the bib with a running-stitch. The other long edge of the strap should then be turned in one quarter of an inch and the side turned in one inch. The strap should then be folded through the middle for its entire length and the free side basted to the wrong side of the bib and hemmed. The remaining edges of the strap should be overhanded together. The other strap should be sewn to the other side of the bib in the same way. PRELIMINARY PLAN The bibs should have been completed before the pupils report for this lesson. METHOD OF WORK As soon as the pupils report for the lesson, the teacher should explain the method of attaching the straps to the bib and tell them how to finish the former. As they proceed with their work, she should supervise them carefully and assign the unfinished portion to be done out of class. LESSON XVI: APRONS OR UNDERGARMENTS--Continued _Putting the bib and the skirt on the belt._ SUBJECT-MATTER The middle of the bottom of the bib should be determined, and pinned to the middle of the upper edge of the belt, to which the skirt has already been attached. The belt should be fastened to the wrong side of the bib. The gathering string of the bib should be drawn up, leaving 2 inches of fulness on each side of the middle. The bib should be pinned, basted, and sewn to the belt. The remaining long edges of the belt should be turned in one quarter of an inch, and the ends one inch. The edges of the other belt piece should be turned in in the same way, and should be pinned over the belt to which the skirt and the bib have been attached (with all the edges turned in), and basted carefully, to keep the edges even. The skirt and the bib should be hemmed to this upper belt, and all the remaining edges should be overhanded. PRELIMINARY PLAN The bib and the straps of the apron should be completed before the pupils report for this lesson. METHOD OF WORK The teacher should guide the pupils carefully in the various steps necessary in fastening the bib to the belt and in completing the belt. If the hemming and overhanding is not completed during the class hour, they may be assigned as home work. LESSON XVII: METHODS OF FASTENING GARMENTS _Sewing buttons on the aprons, corset-cover, or other garment._ SUBJECT-MATTER This lesson should teach neatness in dress, through a consideration of the best methods of fastening garments. The position of the button is measured by drawing the right end of the band one inch over the left end. The place for the button should be marked with a pin on the left end of the band. A double thread is fastened on the right side of the band, drawn through one hole of the button, and back through the other, and then taken through the band close to the first stitch. A pin should be inserted on top of the button under the first stitch, left there until the button is firmly fastened in place, and then removed. Before the thread is fastened, it should be wrapped two or three times around the threads holding the button, between the button and the cloth, then fastened neatly on the wrong side with a few small stitches one on top of another. [Illustration: _Fig._ 18.--Sewing on buttons] PRELIMINARY PLAN Each pupil should come to the class with her apron as nearly completed as possible, and with three buttons to sew on it, for fastening the belt and straps. METHOD OF WORK The teacher should discuss the best methods of fastening garments and should demonstrate the method of sewing on buttons. The pupils should sew one button on the left end of the apron band in the middle of the width about 1 inch from the end, and another button 4 inches from each end of the band, to hold the shoulder straps. LESSON XVIII: METHODS OF FASTENING GARMENTS--Continued _Button-holes on practice piece and on apron._ SUBJECT-MATTER Directions for making the button-hole.--Measure carefully the position for the button-hole, lengthwise of the band, so that the end will come one quarter of an inch from the edge of the garment. Mark the length of the button-hole on the material by putting in two lines of running-stitches at the ends. To cut the button-hole, insert the point of the scissors at the point marked by the running-stitches nearest the edge of the garment, and cut carefully along the thread of the material to the row of stitches marking the length at the other end. [Illustration: (_a_) Starting the button-hole (_b_) The button-hole stitch (_c_) The finished button-hole _Fig._ 19.--Working button-holes] To make the button-hole, use a thread of sufficient length to do both the overcasting and the button-holing. Beginning at the lower right corner, overcast the raw edges with stitches one sixteenth of an inch deep. Do not overcast around the ends of the hole. As soon as the overcasting is done, proceed with the button-holing without breaking the thread. Hold the button-hole horizontally over the first finger of the left hand and work from right to left. Insert the point of the needle through the button-hole (at the back end), bringing the point through, toward you, four or five threads below the edge of the button-hole. Bring the doubled thread from the eye of the needle from right to left under and around the point of the needle, draw the needle through, and pull the thread firmly, so that the purl is on the edge. At the end of the button-hole, near the end of the band, make a fan, by placing from five to seven stitches. The other end of the button-hole should be finished with a bar made by taking three stitches across the end of the button-hole, then button-hole over the bar, taking in the cloth underneath and pulling the purl toward the slit. The thread should be fastened carefully on the under side of the button-hole. PRELIMINARY PLAN For this lesson it is desirable to have small pieces of cotton on hand, to use as practice pieces for the button-holes. METHOD OF WORK The teacher should demonstrate the making of a button-hole, illustrating each step of the process on a large piece of canvas. The pupils should sew two small strips of cotton together and cut a button-hole one quarter of an inch from the edge, and lengthwise of the material, to work for practice. When the button-hole has been sufficiently perfected on the practice piece, the pupils should make three in the apron--one in the right end of the band and one in the end of each shoulder strap. LESSON XIX: A PADDED HOLDER FOR HANDLING HOT DISHES--BINDING SUBJECT-MATTER A holder 6 inches square will be satisfactory for handling hot dishes. It can be made of quilted padding bound with tape, or of two thicknesses of outing flannel covered with percale or denim and bound with tape or braid. If made of the outing flannel and covered, it should be quilted, by stitching from the middle of one side to the middle of the opposite side in both directions, in order to hold the outing flannel and the outside covering together. The tape that is to be used for the binding should be folded through the middle lengthwise; then, a beginning being made at one corner of the padding, the edge should be basted, half on one side and half on the other. Right-angled corners should be formed. When basted all around, the tape should be sewn on each side with a hemming-stitch. If the holder is to be suspended from the apron band, a tape of from 27 inches to 36 inches in length should be attached to one corner. The raw edge at one end of the tape should be turned in. The end should be so placed that it overlaps the corner of the holder about half an inch and it should be basted to the holder. The tape should then be secured firmly to the holder, hemmed down on one edge, across the bottom, and up the other edge. The other end of the tape should be finished with a 2-inch loop. The raw edge should be folded over, the tape turned 2 inches down for the loop, and basted in place. This should be hemmed across the end. One quarter of an inch up from the end, the double thickness of tape should be back-stitched together, and the edges of the tape should be overhanded from there to the hemmed end. PRELIMINARY PLAN Each pupil should provide sufficient denim, percale, huckaback, or other washable material to cover the two sides of a holder 7 inches square, and enough outing or canton flannel for a double lining. About 1-1/2 yards of straight tape one-half inch wide will be needed for the binding and for suspending the holder from the apron. [Illustration: _Fig._ 20.--The holder] METHOD OF WORK The pupils should first carefully measure and turn the material for the covering of the holder and then prepare the lining, basting it all together. They should then put in the running-stitch and finish with the binding. If it is not possible to complete the holder in one period, a second lesson period should be provided, or arrangements may be made to have supervised work done outside of the lesson hours. [Illustration: _Fig._ 21.--Cap] LESSON XX: A CAP TO WEAR WITH THE COOKING APRON SUBJECT-MATTER The simplest cap to make will be the circular one. A pattern should be made by drawing with a pencil and string on a piece of wrapping-paper a circle 21 inches in diameter. The material for the cap should be cut carefully around the circle and finished with a narrow hem. A tape to hold the draw-string should be placed 1-1/4 inches inside the edge of the hem. A small piece of cardboard cut about one-half inch wide should be used for measuring the position of the tape. Bias strips three quarters of an inch wide should be prepared for the tape, or a commercial tape three eighths of an inch wide may be purchased. The outer edge of the tape should be basted first and the edges joined; then the inner edges should be basted, the edge being kept smooth. Both edges should be neatly sewn with the hemming-stitch by hand or on the machine. An elastic should be inserted in the band, carefully fitted to the head, and the ends fastened neatly. PRELIMINARY PLAN This lesson will give a good opportunity to make a cap that will answer for a dust cap or serve as a part of the cooking uniform. If such a cap does not seem desirable and the former lesson has not been completed, the cap may be omitted and the work on the holder continued. METHOD OF WORK The pupils should first make the pattern for the cap and then cut out their material. The hem should be basted and stitched with the hemming-stitch. The bias strip should be basted on and sewn with a running-stitch. It will probably not be possible for the pupils to complete the cap in one class period; but, if the material has been cut out and the work started, they may be able to complete it at some other time. The stitches are not new, and the work will serve as an excellent test of the skill they have acquired in the course. HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE EQUIPMENT The introduction of Household Science into rural schools has been hindered by the prevalent impression that the subject requires equipment similar to that in the Household Science centres of towns and cities, where provision is made for the instruction of twenty-four pupils at one time and for from ten to fifteen different classes each week. Owing to the expense and the lack of accommodation, it is not possible to install such equipment in rural schools. For this and other reasons it has been concluded that the subject is beyond the possibilities of the rural school. That this is not the case is shown by the fact that many rural schools in the United States, and some in Saskatchewan, as well as a number in our own Province, are teaching the subject successfully, with equipment specially designed to meet existing conditions. The accommodations and equipment required may be classified as follows: 1. Working tables 2. Cupboards and cabinets for storing the utensils 3. Stoves 4. Cooking and serving utensils 1. The provision for working tables is conditioned by the space available, and every effort must be made to economize this space. The equipment may be placed in the basement or in a small ante-room. In one school in the Province very successful work is being done in a large corridor. When a new school-house is being erected, provision should be made by building a small work-room off the class-room. The possibilities of a small, portable building, in close proximity to the school, should not be overlooked. [Illustration: _Fig._ 22.--Working drawing of folding table] Where the school is provided with a large table, this may be made of service. When used as a working table it should be covered with a sheet of white oil-cloth. When used as a dining-table a white table-cloth may be substituted for the oil-cloth. If the school does not possess a table, two or three boards may be placed on trestles, if the space at the front or the back of the room permits, and these may be stored away when not required. A table with folding legs, such as is shown in Figures 22 and 23, may also be used. The top of the cabinet containing the utensils or an ordinary kitchen table closed in as a cupboard underneath, may be made to serve. Long boards, about eighteen inches wide, placed across the tops of six or eight desks, provide good accommodation. These should be blocked up level and should be provided with cleats at each end, in order to prevent movement. When not in use they may stand flat against the wall and occupy very little space. Separate boards, resting on a desk at each end, may also be placed across the aisles. Each of these will provide working space for one pupil. Tables which drop down flat when not in use may be fixed to the walls of the school-room. As schools vary in many respects, it is not possible to outline a plan which will suit all; but that plan should be chosen which will best meet the requirements of the particular school. [Illustration: _Fig._ 23: Folding Table] [Illustration: _Fig._ 24--Household Science Cabinet for Rural Schools] 2. The cupboards and cabinets to contain the utensils may take various forms. A kitchen cabinet costing from twenty-five to thirty-five dollars may be obtained from a furniture store, or one may be made by a local carpenter. A large packing-case painted brown outside and white inside (for cleanliness) is satisfactorily used in some schools. If covered with oil-cloth, the top of this may be used as an additional table. A few shelves placed across a corner of the room and covered with a door or curtain may be used, or it may be possible to devote one shelf of the school cupboard to the storing of the utensils. It is desirable to have a combination cupboard and table, which will contain most of the equipment, including the stove. Figure 24 is a working drawing of such a cabinet, which may be made by a local carpenter or by the older boys of the school. The directions for making this cabinet are as follows: Obtain two boxes and cut or re-make them so that each is 30 inches high when standing on end, 12-1/4 inches across the front inside, and 18 inches from front to back. These will form the two end Sections, A and B. Inside the sides of these boxes nail 1 inch � 7/8 inch strips, to form the slides for the drawer. The slides come within 7/8 of an inch of the front edge. Rails may be nailed across the front. Guide pieces should be nailed to the slides, in order to keep the drawers straight. Divide Section A for one drawer and cupboard. The drawers may be made out of raisin boxes cut down to the required size. To the front of each drawer, nail a piece of beaver board or pine a little larger than the drawer front. Use any handles that may be conveniently obtained. Cut two pieces 4' 9-1/2" � 1-1/2" � 7/8". Space the Sections as shown, and nail these pieces firmly to the fronts of the larger boxes, _A_ and _B_, top and bottom. Four end pieces 18" � 1-1/2" will be required. Fill in Section _C_, in this case, 2' 7-1/2", with the pieces from the box lids or with ordinary flooring. Make a door for the cupboard from similar material. The top is best made from good, clear, white pine. Screw battens across, and screw the whole firmly to the box top from the inside. If more table space is required, make a similar bench top, which can rest on top of the cabinet when not in use. When required, it may be placed over the desks. Steel or glass shoes or wooden skids or battens should be fixed under the cabinet, so that it can be pulled away from the stove and replaced easily. The dimensions given are for a two-flame-burner oil-stove which is 30 inches high, 31 inches across the front, and 16 inches from front to back. The middle Section, _C_, and the total height of the cabinet may be enlarged or reduced to fit other sizes of stoves. [Illustration: _Fig._ 25.--Cabinet, showing stove in position for use] [Illustration: _Fig._ 26.--Cabinet, with stove behind centre partition when not in use] The material required for, and the approximate cost of, such a cabinet, labour not included, are as follows: 2 boxes @ 25 $0.50 5 raisin boxes @ 5 .25 5 handles at 45c per doz. .20 1 cupboard latch .15 or 1 turn button .02 About 9 sq. ft. flooring .25 About 8 sq. ft. pine for top .50 Pieces for battens, etc. .25 Steel shoes .10 [Illustration: _Fig._ 27.--Space taken by equipment in class-room] Figure 27 shows another type of equipment and the space it occupies in the class-room when not in use. The cupboard and the back of the cabinet contain the equipment necessary for teaching twelve pupils at one time and also for serving one hot dish at the noon lunch to twenty-four pupils. One drawer contains linen, etc., and the other, knives, forks, and spoons. The dimensions of the cupboard and the cabinet are shown in Figures 28 and 29, and the construction of each is such that it can be made easily by any carpenter. [Illustration: _Fig._ 28.--Working drawings of cupboard] [Illustration: _Fig._ 29.--Working drawing of cabinet] [Illustration: _Fig._ 30.--Cupboard with drawers and doors open, showing equipment] Figure 30 shows the cupboard and drawers open and the method of storing the equipment. The shelves may be covered with white oil-cloth or brown paper, in order to obviate the necessity for frequent scrubbing. The cupboard may be fixed to the wall with mirror plates or small iron brackets, or it may be screwed through the back. [Illustration: _Fig._ 31.--Back of cabinet with equipment in place] [Illustration: _Fig._ 32.--Back of cabinet with stove removed] Figure 31 shows the back of the cabinet, with the three-flame-burner stove-oven, the one-flame-burner stove, and other utensils in place. The folding table, previously described, rests on the top of the cabinet. Figure 32 shows the back of the cabinet with the stove and oven removed. The method of storing utensils and the construction of the cabinet are clearly shown. [Illustration: _Fig._ 33.--Three-flame-burner oil-stove, with kettles and one-flame-burner oil-stove on shelf] [Illustration: _Fig._ 34.--Household Science equipment with drop-leaf table] Figure 33 shows the three-flame-burner oil-stove with the shelf underneath containing three kettles and the one-flame-burner oil-stove. Another type of equipment is shown in Figure 34. Each end of the top of this cabinet drops down when the cupboard doors are closed, space being thus economized. The top of the table may be covered with oil-cloth or zinc carefully tacked down on the edges. The directions for making this cabinet are as follows: MATERIALS REQUIRED Lumber: 7 pieces 3/4" � 4" � 14' yellow pine ceiling 6 pieces 1" � 4" � 12' yellow pine flooring 1 piece 1" � 12" � 12' } 1 piece 1" � 8" � 12' } No. 1 common white pine 1 piece 1/2" � 6" � 14' } 4 white pine laths Hardware: 7 pairs 1-1/2" � 3" butt hinges 3 cupboard catches 1 piece zinc (27" � 39") 2 pieces zinc (21" � 27") 1 drawer pull 1 lb. 8d finishing nails 1 lb. 6d finishing nails 1/4 lb. box 1" brads 1/4 lb. box 1-1/4" brads 1 box tacks 2 ft. stopper chain STOCK BILL +--------------------+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ |Lumber |Cut into |Finished Dimensions |Use | | | the | | | | |following| | | | | pieces: | | | +--------------------+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ | 1" � 8" � 12' | 2 |13-16" � 2" � 32-1/2" |Top side rails | | | 2 |13-16" � 2" � 18-1/2" |Top end rail | | | 4 |13-16" � 2" � 29-3/4" |Frame posts | | | 1 |13-16" � 2" � 30-7/8" |Bottom side | | | | |rail | | | 2 |13-16" � 2" � 18-1/2" |Bottom end | | | | |rails | | | 1 |13-16" � 5" � 14-3/8" |Drop door | +------------- -----+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ |2 pieces, 1" � 4" � | | |Flooring | |12' flooring | 7 |3/4" � 3-1/4" � 32-1/2"|(bottom) | +--------------------+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ |5 pieces, 1" � 4" � | | |Ceiling (ends | |14' yellow pine | | |and side) | |ceiling | 24 |1/4" � 3-1/4" � 31-1/4"| | +--------------------+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ |1" � 12" � 12' | 3 |13-16" � 10-1/4" � | | | | | 32-1/2" |Shelf | | | 1 |13-16" � 8" � 32-1/2" |Shelf | | | 3 |13-16" � 1-3/4" � | | | | | 31-1/4 |Casing | | | 2 |13-16" � 1-3/4" � | | | | | 14-3/8" |Casing | | | 1 |13-16" � 5" � 14-3/8" |Drawer front | +--------------------+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ |2 pieces, 1" � 4" � | | |Top | |12' flooring | 8 |3/4" � 3-1/4" � 36" | | +--------------------+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ |2 pieces, 1" � 4" � | | |Doors | |14' yellow pine | | | | |ceiling | 10 |3/4" � 3-1/4" � 22-7/8"| | +--------------------+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ |2 pieces, 1" � 4" � | | |Swing tops | |12' flooring | 12 |3/4" � 3-1/4" � 24" | | +--------------------+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ |1/2" � 6" � 12' | 2 |7-16" � 5" � 19-5/8" |Drawer slides | | | 1 |7-16" � 5" � 13-1/2" |Drawer back | | | 4 |7-16" � 4-3/4" � | | | | | 13-1/2" |Drawer bottom | +--------------------+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ |1/2" � 6" � 12' | 1 |7-16" � 4-1/2" � | | | | | 13-1/2" |Partitions | | | 3 |7-16" � 4-1/2" � 10" |Partitions | +--------------------+---------+-----------------------+---------------+ TOOLS Rule Lead-pencil Saw Hammer Steel square Plane 1/2" Chisel and Screw-driver DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING I Cutting and Squaring Stock-- Cut the stock only as needed, in the following order, and square up according to the directions previously given. 1. Frame; rip the 1" � 8" � 12' piece for the frame material 2. Bottom 3. Ends and sides 4. Shelves 5. Top 6. Casing 7. Doors 8. Swing tops 9. Miscellaneous pieces II Assembling-- Frame: 1. Check up the dimensions of the pieces squared up for the frame. 2. Lay out and cut the lap joints in the top side rails and frame posts, as shown in the drawing. 3. Nail the frame together. 4. Test the corners of the frame with a steel try-square and brace it by nailing, temporarily, several strips diagonally across the corners. Bottom: 1. Cut seven pieces of flooring 32-1/2" long for the bottom and plane off the groove of one piece. 2. Turn the frame upside down and nail this piece with the smooth edge projecting 7/8" over the front side of the frame. Nail the rest of the flooring so that each piece matches tightly. Ends: 1. For the back, cut eleven pieces of ceiling 31-1/4" long. 2. Plane off the groove edge of one piece of ceiling and nail it on the back of the frame even with the end. 3. Nail the rest of the ceiling on the back. Be sure that each joint matches tightly. [Illustration: _Fig._ 35.--Frame of cabinet nailed together] Shelves: 1. Make four strips (3/4" � 3/4" � 16-1/2") and nail two of them inside, across each end, 15" and 24" from the bottom. These strips hold the shelves. 2. From a 1" � 12" piece cut two pieces 32-1/2" long; fit and nail them in for the upper shelf. 3. Make the bottom shelf of two pieces, one 10-1/4" wide and the other 8" wide. When these boards are nailed in place, the shelf is narrow enough to allow the doors, with pockets on, to close. 4. Make two strips; one 13-16" � 1" � 16-1/2" and the other 13-16" � 1-3/4" � 20-1/2", and nail them to the top shelf for drawer guides. Top: 1. Cut eight pieces of flooring 36" long for the top. 2. Plane off the groove of one piece and nail it on the top of the frame, so that the smooth edge and the ends project 1" over the front side and ends of the cabinet. 3. Nail the rest of the flooring on for the top, being sure that each joint matches tightly. The last piece must also project 1" over the back side. Casing: 1. Nail the casing, which is 1-3/4" wide, on the front of the cabinet. Doors: 1. Make each door 3/4" � 14-3/8" � 22-7/8" from five pieces of ceiling 22-7/8" long, held together by cleats at the top and bottom. 2. Fit each door carefully, then hang them with butt hinges. Fasten a cupboard catch on each door. Drop Door: 1. Make the drop door 13-16" � 14-3/8" and hinge it with a pair of butt hinges. Put on the stopper chain and catch. Swing Tops: The swing tops are each made from six pieces of flooring 24" long cleated together. [Illustration: _Fig_. 36.--Working details] 1. Plane off the groove edge of one piece and match them all together. 2. Make the cleats 3/4" � 2" � 15" and nail the top to them. (See the drawing for the position of the cleats.) 3. Rip off the tongue edge and plane it so that the top is exactly 18" wide. 4. Turn the cabinet upside down on the floor and fit the swing tops. Hang them with a pair of butt hinges opposite the ends of the cleats. 5. Make a T-brace with a nailed cross lap joint from two pieces, one being 13-16" � 2" � 14", the other 13-16" � 2" � 16-1/2". The long edge of the T and the leg must be bevelled 13-16" on one side. Fit and hang a T-brace with a pair of butt hinges on each side of the swing tops. 6. Make two brace cleats and fasten them to the ends of the cabinet, so that the swing tops are held level and even with the top of the cabinet. Putting Zinc on the Top: 1. Unscrew the swing tops from the cabinet to put the zinc on. 2. Place the piece of zinc, 27" � 39", on top, extending 1-1/2" over the edges all around. 3. Hold the zinc firmly in place and make a square bend along the front edge with a hammer or mallet, bending the edge of the zinc up under the top. 4. Punch a straight row of holes 1" apart through the zinc and tack it on. 5. Bend the back edge, punch and tack in the same manner as the front edge, but be sure the zinc fits snugly on the top. 6. Bend the ends of the zinc the same as before, but be very careful to fold the corners neatly. 7. Put the zinc on the swing tops in the same manner. 8. Fasten the swing tops again to the top of the cabinet. [Illustration: _Fig._ 37.--Working details] Drawer: The drawer front, 13-16" � 5" � 14-3/8", with lap 3/8" � 1/2" cut out on the ends. 1. Nail the sides, 1/2" � 5" � 19-5/8", to the lap of the front and to the ends of the back. 2. Nail the bottom in between the sides 1/8" from the lower edge. This allows the drawer to slide on the edges of the sides. 3. Put the partitions in the drawer as called for by this plan. The racks for covers and pie tins shown in the drawings are made from two pieces, 13-16" � 2" � 4", one piece 13-16" � 2" � 10-1/2" for the bottom, and two pieces of lath 12" long for the sides. These racks may be placed on the doors as shown, or may be changed to suit the equipment. III Finishing-- 1. Set all the nails and putty the holes. 2. Sandpaper the cabinet carefully. 3. Paint or stain and wax the outside of the cabinet, to harmonize with the surroundings where it is to be used. 4. Paint the inside with two coats of white enamel. [Illustration: _Fig._ 38.--Cabinet completed] Before putting on the enamel, apply a coat of ordinary white-lead paint and allow it to dry thoroughly. If desired, the outside of the cabinet may be finished in white enamel, though this is somewhat more expensive than the paint or stain recommended above. All the Household Science Cabinets shown have a two-fold purpose. In the first place, they furnish storage space for the utensils and working space for the pupils. In the second place, they offer a most interesting manual training project for a boys' club. The members can make any one of them, thus correlating their practical woodwork and the domestic science of the girls and, in this way, exhibiting the co-operative spirit of the home and the school. 3. In some cases it may be possible to use the school stove for cooking purposes. Some schools use natural gas for heating and, where this is the case, provision for cooking may readily be made. Other schools situated on a hydro-electric line, may, as has been done in one case, use electricity as a source of heat. At present, however, the majority of schools may find it best to use one of the many oil-stoves now on the market. One-, two-, or three-flame-burner stoves may be obtained for general use. The two-, or three-flame-burner stoves are recommended, as they are less likely to be overturned. The one-flame-burner stove, however, is often useful as an additional provision. A good grade of oil should be used, and the stove should be kept scrupulously clean, constant attention being paid to the condition of the wick. Any oil spilt on the stove when it is being filled should be carefully wiped off before lighting. If attention is paid to these details, the stove will burn without any perceptible odour. 4. The number of the utensils and the amount of equipment depend upon the community and the number of pupils to be considered. By careful planning few utensils are needed. They should be as good as the people of the neighbourhood can afford and, in general, should be of the same character as those used in the homes of the district. All the table-cloths, towels, dish-cloths, etc., required should be hemmed by the pupils. Articles for storing supplies may be bought or donated. Glass canisters with close lids are best, but as substitutes, fruit jars, jelly glasses, or tin cans will serve the purpose. It is an easy matter to secure an empty lard-bucket or a syrup-can for flour or meal, empty coffee-cans for sugar or starch, etc., and baking-powder or cocoa-tins for spices. Each should be plainly labelled. Several typical lists of equipment in Household Science are given here. These may be modified to suit particular circumstances. Considerable expense may be saved if the pupils bring their own individual equipment--soup-bowl, cup and saucer, plate, spoon, knife, fork, and paper napkins. This plan is not advised unless it is absolutely necessary, but, if followed, an effort should be made to have the articles as uniform as possible. The following equipment is that contained in the cabinet illustrated on page 152 and is sufficient for giving organized instruction to six pupils. If a noon lunch is provided, additional individual equipment will be required. EQUIPMENT FOR RURAL SCHOOL HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE CABINET--NO. 1 1 Perfection blue-flame stove (two-flame) $15.00 1 Two-burner oven 4.50 1 Coal-oil can .50 1 Dish-pan 1.15 1 Tea-kettle 1.50 1 Large sauce-pan and cover .75 2 Medium sauce-pans and covers, 30c each .60 2 Small sauce-pans and covers, 25c each .50 2 Frying-pans, 20c ea. .40 2 Pudding bake-dishes, 50c ea. 1.00 2 Muffin pans (12 rings, each 30c) .60 1 Soap-dish .25 4 Small mixing bowls, 16c ea. .64 2 Pitchers, 55c ea. 1.10 3 Casseroles, 20c, 25c, 30c .75 6 Measuring cups, 90c ea. .60 6 Custard cups, 90c doz. .45 6 White plates, $1.45 doz. .73 6 Supply jars, 90c doz. .45 2 Vegetable brushes, 5c ea. .10 1 Grater .20 2 Egg-beaters, 10c ea. .20 12 Forks 2.25 12 Teaspoons 1.20 6 Tablespoons, $2.85 doz. 1.43 6 Vegetable knives, 25c ea. 1.50 6 Case knives, $3.00 doz. 1.50 2 Strainers, 20c ea. .40 1 Spatula .40 1 Bread knife .50 1 Can-opener .10 1 French knife .45 2 Water pails, $1.15 ea. 2.30 6 Dish-towels, 25c ea. 1.50 3 Dish-cloths, 10c ea. .30 3 Rinsing cloths, 10c ea. .30 1 yd. oil-cloth .45 5 yards cheesecloth .35 EQUIPMENT FOR RURAL SCHOOL HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE CABINET--NO. II The equipment included in the Cabinet and Cupboard shown in Figure 27, page 154, is as follows: For Six Pupils 1 Cupboard $15.00 1 Cabinet table 10.00 1 Three-burner oil-stove 21.00 1 Portable oven 2.20 1 Storage tin 1.35 2 Dish-pans 1.30 2 Draining pans .90 2 Scrub basins .80 2 Soap-dishes .40 1 Pail .55 2 Pails 1.80 2 Dippers .70 2 Tea-kettles 2.00 3 Kneading boards .90 3 Rolling-pins .45 1 Oil-can 1.10 1 Stove mitt .20 1 Dust-pan .10 1 Whisk .15 2 Scrub-brushes .30 3 Vegetable brushes .15 3 Stew pans 1.05 2 Sauce-pans .50 3 Frying-pans .75 3 Strainers .39 3 Pie plates .15 3 Measuring cups (tin) .30 1 Measuring cup (glass) .15 1 Double boiler .85 3 Baking-dishes .38 2 Cake tins .30 3 Toasters .30 1 Tea-pot .25 1 Coffee-pot .35 1 Pitcher (2 quarts) .18 1 " (1 pint) .10 5 Bowls .60 6 Custard cups .60 1 Butter crock .30 1 Covered pail (1 pint) .15 2 Trays .20 1 Grater .10 1 Potato masher .10 1 Can-opener .10 1 French knife .35 1 Bread " .35 3 Egg-beaters .15 1 Dover egg-beater .10 3 Wooden spoons .15 6 Paring knives .90 For Eight Pupils 1 Cupboard $15.00 1 Cabinet table 10.00 1 Collapsible table 5.00 1 Three-burner oil-stove 21.00 1 One-burner oil-stove 6.50 1 Portable oven 2.20 1 Storage tin 1.35 2 Dish-pans 1.30 2 Draining pans .90 4 Scrub basins 1.60 2 Soap-dishes .40 1 Pail .55 2 Pails 1.80 2 Dippers .70 3 Tea-kettles 3.00 4 Kneading boards 1.20 4 Rolling-pins .60 1 Oil-can 1.10 1 Stove mitt .20 1 Dust-pan .10 1 Whisk .15 4 Scrub brushes .60 4 Vegetable brushes .20 4 Stew-pans 1.40 2 Sauce-pans .50 4 Frying-pans 1.00 4 Strainers .52 4 Pie plates .20 4 Measuring cups (tin) .40 1 Measuring cup (glass) .15 1 Double boiler .85 4 Baking-dishes .50 2 Cake tins .30 4 Toasters .40 1 Tea-pot .25 1 Coffee-pot .35 2 Pitchers (2 quarts) .35 1 Pitcher (1 quart) .10 6 Bowls .72 6 Custard cups .60 1 Butter crock .30 1 Covered pail (1 pint) .15 2 Trays .20 1 Grater .10 1 Potato masher .10 1 Can-opener .10 1 French knife .35 1 Bread " .35 4 Egg-beaters .20 1 Dover egg-beater .10 4 Wooden spoons .20 6 Paring knives .90 For Twelve Pupils 1 Cupboard $15.00 1 Cabinet table 10.00 1 Collapsible table 5.00 2 Three-burner oil-stoves 42.00 1 Portable oven 2.20 1 storage tin 1.35 3 Dish-pans 1.95 3 Draining-pans 1.35 6 Scrub basins 2.40 3 Soap-dishes .60 1 Pail .55 2 Pails 1.80 2 Dippers .70 3 Tea-kettles 3.00 6 Kneading boards 1.80 6 Rolling-pins .90 1 Oil-can 1.10 2 Stove mitts .40 1 Dust-pan .10 1 Whisk .15 6 Scrub brushes .90 6 Vegetable brushes .30 6 Stew pans 2.10 3 Sauce-pans .75 6 Frying-pans 1.50 6 Strainers .78 6 Pie plates .30 6 Measuring cups (tin) .60 1 Measuring cup (glass) .15 1 Double boiler .85 6 Baking-dishes .75 3 Cake tins .45 6 Toasters .60 1 Tea-pot .25 1 Coffee-pot .35 2 Pitchers (2 qt.) .35 2 " (1 qt.) .20 8 Bowls .96 6 Custard cups .60 1 Butter crock .30 1 Covered pail (1 pt.) .15 2 Trays .20 1 Grater .10 1 Potato masher .10 1 Can-opener .10 1 French knife .35 1 Bread " .35 6 Egg-beaters .30 3 Dover egg-beaters .30 6 Wooden spoons .30 12 Paring knives 1.80 In the equipment for twelve pupils, three one-burner oil-stoves at $6.50 each might be used in place of the second large stove. In this case extra provision must be made for storing the stoves when not in use, as the cabinet shown does not provide space for more than one large stove. Care should be taken in using the one-burner stove to avoid upsetting it while it is in use. The equipment given above is generous, and reductions may be made if necessary. In any case it is not advisable that the whole equipment should be purchased at once; only sufficient to make a beginning should be secured, and further utensils may be added as the necessity for their use arises. If a hot dish is served at the noon lunch, as is most desirable, the following will be needed in addition, in order to serve twenty-four pupils: 24 Knives $2.40 24 Forks 1.20 24 Teaspoons .40 12 Tablespoons .60 6 Salt and pepper shakers 1.50 24 Glasses 1.50 24 Plates 2.20 4 Plates (large) .50 24 Cups and saucers 4.20 24 Fruit and vegetable dishes 1.50 HECTOGRAPH The hectograph is a device for making copies of written work. Teachers whose schools have limited black-board space will find it of great service. Recipes and other rules for work may be copied and distributed to the pupils, and thus kept in a permanent form. Many other uses in connection with the general work of the school will suggest themselves. The following are the directions for making: Soak 1-1/2 ounces of white glue in three ounces of water until it is well softened. Cook in a double boiler until the whole mass is smooth. Remove from the fire and add six ounces of glycerine. Mix well, re-heat, skim, and pour into a shallow pan or on a slate. Prick the bubbles as soon as they show. Allow the mixture to stand for twenty-four hours, and it is then ready for use. Write the material to be copied, in hectograph ink, on a sheet of the same size as that on which the copy is to be made. Write clearly and space carefully. Wipe the hectograph with a damp cloth. Lay a sheet of unglazed paper on the hectograph, rub it carefully, and take off at once. This removes any drops of water, but leaves the surface moist. Lay the written side of the sheet on the hectograph and rub it carefully over its whole surface with a soft cloth, so that every particle of the writing comes in contact with the surface of the hectograph. Leave it there for four or five minutes. Lift one corner and peel off carefully. Lay a plain sheet on the hectograph and rub as before. Take off as before. If the copy is not clear, leave the next sheet on a little longer. When sufficient copies have been made, wash the hectograph with a wet cloth before putting it away. Keep in a cool, dry place. THE RURAL SCHOOL LUNCH The best method of approach to Household Science in the rural school is through the medium of the hot noon-day lunch or the preparation of one or two hot dishes to supplement the lunch brought from home. Owing to the fact that many pupils live far from the school, it is impossible for them to go home for the mid-day meal, and they are thus dependent upon lunches which they bring with them. Very frequently the pupils are allowed to eat their lunches where and how they please, and the method chosen is conducive neither to comfort nor to health. In fine weather they do not wish to lose any time from their games, and so they eat their food while playing, or they bolt it, in order that they may get to their play more quickly. In severe weather they crowd round the steps or the stove and do not hesitate to scatter crumbs and crusts. In one case even a teacher has been seen holding a sandwich in one hand and writing on the black-board with the other. In many cases the lunch does not attract the pupil. It is often carried, without proper wrapping, in a tin pail, and it then absorbs the taste of the tin; again, it is often wrapped in a newspaper and is flavoured with printer's ink; occasionally, it is wrapped in cloth not too clean. Conditions such as these are not fair to the pupils. They come a long way to school, often over poor roads; and it is necessary, for both their physical and their mental development, that they should receive adequate nourishment served as attractively as possible. Many of the defects found among school children can be traced, to a greater or less extent, to lack of nutrition. The United States military draft shows that the number of those physically defective is from seven to twenty per cent. higher in rural districts than in towns and cities, and this difference is not peculiar to that country. May we not reasonably suppose that many of these defects are caused by mal-nutrition, and that this mal-nutrition is in part due to the poor noon-day lunch? As these defects hinder mental as well as physical development, the question of proper nutrition through the medium of the school lunch becomes an educational one. THE BOX LUNCH With proper care in the selection of food, the packing of the lunch box, and rational methods of consumption, there is no reason why the box lunch should not be nourishing, attractive, and possess an educational value. It may be laid down as an axiom that every school lunch should be supervised by the teacher and hap-hazard methods of eating the lunch should be prohibited. Those schools that are fortunate enough to possess a large table can approximate somewhat to the best home conditions, and have the table set in the proper manner, as shown in Lesson VI, page 18. The pupils should sit round the table, at the head of which is the teacher, and the lunch may be made to partake of the nature of a family party. If rightly managed, the meal, even under the unusual difficulties presented in the rural school, may offer the most favourable opportunities to inculcate habits of cleanliness and neatness and to cultivate good manners. The pupils will learn something about the proper selection of food and the importance of thorough mastication. Clean hands and faces and tidy hair should be insisted upon, and individual drinking cups should be encouraged. As a manual training exercise, each pupil may be taught to make his own drinking cup from heavy waxed paper. Grace may be said by the older pupils in turn. The table should be made to look as attractive as possible. The pupils, in turn, might undertake to have the table-cloth washed at home or, in place of a linen cloth, a covering of white oil-cloth may be used. In some cases the school garden will be able to supply flowers or a growing plant for a centrepiece. Three or four of the larger pupils, either boys or girls, may set the table in ten minutes, while the others are washing their hands and faces and tidying their hair. Some such plan as this will add palatability and cheer to the monotony of the everyday cold and often unattractive lunch and will create a spirit of true and healthy sociability among the pupils. In schools that do not possess tables large enough to be used as suggested above, each pupil should be required to set one place at his own desk, as shown in the illustration on page 20. A paper napkin may be used for a table-cloth, if a small piece of white oil-cloth is not procurable. Each pupil retains his place until all have finished; he should then dispose of the crumbs and leave his desk tidy. From twenty minutes to half an hour is generally found sufficient for the meal. There should be cheerful conversation and restrained laughter throughout the meal, and acts of courtesy and generosity should be encouraged. At seasons when there are no flies, and on days when the weather is favourable, it is a pleasant change to serve lunch out-of-doors. The lunch is provided by the home, but the teacher may give some useful lessons in Household Science by talks on the contents of the lunch box and the proper methods of packing the same, so that the food will keep in good condition until the time for its consumption arrives. It is the duty of the school authorities to provide a suitable storage place for the lunch boxes. These boxes should be kept free from dust or flies and in a place where the food will not freeze in winter. Open shelves, so often seen, are not suitable and a properly ventilated cupboard in the school-room should be provided. CONTENTS OF THE LUNCH BOX The whole question of the box lunch presents a serious problem, when we consider the large number of children who must depend upon it for their noon-day meal. This meal should be so constituted as to make it a real meal and not a makeshift. The same principles which govern the preparation of the meal should govern the preparation of the lunch box. It is said that the school lunch should consist of "something starchy and something meaty, something fat and something fibrous, something sweet and something savoury". With so many varieties of breads, meats, cheese, jams, etc., innumerable kinds of sandwiches may be made. For example, there are brown, graham, rye, raisin, nut, and date breads, and equally many kinds of meat. Such variety makes it quite unnecessary to have an egg sandwich or hard-boiled eggs in the lunch box each day. While eggs are very valuable in the diet, a lunch with hard-boiled eggs five times each week becomes monotonous, and the appetite of the consumer flags. With skill and thought one can make little scraps of meat or other "left-overs" into attractive sandwiches. Ends of meat, ground and mixed with salad dressing or cream, make delicious sandwich fillings. SANDWICH MAKING The bread should be cut evenly. The thickness of the slice should vary with the appetite of the consumer. The crust should not be removed. The butter should be creamed for spreading. Both slices should be buttered, in order to prevent the absorption of the filling. The filling should be carefully placed between the slices. The sandwiches should be wrapped in waxed paper, to prevent drying. SUGGESTIONS FOR SANDWICH FILLING 1. Egg and ham: Three eggs hard boiled and chopped fine or ground An equal amount of chopped or boiled ham Salad dressing Mix and spread. 2. Raisin filling: One cup of raisins ground or chopped One half-cup of water One half-cup of sugar One tablespoonful of flour into the same quantity of vinegar Juice and grated rind of one lemon Cook in a double boiler until thick. 3. Fig filling: Remove the stems and chop the figs fine. Add a small quantity of water. Cook in a double boiler until a paste is formed. Add a few drops of lemon juice. Chopped peanuts may be added. 4. Egg: Chop a hard-cooked egg. Mix with salad dressing or melted butter, to a spreading consistency. 5. Equal parts of finely-cut nuts and grated cheese, with salad dressing 6. Equal parts of grated cheese and chopped olives 7. Sardines with lemon juice or a little dressing 8. Chopped dates with a little cream. Nuts may be added. 9. Thinly sliced tomatoes (seasonal) 10. Sliced cucumbers 11. Marmalade. Chopped nuts may be added. SUGGESTIONS FOR PLANNING In selecting the food the following suggestions may prove helpful: _Protein_--Sandwiches of fish, meat, egg, cheese, nuts, dish of cottage cheese For the older pupils, baked beans _Carbohydrates_--Bread, cake, cookies, jam, honey, dates, figs, raisins, prunes, candy _Fats_--Butter, cream, peanut-butter _Mineral matter_--Celery, lettuce, radish, tomatoes; fresh fruits _Note._--When possible, a bottle of clean sweet milk should form part of every lunch. SUGGESTIONS FOR DESSERTS Cup custards of various flavours Cookies with nuts and fruits Cakes--not too rich Pies well made and with good filling Candy--plain home-made Preserves Canned fruits Fresh fruits As often as possible, a surprise should be included, generally in the form of a dessert of which the pupil is fond. A surprise adds to the pupil's pleasure in eating and, indirectly, aids digestion. PACKING THE LUNCH BOX Much of the attractiveness of a lunch depends upon the manner of packing. We must consider the fact that the foods must be packed together closely and must remain so packed for several hours. This makes careful packing a necessity. RULES FOR PACKING 1. Be sure that the box is absolutely clean. 2. Line it with fresh paper every time it is used. 3. Wrap each article of food in wax paper. 4. Place in the box neatly, the food that is to be used last in the bottom of the box, unless it is easily crushed. 5. Lay a neatly folded napkin on the top. EQUIPMENT FOR PACKING Lunch box Waxed paper Paper napkin Cup or container with screw top Drinking cup Knife, fork, and spoon Thermos bottle or jar for milk or other liquid The box itself should be of odourless material, permanent, and light in weight, admitting of safe means of ventilation. Paper bags should never be used for food containers, as it is impossible to pack the lunch in them firmly and well and there is danger of their being torn or of insects or flies creeping into them. Boxes of fibre, tin, basket weave, or other material, may be used. The box will require scrubbing, and should be frequently dried and aired well. Many types of lunch boxes have compartments provided for the various kinds of food. Waxed paper and paper napkins, or the somewhat heavier paper towels of much the same size, are very useful for packing lunches, and may be obtained at a low price, particularly if bought in large quantities. An extra napkin, either of paper or cloth, should be put in the basket, to be spread over the school desk when the lunch is eaten. Napkins can be made out of cotton crepe at a cost of a very few cents each. The crepe may be bought by the yard and should be cut into squares and fringed. Such napkins have the advantage of not needing to be ironed. Paper cups, jelly tumblers with covers which can now be bought in several sizes, and bottles with screw tops, such as those in which candy and other foods are sold, may all be used for packing jellies, jams, honey, etc. The thermos bottle may be used for carrying milk, or, if this is too expensive, a glass jar with a tight cover may be substituted. If the thermos bottle is used, hot drinks may also be carried. SERVING A HOT DISH The serving of a hot lunch or of one hot dish need be neither an elaborate nor an expensive matter. Many rural schools in the United States, some of them working under conditions worse than any of ours, are serving at least one hot dish to supplement the lunch brought from home. The advantages of this plan are: 1. It enables the pupils to do better work in the afternoon. 2. It adds interest to the school work and makes the pupils more ready to go to school in bad weather. 3. It gives some practical training and paves the way toward definite instruction in Household Science. 4. It gives a better balance to meals, and as compared with a cold lunch it aids digestion. 5. It teaches neatness. 6. It gives opportunity to teach table manners. 7. It strengthens the relationship between the home and the school. THE METHOD The teacher should have a meeting of the school trustees and of the mothers of the pupils and outline the method of procedure. It is only in this way that the co-operation of all can be secured, and without this co-operation there can be no success. This meeting should be addressed by the Public School Inspector; and after the consent of the parents and the trustees has been secured, the scheme may be put into operation. Some thought will have to be given to the organization, in order that the plan may work smoothly. If properly organized, there need be little or no interruption to the ordinary routine of the school. The pupils, both boys and girls, should be arranged in groups, each group taking the work in turn. Even the smallest pupils should be allowed to take part, as there are many duties which they can perform successfully. If each group is composed of five or six pupils, the work may be arranged as follows: two will prepare the dish, two will get the table or the desks ready (or each pupil may prepare his own desk), and the others will wash the dishes. The furnishing of supplies is a problem which each teacher will have to solve for herself, according to the conditions which exist in the community. Supplies which can be stored are best purchased by the school trustees; while the mothers of the pupils should furnish the perishable articles, such as milk and butter. As often as possible, the pupils may be asked to bring various articles, such as a potato, an apple, a carrot, an egg, etc. These may be combined and prepared in quantities. The school garden should be relied upon to supply many vegetables in season, thus adding interest and life to both the garden work and the lunch. In some districts the neighbourhood is canvassed for subscriptions in order to provide funds to purchase supplies for the term lunches. Some schools give a concert or entertainment in order to raise funds for this purpose, and in others all the supplies have been purchased by the school trustees. The pupils who are to prepare the hot dish may make the necessary preparations before school or at recess, and they must so time the cooking that the dish will be ready when required. They should be allowed to leave their desks during school hours to give it attention if necessary. In schools where this method is adopted, it has been found that the privilege has never been abused, nor have the other pupils been less attentive on account of it. However, most of the recipes suggested later require little or no attention while cooking. At twelve o'clock the assigned pupils get the dish ready for serving and set the table. The others wash their hands, tidy their hair, and get their lunch boxes. All pass to their places. The pupils who have prepared the dish may serve it, using trays to carry each pupil's supply, or the pupils may pass in line before the serving table and to their places, time being thus saved. When the meal is finished, the pupils rise and bring their dishes to the serving table and stack them with the other dishes. Two remain behind to clear up and wash the dishes, while the others go to play. If the desks are used, each pupil is responsible for leaving his own desk clean. The pupils may be required to keep an account of the cost of the food and to calculate the cost per head per day or per week. A schedule of the market prices of food should be posted in a conspicuous place, and the pupils may take turns in keeping these prices up to date. A separate black-board may be used for this purpose. The dish chosen should be as simple as possible--a vegetable or cream soup, cocoa, baked potatoes, baked apples, white sauce with potatoes or other vegetables, apple sauce, rice pudding, etc. It may be well, in some cases, to have plans made on Friday for the following week. As a rule, each day a little before or after four o'clock, the recipe for the following day should be discussed, the quantities worked out to suit the number of pupils, and the supplies arranged for. The element of surprise should be made use of occasionally, the pupils not being allowed to know the dish until they take their places. SUGGESTED MENUS The following are some suggested menus in which the food brought from home is supplemented by one hot dish. (The name of the hot dish is printed in italics.) 1. _Potato soup_, meat sandwiches, orange, sponge cake 2. _Cream of tomato soup_, bread and butter sandwiches, stuffed egg, pear, oatmeal cookies 3. _Apple cooked with bacon_, bread and butter sandwiches, gingerbread, milk 4. _Cocoa_, date sandwiches, celery, graham crackers, apple 5. _Stewed apples_, egg sandwiches, plain cake, prunes stuffed with cottage cheese 6. _Custard_, brown bread sandwiches, apple, raisins, sauce, molasses cookies 7. _Baked beans_, bread and butter sandwiches, fruit, sauce, molasses cookies SUGGESTIONS FOR HOT DISHES FOR FOUR WEEKS _First week_ _Second week_ Monday Potato soup Rice and milk Tuesday Cocoa Tomato soup Wednesday Coddled eggs Egg broth Thursday Creamed potatoes Chocolate custard Friday Soft custard Rice and tomato _Third week_ _Fourth week_ Monday Macaroni and cheese Rice soup Tuesday Creamed eggs Cocoa Wednesday Cheese soup Boiled rice and milk Thursday Apple sauce Soft-cooked eggs Friday Cheese Wheat pudding _First week_ _Second week_ Monday Rice soup Macaroni and cheese Tuesday Cocoa Apple sauce Wednesday Baked apples Shirred eggs Thursday Custard Cheese soup Friday Baked eggs Apple custard _Third week_ _Fourth week_ Monday Potato soup Rice and tomato Tuesday Tapioca cream Apple custard Wednesday Cocoa Tomato soup Thursday Creamed potatoes Cracker pudding Friday Soft custard Cocoa RECIPES SUITABLE FOR THE RURAL SCHOOL LUNCH All the recipes given have been used with success in preparing rural school lunches. The number that the recipe will serve is generally stated and, where this number does not coincide with the number of pupils in any particular school, the quantities required may be obtained by division or multiplication. The recipes given in the lessons on cooking may also be used in preparing the school lunch, as each recipe states the number it will serve. _White Sauce_ 1 c. milk 2 tbsp. flour 1/2 tbsp. butter 1/4 tsp. salt 1/8 tsp. white pepper Reserve one quarter of the milk and scald the remainder in a double boiler. Mix the flour to a smooth paste with an equal quantity of the cold milk and thin it with the remainder. Stir this gradually into the hot milk and keep stirring until it thickens. Add the butter, salt, and pepper, and cover closely until required, stirring occasionally. This recipe makes a sauce of medium consistency. To make a thick white sauce, use 3 or 4 tablespoonfuls of flour to one cup of milk. _Cocoa_ 6 tbsp. (18 tsp.) cocoa 6 tbsp. (18 tsp.) sugar 6 c. milk 6 c. boiling water 1/2 tsp. salt Scald the milk in a double boiler. Mix the cocoa, sugar, and salt, then stir in the boiling water and boil for 3 minutes. Add this mixture to the scalded milk. If a scum forms, beat with a Dover egg-beater for one minute. The preparation should begin at half-past eleven, to have the cocoa ready at twelve o'clock. (Will serve eighteen.) _Potato Soup_ 1 qt. peeled potatoes cut in thin slices 3 qt. milk 2 tsp. salt 4 tsp. butter 4 tbsp. flour 1/8 tsp. black pepper 1 small onion 1/2 tsp. celery seed or a stock of celery Before the opening of school, the potatoes should be pared and put into cold water; and the butter, flour, salt, and pepper should be thoroughly mixed. At eleven o'clock, the potatoes, onion, and celery should be put on to boil gently and the milk put into a double boiler to heat. When the vegetables are tender, they should be strained with the cooking liquid into the hot milk and the mixture bound with the flour. The soup should be closely covered until required. (Will serve ten.) _Cream of Pea Soup_ 1 can peas or 1 qt. fresh peas 1 pt. milk 2 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. flour 1 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper Heat the peas in their own water, or cook them in boiling salted water until tender. Put the milk to heat in a double boiler. When the peas are tender, rub them, with the cooking liquid, through a strainer into the scalded milk. Add the butter and flour rubbed to a smooth paste and stir until thickened. Season and cover until required. (Will serve six pupils generously.) _Cream of Tomato Soup_ 1 pt. or 1 can tomatoes 2 tbsp. butter 3 tbsp. flour 1 tsp. sugar 1 qt. milk Sprig of parsley 1/4 tsp. white pepper 1/2 tsp. soda 1 tsp. salt Cook the tomatoes slowly with the seasonings for ten minutes and rub through a strainer. Scald the milk, thicken with the flour and butter rubbed to a paste, re-heat the tomatoes, and add the soda, mix with the milk, and serve at once. (Will serve six pupils generously.) _Cream of Corn Soup_ 2 pt. cans corn 1 pt. cold water 2 slices onion 2 qt. of thin white sauce Seasonings The process is that used in making Cream of Pea Soup. When making the thin white sauce, place the onion in the milk and leave it until the milk is scalded. Then remove the onion to the other mixture and make the sauce. This gives sufficient onion flavour. (Will serve eighteen.) _Lima-bean Soup_ 1 c. Lima beans 2 qt. water 2 whole cloves 1 bay leaf 1 tsp. salt 3 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. flour 3 tbsp. minced onion 1 tbsp. " carrot 1 tbsp. " celery 1/4 tsp. pepper Soak the beans overnight in soft water or in hard water which has been boiled and cooled. If cold, hard water is used, add 1/4 tsp. baking-soda to 1 qt. of water. In the morning, drain and put on to cook in 2 qt. of water. Simmer until tender. It takes 2 hours. Cook the minced vegetables in the butter for 20 minutes, being careful not to brown them. Drain out the vegetables and put them into the soup. Put the flour and butter into a pan and stir until smooth. Add this mixture to the soup. Add the cloves, bay leaf, and seasonings, and simmer for 1 hour. Rub through a sieve. One cup of milk may be added. Bring to the simmering point and serve. (Will serve eighteen.) _Note._--If desired, the vegetables may be used without browning and the cloves and bay leaf omitted. _Milk and Cheese Soup_ 4 c. milk 2 tbsp. flour 1-1/3 c. grated cheese Salt and pepper to taste Thicken the milk with flour, cooking thoroughly. This is best done in a double boiler, stirring occasionally. When ready to serve, add cheese and seasoning. (Will serve six.) _Cream of Rice Soup_ 4 tbsp. rice 4 c. milk 3 tbsp. butter 1/2 small onion 4 stalks celery 1/2 bay leaf Salt and pepper to taste Scald the milk, add the well-washed rice, and cook for 30 minutes in a closely covered double boiler. Melt the butter and cook the sliced onion and celery in it until tender, but not brown. Add these, with the bay leaf, to the contents of the double boiler, cover, and let it stand on the back of the stove for 15 minutes. Strain, season with salt and pepper, re-heat, and serve. Note that the bay leaf is added and allowed to stand, to increase the flavour, and may be omitted if desired. (Will serve six.) _Rice Pudding_ 3 c. rice 6 c. water 6 c. milk 2 c. sugar 4 eggs 2 tsp. salt 3 c. fruit (chopped raisins) if desired Wash the rice in a strainer placed over a bowl of cold water, by rubbing the rice between the fingers. Lift the strainer from the bowl and change the water. Repeat until the water is clear. Put the water in the upper part of a double boiler directly over the fire, and when it boils rapidly, gradually add the rice to it. Boil rapidly for 5 minutes, then add the milk, to which has been added the sugar, salt, and eggs slightly beaten. Cover, place in the lower part of the double boiler, and cook until kernels are tender--from 45 minutes to 1 hour. If raisins are used, add them before putting the rice in the double boiler. Serve with milk and sugar as desired. (Will serve eighteen.) _Rice Pudding_ 2 c. rice 1 c. raisins 1 tsp. salt 4 qt. milk 1 c. sugar 1 tsp. cinnamon Prepare the rice and raisins and put them, with the other ingredients, in a buttered pan. Bake all forenoon, stirring occasionally during the first hour. Serve with milk or cream. (Will serve ten.) _Cream of Wheat_ 1-1/2 c. cream of wheat 10 c. boiling water 1-1/2 tsp. salt 1-1/2 c. dates (chopped) Put the boiling water and salt in the upper part of the double boiler directly over the heat. When boiling, add the cereal slowly. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens. Add the dates and cook for 5 minutes. Place in the lower part of the double boiler and cook at least 1 hour. Serve with milk and sugar. (Will serve eighteen.) _Scrambled Eggs_ 9 eggs 1 c. milk 2 tbsp. butter 1 tsp. salt Pepper Beat the eggs until the yolks and whites are well mixed. Add the seasonings and milk. Heat the frying-pan, melt the butter in it, and turn in the egg mixture. Cook slowly, scraping the mixture from the bottom of the pan as it cooks. As soon as a jelly-like consistency is formed, remove at once to a hot dish or serve on toast. (Will serve nine.) _Creamed Eggs_ 6 hard-cooked eggs 4 tbsp. butter 2 c. milk 4 tbsp. flour Salt and pepper Melt the butter, add the flour, and stir in the milk gradually. Cook well and season with salt and pepper. Cut hard-cooked eggs in small pieces and add them to the white sauce. It may be served on toast. (Will serve six.) _Egg Broth_ 6 eggs 6 tbsp. sugar 1 c. hot milk Few grains salt Vanilla or nutmeg Beat the eggs and add the sugar and salt. Stir in the hot milk gradually, so that the eggs will cook smoothly. Flavour as desired. (Will serve six.) _Soft-cooked Eggs_ Wash the eggs and put in a sauce-pan, cover with boiling water, remove to the back of the stove or where the water will keep hot, but not boil. Let them stand, covered, from 7 to 10 minutes, according to the consistency desired. _Baked Shirred Eggs_ Butter small earthen cups. Break an egg in each and sprinkle with a few grains of salt and pepper and bits of butter. Bake in a moderate oven until the white is set. For Shirred Eggs proceed as above, but to cook, place in a pan of hot water on the back of the stove, until the white is set. _Creamed Potatoes_ White sauce (medium consistency) 3 tbsp. flour 3 tbsp. butter 1-1/2 c. milk Salt and pepper Make a white sauce of the butter, flour, milk, and seasonings. Cut cold potatoes (about eight) into cubes or slices and heat in the sauce. Serve hot. (Will serve nine.) _Mashed Potatoes_ Boil the potatoes, drain, and mash in the kettle in which they were boiled. When free from lumps, add to each cup of mashed potatoes: 1 tsp. butter 1 or more tbsp. hot milk 1/4 tsp. salt Beat all together until light and creamy. Re-heat, and pile lightly, without smoothing, in a hot dish. _Baked Potatoes_ Use potatoes of medium size. Scrub thoroughly in water with a brush. Place in a pan in a hot oven. Bake from 45 to 60 minutes. When done, roll in a clean napkin and twist until the skin is broken. Serve immediately. (If no oven is available, place a wire rack on the top of the stove. Put the potatoes on this rack and cover them with a large pan. When half cooked, turn.) _Macaroni and Cheese_ 3 c. macaroni (2 pieces) 3 tsp. salt 3 qt. boiling water 6 c. white sauce (medium) Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until tender. Drain, pour cold water over it, and drain it once more. Put the macaroni into a baking dish, sprinkling a layer of grated cheese upon each layer of macaroni. Pour in the sauce and sprinkle the top with cheese. Cook until the sauce bubbles up through the cheese and the top is brown. To give variety, finely-minced ham, boiled codfish, or any cold meat may be used instead of the cheese. (Will serve ten.) _Cornstarch Pudding_ 1 qt. milk 3/4 c. cornstarch 1/2 tsp. salt 3/4 c. sugar Vanilla Scald the milk in a double boiler. Mix the sugar, cornstarch, and salt together. Gradually add to the hot milk and stir constantly until it thickens. Cover, cook for 30 minutes, add vanilla, and pour into cold, wet moulds. When set, turn out, and serve with milk and sugar. (Will serve nine.) _Apple Sauce_ 9 tart apples 3/4 c. water 6 whole cloves (if desired) 3/4 c. sugar Piece of lemon rind (if desired) Wipe, pare, quarter, and core the apples. Put the water, apples, lemon rind, and cloves into a sauce-pan. Cook covered until the apples are tender, but not broken. Remove the lemon peel and cloves. Add the sugar a few minutes before taking from the fire. The apples may be mashed or put through a strainer. (Will serve nine.) _Note._--The lemon and the cloves may be used when the apples have lost their flavour. _Stewed Prunes or Other Dried Fruit--Apricots, Apples, Pears_ 3/4 lb. fruit (about) 1-1/2 pt. of water 1/3 c. sugar 1 or 2 slices lemon or a few cloves and a piece of cinnamon stick Wash the fruit thoroughly and soak overnight. Cook in the water in which it was soaked. Cover, and simmer until tender. When nearly cooked, add sugar and lemon juice. The cloves and cinnamon should cook with the fruit. All flavourings may be omitted, if desired. (Will serve nine.) _Soft Custard_ 2 c. milk 6 tbsp. sugar 2 eggs 1/2 tsp. vanilla A few grains of salt Scald the milk in a double boiler. Add the sugar and salt to the eggs and beat until well mixed. Stir the hot milk slowly into the egg mixture and return to the double boiler. Cook, stirring constantly, until the spoon, when lifted from the mixture, is coated. Remove immediately from the heat, add vanilla, and pour into a cold bowl. To avoid too rapid cooking, lift the upper from the lower portion of the boiler occasionally. (Will serve six.) _Tapioca Custard Pudding_ 3 c. scalded milk 2 eggs slightly beaten 2 tbsp. butter 4 tbsp. pearl, or minute, tapioca 6 tbsp. sugar A few grains of salt Minute tapioca requires no soaking. Soak the pearl tapioca one hour in enough cold water to cover it. Drain, add to the milk, and cook in a double boiler for 30 minutes. Add to remaining ingredients, pour into buttered baking-dish, and bake for about 25 minutes in a slow oven. (Will serve eight.) _Rice and Tomato_ 2 c. cooked rice 2 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. flour 2 c. unstrained or 1 c. strained tomato 1 slice of onion minced Salt and pepper Cook the onion with the tomato until soft. Melt the butter, and add the flour, salt, and pepper. Strain the tomato, stir the liquid into the butter and flour mixture, and cook until thick and smooth. Add the rice, heat, and serve. (Will serve six.) _Cracker Pudding_ 6 soda crackers 3 c. milk 3 eggs 6 tbsp. sugar 1/2 tsp. salt Roll the crackers and soak them in milk. Beat the yolks and sugar well together and add to the first mixture, with some salt. Make a meringue with white of eggs, pile lightly on top, and put in the oven till it is a golden brown. Serve hot. (Will serve six.) _Note._--Dried bread crumbs may be used in place of the crackers. _Candied Fruit Peel_ The candied peel of oranges, lemons, grapefruit, and other fruits makes a good sweet which is economical, because it utilizes materials which might otherwise be thrown away. Its preparation makes an interesting school exercise. The skins can be kept in good condition for a long time in salt water, which makes it possible to wait until a large supply is on hand before candying them. They should be washed in clear water, after removing from the salt water, boiled until tender, cut into small pieces, and then boiled in a thick sugar syrup until they are transparent. They should then be lifted from the syrup and allowed to cool in such a way that the superfluous syrup will run off. Finally, they should be rolled in pulverized or granulated sugar. A large number of recipes have been given, in order that a selection may be made according to season, community conditions, and market prices, and so that sufficient variety may be secured from day to day. Attention given to this matter will be well repaid by the improved health of the pupils, the greater interest taken in the school by the parents, and the better afternoon work accomplished. It has been well said: "The school lunch is not a departure from the principle of the obligation assumed by educational authorities toward the child, but an intensive application of the measures adopted for the physical nurture of the child, to the end of securing in adult years the highest efficiency of the citizen". USEFUL BULLETINS _The Rural School Luncheon_: Department of Education, Saskatchewan _The Box Luncheon_: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University _Hints to Housewives_: Issued by Mayor Mitchell's Food Supply Committee, New York City _Home Economics in Village and Rural Schools_: Kansas State Agricultural College _Home-made Fireless Cookers and Their Use_: Farmers' Bulletin, United States Department of Agriculture _Hot Lunches for Rural Schools_: Parts I and II, Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts _Rural School Lunches_: University of Idaho, Agricultural Extension Department _The Rural School Lunch_: University of Illinois College of Agriculture _The School Luncheon_: Oregon Agricultural College HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE WITHOUT SCHOOL EQUIPMENT There is no school so unhappily situated or so poorly equipped that it is unable to teach effectively the lessons previously outlined in the "Care of the Home" and "Sewing". Now that a grant in aid is provided by the Department of Education any rural school may procure one of the sets of equipment for cooking suggested or some modification thereof. As a stepping-stone to the provision of that equipment and as a means of educating the people of the district in regard to the advantages of teaching this branch of Household Science, it may be advisable or even necessary, in some cases, to attempt practical work, even where no equipment is installed by the school authorities. It should be remembered that the present position of Manual Training and Household Science in urban schools is entirely owing to private initiative and demonstration, by which the people were shown how and why these subjects should be included in the curriculum of the schools. It is reasonable to suppose that the same results will follow if somewhat the same methods are tried in the case of the rural schools, which form such a large part of our educational system. Two methods of giving instruction of this character have, in the United States, been followed by successful results. FIRST METHOD In the first of these, the teacher spends the last thirty or forty minutes, generally on Friday afternoons, in the description and discussion of some practical cooking problem which may be performed in the homes of the pupils. Before this plan is adopted, it should be discussed with the pupils who are to take the work. They should be required to promise that they will practise at home; and the consent and co-operation of the parents should be secured, as the success of this home work depends, in the first place, on the willingness of the pupil to accept responsibility, and, in the second place, on the honest and hearty co-operation of the parents. A meeting of the mothers should be called, in order that the plan may be laid before them and their suggestions received. At this meeting afternoon tea might be served. The teacher should plan the lessons, but occasionally, particularly at festive seasons, the pupils themselves should be allowed to decide what shall be made. When it is possible, the food prepared at home should be brought by the pupil to the school, in order that it may be compared with that made by other pupils and be judged by the teacher. In other cases, the mother might be asked to fill up a previously prepared form, certifying to the amount and character of the work done at home by the pupil each week. The instructions placed on the black-board should be clear and concise and give adequate information concerning materials, quantities, and methods. They should be arranged in such a way as to appeal to the eye and thus assist the memory. Connected composition should not be attempted, but the matter should be arranged in a series of numbered steps, somewhat as follows: _Recipe: Boiled Carrots_ Carrots Boiling water Salt and pepper Butter 1. Scrub, scrape, and rinse the carrots. 2. Cut them into pieces by dicing them. 3. Place the pieces in a sauce-pan. 4. Set over the fire and cover with boiling water. 5. Cook until the pieces are soft at the centre when pierced with a fork. 6. Serve in a hot vegetable dish. After being thoroughly explained, these directions are placed in a note-book, for the guidance of the pupil in her home practice. In some cases, the directions are placed on properly punched cards, so that at the end of the year every pupil will have a collection of useful recipes and plans, each one of which she understands and has worked out. In many lessons of this type demonstrations may be given by the teacher and, if the food cannot be cooked on the school stove, it may be taken home to be cooked by one of the pupils. Lessons given according to this method, by which the theory is given in school and the practice acquired at home, need not be restricted to cookery. Any of the lessons prescribed in the curriculum for Form III, Junior, may be treated in the same way. Lessons on the daily care of a bed-room, weekly sweeping, care and cleaning of metals, washing dishes, washing clothes, ironing a blouse and, in fact, on all subjects pertaining to the general care and management of the home, may be given in this way. Each lesson should conclude with a carefully prepared black-board summary, which should be neatly copied into the note-books, to be periodically examined by the teacher. The black-board work of many teachers leaves much to be desired, and time spent in improving this will be well repaid. Examples of summaries of the kind referred to are to be found in the Ontario Teachers' Manual on _Household Management_. These instructions may be type-written or hectographed by the teacher and given to the pupils, thus saving the time spent in note-taking. SECOND METHOD The second of the plans referred to is a modification of what is known as the "Crete" plan of Household Science, so called from the name of the place in Nebraska, U.S.A., where it was first put into operation. By this plan, definite instruction is given in the home kitchens of certain women in the district, under the supervision of the educational authorities. It was adopted, at first, in connection with the high schools of the small towns in that State but, with certain modifications, it is suitable to our rural school conditions. In every community there are women who are known to be skilful in certain lines of cookery, and the plan makes use of such women for giving the required instruction. They become actually a part of the staff of the school, giving instruction in Household Science, and using the resources of their households as an integral part of the school equipment. In order to put this plan into operation, a meeting of women interested in the school should be called and if, after the plan has been laid before them and fully discussed, enough women are willing to open their homes and act as instructors, then it is safe to proceed. The subjects should be divided, and a scheme somewhat as follows may be arranged: Mrs. A. bread and biscuits Mrs. B. pies and cakes Mrs. C. canning and preserving Mrs. D. gems and corn bread Mrs. E. desserts and salads Mrs. F. cookies and doughnuts Mrs. G. vegetables. Six has been found a convenient number for a class, though ten is better, if the homes can accommodate that number. Half-past three is a good time for the classes to meet, as they then may be concluded by five o'clock, thus leaving the housewife free to prepare her evening meal. The day of the week should be chosen to suit the convenience of the instructor. The classes may meet once a week. Arriving at the home of the instructor at half-past three, the pupils are seated in the most convenient room, and the lesson is given. During this talk the pupils are given not only the recipe, but details as to materials, the preparation thereof, the degree of heat required, the common causes of failure and, in fact, everything that in the mind of a practical cook would be helpful to the class. Notes are taken, and afterwards properly written out and examined by the teacher of the school. The instructors prepare the food for cooking, and sometimes, as in the case of rolls and so on, they cook the food in the presence of the pupils. When white bread is to be baked, the pupils are asked to call, a few minutes after school, at the home of the instructor, to watch the first step--setting the sponge--and again the next morning before school to see the next step--mixing the bread--and again, about half-past eleven or twelve, to see the bread ready for the oven and, finally, on the way back to school, to see the result--a fine loaf of well-cooked bread. The pupils try the recipe carefully in their own homes, not varying its terms until they are able to make the dish successfully. When they can do this, they are free to experiment with modifications, and there should be no objection to receiving help from any source; in fact, it is a good thing for the daughter to get her mother to criticize her and offer suggestions in the many little details familiar to every housekeeper, but which cannot always be given by an instructor in one lesson. By this method the pupils learn in their own homes and handle real cooking utensils on a real stove heated by the usual fire of that home. If it is a good thing--and no one doubts it--to learn Household Science in a school where everything that invention and skill can provide for the pupils is readily at hand, is it not worth while to enter the field of actual life and, with cruder implements, win a fair degree of success? At the end of five or six months, after the pupils have had an opportunity to become skilful in making some of the dishes which have been taught, it may be well to have an exhibition of their work. Each pupil may, on Saturday afternoon, bring one or more of the dishes she has learned to prepare to the school-house, where they may be arranged on tables for the inspection of the judges. The dishes exhibited should be certified to as being the work of the pupil with no help or suggestion from anybody. Of course, work of this kind cannot be undertaken by the "suit case" teacher. The teacher who packs her bag on Friday at noon, carries it to school with her, and rushes to catch a train or car at four o'clock, not returning to the district until Monday morning, has no time for this kind of service. Occasionally the entire class may meet with their instructors in the school-room. An oil-stove and the necessary equipment may be obtained, and a demonstration may be given by one of the instructors. By this means much valuable instruction will be given that is not included in the regular course. At this time also many things may be discussed that pertain to the growth of the movement and the general well-being of the pupils. The plan is flexible and may be modified easily to suit different localities. It calls for no outlay on the part of the school trustees; nor are the instructors necessarily put to any expense, as the articles prepared in giving the lessons may be used in their own homes. By the adoption of one of the plans outlined, or such modifications of them as the peculiar requirements of the district may demand, every rural school may do something, not only toward giving a real knowledge of some phases of Household Science, but also toward developing the community spirit and arousing an interest in the school, which will benefit all concerned. THE FIRELESS COOKER At the present time there is urgent need for thrift and economy in all that pertains to the management of the household--particularly in food and fuel. In the average home much fuel could be saved by the proper use of what is known as the fireless cooker. The scientific principle applied has long been known and is, briefly, as follows: If a hot body is protected by a suitable covering, the heat in it will be retained for a long time, instead of being lost by radiation or conduction. This is why a cosy is placed over a tea-pot. In using a fireless cooker, the food is first heated on the stove until the cooking has begun, and then it is placed in the fireless cooker--a tight receptacle in which the food is completely surrounded by some insulating substance to prevent the rapid escape of the heat, which in this way is retained in the food in sufficient quantity to complete the cooking. Sometimes, when a higher cooking temperature is desired, an additional source of heat, in the form of a hot soapstone or brick or an iron plate such as a stove lid, is put into the cooker with the food. The same principle is also employed in cookery in other ways. For example, in camp life beans are often baked by burying the pots overnight in hot stones and ashes, the whole being covered with earth; and in the "clam bakes" on the Atlantic Coast, the damp seaweed spread over the embers on the clams prevents the escape of the heat during cooking. The peasants in some parts of Europe are said to begin the cooking of their dinners and then to put them into hay boxes or between feather beds, so that the cooking may be completed while the family is absent in the fields. The chief advantages in the use of the fireless cooker are these: 1. It saves fuel, especially where gas, oil, or electric stoves are used. Where coal or wood is the fuel, the fire in the range is often kept up most of the day, and the saving of fuel is not so great. In summer, or when the kitchen fire is not needed for heating purposes, the dinner can be started in the stove early in the morning, and then placed in the fireless cooker, the fire in the range being allowed to go out. During the hot weather, the use of a kerosene or other liquid-fuel stove and a fireless cooker is a great convenience, since it not only accomplishes a saving in fuel, but helps to keep the kitchen cooler. The saving in fuel resulting from the use of a fireless cooker is greatest in the preparation of foods such as stews, which require long and slow cooking. 2. It saves time. Foods cooked in this way do not require watching, and may be left, without danger from fires or of over-cooking, while other duties are being performed or the family is away from home. 3. It conserves the flavour of the food and makes it easier to utilize the cheaper cuts of meat which, although not having so fine a texture or flavour, are fully as nutritious, pound for pound, as the more expensive cuts. Long cooking at a relatively low temperature, such as is given to foods in the fireless cooker, improves the flavour and texture of these tougher cuts of meat. Most people do not cook cereals long enough. By this method, the cereal may be prepared at night, cooked on the stove for about fifteen minutes, and then put in the fireless cooker. In the morning it will be cooked and ready to be served. The fireless cooker may be used to advantage in preparing the following: soups; pot roasts; beef stew; Irish stew; lamb stew; corned beef and cabbage; boiled ham; baked beans; chicken fricassee; vegetables, such as turnips, carrots, parsnips, beets; dried vegetables, such as peas and beans; and dried fruits, such as peaches, apples, apricots, and prunes; cereals; and puddings. The fireless cookers described in the following pages are not experiments. They have all been tested and found to be most practical. DIRECTIONS FOR FIRELESS COOKER--NO. I While there are many good fireless cookers on the market which cost from five to twenty-two dollars, according to size and make, it is possible to construct a home-made cooker which will give very satisfactory results and will be considerably cheaper than one which is purchased in the shops. Materials required: A box or some other outside container; some good insulating or packing material; an inside container for the kettle, or a lining for the nest in which the kettle is placed; a kettle for holding the food; and a cushion, or pad, of insulating material, to cover the top of the kettle. THE OUTSIDE CONTAINER For the outside container a tightly built wooden box, such as that shown in Figure 39, is satisfactory. The walls should be thick and of some non-conducting material. An old trunk, a small barrel, or a large butter or lard firkin or tin will serve the purpose. Another possibility is a galvanized iron bucket with a closely fitting cover (this has the advantage of being fire-proof). A shoe box 15 by 15 by 28 inches is convenient in size, since it may be divided into two compartments. It should have a hinged cover and, at the front, a hook and staple, or some other device to hold down the cover tightly; an ordinary clamp window fastener answers this purpose very well. The size of the container, which depends upon the size of the kettle used, should be large enough to allow for at least four inches of packing material all round the nest in which the kettle is placed. [Illustration: _Fig._ 39.--Completed fireless cooker] THE INSULATING MATERIAL For packing or insulating material a variety of substances may be used. Asbestos and mineral wool are the best, and have the additional advantage that they cannot burn. Ground cork (used in packing Malaga grapes), hay, excelsior, Spanish moss, wool, and crumpled paper may also be used satisfactorily. Of these materials crumpled paper is probably the best, as it is clean and odourless and, if properly packed, will hold the heat better than the others. It is wise to line the box with one thickness of heavy paper or with several thicknesses of newspaper, to make it as air-tight as possible. Asbestos sheeting may be used instead. To pack the container with paper, crush single sheets of newspaper between the hands and pack a layer at least four inches deep over the bottom of the outside container, pounding it in with a heavy stick of wood. Place the inside container for the cooking kettle or the lining for the inside of the nest in the centre of this layer, and pack more crushed paper about it as solidly as possible. The method of packing with paper is shown in Figure 40. If other material is used it should be packed in a similar way. Where an extra source of heat is to be used, it is much safer to use some non-inflammable material such as asbestos or mineral wool. A cheap substitute and one which is easily obtained are the small cinders sifted from coal ashes, preferably those from soft coal. However, the cinders from hard coal burned in the kitchen range will do. If a fire-proof packing material is not used, a heavy pad of asbestos should be placed at the bottom of the metal lining, and a sheet or two of this paper should be placed between the lining of the nest and the packing material. Whatever is used should come to the top of the inside container, and the box should be filled to within about four inches of the top. [Illustration: _Fig._ 40.--Fireless cooker, showing method of packing with paper] THE INSIDE CONTAINER The inside container for the cooking kettle or the lining for the nest in which it is to be placed should be cylindrical in shape, should be deep enough to hold the cooking kettle and stone, if one is used, and should fit as snugly as possible to the cooking kettle, but at the same time should allow the latter to be moved in and out freely. For this purpose a galvanized iron or other metal bucket may be used, or, better still, a tinsmith may make a lining of galvanized iron or zinc which can be provided with a rim to cover the packing material, as shown in Figure 41. In case no hot stone or plate is to be used, the lining may be made of strong cardboard. [Illustration: _Fig._ 41.--Metal lining with rim] THE KETTLE The kettle to be used for cooking should be durable and free from seams or crevices which are hard to clean. It should have perpendicular sides, and the cover should be as flat as possible and be provided with a deep lid fitting well down into the kettle, in order to retain the steam. A kettle holding about six quarts is a convenient size for general use. Tinned iron kettles should not be used in a fireless cooker, for, although cheap, they are very apt to rust from the confined moisture. Enamelware kettles are satisfactory. EXTRA SOURCE OF HEAT Fireless cookers are adapted to a much wider range of cooking if they are provided with an extra source of heat in the form of a soapstone, brick, or an iron plate which is heated and placed underneath the cooking kettle. This introduces a possible danger from fire, in case the hot stove plate should come into direct contact with inflammable packing material such as excelsior or paper. To avoid this danger, a metal lining must be provided for the nest in which the cooking vessels and stone are to be placed. [Illustration: _Fig._ 42.--Tightly fitting lid] COVERING PAD A cushion, or pad, must be provided, to fill completely the space between the top of the packing material and the cover of the box after the kettle is in place. This should be made of some heavy goods, such as denim, and stuffed with cotton, crumpled paper, or excelsior. Hay may be used, but it will be found more or less odorous. Figure 43 shows the vertical cross-section of a home-made fireless cooker. [Illustration: _Fig._ 43.--Vertical cross-section of fireless cooker. A. Outside container; B. packing or insulating material; C. metal lining of nest; D. cooking kettle; E. soapstone plate, or other source of heat; F. pad of excelsior for covering top; G. hinged cover of outside container.] DIRECTIONS FOR FIRELESS COOKER--NO. II (Single Cooker) Materials required: Galvanized iron can, No. 3, with a cover; some sawdust; a covered agate pail (to be used as a cooking pail); and two yards of denim; any old linen, cotton, or woollen material may be used instead of denim. METHOD OF MAKING Place loose sawdust in the bottom of the can to a depth of about three inches. Measure the depth of the cooking pail. Turn a fold two inches greater than this depth the entire length of the denim or other material and make a long bag. Lay the bag flat on the table and fill it with an even layer of sawdust, so that when completed it will still be half an inch wider than the depth of the pail. Roll the bag around the cooking pail, so that a smooth, firm nest is formed when the bag is placed upright in the can on the top of the sawdust. From the remaining denim or other material make a round, flat bag (the material will have to be pieced for this). Fill this bag with sawdust and use it on top of the cooking pail. The bags must be made and fitted into the can in such a way that there will be no open spaces whatever between the sides of the cooking pail and the can, or between the top of the cooking pail and the cover of the can, through which the heat might escape. DIRECTIONS FOR FIRELESS COOKER--NO. III (Double Cooker) Materials required: One long box and two square boxes; the long box must be large enough to hold the other two and still leave two inches of space all around them; five and one-quarter yards of sheet asbestos one yard wide; two covered agate pails to be used as cooking pails; and about one yard of denim or other material. METHOD OF MAKING Line the bottoms and sides of all three boxes with sheet asbestos. In the bottom of the long box lay newspapers flat to a depth of about half an inch. Put two inches of sawdust on top of this layer of newspapers. Place the two square boxes inside the long one, leaving at least two inches of space between them. Fill all the spaces between the boxes with sawdust. Tack strips of denim or other material so that they will cover all the spaces that are filled with sawdust. The outside box must have a hinged lid, which must be fastened down with a clasp. Line the lid with the sheet asbestos to within half an inch of the edge. Put a layer of sawdust one inch deep on top of the asbestos. Tack a piece of denim or other material over the sawdust, still leaving the edge free and clear so that the cover may fit tightly; or the lid may be lined with asbestos and a denim pillow filled with sawdust made to fit tightly into the top of the box. USE OF THE FIRELESS COOKER IN THE PREPARATION OF LUNCHES The fireless cooker should prove very useful in the lunch equipment of rural schools, as its use should mean economy of fuel, utensils, time, and effort. It might be made by the pupils and would afford an excellent manual training exercise. Many of the dishes in the recipes given may be cooked in this way, but more time must be allowed for cooking, as there is a fall of temperature in placing the food in the cooker. When the vessel is being transferred from the stove to the cooker, the latter should be in a convenient position, and the transfer should be made, and the cushion placed in position, very quickly, so that the food will continue boiling. If the quantity of food is small, it should be placed in a smaller tightly covered pail, set on an inverted pan in the larger pail, and surrounded with boiling water. When there is an air space above the food in the cooking dish, there is greater loss of heat, as air gives off heat more readily than water. The following are examples of the foods that may be cooked in a Fireless Cooker: Apple sauce--Bring to boiling temperature and place in the cooker, leave two hours. Apple compote--Cut the apples in halves or quarters so that they need not be turned. Leave them in the cooker about three hours. Dried fruits--Soak overnight, bring to the boiling-point, and leave in the cooker at least three hours. Cream of wheat--Boil until thick, place in the cooker, leave overnight and, if necessary, re-heat in double boiler before using. Rolled oats--Boil five minutes, then place in the cooker. Leave at least three hours and longer if possible. Macaroni--Boil, then place in the cooker for two hours. Rice--Boil, then place in the cooker for one hour. All vegetables may be cooked in the cooker. They must be given time according to their age. A safe rule for all green vegetables is to allow two and a half times as long as if boiled on the stove. In the home, where the cooking is much greater in amount than it can be in the school, the saving in fuel, by the judicious use of the properly made fireless cooker, is correspondingly much larger. For example: in soups, from 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 hours use of fuel is made unnecessary; pot roast 2-1/2 hours; beef stew 2-1/2 hours; lamb stew 1-1/2 hours; corn beef and cabbage 2-1/2 hours; baked beans 5-1/2 to 7-1/2 hours; chicken fricassee 2 hours; dried peas, beans, and lentils 3 hours; dried fruits 3 hours; rice pudding 1-1/2 hours. SPECIAL GRANTS FOR RURAL AND VILLAGE SCHOOLS (From the Revised Regulations of the Department of Education, 1918) (1) The Board of a rural or a village school which is unable to comply with the provisions of the General Regulations, but which maintains classes in Manual Training as applied to the work of the Farm or in Household Science suitable to the requirements of the rural districts, which employs a teacher qualified as below, and which provides accommodations and equipment and a course of study approved by the Minister before the classes are established, will be paid by the Minister the sums provided in the scheme below, out of the grants appropriated therefor: said grants to be expended on the accommodations, equipment, and supplies for Manual Training and Household Science. In no year, however, will the Departmental grants exceed the total expenditure of the Board for these classes. (2) On the report of the Inspector of Manual Training and Household Science that the organization and the teaching of the classes in Manual Training or Household Science maintained as provided above are satisfactory, an annual grant will be paid by the Minister out of the Grant appropriated according to the following scheme: (_a_) (i) When the teacher holds a Second Class certificate but is not specially certificated in Manual Training or Household Science-- Initial Grant to board, $40; to teacher, $15. Subsequent Grant: to board, $20; to teacher, $15. (ii) When the teacher holds a Second Class certificate and has satisfactorily completed the work of one Summer Course in Manual Training or Household Science, provided by the Department, and undertakes to complete Part II the following year, or receives permission from the Minister to postpone said part-- Initial Grant: to board, $40: to teacher, $20. Subsequent Grant: to board, $20: to teacher, $20. (_b_) (i) When the teacher holds a Second Class certificate and in addition the Elementary certificate in Manual Training or Household Science-- Initial Grant: to board, $75; to teacher, $40. Subsequent Grant: to board, $30; to teacher, $40. (ii) When the teacher holds a Second Class certificate and in addition the Ordinary certificate in Manual Training or Household Science-- Initial Grant: to board, $75; to teacher, $50. Subsequent Grant: to board, $30; to teacher, $50. (_c_) When a school taking up Household Science provides at least one hot dish for the pupils staying to lunch from November 1st to March 31st, the above grants to the teacher of Household Science will be increased $10. 
24586	----	None 
25040	----	None 
25774	----	None 
21227	----	Shenac's Work at Home By Margaret Murray Robertson ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ SHENAC'S WORK AT HOME BY MARGARET MURRAY ROBERTSON CHAPTER ONE. A long time ago, something very sad happened in one of the districts of Scotland. I cannot tell you how it all came about, but a great many people were obliged to leave their homes where they and their forefathers had lived for many generations. A few scattered themselves through other parts of the country; a few went to the great towns to seek for a livelihood; but by far the greater number made up their minds to leave for ever the land of their birth, and rose in the new, strange world beyond the sea a home for themselves and their children. I could never make you understand what a sorrowful time that was to these poor people, or how much they suffered in going away. For some of the old left children behind them, and some of the young left their parents, or brothers, or sisters; and all left the homes where they had lived through happy years, the kirks where they had worshipped God together, and the kirkyards where lay the dust of the dear ones they had lost. And, besides all this, they knew little of the land to which they were going, and between them and it lay the great ocean, with all its terrors. For then they did not count by days, as we do now, the time that it took to cross the sea, but by weeks, or even by months; and many a timid mother shrank from the thought of all her children might have to suffer ere the sea was passed. Even more than the knowledge of the many difficulties and discouragements which might await them beyond it, did the thought of the dangers of the sea appal them. And to all their other sorrows was added the bitter pain of saying farewell for ever and for ever to Scotland, their native land. It is true that not among all her hills or valleys, or in all her great and prosperous towns, could be found room for them and theirs; it is true that a home in the beloved land was denied them: but it was their native land all the same, and eyes that had refused to weep at the last look of dear faces left behind, grew dim with tears as the broken outline of Scotland's hills faded away in the darkness. But out of very sorrowful events God oftentimes causes much happiness to spring; and it was so to these poor people in their banishment. Into the wide Canadian forests they came, and soon the wilderness and the solitary place were glad for them; soon the wild woods were made to rejoice with the sound of joyful voices ringing out from many a happy though humble home. And though there were those among the aged or the discontented who never ceased to pine for the heather hills of the old land, the young grew up strong and content, troubled by no fear that, for many and many a year to come, the place would become too strait for them or for their children. They did not speak English these people, but a language called Gaelic, not at all agreeable to English ears, but very dear to the heart of the Scottish Highlander. It is passing somewhat out of use now; but even at this day I have heard of old people who will go many miles to hear a sermon preached in that language--the precious gospel itself seeming clearer and richer and more full of comfort coming to them in the language which they learned at their mother's knee. "It was surely the language first spoken on earth, before the beguiling serpent came to our mother," once said an old man to me; "and maybe afterwards too, till the foolish men on the plain of Shinar brought Babel on the earth. And indeed it may be the language spoken in heaven to-day, so sweet and grand and fit for the expression of high and holy thoughts is it." It is passing out of use now, however, even among the Highlanders themselves. Gaelic is the household language still, where the father and mother are old, or where the grand-parents live with the rising generation; but English is the language of business, of the newspapers, and of all the new books that find their way among the people. It is fast becoming the language in which public worship is conducted too. There are very few books in the Gaelic. There are the Bible and the Catechism, and some poems which they who understand them say are very grand and beautiful; and there are a few translations of religious books, such as "The Pilgrim's Progress," and some of the works of such writers as Flavel and Baxter. But though there are not many, they are of a kind which, read often and earnestly, cannot fail to bring wisdom; and a grave and thoughtful people were they who made their homes in this wilderness. Among those who were most earnest in overcoming the difficulties which at every step meet the settler in a new country were two brothers, Angus and Evan MacIvor. Their farms lay next to each other. They were fortunate in securing good land, and they were moderately successful in clearing and cultivating it. They lived to a good old age, and the youngest son of each succeeded him in the possession of the land. It is about the families of these two sons that my story is to be told. The two cousins bore the same name, Angus MacIvor; but they were not at all alike either in appearance or character. The one was fair, with light hair and bright blue eyes; and because of this he was called Angus Bhan, or Angus the fair, to distinguish him from his cousin, who was very dark. He had a frank, open face and kind manner; and if anyone in the neighbourhood wanted a favour done, his first thought was sure to be of Angus Bhan. His cousin Angus Dhu, or Angus the black, had a good reputation among people in general. He was honest and upright in his dealings, his word could be relied on; but his temper was uncertain, and his neighbours called him "close," and few of them would have thought of looking to Angus Dhu when they wanted a helping hand. When these two began life they were very much in the same circumstances. Their farms were alike as to the quality of the soil and as to the number of acres cleared and under cultivation. They were both free from debt, both strong men accustomed to farm-work, and both, in the opinion of their neighbours, had a fair chance of becoming rich, according to the idea of wealth entertained by these people. But when twenty years had passed away the affairs of the two men stood very differently. Angus Dhu had more than realised the expectations of his neighbours. He was rich--richer even than his neighbours supposed. More than half of his farm of two hundred acres was cleared and under cultivation. It was well stocked, well tilled, and very productive. Near the site of the log-house built by his father stood a comfortable farm-house of stone. All this his neighbours saw, and called him a prosperous man; and now and then they speculated together as to the amount of bank-stock to which he might justly lay claim. The world had not gone so well with Angus Bhan. There was not so much land under cultivation, neither was what he had so well cultivated as his cousin's. He had built a new house too, but he had been unfortunate as to the time chosen to build. Materials were dear, and a bad harvest or two put him sadly back in the world. He was obliged to run into debt, and the interest of the money borrowed from his cousin was an additional burden. He was not successful in the rearing of stock, and some heavy losses of cattle fell on him. Worse than all, his health began to fail, for then his courage failed too; and when there came to that part of the country rumours of wonderful discoveries of the precious metals in the western parts of the continent, he only faintly withstood the entreaties of his eldest son that he might be permitted to go away and search for gold among the mountains of California. His going away nearly broke his mother's heart; and some among the neighbours said it would have been far wiser for young Allister to stay at home and help his father to plough and sow and gather in the harvest, than to go so far and suffer so much for gold, which might be slow in coming, and which must be quick in going should sickness overtake him in the land of strangers. But the young are always hopeful, and Allister was sure of success; and he comforted his mother by telling her that in two or three years at most he could earn money enough to pay his father's debt to Angus Dhu, and then he would come home again, and they would all live happily together as before. So Allister went away, and left a sorrowful household behind. And there was another sorrowful household in Glengarry about that time. There was only _sorrow_ in the hearts of Angus Bhan and his wife when their first-born son went away; for he went with their consent, and carried their blessing with him. But there were sorrow and bitter anger in the heart of Angus Dhu when he came to know that his son had also gone away. He was not a man of many words, and he said little to anyone about his son; but in his heart he believed that he had been beguiled away by the son of Angus Bhan, and bitter resentment rose within him at the thought. A few months passed away, and there came a letter from Allister, written soon after his arrival in California. His cousin Evan Dhu was with him. They had done nothing to earn money as yet, but they were in high spirits, and full of hope that they would do great things. This letter gave much comfort to them all; but it was a long time before they heard from the wanderers again. In the meantime the affairs of Angus Bhan did not grow more prosperous. It became more and more difficult for him to pay the interest of his debt; and though his cousin seldom alluded in words to his obligation, he knew quite well that he would not abate a penny either of principal or interest when the time of payment came. A year passed away. No more letters came from Allister, and his father's courage grew fainter and fainter. There seemed little hope of his ever being able to pay his debt; and so, when Angus Dhu asked him to sell a part of his farm to him, he went home with a heavy heart to consult his wife about it. They agreed that something must be done at once; and so it was arranged that if Allister was not heard from, or if some other means of paying at least the interest did not offer before the spring, the hundred acres of their land that lay next to the farm of Angus Dhu should be given up to him. It was sad enough to have to do this; but Angus Bhan said to his wife,-- "If anything were to happen to me, you and the children would be far better with half the land free from debt, than with all burdened as it must be till Allister comes home." They did not say much to each other, but their hearts were very sore-- his, that he must give up the land left to him by his father; hers, for his sake, and also for the sake of her first-born son, a wanderer far away. That autumn, when the harvest was over, the second son, Lewis, set off with some young men of the place to join a company of lumberers, who were, as is their custom, to pass the winter in the woods. It was a time of great prosperity with lumber-merchants then, and good wages could be earned in their service. There was nothing to be done at home in the winter which his father, with the help of the younger children, could not do; and Lewis, who was eighteen, was eager to earn money to help at home, and eager also to enter into the new and, as he thought, the merry life in the woods. So Lewis went away, and there were left at home Hamish and Shenac, who were twins, Dan, Hugh, Colin, and little Flora, the youngest and dearest of them all. The anxieties of the parents were not suffered to sadden the lives of the children, and the little MacIvors Bhan were as merry young people as one could wish to see. Though they were not so prosperous, they were a far happier household than the MacIvors Dhu. There was the same number of children in each family; but Angus Dhu's children were most of them older than their cousins, and while Angus Bhan had six sons and two daughters, Angus Dhu had six daughters and two sons. "His cousin should have been a far richer man than he, with so many sons," Angus Dhu used to say grimly. But three of the boys of Angus Bhan were only children still, and one of them was a cripple. And as for the daughters of Angus Dhu, they had been as good as sons even for the farm-work, labouring in the fields, as is the custom for young women in this part of the country, as industriously and as efficiently as men--far more so, indeed, than their own brother Evan did; for he was often impatient of the closeness with which his father kept them all at work, and it was this, quite as much as his love of adventure and his wish to see the world, that made him go away at last. The two eldest daughters were married, and the third was living away from home; so, after Evan left, there were four in their father's house--three girls and Dan, the youngest of the family, who was twelve years of age. The children of these two families had always been good friends. Indeed, the younger children of Angus Dhu had more pleasure in the house of their father's cousin than in their own home; and many a winter evening they were in the habit of passing there. They had a very quiet winter after Lewis went away. There was less visiting and going about in the moonlight evenings than ever before; for the boys were all too young to go with them except Hamish, and he was a cripple, and not so well as usual this winter, and though the girls were quite able to take care of themselves, they had little pleasure in going alone. So Angus Dhu's girls used to take their knitting and their sewing to the other house, and they all amused themselves in the innocent, old-fashioned ways of that time. Shenac seldom went to visit her cousins; for, besides the fact that her father's house was the pleasantest meeting-place, her brother Hamish could not often go out at night, and she would rarely consent to leave him; and no one added so much to the general amusement as Hamish. He was very skilful at making puzzles and at all sorts of arithmetical questions, and not one of them could sing so many songs or tell so many stories as he. He was very merry and sweet-tempered too. His being a cripple, and different from all the rest, had not made him peevish and difficult to deal with as such misfortunes are so apt to do, and there was no one in all the world that Shenac loved so well as her twin-brother Hamish. I suppose I ought to describe Shenac more particularly, as my story is to be more about her than any of the other MacIvors. A good many years after the time of which I am now writing; I heard Shenac MacIvor--or, as English lips made it, Jane MacIvor--spoken of as a very beautiful woman (the Gaelic spelling is Sinec); but at this time I do not think it ever came into the mind of anybody to think whether she was beautiful or not. She had one attribute of beauty--perfect health. There never bloomed among the Scottish hills, which her father and mother only just remembered, roses and lilies more fresh and fair than bloomed on the happy face of Shenac, and her curls of golden brown were the admiration and envy of her dark haired cousins. They called little Flora a beauty, and a rose, and a precious darling; but of Shenac they said she was bright and good, and very helpful for a girl of her age; and her brother Hamish thought her the best girl in the world--indeed, quite without a fault, which was very far from being true. For Shenac had plenty of faults. She had a quick, hot temper, which, when roused, caused her to say many things which she ought not to have said. Hamish thought all those sharp words were quite atoned for by Shenac's quick and earnest repentance, but there is a sense in which it is true that hasty and unkind words can never be unsaid. Shenac liked her own way too in all things. This did not often make trouble, however; for she had learned her mother's household ways, and, indeed, had wonderful taste and talent for these matters. Being the only daughter of the house, except little Flora, and her mother not being very strong, Shenac had less to do in the fields than her cousins, and was busy and happy in the house, except in harvest-time, when even the little lads, her brothers, were expected to do their part there. Hamish and Shenac were very much alike, as twins very often are--that is, they were both fair, and had the same-coloured hair and eyes. But, while Shenac was rosy and strong, the very picture of health, her brother was thin and pale, and often of late there had been a look of pain on his face that it made his mother's heart ache to see. They were all in all to each other--Shenac and Hamish. They missed Lewis less on this account, and they knew very little of the troubles that so often made their father and mother anxious; and the first months of winter passed happily over them after Lewis went away. Christmas passed, and the new year came in. A few more pleasant weeks went by, and then there came terrible tidings to the house of Angus Bhan. Far away, on one of the rapids of the Grand River, a boat had been overturned. Three young men had been lost under the ice. The body of one had been recovered: it was the body of Lewis MacIvor. "We should be thankful that we can at least bring him home," said Angus Bhan to his wife, while she made preparations for his sad journey. But he said it with very pale, trembling lips, and his wife struggled to restrain the great burst of weeping that threatened to have way, that he might have the comfort of thinking that she was bearing her trouble well. But when she was left alone all these sad days of waiting, she was ready to say, in the bitterness of her heart, that there was no sorrow like her sorrow. One son was a wanderer, another was dead, and on the face of the dearly-beloved Hamish was settling the look of habitual suffering, so painful to see. Her cup of sorrow was full to the brim, she declared, but she knew not what she said. For, when a few days had passed, there were brought home for burial two dead bodies instead of one. Her husband was no more. He had nearly accomplished his sorrowful errand, when death overtook him. He had complained to the friend who was with him of feeling cold, and had left the sleigh to walk a mile or two to warm himself. They waited in vain for him at the next resting-place, and when they went back to look for him they found him lying with his face in the snow, quite dead. He had not died from cold, the doctor said, but from heart-disease, and probably without suffering; and this comfort the bereaved widow tried to take to herself. But her cup of sorrow was not full yet. The very night before the burial was to be, the house caught fire and burned to the ground. It was with difficulty that the few neighbours who gathered in time to help could save the closed coffins from the flames; and it seemed a small matter, at the time, that nearly all their household stuff was lost. The mother's cup _did_ seem full now. I do not think that the coming of any trouble, however great, could at this time have added to her grief. She had striven to be submissive under the repeated strokes that had fallen upon her, but the horrors of that night were too much for her, weakened as she was by sorrow. For a time she was quite distracted, heeding little the kind efforts of her neighbours to alleviate her distress and the distress of her children. All that kind hearts and willing hands could do was done for them. The log house which their grandfather had built still stood. It was repaired, and filled with gifts from every family in the neighbourhood, and the widow and her children found refuge there. "Oh, what a sad beginning for a story!" I think some of my young readers may say, in tones of disappointment. It is indeed a sad beginning, but every sorrowful word is true. Every day there are just such sorrowful events happening in the world, though it is not often that trouble falls so heavily at once on any household. I might have left all this out of my story; but then no one could have understood so well the nature of the work that fell to Shenac, or have known the difficulties she had to overcome in trying to do it well. CHAPTER TWO. It was May-day. Oftentimes in the northern country this month is ushered in by drizzling rain, or even by the falling snow; but this year brought a May-day worthy of the name--clear, mild, and balmy. There was not a cloud in all the sky, nor wind enough to stir the catkins hanging close over the waters of the creek. The last days of April had been warm and bright, and there was a tender green on the low-lying fields, and on the poplars that fringed the wood; and the boughs of the maple-trees in the sugar-bush looked purple and brown over the great grey trunks. There is never a May-day when some flowers cannot be found beneath these trees, and in the warm hollows along the margin of the creek; but this year there were more than a few. Besides the pale little "spring flower," which hardly waits for the snow to go away before it shows itself, there were daffodils and anemones and wake-robins, and from the lapful which little Flora MacIvor sat holding on the bank close beside the great willow peeped forth violets, blue and white. There were lady-slippers too somewhere not far away, Flora was sure, if only Dan or Hughie could be persuaded to look for them a little farther down the creek, in the damp ground under the cedars, where she had promised her mother she would not go. But the lads had something else to do than to look for flowers for Flora. Down the creek, which was broad and full because of the melting snow, a number of great cedar chips were floating. Past the foot-bridge, and past the eddy by the great rock, and over the pool into which the creek widened by the old ashery, the mimic fleet sailed safely; while the lads shouted and ran, and strove by the help of long sticks to pilot them all into the little cove by the willow where little Flora was sitting, till even the flower-loving little maiden forgot her treasures, and grew excited like the rest. You would never have thought, looking at those bright faces, that heavy trouble had been in their home for months. Listening to their merry, voices, you would never have imagined that there were, in some hearts that loved them, grave doubts whether for the future they were to have a home together or no. But so it was. Higher up the bank, where the old ashery used to stand, Shenac and Hamish were sitting. The triumphant shout with which the last and largest of the boats was landed, startled them out of the silence in which they had been musing, and the girl said sadly,-- "Children forget so soon!" Hamish made no answer. He was not watching the little sailors. His face was quite turned away from them, and looked gloomy and troubled enough. The girl watched a moment anxiously; and then turning her eyes where his had been for some time resting, she cried passionately,-- "I wish a fire would break out and burn it to ashes, every stick!" "What would be the good of that? Angus Dhu would put it all up again," said Hamish bitterly. "He might save himself the trouble, though. He means to have _all_ the land shortly." They were watching the progress of a fence of great cedar rails which three or four men were building; and no wonder they watched it with vexation, for it went from line to line, dividing in two parts the land that had belonged to their father. He was dead now, and their brother Allister was far away, they knew not where, in search of gold; and there was no one now, besides themselves, except their mother, and the little ones who were so thoughtless, making merry with the great cedar chips which Angus Dhu sent, floating down the stream. "Nobody but you and me to do anything; and what can _we_ do?" continued the lad with a desponding gesture. "And my mother scarcely seems to care to try." "Whisht, Hamish dear; there's no wonder," said Shenac in a low voice. "But about the land. Angus Dhu can never get it surely!" "He has gotten the half of it already. Who is to hinder his getting the rest?" said Hamish. "And he might as well have it. What can _we_ do with it?" "Was it wrong for him to take it, do you think, Hamish?" asked Shenac gravely. "Not in law. Angus Dhu would never do what is unlawful. But he was hard on my father, and he says--" Hamish paused to ask himself whether it was worth while to vex Shenac with the unkind words of Angus Dhu. But Shenac would not be denied the knowledge. "What was it, Hamish? He would never dare to say a light word of our father. Did you not then and there show him the door?" Shenac's blue eye flashed. She was quite capable of doing that and more to vindicate her father's memory. "Whisht, Shenac," said Hamish. "Angus Dhu loved my father, though he was hard on him. There were tears in his eyes when he spoke to my mother about him. But he says that the half of the land is justly his, for money that my father borrowed at different times, and for the interest which he could not pay. And he wants to buy the other half; for he says we can never carry on the farm, and I am afraid he is right," added the lad despondingly. "And what would become of us all?" asked Shenac, her cheeks growing pale in the pain and surprise of the moment. "He would put out the money in such a way that it would bring an income to my mother, who could live here still, with Colin and little Flora. He says he will take Dan to keep till he is of age, and Elder McMillan will take Hugh. You are old enough to do for yourself, he says; and as for me--" He turned away, so that his sister might not see the working of his face. But Shenac was thinking of something else, and did not notice him. "But, Hamish, we have written to Allister, and he will be sure to come home when he hears what has happened to us." Hamish shook his head. "Black Angus says Allister will never come back. He says he was an unsettled lad before he went away. And, Shenac, he says our Allister beguiled Evan, or he never would have left home. He looked black when he said it. He was angry." Shenac's eyes blazed again. "Our Allister unsettled--he that went away for our father's sake, and for us all! Our Allister to beguile Evan, that wild lad! And you sat and heard him say it, Hamish!" "What else could I do?" said Hamish bitterly. "And my mother?" said Shenac. "She could only cry, and say that Allister had always been a good son to her and to my father, and a dear brother to us all." There was a long pause. Shenac never removed her eyes from the men, who were gradually drawing nearer and nearer, as one after another of the great cedar rails was laid on the foundation of logs and stones already prepared for them along the field; and anger gathered in her heart and showed itself in her face as she gazed. Hamish had turned quite away from the fence and from his sister, towards the creek where his brothers were still shouting at their play. But he was not thinking of his brothers; he did not see them, indeed. He made an effort to keep back the tears, which, in spite of all he could do, would flow. If Shenac had spoken to him, they must have gushed out; but he had time to force them back before Shenac turned away with an angry gesture. "It's of no use, Shenac," he said then. "There's reason in what Angus Dhu says. We will have to give up the farm." "Hamish, that shall never be done!" said Shenac. "It would break my mother's heart." "It seems broken already," said Hamish hoarsely. "And it is easy to say the land must be kept. But what can we do with it? Who is to work it?" "You and I and the little lads," cried Shenac. "There is no fear. God will help us," she added reverently--"the widow and orphan's God. Hamish, don't you mind?" Hamish had no voice with which to answer for a moment; but in a little while he said with some difficulty,-- "It is easy for _you_ to say what you will do, Shenac--you who are strong and well; but look at me! I am not getting stronger, as we always hoped. What could I do at the plough? I had better go to some town, as Angus Dhu advised my mother, and learn to make shoes." "Oh, but he's fine at making plans, that Angus Dhu," said Shenac scornfully. "But we'll need to tell him that we're for none of his help. Hamish," she added, suddenly stooping down over him, "do you think any plan made to separate you and me will prosper? I think I see black Angus coming between you and me with his plans." Her words and her caress were quite too much for Hamish, and he surprised himself and her too by a sudden burst of tears. The sight of this banished Shenac's softness in a moment. She raised herself from her stooping posture with an angry cry. Separated from the rest of the fence-makers, and approaching the knoll where the brother and sister had, been sitting, were two men. One was Angus Dhu, and the other was his friend, and a relation of his wife, Elder McMillan. He was a good man, people said, but one who liked to move on with the current,--one who went for peace at all risks, and so forgot sometimes that purity was to be set before even peace. There was nothing in Shenac's knowledge of the man to make her afraid of him, and she took three steps towards them, and said,-- "Angus Dhu, do you mind what the Bible says of them that oppress the widow and the fatherless? Have you forgotten the verse that says, `Remove not the ancient land-mark'?" She stopped, as if waiting for an answer. The two men stood still from sheer surprise, and looked at her. Shenac continued:-- "And do you mind what's said of them that add field to field? and--" "Shenac, my woman," said the elder at last, "it's no becoming in you to speak in that kind of a way to one older than your father was. I doubt you're forgetting--" But Shenac put his words aside with a gesture of indifference. "And to speak false words of our Allister to his mother in her trouble as though he had led your wild lad Evan astray. You little know what our Allister saved him from more than once. But that is not for to-day. I have this to, say to you, Angus Dhu: you must be content with the half you have gotten; for not another acre of my father's land shall ever be yours, though all the elders in Glengarry stood at your back.--I will not whisht, Hamish. He is to know that he is not to meddle between my mother and me. It's not or the like of Angus Dhu to say that my mother's children shall be taken from her in her trouble. Our affairs may be bad enough, but they'll be none the better for your meddling in them." "Shenac," entreated Hamish, "you'll be sorry for speaking that way to our father's cousin." "Our father's oppressor rather," she insisted scornfully. But she had said her say; and, besides, the lads and little Flora had heard their voices, and were drawing near. "Children," said Shenac, "you are to come home. And mind, you are not to set foot on this bank again without our mother's leave. It's Angus Dhu's land now, he says, and not ours." The creek--that part of it near which the willows grew, and where the old ashery used to stand--had been their daily resort every summer-day all their lives; and they all looked at her with astonishment and dismay, but none of them spoke. "Come home to our mother, boys.--Flora, come home." And Shenac lifted her little sister over the foundation of great stones, and beckoned to the boys to follow her. "Come, Hamish, it's time we were home." And Hamish obeyed her as silently as the rest had done. "Hamish," said the elder, "speak here, man. You have some sense, and tales such as yon wild girl is like to tell may do your father's cousin much harm." In his heart Hamish knew Shenac to be foolish and wrong to speak as she had done, but he was true to her all the same, and would hold no parley with the enemy. So he gave no heed to the elder's words, but followed the rest through the field. Shenac's steps grew slower as they approached the house. "Hamish," she said a little shamefacedly, "there will be no use vexing our mother by telling her all this." "That's true enough," said Hamish. "But mind, Hamish, I'm not sorry that I said it. I have aye meant to say something to Angus Dhu about the land; though I daresay it would have been as well to say it when that clattering body, Elder McMillan, was out of hearing." "And John and Rory McLean," murmured Hamish. "Hamish, man, they never could have heard. Not that I am caring," continued Shenac. "It's true that Angus Dhu has gotten half our father's land, and that he is seeking the other half; but _that_ he'll never get--_never_!" And she flashed an angry glance towards the spot where the men were still standing. Hamish knew it was always best to leave his sister till her anger cooled, so he said nothing in reply. He grieved for the loss of the land as much as Shenac did, but he did not resent it like her. Though he believed that Angus Dhu had been hard on his father, he did not believe that he had dealt unjustly by him. And he was right. Even in taking half the land he had taken only what he believed to be his due, and in wishing to possess himself, of the rest, he believed he was about to do a kindness to the widow and children of his dead cousin. He believed they could never get their living from the land. They must give it up, he thought; and it was far better that it should fall into his hands than into the hands of a stranger. Had his cousin lived, he would never have wished for the land; and he said to himself that he would do much for them all, and that the widow and orphans should never suffer while he could befriend them. At the same time, he could not deny that he would be glad to get the land. When Evan came home, it might keep the lad near him to have this farm ready for him. He had allowed himself to think a great deal about this of late. He would not confess to himself that any part of the uncomfortable feelings that Shenac's outbreak had stirred within him sprang from disappointment. But he was mistaken. For when the girl planted her foot on the other side of the new fence, and looked back at him defiantly, he felt that she would make good her word, and hold the land, at least, until Allister came home. He did not care much what the neighbours might say about him; but he told Elder McMillan that he cared, and that doubtless yon wild girl would have plenty: to say about things she did not understand, and that she would get ill-minded folks enough to hearken to her and to urge her on. And he tried to make himself believe that it was this, and nothing else, that vexed him in the matter. "And what's to be done?" asked the elder uneasily, as Shenac and the rest disappeared. "Done!" repeated his friend angrily. "_I_ shall do nought. If they can go on by themselves, all the better. I shall be well pleased. Why should I seek to have the land?" "Why, indeed?" said the elder. "I shall neither make nor meddle in their affairs, till I am asked to do it," continued Angus Dhu; but the look on his face said, as plainly as words could have done, "and it will not be very long before that will happen." But he made a mistake, as even wise men will sometimes do. CHAPTER THREE. I am glad to say that Shenac did not let the sun go down on her wrath. Indeed, long before sunset she was heartily ashamed of her outbreak towards Angus Dhu, and acknowledged as much to Hamish. Not that she believed he had acted justly and kindly in his past dealings with her father; nor was she satisfied that the future interests of the family would be safe in his hands. Even while acknowledging how wrong and foolish she had been in speaking as she had done, she declared to Hamish that Angus Dhu should neither "make nor meddle" in their affairs. They must cling together, and do the best they could, till Allister should come home, whatever Angus Dhu might say. That her mother might yield to persuasion on this point, she thought possible; for the widow had lost courage, and saw only the darker side of their affairs. But Shenac stoutly declared that day to Hamish that no one should be suffered to persuade her mother to the breaking of her heart. No one had a right to interfere in their affairs further than should be welcome to them all. For her part, she was not afraid of Angus Dhu, nor of Elder McMillan, nor of any one else, when it came to the question of breaking up their home and sending them, one here and another there, away from the mother. Shenac felt very strong and brave as she said all this to Hamish; and yet when, as it was growing dark that night, she saw Elder McMillan opening their gate, her first impulse was to run away. She did not, however, but said to herself, "Now is the time to stand by my mother, and help her to resist the elder's efforts to get little Hugh away from us." Besides, she could not go away without being seen, and it would look cowardly; so she placed herself behind the little wheel which the mother had left for a moment, and when the elder came in she was as busy and as quiet as (in his frequently-expressed opinion) it was the bounden duty of all young women to be. Now, there was nothing in the whole round of Shenac's duties so distasteful to her as spinning on the little wheel. The constant and unexciting employment for hands and mind that spinning afforded, and perhaps the pleasant monotony of the familiar humming of the wheel, always exerted a soothing influence on the mother; and one of the first things that had given them hope of her recovery after the shock of the burning of the house was her voluntary bringing out of the wheel. But it was very different with Shenac. The strength and energy so invaluable to her in her household work or her work in the fields were of no avail to her here. To sit following patiently and constantly the gradual forming and twisting of the thread, did not suit her as it did her mother; and watchful and excited as she was that night, she could hardly sit quiet while the elder went through his usual salutations to her mother and the rest. He was in no haste to make known his errand, if he had one, and he was in no haste to go. He spoke in slow, unwilling sentences, as he had done many times before, of the mysterious dealings of Providence with the family, making long pauses between. And through his talk and his silence the widow sat shedding a few quiet tears in the dark, and now and then uttering a word of reply. What was the good of it all Shenac would have liked to shake him, and to bid him "say his say" and go; but the elder seemed to have no say, at least concerning Hugh. He went slowly through his accustomed round of condolence with her mother and advice to the boys and Shenac, and, as he rose to go, added something about a bee which some of the neighbours had been planning to help the widow with the ploughing and sowing of her land, and then he went away. "Some of the neighbours," repeated Shenac in a whisper to her brother. "That's the elder's way of heaping coals on my head--good man!" "What do you suppose the elder cares about a girl like you, or Angus Dhu either?" asked Hamish with a shrug. Shenac laughed, but had no time to answer. "I was afraid it might be about wee Hughie that the elder wanted to speak," said the mother with a sigh of relief as she came in from the door, where she had bidden the visitor good-night. "And what about Hughie?" asked Shenac, resuming her spinning. She knew very well what about him; but her mother had not told her, and this was as good a way as any to begin about their plans for the summer. Instead of answering her question, the mother said, after a moment's silence,-- "He's a good man, Elder McMillan." "Oh yes, I daresay he's a good man," said Shenac with some sharpness; "but that's no reason why he should want to have our Hughie." The little boys were all in bed by this time, and Hamish and Shenac were alone with their mother. After a little impatient twitching of her thread, Shenac put aside her wheel, swept up the hearth, and moved about putting things in order in the room, and then she came and sat down beside her mother. She did not speak, however; she did not know what to say. Any allusion to the summer's work was almost surer to make her mother shed tears, and Shenac could not bear to grieve her. She darted an impatient glance at Hamish, who seemed to have no intention of helping her to-night. He was sitting with his face upon his hands, just as he had been sitting through the elder's visit, and Shenac could not catch his eye. It seemed wrong to risk the bringing on of a wakeful, moaning, miserable night to her mother; and she was thinking she would say no more till morning, when her mother spoke again. "Yes, Elder McMillan is a good man. I would not be afraid for Hugh, and he would be near at hand." "Yes," said Shenac, making an effort to speak quietly, "if Hugh must go, he might as well go to Elder McMillan's as anywhere--" She stopped. "And Dan needs a firm hand, they say," continued the mother, her voice breaking a little; "but I'm afraid for him. Angus Dhu is a stern man, and Dan has been used to a hand gentle as well as firm. But he would not be far away." Shenac broke out impatiently,-- "Angus Dhu's hand was not firm enough to keep his own son at home, and he could never guide our Dan. Mother, never heed them that tell you any ill of Dan. Has he ever disobeyed you once since--since then?" Shenac's voice failed a little, then she went on again, "Why should Dan go away, or any of us? Why can't we bide all together, and do the best we can, till Allister comes home?" "But that must be a long time yet, if he ever comes," said the mother, sighing. "Yes, it may be long," said Shenac eagerly. "Of course it cannot be for the spring work, and maybe not for the harvest, but he's sure to come, mother; and think of Allister coming and finding no home! Yes, I know you are to bide here; but the land would be gone, and it would be no home long to Allister or any of us without the land. Angus Dhu should be content with what he's got," continued Shenac bitterly. "Allister will never be content to let my father's land go out of our hands; and Angus Dhu promised my father to give it up to Allister. Mother, we must do nothing till Allister comes home.--Hamish, why don't you tell my mother to wait till Allister comes home?" "Till Allister comes home! When Allister comes home!" This had been the burden of all Shenac's comforting to her mother, even when she could take no comfort from it herself. For a year seemed a long time to Shenac; but three months of the year had passed already, and surely, surely Allister would come. Hamish raised his face as Shenac appealed to him, but it was anything but a hopeful face, and Shenac was glad that her mother was looking the other way. "But what are we to do in the meantime?" he asked, and his voice was as little hopeful as his face. For a moment Shenac was indignant at her brother. It would need the courage of both to make the future look otherwise than dark to their mother, and she thought Hamish was going to fail her. She was growing very eager; but she knew that the quick, hot words that might carry Hamish with her would have no force with her mother, and she put a strong restraint on herself, and said quietly,-- "We can manage through the summer, mother. The wheat was sown in the fall, you know, and the elder said we were to have a bee next week for the oats, and we can do the rest ourselves--Hamish and Dan and I--till Allister comes home." "It would be a hard fight for you all," said the mother despondingly. "You should say Dan and you and little Hugh and Colin," said Hamish bitterly. "They could help far more than I can, unless I am much better than I am now." And then he dropped his head on his hands again. Shenac rose suddenly and placed herself between him and her mother, and then she said quietly,-- "And, mother, the elder thinks we can do it, or he wouldn't have spoken about the bee. Nobody can think it right that Angus Dhu should take our father's land from us; and the elder said nothing about Hugh; and Dan would never bide with Angus Dhu and work our father's land for him. Never! never! Mother, we must try what we can do till Allister comes home." There was not much said after that. There was no decision in words as to their plans, but Shenac knew they were to make a trial of the summer's work--she and her brothers--and she was content. There were but two rooms downstairs in the little log house, and the mother and Flora slept in the one in which they had been sitting. So when Hamish came back from looking whether the gates and barn-doors were safely shut, he found Shenac, who had much to say to him, waiting for him outside. "Hamish," she said eagerly, "what ails you? Why did you not speak to my mother and tell her what we ought to do? Hamish," she added, putting out her hand to detain him as he tried to pass her--"Hamish, speak to me. What ails you to-night, Hamish?" "What right have I to tell my mother--I, who can do nothing?" He shook off her detaining hand as if he was angry; but there was a sound of tears in his voice, and Shenac's momentary feeling of offence was gone. She would not be shaken off, and putting her arms round his neck she held him fast. He did not try to free himself after the first moment, but he turned away his face. "Hamish," she repeated, "what is it? Don't you think we can manage to keep together till Allister comes home? Is it that, Hamish? Tell me what you think it is right for us to do." "It is not that, Shenac; and I have no right to say anything--I, who can do nothing." "Hamish!" exclaimed his sister, in a tone in which surprise and pain were mingled. "If I were like the rest," continued Hamish--"I, who am the eldest; but even Dan can do more than I can. You must not think of me, Shenac, in your plans." For a moment Shenac was silent from astonishment; this was so unlike the cheerful spirit of Hamish. Then she said,-- "Hamish, the work is not all. What could Dan or any of us do without you to plan for us? We are the hands, you are the head." Hamish made an impatient movement. "Allister would be head and hands too," he said bitterly. "But, Hamish, you are not Allister; you are Hamish, just as you have always been. You are not surely going to fail our mother now--you, who have done more than all of us put together to comfort her since then?" Hamish made no answer. "It is wrong for you to look at it in that way, Hamish," continued Shenac. "I once heard my father say that though you were lame, God might have higher work for you to do than for any of the rest of us. I did not know what he meant then, but I know now." "Hush! don't, Shenac," said Hamish. "No; I must speak, Hamish. It is not right to fret because the work you have to do is not just the work you would choose. And you'll break my heart if you vex yourself about--because you are not like the rest. Not one of us all is so dear to my mother and the rest as you are; you know _that_, Hamish. And why should you think of this now, more than before?" "Shenac, I have been a child till now, thinking of nothing. My looking forward was but the dreaming of idle dreams. I have wakened since my father died--wakened to find myself useless, a burden, with so much to be done." "Hamish," said Shenac gravely, "that is not true, and it's foolish, besides. If you _were_ useless--blind as well as lame--if you were as cankered and ill to do with as you are mild and sweet, there would be no question of burden, because you are one of us, our own. If you were thinking of Angus Dhu, you might speak of burdens; but it is nonsense to say that to me. You know that you are more to my mother than any of us, and you are more to me than all my brothers put together; but I need not tell you _that_. Hamish, if it had not been for you, I think my mother must have died. What is Dan, or what am I, in comparison to you? Hamish, you must take heart and be strong, for all our sakes." They were sitting on the doorstep by this time, and Shenac laid her head on her brother's shoulder as she spoke. "I know I am all wrong, Shenac. I know I ought to be content as I am," said Hamish at last, but he could say no more. Shenac's heart filled with love and pity unspeakable. She would have given him her health and strength, and would have taken up his burden of weakness and deformity to bear them henceforth for his sake. But she did not tell him so; where would have been the good? She sat quite still, only stroking his hand now and then, till he spoke again. "Perhaps I am wrong to speak to you about it, Shenac, but I seem to myself to be quite changed; I seem to have nothing to look forward to. If it had been me who was taken instead of Lewis." "Hamish," said Shenac gravely, "it is not saying it to me that is wrong, but thinking it. And why should you have nothing to look forward to? We are young. A year seems a long time; but it will pass, and when Allister comes home, and we are prosperous again, it will be with you as it would have been if my father had lived. You will get to your books again, and learn and grow a wise man; and what will it signify that you are little and lame, when you have all the honour that wisdom wins? Of course all these sad changes are worse for you than for the rest. _We_ will only have to work a little harder, but your life is quite changed; and, Hamish, it will only be for a little while, till Allister comes home." "But, Shenac," said Hamish eagerly, "you are not to think I mind _that_ most; I am not so bad as that. If I were strong--if I were like the rest--I would like nothing so well as to labour always for my mother and you all; but I can do little." "Yes, I know," said Shenac; "but Dan can do that, and so can I But your work will be different--far higher and nobler than ours. Only you must not be impatient because you are hindered a little just now. Hamish, bhodach, what is a year out of a whole lifetime? Never fear, you will find your true work in time." "Bhodach" is "old man" in the language in which these children were speaking. But on Shenac's lips it meant every sweet and tender name; and, listening to her, Hamish forgot his troubles, or looked beyond them, and his spirit grew bright and trustful again--peaceful for that night at least. The shadow fell on him many a time again; but it never fell so darkly but that the sunshine of his sister's face had power to chase it away, till, by-and-by, there fell on both the light before which all shadows for ever and for ever flee away. CHAPTER FOUR. And so, with a good heart, they began their work. I daresay it would be amusing to some of my young readers if I were to go into particulars, and tell them all that was done by each from day to day; but I have no time nor space for this. The bee was a very successful one. As everybody knows, a bee is a collection of the neighbours to help to do in one day work which it would take one or two persons a long time to do. It is not usually to do such work as ploughing or sowing that bees are had; but all the neighbours were glad to help the Widow MacIvor with her spring work, and so two large fields, one of oats and another of barley, were in those two days ploughed and harrowed, and sowed and harrowed again. Shenac was not quite at her ease about the bee, partly because she thought it had been the doing of Angus Dhu and the elder, and partly because she felt if they were to be kept together they must depend, not on their neighbours, but upon themselves. But it was well they had this help, for the young people were quite inexperienced in such work as ploughing and sowing, and the summers are so short in Canada that a week or two sooner or later makes a great difference in the sowing of the seed. There was enough left for Shenac and her brothers to keep them busy from sunrise to sunset, during the months of May and June. There was the planting of potatoes and corn, and the sowing of carrots and turnips; and then there was the hoeing and keeping them all free from weeds. There was also the making of the garden, and the keeping of it in order when it was made. This had always been more the work of Hamish than of any of the rest, and he made it his work still; and though he was not so strong as he used to be, there never had been so much pains taken with the garden before. Everybody knows what comfort for a family comes out of a well-kept garden, even though there may be only the common vegetables and very little fruit in it; and Hamish made the most of theirs that summer, and so did they all. It must not be supposed that because Shenac was a girl she had no part in the field-work. Even now, in that part of the country, the wives and daughters of farmers help their fathers and brothers during the busy seasons of spring and harvest; and for many years after the opening up of the country the females helped to clear the land, putting their hands to all kinds of out-door work as cheerfully as need be. As for Shenac, she would have scorned the idea that there was any work that her brothers could do for which they had not the strength and skill. Indeed, Shenac had her full share of the field-work, and much to do in the house besides. The mother was not strong yet, either in mind or body: she would never be strong again, Shenac sometimes feared, and she must be saved as far as possible from all care and anxiety. So the heaviest of the household work fell to Shenac. They had not a large dairy, and never could have again; for the greater part of their pasture and mowing land lay on the wrong side of the high cedar fence so hotly resented by the children. But the three cows which they had were her peculiar care. She milked them morning and evening, and, when the days were longest, at noon too; and though her mother prepared the dishes for the milk and skimmed the cream, Shenac always made the butter, because churning needed strength as well as skill; and oftener than otherwise it was done before she called her brothers in the morning. Much may be accomplished in a short time by a quick eye and a ready hand, and Shenac had both. The minutes after meal-time which her brothers took for rest, or for lingering about to talk together, she filled with the numberless items of household work which seem little in the doing, but which being left undone bring all things into disorder. When any number of persons are brought together in circumstances where decision and action become necessary, the leadership will naturally fall on the one among them who is best fitted by natural gifts or acquired knowledge to assume responsibility. It is the same in families where the head has been suddenly removed. Quite unconsciously to herself, Shenac assumed the leadership in the household; and it was well for her brothers that she had duties within-doors as well as in the fields. There were days in these months of May and June which were not half long enough for the accomplishment of her plans and wishes. I am afraid that at such times the strength of Hamish and the patience of Dan must have given out before she found it too dark to go on with their labours. But the thought of the mother, weary with the work at home, made her shorten the day to her brothers and lengthen it to herself. One of Shenac's faults was a tendency to go to extremes in all things that interested her. She had made up her mind that the summer's work must be successful; and to insure success all other things must be made to yield. It was easy for her to forget the weakness of Hamish, for he was only too willing to forget it himself; and as for Dan, though there was some truth in Angus Dhu's assertion to his mother that "he was a wild lad, and needed a firm hand to guide him," he gave no tokens of breaking away as yet. Shenac had so impressed him with the idea that they must keep the farm as their own, and show the neighbours that they could keep it in order, that to him every successful day's work seemed a triumph over Angus Dhu as well as over circumstances. His industry was quite of his own free will, as he believed, and he gave Shenac none of the credit of keeping him busy, and indeed she took none of the credit to herself. In her determination to do the most that could be done, she might have forgotten her mother's comfort too; but this was not permitted. For if the mother tired herself with work, or if she saw anything forgotten or neglected in the house, she became fretful and desponding, and against this Shenac always strove to guard. If Shenac were ever so tired at night, it rested her to turn back to look over the fields beginning to grow green and beautiful under their hands. They worked in those days to some purpose, everybody acknowledged. In no neighbourhood, far or near, were the fields better worth looking at than those that had been so faithfully gone over by Shenac and her brothers. Many a farmer paused, in passing, to admire them, saying to himself that the Widow MacIvor's children were a credit to her and to themselves; and few were so churlish as to refrain from speaking a word of encouragement to them when an opportunity came. Even Angus Dhu gave many a glance of wonder and pleasure over his cedar rails, and gave them credit for having done more than well. He was very glad. He said so to himself, and he said so to his neighbours. And I believe he was glad, in a way. He was too good a farmer not to take pleasure in seeing land made the most of; and I think he was glad, too, to see the children of his dead friend and cousin capable of doing so well for themselves. It is just possible that deep down in his heart, unknown or unacknowledged to himself, there lurked a hope that when Shenac should marry, as he thought she was sure to do, and when wild Dan should have gone away, as his brothers had done before him, those well-tilled fields might still become his. Perhaps I am wrong, and hard upon him, as Shenac was. She gave him no credit for his kind thoughts, but used to say to her brothers, when she caught a glimpse of his face over the fence,-- "There stands Angus Dhu, glowering and glooming at us. He's not praying for summer rain on our behalf, I'll warrant.--Oh well, Angus man, we'll do without your prayers, as we do without your help, and as you'll have to do without our land. Make the most of what you have got, and be content." "Shenac," said Hamish on one of these occasions, "you're hard on Angus Dhu." "Am I, Hamish?" said Shenac, laughing. "Well, maybe I am; but it will not harm him, I daresay." "But it may harm yourself, Shenac," said Hamish gravely. "I think I would rather lose all the work we have done this spring than have it said that our Shenac was bearing false witness against our neighbour, and he of our own kin, too." "Nobody would dare to say that of me," said Shenac, reddening. "But if it is true, what is the difference whether it is said or not?" said Hamish. "You seem more glad of our success because you think it vexes Angus Dhu, than because it pleases our mother and keeps us all at home together. It does not vex him, I'm sure of that; and, whether it does or not, it is wrong for you always to be thinking and saying it. You are not to be grieved or angry at my saying it, Shenac." But both grieved and angry Shenac was at her brother's reproof. She did not know which was greater, her anger or her grief. She did not trust herself to answer him, and in a little time Hamish spoke again:-- "It cannot harm him--at least, I think it cannot really harm him, though it may vex him; and I'm sure it must grieve the girls to hear that you say such things about their father. But that is not what I was thinking about. It must harm yourself most. You are growing hard and bitter. You are not like yourself, Shenac, when you speak of Angus Dhu." The sting of her brother's words was in the last sentence, but it was the first part that Shenac answered. "You know very well, Hamish, that I never speak of Angus Dhu except to you--not even to my mother." "You have spoken to Dan--at least, you have spoken in his hearing. What do you think I heard him saying the other day to Shenac yonder?" "Shenac yonder" was the youngest daughter of Angus Dhu, so called by the brothers to distinguish her from their sister, who was "our Shenac" to them. Other people distinguished between the cousins as they had between the fathers. One was Shenac Bhan; the other, Shenac Dhu. "I don't know," said Shenac, startled. "What was it?" "Something like what you were saying to me just now. You may think how Shenac's black eyes looked when she heard him." Shenac was shocked. "She would not mind what Dan said." "No. It was only when Dan told her that _you_ said it that she seemed to mind," said Hamish gravely. "Dan had no business to tell her," said Shenac hotly; then she paused. "No," said Hamish; "I told him that." "I'll give him a hearing," began Shenac. "I think, Shenac, you should say nothing to Dan about it," said Hamish. "Only take care never to say more than you think before the little ones, or indeed before any one again. You may vex Angus Dhu, and Shenac yonder, and the rest, but the real harm is done to us at home, and especially to yourself, Shenac; for you no more believe that Angus Dhu is a robber--the oppressor of the widow and the fatherless--than I do." Shenac uttered an exclamation of impatience. "I shall give it to Dan." "No, Shenac, you will not. Dan must be carefully dealt with. He has a strong will of his own, and if it comes into his mind that you or any one, except our mother, is trying to govern him, he'll slip through our fingers some fine day." "You've been taking a leaf out of Angus Dhu's book. There's no fear of Dan," said Shenac. "There's no fear of him as long as he thinks he's pleasing himself, and that his sister is the best and the wisest girl to be found," said Hamish. "But if it were to come to a trial of strength between you, Dan would be sure to win." Shenac was silent. She knew it would not be well to risk her influence over Dan by a struggle of any sort. But she was very angry with him. "He might have had more sense," she said, after a moment. "And indeed, Shenac, so might you," said Hamish gravely. "There should be no more said about Angus Dhu, for his sake and ours. He has been very friendly to us this summer, considering all things." "Considering what I said to him, you mean," said Shenac sharply. "I was sorry for that as soon as I said it. But, Hamish, if you think I'm going down on my knees to Angus Dhu to tell him so, you're mistaken. He may not be a thief and a robber, but he's a dour carle, though he is of our own kin, and as different from our father as the dark is different from the day. And I can say nothing else of him, even for your sake, Hamish." "It is not for my sake that I am speaking, Shenac, but for your own. You are doing yourself a great wrong, cherishing this bitterness in your heart." Shenac was too much grieved and too angry to speak. She knew very well that she was neither very good nor very wise; but it had hitherto been her great pleasure in life to know that Hamish thought her so, and his words were very painful to her. She was vexed with him, and with Dan, and with all the world. Above all, she was vexed with herself. She would not confess it, but in her heart she knew that a little of the zest would be taken from their labours if she were sure that their success would not be a source of vexation to Angus Dhu. And then Hamish had said she was injuring Dan--encouraging him in what was wrong-- perhaps risking her influence for good over him. The longer she thought about all this, the more unhappy she became. "Bearing false witness!" she repeated. It was a great sin she had been committing. It had been done thoughtlessly, but it was none the less a sin for that, Shenac knew. Hamish was right. She was growing very hard and wicked; and no wonder that he had come to think so meanly of her. Shenac said all this to herself, with many sorrowful and some angry tears. But the anger passed away before the sorrow. There were no confessions made openly; but, whatever may have been her secret thoughts of Angus Dhu, neither Dan nor Hamish nor anybody else ever heard Shenac speak a disrespectful word of him again. Dan never got the "hearing" with which she had threatened him. She checked him more than once, when in the old way he began to remark on the evident interest that their father's cousin took in their work; but she did it gently, remembering her own fault. The intercourse which had almost ceased between the families was gradually renewed--at least, between the younger ones. Shenac could not bring herself to go often to her cousins' house. She always felt, as she said to Hamish, as though Angus Dhu "eyed her" at such times. And, besides, she was too busy to go there or anywhere else. But her cousins came often to see her when the day's work was over; and Shenac, the youngest, who was her father's favourite, and who could take liberties that none of the others could have done at her age, came at other times. She was older than our Shenac by a year or so; but she was little and merry, and her jet-black hair was cut close to her head like a child's, so she seemed much younger. She could not come too often. She was equally welcome to the grave, quiet Hamish and the boyish Dan, and more welcome to Shenac than to either. For she never hindered work, but helped it rather. She brought the news, too, and fought hot, merry battles with the lads, and for the time shook even Hamish out of the grave ways that were becoming habitual to him, and did Shenac herself good by reminding her that she was not an old woman burdened with care, but a young girl not sixteen, to whom fun and frolic ought to be natural. There were not many newspapers taken in those parts about that time; but Angus Dhu took one, and Shenac used to come over the fence with it, and, giving it to Hamish, would take his hoe or rake and go on with his work while he read the news to the rest. The newspaper was English, of course. Gaelic was the language spoken at home--the language in which the Bible was read, and the Catechism said; but the young people all spoke and read English. And very good English too, as far as it went; for it was book-English, learned at school from books that are now considered out of date. But they were very good books for all that. They used to have long discussions about the state of the world as they gathered it from the newspapers--not always grave or wise, but useful, especially to Shenac, by keeping her in mind of what in her untiring industry she was in danger of forgetting, that there was a wide world beyond these quiet lines within which they were living, where nobler work than the mere earning of bread was being done by worthy and willing hands. CHAPTER FIVE. July had come. There was a little pause in the field-work, for all the seed had been sown and all the weeds pulled up, and they were waiting for a week or two to pass, and then the haying was to begin. Even haying did not promise to be a very busy season with them, for the cutting and caring for the hay in their largest field would this year fall to the lot of Angus Dhu. It was as well so, Shenac said to herself with a sigh, for they could not manage much hay by themselves, and paying wages would never do for them. Indeed, they would need some help even with the little they had; for Dan had never handled a scythe except in play, and Hamish, even if he had the skill, had not the strength. And then the wool. They must have their cloth early this year, for last year they had been obliged to sell the wool, and the boys' clothes were threadbare. If they could get the wool spun early, McLean the weaver would weave their cloth first. She must try to see what could be done. But, oh, that weary little wheel! Shenac's mother thought it was a wonderful little wheel; and so indeed it was. It had been part of the marriage outfit of Shenac's grandmother before she left her Highland home. It had been in almost constant use all these years, and bade fair to be as good as ever for as many years to come. There was no wearing it out or putting it out of order, for, like most things made in those old times, it had strength if not elegance, and Shenac's mother was as careful of it as a modern musical lady is of her grand piano. I cannot describe it to you, for I am not very well acquainted with such instruments of labour. It was not at all like the wheels which are used now-a-days in districts where the great manufactories have not yet put wheels out of use. It was a small, low, complicated affair, at which the spinner sat, using both foot and hand. It needed skill and patience to use it well, and strength too. A long day's work well done on the little wheel left one far wearier than a day's work in the field. As for Shenac, the very thought of it made her weary. If she had lived in the present day, she would have said it made her nervous. But, happily for Shenac, she did not know that she had any nerves, and her mother's wheel got the blame of her discomfort. Not that she ever ventured to speak a disrespectful word of it. The insane idea that perhaps her mother might be induced to sell it and buy one of the new-fashioned kind, like that Archie Matheson's young wife had brought with her, _did_ come into her head once, but she never spoke of it. It would have been wrong as well as foolish to do so, for her mother would never try to learn to use the new one, and half the comfort of her life would be gone without her faithful friend, the little wheel. "Oh, if I could get one for myself!" said Shenac. She had seen and used Mary Matheson's last summer, and now, hurried as she was at home, she took an afternoon to go with Hamish to see it again. "Could you not make one, Hamish?" she said entreatingly; "you can do so many things." But Hamish shook his head. "I might make the stock if I had tools; but the rest of it--no." The sheep were shorn. There were sixteen fleeces piled up in the barn; but a great deal must be done to it before it could be ready for the boys to wear. One thing Shenac had determined on. It should be sent and carded at the mill. The mill was twenty miles away, to be sure-- perhaps more; but the time taken for the journey would be saved ten times over. Shenac thought she might possibly get through the spinning, but to card it by hand, with all there was to do in the fields, would be quite impossible. This matter troubled Shenac all the more that she could not share her vexation with Hamish. The idea of selling the grandmother's wheel seemed to him little short of sacrilege; and neither he nor their cousin Shenac could see why the mother could not dye and card and spin the wool, as she had been accustomed to do. But Shenac knew this to be impossible. Her mother was able for no such work now, though she might think so herself; and Shenac knew that to try and fail would make the mother miserable. What was to be done? Over this question she pondered with an earnestness, and, alas! with a uselessness, that gave impatience to her hand and sharpness to her voice at last. "What aileth thee, Shenac Bhan, bonny Shenac, Shenac the farmer, Shenac the fair? Wherefore rests the shadow on thy brow, and the look of sadness in thine azure eyes?" Hamish had been reading to them Gaelic Ossian, and Shenac Dhu had caught up the manner of the poem, and spoke in a way that made them all laugh. Shenac Bhan laughed too; but not because she was merry, for her cousin's nonsense always vexed her when she was "out of sorts." But her cousin Christie was there, Mrs More, the eldest sister of Shenac Dhu; and so Shenac Bhan laughed with the rest. She was here on a visit from the city of M--- where she lived, and had come over to see her aunt, as Angus Dhu's children always called the widow. A heavy summer shower was falling, and all the boys had taken refuge from it in the house, and there were noise and confusion for a time. "I want Christie to come into the barn and see our wool," said Shenac Bhan at last, when the shower was over. "And, Shenac--dark Shenac, doleful Shenac--you are to stay and keep the lads in order till we come back." Shenac Dhu made a face, but let them go. Mrs More was a pale, quiet woman, with a grave but kind manner, which put Shenac at her ease at once, though she had not seen her since her marriage, which was more than five years before. She had always been very kind to the children when she lived at home, and the memory of this gave Shenac courage to ask her help out of at least one of her difficulties. "How much you have grown, Shenac!" said her cousin. "I hardly think I would have known you if I had seen you anywhere else. Yes, I think I would have known your face anywhere. But you are a woman now, and doing a woman's work, they tell me." "We have all been busy this summer," said Shenac; "but our hurry is over now for a while." Heedless of the little pools that were shining here and there, they went first into the garden, and then round the other buildings, and over to the spot, still black and charred, where the house had stood. But little was said by either of them. "Do you like living in the city?" said Shenac at last. "For some things I like it--for most things, indeed; but sometimes I long for a sight of the fields and woods, more for my wee Mary's sake than for my own." "This is our wool," said Shenac, as they entered the barn; "I wish it was spun." "Shenac," said her cousin kindly, "have you not undertaken too much? It's all very well for you to speak of Hamish and Dan, but the weight must fall on you. I see that plainly." But Shenac would not let her think so. "I only do my share," said she eagerly. "I think you could have helped them more by coming to M--- and taking a situation. You could learn to do anything, Shenac, if you were to try." But Shenac would not listen. "We must keep together," said she; "and the land must be kept for Allister. There is no fear. We shall not grow rich, but we can live, if we bide all together and do our best." "Shenac," persisted her cousin, "I do not want to discourage you; but there are so many things which a girl like you ought not to do--cannot do, indeed, without breaking your health. I know. I was the eldest at home. I know what there is to do in a place like yours. The doctor tells me I shall never be quite well again, because of the long strain of hard work and exposure when I was young like you. Think, if your health was to fail." Shenac turned her compassionate eyes upon her. "But your father was hard on you, folks say, and I have the work at my own taking." Mrs More shook her head sadly. "Ah, Shenac dear, circumstances may be far harder on you than ever my father was on me. You do not know what may lie before you. No girl like you should have such responsibility. If you will come with me or follow me, you and Hamish, I can do much for you. You could learn to do anything, Shenac, and Hamish is very clever. There are places where his littleness and his lameness would not be against him, as they must be on the land. Let my father take Dan, as he wished, and let Hughie go to the elder's for a while. The land can lie here safe enough till Allister comes home, if that is what you wish. Indeed, Shenac, you do not know what you are undertaking." "Cousin Christie," said Shenac gently, "you are very kind, but I cannot leave my mother; and I am strong--stronger than you think. Christie, you speak as though you thought Allister would never come home. Was our Allister a wild lad, as your father says? Surely, he'll come home to his mother, now that his father is dead." She sat down on the pile of wool, and turned a very pale, frightened face to her cousin. Mrs More stooped down and kissed her. "My dear," she said gently, "Allister was not a wild lad in my time, but good and truthful--one who honoured his parents. But, Shenac, the world is wide, and there are so many things that those who have lived in this quiet place all their lives cannot judge of. And even if Allister were to come back, he might not be content to settle down here in the old quiet way. The land would seem less to him than it seems to you." "But if Allister should not come home, or if he should not stay, my mother will need me all the more. No, Cousin Christie, you must not discourage me. I must try it. And, indeed, it is not I alone. Hamish has so much sense and judgment, and Dan is growing so strong. And we will try it anyway." "Well, Shenac, you deserve to succeed, and you will succeed if anybody could," said her cousin. "I will not discourage you. I wish I could help you instead." "You can help me," said Shenac eagerly; "that's what I brought you out to say. Our wool--you are going back soon, and if the waggon goes, will you ask your father to let our wool go to the mill? The carding takes so long, and my mother is not so strong as she used to be. And that is one of the things I cannot abide. The weary little wheel is bad enough. Will you ask your father, Christie?" Mrs More laughed. "That is but a small favour, Shenac. Of course my father will take it, and he'll bring it back too; for, though it is not his usual plan at this time of the year, he's going on all the way to M--- with butter. There came word yesterday that there was great demand for it. The wool will be done by the time he comes back; and he is to take his own too, I believe." Shenac gave a sigh of relief. "Well, that's settled." "Why did you not ask my father himself?" said Mrs More. "Are not you and he good friends, Shenac?" Shenac muttered something about not liking to give trouble and not liking to ask Angus Dhu. Mrs More laughed again. "I think you are hard on my father, Shenac. I think he would be a good friend to you if you would let him. You must not mind a sharp word from the like of him. His bark is worse than his bite." Shenac was inexpressibly uncomfortable, remembering that all the hard words had come from her and not from Angus Dhu. "Well, never mind," said Mrs More; "the carrying of the wool is my father's favour. What can I do for you, Shenac?" "You can do one thing for me," said Shenac briskly, glad to escape from a painful subject, and laying her hand on a shining instrument of steel that peeped from beneath the wool on which she was sitting. "You can cut my hair off. My mother does not like to do it, and Hamish won't. I was going to ask Shenac yonder; but you will do it better." And she began to loosen the heavy braids. "What's that about Shenac yonder?" said that young person, coming in upon them. "I should like to know what you are plotting, you two, together--and bringing in my innocent name too!" "Nothing very bad," said Shenac, laughing. "I want Christie to cut my hair, it is such a trouble; it takes a whole half-hour at one time or other of the day to keep it neat, and half-hours are precious." "I don't like to do it, Shenac," said Mrs More. Shenac Dhu held up her hands in astonishment. "Cut your hair off! Was the like ever heard of?--Nonsense, Christie! she never means it; and Hamish would never let her, besides. She'll look no better than the rest of us without her hair," continued she, taking the heavy braids out of Shenac's hands and pushing her back on the pile of wool from which she had risen. "Christie, tell Shenac about John Cameron, as you told us last night." While Shenac listened to the account of a sad accident that had happened to a young man from another part of the country, Shenac Dhu let down the long, fair hair of her cousin, and, by the help of an old card that lay near, smoothed it till it lay in waves and ripples of gold far below her waist. Then, as Shenac Bhan still sat, growing pale and red by turns as she listened, she with great care rolled the shining mass into thick curls over neck and shoulders. "Now stand up and show yourself," said she, as she finished. "Is she not a picture? Christie, you should take her to the town with you and put her up in your husband's shop-window. You would make her fortune and your own too." Shenac Bhan had this advantage over her cousin, and indeed over most people--that the sun that made them as brown as a berry, after the first few days' exposure left her as fair and unfreckled as ever; and she really was a very pretty picture as she stood laughing and blushing before her cousins. The door opened, and Hamish came in. "My mother sent me to bid you all come in to tea;" but he stopped as his eye fell on his sister. "Tea!" cried Shenac Bhan. "I meant to do all that myself. Who would have thought that we had been here so long?" And she made a movement, as if to bind back her hair, that she might hasten away. "Be quiet; stay till I bid you go," said Shenac Dhu, hastily letting the curls fall again. "I wonder if all the puddles are dried up?--She ought to see herself. Cut them off! The vain creature! Never fear, Hamish." "Christie is to cut it," said Shenac Bhan, laughing, and holding the wool-shears towards Mrs More. "I must do it, Hamish; it takes such a time to keep it decently neat. My mother does not care, and why should you?" "Whisht, Hamish," said Shenac Dhu, "you're going to quote Saint Paul and Saint Peter about a woman's hair being a covering and a glory. Don't fash yourself. Why, she would deserve to be a Scots worthy more than George Wishart, or than the woman who was drowned even, if she were to do it!" "You had your own cut," said Shenac Bhan, looking at her cousin with some surprise. "Why should I not do the same?" "You are not me. Everybody has not my strength of mind," said Shenac Dhu, nodding gravely. "Toch! you cut yours that it might grow long and thick like our Shenac's," said Dan, who had been with them for some time. "Think of your hair, and look at this." And he lifted the fair curls admiringly. Shenac Bhan laughed. "It's an awful bother, Dan." "But it would be a pity to lose it. What a lot of it there is!" And the boy walked round his sister, touching it as he went. "She never meant to do it; but after that she could not," said Shenac Dhu, pretending to whisper. "Our Shenac never says what she doesn't mean," said Dan hotly. "Whatever other people's Shenacs do," said Hamish laughing. Shenac Dhu made as if she would charge him with the great shears. "Give them to Christie," said Shenac Bhan. "What a work to make about nothing!" "She does not mean to do it yet," said Shenac Dhu; but she handed the shears to her sister. "I don't like to do it, Shenac," said Mrs More. "Think how long it will take to grow again; and it is beautiful hair," she added, as she came near and passed her fingers through it. "Nonsense, Christie, she's not in earnest," persisted Shenac Dhu. With a quick, impatient motion, Shenac Bhan took the shears from her cousin's hand and severed one--two--three of the bright curls from the mass. Shenac Dhu uttered a cry. "There! did I not tell you?" cried Dan, forgetting everything else in his triumph over Shenac Dhu. Hamish turned and went out without a word. "There," said Shenac Bhan; "you must do it now, Christie." Mrs More took the great shears and began to cut without a word; and no one spoke again till the curls lay in a shining heap at their feet. Then Shenac Dhu drew a long breath, and said,-- "Don't say afterwards it was my fault." "It was just your fault, Shenac Dhu, you envious, spiteful thing," exclaimed the indignant Dan. "Nonsense, Cousin Shenac.--Be quiet, Dan. She had nothing to do with it. It has been a trouble all summer, and I'm glad to be rid of it. I only wish I could spin it, like the wool." "What a lot of it there is!" And Shenac Dhu stooped down and lifted a long tress or two tenderly, as if they had life. "What will you do with it, Shenac?" "Burn it, since I cannot make stockings of it. Put them in here." And she held up her apron. "Will you give your hair to me, Shenac?" asked Mrs More. "What can you do with it?" asked Shenac in some surprise. "Surely I'll give it to you, so that I hear no more about it." The curls were carefully gathered, and tied in Mrs More's handkerchief. "Shenac Bhan," said the other Shenac solemnly, "you look like a shorn sheep. I shall never see you again without thinking of the young woman tied to the stake on the sands, and the sea coming up and up--" "Shenac, be quiet. It is sinful to speak lightly of so solemn a thing," said her sister gravely. "Solemn!" said Shenac. "Lightly! By no means. I was putting two solemn things together. I don't know which is more solemn. For my part, I would as soon feel the cold water creeping up my back, like--" "Shenac," said our Shenac entreatingly, "don't say foolish things and vex my mother and Hamish." Her cousin put her hand on her mouth. "You have heard my last word." But the last word about the shining curls was not spoken yet. CHAPTER SIX. The day when the haying was to have commenced was very rainy, and so was every day for a week or more. People were becoming a little anxious as to the getting in of the hay; for in almost all the fields it was more than ripe, and everybody knows that it should not stand long after that. The fields of the Macivors were earlier than those of most people, and Shenac was especially careful to get the hay in at the right time and in good condition, because they had so much less of it than ever before. And besides, the wheat-harvest was coming on, and where there were so few to help, every day made a difference. Whenever there came a glimpse of sunshine, Dan was out in the field, making good use of his scythe; for mowing was new and exciting work to him, though he had seen it done every summer of his life. It is not every boy of fourteen that could swing a scythe to such good purpose as Dan, and he might be excused for being a little proud and a little unreasonable in the matter. And after all, I daresay he knew quite as much about it as Shenac. When she told him how foolish it was to cut down grass when there was no chance of getting it dried, he only laughed and pointed to the fields of Angus Dhu, where there were three men busy, and acres and acres of grass lying as it had fallen. "You are a good farmer, Shenac, but Angus Dhu, you must confess, has had more experience, and is a better judge of the weather. We're safe enough to follow him." There was reason in this, but it vexed Shenac to have Angus Dhu quoted as authority; and it vexed her too that Dan should take the matter into his own hands without regard to her judgment. "Angus Dhu can get all the help he needs to make the hay when it fairs," said she. "But if we have too much down we shall not be able to manage it right, I'm afraid." "There's no fear of having too much down. I must keep at it. Where there's only one man to cut, he must keep at it," said Dan gravely. "If you and the rest of the children are busy when the sun shines, you will soon overtake me." "Only one man!" "You and the rest of the children!" Vexed as Shenac was, she could not help being amused, and fortunately a good deal of her vexation passed away in the laugh, in which Dan heartily joined. This week of rain was a trying time to Shenac. Nothing could be done out of doors, for the rain was constant and heavy. If she could have had the wheel to herself, she would have got on with the spinning, and that would have been something, she thought. Her mother was spinning, however; and though she could not sit at the wheel all day, she did not like to have her work interfered with, and Shenac could not make use of the time when her mother was not employed, and very little was accomplished. There was mending to be done, which her mother could have done so much better than she could, Shenac thought. But her mother sat at the wheel, and Shenac wearied herself over the shirts and trousers of her brothers, and at last startled herself and every one else by speaking sharply to little Flora and shaking Colin well for bringing in mud on their feet when they came home from school. After that she devoted her surplus energies to the matter of house-cleaning, and that did better. Everything in the house, both upstairs and down, and everything in the dairy, passed through her hands. Things that could be scrubbed were scrubbed, and things that could be polished were polished. The roof and the walls were whitewashed, and great maple-branches hung here and there upon them, that the flies might not soil their whiteness; and then Shenac solemnly declared to Hamish that it was time the rain should cease. Hamish laughed. The week had passed far less uncomfortably to him than to his sister. He had made up his mind to the necessity of staying within-doors during such weather; and he could do so all the more easily as, with a good conscience, he could give himself up to the enjoyment of a book that had fallen into his hands. It was not a new book. Two or three of the first pages were gone, but it was as good as new to Hamish. It was a new kind of arithmetic, his friend Rugg, the peddler, told him. He knew Hamish liked that sort of thing, and so he had brought it to him. Hamish was quite occupied with it. He forgot the hay, and the rain, and even his own rheumatic pains, in the interest with which he pored over it. Shenac did not grudge him his pleasure. She even tried to get up an interest in the unknown quantities, whose values, Hamish assured her, were so easily discovered by the rules laid down in the book. But she did not enter heartily into her brother's pleasure, as she usually did. She wondered at him, and thought it rather foolish in him to be so taken up with trifles when there was so much to think about. She forgot to be glad that her brother had found something to keep him from vexing himself, as he had done so much of late, by thinking how little he could do for his mother and the rest; and she said to herself that Christie More had been right when she said that it was upon her that the burden of care and labour must fall. "You are tired to-night, Shenac," said Hamish, as she sat gazing silently and listlessly into the fire. "Tired!" repeated Shenac scornfully. "What with, I wonder. Yes, I am tired with staying within-doors, when there is so much to be done outside. If my mother would only let me take the wheel, that would be something." "But my mother is busy with it herself," said Hamish. "Surely you do not think you can do more or better than my mother?" "Not better, but more; twice as much in a day as she is doing now. We'll not get our cloth by the new year, at the rate the spinning is going on, and the lads' clothes will hardly hold together even now." Shenac gave an impatient sigh. "But, Shenac," said her brother, "there is no use in fretting about it; that will do no good." "No; if only one could help it," said Shenac. "Shenac, my woman," said the mother from the other side of the fire, "I doubt you'll need to go to The Eleventh to-morrow for the dye-stuffs. I am not able to go so far myself, I fear." The townships, or towns, of that part of the country are all divided off into portions, a mile in width, called concessions; and as the little cluster of houses where the store was had no name as yet, it was called The Eleventh; and indeed, all the different localities were named from the concession in which they were found. "There is no particular hurry about going, I suppose, mother," Shenac answered indifferently. "The sooner the better," said her mother. "The things are as well here as there, and we'll need them soon. What is to hinder you from going to-morrow?" "If the morning is fair, I'll need Shenac's help at the hay, mother," said Dan with an air. "I'll need Shenac's help!" It might have been Angus Dhu himself, by the way it was said, Shenac thought. It was ludicrous. Her mother did not seem to see anything ludicrous in it, however; for she only answered,-- "Oh yes, Dan; if it should be fair, I suppose I can wait." Hamish was busy with his book again. "It's a very heavy crop," continued Dan. "It is all that a man can do to cut yon grass and keep at it steady." Of course Dan did not mean to take the credit of the heavy crop to himself, but it sounded exactly as if he did; and there was something exceedingly provoking to Shenac in the way in which he stretched himself up when he said, "all that a man can do." A laughing glance that came to her over the top of Hamish's book dispelled her momentary anger, however. "If Hamish does not mind, I'm sure _I_ need not," she said to herself. Dan went on:--"I shall put what I have cut to-day in the long barn. It will be just the thing for the spring's work." Dan's new-found far-sightedness was too much for the gravity of Hamish, and Shenac joined heartily in the laugh. Dan looked a little discomfited. "You must settle it with Shenac and your brother," said the mother. "All right, Dan, my boy," said Hamish heartily; "it's always best to look ahead, as Mr Rugg would say.--What do you think, Shenac?" "All right; only you should not say `my boy' to our Dan, but `my man,'" said Shenac gravely. Even little Flora could understand the joke of Dan's assuming the airs of manhood, and all laughed heartily. Dan joined in the laugh good-humouredly enough. "You see, Shenac," said Hamish, during the few minutes they always lingered together after the others had gone to bed, "Dan may be led, but he will not be driven--at least, not by you or me." "Led!" exclaimed Shenac; "I think he means to lead us all. That scythe has made a man of him all at once. I declare it goes past my patience to hear the monkey." "It must not go past your patience if you can help it, Shenac," said her brother. "All that nonsense will be laughed out of him, but it must not be by you or me." "Oh, well, I'm not caring," said Shenac. "I only hope it will be fair to-morrow, so that I can get to help him. I could mow as well as he, if my mother would let me. However, it's all the same whether I help him or he helps me, so that the work is done some way." "We'll all help one another," said Hamish. "Shenac, you were right the other day when you told me I was wrong to murmur because I could not do more than God had given me strength to do. It does not matter what work falls to each of us, so that it is well done; and we can never do it unless we keep together." "No fear, Hamish, bhodach, we'll keep together," said Shenac heartily. "I do hope to-morrow may be fine." CHAPTER SEVEN. But to-morrow was not fine; it was quite the contrary. Shenac milked in the rain, and gathered vegetables for dinner in the rain, and would gladly have made hay all day in the rain, if that had been possible. Not a pin cared Shenac for the rain. It wet her face, and twined her hair into numberless little rings all over her head, and that was the very worst it could do. It could not spoil her shoes, for in summer she did not wear any, unless she was in the field; and it took the rain a long time to penetrate through the thick woollen dress she always wore in rainy weather. Indeed, she rather liked to be out in the rain, especially when there was a high wind, against which she might measure her strength; and she was just going to propose to her mother that she should set out to The Eleventh for the dye-stuffs, when the door opened, and her cousin Shenac came in. Rain or shine, Shenac Dhu was always welcome, and quite a chorus of exclamations greeted her. "Toch! what about the rain! I'm neither salt nor sugar to melt in it," she said, as Shenac Bhan took off her wet plaid and drew her towards the fire. "I must not stay," she continued.--"Hamish, have you done with your book? Mr Rugg stayed at our house last night, and he's coming here next, and so I ran over the field to see his pretty things.--O Shenac, he has such a pretty print this time--blue and white." "But could you not see his pretty things last night? And are you to get a dress of the blue and white?" asked Shenac Bhan. "Of course I could see them, but I could not take a good look at them because my father was there. He thinks me a sensible woman, and I can't bear to undeceive him; and my eyes have a trick of looking at pretty things as though I wanted them, and that looks greedy. But I'm not for a dress of the blue and white. Mysie Cairns in The Sixteenth has one, and that's enough for one township." "But Mr Rugg will not open his packs here; we want nothing," said Shenac Bhan, "unless he may have dye-stuffs for my mother." "He has no dye-stuffs--you'll get that at The Eleventh," said Shenac Dhu; "but it's nonsense about not wanting anything. I'll venture to say that Mr Rugg will leave more here than he left at our house, or at any house in the town-ship. I wish he would come." They all had plenty to say to Shenac Dhu, but that her mind was full of other things it was easy to see. She laughed and chatted, but she watched the window till the long, high waggon of the peddler came in sight, and then she drew Shenac Bhan into a corner and kept her there till the door opened. "Good-morning, good-morning," said the peddler as he came in. Glancing round the room, he stood still on the door-mat with a comical look of indecision on his face. "I don't suppose you want to see me enough to pay for the tracks I shall make on the floor," he said to Shenac Bhan. "I don't know as I should have come round this way this time, only I've got something for you--something you'll be glad to have." Everybody was indignant at the idea of his not coming in. "Never mind the floor," said Shenac Bhan. "We don't want anything to-day, but we are glad to see you all the same." "Don't say you don't want anything till you see what I've got," said Mr Rugg gravely. "I ha'n't no doubt there's a heap of things you would like, if you could get them. Now, a'n't there?" "She wants a wig, for one thing," said Shenac Dhu. "Well, no; I calculate she'll get along without that as well as most folks. I don't see as you spoiled your looks, for all Mrs More said," he added, as he touched with his long forefinger one of the little rings that clustered round Shenac's head. "Come, now, a'n't there something I've got that you want?" he asked as Shenac turned away with an impatient shrug. "No; not if you haven't a wig. Do we want anything, mother? It is not worth while to open your box in the rain." Mr Rugg was already out of hearing. "We can look at them, at any rate," said Shenac Dhu. But Shenac Bhan looked very much as if she did not intend to do even that, till the door opened again, and Mr Rugg walked in, followed by Dan, and between them they carried a spinning-wheel. "A big wheel, just like Mary Matheson's!" exclaimed Shenac Bhan. "No; a decided improvement upon that," said Mr Rugg, preparing to put on the rim and the head. The band was ready, too; and he turned the wheel and pulled out an imaginary thread with such gravity that all laughed. "Well, what do you think of it, girls?" he asked after a little time. "Will you have it, Miss Shenac?" "I should like to borrow it for a month," said Shenac with a sigh. "It a'n't to be lent nor to be borrowed," said the peddler; "leastways, it a'n't for me to lend. The owner may do as she likes." "How much would it cost?" asked Shenac with a vague, wild idea that possibly at some future time she might get one. "I can tell you that exactly," said the peddler. "I've got the invoice here all right, and another document with it;" and he handed Shenac a letter, directed, as she knew at a glance, in the handwriting of her cousin, Mrs More. "It's from Christie," said Shenac Dhu, looking over her shoulder. "Open it, Shenac; what ails you?" Shenac opened the letter, and the other Shenac read it with her. It need not be given here. It told how Mrs More had taken Shenac's hair to a hair-dresser in the city, and how the money she had received for it had been given into the hands of Mr Rugg, who was to buy a wheel with it, as something Shenac would be sure to value. "And here it is," said Mr Rugg; "as good a wheel as need be.--It will put yours quite out of fashion, Mrs Macivor." It was with some difficulty that the mother could be made to understand that the wheel was Shenac's--bought and paid for. As for Shenac, she could only stand and look at it, saying not a word. Shenac Dhu shook her heartily. "Here I have come all the way in the rain to hear what you would say, and you stand and glower and say nothing at all." "Try it, Shenac," said Hamish, bringing a handful of rolls of wool from his mother's wheel. "She'll need to learn first," said Shenac Dhu. But Shenac had tried Mary Matheson's wheel more than once; and besides, as Mr Rugg had often said, and now triumphantly repeated, she had a "faculty." There really did seem nothing that she could not learn to do more easily than other people. Now the long thread was drawn out even and fine as any that ever passed through the mother's hands on the precious little wheel. The mother examined and approved, Shenac Dhu exclaimed, and the little lads laughed and clapped their hands. As for Shenac Bhan, she could hardly believe in her own good fortune. She did not seem to hear the talk or the laugh, but, with a face intent and grave, walked up and down, drawing out the long, even threads, and then letting them roll up smoothly on the spindle. "Take it moderate, Miss Shenac," said the peddler, "take it moderate. It don't pay to overdo even a good thing." But Shenac was busy calculating how many days' work there might be in the wool, and how long it would take her to finish it. "The rainy days will not be lost now," she said to herself triumphantly. "Of course I must stick to the hay; but mornings and evenings and rainy days I can spin. No fear for the lads' clothes now." "Hamish," said Shenac Dhu, "I shall never see her without fancying she has a wheel on her head." Hamish laughed. His pleasure in the pleasure of his sister was intense. "I don't know what we can ever say to Christie for her kindness," he said. "We'll write a letter to her, Hamish, you and I together," said his sister eagerly. "I can't think how it all happened. But I am so glad and thankful; and I must tell Christie." The next day was fair. When Shenac went out with little Hugh to the milking in the pasture, she thought she heard the pleasant sound of the whetting of scythes nearer than the fields of Angus Dhu. She could see nothing, however, because of the mist that lay close over the low lands. But when she went out after breakfast to spread the grass cut by Dan during the rainy days, she found work going on that made Dan's efforts seem like play. "Is it a bee?" said Shenac to herself. No, it was not a bee, Aleck Munroe said, but he and the other lads thought there was as much hay down in their fields as could be well cared for, and so they thought they would see what could be done in their neighbour's. It was likely to continue fine now, as the weather had cleared at the change of the moon; and a few hours would help here, without hindering there. "Help! Yes, indeed!" thought Shenac as she watched the swinging of the scythes, and saw the broad swaths of grain that fell as they passed on. Dan followed, but he made small show after the young giants that had taken the work in hand; and in a little while he made a virtue of necessity and exchanged the scythe for the spreading-pole, to help Shenac and the little ones in the merry, healthful work. After this there were no more rainy days while the hay-time lasted. Shenac and Dan were not the first in all the concessions to finish the getting in of the hay, but they were by no means the last. It was all got in in a good state, too; and the grain-harvest began cheerfully and ended successfully. Shenac took the lead in the cutting of the grain. In those days, in that part of the country, there were none of those wonderful machines which now begin to make farm-work light. The horses were used to draw the grain and hay to the barn or the stacks when it was ready; but there were no patent rakes or mowing or reaping machines for them to draw. All the wheat, and a good deal of the other grain, was cut down with the old-fashioned hook or sickle, the reapers stooping low to their work. It was tedious and exhausting labour, and slow, too. Shenac's "faculty" and perfect health stood her in good stead at this work as at other things. She tired herself thoroughly every day, but she was young and strong; and though the summer nights were short there was no part of them lost to her, for she fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow. Even thoughts of the weary and suffering Hamish did not often disturb her rest. She slept the dreamless sleep of perfect health till the dawn awakened her, cheerful and ready for another day's labour. They had very little help for the harvest. There was one moonlight bee. They say the grain is more easily cut with the dew upon it; and moonlight bees are common in Glengarry even now. But Shenac and her brothers knew nothing of this one till, on going out in the morning, they found more than half of their wheat lying ready to be bound up in sheaves. The rest of the harvest was very successful. Indeed, it was a favourable harvest everywhere that year. There was rejoicing through all the township--through many town-ships; and even the most earthly and churlish of the farmers assented with a good grace when a day of thanksgiving was appointed, and kept it outwardly in appearance, if not inwardly with the heart. As for Shenac, it would be impossible to describe her triumph and thankfulness when the last sheaf was safely gathered in. For she was truly thankful, though I am afraid her triumphant self-congratulation went even beyond her thankfulness. Her thankfulness was not displayed in a way that made it apparent to others; but it filled her heart and gave her courage to look forward. It did more than this: it gave her a self-reliance quite unusual--indeed not very desirable--in one so young; and there was danger, all the greater because she was quite unconscious of it, that it might degenerate into something different from an humble yet earnest self-reliance. But there was nothing of that as yet, and all the little household rejoiced together. The spinning too had prospered. In the mornings and evenings, and on rainy days, the wheel had been busy; and now the yarn, dyed and ready, lay in the house of weaver McLean, waiting to be woven into heavy cloth for the boys; and the flannel for shirts and gowns would not be long behind. So Shenac made a pause, and took time to breathe, as Hamish said. And, really, with a plentiful harvest gathered safely in, there seemed little danger of want; and Shenac's thoughts were more hopeful than anxious when she looked forward. The mother was more cheerful, too, than she had been since the father's death. She was always cheerful now, when matters went smoothly and regularly among them. It was only when vexations arose, when Dan was restless or inclined to be rebellious, or when the children stood in need of anything which they could not get, or when she fancied that the affairs of the farm were not going on well, that she grieved over the past or fretted for the home-coming of Allister. The little ones went to school again after the harvest--the little boys and Flora; and altogether matters seemed to promise to move smoothly on, and so the mother was content. There was one thing that troubled the mother and Shenac too. The harvest-work had been hard on Hamish, and in the haste and eagerness of the busy time Shenac had not been so mindful of him as she might have been, and he suffered for it afterwards; and it grieved them all that his voice should be so seldom heard as it was among them, for Hamish never complained. The more he suffered, the more quiet he grew. It was not bodily pain alone with which he struggled on in silence. It was something harder to bear--a sense of helplessness and uselessness, a fear of becoming a burden when there was so much to bear already. And, worse than even this, there was the knowledge that there lay no bright future before him, as there might lie before the rest. He must always be a helpless cripple. He could have no hope beyond the weary round of suffering which fell to his lot day by day. What the others did with a will, with a sense of power and pleasure, was a weariness to him. There were times when he wished that death might come and end it all; but he never spoke of himself, unless Shenac made him speak. His fits of depression did not occur often, and Shenac came at last to think it was better to let them pass without notice; and, though her eye grew more watchful and her voice more tender, she said nothing for a while, but waited patiently for more cheerful days. CHAPTER EIGHT. I dislike to speak about the faults of Shenac. It would be far pleasanter to go on telling all that she did for her mother and brothers and little Flora--how her courage never failed, and her patience and temper very seldom; and how the neighbours looked on with wonder and pleasure at all the young girl was able to accomplish by her sense and energy, till they quite forgot that she was little more than a child-- not sixteen when her father died--and spoke of her as a woman of prudence and a credit to her family. She looked like a woman. She was tall and strong. She seemed, indeed, to have the health and strength which should have fallen to her twin-brother Hamish; and she was growing to seem to all the neighbours much older than he. I suppose this change would have come in any circumstances, after a while, for girls of seventeen are generally more mature than boys of the same age; but the change was more decided in Shenac because of the care that had fallen on her so early. Still, they were alike. They had the same golden-brown hair, though the brother's was of a darker shade, the same blue eyes, and frank, open brow. But the eyes of Hamish had a weary look, and his brow looked higher and broader because of the thin pale cheeks beneath it; and while he grew more quiet and retiring every day, no one could have been long in the house without seeing in many ways that Shenac was the ruling spirit there. It was right it should be so. It could not have been otherwise, for her mother was broken in health and spirits, and Allister was away. Hamish was not able to take the lead in the labour, because of his lameness and his feeble health; and though he had great influence in the family councils, it was exercised indirectly, by quiet, sensible words, and by a silent good example to the rest. As for Dan, his will was strong enough to command an army, and he had a great deal of good sense hidden beneath a reckless manner; but he was two years younger than his sister--quite too young and inexperienced, even if he had been steady and industriously disposed, to take the lead. So of course the leadership fell upon Shenac. They all said, after a while--the neighbours, I mean--that it could not have fallen into better hands; and, as far as the family affairs were concerned, that was true. But for Shenac herself it was not so well. It is never well to take girls quickly out of their childhood, and it was especially bad for her to have so much the guidance of these affairs, for she naturally liked to lead--to have her own way; and, without being at all conscious of it, there were times when she grew sharp and arbitrary, expecting to be obeyed unquestioningly by them all. She was always gentle with the mother, who sometimes was desponding and irritable, and needed a great deal of patient attendance; but even with the mother she liked to have her own way. Generally, Shenac's way was the best, to be sure; for the mother, weakened in mind and body, saw difficulties in very trifling things, and fancied dangers and troubles where the bright, cheerful spirit of her daughter saw none. So, though she yielded in word, she often in deed gave less heed to the mother's wishes than she ought to have done, and she was in danger, through this, of growing less lovable as the years went on. But a sadder thing happened to Shenac than this. In the eagerness with which she devoted herself to her work she forgot higher duties. For there is a higher duty than that which a child owes to parents and friends--the duty owed to God. I do not mean that these are distinct and separate, or that they naturally and necessarily interfere with each other. Quite the contrary. It is only as our duty to our Father in heaven is understood and acknowledged that any other duty can be well or acceptably performed. And so, in forgetting God, Shenac was in danger of allowing her work to become a snare to her. Humbly acknowledging God in all her ways, asking and expecting and waiting for his blessing in all that she undertook, she would hardly have grown unduly anxious or arbitrary or heedless of her mother's wish and will. Conscious of her own weakness, and leaning on eternal strength, she would hardly have grown proud with success, or sinfully impatient when her will was crossed. But in those long, busy summer days, Shenac said to herself she had no time to think of other things than the work which each day brought. They had worship always, morning and evening, whatever the hurry might be. The Scriptures were read and a psalm was sung, and then the mother or Hamish offered a few words of prayer. They would as soon have thought of going without their morning and evening meals as without worship. It would have been a godless and graceless house, indeed, without that, in the opinion of those who had been accustomed to family worship all their lives. Shenac was not often consciously impatient of the time it took, and her voice was clearest and sweetest always in their song of praise. But too often it was her voice only that rose to Heaven. Her heart was full of other things; her thoughts often wandered to the field or the dairy, even when the words of prayer or praise were on her lips. She lost the habit of the few minutes' quiet reading of her Bible in the early morning, and also before she went to bed; and her prayers were brief and hurried, and sometimes they were forgotten altogether. She and Hamish had always been fond of reading, and though few new books found their way among them, they had gone over and over the old ones, liking them chiefly because of the long talks to which they gave rise between them. Many of their favourite books were religious, and various were the speculations as to doctrine and duty into which they used to fall. There might have been some danger in this, had not a spirit of reverence for God's authority been deep and strong within them. It was to the infallible standard of the inspired volume that all things were brought. With what is written there all theories and opinions were compared, and received or rejected according as they agreed with or differed from the voice of inspiration. I do not mean that they were always right in their judgment, or that their speculations were not sometimes foolish and vain. But their spirit was right. They sought to know the truth, and, in a way, they helped each other to walk in it. But all this seemed past now. There was no time for reading or for talking--at least Shenac had none. All day she was too busy, and at night she was too weary. Even the long, quiet Sabbath-day was changed. Not that there was work done on that day, either within or without the house. I daresay there were many in the township who did not keep the law of the Sabbath rest in spirit; but there were none in those days who did not keep it in letter, in appearance. In the fields, which through the week were the scenes of busy labour, on the Sabbath not a sound was heard save in the pastures--the lowing of the cattle and the bleating of the sheep. Few people made the labour of the week an excuse for turning the Sabbath into a day of rest for the body only. The old hereditary respect for God's day and house still prevailed among them, and the great, grey, barn-like house of worship, which had been among the first built in the settlement, was always filled to overflowing with a grave and reverent congregation. But among them, during all that long summer, Shenac was seldom seen. Her mother went when it was not too warm to walk the long three miles that lay between their house and the kirk, or when she got a seat in a neighbour's waggon; and Hamish and Dan were seldom away. But Shenac as seldom went. "What is the use of going?" she said, in answer to her mother's expostulations, "when I fall asleep the moment the text is given out. It's easy to say I should pay attention to the sermon. The minister's voice would put me to sleep if I were standing at the wheel. Sometimes it takes the sound of the water, and sometimes of the wind; but it's hush-a-by that it says to me all the time. And, mother, I think it's a shame to sleep in the kirk, like old Donald or Elspat Smith. Somebody must stay at home, and it may as well be me." I daresay it was not altogether the fault of the minister that Shenac fell asleep, though his voice was a drowsy drone to many a one besides her. The week's activity was quite sufficient to account for her drowsiness, to say nothing of the bright sunshine streaming in through ten uncurtained windows, and the air growing heavy with the breathing of a multitude. Shenac tried stoutly, once and again; but it would not do. The very earnestness with which she fixed her eyes on the kindly, inanimate face of the minister hastened the slumber; and, touched by her mother or Hamish, she would waken to see two or three pairs of laughing eyes fastened upon her. Indeed she did think it a shame; but it was a hard struggle listening to words which bore little interest, scarcely a meaning, to her. So she stayed at home, and made the Sabbath-day a day of rest literally; for as soon as the others were away, and her light household tasks finished, she took her book and fell asleep, as surely, and far more comfortably, than she did when she went to the kirk; so that, as a day in which to grow wiser and better, the Sabbath was lost to Shenac. She was by no means satisfied with herself because of this, for in her heart she did not believe her weariness was a sufficient excuse for staying away from the kirk; so whenever there was a meeting of any sort in the school-house, which happened once a month generally, Shenac was sure to be there. It was close by, and it was in the evening, and she could take Flora and her little brothers, who could seldom go so far as the kirk. "Shenac," said her cousin one day, "why were you not at the kirk last Sabbath? Such a fine day as it was; and to think of your letting Hamish go by himself!" "He did not go by himself; Dan went with him, and you came home with him. And I did go to the kirk--at least I went to the school-house, where old Mr Forbes preached," said Shenac. "Toch!" exclaimed Shenac Dhu scornfully; "do you call _that_ going to the kirk? Yon poor old body--do you call _him_ a minister? They say he used to make shoes at home. I'm amazed at you, Shenac! you that's held up to the rest of us as a woman of sense!" Shenac Bhan laughed. "Oh, as to his making shoes, you mind Paul made tents; and his sermons are just like other folk's sermons: I see no difference." "The texts are like other folk's, you mean," said Shenac Dhu slyly. "I daresay you take a nap when he's preaching." "No," said Shenac Bhan, not at all offended; "that's just the difference. I never sleep in the school-house. I suppose because it's cool, and I have a sleep before I go," she added candidly. "But as for the sermons, they are just like other folk's." "But that is nonsense," said Shenac Dhu. "He's just a common man, and does not even preach in Gaelic." "But our Shenac would say Paul did not do that, nor Dr Chalmers, nor plenty more," said Hamish, laughing. "Hamish," said Shenac Dhu severely, "don't encourage her in what is wrong. Elder McMillan says it's wrong to go, and so does my father. They don't even sing the Psalms, they say." "That's nonsense, at any rate," said Shenac Bhan. "The very last Sabbath they sang,-- "`I to the hills will lift mine eyes.' "You can tell the elder that, and your father, if it will be any consolation to them." "Our Shenac sang it," said little Hugh. "John Keith wasn't there, and the minister himself began the tune of Dundee. You should have heard him when he came to the high part." "I've heard him," said Shenac Dhu; and she raised her voice in a shrill, broken quaver, that made them all laugh, though Shenac Bhan was indignant too, and bade her cousin mind about the bears that tore the mocking children. "But our Shenac sang it after, and me and little Flora," continued Hugh. "And, Shenac, what was it that the minister said afterwards about the new song?" But Shenac would have no more said about it. She cared very little for Shenac Dhu's opinion, or for her father's either. She went to the school whenever the old man held a meeting there, and took the children with her. It was a great deal less trouble than taking them all so far as to the kirk, she told her mother; and whatever the elder and Angus Dhu might say, the old man's sermons were just like other folk's sermons. About this time there came a letter from Allister. The tidings of his father's death had reached him just as he was about to start for the mining district with his cousin and others; he had entered into engagements which made it necessary for him to go with them,--or he thought so. He said he would return home as soon as possible; but for the sake of all there he must not come till he had at least got gold enough to pay the debt, so that he might start fair. He could not, at so great a distance, advise his mother what to do; but he knew she had kind friends and neighbours, who would not let things go wrong till he came home, which would be at the earliest possible day. In the meantime, he sent some money--not much, but all he had--and he begged his mother to keep her courage up, for the sake of the children with her, and for his sake who was far away. This letter had been so long in coming, that somehow they had fallen into the way of thinking that there would be no letter, but that Allister must be on his way; so, when Shenac got it, it was with many doubts and fears that she carried it home to her mother. She dreaded the effect this disappointment might have on her in her enfeebled state, and shrank in dismay from a renewal of the scenes that had followed her father's death and the burning of the house. But she need not have feared. It was indeed a disappointment to the mother that the coming home of her son must be delayed, and she grieved for a day or two. But everything went on just as usual, and gradually she settled down contentedly to her spinning and knitting again; and you may be sure that whatever troubles fell to the lot of Shenac, she did not suffer her mother to be worried by them. And Shenac had many anxieties about this time. Of course she had none peculiar to herself; that is, she had none which were not shared by Hamish, and in a certain sense by Dan. But Hamish would have been content with moderate things. Just to rub on as quietly and easily as possible till Allister came home, was all he thought they should try to do. And as for Dan, the future and its troubles lay very lightly on him. But with Shenac it was different. That the hay and grain were safely in was by no means enough to satisfy her. If Allister had been coming soon, it might have been; but now there was the fall ploughing, and the sowing of the wheat, and the flax must be broken and dressed, and the winter's wood must be got up, and there were fifty other things that ought to be done before the snow came. There was far more to do than could be done by herself, or she would not have fretted. But when Hamish told her to "take no thought for the morrow," and that she ought to trust as well as work, she lost patience with him. And when Dan quoted Angus Dhu, and spoke vaguely of what must be done in the spring, quite losing sight of what lay ready at his hand to do, she nearly lost patience with him too. Not quite, though. It was a perilous experiment to try on Dan--a boy who might be led, but who would not be driven; and many a time Shenac wearied herself with efforts so to arrange matters that what fell to Dan to do might seem to be his own proposal, and many a time he was suffered to do things in his own way, though his way was not always the best, because otherwise there was some danger that he would not do them at all. Not that Dan was a bad boy, or very wilful, considering all things. But he was approaching the age when boys are supposed to see very clearly their masculine superiority; and to be directed by a woman how to do a man's work was more than a man could stand. If he could have been trusted, Shenac thought, she would gladly have given up to him the guidance of affairs, and put herself at his disposal to be directed. Perhaps she was mistaken in this. She enjoyed the leadership. She enjoyed encountering and conquering difficulties. She enjoyed astonishing (and, as she thought, disappointing) Angus Dhu; and though she would have scorned the thought, she enjoyed the knowledge that all the neighbours saw and wondered at, and gave her the credit of, the successful summer's work. But her being willing or unwilling made no difference. Dan was not old enough nor wise enough to be trusted with the management. The burden of care must fall on her, and the burden of labour too; and she set herself to the task with more intentness than ever when the letter came saying that Allister was not coming home. CHAPTER NINE. It was a bright day in the end of September. Shenac had been busy at the wheel all the morning, but the very last thread of their flannel was spun now. The wheel was put away, and Shenac stood before her mother, dressed in her black gown made for mourning when her father died. Her mother looked surprised, for this gown was never worn except at church, or when a visit was to be made. "Mother," said Shenac, "I have made ready the children's supper, and filled the sacks in case Dan should want to go to the mill, and I want to go over to see if Shenac and Maggie can come some day to help me with the flax." The mother assented, well pleased, for it was a long time since Shenac had gone to the house of Angus Dhu of her own will. "And, mother, maybe I'll go with Shenac as far as The Eleventh. It's a long time since I have seen Mary Matheson, and I'll be home before dark." "Well, well, go surely, if you like," said her mother; "and you might speak to McLean about the flannel, and bespeak McCallum the tailor to come as soon as he can to make the lads' clothes; and you might ask about the shoes." "Yes, mother, I'll mind them all. I'll just speak to Hamish first, and then I'll away." Hamish was in the garden digging and smoothing the ground where their summer's potatoes had grown, because he had nothing else to do, he said, and it would be so much done before the spring. Shenac seated herself on the fence, and began pulling, one by one, the brown oak leaves that hung low over it. There was no gate to the garden. It was doubtful whether a gate could have been made with sufficient strength, or fastened with sufficient ingenuity, to prevent the incursions of the pigs and calves, which, now that the fields were clear from grain, were permitted to wander over them at their will. So the garden was entered by a sort of stile--a board was placed with one end on the ground, and the other on the middle rail of the fence--and it was on this that Shenac sat down. "Hamish," she said after a little, "what do you think of my asking John Firinn to plough the land for the wheat--and to sow it too, for that matter?" "I don't think you had better call him by _that_ name, if you want him to do you a favour," said Hamish, laughing. "But why ask John Firinn of all the folk in the world?" ("Firinn" is the Gaelic name for "truth," and it was added to the name of one of the many John McDonalds of the neighbourhood; not, I am sorry to say, because he always spoke the truth, but because he did not.) Shenac laughed. "No; it's not likely. But I'm doing it for him because his wife has been sick all the summer, and has not a thread of her wool spun yet, and I am going to change work with them." "But, Shenac," said Hamish gravely, "does our mother know? I am sure she will think you have enough to do at home, without going to spin at John Firinn's." "I should not go there, of course; they must let me bring the wool home. And there's no use in telling my mother till I see whether they'll agree. It would only vex her. And, Hamish, it's all nonsense about my having too much to do. There's only the potatoes; and Hugh can bide at home from the school to gather them and the turnips, and Dan will be as well pleased if I leave them to him. I am only afraid that he has been fancying he is to plough, and he's not fit for it." "No, he's not fit for it," said Hamish. "But I don't like John Firinn. Is there no one else?" "No; for if we speak to the Camerons or Angus Dhu, it will just be the same as saying we want them to make a bee. I hate bees,--for us, I mean. It was well enough when they all thought it was just for the summer, and that then Allister would be home. But now we must do as other folk do, and be independent. So I must speak to John. He's not very trustworthy, I'm afraid; but that's maybe because few trust him. I don't think he'll wrong my mother, if he promises to do the land." "Perhaps you are right, Shenac," said Hamish with a sigh. "But, Hamish," said Shenac eagerly, "_you_ could not do this work, even if you were well and strong." She was not answering his words, but the thoughts which she knew were in his heart. "Come with me, Hamish. It will do you good, and it would be far better for you to make a bargain with John Firinn than for me. Shenac yonder is going. Come with us, Hamish." "No," said Hamish. "The children are at the school, and maybe Dan will go to the mill; and my mother must not be left alone. And you are the one to make the bargain about the spinning. I don't believe John will be hard upon you; and if you are shamefaced, Shenac yonder will speak for you." But Shenac did not intend her cousin to know anything about the matter till it should be settled, though she did not tell her brother so. She went away a little anxious and uncertain. For though she had been the main dependence all summer for the work both in the house and in the field, she had had very little to do with other people; and her heart failed her at the thought of speaking to any one about their affairs, especially to John Firinn. So it was with a slow step and a troubled face that she took her way over the field to find her cousin. She had been a little doubtful all day whether she should find Shenac at home and at liberty to go with her, but she never thought of finding Shenac's father there. They were rolling--that is, clearing off--the felled trees in Angus Dhu's farther field, she knew, and Shenac might be there, and she thought that her father must be. She had not met Angus Dhu face to face fairly since that May-day by the creek; that is, she had never seen him unless some one else was present, and the thought of doing so was not at all pleasant to her. So when, on turning the corner, she saw his tall and slightly-bent figure moving towards her, in her first surprise and dismay she had some thoughts of turning and running away. She did not, however, but came straight on up the path. "I was not sure it was you, Shenac," was her uncle's greeting; "you are seen here so rarely. It must be something more than common that brings you from home to-day, you have grown such a busy woman." "I came for Cousin Shenac to go with me to Mary Matheson's, if she can be spared. Is she at home to-day?" said Shenac, with some hesitation, for she would far rather have made her request to Shenac's mother. "Oh yes, she's at home. Go into the house. I daresay her mother will spare her." And he repeated a Gaelic proverb, which being translated into English would mean something like, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Shenac smiled to herself as she thought of her mother's many messages and her dreaded mission to John Firinn. It did not seem much like play to her. But burdens have a way of slipping easily from young shoulders, and the two Shenacs went on their way cheerily enough, and I daresay a stranger meeting them might have fancied that our Shenac was the lighter-hearted of the two. The cloud fell again, however, when they came to the turn of the road that took them to Mary Matheson's. "I have to go down to the McDonalds', Shenac. Just go on, and I will follow you in two or three minutes." "To the McDonalds'!" repeated Shenac Dhu. "Not to John Firinn's surely? What in all the world can you have to do with him? You had better take me with you, Shenac. They say John has a trick of forgetting things sometimes. You might need me for a witness." Shenac Bhan laughed and shook her head. "There's no need. Go on to Mary's, and tell her I am coming. I shall not be long." She wished heartily that Hamish had been with her, or that she could have honestly said her mother had sent her; for it seemed to her that she was taking too much upon her to be trying to make a bargain with a man like John Firinn. There was no help for it now, however, and she knocked at the door, and then lifted the latch and went in with all the courage she could summon. She did not need her courage for a little time, however; but her tact and skill in various matters--her "faculty," as Mr Rugg called it-- stood her in good stead for the next half-hour. Seated on a low chair, looking ill and harassed, was poor Mrs McDonald, with a little wailing baby on her knee, and her other little ones clustering round her, while her husband, the formidable John himself, was doing his best to prepare dinner for all of them. It was long past dinner-time, and it promised to be longer still before these little hungry mouths would be stopped by the food their father was attempting to prepare. For he was unaccustomed and inexpert, and it must have added greatly to the sufferings of his wife to see his blundering movements, undoing with one hand what he did with the other, and using his great strength where only a little skill was needed. Shenac hesitated a moment, and then advanced to Mrs McDonald. "Are you no better? Can I do anything for you?--Let me do that," she added hastily, as she saw the success of the dinner put in jeopardy by an awkward movement of the incompetent cook. In another moment Shenac's black dress was pinned up, and soon the dinner was on the table, and the father and children were seated at it. To her husband's entreaty that she would try and eat something, the poor woman did not yield. She was flushed and feverish, and evidently in great pain. "I am afraid you are in pain," said Shenac, as she turned to her, offering to take the baby. "Yes; I let my sister go home too soon, and what with one thing and another, I am nearly as bad as ever again." And she pressed her hand on her breast as she spoke. A few more words told the state of the case, and in a little time the pain was relieved by a warm application, and the weary woman lay down to rest. Then there was some porridge made for the baby. Unsuitable food it seemed, but the little creature ate it hungrily, and was soon asleep. Then the kettle was boiled, and the poor woman surprised herself and delighted Shenac by drinking a cup of tea and eating a bit of toasted bread with relish. Then her hands and face were bathed, and her cap straightened, and she declared herself to be much better, as indeed it was easy to see she was. Then Shenac cleared the dinner-things away and swept the hearth, the husband and wife looking on. When all this was done, Shenac did not think it needed so much courage to make her proposal about the change of work. Mrs McDonald looked anxiously at her husband, who had listened without speaking. "I think I could spin it to please you," said Shenac. "My mother is pleased with ours, though she did not like the big wheel at first; and you can speak to weaver McLean. I don't think he has had much trouble with the weaving. I would do my best." "Could you come here and do it?" asked John. "Because, if you could, it would be worth while doing the ploughing just to see you round, let alone the wool." Shenac shook her head. She was quite too much in earnest to notice the implied compliment. "No; that would be impossible. I could not be away from home. My mother could not spare me. She is not so strong as she used to be. But I would soon do it at home. Our work is mostly over now. Our land does much the best with the fall wheat, and the wheat is our main dependence." "I'm rather behind with my own work," began John; "and I heard something said about the Camerons doing your field, with some help." "Oh, a bee," said Shenac. "But that is just what I will not have. I don't want to seem ungrateful. All the neighbours have been very kind," she added humbly. "But now that Allister is not coming home, we must carry on the place by ourselves, or give it up. We must not be expecting too much from our neighbours, or they will tire of us. And I don't want a bee; though everybody has been very kind to us in our trouble." She was getting anxious and excited. "Bees are well enough in their way," said Mrs McDonald. "And some of the neighbours were saying they would gather one to help me with the wool. But, John, man, if you could do this for the widow Macivor, I would far rather let Shenac do the wool." "I would do it well," said Shenac. "I would begin to-morrow." "But if you were to do the wool, and then something was to happen that I could not plough or sow the field, what then?" asked John gravely. Shenac looked at him, but said nothing. "What could happen, John, man?" said his wife. "We could have it written down, however," said John, "and that would keep us to our bargain. Should we have it written down, Shenac?" "If you like," said Shenac gravely; "but there is no need. I would begin the wool to-morrow, and do it as soon as I could." "Oh ay, oh ay! but you might need the bit of writing to bind _me_, Shenac, my wise woman. I might slip out of it when the wool was done." "John, man!" remonstrated his wife. "You would never do that," said Shenac quietly. "If you wished to do it, a paper would not hold you to it. I don't see the use of a writing; but if you want one I don't care, of course." But neither did John care, and so they made the bargain. John was to charge the widow a certain sum for the work to be done, and Shenac was to be allowed the usual price for a day's work of spinning; and it was thought that when the wool was spun and the field ploughed and sowed, they would be about even. There might be a little due on one side or the other, but it would not be much. "Well then, it's all settled," said Shenac, and she did not attempt to conceal her satisfaction. It came into John's mind that being settled was one thing and being done was quite another; but he did not say so. He said to himself, as he saw Shenac busy about his wife and child,-- "If there is a way to put that wheat in better than wheat was ever put in before, I shall find it out and do it." He said the same to his wife, as together they watched her running down the road to meet Shenac Dhu. "What in the world kept you so long?" asked her cousin. "Have you been hearkening to one of John Firinn's stories? Better not tell it again. What made you bide so long?" "Do you know how ill the wife has been?" asked Shenac Bhan. Then she told how she found the poor woman suffering, and about the children and their dinner, and so was spared the necessity of telling what her business with John had been. Greatly to the surprise of Angus Dhu and all the neighbours, in due time John McDonald brought his team into the widow Macivor's field. Many were the prophecies brought by Dan to Hamish and Shenac as to the little likelihood there was of his doing the work to the satisfaction of all concerned. "It will serve you right too, Shenac," said the indignant Dan. "To think of a girl like you fancying you could make a bargain with a man like John Firinn!" "Is it Angus Dhu that is concerned, and the Camerons?" asked Shenac. "It's a pity they shouldn't be satisfied. But if the work is done to please the mother and Hamish and me, they'll need to content themselves, I doubt, Dannie, my lad." "Johnnie Cameron said they were just going to call a bee together and do it up in a day or two; and then it would have been done right, and you would have been saved three weeks' spinning besides." "We're obliged to the Camerons all the same," said Shenac a little sharply. "But if it had needed six weeks' spinning instead of three, it would please me better to do it than to trouble the Camerons or anybody. Why should we need help more than other folk?" she added impatiently. "I'm ashamed of you, Dan, with your bees." "Well, I'll tell them what you say, and you'll not be troubled with their offers again, I can tell you," said Dan sulkily. "You'll do nothing of the kind," said Hamish. "Nonsense, Dan, my lad; Shenac is right, and she's wrong too. She's right in thinking the less help we need the better; but she should not speak as though she did not thank the neighbours for their wishing to help us." "Oh, I'm very thankful," said Shenac, dropping a mocking courtesy to Dan. "But I'm not half so thankful for their help as I am for the chance to spin John Firinn's wool. And Dan can tell the Camerons what he likes. I'm not caring; only don't let us hear any more of their bees and their prophecies." Lightly as Shenac spoke of the spinning of the wool, it was no light work to do. For her mother was not pleased that she had undertaken it without her knowledge and consent, and fretted, and cast difficulties in the way, till Shenac, more harassed and unhappy than she had ever been before, offered to break the bargain and send back the wool. Her mother did not insist on this, however, and Shenac span on in the midst of her murmurings. Then Hamish took the mother away to visit her sister in the next township, and during their absence Shenac kept little Flora away from the school to do such little things as she could do about the house, and finished the wool by doing six days' work in three, and then confessed to Dan in confidence, that she was as tired as she ever wished to be. She need not have hurried so much, for mother came home quite reconciled to the spinning--indeed a little proud of all that had been said in Shenac's praise when the matter was laid before the friends they had been to see. So she said, as Mrs McDonald was far from well yet, she would dye her worsted for her; and Shenac was glad to rest herself with the pleasant three miles' walk to give the message and get directions. Shenac's part of the bargain was fulfilled in spirit and letter; and certainly nothing less could be said as to the part of John Firinn. Even Angus Dhu and John Cameron, who kept sharp eyes on him during his work, had no fault to find with the way in which it was done. It was done well and in the right time, and it was with satisfaction quite inexpressible that Shenac looked over the smooth field and listened to her mother's congratulations that this was one good job well and timely done. Ever after that she was John McDonald's fast friend, and the friend of his sickly wife. No one ever ventured to speak a disrespectful word of John before her; and the successful sowing of the wheat-field was by no means the last piece of work he did, and did well, for the widow and her children. CHAPTER TEN. Winter set in early that year, but not too early for Shenac and her brothers. The winter preparations had all been made before the delightful stormy morning came, when Hugh and Colin and little Flora chased one another round and round in the door-yard, making many paths in the new-fallen snow. The house had been banked up with earth, and every crack and crevice in the roof and walls closed. The garden had been dug and smoothed as if the seeds were to be sown the next day. The barn and stable were in perfect order. The arrangements for tying up oxen and cows, which are always sure to get out of order in summer, had been made anew, and the farming-tools gathered safely under cover. These may seem little things; but the comfort of many a household has been interfered with because such little things have been neglected. What may be done at any time is very often left till the right time is past, and disorder and discomfort are sure to follow. I daresay the early snow fell that year on many a plough left in the furrow, and on many a hoe and spade left in garden or yard. But all was as it should be at Mrs Macivor's. In summer, when a long day's work in the field was the order of things, when those who were strong and able were always busy, it seemed to Hamish that he was of little use. This was a mistake of his. He was of great use in many ways, even when he went to the field late and left it early; for though Shenac took the lead in work and planning, she was never sure that her plans were wise, or even practicable, till she had talked them over with Hamish. She would have lost patience with Dan and the rest, and with her mother even, if she had not had Hamish to "empty her heart to." But even Shenac, though she loved her brother dearly, and valued his counsels and sympathy as something which she could not have lived and laboured without--even she did not realise how much of their comfort depended on the work of his weak hands. It was Hamish who banked the house and made the garden; it was he who drove nails and filled cracks, who gathered up tools and preserved seeds, quietly doing what others did not do and remembering what others forgot. It was Hamish who cared for the creatures about the place; it was he who made and mended and kept in order many things which it would have cost money to get or much inconvenience to go without. So it may be said that it was owing to Hamish that the early snow did not find them unprepared. A grave matter was under discussion within-doors that morning while little Flora and her brothers were chasing each other through the snow. It was whether Dan was to go to the school that winter. It was seldom that any but young children could go to school in the summer-time, the help of the elder ones being needed in the field as soon as they were old enough to help. But in the winter few young people thought themselves too old to go to school while the teacher could carry them on. Hamish and Shenac had gone up to the time of their father's death. But as for Dan, he thought himself old enough now to have done with school. He had never been, in country phrase, "a good scholar?"--that is, he had never taken kindly to his books--a circumstance which seemed almost like disgrace in the eyes of Shenac; and she was very desirous that he should get the good of this winter, especially as they were to have a new teacher, whose fame had preceded him. Dan was taking it for granted that he was the mainstay at home, and that for him school was out of the question. But the rest thought differently; and it was decided, much to his discontent, that when the winter's wood was brought, to school he must go. Great was his disgust--so great that he began to talk about going to the woods with the lumberers; at which Shenac laughed, but Hamish looked grave, and bade him think twice before he gave his mother so sore a heart as such a word as that would do. Dan did think twice, and said nothing more about the woods. His going to school, however, did not do him much good in the way of learning, but it did in the way of discipline. At any rate, it left him less idle time than he would otherwise have had; and though his boyish mischief vexed Shenac often, things might have been worse with Dan, as Hamish said, and little harm was done. Winter is a pleasant time in a country farm-house. In our country the summers are so short, and so much work must be crowded into them, that there is little time for any enjoyment, save that of doing well what is to be done, and watching the successful issue. But in winter there is leisure--leisure for enjoyment of various kinds, visiting, sewing, singing; and it is generally made the most of. As for Shenac, the feeling that all the summer's work was successfully ended, that the farm-products were safely housed beyond loss, gave her a sense of being at leisure, though her hands were full of work, and would be for a long time yet. The fulled cloth and the flannel came home. The tailor came for a week to make the lads' clothes, and she helped him with them; and tailor McCallum, though as a general thing rather contemptuous of woman's help, acknowledged that she helped him to purpose. A great deal may be learned by one who begins by thinking nothing too difficult to learn; and Shenac's stitching and button-holes were something to wonder at before the tailor's visit was over. Then came Katie Matheson to help with the new gowns. Shenac felt herself quite equal to these, but, as Shenac Dhu insisted, "Katie had been at M--- within the year, and knew the fashions;" so Katie came for a day or two. Of this wish to follow the fashion, the mother was inclined to speak severely; for what had young folk with their bread to win to do with the fashions of the idle people of the world? But even the mother did not object to following them when she found the wide, useless sleeves, so much sought after by foolish young girls, giving place to the small coat-sleeves which had been considered the thing in her own and her mother's youth. They were, as she said, far more sensible-like, and a saving besides. The additional width which Katie quietly appropriated to Shenac's skirt would have been declared a piece of sinful extravagance, if the mother had known of it before Shenac was turning round, from one to another, to be admired with the new dress on. She did cry out at the length. Why the stocking could only just be seen above the shoe tied round the slender ankle! There was surely no call to waste good cloth by making the skirt so long. "Never mind," said Katie: "Flora's should be all the shorter;" and by that means little Flora was in the fashion too. I daresay Shenac's pleasure in her new dress might have awakened amusement, perhaps contempt, among young people to whom new dresses are not so rare a luxury. But never a young belle of them all could have the same right to take pleasure and pride in silk or satin as Shenac had to be proud of her simple shepherd's plaid. She had shorn the wool, and spun and dyed it with her own hands. She had made it too, with Katie's help; and never was pleasure more innocent or more unmixed than hers, as she stood challenging admiration for it from them all. Indeed, both the dress and the wearer might have successfully challenged admiration from a larger and less interested circle than that--at least, so thought the new master, who came in with Hamish while the affair was in progress. He had seen prettier faces, and nicer dresses too, it is to be supposed; but he had certainly never seen anything prettier or nicer than Shenac's innocent pride and delight in her own handiwork. Shenac Dhu gave the whole a finishing touch as she drew round her cousin's not very slender waist a black band fastened with a silver clasp--an heirloom in the family since the time that the Macivors used to wear the Highland garb among their native hills. "Now walk away and let us see you," said she, giving her a gentle push. Shenac minced and swung her skirts as she moved, as little children do when they are playing "fine ladies." Even her mother could not help laughing, it was so unlike the busy, anxious Shenac of the last few months. "Is she not a vain creature?" said Shenac Dhu. "No wonder that you look at her that way, Hamish, lad." The eyes of Hamish shone with pride and pleasure as they followed his sister. "Next year I'll weave it myself," said Shenac, coming back again. "You need not laugh, Shenac Dhu. You'll see." "Yes, I daresay. And where will you get your loom?" And Shenac Dhu put up both hands and made-believe to cut her hair. Shenac Bhan shook her head at her. "I can learn to weave; you'll see. Anybody can learn anything if they try," said Shenac. "Except the binomial theorem," said Hamish, laughing. His sister shook her head at him too. Charmed with the "new kind of arithmetic" which Mr Rugg had brought, yet not enjoying any pleasure to the full unless his sister enjoyed it with him, Hamish had tried to beguile her into giving her spare hours to the study. But Shenac's mind was occupied with other things, and, rather scornful of labour which seemed to come to nothing, she had given little heed to it. "I could learn that too, but what would be the good of it?" asked Shenac. "Ask the master," said Hamish. "Well?" said Shenac, turning to Mr Stewart. "Do you mean what is the good of algebra, or what would be the good of it to you?" asked Mr Stewart. "What would be the good of it to me? I can never have any use for the like of that." "The discipline of learning it might be good for you," said Mr Stewart. "I once heard a lady say that her knowledge of Euclid had helped her to cut and make her children's clothes." Shenac laughed. "I daresay Katie here could have taught her more about it with less trouble." "I daresay you are right," said the master. "And the discipline of the wheel and the loom, and of household care, may be far better than the discipline of study to prepare you for life and what it may bring you. I am sure this gown, for instance," he added, laying his finger on the sleeve, "has been worth far more to you already than the money it would bring. I mean the patience and energy expended on it will be of far more value to you; for you know these good gifts, well bestowed, leave the bestower all the richer for the giving." "I don't know how that may be," said Shenac, "but I know I would rather have this gown of my own making than the prettiest one that Katie has made for twelve months." I do not know how I came to speak of the winter as a season of leisure in connection with Shenac, for this winter was a very busy time with her. True, her work did not press upon her, so as to make her anxious or impatient, as it sometimes used to do in summer; but she was never idle. There were sewing and housework and a little wool-spinning, and much knitting of stockings and mittens for them all. The knitting was evening work, and, when Hamish was not reading aloud, Shenac's hands and eyes were busy with different matters. She read while she knitted, and enjoyed it greatly, much to her own surprise, for, as she told Hamish, she thought she had given up caring about anything but to work and to get on. They had more books than usual this winter, and more help to understand them, so that instead of groping on alone, sometimes right and sometimes wrong, Hamish made great progress; and wherever Hamish was, Shenac was not far away. It was a very quiet winter in one way--there was not much visiting here and there. Hamish was not fit for that. Shenac went without him sometimes now. She was young, and her mind being at ease, she took pleasure in the simple, innocent merry-makings of the place. She was content to leave Hamish when she did not have to leave him alone, which rarely happened now. The master lived in the house of Angus Dhu, but it seemed that the humbler home of the widow and the company of Hamish suited him best, for scarcely two evenings passed without finding him there; and Shenac could go with a good heart, knowing that her brother was busy and happy at home. Afterwards, when changes came, and new anxieties and cares pressed upon her, Shenac used to look back on this winter as the happiest time of her life. It was not merely that the summer's work had been successful, but that the summer's success seemed to make all their future secure. There was no doubt now about their being able to keep together and carry on the farm. That was settled. She was at rest--they were all at rest-- about that. Their future did not depend now upon Allister's uncertain coming home. It would not be true to say she saw no difficulties in the way; but she saw none to daunt her. Even Dan seemed to have come to himself. He seemed to have forgotten his self-assertion--his "contrariness," as Shenac called it--and was a boy again, noisy and full of fun, but gentle and helpful too. The little ones were well and happy, and getting on well in school, as all the Macivors were bound to do. The mother was comparatively well and cheerful. Her monotonous flax-spinning filled up the quiet, uneventful days, and, untroubled by out-door anxieties, she was content. But, in looking back over this happy time, it was to Hamish that Shenac's thoughts most naturally turned, for it was the happiness of her twin-brother, more than all the rest put together, that made the happiness of Shenac. And Hamish was happier, more like himself, than ever he had been since their troubles began. Not so merry, perhaps, as the Hamish of the former days; but he was happy, that was sure. He was far from well, and he sometimes suffered a good deal; but his illness was not of a kind to alarm them for his life, and unless he had been exposed in some way, or a sudden change of the weather brought on his old rheumatic pains, he was, on the whole, comfortable in health. But whether he suffered or not, he was happy, that was easily seen. There was no sitting silent through the long gloamings now, no weary drooping of his head upon his hands, no wearier struggle to look up and join in the household talk of the rest. There were no heart-sick broodings over his own helplessness, no murmurings as to the burden he might yet become. He did not often speak of his happiness in words, just as he had seldom spoken of his troubles; but every tone of his gentle voice and every glance of his loving eye spoke to the heart of his sister, filling it with content for his sake. What was the cause of the change? what was the secret of her brother's peace? Shenac wondered and wondered. She knew it was through his friend, Mr Stewart, that her brother's life seemed changed; but, knowing this, she wondered none the less. What was his secret power? What could Hamish see in that plain, dark man, so grave and quiet, so much older than he? True, they had the common tie of a love of knowledge, and pored together over lines and figures and strange books as though they would never grow weary of it all. It was true that, more than any one had ever done before, the master had opened new paths of knowledge to the eager lad-- that by a few quiet words he put more life and heart into a subject than others could do by hours and hours of talk. But all these things Shenac shared and enjoyed without being able to understand how, through the master, a new and peaceful influence seemed to have fallen on the life of Hamish. She did not grudge it to him. She was not jealous of the new interest that had come to brighten her brother's life--at least at this time she was not. Afterwards, when new cares and vexations pressed upon her, she vexed herself with the thought that something had come between her brother and herself which made her troubles not so much his as they used to be, and she blamed this new friendship for the difference. But no such thoughts vexed these first pleasant months. Hamish was indeed changed. Unrealised at first by himself, the most wonderful change that can come between the cradle and the grave had happened to him. He had found a secret spring of peace, hidden as yet from his sister's eyes. He had obtained a staff to lean on, which made his weakness stronger than her strength; and this had come to him through the master. There was a bond between the friends, stronger, sweeter, and more enduring than even that which united the twin brother and sister--the BOND OF BROTHERHOOD IN CHRIST. On Norman Stewart had been conferred the highest of all honours; to him had been given the chief of all happiness. Through _his_ voice the voice of Jesus had spoken peace to a troubled soul. To him it had been given so to hold forth the word of life that to a soul sitting in darkness a great light sprang up. I cannot tell you how it came about, except that the heart of the master being full of love to Christ, it could not but overflow in loving words from his lips. Attracted first to Hamish by the patience and gentleness with which he suffered, he could not do otherwise than seek to lead him to the Great Healer; and his touch was life. Then all the shadows that had darkened the past and the future to the lame boy fled away. Gradually all the untoward circumstances of his life seemed to adjust themselves anew. His lameness, his suffering, his helplessness were no longer parts of a mystery, darkening all the future to him, but parts of a plan through which something better than a name and a place in the world might be obtained. Little by little he came to know himself to be one of God's favoured ones; and then he would not have turned his hand to win the lot that all his life had seemed the most desirable to him. Before his friend he saw such a life--a life of labour for the highest of all ends. Before himself he saw a life of suffering, a narrow sphere of action, helplessness, dependence; but he no longer murmured. He was coming to know, through the new life given him, how that "to do God's will is sweet, and to bear God's will is sweet--the one as sweet as the other, to those to whom he reveals himself;" and to have learned this is to rejoice for evermore. The master's term of office came to an end, and the friends were to part. It was June by this time; and when he had bidden all the rest goodbye, Mr Stewart lingered still with Hamish at the gate. Hamish had said something about meeting again, and the master answered,-- "Yes, surely we shall meet again--if not here, yonder;" and he pointed upward. "We shall be true friends there, Hamish, bhodach; be sure of that." Tears that were not all sorrowful stood on the cheeks of Hamish, and he laid his face down on the master's shoulder without speaking. "Much may lie between us and that time," continued the master--"much to do, and, it may be, much to suffer; but it is sure to come." "For me, too," murmured Hamish. "They also serve who only wait." "Yes," said the master; "they who wait are blessed." "And I shall thank God all my life that he sent you here to me," said Hamish. "And I too," said the master. "It seemed to me an untoward chance indeed that turned me aside from the path I had chosen and sent me here, and the good Father has put my doubts and fears to shame, in that he has given me you, and, through you, others, to be stars in my crown of rejoicing against that day. God bless you! Farewell." "God bless you, and farewell," echoed Hamish. So Mr Stewart went away, and Hamish watched till he was out of sight, and still stood long after that, till Shenac came to chide him for lingering out in the damp, and drew him in. She did not speak to him. There were tears on his cheek, she thought, and her own voice failed her. But when they came to the light the tears were gone, but the look of peace that had rested on his face all these months rested on it still. CHAPTER ELEVEN. The happy winter drew to an end, and spring came with some pleasures and many cares. I am not going to tell all about what was done this spring and summer; it would take too long. Shenac and her brother had not the same eagerness and excitement in looking forward to the summer's work that they had had the spring before; but they had some experience, and were not afraid of failure. The spring work was well done, and with comparatively little help. The garden was made, and the first crop of weeds disposed of from some of the beds; and Shenac was beginning to look forward to the little pause in outdoor work that was to give her time for the wool again, when something happened. It was something which Shenac declared delighted her more than anything that had happened for a long time; and yet it filled her with dismay. An uncle, a brother of their mother, who resided in the neighbourhood of the C--- Springs, celebrated for their beneficial effects on persons troubled with rheumatic complaints, sent for Hamish to pass the rest of the summer at his house. The invitation was urgent. Hamish would be sure to get much benefit from the use of the baths, and would return home before winter, a new man. Hamish alone hesitated; all the rest declared that he must go, and none more decidedly than Shenac. In the first delighted moment, she thought only of the good that Hamish was to get, and not at all of how they were to get on without him. She did not draw back when she thought of it, but worked night and day to get his things ready before the appointed time. I do not know whether the union between twins is more tender and intimate than that between other brothers and sisters, but when Hamish went away it seemed to Shenac that half her heart had gone with him. The house seemed desolate, the garden and fields forsaken. Her longing for a sight of his face was unspeakable. All missed him. A strange silence seemed to fall upon the household. They had hardly missed the master, in the bustle that had preceded the going away of Hamish; but now they missed them both. The quiet grew irksome to Dan, and he used in the evenings to go elsewhere--to Angus Dhu's or the Camerons'--thus leaving it all the quieter for the rest. The mother fretted a little for the lame boy, till a letter came telling that he had arrived safe and well, and not very tired; and then she was content. As for Shenac, she betook herself with more energy than ever to her work. She did not leave herself time to be lonely. It was just the first moment of coming into the house and the sitting down at meals that she found unbearable. For the first few days her appetite quite failed her--a thing that had never happened within her memory before. But try as she might, the food seemed to choke her. There was nothing for it but to work, within doors or without, till she was too weary to stand, and then go to bed. And, indeed, there was plenty to do. Not too much, however, Shenac thought--though having the share of Hamish added to her own made a great difference. But she would not have minded the work if only Dan had been reasonable. She had said to herself often, before Hamish went away, that she would be ten times more patient and watchful over herself than ever she had been before, and that Dan should have no excuse from her for being wilful and idle. It had come into her mind of late that Angus Dhu had not been far wrong when he said Dan was a wild lad, and she had said as much to Hamish. But Hamish had warned her from meddling with Dan. "You must trust him, and show that you trust him, Shenac, if you would get any good out of him. He is just at the age to be uneasy, and to have plans and ways of his own, having no one to guide him. We must have patience with Dan a while." "If patience would do it," said Shenac sadly. But she made up her mind that, come what might, she would watch her words and her actions too with double care till Hamish came home again. She was very patient with Dan, or she meant to be so; but she had a great many things pressing on her at this time, and it vexed her beyond measure when he, through carelessness or indifference to her wishes, let things intrusted to him go wrong. She had self-command enough almost always to refrain from speaking while she was angry, but she could not help her vexed looks; and the manner in which she strove to mend matters, by doing with her own hands what he had done imperfectly or neglected altogether, angered Dan far more than words could have done. They missed the peace-maker. Oh, how Shenac missed him in all things where Dan was concerned! She had not realised before how great had been the influence of Hamish over his brother, or, indeed, over them all. A laughing remark from Hamish would do more to put Dan right than any amount of angry expostulation or silent forbearance from her. Oh, how she missed him! How were they to get through harvest-time without him? "Mother," said Dan, as he came in to his dinner one day, "have you any message to The Sixteenth? I am going over to McLay's raising to-morrow." "But, Dan, my lad, the barley is losing; and, for all that you could do at the putting up of the barn, it hardly seems worth your while to go so far," said his mother. Shenac had not come in yet, but Shenac Dhu, who had come over on a message, was there. "Oh, I have settled that, mother. The Camerons and Sandy McMillan are coming here in the morning. The barley will be all down by dinner-time, and they'll take their dinner here, and we'll go up together." "But, Dan, lad, they have barley of their own. What will Shenac say? Have you spoken to your sister about it?" asked his mother anxiously. "Oh, what about Shenac?" said Dan impatiently. "They will be glad to come. What's a short forenoon to them? And I believe Shenac hates the sight of one and all. What's the use of speaking to her?" "Did you tell them that when you asked them?" said Shenac Dhu dryly. "I haven't asked them yet," said Dan. "But what would they care for a girl like Shenac, if I were to tell?" "Try and see," said Shenac Dhu. "You're a wise lad, Dan, about some things. Do you think it's to oblige you that Sandy McMillan is hanging about here and bothering folk with his bees and his bees? Why, he would go fifty miles and back again, any day of his life, for one glance from your sister's eye. Don't fancy that folk are caring for _you_, lad." "Shenac Dhu, my dear," said her aunt in a tone of vexation, "don't say such foolish things, and put nonsense into the head of a child like our Shenac." "Well, I won't, aunt; indeed I dare not," said Shenac Dhu, laughing, as at that moment Shenac Bhan came in. "Shenac, what kept you?" said her mother fretfully. "Your dinner is cold. See, Dan has finished his." "I could not help it, mother," said Shenac, sitting down. "It was that Sandy McMillan that hindered me. He offered to come and help us with the barley." "And what did you say to him?" asked Shenac Dhu demurely. "Oh, I thanked him kindly," said Shenac, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I must see him. Where is he, Shenac?" said Dan. "He must come to-morrow, and the Camerons, and then we'll go to the raising together. Is he coming to-morrow?" "No," said Shenac sharply; "I told him their own barley was as like to suffer for the want of cutting as ours. When we want him we'll send for him." "But you did not anger him, Shenac, surely?" said her mother. "No; I don't think it. I'm not caring much whether I did or not," said Shenac. "Anger him!" cried Dan. "You may be sure she did. She's as grand as if she were the first lady in the country." This was greeted by a burst of merry laughter from the two Shenacs. Even the mother laughed a little, it was so absurd a charge to bring against Shenac. Dan looked sheepishly from one to the other. "Well, it's not me that says it," said Dan angrily; "plenty folk think that of our Shenac.--And you had no business to tell him not to come, when I had spoken to him." "What will Sandy care for a girl like Shenac?" asked his cousin mockingly. "Well, _I_ care," persisted Dan. "She's always interfering and having her own way about things--and--" "Whisht, Dan, lad," pleaded the mother. "I didn't know that you had spoken to Sandy--not that it would have made any difference, however," added Shenac candidly. "And, Dan, you don't suppose any one will care for what a girl like Shenac Bhan may say. He'll come all the same to please you," said Cousin Shenac. "Whether he comes or not, I'm going to McLay's raising," said Dan angrily. "Shenac's not _my_ mistress, yet a while." "Whisht, Dan; let's have no quarrelling," pleaded the mother.--"Why do you vex him?" she continued, as Dan rushed out of the room. "I did not mean to vex him, mother," said Shenac gently. This was only one of many vexatious discussions that had troubled their peace during the summer. Sometimes Shenac's conscience acquitted her of all blame; but, whether it did or not, she always felt that if Hamish had been at home all this might have been prevented. She did not know how to help it. Sometimes her mother blamed her more than was quite fair for Dan's fits of wilfulness and idleness, and she longed for Hamish to be at home again. Dan went to the raising, and, I daresay, was none the better for the companionship of the offended Sandy. Shenac stayed at home and worked at the barley till it grew dark. She even did something at it when the moon rose, after her mother had gone to bed; but she herself was in bed and asleep before Dan came, so there was nothing more said at that time. The harvest dragged a little, but they got through with it in a reasonable time. There were more wet weather and more anxiety all through the season than there had been last year; but, on the whole, they had reason to be thankful that it had ended so well. Shenac was by no means so elated as she had been last year. She was very quiet and grave, and in her heart she was beginning to ask herself whether Angus Dhu might not have been right, and whether she might not have better helped her mother and all of them in some other way. They had only just raised enough on the farm to keep them through the year, and surely they might have managed just to live with less difficulty. Even if Dan had been as good and helpful as he ought to have been, it would not have made much difference. Shenac would not confess it to herself, much less to any one else, but the work of the summer had been a little too much for her strength and spirits. Her courage revived with a little rest and the sight of her brother. He did not come back quite a new man, but he was a great deal better and stronger than he had been for years; and the delight of seeing him go about free from pain chased away the half of Shenac's troubles. Even Dan's freaks did not seem so serious to her now, and she made up her mind to say as little as possible to Hamish about the vexations of the summer, and to think of nothing unpleasant now that she had him at home again. But unpleasant things are not so easily set aside out of one's life, and Shenac's vexations with Dan were not over. He was more industrious than usual about this time, and worked at cutting and bringing up the winter's wood with a zeal that made her doubly glad that she had said little about their summer's troubles. He talked less and did more than usual; and Hamish bade his mother and Shenac notice how quiet and manly he was growing, when he startled them all by a declaration that he was going with the Camerons and some other lads to the lumbering, far up the Grand River. "I'm not going to the school. I would not, even if Mr Stewart were coming back; and I am not needed at home, now that you are better, Hamish. You can do what is needed in the winter, so much of the wood is up; and, at any rate, I am going." Hamish entreated him to stay at home for his mother's sake, or to choose some less dangerous occupation, if he must go away. "Dangerous! Nonsense, Hamish! Why should it be more dangerous to me than to the rest? I cannot be a child all my life to please my mother and Shenac." "No; that is true," said Hamish; "but neither can you be a man all at once to please yourself. You are neither old enough nor strong enough for such work as is done in the woods, whatever you may think." "There are younger lads going to the woods than I am," muttered Dan sulkily. "Yes; but they are not going to do men's work nor get men's wages. If you are wise, you will bide at home." But all that Hamish could get from Dan was a promise that he would not go, as he had first intended, without his mother's leave. This was not easy to get, for the fate of Lewis might well fill the mother's heart with terror for Dan, who was much younger than his brother had been. But she consented at last, and Shenac and Hamish set themselves to make the best of Dan's going, for their mother's sake. "He'll be in safe keeping with the Camerons, mother, and it will do him good to rough it a little. We'll have him back in the spring, more of a man and easier to do with," said Hamish. But the mother was not easily comforted. Dan's going brought too vividly back the going of those who had never returned; and the mother fretted and pined for the lad, and murmured sometimes that, if Shenac had been more forbearing with him, he might not have wanted to go. She did not know how she hurt her daughter, or she never would have said anything like that, for in her heart she knew that Shenac was not to blame for the waywardness of Dan. But Shenac did not defend herself, and the mother murmured on till the first letter came, saying that Dan was well and doing well, and then she was content. About this time they had a visit from their Uncle Allister, their mother's brother, in whose house Hamish had passed the summer. He brought his two daughters--pretty, cheerful girls--who determined between themselves, encouraged by Hamish, that they should carry off Shenac for a month's visit when they went home. They succeeded too, though Shenac declared and believed it to be impossible that she should leave home, even up to the day before they went. The change did her a great deal of good. She came back much more like the Shenac of two years ago than she had seemed for a long time; and, as spring drew on, she could look forward to the labours of another summer without the miserable misgivings that had so vexed her in the fall. Indeed, now that Hamish was well, whether Dan came home or not, she felt sure of success, and of a quiet and happy summer for them all. But before spring came something happened. There came a letter from Allister--not this time to the mother, but to Angus Dhu. It told of wonderful success which had followed his going to the gold country, and made known to Angus Dhu that in a certain bank in the city of M--- he would find a sum of money equal to all his father's debt, with interest up to the first day of May following, at which time he trusted that he would give up all claim to the land that had been in his possession for the last two years, according to the promise made to his father. He was coming home soon, he added; he could not say just when. He meant to make more money first, and then, if all things were to his mind, he should settle down on his father's land and wander no more. It was also added, quite at the end of the paper, as though he had not intended to speak of it at first, that he had had nothing to do with the going away of his cousin, as he had heard the lad's father had supposed, but that he should do his best to bring him home again; "for," he added, "it is not at all a happy life that folk must live in this golden land." To say that Angus Dhu was surprised when this letter came would not be saying enough. He was utterly amazed. He had often thought that when Allister was tired of his wanderings in foreign lands he might wander home again and claim his share of what his father had left. But that he had gone away and stayed away all this time for the purpose of redeeming the land which his father had lost, he never for a moment supposed. He even now thought it must have been a fortunate chance that had given the money first into Allister's hand and then into his own. He made up his mind at once that he should give up the land. It did not cost him half as much to do so as it would have cost him two years ago not to get it. It had come into his mind more than once of late, as he had seen how well able the widow's children were to manage their own affairs, that they might have been trusted to pay their father's debt in time; and, whatever his neighbours thought, he began to think himself that he had been hard on his cousin. Of course he did not say so; but he made up his mind to take the money and give up the land. And what words shall describe the joyful pride of Shenac? She did not try to express it in words while Angus Dhu was there, but "her face and her sparkling eyes were a sight to behold," as the old man afterwards in confidence told his daughter Shenac. There were papers to be drawn up and exchanged, and a deal of business of one kind or another to be settled between the widow and Angus Dhu, and a deal of talk was needed, or at least expended, in the course of it; but in it Shenac took no part. She placed entire reliance on the sense and prudence of Hamish, and she kept herself quite in the background through it all. She would not acknowledge to any one who congratulated her on Allister's success, that any surprise mingled with her pleasure; and once she took Shenac Dhu up sharply--gave her a down-setting, as that astonished young woman expressed it--because she did not take the coming of the money quite as a matter of course, and ventured to express a little surprise as well as pleasure at the news. "And what is there surprising in it?" demanded Shenac Bhan. "Is our Allister one whose well-doing need astonish any one? But I forgot. He is not _your_ brother. You don't know our Allister, Shenac." "Don't I?" said Shenac Dhu, opening her black eyes a little wider than usual. "Well, I don't wonder that you are proud of your brother. But you need not take a body up like that. I'm not surprised that he minded you all, and sent the money when he got it; but it is not, as a general thing, the good, true hearts that get on in this world. I was aye sure he would come back, but I never thought of his being a rich man." Shenac Dhu sighed, as if she had been bemoaning his poverty. "She's thinking of Evan yonder," said Shenac Bhan to herself. "Our Allister is not a rich man," she said gravely. "He sent enough to pay the debt and the interest. There is a little over, because your father won't take the interest for the last two years, having had the land. But our Allister is not rich." "But he means to be rich before he comes home," persisted Shenac Dhu; "and neither he nor Evan will be content to bide quietly here again-- never. It aye spoils people to go away and grow rich." Shenac Bhan looked at her with some surprise. "I cannot answer for Evan, but our Allister says he is coming home to stay. I'm not afraid for him." "Oh, but he must be changed after all these years. He has forgotten how different life is here," said Shenac Dhu with a sigh. "But, Shenac, your Allister speaks kindly of our Evan--in the letter your mother got, I mean." "That he does," said Shenac Bhan eagerly. "He says they are like brothers, and he says your father need not be sorry that Evan went away. He needed hardening, and he'll win through bravely; and Allister says he'll bring Evan with him when he comes. You may trust our Allister, Shenac." "May I?" said Shenac Dhu a little wistfully. "Well, I will," she added, laughing. "But, Shenac, I cannot help it. I _am_ surprised that Allister should turn out a rich man. He is far too good for the like of that. But there is one good thing come out of it--my father has got quit of the land. You can never cast that up again, Shenac Bhan." Shenac Bhan's cheek was crimsoned. "I never cast it up to you, Shenac Dhu," said she hastily. "I never spoke to any one but himself; and I was sorry as soon as I said it." "You need not be. He thought none the worse of you, after the first anger. But, Shenac, my father is not so hard a man as folk think. I do believe he is less glad for the money than he is for Allister and you all. If Evan would only come home! My father has so set his heart on Evan." Though Shenac took the matter quietly as far as the rest of the world was concerned, she "emptied her heart" to Hamish. To him she confessed she had grown a little doubtful of Allister. "But, Hamish, I shall never doubt or be discouraged again. If Allister only comes safe home to my mother and to us all, I shall be content. We are too young, Hamish. It does not harm you, I know; but as for me, I am getting as hard as a stone, and as cross as two sticks. I shall be glad when the time comes that I can do as I am bidden again." Hamish laughed. "Are you hard, Shenac, and cross? Well, maybe just a little sometimes. I am not afraid for you, though. It will all come right, I think, in the end. But I am glad Allister is coming home, and more glad for your sake than for all the rest." CHAPTER TWELVE. It is May-day again--not so bright and pleasant as the May-day two years ago, when Hamish and Shenac sat so drearily watching Angus Dhu's fence-building. They are sitting on the same spot now, and the children are under the big willow, sailing boats as they did that day--all but Dan. You could not make him believe that he had done such a foolish thing as that two years ago. Two years! It might be ten for the difference they have made in Dan. He only came back from the Grand River two days ago, and Shenac has not ceased wondering and laughing at the change in him. It is not merely his new-fashioned coat and astonishing waistcoat that have changed him. He has grown amazingly, and his voice is almost always as deep and rough as Angus Dhu's; and the man and the boy are so blended in all he says and does, that Shenac has much ado to answer him as gravely as he expects. "Hamish," he called out from the top of the fence on which he was sitting, "you are a man of sense, and I want to ask you a question. Whose fence is this that I am sitting on? Is it ours, or Angus Dhu's?" Hamish had not considered the question. Indeed, Dan did not wait for an answer. "Because, it is of no use here. If it is ours, we'll draw the rails up to the high field, and get them out of the way before Allister comes home. If it belongs to Angus Dhu, we'll--we'll throw the rails into the creek." "There's no hurry about it, is there?" said a voice behind him; and Dan, jumping down, turned about, and with more shamefacedness than Shenac would have believed possible, met the offered hand of Angus Dhu. "I heard you had come back again, Dan, lad; and I thought you would not let the grass grow under your feet.--Are you for putting my good rails in the creek, Hamish, man?" Hamish was laughing too much at Dan's encounter to be able to answer at once. Shenac was laughing too; but she was nearly as shamefaced as Dan, remembering her own encounter on the same ground. "If it is Allister you're thinking about, he's not here yet, and you need not be in a hurry. And as to whether the rails are yours or mine, when the goods are bought and paid for there need be no words about the string that ties them. But for all that, Dan, lad, I have something to say to your mother yet, and you may as well let them be where they are a while.--Are you for sending my good rails down the creek, too?" he added suddenly, turning to Shenac. "It was Dan's plan, not mine," said Shenac. "Though once I would have liked to do it," she added candidly. "No, Shenac," said Hamish; "you wanted to burn it. Don't you mind?" "O Hamish!" exclaimed Shenac. Angus Dhu smiled. "That would be a pity. They are good rails--the very best. And if they were put up too soon, they can be taken down again. You have heard from your brother again?" "No; not since about the time of your letter," said Hamish. "We are thinking he may be on the way." For an instant an eager look crossed the face of the old man, but he shook his head. "No. With gold comes the love of it. He will stay where he is a while yet." "You don't know our Allister," exclaimed Shenac hotly. But Hamish laid his hand on hers. "Whisht. He's thinking of Evan," he said softly. "He'll not be here this while yet," continued Angus Dhu, not heeding the interruption. "You'll have the summer before you, I'm thinking; and the question is, whether you'll take down the fence just now, while the creek is full," he added, smiling significantly at Dan, "or whether you'll let things be as they are till you have more help. I have done well by the land, and will yet, and give you what is just and right for the use of it till your brother comes. But for what am I saying all this to children like you? It is your mother that must decide it." Accordingly, before the mother the matter was laid; but it was not the mother who decided it. Shenac could hardly sit still while he spoke of the time that might pass before Allister should come home. But when he went on to say that, unless they had more help, the boys and Shenac could not manage more land than they had already, she felt that it was true. Hamish thought so too, and said heartily to Angus Dhu that the land would be better under his care till Allister should come. Dan was indignant. He felt himself equal to anything, and declared that, with two men at his disposal, he could make the farm look like a different place. But the rest had less faith in Dan than he had in himself. He did not conceal his disgust at the idea of creeping on through another summer in the old, quiet way, and talked of leaving it to Hamish and Shenac and seeking work somewhere else. But they knew very well he would never do that, now that Allister might be home among them any day; and he did not. There was no pulling down of the fence, however. It stood as firm as ever; but it was not an eyesore to Shenac now. The spring passed, and the summer wore away slowly, for there was no more word of Allister. Shenac did not weary herself with field-work, as she had done the last two years; for she felt that they might get help now, and, besides, she was needed more in the house. Her mother had allowed herself to think that only a few weeks would pass before she should see her first-born, and the waiting and suspense told upon her sadly. It told upon Shenac, too. In spite of her declaration to Hamish, she did feel anxious and discouraged many a time. Hamish was ill again, not always able to see to things; and Dan was not proving himself equal to the emergency, now that he was having his own way out-of-doors. That would not matter much, if Allister were come. He would set all things right again, and Dan would not be likely to resist his oldest brother's lawful authority. But if Allister did not come soon? Shenac shrank from this question. If he did not come soon, she would have something else to think about besides Dan's delinquencies. Her mother could not endure this suspense much longer. It was wearing out her health and spirits; and it needed all Shenac's strength and courage to get through some of these summer days. It was worse when Hamish went again for a few weeks to his uncle's. He must go, Shenac said, to be strong and well to welcome Allister; and much as it grieved him to leave his sister, he knew that a few weeks of the baths would give him the best chance to be able to help her should this sad suspense change to sadder certainty and Allister never come home again. So he went away. Often and often, during the long days that followed his going away, Shenac used to wonder at herself for ever having been weary of the labour that had fallen to her during the last two years. Now, when her mother had a better day than usual, when little Flora could do all that was needed for her, so that Shenac could go out to the field, she was comparatively at peace. The necessity for bodily exertion helped her for the time to set aside the fear that was growing more terrible every day. But, when the days came that she could not leave her mother, when she must sit by her side, or wander with her into the garden or fields, saying the same hopeful words or answering the same questions over and over again, it seemed to her that she could not very long endure it. A fear worse than the fear of death grew upon her--the fear that her mother's mind would give way at last, and that she would not know her son when he came. Even the fear that he might never come seemed easier to bear than this. Shenac Dhu helped her greatly at this time. Not that she was very cheerful herself, poor girl; but the quick, merry ways she would assume with her aunt did her good. She would speak of the coming home of Allister as certain and near at hand, and she would tell of all that was to be done and said, of the house that he was to build, and of the gowns that Shenac Bhan was to wear, while her aunt would listen contentedly for a while. And when the old shadow came back, and the old moan rose, she would just begin and go over it all again. She was needed at home during the day; but all the time that Hamish was away she shared with Shenac Bhan the task of soothing the weary, wakeful nights of the mother. She sat one night in the usual way, speaking softly, and singing now and then, till the poor weary mother had dropped asleep. Rising quietly and going to the door, she found Shenac Bhan sitting on the step, with her head on her hands. "Shenac," she said, "why did you not go to bed, as I bade you? I'll need to begin on you, now that aunt is settled for the night. You are tired, Shenac. Why don't you go to bed?" Her cousin moved and made room for her on the step beside her. The children were in bed, and Dan had gone away with one of Angus Dhu's men to a preaching that was going on in a new kirk several miles away. It was moonlight--so bright that they could see the shadows of the trees far over the fields, and only a star was visible here and there in the blue to which, for a time, the faces of both were upturned. "You're tired, Shenac Bhan," said her cousin again; "more tired than usual, I mean." "No, not more tired than you are. Do you know, Shenac, your eyes look twice as big as they used to do, and twice as black?" "Do they? Well, so do yours. But no wonder that you are growing thin and pale; for I do believe, you foolish Shenac Bhan, that it sometimes comes into your mind that Allister may never come home. Now confess." "I often think it," said Shenac, in an awed voice. "Toch! I knew it by your face. You are as bad as my aunt." "Do you never think so?" asked our Shenac. "Think it!" said Shenac Dhu scornfully. "I trow not. Why should I think it? I will not think it! He'll come and bring Evan. Oh, I'm sure he'll come." "Well, I'm not always hopeless; there is no reason," said Shenac. "He did not say he would come at once; but he should write." "Oh, you may be sure he has written and the letter has been lost. I hardly ever take up a paper but I read of some ship that has gone down, and think of the letters that must go down with it, and other things." Each saw the emotions that the face of the other betrayed in the moonlight. "And think of the sailors," continued Shenac Dhu. "O Shenac, darling, we are only wearying for a lost letter; but think of the lost sailors, and the mothers and sisters that are waiting for them!" A strong shudder passed over Shenac Bhan. "I don't think you know what you are saying, Shenac," said she. "Yes; about the lost letters, and the sailors," said Shenac Dhu hurriedly. "The very worst that can happen to us is that we may lose the letters. God would never give us the hope of seeing them, and then let them be drowned in the sea." The thought was too much for them, and they burst into bitter weeping. "We are two fools," said Shenac Dhu, "frightening ourselves for nothing. We need Hamish to scold us and set us right. Why should we be afraid? If there was any cause for fear there would be plenty to tell us of it. Nobody seems afraid for them except my father; and it is not fear with him. He has never settled down in the old way since the letter came saying that Allister would bring Evan home." Yes, they needed Hamish more than they knew. It was the anxiety for the mother, the sleepless nights and unoccupied days, that, all together, unnerved Shenac Bhan. It was the dwelling on the same theme, the going over and over the same thing--"nothing would happen to him?"--"he would be sure to come?"--till the words seemed to mock her, they made her so weary of hoping and waiting. For, indeed, nobody seemed to think there was anything strange in the longer stay of Allister. He had stayed so long and done so well, he might be trusted surely to come home when the right time came. No, there was no real cause for fear, Shenac repeated to herself often. If her mother had been well and quite herself, and if Hamish had been at home, she thought she would never have fallen into this miserable dread. She was partly right. It was better for them all when Hamish came home. He was well, for him, and cheerful. He had never imagined how sadly the time was passing at home, or he would not have stayed away so long. He was shocked at the wan looks of the two girls, and quite unable to understand how they should have grown so troubled at a few weeks' or even a few months' delay. His wonder at their trouble did them good. It could not be so strange--the silence and the delay--or Hamish would surely see it. The mother was better too after the return of Hamish. The sight of him, and his pleasant, gentle talk, gave a new turn to her thoughts, and she was able again to take an interest in what was going forward about her; and when there came a return of the old restlessness and pain, it was Hamish who stayed in the house to soothe her and to care for her, while Shenac betook herself with her old energy to the harvest-field. The harvest passed. Dan kept very steady at it, though every night he went to the new kirk, where the meetings were still held. He did not say much about these meetings even when questioned, but they seemed to have a wonderful charm for him; for night after night, wet or dry, he and Angus Dhu's man, Peter, walked the four miles that lay between them and the new kirk to hear--"What?" Shenac asked one night. "Oh, just preaching, and praying, and singing." "But that is nonsense," insisted Shenac. "You are not so fond of preaching as all that. What is it, Dan?" "It's just that," said Dan; "that is all they do. The minister speaks to folk, and sometimes the elders; and that's all. But, Shenac, it's wonderful to see so many folk listening and solemn, as if it was the judgment day; and whiles one reads and prays--folk that never used; and I'm always wondering who it will be next. Last night it was Sandy McMillan. You should have heard him, Shenac." "Sandy McMillan!" repeated Shenac contemptuously. "What next, I wonder? I think the folk are crazed. It must be the singing. I mind when I was at Uncle Allister's last year I went to the Methodist watch-meeting, and the singing--oh, you should have heard the singing, Hamish! I could not keep back the tears, do what I would. It must be the singing, Dan." Dan shook his head. "They just sing the psalms, Shenac. I never heard anything else--and the old tunes. They do sound different, though." "Well, it goes past me," said Shenac. "But it is all nonsense going every night, Dan--so far too." "There are plenty of folk who go further," said Dan. "You should go yourself, Shenac." "I have something else to do," said Shenac. "Everybody goes," continued Dan; and he repeated the names of many people, far and near, who were in the new kirk night after night. "Come with me and Peter to-night, Shenac." But Shenac had other things to think about, she said. Still she thought much of this too. "I wonder what it is, Hamish," said she when they were alone. "I can understand why Dan and Peter McLay should go--just because other folk go; and I daresay there's some excitement in seeing all the folk, and that is what they like. But so many others, sensible folk, and worldly folk, and all kinds of folk, in this busy harvest-time! You should go, Hamish, and see what it is all about." But the way was long and the meetings were late, and Hamish needed to save his strength; and he did not go, though many spoke of the meetings, and the wonderful change which was wrought in the heart and life of many through their means. He wondered as well as Shenac, but not in the same way; for he had felt in his own heart the wondrous power that lies in the simple truth of God to comfort and strengthen and enlighten; and it came into his mind, sometimes, that the good days of which he had read were coming back again, when the Lord used to work openly in the eyes of all the people, making his Church the instrument of spreading the glory of his name by the conversion of many in a day. It did not trouble or stumble him, as it did his sister, that it was not in their church--the church of their fathers--that this was done. They were God's people, and it made no difference; and so, while she only wondered, he wondered and rejoiced. But about this time news came that put all other thoughts out of their minds for a while. The mother was sleeping, and Shenac and Hamish were sitting in the firelight one evening in September, when the door opened and their cousin Shenac came in. She seemed greatly excited, and there were tears on her cheeks, and she did not speak, but came close up to Shenac Bhan, without heeding the exclamations of surprise with which they both greeted her. "Did I not tell you, Shenac, that God would never drown them in the sea?" She had run so fast that she had hardly a voice to say the words, and she sank down at her cousin's feet, gasping for breath. In her hands she held a letter. It was from Evan--the first he had written to his father since he went away. Shenac told them that her father had received it in the morning, but said nothing about it then, going about all day with a face like death, and only told them when he broke down at worship-time, when he prayed as usual for "all distant and dear." "Then he told my mother and me," continued Shenac Dhu, spreading out a crushed morsel of paper with hands that trembled. It was only a line or two, broken and blurred, praying for his father's forgiveness and blessing on his dying son. He meant to come home with his cousin. They were to meet at Saint F---, and sail together, But he had been hurt, and had fallen ill of fever in an inland town, and he was dying. "And now the same ship that takes this to you will take Allister home. He will not know that I am dying, but will think I have changed my mind as I have done before. I would not let him know if I could; for he would be sure to stay for my sake, and his heart is set on getting home to his mother and the rest. And, father, I want to tell you that it was not Allister that beguiled me from home, but my own foolishness. He has been more than a brother to me. He has saved my life more than once, and he has saved me from sins worse than death; and you must be kind to him and to them all for my sake." "And then," said Shenac Dhu, "there is his name, written as if he had been blind; and that is all." The three young people sat looking at one another in silence. Shenac Bhan's heart beat so strongly that she thought her mother must hear it in her bed; but she could not put her thought in words--"Allister is coming home." Shenac Dhu spoke first. "Hamish--Shenac, I told my father that Allister would never leave our Evan alone to die among strangers." She paused, looking eagerly first at one and then at the other. "No," said Hamish; "he would never do that, if he knew it in time to stay. We can but wait and see." "Wait and see!" Shenac Bhan echoed the words in her heart. If they had heard that he was to stay for months, or even for years, she thought she could bear it better than this long suspense. "Shenac," said her cousin, reading her thought, "you would not have Allister come and leave him? It will only be a little longer whether Evan lives or dies." "No," said Shenac; "but my mother." "We will not tell her for a little while," said Hamish. "If Allister is coming it will be soon; and if he has stayed, it will give my mother more hope of his coming home at last to hear that he is well and that he is waiting for Evan." "And my father," said Shenac Dhu. "Oh! if you had seen how he grasped at the hope when I said Allister was sure to stay, you would not grudge him for a day or two. Think of the poor lad dying so far from home and from us all!" And poor Shenac clung to her cousin, bursting into sobs and bitter tears. "Whisht, Shenac, darling," said her cousin, her own voice broken with sobs; "we can only have patience." "Yes," said Hamish; "we can do more than that--we can trust and pray. And we will not fear for the mother, Shenac. She will be better, now that there is a reason for Allister's stay.--And, Cousin Shenac, you must take hope for your brother. No wonder he was downcast thinking of being left. You must tell your father that there is no call to give up hope for Evan." "O Hamish, my father loved Evan dearly, though he was hard on him. He has grown an old man since he went away; and to-day,--oh, I think to-day his heart is broken." "The broken and contrite heart He will not despise," murmured Hamish. "We have all need of comfort, Shenac, and we'll get it if we seek it." And the two girls were startled first, and then soothed, as the voice of Hamish rose in prayer. It was no vague, formal utterance addressed to a God far away and incomprehensible. He was pleading with a Brother close at hand--a dear and loving elder Brother--for their brothers far away. He did not plead as one who feared denial, but trustfully, joyfully, seeking first that God's will might be done in them and theirs. Hamish was not afraid; nothing could be plainer than that. So the two Shenacs took a little comfort, and waited and trusted still. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. And so they waited. For a few days it did not seem impossible to Shenac that Allister might come; and she watched each hour of the day and night, starting and trembling at every sound. But he did not come, and in a little while Hamish broke the tidings to his mother, how they had heard that Allister was to have sailed on a certain day, but his Cousin Evan having been taken ill, they were to wait for another ship; but they would be sure to come soon. Happily, the mother's mind rested more on having heard that her son was well, and was coming some time, than on his being delayed; and she was better after that. She fell back for a little time into her old ways, moving about the house, and even betaking herself to the neglected flax-spinning. But she was very feeble, going to bed early, and rising late, and requiring many an affectionate stratagem on the part of her children to keep her from falling into invalid ways. It was a sad and weary waiting to them all, but to none more than to Angus Dhu. If he had heard of his son's death, it would not have been so terrible to him as the suspense which he often told himself need not be suspense. There was no hope, there could be none, after the words written by his son's trembling hands. He grew an old, feeble man in the short space between the harvest and the new year. The grief which had fallen on all the family when Evan's letter came gave way before the anxiety with which they all saw the change in him. His wife was a quiet, gentle woman, saying little at any time, perhaps feeling less than her stern husband. They all sorrowed, but it was on the father that the blight fell heaviest. It was a fine Sabbath morning in October. It was mild, and not very bright, and the air was motionless. It was just like an Indian-summer day, only the Indian summer is supposed to come in November, after some snow has fallen on brown leaves and bare boughs; and now the woods were brilliant with crimson and gold, except where the oak-leaves rustled brown, or the evergreens mingled their dark forms with the pervading brightness. It was a perfect Sabbath day, hushed and restful. But it must be confessed that Shenac shrank a little from its long, quiet, unoccupied hours; and when something was said about the great congregation that would be sure to assemble in the new kirk, she said she would like to go. "Go, by all means," said the mother; "and Hamish too, if you are able for the walk. Little Flora can do all that is to be done. There's nothing to hinder, if you would like to go." There was nothing to hinder; the mother seemed better and more cheerful than she had seemed for many days. They might very well leave her for a little while; they would be home again in the afternoon. So they went early--long before the people were setting out--partly that they might have time to rest by the way, and partly that they might enjoy the walk together. And they did enjoy it. They were young, and unconsciously their hearts strove to throw off the burden of care that had pressed so long and so heavily upon them. "It has seemed like the old days again," said Shenac as they came in sight of the new kirk, round which many people had already gathered. They were strangers mostly, or, at least, people that they did not know very well; and, a little shy and unaccustomed to a crowd, they went into the kirk and sat down near the door. It was a very bright, pleasant house, quite unlike the dim, dreary old place they were accustomed to worship in; and they looked round them with surprise and interest. In a little time the congregation began to gather, and soon the pews were filled and the aisles crowded with an eager multitude; then the minister came in, and worship began. First the psalm was named, and then there was a pause till the hundreds of Bibles or psalm books were opened and the place found. Then the old familiar words were heard, and yet could they be the same? Shenac looked at her Bible. The very same. She had learned the psalm years ago. She had heard it many a time in the minister's monotonous voice in the old kirk; and yet she seemed to hear it now for the first time. Was it the minister's voice that made the difference? Every word fell sweet and clear and full from his lips--from his heart--touching the hearts of the listening hundreds. Then the voice of praise arose "like the sound of many waters." After the first verse Hamish joined, but through it all Shenac listened; she alone was silent. With the full tones of youth and middle age mingled the shrill, clear notes of little children, and the cracked and trembling voices of old men and women, dwelling and lingering on the sweet words as if they were loath to leave them. It might not be much as music, but as praise it rose to Heaven. Then came the prayer. Shenac thought of Jacob wrestling all night with the angel at Jabbok, and said to herself, "As a prince he hath power with God." Then came the reading of the Scriptures, then more singing, and then the sermon began. Shenac did not fall asleep when the text was read; she listened, and looked, and wondered. There were no sleepers there that day, even old Donald and Elspat Smith were awake and eager. Every face was turned upward towards the minister. Many of them were unknown to Shenac; but on those that were familiar to her an earnestness, new and strange, seemed to rest as they listened. What could it be? The sermon seemed to be just like other sermons, only the minister seemed to be full of the subject, and eager to make the truth known to the people. Shenac turned to her brother: she quite started when she saw his face. It was not peace alone, or joy, or triumph, but peace and joy and triumph were brightly blended on the boy's face as he hung on the words of life spoken there that day. "They with the fatness of thy house Shall be well satisfied; From rivers of thy pleasures thou Wilt drink to them provide," repeated Shenac. And again it came into her mind that Hamish was changed, and held in his heart a treasure which she did not share; and still the words of the psalm came back:-- "Because of life the fountain pure Remains alone with thee; And in that purest light of thine We clearly light shall see." Did Hamish see that light? She looked away from her brother's fair face to the congregation about them. Did these people see it? did old Donald and Elspat Smith see it? did big Maggie Cairns, at whose simplicity and queerness all the young people used to laugh, see it? Yes, even on her plain, common face a strange, bright look seemed to rest, as she turned it to the minister. There were other faces too with that same gleam of brightness on them--old weather-beaten faces, some of them careworn women's faces, and the faces of young girls and boys, one here and another there, scattered through the earnest, listening crowd. By a strong effort Shenac turned her attention to the minister's words. They were earnest words, surely, but wherein did they differ from the words of other men? They seemed to her just like the truths she had heard before--more fitly spoken, perhaps, than when they fell from the lips of good old Mr Farquharson, but just the same. "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." This was the text. It was quite familiar to her; and so were the truths drawn from it, she thought. What could be the cause of the interest that she saw in the faces of those eager hundreds? Did they see something hidden from her? did they hear in those words something to which her ears were deaf? Her eyes wandered from one familiar face to another, coming back to her brother's always with the same wonder; and she murmured again and again,-- "From rivers of thy pleasures thou Wilt drink to them provide." "He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." "That is for Hamish, I'm sure of that. I wonder how it all happened to him? I'll ask him." But she did not. The bright look was on his face when the sermon ended, and while the psalm was sung. It was there when the great congregation slowly dispersed, and all the way as they walked home with the neighbours. It was there all day, and all the week; and it never left him. Even when pain and sickness set their mark on his face, through all their sorrowful tokens the bright look of peace shone still; and Shenac watched and wondered, but she did not speak of it yet. This was Shenac's first visit to the new kirk, but it was by no means the last. It would be out of place to enter here into any detailed history of this one of those awakenings of God's people which have taken place at different times in this part of the country; and yet it cannot be quite passed over. For a long time all the settlers in that neighbourhood worshipped in the same kirk; but when the time came which proved the Church in the motherland--the time which separated into two bodies that which had long been one--the same division extended to the far-away lands where the Scottish form of worship had prevailed. After a time, they who went away built another house in which they might worship the God of their fathers; and it was at the time of the opening of this house that the Lord visited his people. A few of those to whom even the dust of Zion is dear, seeking to consecrate the house, and with it themselves, more entirely to God's service, met for prayer for a few nights before the public dedication; and from that time for more than a year not a night passed in which the voice of prayer and praise did not arise within its walls. All through the busy harvest-time, through the dark autumn evenings, when the unmade roads of the country were deep and dangerous, and through the frosts and snows of a bitter winter, the people gathered to the house of prayer. Old people, who in former years had thought themselves too feeble to brave the night and the storm for the sake of a prayer-meeting, were now never absent. Young people forsook the merry gatherings of singers and dancers, to join the assemblies of God's people. It was a wonderful time, all say who were there then. Connected with it were none of those startling circumstances which in many minds are associated with a time of revival. The excitement was deep, earnest, and silent; there was in use none of the machinery for creating or keeping up an interest in the meetings. A stranger coming into one of those assemblies might have seen nothing different from the usual weekly gatherings of God's people. The minister held forth the word of life as at other times. It was the simple gospel, the preaching of Christ and him crucified, that prevailed, through the giving of God's grace, to the saving of many. At some of the meetings others besides the minister took part. At first it was only the elders or the old people who led the devotions of the rest, or uttered words of counsel or encouragement; but later, as God gave them grace and courage, younger men raised their voices in thanksgivings or petitions, or to tell of God's dealings with them. But all was done gravely and decently. There was no pressing of excited and ignorant young people to the "anxious seats," no singing of "revival hymns." They sang the Psalms from first to last--the old, rough version, which people nowadays criticise and smile at, wondering how ever the cramped lines and rude metre could find so sure and permanent a place in the hearts and memories of their fathers. It is said now that these old psalms are quite insufficient for all occasions of praise; but to those people, with hearts overflowing with revived or new-found love, it did not seem so. The suffering and sorrowful saint found utterance in the cry of the psalmist, and the rejoicing soul found in his words full expression for the most triumphant and joyful praise. They who after many wanderings were coming back to their first love, and they who had never come before, alike took his words of self-abasement as their own. So full and appropriate and sufficient did they prove, that at last old and experienced Christians could gather from the psalm chosen what were the exercises of the reader's mind; and the ignorant, or those unaccustomed to put their thoughts in words, found a voice in the words which the Sabbath singing and family worship had made familiar to them. After a time, when the number of inquirers became so numerous that they could not be conveniently received at the manse or at the houses of the elders, they were requested to stay when the congregation dispersed; and oftentimes the few went while the most remained. Then was there many a word "fitly spoken;" many a "word in season" uttered from heart to heart; many a seeking sinner pointed to the Lamb of God; many a sorrowful soul comforted; many a height of spiritual attainment made visible to upward-gazing eyes; many a vision of glory revealed. I must not linger on these scenes, wondrous in the eyes of all who witnessed them. Many were gathered into the Church, into the kingdom, and the name of the Lord was magnified. In the day when all things shall be made manifest, it shall be known what wonders of grace were there in silence wrought. For a long time Shenac came to these meetings very much as Dan had done--because of the interest she took in seeing others deeply moved. She came as a spectator, wondering what it all meant, interested in what was said because of the earnestness of the speakers, and enjoying the clear and simple utterance of truth, hitherto only half understood. But gradually her attitude was changed. It was less easy after a while to set herself apart, for many a truth came home to her sharply and suddenly. Now and then a momentary gleam of light flashed upon her, showing how great was her need of the help which Heaven alone could give. Many troubled and anxious thoughts she had, but she kept them all to herself. She never lingered behind with those who wished for counsel; she never even spoke to Hamish of all that was passing in her heart. This was, for many reasons, a time of great trial for Shenac. Day after day and week after week passed, and still there came no tidings from Allister or Evan, and every passing day and week seemed to her to make the hope of their return more uncertain. The mother was falling into a state which was more terrible to Shenac than positive illness would have been. Her memory was failing, and she was becoming in many things like a child. She was more easily dealt with in one sense, for she was hardly ever fretful or exacting now; but the gentle passiveness that assented to all things, the forgetfulness of the trifles of the day, and the pleased dwelling on scenes and events of long ago, were far more painful to her children than her fretfulness had ever been. With a jealousy which all may not be able to understand, Shenac strove to hide from herself and others that her mother's mind was failing. She punished any seeming neglect or disrespect to their mother on the part of the little ones with a severity that no wrong-doing had ever called forth before, and resented any sympathising allusions of the neighbours to her mother's state as an insult and a wrong. She never left her. Even the nightly assembling in the kirk, which soon began to interest her so deeply, could not beguile her from home till her mother had been safely put to rest, with Hamish to watch over her. All this, added to her household cares, told upon Shenac. But a worse fear, a fear more terrible than even the uncertainty of Allister's fate or the doubt as to her mother's recovery, was taking hold upon her. Her determination to drive it from her served to keep it ever in view, for it made her watch every change in the face and in the strength of her beloved brother with an eagerness which she could not conceal. Yes, Hamish was less strong than he had been last year. The summer's visit to the springs had not done for him this year what it had done before. He was thinner and paler, and less able to exert himself, than ever. Even Dan saw it, and gave up all thoughts of going to the woods again, and devoted himself to out-door matters with a zeal that left Shenac free to attend to her many cares within. At last she took courage and spoke to her brother about her fears for him. He was greatly surprised, both at her fears and at the emotion with which she spoke of them. She meant to be very quiet, but when she opened her lips all that was in her heart burst forth. He would not acknowledge himself ill. He suffered less than he had often done when he went to the fields daily, though there still lingered enough of rheumatic trouble about him to make him averse to move much, and especially to brave the cold. That was the reason he looked so wan and wilted--that and the anxious thoughts about his mother. "And, indeed, Shenac, you are more changed than I am in looks, for that matter." Shenac made an incredulous movement. "I am perfectly well," said she. "Yes; but you are changed. You are much thinner than you used to be, and sometimes you look pale and very weary, and you are a great deal older-looking." "Well, I am older than I used to be," said Shenac. She rose and crossed the room to look at herself in the glass. "I don't see any difference," she added, after a moment. "Not just now, maybe, because you have been busy and your cheeks are red. And as for being a great deal older, how old are you, Shenac?" "I am--I shall be nineteen in September; but I feel a great deal older than that," said Shenac. "Yes; that is what I was saying. You are changed as well as I. And you are not to fancy things about me and add to your trouble. I am quite well. If I were not, I would tell you, Shenac. It would be cruel kindness to keep it from you; I know that quite well." Shenac looked wistfully in her brother's face. "I know I am growing a coward," she said in a broken voice. "O Hamish, it does seem as though our troubles were too many and hard to bear just now!" "He who sent them knows them--every one; and He can make his grace sufficient for us," said Hamish softly. "Ay, for you, Hamish." "And for you too, Shenac. You are not very far from the light, dear sister. Never fear." "And in that purest light of thine We clearly light shall see," murmured Shenac. They were ever coming into her mind--bits of the psalms she had been hearing so much lately; and they brought comfort, though sometimes she hesitated to take it to her heart as she might. But light was near at hand, and peace and comfort were not far away. Afterwards, Shenac always looked back to this night as the beginning of her Christian life. This night she went to the house of prayer, from which her fears for Hamish had for a long time kept her, and there the Lord met her. Oh, how weary in body and mind and heart she was as she sat down among the people! It seemed to her that not one of all the congregation was so hopeless or so helpless as she--that no one in all the world needed a Saviour more. As she sat there in the silence that preceded the opening of the meeting, all her fears and anxieties came over her like a flood, and she felt herself unable to stand up against them in her own strength. She was hardly conscious of putting into words the cry of her heart for help; but words are not needed by Him from whom alone help can come. God does not always choose the wisest and greatest, even among his own people, to do his noblest work. It was a very humble servant of God through whose voice words of peace were spoken to Shenac. In the midst of her trouble she heard a voice--an old man's weak, quavering voice-- saying,-- "Praise God. The Lord praise, O my soul. I'll praise God while I live; While I have being to my God In songs I'll praises give. Trust not in princes;" and so on to the fifth verse, which he called the key-note of the psalm:-- "O happy is that man and blest, Whom Jacob's God doth aid; Whose hope upon the Lord doth rest, And on his God is stay'd;" and so on to the end of the 146th Psalm, pausing on every verse to tell, in plain and simple words, why it is that they who trust in God are so blessed. I daresay there were some in the kirk that night who grew weary of the old man's talk, and would fain have listened to words more fitly chosen; but Shenac was not one of these. As she listened, there came upon her a sense of her utter sinfulness and helplessness, and then an inexpressible longing for the help of Him who is almighty. And I cannot tell how it came to pass, but even as she sat there she felt her heaviest burdens roll away; the clouds that had hung over her so long, hiding the light, seemed to disperse; and she saw, as it were, face to face, Him who came to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, and thenceforth all was well with her. Well in the best sense. Not that her troubles and cares were at an end. She had many of these yet; but after this she lived always in the knowledge that she had none that were not of God's sending, so she no longer wearied herself by trying to bear her burdens alone. It was not that life was changed to her. _She_ was changed. The same Spirit who, through God's Word and the example and influence of her brother, made her dissatisfied with her own doings, still wrought in her, enlightening her conscience, quickening her heart, and filling her with love to Him who first loved her. It would not have been easy for her, in the first wonder and joy of the change, to tell of it in words, except that, like the man who was born blind, she might have said, "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see." But her life told what her lips could not, and in a thousand ways it became evident to those at home, and to all who saw her, that something had happened to Shenac--that she was at peace with herself and with all the world as she had not been before; and as for Hamish, he said to himself many a time, "It does not matter what happens to Shenac now. All will be well with her, now and always." CHAPTER FOURTEEN. After long waiting, Allister came home. Shenac and Hamish had no intention of watching the going out of the old year and the coming in of the new; but they lingered over the fire, talking of many things, till it grew late. And while they sat, the door opened, and Allister came in. They did not know that he was Allister. The dark-bearded man lingering on the threshold was very little like the fair-faced youth who had left them four years ago. He made a step forward into the room, and said,-- "This is Hamish, I know; but can this be our little Shenac?" And then they knew him. It would be vain to try to describe the meeting. The very happiest meeting after years of separation must be sorrowful too. Death had been among them since Allister went, and the bereavement seemed new to the returned wanderer, and his tears fell as he listened to the few words Hamish said about his father's last days. When the first surprise and joy and sorrow were a little abated, Shenac whispered,-- "And Evan--Hamish, should we go to-night to tell Angus Dhu that Allister has come home?" "What about Evan, Allister?" said Hamish. "Do you not know? Did you not get my letter? I waited for Evan. He had been robbed and hurt, and thought himself dying. But it was not so bad as that. He is better now--quite well, I think. I left him at his father's door." "At home! Evan at home! What did his father say? Did you see Angus Dhu?" Shenac was quite breathless by the time her questions were asked. "No; I could not wait. The field between there and here seemed wider to me than the ocean. When I saw the light, I left him there." And the manly voice had much ado to keep from breaking into sobs again as he spoke. "His father has been so anxious. No letter has come to us since Evan's came to his father to say that he was dying. I wish the old man had been prepared," said Shenac. "Oh, I am grieved! If I had but thought," said Allister regretfully. "It is quite as well that he was not prepared," said Hamish. And he was right. Shenac Dhu told them about it afterwards. "My mother went to the door, and when she saw Evan she gave a cry and let the light fall. And then we all came down; and my father came out of his bed just as he was, and when he saw my mother crying and clinging about the lad, he dropped down in the big chair and held out his hands without saying a word. You may be sure Evan was not long in taking them; and then he sank down on his knees, and my father put his arms round him, and would not move--not even to put his clothes on," continued Shenac Dhu, laughing and sobbing at the same time. "So I got a plaid and put about him; and there they would have sat, I dare say, till the dawn, but after just the first, Evan looked pale and weary, and my father said he must go to bed at once. `But first tell us about your cousin Allister,' my father said. Evan said it would take him all night, and many a night, to tell all that Allister had done for him; and then my father said, `God bless him!' over and over. And I cannot tell you any more," said Shenac Dhu, laughing and crying and hiding her face in her hands. "But as to my father being prepared," she added gravely, after a moment's pause, "I am afraid if he had had time to think about it, it would have seemed his duty to be stern at first with Evan. But it is far better as it is; and he can hardly bear him out of his sight. Oh, I'm glad it is over! I know now, by the joy of the home-coming, how terrible the waiting must have been to him." Very sad to Allister was his mother's only half-conscious recognition of him. She knew him, and called him by name; but she spoke, too, of his father and Lewis, not as dead and gone, but as they used to be in the old days when they were all at home together, when Hamish and Shenac were little children. She was content, however, and did not suffer. There were times, too, when she seemed to understand that he had been away, and had come home to care for them all; and she seemed to trust him entirely that "he would be good to Hamish and the rest when she was no more." "Folk get used to the most sorrowful things at last," said Shenac to herself, as, after a time, Allister could turn quietly from the mother, so broken and changed, to renew his playful sallies with his brothers and little Flora. Indeed, it was a new acquaintance that he had to make with them. They had grown quite out of his remembrance, and he was not at all like the brother Allister of their imaginations; but this making friends with one another was a very pleasant business to them all. He had to renew his acquaintance with others too--with his cousins and the neighbours. He had much to hear and much to tell, and after a while he had much to do too; and through all the sayings and doings, the comings and goings,--of the first few weeks, both Hamish and Shenac watched their brother closely and curiously. Apart from their interest in him as their brother whom they loved, and in whose hands the future of all the rest seemed to lie, they could not but watch him curiously. He was so exactly like the merry, gentle, truthful Allister of old times, and yet so different! He had grown so strong and firm and manly. He knew so many things. He had made up his mind about the world and the people in it, and could tell his mind too. "Our Allister is a man!" said Shenac, as she sat in the kitchen one night with Shenac Dhu and the rest. The words were made to mean a great deal by the way in which they were spoken, and they all laughed. But her cousin answered the words merely, and not the manner:-- "That is not saying much. Men are poor creatures enough, sometimes." "But our Allister is not one of that kind," said Dan, before his sister had time to answer. "He _is_ a man. He is made to rule. His will must be law wherever he is." Dan had probably some private reason for knowing this better than the rest, and Shenac Dhu hinted as much. But Dan took no notice, and went on,-- "You should hear Evan tell about him. Why, he saved the lives of the whole band more than once, by his firmness and wisdom." "I have heard our Evan speaking of him," said Shenac Dhu, her dark eyes softening, as she sat looking into the fire; "but if one is to believe all that Evan says, your Allister is not a man at all, but--don't be vexed, Dan--an angel out of heaven." "Oh, I don't know about that part of it," said Dan; "but I know one thing: he'll be chief of the clan, boss of the shanty, or he'll know the reason why.--O Shenac, dear, I'm sorry for you; your reign is over, I doubt. You'll be farmer-in-chief no longer." The last words were spoken with a mingled triumph and pathos that were irresistible. They all laughed. "Don't be too sorry for me, Dan," said his sister. "I'll try to bear it." "Oh yes, I know: you think you won't care, but I know better. You like to rule as well as Allister. You'll see, when spring comes, that you won't put him aside as you used to put me." "There won't be the same need," said Shenac, laughing. "Won't there? It is all very fine, now that Allister is new. But wait and see. You won't like to be second-best, after having been first so long." Both Hamish and Shenac Dhu were observing her. She caught their look, and reddened a little. "Do you think so, Shenac Dhu?--You surely cannot think so meanly of me, Hamish?" "I think there may be a little truth in what Dan says, but I cannot think meanly of you because of that," said Hamish. "Nonsense, Hamish!" said Shenac Dhu; "you don't know anything about it. It is one thing to give up to a lad without sense, like Dan, but quite another thing to yield to a man like Allister, strong and wise and gentle. You are not to make Shenac afraid of her brother." "I shall never be afraid of Allister," said Shenac Bhan gravely; "and indeed, Hamish, I don't think it is quite kind in you to think I like my own way best of all--" "I did not mean that, Shenac," said her brother. "But you are afraid I will not like to give up to Allister. You need not--at least, I think you need not," she added meditatively. "I shall be glad and thankful to have our affairs managed by stronger hands and a wiser head than mine." "If stronger and wiser could be found, Shenac, dear," said a new voice, and Shenac's face was bent back, while her brother kissed her on the cheek and lip. "Uncle Angus thinks it would not be easy to do that." They were all taken aback a little at this interruption, and each wondered how much he had heard of what had been said. "Have you been long here, Allister?" asked Dan. "No; I came this minute from the other house. Your mother told me you were here, Shenac Dhu." "Did you hear what we were saying?" asked Dan, not content to let well alone. "No; what was it?" said Allister surprised, and a little curious. "Oh, you should have heard these girls," said Dan mischievously. "Such stuff as they have been talking!" "The chief of the clan, and the boss of the shanty," said Hamish gravely; "and that was you, Dan, was it not?" "Oh! what I said is nothing. It was the two Shenacs," said Dan. Shenac Dhu, as a general thing, was able enough to take her own part; but she looked a little shamefaced at the moment, and said nothing. "What did they say, Dan?" asked Allister, laughing. Shenac Dhu need not have feared. Dan went on to say,-- "I have been telling our Shenac that she will have to `knock under,' now that you are come home; but she says she is not afraid." "Why should she be?" asked Allister, who still stood behind his sister, passing his hand caressingly over her hair. "Oh, you don't know our Shenac," said Dan, nodding wisely, as though he could give some important information on the subject. The rest laughed. "I'm not sure that I know anybody's Shenac very well," said Allister gravely; "but in time I hope to do so." "Oh, but our Shenac's not like the rest of the girls. She's hard and proud, and looks at folk as though she didn't see them. You may laugh, but I have heard folk say it; and so have you, Shenac Dhu." "No, I never did," said Shenac Dhu; "but maybe it's true for all that: there's Sandy McMillan--" "And more besides him," said Dan. "There's your father--" "My father! Oh, he's no mark. He believes Shenac Bhan to be at least fifteen years older than I am, and wiser in proportion. But as for her not seeing people, that's nonsense, Dan." But Shenac Bhan would have no more of it. "Shenac Dhu, you are as foolish as Dan to talk so. Don't encourage him. What will Allister think?" Shenac laughed, but said no more. They were right. Allister was a man of the right sort. Whether, if circumstances had been different, he would have been content to come back and settle down as a farmer on his father's land, it is not easy to say. But as it was, he did not hesitate for a moment. Hamish would never be able to do hard work. Dan might be steady enough by-and-by to take the land; but in the meantime Shenac must not be left with a burden of care too heavy for her. So he set himself to his work with a good will. He had not come back a rich man according to the idea of riches held by the people he had left behind him; but he was rich in the opinion of his neighbours, and well enough off in his own opinion. That is, he had the means of rebuilding his father's house, and of putting the farm in good order, and something besides. He lost no time in commencing his labours, and he worked, and made others work, with a will. There were among the neighbours those who shook their cautious old heads when they spoke of his energetic measures, as though they would not last long; but this was because they did not know Allister Macivor. He had not been at home two days before he made up his mind that his mother should not pass another winter in the little log-house that had sheltered them since his father's death; and he had not been at home ten days when preparations for the building of a new house were commenced. Before the snow went away, stone and lime for the walls and bricks for the chimneys were collected, and the carpenters were at work on windows and doors. As soon as the frost was out of the ground, the cellar was dug and stoned, and everything was prepared for the masons and carpenters, so that when the time for the farm-work came, nothing had to be neglected in the fields because of the work going on at the new house. So even the slow, cautious ones among the neighbours confessed that, as far as could be judged yet, Allister was a lad of sense; for the true farmer will attend to his fields at the right time and in the right way, whatever else may be neglected. But the house went on bravely--faster than ever house went on in those parts before, for all things were ready to the workmen's hands. May-day came, and found Allister and Dan busy in taking down Angus Dhu's fence--at least, that part of it that lay between the house-field and the creek. "I didn't think the old man meant to let us have these rails," said Dan. "Not that they are his by rights. I should not wonder if he were down upon us, after all, for taking them away." And Dan put up his hands to shade his eyes, as he turned in the direction of Angus Dhu's house. "Nonsense, Dan; I bought the rails," said Allister. Dan whistled. "If I had been you, I would have taken them without his leave," said he. "Pooh! and quarrelled with a neighbour for the sake of a few rails." "But right is right," insisted Dan. "Not that I think he would have made much ado about it, though. The old man has changed lately. I always think the hearing that our Shenac gave him on this very place did him a deal of good." Dan looked mysterious, and Allister was a little curious. "I have always told you that you don't know our Shenac. Whether it is your coming home, or my mother's not being well, that has changed her, I can't say. Or maybe it is something else," added Dan thoughtfully. He had an idea that others in the parish were changed as well as Shenac. "She's changed, anyway. She's as mild as summer now. But if you had seen her when Angus Dhu was making this fence--Elder McMillan was here;" and Dan went off into a long account of the matter, and of other matters of which Allister had as yet heard nothing. "Angus Dhu don't seem to bear malice," said he, when Dan paused. "He has a great respect for Shenac." "Oh yes, of course; so have they all." And Dan launched into a succession of stories to prove that Shenac had done wonders in the way of winning respect. For though he had sometimes been contrary enough, and even now thought it necessary to remind his sister that, being a girl, she must be content to occupy but a humble place in the world, Shenac had no more stanch friend and supporter than he. Indeed, Dan was one who, though restless and jealous of his rights when he thought they were to be interfered with, yielded willingly to a strong hand and rightful authority; and he had greatly improved already under the management of his elder brother, of whom he was not a little proud. "Yes," continued he, "I think they would have scattered us to the four winds if it had not been for Shenac. She always said that you would come home, and that we must manage to keep together till then. Man, you should have seen her when Angus Dhu said to my mother that he doubted that you had gone for your own pleasure, and would stay for the same. She could not show him the door, because my mother was there, and he is an old man; but she turned her back upon him and walked out like a queen, and would not come in again while he stayed, though Shenac Dhu cried, and begged her not to mind." "I suppose Shenac Dhu was of the same mind--that I was not to be trusted," said Allister. Dan shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, as to that, I don't know. She's only a girl, and it does not matter what she thinks. But how it vexed her to be told what our Shenac said about her father." "But the two Shenacs were never unfriendly?" said Allister incredulously. "No," said Dan; "I don't think they ever were. Partly because Shenac yonder did not believe all I said, I suppose, and partly because she was vexed herself with her father. Oh yes, they are fast friends, the two Shenacs. You should have seen them the night Angus Dhu came to speak to my mother about the letter that came from Evan. Our Shenac was as proud of you as a hen is of one chicken, though she did not let the old man see it; and Shenac Dhu was as bad, and said over and over again to her father, `I told you, father, that Allister was good and true. He'll never leave Evan; don't be afraid.' I doubt Evan was a wild lad out yonder, Allister." "Not wilder than many another," said Allister gravely. "But it is a bad place for young men, Dan. Evan was like a brother to me always." "You were a brother to him, at any rate," said Dan. "We were like brothers," said Allister. "Oh, well, it's all right, I daresay," said Dan. "It has come out like a story in a book, you both coming home together. And, Allister, I was wrong about our Shenac in one thing. She does not mind in the least letting you do as you like. She seems all the better pleased when you are pleased; but she was hard on me, I can tell you." "That's queer, too," said Allister, with a look in his eyes that made Dan laugh in spite of himself. "Oh yes, I know what you are thinking: that there is a difference between you and me. But there is a difference in Shenac too." CHAPTER FIFTEEN. Dan was right,--Shenac was changed. Even if Allister had not come home, if the success of the summer's work had depended, as it had hitherto mainly done, upon her, it would have been a very different summer from the last. The labour, though it had been hard enough, from early morning till night every day of the year, was not what had been worst for her. The constant care and anxiety had been harder to bear. Not the fear of want. That had never really troubled her. She knew that it would never come to that with them. But the welfare of all the family had depended on her strength and wisdom while they kept together, and the responsibility had been too heavy for her. How much too heavy it had been she only knew by the blessed sense of relief which followed its removal. But it would have been different now, even had her cares been the same, for a new element mingled in her life--a firm trust in God. She had known, in a way, all along that, labour as she might, the increase must come from God. She had always assented to her brother's gentle reminders of the heavenly care and keeping promised to the widow and the fatherless; but she had wearied and vexed herself, taking all the weight of the burden, just as if there had been no promise given, no help made sure. It would have been quite different now. Even failure would have brought no such burden as had come with a sense of success before, because of her sure and certain knowledge that all that concerned her was safe in the best and most loving care. And, with Allister between her and the summer's work, she had no need to trouble herself. Every day had strengthened her trust in him, not only as a loving brother, but as a wise man and a good farmer; and many a time she laughed merrily to herself as Dan's foolish words about her not wishing to give place to Allister came to her mind. She could never tell him or any one else how blessed was the sense of relief and peace which his being at home gave her. She awoke every morning with the restful feeling fresh in her heart. There was no half-conscious planning about ways and means before her eyes were open; no shrinking from possible encounters with Dan's idleness or wilfulness; no balancing of possibilities as to his doing well, or doing at all, some piece of work depending upon him. She heard more in the song of the birds now than just the old burden, "It is time to be at work again." It gave her quite a sense of pleasure now and then to find herself looking over the fields with delight just because they were fresh and green and beautiful, and not at all because of the tons of hay or the bushels of grain which they were to yield. Of course it was pleasant to anticipate a good harvest, and it was pleasant to know that there were wider fields to harvest this year, and that the barns would be full to overflowing. It did not in the least lessen the pleasure to know that this year success would not be due to her. Indeed, her pride in Allister's work was quite as great as it ever had been in her own, and the pleasure had fewer drawbacks. She could speak of it and triumph in it, and did so with Hamish and Shenac Dhu, and sometimes with Allister himself. She was happy, too, in a half-conscious coming back to the thoughts and enjoyments of the time before their troubles had overtaken them. She was very young still, quite young enough to grow light-hearted and mirthful; and if her mother had been well, it would truly have seemed like the old happy days again. Not that she had very much leisure even now. She did not go to the fields; but what with the dairy and the house-work, and after a little while the wool, she had plenty to do. There were two more cows in the enlarged pasture, and some of the people who were busy about the new house took their meals with them, so there was little time for lingering over anything. Besides, the house-work, which in the busy seasons had seemed a secondary concern, was done differently now. Shenac took pride and pleasure in doing everything in the very best way, and in having the house in order, the linen snow-white, and the table neatly laid; and the little log-house was a far pleasanter home than many a more commodious dwelling. If there had lingered in Angus Dhu's heart any indignation towards Shenac for having interfered with his plans, and for having spoken her mind to him so plainly, it was gone now. They had no more frequent visitor than he, and few who were more welcome. His coming was for Allister's sake, his sister used to think; and, indeed, the old man seemed to see no fault in the young farmer. He gave him his confidence as he had never given it to any one before. After the first meeting he never spoke of what Allister had done for him in bringing Evan home, but he knew it was through his care and tenderness that he had ever seen his son's face again, and he was deeply grateful. There was another reason why he found pleasure in the young man's society. He had loved Allister's father when they had been young together, before the love of money had hardened his heart and blinded his eyes. His long trouble and fear for his son had made him feel that wealth is not enough to give peace. It had shaken his faith in the "god of this world;" and as God's blessing on his sorrow softened his heart, the worldly crust fell away, and he came back to his old thoughts--or rather, I should say, his young thoughts of life again. Allister was just what his father had been at his age--as gentle, as manly, and kind-hearted; having, besides, the strength of character, the knowledge of men and things, which his father had lacked. He had always been a bold, frank lad. Even in the old times he had never stood in awe of "the dour old man," as the rest had done. In the old times his frankness had been resented as an unwarrantable liberty; but it was very different now. Even his own children felt a little restraint in the presence of the stern old man; but Allister always greeted him cheerfully, talked with him freely, and held his own opinions firmly, though they often differed widely enough from those of Angus Dhu. But they never quarrelled. The old man's dogmatic ways vexed and irritated Shenac many a time; even Hamish had much ado to keep his patience and the thread of his argument at the same time; but Allister never lost his temper, and if the old man grew bitter and disagreeable, as he sometimes did, the best cure for it was Allister's good-humoured determination not to see it, and so they always got on well together. Of all their friends, Angus Dhu was the one whom their mother never failed to recognise. She did not always remember how the last few years had passed, and spoke to him, as she so often did to others, as though her husband were still living and her children young; but almost always she was recalled to the present by the sight of him, and rejoiced over Allister's return, and the building of the new house, and the prosperity which seemed to be coming back to them. But, whether she was quite herself or not, he was always very gentle with her, answering the same questions and telling the same incidents over and over again for her pleasure, with a patience very different from anything that might have been expected from him. There was one thing about Allister, and Shenac too, which greatly vexed their uncle. In his eyes it seemed almost like forsaking the God of their fathers when, Sabbath after Sabbath, they passed by the old kirk and sat in the new. He would have excused it on the days when old Mr Farquharson was not there and the old kirk was closed; but that they should hold with these "new folk" at all times was a scandal in his eyes. It was in vain that Hamish proved to him that in doctrine and discipline--in everything, indeed, except one thing, which could not affect them in this country--the new folk were just like the old. This only made the matter less excusable in the eyes of Angus Dhu. The separation which circumstances might have made necessary at home--as these people still lovingly called the native land of their fathers--was surely not needed here, and it grieved and vexed the old man sorely to see so many leaving the old minister and the kirk their fathers had built and had worshipped in so long. But even Angus Dhu himself ventured into the forbidden ground of the new kirk, when word was brought that Mr Stewart, the schoolmaster of two years ago, was come to supply the minister's place there for a while. He had a great respect for Mr Stewart, and some curiosity, now that he was an ordained minister, to hear him preach; and having heard him, he acknowledged to himself, though he was slow to speak of it to others, that the word of God was held forth with power, and he began to think that, after all, the scores of young people who flocked to hear him were as well while listening here as when sleeping quietly under the monotonous voice of the good old minister; and very soon no objection was made when his own Evan and Shenac Dhu went with the rest. Mr Stewart had changed much since he came among them first. His health was broken then, and he was struggling with a fear that he was not to be permitted to work the work for which he had all his lifetime been preparing. That fear had passed away. He was well now, and well-fitted to declare God's gospel to men. It was a labour of love to him, all could see. The grave, quiet man seemed transformed when he stood in the pulpit He spoke with authority, as one who knew from deep, blessed experience the things which he made known, and no wonder that all listened eagerly. Hamish was very happy in the renewal of their friendship, and Allister was almost as happy in coming to know the minister. He came sometimes to see them, but not very often, for he had many engagements, and his visits made "white days" for them all. Hamish saw much more of him than the rest, for he was comparatively idle this summer, and drove the minister to his different preaching stations, and on his visits to the people, with much profit to himself and much pleasure to both. It was a very pleasant summer, for many reasons, to Shenac and them all. The only drawback was the state of the mother. She was not getting better--would probably never be better, the doctor said, whom Allister had brought from far to see her. But she might live a long time in her present state. She did not suffer, and was almost always quite content. All that the tenderest care could do for her was done, and her uneventful days were made happy by her children's watchful love. The entire renewal of confidence and intercourse between the two families was a source of pleasure to all, but especially to Shenac, who had never been quite able to believe herself forgiven by her uncle before. Two of Angus Dhu's daughters were married in the spring, and left their father's house; and partly because she was more needed at home, and partly for other reasons, Shenac Dhu did not run into their house so often as she used to do. But Evan was often there. He and Hamish were much together, for neither of them was strong, and much help was not expected from them on the land or elsewhere. Evan was hardly what he had been before his departure from home. He was improved, they thought, on the whole; but his health was not firm, and his spirits and temper were variable, and, as Shenac said, he was as different from Allister as weakness is from strength, or as darkness is from the day. But they were always glad to see him, and his intercourse with these healthy, cheerful young people did him much good. The new house progressed rapidly. There was a fair prospect that they might get into it before winter, and already Shenac was planning ways and means towards the furnishing of it. The wool was sorted and dyed with reference to the making of such a carpet as had never been seen in those parts before; and every pound of butter that was put down was looked upon as so much security for a certain number of things for use or for adornment in the new house. For Shenac had a natural love for pretty things, and it was pleasant to feel that she might gratify her taste to a reasonable degree without hazarding the comfort of any one. She made no secret of her pleasure in the prospect of living in a nice house with pretty things about her, and discussed her plans and intentions with great enjoyment with her cousin Shenac, who did not laugh at her little ambitions as much as might have been expected. Indeed, she was rather grave and quiet about this time, and seemed to shun, rather than to seek, these confidences. She was too busy now that Mary and Annie were both gone, to leave home often, and when our Shenac wished to see her she had to go in search of her. It was not quite so formidable an affair as it used to be to go to Angus Dhu's house now, and Shenac and her brother often found themselves there on summer evenings. But at home, as elsewhere, Shenac Dhu was quiet and staid, and not at all like the merry Shenac of former times. This change was not noticed by Shenac Bhan so quickly as it would have been if she had been less occupied with her own affairs; but she did notice it at last, and one night, drawing her away from the door-step where the rest were sitting, she told her what she was thinking, and entreated to know what ailed her. "What ails me?" repeated Shenac Dhu, reddening a little. "What in the world should all me? I am busier than I used to be, that is all." "You were always busy; it is not that. I think you might tell _me_, Shenac." "Well," began her cousin mysteriously, "I will tell you if you will promise not to mention it. I am growing wise." Shenac Bhan laughed. "Well, I don't see what there is to laugh at. It's time for me to grow wise, when you are growing foolish." Shenac Bhan looked at her cousin a little wistfully. "Am I growing foolish, Shenac? Is it about the house and all the things? Perhaps I am thinking too much about them. But it is not for myself, Shenac; at least, it's not all for myself." But Shenac Dhu stopped her. "You really _are_ foolish now. No; of course the house has nothing to do with it. I called you foolish for saying that something ails me, which is nonsense, you know. What could ail me? I put it to yourself." "But that is what I am asking you. How can I tell? Many a thing might go wrong with you," said Shenac Bhan. "Yes; I might take the small-pox, or the bank might break and I might lose my money, or many a thing might happen, as you say; and when anything does happen, I'll tell you, you may be sure. Now tell me, is the wide stripe in the new carpet to be red or green?" "You are laughing at me, Cousin Shenac," said our Shenac, gravely. "I daresay it is foolish in me, and may be wrong, to be thinking so much about these things and teasing you about them; but, Shenac, our Allister is a man now, and folk think much of him, and I want his house to be nice, and I do take pleasure in thinking about it. And you know we have been so poor and so hard pressed for the last few years, with no time to think of anything but just what must be done to live; and it will be so nice when we are fairly settled. And, Shenac, our Allister is so good. There never was such a brother as Allister--never. I would not speak so to every one, Shenac; but _you_ know." Shenac Dhu nodded. "Yes, I know." "If my mother were only well!" continued Shenac Bhan, and the tears that had risen to her eyes fell on her cheeks now. "We would be too happy then, I suppose. But it seems sad enough that she should not be able to enjoy it all, and take her own place in the new house, after all she has gone through." "Yes," said Shenac Dhu, "it is very sad." "And yet I cannot but take pleasure in it; and perhaps it is foolish and unkind to my mother too. Is it, Shenac?" There were two or three pairs of eyes watching--no, not watching, but seeing--the two girls from the doorstep, and Shenac Dhu drew her cousin down the garden-path towards the plum-tree before she answered her. Then she put her arms round her neck, and kissed her two or three times before she answered,-- "You are not wrong or foolish. You are right to take pride and pleasure in your brother and his house, and in all that belongs to him. And he is just as proud of you, Shenac, my darling." "That is nonsense, you know, Cousin Shenac," said Allister's sister; but she smiled and blushed too, as she said it, with pure pleasure. There was no chance after this to say anything more about the change, real or supposed, that had taken place in Shenac Dhu, for she talked on, allowing no pause till they had come quite round the garden and back to the door-step; but Shenac Bhan knew all about it before she saw her cousin again. That night, as she was going home through the field with Allister, he asked her rather suddenly,-- "What were you and Cousin Shenac speaking about to-night when you went round the garden?" "Allister," said his sister, "do you think Cousin Shenac is changed lately?" "Changed!" repeated Allister. "How?" "Oh, of course you cannot tell; but she used to be so merry, and now she is quite quiet and grave, and we hardly ever see her over with us now. I was asking her what ailed her." "And what did she say?" "Oh, she laughed at me, and denied that anything ailed her, and then she said she was growing wise. But I know something is wrong with her, though she would not tell me." "What do you think it is, Shenac?" "I cannot tell. It is not only that she is quieter--I could understand that; but she hardly ever comes over now, and something is vexing her, I'm sure. Could it be anything Dan has said? He used to vex her sometimes. What do you think it can be, Allister?" There was a little pause, and then Allister said,-- "I think I know what it is, Shenac." "You!" exclaimed Shenac. "What is it? Have I anything to do with it? Am I to blame?" "You have something to do with it, but you are not to blame," said Allister. "Tell me, Allister," said his sister. There was a silence of several minutes, and then Allister said,-- "Shenac, I have asked Cousin Shenac to be my wife." Shenac stood perfectly still in her surprise and dismay. Yes, she _ was_ dismayed. I have heard it said that the tidings of a brother's engagement rarely bring unmixed pleasure to a sister. I daresay there is some truth in this. Many sisters make their brothers their first object in life-- pride themselves on their talents, their worth, their success, live in their lives, glory in their triumphs; till a day comes when it is softly said of some stranger, or some friend--it may be none the pleasanter to hear because it is a friend--"She is more to him than you could ever be." Is it only to jealous hearts, ignoble minds, that such tidings come with a shock of pain? Nay, the truer the heart the keener the pain. It may be short, but it is sharp. The second thought may be, "It is well for him; I am glad for him." But the pang is first, and inevitable. Allister had been always first, after Hamish, in Shenac's heart--perhaps not even after Hamish. She had never thought of him in connection with any change of this kind. In all her plans for the future, no thought of possible separation had come. She stood perfectly still, till her brother touched her. "Well, Shenac?" Then she moved on without speaking. She was searching about among her astonished and dismayed thoughts for something to say, for she felt that Allister was waiting for her to speak. At last she made a grasp at the question they had been discussing, and said hurriedly,-- "But there is nothing to vex Shenac in that, surely?" "No; unless she is right in thinking that you will not be glad too." "I am glad it is Shenac. I would rather it would be Shenac than any one else in the whole world--" "I was sure of it," said her brother, kissing her fondly. Even without the kiss she would hardly have had the courage to add,-- "If it must be anyone." "And, Shenac," continued her brother, "you must tell her so. She fancies that for some things you will not like it, and she wants to put it off for ever so long--till--till something happens--till you are married yourself, I suppose." Now Shenac was vexed. She was in the way--at least, Allister and Shenac Dhu thought so. It was quite as well that the sound of footsteps gave her no time to speak the words that rose to her lips. They were overtaken by Mr Stewart and Hamish. It had been to see the minister that they had all gone to Angus Dhu's, for he was going away in the morning, and they did not know when they might see him again. It was late, and the farewells were brief and earnest. "God bless you, Shenac!" was all that Mr Stewart said; and Shenac answered never a word. "I'll walk a little way with you," said Allister. Hamish and Shenac stood watching them till they passed through the gate, and then Shenac sat down on the doorstep with a sigh, and laid her face upon her hands. Hamish looked a little astonished, but he smiled too. "He will come back again, Shenac," he said at last. "Yes, I know," said she, rising slowly. "I must tell you before he comes. We must not stay here. Come in; you will take cold. I don't know what to think. He expected me to be pleased, and I shall be in a little while, I think, after I have told you. Do you know it, Hamish?" "I know--he told me; but I thought he had not spoken to you," said the puzzled Hamish. "Did Allister tell you? Are you glad, Hamish?" "Allister?" repeated Hamish. "Allister has asked Shenac Dhu to be his wife," said Shenac in a whisper. "Is that it? No, I had not heard that, though I thought it might be-- some time. You must have seen it, Shenac?" "Seen it! the thought never came into my mind--never once--till he told me to-night." "Well, that's odd, too," said Hamish, smiling. "They say girls are quick enough to see such things. Are you not pleased, Shenac?" "I don't know. Should I be pleased, Hamish? I think perhaps in a little while I shall be." Then she added, "It will make a great difference." "Will it?" asked Hamish. "Cousin Shenac has almost been like one of ourselves so long." "I suppose it is foolish, and maybe it is wrong, but it does seem to put Allister farther from us--from me, at least. He seems less our own." "Don't say that, Shenac dear," said her brother gently. "Allister can never be less than a dear and loving brother to us all. It is very natural and right that this should happen. It might have been a stranger. We all love Shenac Dhu dearly." "Yes," said Shenac; "I said that to Allister." "And, Shenac, I am very glad this should happen. Allister will settle down content, and be a good and useful man." "He would have done that anyway," said Shenac, a little dolefully. "He might, but he might not," said Hamish. "They say marriage is the natural and proper state. I am glad for Allister, Shenac; and you will be glad by-and-by. I wish I had known this a little sooner. I am very glad, Shenac." Shenac sighed. "I suppose it is altogether mean and miserable in me not to be glad all at once; and I'll try to be. I suppose we must stay here now, Hamish," she added, glancing round the low room. "Do you think so?" said Hamish in surprise. "No, you must not say so. I am sure it would grieve Cousin Shenac." "There are so many of us, Hamish, and our mother is a great care; it would not be fair to Shenac. I must stay here and take care of my mother and you." There was a long silence. "Shenac," said her brother at last, "don't think about this just now; don't make up your mind. It is not going to happen soon." "Allister says soon, but Shenac says not till--" She stopped. "Well, soon or late, never mind; it will all come right. Let us be more anxious to do right than for anything else. God will guide us, Shenac. Don't let us say anything to vex Allister. It would vex him greatly, I know, to think that you and all of us would not go with him and Shenac." "But it would not be fair to Shenac herself. Think what a large family there is of us." "Whisht, Shenac, there may be fewer of us soon. You may marry yourself." "And leave my mother and you?" Shenac smiled incredulously. "Stranger things have happened," said her brother. "But, Shenac, our mother will not be here long, and Allister's house is her place, and you can care for her all the same there--better indeed. I am glad of this marriage, for all our sakes. Shenac Dhu is like one of ourselves; she will always care for the little ones as no stranger could, and for our mother. It _is_ a little hard that _you_ should not have the first place in the new house for a while, till you get a home of your own, after all the care and trouble you have had for us here--" "Do you think that has anything to do with it, Hamish?" said Shenac reproachfully. "It never came into my mind; only when Allister told me it seemed as though I would be so little to him now. Maybe you are right, though. Everybody seems to think that I like to be first. I know I have thought a great deal about the new house; but it has been for the rest, and for Allister most of all." "Shenac, you must not vex yourself thinking about it," said her brother. "I am more glad of this for your sake than for all the rest. I cannot tell you how glad I am." "Well, I am glad too--I think I am glad; I think it will be all right, Hamish. I am not really afraid of anything that can happen now." "You need not be, dear; why should you be afraid even of trouble?" said her brother. "And this is not trouble, but a great blessing for us all." But Shenac thought about it a great deal, and, I am afraid, vexed herself somewhat, too. She did not see Shenac Dhu for a day or two, for her cousin was away; and it was as well to have a little time to think about it before she saw her. There came no order out of the confusion, however, with all her thinking. That they were all to be one family she knew was Allister's plan, and Hamish approved it, though the brothers had not exchanged a word about the matter. But this did not seem the best plan to her, nor did she think it would seem so to her cousin; it was not best for any of them. She could do far better for her mother, and Hamish too, living quietly in their present home; and the young people would be better without them. Of course they must get their living from the farm, at least partly; but she could do many things to earn something. She could spin and knit, and she would get a loom and learn to weave, and little Flora should help her. "If Allister would only be convinced; but they will think I am vexed about the house, and I don't think I really cared much about it for myself--it was for Allister and the rest. Oh, if my mother were only able to decide it, I do think she would agree with me about it." She thought and thought till she was weary, and it all came to this:-- "I will wait and see what will happen, and I will trust. Surely nothing can go wrong when God guides us. At any rate, I shall say nothing to vex Allister or Shenac; but I wish it was well over." It was the first visit to Shenac Dhu which, partly from shyness and partly from some other feeling, she did dread a little; but she need not have feared it so much. She did not have to put a constraint on herself to _seem_ glad; for the very first glimpse she caught of Shenac's sweet, kind face put all her vexed thoughts to flight, and she was really and truly glad for Allister and for herself too. She went to her uncle's one night, not at all expecting to see her cousin; but she had returned sooner than was expected, and when she went in she found her sitting with her father and Allister. Shenac did not see her brother, however. She hastily greeted her uncle, and going straight to her cousin put her arms round her neck and kissed her many times. Shenac Dhu looked up in surprise. "I know it now, Cousin Shenac," said Allister's sister; and in a moment Allister's arms were round them both. It was Angus Dhu's turn to be surprised now. He had not been so startled since the day that Shenac Bhan told him her mind down by the creek. The girls escaped, and Allister explained how matters stood. The old man was pleased, but he grumbled a little, too, at the thought of losing his last daughter. "You must make an exchange, Allister, my man. If you could give us your Shenac--" Allister laughed. In his heart he thought his sister too good to be sent there, and he was very glad he had not the matter to decide. "Shenac, my woman," said the old man as they were going away, "I wonder at you being so willing to give up the fine new house. I think it is very good in you." "I would not--to anybody else," said she, laughing. "But she's not going to give it up, father," said Shenac Dhu eagerly. "Well, well, maybe not, if you can keep her." Shenac still pondered over the question of what would be best for them all, and wearied herself with it many a time; but she gave none the less interest to the progress of the house and its belongings. She spun the wool for the carpet, and bleached the new linen to snowy whiteness, and made all other preparations just the same as if she were to have the guiding and governing of the household. She was glad with Allister and glad with Shenac, and, for herself and the rest, quite content to wait and see what time would bring to pass. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. But a day came when Shenac saw how needless all her anxious thoughts about her mother's future had been, when she acknowledged, with tears of mingled sorrow and joy, that she had tenderer care and safer keeping than son or daughter could give. All through the long harvest-days the mother failed slowly--so slowly that even the watchful eyes of Shenac did not see how surely. Then, as the autumn wore away, and the increasing cold no longer permitted the daily sitting in the sunshine, the change became more rapid. Then there was a time of sharper suffering. The long days and nights lingered out into weeks, and then all suffering was over--the tired heart ceased to struggle with the burden of life, and the widow was laid to rest beside her husband and son. That this was a time of great sorrow in the household need not be told. Neighbours came from far and near with offers of help and sympathy. All that kind hearts and experienced hands could do to aid these young people in the care of their suffering mother was done; but all was only a little. It was the strong arm of Allister which lifted and laid down, and moved unceasingly, the never-resting form of the mother. It was Shenac who smoothed her pillow and moistened her lips, and performed all the numberless offices so necessary to the sick, yet too often so useless to soothe pain. It was the voice of Hamish that sometimes had the power to soothe to quietness, if not to repose, the ever-moaning sufferer. Friends came with counsel and encouragement, but her children never left her through all. It was a terrible time to them. Their mother's failure had been so gradual that the thought of her death had not been forced upon them; and, quite unaccustomed to the sight of so great suffering, as the days and nights wore on, bringing no change, no respite, but ever the same moaning and agony, they looked into one another's faces appalled. It was terrible; but it came to an end at last. They could not sorrow for her when the close came. They rejoiced rather that she had found rest. But they were motherless and desolate. It was a very hushed and sorrowful home that night, when all the friends who had returned with them from the grave were gone, and the children were alone together; and for many days after that. If this trouble had come upon them a year ago, there would have been some danger that the silence and sadness that rested upon them might have changed to gloom and despondency on Shenac's part; for she felt that her mother's death had "unsettled old foundations," and when she looked forward to what her life might be now, it was not always that she could do so hopefully. But she was quiet and not impatient--willing to wait and see what time might bring to them all. By-and-by the affairs of the house and of the farm fell back into the old routine, and life flowed quietly on. The new house made progress. It was so nearly completed that they had intended to remove to it about the time their mother became worse. The work went on through all their time of trouble, and one after another the workmen went away; but nothing was said of any change to be made, till the year was drawing to a close. It was Hamish who spoke of it then, first to Shenac and then to Allister; and before Christmas they were quite settled in their new home. Christmas passed, and the new year came in, and a month or two more went by, and then one night Shenac said to her brother,-- "Allister, when are you going to bring Shenac home?" Allister had been the gravest and quietest of them all during the time that had passed since their mother's death. He was silent, though he started a little when his sister spoke. In a moment she came close to him, and standing behind him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said softly,-- "It would be no disrespect to the memory of our mother, coming now. Hamish says so too. Shenac is not like a stranger; and it might be very quiet." Allister turned and touched with his lips the hand that lay on his shoulder, and then drew her down on the seat beside him. This was one of the things which made Allister so different from other people in Shenac's eyes. Even Hamish, loving and kind as he was, had not Allister's gentle, caressing ways. A touch, a smile, a fond word, came so naturally from him; and these were all the more sweet to Shenac because she was shy of giving such tokens herself, even where she loved best. "If Shenac would come," said Allister. Shenac smiled. "And will she not?" "Should I ask it now, dear?" "Yes, I think so," said his sister gravely. "The spring will soon be here, and the busy time. I think it should be soon. Have you spoken to Shenac since?" "No; I have not. Though I may wish it, and Shenac might consent, there is more to be thought of. We will not have you troubled, after all you have gone through, till you are quite ready for it--you and Hamish." "But surely Shenac cannot doubt I will speak to her myself; and I think it should be soon," said his sister. They were sitting in the new, bright kitchen, and it was growing dark. There was a stove in it, one of the latest kind, for use; but there was a great wide fireplace too, for pleasure; and all the light that was in the room came from the great maple logs and glowing embers. Little Flora had gone to the mill with Dan, Hamish was at his uncle's, and the other lads were not come in; so they had the house to themselves. There was silence between them for a little while, and then his sister said again,-- "I'll speak to Shenac." The chance to do so was nearer than she thought; for there was a touch at the door-latch, and a voice said softly,-- "Are you here, Cousin Shenac? I want to speak to you. Hamish told me you were quite alone." "Yes, she's quite alone, except me." And Allister made one stride across the floor, and Shenac Dhu was held fast. She could not have struggled from that gentle and firm clasp, and she did not try. "I thought you were at The Sixteenth, Allister," said she. "I was there, but I am here now. And our Shenac wants to speak to you." He brought her to the fire-light, where our Shenac was waiting, a little shyly--that is, Shenac waited shyly. Allister brought the other Shenac forward, not at all shyly, quite triumphantly, indeed, and then our Shenac said softly,-- "When are you coming home, sister Shenac?" With that the startled little creature gave one look into our Shenac's face, and breaking from Allister's gentle hold, she clasped her round the neck, and wept and sobbed in a way that astonished them more than a little. For indeed there was no cause for tears, said Shenac Bhan; and indeed she was very foolish to cry, said Allister--though there were tears in his own eyes; and as for Shenac Bhan, the tears did not stay in her eyes, but ran down over her face and fell on the soft black braids of the other Shenac's bowed head; for joy will make tears fall as well as sorrow sometimes, and joy and sorrow mingled is the source of these. But indeed, indeed, I never thought of telling all this. When I began my story I never meant to put a word of love or marriage in it. I meant to end it at the happy day when Allister came home. But all Shenac's work at home was not done when her good and loving brother took the place she had filled so well. So my story has gone on, and will go on a little longer; though that night, when Shenac Dhu went away and Allister went with her, leaving Shenac Bhan to her own thoughts, she said to herself that very soon there would be nothing more for her to do. Allister and Shenac Dhu would care for the little ones better than she ever could have done; for the lads were wilful often, and sometimes her patience failed, and Allister would make men of them--wise, and strong, and gentle, like himself. And Shenac, sweet, kind, merry Shenac Dhu, would never be hard with the lads or little Flora, for she loved them dearly; and it would be better for the children just to have Allister and Shenac Dhu, and no elder sister to appeal to from them. It would be better that she should go away--at least for a little while, till other authority than hers should be established. Yes; her work for the children was done. She said it over and over again, repeating that it was better so, and that she was glad and thankful that all would be so well. But she said it with many a tear and many a sigh and sob; for, having no experience of life beyond her long labour and care for them, it seemed to this foolish Shenac that really and truly her life's work was done. No, she did not say it in words, even to herself; but the future looked blank and bare to her. Any future that seemed possible to her looked rather dark than bright; and she feared--oh, so much!--to take her destiny in her hands and go away alone. But not a word of all this had been spoken to Allister and Shenac Dhu. Not even Hamish had been told of her plans. No, not her plans--she had none--but the vague blending of wishes and fears that came with all her thoughts of the future. There would be time enough by-and-by to tell him; and, indeed, Shenac was a little afraid to let the light of her brother's sense and wisdom in on all her thoughts. For Hamish had a way of putting things in a light that made them look quite different. Sometimes this made her laugh, and sometimes it vexed her; but, whether or not, the chances were she would come round in time to see things as he saw them. And, besides, there was something in this matter that she could not tell to Hamish--at least, it seemed to her that she could not, even if it would be right and kind to do so; and without this she feared that her wish to go away from home might not commend itself to him. Indeed, if it had not been for this thing which could not be told, she might not have wished to leave home. She would hardly have found courage to break away from them all and go to a new, untried life, of her own free will, even though her work at home were done. This was the thing which Shenac thought she never could tell even to Hamish. One night, on her way home from his house, she had been waylaid by Angus Dhu, and startled out of measure by a request, nay, an entreaty, that "she would be kind to poor Evan." Then the old man had gone on to say how welcome she would be if she would come home and be the daughter of the house when his Shenac went to Allister. He told her how fondly she should be cherished by them all, and how everything within and without should be ordered according to her will; for he was sure that union with one of her firm yet gentle nature was just what was needed to make a good man of his wayward lad. She had listened, because she could not break away, wishing all the time that the earth would open and that she might creep away into the fissure and get out of sight. For, indeed, she had never thought of such a thing as that. Nor Evan either, she was sure--she thought--she did not know. Oh, well, perhaps he had thought of it, and had tried to make it known to her in his foolish way. But she never really would have found it out or thought about it if his father had not spoken; and now she would never be able to think about anything else in the presence of either. It was too bad, and wrong, and miserable, and uncomfortable, and I don't know what else, she said to herself, for it could never be--never. And yet, why not? It would seem natural enough to people generally; her aunt would like it, her uncle's heart was set on it, and Allister and Shenac Dhu would be pleased. Even Hamish would not object. And Evan himself? Oh, no; it could never be. She would never care for him in that way. He was not like Allister, nor like any one she cared for--so different from--from--Shenac was sitting alone in the dark, but she suddenly dropped her face in her hands. For quite unbidden, with a shock of surprise and pain that made her heart stand still for a moment, and then set it beating wildly, a name had come to her lips--the name of one so wise and good in her esteem that to speak it at such a time, even in her thoughts, seemed desecration. "I am growing foolish, I think, with all this vexation and nonsense; and I won't think about it any more. I have enough to keep me busy till Shenac Dhu comes home, and then I'll have it out with Hamish." The wedding was a very quiet one. It was hardly a wedding at all, said the last-married sisters, who had gone away amid feasting and music. There was no groomsman nor bridesmaid, for Shenac Bhan could hardly stand in her black dress, and Shenac Dhu would have no one else; and there were no guests out of the two families. Old Mr Farquharson came up one morning, and it was "put over quietly," as Angus Dhu said; and after dinner, which might have served half the township both for quantity and quality, Allister and his bride went away for their wedding trip, which was only to the town of M--- to see Christie More and make a few purchases. They were to be away a week--certainly no longer--and then the new life was to begin. Shenac Bhan stood watching till they were out of sight; and then she stood a little longer, wondering whether she might not go straight home without turning into the house. No; she could not. They were all expected to stay the rest of the day and have tea, and visit with her cousins, who lived at some distance, and had been little in their father's house since they went to their own. "Mind you are not to stay away, Hamish, bhodach," whispered Shenac, as they turned towards the house; and Hamish, who had been thinking of it, considered himself in honour bound to return after he had gone to see that all was right at home. It was not so very bad, after all. The two young wives were full of their own affairs, and compared notes about the butter and cheese-making which they had carried on during the summer, and talked about flannel and full-cloth and the making of blankets in a way that must have set their mother's heart at rest about their future as notable house-keepers. And Shenac Bhan listened and joined, seemingly much interested, but wondering all the time why she did not care a pin about it all. Flannel and full-cloth, made with much labour and pains, as the means of keeping Hamish and little Flora and the lads from the cold, had been matters of intense interest; and butter put down, and cheese disposed of, as the means of getting sugar and tea and other things necessary to the comfort of her mother and the rest, had been prized to their utmost value. But flannel and full-cloth, butter and cheese, were in themselves, or as a means of wealth, matters of indifference. Allister's good heart and strong arm were between them and a struggle for these things now; and that made the difference. But, as she sat listening and wondering, Shenac did not understand all this, and felt vexed and mortified with herself at the change. Annie and Mary, her cousins, were content to look forward to a long routine of spinning and weaving, dairy-work and house-work, and all the rest. Why should she not do the same? She used to do so. No; she used to work without looking forward. She could do so still, if there were any need for it--any good in it--if it were to come to anything. But to work on for yards of flannel and pounds of butter that Flora and the rest, and all the world indeed, would be just as well without--the thought of that was not pleasant. She grew impatient of her thoughts, as well as the talk, at last, and went to help her aunt to set out the table for tea. This was better. She could move about and chat with her concerning the cream-cheese made for the occasion, and of the cake made by Shenac Dhu from a recipe sent by Christie More, of which her mother had stood in doubt till it was cut, but no longer. Then there were the new dishes of the bride, which graced the table--pure white, with just a little spray of blue. They were quite beautiful, Shenac thought. Then her aunt let her into the secret of a second set of knives and forks--very handsome, which even the bride herself had not seen yet; and so on till Hamish came in with Angus Dhu. Then Shenac could have cried with vexation, she felt so awkward and uncomfortable under the old man's watchful, well-pleased eye; and when Evan and the two Dans came in it was worse. She laid hands on a long grey stocking, her aunt's work, and betook herself to the corner where Annie and Mary were still talking more earnestly than ever. She startled them by the eagerness with which she questioned first one and then the other as to the comparative merits of madder and--something else--for dyeing red. It was a question of vital importance to her, one might have supposed, and it was taken up accordingly. Mrs McLay thought the other thing was best--gave much the brighter colour; but Mrs McRea declared for the madder, because, instead of fading, it grew prettier the longer it was worn and the oftener it was washed. But each had enough to say about it; and this lasted till the lads and little Flora came in from their play, and Shenac busied herself with them till tea was ready. After tea they had worship, and sung a little while, and then they went home. "Oh, what a long day this has been!" said Shenac, as they came in. "Yes; I fancied you were a little weary of it all," said Hamish. "It would be terrible to be condemned to do nothing but visit all one's life. It is the hardest work I ever undertook--this doing nothing," said Shenac. Hamish laughed. "Well, there is comfort in knowing that you have not had much of that kind of work to do in your lifetime, and are not likely to have." There were several things to attend to after coming home, and by the time all these were out of the way the children had gone to bed, and Hamish and Shenac were alone. "I may as well speak to Hamish to-night," said Shenac to herself. "Oh dear! I wish it were well over. If Hamish says it is right to go, I shall be sure I am right, and I shall not be afraid. But I must go--I think it will be right to go--whether Hamish thinks so or not. Hamish can do without me; but how shall I ever do without him?" She sat looking into the fire, trying to think how she should begin, and started a little when Hamish said,-- "Well, Shenac, what is it? You have something to tell me." "I am going to ask you something," said his sister gravely. "Do you think it is wrong for me to wish to go away from home--for a while, I mean?" "From home? Why? When? Where? It all depends on these things," said Hamish, laughing a little. "Hamish, what should I do?" asked his sister earnestly. "I cannot do much good by staying here, can I? Ought I to stay? Don't tell me that I ought not to go away--that you have never thought of such a thing." "No, I cannot tell you that, Shenac; for I have thought a great deal about it; and I believe you ought to go--though what we are to do without you is more than I can tell." So there were to be no objections from Hamish. She said to herself that was good, and she was glad; but her heart sank a little too, and she was silent. "You have been thinking about us and caring for us all so long, it is time we were thinking what is good for you," said Hamish. "You are laughing at me, Hamish." "No, I am not. I think it would be very nice for us if you would be content to stay at home and do for us all as you have been doing; but it would not be best for you." "It would be best for me if it were needful," said Shenac eagerly; "but, Hamish, it is not much that I could do here now. I mean Allister and Shenac Dhu will care for you all; and just what I could do with my hands is not much. Anybody could do it." "And you think you could do higher work somewhere else?" "Not higher work, Hamish. But I think there must be work somewhere that I could do better--more successfully--than I can do on the farm. Even when I was doing most, before Allister came, Dan could go before me when he cared to do it. And he did it so easily, forgetting it all the moment it was out of his hand; while I vexed myself and grew weary often, with planning and thinking of what was done and what was still to do. I often feel now it was a wild thing in us to think of carrying on the farm by ourselves. If I had known all, I would hardly have been so bold with Angus Dhu that day." "But it all ended well. You did not undertake more than you carried through," said Hamish. "No; it kept us all together. But, Hamish, I often think that Allister came home just in time. If it had gone on much longer, I must either have given out or become an earth-worm at last, with no thought but how to slave and save and turn everything to account." "I don't think that would ever have happened, Shenac," said her brother. "But I think it was well for us all, and especially for you, that Allister came home just when he did." "I don't mean that field-labour may not in some cases be woman's work. For a girl living at home, of course, it must be right to help in whatever way help is needed; but I don't think it is the work a woman should choose, except just to help with the rest. Surely I can learn to do something else. If I were to go to Christie More, she could find a place of some kind for me. Don't you mind, Hamish, what she once said about our going with her to M---, you and me? Oh, if we could only go together!" But Hamish shook his head. "No, Shenac. It would be useless for me. I must be far stronger than I am now to undertake anything of that kind. And you must not be in a hurry to get away. You must not let Shenac think you are running away from her. Wait a while. A month or two will make no difference, and by that time the way will open before us. I don't like the thought of your taking any place that Christie More could get for you. You will be far better at home for a while." "But, Hamish, you really think it will be better for me to go?" "Yes--some time. Why should you be in haste? Is there any reason that you have not told me why you should wish to go?" Shenac did not answer for a moment. "Is it about Evan, Shenac?" asked her brother. "That could never be, I suppose." "Who told you, Hamish? No; I think it could never be. Allister would like it, and Shenac Dhu; and I suppose to folk generally it would seem a good thing for me. But I don't like Evan in that way. No, I don't think it could ever be." "Evan will be a rich man some day, Shenac; and you could have it all your own way there." "Yes; Allister said that to me once. They all seem to think I would like to rule and to be rich. But I did not think you would advise me because of that, Hamish, or because Evan will be a rich man." "I am not advising you, Shenac," said Hamish eagerly. "If you cared for Evan it would be different; but I am very glad you do not." "I might come to care for him in time," said Shenac, a little wearily. "But I never thought about him in that way till--till Angus Dhu spoke to me." "Angus Dhu!" exclaimed Hamish. "Yes--and frightened me out of my wits," said Shenac, laughing a little. "I never answered a word, and maybe he thinks that I am willing. Allister spoke about it too. Would it please you, Hamish? I might come to like him well enough, in time." "No, Shenac. It would by no means please me. I am very glad you do not care for Evan--in that way. I would not like to see you Evan's wife." There was not much said after that, though they sat a long time together in the firelight. "Did I tell you that I had a letter from Mr Stewart to-day, Shenac?" Hamish asked at last. "No," said Shenac; "was he well?" "He has a call to be minister of the church in H---, and he is to go there soon; and he says if he can possibly do it he will come this way. It will be in six weeks or two months, if he comes at all." Shenac said nothing to this; but when Hamish had added a few more particulars, she said,-- "Perhaps it may seem foolish, Hamish, but I want to go soon." "Because of Evan?" asked her brother. "Partly; or rather, because of Angus Dhu," she said, laughing. "And Allister and Shenac would like it." "But they would never urge it against your will." "No; I suppose not. But it is uncomfortable; and, Hamish, it is not impossible that I might let myself be persuaded." Hamish looked grave. "I don't know but it is the best thing that could happen to me," Shenac continued. "I am not fit for any other life, I am afraid. But I must go away for a while at any rate." Hamish said nothing, though he looked as if he had something to say. "If you are willing, Hamish, it will go far to satisfy Allister. And I can come back again if I should find nothing to do." CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. But Shenac's work at home was not all done yet. Sitting that night by the fireside with her brother, could she have got a glimpse of the next few months and all they were to bring about, her courage might have failed her; for sorrowful as some of the past days had been, more sorrowful days were awaiting her--sorrowful days, yet sweet, and very precious in remembrance. A very quiet and happy week passed, and then Allister and his wife came home. There was some pleasure-seeking then, in a quiet way; for the newly-married pair were entertained by their friends, and there were a few modest gatherings in the new house, and the hands of the two Shenacs were full with the preparations, and with the arrangement of new furniture, and making all things as they ought to be in the new house. But in the midst of the pleasant bustle Hamish fell ill. It was not much, they all thought--a cold only, which proved rather obstinate and withstood all the mild attempts made with herb-drinks and applications to remove it. But they were not alarmed about it. Even when the doctor was sent for, even when he came again of his own accord, and yet again, they were not much troubled. For Hamish had been so much better all the winter. He had had no return of his old rheumatic pains. He would soon be well again, they all said,--except himself; and he said nothing. They were inclined to make light of his present illness, rejoicing that he was no longer racked with the terrible pains that in former winters had made his nights sleepless and his days a weariness. He suffered now, especially at first, but not as he had suffered then. All through March he kept his bed, and through April he kept his room; but he was comfortable, comparatively--only weak, very weak. He could read, and listen to reading, and enjoy the family conversation; and his room became the place where, in the gloaming, all dropped in to have a quiet time. This room had been called during the building of the house "the mother's room," but when Hamish became ill it was fitted up for him. It was a pleasant room, having a window which looked towards the south over the finest fields of the farm, and one which looked west, where the sun went down in glory, over miles and miles of unbroken forest. Even now, though years have passed since then, Shenac, shutting her eyes, can see again the fair picture which that western window framed. There is the mingling of gorgeous colours--gold, and crimson, and purple, fading into paler tints above. There is the glory of the illuminated forest, and on this side the long shadows of the trees upon the hills. Within, there is the beautiful pale face, radiant with a light which is not all reflected from the glory without--her brother's dying face. Now, when troubles come, when fightings without and fears within assail her, when household cares make her weary, and the thought of guiding wayward hearts and wandering feet makes her afraid, the remembrance of this room comes back to her as the remembrance of Bethel or Peniel must have come to Jacob in his after-wanderings, and her strength is renewed. For there _she_ met God face to face. There she was _smitten_, and there the same hand healed her. There she tasted the sweetness of the cup of bitterness which God puts to the lips of those of his children who humbly and willingly, through grace which he gives, drink it to the dregs. The memory of that room and the western window is like the memory of the stone which the prophet set up--"The stone of help." "I will trust, and not be afraid." "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." The words seem to come again from the dear dying lips; and as they were surely his to trust to, to lean on when nought else could avail, so in all times of trouble Shenac knows that they are most surely hers. But much sorrow came before the joy. March passed, and April, and May-day came, warm and bright this year again; and for the first time for many weeks Hamish went out-of-doors. He did not go far; just down to the creek, now flowing full again, to sit a little in the sunshine, with a plaid about his shoulders and another under his feet. It was pleasant to feel the wind in his face. All the sights and sounds of spring were pleasant to him--the gurgle of the water, the purple tinge on the woods, the fields growing fair with a tender green. Allister left the plough in the furrow, and came striding down the long field, just to say it was good to see him there. Dan shouted, "Well done, Hamish, lad!" in the distance; and little Flora risked being too late for the school, in her eagerness to gather a bunch of spring flowers for him. As for Shenac, she was altogether triumphant. There was no cloud of care darkening the brightness of her loving eyes, no fear from the past or for the future resting on her face. Looking at her, and at his fair little sister tying up her treasures for him, Hamish for a moment longed--oh, so earnestly!--to live, for their sakes. Hidden away among Flora's most precious treasures is a faded bunch of spring-flowers, tied with a thread broken from the fringe of the plaid on which her brother sat that day; and looking at them now, she knows that when Hamish took them from her hand, and kissed and blessed her with loving looks, it was with the thought in his heart of the long parting drawing near. But she did not dream of it then, nor did Shenac. He watched with wistful eyes the little figure dancing over the field and down the road, saying softly as she disappeared,-- "I would like to live a little while, for their sakes." Shenac did not catch the true sense of his words, and mistaking him, she said eagerly,-- "Ah, yes, if we could manage it--you and Flora and I. Allister might have the lads; he will make men of them. I am not wise enough nor patient enough. But you and Flora and I--it would be so nice for us to live together till we grow old." And Shenac cast longing looks towards the little log-house where they had lived so long and so happily. But Hamish shook his head. "I doubt it can never be, my Shenac." "No, I suppose not," said Shenac, with a sigh; "for Allister is to take down the old house--the dear old shelter--to make the garden larger. He is an ambitious lad, our Allister," she added laughing, "and means to have a place worthy of the chief of the clan. But, somewhere and some time, we'll have a wee house together, Hamish--you and I and Flora. Don't shake your wise head, lad. There is nothing that may not happen-- some time. "Do you remember, Hamish," she continued (and her voice grew low and awed as she said it)--"do you remember the night you were so ill? I did not say it to you, but I feared that night that you were going to die, and I said to myself, if God would spare you to my prayers, I would never doubt nor despond again; I would trust God always. And I will." "But, Shenac, what else could you do but trust God if I were to die?" asked her brother gravely. "My living or dying would make no difference as to that." "But, Hamish, that is not what I mean. It may seem a bold thing to say, but I think God heard my prayer that night, and spared you to us; and it would seem so wrong, so ungrateful, to doubt now. All will be for the best now, I am sure, now that he has raised you up again." "For a little while," said Hamish softly. "But, Shenac, all will be for the best, whether I live or die. You do not need me to tell you that, I am sure." "But you _are_ better," said Shenac eagerly, a vague trouble stirring at her heart. "Surely I am better. But that is not the question. I want you to say to me that you will trust and not be afraid even if I were to die, Shenac, my darling. Think where your peace and strength come from, think of Him in whom you trust; and what difference can the staying or going of one like me make, if He is with you?" For just a moment it was clear to Shenac how true this was--how safe they are whom God keeps, how much better than a brother's love is the love divine, which does not shield from all suffering, but which most surely saves from all real evil. "Yes, Hamish," she said humbly, "I see it. But, oh, I am glad you are better again!" But was he really better? Shenac asked herself the question many a time in the days that followed. For the May that had come in so brightly was, after all, a dreary month. There were some cold days and some rainy days, and never a day, till June came, that was mild enough for Hamish to venture out again. And when he did, it was not on the hillock by the creek where Shenac spread the plaid, but close to the end of the old log-house, where the mother used to sit in the sunshine. For the creek seemed a long way off to Hamish now. When Allister came down the hill to speak to his brother, it came into Shenac's mind that his face was graver, and his greeting not so cheery, as it had been that May-day. As for Dan, he did not hail him as he had done then, but only looked a moment with wistful eyes, and then went away. "Truly, the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun," said Hamish softly, as he leaned back against the wall. "I thought, the last time I was out, that nothing could be lovelier than the sky and the fields were then; but they are lovelier to-day. It helps one to realise `the living green' that the hymn speaks about, Shenac:-- "`There everlasting spring abides, And never-withering flowers,'" he murmured. But Shenac had no answer ready. Day by day she was coming to the knowledge of what must be, but she could not speak about it yet. Nay, she had never really put it to herself in words that her brother was going to die. She had all these days been putting the fear from her, as though by that means she might also put away the cause. Now in the sunshine it looked her in the face, and would not be put aside. But, except that she sat very still and was very pale, she gave no token of her thoughts to Hamish; and if he noticed her, he said nothing. "Shenac," said he in a little while, "when Allister takes away the poor old house to make the garden larger, he should make a summer-seat here, just where the end of the house comes, to mind you all of my mother and me. Will you tell him, Shenac?" "He may never change the garden as he thought to do," answered Shenac. "He will have little heart for the plans we have all been making." "Yes, just at first, I know; but afterwards, Shenac. Think of the years to come, when Allister's children will be growing up about him. He will not forget me; but he will be quite happy without me, as the time goes on; and you too, Shenac. It is well that it should be so." Shenac neither assented nor denied. Soon Hamish continued:-- "I thought it would be my work to lay out the new garden. I would like to have had the thought of poor lame Hamish joined with the change; but it does not really matter. You will not forget me; but, Shenac, afterwards you must tell Allister about the summer-seat." "Afterwards!" Ah, well, there would be time enough for many a thing afterwards--for the tears and bitter cries which Shenac could only just keep back, for the sickness of the heart that would not be driven away. Now she could only promise quietly that afterwards Allister should be told; and then gather closer about him the plaid, which her brother's hand had scarcely strength to hold. "You are growing weary, Hamish," she said. "Yes," said Hamish; and they rose to go. But first they would go into the old house for a moment, for the sake of old times. "For, with all your cares, and all my painful days and nights, we were very happy here, Shenac," said Hamish, as the wide, low door swung back and they stepped down into the room. Oh, how unspeakably dreary it looked to Shenac--dreary, though so familiar! There was a bedstead in the room yet, and some old chairs; and the heavy bunk, which was hardly fit for the new house. There was the mother's wheel, too; and on the walls hung bunches of dried herbs and bags of seeds, and an old familiar garment or two. There was dust on the floor, and ashes and blackened brands were lying in the wide fireplace, and the sunshine streaming in on all through the open door. Shenac shivered as she entered, but Hamish looked round with a smile, and with eyes that were taking farewell of them all. Even in her bitter pain she thought of him first. She made him sit down on the bunk, and gathered the plaid about him again, for the air was chill. It all came back: the many, many times she had seen him sitting there, in health and in sickness, in sorrow and in joy; all their old life, all the days that could never, never come again. Kneeling down beside him, she laid her head upon his breast, and just this once--the first time and the last in his presence--gave way to her grief. "O Hamish! Hamish, bhodach! Must it be? Must it be?" He did not speak. She did not move till she felt tears that were not her own falling on her face. Then she rose, and putting her arms round him, she made him lean on her, all the while softly soothing him with hand and voice. "I am grieved for you, my Shenac," said he. "We two have been nearer to each other than the rest. You have not loved me less because I am little and lame, but rather more for the trouble I have been to you; and I know something will be gone from your life when I am not here." "Oh, what will be left?" said Shenac. "Shenac, my darling, I know something that you do not know, and I see such a beautiful life before you. You are strong. There is much for you to do of the very highest work--God's work; and then at the end we shall meet all the happier because of the heart-break now." But beyond the shadow that was drawing nearer, Shenac's eyes saw nothing, and she thought indeed that her heart was breaking--dying with the sharpness of the pain. "It won't be long, at the very longest; and after just the first, there are many happy days waiting you." Shenac withdrew herself from her brother, she trembled so, and slipping down beside him, she laid her face on his bosom again. Then followed words which I shall not write down--words of prayer, which touched the sore place in Shenac's heart as they fell, but which came back afterwards many a time with a comforting and healing power. All through the long summer afternoon Hamish slumbered and woke and slumbered again, while his sister sat beside him, heart-sick with the dread, which was indeed no longer dread, but sorrowful certainty. "It is coming nearer," she said to herself, over and over again--"it is coming nearer." But she strove to quiet herself, that her face might be calm for his waking eyes to rest upon. Allister and his wife came in as usual to sit a little while with him, when the day's work was done; and then Shenac slipped away, to be alone a little while with her grief. An hour passed, and then another, and a third was drawing to a close, and she did not return. "She must have fallen asleep. She is weary with the long day," said Hamish. "And you are weary too, Allister and Shenac. Go to bed. I shall not need anything till my Shenac comes." Shenac Dhu went out and opened the door of her sister's room. Little Flora was sleeping sweetly, but there was no Shenac. Very softly she went here and there, looking and listening in vain. The late moon, just rising, cast long shadows on the dewy grass as she opened the door and looked out. The pleasant sounds of a summer night fell on her ear, but no human voice mingled with the music. All at once there came into her mind the remembrance of the brother and sister as they sat in the afternoon at the old house-end, and, hardly knowing why, she went through the yard and down the garden-path. All was still without, but from within the house there surely came a sound. Yes; it was the sound of weeping--not loud and bitter, but as when a "weaned child" has quieted itself, and sobs and sighs through its slumbers. "Alone with God and her sorrow!" Shenac Dhu dared not enter; nor shall we. When a stricken soul lies in the dust before God, no eye should gaze, no lip tell the story. Who would dare to speak of the mystery of suffering and blessing through which a soul passes when God first smites, then heals? What written words could reveal his secret of peace spoken to such a one? That night all the grief of Shenac's sore heart was spread out before the Lord. All the rebellion of the will that clung still to an earthly idol rose up against him; and in his loving-kindness and in the multitude of his tender mercies he had compassion upon her. That night she "did eat angels' food," on the strength of which she went for many a day. Shenac Dhu still listened and waited, meaning to steal away unseen; but when the door opened, and the moonlight fell on her sister's tear-stained face, so pale and calm, now that the struggle was over, she forgot all else, and clung to her, weeping. Shenac did not weep; but, weary and spent with the long struggle, she trembled like a leaf, and, guiding each other through the dim light, they went home. Shenac Dhu was herself again when she crossed the threshold, and when her cousin would have turned towards the door of her brother's room, she gently but firmly drew her past it. "No; it is Allister's turn and mine to-night," she said; and Shenac had no strength to resist, but suffered herself to be laid down by little Flora's side without a word. She rose next morning refreshed; and after this all was changed. She gave Hamish up after that night; or, rather, she had given up her own will, and waited that God's will might be done in him and in her. It was not that she suffered, and had strength to hide her suffering from her brother's eye. She did not suffer as she had done before. She did not love her brother less, but she no longer grudged him to his Lord and hers. It was not that for him the change would be most blessed, nor that for her the waiting would not be long. It was because God willed that her brother should go hence; and therefore she willed it too. And what blessed days those were that followed! Surely never traveller went down the dark valley cheered by warmer love or tenderer care. There was no cloud, no shadow of a cloud, between the brother and sister after that night. Though Shenac never said it, Hamish knew that after that night she gave him up and was at peace. It was a peaceful time to all the household, and to the friends who came now and then to see them; but there was more than peace in the hallowed hours to the brother and sister. It was a foretaste of "the rest that remaineth." To one, that rest was near. Between it and the other lay life--it might be long--a life of care and labour and trial; but to her the rest "remaineth" all the same. He did not suffer much--just enough to make her loving care constant and very sweet to him--just enough to make her not grudge too much, for his sake, the passing of the days. Oh, how peacefully they glided on! The valley was steep, but it never was dark. Not a shadow, to the very last, came to dim the brightness of those days; and in remembrance the brightness lingers still. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. But I must go back again to the June days when Shenac's peace was new. The light came in through the western window, not from the sun, but from the glory he had left behind; and with his face upturned towards the golden clouds, Hamish sat gazing, as if he saw heaven beyond. "Ready and waiting!" thought Shenac--"ready and waiting!" For a moment she thought she must have spoken the words aloud, as her brother turned and said,-- "I have just one thing left to wish for, Shenac. If I could only see Mr Stewart once again." "He said he would come, dear, in August or September," said Shenac, after a moment's pause. "I shall not see him, then," said Hamish softly. "He might come sooner, perhaps, if he knew," said Shenac. "Allister might write to him." "I so long to see him!" continued Hamish. "I do love him so, Shenac dear--next to you, I think. Indeed, I know not which I love best. Oh, I could never tell you all the cause I have to love him." "He would be sure to come," said his sister. "I want to see him because I love him, and because he loves me, and because--" He paused. "Have you anything to say to him that I could tell him afterwards? But he will be sure to come." "You could write and ask him, Shenac." "Yes; oh yes. Only Allister could do it better," said Shenac; "but I could let him know that you are longing to see him again." But it was Hamish himself who wrote--two broken lines, very unlike the letters he used to take so much pains to make perfect. But the irregular, almost illegible, characters were eloquent to his friend; and in a few days there came an answer, saying that in a day or two business would bring him within fifty miles of their home, and it would go hard with him if he could not get a day for his friend. And almost as soon as his letter he himself came. He had travelled all night to accomplish it, and must travel all night again; but in the meantime there was a long summer day before them. A long, happy day it was, and long to be remembered. They had it mostly to themselves. All the morning Mr Stewart sat beside the low couch of Hamish, and spoke or was silent as he had strength to listen or reply. On the other side sat Shenac, never speaking, never moving, except when her brother needed her care. Once, when Hamish slumbered, Mr Stewart, touching her bowed head with his hand, whispered,-- "Is it well?" And Shenac answered, "It is well. I would not have it otherwise." "And afterwards?" said her friend. "I cannot look beyond," she murmured. He stooped to whisper,-- "I will not fear, though the earth be removed, though the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea." "I am not afraid," said Shenac. "I do not think when the time comes I shall be afraid." After that Mr Stewart carried Hamish out to the end of the house, and there they were alone. When they came in again, one and another of his friends came to see Mr Stewart, and Hamish rested. As it grew dark, they all gathered in to worship, and then it was time for Mr Stewart to go. When all was ready, and he came to say farewell, Hamish slumbered. Shenac stooped down and spoke his name. Mr Stewart bent over him and kissed him on the brow and lips. As he raised himself, the closed eyes opened, and the smiling lips murmured, as Shenac stooped again to catch the words,-- "He will come again, to care for you always. I could hardly have borne to leave my Shenac, but for that." Shenac lifted her startled eyes to Mr Stewart's face. "Is he wandering?" she asked. "No. Will you let me care for you always, Shenac, good and dear child?" Shenac did not catch the true meaning of his words, but she saw that his lip quivered, and the hand he held out trembled; so she placed hers in it for a farewell. Then he kissed her as he had kissed her brother, and then he went away. There was no break in the long summer days after this. Sabbaths and weekdays were all the same in the quiet room. Once or twice Hamish was carried in Allister's strong arms to the door, or to the seat at the end of the house, and through almost all July he sat for an hour or two each day in the great chair by the western window. But after August came in, the only change he had was between his bed and the low couch beside it. He did not suffer much pain, but languor and restlessness overpowered him often; and then the strong, kind arms of his elder brother never were wearied, even when the harvest-days were longest, but bore him from bed to couch, and from couch to bed again, till he could rest at last. Sometimes, when he could rest nowhere else, he would slumber a little while with his head on his sister's shoulder, and her arms clasped about him. When a friend came in to sit with him for a while, or when he was easy or slumbered through the day, Shenac made herself busy with household matters; for, what with the milk and the wool and the harvest-people, Shenac Dhu had more than she could well do, even with the help of her handmaid Maggie, and her sister strove to lighten the labour. But the care of her brother was the work that fell to her now, and at night she never left him. She slept by snatches in the great chair when he slept, and whiled away the wakeful hours when his restless turns came on. She was not doing too much for her strength; she was quite fit for it all. The neighbours were more than kind, and many of them would gladly have shared the watching at night with her; but Hamish was not used to have any one else about him, and it could hardly be called watching, for she slept all she needed. And, besides, it was harvest-time, and all were busy in the fields, and those who worked all day could not watch at night. She was quite well--a little thin and pale--"bleached," her aunt said, by being in the house and not out in the harvest-field; but she was always alert and cheerful. The coming sorrow was more hers than any of the others. They all thought with dismay of the time when Shenac should be alone, with half her heart in the grave of Hamish. But she did not look beyond the end to that time, and sought no sympathy because of this. It is a happy, thing that they who bear the burdens of others by this means lighten their own; and Shenac, careful for her young brothers and little Flora, anxious that the few hushed moments in their brother's room--his prayers, his loving words, his gentle patience, his immortal hope--should henceforth be blended with all their inward life, never to be forgotten, never to be set aside, thought more of them than of herself through all those days and nights of waiting. When a sudden shower or a rainy day gave the harvesters a little leisure, she used to make herself busy in the house that Dan might feel himself of use to Hamish, and might hear, with no one else to listen, a sweet, persuasive word or two from his dying brother's lips. For Shenac's heart yearned over her brother Dan. He did so need some high aim, some powerful motive of action, some strengthening, guiding principle of life. All need this; but Dan more than others, she thought. If he did not go straight to the mark, he would go very far astray. He would soon be his own master, free to guide himself, and he would either do very well or very ill in life; and there had been times, even since the coming home of Allister, when Shenac feared that "very ill" it was to be. And yet at one time he had seemed not very far from the kingdom. During all the long season of religious interest, no one had seemed more interested, in one way, than he. Without professing to be personally earnest in the matter, he had attended all the meetings, and watched-- with curiosity, perhaps, but with awe and interest too--the coming out from the world of many of his companions, their changed life, their higher purpose. But all this had passed away without any real change to himself, and, as a reaction from that time, Dan had grown a little more than careless--very willing to be called careless, and more, by some who grieved, and by others who laughed. So Shenac watched and prayed, and forgot herself in longings that, amid the influences of a time so solemn and so sweet, Dan might find that which should make him wise and strong, and place him far beyond all her doubts and fears for ever. It was a day in the beginning of harvest--a rainy day, coming after so long a time of drought and dust and heat that all rejoiced in it, even though it fell on golden sheaves and on long swaths of new-cut grain. It was not a misty, drizzling rain; it came down with a will in sudden showers, leaving little pools in the chip-yard and garden-paths. Every now and then the clouds broke away, as if they were making preparation for the speedy return of the sunshine; but the sun did not show his face till he had only time to tinge the clouds with golden glory before he sank behind the forest. "Carry me to the window, Dan," said Hamish. "Thank you: that is nice. You carry me as strongly and firmly as Allister himself. You are as strong, and nearly as tall, I think," continued he, when he had been placed in the great chair and had rested a little. At any other time Dan would have straightened himself up to declare how he was an eighth of an inch taller than Allister, or he would have attempted some extraordinary feat--such as lifting the stove or the chest of drawers-- to prove his right to be called a strong man. But, looking down on his brother's fragile form and beautiful colourless face, other thoughts moved him. Love and compassion, for which no words could be found, filled his heart and looked out from his wistful eyes. It came to him as it had never come before--what a sorrowful, suffering life his brother's had been; and now he was dying! Hamish seemed not to need words in order that he might understand his thoughts. "I used to fret about it, Dan; but that is all past. It does not matter, as I am lying now. I would not change my weakness for your strength to-day, dear lad." A last bright ray of sunlight lighted up the fair, smiling face, and flecked with golden gleams the curls that lay about it. There came into Dan's mind thoughts of the time when Hamish was a little lad, strong and merry as any of them all; and his heart was moved with vague wonder and regret at the mystery that had changed his happy life to one of suffering and comparative helplessness. And yet, what did it matter, now that the end had come? Perhaps all that trouble and pain had helped to make the brightness of to-day, for there was no shadow in the dying eyes, no regret for the past, no fear for the future. He let his own eyes wander from his brother's face away to the clouds and the sinking sun and the illuminated forest, with a vague notion that, if his feelings were not suppressed, he should do dishonour to his manliness soon. Hamish touched his hand, as he said,-- "It looks dark to you, Dan, with the shadow of death drawing nearer and nearer; but it is only a shadow, lad, only a shadow, and I am not afraid." Dan felt that he must break down if he met that smile a moment longer, and, with a sudden wrench, he turned himself away; but he could not have spoken a word, if his reputation for strength had depended on it. Hamish spoke first. "Sit down, lad, if you are not needed, and read a while to me, till Shenac comes back again." "All right," said Dan. He could endure it with something to do, he thought. "What book, Hamish?" "There is only one book now, Dan, lad," said Hamish as he lifted the little, worn Bible from the window-seat. Dan could do several things better than he could read, but he took the book from his brother's hand. Even reading would be better than silence--more easily borne. "Anywhere, I suppose?" said he. The book opened naturally at a certain place, where it had often been opened before, and he read:-- "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." The sigh of satisfaction with which Hamish laid himself back, as the words came slowly, said more to Dan than a sermon could have done. He read on, thinking, as verse by verse passed his lips, "That is for Hamish," till he came to this:-- "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." "Was this for Hamish only?" Dan's voice was not quite smooth through this verse; it quite broke down when he tried the next; and then his face was hidden, and the sobs that had been gathering all this time burst forth. "Why, Dan, lad! what is it, Dan?" said Hamish; and the thin, transparent fingers struggled for a moment to withdraw the great, brown, screening hands from his eyes. Then his arm was laid across his brother's neck. "They are all for you, Dan, as well as for me," he murmured. "O Dan, do not sob like that. Look up, dear brother, I have something to say to you." If I were to report the broken words that followed, they might not seem to have much meaning or weight; but, falling from those dear dying lips, they came with power to the heart of Dan. And this was but the beginning. The veil being once lifted from Dan's heart, he did not shrink again from his brother's gentle and faithful ministrations. There were few days after that in which the brothers were not left alone together for a little while. Though the days were not many, in Dan's life they counted more than all the years that had gone before. The harvest was drawing to a close before the last day came. The dawn was breaking after a long and weary night More than once, during the slowly-passing hours, Shenac had turned to the door to call her brothers; but thoughts of the long laborious day restrained her, and now a little respite had come. Hamish slumbered peacefully. It was not very long, however, before his eyes opened on his sister's face with a smile. "It is drawing nearer, my Shenac," he murmured. Her answering smile was tearful, but very bright. "Yes, it is drawing nearer." "And you do not grudge me to my rest, dear?" "No; even at my worst time I did not do that. For myself, the way looked weary; but at the very worst time I was glad for you." The brightness of her tearful smile never changed till his weary eyes closed again. The day passed slowly. They thought him dying in the afternoon, and they all gathered in his room; but he revived, and when night came he was left alone with Shenac. There were others up in the house all night, and now and then a face looked in at the open door; but they slept, or seemed to sleep--Shenac in the great chair, with her head laid on her brother's pillow and her bright hair mingling with his. On her cheek, pale with watching and with awe of the presence that overshadowed them, one thin, white hand was laid. The compressed lips and dimmed eyes of Hamish never failed to smile as in answer to his touch she murmured some tender word--not her own, but _His_ whose words alone can avail when it comes to a time like this. As the day dawned they gathered again--first Dan, then Allister and Shenac Dhu, then Flora and the little lads; for the change which cannot be mistaken had come to the dying face, and they waited in silence for the King's messenger. He slumbered peacefully with a smile upon his lips, but his eyes opened at last and fastened on his sister's face. She had never moved through the coming in of them all; she did not move now, but spoke his name. "Hamish, bhodach!" Did he see her? "How bright it is in the west! It will be a fair day for the harvest to-morrow." It must have been a glimpse of the "glory to be revealed" breaking through the dimness of death; for he did not see the dear face so close to his, and if he heard her voice, he was past all answering now. Just once again his lips moved, murmuring a name--the dearest of all--"Jesus;" and then he "saw him as he is." CHAPTER NINETEEN. And having closed the once beaming eyes and straightened the worn limbs for the grave, Shenac's work at home was done. Through the days of waiting that followed, she sat in the great chair with folded hands. Many came and went, and lingered night and day in the house of death, as is the custom of this part of the country, now happily passing away; and through all the coming and going Shenac sat still. Sometimes she roused herself to answer the friends who came with well-meant sympathy; but oftener she sat silent, scarcely seeming to hear their words. She was "_resting_," she said to Dan, who watched her through those days with wistful and anxious eyes. Yes, she was resting from the days and nights of watching, and from the labours and cares and anxieties of the years that had gone before. All her weariness seemed to fall upon her at once. Even when death enters the door, the cares and duties of such a household cannot be altogether laid aside. There was much to do with so many comers and goers; but there were helpful hands enough, and she took no part in the necessary work, but rested. She took little heed of the preparations going on about her--different in detail, but in all the sad essentials the same, in hut and hall, at home and abroad--the preparations for burying our dead out of our sight. During the first day, Allister and his wife said, thankfully, to each other, "How calm she is!" The next day they said it a little anxiously. Then they watched for the reaction, feeling sure it must come, and longing that it should be over. "It will be now," said Shenac Dhu as they brought in the coffin; and she waited at her sister's door to hear her cry out, that she might weep with her. But it was not then; nor afterwards, when the long, long procession moved away from the house so slowly and solemnly; nor when they stood around the open grave in the kirkyard. When the first clod fell on the coffin--oh, heart-breaking sound!--Dan made one blind step towards Shenac, and would have fallen but for Angus Dhu. Little Flora cried out wildly, and her sister held her fast. She did not shriek, nor swoon, nor break into weeping, as did Shenac Dhu; but "her face would never be whiter," said they who saw it, and many a kindly and anxious eye followed her as the long line of mourners slowly turned on their homeward way again. After the first day or two, Shenac tried faithfully to fall back into her old household ways--or, rather, she tried to settle into some helpful place in her brother's household. The wheel was put to use again, and, indeed, there was need, for all things had lagged a little during the summer; and Shenac did her day's work, and more, as she used to do. She strove to be interested in the discussions of ways and means which Allister's wife was so fond of holding, but she did not always strive successfully. It was a weariness to her; everything was a weariness at times. It was very wrong, she said, and very strange, for she really did wish to be useful and happy in her brother's household. She thought little of going away now; she had not the heart for it. The thought of beginning some new, untried work made her weary, and the thought of going away among strangers made her afraid. When it was suggested that she and little Flora should pay a long-promised visit to their uncle, at whose house Hamish had passed so many weeks, and that they should go soon, that they might have the advantage of the fine autumn weather, she shrank from the proposal in dismay. "Not yet, Allister," she pleaded; "I shall like it by-and-by, but not yet." So nothing of the kind was urged again. They made a mistake, however. A change of some kind was greatly needed by her at this time. Her brother's long illness and death had been a greater strain on her health and spirits than any one dreamed. She was not ill, but she was in that state when if she had been left to herself, or had had nothing to do, she might have become ill, or have grown to fancy herself so, which is a worse matter often, and worse to cure. As it was, with her good constitution and naturally cheerful spirit, she would have recovered herself in time, even if something had not happened to rouse and interest her. But something did happen. Shenac went one fair October afternoon over the fields to the beech woods to gather nuts with Flora and the young lads, and before they returned a visitor had arrived. They fell in with Dan on their way home, and as they came in sight of the house, chatting together eagerly, there was something like the old light in Shenac's eye and the old colour in her cheek. If she had known whose eyes were watching her from the parlour window, she would hardly have lingered in the garden while the children spread their nuts on the old house-floor to dry. She did not know till she went into the house--into the room. She did not know till he was holding her hands in his, that Mr Stewart had come. "Shenac, good, dear child, is it well with you?" She had heard the words before. All the scene came back--the remembrance of the summer days, her dying brother and his friend--all that had happened since then. She strove to answer him--to say it was well, that she was glad to see him, and why had he not come before? But she could not for her tears. She struggled hard; but, long restrained, they came in a flood now. When she felt that to struggle was vain, she would have fled; but she was held fast, and the tears were suffered to have way for a while. When she could find voice, she said,-- "I am not grieving too much; you must not think that. Ask Allister. I did not mean to cry, but when I saw you it all came back." Again her face was hidden, for her tears would not be stayed; but only one hand was given to the work. Mr Stewart held the other firmly, while he spoke just such words as she needed to hear of her brother and herself--of all they had been to each other, of all that his memory would be to her in the life that might lie before her. Then he spoke of the endless life which was before them, which they should pass together when this life--short at the very longest--should be over. She listened, and became quiet; and by-and-by, in answer to his questions, she found herself telling him of her brother's last days and words, and then, with a little burst of joyful tears, of Dan, and all that she hoped those days had brought to him. Never since the old times, when she used "to empty her heart out" to Hamish, had she found such comfort in being listened to. When she came to the tea-table, after brushing away her tears, she seemed just as usual, Shenac Dhu thought; and yet not just the same, she found, when she looked again. She gave a little nod at her husband, who smiled back at her, and then she said softly to Mr Stewart,-- "You have done her good already." Of course Mr Stewart, being a minister, whose office it is to do good to people, was very glad to have done good to Shenac. Perhaps he thought it best to let _well_ alone, for he did not speak to her again during tea-time, nor while she was gathering up the tea-things--"just as she used to do in the old house long ago," he said to himself. She washed them, too, there before them all; for it was Shenac Dhu's new china--Christie More's beautiful wedding present--that had been spread in honour of the occasion, and it was not to be thought of that they should be carried into the kitchen to be washed like common dishes. She was quiet, as usual, all the evening and at the time of worship, when Angus Dhu and his wife and Evan and some other neighbours, having heard of the minister's arrival, came in. She was just as usual, they all said, only she did not sing. If she had raised her voice in her brother's favourite psalm,-- "I to the hills will lift mine eyes," she must have cried again; and she was afraid of the tears which it seemed impossible to stop when once they found a way. Mr Stewart fully intended for that night to "let well alone." Shenac had welcomed him warmly as the dearest friend of her dead brother, and he would be content for the present with that. He had something to say to her, and a question or two to ask; but he must wait a while, he thought. She must not be disturbed yet. But when the neighbours were gone, and he found himself alone with her for a moment, he felt sorely tempted to change his mind. As he watched her sitting there with folded hands, so quiet and grave and sweet, so unconscious of his presence, as it seemed to him, a fear came over him-- a fear as to the answer his question might receive. It was not at all a pleasant state of mind. He endured it only while he walked up and down the room two or three times; then pausing beside her, he said softly,-- "Is this my Shenac?" She looked up with only wonder in her eyes, he saw, with a little shock of pain; but he went on,-- "Hamish gave his sister to me, to keep and cherish always. Did he never tell you?" "I do not understand you, Mr Stewart," said Shenac; but the sudden drooping of the eye and the rush of colour over her face seemed to say something else. "To be my wife," he said, sitting down beside her and drawing her gently towards him. She did not resist, but she said hastily,-- "Oh, no; I am not fit for that." "But if I am content, and can make you content?" "But that is not enough. I am not fit. No; it is _not_ humility. I know myself, and I am not fit." It is just possible that Mr Stewart wished that he had for that night "let well alone." "But I must have it out with her, now that I have begun," he said to himself as he rose and went to the door, at which a footstep had paused. Whoever it was, no one came in; and, shutting the door, he came and sat down again. In the meantime, Shenac had been calling up a vision of the new minister's wife, the one who had succeeded old Mr Farquharson, and, in view of the prettily-dressed, gentle-mannered, accomplished little lady that presented herself to her mind, she had repeated to herself, more emphatically,-- "No, I am _not_ fit." So when Mr Stewart came back she was sitting with closely-folded hands, looking straight before her, very grave indeed. They were both silent for a moment; then Mr Stewart said,-- "Now, Shenac, tell me why." Shenac started. "You must know quite well." "But indeed I do not. Tell me, Shenac." It was not easy to do so. In the unspeakable embarrassment that came over her, she actually thought of flight. "I am not educated," she murmured. "I have never been anywhere but at home. I can only do common work. I am not fit." "Hamish thought you fit," said Mr Stewart softly. "Ah, yes; Hamish, bhodach!" Her voice fell with such a loving cadence. All the pain and embarrassment passed out of her face, giving place to a soft and tender light, as she turned towards him. "I was perfect in his eyes; but--you know better, Mr Stewart." "The eyes of the dying are very clear to see things as they are," said Mr Stewart. "And as we sat at the end of the house that day, I think Hamish was more glad for me than for you. He was willing to give you to me, even for your sake; but he knew what a treasure he was giving to his friend, if I could win you for my own." Her tears were falling softly. She did not try to speak. "Will you tell me in what respect you think you are not fit?" She did not know how to answer. She was deficient in so many ways--in every way, indeed, it seemed to her. She did not know where to begin; but she must speak, and quickly too, that she might get away before she quite broke down. Putting great force upon herself, she turned to him, and said,-- "I can do so few things; I know so little. I could keep your house, and--and care for you in that way; but I have seen so little. I am only an ignorant country girl--" "Yes; I thought that myself once," said Mr Stewart. "You must have thought it many times," said Shenac with a pang. It was not pleasant to hear it from his lips, let it be ever so true. But it took the quiver from her voice, and gave her courage to go on, "And all you care for is so different from anything I have ever seen or known, I should be quite left out of your real life. You do not need me for that, I know; but I don't think I could bear it--to be so near you and so little to you." She rose to go. She was trembling very much, and could hardly utter the words. "You are very kind, and I thank you; but--you know I am not fit. An ignorant country girl--you have said so yourself." "Shall I tell you when I thought so, Shenac? Do you mind the night that I brought little Flora home, crying with the cold? It was the first time I saw your face. Do you mind how you comforted Flora, and put the little lads to shame for having left her? And then you thanked me, and asked me to sit down. And do you mind how you made pancakes for supper, and never let one of them burn, though you were listening all the time to Hamish and me? I remember everything that happened that night, Shenac--how you put away the things, and made a new band for the mother's wheel, and took up the lost loops in little Flora's stocking. Then you helped the little lads with their tables, and kept Dan in order, listening all the time to your brother and me; and, best of all, you bade me be sure and come again. Have you forgotten, Shenac?" "It was for the sake of Hamish," said Shenac, dropping her head; but she raised it again quickly. "That does not make any difference." "Listen. That night, as I went over the fields to Angus Dhu's, I said to myself that if ever I grew strong and well again, if ever I should live to have a kirk and a manse of my own--was I too bold, Shenac?--I said to myself you should help me to do my work in them as I ought." Shenac shook her head. "It was not a wise thought. You little know how unfit I was then, how unfit I am now." "Say that you do not care for me, Shenac," said Mr Stewart gravely. "No, I cannot say that; it would not be true. I mean, that has nothing to do with my being fit." Mr Stewart thought it had a great deal to do with it, but he did not say so. "You said you would be left out of my real life. What do you mean, Shenac? Do you know what my life's work is to be? It is, with God's help, to be of use to souls. Don't you care for that, Shenac? Do you think a year or two of life in the world--common life--could be to you what these months by your brother's death-bed have been, as a preparation for real life-work--yours and mine? Do you think that any school could do for you what all these years of forgetting yourself and caring for others have done--all your loving patience with your afflicted mother, all your care of your sister and the little lads, all your forbearance with Dan, all your late joy in him? If you cared for me, Shenac, you would not say you are not fit." It was very pleasant to listen to all this. There was some truth in it, too, Shenac could not but acknowledge. He was very much in earnest, at any rate, and sincere in every word, except perhaps the last He wanted to hear her say again that she eared for him; but she did not fall into the trap, whether she saw it or not. "I know I care for your work," she said, "and you are right--in one way. I think all our cares and troubles have done me good, have made me see things differently. But I could not help you much, I'm afraid." "Don't say that, Shenac; you could give me what I need most--sympathy; you could help my weakness with your strength and courage of spirit. Think what you were to Hamish. You would be tenfold more to me. Oh, I need you so much, Shenac!" "Hamish was different. You would have a right to expect more than Hamish." But she grew brave again, and, looking into his face, said,-- "I do sympathise in your work, Mr Stewart, and I would like it to be mine in a humble way; but there are so many things that I cannot speak about. Think of your own sisters. How different I must be from them! Allister and Shenac saw your sister Jessie when they were in M---, and they said she was so accomplished--such a perfect little lady--and yet so good and sweet and gentle. No, Mr Stewart, I could never bear to have people say your wife was not worthy of you, even though I might know it to be true." "I was thinking how our bonnie little Jessie might sit at your feet to learn everything--almost everything--that it is worth a woman's while to know." "You are laughing at me now," said she, troubled. "No, I am not; and, Shenac, you must not go. I have a question to ask. I should have begun with it. Will you answer me simply and truly, as Hamish would have wished his sister to answer his friend?" "I will try," said she, looking up with a peculiar expression that always came at the name of Hamish. He bent down and whispered it. "I have always thought you wise and good, more than any one, and--" There was another pause. "It is a pleasant thing to hear that you have always thought me wise and good; but you have not answered my question, Shenac." "Yes, I do care for you, Mr Stewart. It would make me happy to share your work; but I am not fit for it--at least, not yet." In his joy and simplicity he thought all the rest would be easy; and, to tell the truth, so did Allister and his wife, who ought to have known our Shenac better. When Shenac Dhu kissed her, and whispered something about Christmas, and how they could ever bear to lose her so soon, Shenac spoke. She was going away before Christmas, and they could spare her very well; but she was not going with Mr Stewart for two years at the very least Allister had told her there was something laid up for her against the time she should need it, and it would be far better that she should use it to furnish her mind than to furnish her house; and she was going to school. "To school!" repeated Mrs Allister in dismay. "Does Mr Stewart know?" "No; you must tell him, Shenac--you and Allister. I am not fit to be his wife. You will not have people saying--saying things. You must see it, Shenac. I know so little; and it makes me quite wretched to think of going among strangers, I am so shy and awkward. I am not fit to be a minister's wife," she added with a little laugh that was half a sob. Shenac Dhu laughed too, and clapped her hands. "A minister's wife, no less! Our Shenac!" And then she added gravely, "I think you are right, Shenac. I know you are good enough and dear enough to be Mr Stewart's wife, though he were the prince of that name, if there be such a person. But there are little things that folk can only learn by seeing them in others, and I think you are quite right; but you will not get Mr Stewart to think so." "If it is right he will come to think so; and you must be on my side, Shenac--you and Allister, too." Shenac Dhu promised, but in her heart she thought that her sister would not be suffered to have her own way in this matter. She was mistaken, however. Shenac was firm without the use of many words. She cared for him, but she was not fit to be his wife yet. This was the burden of her argument, gone over and over in all possible ways; and the first part was so sweet to Mr Stewart that he was fain to take patience and let her have her own way in the rest. In Shenac's country, happily, it is not considered a strange thing that a young girl should wish to pursue her education even after she is twenty, so she had no discomfort to encounter on the score of being out of her 'teens. She lived first with her cousin, Christie More, who no longer occupied rooms behind her husband's shop, but a handsome house at a reasonable distance towards the west end of the town. Afterwards she lived in the school-building, because it gave her more time and a better chance for study. She spent all the money that Allister had put aside for her; but she was moderately successful in her studies, and considered it well spent. And when the time for the furnishing of the western manse came, there was money forthcoming for that too; for Angus Dhu had put aside the interest of the sum sent to him by Allister for her use from the very first, meaning it always to furnish her house. It is possible that it was another house he had been thinking of then; but he gave it to her now in a way that greatly increased its value in her eyes, kissing her and blessing her before them all. All these years Shenac's work has been constant and varied; her duties have been of the humblest and of the highest, from the cutting and contriving, the making and mending of little garments, to the guiding of wandering feet and the comforting of sorrowful souls. In the manse there have been the usual Saturday anxieties and Monday despondencies, needing cheerful sympathy and sometimes patient forbearance. In the parish there have been times of trouble and times of rejoicing; times when the heavens have seemed brass above, and the earth beneath, iron; and times when the church has been "like a well-watered garden," having its trees "filled with the fruits of righteousness." And in the manse and in the parish Shenac has never, in her husband's estimation, failed to fill well her allotted place. The firm health and cheerful temper which helped her through the days before Allister came home, have helped her to bear well the burdens which other years have brought to her. The firm will, the earnest purpose, the patience, the energy, the forgetfulness of self, which made her a stronghold of hope to her mother and the rest in the old times, have made her a tower of strength in her home and among the people. And each passing year has deepened her experience and brightened her hope, has given her clearer views of God's truth and a clearer sense of God's love; and thus she has grown yearly more fit to be a helper in the great work beside which all other work seems trifling--the work in which God has seen fit to make his people co-workers with himself--the work of gathering in souls, to the everlasting glory of his name. And so, when her work on earth is over, there shall a glad "Well done!" await her in heaven. THE END. 
21260	----	(This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org)) CANADA AND THE CANADIANS. BY SIR RICHARD HENRY BONNYCASTLE, KT., LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROYAL ENGINEERS AND MILITIA OF CANADA WEST. NEW EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1849. Frederick Shoberl, Junior, Printer to His Royal Highness Prince Albert, 51, Rupert Street, Haymarket, London. CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. CHAPTER X. Return to Toronto, after a flight to Lake Superior--Loons natural Diving Bells--Birds caught with hooks at the bottom of Niagara River--Ice-jam--Affecting story--Trust well placed--Fast Steamer--Trip to Hamilton--Kékéquawkonnaby, alias Peter Jones--John Bull and the Ojibbeways--Port Credit, Oakville, Bronte, Wellington Square--Burlington Bay and Canal--Hamilton--Ancaster--Immense expenditure on Public Works--Value of the Union of Canada with Britain, not likely to lead to a Repeal--Mackenzie's fate--Family Compact--Church and Kirk--Free Church and High Church--The Vital Principle--The University--President Polk, Oregon, and Canada Page 1 CHAPTER XI. Ekfrid and Saxonisms--Greek _unde derivaturs_--The Grand River--Brantford--Plaster of Paris--Mohawks--Dutch forgetfulness--George the Third, a Republican King--Church of the Indians--The Five Nations--A good Samaritan denies a drop of water--Loafers--Keep your Temper, a story of the Army of Occupation--Tortoise in trouble--Burford 51 CHAPTER XII. Woodstock--Brock District--Little England--Aristocratic Society in the Bush--How to settle in Canada as a Gentleman should do--Reader, did you ever Log?--Life in the Bush--The true Backwoods 75 CHAPTER XIII. Beachville--Ingersoll--Dorchester--Plank road--Westminster Hall--London--The great Fire of London--Longwoods--Delaware--The Pious, glorious, and immortal Memory--Moncey--The German Flats--Tecumseh--Moravian settlement--Thamesville--The Mourning Dove--The War, the War--Might against Right--Cigar-smoking and all sorts of curiosity--Young Thames--The Albion--The loyal Western District--America as it now is 95 CHAPTER XIV. Intense Heat--Pigs, the Scavengers of Canada--Dutch Country--Moravian Indians--Young Father Thames--Ague, a cure for Consumption--Wild Horses--Immense Marsh 125 CHAPTER XV. Why Engineer-officers have little leisure for Book-making--Caution against iced water--Lake St. Clair in a Thunderstorm--A Steaming Dinner--Detroit river and town--Windsor--Sandwich--Yankee Driver--Amherstburgh--French Canadian Politeness--Courtesy not costly--Good effects of the practice of it illustrated--Naked Indians--Origin of the Indians derived from Asia--Piratical attempt and Monument at Amherstburgh--Canadians not disposed to turn Yankees--Present state of public opinion in those Provinces--Policy of the Government--Loyalty of the People 132 CHAPTER XVI. The Thames Steamer--Torrid Night--"The Lady that helped" and her Stays--Port Stanley--Buffalo City--Its Commercial Prosperity--Newspaper Advertisements--Hatred to England and encouragement of Desertion--General Crispianus--Lake Erie in a rage--Benjamin Lett--Auburn Penitentiary--Crime and Vice in the Canadas--Independence of Servants--Penitentiaries unfit for juvenile offenders--Inefficiency of the Police--Insolence of Cabmen--Carters --English rule of the road reversed--Return to Toronto 168 CHAPTER XVII. Equipage for a Canadian Gentleman Farmer--Superiority of certain iron tools made in the United States to English--Prices of Farming Implements and Stock--Prices of Produce--Local and Municipal Administration--Courts of Law--Excursion to the River Trent--Bay of Quinte--Prince Edward's Island--Belleville--Political Parsons--A Democratic Bible needed--Arrogance of American politicians--Trent Port--Brighton--Murray Canal in embryo--Trent River--Percy and Percy Landing--Forest Road--A Neck-or-nothing Leap--Another perilous leap, and advice about leaping--Life in the Bush exemplified in the History of a Settler--Seymour West--Prices of Land near the Trent--System of Barter--Crow Bay--Wild Rice--Healy's Falls--Forsaken Dwellings 205 CHAPTER XVIII. Prospects of the Emigrant in Canada--Caution against ardent spirits and excessive smoking--Militia of Canada--Population--The mass of the Canadians soundly British--Rapidly increasing Prosperity of the North American Colonies, compared with the United States--Kingston--Its Commercial Importance--Conclusion 260 CANADA AND THE CANADIANS. CHAPTER X. Return to Toronto, after a flight to Lake Superior--Loons natural Diving Bells--Birds caught with hooks at the bottom of Niagara River--Ice-jam--Affecting story--Trust well placed--Fast Steamer--Trip to Hamilton--Kékéquawkonnaby, alias Peter Jones--John Bull and the Ojibbeways--Port Credit, Oakville, Bronte, Wellington Square--Burlington Bay and Canal--Hamilton--Ancaster--Immense expenditure on Public Works--Value of the Union of Canada with Britain, not likely to lead to a Repeal--Mackenzie's fate--Family compact--Church and Kirk--Free Church and High Church--The vital principle--The University--President Polk, Oregon, and Canada. After a ramble in this very desultory manner, which the reader has, no doubt, now become accustomed to, I returned to Toronto, having first observed that the harvest looked very ill on the Niagara frontier; that the peaches had entirely failed, and that the grass was destroyed by a long drought; that the Indian corn was sickly, and the potatoes very bad. Cherries alone seemed plentiful; the caterpillars had destroyed the apples--nay, to such an extent had these insects ravaged the whole province, that many fruit-trees had few or no leaves upon them. A remarkable frost on the 30th of May had also passed over all Upper Canada, and had so injured the woods and orchards, that, in July, the trees in exposed places, instead of being in full vigour, were crisped, brown, and blasted, and getting a renewal of foliage very slowly. My return to Toronto was caused by duty, as well as by a desire to visit as many of the districts as I possibly could, in order to observe the progress they had made since 1837, as well as to employ the mind actively, to prevent the reaction which threatened to assail it from the occurrence of a severe dispensation. I heard a very curious fact in natural history, whilst at Niagara, in company with a medical friend, who took much interest in such matters. I had often remarked, when in the habit of shooting, the very great length of time that the loon, or northern diver, (_colymbus glacialis_,) remained under water after being fired at, and fancied he must be a living diving-bell, endued with some peculiar functions which enabled him to obtain a supply of air at great depth; but I was not prepared for the circumstance that the fishermen actually catch them on the hooks of their deepest lines in the Niagara river, when fishing at the bottom for salmon-trout, &c. Such is, however, the fact. An affecting incident at Queenston, whilst we were waiting for the Transit to take us to Toronto, must be related. I have mentioned that, in the spring of 1845, an ice-jam, as it is called here, occurred, which suddenly raised the level of the Niagara between thirty and forty feet above its ordinary floods, and overset or beat down, by the grinding of mountain masses of ice, all the wharfs and buildings on the adjacent banks. The barrack of the Royal Canadian Rifles at Queenston was thus assailed in the darkest hours of the night, and the soldiers had barely time to escape, before the strong stone building they inhabited was crushed. The next to it, but on higher ground, more than thirty feet above the natural level of the river, was a neat wooden cottage, inhabited by a very aged man and his helpless imbecile wife, equally aged with himself. This man, formerly a soldier, was a cabinet-maker, and amused his declining years by forming very ingenious articles in his line of business; his house was a model of curious nick-nackeries, and thus he picked up just barely enough in the retrograding village to keep the wolf from the door; whilst the soldiers helped him out, by sparing from their messes occasionally a little nourishing food. That night, the dreadful darkness, the elemental warnings, the soul-sickening rush of the river, the groaning and grinding of the ice, piling itself, layer after layer, upon the banks of the river, assailed the old man with horrors, to which all his ancient campaigns had afforded no parallel. He heard the irresistible enemy, slowly, deliberately, and determinedly advancing to bury his house in its cold embrace. He hurried the unmindful sharer of his destiny from her bed, gathered the most precious of his household goods, and knew not how or where to fly. Loudly and oft the angry spirit of the water shrieked: Niagara was mounting the hill. The soldiers, perceiving his imminent peril, ventured down the bank, and shouted to him to fly to them. He moved not; they entreated him, and, knowing his great age and infirmity, and the utter imbecility of the poor old dame, insisted upon taking them out. But the man withstood them. He looked abroad, and the glimmering night showed him nothing but ruin around. "I put my trust in Him who never fails," said the veteran. "He will not suffer me to perish." The soldiers, awed by the wreck of nature, rushed forward, and took the ancient pair out by strength of arms; and, no sooner had they done so, than the waters, which had been so eager for their prey, reached the lower floor, and a large wooden building near them was toppled over by waves of solid ice. Much of the poor man's ingeniously-wrought furniture was injured; but, although the neighbouring buildings were crushed, cracked, rent, and turned over, the old man's habitation was spared, and he still dwells there, waiting in the sunshine for his appointed time, with the same faith as he displayed in the utter darkness of the storm. He had built his cottage on land belonging to the Crown; and, in consequence of an act recently passed, he, with many others who had thus taken possession, had been ordered to remove. But his affecting history had gained him friends, and he has now permission to dwell thereon, until he shall be summoned away by another and a higher authority, by that Power in whom he has his being, and in whom he put his trust. We landed once more at Toronto, at present "The City" of Upper Canada, on the 7th of July, and left it again on the 8th, in the fine and very fast steamer Eclipse for Hamilton, in the Gore district, at three o'clock, p.m. The day was fine; and thus we saw to advantage the whole shore of Ontario, from Toronto to Burlington. Our first stopping place was Port Credit, a place remarkable for the settlement near it of an Indian tribe, to which the half-bred Peter Jones, or Kékéquawkonnaby, as he is called, belongs. This man, or, rather, this somewhat remarkable person, and, I think, missionary teacher of the Wesleyan Methodists, attained a share of notoriety in England a few years ago, by marrying a young English woman of respectable connections, and passed with most people in wonder-loving London as a great Indian Chief, and a remarkable instance of the development of the Indian mind. He was, or rather is, for I believe he is living, a clever fellow, and had taken some pains with himself; but, like most of the Canadian lions in London, does not pass in his own country for any thing more than what he is known to be there, and that is, like the village he lives near, of credit enough. It answers certain purposes every now and then to send people to represent particular interests to England; and, in nearly all these cases, John Bull receives them with open arms, and, with his national gullibility, is often apt to overrate them. The O-jibbeway or Chippewa Indians, so lately in vogue, were a pleasant instance, and we could name other more important personages who have made dukes, and lords, and knights of the shire, esquires of the body, and simple citizens pay pretty dearly for having confided their consciences or their purse-strings to their keeping. Beware, dear brother John Bull, of those who announce their coming with flourishes of trumpet, and who, when they arrive on your warm hearths, fill every newspaper with your banquetings, addresses, and talks, not to honour _you_, but to tell the Canadian public what extraordinary mistakes they have made in not having so readily, as you have done, found out their superexcellencies. These are the men who sometimes, however, find a rotten rung in Fortune's ladder, and thus are suddenly hurled to the earth, but who, if they succeed and return safely, become the picked men of company, forget men's names, and, though you be called John, call you Peter. The mouth of the little river Credit is called Port Credit, the port being made by the parallel piers run out into deep water on cribs, or frames of timber filled with stones, the usual mode of forming piers in Canada West. It is a small place, with some trade, but the Indians complain sadly that the mills and encroachments of the Whites have destroyed their salmon-fishery, which was their chief resource. Where do the Whites come in contact with the Red without destroying their chief resource? Echo answers, Where? Sixteen miles farther on we touched at Oakville, or Sixteen Mile Creek, where again the parallel piers were brought into use, to form a harbour. Oakville is a very pretty little village, exhibiting much industry. Bronte, or Twelve Mile Creek, is the next village, very small indeed, with a pier, and then Port Milford, which is one mile from Wellington Square, a place of greater importance, with parallel piers, a steam-mill, and thriving settlement; near it is the residence of the celebrated Indian chief Brant, who so distinguished himself in the war of 1812. Here also is still living another chief, who bears the commission of major in the British army, and is still acknowledged as captain and leader of the Five Nations; his name is John Norton, or, more properly, Tey-on-in-ho, ka-ra-wen. That which I wished particularly, however, to see, was now close to us, the Canal into Burlington Bay. Burlington Bay is a little lake of itself, surrounded by high land in the richest portion of Canada, and completely enclosed by a bar of broad sand and alluvial matter, which runs across its entrance. In driving along this belt, you are much reminded of England: the oaks stand park-like wide asunder, and here, on tall blasted trees, you may frequently see the bald eagle sitting as if asleep, but really watching when he can rob the fish-hawk of the fruits of his piscatory toils. The bald eagle is a cunning, bold, bad bird, and does not inspire one with the respect which his European congeners, the golden or the brown eagle, do. He is the vulture of North America rather than the king of birds. Why did Franklin,[1] or whoever else did the deed, make him the national emblem of power? He is decidedly a _mauvais sujet_. [Footnote 1: I think, however, I have read that the philosophic printer gave him a very bad character.] The Canal of Burlington Bay is an arduous and very expensive undertaking. The opening from Lake Ontario was formerly liable to great changes and fluctuations, and the provincial work, originally undertaken to _fix_ the entrance more permanently, was soon found inadequate to the rapid commercial undertakings of the country. Accordingly, a very large sum was granted by the Parliament for rendering it stable and increasing the width, which is now 180 feet, between substantial parallel piers. There is a lighthouse at each end on the left side going in, but the work still requires a good deal of dredging, and the steamboat, although passing slowly and steadily, made a very great surge. In fact, it requires good steerage-way and a careful hand at the helm in rough weather. The contractors made a railroad for five miles to the mountain, to fetch the stone for filling-in the piers. The voyage across Burlington Bay is very pleasant and picturesque, the land being more broken, elevated, and diversified than in the lower portions of Canada West; and the Burlington Heights, so important a position in the war of 1812, show to great advantage. Here is one of the few attempts at castle-building in Canada called Dundurn Castle, the residence of Sir Allan Macnab. It is beautifully situated, and, although not perhaps very suitable to a new country, it is a great ornament to the vicinity of Hamilton, embowered as it is in the natural forest. Near it, however, is a vast swamp, in which is Coot's Paradise, so named, it is said, from a gentleman, who was fond of duck-shooting, or perhaps from the coot or water-hen being there in bliss. Hamilton is a thriving town, exhibiting the rapid progress which a good location, as the Americans call it, ensures. The other day it was in the forest, to-day it is advancing to a city. It has, however, one disadvantage, and that is the very great distance from its port, which puts both the traveller and the merchant to inconvenience, causing expense and delay. How they manage, of a dark night, on the wharf to thread the narrow passage lined with fuel-wood for the steamboat I cannot tell; but, in the open daylight of summer, I saw a vehicle overturned and sent into the mud below. There is barely room for the stage or omnibus; and thus you must wait your turn amidst all the jostling, swearing, and contention, of cads, runners, agents, drivers, and porters; a very pleasant situation for a female or an invalid, and expecting every moment to have the pole of some lumber-waggon driven through your body. Private interest here, as well as in so many other new places and projects in Canada, has evidently been at work, and a city a mile or two from its harbour, without sufficient reason, has been the result. But that will change, and the city will come to the port, for it is extending rapidly. The distance now is one mile and a quarter. After great delay and a sharp look-out for carpet-bags and leather trunks, we arrived at Young's Hotel, a very substantial stone building, on a large scale, where civility and comfort made up for delay. It was English. As it was night before we got settled, although a very fine night, and knowing that I should start before "Charles's Wain was over the new chimney," I sallied forth, with a very obliging guide, who acted as representative of the commissariat department, to examine the town. The streets are at present straggling, but, as in most Canadian new towns, laid out wide and at right angles. The main street is so wide that it would be quite impracticable to do as they do in Holland, namely, sit at the door and converse, not _sotto voce_, with your opposite neighbour. It is in fact more like a Mall than a street, and should be planted with a double row of trees, for it requires a telescope to discover the numbers and signs from one row of houses and shops to the other. Here the American custom of selling after dark by lamplight was everywhere visible, and everywhere new stone houses were building. I went into Peest's Hotel, now Weeks's, the American Tavern, and there saw indubitable signs that the men of yore had a pretty sprinkling of Yankees among them. Hamilton has 4500 inhabitants, and is a surprising place, which will reach 10,000 people before two or three years more pass. It has already broad plank-walks, but they are not kept in very good repair; in fact, it cannot escape the notice of a traveller from the Old World that there is too magnificent a spirit at work in the commencement of this place, and that utility is sacrificed to enlargement. Hamilton is beautifully situated on a sloping plane, at the foot of a wooded range of hills, called mountains, whence fine stone of very white colour in immense blocks is easily procured and brought; and it is very surprising that more of this stone has not been used in Toronto, instead of wood. Brick-clay is also plentiful, and excellent white and red bricks are made; but, such is the rage for building, that the largest portion of this embryo city is of combustible pine-wood. I left Hamilton in a light waggon on the 9th of July, at half-past five o'clock, a.m., having been detained for horses, and rolled along very much at my ease, compared to what the travelling on this route was seven years ago--I was going to say, on this road, but it would have been a misnomer, for there was nothing but a miry, muddy, track then: now, there is a fine, but too narrow, macadamized highway, turnpiked--that is to say, having real turnpike gates. The view from "the mountain" is exceedingly fine, almost as fine as that from Queenston heights, embracing a richly-cultivated fruit and grain country, a splendid succession of wooded heights, and a long, rolling, ridgy vista of forest, field, and fertility, ending in Lake Ontario, blue and beautiful. We arrived, at a quarter past seven, at Ancaster, a very pretty little village, with two churches, and composed principally of wooden houses. The Half-way House is then gained, being about half a mile from the end of the macadamized road, and thirteen and a half from Hamilton. Good bridges, culverts, and cutting, are seen on this section of the line to London. We got to Ancaster at half-past eight, or in about two hours and three quarters, and thence over the line of new road which was, what is called in America, graded, that is, ploughed, ditched, and levelled, preparatory to putting on the broken stone, and which graded road, in spring and autumn, must be very like the Slough of Despond. At eleven, we reached Maloney's Tavern--most of the taverns on the Canadian new roads are kept by Irish folks--four miles from Brentford. The Board of Works have been busily employed here, for a great portion of the road is across a swamp, which has been long known as _the_ swamp. This is a pine-country, soil, hard clay or mud, and no stone; and the route is a very expensive one to form, requiring great bridging and straightening. I observe that the estimate for 1845, for Public Works on this road, in the Gore District, for finishing it, is as high as £10,000 currency, and it is to be all planked, and that, to continue it to London, £36,182 15s. 8d. had been expended up to July, 1844. The immense expenditure, since 1839, upon internal improvements in Canada, in canals, harbours, lighthouses, roads, &c., is almost incredible, as the subjoined list will show:-- REPORT OF THE BOARD OF WORKS, SHOWING THE MONEYS EXPENDED UPON EACH OF THE PUBLIC WORKS, FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WORK, UP TO THE 1ST JULY, 1844. Welland Canal £238,995 14 10 ST. LAWRENCE CANALS, VIZ.: Prescott to Dickenson's landing 13,490 19 4 Cornwall (to the time of opening the Canal in June, 1843) 57,110 4 2 Cornwall (to repair breaks in the banks since the above period) 9,925 16 4 Beauharnois 162,281 19 5 Lachine 45,410 11 2 Expenditure on dredge, outfit, &c., applicable to the foregoing in common 4,462 16 3 Lake St. Peter 32,893 19 3 Burlington Bay Canal 18,539 11 2 Hamilton and Dover Road 30,044 16 5 NEWCASTLE DISTRICT, VIZ.: Scugog Lock and Dam 6,645 8 1 Whitlas Lock and Dam 6,101 7 11 Crook's Lock and Dam 7,849 9 6 Heely's Falls 8,191 5 1 Middle Falls 219 2 8 Ranney's Falls 228 6 8 Chisholm's Rapids 7,599 14 0 Harris's Rapids 1,591 9 6 Removing sundry impediments in the River 185 17 0 Port Hope and Rice Lake Road 1,439 16 4 Bobcaygean, Buckhorn, and Crook's Rapids 12 0 0 Applicable to the foregoing works generally 6,674 1 2 HARBOURS, AND LIGHTHOUSES, AND ROADS LEADING THERETO. Windsor Harbour 15,355 18 3 Cobourg Harbour 10,381 6 3 Port Dover 3,121 10 4 Long Point Lighthouse and Light-ship 2,163 8 5 Burwell Harbour and Road 136 10 0 Scugog Road 1,202 6 3 Port Stanley 16,242 10 10 Rondeau Harbour, Road and Lighthouse 60 4 2 Port Stanley Road 24,385 13 5 Expenditure on outfit, &c. applicable to the foregoing in common 2,328 13 7 River Ottawa 35,603 16 3 Bay of Chaleurs Road 15,726 16 11 Gosford Road 10,801 10 10 Main North Toronto Road 686 19 4 Bridges between Montreal and Quebec 20,860 19 11 Cascades Road 13,287 19 6 London and Sarnia Road 19,837 5 11 London and Brantford Road 36,182 18 5 London and Chatham, Sandwich and Amherstburgh Road 12,789 0 1 River Richelieu 92 4 0 -------------- Certified to be a true abstract of the accounts of the Board of Works. Thomas A. Begly, Sec. Board of Works. Hamilton H. Killarly, President Board of Works. * * * * * The estimate for 1845 was 125,200, as may be seen by the following report of the Inspector General of Canada, as laid before Parliament:-- PUBLIC WORKS. CANADA WEST. For present repairs to the Chatham Bridge £100 For improving the Grand River Swamp Road--total 10,000--required this year 9,000 For improving Rouge Hill and Bridge, also another bridge and hill east of the former--total £6,500-- required this year 5,000 For Belleville Bridge 1,500 For the completion of the Dover Road over the mountain, to the limits of the town of Hamilton, and erection of toll-gates 5,500 For the improvement of the road from L'Original to Bytown, by Hattfield, Gifford, Buckworth, and Green's Creeks, as surveyed and estimated, together with the building of a bridge across the narrow channel, at the mouth of the Rideau, on the line of the road from Gattineau Ferry to Bytown--total cost, £5,930--required this year £3,000 Owen's Sound Road, comprehending the line from Dundas by Guelph, to Owen's Sound direct (this sum being for the chopping, clearing, drawing, and forming of the portion not yet opened, and towards the lowering of hills, or otherwise improving such bad parts of the line between Nicolet and Dundas as most require it) 4,000 For opening the road throughout from Lake Ontario, at Windsor Harbour, to Georgius Bay, on Lake Huron, this sum being for the opening of the road from the head of Scugog Road to the Narrow's bridge 2,000 For improving Queenston and Grimsby Road, for laying on the metal already delivered, and completing such parts left unfinished as are most advanced, and establishing gates 8,000 (To finish the remainder of this communication within the Niagara district will cost £16,000, and that within the Gore district £10,000.) For improving the Trent navigation, towards the completion of the works now in progress £12,000--for this year 6,000 To cover expense of surveys, examination, preparation of estimates of the cost of improving the Main Province Road across the ravines of the Twelve and Sixteen Mile Creeks between Toronto and Hamilton; opening a road from the main road to Port Credit; opening and completing a road from the Ottawa at Bytown, to the St. Lawrence in the most direct line; of opening a road between Kingstown and the Lake des Allumettes on the Ottawa, with a branch towards the head of the Bay of Quinte; of opening a road from the Rideau, thence by Perth, Bellamy's Mills, Wabe Lake, to fall in with the road proposed from Bytown to Sydenham; of completing the Desjardin's Canal; of constructing the Murray Canal; of overcoming the impediments to the navigation of the river Trent, between Heely's Falls and the Bay of Quinte, and also for a survey of the road from Barrie to Lake Huron, through the townships of Sunindale and Nottawasaga 2,000 For improving the Amherstburgh and Sandwich road 1,000 For the Cornwall and L'Original road 900 -------- £47,000 WORKS OF A GENERAL CHARACTER, AS CONNECTED WITH THE COMMERCE OR REVENUE OF THE COUNTRY. To forming a dam across the branch of the Mississisqui, and forming a portage road at the Chats 1,250 For works upon the Ottawa and roads connected therewith, as detailed in the Report of the Board of Works of 3rd February, 1845, laid before the legislature--total £21,600--required this year 8,500 For building a landing-wharf, with stairs and approaches at the Quarantine Station, Grosse Isle 2,750 For the extension of piers, and opening inner basin at Port Stanley harbour--total £6,000--required this year 1,200 For dredging at Cobourg harbour 500 For expenses of piers and dredging at Windsor harbour 2,000 For repairs and erection of Lighthouses--total £7,900--this year 5,000 For the formation of a deep water-basin, at the entrance of the Lachine Canal, in the harbour of Montreal, to admit vessels from sea 15,000 For the erection of a Custom House at Toronto 2,500 ------- £39,700 -------- Total currency £125,200 -------- W. B. Robinson, Inspector General. Thus, from the commencement of the operations of the Board of Works in the Canadas, or in about six years, there will have been no less an amount than a million and a half expended in opening the resources of that "noble province," as Lord Metcalfe styled it, in his valedictory address. This, with the enormous outlay of nearly two millions during the revolt, the cost of the Rideau Canal and fortifications, and the money spent by an army of from 8 to 10,000 men, has thrown capital into Canada which has caused it to assume a position which the most sanguine of its well-wishers could never have anticipated ten years ago. Its connection with England, therefore, instead of being a "baneful" one, as a misinformed partizan stated, has been truly a blessing to it, and proves also, beyond a doubt, that, now it is about to have an uninterrupted water-communication from the oceans of Europe, Asia, and Africa, to the fresh-water seas of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior, its resources will speedily develop themselves; and that its people are too wise to throw away the advantages they possess, of being an integral portion of the greatest empire the world ever had, for the very uncertain prospects of a union with their unsettled neighbours, although incessant underhand attempts to persuade them to join the Union are going on. Taxation in Canada is as yet a name, and a hardship seldom heard of and never felt. Perfect freedom of thought in all the various relations of life exists; there is no ecclesiastical domination; no tithes. The people know all this, and are not misled by the furious rhodomontades of party-spirit about rectories, inquisitorial powers, family compacts, and a universal desire for democratic fraternization; got up by persons who, with considerable talents, great perseverance and ingenuity, ring the changes upon all these subjects, in hopes that any alteration of the form of government will place them nearer the loaves and fishes, although I verily believe that many of the most untiring of them would valiantly fight in case of a war against the United States. A more remarkable example, I believe, has never been recorded in history than the fate of William Lyon Mackenzie, a man possessing an acuteness of mind, powers of reasoning, and great persuasiveness, with indefatigable research and industry, such as rarely fall to obscure and ill-educated men. Involving Canada in a civil war, which he basely fled before, as soon as he had lighted its horrid torch; as soon, in fact, as he had murdered an old officer, whose services had extended over the world, and who was just on the verge of what he hoped would be a peaceful termination of his toils in his country's cause; as soon as he had burned the houses of a widow who had never offended him, and of a worthy citizen, whose only crime in his eyes was his loyalty; and as soon as he had robbed the mail, and a poor maidservant travelling in it, of her wages. This man fled to the United States, was received with open arms, got a ragged army to invade Canada, then in profound peace with the citizens, who protected him. His failure at Navy Island is known too well to need repeating. He wandered from place to place, sometimes self-created President or Dictator of the Republic of Canada, sometimes a stump orator, sometimes in prison, sometimes a printer, sometimes an editor, abusing England, abusing Canada, abusing the United States; then a Custom-house officer in the service of that Republic; then again a robber, a plunderer of private letters, left by accident in his office, which he, without scruple, read, and without scruple, for political purposes, published. Reader, mark his end. It teaches so strong a lesson to tread in the right path that it shall be given in his own words, in a letter which he wrote, on the 11th of November last year, to the "New York Express" newspaper. He would be pitied, indeed, were it not that the widow and the orphan, the houseless and the maimed, cry aloud against the remorseless one. How many there are now living in Canada, whose lives have been rendered miserable, from their losses, or from injured health, during the watchings and wardings of 1837, 1838, 1839, during the long winter nights of such a climate, during the rains and damps of the spring and of the fall time of the year, and during the heats of an almost tropical summer. Heat, wet, and cold, in all their most terrible forms, were they exposed to. The young became prematurely old. The old died. Peace to their souls! _Requiescant in pace!_ In the "New York Express" of the 11th November, we find a letter signed by Mr. Mackenzie, in which he endeavours to justify himself. What has particularly engaged our attention are the following paragraphs:-- "If an angel from heaven had told me, eight years ago, that the time would come in which I would find myself an exile, in a foreign land--poor, and with few friends--calumniated, falsely accused, and the feelings of honest, faithful Republicans artfully excited against me--and that among the foremost of my traducers and slanderers would be found Edwin Croswell and the 'Argus,' Thomas Ritchie and his journal, Green and the 'Boston Post,' with the Pennsylvanian and other newspapers called Democratic; and that these presses and their editors would eagerly retail any and every untruth that could operate to my prejudice, but be dumb to any explanation I might offer, I could not have believed it. But if a pamphlet (like mine) had been then written, exhibiting, with unerring accuracy, the true characters of the combination of unprincipled political managers, among whom you have long acted a conspicuous part; if a Jesse Hoyt had come forward as state's evidence to swear to the truth of the pamphlet, while the parties implicated remained silent; and if you and your afflicted presses had, as you do now with the letters in my pamphlets, _defended the real criminals_, declared solemnly that you could see nothing wrong in what they had done, and directed the whole force of your widely circulated journal against the innocent person who had warned his countrymen against a most dangerous cabal of political hypocrites of the basest class--in other words, had I known you and your partnership as well in October, 1837, as I do, by dear-bought experience, in November, 1845, I would have hesitated very long indeed, before assuming any share whatever in that responsibility which _might have given you the Canadas_, as an additional theatre for the exhibition of those peculiar talents, by which this State and Union, and thousands in other lands, have so severely suffered. While reproving gambling and speculation in others, you and your brother wire-pullers have made the property, the manufactures, the commerce of America, your tributaries--even the bench of justice, with its awful solemnities and responsibilities, has been so prostituted by your friends that, when at sea and about to launch three of his fellow-creatures into eternity, a captain in the American navy hesitated not to avow that he had told one of them 'that for those who had money and friends in America there was no punishment for the worst of crimes.'--Nor did the court-martial before whom that avowal was freely made censure him. "Observe how Mr. and Mrs. Butler sneer at poor judges, corrupt judges, pauper judges, partial chancellors, and at the administration of American justice, though by their own party--and how their leader pities Marcy, throws him on the Supreme Court bench as a stopping place, to save him from ruin.--Look at the bankrupt returns of this district alone--one hundred and twenty millions of dollars in debt, very little paid or to be paid, many of the creditors beggared, many of the debtors astonishing the fashionable with their magnificent carriages and costly horses. No felony in you and your friends, who brought about the times of 1837-8. Oh, no! All the felony consists in exposing you. Two hundred years ago it was a felony to read the Bible in English. Truth will prevail yet. "I confess my fears that, as I have now no press of my own, nor the means to get one, and am persecuted, calumniated, harassed with lawsuits, threatened with personal violence, saying nothing of the steady vindictiveness of your artful colleague, nor of the judges chosen by Mr. Van Buren and his friends, whom the 'Globe Democratic Review' and 'Evening Post' denounced in 1840, and declared to be independent of common justice and honesty, you may succeed in embittering the cup of misery I have drunk almost to the dregs. The Swedish Chancellor, Count Axel Oxenstiern, wrote to one of his children, 'You do not know yet, my son, how little wisdom is exhibited in ruling mankind.' I think that Mr. Butler cannot be a pure politician, and yet the corrupt individual whose dishonesty I have so clearly shown.--Perhaps the United States government may justify him, and the laws punish me for exhibiting him in his true colours. Be it so--I had for many years an overflow of popularity; and if it is now to be my lot to be overwhelmed with obloquy, hatred, and ceaseless slander, I am quite prepared for it, or even for worse treatment. Being old, and not likely at any future time to be a candidate for office, it is of very little consequence to society what may become of me--but I have a lively satisfaction that I was an humble instrument selected, at a fortunate moment, to prove, by their own admission in 1845, every charge I had made against you and your friends through the 'New York Examiner,' before I left the service of the Mechanics' Institute here, in 1845. "W. L. Mackenzie." The Upper Canadians should follow the example of the good people of Amherstburgh, and erect a monument in the capital of Upper Canada to the memory of those who died in consequence of the folly, the hardihood, and the presumption of this man. There may have been some excuse pleaded for the Canadian French. Misled by designing men, these excellent people of course fancied that, contrary to all possible reason and analogy, a population of about half a million was strong enough to combat with British dominion. Their language, laws, and religion, they were told, were in danger. But what excuse could the Upper Canadians have--men of British birth, or direct descent, who had grievances, to be sure, but which grievances resolved themselves into the narrow compass of the Family Compact and the thirty-seven Rectories? Quiet farmers, reposing in perfect security under the Ægis of Britain, were the mass of Upper Canadians. The "Family Compact" is still the war-cry of a party in Upper Canada; and one person of respectability has published a letter to Sir Allan Macnab, in which he states that, so long as the Chief Justice and the Bishop of Toronto continue to force Episcopalianism down the throats of the people, so long will Canada be in danger. This gentleman, an influential Scotch merchant of Toronto, in his letter dated Hamilton, C. West, 18th November, 1846, says, that the Family Compact, or Church of England tory faction, whose usurpations were the cause of the last rebellion, will be the cause of a future and more successful one, "if they are not checked;" and, while he fears rebellion, he dreads that, in case of a war, his countrymen, "the Scotch, could not, on their principles, defend the British government, which suffers their degradation in the colony." This plainly shows to what an extent party spirit is carried in Canada, when it suffers a man of respectability and loyalty coolly to look rebellion in the face as an alternative between his own church and another. A Church of England man, totally unconnected with colonial interests and with colonial parties, is a better judge of these matters than a Church of Scotland man, or a Free Church man, who believes, with his eyes shut, that Calvinism is to be thrust bodily out of the land by the influence of Dr. Strachan or Chief Justice Robinson. It is obvious to common sense that any attempt on the part of the clergy or the laity of Upper Canada to crush the free exercise of religious belief, would be met not only with difficulties absolutely insurmountable, but by the withdrawal of all support from the home government; for, as the Queen of England is alike queen of the Presbyterian and of the Churchman, and is forbidden by the constitution to exercise power over the consciences of her subjects throughout her vast dominions; so it would be absurd to suppose for a moment that the limited influence in a small portion of Canada of a chief justice or a bishop, even supposing them mad or foolish enough to urge it, could plunge their country into a war for the purposes of rendering one creed dominant. The Church of England is, moreover, not by any means the strongest, in a physical sense, in Upper Canada, neither is the Church of Scotland; nor is it likely, as the writer quoted observes, that it would be at length necessary to sweep the former off the face of the country, in order to secure freedom for the latter. The Kirk itself is wofully divided, in Canada, by the late wide-spread dissent, under the somewhat novel designation of the Free Church. One need but visit any large town or village to observe this; for it would seem usually that the Free Church minister has a larger congregation than the regularly-called minister of the ancient faith of Caledonia. Now, the members of the Free Church have no such holy horror of Dr. Strachan, Chief Justice Robinson, or Sir Allan Macnab, as that exhibited in the above-mentioned letter; nor is it believed that the Church of England would presume to denounce and wage internecional war against their popular institution. But a person who has lived a great part of his life in Canada will take all this _cum grano salis_. The Scotch in Upper Canada are not and will not be disloyal. On the contrary, if I held a militia command again, I should be very glad, as an Englishman, that it should consist of a very fair proportion of Highlanders and of Lowlanders. The British public must not be misled by the hard-sounding language and the vast expenditure of words it may have to receive, in the perusal of either the High Church, or the Presbyterian fulminators in Canada West. The whole hinges on what the writer calls "the vital question," namely, upon the university of Canada at Toronto being a free or a close borough. The High Church party contend that this institution was formed for the Church of England only, and endowed with an immense resource in lands accordingly. The Church of Scotland, "as by law established," for I do not include the Free Church, has strenuously opposed this for a long series of years, and contends that it has equal rights and equal privileges in the institution.[1] It would consume too much space to enter into argument upon argument anent a question which, ever since the rebellion, has grown from the seeds so profusely scattered in the grounds of dispute on both sides. The home government, foreseeing clearly that this vexed question is one of paramount importance, has declared itself not neuter, but passive; has given at large its opinion, favourable to general education, conducted upon the most liberal acceptance of the charter; and has left it to the wisdom of the Canadian Parliament to decide. [Footnote 1: A large public meeting of Roman Catholics upon the subject of the University question took place lately at Toronto, where a temperate spirit prevailed.] An eminent lawyer was employed to carry out Lord Metcalfe's conciliatory views, in accordance with the spirit of the instructions from the queen. This gentleman, who had previously been accused by the reform party of belonging to the Family Compact before he accepted high legal office under the colonial government, had been employed also on the part of the Church of England as counsel before the bar of the House, to advocate its claims, and in a singularly clever and lucid speech, of immense length, certainly made the cause a most excellent one. But "how chances mock, And changes fill the cup of alteration!" He was lauded to the skies, and deemed to have achieved the great end sought by the High Church party. Mark the reverse: They forgot wholly that, in his capacity of barrister, he did, as every barrister is bound to do, his very best for his employers, and no doubt conscientiously desiring that the rights of the Church of England should be upheld; but no sooner was he employed as a minister of the Crown to pacify the discontent which the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Roman Catholics had expressed very openly, and no sooner did he, by an equal exertion of his intellect, point put the most feasible method of solving the difficulty, than a storm of abuse most lavishly bespattered him, and he was called a seceder from the High Church principles, an abandoner of the High Canadian Tory ranks, or anything else the reader may fancy. Now, those who know this gentleman best are of opinion that he never was a very violent partizan either in politics or in religious matters, and that to his moderation much of the good that has unquestionably resulted from Lord Metcalfe's government may be ascribed. The chief justice and the bishop, against whom the tirade of the revolutionary press is constantly aimed, may both have once, by their position in the Upper House, had much to do with political matters, but that either of them has ever had in view so absurd a notion as that of governing Canada by their local influence, and of thus overawing the Crown, is too ridiculous to be believed. The chief justices and the bishops, in all our colonial possessions, are now most wisely debarred from exercising political sway in the legislative council, over which, some years ago, they no doubt possessed very great influence in many of the colonies. In Canada, where one half and even more of the population is Roman Catholic, it cannot be believed that a Protestant bishop, or a Protestant head of the civil law, can exercise any other powers than those which their offices permit them to do; and by the British constitution it is very clear that any attempts to subvert the established order of things on their parts would inevitably lead to deprivation and impeachment. If, therefore, they were really guilty of an endeavour to rule by their family connections, is it probable that 600,000 Roman Catholics, and a vastly preponderating mass of Presbyterians, Methodists, Unitarians, and the endless roll of Canadian dissenters from the Church, would permit it? That the bishop and the chief justice possess a considerable share of personal influence in Upper Canada, there can be no question whatever; but, after the statement of the former, in his annual visitation published in 1841, that out of a population of half a million there were only ninety-five clergymen and missionaries, where there should be six hundred and thirty-six, if the country was fully settled, it is a fanciful picture that the reformers have drawn of their power and resources--power which is really derived only from intermarriages among the few remnants of the earliest loyalist settlers, or from admiration of their private conduct and abilities. In short, "the family compact" is a useful bugbear; it is kept up constantly before the Canadians, to deter them from looking too closely into other compacts, which, to say the truth, are sometimes neither so national, so loyal, nor so easily explained. Canada is, at this juncture, without question, the most free and the happiest country in the whole world; not that it resembles Utopia, or the happy valley of Rasselas, but because it has no grievances that may not be remedied by its own parliament--because it has no taxation--because its government is busied in developing its splendid internal resources--and because the Mother Country expends annually enormous sums within its boundaries or in protecting its commerce. Why does England desire that the banner of the Three Crosses shall float on the citadels of Quebec and Kingston? why does she desire to see that flag pre-eminent on the waters of Lake Superior or in the ports of Oregon? Is it because Canada is better governed as an appanage of the Crown of Victoria than it possibly could be by Mr. Polk? Is it from a mere desire for territory that the mistress of the seas throws her broad shield over the northern portion of North America? or is it because the treasury of England has millions of bars of gold and of silver, deposited in its vaults by the subjects of Canada? No, it is from none of these motives: Canada is a burthen rather than a mine of wealth to England, which has flourished a thousand-fold more since Washington was the first president, than she ever did with the thirteen colonies of the West. Is it because the St. Lawrence trade affords a nursery for her seamen, or that Newfoundland is the naval school? No; about three or four British vessels now fish on the grand banks, where hundreds once cast anchor. The fisheries are boat-fisheries on the shores instead of at sea, and the timber trade would engage British shipping and British sailors just as largely if Quebec had the beaver emblazoned on the flag of its fortress as if the flag of a thousand years floated over its walls. The resources of England are inconceivable; if one source dries up, another opens. China is replacing Africa. The London Economist estimates the increase of capital in England from 1834, or just before the troubles in Canada, which cost her two millions sterling, to 1844, in ten years only, at the rate of forty-five millions sterling annually--four-hundred and fifty millions, in ten years, in personal property only! What was the increase in real estate during those ten years? and what empire, or what combination of empires, can show such wealth? Thus, while Canada has been a drag-chain upon the chariot-wheel of British accumulation, did the prosperity of the empire suffer, or is it likely to suffer, by war with the United States, or by separation from England? The interests of the United States and the interests of England would no doubt mutually suffer, but the former power, if it annexed Canada, would most severely feel the result. England would then close the ports of the St. Lawrence, as well as those of the seaboard from Quebec to Galveston; nor would the Nova Scotian and New Brunswick provinces be conquered until after a bloody and most costly struggle; for they, being essentially maritime, would the less readily abandon the connexion with that power which must for ages yet to come be preponderant at sea. The Ocean is the real English colony. By similar natural laws, the United States has other advantages and other matters to control in its vast interior. I forget what writer it is who says--perhaps it was Burke--that any nation which can bring 50,000 men in arms into the field, whatever may be its local disadvantages of position, can never be conquered, if its sons are warlike and courageous. Canada can bring double that number with ease; and whilst its interests are as inseparable from those of England as they now are, it is not to be supposed that a Texian annexation will dissolve the bond. We have been greatly amused in Canada during the winter of 1845, after Mr. Polk's "all Oregon or none of it," to find in the neighbouring republic a force of brave militia-men or volunteers turn out for a field day with CANADA and OREGON painted on their cartouche-boxes.--Mr. Polk did not go quite so far, it is true; but a great mass of the people in the United States prophesy that, if war lasts, all the North American Continent, from the Polar seas to the Isthmus of Darien, will have the tricoloured stripes and the galaxy of stars for its national flag. This is all-natural enough; no one blames the people of the republic for desiring extended fame and empire; but is it to be extended by the Cæsaric mode, _Veni, vidi, vici_, or by deluging two-thirds of that continent with the blood of man? A calm view of antecedent human affairs tells us another tale. A black population in the south and in the vast Island of Hayti, in Jamaica and in the West Indies; a brave and enterprising mixed race in Cuba; the remorseless Indian of the West, whose tribes are countless and driven to desperation; the multitudinous Irish, equally ready for fighting as for vengeance for their insulted church; the Anglo-Saxon blood on the northern borders, combined with the Norman Catholics of the St. Lawrence; innumerable steam-vessels pouring from every part of Europe and of Asia--are these nothing in the scale? Are the feelings of the wealthy, the intelligent, and the peaceful in the United States not to be taken into account? Is the total annihilation for a long period of all external commerce nothing? Are blazing cities, beleaguered harbours, internal discontent, servile war, nothing in the scale of aggrandizement? Is the great possibility of the European powers interfering as nothing? Will not Russia, aware now of the value of her North American possessions, look with a jealous eye upon the Bald Eagle's attempt at a too close investigation of her eaglets' nest in the north? Would not France, just beginning to colonize largely, like a share in the spoils? To avoid all this, is the reason that England clings to Canada, that Canada _must not_ be sold or given away. Canada is in short the important State which holds the balance of power on the North American Continent; and, when her Eagle is strong enough to fly alone, it will not be either from having false wings, or without the previous nursing and tender care of her European mother, who will launch her safely from the pinnacle of glory into the clear sky of powers and principalities. CHAPTER XI. Ekfrid and Saxonisms--Greek _unde derivaturs_--The Grand River--Brantford--Plaster of Paris--Mohawks--Dutch forgetfulness--George the Third, a Republican King--Church of the Indians--The Five Nations--A good Samaritan denies a drop of water--Loafers--Keep your Temper, a story of the Army of Occupation--Tortoise in trouble--Burford. But to resume the journey. We passed the Ekfrid Hotel. Saxon names creep steadily over Canada, whilst barbarous adaptations of Greek and Latin find favour in the United States. A little learning is a dangerous thing. Cicero and Pompey never dreamed or desired that a white and green wooden village in a wilderness, where patent pails and patent ploughs are the staple, should be dignified thus; but, as the French say, _chacun à son goût_. The first good view of the Grand River was attained three miles from Brantford, and, although the name is rather too sounding, the Grand River is a very fine stream. It put me singularly in mind, with its oak-forested banks, its tall poplars, and its meandering clear waters, of the Thames about Marlow, where I remember, when I was a boy at the Military College, seeing the fish at the bottom on a fine day, so plain that I longed to put a little salt on their tails. You look down near the Union Inn, Carr's, on a most beautiful woodland view, undulating, rich, and varied. This part of the country is a sandy soil, and is called the Oak Plains. Here once flourished the Indian. His wars, his glory, his people--where are they? Gone! The Saxon and the Celt have swept off the race, and their memory is as a cloud in a summer's sky, beautiful but dissolving. Brantford is a very long village, with four churches or chapels, one of them a handsome building, and with fine prospects of the country, through which runs the Grand River. The houses are mostly of wood, a few of brick, with some good shops, or stores, as they are universally called in America and Canada, where every thing, from a pin to a six-point blanket, may be obtained for dollars, country produce, or _approved_ bills of exchange--chiefly however by barter, that true universal medium in a new country, as may be gleaned from any Canadian newspaper about Christmas time, when the subscribers are usually reminded that wood for warming the printer will be very acceptable. Plank side-walks, a new feature in Canadian towns, are rapidly extending in Brantford, which is just starting into importance; as the government, though it is so far inland, intend to make a port of it, by thoroughly opening the navigation of the Grand River from its mouth in Lake Erie. The works are near completion, and a steamboat, the Brantford, plies regularly in summer. Thus an immense country, probably the finest wheat-land in the world, will be opened to commerce, and the great plaster of Paris quarries of the river find a market, for increasing the fertility of the poorer lands of the lower part of the province. Brantford is named after Brant, the celebrated Indian warrior chief, and here the Mohawk tribe of the Five Nations have their principal seat. This excellent race, for their adhesion to British principles in the war of the Revolution, lost their territory in the United States, consisting of an immense tract in the fair and fertile valley of the Mohawk river, in the State of New York, through which the Erie Canal and railroad now run, and possessed by a flourishing race of farmers. I remember being told a curious story of the Dutch, who have their homesteads on the Mohawk Flats, the richest pasture land in New York. These simple colonists, preserving their ancient habits, pipes, breeches, and phlegm, looked with astonishment at the progress of their Yankee neighbours, and predicted that so much haste and action would soon expend itself. At last came surveyors and engineers, those odious disturbers of antiquity and quiet rural enjoyments: they pointed their spirit-levels, they stretched their chains across the fair fields of the quiet slumbering valley of these smoking Dutchmen. The very cows looked bewildered, and Mynheer, taking his meerschaum from his lips, sighed deeply. They told him that a railroad was projected across his acres; he would not have minded a canal. He had survived the wars of the Indians; he had forgotten Sir William Johnson and his neighbouring castle; he had gone through the rebellion of Washington without being despoiled; and had finally, as he thought, settled down in the lovely valley of the meandering Mohawk, in a flat very like what his ancestors represented to him as the pictured reality of Sluys or Scheldtland. He had smoked and dozed through all this excitement, and was just beginning to understand English. The American character was above his comprehension. He remembered George the Third with respect, because his great grandfather was a Dutchman, who had ascended the British throne, and had proclaimed Protestantism and _Orange boven_ as the law of the colonies. He still thought George the Third his ruler; and never knew that George Washington had, Cromwell-like, ousted the monarch from his fair patrimony, on pretence that tea was not taxable trans-atlantically. The railroad came: Acts of Congress or of Assembly passed; and fire and iron rushed through the happy valley. The patriarchs lifted up their hands and their pipes in utter dismay. "Ten thousand duyvels!" exclaimed one old Van Winkle; "vat is dis?--it is too ped! King Jorje is forget himsel. I should not vonder we shall hab a rebublic next." "I dink ve shall," was the universal response from amidst a dense cloud of tobacco vapour. The Mohawks, or Kan-ye-a-ke-ha-ka, as they style themselves, are now only a dispersed remnant of a once powerful tribe of the Five Nations. They received several grants of land in Canada for their loyalty, and among others, 160,000 acres of the best part of the province in which we are now travelling, but it is probable that their numbers altogether do not now exceed 3000. Two thousand two hundred dwell near the Grand River, and a large body near Kingston. The Kingston branch are chiefly Church of England men, and an affecting memorial of their adhesion to Britain exists in the altar-cloth and communion-plate which they brought from the valley of the Mohawk, where it had been given to them in the days of Queen Anne. A church has recently been erected by them on the banks of the Bay of Quinte, in the township of Tyendinaga, or the Indian woods. It is of stone, with a handsome tin-covered spire, and replaces the original wooden edifice they had erected on their first landing, the first altar of their pilgrimage, which was in complete decay. They held a council, and the chief made this remarkable speech, after having heard all the ways and means discussed:--"If we attempt to build this church by ourselves, it will never be done: let us therefore ask our father, the Governor, to build it for us, and it will be done at once." It was not want of funds, but want of experience, he meant; for the funds were to be derived from the sale of Indian lands. The Governor, the late Sir Charles Bagot, was petitioned accordingly, and the church now stands a most conspicuous ornament of the most beautiful Bay of Quinte. They raised one thousand pounds for this purpose; and, proper architects being employed, a contract was entered into for £1037, and was duly accepted. How well it would be if this amount could be refunded to this loyal and moral people from England! What a mite it would take from the pockets of churchmen! The first stone was laid by S. P. Jarvis, Esq., Chief Superintendent of Indians in Canada; and the Archdeacon of Kingston, the truly venerable G. O. Stuart, conducted the usual service, which was preceded by a procession of the Indians, who, singing a hymn, led the way from the wharf where the clergy and visitors had landed from the steamers, past the old church, through the grounds appropriated for their clergyman's house, and then, ascending the hill westward, they crossed the Indian Graves, and reached the site of their new temple. _Te Deum_ and the Hundredth Psalm were then sung, and the Archdeacon, offering up a suitable prayer, the stone was lowered into its place. The following inscription was placed in this stone:-- To The Glory of God and Saviour The remnant of the Tribe Kanyeakehaka, In token of their preservation by the Divine Mercy, through Christ Jesus, In the Sixth Year of our Mother Queen Victoria, Sir Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, G.C.B. Being Governor-General of British North America, The Right Reverend J. Strachan, D.D. and LL.D., being Bishop of Toronto, and the Reverend Saltern Givins, being in the 13th year of his Incumbency, The old wooden fabric having answered its end, This Corner Stone of Christ's Church, Tyendinaga, was laid in the presence of The Venerable George Okill Stuart, LL.D., Archdeacon of Kingston, By Samuel Peters Jarvis, Chief Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Canada, Assisted by various members of the Church, On Tuesday, May 30th, A.D. 1843. James Howard of Toronto, Architect; George Brown of Kingston, Architect, having undertaken the Supervision of the work, and John D. Pringle being the Contractor. A hymn was sung by the Indians and Indian children of the school; the Rev. William Macauley, of Picton, delivered an address, which was followed by a prayer from the Rev. Mr. Deacon, and Collects, after which the Archdeacon pronounced the blessing. I have recited this because I feel that it will interest a very large body of my countrymen in England, and trust that those who can afford to consider it will not forget the Mohawks of Tyendinaga, in whom I take the more interest from having had them under my command during the troubles of 1838, and of whose loyalty and excellent conduct then I have already informed the reader. I saw this edifice lately; it is Gothic, with four lancet windows on each side, and buttressed regularly. Its space is 60 feet by 40, with a front tower projecting; and the spire, very pointed and covered with glittering tin, rises out of the dark surrounding woods from a lofty eminence of 107 feet. It is certainly the most interesting public building in Canada West. I wish some excellent lady would embroider a royal standard or silk union-jack, that the Indians might display it on their tower on high days and holidays. Depend upon it they would cherish it as they have done the ancient memorials of their faith, which date from Queen Anne. The Indian village near Brantford also boasts of its place of worship; but, although it has its ritual from the Church of England, the clergyman comes from the United States and is paid by the society, called the New England Society. He has lived many years among his flock, and is said to be an excellent man. The Indians are to a man as loyal as those of Tyendinaga. The Society has a school which it supports also, where from forty to fifty Indian children are taught and have various trades to work at. They are very moral and temperate, and here may be seen the strange spectacle, elsewhere in the neighbourhood of the white man so rare--of unmixed blood. But the Whites amongst them nevertheless are not of the best sample of the race, as a great number of restless American borderers have fixed their tents near the Grand River, and they have managed to get a good deal of their property and lands, although in Canada it is illegal to purchase land from the Indian races. A superintendent, an old officer in the British army, is stationed with the Five Nations purposely to protect them; yet it is impossible for any one to be aware or to guard against the ruffianly practices of those who think that the Red Man has no longer a right to cumber the earth. The Five Nations are settling; and it is observed that, whenever they cease to be nomadic, and steadily pursue agriculture and the useful arts, the decrease, so apparent in their numbers before, begins to lessen. The public works, the great high road to London, and the opening of the navigation of the Grand River, have greatly enhanced the value of their property, whilst at the same time it has brought dangers with those conscienceless adventurers from the bordering States, and from the reckless turbulent Irish canal men, who keep the country in constant excitement, and who, owing no allegiance to Britain or to the American Union, cross over from the States to Canada, or _vice versa_, as work or whim dictates, carrying uneasiness and dismay wherever they go. Latterly, however, these worse than savages have been kept in some control by the establishment of a mounted or foot police, and by stationing parties of the Royal Canadian Regiment on their flanks. The military alone can keep them in awe, though they cannot always prevent midnight burnings and atrocities. The French Canadians and the Indians cordially detest these canallers. I was told a story in passing through Brantford, which shows how the spirit of the lower class of American settlers in this portion of Canada is kept up, since they first openly showed it during the rebellion. A regiment of infantry, I think the 81st, was marching to relieve another at London, and, on arriving here, weary of the deep sandy or miry roads, the men naturally sought the pumps and wells of the village. A fellow who keeps a large tavern, called Bradley's Inn, hated the sight of the British soldier to that degree, that he locked up his pump of good drinking water and left another open, which was unfit for any purpose. Lately, I see by the papers, this good Samaritan, who could not find it in his heart to assuage the thirst of a parched throat, or to give even a drop of water to the weary, had his house burnt down by accident. It is a wonder that he had not tried to place it to the account of the soldiers; but, perhaps, he was ashamed, and perhaps, they being at so great a distance as London is, he thought that such an impossibility would not go down. There was, it appears, no water to quench his devouring flame. _Fiat justitia!_ This part of Canada, and about London, has been a chosen region for American settlers, and also for loafers from the borders of the Republic; and accordingly you observe that which is not obvious in any part of the United States, twenty miles from the St. Lawrence, or the lakes, great pretension to independence and rough rudeness of manner, contrasted by the real independence and quiet bearing of the sons of Britain. The refugees, or whatever the American border-settlers or adventurers in Canada may be called, are invariably insolent, vulgar, and unbearable in their manners; whilst, away from the frontier, in the United States, the traveller observes no ostentatious display of Republicanism, no vulgar insolence to strangers, unless it be in the bar-room of some wayside tavern, where one is sometimes obliged, as elsewhere, to rest awhile, and where the frequenters may be expected to be not either polite or polished. The Americans may be said to live at the bar; and yet, in all great cities, the bar of the hotels seldom exhibits anything to offend a traveller, who has seen a good deal of the world; nor do I think that purposed insult or annoyance would be tolerated towards any foreigner who keeps his temper. So it is all over the world. I remember, as a young man, in the army of Occupation in France, when the soul of the nation was ground to despair, at seeing foreign soldiers lording it in _la belle France_, that, at Valenciennes, St. Omers, Cambray, and all great towns, constant collisions and duels occurred from the impetuous temper of the half-pay French officers, and yet, in many instances, good sense and firmness avoided fatal results. I know an officer, who was billeted, the night before one of the great reviews of the allied troops, in a small country tavern, where an Englishman had never before been seen, and he found the house full as it could hold of half-pay Napoleonists. The hostess had but one room where the guests could dine, and even that had a bed in it; and this bed was his billet. He arrived late, and found it occupied by moustached heroes of the guard, Napoleon's cavalry and infantry _demi-soldes_, who had rested there to see the review next day, where the battle of Denain was fought over again with blank cartridge. They were at supper and very boisterous, but, with the innate _politesse_ of Frenchmen, rose and apologized for occupying his bedroom. To go to bed was of course not to be thought of, so he asked to be permitted to join the table; and, after eating and drinking, he found some of the youngest very much disposed to insult him. He watched quietly; at last, toasts were proposed, and they desired him to fill to the brim. The toast they said, after a great deal of improvising, was to the health of the greatest man and the greatest soldier, _Napoléon le Grand!--De tout mon coeur, Napoléon le Grand!_ This took them by surprise; they had no idea that an Englishman could see any merit in Napoleon. "Fill your glasses, gentlemen," said the officer, "to the brim, as I filled mine." They did so, and he said "_A la santé de Napoléon deux_," which was then a favourite way with the French Imperialists of toasting his son. The effect was electric. The most insolent and violent of the _vieux moustaches_ took up the stool he was sitting upon and threw it through the window; the glasses followed; and then he went round and embraced the proposer. "Brave Anglais!" was shouted from many heated lungs; and the evening not only concluded in harmony, but they caused the hostess to make her unwelcome visitor as comfortably lodged for the night as the resources of her house would admit. Thus it is all over the world; firmness and prudence carry the traveller through among strange people and stranger scenes; and, believe me, none but bullies, sharpers, or the dregs of the populace in any Christian country will insult a stranger. All the stories about spitting, and "I guess I can clear you, mister," as the man said when he spat across some stage-coach traveller out of the opposite window, are very far-fetched. The Americans certainly do spit a great deal too much for their own health and for other people's ideas of comfort, but it arises from habit, and the too free practice of chewing tobacco. I never saw an American of any class, or, as they term it, of any grade, do it offensively, or on purpose to annoy a stranger. They do it unconsciously, just as a Frenchman of the old school blows his nose at dinner, or as an Englishman turns up his coat-tails and occupies a fireplace, to the exclusion of the rest of the company. An Englishman should not form his notions of America from the works of professed tourists--men and women who go to the United States, a perfectly new country, for the express purpose of making a marketable book: these are not the safest of guides. One class goes to depreciate Republican institutions, the other to praise them. It is the casual and unbiassed traveller who comes nearest to the truth. Monsieur de Tocqueville was as much prepossesed by his own peculiar views of the nature of human society as Mrs. Trollope. Extremes meet; but truth lies usually in the centre. It is found at the bottom of the well, where it never intrudes itself on general observation. The Americans have no fixed character as a nation, and how can they? The slave-holding cavaliers of the South have little in common with the mercantile North; the cultivators and hewers of the western forests are wholly dissimilar from the enterprising traders of the eastern coast; republicanism is not always democracy, and democracy is not always locofocoism; a gentleman is not always a loafer, although certainly a loafer is never a gentleman. A cockney, who never went beyond Margate, or a sea-sick trip to Boulogne, that paradise of prodigals, always fancies that all Americans are Yankees, all clock-makers, all spitters, all below his level. He never sees or converses with American gentlemen, and his inferences are drawn from cheap editions of miserable travels, the stage, or in the liners in St. Katherine's Docks, after the company of the cabin has dispersed. The American educated people are as superior to the American uneducated as is the case all over Christendom; and John Bull begins to find that out; for steam has brought very different travellers to the United States from the bagmen and adventurers, the penny-a-liners, and the _miserables_ whose travels put pence into their pockets, and who saw as little of real society in America as the poor Vicar of Wakefield's family, before they knew Mr. Burchell. The Americans you meet with in Canada are, with some exceptions, adventurers of the lowest classes, who, with the dogmatism of ignorant intolerance, hate monarchy because they were taught from infancy that it was naught. Such are the people who lock up their pumps; but they are not all alike. There are many, many, very different, who have emigrated to Canada, because they dislike mob influence, because they live unmolested and without taxation, and because they are not liable every moment to agrarian aggression. In this part of the Canadas, the runaway slaves from the Southern States are very numerous. There is an excellent covered bridge over the Grand River at Brantford; and, on crossing this in the waggon, we saw a good-hearted Irishman do what Mr. Bradley refused to do, that is, give drink to a wayfarer. This wayfarer resembled the Red Coat that Mr. Bradley hated so in one particular--he had his armour on. It was a huge mud turtle, which had most inadvertently attempted to cross the road from the river into the low grounds, and a waggon had gone over it; but the armour was proof, and it was only frightened. So the old Irish labourer, after examining the great curiosity at all points, took it up carefully and restored it to the element it so greatly needed--water. Was he not the Good Samaritan? Whilst here, we were told that at Alnwick, in the Newcastle district, the government has located an Indian settlement on the Rice Lake very carefully. Each Indian has twenty-five acres of land, and a fine creek runs through the place, on the banks of which the Indian houses have been built so judiciously, that the inhabitants have access to it on both sides. The Mohawk language is pronounced without opening and shutting the lips, labials being unknown. Some call the real name of the tribe Kan-ye-ha-ke-ha-ka, others Can-na-ha-hawk, whence Mohawk by corruption. After staying a short time at Clement's Inn, which is a very good one, we left Brantford at half-past one, and were much pleased with the neatness of the place, and particularly with the view near the bridge of the river. The Indian village and its church are down the stream to the left, about two miles from the town, and embowered in woods. We drove along for eight miles to the Chequered Sheds, a small village so called; at twenty minutes to four reached Burford, two miles further on, which is another small place on Burford Plains, with a church; and at a quarter past four reached a very neat establishment, a short distance beyond a small creek, and called the Burford Exchange Inn. The country is well settled, with good houses and farms. We stopped a short time at Phelan's Inn, four miles and a half on, just beyond which the macadamized road commences again; but the country is not much settled between the Exchange and Phelan's Inn. CHAPTER XII. Woodstock--Brock District--Little England--Aristocratic Society in the Bush--How to settle in Canada as a Gentleman should do--Reader, did you ever Log?--Life in the Bush--The true Backwoods. We arrived at Woodstock at eight p.m., and were delighted with the rich appearance of the settlement and country, resembling some of the best parts of England, and possessing a good road macadamized from granite boulders. Woodstock is a long village, neatly and chiefly built of wood, fifty three miles from Hamilton. It is the county town of the Brock district; and here numbers of gentlemen of small fortunes have settled themselves from England and Ireland. It is a thriving place, and their cottages and country houses are chiefly built, and their grounds laid out, in the English style, with park palings. Sir John Colborne has the merit of settling this loyal population in the centre of the western part of Canada. The old road went through a place called absurdly enough Paris, from the quantity of gypsum with which the neighbourhood abounds; and fine specimens of silurian fossils of the trilobite family and of madrepores, millepores, and corallics, are found here. Love's Hotel is the best in the village, and a good one it is. What with the truly English scenery of the Oak Plains, the good road, and the British style of settlement, Woodstock would appear to be the spot at which a man tired of war's alarms should pitch his tent; and accordingly there are many old officers here; but the land is dear and difficult now to obtain. A recent traveller says it is the most aristocratic settlement in the province, and contains, within ten miles round, scions of the best English and Irish families; and that the society is quite as good as that of an average country neighbourhood at home. The price of land he quotes at £4 sterling an acre for cleared, and from £1 to £1 10s. for wild land. A friend of his gave £480 for sixty cleared and one hundred uncleared acres, with a log house, barn, and fences. He moreover gives this useful information, that very few gentlemen farmers do more than make their farms keep their families, and never realize profit: thus, he says, a single man going to Woodstock to settle ought to have at least one hundred pounds a year income quite clear, after paying for his land, house, and improvements. I have seen a good deal of farming and of farmers in Canada. Farming there is by no means a life of pleasure; but, if a young man goes into the Bush with a thorough determination to chop, to log, to plough, to dig, to delve, to make his own candles, kill his own hogs and sheep, attend to his horses and his oxen, and "bring in firing at requiring," and abstains from whiskey, it signifies very little whether he is gentle or simple, an honourable or a homespun, he will get on. Life in the Bush is, however, no joke, not even a practical one. It involves serious results, with an absence of cultivated manners and matters, toil, hardship, and the effects of seasoning, including ague and fever. _Recipe._--First buy your land in as fine a part of the province as possible, then build your log-hut, and a good barn and stable, with pig and sheep-pens. Then commence with a hired hand, whom you must not expect to treat you _en seigneur_, and who will either go shares with you in the crops, or require £30 currency a year, and his board and lodging. Begin hewing and hacking till you have cleared two or three acres for wheat, oats, and grass, with a plot for potatoes and Indian corn. When you have cut down the giant trees, then comes the logging. Reader, did you ever log? It is precious work! Fancy yourself in a smock-frock, the best of all working dresses, having cut the huge trees into lengths of a few feet, rolling these lengths up into a pile, and ranging the branches and brush-wood for convenient combustion; then waiting for a favourable wind, setting fire to all your heaps, and burying yourself in grime and smoke; then rolling up these half-consumed enormous logs, till, after painful toil, you get them to burn to potash. Wearied and exhausted with labour and heat, you return to your cabin at night, and take a peep in your shaving-glass. You start back, for, instead of the countenance you were charmed to meet at the weekly beard reckoning, you see a collier's face, a collier's hands, and your smock-frock converted into a charcoal-burner's blouse. Cutting down the forest is hard labour enough until practice makes you perfect; chopping is hard work also; but logging, logging--nobody likes logging. Then, when you plough afterwards, or dig between the black stumps, what a pleasure! Every minute bump goes the ploughshare against a stone or a root, and your clothes carry off charcoal at a railroad pace. It takes thirty years for pine-stumps to decay, five or six for the hard woods; and it is of no use to burn the pine-roots, for it only makes them more iron-like; but then the neighbours, if you have any, are usually kind: they help you to log, and to build your log-hut. Your food too is very spicy and gentlemanlike in the Bush: barrels of flour, barrels of pork, fat as butter and salt as brine, with tea, sugar--maple-sugar, mind, which tastes very like candied horehound--and a little whiskey, country whiskey, a sort of non-descript mixture of bad kirschwasser with tepid water, and not of the purest _goût_. Behold your _carte_. If you have a gun, which you must have in the Bush, and a dog, which you may have, just to keep you company and to talk to, you may now and then kill a Canada pheasant, ycleped partridge, or a wild duck, or mayhap a deer; but do not think of bringing a hound or hounds, for you can kill a deer just as well without them, and I never remember to have heard of a young settler with hounds coming to much good. Moreover, the old proverb says, a man may be known by his followers: and it is as absurd for a poor fellow, without money, to have great ban-dogs at his heels, as it would be for a rich nobleman to live in his garret upon bread and water. Moreover, in Canada, most sportsmen are mere idlers, and generally neglectful either of their professions or of their farms. Many a fine young fellow has been ruined in Canada, by fancying it very fine to copy the officers of the army in their sportsmanship, forgetting that these officers could afford both in time and money what they could not. Keep your house, and your house will keep you. Almost all settlers too have mothers, wives, sisters, brothers, cousins, to assist them, or to provide for; and, if they are industrious, a few years make them happy and independent. Even £50 a year of clear income in the Bush is a very pretty sum, and £100 per annum places you on the top of the tree--a magnate, a magistrate, a major of militia. I know many, many worthy families, who live well with their pensions or their half-pay. What a luxury to have your own land, two hundred acres!--to live without the chandler, the butcher, the baker, the huxter, and the grocer! Tea, a little sugar and coffee, these are your real luxuries. Soap you make out of the ley of your own potash; fat you get from your pigs or your sheep, which supply you with candles and food; and by and by the good ox and the fatted calf, the turkey, the goose, and the chicken, give your frugal board an air of gourmandism; whilst in this climate all the English garden vegetables and common fruits require only a little care to bring them to perfection. Indian corn and buckwheat make excellent cakes and hominy; and you take your own wheat to be ground at the nearest mill, where the miller requires no money, but only grist. In like manner, the boards for your house are to be had at the sawmill for logs, for potash, for wheat, for oats. Keep a few choice books for an evening, and provide yourself with stout boots and shoes, a good coat, and etceteras, besides your smock-frock and shooting-jacket of fustian, and its continuations, and let the rest follow; for you will at last take to wear country homespun, when occasions of state do not require it otherwise, such as church and tea-parties of more than ordinary interest. People talk about life in the Bush as they do about life in London, without knowing very much about either. Backwoods and backwoodsmen are novelties which amuse for the moment. A backwoodsman, who never worked at a farm, although he may be much in the habit of seeing farmers, has not always just conceptions. He must not live in a village newly made, but actually reside in a log-hut, just erecting, to know what life in the Bush is. Gentlemen and lady travellers are the worst judges possible, because, even if they go and visit their friends, the best foot is always put foremost to receive them, and vanity or love induces every sacrifice to make them comfortable. They see nothing of the labours of the seven months' winter, of the aguish wet autumn, of the uncertain spring, of the tropical summer, of ice, of frost, of musquitoes and black flies, of mud and mire, of swamp and rock, of all the innumerable drawbacks with which the spirit of the settler has to contend, or the very coarse and scanty fare to solace him after his toils of the day. See a young pair of brothers, sons of an officer of high rank, whose father dying left them but partially provided for, with a mother and several grown-up daughters. They fly to France to live. This resource might, by a war, be soon broken up. The sons collect what remains of money--they arrive in Canada. They purchase cheap land far in the interior, miles away from any town. They build a log-hut, clear their land, and accumulate gradually the furniture and household goods. Toil, toil, toil. The log-hut is enlarged. The mother and daughters are invited from home to join their "life in the Bush." They are expected. Everything is made comfortable for them. The brothers are chopping in the woods--night approaches. They return--return to find their log-house, furniture, wardrobe, books, linen--every thing consumed. They are wanderers in the wilderness. Do they despair? Yes, because one brother, the strongest, takes cold--he lingers, he dies. The survivor, indomitable, yet bowing under his accumulated afflictions, assisted by his neighbours, builds another log-house. His mother and sisters arrive, are dispersed among the nearest neighbours, get the ague. Struggle, struggle, struggle! on, on, on! The pension here is of service. The girls, brought up in luxury, scions of a good race, turn their hands cheerfully to do every thing. Their conduct is admired. Other settlers from the gentry at home arrive with some capital. The locality turns out good. The girls marry well. The surviving son, ten years afterwards, has four hundred acres of his own--thinks of building a house fit for a gentleman farmer to live in, and is surrounded by broad acres of wheat, without a stump to be seen, with a large flock of sheep grazing peacefully on his green meadows, and cattle enough to secure him from want. This is one case, under my own eye, and the moral of it is, neither of the sons drank whiskey. Look at another picture. An officer of respectable rank, young and tired of the service, where promotion is not even in prospect, settles in Canada--he has money. He buys at once a fine tract of forest, converts it by his money into a fertile farm, builds an excellent house, furnishes it, marries. Knowing nothing of farming, fond of his dogs and his gun, delighted in a canoe and duck-shooting, absent day after day in the deer-tracks, occasionally killing a wolf or a bear, absorbed in sport, he leaves his farm to the sole care of an industrious man, who receives half the crops. He is cheated at every turn; the man buys with the profits land for himself, and leaves him abruptly. The fine house requires repairs, the fences get out of order, the cattle and the pigs roam wherever they like. Money, too much money, has been laid out. The fine young man perhaps becomes a confirmed drunkard. _Voilà le fin!_ This is another case under my own observation, and I very much regret indeed to say that, of the class of gentlemen settlers, it is by far more frequent and observable than the first. Habits of shooting beget habits of drinking and smoking; and it is not at all uncommon in the backwoods to see a man whom you have known on the sunny side of St. James's, dressed in the height of fashion, and of most elegant manners, walking along with his pointer and his gun in a smock-frock or blouse, a pipe, a clay-pipe stuck in the ribbon of his hat, and with evident tokens of whiskey upon him. If he works at his farm, which all who are not overburthened with riches must do, and those that are usually remain in England, he works hard; and then reflect, reader, that chopping and logging, that cradling wheat and ploughing land, are not mere amusements, but entail the original ban, the sweat of the brow--he must every now and then drink, drink, drink. I have seen a man who would otherwise have been a high ornament to society, whose acquirements were very great, and who brought out an excellent library, abandon literature and his army manners, and drink whiskey, not by the glass but by the tumbler. And what is it, you will naturally ask, that can induce a reasoning soul to do thus? Why!--lack of society, want of current information, the long and tedious winter, and the labours of spring and of autumn. In fact, it is "the backwoods," the listlessness of the backwoods, which, like the opposite extreme, the fatuity and _blasé_ life of a great metropolis, causes men to rush into insane extremes to avoid reflection. The mind is dulled and blunted. The following facts, translated from an interesting article in the "_Mélanges Religieux_," a Roman Catholic periodical, published in Montreal, in the French language, may be relied on, to show how narrowed the ideas of a man constantly residing in the woods are:-- "There arrived in Montreal, on Wednesday last, a young man about twenty years of age, who had come down from Hudson's Bay, without having, during his long journey, stopped in any town, village, or civilized settlement; so that he stumbled into Montreal with as little idea of a town or of civilization as if he had fallen from the moon, for he had lived on the northern shores of the bay, and had but seldom visited the fur-trading establishments. He had only last spring seen, at Abbititi, Messieurs Moreau and Durauquet, the Roman Catholic Missionaries. He was born of Roman Catholic parents, his father being Scotch, his mother Irish. But he had never left the woods nor the life in the wilds, and had never seen a priest before last spring. How strange must have been the emotions in the breast of this young man on finding himself thus suddenly cast into the midst of this large town, as one would throw a bale of furs! He expressed his feelings at the time as partaking more of stupor than of admiration. "When he had recovered from the confusion of his ideas consequent upon the novelty of his situation, he sought the Bishop's residence, according to the instructions of his father; and at length found himself more at ease, for, understanding his singular position, those he there met with assisted him to collect his scattered thoughts. In answer to the questions addressed to him (he speaks English, and can read and write), he replied that he could not consent to live in such a place; that the noise deafened him, while the crowds of people, running in all directions, agitated and astonished him in a manner he could not explain. He experienced a sensation of suffocation on finding himself enclosed, as it were, in streets of lofty houses; he saw and admired nothing, being every moment in dread of losing himself in the labyrinth of streets, more difficult for him to recognize than the scarcely marked pathways of his native forests. He was not curious to see any thing, and felt only the desire to fly at once, and again to breathe freely, away from what he felt to be the restraints of civilization. He was taken to the cathedral, where he saw the pictures, the paintings on the roof, and all the ornaments of the church--they were explained to him, and he prayed before the high altar and that of the Holy Virgin. He believed all the instructions of the Church, and was sufficiently informed to receive baptism. During his visit to the church, the organ was played, and an explanation was given him of its harmony. In the midst of all these to him surprising novelties, he was asked what was the predominant sensation in his mind; he answered fear, and that his other feelings he was unable to explain. "This simple child of nature, the _naïveté_ of whose language, emotions, and habits so strongly contrasted with the surrounding artificial civilization, afforded a singular study to those present. However humiliating to our self-love, the conduct of this young man abundantly proved that the civilization of which we are so proud, our buildings, our wealth, our industry, all our activity and noise, do not fill with the admiration we expect those who are brought up far from our opulent cities and our artificial manners. Nature, in these immense solitudes, in these primitive manners, has then charms unknown to us, to be preferred to those which, in our existing state, we find so incomparable. We must here close our reflections, for fear of falling into paradoxes difficult to be avoided in questions of this nature. "This young man has departed, without regret, and has gone to the township of Raudon, where he has relations. There he will again find forests, and will be able to breathe freely, without fearing that the lofty dwellings of the city will intercept his view of the blue sky and the bright sun which he loves." Even near population, the settler has, in his way to town and market, to bait his cattle at roadside taverns, where the bar is the place of business, where he meets neighbours, and hears the news of the market and of the world; and the facility with which, throughout Upper Canada, these grog-shops obtain licenses from the magistrates is so great that the evil every day increases. In towns, this is most particularly observed, and also that, under the designation of "beer-licenses" the most infamous houses for drinking and vice are suffered to exist. It is full time that the parliament interfered with these license-granters, who increase intemperance instead of using their magisterial office to put a stop to it. Father Matthew's principles are much wanted in Canada West. In Eastern Canada, or, as it is better known, Lower Canada, the contrary is the case. The Canadian French, as a people, are temperate, although the canoe and batteaux men, lumberers and voyageurs, from the lonely and hard lives they lead, drink to excess; yet the Canadian is a sober character. CHAPTER XIII. Beachville--Ingersoll--Dorchester--Plank road--Westminster Hall--London--The great Fire of London--Longwoods--Delaware--The Pious, glorious, and immortal Memory--Moncey--The German Flats--Tecumseh--Moravian settlement--Thamesville--The Mourning Dove--The War, the War--Might against Right--Cigar-smoking and all sorts of curiosity--Young Thames--The Albion--The loyal Western District--America as it now is. I was detained at Woodstock for some time by the sickness of one of the horses. The animal had dropped in his stable after our arrival, and refused to feed; consequently, our driver had to look for another; and a miserable one, at a large price, he got. The intense heat had overpowered the horse. We departed, however, at half-past six in the morning, on the 10th July, and reached Beachville, five miles westward. Beachville is a small country village, beautifully situated, and the country between is undulating and rich. The driver pointed out Mr. John Vansittart's house, an English looking residence, with extensive grounds. A creek, called Hard Creek, runs along the road with several mill-sites on it. It loses itself every now and then in deep woods; and altogether this is the prettiest country I have ever seen in Canada. The land also appears good. At Beachville are saw, grist, and water-mills on an extensive scale, the best in the country, owned and worked by Scotch people. The creek called Little Thames is seen also, which runs through the Canada Company's lands to the Forks of the Thames at London. This is a settlement forty years old; consequently, every thing is forward in it. We then came through an equally fine, old-settled country, to Ingersoll, five miles farther. This is a straggling place of about the same age, with mills and creeks, and a large inn, called the Mansion House (Hoffman's). We drove on to Dorchester, a small settlement and an old mill-site, about eighteen miles from London, where we stopped to recruit our wretched horse, at half-past ten. Here we breakfasted at a roadside inn, not very good nor very comfortable, but were glad to observe that the plank road commenced again. A plank road in England would be a curiosity indeed: here it is none: fancy rolling along a floor of thick boards through field and forest for a hundred miles. The boards are covered with earth, or gravel, if it can be had, and this deadens the noise and prevents the wear and tear, so that you glide along pretty much the same as a child's go-cart goes over the carpet. But this will only do where wood is plentiful, and thus the time must come, even in Canada, when gravelled roads or iron rails will supersede it. The country was poorer in this section, being very sandy, until near the tavern called Westminster Hall; what a name! But the beautiful little river was occasionally in sight in a hollow of woods of the richest foliage. At one place we saw a party of Indians with ponies and goods, going down to a ford, where no doubt their canoes awaited them. Their appearance as they descended was very picturesque, armed as they were with rifles and fowling-pieces, very Salvator Rosaish. Westminster Hall, where we arrived at ten minutes to two o'clock, and staid an hour to bait, is six miles and a half from London. Cockney land everywhere. On our approaching the new capital of the London District, we saw evident signs of recent exertions. Fine turnpike-gates, excellent roads, arbours for pic-nic parties, and before us, at a distance, a large wide-spread clearance, in which spires and extensive buildings lifted their heads. London is a perfectly new city; it was nothing but a mere forest settlement before 1838, and is now a very large, well laid out town. We arrived at five p.m., and put up at a very indifferent inn, the best however which the great fire of London had spared. The town is laid out at right angles, each street being very wide and very sandy, and where the fire had burnt the wooden squares of houses we saw brick ones rising up rapidly. There is now a splendid hotel, (O'Neill's and Hackstaff's) where you may really meet with luxury as well as comfort, for I see, _mirabile dictu_, that fresh lobsters and oysters are advertised for every day in the season. These come from the Atlantic coast of the United States, some thousand miles or so; but what will not steam and railroad do! We saw a stone church erecting; and there is an immense barrack, containing the 81st regiment of infantry and a mounted company, or, as it is called in military parlance, a battery of artillery. London was so thickly beset with disaffected Americans during the rebellion, that it was deemed necessary to check them by stationing this force in the heart of the district; and since then the military expenditure and the excellent situation of the place has created a town, and will soon create a large city. The adjacent country is very beautiful, particularly along the meandering banks of the Thames. I saw some excellent stores, or general shops; and, although the houses, excepting in the main street, are at present scattered, and there is nothing but oceans of sand in the middle, it wants only time to become a very important place. General Simcoe, when he first settled Upper Canada, thought of making it the metropolis, but it is not well situated for that purpose, being too accessible from the United States. I staid here all night and part of next day; and here I found the disadvantages of an education for the bar; for my bedroom was immediately over it, and it was open the greatest part of the night. Drinking, smoking, smoking, drinking, incessant, with concomitant noise and bad language; which, combined with a necessity for keeping the window open on account of the heat, rendered sleep impossible. I have slept from sheer fatigue under a cannon, or rather very near it, when it was firing, but Vauban himself could not have slept with the thermometer at 100° Fahrenheit over a Canadian tap-room. I was glad to leave London in Canada West for that reason, and departed the next day in a fresh waggon at half-past five p.m., arriving at the Corners, six miles off, where a bran-new settlement and bran-new toll-gate appeared with a fine cross road, that to the right leading to Westminster, that to the left to Lake Erie. I was sorry that the plank road was finished only to this place; but we had fine settlements all the way. Then begins a new country, and that most dreary and monotonous of Canadian landscape scenery--the Long Woods. This lasts to Delaware, where we stopped at eight o'clock, on a fine evening, having travelled twelve miles from the Corners. Here the road suddenly turns from the river to the right; and we drove past Buller's New House, which he is building, to his old stand. It was ancient enough, but respectable; and if the rats and mice and other small deer could only have been persuaded that one had had no sleep the night before and that the weather was intensely hot, we should have done well enough; although some soldiers on a look-out party for deserters, and some travellers, were not at all inclined to sleep themselves, or to let others enjoy the blessings of repose. Delaware is a very pretty village, and the Indians are settled some seven miles from it. It has a very large and very long bridge over the Thames. We started, most militarily, at four in the morning of Friday the 12th of July, without recollecting King William, or the Pious, Glorious, and Immortal Memory. But we were to be reminded of it. Here we saw the labours of the Board of Works in the Great Western Road to much advantage, in deep cuttings and embankments, fine culverts and bridges, with lots of the sons of green Erin--"first flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea"--and their cabins along the line of works, preparing the level for planking. The country is flat, but very fine and well settled. Quails amused themselves along the road, looking at us from the wooden rail fences, and did not leave their perches without persuasion. The rascals looked knowing, too, as if they were aware that waggoners did not carry guns. I heard the real whip-poor-will or night-jar last night frequently, sighing his melancholy ditty along the banks of the beautiful Thames. The cry of the Canada quail, which is a very small partridge-like bird, is very plaintive. As we passed them, they gave it out heartily--Phu--Phoo-iey. We arrived at Smith's tavern, seventeen miles, at half-past seven, breakfasted, and stayed until ten, at that miserable place. We then drove on, and passed Moncey in Caradoc, so named from an Indian tribe. It is a pretty village, where they had just finished a church, whereon banners were flying, which showed us, that if we had forgotten King William, some folks here had not; and, out of bravado, a refugee American had stuck a pocket-handkerchief flag of the Stars and Stripes up at his shop-door, which we prophesied, as evening came, would be pulled down, because orange, blue, and red flags flourished near it. This is an Indian village, into which the Americans and other white traders and adventurers have set foot. I was charmed with the scenery, consisting of fertile fields, rich woods, the ever-winding Thames and undulating mammillated hills, covered with verdure. Happy Indians, if unhappy Whites were not thrusting you out! We arrived at one o'clock at Fleming's Inn, much better than the last, twelve miles. Here we rested awhile.--Starting again, the country was found but very little settled, with long tiresome woods, but still beautiful, all nearly oak. We halted at the German Flats, not to get out, for there was no abiding-place, but to look at the ground, where the battle in the last American war took place, in which Tecumseh, the great Tecumseh, met his death, and where Kentucky heroes made razor-straps of his skin. Seven miles after leaving these immense woods, the valley of the Thames opens most magnificently in a gorge below, and spreads into rich flats to the left, embowered with the most beautiful forest scenery, in which, about a mile off, stand the Moravian church, school, and Indian village. A more lovely spot could not have been selected. There is a large Indian settlement of old date here; and, as we drove along, we passed through two deserted orchards; the road had rendered them useless; and, from which and its neighbourhood, the Indians had retired into their settled village below. Here the forest was gradually regaining the mastery: fruit-trees had become wild, and the Thames ran in a deep bold ravine far below, clothed with aged and solemn trees, willows and poplars, intermixed with oak, beech, ash, and altogether English and park-like. It put me in mind of the opening chapter of "Ivanhoe." The road was a deep sand; and we stopped a little at Smith's Inn, three miles and a half from our night's halt. Here the soil changes to clay, and the country is not much settled, but is beginning to be so. We saw bevies of quail on the roadside, which the driver cut at with his whip, but they were not disposed to fly. We arrived at Freeman's Inn at half-past six p.m., twelve miles, and brought up for the night at Thamesville, where there is a dam and an extensive bridge, and altogether the preparation for the plank road is a very extraordinary work, embracing much deep cutting. Here all is sand again, but the occasional glimpses of the Thames, as you approach this village, are very fine and picturesque. Squirrels, particularly the ground species, or chippemunk, amused us a good deal by their gambols as we drove along. The village of Thamesville is very small. Oh, Father Thames, did you ever dream of having _ville_ tacked to your venerable name? But, as the Nevilles have it, _ne vile velis_. I amused myself here on a scorching evening with looking about me, as well as the heat would permit; and here I first heard and first saw that curious little Canadian bird, the mourning dove. It came hopping along the ground close to the inn, but the evening was not light enough for me to distinguish more than that it was very small, not so big as a quail, and dark-coloured. It seemed to prefer the sandy road; and, as it had probably never been molested, picked up the oats or grain left in feeding the horses. It became so far domesticated as to approach mankind, although the slightest advance towards it sent it away. My host, a very intelligent man, told me that it always came thus on the hot summer nights; and we soon heard at various distances its soft but exceedingly melancholy call. It appears peculiar to this part of Canada, and is the smallest of the dove kind. I know of nothing to compare with its soft, cadenced, and plaintive cry; it almost makes one weep to hear it, and is totally different from the coo of the turtle dove. When it begins, and the whip-poor-will joins the concert, one is apt to fancy there is a lament among the feathered kind for some general loss, in the stillness and solemnity of a summer's night, when the leaves of the vast and obscure forest are unruffled, when the river is just murmuring in the distance, and the moon emerging from and re-entering the drifting night-cloud, in a land of the mere remnant of the Indian tribes gone to their eternal rest. This in a contemplative mood forcibly reminds us of that sublime passage of holy writ, wherein that thrilling command is embodied, to "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, when he shall rise up at the voice of the bird." The cruel treatment of the aborigines of that half of the world discovered by Columbus rises, on such an occasion, to the memory, with all its force. Here we stood on that soil, a small portion of which has been doled out to them in return for an empire; and here we could not avoid reflecting upon the injustice which has been so unsparingly dealt out to the Indian in that neighbouring Republic instituted to secure freedom and impartial government to all men. Yes, a nation claiming to be the most powerful under the sun, claiming a common origin, quarrelled for self-government; the mild sway of a limited monarchy was tyranny and bigotry; established laws and a state religion were swept away under a feeling that the child was strong enough to defy the parent. A more perfect form of government was necessary to the welfare of the human race: Washington arose, and a Republic was created. Did it continue in unison with the aspirations and views of that great man? did he think it requisite to extirpate the Red Men? did he forbid the Catholic to exercise the rights of conscience? did he intend that the Conscript Fathers should break their ivory wands, and bow to the dust before plebeian rule? did he imagine, in declaring all men equal, that mind was to succumb before mere matter, that intelligence was to be ground under the foot of physical force? The Englishman, the true Englishman, and by that word I mean a citizen of England, a Canadian, as well as he born in Britain or Ireland, judges differently; he acknowledges all men equal, and that all have an equal right inherent in them to receive equal protection; but he renders to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and as he loves his own self, so loves he the representative of every soul bearing the proud name of a British subject. He well knows, from the experience of all history, sacred and profane, that it is by maintaining order, in the institution of divers ranks in society and in government, that the true balance of power is found; and he feels that, if once that power is obtained by either extreme of the scale, his liberty, both of mind and of body, is at an end. The manner in which Indian rights are treated in America is so glaring, that the philanthropist shudders. Protocols pass; the country west of the Mississippi is declared to belong first to Mexico, then to Spain, then to France, then to England, then to the United States. At last, the United States, strong enough to play a new game, a much more lofty one than the Tea Tragedy, defies the whole world, issues a decree irrevocable as those famous ones of the Medes and the Persians, and, perhaps, equally to pass into oblivion, that all the New World is to be the property of the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons--all the New World, never mind whether it be Monarchical England's, Imperial Brazil, Republican Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, &c.--all is to be guided by the banner of the Stars and Stripes. Who among the statesmen ever dreams that the Red Man has any rights, who ever cares about his property in the wilds of the Prairies, of the Rocky Mountains, of the unknown lands of the Pacific! The United States declares that all Northern America is hers from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the bloody flag of war is unfurled to obtain the commencement of this crusade against right and against reason, although the United States has ten times as much land already as ten times its present population can fill or cultivate, and then, Oregon is the war cry, "Truly to speak it, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground, That hath in it no profit but the name; To pay five _dollars_, five, I would not farm it; Two thousand souls and twenty _million dollars_ Will not debate the question of this straw; This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies--" and then, in case Oregon should fail, advantage is taken of Mexico's distractions to negotiate for California. The Red Man, the poor Red Man, may however have a voice in all this, that may speak in thunder. He is neither so powerless, nor so utterly contemptible as is supposed. In the wilds of the West, it is said, including the roaming horsemen of Mexico, 100,000 warriors exist. Even against 20,000, what army entangled in the forest, hidden in the Prairie grass, lost in the wilderness defiles of the vast Andes of the north, could also exist? and can the American government afford to detach regular troops for such a dreadful warfare? will the militia undertake it? Can an American fleet of sufficient power and resources be kept in the Pacific to counteract and send supplies? He who knows the western wilds well knows that once concentrate Indian warfare, and it would be impossible to keep together or to supply such an army as that of the Republic, unsupported, as it must necessarily be, by a fleet. The time is coming, and that rapidly, there can be no doubt, when the white man will possess exclusively the Pacific coast; but this is to be achieved by the commercial and not by the physical power, and that it is yet very distant when any one nation will obtain it is the belief of all reasoning people; for even should the Americans force Mexico from its proper station, should they obtain California and Oregon, will Russia look quite quietly on, will France see her great scheme of Pacific colonization in danger, and will England tamely submit to have her eastern territories and the new trade with China put in jeopardy? I think not, and also conceive that it is as impossible for the United States to support a lengthened war with any great European power as it is for any great European power to conquer or to subdue any portion of the United States. Spain too is gradually recovering from the shock, which the loss of her Ophir inflicted on her; more liberal notions are gaining ground in Iberia; and it is by no means impossible, that, backed by France, she may yet resume her power in America. Look at the tenacity with which, amidst all her reverses, she has held on to Cuba. There is, in fact, no surmising the results of a mad war on the part of America. But, in all their profound calculations, the Indian, the poor despised Indian, is forgotten. How he is to live, how he is to die, are alike matters of indifference. Well may the mourning dove haunt the villages of the Five Nations! Thamesville--how I detest the combination! it must have been named in the very spirit of gin-sling--is a place very likely to become of importance when the great western road is quite completed. I was listening to the mourning dove, which then gave a balm to my wounded spirit, when I observed on the bench under the verandah, or _stoup_, as the Dutch settlers call it, of the inn, on the seat near me, a mass of black mud, or some such substance. Always curious--a phrenologic doctor told me I had the bump of wonder--I took hold of it, and found it to be adherent. It smelt strongly of bitumen. The landlord seeing me examining it chimed in, and said that the Indians had brought it to him from thirteen miles beyond Cornwall's Creek, where there was an immense deposit of the same kind. It was, in fact, soft asphalte, or petroleum, or bitumen, or whatever the learned may please to designate it, in a state of coherence. My researches did not stop here: I had had specimens of all the Canadian woods to send officially for transmission to England, and amongst others I had observed a very curious one, called white wood, which was certainly neither pine, nor any thing approaching to the fir kind. It was very light, very tenacious, and is extensively employed in this portion of Canada, where fir and pine are not common, for the purposes of flooring and building, making an extremely delicate and ornamental board. In travelling along I had asked the name of every strange tree, and so frequently had received the words white wood for answer, that I at last found it was a Canadian poplar, which grows in the western and London districts to an enormous size. The cotton wood is also another species of western poplar, and both would form a useful and an ornamental addition to our park scenery at home. The white wood, the cotton wood, and the yellow white wood, are used in this part of Canada for all building purposes, wherein pine is employed elsewhere, and the last named makes the best flooring. I should think, from its lightness and beauty, that it might be used with great advantage in Tunbridge ware. The quaking asp is also another poplar of western West Canada, and is a variety of the aspen. Here too I began to observe gigantic walnut-trees, from which such a large proportion of household furniture throughout Canada is manufactured, but regretted to find that it is much wasted in being split up into rails for fences by the farmers, on account of its durability. They are, however, beginning to be sensible of its value, for it is now largely exported to England and elsewhere. The size of the black walnut and of the cotton wood is inconceivable: of the latter curbs for the mouths of large wells are often made, by merely hollowing out the trunk. Vegetation in the western district is, in fact, extraordinary, and altogether it is undoubtedly the garden of Canada. Tobacco grows well in some portions of it, and is largely cultivated near the shores of Lake Erie. I believe most of the Havana cigars smoked in Canada, particularly at Montreal, are Canadian tobacco. So much the better; for if a man must put an enemy to his digestive organs into his mouth, it is better that that enemy should be the produce of the soil of which he is a native or denizen, as he derives some benefit from the consumption, although consumption of another sort may accrue. I have long and earnestly thought upon the subject of _the weed_, and have come to the conclusion that, as a necessary of life, it is about upon a par with opium. Men of the lower classes, I mean labouring people, who leave off drinking either from religious motives or from fear, usually take to smoking, and in general their constitutions are as much injured by the one as by the other. Cigar-smoking is a sort of devil-may-care imitation of the vulgar by gentlemen, and is no more requisite for health or amusement than whiskey, dice, or cards. It is amusing in the extreme to see old fellows aping extreme juvenility, and professing to smoke before breakfast; and it is ridiculous to see young gentlemen, very young and very green, cigar in mouth, fancying it very manly and very independent to imitate a rough, weather-beaten sailor or soldier, who, not being able to smoke a cigar, sticks to the pipe. That it stupifies is certain, that it is very vulgar is more certain, and that it injures health is more certain still. I wonder if Father Matthew smokes--almost all priests do: they have very little other solace. The approach to Chatham is very pretty. Young Thames, for I do not see why there should not be Young Thames as well as Young England, that most absurd of all D'Israelisms, looks enchanting in a country where lakes as flat on their shores as a pancake take the lead, and where rivers are creeks, and creeks are--nothing. We crossed a long whitewashed bridge, much out of repair, and saw an enormous American flag upon a very little American schooner, which had penetrated thus far into the bowels of the land. Bunting cannot be dear in the United States, and English Manchester must drive a pretty good trade in this article. The town of Chatham is situated on the banks of the Thames and of a large creek; and, being a Kentish man, I should have felt quite at home but for three things, videlicet, that enormous American flag; the name of the creek, which was Mac Gill or Mac something; and a thermometer pointing to somewhere about 101° Fahrenheit at nine a.m. Besides this, the town is a wooden one, and has a wooden little fort, which divides Scotland from Kent, or the river from the creek, nicely picketed in, and kept in the most perfect order by a worthy barrack serjeant, its sole tenant, whose room was hung round with prints of the Queen, Windsor Castle, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Nelson--all in frames, and excellently well engraved, from the "Albion" newspaper. The Albion newspaper is no ordinary hebdomadal; it has disseminated loyalty throughout America for years, and, as a gift on each 1st of January, has been in the habit of publishing a print of large size, engraved in exceedingly brilliant style, which is presented to its subscribers. The Queen, the Duke, the Conqueror of the Seas, Walter Scott, and his Monument at Edinburgh, &c., are the fruits; and these plates would sell in England for at least half a guinea, or a guinea each. The Albion, moreover, gives extracts at length from the current literature of England; and thus science, art, politics, agriculture, find admirers and readers in every corner of the backwoods. Dr. Bartlett, its editor, at New York, deserves much more than this ephemeral encomium, for he has done more than all the orators upon loyalty in the Canadas towards keeping up a true British spirit in it. The Albion, in fact, in Canada is a _Times_ as far as influence and sound feeling go; and although, like that autocrat of newspapers, it differs often from the powers that be, John Bull's, Paddy's, and Sawney's real interests are at the bottom, and the bottom is based upon the imperishable rock of real liberty. It steers a medium course between the _extrême droit_ of the so-called Family Compact, and the _extrême gauche_ of the Baldwin opposition. Political feeling ran very high in the section of country through which we are travelling, both in the war of 1812 and in the rebellion of 1837; and, from the vicinity of the Western district to the United States, in both instances it was inferred by the American people that an easy conquest was certain. Proclamations followed upon proclamations, and attacks upon attacks, but the people loved their soil, and the invaders were driven back. So it will be again, if, unhappily, war should follow the mad courses now pursuing. The Canadians at heart are sound, and nowhere is this soundness more apparent than in the western district. It is not the mere name of liberty which can tempt thinking men to abandon the reality. It has fallen to my lot to be acquainted with many leaders of faction, both in the Old and in the New World, and I never yet knew one whose personal ambition or whose private hatred had not stimulated him to endeavour to overturn all order, all rule. The patriot, whose sole aim is to amend and not to destroy, is now-a-days a _rara avis_, particularly if he is needy. One has only to read with attention the details of the horrors of the French revolution to be fully impressed with this fact. Where was patriotism then? and was not Napoleon the real patriot when he said, "two or three six-pounders would have settled the _canaille_ of Paris!" I by no means advocate the _ultima ratio regum_ being resorted to in popular commotions, in saying this; but France would have been happier had the little corporal been permitted to use his artillerymen. It has often surprised me, in reading the history of the American revolution, assisted as the Americans were by the demoralised French of that day, that that revolution was so bloodless a one; a fact only to be accounted for by the agricultural and pastoral character of the people who engaged in it, and by the unwillingness, even at the last moment, to sever all ties between the parent and the child. The character of that population has greatly altered since; generations have been born on the soil, whose recollections of their progenitors across the Atlantic have dwindled to the smallest span; and the intermixture of races has since done everything but destroy all filial feeling, has in fact destroyed nearly all but the common language, whilst ultra-democracy has been steadily at work upon the young idea to inculcate hatred to monarchy, and, above all, to the limited monarchy of England. Will the result be less harmless than the Tea Triumph? The world, it is to be feared, will yet see two nations, the most free in the world, speaking the same tongue, educated from the same sources, embruing their hands in each other's blood, to build up a new universal system, impossible in its very nature, or to support that which the experience of ages has perfected, and which three estates so continually watch over each other to guard. CHAPTER XIV. Intense Heat--Pigs, the Scavengers of Canada--Dutch Country--Moravian Indians--Young Father Thames--Ague, a cure for Consumption--Wild Horses--Immense Marsh. I never remember so hot a day as the 13th of July; people in England can have no idea of the heat in Canada, which they always figure to themselves as an hyperborean region. On our journey from Thamesville, when near Louisville, a neat hamlet by the wayside, in a beautiful country, settled by old Dutch families, on a fine bend of the Thames, we passed in the woods a dead horse, and found some friends at Chatham, who told us that it had dropped down from the intense heat. Those scavengers of Canada, the pigs, were like certain politic worms already busily at work on the carcase, in which indeed one had buried itself. In this Dutch country, you find the new road to Lake Erie, to the Rondeau from Chatham _graded_, or ready for planking, for twenty-six miles, and the new road to Windsor is also nearly finished; so that Chatham will now have an excellent land route to the Detroit river, as well as to Lake Erie; and as the Rondeau, a remarkable round littoral lake, is also converting into an excellent harbour, all this portion of Canada, the fairest as well as the most fertile, will progress amazingly. I saw the chief of the Moravian Indians near Thamesville, and had some conversation with him. He is a modest, middle-aged man, and rules over about two hundred and fifty well-behaved people. The government have given him two hundred acres of land in sight of the Moravian village, and there he dwells in patriarchal simplicity. Their spiritual and temporal concerns are under the supervision of the brethren at Bethlehem, the principal settlement of the Moravian fraternity in the United States; and they have a neat chapel and school, conducted with the decorum and good results for which that sect are noted. Petrolean springs and mineral oil fountains are frequent near this village, and the whole country here appears bituminous, the bed of the Thames being composed of shales highly impregnated with it. Salt is manufactured in small quantities by the Indians from brine-springs here. We saw the remarkable harvest of 1845 in all its glory on this route, as the Dutch farmers were every where at this early period cutting the wheat, and heard that on Willett's farm on the Thames it had been cut as early as the 10th of July. My _compagnon de voyage_ I had taken up in the morning, on account of the intelligence which he displayed, and in return for the ride he gave me much information. The banks of Young Father Thames, after leaving Chatham, and about it, are very low and flat, consequently, fever and ague are by no means rare visitors. He described the ague as being beyond a common Canada one; and, as he was of Yankee origin, the reader will readily understand his description of it. I asked him if he had ever had it. "Had it, I guess I have; I had it last fall, and it would have taken three fellows with such a fit as mine was to have made a shadow; why, my nose and ears were isinglass, and I shook the bedposts out of the perpendicular." I queried whether the country was subject to any other diseases, such as consumption. "If you have any friend with a consumption," said he, "send him to Thamesville; consumption would walk off slick as soon as he got the ague. No disorder is guilty of coming on before it, and it leaves none behind." We left Chatham in the steamboat Brothers for Windsor at three o'clock p.m., after having had a very good dinner at Captain Ebbert's inn, the Royal Exchange, which would do credit to any town. The Thames rolls for some miles, broad and deep, through a succession of corn-fields and meadows, with fine settlements, and, after passing through the great western marshes, enters Lake St. Clair, at twenty miles from Chatham. The rest of the route is across the lake by its southern shore, twenty miles more, and into the Detroit river for eleven miles to Windsor, on the Canada shore, and the city of Detroit, on the American side. The Thames keeps up its English character well, for it passes through the townships of Chatham, Dover, Harwich, Raleigh, and Tilbury, before it reaches Lake St. Clair, and then we coast Rochester, Maidstone, and Sandwich. The most curious thing on this route is the sinuosity of the river and the immense marsh, where the grasses are so luxuriant, that its appearance is that of the Pampas of South America, or of one unbroken sea of verdure. Nor is the grass, in its luxuriance, the only reminiscence of those vast meadows. Three hundred thousand acres, wholly unreclaimed on both sides of the river, are filled, particularly on the south side, with droves of wild horses and cattle--the former so numerous, that strings of them may be seen as far as the eye can reach; nor can you see the whole even near you from the deck of the vessel, as the grass is so high that sometimes they are hidden, and frequently you observe only their backs. They live here both in summer and in winter, but in very severe weather are said to go ashore, or into the higher lands, in search of the bark of the red elm. The owners brand them on the shoulder, and they are caught, when any are wanted, by snaring them with a noose. These horses are small, and usually dark-coloured; and a good one is valued at fifty dollars, or twelve pounds ten shillings currency, about ten pounds English money. Hardy, patient, and excellent little animals they are. I thought of the worthy lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, Sir Francis Bond Head, when these wild horses of Canada first met my sight, as I saw, on a small scale, that which he has so vividly represented on so splendid a one in South America. It is said that this immense prairie may be drained by lowering the St. Clair Lake, and some attempts have been ineffectually made to cultivate small portions of it near the mouth of the river, where there is a lighthouse. There were two huts, and people residing in them, with small garden patches of potatoes and peas. Forty acres had been ploughed by a settler, Mr. Thompson, of Chatham; but, although the soil is excellent, such is the vigorous growth of the grass, and the difficulty of getting rid of its roots, that it soon recovered its ancient domain. In fact, the wind spreads the seed rapidly; and as the kind is chiefly the blue-joint, it is almost impossible ever to get rid of it, unless the water-level is lowered, which is not very probable at present. CHAPTER XV. Engineer-officers have little leisure for Book-making--Caution against iced water--Lake St. Clair in a Thunderstorm--A Steaming-dinner--Detroit river and town--Windsor--Sandwich--Yankee Driver--Amherstburgh--French Canadian Politeness--Courtesy not costly--Good effects of the practice of it illustrated--Naked Indians--Origin of the Indians derived from Asia--Piratical attempt and Monument at Amherstburgh--Canadians not disposed to turn Yankees--Present state of public opinion in those Provinces--Policy of the Government--Loyalty of the People. A person employed actively in public life is a very bad hand to engage in book-making. I often wonder whether this trifle, now intended as an offering to the reading people, will ever get into print. A little memorandum-book supplies the _matériel_, and a tolerable memory the embellishment. An engineer-officer, of all other functionaries, needs a memory; settling at one moment the expenditure of vast sums; at another, looking into the merits of a barrack damage worth sixpence; then, field-officer of the day inspecting guards--next, making experiments on the destructive effects of gunpowder, commencing with a percussion-pistol, and ending with a mine; buying land, taking altitudes of the sun and of the moon, examining a Gunter's chain or a theodolite, sitting as member of a court-martial, or of a board of respective officers, or counting the gold and silver in the military chest; superintending a fortification of the most intricate Vaubanism; regulating the dip of the needle, or the density of the earth; putting an awkward squad through the most approved manoeuvres; studying the integral calculus, or the catenarian curve; bothered by Newton or La Place; reading German or Spanish; exploring Oregon, or any other terra incognita; building docks, supervising railways, surveying Ireland, governing a colony, conducting a siege, leading a forlorn hope; an Indian chief, or commanding an army (both the latter rather rare); well may his motto be, as that of his corps is, _Ubique_. So, gentle reader, if there is wandering in the matter of these pages, put it down, not to the want of method or manners, but to the want of time; for, even in a dull Canadian winter, it is only by fits and snatches that the mysteries of book-making can be practised. The intervals are uncertain, the opportunities few. At one hour, one is drawing one's sword; at the next, in one of the two drawing-rooms, namely, that where ladies congregate, and that in which steel-pens chiefly shine. But it is necessary, nevertheless, to go on with any thing one seriously begins; and, although the "art and practique part" of book-making is, considering the requisite labour of bad penmanship, rather disgusting, yet the giving "a local habitation and a name" to the ideas floating on the sensorium is pleasant enough. It would be better if one had a steam-pen, for I always find my ideas much more rapid than consists with a goose quill. The unbending of the mind in a trifle like the present is also agreeable; and if the reader only likes it, as much as it amuses me and it whiles away graver cares, and the every-day monotony of a matter-of-fact existence, so much the better. An engineer-officer has no time to become a _blasé_, but every body else is not in his position, and thus this "little boke" may be taken up with the morning paper, and your man of the world may be induced to go so far as to say, "Wild horses in Canada! I never heard of them before; I will positively read a page or two more some rainy morning." _Blasé_, dear _blasé_, if ever you should muster up courage to go to Canada for relief, and want to see the wild horses, pray do not go towards the end of July; and if you do, don't drink iced water on board the Brothers, with the thermometer at 100° Fahrenheit, as I did, from very exhaustion. An old farmer on board cautioned me, but I was proud and thirsty, and did the deed. Sorely was it repented of; for, when we landed at night, I was seized with a violent pain in the heart region, accompanied by great uneasiness and lassitude; and, it was not until after lying down quietly for several hours that the symptoms abated. I was, however, very well the next day, but will not drink iced water in the dog-days any more in Canada West. Yet the Yankees do it with impunity. We entered Lake St. Clair in a thunderstorm at half-past five, but, fortunately for us, in this shallow lake, averaging only three fathoms or eighteen feet in depth, the storm, which in other places was a tornado, did nothing but frighten us at a distance. It tore large trees up by the roots, and unroofed houses not many miles off; and, had it caught us with so much top-hamper as the steamboat had, perhaps we should have sounded the lake _in propriá personá_, without being witnesses as to its actual mysteries afterwards. We steamed on, however, near the south shore for twenty miles, and entered the Detroit, or Narrow St. Lawrence, before the light of day had vanished, observing islands, &c., and arrived safely at Windsor, at Iron's Inn, at ten p.m., having experienced the pleasures of an adverse gale and intense heat. The dinner on board was by no means a luxury, for, although very good, the company was numerous, the cabin near the boiler, all the dishes smoking, the room low and small, and the thermometer as aforesaid on deck, so that we literally were steaming, for it must have been close to the boiling point. Thursday morning, the 14th of July, was as hot as ever; and if I could, I would not have crossed over to the United States, where the famous city of Detroit stared me in the face on the other side of the river, about as broad as the Thames just below bridge. It was, like all recent American cities, very staring and very juvenile, with large piles of brick buildings scattered amidst white painted wooden ones, and covered an immense space, with many churches, looking very fine at a distance, an immense crowd of very large, bright, white, and green, coarsely painted and loosely built steam-vessels at the wharfs, and small, dirty, steam ferry-boats, constantly plying to and from the British shore. Windsor is a small village, scattered, as most Canadian villages are, with a little barrack, in which a detachment of the Royal Canadian Rifle corps is stationed, to watch the frontier. The Americans are now building a large fort on the opposite side. I left Windsor at nine a.m., in a light waggon and pair, and rolled along the bank of the river to Sandwich, the county or district town, two miles from Windsor, opposite to which the Americans are building a fortification of some size, but apparently only an extensive earth-work. It is a very pleasant drive along the banks of the Straitened River, or Detroit, close to the water, and occasionally in it, to refresh the horses. The population, chiefly French Canadians and Indians, occupy the roadside in detached farms; the Canadian huts and houses being, as in Lower Canada, invariably whitewashed and planted at short intervals. We saw the Indians both industrious and idle: some were hoeing maize, others harvesting wheat, and the _habitants_ were also very busy in the fields. The idle Indians, the most numerous, were lounging along the banks, under the shade of melancholy boughs, as naked as they were born, bathing, smoking, or making baskets. In the intense heat I envied them, and thought of the days of Paradise when tailors were not. We stopped in this intense heat at Maître Samondon's tavern, having passed Sandwich, which has church, chapel, jail, and court-house, and is plentifully inhabited by French, whose domiciles evidently date from its first settlement. I saw some of the largest pear-trees here that I had ever seen; they were as big as good-sized walnut-trees in England. We had a Yankee driver, a young fellow, whose ease and good-temper amused me very much. He had good horses, drove well, and had been in his time all sorts of things; the last trade, that of a mail-driver on the opposite shores, where, he said, the republic were going ahead fast, for they were copying Europeans, and had taken to robbing the mail by way of raising the wind; so that, in some place he mentioned in Pennsylvania, it was a service of danger to drive, for they fired out of the Bush and killed the horses occasionally. He told us several feats of his own against these robbers, but concluded by guessing that he should not have to carry a six-barrel Colt's revolver in Canaday; for "them French" never robbed mails. He drove us to Amherstburgh, through a rich and beautiful grain country, in four hours, eighteen miles, and we stopped an hour at Samondon's, where nothing but French was spoken, and a long discourse held upon the crops and the state of the country. As I had an orderly with me, and as red coats had not been seen in that part of the world since the rebellion, we caused some emotion and conversation on the road. A very old, garrulous French Canadian, who was smoking his pipe in the "kitchen and parlour and hall," came and sat by me, and, after beating about the bush a long time with all the "_politesse possible_," at length asked me who I was, and if the army was coming back among them. I told him who I was, a lieutenant-colonel of engineers; and the old Jean Jacques, after looking at me a minute or so, got up and fetched a small glass of whiskey and water, and with the best grace in the world presented it, with a cigar, taking another of both himself, and, touching his glass to mine in true French style, bowed and said, "_A votre santé, mon colonel_; you have got a devilish good place of it!" The French Canadians on the Detroit river were all loyal during the rebellion, and this old farmer was a sample of them. When the horses were fed, and I had, as is customary, treated the driver, we departed amidst the pleasing sounds of _Bien obligé, bon voyage_. If they had cheated me, I should have been content, so much is politeness worth; and the Canadian French peasant is a primitive being, and as polite as a baron of the _ancien régime_. It was quite refreshing in such hot weather to meet with a little civilization, after being occasionally witness to the reverse from the newest people in the world. _Il coute si peu._ How shocking, a sensitive _parvenu_ will say, to sit down in a common kitchen, and drink a glass of whiskey and water with peasants! It puts me in mind of a very fine young lady, whose grandfather had been a butcher, and her father none of the richest; who, being met in the streets with some threadpapers or small package of lace in her hand early on a cold day, said, to a gentleman who stopped to ask her how she did, "I am very well, I thank you; but this parcel makes my hand so cold!" Or, for a still finer illustration, I knew a _nouvelle riche_ who, not being addressed by a tradesman in a little town in his bill by a factitious title, to which she imagined that she had a right, sent back his letter open to the post-office, with an intimation to the postmaster that letters so improperly addressed would not be received. I have always perceived that a fuss about family and noble connections betrays either that the fuss-maker is naturally a vulgar soul, or that it is deemed necessary, from an excess of weakness, to support a position of an equivocal nature. A gentleman never derogates from his true position, let him be placed in whatever circumstances he may; and an over-fastidious traveller, or a pretender to great importance in a new country, is the most foolish of all foolish folks. I remember travelling once in the wild Bush with a person, who, from long-established military habits of command, thought that he could order everything as he liked. We were benighted at a farm-house, where the old lady proprietress eked out her livelihood by receiving casual visitors, but disdained the thought of "keeping tavern," as it is called, in the backwoods of Canada West. He ordered, rather peremptorily, supper and beds for two--it would have been better that he had ordered pistols and coffee for the same number, for then the dame would have looked upon him as simply mad. No notice whatever was taken of his demands, but I saw her choler rising; fortunately, I knew her character. We were many miles from any habitation: and the horses jaded out as well as ourselves; so I took no notice either; but, observing the dame take her seat in the old-fashioned ample chimney, I took another opposite to her, and, observing her commence lighting her pipe, asked her for one, and we puffed out volumes of smoke--those were my smoking days--for a long time at each other in perfect silence. At last, I broke the ice. "Mrs. Craig, your tobacco is bad; next time I come by, I will bring you some excellent."--A gracious nod!--We smoked on, and every now and then she condescended to speak upon indifferent subjects. At last, she got up and went into another room. I followed her; for I saw she wanted to speak to me without my friend.--"Who is that man?" quoth the dame.--"Colonel So and so," responded I.--"I don't care whether he be a colonel or a general; all I can say is, that he has got no manners; and the devil a supper or a bed shall he get here!"--"Oh, my good lady," said I, "he is not used to travel in the Bush, and is a stranger, and not over-young, as you see; besides, he is regularly tired out. Let me give him half my supper, and perhaps he can sleep in the chimney-corner. I don't care about a bed myself; pine branches will do for me, and an old buffalo robe, which I have in the waggon." She said nothing, but, returning to the kitchen, which is the common reception-room in country places, put a few eggs into the pot over the fire, and got the tea-pot. I saw several fine hams hanging to the rafters, so I took one down, got a knife, and was about to cut some slices to broil, when she stopped me. "You haven't got the best," says the old dame; "I shall cut you one myself." And so she did, spread the cloth, set two tea-cups, &c., and a capital supper we had, for a fine fowl was spitchcocked. After supper, Mother Craig asked me to smoke another pipe with her and her good man, who was lame and unable to work, and some of her sons, &c. came in from the fields. I missed her soon afterwards; but, after a quarter of an hour, she came in again, whispered that she wanted me, and I followed her. "It is time," said the dame, "for you to go to bed; for you must be up by candlelight to-morrow morning, as your journey is a long one; see if this will do." In an inner chamber were two beds; one a feather bed, the other a pine-branch one, with clean blankets, snow-white sheets, a night-cap of the best, water, &c. "That's your bed," said Mrs. Craig; "the other is for the colonel, as you call him. Good night; I will call you in the morning--take care, and put your candle out." I laughed in my sleeve, went out, called the colonel, who would have been otherwise left in the dark, for the family soon retired for the night, and I need not say gave him the best bed, as he thought; the best, however, I kept myself, for a bed of fresh pine shoots to a weary traveller in Canada is better than all the feather beds in the world, particularly in the New World. So much for life in the Bush; and I was then not quite so old as at present; but, even in youth, experience had taught me the utility of taking the world easy. My friend the colonel, next morning, after a sound sleep, said, "Whenever I am obliged to travel in the Bush, I wish you may be with me;" and old mother Craig, who is now no longer in this world, thought the next morning, as she afterwards said, that, after all, the colonel was not so bad as she had imagined. This is, for one may as well deprecate a little in talking about fastidiousness, not told by way of evincing superior knowledge of the world, but just to show you, gentle or simple reader, whichever you may be, that, in a sentimental journey through Canada, you must accommodate yourself a little to the manners and customs of the population, if you expect to get along quietly, and to form any just opinion of the country. When we saw the naked Indians under the wide-spreading trees, literally taking their ease, _sub tegmine fagi_, I thought that, if a Cockney could be transported in a balloon from Temple Bar right down here, what a barbarous land he would say Canada was, and his note-book would run thus: "Landed on the banks of a river twice as broad as the Thames, and saw the inhabitants burnt brown, and stark naked, under the trees. Oh, fie!" Really, however, there is nothing very startling in seeing a naked Indian, whether it is that the bronze colour of his red skin looks so artificial, or that white flesh is so rarely observed, except in fashionable ball-rooms, I do not know; but I do know that I should most unequivocally feel queer, if I suddenly saw twenty or thirty naked Cockneys squatting and smoking under the trees on the banks of the Serpentine River, even if the thermometer was at 110° at the moment. Such is custom. A naked Indian looks natural, and a naked Cockney would look _contra bonos mores_, to say the least of it. The Indian, whether dressed or undressed, is a modest man--not so always the Cockney; and there is an air of grandeur and natural freedom about the savage, which civilized man wants, or which modern coats, waistcoats, trowsers, and hats, are unquestionably not calculated to inspire. Look at the statue of a Roman Consul, or at Apollo Belvidere, in his scanty clothing, and then you will understand what I mean; or, what is better, look at your grandmother's picture, with her hair powdered, stomacher, and farthingale, and then at the Venus de Medicis, and you will know better, if you are a man of taste. How the American ladies, who do not admit such words as _naked_ or _legs_ into their vocabulary, there being an especial act of Congress forbidding females to use them, get over the difficulty of Indians in their war costume, has puzzled me not a little. To draw a curtain before an Indian chief would be rather a venturous affair, as he is a little sensitive; and, when well painted, thinks himself extremely _comme il faut_, and very well dressed. But _de gustibus non est disputandum_, and so forth. It is a queer country, this Amherstburgh country: French Canadians as primitive as Père Adam and Mère Eve; Indians of the old stock and of the new stock, that is to say, very few of the former, but a good many of the latter; owning both to French and to British half parentage; negroes in abundance; runaway slaves and their descendants, a mixture of all three; and plenty of loafers from the United States. In fact, it would seem as though Shem, Ham, and Japhet, had all representatives here, for Europeans and Americans of every possible caste are exhibited along this frontier, only I did not either see or hear of an Israelite; but some antiquarians contend that the Indians are a portion of the lost tribes. Their Asiatic origin is more decided. The feather of an eagle stuck in the warrior's hair is nothing more than the peacock's plume in a Tartar's bonnet. Then there is the patriarchal mode of government in the nations. Polybius says that the Carthaginians (Africans, by the way) scalped their enemies. The Kalmucks pluck out their beards, so do the Indians. The Pottawotamies, and most of the more savage tribes, like the Asiatics, look upon women as inferior in the scale of creation. White is a sacred colour, as in many parts of Asia. An Indian never eats with his guest, but serves him. Their nomadic life, their choice of war-chiefs, the difficulty of pronouncing labials, the use of the battleaxe or tomahawk, which is absolutely Tartarian, the worship of the Good and the Evil Spirit, form other points of resemblance. West says, that the emblems of the Indian nations are similar to those of the Israelitish tribes, and the Tartars fight under _totems_ of the wolf, the snake, the bear, &c., in the same way. The belief in a future state and in transmigration is similar, and the use of charms or amulets common to both Asiatics and Indians of America. The cross-legged sitting posture, and the Tartarian contour of the face and head, are very remarkable. I once saw an Indian chief, whose countenance was perfectly and purely Asiatic, and that of the Ganges rather than Mongolian. The shaven crown and single lock of hair are Asiatic and Chinese; and tattooing is common to both sides of the Pacific. A thousand other instances may be cited; but the strongest proof of all is the discovery of vast ruins in Mexico, which, as it is well known, contain indubitable proofs of a common origin of the people who built them with the Asiatics, and these ruins extend in a line through that country from Guatemala as far almost as the Colombia River; whilst South America produces edifices, not so extraordinary perhaps, but equally evincing that the worshippers of the Sun might claim descent from the Guebres and the Parsees. But to pursue this subject would lead me into a research which would consume both time and paper, and can only be adequately entered upon with great leisure. I have collected much upon this interesting subject, and, having bestowed great attention upon it, have not much doubt upon the matter. Singular discoveries are occasionally made in opening the Canadian forests, though it would seem that ancient civilization had been chiefly confined to the western shores of the Andean chain, exclusive of Mexico only. In a former volume was described a vase of Etruscan shape, which was discovered during the operations of the Canada Company, near the shores of Lake Huron, and vast quantities of broken pottery, of beautiful forms, are often turned up by the plough. I have a specimen, of large size, of an emerald green glassy substance, which was unfortunately broken when sent to me, but described as presenting a regular polygonal figure: two of the faces, measuring some inches, are yet perfect. It is a work of art, and was found in the virgin forest in digging. But we are at Amherstburgh, otherwise called Malden, a small town of two parallel streets and divergencies, famous for a miserable fort, for Negroes, Indians, fine straw hats, wild turkeys, rattlesnakes, and loyalty. I shall never forget the heat of this place, having had the exceeding luxury of a sitting-room to myself, quite large enough to turn round in, with one door and one window, and a bed-closet off it, without the latter. If ever a mortal was fried without a gridiron, it was the inhabitant of that bed-closet; and right glad was I the next day to get into a gallant row-boat, belonging to the commandant of the Canadian riflemen, rowed by a gallant crew, and take the air on the River Detroit, as well as the breezes on Bois Blanc Island. Bois blanc, in Western Canadian parlance, is the white wood tree, with which this island formerly abounded, and now converted into several blockhouses for its defence. Amherstburgh was the scene of piratical exploit during the rebellion, and bravely did the militia beat off the _soi-disant+ general and his sympathizing vagabond patriots; but this is a page of Canadian history for hereafter, and need not be repeated here. The sufferers have had a monument erected to their memory in these words by the spirited inhabitants:-- This Monument is erected by the Inhabitants of Amherstburgh, in memory of Thomas Mac Cartan, Samuel Holmes, Edwin Millar, Thomas Symonds, of H.M. 32nd Regiment of Foot, and of Thomas Parish, of the St. Thomas Volunteer Cavalry, who gloriously fell in repelling a band of Brigands from Pelé Island, on the 3rd March, 1838. Many of those who escaped from this villanous aggression upon a people at peace with the United States afterwards lost their lives from exposure to cold at such a season, the coldest portion of a Canadian winter, and misery and distress were brought home to the bosom of many a sorrowing family. The annexation of Canada was contemplated by these hordes of semi-barbarians, the offscouring of society, bred in bar-rooms. Alas! for poor human nature, should this scum ever overlay the surface of American freedom! It would indeed be the nightmare of intellect, the incubus of morality. A commonwealth well managed may be a decent government for an honest man to exist under, but a _loaferism_, to use a Yankee term, would indeed be frightful. The recklessness of life among the least civilized portions of the States is quite sufficient already, without its assuming a power and a place. That there is at present but little prospect for American dominion taking root in Canada, is evident to every person well acquainted with the country, although dislike to British rule and "the baneful domination" is also obvious enough among a large class of inhabitants, who are swayed by a small portion of the press, and by disappointed speculators in politics--men who have lost high offices, for which they were never fitted, either by capacity or connection with the best interests of the people, and who allied themselves to the French Canadian party merely to accomplish their own ends. The real substance, or, as Cobbett called it, the bone and marrow of Canada, is not composed of needy politicians or of reckless adventurers, caring not whether they plunge their adopted country into all the horrors of revolution or of anarchy. A man possessing a few hundred acres of land, with every comfort about him, paying no taxes but those for the improvement of his property, feeling the government rein only as a salutary check to lawlessness, and looking stedfastly abroad, is not very likely, for abstract notions of right and equality, to sacrifice reality, or to suppose that Mr. Baldwin, amiable as he is, is infallible: whilst Mr. Baldwin himself, the ostensible, but not the real leader of the out-and-out reformers, will pause before he even dreams of alienating the country in which he, from being a very poor man originally, has, through the industry and talent of his father, and a fortuitous train of circumstances, connected with the rise and progress of the city of Toronto, and the rise of the price of land as Canada advances in population and wealth, become a great land-holder. I have no idea that this Corypheus of Canadian reform has the most remote idea of annexing Canada to the United States, or that he is mentally fighting for anything more than an Utopia similar to that of O'Connell in Ireland. In short, the grand struggle of the radical reform party of Upper Canada has been, and for which they joined the French Canadian party, to have a repeal of the union as far as control over the provincial funds and offices exists, on the side of England. They would have no objection to see a British prince on the Canadian throne, or a British viceroy sitting at the council board of Montreal, but they want to be governed without the intervention of the colonial office; and perhaps, rather than not have the loaves and fishes at their own entire disposal, they would in the end go so far as to desire entire separation from the Mother Country, and seek the armed protection of that enormous power which is so rapidly rising into notice on their borders. But then they calculate--for there is a good sprinkling of Jonathanism in their ranks--that that enormous power is grasping at too much already, defying the whole world, and seeking to establish a perfectly despotic dominion itself over the whole continent which Columbus and Cabot discovered, and not excluding the archipelago of the Western Indies. They live too near the littorale of the Republic, or rather the democracy of America, not to see hourly the effects of Lynch law and mob rule; and, however some of the most daring or reckless among them may occasionally employ that very mob rule to intimidate and carry elections, they very well know that the peaceable inhabitants of both Canadas are too respectable and too numerous to permit such courses to arrive at a head. Once rouse the yeomanry of Canada West, and their energies would soon manifest themselves in truly British honesty and British feeling. John Bull is not enamoured of the tender mercies of canallers and loafers, and the French Canadian peasantry and small farmers are innocent of the desire to imitate the heroes of Poissardism. No person in public life can judge better of the feelings of the people as a mass, in Canada, than those who have commanded large bodies of the militia. Put the query to any officer in the army who has had such a charge, and the universal answer will be: "The militia of Canada are loyal to Britain, without vapouring or boasting of that loyalty; for they are not by natural constitution a very speaking race, or given at every moment to magnify; but they will fight, should need be, for Victoria, her crown, and dignity." It may be said that an officer in the army is not the best judge of the feelings of the people, as they would not express them in his presence; but when an officer has been intimately mingled with them by such events as those of the troubles of 1837 and 1838, and has so long known the country, the case is altered; he comes to have a personal as well as a general knowledge of all ranks, degrees, and classes, and can weigh the ultimate objects of popular expression. I have no hesitation in saying, possessed as I have been of this knowledge, that _the people_ of Canada have not a desire to become independent now, any more than they have a desire to be annexed to and fraternize with the United States. Many years ago, on my first visit to Canada, in 1826, when such a thing as expressions of disloyalty was almost unknown, and long before Mackenzie's folly, I remember being struck with the speech at a private dinner party of a person who has since held high office, respecting the independence of Canada: he observed that it must ultimately be brought about. The colony then was in its mere infancy, and this person no doubt had dreams of glory, although in outward life he was one of the most uncompromising of the colonial ultra-tories. Just before the rebellion broke out, I was conversing with another person, now no more, of a similar stamp, but possessing much more influence, who began to be alarmed for his extensive lands, all of which he had obtained by grants from the Crown, and he feared that the time specified by the first-mentioned person had arrived. His observations to me were revelations of an astounding nature; for he thought that we were too near a republic to continue long under a monarchy, and that, in fact, absurd titles, such as those borne by the then governor, Sir Francis Head, alluding to his being merely a knight bachelor, were likely to create contempt in Canada, instead of affection. My friend, who, like the first-mentioned, was rather weak, although acute enough when self-interest was concerned, was evidently casting about in his mind's eye for a new order of things, in which to secure _his_ property and _his_ official influence. Lord Sydenham and Lord Durham saw and knew a great deal of this vacillation among all parties in Canada. They saw that the great game of the leaders was office, office, office; and when Lord Metcalfe had had sufficient time to discover the real state of the country, he saw it too. Hence arose the absolute necessity for removing the seat of government from Toronto to Kingston. The ultra-tories were just as troublesome as the ultra-levellers, and it was requisite to neutralize both, by getting out of the sphere of their hourly influence. The inhabitants of Kingston, a naval and military town, whose revenues had been chiefly derived from those sources, were loyal, without considering it of the utmost consequence that their loyalty should form the basis of every government, or that the governor was not to open his mouth, or use his pen, unless by permission. They were the true medium party. Then arose the desire to do justice to the Gallo-Canadians, who had before been wholly neglected, and looked upon as too insignificant to have any voice in public affairs, whilst they were mistrusted also, owing to the Papineau demonstration. The British government, superior to all these petty colonial interests, saw at once that to ensure loyalty it was only proper to administer justice impartially to all creeds and to all classes, and that the French Canadians, whose numbers were at least equal to the British Canadians, had a positive right to be heard and a positive claim to be equitably treated. There was no actual innate desire in the Canadian mind to shake off the British domination for that of the democracy of the United States. An absurd notion had gathered strength in 1837 that they were at last powerful enough to set up for themselves, to constitute _la Nation Canadienne_, forgetting that Great Britain could swallow them up at a mouthful, and that the Americans would, if John Bull did not. The proclamation of General Nelson or Brown, or some such patriot, set the affair in its true point of view. No longer any religion was to be predominant; the feudal laws were to be abolished; and the celebrated ninety-two resolutions, which had cost Papineau and his legion so much care and anxiety, were swept away as if they were dust. A Jack Cade had started up, whose laws were to be administered at the point of the bayonet. The eyes of the leading French Canadians, gentlemen of education, were soon opened, and the vision of glory evaporated into thin air. But still they felt themselves oppressed, they enjoyed not the coveted rights of subjects of England; and accordingly the successive governments of Lord Durham, Lord Sydenham, and Sir Charles Bagot were eras of political struggles to obtain it. Lord Metcalfe had had experience in colonies of long standing, had been successful, bore the character of a just, patient, and decided man, and had wealth enough to cause his independence to be respected. The fight for supremacy between the ultra-tory and ultra-radical parties became fiercer and more fierce, and it was dolefully augured that the province was lost to England, as he would not yield to the haughty demands of the first, nor to the threats and menaces of the latter. When the Baldwin ministry was dismissed, even cautious people were heard to say, that new troubles were at hand; and the ultra-tories did not scruple to avow that the country was in danger, unless they were readmitted to power. Placed between these belligerents, Lord Metcalfe, who kept his own counsel to the last secret and undivulged, steered a course which has hitherto worked well. He chose a medium party, and removed the seat of government to Montreal, not in the heart of French Canada, as it is supposed in England, but within a few miles of British Canada and close to the eastern townships, where a British population is dominant, whilst in the city itself British interests surpass all others; it being the heart and lungs of the Canadian mercantile world, whilst it has the advantage of easy steam communication with Quebec, the seat of military power, and with Upper Canada, both by the St. Lawrence and the Rideau Canals. The French, no longer neglected and seeing the seat of government permanently located in their country, seeing also that they had been admitted to share power and office, have been tranquillized; and the result of the elections placed Lord Metcalfe comparatively at ease, and rendered the task of his successor less onerous. Had his health been spared, the blessing of his wise rule would long have been felt. He is deeply and universally regretted throughout Canada. As a proof of the loyalty of the Canadians, it is right to mention that, whilst I am penning these pages, the press is teeming with calls to the volunteers and militia to sustain Britain in the Oregon war; and, because the militia is not prematurely called out, the administrator of the government is attacked on all sides. Whilst I am writing, the Hibernian Society, in an immense Roman Catholic procession, passes by. There are four banners. The first is St. Patrick, the second Queen Victoria, the third Father Matthew, the fourth the glorious Union flag. Reader, it is the 17th of March, St. Patrick's Day, and the band plays God save the Queen! CHAPTER XVI. The Thames Steamer--Torrid Night--"The Lady that helped" and her Stays--Port Stanley--Buffalo City--Its Commercial Prosperity--Newspaper Advertisements--Hatred to England and encouragement of Desertion--General Crispianus--Lake Erie in a rage--Benjamin Lett--Auburn Penitentiary--Crime and Vice in the Canadas--Independence of Servants--Penitentiaries unfit for juvenile offenders--Inefficiency of the Police--Insolence of Cabmen--Carters--English rule of the road reversed--Return to Toronto. The heat at Amherstburgh was so desiccating, that I was glad to leave even my urbane host, serjeant-major as he had been of a royal regiment, and his crowded though clean and comfortable inn, for the spacious deck of the splendid Canadian steamer Thames, Captain Van Allan, on board of which was to be enjoyed the absolute luxury of a spacious state-room upon deck. Alas for the roomy state-room! even in its commodious berth, rest could not be enjoyed, for the night was a torrid one; nothing in the Western Indies could beat it, only there was no yellow fever, although plenty of yellow countenances presented themselves on the shoulders of Americans from the South, and coloured waiters; but that which actually at last put me in a fever was the sight of the female attendant of the ladies' cabin, whose form was so buckled up in stays of the most rigid order, that the heat, American-bred as she was, appeared to have rendered her a Niobe, for she was tall and as straight as a poplar-tree, and much of the colour of its inner rind. Oh! the heat, the intolerable heat, on Lake Erie that night! The worthy captain declared he had never experienced its like, and that as for rest it was impracticable. If the lady's-maid, or "the lady that helped" in the ladies' cabin, as she is called in American boats, kept her stays on that night, Heaven help her! She must have been in a greater state of despair than the man in armour on Lord Mayor's day, who requires to go to bed after a warm bath, the moment he takes his stays off. But we steamed on, and the boilers themselves were not a whit hotter than we were. How the stokers stood it is a marvel to this day. I suffered dreadfully with the prickly heat, as if in the West Indies. The Thames is the most splendid boat on Lake Erie, and that is saying a good deal; for the Americans have so many, and several so much larger than this Britisher, that it is a matter of surprise that she should beat them all in convenience, build, and speed; and yet, according to received opinion, the Yankee builders of vessels excel us "by a long chalk," to use a Yankee figure of speech. It is so, however, and is so acknowledged on both sides of the water, that the Thames, Captain Van Allan, takes the shine out of them all. We started from Amherstburgh, where she called on her way from Detroit, and left Bullock's inn for the steamer which was close at hand, at nine o'clock p.m., and got under steam and travelled all night at a most rapid rate, nor stopped until eight a.m., the next morning, at Port Stanley, formerly called Kettle Creek, a small village with a fine parallel pier harbour, which, unlike Amherstburgh, has thriven amazingly during the past seven years, before which I recollect it to have consisted of about three or four houses. It is now a thriving village; and, as it has a planked road reaching far into the interior, is every day going ahead. The plank road leads to London, twenty-six miles distant. The piers of this artificial harbour are much too narrow, consequently it is dangerous to approach in stormy weather; and, as Lake Erie is a very turbulent little ocean, they must be modified some day or other, whenever the Board of Works is rich enough. We took in several passengers here, mostly Americans touring, and the vessel was now full, for we had a large proportion of the same class from Detroit. They were chiefly people from the hotter regions of the States, and resembled each other remarkably; sallow, sharp-angled, acute-looking physiognomies: the men tall and loosely jointed; the women prematurely old, and not very handsome. They were quiet and respectable in their manners and demeanour; in fact, too quiet, contrasting strongly in this respect with the real, genuine Yankee. We reached Buffalo at seven in the evening, after encountering a thunderstorm, which appeared to be very severe towards the shores of the American side of Lake Erie. Such a mob as poured on board the vessel, after she had with much difficulty threaded the inconvenient, narrow, muddy creek on which Buffalo is located, I never beheld before: blacks and whites, browns and yellows, cabmen and carters, porters and tavern-scouts, pickpockets and free and enlightened citizens. How the passengers got their baggage conveyed to their hotels, or dwellings, is beyond my art to imagine. Insolent and daring, if these be a pattern mob, Heaven defend us Britishers from democracy! for freedom reigns at Buffalo in a pattern of the newest, which the seldomer copied the better. But one must not judge the money-getting citizens of this fine town by the scenes in the Wapping part of it; for, if one did, it would necessarily be said that they were not an enviable race. Buffalo, a mere wooden village, burnt during the war of 1812, is now a large and flourishing city, containing 30,000 inhabitants; and, if it had a good harbour, would soon rival New York. To prove this, I beg the reader to take the trouble to peruse the accompanying statement of the present commerce of that city, from the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser of January 10, 1846, by which it will be seen that in the year 1845 the increase of vessels trading with it was enormous, and that by the Welland Canal, or an American ship canal, round the Falls of Niagara, they already contemplate a direct trade with Europe in British bottoms. "There has been a prodigious accession to the Lake marine during the past season--no less than sixty vessels, whose aggregate tonnage is over 13,000 tons, and at an outlay of 825,000 dollars. Had we not the evidence before us, the assertion would stagger belief. "More than usual pains were taken by us, during the past season, to procure information on this head and others touching thereto, the result of which we now present in our annual list of new vessels. This season we have ventured beyond the immediate margin of Lake Erie, and those other broad lakes beyond, to Lake Ontario, a knowledge of whose marine is now deemed essential to a thorough understanding of our lake matters. NUMBER, TONNAGE, AND ESTIMATED COST OF NEW VESSELS BUILT IN 1845, FROM THIS CITY WESTWARD TO CHICAGO. Name. Class. Tons. Where built. Dollars. Niagara steamer 1,075 Buffalo 95,000 Oregon ... 781 Newport, Michigan 55,000 Boston ... 775 Detroit 55,000 Superior ... 567 Perrysburg, O. 45,000 Troy ... 547 Maumee City, O. 40,000 London ... 456 Chippewa, C. W. 46,000 Helen Strong ... 253 Monroe, Michigan 22,000 John Owen ... 205 Truago, do. 20,000 Romeo ... 180 Detroit, do. 12,000 Enterprise ... 100 Green Bay, W. T. 8,000 Empire, 2nd steamer 100 Grand Rapids, Mic. 8,000 Algomah ... 100 St. Joseph River, do. 8,000 Pilot ... 80 Union City, do. 5,000 Princeton propeller 456 Perrysburg, O. 40,000 Oregon ... 313 Cleveland, O. 18,000 Phoenix ... 305 ditto 22,000 Detroit ... 290 Detroit, Michigan 15,000 Odd Fellow brig 225 Cleveland, O. 9,000 Enterprise ... 267 Grand Rapids, Mich. 8,000 Wing-and-wing schooner 228 Cleveland, O. 9,000 Magnolia ... 200 Charlestown, O. 2,000 Scotland ... 300 Perrysburg, O. 8,000 J. Y. Seammon ... 134 Chicago, Ill. 8,000 Napoleon ... 250 Sault Ste Marie 8,000 Freeman ... 190 Charleston, O. 7,500 Eagle ... 180 Sandusky, O. 7,000 Bonesteel ... 150 Milwaukie, W. T. 6,000 Sheppardson ... 130 ditto 5,000 Rockwell ... 120 ditto 5,000 E. Henderson ... 110 ditto 4,500 Rainbow ... 117 Sheboygan 4,000 C. Howard ... 103 Huron, O. 4,000 J. Irwin ... 101 Cleveland, O. 4,000 Avenger ... 78 Cottesville, Michigan 3,000 Flying Dutchman ... 74 Madison, O. 4,000 Cadet ... 72 Cleveland, O. 3,500 W. A. Adair ... 61 ditto 3,000 Elbe ... 57 ditto 3,000 Planet ... 24 ditto 3,000 Albany ... 148 Raised and re-rigged 2,503 Pilot ... 50 Milwaukie, W. T. 2,500 Mary Anne schooner 60 Milwaukie, W. T. 1,000 Marinda ... 60 Lexington, Michigan 3,000 Sparrow ... 50 Chora, ditto 2,500 Big B. ... 60 18 mile creek, 2,500 Hard Times ... 45 ditto 1,500 Friendship sloop 45 Sheboygan, W. T. 2,000 Buffalo ... 30 New Buffalo, Mich. 1,000 ------ ------- Total, 48 vessels 10,207 659,000 "During the past season we stated that there was employed on the lakes a marine equal to 80,000 tons; we have assurance now that even that large estimate was below the reality. The latest returns to Congress, in 1843, gave 60,000 tons; but, as those documents are always a year or two behind the reality, and embrace dead as well as living vessels, they are of very little consequence. The existing and employed tonnage is what is most desired. The subjoined shows the number, class, tonnage, and cost of vessels built on this and the other upper lakes during the past five seasons. By adding the cost of annual repairs and money expended in enlarging and re-modelling vessels, the sum would reach 2,500,000 dollars. The total number of vessels built during that period is 179. Steamers. Prop'rs. Sail. Tons. Dollars. 1845 13 4 32 10,207 659,000 1844 9 none 34 9,145 548,000 1843 6 4 23 4,830 336,000 1842 2 none 23 3,000 164,000 1841 1 none 28 3,530 173,000 -- ---- --- ------ --------- Total 31 8 140 30,302 1,880,000 "The whole of the above vessels were built above the Falls, at places between this port and Chicago, by capital drawn from the many sources legitimately pertaining to the lake business, and designed as a permanent investment. What has been done below Niagara, in the same field, during the past season, may be seen in the subjoined list of VESSELS BUILT ON LAKE ONTARIO, 1845. Syracuse propeller 315 Oswego, N. Y. H. Clay ... 300 Dexter, do. Hampton brig 300 Pt. Peninsula, do. T. Wyman ... 258 Oswego, do. Algomah ... 335 Cape Vincent, do. Wabash ... 314 Sack. Harbour, do. Crispin ... 151 ditto Liverpool ... 350 Garden Is., C.W. Quebec brig 280 Long Island, do. H. H. Sizer schooner 242 Pillar Point, N.Y. Maid of the Mill ... 200 Oswego, do. Milan ... 147 Pt. Peninsula, do. H. Wheaton ... 200 Oswego, do. Welland ... 220 ditto Josephine ... 175 ditto --- Total 15 vessels, 3,787 tons. "To which must be added the schooner J. S. Weeks, rebuilt and enlarged at Point Peninsula, at a heavy outlay; and also the schooner Georgiana Jenia, at St. Catharine's, which was cut in two, and rebuilt. The Josephine and Wyman are rebuilds, but so thoroughly as almost to fall within the denomination of new craft. The Wyman is polacca-rigged, the only one in service, we think. The Algomah is full rigged, and, like the others, very strongly built. The Quebec and Liverpool are also well ironed, and designed for Atlantic service, when the St. Lawrence locks will admit of a free passage. "There have been built on the lower lake other vessels than those embraced in the above list, including some steamers; and, in order to give our exchanges an opportunity to present the entire number and amount of expense, we omit any estimate of the cost and general outlay of the vessels named above. Applying our data, however, we make the outlay 25,000 dollars each, for the two propellers, and 127,000 dollars for the fifteen sail vessels, being a total of 177,000 dollars. "Of some sixty steamers now owned on the lake (Erie), there are required for the several lines, when the consolidation exists, about thirty boats. There are also used, at the same time, some ten more small boats, between intermediate ports, for towing, &c., to which we also add the London and four others, belonging to and owned in Canada. There are also fourteen propellers, and ten more to be added on the opening of navigation in the spring, with fifty brigs and two hundred and seventy schooners, known to be in commission, giving the annexed summary of lake tonnage:-- Tons. Dollars. Steamers 60 21,500 1,500,000 Propellers 20 6,000 350,000 Brigs 50 11,000 } Schooners 270 42,000 } 2,000,000 --- ------ --------- Total 400 80,000 4,050,000 "In this we enumerate the seven Oswego propellers, and such sail craft belonging to Lake Ontario only as we know participate in the business of the upper lakes. "_On the stocks._--The desire to invest farther capital in vessels is seen in the number of new craft now on the stocks at various places throughout the whole range of the lakes. At this early day, we hear of the following to be rapidly pushed towards completion: "At this port, a steamer of 750 tons, for Mr. Reed, the iron steamer Dallas, of 370 tons, for government, and three propellers of large size; at Chippewa, C. W., a large steamer; at Euclid, O., a brig of 290 tons; at Conneaut, O., a brig of 300 tons; at Cleveland, O., a steamer of 700 tons, three propellers of 350 tons each, a brig of 280 tons, a schooner of 230 tons, and another of 70 tons, all to be out early; at Charleston, O., a steamer of 800 tons, a propeller of 350 tons, and a schooner of 200 tons. An Oswego house has an interest in the propeller: at Maumee City, O., two propellers of 350 tons each; at Truago, Michigan, a large steamer of 225 feet keel, for Captain Whitaker; at Detroit, a large steamer for Mr. Newbury, another for Captain Gager, and a third, of the largest class, for Captain Randall; at Palmer, Michigan, a propeller for Captain Easterbrooks; at Newport, Michigan, a steamer for the Messrs. Wards, and the frame of another but smaller boat, for the same firm, to run between Detroit and Port Huron. "At Goderich, C. W., or vicinity, a propeller; at Milwaukie, a barque and brig, of large tonnage, 300 each. One of these vessels is nearly planked up already, and will be down with a cargo of wheat as soon as the straits are navigable; at Depere, W. T., a large-sized schooner, and a yacht of 70 tons; at Chicago, a large brig, or schooner, for Captain Parker, late of the Indiana; at St. Catherine's, C. W., a brig; and at the mouth of the Genesee River a propeller, for a Rochester company, making, in all, ten steamers, twelve propellers, and twelve sail vessels--thirty-four in all." Another American paper, in its remarks on the preceding article, furnishes some additional information. "The introduction of steam upon the lakes was gradual, yet commensurate with our wants. From the building of the second boat, in 1822, to the launch of the Sheldon Thompson, at Huron, in 1830, six or seven small steamers had only been put in commission, and for the ensuing four years a press of business kept in advance of the facilities. But the zeal and extended desire to invest capital in new steamers was reached in 1837-8, when no less than thirty-three boats, with an aggregate of 11,000 tons, were built at an outlay of 1,000,000 dollars. This period points to the maximum, and then came the reaction. In 1840, only one steamer came off the stocks, and the same prostration and dearth in this department continued for three years, when it again received a new and fresh impulse, and now presents one of the leading characteristics of investment in our inland trade. The sum of 1,000,000 dollars has been diverted from other channels of business to this branch within the past two years, in addition to a very large outlay in sail vessels; and as the wants of commerce develop, some marked changes may be observed. The small, or medium-sized boats, into which the merchant farmer and foreign immigrant were indiscriminately huddled, have given place to capacious, swift, and stately vessels, in which are to be found a concentration of all that is desirable in water conveyance. Such is now the characteristic of steamboat building on the western lake. "The following is the number and value of vessels owned and exclusively engaged in the trade of Upper Canada in 1844:-- Dollars. 51 Steamers valued at 1,220,000 5 Propellers 46,000 80 Sail Vessels 114,000 --------- Total, 136 Vessels 1,380,000 Having employed thereon 3,000 men. "The whole number of men employed between Buffalo and Chicago is estimated at about 5,000. During the season of non-navigation, half of these are employed upon farms in Ohio. "Demonstrable evidence from many sources is at command to show the progressive change and accumulative power of the lake trade. In 1827, a steamer first visited Green Bay, for government purposes, and the Black Hawk war in 1832 drew two boats to Chicago for the first time. Now the trade of the latter place, in connexion with the business growing out of the rapid settlement of Wisconsin, sustains a daily line. A glance at the trade of Chicago for last year will illustrate the change that has taken place there. "The gross tonnage of the lakes above the Falls, in 1845, was 100 vessels and 80,000 tons. This spring it will be found to have augmented from 5,000 to 10,000 tons. "In 1845, the whole number of arrivals at the port of Buffalo was 1,700. Last season, 1,320 entries were made at Chicago. The entries at the port of Buffalo for 1845 were-- Steamers 42 tons 18,000 Arriv. 1,000 Ag. ton. 385,167 Propellers 9 2,550 ... 76 ... 23,477 Brigs 46 10,000 ... } ... Schooners 211 40,000 ... } 1,625 ... 50,818 --- ------ ------- Total 308 70,550 611,235 "From a valuable table given by the "Commercial Advertiser," we learn that the _available_ steam marine of the lakes is 60 steamers, and a tonnage of 30,000 tons. This is irrespective of 20 propellers." If the spirit of trade _locates_ any where on this earth of ours, it does so specially at Buffalo, where dollars and cents, cents and dollars, occupy almost every thought of almost every mind. It is very amusing to look at the advertisements in a Buffalo paper. I shall give two or three as specimens. Another Lot of those worsted dress goods, at one dollar a pattern, received this morning. A. Wattles. French Corded Skirts. Another lot of those French corded skirts just received, and for sale at J. G. Latimer's, 216, Main Street. Crash, Crash. Pure linen crash, slightly damaged, at half price at Wattles' Cheap Store. What kind of goods do you want? Ladies and gentlemen can find every kind of goods they may wish, in the dry goods line, at Garbutt's, plain or fanciful, any kind of dress you are in want of. Call at the Big Window, 204, Main Street. Running off again. After Friday next, I shall commence running off my beautiful stock of Paris muslins and Balzorines, at great reduction. N. B. Palmer, 194, Main Street. History of Oregon, by George Wilkes, 25 cents. T. S. Hawkes. Gaiter Pants made to order, No. 11, Pearl Street. E. W. Smith. Voice of the People. Need not force them down. Sugar-coated Indian vegetable pills. G. B. Smith. Illustrations of the most ridiculous kinds show that newspaper advertisements must be very cheap indeed, for everything literally, from a washing-tub to a steamboat, is advertised daily for sale at Buffalo. Buffalo is a sample city of the lake frontier of the United States, better than Rochester, a more manufacturing mill-power place; a specimen of what enterprise, energy, and paper money credit can do: a specimen of the border population, where hatred to England reigns supreme among the lower classes, and where a residence of six months would quite cure any English ultra-radical destructive of good education; an ultra-radical destructive of no education, or half educated, would, however, be vastly improved. I had a soldier with me, and he asked leave to go on shore, which I freely granted, convinced, from what I knew of him, that he was proof against Buffalonian eloquence. He had scarcely stepped out of the vessel, on the wharf, in plain clothes, before he was hailed by a deserter, who was doing duty as a porter to some shopkeeper, and told of the delights of liberty and independence; but the porter had left the regiment for a little false estimate of the words _meum_ and _tuum_, and therefore the old soldier declined turning from the carrying of Brown Bess[1] to being a beast of burden. He was then assailed by a sergeant, who had been obliged to desert for misconduct in a pecuniary point of view, and shown into a little grog-shop on the quay, that he was keeping; but appearances were here not very flattering either: in short, the deserter is not at a premium in the United States, for he is always suspected. Strange to say, these men are occasionally enlisted in the regular American army; a proof of which was witnessed last winter at Sackett's Harbour, where some of our officers from Kingston saw a man who had been received, and who had deceived all the American officers, except the surgeon. This gentleman, suspecting he was not a free and enlightened citizen, although he assumed the drawl and guess, suddenly said to him, "Attention!" upon which the deserter immediately dropped his hands straight, and stood, confessed, a soldier. [Footnote 1: Brown Bess, a musket--_vide Infantry Dictionary._] It would appear that in peace-time deserters should not be received into the ranks of a friendly power. Even in war, they are received by European nations with difficulty and distrust; for a man who once voluntarily breaks his oath and casts off his allegiance is very likely to be a double traitor. The deserters from the regiments stationed in Canada frequently apply to be received back, but it is a rule to refuse them; and very properly so. It is incredible what pains are taken on the frontier, by the loafing population from the States, to persuade the young soldiers to desert; and that, too, without any adequate prospect of benefit, but merely out of hatred, intense hatred, to England; for they soon leave the unfortunate men, who usually are plied with liquor, to their fate, when once in the land of liberty; and this fate is almost invariably a very miserable one. The soldier I had with me told me that, while we were at the Falls, a man made up to him at the hotel, for he was then in uniform, being on the British side, and introduced himself as a general, saying that he was surprised he could remain in such a service, and volunteered to place him in their army, which he laughed at, and told him he preferred Queen Victoria's. This man he described to me as a gentleman, in his dress and manner; but, if he was a general, he was certainly a militia one, for the regular generals are not very plenty; and, from what I have heard of them, are above such meanness. We had a military general, who is, I believe, a shoemaker of Buffalo or of New York, at Kingston last winter, who gave out that he had crossed over the ice to see if it was true that fortifications were actually in progress at Kingston. He met a keen young gentleman, who was determined to have a little fun with General Crispianus, who was attired in a fine furred, frogged, winter coat, and pointed Astracan cap, with a heavy tassel of silk. "So you are at work here, I guess?" "Yes," said the young gentleman, "we are." "Well, I do hope you will be prepared in Kanaday, for though we don't approve some of our president's notions, we shall sustain him to a man; and, as soon as ever war is declared, we shall pour two or three hundred thousand men into your country and annex it." "Oh, is that all!" replied the youth; "I advise you then, general, to take care of yourself, for we expect sixty thousand regulars from England." "I didn't hear that before," said General Crispianus; and no doubt he returned to his last somewhat discomfited. _Ne sutor ultra crepidam._ Before his departure, however, he went to see a newly invented pile-driver, which was at work, and, after looking at the _monkey_ for some time, which was raised and lowered by two horses, and drove the piles very quickly, with enormous power, he said to his friend suddenly, "Waal, I swar, that does act sassy." So much for General Crispianus. We passed the night aboard of the Thames, preferring her spacious accommodations to those of the hotels in such a hot season, when the rain poured in torrents; but sleep was out of the question, for the climate of Sierra Leone could scarcely be more insufferable than the atmosphere then and there. The rain cleared away in the morning, and a prospect of Lake Erie in a rage presented itself; so we could not quit the miserable apology for a harbour which Buffalo Creek affords, crowded, narrow, and nasty, until half past nine, and then, with great difficulty, on board the Emerald, a small Canadian steamboat, worked out amidst a string or maze of all sorts of merchant-craft. Lake Erie presented an appearance exactly like the shallow sea, green and foamy, and very angry; and, in passing the shoals at the entrance of the Niagara river, it rolled the boat so that there was some danger; and one old lady vowed that she would never quit the United States any more. A nice comfortable-looking Massachusetts farmer, the very type of a Buckinghamshire grazier of the year 1800, who was her husband, took a fancy to me because I was endeavouring to assure his old dame that she was not in real danger, and told me various stories, for he was very loquacious. Among other things, he said it was very disgraceful to the Buffalonians to allow such a miscreant as Benjamin Lett, whom we saw on the wharf, be at large, as he boasted of having blown up Brock's monument, and of shooting Captain Ussher in cool blood at his own door in the night, long after all the disturbances of the insurrection were over. Lett seemed to glory in his villanies, and was a disgusting-looking loafer, for whose punishment the laws of the United States have proved either too lenient or totally inadequate. This fellow escaped when heavily ironed by jumping out of a rail car on his way to the Auburn Penitentiary, and no doubt has many admirers. The good farmer told me that he had been to see Auburn, and that there was a little boy confined there for setting fire to a barn. He was only eleven years of age, and had been hired for half a dollar by a ruffian to do the deed. But Auburn (what a misnomer for a penitentiary establishment, enough to make poor Goldsmith shiver in his shroud!) is not the only penitentiary in America where children expiate crime. Kingston in Canada can show several examples, among others, three brothers; and it appears to me that a better system is required in both countries. A house of correction for such juvenile offenders would surely be better than to mix them in labour with the hardened villains of a penitentiary. It is, in fact, punishing thought before it has time to discriminate, and the consequence is that these children return youths to the same place, and when they again leave it as youths, they return as men, for their minds are then callous. The penitentiary system in Canada is undergoing a strict trial. It will surprise my readers to state that, in an agricultural country, where the manners of the people are still very primitive, where education is still backward, and civilization slowly advancing, out of a population of about 1,200,000, scattered widely in the woods, there should be so large a proportion as twenty women, and five hundred men, in the Kingston Penitentiary; for, as education and civilization advance, and large towns grow up, new wants arise, and evil communication corrupts good manners, so that the proportion of great crimes between an old and a new country is much in favour always of the latter. Recent discoveries of the police in Montreal have shown that _hells_ of the most atrocious character, and one in imitation of Crockford's, as far as its inferior means would go, have been found out. At Kingston a most wretched establishment of the same nature has recently been broken up, and at Toronto great incentives to vice in the very young exist. Clerks in banks have gambled away the property of their employers in these places to the amount of several thousands, and, the frontier of the United States being so near, they have fled as soon as discovery was apprehended, but, owing to the international arrangements for the arrest of such criminals, have hitherto been detected, and consigned to the laws of their offended country. The spirit of insubordination, which so forcibly operates in uneducated minds, where the constant example of the excess of freedom in the neighbouring States is ever present, has much changed the aspect of society in all the large towns and villages of Western Canada. There is no longer that honest independence of the working and labouring classes which existed fifteen years ago; but impudent assumption has forced its way very generally, and among servants more particularly. If they are not permitted to make the kitchen a rendezvous for their friends, to go out whenever they like, and in fact to be masters and mistresses of the habitation, they immediately, and without warning, leave, and no laws exist to prevent the growing evil: the consequence is that household economy is every where deranged, and a _place_, as it is called, is only good where high life below stairs is freely permitted. The servants too are chiefly Irish, who have neither means nor inclination for settling in the forest, and consequently there is little or no competition, while they are so well known to each other, and so banded in a sort of Carbonari system, that it is extremely difficult to replace bad ones, even by worse. The women servants are the worst. I saw an instance lately however of a precocious young villain of twelve, who was footboy in a gentleman's family, and his young sister, not fourteen, under-housemaid. His mother, a widow in infirm health, recently imported from Dublin, had brought up her children well, as far as reading and writing went, but had indulged them too much, and beat them so much, that they neither loved nor feared her. The little boy, only twelve, got into bad company, and ran away from his place, where he was well fed, well clothed, and kindly treated, and took his livery with him. He was brought back, after being partially frost-bitten, by his uncle, and received again from mistaken kindness. A cook of bad habits and worse temper got hold of him, and, after staying a short time, he again deserted with all the clothes and things he could carry. A young lady in the family had previously told him that her father would one day take him to the penitentiary to show him what bad boys came to. "That is the very place I want to get into," said the young ruffian, "for I hear there is fine fun there; I will steal something by and by, and then they will send me there." Accordingly, he did steal, and took French leave one fine morning with Madam Cookey, having previously strangled the young lady's favourite cat, just about to kitten, and having the night before he absconded told the young lady he had made a famous nest for pussy to kitten in, and that if she went to the cellar in the morning, she would find the cat on her nest. The young lady thought nothing of what he said at the moment, but, after finding when the family got up that the cook and boy were off, she went to look at her kittens, found the cat strangled, frozen, and placed on the nest. A day or two afterwards, the little sister decamped with three suits of dresses. Now what use would there be in putting such a boy or such a girl at so tender an age, and with such principles, into a penitentiary? Penitentiaries are not proper receptacles for infant villains. The very contagion of working with murderers, coiners, horse-stealers, and scoundrels of the deepest dye is enough alone to confirm their habits and inclinations; and I am not aware of any instance of an infant boy or girl coming out of the Kingston Penitentiary subdued or improved. They are more marked characters when they again join their former friends; for they seldom avoid their former haunts and those whose example first led them astray, but plunge again and again deeper into crime. It is the same with beating a child to excess; spare the rod and spoil the child, says the Jewish lawgiver; but where slavery does not exist, the rod is not to be used to that extent, and it does not improve even slaves. No; as in the army and in the navy, it hardens culprits, and very seldom indeed acts upon their consciences. Border population is usually of a low character, and I cannot think it can be worse anywhere than where the maritime, or rather _laculine_, if such a word is admissible, preponderates, and where that race are unemployed for at least five months of the Boreal winters of Canada. It is only a wonder that serious crime is so infrequent. Burglary was almost unknown, as well as highway robbery, until last year; but instances of both occurred near Toronto, and the former twice at Kingston. The only use to such a class that a war could be of would be to employ them; but it is to be predicted, if peace exists much longer, that the civil and criminal jurisprudence of towns and cities bordering on the great lakes must undergo very great revision, and a suitable police be employed in them. Nothing can, by any possibility, be more eminently absurd than the police of Kingston as at present constituted. These men are dressed like officers in the army; and, instead of being in the streets to prevent accident or crime, are employed, as they say, hard at work, detecting the latter. How they do now and then, at intervals few and far between, succeed in detecting an unhappy loafer is a mystery to everybody, for they are usually observed on the steps of the Town Hall, or carrying home provisions from the market, with a fine dog following them, or else jaunting about in cabs or sleighs. London is said to have suffered much by the policemen finding their way down the area steps of houses, and amusing themselves in cupboard courtships with the lady-cooks, housemaids, and scullions; but I verily believe Kingston has not arrived at that perfection of a domestic police, for most of the men are middle-aged and married. The cabmen and carters of Kingston, it is said, elect the Aldermen and Common Council. Whether this be true or false, I cannot pretend to say, but it is very certain that a more insolent, ungoverned race than the cabmen do not exist anywhere. The best position of the best promenade is occupied by these fellows; and no respectable female or timid man dares to pass them without receiving coarse insult; and, if complaint is made, they mark the complainant; and, if they keep a sleigh or carriage, make a point of running races near them, and cracking heavy whips to frighten their horses. One of these ruffians frightened a gentleman's horse last winter, and threw him, his wife, and daughter on the pavement, in consequence of the animal running away, and overturning the vehicle they were in. They know all the grooms and servants, and act according as they like or dislike them, caring very little what their masters hear or see. The carters are somewhat better, as there are decent men among them; but many of that body care very little about the laws of the road, which, by the by, are different here from those at home. If you go left you go right, If you go right, you go wrong, is reversed in Canada, the right side of the road being always the driving side in both provinces; thus, if you go right, you do not go wrong; although such a manifest advantage in ethics, it will appear that right is not always right in Canada, but that cabmen's right and carters' right confer degrees in the Corporation College, which ensure a large share of wrong to the public. But they are going to change all this, and bring in an Act of Parliament to alter the constitution of the fathers of the city of Regiopolis, who, it appears, have not hitherto rendered any account of their stewardship. I shall not now enter into any further recapitulation of the journey from the Falls of Niagara to Toronto, or from Toronto to Kingston, save to say that some very intelligent citizens of the United States from Philadelphia were my companions on board the splendid British mail-packet, City of Toronto. The ex-Mayor of Philadelphia and his two amiable daughters were of the party, and I much question whether we could have had a more pleasant voyage than that which terminated on the seventeenth day of July. I omitted to observe, that voyage from Buffalo to Toronto was performed in eight hours and a quarter, as follows: Buffalo to Chippewa, by Emerald steamer, one hour and a half; Chippewa, by horse-car railway, to Queenston, one hour and a quarter; Queenston, by Transit steamer, to Toronto, four hours and a half, including all stoppages and detentions, among which was that of upwards of an hour at Queenston, waiting for the boat. The distance is about seventy miles; and the actual rate of going, for none of the conveyances are very rapid ones, is about ten miles an hour. Kingston is one hundred and eighty-nine miles from Toronto by land, and one hundred and eighty by water; and the journey is performed in the mail-packets, which stop at several places occasionally, in eighteen hours, or about ten miles an hour, with detention for taking in wood, the speed averaging eleven. CHAPTER XVII. Equipage for a Canadian Gentleman Farmer--Superiority of certain iron tools made in the United States to English--Prices of Farming Implements and Stock--Prices of Produce--Local and Municipal Administration--Courts of Law--Excursion to the River Trent--Bay of Quint--Prince Edward's Island--Belleville--Political Parsons--A Democratic Bible needed--Arrogance of American politicians--Trent Port--Brighton--Murray Canal in embryo--Trent River--Percy and Percy Landing--Forest Road--A Neck or nothing Leap--Another perilous leap, and advice about leaping--Life in the Bush exemplified in the History of a Settler--Seymour West--Prices of Land near the Trent--System of Barter--Crow Bay--Wild Rice--Healy's Falls--Forsaken Dwellings. "A truant disposition" took me into another district on my return to Kingston, as I was thoroughly determined to see a thoroughly new Canadian settlement, and therefore prepared, by purchasing a new waggon and a new pair of horses, to start for Seymour West, in the Newcastle district, some 120 miles north-west, and upwards of twenty miles in the Bush from the main stream of settlement, where a young friend was beginning life, for whom the horses, waggon, and sundry conveniences for farming and a few little luxuries were intended. A waggon, dear settling reader, in Canada, is not a great lumbering wooden edifice upon four wheels, whose broad circumferences occupy about four feet of the road, and contain some ton or two of iron, as our dear Kentish hop-waggons are wont to show in the Borough of Southwark, or throughout lordly London, those carrying coals. No, it is a long box, painted green or red, a perfect parallelogram, with two seats in it, composed of single boards, and occasionally the luxury of an open-work back to lean against; which boards are fastened to an ash frame on each side, thus affording an apology for a spring seat. This is the body; the soul, or carriage, by which said body is moved, consists of four narrow wheels, the fore pair traversing by a primitive pin under the body, the hind pair attached to the vehicle itself. A pole, or, as it is called, a tongue, projects from the front, and can be easily detached; _et voilà tout_! The expense is sixteen pounds currency, or about twelve sterling for a first-rate article, with swingle bars, or, as they are always called here, "whipple-trees," to attach the traces to. A set of double harness is six pounds, and two very good horses may be obtained for thirty more, making in all fifty-two pounds Canada money, or a little more than forty sterling, for an equipage fit for a gentleman farmer's all work, namely, to carry a field, or to ride to church and market in. There are two or three other things requisite, and among the foremost a first-rate axe. No man should ever travel in Canada without an axe, for you never know, even on the great main roads, when you may want it to remove a fallen tree, or to mend your waggon with. A first-rate axe will cost you, handle and all, seven shillings and sixpence currency, but then it is a treasure afterwards; whereas, a cheap article will soon wear out or break. Strange to say, Sheffield and Birmingham do not produce coarse cutting tools for the Canada market, that can compete with the American. It has been remarked, of late years, that even all carpenters' tools, and spades, pickaxes, shovels, _et id genus omne_, are all cheaper, better, and more durable from the States, than those imported from England. Let our manufacturers at home look to this in time, and, eschewing the spirit of gain, cease to make cutting tools like Peter Pindar's razors. In the finer departments, such as surgical and other scientific instruments, Jonathan is as far astern; and, although he may use a sword-blade very well, he has not yet made one like Prosser's. In heavy ironwork Jonathan is advancing with rapid strides; and even the Canadian, whom he looks down upon with some contempt, is competing with him in the forging and casting of steam-engines. There are very respectable foundries at Kingston, Toronto, Niagara, and Montreal. The only difficulty I have yet heard of is in making large shafts. Every other kind of heavy iron or steel manufacture can now be rapidly and better done in Canada than in the United States--I say advisedly _better_ done, because the boilers made in Canada do not burst, nor do the engines break, as they do in the charming mud valley of the Mississippi. For one accident in Canada there are five hundred in the States; in fact, I remember only one by which lives were lost, and that happened to a small steamer near Montreal, about four years ago; whereas, they go to smash in the Union with the same go-ahead velocity as they go to caucus, and seem to care as little about the matter. John Bull often calculates much more sedately and to the purpose than his restless offspring, who seem to hold it as a first principle of the declaration of independence that a man has a right to be blown up or scalded to death. They are as national in this as in naming new cities. What names, by the by, they do give them!--think of _Alphadelphia_ in Michigan, Buc_y_rus in Ohio, _Cass_-opolis, from, I suppose, General Cass, in Michigan, Juliet in Illinois, Kalida (it ought to be Rowland Kalydor) in Ohio, Milan in Ohio, Massilon in Ohio, Peru in Iowa, Racine in Wisconsin, Tiffin in Ohio, and Ypsilanti in Michigan. Cæsar, Pompey, Cassius, Brutus, Homer, Virgil, and all the heathen gods, goddesses, demi-gods, and republicans, are sown as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa. But to return to farming. You may have a plough, of the hundred new Yankee inventions, or of a good substantial Canadian cut, for six dollars, a wheat cradle scythe for the same, complete, a common scythe for ten shillings, or less; and thus for less than one hundred pounds, the farm may be stocked with two horses, two bullocks, two cows, (a good cow is worth five pounds) pigs, and poultry. Sheep you must not attempt, until a sufficient clearance of grazing ground is completed, but you can buy as many there as you want, of the very best kind, for three or four dollars a head. A good ram, bull, or boar, is, however, scarce, and proportionably dear, but most of the districts now have agricultural societies, at whose meetings prizes are given for every kind of stock, and the farmers are devoting much more of their attention to rearing horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs, than was the case ten years ago, when almost all the markets were supplied from the United States. Kingston and Toronto now are supplied from their own bulk; and, as it will interest an emigrant intending to settle, I shall give the market prices of both cities, premising only that, in country towns, provision of all kinds is much cheaper. Toronto, January 2, 1846. s. d. s. d. Flour, per barrel, 196 lb 25 0 @ 28 0 Oatmeal, per barrel, 196 lb 17 6 ... 20 0 Wheat, per bushel, 60 lb 4 9 ... 5 3 Rye, per bushel, 56 lb 2 9 ... 3 0 Barley, per bushel, 48 lb 2 4 ... 2 9 Oats, per bushel, 34 lb 1 10 ... 2 2 Peas, per bushel, 60 lb 2 6 ... 3 0 Timothy, per bushel, 60 lb 4 0 ... 5 0 Beef, farmers', per 100 lb 12 6 ... 17 6 Beef, per lb 0 3 ... 0 4 Pork, farmers', per 100 lb 21 3 ... 27 6 Bacon, per lb 0 4 ... 0 6 Mutton, by the quarter, per lb 0 2 ... 0 3 Veal, by the quarter, per lb 0 2 ... 0 4 Butter, in roll, per lb 0 8 ... 0 10 Butter, in tub, per lb 0 7 ... 0 9 Turkeys, each 1 3 ... 3 9 Geese, each 1 3 ... 1 6 Ducks, per couple 0 10 ... 1 3 Chickens, per pair 0 10 ... 1 3 Eggs, per dozen 1 3 ... 1 3 Potatoes, per bushel 3 0 ... 2 3 Hay, per ton 70 0 ... 90 0 Straw, per ton 40 0 ... 50 0 Kingston, January 31, 1846. s. d. s. d. Flour, per 112 lb 14 0 @ 14 6 Oatmeal, per 112 lb 14 6 ... 0 0 Wheat, per bushel 5 0 ... 5 6 Barley, ditto 3 0 ... 3 3 Hay, per ton 47 6 ... 52 6 Straw, ditto 25 0 ... 30 0 Potatoes, per bushel 2 0 ... 2 3 Beef, per hundred 20 0 ... 22 6 Veal, per lb 0 3 ... 0 4 Mutton, ditto 0 3 ... 0 4 Butter, in roll 0 9 ... 0 10 Eggs, per dozen 0 9 ... 0 10 Turkeys, per couple 5 0 ... 7 6 Partridges, per pair 5 0 ... 0 0 Ducks, per couple 1 8 ... 2 0 The standard weights of grain and pulse, in Canada West, were regulated by Act of Parliament in 1835. lbs. Wheat 60 Rye 56 Peas 60 Barley 48 Oats 34 Beans 50 Indian Corn 56 Equal to a Winchester bushel. The price of keeping one horse in Kingston is about sixpence per day, in Toronto a shilling, but much less in all country places. The affairs of the districts into which Canada is divided are managed by a warden and councillors in each district, and two councillors are elected for each township, having above 300 qualified voters, and one for each having a less number. The improvement of the district roads, bridges, schools, jails, court-houses, and all public matters requiring expenditure of the taxes raised within the district, are arranged by this Board. Some very useful information for settlers is contained in the following:-- Statute Labour.--Every male inhabitant, from twenty-one to sixty, not rated on the Assessment Roll, is liable to work on the highways for two days. Every assessed inhabitant is, in proportion to the estimate of his real and personal property on the Roll, liable to work on the highways, as follows:--Under £25 two days; under £50 three days; from that to £75 four days; from that to £100 five days; and For every £50 above £100, up to £500, one day; " 100 " 500, " 1000, " " 200 " 1000, " 2000, " " 300 " 2000, " 3500, " " 500 " 3500, one day; the fractional part between the different sums being always reckoned as a whole, and giving one day. Every person possessed of a waggon, cart, or team of horses,[1] oxen, or beasts of burthen or draft, used to draw the same, is liable to work three days. Indigent persons, oppressed by sickness, age, or having a large family, can be exempted at the discretion of the town warden. Any person liable can commute at 2s. 6d. per day, if he thinks proper. [Footnote 1: Team is called in Canada and in the States a span of horses, and means two.] THE GENERAL ASSESSMENT. By the 59th Geo. III., chap. 7, sect. 2nd, the following is deemed rateable property at the given valuation:-- Every town-lot in Toronto, Kingston, Niagara, and Queenston, £50; every town-lot in Cornwall, Sandwich, Johnstown, and Belleville, £25; every town-lot on which a dwelling is erected in Brockville, £30; do. in Bath, £20; every acre of arable, pasture, or meadow land, 20s.; every acre of uncultivated land, 4s.; every house built with timber, squared or hewed on two sides, of one story in height, and not two stories, with not more than two fireplaces, £20; for every additional fireplace, £4; every dwelling-house built of squared or flatted timber on two sides, of two stories in height, with not more than two fireplaces, £30, and for every additional fireplace, £8; every framed house under two stories in height, with not more than two fireplaces, £35, and for every additional fireplace £5; every brick or stone house of one story in height, and not more than two fireplaces, £40; every additional fireplace, £10; every framed, brick, or stone house, of two stories in height, and not more than two fireplaces, £60; every additional fireplace, £10; every grist-mill wrought by water, with one pair of stones, £150; every additional pair, £50; every sawmill, £100; every merchant's shop, £200; every storehouse owned or occupied for the receiving and forwarding of goods, wares, or merchandize, for hire or gain, £200; every stud-horse, kept for hire or gain, £100; every horse of the age of three years and upwards, £8; oxen of the age of four years and upwards, per head, £4; milch cows, per head, £3; horned cattle, from the age of two years to four years, per head, £1; every close carriage with four wheels, kept for pleasure, £100; every phaeton, or other open carriage, with four wheels, kept for pleasure only, £25; every curricle, gig, or other carriage, with two wheels, kept for pleasure only, £20; every waggon kept for pleasure only £15; every stove in a room where there is no fireplace to be considered a fireplace. All lands are rateable, held in fee-simple, or promise of fee-simple, by the land board certificate, order of council, or certificate of any governor of Canada, or by lease. The sum levied in no case to be greater than one penny in the pound for any one year. The Queen, should she be possessed of, or in occupation of any property in the province, is exempted from the payment of taxes. Each township of a district elects its own officers; at meetings held annually, on the first Monday in January, and called by the township clerk, after he has obtained a warrant from two or more justices of the peace. All freeholders above twenty-one years of age are entitled to a vote, and choose the undermentioned officers, viz.--one assessor and a collector, with pound-keepers and path-masters, or overseers of highways, three town-wardens, and from three to eighteen fence-viewers, whose duty it is to regulate fences. These town-officers are liable to penalty for refusing to serve, but cannot be elected oftener than once in three years: they have cognizance of all matters relating to cattle, height and nature of enclosures, and nuisances. Their duties are regulated by the district council's by-laws. Each district has an inspector of licenses, deputy clerk of the crown, judge and clerk of District Court, a judge and a registrar of the Surrogate Court, and one or two registrars for deeds, with coroners, according to the extent, at all the principal towns or villages. In each district is also a sheriff, a clerk of the peace, a treasurer, and, in some of the district towns, a board of police, with president, clerk, treasurer, and street-surveyor. The officers of the incorporated cities or towns are similar to those at home. Justice is administered by the courts of Queen's Bench, Quarter-Sessions, District Courts, and the Town Court, with Division Courts. The terms of the Court of Queen's Bench are four; and in Western Canada, at these times, the judges sit at Toronto to hear counsel on law questions. Easter term commences on the first Monday in February, and ends on the Saturday of the following week. Trinity term, second Monday in June, and ends Saturday of the following week. Michaelmas term, first Monday in August, until Saturday of the following week. Hilary, first Monday in November, until Saturday, as before. The Quarter Sessions are held throughout the province on the 7th of January, 1st of April, 1st of July, and 18th of November. The District Courts are held at the same time as the Quarter Sessions. This court has jurisdiction in all matters of contract from 40s. to £15; and, when the amount is liquidated or ascertained, either by the act of the parties, or the nature of the transaction, to £40. Thus a promissory note under £40 can be sued in this court before the district judge, who is usually a barrister: and an open or unsettled account under £15, but none above that amount; also, all matters of wrong, or, as the lawyers please to call it, _tort_, respecting personal chattels, when title to land is not brought in question, and the damages are under £15. The judge of the District Court, by a late Act, presides also at Quarter Session. The ordinary costs of a suit before him are from £5 to £10; and in the Queen's Bench, before a _real_ judge, from £10 to £30. The Division Courts are a sort of non-descript Courts of Conscience for recovery of small debts under £10; and here the district judge has his hands full, for he comes into play as president again, and has to hold courts in six divisions of his district once in two months. The Court of Chancery is the _summum bonum_; its costs are, of course, very great, and its decisions, though not quite so protracted as those of England, nor involving such stakes, plague many a poor suitor who comes to _equity_, when he can no longer get justice. I should most strongly advise him to ponder deeply, after wading through Division, District, and Queen's Bench, through judges without a wig and gown to judges in full paraphernalia, and barristers and attorneys without end, before he encounters a Master in Chancery. It may be such a lesson as he will never forget, for Canada is rather a litigious country--it is too near the States to be otherwise, and lawyers, as well as all other trades and professions, must live. Young settler, stick to your farm, get a clear title to your land, and never get into debt. I left Kingston in autumn, as aforesaid, with the farm stock and implements, and embarked on board the Prince Edward steamboat, Captain Bouter, for the mouth of the river Trent, in the Bay of Quinte. First you steam along the front of the famous city of Kingston, which now presents something of an imposing front, from the waters of the St. Lawrence, which here leave Lake Ontario and contract into two channels between which are Long Island and some others. The channel nearest to the United States is very narrow, or about a mile; that on the Canada side is very broad, being from three to five or six, with an islet or rock in the centre of the mouth or opening of Lake Ontario, called Snake Island, having one tree upon it, and visible from a great distance. A few miles above Kingston, you enter the Bay of Quinte by passing between the main land and Amherst Isle, or the Isle of Tanti, owned by Lord Mountcashell, on which are now extensive and flourishing farms. At the east end of the Isle of Tanti are the Lower Gap and the Brothers, two rocky islets famous for black bass fishing and for a deep rolling sea, which makes a landsman very sick indeed in a gale of wind. After passing this Scylla, the bay, an arm rather of Lake Ontario, becomes very smooth and peaceable for several miles, until you leave the pleasant little village of Bath, where is one of the first churches erected by the English settlers in Western Canada, and the beginning of the granary of the Canadas. After passing Bath, the Upper Gap Charybdis gives you another tremendous rolling in blowing weather, and the expanse of Lake Ontario is seen to the left, with the tortuous bay of Quinte again to the right; this arm of the lake being made for fifty or sixty miles more by the fertile district of Prince Edward, an island of great extent, and one of the oldest of the British settlements in Upper Canada, where Pomona and Ceres reign paramount; for all is fertility. The Bay of Quinte, in fact, on both the main shore and on Prince Edward, is one unvaried scene of the labours of the husbandman; for the forest is rapidly disappearing there, and the luxuriance of the scenery in harvest can only be compared with the best parts of England. It is indeed a glad and a rich country. The Lake of the Mountain and the Indian village of Tyandinaga are the lions of this route: the former, a singular crater full of the purest water, on the summit of a hill of some altitude, without any apparent source, but overflowing in a stream sufficient for mill purposes and very deep; the latter the seat of a portion of the Mohawks already mentioned. The vessel calls at several small settlements, and stops for the night at Hallowell or Picton, for the village has both names. This is a most picturesque locality, in a nook of the bay, with undulating hills and sharp ravines, a handsome church and other public edifices, and a large and thriving population. But we must for the present keep on board the steamer, and, after sleeping there, go on to Belleville, leaving Fredericksburgh, Adolphus Town, and many others in the Midland, to coast the Victoria district, and enter the charming little retreats in this pleasant bay to be described more at leisure. Belleville, the county town of the Victoria district, is situated on the shores of this bay, and, from an insignificant village in 1837, has risen in 1846 to the rank of a large and flourishing town, the main street of which surprised me not a little by its extent, the beauty of its buildings, and the display of its shops. I mounted the hill-side which overlooks it, and there saw three fine churches, the English, Roman Catholic, and Scotch places of worship, a large well built court-house and jail, and some pretty country-houses. I should think that Belleville has nearly four thousand inhabitants; and, as it is the outlet of a rich back country, and on the main road from Kingston to Toronto, it will increase most rapidly. The worst feature about Belleville in 1837 was that it was the focus of American saddle-bag preachers, teachers, and rebelliously disposed folks; but I am told that most of these uneasy loafers have left it, and that its character has improved wonderfully. What a nuisance are peddling, meddling, politicians of the lowest grade? Wherever they plant their feet, a moral pestilence follows. These fellows won't work, for the voluntary principle in preaching or teaching pays better, and does not cost so much trouble. It is surprising with what facility, in England, as well as in Canada, a saddle-bag doctor of divinity takes his degree, and becomes possessor of the secrets and director of the consciences and household of the small farmer. I once knew a family, a most respectable family of yeomen, of ancient descent and of excellent hearts, devoured by a locust of this kind in Buckinghamshire. In Canada they are devoured every day, and not unfrequently made disloyal into the bargain, although deriving their lands and support originally from the British government. They travel to the most remote settlements, where no such opportunities as church or chapel of any kind exist for public worship; and, after gaining the good opinion of the simple settler by an exterior sanctity and a snuffling expression of it, they soon slide into the recommendation of the superior chances of salvation that offer themselves, by forgetting the Divine command of "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," and of the Apostolic doctrine of "Honour the King." I have always been surprised that a democratic Bible retains such highly improper translations of the original tongue, as _prince_, _king_, _queen_, and conceive that there should be a special Act of Congress to declare that henceforward the words of the English language should be abolished and the American tongue substituted, under pains and penalties, omitting the aforesaid and all other similar _obnoxiosities_ from dictionary, grammar, and book. The Americans have just discovered that they have a prior claim to Oregon, and therefore must be an older nation than the British, the separation being a mere trifle, and the sway of England over the thirteen colonies and her ancient settlement of America a dream; ergo, the American language is the primitive tongue. A very excellent worthy gentleman of New York wrote to a friend in Kingston lately, stating that he was sorry that England was going to such an expense in fortifying that town, as it and all Canada would soon be American, and then the money thrown away would be missed.[1] [Footnote 1: In crossing the Atlantic in an American packet with a highly-gifted American, he told me one day that he was really glad to observe that such excellent dockyards were making at Bermuda, as in a few years they would no doubt belong to the Union. This was not said boastingly, but seriously.] It is actually astonishing, and will scarcely be credited at home, that all except the most reflecting people in the United States have, within the last five years, become really and seriously impressed with the notion that the whole continent of the New World is a part of their birthright, and that it is about to pass under their dominion, as a matter of course, as well as that all the powers of the Old World cannot hinder this consummation one day, or even exist themselves much longer, as a political millennium is speedily coming on. As an example of the self-sufficiency of this feeling, I quote a letter from a governor of a State, lately written to his constituents, perhaps on the strength of re-election, but really developing the national notion. In reply to a letter addressed to him by the whigs of Chautauque county, desiring his consent to stand as one of their candidates for the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, ex-Governor Seward wrote a reply of which the following is an extract:-- "I want no war--I want no enlargement of territory sooner than it would come if we were contented with a masterly inactivity. I abhor war, as I detest slavery. I would not give one human life for all the continent that remains to be _annexed_. "But I cannot exclude the conviction that the popular passion for territorial aggrandizement is irresistible. Prudence, justice, cowardice, may check it for a season, but it will gain strength by its subjugation. An American navy is hovering over Vera Cruz. An American army is at the heart of what was Mexico. Let the Oregon question be settled when it may, it will, nevertheless, come back again. Our population is destined to roll its resistless waves to the icy barriers of the north, and to encounter oriental civilization on the shores of the Pacific. The monarchs of Europe are to have no rest, while they have a colony remaining on this continent. France has already sold out. Spain has sold out. We shall see how long before England inclines to follow their example. It behoves us then to qualify ourselves for our mission. We must dare our destiny. We can do this, and can only do it by early measures which shall effect the abolition of slavery, without precipitancy, without oppression, without injustice to slaveholders, without civil war, with the consent of mankind, and the approbation of Heaven. The restoration of the right of suffrage to free men is the first act, and will draw after it in due time the sublime catastrophe of emancipation." It is with nations as it is with individuals; a boy very soon fancies himself a man; he takes a switch in his hand, rides a muck against thistles and stinging nettles, cuts off their heads, might and main, and then fancies himself a Wellington or a Nelson. Young nations have the same notions, and age tames both the one and the other. Texas was easily tampered with; it was peopled only to be the People's: but Mexico may be a harder bone to pick. Already is a newspaper published there, named _El Tiemps, The Times_, to advocate a return to monarchy, in order to save the Spanish race from the Stars and the Stripes; and the besotted and wretched Republics of the South, conceived in folly, and born of the splendid dream of Canning, are falling to pieces from internal wars. Will his Ophirian Majesty, the Emperor of Brazil, humbly lay his crown at the feet of the Eagle, and are all our West India islands to be sipped up in the spoon of the President? Let the United States be a great, a free, and an enlightened Republic; no one in England desires otherwise. Let it hold the balance, to curb the semi-barbarous States of South America, and let it spread the gospel of peace, and the literature and laws of Britain to the uttermost parts of that benighted region; but also let it curb itself in time, before it seeks to overthrow all order, all rule, all right, and all reason, under the feet of its mere fancied might. There is not in England that hatred of its American offspring, which exists so largely towards the Parent State in the Union; on the contrary, there is an earnest, a sincere desire for the well-being and advancement of its best interests; but it is useless to conceal, and it would be unmanly also to attempt to do so, that the British pulse does not beat in unison with Lynch law, or with mob-rule, any more than it would with the tyranny of a despotism; neither will the honest pride of the English, the Irish, or the Scotch, permit that mob dominion, the might of the mass, to dictate a line of conduct upon any question, territorial or gubernative. Many master-minds at home admire the principles of the American constitution, as established by Washington; but they deeply regret the gulf that has opened since the era of that lawgiver; and there are few indeed who would dream even of exchanging the freedom of England for the freedom of the United States. The Reformers of British origin in Canada are, no doubt, very numerous; and, owing to misconception and other causes, with which the public are now acquainted, were once desirous of hoisting a new flag; but time and reflection have been at work since, and the term reformer in Canada is no longer one with which a word of fewer syllables is synonymous. Even during the rebellion, as it was called, of 1837, but which more properly should be called the border troubles, there were very few Upper or Western Canadians concerned, as the brigands were chiefly American borderers; the real rebellion being confined to Lower Canada. I commanded a very large body of militia, much of which had been gathered from the districts and counties where the Reformers had their strongholds, and in the ranks there were full as many Reformers as there were Tories, as the other party were then called. These subjects force themselves upon my attention, from the voyage near the shores of Sydney, Thurlow, and other townships, where Reformers and the really disaffected were very numerous in 1837; but, notwithstanding all this, it may be freely and fairly asserted again and again, that, let an invading force appear on their soil, the people of Canada will fight for home, for liberty, and for Queen Victoria. We steamed on to the Trent river through a glorious corn and apple country, and arrived there in time to meet my young friend, and to proceed in our waggon to Brighton, a few miles westward on the Toronto road, where we slept. Trent Port, or Trent village, is situated on both banks of the exitus of the Trent river into the Bay of Quinte, and is remarkable for two things: as being the intended outlet of one of the finest back countries in Canada, by a gigantic canal, which was to open Lake Huron to Ontario, through a succession of inland lakes and rivers, but which noble scheme was nipped in the bud after several of the locks had been excavated, and very many thousands of pounds expended. It is now remarkable only for its long, covered wooden bridge, and the quantity of lumber, _i.e._, in the new American Dictionary, deals, plank, staves, square timber, and logs floating on the tranquil water for exportation. Brighton is a little pleasant high-road hamlet, with two inns, and no outs, as it is not a place of trade, excepting as far as a small sawmill is concerned; but this will change, for it is near Presqu'ile, the only natural harbour on Lake Ontario's Canada shore, from Toronto to Kingston, or from one end to the other. Here the Bay of Quinte approaches the lake so close, that a canal of four or five miles only is requisite, through a natural level, in order to have a safe and sheltered voyage from Kingston without going at all into the real and dangerous lake, which is every where beset with "ducks and drakes," as its rocky and treacherous islets are called. This canal, which may be constructed easily for about five and twenty thousand pounds, must soon be made, and the bar of Presqu'ile Harbour deepened, so as to ensure a shelter for vessels in the furious gales of October and November. The canal is always traced on maps, and called Murray Canal, I presume, after the late Master-General of the Ordnance, during his government of the province. It is, without doubt, one of the most important and necessary works in Canada West; and, as it will lead into the Trent navigation, when that shall be finished, will be the means of adding some millions of inhabitants to the fairest portion of the land, now known only to wretched lumbermen. The River Trent is a large stream, full of shallows, and rapids, and beautiful lakes, taking its rise north of the township of Somerville, in the Colborne District, not very far from a chain of lakes, which reach the Ottawa on the east, and the Black River, a feeder of Lake Simcoe, and a tributary of Huron and the Severn, on the west. The river Trent is strangely tortuous, but keeps almost entirely within the Colborne district, named after Lord Seaton, and at Rice Lake afforded a site for the Colonial Office to establish a flourishing colony a few years ago at Peterborough, and to open an entirely new and very rich portion of Canada West. This river, placed, as it were, by Nature as the connecting link of a great chain of inland navigation, embracing the expanse of Huron, Ontario, and the Ottawa, opens a field of research both to the agriculturist and the forester. The woods abound with the finest kind of untouched timber; the land is fertile in the extreme; and the rivers, streams, and lakes abound with fish. In short, had the Trent Canal been finished, instead of the miserable and decaying timber-slides, which now encumber that noble river, another million of inhabitants would, in ten years more, have filled up the forests, which are now only penetrated by the Indian or the seeker after timber. A private individual has, however, put a steamboat upon the centre of the river's course; and Mr. Weller, no doubt, finds that it pays him well, for the portion of Colborne district near Rice Lake is settling rapidly. The Trent Canal, or a railroad, in the same direction, would lead to the Georgian Bay of Huron, and thus render a journey to the far West easy of accomplishment, as it is the most direct route from Oswego and New York. But I must journey on, and, after resting at Brighton, start by daylight, and penetrate into the bowels of the land by a sandy road, which, after passing that village, stretches into the forest due north. Away the waggon went, not at a hand-gallop, for the sand was too deep for that, and, passing through woods by a tolerably good road for so new a settlement, we, every now and then, at intervals few and far between, saw a new farm or a new log-hut. The day was fine, and so, having carried our provision with us, we halted in the deep woods, upon the muddy banks of the Cold Creek, to breakfast. A Tartar camp was visited by an English traveller somewhere in the dominions of the Grand Lama, and he was treated to London porter. So were we in the deep forest of Central Canada, for London porter appears to travel everywhere; and, discussing it with much relish, we fed the horses, and gave them what they liked much better, clear and pure water--which indeed I now think would have been quite as good for us--and waggoned on, until we came to a surprising new settlement in the Bush, the villages of Percy and Percy Landing, where, there being mill "privileges," as a sharp running water-stream is called in the United States, flour and saw-mills have been established, and a very thriving population is rising both in numbers and in means. Here we dined in a new inn, or rather tavern, kept by a French Canadian, and then pursued our journey for a few miles on a decent new road, amidst fine settlements and good farms, and, crossing a beautiful stream, plunged into the undisturbed forest by a road in which every rut was a canal, and every stone as big as a bomb-shell at the very least. How the waggon stood it, and the roots and stumps of the trees with which these boulders were diversified, I am still unable to explain; for my part, I walked the greater part of it, for the bones of my body seemed as if they were very likely, after a short trial, to part company with each other. At length, after jolting, jumping, complaining, and comforting, we came to a bridge near Myer's Mills. Our _conducteur_, my young friend aforesaid, who was more used to the road, saw at a glance that something had gone wrong with the said bridge; for it exhibited a very disorderly, drunken sort of devil-may-care aspect. He was too far advanced upon it to retreat, when he discovered that a beam or two had departed into the lively current below. With true backwoodsman's energy, he pulled his horses up sharp, reined them well up, and then, with a tremendous shout, applied the whip, and actually leaped horses, waggon, and passengers over the chasm, the remainder of the bridge groaning, and saying most plainly, "I will not bear this any longer." Next morning, we heard that the whole structure had fallen in and disappeared. I have been in some danger in the course of my life; but a visit afterwards to this spot convinced me that one's existence is often a sort of size-ace throw; and whether the six or the one comes up or goes down, is a miracle. I never had a nearer leap for clearing Styx than this, excepting one shortly afterwards upon the timber-slides of the Trent, at Healy's Falls. A vast timber canal or way had been constructed here by the Board of Works, to convey timber down a rapid without danger, the slide being alongside of that rapid. It was an interesting work; and, with my young friend and two naval officers, settled in Seymour, I went to examine it. At the sluice-way, or timber-dam, was a sort of bridge, composed of parallel pieces of heavy square joists and a platform; we walked along this Mahomet's railway, where Azrael seemed to have established pretty much the same sentry as Cerberus, having two or three mouths ready to devour the adventurous passenger. The parallel pieces were about two feet distant from each other; I walked on one, and my companions on the other, until a good view of the whole work and the splendid rapids was attained. Under our feet, at some distance, was the water of the slide running on an inclined plane of woodwork, at a great angle, and with enormous power and velocity into a pitch or cauldron far below. The day was bright, and the shadow of the parallel logs left between the space no view of the water underneath. They called me suddenly to look at the rapid. I jumped, as I thought, over the space between us; but my jump was into the shadow. One of the naval officers, a powerful man, six feet and more in height, saw me jump; and, just as I was disappearing between the timbers, caught me by the arm, and, by sheer muscle and strength, held me in mid-air. The other immediately assisted him, but my young friend became deadly pale and sick. I did not visit either the slide or the cauldron; in either, instantaneous and suffocating death was inevitable. Reader, never leap in dark places, and look before you leap. My young friend looked before he leaped over the bridge with his span of horses, and, like a gallant _auriga_, guided his van without fear; but he told me afterwards that the cold sweat sat on his brow, when the chasm was cleared, as much on the bridge as it did at my Quintus Curtius venture. By the by, did Quinte Curce, as the French so adroitly call him, ever leap--I doubt the fact--into the chasm which closed over him? After passing this bridge, and a slough of despond beyond it, we again plunged into the woods, and, mounting over boulders, sinking into bog-holes, and fairly jolted to jelly, on a sudden turned into an open space of near a hundred acres, round which the solemn and stately forest kept eternal guard. Here, in the space of ten or twelve years, our pioneer friends had laboured through weal and through woe, through Siberian winters and West Indian summers, through ague and fever, to create a little modern paradise. My young friend commenced in this secluded region, where the outer barbarian was never seen and seldom heard of, where even the troubles of 1837-8 never showed themselves, his location upon one hundred acres. He had received the very best education which a public institution in England could afford; but circumstances obliged him, at the early age of twenty-five, to turn his thoughts, with a young wife, to "life in the Bush," as a sole provision. The partner of his cares, equally well educated, and of an ancient family, by the death of her father, who was high in office in his country's service, was left equally unprovided for. With youth and good constitutions, a determination to make their own way in life spurred them on to the most disheartening task, a task which thousands of young people from Britain have, however, daily to encounter in Canada, and the progress of which I relate simply from a desire to show that "life in the Bush" is not to be entered into without solemn and serious reflection. Their first undertaking was to clear an acre or two of the forest, and crop it with grain and potatoes; then to build a log-house. In all this they were assisted by friends and neighbours as far as the limited means of those friends and neighbours, who were all similarly engaged, and the settlement containing not more than four or five families, would admit of. My young friend really set his shoulder to the wheel, and did not call upon Hercules whiningly. He had a fondness for carpenter's work, and, having cut down the huge pine trees on his _lot_, for so a property is called in Canada West, he hewed them, squared them, and dovetailed them; he quarried stone with infinite toil, burnt lime, and in the short space of two years had a decent log-palace, consisting of two large rooms, and a kitchen and cellar, with an excellent chimney, a well which he dug himself, and a very large framed barn, which he built himself, the only outlay being for nails, shingles to cover his roofs, and boards. These he had to bring with oxen and a waggon from the saw-mills at Percy, many miles off, and by the most hideous road I ever saw, even in Canada. He split his own rails, made his own fences, and cleared his own forest. This first settlement was commenced in 1840, and, when I saw it in 1845, he had nearly thirty acres cleared, and this clearance and his really good house let to a settler just arrived. By one of those freaks of fortune unforeseen and unaccountable, a connexion, who occupied the adjacent farm of two hundred acres, and had had the command of money, died, and his property was left to the young couple. This gentleman, in the course of six or seven years, from the first settlement of this portion of Canada, had built an excellent house, had cleared a hundred acres, had a good garden, and everything which a settler could desire, with a well-stocked farm-yard, and a well-furnished house, into which my young friend stepped from his log-palace and became monarch of all he surveyed. But money, the sinews of war, was wanted; for, although the land, house, goods, and chattels became his, the funds went to another person, all but a trifling annual sum. The young couple had now a family growing about them, and, as they were very old friends of mine, they asked me to come and see "life in the Bush." Farmer Harry, as we will call my young friend, had now three instead of two hundred acres to attend to, but he had a flock of sheep, a pair of oxen, the _span_ of horses I brought for him, several cows, much poultry, and a whole drove of pigs, with barns full of wheat, peas, hay, and oats; an excellent garden, a fine little brook full of trout at his door, plenty of meadow, and his harvest just over. To help him, he had a hired man, who drove the oxen and assisted in ploughing; and to bring in his harvest there were three hired labourers, at two shillings and sixpence a day each, and their food and beds, with two maid-servants, one to assist in the dairy. Labour, constant and toilsome labour, was still necessary in order to make the farm pay; for there is no market near, and everything is to be bought by barter. Salt, tea, sugar, and all the little luxuries must be had by giving wheat, peas, timber, oats, barley, the fleeces of the sheep, salted pork, or any other exchangeable property; and thus constant care and constant supervision of the employed, as well as constant personal labour, are requisite in Canada on a farm for very many years, before its owner can sit down and say, "I will now take mine ease." The female part of the family must spin, weave, make homespun cloth, candles, salt the pork, make butter for sale, and even sell poultry and eggs whenever required; in short, they must, however delicately brought up, turn their hands to every thing, to keep the house warm. The labour of bringing home logs for fuel in winter is not one of the least in a farm, and then these logs have to be sawed and split into convenient lengths for the fireplaces and stoves. But all this may be achieved, if done cheerfully; and, to show that it can, I will add that, amidst all this labour, my young friend was building himself a dam, where the beavers, in times when that politic and hard-working little trowel-tailed race owned his property, had seen the value of collecting the waters of the brook. He was repairing their decayed labours, for the purpose of washing his sheep, of getting a good fish-pond, and of keeping a bath always full for the comfort of his family. What a change in ten years! The forest, which had been silent and untrodden since the beavers first heard afar off the sound of the white men's axes, was now converted into a smiling region, in which a prattling brook ran meandering at the foot of gently swelling hill-sides, on which the snowy sheep were browsing, and the cattle lowing. A field of Indian corn was rustling its broad and vivid green flaggy leaves, whilst its fruit, topped by long silky pennons, waving in the breeze, seemed to say to me, "Good Englishman, why do your countrymen despise my golden spikes? do they think, as they do of my ugly, prickly friend the oat, that I am not good enough for man, and fit only for the horse or the negro? You know better, and you have often eaten of a pound-cake made of my flour, which you said was sweeter and better than that of wheat. You have often tasted my puddings; come now, Mr. John Bull, were they not very good?" "Certainly they were, Mr. Maize, and hominy and hoe-cake and all that sort of thing are good too; but pray don't ask me to devour you in the shape of mush, molasses and butter. Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves will never tremble." Jesting apart, the flour of Indian corn, or maize, is as much superior, as nutritive food, to potatoes, as wheat flour is to Indian corn. I wish the poor Irish had plenty of it. The farmers in Upper Canada use it much, but in that wheat country it cannot of course be expected that it supersedes flour, properly so called. They also use buckwheat flour largely in the shape of pancakes, and a most excellent thing it is. My friend's life was diversified; for, during the season that the crops are ripening, he had time to spare to go out on fishing and shooting excursions on the Trent, and occasionally in winter a little deer-hunting, with, _longo intervallo_, a bear-killing event. I went to a combined fishing and shooting pic-nickery, and travelled from Rainey's mills and Falls all along the valley of the Trent to Healy's Falls. The Trent is a beautiful and most picturesque river, rushing and roaring along over a series of falls and rapids for miles together, and expanding in noble reaches and little lakes. Rainey's Falls I have faintly sketched, to show the soft beauty of some parts of this river; at Healy's Falls it is more broken. We went to Crow Bay, just above which the Crow River, from the iron mine country of Marmora, runs into the Trent. Here we found two friends, brothers, settled in great comfort. They had been about ten years in the "Bush," and had excellent farms and houses equal to any I have seen so far in the interior, with every comfort around them. In one of their pleasure-boats, we embarked for the junction of the rivers, on which it is intended to place a town when the country becomes more settled. All is now forest, excepting a very extensive and very flourishing settlement of twelve hundred acres, undertaken by a retired field-officer in the army, which was a grant about ten years ago for his services, and is now worth two thousand pounds, or perhaps more, since a bridge has been built by the provincial legislature over the Trent, in order to connect the mail route between the townships of Seymour-East and Seymour-West, as both are filling up rapidly, and land becomes consequently dear and scarce. The price of land in Seymour at present is, improved farm, if a good house and barns are on it, at least two pounds an acre, including clearance and forest; Canada Company's land, from fifteen to twenty shillings an acre; wild land, in lots of one hundred or two hundred acres; Clergy Reserve, or College land, called School land, according to situation, from twenty-five shillings an acre upwards to thirty, all wild land. Private Proprietors' wild land, in good situations, twenty shillings an acre, and very little for less. Along the river-banks, none, I believe, is to be had, unless at very high prices. It is intended, no doubt, to complete the navigation of this splendid river by and by, and thus holders of land are not very anxious to sell at a cheap rate; and as the Board of Works has constructed, at an expenditure of upwards of twenty thousand pounds, timber slides, along all the worst rapids by which the lumber is taken to the mouth of the Trent, a certain importance is now attained for this river which did not before exist; but this is of very little use to Seymour, in which, new as the township is, all the best pine has already been culled and cut down by the lawless hordes of lumberers, who, of course, no longer consume any of the farm produce; yet it adds to the importance of the river generally. The first settlers in Seymour were lumber merchants, who, seeing the wealth of the country in pine, and oak, and ash, the great fertility of the soil, and the facilities afforded everywhere for erecting mills, established themselves permanently, and, before the agriculturists were induced to think of it, had removed from all land within miles of the river the only valuable timber that the township contained. Thus one source of profit, and that a very great one to the farming settler, has been destroyed, and the enterprising timber-merchant has established at convenient distances several saw-mills, where his lumber is converted into plank and boards for the lower markets, and where he is at all times ready to saw whatever timber the farmer has left into boards and planks for him, receiving so many feet of timber, and giving so many feet of lumber, as sawed timber is called, taking care of himself, of course, in the exchange. The flour-mills at Percy proceed upon the same principle: a farmer brings sacks of grain and receives sacks of flour in exchange, said exchange being of course three to one, or more, against him. Throughout Canada is this truck or barter system pursued, and very little money finds its way either into or out of the back townships, unless it be the receipts of the lumber-merchant from Quebec or the lakes. The lumber-merchant is, therefore, the lord of the Trent, or of any other great internal river, whereon are new settlements; and many of them have amassed large fortunes. Thus came timber-slides, instead of canal, upon this splendid river, which must, as soon as the Murray Canal, on the Bay of Quinte, is undertaken, be also opened to navigation, as by it the richest part of Western Canada, both in soil and in minerals, will be reached, and a direct communication had in war-time from Kingston, the great naval key of the lakes, with Penetangueshene, and Lakes Huron and Superior. I have not time now, nor would it amuse the reader, to give a detail of the project for canalling the Trent, part of which was well executed before the troubles of 1837; but the money was voted, and is not so enormous as to justify the non-performance of so important a public work. The timber-slides I look upon as mere temporary expedients. But let us launch upon Crow Bay, and, stealing silently along, get near the wild rice which grows so plentifully on its shallows, and where is found the favourite food of the wild duck, which, by the by, is no inconsiderable addition to a Canadian dinner-table in the Bush. I do not mean, reader, the wild duck, but the wild rice, which said duck eats; for, when well made into a rice pudding, I prefer it, and so do many who are greater epicures, to either Carolina or East India rice. The wild ducks suffered not from me, for I had no gun, and, after crossing the rapid current of the junction of the rivers, we landed on the isthmus formed by them, where, striking a light, and making a fire, we bivouacked, and one of the party went in search of a deer, whose tracks were seen. This is a singular place, covered with dwarf oaks, on a sandy soil, and looking for all the world like an English park in Chancery. Almost every oak bore the marks of bears' claws, as it was a favourite place for those hermits, who live on acorns, blackberries, wild gooseberries and currants, and I dare say raspberries, strawberries, and whortle-berries, with which the place abounds in their seasons. The boughs of the oaks were also broken by the repeated climbings of Bruin, and it must be somewhat dangerous, when he is very hungry, to land here and traverse the Bush alone: but we saw none, although we walked through it, admiring the rushing river, and occasionally going down the steep banks to fish in the rapids for black bass, of which several were caught, and, with several wild ducks, formed the day's sport, which day's sport was twice or thrice repeated, until I had seen as much of the beauty of the wild river and the nature of the soil and country as was desirable. It was somewhat melancholy, on reaching Healy's Falls, which are turbulent rapids of the most picturesque character, with an immense timber-slide, or broad wooden sloping canal alongside of them, to see the clearance in this far solitude formed by the workmen. They had built houses, shanties, and sheds, and had lived and loved together for many a month, with their families, on this charming spot. Nothing was in ruin: all was new, even to the window-glass; and when our party, after toiling away through the forest, reached the opening, and saw below us the foaming rapids, the grand forest, the rugged banks, the timber-slide, and the little wooden town, we thought, here at least, is a well chosen hamlet, at which we may rest awhile. No smoke rose from the chimneys; not a soul appeared to greet us; the eagle soared above; the cunning fox, or the murderous wolf, the snake and the toad, alone found shelter, where so many human beings had so recently congregated, where, from morn till dewy eve, the hum of human voices had been incessant, and where toil and labour had won support for so many. Occasionally, the rude and reckless lumberman halts here, whilst his timber is passing the slide; the coarse jest and the coarser oath are alone heard at the falls of the Trent, save when the neighbouring farmer visits them, to procure a day's relaxation from his toils, and to view the grandeur of creation, and, we trust, to be thankful for the dispensation which has cast his lot in strange places. What must be the occasional thoughts of a man educated tenderly and luxuriously in England, when he reflects upon the changes and the chances which have brought him into contact with the domain of the bear, of the snake, and of the lumberer? Dear, dear England, thy green glades, thy peaceful villages, thy thousand comforts, the scenes of youth, the friends, the parents, who have gone to the land of promise--will these memories not intrude? No where in this wonderful world do they come upon the mind with more solemn impressiveness than in the wild woods of Canada. CHAPTER XVIII. Prospects of the Emigrant in Canada--Caution against Ardent Spirits and excessive Smoking--Militia of Canada--Population--The mass of the Canadians soundly British--Rapidly increasing prosperity of the North American Colonies, compared with the United States--Kingston--Its commercial importance--Conclusion. It is time to take leave of the reader, and to say again some few parting words about the prospects which an emigrant will have before him in leaving the sacred homes of Britain, hallowed by the memories of ages, for a world and a country so new as Western Canada. If the well-educated emigrant is determined to try his fortunes in Canada, let him choose either the eastern townships, in Lower Canada, or almost any portions of Canada West. I premise that he must have a little money at command; and, if possible, that either he, or some member of his family, have an annual income of at least fifty pounds, and that the young are healthy, and determined not to drink whiskey. Drink not ardent spirits, for it is not necessary to strengthen or cheer you in labouring in the Bush. I am not an advocate for an educated man joining Temperance Societies, and look upon them as very great humbugs in many instances; but, with the uneducated, it is another affair altogether. If an educated man has not sufficient confidence in himself, and wishes to reduce himself to the degraded condition of an habitual drunkard, all the temperance pledges and sanctimonious tea-parties in the world will not eventually prevent him from wallowing in the mire. Father Matthew deserves canonizing for his bringing the Irish peasantry into the condition of a temperate people, but there religion is the vehicle; with Protestants such a vehicle should never be attempted, unless the clergy once more are the directors of conscience and of action, and could conscientiously absolve the taker of the pledge, should he fail. With the diversity of sects now existing in Protestantism, this would be obviously impracticable, and the attempt lead to a result one can hardly imagine without horror. No oath ought to be administered to a Protestant on such a subject; as, if a believer of that class of Christians should voluntarily take one and then break it, how much greater would his sin be than the sin of one who really and truly is convinced that a human being could pardon him, should he perjure himself! The effects of drinking spirits in Canada are beyond anything I had imagined, until the report of the census of the Lower province for 1843, and that of Dr. Rees upon the lunatic asylum at Toronto, in the Upper, were published. The population of Lower Canada was 693,649, of which there were-- Males. Females. Total. Deaf and dumb 447 278 725 Blind 273 250 523 Idiots 478 472 950 Lunatics 156 152 308 ---- ---- ---- Total 1354 1152 2506 The proportion of deaf and dumb to the whole population is as 1 to about 957: a greater proportion than prevails throughout all Europe (1 to 1537), United States (1 in 2000), or the whole world throughout (1 in 1556.) The census of Upper Canada, taken a year before, gives the total population as 506,505. Of these there were-- Males. Females. Total. Deaf and dumb 222 132 354 Blind 114 89 203 Idiots 221 178 393 Lunatics 241 478 719 ---- ---- ---- Total 798 877 1669 Thus, of a total population of 1,200,154, in 1833, there were 1027 persons confined in the provincial lunatic asylums, and perhaps a great many more out of them, as they have only just come into operation, and are still very inefficient. The idiots, it will appear, amounted to 1349. In the whole North American continent, Canada is only exceeded by the States of New Hampshire and Connecticut, in the lists of insanity; and, to show that intemperance as well as climate has something to do with this melancholy result, I shall only state, without entering into details, that a well-informed resident has calculated that, when the province contained the above number of inhabitants, the consumption of alcoholic liquors, chiefly whiskey, was, excluding children under fifteen years of age, five gallons a year for every inhabitant; whilst, in 1843, in England and Wales, where the most accurate returns of the Excise prove the fact, it is only 0.69 of a gallon; in Scotland, 2.16; in Ireland, 0.64; and the total consumed by each individual, not excluding those under fifteen, is only 0.82 per annum for the three kingdoms. If the children under fifteen in Canada are to be included, still the consumption of spirit is awful, being 2-3/4 gallons for each; but it must be much higher, since the Excise is not regulated as at home. That such excessive drinking prevails in Canada may be attributed partly to the cheapness of a vile mixture, called Canadian whiskey, and partly to climate, with a thermometer ranging to 120°, and with such rapid alternations. In Canada, also, man really conquers the earth by the sweat of his brow; for there is no harder labour than the preparation of timber, and the subduing of a primeval forest in a country of lakes and swamps. I have an instance of the effect of excessive drinking daily before my door, in the person of a man of respectable family and of excellent talents, who, after habitually indulging himself with at last the moderate quantum of _sixty_ glasses of spirits and water a day, now roams the streets a confirmed idiot, but, strange to say, never touches the cause of his malady. Are, therefore, not idiocy, madness, and perhaps two-thirds of the dreadful calamities to which human nature is subject here, owing to whiskey? I have seen an Irish labourer on the works take off at a draught a tumbler of raw whiskey, made from Indian corn or oats, to refresh himself; this would kill most men unaccustomed to it; but a corroded stomach it only stimulates. Canada is a fine place for drunkards; it is their paradise--"Get drunk for a penny; clean straw for nothing" there. Think, my dear reader, of whiskey at tenpence a gallon--cheaper than water from the New River in London. Father Matthew, your principles are much wanted on this side of Great Britain. Then, smoking to excess is another source of immense evil in the Backwoods. A man accustomed only to a cigar gets at last accustomed to the lowest and vilest of tobacco. I used to laugh at some of my friends in Seymour, when I saw them with a broken tobacco-pipe stuck in the ribbon of their straw hats. These were men who had paraded in their day the shady side of Pall Mall. They found a pipe a solace, and cigars were not to be had for love or money. "Why do you not put your pipe at least out of sight?" said I. "It is the Seymour Arms' crest," responded my good-natured gentlemen farmers, "and we wear it accordingly." Smoking all day, from the hour of rising, is, I actually believe, more injurious to the nerves than hard drinking. It paralyzes exertion. I never saw an Irish labourer, with his hod and his pipe, mounting a ladder, but I was sure to discover that he was an idler. I never had a groom that smoked much who took proper care of my horses; and I never knew a gentleman seriously addicted to smoking, who cared much for any thing beyond self. A Father Matthew pledge against the excessive use of tobacco would be of much more benefit among the labouring Irish than King James his Counterblast proved among the English. The emigrant of education will naturally inquire, if, in case of war, he will be under the necessity of leaving his farm for the defence of the country. The militia laws are now undergoing revision, in order to create an efficient force. The militia of Western Canada are well composed, and have become a most formidable body of 80,000 men,[1] and are not to be classed with rude and undisciplined masses. In 1837, they rushed to the defence of their soil; and, so eager were they to attain a knowledge of the duties of a soldier, that, in the course of four months, many divisions were able to go through field-days with the regulars; and the embodied regiments, being clothed in scarlet, were always supposed by American visitors to be of the line. There is a military spirit in this people, which only requires development and a good system of officer and sub-officer to make it shine. Any attempt to create partizan officers must be repressed, and merit and stake in the country alone attended to. The population of the British provinces cannot now be less than nearly two millions; and it only requires judgment to bring forward the Canadian French to insure their acting against an enemy daring to invade the country, as they so nobly did in 1812. I subjoin the latest correct census, 1844, of the Franco-Canadian race, as it will now be interesting in a high degree to the reader in Europe. [Footnote 1: Eastern and Western Canada comprise an able-bodied militia of 160,000.] It is taken from a French Canadian journal of talent and resources, and agrees with the published authorities on this subject. _Population of Lower Canada in 1831 and 1844._--The following table of the comparative population of Lower Canada at the periods above-mentioned first appeared in the _Canadien_. 1831. 1844. Saguenay 8,385 13,445 Montmorency (1) 8,089 8,434 Quebec 36,173 45,676 Portneuf 13,656 15,922 Champlain 6,991 10,404 St. Maurice 16,909 20,594 Berthier 20,225 26,700 Leinster (2) 22,122 25,300 Terrebonne 16,623 20,646 Deux Montagnes 20,905 26,835 Outaouais 4,786 11,340 Montreal 43,773 64,306 Vaudreuil 13,111 16,616 Beauharnois 16,859 28,580 Huntingdon (3) 29,916 36,204 Rouville 18,115 20,098 Chambly 15,483 17,171 Vercheres 12,819 12,968 Richelieu 16,146 20,983 St. Hyacinthe 13,366 21,734 Shefford 5,087 9,996 Missisqoui 8,801 10,875 Stanstead 10,306 11,846 Sherbrooke 7,104 13,302 Drummond 3,566 9,374 Vamaska 9,495 11,645 Nicolet 12,509 16,280 Lothiniere 9,191 13,697 Megantic 2,283 6,730 Dorchester (4) 23,816 34,826 Bellechasse 13,529 14,540 L'Islet 13,518 16,990 Kamouraska 14,557 17,465 Rimouski 10,061 17,577 Gaspé 5,003 7,458 Bonaventure 8,109 8,230 _______ _______ Total 511,919 678,590 In 1844 678,590 In 1831 511,919 _______ Augmentation in 13 years 166,671 The increase during the interval between the years cited is about 32-1/2 per cent. It would no doubt have been more considerable but for the cholera, which in 1832 and 1834 decimated the population. The troubles of 1837-8 likewise contributed to check any increase; as, at those periods, numbers emigrated from this province to the United States, and the usual immigration from Europe hither was also materially interfered with. Assuming 1,500,000 as the present actual population of the Canadas, we shall examine the strength of British North America from published returns in 1845, or the best authorities. CHIEF CITIES. POPULATION POPULATION, 1845. OF 1845. Canada 1,500,000 {Montreal 60,000 {Quebec 30,000 {Kingston 12,000 {Toronto 20,000 New Brunswick 200,000 {Fredericton 6,000 {St. John 31,000 Nova Scotia,} 250,000 {Halifax 16,000 including} {Sydney ------ Cape Breton} Newfoundland 100,000 St. John's 20,000 Prince Edward's} Island and the} 45,000 Charlotte Town ------ Magdalen Isles} --------- Total Population 2,095,000. A serviceable militia of 80,000 young men may, therefore, without distressing the population, be easily raised in British North America, with a reserve sufficient to keep an army of 40,000 able-bodied soldiers in Canada always in the field; and, if necessary, 100,000 could be assembled at any point, for any given purpose. The Great Gustavus said that he would not desire a larger military force for defensive purposes than 40,000 men fit for actual service, to accomplish any military object, as such a force would always enable him to choose his positions. Two such armies of effective men could be easily maintained in the two Canadas, and concentrated rapidly and with certainty upon any given point, notwithstanding the extent of frontier; and the Canadians are much more essentially soldiers than the people of the United States, without any reference to valour or contempt of danger: whilst they would be fighting for everything dear to them, and the aggressors for mere extension of territory, and to accomplish the fixed object of destroying all monarchical institutions. I have already said that there is no sympathy of the Irish settlers in Canada with the native Americans, and the best proof of this is the public demonstrations upon St. Patrick's day at Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto, where the two parties, Protestant and Catholic, exhibited no party emblems, no flags but loyal ones, and where the ancient enmity between the rival houses of Capulet and Montague, the Green and the Orange, appeared to have vanished before the approaching arrogant demands of a newly-erected Imperium. Independence may exist to a great extent in Canada. Gourlay figured it, twenty years ago, by placing the word in capitals on the arch formed by the prismatic hues of the cloud-spray of Niagara. He could get no better ground than a fog-bank to hoist his flag upon, and the vision and the visionary have alike been swallowed up in oblivion. Canada does not hate democracy so very totally and unequivocally as my excellent friend, Sir Francis Head, so tersely observed, but Canada repudiates annexation. That a great portion of the population of this rapidly advancing colony feel a vast pride in imagining themselves about to become ranked among the nations of the world, I entertain not the shadow of a doubt; but that the physical and moral strength of Canada desire immediate separation from England, or annexation to the republic presided over by President Polk, is about as absurd a chimera as that of Gourlay and the spray of Niagara. The rainbow there, splendid as it is, owes its colours to the sun. The mass in Canada is soundly British; and, having weighed the relative advantages and disadvantages of British principles and laws with those of the United States, the beam of the latter has mounted into the thin air of Mr. Gourlay's vision. The greatest absurdity at present discoverable is in the ideas of unfortunate individuals, who imagine themselves placed near the pivot desired by the philosopher, and that they possess the lever which is to move the solid globe to any position into which it may suit them to upheave it. A poor man by origin, and with some talent, suddenly becomes the Sir Oracle of his village; and, because the Governor-General does not advance his _protégé_ or connexions, or because he does not imagine that the welfare of the province hinges upon his support, turns sulky, and obtaining, by very easy means, a seat in the Assembly, becomes all at once an ultra on the opposite side of the question. In all new countries ambition gets the better of discretion, but fortunately soon finds its natural level: the violent ultra-tory, and the violent ultra-demagogue sink alike, after a few years of excitement, into the moth-eaten receptacle of newspaper renown, alike unheeded, and alike forgotten, by a newer and more enlightened generation, who find that, to the cost of the real interest of the people, the mouthing orator, the agitator, the exciter, is not the patriot. Canada, although emphatically a new country, is rapidly becoming a most important one, and increasing with a vigour not contemplated in England. It is proved, by ample statistical details, that the United States is behind-hand, _ceteris paribus_, in the race. The thirteen colonies declared their independence in 1783, now only sixty-three years, and amply within the memory of men. The following data for 1784 may be compared to 1836:-- 1784. Imports. Exports. Population. Shipping Tons. Nova Scotia } Cape Breton } St. John's } £75,000 £3,500 32,000 12,000 Prince Edward's } Island } Canada 500,000 150,000 113,000 95,000 Newfoundland 80,000 70,000 20,000 20,000 -------- -------- ------- ------- Total £655,000 £223,500 165,000 127,000 1836. _Or just before the disturbances in Canada, and before the Union._ Imports. Exports. Population. Shipping Tons. Nova Scotia £1,245,000 £935,000 150,000 374,000 Canada 2,580,000 1,321,750 1,200,000 348,000 Newfoundland 632,576 850,344 70,000 98,000 Cape Breton 80,000 90,000 35,000 70,000 Prince Edward's Island 46,000 90,000 32,000 23,800 New Brunswick 250,000 700,000 164,000 347,000 --------- ---------- --------- --------- Total £4,833,576 £3,987,094 1,651,000 1,260,800 THE UNITED STATES. Imports. Exports. Population. Shipping Tons. 1784 £4,250,000 £1,000,000 3,000,000 500,000 1836 162,000,000 121,000,000 15,000,000 2,000,000 Thus the increase in shipping alone to the North American colonies, compared with the United States, was as _ten_ to _four_, and the increase of population as _ten_ to _three_. In imports, the United States, compared with the colonies in that period, increased as 40 to 9, exports 120 to 19; but then the Americans had the whole world for customers, and the colonies Great Britain only, until very lately, and then, even in the West India trade, they could scarcely compete with their rivals; whereas the Americans started with four times the shipping, nearly double the population, six times the import, and four times the export trade, and the people of the republic had already occupied at least ten great commercial ports, whilst Quebec, Halifax, and St. John, were yet in infancy as mercantile _entrepôts_. Passing over all but Western Canada, we shall examine the state of that province after the rebellion of 1839, when Lord Durham informed us that The population was 513,000, Value of fixed and } }An increase of two assessed property } £5,043,253 }millions and a }quarter }in ten years. Cultivated acres 1,738,500 Grist-mills 678 Saw-mills 933 Cattle 400,000 and yet Upper Canada was only a howling wilderness in 1784. It is now supposed, upon competent authority, that the British possessions north of New York contain not fewer than two millions and a quarter of inhabitants, a fixed and floating capital of seventy-five million pounds, a public revenue of a million and a quarter, with a tonnage of not less than two millions and a quarter, manned, including the lake craft, steam-boats, and fishing-vessels, by one hundred and fifty thousand sailors; and this Western Britain consumes annually seven millions of pounds sterling of British goods. The Inspector-General of Revenue for Canada alone gives us the following data:-- 1845. Revenue of Canada £524,637 Expenditure 500,839. Now let us see what the Standing Army and Militia of the United States are in 1845: Standing Army--7,590 officers and men, including all ranks. Militia--627 Generals, 2,670 Staff-officers, 13,813 Field-officers, 44,938 Company-officers, and 1,385,645 men. Naval Force--11 ships of the line, 14 first-class frigates, 17 sloops-of-war, 8 brigs, 9 schooners, 6 steamers: with 67 captains, 94 commanders, 324 lieutenants, 133 passed midshipmen, 416 midshipmen, and 31 masters. The crews being formed of European sailors chiefly, no estimate is given of sufficient authenticity to depend upon as to the native citizens employed afloat in the services of the State. The Militia appears a fearful Xerxian force, but it is really of no consequence whatever except as a protective one for the purposes of invasion, being quite met by the militia of the British provinces, as no larger army than 20,000 men can be effectually moved or subsisted on such an extensive frontier as Canada, and that only by an immense sacrifice of money. Having thus given a glimpse at the state of affairs, I must leave my readers for the present, after a little talk about the city of Kingston. Kingston, instead of suffering, as predicted, by the removal of the seat of government, having been thrown on her own resources, is rising fast. Her naval and commercial harbours are being strongly fortified. The public buildings are important and handsome. The Town Hall is probably the finest edifice of the kind on the continent of America, and cost £30,000, containing two splendid rooms of vast size, Post-office, Custom-house, Commercial Newsroom, shops, and a complete Market Place, with Mayor's Court and Policeoffice, and a lofty cupola, commanding a view of immense extent. There are three English churches, built of stone, a Scots church of the same material, several dissenting places of worship, and a magnificent cathedral, almost equal in size to that at Montreal, for Roman Catholics, with a smaller church attached, a seminary for educating the priests, a nunnery, and an Hotel Dieu, conducted by Sisters of Charity; also an immense building for a public hospital, extensive barracks for troops, and several private houses of inferior importance, with four banks. There are ten daily first-class steamers running to and from Kingston, and about thirty smaller steamers and propellers, with a fleet of two hundred schooners and sailing barges. The navigation is open from the 1st of April until late in November. To show the trade of this rising city, now containing near twelve thousand inhabitants, I append a table of its Exports and Imports, for 1845. IMPORTS AND DUTIES, AT KINGSTON, FOR 1845. -----------------------+----------+---------------+--------------+-------------- Articles Imported. | Number | Value at the | Amount of | Remarks. | or | place of | all Duties, | | quantity.| importation, | Currency. | | | Currency. | | -----------------------+----------+---------------+--------------+-------------- | | £ s. d.| £ s. d.| Animals--Cows and | | | | Heifers No.| 12 | 54 10 0 | 14 12 0 | Horses, Mares, } " | | | | Geldings, } " | 13 | 231 5 0 | 23 14 6 | Colts, Fillies &} " | | | | Foals } | 21 | 222 10 0 | . . . |Of travellers. Lambs " | 70 | 16 0 0 | 3 5 2 | Oxen, Bulls, Steers | 262 | 1,514 0 0 | 406 19 6 | Pigs (sucking) " | 1 | 0 5 0 | 0 0 7 | Swine and Hogs " | 1,212 | 3,474 10 2 | 368 13 0 | Sheep " | 337 | 90 8 9 | 41 0 0 | Anchovies and Sardines,| | | | in oil | . | 3 0 6 | 0 7 10 | Ashes barrels| 67 | 279 7 9 | 13 9 8 | Bark | . | 99 16 0 | 4 17 8 | Berries, Nuts, | | | | Vegetables, for dying | . | 156 16 5 | 12 13 9 | Biscuit and Crackers | . | 111 11 10 | 10 4 5 | Books | . | 1,329 6 1 | 150 12 9 |Private Do. | . | 20 0 0 | . . . | library Candles--Sperm lb.| 3,770 | 310 6 10 | 84 13 3 | from Europe. Wax " | 3,457 | 163 11 10 | 28 19 3 |Bonded for Other kinds " | 13,800 | 856 11 3 | . . . | lower ports. Carriages, Vehicles No.| 28 | 220 0 0 | 18 13 5 |Of travellers. Do. | 20 | 256 5 0 | . . . | Clocks and Watches | . | 1,046 7 1 | 167 7 2 | Coals tons.| 373 0 76| 514 12 11 | 23 17 1 | Cocoa cwt.| 1 20| 1 16 0 | 0 2 11 | Coffee--Green cwt.{| 288 8 1| 625 17 10 | 247 2 4 |Remov'd under {| 27 1 9| 66 0 0 | . . . | bond to Roasted " | 13 1 1| 30 10 10 | 19 1 11 | Hamilton. Ground " | 8 0 20| 15 19 9 | 21 1 8 | Coin and Bullion | . |22,500 0 0 | . . . | Cordage " | 193 0 13| 535 6 8 | 61 16 1 | Corks gross| 1086 | 80 11 8 | 9 6 0 | Cotton Manufactures | . | 1,728 16 1 | 200 1 0 | Cotton Wool | . | 236 0 0 | 11 16 0 | Drugs | . | 327 13 6 | 17 0 10 | Extracts, Essences and | | | | Perfumery | . | 92 1 3 | 12 0 0 | Fanning and Bark Mills | 10 | 33 16 6 | 4 18 11 | Fins and Skins, the | | | | produce of creatures | | | | living in the sea | . | 33 13 9 | 7 11 0 | Fish--Fresh, not | | | | described | . | 260 11 3 | 6 11 7 | Oysters, Lobsters and | | | | Turtles | . | 1,100 14 9 | 7 11 0 | Salted or dried cwt.| 154 0 19| 127 4 0 | 20 1 4 | Pickled barls.| 30 | 54 11 4 | 7 16 11 | Flour, Wheat, {| 8,396-1/2| 9,296 18 3 |1,276 16 9 |Supplied barrels {| 204 | 224 8 0 | 6 4 1 | H. M. of 196 lb. {| 44,151 |54,919 7 6 | . . . | Commissariat. Fruit, Almonds " | 15,115 | 137 17 6 | 31 8 7 | Apples bushels|13,966-1/2| 1,300 3 7 | 424 16 7 | Do. Dried " | 163 | 36 14 7 | 11 7 4 | Currants cwt.| 47 3 2 4| 105 10 9 | 18 2 1 | Figs " | 20 2 20 | 53 7 2 | 8 8 1 | Nuts lb.{| 9,421 | 140 17 1 | 29 10 4 | {| 610 | 6 2 0 | . . . |Bonded for Pears bushels| 421-3/4| 59 12 8 | 25 12 6 | removal to Prunes lb.| 543 | 20 12 6 | 3 11 6 | Hamilton. Raisins in boxes " | 34,411 | 788 9 8 | 205 19 6 | Do., otherwise than | | | | in boxes lb.| 7,990 | 127 6 6 | 25 7 10 | Unenumerated " | . | 999 12 7 | 95 18 9 | Fur Skins, or Peltries,| | | | undressed | . | 22 16 6 | 1 2 5 | Glass Manufactures | . | 860 3 11 | 168 0 1 | Grain, &c.--Barley qrs.| 373-3/4| 369 4 9 | 68 4 2 | Maize, or Ind. Corn, | | | | quarters, 480 lb. | 2,617-1/2| 2,717 13 9 | 477 15 9 | Oats quarters| 87-1/2| 43 13 9 | 10 12 11-1/2| Rye " | 69-3/4| 51 19 7 | 12 13 6-1/2| Beans " | 2 | 4 8 0 | 0 7 3 | Meal of the above grs.| | | | and of Wheat not | | | | bolted, per 196 lb. | 10-1/2| 4 10 0 | . 15 6 | Wheat quarters| 2,597-1/4| 4,647 17 4 | 474 0 0 | Bran & Shorts cwt.| 4 0 0| 3 7 3 | 0 1 3 | Gums and Resins | . | 181 1 5 | 9 3 3 | Hardware | . | 3,883 2 10 | 466 11 4 | Hay tons| 34-1/2| 56 1 3 | 12 11 10 | Hemp, Flax, & Tow {|4,879 1 18| 2,188 12 7 | 21 17 9 | cwt.{|1,540 2 0| 838 10 0 | . . . |Bonded for Hides, Raw No.| 755 | 338 3 9 | 3 7 8 | lower ports. Hops lb.| 936 | 26 0 6 | 15 5 6 | India Rubber Boots & | | | | Shoes pairs| 1,197 | 218 1 7 | 45 6 6 | Leather--Goat Skins, | | | | tanned, or in any | | | | way dressed doz.| 4 | 6 12 0 | 1 9 7 | Lamb and Sheep | | | | Skins doz.| 172 | 117 9 10 | 30 19 8 | Calf Skins, do. lb.| 857-1/4| 90 18 5 | 29 13 10 | Kid Skins, do. " | 1,024 | 92 18 9 | 10 6 11 | Harness Leather " |12,641-1/2| 347 1 0 | 141 18 3 | Upper Leather " | 4,109-3/4| 271 7 11 | 51 9 3 | Sole Leather " |74,931 | 2,561 5 3 | 672 4 6 | Leather not described | | 334 16 5 | 28 17 6 | Leather Manufactures | | | | Boots, Shoes, Calashes | | | | Women's Boots, | | | | Shoes, & Calashes | | | | of Leather doz. prs. | 52-1/2| 116 1 3 | 29 12 9 | Girls' Boots, Shoes, | | | | and Calashes, under | | | | 7 in. in length. | | | | of Leather doz. prs. | 38 | 38 12 3 | 8 14 6 | Girls' Boots & Shoes | | | | of Silk, Satin, Jean | | | | or other stuff, Kid, | | | | Morocco doz. prs. | 14 | 20 14 7 | 3 12 2 | Men's Boots of Leather| | | | pairs| 2,047 | 494 15 7 | 109 14 6 | Men's Shoes, do. " | 161 | 29 7 1 | 11 18 2 | Boys' Boots under 8 | | | | inches long pairs| 38 | 7 0 0 | 3 6 3 | Boys' Shoes, do. " | 28 | 5 8 7 | 1 13 1 | Leather Manufactures | | | | not described | | 330 19 2 | 38 4 6 | Linen Manufactures | | 82 6 0 | 9 9 11 | Liquids--Cider and | | | | Perry gallons | 5,679 | 61 15 5 | 32 1 7 | Vinegar " | 2,670 | 87 2 2 | 44 4 0 | Maccaroni and | | | | Vermicelli lb. | 493 | 13 18 2 | 3 1 1 | Machinery | | 1,478 14 7 | 225 11 0 | Mahogany and Hardwood, | | | | unmanufactured | | | | for Furniture | | 144 19 5 | 1 9 2 | Manures of all kinds | | 29 12 6 | 0 1 0 | Medicines | | 642 1 6 | 55 6 4 | Molasses & Treacle cwt | 193 2 8 | 141 10 6 | 47 1 7 | Oakum " | 0 22 | 1 4 9 | 0 1 9 | Oils--Olive, in casks | | | | gallons | 700 | 142 9 0 | 19 17 11 | Do. in jars and | | | | bottles gallons | 56-1/2| 24 2 1 | 4 8 1 | Lard " | 690 | 130 9 4 | 19 4 2 | Linseed, raw or | | | | boiled " | 2,367 | 329 2 5 | 37 3 4 | Oils, Vegetable, | | | | Volatile, Chemical, | | | | and essential gallons| 131 | 58 18 3 | 6 9 9 | Palm " | 150 | 23 6 6 | 1 2 11 | The produce of Fish | | | | and creatures living | | | | in the sea gals.| 8,196-1/2| 1,941 12 7 | 309 16 2 | Unenumerated " | 2,957-1/4| 460 7 2 | 52 16 6 | Paper Manufactures, | | | | other than Books & | | | | Playing Cards | . | 892 12 2 | 101 19 2 | Pickles and Sauces | . | 12 8 10 | 1 12 4 | Playing Cards packs| . | 8 7 7 | 1 7 0 | Potatoes bushels| 172-1/2| 12 5 3 | 2 12 6 | Poultry and Game, live | . | 9 1 0 | 0 18 1 | Ditto, dead | . | 63 2 4 | 8 9 9 | Provisions--Butter cwt.| 3 3 9| 13 1 3 | 2 16 11 | Cheese | 248 2 22| 400 9 3 | 113 9 3 | Eggs dozen| 236 | 5 18 0 | 0 16 6 | Lard cwt.| 40 1 18| 80 18 0 | 3 19 5 | Meats--Bacon and | | | | Hams cwt.| 47 2 17| 78 18 13 | 23 2 8-1/2| Ditto, other Meats, | | | | salted, &c. cwt. |14,035 2 3|25,137 11 6 |4,274 9 7 | Ditto " |4,237 2 20| 5,656 0 0 | . . . | Ditto, Fresh " | 261 3 15| 264 14 9 | 63 14 0 |Bonded-for Rice " | 282 2 0| 350 17 4 | 17 9 2 |lower ports Salt barls of 280 lb.| 975 | 255 14 2 | 148 5 8 | Sausages & Puddings | . | 0 3 4 | 0 0 6 | Seeds cwt.| . | 123 15 3 | 10 10 1 | Silk Manufactures | . | 136 9 10 | 26 13 4 | Soap cwt.| 36 2 25| 131 5 9 | 14 15 7 | Spices--Cassia lb.| 305-1/2| 17 9 0 | 3 15 9 | Cinnamon " | 160 | 9 18 6 | 2 0 3 | Cloves " | 46 | 3 11 10 | 0 11 9 | Nutmegs " | 2 | 0 13 9 | 0 1 4 | Pepper of all kinds " | 1,254 | 34 1 4 | 4 10 9 | Spirits and cordials, | | | | except Rum-- | | | | Not exceeding proof, | | | | gallons| 32 | 4 10 0 | 4 7 7 | Over proof " | 16 | 2 5 0 | 2 3 9 | Sweetened or mixed | 7 | 10 17 6 | 1 5 6 | Sugar--Refined cwt.|55 2 6-1/2| 164 3 9 | 95 18 3 | Unrefined & Bastard |2,520 0 16| 3,698 0 8 |2,199 4 6 | Syrups | 137 | 45 4 6 | 7 9 2 |Do. Stearine lb.| 3,681 | 184 1 0 | . . . | Tallow cwt.|3,086 1 6-1/2 5,385 17 6| 53 1 3 | Tea lb.|196,268 |18,110 9 8 |1,999 16 8 | Tobacco | | | | --Unmanufactured " | 1,923 | 222 18 9 | . . . | Do. | 357 | 13 2 2 | 2 7 2 | Manufactured " |202,508-1/2 4,291 13 0 |1,205 8 11 | Segars " | 1,627 | 550 12 10 | 235 12 11 | Snuff " | 1,981 | 87 19 7 | 46 6 8 | Trees, Shrubs, Plants, | | | | and Roots | . | 222 0 11 | 8 17 6 | Settlers' Goods lots| 3 | 26 5 0 | . . . | Vegetables, except | | | | potatoes, fresh | . | 334 6 6 | 36 13 4 | Wines doz. gallons|1,162-1/4 | 419 4 9 | 112 16 11 | Wood, except Saw Logs | | | | & Mahogany. Pine, | | | | White cubic feet| 11,750 | 147 12 7 | 17 17 3 | Oak " | 1,497 | 25 0 0 | 5 0 5 | Staves, Puncheon, or | | | | W. I. Standard| | | | std. M. " | 57 | 609 13 5 | 86 7 0 | White Oak " | 435 | 1,442 3 2 | 263 0 1 | Handspikes doz.| 5 | 1 17 6 | 0 1 6 | Oars pairs| 17 | 3 14 3 | 0 5 5 | Planks, Boards, sawed | | | | Lumber feet| 48,475 | 89 4 0 | 17 13 0 | Woollen Manufactures | . | 1,097 12 10 | 124 7 7 | Wood. Firewood, cords| 397-1/2 | 66 12 3 | 3 6 0 | All other articles not | | | | included under any of | | | | the foregoing heads | . | 6,502 12 3 | 555 7 1 | | +---------------+--------------+-------------- Totals, Currency | |211,705 0 11 |19,917 17 0 | [Amount of duty on Imports bonded for lower ports - £8036 0 8] Below, we give a return of the amount and value of goods imported at this Port through the United States, for the benefit of drawback. The importations under this law have not been large, but the return shows that a material saving has been effected under this operation. For the return we are indebted to the politeness of the late collector, Mr. Kirkpatrick. AGGREGATE OF IMPORTS INTO KINGSTON FOR BENEFIT OF DRAWBACK. --------------+------------------------+-------------+-------------+------------ Articles. |Quantity in Weight, &c. | Value. | Duties. | Drawback. --------------+------------------------+-------------+-------------+------------ | | £ s. d.| £ s. d.| Dollars. Cigars | 1,281 lbs. | 404 8 4 | 184 3 3 | 502 43 Almonds | 5,964 " | 101 19 4 | 41 1 3 | 159 75 Currants | 5,259 " | 105 10 9 | 18 12 1 | 120 81 Raisins |39,216 " | 844 11 4 | 217 18 1 | 1,059 86 Molasses | 147 cwt. 3 qr. 4 lb. | 109 3 0 | 35 19 18 | 72 66 Olive Oil | 700 gallons | 142 9 0 | 19 17 10 | 136 50 Linseed Oil | 2,100 " | 282 19 6 | 32 12 2 | 511 88 Raw Sugar | 2,168 cwt. 2 qr. 8 lb. | 3,169 6 3 | 1,889 13 10 | 5,899 74 Refined Sugar | 6,020 lbs. | 157 5 6 | 92 9 9 | 205 44 Wine | 400 gallons | 240 7 0 | 54 17 11 | 245 81 | | | +------------ | | | | 8,914 91 | +-------------+-------------+------------ | | 5,558 0 0 | 2,587 5 10 |£2,228 14 6 We have also been favoured with a return of the shipping, which, during the season of 1845, has entered this port. The reports to the Custom House embrace 388,788. This return includes the steamers employed on the Bay and Lake, when carrying merchandize; but, as the law requiring vessels to report only came into force several weeks after the opening of the navigation, and as it has not in all instances been obeyed, the return is not quite as full as it might have been under other circumstances. As much as 15,000 or 20,000 tons have in this way entered without reporting. The amount of tonnage for 1845, stated above, is likewise exclusive of all that engaged n trade on the canal and river, and which is very nearly equal in amount. The Provincial Revenue returns for 1845 are said to exceed those of 1844 by £55,000. Kingston is, in fact, the key of the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence and the Rideau Canal being their outlets for commerce; but, unless railroads are established between the Atlantic at Halifax and these Lakes, the prosperity of this and many other inland towns will be materially affected, as by the enlargement of the Rideau branches at Grenville, &c. and the La Chine Canal to the required ship navigation size, Kingston must no longer hope for the unshipment of bulky goods and the forwarding trade on which she so mainly depends; a glance at the forwarding business done by the Erie Canal to New York on the American side, and that by the Welland, St. Lawrence, and Rideau on the Canadian, being quite sufficient to prove that all the energies of the Canadians are required to compete with their rivals. And for this purpose I cite an extract from a circular put forth by the Free Trade Association of Montreal, which contains a good deal of sound reasoning on this subject, amidst, of course, much party feeling on the Free Trade principle. "We now proceed, in the development of our plan, to show the incalculable advantages that will result to Canadian commerce and the carrying trade, by removing all duties and restrictions from American produce. "First, we shall show the amount of produce collected annually on the shores of our great island waters, and brought to this city for distribution to the various markets of consumption; next, the vast quantity that passes through the Erie Canal, seeking a market at New York and other American ports; and, lastly, we shall show that it is in the power of Canada to divert a large share of this latter trade through her own waters, if her people and legislature will promptly give effect to the liberal and enlarged policy which it is the object of this Association to advocate and urge. "NO. 1.--SHOWING THE QUANTITY OF PRODUCE BROUGHT BY THE ST. LAWRENCE TO THE CITY OF MONTREAL, IN THE YEAR 1845:-- "Pork, 6,109 barrels; beef, 723 barrels; lard, 460 kegs; flour, 590,305 barrels; wheat, 450,209 bushels; other grain, 40,781 bushels; ashes, 33,000 barrels; butter, 8,112 kegs. "NO. 2.--SHOWING THE QUANTITY OF PRODUCE CARRIED THROUGH THE ERIE CANAL IN THE YEAR 1844:-- "Pork, 63,646 barrels; beef, 7,699 barrels; lard, 3,064,800 lbs.; flour, 2,517,250 barrels; wheat, 1,620,033 bushels; corn, 35,803 bushels; flax-seed, 8,303,960 lbs.; ashes, 80,646 barrels. "From the foregoing statements it will be seen that the quantity carried through the latter channel is enormous as compared with the former. It becomes then a question of vital importance whether a portion of this trade can be attracted through the St. Lawrence. We believe that it can, because the cheapest conveyance to the seaboard and to the manufacturing districts of New England must win the prize; and who will deny that the securing of this prize is not worth both our best and united exertions? "The cheapening of the means of transit is the great object to be obtained; and our best practical authorities are firmly of opinion that the St. Lawrence will be made the cheapest route, as soon as our chain of inland improvements is rendered complete. They affirm that the cost of transporting a barrel of flour from Detroit to Montreal will not exceed 1s. 6d. to 1s. 9d. The difficulty will then be to secure a port of constant access to the sea, and that difficulty will be overcome by the early completion of the projected Portland railway: a road that will place us within a day's journey of that city, the harbour of which may be made the safest and cheapest on the continent of America. By that route we shall avoid the occasional dangers and inconveniencies of the St. Lawrence, from Montreal outwards, practically secure a long season for trade in the fall of the year, and safely reckon on freights to Liverpool as low as those from New York. But what is equally important to the transit trade to England is this: that by rendering our charges cheaper than those through the Erie Canal to Boston, we shall secure the transit trade to that great city, and all other eastern markets, as well as the supplying of our sister colonies, commonly known as the Lower Ports. This picture may appear too flattering to those who have not investigated the subject; but to such we say, examination will convince them that, with the St. Lawrence as a highway, and Portland as an outlet to the sea, we shall be enabled, successfully, to struggle for the mighty trade of the West, and bid defiance to competition on the more artificial route of the Erie Canal. But there is no time for slumbering; inactivity, at this crisis, would be fatal to our hopes; even the very produce of Western Canada may be carried, in spite of us, through American channels, unless we immediately carry out the completion of our own. "We may here also remind the Canadian farmer, at whatever place he may be situated, that every saving effected in the means of bringing his produce to market adds in the same degree to the value of his wheat and every other marketable product of the soil he cultivates.--And here it may not be out of place to add that, repudiating all sectional proceedings, we seek no advantage for classes, no peculiar advantage for Montreal over other parts of the province; we advocate, on the contrary, the general interests of producers and consumers--the general welfare of the community." People of enlarged views in Canada do not, however, fancy, with the anti-free-traders, that Sir Robert Peel's measures will prove so very destructive to colonial interests; on the contrary, they clearly see that new energies will be called into operation, and that Canada will be opened by railroads, and no longer monopolized by extensive landholders of waste and unprofitable forests. Having now arrived at the termination of this volume, I have only to add that, if a war is forced upon Great Britain by the United States, the British dominion here will be sustained without flinching; and that the old English aspiration of the militia will be FOR THE HONOUR AND GLORY OF BRITAIN, GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! THE END. F. Shoberl, Jun., Printer to His Royal Highness Prince Albert, 51, Rupert Street, Haymarket. 
30808	----	HISTORY OF FARMING IN ONTARIO BY C. C. JAMES [Illustration: Publisher's Device] REPRINTED FROM CANADA AND ITS PROVINCES A HISTORY OF THE CANADIAN PEOPLE AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS BY ONE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES EDITED BY ADAM SHORTT AND A. G. DOUGHTY HISTORY OF FARMING IN ONTARIO BY C. C. JAMES C.M.G. [Illustration: Publisher's Device] TORONTO GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY 1914 This Volume consists of a Reprint, for private circulation only, of the One Hundred and Sixteenth Signed Contribution contained in CANADA AND ITS PROVINCES, a History of the Canadian People and their Institutions by One Hundred Associates. Adam Shortt and Arthur G. Doughty, General Editors HISTORY OF FARMING THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE From the most southern point of Ontario on Lake Erie, near the 42nd parallel of latitude, to Moose Factory on James Bay, the distance is about 750 miles. From the eastern boundary on the Ottawa and St Lawrence Rivers to Kenora at the Manitoba boundary, the distance is about 1000 miles. The area lying within these extremes is about 220,000 square miles. In 1912 a northern addition of over 100,000 square miles was made to the surface area of the province, but it is doubtful whether the agricultural lands will thereby be increased. Of this large area about 25,000,000 acres are occupied and assessed, including farm lands and town and city sites. It will be seen, therefore, that only a small fraction of the province has, as yet, been occupied. Practically all the occupied area lies south of a line drawn through Montreal, Ottawa, and Sault Ste Marie, and it forms part of the great productive zone of the continent. The next point to be noted is the irregularity of the boundary-line, the greater portion of which is water--Lakes Superior, Huron, Erie, Ontario, the St Lawrence River, the Ottawa River, James Bay, and Hudson Bay. The modifying effect of great bodies of water must be considered in studying the agricultural possibilities of Ontario. Across this great area of irregular outline there passes a branch of the Archæan rocks running in a north-western direction and forming a watershed, which turns some of the streams to Hudson Bay and the others to the St Lawrence system. An undulating surface has resulted, more or less filled with lakes, and almost lavishly supplied with streams, which are of prime importance for agricultural life and of incalculable value for commercial purposes. To these old rocks which form the backbone of the province may be traced the origin of the large stretches of rich soil with which the province abounds. An examination of the map, and even a limited knowledge of the geological history of the province, will lead to the conclusion that in Ontario there must be a wide range in the nature and composition of the soils and a great variety in the climatic conditions. These conditions exist, and they result in a varied natural production. In the extreme south-western section plants of a semi-tropical nature were to be found in the early days in luxurious growth; while in the extreme north, spruce, somewhat stunted in size and toughened in fibre, are still to be found in vast forests. It is with the southern section, that lying south of the Laurentian rocks, that our story is mainly concerned, for the occupation and exploitation of the northland is a matter only of recent date. Nature provided conditions for a diversified agriculture. It is to such a land that for over a hundred years people of different nationalities, with their varied trainings and inclinations, have been coming to make their homes. We may expect, therefore, to find a great diversity in the agricultural growth of various sections, due partly to the variety of natural conditions and partly to the varied agricultural training of the settlers in their homelands. EARLY SETTLEMENT, 1783-1816 Originally this province was covered with forest, varied and extensive, and was valued only for its game. The hunter and trapper was the pioneer. To protect and assist him, fortified posts were constructed at commanding points along the great waterways. In the immediate vicinity of these posts agriculture, crude in its nature and restricted in its area, had its beginning. It was into this wooded wilderness that the United Empire Loyalists, numbering in all approximately ten thousand people, came in the latter part of the eighteenth century.[1] They were a people of varied origins--Highland Scottish, German, Dutch, Irish Palatine, French Huguenot, English. Most of them had lived on farms in New York State, and therefore brought with them some knowledge and experience that stood them in good stead in their arduous work of making new homes in a land that was heavily wooded. In the year 1783 prospectors were sent into Western Quebec, the region lying west of the Ottawa River, and selections were made for them in four districts--along the St Lawrence, opposite Fort Oswegatchie; around the Bay of Quinte, above Fort Cataraqui; in the Niagara peninsula, opposite Fort Niagara; and in the south-western section, within reach of Fort Detroit. Two reasons determined these locations; first, the necessity of being located on the water-front, as lake and river were the only highways available; and, secondly, the advisability of being within the protection of a fortified post. The dependence of the settlers upon the military will be realized when we remember that they had neither implements nor seed grain. In fact, they were dependent at first upon the government stores for their food. It is difficult at the present time to realize the hardships and appreciate the conditions under which these United Empire Loyalist settlers began life in the forest of 1784. Having been assigned their lots and supplied with a few implements, they began their work of making small clearings and the erection of rude log-houses and barns. Among the stumps they sowed the small quantities of wheat, oats, and potatoes that were furnished from the government stores. Cattle were for many years few in number, and the settler, to supply his family with food and clothing, was compelled to add hunting and trapping to his occupation of felling the trees. Gradually the clearings became larger and the area sown increased in size. The trails were improved and took on the semblance of roads, but the waterways continued to be the principal avenues of communication. In each of the four districts the government erected mills to grind the grain for the settlers. These were known as the King's Mills. Water-power mills were located near Kingston, at Gananoque, at Napanee, and on the Niagara River. The mill on the Detroit was run by wind power. An important event in the early years was when the head of the family set out for the mill with his bag of wheat on his back or in his canoe, and returned in two or three days, perhaps in a week, with a small supply of flour. In the early days there was no wheat for export. The question then may be asked, was there anything to market? Yes; as the development went on, the settlers found a market for two surplus products, timber and potash. The larger pine trees were hewn into timber and floated down the streams to some convenient point where they were collected into rafts, which were taken down the St Lawrence to Montreal and Quebec. Black salt or crude potash was obtained by concentrating the ashes that resulted from burning the brush and trees that were not suitable for timber. For the first thirty years of the new settlements the chief concern of the people was the clearing of their land, the increasing of their field crops, and the improving of their homes and furnishings. It was slow going, and had it not been for government assistance, progress, and even maintenance of life, would have been impossible. That was the heroic age of Upper Canada, the period of foundation-laying in the province. Farming was the main occupation, and men, women, and children shared the burdens in the forest, in the field, and in the home. Roads were few and poorly built, except the three great military roads planned by Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe running east, west, and north from the town of York. Social intercourse was of a limited nature. Here and there a school was formed when a competent teacher could be secured. Church services were held once a month, on which occasions the missionary preacher rode into the district on horseback. Perhaps once or twice in the summer the weary postman, with his pack on his back, arrived at the isolated farmhouse to leave a letter, on which heavy toll had to be collected. Progress was slow in those days, but after thirty years fair hope of an agricultural country was beginning to dawn upon the people when the War of 1812 broke out. By this time the population of the province had increased to about eighty thousand. During this first thirty years very little had been done in the way of stimulating public interest in agricultural work. Conditions were not favourable to organization. The 'town meeting' was concerned mainly with the question of the height of fences and regulations as to stock running at large. One attempt, however, was made which should be noted. Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe took charge of affairs early in 1792, and, immediately after the close of the first session of the legislature at Newark (Niagara) in the autumn of that year, organized an agricultural society at the headquarters which met occasionally to discuss agricultural questions. There are no records to show whether social intercourse or practical agricultural matters formed the main business. The struggle for existence was too exacting and the conditions were not yet favourable for organization to advance general agricultural matters. When the War of 1812 broke out the clearings of the original settlers had been extended, and some of the loyalists still lived, grown grey with time and hardened by the rough life of the backwoods. Their sons, many of whom had faint recollection of their early homes across the line, had grown up in an atmosphere of strictest loyalty to the British crown, and had put in long years in clearing the farms on which they lived and adding such comforts to their houses, that to them, perhaps as to no other generation, their homes meant everything in life. The summons came to help to defend those homes and their province. For three years the agricultural growth received a severe check. Fathers and sons took their turn in going to the front. The cultivation of the fields, the sowing and the harvesting of the crops, fell largely to the lot of the mothers and the daughters left at home. But they were equal to it. In those days the women were trained to help in the work of the fields. They did men's work willingly and well. In many cases they had to continue their heroic work after the close of the war, until their surviving boys were grown to years of manhood, for many husbands and sons went to the front never to return. FOOTNOTES: [1] See 'Pioneer Settlements' in this section. A PERIOD OF EXPANSION, 1816-46 The close of the war saw a province that had been checked at a time of vigorous growth now more or less impoverished, and, in some sections, devastated. This was, however, but the gloomy outlook before a period of rapid expansion. In 1816, on the close of the Napoleonic wars in Europe, large numbers of troops were disbanded, and for these new homes and new occupations had to be found. Then began the first emigration from Britain overseas to Upper Canada. All over the British Isles little groups were forming of old soldiers reunited to their families. A few household furnishings were packed, a supply of provisions laid in, a sailing vessel chartered, and the trek began across the Atlantic. The emigrants sailed from many ports of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Sometimes the trip was made in three or four weeks; but often, through contrary winds or rough weather, three or four months passed before the vessel sailed up the St Lawrence and landed the newcomers at Montreal. Hardly half of their difficulties were then overcome or half of their dangers passed. If they were to find their new locations by land, they must walk or travel by slow ox-cart; if they journeyed by water, they must make their way up the St Lawrence by open boat, surmounting the many rapids in succession, poling the boats, pulling against the stream, at times helping to carry heavy loads over the portages. Their new homes in the backwoods were in townships in the rear of those settled by the loyalists, or in unoccupied areas lying on the lake-fronts between the four districts referred to as having been taken up by the loyalists. Then began the settlements along the north shore of Lake Ontario and of Lake Erie, and the population moved forward steadily. In 1816 the total population of the province was approximately 100,000; by 1826, according to returns made to the government, it had increased to 166,000; in 1836 it was 374,000, and in 1841 it was 456,000. The great majority of these people, of course, lived upon the land, the towns being comparatively small, and the villages were composed largely of people engaged in agricultural work. This peaceful British invasion contributed a new element to the province and added still further to the variety of the people. In one township could be found a group of English settlers, most of whom came from a southern county of England, near by a township peopled by Scottish Lowlanders, and not far away a colony of north of Ireland farmers, or perhaps a settlement composed entirely of people from the vicinity of Cork or Limerick. These British settlers brought new lines of life, new plans for houses and barns, new methods of cultivation, new varieties of seed, and, what was perhaps of most influence upon the agricultural life of the province, new kinds of live stock. Even to this day can be seen traces of the differences in construction of buildings introduced by the different nationalities that came as pioneers into the various sections of the province--the French Canadian constructed his buildings with long, steep roofs; the Englishman followed his home plan of many small, low outbuildings with doors somewhat rounded at the top; the German and Dutch settler built big barns with their capacious mows. These latter have become the type now generally followed, the main improvement in later years being the raising of the frames upon stone foundations so as to provide accommodation for live stock in the basement. It would be interesting and profitable to study carefully the different localities to determine what elements have contributed to the peculiar agricultural characteristics of the present day. In this connection the language also might be investigated. For instance, to the early Dutch farmers of Upper Canada we owe such common words as 'stoop,' 'bush,' 'boss,' 'span.' To the early British settler these were foreign words. When the oversea settlers came up the St Lawrence they were transported from Montreal either by 'bateau' or by 'Durham boat.'[2] Special reference must be made to the live stock introduced by the British settlers. This was one of the most important elements in the expansion and permanent development of the agriculture of the province. The British Isles have long been noted for their pure-bred stock. In no other part of the world have so many varieties been originated and improved. In horses, there are the Clydesdale, the Shire, the Thoroughbred, and the Hackney; in cattle, Shorthorns, Herefords, Ayrshires, Devon, and the dairy breeds of Jersey and Guernsey; in sheep, Southdowns, Shropshires, Leicesters; in swine, Berkshires and Yorkshires. Many other breeds might be added to these. Poultry and dogs also might be referred to. The Britisher has been noted for his love of live stock. He has been trained to their care, his agricultural methods have been ordered to provide food suitable for their wants, and he has been careful to observe the lines of breeding so as to improve their quality. In the earliest period of the settlement of the province live stock was not numerous and the quality was not of the best. Whatever was to be found on the farms came mainly from the United States and was of inferior type. The means of bringing in horses, cattle, and sheep were limited. The result was that field work at that time was largely done by hand labour. Hunting and fishing helped to supply the table with the food that to-day we obtain from the butcher. When the Britisher came across the Atlantic he brought to Upper Canada his love for live stock and his knowledge how to breed and care for the same. The result was seen in the rapid increase in the number of horses, cattle, sheep, and swine, and the placing of the agriculture of the province on a firm basis for future growth. By 1830 the population had grown to about 213,000, practically all located on the land. In that year there were only five towns of 1000 or over: namely, Kingston, 3587; York (Toronto), 2860; London, (including the township), 2415; Hamilton (including the township), 2013; and Brockville, 1130. The returns to the government show that of the 4,018,385 acres occupied 773,727 were under cultivation. On the farms were to be found 30,776 horses, 33,517 oxen, 80,892 milch cows, and 32,537 young cattle. It is interesting to note that oxen, so useful in clearing land and in doing heavy work, were more numerous than horses. Oxen were hardier than horses; they could forage for themselves and live on rough food, and when disabled could be converted into food. They thus played a very important part in the pioneer life. There were no improved farm implements in those days: the plough, the spade, the hoe, the fork, the sickle, the hook, the cradle, and the rake--implements that had been the husbandman's equipment for centuries--completed the list. With these the farmer cultivated his lands and gathered his crops. With two stout hickory poles, joined together at the end with tough leather thongs, a flail was made with which he threshed out his grain on the floor of his barn. The earliest pioneers raised some flax, and from the fibre made coarse linen fabrics, supplementing these by skins of wild animals and the hides of cattle. With the introduction of sheep by the British settlers wool became an important product, and homespun garments provided additional clothing for all the members of the family. Seeds of various fruit trees were planted, and by 1830 the products of these seedlings supplemented the wild plums and cherries of the woods and the wild raspberries that sprang up in abundance in the clearings and slashes. By this time every farm had one or more milch cows and the farmer's table was supplied with fresh milk, butter, and home-made cheese. As the first half-century of the province was drawing to its close, some of the comforts of home life began to be realized by the farming community. The isolation of the former period disappeared as roads of communication were opened up and extended. Here and there societies were formed for the exhibition of the products of the farm and for friendly competitions. So important were these societies becoming in the life of the whole community that in 1830 the government gave them recognition and provided an annual grant to assist them in their work. This is an important event in agricultural history, for it marks the beginning of government assistance to the agricultural industry. Between 1820 and 1830 probably not more than half a dozen agricultural societies were organized. Some records of such were preserved at York, Kingston, and in the Newcastle district. From the record of the County of Northumberland Agricultural Society it is learned that its first show was held in the public square of the village of Colborne on October 19, 1828, when premiums were awarded amounting in all to seventy-seven dollars. There were fourteen prizes for live stock, two prizes for cheese, two for field rollers, and two for essays on the culture of wheat. The first prize essay, for which the winner received five dollars, was printed for distribution. The prize list was limited in range, but it shows how this new settlement, formed largely by British settlers since 1816, was giving particular attention to the encouragement of live stock. A short quotation from the prize essay as to the best method of clearing the land for wheat should be found of interest. As a great part of our County is yet in a wilderness state and quite a share of the wheat brought to our markets is reared on new land, I deem it important that our enterprising young men who are clearing away the forest should know how to profit by their hard labor. Let the underwood be cut in the autumn before the leaves fall, and the large timber in the winter or early in the spring. This will insure a good burn, which is the first thing requisite for a good crop. Do your logging in the month of June, and if you wish to make money, do it before you burn your brush and save the ashes; these will more than half pay you for clearing the land: and by burning at this season you will attract a drove of cattle about you that will destroy all sprouts which may be growing; do not leave more than four trees on an acre and girdle these in the full moon of March and they will never leaf again; thus you may have your land prepared for the seed before harvest. The act of 1830 provided a grant of £100 for a society in each district, upon condition that the members subscribed and paid in at least £50, and in the case of a society being organized in each county the amount was to be equally divided among the societies. The condition of making the grant was set forth in the act as follows: 'When any Agricultural Society, for the purpose of importing valuable live stock, grain, grass seeds, useful implements or whatever else might conduce to the improvement of agriculture in this Province,' etc. As a result of this substantial assistance by the government, agricultural societies increased in number, and their influence, in assisting in the improvement of the live stock and the bringing of new implements to the attention of farmers, was most marked. Horses, sheep and milch cows increased rapidly. Purebred cattle now began to receive some attention. The first record of importation is the bringing of a Shorthorn bull and a cow from New York State in 1831 by Robert Arnold of St Catharines. In 1833 Rowland Wingfield, an Englishman farming near Guelph, brought a small herd of choice animals across the ocean, landed them at Montreal, took them to Hamilton by way of the Ottawa River, the Rideau Canal, and Lake Ontario, and then drove them on foot to Wellington County. The Hon. Adam Fergusson of Woodhill followed two or three years later with a similar importation. The first Ayrshire cattle can be traced back to the Scottish settlers who arrived during this period. These emigrants had provided their own food for the voyage to Canada, and in some cases brought a good milch cow to provide fresh milk on the voyage. She would be disposed of on landing, at Montreal or in the eastern part of Upper Canada. This accounts for the early predominance of Ayrshires in Eastern Ontario. Thus to the period 1830-45 belongs the first foundation of the pure-bred stock industry. It was in this period also that the first signs appear of improved farm implements and labour-saving machinery. Ploughs of improved pattern, lighter and more effective, were being made. Land rollers and harrows made in the factory began to take the place of the home-made articles. Crude threshing machines, clover-seed cleaners, root-cutters, and a simple but heavy form of hay-rake came into use. The mowing machine and the reaper were making their appearance in Great Britain and the United States, but they had not yet reached Upper Canada. The organization of agricultural societies in the various districts, and the great impetus given to the keeping of good stock, led in 1843 to the suggestion that a provincial organization would be of benefit to the farming industry. In the neighbouring State of New York a similar organization had been in existence since 1832 and successful State fairs had been held, which some of the more prominent farmers of Upper Canada had visited. An agricultural paper called the _British American Cultivator_ had been established in York, and through this paper, in letters and editorials, the idea of a provincial association was advocated. For three years the discussion proceeded, until finally, in 1846, there was organized the Provincial Agricultural Association and Board of Agriculture for Canada West, composed of delegates from the various district societies. The result was that the first provincial exhibition was held in Toronto on October 21 and 22 of that year. The old Government House at the south-western corner of King Street and Simcoe Street, then empty, was used for the exhibits, and the stock and implements were displayed in the adjoining grounds. The Canada Company gave a contribution of $200, eight local societies made donations, about $280 was secured as gate money, and 297 members paid subscriptions. Premiums were paid to the amount of $880, the bulk of which went to live stock; books, which cost about $270, were given as prizes; and there was left a cash balance on hand of $400. A ploughing match was held, and on the evening of the first day a grand banquet was given, attended by the officers and directors and by some of the leading citizens of Toronto. Among the speakers at this banquet were Chief Justice Robinson and Egerton Ryerson, superintendent of education. FOOTNOTES: [2] See 'Shipping and Canals' in section v. pp. 489-90. ORGANIZED AGRICULTURE, 1846-67 The organization of this provincial association fittingly introduces another era in agricultural growth. It is to be noted that this provincial organization was a self-created body; it drew at first no government funds direct. It commended itself to the people, for on July 28, 1847, the provincial parliament in session at Montreal passed an act incorporating it under the name of the Agricultural Association of Upper Canada, and in the charter named as members a number of the leading citizens of the province. It was governed by a board of directors, two of whom were chosen annually by each district agricultural society. The objects set forth were the improvement of farm stock and produce, the improvement of agricultural implements, and the encouragement of domestic manufactures, of useful inventions applicable to agricultural or domestic purposes, and of every branch of rural and domestic economy. Out of this provincial association came all the further agricultural organizations of a provincial nature, and ultimately, some forty years later, the Ontario department of Agriculture. The second provincial exhibition was held at Hamilton in 1847, and Lord Elgin, the governor-general, was in attendance. He was also a generous patron, for his name appears as a donor of $100. The address which he delivered at the banquet has been preserved in the published records and is copiously marked with cheers and loud applause. The third exhibition was held at Cobourg in 1848. The official report of the exhibits indicates that pure-bred stock was rapidly increasing and improving in quality; but the most significant paragraph is that dealing with implements, and this is well worth quoting in full. Of implements of Canada make, the Show was deficient; and we were much indebted to our American neighbours for their valuable aid on this occasion. A large number of ploughs, straw-cutters, drills, cornshellers, churns, etc., etc., were brought over by Messrs Briggs & Co. of Rochester, Mr Emery of Albany, and a large manufacturing firm near Boston. Mr Bell of Toronto exhibited his excellent plough, straw-cutter, and reaping machine. The first prize for the latter article was awarded to Mr Helm of Cobourg for the recent improvements which he has effected. Mr Clark of Paris exhibited his one-horse thrashing-mill, which attracted much attention. At the fourth exhibition, held at Kingston in 1849, the show of implements was much more extensive, and comment was made on the improvement of articles of home manufacture. At this meeting Professor J. F. W. Johnson, of Edinburgh, who was making a tour of North America, was present. The address of the president, Henry Ruttan of Cobourg, is a most valuable reference article descriptive of the agricultural progress of the province from the first settlements in 1783 to the time of the exhibition. Ruttan was a loyalist's son, and, from his own personal knowledge, he described the old plough that was given by the government to each of the first settlers. It consisted of a small iron socket, whose point entered by means of a dove-tailed aperture into the heel of the coulter, which formed the principal part of the plough, and was in shape similar to the letter L, the shank of which went through the wooden beam, and the foot formed the point which was sharpened for operation. One handle and a plank split from the side of a winding block of timber, which did duty for the mould-board, completed the implement. Besides provisions for a year, I think each family had issued to them a plough-share and coulter, a set of dragg-teeth, a log chain, an axe, a saw, a hammer, a bill hook and a grubbing hoe, a pair of hand-irons and a cross-cut saw amongst several families, and a few other articles. He then refers to the large number of implements then being pressed upon the farmers, until 'they have almost become a nuisance to the farmer who desires to purchase a really useful article.' All of which indicates that a distinctive feature of the period beginning with 1846 was the introduction and rapid extension of improved farm machinery. A few words as to the reaping machine, which contributed more than any other modern implement to the development of agriculture in the past century, may not be out of place. Various attempts had been made at producing a machine to supersede the sickle, the scythe, and the cradle before the Rev. Patrick Bell, in 1826, presented his machine to the Highland Agricultural Society of Scotland for its examination. Bell's machine was fairly successful, and one was then in operation on the farm of his brother, Inch-Michael, in the Carse of Gowrie. One set of knives was fixed, another set worked above and across these like the blades of a pair of scissors. The grain fell on an endless cloth which carried and deposited the heads at the side of the machine. A horse pushed it forward and kept all parts in motion. It was simple, and, we are told, harvested twelve acres in a day. This was in 1826. In the _New York Farmer and American Gardener's Magazine_ for 1834 may be found the descriptions and illustrations of Obed Hussey's grain-cutter and Cyrus H. McCormick's 'improved reaping-machine.' The question has been raised as to whether either of these United States inventions owed anything to the earlier production of Patrick Bell. It was, of course, the improved United States reaping machines that found their way into Upper Canada shortly after the organization of the Provincial Agricultural Association. Our interest in this matter is quickened by the fact that the Rev. Patrick Bell, when a young man, was for some time a tutor in the family of a well-to-do farmer in the county of Wellington, and there is a tradition that while there he carried on some experiments in the origination of his machine. The suggestion of a 'mysterious visitor' from the United States to the place where he was experimenting is probably mere conjecture. This period, 1846 to 1867, was one of rapid growth in population. The free-grant land policy of the government was a great attraction for tens of thousands of people in the British Isles, who were impelled by social unrest, failure of crops, and general stagnation in the manufacturing industries to seek new homes across the sea. In the twenty years referred to the population more than doubled, and the improved lands of the province increased fourfold. The numbers of cattle and sheep about doubled, and the wheat production increased about threefold. Towards the latter part of the period a new agricultural industry came into existence--the manufacture of cheese in factories. It was in New York State that the idea of co-operation in the manufacture of cheese was first attempted. There, as in Canada West, it had been the practice to make at home from time to time a quantity of soft cheese, which, of course, would be of variable quality. To save labour, a proposition was made to collect the milk from several farms and have the cheese made at one central farm. The success of this method soon became known and small factories were established. In 1863 Harvey Farrington came from New York State to Canada West and established a factory in the county of Oxford, about the same time that a similar factory was established in the county of Missisquoi, Quebec. Shortly afterwards factories were built in Hastings County, and near Brockville, in Leeds County. Thus began an industry that had a slow advance for some fifteen years, but from 1880 spread rapidly, until the manufacture of cheese in factories became one of the leading provincial industries. The system followed is a slight modification of the Cheddar system, which takes its name from one of the most beautiful vales in the west of England. Its rapid progress has been due to the following circumstances: Ontario, with her rich grasses, clear skies, and clean springs and streams, is well adapted to dairying; large numbers of her farmers came from dairy districts in the mother country; the co-operative method of manufacture tends to produce a marketable article that can be shipped and that improves with proper storage; Great Britain has proved a fine market for such an article; and the industry has for over thirty years received the special help and careful supervision and direction of the provincial and Dominion governments. During this period we note the voluntary organization of the Ontario Fruit-Growers' Association, a fact which alone would suggest that the production of fruit must have been making progress. The early French settlers along the Detroit River had planted pear trees or grown them from seed, and a few of these sturdy, stalwart trees, over a century old, still stand and bear some fruit. Mrs Simcoe, in her _Journal_, July 2, 1793, states: 'We have thirty large May Duke cherry trees behind the house and three standard peach trees which supplied us last Autumn for tarts and desserts during six weeks, besides the numbers the young men eat.' This was at Niagara. The records of the agricultural exhibitions indicate that there was a gradual extension of fruit-growing. Importations of new varieties were made, Rochester, in New York State, apparently being the chief place from which nursery stock was obtained. Here and there through the province gentlemen having some leisure and the skill to experiment were beginning to take an interest in their gardens and to produce new varieties. On January 19, 1859, a few persons met in the board-room of the Mechanics' Hall at Hamilton and organized a fruit-growers' association for Upper Canada. Judge Campbell was elected president; Dr Hurlbert, first vice-president; George Leslie, second vice-president; Arthur Harvey, secretary. The members of this association introduced new varieties and reported on their success. They were particularly active in producing such new varieties as were peculiarly suitable to the climate. For nine years they maintained their organization and carried on their work unaided and unrecognized officially. To this period belongs also the first attempts at special instruction in agriculture and the beginning of an agricultural press. Both are intimately connected with the association, already referred to, that had been organized in 1846 by some of the most progressive citizens. For four years the Provincial Association carried on its work and established itself as a part of the agricultural life of Canada West. In 1850 the government stepped in and established a board of agriculture as the executive of the association. Its objects were set out by statute and funds were to be provided for its maintenance. The new lines of work allotted to it were to collect agricultural statistics, prepare crop reports, gather information of general value and to present the same to the legislature for publication, and to co-operate with the provincial university in the teaching of agriculture and the carrying on of an experimental or illustrative farm. Professor George Buckland was appointed to the chair of agriculture in the university in January 1851 and an experimental farm on a small scale was laid out on the university grounds. Professor Buckland acted also as secretary to the board until 1858, when he resigned and was succeeded by Hugh C. Thomson. He continued his work for some years at the university, and was an active participant in all agricultural matters up to the time of his death in 1885. Provision having been made for agricultural instruction at the university, the board in 1859 decided to establish a course in veterinary science, and at once got into communication with Professor Dick of the Veterinary College at Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1862 a school was opened in Toronto under the direction of Professor Andrew Smith, recently arrived from Edinburgh. The _British American Cultivator_ was established in 1841 by Eastwood and Co. and W. G. Edmundson, with the latter as editor. It gave place in 1849 to the _Canadian Agriculturist_, a monthly journal edited and owned by George Buckland and William McDougall. This was the official organ of the board till the year 1864, when George Brown began the publication of the _Canada Farmer_ with the Rev. W. F. Clark as editor-in-chief and D. W. Beadle as horticultural editor. The board at once recognized it, accepted it as their representative, and the _Canadian Agriculturist_ ceased publication in December 1863. The half-century of British immigration, 1816 to 1867, had wrought a wonderful change. From a little over a hundred thousand the population had grown to a million and a half; towns and cities had sprung into existence; commercial enterprises had taken shape; the construction of railways had been undertaken; trade had developed along new lines; the standards of living had materially changed; and great questions, national and international, had stirred the people and aroused at times the bitterest political strife. The changed standards of living can best be illustrated by an extract from an address delivered in 1849 by Sheriff Ruttan. Referring to the earlier period, he said: Our food was coarse but wholesome. With the exception of three or four pounds of green tea a year for a family, which cost us three bushels of wheat per pound, we raised everything we ate. We manufactured our own clothes and purchased nothing except now and then a black silk handkerchief or some trifling article of foreign manufacture of the kind. We lived simply, yet comfortably--envied no one, for no one was better off than his neighbour. Until within the last thirty years, one hundred bushels of wheat, at 2s. 6d. per bushel, was quite sufficient to give in exchange for all the articles of foreign manufacture consumed by a large family.... The old-fashioned home-made cloth has given way to the fine broadcloth coat; the linsey-woolsey dresses of females have disappeared and English and French silks been substituted; the nice clean-scoured floors of the farmers' houses have been covered by Brussels carpets; the spinning wheel and loom have been superseded by the piano; and in short, a complete revolution in all our domestic habits and manners has taken place--the consequences of which are the accumulation of an enormous debt upon our shoulders and its natural concomitant, political strife. Students of Canadian history will at once recall the story of the Rebellion of 1837, the struggle for constitutional government, the investigation by Lord Durham, the repeal of the preferential wheat duties in England, the agitation for Canadian independence, and other great questions that so seriously disturbed the peace of the Canadian people. They were the 'growing pains' of a progressive people. The Crimean War, in 1854-56, gave an important though temporary boom to Canadian farm products. Reciprocity with the United States from 1855 to 1866 offered a profitable market that had been closed for many years. Then came the close of the great civil war in the United States and the opening up of the cheap, fertile prairie lands of the Middle West to the hundreds of thousands of farmers set free from military service. This westward movement was joined by many farmers from Ontario; there was a disastrous competition in products, and an era of agricultural depression set in just before Confederation. It was because of these difficulties that Confederation became a possibility and a necessity. The new political era introduced a new agricultural period, which began under conditions that were perhaps as unfavourable and as unpromising as had been experienced for over half a century. THE GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC FARMING, 1867-88 The period that we shall now deal with begins with Confederation in 1867 and extends to 1888, when a provincial minister of Agriculture was appointed for the first time and an independent department organized. From 1792 to 1841 what is now Ontario was known as Upper Canada; from 1841 to 1867 it was part of the United Province of Canada, being known as Canada West to distinguish it from Quebec or Canada East. In 1867, however, it resumed its former status as a separate province, but with the new name of Ontario. In the formation of the government of the province agriculture was placed under the care of a commissioner, who, however, held another portfolio in the cabinet. John Carling was appointed commissioner of Public Works and also commissioner of Agriculture. On taking office Carling found the following agricultural organizations of the province ready to co-operate with the government: sixty-three district agricultural societies, each having one or more branch township societies under its care, and all receiving annual government grants of slightly over $50,000; a provincial board of agriculture, with its educational and exhibition work; and a fruit-growers' association, now for the first time taken under government direction and given financial assistance. One extract from the commissioner's first report will serve to show the condition of agriculture in Ontario when the Dominion was born. 'It is an encouraging fact that during the last year in particular mowers and reapers and labour-saving implements have not only increased in the older districts, but have found their way into new ones, and into places where they were before practically unknown. This beneficial result has, no doubt, mainly arisen from the difficulty, or rather in some cases impossibility, of getting labour at any price.' It would appear, therefore, that the question of shortage of farm labour, so much complained of in recent years, has been a live one for forty years and more. In the second report of the commissioner (1869) special attention was directed to the question of agricultural education, and the suggestion was made that the agricultural department of the university and the veterinary college might give some instruction to the teachers at the normal school. In the following year, however, an advanced step was taken. It was noted that Dr Ryerson was in sympathy with special agricultural teaching and had himself prepared and published a text-book on agriculture. The suggestion was made that the time had arrived for a school of practical science. At the same time Ryerson had appointed the Rev. W. F. Clark, the editor of the _Canada Farmer_, to visit the Agricultural department at Washington and a few of the agricultural colleges of the United States, and to collect such practical information as would aid in commencing something of an analogous character in Ontario. It will thus be seen that the two branches of technical training--the School of Practical Science and the Agricultural College--were really twin institutions, originating, in the year 1870, in the dual department of Public Works and Agriculture. These institutions were the outcome of the correlation of city and country industries, which were under the fostering care of the Agriculture and Arts Association, as the old provincial organization was now known. The School of Practical Science, it may be noted, is now incorporated with the provincial university, and the Agricultural College is affiliated with it. There were at that time two outstanding agricultural colleges in the United States, that of Massachusetts and that of Michigan. These were visited, and, based upon the work done at these institutions, a comprehensive and suggestive report was compiled. Immediate action was taken upon the recommendations of this report, and a tract of land, six hundred acres in extent, was purchased at Mimico, seven miles west of Toronto. Before work could be commenced, however, the life of the legislature closed and a new government came into office in 1871 with Archibald McKellar as commissioner of Agriculture and Arts. New governments feel called upon to promote new measures. There were rumours and suggestions that the soil of the Mimico farm was productive of thistles and better adapted to brick-making than to the raising of crops. Also the location was so close to Toronto that it was feared that the attractions of the city would tend to make the students discontented with country life. For various reasons a change of location was deemed desirable, and a committee of farmer members of the legislature was appointed. Professor Miles, of the Michigan Agricultural College, was engaged to give expert advice; other locations were examined, and finally Moreton Lodge Farm, near Guelph, was purchased. After some preliminary difficulties, involving the assistance of a sheriff or bailiff, possession was obtained, and the first class for instruction in agricultural science and practice, consisting of thirty-one pupils in all, was opened on June 1, 1874, with William Johnston as rector or principal. Thus was established the Ontario School of Agriculture, now known as the Ontario Agricultural College. Its annual enrolment has grown to over fifteen hundred, and it is now recognized as the best-equipped and most successful institution of its kind in the British Empire. Its development along practical lines and its recognition as a potent factor in provincial growth were largely due to Dr James Mills, who was appointed president of the college in 1879, and filled that position until January 1904, when he was appointed to the Dominion Board of Railway Commissioners. Under his direction farmers' institutes were established in Ontario in 1884. Dr Mills was succeeded by Dr G. C. Creelman as president. The next important step in agricultural advancement was the appointment in 1880 of the Ontario Agricultural Commission 'to inquire into the agricultural resources of the Province of Ontario, the progress and condition of agriculture therein and matters connected therewith.' The commission consisted of S. C. Wood, then commissioner of Agriculture (chairman), Alfred H. Dymond (secretary), and sixteen other persons representative of the various agricultural interests, including the president and ex-president of the Agricultural and Arts Association, Professor William Brown of the Agricultural College, the master of the Dominion Grange, the president of the Entomological Society, and two members of the legislature, Thomas Ballantyne and John Dryden. In 1913 there were but two survivors of this important commission, J. B. Aylesworth of Newburgh, Ont., and Dr William Saunders, who, after over twenty years' service as director of the Dominion Experimental Farms, had resigned office in 1911. All parts of the province were visited and information was gathered from the leading farmers along the lines laid down in the royal commission. In 1881 the report was issued in five volumes. It was without doubt the most valuable commission report ever issued in Ontario, if not in all Canada. Part of it was reissued a second and a third time, and for years it formed the Ontario farmer's library. Even to this day it is a valuable work of reference, containing as it does a vast amount of practical information and forming an invaluable source of agricultural history. The first outcome of this report was the establishment, in 1882, by the government of the Ontario bureau of Industries, an organization for the collection and publication of statistics in connection with agriculture and allied industries. Archibald Blue, who now occupies the position of chief officer of the census and statistics branch of the Dominion service, was appointed the first secretary of the bureau. Agriculture continued to expand, and associations for the protection and encouragement of special lines increased in number and in importance. Thus there were no fewer than three vigorous associations interested in dairying: the Dairymen's Association of Eastern Ontario, and the Dairymen's Association of Western Ontario, which were particularly interested in the cheese industry, and the Ontario Creameries Association, which was interested in butter manufacture. There were poultry associations, a beekeepers' association, and several live stock associations. From time to time the suggestion was made that the work of these associations, and that of the Agriculture and Arts Association and of the bureau of Industries, should be co-ordinated, and a strong department of Agriculture organized under a minister of Agriculture holding a distinct portfolio in the Ontario cabinet. Provision for this was made by the legislature in 1888, and in that year Charles Drury was appointed the first minister of Agriculture. The bureau of Industries was taken as the nucleus of the department, and Archibald Blue, the secretary, was appointed deputy minister. We have referred to the reaction that took place in Ontario agriculture after the close of the American Civil War and the abrogation of the reciprocity treaty. The high prices of the Crimean War period had long since disappeared, the market to the south had been narrowed, and the Western States were pouring into the East the cheap grain products of a rich virgin soil. Agricultural depression hung over the province for years. Gradually, however, through the early eighties the farmers began to recover their former prosperous condition, sending increasing shipments of barley, sheep, horses, eggs, and other commodities to the cities of the Eastern States, so that at the close of the period to which we are referring agricultural conditions were of a favourable and prosperous nature. THE MODERN PERIOD, 1888-1912 In 1888 a new period in Ontario's agricultural history begins. The working forces of agriculture were being linked together in the new department of Agriculture. Charles Drury, the first minister of Agriculture, held office until 1890, being succeeded by John Dryden, who continued in charge of the department until 1905, when a conservative government took the place of the liberal government that had been in power since 1871. Two factors immediately began to play a most important part in the agricultural situation: the opening up of the north-western lands by the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1886, and the enactment, on October 6, 1890, of the McKinley high tariff by the United States. The former attracted Ontario's surplus population, and made it no longer profitable or desirable to grow wheat in the province for export; the latter closed the doors to the export of barley, live stock, butter, and eggs. The situation was desperate; agriculture was passing through a period of most trying experience. Any other industry than that of agriculture would have been bankrupted. The only hope of the Ontario farmer now was in the British market. The sales of one Ontario product, factory cheese, had been steadily increasing in the great consuming districts of England and Scotland, and there was reason to believe that other products might be sold to equal advantage. Dairying was the one line of agricultural work that helped to tide over the situation in the early nineties. The methods that had succeeded in building up the cheese industry must be applied to other lines, and all the organized forces must be co-ordinated in carrying this out. This was work for a department of Agriculture, and the minister of Agriculture, John Dryden, who guided and directed this co-operation of forces and made plans for the future growth and expansion of agricultural work, was an imperialist indeed who, in days of depression and difficulty, directed forces and devised plans that not only helped the agricultural classes to recover their prosperity, but also made for the strengthening of imperial ties and the working out of national greatness. The British market presented new conditions, new demands. The North-West could send her raw products in the shape of wheat; Ontario must send finished products--beef, bacon, cheese, butter, fruit, eggs, and poultry--these and similar products could be marketed in large quantities if only they could be supplied of right quality. Transportation of the right kind was a prime necessity. Lumber, wheat, and other rough products could be handled without difficulty, but perishable goods demanded special accommodation. This was a matter belonging to the government of Canada, and to it the Dominion department of Agriculture at once began to give attention. The production of the goods for shipment was a matter for provincial direction. Gradually the farmers of the province adapted themselves to the new conditions and after a time recovered their lost ground. General prosperity came in sight again about 1895. For several years after this the output of beef, bacon, and cheese increased steadily, and the gains made in the British market more than offset the loss of the United States market. It was during the five years after 1890 that the farmers suffered so severely while adjusting their work to the new conditions. With these expanding lines of British trade products, the values of stock, implements, and buildings made steady advance, and in 1901 the total value of all farm property in the province crossed the billion dollar mark. Since that year the annual increase in total farm values has been approximately forty million dollars. The following statement of total farm values in Ontario, as compiled by the Ontario bureau of Industries, the statistical branch of the department of Agriculture, is very suggestive: _Total Farm Values_ 1885 $958,159,740 1886 989,497,911 1887 975,292,214 1888 981,368,094 1889 982,210,664 1890 970,927,035 1891 971,886,068 1892 979,977,244 1893 970,361,070 1894 954,395,507 1895 931,989,574 1896 910,291,623 1897 905,093,613 1898 923,022,420 1899 947,513,360 1900 974,814,931 1901 1,001,323,296 1902 1,044,894,332 1906 1,189,119,120 1909 1,241,019,109 From the above table it will be seen that the closing of the United States markets in 1890 was followed by a depreciation in general farm values which lasted until 1898, when the upward movement that has continued ever since set in. And now let us see how the population was changing, as to its distribution between rural and urban, during these years. First, we shall give the assessed population. Rural Urban 1884 1,117,880 636,187 1885 1,126,554 658,406 1890 1,117,533 800,041 1895 1,109,013 848,377 1900 1,094,246 919,614 1905 1,059,379 1,042,881 1909 1,049,240 1,240,198 The Canadian Pacific Railway opened up the wheat lands of the West in 1886. At that time the rural population was nearly double the urban; in 1905 they were about equal; and six years later the urban population of Ontario exceeded the rural. The Dominion census figures are as follows: Rural Urban 1911 1,194,785 1,328,489 1901 1,246,969 935,978 --------- --------- Increase .... 392,511 Decrease 52,184 .... It will thus be seen that during the past twenty-five years there has been a steady increase in the consumers of food products in Ontario and a slight decrease in the producers of the same. The surplus population of the farms has gone to the towns and cities of Ontario and to the western provinces. Now for a moment let us follow these people to the West. Many of them have gone on the land to produce wheat. Wheat for the European market has been their principal product, therefore they in turn have become consumers of large quantities of food that they do not themselves produce but must obtain from farmers elsewhere. But not all who have gone West have become farmers. The Dominion census of 1911 gives the following statement of population for the provinces and districts west of Lake Superior: Rural Urban 1911 1,059,681 681,216 1901 446,050 199,467 --------- ------- Increase 613,631 481,749 The western provinces are generally considered to be almost purely agricultural, and yet the percentage increase of urban population has been nearly double the percentage increase of rural population. And this rapidly growing urban population also has demanded food products. Their own farmers grow wheat and oats and barley. British Columbia produces fruit for her own people and some surplus for the prairie provinces. There is some stock-raising, but the rapid extension of wheat areas has interfered with the great stock ranches. From out of the Great West, therefore, there has come an increasing demand for many food products. Add to this the growing home market in Ontario, and, keeping in mind that the West can grow wheat more cheaply than Ontario, it will be understood why of recent years the Ontario farmer has been compelled to give up the production of wheat for export. His line of successful and profitable work has been in producing to supply the demands of his own growing home market, and the demands of the rapidly increasing people of the West, both rural and urban, and also to share in the insatiable market of Great Britain. Another element of more recent origin has been the small but very profitable market of Northern Ontario, where lumbering, mining, and railroad construction have been so active in the past five or six years. The result of all this has been a great increase in fruit production. Old orchards have been revived and new orchards have been set out. The extension of the canning industry also is most noticeable, and has occasioned the production of fruits and vegetables in enormous quantities. Special crops such as tobacco, beans, and sugar beets are being grown in counties where soil and climatic conditions are favourable. The production of poultry and eggs is also receiving more attention each succeeding year. The growth of cities is creating an increasing demand for milk, and the production of factory-made butter and cheese is also increasing, as the following figures for Ontario from the Dominion census prove: Butter Cheese 1900 7,559,542 lb. 131,967,612 lb. 1910 13,699,153 " 157,631,883 " For the past ten or twelve years the farmers of Ontario have been slowly adjusting their work to the new situation, and the transition is continuing. While in some sections farms are being enlarged so as to permit the more extensive use of labour-saving machinery and the more economical handling of live stock, in other sections, particularly in counties adjacent to the Great Lakes, large farms are being cut up into smaller holdings and intensive production of fruits and vegetables is now the practice. This, of course, results in a steady increase in land values and is followed by an increase in rural population. The farmers of Ontario are putting forth every effort to meet the demands for food products. The one great difficulty that they have encountered has been the scarcity of farm labour. Men have come from Europe by the tens of thousands, but they have been drawn largely to the growing towns and cities by the high wages offered in industrial lines; and the West, the 'Golden West' as it is sometimes called, has proved an even stronger attraction. It seems rarely to occur to the new arrival that the average farm in Ontario could produce more than a quarter section of prairie land. Signs, however, point to an increase in rural population, through the spread of intensive agriculture. Before referring to the methods of instruction and assistance provided for the developing of this new agriculture in Ontario, reference should be made to one thing that is generally overlooked by those who periodically discover this rapid urban increase, and who moralize most gloomily upon a movement that is to be found in nearly every progressive country of the civilized world. In the days of early settlement the farmer and his family supplied nearly all their own wants. The farmer produced all his own food; he killed his own stock, salted his pork, and smoked his hams. His wife was expert in spinning and weaving, and plaited the straw hats for the family. The journeyman shoemaker dropped in and fitted out the family with boots. The great city industries were then unknown. The farmer's wife in those days was perhaps the most expert master of trades ever known. She could spin and weave, make a carpet or a rug, dye yarns and clothes, and make a straw hat or a birch broom. Butter, cheese, and maple sugar were products of her skill, as well as bread, soap, canned fruits, and home-made wine. In those days the farm was a miniature factory or combination of factories. Many, in fact most, of these industries have gradually moved out of the farm home and have been concentrated in great factories; and the pedlar with his pack has disappeared under a shower of catalogues from the departmental city store. In other words, a large portion of work once done upon the farm and at the country cross-roads has been transferred to the town and city, and this, in some part, explains the modern movement citywards-- there has been a transference from country to city not only of people but also of industries. Whether this has been in the interests of the people is another question, but the process is still going on, and what further changes may take place it is difficult to determine and unwise to forecast. And now let us see what agencies and organizations have been used in the development of the special lines of agriculture since the creation of the department in 1888. We have stated that the Agriculture and Arts Association had been for many years the directing force in provincial agricultural organization. It held an annual provincial exhibition; it issued the diplomas to the graduates of the Ontario Veterinary College; and it controlled the various live stock associations that were interested in the registration of stock. Shortly after 1888 legislation was enacted transferring the work to the department of Agriculture. The place for holding the provincial exhibition was changed from year to year. In 1879 a charter was obtained by special act for the Toronto Industrial Exhibition, the basis of which was the Toronto Electoral Agricultural Society. Out of this came the annual Toronto Exhibition, now known as the Canadian National Exhibition, and the governmental exhibition was discontinued. The Ontario Veterinary College was a privately owned institution, though the diplomas were issued by the Agriculture and Arts Association. The royal commission appointed in 1905 to investigate the University of Toronto recommended the taking over of this association by the government, and as a result it passed under the control of the department of Agriculture in 1908, and was affiliated with the University of Toronto. Since that time the diploma of Veterinary Surgeon (V.S.) has been issued by the minister of Agriculture, and a supplementary degree of Bachelor of Veterinary Science (B.V.Sc.) has been granted by the university. The taking over of this institution by the government, the resuming by the province of its original prerogative, was accompanied by an enlargement of the course, an extension from two years to three years in the period of instruction, and a strengthening of the faculty. The herd-books or pedigree record books were, in most cases, Canadian, and it was felt that they should be located at the capital of the Dominion. These have therefore been transferred to Ottawa and are now conducted under Dominion regulations. The Ontario bureau of Industries was the basis of organization of the department. As other work was added the department grew in size and importance, and the various branches were instituted until there developed a well-organized department having the following subdivisions: The Agricultural College, The Veterinary College, The Agricultural and Horticultural Societies Branch, The Live Stock Branch, The Farmers' and Women's Institutes Branch, The Dairy Branch, The Fruit Branch, The Statistical Branch, The Immigration and Colonization Branch. Each branch is in charge of a special officer. In addition to the above there is a lot of miscellaneous work, which as it develops will probably be organized into separate branches, such as farm forestry, district representatives, etc. John Dryden was in 1905 succeeded as minister of Agriculture by Nelson Monteith, who in 1908 was succeeded by J. S. Duff. Under their care the department has grown and expanded, and through their recommendations, year by year, increasing amounts of money have been obtained for the extension of agricultural instruction and the more thorough working out of plans inaugurated in the earlier years of departmental organization. The history of agricultural work in Ontario in recent years may be put under two heads--expansion of the various organizations and extension of their operations, and the development of what may be called 'field work.' Farmers' institutes and women's institutes have multiplied; agricultural societies now cover the entire province; local horse associations, poultry associations, and beekeepers' associations have been encouraged; winter fairs for live stock have been established at Guelph and Ottawa; dairy instructors have been increased in number and efficiency; short courses in live stock, seed improvement, fruit work, and dairying have been held; and farm drainage has received practical encouragement. Perhaps the most important advance of late years has resulted through the appointment of what are known as district representatives. In co-operation with the department of Education, graduates of the Agricultural College have been permanently located in the various counties to study the agricultural conditions and to initiate and direct any movement that would assist in developing the agricultural work. These graduates organize short courses at various centres, conduct classes in high schools, assist the farmers in procuring the best seed, advise as to new lines of work, assist in drainage, supervise the care of orchards--in short, they carry the work of the Agricultural College and of the various branches of the department right to the farmer, and give that impetus to better farming which can come only from personal contact. The growth of the district representative system has been remarkable: it was begun in seven counties in 1907, by 1910 fifteen counties had representatives, and in 1914 no fewer than thirty-eight counties were so equipped. At first the farmers distrusted and even somewhat opposed the movement, but the district representative soon proved himself so helpful that the government has found it difficult to comply with the numerous requests for these apostles of scientific farming. Approximately $125,000 is spent each year on the work by the provincial government, in addition to the $500 granted annually by the county to each district office. The result of all this is that new and more profitable lines of farming are being undertaken, specializing in production is being encouraged, and Ontario agriculture is advancing rapidly along the lines to which the soils, the climate, and the people are adapted. A study of the history of Ontario agriculture shows many changes in the past hundred years, but at no time has there been so important and so interesting a development as that which took place in the opening decade of the twentieth century. [Signature: C C James] [Transcriber's Note: The following correction was made: p. 572: Newburg to Newburgh Spelling in quoted passages has not been changed. Page numbering matches the original.] 
20014	----	(This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org)) CANADA AND THE CANADIANS. BY SIR RICHARD HENRY BONNYCASTLE, KT., LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROYAL ENGINEERS AND MILITIA OF CANADA WEST. NEW EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1849. F. Shoberl, Jnr. Printer to H.R.H Prince Albert, Rupert Street. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I. Emigrants And Immigration Page 1 CHAPTER II. The Emigrant and his Prospects 46 CHAPTER III. A Journey to the Westward 90 CHAPTER IV. The French Canadian 127 CHAPTER V. Penetanguishene--The Nipissang Cannibals, and a Friendly Brother in the Wilderness 146 CHAPTER VI. Barrie and Big Trees--A new Capital of a new District--Nature's Canal--The Devil's Elbow--Macadamization and Mud--Richmond Hill without the Lass--The Rebellion and the Radicals--Blue Hill and Bricks 172 CHAPTER. VII. Toronto and the Transit--The Ice and its innovations--Siege and Storm of a Fortalice by the Ice-king--Newark, or Niagara--Flags, big and little--Views of American and of English Institutions--Blacklegs and Races--Colonial high life--Youth very young 195 CHAPTER VIII. The old Canadian Coach--Jonathan and John Bull passengers--"That Gentleman"--Beautiful River, beautiful drive--Brock's Monument--Queenston--Bar and Pulpit--Trotting horse Railroad--Awful accident--The Falls once more--Speculation--Water Privilege--Barbarism--Museum--Loafers--Tulip-trees--Rattlesnakes--The Burning Spring--Setting fire to Niagara--A charitable Woman--The Nigger's Parrot--John Bull is a Yankee--Political Courtship--Lundy's Lane Heroine--Welland Canal 217 CHAPTER IX. The Great Fresh-water Seas of Canada 266 CANADA AND THE CANADIANS. CHAPTER I. Emigrants and Immigration. Very surprising it seems to assert that the Mother Country knows very little about the finest colony which she possesses--and that an enlightened people emigrate from sober, speculative England, sedate and calculating Scotland, and trusting, unreflective Ireland, absolutely and wholly ignorant of the total change of life to which they must necessarily submit in their adopted home. I recollect an old story, that an old gunner, in an old-fashioned, three-cornered cocked hat, who was my favourite playfellow as a child, used to tell about the way in which recruits were obtained for the Royal Artillery. The recruiting sergeant was in those days dressed much finer than any field-marshal of this degenerate, railway era; in fact, the Horse Guards always turned out to the sergeant-major of the Royal Military Academy of Woolwich, when that functionary went periodically to the Golden Cross, Charing Cross, to receive and escort the young gentlemen cadets from Marlow College, who were abandoning the red coat and drill of the foot-soldier to become neophytes in the art and mystery of great gunnery and sapping. "The way they recruited was thus," said the bombadier. "The gallant sergeant, bedizened in copper lace from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and with a swagger which no modern drum-major has ever presumed to attempt, addressed a crowd of country bumpkins. "'Don't listen to those gentlemen in red; their sarvice is one which no man who has brains will ever think of--footing it over the univarsal world; they have usually been called by us the flatfoots. They uses the musquet only, and have hands like feet, and feet like fireshovels. "'Mind me, gentlemen, the royal regiment of the Royal Artillery is a sarvice which no gentleman need be ashamed of. "'We fights with real powder and ball, the flatfoots fights with bird-shot. We knows the perry-ferry of the circumference of a round shot. Did you ever see a mortar? Did you ever see a shell? I will answer for it you never did, except the poticary's mortar, and the shell that mortar so often renders necessary. "'Now, gentlemen, at the imperial city of Woolwich, in the Royal Arsenal, you may, if you join the Royal Artillery, you may see shells in earnest. Did you ever see a balloon? Yes! Then the shells there are bigger than balloons, and are the largest hollow shot ever made--the French has nothing like them. "'And the way we uses them! We fires them out of the mortars into the enemy's towns, and stuffs them full of red sogers. Well, they bursts, and out comes the flatfoots, opens the gates, and lets the Royal Artillery in; and then every man fills his sack with silver, and gold, and precious stones, after a leetle scrimmaging. "'Come along with me, my boys, and every one of you shall have a coat like mine, which was made out of the plunder; and you shall have a horse to ride, and a carriage behind it; and you shall see the glorious city of Woolwich, where the streets are paved with penny loaves, and drink is to be had for asking.'" So it is with nine-tenths of the emigrants to Canada in these enlightened days; so it is with the emigrants from old England, and from troubled Ireland, to the free and astonishing Union of the States of America and Texas, that conjoint luminary of the new go-ahead world of the West. Dissatisfied with home, with visionary ideas of El Dorados, or starving amidst plenty, the poorer classes obtain no correct information. Beset generally with agents of companies, with agents of private enterprise, with reckless adventurers, with ignorant priests, or missionaries of the lowest stamp, with political agitators, and with miserable traitors to the land of their birth and breeding, the poor emigrant starts from the interior, where his ideas have never expanded beyond the weaver's loom or factory labour, the plough or the spade, the hod, the plane, or the trowel, and hastens with his wife and children to the nearest sea-port. There he finds no friend to receive and guide him, but rapacious agents ready to take every advantage of his ignorance, with an eye to his scanty purse. A host of captains, mates, and sailors, eager to make up so many heads for the voyage, pack them aboard like sheep, and cross the Atlantic, either to New York or to Quebec, just as they have been able to entice a cargo to either port. Then come the horrors of a long voyage and short provisions, and high prices for stale salt junk and biscuit; and, at the end, if illness has been on board, the quarantine, that most dreadful visitation of all--for hope deferred maketh the heart sick. From the first discovery of America, there has been a tendency to exaggeration about the resources and capabilities of that country--a magniloquence on its natural productions, which can be best exemplified by referring the reader to the fac-simile of the one in Sir Walter Raleigh's work on Guiana,[1] now in the British Museum. Shakespeare had, no doubt, read Raleigh's fanciful description of "the men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," &c.; for he was thirty-four years of age when this print was published, only seventeen years before his death. [Footnote 1: Brevis et admiranda descriptio REGNI GVIANÆ, AVRI abundantissimi, in AMERICA, sev novo orbe, sub linea Æquinoctilia siti: quod nuper admodum, Annis nimirum 1594, 1595, et 1596 per generosum Dominum Dr. GVALTHERVM RALEGH Equitem Anglum detectum est: paulo post jussa ejus duobus libellis comprehensa. Ex quibus JODOCVS HONDIVS TABVLAM Geographicam adornavit, addita explicatione Belgico sermone scripta: Nunc vero in Latinum sermonem translata, et ex variis authoribus hinc inde declarata. Noribergæ. Impensis LEVINI HULSII. M.D.XCIX.] So expansive a mind as Raleigh's undoubtedly was, was not free from that universal credulity which still reigns in the breasts of all men respecting matters with which they are not personally acquainted; and the glowing descriptions of Columbus and his followers respecting the rich Cathay and the Spice Islands of the Indies have had so permanent a hold upon the imagination, that even the best educated amongst us have, in their youth, galloped over Pampas, in search of visionary _Uspallatas_. Nor is it yet quite clear that the golden city of El Dorado is wholly fabulous, the region in which it was said to exist not having yet been penetrated by Science; but it soon will be, for a steamboat is to ply up the Maranon, and Peru and Europe are to be brought in contact, although the voyage down that mighty flood has hitherto been a labour of several months. The poor emigrant, for we must return to him, lands at New York. Sharks beset him in every direction, boarding-houses and grogshops open their doors, and he is frequently obliged, from the loss of all his hard-earned money, to work out his existence either in that exclusively mercantile emporium, or to labour on any canal or railroad to which his kind new friends may think proper, or most advantageous to themselves, to send him. If he escapes all these snares for the unwary, the chances are that, fancying himself now as great a man as the Duke of Leinster, O'Connell, the Lord Mayor of London, or the Provost of Edinburgh, free and unshackled, gloriously free, he becomes entangled with a host of land-jobbers, and walks off to the weary West, there to encounter a life of unremitting toil in the solitary forests, with an occasional visit from the ague, or the milk-fever, which so debilitates his frame, that, during the remainder of his wretched existence, he can expect but little enjoyment of the manorial rights appendant to a hundred acres of wild land. Let no emigrant embark for the United States unless he has a kind friend to guide and receive him there, and to point out to him the good and the evil; for the native race look upon all foreigners with a jealous eye, and particularly upon the Irish. The Germans make the best settlers in that country, perhaps because, not speaking English, they cannot be so easily imposed upon by the crimps, and also because they seldom emigrate before they have arranged with their friends in America respecting the lands which they are to occupy. A society of British philanthropists has been established at New York to direct British emigrants in their ultimate views; but it may well be imagined that these gentlemen, who are chiefly engaged in trade, cannot descend to understand fully, or are constant witnesses of, the low tricks which are practised to seduce the unwary ones. The emigrant to Canada is somewhat differently situated. The Irish come out in shiploads every season, and generally very indifferently provided and without any definite object; nay, to such an extent is this carried, that hundreds of young females venture out every year by themselves, to better their condition, which betterment usually ends in their reaching as far inland as Toronto, where, or at other ports on the lakes, they engage themselves as domestics. When we consider that nearly 25,000 emigrants leave the Mother Country every year for Canada alone, how important is it that they should be informed of every particular likely to increase their comforts and to conduce to their well-being! This kind of service can be but partially rendered by the present publication, which, being intended for the general reader, cannot be given in a form likely to reach the class of emigrants who usually proceed to America otherwise than through the advice which the reader may, whenever it is in his power, kindly bestow upon them. But it will, I am persuaded, be extensively useful in that way, and also to the settler with a small capital who can afford to consult it. Learned dissertations upon colonization are useful only to the politician, and so much venality has prevailed among those who have thrust themselves forward in the cause of Canadian settlement, that the public become a little alarmed when they hear of a work expressly designed for the emigrant. The very best informed at home, and the _haute noblesse_, have been repeatedly taken in. Dinnerings and lionizing have been the order of the day for persons, who, in the colony, cut a very inferior figure. But this is natural, and in the end usually does no harm. It is natural that the colonist, who is a _rara avis_ in England, should be considered a very extraordinary personage among men who seek for novelty in any shape; because those who lavish favours upon him at one time and eschew his presence afterwards are usually ignorant of the very history of which he is the type. It is like the standing joke of sending out water-casks for the men-of-war built on the fresh-water seas of Canada, for there are plenty of rich folks at home who want only to be filled. The different sorts of people who emigrate from _home_ to the United States or Canada, may be classed under several heads, like the travellers of Sterne. First, the inquisitive and restless, who leave a goodly inheritance or occupation behind them, because they have heard that Tom Smith or Mister Mac Grogan, very ordinary folks anywhere, have made a rapid fortune, which is indeed sometimes the case in the United States, though rather rare there for old countrymen, and is still more rare and unlikely in Canada, where large fortunes may be said to be unknown quantities. Settlers of this class usually fall to the ground very soon--if they settle in Canada, they become Radicals; if they return from the States, they become Tories. The next class are your would-be aristocratic settlers, younger sons of younger sons, cousins of cousins, Union Barons, nephews' nephews of a Lord Mayor, or unprovided heirs in posse. These fancy they confer a sort of honour by selecting the colony as their final resting-place, and that a governor and his ministers have nothing in the world to think about but how they can provide for such important units. Hence they frequently end by placing themselves in direct opposition to the powers that be, or take very unwillingly to the labours of a farmer's life. Many of them, when they find that pretension is laughed at, particularly if no talents accompany it, which is rarely or ever the case, for talent is modest and retiring in its essential nature, turn out violent Republicans or Radicals of the most furious calibre; but the more modest portion work heartily at their farms, and frequently succeed. Another class is your private gentlemen's sons and decent young farmers from England, Ireland, or Scotland, who think before they leap, have connexions already established in Canada, and small capitals to commence with. These are the really valuable settlers: they go to Canada for land and living; and eschew the land and liberty system of the neighbouring nation. Wherever they settle, the country flourishes and becomes a second Britain in appearance, as may be observed in the London and western districts. It does not require a very lengthened acquaintance with Canada to form observations upon the characters of the _immigrants_, as the Webster style of Dr. Johnson will have the word to be. The English franklin and the English peasant who come here usually weigh their allegiance a little before they make up their minds; but, if they have been persuaded that Queen Victoria's reign is a "_baneful domination_," they either go to the United States at once, or to those portions of Canada where sympathy with the Stars and Stripes is the order of the day.[2] [Footnote 2: That is, to those portions of the London and western district where American settlers abound, who have so generously repaid the fostering care which Governor Simcoe originally extended to them. One of those rabid folks indebted to the British government, who kept an inn, padlocked his pumps lately when a regiment was marching through Woodstock in hot dusty weather, that the soldiers might not slake their thirst.] If they be Scotch Radicals, the most uncompromising and the most bitter of all politicians, they seek Canada only with the ultimate hope of revolutionizing it. But the latter are more than balanced by the respectable Scotch, who emigrate occasionally upon the same principles which actuate the respectable portion of the English emigrants, and by the hardy Highlanders already settled in various parts of the colony, whose proverbial loyalty is proof against the arts of the demagogue. The great mass of emigrants may however be said to come from Ireland, and to consist of mechanics of the most inferior class, and of labourers. These are all impressed with the most absurd notions of the riches of America, and on landing at Quebec often refuse high wages with contempt, to seek the Cathay of their excited imaginations westward. If they be Orangemen, they defy the Pope and the devil as heartily in Canada as in Londonderry, and are loyal to the backbone. If they are Repealers, they come here sure of immediate wealth, to kick up a deuce of a row, for two shillings and sixpence currency is paid for a day's labour, which two shillings and sixpence was a hopeless week's fortune in Ireland; and yet the Catholic Irish who have been long settled in the country are by no means the worst subjects in this Trans-Atlantic realm, as I can personally testify, having had the command of large bodies of them during the border troubles of 1837-8. They are all loyal and true. In the event of a war, the Catholic Irish, to a man--and what a formidable body it is in Canada and the United States!--will be on the side of England. O'Connell has prophesied rightly there, for it is not in human nature to forget the wrongs which the Catholics have suffered for the past ten years in a country professing universal freedom and toleration. The Americans of the better classes with whom I have conversed admit this, but their dislike of the Irish is rooted and general among all the native race; and they fear as well as mistrust them, because, in many of the largest cities, New York for one, the Irish predominate. The Americans say, and so do the Canadians, that, for some years back, since the repeal agitation at home, a few very ignorant and very turbulent priests, of the lowest grade, have found their way across the Atlantic. I have travelled all over Canada, and lived many years in the country, and have been thrown among all classes, from my having been connected with the militia. I never saw but one specimen of Irish hedge-priest, and therefore do not credit the assertion; this one came out last year, and a more furious bigot or a more republican ultra I never met with, at the same time that he was as ignorant as could be conceived. Such has not hitherto been the case with the Catholic priesthood of the Canadas. The French Canadian clergy are a body of pious, exemplary men, not perhaps shining in the galaxy of science, but unobtrusive, gentlemanly, and an honour to the _soutane_ and _chasuble_. The priests from Ireland are not numerous, for the Irish chapels were, till very lately, generally presided over by Scotch missionaries; and I can safely say that, whether Irish or Scotch, the Catholic priesthood of Western Canada will not yield the palm to their Franco-Canadian brethren of the cross, and that loyalty is deeply inculcated by them. I have long and personally known and admired the late Bishop Mac Donell; a worthier or a better man never existed. The highest and the lowest alike loved him. I saw him bending under the weight of years, passed in his ministry and in the defence of his adopted country, just before he left Canada, to lay his bones in his natal soil, preside over the ceremony of placing the first stone of the Catholic seminary, for which he had given the ground and funds to the utmost of his ability. He was a large, venerable-looking man, unwieldy from the infirmities of age and a life of toil and trouble; and the affecting and touching portion of the scene before us was to see him supported on his right and left by the arms of a Presbyterian colonel and a colonel of the Church of England. This is true Christianity, true charity--peace be to his soul!-- His successor was a Canadian, equally free from pretension and bigotry; and he was succeeded by an Irishman, whose mission is to heal the wounds of party and strife. He is living and in office; I cannot, therefore, speak of him; but, differing as an Englishman so widely as I do in religious tenets from his, I can freely assert that, if clergymen of every denomination pursued the same course of brotherly love that he does, we should hear no more of the fierce and undying contention about subjects which should be covered with the veil of benevolence and humility. You cannot force a man to think as you do, to draw him into what you conceive to be the true path; mildness and conciliation are much more likely to effect your object than the Emperor of China's yellow stick. The days of the Inquisition, of Judge Jefferies, and of Claverhouse, are happily gone by; and the artillery of man's wrath now vents its harmless thunders much in the same way as the thunders of the Vatican, or the recent fulmination of the Archbishop of Paris against the author of the Wandering Jew; that is to say, with a great deal of noise, but without much damnifying any one, as the public soon formed a true judgment of M. Sue and of the tendency of his works. On the other hand, how horrible it is, and what a fearful view of frail human nature is opened for a searching mind to observe that a man, who professes to have abandoned the pleasures of existence, to have broken through the very first law of nature, to have separated himself from his kind, and to have assumed perfection and infallibility, the attributes of his Creator, devoting the altar at which he serves to the wicked purposes of arraying man against man, and of embruing the hands held up before him at prayer in the blood of his fellow-mortals! But such is the inevitable tendency of the system of "I am better than thou," whether it be practised by a Catholic priest of the hedge-school, by a fanatic bawler about new light, or by a fierce and uncompromising churchman. Faith, hope, and charity, are alike misinterpreted and misunderstood. Faith with these consists in blind or hypocritical devotion to their peculiar opinions and dogmas; hope is limited to the narrowest circle of ideas; and charity, Divine charity, exists not; for even the very relics, the mouldering bones of the defunct, are not allowed to rest side by side; and as to those differing in the slightest degree from them, to them charity extends not, however pious, however sincere, or however excellent they may be. The people of England are very little aware how widely Roman Catholicism extends in the United States and in Canada. From accurate returns, it has been ascertained that in the United States there were last year 1,500,000, with 21 bishops, 675 churches, 592 mission stations, and 572 priests otherwise employed in teaching and travelling; 22 colleges or ecclesiastical establishments, 23 literary institutions, 53 female schools or convents for instruction, 84 charitable hospitals and institutions, and 220 young students, preparing for the ministry; whilst we learn, from the Annals of the Propaganda, that 1,130,000 francs were appropriated, in May 1845, to the missions of America, or about £47,000 annually, of which the share for the United States, including Texas, was 771,164 francs, or about £32,000 in round numbers. Then again, the greater portion of the Indian tribes in the north-west and west, excepting near the Rocky Mountains or beyond them, are Roman Catholics; and their numbers are very great, and all in deep hatred, dislike, and enmity, to the Big Knives. More than half a million of the Lower Canadians are also of the same persuasion, and their church in Upper Canada is large and increasing by every shipload from Ireland. Even in Oregon, a Catholic bishop has just been appointed. It is more than probable, that in and around the United States three millions of Roman Catholic men are ever ready to advance the standard of their faith; whilst Mexico, weak as it is, offers another Catholic barrier to exclusive tenets of liberty, both of conscience and of person. It is surprising how very easily the emigrants are misled, and how simply they fancy that, once on the shores of the New World, Fortune must smile upon them. There is a British society, as I have already stated, for mutual protection, established at New York; and the government have agents of the first respectability at Quebec, at Montreal, and at Kingston. But the poorer classes, as well as those whose knowledge of life has been limited, are sadly defrauded and deluded. At a recent meeting of the Welsh Society at New York, facts were stated, showing the depravity and audacity of the crimps at Liverpool and New York. The President of the Society said that, owing to the nefarious practices against emigrants, the Germans first, then the Irish, after that the Welsh, and lastly the English residents of the city had taken the matter in hand by the formation of Protective Societies. The president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick observed that in Liverpool the poor emigrants were fleeced without mercy; and he gave as one instance a fact that, by the representations of a packet agent, a large number of emigrants were induced to embark on board a packet without the necessary supply of provisions, being assured that for their passage-money they would be supplied by the captain--an arrangement of which the captain was wholly ignorant. The president of the Welsh Society exhibited sixty dollars of trash in bills of the Globe Bank, that had been palmed off upon an unsuspecting Welshman by some rascal in Liverpool, in exchange for his hoarded gold, and declared that this was only one of a series of like villanies constantly occurring. The ex-president of the St. George's Society, Mr. Fowler, mentioned a curious circumstance connected with the history of New York. He said that he remembered the city when it contained only fifty thousand inhabitants, and not one paved side walk, excepting in Dock Street. Now it had a population of nearly 400,000, and had so changed, that he could no longer identify the localities of his youthful days. Who, he asked, had done this? The emigrant! and it was protection they needed, not charity. He should have added, that the great mass of the emigrants who have made New York the mighty city it now is, were Irish, and that the native Americans have banded themselves in another form of protection against their increasing influence. The republican notions which the greater portion of the lower classes emigrating from the old country have been drilled into, lead them to believe that in the United States all men are equal, and that thus they have a splendid vault to make from poverty to wealth, an easy spring from a state of dependency to one of vast importance and consideration. The simple axiom of republicanism, that a ploughman is as good as a president, or a quarryman as an emperor, is taken firm hold of in any other sense than the right one. What sensible man ever doubted that we were all created in the same mould, and after the same image; but is there a well educated sane mind in America, believing that a perfect equality in all things, in goods and chattels, in agrarian rights and in education, is, or ever will be, practicable in this naughty world? Has nature formed all men with the same capacities, and can they be so exactly educated that all shall be equally fit to govern? The converse is true. Nature makes genius, and not genius nature. How rarely she yields a Shakespeare!--There has been but one Homer, one Virgil, since the creation. There was never a second Moses, nor have Solomon's wisdom and glory ever again been attainable. Look at the rulers of the earth, from the patriarchs to the present day, how few have been pre-eminent! Even in the earliest periods, when the age of man reached to ten times its present span, the wonderful sacred writ records Tubal-Cain, the first artificer, and Jubal, the lyrist, as most extraordinary men; and with what care are Aholiab and Bezabel, cunning in all sorts of craft, and Hiram, the artificer of Tyre, recorded! Hiram, the king, great as he undoubtedly was, was secondary in Solomon's eyes to the widow's son. These men, says the holy record, were gifted expressly for their peculiar mission; and so are all men, to whom the Inscrutable has been pleased to assign extraordinary talent. Cæsar, the conqueror, Napoleon, his imitator, and Nelson, and Wellington, are they on a par with the rabble of New York? Procul, O, procul este profani! Pure democracy is an utter and unattainable impossibility; nature has effectually barred against it. The only thing in the course of a life of more than half a century that has ever puzzled me about it is, that the Catholic clergy should, in so many parts of the world, have lent it a helping hand. The ministers of a creed essentially aristocratic, essentially the pillars of the divine right of kings, have they ever been in earnest about the matter? Perhaps not! If that giant of modern Ireland, the pacificator citizen king, succeeded in separating the island from Great Britain, would he, on attaining the throne, or the dictatorship, or the presidency, or whatever it might be, for the nonce, desire pure democracy? _Je crois que non_, because, if he did, he would reign about one clear week afterwards. Look at the United States, see how each successive president is bowed down before the Moloch altar; he must worship the democratic Baal, if he desires to be elected, or re-elected. It is not the intellect, or the wealth of the Union that rules. Already they seriously canvass in the Empire State perfect equality in worldly substance, and the division of the lands into small portions, sufficient to afford the means of respectable existence to every citizen. It is, perhaps, fortunate that very few of the office-holders have much substance to spare under these circumstances; but, if the President, Vice-President, and the Secretaries of State, are to live upon an acre or two of land for the rest of their lives, Spartan broth will be indeed a rich diet to theirs. When the sympathizers invaded Canada, in 1838-1839, the lands of the Canadians were thus parcelled out amongst them, as the reward of their extremely patriotic services, but in slices of one hundred, instead of one or two, acres. But, notwithstanding all this ultra-democracy, there is at present a sufficient counterbalance in the sense of the people, to prevent any very serious consequences; and the Irish, from having had their religion trampled upon, and themselves despised, would be very likely to run counter to native feeling. If any country in the whole civilized world exhibits the inequality of classes more forcibly than another, it is the country which has lately annexed Texas, and which aims at annexing all the New World. There is a more marked line drawn between wealth and pretension on the one hand, poverty and impertinent assumption on the other, than in the dominions of the Czar. Birth, place, power, are all duly honoured, and that sometimes to a degree which would astonish a British nobleman, accustomed all his life to high society. I remember once travelling in a canal boat, the most abominable of all conveyances, resembling Noah's ark in more particulars than its shape, that I was accosted, in the Northern States too, and near the borders, where equality and liberty reign paramount, by a long slab-sided fellow-passenger, who, I thought, was going to ask me to pay his passage, his appearance was so shabby, with the following questions: "Where are you from? are you a Livingstone?" I told him, for I like to converse with characters, that I was from Canada. "What's your name?" he asked. I satisfied him. He examined me from head to foot with attention, and, as he was an elderly man, I stood the gaze most valiantly. "Well," he said, "I thought you were a Livingstone; you have got small ears, and small feet and hands, and that, all the world over, is the sign of gentle blood." He was afterwards very civil; and, upon inquiring of the skipper of the boat who he was, I found that my friend was a man of large fortune, who lived somewhere near Utica, on an estate of his own. This was before the sympathy troubles, and I can back it with another story or two to amuse the reader. Some years ago, when it was the fashion in Canada for British officers always to travel in uniform, I went to Buffalo, the great city of Buffalo on lake Erie, in the Thames steamer, commanded by my good friend, Captain Van Allen, and the first British Canadian steamboat that ever entered that harbour. We went in gallantly, with the flag flying that "has braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze." I think the majority of the population must have lined the wharfs to see us come in. They rent the welkin with welcomes, and, among other demonstrations, cast up their caps, and cried with might and main--"Long live George the Third!"--Our gracious monarch had for years before bid this world good night, but that was nothing; the good folks of Buffalo had not perhaps quite forgotten that they were once, long before their city was a city, subjects of King George. I and another officer in uniform were received with all honours, and escorted to the Eagle hotel, where we were treated sumptuously, and had to run the gauntlet of handshaking to great extent. A respectable gentleman, about forty, some seven years older than myself, stuck close to me all the while. I thought he admired the British undress uniform, but he only wanted to ask questions, and, after sundry answers, he inquired my name, which being courteously communicated, he said, "Well, I am glad, that's a fact, that I have seen you, for many is the whipping I have had for your book of Algebra." Now I never was capable of committing such an unheard-of enormity as being the cause of flagellation to any man by simple or quadratic equations; and it must have been the binomial theorem which had tickled his catastrophe, for it was my father's treatise which had penetrated into the new world of Buffalonian education. It is a pity, is it not, gentle reader, that such feelings do not now exist? Nevertheless, even now, the designation of a British officer is a passport in any part of the United States. The custom-house receives it with courtesy and good-will; society is gratified by attentions received from a British officer; and it is coupled with the feelings which the habits and conduct of a gentleman engender throughout Christendom. At New York, I visited every place worth seeing; and, although disliking gambling, races, and debating societies, _à outrance_, I was determined to judge for myself of New York, of life in New York. On one occasion, I was at a meeting of the turf in an hotel after the races, where violent discussions and heavy champagning were going on. I was then (it was in 1837) a major in the army, and was introduced to one or two prominent men in the room as a British officer who had been to see the racecourse; this caused a general stir, and the champagne flew about like----I am at a loss for a simile; and the health of Queen Victoria was drunk with three times three. On board a packet returning from England, we had several of the leading characters of the United States as passengers. A very silly and troublesome democrat, of the Loco-foco school, from Philadelphia, made himself conspicuous always after dinner, when we sat, according to English fashion, at a dessert, by his vituperations against monarchy and an exhibition of his excessive love for everything American. The gentlemen above alluded to, men who had travelled over Europe, whose education and manners made them that which a true gentleman is all over the world, were disgusted, and, to punish his impertinence, proposed that a weekly paper should be written by the cabin passengers, in which the occurrences of each day should be noted and commented upon, and that poetry, tales, and essays, should form part of its matter. They agreed to discuss the relative points and bearings of monarchy and democracy; they to depute one of their number to be the champion of monarchy; and we to chuse the champion of democracy from amongst the English passengers. Two drawings were fixed up at each end of the table after dinner; one, representing a crowned Plum-pudding; and the other, Liberty and Equality, by the well-known sign. The blustering animal was soon effectually silenced; a host of first-rate talent levelled a constant battery at his rude and uncultivated mind. I shall never forget this voyage, and I hope the talent-gifted Canadian lawyer who threw down the gauntlet of Republicanism, and who has since risen to the highest honours of his profession which the Queen can bestow, has preserved copies of the Saturday's Gazette of The Mediator American Packet-ship. The mention of this vessel puts me in mind of one more American anecdote, and I must tell it, for I have a good deal of dry work before me. Crossing the Atlantic once in an American vessel, we met another American ship, of the same size, and passed very close. Our captain displayed the stars and stripes in true ship-shape cordial greeting. Brother Jonathan took no notice of this sea civility, and passed on; upon which the skipper, after taking a long look at him with his spy-glass, broke out in a passion, "What!" said he, "you won't show your b--d bunting, your old stripy rag? Now, I guess, if he had been a Britisher, instead of a d--d Yankee, he would not have been ashamed of his flag; he would have acted like a gentleman. Phew!" and he whistled, and then chewed his cigar viciously, quite unconscious that I was enjoying the scene. But, if it be possible that one peculiar portion of the old countrymen are more disliked or despised than another in any country under the sun, connected by such ties as the United States are with Britain, there can be no doubt that the condition of the Jews under King John, as far as hatred and unexpressed contumelious feeling goes, was preferable to the feeling which native Americans, of the ultra Loco-foco or ultra-federal breed, entertain towards the labouring Catholic Irish, and would, if they could with safety, vent upon them in dreadful visitation. They would exterminate them, if they dared. To account for such a feeling, it must be observed that a large portion of these ignorant and misguided men have brought much of this animosity upon themselves; for, continuing in the New World that barbarous tendency to demolish all systems and all laws opposed to their limited notions of right and wrong, and, whilst their senseless feuds among themselves harass society, they eagerly seek occasions for that restless political excitement to which they are accustomed in their own unhappy and regretted country. A body of these hewers of wood and drawers of water, who, when not excited, are the most innocent and harmless people in the world--easily led, but never to be driven--get employed on a canal or great public work; and, no sooner do they settle down upon wages which must appear like a dream to them, than some old feud between Cork and Connaught, some ancient quarrel of the Capulets and Montagues of low life, is recollected, or a chant of the Boyne water is heard, and to it they go pell-mell, cracking one another's heads and disturbing a peaceful neighbourhood with their insane broils. Or, should a devil, in the shape of an adviser, appear among them, and persuade these excitable folks that they may obtain higher wages by forcing their own terms, bludgeons and bullets are resorted to, in order to compel compliance, and incendiarism and murder follow, until a military force is called out to quell the riots. The scenes of this kind in Canada, where vast sums are annually expended on the public works, have been frightful; and such has been the terror which these lawless hordes have inspired, that timid people have quitted their properties and fled out of the reach of the moral pestilence; nay, it has been carried so far, that a Scotch regiment has been marked on account of its having been accidentally on duty in putting down a canal riot; and, wherever its station has afterwards been cast, the vengeance of these people has followed it. At Montreal, the elections have been disgraced by bodies of these canallers having been employed to intimidate and overawe voters; and, were it not that a large military force is always at hand there, no election could be made of a member, whose seat would be the unbiassed and free choice of his constituents. It is, however, very fortunate for Canada that these canallers are not usually inclined to settle, but wander about from work to work, and generally, in the end, go to the United States. The Irish who settle are fortunately a different people; and, as they go chiefly into the backwoods, lead a peaceful and industrious life. But it is, nevertheless, very amusing, and affords much insight into the workings of frail human nature to observe the conduct of that portion of the Irish emigrants who find that they have neither the means of obtaining land, nor of quitting some large town at which they may arrive. Their first notion then is to go out to service, which they had left Ireland to avoid altogether. The father usually becomes a day-labourer, the sons farm-servants or household servants in the towns, the daughters cooks, nursery-maids, &c. When they come to the mistress of a family to hire, they generally sit down on the nearest chair to the door in the room, and assume a manner of perfect familiarity, assuring the lady of the house that they never expected to go out to service in America, but that some family misfortune has rendered such a step necessary. The lady then, of course, asks them what branch of household service they can undertake; to which the invariable reply is, anything--cook or housemaid, child's-maid or housekeeper, and that indeed they lived in better places at home than they expect to get in America, such as Lord So-and-so's, or Squire So-and-so's. The end of this is obvious; and a lady told me, the other day, she hired a professed cook, who was very shortly put to the test by a dinner-party occurring a day or two after she joined the household. Her mistress ordered dinner; and one joint, or _pièce de resistance_, was a fine fillet of veal. The professed cook, it appeared, laboured under a little _manque d'usage_ on two delicate points, for she very unexpectedly burst into her lady's boudoir just as she was dressing for dinner, and exclaimed, "Mistress, dear, what'll I do with the vail?"--"The veil?" said the dame, in horror; "what veil?"--"Why, the vail in the pot, marm; I biled it, and it swelled out so, the divil a get it out can I git it." So with the farm-servants, they can all do everything; and an Irish gentleman told me that he lately hired a young man, an emigrant, to plough for him; and, on asking him if he understood ploughing, the good-natured Paddy answered, offhand, "Ploughing, is it? I'm the boy for ploughing."--"Very well, I'm glad of it," said the gentleman, "for you are a fine, likely young fellow, so I shall hire you." He hired him accordingly at high wages--ten dollars a month and provisions and lodging found. The first day he was to work, my friend told him to go and yoke the oxen. Paddy stared with all his eyes, but said nothing, and went away. He staid some time, and then returned with a pair of oxen, which he was driving before him. "Here's the oxen, master!"--"Where are the yokes, Paddy?"--"The yokes! by the powers, is that what they call beef in Canady?" Poor Paddy had been a weaver all his live-long days. The Irish are almost exclusively the servants in most parts of the northern states and throughout Canada, excepting the French Canadians, and very attached, faithful servants they frequently are; but notions of liberty and equality get possession of their phrenological developments, and they are almost always on the move to better their condition, which rarely happens as they desire. Then another crying evil in Canada and in the States is the rage for dress. An Irish girl no sooner gets a modicum of wages than all her thoughts are to go to chapel or church as fine or finer than her mistress. Nearly every servant-girl in the large towns has a _ridicule_ (that must be the proper way of spelling it), a bustle, a parasol, an expensive shawl, and a silk gown, and fine bonnet, gloves, and a white pocket-handkerchief. The men are not so aspiring, and usually don on Sundays a blue coat and brass buttons, white pantaloons, white gloves, and a good fur cap in winter, or a neat straw hat or brilliant beaver in summer. The waistcoat is nondescript, but the boots are irreproachable. A cigar has nearly replaced the pipe in the streets. I will defy a short-sighted person to distinguish her nursery-maid from her own sister at a little distance; and, being somewhat afflicted that way myself, I frequently nod to a well-dressed soubrette, thinking she is at least a leading member of the aristocracy of the town; and this is the more amusing, as in all colonial towns and in the _haute societé_ of the Republic very considerable magnificence is affected, and a rage for rank and pseudo-importance is not a little the order of the day. "Nothing," says a distinguished writer upon that most frivolous of all threadbare subjects, etiquette, "nothing is more decidedly the sign of a vulgar-born or a vulgar-bred person than to be ready to practise the art of cutting." I therefore bow to the well-dressed grisettes, upon the principle of avoiding to be thought vulgar in mixed society by cutting a lady of tremendous rank; as I would rather take a cook for a Countess, or a chambermaid for an Honourable, than be guilty of so much rudeness. You must not smile, gentle reader, and say cooks are often handsomer than Countesses, or chambermaids prettier than Honourables; I am like the old man of the Bubbles of Brunnen, insensible to anything but the beauties of nature. Neither must you think we have no Countesses nor Honourables in Canada. The former are in truth _raræ aves_, but the latter--why, every change of ministry creates a batch of them. CHAPTER II. The Emigrant and his Prospects. Those who really wish Canada well desire it to become a second Britain, and not a mere second Texas. Those who wish it evil, and these comprise the restless, unprovided race of politicians under whose incessant agitation Canada has so long groaned, desire its Texian annexation to the already overgrown States in its vicinity. That it may become a second Britain and hold the balance of power on the continent of America is my prayer, and the prayer too of one who entertains no enmity towards the people of the United States, but who admires their unceasing exertions in behalf of their country, who would admire their institutions, based as they are upon those of England, if the grand design of Washington had been carried out, and perfect freedom of thought and of action had been secured to the people, instead of a slavish awe of the mob, an absolute dread of the uneducated masses, a sovereign contempt of the opinion of the world in accomplishing any design for the aggrandizement of the Union, the most despotic and degrading oppression of all who presume to hold religious opinions at variance with those of the masses, and the chained bondsman in a land of liberty! To guard the respectable settler, who has a character at stake, and a family with some little capital to lay out to better advantage than he can at home, against the grievous and often fatal errors which have been propagated for sinister motives by needy adventurers who have written about Canada, or who are or have been agents for the sake only of the remuneration which it brings, caring but little for the misery they have entailed, I have undertaken to continue an account of this fine province, where nothing is provided by Nature except fertile soil and a healthy climate; the rest she leaves to unremitting labour and to the exercise of judgment by the settler. As I have already inferred, this work will contain nothing vituperative of the United States, of that people who are the grandchildren of Britannia, and whose well-being is so essential to the peace and security of Christendom. I shall endeavour to render it as plain and unpretending as possible, and shall not confine myself to studied rules or endeavours to make a book, taking up my subject as suits my own leisure, which is not very ample, and resuming or interrupting it at pleasure or convenience. It will be necessary to enter more at large than in my preceding volumes into the resources of Canada, and, for this end, Geology and other scientific subjects must be introduced; but, as I dislike exceedingly that heavy and gaudy veil of learning, that embroidered science, with which modern taste conceals those secrets of Nature which have been so partially unfolded, I shall not have frequent recourse to absurd Greek derivations, which are very commonly borrowed for the occasion from technical dictionaries, or lent by a classical friend; but, whenever they must occur, the dictionary shall explain them, for I really think it beneath the dignity of the lights of modern Geology to talk as they do about the Placoids and the Ganoids, as the first created fishlike beings, and of the Ctenoids and the Cycloids as the more recent finners. It always puts me in mind of Shakespeare's magniloquence concerning "the Anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, of antres vast and deserts idle," when he exhibited his learning in language which no one, however, can imitate, and which he makes the lady seriously incline and listen to, simply because she did not understand a word that was said. So it is with the overdone and continual changing of terms that now constantly occurs; insomuch that the terms of plain science, instead of being simplified and brought within the reach of ordinary capacities, is made as uncouth and as unintelligible as possible, and totally beyond the reach of those who have no collegiate education to boast of, and no good technical dictionary at hand to refer to. The present age is most prone to this false estimate of learning and to public scientific display. If science, true science, yields to it, learning will very soon vanish from the face of the earth again, and nothing but monkish lore and the dark ages return. There is a vast field open for research in Canada: it is yet a virgin soil, both as respects its moral and its physical cultivation. Therefore, plain facts are the best, and those made as level to the eye as possible; for the amusing mistakes which a would-be learned man makes, after a cursory perusal of anything scientific, only subject him to silent derision. A very old casual acquaintance of mine, a sort of man holding a rather elevated rank, but originally from the great unwashed, who had risen by mere chance, aided by a little borough influence, was talking to me one day about some property of his in Western Canada, which he fancied had rich minerals upon it. Accordingly, he had taken a preliminary Treatise on Mineralogy in hand, and puzzled his brains in order to converse learnedly. "My land," quoth he, "is Silesia, and has a great bed of sulphuret of pyrites." The poor gentleman, who had a vast opinion of himself and always contradicted everybody about everything, meant that his soil contained a deal of silica, and that iron pyrites was abundant in it. The importance of the annual migration from Britain is best evidenced by the representation of the chief emigrant agent at Quebec, subjoined. In all the great sea-ports of England, Ireland, and Scotland, there are emigrant agents appointed by the government, to whom application should always be made for information, by every emigrant who has not the advantage of friends in Canada to receive and guide him; and these gentlemen prevent the trouble, expense, loss of time, and fraud, to which the poor settlers are subjected by the crimps and agents, with whom every sea-port abounds. On their arrival in Canada, if ignorant of their way, they should apply at Quebec to the government principal agent, who is stationed there for the lower or eastern part of Canada, and he will give them either advice or passage, according to the nature of the case. It is a pity that a rage exists for going as far west as possible at first, for this rage causes distress, and ends frequently by their being kidnapped into settling in the United States. If, however, they are determined to go on to Western Canada, their course is either to pay their own way, or to obtain assistance from the government to send them on to Kingston, where another government agent for Western Canada is stationed; and, as this gentleman has now acted in that capacity for many years, he possesses a perfect knowledge of the country and its resources, and of the wants and objects of the settlers. There is excellent land, and plenty of it to be obtained from the British American Land Company in Lower Canada, in that portion called "The Townships," which adjoin the states of Vermont and New York; and, excepting that the winters are longer, the climate more severe, it is as desirable as any other part of the province, and, in point of health, perhaps more so, as it is sufficiently far from the great river and lakes to make it less subject to ague; which, however, more or less, all new countries in the temperate zone, well forested and watered, are invariably the seat of, and which is increased in power and frequency in proportion to the neighbourhood of fresh water in large bodies, and the use of whiskey as a preventive. From a statement of the number of emigrants to this colony for the last sixteen years, compiled by A.C. Buchanan, Esq., chief emigrant agent, it appears that, in the five years subsequently to 1829, the emigration from the British Isles was 165,793. From other sources, in the three years, from 1829 to 1832, the emigration exceeded that of the previous ten years--the numbers being respectively, 125,063 and 121,170. In 1832, the emigrants arrived reached the high number of 51,746; but the cholera of that year was of so fatal a character on the St. Lawrence, that the numbers in 1833 fell 22,062. This epidemic, coupled with the rebellions of '37 and '38, materially checked the increased emigration commenced in 1836. In 1838, the number was only 3,266, and in 1839, 7,500. But, since 1840, emigration has again recovered, and, during the period of navigation of 1845, it amounted to 27,354, of whom 2,612 arrived _via_ the United States. The United States, however, received by far the largest proportion of the emigration from Britain. At the port of New York alone, from 1st November, 1844, to 31st October, 1845, there arrived-- From England and Scotland 10,653 From Ireland 38,300 ------- Total at New York 48,953 The number of emigrants landed at the port of Quebec, in 1845, was 25,375. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NUMBER OF EMIGRANTS SINCE 1829. | |----------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------| | |'29 to '33|'34 to '38|'39 to '43|'44 to '45| Total. | | | | | | | | | |----------|----------|----------|----------|---------| |England. | 43,386 | 28,624 | 30,318 | 16,531 | 119,354 | |Ireland. | 102,264 | 54,898 | 74,981 | 24,201 | 256,344 | |Scotland. | 20,143 | 10,998 | 16,289 | 4,408 | 51,838 | |British American| | | | | | | Prov. &c. | 1,904 | 1,831 | 1,777 | 377 | 5,589 | | |----------+----------+----------+----------+---------| | | 167,697 | 96,351 | 123,860 | 45,517 | 433,425 | +----------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------+ Upper Canada would seem to have received the largest share of the influx of population. The increase in the number of its inhabitants, between 1827 and 1843, is stated at 230,000. The local government has for some few years past encouraged, although rather scantily, as Mr. Logan can, I dare say, testify, an exploration of the natural resources of the Canadas, as far as geology and mineralogy are concerned. Its medical statistics, its botany and zoology, will follow; and agriculture, that primary and most noble of all applications of the mind to matter, is making rapid strides, by the formation of district and local societies, which will do infinitely more good than any system of government patronage for the advancement of the welfare of the people could devise. The public works have also, for the first time, been placed under the control of the executive and legislative bodies by the formation of a board, which is itself also subject to the supervision of the government. But much remains to be done on this important head. A melancholy error was committed in making the President, and consequently all the officers and _employés_, of the Board of Works, partizans of the ministry of the day; thus paralyzing the efforts of a zealous man, on the one hand, by the fear of dismissal upon any change of the popular will, and neutralizing his efforts whilst in office, by rendering his measures mere jobs. This has been amended under Lord Metcalfe's administration; and it is to be hoped that the office of President of the Board of Works will hereafter be one subjected to severe but not to vexatious scrutiny, and at the same time carefully guarded against political influence, and only rendered tenable with honour by the capacity of the person selected to fill it and of his subordinates. Canada is, as I have written two former volumes to prove, a magnificent country. I doubt very much if Nature has created a finer country on the whole earth. The soil is generally good, as that made by the decay of forests for thousands of years upon substrata, chiefly formed of alluvion or diluvion, the deposit from waters, must be. It is, moreover, from Quebec to the Falls of St. Mary, almost a flat surface, intersected and interlaced by numberless streams, and studded with small lakes, whilst its littorale is a river unparalleled in the world, expanding into enormous fresh water seas, abounding with fish. If the tropical luxuries are absent, if its winters are long and excessively severe, yet it yields all the European fruits abundantly, and even some of the tropical ones, owing to the richness of its soil and the great heat of the summer. Maize, or Indian corn, flourishes, and is more wholesome and better than that produced in the warm South. The crops of potato, that apple of the earth, as the French so justly term it, are equal, if not superior, to those of any other climate; whilst all the vegetables of the temperate regions of the old world grow with greater luxuriance than in their original fields. I have successively and successfully cultivated the tomato, the melon, and the capsicum, in the open air, for several seasons, at Kingston and Toronto, which are not the richest or the best parts of Western Canada, as far as vegetation is concerned. Tobacco grows well in the western district, and where is finer wheat harvested than in Western Canada?--whilst hay, and that beauty of a landscape, the rich green sod, the velvet carpet of the earth, are abundant and luxuriant. If the majesty of vegetation is called in question, and intertropical plants brought forward in contrast, even the woods and trackless forests of Guiana, where the rankest of luxuriance prevails, will not do more than compete with the glory of the primeval woods of Canada. I know of nothing in this world capable of exciting emotions of wonder and adoration more directly, than to travel alone through its forests. Pines, lifting their hoary tops beyond man's vision, unless he inclines his head so far backwards as to be painful to his organization, with trunks which require fathoms of line to span them; oaks, of the most gigantic form; the immense and graceful weeping elm; enormous poplars, whose magnitude must be seen to be conceived; lindens, equally vast; walnut trees of immense size; the beautiful birch, and the wild cherry, large enough to make tables and furniture of. Oh, the gloom and the glory of these forests, and the deep reflection that, since they were first created by the Divine fiat, civilized man has never desecrated them with his unsparing devastations; that a peculiar race, born for these solitudes, once dwelt amidst their shades, living as Nature's woodland children, until a more subtile being than the serpent of Eden crept amongst them, and, with his glittering novelties and dangerous beauty, caused their total annihilation! I see, in spirit, the red hunter, lofty, fearless, and stern, stalking in his painted nudity, and displaying a form which Apollo might have envied, amidst the everlasting and silent woods; I see, in spirit, the bearded stranger from the rising sun, with his deadly arms and his more deadly fire-water, conversing with his savage fellow, and displaying the envied wealth of gorgeous beads and of gaudy clothing. The scene changes, the proud Indian is at the feet of his ensnarer; disease has relaxed his iron sinews; drunkenness has debased his mind; and the myriad crimes and vices of civilized Europe have combined to sweep the aborigines of the soil from the face of the forest earth. The forest groans beneath the axe; but, after a few years, the scene again changes; fertile fields, orchards and gardens, delight the eye; the city, and the town, and the village spires rise, and where two solitary wigwams of the red hunter were once alone occasionally observed, twenty thousand white Canadians now worship the same Great Author of the existence of all mankind. And to increase these fields, these orchards, these gardens, these villages, these towns, and these cities, year after year, thirty thousand of the children of Britain cross the broad Atlantic: and what seeks this mass of human beings, braving the perils of the ocean and the perils of the land? Competence and wealth! The former, by prudence, is soon attainable; the acquisition of the latter uncertain and fickle. No free grants of land are now given, but the settler may obtain them upon easy terms from the government, or the Canada and British American companies. The settler with a small capital cannot do better than purchase out and out. Instalments are a bad mode of purchasing; for, if all should not turn out right, instalments are sometimes difficult to meet; and the very best land, in the best locations, as we shall hereafter see, is to be had from 7s. 6d., if in the deep Bush, as the forest is called; to 10s., if nearer a market; or 15s. and 20s., if very eligibly situated. Thus for two hundred pounds a settler can buy two hundred acres of good land, can build an excellent house for two hundred and fifty more, and stock his farm with another fifty, as a beginning; or, in other words, he can commence Canadian life for five hundred pounds sterling, with every prospect before him, if he has a family, of leaving them prosperous and happy. But he and they must work, work, work. He and all his sons must avoid whiskey, that bane of the backwoods, as they would avoid the rattlesnake, which sometimes comes across their path. Whiskey and wet feet destroy more promising young men in Canada than ague and fever, that scourge of all well watered woody countries; for the ague and fever seldom kill but with the assistance of the dram and of exposure. Men nurtured in luxury or competence at home, as soon as the unfailing _ennui_ arising from want of society in the backwoods begins to succeed the excitement of settling, too frequently drink, and in many cases drink from their waking hour until they sink at night into sottish sleep. This is peculiarly the case where there is no village nor town within a day's journey; and thus many otherwise estimable young men become habitual drunkards, and sink from the caste of gentlemen gradually into the dregs of society, whilst their wives and families suffer proportionably. In Lower Canada, this vice does not prevail to the same extent as in the upper portion of the province. The French Canadians are not addicted to the vice of drinking ardent spirits as a people, although the lumberers and voyageurs shorten their lives very considerably by the use of whiskey. The _lumberers_, who are the cutters and conveyers of timber, pass a short and excited existence. In the winter, buried in the eternal forest, far, far away from the haunts of man, they chop and hew; in the summer, they form the timber, boards, staves, &c., into rafts, which are conveyed down the great lakes and the rivers St. Lawrence and Ottawa to Quebec--on these rafts they live and have their summer being. Hard fare in plenty, such as salt pork and dough cakes; fat and unleavened bread, with whiskey, is their diet. Tea and sugar form an occasional luxury. Up to their waists in snow in winter, and up to their waists in summer and autumn in water, with all the moving accidents by flood and field; the occasional breaking-up of the raft in a rapid, the difficulty of the winter and spring transport of the heavy logs of squared timber out of the deep and trackless woods, combine to form a portion of the hard and reckless life of a lumberer, whose _morale_ is not much better than his _physicale_. Picture to yourself, child of luxury, sitting on a cushioned sofa, in a room where the velvet carpet renders a footfall noiseless, where art is exhausted to afford comfort, and where even the hurricane cannot disturb your perusal of this work, a wood reaching without limit, excepting the oceans either of salt or fresh water which surround Canada, and where to lose the track is hopeless starvation and death; figure the giant pines towering to the clouds, gloomy and Titan-like, throwing their vast arms to the skyey influences, and making a twilight of mid-day, at whose enormous feet a thicket of bushes, almost as high as your head, prevents your progress without the pioneer axe; or a deep and black swamp for miles together renders it necessary to crawl from one fallen monarch of the wood onwards to the decaying and prostrate bole of another, with an occasional plunge into the mud and water, which they bridge; eternal silence reigning, disturbed only by your feeble efforts to advance; and you may form some idea of a red pine land, rocky and uneven, or a cedar swamp, black as night, dark, dismal, and dangerous. Here, after you have hewed or crept your toiling way, you see, some yards or some hundred yards, as the forest is close or open, before you, a light blue curling smoke amongst the dank and lugubrious scene; you hear a dull, distant, heavy, sudden blow, frequent and deadened, followed at long intervals by a tremendous rending, crashing, overwhelming rush; then all is silent, till the voice of the guardian of man is heard growling, snarling, or barking outright, as you advance towards the blue smoke, which has now, by an eddy of the wind, filled a large space between the trees. You stand before the fire, made under three or four sticks set up tenwise, to which a large cauldron is hung, bubbling and seething, with a very strong odour of fat pork; a boy, dirty and ill-favoured, with a sharp glittering axe, looks very suspiciously at you, but calls off his wolfish dog, who sneaks away. A moment shows you a long hut, formed of logs of wood, with a roof of branches, covered by birch-bark, and by its side, or near the fire, several nondescript sties or pens, apparently for keeping pigs in, formed of branches close to the ground, either like a boat turned upside down, or literally as a pigsty is formed, as to shape. In the large hut, which is occasionally more luxurious and made of slabs of wood or of rough boards, if a saw-mill is within reasonable distance, and there is a passable wood road, or creek, or rivulet, navigable by canoes, you see some barrel or two of pork, and of flour, or biscuit, or whiskey, some tools, and some old blankets or skins. Here you are in the lumberer's winter home--I cannot call him woodman, it would disgrace the ancient and ballad-sung craft; for the lumberer is not a gentle woodman, and you need not sing sweetly to him to "spare that tree." The larger dwelling is the hall, the common hall, and the pig-sties the sleeping-places. I presume that such a circumstance as pulling off habiliments or ablution seldom occurs; they roll themselves in a blanket or skin, if they have one, and, as to water, they are so frequently in it during the summer, that I suppose they wash half the year unintentionally. Fat pork, the fattest of the fat, is the lumberer's luxury; and, as he has the universal rifle or fowling-piece, he kills a partridge, a bear, or a deer, now and then. I was exploring last year some woods in a newly settled township, the township of Seymour West, in the Newcastle district of Upper Canada, with a view to see the nakedness of the land, which had been represented to me as flowing with milk and honey, as all new settlements of course are said to do. I wandered into the lonely but beautiful forest, with a companion who owned the soil, and who had told me that the lumberers were robbing him and every settler around of their best pine timber. After some toiling and tracing the sound of the axes, few and far between, felling in the distance, we came upon the unvarying boy at cookery, the axe, and the dog. My conductor at once saw the extent of the mischief going on, and, finding that the gang, although distant from the camp-fire, was numerous, advised that we should retrace our steps. We however interrogated the boy, who would scarcely answer, and pretended to know nothing. The dog began to be inquisitive too, and one of the dogs we had with us venturing a little too near a savoury piece of pork, the nature of the young half-bred ruffian suddenly blazed out, and the axe was uplifted to kill poor Dash. I happened to have a good stick, and interfered to prevent dog-murder, upon which the wood-demon ejaculated that he would as soon let out my guts as the dog's, and therefore my companion had to show his gun; for showing his teeth would have been of little avail with the young savage. The settlers are afraid of the lumberers; and thus all the finest land, near rivers, creeks, or transport of any kind, is swept of the timber to such an extent that you must go now far, far back from the Lakes, the St. Lawrence, or the Ottawa, before you can see the forest in its primeval grandeur. This robbery has been carried on in so barefaced and extensive a manner, that the chief adventurer, usually a merchant or trader, who supplies the axe and canoemen with pay in his shop goods, cent. per cent. above their value, becomes enriched. The lumberer's life is truly an unhappy one, for, when he reaches the end of the raft's voyage, whatever money he may have made goes to the fiddle, the female, or the fire-water; and he starts again as poor as at first, living perhaps by a rare chance to the advanced age, for a lumberer, of forty years. And a curious sight is a raft, joined together not with ropes but with the limbs and thews of the swamp or blue beech, which is the natural cordage of Canada and is used for scaffolding and packing. A raft a quarter of a mile long--I hope I do not exaggerate, for it may be half a mile, never having measured one but by the eye--with its little huts of boards, its apologies for flags and streamers, its numerous little masts and sails, its cooking caboose, and its contrivances for anchoring and catching the wind by slanting boards, with the men who appear on its surface as if they were walking on the lake, is curious enough; but to see it in _drams_, or detached portions, sent down foaming and darting along the timber slides of the Ottawa or the restless and rapid Trent, is still more so; and fearful it is to observe its _conducteur_, who looks in the rapid by no means so much at his ease as the functionary of that name to whom the Paris diligence is entrusted. Numberless accidents happen; the drams are torn to pieces by the violence of the stream; the rafts are broken by storm and tempest; the men get drunk and fall over; and altogether it appears extraordinary that a raft put together at the Trent village for its final voyage to Quebec should ever reach its destination, the transport being at least four hundred and fifty miles, and many go much farther, through an open and ever agitated fresh water sea, and amongst the intricate channels of The Thousand Islands, and down the tremendous rapids of the Longue Sault, the Gallope, the Cedars, the Cascades, &c. But a new trade, has lately commenced on Lake Ontario, which will break up some of the hardships of the rafting. Old steamboats of very large size, when no longer serviceable in their vocation, are now cut down, and perhaps lengthened, masted, and rigged as barques or ships, and treated in every respect like the Atlantic timber-vessels. Into these three-masters, these Leviathans of Lake Ontario, the timber, boards, staves, handspikes, &c., from the interior are now shipped, and the timber carried to the head of the St. Lawrence navigation. One step more, and they will, as soon as the canals are widened, proceed from Lake Superior to London without a raft being ever made. That this will soon occur is very evident; for a large vessel of this kind, as big as a frigate, and named the Goliath, is at the moment that I am writing preparing at Toronto, near the head of Lake Ontario, a thousand miles from the open sea, for a voyage direct to the West Indies and back again. Success to her! What with the railroad from Halifax to Lake Huron, from the Atlantic Ocean to the great fresh ocean of the West--what with the electric telegraph now in operation on the banks of the Niagara by the Americans--what with the lighting of villages on the shores of Lake Erie with natural gas, as Fredonia is lit, and as the city of the Falls of Niagara, if ever it is built, will also be, there is no telling what will happen: at all events, the poor lumberer must benefit in the next generation, for the worst portion of his toils will be done away with for ever. Settler, never become a lumberer, if you can avoid it. But, as we have in this favourite hobbyhorse style of ours, which causes description to start up as recollections occur, accompanied the lumberer on his voyage to that lumberer's Paradise, Quebec, whither he has conducted his charge to The Coves, for the culler to cull, the marker to mark, the skipper to ship, and the lumber-merchant to get the best market he can for it, so we shall return for a short time to Lower Canada, to talk a little about settlement there. As I hinted before, Lower Canada is too much decried as a country to re-commence the world in; but the Anglo-Saxon and Milesian populace are nevertheless beginning to discover its value, and are very rapidly increasing both in numbers and importance. The French Canadian yeoman, or small farmer, has an alacrity at standing still; it is only _le notaire_ and _le medécin_ that advance; so that, if emigration goes on at the rate it has done since the rebellion, the old country folks will, before fifty more years pass over, outnumber and outvote, by ten times, Jean Baptiste, which is a pity, for a better soul than that merry mixture of bonhomie and phlegm, the French Canadian is, the wide world's surface does not produce. Visionary notions of _la gloire de la nation Canadienne_, instilled into him by restless men, who panted for distinction and cared not for distraction, misled the _bonnet rouge_ awhile: but he has superadded the thinking cap since; and, although he may not readily forget the sad lesson he received, yet he has no more idea of being annexed to the United States than I have of being Grand Lama. In fact, I really believe that the merciful policy which has been shown, and the wise measure of making Montreal the seat of government, and thus practically demonstrating the advantage of the institutions of England by daily lessons in the heart of their dear country, has done more to recall the Canadians to a sense of the real value of the connexion with Great Britain than all the protocols of diplomatists, or all the powder that ever saltpetre generated, could have achieved. Pursue a perfectly impartial course, as you ought and must do, towards the Canadians, and show them that they are as much British citizens as the people of Toronto are, and you may count upon their loyalty and devotion without fear. They know they never can be an independent nation; that folly has been dreamed out, and the fumes of the vision are evaporating. They now know and feel that annexation to the great Republic in their neighbourhood will swamp their nationality more effectively than the red or the blue coats of England can ever do, will desecrate their altars, will portion out their lands, will nullify their present importance, and render them an isolated race, forgotten and unsought for, as the Iroquois of the last century, who, from being the children and owners of the land, the true _enfans du sol_, are now--where? The soil, had it voice, could alone reply, for on its surface they are not. We must never in England form a false estimate of the French Canadian, because a few briefless lawyers or saddle-bag medical men urged them into rebellion. Their feelings and spirit are not of the same _genre_ as the feelings and spirit which animated the hideous soul of the _poissardes_ and _canaille_ of Paris in 1792. There is very little or no poverty in Lower Canada; every man who will work there, can work; and it is a nation rather of small farmers than of classes, with the ideas of independence which property, however small, invariably generates in the human breast; but with that other idea also which urges it to preserve ancient landmarks. It is chiefly in the large towns and in their neighbourhood that the desire for exclusive nationality still exists, fostered by a rabid appetite for distinction in some ardent and reckless adventurers from the British ranks, who care little what is undermost so long as they are uppermost. The hostility of the British settlers to the French is by no means so great as is so carefully and constantly described, and would altogether cease, if not kept continually alive by Upper Canadian demonstration, and that desire to rule exclusively which has so long been the bane of this fine colony. It reminds one always of the morbid hatred of France, which existed thirty years ago in England, when Napoleon was believed, by the lower classes--ay, and by some of the higher too--to be Apollyon in earnest. I remember an old lord of the old school, whose family honours were not of a hundred years, and whose ancestors had been respectable traders, saying to me, a short time before he died, that Republican notions had spread so much from our peace with infidel France, that he should yet live to see those who possessed talent or energy enough among the middle class, take those honours which he was so proud of, and with the titles also, the estates. Look, said he, at the absurd decoration showered on the _savans_ of France, Baron Cuvier, for instance; and he fell into a passion, and, being a French scholar, sang forth, in a paroxysm of gout, this _refrain_:-- "Travaillez, travaillez, bon tonnelier, Racommodez, racommodez, ton Cuvier." And yet he was by no means an ignorant man--was at heart a true John Bull, and had travelled and seen the world. He was blinded by an unquenchable hatred of France, a hatred which has now ceased in England in consequence of the facility of intercourse, but which is revived in France against England by those who think _la gloire_ preferable to peace and honour. The miserable feudal system in Lower Canada has kept the French population in abeyance; that population is literally dormant, and the resources of the country unused; a Seigneur, now often anything but a Frenchman, holds an immense tract, parcelled out into little slips amongst a peasantry, whose ideas are as limited as their lands. Generation after generation has tilled these patches, until they are exhausted; and thus the few proprietors who have been able to emancipate themselves from the Seignoral thraldom sell as fast as they can obtain purchasers; and the Seignories lapse, by failure of descent or by cutting off the entail, as it may be termed, under the dominion of foreigners, to the people. It is surprising that British capitalists do not turn their attention more to Lower Canada, where land is thus to be bought very cheap, and which only requires manuring, a treatment that it rarely receives from a Canadian, to bring it into heart again, and where the vast extent of the British townships, held in free and common soccage, opens such a field for the agriculturist. These townships are rapidly opening up and improving, and the sales of the British American Land Company may in round numbers be said to average £20,000 a year, or more than 40,000 acres, averaging ten shillings an acre. The day's wages for a labourer on a farm in Lower Canada may be stated at two shillings currency, about one shilling and eightpence sterling, with food and lodging; but, excepting in the towns and in the eastern townships, the labourers are Canadians, elsewhere chiefly Irish. In the large towns also they are Irish, and two shillings and sixpence is the usual price of a day's work at Montreal. There is a great demand for English or Scotch labourers in the townships where provisions are reasonable, and the materials for building, either lime, stone, brick, or wood, also very moderate in price from their abundance. Cultivated, or rather cleared, farms may be purchased now near the settlements for about six pounds per acre, with very often dwelling and farms on them, and a clear title may be readily obtained, after inquiry at the registry office of the county, to see whether any mortgage or other encumbrance exist--a course always to be adopted, both in Upper and Lower Canada. A settler must take the precaution of tracing the original grant, and that the land, if he buys from an individual, is neither Crown nor Clergy reserve, nor set apart for school or any other public purposes. Never buy, moreover, of a squatter, or land on which a squatter is located, for the law is very favourable to these gentry. A squatter is a man who, axe in hand, with his gun, dog, and baggage, sets himself down in the deep forest, to clear and improve; and this he very frequently does, both upon public and private property; and the Government is lenient, so that, if he makes well of it, he generally has a right of pre-emption, or perhaps pays up only instalments, and then sells and goes deeper into the bush. Every way there is difficulty about squatted land, and very often the squatter will significantly enough hint that there is such a thing as a rifle in his log castle. Squatters are usually Americans, of the very lowest grade, or the most ignorant of the Irish, who really believe they have a right to the soil they occupy. I do not profess to give an account of the Eastern Townships; the prospectus of the British American Land Company will do that; and, as I have never been through them entirely, so I could only advance assertion; but I believe that they are admirably adapted for English and Scotch settlers, and that, bounded as they are by the French Canadians on one side, and by the United States on the other, with every facility for roads, canals, and railways, they must become one of the richest, most and important portions of Canada before half a century has passed over; but it will take that time, notwithstanding railways and locomotives, to make Jean Baptiste a useful agriculturist; and the fly must be eradicated from the wheat before Lower Canada can ever come within a great distance of competition in the flour market with the upper province. Take a steamboat voyage from Quebec to Montreal, and you pass through French Canada; for, although there are very extensive settlements of the race below Quebec till they are lost in the rugged mountains of Gaspesia, yet the main body of _habitants_ rest upon the low and tranquil shores of the St. Lawrence, for one hundred and eighty miles between the Castle of St. Lewis and the Cathedral of Montreal. The farm-houses, neat, and invariably whitewashed, line the river, particularly on the left bank, like a cantonment, and go back to the north for, at the utmost, ten or twelve miles into the then boundless wilderness. The cultivated ground is in narrow slips, fenced by the customary snake fence, which is nothing more than slabs of trees split coarsely into rails, and set up lengthways in a zig-zag form to give them stability, with struts, or riders, at the angles, to bind them. These farms are about nine hundred feet in width, and four or five miles in depth, being the concessions or allotments made originally by the _seigneurs_ to the _censitaires_, or tillers of the soil. Every here and there, a long road is left, with cross ones, to obtain access to the farms, much in the same way, but not near so conveniently, or well done, as the concession lines in Upper Canada, which embrace large spaces of a hundred acre or two hundred acre lots, including many of these lots, and giving a sixty-six feet or a forty foot road, as the case may be, and thus dividing the country into a series of large parallelograms, and making every farm accessible. Each Lower French Canadian farmer is an independent yeoman, excepting as bound to the soil, and to certain seignorial dues and privileges, which are, however, trifling, and far from burthensome. Taxes are unknown, and they cheerfully support their priesthood. It is not generally known in England that the feudal tenure--although very laughable and absurd at this time of day, and from which some seigneurs, but never those of unmixed French blood, are disposed to claim titles equivalent to the baronage of England, with incomes of about a thousand a year, or at most two, and manorial houses, resembling very much a substantial Buckinghamshire grazier's chateau--was originally established by the French monarchs for wise, highly useful, and benevolent purposes. These seigneuries were parcelled out in very large tracts of forest along the banks of the St. Lawrence, or the rivers and bays of Lower Canada, on the condition that they should be again parcelled out among those who would engage to cultivate them in the strips above-mentioned. Thus re-granted, the _seigneur_ could not eject the _habitant_, but was allowed to receive a nominal or feudal rent from the vassal, and the usual droits. These droits are, first, the barbarous "_lods et ventes_," or one thirteenth of the money upon every transfer which the _habitant_ makes by sale only; but the original rent can never be raised, whatever value the land may have attained. The rights of the mill, that old European appanage of the lord of the soil, were also reserved to the seigneur, who alone can build mills within his domain, or use the waters within his boundaries for mechanical purposes; but he must erect them at convenient distances, and must make and repair roads. The miller, therefore, takes toll of the grist, which is another source of seignorial revenue, although not a very great one, for the toll is, excepting the miller's thumb rights, not very large. The crown of England is the lord paramount or suzerain, and demands a tax of one fifth of the purchase-money of each seignory sold or transferred by the lord of the manor. By law, the lands cannot be subdivided, and if a seigneurie is sold it cannot be sold in parts, nor can any compromise with the habitants for rent, or any other claim or incumbrance, be made. An institution like this paralyzes the resident, paralyzes the settler, and destroys that aristocracy for whose benefit it was created; for it prevents the lord of the manor from ever becoming rich, or taking much interest in the improvement of his domain; and thus every thing continues as it was a hundred years ago. The British emigrant pauses ere he buys land thus enthralled; and almost all the old French families, who dated from Charlemagne, Clovis, or Pepin, from the Merovingian or Carlovingian monarchies, have disappeared and dwindled away, and their places have been supplied by the more enterprising, or the _nouveau riche_ men of the old world, or by restless, acute lawyers, and metaphysical body-curers. It was no wonder, therefore, that, upon the removal of the seat of government from Toronto, and the appointment of a governor-general untrammelled by the lieutenant governorship of Western Canada, over which he had had before no control, that it should be considered desirable by degrees to introduce the English land system throughout Canada, and that parliamentary inquiry should be made into the necessity of abolishing all feudal taxation. In Montreal this has been done, and, as the seignoral rights of succession lapse, it will soon be done every where, for the recent enactments have emancipated many already. But no sensible or feeling mind will desire to see the French Canadian driven to break up all at once habits formed by ages of contentment; and, as it does not press upon them beyond their ready endurance, why should we, to please a few rich capitalists or merchants, suddenly force a British population into the heart of French Canada? Jean Baptiste is too good a fellow to desire this. On our part, we should not forget his truly amiable character; we should not forget the services he rendered to us, when our children fought to drive us from our last hold on the North American continent; we should not forget his worthy and excellent priesthood; nor should we ever lose sight of the fact, that he is contented under the old system. Above all, we should never forget that he fought our battles when his Gallic sires joined our revolted children. I feel persuaded that, if an unhappy war must take place between the United States and England, the French Canadians will prove, as they did before on a similar occasion, loyal to a man. All animosity, all heart-burning, will be forgotten, and the old French glory will shine again, as it did under De Salaberry. Ma foi, nous ne sommes pas perdus, encore; and some hero of the war has only to rouse himself and cry, as Roland did, Suivez, mon panage éclatant, Français ainsi que ma bannière; Qu'il soit point du ralliement, Vous savez tous quel prix attend Le brave, qui dans la carrière, Marche sur le pas de Roland. Mourons pour notre patrie C'est le sort le plus beau et le plus digne d'envie. CHAPTER III. A journey to the Westward. We must leave Roncesvalles and La Gloire awhile, and, instead of riding a war horse, canter along upon the hobby, or a good serviceable Canadian pony, the best of all hobbies for seeing the Canadian world, and on which mettlesome charger we can much better instruct the emigrant than by long prosings about political economy and systematic colonisation. So, _en avant_! I am going to relate the incidents of a journey last summer to the Westward, and to give all the substance of my observations on men and things made therein. I left Kingston on the 26th of June, in the Princess Royal mail steamer, at 8 p.m., the usual hour of starting being seven, for Toronto; the weather unusually cold. This fine boat constitutes, with two others, the City of Toronto and the Sovereign, the royal mail line between Kingston and Toronto. All are built nearly alike, are first class seaboats, and low pressure; they combine, with the Highlander, the Canada, and the Gildersleave, also splendid vessels, to form a mail route to Montreal--the latter boats taking the mail as far as Coteau du Lac, forty-five miles from Montreal, on which route a smaller vessel, the Chieftain, plies, wherein you sleep, at anchor, or rather moored, till daylight, if going down, or going upwards, on board the mail boat. Passengers go from Montreal to Kingston by the mail route in twenty-four hours, a distance of 180 miles; a small portion, between the Cascades Rapids and the Coteau being traversed in a coach, on a planked road as smooth as a billiard-table. From Kingston to Toronto, or nearly the whole length of Lake Ontario, takes sixteen hours, the boat leaving at seven, and arriving about or before noon next day; performing the passage at the rate of eleven miles an hour, exclusively of stoppages. The transit between Montreal and Kingston is at the rate, including stoppage for daylight, the river being dangerous, of eight miles an hour; thus, in forty hours, the passenger passes from the seat of government to the largest city of Western Canada most comfortably, a journey which twenty years ago it always took a fortnight, and often a month, to accomplish, in the most precarious and uncomfortable manner--on board small, roasting steamers, crowded like a cattle-pen--in lumbering leathern conveniences, miscalled coaches, over roads which enter not into the dreams of Britons--by canoes--by bateaux, (a sort of coal barges,)--by schooners, where the cabin could never permit you to display either your length, your breadth, or your thickness, and thus reducing you to a point in creation, according to Euclid and his commentators. Your _compagnons de voyage_, on board a bateau or Durham boat, which was a _monstre_ bateau, were French Canadian voyageurs, always drunk and always gay, who poled you along up the rapids, or rushed down them with what will be will be. These happy people had a knack of examining your goods and chattels, which they were conveying in the most admirable manner, and with the utmost _sang-froid_; but still they were above stealing--they only tapped the rum cask or the whiskey barrel, and appropriated any cordage wherewith you bound your chests and packages. I never had a chest, box, or bale sent up by bateau or Durham boat that escaped this rope mail. By the by, the Durham boat, a long decked barge, square ahead, and square astern, has vanished; Ericson's screw-propellers have crushed it. It was neither invented by nor named after Lord Durham, but was as ancient as Lambton House itself. The way the conductors of these boats found out vinous liquors was, as brother Jonathan so playfully observes, a _caution_. I have known an instance of a cask of wine, which, for security from climate, had an outer case or cask strongly secured over it, with an interior space for neutralizing frost or heat, bored so carefully that you could never discover how it had been effected, and a very considerable quantum of beverage extracted. I once had a small barrel, perhaps twenty gallons of commissariat West India ration rum, the best of all rum for liqueurs, sucked dry. Of course, it had leaked, but I never could discover the leak, and it held any liquid very well afterwards. I know the reader likes a story, and as this is not by any means an historical or scientific work, excepting always the geological portion thereof, I will tell him or her, as the case may be, a story about ration rum. There was a funny fellow, an Irish auctioneer at Kingston, some years ago, called Paddy Moran, whom all the world, priest and parson, minister and methodist, soldier and sailor, tinker and tailor, went to hear when he mounted his rostrum. He was selling the goods of a quarter-master-general who was leaving the place. At last he came to the cellar and the rum. "Now, gintlemin," says Moran, "I advise you to buy this rum, 7s. 6d. a gallon! going, going! Gintlemin, I was once a sojer--don't laugh, you officers there, for I was--and a sirjeant into the bargain. It wasn't in the Irish militia--bad luck to you, liftenant, for laughing that way, it will spoil the rum! I was the tip-top of the sirjeants of the regiment--long life to it! Yes, I was quarter-master-sirjeant, and hadn't I the sarving out of the rations; and didn't I know what good ration rum was; and didn't I help meself to the prime of it! Well, then, gintlemin and ladies--I mane, Lord save yees, ladies and gintlemin--if a quarter-master-sirjeant in the army had good rum, what the devil do you think a quarter-master-general gets?" The rum rose to fifteen shillings per gallon at the next bid. You can have every convenience on board a Lake Ontario mail-packet, which is about as large as a small frigate, and has the usual sea equipment of masts, sails, and iron rigging. The fare is five dollars in the cabin, or about £1 sterling; and two dollars in the steerage. In the former you have tea and breakfast, in the latter nothing but what is bought at the bar. By paying a dollar extra you may have a state-room on deck, or rather on the half-deck, where you find a good bed, a large looking-glass, washing-stand and towels, and a night-lamp, if required. The captains are generally part owners, and are kind, obliging, and communicative, sitting at the head of their table, where places for females and families are always reserved. The stewards and waiters are coloured people, clean, neat, and active; and you may give sevenpence-halfpenny or a quarter-dollar to the man who cleans your boots, or an attentive waiter, if you like; if not, you can keep it, as they are well paid. The ladies' cabin has generally a large cheval glass and a piano, with a white lady to wait, who is always decked out in flounces and furbelows, and usually good-looking. All you have got to do on embarking or on disembarking is to see personally to your luggage; for leaving it to a servant unacquainted with the country will not do. At Kingston, matters are pretty well arranged, and the carters are not so very impudent, and so ready to push you over the wharf; but at Toronto they are very so so, and want regulating by the police; and in the States, at Buffalo particularly, the porters and carters are the most presuming and insolent serviles I ever met with; they rush in a body on board the boat, and respect neither persons nor things. I knew an American family composed chiefly of females, travelling to the Falls; and these ladies had their baggage taken to a train going inland, whilst they were embarking on board the British boat which was to convey them to Chippewa in Canada. The comfort of some of these boats, as they call them, but which ought to be called ships, is very great. There is a regular drawingroom on board one called the Chief Justice where I saw, just after the horticultural show at Toronto, pots of the most rare and beautiful flowers, arranged very tastefully, with a piano, highly-coloured nautical paintings and portraits, and a _tout ensemble_, which, when the lamps were lit, and conversation going on between the ladies and gentlemen then and there assembled, made one quite forget we were at sea on Lake Ontario, the "Beautiful Lake," which, like other beautiful creations, can be very angry if vexed. The Americans have very fine steam vessels on their side of the lake, but they are flimsily constructed, painted glaringly, white, and green, and yellow, without comfort or good attendance, and with a devil-may-care sort of captain, who seems really scarcely to know or to care whether he has passengers or has not, a scrambling hurried meal, and divers other unmentionables. The American gentry always prefer the British boats, for two good reasons; they see Queen Victoria's people, and they meet with the utmost civility, attention, and comfort. They sit down to dinner, or breakfast, or tea, like Christian men and women, where there is no railway eating and drinking; where due time is spent in refreshing the body and spirits; and where people help each other, or the waiters help them, at table, without a scramble, like hogs, for the best and the most--a custom which all travelled Americans detest and abominate as much as the most fastidious Englishman. It is not unusual at hotel dinners, or on board steamers, to see a man, I cannot call him a gentleman, sitting next a female, totally neglect her, and heap his plate with fish, with flesh, with pie, with pudding, with potato, with cranberry jam, with pickles, with salad, with all and every thing then within his reach, swallow in a trice all this jumble of edibles, jump up and vanish. Can such a being have a stomach, or a digestion, and must he not necessarily, about thirty-five years of age, be yellow, spare, and parchment-skinned, with angular projections, and a prodigious tendency to tobacco? An American gentleman--mind, I lay a stress upon the second word--never bolts his victuals, never picks his teeth at table, never spits upon the carpet, or guesses; he knows not gin-sling, and he eschews mint-julep; but he does, I am ashamed to say, admire a sherry cobbler, particularly if he does not get a second-hand piece of vermicelli to suck it through. Reader, do you know what a sherry cobbler is? I will enlighten you. Let the sun shine at about 80° Fahrenheit. Then take a lump of ice; fix it at the edge of a board; rasp it with a tool made like a drawing knife or carpenter's plane, set face upwards. Collect the raspings, the fine raspings, mind, in a capacious tumbler; pour thereon two glasses of good sherry, and a good spoonful of powdered white sugar, with a few small bits, not slices, but bits of lemon, about as big as a gooseberry. Stir with a wooden macerator. Drink through a tube of macaroni or vermicelli. _C'est l'eau benite_, as the English lord said to the _garçon_ at the Milles Colonnes, when he first tasted real _parfait amour_.--_C'est beaucoup mieux_, _Milor_, answered the waiter with a profound reverence. Gin-sling, cock-tail, mint-julep, are about as vulgar as blue ruin and old tom at home; but sherry cobbler is an affair of consideration--only never pound your ice, always rasp it. It is a custom on board the Canadian steamers for gentlemen to call for a pint of wine at dinner, or for a bottle, according to the strength of the party; but it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance; for sherry and port are the usual stock, both fiery as brandy, and costing the moderate price of seven shillings and sixpence a bottle, the steward having laid the same in at about one shilling and eight pence, or at most two shillings. Why this imposition, the only one you meet with in travelling in Canada at hotels or steamboats, is perpetrated and perpetuated, I could never learn. Many American gentlemen, however, encourage it, and have told me that they do so because they get no good port in the States. Ale and porter are charged two shillings and sixpence a bottle, which is double their worth. Be careful also not to drink freely of the iced water, which is always supplied _ad libitum_. Few Europeans escape the effects of water-drinking when they land at Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, &c. There is something peculiar, which has never yet been satisfactorily explained by medical men, in the sudden attack upon the system produced by the waters of Canada: this is sometimes slight, but more often lasts several days, and reduces the strength a good deal. Iced water is worse, and produces country cholera. The Americans use ice profusely, and drink such draughts of iced water, that I have been astonished at the impunity with which they did so. Perhaps the change from a moist sea atmosphere to the dry and desiccating air of Canada, where iron does not rust, may be one cause of the malady alluded to, and another, in addition to the water, the difference of cookery; for here, at public tables and on board the boats generally, where black cooks prevail, all is butter and grease. But the change of climate is undoubtedly great. I had been long an inhabitant of Upper Canada, and fancied myself seasoned; but, having returned to England, and spending afterwards two or three years in the excessively humid air of the sea-coast of Newfoundland at St. Johns, where I became somewhat stout, on my return to Upper Canada, for want of a little preparatory caution in medicine, although naturally of a spare habit, I was seized with a violent bleeding at the nose, which baffled all remedies for several months, until artificial mineral water and a copious use of solutions of iron stopped it. No doubt this prevented the fever of the lakes, and was owing to the dryness of the air. I mention this to caution all new-comers, young and old, to take timely advice and medicine. There is another complaint in Upper Canada, which attacks the settler very soon after his arrival, especially if young, and that is worms; a disorder very prevalent at all times in Canada, particularly among the poorer classes, and probably owing to food. These, with ague and colic, or country cholera, are the chief evils of the clime; few are, however, fatal, excepting the lake fever, and that principally among children. The sportsman should recollect, in so marshy and woody a country, subject as it is to the most surprising alternations of temperature, that instead of minding that celebrated rule, "Keep your powder dry," he should read, "Keep your feet dry." Dry feet and the avoidance of sitting in wet or damp clothes, or drinking iced water when hot, or of cooling yourself in a delicious draught of air when in a perspiration, are the best precautions against ague, fever, colic, or cholera--in a country where the thermometer reaches 90° in the shade, and sometimes 110°, as it did last summer, and 27° below zero in the winter, with rapid alternations embracing such a range of the scale as is unknown elsewhere. In the country places, in travelling, you will invariably find that windows are very little attended to, and that the head of your bed, or the side of it, is placed against a loosely-fitting broken sash. The night-fogs and damps are highly dangerous to new-comers; so act accordingly. Fleas and bugs, and "such small deer," you must expect in every inn you stop at, even in the cities; for it appears--and indeed I did not know the fact until this year--that bugs are indigenous, _native to the soil_, and breed in the bark of old trees; so that if you build a new house, you bring the enemy into your camp. Nothing but cleanliness and frequent whitewash, colouring, paint, and soft soap, will get rid of them. If it were not for the strong smell of red cedar and its extreme brittleness, I would have my bedstead of that material; for even the iron bedsteads, in the soldiers' barracks, become infested with them if not painted often. Red cedar they happily eschew. Travellers may talk as they please of mosquitoes being the scourge of new countries; the bugs in Canada are worse, and the black fly and sand-fly superlatively superior in annoyance. The black fly exists in the neighbourhood of rivers or swamps, and attacks you behind the ear, drawing a pretty copious supply of blood at each bite. The sand-fly, as its name imports, exists in sandy soil, and is so small that it cannot be seen without close inspection; its bite is sharp and fiery. Then the farmer has the wheat-fly and the turnip-fly to contend against; the former has actually devoured Lower Canada, and the latter has obliged me in a garden to sow several successive crops. The melon-bug is another nuisance; it is a small winged animal, of a bright yellow colour, striped with black bars, and takes up its abode in the flower of the melon and pumpkin, breeding fast, and destroying wherever it settles, for young plants are literally eaten up by it. The grub, living under ground in the daytime, and sallying forth at night, is a ferocious enemy to cabbage-plants, lettuce, and most of the young, tender vegetables; but, by taking a lantern and a pan after dark, the gentlemen can be collected whilst on their tour, and poultry are very fond of them. Last year, the potato crop failed throughout Canada. What a singular dispensation!--for it alike suffered in Europe, and no doubt the malady was atmospheric. The hay crop, too, suffered severely; but still, by a merciful Providence, the wheat and corn harvest was ample, and gathered in a month before the customary time. By the word corn I mean oats, rye, and barley; but in the Canadas and in the United States that word means maize or Indian-corn only, which in Canada, last summer, was not, I should think, even an average crop. It is extensively used here for food, as well as buckwheat, and for feeding poultry. But to our journey westward. I arrived at Toronto on the 27th of June, and found the weather had changed to variable and fine. On steaming up the harbour, I was greatly surprised and very much pleased to see such an alteration as Toronto has undergone for the better since 1837. Then, although a flourishing village, be-citied, to be sure, it was not one third of its present size. Now it is a city in earnest, with upwards of twenty thousand inhabitants--gas-lit, with good plank side-walks and macadamized streets, and with vast sewers, and fine houses, of brick or stone. The main street, King Street, is two miles and more in length, and would not do shame to any town, and has a much more English look than most Canadian places have. Toronto is still the seat of the Courts of Law for Western Canada, of the University of King's College, of the Bishopric of Toronto, and of the Indian Office. Kingston has retained the militia head-quarter office, and the Principal Emigrant Agency, with the Naval and Military grand depôts; so that the removal of the seat of Government to Montreal has done no injury to Toronto, and will do very little to Kingston: in fact, I believe firmly that, instead of being injurious, it will be very beneficial. The presence of Government at Kingston gave an unnatural stimulus to speculation among a population very far from wealthy; and buildings of the most frail construction were run up in hundreds, for the sake of the rent which they yielded temporarily. The plan upon which these houses were erected was that of mortgage; thus almost all are now in possession of one person who became suddenly possessed of the requisite means by the sale of a large tract required for military purposes. But this species of property seldom does the owner good in his lifetime; and, if he does reclaim it, there is no tenant to be had now; so that the building decays, and in a very short time becomes an incumbrance. Mortgages only thrive where the demand is superior and certain to the investment; and then, if all goes smoothly, mortgager and mortgagee may benefit; but where a mechanic or a storekeeper, with little or no capital, undertakes to run up an extensive range of houses to meet an equivocal demand, the result is obvious. If the houses he builds are of stone or brick, and well finished, the man who loans the money is the gainer; if they are of wood, indifferently constructed and of green materials, both must suffer. So it is a speculation, and, like all speculations, a good deal of repudiation mixes up with it. There are two good houses of entertainment for the gentleman traveller in Toronto; the Club House in Chewett's Buildings and Macdonald's Hotel. In the former, a bachelor will find himself quite at home; in the latter, a family man will have no reason to regret his stay. But servants at Toronto--by which I mean _attendants_--are about on a par with the same race all over Canada. The coloured people are the best, but never make yourself dependent on either; for, if you are to start by the stage or the steamer, depend on your watch, instead of upon your boots being cleaned or your shaving-water being ready. In the latter case, shave with cold water by the light of your candle, lit by your own lucifer match. They are civil, however, and attentive, as far as the very free and easy style of their acquirements will permit them; for a cook will leave at a moment's notice, if she can better herself; and any trivial occurrence will call off the waiter and the boots. The only punctual people are the porters; and, as they wear glazed hats, with the name of the hotel emblazoned thereon, frigate-fashion, you can always find them. An excellent arrangement is the omnibus attached to the hotels in Canada West, which conveys you cost-free to and from the steamboat, and a very comfortable wooden convenience it is, resembling very much the vans which, in days of yore, plied near London. My first start from Toronto was to Ultima Thule, Penetanguishene, a locality scarcely to be found in the maps, and yet one of much importance, situate and being north-north-west of the city some hundred and eight miles, on Lake Huron. The route is per coach to St. Alban's, thirty and three miles, along Yonge Street, of which about one-third is macadamized from granite boulders; the rest mud and etceteras, too numerous to mention. Yonge Street is a continuous settlement, with an occasional sprinkling of the original forest. The land on each side is fertile, and supplies Toronto market. It rises gradually by those singular steps, or ridges, formerly banks or shores o£ antediluvian oceans, till it reaches the vicinity of the Holland river, a tortuous, sluggish, marshy, natural canal, flowing or lazily creeping into Lake Simcoe, at an elevation of upwards of seven-hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario, and emptying itself into Lake Huron by a series of rapids, called the Matchedash or Severn River. The first quarter of the route to St. Alban's is a series of country-houses, gentlemen's seats, half-pay officers' farms, prettily fenced, and pleasant to the sight: the next third embraces Thornhill, a nice village in a hollow; Richmond Hill, with a beautiful prospect and detached settlements: the ultimate third is a rich, undulating country, inhabited by well-to-do Quakers, with Newmarket on their right, and looking for all the world very like "dear home," with orchards, and as rich corn-fields and pastures as may be seen any where, backed, however, by the eternal forest. It is peculiarly and particularly beautiful. A short distance before reaching St. Alban's, which is quite a new village, the road descends rapidly, and the ground is broken into hummocks. But I must not forget Bond's Lake, a most singular feature of this part of the road, which, perhaps, I shall treat of in returning from Penetanguishene, as I am now in a hurry to get to St. Alban's. Here, where all was scrub forest in 1837, are a little street, a house of some pretension occupied by Mr. Laughton, the enterprising owner of the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe, and two inns. I stopped for the night, for Yonge Street is still a tiresome journey, although only a stage of thirty three miles, at Winch's Tavern. This is a very good road-side house, and the landlord and landlady are civil and attentive. Before you go to roost, for stopping by the way-side is pretty much like roosting, as you must be up with Chanticleer, you can just look over Mr. Laughton's paling, and you will see as pretty a florist's display as may be imagined. The owner is fond of flowers, and he has lots of them, and, when you make his acquaintance afterwards in the Beaver, you will find that he has lots of information also. But I did not go in the Beaver, which ship "wharfs" some two or three miles further ahead, at Holland River Landing, commonly called "the Landing," par excellence. Here flies, mosquitoes, ague, and other plagues, are so rife, that all attempts at settlement are vanity and vexation of spirit. So, being willing to see what had happened in Gwillimbury since 1837, I took a waggon and the land road, and went off as day broke, or rather before it broke, about four a.m., in a deep gray mist. The waggon should be described, as it is the best _voiture_ in Western Canada. Four wheels, of a narrow tire, are attached without any springs to a long body, formed of straight boards, like a piano-case, only more clumsy; in which, resting on inside rims or battens, are two seats, with or without backs, generally without, on which, perhaps, a hay-cushion, or a buffalo-skin, or both, are placed. Two horses, good, bad, or indifferent, as the case may be, the positive and comparative degrees being the commonest, drag you along with a clever driver, who can turn his hand to chopping, carpentering, wheelwright's work, playing the fiddle, drinking, or any other sort of thing, and is usually an Irishman or an Irishman's son. For two dollars and a half a day he will drive you to Melville Island, or Parry's Sound, if you will only stick by him; and he jogs along, smoking his _dudeen_, over corduroy roads, through mud holes that would astonish a cockney, and over sand and swamp, rocks and rough places enough to dislocate every joint in your body, all his own being anchylosed or used to it, which is the same thing, in the dictionary. He will keep you _au courant_, at the same time, tell the name of every settler and settlement, and some good stories to boot. He is a capital fellow, is "Paddy the driver," generally a small farmer, and always has a contract with the commissariat. The first place of any note we came to, as day broke out of the blue fog which rose from the swampy forest, was Holland River Bridge, an extraordinary structure, half bridge, half road, over a swamp created by that river in times long gone by; a level tract of marsh and wild rice as far as the eye can reach, full of ducks and deer, with the Holland River in the midst, winding about like a serpentine canal, and looking as if it had been fast asleep since its last shake of the ague. Crossing this bridge-road, now in good order, but in 1837 requiring great dexterity and agility to pass, you come to a slight elevation of the land, and a little village in West Gwillimbury, which, I should think, is a capital place to catch lake-fever in. The road to it is good, but, after passing it and turning northwards, is but little improved, being very primitive through the township of Innisfil. However, we jogged along in mist and rain, on the 29th of June, and saw the smoke, ay, and smelt it too, of numerous clearings or forest burnings, indicating settlement, till we reached Wilson's Tavern, where, every body having the ague, it was somewhat difficult to get breakfast. This is thirteen miles from St. Alban's. Having refreshed, however, with such as it was, we visited Mr. Wilson's stable, and saw a splendid stud horse which he was rearing, and as handsome a thorough-bred black as you could wish to see in the backwoods. Proceeding in rain, we drove, by what in England would be called an execrable road, through the townships of Innisfil and Vespra to Barrie, the capital hamlet of the district of Simcoe. On emerging from the woods three or four miles from Barrie, Kempenfeldt Bay suddenly appears before you, and if the road was better, a more beautiful ride there is not in all broad Canada. Fancy, however, that, without any Hibernicism, the best road is in the water of the lake. This is owing to the swampy nature of the land, and to the circumstance that a belt of hard sand lines the edge of the bay; so Paddy drove smack into the water of Kempenfeldt, and, as he said, sure we were travelling by water every way, for we had a deluge of rain above, and Lake Simcoe under us. But natheless we arrived at Barrie by mid-day, a very fair journey of twenty-eight miles in eight hours, over roads, as the French say, _inconcevable_; and alighted like river gods at the Queen's Arms, J. Bingham, Barrie. Barrie, named after the late commodore, Sir Robert Barrie, is no common village, nor is the Queen's Arms a common hostel. It is a good, substantial, stone edifice, fitted up and kept in a style which neither Toronto nor Kingston, nay, nor Montreal can rival, as far as its extent goes. I do assure you, it is a perfect paradise after the road from St. Alban's; and, as the culinary department is unexceptionable, and the beds free from bugs, and all neatness and no noise, I will award Mrs. Bingham a place in these pages, which must of course immortalize her. They are English people; and, when I last visited their house, in 1837, had only a log-hut: now they are well to do, and have built themselves a neat country-house. When I first saw Barrie, or rather before Barrie was, as I passed over its present site, in 1831, there was but one building and a little clearance. In 1846, it is fast approaching to be a town, and will be a city, as it is admirably placed at the bottom of an immense inlet of Lake Simcoe, with every capability of opening a communication with the new settlements of Owen Sound and St. Vincent, and the south shore of Lake Huron. It has been objected, to this opinion respecting Barrie, that the Narrows of Lake Simcoe is the proper site for "The City of the North," as the communication by land, instead of being thirty-six miles to Penetanguishene, the best harbour on Lake Huron, is only fourteen, or at most nineteen miles, the former taking to Cold Water Creek, and the latter to Sturgeon Bay; but then there is a long and somewhat dangerous transit in the shallowest part of the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron to Penetanguishene. If a railroad was established between Barrie and the naval station, this would be not only the shortest but the safest route to Lake Huron; for, if Sturgeon Bay is chosen, in war-time the transit trade and the despatch of stores for the government would be subjected to continual hindrance and depredation from the multitude of islands and hiding-places between Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene; whilst, on the other hand, no sagacious enemy would penetrate the country from Sturgeon Bay and leave such a stronghold as Penetanguishene in his rear, whereby all his vessels and supplies might be suddenly cut off, and his return rendered impracticable. Barrie is, therefore, well chosen, both as a transit town and as the site of naval operations on Lake Simcoe, whenever they may be necessary. For this reason, government commenced the military road between Barrie and Penetanguishene, and settled it with pensioned soldiers, and also settled naval and military retired or half-pay officers all round Lake Simcoe. But, as we shall have to talk a good deal about this part of the country, and I must return by the road, let us hasten on to our night's lodging at the Ordnance Arms, kept by the ancient widow of J. Bruce, an old artilleryman. Since 1837, the road, then impassable for anything but horses or very small light waggons, has been much improved, and Paddy drove us on, after dinner at Bingham's, through the heavy rain _à merveille_! When I passed this road before, what a road it was! or, in the words of the eulogist of the great Highland road-maker, General Wade, "Had you seen this road, before it was made, You would have lift up your eyes and blessed" General somebody. It was necessary, as late as 1837, to take a horse; and, placing your valise on another, mount the second with a guide. My guide was always a French Canadian named François; and many an adventure in the interminable forest have we experienced together; for if François had lost his way, we should have perhaps reached the Copper-mine River, or the Northern Frozen Ocean, and have solved the question of the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or else we should have had a certain convocation of politic wolves or bears, busy in rendering us and our horses invisible; for, after all, they have the true receipt of fern seed, and you can walk about, after having suffered transmigration into their substance, without its ever being suspected that you were either an officer of engineers or a Franco-Canadian guide. An old and respected officer, once travelling this bridle road with François and myself, and mounted on a better horse than either of ours, which was lent to him by the Assistant Commissary-General stationed at Penetanguishene, got ahead of us considerably, and, by some accident, wandered into the gloomy pine forest. Missing him for a quarter of an hour, I rode as fast as my horse, which was not encumbered with baggage, would go ahead, and, observing fresh tracks of a horse's shoes in the mud, followed them until I heard in the depths of the endless and solemn woods faint shouts, which, as I came nearer to them, resolved themselves into the syllables of my name. I found my chief, and begged him never again, as he had never been there before, to think of leaving us. Had he gone out of sound, his fate would have been sealed, unless the horse, used as it was to the path, had wandered into it again; but horses and cattle are frequently lost in these solitudes, and, perhaps being frightened by the smell of the wild beasts, or, as man always does when lost, they wander in a circle, and thus frequently come near the place from which they started, but not sufficiently so to hit the almost invisible path. But although the road, excepting in the middle of summer, is still indifferent, it is perfectly safe, and a lady may now go to Penetanguishene comparatively comfortably. Bruce's tavern is a respectable log-house, twelve miles from Barrie; and here you can get the usual fare of ham, eggs, and chickens, with occasionally fresh meat from Barrie, and perhaps as good a bed as can be had in Canada. We started from Barrie at half-past two, and arrived at half-past five. Whiskey, be it known, with very atrocious brandy, is the only beverage, excepting water, along the country roads of Canada. From Bruce's we drove to Dawson's, also kept by the widow of an old soldier, where every thing is equally clean, respectable, and comfortable. It is seven miles distant. Beyond this is Nicoll's, near a corduroy swamp road; and three miles further (which place eschew), seven years ago, I heard the landlady's voice chiding a little girl, who had been sent a quarter of a mile for a jug of water. I heard the same voice again in action, and for the same cause, and a very dirty urchin again brought some very dirty water. In fact, whiskey was too plentiful and water too scarce. From Nicoll's to Jeff's Corner is ten long and weary miles, five or six of which are through the forest. Jeff's is not a tavern, so that you must go to bait the horses to Des Hommes, about two miles further, where there is no inducement to stay, it being kept by an old French Canadian, who has a large family of half-breeds. Therefore, on to the village of Penetanguishene, which is twenty miles from Bruce's, or some say twenty-four. We started from Bruce's at half-past three in the morning, and reached "The Village," as it is always called, at half-past twelve, on the 30th of June, and the rain still continuing ever since we left Toronto. Thus, with great expedition, it took the best portion of three days for a transit of only 108 miles. This has been done in twenty-four hours by another route, as I shall explain on my return. Penetanguishene is a small village, which has not progressed in the same ratio as the military road to it has done. It is peopled by French Canadians, Indians, and half-breeds, and is very prettily situated at the bottom of the harbour. Lieutenant-Colonel Phillpotts, of the Royal Engineers, selected this site after the peace of 1815, when Drummond's Island on Lake Huron was resigned to the Americans, for an asylum for such of the Canadian French settled there as would not transfer their allegiance. They migrated in a body. This is the nearest point of Western Canada at which the traveller from Europe can observe the unmixed Indian, the real wild man of the woods, with medals hanging in his ears, as large as the bottom of a silver saucepan, rings in his nose, the single tuft of hair on the scalp, eagle's plumes, a row of human scalps about his neck, and the other amiable etceteras of a painted and greased _sauvage_. Here also you first see the half-breed, the offspring of the white and red, who has all the bad qualities of both with very few of the good of either, except in rare instances. CHAPTER IV. The French Canadian. At Penetanguishene you see the original pioneer of the West, that unmistakeable French Canadian, a good-natured, indolent man, who is never active but in his canoe singing, or _à la chasse_, a true _voyageur_, of which type of human society the marks are wearing out fast, and the imprint will ere long be illegible. It makes me serious, indeed, to contemplate the Canadian of the old dominant race, and I shall enter a little into his history. _Res ardua vetustis novitatem dare_; and never could an author impose upon himself a greater task than that of endeavouring succinctly to trace such a history, in this age of railroads and steam-vessels, or to bring before the mind's eye events which have long slumbered in oblivion, but which it behoves thinking minds not to lose sight of. Man is now a locomotive animal, both as regards the faculties of mind and of motion; unless in the schools, in the cabinet, or in amusing fictions founded on fact, he rarely finds leisure to think about a forgotten people. Canada and Canadian affairs have, however, succeeded in interesting the public of America and the public of Europe--the "go-ahead" English reader in the New World--because Canada would be a very desirable addition to the already overgrown Republic founded by the Pilgrim Fathers and Europeans; because French interest looks with a somewhat wistful eye to the race which at one time peopled and governed so large a portion of the Columbian continent. Regrets, mingling with desires, are powerful stimulants. An unconquerable and natural jealousy exists in France that England should have succeeded in laying the foundations of an empire, which bids fair to perpetuate the glories of the Anglo-Saxon race in its Transatlantic dominion; whilst the true Briton, on the other hand, regards Canada as the apple of his eye, and sees with pleasure and with pride that his beloved country, forewarned by the grand error committed at Boston, and so prophetically denounced by Chatham, has obtained a fairer and more fertile field for British legitimate ambition. Tocqueville, a sensible and somewhat impartial writer, is the only political foreign reasoner who has done justice to Canada; but it is _par parenthèse_ only; and even his powers of mind and of reasoning, nurtured as they have been in republicanism, fail to convince fearless hearts that democracy is a human necessity. That the American nation will endeavour to put a wet blanket over the nascent fires of Spanish ambition in the miserable new States of the Northern Continent, and to absorb them in the stars of Columbia, there can be no doubt. California, the most distant of the old American settlements of Spain, has felt already the bald eagle's claw; Texas is annexed; and unless European interests prevent it, which they must do, Mexico, Guatemala, Yucatan, and all the petty priest-ridden republics of the Isthmus, must follow, and that too very soon. But what do the people of the United States, (for the government is not a particeps, save by force,) pretend to effect by their enormous sovereignty? The control probably of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards is the grand object, and, to effect this, Canada and Nova Scotia stand in the way, and Canada and Nova Scotia are therefore marked down as other Stars in the American galaxy. The Russian empire is cited, as a case in point, for immense extension being no obstacle to central coercion, or government, if the term be more pleasing. We forget that each individual State of the present Union repudiates centralization, and acts independently. Little Maine wanted to go to war with mighty England on its own bottom; and there was a rebellion in Lesser Rhode Island, which puzzled all the diplomatists very considerably. Now let us sketch a military picture, and bring out the lights and shades boldly. Suppose that the United States determines upon a war with Great Britain, let us look to the consequences. Firstly, an immense re-action has taken place in Canada, and a mass of growlers, who two years ago would perhaps have been neutral, would readily take arms now in favour of British institutions, simply because "impartiality" has been evinced in governing them. Next, the French Canadians have no idea of surrendering their homes, their laws, their language, their altars, to the restless and destructive people whose motto is "Liberty!" but whose mind is "Submission," without reservation of creed or colour. Then, on the boundless West, innumerable Indians, disgusted by the unceremonious manner in which the Big Knife has driven them out, are ready, at the call of another Tecumseh, to hoist the red-cross flag. In the South, the negro, already taught very carefully by the North a lesson of emancipation, only waits the hour to commence a servile and horrible war, worse than that exercised by the poor Cherokees and Creeks in Florida, which, miserable as were the numbers, scanty the resources, and indomitable the courage, defied the united means and skill of the American armies to quell. A person who ponders on these matters deplores the infatuation of the mob, or of the western backwoodsmen, who advocate war to the knife with England; for, should it unhappily occur and continue, war to the knife it must be. American orators have asserted that England, base as she is, dare not, in this enlightened age, let loose the blacks. I fear that, self-defence being the first law of Nature, rather than lose Canada, and rather than not gain it, both England and the United States will have recourse to every expedient likely to bring the matter to an issue, and will abide by that Machiavelian axiom--the end sanctifies the means. An abominable outcry was raised during the last war against the employment of the savage Indians with our armies; but the loudest in this vituperation forgot that the Americans did the same, as far as their scanty control over the Red Man permitted, and that, where it failed, the barbarous backwoodsman completed the tragedy. Making razor-strops of Tecumsehs' skin was not a very Christian employment, in retaliation for a scalp found wrapped up in paper in the writing-desk of a clerk, when the public offices were sacked at Little York. The poor man most likely thought it a very great curiosity; and I dare say there are some in the British Museum, as well as preserved heads of the South Sea islanders. A war between England and the United States is a calamity affecting the whole world, and, excepting for political interest, or that devouring fire burning in the breasts of so many for change, I am persuaded that the intelligence of the Union is opposed to it. America cannot sweep England from the seas, or blot out its escutcheon from The Temple of Fame. It is child's play even to dream of it. England is as vitally essential to the prosperity of America as America is to the prosperity of England; and, although American feelings are gaining ground in England, by which I do not mean that the President of the United States will ever govern our island, but independent notions and axioms similar to those practised in the Union; yet the time has not, nor ever will, arrive, that Britain will succumb to the United States, either from policy or fear, any more than that her grandchildren, on this side of the Atlantic, could pull down the Stars and Stripes, and run the meteor flag up to the mast-head again. The United States is a wonderful confederation, and Nature seems, in creating that people, to have given them constitutions resembling the summers of the northern portion of the New World, where she makes things grow ten times as fast as elsewhere. A grain of wheat takes a decent time to ripen in England, and requires the sweat of the brow and the labour of the hands to bring it to perfection; but in North America it becomes flour and food almost before it is in ear in the old country. Nature marches quick in America, but is soon exhausted; so her people there think and act ten times as fast as elsewhere, and die before they are aged. The women are old at thirty, and boys of fifteen are men; and so they ripe and ripe, and so they rot and rot. Everything in the States goes at a railroad pace; every carter or teamster is a Solon, in his own idea; and every citizen is a king _de facto_, for he rules the powers that be. They think in America too fast for genius to expand to purpose; and as their digestion is impaired by a Napoleonic style of eating, so very powerful and very highly cultivated minds are comparatively rare in the Union. There is no time for study, and they take a democratic road to learning. And yet, _ceteris paribus_, the Union produces great men and great minds; and if any thing but dollars was paid attention to, the literature of America would soon be upon a par with that of the Old World; as it is, it pays better to reprint French and English authors than to tax the brains of the natives. For this reason, the agricultural population of the States are more reasonable, more amiable, and more original than those engaged in incessant trade. I have seen an American farmer in my travels this year, who was the perfect image of the English franklin, before his daughters wore parasols and thrummed the piano. Oh, railways, ye have much to answer for! for, although the prosperity of the mass may be increased by you, the happiness and contentment of the million is deteriorating every day. I am not about to write a history of Canada at present, for that is already done, as far as its military annals are concerned, during the three years since I last addressed the public; but it shall yet slumber awhile in its box of pine wood, until the time is ripe for development: I merely intend here to put together some reminiscences which strike me as to the part the French Canadian has played, and to show that we should neither forget nor neglect him. Canada, as it is well known, was French, both by claim of discovery and by the more powerful right of possession. Stimulated by the fame of Cabot, and ambitious to be pilots of the Meta Incognita, that visionary channel which was to conduct European valour to the golden Cathay and to the rich Spice Islands of the East, French adventurers eagerly sought the coveted honours which such a voyage could not fail to yield them, and to combine overflowing wealth with chivalric renown. France, England, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, sent forth those daring spirits whose hopes were uniformly crushed, either by encountering the unbroken line of continental coast, or dashed to pieces amidst the terrors of that truly Cimmerian region, where ice and fog, cold and darkness, contend for empire. Of all those heroic navigators, who would have rivalled Columbus under happier circumstances, none were successful, even in a limited sense, in attempting to reach China by the northern Atlantic, excepting the French alone, who may fairly be allowed the merit of having traversed nearly one half of the broadest portion of the New World in the discovery of the St. Lawrence and its connecting streams, and in having afterwards reached Mexico by the Mississippi. Even in our own days, nearly four centuries after the Columbian era, the idea of reaching China by the North Pole has not been abandoned, and is actively pursuing by the most enlightened naval government in the world, and, very possibly, will be achieved; and, as coal exists on the northern frozen coasts, we shall have ports established, where the British ensign will fly, in the realms of eternal frost--nay, more, we shall yet place an iron belt from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a railroad from Halifax to Nootka Sound, and thus reach China in a pleasure voyage. I recollect that, about twelve years ago, a person of very strong mind, who edited the "Patriot," a newspaper published at Toronto, Mr. Thomas Dalton, was looked upon as a mere enthusiast, because one of his favourite ideas, frequently expressed, was, that much time would not elapse before the teas and silks of China would be transported direct from the shores of the Pacific to Toronto, by canal, by river, by railroad, and by steam. Twelve years have scarcely passed since he first broached such an apparently preposterous notion, as people of limited views universally esteemed it; and yet he nearly lived to see an uninterrupted steamboat communication from England to Lake Superior--a consummation which those who laughed at him then never even dreamt of--and now a railroad all the way to the Pacific is in progress of discussion. Mac Taggart, a lively Scotch civil engineer, who wrote, in 1829, an amusing work, entitled "Three Years in Canada," was even more sanguine on this subject; and, as he was a clerk of works on the Rideau Canal, naturally turned his attention to the practicability of opening a road by water, by the lakes and rivers, to Nootka Sound. Two thousand miles of water road by the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence, and the Welland, has been opened in 1845, and a future generation will see the white and bearded stranger toiling over the rocky barriers that alone remain to repel his advances between the great Superior and the Pacific. A New Simplon and a peaceful Napoleonic mind will accomplish this. The China trade will receive an impulse; and, as the arms of England have overcome those of the Celestial Empire, and we are colonizing the outer Barbarian, so shall we colonize the shores of the Pacific, south of Russian America, in order to retain the supremacy of British influence both in India and in China. The vast and splendid forests north of the Columbia River will, ere long, furnish the dockyards of the Pacific coast with the inexhaustible means of extending our commercial and our military marine. And who were the pioneers? who cleared the way for this enterprise? Frenchmen! The hardy, the enduring, the chivalrous Gaul, penetrated from the Atlantic, in frail vessels, as far as these frail barks could carry him; and where their service ceased, with ready courage adopted the still more fragile transport afforded by the canoe of the Indian, in which, singing merrily, he traversed the greater part of the northern continent, and actually discovered all that we now know, and much more, since lapsed into oblivion. But his genius was that of conquest, and not of permanent colonization; and, trammelled by feudal laws and observances, although he extended the national domain and the glory of France beyond his most ardent desire, yet he took no steps to insure its duration, and thus left the Saxon and the Anglo-Norman to consolidate the structure of which he had merely laid the extensive foundation. But, even now, amidst all the enlightenment of the Christian nations, the descendants of the French in Canada shake off the dust of feudality with painful difficulty; and, instead of quietly yielding to a better order of things, prefer to dwell, from sire to son, the willing slaves of customs derived from the obsolete decrees of a despotic monarchy. Whether they individually are gainers or losers by thus adhering to the rules which guided their ancestors, is another question, too difficult for discussion to grapple with here. As far as worldly happiness and simple contentment are concerned, I believe they would lose by the change, which, however, must take place. The restless and enterprising American is too close a neighbour to let them slumber long in contented ignorance. The Frenchman was, however, adapted, by his nature, to win his way, either by friendship or by force, among the warlike and untutored sons of the forest. Accommodating himself with ease to the nomadic life of the tribes; contrasting his gay and lively temperament with the solemn taciturnity and immoveable phlegm of the savage; dazzling him with the splendour of his religious ceremonies; abstemious in his diet, and coinciding in his recklessness of life; equally a warrior and equally a hunter; unmoved by the dangers of canoe navigation, for which he seemed as well adapted as the Red Man himself; the enterprising Gaul was everywhere feared and everywhere welcome. The Briton, on the contrary, cold as the Indian, but not so cunning; accustomed to comparative luxury and ease; despising the child of the woods as an inferior caste; accompanied in his wars or wanderings by no outward and visible sign of the religion he would fain implant; unaccustomed to yield even to his equals in opinion; unprepared for alternate seasons of severe fasting or riotous plenty; and wholly without that sanguine temper which causes mirth and song to break forth spontaneously amidst the most painful toil and privations; was not the best of pioneers in the wilderness, and was, therefore, not received with open arms by the American aboriginal nations, until experience had taught the sterling value of his character, or, rather, until it became thoroughly apparent. To this day, where, in the interminable wilderness, all trace of French influence is buried, the Indian reveres the recollections of his forefathers respecting that gallant race; and, wherever the canoe now penetrates, the solemn and silent shades of the vast West, the Bois Brulé, or mixed offspring of the Indian and the Frenchman, may be heard awakening the slumber of ages with carols derived from the olden France, as he paddles swiftly and merrily along. Such was the Frenchman, such the French Canadian; let us therefore give due honour to their descendants, and let not any feeling of distrust or dislike enter our minds against a race of men, who, from my long acquaintance with them, are, I am fully persuaded, the most innocent, the most contented, and the most happy yeomanry and peasantry of the whole civilized world. I have observed already, in a former work, that, as far as my experience of travelling in the wilds of Canada goes, and it is rather extensive, I should always in future journeys prefer to provide myself with the true French Canadian boatmen, or voyageurs, or, in default of them, with Indians. With either I should feel perfectly at ease; and, having crossed the mountain waves of Huron in a Canada trading birch canoe with both, should have the less hesitation in trusting myself in the trackless forest, under their sole guidance and protection. Honneur à Jean Baptiste! C'est un si bon enfant! CHAPTER V. Penetanguishene--The Nipissang Cannibals, and a Friendly Brother in the Wilderness. Penetanguishene, pronounced by the Indians Pen-et-awn-gu-shene, "the Bay of the White Rolling Sand," is a magnificent harbour, about three miles in length, narrow and land-locked completely by hills on each side. Here is always a steam-vessel of war, of a small class, with others in ordinary, stores and appliances, a small military force, hospital and commissariat, an Indian interpreter, and a surgeon. But the presents are no longer given out here, as in 1837 and previously, to the wild tribes; so that, to see the Indian in perfection, you must take the annual government trader, and sail to the Grand Manitoulin Island, about a hundred miles on the northern shore of Lake Huron, where, at Manitou-a-wanning, there is a large settlement of Indian people, removed thither by the government to keep them from being plundered of their presents by the Whites, who were in the habit of giving whiskey and tobacco for their blankets, rifles, clothing, axes, knives, and other useful articles, with which, by treaty, they are annually supplied. The Great Manitoulin, or Island of the Great Spirit, is an immense island, and, being good land, it is hoped that the benevolent intentions of the government will be successful. An Indian agent, or superintendent, resides with them; and a steamboat, called the Goderich, has made one or two trips to it, and up to the head of Lake Huron, last summer. I went to Penetanguishene with the intention of meeting this vessel and going with her, but fear that her enterprise will be a failure. She was chartered to run from Sturgeon Bay, about nineteen miles beyond the narrows of Lake Simcoe, in connection with the mail or stage from Toronto, and the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe. From Sturgeon Bay she went to Penetanguishene, and then to St. Vincent Settlement, and Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, where a vast body of emigrants are locating. From Owen's Sound, she coasted and doubled Cabot's Head, and then ran down three hundred miles of the shore of Lake Huron to Goderich, Sarnia, Fort Gratiot, Windsor, and Detroit, with an occasional pleasure-trip to Manitoulin, St. Joseph's, and St. Mary's; so that all the north shore of Lake Huron could be seen, and the passengers might take a peep at Lake Superior, by going up the rapids of St. Mary to Gros Cap. But a variety of obstacles occurred in this immense voyage, although ultimately they will no doubt be overcome. By starting in the Toronto stage early in the morning, the traveller slept on board the Goderich at Sturgeon Bay, a good road having been formed from the Narrows, although, by some strange oversight, this road terminates in a marsh six hundred feet from the bank to the island, on which the wharf and storehouse built for the steamer are erected. This caused much inconvenience to the passengers. The stage went, or goes, once a week, on Monday, to Holland Landing, thirty six miles, meets the Beaver, which then crosses Lake Simcoe to the Narrows, a small village, thriving very fast since it is no longer a government Indian station, fifty miles, and there lands the travellers, who proceed by stage to Sturgeon Bay, nineteen more, and sleep on board the Goderich, arriving about eight p.m. The vessel gets under weigh, and reaches Penetanguishene by six in the morning: thus the whole route from Toronto, which takes three days by the land road, is performed in twenty-four hours. But there are drawbacks: the Georgian Bay, between Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene, is, as I have already observed, dangerous at night, or in a fog. At Owen's Sound, the population is not far enough advanced to build the extensive wharf requisite, or to lay in sufficient supplies of fuel, and thus great detention was experienced there. At Penetanguishene, the wharf is not taken far enough into deep water for the vessel to lie at, and thus she usually grounded in the mud, and detention again arose. Then again, after rounding Cabot's Head and getting into the open lake, the coast is very dangerous, having not one harbour, until we arrive at the artificial one of Goderich, which is a pier-harbour; for the Saugeen is a roadstead full of rocks, and cannot be approached by a large vessel. If, therefore, any thing happens to the machinery, and a steamer has to trust to her sails, the westerly winds which prevail on Lake Huron and blow tremendously, raising a sea that must be seen to be conceived of in a fresh-water lake, she has only to keep off the shore out into the main lake, and avoid Goderich altogether, by making for the St. Clair River. However, the vessel did perform the voyage successfully seven times; and in summer it may do, and, if it does do, will be of incalculable benefit to the Huron tract, and the new settlements of the far west of Canada. I am, however, afraid that the railroad schemes for opening the country to the south of this tract will for some time prevent a profitable steamboat speculation, although vast quantities of very superior fish are caught and cured now on the shores of Huron, such as salmon-trout and white fish, which, when properly salted or dried, are equal to any salt sea-fish whatever. The Canadian French, the half-breeds, and the Indians, are chiefly engaged in this trade, which promises to become one of great importance to the country, and is already much encroached upon by adventurers from the United States. The herring, as far as I can learn, ascends the St. Lawrence no higher than the Niagara River, but Ontario abounds with them and with salmon; a smaller species of white fish also has of late years spread itself over that lake, and is now sold plentifully in the Kingston market, where it was never seen only seven years ago. It is a beautiful fish, firm and well tasted, but rather too fat. A farmer on the Penetanguishene road has introduced English breeds of cattle and sheep of the best kind. He was, and perhaps still is, contractor for the troops, and his stock is well worth seeing; he lives a few miles from Barrie. Thus the garrison is constantly supplied with finer meat than any other station in Canada, although more out of the world and in the wilderness than any other; and, as fish is plentiful, the soldiers and sailors of Queen Victoria in the Bay of the White Rolling Sand live well. I was agreeably surprised to find at this remote post that only one soldier drank anything stronger than beer or water; and of course very little of the former, owing to the expense of transport, was to be had. The soldier that did drink spirits did not drink to excess. How did all this happen in a place where drunkenness had been proverbial? The soldiers, who were of the 82nd regiment, had been selected for the station as married men. Their young commanding officer patronized gardening, cricketing, boating, and every manly amusement, but permitted no gambling. He formed a school for the soldiers and their families, and, in short, he knew how to manage them, and to keep their minds engaged; for they worked and played, read and reasoned; and so whiskey, which is as cheap as dirt there, was not a temptation which they could not resist. In winter, he had sleighing, snowshoeing, and every exercise compatible with the severe weather and the very deep snow incident to the station. I feel persuaded that, now government has provided such handsome garrison libraries of choice and well selected books for the soldiers, if a ball alley, or racket court, and a cricket ground were attached to every large barrack, there would not only be less drinking in the army, but that vice would ultimately be scorned, as it has been within the last twenty years by the officers. A hard-drinking officer will scarcely be tolerated in a regiment now, simply because excessive drinking is a low, mean vice, being the indulgence of self for unworthy motives, and beneath the character of a gentleman. To be brought to a court-martial for drunkenness is now as disgraceful and injurious to the reputation of an officer as it was to be tried for cowardice, and therefore seldom occurs in the British army. The vice of Canada is, however, drink; and Temperance Societies will not mend it. Their good is very equivocal, unless combined with religion, as there is only one Father Matthew in the world, nor is it probable that there will be another. Penetanguishene is at present the _ultima Thule_ of the British military posts in North America. It borders on the great wilderness of the North, and on that backbone of primary rocks running from the Alleghanies, across the thousand islands of the St. Lawrence, to the unknown interior of the northern verge of Lake Superior. Penetanguishene will not, however, be long the _ultima Thule_ of British military posts in Western Canada, as a large and most important settlement is making at Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, connected by a long road through the wilderness with Saugeen river, another settlement on the shores of that lake, to prevent the necessity of the difficult water-passage round Cabot's Head; and a steamboat has been put on the route by the Canada Company, to connect Saugeen with Goderich. The government, up to the 31st of December, 1845, had sold or granted 54,056 acres of land at Owen's Sound, of which 1,168 acres had been chopped or cleared of the forest last year alone; and 1,787 acres of wheat and 1,414 acres of oats had been harvested in 1845. There were 483 oxen, 596 cows, 433 young cattle, and 26 horses; and the population was 1,950, of which 759 were males above sixteen, and 399 males under sixteen, with 395 females above, and 399 under, the same age. In this new colony there were 1,005 Presbyterians, 195 Roman Catholics, 173 Methodists, 167 of the Church of England, 67 Baptists, 8 Quakers. The other sects or divisions were not enumerated with sufficient accuracy to detail; and Owen's Sound, being as yet buried in the Bush, cannot be visited by casual travellers, unless when an occasional steamer plies from Penetanguishene. There is yet no post-office; but 1,500 newspapers and letters were received or sent in 1845; and two flour-mills and two saw-mills are erected and in use. Three schooners of a small class ply in summer to Penetanguishene. The village is at the head of Owen's Sound, fifteen miles from Cape Croker, and is named Sydenham, containing already thirty-six houses. Government gives 50 acres free, on condition of actual settlement, and that one third is cleared and cropped in four years, when a deed is obtained: another fifty is granted by paying 8s. an acre within three years, 9s. within six years, 10s. an acre within nine years. The soil is good and climate healthy. North-north-west and north-east of Penetanguishene, all is wood, rock, lake, river, and desert, in which, towards the French river, the Nipissang Indian, the most degraded and helpless of the Red Men, wanders, and obtains scanty food, for game is rare, although fish is more plentiful. An exploring expedition into this country was sent by Sir John Colborne, in 1835, with a view of ascertaining its capabilities for settlement. An officer of engineers, Captain Baddely, was the astronomer and geologist; a naval officer the pilot; with surveyors and a hardy suite. They left Lake Simcoe in the township of Rama from the Severn river, and, going a short journey eastward, struck the division line of the Home and the Newcastle districts, which commences between the townships of Whitby and Darlington, on the shore of Lake Ontario, and runs a little to the westward of north in a straight course, until it strikes the south-east borders of Lake Nipissang, embracing more than two degrees of latitude, not one half of which has ever been fully explored. The plan adopted was to cut out this line, and diverge occasionally from it to the right and left, until a great extent of unknown land on the east, and the distance between it and Lake Huron, which contained a large portion of the Chippewa Indian hunting-grounds, was thoroughly surveyed. In performing so very arduous a task, much privation and many obstacles occurred--forests, swamps, rivers, lakes, rocky ridges--all had to be passed. To the eastward of the main line, and for some distance to the westward, good land appeared; and, as the agricultural probe was freely used, chance was not permitted to sway. The agricultural probe is an instrument which I first saw slung over my friend Baddely's shoulders, and of his invention. It is a sort of huge screw gimblet, or auger, which readily penetrates the ground by being worked with a long cross-handle, and brings up the subsoil in a groove to a considerable depth. Specimens of the soil and of rocks and minerals were collected, and a plan was adopted which is a useful lesson to future explorers. A small piece of linen or cotton, about four inches square, had two pieces of twine sewed on opposite corners, and the cloth was marked in printers' ink, from stamps, with figures from 1 to 500. A knapsack was provided, and the specimens were reduced to a size small enough to be carefully tied up in one of these numbered square cloths; and, as the specimens were collected, they were entered in the journal as to number and locality, strata, dip, and appearance. Thus a vast number of small specimens could be brought on a man's back, and examined at leisure. The toils, however, of such a journey in the vast and untrodden wilderness are very severe, and the privations greater. For, in this tract, on the side next to Lake Huron, there was an absence of game which scarcely ever occurs in the forest near the great lakes. With ice forming and snow commencing, and with every prospect of being frozen in, a portion of the explorers missed their supplies, and subsisted for three whole days and nights on almost nothing; a putrid deer's liver, hanging on a bush near a recent Indian trail, was all the animal food they had found; but this even hunger could scarcely tempt them to cook. I was exploring in a more civilized country near them; but even there our Indian guide was at fault, and, from want of proper precaution, our provision failed. A small fish amongst four or five persons was one day's luxury. The Nipissang Indians, a very degraded and wretched tribe, live in this desolate region, and, it is said, have sometimes been so reduced for want of game as to resort to cannibalism. We heard that they had recently been obliged to resort to this practice. I was directed, with my friends, to conciliate these people, and to assure them that the British government, so far from intending to injure them by an examination of their country, desired only to ameliorate their sad condition.[3] [Footnote 3: Some time afterwards, during the period in which Lord Glenelg held the Colonial Office, I was appointed to report upon the state and condition of the Indians of Canada, by his lordship, without my knowledge or solicitation; this was never communicated to me by the then Lieut.-Governor of Upper Canada, and I only knew of it last year, by accidentally reading a report on the subject made by order of the House of Assembly, after I left Canada. I do not know if his lordship will ever read this work, or the gentleman to whom I believe I was indebted for the intended kindness; and, if either should, I beg to tender my thanks thus publicly.] We had a council. The astronomer royal, who was also the geologist, was a fine, portly fellow, whose bodily proportions would make three such carcases as that which I rejoice in. The nation sat in council and the Talk was held. Grim old savages, filthy and forbidding, half-starved warriors, hideous to the eye, sat in large circle, with the two great Red Fathers, as they called my friend and myself, on account of our scarlet jackets. The pipe passed from hand to hand and from mouth to mouth, and many a solemn whiff ascended in curling clouds: all was solemn and sad. The speech was made and answered with an acuteness which we were not prepared for. But our explanation and mission were at length received, and the pledge of peace, the wampum-belts, were accepted and worn by the aged chiefs. My friend jogged my elbow once or twice, and thought they were eyeing him suspiciously, for he was to proceed into their country. He looked so fat and so healthy, that he thought their greasy mouths watered for a roasted slice of so fine a subject! But the wampum pledge is never broken, and we had smoked the calumet of friendship. Thus, although he luxuriated, after a total abstinence of three days, on the sight of a decayed deer's liver, which he could not be prevailed upon to partake of, yet the Nipissang, starving as he must also have been, never fried my friend, nor feasted on his fatness. This is not the only good story to be told of Penetanguishene; for the American press of the frontier, with its accustomed adherence to truth, discovered a mare's nest there lately, and stated that the British government kept enormous supplies of naval stores, several steam-vessels, a depôt of coal, and everything necessary for the equipment of a large war fleet on Lake Huron, at this little outpost of the West, and that a tremendous force of mounted cavaliers were always ready to embark on board of it at all times. There are now certainly a good many horses at the village, whereas, in 1837, perhaps one might have found out a dozen by great research there: as for cavalry, unless Brother Jonathan can manufacture it as cheaply and as lucratively as he does wooden clocks or nutmegs, it would be somewhat difficult to _raise_ it at Penetanguishene. The village is a small, rambling place, with a little Roman Catholic church and a storehouse or general shop or two, about which, in summer, you always see idle Indians playing at some game or other, or else smoking with as idle villagers. The garrison is three miles from the village, and is always called "The Establishment;" and in the forest between the two places is a new church, built of wood, very small, but sufficient for the Established Church, as it is sometimes called, of that portion of Canada. A clergyman is constantly stationed here for the army, navy, and civilians, and near the church is a collection of log huts, which I placed there some years ago by order of Lord Seaton, with small plots of ground attached to each as a refuge for destitute soldiers who had commuted their pensions. This Chelsea in miniature flourished for a time, and drained the streets of the large towns of Canada of the miserable objects; but, such was the improvidence of most of these settlers and such their broken constitutions, that, on my present visit, I found but one old serjeant left, and he was on the point of moving. The commutation of pensions was an experiment of the most benevolent intention. It was thought that the married pensioner would purchase stock for a small farm, and set himself down to provide for his children with a sum of money in hand which he could never have obtained in any other way. Many did so, and are now independent; but the majority, helpless in their habits, and giving way to drink, soon got cheated of their dollars and became beggars; so that the government was actually obliged at length to restore a small portion of the pension to keep them from starvation. They died out, would not work at the Penetanguishene settlement, and have vanished from the things that be. Poor fellows! many a tale have they told me of flood and field, of being sabred by the cuirassiers at Waterloo, of being impaled on a Polish lance, and of their wanderings and sufferings. The military settlement, however, of the Penetanguishene road is a different affair. It was effected by pensioned non-commissioned officers and soldiers, who had grants of a hundred acres and sometimes more; and it will please the benevolent founder, should these pages meet his eye, to know that many of them are now prosperous, and almost all well to do in the world. But we must retrace our steps, and waggon back again by their doors to Barrie. I left the village at half-past six in the morning, raining still, with the wind in the south-east, and very cold. We arrived at the Widow Marlow's, nineteen miles, at mid-day; the weather having changed to fine and blowing hard--certainly not pleasant in the forest-road, on account of the danger of falling trees, to which this pass is so liable that a party of axemen have sometimes to go ahead to cut out a way for the horses. We passed through the twelve mile woods by a new road, which reduces the extent of actual forest to five, and avoids altogether the Trees of the Two Brothers, noted in Penetanguishene history for the fatal accident, narrated in a former volume, by which one soldier died, and his brother was, it is supposed, frightened to death, in the solemn depths of the primeval and then endless woods. Near the end of the five mile Bush, about a mile from the first clearance, Jeffrey, the landlord of the inn at the village, has built a small cottage for the refreshment of the traveller, and in it he intends to place his son. In the mean time, until quite completed, for money is scarce and things not to be done at railroad pace so near the North Pole, he has located here an old well known black gentleman, called Mr. Davenport, who was once better to do in the world, and kept a tavern himself. Having had the honour of his acquaintance for many years, I stopped to see how my old friend was getting on, particularly as I heard that he was now very old, and that his white consort had left him alone in the narrow world of the house in the woods. He received me with grinning delight, and told me that he had just left the new jail at Barrie for selling liquor without a license, which, I opine, is rather hard law against a poor old nigger, who had literally no other means of support, and was most usefully stationed, like the monks of St. Bernard, in a dangerous pass. But the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, and the woolly head of old Davenport had matter of satisfaction in it from a source that he never dreamed of. Alone--far away from the whole human world, in the depth of a hideous forest, with a road nearly impassable one half of the year,--he found an unexpected friend. For fear of the visits of two-footed and four-footed brutes during the long nights of his Robinson Crusoe solitude, old Davenport always shut up his log castle early, and retired to rest as soon as daylight departed; for it did so very early in the evening there, as the solemn pines, with their gray trunks and far-spreading moss-grown arms and dismal evergreen foliage, if it can be called foliage, stood close to his dwelling--nay, brushed with the breath of the wind his very roof. Recollect, reader, that this lonely dweller in the Bush resided near the spot where the two soldier brothers perished; and you may imagine his thoughts, after his castle was closed at night by the lone warder. No one could come to his assistance, if he had the bugle that roused the echoes of Fontarabia. He had retired to rest early one night in the young spring-time, when he heard a singular noise on the outside of his house, like somebody moaning, and rubbing forcibly under his window, which was close to the head of his pallet-bed. Quivering with fear, he lay, with these sounds continuing at short intervals, through the whole night, and did not rise until the sun was well up. He then peeped cautiously about, but neither heard nor saw any thing; and, axe in hand and gun loaded, he went forth, but could not perceive aught more than that the ground had been slightly disturbed. This went on for some time, until at last, one fine moonlight night, the old man ventured to open a part of his narrow window; and there he saw rubbing himself, very composedly, a fine large he bear, who looked up very affectionately at him, and whined in a decent melancholy growl. Davenport had, it seems, thrown some useless article of food out of this window; and Bruin supposed, no doubt, that Blackey did it out of compassionate feeling for a fellow denizen of the forest, and repeated his visits to obtain something more substantial, rubbing himself, to get rid of the mosquitoes, as it was his custom of an afternoon, against the rough logs of the dwelling. He had, moreover, become a little impatient at not being noticed, and scratched like a dog to make the lord of the mansion aware of his presence. This usually occurred about nine o'clock. Davenport, at last, threw some salt pork to Bruin, which was most gratefully received; and every night after that, for the whole summer and autumn, at nine o'clock or thereabouts, the bear came to receive bread, meat, milk, or potatoes, or whatever could be spared from the larder, which was left on the ground under the window for him. In fact, they soon came to be upon very friendly terms, and spent many hours in each other's company, with a stout log-wall between Davenport and his brother, as he always calls the bear. When the snows of winter, the long, severe winter of these northern woods, at last came, Bruin ceased his nocturnal visitations, and has never been seen since, the old man thinking that he has been shot or trapped by the Indian hunters. I asked Davenport if he ever ventured out to look for his brother, but he shook his head and replied, "My brudder might have hugged me too hard, perhaps." The poor old fellow is very cheerful, and regrets his brother's absence daily. The bailiffs most likely would not have put him in jail for selling whiskey to a tired traveller, but would have avoided the castle in the woods, if they thought there was any chance of meeting Bruin. CHAPTER VI. Barrie and Big Trees--A new Capital of a new District--Nature's Canal--The Devil's Elbow--Macadamization and Mud--Richmond Hill without the Lass--The Rebellion and the Radicals--Blue Hill and Bricks. We reached Barrie safely that night, and slept at the Queen's Arms. Next morning, I had an excellent opportunity of seeing this thriving village. It is very well situated on the shore of Kempenfeldt Bay, on ground rising gradually to a considerable height, and is neatly laid out, containing already about five hundred people. On the high ground overlooking the place are a church, a court-house, and a jail, all standing at a small distance from each other, nearly on a line, and adding very much indeed to the appearance of the place. The deep woods now form a background, but are gradually disappearing. I went about a mile into them, and saw several new clearances, with some nice houses building or built; and particularly one by Bingham, our landlord, a very comfortable, English-looking, large cottage, with outhouses and an immense barn, round which the rascally ground squirrels were playing at hide-and-seek very fearlessly. The Court House contains the district school, which appears very respectable, and is conducted by a young Irishman; it also contains all the district offices, and is two stories high, massively and well built, the lower story being of stone and the upper of brick, both from materials on the spot. The church is of wood, plain and neat. The jail is worth a visit, and shows what may be done in the forest and in a brand-new district, as the district of Simcoe is, although I believe about half the money it cost would have been better employed on the roads; for it has never been used, except as a place of confinement for an unfortunate lunatic. It is formed in the castellated style, of a handsome octagonal tower, of very white, shelly limestone, with a square turreted stone enclosure, on the top of which is an iron _chevaux de frize_, and which enclosure is subdivided into separate day-yards for prisoners. The entrance is under a Gothic archway; and in the centre of the tower is an internal space, open from top to bottom, and preventing all access to the stairs from the cells, which are very neat, clean, and commodious, with a good supply of water, and excellent ventilation. It is, in short, as pretty a toy penitentiary as you could see anywhere, and looks more like an Isle of Wight gentleman's fortress, copied after the most approved Wyattville pattern of baronial mansion, with a little touch of the card-house. In short, it is as fine as you can conceive, and sets off the village wonderfully well. The red pine, near Barrie and through all the Penetanguishene country, grows to an enormous size. I measured one near Barrie no less than twenty-six feet in girth, and this was merely a chance one by the path-side. Its height, I think, must have been at least two hundred feet, and it was vigorously healthy. What was its age? It would have made a plank eight feet broad, after the bark was stripped off. But the woods generally disappoint travellers, as they never penetrate them; and the lumberers have cut down all available pines and oaks within reach of the settlements, excepting where they were not worth the expence of transport. The pines, moreover, take no deep root; and, as soon as the underbrush or thicket is cleared, they fall before the storm. Provident settlers, therefore, rarely leave large and lofty trees near their dwellings for fear of accident. The pine, in the Penetanguishene country, has a strange fancy to start out of the earth in three, five, or more trunks, all joined at the base, and each trunk an enormous tree. I have an idea that this has arisen from the stony, loose soil they grow in, which has caused this strange freak of Nature, by making it difficult for the young plant to rear its head out of the ground. Whatever is the reason, however, all the masts of some "great Amiral" might be truly provided out of a single pine-tree. But we must leave Barrie, after just mentioning Kempenfeldt, about a mile or so distant, which was the original village; and, although at the actual terminus of the land road, has never flourished, and still consists of some half dozen houses. The newer Admiral superseded the more ancient one; for Barrie did deeds of renown, which it suited the Canadians to commemorate much more than the unfortunate Kempenfeldt and his melancholy end. If ever there was an infamous road between two villages so close together, it is the road between these two places; I hope it will be mended, for it is both dark and dangerous. I always wondered not a little how it happened that Bingham of Barrie kept such a good table, where fresh meat was as plentiful as at Toronto. I looked for the market-place of the capital of Simcoe: there was none. But the mystery was solved the moment I put my foot on board the Beaver steamer to go back by the water road. What will the reader think of Leadenhall Market being condensed and floating? Such, however, was the case; there was a regular travelling butcher's-shop, for the supply of the settlers around Lake Simcoe; and meat, clean and enticing as at the finest stall in the market aforesaid, where upon regular hooks were regularly displayed the fine roasting and boiling joints of the season. And a very fair speculation no doubt it is, this pedlar butchery. On the 3rd of July, at half-past twelve, I left the capital of the Simcoe district, and am particular as to dates and seasons, because it tells the traveller for pleasure what are the times and the tides he should choose. We embarked on board the good ship Beaver, a large steam-vessel, for the Holland Landing, distant twenty-eight miles--twenty-one of them by the lake, and seven by the river. The vessel stops by the way at several settlements, where half-pay officers generally have pitched their tents; and twice a week she makes the grand tour of the whole lake, at an altitude of upwards of seven hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario, and not forty miles from it. This navigation of the Holland river is very well worth seeing, as it is a natural canal flowing through a vast marsh, and very narrow, with most serpentine convolutions, often doubling upon itself.--Conceive the difficulty of steering a large steamboat in such a course; yet it is done every day in summer and autumn, by means of long poles, slackening the steam, backing, &c., though very rarely without running a little way into the soft mud of the swamp. The motion of the paddles has, however, in the course of years, widened the channel and prevented the growth of flags and weeds. There is one place called the Devil's Elbow, a common name in Canada for a difficult river pass, where the sluggish water fairly makes a double, and great care is necessary. Here the enterprising owner and master of the vessel tried to cut a channel; but, after getting a straight course through the mud for two-thirds of the way, he found it too expensive to proceed, but declares that he will persevere. Why does not the Board of Works, which has literally the expenditure of more than a million, take the business in hand, and complete it? One or two hundred pounds would finish the affair. But perhaps it is too trifling, and, like the cut at the Long Point, Lake Erie, to which we shall come presently, is overlooked in the magnitude of greater things. Of all the unformed, unfinished public establishments in Canada, it has always appeared to me that the Crown Lands department, and the Board of Works, are pre-eminent. One costs more to manage the funds it raises than the funds amount to; and the other was for several years a mere political job. No very eminent civil engineer could have afforded to devote his time and talents to it, as he must have been constantly exposed to be turned out of office by caprice or cupidity. I do not know how it is now managed, but the political jobbing is, I believe, at an end, as the same person presides over the office who held it when it was in very bad odour. This gentleman must, however, be quite adequate to the office, as some of the public works are magnificent; but I cannot go so far as to say that one must approve of all. The St. Lawrence Canal has cost the best part of a million, is useless in time of war, and a mere foil at all times to the Rideau navigation, which the British government constructed free of any provincial funds. The timber slides on the Trent are so much money put into the timber-merchants' pockets, to the extreme detriment of the neighbouring settlers, whose lands have been swept of every available stick by the lawless hordes of woodcutters engaged to furnish this work; and who, living in the forest, were beyond the reach of justice or of reason, destroying more trees than they could carry away, and defying, gun and axe in hand, the peaceable proprietors. It was intended, before the rebellion broke out, to render the river Trent navigable by a splendid canal, which would have opened the finest lands in Canada for hundreds of miles, and eventually to have connected Lake Huron with Lake Ontario. A large sum of money was expended on it before the Board of Works was constituted, and an experienced clerk of works, fresh from the Rideau Canal, was chosen to superintend; but the troubles commenced, and the money was wanted elsewhere. When money became again plentiful, and the country so loudly demanded the Trent Canal, why was it not finished? I shall give by and by an account of a recent excursion to the Trent, and then we shall perhaps learn more about it, and why perishing timber slides were substituted for a magnificent canal. But the Devil's Elbow should be straightened by the Board of Works at all events, otherwise it may stick in the mud, and then nobody can help it; for the marsh is very extensive, and there would be no Jupiter to cry out to. Well, however, in spite of all obstacles, Captain Laughton piloted us safe to Ague and Fever Landing, where, depend upon it, we did not stay a moment longer than sufficed to jump into a coloured gentleman's waggon, which was in waiting, and in which we were driven off as a coloured gentleman always drives, that is to say, in a hand-gallop, to Winch's tavern, our old accustomed inn at St. Alban's, where we arrived in due time, and there hired another Jehu, who was an American Irishman (a sad compound), to take us as far towards Yonge Street as practicable. We reached Richmond Hill, seventeen miles from the Landing, at about eight o'clock, having made a better day's journey than is usually accomplished on a road which will be macadamized some fine day; for the Board of Works have a Polish engineer hard at work surveying it--of course no Canadian was to be found equal to this intricate piece of engineering--and I saw a variety of sticks stuck up, but what they meant I cannot guess at. I suppose they were going to _grade_ it, which is the favourite American term--a term, by the by, by no manner or method meaning gradus ad Parnassum, or even laying it out in steps and stairs, like the Scotch military road near Loch Ness; but which, as far as my limited information in Webster's Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon tongue goes, signifies levelling. I may, however, be mistaken; and this puts me in mind of another tale to beguile the way. A character set out from England to try his fortune in Canada. He was conversing about prospects in that country, on board the vessel, with a person who knew him, but whom he knew not. "I have not quite made up my mind," said the character, "as to what pursuit I shall follow in Canada; but that which brings most grist to the mill will answer best; and I hear a man may turn his hand to anything there, without the folly of an apprenticeship being necessary; for, if he has only brains, bread will come--now, what do you think would be the best business for my market?" "Why," said the gentleman, after pondering a little, "I should advise you to try civil engineering; for they are getting up a Board of Works there, and want that branch of industry very much, for they won't take natives; nothing but foreigners or strangers will go down." "What is a civil engineer?" said the character. "A man always measuring and calculating," responded his adviser, "and that will just suit you." "So it will," rejoined Character; and a civil engineer he became accordingly, and a very good one into the bargain; for he had brains, and had used a yard measure all his lifetime. I was told this story by a person of veracity, who heard the conversation, but it is by no means a wonderful one; for such is the versatility of talent which the climate of Northern America engenders, that I knew a leading member of parliament provincial, who was a preacher, a shopkeeper, a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, a militia colonel, and who undertook to build a suspension bridge across the cataracted river Niagara, to connect the United States with Canada for £8,000, lawful money of the colony; an undertaking which Rennie would perchance have valued at about £100,000; but _n'importe_, the bill was passed, and a banking shop set up instead of a bridge, which answered every purpose, for the notes passed freely on both sides until they were worn out. Behold us, however, at Richmond Hill, having safely passed the Slough of Despond, which the vaunted Yonge Street mud road presents, between the celebrated hamlet of St. Alban's and the aforesaid hill, one of the greatest curiosities of which road, near St. Alban's, is the vicinity of a sort of Mormon establishment, where a fellow of the name of David Wilson, commonly called David, has set up a Temple of the Davidites, with Virgins of the Sun, dressed in white, and all the tomfooleries of a long beard and exclusive sanctity. But America is a fine country for such knavery. Another curiosity is less pitiable and more natural. It is Bond Lake, a large narrow sheet of water, on the summit between Lake Simcoe and Lake Ontario, which has no visible outlet or inlet, and is therefore, like David Wilson, mysterious, although common sense soon lays the mystery in both cases bare; one is a freak of Nature concealing the source and exitus, the other a fraud of man. The oak ridges, and the stair-like descents of plateau after plateau to Ontario, are also remarkable enough, showing even to the most thoughtless that here ancient shores of ancient seas once bounded the forest, gradually becoming lower and lower as the water subsided. Lyell visited these with the late Mr. Roy, a person little appreciated and less understood by the great ones of the earth at Toronto, who made an excellent geological survey of this part of the province, and whose widow had infinite difficulty in obtaining a paltry recompense for his labours in developing the resources of the country. The honey which this industrious bee manufactured was sucked by drones, and no one has done him even a shadow of justice, but Mr. Lyell, who, having no colonial dependence, had no fears in so doing. But of Richmond Hill, why so called I never could discover, for it is neither very highly picturesque, nor very highly poetical, although Dolby's Tavern is a most comfortable resting-place for a wearied traveller, at which prose writer or poetaster may find a haven. Attention, good fare, and neatness prevail. It is English. I have observed two things in journeying through Upper Canada. If you find neatness at an hostel, it is kept by old-country people. If you meet with indifference and greasy meats, they are Americans. If you see the best parlour hung round with bad prints of presidents, looking like Mormon preachers, they are radicals of the worst leaven. If prints from the New York Albion, neatly framed and glazed, hang on each side of a wooden clock, over a sideboard in the centre of the room, opposite to the windows, the said prints representing Queen Victoria, Lord Nelson, Windsor Castle, or the New Houses of Parliament, be assured that loyalty and John Bullism reign there; and, although you meet with no servility, you will not be disgusted with vulgar assumption, such as cocking up dirty legs in dirty boots on a dirty stove, wearing the hat, and not deigning to answer a civil question. Personally, no man cares less for the mode of reception, when I take mine ease at mine inn, than I do, for old soldiers are not very fastidious, and old travellers still less so; but give me sturdy John Bull, with his blunt plainness and true independence, before the silly insolence of a fellow, who thinks he shows his equality, by lowering the character of a man to that of a brute, in coarse exhibitions of assumed importance, which his vocation of extracting money from his unwilling guests renders only more hateful. We departed from Richmond Hill at half-past five, and waggoned on to Finch's Inn, seven miles, where we breakfasted. This is another excellent resting-place, and the country between the two is thickly settled. I forgot to mention that we have now been travelling through scenes celebrated in the rebellion of Mackenzie. About five miles from Holland Landing is the Blacksmith's Shop, which was the head-quarters of Lount, the smith, who, like Jack Cade, set himself up to reform abuses, and suffered the penalty of the outraged laws. Lount was a misled person, who, imbued with strong republican feelings, and forgetting the favours of the government he lived under, which had made him what he was, took up arms at Mackenzie's instigation, and thought he had a call--a call to be a great general. He passed to his account, so '_requiescas in pace_,' Lount! for many a villain yet lives, to whose vile advices you owed your untimely end, and who ought to have met with your fate instead of you. Lount had the mind of an honest man in some things, for it is well known that his counsels curbed the bloody and incendiary spirit of Mackenzie in many instances. The government has not sequestered his property, although his sons were equally guilty with himself. We also pass, in going to Toronto, two other remarkable places. Finch's Tavern, where we breakfasted at seven o'clock, was formerly the Old Stand, as it was so called, of the notorious Montgomery, another general, a tavern general of Mackenzie's, who moved to a place about four miles from the city, where the rebels were attacked in 1837 by Sir Francis Head, and near which the battle of Gallows Hill was fought. Montgomery was taken prisoner, sent to Kingston, and escaped by connivance, with several others, from the fortress there on a dark night, fell into a ditch, broke his leg, and afterwards was hauled by his comrades over a high wall, and got across the St. Lawrence into the United States, where he was run over afterwards by a waggon and much injured. His tavern was burnt to the ground by the militia during the action, on account of the barbarous murder there of Colonel Moodie, a very old retired officer, who was killed by Mackenzie's orders in cold blood. It is now rebuilt on a very extensive scale; and he is again there, having been permitted to return, and his property, which was confiscated, has been restored to his creditors. Such were Mackenzie's intended government and the tools he was to govern by! Such is the British government! The Upper Canadians wisely preferred the latter. Next to Richmond Hill is Thornhill, all on the macadamized portion of the road to Toronto. Thornhill is a very pretty place, with a neat church and a dell, in which a river must formerly have meandered, but where now a streamlet runs to join Lake Ontario. Here are extensive mills, owned by Mr. Thorne, a wealthy merchant, who exports flour largely, the Yonge Street settlement being a grain country of vast extent, which not only supplies his mills, but the Red Mills, near Holland Landing, and many others. From Montgomery's Tavern to Toronto is almost a continued series for four miles of gentlemen's seats and cottages, and, being a straight road, you see the great lake for miles before its shores are reached. Large sums have been expended on this road, which is carried through a brick-clay soil, in which the Don has cut deep ravines, so that immense embankments and deep excavations for the level have been requisite. Near Toronto, at Blue Hill, large brick yards are in operation, and here white brick is now made, of which a handsome specimen of church architecture has been lately erected in the west end of the city. Tiles, elsewhere not seen in Canada, are also manufactured near Blue Hill; but they are not extensively used, the snow and high winds being unfavourable to their adoption, shingles or split wood being cheaper, and tinned iron plates more durable and less liable to accident. In most parts of Upper Canada, near the shores of the great lakes, you can build a house either of stone or brick, as it suits your fancy, for both these materials are plentiful, particularly clay; but at Toronto there is no suitable building-stone; plenty of clay, however, is found, for there you may build your house out of the very excavations for your cellars; and I confess that I prefer a brick house in Canada to one of limestone, for the latter material imbibes moisture; and if a brick house has a good projecting roof, it lasts very long, and is always warm. It is surprising to observe the effects of the climate on buildings in this country. A good stone house, not ten years old, carefully built, and pointed between the joints of the masonry with the best cement, requires a total repair after that period, and often before. The window-sills and lintels of limestone break and crack, and the chimneys soon become disjointed and unsafe. Although it may seem paradoxical, yet it is true that the woodwork of a house lasts good much longer than the stone, or rather the cement, which joins the stone; but wood decays also very rapidly. A bridge becomes rotten in ten years, and a shingled roof lasts only fifteen; but then wood is never seasoned in America; it would not pay. CHAPTER VII. Toronto and the Transit--The ice and its innovations--Siege and storm of a Fortalice by the Ice-king--Newark, or Niagara--Flags, big and little--Views of American and of English institutions--Blacklegs and Races--Colonial high life--Youth very young. Behold us again in Toronto at Macdonald's Hotel; and, as we shall have to visit this rising city frequently, we shall say very little more about it at present, but embark as speedily as possible on board the Transit, and steam over to Niagara. The Transit, a celebrated packet, now getting old, and commanded by a son of its well-known owner, Captain Richardson, starts always in summer at eight a.m. punctually, and makes her voyage by half-past eleven, at which hour, on the 5th day of July, we once more touched the shore of Newark, or Niagara Town, at the Dock Company's wharf, which we found had been greatly damaged in the spring of the year by a most extraordinary ice phenomenon. At the breaking-up of the frost, the ice in the river Niagara, which came down the river, packed near its mouth, and dammed it up so high at Queenston, seven miles above and close to the narrows, that the upper surface of the fields of ice was thirty feet above the level of the river, there a quarter of a mile broad or more. The consequence was, that every wharf and every building under this level was destroyed and crushed. Every edifice on the banks, and among others a strong stone barrack, full of soldiers, was stormed by the frost-king, during the darkness of an awful night, and the front wall fairly breached and borne down by the advancing masses of ice. The soldiers had barely time to escape from the crashing and rending walls; and their cooking-house, a detached building, some yards from the barrack and higher up the bank, was turned over, as if it had been a small boat. In the memory of man, such a scene had never occurred before, and probably never will again; and I have been told, by those who beheld it, that a more solemn display of natural power and irresistible might has seldom been witnessed than that of the gradual grinding, heaving passage of one great floe, or field, of thick-ribbed ice over the other, until that summit was gained which could not be exceeded. Then came the disruption, the roar, the rush, the fury, the foam, the groaning thunder, and the river flood; the plunge and the struggle between the solid and the liquid waters. Truly, the thundering water was well named by the Indian of old--NE AW GAR AW is very Greek sounding. Newark, or, as it is now called, Niagara, but, as it should be named, Simcoe, is still a pretty, well laid-out town; and, although it has scarcely had a new house built in it for many years past, is on the whole a very respectable place, and the capital of the district of Niagara, celebrated for its apple, peach, and cherry orchards. It has a good-looking church, and the living is a rectory. A Roman Catholic church stands close to the English, and a handsome Scots church is at the other end of the town. There is an ugly jail and Court-House about a mile in the country, and an excellent market, where every thing is cheap and good. Barracks for the Royal Canadian Rifle regiment stand on a large plain. Old Fort George, the scene of former battling, is in total ruin; and Fort Mississagua, with its square tower, looks frowningly at Fort Niagara, on the American side of the estuary of the Great River. I never see these rival batteries, for it is too magniloquent to style them fortresses, but they picture to my mind England and the United States. Mississagua looks careless and confident, with a little bit of a flag--the flag, however, of a thousand years, displayed, only on Sundays and holidays, on a staff which looks something like that which the king-making Warwick tied his heraldic bear to. The antiquity and warlike renown of England sit equally and visibly impressed on the crest of the miserable Mississagua as on that of Gibraltar. Fort Niagara, an old French Indian stockade, modernized by the American engineers from time to time, half-lighthouse, half-fortification, glaring with whitewashed walls, that may be seen almost at Toronto, with a flag-staff towering to the skies, and a flag which would cover the deck of a first-rate, displayed from morn to night, speaks of the new nation, whose pretensions must ever be put in plain view, and constantly tell the tale that America is a second edition of the best work of English industry and of British valour--a second edition interwoven, however, with foreign matter, with French _fierté_ without French _politesse_, with German mysticism without German learning, with the restless and rabid democracy of the whole world without the salutary check of venerable laws, and with that strange mixture of freedom and slavery, of tolerance and intolerance, which distinguishes America of the nineteenth century. But it is, nevertheless, a most extraordinary spectacle, to contemplate the rise and progress of the union in so short a period since the declaration of independence. An Irish gentleman, apparently a clergyman, last year favoured the public with the result of an extensive tour in Canada and the United States, in "Letters from America." He starts in his preface with these remarkable expressions, which must be well considered and analyzed, because they are the deliberate convictions of an observant and well-informed man, who had, moreover, singular opportunities of reflecting upon the people he had so long travelled amongst. He says that "In energy, perseverance, enterprise, sagacity, activity, and varied resources" the Americans infinitely surpass the British; that he never met with "a stupid American." That our "American children" surpass us not only in our good, but "in our evil peculiarities." This I cannot understand; for, surely, if we have _peculiarities_, which there is no denying, they must by all the rules of logic be limited to ourselves. But the writer observes, in a paragraph too long for quotation, that they exceed us in materialism and in utilitarianism; that we, a nation of shopkeepers, as Napoleon styled the English, were outdone in the worship of Mammon by them; that we have rejected too much the higher branches of art and science, and the cultivation of the æsthetic faculty--what an abominable word æsthetic is! it always puts me in mind of asthmatic, for it is broken-winded learning. "Is it not common," says he, "in modern England to reject authorities both in Church and State, to look with contempt on the humbler and more peculiarly christian virtues of contentment and submission, and to cultivate the intellectual at the expense of the moral part of our nature? If these and other dangerous tendencies of a similar nature are at work among ourselves, as they undoubtedly are, it is useful and interesting to observe them in fuller operation and more unchecked luxuriance in America." Now, it is very satisfactory, that the Americans, a race of yesterday, who have had no opportunity as yet of coping with the deep research and master-minds of Europe, should in half a century have leaped into such a position in the civilized world as to have exceeded the Englishman in all the most useful relations of life, as well as in all its darker and more dangerous features; very satisfactory indeed that the mixed race peopling the United States should be better and worse than that nation to which the world, by universal consent, has yielded the palm of superiority in all the arts and in all the sciences of modern acquirement. Wherein do the Americans exceed the sons of Britain? In history, in policy, in poetry, in mathematics, in music, in painting, or in any of the gifts of the Muses? Are they more renowned in the dreadful art of war? or in the mild virtues of peace? Is the fame of America a wonder and a terror to the four quarters of the globe?--We may fearlessly reply in the negative. The outer barbarian knows the American but as another kind of Englishman. It will yet take him some centuries to distinguish between the original and the offspring. It is, in short, as untenable as an axiom in policy or history, that the American exceeds the Briton in the development of mind, as it is that the American exceeds the Briton in the development of the baser qualities of our nature. When the insatiate thirst for dollars, dollars, dollars, has subsided, then the American may justly rear his head as an aspirant for historic fame. His land has never yet produced a Shakespeare, a Johnson, a Milton, a Spenser, a Newton, a Bacon, a Locke, a Coke, or a Rennie. The utmost America has yet achieved is a very faint imitation of the least renowned of our great writers, Walter Scott. In diplomacy I deny also the palm. For although India is a case in point, like as Texas, yet even there we have never first planted a population with the express purpose of ejecting the lawful government, but have conquered where conquest was not only hailed by the enslaved people but was a positive benefit, by the introduction of mild and equitable laws instead of brutal and bloody despotisms. We have not snatched from a weak republic, whose principles had been expressly formed on our own model, that which poverty alone obliged it to relinquish. If the writer, who appears to be an excellent man and a good christian, had lived for several years on the borders of the eagerly desired Canada, I very much doubt whether he would have seen such a _couleur de rose_ in the transactions of the mighty commonwealth, where the rulers are the ruled, and where education, intellect, integrity, innocence, and wealth must all alike bow before the Juggernaut of an unattainable perfection of equality. If Bill Johnson, the mail robber and smuggler, is as good as William Pitt or any other William of superior mind, why then the sooner the millennium of democracy arrives the better. It is unfortunate for the present generation--what it will be for the next no man can pretend to say--that this debasing principle is gaining ground not only in Canada but in England. A reflecting mind has no objection to the creed that all men were created equal; but history, sacred and profane, plainly shows that mind as well as matter is afterwards, for the wisest of purposes, very differently developed. Does the meanest white American, the sweeper of Broadway, if there be such a citizen, believe in this perfection of equality amongst men as a fundamental axiom of the rights of man? Place a black sweeper of crossings in juxtaposition, and the question will very soon solve itself. Why, the free and enlightened citizens will not even permit their black or coloured brethren to worship their common Creator in the same pew with themselves--it is horror, it is degradation! And yet there is a universal outcry about sacred liberty and equality all over the Union. The angels weep to witness the tricks of men placed in a little brief authority. Can such a state of things last as that, where the Irish labourer is treated as an inferior being in the scale of creation, and the Negro, or the offspring of the Negro and the white, is branded with the stigma of servile? It cannot--it will not. Either let democracy assume its true and legitimate features, or let it cease--for the re-action will be a fearful one, as dread and as horribly diabolical as that which the folly of the aristocracy of old France brought on that devoted land. I have said, and I repeat it, that a residence on the borders of Canada and the United States for some time will cure a reflecting mind of many long cherished notions concerning the relative merits of a limited monarchy and of a crude democracy. The man who views the border people of the United States with calm observation will soon come to the conclusion that a state of government, if it may be so called, where the commonest ruffian asserts privileges which the most educated and refined mind never dreams of, is not an enviable order of things. In the first fury of a war with England, who were the promoters? the mob on the borders. Who hoped for a new sympathy demonstration, in order to annex Canada? the people of the Western States, who, far removed from the possibility of invasion, valiantly resolve to carry fire and sword among their unoffending brethren. The intelligence and the wealth of the United States are passive; they are physically weak, and therefore succumb to the dictation of the rude masses. And what keeps up this singular action, but the constantly-recurring elections, the incessant balloting and voting, the necessity which every man feels hourly of saving his substance or his life from the devouring rapacity of those who think that all should be equal! If the government, acutely sensible that war is an evil which must cripple its resources, is unwilling to engage in it, both from principle and from patriotism, it must yield if the mob wills it, or forfeit the sweets of office and of power. Hence, few men enter upon the cares of public life in the States now-a-days who are of that frame of mind which considers personal expediency as worthy of deep reflection. What would Washington have said to such a system? The batteries or fortalices of Niagara and of Mississagua have led to a digression quite unintentional and unforeseen, which must terminate for the present with a different view from that of the author of the Letters above-mentioned: and let us hope fervently that the New World has not yet arrived at such a consummation as that of surpassing the vices and crimes of the Old, as we are certain it has not yet achieved such a moral victory as that of outrunning it in the race of scientific or mechanic fame. England is no more in her dotage than America is in her nonage. The former, without vanity or want of verity be it spoken, is as pre-eminent as the latter is honestly and creditably aspiring. The writer above quoted says their ships sail better, and are manned with fewer hands. We grant that no nation excels the United States in ship-building, and that they build vessels expressly for sailing; but for one English ship lost on the ocean, there are three of the venturous Americans; for one steam-vessel that explodes, and hurls its hundreds to destruction, in England or Canada, there are twenty Americans. In England, the cautious, the slow and the sure plan prevails; in America, the go-ahead, reckless, dollar-making principle prevails; and so it is through every other concern of life. A hundred ways of worshipping the Creator, after the christian form, exist in America, where half a dozen suffice in England. Time is money in America; the meals are hurried over, relaxations necessary to the enjoyment of existence forbidden--and what for? to make money. To what end? to spend it faster than it is made, and then to begin again. You have only a faint shadow of the immense wealth realized in England by that of the merchant or the shopkeeper in the States. Capital there is constantly in a rapid consumption; and as the people engaged in the feverish excitement of acquiring it are in the latter country, from their habits, shortlived, so the opposite fact exhibits itself in England. There are no Rothschilds, no railway kings in America. Time and the man will not admit of it. John Jacob Astor is an exception to this fact. On landing at Niagara, the difference of climate between it and Toronto is at once perceived. Here you are on sandy, there on clayey soil. Here all is heat, there moisture. I tried hard for several seasons to bring the peach to perfection at Toronto, only thirty-six miles from Niagara, without success; at Niagara it grows freely, and almost spontaneously, as well as the quince. The fields and the gardens of Niagara are a fortnight or more in advance of those of Toronto. Strange that the passage of the westerly winds across Ontario should make such a difference! Niagara is a grand racing-stand, where all the loafers of the neighbouring republic congregate in the autumn; I was unfortunately present at the last races, and never desire to repeat my visit at that season. Blacklegs and whitelegs prevail; and the next morning the course was strewed with the bodies of drunken vagabonds. It appears to me very strange that the gentry of the neighbourhood suffer a very small modicum of ephemeral newspaper notoriety to get the better of their good sense. The patronage of such a racecourse as that of Niagara, so far from being an honour, is the reverse. It is too near the frontier to be even decently respectable; nor is the course itself a good one, for the sand is too deep. Many a young gentleman of Toronto, who thinks that he copies the aristocracy of England by patronizing the turf, finds out to his own loss and sorrow that it would have been much better to have had his racing qualifications exhibited nearer his own door; and there cannot possibly be a greater colonial mistake committed than to fancy that grooms, stable-boys, and blacklegs, are now the advisers and companions of our juvenile nobility.--That day has passed! It is very unfortunate that very false ideas exist in some of the colonies of the manners and customs of high life in England. The grown-up people often fancy that cold reserve, and an assumption of great state, indicate high birth and breeding. The younger branches seem frequently to think that there is no such thing at home as the period of adolescence; consequently, you often see a pert young master deliver his unasked opinion and behave before his seniors and superiors as though he wanted to intimate that he was wiser in his generation than they. In crossing to Niagara, we had a specimen of the precocious colonist of 1845. The table of the captain of the boat, like that of his respected father, was good and decorously conducted, and there were several ladies and some most respectable travelled Americans at dinner. A very young gentleman, who boasted how much he had lost at the races, how much they had gambled, and how much they drank of champagne the night before--champagne, by the by, is thought a very aristocratic drink among psuedo-great men, although it is common as ditch-water in the United States--engrossed the whole conversation of the dinner-table, picked his teeth, took up the room of two, called the waiter fifty times, and ended by ordering the cheese to be placed on the table before the pies and puddings were removed. The company present rose before the dessert appeared, thoroughly disgusted; and I afterwards saw this would-be man peeping into the windows of the ladies'-cabin, and performing a thousand other antic tricks, cigar in mouth, for which he would in England have met with his deserts. The precociousness of Transatlantic children is not confined to the United States--it is equally and unpleasantly visible in Canada. The Americans who travel, I can safely say, are not guilty of these monstrous absurdities. I have crossed the Atlantic more than once with boys of from seventeen to twenty, who have left college to make the grand tour, without ever observing any thing to find fault with. The American youth is observant, and soon discovers that attempting to do the character of men before his time in the society of English strangers invariably lowers instead of raising an interest. There is a good caricature of this in an American book, I forget its title, written some time ago, to show the simplicity, gullibility, and vindictivness of our Trollopean travellers. It is a boy of sixteen, or thereabouts, cigar in the corner of his mouth, hat cocked on three curls, and all the modern etceteras of a complete youth, saying to his father, "Here, take my boots, old fellow, and clean them." The father looks a little amazed, upon which the manikin ejaculates, "Why don't you take them? what's the use of having a father?" There will be a railway smash in this, as well as in the locomotive mania. Republicanism towards elders and parents is unnatural; the child and the man were not born equal. I remember reading in a voluminous account of the terrors of the French revolution a remarkable passage:--servants denounced masters, debtors denounced creditors, women denounced husbands, children denounced parents, youth denounced protecting age; gratitude was unknown; a favour conferred led to the guillotine: but never, never in that awful period, in that reign of the vilest passions of our nature over reason, was there one instance, one single instance, of a parent denouncing its child. It is not a good sign when extreme youth pretends to have discovered the true laws of the universe, when the son is wiser than the father, or when immature reason usurps the functions of the ripened faculties. I have put this together because I hear hourly parents deprecating the system of education in the greatest city of Western Canada; because I hear and see children of fourteen swaggering about the streets with all the consequence of unfledged men, smoking cigars, frequenting tavern-bars and billiard-rooms, and no doubt led by such unbridled license into deeper mysteries and excesses; because I hear clergymen lament that boys of that age lose their health by excesses too difficult of belief to fancy true. Surely a salutary check in time may be applied to such an evil. But liberty and equality, as I said before, are extending on both sides of the Atlantic: and in their train come these evils, simply because liberty and equality are as much misunderstood as real republicanism and limited monarchy are. CHAPTER VIII. The old Canadian Coach--Jonathan and John Bull passengers--"That Gentleman"--Beautiful River, beautiful drive--Brock's Monument--Queenston--Bar and Pulpit--Trotting horse Railroad--Awful accident--The Falls once more--Speculation--Water privilege--Barbarism--Museum--Loafers--Tulip-trees--Rattlesnakes--The Burning Spring--Setting fire to Niagara--A charitable Woman--The Nigger's Parrot--John Bull is a Yankee--Political Courtship--Lundy's Lane--Heroine--Welland Canal. I can make no stay at Niagara for the present; but, after resting awhile at Howard's Inn, which is the most respectable one in the town, proceed in his coach to Queenston. The old Canadian coach has not yet quite vanished before modern improvement. It is a mighty heavy, clumsy conveniency, hung on leather springs, and looking for all the world as if elephants alone could move it along; and, if it should upset, like Falstaff, it may ask for levers to lift it up again. We had on board the coach an American, of the species Yankee, a thorough bluff, rosy, herculean, Yorkshire-farmer, and several highly respectable females. I will not say Jonathan did not spit before them, for he is to the manner born; but, although of inferior grade, if there can be such a thing mentioned respecting a citizen of the United States, and particularly of "the Empire State," of which he was, to his credit be it said, he treated the females with that courtesy, rough as it is, which seems innate with all Americans. A stormy discussion arose on the part of John Bull, who hated slavery, disliked spitting, got angry about Brock's monument, and, in short, looked down with no small share of contempt upon the man of yesterday, whose ideas of right and wrong were so diametrically opposed to his own, and who very sententiously expressed them. John told him that the only thing he had never heard in his travels through the Northern and Western States--where he had been to look at the land with a view to purchase, either there or in Canada, as might be most advisable--the only thing he had never heard was that all the citizens of the United States were all "gentlemen." "I guess you didn't hear with both ears, then, for you always must have remarked that whenever one citizen spoke of another, he said 'that gentleman.'" John laughed outright. "No, friend, I never did hear your white gentlemen call a nigger 'that gentleman;' so, you see, all your folks ain't equal, and all ain't gentlemen. Here, in Canada, I have heard a blacky called 'that gentleman;' and, by George, if many more of your runaway slaves cross the border, they will soon be the only gentlemen in Canada, for they are getting very impudent and very numerous." This is, in a measure, true; such troops of escaped negroes are annually forwarded to Canada by the abolitionists that the Western frontier is overrun already, and the impudence of these newly free knows no bounds. But they cordially hate both the Southern slaveholders and the abolitionists. Talking of slavery, pray read an account of it from an American of the Northern States. * * * * * "New Orleans, January 26, 1846. "A man may be no abolitionist--I am not one; he may think but little on the subject of slavery--it has never troubled me one way or the other: but let him mark the records of the glorious battles of the Revolution; let him notice the Eagle of Liberty, and all the emblems of Independence, Freedom, and the rights of man; let him muse on the thoughts they awaken, and then behold the actualities of life around him. Suddenly the sharp rap of an auctioneer's hammer startles him, and the loud striking of the hour of twelve will divert his attention to the throng of men around him, and the appearance of three or four men on raised stands in different parts of the Rotunda, who are calling the attention of those around him, at the same time unrolling a hand-bill that the stranger has noticed in the most conspicuous places in the city, printed in French and English, announcing the sale of a lot of fine, likely slaves; at the same time, he observes maps of real estates spread out--everything in fact around him denoting a 'busy mart where men do congregate,' as it really is. "The auctioneer, making the most noise, attracts his attention first; joining the crowd in front of the stand, he observes twelve or fifteen negroes of all ages and both sexes standing in a line to the left of the auctioneer; they are comfortably, and some of them neatly dressed, particularly the women, with their yellow Madras handkerchiefs tied around their heads, and their bright, showy dresses; but they have a look that irresistibly causes him to think back for a comparison to the objects before him, and it seems strange that it should bring to mind some market or field where he has sometimes seen cattle offered for sale, whose saddened look seemed to forbode some evil to them; but the animal look is somewhat redeemed by the smiles and plays of the little _piccaninies_, who seem to wonder why they are there, with so many men looking at them.--Now for business. "'Maria, step up here. There, gentlemen, is a fine, likely wench, aged twenty-five; she is warranted healthy and sound, with the exception of a slight lameness in the left leg, which does not damage her at all. Step down, Maria, and walk.' The woman gets down, and steps off eight or ten paces, and returns with a slight limp, evidently with some pain, but doing her best to conceal her defect of gait. The auctioneer is a Frenchman, and announces everything alternately in French and English. 'Now, gentlemen, what is bid? she is warranted, elle est gurantie, and sold by a very respectable citizen. 250 dollars, deux cent et cinquante dollars: why, gentlemen, what do you mean! Get down, Maria, and walk a little more. 275, deux cent soixante et quinze, 300, trois cents!--go on, gentlemen--325, trois cents et vingt cinq! once, twice, ah! 350, trois cents et cinquante: une fois! deux fois! going, gone, for 350 dollars. A great bargain, gentlemen.' "My attention is called to the opposite side of the room: 'Here, gentlemen, is a likely little orphan yellow girl, six years old--what is bid? combien? thirty-five dollars, trente cinq, fifty dollars, cinquante dollars, thank you.' Finally, she is knocked down at seventy-five dollars. "Why, there is a whole family on that other stand; let us see them. 'There, gentlemen, is a fine lot: Willy, aged thirty-five, an expert boy, a good carpenter, brickmaker, driver, in fact, can do anything, il sait faire tout. His wife, Betty, is thirty-three, can wash, cook, wait on the table, and make herself generally useful; also their boy George, five years old; you will observe, gentlemen, that Betty est enceinte. Now what is bid for this valuable family?' After a lively competition, they are bid off at 1,550 dollars, the whole family. "As I have before remarked, everything is done in French and English; even the negroes speak both languages. I saw one poor old negro, about sixty, put up, but withdrawn, as only 270 dollars were bid for him. While waiting to be sold, they are examined and questioned by the purchasers. One young girl, about sixteen or eighteen, was being inspected by an elderly, stern, sharp-eyed, horse-jockey looking man, who sported his gold chains, diamond pin, ruffles, and cane: 'How old are you?' 'I don't know, sir.' 'Do you know how to eat?' 'Everybody does that,' she said sullenly. "Passing up the Esplanade next morning, (Sunday) I saw some forty or fifty very fine-looking negroes and negresses, all neatly dressed, standing on a bench directly in front of a building, which I took to be a meeting or school house: walking by, a genteel-looking man stepped up and asked me if I wished to buy a likely boy or girl. Telling him I was a stranger, and asking for information, he told me it was one of the slave-markets; that they stood there for examination, and that he had sold 500,000 dollars worth and sent them off that morning. "The above facts are some of the singular features (to a Northerner) of this remarkable place, and I assure you that I 'nothing extenuate, or set down aught in malice;' but may the time come when even a black man may say, 'I am a man!' "NORTHROP." * * * * * I once relieved a poor black wretch who was starving in the streets of Kingston, and told him where to go to get proper advice and protection: all the thanks I received were that he was sorry he ran away, for he had been a waiter somewhere in the South, and got a good many dollars by his situation; whereas, he said, Canada was a poor country, and he had no hope of thriving in it. The lower class of negroes in Canada, for there are several classes among even runaways, are very frequently dissolute, idle, impudent, and assuming--so difficult is it for poor uneducated human nature to bear a little freedom. The coloured people, if they get at all up in the world, assume vast airs, but there are very many well-conducted people among them. As yet neither coloured people nor negroes have made much advance in Canada. John Bull had visited almost every portion of the Northern and Western States, was a shrewd, observing character, and had come to the conclusion, which he very plainly expressed, that the state of society in the Union was not to his taste, that he could procure lands as cheap and as good for his gold in Canada, and that to Canada he would bring his old woman and his children. "For," said he, "in the London or Western districts of Upper Canada, the land is equal to any in the United States, the climate better, and by and by it will supply all Europe with grain. Settling there, an Englishman will not always be put in mind of the inferiority of the British to the Americans, will not always be told that kings and queens are childish humbugs, and will not have his work hindered and his mind poisoned by constant elections and everlasting grasping for office. "While," says John to Jonathan, "I am in Canada, just as free as you are; I pay no taxes, or only such as I control myself, and which are laid out in roads, or for my benefit. I can worship after the manner of my fathers, without being robbed or burnt out, and I meet no man who thinks himself a bit better than myself; but, as I shall take care to settle a good way from republican sympathizers for the sake of my poor property, I shall always find my neighbours as proud of Queen Victoria as I be myself." Jonathan replied that he had no manner of doubt that Miss Victoria was a real lady, for every female is a lady in the States; the word being understood only as an equivalent for womankind, and that John might like petticoat government, but, for his part, he calculated it was better to be a king one's-self, which every citizen of the enlightened republic was, and no mistake. And kings they are, for all power resides there, in the body of which he was a favourable specimen, but which does not always show its members in so fair a light. I do not know any coach ride in British America more pleasing than that from Niagara to Queenston. You cross a broad green common, with the expanse of Lake Ontario on one side, the forest and orchard on the other; and, after passing through a little coppice, suddenly come upon the St. Lawrence, rolling a tranquil flood towards the great lake below. High above its waters, on the edge of the sharp precipitous bank, covered with trees--oak, birch, beech, chestnut, and maple--runs the sandy road, bordered by corn-fields, by orchards, and occasionally by little patches of woodland, looking for all the world like Old England, excepting that that unpicturesque snake fence spoils the illusion. Now, bright and deep, rolls the giant flood onward; now it is hidden by a turn of the bank; now, glittering, it again appears between the trees. Thus you travel until within a couple of miles or so of Queenston, when, the road leaving the bank, and the river forming a large bay-like bend, a splendid view breaks out. You catch a distant glimpse of that narrow pass, where a wall of rock, two hundred feet high on each side, and somewhat higher on the American shore, vomits forth the pent-up angry Niagara. Above this wall, to the right and left, towers the mountain ridge, covered with forest to the south, and with the greenest of grass to the north, where, stately and sad, stands the pillar under whose base moulder the bones of the gallant Brock, and of Mac Donell, his aide-de-camp. Rent from summit to base, tottering to its fall, is Brock's monument, and yet the villain who did the deed that destroyed it lives, and dares to show his face on the neighbouring shore. I cannot conceive in beautiful scenery any thing more picturesque than the gorge of the Niagara river: it combines rapid water, a placid bay, a tremendous wall of rock, forest, glade, village, column, active and passive life. Queenston is a poor place; it has never gained an inch since the war of 1812; but, as a railroad has been established, and a wharf is building in connection with it, it will go ahead. Opposite to it is Lewiston, in the United States, less ancient and time-worn, full of gaudily-painted wooden houses, and with much more pretension. Queenston looks like an old English hamlet in decay; melancholy and miserable; Lewiston is the type of newness, all white and green, all unfinished and all uncomfortable. The odious bar-room system of the Northern States is fast sweeping away all vestiges of English comfort. The practice of lounging, cigar in mouth, sipping juleps and alcoholic decoctions in common with smugglers and small folk, is fast unhinging society. The plan of social economy in the mercantile cities is rapidly spreading over the whole Union, and the fashion of ladies' drawing-rooms being absorbed into the parlour of an hotel or boarding-house has brought about a change which the next generation will lament. It is the restless rage for politics, the ever present desire for dollars, which has brought about this state of things; the young husband seeks the bar-room as a merchant does the Change; and thus, except in the wealthy class, or among the contemplative and retired, there is no such thing as private life in the northern cities and towns. Huge taverns, real wooden gin palaces, tower over the tops of all other buildings, in every border village, town, and city; and a good bar is a better business than any other. Thus in Lewiston, in Buffalo, in short, in every American border town, the best building is the tavern, and the next best the meeting-house; both are fashionable, and both are anything but what they should be; for he who keeps the best liquors, and he who preaches most pointedly to the prevailing taste, makes the most of his trade. The voluntary system is a capital speculation to the publican as well as to the parson; but, unfortunately, it is more general with the former than with the latter. The Niagara frontier is a rich and a fertile portion of Canada, surrounded almost by water, and intersected by rivers, and the Welland Canal, with an undulating surface in the interior. It grows wheat, Indian corn, and all the cereal gramina to perfection, whilst Pomona lavishes favours on it; nor are its woods less prolific and luxuriant. Here the chestnut, with its deep green foliage and its white flowers, forms a pleasing variety to the sylvan scenery of Canada. It would be, from its healthiness alone, the pleasantest part of Canada to live in, but it is too near the borders where sympathizers, more keen and infinitely more barbarous than those on the ancient Tweed, render property and life rather precarious; and, therefore, in war or in rebellion, the Niagara frontier is not an enviable abode for the peaceable farmer or the timid female. The ascent to the plateau above Queenston is grand, and the view from the summit very extensive and magnificent; embracing such a stretch of cultivated land, of forest, of the habitations of men, and of the apparently boundless Ontario, the Beautiful Lake, that it can scarcely be rivalled. The railroad has, however, spoiled a good deal of this; it runs from the summit of the mountain, along its side or flank, inland to Chippewa, beyond the Falls; and you are whirled along, not by steam, but by three trotting horses, at a rapid rate, through a wood road, until you reach the Falls, where you obtain just a glimpse and no more of the Cataract. On the top of the mountain, as a hill four or five hundred feet above the river is called, is a place which was the scene of an awful accident. The precipice wall of the gorge of the Niagara is very close to the road, but hidden from it by stunted firs and bushes. Colonel Nichols, an officer well known and distinguished in the last American war, was returning one winter's night, when the fresh snow rendered all tracks on the road imperceptible, in his sleigh with a gallant horse. Merrily on they went; the night was dark, and the road makes a sudden turn just at the brink, to descend by a circuitous sweep the face of the hill into Queenston. Either the driver or the horse mistook the path, and, instead of turning to the left, went on edging to the right. The next day search was made: the marks of struggling were observed on the snow; the horse had evidently observed his danger; he had floundered and dashed wildly about; but horse, sleigh, and driver, went down, down, down, at least two hundred feet into the abyss below; and sufficient only remained to bear witness to the terrific result. The railroad (three horse power) takes you to the Falls or to Chippewa. If you intend visiting the former, and desire to go to the Clifton House, the best hotel there, you are dropped at Mr. Lanty Mac Gilly's, where the four roads meet, one going to the Ferry, one to Drummondville, a village at Lundy's Lane, now cut off from the main road; the other you came by, and the continuation of which goes to Chippewa, where a steamer, called the Emerald, is ready to take you to the city of Buffalo in the United States. As I shall return by way of Buffalo from the extreme west of Canada, we will say not a word about any thing further on this route at present than the Falls, and perhaps the reader may think the less that is said about them the better. But, gentle reader, although it be a well-worn tale, I had not seen the Falls for five years, and I wish to tell you whether they are altered or improved; and most likely you will take some little interest in so old a friend as the Falls of Niagara; for you must have read about those before you read Robinson Crusoe, and have had them thrust under your notice by every tourist, from Trollope to Dickens. They say, _on dit_, I mean, which is not translatable into English, that this is the age of Materialism and Utilitarianism. By George, you would think so indeed, if you had the chance of seeing the Falls of Niagara twice in ten years. They are materially injured by the Utilitarian mania. The Yankees put an ugly shot tower on the brink of the Horseshoe at the beginning of that era, and they are about to consummate the barbarism, by throwing a wire bridge, if the British government is consenting, over the river, just below the American Fall. But Niagara is a splendid "Water Privilege," and so thought the Company of the City of the Falls--a most enlightened body of British subjects, who first disfigured the Table Rock, by putting a water-mill on it, and now are adding the horror of gin-palaces, with sundry ornamental booths for the sale of juleps and sling, all along the venerable edge of the precipice, so that trees of unequalled beauty on the bank above, trees which grow no where else in Canada, are daily falling before the monster of gain. What they will do next in their freaks it is difficult to surmise; but it requires very little more to show that patriotism, taste, and self-esteem, are not the leading features in the character of the inhabitants of this part of the world. If the Colossus of Rhodes could be remodelled and brought to the Falls, one leg standing in Canada, and the other in the United States, there would be a company immediately formed for hydraulic purposes, to convey a waste pipe from the tips of the fingers as far as Buffalo; and another to light the paltry village of Manchester, all mills and mint-juleps, with the natural gas which would be made to feed the lamp. A grogshop would be set up in his head; telescopes would be poked out of his eyes, and philosophers would seat themselves on his toes, to calculate whether the waters of the British Fall could not be dammed out, so as to turn a few cotton mills more in Manchester, as it is called, which scheme some Canadian worthy would upset, by resorting to Mr. Lyell's proof that the whole river might once have flowed, and may again be made to flow, down to St. David's--thus, by expending a few millions, cutting off Jonathan's chance. But it is of no use to joke on this subject; Niagara is, both to the United States and to England, but especially to Canada, a public property. It is the greatest wonder of the visible world here below, and should be protected from the rapacity of private speculations, and not made a Greenwich fair of; where pedlars and thimble-riggers, niggers and barkers, the lowest trulls and the vilest scum of society, congregate to disgust and annoy the visitors from all parts of the world, plundering and pestering them without control. The only really pretty thing on the British side is the Museum, the result of the indefatigable labours of Mr. Barnett, a person who, by his own unassisted industry, has gathered together a most interesting collection of animals, shells, coins, &c., and has added a garden, in which all the choicest plants and flowers of North America and of Britain grow, watered by the incessant spray of the Great Fall. In this garden I saw, for the first time in Canada, the English holly, the box, the heath, and the ivy; and there is a willow from the St. Helena stock. It requires unremitting watchfulness, however, to keep all this together, for _loafers_ are rife in these parts. He had gathered a very choice collection of coins, which was placed in a glass case in the Museum. A loafer cast his eye upon them, visited the Museum frequently, until he fully comprehended the whereabouts, and then, by the help of a comrade or two, broke a window-pane, passed through a glazed division of stuffed snakes, &c., and bore off his prize in the dead of the night. By advertising in time, and by dint of much exertion, the greater part was recovered, but the proprietor has not dared publicly to exhibit them since. He is now forming a menagerie, and also has a collection of fossils and minerals from the neighbourhood, with a camera obscura. He is, in short, a specimen of what untiring industry can accomplish, even when unassisted. There are some tulip-trees near the Falls, but this plant does not grow to any size so far north; and, although native to the soil, it is, perhaps, the extreme limit of its range. The snake-wood, a sort of slender bush, is found here, with very many other rare Canadian plants, which are no doubt fostered by the continual humidity of the place; and, if you wish to sup full of horrors,[4] Mr. Barnett has plenty of live rattlesnakes. [Footnote 4: This puts me in mind of the vulgar received opinion that my godfather Fuseli supped on pork-steaks, to have horrid dreams. Originally said in joke, this absurd story has been repeated even by persons affecting respectability as writers. His Greek learning alone should have saved his memory from this.] To wind up all, the Americans are going to put up another immense gin-palace on the opposite shore; and, as a climax to the excellent taste of the vicinage, they are about to place a huge steamboat to cross the rapids at the foot of the Manchester Falls. The next speculation, as I hinted above, must be to turn the Niagara into the Erie, or into the Welland Canal, and make it carry flour, grind wheat, and do the duty which the political economists of this thriving place consider all rivers as alone created for. One traveller of the Utilitarian school has recorded, in the traveller's album at the Falls, the number of gallons of water running over to waste per minute; and another writes, "What an almighty splash!" I went once more to see the Burning Spring, and have no doubt whatever that the City of the Falls, that great pre-eminent humbug, if it had been built, might have easily been lit by natural gas, as it abounds every where in the neighbourhood, the rock under the superior Silurian limestone being a shale containing it, as may be evidenced by those visitors, who are persuaded to go under "the Sheet of Water," as the place is called where the Table Rock projects, and part of the cataract slides over it; for, on reaching the angle next to the spiral stair, a strong smell is plainly perceptible, something between rotten eggs and sulphur; and there you find a little trickling spring oozing out of the precipice tasting of those delectable compounds. A Yankee, with the soaring imagination of that imaginative race, proposes to set fire to the Horseshoe Fall, and thus get up a grand nocturnal exhibition, to which the Surrey Zoological pyrotechny would bear the same ratio as a sky-rocket to Vesuvius. There is no great impossibility in this fact, if it was "not a fact" that the rush of the Fall disturbs the superincumbent gases too much to permit it; for there can be but little doubt that there is plenty of _materiel_ at hand, and, some day or other, a lighthouse will be lit with it to guide sleepy loons and other negligent water-fowl over the Falls. I wonder they do not get up a Carburetted Hydrogen Gas Company there, with a suitable engineer and railway, so that visitors might cross over to Goat Island on an atmospheric line. There are plenty of railway stags on both shores, if you will only buy their stock to establish it; and, at all events, it would improve the City of the Falls, which now exhibits the deplorable aspect of three stuccoed cottages turned seedy, and a bare common, in place of a magnificent grove of chestnut trees, which formerly almost rivalled Greenwich Park. But the crowning glory of "the City" is the Reflecting Pagoda, a thing perched over Table Rock bank; very like a huge pile engine, with a ten-shilling mirror, where the monkey should be. Blessings on Time! though he is a very thoughtless rogue, he has touched this grand effort of human genius in the wooden line slightly, and it will soon follow the horrid water-mill which stood on that most singular and indescribable freak of Nature, the Table Rock. I would have forgiven Lett, the sympathizer, if, instead of assassination and the blowing-up of Brock's Monument, he had confined his attentions to a little serious Guy Fauxing at the Mill and the Reflecting Pagoda. Niagara--Ne-aw-gaw-rah, thou thundering water! thy glories are departing; the abominable Railway Times has driven along thy borders; and, if I should live to see thee again ten years hence, verily I should not be astounded to find thee locked-up, and a station-house staring me in the visage, from that emerald bower, in thy most mysterious recess, where the vapour is rose-coloured, and the bright rainbow alone now forms the bridge from the Iris Rock! I was so disgusted to see the spirit of pelf, that concentration of self, hovering over one of the last of the wonders of the world, that I rushed to the Three Horse Railway, and soon forgot all my misery in scrambling for a place; for there was no alternative. There were only three carriages and one open cart on the rail; the three aristocratic conveniences were full; and the coal-box--for it looked very like one--was full also, of loafers and luggage; so I despaired of quitting the Falls almost as much, by way of balance, as I rejoiced when they once again met my ken. But women are women all the world over; a black lady nursed Mungo Park, when he was abandoned by the world; and a charitable she-Samaritan crowded to make room for a disconsolate wayfarer. I felt very much as the nigger's parrot at New York did. Blacky was selling a parrot, and a gentleman asked him what the bird could do. Could he speak well? "No, massa; no peaky at all." "Can he sing?"--"No, massa; no peaky, no singy." "Why, what can he do, then, that you ask twenty dollars for him?" "Oh! massa, golly, he thinky dreadful much." So, when the daughter of Eve made way for me in the rail-car, why I thinky very much, that, wherever a stranger meets unexpected kindness, it is sure to be a woman that offers it. There were the usual host of American travellers in the cars; and as one generally gets a fund of anecdote and amusement on these occasions, from their habits of communicativeness, I shall put the English reader in possession of the meaning of words he often sees in the perusal of American newspapers and novels which I gathered. New York is the Empire State, and with the following comprises Yankee land, which word Yankee is most properly a corruption of Yengeese, the old Indian word for English; so that, by parity of reasoning, John Bull is, after all, a Yankee. Massachusetts The Bay State, Steady Habits. Rhode Island Plantation State. Vermont Banner State, or Green Mountain Boys. New Hampshire The Granite State. Connecticut Freestone State. Maine Lumber State. These are the Yankees, _par excellence_; and it is not polite or even civil for a traveller to consider or mention any of the other States as labouring under the idea that they ever could, by any possibility, be considered as Yankees; for, in the South, the word Yankee is almost equivalent to a tin pedlar, a sharp, Sam Slick. Pennsylvania is The Keystone State. New Jersey The Jersey (pronounced Jar-say) Blues. Delaware Little Delaware. Maryland Monumental. Virginia The Old Dominion, and sometimes the Cavaliers. North Carolina Rip Van Winckle. South Carolina The Palmetto State. Georgia Pine State. Ohio The Buckeyes. Kentucky The Corncrackers. Alabama Alabama. Tennessee The Lion's Den. Missouri The Pukes. Illinois The Suckers. Indiana The Hoosiers. Michigan The Wolverines. Arkansas The Toothpickers. Louisiana The Creole State. Mississippi The Border Beagles. I do not know what elegant names have been given to the Floridas, the Iowa, or any of the other territories, but no doubt they are equally significant. Texas, I suppose, will be called Annexation State. This information, although it appears frivolous, is very useful, as without it much of the perpetual war of politics in the States cannot be understood. Yankee in Europe is a sort of byword, denoting repudiation and all sorts of chicanery; but the Yankee States are more English, more intellectual, and more enterprising than all the rest put together; and Pennsylvania should be enrolled among them. In short, in the north-east you have the cool, calculating, confident, and persevering Yankee; in the south, the fiery, somewhat aristocratic, bold, and uncompromising American, full of talent, but with his energies a little slackened by his proximity to the equator and his habitual use of slave assistance. In the central States, all is progressive; a more agricultural population of mixed races, as energetic as the Yankee, but not possessing his advantages of a seaboard. The Western States are the pioneers of civilization, and have a dauntless, less educated, and more turbulent character, approaching, as you draw towards the setting sun, very much to the half-horse, half-alligator, and paving the way for the arts and sciences of Europe with the rifle and the axe. It is these Western States and the vast labouring population of the seaboard, who have only their manual labour to maintain them, without property or without possessions of any kind, that control the legislature, their numerical strength beating and bearing down mind, matter, and wealth. Doubtless it is the bane of the republican institution, as now settled in North America, that every man, woman, and child, in order to assert their equality, must meddle with matters far above the comprehension of a great majority; for, although the people of the United States can, as George the Third so piously wished for the people of England, read their bible, whenever they are inclined to do so, yet it is beyond possibility, as human nature is constituted, that all can be endowed with the same, or any thing like the same, faculties. Too much learning makes them mad; and hence the constant danger of disruption, from opposing interests, which the masses--for the word mob is not applicable here--must always enforce. The north and the south, the east and the west, are as dissimilar in habits, in thought, in action, and in interests, as Young Russia is from Old England, or as republican France was from the monarchy of Louis the Great. Hence is it that a Canadian, residing, as it were, on the Neutral Ground, can so much better appreciate the tone of feeling in America, as the United States' people love to call their country, than an Englishman, Scotchman, or Irishman can; for here are visible the very springs that regulate the machinery, which are covered and hidden by the vast space of the Atlantic. You can form no idea of the American character by the merchants, travelling gentry, or diplomatists, who visit London and the sea-ports. You must have lengthened and daily opportunities of observing the people of a new country, where a new principle is working, before you can venture safely to pronounce an attempt even at judgment. Monsieur Tocqueville, who is always lauded to the skies for his philosophic and truly extraordinary view of American policy and institutions, has perhaps been as impartial as most republican writers since the days of the enthusiast Volney, on the merits or demerits of the monarchical and democratic systems; yet his opinions are to be listened to very cautiously, for the leaven was well mixed in his own cake before it was matured for consumption by the public. Weak and prejudiced minds receive the doctrines of a philosopher like Tocqueville as dictations: he pronounced _ex cathedra_ his doctrines, and it is heresy to gainsay them. Yet, as an able writer in that universal book, "The Times," says, reason and history read a different sermon. That democracy is an essential principle, and must sooner or later prevail amongst all people, is very analogous to the prophecy of Miller, that the material world is to be rolled up as a garment, and shrivelled in the fire on the thirteenth day of some month next year, _or_ the year after. These fulminations are very semblable to those of the popes--harmless corruscations--a sort of aurora borealis, erratic and splendid, but very unreal and very unsearchable as to cause and effect. There can be, however, very little doubt in the mind of a person whose intellects have been carefully developed, and who has used them quietly to reason on apparent conclusions, that the form of government in the United States has answered a purpose hitherto, and that a wise one; for the impatience of control which every new-comer from the Old World naturally feels, when he discovers that he has only escaped the dominion of long-established custom to fall under the more despotic dominion of new opinions, prompts him, if he differs, and he always naturally does, where so many opinions are suddenly brought to light and forced on his acquiescence, to move out of their sphere. Hence emigration westward is the result; and hence, for the same reasons, the old seaboard States, where the force of the laws operates more strongly than in the central regions, annually pour out to the western forests their masses of discontented citizens. The feeling of old Daniel Boone and of Leather Stockings is a very natural one to a half-educated or a wholly uneducated man, and no doubt also many quiet and respectable people get harassed and tired of the caucusing and canvassing for political power, which is incessantly going on under the modern system of things in America, and take up their household gods to seek out the land flowing with milk and honey beyond the wilderness. No person can imagine the constant turmoil of politics in the Northern States. The writer already quoted says, that there is "one singular proof of the general energy and capacity for business, which early habits of self-dependence have produced;--almost every American understands politics, takes a lively interest in them (though many abstain under discouragement or disgust from taking a practical part), and is familiar, not only with the affairs of his own township or county, but with those of the State or of the Union; almost every man reads about a dozen newspapers every day, and will talk to you for hours, (_tant bien que mal_) if you will listen to him, about the tariff and the Ashburton treaty." And he continues by stating that this by no means interferes with his private affairs; on the contrary, he appears to have time for both, and can reconcile "the pursuits of a bustling politician and a steady man of business. Such a union is rarely found in England, and never on, the Continent." But what is the result of such a union of versatile talent? Politics and dollars absorb all the time which might be used to advantage for the mental aggrandizement of the nation; and every petty pelting quidnunc considers himself as able as the President and all his cabinet, and not only plainly tells them so every hour, but forces them to act as _he_ wills, not as _wisdom_ wills. There is a Senate, it is true, where some of this popular fervour gets a little cooling occasionally: but, although there are doubtless many acute minds in power, and many great men in public situations, yet the majority of the people of intellect and of wealth in the United States keep aloof whilst this order of things remains: for, from the penny-postman and the city scavenger to the very President himself, the qualification for office is popular subserviency. Thus, when Mr. Polk thunders from the Capitol, it is most likely not Mr. Polk's heart that utters such warlike notes of preparation, but Mr. Polk would never be re-elected, if he did not do as his rulers bid him do. It may seem absurd enough, it is nevertheless true, that this political furor is carried into the most obscure walks of life, and the Americans themselves tell some good stories about it; while, at the same time, they constantly din your ears with "the destinies of the Great Republic," the absolute certainty of universal American dominion over the New World, and the rapid decay and downfall of the Old, which does not appear fitted to receive pure Democracy.[5] [Footnote 5: One of the speakers against time, in a late debate on the Oregon question, quoted those fine lines, about "The flag that braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze," and said its glory was departing before the Stars and Stripes, which were to occupy its place in the event of war, from this time forth and for ever.] They tell a good story of a political courtship in the "New York Mercury," as decidedly one of the best things introduced in a late political campaign:-- "Inasmuch," says the editor, "as all the States hereabouts have concluded their labours in the presidential contest, we think we run no risk of upsetting the constitution, or treading upon the most fastidious toe in the universe, by affording our readers the same hearty laugh into which we were betrayed. "Jonathan walks in, takes a seat and looks at Sukey; Sukey rakes up the fire, blows out the candle, and don't look at Jonathan. Jonathan hitches and wriggles about in his chair, and Sukey sits perfectly still. At length he musters courage and speaks-- "'Sewkey?' "'Wall, Jon-nathan?' "'I love you like pizan and sweetmeats?' "'Dew tell.' "'It's a fact and no mistake--wi--will--now--will you have me--Sew--ky?' "'Jon--nathan Hig--gins, what am your politics?' "'I'm for Polk, straight.' "'Wall, sir, yew can walk straight to hum, cos I won't have nobody that ain't for Clay! that's a fact.' "'Three cheers for the Mill Boy of the Slashes!' sung out Jonathan. "'That's your sort,' says Sukey. 'When shall we be married, Jon--nathan?' "'Soon's Clay's e--lect--ed.' "'Ahem, ahem!' "'What's the matter, Sukey?' "'Sposing he ain't e--lect--ed?' "We came away." Verily, Monsieur De Tocqueville, you are in the right--democracy is an inherent principle. But the train is progressing, and we are passing Lundy's Lane, or, as the Americans call it, "The Battle Ground," where a bloody fight between Democracy and Monarchy took place some thirty years ago, and where "The bones, unburied on the naked plain," still are picked up by the grubbers after curiosities, and the very trees have the balls still sticking in them. Here woman, that ministering angel in the hour of woe, performed a part in the drama which is worth relating, as the source from which I had the history is from the person who owed so much to her, and whose gallantry was so conspicuous. Colonel Fitzgibbon, then in the 49th regiment, having inadvertently got into a position where his sword, peeping from under his great coat, immediately pointed him out as a British officer, was seized by two American soldiers, who had been drinking in the village public-house, and would either have been made prisoner or killed had not Mrs. Defield come to his rescue. Mr. Fitzgibbon was a tall, powerful, muscular person, and his captors were a rifleman and an infantry soldier, each armed with the rifle and musket peculiar to their service. By a sudden effort, he seized the rifle of one and the musket of the other, and turned their muzzles from him; and so firm was his grasp, that, although unable to wrest the weapon from either of them, they could not change the position. The rifleman, retaining his hold of his rifle with one hand, drew Mr. Fitzgibbon's sword with the other, and attempted to stab him in the side. Whilst watching his uplifted arm, with the intent, if possible, of receiving the thrust in his own arm, Mr. Fitzgibbon perceived the two hands of a woman suddenly clasp the rifleman's wrist, and carry it behind his back, when she and her sister wrenched the sword from him, and ran and hid it in the cellar. Mrs. Defield was the wife of the keeper of the tavern where this officer happened to have arrived; an old man, named Johnson, then came forward, and with his assistance Mr. Fitzgibbon took the two soldiers prisoners, and carried them to the nearest guard, although at that moment an American detachment of 150 men was within a hundred yards of the place, hidden however from view by a few young pine-trees. I am sure it will please the British reader to learn that the government granted 400 acres of the best land in the Talbot settlement to Edward Defield, for his wife's and sister-in-law's heroic conduct. Yet, such is the influence of example upon unreflecting minds dwelling on the frontiers of Upper Canada, that although in most instances the settlers are in possession of farms originally free gifts from the Crown, yet many of their sons were in arms against that Crown in 1837. Among these misguided youths was a son of Defield's, who surrendered, with the brigands commanded by Von Schultz, in the windmill, near Prescott, in the winter of 1838. He had crossed over from Ogdensburgh, and was condemned to a traitor's death. From Colonel Fitzgibbon's statement to the executive, this lad, in consideration of his mother's heroism, was pardoned. Mrs. Defield is still living. The three horses _en licorne_ trot us on, and we pass Lundy's Lane, Bloody Run, a little streamlet, whose waters were once dyed with gore, and so back to Niagara, where I shall take the liberty of saying a few words concerning the Welland Canal. The Welland Canal, the most important in a commercial point of view of any on the American continent--until that of Tchuantessegue, in Mexico, which I was once, in 1825, deputed to survey and cut, is formed, or that other projected through San Juan de Nicaragua--was originally a mere job, or, as it was called, a job at both ends and a failure in the middle, until it passed into the hands of the local government. If there has been any job since, it has not been made public, and it is now a most efficient and well conducted work, through which a very great portion of the western trade finds its way, in despite of that magnificent vision of De Witt Clinton's, the Erie Canal; and when the Welland is navigable for the schooners and steamers of the great lakes, it will absorb the transit trade, as its mouth in Lake Erie is free from ice several weeks sooner than the harbour of Buffalo. The old miserable wooden locks and bargeway have been converted into splendid stone walls and a ship navigation; and, to give some idea of the rising importance of the Welland Canal, I shall briefly state that the tolls in 1832 amounted to £2,432, in 1841 had risen to £20,210, and in 1843 to £25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.: and when the works are fairly finished, which they nearly are, this will be trebled in the first year; for it has been carefully calculated that the gross amount which would have passed of tonnage of large sailing craft only on the lakes, in 1844, was 26,400 tons, out of which only 7,000 had before been able to use the locks. All the sailing vessels now, with the exception of three or four, can pass freely; and three large steam propellers were built in 1844, whose aggregate tonnage amounted to 1,900 tons; they have commenced their regular trips as freight-vessels, for which they were constructed, and have been followed by the almost incredible use of Ericson's propeller. To show the British reader the importance of this work, connecting, as it does, with the St. Lawrence and Rideau Canals, the Atlantic Ocean, and Lakes Superior and Michigan, I shall, although contrary to a determination made to give nothing in this work but the results of personal inspection or observation, use the scissors and paste for once, and thus place under view a table of all the articles which are carried through this main artery of Canada, by which both import and export trade may be viewed as in a mirror, and this too before the canal is fairly finished. WELLAND CANAL. AMOUNT OF PROPERTY PASSED THROUGH, AND TOLLS COLLECTED. 1844. Beef and pork barrels, 41,976-1/4 Flour do. 305,208-1/2 Ashes do. 3,412 Beer and cider do. 50 Salt do. 213,212 Whiskey do. 931 Plaster do. 2,068-1/2 Fruit and nuts do. 470 Butter and lard do. 4,639-1/2 Seeds do. 1,429-1/2 Tallow do. 1,182 Water-lime do. 1,662 Pitch and tar do. 75 Fish do. 1,758-1/2 Oatmeal do. 132 Beeswax do. 36 Empty do. 3,044 Oil barrels, 96 Soap do. 13 Vinegar do. 24 Molasses do. 1 Caledonia water do. 10 Saw logs No. 10,411 Boards feet, 7,493,574 Square timber cubic feet, 490,525 Half flatted do. do. 13,922 Round do. do. 20,879 Staves, pipe do. 630,602 Do. W. I. do. 1,197,916 Do. flour barrel do. 130,500 Shingles do. 330,400 Rails do. 12,318 Racked hoops do. 59,300 Wheat bushels, 2,122,592 Corn do. 73,328 Barley do. 930 Rye do. 142 Oats do. 5,653 Potatoes do. 7,311 Peas do. 138 Butter and lard kegs, 4,669 Merchandize tons, 11,318 16 Coal do. 1,689 7 Castings do. 211 6 Iron do. 1,748 10 Tobacco do. 140 7 Grindstones do. 151 14 Plaster do. 1,491 10 Hides do. 101 15 Bacon and Hams do. 307 0 Bran and shorts tons, 231 11 Water-lime do. 441 7 Rags do. 3 0 Hemp do. 500 11 Wool do. 15 9 Leather do. 9 17 Cheese do. 1 2 Marble do. 1 10 Stone cords, 738-1/2 Firewood do. 3,251 Tan bark do. 957 Cedar posts do. 69 Hoop timber do. 16 Knees do. 184 Small packages No. 459 Pumps do. 102 Passengers do. 3,261-1/2 Sleighs do. 2 Waggons do. 177 Pails do. 136 Horses do. 2 Ploughs do. 25 Thrashing-machines do. 18 Cotton bales, 25 Fruit-trees bundles, 268 Sand cubic yards, 10,778 Schooners No. 2,121 Propellers do. 484 Scows do. 1,671 Boats do. 4 Rafts do. 118 Tonnage 327,570 Amount collected £25,573 3s. 10-1/4d. CHAPTER IX. The Great Fresh-water Seas of Canada. A sentimental journey in Canada is not like Sterne's, all about corking-pins and _remises_, monks and Marias, nor is it likely, in this utilitarian age, even if Sterne could be revived to write it, to be as immortal; nevertheless, let us ramble. The Welland Canal naturally leads one to reflect on the great sources of power spread before the Canadian nation; for, although it will never, never be _la nation Canadienne_, yet it will inevitably some day or other be the Canadian nation, and its limits the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. President Polk--they say his name is an abbreviation of Pollok--can no more dive into "the course of time" than that poet could do, and it is about as vain for him to predict that the American bald eagle shall claw all the fish on the continent of the New World, as it is to fancy that the time is never to come when the Canadian races, Norman-Saxon as they are, shall not assert some claim to the spoils. Canada is now happier under the dominion of Victoria than she could possibly be under that of the people of the States, and she knows and feels it. The natural resources of Canada are enormous, and developing themselves every day; and it needs neither Lyell, nor the yet unheard-of geologists of Canada to predict that the day is not far distant when her iron mines, her lead ores, her copper, and perhaps her silver, will come into the market.[6] [Footnote 6: Since I penned this, a company is forming to work valuable argentiferous copper-mines lately discovered on Lake Superior. The Americans are actually working rich mines of silver, copper, &c.] I see, in a paper lying before me, that Colonel Prince, a person who has already flourished before the public as an enterprising English farming gentleman, who combines the long robe with the red coat, has, with a worthy patriotism, obtained a very large grant of lands from the government to explore the shore of Lake Superior, in order to find whether the Yankees are to have all the copper to themselves; and that, in searching a little to the eastward of St. Mary's Rapids, a very valuable deposit has been discovered, which has stimulated other adventurers, who have found another mine nearer the outlet of the lake and still more valuable, the copper of which, lying near the surface, yields somewhere about seventy-five per cent.[7] [Footnote 7: A recent number of "The Scientific American," published in New York, contains the following:--Some of the British officers in Canada have lately made an important discovery of some of the richest copper-mines in the world. This discovery has created great excitement. Some of the officers, _en route_ to England, are now in the city, and will carry with them some specimens of the ore, and among them one piece weighing 2,200 lbs. The ore is very rich, yielding, as we learn, seventy-two per cent. of pure copper. Some of the copper was taken from the bed of a river, and some broken off from a cliff on the banks. The latter is six feet long, four broad, and six inches thick.] We know that rich iron mines exist, and are steadily worked in Lower Canada; we know that a vast deposit of iron, one of the finest in the world, has lately been discovered on the Ottawa, a river in the township of M'Nab; and we know that nothing prevents the Marmora and Madoc iron from being used but the finishing of the Trent navigation. Lead abounds on the Sananoqui river, and at Clinton, in the Niagara district; whilst plumbago, now so useful, is abundant throughout the line, where the primary and secondary rocks intersect each other. Mr. Logan, employed by the government, _ex cathedra_, says there is no coal in Canada; but still it appears that in the Ottawa country it is very possible it may be found, and that, if it is not, Cape Breton and the Gaspé lands will furnish it in abundance; and, as Canada may now fairly be said to be all the North American territory, embraced between the Pacific somewhere about the Columbia river, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, for a political union exists between all these provinces, if an acknowledged one does not, coal will yet be plentiful in Canada. Canada, thus limited, is now, _de facto_, ay, and _de jure_, British North America; and a fair field and a fertile one it is, peopled by a race neither to be frightened nor coaxed out of its birthright. The advantages of Canada are enormous, much greater, in fact, than they are usually thought to be at home. The ports of St. John's and of Halifax, without mentioning fifty others, are open all the year round to steamers and sea-going vessels; and when railroads can at all seasons bring their cargoes into Canada proper, then shall we live six months more than during the present torpidity of our long winters. John Bull, transported to interior Canada, is very like a Canadian black bear: he sleeps six months, and growls during the remaining six for his food. Then, in summer, there is the St. Lawrence covered with ships of all nations, the canals carrying their burthens to the far West and the great mediterraneans of fresh water, opening a country of unknown resources and extent. These great seas of Canada have often engaged my thoughts. Tideless, they flow ever onward, to keep up the level of the vast Atlantic, and in themselves are oceans. How is it that the moon, that enormous blister-plaster, does not raise them? Simply because there is some little error in the very accurate computations which give all the regulations of tidal waters to lunar influences. Barlow, one of the mathematical master-spirits of the age, was bold enough once to doubt this vast power of suction on the part of the ruler of the night; and there were certain wiseacres who, as in the case of Galileo, thought it very religiously dangerous indeed, to attempt to interfere with her privileges. But, in fact, the phenomenon of the tides is just as easy of explanation by the motion of the earth as it is by the moon's presumed drinking propensities, and, as she is a lady, let us hope she has been belied. The motion of the earth would not affect such narrow bodies of water as the Canadian lakes, but the moon's power of attraction would, if it existed to the extent supposed, be under the necessity of doing it, unless she prefers salt to fresh liquors. One may venture, now-a-days, to express such a doubt, particularly as Madam Moon is a Pagan deity. The great lakes are, however, very extraordinary in their way. Let us recollect what I have seen and thought of them. We will commence with Lake Superior, which is 400 miles in length, 100 miles wide, and 900 feet deep, where it has been sounded. It contains 32,000 square miles of water, and it is 628 feet above the level of the sea. Lake Michigan is 220 miles long, 60 miles wide, and 1,000 deep, as far as it has been sounded; contains 22,400 square miles, and is 584 feet above tide-water; but it is, in fact, only a large bay of Lake Huron, the grand lake, which is 240 miles long, without it averaging 86 miles in width, also averaging 1,000 feet deep, as far as soundings have been tried, contains 20,400 square miles, and is also about 584 feet above the tidal waters. Off Saginaw Bay, in this lake, leads have been sunk 1,800 feet, or 1,200 feet below the level of the Atlantic, without finding bottom. Green Bay, an arm of Michigan, is in itself 106 miles long, 20 miles wide, and contains 2,000 square miles. Lake St. Clair, 6 feet above Lake Erie, follows Lake Huron; but it is a mere enlargement of the St. Lawrence, of immense size, however, and shallow: it is 20 miles long, 14 wide, 20 feet deep, and contains 360 square miles. Then comes Lake Erie, the Stormy Lake, which is 240 miles long, 40 miles wide, 408 feet in its deepest part, and contains 9,600 square miles. Lake Erie is 565 feet above tide-water. Its average depth is 85 feet only. Lake Ontario, the Beautiful Lake, is 180 miles long, 45 miles wide, 500 feet average depth, where sounded successfully, but said to be fathomless in some places, and contains 6,300 square miles. It is 232 feet above the tide of the St. Lawrence. The Canadian lakes have been computed to contain 1,700 cubic miles of water, or more than half the fresh water on the globe, covering a space of about 93,000 square miles. They extend from west to east over nearly 15 degrees and a half of longitude, with a difference of latitude of about eight and a half degrees, draining a country of not less surface than 400,000 square miles. The greatest difference is observable between the waters of all these lakes, arising from soil, depth, and shores. Ontario is pure and blue, Erie pure and green, the southern part of Michigan nothing particular. The northern part of Michigan and all Huron are clear, transparent, and full of carbonic gas, so that its water sparkles. But the extraordinary transparency of the waters of all these lakes is very surprising. Those of Huron transmit the rays of light to a great depth, and consequently, having no preponderating solid matters in suspension, an equalization of heat occurs. Dr. Drake ascertained that, at the surface in summer, and at two hundred feet below it, the temperature of the water was 56°. One of the most curious things on the shallow parts of Huron is to sail or row over the submarine or sublacune mountains, and to feel giddy from fancy, for it is like being in a balloon, so pure and tintless is the water. It is, like Dolland's best telescopes, achromatic. The lakes are subject in the latter portion of summer to a phenomenon, which long puzzled the settlers; their surface near the shores of bays and inlets are covered by a bright yellow dust, which passed until lately for sulphur, but is now known to be the farina of the pine forests. The atmosphere is so impregnated with it at these seasons, that water-barrels, and vessels holding water in the open air, are covered with a thick scum of bright yellow powder. A curious oily substance also pervades the waters in autumn, which agglutinates the sand blown over it by the winds, and floats it about in patches. I have never been able to discover the cause of this; perhaps, it is petroleum, or the sand is magnetic iron. Singular currents and differently coloured streams also appear, as on the ocean; but, as all the lakes have a fall, no weed gathers, except in the stagnant bays. The bottom of Ontario is unquestionably salt, and no wonder that it should be so, for all the Canadian lakes were once a sea, and the geological formation of the bed of Ontario is the saliferous rock. I have often enjoyed on Ontario's shores, where I have usually resided, the grand spectacle which takes place after intense frost. The early morning then exhibits columns of white vapour, like millions of Geysers spouting up to the sky, curling, twisting, shooting upwards, gracefully forming spirals and pyramids, amid the dark ground of the sombre heavens, and occasionally giving a peep of little lanes of the dark waters, all else being shrouded in dense mist. People at home are very apt to despise lakes, perhaps from the usual insipidity of lake poetry, and to imagine that they can exhibit nothing but very placid and tranquil scenery. Lake Erie, the shallowest of the great Canadian fresh-water seas, very soon convinces a traveller to the contrary; for it is the most turbulent and the most troublesome sea I ever embarked upon--a region of vexed waters, to which the Bermoothes of Shakespeare is a trifle; for that is bad enough, but not half so treacherous and so thunder-stormy as Erie. Huron is an ocean, when in its might; its waves and swells rival those of the Atlantic; and the beautiful Ontario, like many a lovely dame, is not always in a good temper. I once crossed this lake from Niagara to Toronto late in November, in the Great Britain, a steamer capable of holding a thousand men with ease, and during this voyage of thirty-six miles we often wished ourselves anywhere else: the engine, at least one of them, got deranged; the sea was running mountains high; the cargo on deck was washed overboard; gingerbread-work, as the sailors call the ornamental parts of a vessel, went to smash; and, if the remaining engine had failed in getting us under the shelter of the windward shore, it would have been pretty much with us as it was with the poor fellow who went down into one of the deepest shafts of a Swedish mine. A curious traveller, one of "the inquisitive class," must needs see how the miners descended into these awful depths. He was put into a large bucket, attached to the huge rope, with a guide, and gradually lowered down. When he had got some hundred fathoms or so, he began to feel queer, and look down, down, down. Nothing could he see but darkness visible. He questioned his guide as to how far they were from the bottom, cautiously and nervously. "Oh," said the Swede, "about a mile." "A mile!" replied the Cockney: "shall we ever get there?"--"I don't know," said the guide. "Why, does any accident ever happen?"--"Yes, often."--"How long ago was the last accident, and what was it?"--"Last week, one of our women went down, and when she had got just where we are now, the rope broke."--"Oh, Heaven!" ejaculated the inquisitive traveller, "what happened to her?" The Swede, who did not speak very good English, put the palm of his right hand over that of his left, lifted the upper hand, slapped them together with a clap, and said, most phlegmatically--"Flat as a pankakka." I once crossed Ontario, in the same direction as that just mentioned, in another steamer, when the beautiful Ontario was in a towering passion. We had a poor fellow in the cabin, who had been a Roman Catholic priest, but who had changed his form of faith. The whole vessel was in commotion; it was impossible for the best sea-legs to hold on; so two or three who were not subject to seasickness got into the cabin, or saloon, as it is called, and grasped any thing in the way. The long dinner-table, at which fifty people could sit down, gave a lee-lurch, and jammed our poor _religioner_, as Southey so affectedly calls ministers of the word, into a corner, where chairs innumerable were soon piled over him. He abandoned himself to despair; and long and loud were his confessions. On the first lull, we extricated him, and put him into a birth. Every now and then, he would call for the steward, the mate, the captain, the waiters, all in vain, all were busy. At last his cries brought down the good-natured captain. He asked if we were in danger. "Not entirely," was the reply. "What is it does it, captain?"--"Oh," said the skipper, gruffly enough, "we are in the trough of the sea, and something has happened to the engine." "The trough of the _say_?"--my friend was an Irishman--"the trough of the say? is it that does it, captain?" But the captain was gone. During the whole storm and the remainder of the voyage, the poor ex-priest asked every body that passed his refuge if we were out of the trough of the say. "I know," said he, "it is the trough of the say does it." No cooking could be performed, and we should have gone dinnerless and supperless to bed, if we had not, by force of steam, got into the mouth of the Niagara river. All became then comparatively tranquil; she moored, and the old Niagara, for that was her name, became steady and at rest. Soon the cooks, stewards, and waiters, were at work, and dinner, tea, and supper, in one meal, gladdened our hearts. The greatest eater, the greatest drinker, and the most confident of us all, was our old friend and companion of the voyage, "the Trough of the Say," as he was ever after called. Such is tranquil Ontario. I remember a man-of-war, called the Bullfrog, being once very nearly lost in the voyage I have been describing; and never a November passes without several schooners being lost or wrecked upon Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario; whilst the largest American steamers on Erie sometimes suffer the same fate. Whenever Superior is much navigated, it will be worse, as the seasons are shorter and more severe there, and the shores iron-bound and mountainous. Through the Welland Canal there is now a continuous navigation of those lakes for 844 miles; and the St. Lawrence Canal being completed, and the La Chine Locks enlarged at Montreal, there will be a continuous line of shipping from London to the extremity of Lake Superior, embracing an inland voyage on fresh water of upwards of two thousand miles. Very little is required to accomplish an end so desirable. It has been estimated by the Topographical Board of Washington, that during 1843 the value of the capital of the United States afloat on the four lakes was sixty-five millions of dollars, or about sixteen millions, two hundred thousand pounds sterling; and this did not of course include the British Canadian capital, an idea of which may be formed from the confident assertion that the Lakes have a greater tonnage entering the Canadian ports than that of the whole commerce of Britain with her North American colonies. This is, however, _un peu fort_. It is now not at all uncommon to see three-masted vessels on Lake Ontario; and one alone, in November last, brought to Kingston a freight of flour which before would have required three of the ordinary schooners to carry, namely, 1500 barrels. A vessel is also now at Toronto, which is going to try the experiment of sailing from that port to the West Indies and back again; and, as she has been properly constructed to pass the canals, there is no doubt of her success. Some idea of the immense exertions made by the government to render the Welland Canal available may be formed by the size of the locks at Port Dalhousie, which is the entrance on Lake Ontario. Two of the largest class, in masonry, and of the best quality, have been constructed: they are 200 feet long by 45 wide; the lift of the upper lock is 11, and of the lower, 12, which varies with the level of Lake Ontario, the mitre sill being 12 feet below its ordinary surface. Steamers of the largest class can therefore go to the thriving village of St. Catherine's, in the midst of the granary of Canada. The La Chine Canal must be enlarged for ship navigation more effectually than it has been. I subjoin a list of colonial shipping for 1844 from Simmonds' "Colonial Magazine." NUMBER, TONNAGE, AND CREWS OF VESSELS, WHICH BELONGED TO THE SEVERAL BRITISH PLANTATIONS IN THE YEAR 1844:-- Countries. Vessels. Tons. Crews. Europe-- Malta, 85 15,326 893 Africa-- Bathurst, 25 1,169 215 Sierra Leone, 17 1,148 111 Cape of Good Hope, Cape Town, 27 3,090 265 Port Elizabeth, 2 201 10 Mauritius, 124 12,079 1,413 Asia-- Bombay, 113 50,767 3,393 Cochin, 15 5,674 275 Tanjore, 33 5,070 257 Madras, 32 5,474 248 Malacca, 2 288 13 Coringa, 17 3,384 126 Singapore, 13 1,543 289 Calcutta, 186 5,1779 2,004 Ceylon, 674 30,076 2,696 Prince of Wales Island, 7 996 51 New Holland-- Sydney, 293 28,051 2,128 Melbourne, 29 1,240 147 Adelaide, 17 864 60 Hobart Town, 103 7,153 724 Launceston, 42 3,150 257 New Zealand-- Auckland, 13 305 42 Wellington, 2 262 32 America-- Canada, Quebec, 509 45,361 2,590 " Montreal, 60 10,097 556 Cape Breton, Sydney, 369 15,048 1,296 " Arichat, 96 4,614 335 New Brunswick, Miramichi, 81 10,143 509 St. Andrews, 193 18,391 918 St. John, 398 63,676 2,480 Newfoundland, St. John, 847 53,944 4,567 Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1,657 82,890 5,292 Liverpool, 31 2,641 163 Pictou, 60 6,929 354 Yarmouth, 146 11,724 637 Prince Edward's Island, 237 13,851 857 West Indies, Antigua, 85 833 220 Bahama, 140 3,252 587 Barbadoes, 37 1,640 305 Berbice, 18 854 89 Bermuda, 54 3,523 323 Demerara, 54 2,353 250 Dominicia, 14 502 85 Grenada, 48 812 198 Jamaica, Port Antonio 5 95 22 Antonio Bay, 2 70 13 Falmouth, 5 107 29 Kingston, 68 2,659 359 Montego Bay, 18 849 105 Morant Bay, 9 251 51 Port Maria, 3 86 18 St. Ann's, 1 20 5 Savannah la Mar, 3 153 22 St. Lucca, 2 64 10 Montserrat, 4 100 19 Nevis, 11 178 45 St. Kitts, 35 546 114 S. Lucia, 19 013[*] 132 St. Vincent, 27 1,164 180 Tobago, 7 182 46 Tortola, 48 277 127 Trinidad, 61 1,832 378 ----- ------- ------ Total, 7,304 592,839 40,659 [*Transcriber's note: This figure is not correct] It will be seen, from the foregoing statement, that the tonnage of the vessels belonging to our colonies is about equal to that of the whole of the French mercantile marine, which in 1841 consisted of 592,266 tons--1842, 589,517--1843, 599,707. The tonnage of the three principal ports of Great Britain in 1844 was:-- London 598,552 Liverpool 307,852 Newcastle 259,571 --------- Total 1,165,975 On Lake Erie, the Canadians have a splendid steamer, the London, Captain Van Allen, and another still larger is building at Chippewa, which is partly owned by government, and so constructed as to carry the mail and to become fitted speedily for warlike purposes. Lake Ontario swarms with splendid British steam-vessels; but on Lake Huron there is only at present one, called in the Waterloo, in the employment of the Canada Company, which runs from Goderich to the new settlements of Owen's Sound. Propellers now go all the way to St. Joseph's, at the western extremity of Lake Huron; and the trade on this lake and on Michigan is becoming absolutely astonishing. Last year, a return of American and foreign vessels at Chicago, from the commencement of navigation on the 1st of April to the 1st of November only, shows that there arrived 151 steamers, 80 propellers, 10 brigs, and 142 schooners, making a total of 1,078 lake-going vessels, and a like number of departures, not including numerous small craft, engaged in the carrying of wood, staves, ashes, &c., and yet, such was the glut of wheat, that at the latter date 300,000 bushels remained unshipped. Upwards of a million of money will be expended by the Canadian Government in protecting and securing the transit trade of the lakes; and the Canadians have literally gone ahead of Brother Jonathan, for they have made a ship-canal round the Falls of Niagara, whilst "the most enterprising people on the face of the earth," who are so much in advance of us according to the ideas of some writers, have been, dreaming about it.--So much for the welfare of the earth being co-equal with democratic institutions, _à la mode Française_! The American government up to 1844 had spent only 2,100,000 dollars on the same objects, or about half a million sterling, according to the statement of Mr. Whittlesey of Ohio. But that government is actually stirring in another matter, which is of immense future importance, although it appears trivial at this moment, and that is the opening up of Lake Superior, where a new world offers itself. They have projected a ship-canal round, or rather by the side of the rapids of St. Marie. The length of this canal is said to be only, in actual cutting, three-quarters of a mile, and the whole expense necessary not more than 230,000 dollars, or about £55,000 sterling. The British government should look in time to this; it owns the other side of the Sault St. Marie, and the Superior country is so rich in timber and minerals that it is called the Denmark of America, whilst a direct access hereafter to the Oregon territory and the Pacific must be opened through the vast chain of lakes towards the Rocky Mountains by way of Selkirk Colony, on the Red River. The lakes of Canada have not engaged that attention at home which they ought to have had; and there is much interesting information about them which is a dead letter in England. Their rise and fall is a subject of great interest. The great sinking of the levels of late years, which has become so visible and so injurious to commerce, deserves the most attentive investigation. The American writers attribute it to various causes, and there are as many theories about it as there are upon all hidden mysteries. Evaporation and condensation, woods and glaciers, have all been brought into play. If the lakes are supplied by their own rivers, and by the drainage streams of the surrounding forests, and all this is again and again returned into them from the clouds, whence arises the sudden elevation or the sudden depression of such enormous bodies of water, which have no tides? The Pacific and the Atlantic cannot be the cause; we must seek it elsewhere. To the westward of Huron, on the borders of Superior, the land is rocky and elevated; but it attains only enormous altitudes at such a distance on the rocky Andean chain as to render it improbable that those mountains exert immediate influences on the lakes. The Atlantic also is too far distant, and very elevated land intervenes to intercept the rising vapours. On the north, high lands also exist; and the snows scarcely account for it, as the whole of North America near these inland seas is alike covered every year in winter. The north-east and the south-west winds are the prevalent ones, and a slight inspection of the maps will suffice to show that those compass bearings are the lines which the lakes and valleys of Northern America assume. In 1845, the lakes began suddenly to diminish, and to such a degree was this continued from June to December, when the hard frosts begin, that, at the commencement of the latter month, Lake Ontario, at Kingston, was three feet below its customary level, and consequently, in the country places, many wells and streams dried up, and there was during the autumn distress for water both for cattle and man, although the rains were frequent and very heavy. Whence, then, do the lakes receive that enormous supply which will restore them to their usual flow?--or are they permanently diminishing? I am inclined to believe that the latter is the case, as cultivation and the clearings of the forest proceed; for I have observed within fifteen years the total drying up of streamlets by the removal of the forest, and these streamlets had evidently once been rivulets and even rivers of some size, as their banks, cut through alluvial soils, plainly indicated. The lakes also exhibit on their borders, particularly Ontario, as Lyell describes from the information of the late Mr. Roy, who had carefully investigated the subject, very visible remains of many terraces which had consecutively been their boundaries. It is evident to observers who have recorded facts respecting the lakes, that but a small amount of vapour water is deposited by northeasterly winds from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the great estuary of that river, of which the lakes are only enlargements, as the wind from that region carries the cloud-masses from the lakes themselves direct to the valley of the Mississippi. For it meets with no obstacle from high lands on the western littorale, which is low. A north-east gale continues usually from three to six days, and generally without much rain; but all the other winds from south to westerly afford a plentiful supply of moisture. Thus a shift of wind from north-east to north and to north-west perhaps brings back the vapour of the great valley of the gulf, reduced in temperature by the chilly air of the north and west. If then an easterly gale continues for an unusual time, the basin of the Canadian lakes is robbed of much of its water, which passes to the rivers of the west, and is lost in the gulf of Mexico, or in the forest lakes of the wild West. Perhaps, therefore, whenever a cycle occurs in which north-east winds prevail during a year or a series of years, the lakes lose their level, for, their direction being north-east and south-west, such is the usual current of the air; and therefore either north-east or south-westerly winds are the usual ones which pass over their surface. The parts of the great inland navigation which suffer most in these periodical depressions are the St. Clair River and the shallow parts of those extensions of the St. Lawrence called Lakes St. Francis and St. Peter, which in the course of time will cause, and indeed in the latter already do cause, some trouble and some anxiety. The north winds, keen and cold, do not deposit much in the valley of the lakes, whose southern borders are usually too low also to prevent the passage of rain-bearing clouds. From that portion of the dividing ridge between the valleys of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi, only seven miles from Lake Erie, says an American writer, there is to Fort Wayne, at the head of the Maumee river, one hundred miles from the same lake, a gradual subsidence of the land from 700 to less than 200 feet. From Fort Wayne westward this dividing ridge rises only one hundred and fifty feet, and then gradually subsides to the neighbourhood of the south-west of Lake Michigan, where it is but some twenty feet above the level of that water. The basin of the Mississippi, including its great tributary streams, receives therefore a very great portion of the falling vapour, from all the winds blowing from north to north-east. The same reasoner agrees with the views which I have expressed respecting the probability of the supply to raise the level, which must be the great feeder derived from the south and south-westward invariably rainy winds, when of long continuance, in the basin of the St. Lawrence, and generated by the gulf stream in its gyration through the Mexican Bay, being heaped up from the trade wind which causes the oceanic current, and forces its heated atmosphere north and north-east, by the rebound which it takes from the vast Cordilleras of Anahuac and Panama; thus depositing its cooling showers on the chain of the fresh water seas of Canada, condensed as they are by the natural air-currents from the icy regions of the western Andes of Oregon, and the cold breezes from the still more gelid countries of the north-west. The American topographical engineers, as well as our own civil engineers and savans, have accurately measured the heights and levels of the lakes, which I have already given; but one very curious fact remains to be noticed, and will prove that it is by no means a visionary idea that, from the great island of Cuba, which must be an English outpost, if much further annexation occurs, voyages will be made to bring the produce of the West Indies and Spanish America into the heart of the United States and Canada by the Mississippi and the rivers flowing into it, and by the great lakes; so that a vessel, loading at Cuba, might perform a circuit inland for many thousand miles, and return to her port _via_ Quebec. From the Gulf of Mexico to the lowest summits of the ridge separating the basin of the Mississippi from that of the St. Lawrence or great lakes, the rise does not exceed six hundred feet, and the graduation of the land has an average of not more than six inches to a mile in an almost continuous inclined plane of six thousand miles. The Americans have not lost sight of this natural assistance to form a communication between the lakes and the Mississippi. My attention has been drawn to the subsidence of the waters of the lakes of Canada by the unusual lowness of Ontario, on the banks of which I lived last year, and by reading the statement of the American writer above quoted, as well as by the fact that in the Travels of Carver, one of the first English navigators on these mediterraneans, who states that a small ship of forty tons, in sailing from the head of Lake Michigan to Detroit, was unable to pass over the St. Clair flats for want of water, and that the usual way of passing them eighty years ago was in small boats. What a useful thing it would have been, if any scientific navigators or resident observers had registered the rise and fall of the lakes in the years since Upper Canada came into our possession! An old naval officer told me that it was really periodical; and it occurred usually, that the greatest depression and elevation had intervals of seven years. Lake Erie is evidently becoming more shallow constantly, but not to any great or alarming degree; and shoals form, even in the splendid roadstead of Kingston, within the memory of young inhabitants. An American revenue vessel, pierced for, I believe, twenty-four guns, and carrying an enormous Paixhan, grounded in the autumn of last year on a shoal in that harbour, which was not known to the oldest pilot. By the bye, talking of this vessel, which is a steamer built of iron, and fitted with masts and sails, the same as any other sea-going vessel, can it be requisite, in order to protect a commerce which she cannot control beyond the line drawn through the centre of the lakes, to have such a vessel for revenue purposes? or is she not a regular man-of-war, ready to throw her shells into Kingston, if ever it should be required? At least, such is the opinion which the good folks of that town entertained when they saw the beautiful craft enter their harbour. The worst, however, of these iron boats is that two can play at shelling and long shots; and gunnery-practice is now brought to such perfection, that an iron steamer might very possibly soon get the worst of it from a heavy battery on the level of the sea; for a single accident to the machinery, protected as it is in that vessel, would, if there was no wind, put her entirely at the mercy of the gunners. The old wooden walls, after all, are better adapted to attack a fortress, as they can stand a good deal of hammering from both shot and shells. But to revert to matters more germane to the lakes. Volney, the first expounder of the system of the warm wind of the south supplying the great lakes, has received ample corroboration of his data from observation. The fact that the deflection of the great trade-wind from the west to a northern direction by the Mexican Andes Popocatepetl, Istaccihuetl, Naucampatepetl, &c., whose snowy summits have a frigid atmosphere of their own, is proved by daily experience. Whenever southerly winds prevail--and, in the cycle of the gyration of atmospherical currents, this is certain, and will be reduced to calculation--the great lakes are filled to the edge; and whenever northern and northeasterly winds take their appointed course, then these mediterraneans sink, and the valley of the Mississippi is filled to overflowing. But the most curious facts are, that the different lakes exhibit different phenomena. The Board of Public Works of Ohio states that, in 1837-38, the quantity of water descending from the atmosphere did not exceed one-third of that which was the minimum quantity of several preceding years. Ontario, from the reports of professional persons, has varied not less than eight feet, and Erie about five. Huron and Superior being comparatively unknown, no data are afforded to judge from; but what vast atmospheric agencies must be at work when such wonderful results in the smaller lakes have been made evident! People who live at the Niagara Falls, and I agree with them in observations extending over a period since 1826, believe that these Falls have receded considerably; and, although I do not enter into the mathematical analysis of modern geologists respecting them, as to their constant retrocession, believing that earthquake split open the present channel, yet I have no doubt that the level of Lake Erie is considerably affected by the diminution of the yielding shaly rocks of their foundation. Earthquake, and not retrocession, appears to me, who have had the singular advantage, as a European, of very long residence, to have been the cause of that great chasm which now forms the bed of the Niagara, from the Table Rock to Queenston, in short, a rending or separating of the rocks rather than a wearing; and this is corroborated by the many vestiges of great cataracts which now exist near the Short Hills, the highest summit of the Niagara frontier, between Lakes Erie and Ontario, as well as by the great natural ravine of St. David's. But this is a subject too deep for our present purpose, and so we shall continue to treat of the Great Lakes in another point of view. Chemically considered, these lakes possess peculiar properties, according to their boundaries. Superior is too little known to speak of with certainty--Huron not much better--but Erie, and particularly Ontario, have been well investigated. The waters of these are pure, and impregnated chiefly with aluminous and calcareous matter, giving to the St. Lawrence river a fresh and admirable element and aliment. The St. Lawrence is of a fine cerulean hue, but, like its parent waters of Erie and Ontario, rapidly deposits lime and alumine, so that the boilers of steam-vessels, and even teakettles, soon become furred and incrusted. The specific gravity of the St. Lawrence water above Montreal is about 1·00038, at the temperature of 66°, the air being then 82° of Fahrenheit. It contains the chlorides, sulphates, and carbonates, whose bases are lime and magnesia, particularly and largely those of lime, which accounts for the rapid depositions when the water is heated. A very accurate analysis gives, at Montreal, in July, atmospheric air in solution or admixture 446 per cent; for a quart of this water, 57 inches cubic measure, evaporated to dryness, left 2.87 solid residue. Grains. Sulphate of magnesia 0·62 Chloride of calcium 0·38 Carbonate of magnesia 0·27 Carbonate of lime 1·29 Silica 0·31 ---- 2·87 The waters of the Ottawa, flowing through an unexplored country, are of a brown or dark colour. Their specific gravity is only (compared to distilled water) as 1·0024 at 66°, the temperature of the air in July being 82°. The 57 cubic inches of this water gave 0·99 sulphate of magnesia. 0·60 chloride of lime. 1·07 carbonate of magnesia. 0·17 carbonate of lime. 0·31 silica. ---- 2·87 The difference of the colours of these waters is so great, that a perfect line of distinction is drawn where they cross each other; and there can be no doubt that it is caused by the reflection of the rays of light from the impregnation of different saline quantities. Thus as, in the old world, the waters of the Shannon are brown, and Ireland, speaking generally, as Kohl says, is a "brown" country;[8] so, in Upper Canada, St. Lawrence and the lakes are blue and green; and in Lower Canada, St. Lawrence and the Ottawa are brown of various shades, a very slight alteration of the chemical components reflecting rays of colour as forcibly and perceptibly as, in like manner, a very slight change of component parts develops sugar and sawdust. Nature, in short, is very simple in all her operations. [Footnote 8: Canada is a blue country; for, a very short distance from the observer, the atmosphere tinges everything blue; and the waters are chiefly of that colour, the sky intensely so.] Before we proceed to the lower extremity of these wonderful sheets of water again, let us just for a moment glance at what is about to be achieved upon their surfaces, and place the Sault of St. Marie or St. Mary's Rapids, which separate Superior from Huron, before an Englishman's eyes. There at present nothing is talked of but copper mines and silver or argentiferous copper ores. The Falls of St. Mary are only rapids of no very formidable character, the exit of Lake Superior into Lake Huron. Fifteen miles from the end of the Great Lake, as Superior is called, are the American village of St. Mary and the British one of the same name, on the opposite bank of the River St. Mary. The Americans have so far strengthened their position, that there is a sort of fort, called Fort Brady, with two companies of regulars; and in and about the village are scattered a thousand people of every possible colour and origin, a great portion being, of course, half-breeds and Indians. The American Fur Company has also a post at this place, one of the very few remaining; for the fur trade in these regions is rapidly declining by the extirpation of the animals which sustained it. The American government have projected a ship canal to avoid these rapids; and, if that is completed, a vast trade will soon grow up. About a mile above the village is the landing-place from Lake Superior, at the head of the rapids; there the strait is broad and deep; but, until steamers are built, sailing vessels suffer the disadvantage of being moveable out of the harbour by an east wind only, and this wind does not blow there oftener than once a month. It is probable that a proper harbour will be constructed at the foot of the lake, fifteen miles above. These rapids have derived their French name _Sault_ from their rushing and leaping motion; but they are very insignificant when compared to the Longue Sault on the St. Lawrence, as the inhabitants cross them in canoes. I cannot describe them more minutely than Mrs. Jameson has done in her "Summer Rambles." She crossed them, and must have experienced some trepidation, for it requires a skilful voyageur to steer the canoe; and it is surprising with what dexterity the Indian will shoot down them as swiftly as the water can carry his fragile vessel. The Indians, however, consider such feats much in the same light as a person fond of boating would think of pulling a pair of oars, or sculling himself across the current of a rivulet. I was once subjected to a rather awkward exemplification of this fact. Being on a hurried journey, and expecting to be frozen in, as it is called, before I could terminate it; I hired an Indian and his little canoe, just big enough to hold us both, and pushed through by-ways in the forest streams and portages. We were paddling merrily along a pretty fair stream, which ran fast, but appeared to reach many miles ahead of us; when, all of a sudden, my guide said, "Sit fast." I perceived that the water was moving much more rapidly than it had hitherto done, and that the Indian had wedged himself in the stern, and was steering only with the paddle. We swept along merrily for a mile, till "The White Horses," as the breakers are called, began to bob their heads and manes. "Hold fast!" ejaculated the Red Man. I laid hold of both edges of the canoe, firm as a rock, and in a moment the horrid sound of bursting, bubbling, rushing waters was in mine ears; foam and spray shut out every thing; and away we went, down, down, down, on, on, on, as swift as thought, until, all of a sudden, the little buoyant piece of birch-bark floated like a swan upon the bosom of the tranquil waters, a mile beyond the Fall, for such indeed it might be called, the absolute difference of level having been twelve feet. When at ease again, I looked at the imperturbable savage and said, "What made you take the Fall? was not the _détour_ passable?"--"Yes, suppose it was! Fall better!"--"But is it very dangerous?"--"Yes, suppose, sometime!"--"Any canoes ever lost there?"--"Yes, sometime; one two, tree days ago, there!" pointing to a large rock in the middle of the narrowest part above our heads.--"Did you come down there?"--"Yes, suppose, did!" Then, thought I to myself, I shall not trust my body to your guidance in future without knowing something of the route beforehand; but I afterwards got accustomed to these taciturn sons of the forest. The Falls of St. Marie are celebrated as a fishing place; and the white fish caught there are reckoned superior to those taken in any other part of Lake Huron. The fishery is picturesque enough, and is carried on in canoes, manned usually by two Indians or half-breeds, who paddle up the rapids as far as practicable. The one in the bow has a scoop-net, which he dips, as soon as one of these glittering fish is observed, and lands him into the canoe. Incredible numbers of them are taken in this simple manner; but it requires the canoemanship and the eye of an Indian. The French still show their national characteristics in this remote place. They first settled here before the year 1721, as Charlevoix states; and, in 1762, Henry, a trader on Lake Huron, found them established in a stockaded fort, under an officer of the French army. The Jesuits visited Lake Superior as early as 1600; and in 1634 they had a rude chapel, the first log hut built so far from civilization, in this wilderness. At present, the population are French, Upper Canadians, English, Scotch, Yankees, Indians, half-breeds. The climate is healthy, very cold in winter, with a short but very warm summer, and always a pure air. Here the Aurora Borealis is seen in its utmost glory. In summer there is scarcely any night; for the twilight lasts until eleven o'clock, and the tokens of the returning sun are visible two hours afterwards. The extremes of civilized and savage life meet at St. Mary's; for here live the educated European or American, and the pure heathen Red Man; here steamboats and the birch canoe float side by side; and here all-powerful Commerce is already recommencing a deadly rivalry between the Briton and the American, not for furs and peltry, as in days gone by, but for copper and for metals; and here a new world is about to be opened, and that too very speedily. Here are Indian agents and missionaries, with schools, both the English and the United States' government considering the entrance to the Red Man's country, whose gates are so narrow and still closed up, to be of very great importance, both in a commercial and a political point of view; but it is notorious that, after the French Canadians, the Red Man prefers his Great Mother beyond the Great Lake and her subjects to the President and the people, who are rather too near neighbours to be pleasant, and who have somewhat unceremoniously considered the natives of the soil as so many obstacles to their aggrandizement. I shall end this sketch of the lakes, by a few observations upon the magnetic phenomena regarding them, and respecting the variation of the compass. Fort Erie, near the eastern termination of Lake Erie, and close to the Niagara river, presents the line of no variation; whilst at the town of Niagara, on the south-west end of Lake Ontario, not more than thirty-six miles from Fort Erie, the variation in 1832 was 1° 20' east. The line of no variation is marked distinctly on the best maps of Canada, by the division line between the townships of Stamford and Niagara, seven miles north of Niagara. At Toronto in 43° 39' north latitude, and 78° 4' west longitude, twenty-four miles north-east of Niagara, the variation in 1832 was more than 2° easterly. The shore of Lake Huron at Nottawassaga Bay, forty miles north-west of Toronto, is again the line of no variation. Thus a magnetic meridian lies between Fort Erie and Nottawassaga. A magnetic observatory is established by the Board of Ordnance at Toronto, near the University, and placed in charge of two young officers of artillery, which says a good deal for the scientific acquirements of that corps. I shall perhaps hereafter advert to this subject more at large, as the volcanic rocks have much to do with the needle in Canada West. END OF VOL. I. Frederick Shoberl, Junior, Printer to His Royal Highness Prince Albert. 51, Rupert Street, Haymarket, London. 
34002	----	[Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: "The great branch torn from a neighbouring maple told all the tale."--_p._ 20] DICK'S DESERTION A Boy's Adventures in Canadian Forests A TALE OF THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF ONTARIO By MARJORIE L. C. PICKTHALL WITH SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS Toronto: The Musson Book Company, Limited. 1905 CONTENTS. CHAP. I. IN THE HEART OF THE WOODS II. THE FALL OF THE TREE III. FRIENDS INDEED IV. A DAY IN THE WOODS V. A BACKWOODS CHRISTMAS VI. THE CALL OF THE FOREST VII. A MESSAGE FROM THE WANDERER VIII. A WOOD'S ADVENTURE IX. ON THE PRAIRIE X. IN THE GRIP OF THE STORM XI. BACK TO STEPHANIE XII. TO A GOODLY HERITAGE ILLUSTRATIONS "The great branch torn from a neighbouring maple told all the tale." . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ "'If I had fifty rivers and fifty canoes, I could not leave Stephanie.'" "They began to sing the old carols their mother had taught them long before." "He flung out his arm, circled with savage ornaments--flung it out with a wild gesture, and began to speak." "He held out a tiny package, wrapped in birch-bark, with an inquiring glance towards her." "'For pity's sake, let me alone!' Dick pleaded. 'Go on and leave me.'" "'Dick! Dick! Where are you?'" DICK'S DESERTION: A Boy's Adventures in Canadian Forests. CHAPTER I. In the Heart of the Woods. It was early fall, and all the world was golden. Golden seemed the hazy warmth of the sky; golden were the willow leaves and the delicate foliage of the birches; even the grass, pale from the long heat of the summer, had taken on a tinge of the all-pervading colour. Far as the eye could reach, the woods and uplands were bright with gold, relieved only by the deep sombre green of pines and hemlocks. Save for these, it seemed a country that some gracious Midas had touched, turning everything to ethereal, elfin gold. The Midas-touch had even included the little log-cabin and its untidy clearing, for broad-disced sunflowers were scattered over the neglected garden, and between them bloomed late goldenrod, which had crept in from the wilds outside; and a small patch of ground was covered with shocks of Indian corn, roughly bound together, yellowing also beneath the influence of sun and frost. The land was beautiful to look upon--Ontario scenery, marred little by the works of man in that autumn of 1820, when His Most Gracious Majesty George IV. was king. And the log-cabin and its clearing were picturesque enough to the eye of an artist, though speaking of all lack of skill and thrift and industry to the eye of a farmer. Even the garden in front of the cabin was being slowly and surely swallowed up into the wilderness again. The sunflowers flourished and bloomed and seeded, forming food-stores for multitudes of birds; and the squirrels would flicker down the tree-trunks and feast upon the seeds which the birds dropped, spitting the hard shells deftly to right and left through their whiskers. But the wild asters and the long convolvulus vines were choking the blossomless pinks and the sweet-williams and the few shy English flowers that were left. There were only very few of these fading alien plants for the healthy native growth to smother and kill, most of them having been taken away to set upon the grave of the woman who had cherished them. In the centre of this neglected garden grew a clump of sumach trees, heavy with their clumsy crimson cones; and beneath these, in a little hollow lined with all the dead drift of the October woods, a boy was lying. He was about sixteen, burnt brown as any young savage of the forests, but with sun-bleached fair hair and blue eyes to proclaim his English birth. His clothes were of very coarse homespun, and he wore a pair of old moccasins and a deerskin belt, brightened with gaudy Indian-work of beads and dyed grasses. The whole clearing was crying out for some skilled hand to tend and reclaim it once more from the encroaching wilderness; but this sturdy lad lay there with all the busy idleness of a savage, very deftly making a tiny canoe of birch-bark. He seemed a fit occupant for the tangled garden and the half-cultivated fields. Five years before, a certain Captain Underwood, flying from financial disaster in England, had come to Canada with his wife and his two children, Dick and Stephanie. There was roving blood in the Underwoods, so perhaps it was not surprising that the unfortunate captain should have ranged farther afield in Ontario than others had then done; for he left the settlements and the surveyed townships behind him, and struck farther north, wishing to get as far away as possible from the world that had brought him ruin. In the friendly forests, a little beyond the region where the white settlers had penetrated, but not entirely out of touch with them, he found a natural clearing, and here he had built his tiny cabin and roughly marked out his small fields. Here, perhaps, the poor man, knowing nothing of the country, had thought to live a sort of idyllic hermit existence. But he found it very different. It was a terrible life to which he had brought his wife and children; and when Mrs. Underwood died, three years after leaving England, he blamed himself for her death. Most of his heart he buried with her in that lonely grave under the mighty maples on the hill; and afterwards he turned to the wild life around him as to his only help and comfort. But he had no longer the courage to fight the farmer's fight, the primitive conflict between man's skill and nature's strength. Soon the garden that his wife had loved became overgrown with native flowers and weeds. Soon the bushes and the grass crept inwards over his fields. Soon his son and daughter shot up from childhood to youth, perfectly healthy in their hard life. Stephanie was fifteen years old, and being as strong as a young lynx, she did all the work of the log-cabin. She made a rough sort of corn cake which served for bread, she prepared the endless pea-soup and pork, she washed and mended and even made the clothes. Dick helped his father, or idled away on little hunting expeditions of his own, from which he returned happy and rarely empty-handed. It was a strange life for a boy and girl, carefully and lovingly brought up amid English comforts and ease, to lead. Their nearest neighbours, the Collinsons, with whom Captain Underwood did most of his little trading, were twenty miles distant. Kindly Mrs. Collinson had offered Stephanie a home when Mrs. Underwood died, but the girl had chosen to stay with her father and Dick, and be the one influence which restrained that little household in the woods from lapsing into the happy-go-lucky sort of savagery to which even the most cultivated are liable in a new land. I do not think that we of this generation can quite realise the life which was led in Upper Canada eighty years ago, when forest and swamp and bush foretold nothing of the great farms and cities and thriving towns which now replace them to such a great extent. Those first settlers did not foresee the heights of prosperity and hope to which the land would rise in the time of their children. They looked upon it rather as some unfriendly place from which they might wrest a living, than as a goodly country given them that they and their children and their children's children might labour in it and love it and enjoy it--and fight and die for it if need were. All their love and remembrance they gave to those little Isles across the sea; but, willy-nilly, they were obliged to give their wit and muscle to Canada. They fought against hardships and privations that were almost incredible, chiefly in the hope that they might win enough from the New World to take them back in comfort to the Old. They thought chiefly of making provision for present needs, not foreseeing that their toil went to the making of a nation, the building of an Empire. They wrought indeed better than they knew. No prophetic vision of the mighty future came to Dick Underwood as he lay beneath the sumachs that golden October day, nearly ninety years ago. He gave all the sentiment of which his boyish heart was capable to his fading memories of his English home, even as his father did--laying these recollections aside, as it were, in a sacred place. But here the likeness to his father ceased; for he looked forward in vast, ignorant, splendid dreams to the possibilities of the land of his adoption--not the possibilities of trade and agriculture, which seldom attract youth--but to the more alluring chances of those great Unknown Lands, to the wonder and mystery of the Indian-haunted North. He did not put this feeling into words. Indeed, he did not know how to describe it, or what it was. But it is written in the history books that in Talon's time the welfare of the French colony was endangered by the number of young men who took to the woods, obeying the "call of the wild." It was this that moved Dick Underwood. It moved him then as he lay lazily in the sweet, new-fallen leaves, so deftly shaping that little canoe of birch bark; and he wished, with a half smile at himself, that it might turn out to be a fairy canoe, suddenly growing to full size, and bearing him away on some new risen fairy river, into the land of his dreams. "But if I had fifty rivers and fifty canoes," he said to himself with a sigh, "I could not leave Stephanie." [Illustration: "'IF I HAD FIFTY RIVERS AND FIFTY CANOES, I COULD NOT LEAVE STEPHANIE.'"] It was the old struggle, though he did not know it--the voice of the wilderness striving against the voice of the home ties. This time the voice of the home ties sang in triumph at thought of Stephanie; but there comes a time occasionally in a man's life when his mother the woman may mean less to him for a space than his mother the earth. But with Dick the crisis had not yet come; and he scrambled to his feet very contentedly, and proceeded to a little marsh close at hand, where all sorts of fair swamp plants grew--feathery green things, and jewelled touch-me-not, and jacks-in-the-pulpit, and long-stemmed violets in season. For the tiny canoe was to be filled with little ferns and soft mosses as a gift for Stephanie, and that thought of the fairy river was forgotten. This important business attended to, he turned slowly and reluctantly towards home. But the woods were full of sights and sounds that appealed to every half-awakened instinct in the boy's soul. A small, brown, hawk-faced owl lay stupidly at the mouth of a sort of tunnel it had made for itself in the long, bleached grasses. So perfectly did it resemble a piece of decayed and mottled wood that even Dick's keen eye almost passed it over, until it sprang up from this cosy day-time retreat, and blundered away among the trees. Dragon-flies, unlike their brethren of the earlier year, in that they were clad in crimson and russet plush, and not in green and pink and sapphire mail, took their flashing flights among the faded undergrowth. The air was warm and golden still, but a keen nose might detect in it a threatening of frost; and the fallen leaves yielded a delicate fragrance as of damp earth and new mown hay. A chipmunk ran down a tree trunk and scolded him viciously, and then fled before him to another tree, where it awaited him angrily, evidently under the impression that he was following it with evil designs upon its winter stores. In this way it preceded him to the edge of the corn-field, and finally vanished into a hole in a half-dead pine that stood near the clearing, putting out its head once more with a last outpouring of abuse. "Oh! little fellow," said Dick, "I am afraid your nuts will be wasted, for to-morrow we chop the tree down. But I 've promised Stephanie that first I 'll climb up and poke you out with a stick--and get bitten for my pains, I suppose, you little spitfire. So you need not be afraid you 'll be killed." He ran a hand over the smooth bark, blue-black, mottled with fragile green lichens, with no thought of its beauty. "Half rotten," he said to himself, "and it ought to go down as easily as a bulrush." And he turned away, his mind full of the fascinating way in which the bright blades of the axes would bite deep through that beautiful dark bark into the sweet-smelling white wood beneath; of how the chips would scatter and fly, and lie like creamy shreds of ivory underfoot; of the tremor that would seem to shake the neighbouring woods at the sound of the falling of the tree. CHAPTER II. The Fall of the Tree. Next morning the year had grown perceptibly older; or so it seemed to Stephanie, as she stood in the doorway of the log-cabin, looking across the misty clearing to the golden forests that encircled it. The fallen leaves looked browner, each furred at the edge with a delicate fringe of hoar-frost; and the newly risen sun strove as yet in vain to send some heat through the faint, cold haze. It was more penetratingly chill than if it had been the drier winter time. Stephanie snuggled into her little gray shawl with a keen appreciation of its rough warmth, and watched her breath floating as tiny silver clouds in the almost motionless air. She was a tall, strong girl, with an unexpectedly plaintive face--a quaint, dark-eyed face which suited well with her quaint foreign name. Already she looked older than Dick, for her eyes were grave, and her mouth had taken a firm, responsible curve; it was a look which comes sometimes to motherless girls who have men-folk to manage and care for. The room behind her was neat and clean, but almost bare of even such comforts as might have been found in pioneer homes. Here and there some little stool or shelf showed that her brother's deft fingers had been at work; but in this as in most things he lacked the steadiness of application which would have served to better their lot. And Captain Underwood was a broken man, plunged in a lethargy of remorse and disappointment which threatened never to lighten. Since her mother's death, life would have been almost unendurable to Stephanie had it not been for two things: these were the passionate affection existing between herself and Dick, and her intense love for and kinship with nature. All her scanty hours of idleness she spent roaming about the clearing or the edge of the forest--she knew the haunts of every weed and flower for a mile around. In the winter, flocks of little hungry birds were her pensioners, and it is likely that she would have seriously diminished their own stores in feeding them, had not Dick collected berries and wild rice and seeds in the fall as a provision for emergencies. On this keen autumn morning there were very few birds about; the robins had flown, and the owls were going to bed; far away some noisy crows wheeled and cawed above the trees, but no longer could Stephanie hear the innumerable small twitterings and tentative songs of a morning in the summer. The forest was very silent. Indeed, the only sound that broke the half-awakened quietness was the distant thud and throb of axes biting deep into the trunk of a tree. It was a curiously insistent sound, that seemed to claim more notice than it was worth. Very clearly on the clear air was borne the noise of every blow, and occasionally a faint crack as of a blade being wrenched away. It forced itself on Stephanie's attention, growing louder and fainter as slight breaths of wind moved the hazy air, but never ceasing in its continual, irregular thud--thud; thud--thud. Her father and Dick were chopping down the half-dead pine; she could distinguish the difference between the weight of their respective strokes. Half unconsciously she listened. There was no cessation in the dull noise; and to her it seemed full of threat and menace. She fancied that the other trees must be shaking all their remaining leaves in fear that a like fate might befall them, and she hoped that Dick had remembered to chase the chipmunk out of his hole. The chipmunk had been a friend of hers, and she used to drop acorns at the foot of the tree where he might find them. Vaguely she wondered whether she would recognise the little fellow again if she saw him in some other tree, and concluded that it was scarcely possible. While all the time the thud--thud of the axes seemed to weave itself into a sort of irregular accompaniment to her wandering thoughts. And then suddenly she was aware that it had stopped, and that a brief silence had once more fallen over the golden woods and the hazy field of corn. The silence was broken by a sharp crack. Then a series of small tearing, rushing, rending sounds ended in a mighty crash. Stephanie knew that the tree was down, and an odd little feeling of regret came over her; once more there was a moment of utter silence. Then, sharp and keen and terribly distinct, she heard a wild cry from Dick. She had run down the garden almost before that cry ceased to ring in the air, and now she fled over the rough ground outside with as swift and sure a step as a young deer might use. Her face was grey and drawn with the sense of coming disaster, but neither her feet nor her breath failed her as she breasted the low rise of ground, slippery with pine needles, which lay between her and the place from which that cry had come. As she gained the crest of the hill, she staggered back a step and almost fell, but recovered and ran on, though for a minute she was blind and deaf and scarcely conscious. The pine, shorn of its few branches, lay upon the ground, and near the stump lay her father, with Dick kneeling beside him. When her sight came back to her, she found that she also was kneeling there, staring stupidly at her brother's agonised face, and at the great branch torn from a neighbouring maple, which told all the terrible tale. Somewhere in the silent woods a chipmunk chattered shrilly, and she wondered when it would stop, for the noise hurt her head. Someone seemed to be saying drearily over and over again, "What are we to do? What are we to do?" and she felt angry with the momentous question. Surely silence was the only fitting thing. Then her senses seemed suddenly to wake into painful life again, and she stood up and looked about in dry-eyed desperation. That her father was seriously injured she knew, for the branch had struck him at the base of the head. But he appeared to be still living; and what were they to do for the best? A feeling of their utter loneliness swept over her, bringing back that other irremediable loss of two years ago. Once more she knelt in the rustling leaves, sobbing her heart out. "Oh, mother!" she cried, "oh, mother, mother, mother!" The words held the most passionate prayer she had ever prayed in her life. And presently she rose to her feet again, with dimmed eyes and trembling lips, but strong to do and to endure. She seemed almost to have grown a woman in that moment, and unconsciously she took the lead, though she was the younger of the two. "Dick," she said steadily, "go and harness Murphy. We must take father to the Collinsons." Dick stumbled off blindly to do her bidding. Murphy was the one lean ox who had done all their carting and ploughing; and before long the boy came back again, driving the slow brute in the clumsy, creaking ox-cart. Between them they managed to draw their father up two inclined boards until his inert body rested safely in the cart; and then fleet-footed Stephanie ran back to the cabin for all the coverings and pillows in their poor store. Before half-an-hour had passed, the clumsy conveyance was creaking down the rough old Indian trail which led by many windings to the Collinson homestead, bearing the unconscious Captain, while Dick and Stephanie walked beside, urging Murphy to his best pace. Their hearts were sick with dread; motherless they had been for two years--were they now to be fatherless also? It had all been so terribly sudden they had scarcely time to think, but it was the best thing they could do. At the Collinson homestead their father would be certain to receive the tenderest care, and perhaps medical attendance if things turned out fortunately. But would they ever get him alive over those long, jolting miles? The same fear was in the eyes of each as they looked at one another. They were never to reach their journey's end. Before long the Captain began slowly to regain consciousness, and his first question was a faintly-uttered "What's this? Where are you taking me?" They told him, with white, anxious faces bending over the rough sides of the cart, while Murphy tried to reach a tempting bit of green grass under the trees. But the injured man shook his head. "It is no use, my dears," he said feebly, "another two miles would kill me at once. And I must die where she died, for I cannot recover. Stephanie"--it was curious how he turned from the elder child to his younger--"Stephanie, take me back! Promise to take me back!" Who could have withstood the pitiful appeal in his eyes? With aching hearts they promised, and once more he relapsed into unconsciousness, muttering fragments of old orders which he had given as captain of the great merchantman Theseus, in the long ago days. They looked at each other in miserable helplessness. Dick broke the wretched silence. "Stephanie," he said, "you must take him home again, and I must go on to the Collinsons--for if he will not be taken to help, help must be brought to him. I shall be able to take two or three short cuts, and they will ride or drive back with me, so it won't be so very long. But oh, my dear, I do hate to leave you!" Stephanie shook her head. "We are thinking of him now," she said quietly, and without another word turned Murphy round. With a last hurried look, Dick plunged rapidly into the bushes at the side of the trail, and she could hear the rustling of his footsteps growing fainter in the distance. Then began the weary journey home again. They had only travelled a short distance from the little clearing, but to Stephanie it seemed hours before the log-cabin and the field of corn came into view. And having reached home, she had to face a new difficulty. She could not, unaided, lift her father from the cart. So she backed it into a sheltered place among the trees, and brought the rough chairs and barrels from the log-cabin to support the shafts. Then she unharnessed Murphy, and led him to his shed, moving as if she were in some terrible dream. Returning to the cabin, which already looked deserted and strange, she ransacked every corner until she found a little of some coarse, crude spirit in an old bottle. Mixing it with water, she strove to force some into her father's mouth, but he did not seem able to swallow. So she began her long helpless vigil beside the cart, knowing that there was nothing she could do. If only Dick were there! The shadows grew long and longer, and still the Captain lay motionless in the cart beneath the great trees; and still Stephanie kept her patient watch beside him. Only once did her father speak in all those terrible hours. She had been bending over him adjusting his coverings, when she found him looking up at her with a brighter, more gentle look than she had seen upon his face for years. "I thought you were your mother, little girl," he said faintly, "your hands move as hers did." "They are not as soft as hers, father," said Stephanie in a broken voice. "No," answered the Captain, "they are not as soft, poor brave little hands. But their touch is as tender, my dear, their touch is as tender." After that the silence fell again--a greater, deeper, more divine silence, though Stephanie did not know it. And still she sat beside the cart in the gathering shadows, waiting for the help that was to come. CHAPTER III. Friends Indeed. Mr. Collinson pulled the red handkerchief from his grey head and broad weather-beaten face, and crossing the room, threw a handful of pine splinters on the fire. It was a fire such as one seldom or never sees nowadays. First came the great back log, some four feet long and twenty inches thick; then upon the "dogs" were laid sticks of the same length, but only about six inches in diameter; and lastly, upon these, a mighty pile of pieces of pine and various chips of wood. In those days, fire-building was an art. The flames leapt up, and caught the handful of pine chips into a blaze of heat and brightness, which showed every corner of the room. It was a large and cheerful room, with two windows which now were covered with red cotton blinds. The walls were of smooth match-boarding, and a few gay water-colour sketches and old portraits in little oval brass frames were tacked upon them. The furniture was rough and home-made, but comfortable; and in a corner, partly hidden with a red cotton curtain, three cot-bedsteads, covered with red quilts, were trying hard to pretend they were sofas. It was a cheerful room; and most of the people in it were cheerful too. Mr. Collinson was cheerful certainly; and Mrs. Collinson, small and round, with cheeks as pink as roses, seemed made for tender words and smiling. Two tall lads of eighteen, twins, stood before the blazing fire, and their faces were as broad and merry as anyone could desire. Perhaps the only faces in the room that bore shadows in them were those of Dick and Stephanie. Stephanie sat near one of the windows, patiently stitching at a shirt, which from its dimensions seemed intended for Mr. Collinson. She was dressed in black, and the gown was of very different material and cut from that she had last worn. There were dark shadows under her dark eyes, and her face was thin; but beyond these signs of a recent and terrible grief, she seemed brighter and better for the cheerful companionship of the Collinson homestead. Dick was as patiently sitting before little Mrs. Collinson, holding the yarn that she was winding. He had discarded his wild Indian finery, and was dressed as were the two older boys on the rug before the hearth. He and Stephanie might have been another son and daughter of the house, as far as treatment went; but they had that shadow of sorrow in their eyes which the rest had not. But now all faces, grave and gay, were turned to Mr. Collinson; for when the good man woke himself thus emphatically from his evening nap, and brightened up the blazing fire, it generally meant that he had something important to say. So no one was surprised when he cleared his throat and put himself into an attitude for speaking. Only the larger and merrier of the twins looked anxious, and edged imperceptibly nearer to Stephanie. "Mrs. C," he began, with a bow to his wife, "and young people--Stephanie, Dick, Roger and William Charles--I have something to say which concerns us all, because it concerns Stephanie and Dick here especially. I would not speak of it at all, but it seems to me, and also to the wife, that things need to be discussed a bit." Stephanie glanced up quickly, with an expression that was both anxious and relieved, anxious because the future seemed so dark, and relieved in that the subject had at last been mentioned. Dick looked dejected, he hated discussions. "You know, my dears," said Mr. Collinson, smiling at his two guests, "that I would not for the world bring up, unnecessarily, any subject such as this, which is bound to give you pain. But things had better be talked over, for good and all, to-night." He gazed thoughtfully into the glowing heart of the fire for a moment, and then continued. "Six or seven weeks ago, Stephanie, my dear," he went on, "you came here, and welcome indeed you both were. Since then I have been looking after matters a little, and as far as I can tell, things are like this: Your poor father was more a hermit in the wilderness than a proper settler; he just put up his lodge in the woods as an Indian might have done. He did not put in his claim for any land in the townships as he ought to have done, but must needs wander off by himself. He found this clearing--the worst land in the region, by the same token--and here he managed to keep body and soul together on what he grew, and the little money he had left. But he was not really a settler, and he had no right there. Though it's not likely anyone would have interfered with him until the country came to be surveyed, which may never happen. But the land, I fancy, was no more his than mine, as he was there but four years--though I may be wrong in thinking so, knowing little of the law. But at any rate, what I want to say is this, the land is worthless--the poorest in that part, from what I saw of it; so my advice is this--let it go, and when Dick is of age he can have his pick of a dozen fine claims--a hundred, maybe, if the country opens up fast. Meanwhile, I 'll take over anything of value up there--Murphy, and the corn, and the plough, and such, at a fair price, and put the money to the credit of both of you equally. Think of it, and if you agree, the future is arranged. So, now for the present." He looked at his wife meaningly, and then back at the fire again. After a moment he went on slowly and deliberately. "The beauty of it is," he said, "that the very day before you came to stay with us, I said to the wife that we had too much room in the house." There was a faint sound, which might have been either assent or amazement, from Mrs. Collinson; and Roger, the largest twin, gazed at his father in open admiration; while the cots, squeezed into the corner behind the red curtain, took on a reproachful expression. "And I also said," continued the serene voice, "that my wife wanted someone to be company in the house and help a little with things, and that I could do well with another handy youngster for outside work; I have often," he continued softly, "longed for a daughter, and I don't mind another son. So, Dick and Stephanie, what do you say? Will you stay here until you get a place of your own to go to? I shall not be a loser in the bargain." Stephanie was crying quietly into the sleeve of the shirt, and Dick went over to Mr. Collinson. "Sir," he said, choking, "you 're a good man, and I hope you will never have to regret what you 've done for me. You know what Steenie is, and need have no fear for her." He spoke steadily and seriously, unlike himself, while Mrs. Collinson went over to Stephanie and patted her hand softly. And so, after some further discussion, it was settled. What else could Dick and Stephanie do? Even if Mr. Collinson had been one from whom they would not have received such kindness without a painful sense of obligation, there was no other opening for them. As it was, they accepted his offer warmly and gratefully, all the more so for knowing that they would and could be of use to him and his wife. And his plain, sensible, hopeful words had touched the dark future with a glow of rose-colour, which, even before their sorrow, it had lacked. Already Stephanie saw herself keeping house for Dick in the midst of peace and plenty. And Dick himself? At present all other feelings were swallowed up in the warmth of gratitude. But that night, as he stood in the dark enclosure in front of the log-house which in summer was ablaze with flowers, he was aware of a little cool spot in the midst of his gratitude. He was ashamed of it, but there it was. For he knew that the hard, steady labour he had to look forward to would be very dull after the idle, gipsy-like life and the freedom to which he had been accustomed. Ever since that terrible day of their father's death, the Collinson homestead had been home to himself and Stephanie also, and apparently it would be so for some years to come. All this he told himself, as he stood and watched the pale moon of early winter rising behind the trees; but it did not do away with that little cool thought. And he quickly decided that he would take all the pleasures in the shape of sport or travel that came in his way. It was a cold night; but for some reason, after deciding this, Dick did not feel like facing the kind bright faces in the bright room. He did not know that it had been another step in the lifelong fight between duty and inclination--between the love of wandering that was rampant in his blood and the clear call of quiet, unromantic, unceasing work that lay before him--and that, in the one little lazy, selfish thought, he had lost. He was roused from his reverie by a fearful clamour that broke out among the farm buildings. All the geese hissed and screamed as if they had another Rome to save, and the hens fluttered and clucked, and squawked after the manner of their foolish kind. Roger hurried out with a shot-gun, and he and Dick ran towards the scene of the tragedy. But they were too late. The fox had already gone, and with him had departed a venerable gander. "We have got to get you, my friend," growled Roger, "or we shan't have a bird left. And I repaired the fencing myself. Oh, you villain!" "Let me go to-morrow," said Dick promptly. The older boy looked at him and laughed, with one of the flashes of insight which sometimes comes to slow people. "I can see you would rather be a mighty hunter before the Lord than a humble tiller of the soil," he said, "and if my father says yes, you might as well catch the thief if you can. But you had better take Peter Many-Names with you." "Who is he?" asked Dick. "Well," answered Roger slowly, "he is--himself. An Indian boy about my own age, and the cleverest fellow with a gun or a snare or a paddle that I ever saw. But beyond that--well, he's an Indian, so I don't know anything more about him. He's been round here lately, selling fish. He wraps them in wet leaves and brings them over from the river--the Otonabee, you know. There are a lot of settlers over there now, I 've heard, and I wish we were nearer the river ourselves. Peter has promised to bring mother some fish to-morrow, and if he turns up you ask him to go fox-hunting with you, and you will have good sport after a fashion. His methods are funny, but they 're interesting, and a day in the woods with him is always jolly." So it was arranged that next day, if the Indian arrived, he and Dick were to go and catch the marauding fox. They returned to the house, Dick in great glee. All his dreams that night were of the delight and freedom of the forests. And miles away in the woods, an Indian lad slept beside his fire, with a basket of fish hung up on a branch in the shadow overhead. Next day these two were to meet. What would be the outcome of the meeting? CHAPTER IV. A Day in the Woods. The following morning Dick was up and out before even the early rising Collinsons were stirring. It was one of those mornings in late November which seem to be a faint, sad recollection of spring. The sun had not yet appeared above the far-off edge where the misty forest lands faded into mistier skies, but the promise of his approach thrilled the leafless, songless world to deeper quiet. Everything was hushed and dark; but in the east a clear bar of amber broadened and brightened slowly. Yet it would be some time, Dick knew, before it became really light. He wandered through the frosty garden, the noise of his footsteps in the dried leaves sounding harsh and clamorous; but save for this, and for the lanterns which moved about the farm buildings as some of the hands attended to the stock, the world seemed wholly given up to shade and silence. The air was damp and very chill, and the ghostly half-light was full of unexpected gleams and shadows. But Dick wandered on restlessly, until he came to the boundary of the enclosure. Here the land dipped sharply, and the cultivated ground ended in a low stump fence. Beyond this fence there was a small and rocky ravine, which ran up in a constantly narrowing cleft into the very midst of the fertile fields. On the crest of the dip Dick paused, and peered attentively over and down into the little valley, which here was scarcely fifty feet across--a mere sword-cut of beautiful worthlessness in the rich acres around--for his nose had been greeted by a small, savoury odour of cooking. His eyes were as keen as his nose, and presently he made out a very tiny spiral of blue smoke rising from among the bushes. No sooner had he seen it than he scrambled silently, but with difficulty, over the barricade of the stump fence, and crept cautiously round the trees to get a clearer view. As he half expected, an Indian lad crouched beside the tiny fire, busy with the preparation of his wild breakfast. Dick had thought to steal upon him unheard, but he was disappointed, for the lad's eyes sought him out immediately and unerringly. It had grown much lighter now, and each was able to see and take stock of the other. Dick saw a boy of about his own age, smaller and slighter, but hardened so by the ways of his life that he appeared older; his every movement had the silence and precision of an animal's; and he was made up of a shock of black hair, a smooth brown skin, sharp white teeth, and a compact mass of light bones and untirable muscles. He was dressed in what had originally been a respectable suit of homespun, probably presented to him by good Mrs. Collinson, but it was patched and pieced out with all manner of skins and rags. A scarlet blanket served to keep out the frost. But his eyes were what attracted at once the attention of an observer; they were not black, nor even dark, but a very light, bright, greenish grey; this, and their utter lack of expression, rendered them unpleasantly impressive. No one might say whether such eyes portended good or evil, but most people would have inclined to the latter. Peter Many-Names glanced at Dick with a grave sort of indifference, which was annoying and yet amusing. He saw a good-looking youngster, strongly built and fresh coloured, who bore himself as if life owed him something very easy and pleasant. Peter also saw that the English boy would not go more than one mile to his own two on the trail; that while he was probably a good shot, he lacked patience; and that he moved with excessive noise; so Peter valued him accordingly, though his eyes gave no sign. Dick nodded cheerfully, and Peter returned the nod with ceremonial gravity; then he bent once more over the little fire, and left to the other the task of opening the conversation. Dick felt somewhat at a loss; Roger had told him that the Indian understood English perfectly well, though speaking it according to his own taste, but he felt that his questions were too trivial to break the massive silence with which the young savage surrounded himself. It was the first time he had come into contact with that dignity which is not the outcome of education, but which is a characteristic of some races. Indians he had seen, but not such an Indian as this. "You 're Peter, I suppose," he began at last, and then waited for some confirmation of his words. But the other was raking among the wood ashes with a little stick, and merely nodded again in answer, seeming to think it a matter of entire indifference whatever Dick chose to suppose. "When you 've been up to the house," continued Dick, "I want to know if you 'll come with me after a brute of a fox that is taking our poultry." It appeared better to put the matter briefly. Peter Many-Names regarded him gravely still. He knew enough of the mannerless ways of white folks not to be shocked at this abrupt introduction of business. So after a few minutes' meditation, he grunted agreement. "All right, I come," he said. Then he turned his back calmly, and went on with his culinary operations. There was no mistaking the hint, so Dick walked back to the homestead again. Shortly after appeared Peter, with some fine fish, and a somewhat less taciturn manner; and before an hour had passed, the two lads, some provisions, guns, and an excited dog, were all on the trail of the fox. The Indian strode on ahead with the dog straining in the leash, and left to Dick their weapons and the food, which vexed him mightily. Nor was his temper improved when he noticed that Peter carefully moderated his pace from time to time as if out of consideration for his companion's weaknesses. It is not pleasant to know that your comrade can run twice as fast as you can, and to know that he knows it also. He had always prided himself on his strength and fleetness, and to find himself relegated to the position of follower and burden-bearer by the first Indian into whose company he was thrown was a salutary lesson. In this manner they proceeded for some two or three miles. Every now and then Dick made valiant efforts to gain upon his companion, but Peter, as if maliciously aware of it, always kept the same distance ahead. Once, restraining the dog with difficulty, he pointed to a little piece of grey down caught on a thorn--pathetic reminder of the perished gander. Then once more they went on, following unerringly the fresh scent, until, all at once, the character of the country changed, and a small, low, sandy hillock, almost bare of trees and underwood, thrust itself upwards amidst the encircling forests. In a confident manner, which Dick found vaguely annoying, Peter announced it to be the end of their journey. Dick looked back. They had not come far, as distance was counted in those days, but the land was entirely strange to him. However, to the Indian and the dog it appeared to be familiar enough; for Peter Many-Names, after a few minutes' search, unearthed two broad discs of thick wood from beneath the accumulation of leaf and vine which had safely concealed them. Dick looked at him inquiringly, but he did not seem disposed to give explanations. "Me here bin before," he remarked, "catch fox. These hidy then." Not thus had the English boy dreamed of the hunt. Rather had he thought of a progress through the woods in lordly wise, killing or sparing at his pleasure, with the Indian as an appreciative audience. He resented the way in which Peter took the whole affair into his own hands, competent and cunning though the said hands were. But now the Indian's proceedings arrested his attention. After much cautious scrambling and struggling, the dog led them to the mouth of a burrow, where, Peter declared, the thief must now be securely and gorgedly sleeping. At the same time, he gave Dick clearly to understand that he, and he alone, would compass the fox's destruction. "You sit see watch," he commanded. Were anyone else concerned in this matter, Dick would have disputed this order with heat. But already he had fallen under the spell of that savage nature, so much wilder, so much stronger, than his own. There seemed to be something in the keen, dark face, with its strange eyes, which required obedience, and he yielded it without a word. In the wilds, the soul and will of the savage at once became dominant, not to be disregarded. So Dick meekly conveyed himself to a little distance, and sat down on a little mound from whence he could "see watch" the whole affair, which promised to be interesting, and even peculiar. He wondered why the Indian had brought only one dog. "I suppose he's going to smoke it out," he murmured doubtfully to himself. But that was not it. For first Peter cut small branches into slender poles about three or four feet long, until he had quite a bundle of them. These he pushed into the burrow until it was completely though loosely filled for some four feet from its mouth. Next he took one of the flat discs of wood, and fitted it carefully into the opening, using earth to wedge it firmly, and finally blocking it with a big stone. This process, which mystified Dick entirely, he repeated at a second hole that he said was the other exit from the burrow. Then he rested from his labours with a satisfied air. "And what about the fox?" demanded Dick. Whereupon Peter Many-Names unbent sufficiently to enter into a long and curiously worded explanation, the gist of which was as follows:-- When the fox found the narrow entrance of his burrow blocked with the little poles, he would at once set cleverly to work to pull and kick and scratch them away, which he could easily do. But in so doing he built a barrier in the burrow behind him as he worked, and by the time he had pushed them all back, he faced the immovable plug of wood, and was penned into a section of the tunnel of little more than his own length. He could neither move backwards nor forwards, and so fell an easy victim when the plug was removed. As Peter pointed out, his industry was his own undoing. Dick scarcely knew whether to admire or laugh at the quaint stratagem. But the fact remained that their work for that day was done, and done without his help or advice. He supposed there was nothing to do but go back to the homestead, and his face showed how little he relished the idea. The Indian watched him with keen eyes, seeming to read his thoughts. At last he spoke, quietly and indifferently, as was his wont. "Why you not stay with me this to-day?" he said, not even looking at Dick. A sparkle sprang into the boy's eyes. To have one more day of lazy freedom! One more day of the wood-running in which his soul delighted! One more day with no will but his own to follow, with no cares, no work, no restraint! One more day of the deep silent undergrowth and the stately uplands, of the clear chill skies and the keen cold wind! One more day of the wilderness that was dearer and fairer to him than the farm and the fruitful fields! To wander for one more day, with no master but his own pleasure, no one calling to sterner labour; and only the silent crafty savage, himself the very incarnation of the wilds, his comrade! His face grew bright and dreamy at the thought. It was the look which all restless folk wear at times, reflecting the love of God's "unmanstifled places" which glorifies their profitless wandering. Profitless only in the worldly sense of material gain, yet often the stronger soul is shown in resisting the call to freedom and to nature. But Dick had not yet learnt his lesson; and once more he chose the way that pleased him best. "Yes, I will stay," he said. Peter Many-Names nodded, his usual mode of assent; to him Dick's evident struggle between inclination and duty had been amusing, and there was a rare gleam of merriment in his dark face. He had a far keener appreciation of the situation than had Dick, and it gave him a boy's feeling of pride to think of all the wonders of the woods he might show to his white comrade if he chose. "Come, then," he said, with a flash of his white teeth, "and I show you bear, sleeping much for winter. Come quiet." The forests were bright with that soft recollection of spring which the early morning had promised. The bare twigs seemed as full of life and colour as if the sap had been rising instead of falling, and the recent frosts but made the going better. Very silently, Peter Many-Names turned into the undergrowth, Dick following closely in his track, and the well-trained dog following Dick as closely. He was troubled in his mind, this dog, remembering an unguarded bone near the woodpile, and longing to end such foolish, aimless rambling as his two-legged companions indulged in. Many were the wistful glances he cast back. But Dick's face was set to the forests of his dreams, and duty called him to the homestead in vain. CHAPTER V. A Backwoods Christmas. That was the last time for some months that Dick yielded to his inborn love of wandering. He had spent a night and the best part of two eventful days in the woods with Peter Many-Names. And on the second day he returned to the homestead by devious ways, very much ashamed of himself. He became more than ever ashamed when no notice was taken of his desertion. Roger greeted him somewhat resentfully at first, owing to the fact that he had had to do all Dick's work as well as his own, during the younger boy's absence, and Stephanie looked anxious and grieved. But beyond this, nothing was said or done to remind him of his fault. No better course could have been taken to bring Dick to a state of almost excessive penitence, and remorse speedily overtook him. His moods were always intense while they lasted; and now he settled down to his hard daily tasks with a fury of sorrowful determination which Mr. Collinson regarded doubtfully, considering it too good to continue. But if Dick grew weary of his resolute toil, he gave no sign. Outwardly, he was again contented with his lot, and seemed to desire no other. So well did he work, so cheerful and patient he was, that the anxious look gradually cleared from Stephanie's face. But Mr. Collinson, shrewd man that he was, still regarded the boy with a certain grave and wholly affectionate distrust. The days passed and November gave place to December. The wheat lay warm beneath a foot of snow, and Christmas was at hand. The Collinsons always kept Christmas as nearly as possible in good old English fashion. Dick and Stephanie, used to all sorts of privation, thought that the preparations for the coming feast were positively luxurious. Everyone at the homestead worked early and late. Mrs. Collinson was intent upon bread-making; so Dick and Roger ground grain at the hand-mill, turn and turn about, until they nearly fell asleep over the handle; and very bad and black would their flour appear to us. The silent William Charles, who was always called by his full name, seemed to chop wood incessantly. Mr. Collinson, who always worked so hard that it was scarcely possible that he could work any harder, found time to interfere jovially with everything, to the utter confusion of his wife, who, with Stephanie, was perpetually preparing extra delicacies for her thriving and hungry household. Stephanie was so busy she had no time for mournful memories; and Dick did nothing but work, and sleep, and eat enormously. It was rough fare they had in those far-off days. But with pork and mutton, pumpkins for "sass," and pies, maple syrup and sugar, potatoes, and plenty of barley, rice, eggs, milk and tea, Mrs. Collinson and Stephanie accomplished wonders. So vast were the preparations that even the dogs seemed infected with the stir of excitement; and everyone looked forward to sumptuous faring. To Stephanie, real tea, with milk and sugar, represented in itself comfort and prosperity; she had been used to making an unattractive substitute for it with young hemlock shoots. That Christmas dinner was a great success. Everyone was in good spirits, and even Mrs. Collinson was astonished at the way in which the eatables disappeared. The silent William Charles especially distinguished himself, and was accused of demolishing a full pint of hazel-nuts in twenty minutes. Afterwards, with the red blinds drawn, and the great logs blazing on the hearth, faces were more serious, though not less cheerful, while Mrs. Collinson read aloud the story of Bethlehem. Stephanie, leaning back in her chair, could see a great star, cold and silver-pure, around the edge of the curtain; and it seemed to her, as she listened to the familiar words, that it must be that star which the wise men saw, shining upon her with its promise of peace. Then followed song after song, to which Roger contributed an uncertain tenor, and Mr. Collinson a thunderous bass. In the midst of warmth and comfort and merriment, Stephanie felt her own griefs and troubles slipping further and further away. She lost herself in happy dreams for the future, which had never appeared so full of hope and cheer. All her dreams were centred round Dick, and the home he would make for her when he was twenty-one. Songs led to stories, and Dick developed unexpected talents, thrilling them all with legends of Lower Canada, which he had learned no one knew how. Then Mr. Collinson began a long account of an incident in the war of 1812, and when he was fairly in the middle of it, Dick signed to Stephanie, and they both slipped from the room. Knowing how the Collinsons delighted in the old customs and traditions of an English Christmas, they had resolved to act the waits, and so give a finishing touch to that tender illusion built up in the woods of the New World from the lore and fancy of the Old. Dick dived into his blanket-coat, and Stephanie wrapped a big shawl about her, and then they both hurried out at the kitchen door, and so round to the front of the house again. It was intensely cold and still, so cold that the motionless air seemed to be heavy and painful to breathe, and stepping from the warm house was like entering icy water. The stars shone like steady silver lamps, and the woods were hushed and dark, bound to silence and desolation beneath the weight of frost. A faint white mist showed in the northern sky, and presently it spread and broadened, and the pale green ice-blink began playing and slanting and fading along its edge. With their young faces held up to the solemn stars, the brother and sister began to sing the quaint old carols their mother had taught them long before. They had good voices, and their hearts were in the words, so the old, old tunes went sweetly enough under that vast arch of sky. Roger softly set the door ajar, and the quietness within showed how the singing was appreciated. [Illustration: "THEY BEGAN TO SING THE OLD CAROLS THEIR MOTHER HAD TAUGHT THEM LONG BEFORE."] As they sang, Stephanie felt that it was almost irreverent to break the solemn silence of the wintry world; it was so still that their voices sounded far-off and yet clear. She glanced nervously at the black ring of forest encircling the homestead, and feared it for the first time, not for what it might contain, but for its gloom and emptiness. The cold was too intense for them to stay out there long, and as the last notes of the last carol died away, Stephanie was glad that the great silence would be no longer disturbed. It seemed more fitting to leave that lonely night to quiet--the utter quiet of snow and windless air--of life held in suspension. But before they reached the door, another sound, distant, distinct, horrible, cut suddenly through that quiet. Dick involuntarily clasped his sister's hand in his, for, however often one may hear that sound, it never fails to move the nerves. It rose, and sank, and almost died away, and was answered by a dozen throats, all taking up the wild, shrill, menacing notes--the howl of the wolf-pack in full cry. It was a terrible sound. And though they had heard it a hundred times before, it seemed even more impressive than usual, coming after the warmth and good cheer, the laughter and singing. It was as if the surrounding wilderness had chosen to remind them of its presence by that sad, cruel, awe-inspiring howl--as if their hearts were to be rendered more in tune with the great woods by the knowledge that death was abroad, even at the edges of the fields; Dick and Stephanie were glad to return to the light and cosiness of the house. That cry of the wolves had disturbed Dick. He had heard it last when his father was alive, and when they lived in that dreary little log-cabin twenty miles away. It recalled to his memory all those days of cold and hardship, all the roughness, the poverty, the privation of their lives in the dreaded winter-time. But it recalled also his past freedom, his wood-running, his neglected skill in shot and snare. The very note of the howl suggested the idea of untiring, relentless speed; and he suddenly remembered all the old delight of those long snow-shoe runs he had been wont to take whenever it so pleased him--over the crackling snow, beneath the black pine branches and the dazzling winter stars. He laughed at himself for being so readily moved from his contentment, and then he wondered--had he really been contented? Or had the old unrest always been there, however much he might strive to hide it even from himself? Leaning back in his shadowy corner, he let his thoughts drift to his old life, and to that little deserted cabin which had been home to him for so many years. He imagined just how the roof would fall into disrepair, and how the feathery snow would drift between the chinks of the logs. He supposed that the little bold beasts of the woods would inhabit it, and the grey squirrels store their nuts in the corners, and the birds build under the eaves and on the window ledges. Soon the woods would creep nearer and nearer, reclaiming the worthless fields which had been wrested from them, and even filling up the natural clearing with small bushes and thimble-berry vines. At last there would remain nothing but a pile of mossy logs and a few struggling, widely-dispersed sunflowers, to show where that poor home had been. Remembering the pain and sorrow those walls had often held, he felt it was the best end for them; yet he had an unreasonable tenderness towards anything connected with the care-free, idle, roving life he had loved, and for which he longed. "A penny for your thoughts!" cried cheery Mrs. Collinson suddenly. And when he shyly told her, in part, what they had been, she patted his hand tenderly, and her eyes glistened. "The lad's fretting for his father," she found opportunity of whispering to her husband, a little later. But Mr. Collinson was still doubtful. "I don't know, Mrs. C., I don't know," and they were silent, as once more the howl of the wolf-pack came faintly to their ears. Meanwhile, Dick had retired again to a brown study in his corner. On this peaceful Christmas night there was a tumult in his easy-going mind which confused him sadly. Now he had time to think about it, he knew that during the past few weeks he had not really been contented--he had only been avoiding the consideration of his own perplexities. But that avoidance was not always possible, and he knew that, at any time, his love of roaming might descend upon him, as it were, in irresistible force. Since that day of the fox-hunt, he had become more fully alive to his own wild hopes and longings; and now his sincere fit of penitence and industry was beginning to wear off a bit, the old, idle, roving mood was all ready to return to him again. He feared his own thoughts, and he dreaded the crisis--dreaded the event which must settle his decision one way or the other. As he sat there, gazing at the roaring, glowing logs upon the hearth, he reflected half-resentfully that duty and inclination had been utterly at war in his life of late, and that the worst of the trouble dated from his arrival at the Collinson homestead, which was perfectly true. Before then, inclination had reigned supreme. He did not put his own thoughts very clearly to himself. He only felt that, if he yielded to his love of a wild life, that life would soon grow necessary to his happiness. He thought how cruel it would be if he left Stephanie and all other ties behind him, and struck out into the vast space and freedom of the north. He shunned the very idea, and was ashamed of it, yet there was an attraction in it which made him dwell upon it again and again. The great plains and the free life of them, the great woods and the mighty rivers, the beautiful lakes, and mountains, pine-clad and snow-crested, untracked, unknown--he had heard of it all dimly, from one and another. All these things he loved and longed to know, and against them Stephanie. "Of course, I wouldn't do it," he assured himself. Yet his eyes took on their bright gipsy-look as he gazed into the heart of the blaze. For the rest of the evening he was in a dream-world, far from the homestead; and later, he put on his blanket-coat again, and wandered out into the garden, that he might indulge in his dreams more easily. Just near the door he nearly fell over a shadowy figure crouched against the wall. The figure rose to its feet, and just then Roger pulled aside the curtain. In the sudden gleam of light Dick saw a keen, dark face, in which were unexpectedly set two hard, green-grey eyes. He heard the sound of some ceremonial greeting in a strange speech. But it was so much like a part of his dreams he felt bewildered. It was Peter Many-Names, who presently descended to his English, and pointing to a frozen haunch of venison, gravely gave Dick to understand that he would dispose of it to the highest bidder. CHAPTER VI. The Call of the Forest. From that time onwards throughout the winter, Peter Many-Names was never more than a few miles away from the homestead. He did a flourishing business with the Collinsons in the way of small game and so forth, and appeared to think he had come upon a land of plenty, so many were the meals with which kindly Mrs. Collinson supplied him. Soon the farmer began employing him in small jobs about the fences and farm buildings, which, for some dark reason of his own, Peter condescended to do, and to do well. He was too proud to be dishonest, and he was never there when he was not wanted; so that after a few weeks the inmates of the homestead looked for his silent presence as a matter of course. Mr. Collinson was interested in him--in his quaint English, his stately ways, his swiftness, and his untiring activity--and said that he belonged to none of the tribes which occasionally visited that neighbourhood, but that he was probably an outcast from some northern tribe, who, separated from his people for some reason, and caring little to take up with others, fended for himself, and lived his own proud, lonely life. And the shrewd farmer was probably as nearly right as might be. After a time it seemed to Dick that he never left the house to go to his work about the farm without seeing the dark face and the cold grey eyes which had grown so familiar to him. And by degrees Peter's tongue became loosened, and he told tales in his odd, sing-song English which sent Dick about his tasks with wide, dreamy eyes and ears that heard not. Dick feared the Indian as he might have feared all his temptations embodied in a human form; but he went about with him, and listened hungrily to his stories, feeling fascinated and attracted in spite of this wise fear. He did not realise what a great influence that strong savage nature was gaining over his own. Thus the winter went on, peacefully and happily to all outward seeming; but as the year drew closer to the spring it was noticed by watchful Mr. Collinson that Dick sought Peter's companionship more and more frequently, and that the Indian's uncanny eyes often rested upon the English boy with a half-amused, half-malicious expression of power that was hard to read. The cold weather held until the end of March, with scarcely a break. But at the beginning of the month the monotony was broken by an important annual event in the lives of all settlers. This was no less than sugar-making. Curiously enough, the Collinsons had few sugar-maples on their farm, so they used to go to their nearest neighbour's, where a certain number of trees were yearly set aside for them. This neighbour was more than ten miles distant as the bird flies, and the journey there, the sugar-making among fresh surroundings and with fresh companionship, and the triumphant return through the woods that were just beginning to awaken, were all looked forward to throughout the winter. This year it was arranged that one of the twins, Dick, Stephanie, and two of the farm-hands, should go; William Charles was chosen at first, but he yielded to Roger's evident disappointment, and said he would stay at home. "Though I 'm sure," he said to himself placidly, "that I should take just as much care of Stephanie as he could. However, if he wants to go, I would just as soon stay at home, for it is hard work they will get and plenty of it." And stay he did, with complete satisfaction. The others started on their journey one chill morning in early March, before day had dawned. In the first sleigh were Stephanie, Dick, Roger, and one of the farm-hands driving the pair of horses. The other and more roughly built sleigh followed them, loaded with all the appliances necessary for the sugar-making--three great cast-iron kettles, a couple of heavy troughs cut out of pine-logs, and so forth--in charge of the second man. Stephanie never in her life forgot that drive through the great woods; there had been heavy snow, which filled up all the hollows between stumps and natural roughnesses that generally made the rude trail a path of torment; the snow had been followed by sharp, incessant frost, so the going was good. At first so impressive was the hush of the cold, dim world into which they drove, that only the jingle of harness and the squeal and bump of the clumsy runners broke the silence. But as the pale March day dawned in a flood of blue and primrose-yellow, crystal-clear and chill behind the trees, subdued talking and laughter startled the solitudes as the sleighs passed. The skies, as the sun rose higher, were of a deep translucent blue, and the breeze had an edge as of steel. Nothing seemed at first sight to give promise of spring. But an observant eye would have seen that the smaller branches and twigs of the trees had lost their winter hue of dull grey-brown, and shone as the sunlight struck them, in all hues from bright yellow-green to warm deep reddish-brown. The bud-cases, too, were very dark and sticky, and some little birds were feasting on the close-curled green within, while once, far away, a robin called huskily, not yet triumphant in his shrill bubbling whistle. Stephanie never forgot that journey. Trees, trees, nothing but trees before them behind them, on either side--except where the trail wound onwards, and even that, the low branches and the long-armed bushes were striving to reclaim. And between these trees the carpet of white lay as yet unbroken, though somewhat shrunken here and there. Winter seemed to be still present; but as the day advanced, Stephanie noticed that the woods were disturbed by an occasional whirr and flutter of birds, while in the sunnier spots could be heard the soft insistent music of melting snow. The spring melody had not yet begun, but the forests were crooning snatches of it in their sleep. That journey was never forgotten, and not forgotten easily was the welcome extended to the chilly travellers by the warm-hearted Irish family they counted their nearest neighbours. Stephanie was to sleep at the house, and all the evening she discussed matters with the eldest daughter, bright-faced, soft-tongued Nonie O'Brien--matters dear to the hearts of girls; and Nonie exhibited with speechless pride the never-worn dress of rose-pink tabinet, less pink than her own cheeks, which her father had brought her from distant Cobourg on her last birthday. Meanwhile, the men and boys had taken the kettles to the sugar-bush, stabled the horses afterwards, then returned to the bush and built the rough shelter of boughs they were to inhabit for the nine or ten days of their stay. This finished, they rolled themselves in their blankets, and were almost instantly asleep, too tired even to snore. The next morning the sugar-making began. Notches were cut in the trees, and below these the cedar spiles were driven in, down which the sap trickled into little troughs set for the purpose. Several times during the day the sap was all gathered in buckets, carried at the end of a yoke which was placed across the shoulders, and taken to the great store-troughs. The iron kettles slung over the fires had to be kept full and constantly watched, until the sap should turn to syrup; and then came the "sugaring-off." Everyone was kept busy almost every hour of the twenty-four, for the sugar-making went on day and night. And on one particular night, about a week after his arrival, Dick was chosen to sit up and keep watch until two o'clock in the morning, filling the kettles and replenishing the fires when necessary. He was quite willing to do so. And after the others had had their evening meal at the homestead, and had returned to the shelter and to peaceful but noisy slumbers, he cheerfully began his vigil. There was no comfortable log at hand, he decided, so he scratched a hole in the snow, lined it with small twigs and pieces of bark, placed a folded blanket over all, and then settled himself in his nest with complete satisfaction. He had the happy faculty of adapting himself to his surroundings, and so was seldom uncomfortable, whatever other people might be. The woods were dark, a vast and shadowy background of gloom to the wavering circle of firelight. The calm stars looked down between the dark twigs of the upper branches, and the snow showed red and full of uncertain gleams in the flicker of the flames. It was all empty and still, and the silence at first seemed unbroken; but, owing perhaps to the breeze and the recent thaw, on carefully listening the forest was full of very slight sounds--sounds as if living things were moving about in it with infinite caution and stealth. It was a disturbing idea, and Dick was glad of the heavy breathing of his comrades in the shelter for company. The time passed on, and the nest in the snow was very comfortable indeed. The woods were still full of those ghostly rustlings, but after a while Dick ceased to notice them, and it is probable that he was asleep. But whether he was asleep or not, about midnight he roused quickly enough, with the instinct that someone was near him. Owing to his wild training, he had enough of the savage in him to lie perfectly still and listen for several minutes before moving. The noise that must have awakened him was not repeated, but there seemed to be an increase in those faint, ghostly rustlings and whisperings and half-heard stealthy footfalls, so at last he climbed reluctantly out of his cosy nest and built up all the fires. Having done this, he settled himself once more in the blanket-lined hollow. The fires were now beds of leaping flame beneath the bubbling kettles of sap, and the shifting light made it difficult to distinguish objects at a little distance. But Dick had sharp eyes; and soon he had gained the knowledge that someone, he knew not who, was crouching on the opposite side of the fire nearest his nest in the snow! It was disturbing knowledge, for he knew it was not one of his comrades; but no one could have accused Dick of physical cowardice, and immediately he tiptoed round the fire to investigate, with a heart that beat a little faster than usual. The crouching figure glanced up at him with eyes that shone like a wild animal's in the glow of the fire, and Dick, thrilling suddenly, recognised Peter Many-Names. The Indian did not give him the usual greeting, but remained crouched as he was, staring across the fire into the black mystery of the forest. His dark face was shaken with some strange excitement, and his eyes gleamed green like a wolfs behind their grey. He seemed to be in one of those states of wild exaltation to which his race is liable; and as he crouched there, he rocked himself backwards and forwards in a sort of ecstasy. "I-i-o-i-o-o, I-i-o, I-o-o, I-e-e!" he crooned over and over again, and at each repetition his eyes shone more wildly. He seemed unconscious of Dick's presence after the first glance, and gave himself up to his own mad mood and the odd charm of his wild chant. Dick's nerves tingled. There seemed to be some curious rhythmic infection in the whole unexpected performance. The rocking, the swaying, the subdued, incessant crooning were fascinating him, just as they might fascinate and excite a young brave at his antelope dances. After a few minutes he fancied he felt his own senses urging him to join in the monotonous, mesmeric swaying, the soft barbaric chant. The suggestion fairly frightened him, and he dropped his hand heavily on the Indian's shoulder. Peter sprang to his feet, his eyes still glittering with that strange excitement. For a moment he was silent. Then he flung out his arm, lean, brown, circled with savage ornaments--flung it out with a wild gesture to the north, and began to speak. [Illustration: "HE FLUNG OUT HIS ARM, CIRCLED WITH SAVAGE ORNAMENTS--FLUNG IT OUT WITH A WILD GESTURE, AND BEGAN TO SPEAK."] He spoke in his own tongue, deep-noted, musical almost as Greek, and though the English boy, standing white-faced and motionless in the glow of the fire, did not understand one word in twenty, there was no need to ask the meaning. Many have borne witness to the marvellous charm of Indian oratory, and the meaning was plainly to be read in the wonderful play of expression in Peter's dark face and flashing, grey-green eyes, in the faultless artistic skill of his every gesture, wherewith he painted what he had in his mind almost without need of words. It was a barbaric song of freedom--a song of the rush and roar of the buffalo hunt, a song of the evening fires before the lodges; of the call of birds at the dawn, and the evening star hanging silver above the pines; of the limitless northward world, and the homeless wind of the prairies; of the flowers whiter than snow, redder than blood; of the pipe of willow-flutes in the dusk, and the triumph-cry of the raiders as they thunder home to the music of a hundred stolen hoofs--all these things Dick thought of as he listened, only understanding a word here and there, yet charmed to the bottom of his restless soul by the art of Peter Many-Names. It was a chant of the spring, of roving feet and tents that are never in one place for long; a gipsy song of the north. And as such Dick's very soul responded to it. He stared at the Indian with fascinated eyes even after that wild speech was ended. Peter came close to him, with those hard glittering grey eyes of his gazing into the English boy's softer ones. And suddenly he spoke again, in English. "You come with me?" he whispered. And Dick answered, against his own will, in a voice which did not appear to be his. "Yes, I will come!" he said. There was no need of explanation. CHAPTER VII. A Message from the Wanderer. A few weeks had passed, and sugar-making time had gone for that year--gone in a sudden burst of life-giving warmth and moisture, in a tumult of tentative bird songs, in a broidery of earliest green things which heralded the swift, brief, infinitely caressing spring of the north. Gone also was peace and happiness from Stephanie's heart, and the kindly Collinsons grieved with her. For no sooner was the sugar-making over than Dick disappeared, leaving no word or trace behind. And with him disappeared Peter Many-Names. They had looked daily for his return. But as the sweet keen weather grew more golden to the spring, as the shiny bud-cases burst, and the leaves showed in delicate wrinkled greens and reds, as the birds came back in coveys and battalions, fluttering and piping through the sunny wonderland of the woods, and still neither Dick nor his dark-faced tempter reappeared, Stephanie lost hope, and even cheery Mr. Collinson could give her little comfort in this strait. "He's sure to come back, my dear," he said to her often, "stout and wiry and very penitent; some day soon when we least expect it. He's got tired of civilisation and has gone off picnicking in the forest with Peter for a while, the young rascal. Don't you worry, lassie, he 'll come back." Stephanie would try to smile in answer to show how little she was troubled; but her eyes would stray to the great woods, and her grave, pale young face would quiver tearfully now and then. Whereupon Roger would always retreat, and rage in a fury of work and a fever of wrath among the farm buildings, to the silent distress of William Charles, and the great anxiety of his mother. The farmer had carefully schooled himself to view the matter in its best light--and indeed there were many and great excuses for Dick--but sometimes even he meditated upon the probable consequences of finding himself confronting the runaways with a stout cane or sapling in his hand. Yet, in spite of all, he was as fond of Dick as ever, ungrateful though the lad had shown himself to be; and he would no more have thought of casting him off as a result of his folly than he would have thought of casting off one of his own boys in punishment for some thoughtless error. He felt that Dick's dreamy nature and inherited tastes had scarcely given him a fair chance in fighting that temptation which Peter Many-Names had personified. But he was very angry and even more disappointed. And Stephanie? Stephanie felt that she could have borne her grief and anxiety, as she had already borne much sorrow. But there was a more bitter sting in her trouble than this. She was utterly humiliated. She had relied on Dick's affection for herself, but above all upon his gratitude and sense of honour. And to find that he could thus requite the man who had been such a friend to them was a bitter blow. Perhaps she underrated the influences which had been brought to bear upon Dick's resolution, understanding little the gipsy strain that moved him, and knowing nothing of the ways of Peter Many-Names. Be that as it may, poor Stephanie felt for a long time that, while she had love and forgiveness for her brother in plenty, she could have little trust or pride in him. "I don't think I should mind anything," she said once to Mrs. Collinson, "if only I could see Dick well and safe and contented, working round the farm once more. It seems impossible that he has really gone. If only I could know he was safe!" Whereupon warm-hearted little Mrs. Collinson kissed her vehemently, as an outlet for her indignation. "Don't you fret about his safety, child," she said; "he's safe as can be. Safe, indeed! Why, that little brown Indian wretch knows the country as few do, and they're both used to wood-wandering, the naughty boys. Oh, he 's safe enough, if that were all you have to worry about." But perhaps at the bottom of their hearts neither she nor her husband were quite so confident as they gave Stephanie to believe. They felt sure that the fugitives had gone north to unknown wildernesses. And what dangers might those unsettled countries hold? "I don't doubt Dick's wanting to come back here before the year's out," remarked Mr. Collinson privately to his wife; "but they 're only a pair of boys, and in my opinion, Mrs. C., it's a risky thing. Practically, young Underwood has put his life into the Indian's hands, and I doubt whether that clever little brown villain values the said life enough to take very good care of it. However, there's no telling. Only when I see Steenie's face, I should like to have the thrashing of both the rascals, brown and white. What business had Dick to go off and leave his only sister in this fashion?" "Others would be glad to take care of her better," remarked Mrs. Collinson oracularly. And her husband screwed up his face as in preparation for whistling, and afterwards regarded Roger thoughtfully but with approval. The last of the grey drifts of snow disappeared from the cool hollows. Roger always found time to visit the sheltered nooks along the edge of the little ravine that cut through the fields, returning to the homestead with great store of frail, exquisite arbutus, and the starry hepaticas, blue, pink, and white, nested in silvery down; the promise of leaf and blossom was fulfilled on every branch; the first sky-bird calls were brought to perfect song; and still Dick remained away. Through all its beautiful subtle changes, the spring passed on to summer. The young leaves of oak and maple lost their tinge of scarlet, and the wild fruit trees lost their snow of blossom. Sturdier, less shadowy flowers replaced the bloodroot and hepatica. The birds were busier. All about the homestead was a world of warm delicate air, and skies shadowed with promise of rain, passing gradually to brighter sun and deeper blue. Yet still Dick did not come. Stephanie knew that, once having run wild as it were, he would not return until he had drunk his fill of freedom. That he would return eventually, she firmly believed, drawn back by his affection for her. And as the weeks went on, she set herself to wait as patiently as she might. But it was very weary work, and at times Mrs. Collinson's tender heart ached for her. "You are worrying needlessly, my dearie," the good woman would often say, with a great show of cheerfulness, when Stephanie had been quieter or sadder than usual. "Dick will be back before very long. We are sure of it." "If I could know that," the girl would answer, "I should not mind so much. But sometimes I can't help thinking, suppose he should never come? Suppose I wait for years, and still he does not come? I know I 'm silly, but you don't know--you can't know what he was to me. I hate to think so, but--but perhaps he may be too much ashamed ever to return. How shall I bear to wait, knowing he may never return after all?" Then the rosy, motherly, little woman would soothe and comfort her. "Dick loves you too well to stay away for good, and you know it at the bottom of your heart, child. There 's no weariness like the weariness of waiting, I know. But many lives seem to be made up of waiting and prayings of which we don't see the end--more hopeless waiting and praying than yours. For, after all, such things are in higher hands than ours. And if we watch and pray patiently and trustfully, we are maybe doing more than we think, Stephanie." Whereat the farmer would nod in solemn admiration of his wife, and Stephanie would face the recurring days with hope renewed. At the bottom of her heart she had always dreaded and expected something of the sort to happen. Dick's character was easy to read, and no one was surprised that he should have thus yielded to his love of the wilds. That did not make the pain of disappointment and anxiety any the less. But as time went on, the sincere and simple faith of the Collinson homestead taught Stephanie an abiding lesson. She learned to leave her brother's welfare in the hands of God, and to be more content with her task of waiting and praying, sure that a greater love even than her own was watching over Dick. That fair spring passed, and its flowers gave place to the more gorgeous blossoms of early summer. Wild roses opened their red petals, and wild strawberries were nearly ripe. And still no word of Dick or Peter Many-Names. The day after the sugar-making was finished they had gone off together, with a gun and a blanket each, and very little besides, and the great wilderness had taken them to itself. After some time had passed, Stephanie grew in a measure accustomed to Dick's absence. She was so surrounded by affection, and so much occupied by work, that she had no opportunity for brooding and melancholy thoughts. She always watched for him, always waited for him. "I know he will come back to me," she said to Mrs. Collinson, "but how long, how long will it be? It seems to me that I have waited a long time already." But she was not to be left entirely without knowledge of him throughout the summer. It was one morning in June that she had word of Dick. She had just finished milking two of the cows, and, having a few spare moments afterwards, she had hurried down to the edge of that ravine which ran up through the fields to the very farm buildings themselves. It had been her wont of late to haunt the edge of the clearing, to roam whenever she could into the outskirts of the woods, and there wait and listen for a space, feeling the silence and beauty of the wilds to be, in some vague sense, a link between herself and Dick. It was a very fair morning. The distant trees were softened by a faint haze that gave promise of heat, and the dew was still damp and chilly in the shadows. There is no more lovely time of the year than June, when things are ripened to full beauty, and yet young, when each tree has still its own individual shade of green, not yet merged into the heavier, denser, universal tint of the later season. And Stephanie found both peace and promise in the still radiance of the early day. She paused at the brink of the ravine, watching the tree-creepers with wide, unconscious eyes. She remembered that morning, now many weeks ago, when the knowledge, hard, inevitable, had first come to her that Dick had run away with the Indian; and when for a time she could feel nothing, think nothing, but that he had left her, his only sister. Those feelings were softened now; softened with the sure though gradual growth of her trust and faith in that love deeper than her own, which could guard and care for her brother through all things. But she longed for a sight, a word of him, more than for anything else in the world. Just at that moment the longing was almost unbearable, and the little, long-beaked birds scuttled away in fright as Stephanie leant over the stump fence. "Dick! Dick! Dick!" she cried very softly, and the words held a prayer. It was a prayer which was to be immediately answered, for, without any preliminary rustle of leaves or noise of footsteps, a man walked softly out of the thick-leaved undergrowth, and stood before her. Her heart leapt wildly, and then grew quiet again, for the man was a stranger to her. He was tall, and his dark, bright face showed his mixed French and Indian descent; he was almost fantastically dressed in fringed deerskins and quaint finery, and the cap which he raised was decorated with feathers. But Stephanie had seen such trappers before in the old days, and did not fear his long gun or his savage silence. And, indeed, in his flourishing bow, French courtesy was apparent. But he was slow of speech, as are all dwellers in the woods; and now he merely held out a tiny package, wrapped in birch-bark, with an inquiring glance towards her. [Illustration: "HE HELD OUT A TINY PACKAGE, WRAPPED IN BIRCH-BARK, WITH AN INQUIRING GLANCE TOWARDS HER."] She saw her name scrawled upon the outside, and took it eagerly. There was a mist before her eyes for a moment, and she could do nothing but clasp the precious package close, and murmur little phrases of gratitude and comfort and endearing words--she scarcely knew what. When she came to herself a little, the trapper had gone, as he had come, in utter silence. She tore off the outer wrapping of the smooth bark, with its fringe of fragile green lichen, and read the few lines scrawled within. The note was from Dick, as she had expected, and it had been written weeks before. "Dear, dear Steenie," it ran, "I am almost too much ashamed to write to you, but I think of you always. I could not go on with the farm work any longer. You don't know how I hated it. I know what you must all think of me; but I only wish you were with me now! I never thought the world could be so beautiful, and I feel as if I were living now for the first time. I 'm sorry and miserable, of course; but I wish you were here to see the trees and the skies and the rivers that I am growing to love. It is all splendid. Never forget me, as I never forget you." That was all; but, besides the not very deep shame and penitence, these lines held a great joy, a great happiness--the happiness that comes from fulfilment of longing. She refolded the paper in its wrapping with trembling fingers, and then stood, gazing with wide, unseeing eyes at the rustling trees. For the first time she realised what Dick's struggle must have been, realised also what was his passionate love of freedom. She felt the tears wet on her cheeks--tender, forgiving tears--and her heart was full of thankfulness to think she was not forgotten. But he had said nothing of coming back, though in her great relief she scarcely noticed it. She pictured his probable surroundings when that letter was written; until she almost fancied she could see him sitting beside a little fire, apart from Peter Many-Names, scrawling those hurried words of affection and penitence and boyish delight; and then wrapping them in birch-bark and consigning them to the care of the half-savage trapper, who had thus, after many days, given them into her hands. It was a very boyish note, and she smiled half sadly to think that he who had written it was actually a little older than herself. He seemed to realise so little the deeper meaning of his action, and evidently regarded it as a child might regard a delightful but naughty escape from school. For a time, she saw freedom and the forests held his heart. "But he loves me, and he will come back, for we have no one but each other." She showed the letter to the good farmer and his wife, her joy shining in her dark eyes. "It came to me from the woods," she cried almost merrily; "a trapper came out of the woods and handed it to me like a messenger in a fairy-story. Dick is safe and well, you see, and he does not forget. I can think of nothing but that now!" The farmer raised his eyes from the fragrant screed of birch-bark. "No, lassie," he said tenderly, "he does not forget." Then he fell silent, reading and re-reading the boyish scrawl, while Mrs. Collinson watched him with secret uneasiness. He was almost especially gentle to the girl that evening; but as soon as possible he drew his wife aside, and spoke to her in his gruff whisper. "We must keep up Steenie's heart," he said, "but it's my opinion, Mrs. C., that the boy won't be back for many a long day." "We must not let Stephanie think that," echoed his wife sadly. But they need not have troubled. Stephanie was confident. Dick did not forget her, and she could trust his welfare to a greater love than her own. So thereafter she watched and waited with a new and confident patience, comforted and strengthened, not to be shaken in her hope and trust. And thus for a time we will leave her. For, meanwhile, how had Dick fared? CHAPTER VIII. A Wood's Adventure. From the night of Peter Many-Names' arrival at the sugar-camp, Dick had yielded himself utterly to his dreams. Home, duty, Stephanie, all this had become as a shadow before the wonder and delight which the thought of freedom held. And when the time came, he had shaken off all ties of affection, all thoughts of right and gratitude, and had turned north to the country of his longings. At last, at last, the skies were blue for him, the airs were fresh for him, the world was wide for him, he could follow where he would and none should call him back. Of probable consequences he did not think. The struggle was over, and, though he knew he had chosen ill instead of good, the knowledge troubled him little. Was it not enough that the humdrum round of toil lay far behind him, and that all before and on every side of the land was fair with spring? At the time he found it enough--enough to fairly intoxicate him with delight. In this spirit he began his wanderings, and the days passed in golden dreams of beauty and of freedom. He followed in utter content wherever Peter Many-Names chose to lead, caring nothing so that he might eat and sleep and dream and wander on again, guided by any stream that ran, any wind that blew. After a while he lost count of time, lost count of distance, and was still content. Left to himself, he would have gone on thus indefinitely; but he was held by a keener, harder intellect than his own. Peter allowed matters to go on thus for some days. He was contemptuously fond of Dick, willing to indulge him to a certain extent. So for nearly two weeks they idled northwards through the awakening woods, killing for food as they required it, with the Indian to do all the hard work and bear most of the burdens. They travelled in irregular zig-zags, choosing the drier ground, and having a good deal of difficulty owing to streams swollen with melting snow to angry little rivers. But Dick only saw the choke-cherry's white tassels trailing in the water, the white drifts clearing from the hollows and showing all the tender tangled green beneath, the delicate green mist that showed upon the birch-boughs, and the young leaves that reddened the twigs of oak and maple. He only heard the robins whistling from dawn to dusk, the rush and patter of the sudden sparkling showers, the rustlings and murmurs that showed the woods were full of life about them. He ate what was offered him and slept where Peter wished, dazed and enraptured. For two golden weeks the dream endured. And then quite suddenly Peter Many-Names buckled down to the trail. The dream was roughly broken. Thereafter Dick had no leisure for the beauties of the wilderness. After the day's march, he had only strength enough left to roll himself in his blankets and groan. He lived from dawn till dark in a stupor, not of delight, but of weariness. His softer muscles were racked and tortured with manifold aches, strained and swollen with the effort of the pace. And when he moaned and lamented, Peter scowled at him horribly, and called him rude discourteous names in the Indian tongue. "Where are we going?" Dick would groan impatiently, at the end of a trying day. "What's the need of all this hurry?" And Peter's contemptuous little dark face would flame with that excitement which Dick had seen in it that night in the sugar-camp, and his voice would rise again to that wild mesmeric chant. "We are going north, north, north!" he would sometimes answer; "north to the land of clean winds and strong men, to the land of uncounted bison and wild fowl in plenty for the hunter! North to the land loved of its children, to my country! But what do you know of it? Is it not enough for you if I lead you there in ease and safety?" "Ease!" poor wearied Dick would reply, "do you call this ease?" and then would roll himself in his blanket and fall into the sleep of exhaustion. Day after day this incident was repeated. For Peter Many-Names was merciless, and his tongue played round Dick's very excusable weaknesses with the stinging unexpectedness of a whip-lash. But after a while Dick's muscles hardened. The day's march was no longer torment to him. He grew almost as lean and wiry as his comrade, though he would never attain to the Indian's powers of endurance of fatigue. And then the daring young pair proceeded amicably enough. The dream had faded to a more real world, though the beauty of it still remained. Dick's faculties and feelings awoke, though his conscience was sleepy enough. His skill in woodcraft, his hunter's lore, all came again in play, and he and the Indian regarded each other as pleasant company, though the silence of the wilderness was rendering Dick as chary of speech as was Peter, and sometimes they scarcely exchanged a dozen words in as many hours. He never forgot Stephanie. When the first delight and excitement were over, the thought of her troubled him daily, though as yet the charm of wood-running held him a willing captive. Now and then came ugly little pricks of conscience concerning his duty to his only sister, and to those who had been such friends to him and his in the hour of need; but no glimmer had as yet come to him of a higher duty to One far higher even than these. And on the whole he was perfectly happy. Yet he welcomed the opportunity that a chance meeting with a southward bound trapper offered him of sending her a word of affection and penitence; which, as we know, she received safely. After that he saw and spoke with no one, Peter seeming to avoid all other wanderers in the wilderness. "No need to run away from man," he was wont to explain, "but no need run after 'im. What you want with 'im? Nothin'. What he want with you? Nothin'. So all right. You come on, quick an' quiet." Sometimes they came upon the cold ashes of a hunter's fire, now and then upon a deserted Indian camping-place. But the stars and the clear skies and the calling winds, the trees and the bushes and the unseen stealthy life within their shadows, held undisturbed possession of all things. This same stealthy life was not always unseen. Sometimes Dick and Peter would come upon a battle royal beneath the calm spring dawn. Sometimes they were aware of quiet presences around their evening fires. Sometimes they caught glimpses of great moving shapes, indistinct in the foliage, and knew that some forest lord was watching them. They had as yet contented themselves with whatever small game came most readily to hand, for Dick lacked the love of slaughter, and Peter Many-Names was apparently in a hurry, and turned aside as little as possible. Once that noiseless spirit of death, that was ever abroad in the forest, touched them more nearly. They had made their camp for the night rather earlier than usual, owing to a slight mishap that had befallen Dick--a strained ankle, which, while not serious, made it imperative for him to have a long night's rest They watched dusk fall over the banks and glades all ablaze with the tall, purple wind-flower of the north, they had seen the stars show softly, one by one, beyond the branches of the trees, they had heard the even trickle of a tiny spring nearby interrupted by faint, faint sounds, as little wild creatures, bold in their obscurity, came there to drink. As night darkened down, and the flame of the camp-fire grew more bright and ruddy in consequence, the woods became more stealthily hushed. For a moment, watching the gloom surrounding them--black, silent, yet giving the listener an impression of teeming, hungry multitudes within it--Dick's heart sank with a sense of isolation. On every side, for leagues, these forests lay. He felt a benumbing realisation of his own loneliness, and of the smallness of man's aims and hopes when confronted with the impassive greatness of nature. What part had he in this solemn wilderness, full of the things of the woods seeking their meat from God? A sound like a heavy, dragging footfall broke the silence, and shook Dick's somewhat troubled nerves, so that he nearly jumped out of his blanket, in sudden, unconcealed fright. "What was that?" he cried involuntarily. And Peter responded with the nearest approach to a scornful giggle of which his dignity was capable. For it was only a porcupine taking a nocturnal walk, and not caring how much noise he made, secure in his terrible quills. The thump--thump of his leisurely progress died away, and then the quiet was disturbed only by the cries of night-birds and those continuous, faint rustlings and murmurs which seemed but a part of silence. After dreamily listening and watching for a while longer, Dick dozed off to sleep. But his slumbers were not as peaceful as usual, owing, perhaps, to the slight pain in his ankle. And presently he was roused again--roused, not by any noise, but by a sudden and complete cessation of all the tiny sounds of the woods about them. He had thought that the silence before had been deep; but now the intense quiet oppressed him like some palpable weight. He glanced drowsily at the fire, which was low, and then across it to Peter's crouching figure, indistinct in the shadows. Some thought of rousing the Indian was in his mind. "But no, I won't do that," he said to himself. "I 've been laughed at quite enough for one night, and it's only my fancy." The hush was so great that he could hear the sound of the little breeze among the leaves--so great that it seemed as if all life were held in breathless suspension for a space--and it endured for some moments, broken at last by the frightened flutter of a bird roused from its sleep. Then, as if this little frightened flutter of wings had been a signal, a dark, snarling shape launched itself from a low branch, and leapt, with a harsh cry, straight upon the Indian! There was a yell from Peter; and then followed a second's fearful rolling, snarling, grunting, worrying confusion in the shadows. But in that second Dick had unsheathed his knife, cleared the fire at a bound, and leapt to the rescue. No need to ask what was the assailant. Only one beast, "the devil of the woods," was capable of such an attack. And Dick's heart throbbed as he stood beside that frantic turmoil, lighted only by the uncertain flicker of the fire, and waited for a chance of getting in a thrust, fearing also, lest in striking the lynx, he should wound Peter Many-Names. But on the instant of thinking this, the chance came. Peter's unyielding hands were grasping the beast's throat, and as they rolled over and over, its gaunt side was fully exposed for a moment, and Dick drove in the knife up to the handle. So strong and true was the blow, that it ended the struggle, and the Indian was safe, though terribly scratched and torn. Indeed, if the savage brute had not leapt short in the first instance, Dick's ready aid might have come too late, and there would have been an end of Peter Many-Names. Dick laughed a little uncertainly when it was all over. "That was a narrow escape," he said, turning to assist Peter to his feet again. But the Indian had already shaken himself free from the dead lynx, and now took the English boy's hand in his own, regardless of the pain of his wounds, as befitted a brave. He always spoke in his own tongue in those rare moments when he gave way to emotion. And now he began a long and dignified speech, the meaning of which was not difficult to gather. "That's all right," Dick interrupted nervously, "you are not to say any more about it," though, as a matter of fact, he had not understood more than a few words of the rapid, musical oration. Peter relapsed into his English. "You my brother now," he said briefly; "come danger, come death, come anything, my life yours. My life yours, my home yours, my horses yours, my people yours." He waved a lordly arm to the four points of the compass, and Dick suppressed a laugh. Peter's worldly wealth so evidently existed for purposes of ceremonial gratitude only. But the Indian felt that he had returned thanks with proper dignity, and submitted in a sort of contented, stoic indifference while Dick roughly bound up the worst of his cuts and scratches. Gratitude is a feeling somewhat difficult to awaken in the heart of the Red Man; but when once it is aroused, it is deep and binding. The adventure with the "lucifee" was a fresh tie between the two lads, and they proceeded on their way in greater good-fellowship than ever. Through all the splendour of wild forest and deep ravine, Peter led the way, straight north-west, stopping for nothing. And so great was his ascendancy over Dick, that the English boy never questioned his leadership, or even asked definitely where they were going. In the wilds the Indian was supreme, and his speed, endurance, and skill were dominant. Dick relied upon him almost blindly, and was content to follow where he led. The life at the homestead seemed a thing of the past, part of some other state of existence, so intense a hold had the wilderness upon Dick's mind. But the thought of Stephanie was real and living, the only point of pain in his present lot; and this pain he put aside as much as possible, together with all worry as to the future. "I made my choice," he said to himself, "and there's an end of it. I know it was pretty hard on Steenie, but here I am, and what's the use of worrying?" Minds of his type are convinced of error only by stern measures, and Dick showed a great deal of argumentative skill in assuring himself that he had been perfectly justified in escaping from the bonds of humdrum toil which had grown so unendurable. He knew that he had proved himself weak and lacking in gratitude, nevertheless; but the knowledge had not yet touched his heart to any keener sense of wrong-doing. Straight northwestward they went, through gradually changing country, and all the subtle passage of the weeks was heralded to them by new flowers, new streams, new lands of wonder. The wild strawberries ripened, and the last violets died. The raspberry canes were heavy with fruit, and the spots where they grew best were much favoured by brown bears, big and little. White lilies shone upon the pools and the still reaches of the small rivers. And still, through all the shifting moods of the year, they hurried on, never resting, never turning aside, but always keeping up the same unvarying rate of speed. Where was Peter Many-Names going? Dick did not know, and did not care. He had chosen his way of life, and now gave himself up to its delight. He only knew that the wilds he loved were very fair, that the weather was almost unbroken in its warm sunniness, that food was easily come by, and that all things, great and small, made for happiness. He seemed to be one with the clear blue Canadian skies, with the silver stars, with the free, beautiful things of stream and forest, with the very blades of grass beneath his moccasined feet. The little owls, the great wood-peckers, the tiny songsters of the reeds and bushes, he looked upon as his brethren. He felt no return of the desolate ache at his heart he had experienced on the night of Peter's struggle with the lynx. His was that joyous fellowship with nature that knows no weariness, and he troubled himself as little as possible about Stephanie. Not yet had his awakening come. Straight northwest they went, through all the brief splendour of the northern summer; and the weeks passed in golden dreams of freedom and of beauty. And thus the year drew slowly, inevitably, to its close. CHAPTER IX. On the Prairie. In after life Dick never forgot those weeks of wandering. The freedom and beauty of all that summer world was indelibly impressed upon his memory. His was a nature readily moved to admiration, and had powers of observation unusual in a lad of his age. But there were two small scenes, each perfect in pictorial beauty, which he afterwards recollected with special clearness. They were tramping steadily along the bottom of a small ravine, one late July afternoon, through a luxuriance of fern and vine almost tropical. Dick, watching the dark woods ahead, saw a sudden little flame of colour leap to life against the black stems of the pines--a flame so intense in its ruddy gold that it seemed to throb and pulsate like a tongue of fire. A sunbeam, slanting through the branches, had been caught and held in the cup of an open red lily--that was all. But the effect was one which no artist on earth could have reproduced. Another time, they were paddling up a small stream in a little canoe of Peter's building--a little canoe he had hurriedly made, with Dick's help, while they camped for the purpose--a flimsy, crank craft, but serviceable, and sufficient for their needs. They were gliding slowly along in the shadow of the bank, when they came upon a tall brown crane standing quietly on one yellow leg in the calm shallows. He did not offer to move as they slipped past, but stood there peacefully, in water which reflected the sunset skies and small opalescent clouds floating above. Backed by the green rushes, surrounded by the mirrored glow of sunset, he stood and watched them out of sight with wild, sad eyes--untamed, fearless, and alone. And thus he remained always in Dick's remembrance. After a time, they hid the canoe in a tiny creek, and took to land-travelling again. Peter's haste increased, and Dick was sometimes hard put to it to keep up with him. His caution increased also as they advanced into more open country--country which gradually grew to foreshadow the prairies. But Peter kept to the trees as much as possible, speeding swiftly and stealthily northwestward. "One would think we were thieves," murmured Dick, with an uneasy English dislike of stealthiness. It was the first time he had in any way rebelled against Peter's leadership. "All right," the Indian responded, "go on your way, see how far you get. What you know? What you see? What you hear? Nothin'. You blind, deaf, sleepy all times. I see, hear, know. You come with me, or you go alone. But if come with me, you come quiet. I lead you," he concluded, thrusting his little dark face with its strange eyes close to Dick's. Thus the incipient mutiny was crushed. In all those weeks they had seen and spoken with no one but the solitary trapper to whom Dick had consigned the letter, and the absolute loneliness had become as natural to Dick as the splendid clearness of air was natural. So when one morning in September he came upon the ashes of a fire that were still warm, it gave him a curious feeling of wistful excitement. "Look, Peter," he said, "feel here. The ground is not cold yet under the ashes. Someone was here only a little while ago!" Peter snarled something inarticulate, and peered about the fire with a frowning face. "White man," he grunted uneasily at last. "How do you know?" asked Dick; and then, not waiting for an answer, "I should have liked to have spoken to him. I wish we had met him." "Company's man," grunted Peter, still restless and uneasy. "They bad people. Not like us here." But Dick was full of his own thoughts, and scarcely heeded. There was some reason for Peter's uneasiness, for they were then almost within the vast territories ruled over by the Hudson Bay Company. And at no time did the great Company prove friendly to strangers. The Indian had probably, at some crisis in his chequered career, come in contact with the authority of the said Company, which thereafter he regarded with superstitious awe and veneration. As they went stealthily on their way, and the miles dropped behind with the vanishing summer, Peter Many-Names became strangely eager and excited. Dick did not understand the cause of this excitement or of the haste that accompanied it. But had he possessed the key to that savage nature, he would have guessed that it was the nearness of the prairies which so moved the impassive Indian. As the sea to a coast-bred man, as the mountains to a hillman, so were the prairies to Peter Many-Names. They had called him north with a voice that, to his wild fancy, was almost articulate--insistent, not to be mistaken. He had been born and bred upon the plains, and now he was returning to them as a tired child runs to its mother, asking only the presence of that which he loved. And by the time that the woods about the distant homestead were lighted with the purple of the tall wild asters, Dick had had his first sight of the open prairie. In after days he never found words to describe that sight. Once having reached the goal of his desire, Peter's hurry seemed in great measure to evaporate. He was content to see the vast arch of the pale autumn skies above his head, to feel the keen air in his face, to travel over those limitless earthen billows, interrupted only by some bluff of aspens or other soft-wood trees, or by the forest-growth which fringed the courses of the larger rivers. To him, life offered nothing better. Two days after they had definitely left the last of the wooded country behind them, Dick camped in the shelter of a poplar bluff, while Peter Many-Names went off a day's journey to the east with the intention of procuring a couple of ponies. "Saw fire-smoke dark when sun rose," he declared, "and when fires, there wigwams; where wigwams, there Indians; where Indians, there ponies. You keep close, and I come back soon." "But you can't buy ponies, for we 've nothing to give in exchange for them," Dick protested. However, Peter took no notice of him, and presently departed, leaving Dick to loneliness, and wonder unsatisfied. He had leisure to wonder as much as he liked. Peter departed stealthily, leaving him in charge of all their little stores, with only the slim poplars and his blanket to shield him from the winds that had now begun to blow very coldly. He had, as has already been written, leisure to spare, for it was four days before Peter appeared from the southwest, riding one pony and leading another. They were sturdy little brown beasts, very shy of Dick, and practically wild. There was nothing remarkable about them in any way except that they were very muddy. It was not for some time that Dick discovered that this dried mud concealed some very conspicuous white spots. Thereupon he wondered more and more, noticing that there was nothing lacking in the equipment or among the possessions of the triumphant but always taciturn Peter. "How did you get them?" he asked. "Did you find friends, or what? However did you manage to get them?" But Peter only grinned, as he occasionally condescended to do when much amused, and Dick got no further answer. There the ponies were, and there Peter evidently intended they should stay. To Dick, the beginning of their wanderings across the prairie was as the beginning of a new world. The sense of vast space was almost terrifying. Vision was obstructed by nothing, and the great skies rounded down to the utmost edge of the great undulating plain. They were now travelling quite slowly, but after a few days--nay, a few hours--the prairies seemed to close in upon them, to swallow them up in vastness and silence. Dick, dreamy and impressionable, felt a little lonely and bewildered, troubled by the mighty width and apparently limitless expanse surrounding him. But to Peter Many-Names the prairies were as home-like and familiar as a meadow. Here, where Dick would see the far skyline broken by the irregular black mass of a herd of bison, the wheat waves now, mile after mile, about the countless farms and homesteads. These fertile lands, known then to few but the Indian and the hunter, have been claimed by civilisation, and their produce goes to the feeding of the nations. Agriculture has taken the prairies, and their nomad life is surely slipping into the past. To the Indian, these prairies were dear above all things. But they impressed Dick more with awe than admiration, and he grew to long for the friendly trees left behind them, and to regard the limitless plain and the skies arching from the horizon almost as hostile things, with something menacing in their very splendour. Now also for the first time he began troubling about the future, and once he put his feelings into words. "Where are you going to spend the winter, Peter?" he asked. "With some tribe of my people," Peter replied carelessly. Of course, it was the only thing to be done, and in Peter's mind no alternative was to be considered at all. But Dick felt a doubt as to his own endurance and toughness compared with the Indian's. He was no weakling; but he dearly loved his flesh-pots, and, with the prospect becoming one of hardship and discomfort, he began to think a little regretfully of the cosy Collinson homestead, now so far away. And Stephanie! "I wonder what Stephanie's doing, and whether she misses me much," he thought. "I should like to see her again." The last of the yellow leaves fell from the poplar bushes, and the silver foliage of the aspens fluttered to the ground. At night the stars shone large and frosty, but so intensely dry and bracing was the air, that Dick did not feel the cold, and Peter Many-Names was of course inured to any changes of climate. Game became more scarce, and sometimes they wandered far afield in search of their supplies, occasionally falling back upon their reserve store of dried meat. But it was still very enjoyable, and perhaps Peter, who had been an exile from his native plains for several years, strayed somewhat farther away from the river-courses and the sheltered lands than he had formerly intended. But to him the prairies were home; and who would not feel justified in relaxing caution a little when in his native haunts? So, for some little time, they wandered about, meeting with few adventures. Once they passed too close to a cluster of tepees, and three young braves chased them for miles. The mud had by now scaled off their ponies, and the curiously shaped white spots were as remarkable as the speed of the little animals who were distinguished by these marks. Peter seemed to think that this incident effectually put a stop to the quest for hospitality in that region, but the difficulty could be easily overcome. "We will muddly ponies again, go farther north," he said. And a little farther north they went, following the trail of a band of Indians. "Many people go along here two, three days ago," Peter remarked, "we follow them. If enemies, bad. If friends, good. Come on quick." The second day after they had struck this trail, the first snow fell. It was only a couple of inches of delicate, powdery white crystals; and in an hour or so the clouds had cleared off, and the sky was dazzlingly fair and blue. But it gave Dick a curious shock to think that the winter was close upon them. His thoughts turned to the homestead where he and Stephanie had been received as welcome guests in the time of sorrow and almost destitution, to that Christmas day when he had, as he thought, fought and conquered his roving inclinations. How different had been his intentions! Even in the hour of his greatest delight, when freedom and the forests had filled his life, he had not been able to stifle thoughts of Stephanie entirely. And now, when he was a little tired of wandering, a little lonely, a little anxious, these returned upon him with double force. Some of the glamour had perhaps passed from a wild life. And it was a fact, that, however he might love the wilderness, he could never become an unthinking, unquestioning part of it, as was Peter Many-Names. This knowledge brought with it his first feeling of intense shame and repentance. But he fought against these feelings more stubbornly than he had ever struggled against his longings for the gipsy-life of the trapper and the Indian. Indeed, the very awakening of his conscience and his almost dormant affection for Stephanie made him cling more obstinately to the wilds. He angrily assured himself that he would not go back. He had chosen his present deliberately, and the future must take care of itself. With determination worthy of a better cause, he faced the prairies and the cold sky, and nothing, he told himself impatiently, should drive him to forsake that life which was dearer to him than all. But, now the first dazed rapture and delight were over, was it dearer than all? That was the point. The difficulty was increased by the fact that the fall of snow had been sufficient to cover the slight trail they were following. And now Peter's caution began to re-appear. A bitter wind had suddenly arisen, blowing with increasing force, and Peter as suddenly and emphatically expressed a wish to return by the way they had come. Dick, for the first time in all their daring journey, flatly refused to follow the wishes of the Indian. He felt that to turn southward now would seem like a concession to those softer, better feelings which filled his heart, and of which he was so anxious to rid himself. If they turned south now, they might never turn north again. And that one homestead which held Stephanie represented to him the whole of the country they had left behind them. He felt that he could never face the Collinsons, could never endure the humiliation of a return to civilised life, could never endure the thought that his dreams had led him astray. "I will go on by myself if you are afraid," he said in a fury of suddenly aroused stubbornness. "I don't care what happens. I may freeze or starve or anything, but turn back I will not." Peter Many-Names shrugged his shoulders uneasily. "So," he said, "you go on if you will, I come with you. You my brother now, and I cannot leave you. But it is for true we go into death." And the ponies hung their heads and shivered restlessly before that steady, unceasing wind as they proceeded. But Dick kept his face turned obstinately northward, resolved that he would never yield. It is written that "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera." And now the spirit of the wide prairies was to fight against Dick. That night they found no game. And, by the morning, fine particles of icy snow gave an edge of steel to that steady, unceasing wind. By midday the sky was overcast, the wind increased, and the snow became thicker and thicker. CHAPTER X. In the Grip of the Storm. A world of small, whirling, white flakes, rushing, eddying, drifting before a wind that continually shifted from one quarter to another; a cold, grey light filtering through this haze of stinging snow; a continuous, angry murmur, as the icy particles struck the tall, stiff, prairie grasses, sometimes deepening to a roar as the wind momentarily increased; and, in the midst of this unresting, resistless tumult, two dark figures staggering uncertainly northward, leading between them an almost exhausted pony, laden with the last remnants of their food. For three days, the snow, and the wind, and the great cold had scourged the prairies, and the storm was almost an early blizzard in its wild fury, in the confusion of air-currents and always-falling, never-resting white flakes, tipped with ice, and stinging like fire. And for these three days Dick and Peter Many-Names had gone blindly on their painful way, trusting to the Indian's sense of direction, yet not knowing where they were going. An Indian's bump of locality is a marvellously developed organ; but it is of little use in a blizzard. And now the two lads were staggering forward, with no hope that they were keeping to the right path--one in stoic resignation, the other in a passion of regret and despair. They were almost exhausted, and only kept moving through fear of that snow-sleep from which there is no awakening. Even this fear had now become dulled through cold and weariness. When the blizzard first struck them, Dick's obstinacy had changed to a very lively realisation of danger. "We will turn back now, if you like," he had said somewhat shamefacedly. But Peter had given one of his rare, bitter laughs. "All too late," he had said grimly. "Death behind as well as in front--everywhere. P'raps so we go on we find band of Indians that we followed. P'raps we do. All too late go back now, too late." And, with those words in their ears, they had faced the unsheltered prairie and the strength of the storm. For the first day hope had been left to them, for they could judge their direction from the steady, cutting wind. But, after that, the wind began to shift constantly, and thus their only guide failed them. A prairie is not as bare of all landmarks as a lawn, but one buffalo-wallow is much like another, one poplar-bluff is not distinguishable from the next, and most sloughs have a family likeness to each other, especially when one's circle of vision is limited to a couple of yards' radius, and everything beyond is blotted out with pitiless, hurrying, scurrying clouds of white flakes. Dick was utterly lost. "Where are we? Where are we?" he kept saying. "Is the whole world turning to snow?" And sometimes, angrily, "I know you are going the wrong way, Peter. I know you are." Whereupon he would stumble off by himself, and the Indian would follow and drag him back again. "No right, no wrong, no anything," Peter exclaimed angrily in answer; "but you must not go round, round, round in circles. That what you doing, an' if you do so, you die pretty quick. You come on with me." And actually they had kept a straighter course than they knew, or than they would have dared to hope, thanks to the Indian's sense of direction. The first night they passed in the shelter of a large bluff of aspens, and were not very much the worse for it. It was then that they somehow lost one of their ponies through inexcusable carelessness in securing it, and it was after that also that they began to lose hope. Their food as well as their strength was failing them, and on this third day they were in a very bad case. Dick had, of course, suffered more than the Indian, and plodded forward in a sort of stupor, which threatened to end in fatal unconsciousness at any moment. But even Peter's keen senses were dulled by the cold, and his movements, though little less agile, were more mechanical. His face was grey and pinched, and his hard, grey eyes were very weary also. He seemed leaner and more shrunken than ever. But his mouth was set in grim determination to meet whatever fate might be in store for him with fitting dignity. At first, Dick's remorse had been passionate. "It's my wretched obstinacy has led us into this, Peter," he said repeatedly; "but sorrow can't do any good now. Nothing can do any good. Oh, what a fool, what a silly, self-willed fool I was! And all my regret is useless! Everything's useless! There's nothing to help us." "Except Great Spirit," the Indian replied austerely, though Dick, in his despairing mood, scarcely noticed the words, and went on with his vain regrets and repentance. But now the stealthy hand of the frost was lulling all his hopes and fears and regrets to sleep. As he plodded on beside the staggering pony, he thought only of his previous life, and that without any pain or grief. He vaguely remembered one May morning long ago, before his mother had died, when Stephanie had crowned herself with all the first frail blossoms of the year, and had then danced over the miserable log-hut, brightening it with the spirit of grace and childhood, and sweetening it with the shy fragrance of spring flowers. He had forgotten the little incident entirely, but now he remembered it clearly enough, and idly wondered over it. He suddenly seemed to remember so many things, pleasant little happenings of past years. And his mind dwelt upon them more and more dreamily. More and more slowly he walked, half-forgetting the benumbing ache of cold, the rush and whirl of the surrounding snow. He was roughly roused from his dangerous dreams. The restless, dancing drifts and eddies of snow seemed to vanish from beneath his feet, and he fell head foremost down a steep bank, some three feet deep, into a little depression of the soil between two high ridges. In spring this was doubtless a slough, haunted by wild-fowl, but now it was dry, and covered with grass, thin and poor, but much relished by the trembling, famished pony. It was sheltered on all sides by the three-foot banks, crested with little straggling bushes, against which the snow had drifted. So cosy did this desolate little valley seem after the roaring tempest without, that Dick grew quite comfortable and drowsy, and would have gone to sleep where he fell. But this Peter would by no means allow. "You wake up," he commanded; "even little child know better than go sleep in snow an' cold. You wake up." "For pity's sake, let me alone!" Dick pleaded. "Go on if you like and leave me here. I 'm so comfortable." [Illustration: "'FOR PITY'S SAKE, LET ME ALONE!' DICK PLEADED. 'GO ON AND LEAVE ME.'"] "Ugh! Yes, you very comfortable, so you stay there that your bones scare the birds away in the spring. That how comfortable you are." And, roused by this grisly picture, Dick fought off the weariness that was overwhelming him. They huddled in their blankets silently, and ate some pieces of dried and icy deer's meat--ate with despair in their hearts, for this food was their last. The slight refreshment following the food and rest was almost unwelcome to Dick, bringing with it a keener realisation of the consequences of his wilfulness, and of the desperate strait they were in. When they started again on their hopeless tramp, his thoughts turned to the probable fate that awaited them. Once more he seemed to hear himself say, "Nothing, nothing to help us!" And once more he seemed to hear Peter's solemn answer, at the time unheeded, "Nothing, except Great Spirit." With his whole soul he felt that it was true. He was facing death more nearly than ever in his life before, and he knew it. With the knowledge came the old, instinctive cry, the readiest of all prayers, "God help us!" But had he deserved such help? He knew that he had not. He was too much confused with bitter cold and exhaustion to feel these things other than vaguely and uncertainly. But as he stumbled on through the swirling haze of white, he gave full sway to those softened thoughts which he had hitherto rejected, seeing his past conduct in a clearer light-the light of repentance. "Before I ask for help," thought poor Dick, "I have need to say, 'God forgive me!' But if we get through this, I 'll do my best to be less selfish, and to think less of my own wishes. Oh, Steenie, Steenie! Indeed, I have need to ask for forgiveness." Resolves made under such circumstances are not generally worth much. But though that hour might pass, Dick would never again be quite what he was before. Some of his careless selfishness would be wanting, and in its stead would appear a far more manly humility. For the first time he had dimly realised that no human being can live to himself alone--realised that, even if a man is responsible to no earthly duties of kinship and labour, he is responsible to his Maker. And such realisation could not fail to bear fruit in deeds. But presently the insidious hand of the frost fell heavily upon them again. Peter's long, savage step became shorter and less sure, and he fell to crooning little snatches of some wild chant under his breath--a brave's death-song, if Dick had known. The pony lagged more and more, and Dick noticed nothing, felt nothing any longer. He was benumbed, mind and body, with the cold. Peter's song blew past his ears on the irregular gusts of wind, but he did not hear. He was back again in those long ago days, and his mother was standing at the door of the cabin, calling, "Stephanie, Stephanie!" The name was on his blue lips as strength failed, and he fell full length in the snow, while the whirling haze of white, the pony, and Peter Many-Names, slid away to nothingness, and only that voice remained--"Stephanie, Stephanie!" Peter, partly roused from the lethargy which was creeping over him, tried to lift Dick from the drifts, but was too weak. So he quietly pulled off his own blanket, laid it over the English boy, and then crouched down with his back to the worst of the wind, and waited stoically--waited for death, which was all he looked for. He thought of it quite calmly; but then through all his stormy life the gates of the Happy Hunting-Grounds had never been far away. There was something very pathetic in that little crouching brown figure waiting so gravely and patiently for the end. The wind blew the snow into little ridges on his long black hair, and then blew it off again. The pony came close to him with drooping head, as if for company; but by then the Indian was too far gone to heed anything, though still he crooned little snatches of his desolate song, as was right and fitting. Presently he too fell softly sideways into the snow as a tired child falls. His last distinct thought was of the great broad woods through which they had passed, and of the warm summer sun upon the fair, green world. Just then the pony lifted its lean head, fringed over with the long ragged mane, and pointing its nose to the blast, neighed shrilly, piercingly, as only an Indian pony can neigh. But neither Dick nor Peter Many-Names heard it. That neigh was answered by a dozen or more. But so strongly blew the irregular winds that only faint echoes of the shrill clamour were to be heard. It proceeded from the very heart of an unusually large bluff of willows upon the bank of a river. There was an open space in the middle of this thick growth of stunted trees, which was occupied by several horses and a cluster of tepees. A band of Indians were very comfortably weathering the unexpected storm in this manner, little more than a few yards distant from the spot where Dick and Peter Many-Names had been overcome. When the pony neighed, no echo of the sound reached the ears of the people in the tepees; but the loud whinnyings of their own horses at last aroused Man-afraid-of-a-Bear, who had been sleeping the sleep of the just after a full meal, and he therefore went cautiously forth to investigate. He noticed with satisfaction that the blizzard showed signs of abating, and he also noticed that another pony had been added to their little herd; so he carefully followed that pony's track for a few yards, and came upon Dick and Peter Many-Names. He had looked for something of the kind, being accustomed to the chances of the plains. The Red Man is hospitable, but suspicious. However, there was nothing about the half-frozen and unconscious pair that might have led Man-afraid-of-a-Bear to suppose that they were enemies. Besides, their advent had added a very fine pony to the wealth of the tribe; so, without much more ado, he dragged them one after the other to the tepees. His haste was probably their salvation. Heroic and weird remedies were applied to ward off frost-bite, and after a time Peter Many-Names recovered sufficiently to eat a hearty meal. But it was days before the grip of the frost loosened from Dick's brain. An old woman had taken a queer fancy to the white boy, and she nursed him patiently and fed him well long after the great storm had passed, and long after Peter had begun to do his share of the hunting and other tasks which fell to the men. Day after day passed, and still Dick lay helpless on the pile of skins in the dusky tepee, waited on by the grim, silent old squaw, and knowing nothing of his surroundings. He fancied the Indian woman was Stephanie, and kept calling out to her and begging her to forgive him. "For indeed, Steenie, I 'm sorry," he would cry; "and after this I will be different, dear, and try and make it up to you. I was selfish and did not think, but I loved you all the time. I never forgot you. Forgive me, Stephanie! Stephanie, Stephanie!" And so it went on, until, exhaustion brought quiet. No one noticed him much or was much interested in him. But Peter Many-Names, after a few weeks, was counted a valuable addition to the tribe; and the pony was the swiftest of the herd. The days passed, and the prairies lay a vast field of white beneath the radiant blue of the skies. Then the snow blew off the higher mounds and ridges, and only the hollows and sloughs were white. So the season advanced, through all its changes of cold, through all its shifting winds, and brilliant sun and sudden tempest. And still the old squaw tended Dick, filling him with fearful herb-drinks, feeding him nobly, wrapping him close in soft skins. It was a fancy of hers that Death should not have the white boy; and once having become possessed with the idea, she nursed Dick as if he had been her own son, to the wonder of the tribe. And at last her care was rewarded, and the clouds cleared from his brain, though he had little hold on life for a time. But the days of weakness passed, and with them passed the last shadow of hesitation in Dick's mind. He had had long hours in which to repent and think as he lay in the corner of the smoky tepee--long hours in which to realise the fulness of that mercy which had shielded him in danger and saved him from death. And he went out into the sunshine again, resolved that as soon as he was strong enough to travel he would go back to that life in which his lot had been cast. He would go south, back to the Settlements, to work, and to Stephanie. And the wilds should thereafter call him in vain. CHAPTER XI. Back to Stephanie. That long winter spent among the Indians was a bitterly hard one to Dick, and taught him patience and humility in no very gentle fashion. He was anxious to put his good resolves to the test of action; but it would be some time before his strength became sufficient for the long journey back to the Settlements. And accustomed as he was to the possession of perfect health, he fretted under the knowledge, and chafed against the sense of helplessness which was so new to him. "But what's the use of fidgeting over it?" he told himself over and over again. "What's the use of thinking of it even, when I 'm fit for nothing but to sit at the entrance of the tepee when the sun's warm, or to lie on the pile of skins when the weather 's bad, and eat between times? Oh, but that old woman can cook things!" And indeed the old squaw, who was a person of position and influence, took care that he had plenty of food and warmth, and saw to it that no one molested him, regarding even Peter with suspicion. But the rest of the tribe looked upon him merely as an appanage of Peter Many-Names, and not a particularly creditable one at that. Peter was enjoying himself thoroughly. The lean and haughty young braves, who looked down upon the white boy, were glad of his silent company; and the elders considered him a promising youth. While poor Dick lay weak and restive in the old squaw's wigwam, Peter was ruffling about the camp with a dozen arrogant young rascals at his tail. He was pre-eminently skilful as a hunter, and he added many ponies to the wealth of his host--ponies which were certainly never taken in trade for other articles, excepting probably an occasional bullet, or no less deadly arrows. In the genial warmth of admiration Peter expanded visibly in more respects than one. While poor Dick chafed under the knowledge that he was neither needed nor respected. But in time a better frame of mind came to him. "How can I win respect, even the respect of untaught Indians," he thought, "when I don't deserve it? Even by their standards, I 'm not of much account. Why, I don't even respect myself." For a time he was downcast and discouraged, but as strength of body increased under the old squaw's care, strength of soul increased also. And he resolved that in future he would think less of his pleasure and more of his duty, in whatever way of life his lot should be cast. Some of this passive resignation passed off with his weakness; and he foresaw more clearly that his whole life might be passed in struggling against just such temptations as this one to which he had yielded. But by then the keen, clean prairie had begun to do its work, and he faced his future resolutely. With surprising wisdom he did not make many far-reaching and likely-to-be-broken resolves. "I will go back to Stephanie as soon as I can," he thought; "and after that I will settle down to any work I find, as near to her as possible. At present, this is enough to think of." So, with unusual patience, he set himself to wait for the return of strength and spring; while the old squaw grunted in undisguised admiration of his appetite, which bordered on the voracious. The weary weeks of cold passed slowly. At the end of March the change came, and the prairies suddenly leapt into life. The skies were softer, and full of great white clouds which sailed grandly before the wind. The long, low earthen billows were covered with grass and all the radiant flowers of spring. Every depression of the soil was a slough full of green water, covered with battalions of mallards and other wild-fowl. The poplars put forth shiny leaves which glittered restlessly in the sunshine, and the meadow-larks filled the whole world with music. Then Dick spoke to Peter Many-Names. "To-morrow," he said, "we will begin to get ready, and next week we will start south again. I have had enough of your plains." But Peter Many-Names was quite comfortable, and found many and plausible objections to the idea. "Very well," said Dick quietly, "you stay here, and I will go alone. Only you must get back my gun for me." Peter stared. There was a change in his comrade--a change which he could not fathom. But the day on which Dick was to start found Peter ready to start with him. "You my brother," he grunted in explanation, "an' I go with you. You not quite strong yet, an' so you go alone, you get lost or starve or drown or somethin'," which was likely, though Peter might have expressed it in a less uncomplimentary fashion. "I can go by myself," said Dick, a little indignant, though much relieved that the Indian had elected to go with him. But Peter only grunted again. "I goin'," he repeated, "come back here in spring--next spring. You come along quick." Many and ceremonious were the farewells between Peter and his stately savage host. But the old squaw was the only one who grieved for the loss of Dick; she gave him three pairs of delicately embroidered moccasins, and then stood and watched him out of sight with dull tearless sorrow. She had seen so many lads ride away in the distance; and few had ever returned. Dick waved his hand to her several times, but she did not respond; only stood and looked after him with sad, dim old eyes. The two travellers were accompanied by a crony of Peter's, who was to go with them to the end of the prairie-lands, and then return to the tribe with the three ponies they rode. They proceeded swiftly, and for the most part in silence; for the two Indians were sparing of words, according to their wont. They rode together ahead of Dick; but sometimes Peter fell back and opened a brief conversation. "To-morrow we begin to see woods again," he said once, "prairie soon break up, end. Then come trees, rivers, lakes. Now we see whole sky; then only little bits above leaves. Now we see who comes, miles an' miles away, then we see only grass, leaves, shadows, an' know less." But Dick welcomed the thought that the prairies would soon end. His dreams had led him astray. He fully realised that now. But it was not in him to think of the long woodland journey that lay before them with anything but keen and somewhat wistful pleasure. The prairies were not attractive to him. They were too vast, too monotonous, too remote from the little hopes and cares of human life. But the forests were different, and he was full of longing to behold them once more in all the beauty of the early year. Yet other longings were now stronger; and every night he counted that he was so much nearer to Stephanie. At last the prairies were behind them, and he and Peter were alone and on foot once more. It had been autumn when they passed through this country on their northward way, and now, looking back, Dick could scarcely believe that in a few months such changes could have taken place in all his hopes and aims and feelings. There were changes also in his appearance. Severe illness and long-continued hardship had made him taller and thinner and older. He bore himself with less light-hearted confidence, and seemed to expect less consideration. Instead of being a careless boy to be guided and excused, he now gave greater promise of becoming a good man to be relied upon and trusted. The trials of that winter had been excellent moral medicine for his selfishness, and the nearness of danger and death had led him to realise something, however dimly, of his unavoidable duty to his friends, his sister, and above all, to his God. Through all the splendour of the northern spring they went steadily southward. Not this time was Dick lost in a lazy dream of delight, though he loved the great woods more intensely than ever. The free skies were as fair to him, the winds still sang their little gipsy-songs to his heart, the green solitudes were as welcome to him as ever, but he held to his purpose firmly. And the days passed from clear dawns to tender twilight, and every day left him so much nearer to Stephanie. Steadily they journeyed southward, into lands of warmer sun and fuller blossom. Flower gave place to promise of fruit on all the wild bushes; the birds lost their spring songs with which the woods had rung, and flitted about busily and silently. Never had fairer season visited those forests, and Dick was alive to every subtle shade and gradation in all the beauty about him. He noted every point that made for loveliness in the glades and ravines and waterways, he felt akin to the very bees and butterflies in their enjoyment of sun and summer. Yet never did he turn from his purpose, even in thought. And neither did he rely so utterly upon the Indian; who, feeling that his influence had somehow lessened, watched closely and wondered more. Dick was no longer as pliable as of yore, but his moral fibre seemed to be tougher and less yielding. As the weeks passed and they proceeded farther and farther south, Dick grew restless and anxious. All sorts of vague fears began to torment him, and he imagined that some disaster might have befallen Stephanie. She might be ill. She might be needing him in a hundred ways, and probably had been, throughout all those long months. The thought of her in illness or trouble became as a spur to goad him on, and Peter marvelled at the pace. Dick was still Dick, and his penitence was always deep in proportion to its tardiness. So the year went on. The wild asters showed their buds, and presently opened into golden-hearted stars, filling the forest glades with a mist of delicate purple. Farther and farther south they went, while the wild sunflowers bloomed and faded, and the fair green growth became lifeless and sere with the sinking of the sap. And every day's journey brought Dick so many miles nearer to Stephanie. Until at last, almost at the end of the autumn, they camped for the night only a few miles away from the Collinson homestead. That same night, as they sat beside their little fire, Peter Many-Names glanced at Dick curiously. "You go on alone to-morrow," he said, as one stating a long-decided fact. Dick looked up, almost startled that the Indian should show so perfect a knowledge of his feelings. "Yes, I go on alone," he answered quietly, "I go on alone--to see my sister." The Indian leant forward, his eyes shining greenly in the flicker of the firelight. "Yes, you go on alone, my brother," he replied in his own speech, "you go on alone, to the life of the white man. In dark houses shall you live, in hard labour shall you grow old. The white stars, the great stars of the north, the clear winds that are the breath of the Great Spirit, the noise of the buffalo-herd, the shrill cry of the eagle, the note of the twanging bowstring--all these shall be to you as a forgotten tongue. In the plains and the forests man sees the foot-marks of the Great Spirit, hears His speech in the heart, and beholds His presence in all things. And you shall know them no more." Dick nodded. "I shall know them no more," he answered, a little sadly, "but I think the Great Spirit can be heard and known as well in my life as in yours, Peter." The next day Dick went on alone. He had no very distinct plan in his mind, but he was too much ashamed of himself to go directly to the homestead, and face the grave, displeased looks which he felt sure would be his portion, and deservedly so. Instead, he skirted round the edges of the familiar fields, and struck upwards through that little rocky ravine which cut through the fertile acres. As he walked cautiously amongst the dead fern and bracken, stooping beneath the swinging, leafless branches, sinking knee-deep in the drifted, dead leaves, he wondered what chance he would get of speaking to Stephanie. Every familiar tree and fence, every detail of the ground, everything which he had known before and now saw again, gave him a feeling of half-painful pleasure which astonished him, for he had not realised that anything about the farm had grown dear to him. And the dearest thing of all--what of Stephanie? He almost ran along the bottom of the narrowing ravine, brushing through the bushes, leaping the fallen and rotting trees, yet his instinct of caution kept his progress quiet. The ravine ended in a steep bank, and Dick climbed up it swiftly in the deep, dead leaves, breathless, and looked, and looked again. Beyond the stump fence, on the gradually rising ground, stood Stephanie. Her eyes and mouth had a wistful look, but she did not seem unhappy. She was standing a little turned away from the ravine, watching the distant forests beyond the farm-buildings--watching them dreamily, and a little sadly. She had neither heard nor seen Dick. And he knelt in the deep leaves, and looked at her, and looked. All his shame and repentance surged upon him overwhelmingly, and kept him dumb and helpless, unable to move. Everything was very quiet--quiet as only the woods can be in the late fall. Once, while Dick knelt there, two big, brown woodpeckers flew heavily across the fields; once some little shrill-voiced bird called suddenly from the bushes, with a distant flutter of wings, and he could hear Roger's deep tones from the far, far distance, shouting directions to the farm-hands. Still Stephanie did not move. At last he made some involuntary sound, and she turned swiftly and saw him. He saw the light of wonder and joy flash into her clear, pale face, and sprang to his feet, calling her eagerly by name. Somehow, he could never tell in what manner he cleared the barrier of the stump fence, and was beside her in an instant. "Dick! Dick! Dick!" And then for the first time in her life Stephanie fainted. CHAPTER XII. To a Goodly Heritage. Three years have passed, shifting from bud to blossom, from sun to snow, from promise to fulfilment, bringing with them all their store of light, and shadows only deep enough to make the brightness clearer. Three times the snow has cleared from the good brown soil, three times the tender green of wheat has gladdened the eye, three times the fruitful fields have grown golden to the harvest, since Dick came home. And how have these changing seasons affected Dick and Stephanie, and all the people at the Collinson homestead? On the third of these golden autumns there were great festivities at the homestead, the occasion being no less than a barn-raising. It took place on a clear, cool, golden October day, when the woods were yellowed with softly-falling leaves, and late sunflowers and goldenrod carried on the scheme of colour, with the brave purple asters to add a last royal touch to the loveliness of nature looking forward to her winter rest. The wide fields and the forest-bordered clearing had rung all day with shouts and merriment, and the cheerful noise of willing labour, for all the O'Brien family had lent their aid, and there were nine of them. And now, when the early evening had darkened down in clear grey twilight, they were all gathered in the great, low-ceilinged living-room of the homestead, brightened only by the warm flicker of flames from the logs upon the hearth. Four juvenile O'Briens were seated before this hearth, roasting apples, and also their own rosy faces. There was also Mr. Collinson, a little more grey in his hair, and, if possible, a little more genial ruddiness in his broad face than when we saw him last. Mrs. Collinson sat near him, plump and smiling as ever, and Mrs. O'Brien talked to her exhaustively. In the pauses of the general murmur of talk that filled the room, her words sounded clearly, with the full power of an incisive soprano. "And so I took the sleeves out, and turned the skirt, and now it's as good as ever for ordinary wear. And sure, my nasturtium-coloured tabinet is only for the best occasions, and so I told O'Brien. But there! What sense has a man in these matters, my dear?" "And did you put the frills on again," inquired Mrs. Collinson, with smiling interest. And then the hum of talk arose, drowning even that penetrating soprano for a while. But soon it rose again above the other voices. "And a fine lass she is," it said, "and it's happy your Roger ought to be, me dear. But Dick's a fine fellow, too, by all accounts. Though, as for me, William Charles was always the one for my money. He 's a head on his shoulders, has that boy." Whereupon a general laugh ensued. The "boy" in question, now a tall young man, was joking solemnly with the three O'Brien boys. And there was Stephanie, tall, and grave, and quiet, with Roger beaming at her from the other side of the room, all unconscious that his face was an open book to whoever chose to read it. There was Nonie O'Brien, with her pink cheeks and her bright eyes, and her sweet, soft Irish speech. And there also was Dick. He was sitting in the shadow, grave and somewhat silent, except when Nonie teased him, which she did frequently. Her treatment of him was a standing joke with the two families, as was also his meekness and patience in putting up with it. He was almost less changed in the three years than were any of the other young people; still one might have seen in him a certain dreaminess and tendency to choose the easier path, which were as much characteristic of him as his deeply sunburned face and short, fair hair were characteristic of his outward appearance. Yet there were many changes in him, after all. Since his return from the wilds, Dick had never swerved from his purpose. His shame and boyish pride yielded to Stephanie's entreaties, and he accepted the work on the homestead which good Mr. Collinson freely offered. Here he had been ever since, facing cheerfully the humdrum round of toil, turning a deaf ear and unseeing eye to the beauties and delights of the wilds, and bent upon "making it up to Steenie." It had been a hard struggle at times, harder than anyone had guessed, but he had come through it well. And now he was thinking of taking up land for himself when a good opportunity should come. But the reward he had hoped for was not to be his. Throughout the first year of labour he had held firmly to his purpose of somehow, at some not too distant date, making a home for Stephanie. After that, he had no longer been able to shut his eyes to the little romance that she and Roger were unconsciously acting. And, with an ache at his heart, he had put aside his own hopes of happiness, and merged them into hers. So Mrs. Collinson was to have a real daughter after all. But as she told every one, "I 've always regarded Steenie as a daughter, ever since she's been here with us. So it won't make any difference in that way." And, perhaps, on this particularly merry evening, it is not to be wondered at that Dick should feel a little sad; though Nonie O'Brien did her best to keep him in good spirits, acting on the principle that whoever is annoyed and irritated has no time to be melancholy as well. But he was gradually learning the most difficult lesson of cheerful self-effacement, and did not allow his own thoughts and feelings to spoil the cheeriness of the others. He wove wonderful Indian romances for the benefit of the children; he helped Mrs. Collinson in a score of ways; he sang old English songs; he played games. Yet he could not help being a little sad that so soon his life and Stephanie's would be divided. They were as dear to each other as ever--dearer, perhaps, in view of the coming change. But now their hopes, and fears, and joys were to be no longer in unison. Dick's character had deepened and strengthened much in those three years; and his affections, and the slight sorrows which came through them, had deepened and strengthened proportionately. But there was one source of help and comfort ever open to his heart--his love of nature, which should grow with his growth and strengthen with his strength as long as his life endured, and his growing faith and trust in nature's God. Whenever he was in trouble or perplexity, he managed to steal a quiet hour in the forests, and always returned to his work with fresh energy and fresh confidence. So now, when the fun and noise were at their highest, he slipped from the room, and out into the quiet night. Stephanie's dark eyes followed him very tenderly and proudly as he went, for still she seemed the elder of the two. "Dear Dick," she thought, "I know how he feels. It will be hard on him." The wilderness surrounding the farm was no longer a source of temptation to Dick; it was a refuge where he might find comfort and peace. He had mastered his roving inclinations, and Peter Many-Names' free faring no longer filled him with envy. But his struggles for victory had almost imperceptibly saddened his irresponsible, sunny nature. He was still the old Dick, but with a difference--a difference that made for trustworthiness, patience, and power. The night, as he stepped from the door into the dusk quiet of the garden, was hushed and dark. Very soft misty clouds were drifting across the sky, with a suggestion of ghostly trailing draperies in their movement; here and there they opened to let a star look through, but the general aspect of the slumbering world was of an infinite variety of shadow, rather than of darkness relieved by any light. In an instant, the tumult and merriment of that fire-lit room had become remote, and the great silence of the night had enclosed him as with a palpable substance. Yet, as he walked down the straggling garden, with its vegetables on one side and its late flowers on the other, he was aware that the night was not as quiet as he had thought at first. From far, quiet heights of air incessant soft calls and uneasy, melancholy pipings came down to him; and he knew that the dark above him was alive with great flocks of migrating birds, calling ceaselessly to one another, travelling ceaselessly on their way. Peter Many-Names could have told him what birds they were, from the soft, sad echoes of their notes which floated down to earth. But Peter was away in unknown wildernesses, exploring on his own account; and the people at the homestead were rather glad that it should be so. Dick sighed a little as he leant over the gate at the foot of the garden, watching the dim belt of grey forest before him. The memory of his time of wandering was over with him, and he had spent many such nights as this encamped with Peter Many-Names as his only comrade. His sense of loneliness increased as he watched a far-off pallid line advancing slowly across the sky, a line which marked the edge of the field of ghostly cloud which was passing over. Beyond this edge the sky was clear and dark, lighted by a few large stars. When the clouds had faded to a low, pale bank of receding vapour behind the forest, the aspect of the night changed. It grew more distinctly dark, less unreal and shadowy, while the stars seemed to shine more brilliantly in consequence. But the faint bird-calls, the elfin pipings, still floated down from the hushed heights of air. The quiet, the calm, the slow stately ascension of the stars were already soothing Dick. A meteor fell with a curious, leisurely slide, from the midst of the heavens to the outermost darkness upon the horizon. He remembered how, when he and Stephanie had been children, they used to watch for the falling stars, so that they might wish their dearest wish upon seeing them. "After all," he said to himself with a sudden rush of tenderness, "my greatest wish is to see her as happy as she deserves to be. Roger's a good fellow, and I should be a selfish brute if I let my moping ways sadden her, God bless her!" Even this little thought showed how great a change had taken place in Dick's character. His thoughts turned to the limitless prairies of richest soil, to the untouched forests, to the wide beauty of lake and river, to all those fair pictures of the wilderness graven upon his heart. He thought of the clear skies, of the stinging cold, of the splendour of summer, of the fulfilment of the fall. He thought, with new insight, of the meaning hidden beneath the round of farmer's toil which now held him, of the results of that labour which he had at first given so grudgingly, of the great purpose, the divine symbolism, which may make agriculture the highest of all occupations, the most far-reaching of all labours. And then as he leant over the little gate, with eyes as dreamy as of old, some vision of a possible future did come to him. Dimly, as dreams must go, he saw towns arising beside those rivers, and chimneys sending the smoke of peaceful hearts across those radiant skies. Not much he saw; but it was enough to make him say in his soul with the man of ancient days: "The lot is fallen unto me in a fairground; yea, I have a goodly heritage." A goodly heritage indeed, O Dick, as we of later generation know. Though you knew it not, the unloved toil you faced so well went to the building of a nation. In a fair ground the lot had fallen unto you, and, standing there in the darkness, you realised the possibilities of that lot for the first time. You realised that the beauty of the wilderness must give way, and rightfully, before the wants of man; that the splendour of freedom is less than the splendour of toil; and that it lay in your hands to do your part towards the building of a future for that fair country, which hitherto you had loved ignorantly. Yet, standing there beneath the still, bright stars, Dick did no more than say to himself, "It 's a fine land! A fine land! And I 'm glad I 'm in a new country, and not in an old one." Behind him, the door of the homestead banged open. "Dick! Dick!" called Mrs. Collinson, "where are you?" [Illustration: "'DICK! DICK! WHERE ARE YOU?'"] "Dick!" echoed Stephanie, lovingly and a little anxiously. "Coming, dear lady," he answered, "coming, Steenie." Yet he lingered a little, while they waited for him. But it was Nonie O'Brien of the soft speech and the shining eyes who ran down the long path and caught him laughingly by the hand, and drew him away from his dreams into the light and cheer again. LORIMER AND CHALMERS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
35026	----	[Illustration] The Court Houses --OF A-- Century. 1800-1900. [Illustration: HOUSE OF LIEUT. JAMES MUNRO, ERECTED 1798, LOT 14, CON. 5, CHARLOTTEVILLE--USED AS COURT HOUSE, LONDON DISTRICT, 1800-1802. (_Reproduced by permission of the Ontario Historical Society and William Briggs, Publisher._)] [Illustration] The Court Houses --OF A-- Century. A Brief Historical Sketch of the Court Houses of the London District, the County of Middlesex and County of Elgin. COMPILED BY KENNETH W. McKAY, COUNTY CLERK. PUBLISHED BY THE ELGIN COUNTY COUNCIL. With Introduction by James H. Coyne, B. A. THE TIMES PRINTING COMPANY OF ST. THOMAS, LIMITED. 1901. CONTENTS. PAGE. 1. Introduction. By J. H. Coyne, B. A. 1 2. The Munro House, 1800-1802 5 3. The Turkey Point Court House 6 4. The Vittoria Court House, 1815-1826 7 5. The London Court Houses, 1826-1853 7 6. The Elgin Court Houses, 1853-1900 9 7. Statistics--Population, Number of Houses, Etc. 27 8. Plan of Court House 28 ILLUSTRATIONS. 1. Frontispiece. The Munro House 2. The London Court House 8 3. Warden Locker, 1852-1855 10 4. The Elgin Court House, 1860 11 5. D. J. Hughes, Esq., County Judge, 1853 12 6. The Elgin Court House Before the Fire 13 7. Court Room after the Fire 14 8. Wardens 1898-1899, Chairman Building Committee, Architect and Contractor 16 9. New Court House 17 10. D. J. Hughes, Esq., County Judge, 1899 18 11. Court Room 19 12. Library 20 13. County Council Chamber 21 14. County Clerk's Office 22 15. Stained Glass Window, Main Stairway 23 16. Court House, East Side, showing Jail Entrance 24 17. Gaol Yard 25 18. A Gaol Ward 26 19. Plan of Building 28 REFERENCES. District and County Records. Oxford Gazetteer, by Shenston. U. E. L. Settlement at Long Point, by Tasker. _"In any age it is a duty which every country owes to itself, to preserve the records of the past and to honor the men and women whose lives and deeds made possible its present, and to-day when the whole civilized world is throbbing to social and political impulses of the greatest significance for the future, we ought especially to call to mind such lives and deeds and catch, if we can, inspiration for acting well the part that falls to each of us."_ INTRODUCTION. THE PASSING CENTURY. The Wonderful Century is before the bar of history. Its record shows everywhere progress, consolidation, expansion, improvement. Civilization has spread, barbarism has given away. Labor has been restored to its honorable station, and idleness is accounted dishonor. Privilege has been curtailed, liberty has widened its borders. Slavery has almost disappeared from the earth. The beneficent forces are stronger. The comforts and conveniences of life are increased and more evenly distributed. Disease and pain have been brought under control. Life has been made more interesting. Travel is easier and cheaper, and mankind has become acquainted with the world it inhabits. The stars have been discovered. They have been weighed and analysed. The human mind has expanded with wider knowledge. The railway, electricity and the Postal Union have gone far to blend the nations into one. Every day, all round the globe, men read the same news, think the same thoughts, are thrilled with the same tidings of heroism or suffering. Human sympathy is broadened and deepened. Mankind is more homogeneous in spirit. Statecraft, literature, society, have become democratic and cosmopolitan. The spirit of union dominates the century. The forces of disunion and disintegration are everywhere routed. Mutual benevolence is organized for greater effectiveness. Universal education, equality of rights and responsibilities, are principles of government. Religion, emphasizing points of agreement and ignoring points of difference, manifests itself in its works as never before. The century spans the years from Copenhagen to Paardeburg, from Nelson and Napoleon to Roberts and Kruger. As the battle of Copenhagen established the naval supremacy of Britain, so Paardeburg welded the empire, one and inseparable. In 1800 the principle of a United Empire was represented by the Loyalists of Upper Canada standing almost alone. In 1900, borne by their descendants to the distant plains of South Africa, it reached its full fruition in the final charge by the Canadians under Otter, on the banks of the Modder River. The principle includes the realization of all that the century stands for--union, equal rights, progress, justice, humanity. It is my task to say a brief foreword on the progress of Canada and especially the county of Elgin. The beginning of the century found Ontario almost an unbroken wilderness. Rare and scanty were the clearings here and there along Lakes Erie and Ontario, and on the great rivers. The winter express from Detroit to York or Niagara, made its way along the lonely forest path. At long intervals only did he perceive the smoke rising in the crisp air, from the hospitable and welcome cabin. The frightened deer bounded across his path into the deeper woods. The bear hybernated in the hollow tree. The long howling of the wolves broke on the midnight air. The lynx and panther crouched among the branches, ready to spring on the unwary traveller. The only sign of human life was the Indian hunter following the trail of the turkey or wild beast. It was in the first year of the century that a young man of twenty-nine, giving up brilliant prospects in the army, and turning his back on society, found his way to the township of Yarmouth and began a clearing at or near Port Stanley. With royal dukes for his advocates, he applied to the Imperial authorities for a large grant of land to form a settlement. Two years later he succeeded. Yarmouth had been appropriated to others, and Colonel Thomas Talbot began his actual settlement in Dunwich. In the middle of the century, or more accurately in the year 1853, he died. In the same year the separation of Elgin from Middlesex was completed, and Colonel Talbot's "capital," St. Thomas, was made the County Town. Nearly another half century has passed since then, and it includes the history of the County of Elgin as a separate municipality. The death of the eccentric founder of the settlement divides nearly equally the history of the county from the time when its only inhabitants were the bear, wolf and panther, to the end of the century, which finds the county well cleared and cultivated throughout its entire extent; intersected by splendid highways, including the lines of five railway companies; peopled with a numerous and enterprising community, God-fearing and law-abiding, industrious and prosperous. The thriving city of St. Thomas, the enterprising and flourishing town of Aylmer, and numerous promising villages, advancing with rapid strides in magnitude and importance, form centres of population, where a century ago the primeval silence was unbroken, save by the footfall of the Mississaga ranging the woods in pursuit of game. It was during the first decades of the century that the pioneers came. From them the present population is largely sprung. Dunwich was the first to be settled. A few immigrants from the Eastern States settled near Port Talbot. Then the overflow of settlement from Long Point made itself felt in Southwold, Yarmouth, Malahide and Bayham. Before 1820 the Highland settlements began in Aldborough and Dunwich. The wanderings of the Kildonan settlers from Hudson's Bay to Red River, and thence eastward to Upper Canada and southward, to the settlements on Lake Erie, add a tragic episode to the story of the pioneers of West Elgin. Their hardships, sufferings and heroism can never be forgotten. Much later came the settlement of South Dorchester. These were the men who felled the forest, let the sunlight into the wilderness, drained the swamps, cleared and fenced the bush, made the roads and bridged the fords, "drave out the beasts," and established schools and churches. They were the sifted grain of Canadian immigration. For the Colonel was determined to have none but the loyal, industrious and enterprising, and was discriminating in the choice of settlers for this County, among the numerous applicants for land. Such were the pioneers of Elgin. We inherit the fruits of their strenuous toil and struggle. It was they who, with dauntless courage and unfaltering determination, braved all hardships, the loneliness, the privations, the sufferings of pioneer life, that we might enjoy the harvest of their labors. They slept on the bare ground in the forest shanty, and hewed with mighty toil the log huts, that their sons might live in framed houses, and their grandchildren in houses of brick furnished with the appliances of modern civilization. They sowed and we reap. In the old churchyards at Tyrconnel, New Glasgow, St. Thomas, and elsewhere near the lake shore, they rest well after their labors. The mouldered headboards have given way to the marble slab or stately monument, that records their brief history--that they lived and died. Their true and imperishable monument is the manhood and womanhood of Elgin, the beautiful farms and homes, the noble institutions of religion and education. Their names will be forever honored among the founders of the Canadian nation, and after a thousand years men will be proud to count their descent from the pioneers of Elgin. The public buildings of a community are a fair index of the character of the people. In this view, the completion of the new Court House is an event, and its evolution, as recorded in this volume, is a study of historical and sociological value. The new building is admirably adapted to the purposes for which it is intended. It is up-to-date in every particular. Visitors from other parts pronounce it, as its predecessor was pronounced when first erected, one of the handsomest and most commodious public buildings in the Province. The architect and contractors have done their part well; but the credit is mainly and beyond all due to the public spirit of the people of Elgin, who were resolved that nothing short of best would satisfy them, and who were willing to be taxed to a reasonable extent upon the sole condition that the building should be well and honestly built, be a credit to the county and answer its purpose. Doubtless before another century rolls round, the increase of population and wealth may call for an enlarged building, but it is certain that no changes in architectural science will produce one that will better reflect the intelligence and enterprise, the wealth and the culture of the people, than the beautiful and commodious structure, which is to-day the pride and the boast of the citizens of this county. JAMES H. COYNE. The Court Houses of a Century. The History of the Court Houses of Ontario is closely associated with the development of the Province. The first recognition of population in South Western Ontario was the formation in 1788, of the District of Hesse and the appointment of Justices of the Court of Common Pleas, and other officials. The only inhabitants were in the French settlements around Detroit, where the barracks and Government House were located. In 1792 Upper Canada, now Ontario, was divided into nineteen Counties, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Kent occupying nearly the same territory as the District of Hesse. Representatives to the Provincial Parliament were elected and, at the first session convened at Niagara in September, 1792, an Act was passed for building a Gaol and Court House in every district, and for altering the names of the districts. Hesse was hereafter called the Western District, and the Court House and Gaol was ordered to be built at Detroit. The Courts were held there until the evacuation of Detroit by the British in 1795, after which they were held in the Parish of Assumption, now Sandwich. D. W. Smith, in his Gazetteer of 1799, states: "That there is a good Gaol and Court House," in Sandwich, "situated a little below the fort of Detroit, on the east side of the river." The Munro House, 1800-1802. The U. E. Loyalists settlement of Norfolk commenced in 1793, and in 1798 the rapid increase in population was recognized by a division of the Western District and the formation of three Counties, Norfolk, Oxford and Middlesex to be known as the London District. This was organized by the appointment of a general commission of the peace and the necessary officials. The first meeting of the resident Magistrates was held in the house of Lieutenant James Munro, of Charlotteville, on 1st April, 1800, for the purpose of carrying the Commission into execution, and the first General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the District was ordered to be holden at the same place on Tuesday, the 8th day of April, 1800. The Munro House above referred to, was built in 1796, on lot 14 in the 5th concession of Charlotteville. It was the best house which had been erected up to that time, and stands to-day as an old land mark, about a half mile back from the road running straight west from Vittoria. It is a two story frame house of considerable size. The frame was made of hewn timber, with bents four feet apart, strengthened by tie girths, morticed and tendoned--a marvel of axeman's skill. The planks for the floor and sheeting were cut out by the whip saw. The original roof is on the building at the present time. The shingles are of cedar, rudely whittled by the draw knife, and show in places an original thickness of over an inch. A temporary jail was erected near the house, a log building fourteen feet by twenty-five feet, divided into two rooms--one for the debtors and the other for those charged with criminal offences. This building was erected during the winter of 1800 by day labor, and was used for nearly a year. The courts were held here until 1802, when they were removed to Turkey Point or Fort Norfolk under the authority of an Act passed in the year 1801. Turkey Point, 1802-1812. The Courts at Turkey Point were first held in the public house of Job Loder. In 1803 the contract for a court house was awarded. It was to be a frame building forty feet in length by twenty-six feet in width, to be two stories high, the first or lower story to be ten feet between floor and ceiling, and the second or upper story to be eight feet high. The original specifications were as follows: "The building to be erected on a foundation of white oak timber squared, the same to be sound and of sufficient thickness, the building to be shingled and to have two sufficient floors, an entry eight feet wide to be made from the front door across one end of the lower story, from which winding stairs are to be erected to ascend to the second story; two rooms are to be partitioned off in the second or upper story for juries. Nine windows are to be made in front and ten in rear, of twenty-four lights each, seven by three. The front door to be made of inch and a half plank, six panel, and to have a good sufficient lock and key. Two windows are to be finished in the first story opposite each other, so as to afford sufficient light to the bar, besides two windows of fifteen lights each behind the Judge or Chairman's seat. The rest of the windows are to be cased and nailed up for the present. The Bar, table, Justices' seat, benches for the bar and a table for each jury room, and benches for the same are to be finished; the three inside doors to be temporary; a seat and writing table for Clerk, to be made between the bench and the bar. Note--The house to be raised, shingled, weather-boarded and floored, and the bench for the Judge and Justices, Judge or Chairman's writing desk, Clerk's seat and table, the bar and table and benches therefor, the four windows below and two above to be finished, the rest of the windows cased and nailed up. The front door to be finished, and the other three temporary doors to be made and hung. Comprehends the present contract proposed by the court to be performed by the next assizes for this district." Courts were held in this building commencing in the year 1804 until it was appropriated for the use of prisoners during the war of 1812. The Vittoria Court House, 1815-1826. In 1815 an act was passed which provided that the courts of general quarter sessions for the district of London should be held at Charlotteville. The Magistrates were ordered to make a choice of the most convenient place, and a meeting was accordingly held at the house of Thomas Finch on the 13th June, 1815. John Backhouse, Thomas Talbot and Robert Finch were appointed Commissioners to superintend the building, and a brick court house and gaol was erected at Vittoria at an expense of £9,000. During the erection of the building, courts were held in the houses of Thomas Finch, Francis Beaupre and Mathias Steel. The first meeting of the sessions was held in the new court house on 8th April, 1817, and it was used until 1826, when it was partially destroyed by fire. The London Court Houses, 1826-1853. An Act was then passed to establish a District town in a more central place, and courts were ordered to be held in some part of the reservation made for the site of a town near the forks of the River Thames. This was at London where four acres were set apart for the purposes of the jail and court house. The commissioners appointed for the purpose of erecting the building, Thomas Talbot, Mahlon Burwell, James Hamilton, Charles Ingersoll and John Matthews, held their first meeting in St. Thomas. During the erection of the court house at London, courts were held in a private house at Vittoria, and afterwards at St. Thomas. Dr. C. Hodgins, in his History of Education of Upper Canada, states that on one occasion the Court of King's Bench, with Judge Sherwood presiding and the late Sir John Beverley Robinson in attendance as King's Attorney, was held in an upper room of a building used by Mr. Stephen Randal as a grammar school. This building was afterwards removed to the school lot near the present residence of Judge Ermatinger, and was known as the "Talbot Seminary." [Illustration: THE LONDON COURT HOUSE. _From "Illustrated London," copyrighted. By permission London Printing and Lithographing Co. (Limited.)_] The first court house in London was constructed of flat logs, and on the ground floor was a log partition to separate the jail from the jailer's room. The court room above was reached by stairs outside. This was followed by the erection of a two story frame building upon the same square where the present court house stands, but closer to the street. In one end of the first floor were placed two cells, which were rendered more secure by being surrounded with logs, from which the building acquired the distinctive title of "The Old Log Court House." Courts were first held there in 1828. In 1838 a new jail was proposed, and in the years 1843 and 1844 the present jail and court house in London was completed at a cost of £8,500. The latter resembles the castle of Malahide near Dublin, the birth place of Col. Talbot. The Elgin Court House, 1853-1898. The County of Elgin was established by an Act of the Legislature passed in August, 1851, and formed a union with Middlesex until County Buildings were erected. The provisional County Council held its first meeting in the Town Hall, St. Thomas, on April 15th, 1852. The first business was to erect a jail and Court House. Offers of building sites were received from Messrs. Curtis and Lawrence and Benjamin Drake. The Curtis sites were north of Talbot Street and West of East Street. The Lawrence site, two acres, included the lot on which the Post Office now stands. The Drake site appears to have been considered suitable before the county was formed as a deed from Benjamin Drake to Queen Victoria, dated the 25th of October, 1848, and registered the 30th of October, 1851, conveys the Jail and Court House Block to Her Majesty for public buildings for county and district purposes only. A resolution of the County Council shows that the final acceptance of this site depended on obtaining water at fifteen feet, failing this a new site was to be chosen. The location for the building on lot selected was next considered. Petitions to front the buildings on Stanley Street were presented, but they were ordered to face north so as to stand parallel with the Talbot Road in front of Queen Street. Plans were received from architects Thomas and Tully, of Toronto, and John Turner of Brantford. The plans submitted by Mr. Turner were the same as for the Court House at Brantford, which he was building. These were adopted with some changes suggested by other plans before the council. The contract was awarded to Garner Ellwood for £4,580, on the 19th June, 1852. The jail, jailor's house, etc., to be completed by the 15th September following, and the Court House on the 1st August, 1853. The Building Committee consisted of the whole council, of which Messrs. Clark and Locker of Malahide, Ganson of Yarmouth, Skinner of Bayham, Munro of Southwold and Parish of St. Thomas, were the most active. Thomas Cheeseman was the architect's superintendent in charge of the work. [Illustration: WARDEN LOCKER, 1852-1855] The jail was not completed until the spring of 1853, and on the 23rd of March Mr. Ellwood gave up the contract, £2,764 having been expended. The Warden was then authorized to proceed with the work which, with the exception of minor contracts, was completed by day labor, with Thomas Fraser, builder, of London, as superintendent. The Gaol as at first erected was not satisfactory, the plan being defective. This increased the cost and when the buildings were completed and furnished in 1854, the total expenditure was £11,405. Mr. Ellwood in tendering for the buildings was guided by the figures supplied by Architect Turner who was then erecting a court house at Brantford. In a subsequent report to the council Mr. Turner states that in the erection of the Brantford building he ruined himself, and that he could not have erected the Elgin buildings at a less price than they cost the county. A Special Committee reported on completion of the work: "That after taking into consideration the advance in price of material and labor--that the buildings have been erected in as judicious and economical a manner as the circumstances would admit, and that the beautiful workmanship and design is not surpassed by any building in Canada west." [Illustration: THE ELGIN COURTHOUSE, 1860.] The Royal Arms Rampant, which is very much admired, on the front of the Court House, is in size twelve feet by six feet, and cost £93. They were supplied by Messrs. Cochranes and Pollock of Toronto, from a sketch drawn by Mr. John M. Walthew who also painted the picture placed in the court room, the beauty of which the council acknowledged by special resolution in January 1855. Sculptured faces were placed in the east and west gables of the building. That in the west resembles Lord Elgin, after whom the county was named, and the other may be architect Turner but at present no one seems to know definitely who they were intended to represent. In 1853 the Town Hall of the Village of St. Thomas was secured for court purposes on condition that any fittings, etc., required were to be supplied by the County, and left in the building when court house was completed. Plans of the new buildings and of the town hall were submitted to the statutory commissioners, and approved of as suitable for court purposes. On the 30th of September, 1852, a proclamation was published in the Official Gazette, dissolving the union of Elgin and Middlesex. [Illustration: D. J. HUGHES, ESQ., COUNTY JUDGE, 1853.] The Officers appointed were: Judge, David John Hughes. Sheriff, Colin Munro. Registrar, John McKay. Clerk of Peace, James Farley. Clerk of the Court, Peter Murtagh. Jailor, John King. County Clerk. William McKay. County Treasurer, William Coyne. County Engineer, Charles Fraser. During November, 1853, the offices of the Sheriff, Clerk of the Peace and Clerk of the County Court were located in one room in the apartments erected for the Jailor. On the 15th of November, 1853, the first court of quarter sessions of the County of Elgin opened at St. Thomas in the Town Hall, David John Hughes, County Judge, presiding. In opening the court, the Judge delivered the following address to the Grand Jury: GENTLEMEN OF THE GRAND JURY.---- "It is usual for the presiding Justice at our criminal courts to address to grand inquests, remarks upon the duties which have to be discharged by them. This being the first time we have met together in our relative capacities, I think the occasion a becoming one for congratulating you and the inhabitants of this fine county in general, in being now separated from the senior county for the transaction of all the judicial, municipal and other business of our inhabitants. [Illustration: THE ELGIN COURT HOUSE BEFORE THE FIRE.] Anyone who has lived in what was the London district for twenty years, and who will look back upon the time when, with little better than a mere track to guide or assist them, most of the settlers were obliged to travel the primeval forests to distances of fifty or sixty miles to attend courts, and for other purposes in the way of business, and who now have public offices almost brought within reach of their own doors, cannot but feel thankful that a gracious Providence has favored the country and its inhabitants with such prosperity--a prosperity which is still on the increase, at a rate surpassing the expectations of the most sanguine. If we look beyond the limits of our own county and view the Province at large, we see progress and prosperity, peace, contentment and general happiness surrounding us. We find the minds of the people progressing too, for with a bountiful provision for schools and a well ordered system, the rising generation are enabled, and doubtless will keep pace with their monetary prosperity. The encouragement that agriculture has met with in an increased demand for the staple produce of the county, and remunerative prices will call for an improved system of tilling the fields. The encouragement given to manufactures by the increased consumption, justifies enterprise in an increase of fabrics; and all these call forth the necessary supply of improved and cultivated minds--so that enquiry is awakened, and the benefit of our schools and colleges is every year becoming more and more appreciated and will be so much better attended and encouraged, that they will themselves improve in their standard and tone, so that Canada in one or two generations will equal, if not successfully rival, parts of the world which are now considered amongst the freest and most contented. [Illustration: COURT ROOM AFTER THE FIRE.] We enjoy a liberty in our civil and religious affairs which admits not only of a freedom of thought, but action. We can watch our very rulers, and have the means in our hands of curbing usurpation of power or infringements of rights by the privilege we can exercise of approving or disapproving of the advisers of the crown. We can worship the Almighty in our own way; no one venturing to disturb or make us afraid. We can educate our children almost entirely at the public expense, and place them within reach of the highest honors that their talents entitle them to, or that the country can bestow. The time has gone by for those honors to belong only to a class; or when promising aspirants can be successfully frowned upon by those who fancy that they hold a prescriptive right to them; and the time has arrived for men not to be judged by the occupations they are day by day employed in, but by the integrity of their purposes, the cultivation of their minds, the uprightness of their characters, and their successfulness in accomplishing some good for themselves and their fellow-men. In entering upon the duties of the office I fill, I must confess my misgivings as to the ability to discharge them aright. They are onerous, responsible, and will be at times arduous and disagreeable. I depend upon the forbearance of those with whom I shall be brought in contact, and claim their assistance and advice when necessity shall suggest it. I desire to see the great body of the people, whose business or affairs shall be brought under my judicial notice, satisfied that justice and right are aimed at, however, I may fall short in administering them, and in my magisterial capacity I rely upon the aid of my brother magistrates to further these motives; for I doubt not that by mutually according to one another, integrity of purpose, (as I shall at times desire to attribute to them) we shall be able to accomplish much good in the way of checking vice and setting a good example to the several neighborhoods we respectively inhabit. The County Buildings are not yet quite completed, but I am informed that before the next sessions, the Court may be held in them; and when finished I am satisfied they will not be surpassed in beauty, convenience and comfort by any in the Province." The first Court of Quarter Sessions was held in the Court House, on the 5th of January, 1854, and on the 11th of April, in the same year, Hon. Justice Draper opened the first Court of Assize. Col. John Prince, Q. C., one of the lawyers in attendance at this Court, complimented the County on the magnificence of the Court House, which, he said, was unsurpassed by any Court House in the Province. On June 7th, 1854, all of the offices in the Court House were occupied, and the building completed, with the exception of some painting and the erection of the Royal Arms. The County Buildings remained the same until the gaol was rebuilt, and wall erected in 1872. This was followed by a new Registry Office in 1874, and a Gaoler's residence in 1889-1891. On the 1st of July, 1898, a fire occurred at midnight, destroying the roof and upper portion of the Court House, the whole building being damaged by water. [Illustration: DANIEL LANG. Warden, 1898.] [Illustration: OSCAR McKENNEY. Warden, 1898.] [Illustration: ARCHIBALD J. LEITCH. Chairman Building Committee. 1898-1899.] [Illustration: NEIL R. DARRACH. Architect.] [Illustration: ROBERT CARROLL. Contractor.] The Elgin Court House, 1898-1900. [Illustration: THE NEW COURT HOUSE.] The first meeting of the County Council, after the burning of the Court House, was held in the Grand Central Hotel, St. Thomas, on July 8th. The Insurance appraisers' award fixing the amount of damage at $5,509, was then presented. Mr. J. M. Green, contractor, was valuator on behalf of the County. The County officials were consulted in reference to temporary accommodation, and the Clerk was authorized to rent offices from Mr. Charles Spohn, on the south-west corner of William and Talbot streets. A special Building Committee was appointed, with power to employ an architect, visit other Court Houses, to have plans prepared, and report. The committee, consisting of Messrs. A. J. Leitch, S. B. Morris, D. Turner, R. Locker, D. F. Moore. W. B. Cole and Warden Lang, accompanied by N. R. Darrach, architect, and J. A. Bell, County Engineer, proceeded to Brantford, to examine the county buildings, which had recently been enlarged. Instructions were given to prepare plans to include enlargement of building and re-modelling Jail and Jailer's residence and kitchen. The County Council met on the 27th of July, to receive report presented by Architect Darrach, who estimated the cost of plans submitted at about $33,000. Opposition was offered by some members of the Council, who were desirous of limiting the cost of building to $20,000, but the architect's plans were adopted. A by-law was passed appointing a special building committee, and authorizing the Warden to sign contracts. The architect's fee was fixed at $1,200 for the whole work. Tenders were received, and as all of them exceeded the architect's estimate, a special meeting of the Council was called for the 8th of September, to consider the matter. At this session the building committee reported in favor of the adoption of the following tenders: J. H. McKnight & Co., Toronto, for the whole work, with the exception of the electric wiring, iron work and plumbing. $33,990 00 R. A. L. Grey, Toronto, electric wiring 346 00 Stacey & Co., St. Thomas, iron work 1,231 42 C. T. Bull, St. Thomas, plumbing 1,047 00 [Illustration: D. J. HUGHES, ESQ., COUNTY JUDGE, 1899.] This report was adopted and contracts signed by all with the exception of Mr. Bull. Mr. A. J. Leitch, Chairman of the Building Committee, was appointed to inspect the work as it progressed, and issue orders for payment in accordance with the architect's estimates. Tenders for heating and plumbing were received in January, 1899, and contracts awarded--the heating to Joseph Harrison for $3,146, and the plumbing to Keith & Fitzsimmons, Toronto, for $1,125. The Building Committee next considered the question of furnishing, and for the purpose of securing information, visited the court houses in Stratford and Woodstock, and in March, 1899, tenders were received and the following contracts awarded: J. Acheson, St. Thomas, hardware $400 00 McDonald & Wilson, Toronto, gas fixtures 645 00 The Preston Office & School Furniture Company, for special work 2,995 00 And for furniture, desks, etc 556 80 The Office Specialty Company, Toronto, for letter press, stands, vault fittings, etc 892 50 [Illustration: COURT ROOM.] Carpets and window blinds were procured from J. B. Kay, Son & Co., Toronto, and rubber matting for the stairs from the Gutta Percha & Rubber Co., two clocks for the court room and council chamber, from W. R. Jackson. Stained glass windows with appropriate designs were ordered from N. T. Lyons, Toronto, for the main stairway, one contains a picture of the old and new buildings; the other, the names of the County Council for the years 1898 and 1899. Stone walks around the building and through the grounds were put down by the Silica Barytic Stone Company, of Ingersoll, at the cost of $579.02. The work of grading the grounds was completed under superintendence of W. Irving. OPENING PROCEEDINGS. The Court House was formally opened on Wednesday, the 13th day of December, 1899, the occasion being the first day of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, and of the County Court. The proceedings commenced at 2.40 p. m. Judge Hughes presided, and on his right was Junior Judge Ermatinger, and on his left Sheriff Brown. Judge Hughes explained that he had invited Rev. Canon Hill and Vicar-General Bayard to be present, to assist in the opening proceedings, but they had other engagements and could not attend. There were present Revs. D. R. Drummond, Prof. T. L. Fowler, of the Disciples College, and Rev. R. I. Warner, principal of Alma College. [Illustration: LIBRARY.] Rev. D. R. Drummond opened the proceedings with prayer, Rev. Prof. Fowler read the scriptures, and Rev. Prof. Warner led in prayer. Mr. Oscar McKenney, Warden of Elgin County, read the following address to Judge Hughes, on behalf of the County Council: "Before proceeding with the business of the County Court and General Sessions of the Peace, the County Council desire to congratulate your Honor on your good health and physical and mental vigor, which is remarkable when we consider that you have occupied your present position for over forty-six years. You had the honor of presiding at the first court held in the old buildings in 1854, and have since done much to assist in the development of the county. You have witnessed many changes and can refer to many pleasant experiences which are the accompaniment of a long and useful life. The Court House which we hereby formally hand over to you for Court purposes, is representative of our idea of the advancement made by a wealthy and prosperous community during the past half a century. We hope you may enjoy continued good health, and that the remainder of your life may be pleasant and a restful recompense for many busy years. The members of the Council will make a few remarks as they feel it is difficult in a brief address to refer to all the circumstances that have brought us together to-day." [Illustration: COUNTY COUNCIL CHAMBER.] [Illustration: COUNTY CLERK'S OFFICE.] Councillor Frank Hunt delivered the oration of the day on behalf of the County Council. He spoke as follows: "This is an important occasion. Important because it makes a page in the history of the county. It establishes a milestone marking the progress of a people who first planted civilization in this county a century ago. The burning of the old Court House necessitated the building of a new one, and this gave the present council the opportunity to erect a building characteristic of the people, and of the arts and sciences of this particular period. The old court house was emblematic of the pioneers of this county. It exhibited wisdom, strength and beauty. As much as I admire the new structure I am glad the front of the old court house is preserved, and will hand down to future ages in its Grecian columns and pilasters, the artistic taste of the pioneers who could spare from the rewards of unceasing toil money to erect a court house that bore the impress of the best art of their time. The excellence and thoroughness of the structure attest the true worth and integrity of the pioneers of the County of Elgin. I cannot but think, when considering the population and wealth of the county fifty years ago with that of to-day, that in the erection of the new court house we have spent less for artistic effect than did the pioneers. Modern requirements for the comforts of those attending courts, or on official business, entailed a large expense, which was not considered in the erection of buildings fifty years ago. The provision made for women during a forced attendance at court shows how far we have advanced on one particular line. It is a grand building of the utilitarian type, and erected on such lines that great beauty may be discovered by a casual glance. I want to say a word in praise of the architect who designed the building and supervised its erection to the satisfaction of the Building Committee. The epitaph in St. Paul's Cathedral says: "If you would know the genius of Christopher Wren, look around you." I will say, also, and it is all that is necessary, if you would know the genius of Mr. Darrach, look around you and see that he is master of his art. New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth, We must upward still and onward, Who would reach the realms of truth. [Illustration: Art, national or individual, is the result of a long course of previous life and training; a necessary result, if that life has been loyal, and an impossible one, if it has been base.--_Ruskin._ WINDOW, MAIN STAIRWAY. In its important examples, all municipal art should be at once a decoration and a commemoration--it must beautify and should celebrate; thus becoming a double stimulus, first to the aesthetic sense, second to the sense of patriotism.--_Blashfield._] I cannot close without reference to His Honor Judge Hughes and his long judicial career in the County of Elgin. He opened the old court house forty-six years ago; he has been spared to open the new. In the first courts he grasped by the hand the men who planted civilization on the shores of Lake Erie. He has lived to grasp by the hand their children and grand-children. He came here in his early years, a type of that manhood which comes from the chisel of Pericles, and the great masters of the Grecian school. He has seen the county a wilderness, he now sees it populous and wealthy, inhabited by a people educated, industrious; a people who love God and keep his commandments. [Illustration: COURT HOUSE, EAST SIDE, SHOWING GAOL ENTRANCE.] He has left his impress on his county and its people, and can it not be said that it has been for the good of society, for the happiness and advancement of the people? His legal knowledge, and his great ability is known throughout the Province. His untiring industry has been proverbial. He has administered the law with fairness, and tempered justice with mercy. It is not contended that he was or is faultless. Who thinketh a faultless man to see? Thinks what ne'er was and ne'er shall be. It is the desire of the council that his learning and great abilities may long be spared to his fellow-citizens, and that An old age serene and bright, Lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to the grave." County Councillor J. H. Yarwood voiced the sentiments of Mr. Hunt, and extended the congratulations of the county to the Judge for the manner in which he had administered the affairs of the county, and hoped he would be spared for many years. County Councillors S. B. Morris, W. O. Pollock, D. Lang, W. M. Ford, E. McKellar, Mahlon Lyon, D. Moore and A. J. Leitch also delivered addresses of congratulation. [Illustration: GAOL YARD.] Judge Hughes thanked the County Council for the privilege of opening the new Court House. The county building was a testimonial to the advancement of the county council. He had to acknowledge with thanks the many kind things said of him personally, and of the way he had administered justice in the county. The building is an index, not only of enterprise and good taste, but also of conception for the convenience of those who had to attend the county buildings to do business. The mistake with the old building was that Architect Turner had his plans interfered with, and all the rooms, except the court room, were but half the size intended. He concurred in all that had been said of the architect. The contractors, too, had performed their work well. The court house was a manifestation of the progress of municipal institutions. He had found the county council always ready to encourage education and grammar schools, and this building was a monument to their honor. The county court was then opened by Court Crier Hopkins, when Mr. John Crawford, of Aylmer, on behalf of the bar of Elgin, extended to Judge Hughes their congratulations upon the long term he had served on the bench, and upon his distinguished services during that time. The members of the bar were in hearty sympathy with and heartily endorsed the remarks made by the members of the county council. The members of the bar hoped the Judge might be long spared to occupy the high position which he did. Judge Hughes said he could only express his high appreciation of the kind things said of him. It was an honor for a man to act as judge where there was such a bar as in the county of Elgin. He concluded by thanking Mr. Crawford and the other members for their kind remarks. [Illustration: F. HUNT, J. P., HOLDING COURT IN A GAOL WARD, AFTER THE FIRE.] In the evening the judge entertained the members of the bar and the municipal and judicial officers of the county of Elgin at a banquet in honor of the occasion of the re-opening of the court house and the 46th anniversary of his appointment. This was held at the Grand Central Hotel. All the work connected with the court house improvements was completed in the spring of 1900. The final report of the Building Committee was not, however presented until the 23rd of November. The total cost was $50,954.72, and of this amount the city of St. Thomas contributed $12,178.17. The excellent service rendered to the county by architect Darrach was recognized by the presentation of an address, suitably engrossed, expressing the councils appreciation of his efforts. The report also directed attention to the satisfactory manner in which Messrs. McKnight & Co., the principal contractors, who were represented by the senior member of the firm, Mr. R. Carroll, had completed their work. After the adoption of the report a resolution was passed tendering the thanks of the council to A. J. Leitch, Esq., for his services as Chairman of the Building Committee. _STATISTICS._ COUNTY || POPULATION. | OF ELGIN. || 1817 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | -------------++------+------+------+------+------+------+------+ ALDBOROUGH || 400| 733| 1,226| 2,325| 3,500| 4,718| 5,299| || | | | | | | | BAYHAM || | 2,108| 5,092| 5,141| 4,895| 4,689| 3,856| || | | | | | | | DUNWICH || 500| 633| 1,948| 2,888| 3,731| 4,290| 3,663| || | | | | | | | DORCHESTER || | 635| 1,477| 2,204| 2,071| 1,844| 1,624| || | | | | | | | MALAHIDE || 775| 2,218| 4,050| 5,320| 5,554| 4,415| 3,851| || | | | | | | | SOUTHWOLD || 900| 2,563| 5,063| 5,467| 5,559| 5,206| 4,766| || | | | | | | | YARMOUTH || 400| 3,664| 5,288| 6,166| 5,563| 5,575| 5,471| || | | | | | | | ST. THOMAS || | | 1,274| 1,631| 2,197| 8,367|10,370| || | | | | | | | VIENNA || | | | | 590| 528| 398| || | | | | | | | PORT STANLEY || | | | | | 674| 616| || | | | | | | | AYLMER || | | | | | 1,540| 2,167| || | | | | | | | SPRINGFIELD || | | | | | 555| 463| || | | | | | | | DUTTON || | | | | | | 838| -------------++------+------+------+------+------+------+------+ TOTALS ||2,975 |12,554|25,418|31,142|33,660|42,401|43,382| -------------++------+------+------+------+------+------+------+ COUNTY || NUMBER OF HOUSES. |Schools.| OF ELGIN. || 1817 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | 1817 | -------------++------+------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+ ALDBOROUGH || 90| 13| 189| 311| 630| 880| 1,064| 1 | || | | | | | | | | BAYHAM || 60| 133| 732| 887| 955| 978| 882| 2 | || | | | | | | | | DUNWICH || 100| 45| 316| 450| 673| 820| 744| 1 | || | | | | | | | | DORCHESTER || | 10| 238| 345| 378| 423| 341| | || | | | | | | | | MALAHIDE || 150| 125| 692| 726| 1,104| 956| 887| 2 | || | | | | | | | | SOUTHWOLD || 180| 175| 800| 579| 993| 998| 973| 3 | || | | | | | | | | YARMOUTH || 75| 299| 881| 1,128| 1,067| 1,161| 1,150| 2 | || | | | | | | | | ST. THOMAS || | | 226| 390| 417| 1,634| 2,205| | || | | | | | | | | VIENNA || | | | | 103| 105| 99| | || | | | | | | | | PORT STANLEY || | | | | | 139| 128| | || | | | | | | | | AYLMER || | | | | | 330| 521| | || | | | | | | | | SPRINGFIELD || | | | | | 130| 123| | || | | | | | | | | DUTTON || | | | | | | 167| | -------------++------+------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+ TOTALS || 655| 800| 4,074| 4,816| 6,320| 8,554| 9,284| 11 | -------------++------+------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+ The statistics of 1817 are taken from Robt. Gourlay's Book. For other years official census reports were referred to. Plan of the Court House. GROUND FLOOR. NO. BY WHOM OCCUPIED. 1-2. County Attorney and Clerk of the Peace. 3-4-5. County Court Clerk. The Vault was formerly used as an office by County Court Clerk and Junior Judge. 6. Inspector of Public Schools. Formerly occupied with vault adjoining by Clerk of the Peace. 7. Junior Judge's Office. Formerly Occupied: (1) County Treasurer's Office. (2) Law Library. (3) Jailer. (4) County Engineer. 8. County Treasurer's Office. Used as Registry Office up to 1875. 9. County Clerk. 10. County Engineer. 12-13. Sheriff. 14. Telephone. 15. Janitor. 16. Jailer. 17. Jail Kitchen. Originally occupied as Jailer's residence and afterwards as County Clerk's and Jailer's Offices. The heaters are in basement under these rooms. The space occupied by lavatories and main stairway was formerly the Sheriff's office. FIRST FLOOR. 18. County Judge's Office. 19. Barristers. 21. Crown Counsel. Formerly County Judge's Office. 22. Law Library. 23. Lady Witnesses. Formerly Petit Jury. 25. Court Room. 26. Witnesses. Formerly Crown Counsel room, afterwards law library. 27. County Council Chamber, also used for small courts. 28-29. Local Master. } } 31. Judges' Parlor. } } 32. Turnkeys. } Originally occupied as Jailer's Residence, } and afterwards as County Judge's Office. 33. Petit Jury. } } 34. Gaol Stores. } The space occupied by main stairway was formerly the county clerk's office and afterwards a witness room. SECOND FLOOR. 35-41. Janitor's apartments. 37 and 41 formerly Grand Jury Rooms. 42-43. Witnesses. 42 was formerly occupied by Local Master and afterwards by County Police Magistrate. 45. Historical Society. The space occupied by main stairway was formerly a store room. [Illustration: ELGIN COUNTY COURT HOUSE N. R. DARRACH, ARCHT., S^{T}. THOMAS, ONT. GROUND FLOOR PLAN FIRST FLOOR PLAN] [Illustration: COUNTY · BUILDING · AT · ST · THOMAS · ONT. N · R · DARRACH · · · ARCHITECT.] [Illustration: SECOND FLOOR PLAN] Members of Elgin County Council. 1852. ALDBOROUGH--Duncan McColl. DUNWICH--Moses Willey. SOUTHWOLD--Colin Munro, Nicol McColl. YARMOUTH--Elisha S. Ganson (Warden), Leslie Pierce. MALAHIDE--Thomas Locker (Warden), Lewis J. Clarke. BAYHAM--John Elliott, J. Skinner. SOUTH DORCHESTER--Jacob Cline. ST. THOMAS--David Parish. 1898-1899. DISTRICT NO. 1--(Aldborough) S. B. Morris, Daniel Lang (Warden 1898). DISTRICT NO. 2--(Dutton and Dunwich) A. J. Leitch, Edward McKellar. DISTRICT NO. 3--(Port Stanley and Southwold) William Jackson, Donald Turner, 1898, Francis Hunt, 1899. DISTRICT NO. 4--(Yarmouth) James H. Yarwood, Wm. B. Cole, 1898, Wm. O. Pollock, 1899. DISTRICT NO. 5--(Aylmer, Vienna, Polling Sub-divisions 1 and 2 of Bayham, and Malahide, except Polling Sub-division 5) Oscar McKenney, (Warden, 1899) Richard Locker, 1898, Mahlon E. Lyon, 1899. DISTRICT NO. 6--(Springfield, South Dorchester, Malahide (Division 5) and Bayham (except divisions 1 and 2)) David F. Moore, (Warden, 1900) Wm. M. Ford. Transcriber's Note. Illustrations have been moved to avoid breaks in paragraphs. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without note. The single table of Statistics in the original has been reformatted into two separate tables for ease of reading, one for population and one for houses and schools. Typographical errors have been corrected as follows: P. 5 'east side of the river."'--closing quotation mark added. P. 5 'Tuesday, the 8th day of April, 1800.'--had '1900.' P. 6 'tie girths, morticed and tenoned'--had 'tendoned.' P. 12 'sessions of the County of Elgin opened'--had 'Couty.' P. 24 'contended that he was or is faultless'--had 'fautless.' P. 24 'Shall lead thee to the grave."'--closing quotation mark added. P. 25 'his plans interfered with, and all the'--had 'iterferred.' P. 28 '26. Witnesses. Formerly Crown Counsel room'--had '36.' Unusual spellings of hybernated, Mississaga; inconsistent spellings of jail/jailer, gaol/gaoler; inconsistent hyphenation and capitalisation are as per the original. 
26139	----	ONTARIO TEACHERS' MANUALS NATURE STUDY AUTHORIZED BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION TORONTO THE RYERSON PRESS COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1915, BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION FOR ONTARIO Second Printing, 1918 Third Printing, 1923 Fourth Printing, 1924 Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected. Italics are indicated by subscripts (_) and bold words are indicated by tildes (~). CONTENTS PAGE PREFATORY NOTE 1 COURSE OF STUDY--DETAILS 3 CHAPTER I The Aims of Nature Study; General Methods 13 Concrete Material 15 Topics and material must suit the season; matter suited to the child; use of the commonplace; order of development of lesson; problems in observation; note-books and records 15 The School Garden 19 Suggestions; Garden Expenses 20 The Excursion 23 Its value; difficulties; frequency; suggestions for ungraded schools; the teacher's excursions; a type excursion 23 Collections 29 Animal Studies 29 Domestic animals; references 29 Birds; references 30 Insects; insect collections 34 Butterfly and moth collections 37 Plant Collections 39 CHAPTER II Physical Science Phase of Nature Study 42 Instructions and General Method 42 Value of such lessons; conditions under which experiments should be performed 42 Correlations of physical science phase 44 List of Reference Books and Bulletins on garden and plant study, physical science, and animal study 45 Physical Science--Equipment for Forms III and IV 47 Desirable apparatus 47 Chemicals 48 Apparatus 50 Grenet cells; decomposition apparatus; pneumatic trough; spirit-lamp; barometer; hygrometer; hints 50 Time Apportioned to Nature Study 53 CHAPTER III. FORM I: AUTUMN Garden Work 54 Lessons on a Garden Plant--Pansy 55 Observation Exercises on the Dandelion 57 Correlation with literature and reading 59 Dwarf Nasturtium 59 Seeds 60 Field exercise; class-room lesson based on the collection 60 Seed Dispersal 61 Lesson on seeds that fly; correlations 62 Twigs and Buds 62 Lesson on Twigs 62 Further study of twigs; review lesson 63 Lesson on Buds 65 Review lesson; correlations 65 Leaves 66 Field exercises; class-room lesson on leaves 66 Garden Studies 68 Studies in the Pupil's individual Plot 68 Studies from the Garden as a Whole 69 Bulb Planting 69 Lesson on Bulbs and Bulb Planting 69 Planting the bulb 70 CHAPTER IV. FORM I: WINTER Pet Animals 72 The Rabbit--Lesson on; correlations 72 The Domestic Cat--detailed study 75 The Pigeon--detailed study 76 Winter-blooming Plants--Observation and care of 78 Trees 79 Pines of the Locality 79 The White Pine 79 Field exercises; class-room lesson 79 The Elm--field exercise 82 Domestic Animals 83 The Horse; correlations 83 Domestic Birds 85 The Duck--class-room lesson 85 CHAPTER V. FORM I: SPRING Garden Work 87 Garden Studies--window garden 88 Wild Flowers 90 Recognition of Wild Flowers 91 Lesson in Outline--Bloodroot; correlations 91 Insect Study 93 Cecropia, or Emperor-moth 93 Dragon-fly 94 Other Conspicuous Insects 95 Birds 95 The Robin 96 Field exercises; the nest, eggs, and young 96 The Song-sparrow 97 Field exercises; class-room lesson 97 The Sheep 99 Problems for Field Work 99 CHAPTER VI. FORM II: AUTUMN Bulb Planting Out-of-Doors 101 Bed for growing bulbs; planting of bulbs indoors 101 Garden Work 103 Seed selection; storing seeds; harvesting and storing of garden crops; class-room lesson; autumn cultivation 103 Garden Studies 106 Garden Records; correlations 107 Climbing Plants 108 Trees 109 Storing of Tree Seeds 110 A Flower 110 Type--Nasturtium 110 Soil Studies 112 Kinds of Soil 112 Animal Studies 113 Bird Migration; correlations 113 Common Wild Animals 114 General method for field work 114 The Wood-chuck 116 The Chipmunk--field exercises 117 The Eastern Swallow-tail Butterfly 118 CHAPTER VII. FORM II: WINTER Care of Plants in the Home 120 Trees 121 Collection of Wood Specimens 122 Related Reading 122 The Dog 123 Class-room lesson; observation exercises; correlations 123 Lessons Involving Comparison 125 Cat and dog; experiments for assisting in the study of the cat; comparison of the horse and cow 126 The Squirrel 129 Field exercises; class-room lesson 129 Winter Birds 130 Field exercises; class-room lesson; correlations 130 Animals of the Zoological Gardens 132 CHAPTER VIII. FORM II: SPRING Garden Work 133 Combating Garden Pests 134 Cutworms; root-maggots; flea-beetles 134 Seed Germination 135 Plants for Individual Plots 137 Studies Based on Observations of Growing Plants 137 Planting and care of sweet-peas 138 Wild Flowers 139 Weeds 140 The Apple Tree 141 Field exercise; class-room lesson; field exercise following class-room lesson 141 Bird Study 143 The Toad 143 Field exercises; class-room lesson; detailed study; life history of the toad 143 The Earthworm 147 Class-room lesson; references 148 The Aquarium 149 Aquarium Specimens 150 Mosquito; study of adult form; the development; references 150 Caddice-fly 152 Insects Suitable for Lessons in Form II 153 CHAPTER IX. FORM III: AUTUMN Garden Work 154 Treatment of Fungi 154 Treatment of Insects--cabbage-worm 156 Plants 158 Annuals, Biennials, and Perennials 158 Class-room lesson 158 Garden Studies 159 Annuals, biennials, perennials 159 Special Study of Garden Plants 160 Sweet-pea; pumpkin; corn; correlations 160 Seed Dispersal--Lesson 164 Detailed Study of Seed Dispersal--class-room lesson 165 Seed collections; man as a disperser of seeds 166 The Sugar Maple--field exercises 168 Maple Leaves--class-room lesson; correlations 169 Weed Studies 170 Observation lesson on weed seeds 171 Grasshopper--field exercises; class-room lesson 172 Aphides 174 Tomato Worm--the adult; the chrysalis 175 The Crow; correlations 177 CHAPTER X. FORM III: WINTER Care of Plants in the Home 178 Plant Cuttings 179 Selection of cuttings; potting of rooted cuttings 179 Evergreens--class-room lesson 181 Collection of Wood Specimens 182 Related Reading 183 How Animals Prepare for Winter 183 Summary of Lessons; correlations 184 Chickens 185 Conversation lesson; arithmetic lesson; care and food of chickens 185 Physical Science Phase of Nature Study 188 Solids, Liquids, and Gases 188 Change of State 189 Expansion of Solids 189 Practical applications; questions for further investigation 190 Expansion of Liquids--applications 192 The Thermometer 193 Expansion of Air 194 Sources of Heat and Light 194 Notes for a Series of Lessons 194 Conduction--problems 196 Convection--problems, convection in gases; applications 198 Radiation of Heat--problems 199 CHAPTER XI. FORM III: SPRING Window Boxes 201 Window Gardens 201 Suitable Plants; Fertilizer 202 Soil Studies--constituents 203 Garden Work 206 Tree Seeds 207 Transplanting--flowers, vegetables, tree seedlings 208 Budding 209 Cuttings--leaf cuttings, root cuttings, layering 211 Planting and Care of Herbaceous Perennials 212 Garden Studies--biennials 212 Wild Flowers 213 Study of the Trillium 213 Class-room lesson on the specimens 213 Adaptations of Animals 215 Bird Types 217 Woodpeckers--the downy woodpecker; observations 217 Flycatchers 219 Wrens 219 Insect Types 220 Cabbage-butterfly 220 Tussock-moth 221 Potato beetle 222 References 222 Fish--Observations; problems; references 223 CHAPTER XII. FORM IV: AUTUMN Garden Work 225 Herbaceous Perennials from Seed 226 Trees--Deciduous; references 227 Trees in Relation to their Environment 228 Fruits--Excursion to a well-kept orchard 229 Small Fruits 230 Autumn Wild Flowers--Milkweed; correlations 230 Trees--The White Pine 232 Outline of a class-room lesson on the white pine; correlations; references 235 Apples--Comparative Lesson on Winter Varieties 239 King, Baldwin, Northern Spy 239 Codling moth; references 240 Some Common Animal Forms; references 242 Centipeds and millipeds 243 Salamanders or newts 243 Spiders 244 Bird Studies 245 CHAPTER XIII. FORM IV: WINTER Forest Trees 246 Evergreens; Wood Specimens 246 Fruits 247 Weeds and Weed Seeds 248 Physical Science Phase of Nature Study 248 Water Pressure--exercises 248 Study of Air 249 The barometer; the common pump; expansive force of air; composition of air; oxygen; carbon dioxide; impurities of air 250 Solutions of Solids 255 Solutions of Liquids 256 Solutions of Gases 256 Limestone 256 Carbon 257 Hydrogen 258 Magnets 258 Electricity 259 Steam 260 Farm tools--machines; problems 260 CHAPTER XIV. FORM IV: SPRING Method of Improving Home and School Grounds 263 Making and Care of a Lawn; References 264 Soil Studies 265 Weight 265 Subsoils 266 Fertilizers--experiments 268 Soil-forming Agents 268 Tilling the Soil 269 Garden Work--experiments in plots out-of-doors 270 Function of Parts of Plants 273 How the plant gets its food from the soil; germination of some of the common grains 274 Weeds 278 Vines 279 Wild Flowers 279 Planting of Trees, Shrubs, and Herbaceous Perennials in Home and School Grounds 280 Shade trees; transplanting 281 Animal Studies 283 Scale Insects 283 San José scale; oyster-shell bark-louse; cutworms; white grubs 283 Crayfish 285 Freshwater Mussel 286 Bird Study 287 Different Aspects of Nature Study 288 PREFATORY NOTE This Manual is placed in the hands of the teachers in the hope that the suggestions which it contains on lesson topics, materials, books of reference, and methods in teaching will be found helpful to all teachers and in particular to those who have had little or no instruction in Nature Study during their academic or professional training. The first Chapter of the Manual discusses topics which have general reference to the subject as a whole. The remaining part of the Manual deals more particularly with the subject in its application to the different Public and Separate School Forms. While this division of the matter into Forms is convenient for general classification, it is not to be regarded as arbitrary. Materials and methods of presentation suitable for one class of pupils in a certain Form might, under different conditions, be quite unsuitable for another class of pupils in the same Form. For example, work which would be suitable for a class in Form I made up of pupils admitted to a school at seven or eight years of age, after two years' training in a kindergarten where nature lessons received special attention, would not be suitable for a Form I class made up of pupils admitted to a school at five years of age with no such previous training. In selecting work for any class the teacher, therefore, should not be guided solely by the arbitrary divisions of the Manual, but should exercise his own judgment, taking into account his environment and the attainments of his pupils. To facilitate such a selection, page references are given in the details of the Course of Study, which in reality forms a detailed expansion of the Public and Separate School Course in Nature Study. By means of these references, the teacher may find, in any department of the subject, typical matter suited to the development of his pupils. The numerous type lessons that are contained in the Manual are intended to suggest principles of method that are to be applied in lessons upon the same and similar topics, but the teacher is cautioned against attempting to imitate these lessons. This error can be avoided by the teacher's careful preparation of the lesson. This preparation should include the careful study of the concrete materials that are to be used. The books, bulletins, etc., that are named in the Manual as references will be found helpful. To facilitate teaching through the experimental and investigation methods, special attention has been given to the improvising of simple apparatus from materials within the reach of every teacher. From the character of the subject the Course of Study must be more or less elastic, and the topics detailed in the programme are intended to be suggestive rather than prescriptive. It may be that, owing to local conditions, topics not named are among the best that can be used, but all substitutions and changes should be made a subject of consultation with the Inspector. The treatment of the subject must always be suited to the age and experience of the pupils, to the seasons of the year, accessibility of materials, etc. Notes should not be dictated by the teacher. Mere information, whether from book, written note, or teacher, is not Nature Study. The acquisition of knowledge must be made secondary to awakening and maintaining the pupil's interest in nature and to training him to habits of observation and investigation. As a guide to the minimum of work required, it is suggested that at least one lesson be taught from the subjects outlined under each general heading in the detailed Course of Study, with a minimum average of three lessons from the subjects under each general heading. PUBLIC AND SEPARATE SCHOOL COURSE OF STUDY DETAILS FORM I AUTUMN GARDEN WORK AND GARDEN STUDIES: Division of the garden plots, removal of weeds and observations on these weeds, identification of garden plants, observation lessons based on garden plants, selection of seeds, harvesting and disposing of the crop. (See pp. 54-9.) STUDY OF PLANTS: Class lessons based on a flowering garden plant, as pansy, aster, nasturtium; study of a field plant, as buttercup, goldenrod, dandelion. (See pp. 55-9.) Potted and garden plants: Observation lesson based on a bulb; planting bulbs in pots, or in the garden. (See pp. 69-71.) BIRDS AND CONSPICUOUS INSECTS: Identification of a few common birds, as robin, English sparrow, meadow-lark; observation lessons on the habits of these birds; collection of the adult forms, the larvæ and the cocoons of a few common moths and butterflies, as emperor-moth, promothea moth, eastern swallow-tail butterfly. (See pp. 30-9 and 93-8.) COMMON TREES: Identification of a few common trees, as white pine, elm, maple; observations on the general shape, branches, leaves, and bark of these trees. (See pp. 62-7 and 79-82.) WINTER FARM ANIMALS, INCLUDING FOWLS: Habits and characteristics of a few domestic animals, as horse, cow, sheep, hen, duck; the uses of these animals, and how to take care of them. (See pp. 83-6.) PET ANIMALS: Observations on the habits, movements, and characteristics of pet animals, as cat, pigeon, bantam, rabbit, etc.; conversations about the natural homes and habits of these animals, and inferences upon their care. (See pp. 72-7.) COMMON TREES: Observations on the branching of common trees. (See pp. 79-82.) SPRING GARDEN WORK: Preparation, planting, and care of the garden plot; observations on the growing plants. (See pp. 87-90.) FLOWERS: Identification and study of a few spring flowers, as trillium, bloodroot, hepatica, spring-beauty. (See pp. 90-2.) BIRDS AND INSECTS: Identification and study of the habits of a few common birds, as song-sparrow, blue-bird, wren; observations of the form and habits of a few common insects, as house-fly, dragon-fly. (See pp. 30-3 and 93-9.) COMMON TREES: Observations on the opening buds of the trees which were studied in the Autumn. (See p. 65.) FORM II AUTUMN BIRDS AND INSECTS: Autumn migration of birds; identification and observations on the habits and movements of a few common insects, including their larval forms, as grasshopper, eastern swallow-tail butterfly. (See pp. 113-4 and 118-9.) ANIMALS OF THE FARM, FIELD, AND WOOD: Observations on the homes and habits of wild animals, as frog, toad, squirrel, ground-hog; habits and structures, including adaptive features, of domestic animals, as dog, cat, horse, cow. (See pp. 83 and 123-30.) TREES OF THE FARM, ROADSIDE, WOOD, AND ORCHARD: Observations on the shapes, sizes, rate of growth, and usefulness of common orchard, shade, and forest trees, as apple, elm, horse-chestnut. (See pp. 109-10.) WILD FLOWERS AND WEEDS: Identification and study of a few common weeds, noting their means of persistence and dispersal. (See pp. 139-40.) CARE OF POTTED AND GARDEN PLANTS: Preparation of pots and garden beds for bulbs; selecting and storing garden seeds; observations on the habits of climbing plants, and application of the knowledge gained to the care required for these plants. (See pp. 101-9 and 120.) WINTER BIRDS: Identification of winter birds and study of their means of protection and of obtaining food. (See pp. 130-2.) ANIMALS OF THE FARM: Comparative study of the horse and cow, of the dog and cat, and of the duck and hen. (See pp. 123-8.) ANIMALS OF THE PARK AND ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN: Observations on the general structural features, noting the natural adaptations of such animals as bear, lion, deer, tiger, etc. (See p. 132.) TREES: Winter study of trees, noting buds, branches, and foliage of spruce, cedar, horse-chestnut, etc. (See pp. 121-3.) SPRING BIRDS AND INSECTS: Observations on the structure, adaptations and development of insect larvæ kept in an aquarium, as larva of mosquito, dragon-fly, caddice-fly; spring migration of birds. (See pp. 149-153.) ANIMALS OF THE FIELD AND WOODS: Observations on the forms, homes, habits, and foods of wild animals, continued. (See pp. 114-8, 143-9.) ORCHARD TREES: The buds and blossoms of apple, and cherry or plum, observed through the stages up to fruit formation. (See pp. 141-3.) EXPERIMENTS IN THE GERMINATION OF SEEDS: Germination of seeds and general observations on the stages of development; testing the conditions required for seed germination; introductory exercises in soil study as a preparation for seed planting. (See pp. 133-8 and 112-3.) WILD FLOWERS AND WEEDS: Field and class-room study of marsh marigold, Jack-in-the-pulpit, violet, etc. (See pp. 139-40.) FORM III AUTUMN BIRDS AND INSECTS: Observations on the habits and the ravages of common noxious insects, as cabbage-worm, grasshopper, tussock-moth, etc.; discussion of means of checking these insects. (See pp. 156-7 and 172-7.) FARM AND WILD ANIMALS OF THE LOCALITY: Field study and class-room lessons on the habits and structure, including adaptive features, of common animals, as musk-rat, fox, fish, sheep. (See pp. 99 and 183-5.) GARDEN AND EXPERIMENTAL PLOTS: Harvesting of garden and field crops; preparation of cuttings from geraniums, begonia, currant, etc.; identification of garden plants; seed dispersal. (See pp. 154, 179-80, and 164-8.) STUDY OF COMMON FLOWERS, TREES, AND FRUITS: Characteristics of annuals, biennials, and perennials; life histories of common plants, as sweet-pea, Indian corn, etc. (See pp. 158-64 and 168-70.) STUDY OF WEEDS AND THEIR ERADICATION: Identification of the common noxious weeds of the locality; collection, description, and identification of weed seeds; cause of the prevalence of the weeds studied, and means of checking them. (See pp. 164-8 and 170-2.) WINTER FARM AND WILD ANIMALS OF THE LOCALITY: Habits and instincts of common domestic animals, as fowls, sheep, and hogs; the economic values of these animals. (See pp. 185-8.) GARDEN WORK AND EXPERIMENTAL PLOTS: The characteristics of common house plants, and care of these plants. (See pp. 178-9.) STUDY OF COMMON FLOWERS, TREES, AND FRUITS: Comparative study of common evergreens, as balsam, spruce, hemlock, etc.; collection of wood specimens. (See pp. 181-3.) OBSERVATIONS OF NATURAL PHENOMENA: Simple experiments to show the nature of solids, liquids, and gases. (See pp. 188-9.) HEAT PHENOMENA: Source of heat, changes of volume in solids, liquids, and gases, accompanying changes in temperature; heat transmission; the thermometer and its uses. (See pp. 189-200.) SPRING BIRDS AND INSECTS: Field and class lessons on the habits, movements, and foods of common birds, as crow, woodpecker, king-bird, phoebe, blackbird, etc. (See pp. 217-22.) GARDEN WORK AND EXPERIMENTAL PLOTS: Care of garden plots; transplanting; testing best varieties; making of, and caring for, window boxes; propagation of plants by budding, cuttings, and layering. (See pp. 201-3 and 208-13.) COMMON WILD FLOWERS: Field lessons on the habitat of common wild flowers; class-room study of the plant organs including floral organs; study of weeds and weed seeds continued, also the study of garden and field annuals, biennials, and perennials. (See Autumn.) (See pp. 170-2 and 212-5.) SOIL STUDIES AND EXPERIMENTS: The components of soils, their origin, properties, and especially their water absorbing and retaining properties; the relation of soils to plant growth; experiments demonstrating the benefits of mulching and of drainage. (See pp. 203-6.) FORM IV AUTUMN INJURIOUS AND BENEFICIAL INSECTS AND BIRDS: Identification of common insects and observations on their habits; means of combating such insects, as codling moth, etc.; bird identification, and study of typical members of some common families, as woodpeckers, flycatchers; spiders. (See pp. 217-22 and 240-5.) ORNAMENTAL AND EXPERIMENTAL GARDEN PLOTS: Observations and conclusions based upon experimental plots; common shrubs, vines, and trees, and how to grow them. (See pp. 225-30 and 279.) FUNCTIONS OF PLANT ORGANS: Simple experiments illustrating roots as organs of absorption, stems as organs of transmission, and leaves as organs of respiration, transpiration, and food building. (See pp. 273-8.) ECONOMIC STUDY OF PLANTS: Comparative study of varieties of winter apples, of fall apples, or of other fruits of the locality; visits to orchards; weed studies continued. (See Form III.) (See pp. 229-30 and 239-40.) RELATION OF SOIL AND SOIL TILLAGE TO FARM CROPS: Soil-forming agents, as running water, ice, frost, heat, wind, plants, and animals, and inferences as to methods of tillage. (See pp. 268-70.) WINTER AIR AND LIQUID PRESSURE: Simple illustrations of the buoyancy of liquids and of air; simple tests to demonstrate that air fills space and exerts pressure; the application of air pressure in the barometer, the common pump, the bicycle tire, etc. (See pp. 248-52.) OXYGEN AND CARBON DIOXIDE: Generate each of these gases and test for properties, as colour, odour, combustion, action with lime-water; the place occupied by these gases in nature. (See pp. 252-5.) PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF HEAT, STEAM, AND ELECTRICITY: Making a simple voltaic cell, an electro-magnet, and a simple electroscope. Test the current by means of the two latter and also with an electric bell. Explain the application of the above in the electric telegraph and motor. Simple demonstration of pressure of steam; history and uses of the steam-engine. (See pp. 259-60.) SPRING INJURIOUS AND BENEFICIAL INSECTS AND BIRDS: Identification of noxious insects and observations thereon; study of representatives of common families of birds, as thrushes, warblers, sparrows; economic values of birds. (See pp. 283-5 and 286-7.) AQUATIC ANIMALS: Observation exercises upon the habits, movements, and structures, including adaptive features of aquatic animals, as crayfish, mussel, tadpole, etc. (See pp. 285-6.) ORNAMENTAL AND EXPERIMENTAL GARDEN PLOTS: Experimental plots demonstrating the benefits of seed selection; ornamental plots of flowering perennials and bulbous plants; how to improve the school grounds and the home lawns. (See pp. 270-3 and 263-5.) TREE STUDIES: Comparison of the values of the common varieties of shade trees, how to plant and how to take care of shade trees. (See pp. 280-2.) THE FUNCTIONS OF PLANT ORGANS: Examination of the organs of common flowers; use of root, flower organs, fruit, and seed. (See pp. 273-8.) ECONOMIC STUDY OF PLANTS: Plants of the lawn and garden; weed studies. (See pp. 263-5, 270-3, and 278-9.) RELATION OF SOIL AND SOIL TILLAGE TO FARM CROPS: Study of subsoils; capillarity in soils; benefits of crop rotations and mulching; experiments in fertilizing, mulching, depth of planting, and closeness of planting. (See pp. 265-7.) NATURE STUDY CHAPTER I THE AIMS OF NATURE STUDY Nature Study means primarily the study of natural things and preferably of living things. Like all other subjects, it must justify its position on the school curriculum by proving its power to equip the pupil for the responsibilities of citizenship. That citizen is best prepared for life who lives in most sympathetic and intelligent relation to his environment, and it is the primary aim of Nature Study to maintain the bond of interest which unites the child's life to the objects and phenomena which surround him. To this end it is necessary to adapt the teaching, in matter and method, to the conditions of the child's life, that he may learn to understand the secrets of nature and be the better able to control and utilize the forces of his natural environment. At all times, the teacher must keep in mind the fact that it is not the quantity of matter taught but the interest aroused and the spirit of investigation fostered, together with carefulness and thoroughness, which are the important ends to be sought. With a mind trained to experiment and stimulated by a glimpse into nature's secrets, the worker finds in his labour a scientific interest that lifts it above drudgery, while, from a fuller understanding of the forces which he must combat or with which he must co-operate, he reaps better rewards for his labours. The claims of Nature Study to an educative value are based not upon a desire to displace conventional education, but to supplement it, and to lay a foundation for subsequent reading. Constant exercise of the senses strengthens these sources of information and develops alertness, and at the same time the child is kept on familiar ground--the world of realities. It is for these reasons that Nature Study is frequently defined as "The Natural Method of Study". Independent observation and inference should be encouraged to the fullest degree, for one of the most important, though one of the rarer accomplishments of the modern intellect, is to think independently and to avoid the easier mode of accepting the opinions of others. Reading from nature books, the study of pictures, and other such matter, is not Nature Study. These may supplement Nature Study, but must not displace the actual vitalizing contact between the child and natural objects and forces. It is this contact which is at the basis of clear, definite knowledge; and clearness of thought and a feeling of at-homeness with the subject is conducive to clearness and freedom of expression. The Nature Study lesson should therefore be used as a basis for language lessons. Undoubtedly one of the most important educative values that can be claimed for Nature Study is its influence in training the pupil to appreciate natural objects and phenomena. This implies the widening and enriching of human interests through nurturing the innate tendency of the child to love the fields and woods and birds; the checking of the selfish and destructive impulses by leading him to see the usefulness of each creature, the harmony of its relation to its environment, and the significance of its every part. Nor is it a mistake to cultivate the more sentimental love of nature which belongs to the artist and the poet. John Ruskin emphasizes this value in these words: "All other efforts are futile unless you have taught the children to love trees and birds and flowers". GENERAL METHODS IN NATURE STUDY CONCRETE MATERIAL It is evident that concrete material must be provided and so distributed that each member of the class will have a direct opportunity to exercise his senses, and, from his observations, to deduce inferences and form judgments. The objects chosen should be mainly from the common things of the locality. The teacher should be guided in the selection by the interests of the pupils, first finding out from them the things upon which they are expending their wonder and inquiry. Trees, field crops, flowers, birds, animals of the parks, woods, or farmyard, all form suitable subjects for study. TOPICS AND MATERIAL MUST SUIT THE SEASON The material should be selected not only with reference to locality but also with due regard to season. For example, better Nature Study lessons can be taught on the elm tree of the school grounds than on the giant Douglas fir of British Columbia; and on the oriole whose nest is in the elm tree than on the eagle portrayed in Roberts' animal stories; and it is manifestly unwise to teach lessons on snow in summer, or on flowers and ants in winter. MATTER MUST BE SUITED TO THE CHILD For the urban pupil the treatment of the material must be different from that in the case of the pupil of the rural school. Rural school pupils have already formed an extensive acquaintance with many plants and animals which are entirely unknown to the children of the city. The simpler facts which are interesting and instructive to the pupils of the urban classes would prove commonplace and trivial to rural pupils. For example, while it is necessary to show the city child a squirrel that he may learn the size, colour, and general appearance of the animal, the efforts of the pupil of the rural school should be directed to the discovery of the less evident facts of squirrel life. USE OF THE COMMONPLACE It must be kept in mind that besides leading the pupils to discover new sources of interest, the teacher should strive to accomplish that which is even greater, namely, to lead them to discover new truth and new beauty in old, familiar objects. It may be true that "familiarity breeds contempt" and there is always a danger that the objects with which children have associated in early life may be passed by as uninteresting while they go in search of something "new and interesting". For example, to be able to recognize many plants and to call them by name is no doubt something of an accomplishment, but it should not be the chief aim of the teacher in conducting Nature Study lessons on plants. It is of much greater importance that the child should be led to love the flowers and to appreciate their beauty and their utility. Such appreciation will result in the desire to protect and to produce fine flowers and useful plants, and this end can be reached only through intelligent acquaintanceship. There can be no true appreciation without knowledge, and this the child gets chiefly by personal observation and experiment. With reference to the wild flowers of the woods and fields, the method employed is that of continuous observation. ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE LESSON Each animal or plant should be studied as a living, active organism. The attention of the pupils should be focused upon activities; for these appeal to the child nature and afford the best means for securing interest and attention. What does this animal do? How does it do it? How is it fitted for doing this? How does this plant grow? What fits it for growing in this way? These are questions which should exercise the mind of the child. They are questions natural in the spirit of inquiry in child nature and give vitality to nature teaching. They are an effective means of establishing a bond of sympathy between the child and nature. The child who takes care of a plant or animal because it is his own, does so at first from a purely personal motive, which is perfectly natural to childhood; but while he studies its needs and observes its movements and changes, gradually and unconsciously this interest will be transferred to the plant or animal for its own sake. The nature of the child is thus broadened during the process. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION In studying the material provided, whether it be in the class-room, or during a nature excursion, or by observations made in the farmyard at home, the teacher must guide the efforts of the pupils by assigning to them definite and suitable problems. Care must be taken to reach the happy mean of giving specific directions without depriving the pupils of the pleasure of making original discovery. For example, instead of asking them to study the foot of the horse and learn all they can about it, more specific problems should be assigned, such as: Observe how the hoof is placed on the ground in walking. What are the arrangements for lessening the shock when the hoof strikes the ground? Examine the under surface of the hoof and discover what prevents the unshod horse from slipping. NOTE-BOOKS AND RECORDS In Grades higher than Form I, written exercises should be required and also sketches representing the objects studied. For this purpose a Nature Study note-book is necessary--a loose-leaf note-book being preferable because of necessary corrections, rearrangements, additions, or omissions. In all records and reports, independence of thought and of expression should be encouraged. The drawing and the oral or written description should express what is actually observed, not what the book or some member of the class says has been, or should be, observed. The descriptions should be in the pupil's own words, because these are most in keeping with his own ideas on the subject. More correct forms of expression may be obtained when notes are taken from the teacher's dictation, but this is fatal to the development of originality. The disparity of the results in individual work gives opportunity for impressing upon the pupil, in the first place, the necessity for more accurate observation and, secondly, the impossibility of reaching a correct general conclusion without having studied a large number of examples. The development of critical and judicious minds, which may result from carefully observing many examples and generalizing from these observations, is vastly more important than the memorizing of many facts. THE SCHOOL GARDEN In the study of garden plants there is added a certain new interest arising out of experimentation, cultivation, and ownership. The love of the gardener has in it elements that the love of the naturalist does not usually possess--a sort of paternal love and care for the plants produced in his garden; but every gardener should be a naturalist as well. Most people have a higher appreciation for that which they own and which they have produced or acquired at some expense or personal sacrifice; therefore it is that the growing of plants in home and school gardens or in pots and window boxes is so strongly advocated throughout this Course. Ownership always implies responsibility, which is at once the chief safeguard of society and the foundation of citizenship. A careless boy will never respect the property of others so much as when he himself has proprietary interests involved. We believe, therefore, that every teacher should encourage his pupils to cultivate plants and, if possible, to own a plot of ground however small. The teacher should not merely aim at _making_ a garden in the school grounds. The great question is rather how best to use a school garden in connection with the training of boys and girls. To learn to do garden work well is indeed worth while and provides a highly beneficial kind of manual training. To understand something of soils and methods of cultivation, of fertilizers and drainage, the best kinds of flowers, vegetables, fruits, and farm crops, and how to grow them successfully, is very important in such a great agricultural country as this; but the greatest of all results which we may hope to realize in connection with school gardening is the ennobling of life and character. The pupils are taught to observe the growing plants with great care, noting developments day by day. This adds to their appreciation of the beauties and adaptations found among plants on every side, and cannot fail to produce good results in moral as well as in mental development. The teachers must always remember that the gardeners with whom they are working are more important than the gardens which they cultivate. The best garden is not always the largest and most elaborate one. It is rather the garden that both teacher and pupils have been most deeply interested in. It is the garden in which they have experienced most pleasure and profit that makes them want to have another better than the last. No school is too small to have a garden of some kind, and no garden is too small to become the joy and pride of some boy or girl. SUGGESTIONS For the benefit of teachers beginning their duties on the first of September, in school sections where school gardening has never been carried on, the following suggestions are offered: 1. See if the grounds will permit of a part being used for a garden. To ascertain this, note the size of the present grounds and see if they meet the requirements of the Department as laid down in the Regulations. If they do not, consult your Inspector at once and acquaint him with your plans. If the grounds are to be enlarged, try to take in sufficient land of good quality to make a good garden. The part chosen for the garden should be both convenient and safe. Examine the soil to see if it is well drained and sufficiently deep to permit of good cultivation. Lack of fertility can be overcome by good fertilizing. 2. See that the fences and gates are in good repair. When circumstances will permit, a woven wire fence that will exclude dogs, pigs, and poultry is most desirable. If not used to inclose the whole grounds, it should at least inclose the part used for gardening. 3. Begin modestly and provide room for extension as the work progresses. Sow clover on the part to be held in reserve for future gardening operations. 4. If local public sentiment is not strongly in favour of school gardening, or is somewhat adverse, begin on a small scale. If the work is well done, you will soon have both moral and financial support. 5. See that the land is well drained. Plough it early in the autumn and, if a load of well-rotted manure is available, spread it on the land before ploughing. Commercial fertilizer may also be used on the plots the following spring, but no stable manure. 6. In spring, when dry enough, cultivate thoroughly with disc and drag harrows. Build up a compost heap in the rear of the garden with sods and stable manure, for use in the autumn and also the following spring. GARDEN EXPENSES In connection with those schools where the teacher holds a diploma from the Ontario Agricultural College in Elementary Agriculture and Horticulture, there is no difficulty in meeting the expenses for seeds, tools, fertilizers, and labour, as the Government grant for such purposes is sufficient. In other schools, however, where the teacher holds no such diploma (and such is the case in most of the schools as yet), other means of meeting the expenses must be resorted to. The following are offered as suggestions along this line: 1. Part of the grant made to every school for the maintaining of the school grounds should be available for school garden expenses. 2. An occasional school entertainment may add funds that could not be used to better advantage. 3. An occasional load of stable manure supplied free from neighbouring farms will help to solve the fertilizer problem. 4. Donations of plants and seeds by the parents and other interested persons and societies will be forthcoming, if the teacher is in earnest and his pupils interested. 5. If it is required, the trustees could make a small grant each year toward the cost of tools. 6. Fencing and cultivation of the garden can often be provided for by volunteer assistance from the men of the school section. 7. It is often possible to grow a garden crop on a fairly large scale, the school being formed into a company for this purpose and the proceeds to be used to meet garden expenses. 8. The pupils can readily bring the necessary tools from home for the first season's work. 9. Many Agricultural and Horticultural societies offer very substantial cash prizes for school garden exhibits, and all funds so obtained should be used to improve the garden from which the exhibits were taken. 10. An earnest, resourceful teacher will find a way of meeting the necessary expenses. THE EXCURSION Nature Study is essentially an outdoor subject. While it is true that a considerable amount of valuable work may be done in the class-room by the aid of aquaria, insectaria, and window boxes, yet the great book of nature lies outside the school-house walls. The teacher must lead or direct his pupils to that book and help them to read with reverent spirit what is written there by its great Author. ~Value.~--The school excursion is valuable chiefly because it brings the pupil into close contact with the objects that he is studying, permits him to get his knowledge at first hand, and gives him an opportunity of studying these objects in their natural environment. Incidentally the excursion yields outdoor exercise under the very best conditions--no slight advantage for city children especially; and it gives the teacher a good opportunity to study the pupils from a new standpoint. It also provides a means of gathering Nature Study material. ~Difficulties.~--Where is the time to be found? How can a large class of children be managed in the woods or fields? If only one class be taken, how, in an ungraded school, are the rest of the children to be employed? Will the excursion not degenerate into a mere outing? What if the woods are miles away? These are all real problems, and the Nature Study teacher, desirous of doing his work well, will have to face some of them at least. SHORT EXCURSIONS The excursion need not occupy much time. It should be well planned beforehand. _One_ object only should be kept in view and announced to the class before starting. Matters foreign or subordinate to this should be neglected for the time. The following are suggested as objects for excursions: ~Objects.~--A bird's nest in an adjacent meadow; a ground-hog's hole; a musk-rat's home; crayfish or clams in the stream near by; a pine (or other) tree; a toad's day-resort; the soil of a field; the pests of a neighbouring orchard; a stone-heap or quarry; ants' nests or earthworms' holes; the weeds of the school yard; buds; the vegetable or animal life of a pond; sounds of spring; tracks in the snow; a spider's web. Such excursions may be accomplished at the expenditure of very little time. Many of them will take the pupils no farther than the boundaries of the school yard. Of course the locality will influence the character of the excursion, as it will that of the whole of the work done in Nature Study, but in any place the thoughtful teacher may find material for open-air work at his very door. Much outside work can be done without interfering with the regular programme. The teacher may arrange a systematic list of questions and problems for the pupils to solve from their own observations, and these observations may be made by the pupils at play hours, or while coming or going from school, or on Saturdays. The following will serve as an example of the treatment that may be followed: ~Pests of Apple Trees.~--Look on the twigs of your apple trees for little scales. Bring an infected branch to school. Note whether unhealthy-looking or dead branches are infected. Examine scales with a lens. Loosen one, turn it over, and examine with a lens the under side. For eggs, look closely at the twigs in June. Do you see white specks moving? If so examine them with a lens. Are there any small, prematurely ripe apples on the ground in the orchard? Cut into one of these and look for a "worm". Look for apples with worm holes in the side. Are there worms in these apples? What is in them? Note the dirty marks that the larva has left. Keep several apples in a close box and watch for the "worms" to come out. Examine the bark of apple trees for pupæ in the fall. FREQUENCY OF EXCURSIONS As to the frequency of excursions, the teacher will be the best judge. It is desirable that they occur naturally in the course of the Nature Study work as the need for them arises. One short trip each week with a single object in view is much more satisfactory than a whole afternoon each term spent in aimless wandering about the woods. EXCURSIONS TO A DISTANCE Long-distance excursions will of necessity be infrequent. If the woods are far away, one such trip in May or June would prove valuable to enable the pupils to become acquainted with wild flowers, and another in October to gather tree seeds, autumn leaves, pupæ, and other material for winter study. When a large class is to be taken on an excursion, preparations must be made with special care. The teacher and one or two assistants should go over the ground beforehand and arrange for the work to be done. Some work must be given to every pupil, and prompt obedience to every command and signal must be required. The class, for example, may decide to search a small wood or meadow to find out what flowers are there. The pupils should be dispersed throughout the field to hunt for specimens and to meet at a known signal to compare notes. SUGGESTIONS FOR UNGRADED SCHOOLS 1. The teacher may take all the classes, choosing an object of study from which he can teach lessons suitable to all ages, a bird's nest, for example. 2. In many sections, the little ones are dismissed at 3.30 p.m. Opportunity is thus given for an excursion with the seniors. 3. The older pupils may be assigned work and left in charge of a monitor, elected by themselves, who shall be responsible for their conduct, while the teacher is working outside with the lower Forms. 4. Boys who are naturally interested in outdoor work should be encouraged to show the others anything of interest they may have found. 5. An occasional Saturday excursion may be arranged. ~Discipline.~--The teacher should insist on making the excursion a serious part of the school work, not merely recreation. School-room behaviour cannot be expected, but the boisterous conduct of the playground should give place to earnest expectancy. The pupils should keep within sound of the teacher's voice (a sharp whistle may be used) and should promptly respond to every call. Topics of conversations should as far as possible be restricted to those pertaining to the object of the excursion or related matters. In visiting woods, children should be trained to study flowers in their environment and leave them there, plucking or digging for none except for some excellent reason. The same respect should be shown to birds and their nests, and to insects, and all other living things encountered. THE TEACHER'S EXCURSIONS As soon as possible after coming to a section, the teacher should acquaint himself with the woods, groves, streams, or other haunts that may provide him with material for his indoor or outdoor work. He can then direct the pupils effectively. The teacher should go over the route of an excursion shortly before it takes place. This prevents waste of time in looking for the objects that he wishes his pupils to see. If the teacher wishes to increase his love for nature, he must take many walks without his pupils. The school garden offers a partial solution of the difficulties mentioned above. It brings a large amount of material to the doors of the school. Plants of the farm or the garden may be studied under various changeable conditions, and it will be seen that insect pests, weeds, and fungous diseases follow the lessons on plants, while lessons on birds and toads follow those on insects. With sections of the garden devoted to the cultivation of wild flowers, ferns, and forest trees, the specially organized excursion will become less of a necessity, although it will still continue to be a valuable factor in Nature Study work. After an excursion is over, it should be discussed in class. The various facts learned should be reviewed and related. If any pupils have made inaccurate observations, they should be required to observe again to correct their errors. Finally, the excursion may form the subject of a composition. A TYPE EXCURSION ~A Bird's Nest.~--The children have been instructed to study the meadow-lark, beginning about March twenty-first. While engaged in this work, a nest is discovered near the school. The teacher is informed and the pupils are conducted to the spot. What is growing in the field? Is there a long or a short growth? Did the mother bird make much noise as she rose from the nest? Did this help to reveal its presence? Is the nest easy to see? The class will halt a few paces from it and try to find it. How many eggs? Their colour? Note the arch of grass so beautifully concealing the nest. Returning to school, the facts observed are reviewed. The pupils may then express themselves by written composition or by drawings, paintings, or modellings of the nest, the eggs, or the surroundings. Frequent visits to the nest should not be made, and the pupils should be warned not to disturb the bird, as she may desert the nest on slight provocation. A second excursion may be made, when the eggs are hatched, to see the young birds. ~A Wasp's Nest.~--A nest having been discovered, the pupils note how it is suspended and how it is situated with regard to concealment or to protection from rain, its colour, the material of the nest, and the position of the entrance. Is the opening ever deserted? How many wasps enter and how many leave the nest in a minute? Try to follow one and watch what he does. Wasps may be found biting wood from an old board fence. This they chew into pulp, and from this pulp their paper is made. Get the children to verify this by observations. If the nest is likely to become a nuisance, smoke out the wasps, take the nest carefully down, and use it for indoor study, examining the inside of the nest to ascertain the nature and the structure of the comb which, in this case is entirely devoted to larvæ. COLLECTIONS General school collections of such objects as noxious weeds, weed seeds, wild flowers, noxious insects, leaves of forest trees, rocks or stones of the locality, etc., should be undertaken. All the pupils should contribute as many specimens as possible to each collection and should assist in the work of preparing them. In addition to the above collections it is advisable that pupils who show special interest in this phase of nature work should be encouraged to make individual collections. Collections, when properly prepared, have a value within themselves, because of the beauty and variety of the forms that they contain, and also because of their usefulness in illustrating nature lessons and in the identifying of insects, weeds, etc. Nevertheless the chief value of the collection rests in the making of it, because of the training that it gives the collector in carefulness and thoroughness, and also because it causes the child to study natural objects in their natural surroundings. ANIMAL STUDIES DOMESTIC ANIMALS The teacher, before attempting to teach lessons on domestic animals, should carefully consider how his lessons will best fulfil the following important aims: 1. The cultivation of a deeper sympathy for, and a more complete understanding of, farm animals. 2. The development of more kindly treatment of domestic animals through awakened sympathy and more intelligent understanding. 3. Implanting the idea that the best varieties are the most interesting and profitable. The following domestic animals are suggested as being suitable for study: horse, cow, sheep, dog, cat, goose, duck, hen. There are two practical methods of observation work; namely, home observation and class-room observation. The observation work on some of the animals named must of necessity be done out of school. In this the teacher can direct the efforts of the pupils by assigning to them definite problems to be solved by their study of the animals. The results of their observations can be discussed in the class in lessons of ten or fifteen minutes length. It may frequently be necessary to re-assign the problems in order that the pupils may correct their observations. It is possible for the teacher or the pupils to bring to the school-room certain of the animals, as the dog, cat, duck, hen, and the observations may then be made by the whole class directly under the guidance of the teacher. REFERENCES Crawford: _Guide to Nature Study._ Copp Clark Co., 90 cents. Dearness: _How to Teach the Nature Study Course._ Copp Clark Co., 60 cents. Shaler: _Domesticated Animals._ Scribners, $2.50. Smith: _The Uses and Abuses of Domestic Animals._ Jarrold & Sons, 50 cents. BIRDS The chief aims in developing lessons on birds are: 1. To teach the children to recognize their bird neighbours, to love them for their beauty, and sweet songs, and their sprightly ways. 2. To train the pupils to appreciate them for their usefulness in destroying insect pests. Many persons spend their lives surrounded by singing birds, yet they never hear their songs. Many children see and hear the birds, but if they have not been brought into sympathetic relation with them, they never learn to appreciate them; on the contrary, their attitude becomes one of indifference or of destructiveness. Too often, boys cruelly destroy the nests and young and persecute the old birds with stone and catapult. The cowardice of such acts should be condemned, but more effective lessons may be taught through leading the children to find in the birds assistants and companions that contribute to their material progress and to their joy in life. With these aims in view, the teacher will readily perceive that the most effective work in bird study results from observing the living birds in their natural environment. Field excursions are valuable for this, but good results can seldom be attained when the class is large, for birds are shy and will hide or fly away from the unusual excitement. Quietness is absolutely necessary for success. Better results are obtained when only one or two accompany the teacher. If the teacher selects a few who are interested in birds, and there are always some pupils in every school who are readily interested in bird study, these few can soon be made sufficiently acquainted with the more common birds, so that they will be able to point them out to the other pupils of the school, and thus they become the teacher's assistants in the work. By beginning with the most common and conspicuous birds, an acquaintance grows rapidly. Early spring is a good time to begin, when the first birds return from their winter sojourn. The teacher and pupils may now learn to recognize the birds, because there are only a few, and these are easily seen, as the robin, blue-bird, junco, meadow-lark, goldfinch, bronzed grackle, sapsucker, blue jay, downy woodpecker, and flicker. The teacher, assisted by the pupils who already know these birds, directs the younger pupils to where these birds may be seen, and they are also required to describe the birds observed and to identify them by means of the bird chart or colour key. The description should include: Size (compare with some common bird); shape; colour of head, back, and breast; conspicuous markings, as crest, stripes, bright patches of feathers; movements in flight or on the ground; song, call notes; whether in flocks, or pairs, or single birds. Later in spring, other birds will attract attention, as the song-sparrow, phoebe, wren, horned lark, cowbird, and red-winged blackbird; while in summer the oriole, catbird, vesper sparrow, American redstart, night hawk, scarlet tanager, and crested flycatcher are some of the birds that will call for attention, because of their plumage, songs, or peculiar habits. When a nest has been found by a pupil, he should report it to the teacher, and the other pupils should be permitted to visit it only upon promising not to molest the nest or to annoy the mother bird by remaining too long near it. While it is well that the pupils should see the nest with the young birds, they should be taught to respect the desire of the bird for quietness and seclusion. In studying the nest, observe: Concealment, protection, size, comfort, number and colour of eggs, young birds, size, colour, covering, food. The pupils should be asked to observe the feeding of birds thus: Watch the wrens returning to the nest; what do they carry to their young? Where do the wrens get the snails and grubs? Observe how the robins find the worms and how they pull them out of the ground. Follow the downy woodpecker to the apple tree and find out what he was pecking. Watch the crow in the pasture field and learn whether this bird kills grasshoppers and crickets. Observe the birds that pick seeds out of the weeds. Collecting birds' eggs should be condemned, because it nearly always leads to the robbing of the nests. The practice of exchanging eggs is the chief cause of this; for although an occasional boy will collect wisely, the greater number are simply anxious to add to their collection without regard for the sacredness of the birds' homes. A collection of birds' nests may be made after the nests have been abandoned for the season, and it will be found useful for interesting the pupils in the ingenuity, neatness, and instinctive foresight of the builders. REFERENCES Chapman and Reed: _Colour Key to North American Birds_ $2.75 Reed: _Bird Guide, Pts. I and II_ .75 Silcox and Stevenson: _Modern Nature Study_ .75 Cornish: _Thirty Lessons in Nature Study on Birds._ Dominion Book Company 1.00 _Canadian Birds in Relation to Agriculture._ This chart has pictures in colours of eighty-eight Canadian birds. G. M. Hendry Co., $3.00. _The Audubon Charts._ These three charts have pictures of fifty-five birds; the pictures are larger in the latter charts than in the first named. G. M. Hendry Co., $2.00 each. _Coloured Bird Pictures_, Mumford, Chicago, (separate coloured pictures) are very suitable for illustrating nature lessons on birds. INSECTS There are three classes of insects that are of immediate interest to the pupils of the Junior Grades, and the teacher who makes direct use of this natural interest has taken possession of the key to success in insect study in the primary classes. The three classes, basing the classification upon their power to attract attention, are: The beautiful insects, including moths, butterflies, and beetles, The wonderful insects, including such insects as ants, ant-lions, caddice-flies, etc., The economic insects, including bees, silk-worms, codling-moths, etc. Economic insects are interesting because of their relations to the occupations of the home. The successful growing of farm, orchard, and garden crops practically depends upon keeping a proper balance of insect and bird life. The teacher who feels that his knowledge of insects is too limited to allow him to undertake the teaching of this branch of Nature Study should cast his misgivings aside; for it is not difficult for the teacher who knows nothing about insects at the outset to become acquainted with such members of the three classes named above as attract the attention of the pupils of the Nature Study classes. The following suggestions in insect study are offered as guides to teacher or pupil: Obtain books and pamphlets from the Department of Agriculture, Toronto, on the subject of Insect Pests on Farm Crops and Fruit Trees. Secure a good general book on insects. _Modern Nature Study_, by Silcox and Stevenson, contains illustrations of several of the most common moths and butterflies, which are clear enough to make possible the identification of the forms represented. Comstock's _Manual for the Study of Insects_ is the best general book on the subject. This, and Holland's _The Moth Book_ and _The Butterfly Book_, are valuable for those who wish to follow the study of insects at any length. Begin by studying the more conspicuous moths, butterflies, and beetles, and especially by studying the injurious forms which thrust themselves into prominence by causing destruction of grain, vegetable, or fruit crops in the locality. The utility phase of lessons on these insects will appeal to the older children and also to their parents. Moreover, these are the easiest insects to identify and upon which to obtain literature dealing with their life histories and habits. Carefully observe the colour, size, and shape of the insect, and note the plant on which it is feeding and its manner of feeding. Consult available books on plant pests to find descriptions of the insects that feed upon this plant, and study carefully what is said about the insect observed. If this method is persistently followed, the teacher will be surprised at the rapidity with which his acquaintance with insects broadens. Pictures of moths, butterflies, and beetles are of great assistance in the identification of these insects. A school collection, made from the insects studied, is useful for future collection and for identification of insects. Do not allow any insect to be killed unless it is a good specimen intended to fill a place in the collection, or unless it is known to be an injurious insect. The teacher, by exercising proper control of the collecting, has an efficient means of teaching the sacredness of life. The fact should be emphasized that killing even an insect, when there is no good reason for doing so, is the act of a mean and selfish coward. In addition to a collection of insects, including larval and pupal forms, collections of insect nests, of plant galls, of markings of engraver beetles, of burrows of tree borers, and of samples of the destructive workings of insect pests should be made. While nothing is more beautiful than a carefully prepared collection of moths, butterflies, and beetles with their infinite variety of form and colour, nothing is more disgusting than a badly preserved collection of distorted, shrivelled, vermin-infested specimens. The teacher should avail himself of the collecting instinct which is prominent in boys of nine to fourteen years of age and of their desire to have things done well, to develop in them habits of carefulness, neatness, and thoroughness. INSECT COLLECTIONS See Manual on _Manual Training_, for details for making collecting appliances. Agricultural Bulletin No. 8, _Nature Collections for Schools_, Department of Education, Ontario, for detailed instructions on making insect collections. The outfit for collecting is neither expensive nor hard to prepare. It consists of (1) an insect net for catching the insects, made by sewing a bag of cheese-cloth to a stout ring one foot in diameter, which is fastened to a broom handle; (2) a cyanide bottle for killing the insects, prepared by pouring some soft plaster-paris over a few lumps of potassium cyanide (three pieces, each of the size of a pea) in a wide-mouthed bottle. When the plaster has set, keep the bottle tightly corked to retain the poisonous gases. (3) Pins to mount the specimens. Entomological pins, Nos. 2, 3, and 4, are the best for general use. Beetles are usually pinned through the right wing-cover at about one fourth of its length from the front end of it. Moths and butterflies are pinned through the thorax. Small insects may be fastened to a very small pin, which in turn is set into a bit of cork, supported by a pin of ordinary size. (4) Spreading board for moths and butterflies. (5) Insect boxes to hold the specimens. This should be secured before the collection is begun. It is a common mistake to believe that any box whatever will do for storing insects. It is necessary to encourage effort in drying, spreading, pinning, and labelling, by providing an effective means of permanently preserving the specimens. In cigar-boxes, pasteboard boxes, and such makeshifts, the specimens soon become broken, covered with dust, and marred in other ways, and the collectors become discouraged; hence it is necessary to secure good boxes from dealers in entomological supplies. A sponge saturated with carbon bisulphide should be placed in the box at intervals of not more than three months, to ensure the killing of parasites that destroy the specimens. Entomological supplies may be obtained from Chapman & Co., London, Ont., or from G. M. Hendry Co., Toronto, Ont., or from Messrs. Watters Bros., Guelph, Ont. BUTTERFLY AND MOTH COLLECTIONS For a study of the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths, it is necessary to have an insect cage. This can be purchased from any dealer in entomological supplies or it may be made by the pupils in the Manual Training Class. See Manual on _Manual Training_. A very satisfactory cage may be made, by the teacher or larger pupils, from a soap box, by tacking wire gauze over the open surface of the box, removing the nails from one of the boards of the bottom, and converting this board into a door by attaching it in its former position by light hinges and a hook and staple. The box, if now placed on end with two inches of loose soil in the bottom, will constitute a satisfactory insect cage, or vivarium. A large lamp chimney with gauze tied over the upper end is useful for inclosing a small plant upon which eggs or insect larvæ are developing. The base of the chimney may be thrust an inch into the soil and the development of the larva as it feeds upon the growing plant can be studied. The following are larvæ suitable for study and may be found in the places named: The tomato worm on tomato or tobacco plants. (Look for stems whose leaves have been stripped off.) The milkweed butterfly larvæ on milkweed, The potato beetle on potato vines, The eastern swallow-tail butterfly on parsnip or carrot plants, The tussock-moth on horse-chestnuts, The promothea moth on lilac bushes, The cabbage-butterfly on cabbage or mustard plants, The red-spotted purple, banded purple, and viceroy butterfly larvæ on willow and alder, Cocoons of tussock-moth and tiger-moth under bark, logs, and rubbish in early autumn. Larvæ of the emperor-moth (cecropia) may be found wandering about, apparently aimlessly, in September; but they are searching for suitable places for attaching their cocoons to orchard and forest trees. After the leaves have fallen from shrubs and trees, cocoons can be found more easily on the naked twigs or in withered, rolled-up leaves that are fastened by the silk of the cocoon to the branches. Larvæ, when placed in the cage, should be supplied with green plant food such as they were found feeding upon, and the pupils should be instructed to observe the chrysalis building or the cocoon weaving. It will be found that some larvæ burrow into the soil. During winter the cage should be kept in a cool place, such as a shed, so that the winter conditions may be as nearly natural as possible. In a few cases, the development within the cocoon is quite rapid; and the adult form hatches out in a few weeks, for example, the cabbage-butterfly, monarch or milkweed butterfly, and tussock-moth. For this reason these are preferable for study by Form I pupils. In April the cage should be placed in the school-room, that the pupils may observe the emergence of the insects and the spreading of the wings. The insects can be fed with syrup or honey until they are strong, then the pupils should set them free. Reference.--_Reports of the Entomological Society of Ontario_, Department of Agriculture. PLANT COLLECTIONS The instructions given below for collecting, pressing, and mounting plants are applicable to wild flowers, grains, grasses, and weeds. ~The specimen.~--Select a plant which in form and size is typical of its species and which is in full flower. Care must be taken to dig down and secure the root. If the plant is too large for the mounting sheet, cut out the central part, and use the root, lower leaves, upper leaves, and flower. If the root is very thick, cut slices lengthwise off the sides so as to reduce it to a flat form that is not too bulky. Before the plant has had time to wither, spread it out flat on a sheet of paper and spread another sheet over it, taking care to straighten the leaves and flower out. Blotting-paper is preferable, but any soft paper that will absorb moisture will make a very good substitute. ~Pressing and drying.~--Place several sheets of paper above and below the specimen. Any number of specimens prepared as described in the last paragraph may be placed in a pile, one over another, resting on the floor or on a table. Place on top of the pile a board which is large enough to cover the surface of the pile, and on the board place a weight of about fifteen pounds of bricks, or other convenient material. A box containing sand, stones, or coal may be used in place of the board and weights. The weight prevents the shrivelling and distortion of the plants. To prevent discoloration and mildewing of the plants, the papers around them must be changed at the end of the following successive intervals: two days, three days, five days, one week, etc., until they are quite dry. The length of time required for pressing and drying depends upon the quantity of sap in the plants and also upon the dryness or humidity of the atmosphere. ~Mounting.~--When dry, the specimens are mounted on sheets of heavy white paper. These sheets are cut to a standard size, eleven inches by fourteen inches, or sheets of half this size, namely, seven inches by eleven inches; are permissible. The best method of attaching the plant to the sheet is by pasting narrow strips of gummed paper across the plant in such positions as will serve to hold all parts of it in position. ~Labelling.~--The name of the specimen, the date of collection, the place from which collected, and the name of the collector are to be neatly written in a column in the lower right-hand corner of the sheet. Printed labels which are pasted on this corner of the sheet are also used. Collections of leaves may be prepared by the same process as that given for plants. Leaves will retain their autumn tints if their surface is covered with varnish or paraffin, which will prevent the admission of air. To cover with paraffin dip the leaf for a moment into melted paraffin. CHAPTER II PHYSICAL SCIENCE PHASE OF NATURE STUDY INSTRUCTIONS AND GENERAL METHOD The preceding portions of this Manual dealt with living things. There is another phase of Nature Study which has a more direct relation to the physical sciences, Chemistry and Physics, two subjects that are essentially experimental in their methods. Although the lessons that follow are grouped in one portion of this book, the teacher should understand that he is to introduce them into his work as the occasion demands. They may be used to throw light on other parts of the school work. The experimental method is somewhat advanced for young children, hence no lessons are outlined for Forms I and II. In ungraded schools, Forms III and IV may be combined for the subject. It will be found most convenient to take this portion of the Nature Study during the winter months. VALUE OF SUCH LESSONS 1. They are _interesting_, hence there is attention. The senses must be alert, hence pupils are trained to observe accurately. 2. After the experiment comes the inference, hence reasoning powers are developed. 3. They enable the teacher to make exceedingly _concrete_ some very difficult abstract principles. 4. They can be _correlated_ with a large number of other subjects and made to have a beneficial influence on the whole of the school work. 5. The great advance that is being made in all useful inventions to-day is largely due to the study of the physical sciences. Many boys and girls (seventy-five per cent.) never attend the High School. The Elementary School owes them a taste at least of these sciences that have such a bearing on their lives, that have surrounded them with so many mechanical contrivances for their comfort and convenience, and that explain so many common natural phenomena. Give a boy a taste for experimental science, and there is some chance that after leaving school he will not throw aside his studies to subsist intellectually on the newspaper, but that he will continue to investigate for himself, and make himself a well-informed man, an influential man in his section. The Elementary School must aim at fitting the boys and girls for life. 6. The advent of the experiment marks the downfall of superstition, prejudice, and reliance on authority and tradition. To lead a child to think for himself is a great achievement. 7. The use of the experiment in gaining knowledge will result in a cautiousness in accepting statements and making decisions. CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH EXPERIMENTS SHOULD BE PERFORMED 1. They should be introduced into the school work naturally, as answers to questions which arise either in the regular course of the work or from suggestions made by the teacher at appropriate times. 2. As far as possible, the pupils should assist in performing the experiment. In small rural schools the scarcity of apparatus will necessitate the teacher's doing most of the work. In Form V classes and Continuation Schools the pupils may do the experiments individually. 3. The bearing of an experiment is not always evident; the teacher must be ready with judicious questions to lead the class to the proper conclusions. 4. The pupils must be acquainted with all the apparatus used. They must know what the teacher is doing and must be near enough to see the result. 5. A problem may be suggested, and a few days allowed for the pupils to think out a means of solution. If they invent and make their own apparatus, so much the better. 6. Whenever possible, the experiment should be applied to some natural phenomenon or everyday occurrence. CORRELATIONS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE PHASE Geography.--The value of Physical Science in the Elementary School is largely due to the light it throws on geographical data. Numerous examples will appear in the succeeding pages. Hygiene.--Experiments in carbon dioxide, oxygen, air, water, sound, and light, are absolutely necessary, if the children are to grasp with any degree of clearness the principles of respiration and ventilation, and the phenomena of hearing and seeing. Manual Training.--Many pieces of apparatus may be made by the boys in their work with wood or iron. Some of the elementary principles of chemistry enable the girls to do their cooking intelligently. A knowledge of some of the principles of machines will help the pupils to understand the tools they may use in any employment. Drawing.--Careful drawing of the apparatus used helps to fix the experiment in the mind and at the same time gives practice in art. Composition.--Pupils must have ideas before they can write. The description of the experiment will make a good composition exercise, oral or written. LIST OF REFERENCE BOOKS AND BULLETINS GARDEN AND PLANT STUDY Bulletins of the Ontario Department of Agriculture, Toronto. Bulletins of the Dominion Department of Agriculture, Ottawa. Improvement of School Grounds. Department of Education, Toronto. Atkinson. First Studies of Plant Life. Ginn & Co. 60 cents. Bailey. Manual of Gardening. Macmillan Co. $2.00. Blanchan. Nature's Garden. Doubleday Co. $2.00. Comstock, A. M. Handbook of Nature Study. Comstock Pub. Co. $3.25. Gray. Field, Forest, and Garden Botany. Amer. Book Co. $1.40. Green, Louise. Among School Gardens. Charities Pub. Co. $1.25. Hodge. Nature Study and Life. Ginn & Co. $1.50. Holtz. Nature Study. Scribners' Sons. $1.50. Jackson and Dougherty. Agriculture through the Laboratory and School Garden. Judd. $1.50. James. Agriculture. Appleton & Co. 80 cents. Keeler. Our Native Trees. Scribners' Sons. $2.00. Osterhout. Experiments with Plants. Macmillan Co. $1.50. Parsons. How to Plan the Home Grounds. Doubleday Co. $1.00. Sergeant. Corn Plants. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 75 cents. PHYSICAL SCIENCE Miller. Minerals and How They Occur. The Copp, Clark Co. $1.50. Milliken and Gale. First Course in Physics. Ginn & Co. $2.00. Newman. Laboratory Exercises. Ginn & Co. 10c. each. Remsen. College Chemistry. Am. Pub. Co. $2.50. Simmons and Syenhouse. Science of Common Life. The Macmillan Company, $1.00. Woodhull. Home-made Apparatus. High School Text-books. ANIMAL STUDY Bulletin No. 52. Dominion Department of Agriculture, Ottawa. Bulletin No. 134. Ontario Department of Agriculture, Toronto. Bulletin No. 161. Ontario Department of Agriculture, Toronto. Bulletin No. 124. Ontario Department of Agriculture, Toronto. Reports of Entomological Society of Ontario. Department of Education. Fishes of Ontario. Nash. Department of Education. Bailey and Coleman. First Course in Biology. The Macmillan Company. $1.25. Buchanan. Senior Country Reader. The Macmillan Company. 40 cents. Chapman. Bird Life. Appleton. $2.00. Crawford. Guide to Nature Study. The Copp, Clark Co. 90 cents. Dearness. How to Teach the Nature Study Course. The Copp, Clark Co. 60 cents. Jordan and Kellogg. Animal Life. Appleton & Co. $1.20. Kellogg. Elementary Zoology. Holt & Co. $1.35. Reed. Bird Guide--Parts I and II. Musson Book Co., Toronto. 40 cents each. Shaler. Domesticated Animals. Scribners' Sons. $2.50. Silcox and Stevenson. Modern Nature Study. The Macmillan Company. 75 cents. NOTE.--The bulletins named above are supplied free to schools. Chemical and Physical Apparatus and Entomological Supplies may be obtained from G. M. Hendry Co., Victoria Street, Toronto. Rocks and Minerals may be obtained from the Ward Natural Science establishment, Rochester, or from the Central Scientific Co., Chicago. PHYSICAL SCIENCE FORMS III AND IV DESIRABLE APPARATUS 1 lb. glass tubing in 3 ft. lengths 3/16 in. to 1/4 in. outside diameter. 6 Florence flasks, 4 oz. to 8 oz. $ .50 1 Funnel, 3 in. diameter .10 1 Beaker, 8 oz. .10 1 Evaporating dish .10 3 ft. pure gum rubber tubing 1/8 in. inside .25 1/2 sq. foot thin sheet rubber .20 1 doz. test-tubes 6 in. by 5/8 in. .20 1/2 doz. test-tubes 6 in. by 7/8 in. .10 Capillary glass tubing, 3 sizes .10 2 rubber stoppers No. 2, one hole 1 " " " 4, " " 1 " " " 7, two holes .30 2 watch glasses .10 Ball and ring 1.00 2 Dry cells .60 2 Bar magnets .50 1 Chemical thermometer 212 deg. F. to 0 deg. F. .40 1 Spirit-lamp .20 1 Retort, 4 oz. stoppered .15 Wax candles .10 Retort stand of iron, two rings .85 1 Thistle tube .10 Common corks, assorted .10 Filter paper 5 in. diameter .05 Test-tube holder .10 Test-tube rack .10 Test-tube cleaner .10 1 piece glass tubing 30 in. long, 1/4 in. inside, for barometer .20 1 clamp for closing rubber tube .10 Covered copper wire .10 Small compass .50 Glass model of common pump 1.00 Globe for weighing air 2.50 Small piece of platinum foil, 1/2 in. by 2 in. .25 Glass prism 60 .50 Tuning fork 4-1/2 in. .50 Electric bell .50 Motor (Ajax) 1.50 Balance 10.00 Air-pump 15.00 Iron wire gauze .05 Sheet metals, iron, copper, zinc, lead, aluminum .25 2 lamp chimneys, straight ones preferred, at 10c .20 Iron ball, 2 in. in diameter .20 2 dairy thermometers at 15c .30 CHEMICALS Sulphuric acid, 1 lb. .10 Hydrochloric acid, 8 oz. .10 Nitric acid, 4 oz. .10 Washing soda .05 Sugar .05 Salt .05 Blue vitriol .10 Alum .05 Saltpetre .05 Sulphur .05 Potass. permanganate .05 Lime .05 Plaster-paris .05 Potass. bichromate .10 Methylated spirits, 1 pt. .10 Alcohol, 95% .10 Iodine crystals .10 Mercury, 1 lb. 1.00 Pot. chlorate .15 Manganese dioxide .10 Phosphorus .10 Sweet oil, 2 oz. .10 Benzine, 2 oz. .10 The following tools will be found very valuable: saw, square, plane, brace and bit, knife, hammer, glass cutter, files--round, flat, and triangular. Where the circumstances will not allow of the purchase of the preceding list, the following apparatus is recommended as sufficient for the performance of a large number of the experiments: 1/2 lb. glass tubing in 3 ft. lengths, 3/16 in. and 1/4 in. outside $ .20 2 Florence flasks, 4 oz. .15 1 Funnel .10 2 ft. pure gum rubber tubing, 1/8 in. inside .15 1/2 doz. test-tubes assorted, 5/8 to 7/8 diameter, 6 in. long .20 2 rubber stoppers, No. 2, one hole .10 1 rubber stopper, No. 4, one hole .10 Expansion of heat apparatus (made at blacksmith's) .10 Common corks, assorted .10 1 chemical thermometer 0 deg. F. to 212 deg. F. .40 1 spirit-lamp, 4 oz. .10 1 thistle tube .10 Covered wire, copper .10 CHEMICALS Iodine crystals .10 Sulphuric acid, 1 lb. .10 Methylated spirits 1 pt. .20 Alcohol, 95% .10 Mercury, 1/2 lb. .50 Pot. chlorate .15 Manganese dioxide .10 The following may be obtained, for either list, at little or no cost from household stores or home-made sources: washing soda, sugar, salt, ammonia, coal, coke, saltpetre, sulphur, blue vitriol, alum, potass. bichromate, blueing, lime, pickle-jars, wire gauze, candles, wire, sheet metals, test-tube holder and rack, balance, battery cells, horse-shoe magnet, pneumatic trough, lamp chimneys, tin cans, melting spoon, bicycle pump, baking-powder. For home-made apparatus, consult _Laboratory Exercises in Physics_ by Newman, Ginn & Co., 50c., and Manual on _Manual Training_. Reference has been made in the preceding experiments to the use of simple and easily contrived apparatus. The more of this the pupils can contrive and make under the direction of the teacher, the more valuable will be the course in Physical Science. GRENET CELLS Into a pint gem-jar put water 10 parts, sulphuric acid 1 part, potass, bichromate 1 part. Have jar three quarters full. Cut a piece of board 4 in. square, bore two holes in it, and through the holes thrust two pieces of electric light carbon, 5 in. or 6 in. long. The outer edges of the carbons should not be more than two inches apart. With a saw, cut a slit in the board between the holes and insert a strip of zinc 2 in. by 7 in. previously rubbed over with mercury. Set the three elements in the jar, connect the two carbons to one wire, and the zinc to another. One cell of this kind will run a small motor, operate a telegraph sounder, make a simple electro-magnet, or ring an electric bell; two cells will decompose water: three will heat a piece of fine iron wire red-hot. DECOMPOSITION APPARATUS 1. Cut the neck end from a pickle bottle. Get a No. 1 stopper, (rubber) with two holes in it and insert a piece of platinum foil 2 in. by 1/8 in. into each hole so that 1/2 in. projects above and below. Insert a tight plug beside each strip, thus holding it fast and making the stopper watertight. Insert the stopper into the neck of the jar. Pour into the vessel thus formed enough water to cover the platinums, and add a few drops of sulphuric acid. Touch the wires from the battery to the lower ends of the strips. Note bubbles of gas arise from the platinums. These may be collected in test-tubes and found by test to be oxygen and hydrogen. 2. Fasten a strip of platinum 1 in. by 1/8 in. to each wire from the battery and dip these into some acidulated water contained in a tumbler. The decomposition of the water into two gases can be seen, but the gases cannot be collected so readily as in 1 above. Bits of electric light carbon will do instead of platinum if the current is not too weak. PNEUMATIC TROUGH When oxygen or other gas is to be collected over water, use a milk pan or similarly shaped vessel. SPIRIT-LAMP Use an ink-bottle to contain the alcohol and several strands of string for the wick; make a hole in a piece of tin and draw the wick through; then let the tin rest on the neck of the bottle to support the wick. BAROMETER A siphon barometer takes less mercury than a cistern barometer. To the open end of the barometer tube attach a piece of strong rubber tubing 4 in. long and to this a piece of glass tubing 3 in. long. Fill the tube thus formed with mercury to within 3 in. from the top. Holding the short glass tube open end up, turn the long tube closed end up. (A tube of 1/8 in. bore needs only one quarter of the mercury required to fill a tube 1/4 in. bore.) HYGROMETER For a hygrometer, suspend two dairy thermometers side by side against the wall, cover the bulb of one with thin muslin, and let the muslin hang down and dip into water in some small vessel placed about three inches below the bulb on a little shelf. HINTS To avoid explosions, a spirit-lamp should be kept filled. Toy rubber balloons answer well for sheet rubber. Red ink makes good colouring matter. Make touch-paper by soaking any porous paper in a solution of saltpetre, and drying it. Instead of bending glass tubes, join them with rubber tubing. To make a test-tube holder, fold a sheet of paper until it is about half an inch wide and wrap this around the tube. To bend glass tubing, hold in the flame of the spirit-lamp and rotate between the fingers till it becomes soft and flexible, remove from the flame, and bend. To break glass tubing, first scratch with a file. To break glass bottles, make neatly a deep cut with a file, then touch the glass near the cut with a red-hot wire. When a crack appears, move the hot wire and the crack will follow. Several heatings may be necessary. In the case of a heavy glass bottle, file the cut as before, wrap the bottle with string dipped in alcohol, light it, and after it has burned, plunge the bottle vertically into cold water. Melted paraffin is good for closing small leaks. TIME APPORTIONED TO NATURE STUDY The Nature Study lesson should be given a definite place on the time-table. It is recommended that each class should have at least one lesson of fifteen minutes in length, a week. In addition to this, about five minutes a week should be spent in assigning problems for out-of-door work and in discussing the observations which the pupils have made on problems previously assigned. CHAPTER III FORM I AUTUMN GARDEN WORK On the re-opening of school after the summer holidays, the pupils should see that their plots are put into good order without delay. If they have been neglected during the holidays, a good deal of attention will be needed, and in some cases it may not be possible to reclaim them because of prolonged neglect. If such plots are found, they should be cleaned off completely, spaded up, and left in readiness for planting the following spring. All plots should be cultivated throughout the month of September to keep the soil mellow and prevent the growth of weeds. The pupils should be allowed to pick flowers from their own plots, but should always leave a few in bloom for the sake of the general appearance of the garden. Paths should be kept clean, and all rubbish, weeds, dead plants, etc., removed to the compost heap, which should be in the least conspicuous part of the garden. Hoes, rakes, and claw-hand weeders should be used in cleaning up and cultivating the plots. The soil should be kept fine and loose on top to prevent drying out. LESSONS ON A GARDEN PLANT PANSY LESSON I ~Materials.~--A flower for each pupil A plant set into a flower-pot A leaf for each pupil A pile of leaves containing a few pansy leaves and several of other kinds. ~Introduction.~--A conversation with the pupils about their favourite flowers. ~Observations.~--The pansy flowers are now distributed and the general form of the flower is first noted. The resemblance to the face of an animal will be discovered. The name _corolla_ is given, but no other botanical terms are to be introduced in this lesson. The details of colours, perfumes, velvety feeling of the corolla, and the number of leaflets in it are next _discovered_ and described by the _pupils_. Lastly, in a withering flower they discover the seed cases and the little seeds. LESSON II The conception of the relationship between the flower, root, and stem is developed by a method similar to the following: What soon happens to a pansy flower after it is broken from the plant? Are the flowers that you have in your hands withering? How can you keep them from withering? Hence, what must the flower get from the stem? Where does the stem get the moisture? Hence, what is one use of the root? A pupil is asked to pull the plant out of the soil in the flower-pot. What is another use that you have discovered for the root? The plant is now uprooted from the soil, and the pupils examine the root to find how it is fitted for gathering water and food from the soil and for holding the plant in place. Note the number of branches touching a great deal of soil and also the twisted form of the roots for grasping the soil. The form of the leaves is studied by the pupils, and, as a test of the accuracy of their observation, they are asked to pick out the pansy leaves from the pile of leaves. _To the teacher._--The pupils must be active participants in the lesson. They must use their eyes, hands, and even their noses in gaining first-hand impressions, and they are to be required to express in their own way the things that they discover. The beautiful flower with its face like that of an animal is an appeal to the child's imagination, and the child's interest in the _use_ of things is utilized in the study of the relations of root, stem, and flower. This lesson may be used as the basis for busy work by means of the following correlations: 1. With art: Represent the flower in colours. 2. With reading and literature: The pupils are required to express the meaning and sentiment of the following stanza: The pansy wakes in early spring To make our world more bright; All summer long its happy face Fills children with delight, Lessons similar to those on the pansy may be based upon the following plants of the garden or field: dandelion, aster, buttercup, nasturtium, goldenrod. The teacher in preparing the lesson should read a description of the plant from a Nature Study book and should also study the plant itself until he is familiar with all the phases of its life. OBSERVATION EXERCISES ON THE DANDELION The exercises given below are suggestive for out of school observation work, but must not be too long. By way of preparation for an exercise of this kind, the interest of the pupils in the dandelion must first be aroused. FIRST EXERCISE The teacher places the pupils at the school windows from which dandelions are visible and asks them to name any flower that they can see. A short conversation about the brightness of the flower follows. The pupils are next instructed to: 1. Find dandelions late in the evening, and find out how they prepare to go to sleep and how they are tucked in for the night. 2. Find where the leaves of the dandelion are, and bring a leaf to school next morning, and also observe how the leaves are grouped or placed. _To the teacher._--Dandelion flowers close up in the evening; the green leaves beneath the head wrap closely around the flowers to form a snug covering. The leaves have margins with teeth shaped like those of a lion, and from this the plant gets its name, for the name is the French _dent de lion_, which is pronounced very much like the word dandelion. The use of the leaf cluster as a system of rain-spouts for guiding the rain toward the root should be noted. SECOND EXERCISE 1. Why is the dandelion easy to find? 2. What makes it easy to find even in long grass? 3. What insect friends visit the dandelion? 4. Find out just how these visitors act during their visits, and find whether they carry anything to or away from the flowers. _To the teacher._--The bright yellow colour of the dandelion attracts attention. When it grows in long grass, the flower stalk grows long, so that the flower surmounts its obstructions and climbs up to the sunshine. The flowers are visited by ants, bees, and wasps, and these may be seen burrowing into the flowers in search of honey. If their bodies and legs be touched, the yellow pollen of the flowers will be found sticking to them. THIRD EXERCISE 1. Look for flower heads that do not open to the sun. Do not disturb them, but watch them for a few days and find out what they become. 2. Examine the large white balls of the dandelions and find out what they are. 3. Blow the down away. What does it carry with it? _To the teacher._--In this exercise the pupils will learn that the large white balls are the mature, or ripened, flowers and are composed of little brown seeds, each being a little airship for wafting it away. CORRELATION WITH LITERATURE AND READING When the above exercises have been completed, the pupil's knowledge of the dandelion may be utilized in interpreting the following stanzas: Oh dandelion! yellow as gold, What do you do all day? I just wait here in the tall green grass Till the children come to play. And what do you do when your hair is white And the children come to play? They take me up in their dimpled hands And blow my hair away. In addition to the dandelion, the following plants are suitable for observation exercises: morning-glory, wild balsam, sweet-pea, snap-dragon, nasturtium. DWARF NASTURTIUM ~Observations.~--The size of the plant at the time of flowering; its leaves--size, colour, shape, length of petiole and how arranged; colours found in the flower, comparison with others of same species found in the garden; size and shape of the flower and the length of its stems. Do the flowers grow higher than the leaves? Do they look better when with the leaves or when alone? Note the perfume and taste of the flower stem, the insect visitors, and what part of the flower they tried to get at, when the first blossom was seen, and how long the blossoms continued to come out. Do they keep well in bouquets? Do they stand hot, dry weather as well as other flowers? When did the frost kill them? Compare with the climbing nasturtium. Find the seeds. SEEDS The autumn months are the best for seed studies, for almost all annuals are ripening their seeds at this time of year. FIELD EXERCISE Assign to the pupils the following exercise: Collect the seed pods from as many plants of your garden plots, or home gardens, or wild plants, as possible, and be careful to write the name of each plant on the paper in which you put the seed pod of that plant. Notice the part of the plant from which the seed pod is formed. CLASS-ROOM LESSON BASED ON THIS COLLECTION The pupils place the seed pods on their desks, and observations and problems are dealt with of which the following are representative: How does each seed case open? What are the seeds for? How many seeds are in each case? Why should a plant have so many seeds? How are the seed cases fitted for protecting the seeds? Are any two seeds alike in shape? Are the seeds easy to find if they are spilled upon the ground? What makes them hard to find? Where do nearly all seeds spend the winter? Of what use is the hard shell of the seed? SEED DISPERSAL Study only a few of the more striking examples of seed dispersal with the Form I class. Seeds that fly and seeds that steal rides are good examples of classes of seeds whose methods of dispersal will prove of interest to children. LESSON ON SEEDS THAT FLY ~Materials.~--A milkweed pod; a ripe dandelion head. ~Introduction.~--A short conversation about the effects of the crowding of plants, as carrots and turnips, in a garden plot, and hence the need for the scattering of seeds. ~Observations.~--Open a milkweed pod in the presence of the class, so that they may see how the pod opens, how beautifully the seeds are arranged, and how the silk tufts are so closely packed in together. Allow a pupil to lift a seed out, blow it in the air, and observe how the silk opens out like an umbrella. Distribute seeds, one to each pupil. Ask the pupils to find out why this little airship is able to carry the seed. They will find that the seeds though broad, are thin and light, and the silky plumes very light. Ask the pupils to release their milkweed seeds at recess, when out of school, and find out how far they can fly. This is an interesting experiment for a windy day. The white balls of the dandelion are next examined, the tiny seeds are found standing on tiptoe on a raised platform, each grasping a tiny parachute and waiting for a puff of wind to start them off. A pupil is permitted to give the puff. Seeds are distributed, and the means of flight is compared with that of the milkweed. The shape of the seeds is observed and also the tiny anchor points at the lower end of the seed for clutching the ground when the seed alights. Another lesson on seeds that fly can be based on the study of tree seeds, using those of the maple, elm, basswood, pine, and spruce. CORRELATIONS 1. Drawing of milkweed pods and seeds, and drawing of the dandelion seed-ball and the seeds when floating in the air. 2. Reading and literature. Interpret the thought and read expressively: Dainty milkweed babies, wrapped in cradles green, Rocked by Mother Nature, fed by hands unseen, Brown coats have the darlings, slips of milky white, And wings, but that's a secret, they're folded out of sight. TWIGS AND BUDS The study of buds is a part of tree study and may be taken as observation work in the class-room. This somewhat detailed study should follow the general lessons on tree study. The materials for the lessons may be collected by the pupils at the time of the field lesson and kept fresh in a jar of water until required for use. LESSON ON TWIGS ~Materials.~--A twig of horse-chestnut about six inches long, for each pupil. A twig of the same tree with the leaves still on it. ~Observations.~--The twigs are distributed and the teacher asks the pupils to examine them and to describe all marks and projections that can be found on the twig. Answers are required from the pupils separately. The pupil's answer in each case should be sufficiently clear for all the class to recognize the feature that the answer is intended to describe. A few brief questions will guide the answerer in making his description more definite, but the description should be the result of the pupil's observation and expressed in his own words. The meaning or use of each feature should be discussed, when possible, immediately after it has been described. The following features will be discovered and the problems suggested will be solved: The brown or greenish-brown bark. The buds. One bud (sometimes two) is at the end of the twig. Some buds are along the side of the twig. What caused the end bud to grow larger than the others? There is a leaf scar under each bud. Of what use is it to the bud to be between the twig and the leaf stalk? The bands of rings, one or more on each twig. The tiny oval pores, each surrounded by a little raised band. The detailed study of the buds is left for a separate lesson. FURTHER STUDY OF TWIGS The study in detail of various features is illustrated in the following: Look closely at the leaf scars and describe them fully, as to shape, colour, and marks. Do the scars look like fresh wounds, or are they healed over? Of what use to the tree is the healing of the scar? We will learn later that the part of the twig between each pair of bands of rings represents one year's growth. How old is your twig? Who has the oldest twig? Do all twigs grow at the same rate? Who has the twig that had the most rapid growth? _To the teacher._--The bud at the end of the twig or its branches is called the end bud; there are two leaf scars underneath it. The buds along the sides of the stem are called side buds, the latter are smaller than the end bud. The bud situated between the stem of the leaf and the twig is in a sheltered position. This position also puts the bud close to the pantry door, for the plant food is prepared in the leaf. The leaf scars are yellowish-brown, or if they are the scars from the leaves of former years, are dark brown in colour. Each scar is shaped like a horse-shoe and tiny dots are found in the position that the horse-shoe nails would have. Even before the leaf falls, a layer of corklike substance has formed over the scar. This layer is a protection against the entrance of frost and rain and germs of fungi and it also prevents the loss of sap from the scar. The tiny oval pores, each as large as the point of a needle, are the breathing pores of the twig. The bands of rings are the scars of the scales of the end buds of successive years. This latter fact can be discovered when the bud is opening. REVIEW LESSON The review lesson should consist of a review of the points taken up in the lessons that were based on the horse-chestnut twig, supplemented by the examination of the twigs of elm, apple, or lilac. LESSON ON BUDS ~Materials.~--Twigs and buds of horse-chestnut, one for each pupil. An opening bud. (A bud or a twig placed in water in a warm room will develop rapidly.) ~Lesson.~--Distribute specimens, and review the positions of the buds. Pupils examine the buds and tell all they can about them. They describe the colour, shape, and size of the buds, and also their gummy and scalelike covering. Of what use are the gum and scales? Of what use is the brown colour of the bud? They next find out what is inside the little brown house. They open the buds and try to identify the contents. There will be some uncertainty as to the meaning of the contents. Leave this over till spring. _To the teacher._--The brown colour of the bud makes it an absorbent of sunlight, and also serves as a protection from observation by the sharp eyes of bud-eating birds. The gummy scales are waterproof, and the scales, by spreading open gradually, cause the waterproof property to be retained even after the bud has grown quite large. The inner part of the bud is composed of two, four, or six tiny leaves folded up and supported on a short bit of stem. Some of the buds have, in addition to leaves, a tiny young flower cluster. All of these things are densely covered with white down. The down is the fur coat to protect the tender parts from the cold. REVIEW LESSON Review the lesson on buds, but substitute buds of the lilac or apple for the horse-chestnut buds of the original lesson. CORRELATIONS The observational study of the buds and twigs is a good preparation for busy work in art and manual training, and the pupils may be assigned exercises, such as charcoal drawing of a horse-chestnut twig, paper cutting of a lilac twig and buds, clay or plasticine modelling of twigs and buds. For oral and written language exercises, enlarge the vocabulary of the pupils by requiring sentences containing the words--scales, twigs, buds, protection, terminal, lateral, leaf stalk, blade, etc. LEAVES Leaves, because of their abundance and the ease with which they may be obtained, are valuable for Nature Study work. It is possible to arouse the interest of even young children in the study of leaves, but care must be taken not to make the observation work too minute and the descriptions too technical for the primary classes. FIELD EXERCISES An excursion to the school grounds or to some neighbouring park will suffice to bring the pupils into direct contact with the following plants: a maple tree, a Boston ivy (or other climbing vine), a nasturtium, a geranium. Ask the pupils to find out where and how leaves are placed on each of these plants, that is, whether they are on the inner parts of the branches of the tree or out at the ends of the branches. Do the leaves overlap one another or does each make room for its neighbours? Are the leaves spread out flat or curled up? What holds the leaves out straight and flat? What do the leaves need to make them green and healthy? Are the leaves placed in the right way, and are they of the right form to get these things? _To the teacher._--The leaves of the plants named are quite noticeably so placed on the plants, have such relations to one another, and are of such outline that they present the greatest possible surface to the _air_ and _sunshine_ and _rain_. The leaf stalk and midrib and veins are stiff and strong to keep the leaves spread out. Compare with the ribs of an umbrella. The benefit of sunshine to leaves and plants can be developed by discussing with the pupils the paleness and delicateness of plants that have been kept in a dark place, such as in a dark cellar. They are also acquainted with the refreshing effect of rains upon leaves. The use of air to the leaves is not so easy to develop with pupils of this age, but the use of air for breathing just as boys and girls need air for breathing may be told them. CLASS-ROOM LESSON ON LEAVES ~Introduction.~--Tell me all the things that you know upon which leaves grow. On trees, bushes, flowers, plants, vegetables, etc. Are leaves all of the same shape? To-day we are going to learn the names of some of the shapes of leaves. ~Observations.~--Show the class the heart-shaped leaf of catalpa or lilac, and obtain from the pupils the name _heart-shape_. Use the following types: Maple leaf as star-shape, Grass or wheat or corn as ribbon-shape, Nasturtium or water-lily as shield-shape, Ash or rowan, as feather-shape. ~Drill.~--Pupils pick out the shape named. Pupils name the plant to which each belongs. Which shape do you think is the prettiest? GARDEN STUDIES If the pupils of this Form have planted and cared for garden plots of their own, they will have a greater love for the flowers or vegetables that grow in them than for any others in the garden, because they have watched their development throughout. For them such continuous observation cannot but result in a quickening of perception and a deepening of interest and appreciation. STUDIES IN THE PUPIL'S INDIVIDUAL PLOT What plant is the first to appear above ground? What plant is the last to appear? Describe what each plant was like when it first appeared above ground. What plants grow the fastest? What effect has cold weather, warm weather, dry weather, on the growth of the plants? What weeds grow in the plot? Why do these weeds obstruct the growth of the other plants? What kind of root has each weed? Find out what kind of seeds each weed produces? Why is each weed hard to keep out of fields? What garden plants produce flowers? How are the seeds protected? Compare the seeds with those that you planted. Select the seeds of the largest plants and finest flowers for next year's seeding. STUDIES FROM THE GARDEN AS A WHOLE What plants grow tallest? What plants are most suitable for borders? What plants are valuable for their flowers? What plants are valuable for their edible roots, for their edible leaves, for their edible seeds? How are the edible parts stored for winter use? Compare the plants that are crowded, with others of the same kind that are not crowded. Compare the rate of growth of the plants in a plot that is kept hoed and raked with the rate of growth of plants in a neglected plot. BULB PLANTING The planting of bulbs in pots for winter blooming should be commenced with pupils in Form I and continued in the higher Forms. As a rule, the potted bulbs will be stored and cared for in the home, as most school-rooms are not heated continuously during the winter. Paper-white narcissus and freesia are most suitable and should be planted about the fifteenth of October, so that the plants will be in bloom for Christmas. LESSON ON BULBS AND BULB PLANTING ~Materials.~--The bulbs to be planted. As many four-inch flower-pots or tomato cans as are required. Soil, composed of garden loam, sand, and well-rotted manure in equal proportions. Stones for drainage. Sticks for labels (smooth pieces of shingle, one and a half inches wide and sharpened at one end, will answer). Pictures of the plants in bloom. ~Observations.~--The attention of the pupils is directed to the bulbs, and they are asked to describe the size, form, and colour of each kind of bulb. A bulb is cut across to make possible the study of the parts, and the pupils observe the scales or rings which are the bases of the leaves of the plant from which the bulb grew. The use of the fleshy mass of the bulb as a store of food for the plant that will grow from it is discussed. The sprout in the centre of the scales with its yellowish-green tip is observed, and its meaning inferred. The picture is shown to illustrate the possibilities within the bulb. PLANTING THE BULB The teacher directs, but the work is done by the pupils, and the reasons for the following operations are developed: What is the use of the one-inch layer of pebbles, or broken brick, or stone, that is placed in the bottom of the pot? Why are the bulbs planted near the top of the soil? Why is the soil packed firmly around the bulbs? Why must the soil be well wetted? Why is the pot set in a cool, dark place for a month or more? _To the teacher._--The pebbles or broken bricks are for giving drainage. The bulbs are planted with their tips just showing above the surface of the soil and there is about half an inch of space between the top of the soil and the upper edge of the pot in order to facilitate watering. The potted bulbs must be set in a cool, dark place until they are well rooted. This is subjecting them to their natural winter conditions, and it will cause them to yield larger flowers, a great number of flowers, and flowers that are more lasting. Sand in the soil permits of the more free passing of air through the soil. Basements and cellars are usually suited for storing bulbs until they have rooted, but they must not be warm enough to promote rapid growth. The pots when stored should be covered with leaves, sawdust, or coarse sand to prevent drying out. The soil must be kept moist, but not wet. Paper-white narcissus, if brought out of the dark after three or four weeks, will be in bloom at the end of another month if kept in the window of a warm room. Care must be taken not to expose the plants to bright light until they have become green. The bulbs of the white narcissus are to be thrown away after the flowers have withered, as they will not bloom again, but freesia bulbs may be kept and planted again the following year. CHAPTER IV FORM I WINTER LESSONS ON A PET ANIMAL: THE RABBIT I The lesson is introduced by a conversation with the pupils about their various pets. Since we are to have a rabbit brought to the school we must learn how to take care of it, and the proper method of taking care of it is based upon a knowledge of the habits of the wild rabbit. Where do wild rabbits live? What sort of home does a rabbit have? In what ways does this home protect the rabbit? Hence, what kind of home must we have ready for the rabbit? What does the rabbit eat? Are there any of these foods that are not good for its health? Give a list of foods that you can bring for the rabbit. Why will the rabbit, when kept in a hutch, require less food than one that runs about? Since the rabbit likes a soft bed, what can you bring for its bed? II ~Observations.~--The teacher or a pupil brings a rabbit to the school-room, where, during recreation periods, the pupils make observations on topics suggested by the teacher, such as: Its choice of food; its timidity; its movements--hopping, squatting, listening, scratching, and gnawing. These observations are discussed in the class and are corrected or verified. _To the teacher._--Wild rabbits live in the woods or in shrubbery at the edges of fields. The home of the rabbit is either a burrow under ground or a sheltered place under a root or log closely concealed among the bushes. This home is dry and affords a shelter from enemies, and from wind, rain, and snow. From this we know that we must provide a dry bed for our rabbit in a strong box in which it will feel secure, and in which it will be protected from wind and rain. The food of the rabbit consists of vegetables and soft young clover and grains. It also gnaws the bark of trees, and in winter it feeds upon buds. We can, therefore, feed our rabbit on carrots, beets, apples, oats, bran, grass, and leaves of plants, and we must provide it with some twigs to gnaw, for gnawing helps to keep its large chisel-shaped teeth in good condition. We must be careful not to give it too much exercise, and we must not give it any cabbage, because this is not good for the rabbit's health. A dish of water must be placed in the hutch, for the rabbit needs water to drink. III Details, if studied in isolation, are uninteresting to Form I pupils. Detailed study should be based upon the animal's habits, movements, and instincts, and each detail should be studied as an answer to questions such as: How is the animal able to perform these movements? How is the animal fitted for this habit of life, etc.? Watch the rabbit moving. How does a rabbit move? Which legs are the more useful for hopping? How are the hind legs fitted for making long hops? Why is the rabbit able to defend itself by kicking with its hind feet? Find out how the rabbit is fitted for burrowing. Listen carefully and find out whether the rabbit makes much noise while moving. Of what advantage is it to the rabbit to move silently? Find out, by examining the feet of the rabbit, what causes it to make very little noise. How are rabbits prepared for living during cold weather? Test the ability of the rabbit to hear faint noises. Why is it necessary for the rabbit to be able to hear faint sounds? How is it fitted for hearing faint sounds? Examine the teeth and find out how they are fitted for gnawing. _To the teacher._--The long, strong, hind legs of the rabbit are bent in the form of levers and enable the animal to take long, quick hops. When the rabbit attacks, it frequently defends itself by vigorous kicks with its hind feet, which are armed with long, strong claws. Ernest Thompson-Seton's story of Molly Cottontail and "Raggylug", in _Wild Animals I Have Known_, contains an interesting account of how Molly rescued Raggy from a snake by this manner of fighting. The rabbit has many enemies, hence it has need of large, movable ears to aid its acute sense of hearing. The thick pads of hair on the soles of its feet enable it to move noiselessly. The thick, soft, inner hair keeps the animal warm, while the longer, stiffer, outer hair sheds the rain. Impress upon the pupils the cruelty of rough handling of the rabbit and of neglecting to provide it with a place for exercise and with a clean, dry home. The following pet animals may be studied, using the same order and general method of treatment: pigeon, cat, canary, guinea pig, white mouse, raccoon, squirrel, parrot. In many cases these animals can be brought to school by the pupils. Encourage the keeping of pet animals by the pupils, for the best lessons grow out of the actual care of the pets. The study of a pet bird may be conducted along lines similar to the outline given below for the study of the pigeon. CORRELATIONS With literature and reading: Ernest Thompson-Seton's "Raggylug". With art: Charcoal drawing representing the rabbit in various attitudes, as squatting, listening, hopping. With modelling in clay or plasticine. With paper cutting. With language: The vocabulary of the pupils is enlarged by the introduction of new words whose meaning is made clear by means of the concrete illustration furnished by direct observation of the rabbit. They use these new words in sentences which they form in describing the rabbit; for example: hutch, gnaw, padded, cleft lip, timid. The rabbit has padded feet so that it can walk without noise. The rabbit has a soft bed in its hutch. THE DOMESTIC CAT The following facts are suggested as topics for a first lesson on the domestic cat. The teacher can rely upon the pupil's knowledge of the cat to furnish these statements of fact during a conversation lesson: The cat goes about at night as readily as during the day. The cat can hear faint noises quite readily. The cat can walk noiselessly. The cat creeps along until it is close to its prey, then pounces upon it, and seizes it with its claws. The cat enjoys attention and purrs if it is stroked gently. The cat likes to sleep in a warm place. The cat can fight viciously with her claws. The cat keeps her fur smooth and clean and her whiskers well brushed with her paws. The cat eats birds, mice, rats, meat, fish, milk, bread, and cake. DETAILED STUDY Base the study of the details upon the facts of habit, movements, instincts, etc., which were developed in the preceding lesson. ~Observations.~--Find out how the cat's feet are fitted for giving a noiseless tread. Find the claws. How are the claws fitted for seizing prey? How are the claws protected from being made dull by striking against objects when the cat is walking? THE PIGEON A pigeon is kept in a cage in the school-room and the pupils observe: its size as compared with that of other birds; outline of body, including shape of head; the feathers, noting quill feathers, and covering or contour feathers; manner of feeding and drinking; movements, as walking, flying, tumbling. The owner or the teacher describes the dove-cot, the necessity of keeping it clean, the use of tobacco stems for killing vermin in the nest, the two white eggs, the habits of male and female in taking turns in hatching, the parents' habit of half digesting the food in their own crops and then pouring it into the crops of the young, the rapid growth of the young, the next pair of young hatched before the first pair is full-fledged. Descriptions of the habits of one or more well-known varieties--pouters, fantails, homing pigeons, etc. Read stories of the training and flights of homing pigeons, from Ernest Thompson-Seton's _Arnex_. MORE DETAILED STUDY FOR CLASS WORK Compare the uses of the quill and contour feathers. Find out how these two kinds differ in texture; the differences fitting them for their difference in function. The names quill and contour may be replaced by some simple names, as feathers for flying and feathers for covering the body. Study the adaptations for flight, noting the smooth body surface, the overlapping feathers of the wing for lifting the bird upward as the wing comes down, the long wing bones, the strong breast, and the covering of feathers giving lightness and warmth. The warmth and lightness of feathers is illustrated by the feather boas worn by ladies. Examine the feet and find out why pigeons are able to perch on trees. Examine the beak, mouth, tongue, nostrils, eyes, ears. How is the bill adapted for picking up grains and seeds? OBSERVATION AND CARE OF WINTER-BLOOMING PLANTS Children are most interested in things which they own and care for themselves. If a child plants a bulb or a slip and succeeds in bringing it to maturity, it will be to him the most interesting and, at the same time, will bring him more into sympathy with plants wherever he may find them. The teacher should impress upon the pupil the desirability of having beautiful flowers in the home in winter, when there are none to be had out-of-doors. Every pupil should be encouraged to have one plant at least, and the bulbs planted in October and stored away in the dark in the home cellar will require a good deal of care and afford an excellent opportunity for observing plant growth and the development of flowers. If the pots have been stored in a cool cellar and have been kept slightly moist, the bulbs will have made sufficient root growth in a month and should be brought up into a warmer room where they can get some sunshine every day. The pupils will make a report each week as to what changes are noticeable in the growing plant. They will note the appearance of pale green shoots, which later develop into leaves and at least one flower stalk. They should make a drawing once every week and show it to the teacher, and the teacher should make it a point to see a number of the pupils' plants by calling at their homes. In this way the pupils come to know what plants need for their development in the way of soil, water, light, and heat. This interest will soon be extended, until, in a very few years, the children will add new and beautiful plants to the home collection and assume the responsibility of caring for all of them. TREES PINES OF THE LOCALITY This study may be commenced in November after the deciduous trees have lost their leaves and have entered their quiescent winter period. This is the time when the evergreens stand out so prominently on the landscape in such sharp contrast with the others that have been stripped of their broad leaves and now look bare and lifeless. If no pines are to be found in the vicinity, balsam or spruce may be substituted. The lessons should, as far as possible, be observational. The pupils should be encouraged to make some observations for themselves out of school. At least one lesson should be conducted out-of-doors, a suitable pine tree having been selected beforehand for the purpose. The following method might serve as a guide in the study of any species of tree. THE WHITE PINE FIELD EXERCISES Have the pupils observe the shape and height of the tree from a distance, tracing the outline with the finger. Compare the shape of this tree with that of other evergreens and also with that of the broad-leafed trees. Have them describe in what particulars the shapes differ in different trees. They will come to realize that the difference in shape results from difference in length, direction, and arrangement of branches. They may notice that other evergreen trees resemble the pine in that the stems are all straight and extend as a gradually tapering shaft from the bottom to the top, that all have a more or less conical shape, and that the branches grow more or less straight out from the main stem, not slanting off as in the case of the maples and elms. Coming close to the tree, the pupils may first examine the trunk. By using a string or tape-line, find its diameter and how big it is around. Tell them how big some evergreens are (the giant trees of the Pacific Coast are sometimes over forty feet around). Have them notice where the trunk is largest, and let them find out why a tree needs to be so strong at the ground. Heavy wind puts a great strain on it just at this point. Illustrate by taking a long slat or lath, drive it into the ground firmly, and then, catching it by the top, push it over. It will break off just at the ground. If a little pine tree could be taken up, the pupils would be interested in seeing what long, strong, fibrous roots the pine has. Let them examine the bark of the trunk and describe its colour and roughness. The fissures in the bark, which are caused by the enlarging of the tree by the formation of new wood under the bark, are deeper at the bottom of the tree than at the top, the tree being younger and the bark thinner the nearer to the top we go. Let the pupils look up into the tree from beneath and then go a little distance away and look at it. They will notice how bare the branches are on the inside, and the teacher will probably have to explain why this is so. They will discover that the leaves are nearly all out toward the ends of the branches as they get light there, while the centre of the tree top is shaded, and the great question that every tree must try to solve is how to get most light for its leaves. The pupils will now see an additional reason why the lower limbs should be longer than the upper ones. The greater length of the lower limbs brings the leaves out into the sunlight. The reason for calling this tree an "evergreen" may now be considered. Why it retains its leaves all winter is a problem for more advanced classes; but if the question is asked, the teacher may get over the difficulty by explaining to the class that the leaves are so small, and yet so hardy, that wind, frost, or snow does not injure them. Each pupil may bring a small branch or twig back to the school-room for use in a class-room lesson. CLASS-ROOM LESSON ~Materials.~--Small branches--one for each pupil, cones, bark, pieces of pine board. ~Introduction.~--Review the general features of the pine that were observed in the field lesson. ~Observations.~--The branches are distributed. Pupils test the strength and suppleness of the branches and find the gummy nature of the surface. Of what value are these qualities to the tree during winter storms? Examine the texture, stiffness, and fineness of the needles. Note that the needles are in little bunches. How many are in each bunch? Are there any buds on the branches? If so, where are the buds? How are the buds protected from rain? The pupils examine the cones and describe their general shape. The pupils are asked to break open the tough scales and find the seeds. Allow the seeds to fall through the air, and thus the pupils will discover the use of the wings attached to the seeds. The wood is next examined, its colour and odour are noted, and its hardness is tested. Find articles in the school-room that are made of pine wood. ELM The following topics are suggested for aiding in the selection of matter for a lesson on a typical broad-leafed tree: The height of the tree. The part of the height that is composed of tree tops. The umbrella shape or dome shape of the top. The gracefully drooping branches of the outer part of the top. Try to find other trees with tops like that of the elm. The diameter of the trunk. The diameter is almost uniform up to the branches. The branches all come off from one point, like the ribs of an umbrella. The thick bark, that of the old trees being marked by deep furrows. The birds that make their nests in the elm. In spring find and examine the flowers, fruits, seeds, and also the leaves. FIELD EXERCISE A good out-of-door exercise to follow the general lesson outlined above, is to require the pupils to find all the elm trees or a number of elm trees growing in the locality and to describe their location and the kind of soil on which they grow. The maple, oak, horse-chestnut, and apple are also suitable trees upon which to base lessons for Form I. DOMESTIC ANIMALS Domestic animals not only furnish suitable subjects for observation work, but also afford good opportunities for developing that sympathetic interest in animal life which will cause the pupils to more nearly appreciate the useful animals and to treat them more humanely. THE HORSE I ~Introduction.~--By means of a conversation with the pupils, find out what they know about the horse and lead them to think about his proper treatment. ~Lesson.~--The matter and method are suggested by the following: What are the different things for which horses are useful? What kinds of horses are most useful for hauling heavy loads? Why are they most useful? What kinds are the most useful for general farm work? Why are they the most useful? What kinds are the most useful for driving? Are there any other animals that would be as useful as the horse for all these things? What causes some horses to be lean and weary while others are fat and brisk? What kinds of stables should horses have as to warmth, dryness, and fresh air? Why is it cruel to put a frosty bit into a horse's mouth? When a horse is warm from driving on a cold day, how should he be protected if hitched out-of-doors? Why, when he is warm from driving, should the blanket not be put on until he has been in the stable for a little while? Correlate with reading from _Black Beauty_. II ~Preparation.~--I want you to find out some more things about the horse, but you will understand these things better if you remember that long ago all horses were wild, just as some horses are wild on the prairies to-day, and that the habits learned by wild horses remain in our tame horses. The teacher should read to the class parts of "The Pacing Mustang" from Ernest Thompson-Seton's _Wild Animals I Have Known_, or "Kaweah's Run" from _Neighbours with Claws and Hoofs_. This will give the pupils a motive for making the required observations. ~Observations.~--Compare the length of the legs of the horse with his height. Of what use were these long legs to the wild horses? What causes horses to "shy"? Of what use was this habit to wild horses? In how many directions can a horse move his ears? Of what use was this to wild horses? When horses in a field are alarmed, do they rush together or keep apart, and where are the young foals found at this time? Of what use were these habits to wild horses? Are the eyes of the horse so placed that he can see behind him and to either side as well as in front? Of what use was this to wild horses? _To the teacher._--The horse is an animal which is strong, swift, graceful, gentle, obedient, docile. The pupils should learn that, in return for his good services, the horse should be treated with kindness and consideration. The legs of the horse are long, straight, and strong, and the single toe (or hoof) means that the horse walks on the tip of one toe, and the hoof is in reality a large toe nail developed to protect the tip of the toe. To these features is due the great speed of the horse. Horses gather together in the field with the foals in the most protected part of the group, just as wild horses found it necessary to do for protection. The wild horses "shied" at a fierce enemy concealed in the grass, and the tame horse shies at a strange object. CORRELATIONS With literature and reading: By interpretation of _The Bell of Atri_. With language: By exercise on new words, as graceful, etc. DOMESTIC BIRDS THE DUCK ~Home Observations.~--Compare the duck and the drake as to size, colouring, calls, and other sounds. Observe the position of the birds when standing. Observe their mode of walking, of swimming, and of flying. Where do they prefer to make their nests? Why is the duck more plain in dress than the drake? What is the shape, size, and build of the nest? Describe the eggs. When does the duck sleep? Why can it not sleep upon a perch as hens do? How do ducks feed on land? Compare with the feeding of hens. Observe how ducks feed when in water. Observe the various sounds, as alarm notes, call notes, social sounds. Describe the preening of the feathers and explain the meaning of it. Compare the appearance of the young ducks with that of the older ones. Do the young ducks need to be taught to swim? CLASS-ROOM LESSON Provide, where convenient, a duck for class study. ~Observations.~--Colour, size, general shape of the body, and the relation of the shape to ease of swimming; divisions of the body. Size of head, length of neck, and the relation of the length of the neck to the habit of feeding in water. The legs and web feet, and the relation of these to the bird's awkward walking and ease in swimming. The bill and its relation to the bird's habits of feeding by scooping things from the bottom of the water and then straining the water out. The sensitive tip of the bill by which the duck can feel the food. The feathers, their warmth, and compactness for shedding water. The oil spread over them during the preening is useful as a protection against water. The bill, feet, and feathers should be compared with those of the hen and goose, and reasons for the similarities and differences should be discussed. The uses that people make of ducks and their feathers and eggs; the gathering of eider-down. For desk work, make drawings of the duck when swimming, flying, and standing. CHAPTER V FORM I SPRING GARDEN WORK The pupils in Form I cannot be expected to do heavy work, such as spading plots or making paths. In some cases the larger boys will undertake to line out the walks and do the spading or digging. Sometimes it may be best to engage a man to do the spading. In any case the boys and girls should do the measuring and marking out of the plots. If stable manure is used in fertilizing the plots, it must be well rotted and then carefully spaded into the plots. The rest of the work should be done by the pupils themselves under the direction of the teacher. This work will include the levelling of the plots with hoes and rakes, and the trimming of the edges to the exact size of the plots, as determined by a string drawn taut about the four corner pickets. If the pupils in this Form have individual plots, each pupil will mark out his drills, put in the seeds, and cover them. The teacher may give demonstrations in connection with the work but should not do the work for the pupils. The teacher must use his own judgment as to what seeds to allow the pupils to plant. One variety of vegetable and one of flowers is sufficient for Form I pupils, and it is desirable that large seeds be chosen for them and such as are pretty sure to grow under ordinary circumstances. Beans, beets, radishes, or lettuces are suitable as vegetables, and nasturtiums, balsams, or four-o'clocks as flowers. These seeds should be planted at least an inch apart in the drill and the drills, twelve to fifteen inches apart. Large seeds may have an inch of soil over them and smaller seeds much less. Unless the soil is very dry, watering should not be allowed, and in any case it is better to water the plot thoroughly the day before planting the seed instead of after, as is commonly done. The pupils must not allow a crust to form over the plot either before the seeds come up or after. Claw-hand weeders are convenient for loosening the soil close to the plants, and small-sized garden rakes can be used between the rows as soon as the seedlings appear. It is always better to cultivate before the weeds get a start, and thus prevent their growth. Usually the young plants will be too thick in the row, so that thinning should be begun when the plants are about two inches high. The edges of the plots should be kept straight and the paths clean and level. Each plot should have a wooden label bearing the owner's name or number and Form. The teacher is referred to _Circular 13_ of the Ontario Department of Education, _Elementary Agriculture and Horticulture_, for lists of seeds, tools, etc. GARDEN STUDIES The pupils should be in the garden every day as soon as gardening commences. In this way only will they be able to follow and appreciate the whole life of the plant from seed to seed again. The teacher should give a few minutes daily to receiving verbal reports from the pupils. All new developments that the pupils notice should be reported for the good of all. The teacher should make a practice of visiting the garden for a few minutes daily before or after school, in order that he may be in a position to direct the pupils in their studies in the garden. The pupils should watch for the first appearance of the young plants above ground, noting how they get through the soil, and the size, shape, and colour of the first leaves. They can readily determine whether all of the seeds grow. They will then watch for the opening of the second pair of leaves and compare them with the first pair. They should report the amount of growth made from day to day, and also what insect enemies attack the plants, and what animals, such as toads and birds, are seen during the season. They will also have occasion to note the effect of rain and sun upon the soil and upon the plants. The first vegetables fit for use and the first flowers in bloom will be reported. While they give special attention to the development of the plants in their own plots, they will of course observe what is going on in the garden generally. Correlate with the interpretation of "The Seed" in _Nature in Verse_.--Lovejoy. Silver, Burdett & Co., 60 cents. WINDOW GARDEN The pupils should plant some seeds in sand or moist sawdust in boxes or pots in the school-room, so that they may be able to examine the progress of germination. In this way they will come to realize that every good seed has in it a tiny plant asleep and that warmth and moisture are needed to awaken it and help it to grow. It sends one delicate shoot down into the soil and another up into the light. Another interesting way to plant seeds is in egg-shells filled with fine, moist soil, which are set in rows in a box of sand. One seed only should be put in a shell. The plants may be grown to quite a size and then set out in the garden plot, the shell having first been broken off and the ball of earth containing the roots carefully set down in a small hole, packed about with garden soil, and watered. The pupils should draw diagrams or maps of their plots and afterwards of the whole garden. (See Manual on _Geography_.) They can mark the lines of plants, and those who can write can give in short, simple sentences the main things noticed from day to day. They should give the day and date when the seeds were planted, when plants came up, when rain storms occurred, when work in weeding, thinning, and cultivating was done, when the plants were fit to use, and how they were disposed of, etc. This will serve as profitable seat work in writing, drawing, and language. Simple problems based upon dimensions of plots and the value of vegetables, etc., afford excellent supplementary exercises in arithmetic. WILD FLOWERS The admiration that even little children have for the wild flowers of the woods and their delight in finding and gathering them is sufficient justification for including them in studies for Form I. The teacher must be careful, however, lest he go too far in the critical examination of the parts of the flowers, forgetting that little children are not interested in stamens and petals, but in the fresh, fragrant, and delicate blossoms that beautify the little banks and hollows of every woodland and that brighten up the fields and roadsides in spring time. The teacher should aim to deepen that childish admiration and give to the child a more intelligent appreciation of the beauties of the wild flowers and a desire to protect them from extermination. No attempt should be made to prohibit the picking of wild flowers, but the pupils should be instructed not to pull up plants by the roots. The picking of flowers in moderation does not injure the plants, but rather tends to increase their vigour. Pupils should pick flowers with some purpose in view, rather than to see how big a bunch each can gather. The teacher should show them how to arrange a few flowers in a neat bouquet and emphasize the fact that a great mass of blossoms crushed closely together is far from being artistic or ornamental. Pupils should then be encouraged to make up pretty bouquets for the teacher's desk, for the home dining-room, and for old or invalid people who love flowers--especially those plucked by the hands of thoughtful children. RECOGNITION OF WILD FLOWERS The pupils should learn to recognize each year a few species of wild flowers by name as well as by sight. This may be accomplished in two ways, (1) by means of excursions to the woods a few times each year during the spring and summer months, and (2) by having occasional observation lessons in the school-room based upon the flowers gathered for the school-room bouquets. Both methods are to be recommended, but it must be borne in mind that a wilted, lacerated flower has no interest for a little child. LESSON IN OUTLINE BLOODROOT Plants are always most interesting when studied in their natural environment, and this is one reason why the school excursion deserves the highest commendation as a method of studying wild flowers. When studying wild flowers out-of-doors, the pupils should notice what seems to be the favourite or usual location for the particular species under consideration. Have the pupils observe the following about the bloodroot: It seems to prefer fairly dry, rich soil, on or near a hillside. It opens its beautiful white blossoms early in the spring, as if to enjoy the bright sunshine before the trees put out their thick coat of leaves to shade it. It, like many another early spring flower, comes into bloom so early in the spring because it got ready the summer before. The teacher should carefully dig up a specimen--root and all--as young pupils cannot be depended on to get up all of the underground part. Note the large amount of plant food stored up in the underground stem, how the flower was protected before it opened out, and what becomes of the protection. Note the peculiar beauty of the snow-white blossoms with their yellow centres, and how beautiful they look as they nestle amongst the handsome green leaves with their pinkish-tinted stems. Wound the root, and notice the reddish, bloodlike juice whence the plant derives its name. Indians sometimes use this juice for war-paint, and some mothers give it to their children on sugar as a cure for coughs and colds. Other wild flowers suitable for Form I are buttercup, spring beauty, dog's-tooth violet, hepatica, and trillium. If there is a corner of the school ground that is partly shaded, and if the soil is fairly mellow and moist, some of these wild flowers should be transplanted there where they will grow well and can be seen every day during the blooming period. The leaves and flowers of the bloodroot and the above-mentioned wild flowers can be used for drawing. CORRELATIONS Oral and written descriptions of the flowers studied afford suitable exercises in language and composition. INSECT STUDY CECROPIA, OR EMPEROR-MOTH The larvæ of this, the largest of Canadian moths, may be found early in September, as they wander about in search of a suitable branch upon which to fasten their cocoons. If the pupils are not successful in finding the larvæ, the cocoons can be found after the leaves have fallen, because their size makes them conspicuous. The only difficulty in finding them is due to their being of the same colour as the withered leaves, so that they are easily mistaken for the latter. The pupils should be directed to look carefully at what appears at first sight to be a withered leaf attached to a tree or shrub, and in this way many cocoons of various moths will be found. ~Observe.~--The large size--from three to four inches long; the greenish colour; the stumpy legs; movements, as walking, feeling, clinging; the rows of warts, and short, stiff spines on these; the feeding habits, biting or sucking; eggs of parasites, for frequently these are found on the larvæ. Place the larva in a box covered with gauze, and observe the spinning and weaving of the cocoon. From what part of the body is the silk obtained? With what organs are the threads placed in position? What part of the cocoon is made first and what part is made last? What time is required for making the cocoon? How is the cocoon fastened to the tree? What provision is made in the cocoon for warmth, for protection from birds, for shelter from rain? Cut open a cocoon and examine the pupa, noting the mummy-like case on which can be seen the impressions of the wings developing within. If the cocoon is kept in the vivarium in a cool place, so that the conditions may be as nearly as possible like the natural conditions, the adult moth will emerge about the first of May. In April the cocoon should be wetted occasionally, as it would be if exposed to rains; this ensures more perfect development of the insect. ~Observe.~--At what part of the cocoon the moth makes an opening; the slow spreading and strengthening of the wings; the size and coloration of the moth; the feathery feelers; the position of the wings and sucking mouth parts when at rest. Require the pupils to make drawings of the cocoon, larva, and adult. The promothea moth, whose cocoons are common on lilac bushes, may be studied in the same way as the emperor. Reference.--Silcox and Stevenson: _Modern Nature Study_ DRAGON-FLY The larvæ of this insect may be obtained in May or June by scraping leaves, weeds, and mud from the bottom of ponds and allowing the mud and water to settle in a pail or tub. The larvæ may be distinguished from other aquatic creatures by the long insect-like body, three pairs of legs, and the "mask"--a flap with pincers at the end. This mask can be turned under the head and body when not in use, or it can be projected in front of the larva for catching prey. At the rear end are three tubes, which fit together to form the breathing tube. The pupils should observe the above features, and also the movements, seizing of prey, breathing, moulting, semi-resting or pupa stage, at the close of which the pupa climbs up a reed or stalk of grass and bursts the skin from which the adult emerges. The pupils should put into the aquarium various kinds of insects and decide what foods are preferred by the larva and the adult. ~Observe.~--The size, length of body, movements in flight, lace-like wings, and insect-killing habits of the dragon-fly. Should dragon-flies be protected? Give reasons. Are all dragon-flies of the same size, build, and colour? At what time of year are dragon-flies most numerous? ~Reference.~--Silcox and Stevenson: _Modern Nature Study_. OTHER CONSPICUOUS INSECTS The potato-beetle, giant water-bug, eastern swallow-tail butterfly, and promothea moth are insects suitable as types to be studied by the pupils of Form I. The giant water-bug is the large, broad, grayish-brown insect that is found on the sidewalks in May and June mornings. (For information on the eastern swallow-tail and promothea see Metamorphosis, in Butterfly and Moth Collections.) BIRDS Bird studies for Form I should be limited to observations made directly upon a few common birds, such as the robin, house-sparrow (English), song-sparrow, flicker, house-wren, crow, bronzed grackle, and meadow-lark. These are easily reached by the pupils of every rural and village school, and the purpose of the lessons should be to teach the pupils to recognize these birds, and by making use of child interest in living active creatures, to develop their interest in birds. THE ROBIN FIELD EXERCISES I Observe the robins and find out the following things: 1. Are all robins of the same colour? If not of the same colour, what difference do you note? 2. Does the bird run or hop? Imitate its movements. 3. Listen to its song. Is it sweet or harsh? Is it loud or low? Is it cheerful or gloomy? 4. Watch the robin as it moves along the grass and learn how it finds out where the worms are. _To the teacher._--The pupils should be given a few days in which to find out answers to these questions, and at the end of that time the answers should be discussed in the class. Male robins have more pronounced colours than female robins. The beak is yellower, the breast is brighter, the back and the top of the head are darker. Robins both run and hop. The sense of sight of the robin is very acute, but its sense of hearing is even more keen. The bird may be observed turning its head to one side to listen for the sound of a worm which is still inside its burrow. II A second set of exercises may now be assigned which will demand a more detailed study of the bird, namely, a study of the size, colour, form of body, manner of flight, and length of beak. III THE NEST, EGGS, AND YOUNG 1. Find out various places in which robins build their nests. In what ways are these places all alike? Examine the materials of the nest and find out why the nests are built in the kind of places in which they are found. 2. Describe the eggs. 3. What kinds of food do the parent birds bring to the young? Does the father bird aid in bringing food to the young? _To the teacher._--The nests are found in well-sheltered parts of apple trees and evergreens, in sheds, under ledges of roofs, and in other sheltered places. The nests, since they are composed largely of mud and grass, would easily be washed away if exposed to rain storms. The food brought to the young consists of worms and insect larvæ, and the father bird is very industrious in helping to take care of his family. It is the father bird that sings, and the mother bird devotes all her energies to working and scolding. THE SONG-SPARROW FIELD EXERCISES In early March, when the streams are just beginning to break from underneath the ice and spots of ground peep here and there through the snow, assign to the pupils an exercise such as the following: Watch for a small, gray-brown bird which perches near the top of a bush, or small tree, and sings the "Tea-kettle Song". Try to interpret the song in the words: "Maids! Maids! Maids! Put on the tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle-ettle." Is the song bright and cheerful or dull and gloomy? Does the bird sing this song often? Approach close to the bird. Are there any stripes or spots on its breast or head? Describe the flight of the bird from its perch, when it is disturbed. _To the teacher._--It is possible for the pupils to distinguish the song-sparrow by means of the above exercises. It is one of the first birds to return in the spring, and, as it is a lusty singer, it will attract the attention of all who are looking for birds. The dark brown spot in the centre of the breast is a distinguishing mark, and the more observant will find the three ashy-gray stripes on its head and the dark line through the eye. When disturbed, it does not rise into the air, but flies downward and disappears with a swish of its tail. The nest is usually built on the ground or in a low bush or tree. It is composed of grass, fine roots, or weed stems, and lined with fine grass or hair. The eggs are usually four or five, but sometimes there are as many as seven. They are white with a greenish-blue tint and are closely spotted with brown. CLASS-ROOM LESSON Discuss with the pupils the observations that they have made on the field exercises. Generalize as to the similarity of the places in which the pupils have seen the sparrow singing, and as to the times of day in which the bird sings. Teach the marks of identification which some have discovered, using for this purpose pictures of the bird or black-board drawings; and encourage those who have not yet seen the song-sparrow to try again and to secure the assistance of those who have succeeded. Compare the size and form of the song-sparrow with that of the house-sparrow (English). Tell the pupils the great value of the bird in killing cutworms, plant-lice, caterpillars, ground-beetles, grasshoppers, flies, and other insects. It also helps to prevent the spread of weeds by eating thousands of seeds of noxious weeds. Assign the pupils some other things to discover, as for example: Through how many months of the summer does the bird sing? Find the nest. Why is it hard to find? Describe the eggs, as to size, colour, and number. Do not disturb the nest and do not visit it very often. _To the teacher._--Base lessons in bird study upon the English sparrow, flicker, wren, and meadow-lark. THE SHEEP PROBLEMS FOR FIELD WORK How do sheep find one another when they have become separated? How old are the lambs before they can keep up with the old sheep when running? What fits the lamb for running so well? Watch the lambs when they are playing, and find out whether they play: 1. I'm the king of the castle. 2. Follow the leader. Find out by watching a flock of sheep what is meant by "Men follow one another like a flock of sheep". Describe how sheep move when they are going very fast. Why should sheep be kept in a well-ventilated building that protects them from snow and rain but is not very warm? _To the teacher._--Each movement, habit, and instinct implied in this exercise is explained by the life of the wild sheep. Their natural home is in the mountain, and their swift movement is that of bounding from rock to rock as they follow the strongest and boldest (their leader) to a place of safety. The legs of the lamb grow rapidly, beyond all proportion to the rate of growth of the body, so that within two weeks after birth the young lamb is almost as strong of limb and fleet of foot as its mother. In their games the lambs are fitting themselves for their place in the flock, and these games very much resemble those named in the exercise. CHAPTER VI FORM II AUTUMN BULB PLANTING OUT-OF-DOORS Tulips and daffodils (narcissus) are the most suitable bulbs for out-of-door planting. The best varieties for outdoor culture are usually designated in catalogues. Bulbs should not be planted in individual plots, but in borders and ornamental beds. The latter should not be placed in the centre of a lawn, as is frequently done. Bulbs should be planted before the last of October. BEDS FOR GROWING BULBS To make a bulb bed, throw out the top soil to a depth of eight or nine inches, put about three inches of well-rotted stable manure in the bottom, and cover it with about three inches of the soil which was thrown out. Rake the plot level and then place the bulbs about eight inches apart on the top of the soil, arranging them in any design chosen. Cover them with the rest of the soil and rake it level. There will be about five inches of soil over the bulbs. When a solid crust has formed over the bed, put on a covering of leaves, straw, or branches of evergreens, and some pieces of boards to hold them in place. This covering does not protect the bulbs from freezing, but prevents too rapid thawing out in the spring. This covering should remain until the tips of the bulbs are showing above ground, when it should be removed. Ordinarily the bulbs may be left a second year before digging up. They should then be re-set or replaced with new ones, and the bed made and fertilized as before. In clay soil the bulbs should not be set quite so deep as in sandy soil, and the bulbs have better drainage about their roots if a handful of sand is placed under each bulb in planting. Crocus bulbs may be planted in clumps anywhere about the grounds or borders by simply making a small hole about five inches deep, dropping the bulb in, and covering it. Lily of the valley grows best in partial shade in some unfrequented corner. PLANTING OF BULBS INDOORS Read again the instructions given under this heading in Form I work, regarding soil, planting, and care. The Chinese sacred lily and trumpet narcissus may be chosen for the pupils of this Form. The narcissus, also called daffodil, may be held back until early spring if kept in a cool, dark cellar, but the Chinese sacred lily, which is also a variety of narcissus, comes into bloom from four to six weeks after planting. It is usually grown in water in a bowl of suitable size. Place a few pieces of charcoal in the bottom of the bowl, set the bulb upon them, and pack coloured stones and shells around it as a support. Keep the bowl about two thirds full of water and set it in a warm, sunny place. It does not need to be set in the dark, as is the case with other bulbs. These may also be grown in soil in the same way as other varieties of narcissus. When blooming is over, the bulbs may be thrown away, as they cannot be used again. GARDEN WORK (See Autumn work for Form I.) The pupils in Form II should be given more responsibility with reference to the care and management of their garden plots. If they have had a couple of years in gardening while in Form I, they will have gained sufficient knowledge as to the needs of plants and sufficient practice in garden craft to do a certain amount of work quite independently. The boys of Form II are able, with suitable garden tools, to do all the work needed in the management of their own plots and may even be allowed to do some of the harder work for the girls of their Form. SEED SELECTION Besides the usual work of weeding, cultivating, and harvesting of their crops, the pupils should undertake some work in seed selection. This work not only results in the improvement of the plants grown from year to year, but also helps to train the pupils in painstaking observation and the discerning of minute points of excellence. The ambition to produce, by careful selection and thorough cultivation, a grain or flower better than has been, is aroused, and, as the pupil's interest increases, his love for the art increases and his efforts meet with greater success. The teacher should aim from the first to use only the best available seed even if the cost be greater. He should send for a number of catalogues and carefully choose those varieties of seeds that possess evident merit for the purpose intended. In the case of flowers, the pupils should be asked to decide what individual plants showed greatest excellence, and these should be marked, and the seed from them preserved for next season's planting. When the flower is in full bloom, a small string tag should be tied to the flower stem (string tags can be got from a local merchant). On this tag should be written in lead-pencil the name of the species, the shade, and date of flowering. These flowers should be left to ripen thoroughly, and then the seed picked and sealed up in small envelopes, which the pupils should make as part of their manual training work. The date on the tag should be transferred to the seed envelope. STORING SEEDS All the envelopes should be collected, placed in a mouse-proof box, and stored in a cool, dry place until time to plant in the spring. Small bottles are excellent for holding seed and safer than envelopes. If such selection is carried on systematically, it will result in an increase of yield and of quality not to be equalled by even the best seed that the markets have to offer. Thus the school garden may become the centre of interest for the community. Seeds of good varieties can be distributed to the ratepayers, and the standard of gardening and horticulture raised. Here, as elsewhere, much--almost everything--depends upon the teacher's interest and ability to lead as well as to instruct. HARVESTING AND STORING OF GARDEN CROPS As soon as the vegetables reach their best stage of development, they should be taken from the garden by the owner. All dead plants and refuse should be removed and covered up in a compost heap. The boys of this Form should also assist in doing part of the general work of the school garden. They might take up from the garden border such tender plants as dahlias, gladioli, and Canna lilies. These should be dried off and stored in a cool, dry cellar. If the cellar be warm, it is necessary to cover the bulbs with garden soil to prevent their drying out too much. CLASS-ROOM LESSON The pupils are led, through conversation, to state their experiences and observations. The teacher assists them in interpreting their observations and organizing their knowledge and stimulates them to thoughtful search for further information. Discuss with the pupils such questions as: What are people busy doing on their farms and in their gardens at this time of year? Why do they harvest and store the wheat, oats, corn, potatoes, and apples, etc.? Are there any countries in which people do not need to gather in the grains, vegetables, and fruits? The discussion of these questions will direct their thought to the need of storing sufficient food for animals and for man to last through the winter, when these things do not grow. They must be gathered to protect them from destruction by storms of wind and rain and the severe frosts of winter. People who live in very warm countries find foods growing all the year round, and they do not need to prepare for winter, but these people are always lazy and unprogressive. Discuss the means taken to protect the various crops, as follows: Why can grain be kept in barns or granaries or in stacks? Why can apples, turnips, and potatoes not be kept in the same way as grains? What are the conditions that are best suited for keeping the latter products? Name some kinds of crops that cannot be kept in any of the ways already discussed. Why can they not be kept in these ways? These discussions will develop the idea of the necessity of keeping apples, potatoes, and turnips, in cellars, root-houses, and pits, where they cannot freeze, but where they are kept at uniformly low temperatures which are as close as possible to their freezing points. The air must not be too dry, as dryness causes them to shrivel up. In dry cellars they should be covered with fine soil. Very delicate fruits, such as cherries, grapes, peaches, plums, strawberries, etc., can only be kept for a length of time by preserving or canning them. Correlate with lessons in Household Management on preserving and canning. FALL CULTIVATION When the garden has been finally cleaned out, the plot should be spaded up and left without raking. Clay soil especially is much improved in physical qualities by thus being exposed to the air and frost. All garden tools should receive a special cleaning up before storing for winter. GARDEN STUDIES The observational studies suggested under this head for Form I will be followed also in Form II. The pupils of Form II will be expected to make more critical observations in connection not only with the plants growing in their own individual plots, but also with those plants which other pupils have been growing. They should give some attention also to the plants in the perennial flower border. GARDEN RECORDS. In this Form the pupils should begin to make garden records on such points as the following: 1. Description of the plant--size, habit of growth, kind of leaves and their arrangement, date of flowering, form, size and colouring of the flowers, points of merit or the reverse, description of the seed and how scattered, how disposed of, and the value. 2. The work done in the garden from day to day, with dates. 3. The effect of rain, drought, or other weather conditions on the growth of the plants. 4. What insects were seen visiting the flowers and what they were doing--whether beneficial or harmful. 5. What birds or other animals were found frequenting the garden. (See Animal Studies, pp. 30, 96, 217.) 6. What plants suffered from earliest frosts; what from subsequent frosts; what ones proved to be most hardy, etc. 7. What plants the pupils like most in the garden, and what ones seem to suit the soil and weather conditions best. The pupils in this Form, by direct observation, should come to appreciate the development of the fruit and seed from the flower. Their work in seed selection, based upon the excellence of the flower, helps to ensure this line of observation. CORRELATIONS Art: Drawing of leaves, flowers, and vegetables, in colour when possible. Arithmetic: Calculations as to dimensions, number of plants, number of flowers on a plant and seeds in a flower, value of products of flowers and vegetables. Cost of seeds, fertilizer, and labour, gross and net proceeds. Statement showing the above. Composition: General connected account or story of the work done and the things learned during the season, as taken from the garden diary and from memory. Exercises in writing and spelling, as suitable seat work. Geography: Weather observations, as related to the garden work and to plant growth. Comparison of the soil of the garden with other samples from the district, as to composition and origin. Direction, as related to the paths or walks in the garden. Map drawing: Plans of plots and of whole garden and grounds, represented on sand-table, paper, or black-board. Map drawing on a horizontal surface is best for the first year or two. The products of the garden, as compared with home products, as food supplies for man and beast. Manual Training: Making of seed envelopes and boxes, modelling in clay of fruits and vegetables. CLIMBING PLANTS Observe particularly the sweet-pea and morning-glory. Consider the following points: 1. Advantages gained by climbing, such as securing of more light, production of many leaves and flowers, and not so much stem. 2. Method of climbing--sweet-pea by tendrils that wind around the support; morning-glory by twining its rough stem closely around its support. Do all morning-glory vines twine in the same direction? Find other vines that climb. Examine their modes of climbing. 3. Time of flowering and notes on how to plant. Make drawings of the leaves and blossoms. TREES (See type lesson on trees under Form I.) In this Form it is better to follow closely the development of one or two selected trees in school or on the home grounds than to attempt to observe many different species. Allow the pupils to choose their own trees for study and, if possible, have them select one at home and another near the school or on the way to school. The following points might receive attention: The name of the species, whence obtained and by whom planted if known; its approximate height, size, and age; its location, and the nature of the soil; its general shape, and whether or not influenced at present or at some time in the past by proximity to other trees; description and arrangement of its branches, leaves, and buds, its bark, flowers, and fruit; time of leafing out and blossoming; colouring and falling of leaves and ripening of seeds; the amount of growth for the year compared with that of previous years as shown by the younger branches; qualities of beauty and usefulness of the tree. Drawing exercises. At least two visits should be made to the woods during the autumn months, one when the leaves of the trees begin to colour and another when the leaves have fallen. Consider the preparation made for winter in the woods and fields, the use of dead leaves in the woods as a protection to forest vegetation and as soil-making material. Bring back samples of leaves and of leaf mould or humus for class-room observation. Note the effect of frost in hastening the falling of leaves--frost does not give the brilliant hues to leaves, as many people think. Consider the relationship of the forest trees to animal life. STORING OF TREE SEEDS Make a collection of nuts and other tree seeds, some of which should be put in the school collection and the rest planted in the garden or stored away for spring planting. The seeds of evergreens should be kept dry and cold, but other seeds, as a rule, are best packed in a box of slightly moist sand set in a cold place or buried in the ground. A FLOWER TYPE: NASTURTIUM I Teacher and pupils visit the nasturtium bed, where the flowers stand up boldly, surrounded by the shield-shaped leaves. A search for the young flower buds and for the very old flowers leads to the discovery that these are snugly sheltered under the shields. The greenish-yellow calyx, which is closely wrapped around the bud, is next examined. Its name is given, and its use as a protector is discussed. The strong seed cases are opened and the seeds are discovered. The pupils are instructed to watch the insects that visit the bright flowers. Name the insects. Describe their movements. Catch a few and find the yellow powder on their furry little bodies and legs. II Each member of the class brings a flower to the school-room. The varieties of colours of the flowers are discussed. The cave-like form of each flower is noted. The velvety feeling of the corolla and the delicate perfume are likewise sensed by the pupils. The pupils nip off the point of the cave and taste the nectar (honey), and thus learn why the insects visit the flowers. They next trace the course of the coloured lines on the corolla and find that they all point into the cave. Continuing their explorations of the mouth of the cave, the pupils will discover the little boxes containing the yellow powder that the flower dusts upon the insects. The names _pollen_ and _pollen boxes_ are given. The fringe on the edges of the leaves of the corolla for the purpose of preventing the insects stealing into the cave without receiving their baptism of pollen, is discovered. The teacher should, at this point, give a brief explanation of the valuable work done by the insects in carrying pollen to cause seeds to grow in the next flower that the insect visits. The position of the tiny brush (stigma, but do not give this name) held up by the seed case for rubbing the pollen off the insect, should also be observed. ~Summary.~--Name and point out the parts of the flower (calyx, corolla, pollen boxes, seed cases). What useful work do insects do for the flower? What reward do they receive for their work? What advertisements do the flowers put out for attracting themselves? (Bright colours, sweet perfumes, and honey) Flowers suitable for lessons in Form II are nasturtium, larkspur, snap-dragon, morning-glory, and sweet-pea. NOTE.--Botanical names should be reduced to a minimum. SOIL STUDIES (See _Soils_ by Fletcher.) Soil should have a place in a Nature Study Course because: 1. It is so closely related to life. 2. It lends itself so admirably to the experimental method. 3. It is so liable to be overlooked and considered as common and valueless. KINDS OF SOIL _Gravel_ is composed of small, rounded stones of various colours, sizes, and shapes. Occurs in beds, generally mixed with sand. Get a sample and examine the constituents. Lead the pupils to see that the pebbles are the result of the breaking up of larger rocks. What has made the corners smooth and rounded? What use is made of gravel? Have the pupils find some gravelly land. _Sand_ is composed of small angular pieces of hard rock. Have a few samples from different places brought to school, note fineness and colours, examine with a lens and note resemblance to pieces of broken stone. Draw a magnet through the sand and note black particles adhering, showing presence of iron in some form. Show the hardness by rubbing against the surface of a piece of glass. Sand is used for mortar, concrete, and glass. The chief sand-forming rocks are quartz and granite. Show pupils how to recognize these. Examine a sample of sand under a lens. _Clay._ Note colour and odour of fresh sample. Dry and pulverize and note extreme fineness of the particles by rubbing between the fingers (an ounce of clay contains about four and one half million particles). Clay is made from crushed rocks, chiefly feldspars. Mix clay with a little water and note sticky character. Compare with sand in this respect. Which makes the best road in wet weather, gravel, sand, or clay? Note how hard the clay bakes after being moistened. Uses of clay--pottery, bricks, tile. Pupils should visit a brick- or tile-yard and watch the process of manufacture. In many parts of the world there are beds of clay of extreme fineness and whiteness, from which beautiful china is made. _Humus_ is decayed vegetable matter. Pupils should gather soil from the forest, bog, or marsh. Note dark colour. Examine carefully and see what you can find in it that is not in sand or clay. Most of our farm land consists of these four soils mixed in various proportions, and it gets its name from the one that preponderates. Thus we have our sandy, gravelly, or clay _loams_. Humus is likely to be present in all fields, because vegetable matter grows, to some extent, everywhere; but freshly broken land, reclaimed swamps, and prairie lands are likely to be especially well supplied. The great value of humus in the soil will appear in later studies. ANIMAL STUDIES BIRD MIGRATION (Consult _Bird Life_ by Frank M. Chapman, and _Bird Studies_ by G. A. Cornish.) In the autumn, direct attention to the flight of wild ducks and geese and to the gathering into flocks of robins, crows, bronze grackles, blue herons, sparrows, and other birds in preparation for migration. Discuss with the pupils the reasons for migration, namely, scarcity of food, the cold, the snow. In the spring, the return is stimulated by the nesting instinct. Note how the birds are guided--some, for example the ducks and geese, by their leaders, while others have no guides but their instincts. In winter, require the pupils to observe the kinds of birds that are to be seen in the gardens, fields, orchards, and woods, having them note the scarcity of birds and the absence of many forms that are with us in the summer. CORRELATIONS Geography: By pointing out on the map the countries into which the birds go, namely, Central America, Brazil, etc. Reading and literature: By interpreting Where did you spend the dreary winter? In a green and sunny land, By the warm sea-breezes fanned, Where orange trees with fruit are bent, There the dreary time I've spent. COMMON WILD ANIMALS GENERAL METHOD FOR FIELD WORK The best method for studying wild animals is to assign to each pupil some animal as his particular subject of study. Begin by finding out from the pupils the wild animals that each one knows to be near his home, and assign to each pupil a number of problems on the animal which is most convenient for him to study. In some cases, only one pupil will be studying a particular kind of animal, while in other cases several pupils may be studying the same kind of animal. The latter method has the advantage of giving opportunity for comparison of results. Differences should serve as stimuli to more careful observation, in order to verify or disprove previous conclusions. The observations and inferences, together with drawings illustrating the animals, their homes, etc., are recorded in the Nature Study note-books. These are discussed in the class, verified or corrected, and supplemented by descriptions of lives and habits of the animals from nature writers or naturalists, such as Charles G. D. Roberts, Ernest Thompson-Seton, etc. When pupils become interested in this form of study, they become nature students in the true meaning of the term. The pupil is brought into contact with the animal in its natural environment and, under these conditions, the natural habits, interests, and activities of the wild creatures are more likely to appeal to the sympathy of child nature than under any other method of study. The method has also the advantage of being one of original discovery, and consequently it trains in self-reliance and independence of thought. Finally, since close and careful observation is necessary, the child learns that it is unwise to alarm the animal, and thus a better relationship between child life and animal life is fostered. It may be objected that this method is slow and that little is accomplished. This may be true from the view-point of matter learned, but from the view-point of child training more can be accomplished from the study of a single living animal than from the study of a score of pictures or stuffed skins. A second method that is recommended is the study of tame animals. By conversations with the boys of the school the teacher will find what tame squirrels, ground-hogs, raccoons, foxes, and other animals are available for class-room work. The possessors of these animals are usually quite willing to bring them to school for the class to study. The movements, habits, food, and other topics, may be studied by direct observations guided by the teacher's questions or problems. A third method and, unfortunately, the one which is in most general use, is the study of animals by means of stuffed specimens and pictures, supplemented by descriptions and stories by the teacher. These lessons may be called information lessons, but they are not worthy of the name Nature Study. Indeed, if conditions are such that it is the only method available for animal study, it is advised that the time be spent on other branches of the subject; but if living animals are made the basis of study, stuffed specimens may be found useful for identification and for confirming observations on minute structural features, colour, etc. THE WOOD-CHUCK The problems outlined below are intended to illustrate the plan of study suggested in the first general method. They are assigned to a boy who has discovered a ground-hog burrow, in order to direct him in his observations on the animal. What is the kind of soil dug out in making the burrow? Why is this soil suitable for the burrow? What size of stones are dug out in burrowing? Are there more entrances than one? By slowly approaching the animal, find out how close it will permit you to come. At what times of day does the ground-hog come out? Give reasons for its coming out at these times rather than at mid-day. Upon what does the animal feed? Describe the colour of the animal and find out any advantages in this colour. Observe the following actions: running, hiding, keeping sentry, and scouting. Do more wood-chucks than one live in one burrow? When do the young wood-chucks first come out of the burrow? Describe their size, colour, and habits. Are wood-chucks ever seen during the winter? Do they use the same burrow year after year? Describe the sounds made by the animal. What injury does the animal cause to the fields? Describe the fur, teeth, and claws, and show their relation to the animal's habits of life. Dig out a burrow and draw a plan of it. Make pictures showing the various attitudes of the animal. THE CHIPMUNK FIELD EXERCISES Describe the size, colour, shape, length of tail, and movements of the chipmunk. Compare with the red squirrel. Have all chipmunks the same number of stripes? Discover its home; method of carrying grain, nuts, or other foods; whether it is found most commonly on the ground, in trees, or among logs and stones. Try to tame it by placing food where it can reach it and, finally, try to have it feed from your hand. Find out why there is no loose soil around the entrance to its burrow, whether more families than one live in one burrow, whether the chipmunk comes out during winter, or how early in the spring. Learn to distinguish the sounds of the animal, as expressing alarm, surprise, anger, playfulness. _To the teacher._--Chipmunks carry grain, etc., in their cheeks. Frequently these are so full that they must be emptied to permit them to enter their burrows. It is not uncommon for several to spend the winter in the same burrow, having a common storehouse connected by passages to the main burrow. These little animals are easily tamed and soon learn to take food from the hand. They are not hibernating animals, for they store food for winter, and though they are not asleep all winter, yet they rarely come out of their burrows while there is snow on the ground. EASTERN SWALLOW-TAIL BUTTERFLY No butterfly is more suitable for study by the Junior Forms than the Eastern Swallow-tail. It is one of the most beautiful and attractive of our butterflies and lays its eggs so accommodatingly on every carrot or parsnip bed that it gives ample opportunity for observation. If possible, have the pupils observe the insect in the act of placing the eggs, one here and one there, on the under surface of the leaves of the plants, noting the busy movements; discuss the advantage of scattering the eggs, and also that of placing them on the under surface of the leaves. If the egg placing cannot be observed, there will be little difficulty in finding the large yellow and green larva with a head shaped like that of a miniature sea-horse. If the larva itself is not easily found, the leaves stripped bare of green blade and the droppings on the ground will reveal its presence. Why was it difficult to see such a large, and now that it is seen, conspicuous object? Lead the pupils to notice that the yellow and green bands harmonize in colour with the green leaves and alternate streaks of golden sunlight. Does the larva feed by biting or by sucking? How many legs has the larva? Cover the plant and larva with a paper bag, or inverted bottle, or a lamp chimney with a gauze top until the larva is full grown; or place the larva in a vivarium, feed it on carrot leaves, and observe its growth. When full grown, the larva builds for itself a snail-shaped, fairly firm case, fastened by a slender girdle of silk to a piece of wood or other support. Keep this over winter, and in March, or early April, the black-and-blue-and-gold insect emerges. Observe the movements of the wings in flight, the long tube with which it sucks honey from flowers, the three pairs of legs, the position of the wings when at rest; compare the structure with that of the larva. Make drawings of the butterfly and paint its colours. CHAPTER VII FORM II WINTER CARE OF PLANTS IN THE HOME The care of flowering bulbs, which was begun in Form I, will be continued in Form II. The growing of new plants from cuttings will now be taken up. In those schools which are kept continuously heated, potted plants may be kept throughout the year. The pupils will come to appreciate the plants' needs and learn how to meet them in the supply of good soil, water, and sunlight. The following points should be observed: 1. Good potting soil can be made by building up alternating layers of sods and stable manure and allowing this compost to stand until thoroughly rotted. A little sharp sand mixed with this forms an excellent soil for most house plants. 2. Thorough watering twice a week is better than adding a little water every day. 3. The leaves should be showered with water once a week to free them from dust. 4. An ounce of whale-oil soap dissolved in a quart of water may be used to destroy plant-lice. Common soap-suds may also be used for this purpose, but care should be taken to rinse the plants in clean water after using a soap wash. 5. Most plants need some direct sunlight every day if possible, although most of the ferns grow without it. 6. Plants usually need re-potting once a year. Many kinds may be set out-of-doors in flower beds in May and left until September, when they may be taken up and placed in pots, or cuttings may be made from them for potting. 7. A flower exhibition at the school once or twice a year, or at a local exhibition, adds to the interest. 8. The pupils should report to the teacher, from time to time, the progress of their plants and make many drawings showing their development. TREES In November or December make a study of Canadian evergreens, choosing spruce, balsam, and cedar if available. The pupils should learn to distinguish the different species by an examination of the leaves, buds, arrangement of branches, bark, seeds, and cones. The age of young trees can be determined by noting the successive whorls of branches. In this way also the age of the leaves may be determined. On some trees the leaves persist for seven or eight years. Evergreens are frequently used as Christmas trees and their branches for house decorations. On which species do the leaves persist longest? How do they compare with the pines? The leaves are always as old as the wood upon which they grow. Have the pupils notice how the small leaves and horizontal branches resist the clinging of snow in winter. Each branch bends down enough to cause the snow to slide off on to the one next below, and so on, until it reaches the ground. The conical shape of the tree also facilitates this action of dislodging the snow. They will also notice that these trees are well adapted to withstand wind, as the top part, which is most exposed to the wind, is much smaller and more pliable than the part next the bottom. The gum, or resinous covering, of the buds protects them from injury by rain or snow. Some kinds of pine, such as the pitch pine, have a great abundance of gum and turpentine. Resin and pine tar are made chiefly from this species. Heat a piece of pine wood--a knot or root is best. The gum will be seen oozing out of the wood. Pine torches were much used in the early days of settlement in Canada. Examine the gum "blisters" in the bark of the balsam tree. From this source the "Canada Balsam" gum of commerce is taken. The gum and resin in the wood and bark help to preserve the wood from decay. COLLECTION OF WOOD SPECIMENS During the winter months the boys may prepare specimens of wood for the school collection. These specimens should be cut green and dried. They should be uniform in length--not more than six inches--and should show the bark at one side. The side showing the bark should be two inches wide at most, six inches long, and running in a V-shaped, radial section toward the pith. A tangential section also shows well the annual layers. A piece of slab as cut lengthwise off a round stick is tangential. Also visit wood-working factories for specimens of rare or foreign woods. In securing these specimens, care should be taken not to mutilate trees. RELATED READING Winter is nature's quiescent period. Continuous active observation out-of-doors among the plants of the forest and garden gives place for a time to indoor work and reflection. Pupils need time for reading and reflection, and no time is so opportune as the quiet winter season. During these months some time should be devoted to the reading of nature stories and extracts from magazines and books dealing with plant as well as animal life. Pupils should review their gardening experiences and discuss plans of improvement for the approaching spring and summer. Let them write letters to the Form II pupils of other schools where similar work has been carried on, giving some of their experiences in gardening and plant and animal studies. A certain Friday afternoon might be appointed for hearing the letters read which have been received in reply. Suitable short poems that have a direct bearing upon their outdoor studies should be read from time to time. Good pictures come in here also as an aid in helping the children to appreciate written descriptions. The first-hand observations made by the pupils will form a basis for the better and more appreciative interpretation of these literature selections. THE DOG CLASS-ROOM LESSON Use the conversation method, since this is an animal that is well known to all the pupils. By natural, easy conversation with the pupils, encourage them to tell what they know about the usefulness and the other qualities of their canine friends. The pupils know that some dogs are useful for hunting wild animals, others for driving or herding cattle and sheep, others for guarding their master's property, others for hauling sleighs and wagons, while others are of use as pets or playfellows. Discuss with the pupils the qualities that make the dog so generally useful to us. In this discussion, guide the thoughts of the pupils to the qualities of faithfulness, loyalty to his friends, and docility--few animals are so easily taught. Note his strength and swiftness--he can continue in a race until he catches almost any other animal. Note also his bravery--for he does not hesitate to attack an animal many times larger than himself. Short stories of the following type may be told, to illustrate the chief qualities of the dog: A dog was trained to guard any article that his master placed under his charge, and not to permit any one to touch it until his master gave his consent. One day, when returning from the mill, the master placed a sack of flour inside the gate for a neighbour who had asked him to do so, and then continued on his way without noticing that his dog had taken charge of the sack. All through the afternoon of that day and through the long, cold night that followed, the faithful animal remained at his post. When the owner of the sack came next morning to get it, the dog, although numb with cold and famished with hunger, would not permit him to take the flour. Nor could the stout-hearted creature be persuaded either by threats or by coaxing, until his master was brought, when, at his first word of command, the dog bounded joyfully toward him. Conclude the lesson by a short discussion of the proper care and treatment that should be given to dogs. The dog requires a fairly warm but dry kennel, with a soft bed of straw or rugs. The food should consist chiefly of porridge, milk, bread, biscuit, and a little meat. Only dogs that are running a great deal out of doors should be given much meat. The dog should be given bones to pick; picking bones is as good for a dog's teeth as a tooth-brush is for a boy's. OBSERVATION EXERCISES By making observations upon your dog at home, find answers to these problems: 1. How does a dog hold a bone while he is picking it, and how does he get the meat off the bone? 2. Examine the dog's feet and find out: (1) Why he does not slip while running. (2) What protects the soles of his feet from injury as he bounds over rough ground. 3. Which is the sharper, a dog's eye or his nose? Watch how he finds his master in a crowd or finds an object that you have hidden. CORRELATIONS Language: 1. Require oral or written reproduction of the stories used in illustration in the lesson on The Dog. 2. Require the pupils to relate incidents from dog life that have come within their own experiences. Art and Modelling: 1. A sleeping dog. 2. A dog waiting for his master. LESSONS INVOLVING COMPARISON It will be found helpful, both for increasing interest in the observations and for fixing the facts in memory, to study an animal by comparing its habits, qualities, and physical peculiarities with those of another animal which is somewhat similar. Where differences are discovered, explanations of the differences should be developed in such a way that a tendency may be cultivated for interpreting the adaptation of structure to use and of life habits to surrounding conditions. CAT AND DOG Compare the movement of a cat when approaching its prey with the movement of the dog when chasing a squirrel. Account for the difference. The natural habit of the cat is to hunt alone and rely upon stealth, while dogs hunt in packs and tire their prey by running and by terrifying noises. Other differences and their explanations, which the pupils should be led to discover are: The dog is a more useful animal to man than is the cat. The cat's body is longer and more slender, and this gives it greater suppleness in crawling and leaping. The cat's eye is larger and the pupil is especially large at night, to enable it to see. The cat's whiskers are longer; they help in guiding it at night. The cat's tongue is rougher; it uses it for cleaning bones. The pads on the cat's feet are softer, so that it can move more silently in stealing upon its prey. The cat's claws are sharper, because it uses them for seizing its prey, while the dog seizes its prey with its teeth. The dog is more faithful to its master because it is a more sociable animal. In its natural state every dog is faithful to the pack and to the leader; the cat is not a social animal, but is by nature solitary and independent. The dog's sense of smell is keener than that of the cat, but its sense of hearing is less acute. Account for these differences from the animals' habits of hunting. Why does the cat bring home living animals to her kittens, while the dog buries dead animals? The cat trains the kittens to approach by stealth and then to pounce on the right spot. Wild animals related to the dog bury the "kill" which is too large to be eaten at one meal. EXPERIMENTS FOR ASSISTING IN THE STUDY OF THE CAT 1. Gently scratch with a pin at some distance from where a cat is lying. What do the movements of the cat indicate? 2. Put a fish in water and watch a cat trying to get it. 3. Sprinkle water on a cat's fur and find out why she dislikes being wetted. 4. Attach a ball to a string and move it near a cat. Describe the movements, as stalking, springing, seizing, retreating. 5. Put some catnip in a room out of reach of the cat and observe the movements of the animal. Nearly all children make pets of the house cat, and although the cat is a domestic animal of thieving propensities and an enemy of birds, yet it would be unwise to teach the younger children any enmity toward her. The establishment of sympathy with animal life, the humanizing effect upon child nature of having a kitty for a playfellow, will offset many times over the amount of depredation of which she may be guilty. COMPARISON OF THE HORSE AND COW Assign problems for the pupils to solve by observations made upon the animals in the field or farmyard. 1. What features of build give to the horse greater speed than the cow? 2. Compare the movements of the heads of the horse and cow while cropping grass. Account for the difference. 3. How has nature fitted the cow and the horse respectively, for defence? 4. Which end of the body does the horse raise first when it is getting up? Which end of its body does the cow raise first? Account for the difference. _To the teacher._--The horse is the swifter and more graceful runner because the body is less bulky and the legs are longer and straighter. In cropping grass the cow pushes its nose forward and breaks the grass off, a process which is made necessary because the cow has no upper front teeth. The strong, sharp horns, short, powerful neck, and heavy shoulders are an efficient equipment for the cow's method of defence, while the long, strong legs and powerful hindquarters of the horse enable it to deal terrific blows with its hard hoofs. The horse rises upon its forelegs before raising the rear of its body, while the cow raises its hindquarters first. THE SQUIRREL FIELD EXERCISES ~Problems~: Is it true that squirrels have little roads along the ground? Does the squirrel come down a tree head foremost, or tail foremost? Are a squirrel's feet close together or wide apart when it is climbing? How many kinds of feeling can a squirrel express by its voice? How does a squirrel open a nut? Examine a squirrel's tracks in the snow; which foot-prints are in front? Try to gain the confidence of a squirrel by never chasing it and by placing some favourite food for it. CLASS-ROOM LESSON A tame squirrel is very desirable for concrete study. Describe the shape, size, and colour. Find out how the legs and feet are fitted for climbing and leaping. Compare the length of the tail with that of the body. Of what use is the tail in cold weather? Of what use is the tail in leaping? Examine the teeth and find out how they are fitted for opening nuts; gnawing wood. _To the teacher._--The legs of the squirrel are short so that it can press its body close to the tree when climbing. The claws are strong and sharp and the hindquarters are very strong, and are, in consequence, well fitted for leaping. The tail of the squirrel is very long and bushy and serves as a fur for keeping the squirrel's nose warm in winter. The tail is also used for balancing the body when the animal is leaping from bough to bough. The front teeth of the squirrel are very large and strong and are shaped like chisels. WINTER BIRDS In the class lesson on winter birds, take up the birds that the pupils have seen, such as chickadee, blue jay, quail, ruffed grouse, hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, great horned owl, house-sparrow, snow bunting (snow bird), pine grosbeak, snowy owl, and purple finch. The four latter are to be noted as winter visitors. Use pictures for illustrating these birds. The habits and winter food of the birds should also be described from the view-point of how these adapt the birds for spending the winter in a cold climate. Direct the children to look for grosbeaks in the pine and rowan trees, where they may be seen feeding on the seeds. The ruffed grouse (commonly called partridge) feeds on the buds of trees in winter; its legs and feet are thickly covered with feathers in winter but are bare in summer. FIELD EXERCISES Arouse the interest of the pupils by a conversation of about three minutes on birds that they have seen during the winter, and assign the following exercise: Take a walk through the orchards and woods on a bright winter day. What birds do you see? What are these birds doing? Are they found singly or in flocks? What bird sounds do you hear? CLASS-ROOM LESSON The method is conversational and based upon the observations made by the pupils during the field exercises. The discussion would involve the winter habits of some of the more common birds, as, for example, the ruffed grouse (commonly though incorrectly called the partridge). This bird takes shelter from the winter storms in the centre of a dense evergreen or burrows deep into a snow bank. The close covering of feathers upon its feet serves not only to keep the feet warm, but also as snow-shoes. In the evenings these birds may frequently be seen in the tops of such trees as maple, birch, cherry, and poplar, the buds of which form the greater part of their winter food. The snow bird, or snow bunting, is another bird commonly seen in winter. Flocks of these hardy little winter visitors frequent the roads and fields during winter. Its summer home is in the far north. Another visitor from the sub-arctic regions is the pine grosbeak, which is often mistaken for the robin, for these two birds are nearly equal in size. The carmine colour of the upper surface of the male grosbeak distinguishes it from the grays and blacks of the upper part of the robin. The grosbeak frequents the rowan trees. The bird sounds which attract attention during the winter are the cheerful notes of the chickadee, the bold clarion call of the blue jay, and the sharp tap, tap, tap, of the downy woodpecker. The downy woodpecker and the chickadee have snug winter homes within hollow trees, but, when the weather is favourable, they go about searching industriously for the eggs and larvæ of insects that infest forest and orchard trees. CORRELATIONS Literature: Do you know the chickadee, In his brownish ashen coat, With a cap so black and jaunty, And a black patch on his throat? Language: Write a story about the winter experiences of a downy woodpecker. Geography: Describe the summer home of the snow bird. ANIMALS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS Pupils who have an opportunity to visit museums or zoological gardens will observe more intelligently if the visit is preceded by such a discussion in the class-room as will arouse their curiosity respecting the habits, movements, and adaptive features of the animals about to be studied. CLASS-ROOM LESSON Name the kinds of bears you have seen or have read about. What kind was the largest? Are all bears wholly flesh-eating animals? Find out what food the keepers give these animals. What features give to the bear his great strength? Observe the length of his "arms", teeth, claws. Does the bear climb a pole in the same way that a boy does? Read: Rogers. Wild Animals Every Child Should Know. McClelland, Goodchild, & Stewart. 50 cents. Thompson-Seton. Wild Animals I Have Known. Briggs. $1.50. Roberts. Children of the Wild. Macmillan. $1.35. CHAPTER VIII FORM II SPRING GARDEN WORK The pupils have now arrived at an age when they are able to do most of the work of preparing and planting their own plots. The seeds have been selected and placed in readiness for planting long before the ground is ready. The plans for the garden and the varieties to be sown in the different plots have likewise been arranged. Fertilizers, lines, tools, and labels are made ready for use. With such thorough preparation the making and planting of the garden becomes a pleasure and a delight to both teacher and pupils. The garden diary should begin as soon as the snow disappears from the garden and be continued until all the work is completed in the autumn, and the garden again blanketed in snow. The main points to be safeguarded are: 1. Thorough cultivation and fertilization. 2. The best available seed carefully planted. Guard against thick sowing and deep covering. 3. Frequent cultivation and careful thinning while the plants are quite small. 4. Vigilance in detecting the appearance of cutworms or other injurious insects and promptness in combating them. 5. Protection of the garden against injury from dogs, pigs, poultry, and English sparrows. 6. Failure of some plots, through the owner's absence from school for long periods. COMBATING GARDEN PESTS CUTWORMS In gardens where the soil is light or sandy, cutworms are most likely to be troublesome. Watch for them about the time that the plants are nicely above ground. They come up at night and cut the young plants off just above the ground. They are about an inch long, gray and brown, fat and greasy-looking. To protect the plants put one quarter of a pound of paris-green with twenty-five pounds of slightly moistened bran, using a little sugar in the water and stirring the paris-green into the bran very thoroughly. If too wet, add more dry bran. It should crumble through the fingers. Sprinkle a little of this mixture with the fingers along the row close to the plants. The cutworms eat this poisoned bran quite readily. Care must be exercised in using this poison lest poultry should get at it. On the other hand, poultry should not be allowed to get into the garden. Wrapping a piece of paper around the stem when transplanting young plants will help to save them from cutworms. ROOT MAGGOTS Root maggots of cabbage, radish, and onions are the larvæ of flies similar in appearance to house-flies but a little smaller. When the plants are young, the flies lay their white eggs on the stem close to the ground. When the eggs hatch, the larvæ crawl down under the ground and cause the plants to decay. The wilting of the leaves is the first sign of the trouble. Prevention is better than cure in this case. Dust some dry white hellebore along the rows of onions or radishes and around the cabbage plants; or, for radishes, make a decoction of insect powder (Pyrethrum), four ounces to one gallon of water, and pour around the root, using half a teacupful to each plant. FLEA-BEETLES The turnip flea-beetle quickly destroys young plants of the cruciferæ family by eating their leaves. Paris-green, one part to twenty parts of pulverized gypsum (land plaster) dusted on the plants while damp, helps to destroy these insects. _To the teacher._--When pupils who are absent find it impossible to give the necessary attention to their garden plots at school, they should turn them over to other pupils or to the teacher, who may at his own discretion use the produce for purposes of general garden revenue. SEED GERMINATION The seeds for the garden should be purchased quite early in the spring. As the planting of poor seed is often the cause of much disappointment, it is well to test the germinating power of the different varieties to be planted. The pupils of this Form should test especially those varieties which they have chosen. To do this, place about twenty-five seeds in a germinating dish, which may be made as follows: Take a deep plate, such as a soup plate, fill it about half full of moist sand, and spread over this a piece of moist cloth. Put the seeds upon this cloth and cover them with a second piece of damp cloth or moss. To prevent drying out invert over it another plate and set all in a warm dry place (about 70 to 80 degrees F.). After a few days count the number of seeds that have germinated. This will be a guide in planting as to how thick the seed should be sown. The pupils should watch the development of germinating grains, such as corn and beans, germinated in the same way as in the last exercise. The following points may be observed: 1. The first change noticed. (Swelling of the seed) 2. The appearance of a growing shoot and its direction. (Root) 3. The second shoot and its direction. (Stem) 4. The appearance of the first pair of leaves. 5. The appearance of root-hairs and rootlets. 6. What becomes of the main body of the seed. 7. How the second pair of leaves differs from the first pair. 8. Length of time required to produce the first pair of leaves. Pupils may be taught the conditions that are necessary for the germination of seeds by means of a few simple experiments which can be carried on in the school-room. 1. In February, plant a few seeds of the pea, or oat, or wheat, in a box of soil, and place the box outside the school window. 2. In April, plant a few seeds similar to those used in No. 1, in a box of perfectly dry soil, and set the box inside the school window. 3. Plant a few seeds similar to those used in No. 1, in a jar containing soil that is kept very wet, and set the jar in the school window. 4. Plant a few seeds, similar to those used in No. 1. in a box containing soil that is moist but not wet, and set the box in the school window. 5. Plant seeds as in No. 4, except that the box is kept in a dark cupboard. Compare the results of the above with reference to: 1. The number of seeds that germinate. 2. The growth and condition of the plants. Form conclusions with reference to: 1. The conditions that are required for seed germination. 2. The benefits of well-drained soil. Pupils make drawings showing the boxes and plants. PLANTS FOR INDIVIDUAL PLOTS The pupils of this Form should not attempt to grow more than two varieties of flowers and two of vegetables. Of flowers, mixed asters and Shirley poppy are to be recommended, the poppy being an early blooming flower and the aster late blooming. Carrots and radishes are desirable vegetables, as the carrot matures late and the radish early. Two or three crops of radishes may be grown on the same ground in one season. Besides these, a few others should be chosen for special study, such as the potato, onion, corn, and sunflower. STUDIES BASED ON OBSERVATIONS OF GROWING PLANTS Attention should be given to the growing habits of plants, the size and rate of development, the method of multiplying and propagation, and the part used for food. The potato is a tuber which is nothing more than the swollen end of an underground stem; the onion a bulb composed of the bases of thickened leaves; the corn an example of a jointed stem or grass having two kinds of flowers, the tassels being the staminate flowers and the cob with its silk the pistillate ones; the sunflower an example of a compound flower made up of many little flowers each of which produces a single seed. Observations should also be made upon the progress in germination of the nuts and other tree seeds collected in the fall. When the seeds fall from the elms and soft maples in the spring, some of them should be collected and planted in the forestry plot, or nursery. PLANTING AND CARE OF SWEET-PEAS 1. Sow as early as possible in spring. 2. Sow on well-drained land and never in the shade or near grass. Grass roots rob the sweet-pea roots of water. 3. Use a small amount of fertilizer--well-rotted manure spaded deeply into the soil. This is best done in the autumn. 4. Make the trench in the fall about five or six inches deep. 5. Plant in a trench in April from half an inch to an inch apart. 6. Cover from three inches to four inches deep. 7. Water thoroughly once or twice a week, and have the soil lower along the row than farther out, so as to hold the water. 8. Put a mulch of lawn clippings along the row on each side to prevent drying out. WILD FLOWERS Arrange an excursion to the woods when the spring flowers are in bloom. Keep a flower calendar, showing: 1. The date when a plant was first found in bloom 2. The name of the plant 3. Place where found 4. Name of the pupil who found it. When in the woods discuss the following points: 1. Why these wild flowers come into bloom so early in spring. They have a large supply of food stored up from the previous summer. 2. Dig down with a trowel or heavy knife and find this storehouse of food. It may be in the form of bulb, corm, or rhizome. 3. The blooming of the spring flowers in the woods before the leaves of the trees reach their full development, thus taking advantage of the sunlight. 4. Mark a few clumps or individual plants and visit them again after a month. Look for the growing fruit with its seeds. 5. The leaves of the hepatica seen at the time when the blossoms appear are leaves which grew the previous season. Dig up a plant and notice the new leaves starting. 6. The kind of soil each seems to grow best in and the amount of light it receives. 7. Have the pupils examine the flowers and leave them growing. They should gather a few for the school-room. 8. Have the pupils write a short account of their visit to the woods. Have them make drawings of the different flowers collected. Dig up a few specimens of wild flowers and transplant in a shady corner in the grounds or school garden. The following varieties are suggested for special observation and study: hepatica, violet, anemone, columbine, Indian turnip, marsh marigold. Teach one or two lessons on wild flowers, similar to the lessons illustrated for the nasturtium. WEEDS Pupils in this Form should learn to identify most of the weeds that are found in the garden plots and a few of those commonly found in fields and along roadsides. The large bulletin _Farm Weeds_, published by the Dominion Department of Agriculture, will be of great value in helping to identify the weeds and also in gaining useful information regarding them and the best means of eradicating them. The following species are recommended for special study during the season: mustard (such varieties as are found in the vicinity), Canada thistle, purslane, lamb's quarter, pink-rooted pigweed, and quack grass. The pupils should be familiar with the general appearance of the plant; its appearance when coming up in the spring; whether annual, biennial, or perennial; nature of the root, and whether hard to pull up; if hard to eradicate, why so; its rate of growth compared with the garden plants; the number of seeds produced by a single plant; how the seeds are scattered. THE APPLE TREE (When the buds are beginning to open) FIELD EXERCISE The pupils, during an excursion that is conducted by the teacher or while making individual observations, obtain answers to problems of the following type: What is the shape of the top of the apple tree? Are all apple trees of the same shape? What is the height of the trunk? Measure the girth of the trunk of the largest? Are the leaf buds and flower buds more numerous near the inside of the tree top or more numerous at the outer part of the top? _To the teacher._--When discussing the answers to the above problems, develop the conception of the convenience of the low stature of the tree for gathering the apples, of the wide-spreading branches for bearing a large crop, of the stoutness of the trunk for supporting the weight, and also of the position of the buds as adapting them for securing sunshine. CLASS-ROOM LESSON ON THE APPLE TREE ~Materials.~--Twigs bearing flower and leaf buds. These are gathered by the pupils from the apple trees that were studied during the field exercises. Each pupil finds on his twig the objects and markings, etc., as in the following outline: Describe the shape of the twig. Where were the apples that grew last year attached? Describe the positions of the buds on the twigs. Which buds are the larger, those at the end or those on the side of the twig? Describe the condition of the bud scales. Open the buds and find what they contain. Of what use are the bud scales? How many blossoms are in one bud? Of what use to the young leaves is the downy covering? FIELD EXERCISE FOLLOWING CLASS-ROOM LESSON (Just after the blossoms are fully open) What is the colour of the apple blossom? Find the little green cup on which the petals rest. Describe the cup. Find the other things that are on the rim of, or that are within, the cup. What are they? What insects visit the flowers? Does the cup fall off when the petals fall? Does the cup close up as soon as the petals fall? What does the green cup grow to be? _To the teacher._--Apple trees have somewhat round or pyramid-shaped tops, varying in detail with the variety of apple tree. The twigs are short and usually crooked. The fruit twigs are called spurs. The buds at the ends of the twigs and spurs are the largest and contain both leaves and blossoms, and there are usually several blossoms in each bud. The bud scales burst apart and drop off as the leaves and blossoms develop. The side buds produce leaves only. The petals and pollen boxes are borne on the rim of the green cup, and inside the cup are found the five tips of the seed cases. When the petals drop off, the rim of the cup remains spread out for a short time. This is the proper time for spraying, so that the cup may hold a drop of poison to kill the tiny worms which cause apples to be wormy. It is the green cup that grows and forms the flesh of the apple. Orchard trees suitable for lessons for Form II are apple, plum, pear, peach, and cherry. BIRD STUDY A valuable exercise in bird study, suitable for the pupils of Form II, is the study of a pair of birds and the history of their home through the entire season. A record, with dates, should be kept, and the following topics are suggested for observation: Where the nest is located, protection of the nest, part of building done by each bird; eggs, number, colour, size, time required for hatching; young birds, number, description, how fed and upon what foods, time required before ready to leave the nest; history for a time after leaving the nest. Birds suitable for study by the pupils of Form II are the crow, flicker, downy woodpecker, blue-bird, chipping-sparrow, phoebe, wren. Correlate with art, by requiring drawings and models of the nest and its surroundings, and with language, by having pupils write the history of the nest and family. THE TOAD FIELD EXERCISES Direct the pupils to watch for toads under the street lamps and on the lawns in the evenings, and to observe what they are doing. Find out, by turning over boards, logs of wood, stones, and old stumps, where toads spend the daytime. If there is a sandy beach near by, an interesting nature lesson is to trace a toad to its daytime retreat under a log or stone. Its wanderings and adventures during the night can be traced from the record that its trail makes in the sand. Are toads that live in light-coloured sand of the same colour as those that live in black clay? Of what value to the toad are these differences in colour? The pupils are thus led to see that although the toad is not a handsome animal, yet its rough, dark skin is of great value to it for concealment among the lumps of soil with which it harmonizes. Can a dog be induced to seize a toad? Will he seize it as readily a second time as he did the first? The secretion from the glands of the toad have a biting, acid effect on the dog's mouth. This secretion will not injure a person's hands unless the skin is broken, and even then it does not "cause warts". How many toads can you find on your lawn in one evening? How many in the vegetable garden? How many in the flower beds? Place a toad on loose soil among some weeds and observe how it proceeds to get out of sight. Is it true that a toad is attracted by music? Give reasons for your answer. CLASS-ROOM LESSON Secure a few living toads and keep them in a box covered with a pane of glass. Be sure to put moist soil and damp moss in the bottom of the box in which toads, frogs, newts, or snakes are kept. This enables these animals to live in comfort, and they soon become sufficiently accustomed to their surroundings to act in a normal way. ~Observation.~--By flicking in front of a toad a small feather or a bit of meat attached to a thread, the darting out of the tongue for catching prey on its adhesive surface may be observed. The children, by bringing slugs, caterpillars, grubs, and various insects for the toads, may learn what composes the food of the animal. It is to be observed that the toad does not snap at an object until it moves. DETAILED STUDY ~Observation.~--General shape; division into head, trunk, and limbs; size of head and mouth; position and structure of eyes and ears; difference in the size of the fore and hind limbs, and explanation of this difference by references to the use of the limbs; the hind foot, uses of the web; the glands on the surface of the body and their uses for protection. Why is a large mouth useful? How are the ears fitted for life in water? In conclusion, the teacher should make sure that the pupils appreciate the usefulness of the toad and also the beauty represented in its adaptations to its conditions of life. In these particulars the toad is a good illustration of the adage "Handsome is that handsome does". LIFE HISTORY OF THE TOAD In early spring look for the toads on the surface of the water in ponds. The music of the toads at this time of year has been described by one naturalist as "one of the sweetest sounds of nature". The eggs may be found in these ponds at this time. They are attached to long strings of jelly which entwine among grasses and other objects in the ponds. (Frogs' eggs are in masses of jelly, not in strings.) Place some of the eggs in a jar of water and set the jar in the window of the school-room. A great mass of eggs is too much to put in a jar, a few dozen eggs in a pint of water will be more likely to develop. The water in the jar should be changed twice a week. ~Observations.~--The light and dark areas of the eggs, the dark area gradually increasing in size; the increase in the length of the egg; the gradual change of the dark area into the general shape of a tadpole with head and tail, the first appearance of the gills, the separation from the jelly, the movement by means of the tail, the disappearance of the gills, the growth of the hind legs and, later, of the forelegs, and the disappearance of the tail. ~Questions and Observations.~--What is the use of the dark colour of the area from which the tadpole is formed? Explain the uses of the strings of jelly. Describe how the tadpole swims. Upon what does the young tadpole feed? What is the advantage of external gills at this stage in the tadpole's life? ~Later Observations.~--The disappearance of the gills, the budding out of the hind legs and, later, the forelegs. While the legs are growing out, the tail gradually becomes smaller, at the same time the shape changes to that of the adult toad with a broad body and large mouth and eyes. ~Questions.~--What movements has the toad which the tadpole did not have? What makes these movements possible? Why is the mouth of the toad better suited to its manner of life than the small mouth of the tadpole would be? Of what advantage to the tadpole was the smooth outline of its body, and why is the rougher outline of the toad's body better suited for the life of the latter? Why would gills be unsuitable for the life of the toad? _To the teacher._--From the dark area of the egg the tadpole develops, the dark colour absorbs the sunlight, and this causes growth. The jelly holds the eggs up so that the sun can reach them and it also keeps them from being swept away by the water. The tadpole is very small, and external gills are needed to keep it in very close contact with the water. The tail does not drop off, the substance in it is absorbed into the body of the growing toad to serve as nutriment. Since all the changes in the development of the toad from egg to adult form take place in about one month, this comparatively rapid development makes the life history of the toad particularly suitable for observation work. The development of the eggs of the frog or newt may be studied from preparations made in precisely the same way as those for the study of the development of the toad. If observations on the developments of two forms are carried on at one time, interesting comparisons can be made on such points as, shape and size of the eggs, time required for development, shapes and colours of the tadpoles, activity of the tadpoles, etc. THE EARTHWORM ~Time.~--May or June, in connection with gardening, when the working of the worms in the moist soil of the garden is quite noticeable. Outdoor studies may be assigned, as: Observe the loose soil at the entrance to the burrows. Insert a straw in the burrow and, following it, dig downward with a garden trowel and learn the nature of the earthworm's home. Are earthworms ever found out of their burrows during the day? If so, on what kind of days? Why do earthworms burrow deep in dry weather? Earthworms can breathe only when the surfaces of their bodies are in moist conditions. Go out at night with a lantern to where earthworms are known to have burrows, observe the worms stretched out with the rear ends of their bodies attached to the burrows, and note how quickly they draw back when they are touched. Do they draw back if the ground is jarred near them? Do they draw back when the light falls upon them? State the facts which are taught by the observations which were made on the above topics. CLASS-ROOM LESSON Put two or three earthworms into a jar of rich, damp soil, on top of which there is a layer of sand a quarter of an inch thick. Put bits of cabbage, onion, grass, and other plants on the surface and cover the jar with a glass slip or cardboard. After a few days, examine the jar, noting the number of burrows, the foods selected, the castings, the food dragged into the burrows. Pour water into the jar and observe the actions of the worms. Can an earthworm live in water? Place an earthworm on a moist plate or board and direct the pupils to study it, as follows: Distinguish the head from the rear end, the upper from the lower surface. Observe the means of living. To assist in the latter observation, stroke the worm from rear to head and find the four double rows of bristles. Why is it difficult to pull an earthworm out of its burrow? Find the mouth. Has the earthworm any eyes, ears, or nose? Place a pin in the path of a moving worm and try to explain why it turns aside before touching the obstacle. Test the sensitiveness to feeling. Why is it cruel to put an earthworm on a fishhook? From the soil castings found in the jar, infer the value of earthworms for enriching and pulverizing soil. (See "Soil Studies", p. 269.) REFERENCES Bailey and Coleman: _First Course in Biology._ Macmillan Co. $1.25. Crawford: _Guide to Nature Study._ The Copp, Clark Co. 90 cents. Kellogg: _Elementary Zoology._ Holt & Co. $1.35. THE AQUARIUM A large glass aquarium may be purchased from any School Supply Company at a cost of a few dollars, but a small globe-shaped aquarium such as is used for gold-fishes will be found suitable for school purposes. If it is not possible to secure either of these, a large glass jar, such as a battery jar or large fruit jar, will be found to answer quite well. To set up the aquarium, put into the jar about two inches of clean shore sand (sand from a sand pit, washed until the water comes away clear, will do). Secure from a pond some water-plants, place these in the jar with their roots covered with sand and secured in position by small stones. Pour in water until the jar is nearly full, taking care not to wash the roots out of place, and then put in a freshwater clam and a few water snails. These are scavengers, for the clam feeds upon organisms that float in the water, while the snails eat the green scum that grows on the glass. The other aquarium specimens may now be put in. One fish about three inches long to a gallon of water is about the right proportion. When there is a sufficient quantity of plant life to keep the water properly oxygenated and enough animal life to supply the carbon dioxide necessary to keep the plants growing well, the aquarium is said to be _balanced_. The balanced aquarium does not require that the water be changed more often than once in two months. Too much direct sunlight causes too rapid growth of green slime, hence the aquarium should not be set in a window. Close to a window through which the sun shines upon it for an hour or longer each day is the best position. Do not supply more food to the animals in the aquarium than they can eat up clean. Crayfish, perch, trout, and other freshwater fishes are destructive of insect larvæ and other aquarium specimens, hence care must be taken in selecting the specimens that are put together into an aquarium. Suitable animals for the aquarium: mosquito larvæ, dragon-fly larvæ, caddice-fly larvæ, crayfish, clam, water snails, tadpoles, fish, frog, turtle. AQUARIUM SPECIMENS MOSQUITO Time.--May or June. ~Questions and Observations.~--At what time of the year are mosquitoes most plentiful? In what localities are they most plentiful? Why are they most plentiful in these places? Are mosquitoes ever seen during fall or winter? How do you account for their rapid increase in number early in summer? How do mosquitoes find their victims? Observe the humming noise and try to discover how it is made. Watch a mosquito as it draws blood from your hand. Does the point of the beak pierce the skin? Capture a number of mosquitoes and place them in a jar containing some water and a few straws or sticks standing upright out of the water. Cover the mouth of the jar with a glass plate or fine gauze. Watch for the rafts of mosquitoes' eggs on the surface of the water. The eggs may also be found on the surface of ponds or open rain barrels, and may be transferred to water in a jar in the laboratory. STUDY OF THE ADULT FORM Note the shape, colour, sucking tube, wings, and legs. Compare with the house-fly. Distinguish the male insect from the female; the former has feathery feelers, and has mouth parts unsuited for biting. How many kinds of mosquitoes have you seen? Direct attention to the kind which causes the spread of malaria. It is recognized by its habit of standing with its body pointing at right angles to the surface on which its feet are placed or, in other words, it appears to stand on its head. THE DEVELOPMENT Describe the egg raft. Observe the wigglers (hatched in about a day); the divisions of the body of the wigglers; position of the wigglers when at rest. Observe that the tail end is upward. Lead the pupils to perceive that this is the means of getting air. Observe the rapid movement toward the bottom when disturbed; the means of causing this movement; the change into the large-headed pupæ--a change which takes place about ten days after hatching; the almost motionless character of the pupæ; the change from the pupæ forms into the adult--a change which takes place at about the fourth day of pupæ life. Put some mosquito larvæ (wigglers) into the fish aquarium. Are mosquitoes of any use? The wigglers are the food on which some young fishes live. Young bass and trout feed upon them. Put some kerosene on the surface of a jar in which there are mosquito larvæ. Describe a method of destroying mosquitoes. The teacher tells about the mosquito as the cause of the spread of malaria. From the fact that the eggs hatch on stagnant water, deduce a benefit arising from the draining of land. REFERENCES Silcox and Stevenson: _Modern Nature Study_ Hodge: _Nature Study and Life_ CADDICE-FLY Time: May. The caddice-flies are very interesting insects, owing to the habits of the larvæ of building little cases of wood, stones, or shells, in which they pass their development stages under water. These larvæ are easily found during the month of May in little streams of water everywhere throughout the Province. Look for what at first sight appears to be a bit of twig or a cylinder of stone about an inch long moving along the bottom as though carried by currents. Closer observation will result in the discovery that this is a little case composed of grains, of bits of stick, or of sand and tiny shells, and the head of the occupant may be seen projecting from one end. Collect some of these larvæ in a jar of water and transfer them to the aquarium. Direct the pupils to look for others in the streams, so that they may observe their appearances and movements in their natural environment. If kept in jars, the water must be changed every day, and the top should be covered to prevent the escape of the adults. ~Observe.~--The shape of the various kinds of cases; the materials, and how fastened together (chiefly by silk); the part of the larva that protrudes from the case; the movement, and how caused; the fitness of the case as a protection. Note hardness, colour, and shape as protective features. The pupils will be fortunate if they observe the sudden rise of the larva to the surface of the water and the almost instantaneous change into the four-winged fly. INSECTS SUITABLE FOR LESSONS IN FORM II Walking-stick insect, katydid, cricket, mole-cricket, clothes-moth, giant water-bug, potato beetle, click-beetle, luna moth, and swallow-tail butterfly. CHAPTER IX FORM III AUTUMN GARDEN WORK The pupils in this Form should be able to do all of the work required of them in the garden without assistance. They should aim at intensive and thorough cultivation and, in the autumn, when the plants of their gardens ripen, these should be removed and the soil carefully spaded. They should continue the work of selecting the seed from the best flowers, as indicated in the work for Form II, and should grow some seed from vegetables and perennials seen to be particularly good. Boys in this Form may also wish to do some gardening for profit. In some cases where there is plenty of space, this may be carried on in a part of the school garden set aside for that purpose. Usually, however, it will be found most convenient to carry it on in the home garden. Best varieties for local markets should then be grown and attention given to the proper time and manner of marketing or storing for a later market. Cool, well-ventilated cellars are best for most fruits and vegetables. TREATMENT OF FUNGI During the summer and early autumn months attention should be given to the spraying of plants for blight and for injurious insects. The potato is commonly affected by a fungous disease which causes the stalks to blacken and die before the tubers have matured. This disease may be prevented in large measure by the use of a fungicide known as Bordeaux mixture. This may be prepared as follows: Take one pound of copper sulphate (blue vitriol); make it fine by pounding it in a bag or cloth and then dissolve it in water, using a wooden pail. It dissolves rapidly if put in a little cheese-cloth sack, which is suspended near the top of the pail by putting a stick across the pail and tying the sack of copper sulphate to it. Dilute this solution to five gallons. Take also a pound of unslaked or quick-lime and add a cupful of water to it. When it begins to swell up and get hot, add more water slowly, and, when the action ceases, dilute to five gallons. Mix these two solutions together in a tub or barrel, and churn them up, or stir them together vigorously. They give a deep robin's-egg-blue mixture, which is slightly alkaline and should be used at once. The solutions can be kept separate as stock solutions throughout the summer and then diluted and mixed whenever needed. Care should be observed in not mixing the solutions before each has been diluted to the strength, one pound to five gallons. A piece of blue litmus paper will be convenient to prove that the mixture is alkaline. If alkaline, as it should be, the paper remains blue when dipped in it. If the mixture turns the litmus paper red, it must have more lime-water added to make it alkaline. The potato tops should be thoroughly sprayed with this mixture when about ten inches high and then once every two weeks, until they have been treated three or four times. This is to prevent blight and not to kill bugs. If the potato-beetle is troubling the potatoes, add paris-green to the Bordeaux mixture--a teaspoonful to every two gallons. To prove the value of this treatment have a trial plot of potatoes which receive all attention save spraying with Bordeaux mixture. If a heavy rain should follow the spraying, it should be repeated. Potato-scab may be prevented to a large degree by soaking the tubers before cutting for planting in a solution of formalin (a 40-per cent. solution of formaldehyde) one-half pint to fifteen gallons of water. Seed grain is frequently treated this way before sowing, to destroy smut spores. A pound of formalin is put in forty gallons of water in a large barrel. A bag full of the grain to be treated is set in the barrel of formalin mixture for about two hours and then taken and dried on a floor that has been previously washed with water containing formalin. A solution of copper sulphate (bluestone), one pound in twenty gallons of water is sometimes used. The grain is left in this solution for twelve hours and then dried for sowing. All bags and utensils should also be disinfected with this formalin solution. TREATMENT OF INSECTS In order to poison insects successfully, it is necessary to determine how the insect feeds. If it is a biting insect, that is one that eats the leaf, such as the potato beetle, paris-green should be used. Paris-green sometimes burns the tender leaves. This may be prevented by adding a tablespoonful of lime to each pail of water used. It may also be used dry with flour or dust. If the insect feeds by sucking the juices from the leaf, as is the case with plant-lice, then a solution that kills by contact must be used, such as whale-oil soap, one ounce to a quart of water. Tobacco-water is sometimes mixed with the soap solution as follows: Four pounds of tobacco-waste is steeped in nine gallons of hot water for five hours; this is then strained, and to the tobacco-water one pound of whale-oil soap dissolved in one gallon of hot water is added and mixed thoroughly. Kerosene emulsion, which is made as follows, is very destructive to plant-lice and scale insects: Dissolve a quarter of a pound of common laundry soap in half a gallon of rain-water and, while hot, mix with one gallon of coal-oil and churn vigorously for five minutes to get a smooth, creamy mixture. On cooling, it thickens and is diluted before using by adding nine quarts of warm water to one quart of the emulsion. Use smaller quantities in correct proportions when only a few plants are to be treated. CABBAGE-WORM The larvæ of the cabbage-butterfly sometimes do a great deal of harm by eating the cabbage leaves. It will not do to use paris-green on cabbage, as the leaves are for eating. Instead, use pyrethrum or insect powder, which may be diluted by mixing with cheap flour--one ounce of insect powder to five of flour. Mix thoroughly and leave in a closed tin over night. Dust the mixture on the leaves from a cheese-cloth bag by tapping with a small stick or from a dusting-pan. If used while the dew is on the leaves, it sticks better. Insect powder is not poisonous to man as is paris-green, and so may be used freely on cabbage or other similar plants. PLANTS ANNUALS, BIENNIALS, AND PERENNIALS CLASS-ROOM LESSON By means of questions based upon the pupils' knowledge of a few common annuals, such as the oat, sweet-pea, and garden aster, develop the following points: 1. These plants are always grown from seeds. 2. These plants produce flowers and ripe seeds during one season's growth. 3. These plants wither and die in the autumn. Plants having these characteristics are called _annuals_. The teacher explains the meaning of the word and requires the pupils to name a few other annuals. In a similar way, discuss a few common types of _biennials_, such as turnip, cabbage, hollyhock, and develop the following points: 1. These plants produce no flowers and seeds during the first year of their life. 2. These plants, during the first year, lay up a store of food in roots, leaves, or stems. 3. The food is used in the second year of the plant's life to nourish the flowers and seeds. A biennial should be grown for two years in the school garden to furnish material for concrete study. In a similar way discuss a few common types of _perennials_, such as rhubarb, dahlia, apple tree, and develop the following points: 1. These plants may or may not produce seeds during the first year's growth. 2. Some of these plants are herbs, but most of them are trees and shrubs. 3. Food is stored in roots or stems to provide for early spring growth. 4. These plants live on from year to year. GARDEN STUDIES ANNUALS ~Observations.~--Some plants, such as poppy and candy-tuft, are early blooming, while others, such as aster and cosmos, bloom in late summer, hence a selection should be made that will yield a succession of bloom throughout the season. Some are hardy annuals which can be grown from open planting, even when the weather is cold. These often seed themselves; for example, sweet-pea, morning-glory, phlox, poppy, sweet-alyssum. Some are half-hardy annuals, such as asters, balsams, stocks, and nasturtiums. These must be started indoors or in hotbeds, or if in plots, not until the soil is quite warm. The heights of annuals vary, and consequently they must be arranged in the bed in such a way that tall plants will not shade the short ones. BIENNIALS ~Observations.~--During the first year food is stored in the root of the turnip, carrot, parsnip, and beet, in the leaves of the cabbage, and in the stem of the hollyhock. Flowers and seeds are produced during the second year, and the storehouse becomes empty, dry, and woody. Preparation for winter is therefore, in the case of biennials, preparation for a renewal of growth the following spring. PERENNIALS ~Observations.~--The highest forms of plant life are found in this class; namely, the strong, large, hardy trees and shrubs. The herbaceous perennials are equipped with underground parts that act as storehouses of food to ensure the growth of the plant through successive seasons. Examples: the roots of dahlia, rhubarb, dandelion, and chicory; the underground stems of potato, onion, tulip, scutch-grass, Canada thistle, etc. Many of the wild flowers that bloom in early spring belong to this class, and their rapid growth then is made possible by the store of food in the underground parts. Examples: trillium, bloodroot, squirrel-corn, Indian turnip, Solomon's seal, etc. SPECIAL STUDY OF GARDEN PLANTS A few plants should be selected for special study, and the following are recommended: annuals--sweet-pea, pumpkin, and corn; biennials--cabbage, parsnip, and carrot; perennials--dahlia, rhubarb, and couch-grass. It is desirable that the observations be made upon the plants in the garden, but they may be conducted in the class-room upon specimens brought into the room by the pupils. SWEET-PEA Examine the stem of the sweet-pea and describe its form, its uniform slender structure, and the fact that it climbs. Find out just how it climbs. The pupils will observe the tendrils, which are extensions of the midribs of the leaves. Describe the leaves, noting what is meant by calling them _compound_. Observe the position of the flower, its colours, odour, size, and form. What insect does it resemble in shape? What different features of the flower enable it to attract attention? The names and uses of the floral organs may be taught to this class. For example: Pupils find the green blanket that protects the bud. This is the _calyx_. The beautiful, attractive part is the _corolla_. The parts that produce the pollen are called _stamens_. The case that holds the seeds is the _pistil_. Examine flowers of different ages and trace the change from the minute pistil to the pod. Study, comparatively, the flowers of the field-pea, bean, or wild vetch. Select a few of the finest blossoms of the sweet-pea and put tags on them while they are still in bloom. When they ripen, collect the seeds and preserve them for spring planting. Conduct observation lessons on the pumpkin and corn, in which the pupils will discover such facts as those given below. PUMPKIN Notice the method of growth--the stem no stronger than that of the sweet-pea, but lying flat on the ground. Notice the little roots sent out here and there where the stem touches the ground. This gives extra nourishment. The leaves are not numerous and grow only in one direction, but are very large--entirely too large to be borne upon an upright stem. Notice the large funnel-like flowers and that not all of them set fruit. Examine the flowers. Some of them have stamens for producing pollen, but no pistil. These never produce fruit, for pumpkins are simply enlarged and ripened pistils. Look for insects and examine them to find out whether they are carrying pollen. Notice younger pumpkins and even blossoms toward the end of the vine. Pick all the blossoms and small pumpkins off a vine, leaving only one of the best growing pumpkins. See whether this one grows larger than one of equal age on a vine having young pumpkins developing on it. Notice the arrangement of the seeds inside a ripe pumpkin. Collect some seeds, wash clean, and dry for spring planting. It is desirable to plant pumpkins late in May, so that they will have flowers on their vines as late as September. Study the flowers of the cucumber and compare them with those of the pumpkin. CORN This plant is native to America, was greatly prized by the aborigines, and even worshipped by some of them. Note the upright character of the plant and how the stalk is divided into sections by the joints, or nodes. Count these joints and also the leaves, and note the relationship of leaves and joints in the stalk, and how the leaves come off in different directions so as not to shade each other. Note the strong, stringy threads in the leaf, which give strength to the leaf as well as circulation of sap. They are strong and elastic, allowing of movement. The same strengthening fibres are seen in the stalk when it is broken across. In the stalk these fibres are arranged in a tubular form, as this gives greatest strength, the centre being soft and weak. The stalks are largest near the base, where the greatest stiffness is required. The nodes are also closer together here for strength. The stem is made much stronger by the bases of the leaves being wrapped so firmly around for a distance above the point of attachment at the node. Notice the close-fitting sheath or rain-guard, where the blade of the leaf leaves the stalk. This prevents rain soaking down inside the leaf sheath, but lets it run down the outside to the root where it is needed. As the plant gets older and taller, new roots come out from the node next above the root and sometimes from the second node above. These prop-roots are needed for support as the stalk lengthens, and they also reinforce the feeding capacity. Note the appearance of little cobs in the axils of the leaves. As soon as the silk appears, take a cob off and open it carefully. The little cob, which corresponds to the pistil in other plants, is covered with small and undeveloped kernels, and to each kernel one of the strands of so-called silk is attached. Whilst this little cob is forming, a bunch, or tassel, of flowers is forming on the top of the corn plant. Open one of these flowers and find the stamens with pollen-grains inside. This pollen, when shed, falls upon the silk, and each grain sends a tiny tube down inside the silk to the delicate ovules on the cob, fertilizing them and starting them to develop. The silk then withers. The wind carries this pollen. Find out how the silk is fitted for catching the pollen. What is the need for the great quantity of pollen that the plant produces? Strip off the husks and compare the tough, hard husks that are found on the outside with the soft paper-like husks found close to the cob. Show how each kind is fitted for its particular work. Pupils make experiments in the corn plot to find: 1. Whether the corn grows faster: (1) When the soil is kept mellow or when the soil is hard; (2) When the days are warm or when they are cool; (3) When the nights are cool or when they are warm. 2. The effect of growing black corn and golden corn in the same or in adjoining plots. Account for the result. CORRELATIONS Art: Clay-modelling and drawing exercises on the whole plant, and also upon the ear. Literature: Interpretation and reading of "Blessing the Corn-fields", from _Hiawatha_. History: The name Indian corn originated in the early colonial days of the Eastern and Central States, when the pioneers obtained corn from the Indians. The Indians showed the settlers how to kill the trees by girdling and how to plant the corn among the standing trunks, and thus have corn ready for roasting by August, and for grinding into meal or for boiling to make hominy by September. SEED DISPERSAL The lessons on seed dispersal which were begun in Form I should be continued in this Form. I. LESSON Select a few weeds belonging to species which produce large numbers of seeds, such as wild mustard, white cockle, false-flax, etc. Distribute the seed pods among the pupils of the class and require them to estimate the number of seeds produced by each plant. By references to observations made in the garden, help the pupils to recall the bad results, both to parent plants and to young seedlings, of improper scattering of seeds, namely: 1. The excessive crowding and shading, which causes the plants to become weak. 2. Insufficient food and moisture for the large number of plants, which causes the plants to be small and worthless. Discuss how the crowding of cultivated plants is prevented and, in a general way, how nature provides for the scattering of seeds. The great work of the plant is the production and dispersal of its seeds. Ask the pupils to be on the alert to find examples of plants in which provision is made for the dispersal of the seeds, and to bring these plants to the class for the next lesson. DETAILED STUDY OF SEED DISPERSAL II. CLASS-ROOM LESSON Make use of the specimens gathered by the pupils and by the teacher for observing and classifying as follows: 1. Seeds that steal rides. Examples--burdock, blue burr, pitch-fork weed, barley, stick-tight, hound's tongue. 2. Seeds that are carried in edible fruits which have attractive colours, tastes, etc. Examples--apple, grape, cherry, rowan, hawthorn. 3. Seeds that are carried by the wind. Examples--dandelion, thistle, milkweed, maple, pine, elm. 4. Seeds that are scattered by being shot from bursting pods. Examples--violet, jewel-weed (touch-me-not), sweet-pea, witch-hazel. 5. Seeds that are scattered by plants which are rolled along by the wind. Examples--Russian thistle, tumble-mustard, tumble-grass. 6. Seeds that float. Very many seeds float, although not specially fitted for floating, and some, such as the cocoa-nut and water-lily, are especially adapted for dispersal by water. _To the teacher._--Require the pupils to observe the special structure that facilitates the dispersal of the seed. As an illustration, ask the pupils to find the seeds of the burdock and to describe what the burr is really like. They find that the burr is a little basket filled with seeds. The basket has many little hooks which catch on the hair of animals and, since these hooks turn inwards, they serve to hold the basket in such a position that all the seeds are not likely to drop out at one time. The pupils should also observe that these baskets are quite firmly attached to the parent plant until the seeds are ripe; after that the baskets break off the plant at the slightest pull. SEED COLLECTIONS During late summer and in the autumn the seeds of the weeds that have been identified by the pupils should be collected. Instruct the pupils to rub the ripened seed pods between the hands until the seeds are thrashed out, at the same time blowing away the chaff. The seeds are now placed in small phials or in small envelopes and these are carefully labelled. If possible, fill each phial so that there may be sufficient seed for use by all the members of the class in the lessons on seed description and identification which are to be taken during the winter months, when Nature Study material is less plentiful than it is in the summer and autumn. The phials or envelopes may be stored in a shallow box, or the phials may be mounted on a stout card. They may be attached to this card either by stout thread sewed through the card and passing around the phial, or by brass cleats, which may be obtained with the phials from dealers in Nature Study supplies. MAN AS A DISPERSER OF SEEDS Man as an agent in the dispersal of seeds should be made a topic for discussion. Obtain, through the pupils, samples of seed-grain, clover seed, timothy seed, turnip seed, etc. Ask the pupils to examine these and count the number of weed seeds found in each. The results will reveal a very common way in which the seeds of noxious weeds are introduced. Describe the introduction from Europe to the wheat-fields of the Prairie Provinces of such weeds as Russian thistle, false-flax, French-weed. The seeds of these weeds were carried in seed-grain, fodder for animals, and also in the hay and straw used by the immigrants as packing for their household goods. Careful farmers will not allow thrashing-machines, seed drills, fanning-mills, etc., to come from farms infested with noxious weeds to do work upon their farms, nor will they buy manure, straw, or hay that was produced on dirty farms. THE SUGAR MAPLE FIELD EXERCISES Select a convenient sugar maple as a type. Ask the pupils to observe and to describe the height of the tree, the height of the trunk below the branches, the shape and size of the crown, the diameter of the trunk, the colour of the bark, the markings on the bark, the number and direction of the branches, and the density of the foliage. Compare the density of the foliage with that of other kinds of trees. Require the pupils to make a crayon drawing of the tree. Examine the crop of grain produced near a shade tree. Compare the crop on the north side of the tree with that on the south side. Account for the difference. Is the crop around the tree inferior to that in the rest of the field? Find out how long the various sugar maple shade trees in the locality have been planted. Is it a tree of rapid or slow growth? Are these sugar maples infested with insects or attacked by fungi? Do these trees yield sap that is suitable for making maple syrup? Examine trees that have been tapped and find whether the old wounds become overgrown or cause decay. Find out all you can about the uses that are made of maple wood. _To the teacher._--The sugar maple is the most highly prized of our native trees for ornament and shade. It grows fairly rapidly and becomes a goodly-sized tree within twenty years after it is planted. The symmetrical dome-shaped crown and the dense foliage of restful dark green give to it a fine appearance. It is hardy and has few insect pests, and its value is enhanced by the abundant yield of rich sap. As a commercial tree it has few superiors; the wood is hard and durable and takes a high polish. It is used for flooring, furniture, boat building, for the wooden parts of machinery and tools, and for making shoe-pegs and shoe lasts. As fuel maple wood is surpassed only by hickory. MAPLE LEAVES CLASS-ROOM LESSON The pupils bring to the class leaves of the sugar maple. Each pupil is provided with a leaf and makes direct observations under the guidance of the teacher. ~Observations.~--Colour, dark green on the upper surface, lighter green on the lower surface. Surface smooth and shiny. Shape: star-shaped, broader than long. Lobes: usually five, often three; each lobe has usually two large teeth. Base has a heart-shaped notch; petiole long and slender, usually red. Veins are stiff and run out to the points of the teeth. Distribute leaves of the _red_ maple and ask the pupils to note the general resemblance. Next ask them to compare the leaves as to shape, texture, and teeth on the margin. Ask the pupils to find red maple trees and also to find maples with leaves that are different from those of the red maple and those of the sugar maple. Make a collection of maple leaves when they are in autumn colours. (See Collections, page 33, in General Method.) _To the teacher._--The leaves of the red maple are longer than broad, and are not so smooth and shiny as the leaves of the sugar maple. There are numerous "saw teeth" on the margins of the lobes. The silver maple, with leaves having silver-white under surfaces, is another common species. A lesson similar to that on leaf studies may be based on the fruits (keys) of the maples. The oak, ash, elm, beech, or birch may be taken up in lessons similar to those outlined for the study of the maple. CORRELATIONS With literature and reading: By interpreting "The Maple", _The Ontario Readers, Third Book_, page 179; With art: By sketching the tree and reproducing the autumn leaves in colour work. WEED STUDIES In every locality there are about a dozen weeds that are particularly troublesome, and the pupils of Form III should be taught to identify these and to understand the characteristics which make each weed persistent. To produce these results it will be necessary to have exercises such as the following: 1. The teacher exhibits a weed to the pupils and directs their attention to a few of the outstanding features of the plant. 2. The pupils are required, as a field exercise, to observe where the weed is abundant; and whether in hay field, pasture, hoe crop, or in grain. The pupils will bring specimens to the class. 3. Detailed study in the class of specimens of the weed brought by the pupils to find offensive odours and prickles, also the character of the leaves, flowers, seed pods, and seeds, including the means of dispersal; the underground parts, whether underground stem, tap-root, or fibrous root, and the value of the underground parts as a means of persistence. 4. The pupils make a collection of the weeds that have been studied. (See Plant Collection, page 39, in General Method.) 5. The pupils make collections of the seeds of the weeds that have been studied. OBSERVATION LESSON ON WEED SEEDS The seed of a weed should always be exhibited and studied in association with a fresh or a mounted specimen of the weed. Each pupil should use a hand lens in examining the seed. The pupils examine the seed of each species and describe it according to the following scheme: NAME OF SEED _Colour:_ _Size:_ (in fractions of an inch) _Shape:_ _Details:_ _Occurrence:_ The results of the pupils' study of the ox-eye daisy would then appear in the following form: SEED OF OX-EYE DAISY _Colour:_ Black and greenish-white in stripes, _Size:_ One sixteenth of an inch, _Shape:_ Club-shaped, _Details_: Grooved lengthwise, yellow peg in large end, _Occurrence:_ A common impurity in grass seed. GRASSHOPPER (Consult the Manual on _Suggestions for Teachers of Science_: Zoology, First year.) The ease with which this insect may be obtained in August or September, together with its fairly large size, makes it a suitable specimen for insect study. It is also a typical insect, so that a careful study serves as a basis for a knowledge of the class _insecta_. FIELD EXERCISES Problems to be assigned for outdoor observation: Locomotion by flying, leaping, walking; protective coloration and habit of "lying low"; its behaviour when caught; in what kinds of fields it is most plentiful; in what kinds of weather it is most active; its position on the grass or grain when feeding; the nature and extent of the damage done by it. Use a class period for discussion of the above. Confirm, correct, or incite to more careful observation. CLASS-ROOM LESSON (Studied as a typical insect) ~Observations.~--The three divisions of the body--head, thorax, abdomen; the segmental division of the two latter parts; the hard, protecting covering; the movements of the abdomen; the two large compound eyes and three small eyes; the feelers; the two pairs of mouth feelers; the cutting mandibles; the three pairs of legs (one pair for leaping) and two pairs of wings on the thorax; the breathing pores, the ears, ovipositors of the female. The young grasshoppers may be found in spring or early summer, and a few even in late summer, among the grass of old meadows and pastures. They are easily recognized because of their general resemblance to the adult and are in the stage of development called the _nymph_ phase. Note the hairy body and the absence of wings. _To the teacher._--The moulting of the nymph is a very interesting process to observe and so is the laying of the eggs by the female in a burrow that she prepares in the soil. If females secured in July are kept in a jar having two inches of soil in the bottom, they will lay their eggs in the soil; the nests and eggs may then be taken up and examined. In order that we may not destroy our friends and helpers, it is expedient to know what creatures help to hold pests in check. The enemies of grasshoppers are birds and insect parasites. Under the wings of grasshoppers may frequently be found little red mites; these kill the grasshoppers to which they are attached. The blister-beetles lay their eggs in the grasshoppers' nests, and the larvæ of the beetles feed upon and destroy the eggs. The birds that are especially useful in destroying grasshoppers are the meadow-lark, crow, bobolink, quail, grasshopper sparrow. The curious hairlike worms known to the school boys as "hair snakes" because of the belief that they are parts of horse hairs turned into snakes, are worms that pass the early part of their life within the bodies of grasshoppers and, when the insects die, the worms escape and are washed by rains into troughs and ponds where their movements attract attention. Study the cricket and house-fly and compare the cricket with the grasshopper. APHIDES In September obtain leaves of sweet-pea, apple, rose bush, maple, oak, turnip, etc., on which the insects are feeding; also provide specimens of woolly aphides on the bark of apple trees or stems of goldenrod or alder. Observe the nature of the injury to the leaves and plants on which these insects feed. Do the insects bite the leaves or suck the juices? Give evidence in support of your answer. Sprinkle paris-green on the leaves; does this kill the insects? Why does it not? Spray the insects with a little oil, such as kerosene, or with water in which the stub of a cigar has been soaked; what is the effect? Insects that suck juices from inside the leaf escape the poisoning from solutions in the leaf surfaces; such insects are killed by oils which enter the breathing pores and cause poisoning. Search in the garden, orchard, and forest for plants attacked by aphides. Carefully observe the lady-birds that are frequently found where there are aphides. Lady-birds (also called lady-bugs), are small, spotted beetles, broad oval in form, of bright colours, red and black, or yellow and black, or black and white. They are of great service to the farmer and gardener because their foods consists largely of plant-lice (aphides). Watch the action of ants which are found among the aphides. The ants may be observed stroking the aphides with their feelers, causing the aphides to excrete a sweet fluid on which the ant feeds. Aphides are sometimes called ant-cows. Direct the attention of the pupils to the difference between the male and female aphides; the males have wings, but the females are wingless. TOMATO WORM THE ADULT The adult moth may be captured on spring evenings when the lilacs are in bloom, as it buzzes about among the lilac blossoms sucking their honey. It is frequently mistaken for the humming-bird when thus engaged. It may also be observed during the summer evenings laying its eggs on the leaves of tomato vines. Observe the worms that hatch from these eggs and note their rapid growth. Keep the larvæ in a box in the school-room and feed them on tomato leaves. Note their size and colour, the oblique stripes on the sides, the horn which is used for terrifying assailants, the habit of remaining rigid for hours--hence the name sphinx moth. The larvæ burrow into the ground in September to form the chrysalides, hence there should be soil in the vivarium in which they are kept. THE CHRYSALIS ~Observations.~--The shape, colour, nature of the covering, the long handle, the wing impressions, the segmental part, the emergence of the adult in May or early June. What organ of the insect was contained in the "handle" of the chrysalis? The adult is one of the handsomest of moths, because of its graceful, clear-cut shape and the variegated grays and yellows of its dress. Look on poplar, cotton-wood, plum, and pine trees, and on tobacco plants for relatives of the tomato worm, the large green larvæ whose chrysalis and adult forms resemble those of the tomato worm. THE CROW Crows are so plentiful that there will be no difficulty in making observations on the living birds in the free state in spring or summer. (As the crow is a bird that is easily tamed, it may be possible to have a tame crow in the class-room for more careful study of the details of structure.) ~Observations.~--Describe its attitude when perched, movements of the wings in flight, speed of flight. Why does the crow perch high up in trees? What gives to the crow its swift flight? Study the various calls of the crow and note the alarm, threat, summons, and expression of fear. Find the nest and note its position, size, build, materials, eggs, and young. How is the nest concealed? What makes it strong? Are crows often seen on the ground? Do they walk or hop? Observe and report on the crow's habits of feeding. It eats corn, potatoes, oats, beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, cutworms, and occasionally birds' eggs or young birds. Why do king-birds chase and thrash the crow? Are scarecrows effective in keeping crows off the grain fields? Note the sentinels that are on the watch to warn other crows of danger. Give reasons for the belief that the crow is a wise bird. Give reasons for regarding the crow as a neighbour of doubtful character. Give reasons why crows should be protected. NOTE.--Crows will not pull up corn and seed that has been covered with coal-tar before it is planted. In addition to the animals already named, the musk-rat, raccoon, fox, flying-squirrel, robin, wren, and king-bird will be found convenient for study in many localities. The swimming of the musk-rat, and how its shape, fur, feet, and tail fit it for a life in water are topics suitable for observational exercises, as are also its food, its winter home, and the burrows leading from the water into the banks. In the case of the winter home, the location, the structure, the submerged entrance, the living-room, and the surrounding moat, are topics of interest. CORRELATIONS With literature: By reading animal stories, such as, _The Kindred of the Wild_ and "Red Fox," by Charles G. D. Roberts; and _Wild Animals I Have Known_, by Ernest Thompson-Seton. With language: By oral and written descriptions of the animals that have been observed. CHAPTER X FORM III WINTER CARE OF PLANTS IN THE HOME The care of flowering bulbs which was begun in Form I will be continued in Form II. The growing of new plants from cuttings will now be taken up. In those schools which are kept continuously heated, potted plants may be kept throughout the year. The pupils will come to appreciate the plant's needs and learn how to meet them in the supply of good soil, water, and sunlight. The following points should be observed: 1. Good potting soil can be made by building up alternating layers of sods and stable manure and allowing this compost to stand until thoroughly rotted. A little sharp sand mixed with this forms an excellent soil for most house plants. 2. Thorough watering twice a week is better than adding a little water every day. 3. The leaves should be showered with water once a week to cleanse them from dust. 4. An ounce of whale-oil soap dissolved in a quart of water may be used to destroy plant-lice. Common soap-suds may also be used for this purpose, but care should be taken to rinse the plants in clean water after using a soap wash. 5. Most plants need some direct sunlight every day if possible, although most of the ferns grow without it. 6. Plants usually need re-potting once a year. Many kinds may be set out-of-doors in flower beds in May and left until September, when they may be taken up and placed in pots, or cuttings made from them for potting. 7. A flower exhibition at the school once or twice a year, or at a local exhibition, adds to the interest. 8. The pupils should report to the teacher from time to time the progress of their plants and make many drawings showing their development. PLANT CUTTINGS The pupils will be interested to know that it is possible to produce new plants without waiting for them to grow up from the seed. It will indeed be quite a surprise to them to see a new plant complete in all its parts grow up from a small piece of stem, root, or even leaf. With a little care even children may propagate plants in this way. SELECTION OF CUTTINGS Begin with some of the common herbaceous bedding-plants, such as geranium, coleus, or fuschia. These are such common bedding-plants that they are easily obtained in the autumn. Only well-matured stems of the season's growth, such as will break with a slight snap when bent, should be used. Let the pupils provide themselves with sharp knives for the lesson, with small boxes or pots, and with some moist, clean sand--not potting soil. A few holes should be bored in the bottom of the box, then a layer of fine gravel put in to provide for good drainage, and over it layers of moist sand. Take a slip or growing end of a stem about three inches in length, always cutting it at or just below a node, or joint, and leaving only a couple of small leaves on the top of the slip. Insert it to about half its depth in the box of moist sand. These cuttings may be placed a few inches apart in the box, which should then be placed in a warm, light room for a few weeks until the roots develop. The cuttings should be partly shaded by papers from the strong sunlight, and the sand kept slightly moist but not wet. Bottom heat and a moist, warm atmosphere hasten their development. Another very convenient and very successful method of starting cuttings is to take a six-inch flower-pot, put two inches of fine gravel in the bottom, set a four-inch unglazed flower-pot in the centre, and fill up the space around it with sand and garden-loam, mixed. Put a cork in the hole in the bottom of the small flower-pot, and then fill it with water. Put the cuttings around in the space between the two pots and set in a fairly warm room in moderate light. POTTING OF ROOTED CUTTINGS When the cuttings are well rooted, which requires from three to six weeks according to the variety and growth conditions furnished, they should be carefully lifted with a trowel and each set in a small pot or can. First put in the bottom a few small stones to secure drainage, and then a little good potting soil. Set the plant in place and fill in around with more soil and pack this firmly around the roots. Keep room in the top of the pot for water. When the new plant has made some growth, it may be shifted to a larger pot. Geraniums and coleus (foliage plants) should not be kept more than two seasons. Take cuttings off the old plants and then throw the latter away. EVERGREENS In December make a study of Canadian evergreens, choosing spruce, balsam, and cedar, if available, or substitute hemlock for any one of these. Compare the general features of these trees, such as shape, direction of branches, colour, persistence of leaves through the winter. Have the pupils notice how nature fits these trees to endure the snows and storms of winter by: 1. The tapering cone which causes the snow to slide off the tree. 2. The fine, needle-shaped leaves to which only very sticky snow will adhere. 3. The very tough, flexible, and elastic branches, which bend in the wind and under the weight of snow, but spring back to their old positions. 4. The resin in leaves, stems, and buds, which enables the trees to resist frost and rain. Teach the pupils to distinguish these trees by their differences in colour and form and also by the differences in their leaves and cones. CLASS-ROOM LESSON Distribute small twigs of balsam and require the pupils to observe and describe the length, shape, and colour of the leaves. Next distribute small twigs of spruce and require the pupils to compare the spruce leaves with those of the balsam in length, shape, and colour. Next distribute twigs of cedar and proceed similarly. The cones may be dealt with in a similar manner. Require the pupils to make a census of the evergreens of the locality, recording the class of evergreen, the size, and the use of each kind for shade, ornament, or for commercial purposes. _To the teacher._--The balsam, spruce, and hemlock are difficult for the beginner to distinguish, but this may be done by noting the following points of difference in their leaves: The leaf of the hemlock is the only one that has a distinct leaf-stalk. Look for this tiny stalk. The leaf of the hemlock, like that of the balsam, is flat, but the hemlock leaf is much the shorter. The leaf of the spruce is not flat, but is three-sided or nearly so. Its colour is uniform, while the under surface of the hemlock leaf, and also of the balsam leaf, is of a decidedly lighter colour than the upper surface. Note that the spruce _type_ is studied; no attempt is made at this stage to differentiate the several species of spruce. COLLECTION OF WOOD SPECIMENS During the winter months the boys may prepare specimens of wood for the school collection. These specimens should be cut when green, and dried afterwards. They should be uniform in length--not more than six inches--and should show the bark on one side. The side showing the bark should be two inches wide at most, six inches long, and running in a V-shaped, radial section toward the pith. A tangential section also shows well the rounded layers. A piece of slab as cut lengthwise off a round stick is tangential. Care should be taken not to mutilate trees in taking these specimens. Specimens of rare or foreign woods may be obtained at wood-working factories. RELATED READING Winter is Nature's quiescent period. Continuous active observation in the out-of-doors among the plants of the forest and garden gives place for a time to indoor work and reflection. Pupils need time for reading and reflection, and no time is so opportune as the quiet winter season. During these months some time should be devoted to the reading of nature stories and extracts from magazines and books dealing with plant as well as with animal life. Pupils should review their gardening experiences and discuss plans of improvement for the approaching spring and summer. Let them write letters to the Form II pupils of other schools where similar work has been carried on, and give some of their experiences in gardening and other plant studies, and also in animal studies. A certain Friday afternoon might be appointed for hearing the letters read which were received in reply. Suitable short poems that have a direct bearing upon the outdoor studies should be read from time to time. Good pictures also come in here as an aid in helping the pupils to appreciate written descriptions. The first-hand observations made by them will form a basis for the better and more appreciative interpretation of these literature selections. For Observation Lesson on Weed Seeds, see page 171. HOW ANIMALS PREPARE FOR WINTER ~Introduction.~--Discuss the preparations that people make for winter, such as the storing of food and the providing of warmer clothes and homes. ~Method.~--The teacher questions the pupils and encourages them to tell what they have learned through their own observation of animals. The knowledge of the pupils is supplemented by information given by the teacher, but the pupils are left to find out more facts by further observations. Thus: Do you ever see ground-hogs out during winter? What do they feed upon during the winter? What is the condition of ground-hogs in late summer and in autumn? What is the use of the great store of fat that they have in their bodies? Examine the snow near the burrows of ground-hogs and find whether they ever come out in mid-winter. _To the teacher._--The hibernating animals prepare a home or nest and lay up a store of food in the form of fat within their bodies. To hibernate does not mean the same as to sleep. The hibernating animals have much less active organs than the sleeping animals. The heart-beat and the respiratory movements are very slow and feeble, consequently a very little nourishment suffices to sustain life. SUMMARY OF LESSONS (Two lessons of twenty minutes) 1. Some animals migrate: Examples--many birds, butterflies, and some bats; the cariboo, and buffalo. 2. Some animals hibernate: Examples--bear, ground-hog, raccoon, frogs, toads, snakes, and some bats. NOTE.--Flies, mosquitoes, and some other insects crawl into crevices and remain at rest during winter, but their bodies are not stored with food. 3. Some animals build houses and store foods: Examples--beaver, squirrel, chipmunk, honey-bee, deer-mouse. 4. Some animals build homes convenient to food: Examples--musk-rat, field-mouse. 5. Some animals put on warmer clothing: Examples--fox, mink, otter, rabbit, horse, cow, partridge, chickadee. The rabbit and weasel turn white, a colour protection. 6. Many insect larvæ form cocoons or pupæ cases: Examples--emperor-moth, codling moth, tomato worm. CORRELATIONS With literature, reading, and language. With geography: By a lesson on "The influence of climate upon animal and plant life." CHICKENS (Consult _Principles and Practice of Poultry Culture_ by Robinson. Ginn & Co., $2.00.) CONVERSATION LESSON How many of you keep chickens at your homes? Why do many kinds of people keep chickens? What breeds of chickens do you keep? How many other breeds do you know? Describe the appearance of a few of the commoner breeds. Why are there so many different breeds? Name those that are good laying breeds. Name breeds that are not usually considered good laying breeds. _To the teacher._--Chickens are kept by all classes of people. Many keep them for the profit in eggs and meat, others keep them as a fad, and others to gratify a craving for animal companionship. There are one hundred and seventy-five recognized breeds, varying in size from that of the Japanese bantam weighing ten ounces to that of the huge Brahma which weighs fourteen pounds. The shapes and colours present as great a variation as the sizes. The breeds that are usually regarded as good layers are White Leghorn, Barred Bock, and Rhode Island Red, while the Game breeds are usually regarded as poor layers. Careful tests prove, however, that there are good laying and poor laying strains in every breed, and care must be taken to select from good strains, since the breed is not a sufficient guide. At the close of the first lesson, assign to the pupils the task of making a chicken census of the district as follows: 1. Request each pupil to count the number of hens under two years old at his home and also to count the hens that are more than two years old. 2. Request each pupil to find out, if possible, the number of eggs obtained at his home during the whole year. ARITHMETIC LESSON BASED ON THE CHICKEN CENSUS 1. Using the data collected by the pupils, calculate the total number of chickens under two years old in the district. Calculate the number over two years old. (The latter are classed as unprofitable.) 2. Using the data obtained by the pupils (provided sufficient data was obtained to make it reasonably reliable), calculate the average number of eggs laid a year by each hen. 3. If the data collected by the pupils as to the number of eggs is thought to be unreliable, make use of the following: The average number of eggs laid each year by each hen in Ontario is seven dozen. Use this average number, and: (1) Calculate the value of the eggs produced in this district in a year, the average price of eggs being twenty cents a dozen. (2) If the average production of eggs were increased to ten dozen (a number that is easily possible under improved management), find the value of the eggs that would be produced in a year, and find the gain that would result from this better management. 4. If it costs ninety cents a year to feed a hen, find the net annual profit to this district from the egg production. CARE OF CHICKENS The method of developing conceptions of how to take proper care of chickens is based partly upon the pupils' experiences and partly upon a knowledge of the history of the original wild hens. Information can be gathered from the pupils as to the date of hatching of the earliest chickens and the date at which the pullets begin to lay. Chickens that are hatched in April begin to lay in November or December and lay throughout the winter when eggs bring the highest price. The original wild hens lived in the dry, grassy, and shrubby jungles of India. They were free to move about in the open air, and at night they perched in the trees, which sheltered them from rain. Hence may be inferred what kind of quarters should be provided for chickens. CARE AND FOOD OF CHICKENS Points developed Chickens must have plenty of fresh air without draughts. Heat is not necessary. Their quarters must be dry, clean, and well lighted. They require exercise. Their food must have in it the materials that are needed to make the substance of the egg. Breakfast: Wheat or corn scattered among straw--the scratching affords exercise. Dinner: Meat scraps, slaughter-house refuse, vegetables, sour milk, and rolled oats. Supper: As at breakfast. PHYSICAL SCIENCE PHASE OF NATURE STUDY The teacher is advised to read carefully the instructions and General Method of Experimental Science, Chapter I, before beginning the lessons in Physical Science. SOLIDS, LIQUIDS, AND GASES Arrange a collection of objects of various shapes, sizes, colours, and weights, as cork, glass, lead, iron, copper, stone, coal, chalk. Show that these are alike in one respect, namely, that they have a shape not easily changed, that is, they are _solids_. Compare these solids with such substances as water, alcohol, oil, molasses, mercury, milk, tar, honey, glycerine, gasolene. These latter will pour, and depend for their shape on the containing vessel. They are _liquids_. Compare air with solids and liquids. Such a material as air is called a _gas_. Other examples of illuminating gas, and dentists' "gas"; others will be studied in future lessons. Pupils may think all gases are invisible. To show that some are not, put a few pieces of copper in a test-tube or tumbler and add a little nitric acid. Watch the brown gas fall through the air; note how it spreads in all directions. Some gases fall because they are heavier than air; others rise because lighter. All gases spread out as soon as liberated and try to fill all the available space. Spill a little ammonia and note how soon the odour of the gas is smelled in all parts of the room. CHANGE OF STATE Heat some lead or solder in a spoon till liquid. Let it cool. Do the same with wax. Heat some water in a flask till it becomes steam. Steam is a gas. Cool the steam and form water again. (See distillation.) Refer to lava (melted rock), moulding iron, melting ice and snow, softening of butter. All solids may be changed to liquids and even to gases if sufficiently heated. Likewise all gases may be changed into liquids and then to solids. EXPANSION OF SOLIDS In winter pupils may find that the ink is frozen. The teacher directs attention to this and inquires why it has occurred. It may be that in a lesson on rocks the teacher will ask the pupils to account for all the little stones. The following _experiments_ will aim at solving the foregoing problems: 1. A brass ball and ring are shown. Pupils handle these and note that both are cold and that the ball just passes through the ring. They are asked to compare the size of the ball with that of the ring. 2. The spirit-lamp is lighted and examined. Pupils hold their hands over the flame to note the heat. 3. The ball is heated in the flame for a short time by one of the pupils, and felt cautiously. An attempt is made to pass it through the ring. How has the ball changed in feeling? In size? How does one know it is larger? What has caused these changes? 4. Cool the ball. Feel it. Try to pass it through the ring now. How has it changed in feeling? In size? What caused these changes? How does heat affect the ball? How does cold affect it? The teacher may now give the words _expand_ and _contract_, writing them on the black-board and explaining their use. Pupils may then state their conclusions: _A brass ball expands when heated and contracts when cooled._ A blacksmith can make the following very serviceable apparatus: A scrap of iron about eleven inches long, one inch wide, and one-eighth inch thick, has one inch bent up at each end. A rod one-eighth inch in diameter is made just long enough to pass between the upturned ends of the first piece when both are cold. The rod is heated and the experiment conducted as in the case of the ball. Two additional facts are learned: (1) Iron expands as well as brass; (2) solids expand in length as well as in volume. The pupils may now be told that other solids have been tried and expansion has invariably followed heating. The conclusion may then be made general. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 1. When your ink-bottle was placed on the stove, which end became warmer? Which expanded the more. Why then did it crack? 2. What other examples like this have you noticed? (Lamp chimneys, fruit jars, stove plates) 3. The earth was once very hot and is now cooling. How is the size of the earth changing? Does it ever crack? What causes earthquakes? 4. Find out by observation how a blacksmith sets tires. 5. Invent a way to loosen a glass stopper stuck in the neck of a bottle. 6. What does your mother do if the metal rim refuses to come off the fruit jar? 7. Next time you cross a railway, notice whether the ends of the rails touch. Explain. 8. What allowance is made for contraction in a wire fence? A railway bridge? Why? 9. Why do the stove-pipes crack when the fire is first started? 10. Why does the house go "thump" on a very cold night? 11. Draw the ball, ring, and spirit-lamp in position. 12. Describe in writing the experiments we have made. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION You have seen that iron and brass both expand. Do they expand equally? Let pupils have a few days to invent a way of answering the question. The experiment may then be tried with the compound bar. See _The Ontario High School Physics_, pages 217-218, also _First Course in Physics_, Milliken and Gale, page 144. If the equipment of the school is limited, it may be necessary to dispense with the ball and ring and generalize from one experiment. Another easily made apparatus consists of two iron rings with handles. One ring will just pass through the other when both are cold. The stove may take the place of the spirit-lamp. A still simpler plan consists in driving two nails into a block at such a distance apart that an iron rod (six-inch nail, poker, bolt, etc.) will just pass between. On heating the rod the increase in length becomes evident. EXPANSION OF LIQUIDS Fill a common bottle with coloured water; insert a rubber stopper through which passes a glass tube about sixteen inches long. Set the bottle in a pan of water and gradually warm the water. The rise of the liquid in the tube will indicate expansion. On setting the bottle in cold water the fall of the column of coloured water shows contraction. See _The Ontario High School Physics_, page 218, also _Science of Common Life_, page 48. Macmillan Co., 60 cents. Set the flask or bottle in a mixture of ice and salt and note that the extreme cold causes contraction for a while, then expansion. Note that when expansion begins, the water has not begun to freeze, but that it does so soon after. The night before this experiment the children should set out in the cold air, tightly corked bottles of water. In the morning they will be found burst by the expansion. APPLICATIONS 1. Why did some of the ink-bottles burst in the cold room? 2. Find large stones split up into two or more fragments. Explain. 3. Why is fall-ploughed land so mellow in spring? 4. Why does ice float? Think what would happen if it did not. 5. Explain the heaving of oats, clover, wheat. 6. Do all liquids expand on freezing? Try melted paraffin. THE THERMOMETER Besides the ordinary thermometer the school should possess a chemical thermometer graduated from 0° Fahrenheit to 212°. 1. Our sensations vary so much under different circumstances and in different individuals that they cannot be depended on. Find examples of this and show the need of a measuring instrument. 2. The pupils can learn, by examination of the common wall instrument, the parts of the thermometer--tube, bulb, liquid (alcohol or mercury), and scale. 3. Repeat the experiment for expansion of liquids, showing wherein the apparatus resembles the thermometer, warm the thermometer bulb and watch the column rise; cool it and note the fall. 4. Set the bulb of the chemical thermometer in boiling water. The mercury comes to rest near 212°. Bury the bulb in melting snow and notice that the column falls to 32°. Give names for these points. Explain that a degree is one of the 180 equal parts which lie between boiling point and freezing-point. Show that 32° below freezing must be 0°, or zero. 5. The uses of thermometers for indoors and outdoors; for dairy, sick room, incubator, and soils; maximum and minimum. Dairy thermometers registering 212° Fahrenheit may be obtained; they are cheaper than chemical thermometers. EXPANSION OF AIR Half fill a flask with water and invert it uncorked over water in a plate. Apply a cloth soaked in boiling water to the part that contains air. Why does the water leave the flask? Apply cold water. Why does the water return? Any ordinary bottle may be used in place of the flask, but it is more liable to crack. Make an air thermometer. See _The Ontario High School Physics_, page 223, also _Science of Common Life_, page 41. Try to graduate it from the mercurial thermometer. Have the boys make a stand for it. _Inferences._--Heated gases rise because they expand. Hot-air balloons, winds, and heating with hot-air furnaces, all depend on this principle. SOURCES OF HEAT AND LIGHT NOTES FOR A SERIES OF LESSONS 1. THE SUN.--Our dependence on it. Valuable results of its heat. Simple notions as to its size, distance, and nature. Our earth catches a very small fraction of the sun's heat; our sun is but one of millions--the fixed stars. Show the burning effect of a lens. 2. FUELS.--Wood, oil, coal, alcohol, gas, peat, straw: where obtained; special uses of each under varying conditions; need of economy. (This is closely related to geography.) 3. ELECTRICITY.--In urban schools use the electric light or some heating device for illustration. In rural schools a battery of two or three cells (see "Apparatus") will melt a fine strand drawn from a picture wire. Applications: ironing, toasting, cooking; advantages or disadvantages compared with gas or wood. 4. FRICTION.--Pupils rub hands together; rub a button on a cloth; saw a string across the edge of a board or across the hand; bore a hole through a hardwood plank, then feel the auger-bit. Applications: restoring circulation; "hot-boxes" in machinery; lubricants and their uses; lighting matches. 5. POUNDING.--Hammer a nail flat on an anvil or stone; feel it. Bullets fired against an iron or stone surface may be picked up very hot. Note sparks that can be struck from a stone; percussion caps, flint-lock muskets. 6. PRESSURE.--After using a bicycle pump for some time, feel the bottom, also the top. If possible, examine an air-compressor and find out the means used for cooling the air. 7. SOURCES OF LIGHT.--Sun, moon, oil, tallow, gas, electricity, wax, acetylene; advantages of each; relative cost. PRIMITIVE METHODS OF OBTAINING FIRE: Most savages obtain fire by friction; rubbing two pieces of wood together till hot enough to set fire to some dry, light material. The natives of Australia placed a flat piece of wood on the ground and pressed against this the end of a round piece, which they twirled rapidly with their hands till fire was produced. The North American Indians did the twirling with their bow strings; the Eskimo's plan is somewhat similar. It is impossible to say when flint and steel were first used, but we know they continued to be the chief means of producing fire till about 1834, when matches were invented. Let pupils try to produce fire by these means. The earliest lamps consisted of shells, skulls of animals, and cup-shaped stones filled with fat or fish oils which burned on a wick of cloth or the pith of rushes. The Tibetans burn butter, the Eskimos whale- or seal-oil, the Arabians palm- or olive-oil. For outdoor lighting, torches carried in the hand were used till gas came into general use about 1792. CONDUCTION Give to four boys strips of copper, aluminium, wood, and glass, respectively. They hold these by one end and heat the other end till one or more are forced to drop the piece on account of the heat. The boys with the metals will soon find them hot throughout, but the other two will be able to hold on indefinitely. The teacher gives the terms "good conductor" and "poor conductor". PROBLEMS 1. Are metals generally good conductors? Try with strips of zinc, lead, iron, a silver spoon. 2. Are all good conductors equally good? Devise a means of ascertaining. See _Science of Common Life_, Chapter VI; also _The Ontario High School Physics_, page 274. 3. Is water a good conductor? Lists of good and poor conductors may then be made, the teacher adding to the list. Good: metals; poor: wood, horn, bone, cloth, leather, air, water, hair, asbestos, ashes, rock, earth. PROBLEMS 1. If the interior of the earth is very hot, why do we not feel it? 2. How can the cold snow keep the earth warm? 3. Why does your hand freeze to metals but not to wood? 4. Let the children try to find other instances: wools or furs for clothing, fur coats on northern animals, feathers on birds, down quilts, tea cosies, sawdust for packing ice, double windows, wooden handles for hot irons, asbestos coating for steam pipes. THE MINERS' SAFETY-LAMP: This is a most important application of conduction. Get from the tinsmith a piece of brass gauze six inches square. Raise the wick of the spirit-lamp causing it to give a high flame and bring the gauze down upon the flame till it touches the wick. Note that the flame does not rise above the gauze. Hold a piece of paper above the gauze near the flame and note that it does not take fire. Note also that the gauze soon becomes hot. The brass wires conduct the heat of the flame rapidly away so that there is not heat enough above the gauze to cause combustion. Now roll the gauze into a hollow cylinder, pin the edges together, insert a cork at each end, and have a short candle fastened to the lower one. Try to light the candle with the lamp through the gauze. It is not easily done. The miner carries a lamp made like this, so that if he should be in the presence of the explosive gas, "fire damp", it would not explode because of the wire gauze shield. CONVECTION Water is not a conductor, how then is it heated? Drop a few pieces of solid colouring matter, (analine blue, blueing, or potassium permanganate) into a beaker of cold water. Place the beaker over a heater and observe the coloured portion rise. Wet sawdust will make a good substitute for the colouring matter. A sealing jar or even a tin cup will do instead of the beaker. The stove or a dish of hot water will take the place of the lamp. PROBLEMS 1. Using a thermometer, see whether the water at the bottom is warmer than that at the top while the beaker is being heated. 2. Heat some oil and pour it over the surface of some cold water. Lower a thermometer into this. Does the water at the bottom soon become warm? 3. If your kitchen is provided with a hot-water tank, find out what part of the tank first becomes warm after the fire is lighted. 4. In bathing, where do you find the coldest water of a pond or still river? See _Science of Common Life_, Chapter VI; also _The Ontario High School Physics_, page 280. CONVECTION IN GASES A good apparatus may be made by cutting two holes one inch in diameter in one side of a chalk box, replace the lid with a piece of glass, place a lamp chimney over each hole and a lighted candle under one of the chimneys. Hold a piece of smoking touch-paper at each chimney in turn and note direction of air current. APPLICATIONS 1. Winds are caused by the rising of air over heated areas, allowing cooler currents to take its place. (Geography) 2. Rooms are ventilated by heating some of the air more than the rest, thus producing a current. (Hygiene) Winds are nature's means of ventilating the earth. RADIATION OF HEAT This should be taken up as an introduction to dew, frost, winds, climate, etc. 1. Make an iron ball hot (the end of a poker will answer). Hold the hand a few inches below the iron. Does the heat reach the hand by convection? By conduction? By means of suitable questions, lead the pupil to see that it is not by convection, for the hand is below the hot object while heated air rises; it is not by conduction, for air is one of the very poorest conductors; moreover, the heat is felt instantly from the poker, but it takes an appreciable time for it to come by conduction and convection. We say this heat is _radiated_ from the iron. The velocity of radiated heat is about 186,000 miles a second. 2. The above experiment may be varied by bringing the hot iron gradually toward the bulb of the air thermometer and noting the greatest distance at which it will affect the thermometer. It is by radiation that the sun's heat and light reach us. We get much of the heat of stoves, fire-places, and radiators by the same means. Why does the earth cool off at night? Why does dew form? Why can no dew form on a cloudy night? Why is a mountain top or a desert so cold, especially at night? 3. Take two tin cans (baking powder boxes will answer) and make holes in the lids large enough to admit a thermometer. Blacken one box in the flame of an oil lamp. Fill both with boiling water and put in a cool place. Test with a thermometer from time to time. Which cools most rapidly? 4. Fill the tin cans with cold water, find the temperature, and then place them near a hot stove. Which warms faster? Usually dark or rough surfaces radiate heat and absorb heat faster than bright or smooth ones. An excellent way of testing this is to lay a black cloth and a white one side by side on the snow where the sun is shining brightly. The snow will melt more rapidly under the black cloth. Painted shingles may be substituted for the cloths. Try different colours. The day chosen should not be extremely cold. PROBLEMS 1. Why should we have the outside of a tea-kettle, teapot, or hot-air shaft of a bright colour? Why should we have stoves and stove-pipes dull black? 2. Why does a coat of snow keep the earth warm? 3. Which is the warmest colour to wear in winter? Does this account for the colour of Arctic animals? 4. Which is the coolest colour to wear in the hot sun? 5. Gardeners sometimes strew the ground with coal-dust to help ripen their melons. Show the value of this. 6. Suggest a method of protecting a wall from the heat of a stove. CHAPTER XI FORM III SPRING WINDOW BOXES Many garden plants should be started in a box of earth in a warm, sunny window. In some schools this can be done with a little care in heating on cold nights. Small boxes or grape baskets full of rich sandy loam with an inch of gravel in the bottom for drainage may be used. Sow the seeds in rows or broadcast. To prevent the soil from drying out too quickly, cover the box with a pane of glass. When the plants are up, give them plenty of light and not too much warmth. On very mild days set them in a warm, sheltered place out-of-doors and bring them in again early in the evening. This tends to make them hardy. When about three inches high, pick the young plants out and set them in other boxes a few inches apart. This moving causes the formation of numerous fibrous roots and makes stronger plants. WINDOW GARDENS Window boxes may be used for a whole season on the inside of the building in cold weather, and on the outside in warm weather. There is almost no limit to the kinds of plants that can be grown in them, but they are most suitable for flowers. Good boxes may be made of dressed lumber so as to fit on the window-sill. They should be six inches deep, ten inches wide, and the required length. They should have a few small holes in the bottom to allow excess water to drain off and should be painted dark green or some quiet colour. There should be an inch of gravel in the bottom, some rotted sods covering this, and then the box filled with rich sandy loam. SUITABLE PLANTS Some flowers suitable for growing in window boxes outside in summer are those of drooping habit: lobelia, Kenilworth ivy, verbena, tropeolum, petunia, and sweet-alyssum toward the front, and behind, more erect plants, such as geranium, heliotrope, begonia, phlox, and nasturtium. The box must not be too much crowded. For inside and in shady situations the following are suitable: tradescantia, parlour ivy, moneywort, vinca smilax, climbing fern, asparagus fern, dracæna, coleus, centaurea, sword fern, and Boston fern. For indoor boxes in winter, the following may be used: abutilon, calceolaria, cyclamen, violets, primroses, petunias, geraniums, freesia, and such foliage plants as dracæna, cannas, dusty miller, and coleus. The following climbing plants may be trained up the window cases: asparagus plumosus fern, cobea scandens, smilax, maurandia, and English ivy. If drooping or trailing plants are desired, the following may be used: oxalis, sweet-alyssum, lobelia, ivy, geranium, Kenilworth ivy, and Wandering Jew. FERTILIZER As the amount of soil is limited and the number of plants that it has to support is great, the soil should be made quite rich and should be further fertilized from time to time with a little liquid manure. This can be best obtained by taking a strong barrel or large keg and filling it about half full of water. Then fill an ordinary coarse potato sack with cow-stable manure and set the sack in the barrel for a few days. A tap in the bottom of the barrel is most convenient for drawing off the liquid manure. A little of this will also be found valuable for watering dahlias, roses, and other garden plants during the summer. SOIL STUDIES The classes of soil should be reviewed. Pupils should gather examples from many places. The samples may be kept in bottles of uniform size and should include not only the four types but varieties of each, also various kinds of loam. EXERCISES AND EXPERIMENTS SOIL CONSTITUENTS 1. With a sharp spade, cut a piece about twelve inches deep from (1) the forest floor, (2) an old pasture field. Note character and order of the layers of soil in (1) leaves, humus, loam, sand, or clay; in (2) grass, dead grass, humus, loam, sand, or clay. Observe soils shown in railway cuttings, freshly dug wells, post holes. 2. Note the effect produced on the soil of a field by (1) leaving it a few years in pasture, (2) ploughing in heavy crops, (3) applying barn-yard manure. In all these cases vegetable matter is mixed with the soil. 3. Dry some good leaf-mould. Throw a handful on the surface of some water. The mineral matter sinks, while the vegetable portion remains suspended for some time. Try this experiment with gravel, sand, and clay. Note that the gravel sinks rapidly, the sand less rapidly, and that the clay takes a long time to settle. If the water be kept in rapid motion, the finer soils will all remain suspended till motion becomes slower. Apply this in geography. The bed of a stream will consist of stones if it be swift, of sand if less swift, and of clay if very slow. How are alluvial plains formed? 4. Place half an ounce of dry humus on an iron plate or fire-shovel and heat strongly in a stove. Note that it begins to smoke and a large part smoulders away to ashes; the mineral portion remains. Weigh the part left and find what fraction of the humus consisted of vegetable material. Try to find the proportion of vegetable matter in each of the following: loams from various sources, sand, clay, gravel. The last three will show scarcely any change. This experiment will give rise to some good arithmetical problems in fractions. WATER IN SOILS 5. Compare a handful of fresh garden soil with the same soil dried. Note the glistening of the fresh soil, also its weight and darker colour. The fresh soil admits of packing though no water can be squeezed from it. In its best condition, the water of the soil adheres as a film of moisture about every particle. Free water is to be avoided since it excludes the air from the soil. 6. Equal weights of soils of different kinds and degrees of fineness are placed in funnels or in inverted bottles with bottoms removed. Water is then slowly added to each until it begins to drop from the lower end. From this is seen (1) the great value of humus as a water holder, (2) the advantage of fine soil over coarse. For retention of water by absorption, consult _Nature Study and Life_, Hodge, page 382. 7. Take two wooden boxes (chalk boxes will do), fill one box with moist sand and the other with moist leaf-mould. Weigh the boxes separately and leave them for three or four days in a warm room. Weigh again and note decrease from evaporation. The sand dries out much faster than the humus. Test with clay, gravel, and loam, also with mixtures of these and leaf-mould. 8. Take three paint cans; punch holes in the bottoms. Fill each with good soil well shaken down. Stand the cans in water till the tops are moist, then place them in a warm, dry place. Loosen the soil on the top of No. 1 to a depth of one inch; on No. 2 to a depth of two inches; leave No. 3 untouched. Find out after a few days which is drying out fastest. How may soil be treated so as to lessen evaporation of water? DRAINAGE 9. Gravel and sand allow water to run away rapidly, but where the soil is fine or closely packed as in clay soils, under-drains are necessary (1) to carry off the surplus water, (2) to allow air to enter the soil, (3) to warm the soil (wet soil is colder than dry). Take two equal-sized tin cans, make several holes in the bottom of one, place therein a layer of broken pottery or stones, and fill with good soil. Fill the other with similar soil but make no holes for drainage. Plant in each can a healthy plant of the same size and kind. Water both till the soil is saturated and continue watering every two or three days for six weeks. Note (1) the progress of the plants, (2) the temperature of the soils, (3) which plant has the largest and deepest roots. (See _Bulletin 174_, Ontario Department of Agriculture.) 10. Take five equal-sized boxes, provide for drainage, and fill No. 1 with wood, earth, or humus, No. 2 with clay, No. 3 with sand, No. 4 with a mixture of clay and humus, No. 5 with a mixture of sand and humus. Plant corn in each box, set in a warm room, and keep watered for two or three weeks. Note in which case growth is most rapid. Set boxes in a dry place and cease watering. Which suffers most from the drought? Which bakes hardest in the sun? Test the temperature of each after watering and standing in the sun for an hour. Sand is warmer than clay, also the presence of humus raises the temperature. This item is important, since most seeds decay instead of sprouting if the temperature is below 45° Fahrenheit. 11. Enumerate the services rendered to the soil by humus. 12. In Experiment 10, let the corn grow for some time and determine whether the very rich humus is the best in the end. Sand and clay are almost altogether mineral; leaf-mould almost entirely organic; neither alone is good, but a mixture gives the best results. GARDEN WORK The boys of this Form should attend to the fertilizing and spading of the plots belonging to the girls of their Form. The girls themselves can do all the rest of the work, and they should try to keep the plots level, uniform in size, and in a straight line. If the corner posts are kept in line and the plots made up the exact size, the appearance of the garden will be greatly improved. The pupils are now old enough to make their own choice of flowers and vegetables. Very tall growing plants, such as corn and sunflowers, are not desirable in individual plots as they shade other plants near them. Corn is best grown in a large plot about twenty feet square. The same may be said of vines, such as cucumbers, melons, squash, etc. If the plots are small, it is better to plant but a single variety, but in large plots from two to four varieties may be arranged to advantage. Usually rows of vegetables, such as carrots and beets, may be placed a foot apart, cabbage about twice that distance, and tomatoes a little farther apart than cabbage. Generally speaking, plants should be placed so that when full grown they will just touch, cover the ground completely, and thus prevent the growth of weeds. As soon as the young plants appear above the ground, light cultivation with rakes and claw-hand weeders should be started, so as to keep weeds from growing and at the same time to provide a loose surface or earth mulch for conserving the moisture and aerating the soil. Thinning should also be begun when the plants are quite small, but it should not all be done at once. As the plants increase in size, the best ones should be left and the poor ones taken out. In some cases plants thus removed may be re-set to fill vacant places. TREE SEEDS Tree seeds that have been stored over winter should now be planted in rows in a small plot. The rows should be a foot apart and the seeds quite close together in the row. A cheese-cloth or slat shade should be used on this plot, as the hot sun is too strong for tree seedlings when they first come up. They should have cultivation every week and watering in dry weather. Always water in the evening after school, or even later when possible. TRANSPLANTING Pupils in this Form should have practice in transplanting, as well as in sowing seed. For this purpose seeds should be started about the first of April in hotbeds or window boxes, seedlings transplanted into cold frames when two or three inches high, and then set out in the garden in the latter part of May when danger of frost is past. TRANSPLANTING FLOWERS AND VEGETABLES Choose, if possible, a cool cloudy day. Water the plants thoroughly in the hotbed or cold frame a few hours before lifting them. Lift them with a trowel or small spade, and keep as much earth on their roots as possible. With a transplanting trowel, make holes deep enough so that the plant will be a little deeper in the soil than before transplanting. Unless the soil is moist, a little water put in the hole with the plant is beneficial. The evening is considered best for transplanting if the weather is clear. If the sun is very hot, the plants should be shaded for a few days until the roots become established and begin their work. Shingles slanting over the plants from the south side and driven into the ground to hold them in position are best. Papers held by means of two stones also give good results. The practice of covering them with inverted cans is not a good one, as the light is almost completely cut off. A few holes in the can would help considerably. Care must be taken to pack the earth firmly about the roots. Watering again twenty-four hours after transplanting is often necessary. If the plant has a leafy top, it is best to take off some of the leaves, as they tend to give off water more rapidly than the roots can at first take it in. TRANSPLANTING TREE SEEDLINGS Nuts and other tree seeds collected the previous autumn should now be planted in the forestry plots in rows a foot apart. As the seeds may not all grow, they may be planted close together in the row and thinned out the following spring if necessary. They need some shelter from the sun the first summer. In large plots this is provided by means of a slat covering, but in a small plot cheese-cloth tacked on strips and fastened on corner posts is satisfactory. When a shower comes, this cheese-cloth screen should be removed so that the rain may moisten the plot evenly. Seedlings may be transplanted from the woods or from the forestry rows before the leaves open out. BUDDING In budding, a slit like the letter T is made in the side of the young seedling close to the ground. The bark is raised a little at the point where the vertical slit meets the horizontal one, and a bud of desired variety with a shield-shaped bit of bark (and perhaps a little wood) attached to it is shoved in and the sides of the slit bound down upon it. After the bud, or scion, has started to grow, the stock is cut off an inch above the point where the bud was inserted. The bud then makes rapid growth, and in two years the resulting tree is large enough to set in its permanent place in the orchard. CUTTINGS Pupils in this Form should try to grow such woody plants as roses and grapes from cuttings. Roses are frequently propagated by budding, as in the case of apples and peaches. They may also be grown upon their own roots or from stem cuttings. Such cuttings should be from well-matured wood of the present year taken in the autumn and packed in moist sand over the winter. Make the cuttings about three inches in length. The top end should be cut off immediately above a bud and the bottom end just below a bud, as roots seem to start more readily from a node, or bud. Such a cutting may have three or four buds of which only the upper two need be left. If both of these grow, the poorer one may afterwards be removed. These rose cuttings should then be inserted in a box of clean, moist sand to a depth of two inches, kept in a warm room, and shaded with a sheet of newspaper when the sun is very bright. Keep the sand moist but not wet, and when possible have gentle bottom heat. When roots have made some growth, transplant carefully into small flower-pots, using fairly rich, clay loam. In a few weeks they will be ready to plant out in the garden. Grape cuttings should be taken late in the fall when the vines are well matured. Such a cutting includes only two joints, the upper one being the growing end and the lower the rooting end. They must be stored over winter in cold, moist sand, but should not be permitted to freeze. As soon as the ground can be prepared in the spring, set them out. They should be placed on a slant of about forty-five degrees and covered all but the top bud. LEAF CUTTINGS Some plants with large and vigorous leaves, such as many of the begonias, may be propagated by means of leaf cuttings. Buds readily develop from cuts made in the large veins. Take a full-grown healthy leaf and remove the stem all but about half an inch. Make a few cuts across the larger veins on the under side of the leaves at points where main veins branch. Press the leaf firmly down on the top of a box of moist sand with the under side next the sand. Keep the leaf in this position, using small stones or little pegs pushed through the leaf into the sand. Put the box in a warm room and do not let the sand become dry. When roots strike into the sand and buds develop from the points where the veins were wounded, take a sharp knife and cut out the new plant from the old leaf and transplant it into a small flower-pot in good soil. Sink the pot in a box of moist sand to prevent its drying out. ROOT CUTTINGS Such plants as "sprout from the roots" may be propagated by root cuttings. Sections of underground stems may also come under this heading, as in the case of horseradish cuttings. But real roots may be used for cuttings, as in the case of the blackberry and raspberry. The roots should be cut in pieces three or four inches long, planted in a horizontal position, and entirely covered with two or three inches of soil. LAYERING Bush fruits, such as currants and gooseberries, are frequently propagated by stem cuttings, as in the case of roses. Another method, which is known as layering, consists in bending one or more of the lowest branches down against the ground, fastening it there by means of a forked stick, and then covering it with two or three inches of earth. The part in contact with the moist earth will send out roots, while one or more shoots will come up. When roots and shoots have developed, the branch is severed from the parent bush and the new plant set in its permanent place. Strawberries exhibit a sort of natural layering. PLANTING AND CARE OF HERBACEOUS PERENNIALS Perennials grown from seed the previous summer should now be set in clumps two or three feet apart in the perennial border or here and there beside the fences or walks. The soil should be made fine and fertilized with well-rotted manure from the compost heap before setting out the young perennials. Dahlias and gladioli which were taken in in the autumn should now be set out. The dahlias should be divided and only the best roots used. Other perennials that have grown into large clumps should be dug up, divided, and re-set in well-fertilized soil. GARDEN STUDIES Pupils in this Form have now had enough experience in the growing of vegetables and flowers to allow them to make intelligent variety tests. They should grow some of the less familiar varieties and report on the merits of each variety tested. This, however, should not be carried on to the exclusion of the well-known standard varieties. Let the pupils consult the best seed catalogues available and choose for themselves some varieties not already known to them. They should keep a systematic record of all varieties grown and the methods used in cultivating, fertilizing, etc. The knowledge thus gained will be of value in after years, and the homes will also benefit by it. BIENNIALS The pupils should observe the second year's growth of biennials. A special plot in the school garden should be set apart for this purpose. Have them plant in it a turnip, a carrot, a beet, a cabbage, or any other garden biennial saved over winter for the purpose. If desired, the pupils might grow their own seed of these varieties. Notice (1) what part of the plant has become enlarged with stored up food and how big it is when planted, (2) how this part changes in size and texture as the flowers and seeds develop, (3) in what way this extra food seems to have been used. WILD FLOWERS STUDY OF THE TRILLIUM The pupils bring the plants for the lesson. There should be a few purple trilliums among the white, and some of the plants should have the underground parts intact. Discuss with the collectors their observations on where the trilliums grow, the kind of soil, the depth of the root-stocks below the surface, the uses of the root-stocks, insect visitors. CLASS-ROOM LESSON The pupils are directed to examine the plant and flowers and find out all the means for attracting insects. Find out why the purple trillium attracts flies and beetles, while the white trillium attracts bees and butterflies. Look into the top of the flower; what figure do the tips of the six flower leaves form? Using the names calyx and corolla, describe the circle of flower leaves as to number, colour, and relative position. Find the stamens and describe as to number and position; find out how the stamens are fitted to ensure that the pollen will get upon the visiting insects. Find the pistil and describe its shape. How is the stigma fitted for receiving the pollen that is carried by the insect visitors. _To the teacher._--The trilliums attract insects by their large white and purple flowers, which are held up by their long stalks high above the three broad leaves. The strong carrion-like odour of the purple trillium is attractive to flies and beetles, while bees and butterflies find the fragrance of the white trillium more to their liking. The root-stock serves as a buried store of food to tide the plant over the drought of late summer and the severe cold of winter. The well-stocked cellar also explains the flourishing condition of the plant in early spring. The six stamens stand on close guard around the pistil, and insects forcing their way to the nectaries are well peppered with pollen. Continue the observation work by means of field exercises such as the following: What change takes place in the colour of the white trillium as it grows old? Find the ripened seed pods of the trillium, open them, count the number of chambers, and examine the seeds. Do trilliums grow from the same root-stock year after year? As correlations, represent the trillium in colour and design an embroidery pattern based on it. Lessons similar to that on the trillium may be based on adder's tongue, Indian turnip, Dutchman's breeches, violet, and clover. ADAPTATIONS OF ANIMALS It is not considered necessary to go outside the list of ordinary animals to find sufficient illustrations of adaptations, and it is recommended that attention be given to these during the study of animals prescribed for the regular Course. This may be supplemented by an occasional review of adaptive features for the purpose of emphasizing the general fitness of animals for their varied habits and surroundings. Care must be taken lest the attempt to explain structures by adaptation be carried to an extreme, for it is impossible to account for all the variations in animal forms. The following list contains a few of the many examples of adaptations to be met with in the Course prescribed for Forms II and III. The horse walks and runs on the tips of its toes; this gives greater speed. Wild animals of the cow and deer kind can swallow their food hastily so that they may retire to a safe retreat; there they regurgitate the food and chew it. The domesticated animal retains this habit, though there is no longer a need for it. The wood-hare's fur is brown in summer, hence its enemies cannot see it against the brown grass and moss; in winter its colour is white, which, against the snow, is a protective colour. The porcupine is very slow, but its colour and shape make it almost impossible to distinguish from a knot on a log. Its quills form an effective protection when it is discovered. The feet of the squirrel are adapted for climbing and its teeth for gnawing wood and for opening nuts. The tail serves as a balancing pole for leaping from tree to tree and in winter it acts as a protection from cold. The earthworm's shape and movements are suited to its habits of burrowing through the soil. Its habits of swallowing the soil fit it for burrowing and for obtaining its food at the same time. Many insect larvæ, as the tomato worm and the cabbage-worm, are of the same colour as the plants on which they feed, and this enables them to escape detection by birds. The larvæ of dragon-flies and May-flies breathe in water by means of gills very much as fishes do, but the adult forms are suited for breathing in air. Female birds are usually dull gray or mottled, so that their colours blend with their surroundings while they are nesting, and hence they do not attract the notice of their enemies. Birds that swim have webbed feet, which act as oars for pushing them through the water. Their feathers are compact and soft for warmth, and these properties, together with oil on their surfaces, make them waterproof. The tongue of the woodpecker is long, spear-shaped, and sticky; hence it is adapted for catching insects in the holes pecked into the wood. The tongue of the toad is fastened at the front end, so that a flap can be shot out for more than an inch in front of the animal, thus enabling it to catch insects on its sticky surface. The toes of the frog are webbed to make them more serviceable in swimming. The tail of the musk-rat is strong and broad like the blade of an oar and serves the same purpose as an oar. The tail of the fish is more serviceable for swimming than legs would be. BIRD TYPES WOODPECKERS Woodpeckers are easily distinguished from other birds by their habit of perching in a vertical position on the trunks of trees with the tips of their tails pressed against the bark. While in this position, they tap upon the tree with their sharp, pointed beaks. THE DOWNY WOODPECKER Learn to recognize the smallest of our woodpeckers, the Downy. Winter or summer it may be found among the apple trees and shade trees, a tiny black and white bird little bigger than a wren. OBSERVATIONS I Why is "checkerboard" a good name for this bird? Are there any distinct lines of white? Are there any patches of red? Do its movements reveal energy or listlessness? How does it move up a tree trunk? How does it move down a tree trunk? Find out how it can hold so firmly to the trunk. Does it use its sharp beak as a drill or as a pick? _To the teacher._--The downy is spotted black and white, with barred wings and a white line down the centre of the back. A bright scarlet crown is the colour distinction of the male. This little bird is the embodiment of energy and perseverance. It hops nimbly up the trunk, tapping here and there with its beak, and then listening for the movements of the disturbed wood-borers. If it wishes to descend, it wastes no time in turning around, but hops backward down the trunk, or jumps off and flies down. II Examine an apple tree upon which a downy has been at work and find out what it was doing there. Do you find the birds in pairs during winter? During summer? Distinguish the male from the female. Tie a beef bone with scraps of meat adhering to it to a tree. What birds come to it? Find the nest of the downy and describe the nest and the eggs. Do the holes made by the downy injure the trees? Why should the downy be welcomed in our orchards? Describe the sounds made by the birds. _To the teacher._--Discuss the pupils' answers to the above problems in the class lesson, using a picture of a woodpecker to illustrate the features of the bird that adapt it for its habits. Examples: the straight, sharp beak suited for drilling; the two backward, projecting toes for perching; the spines on the tips of the tail feathers to act as a prop. The downy woodpecker is very useful in the orchard, because it destroys great numbers of larvæ of the tussock-moth and other insects. The holes made in the bark have never been found to injure the trees. The nest is made in a hollow tree, the entrance to it being almost perfectly round and about one and one-quarter inches in diameter. The downy woodpecker has a very unmusical voice, but fortunately he is aware of this deficiency, and his only attempt at music is drumming with his beak upon a hollow limb or tree. The hairy woodpecker, redheaded woodpecker, flicker, and yellow-bellied woodpecker (sapsucker) are other varieties which visit the orchards and are suitable for lessons similar to these on the downy woodpecker. They are all beneficial birds. FLYCATCHERS Members common to this class are: king-bird; house-phoebe, wood-phoebe, or pewee; whip-poor-will; least fly-catcher; giant fly-catcher. Direct the observations of the pupils to the following type features: Brownish or grayish colours; fringe of long bristles around the mouth (explain their use); whistling notes, varying with the different members of the family; habit of jumping from the perch, catching an insect while on the wing, and returning to the spot from which the flight began; nests, chiefly of mud built in a protected place, as under a bridge, ledge of rock, or projecting log. WRENS The house wren may be studied as a type. Observe its brownish colour, faintly mottled; its small size and energetic movements, its tail turned nearly vertically upward. Observe and report on other wrens, noting any differences. CABBAGE-BUTTERFLY Have a plant of wild mustard or a cabbage growing in a pot. In June, have the pupils, by means of the insect net, catch a number of the white butterflies, the adults of the cabbage-worm. Place the butterflies in jars or bottles and observe them. Make drawings of them. Direct the attention of the pupils to the difference between the wings of the male and those of the female. The former has only one dark spot on the front wing, while the female has two spots on this wing. Release the males and put the females in a vivarium with the potted plant. (A pasteboard box, with a large piece cut out and the opening covered with gauze, makes a good substitute for a vivarium in this case.) Observe the laying of the eggs. How many are placed at one spot? How are the eggs protected? The eggs may be gathered from the cabbage plants in the garden. Observe and record the hatching of the tiny worm, its feeding, growth, forming of chrysalis, development into adult. Frequently little yellow silken cocoons are found in vivaria where cabbage-worms are kept; these are cocoons of a parasite (braconid) that infests the worm. Because of the ease with which the cabbage-butterfly may be obtained and the rapidity of its development in the various stages, it is very suitable as a type for the study of metamorphosis. The sulphur, or puddler (called by the latter name because of its habit of settling in groups around the edges of the water holes), is also a suitable type. The larvæ in this case must be fed on clover. THE TUSSOCK-MOTH Begin the study of this insect in June and July by observing the larvæ feeding on the foliage of the horse-chestnut and other shade trees, and direct attention to their destructiveness. In observing the larvæ, note the size, movements, legs, colour, coral red head, tufts of hair on the back, and the three long plumes. Watch the birds among the trees to discover whether they eat the larvæ. Of what use are the tufts of hair? Do the larvæ feed by biting or by sucking? Describe the damage done by the larvæ. Collect a number of these larvæ and place them in the vivarium with some twigs of horse-chestnut. Observe the spinning of the cocoon and, about two weeks later, look for the emergence of the adult moths. Observe the two kinds of insects. Describe each. Are there any differences in the cocoons from which they emerge? Which form of insect places the egg mass and is therefore the female? Note the number and shape of the eggs and how they are protected. The female moths have no wings and do not move far from the cocoons from which they emerge, while the males have the power of flight. As outdoor work, look for the egg masses on trees and fences and devise means of combating the tussock-moth. Gathering and destroying the egg masses during the winter is found to be fairly effective in checking these insects. Since the cocoons frequently contain parasites that prey upon the larvæ, it is advisable that only the cocoons that have egg masses attached to them should be destroyed; the others are harmless and may contain the useful parasites. The egg masses may be kept over winter in a box in a cool place, and the hatching of the tiny larvæ and their subsequent rapid growth observed. POTATO BEETLE The eggs of this beetle may be found in early summer in clusters on the under surfaces of the leaves of potato plants. EGG.--Observe the size, colour, shape, position, and number in a cluster; appearance of head from outer end after a week. LARVA.--Observe the colour, shape, head, legs, voracious appetite, movements, rapid growth, destructiveness. PUPA.--Observe the larvæ disappear from the plants; a search underground reveals the resting stage, or pupæ. After ten days, the adult beetles emerge. ADULT.--Observe the colour, the hard shell covering the head; the hard outer wings and membraneous inner wings; the hard shell on the under surface of the body; the feelers, and legs. Why will spraying with a poison, such as paris-green, kill these insects? REFERENCES Dearness: _How to Teach the Nature Study Course Stories in Agriculture, Bulletin No. 124._ FISH The Nature Study lessons must be based upon observations of the living fish, preferably in May or June, September or October. The best place for this is on the bank of a clear stream from which it is possible to observe the fish in their natural environment. Here their life activities, their struggles, their conquests, and silent tragedies are enacted before the eyes of the observer. Many observations may be made in this way which will create a life-long interest in these reticent, yet active creatures. Since this method of study is practicable in but few cases, the study of the living fish in the aquarium is the best available substitute. The teacher or the boys of the class can catch a few fish of three or four inches in length and carry them in a jar of water to the aquarium. Minnows, chub, perch, catfish, or other common forms will do. OBSERVATIONS I The general shape, and the suitability of the shape for swimming. The surface of the body and the protection it affords. Note the scales and the slime, the latter a protection against the growth of fungi, etc. The gills--two openings behind the flaps at the rear of the head. The colours, and their value in concealing the fish. The dark upper surface makes it inconspicuous from above; the light under surface blends with the shadow and dims it. The divisions of the body--head, trunk, and tail. Movements of the fish and the part that the various fins play in these movements. Note that the broad tail fin is the most useful fin for locomotion, the others act as balancers or as brakes, or for causing currents of water near the gills. Observe the movements of the pair of fins nearest the gills, the movements of the mouth, and the currents of water entering the mouth and passing through the gill slits. When a fish is kept in a very small quantity of water, observe the effect produced on the movements of the mouth and gill flaps. What are the uses of these movements? The pupils will thus discover the nature of the respiration of the fish. Why do fish die if many are kept in a jar of water? II By supplying various foods learn what kinds are preferred. Find in the actions or habits of the living fish evidences of a sense of smell, of sight, of hearing, and of taste. Nearly all the following points of detailed study can be observed from the living fish: shape; size; tongue; teeth; gill slits leading from the mouth to the gills; nostrils, number and position; eyes, absence of eyelids; fins, size, build; the arrangement of the scales. PROBLEMS Why does the fish require a large mouth? How are the eyes protected? Compare the shape of the eye with the shape of the eye of a land animal. Why are there no openings from the surface directly into the ears? Show the suitability of the fins as organs of locomotion in water. REFERENCES Silcox and Stevenson: _Modern Nature Study_ Nash: _Fishes of Ontario_ (from Department of Education, free) Kellogg: _Elementary Zoology_ CHAPTER XII FORM IV AUTUMN GARDEN WORK The regular work of cultivation of garden and experimental plots should be carefully attended to. Pupils in this Form should be able to do all kinds of garden work with a good deal of proficiency. The work of selecting the best flowers for seed production should be continued. These should be used for planting in the school garden and in home gardens as well. This part of the work might be left to the girls. The boys should be encouraged to take up the systematic selection of seed grain. To get good seed to start with, two methods may be used: 1. Decide upon the kind of grain to be selected and choose from one of the best fields a hundred of the best heads--those that are vigorous, clean, free from rust or smut, and standing up straight. When the heads are dried a little, shell the grain off them and preserve it in a jar in a cold, dry place until spring. 2. Take a quart of oats and pick it carefully, keeping only the largest and most plump kernels. Keep this for spring planting. At the same time, a sample of the poorer grains should be kept for comparison. A regular system of selection should be followed from year to year, taking enough of the largest, brightest, and most compact heads from the plot each autumn to sow a plot of equal size the next spring. After the selection of heads has been made, the remainder of the crop may be harvested, and the grain from this known as general crop from hand-selected seed of the first, second, third year, etc. If the value per acre is required, the plots should be made of a certain size easy to compute, such as one rod square or one rod by two rods. (10-1/2 ft. by 21 ft. is about 1/200 acre.) Samples of each crop should be kept in uniform bottles and labelled; for example--"From selected heads of 1911". The yield per acre in the plot from which the selected heads came should also be noted. These will be interesting for purposes of comparison and for testing duration of vitality later. If the same amount of grain is used in planting a plot each time, the change in bushels per acre may be ascertained and also in pounds per bushel. Some of the boys in this Form may wish to continue this work of improvement by selection and, if so, they should communicate with the Secretary of the Canadian Seed Growers' Association, Canadian Building, Ottawa, and receive full instructions to enable them to carry on their work practically as well as scientifically. HERBACEOUS PERENNIALS FROM SEED The teacher should encourage the growing of herbaceous perennials for the purpose of beautifying the school grounds. Many plants may be started from seed at the school and given to the pupils for home planting. These plants require but little attention and provide excellent bloom in gardens and home grounds from early in spring before annuals are in bloom, on into the autumn. A list of the best varieties will be found in Circular 13, on _Elementary Agriculture and Horticulture_, a copy of which should be in every school. The seed plot should be fertilized and prepared in the usual way, and the seeds planted before the first of September. They may be started in June also, in which case they make more growth before winter. The plot should be well fertilized with thoroughly rotted manure and, if the soil is very dry, the plot should be well watered the day before the seeds are planted. The seeds are usually quite small and should be covered very lightly. The plot should be protected from the hot sun by means of cheese-cloth tacked on a frame. The plants should be watered twice a week in dry weather. In the late autumn, when the ground freezes, the plot should be covered with leaves or straw and some boards, which should be removed when the frost comes out in the spring. DECIDUOUS TREES Before the pupils of this Form leave school they should be able to recognize, by name as well as by sight, all of the species of trees found in their vicinity. To this end the teacher should help them to prepare an inventory of species of trees, shrubs, and vines of the vicinity. They should learn to distinguish the different species of maples, elms, birches, etc. A named collection of leaves helps materially in doing this. The influence of environment upon the growth and shape of trees and how trees adapt themselves to the conditions in which they live is a most interesting and profitable study, demanding careful observation, reflection, and judgment. REFERENCES Muldrew: _Sylvan Ontario._ Briggs. Keeler: _Our Native Trees._ Scribners' Sons. $2.00. TREES IN RELATION TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT Consider the influences at work and their effect under the following heads: 1. CHARACTER OF THE SOIL AND SUBSOIL.--It may be gravelly, pure sand, sandy loam, clay or clay loam, muck or humus, shallow or rocky, and the subsoil may be sand, clay or hard clay with stones (hard-pan). Notice what species are most common in each kind of soil. 2. WATER SUPPLY.--What species are found naturally in moist ravines or along the margins of rivers and lakes, in bogs or swamps, on dry, sandy plains, or rocky hillsides. Consider also the rainfall. 3. EXPOSURE TO SUNLIGHT.--Account for the lack of symmetry in the shapes of trees. Branches grow only where their leaves can get the light. Account for the pith in many tree stems not being in the geometric centre. Account for the rapid growth in height made by young trees in the woods. Their light supply is chiefly from above, and they stretch up toward it as rapidly as possible. Dim light causes rapid growth at the expense, however, of strength of tissue, but as these young trees are protected in the woods from the strain of wind storms, their slimness and lack of toughness is a benefit rather than a hindrance to them. Also, the limbs near the ground die off while the trees are still young and small, giving us the clear timber tree, free from large knots, tall and straight. Make further application of this principle of light in relation to the planting of trees for shade and for wood or lumber. Account for the large size of the leaves of young trees in the dimly lighted woods as compared with the leaves of older trees. The principle of rapid growth in dim light is seen here also. It will be noticed that the large leaves of the young trees are more thin, soft, and flexible. 4. WIND.--Observe the tops of tall trees that have always been exposed to a strong prevailing wind as, for instance, those growing on the tops of hills or the eastern shore of a lake which has a prevailing west wind. The tops lean in the direction in which the prevailing wind blows. Does strong wind help or hinder the growth of a tree? Examples of stunted trees on wind swept hills or shores readily show this. It will be seen also that the higher branches are poorest on the side most exposed to the wind. 5. SUITABILITY OF THE SPECIES TO THE CLIMATE.--Observe that some trees retain their leaves much later in the autumn than do others. The beech, hickory, red oak, and chestnut are good examples. These are on the northern extreme of their territory of growth. The tree best suited to a rigorous climate is the one that finishes its work early in the autumn and has all its tissues well matured before cold weather sets in. Examples: maple, elm, birch, and willow. FRUITS EXCURSION TO A WELL-KEPT ORCHARD If the teacher can arrange to take the pupils to see a well-kept orchard about the time of the apple harvest, it will help to arouse interest in the study of fruits. The trees, as well as the fruit, frequently show distinguishing marks whereby they may be identified. Have the pupils notice the following points: general shape of tree, colour of bark, shape of leaf, method of cultivation, fertilizing, pruning and grafting, spraying and its need, orchard pests, method of picking and packing apples in barrels and boxes for market. SMALL FRUITS Study the method of propagating strawberries and such bush fruits as currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Reports issued from the Fruit Division of the Experimental Farm at Ottawa give information regarding the best varieties suitable for different parts of Ontario and Quebec. Have the pupils try propagating strawberries by taking the stolons or runners; currants and gooseberries, by means of layers or stem cuttings; and raspberries or blackberries, by root cuttings or the detaching of root shoots or suckers. Stem and root cuttings, when taken in the autumn, may be planted at once or may be stored in damp moss or sand in a cold cellar over winter. Stem cuttings should be about the size and length of a lead-pencil and root cuttings about half that size. AUTUMN WILD FLOWERS Observations made with garden flowers should be supplemented by observation lessons on a few selected wild flowers of the woods, fields, and roadsides. Although the spring months afford a much greater variety of wild flowers than do the autumn months, they do not afford quite as good an opportunity for finding and studying them. The woods and fields are drier and more easily reached in the autumn and the fall flowers last much longer. Some of the species seen blooming in spring and early summer are now in fruit and scattering their seed, so that the pupils have a chance to follow out the whole life history of a few chosen species. The pupils in this Form might select for special study the milkweed, worm-seed mustard, wild aster, and goldenrod. These should be observed out-of-doors, preferably, but suitable class-room lessons may be taught by using similar matter. MILKWEED Taking the milkweed as a type, the following points are to be considered: The kind of soil, where found, and whether in sun or shade. Try to pull up a small-sized plant. Dig one up and notice the underground part. Note the size of the largest plant seen, also the size of the leaves, and how they are arranged to prevent overshadowing. Break off a leaf and note the white sticky juice, whence the name "milkweed". Discuss this milk as a protection to the plant. Note time of first and last flowering of the plant and the colour and odour of the flowers. Watch insects gathering honey on a bright day. Note the little sacks of pollen that cling to their feet. They sometimes get their feet caught in little slits in the flower and perish. After the flowers disappear, note the forming of the little boat-shaped pods in pairs. Select one that is ripe and notice that it bursts along one side which is most protected. Open a pod carefully and notice how beautifully the flat, brown seeds are arranged in overlapping rows and how each seed has a large tuft of silky down that serves to carry it far away in the wind. This silk-like down is sometimes used to stuff cushions, and because of it the plant is sometimes called silk weed. One species of butterfly in particular feeds upon this plant--the monarch, or milkweed, butterfly. This is one of the few butterflies that birds do not eat. It is protected by a distasteful fluid. Look on the under side of the leaves of several plants until you find a pretty, pale green cocoon with golden dots, hanging by a thread-like attachment. Early in the season the larvæ may be found feeding on the leaves. This plant is troublesome in some fields and gardens and so is classed as a weed. When the stems come up in the spring, they are soft and tender and are sometimes used as pot herbs. CORRELATIONS Draw a leaf, a flower, a pair of pods, and a seed with its tuft. Write an account of a visit to the woods to study wild flowers. TREES A study of the pines of the locality may be commenced in November, after the deciduous trees have lost their leaves and have entered their quiescent winter period. This is the time when the evergreens stand out prominently on the landscape, in sharp contrast with the other trees that have been stripped of their broad leaves and now look bare and lifeless. If no pines are to be found in the vicinity, cedar or hemlock may be substituted. The lessons should, as far as possible, be observational. The pupils should be encouraged to make observations for themselves out of school. At least one lesson should be conducted out-of-doors, a suitable pine tree having been selected beforehand for the purpose. The following method will serve as a guide in the outdoor study of any species of tree: THE WHITE PINE Have the pupils observe the shape and height of the tree from a distance and trace the outline with the finger. Compare the shape of this tree with others near by of the same species and then with members of other species. Have the pupils describe in what particulars the shapes differ in different trees. They will come to realize that the difference in shape results from differences in length, direction, and arrangement of branches. They may notice that other evergreens resemble the pine in that the stems are all straight and extend as a gradually tapering shaft from the bottom to the top, that all have a more or less conical shape, and that the branches grow straight out from the main stem and not slanting off as in the case of the maples and elms. Coming close to the tree, the pupils may first examine the trunk. By using a string or tape-line, they may find out how big it is around and the length of the diameter. Tell them how big some evergreens are (the giant trees of the Pacific Coast are sometimes over forty feet around). Have them notice where the trunk is largest, and let them find out why a tree needs to be so strong at the ground. Heavy wind puts a great strain on it just at this point. Illustrate by driving a long slat or lath into the ground firmly: then catching it by the top, push it over, and it will break off just at the ground. If a little pine tree could be taken up, the pupils would be interested in seeing what long, strong, fibrous roots the pine has. Let them examine the bark of the trunk and describe its colour and roughness. The fissures in the bark, which are caused by the enlarging of the tree through the formation of new wood under the bark, are deeper at the bottom of the tree than at the top--the tree being younger and the bark thinner, the nearer to the top we go. How old is the very top, down to the first whorl of branches? How old is the stem between the first and second whorls? Between the third and fourth? Let the pupils find out in this way the age of a little pine that is regular and unbroken. The whorls of branches near the ground are usually small and dead in young trees and in old trees have completely disappeared. Relate the size of the trunk to its age, and also relate the size and length of the branches to their age. Where are the youngest branches and how old are they? What branches are oldest? Notice how the branch is noticeably larger just where it joins the trunk, as this is the point of greatest strain. Are the branches the same length on all sides of the trunk? If not, find one where branches are shorter on one side than on the other and try to discover the cause. Usually, if other trees are near enough to shade a certain tree, the branches are shorter and smaller on the shaded side. Let the pupils look up into the tree from beneath and then go a little distance away and look at it. They will notice how bare the branches are on the inside, and the teacher will probably have to explain why this is so. They will discover that the leaves are nearly all out toward the ends of the branches. The leaves get light there while the centre of the tree top is shaded, and the great question that every tree must try to solve is how to get most light for its leaves. The pupils will now see an additional reason why the lower limbs should be longer than the upper ones. The greater length of the lower limbs brings the leaves out into the sunlight. Why this tree is called an evergreen may now be considered. Why it retains its leaves all winter is a problem for more advanced classes, but if the question is asked, the teacher may get over the difficulty by explaining to the class that the leaves are so small and yet so hardy that wind and frost and snow do not injure them. The pupils may each bring a small branch of twig back to the school-room, if the white pine is growing commonly about, otherwise the teacher may provide himself with a branch upon which to base another observation lesson in the class-room. If the tree has cones on it, an effort should be made to get a few, as they will also be considered in a subsequent class-room lesson. If the cones have not yet opened when they are picked, so much the better, as they will soon open in a warm room, and the pupils will be able to examine the seeds and notice how they whirl through the air in falling. If possible, let the pupils have an opportunity of seeing pine trees growing in the woods as well as in the open. OUTLINE OF A CLASS-ROOM LESSON ON THE WHITE PINE ~Inferences.~--If possible, each pupil is supplied with a small branch of the white pine and the teacher with a larger branch which can easily be seen by all the pupils. Before proceeding to examine the specimens, give the pupils a chance to tell what they now know about the white pine, and thus review the lesson taken out-of-doors. Then ask a few questions bearing upon their own observations, such as: What was the soil like where you found the pine tree growing? (They are found most commonly on light, sandy soil.) Did you notice any difference between the shapes of the pines in the deep woods and the pines in the open fields? Did you notice any dead limbs on those in the woods? Why did they die? The pupils may conclude that branches whose leaves cannot get the sunlight must die. Show that this causes knots in the lumber and exhibit samples. This explains also why the trees of the forest have such tall stems without branches for a long distance up from the ground. They get the light only from above and seem to strive with the surrounding trees to reach it. If we want trees to grow tall, how should we plant them? (Close together) What would such trees be good for? (Making timber or lumber) If we want trees to grow low and have thick and bushy tops, how should we plant them? (Far apart) What would such trees be good for? (Their shade and their beauty) Good shade trees should be thirty to forty feet apart. Ask the pupils if they have ever been near a pine tree when a gentle breeze was blowing, and have them tell the cause of the sound that they heard. They may decide that the shape and size of the leaves caused the sound when the wind was blowing through the tree top. Have them examine the branches in order to discover the following points: LEAVES.--These are in bunches of five, two to three inches long, three-cornered, and with little teeth pointing toward the tip, light green near the tip of the bough (young leaves) and darker further down (older leaves); age of a leaf the same as the age of the wood it grows on, therefore some leaves are one year, some two, and a few three years old. No leaves on four-year-old wood, therefore the leaves fall off the white pine the third year. Ask pupils to try to find out by observation when the leaves fall off the pines. Note the fragrance of the leaves, and that they are sometimes put into "pine" cushions, also, how slippery they are to walk on. BUDS.--These are found at the tips of the branches, one large one in the centre and several smaller ones grouped around it. Note their reddish-brown colour and that they are made up of scales overlapping and covered with gum which keeps out the rain, thus protecting the little growing tip inside. When buds grow, they become little twigs with leaves on. Find where the buds were a year ago. Notice the light colour of the twigs that grow during the present season and the darker colour of the twigs of the previous year. Where were the buds two years ago? What did the centre bud become? (A continuation of the stem) What did the other buds, called lateral buds, become? (New branches) Compare the growth made in different years. Notice also how white the wood of the twigs is--the probable reason for calling it "white pine". CONES.--Note the length and shape of the cones and how the seeds are placed in them inside the large scales. Get some of the seeds and note the wing-like attachment. Take the wing off a seed and drop it from a height at the same instant with one that has its wing attached. Note the whirling motion and infer what purpose the wing serves in scattering seed. Taste the kernel of a pine seed and discover why squirrels are fond of them. Burn a pine cone. Find out what birds like to live in this tree. What has been noticed about them and their nests? Have the pupils keep the seeds until the following spring by putting them in a box of dry sand and setting them in a cold place. They should then plant them in a corner where they can be partly shaded when the sun is bright. Plant them about half an inch deep and keep them watered if the weather is dry during the first summer. NOTE.--The cones drop their seeds from high up in the tree so that the wind can carry the seeds long distances. The cones usually stay on the trees for a couple of years after they lose their seeds. CORRELATIONS Draw a pine tree, a bunch of pine needles, a pine cone, and a pine seed. Write a description of a pine tree seen in the woods; also of one found in the open. Write a list of things for which the white pine is useful. _To the teacher._--The winter months, besides affording an opportunity for seeing trees and plants in their dormant or quiescent condition, also afford an opportunity for reading and reflection, for recalling observations and experiences of the past season, and for making plans for work and study in the school garden, woods, and fields when spring returns. The knowledge gained by the pupils through first-hand observation of trees, flowers, and gardens can be greatly extended by pictures and stories descriptive of these, which the teacher may from time to time bring to the school-room. Their personal experiences will be the basis for interpretation of many new things which will come up in the reading lessons, in selections which the teacher reads from week to week, and in books and papers which they themselves read in their homes. Thus the interest that is aroused by the first-hand studies of plants in garden, orchard, or woodland will be carried over from autumn to spring, and the pupils, with the awakening of spring, will take up anew the study of plant life with a keener interest because of the time given to reading and reflection during the winter. Illustrated magazines dealing with gardening and with the study of trees and plants, and such magazines as have a children's department, will prove of great assistance to the teacher who makes any serious attempt to interest pupils in plant studies. Stories of life in the woods and of plant studies suitable to young pupils should be used. REFERENCES Margaret Morley: _Flowers and their Friends._ Ginn & Co. 50 cents. Margaret Morley: _Seed Babies._ Ginn & Co. 25 cents. Margaret Morley: _Little Wanderers._ Ginn & Co. 30 cents. Alice Lounsberry: _The Garden Book for Young People._ Stokes. $1.50. Gertrude Stone: _Trees in Prose and Poetry._ Ginn & Co. 45 cents. COMPARATIVE LESSON ON VARIETIES OF WINTER APPLES KING, BALDWIN, NORTHERN SPY Discuss the names, keeping and cooking qualities of the apples, and bearing qualities of the trees. Provide each member of the class with a typical representative of each of the above varieties of apples. Compare the three apples as to size, form, colour--including marks; hardness, length, and thickness of stem; depth of cavity at the stem end; depth and shape of the cavity at the calyx end. Split each apple from stem to calyx and compare as to the thickness and toughness of the skin, the colour of the flesh, the size of the core, taste and juiciness of the flesh. _To the teacher._--All three are apples of fair size, the Baldwin being on the average the smallest of the three. All three are roundish, but the King is somewhat oval-round, and the Spy, conical-round. The Baldwin has a yellowish skin with crimson and red splashes dotted with russet spots. The King is reddish, shading to dark crimson. The Spy has a yellowish-green skin sprinkled with pink and striped with red. The beautiful colours make all these apples very popular in the markets of American cities and in those of the British Isles; but the soft and easily damaged skin of the Spy makes it the least desirable as an apple for export. All keep well and in cool cellars remain in good condition until April. They may be kept much longer in cold storage chambers, where the temperature is uniformly near the freezing point of the apple. The Baldwin apple tree is reasonably hardy within the ordinary range for apple trees, and its yield is a satisfactory average. The King apple tree is not a hardy tree, nor is it a satisfactory bearer except in the best apple districts. The Spy is a fairly hardy tree and thrives and yields well throughout a wide range; but it does not begin to bear until it is about fifteen years old. A comparative lesson may also be based on selected varieties of autumn apples, such as Fameuse, McIntosh Red, Wealthy, Gravenstein, and St. Lawrence. CODLING MOTH Begin the study of the codling moth in August by examining wormy apples. Find out, by asking the pupils, which orchards of the locality had been sprayed in the spring. Ask the pupils to count out at random one hundred apples and to select from these the number that are wormy. What percentage of the apples are wormy? Compare the percentage of wormy apples in unsprayed, with that in sprayed, orchards. The results will afford evidence of the benefit of spraying. Find out, if possible, the dates on which, and the conditions under which, the spraying of the orchards with the least number of wormy apples was done. Ask the pupils to bring to the school-room a number of wormy apples. Have the pupils cut these open and note the nature and position of the hole, or burrow, and the amount of damage done to the apples. Have the pupils observe the larva and note the size, colour, shape, and number of legs. _To the teacher._--The apple maggot is a less common insect larva and may be distinguished from the larva of the codling moth by the fact that the former has no legs and has the habit of burrowing in all directions through the pulp of the apple, while the larva of the codling moth works almost entirely in the core. The cocoon and pupa phase of this insect may be obtained by keeping the wormy apples in a box containing loose paper on which the cocoons will be placed, or by searching under the bark scales of apple trees in October. Describe the cocoons. Open some of them and describe the contents. Keep the remaining cocoons in a box or vivarium in a cool place during the winter. What birds are seen tapping at the bark scales of the apple trees during winter? Examine the bark scales when a downy woodpecker has been at work and note that the cocoons have been destroyed. Should we encourage the visits of woodpeckers to the orchards? By hanging up a beef bone in the orchard, various birds, including woodpeckers, will be induced to visit and perhaps to make their homes in the orchard. REFERENCES _Common Insects Affecting Fruit Trees, Bulletin No. 158_, Department of Agriculture, Parliament Buildings, Toronto. _Bulletins Nos. 158 and 171_, Ontario Department of Agriculture, deal with many insect pests and their remedies. In May look for the adult moths as they emerge from the cocoons. Observe the colour, size, shape, and the bright copper-coloured horse-shoe on the front wing--the "brand" of the codling moth. Examine the little apples when the blossoms are falling. Note the tiny, flat, oval-shaped egg at various places on the surfaces of the apples and a few days later the tiny worm which emerges from the egg. This soon eats its way into the apple, entering usually at the calyx end. If spraying is done after the petals have fallen and just before the calyx end closes up, a drop of poison is inclosed, and when the larva enters it and begins eating its way into the apple, it gets the poison. SOME COMMON ANIMAL FORMS Brief lessons should be given on some of the lower members of the animal kingdom, for the purpose of broadening the interests of the pupils. The following are suggested as types: snail, spider, freshwater mussel (clam), crayfish (crab), centiped, milliped, salamander, and wood-louse. These are common animal forms, most of which are frequently seen by the pupils, but seldom are their interesting life habits or their places in the animal kingdom recognized. The salamander is to many pupils a lizard of the most poisonous kind; centipeds and millipeds are worms, and they do not recognize that the clam is an animal with sensibilities and instincts. REFERENCES Kellogg: _Elementary Zoology_ Silcox and Stevenson: _Modern Nature Study_ CENTIPEDS AND MILLIPEDS Under stones and sticks in moist soil are to be found two worm-like forms, both having many legs. One of these animals is flat, about an inch long, brown in colour, and provided with a pair of long feelers. On each division of the body is a single pair of legs. This is the _centiped_. The other animal is more cylindrical in shape and has two pairs of legs on each division of the body. Its colour is a darker brown than that of the centiped, and it has a habit of coiling into a spiral shape, when disturbed, so that the soft under surface is concealed. This is the _milliped_. Both of these animals are quite harmless and feed on decaying vegetable matter. They stand midway between worms and insects in forms and habits. A brief observation lesson on each animal, involving their movements and the structural features named above, will enable the pupils to identify them and to appreciate their position in the animal kingdom. SALAMANDERS, OR NEWTS Some forms of these are found in water, as in streams, ponds, and ditches, while other forms are found on land, where they hide under stones and sticks. They are commonly mistaken for lizards, which they closely resemble in shape; but the two animals may be distinguished by the fact that the surface of the body of a salamander is smooth, while that of a lizard is covered with scales. The small red or copper-coloured newts are the most common in Ontario and are frequently found on roads after heavy rains. The tiger salamanders are larger than the red newts and are marked with orange and black spots, hence the name "tiger". Many people believe this species to be especially venomous, while in reality it is quite harmless and, like the other salamanders, is useful for destroying insects and small snails, which form the greater part of its food. _To the teacher._--The superstition of the salamander's power to extinguish a fire into which it is thrown still exists. The early life of the salamander is spent in water, the young form being very much like a tadpole. The salamanders are close relatives of the frogs and toads and may be kept in a jar or vivarium in wet moss or grass. The pupils should learn to recognize the animals and should be instructed as to their habits. SPIDERS ~Problems in observation.~--In how many places can you find spiders' webs? How many forms of spiders' webs can you find? Are the many webs that are found on the meadow grass in the dewy mornings the homes of spiders? If so, describe where the spiders live. (At the bottom of tunnels that run into the ground.) What uses do spiders make of their webs? (Trapping prey, supporting egg cases, protection, and means of moving, as in the case of cobweb spiders.) Drop a fly upon a spider's web and observe the action of the spider. Search under the webs of spiders in attics and sheds and learn, from the skeletons found there, what the spider feeds upon. It will be found that flies, beetles, and other spiders are killed by this monster. Watch a spider spinning its web and find out what parts of the body are used in this work. It will be seen that the threads are produced from little tubes at the rear end of the animal and are placed and fastened by means of the feet. Examine, by the aid of a hand lens, the feet and head of the spider. Note the "brushes and combs" on the former. Note, on the latter, the four, six, or eight eyes (the number and arrangement vary), and the short poison claws at the front of the head. How are the poison claws adapted for seizing and piercing? Note the sharp hooks at the lower ends. BIRD STUDIES Continue the lessons in bird identification and in bird types, using the methods outlined for these studies in Form III. (See pp. 217-24.) CHAPTER XIII FORM IV WINTER FOREST TREES EVERGREENS Several species of evergreens have already been studied. These should be reviewed, and representatives of other species examined. Mid-winter is most suitable for the study of evergreens. The following points should be considered: 1. Description leading to identification 2. Nature of soil and water conditions 3. Common uses of each species of evergreen 4. Collection of wood specimens and cones. WOOD SPECIMENS Specimens should be uniform in size and should show bark on one side and heart wood as well as the outside, or sap wood. They should be about six inches long, two inches wide on the side having the bark, and should gradually come to an edge toward the pith, or centre. When seasoned, one side and one edge should be polished and then oiled or varnished. Specimens of the wood of the deciduous trees may also be prepared during the winter. FRUITS During the winter months, some time should be devoted to reading and discussing articles on general farming and fruit growing. Such articles may be taken from books, magazines, or newspapers, and may be supplied partly by the teacher and partly by the pupils. These articles will be appreciated by the pupils all the more because of their studies of fruit trees during the season. Such topics as the following may be discussed: 1. Best kind of apples, plums, bush fruits, and strawberries. Reports from the Dominion and Provincial Departments of Agriculture. 2. Method of raising fruit trees--from seed, grafting, and budding. 3. Demonstrations in pruning. This may be done in early spring by taking a class to a neighbouring orchard. 4. Methods of planting and cultivation. 5. Packing and storing. 6. Spraying. Much information is to be found in Horticultural Journals and papers, and in Bulletins to be obtained from the Secretary of Agriculture for Ontario. Illustrated articles on gardening and fruit growing should be collected for school use. Views of fine gardens, parks, and home grounds will be of interest to the pupils. Simple artistic methods of ornamental planting with trees, shrubs, vines, and herbaceous perennials can now be introduced, and some scheme for improving the school grounds outlined. Catalogues should be obtained soon after New Year's and, after examining their merits, the best varieties of seed and fruit for the district should be selected. Horticultural societies, as well as Dominion and Provincial Departments of Agriculture, commonly give selected lists with descriptions of the different varieties. WEEDS AND WEED SEEDS The training in the observation and identification of weeds and weed seeds, which was begun in Form III, should be continued in Form IV. For method see Form III. PHYSICAL SCIENCE PHASE OF NATURE STUDY WATER PRESSURE 1. Grasp an empty tin can by the top and push it down into a pail of water. Note the tendency of the can to rise. The water presses upward. Its downward pressure is evident. 2. Tie a large stone to a string, hold it at arm's length, shut the eyes, and lower the stone into water. _Note_ the decrease in weight. This is also due to upward pressure, which we call buoyancy. The actual decrease may be found by means of a spring balance. 3. Try Experiment 2, using a piece of iron the same weight as the stone. Is the decrease in weight as evident? Ships made wholly of iron will sink. Explain. 4. Put an egg into water; it slowly sinks. Add salt to the water; the egg floats. EXERCISES 1. Will the human body sink in water? In which is there less danger of drowning, lake or sea water? 2. When in bathing, immerse nearly the whole body, then take a full inspiration. Note the rise of the body. 3. Why does ice float? (See expansion of water by freezing.) 4. Balloons are bags filled with some light gas, generally hydrogen or hot air. They are pushed up by the buoyancy of the air. The rise of heated air or water (see Convection) is really due to the same force. Clouds, feathers, and thistledown are kept in the air more by the action of winds and small air currents than by buoyancy. STUDY OF AIR (Consult _Science of Common Life_, Chaps. VIII, IX, X.) 1. Air takes up space. Put a cork with one hole into the neck of a flask or bottle. Insert the stem of a funnel and try to pour in water. Try with two holes in the cork. When we call a bottle "empty" what is in it? 2. Air is all around us. Feel it; wave the hands through it; run through it; note that the wind is air; inhale the air and watch the chest. 3. Air has weight. This is not easy to demonstrate without an air-pump and a fairly delicate balance. Fit a large glass flask with a tightly fitting rubber stopper having a short glass tube passing through it. To the glass tube attach a short rubber one and on this put a clamp. Open the clamp and suck out all the air possible. Close the clamp and weigh the flask. When perfectly balanced, open the clamp and let the air enter again. Note the increase in weight. If an air-pump is available, procure a glass globe provided with a stop-cock (see Apparatus). Pump some of the air from the globe, then weigh and, while it is on the balance, admit the air again and note increase in weight. Tie a piece of thin sheet rubber over the large end of a thistle tube; suck the air out of the tube and note how the rubber is pushed in. This is due to the weight or pressure of the air. Turn the tube in various positions to show that the pressure comes from all directions. To show that "suction" is not a force, let a pupil try to suck water out of a flask when there is only one opening through the stopper. If two holes are made, the water may be sucked up, that is, _pushed_ up by the weight of the air. Fill a pickle jar with water. Place a piece of writing paper on the top and then, holding the paper with the palm of the hand, invert the jar. The pressure of the air keeps the water in. A cubic foot of air weighs nearly 1-1/4 oz. Find the weight of the air in your school-room. The atmosphere exerts about fifteen pounds pressure on every square inch of the surface it rests against. Find the weight supported by the top of a desk 18 inches by 24 inches. If the surface of the body is eight square feet, what weight does it have to sustain? Why does this weight not crush us? THE BAROMETER The experiments immediately preceding will have paved the way for a study of the barometer. 1. Fill a jar with water and invert it, keeping its mouth below the surface of the water in another vessel. If the pupils can be led to see that the water is sustained in the jar by the air pressing on the water in the vessel, they can understand the barometer. 2. Fill a tube about 30 inches long, and 1/4 inch inside diameter with water, and invert it over water, as with the jar in the previous experiment. 3. Use the same tube or one similar to that in 2 above, but fill with mercury and allow the pupils to notice the great weight of the mercury. Holding the mercury in with your finger, invert the tube over mercury. This time the fluid falls some distance in the tube as soon as the finger is removed. A tube of this size requires 1 lb. of mercury. Lead the pupils to see that the mercury remaining in the tube is sustained by the air pressure, and that any increase or decrease of the atmospheric pressure will result in the rise or fall of the mercury column. Leave the barometer (made as in 3 above) in the room for a few days and note whether its weight changes. The use of the instrument in predicting weather changes should be emphasized. Compare your barometer with the records in the daily papers. The average height of the barometric column is 30 inches at sea-level. Explain how you could estimate heights of mountains and balloons with a barometer. THE COMMON PUMP This is a valuable application of air pressure. A glass model will prove useful, but a model made by pupils will be much more so. (See _Laboratory Exercises in Physics_ by Newman.) The water rises in the pump because the sucker lifts the air from the water inside, allowing the air outside to push the water up. A common pump will not lift water more than about 30 feet. Why is this? Compare the pump to a barometer. (See _The Ontario High School Physics_.) EXPANSIVE FORCE OF AIR Air and all other gases manifest a pressure in all directions not due to their weight. The power of air to keep tires and footballs inflated and that of steam in driving an engine are examples. It is this force that prevents the pressure of air from crushing in, since there are many air spaces distributed throughout the body. COMPOSITION OF AIR This subject and the three immediately following it have a special bearing on hygiene. 1. Invert a sealing-jar over a lighted candle. Has the candle used up _all_ the air when it goes out? 2. Place a very short candle on a thin piece of cork afloat on water in a plate; light the candle, and again invert the jar over it. Note that the candle goes out and the water rises only a short distance in the jar; therefore _all_ the air has not been used up. 3. Slip the glass top of the jar under the open end and set the jar mouth upward on the table without allowing any water to escape. Now plunge a lighted splinter into the jar. The flame is extinguished. Air, therefore, contains an active part that helps the candle to burn and an inactive part that extinguishes flame. The names _oxygen_ and _nitrogen_ may be given. These gases occur in air in the proportion of about 1:4. (This method is not above criticism. Its advantage for young pupils lies in its simplicity.) OXYGEN Make two or three jars of oxygen, using potassium chlorate and manganese dioxide. (See any Chemistry text-book.) Let the pupils examine the chemicals, learn their names, and know where to obtain them. Perform the following experiments: 1. A glowing splinter relights and burns very brightly if plunged into oxygen. 2. A piece of picture wire tipped with sulphur burns with great brightness. 3. Burn phosphorus or match heads in a spoon. A spoon may be made by attaching to a wire a bit of crayon having a hollow scooped on its upper surface. A clay pipe bowl attached to a wire will answer. From these experiments pupils will learn the value of nitrogen as a diluent of the oxygen. Pure oxygen entering the lungs would be just as destructive as it would be entering the furnace. CARBON DIOXIDE 1. Make a jar of this gas. Washing soda and vinegar will answer if hydrochloric acid and marble are not obtainable. (Consult the _Science of Common Life_, Chap. XIII, and any Chemistry text-book.) 2. Lower a lighted candle first into a jar of air then into the jar of carbon dioxide. 3. Make some lime-water by stirring slaked lime with water and allowing the mixture to settle. Shake up some clear lime-water with a jar of the gas. Pupils will be made to understand that the milky colour will in future be considered the test for carbon dioxide. 4. Have one of the pupils cause his breath to bubble through some clear lime-water for a minute. Using a bicycle pump, cause some fresh air to bubble through lime-water. 5. Hold a clear jar inverted over the candle flame for a few seconds, then test with lime-water. 6. Invert a large jar over a leafy plant for a day. Keep in the dark and test the jar with lime-water. Is this gas likely to be in the air? Set a plate of lime-water in the school-room for a day or two, and then examine it. Try to pour the gas from jar to jar and use a candle as a test. Is the gas heavier than air? On account of its weight, the gas often collects in the bottoms of old wells, mines, and tunnels. It is dangerous there since it will not support life. USES: 1. Add a little water to some baking powder and cause the gas that forms to pass through lime-water. What causes the biscuits to "rise"? 2. Mix flour and water in a jar, add a bit of yeast cake and a little sugar, and let stand in a warm place. Test the gas that forms, for carbon dioxide. What causes bread to rise? 3. Uncork a bottle of ginger ale, shake the bottle, and lead the gas that comes off through lime-water. 4. Most portable fire extinguishers depend on the generation of carbon dioxide. Show the similarity between our bodies and the candle. The candle needs oxygen; it produces heat, and yields water and carbon dioxide. Much of our food is somewhat similar in composition to the wax of a candle; we breathe oxygen, our bodies are warmed by a real burning within, and we exhale water and carbon dioxide. After exercise why do we feel more hungry? Why do we breathe faster? Why do we feel warmer? Why does the fire burn better when the damper is opened? IMPURITIES OF AIR All air contains carbon dioxide. If the amount exceeds 6 parts in 10,000, it becomes an impurity, not so much on its own account as because it indicates a poisoned state of the air in a room, since organic poisons always accompany it when it is emitted from the lungs. Other impurities of the air, dependent on the locality and the season, are smoke, dust, disease germs, sewer gas, coal-gas, pollen dust. SOLUTIONS OF SOLIDS (Consult the _Science of Common Life_, Chap. VII.) Have the pupils weigh out equal quantities of sugar, salt, soda, alum, blue-vitriol. Shake up with equal quantities of water to compare solubilities. Repeat, using hot water. Is it possible to recover the substance dissolved? Set out solutions on the table to evaporate, or evaporate them rapidly over a stove or spirit-lamp. Try to dissolve sand, sulphur, charcoal, in water. Obtain crystals of iodine and show how much better, in some cases, alcohol is as a solvent than is water. APPLICATIONS: 1. Most of our "essences", "tinctures", and "spirits" are alcoholic solutions. 2. Digestion is the effort of the body to dissolve food. 3. The food in the soil enters the plant only after solution. 4. The solvent power of water makes it so valuable for washing. 5. Maple sap is water containing sugar in solution. 6. In the salt region along Lake Huron, holes are drilled to the salt beds, water is poured in, then pumped out and evaporated. Explain. 7. Meat broth is a solution of certain materials in the meat. 8. How could you manufacture salt from sea water? SOLUTION OF LIQUIDS Try to mix oil and water, benzine and water, oil and benzine. Only in the third case do we find a permanent mixture, or solution. Try to dissolve vinegar, glycerine, alcohol, mercury, with water. APPLICATIONS: 1. Paint is mixed with oil so that the rain will not wash it off so easily. 2. Water will not wash grease stains. Benzine is necessary. 3. Why is it necessary to "shake" the bottle before taking medicine? SOLUTION OF GASES Study air dissolved in water, by gently heating water in a test-tube and observing the bubbles of air that gather on the inner surface of the test-tube. Aquatic animals, such as fish, clams, crayfish, crabs, subsist on this dissolved air. LIMESTONE Pieces of this rock may be found in all localities. Teach pupils to recognize it by its gray colour, its effervescence with acid, and the fossils and strata that show in most cases. If exposed limestone rocks are near, visit them with the pupils and note the layers, fossils, and evidences of sea action. Compare lime with limestone as to touch, colour, and action on water and litmus. Try to make lime by putting a lump of limestone in the coals for some time; add water to this. Other forms of limestone are marble, chalk, egg-shells, clam-shells, scales in tea-kettles. Geographically, the study of limestone is of great importance. Grind some limestone very fine, add a very little of this to water, and bubble carbon dioxide through for some time; note the disappearance of the limestone. This explains how limestone rocks are being slowly worn away and why the water of rivers, springs, and wells is so often "hard". Catch some rain-water in the open and test it for hardness. It will be found "soft". Place a few limestone pebbles in a tumbler with this soft water and after a day or two test again. The water will be "hard". Compare, as to hardness, the water from a concrete cistern with that from a wooden one. CARBON Procure specimens of hard and soft coal, coke, charcoal, graphite, peat, and petroleum. Note the distinctive characteristics of each. Discuss the uses. Try to set each on fire. Note which burns with a flame when laid on the coals or placed over the spirit-lamp. Put a bit of soft coal into a small test-tube; heat and light the gas that is produced. This gas, when purified, is one kind of illuminating gas. Note the _coke_ left in the test-tube. Fill the bowl of a clay pipe with soft coal and seal it up with plaster of paris. After this has hardened, place the bowl in hot coals or in the flame of a spirit-lamp and light the coal-gas at the end of the stem. After all the gas has been driven off, look for the coke inside. Heat a bit of wood in a small test-tube and light the gas that is evolved. Note the charcoal left. Cover a piece of wood with sand or earth; heat, and note that charcoal is formed. This illustrates the old method of charcoal-burning. This subject is closely related to industrial geography. HYDROGEN A convenient way to prepare hydrogen is to use zinc and hydrochloric acid with a test-tube for a generator. (Consult any Chemistry text-book.) Make the gas and burn it at the end of a tube, holding a dry, cold tumbler inverted over the flame. Note that water is formed. Conclude what water consists of, namely, oxygen and hydrogen. Water may be decomposed into oxygen and hydrogen, hence a use of hydrogen may be shown by attaching a clay pipe to the generator and filling soap bubbles with the gas. When freed these rise quickly. MAGNETS If bar magnets cannot be obtained, use a child's horse-shoe magnet. Procure small pieces of cork, wood, iron, brass, glass, lead, etc., and let pupils discover which the magnet attracts. Have pupils interpose paper, wood, slate, glass, iron, lead, etc., in sheets between the magnet and the iron and note the effect on the force exerted. Note that when one end of a magnet touches or comes near the end of a nail, the nail becomes a magnet, but not a permanent one. Magnetize a needle by drawing one of the poles of the magnet from end to end of the needle, always in the same direction, about twenty times. Suspend the needle horizontally with a piece of silk thread and note its position when at rest. Get a small compass and show how it is related to the foregoing experiments. Emphasize its use to mariners. If possible, get a piece of lodestone and show its magnetic properties. ELECTRICITY Half fill a tumbler with water and add about a teaspoonful of sulphuric acid. Set in this a piece of copper and a piece of zinc, but do not let them touch. Make a coil by winding insulated wire around a block of wood about ten times. Remove the wood and place a compass in the centre of the coil. Join the ends of the wire to the two metals in the tumbler. The sudden movement of the needle will be taken as the indication of a current. Let pupils try experiments with many pairs of solids, such as lead and silver, carbon and glass, wood and iron, tin and zinc, and liquids such as vinegar and brine. Show pupils how to make a simple battery. See home-made apparatus, page 50, and consult _Laboratory Exercises_ by Newman. Two or three dry cells will be found sufficient for any experiments, but the home-made battery is to be preferred. Show pupils how to make a magnet by winding a piece of insulated wire around a nail and joining the ends of the wire to the battery. Make a horse-shoe magnet by bending the nail and winding the wire about both ends in opposite directions. As an application of the electro-magnet, show pupils how to make a telegraph sounder. (See Manual on _Manual Training_.) If possible, examine the construction of an electric bell. The motor and electric light are other common applications of the current. Take up the uses of the motor in factories, and for running street-cars and automobiles. Show the necessity for a water-wheel or engine to produce the current, and for wires to connect. Explain that batteries are not used to produce large currents, but that machines called dynamos, similar to motors, when driven by steam or water-power, will yield electric currents as batteries do. STEAM The power of steam may be shown by loosely corking a flask and boiling the water in it until the cork is driven out, or by stopping the spout of a boiling tea-kettle, or by letting a stream of steam impinge on a toy paper wheel. Encourage pupils to learn all they can about steam and gasolene engines and their uses. FARM TOOLS This topic should be dealt with only in so far as it can be made a subject for actual observation by the pupils. Children should learn to be thoughtful and observant and to do all kinds of work, manual as well as mental, intelligently. MACHINES (Consult _The Ontario High School Physics_, Chap. IX.) LEVER.--When a _lever_ is used to lift a log, one end is placed under the log, a block called a _fulcrum_ is placed under the lever as close as possible to the log, and then the workman pulls down on the outer end of the lever. For example, if the fulcrum is one foot from the log and ten feet from the man, the latter can raise ten pounds with a pull of one pound, but he has to move his end of the lever ten times as far as the log rises. Try it. See other examples in plough handles, see-saw, balance, scissors, wheel-barrow, pump-handle, handspike, crowbar, canthook, nut-crackers. ROPE AND PULLEY.--In the _rope_ and _pulley_ note that when the pulley is a fixed one, the only advantage is a changed direction of the rope. When the pulley is _movable_, the horse pulling will have only half the weight to draw if the pulley is single, one quarter if double, one sixth if triple, etc. Thus in the case of a common hay-fork the horse draws only half the weight of the hay, but he walks twice as far as the hay moves. COGS.--If one wheel has eighty _cogs_ and the other ten, the latter will turn eight times to the former's once. BELT.--When a _belt_ runs over two wheels, one having, say, one fifth of the diameter of the other, the smaller will revolve five times for one revolution of the other. CRANK.--With a _crank_ two feet long, one may turn a wheel twice as easily as with one one foot long, but the hand will move twice as far. If a wedge is two inches thick at the large end and ten inches long, a man may lift 1000 pounds by striking the wedge a 200-lb. blow. INCLINED PLANE.--If a plank twelve inches long has one end on the ground and the other on a cart four inches high, one man can roll up the plank the same weight that would require three men to lift, but he has to move the object three times as far. PROBLEMS 1. Why is a long-handled spade easier to dig with than a short-handled one? 2. Which is easier, to dig when the spade is thrust full length or half length into the earth? 3. Can a small boy "teeter" on a board against a big boy? How? 4. In helping to move a wagon, why grasp the wheel near its rim? 5. In making a balance, why should the arms be equal? In a balance with unequal arms, compare the weights used with the article weighed. 6. In using shears, is it better to place the object you wish to cut near the handles or near the points? 7. Where is the best place to put the load on a wheel-barrow? 8. Notice how three horses are hitched to a plough or binder. 9. Where would you grasp the pump-handle when you wish to pump (1) easily, (2) quickly? 10. Stretch out your arm and see whether you can hold as heavy a weight on your hand as on your elbow. 11. Count the pulleys used in a hay-fork and determine the use of each. 12. If a ton of hay is unloaded at five equal forkfuls, what weight has the horse to draw at each load? 13. Count the cogs on the wheels of a fanning-mill, washing-machine, apple-parer, or egg-beater, and determine how the direction or rate of the motion is changed thereby. 14. Measure the diameter of the large fly-wheel of a thrashing-machine engine, and of that which turns the cylinder in the separator. Decide how many times the cylinder revolves for one turn of the fly-wheel. 15. Think of all the uses of a wedge. Draw one. Compare the axe, knife, and chisel with the wedge. 16. How are heavy logs loaded on a sleigh or truck? How are barrels of salt and sugar loaded and unloaded? 17. There are two hills of the same height. One has a gradual slope, the other a steep one. Which is easier to climb? In what case is it farthest to the top? 18. Why does a cow or horse take a zigzag path when climbing a steep hill? CHAPTER XIV FORM IV SPRING METHODS OF IMPROVING HOME AND SCHOOL GROUNDS The study of plants should lead to an intelligent appreciation of their beauties and a desire to have them growing about. Many of our native trees, shrubs, vines, and herbaceous plants are quite as beautiful as some that are procured at considerable expense from nurserymen. A great work remains to be done in cultivating and popularizing our best native species. Up to this point the pupils have been getting acquainted with them in their own natural habitat; the next step should be to use them in covering up harsh and offensive views about the school and home grounds, in softening and giving restful relief to barren yards and bare walls, to ugly fences and uninteresting walks and driveways. Begin to plan some simple improvements for the spring. These may be repairing of fences and gates in order to protect the grounds from stray animals, the cleaning up of the yards, the gathering of stones which may be used in making a rockery, the planting of trees along the sides and front of the grounds--a double row of evergreens to overcome a cold northern exposure or to exclude from view disagreeable features, the laying out of a walk or drive with borders, flower beds, or shrubs in little clumps. Plans of grounds well laid out should be examined and discussed in the school-room. Many illustrated magazines give useful suggestions. Plans can be worked out on the black-board with the pupils. It will take years to complete such a plan, but the pupils should have a part in making the plan as well as in carrying it out. The aim should be to encourage the use of simple and inexpensive things obtained in the vicinity, wherewith to produce harmony and pleasing natural effects. Comfort and utility must be considered as well as beauty and natural design. In the school grounds the outdoor games must also be provided for and sufficient room allowed. Such efforts on the part of the teacher and pupils, if wisely directed, are sure to meet with the approval of the parents and must call forth the hearty co-operation of the trustees. It is not well to attempt too much in one year. It is better to do a small amount well than to leave much work in a half-done condition. MAKING AND CARE OF A LAWN The soil must be drained and not too much shaded by trees. At first it should be summer fallowed or cultivated every few weeks throughout the summer, to kill the weeds and make it fine and level. A thick seeding of lawn grass-seed should be sown early the next spring and raked lightly in. All levelling and preparation must have been done the previous season. Coarse grasses, such as timothy, should not be used on a lawn. Red top and Kentucky blue-grass in equal parts are best and, if white clover is desired, add about half as much white Dutch clover seed as red top. If the soil has been prepared as above, there is no need to use a foster crop of oats or barley, as is done in seeding down meadows. Roll the lawn after seeding and also after heavy rains as soon as the surface dries. Shortly after the grass appears, begin to run the lawn-mower over it, so as to cut weeds or native grasses that may be gaining a foothold. Watering is dangerous, unless carefully and regularly done during the summer, the evening being the best time. Merely wetting the surface by sprinkling encourages shallow rooting and therefore rapid drying out. Regular mowing and rolling are more important. REFERENCES Parsons: _How to Plan the Home Grounds._ Doubleday. $1.00 Waugh: _The Landscape Beautiful._ Judd. $2.00 Department of Education: _Improvement of School Grounds._ SOIL STUDIES WEIGHT Using a balance, compare weights of equal-sized boxes of different soils, dried and powdered fine. Note the comparative lightness of humus. Weigh a box of earth taken fresh from the field, from this compute (1) the weight of a cubic foot of such soil, (2) the weight of the soil to the depth of a foot in a ten-acre field. Repeat the experiment, making it an exercise in percentage. Fill two glass tubes (lamp chimneys will do), one with finely powdered clay, the other with sand. Set the tubes in a pan containing water. Note the rise of the water due to capillarity. Through which soil does it rise faster? Farther? Try with other soils. Try with fine soil and also with the same soil in a lumpy condition. From this give a reason (1) for tilling soil, (2) for rolling after seeding. SUBSOILS Procure samples of soil from different depths, four inches, eight inches, twelve inches, sixteen inches, etc. Note how the soil changes in colour and texture. In which do plants succeed best? In most fields the richest part of the soil is contained in the upper nine inches; the portion below this is called subsoil. This extends to the underlying rock and is usually distinguished from the upper portion by its lighter colour, poorer texture, and smaller supply of available plant food. The difference is due largely to the absence of humus. The character of the subsoil has an important bearing on the condition of the upper soil. A layer of sand or gravel a few feet below the surface provides natural drainage, but if it be too deep, it may allow the water to run away rapidly, carrying the plant food down below the roots of the plants. A hard clay subsoil will render the top too wet in rainy weather and too dry in droughts, because of the small amount of water absorbed. Such a soil is benefited by under-draining. A deep and absorptive subsoil returns water to the surface, by capillary action, as it is needed. The subsoil finally contains a large amount of plant food, which becomes gradually changed into a form in which plants can make use of it. Pupils should find out the character of the subsoil in their various fields at home and its effect on the fertility of the field. FERTILIZERS Along with water, the roots take up from the soil various substances that are essential to their healthy growth. Potash, phosphoric acid, nitrogen, calcium, sulphur, magnesium, and iron are needed by plants, but the first three are particularly important. If land is to yield good crops year after year, it must be fertilized, that is, there must be added chemicals containing the above-mentioned plant foods. Land becomes poor from two causes: the plant food in the soil becomes exhausted, and poisonous excretions from the roots of one year's crops act injuriously on those of the next season. Rotating crops will improve both conditions for a while, but eventually the soil will require treatment. Humus contains plant food and is also an excellent absorbent of the poisonous excretions. It is added as barn-yard manure, leaves, or as a green crop ploughed in. The chemicals commonly used comprise nitrate of soda, bone meal, sulphate of potash, chloride of potash, lime, ashes, cotton-seed meal, dried blood, super-phosphate, rock phosphate, and basic clay. EXPERIMENTS: 1. Sow wheat on the same plot year after year and note the result when no fertilizer is used. Sow wheat on another plot, but use good manure. 2. Try the various commercial fertilizers on the school plots, leaving some without treatment. 3. Examine the roots of clover, peas, or beans, and look for nodules. These show the presence of bacteria, which convert the atmospheric nitrogen into a form in which the plants can use it. Scientific farmers have learned the value of inoculating their soil with these germs. A crop of peas or clover may produce the same result. 4. Observe Nature's method of supplying soil with humus. SOIL-FORMING AGENTS There was once a time when the surface of the earth was bare rock. Much of this rock still exists and in many places lies on the surface, but it is usually hidden by a layer of soil. Soil is said to be "rock ground to meal by Nature's millstones". The process is very slow, but it is constantly going on. The pupils should be directed to find evidences of this "grinding". 1. RUNNING WATER.--Brooks, creeks, rain, and the tiny streamlets on the hills all tell us how soil is carried from place to place. Get some muddy water from the river after a heavy rain. Let it settle in a tall jar and observe the fine layer formed. Wash some pebbles clean, place them in a glass jar with some clear water, and roll or shake the jar about for a few minutes. Note that the water becomes turbid with fine material worn from the stones. A process similar to this is constantly going on in rivers, lakes, and seas. Account for the presence of gravel beds now situated far away from any water. 2. ICE GLACIERS.--How do these act on rocks? Show evidences in Ontario as far as these can be illustrated from the surroundings, such as polished rocks, boulders, beds of clay, sand, or gravel, small lakes, grooved stones, etc. 3. FROST AND HEAT.--See "Expansion of Solids", pages 189, 190. Look for splintered or cracked stones. Why do farmers plough in the fall? 4. WIND.--In sections near the lakes the action of the wind in moving the sand may be seen and appreciated. There are other places where this work is going on on a smaller scale. 5. PLANTS.--Our study of humus shows the value of vegetable matter in soil. Besides contributing to the soil, plants break up rocks with their roots and dissolve them with acid excretions. It is interesting to study how a bare rock becomes covered with soil. First come the lichens which need no soil; on the remains of these the mosses grow. The roots of mosses and lichens help to disintegrate the rock with their excretions, so that, with frost, heat, air, and rain to assist, there is a layer of soil gradually formed on which larger plants can live. A forest develops. The trees supply shade from the sun and shelter from the wind, thus retarding evaporation. The roots of the trees hold the soil from being washed away. The dead leaves and fallen stems provide humus, and, on account of the water-holding capacity of humus, the forest floor acts like a sponge, preventing floods in wet seasons and droughts in dry times. 6. ANIMALS.--Pupils should make a list of all burrowing animals and look for examples. The work of the earthworms is especially interesting. By eating the soil, they improve its texture and expose it to the air. Their holes admit air and water to the soil. The worms also drag leaves, sticks, and grass into their holes and thus add to the humus. Darwin estimated that the earthworms in England passed over ten tons of soil an acre through their bodies annually. This is left on the surface and makes a rich top-dressing. TILLING THE SOIL 1. It makes the soil finer, thus increasing the surface for holding film water and enabling it to conduct more water by capillarity. 2. It saves water from evaporation. (See Experiments 7 and 8, Form III.) 3. It aerates the soil, enabling roots to thrive better. 4. It drains (hence warms) the soil, assuring more rapid growth. 5. It kills weeds. A large part of the work with soils may be done in connection with the garden studies, though most of the above mentioned experiments may be tried in the school-room. In ungraded schools any of the experiments may be made instructive to all the Forms. Pupils should be asked to acquaint themselves with the common implements used on the farm. They should ascertain the special service rendered by each. See _Circular 156_, Dominion Department of Agriculture. GARDEN WORK The work in gardening for Form IV should be connected with some definite line of experimental work. The garden should be so planned that a part of it can be used exclusively for experimental work. Co-operation with the Farmer's Experimental Union of the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph is advisable at this point. The following list of experiments is suggested as suitable for boys especially, but no pupil should attempt more than one experiment each year. EXPERIMENTS IN PLOTS OUT-OF-DOORS Experimental plots may be of different sizes, according to the space available, from a yard square to a rod square or larger. A plot 10 ft. 5 in. by 20 ft. 10 in. is almost 1/200 of an acre, so that the actual yield on such a plot when multiplied by 200 is an approximation of the yield an acre. 1. Testing of varieties of grains, vegetables, or root seeds, including potatoes new to the district. 2. Testing different varieties of clovers and fodder grasses. These plots should be so situated that they can remain for three years. 3. Thick and thin sowing of grain: Use plots not less than four feet square. They may be tried most easily with wheat, oats, or barley, although any species of grain may be used. Use four plots of the same size, equal in fertility and other soil conditions. In No. 1 put grains of wheat or oats, as the case may be, two inches apart each way. In No. 2 put the grains two inches apart in the row and the rows four inches apart. In No. 3 put the grains four inches apart in the row and the rows four inches apart. In No. 4 put the grains four inches apart in the row and the rows eight inches apart. If possible, weigh the straw and grain when cut and the grain alone when dry and shelled out of the heads. 4. Deep and shallow growing of grain: Use four plots similar to those in experiment No. 3. Put the same amount of seed in the different plots. In No. 1, one inch deep; in No. 2. two inches deep; in No. 3, four inches deep, and in No. 4, six inches deep. Note which is up first, and which gives the best yield and best quality. 5. Early and late sowing: Three plots are required. Plant the same amount of seed in each and cover to the same depth. Plant No. 1 as early as the soil can be made ready; No. 2, two weeks later; and No. 3, two weeks later than No. 2. Compare the quality and the yield. 6. Effect of sowing clover with grain the first year: Only two plots are required. Sow the same amount of wheat or oats on each plot. On one plot put a moderate supply of red clover and none on the other. Weigh (or estimate), as in Experiment 3 above, the straw and the grain produced on each. 7. Effect of a clover crop on the grain crop succeeding it the following year: The same two plots must be used as in No. 6. When the grain was cut the previous autumn, the plots should have been left standing without cultivation until spring. When the clover has made some growth, spade it down and prepare the other plot in the same way. Rake them level and sow the same amount of grain in each again. Weigh the crops produced on each. 8. Test quality, yield, and time of maturity of several varieties of the same species. Samples of such varieties of wheat as Red Fife, White Fife, Preston, Turkey Red, Dawson's Golden Chaff, White Russian, etc., may be obtained from the Central Experimental Farm at Ottawa, if not available in the district. 9. Effect of different fertilizers (1) on the same crop, (2) on different crops: This can be done either out-of-doors in small plots or indoors, using pots or boxes. (1) Effect on the same crop: For example, oats on plots four feet square. The following standard fertilizers may be used: stable manure, nitrate of soda, muriate of potash, and bone meal. On plot No. 1, a dressing of stable manure, On plot No. 2, four oz. nitrate of soda, On plot No. 3, four oz. muriate of potash, On plot No. 4, eight oz. bone meal, On plot No. 5, two oz. nitrate of soda, two oz. muriate of potash, and four oz. bone meal. On plot No. 6, use no fertilizer. Record results. (2) Effect on different crops: Try a series of experiments similar to the above, using (a) peas instead of oats, (b) using corn, (c) using cabbage, (d) using potatoes. FUNCTION OF PARTS OF PLANTS This may be introduced in Form III and continued in the next Form. Already the attention of the pupils has been directed to the essential organs of the flower, namely, stamens and pistil. They have noticed the two kinds of flowers on pumpkins, corn, and many trees. They have seen that only the pistillate flowers produce fruit and seeds, and that when the staminate flowers have shed their pollen, they die. They have seen the yellow dust that the stamens contain and have seen bees laden with it as they emerge from the heart of the flower. Have them watch the bee as it enters the flower and notice how it invariably rubs some part of its pollen-covered body against the pistil. When on the moist, sticky top of the pistil, these little pollen-grains soon begin to grow, sending a delicate tube down to the bottom of the pistil to the ovary. Inside the ovary are little bodies called the ovules that are moistened by a fluid that comes from this delicate pollen tube, and at once they begin to enlarge and eventually become the seeds. The coverings surrounding them complete the true fruit. The use of the root in supporting the plant in its normal position is apparent to every pupil. To demonstrate the firm hold it has upon the soil, have the pupils try to pull up some large plants by the roots. They will then notice the branching roots of some plants and the long conical roots of others. Compare the colour and other surface features of the root and stem. To prove its feeding power, try two plants of equal size, taking the root off one and leaving it uninjured in the other. Set them side by side in moist earth and notice which withers. Take all the leaves off a plant and keep them off for a few weeks. The plant dies if its leaves are not allowed to grow. Keep it in the dark for a long time, and it finally dies even when water and soil are supplied. The leaves, therefore, are essential and require sunlight in doing their work. Their complete work will be considered later. HOW THE PLANT GETS ITS FOOD FROM THE SOIL When seeds germinate, the lower end of the caulicle, which becomes the root, bears large numbers of root-hairs. Inside the root-hairs is protoplasm and cell sap. These root-hairs grow among the soil particles which lie covered over with a thin film of moisture. It is this moisture that is taken up by these root-hairs, and in it is a small amount of mineral matter in solution which helps to sustain the plant. The transmission of soil water through the delicate cell walls of these root-hairs is known as _osmosis_. GERMINATION OF SOME OF THE COMMON GRAINS Make a special study of corn, wheat, and buckwheat. Take three plates and put moist sand in each to a depth of about half an inch. Spread over this a piece of damp cloth. Put in No. 1, one hundred grains of corn; in No. 2, the same number of grains of wheat; and in No. 3, the same number of grains of buckwheat, peas, or beans. Cover each plate with another piece of damp cloth and invert another plate over each to prevent drying out. Keep in a warm room and do not allow the cloths to become dry. If one of the cloths be left hanging six or eight inches over the side of the plate and dipping into a dish of water, the whole cloth will be kept moist by capillarity. Note the following points: 1. Changes in the size of the seeds during the first twenty-four hours. 2. In which variety germination seems most rapid. 3. The percentage vitality, that is, the number of seeds which germinate out of one hundred. 4. The nature of the coverings and their use. (Protection to the parts inside) 5. The parts of the seed inside. (Buckwheat, pea, or bean divides into two parts, which become greenish and are called seed leaves. Wheat and corn do not divide thus.) 6. The first signs of growth. A little shoot or tiny plant begins to develop at one end of the seed. Note which end bears this tiny plant. 7. Note the development of this embryo plant and the formation of stem and root. 8. Of what use is the bulky part of the seed? To answer this, let the pupils separate the white part of a kernel of corn, which is attached to the embryo plant, from the pulpy mass surrounding it. Set five such plants in moist sand and also five germinating seeds not so dissected. Pupils will discover that the mass surrounding the embryo is for the nourishing of the embryo plant. It is a little store of food prepared by the mother plant for the little ones that grow from the seeds. Note that it disappears as the plant grows. To further show the great value of this stored plant food, put a large-sized pea in a pot of moist moss or sawdust for a few days. When it has germinated and its root is a couple of inches long, place the pea in a thistle tube or small funnel, with the root projecting down the tube into a glass of water in which the funnel tube rests. Place all in a sunny window and note how much growth the plant is able to make without any food except that which the seed contained. 9. Note the development of the root and root-hairs. It is by means of these root-hairs that the plant absorbs moisture. The branching form of the root gives greater support to the plant and increased area for absorption of water by means of root-hairs. To show the direction taken by the root and also by the shoot, take a glass jar with straight sides like a battery jar (a large fruit jar will do); line it inside with a layer of blotting-paper and then fill it with moist sawdust. Drop seeds of sunflower or squash down between the paper and the glass. The moisture from the blotting-paper will cause them to sprout, the shoot or stem always taking an upward direction and the root turning downward quite regardless of the position in which the seeds were placed. 10. Apply this study to seed planting: Plant seeds of wheat in four pots of soil, No. 1, half an inch deep; No. 2, two inches; No. 3, four inches; No. 4, six inches. Repeat this experiment, using buckwheat. What seeds are up first? What seeds last? Which are best after a week? After three or four weeks? From this experiment could you recommend a certain depth for the planting of wheat and buckwheat? 11. Does the kind of soil make any difference? To answer this have different pupils choose different soils, such as (1) coarse sand, (2) fine sand, (3) wet clay, (4) humus or leaf mould, (5) mixed soil or loam; and let each put in grains of wheat, two inches deep. Allow five other pupils to plant seeds of buckwheat, under similar conditions. Treat all pots alike as to time of watering and quantity of water used on each and give them all equal light and heat. Note which come up first. Which are highest in one week, in two weeks, in four weeks? 12. This study may be continued in the garden by planting one plot each of corn, wheat, and buckwheat. Plots ten feet by twenty feet are large enough. Observe the rate of development in the plots. Which seems to mature most quickly? Which blossoms first? In what respect are the leaves of these plants alike or unlike? How do the stems differ? Examine the blossoming and seed formation. When the grains are ripe, collect a hundred of the best looking and most compact heads of each grain and also a hundred of the smallest heads of each. Dry, shell, and store the two samples of each grain in separate bottles. These samples are for planting the following spring. 13. To show the need of moisture in germination: Fill two flower-pots or cans with dry sand; put seeds of sunflower in each, covering them an inch deep. Put water in one pot and none in the other. Examine both pots after two or three days. 14. To show that heat is needed for germination of seeds: Plant sunflower seeds in two pots as above; place one in a warm room and the other in a cold room or refrigerator; water both and observe result in three days. 15. To show that air is necessary for germination: Fill a pint sealer with hydrogen (the gas collected over water in the usual way, as shown in any Chemistry text-book). Put a few sunflower seeds in a small sponge or wrap them loosely in a piece of soft cloth. Keeping the mouth of the jar which has been inverted over water and filled with hydrogen, under the surface of the water, introduce the sponge containing the seeds, by putting it under the water and pushing it up into the jar. Seal the jar without letting the gas get out. Put some seeds in another jar in a wet sponge and leave the jar uncovered. Compare results after several days. Here is a second experiment to prove this. Boil some water in a beaker in order to drive out all the air, put a few grains of rice in the water, and then add enough oil to make a thin covering on the water. This covering will prevent air from mixing with the water again. Put some rice in a second beaker without boiling or adding the oil. Leave the beakers side by side in a warm room for a week. The seeds will not germinate in the boiled water. It is not always easy to get rice that will germinate, but when it has been procured, the experiment is easy and very interesting. Any other seeds, such as those of pond lily and eel-grass, that germinate readily under water, will do as well as rice. WEEDS Pupils in this Form should learn to identify a large number of weeds and weed seeds. The collecting and mounting of weeds and weed seeds the previous summer and autumn will have helped to prepare them for this work. In the spring, when flower and vegetable seeds are coming up in the garden, it is often difficult for pupils to distinguish the weeds from the useful plants. To help in this work of distinguishing the good from the bad, the teacher should arrange for a plot having, say, ten rows, one row for each variety of weed selected. Each row should be designated by a number instead of a name. The identification of these growing weeds by name may be given as a problem to the pupils. This plot should remain until the pupils have observed the manner of growth of each variety, the blossoming and seed formation, and then the root growth, as they are being uprooted previous to the ripening of the seed. Each pupil should prepare a brief description of each of the ten varieties studied, and make drawings of the plant and its parts, especially the leaf, flower, seed, and root. They should learn the best methods of eradication and add these in their notes. _Farm Weeds_ will be of great value in such weed studies. VINES Suitable garden vines for study are climbing nasturtium, scarlet runner bean, and Japanese hop. Their growth and method of climbing should be compared with that of the sweet-pea and morning-glory already studied. Observe particularly the kind of leaves and their arrangement, also the flowers and fruit. Observe also the gourd family--melon, cucumber, and squash--their tendency to climb, and the nature of their flowers and fruit. WILD FLOWERS In schools where the studies with garden plants, such as have been indicated, can be carried on, there will not be as much time for the study of wild flowers as in those schools where no garden plants are available. A definite list of wild flowers for study should be arranged by the teacher early in spring. The following are common in most parts of Ontario: squirrel-corn, Dutchman's breeches, blue cohosh, dog's-tooth violet, water-parsnip, catnip, and mallow. In each study observe the following points: 1. Description of leaves and flowers for identification. 2. Storing of food in underground parts. 3. Time of flowering. (Pupils of this Form should keep a flower calendar.) 4. Description of fruit and seeds and how these are scattered. 5. Their location, and the character of the soil where found. Encourage the pupils to transplant a specimen of each from the woods to the school or home garden. Moist humus soil and partial shade are the best conditions for the growth of these wild wood flowers. Review the type lessons given already for Primary classes and apply the information thus gained to the observational study of the varieties of flowers named above. PLANTING OF TREES, SHRUBS, AND HERBACEOUS PERENNIALS IN HOME AND SCHOOL GROUNDS This work should be the outcome of the plans made in the winter. If each pupil does a little toward the carrying out of the scheme of planting, the grounds will soon be wonderfully improved. The teacher should guard against over-planting and arrange for the care of the shrubs and flowers during the summer holidays. New varieties of herbaceous perennials, grown from seed planted the previous summer or procured from homes in the vicinity, should be introduced. As most herbaceous perennials become too thick after a few years, it is necessary to keep digging some out year by year, dividing and resetting them, and fertilizing the ground. Native trees and shrubs should be placed so as to obscure undesirable views, such as closets and outbuildings, rough fences, or bare walls. This principle in planting should be observed in the case of trees. Evergreen trees are particularly desirable as screens and shelters from cold winds. No planting should be done, on the other hand, that would shut out a good view of the school or obscure a beautiful landscape. Too frequently unused corners of the school ground are covered with weeds. Prevent this by putting trees there and also shrubs. Keep all centres open, and let the trees, shrubs, and flowering perennials be massed about the corners and along the sides. The informal method of planting is to be preferred to formal planting of designs. The Public School Inspector will provide a copy of a departmental circular on the _Improvement of School Grounds_, which should be carefully studied by every teacher. SHADE TREES Consider suitable varieties to plant for shade and for ornamental effects. White elm, hard and soft maple, white birch, pines, and spruces are among the best. Elms and maples are excellent trees for roadside or street planting, and should be about forty feet apart. Spruces and pines may be planted five or six feet apart along the north and west, to act as a wind break. Otherwise, evergreens are best when planted in triangular clumps. White birch is particularly ornamental against a dark background of evergreens. Specimen trees of horse-chestnut, beech, ash, and hickory are also desirable. TRANSPLANTING The best time for transplanting trees is in the autumn after the leaves have fallen, or in the spring before the buds have opened. In planting a tree, the following points should be observed: 1. Preserve as much of the root system as possible, and trim off all broken or bruised portions. 2. Do not expose the roots to sun or wind while out of the ground. This is especially important in transplanting evergreens. 3. Reduce the top of the tree sufficiently to balance with the reduced root system. 4. Set the tree a few inches deeper than it was before transplanting. 5. Pack the best top soil closely about the roots, so as to exclude all air spaces, since these tend to dry the delicate roots. 6. If the ground is very dry, water should be used in planting; otherwise it is of no advantage. Water the trees thoroughly once a week in dry weather during the first season. 7. After planting, put a mulch or covering of fine straw, grass, or chips for two or three feet around the tree; or establish a soil mulch and keep down the grass by frequent cultivation. Grass roots dry out the soil. 8. In the case of deciduous trees, have the lowest limbs at least seven feet from the ground. Evergreens, however, should never be trimmed, but should have their branches right from the ground up--this uninterrupted pyramid form is one of their chief beauties. ANIMAL STUDIES SCALE INSECTS SAN JOS� SCALE Certain districts in Ontario and especially those bordering on Lake Erie have suffered from the ravages of this scale on apple, peach, pear, and other orchard trees. A hand lens should be used in studying these insects, observations being carried on from May to September. Carefully examine the fruits and twigs of orchard trees for evidences of the presence of the scale, and learn to identify it and to recognize the damages resulting from its attacks. Observe the almost circular flat scale of a grayish colour and having a minute point projecting upward at its centre. The young insects which emerge from underneath these scales in the spring crawl around for a time, then become stationary, and each one secretes a scale under which it matures. The mature males have two wings but the mature females are wingless. Note the withering of fruit and twigs due to the insects' attacks and the minute openings in the skin of the twig, made by the insertion of the sucking mouth parts. Describe to the pupils how the insect was transported from Japan to America and how it is now spread on nursery stock. Give a brief account of its destructiveness in the orchards of Essex and Kent. (Consult _Bulletin No. 153, Common Insects Affecting Fruit Trees and Fungus Diseases Affecting Fruit Trees_. Bethune & Jarvis, Department of Agriculture, Toronto, free.) OYSTER-SHELL BARK-LOUSE This is very common throughout the Province on apple and pear trees. Observe the unhealthy appearance of the leaves of the infested trees, the inferior quality of the fruit, and the gray scales shaped like tiny oyster-shells. The means of destroying these pests should be discussed. The Bulletins named above give detailed information in reference to spraying and fumigation. CUTWORMS (Consult _Bulletin 52_, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa.) Cutworms are the larvæ of medium-sized brown moths that fly at night. There are many species of cutworms, all of which are destructive to some forms of plants or grasses, grains, and vegetables. The larvæ are rather thick, naked, worm-like forms. They burrow into the ground, but emerge at night to feed by cutting through the stems of tender plants or by feeding upon the leaves. For the most effective method of dealing with these refer to what is said on "Combating Garden Pests", Form II. When a field is known to be infested with cutworms, it is a good plan to spread poisoned clover or cabbage leaves over the ground before the seed is planted. WHITE GRUBS White grubs are large, fat, white larvæ of June beetles. These beetles are the well-known large, brown, clumsy beetles that blunder into the house at night in May or June and drop with a thud upon the floor. Three years are spent in the larval form, the grubs living underground and feeding on the roots of plants, especially the roots of grains and grasses. Since they are found chiefly in fields recently ploughed from grass, they may be held in check by rotation of crops and by fall ploughing, which exposes the larvæ to the winter frosts. In May or June, when the adults are feeding on the foliage of fruit and shade trees, spraying the trees with London purple is quite effective for destroying the beetles before they have laid their eggs among the roots of the grass. Hogs destroy many larvæ by rooting in the soil to find them for food. CRAYFISH Search for the crayfish in streams and ponds. Why is the crayfish hard to find? Hard to capture? Obtain a living crayfish from a pond or stream and place it in a jar of water or in an aquarium. The crayfish should not be placed in an aquarium containing insects and small fish which are to be kept, as it is fierce and voracious. The pupils should study the living animal, noting its habit of lurking under stones; the sweeping of the water with the feelers; the backward movement in swimming, produced by bending the tail sharply underneath the body; the walking by means of four pairs of legs, the great claws being used to turn the animal; the use of the great claws in seizing prey and holding food near the mouth; the movements of the small appendages under the front part of the animal and the water currents caused by these; the movements of the small appendages under the abdomen of the animal. FRESHWATER MUSSEL The freshwater mussel--"clam" as it is usually called by school-boys--may be found in almost any stream. Place a mussel in the aquarium, and note the opening and closing of the valves of the shell; the hinge connecting the valves; the foot protruding from the shell; the movements by means of the foot; the mantle lobes lining the shell and visible at the open margins; the two siphons at the rear of the animal--water currents may be observed entering the upper and emerging from the lower of these. Infer uses for these currents. Touch the edge of the upper siphon and observe how quickly the shell is closed. Compare the mussel with the snail as to movements and shell. Compare also with the oyster and sea clam. Examine empty shells and notice the pearly layer of the shell, the action of the hinge, and the marks on the shell to which the muscles for closing the shell were attached. State all the means of protection that you have discovered the animal to possess. BIRD STUDY (Consult _Bulletin 218. Birds of Ontario in Relation to Agriculture_, Nash. Department of Agriculture, free.) If the lessons in bird study which are prescribed for Forms I, II, and III have been successful, the pupils of Form IV should have a fair acquaintance with the habits of the common birds. A very interesting exercise is to hold a trial upon those birds which are viewed with suspicion or which are openly condemned as objectionable neighbours. A pupil is appointed to act as judge and other pupils give evidence. The evidence must be based upon the pupil's personal observations on the habits of the bird. The following birds are named, and brief descriptions of their habits are given as suggestions for materials for bird trials: ROBIN.--He steals small fruits, such as cherries, currants, etc. He is a cheerful, jolly neighbour, who sings sweetly. He eats great numbers of cutworms and white grubs. CROW.--He robs the nests of other birds, and steals chickens, corn, and potatoes. He helps the farmer by killing cutworms, white grubs, grasshoppers, and other insects. WOODPECKER.--The members of this family are grievously persecuted because they are believed to injure orchard and shade trees by pecking holes in the bark from which to suck the sap. Careful observations tend to show that the trees are benefited rather than injured by this treatment. Woodpeckers are undoubtedly beneficial as destroyers of wood-borers and other obnoxious insects. CROW-BLACKBIRD (bronzed grackle).--His habits are similar to those of the crow. OWLS.--All the owls are held in ill repute because of the crimes of a few members of the family. Very seldom does an owl steal a chicken; their food consists chiefly of mice, rats, squirrels, grasshoppers, and other field pests. HAWKS.--The hawks are unjustly persecuted for crimes of which they are seldom guilty. As a class they are beneficial, not injurious birds. DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF NATURE STUDY There is a knowledge of Nature which contributes to the earning of a living. This is the _utilitarian_ aspect. There is a knowledge of Nature which may be obtained in such a way as to develop the observing and reasoning powers and give a training in scientific method. This is the _disciplinary_ aspect. There is a knowledge which leads the pupil to perceive the beautiful in Nature, to enjoy it and so add to his happiness. This is the _æsthetic_ aspect. There is a knowledge of Nature which, through the life history of plant and animal, throws light on the pupil's own life, gives him an insight into all life in its unity, and leads him to look up reverently to the author of all life--through Nature up to Nature's God. This is the _spiritual_ aspect. Each of these aspects supplements, interprets, or enforces the others. He who omits or neglects any of these perceives but a part of a complete whole. Nature Study develops in the pupil a sympathetic attitude toward Nature for the purpose of increasing the joy of living. It leads him to see Nature through the eyes of the poet and the moralist as well as through those of the scientist. Nature Study is concerned with plants, birds, insects, stones, clouds, brooks, etc., but it is not botany, ornithology, entomology, geology, meteorology, or geography. In this study, it is the spirit of inquiry developed rather than the number of facts ascertained that is important. Gradually it becomes more systematic as it advances until, in the high school, it passes over into the science group of studies. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THESE ASPECTS The simple observational lessons on The Robin, pages 96-7, form the bases for further study in more advanced classes. This bird as a destroyer of worms, beetles, etc., is a valuable assistant to the farmer as, indeed, are practically all birds in this Province. Birds such as the duck, goose, partridge, etc., are valuable as food, and laws are made to protect them during certain seasons. The training in inference which a pupil receives in studying the parts of a plant or an animal and the adaptation of these parts to function is valuable. He studies the plant and the animal as living organisms with work to do in the world, and learns how what they do and their manner of doing it affect their form and structure. The short, curved, and slightly hooked bill of the hen and her method of breaking open a pea pod or splitting an object too large to swallow shows the bill to be a mallet, a wedge, or a pick as the case may be. A study of the bills of the duck, woodpecker, and hawk will reveal the method by which each gets his food and how the organ is adapted to its purpose. Similar studies of the feet and legs of birds will make the idea of adaptation increasingly clear. Literature is rich with tributes to the songs of the birds. The thoughts and feelings aroused or suggested by these songs are the topics of much of the world's enduring poetry. Longfellow, in his "Birds of Killing-worth" (_Tales of a Wayside Inn_) sings exquisitely of the use and beauty and worth of birds. Shelley, in his "Skylark", describes in glowing verse "the unbodied joy" that "singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest". Wordsworth hears the blithe new comer, the Cuckoo, and rejoices Though babbling only to the vale Of sunshine and of flowers Thou bringest unto me a tale Of visionary hours. The life story of a bird throws light on our own lives, puts us in sympathy with the lives of others, teaches kindness, teaches the duties and responsibilities of the higher to the lower, teaches respect for all life. Observe the helpless bird in its nest, helpless as a baby. See the care given by the mother and father to keep it warm till its down and feathers grow, to feed it till it is able to leave the nest. Watch the parents teaching it to fly by repeated short flights. Olive Thorn Miller in her _Bird Ways_ gives a delightful sketch of the father robin teaching a young robin where to look for worms and how to dig them up. When that task was accomplished, his father began to give him "music lessons", that is, practice in imitating the Robin's song. Thus, the young bird was equipped to make a living and to enjoy life. The social life of birds, as they sing their matins, as they choose their mates, as they gather in flocks preparatory to migration, furnish many opportunities for indirect teaching on many of life's problems. The Ontario Readers contain many poems that may be used in connection with the Nature Study lessons. To supplement the observational studies of birds, read from the Third Reader, "The Robin's Song", "The Red-winged Blackbird", "The Sandpiper", "To the Cuckoo", "Bob White", "The Lark and the Rook", "The Poet's Song". In the Third Reader, the lessons on "The Fountain", "The Brook", "The Tide River", and "A Song of the Sea" form a group that can be used in connection with lessons in geography. "A Song for April", "An Apple Orchard in the Spring", "The Gladness of Nature", "The Orchard", "A Midsummer Song", "Corn-fields", "The Corn Song", "The Death of the Flowers", "The Frost", "The Snow-storm", make another group to accompany a study of the seasons. A similar group may be selected from the Fourth Reader. The pupil who has made a study of a "brook" as a lesson in geography and defined it as "a small natural stream of water flowing from a spring or fountain" will, if he studies the following lines from Tennyson's "The Brook" and perceives by careful observation the descriptive accuracy and aptness of the words in italics, realize that the poet sees much that the geographer has not included in his definition. I _chatter_ over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I _bubble_ into eddying bays, I _babble_ on the pebbles. * * * I _slip_, I _slide_, I _gloom_, I _glance_. Among my skimming swallows; * * * I _murmur_ under moon and stars. * * * I _linger_ by my shingly bars. I _loiter_ round my cresses. Correlations such as these add greatly to the pupil's interest in this subject. Given a teacher with a love of out-of-door life, with observant eyes and ears, and the spirit that sympathizes with children's curiosity and stimulates inquiry, Nature Study will be a joy and an inspiration to pupils. 
36992	----	Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This book was created from images of public domain material made available by the University of Toronto Libraries (http://link.library.utoronto.ca/booksonline/).) THE ONTARIO ARCHIVES: SCOPE OF ITS OPERATIONS (Paper read at the twenty-seventh annual meeting of the American Historical Association, held at Buffalo, N. Y., December 27-30, 1911) BY ALEXANDER FRASER LL. D., LITT. D., F. S. A., SCOT. EDIN. Reprinted from the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1911, pages 353-362 WASHINGTON 1913 THE ONTARIO ARCHIVES. By ALEXANDER FRASER, Provincial Archivist. The line of demarcation between the Canadian or Dominion archives and the Ontario or other provincial archives is somewhat similar to that between the Federal and State archives in the United States. It consists with the scope of the jurisdiction of the Dominion or major commonwealth, and the narrower or minor jurisdiction of the Province. This constitutes a clearly defined boundary within which both work without conflict or overlapping of interests. Our public charter is an imperial statute entitled the British North America act, and to-day, when there are nine fully constituted, autonomous Provinces within the Dominion of Canada, it is interesting to recall that when the British North America act became law in 1867 the subtitle set forth that it was "An act for the union of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the government thereof; and for purposes connected therewith." This act provides for the government of Ontario a lieutenant-governor, who represents the Crown; an executive council of ministers of state and a legislature composed of duly elected representatives of the people. To this body the act secures exclusive legislative powers in Ontario and Quebec, in the matter of Crown lands, forests and mines; education, from the public common school to the university; municipal government, institutions and laws; incorporation of chartered companies--commercial, financial, professional, or social; solemnization of marriage, involving family history, vital statistics, etc.; property and civil rights; administration of justice, embracing both civil and criminal jurisdiction; agriculture and immigration, under which municipal, industrial, and agricultural statistics are collected, tabulated, and published; the founding and maintenance of provincial institutions such as hospitals, asylums, reformatories, prisons, and institutions for the instruction of the deaf and dumb and the blind; offices for the local registration of deeds, titles to land; the licensing of shops, taverns, hotels, auctioneers, etc.; the erection of local public works; the authorization and regulation of transportation not interprovincial. In short the Provincial Government gets close to the life of the people and touches its business and social sides intimately. As at present constituted the ministry comprises the departments of: The attorney general, dealing with the administration of law; the provincial secretary, controlling registration, and the public institutions; the provincial treasurer, dealing with the public accounts; agriculture; lands, forests, and mines; public works; and education. The prime minister is statutorily president of the council and head of the ministry. Besides these and exercising semi-ministerial or departmental functions are two commissions, the hydro-electric commission and the Government railway commission. These, with the legislature itself, are the departments of government in which our archives originate. Archives we have defined as the records, the business papers, of the province having a permanent value. All archives need not be of historical value in the narrow sense. Public documents may have a business or record value apart from history, yet it would be hard to say that any given document might not be found useful in some way in connection with history. The main value of a document is as an evidence of truth. Every document does not contain truth, yet even such a document may, in effect, be a fact in history, and training and experience lead to a reasonably true interpretation. The Ontario Bureau of Archives, organized in 1903, is equally related and attached to all the Government departments, and receives all papers and documents of record value or of historical interest, not in current use, from all branches of the public service. When possible, these documents are classified, calendared, and indexed. The archives originating in the legislative assembly are: The Scroll of Parliament--the documents known by that title being the notes and memoranda made by the clerk, of the routine proceedings of the house during its sessions; the original signatures of the members of the legislative assembly subscribed to the oath of allegiance when "sworn in" as members of the assembly, the signatures being written on parchment; copies of the statutes in the form in which they have been assented to and signed by His Honor the Lieutenant Governor. These copies are printed on good paper, and after having been assented to become the originals of the statutes in force; and the original copy pertaining to the consolidated statutes. Among the assembly archives are the manuscripts of all sessional papers not printed (a sessional paper is a return called for by order of the house, whether printed or not, and the reports of departments and all branches of the public service presented to the house); the originals of all petitions presented to the house (these are not printed); the originals of bills in the form in which they are presented to the house; and copies of bills amended during their passage through the house. The original copy of sessional papers which are printed is returned with the proof sheets to the department or officer issuing the same. Naturally next in importance to the records of the legislature are those of the executive council or Government. All matters requiring executive action are brought before the council upon the recommendation or report of the minister having the subject matter in charge. The recommendation or report is addressed to His Honor the Lieutenant Governor in Council. The reports of the committee of council are signed by the prime minister as president, are counter-signed by the clerk and submitted to the lieutenant governor for approval, after which the document becomes and is known as an order of His Honor the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Effect is given to orders in council affecting the general public by the promulgation of them in the Ontario Gazette; otherwise by the transmission of certified copies to the departments or persons concerned. The original orders (together with the recommendations, reports, and papers upon which they are based), after being registered in special journals, become most valuable records and much in request. Through the department of the attorney general access is obtained to the voluminous records, rich in personal history and jurisprudence, arising from the administration of justice, in its vast ramifications and details, reaching from the policeman and justice of the peace to the high courts and court of appeal; from the homely minutes of the quarter sessions of early times, to the record of the recent cause célèbre which influenced the legislation of the country, or settled questions of constitutional import. With the office of the provincial secretary the provincial archivist necessarily has very close relations. The office of the secretary is the medium of communication, through the lieutenant governor, between the provincial, dominion, and imperial governments. All such correspondence is registered and copies of the dispatches are kept. All commissions bearing the great seal of the Province are issued by the secretary, and are registered in his office, as are also all appointments made by his Honor the Lieutenant Governor in Council requiring the issuance of a commission. Charters of incorporation, licenses for extra-provincial companies doing business in Ontario, and marriage licenses are issued here under the direction of the secretary; here also are made records of all Crown land patents (the earliest record being 1795), the records of all mining leases and deeds and leases relating to the public lands, etc. In the secretary's office are kept the vital statistics of the Province. From the organization of the Province in 1792 until 1849 marriages were recorded in the parish and congregational registers kept by clergymen, in the minute books of the quarter sessions of the peace, and in the memorandum books of justices of the peace. In addition to this, fairly complete records of births were made in the baptismal registers, and of deaths in the journals of clergymen, who recorded the deaths of parishioners for congregational purposes. Many of these old books, however, have been either lost or destroyed, or their disposition is not known. In 1849 the municipalities were enabled to make provision by by-law for the registration of births, marriages, and deaths, and advantage was taken of that statute to a very considerable extent. From the passing of the law of 1849 until 1874 all records of marriages in the Province were returned to the city and county registrars, who became their official custodians. In 1869 the office of the registrar general was established and compulsory registration of births, marriages, and deaths introduced. Until 1874 the returns were still sent to the county and city registrars, but since 1874 they have been sent direct to the registrar general's office. The work of transcribing these returns and preserving them in proper form has been proceeding for years; and the documents, books, and statistical papers of the office, which are in safe keeping, form an invaluable collection of archives. In addition to the original vouchers of the public accounts, the treasury department contains the papers of the succession duty office, including affidavits made by the applicants on all applications for letters probate or letters of administration in the Province showing the value, as at the date of the death of a deceased person, of such person's estate, with a general statement of the distribution thereof; including copies of wills, affidavits of value, bonds, and other documents which in particular cases have been furnished in order that the amount of succession duty payable, in cases liable to payment, might be ascertained. These documents are not generally accessible to the public, as they relate to the private concerns not only of deceased but of living persons, but they are a valuable addition to the surrogate courts' records which are a mine of genealogical information. The great staple enterprises of Ontario are agriculture, industrial production, lumbering, mining, and in general, trade and commerce. Of these agriculture is the greatest, and the records of its growth and development have a special value to the student of economics. The statistical branch, formed in 1882, issues annual reports dealing with agricultural and municipal interests--assessment figures, population, areas assessed, taxes imposed, annual receipts and expenditures, assets and liabilities, chattel mortgages, proving of value to municipal debenture holders and the public generally. Of all our departments, the bureau of archives has drawn most largely on the documentary treasures of the department of Crown lands. The material of historical interest here is exceedingly varied and valuable, embracing the records of the surveys of the Province; the original maps, field notes, and diaries relating to the survey of all the townships dating back to 1784, and reports of all the explorations made within the limits of the Province since that date; reports showing the planning out and surveys of the old military roads, such as Dundas Street, Yonge Street, the Penetanguishene and Kingston Roads, and the papers in connection with the surveys of the Talbot Road, the Huron Road, the Garafraxa Road, the Toronto and Sydenham Road (Owen Sound). There's much valuable information in the notes concerning the pioneer settlements. This branch also contains plans of all the old Indian reserves of the Province and reports indicating the early condition of the Indian settlements on these reserves; also of the ordnance surveys in the Province pertaining to land grants to old settlers; plans of the military reserves and plans showing the location and groundwork of the early forts. Besides these there are the original surveys of all the lands acquired by the Canada company and of those granted to King's College. A collection of much importance already transferred to the archives vaults is that embracing the diaries or journals of David Thompson, the astronomer royal, covering a period of 66 years, from 1784 to 1850, and making about 50 volumes. Thompson's famous map showing the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from a little south of the Great Lakes to Hudson Bay, is carefully preserved in the collection. Thompson's journals and map have furnished interesting material to students of our early history. They have been used by Mr. Coues in his work entitled "New light on the Great North-West," and have been found useful in connection with editions of Henry's and Thompson's journals. Competent authorities regard Thompson's work as most valuable to the State, especially in the fixing of boundary lines; but of little less importance are the field notes and diaries of many of the early surveyors, not merely for topographical reasons but on account of the detailed information given. In a separate vault are many other valuable and interesting documents, including the United Empire Loyalists' lists, the records of land grants to immigrants, to discharged soldiers, and the militia grants of warrants to discharged troops, to United Empire Loyalists, volumes of land board certificates, returns of locations compiled for the quartermaster general, fiat and warrant books, domesday books, containing original entries of every lot that is patented, and extending to 26 large volumes, descriptions and terms or references on which patents and leases are issued, patents for Crown lands, mining lands, free grant lands, and mining leases. There are also a series of maps of the townships of the Province as surveyed, which have the names of the original holders and settlers entered on each lot or block of land. These maps show among other things the grant made to King's College, and the lands allotted to the Canada Land Co. The historical value of these records is inestimable, for without them the settlement of the Province could not be traced or shown. The most interesting archives emanating from the public-works department are the records of the early colonization roads--arteries of settlement and trade routes and the title deeds, plans and specifications, contracts, maps, and documents relating to Crown property, buildings, and institutions, a finely conditioned collection. I have thus, at considerable length, described the field in which the archivist of Ontario labors and out of which he is gradually building up his storehouse of archives. The main purpose of the bureau is that of a record office of State papers, primarily for their proper preservation and for the greater convenience of the public service. This is in the nature of things. A central office, in which papers from all departments of the Government are lodged after they have passed out of current use, examined, classified, and filed by a staff familiar with their contents, need only be brought into use to become indispensably serviceable in the carrying on of public business; but in addition, the archivist, knowing the contents of the documents in his custody, is able to direct and help in a manner that can not otherwise be done, that portion of the public interested in the information contained in the Government archives. Notwithstanding the completeness and compactness of the field I have briefly sketched as a logical and correct one for the purposes of a State record office, it is nevertheless equally obvious that Government records alone do not nor can embrace all the archives properly so called of a State or Province. When, therefore, I was asked, eight years ago, to organize a bureau of archives for Ontario, I laid out a much wider plan than that I have referred to, with, however, the State record office always as the central idea. The bureau is therefore double barreled; it draws from the pigeonholes of the departments, and it collects outside material that may throw light on the settlement and development of the Province of Ontario, the source of which is often far afield. For instance, the Province of Quebec (including Ontario), up to 1774 included all to the south and west as far as St. Louis and the Mississippi, and of course, what became in 1791 Upper Canada. The British régime is touched by the French and the French by the Indian. In carrying out this plan the bureau aims at the collection of documents having, in the widest sense, a bearing upon the political or social history of Ontario, and upon its agricultural, industrial, commercial, and financial development; the collection of municipal, school, and church records; the collection and preservation of pamphlets, maps, charts, manuscripts, papers, regimental muster rolls, etc., bearing on its past or present history; the collection and preservation of facts illustrative of the early settlements, pioneer experience, customs, mode of living, prices, wages, boundaries, areas cultivated, homes, etc.; the collection and preservation of correspondence, letters from and to settlers, documents in private hands pertaining to public and social affairs, etc., reports of local events and historic incidents in the family or public life; the rescuing from oblivion of the memory of the pioneer settlers, the obtaining and preserving narratives of their early exploits, and of the part they took in opening up the country for occupation; and the bureau cooperates with the historical societies of Ontario and societies kindred to them, helping to consolidate and classify their work, and as far as practicable to direct local effort on given lines. Within this scope the following plan of work has been adopted: To divide the history of Ontario until the confederation of the Provinces in 1867 into its political periods, arranging the material secured in chronological order, and giving each period a series of reports. Thus the work has been carried on in all the divisions simultaneously, and when sufficient material has accumulated in any one of them, it has been utilized by the publication of documents without undue delay. From confederation onward, the larger quantity of material to be dealt with, and the probable absence of sweeping constitutional changes to mark eras, suggested a chronological rather than a political basis of division. The periods are: 1. To the close of the French régime, or the period of French discovery, 1763. 2. To the organization of the Province of Upper Canada, 1791. 3. To the legislative union of Upper and Lower Canada, 1841. 4. To confederation, 1867. 5. To the end of the nineteenth century, 1900. In each of these divisions there is much work to do. Each has its own distinctive features, and there is abundance of minor incident. Material of special interest to Ontario bearing on the French régime is contained in the "Correspondence Générale," in the papers of the "Collection de Moreau St. Méry," which have been transcribed from the Paris archives for the Canadian archives, most of which has never been published in printed form. There is also valuable Ontario material in the "Haldimand Collection of papers," the "Bouquet Papers," and the Colonial Office records bearing on this period. It is intended to collect and publish these papers, accompanied by an adequate translation, when not written in English, and adding extracts in chronological order from the publications of Perrot, La Potherie, La Harpe, Charlevoix, De Kalm, the Jesuit Relations, papers by Margry, and a portion of the "Mémoire pour Messire François Bigot," which contains what seems to be an excellent summary of the commerce and condition of all the western trading posts at the time of the conquest. Other sources of material for publication have also been considered in connection with this early period. Aboriginal or Indian history presents many interesting features to us, and some attention has been given to the subject, including an inquiry as to the original savage occupants of Ontario, their origin, migrations, traffic, and intercourse; their language, topographical nomenclature, folklore, and literature; the origin and development of their clan, tribal, and national organization; the history and results of European contact; their present condition, capabilities, and tendencies. This period of Ontario history, that of the French régime, will be our heroic age, as "distance lends enchantment to the view." Here will be found the adventurous coureurs de bois, many of the great routes and trading posts, the headquarters of which in later times, was Fort William, on Thunder Bay. Here the Huron and Iroquois met in deadly conflict; here also the French missionaries of the Cross endured untold sufferings with ecstatic heroism, and receiving the martyr's crown left a record of Christian zeal and fortitude not surpassed, if at all equaled, in the history of the world. Events which stirred the imagination and fascinated the finely poised mind of a Parkman will yet furnish the material for Canada's great, unwritten epic poem. The Ontario bureau of archives has made a beginning in this field by publishing a volume on the "Identification of the Huron Village Sites," where those missionaries labored and fell, prepared by the venerable and scholarly archivist of St. Mary's College, Montreal, the Rev. Father Jones, S. J., a contribution, I believe, of undoubted value. It may be taken as significant of our attitude that a work of such erudite research has been treated as a public document and issued free to the people at the expense of the Government. It will soon be followed by the writings of Father Potier, a work of far-reaching importance and interest, which is in process of preparation for the press. The three volumes of manuscript have been photographed page by page and a zincograph facsimile of the original will be placed before scholars, a work the casual announcement of which has already whetted the appetites of not a few antiquarians. Leaving this interesting period for the second I have mentioned, we reach the coming to Ontario of the United Empire Loyalists. These form the basis of our population and still give color to our political thought and form and fashion to our institutions. In this period we have published two volumes, one of about 1,500 pages, being the manuscript of evidence laid before a royal commission reporting on the claims for compensation for losses suffered by the United Empire Loyalists, a document now out of print and much sought for. The other volume consists of the minutes of the land board of the western district of Ontario, bordering on Lake Erie and the Detroit River, containing particulars of grants of land before 1792, schedules, regulations, description lists of grantees, and surveys, and a mass of data connected with Indian rights and the settlement of land generally. It has been of value in land-title lawsuits, etc., and extends to more than 500 pages. Combining this period with the succeeding one, we have collected the proclamations by the Crown from 1763 to 1840 and issued them in a volume, the necessity of which has been felt, as may be understood when it is stated that no such collection had ever been made before, though these proclamations are of public use in an endless variety of business. Under our third division the narrower political history of our Province begins, the introduction of constitutional government--the work of the legislature, some of whose early records are lost, the outbreak of the War of 1812, the progress of settlement, and the development of municipal and commercial institutions, the restiveness leading to the rising of 1837, and the concessions made to responsible government. Here a great deal of archival work has been already accomplished. The journals of the proceedings of the legislature of Upper Canada from 1792 to 1818, so far as we have been able to find them, have been published and the series will be issued to the year 1824, from which year printed copies are in existence. The journals of the legislative council concurrent with those of the legislative assembly down to 1816 have also been published, and one volume in each series, now in the press, will complete the work. These journals are simply indispensable, being the original evidence of all our legislation. Our constitutional development and the history of our legislature can not be studied or understood without them. I may be pardoned should I refer particularly to one of many interesting questions dealt with in the closing years of the eighteenth century as shown in these journals. The legislative assembly, following the rule of the Imperial House of Commons, claimed the power of the purse, and objected to their supply bill being amended by the legislative council or upper house. A deadlock ensued; neither side would budge from its position; a conference of both houses was held and the assembly won on the understanding that the question would be referred to the law officers of the Crown in Britain for future guidance. This was accordingly done and the right claimed by the assembly or lower house was conceded to it. Thus was solved amicably for Canada at the small hamlet of Newark, on the banks of the Niagara, a constitutional principle which recently shook the United Kingdom and produced a serious and radical constitutional crisis, in which once more the Commons vindicated their supremacy in questions of national finance. The records of the first Court of Common Pleas for Upper Canada, with valuable annotations and historical notes, are being prepared for the press. In this division we have in hand among other things the preparation of a domesday book for the Province. Our plan, which has made substantial progress, is to cover all our settlement of Crown lands from 1783 to 1900 by townships, giving each grantee a description, and, for the purpose of reference, a number. Succeeding volumes will furnish memoirs, notes, and statistical data of a special character bearing on the grantees and on their settlements. In this connection we are collecting and rapidly accumulating local material which will be drawn upon for this work. This I consider one of the biggest undertakings planned by the bureau, which occupy much time to bring it to completion, but when completed will be a work of reference of permanent use to our historical investigators. We are also collecting papers and documents pertaining to the political history of Ontario that ought to be preserved in permanent form, which will be issued in a series of four consecutive volumes. These have been planned on lines that will bring their usefulness directly to the growing class of students of our provincial history. Lately a genealogical branch has been included in our program and steps are being taken to obtain by legislation a change of official forms so as to help in the collecting of data. The work will be conducted on the basis of the county unit, with correspondents engaged under the direction of the bureau. While effort has been directed on these lines, I have paid more attention to the collecting of much neglected material throughout the Province--in the hands of private individuals, public bodies, or local officials, rather than to the exact and adequate classification and indexing of outside material as it is being received. The Province has been so long entirely neglected that when I undertook to organize the department I decided that the most valuable service I could render to the public was to acquire, to collect, and safely preserve whatever material I could find, believing the day would soon come when the value of such material would be fully realized and the necessary office assistance provided to enable me to make the accumulated archives conveniently accessible to the public. Transcriber's Notes:- P. 355 "the Lieutanant Governor in Council." changed to "the Lieutenant Governor in Council." Original spelling and punctuation retained. 
63152	----	BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENTS OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE IN QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON, ONTARIO, CANADA. NO. 28, JULY, 1918 SIR GEORGE ARTHUR AND HIS ADMINISTRATION OF UPPER CANADA. BY WALTER SAGE _The Jackson Press, Kingston_ SIR GEORGE ARTHUR AND HIS ADMINISTRATION OF UPPER CANADA. The last Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada before the Union of 1841 was Sir George Arthur. To most Canadians of to-day he is little more than a name, but still he played an important part in the stirring events of our political life fourscore years ago. He lacked the picturesqueness of that extraordinary personage, his predecessor in office, Sir Francis Bond Head, and he was overshadowed completely by both Lord Durham to Poulett Thomson, better known as Lord Sydenham, who were in succession as Governors-General placed in authority over him. None the less he lives in Canadian history as the man who refused to reprieve Lount and Matthews, and who made common cause with the Family Compact against the Reformers. Although nominally he was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada from his appointment in 1837 until the Act of Union went into force, his real term of office lasted only a little more than a year and a half, from March 23rd, 1838, until November 22nd, 1839. After that time he was directly subordinate to Sydenham. During that brief period Sir George Arthur proved himself an energetic if not always merciful governor. It was unfortunate that Arthur come to Upper Canada at a time when Mackenzie's rebellion had just been crushed and when party feeling was still running very high. Sir Francis Bond Head left Toronto on the very day that Sir George Arthur arrived and so the new Lieutenant-Governor was unable to obtain much information from his predecessor. There is reason to believe, none the less, that Sir Francis put in a good word for his old friends the Family Compact and that Arthur from the beginning of his term of office favoured that party. In his first official despatch to Lord Glenelg dated March 29th, 1838, Sir George makes mention of the "large preponderating party looking to the Executive Government to put down treason by energetic measures," as opposed to "the party styling themselves Reformers" who were "hoping for the most lenient course."[1] These phrases, written when Arthur had been only about a week in Upper Canada, stamp the new governor at once as an opponent of reform. If further proof is needed it can readily be found in Arthur's reply to a congratulatory address from seven hundred and fifty citizens of Toronto upon the occasion of his arrival in that city. In that address reference was made to the fact that "in the promotion of public order, and the adoption of measures for the pacification of the country" Arthur would have "the prompt and energetic support of the loyal, patriotic and constitutional reformers of the Province." In his reply Sir George Arthur regretted that "any portion of the inhabitants of this city should have felt it necessary at the moment to present themselves under the character of reformers, as a distinct class of the people of this Province." Such a statement was not likely to secure for Sir George Arthur the whole-hearted support of all the well-disposed citizens of Toronto. The execution of Lount and Matthews further alienated the more moderate men in the Province. When Sir Francis Head arrived in Toronto he was greeted by placards which designated him as "a Tried Reformer."[2] When Sir George Arthur was appointed to succeed him the London _Atlas_, on March 3rd, 1838, enquired, "What will the inhabitants of Upper Canada think of the appointment of the Governor of a penal Colony to rule over a province of freemen?"[3] As a matter of fact, Arthur was an improvement on Head but he was never able to shake off his past traditions or to obtain as Lord Durham and Lord Sydenham did, a real insight into Upper Canadian conditions. Durham, it is true, in his Report is not nearly so successful when he deals with the upper province as when he portrays the miseries of Lower Canada, but he understood the situation there better than Head or Arthur ever did. Sydenham's ideas as to the workings of Responsible Government did not harmonize with those of Lord Elgin, but he never would have argued against it, as Arthur did, on the grounds that it was demanded by the Reformers. From start to finish of his term of office in Upper Canada Sir George Arthur was unable to forget his experience in British Honduras where he quelled a negro insurrection and in Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, where he was called upon to rule a convict settlement. Above all he was a military officer, and as such was none too ready to season justice with mercy. He was the last of that series of Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada who were also military officers and he possessed the defects of his qualities. Stern, unbending, narrow-minded, but entirely honest he was totally unable to see his opponent's point of view. By training Sir George Arthur was a soldier. Before he ever embarked on his administrative career as governor of one colonial dependency after another he had served many years in the army. Born in 1784, the youngest son of John Arthur of Norley House, Plymouth, George Arthur entered the army at the age of twenty. He saw service in Italy, Egypt--where he was wounded at Rosetta in 1807--and also in Sicily in 1808. He took part in the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition of 1809 and seems to have distinguished himself in it, since we read that he was thanked in general orders and also that he received the freedom of the city of London. After being military secretary to Sir George Don, the governor of the island of Jersey; Arthur, in 1812, became a major in the Seventh West India Regiment. We next find him in Jamaica as assistant quartermaster-general of the forces on that island. In 1814 George Arthur became Lieutenant-Governor of British Honduras "with the rank of colonel on the staff."[4] This office, which was both civil and military, Arthur held until 1822, during which time he suppressed a serious revolt of the slave population. His despatches on the subject of slavery we are told attracted the attention of the great abolitionist, William Wilberforce. In 1822 Colonel Arthur returned to England on leave of absence in order to furnish the British Government with additional information on the subject of the emancipation of slaves. It was during this stay in England that he was in 1824 appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land and at the same time commander of the military forces in that penal colony. For twelve years George Arthur grappled with the terrible conditions existing in that most unfortunate island. The transportation system, one of the worst blots in British colonial history, was then at its height and its evils were only too apparent. The Select Committee on Transportation appointed by the British Parliament in its Report submitted in 1838, having outlined the unspeakable conditions existing at Norfolk Island, goes on to make the following statement regarding Van Diemen's Land: "Your Committee will not lengthen this report by describing the penal settlements of Van Diemen's Land, where the severity of the system is as great as, if not greater than, that at Norfolk Island, where culprits are as reckless, if not more reckless, commissing murder" (to use the words of Sir George Arthur) "in order to enjoy the excitement of being sent up to Hobart Town for trial, though aware that in the ordinary course they must be executed within a fortnight after arrival."[5] As Lieutenant-Governor of such a colony Colonel Arthur was called upon to act with firmness and often with severity. His biographer in the Dictionary of National Biography, Sir Alexander John Arbuthnot, K.C.S.I., claims that the object of Arthur's appointment was "the introduction of an improved system" of treatment for the convicts. Arthur sought to adopt "a middle course between the extreme severity of the system which would make transportation simply deterrent and the over-indulgence of the system which aimed at reforming the convict by gentler treatment. He held that it was possible to make transportation a punishment much dreaded by criminals whilst offering every facility for reform to those who were not hardened in crime; but he entertained no quixotic expectations of frequent reformation."[6] It will be seen from this quotation that Arthur believed in the transportation system in a modified and "improved" form. In this he ran counter to the wishes of the colonists who desired that an end be put to the abomination. Arthur's biographer regrets that "the colonists and their friends in England were bent on putting an end to the transportation system and their views ultimately prevailed." This difference of opinion between Arthur and the colonists furnished W. L. MacKenzie with some of his choicest bits of invective against the new Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. In his _Gazette_, MacKenzie prefaced a long series of excerpts from the newspapers of Van Diemen's Land on the occasion of Arthur's recall with the sarcasm: "Such credentials cannot fail to increase the loyalty of the happy Canadians. O, the blessings of Colonial Dependence!!!"[7] These excerpts clearly show that there was a considerable body of colonial opinion in Van Diemen's Land opposed to the policies of Governor Arthur. The following from the Hobart Town _News_ may be taken as fairly typical. As a matter of fact it is quite moderate in tone in comparison with some of the other invectives against Arthur. "It was with feelings of the most sincere satisfaction, we announced in our last number the arrival of the 'good ship' "Elphinstone", from England, bringing the very gratifying intelligence of the recall of Colonel George Arthur after an administration of twelve years; during the whole of which long period the people have been rendered wretched, unhappy, discontented and miserable by the misrule of his government...."[8] Of course, no one would look into the pages of MacKenzie's _Gazette_ to get a favourable impression of Sir George Arthur, but a perusal of these excerpts shows that the dissatisfaction against Arthur was widespread. The Launcetown _Advertiser_ states that, "Throughout the whole period of his government the military have been placed in too prominent a position. Lieutenants and Ensigns, fresh from the frolics of Chatham, have been turned into justices of the peace and the whole administration of the colony has been pipe-clayed into a service of an amphibious, half-military, half-civil complexion."[9] The _Colonial Times_ quite frankly lays it down that "A worse British Governor never ruled during the present century."[10] This is strong language, written in the heat of the moment, but when sufficient discount is made for hot temper the fact remains that Sir George Arthur made a number of enemies in Van Diemen's Land. To a certain extent Arthur was not to blame since he was the victim of circumstances. He was forced by the nature of his office to uphold the abominable system of transportation and his position as commander-in-chief of the military forces on the island made him a military as well as a civil governor of a penal colony. But on the other hand, he was by nature an aristocrat with but little democratic feeling. He mistrusted popular government and he had to keep down a discontented population of whom over one-third were convicts. Sir William Molesworth in his speech on transportation delivered in the British House of Commons on May 5th, 1840,[11] gives the following statistics culled from Sir George Arthur's despatches from Van Diemen's Land in 1834. "Its population in 1834 did not exceed 40,000, of whom 16,000 were convicts, 1,000 soldiers, and 23,000 free inhabitants; what proportion of the latter had been convicts it is impossible to say. In this small community the summary convictions amounted to about 15,000 in the year in question, amongst which there were about 2,000 for felony, 1,200 for misdemeanour, 700 for assaults, and 3,000 for drunkenness. Eleven thousand of these convictions were of convicts who are summarily punished for all offences to which the penalty of death is not attached." With such a turbulent population to control it is no wonder that Sir George Arthur had but little belief in popular government. But however great the opposition to Governor Arthur in Van Diemen's Land may have been, the Australian Commonwealth to-day owes him one debt of gratitude. According to his biographer Arbuthnot, Arthur was the first person to suggest the advisability of a federation of all the Australian colonies. In this he was years in advance of his time. Still it is to be doubted whether any scheme of federation brought forward in Arthur's time could have been so complete and satisfactory as that consummated in 1901. After his return to England in March, 1837, Colonel Arthur received the Hanoverian Order of Knighthood. At the close of the same year he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada and at the same time given "the military rank and command of a major-general on the staff." Sir George Arthur was now nearly sixty years of age and had been for over twenty-two years a colonial governor. During that period he had wielded almost despotic power. It was not at all likely that he would be inclined to look with favour upon the demands of the Upper Canadian Reformers for "Responsible Government." On his arrival in Upper Canada Sir George Arthur was faced by a situation of the utmost delicacy. The rashness and wrong-headedness of Sir Francis Bond Head and of William Lyon MacKenzie had brought on the Upper Canadian Rebellion. The skirmish at Montgomery's Tavern occurred on Thursday, December 7th, 1837, and at the close of the day W. L. MacKenzie was a fugitive with a price on his head. The affair of the "Caroline" took place on December 29th. The destruction of this American steamboat resulted in considerable excitement in the United States and relations between the British and American governments became somewhat strained. The arrest and trial of Alexander McLeod on the charge of murdering Amos Durfee, an American citizen, who was killed during the raid on the "Caroline", further complicated the situation. It was not until 1842 that the incident was finally closed by a letter of apology addressed by Sir Robert Peel to Daniel Webster. Shortly after the destruction of the "Caroline" by the Canadians, MacKenzie's sympathizers, who had seized Navy Island in the Niagara River near the Falls, were forced to abandon their post, and the centre of disturbance shifted westward to the Detroit River. On this frontier an attack was planned by American sympathizers and disaffected Canadians against Fort Madden which was situated sixteen miles from Windsor, Ontario. The attempt proved disastrous and resulted in the capture of "General" Theller and other American sympathizers, who were sent to Toronto for trial. On the 3rd of March, 1838, Pelee Island in Lake Erie was captured by another band of invaders who were driven off by a Canadian loyalist force under Colonel Maitland. This was the last serious attempt made from the United States before the arrival in Upper Canada of Sir George Arthur. The new Lieutenant-Governor then found himself involved in a peculiar international situation. Were these American sympathizers foreigners who were levying open war against the province committed to his charge, or were they merely marauders to be classed as pirates? This problem complicated another question of the utmost and pressing importance which was, in what way were the leaders of the late rebellion to be treated? The Family Compact men and the Tories generally thirsted for their blood. Two of the leaders of MacKenzie's rebellion, Lount and Matthews, were already in prison and were shortly to be put on trial for their lives. The problem which Sir George Arthur had to settle was whether or not the extreme penalty of the law should be exacted. It was not to be expected that the ex-governor of a penal colony would show much mercy towards these men who had taken up arms against constituted authority. Nor did he. Lount and Matthews pleaded guilty and were on March 29th sentenced to death. The execution was to take place on April 12th. Sir George Arthur had, of course, no part in sentencing them to death. That was done by Chief Justice John Beverley Robinson, who, Kingsford tells us, pronounced sentence "with that felicity of language ever at his command, but its tone was merciless."[12] Sir John Beverley Robinson's son and biographer, Major-General C. W. Robinson, quotes from the _Law Journal_ of Upper Canada for March, 1863, to show that "of the three individuals concerned, the Chief Justice was most certainly the most painfully affected." But whatever his private feelings may have been the Chief Justice was unbending in his determination that no mercy be shown. He refused to advise the Lieutenant-Governor that Lount and Matthews be either pardoned or respited.[13] In this opinion of the Chief Justice the Attorney-General, Hagerman, concurred, and although there was great excitement in the province and "petitions signed by not less than 8,000 persons"[14] were presented, a reprieve was not granted and the two rebel leaders were executed on the day set. Two days later, on April 14th, Arthur penned a long dispatch on the subject to Lord Glenelg. This document shows clearly how completely the new Lieutenant-Governor was in sympathy with the Family Compact and how entirely he failed to understand the point of view of the Reformers. The despatch professes to deal with the cases of Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, "with a general view of the course to be taken with respect to persons committed for High Treason." Arthur begins by combatting a statement made by Lord Glenelg in a despatch dated January 6th, 1835, addressed to Sir John Colborne and marked "separate," to the effect that, "Her Majesty's Government could not fail to notice the wide difference which exists between the circumstances which have taken place in Lower Canada, and the recent events in Upper Canada. So far as can be collected from the information now before me, the chief motive which influenced the instigation of the disturbance in Upper Canada appears to have been the view of plunder, and the offences which they perpetrated, seem to bear comparatively little of a political character." Lord Glenelg's grasp of the situation in Upper Canada may be inferred from the above passage and Sir George Arthur proceeds to enlighten him. Several sentences from his despatch deserve quoting in full, since they show how readily Sir George Arthur had embraced the Tory point of view. "In Upper Canada, the same pretensions to patriotism--the same assertions of republican Principles--the same accusations against the Government of Tyranny and Corruption--were put forth as the ground and justification of the Rebellion as in the Lower Province. In Lower Canada, the right was insisted on, of the popular Branch of the Legislature sullenly to refuse acting as a legislative Body, and to bring to a complete stop all beneficial operations of Government, and to assert a supremacy inconsistent with the relations of a Colony with the parent state. "In Upper Canada arms were taken up with the avowed purpose of assisting the Lower Canadians, and of asserting the same principles as applicable to this Colony. In Upper Canada the majority of the Assembly were attached to British Institutions; but this Majority was asserted to have been brought about by unconstitutional means on the part of Government, and the use which the revolutionary Party had made of a majority in Parliament when they had it, was precisely the same here as in Lower Canada: namely, to coerce the Government by a refusal to grant the necessary supplies. The Revolutionists in neither province hoped by themselves to overthrow the Government. They alike solicited foreign aid, and by its means expected to accomplish those designs...." It may easily be seen from the above quotation that Sir George Arthur misunderstood the political situation in both Upper and Lower Canada. He failed entirely to appreciate the aims of the Reformers and considered them a grave menace to the security of British rule in Canada. So imbued was he with the point of view of what he terms the "Constitutional Party" that he believed the rebel leaders, including Lount and Matthews, had proved "not only that they were determined, with their own hands, to execute the foulest deeds in furtherance of their project of subverting the Government; but they had encouraged a class of dissolute and vagrant Foreigners to join in their enterprise, who, they well knew, would not hesitate to inflict upon the inhabitants of this Province, if they could have subjugated them, the most barbarous atrocities."[15] Under such circumstances, if the British connexion was to be preserved and law and order firmly re-established, it was necessary, Arthur considered, that several public examples should be made. Lount and Matthews had pleaded guilty of the heinous crime of rebellion against authority and were convicted of high treason. The penalty was death and it made no difference to Sir George Arthur whether eight thousand or thirty thousand[16] persons signed petitions for their reprieve. He could not understand that Lount and Matthews were in the eyes of a very large section of the province merely political prisoners who had been unfortunate enough to appeal to arms and be defeated by their opponents of the Tory party. The fact that the Lieutenant-Governor and the Executive Council were adherents of this Tory party did not, in itself, mean that Lount and Matthews were traitors. High treason is a very serious thing and so is armed rebellion, but the skirmish at Montgomery's Tavern could hardly be called a battle and there had been great provocation. In refusing to reprieve Lount and Matthews or even to postpone their execution until he had had an opportunity to confer with the Colonial Office, Sir George Arthur made the chief blunder of his career as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. To be sure he acted in complete harmony with his Executive Council, whose advice he took in the matter, but he did not understand the real feeling of the province. It is doubtful whether any but the most rabid Tories favoured the exaction of the death penalty. The ends of justice could have been secured either by transportation or banishment. Nor did the Colonial Office entirely favour the executions of these men. On May 22nd Lord Glenelg wrote to Arthur as follows: "I have received your despatch of the 29th March, No. 1, reporting your proceedings up to that date, and the measures which you proposed to adopt with reference to the militia and volunteers, and stating that two of the most active of the persons engaged in the late revolt, having been brought to trial, had pleaded guilty and been sentenced to death, and assuring me that the most merciful consideration would be shown towards the prisoners generally. "I have laid your despatch before the Queen, and have to convey to you Her Majesty's approbation of the proceedings which you have reported. Since the receipt, indeed, of your despatch, intelligence has appeared in the public papers of the execution at Toronto of Messrs. Lount and Matthews, the individuals, as I presume, alluded to in your despatch. "I have every confidence that before consenting to such a means, you devoted to the cases of these persons a calm and dispassionate consideration, but as I have hitherto received from you no report of these executions or of the grounds on which you decided to let the law take its course, I abstain for the present from any further comment on them. "I am happy to learn, through the same channel of information, that no further executions were likely to take place."[17] Eight days later, on May 30th, 1838, after receiving Sir George Arthur's despatch of the 14th of April, Lord Glenelg again alluded to the execution and this time one feels that, in his own mild way, the Colonial Secretary is seeking to restrain Arthur: "I have received your despatch of the 14th April last (No. 4), reporting the executions, on the 12th of that month, of Lount and Matthews, who had been convicted, on their own confession, of 'high treason,' and explaining, at considerable length, the views adopted by yourself and the Executive Council with regard to these prisoners, and the considerations which appeared to you imperatively to demand that the law in the case should be allowed to take its course. "Her Majesty's Government regret extremely that a paramount necessity should have arisen for these examples of severity. They are, however, fully convinced that you did not consent to the execution of these individuals without having given the most ample consideration to all the circumstances of the case, and they have no reason to doubt the necessity of the course which, with the entire concurrence of the Executive Council, you felt it your duty to adopt."[18] The Colonial Secretary did not censure Arthur for his conduct in the matter of the execution of Lount and Matthews but he added a significant paragraph regarding the treatment of other political prisoners. "With respect to the disposal of the other prisoners, Her Majesty's Government cannot give you any specific instructions, until they shall have received the report which you lead me to expect. But I cannot defer expressing our earnest hope that, with respect to these persons, your opinion that no further capital punishments will be necessary, may be acted on. Nothing would cause Her Majesty's Government more sincere regret than an unnecessary recourse to the punishment of death, and I am persuaded that the same feeling will influence not only yourself, but the Executive Council. The examples which have been made in the case of the most guilty will be sufficient to warn others of the consequences to which they render themselves liable by such crimes, and this object having been accomplished, no further advantage could be gained by indict the extreme penalty of the law on any of their associates."[19] The death of Lount and Matthews seems to have satisfied the desire for revenge on the part of the extremists and a milder course of policy was then pursued by the Lieutenant-Governor and Executive Council. Several other leaders including "Generals" Sutherland and Theller, both of whom were American citizens, were sentenced to transportation. Theller had been sentenced to death and, according to his own account, was only saved from the gallows by the energetic agitation in his favour of the Irish section of the population. He has left a voluminous account of his captivity, including his sensational escape from the Citadel of Quebec, in his book, _Canada in 1837-8_, to which the reader is referred if he wishes to obtain a very highly-coloured bit of autobiography.[20] Theller's case brought up a very interesting question of International Law. He had been born in Ireland and had become naturalized as an American citizen. When put on trial for his life on a charge of high treason Theller pleaded that his American naturalization had rendered him no longer a British subject. Against him a precedent of 1747 was quoted to support the doctrine of "perpetual allegiance," i.e. "once a British subject, always a British subject." The jury brought in the curious verdict that "if the prisoner was a British subject he was guilty of treason." Chief Justice Robinson, acting in accordance with his belief in the doctrine of 'perpetual allegiance' ruled that Theller was still a British subject and thereupon sentenced him to death. Under the circumstances to carry out the death sentence would have been very inadvisable. Pressure was brought to bear upon the Lieutenant-Governor and the Executive Council, and as a result a respite was granted "until Her Majesty's pleasure should be known."[21] Theller was soon after removed from Toronto to Quebec and detained there in the Citadel, from which he escaped. Sutherland was tried by court martial, imprisoned in Toronto and Quebec, and finally returned to American soil. These American prisoners were very embarrassing to the Upper Canadian authorities. There was still considerable excitement along the American frontier and the danger of invasion was by no means over. Lount and Matthews were considered martyrs by many on the American side of the border. Highly coloured accounts of the execution appeared in the American press. Even the New York Sun took up the matter and recounted how Mrs. Lount on the day previous to her husband's execution "pleaded with Governor Arthur for hours for his life, and when she pointed to _thirty thousand names_ who petitioned with her for the exercise of the royal prerogative, he coldly replied 'that he had not believed that Mr. Lount had so many friends in the province, and that there was the more necessity that he should be made an example to the rest.'"[22] Under these circumstances the execution of Theller would have added oil to the flame. The Congress of the United States passed a "Neutrality Bill" which cleared up the situation a great deal by denying official sanction to any schemes of invasion and enjoining neutrality on all American citizens. The state authorities along the frontier also tried to prevent any movement of armed forces against Canada. Theller records how he successfully dodged the American authorities in making his attack on Fort Madden and how Governor Mason of Michigan was coming down the river with a strong force when Theller and his friends approached the island of Bois Blanc which lies in Canadian waters. No doubt there often was a certain amount of laxity on the part of the American authorities, and Sir George Arthur finds occasion to condemn it at times, but the United States Government seems on the whole to have acted very wisely. The burning of the "Caroline," which it should be remembered was an American vessel attacked by a Canadian force in American waters, might easily have led to very serious consequences. If President Van Buren and his cabinet had wanted war it would have been quite possible to claim the destruction of the ill-fated "Caroline" as an overt act of hostility. Fortunately milder counsels prevailed and war was avoided. But this incident profoundly affected and prolonged the agitation on the American side of the border. On April 23rd, 1838, an "authorized agent" of the United States Government, Mr. Aaron Vail, who had recently been Chargé d'Affaires in the American Embassy in London, arrived at Toronto. Mr. Vail, according to the official despatch of the British ambassador at Washington, Mr. H. S. Fox, was charged with the task "of inquiring into, and reporting upon, the actual condition of various individuals, who are now in confinement in Canada." Mr. Fox considered Mr. Vail a very fitting envoy and that his mission would be beneficial "by dissipating false rumours which tend to keep alive feelings of ill-will between the British and American inhabitants on the Canadian frontier." Aaron Vail's mission seems to have fulfilled expectations, for on April 25th Arthur wrote to Fox that it was quite impossible that a more proper person than Mr. Vail could have been selected by the President, and that he trusted all the benefit would result from his mission as Fox had anticipated. Vail does not seem to have formed a very high opinion of the American prisoners, whom he described as "the 'scum' of the population."[23] Theller has left us an amusing account of how the Toronto gaol was carefully scrubbed in honour of Vail's visit and how the prison authorities hinted that "the Americans had better clean and dress up, as they might expect to see some visitors, and probably hear some good news."[24] The prisoners poured out their tale of woe to Vail who "took notes and assured us that the government of the United States would strictly inquire into the matter."[25] Nothing much, however, seems to have resulted from the inquiry, since it was evident that Vail's mission was to smooth over affairs rather than to stir up further strife by issuing an inflammatory report on Canadian conditions. Soon after the departure of Mr. Vail occurred the trial and conviction of Charles Durand. Durand's case was peculiar, and noteworthy as illustrating the methods employed by Arthur and his Executive Council to stamp out disaffection. Durand was put on trial for high treason, the chief evidence against him being a letter which was found in his house among his papers addressed to W. L. MacKenzie, and which contained within it charges against the Executive Council and Family Compact generally. This letter was never sent and MacKenzie in his _Gazette_ denies ever having seen it. It was, therefore, a high handed proceeding to sentence a man to death on the evidence of a private paper which was never published. Durand was afterwards respited and banished to the United States, but his trial and conviction on the 7th of May did not tend to increase the popularity of the Lieutenant-Governor and his Executive Council. Durand's letter certainly was written in no mild tone and it still breathes forth the spirit of disaffection. But it was never published and as such should not have been used to convict its author. The following-sentences will serve as a sample of the whole: "The principles of the reformers are those of truth, are those that tend to promote the happiness of the many--instead of the few. Although in common with thousands of the old farmers in Canada, with thousands of the sons of U. E. Loyalists, I was willing to petition the mother country for the redress of our political wrongs, and even to petition them again and again, yet when I see insult upon insult heaped upon the reformers of this Province: our Governors allowed with impunity to slander and laugh at the people and their House of Assembly--when I see Governors who have held up with both hands the gracious despatches of the deceitful and tyrannical Colonial Office--conspiring against the liberties of this colony by establishing a 'Dominant Church' and 'English Church Rectories' amongst us against our will and desire, _raised, promoted_ and _applauded_ for deceiving the people here, when I see Judges suspended and dismissed from their offices for voting for liberal men and the _elective franchise_, the only spark of liberty we can boast of, trampled down by office holders, and done away with by the Governor issuing thousands of patent deeds to his favorites and officials, I begin to ask myself, shall I, shall we, who have made the country what it is, be used thus with impunity? Shall we, the native Canadians, the sons of U. E. Loyalists, be called aliens in the land of our birth, and by the fluttering officials that hang on the smiles of a Governor's brow--I say nay. I feel that we are too tame--that we have forgotten that we are free--that we are in America,"[26] etc. etc. There is no need to quote more of this verbiage. The above is sufficient to show that Durand was able to "tear a passion to tatters, to very rags," and if he had ever had this letter published it would have doubtless "split the ears of the groundlings." The curious thing it that a man should be condemned to death for writing such a letter. Truly Arthur and his Executive Council lacked a sense of humour! About this time a new movement against Canada was on foot in the United States. "Hunters' Lodges" were formed with the object "never to rest, till all tyrants of Britain cease to have any dominion or footing whatever in North America."[27] This new organization seems to have originated in May, 1838, and to have spread rapidly, especially through the states bordering on Upper Canada. Lindsay tells us that at a convention of the Hunters' Lodges of Ohio and Michigan held at Cleveland from September 16th to 22nd[28] of that year, seventy delegates were present. At this meeting a republican government was appointed for Upper Canada, including a president and complete cabinet. A "republican bank of Upper Canada" was projected which was to issue a paper currency adorned with the heads of Lount, Matthews and Moreau who took part in the Short Hills affair in June, 1838, to which reference will shortly be made. But the members of the "Hunters' Lodges" though full of enthusiasm were short of funds, so the bank did not prosper. Before this grandiloquent meeting at Cleveland there had been several disturbances along the border. The first of these was the destruction on May 30th, of the Canadian passenger steamer "Sir Robert Peel" at Wells' Island by American sympathizers. Wells' Island, one of the Thousand Islands, is situated in American waters and so the authorities of New York state were to a certain extent negligent in allowing the incident to occur. The destruction of the "Sir Robert Peel" seems to have been regarded by the "patriots" who boarded her as an act of revenge for the burning of the "Caroline." But whatever the motives of those concerned the incident caused bad feeling along the border. An American steamer, the "Telegraph," was fired upon on June 2nd by the Canadian sentries at Brockville, the excuse given that the "Telegraph" had not answered when hailed by the sentries. An investigation was held at which the authorities of St. Lawrence County, N.Y., were present, and it was ascertained that the sentries had acted without orders. A few days after these incidents a body of "patriots" under the leadership of James Moreau crossed the Niagara frontier in order to free Upper Canada. Moreau, who is called Morrow in the Canadian records, issued a proclamation which called upon the Canadians to come to his assistance and proclaimed that this was the hour of their redemption. The answer of the "oppressed Canadians" was the engagement fought at the Short Hills on June 21st when the "patriots" were defeated by the Canadian militia. Moreau fled with a price on his head but was captured, tried and condemned to death. The Executive Council on July 26th refused to reprieve him since he was considered a proper case for capital punishment under an Act of the Parliament of Upper Canada passed the previous session in order "to protect the Inhabitants of this Province against lawless aggressions from Subjects of Foreign Countries at Peace with Her Majesty." Moreau was accordingly executed at Niagara on July 30th. If Sir George Arthur had had his way there would have been more executions, but Lord Durham intervened. The next serious outbreak on the frontier was the attack of von Schoultz near Prescott on November 11th. The invaders seized a point of land on which a stone windmill had been built and fortified the place. An engagement ensued and the invaders were driven back to shelter within the windmill. On the 14th of November British reinforcements, including artillery, arrived, and two days later an attack was made at the distance of only 400 yards. The garrison of the windmill then surrendered and nearly 160 prisoners were taken.[29] Von Schoultz and nine others were executed in Kingston. Von Schoultz was defended by Sir John A. Macdonald, then a young barrister just beginning his profession, but there was little that could be said in his defence. The last movement against Upper Canada took place on December 4th, when an attack was made on Windsor. This affair is thus described in the District General Orders of December 10th, dated at Toronto:[30] "A large body of pirates and brigands, belonging to the hostile combination in the neighbouring country which has of late so much disturbed the peace of this province, after assembling in the neighbourhood of Detroit, and showing themselves at different points in the vicinity, at length had the hardihood to effect a landing near Windsor, about three miles from Sandwich, on the morning of the 4th instant, where they commenced their work of destruction by burning a steam-boat called the "Thames," and a house used as a barrack, making prisoners a small but gallant party of militia quartered therein, who, in defending themselves against the attacking banditti shot their leader and eventually effected their escape." At Sandwich, Colonel Prince gathered a force of local militia, made "a spirited attack" and put the invaders to flight. Four prisoners who had been taken were shot by orders of Colonel Prince, whose action was afterward severely censured by Lord Brougham and others. After the action at Sandwich the rest of the invaders either recrossed to American territory or else took to the woods, where many perished from the cold. So ended the last attempt at invasion of Upper Canada. Seven of those captured at Windsor were executed at London, including Daniel Davis Bedford and Albert Clark. The cases of these two men were discussed at two separate meetings of the Executive Council and it was decided that each of them should suffer the death penalty. In these decisions Sir George Arthur entirely concurred. The ex-governor of the penal colony was still exacting vengeance. In his defence it should be stated that the loyal section of the province, including the Executive Council, considered these men filibusters and murderers. The treatment meted out by the Executive Council to those British subjects, American citizens and others who were taken in arms against the government of Upper Canada has been discussed at some length. This has been done for two reasons, first that it bulks so large in Sir George Arthur's official despatches, and second because it shows what complete harmony existed between Sir George and his Executive Council. Not even Sir Francis Head was more devoted to the Family Compact party. Sir George Arthur was by temperament and training entirely on the side of established authority and opposed to disaffection in all its forms. A strong conservative, he mistrusted the rule of the people and, therefore, opposed as stubbornly as possible the popular demand for Responsible Government. In this, as in other respects, Arthur found himself completely at variance with the Governor-General, the Earl of Durham. It was unfortunate for Arthur that he was in Upper Canada during a period of unrest and transition. It was even more unfortunate for him that he was brought into contact with Lord Durham. Durham was a man of vision who sketched out a mighty scheme which took years to put into actual practice. Arthur was a man of routine who could not appreciate either Durham or his visions. Above all he mistrusted that pet project of Lord Durham, Responsible Government, and did not hesitate to say so. The appointment of the Earl of Durham as Governor-General of the British North American provinces was deeply resented by Sir George Arthur. By virtue of his commission Durham was empowered to assume the government of the province in which he might be and to retain it during his residence in that province. During that period the functions of the Lieutenant-Governor were to be altogether suspended.[31] Due notice of this fact was sent each of the Lieutenant-Governors of the British North American provinces including, of course, Sir George Arthur. After receiving this notice Sir George wrote on June 5th, 1838, to Lord Glenelg, complaining of this arrangement. He based his case against it on his experience in Van Diemen's Land, which was during his tenure of office there a dependency of New South Wales, and called to Lord Glenelg remembrance a conversation he had had with him on the subject. In fact, as Arthur reminds Glenelg, the terms on which he consented to become Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada were that no change of that sort would be made. Three days after writing thus to Lord Glenelg Sir George Arthur received a circular letter from Lord Durham requesting him "to enter into the most free and confidential communication ... on all subjects affecting the province of Upper Canada, both as regards its internal condition and the state of affairs on the frontiers."[32] Lord Durham included in this letter the following paragraphs in order to allay the suspicion that might exist in Arthur's mind that he wished to diminish the Lieutenant-Governor's authority, "Your Excellency will of course understand that this request does not contemplate any interference with your administration of the government, but refers to the necessity which exists that I, as Governor-General of all the North American provinces, should be immediately informed of all matters of general interest affecting the high and important mission which has been conferred upon me. "It will be my duty as well as my inclination to uphold your authority, not only from the respect which I must entertain for you personally, but from a due regard to the efficiency of the public service." This circular must have mollified Arthur somewhat, or else he was too well trained a public servant to show his innermost feelings. At any rate he writes to Durham on June 9th as follows, "I sincerely thank your Lordship for your very kind declaration of confidence in me and for the determination which your Lordship has expressed of upholding my authority. "It is peculiarly gratifying to me to receive these assurances from your Lordship, for I ought in candour to say that from the time I received Lord Glenelg's 'Circular,' I have been very apprehensive of the embarrassment which might arise out of the new relative position in which I found myself most unexpectedly placed. The immeasurable distinction between your Lordship's station and my own must satisfy your Lordship that this has proceeded from no vain jealousy, on personal grounds, of the control of a superior. With diminished influence I feared the ability of being useful to Her Majesty's Government and to this province would be taken away; for I have to co-operate with a legislature which must have a reasonable degree of confidence of my powers to act in union with them, and to fulfil my professions.[33]" To this rather naïve letter Durham on June 18th replied stating even more clearly that no act of his would diminish Arthur's influence and authority in Upper Canada. He goes on to put his case as follows, "I repeat to you, that I have no wish to interfere with the local administration of the affairs of any of the provinces included in my general government. "Those functions will be vested, as before, in the Lieutenant-Governors; but it is essential to the success of my mission and to the due execution of my duties, more especially in the present disturbed state of our relations with the frontier population of the United States, that I should be promptly and directly made acquainted with all events bearing on those important questions." Arthur seems to have followed out Durham's instructions as regards frontier troubles to the letter, since we find the following postscript added to his despatch of June 22nd, 1838 (No. 4): "_P.S._ I make now no communications myself to the American Government, and have troubled your Lordship with all these particulars, as a representation will of course come with far greater force from your Lordship."[34] In July, 1838, Lord Durham made a flying visit to Upper Canada. His object seems to have been to ascertain for himself existing conditions in this province and to form his own opinion as to what policy it would be best to pursue. He writes thus to Lord Glenelg from Montreal on July 6th: "Lower Canada is perfectly free from internal troubles, and her frontier is not menaced by the Americans; but Upper Canada, by the last accounts from Sir George Arthur, is in a very unsatisfactory state, both as to domestic dissensions and border incursions. I am anxious, therefore, to proceed there as soon as possible."[35] Lord Durham left Montreal on July 10th, arrived in Kingston late on the night of the 11th, and then proceeded to Niagara. At Niagara Sir George Arthur met him. From Niagara Lord Durham journeyed to Toronto where Sir George was also present to receive him formally, along with the mayor and corporation and the citizens of the provincial capital. On the 19th of July Durham returned to Kingston and thence down the St. Lawrence to Montreal where he arrived on July 24th. His visit to Upper Canada had been short but he had covered a great deal of territory and seems to have been pleased with what he saw. If one of Lord Durham's objects in making his hurried trip to Upper Canada was to obtain a better understanding with Sir George Arthur he must have been disappointed since shortly after his return to Lower Canada their relations became somewhat strained. The reason for this was the action of Sir George Arthur and his Executive Council in sentencing to death Samuel Chandler and Benjamin Waite for their part in the Short Hills affair. The families of these men had appealed to Durham "for an extension of the Royal mercy" and "for the grant to them of Her Majesty's pardon."[36] Durham asked Arthur for particulars, reminding him that Lord Glenelg had written on the 3rd of April asking that "the utmost lenity, compatible with public safety, should be exercised towards the insurgents." To this Sir George Arthur replied on August 20th, complaining that Durham's action was "depriving the officer administering the Government of Upper Canada of the powers expressly vested in him by the Royal Commission."[37] Arthur also claimed that Durham "had misapprehended the intention of the instruction of the Secretary of State" and Lord Glenelg had in a despatch of July 12th referred him "to the power of pardoning for treason vested in the officers administering this government under your Lordship's commission as Governor-in-Chief." Durham in his turn maintained that all he wished was to exercise the superintending authority he possessed as Governor-General. He admitted that Arthur had the power of pardoning for treason delegated to him, but would argue that that power was exempt from "the general subordination to instructions from the Governor-General."[38] Durham then proceeds to give his opinion of Sir George Arthur's policy in the following terms. "Your Excellency's explanation of the policy which you had determined on adopting with regard to the prisoners convicted at Niagara does not immediately strike me as indicating a course so obviously correct that I can dispense with the information which I required in my despatch of the 16th instant. I cannot quite admit the propriety of selecting some one subject of Her Majesty to share the fate of Morreau, the leader of the expedition, who happened to be a citizen of the United States. The fate of Her Majesty's subjects should be determined on a view of their own conduct, and of the circumstances which have led the juries to accompany their verdict of guilty, in every case, with a recommendation to mercy." A further despatch of Lord Durham to Arthur on September 18th went into the case of Jacob Beamer in some detail. Beamer had been singled out by the Executive Council as the scape goat and was alone to suffer the death penalty. To this Durham would not agree but requested that the case be referred to Lord Glenelg. This despatch is interesting since it shows that the Executive Council of Upper Canada was at this time none too friendly towards Lord Durham and was quite willing to stir up strife between the Governor-General and the Lieutenant-Governor. In the meantime the correspondence between Arthur and Durham had continued at some length and not always with the best of feeling. But no actual breach seems to have occurred and at length the vexed problem of the political prisoners seemed likely of solution. A general amnesty was to be proclaimed for all except a certain few who were to be named in the proclamation. But by this time Lord Durham was preparing to return to England. Among the despatches sent by Sir George Arthur to the Earl of Durham is one dated July 9th, 1838, which deals with the political condition of Upper Canada. This letter establishes without a doubt the close adherence of Sir George Arthur to the Family Compact party, all the more so because Sir George tries to claim his independence of all party affiliations. It also shows that the Lieutenant-Governor had received instructions from the Home Government "to pursue the policy and measures of Sir Francis Head." This Arthur apparently had attempted to do in so far as his support of the dominant party in the province was concerned. He had fallen in completely with their way of thinking and had failed to distinguish between reformers and rebels. He even warned Lord Sydenham that Dr. Egerton Ryerson was "a dangerous man" chiefly because Ryerson supported Mr. Bidwell, who had been Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and had been forced to leave the province on account of persecution by Sir Francis Head and his Executive Council after MacKenzie's Rebellion. In this letter of July 9th Sir George Arthur attempts to combat the opinions of Mr. Isaac Buchanan, a reformer, who had been presenting his views on the Upper Canadian political situation to Lord Durham. According to Arthur, Mr. Buchanan was endeavouring to prejudice Durham's mind "against some of the most respectable and most highly esteemed men in the province," and the Lieutenant-Governor hastened to defend his friends. One or two sentences from this despatch deserve quotation as showing Arthur's attitude towards the self-constituted aristocracy of Upper Canada. "In this Colony, as in other countries, respectable station, united with superior talents and good conduct, gives a certain degree of influence which is natural and salutary, and it would be of all things ungracious and discouraging, as well as impolitic, if the Government were to manifest a jealousy of an influence so honorably acquired. It is, so far as I have been able to judge, most unobtrusively exercised and I am satisfied, from what I have experienced, that so far as he can conscientiously do so, your Lordship will have the most cordial co-operation of the Chief Justice and of all the Family Compact, in all its ramifications throughout the Province."[39] In this same despatch Arthur informs Durham that he had "amicably discussed with the Leaders of each Denomination, the long contested Clergy Reserves Question," and had the intention of "bringing in a Bill to reinvest those lands in the Crown" if better means could not be found of providing a settlement. He also thought that he would be able to carry any measure he desired successfully through the Provincial Parliament. It should be remembered that the ultra-tory assembly of 1836, at whose elections Sir Francis Head so distinguished himself, was still in existence and that Sir George Arthur thought that it would pass any measure brought forward by the government. Already on a previous occasion Sir George had written to the Governor-General on the same subject of the Clergy Reserves and had expressed a hope that asperities had been already softened and that at the next meeting of the Legislature he would be able to see this long-pending contest terminated upon nearly the same principle as it had been settled in Van Diemen's Land during his administration there. But in this pious hope Arthur reckoned without the opposition of the Reformers. The aim of Sir George Arthur and the Executive Council was "to secure the removal of the Clergy Reserves question from the hostile arena of the Upper Canada Legislature to the friendly atmosphere of the English House of Commons, and the still more friendly tribunal of the House of Lords--where the bench of bishops would be sure to defend the claims of the Church to their royal patrimony."[40] This project the Reformers and opponents of the Clergy Reserves were determined to resist to the uttermost. A long controversy raged during 1838 and 1839. In December, 1837, a bill had been brought forward to reinvest the Reserves in the Crown, but a despatch from the Home Government which arrived soon after showed that the British Parliamentary authorities had no desire to interfere in the settlement of this vexed question. During 1838 Sir George Arthur still hoped that the scheme for reinvesting the Clergy Reserves in the Crown would carry as the references in his despatches, cited above, show. Such a bill would have suited the members of the Executive Council and Family Compact generally. It would have meant that the Church of England would have still profited at the expense of the other denominations. As it was, in 1837 out of a total of £10,852 11s 8d the Church of England received £7,291 5s Od, the Church of Scotland £1,425, the United Synod of Upper Canada £636 6s 8d, and the Roman Catholic clergy £1,000.[41] The Wesleyan Methodists and other denominations did not receive one penny from the "one-seventh of all Crown lands set aside for the support of a Protestant clergy." Upon the reassembling of the Upper Canadian Legislature in February, 1839, Sir George Arthur stated that "the settlement of this vitally important question ought not to be longer delayed" and hoped that the contending parties could be amicably adjusted, but added meaningly that if all their efforts failed it would only remain to reinvest the Reserves in the hands of the Crown. Various bills on the subject were introduced and finally the Legislative Council amended one sent to it by the Assembly in such a way as to put complete control of the Clergy Reserves in the hands of the Imperial Parliament. This bill as amended was passed in the Assembly in a thin house by a majority of one. Sir George Arthur and his party had triumphed by a narrow margin. But the royal assent was never given to the bill owing to an objection raised in England that the Upper Canadian Legislature, being a subordinate authority, could not make such a delegation to the Imperial Parliament. A compromise bill which was devised to meet the approval of the majority of people in Upper Canada was submitted to the House of Assembly in January, 1840, but it was the work not of Sir George Arthur, but of Lord Durham's successor, Mr. Poulett Thomson (Lord Sydenham). It provided that the remainder of the land should be sold and that the annual proceeds of the fund, when realized, be distributed one half to the Church of England and the Presbyterians and one half to the other denominations who wished to share it. This bill was passed in Upper Canada and sent to England where it met its death blow in the House of Lords. The vexatious Clergy Reserves problem still remained unsettled. In the matter of the Clergy Reserves, Sir George Arthur had shown himself the uncompromising ally of the Family Compact. He was to show it once more in his attitude towards the reunion of the provinces and the introduction of Responsible Government. The reunion of the provinces was urged by Lord Durham in his Report and was favoured by a large majority of the inhabitants of Upper Canada. It was opposed by the Family Compact, supported as usual by Sir George Arthur. But the feeling for union was so strong that on March 23rd, 1839, three resolutions in favour of the reunion of the provinces were carried by the Upper Canadian Legislature. Four days later, on March 27th, fourteen qualifying resolutions were passed by the Assembly. These resolutions, if embodied in the Act of Union, would have placed the balance of power in the hands of the British population of the united province. A committee of the Legislative Council was appointed at the same time to inquire into Lord Durham's Report and to put forward their side of the case. This was very ably done in a document dated May 11th, 1839, and approved by the Legislative Council. In this report on the Report Lord Durham's "great panacea for all political disorders 'Responsible Government'"[42] was attacked and certain inaccurate statements were challenged. The blame for the recent troubles in Upper Canada was cast entirely upon the Reformers and the question propounded: "Is it because reformers, or a portion of them, can command the sympathies of the United States, and of Lower Canadian rebels, that the internal affairs of a British colony must be conducted so as to please them?" With these sentiments Sir George Arthur heartily concurred. He was entirely opposed to "Responsible Government" and still feared disaffection in the provinces. During the early months of 1839 the trials of the political prisoners had continued and had attracted much attention on both sides of the border. There was still considerable excitement in the province and riots occurred in some places. In one of these which took place at Stone's Tavern, Percy Township, Northumberland County, on June 5th, 1839, the reformers carried "a red flag on which were written or printed the words, 'Lord Durham and Reform.'"[43] Incidents such as this increased Sir George Arthur's mistrust of Lord Durham's schemes for the better government of Canada, and on July 2nd we find him writing to the Marquis of Normanby, Lord Glenelg's successor, as follows: "I have all along informed Her Majesty's Government that it is absurd to think of Upper Canada as containing a whole community of loyalists. There is a considerable section of persons who are disloyal to the core; reform is on their lips, but separation is in their hearts. These men having, for the last two or three years, made a 'responsible government' their watchword, are now extravagantly elated because the Earl of Durham has recommended that measure. "They regard it as an unerring means to get rid of all British connexion, while the Earl of Durham, on the contrary, has recommended it as a measure for cementing the existing bond of union with the mother country." These few sentences throw great light on Sir George Arthur's attitude on the question of 'Responsible Government.' As usual, the Reformers are annexationists. It was the usual tactics of the dominant party to call them so and to include as disloyal all those who favoured the cause of Reform. Of course Sir George Arthur, from the nature of his position, was supposed to be moderate in his political views, but he does yeoman service for the Family Compact in trying to impress upon the authorities in England that the Reformers were disloyal. It is impossible to state what percentage of the Reformers were actually disloyal, but it must be remembered, as Egerton Ryerson has told us, the great body of the Reformers took no part in MacKenzie's Rebellion except to suppress it. The bulk of moderate opinion in the province sided neither with the annexationists nor with the Family Compact, but readily embraced the suggestions set forth in Lord Durham's Report. With these moderate reformers Sir George Arthur was soon at variance. In the month of August, 1839, Sir George received a series of resolutions supporting Lord Durham's Report and Responsible Government passed at a meeting of freeholders and inhabitants of the Gore District held on July 27th. This meeting resolved that the House of Assembly did not represent the wishes or sentiments of the province "particularly in its late Report of its committee, purporting to be the Report of the House of Assembly in answer to Lord Durham's Report on the State of the Province." It also resolved "that the Report of the Earl of Durham, in all its material points, has been received by an overwhelming majority of the people of Upper Canada with the most abundant gratification" and "that this meeting is of opinion that a responsible government, as recommended in Lord Durham's Report, is the only means of restoring confidence, allaying discontent, or perpetuating the connexion between Great Britain and this colony."[44] All this was wormwood and gall to Sir George Arthur, who hastened to reply to this address. In his answer he attacks Responsible Government and states "that the proposed plan would lead to a state of things inconsistent with the relations of this colony, as a dependency of the British Crown." This was a bold statement for the Lieutenant-Governor to make and it was soon to land him into difficulties since the British authorities were prepared to carry out Lord Durham's schemes. Mr. Poulett Thomson was selected as Governor-General and under him Sir George Arthur was once more to act as a subordinate Lieutenant-Governor.[45] It was a curious arrangement, since Arthur was known to be opposed to the very scheme of government which Poulett Thomson was being sent out to initiate. But Sir George Arthur was not unwilling to co-operate with the new Governor-General. He met Poulett Thomson at Montreal on October 25th and conferred with him on the subject of Upper Canada. It was decided that the Legislature of that province should be summoned for December 3rd and that Poulett Thomson would visit Upper Canada about the 18th of November. The Governor-General was determined to open the session of the Legislature in person. This determination on his part was largely the outcome of his conversations with Sir George Arthur, who strongly urged upon him the desirability of so doing. As a result of this meeting between the Governor-General and Lieutenant-Governor, Poulett Thomson was present to open the Legislature on December 3rd. After that date Sir George Arthur's power in Upper Canada became entirely secondary to that of Poulett Thomson. He still acted as Lieutenant-Governor in the absence of the Governor-General but his term of real authority in Upper Canada ended on November 22nd, 1839, when the new Governor-General assumed the government of the upper province. Sir George Arthur remained in Upper Canada until 1841, when the Act of Union came into force and the two provinces surrendered their separate existence. He then returned to England where his services in Canada were recognized by the bestowal upon him of a baronetcy. In June, 1842, he was appointed Governor of the Bombay Presidency in India, which office he held until his retirement in 1846. Had his health warranted the acceptance of so difficult a post he might then have become Governor-General of India. After returning to England Sir George Arthur was made a Privy Councillor and was honoured by the University of Oxford with the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law. He died on September 19th, 1854. Sir George Arthur was a true type of the old colonial governor. He was unfortunate in that he was unable to realize that the days of colonial dependency were numbered, and that the future belonged to the advocates of self-government. His long experience as a colonial governor under the old regime, probably told against Arthur in his administration of Upper Canada just as it was of value to him as Governor of Bombay. His support of the Family Compact was as natural and sincere as his mistrust of Responsible Government. Of his uprightness and integrity there could be no doubt. Although his treatment of the political prisoners shows him to have been merciless, on occasion he was known as a gentle and kind man. He tried to do what he considered right but he lacked vision. Throughout his administration in Upper Canada he was attempting to bolster up a dying cause. His one fatal defect was that he could not see that the political future of Canada lay in the proper interpretation and elaboration of the principles laid down in Lord Durham's Report. WALTER SAGE. [1] Arthur to Glenelg, 29 March, 1838. [2] Head's Narrative, p. 32. [3] Canadian Archives. Q 406, Pt. I, p. 175. [4] D. N. B., Vol. I, p. 604. [5] Report of Transportation Committee, 1838. Quoted in Molesworth's _Speeches_, Appendix, p. 465. [6] D. N. B., Article on Sir George Arthur. [7] Canadian Archives, Q 406, Pt. I, p. 226. [8] Ibid. [9] Ibid., p. 232. [10] Ibid., p. 227. [11] Molesworth: _Speeches_, p. 112. [12] Kingsford: _History of Canada_, Vol. X, p. 472. [13] Cf. Arthur to Glenelg, April 14th, 1838, Canadian Archives G, 494. [14] Ibid. [15] Arthur to Glenelg: April 14th, 1838. [16] Both numbers are given--the higher number, 30,000, by MacKenzie. [17] Glenelg to Arthur, No. 70, 22 May, 1838; Brit. Parl. paper, 2, 1839, p. 279. [18] Glenelg to Arthur, No. 82, 30th May, 1838; op. cit. pp. 279-80. [19] Ibid. [20] E. A. Theller, Canada in 1837-8, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1841. [21] Theller, Canada in 1837-8, Vol. I, p. 261. [22] Canadian Archives, Q 406, Pt. I, pp. 177-8. [23] Arthur to Glenelg, 24 April, 1838, No. 8. [24] Theller, Canada in 1837-8, Vol. 2, p. 9. [25] Ibid., p. 10. [26] Can. Archives, Q. 406, Pt. I, pp. 166-7. [27] Quoted: Kingsford, X, p. 457. [28] Lindsay: _Life of W. L. MacKenzie_ (Makers of Canada Series), p. 440, gives the month as September; Kingsford gives December. [29] Arthur to Glenelg, 24th November, 1838, No. 92. [30] Parl. Paper, 2, 1839, p. 370. [31] Cf. Glenelg to Durham, April 3rd, 1838, No. 8, Parl. paper 2, p. 12. [32] Durham to Arthur, 1 June, 1838; No. 1. Parl. paper, 2, p. 109. [33] Arthur to Durham, June 9th, No. 1, Parl. paper 2, p. 116. [34] P.P. 2, p. 125. [35] Durham to Glenelg, No. 24, P. P. 2, p. 139. [36] Durham to Arthur, 16 May, 1838, pp. 2, p. 103. [37] Ibid., Arthur to Durham, 20th Aug., 1838. [38] Durham to Arthur, Aug. 24th, 1838; Ibid., p. 164. [39] Arthur to Durham, July 9th, 1838, Can. Archives, G. 494, p. 507. [40] Ryerson: Story of My Life, p. 225. [41] These figures are taken from a return to be found in the Canadian Archives, Q. 407, Pt. I, pp. 108-13. [42] Egerton and Grant: Canadian Constitutional Development, p. 176. [43] Parl. papers (Canada), 1840, Pt. II, p. 142. [44] Parl. paper (Canada), 1840, Pt. II, p. 181. [45] For a full account of the relations between Poulett Thomson and Sir George Arthur the reader is referred to Shortt, _Sydenham_, pp. 153-162. BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENTS OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE IN QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON, ONTARIO, CANADA. No. 1. The Colonial Policy of Chatham, by W. L. Grant. No. 2. Canada and the Most Favored Nation Treaties, by O. D. Skelton. No. 3. The Status of Women in New England and New France, by James Douglas. No. 4. Sir Charles Bagot: An Incident in Canadian Parliamentary History, by J. L. Morison. No. 5. Canadian Bank Inspection, by W. W. Swanson. No. 6. Should Canadian Cities Adopt Commission Government, by William Bennett Munro. No. 7. An Early Canadian Impeachment, by D. A. McArthur. No. 8. A Puritan at the Court of Louis XIV, by W. L. Grant. No. 9. British Supremacy and Canadian Autonomy: An Examination of Early Victorian Opinion Concerning Canadian Self-government, by J. L. Morison. No. 10. The Problem of Agricultural Credit in Canada, by H. Michell. No. 11. St. Alban in History and Legend: A Critical Examination; The King and His Councillors: Prolegomena to a History of the House of Lords, by L. F. Rushbrook Williams. No. 12. Life of the Settler in Western Canada Before the War of 1812, by Adam Shortt. No. 13. The Grange in Canada, by H. Michell. No. 14. The Financial Power of the Empire, by W. W. Swanson. No. 15. Modern British Foreign Policy, by J. L. Morison. No. 16. Federal Finance, by O. D. Skelton. No. 17. Craft-Gilds of the Thirteenth Century in Paris, by F. B. Millett. No. 18. The Co-operative Store in Canada, by H. Michell. No. 19, The Chronicles of Thomas Sprott, by Walter Sage. No. 20. The Country Elevator in the Canadian West, by W. C. Clark. No. 21. The Ontario Grammar Schools, by W. E. Macpherson. No. 22. The Royal Disallowance in Massachusetts, by A. G. Borland. No. 23. The Language Issue in Canada; Notes on the Language Issue Abroad, by O. D. Skelton. No. 24. The Neutralization of States, by F. W. Baumgartner. No. 25. The Neutralization of States, by F. W. Baumgartner. No. 26. Profit-Sharing and Producers' Co-operation in Canada, by H. Michell. No. 27. Should Maximum Prices Prevail? by W. C. Clark. No. 28. Sir George Arthur and His Administration of Upper Canada, by Walter Sage. [Transcriber's note: the duplicate entries for 24 and 25 above are as printed.] 
30349	----	THE PEACE OF ROARING RIVER [Illustration: "God bless you, Madge," said the man. "I will come soon." See page 306] THE PEACE OF ROARING RIVER BY GEORGE VAN SCHAICK AUTHOR OF SWEET APPLE COVE, THE SON OF THE OTTER, A TOP-FLOOR IDOL, ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. H. D. KOERNER NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1918 BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) Second Printing CONTENTS I. The Woman Scorned 13 II. What Happened to a Telegram 26 III. Out of a Wilderness 42 IV. To Roaring River 71 V. When Gunpowder Speaks 102 VI. Deeper in the Wilderness 124 VII. Carcajou Is Shocked 152 VIII. Doubts 165 IX. For the Good Name of Carcajou 189 X. Stefan Runs 211 XI. A Visit Cut Short 223 XII. Help Comes 237 XIII. A Widening Horizon 251 XIV. The Hoisting 279 XV. The Peace of Roaring River 290 ILLUSTRATIONS "God bless you, Madge," said the man. "I will come soon." See page 306 _Frontispiece_ Truth flashed upon her! In a few moments she would see for the first time the man she was to marry 98 "I'm glad you were not hurt. Rather unexpected, wasn't it" 122 He put out a brown hand and touched the girl's arm 270 THE PEACE OF ROARING RIVER THE PEACE OF ROARING RIVER CHAPTER I The Woman Scorned To the village of Carcajou came a young man in the spring. The last patches of snow were disappearing from under the protecting fronds of trees bursting into new leaf. From the surface of the lakes the heavy ice had melted and broken, and still lay in shattered piles on the lee shores. Black-headed chickadees, a robin or two, and finally swallows had appeared, following the wedges of geese returning from the south on their way to the great weedy shoals of James' Bay. The young man had brought with him a couple of heavy packs and some tools, but this did not suffice. He entered McGurn's store, after hesitating between the Hudson's Bay Post and the newer building. A newcomer he was, and something of a tenderfoot, but he made no pretence of knowing it all. A gigantic Swede he addressed gave him valued advice, and Sophy McGurn, daughter of the proprietor, joined in, smilingly. She was a rather striking girl, of fiery locks and, it was commonly reported, of no less flaming temper. To Hugo Ennis, however, she showed the most engaging traits she possessed. The youth was good-looking, well built, and his attire showed the merest trifle of care, such as the men of Carcajou were unused to bestow upon their garb. The bill finally made out by Sophia amounted to some seventy dollars. "Come again, always glad to see you," called the young lady as Hugo marched out, bearing a part of his purchases. For a month he disappeared in the wilderness and finally turned up again, for a few more purchases. On the next day he left once more with Stefan, the big Swede, and nothing of the two was seen again until August, when they returned very ragged, looking hungry, their faces burned to a dull brick color, their limbs lankier and, if anything, stronger than ever. The two sat on the verandah of the store and Hugo counted out money his companion had earned as guide and helper. When they entered the store Miss Sophia smiled again, graciously, and nodded a head adorned with a bit of new ribbon. There were a few letters waiting for Hugo, which she handed out, as McGurn's store was also the local post-office. The young man chatted with her for some time. It was pleasant to be among people again, to hear a voice that was not the gruff speech of Stefan, given out in a powerful bass. "More as two months ve traipse all ofer," volunteered the latter. "Ye-es, Miss Sophy, ma'am, ve vork youst like niggers. Und it's only ven ve gets back real handy here, by de pig Falls, dat ve strike someting vhat look mighty good. Hugo here he build a good log-shack. He got de claim all fix an' vork on it some to vintertime. Nex spring he say he get a gang going. Vants me for foreman, he do." This was pleasant news. Hugo would be a neighbor, for what are a dozen miles or so in the wilderness? He would be coming back and forth for provisions, for dynamite, for anything he needed. "We had a fine trip anyway, and saw a lot of country," declared Hugo, cheerfully. "Ve get one big canoe upset in country close in by Gowganda," said Stefan again. "Vidout him Hugo I youst git trowned." "That wasn't anything," exclaimed Hugo, hastily. "It was one tamn pig ting for me, anyvays," declared Stefan, roaring out with contented laughter. Miss Sophy was not greatly pleased when Hugo civilly declined an invitation to have dinner with her ma and pa. The young man was disappointing. He spoke cheerfully and pleasantly but appeared to take scant notice of her new ribbon, to pay little heed to her grey-blue eyes. After this, once or twice a week, Hugo would come in again, for important or trifling purchases. It might be a hundred pounds of flour or merely a new pipe. He was the only man in Carcajou who took off his cap to her when he entered the store, but when she would have had him lean over the counter and chat with her he seemed to be just as pleased to gossip with lumberjacks and mill-men, or even with Indians who might come in for tobacco or tea and were reputed to have vast knowledge of the land to the North. Once he half promised to come to a barn-dance in which Scotty Humphrey would play the fiddle, and she watched for him, eagerly, but he never turned up, explaining a few days later that his dog Maigan, an acquisition of a couple of months before, had gone lame and that it would have been a shame to leave the poor old fellow alone. Sophy met him in the village street and he actually bowed to her without stopping, as if there might be more important business in the world than gossiping with a girl. She began to feel, after a time, that she actually disliked him. The station agent, Kid Follansbee, admired her exceedingly, and had timidly ventured some words of hopeful flirtation as a preliminary to more serious proposals. Two or three other youths of Carcajou only needed the slightest sign of encouragement, and there was a conductor of the passenger train who used to blow kisses at her, once in a while, from the steps of the Pullman. In spite of all this Sophy continued to smile and talk softly, whenever he entered the store, and he would answer civilly and cheerfully, and ask the price of lard or enquire for the fish-hooks that had been ordered from Ottawa. He would pat the head of the big dog that was always at his heels, throw a coin on the counter, slip his change in his pocket and go out again, as if time had mattered, when, as she knew perfectly well, he really hadn't much to do. The poor fellow, she decided, was really stupid, in spite of his good looks. The worst of it all was that some folks had taken notice of her efforts to attract Hugo's attention. The people of Carcajou were good-natured but prone to guffaws. One or two asked her when the wedding would take place, and roared at her indignant denials. In the meanwhile Hugo was utterly ignorant of the feelings that had arisen in Miss Sophy McGurn's bosom. He worked away at a great rocky ledge, and loud explosions were not uncommon at the big falls of Roaring River. Also he cut a huge pile of firewood against the coming of winter, and, from time to time, would take a rod and lure from the river some of the fine red square-tailed trout that abounded in its waters. A few books on mining and geology, and an occasional magazine, served his needs of mental recreation. A French Canadian family settled about a mile north of his shack soon grew friendly with him. There were children he was welcomed by, and a batch of dogs that tried in vain to tear Maigan to pieces, until with club and fang they were taught better manners. To the young man's peculiar disposition such surroundings were entirely satisfactory. There was a freedom in it, a sense of personal endeavor, a hope of success, that tinted his world in gladdening hues. When autumn came he shouldered his rifle and went out to the big swampy stretches of the upper river, where big cow moose and their ungainly young, soon to be abandoned, wallowed in the oozy bottoms of shallow ponds and lifted their heads from the water, chewing away at the dripping roots of lily-pads. There were deer, also, and he caught sight of one or two big bull-moose but forebore to shoot, for the antlers were still in velvet and there was not enough snow on the ground to sledge the great carcasses home. He contented himself with a couple of bucks, which he carried home and divided with his few neighbors, also bringing some of the meat to Stefan's wife at Carcajou. Later on he killed two of the big flathorns, hung the huge quarters to convenient trees and went back to Papineau's, the Frenchman's place, for the loan of his dog-team. After this came the winter with heavy falls of snow and cold that sent the tinted alcohol in the thermometer at the station down very close to the bulb. Carcajou and its inhabitants seemed to go to sleep. The village street was generally deserted. Even the dogs stayed indoors most of the day, hugging the cast-iron stoves. At this time all the Indians were away at their winter hunting grounds, and many of the lumberjacks had gone further south where the weather did not prevent honest toil. The big sawmill was utterly silent and the river, wont to race madly beneath the railroad bridge, had become a jumbled mass of ice and rock. The only men who kept up steady work in and near Carcajou formed the section gang on the railroad. One day, in the middle of winter, and in quickly gathering shadows, Pete Coogan, their foreman, was walking the track back towards the village and had reached the big cut whose other end led to the bridge at Carcajou. The wind bit hard as it howled through the opening in the hill and the man walked wearily, pulling away at a short and extinct pipe and thinking of little but the comfort that would be his after he reached his little house and kicked off his heavy Dutch stockings. A hot and hearty meal would be ready for him, and after this he would light another pipe and listen to his wife's account of the village doings. Since before daylight he had been toiling hard with his men, in a place where tons of ice and snow had thundered down a mountainside and covered the rails, four or five feet deep. The work had been hurried, breathless, anxious, but finally they had been able to remove the warning signals after clearing the track in time to let the eastbound freight thunder by, with a lowing of cold, starved cattle tightly packed and a squealing of hogs by the legion. A frost-encased man had waived a thickly-mittened hand at them from the top of a lumber car, and the day's work was over, all but clearing a great blocked culvert, lest an unexpected thaw or rain might flood the right of way. To these men it was all in the day's work and unconscious passengers snored away in their berths, unknowing of the heroic toil their safety required. So Pete walked slowly, his grizzled head bent against the blast as he struggled between the metals, listening. At a sudden shrieking roar he moved deliberately to one side, his back resting against a bank of snow left by the giant circular plough whose progress, on the previous day, had been that of a slow but irresistible avalanche. A crashing whistle tore the air and the wind of the rushing train pulled at his clothes and swirled sharp flakes into his eyes. Yet he dimly saw something white flutter down to his feet and he picked it up. It chanced to be a paper tossed out by some careless hand, a rather disreputable sheet printed some thousand miles away, one of the things that lie like scabs on the outer hide of civilization. It was much too dark and cold for him to think of removing a mitten and searching for the glasses in his coat pocket. But the respect is great, in waste places, for the printed word. There news of the great outside world trickles in slowly, and he carefully stuffed the thing between two of the big horn buttons of his red-striped mackinaw. There were but a few minutes more of toil for him. At last he passed over the bridge, in a flurry of swirling ice-crystals, and finally made his way into McGurn's store, which is across the way from the railway depot. "Cold night," he announced, stamping his feet near the door. "Follansbee he says they report fifty below at White River," a man sitting by the stove informed him. Coogan nodded and approached the counter. "Give me a plug, Miss Sophy," he told the girl who sat at a rough counter, adding figures. "The wind's gettin' real sharp and I got the nose most friz off'n my face." The girl rose, with a yawn, and handed him the tobacco. She swept his ten-cent piece in a drawer and sat down again. One of the men lounging about the great white-topped stove in the middle of the room pointed to Coogan's coat. "Ye're that careless, Pete," he said. "I 'low that's a bundle o' thousand dollar bills as is droppin' off'n yer coat." The old section foreman looked down. "Oh! I'd most forgot. This here's some kind o' paper I picked up on the track. Beats anything how passengers chucks things off. Mike Smith 'most got killed last week with an empty bottle. Lucky he had his big muskrat cap on. May be ye'd like to see it, Miss Sophy? Guess my old woman wouldn't have no use for it as it don't seem to have any picters in it." He was about to place it on the counter when one of the men took it from his hand and held it under the hanging oil lamp. "Why!" he chuckled, somewhat raspingly. "It's just what Sophy needs real bad. Ye wants ter study that real careful, Sophy. It'll show ye as there's just as good fish in the sea as was ever took out of it." The girl leaned far out over the counter and snatched the paper away from him. "Yes, there's just as good fish as that there Ennis lad," repeated the man. A single glance had acquainted Sophy with the title. It was the _Matrimonial Journal_. She flung it down to her feet, angrily. "You get out of here with your Ennis!" she cried. "I wouldn't--wouldn't marry him if he was the last man on earth. I--I just despise him!" "And that's real lucky for ye," snickered the man. "I heard him say--lemme see--yes, 'bout three-four days ago, as he wasn't nowise partial ter carrots. It's a wegetable as he couldn't never bear the sight of." The girl's hand went up to her fine head of auburn hair and a deep red rose from her cheeks to its roots. Her narrow lips became a mere slit in her face and her steely eyes flashed. "And--and he's the kind as thinks himself a gentleman!" she hissed out. "Get out o' here, all of ye! There ain't a man in Carcajou as I'd wipe my boots on. Clear out o' here, I tell ye!" The three men left, Pete silently and disapprovingly, the other two guffawing. "I don't believe as how that lad Ennis ever said anything o' the kind," declared the foreman. "He's a fine bye, he is, and it ain't like him." "Of course he didn't," the village joker assured him. "But 'twas too much of a chance ter get a rise out er Sophy for me to lose it. Ain't she the hot-tempered thing? Just the same she wuz dead sot on gettin' him, we all know that, an' she's mad clear through." "Well, I don't see as yer got any call ter rile the gal, just the same," ventured Pete. "Like enough she can't help herself, she can't, and just because she got a temper like a sorrel mare ain't no good reason ter be hurtin' her feelin's." But the other two chuckled again and started towards the big boarding-house, whose ceilings and walls were beautifully covered with stamped metal plates guaranteed to last for ever and sell for old iron afterwards. Its corrugated iron roof, to most of Carcajou's population, represented the very last word in architectural glory. Within the store Miss Sophy was biting her nails, excitedly, and felt all the fury of the woman scorned. CHAPTER II What Happened to a Telegram Customers were rare on such terribly cold nights. For a long time Sophy McGurn held her chin in the palm of her hand, staring about her from time to time, without seeing anything but the visions her anger evolved. Presently, however, she took up the small bag of mail and sorted out a few letters and papers, placing them in the individual boxes. But while she worked the heightened color of her face remained and her teeth often closed upon her lower lip. There was a postal card addressed to Hugo Ennis. She turned it over, curiously, but it proved to be an advertisement of some sort of machinery and she threw it from her, impatiently. "Supper's ready, Sophy," cried a shrill voice. "Train's in and father'll be here in a minute. Get the table fixed." "I'm coming," she answered. For a minute she busied herself putting down plates and knives and forks. She heard her father coming in. He had been away on some business at the next station. She heard him kicking off his heavy felt shoes and he came into the room in his stocking-feet. "Hello, Ma! Hello, Sophy! Guess ye've been settin' too close to the hot stove, ain't ye? Yer face is red as a beet." "My face is all right!" she exclaimed, angrily. "Them as don't like it can look the other way!" Her mother, a quiet old soul, looked at her in silence and dished out the broiled ham and potatoes. The old gentleman snickered but forebore to add more fuel to the fire. He was a prudent man with a keen appreciation of peace. They sat down. Under a chair the old cat was playing with her lone kitten, sole remnant of a large litter. An aggressive clock with a boldly painted frame was beating loudly. Beneath the floor the oft-repeated gnawing of a mouse or rat went on, distractingly. From the other side of the road, in spite of double-windows and closed doors, came the wail of an ill-treated violin. "One of these days I'm goin' over to Carreau's an' smash that fiddle," suddenly asserted Sophy, truculently. "It's gettin' on my nerves. Talk o' cats screechin'!" "I wouldn't do that, Sophy," advised her mother, patiently. "Not but what it's mighty tryin', sometimes, for Cyrille he don't ever get further'n them two first bars of 'The Campbells are comin'.'" Sophy sniffed and poured herself out strong tea. She drank two cups of it but her appetite was evidently poor, for she hardly touched her food. Her father was engaged in a long explanation of the misdeeds of a man who had sold him inferior pork, as she folded her napkin, slipped it into her ring, and went back into the store. Here she sat on her stool again, tapping the counter with closed knuckles. Her eyes chanced to fall upon the paper she had thrown down on the floor, and she picked it up and began to read. Pete Coogan, when he had brought it into the store, unknowingly had set big things in motion. He would have been amazed at the consequences of his act. Presently Sophy became deeply interested. The pages she turned revealed marvelous things. Even to one of her limited attainments in the way of education and knowledge of the world the artificiality of many of the advertisements was apparent. Others made her wonder. It was marvelous that there were so many gentlemen of good breeding and fine prospects looking hungrily for soul-mates, and such a host of women, young or, in a few instances, confessing to the early thirties, seeking for the man of their dreams, for the companion who would understand them, for the being who would bring poetry into their lives. Some, it is true, hinted at far more substantial requirements. But these, in the brief space of a few lines, were but hazily revealed. Among the men were lawyers needing but slight help to allow them to reach wondrous heights of forensic prosperity. There were merchants utterly bound to princely achievement. Also there was a sprinkling of foreign gentlemen suggesting that they might exchange titles of high nobility for some little superfluity of wealth. Good looks were not so essential as a kindly, liberal disposition, they asserted, and also hinted that youth in their brides was less important than the quality of bank accounts. The ladies, as described by themselves, were tall and handsome, or small and vivacious. Some esteemed themselves willowy while others acknowledged Junoesque forms. But all of them, of either sex, high or short, thin or stout, appeared to think only of bestowing undying love and affection for the pure glory of giving, for the highest of altruistic motives. Other and more trivial things were spoken of, as a rule, in a second short paragraph which, to the initiated, would have seemed rather more important than the longer announcements. At any rate, that which they asked in exchange for the gifts they were prepared to lavish always appeared to be quite trivial, at first sight. Sophy McGurn, as she kept on reading, was not a little impressed. Yet, gradually, a certain native shrewdness in her nature began to assert itself. She had helped her father in the store for several years and knew that gaudy labels might cover inferior goods. She by no means believed all the things she read. At times she even detected exaggeration, lack of candor, motives less allowable than the ones so readily advanced. "Guess most of them are fakes," she finally decided, not unwisely. "But there's some of them must get terribly fooled. I--I wonder...." Her cogitations were interrupted by a small boy who entered and asked for a stamped envelope. A few people, later on, came in to find out if there was any mail for them. But during the intervals she kept on poring over those pages. One by one the lights of Carcajou were going out. Carreau's fiddle had stopped whining long before. The cat lay asleep in the wood-box, near the stove, with the kitten nestled against her. Old McGurn called down to her that it was time for bed, but the girl made no answer. Yes, it was a marvelous idea that had come to her. She saw a dim prospect of revenge. It was as if the frosted windows had gradually cleared and let in the light of the stars. Hugo Ennis had made a laughing-stock of her. He didn't like carrots, forsooth! She was only too conscious of the failure of her efforts to attract him. But he had noticed them and commented on them to others, evidently. It was enough to make one wild! The oil in the swinging lamp had grown very low and the light dim by the time she finished a letter, in which she enclosed some money. Then she stamped it and placed it in the bag that would be taken up in the morning, for the eastbound express. Finally she placed the heavy iron bar against the front door and went up the creaking stairs to her room as the loud-ticking clock boomed out eleven strokes, an unearthly hour for Carcajou. A couple of weeks later a copy of the _Matrimonial Journal_ was forwarded to A.B.C., P.O. Box 17, Carcajou, Ontario, Canada. Miss Sophy McGurn retired with it to her room, looked nervously out of the window, lest any one might have observed her, and searched the pages feverishly. Yes! There it was! Her own words appeared in print! A wealthy young man owning a silver mine in Canada would like to correspond with a young lady who would appreciate a fine home beside a beautiful river. In exchange for all that he can bestow upon her he only seeks in the woman he will marry an affectionate and kindly disposition suited to his own. Write A.B.C., P.O. Box 17, Carcajou, Ontario, Can. During the next few days it was with unwonted eagerness that Sophy opened the mail bags. Finally there came a letter, followed by five, all in different handwritings and in the same mail. For another week or ten days others dribbled in. They were all from different women, cautiously worded, asking all manner of questions, venturing upon descriptions of themselves. Unanimously they proclaimed themselves bubbling over with affection and kindliness. The girl was impressed with the wretched spelling of most of them, with the evident tone of artificiality, with the patent fact that the writers were looking for a bargain. All these letters, even the most poorly written, gave Sophy the impression that the correspondents were dangerous people, she knew not why, and might perhaps hoist her with her own petard. She studied them over and over again, with a feeling of disappointment, and reluctantly decided that the game was an unsafe one. Two days had gone by without a letter to A.B.C. when at last one turned up. At once it seemed utterly different, giving an impression of bashfulness and timidity that contrasted with the boldness or the caution of the others. That night, with a hand disguised as best she could, the girl answered it. She knew that several days must elapse before she could obtain a reply and awaited it impatiently. It was this, in all probabilities, that made her speak snappishly to people who came to trade in the store or avail themselves of the post-office. "I'm a fool," she told herself a score of times. "They all want the money to come here and it must be enough for the return journey. This last one ain't thought of it, but she'll ask also, in her next letter, I bet. And I haven't got it to send; and if I had it I wouldn't do so. They might pocket it and never turn up. And anyway I might be getting in trouble with the postal authorities. Guess I better not answer when it comes. I'll have to find some other way of getting square with him." By this time she regretted the dollars spent from her scant hoard for the advertisement, but the reply came and the game became a passionately interesting one. She answered the letter again, using a wealth of imagination. "She'll sure answer this one, but then I'll say I've changed my mind and have decided that I ain't going to marry. Takes me really for a man, she does. Must be a fool, she must. And she ain't asked for money, ain't that funny? If she writes back she'll abuse me like a pickpocket, anyway. Won't he be mad when he gets the letter!" Sophy's general knowledge of postal matters and of some of the more familiar rules of law warned her that she was skating on thin ice. Yet her last letter had ventured rather far. In her first letter she had merely signed with the initials, but this time she had boldly used Hugo Ennis's name. She thought she would escape all danger of having committed a forgery by simply printing the letters. "And besides, there ain't any one can tell I ever wrote those letters," she reassured herself, perhaps mistakenly. "If there's ever any enquiry I'll stick to it that some one just dropped them in the mail-box and I forwarded them as usual. When it comes to her answers they'll all be in Box 17, unopened, and I can say I held them till called for, according to rules. I never referred to them in what I wrote. Just told her to come along and promised her all sorts of things." Again she waited impatiently for an answer, which never came. Instead of it there was a telegram addressed to Hugo Ennis, which was of course received by Follansbee, the station agent, who read it with eyes rather widely opened. He transcribed the message and entrusted it to big Stefan, the Swede, who now carried mail to a few outlying camps. "It's a queer thing, Stefan," commented Joe. "Looks like there's some woman comin' all the way from New York to see yer friend Hugo." "Vell, dat's yoost his own pusiness, I tank," answered the Swede, placidly. "Sure enough, but it's queer, anyways. Did he ever speak of havin' some gal back east?" "If he had it vould still be his own pusiness," asserted Stefan, biting off a chew from a black plug and stowing away the telegram in a coat pocket. Hugo Ennis was his friend. Anything that Hugo did was all right. Folks who had anything to criticize in his conduct were likely to incur Stefan's displeasure. The big fellow's dog-team was ready. At his word they broke the runners out of the snow, barking excitedly, but for the time being they were only driven across the way to the post-office for the mail-bag. Sophy handed the pouch to him, her face none too agreeable. "Dat all vhat dere is for Toumichouan?" asked the man. "Yes, that's all," answered the girl, snappily. "There's a parcel here for Papineau and a letter for Tom Carew's wife. If you see any one going by way of Roaring River tell him to stop there and let 'em know." "You can gif 'em to me, too," said Big Stefan. "I'm goin' dat vay. I got one of dem telegraft tings for Hugo Ennis." Sophy rushed out from behind the counter. "Let me see it!" she said. "No, ma'am," said Stefan, calmly. "It is shut anyvays, de paper is. Follansbee he youst gif it to me. I tank nobotty open dat telegraft now till Hugo he get it." He tucked the mail-bag and the parcel under one arm and went out, placing the former in a box that was lashed to the toboggan. Then he clicked at his dogs, who began to trot off easily towards the rise of ground at the side of the big lake. It was a sheet of streaky white, smooth or hummocky according to varying effects of wind and falling levels. Far out on its surface he saw two black dots that were a pair of ravens, walking in dignified fashion and pecking at some indistinguishable treasure trove. At the summit of the rise he clicked again and the dogs went on faster, the man running behind with the tireless, flat-footed gait of the trained traveler of the wilderness. In the meanwhile old McGurn was busy in the store and Sophy put on her woollen _tuque_ and her mitts. "I'm going over to the depot and see about that box of Dutch socks," she announced. "'T ain't due yet," observed her father. "I'm going to see, anyway," she answered. In the station she found Joe Follansbee in his little office. The telegraphic sounder was clicking away, with queer sudden interruptions, in the manner that is so mysterious to the uninitiated. "Are you busy, Joe?" she asked him, graciously. "Sure thing!" answered the young fellow, grinning pleasantly. "There's the usual stuff. The 4.19 is two hours late, and I've had one whole private message. Gettin' to be a busy place, Carcajou is." "Who's getting messages? Old man Symonds at the mill?" "Ye'll have to guess again. It's a wire all the way from New York." "What was it about, Joe?" she asked, in her very sweetest manner. Indeed, the inflection of her voice held something in it that was nearly caressing. Kid Follansbee had long admired her, but of late he had been quite hopeless. He had observed the favor in which Ennis had seemed to stand before the girl, and had perhaps been rather jealous. It was pleasant to be spoken to so agreeably now. "We ain't supposed to tell," he informed her, apologetically. "It's against the rules. Private messages ain't supposed to be told to anyone." "But you'll tell me, Joe, won't you?" she asked again, smiling at him. It was a chance to get even with the man he deemed his rival and he couldn't very well throw it away. "Well, I will if ye'll promise not to repeat it," he said, after a moment's hesitation. "It's some woman by the name of Madge who's wired to Ennis she's coming." "But when's she due, Joe?" "It just says 'Leaving New York this evening. Please have some one to meet me. Madge Nelson.'" "For--for the land's sakes!" She turned, having suddenly become quite oblivious of Joe, who was staring at her, and walked back slowly over the hard-packed snow that crackled under her feet in the intense cold. "I--I don't care," she told herself, doggedly. "I--I guess she'll just tear his eyes out when she finds out she's been fooled. She'll be tellin' everybody and--and they'll believe her, of course, and--and like enough they'll laugh at him, now, instead of me." During this time Stefan rode his light toboggan when the snow was not too hummocky, or when the grade favored his bushy-tailed and long-nosed team. At other times he broke trail for them or, when the old tote-road allowed, ran alongside. With all his fast traveling it took him nearly three hours to reach the shack that stood on the bank, just a little way below the great falls of Roaring River. Here he abandoned the old road that was so seldom traveled since lumbering operations had been stopped in that district, owing to the removal of available pine and spruce. At a word from him the dogs sat down in their traces, their wiry coats giving out a thin vapor, and he went down the path to the log building. The door was closed and he had already noted that no film of smoke came from the stove-pipe. While it was evident that Ennis was not at home Stefan knocked before pushing his way in. The place was deserted, as he had conjectured. Drawing off his mitt he ascertained that the ashes in the stove were still warm. There was a rough table of axe-hewn boards and he placed the envelope on it, after which he kindled a bit of fire and made himself a cup of hot tea that comforted him greatly. After this it took but a minute to bind on his heavy snowshoes again and he rejoined his waiting dogs, starting off once more in the hard frost, his breath steaming and once more gathering icicles upon his short and stubby yellow moustache. It was only in the dusk of the short winter's day that Hugo Ennis returned to his home, carrying his gun, with Maigan scampering before him. It was quite dark within the shack and he placed the bag that had been on his shoulders upon the table of rough planks. After this he drew off his mitts and unfastened his snowshoes after striking a light and kindling the oil lamp. Then he pulled a couple of partridges and a cold-stiffened hare out of the bag, which he then threw carelessly in a corner. Whether owing to the dampness of melting snow or the stickiness of fir-balsam on the bottom of the bag, the envelope Stefan had left for him stuck to it and he never saw the telegram that had been sent from the far-away city. CHAPTER III Out of a Wilderness A couple of days before Sophy's advertisement appeared in the _Matrimonial Journal_ a girl rose from her bed in one of the female wards of the great hospital on the banks of the East River, in New York. On the day before the visiting physician had stated that she might be discharged. She was not very strong yet but the hospital needed every bed badly. Pneumonia and other diseases were rife that winter. A kindly nurse carried her little bag for her down the aisle of the ward and along the wide corridor till they reached the elevator. Madge Nelson was not yet very steady on her feet; once or twice she stopped for a moment, leaning against the walls owing to slight attacks of dizziness. The car shot down to their floor and the girl entered it. "Good-by and good luck, my dear," said the kindly nurse. "Take good care of yourself!" Then she hurried back to the ward, where another suffering woman was being laid on the bed just vacated. Madge found herself on the street, carrying the little bag which, in spite of its light weight, was a heavy burden for her. The air was cold and a slight drizzle had followed the snow. The chilly dampness made her teeth chatter. Twice she had to hold on to the iron rails outside the gates of the hospital, for a moment's rest. After this she made a brave effort and, hurrying as best she could, reached Third Avenue and waited for a car. There was room in it, fortunately, and she did not have to stand up. Further down town she got out, walked half a block west, and stopped before a tenement-house, opening the door. The three flights up proved a long journey. She collapsed on a kitchen chair as soon as she entered. A woman who had been in the front room hastened to her. "So you're all right again," she exclaimed. "Last week the doctor said 't was nip and tuck with you. You didn't know me when I stood before ye. My! But you don't look very chipper yet! I'll make ye a cup of hot tea." Madge accepted the refreshment gratefully. It was rather bitter and black but at least it was hot and comforting. Then she went and sought the little bed in the dim hall-room, whose frosted panes let in a yellow and scanty light. For this she had been paying a dollar and a half a week, and owed for the three she had spent in the hospital. Fortunately, she still had eleven dollars between herself and starvation. After paying out four-fifty the remainder might suffice until she found more work. She was weary beyond endurance and yet sleep would not come to her, as happens often to the overtired. Before her closed eyes a vague panorama of past events unrolled itself, a dismal vision indeed. There was the coming to the great city, after the widowed mother's death, from a village up the state. The small hoard of money she brought with her melted away rather fast, in spite of the most economical living. But at last she had obtained work in a factory where they made paper boxes and paid a salary nearly, but not quite, adequate to keep body and soul together. From this she had drifted to a place where they made shirts. Here some hundreds of motor-driven sewing-machines were running and as many girls bent over the work, feverishly seeking to exceed the day's stint and make a few cents extra. A strike in this place sent her to another, with different work, which kept her busy till the hands were laid off for part of the summer. And always, in every place, she toiled doggedly, determinedly, and her pretty face would attract the attention of foremen or even of bosses. Chances came for improvement in her situation, but the propositions were nearly always accompanied by smirks and smiles, by hints never so well covered but that they caused her heart to beat in indignation and resentment. Sometimes, of course, they merely aroused vague suspicions. Two or three times she accepted such offers. The result always followed that she left the place, hurriedly, and sought elsewhere, trudging through long streets of mercantile establishments and factories, looking at signs displayed on bits of swinging cardboard or pasted to dingy panes. Throughout this experience, however, she managed to escape absolute want. She discovered the many mysteries which, once revealed, permit of continued existence of a sort. The washing in a small room, that had to be done on a Sunday; the making of small and unnutritious dishes on a tiny alcohol stove; the reliance on suspicious eggs and milk turned blue; the purchase of things from push-carts. She envied the girls who knew stenography and typewriting, and those who were dressmakers and fitters and milliners, all of which trades necessitate long apprenticeship. The quiet life at home had not prepared her to earn her own living. It was only after the mother's death that an expired annuity and a mortgage that could not be satisfied had sent her away from her home, to become lost among the toilers of a big city. For a year she had worked, and her clothing was mended to the verge of impending ruin, and her boots leaked, and she had grown thin, but life still held out hope of a sort, a vague promise of better things, some day, at some dim period that would be reached later, ever so much later, perhaps. For she had still her youth, her courage, her indomitable tendency towards the things that were decent and honest and fair. At last she got a better position as saleswoman in one of the big stores, whereupon her sky became bluer and the world took on rosier tints. She was actually able to save a little money, cent by cent and dime by dime, and her cheerfulness and courage increased apace. It was at this time that typhoid struck her down and the big hospital saw her for the first time. For seven long weeks she remained there, and when finally she was able to return to the great emporium she found that help was being laid off, owing to small trade after the holidays. She sought further but the same conditions prevailed and she was thankful to find harder and more scantily paid work in another factory, in which she packed unending cases with canned goods that came in a steady flow, over long leather belts. So she became thinner again, and wearier, but held on, knowing that the big stores would soon seek additional help. The winter had come again, and with it a bad cough which, perforce, she neglected. One day she could not rise from her bed and the woman who rented a room to her called in the nearest doctor who, after a look at the patient and a swift, understanding gaze at the surroundings, ordered immediate removal to the hospital. So now she was out of the precincts of suffering again, but the world had become a very hard place, an evil thing that grasped bodies and souls and churned them into a struggling, crying, weeping mass for which nothing but despair loomed ahead. She would try again, however. She would finish wearing out the soles of her poor little boots in a further hunt for work. At last sleep came to her, and the next morning she awoke feeling hungry, and perhaps a bit stronger. Some sort of sunlight was making its way through the murky air. She breakfasted on a half-bottle of milk and a couple of rolls and went out again, hollow-eyed, weary looking, to look for more work. For the best part of three days she staggered about the streets of the big city, answering advertisements found in a penny paper, looking up the signs calling for help, that were liberally enough displayed in the manufacturing district. Then, one afternoon, she sank down upon a bench in one of the smaller parks, utterly weary and exhausted. Beside her, on the seat, lay a paper which she picked up, hoping to find more calls for willing workers. But despair was clutching at her heart. In most of the places they had looked at her and shaken their heads. No! They had just found the help they wanted. The reason of her disappointments, she realized, lay in the fact that she looked so ill and weary. They did not deem her capable of doing the needed work, in spite of her assurances. So she held up the paper and turned over one or two pages, seeking the title. It was the _Matrimonial Journal_! It seemed like a scurrilous joke on the part of fate. What had she to do with matrimony; with hopes for a happy, contented home and surcease of the never-ending search for the pittance that might keep her alive? She hardly knew why she folded it and ran the end into the poor little worn plush muff she carried. When she reached her room again she lighted the lamp and looked it over. It was merely something with which to pass a few minutes of the long hours. She read some of those advertisements and the keen instinct that had become hers in little less than two years of hard city life made her feel the lack of genuineness and honesty pervading those proposals and requests. When she chanced to look at that far demand from Canada, however, she put the paper down and began to dream. Her earlier and blessed years had been spent in a small place. Her memory went back to wide pastures and lowing cattle, to gorgeously blossoming orchards whose trees bent under their loads of savory fruit, long after the petals had fallen. She felt as if she could again breathe unpolluted air, drink from clear springs and sit by the edges of fields and watch the waves of grain bending with flashes of gold before the breezes. Time and again she had longed for these things; the mere thought of them brought a hunger to her for the open country, for the glory of distant sunsets, for the sounds of farm and byre, for the silently flowing little river, bordered with woodlands that became of gold and crimson in the autumn. She could again see the nesting swallows, the robins hopping over grasslands, the wild doves pairing in the poplars, the chirping chickadees whose tiny heads shone like black diamonds, as they flitted in the bushes. The memory of it all brought tears to her eyes. What a wonderful outlook this thing presented, as she read it again. A home by a beautiful river! A prosperous youth who needed but kindliness and affection to make him happy! Why had he not found a suitable mate in that country? She remembered hearing, or reading somewhere, that women are comparatively few in the lands to which men rush to settle in wildernesses. And perhaps the women he had met were not of the education or training he had been accustomed to. The idea of love, as it had been presented by the men she had been thrown with, in factory and office, was repugnant to her. But, if this was true, the outlook was a different one. Not for a moment did she imagine that it was a place wherein a woman might live in idleness and comparative luxury. No! Such a man would require a helpmeet, one who would do the work of his house, one who would take care of the home while he toiled outside. What a happy life! What a wondrous change from all that she had experienced! There were happy women in the world, glorying in maternity, watching eagerly for the home-coming of their mates, blessed with the love of a good man and happy to return it in full measure. It seemed too good to be true. She stared with moistened eyes. If this was really so the man had doubtless already received answers and chosen. There must be so many others looking like herself for a haven of safety, for deliverance from lives that were unendurable. Who was she that she should aspire to this thing? To such a man she could bring but health impaired, but the remnants of her former strength. In a bit of looking-glass she saw her dark-rimmed eyes and deemed that she had lost all such looks as she had once possessed. Yet something kept urging her. It was some sort of a fraud, doubtless. The man was probably not in earnest. A letter from her would obtain no attention from him. A minute later she was seated at the table, in spite of all these misgivings, and writing to this man she had never seen or heard of. She stated candidly that life had been too hard for her and that she would do her best to be a faithful and willing helper to a man who would treat her kindly. It was a poor little despairing letter whose words sounded like a call for rescue from the deep. After she had finished it she threw it aside, deciding that it was useless to send it. An hour later she rushed out of the house, procured a stamp at the nearest drug-store, and threw the letter in a box at the street-corner. As soon as it was beyond her reach she would have given anything to recall it. Her pale face had become flushed with shame. A postman came up just then, who took out a key fastened to a brass chain. She asked him to give her back her letter. But he swept up all the missives and locked the box again, shaking his head. "Nothing doing, miss," he told her, gruffly. Before her look of disappointment he halted a few seconds to explain some measure, full of red-tape, by which she might perhaps obtain the letter again from the post-office. To Madge it seemed quite beyond the powers of man to accomplish such a thing. And, moreover, the die was cast. The thing might as well go. She would never hear from it again. The next day she found work in a crowded loft, poorly ventilated and heated, and came home to throw herself upon her bed, exhausted. Her landlady's children were making a terrible noise in the next room, and the racket shot pains through her head. On the morrow she was at work again, and kept it up to the end of the week. When she returned on Saturday, late in the afternoon, with her meagre pay-envelope in her ragged muff, she had forgotten all about her effort to obtain freedom. "There's a letter for ye here, from foreign parts," announced Mrs. MacRae. "Leastwise 't ain't an American stamp." Madge took it from her, wondering. A queer tremor came over her. The man had written! Once in her room she tore the envelope open. The handwriting was queer and irregular. But a man may write badly and still be honest and true. And the words she read were wonderful. This individual, who merely signed A. B. C., was eager to have her come to him. She would be treated with the greatest respect. If the man and the place were not suited to her she would naturally be at liberty to return immediately. It was unfortunate that his occupations absolutely prevented his coming over at once to New York to meet her. If she would only come he felt certain that she would be pleased. The hosts of friends he had would welcome her. Thus it ran for three pages and Madge stared at the light, a tremendous longing tearing at her soul, a great fear causing her heart to throb. She forgot the meagre supper she had brought with her and finally sat down to write again. Like the first letter it was a sort of confession. She acknowledged again that life no longer offered any prospect of happiness to her. After she looked again in the little glass she wrote that she was not very good-looking. To her own eyes she now appeared ugly. But she said she knew a good deal about housekeeping, which was true, and was willing to work and toil for a bit of kindness and consideration. Her face was again red as she wrote. There was something in all this that shocked her modesty, her inborn sense of propriety and decency. But, after all, she reflected that men and women met somehow, and became acquainted. And the acquaintance, in some cases, became love. And the love eventuated in the only really happy life a man or a woman could lead. Nearly another week went by before the second answer arrived. It again urged her to come. It spoke of the wonderful place Carcajou was, of the marvel that was Roaring Falls, of the greatness of the woodlands of Ontario. Indeed, for one of her limited attainments, Sophy's letter was a remarkable effort. This time the missive was signed in printed letters: HUGO ENNIS. This seemed queer. But some men signed in very puzzling fashion and this one had used this method, in all likelihood, in order that she might be sure to get the name right. And it was a pleasant-sounding name, rather manly and attractive. The letter did not seem to require another answer. Madge stuffed it under her pillow and spent a restless night. On the next day her head was in a whirl of uncertainty. She went as far as the Grand Central Station and inquired about the price of a ticket to Carcajou. The man had to look for some time before he could give her the information. It was very expensive. The few dollars in her pocket were utterly inadequate to such a journey, and she returned home in despair. On the Monday morning, at the usual hour, she started for the factory. She was about to take the car when she turned back and made her way to her room again. Her mind was made up. She would go! She opened a tiny trunk she had brought with her from her country home and searched it, swiftly, hurriedly. She was going. It would not do to hesitate. It was a chance. She must take it! She pulled out a little pocketbook and opened it swiftly. Within it was a diamond ring. It had been given to her mother by her father, in times of prosperity, as an engagement ring. And she had kept it through all her hardships, vaguely feeling that a day might come when it might save her life. She had gone very hungry, many a time, with that gaud in her possession. She had felt that she could not part with it, that it was something that had been a part of her own dear mother, a keepsake that must be treasured to the very last. And now the moment had come. She placed the little purse in her muff, clenched her hand tightly upon it, and went out again into the street. She looked out upon the thoroughfare in a new, impersonal way. She felt as if now she were only passing through the slushy streets on her way to new lands. From the tracks of the Elevated Road dripped great drops of turbid water. The sky was leaden and an easterly wind, in spite of the thaw, brought the chill humidity that is more penetrating than colder dry frost. She hastened along the sidewalk flooded with the icy grime of the last snowfall. It went through the thin soles of her worn boots. Once she shivered in a way that was suggestive of threatened illness and further resort to the great hospital. Before crossing the avenue she was compelled to halt, as the great circular brooms of a monstrous sweeper shot forth streams of brown water and melting snow. Then she went on, casting glances at the windows of small stores, and finally stopped before a little shop, dark and uninviting, whose soiled glass front revealed odds and ends of old jewelry, watches, optical goods and bric-a-brac that had a sordid aspect. She had long ago noticed the ancient sign disposed behind the panes. It bore the words: "We buy Old Gold and Jewelry" For a moment only she hesitated. Her breath came and went faster as if a sudden pain had shot through her breast. But at once she entered the place. From the back of the store a grubby, bearded, unclean old man wearing a black skullcap looked at her keenly over the edge of his spectacles. "I--I want to sell a diamond," she told him, uneasily. He stared at her again, studying her poor garb, noticing the gloveless hands, appraising the worn garments she wore. He was rubbing thin long-fingered hands together and shaking his head, in slow assent. "We have to be very careful," his voice quavered. "We have to know the people." "Then I'll go, of course," she answered swiftly, "because you don't know me." The atmosphere of the place was inexpressibly distasteful to her and the old man's manner was sneaking and suspicious. She felt that he suspected her of being a thief. Her shaking hand was already on the doorknob when he called her back, hurrying towards her. "What's your hurry? Come back!" he called to her. "Of course I can't take risks. There's cases when the goods ain't come by honest. But you look all right. Anyway 't ain't no trouble to look over the stuff. Let me see what you've got. There ain't another place in New York where they pay such good prices." She returned, hesitatingly, and handed to him a small worn case that had once been covered with red morocco. He opened it, taking out the ring and moving nearer the window, where he examined it carefully. "Yes. It's a diamond all right," he admitted, paternally, as if he thus conferred a great favor upon her. "But of course it's very old and the mounting was done years and years ago, and it's worn awful thin. Maybe a couple of dollars worth of gold, that's all." "But the stone?" she asked, anxiously. "One moment, just a moment, I'm looking at it," he replied, screwing a magnifying glass in the socket of one of his eyes. "Diamonds are awful hard to sell, nowadays--very hard, but let me look some more." He was turning the thing around, estimating the depth of the gem and studying the method of its cutting. "Very old," he told her again. "They don't cut diamonds that way now." "It belonged to my mother," she said. "Of course, of course," he quavered, repellently, so that her cheeks began to feel hot again. She was deeply hurt by his tone of suspicion. The sacrifice was bad enough--the implication was unbearable. "I don't think you want it," she said, coldly. "Give it back to me. I can perhaps do better at a regular pawnshop." But he detained her again, becoming smooth and oily. He first offered her fifty dollars. She truthfully asserted that her father had paid a couple of hundred for it. After long bargaining and haggling he finally agreed to give her eighty-five dollars and, worn out, the girl accepted. She was going out of the shop, with the money, when she stopped again. "It seems to me that I used to see pistols, or were they revolvers, in your show window," she said. He lifted up his hands in alarm. "Pistols! revolvers! Don't you know there's the Sullivan law now? We ain't allowed to sell 'em--and you ain't allowed to buy 'em without a license--a license from the police." "Oh! That's a pity," said Madge. "I'm going away from New York and I thought it might be a good idea to have one with me." The old man looked keenly at her again, scratching one ear with unkempt nails. Finally he drew her back of a counter, placing a finger to his lips. "I'm taking chances," he whispered. "I'm doing it to oblige. If ye tell any one you got it here I'll say you never did. My word's as good as yours." "I tell you I'm going away," she repeated. "I--I'm never coming to this city again--never as long as I live. But I want to take it with me." When she finally went out she carried a cheap little weapon worth perhaps four dollars, and a box of cartridges, for which she paid him ten of the dollars he had handed out to her. It was with a sense of inexpressible relief that she found herself again on the avenue, in spite of the drizzle that was coming down. The air seemed purer after her stay in the uninviting place. Its atmosphere as well as the old man's ways had made her feel as if she had been engaged in a very illicit transaction. She met a policeman who was swinging his club, and the man gave her an instant of carking fear. But he paid not the slightest heed to her and she went on, breathing more freely. It was as if the great dark pall of clouds hanging over the city was being torn asunder. At any rate the world seemed to be a little brighter. She went home and deposited her purchase, going out again at once. She stopped at a telegraph office where the clerk had to consult a large book before he discovered that messages could be accepted for Carcajou in the Province of Ontario, and wrote out the few words announcing her coming. After this she went into other shops, carefully consulting a small list she had made out. Among other things she bought a pair of stout boots and a heavy sweater. With these and a very few articles of underwear, since she could spare so little, she returned to the Grand Central and purchased the needed ticket, a long thing with many sections to be gradually torn off on the journey. Berths on sleepers, she decided, were beyond her means. Cars were warm, as a rule, and as long as she wasn't frozen and starving she could endure anything. Not far from the house she lived in there was an express office where a man agreed to come for her trunk, in a couple of hours. Then she climbed up to Mrs. MacRae's. "I'm going to leave you," announced the girl. "I--I have found something out of town. Of course I'll pay for the whole week." The woman expressed her regret, which was genuine. Her lodger had never been troublesome and the small rent she paid helped out a very poor income mostly derived from washing and scrubbing. "I hope it's a good job ye've found, child," she said. "D'ye know for sure what kind o' place ye're goin' to? Are you certain it's all right?" "Oh! If it isn't I'll make it so," answered Madge, cryptically, as she went over to her room. Here, from beneath the poor little iron bed, she dragged out a small trunk and began her packing. For obvious reasons this did not take very long. It was a scanty trousseau the bride was taking with her to the other wilderness. After her clothes and few other possessions had been locked in, the room looked very bare and dismal. She sat on the bed, holding a throbbing head that seemed very hot with hands that were quite cold. After a time the expressman came and removed the trunk. There was a lot of time to spare yet and Madge remained seated. Thoughts by the thousand crowded into her brain--the gist of them was that the world was a terribly harsh and perilous place. "I--I can't stay here any longer!" she suddenly decided, "or I'll get too scared to go. I--I must start now! I'll wait in the station." So she bade Mrs. MacRae good-by, after handing her a dollar and a half, and received a tearful blessing. Then, carrying out a small handbag, she found herself once more on the sidewalk and began to breathe more freely. The die was cast now. She was leaving all this mud and grime and was gambling on a faint chance of rest and comfort, with her dead mother's engagement ring, the very last thing of any value that she had hitherto managed to keep. It was scarcely happiness that she expected to find. If only this man might be good to her, if only he placed her beyond danger of immediate want, if only he treated her with a little consideration, life would become bearable again! As she walked along the avenue the pangs of hunger came to her, keenly. For once she would have a sufficient meal! She entered a restaurant and ordered lavishly. Hot soup, hot coffee, hot rolls, a dish of steaming stew with mashed potatoes, and finally a portion of hot pudding, furnished her with a meal such as she had not tasted for months and months. A sense of comfort came to her, and she placed five cents on the table as a tip to the girl who had waited on her. She was feeling ever so much better as she went out again. She had spent fifty cents for one meal, like a woman rolling in wealth. At a delicatessen shop she purchased a loaf of bread and a box of crackers, with a little cold meat. She knew that meals on trains were very expensive. As she reached the station she felt that she had burned her bridges behind her. She could never come back, since the few dollars that were left would never pay for her return. "But I'm not coming back," she told herself grimly. "I'm my own master now." She felt the bottom of her little bag. Yes, the pistol was there, a protector from insult or a means towards that end she no longer dreaded. "No! I'll never come back!" she repeated to herself. "I'll never see this city again. It--it's been too hard, too cruelly hard!" The girl was glad to sit down at last on one of the big benches in the waiting-room. It was nice and warm, at any rate, and the seat was comfortable enough. Her arm had begun to ache from carrying the bag, and she had done so much running about that her legs felt weary and shaky. A woman sitting opposite looked at her for an instant and turned away. There was nothing to interest any one in the garments just escaping shabbiness, or in the pale face with its big dark-rimmed eyes. People are very unconscious, as a rule, of the tragedy, the drama or the comedy being enacted before their eyes. Gradually Madge began to feel a sense of peace stealing over her. She was actually beginning to feel contented. It was a chance worth taking, since things could never be worse. And then there was that thing in her bag. Presently a woman came to sit quite close to her with a squalling infant in her arms and another standing at her knee. She was a picture of anxiety and helplessness. But after a time a man came, bearing an old cheap suit-case tied up with clothes-line, who spoke in a foreign tongue as the woman sighed with relief and a smile came over her face. Yes! That was it! The coming of the man had solved all fears and doubts! There was security in his care and protection. With a catch in her breathing the girl's thoughts flew over vast unknown expanses and went to that other man who was awaiting her. Her vivid imagination presented him like some strange being appearing before her under forms that kept changing. The sound of his voice was a mystery to her and she had not the slightest idea of his appearance. That advertisement stated that he was young and the first letter had hinted that he possessed fair looks. Yet moments came in which the mere idea of him was terrifying, and this, in swiftly changing moods, changed to forms that seemed to bring her peace, a surcease of hunger and cold, of unavailing toil, of carking fear of the morrow. At times she would look about her, and the surroundings would become blurred, as if she had been weeping. The hastening people moved as if through a heavy mist and the announcer's voice, at intervals, boomed out loudly and called names that suggested nothing to her. Again her vision might clear and she would notice little trivial things, a bewildered woman dragging a pup that was most unwilling, a child hauling a bag too heavy for him, a big negro with thumbs in the armholes of his vest, yawning ponderously. For the hundredth time she looked at the big clock and found that she still had over an hour to wait for her train. Again she lost sight of the ever-changing throngs, of the massive structure in which she seemed to be lost, and the roar of the traffic faded away in the long backward turning of her brain, delving into the past. There was the first timid yet hopeful coming to the big city and the discovery that a fair high-school education, with some knowledge of sewing and fancywork, was but poor merchandise to exchange for a living. Her abundance of good looks, at that time, had proved nothing but a hindrance and a danger. Then had come the bitter toil for a pittance, and sickness, and the hospital, and the long period of convalescence during which everything but the ring had been swept away. She had met the sharp tongues of slatternly, disappointed landladies, while she looked far and wide for work. At first she had been compelled to ask girls on the street for the meaning of cards pasted on windows or hanging in doorways. Words such as "Bushel girls on pants" or "Stockroom assistants" had signified nothing to her. Month by month she had worked in shops and factories where the work she exacted from her ill-nourished body sapped her strength and thinned her blood. Nor could she compete with many of the girls, brought up to such labor, smart, pushing, inured to an existence carried on with the minimum of food and respirable air. The red came to her cheeks again as she remembered insults that had been proffered to her. It deepened further as she thought of that paper picked up on a bench of a little city square. The fear of having made a terrible mistake returned to her, more strongly than ever. Her efforts towards peace now seemed immodest, bold, unwomanly. But that first vision had been so keen of a quiet-voiced man extending a strong hand to welcome and protect as he smiled at her in pleasant greeting! Her vague notions of a far country in which was no wilderness of brick and mortar but only the beauty of smiling fields or of scented forests had filled her heart with a passionate longing. And the last thing the doctor had told her, in the hospital, was that she ought to live far away from the city, in the pure air of God's country. It was with a hot face and a throbbing heart that she now remembered the poor little letters she had written. Even the sending of that telegram now filled her with shame. And yet.... With clamorous voice the man was announcing her train. After a heart-rending moment's hesitation she hastened to where a few people were waiting. The gates opened and she was pushed along. It was as if her own will could no longer lead her, as if she were being carried by a strong tide, with other jetsam, towards shores unknown. At last she was seated in an ordinary coach, than which man has never devised sorrier accommodation for a long journey. Finally the train started and she sought to look out of the window but obtained only a blurred impression of columns and pillars lighted at intervals by flickering bulbs. They made her eyes ache. But presently she made out, to her left, the dark surface of a big river. A few more lights were glinting upon it, appearing and disappearing. Vaguely she made out the outlines of a few vessels that were battling against the drifting ice, for she could see myriad sparks flying from what must have been the smokestacks of tugs or river steamers. Her fellow passengers were mostly laborers or emigrants going north or west. The air was tainted with the scent of garlic. Children began to cry and later grew silent or merely fretful. Finally the languor of infinite weariness came over the girl and she lay back, uncomfortably, and tried to sleep. At frequent intervals she awoke and sat up again, with terror expressed in her face and deep blue eyes. Once she fell into a dream and was so startled that she had to restrain herself from rushing down the aisle and seeking to escape from some unknown danger that seemed to be threatening her. Again she passed a finger over the blurred glass and sought to look out. The train seemed to be plunging into strange and grisly horrors. Overwrought as she was a flood of tears came to her eyes and seemed to bring her greater calm, so that at last she fell into a deeper sleep, heavy, visionless, no longer attended with sudden terrors. CHAPTER IV To Roaring River At last the morning came and Madge awoke. At first she could not realize where she was. Her limbs ached from their cramped position and a pain was gnawing at her, which meant hunger. In spite of the heaters in the car a persistent chilliness had come over her, and all at once she was seized by an immense discouragement. She felt that she was now being borne away to some terrible place. Those people called it Roaring River. Now that she thought of it the very name represented something that was gruesome and panicky. But then she lay back and reflected that its flood would be cleaner and its bed a better place to leap into, if her fears were realized, than the turbid waters of the Hudson. She knew that she was playing her last stake. It must result in a life that could be tolerated or else in an end she had battled against, to the limit of endurance. She quietly made a meal of the provisions she had brought. Her weary brain no longer reacted to disturbing thoughts and vague fears and she felt that she was drifting, peacefully, to some end that was by this time nearly indifferent to her. The day wore on, with a long interval in Ottawa, where she dully waited in the station, the restaurant permitting her to indulge in a comforting cup of coffee. All that she saw of the town was from the train. There was a bridge above the tracks, near the station, and on the outskirts there were winding and frozen waterways on which some people skated. As she went on the land seemed to take an even chillier aspect. The snow was very deep. Farms and small villages were half buried in it. The automobiles and wheeled conveyances of New York had disappeared. Here and there she could see a sleigh, slowly progressing along roads, the driver heavily muffled and the horse traveling in a cloud of vapor. When night came they were already in a vast region of rock and evergreen trees, of swift running rivers churning huge cakes of ice, and the dwellings seemed to be very few and far between. The train passed through a few fairly large towns, at first, and she noted that the people were unfamiliarly clad, wearing much fur, and the inflections of their voices were strange to her. By this time the train was running more slowly, puffing up long grades and sliding down again with a harsh grinding of brakes that seemed to complain. When the moon rose it shone over endless snow, broken only by dim, solid-looking masses of conifers. Here and there she could also vaguely discern rocky ledges upon which gaunt twisted limbs were reminders of devastating forest fires. There were also great smooth places that must have been lakes or the beds of wide rivers shackled in ice overlaid with heavy snow. Whenever the door of the car was opened a blast of cold would enter, bitingly, and she shivered. Came another morning which found her haggard with want of sleep and broken with weariness. But she knew that she was getting very near the place and all at once she began to dread the arrival, to wish vainly that she might never reach her destination, and this feeling continued to grow keener and keener. Finally the conductor came over to her and told her that the train was nearing her station. Obligingly he carried her bag close to the door and she stood up beside him, swaying a little, perhaps only from the motion of the car. The man looked at her and his face expressed some concern but he remained silent until the train stopped. Madge had put on her thin cloak. The frosted windows of the car spoke of intense cold and the rays of the rising sun had not yet passed over the serrated edges of the forest. "I'm afraid you'll find it mighty cold, ma'am," ventured the conductor. "Hope you ain't got to go far in them clothes. Maybe your friends 'll be bringing warmer things for you. Run right into the station; there's a fire there. Joe 'll bring your baggage inside. Good morning, ma'am." She noticed that he was looking at her with some curiosity, and her courage forsook her once more. It was as if, for the first time in her life, she had undertaken to walk into a lion's cage, with the animal growling and roaring. She felt upon her cheeks the bite of the hard frost, but there was no wind and she was not so very cold, at first. She looked about her as the train started. Scattered within a few hundred yards there were perhaps two score of small frame houses. At the edge of what might have been a pasture, all dotted with stumps, stood a large deserted sawmill, the great wire-guyed sheet-iron pipe leaning over a little, dismally. A couple of very dark men she recognized as Indians looked at her without evincing the slightest show of interest. From a store across the street a young woman with a thick head of red hair peeped out for an instant, staring at her. Then the door closed again. After this a monstrously big man with long, tow-colored wisps of straggling hair showing at the edges of his heavy muskrat cap, and a ragged beard of the same color, came to her as she stood upon the platform, undecided, again a prey to her fears. The man smiled at her, pleasantly, and touched his cap. "Ay tank you're de gal is going ofer to Hugo Ennis," he said, in a deep, pleasant voice. She opened her mouth to answer but the words refused to come. Her mouth felt unaccountably dry--she could not swallow. But she nodded her head in assent. "I took de telegraft ofer to his shack," the Swede further informed her, "but Hugo he ain't here yet. I tank he come soon. Come inside de vaiting-room or you freeze qvick. Ain't you got skins to put on?" She shook her head and he grasped her bag with one hand and one of her elbows with the other and hurried her into the little station. Joe Follansbee had a redhot fire going in the stove, whose top was glowing. The man pointed at a bench upon which she could sit and stood at her side, shaving tobacco from a big black plug. She decided that his was a reassuring figure and that his face was a good and friendly one. "Do you think that--that Mr. Ennis will come soon?" she finally found voice to ask. "Of course, ma'am. You yoost sit qviet. If Hugo he expect a leddy he turn up all right, sure. It's tvelve mile ofer to his place, ma'am, and he ain't got but one dog." She could not quite understand what the latter fact signified. What mattered it how many dogs he had? She was going to ask for further explanation when the door opened and the young woman who had peeped at her came in. She was heavily garbed in wool and fur. As she cast a glance at Madge she bit her lips. For the briefest instant she hesitated. No, she would not speak, for fear of betraying herself, and she went to the window of the little ticket-office. "Anything for us, Joe?" she asked. "No. There's no express stuff been left," he answered. "Your stuff'll be along by freight, I reckon. Wait a moment and I'll give you the mail-bag." "You can bring it over. It--it doesn't matter about the goods." She turned about, hastily, and nodded to big Stefan. Then she peered at Madge again, with a sidelong look, and left the waiting-room. As so often happens she had imagined this woman who was coming as something entirely different from the reality. She had evolved vague ideas of some sort of adventuress, such as she had read of in a few cheap novels that had found their way to Carcajou. In spite of the mild and timid tone of the letters she had prepared to see some sort of termagant, or at least a woman enterprising, perhaps bold, one who would make it terribly hot for the man she would believe had deceived her and brought her on a fool's errand. This little thin-faced girl who looked with big, frightened eyes was something utterly unexpected, she knew not why. "And--and she ain't at all bad-looking," she acknowledged to herself, uneasily. "She don't look like she'd say 'Boo' to a goose, either. But then maybe she's deceiving in her looks. A woman who'd come like that to marry a man she don't know can't amount to much. Like enough she's a little hypocrite, with her appearance that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. And my! The clothes she's got on! I wonder if she didn't look at me kinder suspicious. Seemed as if she was taking me in, from head to foot." In this Miss Sophy was probably mistaken. Madge had looked at her because the garb of brightly-edged blanketing, the fur cap and mitts, the heavy long moccasins, all made a picture that was unfamiliar. There was perhaps some envy in the look, or at least the desire that she also might be as well fended against the bitter cold. She had the miserable feeling that comes over both man and woman when feeling that one's garments are out of place and ill-suited to the occasion. Once Madge had seen a moving-picture representing some lurid drama of the North, and some of the women in it had worn that sort of clothing. Big Stefan had lighted his pipe and sought a seat that creaked under his ponderous weight. He opened the door of the stove and threw two or three large pieces of yellow birch in it. "Guess it ain't nefer cold vhere you comes from," he ventured. "You'll haf to put on varm tings if you goin' all de vay to Roaring Rifer Falls." "I'm afraid I have nothing warmer than this," the girl faltered. "I--I didn't know it was so very cold here. And--and I'm nicely warmed up now, and perhaps I won't feel it so very much." "You stay right here an' vait for me," he told her, and went out of the waiting-room, hurriedly. But he opened the door again. "If Hugo he come vhile I am avay, you tell him I pring youst two three tings from my voman for you. I'm back right avay. So long, ma'am!" She was left alone for at least a quarter of an hour, and it reminded her of a long wait she had undergone in the reception-room of the hospital. Then, as now, she had feared the unknown, had shivered at the thought that presently she would be in the hands of strange people who might or not be friendly, and be lost among a mass of suffering humanity. Twice she heard the runners of sleighs creaking on the ground, and her heart began to beat, but the sounds faded away. Joe, the station agent, came in and asked her civilly whether she was warm enough, telling her that outside it was forty below. Wood was cheap, he told her, and he put more sticks in the devouring stove. After she had thanked him and given him the check for her little trunk he vanished again, and she listened to the telegraph sounder. Stefan, returning, was hailed at the door of the store by Sophy McGurn. "Who's the strange lady, Stefan?" she asked, most innocently. "It's a leddy vhat is expectin' Hugo Ennis," he answered. "How queer!" said the girl, airily. "Ay dunno," answered the Swede. "Vhen Hugo he do a thing it ain't nefer qveer, Ay tank." She turned away and Stefan stepped over to the depot and opened the door. Madge looked up, startled and again afraid. It was a relief to her to see Stefan's friendly face. She had feared.... She didn't know what she dreaded so much--perhaps a face repellent--a man who would look at her and in whose eyes she might discern insult or contempt. The big Swede held an armful of heavy clothing. "Ye can't stay here, leddy," he said. "You come ofer to my house since Ennis he no coming. Dese clothes is from my ole vomans. Mebbe ye look like--like de dooce in dem, but dat's better as to freeze to death. An you vants a big breakfass so you goes vid me along. Hey dere! Joe! If Ennis he come you tell him come ofer to me, ye hear?" A few minutes later Madge was trudging over the beaten snow by the side of her huge companion. Her head was ensconced within the folds of a knitted shawl and over her thin cloak she wore an immense mackinaw of flaming hues whose skirts fell 'way below her knees. Over her boots, protestingly, she had drawn on an amazing pair of things made of heavy felt and ending in thick rubber feet, that were huge and unwieldy. Her hands were lost in great scarlet mitts. It is possible that at this time there was little feminine vanity left in her, yet she looked furtively to one side or the other, expecting scoffing glances. She felt sure that she looked like one of the fantastically-clad ragamuffins she had seen in the streets of New York, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. But the pair met but one or two Indian women who wore a garb that was none too æsthetic and who paid not the slightest attention to them, and a few men who may possibly have wondered but, with the instinctive civility of the North, never revealed their feelings. As a matter of fact she had hardly believed in this cold, at first. The station agent's announcement had possessed little meaning for her. There was no wind; the sun was shining brightly now; during the minute she had remained on the station platform she had felt nothing unusual. As a matter of fact she had enjoyed the keen brisk air after the tepid stuffiness of the cars. But presently she began to realize a certain tingling and sharp quality of the air. The little of her face that was exposed began to feel stiff and queer. Even through the heavy clothing she now wore she seemed to have been plunged in a strange atmosphere. For an instant, after she finally reached Stefan's house, the contrast between the cold outside and the warm living-room, that was also the kitchen, appeared to suffocate her. A tall stout woman waddled towards her, smiling all over and bidding her a good-day. She helped remove the now superfluous things. "De yoong leddy she come all de vay from Nev York, vhat is a real hot country, I expect," explained Stefan, placidly and inaccurately. "Sit down, leddy, an haf sometings to eat. You needs plenty grub, good an' hot, in dem cold days. Ve sit down now. Here, Yoe, and you, Yulia, come ofer an' talk to de leddy! Dem's our children, ma'am, and de baby in de grib." Madge was glad to greet the rosy, round-cheeked children, who advanced timidly towards her and stared at her out of big blue eyes. Hesitatingly she took the seat Stefan had indicated with a big thumb, and suddenly a ravenous hunger came upon her. The great pan full of sizzling bacon and fat pork; the steaming and strongly scented coffee; the great pile of thick floury rolls taken out of the oven, appeared to constitute a repast fit for the gods. Stefan and his family joined hands while the mother asked a short blessing, during which the children were hard put to it to stop from staring again at the stranger. "And so," ventured the good wife, amiably, "you iss likely de sister from Hugo Ennis, ma'am?" Madge's fork clattered down upon her enamel-ware plate. "No," she said. "I--of course I'm not his sister." "Excoose me. He don't nefer tell nobody as he vas marrit, Hugo didn't. Ve vas alvays tinking he vos a bachelor mans, yoost like most of dem young mans as come to dese countries." "But--but I'm not his wife, either!" cried Madge, nervously. "I--I don't yoost understand, den," said the good woman, placidly. "Oh! mebbe you help grub-stake him vhile he vork at de rocks for dat silfer and you come see how he gettin' along. Ve tank he do very vell." "Yes, Hugo he got some ore as is lookin' very fine, all uncofered alretty," Stefan informed her. "Und it's such a bretty place he haf at de Falls." The man doubtless referred to the scenery but Madge was under the impression that he was speaking of the house in which this Ennis lived. It was strange that he had said nothing to these people, who evidently knew him well, in regard to the reason of her coming. It was probably a well-meant discretion that had guided his conduct, she thought, but it had caused her some little embarrassment. "In his letter Mr. Ennis said that I was to come straight to this place, to Carcajou. He told me that I would be taken to his house at Roaring River Falls, that I might see it. I--I suppose there is a village up there or--or some houses, where I may stay." Stefan stared at her, scratching his touzled yellow head, and turned to his wife, who was looking at him as she poised a forkful of fat bacon in the air, forgetfully. "Maybe de leddy means Papineau's," he said. "But if Hugo Ennis he say for her to come then it is all right, sure. Hugo vould do only vhat is right. He is my friend. He safe my life. So if he don't turn up by de time ve finish breakfast I hitch up dem togs an' take you dere real qvick. Mebbe he can't come for you, some vay. Mebbe Maigan hurt or sick so he can't pull toboggan. You vant to go, no?" "I--I suppose so," faltered the girl. "I--I must see him, as soon as possible, and--and...." "Dat's all right," interrupted Stefan. "So long you vants to go I take you up dere. No trouble for to do anyting for Hugo and his friends. De dogs is strong an' fresh. Ve go up there mighty qvick, I bet you, ma'am." Mrs. Olsen was not used to question her husband's decisions. There seemed to be something rather mysterious about all this, but she was a placid soul who could wait in peace for the explanation that would doubtless be forthcoming. Anyway there was Papineau's house about a mile away from the Falls, and the girl could find shelter there. She smiled at her guest pleasantly and urged her to eat more. For some minutes Madge's appetite had forsaken her. But the temptation of good food in abundance overcame her alarm. She felt the comfort of a quiet, God-fearing, civil-spoken household. They were rough people, in their way, but they seemed so genuine, so friendly, so full of the desire to help her and put her at her ease, that she was again reassured. Her hunger assailed her and she ate what she considered a huge breakfast, though Stefan Olsen's family seemed to wonder at her scanty ability to dispose of the things they piled upon her plate. When large brown griddle-cakes were finally placed before her she could eat but a single one. "Mebbe," said the good woman, "in Nev York you ain't used to tings like ve country people have." Used to them, forsooth! Indeed she had not been used to such things. She remembered the small bottles of bluish milk, the butter doled out in yellow lumps of strong taste, the couple of rolls that would make a meal, the cup of tea or coffee of pale hue, the bits of meat she could afford but once in several days. No, indeed she had not been used to such things, in the last two years. "Vhen you stays in dis coontry for a vhiles den you can eat like a goot feller and not like a little bird," Stefan assured her, comfortingly. "Den you get nice and fat, and red on de cheeks, and strong." Mrs. Olsen was still smiling at her, as she sat with plump hands folded on an ample stomach. The two children had become used to her and came near. A seat was given to her near the stove. Lack of sleep during the two hard nights spent on the train caused her head to nod, once or twice. "Mebbe you vants to rest a bit before ve goes," suggested Stefan. "Dere's plenty time if you like." But this roused her to alert attention. She must go, at once, for all this suspense and uncertainty must be ended. For some happy moments she had thought no more of the man who was expecting her. The comfort she had enjoyed had temporarily banished him from her thoughts. "No--oh, no!" she cried. "I--I'll be glad to leave as soon as you are ready to take me!" At this moment she became keenly puzzled. She still had a very few dollars in her purse and wondered whether she ought to offer payment for her meal. Instinct wisely prompted her to keep the little pocketbook in her bag. They would undoubtedly have been surprised and perhaps offended. Stefan drew on his great Dutch stockings and pulled his fur cap over his ears. An instant after he had left the room Madge heard loud barking. As she looked out of the window, scratching off a little of the frost that covered the panes, she saw the big Swede surrounded by five large dogs which he was hitching to a toboggan. Then he got on the thing and the animals galloped away. A few minutes later he returned, with her small trunk lashed to the back part of the sled. He entered the house and took a straw-filled pillow and a huge bearskin and bore them out. In the meanwhile Mrs. Olsen was helping Madge to resume her outlandish garb. "Mebbe Mr. Ennis he not know you vhen you come so all wrapped up. Mebbe he tink it is a bear. Yes, put dis on too, you vants it all," she declared. "It's all of twelve mile out dere. If you not need de tings no longer, by and by you send 'em back. It's all right. I no need 'em. Yoost keep 'em so long vhat you like. Didn't Hugo Ennis tell you bring varm clothes vid you?" "No," said Madge. "I--I don't think he spoke of them." "Mens is awful foolish some times," asserted the good woman. "Dey pay no attention to tings everybotty knows all about. I tank Stefan he alretty now, so I say good-by and come again, ma'am. Alvays happy ter see you again vhen you comes, sure." The little girl came to Madge and rose upon her toes, for a kiss. More timidly the boy only proffered a hand. Mrs. Olsen kissed her pale cheek with a resounding smack. "Mens is fonny sometimes," she said. "If tings isn't all right like you expect mebbe at Papineau's you come back here soon as you finish vhat you haf to do at Roaring Rifer. I haf anodder bed I can fix up in de back room real easy. Good py, ma'am, and look out careful for your nose!" With this incomprehensible bit of advice Mrs. Olsen opened the door, swiftly, and closed it just as fast. Madge saw her smiling at her through the window-pane. Stefan made her sit down on the pillow, over which he had laid the bearskin, which he then wrapped over her shoulders and body and limbs. "Now ve starts right off," he told her. "Look out careful for your nose, leddy," he also advised before calling to his dogs, who strained away at the long traces and trotted away, pulling heartily. Wearing a pair of huge snowshoes Stefan followed or kept at the side of the toboggan. They left the road and struck a sort of path that led them up a hill. To her right hand she could see a vast expanse of frozen lake stretching away to the north. In some places the snow appeared to be quite level while in others it was deeply wrinkled in ridges caused by the winds. Presently the trees grew more abundant along the way. They were silvery birches and the yellow ones, and poplars with slender branches ending in tiny bare twigs. The conifers still wore thick coats of dark green, excepting the tamaracks, that only carried a few long golden needles. These big trees were dotted over with great lumps of snow and ice which occasionally clattered down through the branches. Madge looked up and the world seemed to assume a wondrous new beauty such as she had never known. The blue above was wonderfully clear and bright. Over the snow the sunlight was beating strongly, though it appeared to give little or no heat. Yet in the great patches of shadow through which they passed at times it felt colder still. "Yoost keep on feelin' yer nose," Stefan told her, as the dogs rested for a moment at the top of a small hill. "You mustn't let it get frost-bited, ma'am. It ain't such a awful big nose you got, leddy, but you sure vouldn't look so bretty if it drop off. Ha, ha!" He laughed out loudly, apparently enjoying his ponderous joke greatly, but she felt that she must heed his advice and frequently carried the big mitt Mrs. Olsen had lent her to her face. They came to a great expanse of deep forest where, in places, the ground was nearly bare of snow. The pulling was hard here and the dogs toiled along more slowly and panted as their cloudy breaths rose in steamy puffs. Madge admired them. They seemed such strong, willing animals. When they rested for a moment they would lie down and bite off the little balls of ice that formed beneath their toes, but at a word they would leap up again and throw themselves against their breast-bands, eagerly. In one difficult place Madge protested. "The poor things are working so hard," she said. "Couldn't I get out and walk for a while? I don't feel tired at all now, but your poor dogs do, I'm sure." "No, ma'am," replied Stefan. "They ain't tired. They yoost look so because they work hard. In dis country togs and men has to work hard or go hoongry. In a moment you sees how dey run again, vhen dey get good going. Dem togs can go dis vay all day and be fresh again to-morrow. Eferybody here knows vhat my team o' togs can do, ma'am." It was evident that he was proud of them, and Madge decided that it was with good reason. They had started again and reached an expanse of burnt land, upon which the snow was crusted and the road was on a down grade. The team that had panted so hard, with lolling tongues, threw itself into the collars and trotted off again, briskly, while Stefan followed with the short-stepped and effortless flat-footed run that covers so much ground in the north. The girl had to balance herself rather carefully at times, for the surface was by no means a level one. The toboggan swayed and bumped over hidden things that may have been stumps or rocks, or great buried ruts of the previous fall. It was all so new and wonderful! A sense of enjoyment actually stole over her. But for the feeling of stiffness in her face she felt comfortably warm. Without ever meeting a soul, through a country that seemed utterly deserted of man, they went on for several miles. Once Stefan stopped the toboggan in order to show her tracks of a bear. It was wonderful to think that such animals roamed about her. The Swede told her that they were utterly harmless, that they always fled as soon as their keen eyes or sharp ears revealed the neighborhood of their enemies, the men who coveted their thick and long-haired hides worth a good many dollars. But she saw few living things; once there was a great snowy owl that rose heavily and then flew swiftly and in silence from a stump in a _brulé_, disappearing among the trees like an animated shadow, yes, a shadow of sudden death to hares and partridges cowering beneath the fronds of wide-spreading conifers or in the great tangles of frost-killed long grasses. It was altogether another world, strange and of rugged beauty. She felt as if she had been transported from the seething city into the vast peace of some landscape of moon or stars. Every bit of the old harsh world was now left behind and there was no longer any hint of cruelty in the snowy plains and hills and forest; nothing reminded her of despairing hunger, of the disbelief that had stolen upon her in the possibility of eking out much longer a life that was too hard to sustain. What if her errand seemed fantastic, unreal, since this new world also was like some illusion of a dream? The great stillness appeared to be friendly--the bent tops of snow-laden trees surely bowed a welcome to her--the shining sun and the pure air, in spite of bitter cold, drove the blood more rapidly through her veins and she no longer deemed life to be a mere form of suffering, such as she had undergone during the last year of her losing contest in the cruel, pitiless town. Suddenly, as Stefan trudged behind in a narrow part of the old tote-road, a big white hare crossed the path ahead of the dogs, perhaps seeking to escape the pursuit of some marten or weasel. At once the team broke into a headlong gallop, a helter-skelter pursuit, while their master roared at them unavailingly. Down a small declivity they flew. A moment later one side of the toboggan rose suddenly and the passenger felt herself being shot off into the snow. As the sled upset the little trunk lashed to its back caught into something and firmly anchored the whole contrivance, a few yards further on, and perforce the animals stopped with hanging tongues and steaming breaths. An instant later Stefan was helping Madge arise. He looked at her in deep concern. "Dem tamn togs!" he roared. "I hope you ain't hurted none, leddy?" With his assistance she rose quickly from the snow. It is possible that she had scarcely had time enough to become afraid. At any rate this new life that had come to her asserted itself, irresistibly, for there was something in its essence that would not be denied. In the heart that had been overburdened something broke, like a flood bursting its bonds. She threw up her head and uplifted her hands as laughter, pealing and rippling unrestrained, shook her slender frame from head to foot until tears ran down the now reddened cheeks and turned to tiny globes of ice. She was making up for weeks and months of sombre thoughts, of despair, of shrewd suffering. "Tank gootness!" roared Stefan. "First I tink dem togs yoost kill you dead. If so I take de pelts off 'em all alife, de scoundrels!" "Oh! Please don't punish them," she cried. "It--it was so funny! Oh, dear! I--I must stop laughing! It--it hurts my sides!" She ran off among the dogs and threw herself down on the crusted snow, passing one arm over a shaggy back. The animal looked at her, uncertainly, but suddenly he passed a big moist tongue over her face. Could he have realized that her saving grace might avert condign punishment? The girl petted him as Stefan turned the toboggan and its load right side up. "You ain't feared of dem togs," he called to her. "And you vasn't afraid vhen dey dump you out. You's a blucky gal all right, leddy!" A moment later she was again wrapped up in the bearskin and the dogs, loudly threatened but unpunished, owing to her intercession, resumed their journey. They had gone but a few hundred yards further when Madge smelled wood-smoke. A few minutes later they came in sight of a low-built shack of heavy planks evidently turned out in a sawpit and resting on walls of peeled spruce logs. The dogs trotted toward it and a woman came out as Stefan stopped his team. "I got a letter for you, Mis' Carew," he announced. "I got it dis morning at de post-office and bring it as I come along dis vay." He searched a pocket of his coat while the woman looked at Madge curiously. "Won't you come in and warm yourself a while?" she asked, civilly. "I can make you a hot cup of tea in a minute." "Thank you! Thank you ever so much," answered Madge. "I--I think we'd better hurry on." Stefan had found the letter and handed it to Mrs. Carew. "Wait a moment, Stefan, won't you?" asked the woman. "There might possibly be some message you could take for me." The man lit his pipe while the woman went indoors. A moment later she came out, excitedly. "Oh! Stefan," she cried. "I'm so glad you came. My man's away with the dogs, gone after a load of moose-meat, and won't be back till to-morrow. And my daughter Mary's very sick at Missanaibie and wants me to come right over. Could you take me over to the depot in time for the afternoon train west? Are you going back to-day?" Stefan pulled out a big silver watch and studied it. "Yes, ma'am," he answered. "I'm yoost goin' over to Hugo's wid dis leddy. If I go real smart I can get back in time, but I got to hurry a bit. So long! I come right soon back. Leave a vord for Tom und be ready de moment I come. I make it, sure!" With this assurance he started off again, while the woman was still crying out her thanks. There was a long bit of good going now, which they covered at a good pace. Madge was thinking how helpful all these people were, how naturally they gave, how readily they asked for the help that was always welcome, as far as she could see. Yes, it was all so very different. "Won't the dogs be dreadfully tired," she asked, "if you go back so soon?" "No, leddy," he asserted. "Twenty-four miles ain't much of a trip. Dey make tvice dat if need come. And me too, sure t'ing!" As she looked at him she knew that he spoke the simple truth. Even the people of this country seemed to be built differently. All of them looked sturdy, self-reliant, strong to endure, and, more than anything, ready to share everything either with stranger or with friend. In spite of the weariness she felt after her long journey and of the ache in her bones that was coming from the unusual manner of her travelling, she felt that this was a blessed country, a haven of rest that held promise of wonderful peace. All at once they came in sight of a river, snow-shackled like all the others, except for black patches where the under-running flood so hurried in rapid places that the surface could not freeze. From such air-holes, as they are called, steam arose that was like the smoke of fires. "What is that river?" she called. "Dat's de Roaring Rifer, leddy," Stefan informed her. "Ve's only a little vays to go now. Maybe five minute." At this moment, as in a flash, all of her vague and carking fears returned to the girl, and her hand went to her breast. It was only a little way now! And it was no dream--no figment of her imagination! The beginning of the real adventure was at hand! Truth flashed upon her. In a few moments she would see for the first time the man she was to marry. She blushed fiery red. Instinctively she looked about her, like some wild thing vainly seeking for a way to escape impending peril. What would he be like? What would he think of her? Oh! She now knew that it had all been a frightful mistake! Her limbs shook with a sudden bitter coldness that had fallen upon her like one of the masses that became displaced from the great trees, and she could not keep her teeth from chattering. Then, in her ears, began to boom a strong continuous sound that was ominous, threatening. [Illustration: Truth flashed upon her! In a few moments she would see for the first time the man she was to marry] "What's that?" she stammered, trembling. "Dat's de noise of dem big Falls of Roaring River," answered Stefan. An instant later, Madge never knew why, the dogs were snarling in a fight. In a moment Stefan was among them, wielding his short-handled and long-lashed whip. A trace was broken. By the time the damage was repaired and the dogs pacified some ten minutes or more had been wasted. The man looked at his watch. "I ain't got so much time left," he said. "I got to hurry back for Mis' Carew. Lucky ve're most dere now." A few seconds after they had started again they came to an opening, towards which Stefan pointed, and the girl's heart sank within her. She saw nothing of the distant falls surrounded by a growth in which every twig scintillated with the frost lavished by the river's vapor. She never noticed the great circular pool with its deep banks, or the wonderful view, far across country, of mountains washed in pale blues and lavenders, of the sun-flooded bright expanse of open ground, partly fenced in with axe-hewn rails. She could only stare at a little shack, the smallest she had seen in that country, and at the thread of smoke coming from the length of stove-pipe protruding from the ice-covered roof, and to her it looked like the home of misery. A few yards farther on the team stopped. From here the hut could only be faintly distinguished through a growth of birches and firs. "You can get off de toboggan now, leddy," Stefan told her. "I puts off your trunk too. Hugo he come and get it. I call to him." She rose to her feet, speechless, amazed, with fear causing a terrible throbbing in her throat. She would have protested but could not find her voice. As soon as Stefan had unlashed the trunk and put it down on the frozen ground he turned his team around. "Oh! Hugo!" he bellowed. "Oh! Hugo! Here's de leddy." For an instant there was no reply, but while Stefan yelled again she saw, through a small opening in the interlaced branches, that the door opened. A huge dog came out and rolled in the snow, barking. The man waved a hand. "I can't vait a moment. Good-by, leddy, I must go. You tell Hugo why I hurry so." The man had jumped on the toboggan and he was already being borne away, swiftly, by his team of wild shaggy brutes that seemed never to have known a weary moment in their lives. And she stood there, at the foot of a great blasted pine, terror-stricken, wondering what further torture of mind and body the world had in store for her. But for that hut the place was a frozen desert, with no other sign of man. And she was alone--alone with him--and the fierce-looking dog was now running towards her. She leaned back against the tree, feeling that without some support she must collapse at its foot. CHAPTER V When Gunpowder Speaks Hugo Ennis, a man well under thirty, tall and spare of form, with the lithe and active limbs that are capable of hard and prolonged action, had stood for a time by the tough door of his little shack. It was a single-roomed affair, quite large enough for a lone man, which he had carefully built of peeled logs. Within it there was a bunk fixed against the wall, upon which his heavy blankets had been folded in a neat pile, for he was a man of some order. Near the other end there was a stove, a good one that could keep the place warm and amply sufficed for his simple cookery. The table was of axe-hewn cedar planks and the two chairs had been rustically designed of the same material. Between the logs forming the walls the spaces had been chinked with moss, covered with blue clay taken from the river-bank, above the falls. Strong pegs had been driven into the heavy wood and from them hung traps and a couple of guns, with spare snowshoes and odd pieces of apparel. In a corner of the room there were steel hand-drills, heavy hammers, a pick and a shovel. Against the walls he had built strong shelves that held perhaps a score of books and a varied assortment of groceries. More of these latter articles had been placed on a swinging board hung from the roof, out of reach of thieving rodents. He had been looking down, over the great rocky ledge at one side of his shack, into the big pool of the Roaring River, which at this time was but a wild jam of huge slabs of ice insecurely soldered together by snow and the spray from the falls. Beneath that jumbled mass he knew that the water was straining and groaning and swirling until it found under the thick ice the outlet that would lead it towards the big lake to the eastward. Although the middle of March was at hand there was not the slightest sign of any breaking up. He knew that it would take a long time yet before the snows began to melt, the ice to become thinner on the lakes and the waters to rise, brown and turbid with the earth torn from the banks and the sand ever ground up in the rough play of turbulent waters with rolling boulders. Yet the coming of spring was not so very far off now and the days were growing longer. It would take but a few weeks before the first great wedges of flying geese would pass high above him in their journey to the shallows of the Hudson's Bay, where they nested in myriads. And then other birds would follow until the smallest arrived, chirping with the joy of the slumbering earth's awakening. It was a glorious country, he truly believed. The winter had been long but the hunting and trapping had kept him busy enough. The days had seemed too short to become dreary and he had slept long during the nights, seldom awakening at the rumblings of the maddened pent-up waters or the sharp explosions of great trees cracking in the fierce cold. But he was glad of the prospect of renewed hard work upon his claim, of promising toil to expose further the great silver-bearing veins of calcite that wound their way through the harder rock. He knew that his find was of the sort that had flooded the Nipissing and the Gowganda countries with eager searchers and delvers, and created villages and even towns in a wilderness where formerly the moose wandered in the great hardwood swamps and the deer were often chased by ravening packs of baying wolves. His attention had reverted to the great sharp-muzzled dog that had been crouching at his feet, and he bent down and began to pull out small porcupine quills that had become fastened in the animal's nose and lips. "Maybe some day you'll learn enough to let those varmints alone, Maigan, old boy," he said, having become accustomed to long conversations with his companion. "I expect you're pretty nearly as silly as a man. Experience teaches you mighty little. Dogs and men have been stung since the beginning of the world, I expect, and keep on making the same old mistakes. Hold hard, old fellow! I know it hurts like the deuce but these things have just got to come out." Maigan is the name of the wolf, in some of the Indian dialects, and Hugo's friend seemed but little removed from a wolfish ancestry. He evidently did his best to bear the punishment bravely, for he never whimpered. At times, however, he sought hard to pull his muzzle away. Finally, to his great relief, the last serrated quill was pulled out and he jumped up, placing his paws on the man's shoulders, perhaps to show he held no grudge. After his master had petted him, an excitable red squirrel required his immediate attention and, as usual, led him to a fruitless chase. He returned soon, scratching at the boards, and his master let him in and closed the door. A moment later the animal's sharp ears pricked up; the wiry hair on his back rose and he uttered a low growl. "Keep still, Maigan!" ordered his master. "Wonder who's coming? Maybe one of Papineau's young ones." The fire was getting low and he put a couple of sticks of yellow birch in the stove. A few seconds later he heard a shout that came from behind the saplings which, in some places, concealed the old tote-road from his view. No one but Big Stefan could bellow out so powerfully, to be sure. He opened the door and Maigan leaped out. In more leisurely fashion he followed and stopped, in astonishment, as he caught sight of the dog-team flying back towards Carcajou. "That's a queer start!" he commented. "First time I ever knew him not to stop for a cup of tea and a talk." He thought he saw something like a black box through the branches and went up. It must be something Stefan had left for him. He walked up the path in leisurely fashion. There was evidently no hurry. He was feeling a little disappointment, for he had become fond of Stefan during his long prospecting trip and would have been glad of a chat to the invariable accompaniment of the hospitable tea-kettle. He had just made some pretty good biscuits, too. It was a pity the Swede wouldn't share them with him. He reached the black box which, to his surprise, turned out to be a small corded trunk lying on the hard dry snow, with a cheap leather bag on top of it. He looked about him in wonder and stopped, suddenly, staring in astonishment at the form of a woman, shapeless in great ill-fitting garments too big for her. She was leaning back against the great bare trunk of the old blasted pine and the dog was skulking around her, curiously. Then he hurried towards her, calling out a word of warning to Maigan, who seemed to realize that this was no enemy. And as he came the woman, deathly pale, seemed to look upon him as if he had been some terrifying ghost. She put out her hands, just a little, as if seeking to protect herself from him. "Are--are you Hugo Ennis?" she faltered. "That's my name," he said. "Every one knows me around here. What--what can I do for you?" "My--my name is Madge Nelson," she Stammered. "I--I'm Madge Nelson from--from New York." "How do you do, Miss Nelson?" he said, quietly, touching his fur cap. "You--I'm afraid you've had a mighty cold ride. What's happened to Stefan to make him go back? Lost something on the road, has he?" "I--I'm afraid I'm the only lost thing around here," she said, seeking to hold back the tears that were beginning to well up in her eyes. "Oh! I think--I think I'm becoming mad!" she suddenly cried out, bitterly. "Is--is that your--your house, the--the residence you spoke of?" "The--the residence!" he repeated. "And I spoke of it, did I? Well, I suppose that anything with a roof on it is a residence, if you come to that. Yes, that's it, the little shack among the birches, and you'd better come in till Stefan gets back, for it's mighty cold here and--and if you're from New York you're not used to this sort of thing. It's the best I can offer you, but I really never thought it worth talking about. It's the slight improvement on a dog-kennel that we folks have to be contented with, in these parts. Come right in; you look half frozen." "And--and that is the sort of place you've brought me to?" she cried, her eyes now flashing at him in anger. "Well, it seems to me that it's Stefan that brought you," he replied, rather abashed. "That--that's only a mean quibble," she retorted, hotly. "And--and where's the town--or the village--and the other people, the friends who were to greet me?" The young man was beginning to feel rather provoked at her questions. "The nearest settlers are a short mile away,--the Papineaus, very decent French Canadians. Tom Carew's shack you must have passed on your way here. The only village, of course, is Carcajou, and that's twelve long miles away. But Mrs. Papineau is a real good old soul, if that's where you expect to stop. A dozen kids about the place but they're jolly little beggars. Her husband's trapping now, I believe, but of course I'll take you up there." At this she seemed to feel somewhat relieved. It was evident that she was in no great peril. Yet she looked again at his shack, with her lower lip in the bite of her teeth. "You--you didn't really believe I'd come," she said, her mouth quivering. "You--you were just making fun of me, I see, with--with that residence and--and the ladies who were ready to welcome me. Where are they?" Ennis was scratching his head, or the cap over it, as he stared again at her. He realized that some amazing, terrible mistake must have been made, as he thought--or that this girl must be the victim of some dreadful misunderstanding, if not of a foul plot. He began to pity her. She looked so weak, so helpless, in spite of the anger she had shown. "There--there are no ladies," he said, lamely, "except Mrs. Papineau and Mrs. Carew. They're first-rate women, both of 'em. And of course Mrs. Papineau is your only resource till to-morrow, unless Stefan is coming back for you." "He isn't," she declared. "I said nothing about going back." "That's awkward," he admitted. "You'll tell me all about this thing later on, won't you, because I might be able to help you out. But you'll be all right for a while, anyway. I'll take you there." "Please start at once," she cried, desperately. "I--I can't stay here for another instant." "I can be ready in a very few minutes," he told her, quietly. "But won't you please come over to the shack. I'm sure you're beginning to feel the cold. You--you're shivering and--and I'm afraid you look rather ill." She had insisted on Stefan's taking back some of the things she had borrowed from his wife, and had been standing there in rather inadequate clothing. Ennis pulled off his heavy mackinaw jacket. "You must put this on at once," he told her, gently enough, "and come right over there with me." Madge shrank from him, as if she feared to be touched by him, and yet there was something in the frank way in which he addressed her, perhaps also in the clear and unembarrassed look of his eyes, that was gradually allaying her fears and the fierce repulsion of the first few moments. Finally, chilled as she was to the very marrow of her bones, she consented to accept his offer and submitted to his helping her on with the coat. "There's a good fire in the shack just now," he told her. "It's absolutely necessary for you to get thoroughly warmed up before you start off again. A cup of hot tea would do you a lot of good, too, after that long ride on Stefan's toboggan. It's no joke of an undertaking for a--a young lady who isn't used to such things." Madge was still hesitating. The suffering look that had come into her eyes moved the young man to greater pity for her. "I--I give you my word you have absolutely nothing to fear," he assured her, whereupon she followed him meekly, feeling very faint now. She half feared that she might have to clutch at his sleeve, if her footsteps failed her, for she felt that at any moment she might stagger and fall. She gasped again as she looked at the shack they were nearing, but, as she beheld the scenery of the great pool, something in it that was very grand and beautiful appealed to her for an instant. Yet she felt crushed by it, as if she had been some infinitesimal insect beside that stupendous crashing of waters, before the great ledges whose tops were hirsute with gnarled firs and twisted jack-pines. She stopped for a moment, perhaps owing to her weakness, or possibly because of awe at the majesty of the scene. "I just love it," said the man. "It grows more utterly splendid every time one looks at it. See that mass of rubbish on the top of that great hemlock. It is the nest of a pair of ospreys. They come every year, I've been told. Last summer I saw them circling high up in the heavens, at times, and they would utter shrill cries as if they had been the guardians of the falls and warned me off. But we had better hurry in, Miss--Miss Nelson." For an instant she had listened, wondering. This man did not speak like a common toiler of city or country. His manner, somewhat distant, in no way reminded her of the coarse familiarity she had often been subjected to in shop and factory. But a moment later such thoughts passed off and she followed him, resentfully, feeling that she was to some extent forced to submit to his will. As Ennis pulled the door open and held it for her to walk in, he looked at her keenly. He had suddenly remembered hearing that exposure to intense cold had sometimes actually disturbed the brains of people; that it had brought on some form of insanity. He wondered whether, perhaps, this had been the case with her? It was with greater concern and sympathy that he felt he must treat her. The vagaries of her language, the reproaches she seemed to think he deserved, were doubtless things she was not responsible for. And then she looked so weary, so overcome, so ready to collapse with faintness! Madge entered the shack. It had been swept, neatly enough, and everything was arranged in orderly fashion, except some loose things piled up in one corner, out of the way. The little stove was glowing, and the draft was purring softly. The girl pulled off her mitts and held her reddened hands to it while Hugo brought her one of his rough chairs. Then, without a word, he placed a kettle on the fire, after which he brought out a white enameled cup and a small pan containing some of his biscuits. After cogitating for a moment he also placed on the table a tin of sardines. Madge had dropped upon the chair, and began to feel more unutterably weary than ever. The heat, close to the stove, became too great for her and she moved her chair to the table, a couple of feet away, and placed her arms upon it. Her head fell forward on them, and when, a few moments later, Hugo spoke to her and she lifted up her face he was dismayed as he saw the tears that were running down her cheeks. The man could only bite his lips. What consolation or comfort could he proffer? It was perhaps better to appear to take no notice of her distress. But the weeping of genuine suffering and unhappiness is a hard thing for a youth to see. The impulse had come to him to cry out for information, to beg her to explain, to question her, to get at the bottom of all this mystery. He was held from this by the renewed thought that her mind was probably affected. He might further irritate her or cause her still deeper chagrin. Even if he erred in this idea the moment was probably ill-chosen. It would be better for her to tell her tale before others also. He would wait until after he had taken her over to Papineau's. She looked so harmless and weak that the idea that she might prove dangerous never entered his head. The kettle began to sing and a moment later the water was boiling hard. "I can't offer you much of a meal, Miss Nelson," he said, seeking to make his voice as pleasant as possible. "You've probably never tried sour-dough biscuits. Mrs. Papineau's are better, but you may be able to manage one or two of these. That good woman's a mighty good cook, as cooking goes in these parts. Here's a can of condensed milk; won't you help yourself? You must really try to eat something. Do you think you could try a little cold corned beef? I have some canned stuff that's not half bad. Or it would take but a moment to broil you a partridge I got yesterday. But I'll open these sardines first." He went to work with a large jack-knife, but she thanked him, briefly, in a low voice, and refused to accept anything but the tea and a bit of the biscuit. She wondered why he didn't also sit down to eat. It bothered her to see him hovering over her like some sort of waiter. He was probably staring at her, when her head was turned, and enjoying his dastardly jest. When she thought of those letters she had received and of all they contained of lies, of unimaginable falsehoods, the man began again to repel her like some venomous reptile. She could have shrieked out as he came near. What an actor he was! What control he held over voice and face as he pretended to know nothing about her. His effort had been evident, from the very first instant they had met, to disclaim the slightest knowledge of her or of the reasons for her coming! She felt utterly bewildered. He answered to that name of Hugo Ennis and had admitted that this was Roaring River, as Stefan had also told her. Moreover, the big Swede knew perfectly well that she was coming and expected. In word, in action, in every move of his, this man was lying, stupidly, coarsely, with features indifferent or pretending concern. It was unbearable. She turned and looked at him again, swiftly but haggardly. She would never have conceived the possibility of a man dissembling so, in letters first and lying again in every move and every tone of his voice. How could he keep it so tranquil and unmoved? Yet when he came near her again, insisting on filling her cup once more, she seemed for an instant to forget the rough clothes, the mean little shack, the strange conspiracy of which she was the victim and which had aroused her passionate protests. Over the first mouthfuls of hot tea she had nearly choked, but she had found the warm brew welcome and its odor grateful and pleasant. It mingled in some way with the scent of the balsam boughs with which the bunk was covered and over which the blankets reposed. She had experienced something like this feeling in the hospital, the first time she had been an inmate of it. It was as if again she had been very ill and awakened in an unfamiliar and bewildering place. The great weakness she experienced was something like that which she had felt in the great ward, where the rows of beds stretched before her and at either side. Some were screened, she remembered, and held the poor creatures for whom there was no longer any hope. It was as if now a turn of her head could have revealed a white-capped nurse moving silently, deftly bringing comfort. Her hands had become quite warm again; she passed one of them over her brow as if this motion might have dispelled some strange vision. The big dog, Maigan, came to her and laid his sharp head and pointed cold muzzle on her lap, and she stroked it, mechanically. This, at any rate, was something genuine and friendly that had come to her. Again and again she passed her hand over the rough neck and head. At this, however, something within her broke again and her head fell once more on her arms as she sobbed,--sobbed as if her heart would break. "I--I'm afraid you must have gone through a good deal of--of unhappiness," faltered the man, anxiously. "It--it's really too bad and I'd give anything if I could...." But the girl lifted up her hand, as if to check his words. What right had a man who was guilty of such conduct to begin proffering a repentance that was unavailing, nay, contemptible? Did he think that a few halting words could atone for his cruelty, could dispel the evil he had wrought? At this he kept silent again, during long minutes, appalled as men always are at the first sight of a woman's tears. He felt utterly helpless to console or advise, and was becoming more and more bewildered at this interruption of his lonely and quiet life. Since she didn't want him to speak he would hold his tongue. If she hadn't looked so dreadfully unhappy he would have deemed her an infernal nuisance and hurried her departure. But in this case how could a fellow be brutal to a poor thing that wailed like a child, that seemed weaker than one and more in need of gentle care? Soon she rose from the table, determinedly, with some of her energy renewed by the food and hot drink. "If you please, let us go now," she told him, firmly. "I'm entirely at your service," he answered. "I think you had better let me lend you a cap. That thing you have on your head can hardly keep your ears from freezing. I have a new one that's never been worn. Wait a moment." His search was soon rewarded. She had kept on but her inefficient little New York hat with its faded buds and wrinkled leaves and now tried to remove it. Her hands trembled, however, and the strain of travel had been hard. All at once, as she pulled away, her coiled hair escaped all restraint of pins and fell down upon her shoulders, in a great waving chestnut mass. At this Hugo opened the door and ran out, returning a couple of minutes later with the bag that had been left on the trunk. "I--I expect you need some of your things," he ventured. She looked at him with some gratitude. Most men wouldn't have thought of it. Nodding her thanks she opened the thing and was compelled to pull out various articles before she could get at her comb and brush. Her movements were still very nervous. It was embarrassing to be there before that man with one's hair all undone and awry. Something fell from her hand, striking the edge of the table and toppling to the floor. There was a deafening explosion and the shack was full of the dense smoke of black powder. When Madge recovered from her terror the young man, looking very pale, had bent down and picked up the fallen weapon. For a moment she thought there was a strange look in his eyes. "I--I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. "If--if you were to hit a man with that thing he'd get real mad," he said, repeating an age-worn joke. "At any rate I'm glad you were not hurt. Rather unexpected, wasn't it? I really think you'd better let me take the other shells out. It's a nasty little cheap weapon and, I should judge, quite an unsafe bit of hardware for a lady to handle. Whoever gave you that thing ought to be spanked. But--but, then, of course you didn't know it was loaded." "I--I did know it was loaded!" cried Madge. "I--I had the man load it for me! I--I thought it might protect me from insult, perhaps, or--or let me take matters in my own hands, if need be. I--I didn't know what sort of place I would be coming to or--or what sort of man would--would receive me! I--I felt safer with it!" Maigan was still ferreting out corners of the room, having leaped up at the shot as if the idea had come to him that some rat or chipmunk must lie dead somewhere. There nearly always was something to pick up when his master fired. "Keep still, boy!" ordered the latter. "I think we'd better count that as a miss. I'll wait outside until you've fixed yourself up, Miss Nelson, and are ready to go. I'll have to hitch up Maigan first. As soon as you come out I'll wrap you in my blankets; you'll be quite comfortable. We haven't very far to go, anyway." "Thank you--it--it won't take me a minute," she answered, without looking at him. She had discovered in a corner of the shack a bit of looking-glass he used to shave by, and stood before it, never noticing that he made a rather long job of drawing on his heavy fur coat. He went out with his dog and got the sled ready, with a wry look upon his face. Then, as there was nothing more to do, he sat down upon the rough bench that stood near the door. He winced and made a grimace as his hand went up to his shoulder. "The little fool," he told himself. "She seems to have been loaded for bear. Glad it was a thirty-two instead of a forty-five Colt. I didn't think it was anything, just a bad scratch, after the first sting of it, but it feels like fire and brimstone now. It's an infernal nuisance. Good Lord! Suppose she'd plugged herself instead of me. That would have been a fix for fair!" This idea evidently horrified him. He had a vision of blood and tears and screams, of having to rush off to Carcajou to telegraph for the nearest doctor. Perhaps people would even have suspected him. He saw Madge with her big dark-rimmed eyes and that perfectly wonderful hair, lying dead or dying on the floor of his shack. It was utterly gruesome, unspeakable, and a strong shiver passed over him. "But I wonder who the deuce she was going to shoot with that thing?" he finally asked himself. "Oh, she must be crazy, the poor little thing! It's really too bad!" [Illustration: "I'm glad you were not hurt. Rather unexpected, wasn't it"] He then thought of what a fool he had been to give her back that gimcrack pistol. She probably had more shells. He must contrive to get them away from her. There was no saying what an insane person might do. "I wish Stefan would turn up soon," he cogitated. "I'd give a lot to find out what he knows about her. It was mighty funny his never stopping here for a minute." CHAPTER VI Deeper in the Wilderness Within the shack Madge was now ready to start. Hugo's big woolen cap was pulled down well over her ears and she again wore a coat much too large for her, a thing which, in other days long gone, might have made her laugh. As she moved to the door she hesitated. Where was she going to? What object was there in moving there or anywhere else? The wild dream that had come upon her in the big city was dispelled and nothing on earth remained but the end that must come in some way or other. Of course she had no desire to remain in this shack, but neither had she any desire for anything else. What was the use of anything she might do? By this time she was stranded high and dry among breakers innumerable, with never the slightest outlook towards safety. The few dollars in her pockets offered no possibility of return. This man might give her enough to get back, if she asked him. It was the least he could do. But she would rather have torn out her tongue than ask him for money. And it would only be going back to that dreadful city in which she had suffered so much. No, it was unthinkable! Better by far for her to lie down somewhere in that great forest and die. And now she was about to see more strangers and remain over night in new surroundings. Where would she drift to after that? She made a gesture of despair. Her down-hanging arms straightened rigidly at her side, with the fists clenched as when one seeks to be brave in the face of impending agony. Her head was thrown back and her eyes nearly closed. In that position she remained for a moment, her brain whirling, her head on fire with a burning pain. Then the tension relaxed a little and she cast another look about her, without seeing anything, after which she pushed the door open and stepped out upon the crunching snow. Hugo rose at once, albeit somewhat stiffly, and spoke to the dog who stood up, with head turned to watch the proceedings. "I don't think I'd better take the trunk on this trip," he explained. "It would make a rather heavy load for just one dog. We'll take your bag, of course, and I can bring the trunk over to-morrow morning. It will be perfectly safe there by the road. We haven't any thieves in this country, that I know of. Now will you please sit down there, in the middle. Maigan will pull you all right. I'll get the blankets." "But--couldn't I walk? You said it was only a mile. I--I think I could manage that," ventured Madge, dully. "I don't think you could," he answered. "I'm sure you're quite played out. In some places the snow is bound to be soft. I could give you a pair of snowshoes but you wouldn't know how to use them and they'd tire you to death. You've already had a pretty hard day, I know. Maigan won't mind it in the least. He'd take the trunk, too, readily enough, but that would make slow going." She obeyed. What did she care? What difference could it make? He wrapped the blankets over her, after she had sat down on an old wolfskin he had covered the sled with. After this he took a long line attached to the toboggan and passed it over his right shoulder, pulling at the side of the dog, who toiled on briskly. When they reached the tote-road it seemed rougher than ever and the country wilder. To her right Madge could see the river that was nothing but a winding jumble of snow-capped rocks and grinding ice, with here and there patches of inky-looking water, where the ice-crust had split asunder. Also she dully noted places where the water seemed to froth up over the surface, boiling in great suds from which rose, straight up in the still air, a cloud of heavy gray vapor. The cold felt even more intense than earlier in the day. It impressed the girl as if some tremendous force were bearing down mightily upon the world and holding it in thrall. With the lowering of the sun the shadows had grown longer. After a time the slight sound of the man's snowshoes over the crackling snow, of the scraping toboggan, of the panting dog, began to seem to Madge like some sort of desecration of a stillness in which man was nothing and only an eternal and vengeful power reigned supreme. In spite of the patches of sunlight filtering down through branches or glaring upon the river there was now something dismal in all this, and she began to feel the cold again, penetrating, relentless, evil in its might. They had gone about half way when, on the top of a slight rise, both dog and man stopped for a moment's rest. The latter looked quite exhausted. His face was set hard, in an expression she could not fathom. "Really, I think I could walk," said the girl again. "There--there's no reason you should work so hard for me. And--and you look terribly tired." "Oh, no!" he disclaimed, hastily. "I--I could pull you all by myself if--well, it's only a short distance away now, and Maigan is doing nearly all the work, anyway. I--I don't think anything I can do for you can quite make up for all that you seem to have gone through." He looked at her, very gravely, as he sat down upon a fallen log, close at hand, after clearing off some snow with a sweep of his mitt. There was something very sad, she thought, an expression of pain upon his face which she noted and which led her into a very natural error. She was compelled to consider these things as evidences of regret, of a conscience that was beginning to irk him badly. Her head bent down till she was staring into her lap; she felt that tears were once more dangerously near. No thought came to her of appealing to this man, of suing for pity and charity, but she began to speak, the words coming from a full heart that gave her pain were spoken in low tones, nearly as if she had been talking to herself. "I--I'm thinking of the boys who were stoning the frog," she began, haltingly. "You remember. It was fun for them but death to the frog. I--I think a good many things work that way in the world, don't--don't you, Mr. Ennis? You--you don't really look like--like a very bad man. If--if you had a sister or mother you'd--you'd probably be kind to them. What--what do you think of it yourself, honestly? A--a girl, who's a fool, of course, but after all just a girl, is dying of loneliness and misery in a big city. She--she can't stand it any more, not--not for another day. And then she finds that paper and like--like an utter fool she answers that advertisement. It--it looked like a bare chance of--of being able to keep body and soul together, and--and remain honest and decent, which--which is a hard enough thing for a girl to do, in--in some places. And then the man answers back. She--I never expected he would, but he did, and he offered all sorts of wonderful things that--that looked like heaven itself to--to a hungry failure of a girl to whom life had become too heavy a burden to bear. And--and so she answers that letter and--and tries to tell the truth about herself, and says that--that she is prepared to carry out her part of the bargain if--if the man has spoken truly of himself--if--if he can respect her--treat her like a woman who--who is ready to do her best to--to deserve a little kindness and consideration. And he tells her again to come--to come as soon as possible, and--and there was nothing to detain her for a moment. The city had been too cruel--too utterly cruel. And then she comes here and finds that--that it was all lies--wicked lies--I'm sorry, it's the only word I can use." Hugo was staring at her, open-mouthed, but before he could utter a word she began again: "The man had never meant it, of course--he wasn't awaiting her at all, as he had promised--and when she finally comes to him he speaks coldly, cynically, denying his words, pretending he knows nothing. It--it's a rather clumsy way of getting out of it, seems to me. Anyway he saw that his joke had been carried too far. It--it hasn't proved such a very good one, has it? It--it has turned out to be pretty poor fun. I--I dare say I deserve it all. It--it was awful folly on my part, I see it now, and--and I'm ashamed, dreadfully ashamed--I feel the redness mounting to--to the very roots of my hair--and it overwhelms me. Don't--don't you feel something of--of the same sort, or--or do you still think the joke was a good one?" She had grown rather excited and it was quite true that a deep blush was now mantling her face. In her halting speech--in the words that had come slowly at first, and then had flowed more rapidly, there had been wounded pride beside the deep resentment and the pain. "Do--do you really believe such a thing?" answered the man, wincing again. "You speak of something that is an abomination, that would stink in a decent man's nostrils. And--and you speak of shame! Do you think such a word could express all that a man would be overwhelmed with if he had done such a thing? Great Heavens! Miss Nelson, a man having once committed such a crime would be humiliated for the rest of his life, it seems to me. It would be an unpardonable sin for which there could be no forgiveness, none surely on the part of the woman, and none that the man could ever grant himself. It--it surely isn't possible that any such thing has occurred, that any man could so lower himself beneath all the dirt that his feet have ever trodden." He spoke strongly, his face now also high in color, his voice tremulous and indignant, his hard right fist clenched till the arm vibrated with the strain. Madge looked at him again. For a moment his tone had been convincing and she had nearly believed that he spoke the truth. But the evidence against him was too strong. "That--that big Stefan, your friend, the man who says that you saved his life, knew that I was coming," she faltered, her voice shaking while her body felt limp with the infinite discouragement that had returned to her in full. "He brought you my message, at least he told me so. What--what is the use of my saying anything more? I--I think we might as well be going on, if--if you and your dog are rested. He--he looks like a decent fellow, Maigan does. There are things a dog wouldn't do, I'm sure." "Miss Nelson, as God is my judge, I'm guiltless in this matter," the man's voice rang out. "Go on, Maigan, mush on!" he called, and leaned forward on the rope, passed over one shoulder. Her last words had brought a moment of anger and indignation. Save for the few words he had uttered he felt it useless to protest his innocence, and the notion of her insanity returned to him, strongly. But those were strange things she had said about Stefan and that message. As soon as possible he would go over to Carcajou and interview his friend the Swede. The girl's disordered mind must have distorted something that he said. He began to wonder whether there was any truth at all about her story, whether she really came from New York, whether she was not some poor creature escaped from some place for the care of the insane. But then how had she got hold of his name and how had she ever heard of Roaring River? The more he puzzled over these problems the more tangled they appeared to be. "I dare say I'll find out about it soon enough," he told himself, impatiently, for the pain he suffered began to grow worse with every step, and an unaccountable weariness had come over him. That thing on his shoulder must be a mere scratch, he tried to persuade himself, in spite of the sharp pangs it gave him. Manlike he grew more obstinate as his strength began to fail, and pulled harder, with the sweat now running down his clammy forehead and freezing on his face. Maigan, also, was bending hard to his task, and they went along steadily and rapidly. The toboggan was crackling and slithering over the snow upon which the dark indigo shadows were throwing uncanny designs. The track was smooth and level now and the dog could manage very well alone, so that Hugo pulled no longer. Once, as he chanced to stumble, the girl thought she heard a groan from him. She began to wish that she had been able to believe him, but it was utterly impossible, although she suddenly found it in her heart to pity him, to extenuate the abomination of his conduct. Why that last sacrilegious lie he had uttered? The man was suffering; it looked as if the iron were entering his soul. Oh! the pity of it! If he had only acknowledged his offence and begged her pardon she might perhaps have forgiven. A moment later, however, the grim outlook before her presented itself again. There were two things for her to choose from; one was that fitly named Roaring River along whose bank the road wound its snaky trail and the other consisted in the cheap little pistol in her bag. Well, there might be comfort after all in this wild land, upon the scented fallen needles of the pines or under that pure white ice. Her features, which for a moment had become stony and hard, now softened again. It was best to endeavor to harbor no more thoughts of contempt and hatred when one's own soul might soon be suing for forgiveness. They topped another rise of ground beyond which there was a hollow, a tiny valley nestled among great firs and poplars and birches. In the middle of it Madge saw another and much larger shack. It might really have been called a house, but for its being made of logs. A film of smoke was rising straight up in the still air, from a chimney built of rough stones, and some dogs began to bark loudly. A woman came out, with a child hanging to her skirts, and shaded her eyes with her hand while she scolded the animals, who slunk away slowly. "_Bonjour_," she called out, cheerfully. "Ah! It is Monsieur Hugo! How you do, sare? Glad for see you! Come along quick. It ees cole again, terrible cole." For a second she stared at the young woman on the toboggan, but her civility came at once uppermost and she smiled pleasantly, and rushed up to help Madge arise, brushing off some of the snow that had fallen on her from the trees. "Come inside quick. I have it good hot in de house. You all perished wid dat cole, Mees. Now you get varm again and I make tea _tout de suite_." She had seized Madge's hands in her own big and capable ones, with the never-failing hospitality and friendliness of the wilderness, and led her indoors at once. Hugo let Maigan loose, with a word of warning, for the other dogs had begun to circle about him jealously, and growled a little, probably for the sake of form, for they took good care to keep out of reach of his long fangs. They had tried him once before and knew that he was their master. Hugo, thankful that the journey was ended, took up the girl's bag and followed her into the house, after he had taken off his snowshoes, a job he accomplished with some difficulty. "Mrs. Papineau," he began, "this young lady came over to my place, a couple of hours ago, and--and there's been some--some mistake. She thought there was a village here, I believe. She only expects to remain with you till to-morrow, I think, and till then I will be ever so grateful if you will make her as comfortable as possible. I'm afraid she's dreadfully tired and cold. I expect to return in the morning to take her back to Carcajou, unless--unless she would prefer to rest a day or two here." "Ver 'appy to see de lady," declared Mrs. Papineau, heartily. "Tak' off you coat, Monsieur Hugo, an' sit here by de fire. Hey! Baptiste, you bring more big piece of birch. Colette, put kettle on for bile water qvick. Tak' dis seat, lady. I pull off dem blanket. You no need dem more. Turriple cole now. Las' night we 'ear de wolfs 'untin' along dem 'ardwood ridges, back of de river; it ees always sign of big cole. And de river she crack awful, and de trees dey split like guns shoot. Glad you come an' get varm, Mees." Madge looked about her, after she had smiled at the woman in thanks. For the second time that day she had entered a home of kindly and well-disposed people that seemed to be built of an altogether different clay from that which composed the folk of the big city. In Stefan's home the atmosphere had been gentle, one of earnest, quiet toil, with the simple accompaniment of a kindly religious belief according to the Lutheran persuasion. In the dwelling she had now entered, of fervent French Canadians, she noted the vivid chromo of a departed pope facing the still gaudier representation of the British Royal family, if the printed legend could be believed. They were shown in all the colors of the rainbow, as were also some saints whose glaring portraits hung on either side of the door, surmounted by dried palms reminiscent of Easter festivals. There seemed to be any number of children, from an infant lying in a homemade cradle of boards, one of which displayed an advertisement of soap, to a bashful youth who looked at Hugo as if he worshipped him and a freckled, gawky and friendly-faced girl of fifteen who stood around, evidently delighted to see people and anxious to be civil to them. And this welcome she had received seemed to be characteristic of all these folks living in the back of beyond. Everywhere she had met friendliness; people had seemed actually eager to help; they smiled as if life had been a thing of joy in which the good things must be distributed far and near and enjoyed by all. They seemed ready to share their possessions with strangers that chanced within their gates. It was a spirit intensely restful, consoling, bringing peace to one's heart. It gave the girl a brief vision of something that was heavenly. She felt that she could so easily have made her home in this amazing region that opened its arms and actually welcomed new faces. But the thought came to her that she had only been vouchsafed a fleeting glance at it and to gaze, as Moses did of old, upon a Promised Land she could never really enter. "It is no need for to h'ask, Monsieur Hugo," Madge heard the woman saying. "Ve do h'all ve can, sure! It ees a gladness to see de yong lady an' heem pretty face, all red vid de cole. Come by de fire, mees. Celestine 'ere she pull aff your beeg Dutch stockin'. Dey no belong you, sure. Colette, push heem chair near for de lady. Hippolyte, put couple steeks now on ze fire. Mees, I 'ope you mak' yourself to home now. Monsieur Hugo, you stop for to h'eat a bite vid us. Ve haf' in de shed still one big quarter from de _orignal_, de beeg mose vat my man he shoot two veeks ago. Und dere pleanty _patates_, pleanty pork, all you vant." "No, thank you ever so much, I--I think I'd better be going. It will be dark pretty soon. I know perfectly well that you will take excellent care of Miss Nelson and so I think I'll say good-by now." Some of the children trooped around him, disappointed, and Mrs. Papineau came nearer, eying him curiously. Suddenly her keen eyes caught something and she pointed with a finger. "Vat de mattaire vid you h'arm?" she asked, excitedly. "'Ow you get 'urted?" "Oh! That! That's nothing," he answered, drawing back. "'Tisn't worth bothering about. Good-night!" "You no be one beeg fool, Monsieur Hugo!" she ordered him, masterfully. "Now you sit down an' let me look heem arm right avay quick. Ven de cole strike heem he get bad sure, dat h'arm." In spite of his objections she laid violent hands on him, insisting on pulling off his coat, whereupon a dark patch had spread. She also drew off the heavy sweater he wore underneath it, which was stained even more deeply. When she sought to roll up the sleeve of his flannel shirt it would not go up high enough, but the remedy was close at hand, in the form of a pair of scissors, and she swiftly ripped up a seam. On the outer part of the shoulder she revealed a rather large and jagged wound that was all smeared with blood, which still oozed from it slowly. "Who go an' shoot you?" she asked angrily. "I see de 'ole in de coat an' de sweater. I know some one shoot. Vat for he shoot?" "Well, it was just a silly little accident with a pistol," he acknowledged with much embarrassment. "It--it won't be anything after it's washed off. It feels all right enough and I wish you wouldn't bother about it. I'll attend to it after I get home. It--it's stopped hurting now." But he was compelled to submit to the washing of his injury and to the application of some sort of a dressing which Mrs. Papineau appeared to put on rather skilfully. Wounds of all sorts are but too common in the wilderness, unfortunately, and doctors few and far between. The children had crowded around him, looking in awe, and their mother kept ordering them away. Madge had risen from her seat and looked at the injury, horrified and trembling. The man had never said a word when that bullet had found its billet in his shoulder, and yet it must have hurt him dreadfully. He--he might have been killed, owing to her clumsiness, she reflected in consternation. And now he said nothing to explain how it had happened--he actually seemed to be trying to shield her. "I--I'm dreadfully sorry," said the girl, impulsively. "It--it was all my fault, because I let the revolver fall and it went off. But I didn't know he was hurt. He never told me, and he insisted on pulling at that sled, with his dog." "Yes, it was just a little accident," admitted Hugo, "and we're making altogether too much fuss about it. It really doesn't amount to anything, Miss Nelson, and it feels splendidly now. I'm ever so much obliged to you, Mrs. Papineau. And so I'll say good-night. I hope you'll rest well, Miss Nelson. I'll be here in good time to-morrow, never fear." He shook hands with the housewife, who took care to wipe her own upon her apron in preparation for the ceremony. To the children he bade a comprehensive farewell, after which he turned again to Madge, advanced a step and then hesitated. He had doubtless meant to shake hands with her also but, at the last moment, probably feared a rebuff. At any rate he nodded, bringing a smile to his features, and opened the door into the bitter cold. After he had put on his snowshoes again and hitched up Maigan to the toboggan he disappeared into the darkness. For an instant Madge listened, but she heard no sound. Everything was still outside, but for the rare crackings of ice and timber. Seeking her chair again she leaned forward now with her elbows resting on her knees and her face held in the hollow of her hands. At this time a little child came to her and touched her arm. She looked at it. The little girl had long straight black hair, great beady eyes and the prettiest mouth imaginable. The cheeks were like red apples. She lifted the little thing to her knees and the child nestled against her bosom. Madge now looked at the woman, busily engaged with her few pots and pans, and a feeling of envy came to her, a longing for the sweet and kindly motherhood that was becoming a fierce craving for that beautiful peace which appeared to have become so firmly established in these little houses of the frozen wilds. She had elsewhere seen love of children, little ones petted and made much of, husbands coming home to a cheery welcome, but it had not seemed the same. The women so often seemed weary, pale, and worked beyond their strength. Most of them became querulous at times, apt to speak loudly of intolerable wrongs or of ill-doings of neighbors across the dark hallways. Here it looked as if quiet order, cheerful obedience, willingness on the part of all, were ingrained in the people. Indeed, it was ever so different. By this time the rough table was set and Mrs. Papineau deplored the fact that Hugo had not consented to remain. "Heem is 'urted more as vat he tink," she confided to the girl. "To-morrow somebody go to de leetle shack an' fin' 'ow he is. One dog heem not much nurse, eh?" These words made Madge feel uncomfortable. Once or twice the idea had come to her that such a man ought to be punished, that he should be made to suffer, that he deserved anything that could make him realize how heinous his conduct had been. But now she had a vague impression that she was sorry for him, that it was on her account that he had refused to stay and had gone out at once in the gathering darkness that had come so swiftly. But in spite of these thoughts and of all the emotions she had undergone Madge felt again the besetting pangs of fierce hunger. The slices of moose-meat sizzling in the pan filled the place with appetizing odor. The mother placed her brood at the long table but helped her guest first, and plentifully. How these people ate and expected others to eat! Never could they have heard of the scanty meals of working girls, of the cups of blue milk, of bitter tea, or of the little rolls and bits of meat purchased at so-called delicatessen stores. The girl ate hungrily and the meal was soon over, but as soon as it was finished the terrible weariness came upon her again and she was thankful to lie down upon a hard mattress of ticking filled with the aromatic twigs of balsam fir, beneath heavy blankets and a wonderful robe of hareskins. Before she could fall asleep, however, the experiences of her crowded day passed weirdly before her eyes; yet her despair seemed to be contending with a strange feeling that was certainly not hope. It was perhaps merely a weak acquiescence to conditions that her immense fatigue and wearied brain made her accept, dully, stupidly, since she had lost all power of resistance. It was something like the enforced peace of a wounded thing that has just been able to crawl back into its burrow and has found the rest its body craves for. In the midst of so large a family one could not aspire to the lone possession of a bed. The little girl she had held in her lap had been placed beside her, not without many apologies from Mrs. Papineau. In the darkness she could feel the little warm body nestling against her, and hear the soft and regular breathing. It was comforting since it brought a feeling that the little one protected her, in some strange way, and was leading her in paths of darkness with a little warm hand and a heart that was unafraid and confident of the morrow's shining sun. Very soon there came a restless sleep which at first was filled with uncanny visions, from which she awakened once or twice in fear. But at last came entire surcease from suffering as the brain that had been overwrought ceased to toil. In the meanwhile Hugo had slowly made his way back to his shack. If his arm hurt he had now little consciousness of it. The thing that disturbed him most was that girl's unshakable belief in his villainy. Was she really insane? He had had no opportunity to communicate that thought to Mrs. Papineau. But then, after her arrival, she had seemed so absolutely rational in all that she had said and done that the idea had, for the time being, passed away from his mind. And what if, at least in part, she had spoken the truth? What if some amazing distortion of reality had truly and honestly given her these beliefs, through evidence that must be all against him? The words she had spoken before starting for the Papineaus', and the further ones uttered on the tote-road, while he rested, held a drama so poignant that it struck a chill to his heart. She might, after all, have been speaking the truth as she had been misled into believing it! But then there must be some amazing conspiracy at work, some foul doings whose objects utterly escaped him and which left him staring at the little lamp now burning on his table, as if it might perhaps have revealed some key to the amazing problem. Was it possible that a weak and slender woman could actually be compelled to carry on a fight against hunger and illness, with never a friend on earth, until she was finally so beaten down to the ground that her soul cried in agony for relief? According to her she had seized upon the only resource open to her, in which there was but a dim outlook towards safety. Then she had found herself the victim of a hellish jest, apparently, or of a conspiracy so base that one sickened at the mere thought of it. There was no doubt that those big eyes of the suffering woman haunted the man, while the accents of her despair still rang in his ears and distressed him. The expression of the crucified had been on that pale face of hers, which had reddened so deeply when a sense of shame had overwhelmed her. It was as if he had beheld a drowning woman and been utterly prevented from extending a saving hand to her. More strongly he began to feel that some one had surely sinned against that woman, and feelings of vengefulness, none the less bitter for all their vagueness, began to obsess him. Once, on his way back from Papineau's, Maigan had pressed close to him, as if for safety. From the great hardwood ridges of his right he had heard a long and familiar sound. It was the one the Frenchwoman had mentioned, the fitful baying of wolves on the track of a deer. Picturing to himself the overtaking and pulling down of the victim, he shivered, hardened though he was to the unending tragedies of the wilderness, and hurried along faster, although he knew he stood in no danger. When he had reached his shack by the Roaring River he had entered it and lighted the small lamp. It chanced to be the last match in his pocket that he used for the purpose. There was no need to open the big package that stood on a shelf, since he remembered having left two or three small boxes in his hunting bag. He went over to the corner where he had left it and bent over, somewhat painfully. As he lifted it from the floor he saw an envelope and picked it up. It was addressed to him. Tearing it open he stared at the words "Starting this evening. Please have some one meet me. Madge Nelson." With clenched fist he struck the table a blow that startled Maigan, who barked, leaping up to his feet. "It's all right, boy," said his master. "Men are pretty big fools, excepting when they're nothing but infernal cowards. I tell you, boy, some one will have to pay heavily for this. Good Lord! Who would have thought of such a thing? I--I think I must be getting crazy! But no--she's over there at Papineau's, and some one wrote to her, and everything she said was the plain truth, as she understood it. Great Heavens! It's no wonder she looked at me as if I'd been the dirt under her feet. That thing's got to be straightened out, somehow, but first I must see Stefan, of course." For a moment a wild idea came to him of going over to Carcajou in the darkness. Such an undertaking was by no means particularly difficult for a strong man, who knew the way, but suddenly he realized that he was played out and would never reach his destination that night. This irked his soul, unbearably, until he had recourse to his old briar pipe. In spite of the fact that his arm was beginning to hurt him badly he sat near the stove, where he had kindled a fire again, thinking hard. He was racking his brain to seek some motive that could have impelled any one he knew to play such a frightful joke. One after another he named every man he had ever known or even merely met in Carcajou and the surrounding, sparsely settled country. But they were nearly all friends of his, he knew, or at least had no reason to bear him ill-will. There was one chap he had had quite a scrap with one day, over a dog-fight in which the man had urged his animal first and then kicked Maigan when he saw his brute having by far the worst of it. But soon afterwards they had shaken hands and the matter had been forgotten. Besides, the fellow was now working in Sudbury, far east down the line. No, that wasn't a trail worth following. The more he thought the matter over the more utterly mysterious it seemed to become. But of one thing he was determined. He was going to move heaven and earth to get at the bottom of all this, and when he found out who was responsible the fur would fly. It was perhaps fortunate for her that the idea of the red-headed girl in old McGurn's store never entered his head for a moment. She had always been friendly, perhaps even a little forward in her attentions to him, though he had always paid her rather scant notice. He had never been more than decently civil to her. When he sought his bunk, an hour or two later, a long time elapsed before he could fall asleep. It seemed to him that his head throbbed a good deal, and that shoulder was growing mightily uncomfortable. He hoped it would be better in the morning. Finally he fell asleep, restlessly. Upon the floor, stretched out upon an old deerskin close to the stove, Maigan was sleeping more profoundly, though now and then he whined and sighed in his slumber, perhaps dreaming of hares and porcupines. A cricket ensconced beneath the flat stones under the stove began to chirp, shrilly. Outside a big-horned owl was hooting, dismally, while the big falls continued to roar out their eternal song. And thus the long night wore out till a flaming crimson and copper dawn came up, with flashing rays that stabbed the great rolling clouds while the trees kept on cracking in the intense frost and the ice in the big pool churned and groaned under the torment of waters seeking to burst their shackles. CHAPTER VII Carcajou Is Shocked After Stefan had started away with Madge, Miss Sophy McGurn, who had been on the watch, was delighted to see Mrs. Olsen coming to the store. She greeted her customer more pleasantly than ever and served her with a bag of beans, two spools of black thread and a pound of the best oleo-butter. The older woman was nothing loath to talk, and confirmed the girl's suspicion that Stefan had taken that young woman to Hugo's. Mrs. Olsen insisted on the fact that her visitor was a real pretty girl, though awfully thin and looking as if a breath would blow her over. She also commented on the lack of suitable clothing for such dreadful weather, and on the utter ignorance Madge seemed to display of anything connected with Carcajou or, in fact, any part of Ontario. When questioned, cautiously, she admitted that she knew no reason whatever for the girl's coming, but she hastened to assert that Stefan had said it was all right, which settled the question, and, with her rather waddling gait, started off for her house again. As soon as Stefan returned Sophy saw that he still had a woman on his toboggan. She hurried to meet him and was grievously disappointed when she found out it was Mrs. Carew. But she boldly went up to Stefan. "Hello! Stefan!" she said. "Where did you leave your passenger of this morning?" "Hello! Sophy!" he answered, placidly. "I leaf de yong leddy vhere she ban going, I tank." "She isn't coming back to-night?" "Mebbe yes, mebbe no," he answered, grabbing Mrs. Carew's bag and hurrying with her into the station, for the engine's whistle announced that he had made the journey with little or no time to spare. Sophy made her way back to the store, meeting Mrs. Kilrea on her way. To this lady she confided that a young woman had gone up to Hugo Ennis' shack and had not returned. Wasn't it queer? And Mrs. Olsen had said that she wasn't Hugo's wife or sister. Wasn't it funny? But of course she supposed it was all right. Mrs. Kilrea called on old Mrs. Follansbee, who told Mrs. McIntosh. This lady was a Cree Indian that had become more or less civilized. The white women would speak to her on account of her husband Aleck, who was really a very nice man. At any rate all the ladies of Carcajou were soon aware of the unusual happening, scenting strange news and perhaps even a bit of scandal. Big Stefan, having urged his team to their utmost, now fed them carefully and locked them up in his shed, a local habit providing against bloody fights that were objected to not so much on moral principle as because these contests often resulted in the disabling of valuable animals. It also prevented incursions among the few sheep of the neighborhood or long hunts in which dogs indulged by themselves, returning with sore feet and utterly unable to move for a day or two. The animals, before falling asleep, were biting off the crackling icicles that had formed in the hair growing between their padded toes. The journey had not exhausted them in the slightest and on the morrow they would be perfectly fit for further travel, if need be. Neither was Stefan weary. After supper he quietly strolled over to the store where some of Carcajou's choicest spirits were gathered, since the village boasted no saloon. Here the news was discussed, as spread out by the few who got a daily or weekly paper from Ottawa or Sudbury, or gathered in the immediate neighborhood by the local gossips. "Hello, Stefan!" exclaimed Miles Parker, who was supposed to watch over the sawmill and see that the machinery didn't suffer too much during the long period of disuse. "How did ye find the travelin' to-day? See ye didn't manage ter freeze them whiskers off'n yer face, did ye?" "Dey're yoost vhere dey belongs, I tank," answered Stefan, quietly. "Miss Sophy, if you haf time I take two plugs Lumberman's Joy terbacker." "Stefan he's so all-fired big he got to keep a chew on each side of his face," explained Pat Kilrea, a first-rate mechanic who was then busy with the construction of a little steamer that was to help tow down to the mill some big booms of logs, as soon as the lake opened. "He ain't able to get no satisfaction except from double action." At this specimen of local wit and humor the others grinned but Stefan remained quite unmoved. Miss Sophy waited on him, scanning his face, eager to ask more questions, while she feared to say a word. It may have been her conscience which made her uneasy. Of course she believed that the precautions she had taken rendered it impossible for any one to accuse her, or at any rate to prove anything. Still, a certain anxiety remained, which she was unable to restrain. She would have given a good deal to know what had taken place. Never had she doubted that the scene would occur right there at the station in Carcajou. That telegram had badly upset her plans, apparently. And then it was queer that Hugo had not come down after receiving it, if only to try to find out what it meant. Finally, one of the men, having none of her reasons for keeping still, came forth with a direct question. "I reckon you got out to Roarin' Falls all safe with that there pooty gal, didn't ye?" he asked. It was Joe Follansbee who had sought this information, being only too eager to hint at something wrong on the part of a man he had long deemed a rival. At his words, however, Sophy sniffed and turned up her nose. "I didn't see anything very pretty about her," she said. "Well, I didn't see as how she was so real awful pretty," Joe hastened to observe. "She ain't the style I admire, by no manner of means." This strategic withdrawal was destined to meet with entire failure, however. Sophy turned to the boxes of plug that were stored on the shelves and pretended to busy herself with their order and symmetry. But she was again listening, eagerly. "What d'ye say, Stefan?" joined Pat Kilrea. "How'd she stand the trip? Did ye see if her nose was still on her face when ye got there?" "I tank so," opened Stefan, gravely, "but it wouldn't matter so much vith de leddy. Maybe she ain't so much use for it like you haf for yours, to stick into oder people's pusinesses." Stefan continued to shave off curly bits from his plug, while the laughter turned against the engineer. Carcajou, like a good many other places, commonly favored the top-dog when it came to betting. The answering grin in Pat's face was a rather sour one. If any other man had spoken to him thus there might have been a lively fight, but no one in Carcajou, and a good many miles around it, cared to engage in fisticuffs with the Swede. A story was current of how he had once manhandled four drunken lumberjacks, in spite of peavies and sticks of cordwood. "Well, you're getting to be a good deal of a lady's man, Stefan," said Aleck McIntosh, a fellow who was supposed to be a scion of Scottish nobility receiving remittances from his country. The most evident part of his income, however, appeared to be contributed by his Cree wife, who took in the little washing Carcajou indulged in and made the finest moccasins in Ontario. "Going off with one and coming back with another. I dare say you prefer carrying females to lugging the mails around." "Mebbe I likes it better but it's more hard on dem togs," asserted Stefan, judicially. "And--and ye left her at Hugo's shack, did ye?" ventured Pat again, whereat Stefan nodded in assent and lighted his pipe. "Did she say she was anyways related to him? His sister or something like that?" persisted the engineer. "Well, I tank she say somethin' about bein' his grandmother," retorted Stefan, "but I can tell you something, Pat. If you vant so much know all about it vhy you not put on your snowshoes an' tak' a run down there. It ban a real nice little valk." As Pat Kilrea suffered from the handicap of having been born with a club-foot, which didn't prevent him from being an excellent man with machinery but made walking rather burdensome for him, the others guffawed again while the Swede opened the door and walked off, the crusted snow crackling under his big feet. "In course it's none of my business, like enough," said Pat, virtuously, as he scratched a match on his trousers' leg, "but such goings on don't seem right, nohow. 'Tain't right an' proper, because it gives a bad example. I've knowed folks rid on a rail or even tarred and feathered for the like of that." Carcajou's sterling sense of propriety, as represented by half a dozen male gossips, immediately agreed with him. The matter, they decided, should be looked into. "And--and what d'ye think about it, Miss Sophy?" asked Joe, desirous of opening conversation again with the young woman and redeeming himself. "Things like that is beneath me to talk about," she asserted, coldly. "And what's more, I don't care to hear about 'em. It--it's time ye got back to the depot, Joe Follansbee and I'm goin' to close up anyways and give ye all a chance to burn your own oil." At this delicate invitation to vacate the premises the men rose and trooped out. Once outside, however, they felt compelled in spite of the bitter cold to comment a little further on the situation. Sophy McGurn put up the large iron bar that was used to secure the front door, when the store was closed. Then she put some papers away in the safe under the counter and went up to the family sitting room, where her mother was knitting and her father, with an open paper on his lap and his spectacles pushed up over his forehead, was fast asleep in a big and highly varnished oaken rocker trimmed with scarlet plush. "I'm goin' to bed," she announced; "good-night." The old gentleman awoke with a start and the mother, looking over her glasses, bade her good-night and sweet dreams, according to a long-established formula. "Don't know what's the matter with Sophy, she's that restless an' nervous," said her mother. "She always was, fur's I know," answered McGurn. "If she's gettin' the complaint worse she must be sickenin' for something." The subject of these remarks, once in her room, was in no hurry to woo the slumber she had expressed a desire for. In her mind anxiety was battling with anger and disappointment. Whether or not she really loved Ennis, or had turned to him merely because his general ways and appearance showed him to be a man of some breeding, with education superior to the usual standard of Carcajou, such as she would have been glad to marry, at any rate her brow narrowed, her lips closed into a thin straight line and her hands were clenched tight. What she had done would probably utterly prevent any renewal of the friendship she had tried to establish, since Hugo would perhaps be run out of the place. Moreover, that girl was really very pretty, in spite of what she had said downstairs, and this stranger was now over there. Sophy had expected to see her return with Stefan, perhaps also with Hugo, and the girl's face would have shown marks of tears, and Hugo would have been in a towering rage, and gradually the people of Carcajou would have been made aware, somehow, of what had happened, and the settler of Roaring Falls would be the butt of laughter, if not of scurrilous remarks. But now the dark night had come and Carcajou was very still under the starlight. The old cat scratching at her door startled her. The profound silence that followed appeared to irk her badly. After a long time there was the shriek of the night-freight's whistle and the great rumbling of the arriving train, the grinding of brakes, shouts that sounded harshly, various loud thumps as cars were shunted off to the siding. And then the train started again, groaning and clattering and heaving up the grade through the cut, after which the intense stillness returned and she lay awake, her eyes peering through darkness, her senses all alert and her nerves a-quiver, until nearly the coming of dawn. But the men who had gone out, before scattering to their homes, had reached a unanimous conclusion. It was true that excitement was rare in Carcajou, but this was a matter of upholding the fair reputation of the mill and four or five dozen shacks and frame houses that constituted the village. It was decided that a committee must go over to the Falls and investigate. "I won't say but what Hugo Ennis he's been mostly all right, fur's we know," acknowledged Phil Prouty of the section gang. "But then he warn't brought up in these here parts an' he can't be allowed to flout the morals o' this community in any sich way. If it's like we fears, the gal'll have ter pack off an' him promise ter behave or leave the country. Them's my sentiments. We better go to-morrow." At this, however, there were some objections. It might be that on the next day the young woman would return. Then their trip would be useless. And then two days later would be Sunday, on which there would be less interference with their occupations, especially as it was the off day in church, where the services were held but twice a month. It was voted to start then at an early hour. There was a strong team of horses used to lumbering that could be trusted to manage the old tote-road, drawing Sam Kerrigan's big sleigh. "Hosses used ter do it," asserted the latter, "and they kin do it again." "Maybe Stefan'd take you up with them dogs of his, Kilrea," suggested one of the men, grinning. "No! And by the way, byes. Ye don't want ter let that there Swede know nothin' of this. He's too thick with Hugo, he is, and we don't want him around raisin' any ruction if there happens to be a bit o' loud talk. He'd be liable to raise a rumpus, he would." This appeared to be excellent strategy and it met with unanimous approval. The men dispersed to their respective shacks and houses, to discuss the matter further with their wives, in case any of them were still awake. One or two of the sturdier ladies at once volunteered to lend further dignity to the proceedings with their presence and could not be dissuaded from joining the Carcajou Vigilantes. In the meanwhile the unconscious objects of all these plans were happily unaware of the fate in store for them. Madge, with a little child that had snuggled into her arms, had found a forgetfulness that was a blessing. In spite of her weariness and of the emotions she had undergone, the good food and pure air had produced some effect upon her. She slumbered perhaps more deeply and restfully than she had for many long months. And Hugo Ennis, in pain, tossed in his bunk, his mind racked with uneasy thoughts and his wounded shoulder throbbing, till he slept also. CHAPTER VIII Doubts It was with a violent start that Hugo awoke, feeling chilled to the bone in spite of his heavy blankets. His injured shoulder was so stiff that for some minutes he was scarcely able to move it. He got out of his bunk, his whole frame shaking with the cold, and managed to kindle a fire in the stove. But presently he felt warm again, rather unaccountably warm, in fact, and his face grew quite red. Curiously enough, for a man with the vast appetite of hard workers in cold regions, he did not at all feel inclined to eat. Yet he prepared some food, according to custom, and sat before a tin pint dipper of strong hot tea. This he managed to swallow, with some approach to comfort, but when he tried to eat the first few mouthfuls satiated him and he pushed the remainder away. He had opened the door to let Maigan go out, and when the dog returned after a good roll in the snow Hugo swept his breakfast of rolled oats and bread into a pan and fed it to his companion. "You're certainly not going hungry because my own grub doesn't taste right, old boy," he commented. Men of the wilderness learn to speak to their dogs, or even to think out aloud, when no living thing chances to be near. It answers to the inherited need of speech, to an instinct so long inbred in man that he must needs, at times, hear the sound of a voice, even if it be but his own, or go crazy. Maigan wagged his tail and gobbled up the food. When he saw his master fastening on his snowshoes he barked loudly. Hugo allowed him to romp about for a few minutes before hitching him up to the toboggan. A few minutes later they were on their way to Papineau's. An attempt to smoke his pipe was immediately abandoned by the young man. For some reason it tasted wretchedly. While the start was made at a good pace little more than a couple of hundred yards had been covered before Hugo realized that he was going ever so slowly. Maigan was stopping all the time and waiting for him. What on earth was the matter? He judged that the poor night's sleep had had some ill effect upon him. It couldn't be his shoulder. Certainly not! The pain in it was no more than any chap could bear, even if he had to make a wry face over it at times. He wondered whether anything he had eaten on the previous day could have disagreed with him. He decided that it probably was some canned meat he had bought at McGurn's. That explained the thing quite satisfactorily to him. Anyway, it was bound to wear off soon. Such things always did. With this cheering thought he sought to lengthen his stride again, but a moment later he was dragging himself along, dully, wondering what was the matter with him. He was anxious to see Madge again. He must tell her of the finding of her message. Surely he would be able to talk to her, calmly and quietly, and to obtain from her all that she knew of this strange jumble of mysteries. He hoped that she had been able to rest, that he would find her less weary and overwrought. This girl had been badly treated, sinned against most grievously. If there was anything he could do he would offer his services eagerly. "I expect she'll want to turn right back to Carcajou," he told himself. "I wish I were feeling more fit for the journey. If Papineau is home from his trapping he will help me out. But I'll feel all right soon. This is bound to pass off. If I get too tired when I reach Carcajou, Stefan will put me up for the night. It--it seems a pity that girl will have to go." He trudged along behind the toboggan. He could have ridden on it, most of the way, but wanted to keep Maigan fresh for the trip to Carcajou, for the trunk would have to go also. The light sled was nothing for the dog to pull, of course, and sometimes he dashed ahead so that his pace became too great for his master. Then he would stop and sit down in his traces, to wait until he was overtaken. The road was unaccountably long, that morning, but at last they came in sight of the Papineau homestead and the cleared land upon which some crops of oats and potatoes had already been raised, amid the short stumps of the half-cleared land. In summer the river ran very slowly at this place, and big trout were ever making rings on the surface which they broke in their dashes after all sorts of flies and beetles. On the land opposite, where there had once been a forest fire, the red weeds that follow conflagrations grew strong and rank in the summer time and little saplings sprouted up among the charred and wrecked trunks of the _brulé_. But at this time it all looked very bleak and desolate. "She couldn't ever have lived in such a country," he told himself, with perhaps a tinge of regret. "Poor little thing, I wonder what's to become of her? The whole thing's a shame--a ghastly shame. Wait till Stefan and I find out all about it. Somebody's got to get hurt, that's all!" Maigan had already hauled the toboggan to the door of the big shack, and the other animals had come near to renew assurances of armed neutrality. The good woman of the house appeared just as Hugo came up. She must have been rather staggered by his appearance, for she drew back, staring at him and shaking her head in decided disapproval. "'Ow many mile you call heem to de depot at Carcajou," she asked him, with hands on her hips and a severe look on her face. "Why, it's twelve miles to my shack and one more to this place," he answered, dully. "You know that just as well as I. Don't you remember the county surveyors told us so last year?" "An' you tink you goin' pull dat toboggan all way back wid you h'arm all bad an' you seek, lookin' lak' one ghosts! Excuse me, Monsieur Hugo, but you one beeg fool. My man Papineau 'e come back from de traps to-morrow an' heem pull de young lady 'ome wid de dogs. You no fit to go. I tink you go to bed right now, bes' place for you, sure." She pulled him inside, holding on to his uninjured arm as if he had been under arrest. She was a masterful woman, to be sure. Madge had arisen from a chair and Mrs. Papineau addressed her. A glance at the man's countenance had left the girl appalled. His features were drawn, the brown tint of his face had changed to a characterless gray, his eyes looked sunken and brighter, as if some fever brought a flame into them. "Sure you no in h'awful beeg 'urry for to go 'ome, Mees?" asked the hostess. "Dis man heem real seek. Heem no fit for valk all vay back to Carcajou now. To-morrow my man take you. Papineau he no forgif me if I let Monsieur Hugo go aff an' heem so seek." "Why, of course! I'm not in any special hurry. To-morrow will do just as well. He--he mustn't think of going to-day and--and it doesn't matter in the least. It--it makes no difference at all." "Do you really think that you can manage to stay here for another day?" the young man asked her, as he dropped rather heavily on a bench by the table. "I don't think there 's really much the matter with me, really, and I'm sure I could manage it if you're anxious to get away. But perhaps to-morrow...." "Mrs. Papineau has been ever so kind to me," answered the girl, slowly. "That sort of thing is such a comfort, especially when--when one isn't used to it. Nobody ever took such care of me over there in New York. I've had plenty to eat and a nice warm place to sleep in. I haven't been used to much luxury where--where I came from. And--and you mustn't mind me. It will always be time enough to go, but--but I won't know how to thank this--this kindly woman." Hugo didn't know whether these words held a reproach to him, but they sounded very hopeless and sad. The girl had sat down again, on a low stool near the fire. A chimney had been built in a corner, to supplement the stove, and she was looking intently at the bright flames leaping up and the fat curling smoke that rose in little patches, as bits of white bark twisted and crackled. Mrs. Papineau had gone back to the stove at the other end of the room, where she and her eldest girl had been washing dishes. In the rising sparks of the logs on fire Madge saw queer designs, strange moving forms her eyes followed mechanically. She felt that she was merely waiting--waiting for the worst that was yet to come, but the heat was grateful. "If that's the case we might as well postpone the trip for a day," Hugo acknowledged, somewhat shamefacedly. "I don't often get played out but for some reason I'm not quite up to the mark to-day." "You keep still an' rest yourself a bit," Mrs. Papineau ordered, coming back to him and feeling his pulse gravely, whereat she made a wry face. She informed him that he undoubtedly had a fever and must remain absolutely quiet while she brewed him a decoction of potent herbs she had herself picked and stored away. Madge looked at Hugo again, anxiously, feeling that her careless handling of that little pistol was undoubtedly responsible for his illness. Their eyes met and he managed to smile. "A mere man can do nothing but obey when a woman commands, Miss Nelson," he declared, with a weak attempt at jocularity. "I'm sure it's dreadful stuff she's going to make me swallow. Still, I'm glad of a short rest." He drew his chair a little nearer, and, speaking in a lower voice, went on: "I'll tell you, Miss Nelson. We--we perhaps owe one another some explanations. It happens that I've found something. It's the queerest thing ever happened. I'd like to explain...." "What is the use, Mr. Ennis?" she replied, her voice revealing an intense discouragement. "And besides, you are ill now. It--it doesn't really matter what has happened, I suppose. I couldn't expect anything else, I dare say. I was a fool to come, to--to believe what I did. And--and I'm ashamed, it--it seems as if the least little pride that was left me has gone--gone for ever. Please--please don't say anything more. It distresses me and can't possibly do any good." She turned away from him to stare into the fire again and watch the little tongues of flame following threads of dry moss, till her face, which had colored for a moment, became pale again and her lips quivered at the thoughts that had returned to her. Uppermost was that feeling of shame of which she had spoken. She had realized that she had come to this man she had never met, ready to say: "Here I am, Madge Nelson, to whom you wrote in New York. If you really want me for your wife I am willing. In exchange for food, for rest, for a little peace of mind I am ready to try to learn to love you, to respect and obey you, and I will be glad to work for you, to keep your home, to do my duty like a diligent and faithful wife." But the man had looked at her with eyes genuinely surprised, because he had not really expected her. And of course she had found no favor in his sight. She was an inconvenient stranger whom he did not know how to get rid of, and on the spur of the moment he had found recourse in clumsy lies. By this time he had probably thought out some fables with which he expected to soothe her. At any rate he must despise her, in spite of the fact that he seemed to try to be civil and even kind. The important thing was that the end had come. In her little purse six or seven dollars were left, not enough to take her even half the distance to New York, to the great city she had learned to hate and fear. For nothing on earth would she have accepted money from Hugo. At least that shred of pride remained. It was therefore evident that but one way, however dark, was open before her, since the end must come. But that unutterable weariness was still upon her. She was not pressed for time, thank goodness. She had been given food in abundance and unwonted warmth and, for some hours, the wonderful sharp tingling air of the forest had driven the blood more swiftly through her veins. Moments had come during which it had seemed a blessing merely to breathe and a marvelous gift to be free from pain. But she was not so very strong yet. In another day, or perhaps two, she might feel better able to take that last leap. It would be that river--the Roaring River. That--that little gun made horrid jagged wounds. On her way to Papineau's she had noticed any number of great air-holes in the ice. In such places she had even heard the rumbling of the water on its rushing journey towards the sea. It seemed an easy, restful, desirable end to all her troubles. She would slip away by herself and these dear kindly people would never know, she hoped. Like so many others, she had gambled and lost, and perhaps she deserved to lose. Who could say? If she had sinned in coming to this place she would bear the punishment bravely. It would surely be very swift; there would be but a gasp or two from the stunning chill of the icy water, after which must come swift oblivion. The world was indeed a very harsh and dangerous place. She would be glad to leave it; there could be nothing to regret. She raised her eyes once more and looked about her. The heat from the birchen logs and the sizzling jack-pine penetrated her. Somewhere she had read or heard that, to those condemned, a few last comforts were usually proffered. It would be easier to find the end after a few more hours of this blessed peace. It would have been more gruesome to meet it while suffering from hunger with the very marrow of one's bones freezing and one's teeth chattering. She was glad enough to sit still on that rough stool. She did not want to be taken back, even to that little village of Carcajou. The little children had made such good friends with her, and would have climbed all over her had their mother not reproved them; the very dogs had come up and rubbed against her, and put their muzzles in her lap. Two of them were but half-grown pups. And best of all the big-hearted and full-bosomed mother of the family always spoke in words that were so friendly, even affectionate. It had been a wonderful vision of a better world from which she did not want to awaken too soon. In the meanwhile Hugo had been compelled, not without a wry face, to swallow the bitter potion Mrs. Papineau had prepared for him. "I think I'll be going," he remarked. "You rest one leetle time yet," ordered the housewife. "You haf noding for to do. Feel better soon when you rest after de medicine. You no 'urry." Perhaps nothing loath he had sat down again, with his chair tilted back a little till the back rested on the table. Madge was sitting nearly in front of him, with her back slightly turned, and he could see the tightly pinned mass of the hair he had seen flooding her shoulders in his shack, and the comely curve of her neck as she leaned forward, staring into the fire. For a time this drove away the pain that was in his wounded arm and the hot, throbbing feeling of discomfort that it gave him. What irked him was the realization of the tragedy brought to this girl somehow and the understanding of all that she must have suffered. Hugo had not always lived in the wilderness. He also had been of the town during a period of his life, until the longing had come for the greater freedom of the open spaces, of the regions which in their greatness bring forth the sturdier qualities of manhood. He was thinking of the scorn that had been in her voice when she had told him of the fierce impulse that had bidden her escape from the bondage of carking poverty and care. It had only resulted in bringing disappointment and the shame, the outraged womanhood that had burned upon her cheeks. And this appealed to him with an irresistible force since that effort on her part showed that she at least possessed courage and the readiness to go far afield in search of an avenue of escape. Weaker souls would long ago have given up the fight. He had just tried to begin an explanation and find the truth out from her, but she had shaken her head and said it was useless. She did not understand; how could she? Yet he had been sorely disappointed. It had scarcely been a rebuff on her part for she had spoken gently enough, in that low despairing voice of hers. He must wait another and better occasion and hope that he would be able to clear himself of wrongdoing. At this time a man's practical nature suggested to him the thought that she must be very poor--that she had perhaps expended her last resources in coming to Carcajou. If this was the case, what would it avail for him to take her back to the railway? What would happen to her then? He could not allow her to depart without finding out how such matters stood, and he wondered in what manner he could make her accept some money and how he could make amends to her for the injury she had sustained at some unknown individual's hands. But the more he puzzled his brain the less he could discover any efficient way of coming to her assistance. She had said that every bit of pride had been torn from her, but he knew that this was not altogether true. The flashing of her eyes and the indignation of her voice had contradicted her words efficiently. She would probably resent his offer, refuse to accept anything from him. Yet, if he managed to persuade her that he was guiltless, it was possible.... But here his thoughts were interrupted by Mrs. Papineau, who insisted on inspecting his wound again and made a wry face when she looked at it. "I beg you pardon for to tell de truth, Monsieur Hugo," she said, "but I tink you one beeg fool man for come here to-day. I tink maybe you get bad seek wid dat h'arm. You stay 'ere to-day an' for de night. I make you a bed in dis room on de floor, by Jacques an' Baptiste an' Pierre. My man Philippe 'e come to-morrow, maybe to-night, an' I send heem to Carcajou so he telegraph to de _docteur_ for see you, eh?" "You're awfully good, Mrs. Papineau," answered the young man, with the obstinacy of his kind. "I'm perfectly sure I'll be all right to-morrow, or the next day at the most. And I'll come back and see how Miss Nelson is getting on. I think I'll move now so I'll say good-by. I'm a lot better now. I suppose it's on account of that stuff you made me drink; it was bad enough to be fine medicine. I hope the rest will do you some good also, Miss Nelson. You're looking a lot better than yesterday." Mrs. Papineau first thought of preventing his exit by main force but felt compelled to let him have his way. She lacked the courage of her convictions and allowed him to depart, with his dog running ahead with the toboggan. She peered at him through one of the small panes and saw that he was walking fairly easily. "Maybe heem be all right soon," she confided hopefully to Madge, while she mixed dough in a pan. "But heem one beeg fool man all de same." "I--I can hardly believe that," objected the girl. "Why do you think so?" "All mans is beeg fools ven dey is 'urted or seek, my dear. Dey don't know nodings 'ow to tak' care for heemselves. Dey don't never haf sense dat vay. Alvays tink dey so strong noding happen, ever. But just same Hugo Ennis one mighty fine man, I say dat sure. I rather de ole cow die as anyting 'appen to heem." Without interrupting her work, and later as she toiled, at her washtub, the good woman launched forth in lengthy praise of Hugo. From her conversation it appeared that he had helped one or two fellows with small sums of money and good advice. In the autumn he had fished out an Indian who had upset his boat while netting whitefish in rough weather, on the lake, and every one knew that Stefan's life had been saved by him. At any rate the Swede said so, for Hugo never liked much to speak of such things. And then he was a steady fellow, a hard worker, good at the traps and not afraid of work of any kind. And then he was friendly to everybody. Had Madge noticed how gentle he was with the little children? That was always a sign of a good man. "Yes, mees," she concluded. "Some time I tink heem de bes' man as ever lif. Heem Hugo not even 'urt one dog, or anyting." So he wouldn't hurt even a dog! Madge repeated these words to herself. Then why had he played such a sorry joke on a woman who had never injured him? She wondered whether he would be sorry, afterwards, if--if he ever chanced to learn what had become of her--after everything was all over. It might be that he had just been a big fool, as the Canadian woman had called him, and never reflected on the possible consequences of his action. But then he should have had the manhood to acknowledge his fault and beg her pardon, instead of resorting at once to clumsy lies and pretending utter ignorance. In many ways such conduct seemed inconsistent with the man, now that she had had further opportunity of seeing him. And then there was no doubt that he looked very ill. She was really very sorry for her share in that accident, and yet--and yet men had been shot dead for smaller offenses than he had meted out to her. He might have been killed, of course, and her quickened imagination caused her to see him stretched stark upon the floor of that little cabin, on those rough boards that smelled of resiny things. And then people would have come and she would have been accused of his murder, of course. It would have been her weapon that had done it, and they would have found motive enough for the deed in the story she would have been compelled to relate. They wouldn't have believed in any accident. And then, instead of being able to end everything in some air hole of Roaring River, she would have been dragged to some jail to eke out her days in a prison, if she had not been hanged. The next day she awaited his coming somewhat anxiously. She felt that she must know how he was before--before taking that last step. After all he had tried to be considerate, except in the matter of those amazing lies. During the afternoon Mrs. Papineau, growing anxious, sent little Baptiste over to enquire after him. The small boy returned, saying that he had seen two squirrels and a rabbit on the tote-road, and the track of a fox, and that he had found Hugo sitting by the fire. And Hugo had declared that he was all right and--and perhaps he wasn't pleased, because he spoke very shortly and had told him to hurry home. So Baptiste had left, and on his way he had seen partridges sitting on a fir sapling, and if he'd had a gun, or even some rocks.... But this circumstantial narrative was interrupted by the barking of the dogs. The sun was about setting. Madge looked out of the window, while Mrs. Papineau rushed to the door. It was a man arriving with a toboggan and two big dogs. "Dat my man Philippe coming," announced the woman, happily. She held the door open, letting in a blast of cold air, and the man entered, tired with long tramping. From the toboggan he removed a load of pelts, dead hares that would serve chiefly for bait, his blankets and the indispensable axe. Mrs. Papineau volubly explained the guest's presence and he greeted her kindly. "You frien' of Hugo Ennis," he said. "Den you is velcome an' me glad for see you, _mademoiselle_." He was a pleasant-faced, stocky and broad-limbed man of rather short stature, and his manner was altogether kindly and pleasant. The simplicity and cordiality of his manner was entirely in keeping with the ways of his family. It was curious that all the people she had met so far seemed to have come to an agreement in speaking well of Ennis. The man sat down, after the smallest of the children had swarmed all over him, and took off his Dutch stockings, waiting for the plenteous meal and the hot tea his wife was preparing. Meanwhile, to lose no time, he began to skin a pine marten. "Plent' much good luck dis time," he said, turning to Madge. "Five _vison_, vat you call mink, and a pair martens. Also one fox, jus' leetle young fox but pelt ver' nice. You want for see?" She inspected the pelts and looked at the animals that were yet unskinned, realizing for the first time how men went off in the wilds for days and weeks and months at a time, in bitterest weather, to provide furs for fine ladies. The darkness had come and the big oil lamp was lighted. The children played about her for a time and gradually sought their couches in bunks and truckle-beds. The man was relating incidents of the trapping to his wife, who nodded understandingly. Beaver were getting plentiful along the upper reaches of the Roaring; it was a pity that the law prevented their killing for such a long time. He had seen tracks of caribou, that are scarce in that region; but they were very old tracks, not worth following, since these animals are such great travelers. During this conversation Madge would listen, at times, and turn towards the door. She had a vague idea that Ennis might come, since the boy's account had been somewhat reassuring. When she finally went to bed behind an improvised screen in a corner of the big living-room, she was long unable to sleep, owing to obsessing thoughts that wouldn't be banished. Over and over again she reminded herself of all that had happened. It stood to reason that the man had written those letters; how could it be otherwise? The proofs in her hands were too conclusive to permit her to pay any heed to his denials. The amazing thing was that when one looked at him it became harder and harder to believe him capable of such wrongdoing. As she tossed in her bed she began to be assailed with doubts. These worried her exceedingly. He had firmly asserted his innocence. Supposing that he was telling the truth, what then? In such a case, impossible as it seemed, she had accused him unjustly, and her conduct towards him had been unpardonable. And then she had refused to listen to him, when he had sought to begin some sort of explanation. Why shouldn't one believe a man with such frank and honest eyes, one who wouldn't harm even a dog and was loved and trusted by little children? Of course, it was quite unintentionally that she had wounded his body, but if he chanced to be innocent she had also wounded his feelings, deeply, in spite of which he had seemed sorry for her, and had been very kind. He had promised to come again to give her further help. If he was guilty it was but a sorry attempt to make slight amends. If he was not at fault, it showed that he was a mighty fine man. Madge felt that she would rather believe in his innocence, in spite of the fact that if he could prove it she would be covered with confusion. "It seems to me that I ought to have given him that opportunity he was seeking," she told herself, rather miserably. Before she fell asleep she decided that on the morrow she would walk over to his shack if he did not turn up in the forenoon. He might be in want of care, in spite of what the small boy had said. If he was all right she would sit down and question him. The letters she had received were in her bag; she would show them to him. Now that she thought of it, the curious, ill-formed, hesitating character of the writing seemed utterly out of keeping with the man's apparent nature. He ought to have written strongly and boldly, it seemed to her. Gradually she was becoming certain that his word of honor that he had never penned them, or caused some one else to do it for him, would suffice to change the belief she had held. Yes--she would go there, even before noon. If she met him on the road they could as well speak out in the open air. And if she could be sure that she had been mistaken in regard to him, she would beg his pardon, because he had tried to be good to her, with little encouragement on her part. She--she didn't want him to think afterwards--when everything would be ended, that she had been ungrateful and unjust. Of course, the great effort had failed; nearly everything was ended now and there were no steps that could be retraced. Someone had been very wicked and cruel, that was certain. But she didn't care who it was; it could make no difference. She really hoped it was not Hugo Ennis. In the darkness her tense features relaxed and her body felt greater ease. Finally her eyes closed and she slept. CHAPTER IX For the Good Name of Carcajou The morning came clear and somewhat warmer. Beyond the serrated edges of the woodlands covering far-away hills were masses of sunlit rolling clouds that seemed as if they were utterly immovable and piled up as a background to the purpling beauty of the mountains. Madge awoke early. Outside the house the dogs were stirring, the two young ones chasing one another over the snow and rolling over it while the others nosed about more sedately. She heard a ponderous yawn from Papineau, on the other side of the slender partition, and a general scurrying of small feet and the moving of washbasins. When she came out Mrs. Papineau had already kindled the wood in the fireplace and was stirring the hot embers in the stove. From without she heard sounds of lusty chopping. She wrapped a borrowed knitted scarf about her neck and put on Hugo's woolen _tuque_, after which she stepped out. There was a wondrous brilliancy over the world. On trees hung icicles that took on the appearance of gems. The cold air made her breathe so deeply that she felt amazingly strong and well. The oldest boy's smiting with his axe came in thumps that awakened a little echo, coming from over there where the river narrowed down between high banks. It was very wonderful; it gave one a desire to live; it seemed a pity that one must so soon say good-by to all this. It--it was perhaps better not to think of that just now. She went indoors again. There were potatoes to be peeled and the girl, in spite of protests, took up a knife and went to work. It was such a pleasure to do something to help. Indeed she had been idle too long, allowing these people to do everything for her while she crouched disconsolately in warm corners. At present all the weariness and weakness seemed to have left her. It was just like a fresh beginning instead of the ending of a life. It would have made her happy to think that, somewhere in the world, providing it were away from the city, she might have found honest work to do in exchange for some of this wonderful peace. If she could only have remained among these gentle and placid people and let her existence flow on, easily, without pain and the constant worry for the morrow. It was like some marvelous dream from which she was compelled to awaken at once, for she realized that there was no place for her in this household. The older children were already of the greatest assistance to their parents, and there was no room for her in the crowded shack. She had caused these people some inconvenience, which they had accepted cheerfully, it was true, but which she could not keep on inflicting on them. But for some hours--some blessed hours, she could play at being happy and pretend that life was sweet. She could smile now, when these people spoke to her, and she hugged some of the little ones without apparent reason. "You stay 'ere some more day," Mrs. Papineau told her, "an' den you look lak' oder gal sure. Get fat an' lose de black roun' you h'eyes. You now a tousan' time better as ven you come, you bet. Dis a fine coontree, Canada, for peoples get strong an' hoongree an' work 'ard an' sleep good." "It's a perfectly beautiful and wonderful country," cried the girl, enthusiastically. "I--I wish I could always live here." "You one so prettee gal," commented the good woman. "Some day you fin' one good 'usban' an' marry an' h'always lif in dis coontree. Den you is happy and strong. Plenty mans in dis coontree want wife to 'elp an' mak' good 'ome. It one h'awful big lan'." Yes, there was any amount of room in this great country. And the woman wanted her to go and find a good husband! Well, she had come far to seek one. It--it had not been a pleasant experience. She saw herself wandering about this wilderness looking for another man who would take her to wife. Oh, the shame of it--the hot flashing of her cheeks when she thought of it! No, she was now looking on all this as a pauper looks into the shop-front displaying the warm clothing that would keep the bitter cold from him, or as starvelings of big cities, through the windows of great restaurants and hostelries, stare upon the well-fed people sating themselves with an abundance of good cheer. She must remain outside and now the end of it all was near. They had their breakfast, during which Mrs. Papineau said that she was becoming anxious about Hugo. Presently she would send one of the children again. Papineau wouldn't do because he knew nothing about sick people. She would go over there herself soon. If he was sick she would bring him a loaf of bread. It would soon be ready to bake; the dough was still rising behind the stove. There might be other things to be attended to. Not more than an hour would elapse before she was ready to go. She remarked that men were a very helpless lot whenever they were ill, and became grumpy and took feminine tact to manage. The feeling of anxiety that had gradually come over the girl became deeper. If the man was ill, it was her fault. What had possessed her to spend some of her scant store of money in that dirty little shop for a pistol? Of course, she realized that a vague feeling of danger had guided her--that the thing could be a means of defense or offer a way to end her troubles. And it had only served to injure a man who, if he had sinned against her, manifested at any rate some desire to treat her kindly. But the thought that he might not be guilty returned to her, insistently. It was on her part a change of thought that was not due to carefully reasoned considerations, to any deep study of conditions, for when she tried to argue the matter out she became involved in a thousand contradictions and her head would begin to ache in dizzy fashion. Rather it was some sort of instinct, one of the conclusions so often and quickly reached by the feminine mind and apt, in spite of everything, to prove accurate and reliable. "Mrs. Papineau," she said, suddenly, "I think I will go over there now. I--I have rested long enough and the fresh air will be good for me. I will come back very soon, I suppose, but if--if Mr. Ennis should be ill you will find me there." Her proposal was assented to without the slightest objection. The good woman insisted on furnishing her with footwear better suited to the tote-road than the boots she wore. On the trail the snow would be fairly well beaten down and there would be little need of snowshoes if she picked her way carefully. She could not lose her way. Still, it might be as well for one of the children to go with her. People who were not used to the woods sometimes strayed off a trail and got in trouble. Under escort of the second oldest girl Madge started, briskly. She had covered but a short distance before she wondered that she felt so strong and well. The plain substantial food she had eaten and the bright, stimulating air were filling her with a new life. She walked along quite fast, for she was now anxious to see this man again. If she had been wrong she wanted to make amends. But what if he were very ill? She thought of the lonely little shack and the lack of any comfort and care within it. He might be lying there helplessly, with only a dog for a companion. At every turn of the little road she looked ahead, keenly, thinking that perhaps she might meet him on his way to the Papineau's. As she hurried on she felt that the house had perhaps been too warm and it was splendid to be walking beneath the snow-laden trees, to see the little clouds of her breath going out into the frosty air and to hear the crackling of the clean snow under her feet. The child was walking sturdily at her side and told her of some Christmas presents Hugo had brought. It was evident that to the children of that family he was a very wonderful being, a sort of Santa Claus who had done his full duty and one to be forever after welcomed with joyous shrieks. And father said he was a very good shot, and Stefan Olsen, the big man, thought there was no one like him. And he could sing songs and tell stories, wonderful stories. Madge, as she listened to the girl, suddenly wondered whether it was not possible that the loneliness of such a life might not in some way have disturbed the man's mind, at least temporarily. Wasn't it possible for one, in such a case, to do queer things and never remember anything about them afterwards? No one better than she knew what a terrible and maddening thing loneliness was. She recollected distracting hours spent in little hall-bedrooms while she tried to mend, after an exhausting day's work, the poor clothing that wore out so terribly soon, and how at times she had felt that she must be becoming crazy. "But no! He couldn't have done it. He--he's a very quiet sensible man, I should think, and--and he wouldn't hurt even a dog," she repeated to herself. They were journeying quite fast over the trail that snaked along through the woods, bending here and there in order to avoid boulders and stumps and fallen trees but always coming in sight of the frozen river again. At times Madge trudged through rather deep snow. Also she stubbed her toes upon rocks and stumbled over branches broken off by the great gales of winter. But it really wasn't very hard. And the child kept on chattering about Monsieur Hugo and asking eager questions about the big city. Was it true that as far as one could see there were houses standing right up against one another for miles and miles, and that people swarmed in them as do the wild bees in hollow trees? It was natural for bees to do such things, and for ants, and for the minnows in shoals down in the river, but why did people have to crowd in such a way? How could they breathe? Finally they came in sight of the shack and the child gave a swift glance. "No smoke, mees," she said. "Heem go away, or mebbe heem seek." Madge hurried along faster for an instant, and then stopped short. What if neither of the child's conclusions was correct? If she went over there and knocked at the door he might come out, looking rather surprised. She had told him that she had come to Carcajou, looking for an unknown husband, for a man she was willing to accept under certain conditions, just because her life had become intolerable. He might lift his brow and perhaps ask her quite civilly to come in. But what would he think? Would he imagine that she was running after him and trying to compel him to marry her? It was not alone the frost that brought color to her cheeks now. No, it would never do. "I think I will wait here," she told the little girl. "Will you please go and find out if Mr. Ennis is there, and whether he is all right again? I'll sit down on this log and wait till you come back." The child looked rather puzzled but she ran down the path that led to the cabin. Madge saw her stopping in front of the door, at which she knocked. She heard her call out and then wait, as if listening. At once came Maigan's voice. He was barking but the sound was not an angry one. Rather it sounded plaintively. Finally the girl pulled the door open, after fumbling at the latch, and the dog ran out, barking again and rolling in the snow. Then he sniffed the air and discovered Madge, at once running towards her and pushing his muzzle in her hand. She stroked his head and he ran back, going but a few steps and turning around to see if she followed. She rose slowly, a sense of fear coming over her, and hesitatingly went down the path also. At this moment the child came out, looking frightened, and hastened over to her. "Heem seek--very seek," she cried, and Madge found herself running now, with her heart beating and her breath coming fast. The terrifying idea came to her that perhaps he was dead. But as she entered the place the man rose painfully on his bunk. His face was amazingly pale and his features drawn--hardly recognizable. "Sorry, must beg your pardon--I intended to come over," he told her, hoarsely. "It--it's some silly sort of a fever. I--I'll be better pretty soon. It's that blessed arm of mine, I think, and--and I'm frightfully thirsty. If--if you'll ask the kid...." Madge peered about her, but there was no water in sight. Even if there had been any she knew it would have frozen solid in the fireless shack whose interior had struck a chill through her. She seized a pail. "Where does one get it?" she asked. "Or do you have to melt ice?" "There's a spring. It's halfway down to the pool. Never quite freezes over. Let that girl go for it, Miss Nelson. Or--or I may go myself in a minute. Only waiting till--till my teeth stop chattering. Then I can light--light the fire and--and make hot tea. It--it's such a stupid nuisance and--and I'm giving you a lot of bother." But Madge ran out of the shack and down to that spring, where the clear water seemed to be boiling out of the ground, since a little cloud of steam rose from it. But it was just pure icy water and she filled the pail and hurried back with it. When she returned the child was efficiently engaged in making a fire in the little stove. The man had sunk down on his bunk again and she went up to him. His teeth were no longer chattering, but his cheekbones now bore patches of deep red. When she ventured to touch his hand, she found that it was burning hot. At this an awful, distressing, unreasoning fear came upon her. She--she had killed this man, for--for he certainly was going to die, she thought. Even in the big hospital she had never seen a face more strongly stamped with the marks of impending death. It was frightful! She gave him water which he drank greedily, calling for more. She had to hold the cup, since his hand shook too badly. Dully, feeling stricken with a great desolation, she prepared some tea and gave it to him. She had found some biscuits in a box but he refused to eat anything. Presently he was lying flat again on his bunk, with his eyes closed, and when she spoke he made no answer. But he was breathing, she noted. Perhaps he had fallen asleep. It might do him a great deal of good, she thought. The child had thrown herself down on the floor, next to Maigan, who was stretched out at length, enjoying the welcome heat of the stove. From time to time the animal lifted his head and looked towards his master anxiously. He knew that something was all wrong, but now that these other people had come everything would doubtless be made all right. For some time Madge kept still, sitting down on a stool she had drawn to the side of the bunk. She had the resigned patience innate in so many women, but presently she could stand it no longer. Something must be done at once. Valuable time was passing and no help was being obtained. Things simply couldn't go on this way! Rising again she called the child. "We must go and get a doctor at once," she whispered, breathlessly. "I--I'm horribly afraid. Come outside with me." She caught the little girl's arm in her impatience, and took her out. "Your--your friend, Monsieur Hugo, is dreadfully ill, do you understand, child? I heard your mother say that one could telegraph from Carcajou for a doctor. We've got to do it! How long would it take me to get there?" The girl was evidently scared, but she looked at Madge with some of the practical sense of one versed with the difficulties of life in the wilds. "If you 'lone you never get dere. If Maigan work for you maybe three-four hour," answered the child. "Heem go a leetle way den turn back for de shack. No leave master." There came upon Madge a dreadful feeling of helplessness. The man looked terribly ill; she felt that he was probably going to die. This great wilderness suddenly grew as wicked in her eyes as that of the city. Nay, it was even worse. She remembered how ill she had become and how she had struggled to fight off the sickness, in a little lone room of a top floor. But as soon as people had come she had been bundled away to the hospital. A wagon had come, with a doctor in a white coat, and they had clattered off. The people in the hospital had seemed interested, indifferent, friendly, according to their several dispositions, but she had been taken care of, and fed, and washed, and some of the nurses had sweet faces, after all, and after a time she had recovered. All this had seemed rather terrible at the time, but what was it compared to this lying desperately ill in a freezing hut, too feeble to procure even the cup of water craved by a dry tongue and lips that were parched? "I can surely walk that distance," she cried, but the child shook her head again. "You no good for walk far," she asserted. "You jus' fall down dead. Twelve mile and snow deep some place. Moch cole as freeze you quick when tired." "Then what's to be done?" asked Madge, entering the house again, followed by the child. "I think I ought to try to get to Carcajou." "Please don't," said the man, hoarsely, looking as if he had awakened suddenly, and lifting himself up on one elbow painfully. "I'll--I'll be all right to-morrow, sure--surest thing you know, and--and I'll take you down myself, with old--old Maigan." "Please hurry back to your house and tell your mother to come over as soon as she can," Madge told the child. "Perhaps your father could go. I didn't think of it at first." "Now you spik' lak' you know someting," said the girl, with refreshing frankness. "I 'urry all right. Get modder quick." She started, her little legs flying over the snow, and Madge closed the door again. She put a little more wood in the stove and sat down by the bunk. The man's eyes were closed again. It was strange that he had heard her so distinctly, and that he had gathered the impression that she wanted to get to Carcajou on her own account. And--and he had said he would take her himself. Again his first thought had been to do something for her, to be of service to her. One of his hands was lying outside the blankets, and instinctively Madge placed her own upon it. She was frightened to feel how hot it was. The pulse her fingers sought was beating wildly. She felt glad that she was there. The man didn't care for her and she--well, she supposed that she disliked him, but she wasn't going to let him die there alone in a corner, like a wounded animal in some obscure den among the rocks. For the moment her own troubles were pretty nearly forgotten, for there was something for her to do. She had been but a useless by-product of humanity in the great melting pot of the world and had proved incapable of rising above the dross and making even a poor place for herself. But this man was young and strong and able, bearing all the marks of one destined to be of use. He had looked splendid in his efficient and sturdy manhood and therefore there was something wrong, utterly wrong and against the course of nature in his being about to be snuffed out before her very eyes, just because she had dropped that abominable pistol. It--it just couldn't be! She leaned forward again and looked upon his face, that was ashen under the coating of tan. Once he opened his eyes and looked at her, but the lids closed down again and once more she became obsessed by the idea that she might have been very unjust to him, that she had perhaps insulted and wronged him. All at once the face she was looking at became blurred, but it was because she saw it through a mist of gathering tears. It had been easy, when she had bought that pistol, to think of killing a man; now it seemed frightful, abominable, and the resentment she had felt against the man was turning against herself in spite of the fact that it had been an accident, just a miserable accident. Long minutes, forty or fifty of them, went by as she waited and listened. But presently Maigan, that had laid his head in her lap and was looking at her pitifully, as if he had been begging her to help the man he loved, rose suddenly and dashed to the door, barking. It proved to be Papineau and his wife, who was very breathless. The man came in, looked at Hugo and rushed out again. He took the time to exchange his toboggan for Hugo's, which was lighter and to which he hitched his three powerful dogs. Madge went to him. "You'll hurry, won't you?" she cried. "I--I'm afraid, I'm horribly afraid. Don't--don't come back without a doctor will you?" "You bet de life, mees, I make dem dog 'urry plenty moch. Yes, ma'am, you bet!" he repeated, calmly, but looking at her with the strong steely eyes that seemed peculiar to these men of the great North. He ran with his team up the path. When he reached the tote-road the girl saw that he had jumped on the sled, which was tearing away to the southward. Within the shack Mrs. Papineau busied herself in many ways, placing things in order and fussing about the stove, upon which she had placed a pot containing more herbs she had brought with her. Every few minutes she interrupted her work in order to take another look at Hugo. Once or twice Madge saw a big tear roll down her fat cheeks, which she swiftly wiped off with her sleeve. A little later she managed to make the man swallow some of her concoction. He appeared to obey unconsciously, but when she spoke to him he just babbled something which neither of the women understood. Finally the Frenchwoman sat down at the side of Madge, snuffling a little, and began to whisper. "Big strong man one day," she commented, "an' dis day seek an' weak lak one leetle child. Eet is de way so strange of de Providence. It look lak de good Lord make one fine man, fines' Heem can make--a man as should get de love of vomans an' leetle children--an' den Heem mak up his min' for to tak heem avay. An' Heem good Lord know why, but I tink I better pray. Maybe de good Lord Heem 'ear an' tink let heem lif a whiles yet, eh?" And so the woman knelt down and repeated prayers, for the longest time, speaking hurriedly the invocations she had all her life, known by heart, and ending each one with the devout crossing of her breast. Then Madge, for the first time in a very long while, remembered words she had so often heard in the little village church at home, which promised that whenever two or three were gathered together in the name of the Lord, He would be among them. Yes, she had heard that assurance often in the place of worship she could now see so vividly, in which the open windows, on summer days, let in the droning of the bees and the scent of honeysuckle outside. So she knelt beside the other woman and began to pray also, haltingly, in words that came well-nigh unbidden because they were the call of a heart in sore travail which had long forgotten how to pray for itself. And it seemed as if the great Power above must surely be listening. Finally Mrs. Papineau rose. She was compelled to go back home and see that the children were fed. She promised she would return in a short time. The doctor would certainly not come before night, perhaps not even until early morning, for he would be compelled to make a journey on the train. Papineau would wait for him, of course. As soon as he had sent the message he would give the dogs a good feed and they would be ready for the return. Then when the doctor turned up, Papineau would rush him to Roaring River, and--and if the Lord was willing he might be able to do something, providing.... But she had to interrupt herself to wipe away another big tear. She placed a hand upon the girl's shoulder, seeking to encourage her a little, and started off, her heavy footsteps crackling over the snow. Then silence came again, but for the hurried breathing of the sick man and the occasional sighs of Maigan, who refused food offered to him. Madge forced herself to eat a little, dimly realizing that for a time there might be need of all her strength. After this she sat down again, feeling crushed with the sense of her helplessness and with the thought of the terribly long hours that must elapse before the doctor could arrive. Once Hugo seemed to awaken, as if from a sleep. The hand that had lain so still seemed to grope, searchingly, and she placed her own upon it. "Take you over--all right--to-morrow," he said. "It--it's a pity, because--because you're so--so good and kind, now," he muttered. "She--she thinks I--I'm the dirt under her feet. Ain't--ain't you there, Stefan?" His eyes searched the room for a moment. Then, with a look of disappointment, his head sagged down on the pillow again and he lay quiet for a long time, till he began to mutter words that were disconnected and meaningless to her. The noon hour came and went, with a glowing sun that shone brightly over the snow and tinted the mist from the great falls with the colors of the rainbow. But Madge did not see it, for within the little shack the panes were dimmed by the frost. The stove crackled and spat, with the sudden little explosions of wood fires. Close to it one felt very warm but the heat did not extend far, since the cold seemed to be seeking ever to penetrate the room, making its way beneath the door and through some of the chinked spaces between the logs. It affected Madge now as a sort of enemy, this cold that seemed to be on the watch for victims. It was one of the things that were always rising up in order to crush struggling men and women. Another hour elapsed, that had been cruelly long, when Maigan suddenly leaped up and stood before the door, with hair bristling all over him and standing like a ridge along his back. He scratched furiously and looked back, as if demanding to be let out, and kept up a long, ominous growl that was very different from his usual bark. Madge went to the door, feeling very uneasy. She opened it, after slipping her hand under Maigan's collar. Upon the tote-road she saw a large sled that had been drawn by a pair of strong, shaggy horses, which a man was blanketing. From where she stood she heard confused voices of men and women, all of whom were strangers to her. They seemed to be consulting together. Finally they came down the path towards the shack, nine or ten of them, walking slowly and looking grim and unfriendly. Maigan was now barking fiercely and Madge had to struggle with him to prevent his dashing out towards them. CHAPTER X Stefan Runs Philippe Papineau rode nearly all the way on the toboggan, sparing the dogs only in the hardest places on rising ground. The animals had been well-fed on the previous night and the trip around the trapping line had not been a hard one. It represented but a mere fifty miles or so, over which they had only hauled one man's food in three days, with his blankets and a small shelter-tent he used when forced to stop away from one of the small huts he had built on the line. In fact, there had been little need of three dogs, but Papineau had taken them because it kept up their training. In the pink of condition, therefore, the team bade fair to equal Stefan's best performances. The Frenchman was within sight of the smokestack rising from Carcajou's sawmill when he opened his eyes, widely. A pair of horses was coming along the old road, drawing a big sled. As the old lumber trail was used only by dog-teams, as a rule, this surprised him. A moment later he clucked at his dogs, which drew to one side, and the horses, from whose shaggy bodies a cloud of steam was rising, came abreast of him. The sled stopped. "Hello there, Papineau!" called one of the men. "Going in for provisions? Thought you hauled in a barrel of flour last week." "Uh huh," assented Philippe, non-committally. "Is that fellow Ennis over to his shack?" asked McIntosh, the squaw-man. "Uh huh," repeated the settler. "D'ye happen to know whether there's a--a young 'ooman there too?" "Vat you vant wid dat gal?" asked Papineau this time. "We're just goin' visitin', like," Pat Kilrea informed him. "It's sure a fine day for a ride in the country. And so that there young 'ooman's been up there a matter o' three-four days, ain't she?" "I tink so," assented Philippe. "D'ye know who she is?" asked Mrs. Kilrea, a severe looking and angular woman. "Sure, heem gal is friend o' Hugo," answered the Frenchman, simply. "Mebbe you better no go to-day. Hugo heem seek. I got to 'urry, so good-by." He lashed his dogs on again, while Pat cracked his whip and the party went on. Mrs. Kilrea was looking rather horrified, thought Sophy McGurn. Her turn was coming at last. There would be a scene that would repay her for her trouble, she gleefully decided. As they went on at a steady pace, over a road which none but horses inured to lumbering could have followed without breaking a leg or getting hopelessly stalled in deep snow, Philippe hurried over to the station and got Joe Follansbee to send a telegram. The young man would have given a good deal to have made one of the party but his official duties detained him. "Who wants a doctor?" he asked, curiously. "Hugo," answered Papineau, impatiently. "You don't h'ask so moch question, you fellar. Jus' telegraph quick now an' h'ask for answer ven dat _docteur_ he come, you 'ear me?" Joe looked at the Frenchman, intending to resent his sharp orders, but thought better of it. The small, square-built, wide-shouldered man was not one to be trifled with. He was known as a calm, cool sort of a chap with little sense of humor, and the youth reflected that, in this neck of the woods, it was best not to trifle with men who were apt to end a quarrel by fighting over an acre of ground and mauling one another until one or both parties were utterly unrecognizable, even to their best friends. "Come back in about an hour and I expect I'll have an answer," he told the Frenchman, quite meekly. The latter went into McGurn's store and purchased some tobacco and a few needed groceries. Suddenly he bethought himself of Stefan. "_Mon Dieu!_" he exclaimed. "Heem ought know right avay, sure." He drove his team around to Stefan's smithy but failed to find him. At the house Mrs. Olsen told him that her husband had gone out a half an hour ago. He would probably be at Olaf Jonson's, at the other end of the village. Thither drove Philippe and found his man. "'Ello, Stefan, want for see you right avay," said the trapper. "Come 'long!" The Swede hastened to him. "Vat it iss, Philippe?" he asked, eyeing the dogs expertly. "Py de looks off tem togs I tink you ban in some hurry, no?" "Uh huh! I come to telegraph for de _docteur_. Hugo heem 'urted h'awful bad. Look lak' heem die, mebbe." Stefan bellowed out an oath and began running towards his house at a tremendous gait. Papineau jumped on his toboggan and followed, only catching up after they had gone a couple of hundred yards. When they reached Olsen's, the latter went in, shouted out the news and came out again. With the help of Papineau he hitched up his own great team of five. "Tank you for lettin' me know, Papineau," he said. "I get ofer dere so tam qvick you don't belief, I tank. So long!" "'Old 'ard! 'Old 'ard!" shouted the Frenchman. "Vat for you tink Pat Kilrea an' McIntosh, an' Prouty an' Kerrigan and more, an' also vomans is goin' up dere to de Falls? Dey say go visitin'. Dey don't nevaire go make visits before dat vay. An' dey h'ask me all 'bout de _demoiselle_, de gal vat is up dere, an' I see Mis' Kilrea an' Kerrigan's voman look one de oder in de face. Look mean lak' de devil, dem vomans! I dunno, but I tink dey up to no good, dem crowd. If I no have to stay for _docteur_ I go right back qvick. D'ye tink dey vant ter bodder Hugo, or de lady, Stefan?" The latter swore again. "If dey bodder 'em I tvists all dere necks like chickens, I tank," he cried, excitedly. "How long ago did they leave?" "Vell, most a h'our, now, I tink, and dem's Kerrigan's horses, as is five year olds an' stronk lak' de devil. Dey run good on de five-mile flat, dey do, sure, an' odder places vhere snow is pack nice." This time Stefan didn't answer. He shouted at his team, that started on the run, but Zeb Foraker's St. Bernard, who could lick any dog in Carcajou singly, chanced to leap over the garden fence and come at them. In a moment a half dozen dogs were piled up in a fight. Stefan stepped into the snarl. A moment later he had the biggest animal, that was supposed to weigh close to two hundred, by the tail. With a wonderful heave he lifted it up and swung it over his master's fence into a leafless copper beach that graced the plot, whence the animal fell to the ground, looking dazed. It took several minutes to straighten out the tangled traces and the leader was hopelessly lame. He had to be taken out and left at home. All the time Stefan's language brought scared faces to the windows of neighboring shacks. It was a good thing, probably, that few people in Carcajou understood Swedish. Still, from the sound of it they judged that it must be something pretty bad. Finally he was off again, lacking the smartest animal in his team. The others, however, probably considered that this was no occasion for further bad behavior and old Jennie, mother of three of the bunch, led it without making any serious mistakes. For the life of him Stefan couldn't conceive why anyone should want to bother Hugo or the pretty lady. It was the very strangeness and mystery of the thing that aroused him. He never entertained the idea that Papineau was mistaken. The Frenchman was a fine smart fellow, one who loved Hugo, and a man not given to idle notions or to exaggeration. If he thought there was something wrong this must be the case. On a long upgrade he ran at the side of his dogs, his great chest heaving at the tremendous effort. On the level he rode, urging the animals on and keeping his eyes on the tracks of the horses and sleigh, while his strong stern face seemed immovably frozen into an expression of grim determination. Anyone who touched his friend Hugo would have to reckon with him, indeed. The man was one of the few beings he cared for, like his wife or the young ones. Such a friendship was a possession, something he owned, a treasure he would not be robbed of and was prepared to defend, as he would have defended his little hoard of money, the home he had built, with the berserker fury of his ancestors. He was conscious of his might, conscious that there were few men on earth who could stand up against him in the rough and tumble fighting current in the far wilderness. He knew that he could go through such a crowd as was threatening his friend like a devastating cyclone through a cornfield. "If dey's qviet un' reasonable I don't 'urt nobotty but yoost tell 'em git out of here, tarn qvick," he projected. "But if dem mens is up to anything rough I hope dey says dere prayers alretty, because I yoost bust 'em all up, you bet." The team was pulling hard, the breaths coming out in swift little puffs from their nostrils. Sometimes they walked, with tongues hanging out, while again they trotted easily, or, down the hills, galloped with the long easy lope of their wolfish ancestors. And Stefan calculated the speed the horses could have made here, and again over there. By the tracks he saw where they had trotted along good ground, or toiled more slowly over rough places. The man grinned when he came to spots where they must have proceeded very slowly with the heavy sleigh, and his brows corrugated when he saw that they had speeded up again. "Dey drive tern horses fast," he reflected. "Dey don't vant trafel dis road back in dark, sure ting, to break dere necks. Dey vant make qvick vork. But I ban goin' some, too, you bet." He was taking man's eternal pleasure in swift motion, yet the anxiety remained with him that he might not catch up with them before they arrived. He knew that nothing could take place if he were there a minute before them. But if he was a minute late, what then? When this idea recurred, his face would take on its grim expression, the look wherewith Vikings once struck terror among their enemies. He hoped for the sake of that crowd that he might not be late, as well as for the good of his friend, for he would crush them, the men at any rate, and send the women trudging home, wishing they had never been born. In him the two individualities that make up nearly every human being swung and seesawed. The kind-hearted, helpful, considerate man kept on surging upward, in the trust that his arrival would avert all trouble. Then this phase of his being would pass off and the great primal creature would take its place and come uppermost, with lustful ideas of vengeance, visions in which everything was tinged with red, and then his great voice would ring out in the still woods and the dogs would pull desperately, with never a pause, and the toboggan would slither and slide and groan, and the crunching snow seemed to complain, and the masses of snow suspended to great hemlocks and firs dropped down suddenly, with thuds that were like the echoes of great smiting clubs. When again he ran beside the dogs, in a long pull uphill, the sense of personal effort comforted him. He was doing something. Once the toe of one of his snowshoes caught in the snaky root of a big spruce and he fell ponderously, without a word, and picked himself up again. Dimly he was conscious that it had injured him a little, but he scarcely felt it. It was like some hurt received in the heat and passion of battle, that a man never really feels till the excitement has passed. His team had kept on, galloping fast, but he never called to them, knowing that harder ground would presently slow them. And he ran on, his great limbs appearing to possess the strength of machinery wrought of steel and iron, while his enormous chest hoarsely drew in and cast forth great clouds. But he was not working beyond his power, merely getting the best he knew out of the thews that made him more efficient than most men, when it came to the toil of the wilds. He knew better than to play himself out so that he would arrive exhausted and unable to contend with the whole of his might. He was conscious as he ran that he would arrive nearly unbreathed and ready for any fray. And after he had swept off the intruders he would look upon the face of his friend, the man who for months had shared food with him, and the scented bedding of the woods, and the toil, and the downpours, and the clouds of black flies and mosquitoes, and who had always smiled through fair days and foul, and who, at the risk of his life, had saved him. And that friendship was so strong that it must help the sick man. How could one be ill with a friend near by who had so much strength to give away, such determination to make all things well, such fierce power to contend with all inimical things? He would take him in his arms and bid him be of good cheer and courage, and the man would respond, would smile, would feel that strength being added to his own, so that he would soon be well again. All this might be deepest folly, and was not formulated as we have been compelled to put it down in these pages. Rather it was but a simple trust, a faith based on love and hope, a belief originating in the mind of one of a nature so trusting and inclined to goodness that until the last moment he would never believe in the victory of powers of evil. So Stefan caught up with his dogs again and stepped on the toboggan, without stopping them, and the great trunks of forest giants seemed to slip by him swiftly, while here and there, by dint of some formation of hillside or gorge, his ears grew conscious of the far-away roar of the great falls. From a little summit he saw the cloud of rising vapor, all of a mile away. At every turn he peered ahead, keenly disappointed on each occasion, for the party was not in sight. So he urged the dogs faster. The big sleigh must surely be just ahead, beyond the next turn. "Oh, if dey touch one hair of de head of Hugo, den God pity dem!" he cried out. And the dogs ran on, more swiftly than ever, breathing easily still in spite of the nearly three hundred pounds of manhood they drew, and the roar of the falls became more distinct, while to the right, away down below, the river swirled under the groaning ice and sped past wildly, towards the east and the south, as if seeking to save itself from the embrace of the North. CHAPTER XI A Visit Cut Short Like the great majority of the denizens of the wilderness, Maigan could be a steadfast friend or a bitter enemy. He would readily have given his life for the one and torn the other asunder. Not being very far removed from a wolfish ancestry he was necessarily suspicious, intolerant at first of strangers and prepared to use his clean and cutting fangs at the shortest notice. But he was also more cautious than the dog of civilization and less apt to blurt his feelings right out. After his first outburst he appeared to quiet down, growling but a very little, very low, and stood at the girl's side, watchful and ready for immediate action. Madge stood on the wooden step that had been cleared of snow, in front of the little door of rough planks. She watched the people coming in Indian file down the path that had been beaten down in the deep snow. For a moment she had thought that they might be bringing help, that miraculously a doctor had been found at once, that these people were friends eager to help, to remove the sick man to Carcajou and thence to some hospital further down the railway line. But such people would have cried out inquiries. They would have come with some shout of greeting. But these newcomers came along without a word until their leader was but a few yards away, when he stopped and looked at the girl during a moment's silence. "Where's Hugo Ennis?" he finally asked, gruffly. "He is in the shack," replied the girl, timidly. "He is dreadfully ill and lying on his bunk." "What's the matter with him?" "He was shot--shot by accident, and now I'm afraid that he is going to die." "Well, I'll go in and see. We'll all go in. We're mighty cold after that long ride. Stand aside!" "I think you might go in," the girl told him, still blocking the way, "but the others must not. I--I won't allow him to be disturbed. Don't--don't you understand me? I'm telling you that he's dying. I--I won't have him disturbed. And--and who are you? You don't look like a friend of his. What's your purpose in coming here?" The first feeling of timidity that had seized her seemed to have left her utterly. There remained to her but an instinct--a will to defend the man, to protect him from unwarranted intrusion, and she spoke with authority. But another of the visitors addressed her. "We're folks belongin' to these townships," he said. "What we want to know is who you are, and what right ye've got to order us about and say who's goin' in and who's to keep out?" Something in his words caused her cheeks to burn, but strangely enough she felt quite calm and strong in her innocence of any evil, and she answered quietly enough. "My name is Madge Nelson, if you want to know, and I am here at this moment because I am taking care of Mr. Ennis. I feel responsible for his welfare and will continue until he is better and able to speak for himself, or--or until he is dead. I repeat that one of you may come in--but no more." It appeared that her manner impressed the men to some extent, if not the three women who crowded behind. One of the visitors was scratching the back of his neck. "Look a-here, Aleck, I reckon that gal is talking sense, if Hugo's real bad like she says. We ain't got no call to butt in an' make him worse. I know when Mirandy was sick the Doc he told me ter take a club if I had to, to keep folks out. Let Pat Kilrea go in if he wants to an' we'll stay outside an' wait." "Sure, that's right enough," said old man Prouty. Pat advanced, but Maigan began to growl. "Say, young 'ooman, I'll bash that dog's head in if you don't keep him still," he said, truculently. "Keep a holt of him." Madge pulled the dog back and quieted him. "Be good, Maigan," she said. "It's all right, old fellow." She entered the shack behind Pat Kilrea and closed the door. In doing this she meant no offense to the others, who didn't mind, knowing that with a cold of some twenty below people don't care for an excess of ventilation. They stood, the men silently, the women putting their heads together and whispering. "Ain't she the brazen sassy thing?" remarked Mrs. Kilrea. "Guess she ain't no better'n she should be," opined Sophy, acidly, as she watched the door keenly. Pat Kilrea went to the bunk and for an instant considered the sick man's face. Then he scratched his head again. "Hello, Hugo!" he finally called out. "What's the matter with ye? Ain't--ain't tryin' to hide behind a gal's skirts, are ye?" His arm was seized from behind. The girl's eyes flashed at him. "I--I don't know who you are!" she exclaimed. "But if--if you say such things I'll turn that dog on you, so help me God!" "I--I don't reckon as I meant it," stammered Pat. "He--he does look turriple sick, now me eyes is gettin' used to the light. Why, why don't you speak, man?" But the sufferer on the bunk made no answer save in some low fast words that were disconnected and meaningless. Slowly, nearly tenderly, Pat touched a hand that felt burning hot and a forehead that was moist and clammy. Then he turned to the girl again. "Well, I must say I'm sorry," he acknowledged. "Looks to me like he was done for. What are ye goin' to do for him? We--we didn't reckon to find nothin' like this when we come, though Papineau told us he were sick." "Mr. Papineau's errand was to telegraph for the doctor," she replied, with a hand pressed to her bosom. "At--at first, when I heard you coming, I thought he had perhaps arrived and--and that you were intending to take him away. Do--do you really think he's going to die?" "Well, I'm scared it looks a good deal that way. Of course we might be able to take him in the sleigh, but--but he don't look much as if he could stand the trip--does he?--an'--an' I don't reckon we can do much good stayin' round here either." He stepped over to the door and opened it. "That gal's right," he said. "Hugo looks desperate sick." "Sure it ain't nothin' that's ketchin', are ye?" asked his wife, drawing back a little. "I didn't never hear that pistol bullets was contagious," he answered. "But who did it?" cried McIntosh. "And--and how d'ye know 'twas just an accident. Seems to me we'd ought to find out something more about it. It--it don't sound just natural." "I tell you he was shot by accident. I did it, God forgive me," faltered Madge. Sophy McGurn, at this, pushed her way forward until she stood in front of Madge, and pointed an accusing finger at her. Her eyes were flashing. To Maigan her move seemed a threatening one and she recoiled as the animal crouched a little, with fangs bare and lips slavering. "Hold him, miss, hold him quick!" cried Aleck Mclntosh. "Git back there, Sophy, what's the matter with ye? D'ye want to be torn to pieces? What's that ye was goin' to say?" "She--she never shot him by accident! She--she did it on purpose, for revenge, that's what she did, the she-devil!" She was still standing before Madge and her voice was shaking with excitement, while her arms and hands trembled with her passion. "What's all that?" cried Pat Kilrea. "Ye wasn't here to see, was ye? How d'ye know she done it a-purpose, for revenge? Ye must have some reason for sayin' such things. Out with 'em!" But now Sophy was shrinking back, afraid of her own outburst, fearing that she might have revealed something. Her voice shook again as she replied. "I--I ain't got any reason," she stammered. "I--I was just thinking so. It--it came to me all of a sudden. Maybe I'm mistaken." "Mistaken, was it?" asked Pat Kilrea. "Folks ain't got any right to be mistaken when it comes to accusin' others of murder. If you hadn't had some reason to speak that way ye'd have kept yer mouth shut, I'm thinking. Why don't ye come right out with it?" "I--I didn't really mean anything by it," stammered Sophy again. "What revenge was that you was referring to?" he persisted. "Nothing--nothing at all. How should I know what she would do?" "Then you ought to have kept still an' held yer tongue," said Pat. "But it seems to me as if we'd ought to investigate this thing a little," ventured Prouty. "We ain't got anythin' here but this 'ere young 'ooman's word for what's happened. She can tell us how it came about, anyways, seems to me, and we can judge if it sounds sensible and correct like." "That's right," put in Kilrea. "That's fair and proper." "I am perfectly willing to tell you all I know about it," asserted Madge, quietly. "I--I came here to see Mr. Ennis on a matter that--that concerns us only. And I had occasion to open my bag. Among the things in it there was a revolver. It fell out of my hands and exploded, and--and the bullet struck him. I--I never knew that he had been shot. He never even told me, and then he hitched the dog to the sleigh and took me over to Mrs. Papineau's, where I have been staying. And it was she who discovered that he had been injured. She'll tell you so herself if you go to her. And--and he told her it was an accident, as he would tell you now if--if he wasn't dying." "You'd fixed it up to spend the night at Papineau's?" asked Mrs. Kilrea, who had hitherto kept somewhat in the background. "That was the arrangement we had made," answered the girl. "There was no other place where I could stay. But I'd have gone up there alone if I'd known how badly he was hurt. I've stayed with them ever since, of course, for there was no one to take me back. Mr. Papineau hadn't returned. He was trapping." "I don't see but what she must be tellin' the truth," opined Mrs. Kilrea. "There ain't anything wrong or improper in all this, savin' a girl handlin' a revolver, which ain't wise. We can go over to Papineau's and make sure it's just as she says." "But there's one thing ain't clear," said Pat Kilrea. "What business did she come on, anyways?" Madge drew herself up and looked at him calmly. "I've already told you that this concerns Mr. Ennis and myself," she told him, "and I deny that you have any right...." Just then there was a roar from the tote-road as big Stefan, lashing his dogs, bumped down the path at a wild gallop and, a minute later, threw himself off the sled and was among them. "How do, peoples?" he shouted, advancing truculently towards Pat and Mclntosh. "Papineau telt me as how Hugo he get hurted bad and sick. And he say you peoples ask him whole lot qvestions about him. I vant to know vhat all you is doin' here, und--und if I ain't satisfied I take some of you and--and vipe up de ground vid you, hear me!" His manner was ominously calm, but his words sent a shiver through the crowd. He was and looked a tremendous figure. He had moved to the side of the girl, as if to defend her, and his clear blue eyes went searchingly from one man to the next. "Papineau he tells me in Carcajou it look like you come ofer here to make drouble for Hugo an' mebbe for dis young leddy. So I come here fast like my togs can take me, sure ting. Und I vant to know vhen you vants to start droubles. Der leddies can move leetle vay to one side if dey like, to make room. Ve need plenty, I tank. Who vant to start de row now, who begin? I tak' you vun at a time or altogedder, how you like!" He took a step forward and the men all moved back hurriedly. The ladies had swiftly accepted his advice and were retreating fast, now and then looking back in terror. "But look here, Stefan, what are you butting in for?" Kilrea took courage to ask while he kept discreetly out of reach. "We came to see if everything was all right and proper here. We're satisfied now and are going back. Got to hurry away, sun's getting low." The Swede sniffed at him contemptuously, and drew off a big mitt of muskrat hide. With some difficulty he drew from his clothing a huge silver watch and looked at it. "Glad you vas in a hurry. I tank I 'elp you a bit make tings lifely. I gif you all yoost tree minutes ter get started. Den if any man he ain't aboard dat sleigh I yoost vipes up de ground vit him a bit. If you knows vhat is good for ye, den make tracks, qvick. I ban gettin' hurry mineself, eh!" "But what right have you to be ordering us about?" shouted Aleck Mclntosh, imprudently. "My frient, you's knowed as de laziest man in Carcajou and some say in Ontario. I helps you along, sure." He had dashed towards him with devastating speed. The fellow turned to run, but a second later the slack of some of his garments was in Stefan's huge hand. Struggling and backing he found himself half lifted, half propelled on the ground, all the way to the sled. There he was lifted high and dumped in, like a bag of feed. "Any oders as need help?" roared Stefan. But they were hastening for all they were worth. Kilrea took the reins. The three women were already seated. The others jumped in and the horses started home again, even before the Carcajou Vigilantes had finished spreading robes over their shaky knees. Striking a bit of flat bare rock, the runners spat out fire and squealed, after which the heavy sled slithered and slipped over the crackling snow, so that presently the outfit disappeared around the first bend in the tote-road. Miss Sophy McGurn looked particularly down-hearted. None of the interesting events she expected had taken place. She had merely succeeded in nearly giving herself away and arousing suspicions. And the girl was still there, with Hugo! She had believed that Hugo would be found sheepish and embarrassed, or in a regular fury, while the stranger would weep and wring her hands and seek to explain. And the invading crowd was to have manifested its indignation at this breach of all decency and proper custom, and sent the woman away, while they would have told the man what they thought of him, in spite of his rage, and warned him that he must mend his ways or quit the country. And now they had all been driven away, and that girl had stood and spoken as if she had some right to be there, and had been indignant at any inquiry into her motives for coming to Roaring River. Worse than all Pat Kilrea and his wife seemed to have turned against her, after absolving the two of blame. She shrank back, drawing her fur cap further down over her eyes and ears. Now the cold seemed more bitter than she had ever felt it before, in spite of the thermometer's rise, and the road was so long and dreary that it seemed as if it never would end. And Hugo Ennis was dying--and in her heart Sophy McGurn felt certain that the girl had shot to kill, and was waiting there until he should die. Perhaps she had rummaged about the place and found money or other valuables, for Ennis always seemed to have some funds, though he spent prudently and carefully, and never seemed to have dollars to throw away. And the end of it would be that the girl would leave and the man would be dead and all the dreams of marriage first and of a revenge following had turned into this thing, which was a nightmare. She reached her home half frozen, in spite of the robes, and could not eat her food. Her mother had a few mild words to say about long excursions out in the back country, in this sort of weather. Then the girl left the table suddenly, and slammed the door of her room shut, in a towering rage. A little later, after she had lain down, came tears, for it seemed to her at this time that she had never truly loved Ennis until she heard that he was dying, and now he was lost to her forever. CHAPTER XII Help Comes Stefan had watched the departure of those people grimly, until he felt sure that they would not return. Madge had stood near him. In her desolation it was splendid to have him there with her, to be no longer obliged to stare at the sick man's face in lonely terror, to feel that if there was any help needed he would be at hand, with all his immense strength and courage. "I tank dey don't mean much badness," the man explained to her. "Mebbe ye knows peoples in dis countree ain't much to do in dis vintertime and dey gets fonny iteas about foolin' araount. Dey goes home all qviet now, you bet, and don't talk to nobotty vhat tam fools dey bin, eh!" They both entered the shack again and the big fellow went up to the bunk upon which lay his friend. For a very long time he looked at him, finally touching a hand with infinite care and gentleness. After this he turned to Madge a face expressive of deepest pain. "Leetle leddy," he said, gently, "vos it true as you shot him? Papineau he telt me so. A accident, he said it vos." The girl looked at him imploringly, with elbows bent but hands stretched towards him, as if she were suing for forgiveness. The man was seated on a stool, waiting for her answer. "Yes, it was an accident--a terrible accident," sobbed Madge, whose strength and courage seemed to leave her suddenly. "You--you believe me, don't you?" It is hard to say whether it was weakness or the excess of her emotion that forced her down to her knees. She grasped one of the huge hands the man had extended towards her. He laid the other upon her bent back, very softly. "In course I do, you poor leetle leddy. Yes, I sure beliefe you. Dere vosn't anybotty vould hurt Hugo, unless dey vos grazy, you bet. He ban a goot friend to me--ay, he ban a goot friend to all peoples." He helped her up, very tenderly, and made her sit on a stool close to the one he occupied. There was a very long interval of silence, during which his great face and beard were hidden in the hollow of his hands. Then he spoke again, in a very low voice, as if he had been addressing the smallest of his own babes. "You poor leetle leddy," he repeated, "I feels most turriple sorry for Hugo, for it most tear my heart out yoost to look at him. But vhen I looks at you I feels turriple sorry for you too. I knows vhat it must be, sure ting, for a leetle leddy like you to be sittin' here, in dis leetle shack, a-lookin' at de man she lofe an see de life goin' out of him. Last fall Hugo ban gone a vhiles back East again, and vhen you comes I tank mebbe you some nice gal he promise to marry. Even vhen de telegraft come I make sure it is so. I pring de bit paper here myself an' vaits a vhiles, but he no come and I haf to go on. I vanted to see de happy face on him. I say to myself, 'Hah! You rascal Hugo, you nefer tell nodding to your ole friend Stefan, but he know all de same.' But vhen I got to go I couldn't say nodding. I leaf de paper on de table here an' I tank how happy he is vhen he come home an' find it. You poor leetle leddy!" The man was mistaken, most honestly so, for no idea of love had ever entered Hugo's head, and none had come to Madge. Yet the big fellow's words seemed to stab the girl to the heart and she moaned. She felt that she could not allow Hugo's friend to remain undeceived. There had been already too many mysteries, too many lies--she would have no share in them if she could help it. "I--I wasn't in love with him when I came, Stefan," she faltered. "He--he was a stranger to me. I had never seen him--never in all my life. I came here because--because there has been some terrible mistake--in some letters, queer letters that bade me come here and--and meet a man who wanted a wife. And I--I was a poor miserable sick girl in New York and--and I just couldn't keep body and soul together anymore--and--and be a good decent girl. And those letters seemed so beautiful that I felt I must come and see the man who wrote them, and--and I was ready to marry him if he would be kind to me and--and treat me decently and--and keep me from starvation and suffering. And when I came here he didn't know anything about it, and--and I thought he lied. But--but I never thought to do him any harm. I took the little pistol out of the bag, because I was looking for something else, and it went off! Oh!" She hid her face in her hands, as if the whole scene had been again enacted before her, and the man heard her sobbing. "Hugo he nefer tell no lie," said Stefan, softly. "I don't know vhat all dis mean, you bet. But I am glad you ban come like a stranger. I am glad he no lofe you, and den I am sorry, too, for you so nice gal, vid voice so soft and such prettee eyes, I tank if he lofe you den you sure lofe him too. Den you two so happy in dis place, ma'am." He interrupted himself, striking his fist upon his chest, as if to still a pain in it, and went on again. "You haf no idea how prettee place dis is, leetle leddy, in de summertime. A vonderful place to be happy in. De big falls dey make music all day and at night dey sings you to sleep, like de modder she sings leetle babies. Und de big birches dey lean ofer, so beautiful, and de birds dey comes all rount, nesting in all de bushes. Oh, such a vonderful place for a man and a voman to love, dem falls of dat Roaring Rifer! Hugo he cleared such a goot piece, oder side of dat leetle hill, vhere de oats vould grow fine. And down by de Rifer, on de north side, he find silver, plenty silver in big veins, like dey got east of us, in Nipissing countree. So I tank one day he ban a rich man and haf a prettee little voman and plenty nice kiddies, leetle children like one lofes to see, and dey all lif here so happy." His voice grew suddenly hoarse. It was with an effort that he spoke again. "An' now he don' know me--or you or Maigan, and--and my goot dear frient Hugo he look like he ban dyin'!" Stefan stopped abruptly again, apparently overcome. His face, tanned by frost and sun to a hue of dull brick, also lay in the hollow of his hands. The vastness of his grief seemed to be commensurate with his size. But when he looked up Madge saw that his eyes were dry, for he was suffering according to the way of strong men with the agony that clutches at the breast and twists a cord about the temples. In his helplessness before the peril he was pitiful to see, since all his confidence had gone, his pride in his power, his faith in his ability to surmount all things by the mere force of his will. And the present weakness of the man augmented the girl's own sorrow, even though his being there was relief of a sort. The Swede looked about him vaguely, and then his eyes became fixed on a point of the log wall, as if through it he had been able to discern things that lay beyond. "Hugo an' me," he began again, very slowly and softly, "ve vent off north from here, a year an' a half it is now, after de ice she vent off de lakes. And ve trafel long vays, most far as vhere de Albany she come down in James Bay. Ve vos lookin' for silfer an' copper an' tings like dat. An' dere come one day vhen ve gets awful rough water on a lake and ve get upset. Him Hugo he svim like a otter, he do, but me I svim like a stone. De shore he ban couple hundret yard off, mebbe leetle more. I hold on to de bow and Hugo he grab de stern. So he begin push for shore, svimmin' vid his feet, but dat turriple slow going, vid de canoe all under vater, yoost holdin' us up a bit, and it vos cold, awful turriple cold in dat vater. He calls to me ve can't make it dat vay, ve don't make three-four yards a minute. Den I calls for him to let go, for I ban tanking he safe his life anyvay, svimmin' ashore vhere ve had our camp close by. Und vhat you tank he do, ma'am? He yell to me not be tam fool, dat vhat he do! He say, 'How I look at your voman an' de kids in de face, vhen I gets back vidout you?' So he lets go and my end sink deep so I let go an' vos fighting to keep up but he grab me and say to take holt of his shoulter. He swear he trown vid me if I don't. So I done it, ma'am, and he svim, svim turriple hard, draggin' me ashore. I yoost finds my feet on de bottom vhen he keels ofer, like dead, vid de cold and de playin' out. So I takes him in my arms and runs in. I had matches in my screw-box but my fingers vos dat froze I couldn't get 'em out first. But I manages make a fire, by an' by, and I rubs de life back into him again. And--and you know vhat is first ting he say vhen he vake up?" Madge shook her head. "Him Hugo yoost say, 'Now I kin look Mis' Olsen in de face, vhen ve gets back, eh, old pard?'" The man kept still again, looking anxiously at the sufferer and watching the hurried breathing. The feeling of his uselessness was evidently a torture to him, but his heart was too full for him to remain silent very long. "An' now I am here an' can do nodings. I ban no more use dan--dan de tog dere. My God, leddy, tell me vhat I can do! He most trown himself an' freeze to death to safe me dat time an' I got sit still like a big tam fool an' him goin' under vidout a hand to pull him out. All de blood in my body, every drop, I gif to safe him. Don't you beliefe? I remember vhen de vaves and de vind pring dot canoe ashore. Ve lose not a ting because eferyting is lashed tight. Py dat time he vos vhistling and singin' alretty, like nodings efer happen. Ve had de big fire roarin', I tell you, and vhen I say again he safe my life he yoost laugh like it is a fine yoke an' say: 'Oh, shut up, Stefan, ve're a pair big fools to get upset, anyvays. And some tay you do yoost same ting for me, I bet.' And now--now I can do nodings--nodings at all." He seemed to be in an agony of despair. Madge had hardly realized that the suffering of men could reach such an intensity. She rose and placed her little hand on the giant's shoulder. The huge frame was shaking convulsively, in great sobs that brought no tears with them. Then, all at once, he rose and faced her, shamefacedly. "Poor leetle leddy," he faltered, "I ban makin' you unhappy vid dem story. I ban sorry be such a big tam fool, but I can no help it. It--it is stronger as me." For a time he paced up and down the little shack, struggling hard to keep himself in hand. Once he seized his shaggy head in his great paws and seemed to be trying to squeeze out of it the unendurable pain that was in it. "De sun he begin go town," he said, stopping suddenly. "Vhy don't dat Papineau get back? It get dark soon. I tank I take de togs an' go down de road. Mebbe his team break down. His leader ban a young tog." For an instant Madge felt like begging him to remain. Ay, she could have shrieked out her terror at the idea of being left alone with the man that was dying, as she thought, but she also succeeded in controlling herself, realizing that if the man was not allowed to do something, anything that would require the strength of his thews and divert the turmoil of his brain, he might go mad. "As--as you think best," she assented, with her head bent low. Stefan took his cap and fitted it over his great shock of hair, but at this moment Maigan rose and went to the door, whining. "Some one ban comin', but it ain't Papineau," said Stefan. It proved to be Mrs. Papineau, hurrying down the path and carrying a basket. She explained that the cow had had a calf, hence her delay. Puffing and breathless she scolded them for not lighting the lamp and bustled about the place, declaring that the two watchers should have made tea and that it took an experienced mother of many to know how to handle things. "I have made strong soup vid moose-meat," she told them. "Heem do Monsieur Hugo moch good. I put on de stove now an' get hot." She spoke confidently, just as usual, as if nothing out of the ordinary were going on in the shack, but it was a transparent effort to encourage the others, and she was not able to keep it up long. She happened to look at Hugo again, and suddenly her face fell and her hands went up, while she buried her face in her blue apron and sobbed right out. "De good Lord Heem bring an' de good Lord Heem take away," was what she said, and it sounded like a knell in the ears of the others. Since the light was beginning to fail Madge lit the little lamp. Mrs. Papineau took some of the soup out of the pot and stirred it with a spoon to cool it, and then she lifted the sick man's head. Her voice became soft and caressing, as if she had spoken to a child. "My leetle Hugo," she said, "dere's a good fellar. Try an' drink, jus' one bit. H'open mouth, dat way. Now you swallow, dere's good boy. An' now you try heem again, jus' one more spoon. H'it is awful good, from de big moose what Philippe he get. Jus' one more spoon an' I not bodder you no more." Whether Hugo understood or not no one could have told. At any rate, with infinite patience, she was able to feed him a little, until he finally pushed her hand away from him. Stefan, whose back had been resting on the door and whose arms had been hanging dejectedly at his side, took a step towards the girl. "Ay go down de road a bit an' meet Papineau if he come back," he proposed. "If de togs is tired I take de doctor on my toboggan. Get back qvicker dat vay. So long! I comes back soon anyvays, sure." He started away at a swift pace, his strong dogs, amply rested, barking and throwing themselves hard upon the breastpieces of their harness. After he was out of hearing the two women sat very close together, for mutual comfort and consolation, and the older one began to speak in a low whisper. "You very lucky, mademoiselle. It ees lucky it ain't you h'own man as lie dere an' you haf to see heem like dat. It is turriple ting to see. One time Papineau heem get h'awful seek, an' I watch him five--no, six day and de nights. An' it vos back in de Grand Nord, no doctor nor noding at all. An' me wid my little Justine jus' two month ole in my h'arms. An' den come de day ven de good Lord Heem 'ear 'ow I pray all de time an' Papineau heem begin to get vell again. But de time vos like having big knife planted in my 'eart, jus' like dat." She made a gesture as if she had stabbed herself, and went on: "You not know 'ow 'appy you must be you no love a man as goin' for die soon. You--you go crazy times like dat!" But Madge made no answer and could only continue to stare at the form that seemed to grow dimmer as the small oil lamp cast flickering shadows in the room. In her ears the continued, eternal sound of the great falls had taken on an ominous character. It was like some solemn dirge that rose and fell, unaccountably, like the breathing of a vast force that could reck nothing of the piteous tragedy being enacted. It appeared to be growing ever so much colder again. A few feet away from the stove it was freezing. She sought to look out of the little window but great massing clouds had hidden the crimson of sunset. A strong wind was arising and caused the great firs and spruces to groan dismally. The minutes were again becoming cruel things that tortured one with their maddening slowness. The girl became conscious of the beats of her heart, unaccountably slow, as she thought. And then, for a moment, that heart stopped utterly. A shout had come from the little lumber road and Maigan was barking at the door excitedly, in spite of the older woman's scolding. The toboggan slithered over the snow and there was a patter of dogs' feet. Madge threw the door open and let in a man in a great coonskin coat, who was carrying a bag. In spite of the heaviest fur mitts his hands were chilled and for a moment he held them to the glow of the stove, before turning calmly to his patient, after a curt nod to each of the women. CHAPTER XIII A Widening Horizon "I'm Dr. Starr," the man introduced himself. "It's turning mighty cold again. We only hit the high places after I got on Stefan's toboggan, I can tell you. How the man kept up with his team I can't tell you, but he ran all the way." He threw off his heavy coat and turned to the bunk. "Now let's see what we've got here," he said. The two women were scanning his face, holding their breaths, but Mrs. Papineau had the lamp and held it so as to cast some light on Hugo. The doctor's expression, however, was quite inscrutable. "Your husband?" he asked the girl, who shook her head. "Well, perhaps it's a good thing he's not. Put a lot of water to boil on the stove, please. Can't you find another lamp here--this one doesn't give much light?" There was no lamp but they found a package of candles which were soon flickering on the table, stuck in the necks of bottles. The doctor was pulling a lot of things out of his bag, coolly. To Madge it seemed queer that he could be so unaffected by what he saw. Presently he went to work, after baring the injured shoulder. After it was all over it seemed to the girl like some dreadful nightmare. After just one keen glance the doctor had probably decided that her young hands would afford him the better help. And so she had been obliged to remain at his side and look upon the sinewy shoulder and the arm that had been laid bare, and at the angry and inflamed wound which had been flooded with iodine. And then had come the picking up of shining instruments just taken out of one of the boiling vessels. Her teeth left imprints on her lips and she felt that she was surely going to stagger and fall as the man made long slashing incisions. From them he took out a piece of cloth and a bullet that had been flattened against the bone. After this there was a lot more disinfecting and the placing of red tubes of rubber deep down in the wound, which was finally covered with a large dressing. But it was only after this was all finished that Madge dropped on a stool, feeling sick and shaken. "Oh, you're not such a very bad soldier, after all," commented the doctor, quietly, as he gathered up his instruments to clean and boil them again. "I can't say that I'm optimistic about this case--but perhaps you don't quite understand such big words. I mean that I haven't any great hopes for this lad, but at least he has some little chance now. There was none whatever before. Of course it depends a lot on the nursing he gets. If I thought for a moment that he could stand the trip I'd take him away with me, but that's out of the question." Then he turned to Stefan. "I'll have to catch the first freight back in the morning, my man. Will you take me to Carcajou in good time? I can't afford to miss it. Too many needing me just now east of here!" "Ay, I take you--if Hugo he no worse. But if tings is goin' wrong, I'll let Papineau do it. I--I can't leaf no more. Vhen I starts from here I tank I can't stand it a moment--but vhen I get off on de road, I gets grazy to come back. I--I don't know vhat I vants!" The doctor looked at him curiously, appreciating the depth of the man's emotion and gauging the strength of the superb creature he was. "I won't let you take me if it isn't safe," he told him, and turned to his patient again. "Do you expect to stay up all night?" he suddenly asked the girl. "I--I am anxious to, if I can be of the slightest help." "One can never tell," he replied. "I might be glad to have you with me. You don't lose your head--and you're efficient." Presently Papineau arrived with his dogs and took his wife home. The good lady had looked upon the doctor's cutting with profound disfavor. A suggestion of hers about herbs had been treated with scant respect. Before leaving she spoke to Madge. "I stay h'all night too--but it ain't no good, because if he lif to-morrow night den you go sleep an' I stay 'ere. Before I go to bed I prays moch. I--I 'opes he lif through de night--heem no more bad as heem was, anyvays, an' dat someting." So they went away sorrowfully, to the little new-born calf and the babies and the children who needed them, and Stefan sat on the floor with his back to the wall, while Maigan snuggled up against him. Dr. Starr remained all night, sometimes dozing a little on his chair, with the ability of the man often called at night to take little snatches of sleep here and there, but Madge was at all times wide awake. Some time after midnight Hugo appeared to be sleeping quietly. The valuable candles had been extinguished, of course, but the little lamp was burning, shaded on one side by a piece of birch bark. Stefan had gradually curled up on the floor, under the table, where he was out of the way, and was snoring lustily. In the morning, doubtless, he would most honestly insist that he had not slept an instant. Out of doors the Swede's dogs had dug holes in the snow and, with sensitive noses covered by their bushy tails, were awaiting in slumber the next call from their master. The great falls kept up their moan and the trees swayed and cracked. A wind-borne branch, falling on the roof, made a sudden racket that was startling. At frequent intervals Madge rose and gave Hugo some water, for which he always seemed grateful, or adjusted the pillow beneath his head. Once, when she sat down again, she saw the doctor's eyes fixed upon her, gravely. "You have the necessary instinct," he told her, "and the patience and perseverance. I don't know what your plans may be for the future, but you would make a good nurse." Madge shrugged her shoulders, the tiniest bit. She didn't know. It didn't matter what she was fit for. The world so far had been a failure. The only important thing before her now was to do her best to help pull the sick man out of the jaws of death, if it could possibly be done. She sat down again, and after a time that seemed like an age the utter blackness without began to turn to gray and, in spite of the constantly replenished stove, the chill of the early morning struck deep into her. As the doctor looked at his watch she rose and began to make tea, which comforted them. "Do you expect to keep on looking after this man?" the doctor asked her, abruptly, between two mouthfuls. "Yes, of course, if I may," she answered. "I should say that you will simply have to, if his life is to be saved, or at least if he's to have a fair chance. I shall be compelled to go pretty soon. As it is I won't get back home before noon and there are several bad cases I must see to-day. I'll return the day after to-morrow; it's the best I can do, for it is absolutely impossible for me to remain here. Now just listen to me very carefully while I give you the necessary directions. I think I'd better write some of them out so that you will be sure not to forget them. See if you can find me a bit of paper somewhere." On one of the shelves there was a small homemade desk in which she rummaged. She found a number of loose bits of paper, some of them scribbled over in pencil and others with ink. They were apparently accounts, notes concerning various supplies and a few letters from various places. Finding a clean sheet she brought it to the doctor who rapidly wrote at length upon it. At this moment Stefan awoke, with a portentous yawn, but a second later he had leaped to his feet and was scanning their faces anxiously. "I tank mebbe I doze for a moment," he informed them. "How is Hugo gettin' long?" "For the present he looks to me somewhat better," answered the doctor. "There doesn't seem to be any immediate danger, and I'll have to start back in a few minutes. We've had a cup of tea, but you'd better make some breakfast ready." Stefan bestirred himself and presently a potful of rolled oats was being stirred carefully for fear of burning, and bacon was sputtering in the pan. The kettle was singing again and Madge was cutting slices from a loaf left by Mrs. Papineau. The three sat down to the table and ate hungrily, abundantly, as people have to who make stern demands upon their vitality. The doctor made a few more remarks about the treatment of his patient. He had carefully laid on the table the little tablets of medicine, the bottle containing an antiseptic, the cotton and gauze that must be used to renew the dressing. Then he went out, breathing deeply of the sharp and aromatic air, and a moment later he and Stefan were gone, the latter promising to return at once, with a few needed supplies from the store. Madge was alone now with Hugo, who was again sleeping quietly. She read over the doctor's directions carefully while she stood by the little window, as the lamp had been extinguished. A few minutes later she decided to place the paper in the little desk again, for safe-keeping. Without the slightest curiosity her eyes fell again upon some of the writing on loose sheets. But presently she was staring at it hard as a strong conviction made its way into her brain. After this she went to the other shelf where some books had been placed and opened one of them, and then another. On the flyleaf was written, in bold characters, "Hugo Ennis." The writing was exactly the same as that which appeared on the scattered leaves, for she compared them carefully. "There can be no doubt--he never wrote those letters," she decided. "But--but I knew very well he couldn't have written them. It--it isn't like him." The idea came again that he could have obtained some one to write for him, but it was immediately cast aside. The man would not engage in dirty work himself--far less would he get others to do it for him. She--she had abused and insulted him--called him a liar, as far as she could remember, and again her face felt hot and burning. Once more she sat down by the bunk, after she had given Maigan a big feed of oats, with a small remnant of the bacon grease. She felt humbled now, as if her accusations constituted some unforgivable, despicable sin. This man had never intended to do her the slightest harm. He really never knew that she was coming. And through her stupid clumsiness his life was now ebbing. The doctor's long words sounded dreadfully in her ears: general sepsis, blood poisoning, a system overwhelmed by the toxines of virulent microbes; they reverberated in her ears like so many sentences of death. Was there any hope that this outflowing life would ever turn in its course and return like an incoming tide? Would she again see him able to lift up his head, to speak in words no longer dictated by the vagaries of delirium? She would give anything to be able to ask his pardon humbly after his mind cleared again. Oh, it was unthinkable that he should die, that the end might be coming soon, and that she must go forth with that unspeakable load of misery in her heart. Maigan restlessly kept on coming to her and placing his head in her lap, as if seeking comfort. Once she bent over and put her cheek against his jaw and furry ear. He was a companion in misery. When she lifted up her head again to stare once more at the sufferer, with eyes heavily ringed with black, he slowly opened his own and looked at her vaguely, for at first there was not the slightest sign of recognition in them. Presently, however, the girl saw something that looked like a faint smile. "How--how long have I been asleep?" he asked, weakly. "And have--have you been here all the time?" She nodded, conscious that her heart was now beating with excitement, and his eyes closed again. But his hand had sought the one she had laid on the blanket and rested on it, for a few moments. It was the ever-recurring call of the man for the comfort of a woman's touch, for the protection his strength gathers from her weakness. "You--you're ever so good and kind," he said again, in a low hoarse voice, after which he kept still again, for the longest time. In spite of the gray pall of clouds over the sky and the complaining of the gale-swept tops of the great trees, in spite of the vast dull roar of the great falls, that had seemed a dirge, a ray of cheer had entered the little shack. It had seemed to her like such a paltry and mean excuse for a dwelling, when she had first seen it, and had been so thoroughly in keeping with the sordid nature she had at once attributed to this man whom she believed to have brought her there with amazing lies. But now, in some way, it had become a link, and the only one, that still attached her a little to the world. It appeared to her like the one place where she had been able to obtain a little rest from her miserable thoughts. Indeed, it had now become infinitely desirable. If the man could have stood up again and greeted her it would have become a haven of unspeakable comfort, since she would realize that for once her efforts had not been in vain, and that she had helped bring him back to life. But of course she knew that she must leave it soon, that whether he died or recovered, the only trail she could follow would be one that would lead to the banks of the Roaring River, where the big air holes were. And yet, so strongly is hope implanted in the human heart, this termination of her adventure seemed to have receded into a dimmer future, like the knowledge which we have that some day all must die but which we consider pertains only to some vague and distant period that we shall not reach for a long time. Hugo was sleeping quietly now and the girl's hand upon his pulse detected a feeble and swift flowing of the blood-current which, in spite of its weakness, was an improvement. But the great thing was that another day had come and he was still living, and his breathing came quietly. If--if she had loved the man, she never would have been able to go through all this without a breaking down of her little strength. As Stefan had said, and as Mrs. Papineau had also intimated, it was fortunate for her that she did not love him. Indeed, it was ever so much better. She was glad indeed that he had recognized and praised her, and then his voice had never expressed the slightest sign of reproach. She was happy that he had found comfort in her presence beside his couch and--and had been able to smile at her. Madge opened the door to let Maigan out. The air was full of feathery masses of snow blown from treetops. Sheltered as she was from the wind, the cold was no longer so penetrating. In the east the gray was tinted through the agency of long rifts in which dull shades of red broke through and were reflected even upon the white at her feet. It was not a cheery world just then, since the sun did not shine and the great fronds of evergreens loomed very dark, but the vastness of the wooded valley sloping down beneath her and stretching beyond the limits of her vision impressed her with a sense of greatness and of power. It was a tremendously big, strong and inexorable world, in which was being fought the unending and apparently unjust battle of the mighty against the weak, of the wolves and lynxes against the deer and hares, of a myriad furred and sharp-fanged things against the feebler and defenseless things of the forest. But also it was a world capable of bringing forth majestic things; able and willing to reward toil; in which, despite all of nature's unceasing cruelty, there could reign happiness and the accomplishment of a heart's desire. All this was not clearly shaped in Madge's mind. She was merely undergoing a vague and potent influence that penetrated her very soul. She closed the door again very softly, and when she sat again it was with a strange feeling of contentment, or at any rate a surcease of bitter thoughts, which affected her gently, like the heat of the little stove. Maigan soon scratched at the door again, and through the frosted glass Madge saw Mrs. Papineau approaching. She was looking rather tired and dismal. It was evident, from her panting, that she had hurried, but now she was coming very slowly, as if afraid to hear bad news. But when she finally came in and looked at Hugo, her fat face took on some of its wonted cheerfulness. "Heem no look so bad now," she asserted. "Who know? Mebbe get all right again, eh? What Docteur Starr heem say before he go?" Madge was compelled to give her a long account of how the night had passed and to describe every move and relate every word of the doctor. "Dat's good," approved Mrs. Papineau. "Now you go to our 'ouse an' get to bed an' 'ave sleep. If de children make noise tell 'em I slap 'em plenty ven I get back, sure. You need bad for to sleep--h'eyes look tired an' red." She explained that Papineau had been obliged to go off after some traps that were not very far away, and would return by midday. She insisted upon the need of Madge to impress the children with the virtues of silence. They had already been informed that if they did not keep still when the lady returned they would be given to the _loup-garou_ and other mythical and traditional terrors of _habitant_ childhood. "Me stay 'ere all day. Den you come back an' stay de night, if you lak'. You tell me vat I do." The good lady found her endeavors useless, however. Hadn't the doctor said that incessant care might perhaps, with luck, bring about a recovery? And Hugo had been better--he had spoken--he might speak again and want something she might get him. Moreover, the dressing was to be changed very soon and the drainage tubes were to be flushed out once in so often with the solution the doctor had left. To have gone away then would have been desertion; she never entertained the thought for an instant. Hence she attended to these things, in the presence of Mrs. Papineau, who looked quite awed at the proceedings. Generally the man seemed quite unconscious of what she did, and there was little complaint from him; just a few moans and perhaps a slight drawing away when she hurt him slightly in spite of her gentle handling. Finally Madge consented to rest a little, providing she was not forced to leave the shack. In the absence of other accommodation Mrs. Papineau had spread a heavy blanket on the floor, with odds and ends of spare clothing. It was only after the good woman had solemnly promised to awaken her in case there was the slightest need that the girl at last lay down, feeling dead tired but without the slightest desire to sleep, as she thought. But it did not take a very long time before her eyes closed and she was deep in slumber that was heavy and dreamless. Maigan came and curled up beside her. He thoroughly approved of her. It was only after midday that she awoke, startled, as if conscious of having been remiss in her duty, and raised herself quickly to a sitting posture. "Is--is everything all right?" she asked, anxiously. Upon being reassured she tried to lie down again, at Mrs. Papineau's urging, but sleep refused to come. Indeed, she felt greatly rested. And then she began to feel very hungry and had a meal of bread and tea, with a few dried prunes. It was not a very fine repast, but Madge was amazed to see what a lot she could eat. When she rose from the table she felt conscious that in some way she had gained strength, in spite of her weariness. After this she renewed the dressings again, taking the greatest pains with them. It was getting dark when Mrs. Papineau left her, utterly indifferent to the howling of wolves on the distant ridges. She had offered to remain but Madge knew that her presence was needed at home, owing to the little ones. Moreover, the girl was getting accustomed to her weird surroundings. In the faithful Maigan there was a protector. Besides, she still counted among the living; she was engaged in work that called for and brought out all her womanhood. In spite of her fears for the man the longing for his recovery was becoming mingled with a vague confidence, with the idea of a possibility that something might happen that would gradually develop in some sort of promise for a future that would not be all sorrow and toil. It was perhaps simply a temporary forgetfulness of self when confronted with what was a greater and stronger interest. The girl Madge had become less important when compared to the dying man. She was merely an instrument wherewith destiny helped to shape certain indefinite ends. Her own turn had not yet come, and her personality was submerged in a simple acquiescence in plans and decrees she could not understand. It appeared that the dreariness of the long hours had lessened. The imminent threat of the day before was no longer so vivid and racking, for the man kept on breathing with fair ease, and his pulse was perhaps a little stronger. She was wondering why Stefan had not returned as he had promised, when the now familiar sound of dogs and sled fell again on her ears. To her joy and surprise she found that it was the doctor, returning with the Swede. "Managed to get away after all," explained the former. "It's the devil's own thing to think there's a chap somewhere that a fellow might perhaps help, and then be obliged to let him go because others are calling for you. Women are desperately fond of asking their husbands if they would save them or their mothers first, in case of need. It's the deuce and all of a question to answer. But we fellows who practice on the edge of the wilderness are all the time confronted by beastly questions of that sort. How is he?" "I really think he's better," she hastened to inform him, and described how the sick man had spoken and been quite lucid for some moments. Dr. Starr went in and stopped at the side of the bunk, looking down with his chin resting on his hand. To Madge he had seemed to be a man of few words, rather stern in his manner and apt, as she thought, to view humanity from a very materialistic point of view. His recent speech was the longest she had heard from him. In a somewhat cynical vein he had referred to some hard problems the lone practitioner has to solve at times. "At any rate, he seems to be holding his own," he finally admitted. "I can't see that he is a bit worse. It seems to me that you're a pretty capable nurse. Some brains and lots of good strong will." He looked away from her as he talked and began to rub his hands together. "Tell you what," he said, turning again to her. "This night might be the decisive one, and I think I'll stick it out here again. I'll catch the freight back in the morning, as I did to-day. We'll have a look at the wound now, and see how those drains are working. Did you follow my orders? But I think I needn't ask. Put more water on the stove, Stefan." Madge had been holding the lamp for him, and when the doctor passed his hand over Hugo's forehead the eyes opened and the man blinked. Also there seemed to be a relaxing of the tense, hollow-cheeked face. "She--she's saving my life," he whispered, hoarsely. "She's tireless and--and kindness itself. Don't--don't let her get played out." He put out a brown hand that had rapidly become very thin and touched the girl's arm, after which he lay back, exhausted by his slight effort. The doctor went to work again, baring the wound, injecting fluids, adjusting the drains, and as he busied himself he always found the girl at his side, with all that he needed ready at his hand. "That'll do for a while," he finally said. "The drainage is good. He isn't absorbing much poison now, that's sure. If we can keep up his strength he's going to pull through, I hope. Get us a bite of supper, Stefan, I'm as hungry as a bear." [Illustration: He put out a brown hand and touched the girl's arm] During the night the doctor dozed off again, at times, like a man well versed in conserving his energy. But whenever he awoke he found Madge wide awake, intently observing the patient or busy with something for his comfort. The sky had cleared again and the great trunks were again cracking in the frost of the bright and starlit night. Dr. Starr had been staring for some moments at the girl. He shivered a little and drew his stool nearer the stove. Stefan was again snoring on the floor. "Come over here," he told Madge in a low voice, "bring your seat with you. I want to get something off my mind." "You needn't answer if you don't wish to," he told her, "but--but there's something rather tragic about that little face of yours. I don't think it's idle curiosity, but I'd like to know. I might as well confess that I've been questioning that fellow Stefan about you, but the sum of his knowledge is best represented by zero. I can assure you that I don't want to intrude and that I won't be a bit offended if you tell me it's none of my business." "What do you want to know?" asked Madge, rather frightened, although she did not know why. "You are aware, of course, that we doctors are used to seeing pain and usually try to get at the cause, so that we may better know how to relieve it. I should judge that you have known a lot of suffering; that sort of thing leaves marks. Fortunately, they can often be effaced in the young. I have been thinking that you were in need of a friend. No! Don't draw back! I'll say right now that my wife 's the best woman on earth and I've got four kids. You ought to see the little rascals. Now I might as well tell you that I'm grateful to you for taking such good care of my patient. I'd also be glad of a chance to help you a little, or give advice if you happen to need any." Madge stared at him for a moment during which her eyes became somewhat blurred. The doctor's offer seemed like the first really disinterested and friendly one that had been proffered to her for some years. In that vast New York she had become unused to that sort of thing. The other people in this place had been ever so kind, of course, but it was on account of their friend Hugo. At first she hesitated. "You look like a man that can be trusted," she said, very low. "I feel that I am," he answered, simply. Then, gradually, moved by that desire to confess and trust in a friend that is one of the best qualities of human nature, she told of her coming, in halting, interrupted words. The doctor kept silent, nodding now and then so that she became impressed with a certainty that he understood. At times that deep red color suffused her cheeks, but they would soon become pale again, all the more so for her dark-ringed eyes. Little by little her story became easier to tell. She had sketched it out in a few broad lines, but the man to whom she spoke happened to know the world. Her speaking relieved her burdened heart and gave her greater strength. "And--and I think that's all," she faltered at last. "Do--do you really understand? Do you think I've been a shameless creature to venture into this? Can you realize what it is to be at the very end of one's tether?" The doctor looked at her, the tiny wrinkles in the corners of his eyes becoming more pronounced. He put out his long-fingered, capable hand to her, and she stretched out her own, timidly, in response. "You and I, from this time on, are a pair of friends," he told her. "Indeed, I'm acquainted with that huge beehive you came from, with its drones and its workers, its squanderers and its makers. I studied there for a couple of years, and I know why some of the women have a choice between the river and even fouler waters. But let me tell you what I think of this matter. The desperate effort you made to save yourself may not have been very good judgment. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred such an endeavor would be worse than jumping from the frying-pan into the fire. But at least it argues something strong and genuine in you. You came because you felt that you could not give up the fight without one last supreme trial. Such a thing would take a lot of pluck." He stopped for a moment, looking into the whites of her eyes. "And now you've made up your mind that all your struggle has been in vain and that the end is in sight. Now I can't tell where that end lies, Miss Nelson, but it looks to me as if it had retired into the far distance. You are going to keep on taking care of this man, of course. He needs you badly, in the first place, and the toil and stress of it will be good for your soul. And then saving a life is tremendously interesting. There's nothing like it. But your new life is only to begin when this job is finished." "I--I don't understand," said the girl, watching him eagerly. "When you're through with this case, Stefan will bring you back to Carcajou. There he'll put you on the train and send you to me. I can assure you that my wife will welcome you. She's that sort, strong and friendly and helpful. My poor little chaps don't see very much of their daddy, but they've got a mother who's a wonder, to make up for it. Now our village can't yet afford a trained nurse, though some day I'm going to have a little hospital and two or three of them. The railroad will help. But in the meanwhile you're going to work for me, at little more than a servant's wages. You're quick and intelligent and have a pair of gentle and capable hands. There are scores and scores of little houses and shacks where your presence would be simply invaluable. My wife tries it, but she can't do it all, with the kids and the husband to look after. I shall work you like a horse, when you get strong enough, but every bit of the work will help some poor devil. My wife can give you a bed, a seat at our table and plenty of good wise friendship. In all this you're going to give away a lot more than you will receive. How does it strike you?" But Madge was weeping silently, with her face held in her hands. The doctor had certainly not tried to make his proposition very attractive, and yet she felt as if she were emerging from deep waters in which she had been suffocating. Now there was pure air to breathe and there would always be God's sunlight to cheer one and bring blessed warmth. From the slough of despond she was being drawn into the glory of hope. "I shall try," she promised. "Oh, how hard I'm going to try! It--it seems just like some wonderful dream. But--but can I really earn all this--are you sure that it isn't--" "Charity on my part?" interrupted the doctor. "Not a bit, Miss Nelson. We're scantily provided with women in these new countries. And there are enough poor fellows who get hurt in the mines, or on the railroad, to give you plenty of employment without counting the regular settlers. A good woman's face at their side may make the end easier for some of them and help others get well quicker." "If--if you are very sure--" "I know what I'm talking about. You see, Miss Nelson, there is really no need of any one despairing in one of those big cities, so long as there is enough strength and courage left to get out of them. In this great expanse of wilderness toilers are needed, but we can't use mollycoddles. The men have to hew and dig and plow, and need women to work at their sides, to look after the injured, to teach the little ones, to keep the rough crowd civilized and human. More than all they are needed to become the mothers of a strong breed engaged in the conquest of a new world, one that is being made first with the axe and the hoe and in which the victory represents germinating seed and happy usefulness. Countries such as this are not suited to the dross of humanity. We cannot find employment for the weak, the lazy, or the shiftless. The first of these are to be pitied, of course, but we cannot help them. To the red-blooded and the clean of heart it offers all that sturdy manhood and womanhood can desire. Surely you can see how wide our horizons are, how full of promise is this new world that stretches out its welcoming arms to you!" "I see--I see it all," answered the girl. "Oh, what a glorious vision it is! How can I ever thank you?" "You don't have to," replied the man, sharply. "If you decide to accept my offer I will be the one to feel grateful." He looked at her keenly, and was doubtless satisfied with what he saw. Then he tilted back the legs of his stool, rested his head on the log wall behind him, and took another good sound nap. He went away again just before sunrise, and Madge was left once more alone with the sick man. Soon she noticed that his eyes opened frequently, and followed her when she happened to move about the room. She could see that her presence strengthened him. In Hugo's mind, however, there was the dim impression that he was returning from a long blindfolded journey that had left no impressions of anything but vague pain and deep weariness. And it was utterly wonderful to be greeted by a gentle voice and given care such as had not been his since childhood. CHAPTER XIV The Hoisting On the few rests the dogs were compelled to take on their way back to Carcajou, Dr. Starr again questioned Stefan, carefully. The story Madge had told him was interesting, it sounded a little like some of those tales of detectives and plots marvelously unraveled, but the trouble was that no sleuth was at work and the mystery was as deep as ever. He inquired carefully in regard to the enemies Hugo might have made, but struck an absolute blank. Yes, there was one fellow Hugo had licked, but a couple of weeks later the young man had obliged him with a small loan, which had been cheerfully repaid, and the individual in question had moved a couple of hundred miles east. Oh, that was way back last summer! Having thus easily eliminated the masculine element of Carcajou, it took no great effort on the doctor's part to turn to the women. Were there any who had reason to dislike him; had he made love to any of them? "Hugo make lofe to any gals in Carcajou!" exclaimed Stefan, holding a burning match in his fingers and letting it go out. "Hugo don't nefer make lofe to nobotty. Dere's McGurn's gal over to the store as looked like she vanted bad to make lofe to him; alvays runnin' after Hugo, she vos. Vhen he go in de post-office she alvays smile awful sveet at Hugo, and dere's dem as say she vere pretty mad because he don't never pay no attention. Vhat he care for de red-headed t'ing?" "She looks after all the mail, doesn't she?" asked the doctor. "Yes, McGurn he too busy vid oder t'ings. De gal tends to all de letters an' papers." This seemed an indication worth following. When they reached the depot at Carcajou, Joe Follansbee informed them that the freight would be about an hour late. Madge had, during the course of her story, told the doctor all about the visit of the Carcajou Vigilantes, and from Stefan he had obtained the names of the people who had made up the party. Most of them were known to him, since he was frequently called to Carcajou, especially when the mill was running. From the girl he had obtained the letters she received from Hugo, as she had formerly believed. The matter could not be allowed to rest. He must investigate things further. Meeting old man Prouty, whom he had once cured of rheumatism, he drew him aside. The old man quite willingly told of his share in the event. "We only wanted to see that everything was straight and aboveboard," he told the doctor. "And there wouldn't have been no fuss there at all if Sophy McGurn hadn't come out kinder crazy; the way them excitable women-folks does, sometimes." "What did she do?" asked Dr. Starr. "Oh, she went an' accused that young 'ooman over there of havin' tried to murder Hugo. Said somethin' about the gal wantin' to get square on him for--for somethin' or other as ain't very clear. But soon as Pat Kilrea he begins to pin her down to facts she takes it all back an' says she don't really know nothin'." "Thanks, Mr. Prouty, I'm very much obliged to you. I'll stroll over there." He walked over to the general store and post-office where he was greeted by old McGurn, who at his request produced a box of cigars. "Yes, Doc, I can recommend them," he said. "There was a drummer stopped here last week who said they smelled just like real Havanas. I bought two barrels of crockery off him." The doctor nodded, admiring the drummer's diplomacy, and walked over to the other counter behind which Miss Sophy was standing. "How do you do, Miss McGurn?" he said, amiably. "How d'ye do? How's Hugo--Hugo Ennis?" she asked, eagerly. "He may perhaps pull through, though he's still hanging on to a pretty thin chance. I suppose you know that you're soon going to be called as a witness?" "Me?" she exclaimed. "What for?" "Well, that story about an accident looks rather fishy to me, you know. I have an idea that it wouldn't be a bad thing to have the sheriff come over here and investigate things a little. We're beginning to get too civilized on this line to stand for gun-play. I've talked over the matter with some of the people who went with you to Roaring River, and I gather that you are the only one who can enlighten us a little." "I--I don't know anything!" she stammered. "You're probably too modest, Miss McGurn, or you may perhaps be trying to shield some one. That shows your kind heart, of course, but it won't quite do for the law. At any rate you will tell us what aroused your suspicions. It's very important, you know, for the slightest clue may be of service. And then, of course, there is the matter of the letters." "What letters?" cried the girl, biting her lips. "Oh, just some letters that passed through this office. Let me see, where did I put them? Always indispensable to secure all documents. Miss Nelson gave them to me." Very slowly he pulled the letters out of his pocket, while his keen eyes searched Sophy's face, gravely. She was distinctly ill at ease, he observed. "There has been a queer mix-up. These documents can hardly be called forgery, since there is no attempt to imitate the real handwriting of the person who is supposed to have written them. It's simply a clumsy attempt to deceive, as far as I can see. But the strange thing is that several letters came from New York, apparently, and have never been received. It seems that they must have come through this office and the post-office authorities will be asked to trace them. They are always glad to hear of any irregularities, of course, and will send an expert here, naturally, if mere inquiry does not suffice. Those chaps are wonderfully clever, you know. They seem to be able to find out anything they want to know. The letters I am showing you came through Carcajou, there's your stamp on the envelopes. The detective will compare this handwriting with that of every man, woman and child in Carcajou and the neighborhood, and while it is certainly disguised, there's so much of it that they will certainly find out who sent them. It--it's going to prove devilish tough for somebody, you may be sure. Of course I'm no lawyer and can't tell what the charge will be, perhaps conspiracy of some sort, or making use of the mails for some fraudulent or--or some prohibited purpose. But that's evidently no concern of ours and I know you'll help the authorities to the best of your ability. You will naturally do all you can because no postmaster likes to have any irregularity in his office. That sort of thing generally means taking it away from the holder and putting it in other hands. Your father would be pretty angry if anything like that happened, because while you attend to the mails, he's really the responsible party." Miss Sophy may not have realized how keenly the doctor was looking at her. He was now feeling quite certain that his suspicions had fallen on the guilty party. Here was a jealous woman who evidently knew a good deal. Putting two and two together is the very essence of scientific thought and Dr. Starr was no beginner. Sophy's foot was beating a rapid tattoo on the floor. On her face the color kept going and coming. "Somebody has done a very foolish thing," continued the doctor. "Perhaps it was not realized that it was also a very wicked one. At any rate there is a lot of trouble coming. I will bid you good-day." He turned on his heels, lighting the cigar he had bought and looking quite unconcerned. Sophy hastened around the counter and intercepted him at the door, following him out. She touched his arm. "Do--do they suspect any one?" she asked. "I think I may have spoken too much, Miss McGurn," answered the doctor, with a face that had suddenly become exceedingly stern. "It is not for me to answer your question. Of course, it's in my power to tell the sheriff that there is no longer any suspicion that the shooting was otherwise than accidental, and I could perhaps also persuade Miss Nelson not to follow this matter of the letters any further. I think that she would follow my advice in the matter. But I have no intention of interfering until--until I know everything--down--to--the--last--word!" He accentuated this by striking with his fist into an open hand, slowly, as if driving in a rebellious spike. They were alone on the little veranda of the store. Within her breast the girl's heart was throbbing with fear--with the terror of exposure and unknown punishments. She felt that this man knew the exact truth and she had the sensation of some animal cornered and seeing but a single avenue of escape. "But I have found out everything I wanted to know, Miss McGurn," Dr. Starr told her, suddenly. "Unless I have a written confession in my hands I shall let matters take their course. It--is--for--you--to--choose." He looked at his watch. "My train should be here in fifteen minutes," he told her. "After that it will be too late!" Then the girl broke down. Wild thoughts had come and gone. If a weapon had been at hand she might, in obedience to the behest of a wild and fiery nature, have stabbed the man who so calmly faced her. But she felt utterly helpless and her fear and despair became supreme. "I--I'll write whatever you want me to, if--if you promise not to tell!" she cried. "I'm not quite prepared to accept conditions," he answered. "I intend to show the paper to Ennis and to Miss Nelson. They have a right to know the truth. But I can promise that they will carry the matter no farther, and that I shall see that neither the sheriff nor the post-office authorities will interfere. There are but a few minutes left now." She rushed into the store again and went to the desk. Her father was no longer in the room. With feverish speed she wrote while the doctor bent over her, suggesting a word now and then. Finally she signed the paper and handed it to him. "I think you had better give me those answers now," he suggested. "Those directed to A. B. C." From Box 17 she took the letters and handed them over without a word, and the doctor carefully placed them in his pocket with the others. "I think you've been very wise in taking my advice, Miss McGurn," he told her. "It was the only way out of trouble. Isn't that the freight's whistle? I'll hurry off. Good-day to you." He stepped quickly across the space that separated him from the station. On the platform Joe Follansbee greeted him pleasantly. "A fine clear day, doctor," said the station agent. "Yes, everything is beautifully clear now," answered Dr. Starr amiably. "Shouldn't wonder if this were about the last of the cold weather." Then he got on the caboose, where the crew welcomed him. As one of the company doctors he had the right to ride on anything that came along, and the men were always glad to see him. They made him comfortable in a corner and offered him hot tea and large soggy buns. But he thanked them, smilingly, and sat down in a corner. From his bag he took out a medical journal and was soon immersed in an exceedingly interesting article on hysteria. Strangely enough, at that very moment Miss Sophy had run up to her room and thrown herself on the bed, face downwards and buried in a pillow. She was weeping and uttering incoherent cries. When her mother came in, alarmed, the old lady was indignantly ordered out again while the girl's feet beat against the mattress hurriedly, and she bit the knuckles of her hands. CHAPTER XV The Peace of Roaring River It is particularly in the great north countries that the season changes from the lion into the lamb, with a swiftness that is perfectly bewildering. The sick man was getting well. Over a week since, Dr. Starr had declared that all danger had passed. And as the days went by the cold that had shackled the land disappeared so that the frosted limbs by the great falls wept off their coating of gems, and the earth, in great patches, began to show new verdure. Then had come twenty-four hours of a pelting, crashing rain, that had melted away more snow and ice. After the rain was over and the sky had cleared again, Madge had gone out and stood by the brink of the great falls, where she watched the thundering turbid flood as it madly rushed into the great pit below. Incessantly great cakes of ice poised on the brown-white edge above for an instant, and hurled themselves furiously into the chasm as if bent on everlasting devastation. The river itself was rising swiftly and from time to time the great logs that had remained stranded in the upper reaches of the river also plunged into the vortex, where they twisted and sank and rose, endlessly. There was something fascinating in this vast turmoil of mighty forces, in this leaping forth of a great river now liberated and escaping towards the great lakes and thence to the ocean. Hitherto Madge had gazed upon them timidly, with sudden shivers, as if all this had represented part of the great peril of life and actually threatened her. But now it seemed to have become a part of the immensity of this world, a fragment of the wondrous heritage of nations still to be born. And just as the flood still had a long journey to travel ere it found rest in the Atlantic's bosom, so now Madge felt that her own course represented but the beginning of a new and greater life. In spite of many nights spent at that bedside, she looked far better and more robust than when she had first reached Roaring River. Courage had returned to her and with it the will to endure, to live, to seize upon her share of the wondrous glory of this new world that was so fresh and beautiful. And yet her thoughts were very sober; she did not feel that she had reached utter happiness. Her life would now be one of usefulness, according to the doctor's promise. She felt that faces might become cheerier at her coming and that little children--the children of other people--would welcome her and crow out their little joy. Several long nights of quiet rest had built her up into a woman that was no longer the factory drudge or the recent inmate of hospitals. One of the Papineau children had come over to remain with Hugo, lest he should need anything. Madge attended him during the day, concocting things on the stove, dressing the fast closing wound and administering the drugs left by the doctor, with the greatest punctuality, and the man's eyes followed her every motion, generally in silence. She also spoke little. It was as if, upon both of them, a timidity had come that made it hard for them to exchange thoughts. The first time he had wanted to speak of the problem of her coming she failed to encourage him. "I know all that happened now," she told him, "and I have long known that you were not at fault, in any way. Indeed, I feel grateful for your forbearance when I first came. But, if you don't mind, we won't speak of it again. It--it distresses me." He saw plainly that she had blushed, in spite of the fact that she turned her head swiftly away, and remained silent until she came again with a teaspoonful of something he must swallow. So she sat down again and her mind reverted to the future, which was certainly immeasurably splendid and promising, as compared to the outlook of a fortnight before. In her pockets were the letters she had written to this man. Dr. Starr had brought them to her one day, when Hugo was already able to listen and understand. "I think they were intended for me," said the latter, gently. "No!" exclaimed Madge, reddening and leaping from her stool. "Please give them to me, Dr. Starr. They were sent to an utterly unknown man. They were replies to letters you never sent and therefore they're not yours. Please--I--I'd rather you didn't see them!" The young man had nodded, quietly. "Of course they're yours," he acknowledged. "We--we won't mention them again, if it's your wish." "Indeed--indeed it is. They were just a cry for help--for a chance to live--perhaps for a little happiness. Dr. Starr has now offered me all these things and I have accepted--ever so gratefully. I--I had taken a step that was utter folly, yes, absolute madness. But now the most wonderful good fortune has brought me the fulfilment of these desires and I want to forget all the rest--the burning shame I have felt as well as the terror with which I approached whatever was in store for me. That part of it will pass away like some bad dream, I hope. It's--it's kind of you not to insist on seeing these letters." "That's all right, Miss Nelson," said the doctor, soothingly. "Hugo, my lad, you owe a good deal to your nurse and I'm glad that you're properly grateful and not unduly curious." But Hugo called Maigan to him, without answering, and patted the animal's head, after which he remarked that the days were getting much longer. Came another day when the patient was able to get up, with the aid of Stefan and his nurse, and manifested the usual surprise of the strong man after illness. It was astonishing that his legs were so weak, and he couldn't understand the dizzy sensations in his head. After a time he became able to use his arm a little, very cautiously, and his joy was great when it served him to handle a fork, for the first time since he had been ill. And so now she was standing beside these great falls, thinking very deeply. She was disappointed at herself because she did not feel properly happy and grateful; indeed, she was dropping in her own estimation. If any one, a month before, had placed before her the prospect of honest toil among friendly faces, of usefulness that would benefit her while gaining gratitude from others, she would have deemed herself the happiest woman in the world. Yes, the world should have been a very beautiful and kindly place, now that hunger and pain were eliminated, now that the coming of spring would cause sap to surge up the trees so that the branches would soon clothe themselves in the tender glory of new leafage. Her own existence was on the verge of a fresh new growth that might lead to greater things, and yet she reproached herself because she could not become conscious of a real happiness, of a glorious achievement that had been like an unexpected manna coming to starvelings in a desert. She felt nothing but a quiet acquiescence in the new conditions and accepted her new destiny with a sigh. She did not realize yet that in her soul a new longing had come, that would not be denied. She returned slowly to the shack where Hugo sat in an armchair brought all the way from Carcajou on Stefan's sled. His arm was still in a sling. It was fortunate that it was the left one, for he was very busily engaged in writing. The girl waited for some time, leaning against the doorpost and watching some chipping sparrows that had recently arrived and were thinking hard about nest-building in the neighboring bushes. The weeds and grasses and wild flowers were beginning to peep out of the ground, with the haste that is peculiar to northern lands where life is strenuous during the few months of warm fair weather. The tender hues of the burgeoning birches and poplars, streaked with the gleaming silver of their trunks, were casting soft notes upon the strong greens of the conifers and the indigo of their shadows. In the spray of the falls, to her left, a tiny rainbow seemed to dance, and the loud song of the rushing waters was like the call of some great loving voice. She reflected that she would have to go again to a place in which many people lived. It would not be like a city. The same trees and the same waters and the same flowers would be there, very close at hand. Not a single house abutted against another. In the gardens there would be old-fashioned flowers such as she had been familiar with at home, before she had sought the town. Dr. Starr had described it all. Ten minutes' walk would take one beyond the habitations of men, into woodlands and fields and by a lake that extended into a far wilderness, upon which one could drive a canoe and feel as if one owned a great and beautiful world, for men were seldom on it and above the surface it was peopled chiefly by great diving birds and broods of ducklings. It all sounded, and doubtless was, perfectly ideal. But presently Hugo had finished his writing and was leaning back in his chair. "Do you think you would like some of those nice fresh eggs Mrs. Papineau's little girl brought this morning?" she asked him. "And would you like me to close the door now?" "Thanks, Miss Nelson," he said, "I'm sure I should enjoy them ever so much. They're a rather scarce commodity with us. Too many weasels and skunks and other chicken-eaters to make it a healthy country for hens. As to the door I'll be glad to have you close it if you feel cold. But it's delightful for me to be sitting here all wrapped up in blankets and taking in big lungfuls of our forest air. It--it makes a fellow feel like a two-year-old." She was about to break the eggs into a pan when she noticed the letter lying on the table. "Would you like me to get you an envelope, for it?" she asked. "If you'll be so kind," he assented, gravely. She would have offered to put the paper in the envelope for him also, but he managed it easily enough and closed the flap. "That's done," he said. "I wonder what will come of it?" To this she could not reply, so she prepared the eggs and brought them to him, with his tea and toast. "They're going to be ever so good," he said, taking up a fork, after which he stared out of the still-opened door. "If you don't eat them now, they'll be cold in a minute," she warned him. "Oh, I'd forgotten! I must beg your pardon since you took so much trouble about them." He ate them slowly, as if performing some hard and solemn task. When he had finished his meal, Madge cleared the table. "Is there anything else you would like?" she asked. "One of your books?" "No, I--I don't think I want to read, just now. I--I am feeling rather--rather disturbed for the moment." "What's the matter?" she inquired, solicitously. "It's this--this habit I've gotten into," he said, "of having a--a nurse at my side. It seems very strange that she will soon be gone. I've learnt to depend so much on.... And Stefan is coming to take you away to Carcajou--and then over there to Dr. Starr's. Then I believe I'm to go and stay with the Papineaus, till I can handle a frying-pan and an axe. The--the prospect is a dismal one." She took a little step towards him but he had bent over the letter and was directing it. When this was done he stared at it for a moment and, unsteadily, handed it to the girl, with the writing down. "I--I would like you to deliver this for me," he told her. "It is ever so important and--and our post-office isn't very reliable, I'm afraid. But I know I can trust you." She looked at him in surprise and then she looked at the envelope. To her intense amazement she read: Miss Madge Nelson, Roaring River. "What does this mean?" she asked, bewildered. "I--I'm afraid you will have to read it to find out," he answered. She opened the door and rushed out. One fear was in her heart. She dreaded to find money in it. How dared he offer to pay for what she had done? She would lay the envelope on the table, with its contents, and quietly say--well, what could she say? With the thing in her hand she walked down the path to the edge of the falls, where she sat down on an old big trunk of birch fallen many years ago and partly covered with moss. For one or two long minutes she held it in her lap, gazing at the rushing waters without seeing them. A strange fluttering was at her heart, a curious trepidation that was akin to intense fear caused her neck to throb, but her face was very pale. Finally, with a swift gesture, she tore the envelope open and read: MY GOOD LITTLE NURSE: Those other letters were not from me but this one is: you saw me write it. It carries a thousand thanks for your kindness and devotion to your helpless patient. During those dreadfully long hours your presence was a blessing; it could soothe away the pain and bring hope and comfort. In a couple of weeks more I shall be as strong as ever, but I know that without you Roaring River will never be the same. You came here bravely, ready to marry a decent man who would help you bear the burdens of this world, which had proved too heavy for you. Of course the man must be honest and worthy of your trust. After all that you underwent from the first moment of your being left alone on the tote-road I cannot wonder at your desire to go away. But I feel that without you I could never have pulled through and that by this time the prospect of a life spent without you is unbearable. I am not begging you humbly for your love. I don't want to owe it to your pity for the man who was so ill, to the deep charity and the kindness of a sweet and unselfish nature. That is why I couldn't speak out my longing for you and the love that fills my heart, lest I might surprise you into a hasty consent. I could not have restrained my emotion and I know I would have begged and implored--and that might have made it very hard and painful for you to refuse. Please return to me after you have read and thought this over. If we are to remain but friends you will extend one hand to me and I shall know what it means. I daresay I shall survive that hurt as I survived the other. Have no fear for me. But if you feel in your heart that you can give me all I long for, that you are willing to become my wife, then stretch both of those little hands to me, since it will take the two to carry such a precious gift. Your hopeful and grateful patient, HUGO. After she had finished she tried to read the paper again, but it was too hard to see. For a moment she stared at the Roaring Falls through the misty veil of their spray. Thrusting the letter into her bosom she found her feet, suddenly, and ran to the little shack. Hugo had risen and was standing in the doorway, his heart beating fast and his face very pale. As Madge came near she uplifted both hands, but she could hardly see him. Once more her eyes were suffused with tears, but it was as if the glory of a wondrous sunlit world had been too strong for them. She was smiling happily, however, when he took both little hands into his right. "I--I hurried back," she panted. "Neither--neither did I feel that--that I could live without you--without this wonderful peace of beautiful Roaring River, and--and the love that it has brought to me!" A few moments later they heard Big Stefan's familiar shout from the tote-road. The toboggan could no longer be used and he had driven over a shaggy old horse that had pulled a reliable buckboard. "Dot's yoost great!" he roared, as he saw Hugo standing outside the shack. "I tank I'm more pleased as if I find a dozen goldmines, you bet! De leetle leddy she safe you all right--all right. But now I take her avay to Meester Doctor Starr, like he telt me to. De doctor he gif me a bit letter for you, ma'am. I find it soon." Two letters on a single day was heavy mail for Roaring River. Madge tore the last one open and read: My Dear Miss Nelson: Stefan has promised to bring you to us to-morrow. I want you to come, for my wife and the kiddies are awaiting you. From my latest study of conditions at Roaring River I have gathered that you may not stay with us as long as I had first hoped, but at any rate it will be long enough to do a little fixing and arranging of feminine garments. My instinct tells me that your visit to us will be short since our patient, if you tarry too long, may come and steal you away. He will have to come anyway for, just as I'm the nearest doctor to you, so my friend Jamieson is the nearest parson. With every best wish, Very sincerely yours, DAVID STARR. Madge handed the letter over to Hugo who quickly looked it over. "Wonderful fellow is Starr," he declared. Stefan took his friend Hugo up in his arms, in spite of protests on the latter's part that he wanted to try to walk. The young man was a light load, indeed, at this time. He was placed on the seat of the buckboard and, with Stefan carefully leading the horse and Madge walking alongside, was taken up to Papineau's. The woodlands were very different now, thought the girl. When she had arrived the great land was plunged in slumber under its mantle of snow. The few birds there were at the time were voiceless, like the partridges that only find a peep when fluffy broods follow them, or some of the larger fowl which only hoot or shriek. The sound-calls of the wilderness had been those of struggling waters, of cracking trees, of snow-masses violently displaced. But now birds were in full song everywhere, carrying trifles of stick and floss and grass wherewith to build their nests. Formerly there had been the uneasy groans and sighs of a gigantic restless sleeper. Now there was the chant of a heart-free nature engaged again in vigorous toil, in wresting the recurrent glory of surging life and hope from the powers of darkness and bitter, benumbing cold. It was a resurrection! The mile separating the shack from the Papineau homestead had been a long and fatiguing one on the first occasion of Madge's going to see the wounded man. Now the distance was trivial; a few sturdy steps, a few fillings of one's lungs with the scent of conifers; and there was the little chimney smoking and the cow with her little calf, and the dogs, and the few hens that had survived the attacks of weasels. Best of all there were her friends, children and babies and the quiet Frenchman and the kind-hearted, red-cheeked, cheery mother whose influence had been paramount in creating a little paradise in the wilds. She helped Hugo off the buckboard, jealously, deeming herself the only one who could properly handle an invalid, and enthroned him in the best chair, near the open fire. "You--you are h'all so velcome as I can't say," she declared. "Miss Nelson is going away with Stefan in a few minutes," said Hugo, cheerfully. At this Mrs. Papineau's face fell. She looked positively unhappy. "Some'ow," she said, sniffing, "I always 'ope she stay 'ere h'all de time now. I--I never tink she go avay for good. De--de dogs and de calf and--an--de baby and chil'ren dey all love 'er. I h'awful sorry." "But--but I'm coming back, Mrs. Papineau," cried Madge. "I--I can't live away from--from Roaring River now!" "Dey two iss ter be marrit!" roared Stefan. "Hey! What you tank? I tank so all de time, you bet!" At this they all crowded around Madge, and such hand-shakings, and such kisses from the good woman and the children, and such joy depicted on all the faces! She thought that never a bride had received such heartfelt congratulations and good wishes. But in a couple of hours the old horse was quite rested and had finished the small bag of oats Stefan had brought and eaten plenty of the sweet-scented hay furnished by Papineau, and it was time to go. Strangely enough, at the last moment, the usually crowded house was deserted excepting by two, who found themselves in one another's arms. "God bless you, Madge," said the man. "I will come soon." "I shall be waiting," answered the girl, simply. And so she rode away again, in the old buckboard that rolled and pitched and heaved and bucked so that very often she got off and walked at the side of Stefan. Late that night she found herself in the doctor's home, after a wonderful welcome from his wife and himself. The kiddies had been put to bed. "I--I feel that--that I am deserting you, that you trusted me to help you with a splendid work," she said, with head bent down. "That is not so," the man answered gravely. "Remember what I told you when I was trying to enlist you. I say that more than for any other purposes, we wanted women, good women, to come and become the mothers of the strong, fine breed that can alone master our wilderness. Hugo is one of those fellows of brawn and brain who are working towards the common happiness in establishing his own. He needs a helper he can love and trust and cherish, one who will in herself be the biggest reward he can ever gain, and make him feel that the bigger part of the purpose of his life has been secured with your promise to marry him. To me the sick and the halt are paramount--but they will have to wait a little. In some way or other they will be looked after, I promise you, for no man in a responsible position can be anything but a problem-solver, in these places, and I'll find someone, never fear." "Yours will be the more important occupation now, my dear," said the doctor's wife; "you'll be in the front ranks of the fighters." So the doctor went away and the two women made the sewing-machine hum, and cut and basted and threaded needles. Together they managed to put together all that was indispensable and to discard the frivolous, as became the wives of pioneers. Two or three weeks went by very fast and one day Sophy McGurn, from behind the shop-window, saw Hugo Ennis standing on the platform of the little station at Carcajou. With him was big Stefan, clad in his best, and the entire Papineau family. Most of the children were about to take the very first railway journey of their lives and the excitement was intense and prolonged. Finally the train came puffing along and went away again, panting on the upgrade, while Miss Sophy bit her nails hard. There is no doubt that Stefan had kept still, since he had been requested to. No one else in Carcajou knew anything as to the inwardness of the girl's coming, of Sophy's share in it, or of the discovery by the doctor of the latter's duplicity. And yet there was an element in Carcajou that frowned upon the young lady. Her accusation had been reported far and wide. To the settlers of the place her suspicions had seemed uncalled-for and bespeaking a mean and vicious disposition. Hugo, after all, had been everybody's friend. He was now about to marry this young woman from far-away New York. This utterly disproved Sophy's statements, wherefore she became more unpopular than ever. A couple of hundred men had come over to work at the sawmill, that was purring and grinding and shrieking again, all day and night. In the course of events they were learning all about the matter, and some of the more ribald asked her jocular questions. It was annoying, to say the least, to have a big logger come in and ask what were the news of the day, and if there was any more murdering going on. She projected to leave Carcajou as soon as she could, and made her parents wish she would, as soon as possible. The party reached their station and walked over to the church, that stood in what looked like a pasture, with great stumps of trees still dotting the ground. About it was the very small beginning of a graveyard. With the years it would grow but always it would be swept by the winds blowing aromatic scents from the forests beyond the lake. And about the church itself grew simple flowers, some of which were beginning to twine themselves upon the walls. Madge came up the aisle, attended by Stefan and the doctor. Hugo met them, the emotion of the moment having caused some of the pallor to return to his cheeks. It was soon all over. At the doctor's house there was a little repast, followed by some simple words that sounded hopeful and strong. An hour later the couple left, but not for a honeymoon in the towns. It was in a place reached after many hours of paddling, where the red trout abounded and the swallows darted over the waters. Here in their tent they could do their own cooking, beginning the life that was to be one of mutual help, of cheerful toil, of achievement and of happiness. When they came back to Carcajou again, Stefan was waiting for them with a strong team of horses able easily to negotiate the tote-road. This highway, in many places, had been repaired. Fallen trees were cut across and pulled to one side, swampy bits were corduroyed, big holes had been filled in. Indeed, the traffic had become important, all of a sudden, towards the Roaring Falls. Lumber had been hauled there, and many tools, and kegs of nails, and a gang of men had walked over. Finally they came in sight of the river again, in which were no more black-looking, threatening air-holes. Mostly it was placid now, with rapids that could easily be passed over by ably-managed canoes or bateaux, succeeding the deep still waters now and then and frothing and fuming only as if in play. Here a big blue heron rose from it, and there a couple of kingfishers jabbered and scolded and shrieked. Partridges crossed the road in front of the horses, and the inevitable rabbit scampered away in leisurely fashion. But they reached the little path that led to the shack without seeing anything of the tiny home or of the falls beyond, for the bushes and shrubs were in full foliage and seemed to be concealing their Eden from passers-by. Madge leaped from the wagon. Her kingdom was over there, just a few rods away, and she was eager to see it again. Yes! The shack was still there, looking tinier than ever. But very close to it a foundation had been dug from which rose rough walls of broken stone. Upon these strong scantlings had been fastened and men were clapboarding them over into a bigger and finer home. Above the trees some smoke was showing. It marked a place where a half-score shacks and little barracks were going up, to shelter the men who were to follow deeper those promising veins in the great rocks. There would soon be blasting and more drilling and the breaking up of ore, which would be carried down the river to the railroad. But from the edge of the great falls nothing of all this could be seen. Except for the new house everything seemed to be unchanged. It was with a sentiment of a little awe, of gratefulness, of a surprise which the passing of the weeks had not yet been able to dispel, that Madge realized that this was now her own, the place of her future toil, the spot where she was to found a home and fill it with happiness. It was marvelous! It was a thousand times more splendid than anything she could have conceived when first she was journeying to this country. And the greatness of it lay in the fact that she understood, that she realized, that she knew that the whole world lay before her and her husband, to make or mar, to convert into a part of the great effort that is always a joy, the upbuilding of a home, or to allow to revert into the wilderness again if strength were lacking. At first she could not step farther than the little spot from which her dwelling-place first stood revealed. "What do you think of it, Madge?" asked her husband. "I think that if I had prayed all my life for a wonderful home, before coming here, I would never have been able to pray for anything so splendid. Think of it--you and I--for years and years that will pass ever so swiftly, together in this glorious place and enjoying perfect peace--the great peace of Roaring River!" And the man stood by, his heart very full, his thoughts following her own, and a wave of happiness surged into his being, for all that was best in his former dreams was at his hand, since nothing but the woman at his side really counted. ZANE GREY'S NOVELS May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS A New York society girl buys a ranch which becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal superintendent rescues her when she is captured by bandits. A surprising climax brings the story to a delightful close. THE RAINBOW TRAIL The story of a young clergyman who becomes a wanderer in the great western uplands--until at last love and faith awake. DESERT GOLD The story describes the recent uprising along the border, and ends with the finding of the gold which two prospectors had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine. RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon authority ruled. The prosecution of Jane Withersteen is the theme of the story. THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of deep canons and giant pines." THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT A lovely girl, who has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young New Englander. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall become the second wife of one of the Mormons--Well, that's the problem of this great story. THE SHORT STOP The young hero, tiring of his factory grind, starts out to win fame and fortune as a professional ball player. His hard knocks at the start are followed by such success as clean sportsmanship, courage and honesty ought to win. BETTY ZANE This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers. THE LONE STAR RANGER After killing a man in self defense, Buck Duane becomes an outlaw along the Texas border. In a camp on the Mexican side of the river, he finds a young girl held prisoner, and in attempting to rescue her, brings down upon himself the wrath of her captors and henceforth is hunted on one side by honest men, on the other by outlaws. THE BORDER LEGION Joan Randle, in a spirit of anger, sent Jim Cleve out to a lawless Western mining camp, to prove his mettle. Then realizing that she loved him--she followed him out. On her way, she is captured by a bandit band, and trouble begins when she shoots Kells, the leader--and nurses him to health again. Here enters another romance--when Joan, disguised as an outlaw, observes Jim, in the throes of dissipation. A gold strike, a thrilling robbery--gambling and gun play carry you along breathlessly. THE LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS, By Helen Cody Wetmore and Zane Grey The life story of Colonel William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill," as told by his sister and Zane Grey. It begins with his boyhood in Iowa and his first encounter with an Indian. We see "Bill" as a pony express rider, then near Fort Sumter as Chief of the Scouts, and later engaged in the most dangerous Indian campaigns. There is also a very interesting account of the travels of "The Wild West Show." No character in public life makes a stronger appeal to the imagination of America than "Buffalo Bill," whose daring and bravery made him famous. GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers. Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and onward. LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer. This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery. THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. "The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality. FRECKLES. Illustrated. Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment. A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated. The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors. The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. 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37739	----	Transcriber's Note: For this text version passages in italics are indicated by _underscores_. Small caps have been replaced by ALL CAPS. EGERTON RYERSON AND Education in Upper Canada BY J. HAROLD PUTMAN, B.A., D.Paed., Inspector of Public Schools, Ottawa, Ont. (Formerly in charge of the Departments in Psychology and English, Ottawa Normal School) TORONTO WILLIAM BRIGGS 1912 Copyright, Canada, 1912, by WILLIAM BRIGGS PREFACE The object of this volume is to give a succinct idea of the nature and history of our Ontario School Legislation. This legislation is so bound up with the name of Egerton Ryerson that to give its history is to relate the work of his life. It would be useless to attempt to show how our school legislation developed under Responsible Government without some understanding of its history previous to the time of Ryerson. I have, therefore, devoted three chapters to a brief account of education in Upper Canada previous to 1844. No attempt has been made to give the history of our schools since Ryerson's retirement, partly because no radical changes have been made, and partly because it would involve criticism of statesmen and teachers who are still actively engaged in work. Nor has any attempt been made to trace the history of University education after 1845. To do so would require a complete volume. But, as University education prior to 1844 was so closely connected with Common and Grammar Schools, it seemed necessary, up to a certain point, to trace the course of all three together. The introductory chapter on the biography of Ryerson is only indirectly connected with the other chapters, and may be omitted by the reader who has no interest in the man himself. It is hoped that this volume may encourage teachers in service and teachers in training to acquire a fuller knowledge of their own educational institutions. THE AUTHOR. OTTAWA, July 1st, 1912. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Biographical 7 II. Education in Upper Canada from 1783 to 1844 33 III. Education in Upper Canada from 1783 to 1844-- (_Continued_) 58 IV. Education in Upper Canada from 1783 to 1844-- (_Continued_) 83 V. Ryerson's First Report on a System of Elementary Instruction 110 VI. Ryerson's School Bill of 1846 123 VII. The Ryerson Bill of 1850 144 VIII. Ryerson and Separate Schools 173 IX. Ryerson and Grammar Schools 204 X. Ryerson and the Training of Teachers 232 XI. Ryerson School Bill of 1871 257 XII. Conclusion 264 Bibliography 269 Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada CHAPTER I. _BIOGRAPHICAL._ Egerton Ryerson was born in 1803, in the township of Charlotteville, now a part of the county of Norfolk. His father was a United Empire Loyalist who had held some command in a volunteer regiment of New Jersey. After the Revolution the elder Ryerson settled first in New Brunswick, coming later to Upper Canada, where he took up land and became a pioneer farmer. The young Ryersons, of whom there were several, took their full share in the laborious farm work, and Egerton seems to have prided himself upon his physical strength and his skill in all farm operations. He received such an education as was afforded by the indifferent Grammar School of the London District, supplemented by the reading of whatever books he could secure. At an early age he was strongly drawn toward that militant Christianity preached by the early Methodist Circuit Riders, and at the age of eighteen joined the Methodist Society. This step created an estrangement between Ryerson and his father, who already had two sons in the Methodist ministry. Ryerson left home and became usher in the London District Grammar School, where he remained two years, when his father sent for him to come home. After some further farming experience, the young man went to Hamilton to attend the Gore District Grammar School. He was already thinking of becoming a Methodist preacher, and wished to prepare himself by a further course of study. During his stay in Hamilton under the instruction of John Law, he worked so eagerly at Latin and Greek that he fell ill of a fever which nearly ended his career. When barely twenty-two years of age he decided to travel as a Methodist missionary. In a letter written about this time to his brother, the Rev. George Ryerson, we get a glimpse of the young preacher's ideas upon the preparation of sermons. "On my leisure days I read from ten to twenty verses of Greek a day besides reading history, the Scriptures, and the best works on practical divinity, among which Chalmers has decidedly the preference in my mind both for piety and depth of thought. These two last studies employ the greatest part of my time. My preaching is altogether original. I endeavour to collect as many ideas from every source as I can; but I do not copy the expression of anyone, for I do detest seeing blooming flowers in dead men's hands. I think it my duty and I try to get a general knowledge and view of any subject that I discuss beforehand; but not unfrequently I have tried to preach with only a few minutes' previous reflection."[1] [1] See "Story of My Life," by Ryerson, edited by Hodgins, page 42. After being received into the Methodist connection as a probationer, Ryerson was assigned a charge on Yonge St., which embraced the town of York and several adjacent townships. It took four weeks on horseback and on foot over almost impassable roads to complete the circuit. During this time the probationer was expected to conduct from twenty-five to thirty-five services. The accommodation furnished by the pioneers was of the rudest kind, but the people gave the travelling preacher a hearty welcome. Young Ryerson was acquainting himself with conditions in Upper Canada at first hand by living among the people. At a later time, when the opportunity came, he made use of his intimate knowledge to secure for these people the advantages of better schools. During this first year of his missionary ministry, Ryerson was drawn into the Clergy Reserves controversy. The Methodist Society in Upper Canada was an offshoot of that body in the United States. This connection had come about in a very natural way. Upper Canada was largely settled by United Empire Loyalists. The Methodist circuit-riders naturally followed their people into the wilds of Upper Canada. In many districts no religious services of any kind were held except those of the Methodists. In May, 1826, a pamphlet was published, being a sermon preached by Archdeacon Strachan, of York, on the occasion of the death of the Bishop of Quebec. This pamphlet contained an historical sketch of the rise and progress of the Anglican Church in Canada. The claim was made that the Anglican Church was by law the Established Church of Upper Canada. The Methodists were singled out and held up to ridicule. They were represented as American and disloyal. Their preachers were declared to be ignorant and spreaders of sedition, and the Imperial Parliament was petitioned to grant £300,000 a year to the Anglican Church in Canada to enable it to maintain the loyalty of Upper Canada to Britain. To Ryerson, the son of a Loyalist, this was more than could be borne, and he immediately crossed swords with the Anglican prelate by writing a defence of Methodism and calling into question the exclusive demands made by Strachan on behalf of the Anglicans. The contest waxed warm and then hot. The whole country was convulsed. Within four years the Legislature of Upper Canada passed Acts allowing the various religious denominations to hold lands for churches, parsonages, and burying-grounds, and also allowing their ministers to solemnize marriages. Besides these concessions, the Legislative Assembly was forced by public opinion to petition the Imperial Parliament against the claims of the Anglican Church to be an Established Church in Canada and to a monopoly of the Clergy Reserves. During his second year in the ministry, Ryerson spent part of his time on a mission to the Chippewa Indians on the Credit River. While there, he showed himself to be very practical. He encouraged the Indians to build better houses and to clear and cultivate the land.[2] "After having collected the means necessary to build the house of worship and schoolhouse, I showed the Indians how to enclose and make gates for their gardens. Between daylight and sunrise I called out four of the Indians in succession and showed them how, and worked with them, to clear and fence in, and plow and plant their first wheat and corn fields. In the afternoon I called out the schoolboys to go with me and cut and pile and burn the underbrush in and around the village. The little fellows worked with great glee as long as I worked with them, but soon began to play when I left them." [2] See "Story of My Life," by Egerton Ryerson, edited by Hodgins, page 60. A letter written by Rev. William Ryerson to his brother, the Rev. George Ryerson, on March 8th, 1827, after a visit to the Indian Mission, shows Egerton Ryerson's practical nature and incidentally gives us his method of instruction. "I visited Egerton at the Credit last week.... They have about forty pupils on the list, but there were only thirty present. The rest were absent making sugar.... Their progress in spelling, reading, and writing, is astonishing, but especially in writing, which certainly exceeds anything I ever saw. When I was there they were fencing the lots in the village in a very neat, substantial manner. On my arrival at the Mission I found Egerton, about half a mile from the village, stripped to the shirt and pantaloons, clearing land with between twelve and twenty of the little Indian boys, who were all engaged in chopping and picking up the brush."[3] [3] See "Story of My Life," page 69. At the Methodist Conference of 1827, Ryerson was sent to the Cobourg Circuit. During his term there he was again drawn into a controversy with Dr. Strachan, who sent to the Imperial Parliament an Ecclesiastical Chart, purporting to give an account of religion in Upper Canada. Ryerson claimed that this chart contained many false statements and that it was peculiarly unfair to the Methodists. The real point at issue was whether the Anglican Church was to become the Established Church of Upper Canada. In 1828, Ryerson was appointed to the Hamilton and Ancaster Circuit, which reached from within five miles of Brantford to Stoney Creek. On September 10th, 1828, he married Hannah Aikman, of Hamilton.[4] [4] Died in 1832. In 1833, Ryerson married Mary Armstrong, of Toronto. The Methodist Conference of 1829 determined to establish an official newspaper to be known as _The Christian Guardian_. Ryerson was elected as the first editor and was sent to New York to procure the plant. The paper started with a circulation of 500, which in three years was increased to some 3,000. Besides defending Methodist principles and institutions, the paper made a strong stand for civil liberty, temperance, education, and missionary work. It soon came to be looked upon as one of the leading journals of Upper Canada. Ryerson gave up the position of editor in 1832, and the following year made a trip to England to negotiate a union between the Canadian Methodist Conference and the Wesleyan Conference of England. The union was consummated. Ryerson returned to Canada and was re-elected editor of the _Guardian_. While in England, he had interviews with Earl Ripon, Lord Stanley and other public men, to whom he gave valuable information concerning Canadian affairs, especially those connected with the vexed question of the status of the Anglican Church. On his return to Canada, in 1833, Ryerson published in the _Guardian_ "Impressions Made by My Late Visit to England." In this article he gave his estimate of Tories, Whigs, and Radicals. He saw much to admire in the moderate Tories, little to praise in the Whigs, and much to condemn in the Radicals. His strictures on the latter called down upon him the wrath and invective of William Lyon Mackenzie. To some extent Ryerson's articles led the constitutional reformers in Upper Canada to separate themselves from those reformers who were prepared to establish a republican form of government in order to secure equal political and civil rights. To many of his old friends it seemed that Ryerson had given up championing liberty and had become a Tory. Many were ready to accuse him of self-seeking in his desire to conciliate the party of privilege. One reverend brother,[5] writing to him, says: "I can only account for your strange and un-Ryersonian conduct and advice on one principle--that there is something ahead which you, through your superior political spy-glass, have discovered and thus shape your course, while we landlubbers, short-sighted as we are, have not even heard of it." Hundreds of subscribers gave up the _Guardian_ as a protest against the views of its editor, but as the crisis approached which culminated in the Rebellion of '37 and '38, the tide of public opinion turned in Ryerson's favour. [5] Rev. Jas. Evans, of Niagara District. See part of letter in "Story of My Life," page 131. In 1835, Ryerson gave up the _Guardian_ and took a church at Kingston. Scarcely was he settled when he undertook a second visit to England. The Methodists had, in 1832, laid the corner-stone of the Upper Canada Academy at Cobourg. They had no charter, although an unsuccessful attempt had been made to have the Trustee Board incorporated by the Legislature of Upper Canada. Extensive buildings were under way and the trustees were in financial difficulties. Ryerson was sent to England to beg subscriptions and also to attempt to secure a Royal Charter. The work was distasteful to him, but he persevered, and after more than a year and six months spent in England he accomplished three ends. He secured enough money in subscriptions to relieve the most pressing immediate needs of the Trustee Board. He secured an order from the Colonial Secretary directed to the Governor of Upper Canada, authorizing him to pay to the Upper Canada Academy, from the unappropriated revenues of the Crown, the sum of £4,000.[6] Last, and most important, he secured a Royal Charter, although up to that time no such charter had ever been issued to any religious body except the Established Church. To Ryerson, the visit to England was of prime importance. It gave him a broadened view of British institutions and English public men. It gave him a political experience that was of great value to him in later years. It gave him an opportunity to appeal to his fellow men upon the subject of education and educational institutions. [6] Later, in 1837, Ryerson secured this money only after a petition to the Legislature. While in England, Ryerson contributed a series of letters to the London _Times_ on Canadian affairs. There was a prevalent feeling in England that a very large part of the Upper Canadian people was determined upon a republican form of government. Ryerson's letters did something to remove this impression. After the Rebellion of 1837 was crushed, the constitutional reform party was apparently without any influence. It seemed that the Family Compact oligarchy would have everything in their own hands. Prospects for equality of civil and religious liberty were not bright, and it is significant of the Methodists' appreciation of Ryerson's ability that they immediately planned to make him again editor of the _Guardian_. His brother John, writing to him in March, 1838, said: "It is a great blessing that Mackenzie and radicalism are down, but we are in imminent danger of being brought under the domination of a military and high-church oligarchy which would be equally bad, if not infinitely worse. Under the blessing of Providence, there is one remedy and only one: that is for you to take the editorship of the _Guardian_ again."[7] [7] See copy of letter in "Story of My Life," page 200. Ryerson did take the position, and in his first editorial in the _Guardian_ of the 11th July, 1838, says: "Notwithstanding the almost incredible calumny which has in past years been heaped upon me by antipodes-party-presses, I still adhere to the principles and views upon which I set out in 1826. I believe the endowment of the priesthood of any Church in the Province to be an evil to that church.... I believe that the appropriation of the proceeds of the Clergy Reserves to general educational purposes will be the most satisfactory and advantageous disposal of them that can be made. In nothing is this Province so defective as in the requisite available provisions for an efficient system of general education. Let the distinctive character of that system be the union of public and private effort.... To Government influence will be spontaneously added the various and combined religious influences of the country in the noble, statesmanlike and divine work of raising up an elevated, intelligent, and moral population." Dr. Ryerson clearly saw that religion, politics, and education could not at this period be separated, and for the next two years he did his utmost, through the _Guardian_, to prevent the Anglican Church from securing undivided possession of the Clergy Reserves. The difficulties of his task were increased by the fact that there were in Canada several British Wesleyan missionaries who were not unwilling to see an Anglican Establishment. They were cleverly used by some of the Anglicans and their friends to cause ferment and sow discord among the Methodists in Canada. From 1838 until 1840, when he finally gave up the editorship of the _Guardian_, Ryerson fought strongly for equal religious privileges for all the people of Upper Canada. Nor were Ryerson's efforts in this direction confined to the columns of the _Guardian_. He addressed several communications to the new Colonial Secretary, Lord Normanby. Lord Durham and his successor, Lord Sydenham, received the cordial support of Ryerson in their efforts to give a constitutional government to Canada. Largely through Ryerson's suggestion there was issued at Toronto, in 1841, the _Monthly Review_, which was to be a medium for disseminating the liberal views of Sydenham. Ryerson wrote the prospectus and contributed some articles. Probably as a recognition for this work, Sydenham sent him a draft for £100, which he promptly returned. In May, 1840, Ryerson paid a fraternal visit to the American General Conference at Baltimore. At this time he fully purposed to take a church in New York City for one or two years. He even thought it quite possible that he might make the United States his permanent home. On his return to Canada from the Baltimore visit he was elected Secretary of the Conference. Charges were made against him by a British Wesleyan which determined him to visit England. This visit led to a rupture between the Canadian and British Methodist Conferences. When Ryerson and his brother returned to Canada, a special meeting of the Canada Conference was convened to consider the break with British Methodism. The result was a rupture in the Canadian Wesleyan Conference itself. Many blamed the Ryersons for the quarrel with the English Conference, and Egerton again thought seriously of going to the United States or of withdrawing from ministerial work. The truth seems to be that Ryerson was more than a preacher. He lived in stirring times, when the nascent elements of constitutional government were in process of crystallization. He unconsciously felt that he must have a part in directing the destinies of his native country. He saw clearly that the Canadian Methodist Church must ultimately be independent and that its ministers ought not to adopt a policy dictated to them by the English Conference, many members of which were wholly ignorant of Canadian conditions. During the next two years, 1841 and 1842, Ryerson was in charge of the Adelaide Street Church, Toronto. He seems to have given himself up wholly to his pastoral work and to have taken little active part in passing events. On the 27th of August, 1841, Lord Sydenham signed a bill which made Upper Canada Academy a college, with university powers. The name was changed to Victoria College. In October of the same year, Ryerson was appointed the first principal of the new college. He did not give up his church work until June, 1842. On the 21st of that month he was formally installed in his new position. On the 3rd of August the Wesleyan University of Middletown, Conn., conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Lord Sydenham died in 1841. It seems that shortly before his death he had some communication with Ryerson regarding the latter's appointment as Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada. Ryerson claimed that the Governor actually promised him the appointment but that there had never been any official written record. Sydenham was succeeded by Sir Charles Bagot, who in May, 1842, made the Rev. Mr. Murray Superintendent of Education. Sir Charles Bagot died in May, 1843, and was succeeded by Sir Charles Metcalfe. It was a critical period in the history of Canada. The people were supposed to be in possession of the enjoyment of responsible government. But as a matter of fact, very few had any definite ideas as to what was meant by responsible government. Lord Metcalfe refused to accept the advice of his Council regarding an appointment. Instead of resigning at once as a protest they attempted to secure from him a promise that he would in future accept their recommendations. He refused. Later the leading members of the Council resigned. Party feeling ran high, and the Governor had few friends. Ryerson had been upon familiar terms with Lord Durham, Lord Sydenham, and Sir Charles Bagot. He now had several communications and one or more interviews with Lord Metcalfe. He made direct and positive offers of his services to the Governor. He then wrote a series of nine letters in vindication of the Governor's course. These letters caused much excitement and won for Ryerson the lasting enmity of the advanced Reform party, who openly accused him of toadyism and of selling his support to Lord Metcalfe in return for the promise of office. Whatever may have been the effect of Ryerson's letters, Lord Metcalfe's party won a temporary victory and Ryerson himself was appointed Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada in October, 1844. To show how the political opponents of Lord Metcalfe viewed Ryerson's appointment, the circumstances connected with it and his fitness for the position of Superintendent, I quote from the Toronto _Globe_, the editor of which was an out-and-out opponent of Ryerson and an unsparing critic of his early educational legislation. In the _Globe_ of May 28th, 1844, there appeared a letter signed "Junius," protesting against Ryerson's appointment. The writer insinuates that Ryerson was won over by receiving some notice from Lord Metcalfe, and that the Governor hoped by winning over Ryerson to win a united support from the Methodists. He calls Ryerson a violent political partisan and taunts him with having only a superficial education. He says: "Nor is it flattering to the many learned men of the country that one represented to be of slender attainments in a few common branches of English education, and totally ignorant of mathematics and classics, should be entrusted with the education of the country, many of whose youthful scholars have attained higher knowledge than their chief." In a _Globe_ editorial of June 4th, 1844, in commenting upon Ryerson's first letter in defence of Lord Metcalfe, the writer says: "If the Rev. Mr. Ryerson's appearance in the political field is indecorous and uncalled for, the manner in which he has begun his work is in perfect keeping with that appearance. A more presumptuous and egotistical exhibition from a man of talents and education has never been brought under the public eye. The first column alone of his Address [preface to letters in defence of Lord Metcalfe] contains fifty repetitions of the little insignificant word _I_, to say nothing of _me_ and _my_.... We may be permitted to express our utter astonishment, however, to find a minister of the Gospel embarking with so much eagerness in the sea of politics." That Ryerson had a very good understanding with Lord Metcalfe as to the position of Superintendent of Education before writing the famous letters is apparent to anyone who reads the correspondence. That there was anything discreditable to either party in that understanding has never been shown. On the contrary, it seems quite certain that Ryerson honestly believed the Governor was right. It is certain he made out a strong case and likely won many supporters for the Metcalfe party. This was especially galling to the party who called themselves _Reformers_, because they had looked upon Ryerson as one of their champions. But Ryerson never had been, and never became, a mere party man. He fought for great principles, and if up to 1844 he had generally found himself with the Reformers, it was because they were championing what Ryerson believed to be the right. To taunt him with being half-educated was the mark of a small mind. Every man must be judged according to the way he makes use of his opportunities, and by such a standard no man in Canadian public life has ever measured higher than Egerton Ryerson. He may have known "little Latin and less Greek," he may have been wholly ignorant of the binomial theorem, and he may not have been able to write as smooth and graceful English as the classical scholars of Oxford, but he knew that thousands of boys and girls in the backwoods of Upper Canada were growing up in ignorance; he knew that the secondary schools of Upper Canada were scarcely more efficient than they had been thirty years before, and he knew that the country had ample resources to give reasonable educational advantages to all. More than this, he must have felt that, given reasonable freedom and support, he could in a short time change the whole system of education. Dr. Ryerson, in accepting appointment, stipulated that he should be allowed to make a tour of Europe before taking up the active duties of his office. He left Canada for Europe in November, 1844, and returned in December, 1845. He made an elaborate report[8] based on personal investigation into the schools of Great Britain and Ireland, France, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and other European countries, besides New York and the New England States. Perhaps the systems of Ireland, Germany, and Massachusetts gave Ryerson more practical suggestions than those of any other countries. In Prussia he saw the advantages of trained teachers and a strong central bureau of administration; in Ireland he saw a simple solution of religious difficulties and a fine system of national textbooks; in Massachusetts he saw an efficient system managed by popularly elected boards of trustees. [8] See Chapter V. During his absence Ryerson was again attacked and held up to ridicule by the _Globe_. In an editorial of April 29th, 1845,[9] we find the following: "The vanity of the Deputy Superintendent of Education demands fresh incense at every turn. He has doffed the politician for the moment and now comes out a ruling pedagogue of Canada. What a pity that he was not a cardinal or at least a stage representative of one! At what a rate would he strut upon the boards as Wolsey and rant for the benefit of his hearers and for his own benefit more especially! He beats all the presumptuous meddling priests of the day.... Doubtless the Rev. Mr. Ryerson is preparing to astonish the world by his educational researches in Europe and the United States. It will be a subject of no small amusement to watch his pranks. We shall no doubt hear of his visiting all the most celebrated Continental schools and are astonished he did not call at Oxford and Cambridge. He could no doubt have given them some excellent hints!" [9] See bound volumes of _Globe_ in Legislative Library, Toronto. In a _Globe_ editorial of December 16th, 1845, when the Draper University Bill of that year was yet a topic of public discussion, we find this reference to Ryerson: "It is now more than twelve months since the Province was insulted by the appointment of Dr. Ryerson to the responsible situation of Superintendent of Public Instruction. To hide the gross iniquity of the transaction, Ryerson was sent out of the country on pretence of inquiring into the different systems of education. After being several months in England this public officer, paid by the people of Canada, has for the last eight months been on the Continent on a tour of pleasure.... Let the people of Canada rejoice and every Methodist willing to be sold throw up his cap. Ryerson is here ready to dispose of them to the highest bidder, the purchase money to be applied to his own benefit with a modicum for Victoria College." Ryerson's report of 1846 was favourably received, and the Government asked him to draft a school bill based on his report. This he did, and the Bill of 1846 became the basis of our Common School system. After Lord Metcalfe's departure from Canada and the election of a Reform administration, there was a clamour from strong party men that Ryerson should be removed. The Toronto _Globe_ led in the attacks against him. It is a tribute to his ability and to the system of education which he proposed, that these attacks all failed and that Dr. Ryerson came by degrees to command the confidence of both political parties. As soon as possible after his return from Europe in 1845, Ryerson moved from Cobourg to Toronto. When appointed in 1844, his rank was that of Deputy or Assistant Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada, the nominal head of the Department being the Provincial Secretary. The School Bill of 1846 made a change, and on June 17th of that year Ryerson received his commission as Superintendent of Education. One of his first acts was a proposal to found a journal of education, which should be a semi-official means of communication between the Superintendent on the one hand and District Superintendents, Trustees, Municipal Councillors, and teachers on the other. The "Journal" was established in 1848 and regularly issued until Ryerson gave up office in 1876. In the autumn of 1847, Ryerson spent nearly three months visiting County School Conventions, where he explained the new School Act and delivered a lecture upon "The Importance of Education to an Agricultural People." In 1850, Ryerson began a struggle for free schools which lasted until 1871. About the same time he obtained permission from the Legislature to establish an Educational Depository in connection with the Education Department. He visited Europe and some American cities and made very advantageous arrangements for securing in large quantities books, maps, globes, and other school appliances. These were supplied to School Boards at 50 cents on the dollar. The Depository was continued in operation until 1881 and handled in all $1,000,000 worth of supplies. In 1853 Ryerson spent three months in attending County Conventions and addressed thirty meetings. During this tour he visited his native county of Norfolk, and at Simcoe was presented with an address by the School Board. On his return to Toronto he was presented with an address and a silver tea service by the officials of the Education Department and the teachers of the Normal School. In 1853, Ryerson took advantage of an annual grant made by the Legislature in 1850 to establish public libraries throughout the Province. Before the end of 1855 no less than 117,000 volumes were distributed. In 1854 Ryerson was one of the Commissioners to prepare a report on a system of education for New Brunswick. In June, 1855, being in poor health, he got leave of absence to travel in Europe and to purchase objects of art for an educational museum. He was appointed Honorary Commissioner to the Paris Exposition by the Government. During his tour he visited London, spent several weeks in Paris, and made brief visits to Antwerp, Brussels, Munich, Florence, and Rome. In 1857, a new system of audit was adopted by the Government. Previous to this time the total money voted for schools for Upper Canada had been paid over to Ryerson. He gave bondsmen as security for the money and deposited it in the Toronto banks. Interest allowed on unexpended balances was credited to his personal account. This system seems to have been universal among officers in charge of public money at that time. But in 1857 the new auditor called in question Ryerson's right to this interest. After much wrangling, Ryerson paid over to the Government £1,375, being the amount he had received for interest. He then put in a claim of about the same amount for his expenses to Europe in 1844, and for amounts paid a deputy during his absence. The Government paid his claim, thus showing that they believed him morally entitled to the interest which he had repaid. In 1860, Ryerson made a three months' educational tour, addressing County Conventions. In all, he attended thirty-five meetings, giving addresses on the subjects of "Vagrant Children," "Free Schools," and "Public Grammar Schools." He was given a public dinner by the teachers of Northumberland and Durham on the occasion of his official visit to Cobourg. In 1866 he made a similar tour, addressing forty meetings in seven weeks. His chief object was to create public opinion in favor of legislation on compulsory attendance, public libraries and township Boards of Trustees. Later in the same year he again got permission to visit Europe for the purpose of adding to the museum and collecting information on schools for the deaf, dumb, and blind. He visited New York, London, Paris, Rome, Venice, and Geneva, returning in 1867. On his return he presented to the Legislature an elaborate report on education in Great Britain and European countries. In December, 1868, Ryerson tendered his resignation, suggesting that a responsible Minister of Education should be appointed and proposing that he himself should be superannuated. The resignation was not accepted. In 1869 he held another series of County Conventions. In the same year he wrote a letter to the Provincial Secretary, Hon. M. C. Cameron, reflecting on the action of Treasurer E. B. Wood in regard to a proposed change in the financial management of the Education Department. Ryerson's letter was indiscreet and would have led to his dismissal had he not withdrawn it. In 1872 the long-smouldering dissatisfaction of the Reform party with Ryerson's administration came to a head. The Honourable Edward Blake was Premier, and his Government disallowed some of Ryerson's regulations, questioned the authority of the Council of Public Instruction, and sought in many ways to curtail the Superintendent's power. Ryerson showed very little desire for conciliation and wished to refer the dispute to the Courts. He had so long and so successfully wielded an arbitrary power that he could not acquiesce in the system which made his Department subordinate to a responsible Cabinet. In 1873, Oliver Mowat became Attorney-General, and he, too, found Ryerson obdurate. Finally, as a result of this agitation, the Council of Public Instruction came to be composed partly of members elected by various bodies of teachers and partly by members appointed by the Cabinet. These latter were not recommended by the Superintendent, as had formerly been the custom. Friction over the Council continued during 1874 and 1875. In 1876, Ryerson was retired on his full salary of $4,000 a year. The following May he went to England to consult documents in the library of the British Museum bearing on his work, "The Loyalists of America." He enjoyed fairly good health until within a few months of his death, which occurred on February 19th, 1882. The Government recognized his valuable services by a grant of $10,000 to his widow. On the 24th of May, 1889, a statue to his memory was unveiled on the grounds of the Education Department, the scene of his labours for nearly forty years. CHAPTER II. _EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA FROM 1783 TO 1844._ Immediately after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, United Empire Loyalists began to make homes in Upper Canada. The Great Lakes and larger rivers were the natural highways. It happened, therefore, that the earliest settlements were along the St. Lawrence, the Niagara, and Lakes Erie and Ontario. For a few years these settlers were too busy to think very much about schools. Man's first wants are food, clothing, and shelter. But just as soon as rude homes were built and a patch of forest cleared upon which to grow grain and vegetables, these Upper Canadian Loyalists began to think of schools. It was natural that they should do so. They were descendants of an intelligent stock, people who had good schools in New England and of a people whose forefathers had enjoyed liberal educational advantages in the old world. Governor Simcoe reached Upper Canada in 1792, and almost immediately took steps to establish schools. He was an aristocrat who firmly believed in such a constitution of society as then existed in the old world. He naturally wished to see a reproduction of that society in the new world. Hence we are not surprised to find that his educational schemes were intended for the classes rather than for the masses. In a letter[10] written by Simcoe, April 28th, 1792, to the British Secretary of State, he urges grants of £100 each for schools at Niagara and Kingston. He also proposed a university with English Church professors. [10] See D. H. E. ("Documentary History of Education," by Dr. Hodgins), Vol. I., p. 11. In 1797, the House of Assembly and Legislative Council adopted an address to the King praying him to set apart waste lands of the Crown for the establishment of a respectable grammar school in each District, and also for a college or university. In answer to this petition, the Duke of Portland wrote saying that His Majesty proposed to comply with the request and wished further advice as to the best means of carrying it out. The Executive Council, the Judges and law officers of the Crown met in consultation in 1798 and recommended that 500,000 acres of waste Crown lands be set apart to build a provincial university, and a free grammar school in each of the four Districts. Grammar schools were to be built at once at Kingston and at Niagara, and, as soon as circumstances would permit, at Cornwall and at Sandwich. The university was to be at York. It was estimated that each grammar school would cost £3,000 to build and £180 a year to maintain. The schools were to accommodate one hundred boys each, and have a residence for the master, with some rooms for boarders.[11] No steps were taken to carry out these plans until after 1807. [11] See D. H. E., Vol. I., p. 21. Several private schools were opened prior to 1800. The chief of these were at Newark, York, Ancaster, Cornwall, Kingston, Adolphustown, St. Catharines, and Belleville. Some were evening schools. All were supported by fees. Many were taught by clergymen. The principal subjects were reading, writing, and arithmetic. On December 17th, 1802, Dr. Baldwin, of York, the father of Hon. Robt. Baldwin, issued the following notice;--[12] "Understanding that some of the Gentlemen of this Town have expressed much anxiety for the establishment of a Classical School, Dr. Baldwin begs leave to inform them and the Public that he intends, on Monday, the third day of January next, to open a school, in which he will instruct twelve boys in Reading, Writing, the Classics, and Arithmetic. "The terms are for each boy, Eight Guineas per annum, to be paid quarterly. One guinea entrance and one cord of wood to be supplied by each boy." [12] See D. H. E., Vol. I., p. 33. John Strachan, afterwards Bishop Strachan, opened a private school at Kingston in 1799. Later he opened one at Cornwall, and still later one at York. Attempts to open a public school in each District were defeated in the Legislature in 1804 and 1805. In 1806 the sum of £400[13] was appropriated to purchase scientific apparatus. [13] This £400 worth of apparatus was promptly handed over to Mr. Strachan by the Lieutenant-Governor. Mr. Strachan at this time had a private school at Cornwall. It seems quite evident that the apparatus was purchased purposely for his school and at his suggestion. See D. H. E., Vol. I., p. 155. In 1807, the Legislature took steps to carry out the plan proposed in 1797. There were by this time eight Districts in Upper Canada--Eastern, Johnstown, Midland, Newcastle, Home, Niagara, London, and Western. The sum of £800 was fixed as an annual appropriation to support "a Public School in each and every District in the Province." This meant £100 for each school or teacher. The Legislature also fixed the places where the schools were to be held. The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council was to appoint not less than five trustees[14] for each District school. These trustees were given almost absolute control over the management of the schools. [14] See D. H. E., Vol. I., p. 61. It must not be supposed that these schools were public schools in the sense we now attach to that term. Their founders had in mind the great English public school, whose curriculum was largely classical and whose benefits were confined to the wealthy. These schools were not in any sense popular schools. It would seem that Governor Simcoe's proposal in 1798 was to have "Free Grammar Schools."[15] But those established by the Act of 1807 levied considerable sums in fees. They were designed to educate the sons of gentlemen. They were to prepare for professional life. They were essentially for the benefit of the ruling classes. They were largely controlled by Anglicans,[16] and in many cases the teachers were Anglican clergymen. [15] See D. H. E., Vol. I., p. 20. [16] In 1830, when the United Presbytery of Upper Canada petitioned the Legislature against appointing so many Anglicans as trustees of grammar schools, the only reply was that Anglicans had not always been appointed. If these schools were not public schools as we now use the term "public school," neither were they high schools as we now use that term. The curricula had no uniformity. Each school was a law unto itself and depended almost wholly upon the teacher. If he were scholarly and earnest the school would accomplish much. Often very young boys who could scarcely read were admitted. In some schools a fine training in classics was given; in others even the elements of a common education were neglected. But although these schools were not for the mass of the people, their establishment was none the less an event of far-reaching importance. It was a decided advantage to the mass of the people that their rulers should have some educational advantages. No one can read the lists of names of men educated in these schools and afterwards prominent in Canadian public life without recognizing that their establishment was a blessing to the whole of Canada. They were caste schools, but they kept alive the torch of learning and civilization. Being founded out of public funds, there was created an interest in their welfare among the members of the Legislative Assembly. As years went on and the members of the Assembly came to really represent the people of Upper Canada, they were led to extend to all of the people such educational advantages as had been granted to a section of the people in 1807. Several efforts were made to repeal the Act of 1807 and substitute for it one of a more popular nature. These efforts were baffled either by the Legislative Council or through the influence of that body in the Assembly itself. A petition[17] presented by sixty-five residents of the Midland District to the Legislature of 1812 will give a fair idea of the state of feeling throughout Upper Canada in regard to education: "Your petitioners ... feel themselves in duty bound to state that 'An Act to establish Public Schools in each and every District of this Province' is found by experience not to answer the end for which it was designed. Its object, it is presumed, was to promote the education of our youth in general, but a little acquaintance with the facts must convince every unbiased mind that it has contributed little or nothing to the promotion of so laudable a design. By reason of the place of instruction being established at one end of the District, and the sum demanded for tuition, in addition to the annual compensation received from the public, most of the people are unable to avail themselves of the advantages contemplated by the institution. A few wealthy inhabitants, and those of the Town of Kingston, reap exclusively the benefit of it in this District. The institution, instead of aiding the middling and poorer class of His Majesty's subjects, casts money into the lap of the rich, who are sufficiently able, without public assistance, to support a school in every respect equal to the one established by law.... Wherefore, your petitioners pray, that so much of the Act first mentioned may be repealed, and such provisions made in the premises as may be conducive to public utility." [17] See Journals of Legislature of Upper Canada for 1812. A repeal bill of the Act of 1807 was passed by the Legislative Assembly of 1812, but thrown out by the Legislative Council. The Act of 1807 limited the schools to one for each District. This was unsatisfactory even to that class for whom the schools were especially designed. As the country made progress and became more thickly populated, eight schools were a wholly inadequate provision for the education of those requiring it. But the Legislative Assembly steadily resisted any attempt to enlarge the scope of these class schools. Perhaps it was owing to their resistance that in 1816 they secured the consent of the Legislative Council to a really forward movement in elementary education. But it would be a serious mistake to infer that the educational machinery of Upper Canada previous to 1816 was limited to these eight District Grammar Schools. What the Government failed to provide, private enterprise secured. More than two hundred schools were certainly in operation in 1816. These schools were maintained partly by subscriptions from well-to-do people and partly by fees collected from the pupils. In many cases they were private ventures, conducted by teachers who depended wholly upon fees. In some cases these schools were of a high order, perhaps superior to the District Grammar Schools; in other cases, probably in the large majority of cases, they were very inefficient. The average fees paid by pupils in the elementary schools were about twelve shillings per quarter. William Crooks, of Grimsby, writing to Gourlay, in January, 1818, says:[18] "The state of education is also at a very low ebb, not only in this township but generally throughout the District; although the liberality of the Legislature has been great in support of the District Grammar Schools (giving to the teachers of each £100 per annum) yet they have been productive of little or no good hitherto, for this obvious cause, they are looked upon as seminaries exclusively instituted for the education of the children of the more wealthy classes of society, and to which the poor man's child is considered as unfit to be admitted. From such causes, instead of their being a benefit to the Province, they are sunk into obscurity, and the heads of most of them are at this moment enjoying their situations as comfortable sinecures. Another class of schools has within a short time been likewise founded upon the liberality of the Legislative purse denominated as Common or Parish Schools, but like the preceding, the anxiety of the teacher employed seems more alive to his stipend than the advancement of the education of those placed under his care; from the pecuniary advantages thus held out we have been inundated with the worthless scum, under the character of schoolmasters, not only of this but of every other country where the knowledge has been promulgated of the easy means our laws afford of getting a living here, by obtaining a parish school." [18] See Gourlay's "Statistical Account of Upper Canada." Pages 433-434 of Vol. I. Published by Simpkin & Marshall, London, Eng., 1822. The Common or Parish Schools referred to in this letter were the result of the legislation of 1816, a red-letter year in school affairs because it saw the first attempts in Upper Canada to give schools under public control to the common people. The sum of $24,000 a year was appropriated for four years to establish Common Schools. The law provided that the people of any village, town or township might meet together and arrange to establish one or more schools, at each of which the attendance must be not less than twenty. Three suitable trustees were to be chosen to conduct the school, appoint teachers, and select textbooks from a list prescribed by a District Board of Education. The Legislature authorized payments to each of these schools of a sum not exceeding £100. The balance needed to maintain the school had to be made up by subscriptions. In 1819 the Grammar School Act of 1807 received some slight amendments. The grant of £100 per school was reduced to £50 for new schools, except where the number of pupils exceeded ten. A new school was authorized for the new Gore District, at Hamilton. Trustee Boards were required to present annual reports to the Lieutenant-Governor and to conduct an annual public examination. But the most important change was provision for the free education of ten poor children at each District Public School. These children were chosen by lot from names submitted by Trustee Boards of Common Schools. In 1822 the Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, on his own responsibility, had established in Toronto a school known as the Upper Canada Central School, formed on the plan of the British National Schools, which had been established in Britain by Rev. Dr. Bell. These schools were decidedly Anglican in tone, and that established in Toronto was at the instigation of Rev. Dr. Strachan.[19] In a despatch to Earl Bathurst, Colonial Secretary in 1822, Governor Maitland said:[20] "It is proposed to establish one introductory school on the national plan in each town of a certain size. It is supposed that a salary of £100 per annum to the master of each such school would be sufficient. The number of these schools may be increased as the circumstances of the Province may require and the means allow." [19] See D. H. E., Vol. I., p. 176. [20] See copy of despatch in D. H. E., Vol. I., p. 179. In answer, the Earl of Bathurst, under date of October 12th, 1823, says:[21] "I am happy to have it in my power to convey to you His Majesty's consent that you appropriate a portion of the Reserves set apart for the establishment of a University for the support of schools on the National [Church of England] plan of education." This action established one school, and had in contemplation the establishment of others under the direct control of the Governor and his Council. The Legislative Assembly naturally resented the action, and for two reasons. They objected to the disposal of any Crown property other than upon their authority. They objected to anything being done that would lessen the resources of the proposed University. [21] See copy of despatch in D. H. E., Vol. I., p. 179. A side-light upon education in Upper Canada is furnished by Mr. E. A. Talbot, who published a series of letters upon Upper Canada in London, 1824. I quote from Letter XXX: "The great mass of the [Canadian] people are at present completely ignorant even of the rudiments of the most common learning. Very few can either read or write; and parents who are ignorant themselves, possess so slight a relish for literature and are so little acquainted with its advantages, that they feel scarcely any anxiety to have the minds of their children cultivated.... They will not believe that 'knowledge is power,' and being convinced that it is not in the nature of 'book-learned skill' to improve the earnestness of their sons in hewing wood or the readiness of their daughters in spinning flax, they consider it a misapplication of money to spend any sum in obtaining instruction for their offspring. Nothing can afford a stronger proof of their indifference in this respect than the circumstance of their electing men to represent them in the Provincial Parliament, whose attainments in learning are in many instances exceedingly small, and sometimes do not pass beyond the horn-book. I have myself been present in the Honourable the House of Assembly when some of the members, on being called to be Chairmen of Committees, were under the disagreeable and humiliating necessity of requesting other members to read the bills before the Committee, and then, as the different clauses were rejected or adopted, to request these, their proxies, to signify the same in the common mode of writing." In 1823 there was established a General Board of Education, consisting of: The Hon. and Rev. John Strachan, D.D., Chairman; Hon. Jos. Wells, M.L.C.; Hon. G. H. Markland, M.L.C.; Rev. Robert Addison; John Beverley Robinson, Esq., Attorney-General; Thomas Ridout, Esq., Surveyor-General. The same session of the Legislature set apart £150 as an annual grant for purchasing books and tracts designed to afford moral and religious instruction. By the creation of a General Board of Education, Rev. Dr. Strachan became very prominently identified with education in Upper Canada. No man was better qualified through zeal, practical knowledge, and a genuine interest in higher education. He had been made an honorary member of the Executive Council in 1815, and an active member in 1817. In 1820 he was appointed a member of the Legislative Council. Being a prominent Churchman, an experienced and successful teacher, and residing at York, he was naturally consulted by successive Governors on educational matters. Strachan was an uncompromising Churchman with ritualistic tendencies, and in politics a Tory of the George III. school. He had neither faith in, nor sympathy for, a democracy. He accepted things as he found them, and wished to preserve them so. He could conceive of no more perfect state of society for the new world than that which he left behind him in the old. He firmly believed in education of the most noble kind for gentlemen, but it is doubtful if he recognized the right of every man to the highest possible cultivation of his intellectual powers. He would have looked upon such a plan as subversive of the existing orders of society. At any rate he never evinced any passion for popular education except that moral and religious education given under the ægis of an Established Church. On the other hand, no man in Canada had a more sincere desire to foster higher institutions of learning, and it had from the very first been Strachan's plan that the District Grammar Schools should be feeders for a Provincial University, and now, in 1824, when he became virtually head of educational affairs in Upper Canada, he determined to carry his scheme to a successful issue. There were serious difficulties. An endowment had been provided for a university by the Crown grant in 1797, but it was at this time almost worthless. It consisted of blocks of land, containing several townships, in remote parts of the Province. The lands were good, but so long as the Government had free lands to give incoming settlers, the school lands were not in demand. Besides these school or university lands, there were other lands in possession of the Crown. The original surveyor reserved two-sevenths of all land. One-seventh was the reserve for a "Protestant Clergy," which eventually caused so much strife and ill-feeling. The other seventh was known as the Crown Reserve. In many cases this Crown Reserve was becoming valuable, even in 1824, because of the labour of settlers who owned adjoining farms. Much of the Crown Reserve was under lease and giving a more or less certain revenue. Strachan conceived a bold and successful plan. He suggested to Sir Peregrine Maitland that for grants to new settlers the school lands were worth as much to the Government as the Crown Reserves. Why not exchange school lands for an equal area of Crown Reserve land? The matter was put before the Home Government, and in 1827 a favourable reply was given. The result was that the University got 225,944 acres of land, distributed throughout every District in Upper Canada, but having more than one-half its total area in the Home, Gore, and London Districts, the wealthiest and most populous parts of Upper Canada. The Commissioners, appointed in 1848 by Lord Elgin to enquire into the affairs of King's College, state (pages 16 and 17): "The Crown Reserves thus converted into the University Endowment, consisted of lands in various parts of Upper Canada in actual or nominal occupation under lease, at rate of rental fixed by a certain scale established by the Provincial Government, and a large proportion of the lots were in an improved or cultivated state." In March, 1826, Rev. Dr. Strachan submitted to the Lieutenant-Governor a very able and comprehensive report[22] showing why a university ought at once to be established. The report gives an interesting and authentic summary of the state of education in Upper Canada at that time. "The present state of Education in this Province consists of Common Schools throughout the Townships, established under several Acts of the Provincial Legislature, and which are now, by the exertions of Your Excellency, placed on an excellent footing, requiring no other improvements than the means of multiplying their number, which, no doubt, will be granted as the finances of the Province become more productive. In about three hundred and forty Common Schools established in the different Districts of the Colony, from seven to eight thousand children are taught reading and writing, the elements of arithmetic, and the first principles of religion; and when it is considered that the parents commonly send their children in rotation--the younger in summer when the roads are good, and the older in winter--it is not too much to say that nearly double this number, or from twelve to fourteen thousand children, profit annually by the Common Schools. The consequence is that the people, scattered as they are over a vast wilderness, are becoming alive to the great advantage of educating their children, and are, in many places, seconding, with laudable zeal, the exertions of the Legislature, and establishing schools at their own expense. [22] See copy in D. H. E., Vol. I., pp. 211-213. "Provision is made by law for the translation of some of the more promising scholars from the Common to the District Schools, where the classics and practical mathematics are taught. In these schools, eleven in number, there are at present upwards of 300 youth acquiring an education to qualify them for the different professions; and, although they can seldom support more than one master, several of the young gentlemen who have been brought up in them are now eminent in their professions, and would, by their talents and high principles, do credit to seminaries of greater name. But the period has arrived when the District Schools [Grammar Schools] will become still more useful by confining themselves to the intention of their first establishment, namely, nurseries for a University--an institution now called for by the increased population and circumstances of the Colony, and most earnestly desired by the more respectable inhabitants. "There is not in either Province any English Seminary above the rank of a good school, at which a liberal education can be obtained. Thus the youth of nearly 300,000 Englishmen have no opportunity of receiving instruction within the Canadas in Law, Medicine, or Divinity. The consequence is that many young men coming forward to the learned professions are obliged to look beyond the Province for the last two years of their education--undoubtedly the most important and critical of their lives. Very few are able on account of the great expense to go to England or Scotland; and the distance is so great and the difficulties so many that parental anxiety reluctantly trusts children from its observation and control. The youths are, therefore, in some degree, compelled to look forward to the United States, where the means of education, though of a description far inferior to those of Great Britain, are yet superior to those within the Province, and a growing necessity is arising of sending them to finish their education in that country. Now, in the United States, a system prevails unknown to, or unpractised by, any other nation. In all other countries morals and religion are made the basis of future instruction, and the first book put into the hands of children teaches them the domestic, social, and religious virtues; but in the United States politics pervade the whole system of instruction. The school books from the very first elements are stuffed with praises of their own institutions and breathe hatred to everything English. To such a country our youth may go, strongly attached to their native land and all its establishments, but by hearing them continually depreciated and those of America praised, these attachments will, in many, be gradually weakened, and some may become fascinated with that liberty which has degenerated into licentiousness and imbibe, perhaps unconsciously, sentiments unfriendly to things of which Englishmen are proud.... "The establishment of a University at the seat of Government will complete a regular system of education in Upper Canada from the letters of the alphabet to the most profound investigations of science.... In regard to the profession of medicine it is melancholy to think that more than three-fourths of the present practitioners have been educated or attended lectures in the United States.... There are, as yet, only twenty-two clergymen in Upper Canada, the greater number from England. It is essential that young men coming forward to the Church should be educated entirely within the Province, but for this there is no provision.... But the wants of the Province are becoming great, and however much disposed the elder clergy may be to bring forward young men to the sacred profession, they have neither time nor means of doing it with sufficient effect. There can be nothing of that zeal, of that union and mutual attachment, of that deep theological and literary enquiry and anxiety to excel, which would be found among men collected at the University, and here it is not irrelevant to observe that it is of the greatest importance that the education of the Colony should be conducted by the clergy. "Nothing can be more manifest than that this Colony has not yet felt the advantage of a religious establishment. What can twenty-two clergymen do, scattered over a country of nearly six hundred miles in length? Can we be surprised that, under such circumstances, the religious benefits of the ecclesiastical establishment are unknown, and sectaries of all descriptions have increased on every side? And when it is further considered that the religious teachers of all other Protestant denominations, a very few respectable ministers of the Church of Scotland excepted, come almost universally from the Republican States of America, where they gather their knowledge and form their sentiments, it is evident that if the Imperial Government does not step forward with efficient help, the mass of the population will be nurtured and instructed in hostility to all our institutions, both civil and religious.... From all which it appears highly expedient to establish a university at the seat of Government, to complete the system of education in the Colony at which all the branches requisite for qualifying young men for the learned professions may be taught.... The principal and professors, except those of Medicine and Law, should be clergymen of the Established Church; and no tutor, teacher, or officer who is not a member of that Church should ever be employed in the institution." I have given this long quotation from Rev. Dr. Strachan's report for several reasons. It shows very clearly the point of view of a remarkable man who had much to do with educational affairs in Upper Canada for a period of nearly seventy years. It shows his zeal for higher education, his belief in the efficacy of a religious establishment, his narrow bigotry and intolerance of all outside of an establishment, his old-world belief that the clergy should control education, his loyal attachment to British institutions, and above all, to those who read between the lines, his lack of real interest in elementary education. He is perfectly satisfied with the state of the Common Schools, although they were then accommodating less than one in twenty of the total population. The schools of which he says, "which are now, by the exertions of Your Excellency, placed on an excellent footing, requiring no other improvements than the means of multiplying their number," were conducted in rude buildings, without any apparatus, with a motley assortment of textbooks, and taught in many cases by ignorant itinerant schoolmasters who were of no use at any other occupation, and who received from $80 to $200 a year! Little can ever be expected in the way of improvement from those who are wholly satisfied with present conditions, and it is safe to say that any improvements that took place in the Common Schools of Canada under the _régime_ of the Rev. Dr. Strachan were owing to other causes than the efforts put forth by that gentleman. The Common Schools of Upper Canada had to wait for a new birth--until Ryerson breathed life into them. Rev. Dr. Strachan's Report is interesting for another reason--it deals with the proposed King's College and its relations with what Dr. Strachan calls the "religious establishment" in Canada. This "religious establishment" was to have as its basis the one-seventh of all lands in Upper Canada as provided for by the Constitutional Act of 1791. Now these two things, the Clergy Reserves and King's College, caused more trouble to the Canadian Legislature and engendered more bitter feeling among the people of Upper Canada than any other two questions that ever were debated in the Parliament of Upper Canada, or in the Parliament of the united Canadas. In the Parliamentary struggle over both these questions the Rev. Dr. Strachan was an active and valiant leader of the party of privilege, and among those who led the opposing forces to a final victory none was more courageous or more successful than Dr. Ryerson. Dr. Strachan went to England in 1826 to use his personal influence towards securing a Royal Charter for a University. He there issued an appeal to the English people for aid on the ground that the proposed College would be largely occupied in educating clergymen for the Anglican Church.[23] A Royal Charter, making the proposed university a close corporation under the control of Anglican clergymen, was obtained. Besides granting the charter the British Government made a grant toward buildings of £1,000 a year for sixteen years. [23] See "An Appeal to the Friends of Religion and Literature in behalf of the University of Upper Canada." By John Strachan, Archdeacon of York, Upper Canada, 1826. When the Legislative Assembly met in 1828 several members presented numerously signed petitions praying for definite information about the newly granted charter of King's College. The Governor sent down a copy of the charter which was referred to a select committee. The committee protested against the nature of the charter in that the university was to become an Anglican institution, supported out of public funds. This they thought unjust, inasmuch as only a small proportion of the settlers of Upper Canada were Anglicans.[24] The committee also drafted an address to His Majesty the King. This address was adopted by the Assembly, and immediately despatched to His Majesty by the Governor. The address was courteous and loyal in tone, but the exact condition of affairs in Canada was made clear. The King was petitioned to cancel the charter to King's College, and grant one that would make possible a university for all classes. This address to His Majesty and the protest of the Assembly of Upper Canada attracted the attention of a select committee of the Imperial Parliament. This committee[25] reported against that part of the Charter which required religious tests. George Ryerson, of Canada, gave valuable evidence before this committee relative to Canadian affairs. It seems doubtful whether His Majesty's advisers, when the King's College charter was given, were really made aware of the conditions of society in Canada. Those Canadians who had the ears of His Majesty's advisers were, for the most part, interested in forming and strengthening an Anglican Establishment. [24] See Journals of House of Assembly for Upper Canada, 1828. [25] See Report made 22nd July, 1828, by Select Committee of House of Commons, appointed to inquire into the State of Civil Government in Canada. CHAPTER III. _EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA FROM 1783 TO 1844--(Continued)._ Late in the year 1828, Sir Peregrine Maitland was replaced as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada by Sir John Colborne. About the same time Sir George Murray, who had acted as Administrator of the Government of Upper Canada in 1815, and who consequently knew something of Canadian affairs, became Colonial Secretary in the Imperial Parliament. In acknowledging receipt of the petition to His Majesty of the Assembly of Upper Canada protesting against the King's College charter, Sir George Murray, in a communication to Sir John Colborne, said:[26] "It would be deservedly a subject of regret to His Majesty's Government, if the University, recently established at York, should prove to have been founded upon principles which cannot be made to accord with the general feelings and opinions of those for whose advantage it was intended.... I have observed that your predecessor (Sir Peregrine Maitland) in the Government of Upper Canada differs from the House of Assembly as to the general prevalence of objections to the University founded upon the degree of exclusive connection which it has with the Church of England. It seems reasonable to conclude, however, that on such a subject as this an address adopted by a full House of Assembly, with scarcely any dissentient voices,[27] must be considered to express the prevailing opinion in the Province upon this subject. [26] See copy of Sir George Murray's letter in D. H. E., Vol. I., pp. 257 and 258. [27] The vote stood 21 for and 9 against. "In the event, therefore, of its appearing to you to be proper to invite the Legislative Council and House of Assembly to resume the consideration of this question, you will apprise them that their representations on the existing charter of the University have attracted the serious attention of His Majesty's Government and that the opinion which may be expressed by the Legislative Council and House of Assembly on that subject will not fail to receive the most prompt and serious attention." Shortly after the receipt of this communication Sir John Colborne, as Chancellor of King's College, convened the College Council and declared that no immediate steps were to be taken toward active University work, and that not one stone should be put upon another until certain alterations had been made in the charter. In 1829 the Chairman of the General Board of Education, Rev. Dr. Strachan, presented to the Legislative Assembly his first annual report. It is an able and very suggestive document. It showed 372 pupils[28] in the eleven Grammar Schools, and 401 Common Schools with 10,712 pupils. Dr. Strachan had personally visited each Grammar School during 1828, and had incidentally learned something of the Common Schools. Referring to Grammar Schools he says:[29] "It will be seen that in some places girls are admitted.[30] This happens from the want of good female schools, and perhaps from the more rapid progress which children are supposed to make under experienced and able schoolmasters. It is to be wished, however, that separate schools for the sexes were established, as the admission of female children interferes with the government which is required in classical seminaries; it is, nevertheless, an inconvenience of a temporary nature, which will gradually pass away as the population increases in wealth and numbers." This "inconvenience of a temporary nature" persisted until 1868, when girls were formally admitted as pupils in Grammar Schools. [28] In 1827 there were 329 pupils, of whom 8 in the Cornwall School were girls. [29] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. I., pp. 266 and 267. [30] The Report for 1828 showed 25 girls in the eleven District Schools. Dr. Strachan pointed out very clearly in this Report that the Common Schools could never improve very much until the teachers were better paid. He also made an excellent practical suggestion.[31] "The Provincial Board, therefore, would submit with all deference, that in addition to the public allowance, even if increased beyond its present amount, a power should be given to the Townships to assess themselves for this special purpose." [31] See original Report in Appendix to Journals of Assembly, U. C., pp. 16 and 17 of Appendix on Education. Here we have laid down the correct principle of support for public schools, and one cannot but feel that had Dr. Strachan followed up this suggestion by pressing it upon the Legislature, and by discussing it with school-managers and the general public, he might have secured its early adoption. When the Legislature convened in 1829, Sir John Colborne in the Speech from the Throne[32] made direct reference to education as follows: "The Public [Grammar] Schools are generally increasing, but their organization appears susceptible of improvement. Measures will be adopted, I hope, to reform the Royal Grammar School [the District School at York] and to incorporate it with the University recently endowed by His Majesty, and to introduce a system in that Seminary which will open to the youth of the Province the means of receiving a liberal and extensive course of instruction. Unceasing exertions should be made to attract able masters to this country, where the population bears no proportion to the number of offices and employments that must necessarily be held by men of education and acquirements, for the support of the laws and of your free institutions." [32] See Journals of Assembly for U. C. for 1829, p. 5. This message from the Governor may require some explanation. In the first place let us note that Sir John Colborne was an able and enlightened man, sincerely desirous of giving to Upper Canada a government that would be acceptable to the mass of the people. He seems to have realized clearly that the Assembly was a fairly accurate reflection of public opinion, and that no policy could ultimately prevail unless it was in harmony with its wishes. His action in arresting the working of King's College was one proof of this, although his subsequent action in founding Upper Canada College solely on his own responsibility showed his belief in the power of the Crown to take independent action. He saw that the District Grammar Schools were very inefficient and were touching the lives of an insignificant proportion of the people of Upper Canada. He foresaw that for some years the revenue to be derived from the endowment of King's College would not support a very pretentious institution, and that for such an institution, even if it were in operation, there would be very few students prepared by previous study to profit from its courses. In his opinion the immediate wants of the country would be better served by a high-class school than by a university. Hence his proposal to reform the Royal Grammar School at York and incorporate it with King's College. The Assembly of 1829 contained many eminent men, of whom it is sufficient to mention Marshall Bidwell (the Speaker), William Lyon Mackenzie, W. W. Baldwin (father of Hon. Robert Baldwin), and John Rolph, the latter a graduate of the University of Cambridge. The Assembly appointed a select committee on Education. This committee made an extensive report[33] upon both District Grammar and Common Schools. In regard to the former they were pronounced in their condemnation and recommended their abolition. The report claimed that the District or Grammar School Trustees, appointed by the Crown, were chosen to promote the interests of the Anglican Church; that in many cases the schools themselves were merely stepping-stones for the clergy of the Anglican Church; that they were under no efficient inspection; that they were quite as expensive to those parents who did not live immediately beside them as much better schools in the United States; and finally that as only 108 pupils in the whole Province were studying languages in these schools, that their work could be done equally well by really good Common Schools. The report lamented the low salaries of teachers in Common Schools and suggested that no Government grants should be given unless the managers of schools themselves raised by subscription equal amounts. The report also protested against the payment out of public funds of £300 a year to Rev. Dr. Strachan, as Chairman of the General Board,[34] and against his assumption that reports of District Schools should be made to him instead of to the Lieutenant-Governor. The report expressed a hope that something might be done to encourage the publication of textbooks in Canada, and concluded with expressing approval of the Governor's plan to found a seminary of a high class, which should be free from sectarian influences and afford advanced instruction to the youth of Canada. [33] See Report in Appendix to Journals of Assembly for 1829, p. 42. [34] The General Board of Education had been organized by Sir Peregrine Maitland wholly on his own authority and that of the Home Government. The Assembly naturally refused to acknowledge any obligation to support it with public funds. Later in the session of 1829 this select committee on Education prepared a series of resolutions which were adopted by the Assembly. The following are the chief points in the resolutions:--[35] 1. That the Governor, or Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, not being amenable for his conduct to any tribunal, ought not to be Chancellor of King's College. 2. That it ought not to be required that the President of King's College be a clergyman of the Anglican Church, and that he ought to be elected or appointed for a stated term. 3. That the Archdeacon of York ought not by virtue of his clerical office to become President of King's College. 4. That the President and Professors of King's College ought not to be required to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles. 5. That the Degree of Doctor of Divinity ought to be conferred by King's College upon any professing Christian who passed the required examinations in Classical, Biblical, and other subjects of learning. 6. That wherever the charter of King's College is in any way sectarian it should be amended. [35] See Appendix to Journals of Assembly of U.C. for 1829, pp. 72 and 73. The Governor asked the Legislative Council to consider in what way the charter of King's College could be amended to make it more acceptable to the people of Upper Canada. The Council in reply recommended that instead of the Archdeacon of York any Anglican clergyman should be eligible for President. They also recommended that tests for the Council be dispensed with. Having the sanction of the Home Government, and feeling sure of the active support of the Assembly, Sir John Colborne immediately put in execution his plan of forming a high-class school to replace the Royal Grammar School at York. He caused advertisements to be inserted in the British papers for masters. The head master was to have a house, £600 per annum, and the privilege of taking boarders. The classical and mathematical masters were to receive £300 a year and similar privileges. The Assembly had suggested that the new school should be known as Colborne College, but the name adopted was Upper Canada College. The school opened in 1830 with a staff of seven specialists, nearly all chosen in England. The work was carried on in the buildings of the old Grammar School until handsome and elaborate buildings were erected on Russell Square, north of King Street. An endowment of some 60,000 acres from the School lands was given the new institution. It was generally felt that the new school would, for the present, supply the want of a university, and also make it unnecessary for Canadian youths to complete their education in the United States. Before Upper Canada College had been working a year a very numerously-signed petition was presented by some York patrons of the school praying for some modification of the exclusively classical nature of the programme for those boys destined for commerce and mechanical pursuits. The Governor's attempt to give Canadians a high-class collegiate school seemed only partially successful. The error was in attempting to adapt to a new country a form of school that suited the requirements of a select class in an old and highly civilized country. Latin and Greek must be crammed into boys whether or not they had any natural aptitude for language study, and quite irrespective of their future occupations in life. The founding and liberal equipment of Upper Canada College had one effect that might easily have been foretold. Petitions came from almost every Grammar School District praying for endowed and well-equipped schools similar to Upper Canada College. The petitioners resented the concentration at York of two important institutions, Upper Canada College and King's College, deriving support from an endowment originally set aside to give educational facilities to the whole of Upper Canada. The Assembly of 1833, through a select committee, made a minute examination into the affairs of Upper Canada College, and passed a resolution recommending that it be incorporated with King's College. I give here quotations from two writers on Upper Canada College, showing how differently things appear when viewed through different eyes. The first is from a letter written in 1833 by Rev. Thomas Radcliffe.[36] "Future generations will bless the memory of Sir John Colborne, who, to the many advantages derived from the equity and wisdom of his government, has added that of a magnificent foundation [in Upper Canada College] for the purposes of literary instruction. The lowest salary of any of the professors of this institution is £300 per annum, with the accommodation of a noble brick house and the privilege of taking boarders at £50 per annum." [36] See copy of letter in D. H. E., Vol. II., pp. 120 and 121. The next is from "Sketches," published by William Lyon Mackenzie, London, 1833. "Splendid incomes are given to the masters of the new [Upper Canada] College, culled at Oxford by the Vice-Chancellor, and dwellings furnished to the professors (we may say) by the sweat of the brow of the Canadian labourer. All these advantages and others not now necessary to be mentioned, are insufficient to gratify the rapacious appetite of the 'Established Church' managers, who, in order to accumulate wealth and live in opulence, charge the children of His Majesty's subjects ten times as high fees as are required by the less amply endowed Seminary at Quebec. They have another reason for so doing. The College (already a monopoly) becomes almost an exclusive school for the families of the Government officers, and the few who, through their means, have, in York, already attained a pecuniary independence out of the public treasury. The College never was intended for the people, nor did the Executive endow it thus amply that all classes might apply to the fountain of knowledge."[37] [37] See volume in Library of Parliament, Ottawa, pp. 190 and 191. As time passed the College founded by Sir John Colborne did good work as a secondary school for people of wealth, but all attempts to make it popular with the mass of the people proved ineffective. The Legislature gave it an annual grant somewhat unwillingly.[38] The buildings were erected, and part of the annual expenses paid from advances made by the King's College Council. [38] See D. H. E., Vol. III., p. 123. By an Act passed in 1839[39] there was an attempt made to raise the College to the dignity of a temporary university. This action displeased the Council of King's College because it tended to delay the opening of lectures in that institution. In 1849, when the Baldwin University Bill made an independent corporation of Upper Canada College, that institution was indebted to the University for nearly $40,000, which was never repaid.[40] [39] See D. H. E., Vol. III., pp. 170 and 171. [40] For the later history of Upper Canada College see "History of Upper Canada College," by Principal George Dickson. In 1831 the Methodists began to build at Cobourg the Upper Canada Academy, which was to be open to all religious denominations. They felt that although Upper Canada College was non-sectarian in a legal sense, yet, inasmuch as the principal and professors were Anglican clergymen, the institution was essentially an Anglican College. At this time the Rev. Egerton Ryerson was editor of _The Christian Guardian_ newspaper, the official organ of the Methodist Conference. In an editorial, April, 1831, he thus refers to the proposed Upper Canada Academy: "It is the first literary institution which has been commenced by any body of ministers in accordance with the frequently expressed wishes of the people of Upper Canada. The Methodist Conference have not sought endowments of public lands for the establishment of an institution, contrary to the voice of the people as expressed by their representatives.... Desirous of promoting more extensively the interests of the rising generation and of the country generally, we have resolved upon the establishment of a Seminary of Learning--we have done so upon liberal principles--we have not reserved any peculiar privileges to ourselves for the education of our children; we have published the constitution for your examination; and now we appeal to your liberality for assistance.... On the characteristics of the system of education which it is contemplated to pursue in the proposed Seminary, we may observe that it will be such as to produce habits of intellectual labour and activity; a diligent and profitable improvement of time; bodily health and vigour, a fitness and relish for agricultural and mechanical, as well as for other pursuits; virtuous principles and Christian morals. On the importance of education generally we may remark, it is as necessary as the light--it should be as common as water, and as free as air.... Education among the people is the best security of a good government and constitutional liberty; it yields a steady, unbending support to the former, and effectually protects the latter. An educated people are always a loyal people to good government; and the first object of a wise government should be the education of the people. An educated people are always enterprising in all kinds of general and local improvements. An ignorant population are equally fit for, and are liable to be, slaves of despots and the dupes of demagogues; sometimes, like the unsettled ocean, they can be thrown into incontrollable agitation by every wind that blows; at other times, like the uncomplaining ass, they tamely submit to the most unreasonable burdens.... Sound learning is of great worth even in religion; the wisest and best instructed Christians are the most steady, and may be the most useful. If a man be a child in knowledge he is likely to be tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, and often lies at the mercy of interested, designing men; the more knowledge he has the safer is his state. If our circumstances be such that we have few means of improvement, we should turn them to the best account. Partial knowledge is better than total ignorance; and he who cannot get all he may wish, must take heed to acquire all that he can. If total ignorance be a bad and dangerous thing, every degree of knowledge lessens both the evil and the danger."[41] [41] See copy of letter in D. H. E., Vol. II., pp. 7 and 8. Ryerson wrote this when he was only twenty-eight years of age, but it foreshadows the fundamental principles upon which he later attempted to base a national system of education. It is interesting to note that in this same year the United Presbytery of Upper Canada were discussing the establishment of a Literary and Theological Seminary at Pleasant Bay, in Prince Edward County. This seminary never was established, but the agitation for it led to the founding of Queen's University, at Kingston. While Methodist and Presbyterian clergy were forming plans for academies, the members of the Legislative Assembly were debating a series of resolutions on the School Reserves and the failure of the people of Upper Canada to secure the free Grammar Schools for which the Crown Lands were appropriated in 1798. Several things are made plain in these resolutions regarding the attitude of the popularly elected branch of the Legislature. The following stand out prominently:-- 1. That the existing Grammar Schools were wholly inadequate to perform the work for which they were created. 2. That the real intentions of the Crown in setting apart the immense School Reserves in 1798 had never been carried out. 3. That the successive Canadian Administrations had been largely concerned in appropriating the lion's share of these Reserves for University education. 4. That the School Reserves of 1798, with proper management, would be now (1831) sufficiently productive to give great assistance to education if applied in accord with the real wishes of the people. 5. That the money received from these School lands from time to time ought to be paid in to the Receiver-General and disposed of only by vote of the Legislature. Further protests were made against the exclusive nature of King's College charter, and the Assembly was assured by Sir John Colborne that some changes would be made. As a matter of fact, on the 2nd of November, 1831, Lord Goderich, the British Colonial Secretary, in a lengthy communication to Governor Colborne, showed that His Majesty's Government was fully seized of the situation in regard to the charter of King's College. Lord Goderich said,[42] "I am to convey through you to the Members of the Corporation of King's College, at the earnest recommendation and advice of His Majesty's Government, that they do forthwith surrender[43] to His Majesty the charter of King's College of Upper Canada, with any lands that may have been granted them." Lord Goderich then proceeds to intimate that a new charter will be granted by the Legislature of Upper Canada. Lord Goderich further proceeds to give some very sound advice concerning the necessity of mutual forbearance among a people of diverse religious creeds. [42] See copy of despatch in D. H. E., Vol. II., p. 55. [43] This the College Council positively refused to do. In the Assembly there was shown an intelligent grasp of the educational needs of the country and a determination to secure better schools. Had the Executive Council and Legislative Council been equally zealous in the cause of education, the fathers and mothers of the generation which profited from Ryerson's reforms might themselves have had the advantage of good schools. The following extracts from an address to His Excellency, Sir John Colborne, will show the temper and wishes of the Assembly: "We, His Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Upper Canada in Provincial Parliament assembled, most respectfully beg leave to represent that there is in this Province a very general want of education; that the insufficiency of the Common School fund [the total Government grant for schools in 1831 was $11,200] to support competent, respectable, and well-educated teachers, has degraded Common School teaching from a regular business to a mere matter of convenience to transient persons, or common idlers, who often teach the school one season and leave it vacant until it accommodates some other like person to take it in hand, whereby the minds of our youth are left without cultivation, or, what is still worse, frequently with vulgar, low-bred, vicious, or intemperate examples before them in the capacity of monitors."[44] The address proceeded to state that there was urgent need of a Government fund to secure larger grants for teachers' salaries, and asked His Excellency to lay before the Colonial Secretary a plan to set aside one million acres of waste land in Upper Canada for the support of Common Schools. [44] See Journals of Assembly, U. C., 1831, p. 40. In this Address the Assembly virtually said to the Crown, "Give us some fixed capital as a source of revenue and we will speedily reorganize our schools." The Assembly knew what was needed and knew how to remedy the existing conditions, but was powerless because the Crown revenue was subject only to the control of the Executive Council. The session of 1832-33[45] was very active from an educational point of view. The Assembly was informed by His Excellency that the Crown had consented to give over to the Legislature, for the support of Grammar Schools, control of the 258,330 acres of School lands, being the balance of the original grant of half a million acres made in 1798, and from which had already been made extensive grants to endow King's College and Upper Canada College. Much of the remainder of this land, which was now vested in the Legislature, was not of a superior quality. It had also been selected in township blocks and naturally had very little value until settlements were made in surrounding townships. [45] The previous session, William Lyon Mackenzie had been expelled from the Assembly because of his criticism of the Governor, in his newspaper, the _Colonial Advocate_. It is interesting to note that Mackenzie's criticisms of the Governor were largely based on His Excellency's actions in regard to education. The Assembly prepared an Address to His Majesty praying for a grant of one million acres of Crown lands for the establishment and support of Township Common Schools. As a measure of immediate relief for these schools, a bill was passed by the two branches of the Legislature, and assented to by His Excellency, providing for two years an additional grant of $22,000. This sum was allotted to the several Districts, approximately in proportion to population, but no Board of Trustees was to receive any of this grant unless they secured for their teacher a sum equal at least to twice the Government grant. The most significant feature of the session, however, was a Common School Bill, introduced into the Assembly by Mr. Mahlon Burwell, and read a first time. The bill proposed to repeal all previous Common School legislation; to establish a General Board and also District Boards of Education; to grant £10,000 to Common Schools as a Legislative grant and to assess a further £10,000 on the rateable property of the Districts. This bill, had it become law, would have anticipated Ryerson's legislation by nearly twenty years, and it is interesting to note the comments made upon it by that gentleman, who was at this time editor of the _Christian Guardian_. The _Guardian_ of January 15th, 1834, expressed a general approval of the plan of taxation but was totally opposed to the _appointment_ of Boards of Education. After showing that the principle of local taxation was borrowed from the New England States, where it was working satisfactorily, Ryerson says: "The next leading feature of the bill is the appointment of a General Board of Education and also District Boards of Education. This is proposed to be left to the Governor, or person administering the Government, a proposition, in our opinion, radically objectionable. It makes the system of education, in theory, a mere engine of the Executive, a system which is liable to all the abuse, suspicion, jealousy and opposition caused by despotism; and it withholds from the system of Common School education, in its first and prominent feature, that character of common interest and harmonious co-operation which, as we humbly conceive, are essential to its success, and even to its acceptance with the Province. Education is an object in which the Government, as an individual portion of the Province, and the people at large possess, in some respects, a common interest, consequently they should exercise a joint or common control.... And in an equitable and patriotic administration of Government, the more its agents and the people's agents are associated together in promoting the common weal, the more strongly will mutual respect and confidence and co-operation between the people and the Government be established, the less room there will be for Executive negligence, or partiality, or popular or local abuse; and the less opportunity there will be for either despotic oppression or demagogue misrepresentation." In 1834 there was a General Election, which resulted in the return to the Assembly of a large majority in favour of reform principles, and wholly opposed to the arbitrary and aristocratic ideas of the Legislative Council. Bidwell, Rolph, and William Lyon Mackenzie were three leading spirits in the new House. When the Assembly opened the Governor laid before the members a despatch from the Colonial Office, stating His Majesty's readiness to transfer 240,000 acres in the settled townships in return for the School lands which were in township blocks and not then saleable. A bill was passed by the Legislature renewing for two years, 1835 and 1836, the increased grant of £5,650 for Common Schools. A grant of £200 was also made to Mechanics' Institutes at York and a grant of £100 to one at Kingston. Considerable time was spent in the Assembly upon two bills which were rejected by the Executive Council. One was a bill to regulate Common Schools which would have given them a thorough organization and made them subject to popular control by elected Boards and Superintendents. The Executive Council had no faith in control by the people. They doubted whether "the respectable yeomanry of the country" were capable of choosing suitable Superintendents. The other was a bill to amend the charter of King's College. These amendments were designed to remove all religious tests and to have the College governed by a Council, half of whom were to be appointed by the Assembly and half by the Legislative Council. The only reasons given by the Council for rejecting these amendments were that they knew of no university so governed and that a university must have as a basis some established form of religion. In the meantime, while the hide-bound worshippers of European traditions who made up the Council were delaying the active work of King's College, the youth of Upper Canada, preparing for the learned professions, were compelled to seek university advantages in the United States or Great Britain. More than this, owing to the lack of advantages in their own country, many who could otherwise have afforded it were wholly deprived of the higher education and training necessary for the professions they had in view. The Legislative Council at this time, and for many years afterwards, made boasts of their loyalty to the Crown, and upon some occasions arrogated to themselves and their friends a monopoly of all loyal spirit in Upper Canada, and yet they firmly refused to surrender the charter and endowment of King's College when requested and even urged to do so by His Majesty's Colonial Secretary[46]. From 1831 to 1835, the Council refused to accept any substantial amendments made in that charter suggested by the Assembly, although Lord Goderich had, in 1831, made it quite clear that His Majesty's Government wished the question of the charter to be settled by the Upper Canada Legislature. [46] See letter of Lord Goderich of Nov. 2nd, 1831, to Sir John Colborne. When, upon the 6th of May, 1835, Sir John Colborne sent to the Colonial Secretary the King's College Charter Amendment Bill passed by the Assembly, he urged the immediate opening of King's College, although he had declared to the College Council that "not one stone should be placed upon another" until the charter was amended. It may also be gathered from this despatch to Lord Glenelg[47] that Sir John Colborne accompanied it with a draft of amendments which he thought would be acceptable to both branches of the Legislature of Upper Canada. His Lordship was too astute a politician and too thoroughly informed concerning Canadian public opinion to be easily misled. Sir John Colborne, as a concession to the Assembly, proposed that five out of seven of the governing body should be permanently of the faith of the Church of England. The other two members were to be the Lieutenant-Governor and the Archdeacon of York! Lord Glenelg, in reply, says: "I cannot hesitate to express my opinion that this plan claims for the Established Church of England privileges which those who best understand and most deeply prize her real interests would not think it prudent to assert for her in any British Province on the North American Continent.... I would respectfully and earnestly impress upon the Members of both these Bodies [Assembly and Council] the expediency of endeavouring, by mutual concessions, to meet on some common ground. Especially would I beg the Legislative Councillors to remember that, if there be any one subject on which, more than others, it is vain and dangerous to oppose the deliberate wishes of the great mass of the people, the system of national instruction to be pursued in the moral and religious education of youth is emphatically that subject."[48] Lord Glenelg concludes by referring the question of amending the charter back to the Legislature of Upper Canada and states that His Majesty will act as mediator only if the two branches of the Legislature fail to agree and then only upon their presenting a joint Address. [47] See D. H. E., Vol. II., p. 214. [48] See copy of letter in D. H. E., Vol. II., pp. 213 and 214. CHAPTER IV. _EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA FROM 1783 TO 1844--(Continued)._ During the Legislative session of 1836, Sir John Colborne was replaced by Sir Francis Bond Head as Lieutenant-Governor. It would seem that the difference of opinion between Sir John Colborne and Lord Glenelg of the Colonial Office was responsible for the former's asking to be recalled. His last official act as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, and one intimately connected with educational controversy at a later date, was to sign patents for the endowment of forty-three Anglican rectories out of the Clergy Reserve lands. In the Legislature no real progress was made in education, although a lengthy report[49] and a draft School Bill were presented by a member of the Assembly, Doctor Charles Duncomb. This report was based on a visit paid by Doctor Duncomb to the Eastern, Middle and Western United States. It is interesting and emphasizes the importance of a suitable education for women. [49] See Appendix to Journals of Assembly of U.C., 1836. See also Assembly Journals for 1836, pp. 213 and 214. The most important event of the year in its after effects upon education in Upper Canada was the formal opening of Upper Canada Academy[50] at Cobourg, under a Royal Charter secured by Egerton Ryerson. [50] See Chapter I. In resigning his position as editor of _The Guardian_, the official organ of Methodism, Ryerson referred to the condition of education in Upper Canada, emphasizing the supreme importance of elementary instruction for every child in the country. It is also interesting to note that at this date, when he had probably never dreamed of having any official connection with elementary education, he should have touched the very root of the problem by pointing out the utter impossibility of making any real progress without a body of educated and trained teachers. The Legislature of 1837 set at rest for a few years the vexed question of an amendment to King's College charter. The majority of the Legislative Council were stoutly opposed to any modifications that would lessen the control of the Anglican Church, but they saw that public opinion was strong enough to prevent the opening of the college until amendments were made. They also saw that they were running a risk of having the charter cancelled and a new one granted by the Crown. They accordingly accepted certain amendments proposed by the Legislative Assembly. These amendments[51] gave _ex-officio_ seats on the College Council to the Speaker of the two branches of the Legislature and to the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General of Upper Canada; they removed from members of the Council and from professors every semblance of a religious test except the following declaration: "I do solemnly and sincerely declare that I believe in the authenticity and Divine Inspiration of the Old and New Testaments and in the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity"; they removed absolutely from religious tests all students and candidates for degrees; they made the Judges of His Majesty's Court of King's Bench visitors instead of the Lord Bishop of Quebec, and vested the appointment of future presidents in His Majesty instead of conferring that office _ex-officio_ upon the Archdeacon of York. [51] See Journals of Assembly of Upper Canada for 1837, Legislative Library, Toronto. Steps were taken at once to place the college in a position to begin work. A very able and comprehensive scheme[52] of studies and courses was drawn up by the President, Dr. Strachan, and everything promised favourably, when the Rebellion broke out and all operations were suspended. [52] See D. H. E., Vol. III., pp. 93-98. The following sketch of the Common Schools of this period, written by Mr. Malcolm Campbell, an old teacher of Middlesex, is inserted because it is believed to be typical of Upper Canada conditions. Mr. Campbell began to teach in 1835:-- "The School Houses, during the time I taught, were built of round logs about 14 × 16 ft., with clapboard roofs and open fireplaces. A window sash on three sides for light, a board being placed beneath them, on which to keep copies and slates. There were long hewn benches without backs for seats. There were no blackboards or maps on the chinked walls. There was a miscellaneous assortment of books, which made it very difficult to form classes. Cobb's and Webster's Spelling-books afterwards gave place to Mavor's. The Testament was used as a Textbook, a supply of which was furnished by Rev. Benjamin Cronyn, afterwards Bishop of Huron. The English Reader, and Hume and Smollett's History of England were used by the more advanced classes. Lennie's Grammar, and Dilworth's and Hutton's Arithmetics, and the History of Cortez' Conquest of Mexico were used, also a Geography and Atlas, and a variety of books. Goose-quills were used for pens, which the teacher made and mended at least twice a day. The hours of teaching were somewhat longer than at present, and there was no recess. The number of scholars varied from 15 to 30, and school was kept open eight to ten months in the year with a Saturday vacation every two weeks. Teachers, after having taught school for some months, underwent a pretty thorough oral examination by the District Board of Education, and were granted First, Second, or Third Class certificates according to their merits, real or supposed. They had the Government grant apportioned to them according to their standing. Mr. Donald Currie, in the section west of me, drew annually $120 on the ground of his high qualifications as well as his teaching Latin. My share of the grant was $80. Mr. Benson east of me drew $50.... The Government grant was what the teacher mainly depended on for cash. The rest of his pay, which varied from $10 to $16 a month, Government grant included, was mostly paid in "kind," and very hard to collect at that. "The Trustees in these early days assumed duties beyond what they now possess. In engaging a teacher, they examined him as to his qualifications in the three R's and as much farther as any of themselves knew. They fixed the rate bill which each scholar should pay, usually at a dollar and fifty cents a quarter; and any family sending more than three scholars should go free, as well as the children of widows.... The teacher was expected to 'board round' at that rate of pay. He usually boarded in one or two houses near the school, doing chores morning and evening. The Trustees assessed each scholar with half a cord of wood during winter, which was scantily supplied; sometimes the teacher and bigger boys went with an axe to the woods to make up the deficiency. The trustees were to examine the school quarterly, and sign the Quarterly Reports so that the teacher might draw the Government grant."[53] [53] See D. H. E., Vol. III., pp. 131, 132. The following "Rules for the Government of Common Schools" prescribed by the Board of Education for the Niagara District is taken from Gourley's "Statistical Account of Upper Canada, 1817-1822," Vol. II.; Appendix, pp. 116-119:-- "1. The Master to commence the labours of the day by a short prayer. "2. School to commence each day at 9 o'clock and five hours at least to be given to teaching during the day, except on Saturdays. "3. Diligence and Emulation to be cherished and encouraged among the pupils by rewards judiciously distributed, to consist of little pictures and books, according to the age of the scholar. "4. Cleanliness and Good Order to be indispensable; and corporal punishment seldom necessary, except for bad habits learned at home--lying, disobedience, obstinacy and perverseness--these sometimes require chastisement; but gentleness even in these cases would do better with most children. "5. All other offences, arising chiefly from liveliness and inattention, are better corrected by shame, such as gaudy caps, placing the culprits by themselves, not permitting anyone to play with them for a day or days, detaining after school hours, or during a play afternoon, or by ridicule. "6. The Master must keep a regular catalogue of his scholars and mark every day they are absent. "7. The forenoons of Wednesday and Saturday to be set apart for Religious Instruction; to render it agreeable the school should be furnished with at least ten copies of Barrows' 'Questions on the New Testament,' and the Teacher to have one copy of the key to these questions for his own use; the teacher should likewise have a copy of Murray's 'Power of Religion on the Mind,' Watkin's 'Scripture Biography,' and Blair's 'Class Book,' the Saturday Lessons of which are well-calculated to impress religious feeling. "Note.--These books are confined to no religious denomination, and do not prevent the Masters from teaching such Catechism as the parents of the children may adopt. "8. Every day to close with reading publicly a few verses from the New Testament, proceeding regularly through the Gospels. "9. The afternoons of Wednesday and Saturday to be allowed for play. "10. A copy of these Rules to be affixed up in some conspicuous place in the School-room, and to be read publicly to the Scholars every Monday morning by the Teacher." No doubt much good teaching was done in schools nominally governed by similar codes of instruction. The teacher is always the real force in a school and good teachers are never slaves to mechanical rules. These "rules," however, suggest a form of punishment that was largely used in those days even by good teachers and has not yet been wholly banished from the schoolroom--ridicule. Here we see it offered as an improvement upon corporal punishment. It may have had its advantages over the brutal punishments sometimes inflicted in the old days, but I think Dr. Johnson was right in saying that a reasonably severe corporal punishment was better for both teacher and pupil than either "nagging" or ridicule. No doubt the systems of Bell and Lancaster were responsible for the use recommended of ridicule in the Niagara District in 1820. One important Bill, "An Act to Provide for the Advancement of Education,"[54] became law during the session of 1839. This Bill set apart 250,000 acres of waste lands for the support of District Grammar Schools, made provision for additional schools in districts where they were needed, and provided for the erection of new buildings and assistant masters. The Bill also placed the revenue and management of these schools under the Council of King's College. In this way King's College, Upper Canada College, and the District Grammar Schools--all the machinery of higher education--were brought under central authority. [54] See Journals of Legislature of Upper Canada for 1839. Legislative Library, Toronto. See also copy of bill in D. H. E., Vol. III., pp. 170, 171. From a careful reading of a despatch[55] sent by Sir George Arthur to the Colonial Office, in connection with the Act referred to above, it seems quite clear that the land grant of 250,000 acres now set apart for District Grammar Schools was the balance of the original 549,217 acres granted by the Crown in 1798 for the endowment of Free Grammar Schools and a University. Thus, after forty years, the intentions of the Crown regarding Grammar Schools were to be realized. But only in part, because the Act of 1839 did not make the Grammar Schools free. [55] Reprinted in D. H. E. See Vol. III., pp. 173-183. It was confidently hoped by many of the King's College Council, and especially by the President, Rev. Dr. Strachan, that when the college charter was amended in 1837 nothing would interfere with the immediate execution of plans for building and opening King's College. Elaborate plans and models of a building were prepared and sent out from England, an architect was employed, advertisements for tenders for a building were inserted in various newspapers, and the contract was about to be awarded, when Sir George Arthur hurriedly convened the Council and ordered an investigation into the finances of the College. His suspicions had evidently been awakened by some returns on College affairs presented in response to an Address by the Assembly. The report of the special audit committee[56] appointed by the Council revealed a startling condition of affairs and incidentally a strong argument against allowing any body or corporation to handle public funds without an annual audit by someone responsible to Parliament. [56] See proceedings of King's College Council, 1837-1840. The Bursar, the Hon. Joseph Wells, a prominent member of the Legislative Council, had diverted to his own use and that of his needy friends some £6,374, and the sum of £4,312 had been loaned to the President, Dr. Strachan. There was in use a very primitive system[57] of book-keeping, and on the whole just such management as might have been expected from the close corporation which had, up to 1837, made up the King's College Council. There was also much mismanagement of the financial affairs of Upper Canada College. These revelations delayed building operations until 1842. [57] See Report of T. C. Patrick, Vol. II., manuscript Minutes King's College Council, pp. 68-73. On December 3rd, 1839, the last session of the Legislature of Upper Canada was opened by Charles Poulett Thompson, afterwards Lord Sydenham. A Bill was passed granting a charter to the "University of Kingston." When the Bill was introduced into the Assembly, the name was to be the "University of Queen's College."[58] Why the change was made does not seem very clear, but perhaps it was because the promoters of the Bill were not certain that Her Majesty had given her consent to the use of her name in the Act. The Act placed the College largely under the control of the Presbyterian Church and wholly under control of Presbyterians, but no religious tests were to be exacted from students or graduates except in Divinity. The 15th section of the charter authorized the representative of Her Majesty in Canada to pay from the revenues of King's College a sum sufficient to establish a Chair in Divinity. This arrangement doubtless was the result of a despatch from the Colonial Office some years previous to the effect that any modification of King's College charter should provide for a Divinity Professor of the Church of Scotland. Some readers of the present day may ask, Why not also for other religious denominations--Methodists, Baptists, and Congregationalists? The answer is simple. The Churches of England and Scotland were national churches in Great Britain and Ireland. The Anglican Church in Canada in 1840 claimed to be an Established Church, and as the Clergy Reserve controversy was then unsettled, her claim had reasonable expectation of realization. Had her claim been allowed, it would have strengthened any claim the Presbyterian Church might have made also to rank as an Established Church. [58] See D. H. E., Vol. III., Chap. XVI., pp. 284-299. This Canadian charter to the "University of Kingston" was cancelled by the Crown with the consent of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and a Royal Charter issued to the "University of Queen's College." By this Royal Charter, Queen's lost the Divinity Professorship which, by the Canadian charter, was to be established out of King's College foundation. The Crown had power to grant a charter but no power to interfere with the funds of King's College, which were subject to the Canadian Legislature. The Commission[59] appointed by the Legislature in 1839 to prepare a report[60] on education gave a comprehensive account of the condition of schools, but without throwing much new light upon them. The total number of pupils in the District Grammar Schools was still about 300, but the number in the Common Schools was estimated at 24,000, or about one in eighteen of the total population. As to the nature of the schools attended by these 24,000, there is abundant evidence to prove that they were very inefficient. The Rev. Robt. McGill, of Niagara, says: "I know the qualifications of nearly all the Common School teachers in this district, and I do not hesitate to say that there is not more than one in ten fully qualified to instruct the young in the humblest department." The London District Board for 1839 says: "The Masters chosen by the Common School Trustees are often ignorant men, barely acquainted with the rudiments of education and, consequently, jealous of any school superior to their own."[61] [59] The members were: Rev. John McCaul, Rev. Henry Grasett and Secretary Harrison. [60] See D. H. E., Vol. III., pp. 243-283. Also Appendix to Journals of Assembly for 1840. [61] See D. H. E., Vol. III., p. 266. The Grammar Schools had been gradually improving since their establishment, but were still very far from supplying the real needs of the people. They had no uniformity in course of study or textbooks, and were under no inspection. In fact, lack of supervision was the weakest spot in the whole school system. Lord Durham, in his famous Report,[62] refers to education in Upper Canada thus: "A very considerable portion of the Province has neither roads, post offices, mills, schools, nor churches. The people may raise enough for their own subsistence and may even have a rude and comfortless plenty, but they can seldom acquire wealth; nor can even wealthy landowners prevent their children from growing up ignorant and boorish, and from occupying a far lower mental, moral and social position than they themselves fill.... Even in the most thickly peopled districts there are but few schools, and those of a very inferior character; while the more remote settlements are almost entirely without any." [62] See Lord Durham's Report, p. 66. The Committee recommended better salaries, normal schools for training teachers, British textbooks, an Inspector-General of Education, and a Provincial Board of School Commissioners. Looking at the matter three-quarters of a century later, we can see that really good schools were not then immediately possible. Schools, like everything else, cannot be created at command. They are the result of evolution. Upper Canada College illustrates this. Expensive buildings were erected and capable masters secured in England, and yet the school was not really efficient for many years. The country was largely a wilderness. The people were comparatively poor and their first care was to provide the necessities of life. The sad side to the picture is that there was among the mass of the people so little real interest in education and so little appreciation of its worth. People will never struggle to acquire that of which they feel no need. It seems quite clear, too, that the struggle for civil and religious freedom and equality hindered the development of a good school system. The latter could scarcely be possible before the former had triumphed. The natural leaders of the people and those who by superior attainments and education were fitted for leadership were straining every nerve and mustering every known resource to overthrow a corrupt oligarchy. Even among the spiritual leaders of the people there was no unity of purpose. Instead of working shoulder to shoulder with one another for the moral and intellectual growth of their people, they were in many cases sapping their strength through acrimonious and recriminating discussions of state church, sectarianism, Clergy Reserves, endowment and grants. When once it was finally settled that Upper Canada was to have responsible government and that all races and all creeds were to enjoy equal civil, religious and political rights, it was much easier to lay a solid foundation for the development of efficient schools. To this nothing contributed more than the Municipal Act of 1841. It supplied the necessary local machinery, working in harmony and in close connection with a central government. It seemed to leave almost everything to local initiative and local control, thus appealing to local patriotism. In reality it gave a central authority power to direct by laying down broad general principles, and it stirred up a maximum of local self-effort by distributing Provincial grants. Sydenham's first Speech from the Throne to the Legislature of the United Canadas in 1841 referred to the necessity of a better system of Common Schools. During the session the Legislature passed an elaborate Act for this purpose, and although it proved not to be of a practical nature it showed an earnest desire on the part of the Legislature to improve the Common Schools. The Act appropriated £50,000 per year to be distributed among the Common Schools in proportion to the number of pupils between 5 and 16 years of age in each district. It provided a Superintendent of Education for the United Canadas and prescribed his duties. It established popularly-elected Township Boards and passed certain rates to be assessed on the ratepayers. The most significant feature of the Bill was that it contained the germ which later developed into our elaborate system of Separate Schools. Early in the session, forty petitions were presented asking that the Bible be used in the schools. There was also a petition from Rev. Dr. Strachan and the Anglican clergy asking that Anglican children be educated by their own pastors and that they receive a share of public funds for support of their schools. The Roman Catholics also petitioned against some principles of the Common School Bill then before the House. These things will probably explain why the Bill as passed contained a clause allowing any number of dissentients (not necessarily Roman Catholics) in Township Schools to withdraw and form a school of their own, and also a clause which created for cities and incorporated towns a School Board, half of whom were Protestant and half of whom were Roman Catholic. The Catholics and Protestants might work together and maintain schools in common, or they might constitute themselves into separate committees, each committee virtually controlling its own schools. Thus we see that while the Assembly were fighting to break down a system of sectarianism in university education, they were introducing into the Common Schools a policy that led to divisions on account of religion. During the session of 1841, the Upper Canada Academy at Cobourg secured incorporation as Victoria College with university powers, and also a grant of £500, which later was made annual. Here, too, the Legislature was granting public money to a sectarian institution, although it should be noted that no religious tests were to be exacted of any students, and that five public officers, the President of the Executive Council, the Speakers of the two branches of the Legislature, and the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General for Canada West were to be _ex-officio_ visitors and members of the Victoria College Senate. Early in 1842, Queen's University was opened for the reception of students. Later in the same year the corner-stone of King's College was laid with imposing ceremony by Sir Charles Bagot, the Governor-General. In 1843 the King's College professors began lectures. This gave three colleges with university powers in active operation in Upper Canada in 1843. In May, 1842, the Governor-General appointed the Hon. Robert Jameson, Vice-Chancellor of Upper Canada, to be Chief Superintendent of Education, and the Rev. Robert Murray, of Oakville, to be Assistant Superintendent for Upper Canada. Mr. Murray was a scholarly gentleman, but possessed no special qualifications for so important an office. It seems probable that as early as 1841 Sydenham had some thought of giving the position to Ryerson. It also seems probable that Sir Charles Bagot knew of this and had some communication with Ryerson in respect to it. It is more than likely that Ryerson had been too active, both in opposing the arbitrary acts of the Legislative Council and in promoting the interests of his own Church, to be readily acceptable to His Excellency's Council, nearly all of whom were Churchmen. It was soon discovered that the Common School Act of 1841 could never be put into operation. It had only a single merit--good intentions. In 1843 it was decided to amend it and enact a separate Bill for Upper and Lower Canada. That for Upper Canada was introduced by Hon. Francis Hincks. Speaking of the Bill[63] he says: "The principle adopted in the School Bill of 1843 is this: The Government pays a certain amount to each Township--the property in that Township pays an equal amount; or if the Councillors elected by the people choose it, double the amount. This forms the School Fund, which is divided among the school districts, the Trustees of which raise the balance of the teacher's salary by a Rate Bill on the parents of the children. The system is as simple as it is just.... In framing this system, gentlemen, you will observe that, as in all other instances, the late Ministry have divested the grant of all local patronage. Everything has been left to the people themselves; and I feel perfectly convinced that they will prove themselves capable of managing their own affairs in a more satisfactory manner than any Government Boards of Education or visiting Superintendents could do for them. [63] See "Reminiscences of His Public Life," by Sir Francis Hincks, pp. 175-177. Library of Parliament, Canada. "The new School Act provides also for the establishment in each Township of a Model School--the teacher of which is to receive a larger share than others of the School Fund, provided he gives gratuitous instruction to the other teachers in the Township, under such regulations as may be established. "There is also provision for a Model School in each county, on a similar plan, but, of course, of a higher grade. It is left to the people themselves or their representatives in the several municipalities, to establish these Model Schools or not, as they deem expedient. But it is provided that as soon as a Provincial Normal School shall be in operation (and the system will never be complete without one) the teachers of the Model Schools must have certificates of qualification from the professors of the Normal School." This Act of 1843 is much more elaborate in its provisions than any preceding legislation affecting Common Schools in Upper Canada. It provided for county superintendents appointed by wardens and for township, town or city superintendents appointed by the municipal council. It would seem that in many points the duties of these two classes of superintendents would conflict, as both were allowed to examine and appoint teachers, and both were to visit schools. Every section was to have a Board of Trustees elected by ratepayers, and to these trustees was given charge of school property and the regulation of course of study, including choice of textbooks. It would seem that full local control was given except in the matter of certificating teachers and regulating the government grant. Either Protestants or Roman Catholics might petition for a Separate School on the application of ten or more resident freeholders, but such schools when established were maintained and controlled by the same machinery as other schools. Model Schools were to receive a larger grant from the Legislature. A county superintendent could issue unlimited or limited certificates, but all certificates issued by a township, town, or city superintendent were limited to the division in which they were issued and were valid for one year only. The marked weaknesses of the Act may be summed up as follows:-- 1. Possible conflict of authority between county and local superintendents. 2. No uniformity of course of study or textbooks. 3. No accepted standard of qualification for teachers. 4. No method provided for training of teachers, as a Normal School was merely suggested, and Model Schools were optional. 5. No provision made to secure competent local superintendents. Any man might be appointed. But with all its deficiencies the School Bill of 1843 was a proof that the Legislature earnestly desired to promote elementary education. It was, no doubt, felt by many public men, and especially by the Governor, that no man was so well qualified as Ryerson to direct that system at headquarters. To pave the way for Ryerson's appointment, Rev. Robert Murray was made Professor of Mathematics in King's College, and in September, 1844, Ryerson became Assistant Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada. He was to have leave of absence for travel and for investigation into the school systems of Europe. As events proved, Ryerson's appointment as Superintendent of Education soon bore fruit in a more efficient system of Common Schools. But university affairs were still in a state of chaos. The amendments to the charter of King's College made in 1837 were disappointingly unfruitful of any practical changes. The College remained in charge of Anglicans, and was in reality, if not in a legal sense, a Church of England institution. The question may naturally be asked, why did the legislation of 1837 not effect greater changes? The answer is simple. In 1837 the seat of government was at Toronto, and the five _ex-officio_ Government officers could easily attend meetings of King's College Council. But after the Act of Union in 1841 the seat of government was moved first to Kingston and later to Montreal. It then became wholly impossible for the five lay members of King's College to attend regular meetings in Toronto. The result was that the affairs of King's College remained practically in the hands of the president and professors, who made no real efforts to adapt the College to the needs of the people of Upper Canada. Bishop Strachan, the President, could not forget his original plans in securing the charter, and was still trying to realize them as far as possible. In a petition which he presented to Parliament in 1845 against the Draper University Bill, he makes his real object very clear. He says: "Above all things, I claim from the endowment the means of educating my clergy. This was my chief object in obtaining the Royal Charter and the Endowment of King's College; ... and was indeed the most valuable result to be anticipated by the institution.... This is a point which never can be given up, and to which I believe the faith of Government is unreservedly pledged."[64] As time went on and the history of the Royal grant of 1798 came to be more fully discussed and understood, the determination of the people grew more and more fixed to secure such modifications in the King's College Charter as would make it a national instead of a sectarian institution. [64] See D. H. E., Vol. V., p. 137. The proposal of Baldwin, introduced in 1843, was statesmanlike, and although it failed to pass owing to the early resignation of his Ministry, it is interesting because it outlined in part the principles upon which the University question was finally settled. The Bill proposed to create a University of Toronto, and leave King's College as a theological seminary without power to confer degrees. Queen's, Victoria, and Regiopolis[65] were to become affiliated in connection with Toronto University, and were to surrender their powers to confer degrees. In return they were to receive certain grants from the King's College endowment. Toronto University was to become the only degree-conferring power in Upper Canada. Baldwin had the Governor's consent to bring in this Bill, and had his Ministry remained in power it would doubtless have passed. The Bill had the active support of Queen's and Victoria, and the bitter opposition of Dr. Strachan.[66] [65] Regiopolis, a Roman Catholic college incorporated by the Legislature in 1837, had not, at this time, degree-conferring powers. [66] See his petition presented to House of Assembly, 1843, against Bill. Dr. Ryerson summed up the whole situation in a reply to an eloquent and very able argument of Hon. W. H. Draper, who appeared at the Bar of the House of Assembly as Counsel of King's College Council, in opposition to the Bill. Dr. Ryerson concludes as follows: "The lands by which King's College has been so munificently endowed, were set apart nearly fifty years ago (in compliance with an application in 1797 of the Provincial Legislature) for the promotion of Education in Upper Canada. This was the object of the original appropriation of those lands--a noble grant, not to the Church of England, but to the people of Upper Canada. In 1827 Doctor Strachan, by statements and representations against which the House of Assembly of Upper Canada protested again and again, got 225,944 acres of these lands applied to the endowment of the Church of England College. Against such a partial application and perversion of the original Provincial objects of that Royal grant the people of Upper Canada protested; the Charter of King's College was amended to carry out the original object of the Grant; the general objects of the amended Charter have been defeated by the manner in which it has been administered, and the University Bill is introduced to secure their accomplishment; and the Council of King's College employ an advocate to perpetuate their monopoly. The reader can, therefore, easily judge who is the faithful advocate and who is the selfish perverter of the most splendid educational endowment that was ever made for any new country.... I argue for no particular University Bill; but I contend upon the grounds of right and humanity, that Presbyterians, Methodists and all others ought to participate equally with the Episcopalians in the educational advantages and endowments that have been derived from the sale of lands, which, pursuant to an application from the Provincial Legislature, were set apart in 1797 by the Crown for the support of Education in Upper Canada."[67] [67] See D. H. E., Vol. V., pp. 49-59. In looking back upon the situation from our vantage-ground, covering a lapse of nearly three-quarters of a century, we may marvel that all parties were not ready to compromise upon the basis of a purely secular and national university. But secular, state-owned colleges are a very modern growth, and few men among our grandfathers had the courage to champion such institutions. An educational institution without some religious basis had uncanny associations. Therefore, it is not a matter for surprise that many good men were prepared to mutilate the University Endowment of Upper Canada, and dissipate it among sectarian colleges. Such, to a large degree, would have been the result had the Draper Bill of 1845 become law. The Draper Government made a further attempt to settle the vexed question in 1846. John A. Macdonald (afterwards Sir John A. Macdonald) made another unsuccessful attempt in 1847. The Hon. Robert Baldwin then became Premier, and after securing the Report of a Commission on University Affairs, he introduced and passed a University Bill in 1849. This Act has been many times amended, but the final result has been to preserve for the people of Upper Canada the University Endowment, and to remove from the management every semblance of sectarian control. The University has become the property and the pride of all classes, irrespective of race, politics, or religion. CHAPTER V. _RYERSON'S FIRST REPORT ON A SYSTEM OF ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION._ "The true greatness of a people does not consist in borrowing nothing from others, but in borrowing from all whatever is good, and in perfecting whatever it appropriates."--_M. Cousin._ This quotation from the eminent Frenchman admirably illustrates the spirit of Ryerson's first Report[68] and the draft of proposed legislation accompanying it. His Report contains comparatively little that is original, being made up of ninety per cent. of quotations from Horace Mann's Report and from reports of eminent European statesmen and educators. And yet the Report is none the less valuable because of the quotations, nor does a reading of it tend to lessen one's respect for the writer. On the contrary, the aptness of the quotations and the skilful way in which Ryerson marshals his proofs, show his statesmanship and genius for organization. He saw enough during his European and American tours of investigation to convince him that Canada could, with profit to herself, borrow many things from other peoples. His shrewd common sense and intimate first-hand knowledge of Canadian conditions told him exactly what ought to be done, and he wisely allowed others to tell in his Report their own stories. His position was that of a skilled advocate bringing forth witness after witness to give evidence to the soundness of his theories. [68] See "Report on a System of Public Elementary Instruction for Upper Canada," by Egerton Ryerson, published 1847, consisting of 191 pages. _Note._--Unless otherwise specified, all quotations in this Chapter are from the above report. He sets out by defining education, and although his definition is not scientific in a psychological sense, it is essentially correct--it points to the school as an agency to promote good citizenship. "By education I mean not the mere acquisition of certain arts or of certain branches of knowledge, but that instruction and discipline which qualify and dispose the subjects of it for their appropriate duties and employments of life, as Christians, as persons of business, and also as members of the civil community in which they live." Ryerson then points out that in Upper Canada the education of the masses has been sacrificed to the education of a select class. He wishes to see a system of universal education adapted to the needs of the country. "The branches of knowledge which it is essential that all should understand should be provided for all, and taught to all; should be brought within the reach of the most needy and forced upon the attention of the most careless. The knowledge required for the scientific pursuit of mechanics, agriculture, and commerce must needs be provided to an extent corresponding with the demand and the exigencies of the country; while to a more limited extent are needed facilities for acquiring the higher education of the learned professions." The Report sets forth a great array of proof drawn from the United States, Britain, Switzerland, Germany, and other European countries, to show that the productive capacity of the people, their morality and intelligence, are in direct proportion to their schools and institutions of learning. Ryerson lays down as fundamental that any system adopted for Upper Canada must be universal in the sense of giving elementary instruction to all and practical in the sense of fitting for the duties of life in a young country. He goes to considerable trouble to show that in his view the practical includes religion and morality, as well as a development of the merely intellectual powers. Ryerson was no narrow ecclesiastic, but still he could conceive of no sound system of elementary instruction that did not provide for the teaching of the essential truths of Christianity. He was decidedly not in favour of secular schools or secular colleges. And yet he believed that religious instruction in mixed classes was possible, and pointed out in his Report how it might be conducted. He made a very sharp distinction between religion and dogma, between the essential truths of Christianity and sectarianism. Dogma and sectarian teaching, in his opinion, had no place in schools except in those where all the pupils were of a common religious faith. What he pleads for in his Report is the recognition of Christianity as a basis of all instruction, and the teaching of as much of the Bible as could be given without offending any sectarian prejudices. "To teach a child the dogmas and spirit of a Sect, before he is taught the essential principles of Religion and Morality, is to invert the pyramid, to reverse the order of nature,--to feed with the bones of controversy instead of with the nourishing milk of Truth and Charity.... I can aver from personal experience and practice, as well as from a very extended enquiry on this subject, that a much more comprehensive course of Biblical and Religious instruction can be given than there is likely to be opportunity for doing so in Elementary Schools, without any restraint on the one side or any tincture of sectarianism on the other,--a course embracing the entire history of the Bible, its institutions, cardinal doctrines and morals, together with the evidences of its authenticity." The Report goes on to show how from Ryerson's viewpoint the absence of religious teaching in the schools of the American Union was having a damaging effect upon the moral fibre of the national life. He further illustrated by reference to what he saw in France, Germany, and Ireland, how religious instruction might be given without causing any denominational friction or unpleasantness. After defining the aim and scope of a national system of education, and giving it a religious foundation, the Report outlines the subjects that should be taught in Elementary Schools, and illustrates in almost every case how these several subjects should be presented. While the basis of the instruction proposed is the three R's--reading, including spelling; 'riting, and 'rithmetic--yet it is remarkable to what an extent Ryerson proposed to go in "enriching" the Common School programme. Indeed, as one reads the Report he is inclined to repeat the old adage: "There is nothing new under the sun." Almost every subject introduced into Ontario schools during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and many which yet, in the twentieth century, seem to have an insecure foothold, and are by many denominated "fads," were included by Ryerson in his memorable Report of 1846, and the arguments he uses in favour of their adoption would not seem out of place if used by an advanced educator of the present day. He pleads for music, drawing, history, civics, inductive geography, inductive grammar teaching, concrete number work, oral instruction, mental arithmetic, nature study, experimental science, book-keeping, agriculture, physical training, hygiene, and even political economy. He illustrates some German methods of teaching reading that many Ontario teachers fondly think were originated in their own country. Ryerson from Canada, Horace Mann from Massachusetts, Sir Kay Shuttleworth from England, besides many others, about this time paid visits to Prussia, and went home to recommend the adoption of much that they saw. These men were acute observers. They recognized that the Germans had learned something that was not generally known by other teachers. How are we to explain it? Had the German teachers by accident blundered upon better _methods_ of teaching than were practised by other nations? Not so. The German methods were the natural result of the German philosophy. The work of Herbart, Froebel, and other thinkers, was bearing its natural fruit, and many of the improvements introduced into the Canadian schools by Ryerson and practised by Canadian teachers, perhaps in an empirical way, were far-away echoes of principles laboriously worked out by German scholars. Ryerson's remarks on teaching Biography and Civil Government seem almost like an echo from some modern school syllabus. "Individuals preceded nations. The picture of the former is more easily comprehended than that of the latter, and is better adapted to awaken the curiosity and interest the feeling of the child. Biography should, therefore, form the principal topic of elementary history; and the great periods into which it is naturally and formally divided,--and which must be distinctly marked,--should be associated with the names of some distinguished individual or individuals. The life of an individual often forms the leading feature of the age in which he lived and will form the best nucleus around which to collect, in the youthful mind, the events of an age, or the history of a period.... Every pupil should know something of the Government and Institutions and Laws under which he lives, and with which his rights and interests are so closely connected. Provision should be made to teach in our Common Schools an outline of the principles and constitution of our Government; the nature of our institutions; the duties which they require; the manner of fulfilling them; some notions of our Civil, and especially our Criminal Code." The second part of Ryerson's Report is wholly concerned with the machinery of a System of Public Elementary Instruction for Upper Canada. The Report, after giving an outline of the various classes of schools in France and Germany, recommends for Canada a system as follows:--Common or Primary Schools for every section of a township; District Model Schools, which would correspond with the German Real or Trade Schools; District Grammar Schools, which would correspond with the German Higher Burgher Schools and Gymnasia; and, completing all, one or more Provincial Universities. The Report also suggested that as Districts became more populous each would in time be able to support, say three Model Schools, and these might specialize, one training for agriculture, another for commercial life, and a third for mechanical or industrial life. Normal Schools were also recommended for the training of teachers, and elaborate arguments set forth showing their benefits. The example of France, Germany, Ireland, and the United States is quoted to show how these schools would secure better teachers, and that better teachers would mean better schools. Ryerson believed that Normal Schools would elevate teaching to the rank of a profession. He believed that the people were intelligent enough to choose good teachers in preference to poor ones if the good ones were at hand. He also pointed out how a good teacher would be able to economize the child's time and advance him much faster than an indifferent teacher. The Report then deals with the subject of textbooks. We need to remember that in Upper Canada at this time there was no control of textbooks. Each local Board or each teacher made a selection. In the majority of cases the matter regulated itself. Pupils used what they could get. With many of the people, a book was a book, and one was as good as another. The utmost confusion prevailed. There had been many complaints that some of the books used were American and anti-British in tone. By 1846 the enterprise of Canadian publishers had driven out many of the American texts, but in some districts they were still in common use.[69] In reference to this, Ryerson says: "The variety of textbooks in the schools, and the objectionable character of many of them, is a subject of serious and general complaint. All classification of the pupils is thereby prevented; the exertions of the best teacher are in a great measure paralyzed; the time of the scholars is almost wasted; and improper sentiments are often inculcated." The Report suggests that this matter must be under central control and not left to any local board or district superintendent. To fully appreciate the importance of this matter we need to remember that books meant more sixty years ago than they do to-day in any system of instruction. The better the teacher the less he is dependent upon a book, especially in such subjects as arithmetic, grammar, geography, or history. But in 1846 the teachers were in many cases wholly helpless without books. A boy went to school to "mind his book." Rote learning, working problems by a rule laid down in the book, studying printed questions and answers, were largely what was meant by "schooling." Bad as such a system was, its evils were increased when the books were especially unsuitable. Ryerson praised very highly the series in use in the National Schools of Ireland, and later he introduced them into Canada. [69] A Report made to the Education Office, for 1846, shows that there were in use in Upper Canada schools 13 Spelling, 107 Reading, 35 Arithmetic, 20 Geography, 21 History, and 16 Grammar texts, besides 53 different texts in various other subjects. Public men in Upper Canada who took an interest in education had long recognized that the Common Schools were sadly in need of a stronger central control, and some system of inspection. But how to secure these safeguards and yet not destroy the principle of local control was no easy problem to solve. The township superintendents were not educators. They often were intelligent men, but as a class were without any knowledge of how to guide schools or inspire teachers to nobler things. They received from £10 to £20 a year for their services, which sum was as good as wasted. The Act of 1841, and that of 1843, had made provision for local superintendents of education, and had also defined their duties, but the Act had made no provision to secure the due performance of their orders. They were without power except such as the District and Township Boards voluntarily allowed them to assume. They might make suggestions and give advice, but with that their legal functions were at an end. When M. Cousin, in 1836, visited Holland to examine into the system of primary instruction in that country, the Dutch Commissioner who had founded the system said to him: "Be watchful in the choice of your inspectors; they are the men who ought to be sought for with a lantern in the hand." Ryerson recognized the truth of this, and in his Report laid it down as essential to any efficient system. His report on the control that should be exercised directly by the Government I shall quote entire. "(1) To see that the Legislative grants are faithfully and judiciously expended according to the intentions of the Legislature; that the conditions on which the appropriations have been made are in all cases duly fulfilled. "(2) To see that the general principles of the law as well as the objects of its appropriations are in no instance contravened. "(3) To prepare the regulations which relate to the general character and management of the schools, and the qualifications and character of the teachers, leaving the employment of them to the people and a large discretion as to modes of teaching. "(4) To provide or recommend books from the catalogue of which Trustees or Committees may be enabled to select suitable ones for the use of their schools. "(5) To prepare and recommend suitable plans of school-houses and their furniture and appendages as one of the most important subsidiary means of securing good schools--a subject upon which it is intended by me, on a future occasion, to present a special report. "(6) To employ every constitutional means to excite a spirit of intellectual activity and enquiry, and to satisfy it as far as possible by aiding in the establishment and selection of school libraries and other means of diffusing useful knowledge. "(7) Finally and especially, to see that an efficient system of inspection is exercised over all the schools. This involves the examination and licensing of teachers, visiting the schools, discovering errors and suggesting remedies as to the organization, classification and methods of teaching in the schools, giving counsel and instruction as to their management, carefully examining the pupils, animating teachers, trustees and parents by conversations and addresses, whenever practicable, imparting vigour by every available means to the whole school system. What the Government is to the system and what the teacher is to the school, the local inspector or superintendent of schools should be within the limits of his district." This plan made the Local Superintendent responsible for the examination and licensing of teachers according to regulations laid down by the Department. With this important exception it will be seen that the functions of the Government as exercised through the Department of Education are substantially the same to-day as they were outlined in Ryerson's first report. The concluding part of the report dealt with what Ryerson called "Individual Efforts," and under this heading he said some very sensible things. He emphasized the importance of parents taking an interest in the school, of clergymen and magistrates visiting the school, of good school libraries, of Teachers' Institutes, of debating clubs, and of every agency that would assist in stimulating intellectual life. CHAPTER VI. _RYERSON'S SCHOOL BILL OF 1846._ The year 1846 will ever be memorable in the annals of school legislation in Upper Canada, because it established the main principles upon which all subsequent school legislation was founded. As already pointed out, the Act of 1843 was largely a failure because it did not provide adequate machinery for the enforcement of its provisions. No important school legislation was undertaken during 1845 in anticipation of Ryerson's report. After making his report, Ryerson drafted a Bill which, with a few trifling emendations, became the Common School Act of 1846. It will assist us to an intelligent grasp of future legislation if we examine this Act with some care. It first defined the duties of the Superintendent of Schools. He became the chief executive officer of the Government in all school matters. He was to apportion among the various District Councils (there were twenty at this time) in proportion to the school population, the money voted by the Legislature for the support of common schools (the total Legislative grant for 1846 was £20,962 to 2,736 schools) and see that it was expended according to the Act; he was to supply school officers with all necessary forms for making school returns and keep them posted as to school regulations; he was to discourage unsuitable books as texts and for school libraries and to recommend the use of uniform and approved texts; he was to assume a general direction of the Normal School when it became established; he was to prepare and recommend plans for school-houses, with proper furniture; he was to encourage school libraries, and finally he was to diffuse information generally on education and submit an annual report to the Governor-General. The Act established the first General Board of Education.[70] It was to consist of the Superintendent of Education and six other members appointed by the Governor-General. This Board was to manage the Normal School, to authorize texts for schools and to aid the Superintendent with advice upon any subject which he should submit to it. [70] The one in existence from 1823 to 1833 was not established by Parliament but by the Lieutenant-Governor by the authority of the Imperial Government. The Act provided for a Normal and Model School. It required each Municipal District Council to appoint a Superintendent of Schools. No qualification was fixed for the District Superintendent. It would have been useless to do so, because there were no men technically qualified for such positions. The only thing to do was trust to the District Council to choose the best man available. The District Municipal Council was also instructed to levy upon the rateable property of the District a sum for support of schools at least equal to the Legislative grant. They were to divide each township, town or city into numbered school sections. They were also given power by by-law to levy rates upon any school section for the purchase of school sites, erection of school buildings or teachers' residences in that section. The District Superintendents became very important officers, and upon their learning, zeal, integrity and tact must have depended much of the success or failure of the schools of this period. They were required to apportion the District School Fund, consisting of the Legislative grant and Municipal levy, among the various school sections in proportion to the number of children between five and sixteen years of age resident in the section, and pay these sums to the teacher on the proper order being presented; to visit all schools in their Districts[71] at least once a year and report on their progress and general condition; to advise trustees and teachers in regard to school management; to examine candidates for teachers' certificates, and grant licenses, either temporary or permanent, to those who were proficient; to revoke licenses held by incompetent or unsuitable teachers; to prevent the use of unauthorized textbooks; and finally, to make an annual report of the schools in their districts to the Chief Superintendent. [71] Five Districts had, in 1846, more than 200 schools each, the average for the Province being 155 schools for each District. The Act declared that all Clergymen, Judges of the District Court, Wardens, Councillors and Justices of the Peace were to be school visitors, with the right to visit any school or schools in their districts except Separate Schools. They were given authority to question pupils, conduct examinations and advise the teachers, or make reports to the District Superintendent. They were especially charged with the duty of encouraging school libraries. One remarkable power was conferred upon them. Any two school visitors of a district were allowed to examine a candidate for a teacher's license and grant such license if they saw fit for a term not exceeding one year in a specified school. There are two simple explanations[72] of this clause in Ryerson's School Act. He may have wished to interest school visitors in the schools by giving them some power. He may have wished to create a local power to act in an emergency if a school became vacant through any cause during a school term. In many cases the Superintendent lived fifty to seventy-five miles from the remote corners of his District, and with the primitive means of communication in use at that time, it was an advantage to have some local body with authority to license teachers. [72] Ryerson also gives as a reason his desire to make a gradual transition from the old system of license by Township Boards to the new plan of granting licenses only by the District Superintendent. See D. H. E., Vol. VII., P. 155. It is a matter for regret that at the present time the various officials mentioned here as school visitors, as well as parents generally, are so seldom seen inside the public schools. True, we now have trained teachers, and teaching has so far become a profession that few school visitors would care to question pupils, but the very presence in the school-room from time to time of educated men and women, and especially those occupying public positions, has a beneficial effect upon both teachers and pupils. Pupils feel that the work of the school must be important if it is worthy of the attention of busy and successful men. Teachers are encouraged to make a good showing and are often hungry for the few words of sympathy and encouragement that would naturally accompany such visits. The school can never fully realize its function as a social institution unless the best citizens take an active interest in it. This was uppermost in Ryerson's mind when he penned that part of his report relating to individual efforts in promoting the welfare of the school.[73] [73] See Report in D. H. E., Vol. VI., p. 208. The Act of 1846 defined in detail how school trustees were to be elected. In all previous Acts the whole Trustee Board was elected annually. This gave to the Board no continuity of corporate life. One Trustee Board might have certain plans and make a certain bargain with a teacher. The new Board might have different plans and repudiate the contracts of its predecessor. Ryerson's Bill solved the difficulty by having trustees elected for three years, one to retire annually. Trustees' duties were not materially different from those of trustees to-day except in one or two particulars. They had to raise by a rate bill upon parents of pupils attending school such sums as were required over and above the two school grants for payment of the teacher's salary and the incidental expenses of the school; they were required to make provision by which the children of indigent parents were exempted, wholly or in part, from school rates; and they were required to select school books from a list sanctioned by the Department of Education. In Ryerson's draft bill he proposed that the rate bill should be levied upon the property of the section. This would virtually have given free schools. The Legislature of 1846 amended this clause and made the rate bill assessable only upon parents of children in actual attendance. Ryerson says of these rate bills:[74] "The evils of the present system of school rate bills have been brought under my notice from the most populous townships and by the most experienced educationists in Canada. When it is apprehended that the rate bill in a school section will be high, many will not send their children to the school at all--then there is no school; or else a few give enough to pay the teacher for three months, including the Government grant; or even after the school has commenced, if it be found that the school is not so large as had been anticipated, and that those who send will consequently be required to pay more than they had expected, parents will begin to take their children from school in order to escape the rate bill as persons would flee from a falling house! The consequence is that the school is either broken up, or the whole burthen of paying the teacher falls upon the trustees, and often as a consequence a quarrel ensues between them and the teacher. I have been assured by the most experienced and judicious men, with whom I have conversed on the subject, that it is impossible to have good schools under the present rate bill system. I think the substitute I proposed will remedy the evil. I know of none who will object to it but the rich and the childless and the selfish. Education is a public good; ignorance is a public evil. What affects the public ought to be binding upon each individual composing it. In every good government and in every good system the interests of the whole society are obligatory upon each member of it." [74] See D. H. E., Vol. VI., p. 76. This rate bill, as authorized in 1846, was, however, an improvement on the old one which was levied upon parents according to the actual time of the child's attendance, whereas the Bill of 1846 levied a tax upon the parents of children in actual attendance for at least two-thirds of the whole school term, whether the children attended regularly or irregularly. Teachers' duties were defined by the Act much as they are to-day. District Model Schools were authorized on the same condition as in the Act of 1843. The clauses in the Act of 1843 relating to the formation of Separate Roman Catholic or Protestant schools were also embodied in the Act of 1846. Now, what are the distinguishing features of this School Act that reflect credit upon its author? It would be idle to pretend that there were not in Upper Canada many able men who saw the weaknesses of the school system as clearly as Dr. Ryerson. Ryerson's claim to distinction rests upon the fact that he organized a system that _worked_. He not only co-ordinated the several parts of the system, but put life into it. This was no easy task. The people were very jealous of their power of local control, and yet unless this local control could be subjected to some central control, improvement was hopeless. It was here that Ryerson did what no other man had done. He lessened local, and strengthened central, control, and did it so gradually, so wisely, and so tactfully, that local prejudices were soothed and in many cases the people scarcely recognized what was being done until the thing was accomplished. We must not suppose that all this was completed by the legislation of 1846. It began then, but its complete evolution was the work of a quarter-century. If we ask through what agency Ryerson was enabled to secure this gradual executive strength that makes our educational machinery so effective the answer must be--the Legislative grant. The Legislature placed the grant at the disposal of the Superintendent for him to apportion among the Districts. Here was a lever of wonderful power, and Ryerson was quick to perceive its possibilities. If Districts wished a grant they must conform to certain requirements. If school sections wished a grant from the District Superintendent, they, too, must satisfy certain requirements as to textbooks, qualified teachers, building and equipment. No doubt the Prussian system gave Ryerson many hints on this subject, but he knew that the Canadian spirit was very different from the docile German spirit fostered by generations of benevolent paternalism. I think, too, there can be no reasonable doubt that he received many practical hints on this point from the workings of Her Majesty's Committee on Education formed by the Imperial Parliament. The history of the world presents no more significant illustration of how an outside body may come to exercise an effective control over various kinds of schools than is presented by the history of the schools of Great Britain and Ireland and their control by Her Majesty's Government through parliamentary grants. That the leaders of Canadian public opinion in the years following 1846 saw all that was involved in Ryerson's gradual strengthening of central control of educational affairs is made abundantly clear by the leading editorials in the press of that period. The Toronto _Globe_, which had been established in 1844 by the Browns, was already in 1846 the leading exponent of advanced liberal ideas in Upper Canada. As the _Globe_ had been bitterly opposed to Lord Metcalfe, and had resented Ryerson's defence of him, it was not to be expected that Ryerson's appointment as Superintendent of Education would be satisfactory to that journal, or that his educational plans would be leniently criticised. Indeed, the _Globe_ editor's first objection to Ryerson's Bill of 1846 was to the great powers conferred upon the Superintendent and to the irresponsible nature of his Commission. The following is from a _Globe_ editorial of April 14th, 1846;[75] "We have read a draft of the new School Bill for Upper Canada brought in by Mr. Draper. We have not been able to go over all its claims, but it contains one objectionable principle, viz.: the appointment and dismissal of the Superintendent is vested in the Governor-General personally and not in the Governor-General with the advice of his Council, as it ought to be. The whole funds from which the school system is to derive support are raised by the people of Canada, and the disposal of them should be subjected to the control of the House through the Executive Council.... The powers of the Superintendent are very great and embrace many points such as the selection of proper books, etc. A Board of seven Commissioners to assist the Superintendent is named, but the Governor may appoint them, or not, and the Superintendent may take their advice, or not, and he has also power to prevent interference at any time, for he is only to receive advice on all measures which he may 'submit to them.' The whole of this extensive institution, if the Bill passes, will be lodged in the Governor-General personally and in the Superintendent, and they may work it for any purpose that suits their views." On July 14th, 1846, the editor of the _Globe_ again criticises the School Bill, because the Superintendent reports to the Governor and not to the Governor-General-in-Council. [75] See bound volume of _Globe_ in Legislative Library, Toronto. These articles are interesting and important. Why was Ryerson's appointment vested in the Governor and not in the Executive Council? The answer not only throws valuable light upon the way that Ryerson himself viewed his office and its relation to the public, but it incidentally shows how imperfectly responsible government was established in Upper Canada in 1846. We should gasp with astonishment in Canada to-day if it were proposed to vest the appointment of any public officers in the Governor-General personally. We allow our Governors no personal freedom in the conduct of public affairs. But in 1846 that idea was not wholly accepted. There still lingered a feeling that the Crown had certain vaguely-defined prerogatives, which might be exercised without let or hindrance from Councillors. And many who recognized that the British Crown had little individual freedom of action in public affairs in Britain could not see that the same status ought to be established for the Crown's representative in a colony. Or, to put it in another way, the people did not see how a colony could be self-governing without being wholly independent. Ryerson wished his appointment to be vested in the Governor, rather than in the Executive Council, because he thought that by such an arrangement he was a servant of the country and not of any political party. He thought that a Superintendent of Education ought, like a judge, to be placed beyond the accidents and turmoil of politics. No doubt that was an illogical position. Indeed, time showed it to be so, and that full recognition of the principle of responsible government required a Minister of Education responsible directly to the Legislature. We can only speculate as to what would have been the effect upon our schools had Ryerson's position been looked upon as political and had he been forced to vacate his office with every change of government. It seems doubtful whether our schools would have improved as rapidly as they did under the conservative, but truly progressive, policy of Ryerson. There is abundant evidence that there were many in Upper Canada who wished to see the position of Superintendent closely connected with politics. A _Globe_ editorial, Jan. 6th, 1847, commenting on Ryerson's report, says: "We expected that when our new Superintendent stepped into his ill-gotten office he would immediately take measures to make himself acquainted with the replies to such questions as the following: First, the situation, condition and number of schools and school-houses of all kinds in the Province. Second, the manner in which school trustees, town, county and district Superintendents had discharged their several duties. Third, the desire manifested by parents generally for the education of their children. Fourth, the competency and efficiency of the teachers, their salaries, etc. Fifth, the kind of school books used, the school libraries and other apparatus for teaching. Had such questions been proposed and answered, the Superintendent would have had something to base a report upon. It was but natural to suppose that an officer whose sole prospects of success are in the confidence and co-operation of the people would have taken some steps to gain that confidence and co-operation, that he would have been desirous by direct communication with superintendents, trustees, experienced teachers and influential persons in the Province of ascertaining their views and of obtaining their suggestions as to the best means of promoting the interests of the noble department over which he had been called to preside. But no, it is true he was devising a system of education for Canada, but what had the wants or wishes of the people to do with it? The serfs must receive anything I, their lord and master, may import from the cringing subjects of despotic monarchies. We are more and more convinced from the examination of this report that Mr. Ryerson is not competent for the situation which he occupies." This is manifestly unfair. Ryerson knew from previous experience and without any further special investigation, the answer to every one of the five questions propounded above. In 1848, just after the Baldwin-Lafontaine administration was formed, and before the newly-formed ministry had met Parliament, there was more or less discussion about dismissing Ryerson from his position as Superintendent of Education. The _Globe_ of April 29th, 1848, says: "Will any man, except a few of his own clique, say that Egerton Ryerson should be Superintendent of Education under a Liberal Government? We apprehend none. He has done nothing wrong since his appointment, it is said. We say he has. He spent many months on the Continent of Europe and in Britain in amusement or recreation, professing to get information about things which every person knew already.... We have had hints of the Prussian system being applicable to Canada and we feel convinced that he, who sold himself to the late Administration, would have readily brought all the youth of Canada to the same market and placed them under the domination of an arbitrary and coercive power. He had sold their fathers for pelf, why not sell the sons also? Was he not in league with that party which would retain the Province in vassalage to the old Compact which he had so heartily denounced in former times? Is he not a member of that Methodist Committee which bargained away to a worthless Ministry the Methodist votes for £1,500 to Victoria College? These are most memorable events in the annals of political corruption.... But we care not if there had been no ground for complaint since 1844. We know that Egerton Ryerson sold himself body and spirit to Lord Metcalfe and that he broached doctrines of the most unconstitutional kind, threatening those who were but asking the common rights of British subjects with the vengeance of the whole Empire. The man who holds such views is unfit to be at the head of the country's education. He would convert the children of the Province into the most pliable tools of an arbitrary system." These articles show clearly that the party press was not disposed to judge Ryerson by his work as Superintendent of Education. They claimed that because he championed Lord Metcalfe in 1844 he was a partizan, and if a partizan in 1844 he must still be one in 1848. Besides a certain amount of political prejudice, Ryerson had to overcome the many points of friction caused by an attempt to work the Bill of 1846, and when we consider the ignorance and incompetence among those upon whom the administration of the Act rested, and the prejudices against the Act by many who were supremely selfish, we have to admit that a less courageous man would have utterly failed. Many trustees could neither read nor write. In some cases the District Municipal Councillors who were parties to school administration were equally ignorant. District Superintendents of schools were not always fitted for such a responsibility. Perhaps half the whole body of teachers made up a motley assortment of impecunious tramps. The Superintendent's report for 1847 shows that out of 2,572 schoolhouses only 133 were of brick or stone, and that 1,399 were made of logs; 1,378 had no playground, and only 163 were provided with water-closets. With many superintendents, trustees, and teachers miserably incompetent, with buildings and equipment woefully inadequate, it required a stout heart to undertake a reformation. Ryerson had two temperamental qualities that stood him in good stead; he had an idealist's faith in humanity, believing that men would choose the higher if it could once be shown them; he had besides an infinite capacity for hard work and for taking pains. This is fully shown by the way he met the many objections to his Bill of 1846. The bitterest opposition came from the Council of the Gore District, now the County of Wentworth, a District from which more progressive ideas might have been expected. On the 10th November, 1846, this Council[76] petitioned the Legislative Assembly against Ryerson's Bill. They objected to a Provincial Board of Education and to a Chief Superintendent. They wished to have re-enacted the School Bills of 1816 and 1820. Among other things the petition says: "With respect to the necessity of establishing a Normal, with elementary Model Schools in this Province, your memorialists are of opinion that however well adapted such an institution might be to the wants of the old and densely populated countries of Europe, where service in almost every vocation will scarcely yield the common necessaries of life, they are altogether unsuited to a country like Upper Canada, where a young man of such excellent character as a candidate is required to be to enter a Normal School and having the advantage of a good education besides, need only turn to the right hand or to the left to make his service much more agreeable and profitable to himself, than in the drudgery of a common school, at an average of £29 per annum [the average in Upper Canada for 1845]; nor do your memorialists hope to provide qualified teachers by any other means in the present circumstances of the country than by securing as heretofore the services of those whose physical disabilities from age render this mode of obtaining a livelihood the only one suited to their decaying energy, or by employing such of the newly-arrived immigrants as are qualified for common school teachers, year by year as they come amongst us, and who will adopt this as a means of temporary support until their character and abilities are known and turned to better account for themselves." [76] See copy of petition in D. H. E., Vol. VII., pp. 114-116. This petition was sent to every District Council in Upper Canada. Some districts agreed with it, some were indifferent and some wholly opposed its spirit. Colborne District Council took a very different attitude. They praised the Chief Superintendent, warmly approved of a Normal School, and found much to admire in the legislation of 1846. The following from their report will serve as an illustration:[77] "As the Normal and Model Schools begin to yield their legitimate fruits, and as the blighting effects of employing men as school teachers who are neither in manners nor in intellectual endowments much above the lowest menials, shall press less and less heavily upon the mental and moral habitudes of the rising generation, the great benefits to be derived from the present Common School Act, and its immense superiority over all former school laws of Upper Canada, will become more and more confessed and appreciated. Already that public apathy which is the deadliest enemy to improvement is slowly yielding to the necessity imposed by the present school law upon the trustees and others of acquiring extended information, of entering with a deeper interest into all matters connected with Common Schools and of joining with school visitors, superintendents and municipal councillors in a more active and vigilant oversight of them." [77] See copy of memorial in D. H. E., Vol. VII., p. 117. Ryerson saw that public opinion must be educated. The problem was a wider one than the education of the rising generation in the schoolhouses. The fathers and mothers and all who made public opinion must be awakened. This work Ryerson did in a characteristic manner. He had been a missionary preacher of the Gospel; he now became an educational missionary. He sent carefully-prepared circulars to Municipal Councils, to District Superintendents, to school trustees and to teachers. He established at his own financial risk, and without accepting a penny of the profits for his labour, an educational journal as a means of communication with the general public. In the autumn of 1847 he spent ten weeks in visits to the twenty-one Districts into which Upper Canada was at that time divided. He called District Educational Conventions, lasting each two days. To these were invited teachers, District Superintendents, School Visitors, Municipal Councillors and the general public. The Warden was generally secured as chairman. During the day, Ryerson discussed the School Act and its operation. He found that often the people had been misled and that trustees who had never made any attempt to enforce the Act had laid the blame for their poor school upon the Act of 1846. In almost every case a frank discussion face to face with the parties concerned removed unreasonable prejudices and made friends for the new Superintendent. In the evening, Ryerson gave a public lecture. His subject in 1847 was "The Advantage of Education to an Agricultural People." No subject could have been more appropriate to secure the sympathy of the mass of the people and to give the lecturer an opportunity to show what he hoped to do for Upper Canada. CHAPTER VII. _THE RYERSON BILL OF 1850._ The Act of 1846 provided that the Municipal Councils of Toronto and Kingston were to have the same powers in school matters as the District Councils. Toronto had at this time twelve school sections, each with its own Trustee Board, and each fixing its own textbooks and course of study. Such a system was cumbersome, wasteful, and inefficient, and the practical mind of Ryerson devised a remedy. In 1847, the Cities and Towns Act was passed. This Act required the Municipal Councils of cities and towns to appoint a School Board of six members. These six, together with the Mayor of the Corporation, had full control of all schools and school property. They could determine the number and kind of schools and the texts to be used, but they had no power either to levy an assessment upon property or to collect rate bills from parents. Any funds needed by the School Board in addition to the Legislative and Municipal grants were to be levied upon the taxable property of the city or town by the Municipal Council. But the Act did not say that the Municipal Council must grant the sums asked for by the Board of Trustees. In Toronto the Council of 1848 refused to levy the necessary assessment, and the School Trustees were compelled to close the schools from July to December. The Toronto _Globe_[78] declared that Ryerson was introducing a Prussian despotism into Canada. Ryerson said that he desired nothing Prussian in the Canadian schools except the method of schoolroom instruction, and claimed that his new School Bill was almost a literal transcript of that in force in the State of New York. Ryerson then set forth the chief advantage of the new Bill, viz.: that it gave to the poor man the _right_ to have his children, however numerous, educated, whereas the rate bill system compelled him in many cases to claim free schooling only on the ground of his poverty. The new School Act was to enable a poor man to educate his children and still maintain his self-respect. The school tax was to be levied not upon the children of the section, but upon the real property. Ryerson concluded as follows: "Wealthy selfishness and hatred of the education of the poor and labouring classes may exclaim against this provision of the law, but enlightened Christian philanthropy and true patriotism will rejoice at its application." [78] See editorial, Toronto _Globe_ of May 8th, 1848. Commenting on Ryerson's letter, the following issue of the _Globe_ said: "The Doctor makes a great fuss about the cruel position of a man who cannot 'brook to say he was a pauper' under the old system and the delightful and 'enlightened Christian philanthropy' of his new system which 'places the poor man and his children upon equal footing with the rich man and his children.' All bunkum, Dr. Ryerson. If it is hard to have ten or fifty or one hundred scholars as paupers at present, will it improve the matter to make the children of the common schools all paupers? If one class keep their children away now because the schools are above their means, and pride won't let them submit to state the fact to a trustee, will there not hereafter be a much larger class whose pride will prevent them sending their children to what even Dr. Ryerson admits will be pauper schools?... Is it not melancholy that so crooked, so visionary a man as this should be at the head of the literary institutions of the country?" But Ryerson was fighting for free schools. He knew that thousands of children were growing up ignorant, especially in the large towns. He was able to show that in the city of Toronto, out of 4,450 children of school age in 1846, only 1,221 were on the common school registers and that the average attendance was scarcely one thousand. Even if it were granted that another thousand were in attendance at private and church schools, the fact remained that not more than half the children in Toronto were being educated. In October, 1848, Ryerson submitted to the Government a draft School Bill, designed to remedy the defects in the legislation of 1846-1848. In a report[79] which he submitted with his draft Bill he says: "No law which contemplates the removal of grovelling or selfish ignorance and the elevation of society by means of efficient regulations and general taxation for schools ever has been, or ever will be, popular with the purely selfish or the listlessly ignorant. All such laws must be sustained for a time at least by the joint influence of the Government and the intelligent and enterprising portion of the community." [79] See copy in D. H. E., Vol. VIII., p. 85. The outcry against free schools and taxation of property to educate the children of the poor showed clearly that the time had not yet come for the realization of his plans, and Ryerson in his draft Bill restored to towns and cities the right to impose rate bills upon parents, at the same time declaring his faith in the ultimate triumph of free schools. In February, 1849, Ryerson submitted additions to his draft Bill of the previous October. Among other changes he recommended additional Superintendents for Districts of more than 150 schools; District Boards of Examiners who would replace the District Superintendent and school visitors[80] in issuing teachers' certificates; Teachers' Institutes for lectures and professional training of teachers; provision for separate schools for coloured children; school libraries for each section, and also township libraries; township School Boards; a School of Art and Design, connected with the Normal School; provincial certificates for Normal School graduates; making trustees personally responsible for a teacher's salary; the distribution of school funds on a basis of actual attendance, rather than on the number of children in the section; better provision for fixing school sites; more equitable division of the $200,000 legislative grant between Upper and Lower Canada, and provision for the admission into the common schools of pupils from sixteen to twenty-one years of age. [80] The report of the Bathurst District Superintendent for 1848 showed 82 teachers certificated by School Visitors and 42 by the District Superintendent. See Report of Chief Superintendent for 1848. The Baldwin Government entrusted the handling in the Legislature of the School Bill of 1849 to the Honourable Malcolm Cameron. It should be borne in mind that the Legislature met in Montreal and that the Education Office for Upper Canada was in Toronto. Dr. Ryerson was, therefore, not in direct communication with the Government, nor was he officially informed from day to day as to the progress of the Bill. It should further be borne in mind that during this session the Parliament Buildings were burned, the Governor-General mobbed, and party feeling strongly aroused, thus creating conditions favourable for hasty and careless legislation. It seems to have been taken for granted by the Legislature that the Bill as brought in was prepared by Ryerson. As a matter of fact, Ryerson's Bill had, with Cameron's assent, been so mutilated by an enemy of the Superintendent that its essential provisions were destroyed. As soon as Ryerson learned its real nature, he protested on several grounds, but especially because it aimed to destroy the usefulness of the Chief Superintendent; excluded clergymen from being school visitors; destroyed the provincial nature of the school system; injured the prospects of a Normal School; would subject teachers to serious loss in collecting their salaries; re-established school sections in towns and cities; made no provision for uniform textbooks, and because it was cumbersome and unworkable. After an elaborate analysis of the Bill, Ryerson intimated that he would not attempt to administer the law as passed and that sooner than do so he would resign. The Government soon ascertained that the Bill was unsatisfactory to everybody and intimated to Ryerson that it would not be brought into operation. This course was followed, and in the meantime Ryerson perfected his plans for a new Bill to go before the Legislature in 1850. As the Cameron Act of 1849 was never given effect, it has no interest for us, except in so far as it shows the evolution of the Act of 1850. During the Parliamentary recess, 1849-50, the Government issued circular letters to School Superintendents, ministers and other official persons, to secure suggestions as to school legislation. The replies were handed to Dr. Ryerson by the Hon. Francis Hincks, who had charge of the School legislation for 1850. Ryerson's draft of the Bill of 1850 is a tribute to his practical common sense and is sometimes called the Charter of the Ontario School System. Ryerson knew the people of Upper Canada as few knew them, and he was quick to see the dividing line between that which seemed highly desirable and that which was possible. He moved steadily toward a distant goal, but was ever educating public opinion to move with him and seldom showed impatience over the slow pace of travel, so long as there was actual progress. He wished to see free schools, but in this Act contented himself with securing permissive legislation, which he believed would soon lead to the adoption of a free system. The outstanding feature of the Act was the strengthening of Trustee Boards by recognizing them as corporate bodies with full power to manage schools under Government regulations and full power to levy taxes or rates upon the District which they represented. In case the Municipal Council collected school money, they did it only as a matter of convenience. Provision was made for securing school sites, erecting and furnishing new buildings, electing trustees, holding board meetings, keeping schools accounts, appointing collectors for school moneys, providing books and apparatus, educating indigent children and forming school libraries. Teachers' duties and responsibilities were not materially altered. They were, however, effectually secured against loss of the full amount of salary promised them by trustee boards. Adequate provision was made for school sections composed of adjoining parts of two or more townships. Provision was made for Township Boards of Trustees on the request of a majority of the school supporters, to manage all the schools of a township. County Boards of Public Instruction were formed, consisting of the County Superintendent and the Trustees of the District Grammar School. These boards were to meet four times a year, to hold examinations and license teachers. They were to use their influence to establish school libraries and promote the cause of education. District superintendents were limited to one hundred schools each, and were to receive one pound per annum for each school, besides necessary travelling expenses. The Superintendent was no longer the custodian of school money, but gave orders to the Township Treasurer to pay to teachers their proper allowances. The Superintendent was to visit every school in his District once each quarter, and to deliver a public lecture in every school section once each year. Thus the way was open for the District Superintendent to become an expert, giving a minimum of time to clerical work and a maximum to the encouragement of pupils and teachers. He was to become a link between the Department of Education on the one hand and the District Council and Trustee Boards on the other. He was a local officer, but his duties were definitely prescribed by a central authority. Through him the Chief Superintendent and the Council of Public Instruction were able to keep in touch with pupils, teachers, school visitors, trustee boards, county boards, and district councils. School visitors were given the same privileges as by the Act of 1846, except the right to grant licenses to teachers. The General Board of Education was merged into the Council of Public Instruction, with duties substantially the same as those assigned the former body in 1846. Incorporated towns and cities were no longer to have school sections, but instead a Board of Trustees to manage school affairs. Town and City School Boards were allowed three ways of securing the money necessary, in addition to the school fund, for common school purposes. The Board might ask the Municipal Council to levy an assessment for the required sum, in which case the said Council were bound to comply with its wishes; the Board might levy a rate bill upon the parents of pupils attending school; or they might raise the required funds partly by a rate bill and partly by an assessment levied by the Municipal Council. The only real difference between the methods of raising money in towns and cities on the one hand and rural sections on the other, lay in the plan of deciding how the money was to be raised. In rural sections the ratepayers assembled at the annual meeting, made the decision, and the trustees carried out their wishes; in towns and cities the trustees had full power to decide upon the method of taxation without consulting the ratepayers. School trustees in incorporated villages were governed by the same rules as trustees of towns and cities, except in the manner of the annual election. One very important feature of the new Act was the setting apart of £3,000 a year for the establishment and support of school libraries, and £25 a year for each District Teachers' Institute. A sum was also set apart for procuring plans and publications for the improvement of school architecture. The Chief Superintendent was authorized to issue provincial certificates to Normal School graduates. The Act of 1850 also made some important changes relating to Separate Schools, which will be noted in another chapter. Dr. Ryerson always felt that he owed much to the Governor-General, Lord Elgin, for helping him to form a public opinion which made possible the legislation of 1850. That distinguished nobleman was a graduate of Oxford, and he never lost an opportunity of helping forward any movement designed to raise the intellectual status of the people. But it was largely Ryerson's unaided efforts that gave Upper Canada in 1850 such a splendid educational machinery. It was no factory-made plan, but a system developed step by step out of partial failures into something better. It was, like all English law, the result of applying a common-sense remedy to a clearly proved weakness. During the passage through the Legislature of the Bill of 1850, a debate arose about Ryerson's salary, and the value of his services to the country. The following condensed account of a speech delivered in Parliament in July, by Hon. Francis Hincks, makes clear the attitude finally adopted by the Liberal Government toward Ryerson, and for that reason has some historical interest: "The member for Toronto, Mr. Boulton, had charged the Administration with buying the support of the Superintendent of Education with an increased salary. He had desired, in bringing forward this question, to make it as little a political question as possible. He thought that the great question of education might be treated without reference to party differences. He thought it his duty, considering the position which the Reverend Superintendent of Education occupied towards the party with whom he acted, to state his whole course of conduct towards that gentleman since he had taken office. It was well known to the House that the reverend gentleman was engaged, before accepting the office which he now held, in very keen controversy with the members of the present ministry; he had taken a course decidedly hostile to them. As writer for the public press at that time, he had himself engaged in that contest, though without personal feeling, as he trusted he had engaged in every contest of the kind. But there was undoubtedly on his own part, and on that of his colleagues, a strong political feeling of dislike to the reverend gentleman, on account of the formidable opposition with which they were met by him. He was appointed to the office of Superintendent by the late Government, and he did not blame that Government for so appointing him; for, if anyone ever established strong claims upon a party, it was the reverend gentleman by his defence of that administration. The present ministry again assumed the duties of the Government, and undoubtedly there was a general feeling among their supporters that one of the first measures expected of them was to get rid of the reverend gentleman in some way or other, and in that feeling most certainly he sympathized. He had found, however, bye-the-bye, that those who were most eager to recommend the Government to dismiss officials, when they were put into similar situations, into the municipal councils for instance, that they did not carry out those views, that they did not turn out their opponents without a reason for it. There were two or three ways of removing the Chief Superintendent; one was to make the office a political one; but after the best consideration being given to the question, it was not considered advisable to do that, and the proposition to abolish the office altogether, he was satisfied would have had the worst possible consequences on the educational interests of the country, after observing the benefits of active superintendents in New York, and our own Province. The only other mode then, if these two were resisted, was to remove the incumbent altogether, and then the question came, whether he had acted in such a manner as to justify his dismissal. He had often asked this question of the persons who urged his dismissal, and they had never given one good reason to support the affirmative. He was not one of those who thought that because a person supported one Government that he was therefore incapable of serving faithfully those who succeeded them, whom he had formerly opposed, always supposing, of course, that his office was not a political one. He could not find that the reverend gentleman had entered in the slightest degree into the field of politics, and as he had discharged his duties with great zeal and ability, they had no reason to interfere with him. Then the point was, how they were to act towards him in his position, and his (Mr. H.'s) determination was to give him the most cordial support; as a member of the Government he considered it his duty to do so. He felt it his duty to give the same support to officers who came oftener into contact with him, the officials of the Custom House, and he defied anyone to say that any political opponent of his had received less cordial support in the discharge of the duties of his office than his friends had; the efficiency of the service absolutely required that he should do so. He put himself in communication with the reverend gentleman in reference to this Bill, and as he (Mr. H.) believed that Doctor Ryerson possessed a more complete knowledge of the school system than any other person, he thought that any Government would have done very wrong not to have availed themselves of that knowledge. He deeply regretted the course which some gentlemen with whom he generally acted had taken on this matter. "He would only say now, that he considered he should be paid the highest salary given to any officer, for the duties of none were more onerous or more important. He might remark that he had not found lawyers in the House very anxious to reduce the salaries of the judges, but when it came to civilians, to superintendents of schools, then five hundred pounds a year was far too much. Now he considered the duties of that office as quite equal in importance, and requiring equal talents to those of a Collector of Customs, and thought that he should not be placed in an inferior position to them."[81] [81] See issue of Toronto _Globe_, July 11th, 1850, p. 331. * * * * * The Toronto _Globe_, of July 16th, 1850, speaking on the debate in the Assembly, said: "The debate on Egerton Ryerson's salary was, we think, just another instance of pandering to the cry of the moment. His salary was sought to be made the same as the Lower Canada Superintendent's. Well, the Lower Canada Superintendent's salary is five hundred pounds, but it would not do to name that sum for Upper Canada until the retrenchment committee had operated upon Lower Canada. Now, why not say at once that five hundred pounds is the proper salary for the Superintendent of Education of nearly a million people, and stick to it? We are no admirers of Egerton Ryerson, and we have always thought, and we think still, that the present ministry should have turned him out neck and crop the moment they got into power; but we are free to admit that he is a man of very great talent, who, at any mercantile or professional business he might engage in, would readily make five hundred pounds a year, and we do think that this sum is as little as could be assigned to an office of such high public importance." This article clearly shows that the _Globe_ recognized Ryerson's talents and his professional ability, while objecting to him on political grounds. Mr. George Brown, the _Globe_ Editor, was too shrewd a man, and had too strong an interest in popular education, not to see that Ryerson was working a reformation in school affairs. The following from a _Globe_ editorial of September 14th, 1850, is really a tribute grudgingly paid to Ryerson's efforts:-- "While other professions, the clergy, the lawyers, the physicians, have long gained a certain position and influence in society, and have assumed the management of their own affairs, teachers, as a class, have, until lately, stood alone, disregarded by the community, and in many instances treated as beneath the notice of men infinitely their inferiors in mental acquirements, and engaged in pursuits certainly not more important to the well-being of the community. While others were improving their circumstances and acquiring wealth and power, the schoolmaster alone appeared stationary, doomed to drag on a life of poverty and contempt, and looked upon by parents as a sort of nurse for their naughty children, who received their wages for their services, and not to meddle with the affairs of the world. We but repeat what we wrote some years ago, prior to any of Egerton Ryerson's schemes, when we say that it is a reproach to the Christian world, that those who prepare the rising generation for entry into business life, should have been left so long to poverty, and to have occupied so low a place in society. Only conceive a schoolmaster--profoundly versed in the vast variety of knowledge which the human mind can master, a man who can solve the most difficult problem in mathematics, and take the highest flights in astronomy--rarely reaching beyond the mark of a person to be patronized. To such a man, the constant toil and drudgery of a school, the annoyance of unruly children and unreasonable parents, and above all the pinching poverty to which he is too often subject, present a life of hardship which it is difficult to conceive. The smith, or the carpenter of the village, may by industry realize something for the wants of a surviving family, and the shopkeeper, or the baker, may perhaps become wealthy; but the idea of a schoolmaster having any other position than poverty, would be thought the height of absurdity." Ryerson believed that if school trustees were given the option of free schools and power to enforce taxation for their support, they would soon abolish rate-bills upon parents. Public sentiment was rapidly changing. This was fairly shown by the city of Toronto, where there were many wealthy men who objected to free schools, and where private and denominational schools were more popular than in any other part of Upper Canada. In March, 1851, a committee of the Toronto Board submitted to the Chairman a special report showing that 3,403 children who should be in the schools of that city were roaming the streets and growing up without educational advantages of any kind. The report ascribed this condition of affairs mainly to two causes, rate-bills and lack of school accommodation, and concluded by making a strong stand for free schools. The Toronto _Globe_ had scoffed at free schools in 1848. The rapid change that took place in the views of this journal is a fair index of the change that was taking place among the people of Upper Canada in regard to free schools. I shall, therefore, quote from the _Globe_ to show the trend of public opinion on free schools during the early fifties. As early as January 30th, 1851, the _Globe_ said editorially: "We are glad to observe that the plan of free common schools has been adopted at the recent annual meetings in very many school sections throughout Upper Canada. The best gift the people of Canada can confer on their children is education, sound, practical education available to all. Public money employed in educating the masses is a most profitable investment, and we hope the day will soon be when a good education is open to every child in the country." On January 5th, 1852, the _Globe_ expressed itself as follows:-- "The most important change proposed in our present system of common schools, is the abolition of all direct charges against the parents of the children attending, and the support of these institutes by direct tax on the whole body of the people. We trust the day is not far distant when the Reserve and Rectory lands will be devoted to the support of the common schools of Upper Canada, the school tax abolished, and the unspeakable advantages of a sound education placed without any charge within the reach of every child in the Province. Every effort should be put forth to effect this, but meantime let us seek to obtain the best system which our position admits of, and that, we believe, is an entirely free system supported by a direct tax. There are many reasons urged against this proposed change by sincere friends of education, which are not without weight. It is said to be unjust and tyrannical to make people who are childless pay for those who are blessed with a numerous progeny; it is urged that parents will value the blessing of education more, when they are compelled to pay for it; it is alleged to be a weakening of the parental tie, to take the expense of the education of the child from the shoulders of the parent. These arguments will have more or less influence according to the position and character of the individual who considers them, but we assert without fear of contradiction that all the evils which our warmest opponents anticipate from the introduction of free schools sink into insignificance beside the frightful consequences of our children growing up in the blindness of ignorance, the result which a free system is designed to avert. No reasonable disinterested man would place the one class of evils in comparison with the other.... "Many opponents of free schools, however, are willing that the children of the poor should be educated without charge, as they are at present. Most parents, however, would be, and are, prevented by their pride from taking advantage of this favour, and we think it highly desirable that the idea of begging education, or anything else, should be set as far as possible from the mind of every Canadian. The children of the poor should look to the common schools as a place to which they have a right to go, having paid a quota of the expense in proportion to their means, in the same way that they claim the right to walk the pavement, and on the same grounds. It is indeed a noble thought to place the education of the people in the same position as the protection of the people and the government of the people, to make it one of the necessaries of the existence of a state in peace and security, and to provide it at the expense of all, for the benefit of all. With a Government formed as ours is by the people, and entirely under its control, our only safeguard against anarchy and confusion is the intelligence and right of the people. A thorough system of common school education is the only means which can ensure these high advantages. Education ought to be universal, and to be so, it must be entirely free from all expense; there must be inducements held out to the short-sighted, unwilling parent." As I have already shown, free schools had stronger opposition in Toronto than at any other point, yet at a large public meeting held in January, 1852, in St. Lawrence Hall,[82] there were only twelve people who opposed a motion for free schools. Later in the same month Doctor Ryerson himself attended a public meeting in Toronto and discussed the free school issue. I shall quote from his speech[83] to show how skilfully he could use a concrete illustration to influence public opinion. "Speaking of free schools he said he well remembered how he went to visit one of the public schools of Boston, the High School, where boys were prepared for College, yet as free of expense to all classes as the lowest, and the Mayor of the city, who accompanied him, wishing to give a lesson in aristocracy, probably, pointed out two lads who occupied the same seat. He told him that one of these was the son of Abbot Lawrence, the great manufacturer, and now American minister in England, and the other was the son of the doorkeeper of the City Hall, which they had just left. They were enjoying the same advantages, the son of the millionaire and the son of the doorkeeper; that was what he wished to see in Canada, the sons of our poor have the same opportunity of educational advancement as those of the rich. Did it appear from this that the rich did not attend the common schools of Massachusetts? The Governor of that State, in a speech which he made lately at Newbury Port, said that if he had as many sons as old Priam, and was as rich as Astor, that he would send them to the free school. There were rich and proud men in Massachusetts, undoubtedly, who would not send their children among the poor, and rich stingy men who objected to be taxed for other people's children, but they were the exceptions to the rule. There was one fact that he wished to mention in connection with the free schools of Massachusetts. A body of European clergy belonging to the Catholic Church had gone to their Bishop in Boston to request him to use his influence against the free school system. He returned for answer that he knew the character of the schools, having been educated in them, and having owed to them his position in the Church and the world, and would do nothing to impair their usefulness." [82] See report in _Globe_ of January 10th, 1852. [83] See report in _Globe_ of January 13th, 1852. * * * * * It would be a mistake to suppose that there were not valiant champions against the free school principle, and it would be a worse mistake to suppose that all the sound arguments were on the side of free schools. The following letters from the Reverend John Roaf, a Toronto clergyman (Congregationalist), will give a fair idea of the stand taken by those who favoured rate bills upon parents. The first letter, published in the _Globe_, January 31st, 1852, is as follows: "I am happy to inform you that school section No. 1, Township of York, including the village of Yorkville, have this day negatived a proposal to have a free school, preferring to give the teacher £60 from the Public funds, and a right to charge 1s. 3d. per month for every child attending the school. The mechanics and labourers here have thus discharged the power, for there cannot be any such right, so wrongfully given them by the School Act, to educate their own children at the expense of their more wealthy neighbours. All praise to their honesty. Thus they will escape from the pauperizing tendencies of the free school system. They encourage their schoolmaster with the hope of being rewarded for making a good school. They suffer the proprietors of private schools to maintain a useful competition with the common school teacher; they keep up valuable select schools, and yet in return for the public fund, they will get free education for the children whose parents need exemption from the school fees. "May we not hope that the city of Toronto will next year follow this honourable example, and spurn the unrighteous counsel which is introducing communism in education to the undermining of property and society? The French people and the Normans ought to serve as warnings of the abyss to which this plausible socialism is enticing us." The second letter was published in the Toronto _Globe_, February 5th, 1852: "The idea of the outlay for education being profitable for the holders of property, and thus justifying the impost, is much like a joke; for surely no one thinks it necessary to force upon men of property so great a gain, as they seldom need be convinced by their poor neighbours where their true interests lie. Gain indeed; why, probably three-fourths of the children now in the Toronto common schools will carry their education away to the West, and here be succeeded by others who will similarly want to use our property for their own benefit. Besides we might give free education to those who otherwise would be destitute of it, but make those purchase it who have the means. "While I thus dwell on the injustice of the arrangement, I do so because what is unjust cannot be wise, and not because the futility of the system is not otherwise apparent. The free system divests the teacher of all proprietary and personal interest in his school, and will speedily render him sycophantic and servile to his trustees, but haughty and negligent towards his pupils and friends. It will throw education into the hands of an electioneering party, and what kind of party that will be in such places as Toronto, need not be said. It will destroy all the confidence and love felt towards the teacher as the employee and friend of the child's parents, and substitute for them a cold respect due to the public official. It will render school attendance desultory and variable, because unpaid for, and always to be had for asking. Instead of the soft, familiar, and refined circle in which wise parents like to place their children, it will drive gentle youths and sensitive girls into the large herds of children with all the regimental strictness and coldness and coarseness by which such bodies must be marked, and thus, while the child asks bread you will give him a stone." The opposition to free schools did not all come from wealthy property-owners who objected to educating the children of the poor. Voluntary schools, wholly independent of Government control and closely allied with some church, were already in operation in populous centres in Upper Canada. The managers of these schools had to depend wholly upon subscriptions and fees. So long as all schools were supported mainly from rate bills upon parents the purely voluntary schools were not at a serious disadvantage. But if free common schools were established, then all patrons of voluntary schools must submit to be taxed twice for the education of their children. The following from a _Globe_ editorial of February 14th, 1852, shows that the effects of free schools upon voluntary schools were fully appreciated: "The _Patriot_ of Tuesday gives us the real reason for his opposition to free schools. Formerly he talked of pauperizing the whole people, of socializing them, of a number of other direful evils to be dreaded as consequences of all free schools. In his last article, however, he admits that his main objection is, that denominational schools can never be supported beside those entirely free. We commend this fact to our friends who are sincerely opposed to sectarian education, and yet are not prepared to accept the principles of entire freedom. It is undoubtedly true what the _Patriot_ says, denominational schools cannot exist beside free schools. So long as we continue to exact payment from parents, so long will efforts be made by the sects to obtain aid from the public funds and private support in order to weaken the common schools, draw away scholars from them, and destroy their efficiency. When the schools are supported entirely by taxation, no such attempts can be met with success. No sectarian school only partially supported by the State can compete with the free institution, and no one would be foolish enough to propose to endow more than one entirely free school. The people would not stand the taxation. The free principle is a deathblow to the attempts of the priests to get the education of the people into their own hands, to train up the children in classes and denominations, to shut them out from free knowledge, and to give them just what pleases their prejudiced views. The _Patriot_ thinks it would be tyrannical to prevent the establishment of sectarian schools by means of a free system. We cannot see it in that light. The denominational plan has been tried in England, but it has failed. The schools were never established in sufficient numbers to educate the people. It is not reasonable to expect that sects managed by cliques of clergymen in the large towns should be able to manage a complete system of education for the people. The very idea is absurd. Are we then to give up our efforts for the education of the people, because these efforts would interfere with the small, ineffectual endeavours these denominations might make to secure proselytes to their churches through secular schools? Certainly not; the greatest friend to sectarian education could not admit that; and we who oppose that system rejoice that free schools, which are spreading so fast, will effectually put down the endeavours of the sects after educational influence which has produced both in Ireland and England such a scarcity of knowledge, and which have not been without their ill-effects in Canada." These quotations will for us serve two purposes. They give a fair picture of the free school movement, and they sum up the arguments for and against State education. No thoughtful person in this age can observe the apathy of thousands of people in regard to the education of their children without at times feeling that these people would appreciate schools much more if they had to make some personal sacrifice to secure their advantages. But further thought is almost certain to convince us that free schools are the natural support of a democratic government, and that without their socializing influence a self-governing people would always be more or less at the mercy of demagogues. CHAPTER VIII. _RYERSON AND SEPARATE SCHOOLS._ The purpose of this chapter is to set forth as briefly as possible the origin and development of Separate Schools in Upper Canada, showing incidentally the part taken in that development by Doctor Ryerson. If we seek to discover the primary cause of our Separate School system we undoubtedly find it in the almost unanimous desire of the pioneer settlers to have the Common Schools established upon a basis of Christianity, and to secure for their children some positive instruction in the Holy Scriptures. From their standpoint secular schools were of necessity godless schools. We need also to remember that sectarian prejudices were more bitter seventy years ago than they are to-day. Dogma and religion were thought to be inseparable. To-day the various bodies of Christians throughout the world make much of what they hold in common; seventy years ago their grandfathers could not forget the petty differences of doctrine that held them apart. If the schools were to give religious instruction, and if the adoption of some form of instruction acceptable to all was impossible, then separate schools were the logical outcome. And as separate schools for each one of the many sects into which the scattered population of Upper Canada was divided were clearly impossible it naturally followed that such schools were established for Roman Catholics who were comparatively few in number, and who differed in doctrine from Protestants more radically than the various Protestant bodies differed amongst themselves. No one of the Protestant bodies could object to the reading of the Protestant Bible in the schools, but the Roman Catholics naturally objected to their children taking any part in such an exercise. As pointed out in Chapter IV., the Common School Act of 1841 laid the foundation of Separate Schools. The provisions of that Act applied to the United Canadas. In any township or parish any number of dissentients might elect a trustee board and establish a school, receiving for its support public money in proportion to their numbers. It is clear that in practice under this clause a dissentient school could be established only where the dissentients were sufficiently numerous to furnish at least fifteen children of school age, and contribute a considerable sum for school purposes. Another clause in the Act of 1841 required the Governor to appoint, in towns and cities, school boards made up of an equal number of Protestants and Roman Catholics, the Protestants to manage schools attended by Protestant children and the Catholics to manage schools attended by Catholic children. But this clause made no provision for Roman Catholics from two or more city school sections combining to form one school for their children, and as Catholics in a single city section were seldom if ever numerous enough to form a school the Act was practically inoperative in securing separate Roman Catholic schools. The Bill of 1841, as introduced into the Assembly, contained none of the above provisions for Separate Schools, and the question naturally arises, why were they inserted? Several petitions were presented from Boards of Education, and some from Synods of the Presbyterian Church, praying that the Bible be made a textbook in the schools. Bishop Strachan and the clergy of his diocese petitioned "that the education of the children of their own Church may be entrusted to their own pastors, and that an annual grant from the assessments may be awarded for their instruction."[84] The Roman Catholic Bishop of Kingston also petitioned against the Bill as brought in, but did not expressly ask for Separate Schools. It seems natural then to infer (and the Journals of the Assembly for 1841 bear out this inference), that the amendments granting Separate Schools were a compromise. [84] See copy in D. H. E., Vol. IV., p. 20. Another amendment authorized Christian Brothers to teach even if they were not naturalized British subjects. In 1843 the Act of 1841 was repealed in so far as it related to Upper Canada. The new Act made it unlawful in any common school to compel the child to read from any religious book or join in any religious exercise to which his parents or guardians objected. It also provided that if the teacher of a school were a Roman Catholic, then any ten householders or freeholders might petition for a Separate School with a Protestant teacher or, in the same way, Roman Catholics might form a Separate School if the teacher were a Protestant. The grants to these Separate Schools were to be that proportion of the total school fund in any Municipal District that the children in actual attendance at the Separate School bore to the total number of children of school age in the district, and they were subject to the same rules and regulations regarding courses of study and inspection as the Common Schools. In 1847 an amendment to the Common School Act was passed known as the Towns and Cities Act. This Act gave the Trustee Boards of towns and cities full power to determine the number of, and regulate, denominational schools. An extract from Ryerson's Annual Report for 1847 as presented to the Provincial Secretary will make clear the nature of the Act and the Chief Superintendent's views of it. Speaking of the provision for Separate Schools in the Act of 1843 he says: "I have never seen the necessity for such a provision in connection with any section of the Common School Law, which provides that no child shall be compelled to read any religious book or attend any religious exercise contrary to the wishes of his parents and guardians; and besides the apparent inexpediency of this provision of the law it has been seriously objected to as inequitable, permitting the Roman Catholics to have a denominational school, but not granting a similar right or privilege to any one Protestant denomination ... nor does the Act of 1847 permit the election of any sectarian school trustees nor the appointment of a teacher of any religious persuasion as such even for a denominational school. Every teacher of such school must be approved by the town or city school authorities. There are, therefore, guards and restrictions connected with the establishment of a denominational school in cities and towns under the new Act which did not previously exist; it, in fact, leaves the applications or pretensions of each religious persuasion to the judgment of those who provide the greater part of the local school fund and relieves the Government and Legislature from the influence of any such sectarian pressure. The effect of this Act has already been to lessen rather than to increase denominational schools, while it places all religious persuasions on the same legal footing, and leaves none of them any possible ground to attack the school law or oppose the school system. My Report on a system of Public Elementary Instruction for Upper Canada, as well as various decisions and opinions which I have given, amply show that I am far from advocating the establishment of denominational schools; but I was not prepared to condemn what had been unanimously sanctioned by two successive Parliaments."[85] [85] See copy in D. H. E., Vol. VII., p. 178. During the Legislative Session of 1850, and while the School Bill was under discussion, a petition was presented by prominent Roman Catholic authorities praying for some modifications of the provisions for Separate Schools in the Bill then before the House. The result was that the 19th clause of the Act of 1850 made it compulsory upon the Municipal Council of any township or the School Board of any city or town or incorporated village, upon the written request of twelve or more resident heads of families, to establish one or more Separate Schools for either Protestants or Roman Catholics. At this time only fifty-one Separate Schools were in operation in the whole of Upper Canada,[86] of which nearly one-half were Protestant. [86] See circular, issued by Ryerson, of April 12th, 1850, to Municipal Councils on Act of 1850. According to a letter written by Ryerson to Hon. George Brown[87] there was a movement among certain Anglicans to secure Separate Schools for their children. Had Roman Catholics and Anglicans[88] both secured Separate Schools, it would have wrecked the Common School system, and these two denominations acting in concert were strong enough to defeat the Baldwin-Lafontaine Government. Acting on Ryerson's suggestion, the Government conceded in the main the Roman Catholic claim and secured their support to the Bill. This Bill gave Separate Schools one distinct advantage over the Act of 1843. It made their share of the Separate School fund that part of the total fund which the Separate School attendance bore to the total school attendance. But Separate School supporters were still far from having their schools recognized as a right and placed on an equality with Common Schools. Separate Schools were granted as a privilege or concession, but not as a right. Let me quote from Ryerson's circular to town reeves on the Act of 1850: "But, notwithstanding the existence of this provision of the law since 1843, there were last year but 51 Separate Schools in all Upper Canada, nearly as many of them being Protestant as Roman Catholic; so that this provision of the law is of little consequence for good or for evil.... It is also to be observed that a Separate School is entitled to no aid beyond a certain portion of the School Fund for the salary of the teacher. The schoolhouse must be provided, furnished, warmed, books procured, etc., by the persons petitioning for the Separate School. Nor are the patrons or supporters of a Separate School exempted from any of the local assessments or rates for common school purposes."[89] [87] See D. H. E., Vol. IX., p. 25. [88] It is not meant to suggest that even a majority of the Anglicans would have done anything to wreck the Common School System. As a matter of fact, only a few of the Anglican laity sympathized with the extreme views of Bishop Strachan, either in Common School or University affairs. [89] See D. H. E., Vol. IX., p. 208. This makes it clear that Separate School supporters were liable to be taxed by the municipality for the support of Common Schools; they might be called upon to pay an assessment to build, repair or furnish a Common School, or to pay a part of the teacher's salary. On the other hand, the only aid they received in support of their own school was a share of the legislative and municipal grants which together made up the school fund.[90] It will at once be seen that every step toward free Common Schools placed the Separate School supporters at an increased disadvantage because it made them contribute more and more toward the Common School. [90] It was long a favourite argument of those opposed to Separate Schools that inasmuch as the bulk of the property was owned by Protestants, the Roman Catholics were not entitled to a share of the school fund reckoned on the basis of the pupils' attendance. The Act of 1850 caused some friction in Toronto, where the Roman Catholics asked for a second Separate School. The Trustee Board refused on the ground that they were not legally compelled to establish more than one Separate School in the city and the Court of Queen's Bench upheld their decision. By the old Act, under which cities were divided into school sections, there was no legal bar to the establishment of a Separate School in every city school section. Ryerson thought the Roman Catholics had a grievance and consented to recommend the Bill giving a Separate School in each city ward or a Separate School for two or more wards united for such purpose. This amendment was passed in 1851 and caused considerable discussion. A large party in Upper Canada were opposed to Separate Schools on principle and objected to any legislation that would multiply them, make them more efficient and popular, or grant them more favourable financial support. The attitude of the out-and-out opponents to Separate Schools was very well expressed by the following Bill,[91] introduced in 1851 by William Lyon Mackenzie:-- "Whereas the establishment of sectarian or Separate Schools, upheld by periodical grants of money from a provincial treasury and placed under the control of the Executive Government through its Superintendents of Education and other civil officers, is a dangerous interference with the Common School system of Upper Canada, and if allowed to Protestants and Roman Catholics cannot reasonably be refused to Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Quakers, Tunkers, Baptists, Independents and other religious denominations; and whereas if it is just that any number of religious sects should have Separate Public Schools it is not less reasonable that they should have separate Grammar Schools, Colleges and professorships in the Universities; and whereas it is unjust for the State to tax Protestants in order to provide for the instruction of children in Roman Catholic doctrines or to tax Roman Catholics for religious instruction of youth in principles adverse to those of the Church of Rome; and as the early separation of children at school on account of the creeds of their parents or guardians would rear nurseries of strife and dissension and cause thousands to grow up in comparative ignorance who might under our Common School system obtain the advantages of a moral, intellectual and scientific education, be it enacted therefore that the nineteenth section of the Act of 1850 be repealed." [91] See Journals of Canadian Assembly for 1851. Mackenzie's Bill was defeated by 26 to 5. It lays down broad general principles that are not easy to overthrow, and no doubt several who voted against it would have been glad to see all young Canadians educated together. But if the right to have Separate Schools be granted, and it had been granted by successive School Acts for Upper Canada, then it seems naturally to follow that the Legislature was bound to place no obstacles in the way of their formation and to make them efficient. Separate Schools were at first grudgingly granted as a privilege, but not as a right. Naturally, every extension of the privilege was used by the supporters of these schools as a vantage-ground from which to secure further privileges and gradually convert these into rights. At first the parties seceding from the Public Schools shared only in the school fund made up of the legislative grant and an equal sum levied by the district, town or city council--the whole being available only for the payment of teachers' salaries. Supporters of Separate Schools were liable to be taxed for the building and equipment of Public Schools in addition to the support of their own. They claimed a _pro rata_ share of all moneys levied by taxation, and in some cases the law was invoked in an attempt to secure such share. In 1853, a radical amendment was adopted by which Separate School supporters received a _pro rata_ share of the legislative grant only, and upon subscribing for school purposes a sum equivalent to the grant secured were relieved of all taxation for Common School purposes. The Act of 1853 also gave the Separate School trustees power to issue certificates to the teachers employed by them, and the same power of levying rates upon the supporters of their schools as that exercised by trustees of Common Schools. While the Separate School Bill of 1853 was before the Legislature, there was an attempt to introduce a clause establishing a general Board of Trustees for Separate or sectarian Schools in towns and cities. Ryerson went to Quebec to confer with the Attorney-General and vigorously opposed the Bill. His correspondence shows that he had no wish to place Separate Schools on an equality with Public Schools. In fact he wished to do nothing that would encourage or make easy their formation. The law as it stood allowed Separate Schools only when the teacher was of a different religious faith from those wishing the Separate School. A general Board of Separate School Trustees for every town or city would have greatly increased the number of Separate Schools. Ryerson says: "This is placing Sectarian Schools upon a totally different foundation from that on which they have always stood; it is the introduction of a system of sectarian schools without restriction and almost without conditions.... If there are city and town Boards of Sectarian School Trustees they will claim the right of appointing their own local superintendents, and thus their schools will be shut up against all inspection except that they themselves may please to require or permit.... Thus such a Board in Toronto might recognize and claim public aid for every child taught in convents and by other private teachers of the same religious persuasion.... If provision be made in each city and town to incorporate into one Board one religious persuasion, exempting it from the payment of school rates and authorizing it to tax and collect from its own members to any amount for school purposes, the application of any other religious persuasion in any such city or town cannot be consistently or fairly resisted.... The effect of all this would be to destroy the system of Public Schools in cities and towns and ultimately perhaps in villages and townships, and to leave all the poorer portion of the population and that portion of it connected with minor religious persuasions without any adequate and certain means of education. I think the safest and most defensible ground to take is a firm refusal to sanction any measure to provide by law increased facilities for the multiplication and perpetuation of sectarian schools."[92] [92] See D. H. E., Vol. X., pp. 172 and 173. * * * * * The attitude of the extreme opponents of Separate Schools may be made clear from the editorials of George Brown in the Toronto _Globe_. On April 2nd, 1853, he says:-- "But under the new Bill the taxation of the Roman Catholic parents and the whole charge of the Separate Schools are to devolve on the Popish authorities. The schools are to become henceforth distinct, not only in their mode of tuition, but in the machinery by which they are to be conducted. They are to retain no vestige of connection with the general educational system, which is the pride and glory of the Canadian people. Any Roman Catholic has only to declare himself a supporter of a Separate School and straightway he is relieved from taxation for the maintenance of the general system. As at present constituted, there is a kind of guarantee that Roman Catholics are educated, that they are not left entirely in ignorance, but under Mr. Richards' Bill there would be none.... The plain and obvious intention of the Bill is the still further development of the sectarian element in our Common Schools. The Roman Catholics were not satisfied with what they had already gained. They wished to obtain their share of the annual Parliamentary grant, paid out of the revenue, which is made up almost exclusively from Protestant money. They wished to have their schools altogether free from the supervision of the general trustees. Their bishops went down to Quebec, the _Mirror_ announcing their departure, and hinting at the object of their journey, and straightway we have the Bill from Mr. W. B. Richards, granting to them all they had demanded. If they had asked much more it would have been granted to them by the present Government. If this Bill passes into law, the sectarian system will be fully and thoroughly introduced, and must be carried out to its utmost extent. The Roman Catholics say that they are not satisfied to send their children to the Common Schools, and they are free from taxation. The Episcopalians are ready to say the same, and we ask whether in fairness we can refuse to one what we grant to the other? And then the Methodists will demand separate schools, and the Presbyterians, and all hopes of the education of the people may be abandoned. Yet this Bill has been introduced by a Government raised to power upon the principle that our school system should be free from clerical control. 'No sectarian schools' was the watchword at the last election among Reformers, yet one of the first measures introduced by the Reform Government is to establish sectarian schools more thoroughly than before. We look to them to abolish, and behold! they ratify and confirm the evils of their predecessors. Where is this to stop? When is the measure of the iniquity of this Government to be filled up?... Let our school system, the source of light and intelligence, be destroyed, and what remains to us of hope for the country? They, as it were, would go gradually back to the darkness of ignorance and superstition. We shall consider no institution safe from priestly encroachments if this Bill is carried. There is no point upon which the people of Upper Canada can be more severely wounded than their common schools. Every true patriot has fondly looked to them as the safeguards against the despotism of priestcraft, and against violence of an ignorant and, therefore, vicious populace. If they are sacrificed, if their noble endowment is scattered among the sects, frittered away on a dozen different school systems, if the priests are to take possession of all the avenues of knowledge, what will be the fate of this Province? Will it rise in the scale of nations, ever to be distinguished for the intelligence of its people, for its prosperity and advancement?"[93] [93] See bound volumes of _Globe_ in Legislative Library, Toronto. The following from the Toronto _Examiner_, reprinted in the _Globe_ of April 7th, 1853, shows that the _Globe_ was not alone in its opinions:-- "We are reluctantly forced to the conviction that the rupture, complete and final, of the Common School system of Canada is only a question of time. We were among those who looked anxiously to the Government for a liberal and decided policy on this momentous question. An examination of the supplementary School Bill which we give in other columns will bear us out but too fully, we fear, in pronouncing its liberality exceedingly questionable.... How different in Canada. Reformers have been bidding for Roman Catholic votes until they are likely to bid away every distinctive principle which they hold, and when this is done will it satisfy the ends of men whose mission is to establish in the place of free institutions the domination of priestcraft?" The following from the Roman Catholic _Mirror_, quoted in the _Globe_, April 9th, 1853, shows that the Roman Catholics were well pleased with the Bill: "We freely admit that we had certain misgivings respecting the amount of relief which might be expected from the measure proposed, which from the haughty and dictatorial tone assumed by the Chief Superintendent of Schools for Upper Canada, in his late perambulations, we were prepared at least to regard with suspicion. The terms on which justice has been hitherto meted out in stinted and niggard instalments, under the existing law, and the many instances in which it has been withheld or contemptuously refused, may have rendered us over-sensitive; but we must acknowledge that when we observe Dr. Ryerson publicly promulgate the conditions on which he would concede to Catholics the privilege of directing the education of their own children, we were prepared to expect a reiterated legislative insult and a gross injustice, not a measure restrictive, partial and oppressive. We have been most agreeably disappointed; the Bill of the 'Honourable Attorney-General West,' with some slight modifications which can be readily introduced in committee, will form the basis of an educational system of sound principle, particularly calculated to do justice to all classes of the community." The following resolutions of the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church, printed in the _Globe_, June 30th, 1853, shows the opinion of that body on the Common School question:-- "Resolved. I. That this Synod approve of a national system of education, placing all the members of the community upon a level, and encouraging, as that now in force in this Province does, the use of the Scriptures under certain reasonable regulations, as are also prescribed therein. "II. Holding these views, we deeply regret to perceive the principle of sectarian schools, so distinctly recognized in the latest amendments of the Provincial School Act, and do strongly testify against such a principle as impolitic and mischievous, recognizing as it does the right of the Government to take the moneys of the public and appropriate them for the purpose of sustaining and extending religious distractions, and thereby continuing to stimulate the elements of discord throughout the community and mar greatly social interests. "III. That this Synod recommend to those under their care the use of every proper and constitutional means to secure the repeal of all such statutes as recognize the principle of sectarian schools." The movement for extended Separate School privileges was being championed by Bishop de Charbonnel, of Toronto. During 1852 he had a long controversy with Ryerson on the school question.[94] Ryerson's letters during this controversy make it quite clear that he thought Separate Schools a huge blunder, and that while he had honestly attempted to give Roman Catholics all the law allowed them he hoped and expected to see their schools die a natural death. [94] See appendices to Journals of House of Assembly, 1852-1853. In his Report for 1852, the Superintendent points with pride to the fact that Separate Schools are not increasing. Indeed, he congratulates himself that the provision in the law allowing them is really a good thing, since it is not very effective in practice but yet acts as a safety valve to prevent violent opposition to the school system. He believed that the Roman Catholics themselves would ultimately see that a policy of isolation of their children would have the effect of cutting them off from many of their natural privileges as Canadian citizens. And had the Separate School Act of 1853 remained unaltered, events would likely have shown Ryerson to be correct in his views. He believed the Act of 1853 was final, and that without any municipal machinery for collecting their taxes Separate Schools would never become numerous. In this he was greatly mistaken, as events proved. In 1854, the Roman Catholic Bishops of Toronto, Kingston and Bytown, drew up a Separate School Bill which they wished should become law. This Bill would have forced all Roman Catholics to support Catholic Separate Schools wherever such were established. It also had other provisions which Ryerson thought objectionable. In 1855 a Separate School Bill, known as the "Taché Bill," was introduced into the Legislative Council, and after some amendments adopted by both branches of Parliament. This Act differed from all previous Acts in that its provisions were exclusively for Roman Catholic Separate Schools. It repealed all previous legislation for Separate Schools in so far as Roman Catholics were concerned. It made possible the establishment of a Roman Catholic Separate School in any school section or any ward of a town or city on petition of ten Roman Catholic ratepayers and gave them a Separate School Board with their own Superintendent in towns and cities. Such Roman Catholic ratepayers were relieved from all municipal rates for Common School purposes, and received for their own school a _pro rata_ share of the Legislative grant if they had an average attendance of 15 pupils. The Act also made possible general Boards of Separate School Trustees in towns and cities and gave all Separate School Boards power to license their own teachers and levy rates for Separate School purposes upon the supporters of those schools. The Act was in principle a distinct gain for the champions of Separate Schools, but it led to no rapid increase in the number of such schools. In 1858, only 94 Separate Schools were in existence with an enrolment of less than 10,000 children, as compared with an enrolment of 284,000 in the Public Schools. The Act of 1855 was really forced upon Upper Canada by the votes of members from Lower Canada, there being a majority of Upper Canada members against the Bill. It would seem that the Roman Catholics did not gain by the Taché Bill as much as they expected. The following letter written to Dr. Ryerson from Quebec, on June 8th, 1855, by John (afterwards Sir John) A. Macdonald, Attorney-General for Upper Canada, who had charge of the Bill in the Assembly, shows that political exigencies played no small part in school legislation: "Our Separate School Bill, which, as you know, is now quite harmless, passed with the approbation of our friend, Bishop Charbonnel, who, before leaving here, formally thanked the administration for doing justice to his Church. He has got a new light since his return to Toronto, and he now says the Bill won't do. I need not point out to your suggestive mind that in any article written by you on the subject it is politic to press two points on the public attention: 1st, That the Bill will not, as you say, injuriously affect the Common School system. This for the people at large. 2nd, That the Bill is a substantial boon to the Roman Catholics. This to keep them in good humour. You see that if the Bishop makes the Roman Catholics believe that the Bill is no use to them there will be a renewal of an unwholesome agitation which I thought we had allayed."[95] [95] See copy of letter in D. H. E., Vol. XII., p. 40. That Sir John A Macdonald was largely in agreement with Dr. Ryerson on the Separate School question is the opinion of Sir Joseph Pope, his biographer, who says on page 138 of his Memoirs: "Mr. Macdonald said that he was as desirous as anyone of seeing all children going together to the Common School, and if he could have his own way there would be no Separate School. But we should respect the opinions of others who differed from us, and they had a right to refuse such schools as they could not conscientiously approve of." From 1855 to 1863, no important changes took place in the law governing Separate Schools. These schools were increasing very slowly, not so fast as the natural growth of the Roman Catholic population. In 1860, there were only 115 Separate Schools with an enrolment of 14,708 as compared with some 325,000 in the Public Schools. In 1860, Mr. (afterwards Honourable) R. W. Scott introduced a Bill planned to give Separate Schools additional privileges. Substantially the same Bill was introduced annually by Mr. Scott until 1863, when it passed with amendments, some of which were suggested by Dr. Ryerson. As a matter of fact, the Taché Act of 1855, which was suggested partly by the status of Protestant dissentient schools in Lower Canada, had imposed some useless but vexatious restrictions upon Separate School supporters. In 1862, Ryerson proposed to satisfy what he called the reasonable demands of Roman Catholics by making four changes, as follows:--[96] 1st. To allow the formation of Separate Schools in incorporated villages and in towns (the Taché Act allowed a Separate School only in the ward of a town and not a school for the town as a whole); 2nd. To allow a union of two or more Separate Schools; 3rd. To make it unnecessary for a Separate School supporter annually to declare himself such; and 4th. To exempt Separate School trustees from making oath as to the correctness of their school returns. [96] See D. H. E., Vol. XVII., pp. 192 and 193. The Scott Bill of 1863[97] as finally adopted by the Legislature, embodied all these provisions and some others of importance. Separate School teachers were to submit to the same examinations and receive the same certificates of qualification as Public School teachers, but all teachers qualified by law in Lower Canada were to be qualified teachers for Separate Schools in Upper Canada. This provision was to allow the teachers of religious orders[98] recognized by law as qualified in Lower Canada to teach in Separate Schools in Upper Canada. The Act also made taxpayers who withdrew their support from Separate Schools liable for their share of debts incurred while Separate School supporters in building or equipping Separate Schools. On the whole, the Scott Bill, while in its unamended form it aroused great opposition in Upper Canada, as finally adopted, tended to bring the Separate Schools into closer harmony with the principles governing Public Schools. The feature of the Bill that aroused most opposition was its being forced upon Upper Canada by votes of Lower Canadian members--there being a majority[99] of ten Upper Canada members against the third reading of the Bill in the Assembly. Such well-known men as John A. Macdonald, John Sandfield Macdonald and Wm. Macdougall supported the Bill, while George Brown, Alexander Mackenzie and Oliver Mowat opposed it. [97] The Scott Bill, as originally introduced, made any Roman Catholic priest an ex-officio trustee of a Separate School in his parish; made all the property of a Separate School supporter exempt from taxation for Public School purposes, even though some of the property was outside a Separate School district; gave Separate School trustees unlimited power to form union sections; created a separate County Board of Examiners to license Separate School teachers, and gave the Superintendent of Education little or no power to control textbooks, holidays or inspection of Separate Schools. [98] The Report of the Chief Superintendent for 1871 shows 70 teachers in Separate Schools belonging to religious orders out of a total of 249. [99] See Journals of Canadian Assembly for 1863. Ryerson claimed[100] that he agreed to the amended Scott Bill only on the distinct understanding that it was to be a finality in Separate School legislation. He also claimed that the Roman Catholic Bishops of Quebec, Kingston and Toronto accepted the Bill as a final settlement. But nothing is final in legislation, and Dr. Ryerson ought to have known this. Legislation is as much the result of a process of evolution as any other institution of human society, and no three or four men, whether priests or laymen, could speak authoritatively and finally for the thousands of Roman Catholics in Upper Canada. [100] See D. H. E., Vol. XVII., p. 219. Separate Schools increased slowly. In 1863 they numbered 115, with 15,000 pupils, the Public Schools having during the same year 45,000 Roman Catholic pupils. In 1864, Separate Schools had increased to 147 with 17,365 pupils. In 1871, the number was 160, with 21,000 pupils. Almost immediately after the Scott legislation of 1863, an agitation began for further amendments to the Separate School Act. Ryerson made strong objections partly on the ground of the alleged compact of 1863, and partly on the ground that no legislation could possibly make Separate Schools really popular and efficient outside of large towns and cities. In 1865, the school administration was attacked by James O'Reilly, of Kingston, and, in a memorandum prepared as a reply to these attacks, Ryerson goes into some detail to justify his Separate School policy and reiterates his firm belief that sectarian schools must ever be relatively inefficient. He concludes as follows: "The fact is that the tendency of the public mind and of the institutions of Upper Canada is to confederation and not isolation, to united effort and not divisions. The efforts to establish and extend Separate Schools, although often energetic and made at great sacrifice, are a struggle against the instincts of Canadian society, against the necessities of a sparsely populated country, against the social and political interest of the parents and youth separated from their fellow-citizens. It is not the Separate School law that renders such efforts fitful, feeble and little successful; their paralysis is caused by a higher than human law, the law of circumstances--the law of nature, and the law of interest. "If, therefore, the present Separate School law is not to be maintained as a final settlement of the question and if the Legislature finds it necessary to legislate on the Separate School question again, I pray that it will abolish the Separate School law altogether; and to this recommendation I am forced after having long used my best efforts to maintain and give the fullest effect and most liberal application to successive Separate School acts--and after twenty years' experience and superintendence of our Common School system."[101] [101] See copy of Memorandum, D. H. E., Vol. XVIII., pp. 304-316. When the Confederation resolutions adopted at Quebec in 1864 were being discussed in the Canadian Assembly in 1865, an extended debate arose over the clause which secured for the minorities in Upper and Lower Canada the privilege of Separate Schools. Men like George Brown and Alexander Mackenzie, who had opposed the Scott Bill of 1863, defended the minority clause on the ground that it would place Upper Canada in no worse position than she already was in regard to sectarian schools, and that privileges given ought not to be withdrawn. The Assembly were almost unanimous in supporting the Separate School clause which was incorporated into the British North America Act. No changes in Separate School legislation were made after Confederation until 1886, and the only events of passing importance in Separate School affairs were the objections raised in Kingston in 1865 and in Toronto in 1871 to visits of inspection by the Grammar School Inspector, who had been appointed to make these visits by the Council of Public Instruction. When Dr. Ryerson pointed out that these visits were authorized by the Scott Bill of 1863, the Bishops very gracefully waived their objections and the principle of Separate School inspection by Government officers was established. In 1874, the three High School Inspectors made a general inspection of Separate Schools. In their report to the Government they say: "The inspection of the Separate Schools derives an additional interest and importance from the peculiar position they occupy in our educational system. Among them we have found both well-equipped and ill-equipped, both well-taught and ill-taught schools. On the whole we regret that in the majority of cases the buildings, the equipment, and the teaching are alike inferior. There are but few Separate School teachers whose school surroundings are such as to make their positions enviable, and accordingly a large measure of approbation is due to those who have succeeded in doing good work. We have pleasure in stating that in many places the Separate School Boards are beginning to see that they must either make the schools under their charge more efficient or close them altogether. There are many things connected with the operation of the Separate School Act which invite comment; but we think it best to postpone the expression of our views until they are matured by the experience of another year." Some years after this, in 1882, the Education Department adopted the plan of appointing special Roman Catholic Inspectors of Separate Schools. No doubt regular inspection of these schools has done much to increase their efficiency, but it is to be regretted that the plan of inspection adopted tends to widen still further the breach between them and the schools of the mass of the people. Four years after Ryerson's death, the Act relating to Separate Schools was revised and amended. No new principles were introduced, but every amendment made tended to place Separate School supporters on an equality with supporters of Public Schools. The number of schools has gradually increased owing to the rapid increase in our urban population. In 1884 there were 207 Separate Schools, with 27,463 pupils; in 1894, 328 schools with 39,762 pupils; and in 1906, 443 schools with 50,000 pupils. Perhaps the most important event connected with the history of Separate Schools since 1886 was the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in November, 1906. This decision made it clear that the clause declaring persons qualified as teachers in Quebec at the time of Confederation to be qualified teachers of Separate Schools in Ontario applied only to individuals and not to religious corporations as such. The result will be that the Separate Schools ought soon to have a body of teachers with the same academic standing and the same normal training as the Public Schools. CHAPTER IX. _RYERSON AND GRAMMAR SCHOOLS._ As already shown in the chapters on the early history of schools in Upper Canada, Grammar Schools were provided for before any provision was made for Common Schools. In fact the chief nominal purpose of the large grant of public land in 1799 was to endow Grammar Schools, and in 1807 schools were opened in each of the eight Districts into which Upper Canada was then divided. These schools were supposed to be classical schools, fashioned upon the model of the great English Public Schools. As a matter of fact they had no uniform standard of equipment, staff, course of study or graduation. A few schools, such as Cornwall, Kingston, York, and Niagara, were famous and turned out many able men. Some of the schools received pupils who could not read, and were in no sense secondary schools. As the population increased, new schools were opened. Although originally intended to be free schools, they all charged fees. The public grant, which was paid direct to the principal, was one hundred pounds for each school. As the population increased, new schools were opened, and by 1844, when Ryerson became Superintendent of Education, twenty-five Grammar Schools and Academies were in operation. These schools were managed by trustees appointed by the Crown, but were under no proper Government control. They were never really inspected. Each school was a law unto itself. All were supposed to teach Latin and Greek, but in many of them there was not a single pupil studying either of these languages. They were handicapped in many ways. For years there were no good elementary schools from which they could draw pupils with a foundation for a secondary education. During the same long period there were in Upper Canada no colleges to which graduates of Grammar Schools might go for professional training. This gave these schools a wide scope and great opportunities, but few seized the opportunities. The poverty of the people and the natural apathy of many in regard to education also prevented the development of good schools. Good schools are possible only with good teachers, and good teachers in Upper Canada were not easily secured. The professions of law and medicine then, as now, were much more attractive than teaching for men of ability and education. Mercantile life also offered great opportunities. The result was that the Grammar Schools were often in charge of incompetent teachers. Ryerson's commission gave him no control over Grammar Schools. But his first Report in 1846 recommended a graded, unified system of schools from the Common School to the University. He also pointed out that these Grammar Schools which were intended for a special work were teaching everything taught in a Common School. In his Report for 1849 he recommended a commission of inquiry into the state of Grammar Schools and showed that the whole thirty or forty schools had matriculated only eight students into the University during that year. He suggested a fixed course of studies, a minimum qualification for entrance, and Government inspection. "Surely," he says, "it never could have been intended that the Grammar Schools should occupy the same ground as Common Schools, should compete with them, thus lowering the character and efficiency of both.... I am far from intimating an opinion that there are no efficient Grammar Schools in the Province, even under the present system or rather absence of all system. There are several instances in which separate apartments for different classes of pupils are provided and assistance employed to teach the English branches, but such examples are rather exceptions to the general rule than the rule itself. The general rule is whether there be an assistant or not to admit pupils of both sexes and all ages and attainments for A B C and upwards into schools which ought to occupy a position distinct from and superior to that of the Common Schools. Equally far be it from me to intimate that there is any deficiency of qualifications on the part of masters of Grammar Schools. But I doubt not that they will be the first to feel how much the efficiency and pleasures of their duties will be advanced by the introduction of a proper and uniform system as they will be the first to confess, '_non omnia possumus omnes_.'"[102] [102] See extract from Report of 1849, published in D.H.E., Vol. VIII., p. 291. After the Common Schools had been brought under the rule of law it was inevitable that the Grammar Schools should be reorganized. In 1850, Francis Hincks introduced a Grammar School Bill prepared by Doctor Ryerson. This Bill aimed at bringing the schools under popular control and administering them on lines similar to those governing Common Schools. Trustees were to be appointed by County Councils; Trustee Boards were to have power to levy rates for buildings, equipment and apparatus; the Legislative grant was to be distributed to the several Districts on the basis of population, but only when local contributions made up a sum equal to the grant exclusive of pupils' fees; the programme of studies was to be broad enough to prepare for matriculation; the Council of Public Instruction was to fix Grammar School programmes, prescribe texts and appoint inspectors. A meteorological station was to be established in connection with one Grammar School in each District. This Bill was withdrawn, but a similar one[103] became law on January 1st, 1854. The new Act, as amended in 1855, also provided for uniting Grammar Schools with Common Schools and provided that a Grammar School master, unless a university graduate, must secure a certificate from a Board of Examiners appointed by the Council of Public Instruction. This Act also authorized an annual appropriation of £1,000 to establish a Model Grammar School in connection with the Normal School, authorized the Council of Public Instruction to appoint Grammar School inspectors, and made up a liberal grant to secure libraries and apparatus. After this legislation, the Council of Public Instruction drew up regulations governing the curriculum of Grammar Schools and took steps to bring about the use of uniform texts. From the first there were two courses of study, a general English course and a classical course leading to matriculation. The head master of each Grammar School was required to conduct an examination of candidates for admission, the requirements being intelligible reading from any common reading book, spelling, writing, elementary arithmetic, and the elements of English grammar, with definitions of geography. [103] This Act did not give trustees power to levy assessments, but they might ask municipal councils to do so. The distribution of the Legislative grant did not, as in the Bill of 1850, depend upon the raising of any fixed amount by the local Board. In the autumn of 1855, the Grammar Schools were inspected, those in the east by Thomas Jaffray Robertson and those in the west by William Ormiston. Their reports show that many of these schools were indifferent and a few hopeless. Perhaps half of them were doing fairly well. The attendance averaged about thirty, of whom nearly one-half were studying Latin. Half of the schools admitted female pupils. The highest salary paid a head master was $1,200, while the average for head masters was $700. Few of the schools had two masters. Half the total number of head masters were graduates of British or Canadian universities. In some cases the teachers were paid a fixed salary, and in some cases they got the Government grant and the school fees. These fees averaged about three dollars per quarter. In a few cases the head master had a dwelling in connection with the school. The inspectors criticised the buildings, equipment and grounds severely, as the following extracts will show:-- "Of the Grammar School houses seventeen were originally built for school purposes and several of them, which were spacious and substantial buildings, may be classed as good; ten were somewhat inferior; and one, a very old wooden building, could scarcely be considered habitable. Nine schools were carried on in premises rented for the purpose and were in most instances totally unfit. In many cases the grounds attached to the schoolhouses were partially or entirely unfenced, and the sheds or outhouses were in a shameful state of neglect. Even in the neatest premises I saw no attempt at ornament; not a tree, shrub or flower to awaken or cultivate a taste so simple and natural in itself and so easily gratified as it could be in rural districts.... Very many of these houses are inferior to the Common Schools. In most cases the premises present a dull, unthrifty and unattractive appearance, destitute alike of ornament and convenience, without fence, shed, well, tree, shrub or flower, while within an entire lack of maps, charts and apparatus is with too few exceptions the general rule."[104] [104] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XII., p. 81. Two years later the same inspectors made another general report on Grammar Schools. They found some improvements but many weak schools doing the most elementary Common School work. They deprecated the practice, then becoming somewhat common, of establishing new Grammar Schools in small villages. It is abundantly clear from Ryerson's Reports, 1856-58, that he was dissatisfied with the progress being made in Grammar Schools and eager to attempt their improvement by means of further legislation. The most serious problem was that of providing an adequate and certain financial support for these schools. The schools were managed by trustee boards appointed by County Councils, but were attended largely by pupils of towns and cities. The people using them and contributing largely to their support were not given the power to manage them. Ryerson was also very doubtful about the result of the experiment authorized in 1854, of uniting Common and Grammar Schools. The union gave trustee boards increased freedom of management, but in many cases the union school became, for all practical purposes, a common school, having, perhaps, three or four senior pupils studying Latin and Greek. Such schools brought all Grammar Schools into contempt. The report of the Grammar School inspector on the schools of Eastern Ontario, for 1860, shows that things were far from satisfactory: "With the exception of two or three really good schools our Grammar Schools in the extreme East are in a very low state. Some of them I can only designate as infant schools. Nor do I see anything from the localities in which they are placed or the present state of the Grammar School law which gives me any hope of amelioration. Advancing civilization and the material growth of the country in time may act upon them, but immediate remedies and those of a stringent nature are imperatively needed.... The want of a class of specially trained Grammar School masters who have taken this as a permanent profession for life is a great drawback to the efficiency of our schools. The supposed inferior social status of the Grammar School master and the larger rewards held out for superior mental activity in the other professions turn aside most of those who are most eminently qualified for the scholastic office. Of the twenty-two schools mentioned in my report six were in the hands of persons who avowedly were making teaching the stepping-stone to the attainment of other professions, as law, medicine, or the church. Several were evidently conducted by persons who had taken to teaching after having failed in other walks of life. Comparatively few were held by those who were fitted for their office by previous training, or were devoting themselves entirely to their work as the main business of their lives."[105] [105] See D. H. E., Vol. XVI., pp. 148, 149. There seems also to have been a disposition to unduly multiply Grammar Schools because they were supported so largely by the Legislative grant. The Rev. Dr. Paxton Young, Inspector of Grammar Schools, in his report for 1864, says: "The too free and inconsiderate exercise by County Councils of the large power thus entrusted to them has led to a heedless and most unfortunate multiplication of the Grammar Schools, and the evil instead of showing any symptoms of abatement appears to be growing worse from year to year. In 1858 the number of the schools was seventy-five; in 1860 it was eighty-eight; in 1863 it had risen to ninety-five; and the number of recognized schools is now as high as one hundred and eight. Not a few of the schools thus hastily established are Grammar Schools in name rather than in reality, the work done in them being almost altogether Common School work, which, as a rule, would be much better performed in a well-appointed Common School. I believe that County Councils are often led to establish Grammar Schools in localities where they are not needed under the idea that if the schools should be productive of no good at any rate they can do no harm. There could not be a greater mistake. Men ought to be wise enough by this time to understand that all public institutions, especially if forming parts of a great plan, must, where unnecessary, be positively bad. Needless and contemptible Grammar Schools are a blot upon the whole school system, the sight of which is fitted to shake the confidence of the country in the administrative wisdom or firmness of those to whom the direction of educational matters is committed. When it is considered that the apportionment from the Grammar School fund to a particular county is divided according to certain fixed principles between the different schools in that county, it will be seen that the disposition manifested by some councils to secure the largest number of schools for their county, is practically a disposition to secure quantity for quality, for as the number of schools is augmented the salaries of the masters are diminished, the tendency of which is, of course, to throw the schools into the hands of a lower grade of teachers.... About three out of every five Grammar Schools in Upper Canada have Common Schools united with them, and, in not a few instances, where unions have not yet been formed, I found a strong disposition existing to enter into such an arrangement. I made it my business to inquire particularly into the benefits supposed to result from the union of the Common with the Grammar Schools. The chief advantage was in almost every case admitted to be a pecuniary one. By the existing law Grammar School trustees have of themselves no power to raise money for Grammar School purposes, but in case of the Common and Grammar Schools becoming united the joint boards may levy money for the support of the united schools. This being so, it is easy to comprehend how strongly the trustees of a Grammar School who feel their hands tied up from doing anything to put the school in an efficient state may be tempted to make with the Common School Board a league which will give them a voice in the important matter of taxation.... But of nothing am I more convinced than that as a rule such a union is undesirable. In a large number of instances it throws upon the Grammar School master the necessity of receiving into his room, and personally instructing, Common School pupils, as well as those whom it is his more particular duty to attend to. A consequence of this is that he cannot afford the Grammar School pupils the time that is necessary for drilling them in the subjects that they are studying."[106] [106] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XVIII., pp. 199-205. * * * * * But Doctor Young saw much promise in the schools, as the following from the same Report will show: "Leaving out of view schools of this sort, I do not hesitate to say that the Grammar Schools of Upper Canada are, as a class, not only in the promise of what they may become, but in what they actually are at the present moment, an honour to the country. We must not look for too much. It would be preposterous to expect at this early period in the history of our Province, that its Grammar Schools generally should be able to bear comparison with the better classical and mathematical schools of Great Britain and Ireland. To this Canada does not pretend, but she has begun well, and appears to be steadily, if not rapidly, progressing." In June, 1865, Ryerson went to Quebec to press upon the Government the necessity of a new Grammar School bill. As the Confederation scheme was approaching maturity he found the Government unwilling to embark upon any legislation that might prevent an early prorogation. Mr. John A. Macdonald suggested that the difficulty might be met by a regulation issued under the authority of the Council of Public Instruction. This was accordingly done, and the Council immediately framed regulations as follows: First, the Legislative grant was to be apportioned on the basis of the attendance of those learning Greek and Latin, as certified by the Grammar School Inspector. Second, no school was to receive any portion of the Legislative grant unless suitable accommodations were provided, and unless there were an average of at least ten pupils learning Latin and Greek, nor were any pupils to be admitted or continued in a Grammar School unless they were learning Latin and Greek. This absurd regulation never went into effect, as the Legislature passed a Grammar School Bill in the latter part of 1865. The new Bill made each city a county for Grammar School purposes; it allowed County Councils to appoint half the Grammar School trustees, the other half being appointed by the village or town council where the school was situated. This latter provision was planned to give increased local control and thus create a stronger interest in the management of the schools. The distinction which had so long existed between senior and junior county Grammar Schools[107] was abolished and the Legislative grant was apportioned solely on the basis of attendance, but no school was to share the grant unless there was raised from local sources, exclusive of pupils' fees, a sum equal to half the grant. It was made more difficult to establish new schools. Only graduates of universities in British dominions were to be eligible for head masters' positions. On the suggestion of the Hon. William Macdougall, a clause was inserted providing for a grant of fifty dollars a year to those Grammar Schools giving a course of elementary military instruction. [107] This senior Grammar School, being the one first established in each county, had drawn a larger Legislative grant than the others. The Report of Rev. Geo. Paxton Young on the Grammar Schools in 1865 is of great interest, read in the light of nearly half a century's progress in the higher education of women. I shall quote his exact words: "I have frequently been asked whether I considered it desirable that girls should study Latin in the Grammar Schools. It is, in my opinion, most undesirable; and I am at a loss to comprehend how any intelligent person acquainted with the state of things in our Grammar Schools can come to a different conclusion.... Since I became Inspector, I have not met with half a dozen girls in the Grammar Schools of Canada by whom the study of Latin has been pursued far enough for the taste to be in the least degree influenced by what has been read. Aesthetically, the benefits of Grammar Schools to girls are _nil_.... It may perhaps be said that although they have for the most part made but little progress in Latin up to the present time, a fair proportion of them may be expected to pursue the study to a point where its advantages can be reaped. I do not believe that three out of a hundred will. As a class, they have dipped the soles of their feet in the water, with no intention or likelihood of wading deeper into it. They are not studying Latin with any definite object. They have taken it up under pressure at the solicitation of the teachers or trustees to enable the schools to maintain the requisite average attendance of ten classical pupils or to increase that part of the income of the schools which is derived from public sources. In a short time they will leave school to enter on the practical work of life without having either desired or obtained more than the merest smattering of Latin, and their places will be taken by another band of girls who will go through the same routine. It may perhaps be urged that these remarks are as applicable to as large a number of the Grammar School boys as they are to the girls. I admit that they are; and I draw the conclusion that such boys, equally with the girls in the Grammar Schools, are wasting their time in keeping up the appearance of learning Latin. It would be unspeakably better to commit them to first-class Common School teachers, under whose guidance they might have their reflective and aesthetic faculties cultivated through the study of English and of those branches which are associated with English in good Common Schools. This would, of course, diminish the number of the Grammar Schools in the Province; but it might not be a very grievous calamity, especially if it led to the establishment of first-class Common Schools in localities where inferior teachers are now employed."[108] [108] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XIX., pp. 96, 97. It was a part of a Grammar School inspector's duty to examine the pupils who had been admitted by the Grammar School masters and reject any who were too immature or were insufficiently prepared. Dr. Young complains strongly in his Report of 1865 of the poor teaching of English grammar. In some cases he had to reject more than half those admitted. He found pupils wholly unable to parse such easy sentences as: "The mother loved her daughter dearly," "John ran to school very quickly," "She knew her lesson remarkably well." It is doubtful whether the Grammar School Bill of 1865 made any real improvement in the schools. Without denying that some of them were doing a good work, and that as a force in the national life they were fostering some love for higher education, it is safe to assert that they were not very closely related to the real needs of the people. Their aim was narrow. Their very name shows this. There was a crying need in the country for schools that would give an advanced English and scientific education with classic and modern languages to those who wished to pursue university studies. But the most of the Grammar Schools aimed only at a study of Latin and Greek, and indeed the Grammar School legislation and the regulations of the Council of Public Instruction had made a certain number of Latin pupils one of the conditions upon which a Grammar School might receive a public grant. The Act of 1865 soon showed some disastrous tendencies. It did not check the desire to form unions between Grammar Schools and Common Schools, as such unions made it easier to levy a rate in support of the union schools, and thus comply with the conditions upon which Grammar Schools received grants. The clause in the new Act making average attendance the basis of attendance, together with a regulation of the Council of Public Instruction which counted only Latin pupils in making the grant, led the head masters of union schools to draft every available pupil into the Grammar School departments[109] and put them all, boys and girls, into Latin. Often they were not prepared for such work and got no real benefit from it. They wasted their time and lost the benefits of a sound English education which a good Common School would have given them. Hundreds of boys and girls who had no foundation for a classical education, and who had no prospect of ever advancing far enough to receive any solid knowledge of Latin, were making a pretence of studying it in order that the school might draw a Government grant. Ignorant parents raised no objections, thinking perhaps that Latin possessed some charm which would be an "open sesame" for the future advancement of the boys and girls. [109] It should be remembered that while a Public School pupil drew less than one dollar per year Legislative grant, the moment this pupil was enrolled in a Grammar School he drew from $20 to $35 yearly. In 1872, the average Legislative grant to a Public School pupil was 40 cents, and to a Grammar School pupil $20. See D. H. E., Vol. XXIV., p. 302. Dr. Ryerson was not the man to diagnose the case. But the hour brought forth the man, and that man was George Paxton Young, one of the Inspectors of Grammar Schools. In two very able Reports[110] presented in 1867 and 1868, he sets forth clearly and convincingly the defects of the system then in operation and suggests the direction that reforms should take to make the Grammar Schools serve a useful purpose. He wished to see their character wholly changed. He did not undervalue classics, but he believed that a smattering of classics was of no benefit, and that it caused a waste of time that might be given to subjects of real value. He wished to see High Schools that would give an advanced English training, together with natural science, mathematics, and history. He did not believe in forcing all to study Latin, nor did he believe in apportioning grants to High Schools on the basis of the number of pupils studying Latin. He wished to see better Common Schools and objected to the plan of union which robbed the Common School of its older pupils and degraded its function. Speaking of this, he says: "The number of union schools is increasing and is likely to increase. In many of the schools of this class all the Common School pupils, boys and girls alike, who have obtained a smattering of English grammar are systematically drafted into the Grammar School. The consequence is that in localities where such a system is followed there is no mere Common School education (observe I say mere Common School education) given to any pupils, boys or girls, which is not of the most elementary description; and not only have the Grammar Schools thus become to a great extent girls' schools as well as boys' schools, but--what is especially noteworthy--the girls admitted to these schools are in a majority of instances put into Latin as a matter of course; in other words, the study of Latin is made practically a condition of their admission into the Grammar School. Will any man say that this state of things is satisfactory, a state of things in which the Common Schools are degraded by being suspended from the exercise of all their higher functions? Unless I misunderstand the object of the Common School law, the Common Schools are designed to furnish a good English and general education to those desiring it. But how can this end be accomplished where the Common Schools are subject to arrangements under which the highest stage of advancement ever reached by the pupils is to be able to parse an easy English sentence? ... Children under thirteen years of age who do not mean to take a classical course of study have no educational wants which the Common Schools, properly conducted, are not fitted to supply. For children of thirteen and upwards who have already obtained such an education as may be got in good Common Schools, it would, I think, be well to establish English High Schools--a designation which I borrow from the United States although, unfortunately, I have only a very vague idea of what the High Schools in the United States are." [110] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XX., pp. 98-128. Dr. Young strongly urged a more rigid inspection of Grammar Schools and the apportioning of the Legislative grant upon the basis of Inspectors' reports. As so many girls had been drafted into Grammar Schools and put in grammar classes apparently to increase the school grant, it was proposed during 1868 to allow only fifty per cent. of girls' attendance to count in apportioning the grant and even to make no allowance whatever for attendance of female pupils in future years. This opened up the whole question of co-education of the sexes in Grammar Schools and caused lively debates in the Legislature and in Teachers' Institutes. The general opinion seemed to prevail that girls should have equal rights with boys but that the law should be so amended as to remove all pressure upon girls to study Latin. After one or two abortive attempts, a Bill reorganizing Grammar Schools was passed in 1871. This Bill abolished the term "Grammar School," and substituted that of "High School." Adequate provision was to be made in each High School for an advanced English education, including natural sciences and commercial subjects. The study of Latin, Greek and modern languages was to be at the option of the pupils' parents or guardians. Provision was made for a superior class of High School, to be known as Collegiate Institutes. These schools were required to have at least four masters and an average of not less than sixty boys studying Latin or Greek, and were to receive a special grant of $750 a year. County Councils were empowered to form High School districts and provision was made by which the High School Board could levy an assessment upon the district. High School vacations were extended from July 1st to August 15th. A very important feature of the new Bill was the provision for the admission of pupils. The county, city or town Inspector of Schools, the Chairman of the High School Board and the head master of the High School were constituted a Board with power to conduct a written examination and admit pupils according to regulations prescribed by the Council of Public Instruction. At first the local examining Board set the entrance papers, but this plan was soon superseded by one requiring uniform papers set by the High School Inspectors. This aroused a storm of opposition, and the resolution of the Council of Public Instruction requiring uniform papers was set aside by an Order-in-Council. But the plan of uniform papers was so sensible, and so much chaos resulted from the other plan, that by 1874 the Government authorized a uniform entrance examination which shut out immature pupils and those insufficiently prepared. It raised the status of High Schools, enabling them to begin advanced work, and indirectly increased the efficiency of the Public Schools by fixing a standard of attainment. The Legislature also made further provision for High Schools by appropriating an additional $20,000 a year, exclusive of the grants to be given to Collegiate Institutes. The Act of 1871 provided for a minimum Legislative grant[111] for each High School, and made the maximum grant depend upon average attendance. The Rev. George Paxton Young had, in his last Report as Grammar School Inspector, strongly recommended the adoption in a modified form of the English system of payment by results. He wished to see the High Schools graded by the Inspectors according to their general efficiency and the grant based upon this grading. In 1872 the High School Inspectors, Messrs. McKenzie and McLellan, urged the adoption of a similar plan and showed how it would serve as a stimulus to better work in all the schools. They also pointed out how such a plan would encourage Boards to employ good teachers, since they would have a pecuniary interest in keeping up a good school. [111] The minimum grant per school was $400. The High Schools of the Province had, in 1872, from Legislative grant and County Councils, $105,000. This was more than $1,000 per school and about $30 per pupil. Many of the High Schools charged no fees. The Act of 1871 gave the Council of Public Instruction a large measure of control over textbooks to be used in High Schools. The Council issued lists of those authorized, and this did much to bring about uniformity in courses of study. Previous to 1871, many High Schools had only one teacher, but the new legislation required at least two for High Schools and four for Collegiate Institutes. To secure this required much firmness on the part of Dr. Ryerson. Even two teachers were wholly unable to do efficient work in large High Schools, and there was no easy way to force School Boards to employ more. The Superintendent had steadily to oppose a tendency to form weak High Schools, and in some cases Grammar Schools which had been able to exist in a sickly state under the old law were wholly unable to meet the requirements of the Act of 1871, which threw some of the burden of support upon the local municipality. The Inspectors' Reports for 1874 emphasize the need of additional teachers, the poor quality of work done in English literature, and the necessity of increased provision for natural science. Referring to the latter, the Inspectors' joint Report speaks as follows: "In regard to the direct utility of the knowledge imparted, the physical sciences are equalled by few subjects of study. We regret to report that the teaching of science is not making progress in the schools. For this there are many reasons, of which perhaps the most important are the lack of apparatus and the impracticable character of the prescribed programme of studies. All places might advantageously follow the example of Whitby and fit up a science room, that is, a room to be devoted to the teaching of science and furnished with the necessary appliances and apparatus. It cannot too often be inculcated that there can be no effective teaching of chemistry without experiments. Effective teaching implies first of all a qualified teacher, and few of our masters consider themselves well qualified to teach any of the physical sciences. Yet the number of masters qualified to teach in this Department is increasing every year and it is much to be regretted that where the master is qualified he is often compelled, if he wishes to teach chemistry, to provide the apparatus at his own expense. The public indifference to the claims of physical science is greater than the indifference of the masters. Besides, three-fourths of High School Boards either are so poor, or believe themselves to be so poor, that they will grumble if asked to spend $10.00 annually for chemical purposes."[112] [112] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XXV., pp. 244-245. Progress on the whole was rapid. Several weak schools were closed,[113] but they were schools which should never have been opened. Fees were either abolished or lowered.[114] The standard for pupils' admission was gradually raised and the old "Grammar Schools" were truly doing the work for which they were established in 1807. [113] About fifteen in all. [114] Out of 106 schools in operation in 1875, no less than 81 were absolutely free. Fees in the others varied from 75 cents to $6.00 per quarter, the average being $2.70. Much was yet to be desired in the qualifications of High School masters. In 1874, one hundred out of one hundred and six head masters were university graduates, but forty-five assistants held only Second Class Normal School Certificates, or County Certificates, and twenty-three schools had to employ teachers for a whole or a part of the year without any legal qualifications. The average salary of head masters was $930.00, of male assistants $664.00, and of female assistants $416.00. The following extract from the Inspector's Report is interesting in the light of what has since been accomplished: "In the absence of any special training college or chair of pedagogy in the University, we would suggest that as so many men are pursuing a collegiate course, with a view to becoming High School masters, it would be well for the Government to establish a lectureship in Education. It would not, we think, be difficult if proper encouragement were given to secure the services of several experienced and skilled educationists, one of whom might deliver a short course of lectures on the above subjects during each college session." Perhaps no part of our school system has developed more since Ryerson retired in 1876 than our High Schools. But this development has been almost wholly a natural growth. True, there has been much legislation and many changes in departmental regulations, but nothing of a revolutionary character. The opening of the doors of the universities to women and their increased employment as teachers has led to their being placed on an absolute equality with men in the High Schools and in all graduating examinations. The number of schools has almost doubled and the teaching of every department has been improved; incompetent teachers have given place to those having high academic and professional training; natural science has been greatly strengthened and the teaching of languages much improved; good laboratories have been built; spacious buildings with fine grounds have become the rule; the number of students preparing for university matriculation has multiplied many times; the average salaries of teachers have more than doubled, and finally the High Schools are so adapting themselves to the social needs of the people that they are becoming as much the schools of the people as are the Public Schools. CHAPTER X. _RYERSON AND THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS._ Normal Schools were mooted in Upper Canada before Ryerson became Superintendent. As early as 1843, Sir Francis Hincks said that the school system would never be complete without them.[115] In his Report on a System of Education made in 1846, Ryerson made it clear that any system of education must have as its basis trained teachers, and to secure trained teachers was almost impossible without Normal Schools. His report gives details of the Normal School systems of Great Britain and Ireland, France, Holland, Germany, and the United States. One or two schools had just been established in Massachusetts and one in Albany. Ryerson visited these, but was most favourably impressed with the Dublin Normal and Model Schools, as managed by the Commissioners of the Irish National Board of Education, and our first Normal School was modelled largely after the Dublin type. [115] See extract from his speech, Chap. IV., pp. 101, 102. The legislation of 1846 appropriated £1,500 for fitting up a Normal School building and made an additional appropriation of £1,500 per annum for maintenance. The School Bill of 1846 created a Council of Public Instruction to work with the Chief Superintendent, and placed the proposed Normal School under its management. The Council of Public Instruction lost no time in beginning work. As early as May, 1846, they were planning an early opening of the Normal School, and were in communication with John Rintoul, of the Dublin Normal School, about accepting the head mastership of the proposed Normal School at Toronto. It was proposed to give Mr. Rintoul £350, Halifax currency, and £100 for moving expenses. Mr. Rintoul accepted the appointment, resigned his position in Dublin, and was about to leave for Canada when, owing to some domestic affliction, he had to abandon his plans. The Commissioners of the Irish National Board then selected Thomas Jaffray Robertson to take Rintoul's place and the Council of Public Instruction chose as his assistant Mr. Henry Hind, of Thorne Hill. Robertson sailed from Ireland in July, 1847, and in November of the same year the Normal School was opened. It was a part of Ryerson's plan that the several District Councils of Upper Canada should choose two or three promising young men and send them to the Normal School, paying at least part of their expenses. The following extract from the Regulations issued by the Council of Public Instruction in 1847 will illustrate the requirements for admission to the first Normal School in Upper Canada: "1st. That the Provincial Normal School shall be open about the 1st of July next, and the first session shall continue until the middle of October, 1847. 2nd. That every candidate for admission into the Normal School, in order to his being received, must comply with the following conditions: He must be at least sixteen years of age; produce a certificate of good moral character signed by a clergyman; be able to read and write intelligibly and be acquainted with the simple rules of arithmetic; must declare in writing that he intends to devote himself to teaching (other students not candidates for school teaching to be admitted only on paying fees and dues to be prescribed). 3rd. Upon the foregoing conditions candidates for school teaching shall be admitted to all the advantages of the Normal School without any charge either for tuition or for books. 4th. Candidates shall lodge and board in the city under such regulations as shall from time to time be approved by this Board."[116] [116] See Report of Superintendent of Education for 1848. The school was formally opened by Dr. Ryerson, November 1st, in the presence of a distinguished company. The Model School was opened the following February. The Normal School pupils were, many of them, poorly equipped for a course of training. They had received no adequate secondary education. In fact, many of them were direct from the Common Schools. A few were mature men who had a considerable teaching experience.[117] [117] Women were not admitted until the opening of the second term in 1848. It was necessary to give a broad academic course and judiciously interweave some professional training. Grammar and mathematics received much greater attention than their importance merited. Physical science and natural philosophy, together with some agricultural chemistry, received a prominent place on the programme. Geography was also made much of, but it was largely mathematical and political and elaborately illustrated with globes and maps. Literature and history were taught, but not in a way to arouse much enthusiasm. Pupils were supposed not to learn by heart what they did not understand, but there was in practice much memory work and repetition of rules. On the whole, the Normal School was approved by all classes of people, and the teachers trained there were in great demand. But there was some criticism, especially of the provision by which four shillings a week was granted to students to aid them in paying their board. Inasmuch as this money was deducted from the school grant, it was argued that the teachers in service were actually educating in the Normal School others who would displace them. Exception was also taken to granting aid to students who had no intention of making teaching their life work. To meet this difficulty, students accepting public money towards their expenses were required to give assurance that they would teach a stated time, and others, called private pupils, were charged fees for tuition. In 1849 the experiment was made of a nine months' session, but the country was not yet ready for this step and the attendance was so reduced that the plan was abandoned. In 1850, the Council of Public Instruction attempted to widen the influence of the Normal School by sending the Normal School masters to attend Teachers' Institutes throughout the Province. In this way many earnest teachers who had received no training were given suggestions that bore much fruit. When the Normal School was established, it was held in the old Legislative Buildings of Upper Canada. After the riots in Montreal, in 1849, Toronto again became the seat of Government and the Normal School had to move. Temporary quarters were obtained while the Council of Public Instruction took steps to secure a permanent home, not only for the Normal School, but for the Education Department. The present site was secured and Parliament made an appropriation of £15,000 to provide for it and for a building. In July, 1851, Lord Elgin laid the corner-stone.[118] [118] See D. H. E., Vol. X., pp. 5-14. The address of Dr. Ryerson, in introducing the Governor, shows that he had no thought of divorcing the Common Schools from agriculture, the backbone industry of the people. He says: "The land on which these buildings are in course of erection is an entire square, consisting of nearly eight acres, two of which are to be devoted to a botanical garden, three to agricultural experiments, and the remainder to the buildings of the institution. It is thus intended that the valuable course of lectures given in the Normal School in vegetable physiology and agricultural chemistry shall be practically illustrated on the adjoining grounds, in the culture of which the students will take part during a portion of their hours of recreation.... There are four circumstances which encourage the most sanguine anticipations in every patriotic heart in regard to our educational future. The first is the avowed and entire absence of all party spirit in the school affairs of our country from the Provincial Legislature down to the smallest municipality. The second is the precedence which our Legislature has taken of all others on the western side of the Atlantic in providing for Normal School instruction, in aiding teachers to avail themselves of its advantages. The third is that the people of Upper Canada have during the last year voluntarily taxed themselves for the salaries of teachers in a larger sum in proportion to their numbers and have kept open their schools on an average more months than the neighbouring citizens of the old and great State of New York. The fourth is that the essential requisite of a series of suitable and excellent textbooks has been introduced into our schools and adopted almost by general acclamation, and that the facilities of furnishing all our schools with the necessary books, maps, and apparatus will soon be in advance of those of any other country."[119] In November, 1852, when the buildings[120] were formally opened, the Honourable John Beverley Robinson, Chief Justice of Upper Canada, said: "Without such a general preparatory system as we see here in operation, the instruction of the great mass of our population would be left in a measure to chance. The teachers might be, many of them, ignorant pretenders without experience, without method, and in some respects very improper persons to be entrusted with the education of youth. There could be little or no security for what they might teach, or what they might attempt to teach, nor any certainty that the good which might be acquired from their precepts would not be more than counterbalanced by the ill effects of their example. Indeed the footing which our Common School teachers were formerly upon in regard to income gave no adequate remuneration to intelligent and industrious men to devote their time to the service. But this disadvantage is largely removed, as well as other obstacles which were inseparable from the conditions of a thinly-peopled and uncleared country traversed only by miserable roads, and henceforth, as soon at least as the benefits of this institution can be fully felt, the Common Schools will be dispensing throughout the whole of Upper Canada, by means of properly-trained teachers and under vigilant superintendents, a system of education which has been carefully considered and arranged, and which has been for some time practically exemplified. An observation of some years has enabled most of us to form an opinion of its sufficiency. Speaking only for myself, I have much pleasure in saying that the degree of proficiency which has been actually attained goes far, very far, beyond what I had imagined it would have been attempted to aim at."[121] [119] See D. H. E., Vol. X., p. 6. [120] These included what is now the main Departmental building and the Model School to the north. The present Normal School building was erected later. [121] See D. H. E., Vol. X., pp. 278-283. The following from Honourable Francis Hincks leaves us in no doubt as to Ryerson's part in securing the building. He says: "With regard to this institution, so far it has been most successfully conducted, and I feel bound to say that we must attribute all the merit of that success to the reverend gentleman who has been at the head of our Common School system. It is only due to him that I should take this public opportunity of saying that since I have been a member of the Government I have never met an individual who has displayed more zeal or more devotion to the duties he has been called upon to discharge than Dr. Ryerson. A great deal of opposition has been manifested both in and out of Parliament to this institution, and a good deal of jealousy exists with regard to its having been established in the city of Toronto. I can speak from my own experience as to the difficulties experienced in obtaining the co-operation of Parliament to have the necessary funds provided for the purpose of erecting this building. I will say, however, that there never was an institution in which the people have more confidence that the funds were well applied than in this institution. There is but one feeling that pervades the minds of all those who have seen the manner in which this scheme has been worked out. In regard to the Normal School itself, the site has been well chosen, the buildings have been erected in a most permanent manner, and without anything like extravagance, and I have no doubt there will be no difficulty in obtaining additional Parliamentary aid to finish them."[122] [122] See D. H. E., Vol. X., pp. 282-284. In his report for 1853, Ryerson suggests Normal training for Grammar School teachers. I shall give his own words: "The Provincial Normal and Model Schools have contributed, and are contributing, much to the improvement of our Common Schools by furnishing a proper standard of judgment and comparison as to what such schools ought to be and how they should be taught and governed, and by furnishing teachers duly qualified for that important task. There is equal need of a Provincial Model Grammar School, in which the best modes of teaching the elements of Greek and Latin, French and German, the elementary mathematics and the elements of natural science, may be exemplified, and where teachers and candidates for masterships of Grammar Schools may have an opportunity for practical observation and training during a shorter or longer period. Such a school would complete the educational establishments of our school system and contribute powerfully to advance Upper Canada to the proud position which she is approaching in regard to institutions and agencies for the mental culture of her youthful population."[123] [123] See Superintendent's Report for 1853. The Legislature voted £1,000 for a Model Grammar School, and in 1855 plans for a building were prepared under direction of the Council of Public Instruction. The estimate exceeded the means at the disposal of the Council and nothing was done until 1856, when Ryerson wrote the Executive Council as follows: "There is no branch of our system of Public Instruction so defective as our Grammar Schools, and the 'Model' for them as to both structure and furniture, discipline, modes of classification and teaching is of the utmost importance.... I am persuaded that a saving of one-half of the time and expense usually incurred in the Grammar School education of youth may be saved by improved methods in teaching and directing their studies, a result which will greatly increase the number of those who will aspire to a higher literary education apart from other advantages and intellectual habits and discipline. It is proposed to erect the Model Grammar School in the rear of the present Model School.... The proposed mode of admitting pupils will prevent the Model Grammar School from interfering with or being the rival of any other Grammar School. It is also intended to afford every possible facility and assistance to masters and teachers of Grammar Schools throughout the Province to come and spend some weeks in the Model Grammar School."[124] [124] See copy of letter in D. H. E., Vol. XII., p. 321. The Government now authorized the Council of Public Instruction to proceed with the erection of a building to accommodate one hundred Grammar School pupils. The school was opened in 1858. It was the intention to give a preference to the two or three pupils from each county and city in Upper Canada who were recommended by the respective Municipal Councils. Ryerson's circular to these Councils will throw some light on the subject: "The object of the Model Grammar School is to exemplify the best methods of teaching the branches required by law to be taught in the Grammar Schools, especially the elementary classics and mathematics, as a model for the Grammar Schools of the country. It is also intended that the Model Grammar School shall, as far as possible, secure the advantages of a Normal Classical School to candidates for masterships in the Grammar School; but effect cannot be given to this object of the Model Grammar School during the first few months of its operation."[125] In 1859, in a report to the Government, Ryerson speaks further and says: "In regard to the Model Grammar Schools the buildings are completed and the school has been in operation several months and with the most gratifying success. Upwards of thirty masters of Grammar Schools have in the course of a few weeks visited and spent a longer or shorter time in the Model Grammar School with a view to improving their own methods of school organization, discipline, and teaching; and I have reason to believe that it has already exerted a salutary influence in improving the several Grammar Schools--an influence that will be greatly increased when we are enabled to form a special class consisting of candidates for Grammar School masterships."[126] [125] See copy of Circular in D. H. E., Vol. XIV., p. 65. [126] See Report of Superintendent for 1859. In 1861, Mr. G. R. Cockburn, Rector of the Model Grammar School, resigned to become principal of Upper Canada College. Ryerson wished to transfer the functions of the Model Grammar School to Upper Canada College. This was not agreed to, but the same year provision was made for admitting candidates for Grammar School masterships to a course in training in the Model Grammar School. Up to this time the School had been of professional service as a school of observation, the holidays being so arranged that its classes were in session while Grammar School masters were on holiday. In July, 1863, the Model Grammar School was finally closed. The following from a letter sent by Ryerson to the Provincial Secretary makes clear the reasons for this action: "When the Model Grammar School was established it was expected that nearly every county in Upper Canada would be represented in it and provision was made for that purpose. That important object has not been realized; and although the attendance at the school has been larger during the last year than during any previous year, reaching even to 100, the attendance as in former years has been chiefly from Toronto and its neighbourhood. I do not think it just to the General Fund to maintain an additional Toronto Grammar School. During the past year a training class for Grammar School masterships, consisting to a considerable extent of students in the University, has been successfully established. But it has been found that the instruction in all subjects, except Greek, Latin, and French, can be given in the Normal School to better advantage than in the Model Grammar School."[127] [127] See Ryerson's letter in D. H. E., Vol. XVIII, p. 69. Trained teachers for the Grammar Schools were much to be desired, and Ryerson deserves credit for his progressive ideas. But just at that stage in their evolution, although they contained many scholarly men, the Grammar Schools as a whole were more in need of teachers with sound scholarship than of teachers with a little professional training. There continued to be complaints that teachers trained in the Normal Schools did not continue to teach. In his Report for 1856, Ryerson makes clear that in his opinion these defections from the teaching ranks were no condemnation of Normal Schools. He says: "The only objection yet made to the training of teachers, as far as I know, is that many of them do not pursue that profession but leave it for other employments. Were this true to the full extent imagined, the conclusion would still be in favour of the Normal School, since its advantages are not confined to schools or neighbourhoods in which its teachers are employed, but are extended over other neighbourhoods and municipalities.... In all professions and pursuits there are changes from one to another. I do not think it wise, just, or expedient to deny to the Normal School teacher the liberty, if opportunity presents itself, to improve his position or increase his usefulness.... In whatever position or relation of life a Normal School teacher may be placed, his training at the Normal School cannot fail to contribute to his usefulness."[128] [128] See Report of Chief Superintendent for 1856. See copy in D. H. E., Vol. XIII., p. 51. Nor was all the criticism of Normal School affairs directed towards the teachers who left the profession; those who remained in it were emissaries of evil. Then, as now, there were croakers who thought that a boy born on a farm naturally belonged there, and that any enlightenment which tended to make him dissatisfied with his surroundings was an evil. One, signing himself Angus Dallas of Toronto, wrote several pamphlets attacking the school system. Speaking of the Normal School, he said: "The young men who have attended six months at that institution and leave it with certificates to teach, go forth into the country with the most mistaken estimate of their own importance. They open schools wherever accident places them, and by teaching and familiar intercourse, combined with the example of nomadic habits, for they seldom remain longer than twelve months in one place, they soon contaminate the minds of the older pupils and also of young men who may reside in the neighbourhood, by their doctrines of enlightened citizenship; and thus these pupils soon learn to disdain honest labour."[129] [129] The Toronto schools were at this time very expensively managed as compared with schools in other cities of Upper Canada. This could not be attributed to the expense of Normal-trained teachers. In 1858, ten years after the Normal School was established, no Common School in Toronto was in charge of a Normal-trained teacher, and only two or three such teachers had ever been employed there. See D. H. E., Vol. XIII., p. 299. In 1855, the Legislature had authorized a museum and library in connection with the Department of Education. These were formally opened in 1857 and the library contributed much to increase the efficiency of the Normal School by widening the scope of the students' reading. In the following year the Council of Public Instruction revised the Normal School Regulations. Qualifications necessary for admission were accurately set forth and the course of study defined for both second and first-class certificates. There continued to be two sessions a year, but students who entered to qualify for a second-class certificate spent two or more sessions before reaching a standard entitling them to a first-class certificate. An interesting sidelight is thrown upon the nature of the instruction given in the Toronto Normal School by the Report for 1868 of George Paxton Young, Inspector of Grammar Schools. Young was trying to raise the standard of the Grammar Schools, and shows how their improvement would affect the Normal Schools. He says: "I suppose there can be no doubt that if High Schools like those which I have described were established, it would be necessary to modify the work of the Normal School considerably. Teachers who would have to perform different duties from what have hitherto been expected at their hands would need a different training from what has hitherto been given. The instructions in English in the Normal School would require to be raised to a far higher level than is now aimed at. Much of the elementary drilling which Normal School students at present receive might be dispensed with. Our institution for the training of teachers ought not to be a school for teaching English grammar. In the same way I would lighten the ship of such subjects as the bare facts of geography and history; not rejecting of course prelections on the proper method of teaching geography and history. The English master in the Normal School might thus be enabled to devote a portion of his time to lessons in the English language and literature of a superior cast--lessons which he would have a pride in giving and on which the students would feel it a privilege to wait. Such lessons would be immensely useful even to those young men and women who might only desire to qualify themselves for becoming Common School teachers. In the department of physical science, it is plain that if the views which I have expressed in regard to the way in which science should be taught in the High Schools be just, the object of the prelections in the Normal School should not be to cram the students with a mass of facts but to develop in them a philosophic habit of mind and to make them practically understand how classes in science ought to be conducted in the schools."[130] [130] See D. H. E., Vol. XX., p. 127. No man in Canada was better qualified to estimate the real work of any educational establishment than Young, and although he was not closely connected with the Normal School, we may assume that his analysis was essentially correct and that the study of formal grammar and the acquisition of scientific facts bulked large in the Normal School programme. In his report for 1867,[131] in speaking of the Normal and Model Schools, Ryerson says: "They are not constituted as are most of the Normal Schools in both Europe and America to impart the preliminary education requisite for teaching. That preparatory education is supposed to have been attained in the ordinary public or private schools. The entrance examination to the Normal School requires this. The object of the Normal and Model Schools is, therefore, to do for the teacher what an apprenticeship does for the mechanic, the artist, the physician, the lawyer--to teach him theoretically and practically how to do the work of his profession." [131] See D. H. E., Vol. XX., p. 139. A little consideration will show us that a school trying to realize such an aim and attempting to teach only the rudiments of the science of education, upon which the theory of teaching is based, must become empirical and rule-of-thumb in its methods. The real difficulty lay in the inadequate preparation with which the teachers in training entered upon their work. The Normal School could not improve until an improvement should be effected in the Grammar Schools. During the first nine sessions of the Normal School no certificates were granted which entitled the holder to teach. The Normal School graduates simply received certificates of attendance and had to submit to examination by a County Board before securing a license. It almost invariably happened that Normal School graduates were able to take a high standing at these examinations, and hence Ryerson met with no serious opposition from County Boards when in 1853 he proposed to issue Provincial certificates to Normal School graduates upon the recommendation of the Normal School masters. From 1853 to 1871 a dual system of granting certificates was in operation. Normal School graduates received Provincial certificates of various grades, and County Boards issued certificates valid only in the county where issued. In 1871 a radical change was made, by which County Boards were allowed to issue only third-class certificates valid for three years in the county where given, and renewable on the recommendation of the County Inspector. Second and first-class certificates were granted only by the Department of Education and valid during good behaviour, and in any part of the Province. A first-class certificate of the highest grade (Grade "A") was made the qualification for County Inspectors. It should also be noted that the third-class certificates referred to above were granted after 1871 only upon the passing of a written examination upon papers prepared by a central committee chosen by the Council of Public Instruction. This was a radical change from the old method, which allowed each County Board to fix its own standard, a plan which necessarily led to many certificates being granted to wholly incompetent persons. The change of 1871, which virtually established a Provincial system of licensing teachers, brought upon Ryerson's head much abuse from incompetent teachers and their friends. The Superintendent stood firmly by his guns, knowing well that his act was in the best interests of the Province. A few words from his reply to those who objected that old teachers were being set aside because of failure to pass the Provincial examination is worth mentioning. He says: "I answer, as government exists not for office-holders but for the people, so the school exists not for the teachers but for the youth and future generations of the land; and if teachers have been too slothful not to keep pace with the progressive wants and demands of the country, they must, as should all incompetent and indolent public officers, and all lazy and unenterprising citizens, give place to the more industrious, intelligent, progressive, and enterprising. The sound education of a generation of children is not to be sacrificed for the sake of an incompetent although antiquated teacher."[132] [132] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XIII., p. 131. Having secured the adoption of a system by which all licensing of teachers was under Departmental control, Ryerson next turned his attention to an extension of facilities for training teachers. His plans were comprehensive and had to wait thirty-five years for complete realization. In 1872[133] he reported to the Provincial Treasurer as follows: "I desire to state in reply that last year I thought and suggested to the Government that two additional Normal Schools were required, one in the eastern and the other in the western section of the Province, but I am now inclined to think that three additional Normal Schools will be required to extend the advantages of a Normal School training to all parts of the Province--one at London, one at Kingston, and one at Ottawa. If provision be not made to establish them all at once, I think the first established should be at Ottawa--the centre of a large region of country where the schools are in a comparatively backward state, and where the influence of the Normal School training for teachers has yet been scarcely felt except in a few towns, and which is almost entirely separated from Toronto in all branches of business and commerce, and therefore, to a great extent, in social relations and sympathies.... As the whole Province east of Belleville is less advanced and less progressive in schools than the western parts, I think a second Normal School should be established at Kingston. The whole region of country from Belleville, on the west, to Brockville, on the east, has very little more business or commercial connection with Toronto than the more eastern parts of the Province. Although London is not so remote from Toronto as Ottawa or Kingston, yet it is the centre of a populous and prosperous part of the Province from which an ample number of student teachers would be collected to fill any Normal School.... With the establishment of these three Normal Schools I am persuaded there would still be as large a number of student teachers attending the Toronto School as can advantageously be trained in one institution.... I think all the Normal Schools should be subject to the oversight of the Education Department and under the same regulations formally sanctioned by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. This I think necessary on the grounds of both economy and uniformity of standard and system of instruction. As to the extent of accommodation in each Normal School, I think that provision should be made for training 150 teachers in each school." [133] See D. H. E., Vol. XXIV., p. 22. In the meantime, while negotiations for more Normal School accommodation were in progress, an attempt was made to give some professional training through teachers' institutes. As far back as 1850 the Legislature had made a grant for such meetings, and they had been conducted by the Normal School masters. In 1872 the plan was revised and some very successful institutes held. The movement is important because out of it grew County Model Schools, and the adoption of a principle which meant some professional training for every teacher. In 1875, a Normal School was opened at Ottawa, but the plan of having schools at Kingston and London was abandoned largely because of the apathy of the Legislature in regard to the expense. In fact it is doubtful if any Government could have forced through the Legislature a vote for such a purpose. Ryerson found the schools in 1844 taught by teachers without certificates and without professional training; he left them in 1876 with teachers, all of whom were certificated under Government examinations, and many of whom were Normal-trained. More important still, he had, by his lectures at County Conventions and by his writings in the _Journal of Education_, created a sentiment throughout the Province in favour of trained teachers. He thus made easy the pathway of his successors in securing increased efficiency; but it may be doubted whether any of his immediate successors achieved results in keeping with the material advance of the Province. CHAPTER XI. _RYERSON SCHOOL BILL OF 1871._ From 1850 to 1871 no wholly new principles relating to the Common Schools were adopted by the Legislature, although some changes were necessarily made. The legislation of 1850 had, from time to time, to be supplemented by amendments in order that the spirit of the previous legislation should be made applicable to the needs of a rapidly growing community. An Act passed in 1853[134] provided further machinery for the working of Trustee Boards; gave a liberal annual grant for an educational museum; set apart £500 a year toward teachers' pensions, and increased by £1,000 a year the grant to Normal Schools. [134] See copy of Act reprinted in D. H. E., Vol. X., p. 133. An Act passed in 1860[135] more clearly defined the powers of trustees, the manner of conducting elections, and auditing school accounts. The same Act made Saturday a school holiday. [135] See copy of Act reprinted in D. H. E., Vol. XV., pp. 45-49. The Act of 1871[136] was the last important school legislation prepared by Ryerson.[137] The important features of the Act may be summed up under four headings, viz., compulsory and free education, efficient inspection, teachers' pensions, and the licensing of teachers under Government direction.[138] [136] See copy of Act reprinted in D. H. E., Vol. XXII., pp. 213-222. [137] The Act of 1874, in as far as it contained new principles, was forced upon Ryerson by the Government of Sir Oliver Mowat. [138] For changes made in Grammar Schools by Act of 1871, see Chapter IX. The free school was the natural complement of the Act of 1850. The permissive legislation then enacted allowing trustee boards and ratepayers to establish free schools had been so generally acted upon[139] that by 1871 the abolition of all rate bills upon parents seemed to come as a matter of course. The logical corollary of free schools is compulsory attendance, and the Act of 1871 fixed penalties to be imposed upon parents and guardians who neglected the education of their children. It may be doubted whether this compulsory clause has ever been of any real advantage to the cause of education. The real forces that move human beings are always moral forces. Many a man has unwillingly sent his children to school because of public opinion, but few because of fear of the law. [139] Only some 400 schools out of 4,000 were levying rate bills in 1870. These 400 were chiefly in towns and cities. The total rate bill levy for 1870 was about $24,000. See Superintendent's Report for 1870. The Act provided for county inspectors who should be experts and devote their whole time to the work of inspection. Ryerson's first Report had foreshadowed such action, and the fact that he had to wait a quarter-century to realize his plan shows how impossible it is to legislate much in advance of public opinion. The County Inspector, together with two or more qualified teachers, were to form a County Board, with power to license second and third-class teachers upon examinations prescribed by the Council of Public Instruction. In this way the Superintendent had at last secured a uniform standard of qualification for teachers throughout the whole Province. The small annual grant made for teachers' pensions in 1853, and increased a few years later to $4,000 per annum, had enabled the Superintendent to dole out pittances[140] to a few score of worn-out teachers whose need was most pressing. Ryerson wished to establish a system such as was in operation in Germany--a system of compulsory payments by teachers in service sufficient to give a substantial pension for old age. He hoped by this means to secure a body of teachers with a professional spirit, and to enable them to spend their declining years in independence. [140] See D. H. E., Vol. XX., p. 143. The Act of 1871 required compulsory payments from male teachers of four dollars per year.[141] At a later date County Inspectors and all first-class teachers were required to pay six dollars a year. This payment guaranteed an annual pension upon retirement of four or six dollars for every year's contribution. Female teachers were allowed, but not forced, to support the Pension Fund. The compulsory payments aroused much opposition from some teachers, especially those who were making temporary use of the teachers' calling as a stepping-stone to some other profession.[142] Ryerson thought that this class might very properly be taxed a trifle for the general cause of education. [141] No doubt this seems a ridiculously small contribution, but we must remember that teachers received very small salaries. The Pension Fund clause was repealed in 1885 on request of the teachers of Ontario, and since that date no names have been added to the list. The payments by teachers provided only a small proportion of the annual charge upon the Pension Fund. The present annual charge (1910) upon the Fund is $55,926. [142] See D. H. E., Vol. XXIII., pp. 253-256. Minor provisions of the Act of 1871 gave trustee boards power to build teachers' residences and to secure land for school sites by arbitration. The Act also authorized the creation of Township Boards of Trustees, where public opinion favoured them. During its passage through the Legislature the Bill of 1871 was severely criticized by Hon. George Brown, in the Toronto _Globe_, and by Edward Blake, on the floor of the Assembly. Perhaps neither of these gentlemen had any love for Ryerson, but they represented a new spirit which Ryerson scarcely understood, and with which he certainly had no sympathy. Mr. Blake opposed the Bill upon several grounds, but especially upon the abolition of rate bills and the irresponsible nature of the Council of Public Instruction. As regards the former he expressed himself heartily in favour of free schools, but since they were gradually becoming free without compulsion he wished to let them alone. His objection to the Council of Public Instruction[143] is worthy of note because it brings out in a strong light the real bone of contention between Ryerson and the Ontario Liberals, and enables us to understand why at a later date it was impossible for Ryerson to work in harmony with a Liberal Executive Council. The Council of Public Instruction was an irresponsible body appointed by the Crown and dominated by the Chief Superintendent. It had extensive powers. It might act arbitrarily, and yet there was no way by which the members of the Legislature could call it to account or insist upon explanations. Mr. Blake and his colleagues argued that this was not compatible with representative government. Doctor Ryerson insisted that the Education Department must be wholly removed from party politics. Conscious of purity of purpose and personal integrity, he was ever more desirous of giving the people what he thought they needed than of giving them what they wanted. [143] See Pamphlet in Parliamentary Library, Ottawa, addressed by Edward Blake to the electors of South Bruce. Although Ryerson had taken a partisan's part in politics before his appointment as Superintendent, he wisely tried to administer his Department upon a non-partisan basis. And he met with a large measure of success because all sensible men realized that education ought not to be a topic for partisan bickerings. For many years it was so arranged that the leader of the Government introduced educational bills and the leader of the Opposition seconded them. Such a procedure was possible only so long as both political parties had more confidence in the wisdom of the Superintendent to deal with education than they had in the educational foresight of their own leaders. But such a confidence could not be indefinitely retained by any Superintendent, and certainly not by Ryerson, who was very sensitive to criticism of his administration, and always ready to challenge any layman who had the temerity to express an opinion upon education contrary to his. It was inevitable that a clash should come, and it was a great tribute to Ryerson's wisdom in gauging public opinion that the clash was so long delayed. It was also quite to be expected that the Liberal leaders should be the ones to precipitate the shock, seeing that Ryerson had ridden into office upon a wave of Tory reaction. Mr. Blake and Hon. George Brown could, however, make little headway against Ryerson in connection with the School Bill of 1871. Except in regard to the irresponsible nature of the Council of Public Instruction, the Act was progressive and truly liberal. Ryerson had discussed every clause in the Bill at County Conventions, and had behind him the support of all actively engaged in the work of education and in the other learned professions. CHAPTER XII. _CONCLUSION._ How are we to sum up the work of this man who moulded the schools of Ontario during a period as long as the life of a single generation? Would the schools of 1876 have been what they were had there been no Ryerson? We think not. No doubt the people of Upper Canada would, without Ryerson, have worked out a good school system, because a school system must in the end reflect the average intelligence and the fixed ideals of a people. But in Ryerson, Upper Canada had a man who, by his dogged determination and his hold upon the affections of the people, was able to secure legislation somewhat in advance of a fixed public opinion. To a considerable extent he created the public sentiment which made his work possible. He knew what the people needed and persuaded them to accept it. This we conceive to be the work of a statesman. Ryerson was neither a demagogue nor a constitutionalist. He had none of the arts of one who wins the populace by flattering its vanity. He was too sincere and too deeply religious to appeal to the lower springs of human action. On the other hand he had no real sympathy with popular government. He would let people do as they wished, only so long as they wished to do what he believed to be right. He never could believe that he himself might be wrong. Even had he wished to do so, he never could have divested himself wholly of the character of priest and pedagogue. He was always either shouting from the pulpit or thumping the desk of the schoolmaster. His environment after 1844 strengthened and developed his natural tendency to be autocratic. He worked like a giant. He created the Education Department, appointed his subordinates, was his own finance minister, established a Normal School and appointed its instructors, nominated members of a Council of Public Instruction who often did little more than formally register his decrees, organized a book and map depository and an educational museum, edited an educational journal in which he published his decrees, and prepared legislation for successive Legislatures having comparatively few members competent to criticize school administration. He administered one of the largest spending Departments of Government, and ruled somewhat rigorously a score of subordinates, and yet, for many years, was not subject to any check except the nominal one of the Governor-General, and later of the Governor-General-in-Council. When he visited District or County Conventions he came as a lawgiver, either to explain existing regulations, promulgate new ones, or obtain assent to those for which he wished to secure legislation. Only after the Grammar Schools had become efficient did Ryerson meet at Teachers' Conventions men who were intellectually his equals and who were ready to criticize his policy, and, when necessary, give him wholesome advice. Had Ryerson been a responsible Minister with a seat in the Legislature, either his nature would have been modified or he would have failed, probably the latter. This would seem to lead to the conclusion that Ryerson after all was not a statesman, since a statesman must, in our age, carry out his measures and at the same time retain the confidence of his colleagues and the electors. But this is just what Ryerson did, although he did not do it directly through the Legislature. He appealed to a Court beyond the Legislature--the whole body of intelligent men and women of Upper Canada--and this Court sustained him in his work for thirty-two years, during which time it is doubtful if any single constituency in the country would have elected him to two successive Parliaments. If this be true we may safely assume that it was a happy chance which gave us a non-political Education Department during our formative period. Ryerson's greatest admirers can scarcely claim that he was a scholar. This was his misfortune and not his fault. He never failed to embrace whatever opportunities for intellectual improvement came in his way. His reading of history was broad and discriminating. He had little interest in anything that did not bear somewhat directly upon the problem of human virtue. Consequently his interests centred largely in civil government and theology. Nor can we claim for Ryerson that he introduced original legislation. Hardly anything in our system of education was of his invention. New England, New York, Germany, and Ireland gave him his models, and his genius was shown in the skill with which he adapted these to suit the needs of Upper Canada. Even in the details of his school legislation, especially that relating to High Schools, Ryerson adopted suggestions of men more competent than himself to form a judgment. To say this in no way detracts from the man's greatness. Little after all in modern legislation is actually new, and to say of a man that he is successful in using other men's ideas is often to give him the highest praise. In one department of work Ryerson stood in a class by himself. He was without a peer as an administrator. His intensely practical mind was quick to discover the shortest route between end and means. His energy, his system and attention to details, his broad personal knowledge of actual conditions, his capacity for long periods of effort, his thrift, his courteous treatment of subordinates, and even his sensitiveness to criticism were factors which enabled him to administer the most difficult Department of the Government with ease and smoothness. The history of Upper Canada during a period of nearly sixty years is as much bound up with the labours of Egerton Ryerson as with the work of any other public man. He gave us lofty ideals of the meaning and purpose of life, and he had an abiding faith in the power of popular education to aid in a realization of these ideals; he fought for free schools in Upper Canada when they needed a valiant champion. Let the present generation of men and women honour the memory of the man who wrought so faithfully for their fathers and grandfathers. BIBLIOGRAPHY Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada. 28 vols. Dr. J. Geo. Hodgins. Story of My Life. Egerton Ryerson. Edited by Dr. J. Geo. Hodgins. Egerton Ryerson. Chancellor Burwash. Loyalists of America. 2 vols. Egerton Ryerson. Ryerson Memorial Volume. Edited by Dr. J. Geo. Hodgins. History of Upper Canada College. Principal Dickson. Journals of Assembly of Upper Canada, Legislative Library, Toronto. Journal of Education, 1848-1876. 29 vols. Library of Parliament, Ottawa. Ryerson's Special Reports on European Schools. Library of Parliament, Ottawa. Ryerson's Annual School Reports, 1845-1876. Library of Parliament, Ottawa. Gourlay's Statistical Account of Upper Canada. 3 vols. Published by Simpkins and Marshall, London, Eng., 1822. Sketches of Canada and the United States. William Lyon Mackenzie. Published by Effingham & Wilson, London, Eng., 1833. Reminiscences of His Public Life. Sir Francis Hincks. Ryerson's Controversy with Rev. J. M. Bruyère on Free Schools. Canadian Pamphlets, vol. 50. Library of Parliament, Ottawa. Ryerson's Letters to Doctor Strachan, on Education. Canadian Pamphlets, vol. 83. Ryerson's New Canadian Dominion. Canadian Pamphlets, vol. 418. Ryerson's Defence Against Attacks of Hon. George Brown. Canadian Pamphlets, vol. 418. Ryerson on the Separate School Law of Upper Canada. Canadian Pamphlets, vol. 416. Ryerson on a Liberal Education in Upper Canada. Canadian Pamphlets, vol. 416. Ryerson on the School Book Question. Canadian Pamphlets, vol. 416. Ryerson, a Review and a Study. J. A. Allen. Canadian Pamphlets, vol. 667. Bishop Strachan, a Review and a Study. Rev. Doctor Scadding. Canadian Pamphlets, vol. 169. Report on Grievances in Upper Canada. William Lyon Mackenzie. Library of Parliament, Ottawa. Bound Volumes of Toronto _Globe_, 1844-1876, in Legislative Library, Toronto. _British Colonist._ Published by H. Scobie, 1838-1854. Library of Parliament, Ottawa. _Kingston Chronicle and Gazette_, 1840-1842. Library of Parliament, Ottawa. Courier of Upper Canada, 1836-1837. Library of Parliament, Ottawa. _Weekly Colonist_, 1852-1855. Library of Parliament, Ottawa. Ryerson's Correspondence with Provincial Secretaries, 1844-1876. Canadian Archives, Ottawa. Transcriber's Note: Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation (e.g., school-houses/schoolhouses) have been resolved in all cases where it was possible to divine the author's intent with a reasonable degree of certainty. 
6581	----	This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions. A TREATISE ON THE SIX-NATION INDIANS By J. B. MACKENZIE --------------------- (_Page 28--lines 7-9_.) It has seemed to me that it was not quite ingenuous in myself to attribute to the Indian writer in question (Rev. Peter Jones), the reflection on his countrymen, obviously conveyed in my expression, "discovering in him such in-dwelling monsters as revenge, mercilessness, implacability." That writer's position, more fairly apprehended, is this: That, while confessing these to be blots on the Indian nature, in the abstract, he yet seeks to fasten them on _many_ whites as well. --------------------- A TREATISE ON THE SIX-NATION INDIANS BY J. B. MACKENZIE PREFACE. The little production presented in these pages was designed for, and has been used as, a lecture; and I have wished to preserve, without emendation, the form and character of the lecture, as it was delivered. J. B. M. A TREATISE ON THE SIX NATION INDIANS INTRODUCTORY As knowledge of the traditions, manners, and national traits of the Indians, composing, originally, the six distinct and independent tribes of the Mohawks, Tuscaroras, Onondagas, Senecas, Oneidas, and Cayugas; tribes now merged in, and known as, the Six Nations, possibly, does not extend beyond the immediate district in which they have effected a lodgment, I have laid upon myself the task of tracing their history from the date of their settlement in the County of Brant, entering, at the same time, upon such accessory treatment as would seem to be naturally suggested or embraced by the plan I have set before me. As the essay, therefore, proposes to deal, mainly, with the contemporary history of the Indian, little will be said of his accepted beliefs, at an earlier epoch, or of the then current practices built upon, and enjoined by, his traditionary faith. Frequent visits to the Indian's Reservation, on the south bank of the Grand River, have put me in the way of acquiring oral data, which shall subserve my intention; and I shall prosecute my attempt with the greater hope of reaping a fair measure of success, since I have fortified my position with gleanings (bearing, however, solely on minor matters of fact) from some few published records, which have to do with the history of the Indian, generally, and have been the fruitful labour of authors of repute and standing, native as well as white. Should the issue of failure attend upon my effort, I shall be disposed to ascribe it to some not obscure reason connected with literary style and execution, rather than to the fact of there not having been adequate material at hand for the purpose. THE INDIAN'S CONDITIONS OF SETTLEMENT. The conditions which govern the Indian's occupation of his Reserve are, probably, so well known, that any extended reference under this head will be needless. He ceded the whole of his land to the Government, this comprising, originally, a tract which pursued the entire length of the Grand River, and, accepting it as the radiating point, extended up from either side of the river for a distance of six miles, to embrace an area of that extent. The Government required the proprietary right to the land, in the event of their either desiring to maintain public highways through it themselves, or that they might be in a position to sanction, or acquiesce in, its use or expropriation by Railway Corporations, for the running of their roads; or for other national or general purposes. The surrender on the part of the Indian was not, however, an absolute one, there having been a reservation that he should have a Reservation, of adequate extent, and the fruit of the tilling of which he should enjoy as an inviolable privilege. As regards the money-consideration for this land, the Government stand to the Indian in the relation of Trustees, accounting for, and apportioning to, him, through the agency of their officer and appointee, the Indian Superintendent, at so much _per capita_ of the population, the interest arising out of the investment of such money. _Sales_ of lands among themselves are permissible; but these, for the most part, narrow themselves down to cases where an Indian, with the possession of a good lot, of fair extent, and with a reasonable clearing, vested in him, leaves it, to pursue some calling, or follow some trade, amongst the whites; and treats, perhaps, with some younger Indian, who, disliking the pioneer work involved in taking up some uncultured place for himself, and preferring to make settlement on the comparatively well cultivated lot, buys it. The Government, also, allow the Indian, though as a matter of sufferance, or, in other words, without bringing the law to bear upon him for putting in practice what is, strictly speaking, illegal, to _rent_ to a white the lot or lots on which he may be located, and to receive the rent, without sacrifice or alienation of his interest-money. Continued non-residence entails upon the non-resident the forfeiture of his interest. The Indian is, of course, a minor in the eye of the law, a feature of his estate, with the disabilities it involves, I shall dwell upon more fully at a later stage. Should the Indian intermarry with a white woman, the receipt of his interest-allowance is not affected or disturbed thereby, the wife coming in, as well, for the benefits of its bestowal; but should, on the other hand, an Indian woman intermarry with a white man, such act compels, as to herself, acceptance, in a capitalized sum, of her annuities for a term of ten years, with their cessation thereafter; and entails upon the possible issue of the union _absolute_ forfeiture of interest-money. In any connection of the kind, however, that may be entered into, the Indian woman is usually sage and provident enough to marry one, whose hold upon worldly substance will secure her the domestic ease and comforts, of which the non-receipt of her interest would tend to deprive her. Should the eventuality arise of the Indian woman dying before her husband, the latter must quit the place, which was hers only conditionally, though the Indian Council will entertain a reasonable claim from him, to be recouped for any possible outlay he may have made for improvements. The Government confer upon the Indian the privilege of a resident medical officer, who is paid by them, and whose duty it is to attend, without expectation of fee or compensation of any kind, upon the sick. His relation, however, to the Government is not so defined as to preclude his acceptance of fees from whites resident on the Reserve, provided the advice be sought at his office. The Government, probably, being well aware of the stress of work under which their medical appointee chronically labours, and appreciating the consequent unlikelihood of this privilege being exercised to the prejudice of the Indian, have not, as yet, shorn him of it. Another privilege that the Indian enjoys, and which was granted to him by enactment subsequent to that which assured to him his Reserve, is that of transit at half-fare grates on the different railroads. This is a right which he neither despises, nor, in any way, affects to despise, since it meets, and is suited to, his common condition of slender and straitened means. The moderate charge permits him to avail frequently of the privilege at seasons (which comprehend, in truth, the greater portion of the year) when the roads are almost unfit for travel, the Indian, as a rule, going in for economy in locomotive exercise (so my judgment decrees, though it has been claimed for him that, at an earlier period of his history, walking was congenial to him) hailing and adopting gladly the medium which obviates recourse to it. HIS MEETINGS OF COUNCIL. The Indian Council has a province more important than that which our Municipal Councils exercise. Its decisions as to disputes growing out of real estate transactions, unless clearly wrong, have in them the force of law. The ordinary Council is a somewhat informal gathering as regards a presiding officer or officers, and, also, in respect of that essential feature of a quorum, for which similar bodies among ourselves hold out so exactingly. The Chiefs of the tribes, who, alone, are privileged to participate in discussions, can scarcely be looked upon in the light of presidents of the meeting; nor can there be discovered in the privileges or duties of any one of them the functions of a presiding officer. The Chiefs of the Mohawks and Senecas, who sit on the left of the house, initiate discussion on all questions. The debating is then transferred to the opposite side of the house, where are seated the Chiefs of the Tuscaroras, Oneidas, and Cayugas, and is carried on by these Chiefs. The Chiefs of the Onondagas, who are called "Fire-Keepers" (of the origin of the name "Fire-Keeper," I will treat further, anon) then speak to the motion, or upon the measure, and, finally, decide everything; and they are, in view of this power of finality of decision with all questions, regarded as the most important Chiefs among the confederated tribes. The decision of the "Fire-Keepers" does not, by any means, always show concurrence in what may have been the _consensus_ of opinion expressed by previous speakers, very frequently, indeed, embodying sentiments directly opposite to the weight of the judgment with those speakers. As illustrating, more pointedly, the arbitrary powers committed to these Chiefs, they may import into the debate a fresh and hitherto unbroached line of discussion, and, following it, may argue from a quite novel standpoint, and formulate a decision based upon some utterly capricious leaning of their own. I have not been able to learn whether the decision of these Chiefs, to be valid, requires to be established by their unanimous voice, or simply by a majority of the body. The reason or cogency of the system of debate followed in the Indian Council has not seemed to me clearly demonstrable; nor is the cause for the honour attaching to the Chiefs of the Mohawks and Senecas, and of the Onondagas, respectively, of commencing and closing discussion, very explicable. I believe, however, that the principle of kinship subsisting between the tribes, the Chiefs of which are thus singled out for these duties, governs, in some way, the practice adopted; and am led, also, to imagine that exceptional functions, in other matters as well, vest in these Chiefs; and that they enjoy, in general, precedence over the Chiefs of the other tribes. The Chiefs in Council take cognizance of the internal concerns, and control and administer, generally, the internal affairs, of the community. There are often special and extraordinary deliberations of the body, which involve discussion upon points that transcend the operation of the Indian Acts, and require the Government to be represented; and, in these cases, the Indian Superintendent, whose presence is necessary to confer validity on any measure passed, is the presiding officer. As mention is made here of the Superintendent, or, as his title runs in full, the Visiting Superintendent and Commissioner, it will be opportune now to define his powers, so far as I understand them. It may be said, in general, that he exercises supervisory power over everything that concerns the well-being and interests of the Indian. By the representations made by him to the Government in his reports (and by those, of course, who hold the like office in other Indian districts) has been initiated nearly every law, or amendment to a law, which the pages of the Indian Acts disclose. He will often watch (though in his commission no obligation, I believe, rests upon him to do this) the trial of an Indian, where some one of the graver crimes is involved, that he may, perchance, arrive at the impelling cause for its perpetration. This may have had its origin, perhaps, in the criminal's having over-indulged in drink, or in his having resigned himself to some immoral bent; or it may have been connected, generally, with some deluging of the community with immorality. If, haply, the origin of the crime be traced, the Superintendent embodies in his report a reccommendation looking to a change in the law, which shall tend to suppress and control the evil. If there be indication that a particular order of crime prevails, or that, unhappily, some new departure in its melancholy category is being practised, it will, again, be his place to represent the situation to the Government, to the end that a healthier state of things may be brought about. He is authorized, in certain cases, to make advances on an individual Indian's account, and, also, on the general account, where some emergency affecting the entire tribe arises, such as a failure of the crops, confronting the Indian with the serious, and, but for this Governmental provision, insuperable, difficulty of finding the outlay for seeding for the next season's operations. It is customary for the Superintendent to attend important examinations of the Indian schools, that he may have light upon the pupils' progress, and may report accordingly. Where an occurrence of unusual moment in the history of any of the Churches takes place; the projecting, perhaps, of some fresh spiritual campaign amongst the Indians; or one, marking some specially auspicious event, he will often lend his presence, with the view to enlightenment as to the spiritual state of his charges. I have already said, that through the agency of the Superintendent, the Indian receives his interest-money, and it may, perhaps, be interesting to detail the manner in which this is usually drawn. The tribes are told off for this purpose, and, I believe, certain other purposes, into a number of bands; and a given day is set (or, perhaps, three or four days are assigned) whereon the members of a particular band shall be privileged to draw. If the drawing of the money be not marked by that expedition which the plan is designed to secure, but rather suggests that there are a number of stragglers yet to come forward to exercise their right, the turn of another band comes, and so on, the straggling ones of each band being treated with last. It is usual for the head of each family to draw for himself and his domestic circle. The present incumbent of the Superintendent's office is a gentleman of fine parts, and one who has striven, during a term of nearly twenty years, with tact and ability, to conserve the interests of the Indian. Speaking of tact, the Indian character exacts a large display of it from one whose relation to him is such as that which the Superintendent occupies, his overseer and, to a large extent, his mentor. There have been outcries against his course in some matters, though these have been indulged in only a small section; but the Indian chafes under direction, and is, for the most part, a chronic grumbler; and his discontent frequently finds expression in delegations to the Government, which, though they _may_ be planned with the view of ventilating some grievance, are more generally conceived of by him in the light of happy expedients for giving play to his oratory, or for setting about to establish his pretensions to eminence in that regard, in a somewhat exacting quarter; or, mayhap, for conveying to the powers that be, by palpable demonstration, the fact of his continued existence, and more, of his continued _dissatisfied_ existence. But to return to the Council. Where complaint of irregular dealing is preferred by either party to a transfer or sale of real estate, it comes within the scope of the Chief's powers to decree an equitable basis upon which such transfer or sale shall henceforward be viewed, and carried out. The jurisdiction of the Chiefs also ranges over such matters as the considering of applications from members of the various tribes for licensing the sale to whites of timber, stone, or other valuable deposit, with which the property of such applicants may be enriched; and they likewise treat with applications for relief from members of the tribes, whom physical incapacity debars from earning living, or who have been reduced to an abject state of poverty and indigence; and have authority to supplement the interest-annuities of such, should they see fit, with suitable amounts. The silent adjudging of a question is something abhorrent to the genius of the Indian, and is in reality unknown. Dishonouring thus the custom, he can grandly repudiate the contemptuous epithet of "voting machine;" so unsparingly directed against, and pitilessly fastening upon, certain ignoble legislators among ourselves. The manner of proceeding that obtained with the Ojibways was somewhat different from the practice I have detailed, and I allude to it now, because the tribe of the Delawares, who are now treated as an off-shoot of the Oneidas, and are merged with their kin in the Six Nations, belonged originally to the Ojibways. With them the decision was come to according to the opinions expressed by the majority of the speakers--a plan resolving itself into the system of a show of hands (or a show of _tongues_, which shall it be?) it having been customary for all who proposed to pass upon a measure to speak as well. The issue upheld by the greater number of hands shown, naturally, as with us, succeeded. Where a measure, in the progress of discussion, proved unpopular, it was dropped, an arrangment which should convey a wise hint to certain bodies I wot of. It will be readily gathered from what has been said, that the method of voting, in order to establish what is the judgment of the greater number, does not prevail with the Indian Councils. HIS ORATORY. As it is at his meetings of Council, and during the discussions that are there provoked, that the Indian's powers of oratory come, for the most part, into play, and secure their freest indulgence, that will appropriately constitute my next head. We are permitted to adjudge the manner and style of the Indian's oratory, whether they be easy or strained; graceful or stiff; natural or affected; and we may, likewise, discover, if his speech be flowing or hesitating; but it is denied to us, of course, to appreciate in any degree, or to appraise his utterances. I should say the Indian fulfils the largest expectations of the most exacting critic, and the highest standard of excellence the critic may prescribe, in all the branches of oratory that may (with his province necessarily fettered) fitly engage his attention, or be exposed to his hostile shafts. The Indian has a marvellous control over facial expression, and this, undeniably, has a powerful bearing upon true, effective, heart-moving oratory. Though his _spoken_ language is to us as a sealed book, his is a mobility of countenance that will translate into, and expound by, a language shared by universal humanity, diverse mental emotions; and assure, to the grasp of universal human ken, the import of those emotions; that will express, in turn, fervor, pathos, humor; that, to find its completest purpose of unerringly revealing each passion, alternately, and for the nonce, swaying the human breast, will traverse, as it were, and compass, and range over the entire gamut of human emotion. The Indian's grace and aptness of gesture, also, in a measure, bespeak and proclaim commanding oratory. The power, moreover, which with the Indian resides in mere gesture, as a medium for disclosing and laying bare the thoughts of his mind, is truly remarkable. Observe the Indian interpreter in Court, while in the exercise of that branch of his duty which requires that the evidence of an English-speaking witness or, at all events, that portion of it which would seem to inculpate the prisoner at the bar, or bear upon his crime, shall be given to him in his own tongue; and, having been intent upon getting at the drift of the testimony, mark how dexterously the interpreter brings gesture and action into play, wherever the narration involves unusual incident or startling episode, provoking their use! What a reality and vividness does he not throw, in this way, into the whole thing! It records, truly, a triumph of mimetic skill. Again, the opportune gesture used by the Indian in enforcing his speaking must seem so patent, in the light of the after-revelation by the interpreter, that we can scarcely err in confiding in it as a valuable aid in adjudging his qualities of oratory. We are, often, indeed, put in possession of the facts, in anticipation of the province of the interpreter, who merely steps in, with his more perfect key, to confirm our preconceived interpretation. It may be contended by some gainsayer, that the Indian vocabulary, being so much less full and rich than our own, gesture and action serve but to cover up dearth of words, and are, in truth, well-nigh the sum of the Indian's oratory; a judgment which, while, perhaps, conceding to the Indian honour as a pantomimist, denies him eminence as a true orator. This may or may not be an aptly taken objection, yet I have no hesitation in assigning the Indian high artistic rank in these regards, and would fain, indeed, accept him as a prime educator in this important branch of oratory. The attention of his hearers, which an Indian speaker of recognized merit arrests and sustains, also lends its weight to substantiate his claim, to good oratory; unless, indeed, the discriminating faculties of the hearers be greatly at fault, which would caution us not to esteem this the guide to correct judgment in the matter that it usually forms. The Indian enlivens his speaking with frequent humorisms, and has, I should say, a finely-developed humorous side to his character; and, if the zest his hearers extract from allusions of this nature be not inordinate or extravagant, or do not favor a false or too indulgent estimate, I would pronounce him an excessively entertaining, as well as a vigorous, speaker. There are in the Indian tongue no very complex, rules of grammar. This being so, the Indian, pursuing the study of oratory, needs not to undertake the mastery of unelastic and difficult rules, like those which our own language comprehends; or to acquire correct models of grammatical construction for his guidance; and, being fairly secure against his accuracy in these regards being impeached by carping critics, even among his own brethren, can better and more readily uphold a claim to good oratory than one of ourselves, whose government in speaking, by strict rules of grammar is essential, and whom ignorance or contempt of those rules would betray into solecisms in its use, which would attract unsparing criticism, and, indeed, be fatal to his pretensions in this direction. HIS PHYSICAL MIEN AND CHARACTERISTICS. It will be interesting, perhaps, to notice the particulars, as to physical conformation, in which the Indian differs from his white brother. He maintains a higher average as to height, to fix which at five feet ten would, I think, be a just estimate. It is rare, however, to find him attain the exceptional stature, quite commonly observed with the white, though, where he yields to the latter in this respect, there is compensation for it in the way of greater breadth and compactness. There are, of course, isolated cases, in which he is distinguished by as great height as has ever been reached by ordinary man, and, in these instances, I have never failed to notice that his form discloses almost faultless proportions, the Indian being never ungainly or gaunt. I think, on the whole, that I do no injustice to the white man, when I credit the Indian with a better-knit frame than himself. I am disposed to ascribe, in great measure, the evolving of the erect form that the Indian, as a rule, possesses, to the custom in vogue of the mother carrying her child strapped across the back, as well as to the fact of her discouraging and interdicting any attempts at walking on the part of the child, until the muscles shall have been so developed as to justify such being made. To this practice, at least, I am safe in attributing the rarity, if not the positive absence, with the Indian, of that unhappy condition of bow-leggedness, of not too slight prevalence with us, and which renders its victim often a butt for not very charitable or approving comment. The Indian is built more, perhaps, for fleetness than strength; and his litheness and agility will come in, at another place, for their due illustration, when treating of certain of his pastimes. The Indian has a large head, high cheek bones, in general, large lips and mouth; a contour of face inclining, on the whole, to undue breadth, and lacking that pleasantly-rounded appearance so characteristic of the white. He has usually a scant beard, his chin and cheeks seldom, if ever, asserting that sturdy and bountiful growth of whisker and moustache, in such esteem with adults among ourselves, and which they are so careful to stimulate and insure. Indeed, it is said that the Indian holds rather in contempt what we so complacently regard, and will often testify to his scorn by plucking out the hairs which protrude, and would fain lend themselves to his adornment. The Indian, normally, has a stolid expression, redeemed slightly, perhaps, by its exchange often for a lugubrious one. I should feel disposed to predict for him the scoring of an immense success in the personation of such characters as those of the melancholy Dane; or of Antonio, in the Merchant of Venice, after the turn of the tide in his fortunes, when the vengeful figure of the remorseless Shylock rests upon his life to blight and to afflict it. He is easily-moved to tears, though, perhaps, his facile transition from the condition presented in the foregoing allusion, into a positively lachrymose state, will be readily conceived of, without proclaiming specially, the fact. He will maintain a mien, which shall consist eminently with the atmosphere of the house of mourning; in truth, as an efficient mourner, the Indian may be freely depended upon. It is contended that the complexion of the Indian has had the tendency to grow darker and darker, from his having inhabited smoky, bark wigwams, and having held cleanliness in no very exceptional honor; and the contention is sought to be made good by the citing of a case of a young, fair-skinned boy, who, taking up with an Indian tribe, and adopting in every particular their mode of life, developed by his seventieth year a complexion as swarthy, and of as distinctively Indian a hue, as that of any pure specimen of the race. If we accept this as a sound view, which, however, carried to its logical sequence, should have evolved, one would imagine, the negro out of the Indian long are this, why may we not, in the way of argument, fairly and legitimately provoked by the theory, look for and consider the converse picture (now that the Indian lives in much the same manner as the ordinary poor husbandman, and now that we have certainly no warrant for imputing to him uncleanly habits) the gradual approach in his complexion to the Anglo-Saxon type? If we entertain this counter-proposition, it will then be a question between its operation, and his marriage with the white, as to which explains the fact of the decline now of the dark complexion with the Indian. The custom of piercing the nose, and suspending nose-jewels therefrom, has fallen into disrepute, the Indian, perhaps, having been brought to view these as contributing, in a questionable way, to his adornment. The Indian woman has a finer development, as a rule, than the white woman. We may, in part, discover the cause for this in the prevalence of the custom, already alluded to, of the mother carrying her offspring on her back, which, with its not undue strain on the dorsal muscles, no doubt, promotes and conserves muscular strength. The Indian woman being commonly a wife and mother before a really full maturity has been reached, or any absolute unyieldingness of form been contracted, the figure yet admits of such-like beneficent processes being exerted upon it. In making mention of this custom, and, in a certain way, paying it honor, let me not be taken as wishing to precipitate a revolution in the accepted modes, with refined-communities, of bringing up children. To a community, however, like that of which we are treating, such plan is not ill-suited, the Indian mother being secure against any very critical observation of her acts, or of the fashion she adopts. Let the custom, then, continue, as it can be shown, I think, to favour the production of a healthier and stronger frame both in the mother and in the child. A good figure is also insured to the Indian woman, from her contemning, perhaps at the bid of necessity, arising from her poverty, though, I verily believe, from a well-grounded conception of their deforming tendencies, the absurdly irrational measures, which, adopted by many among ourselves to promote symmetry, only bring about distortion. The Indian has very symmetrical hands, and the variation in size, in this respect, in the case of the two sexes, is often very slight, and, sometimes, scarce to be traced. The compliment, in the case of the man, has, and is meant to have, about it a quite appreciable tinge of condemnation, as suggesting his self-compassionate recoiling from manual exertion; and the explanation of the near approach in the formation of the hand of the woman to that of the man, may be found in the delegating to her, by the latter, in unstinted measure, and in merciless fashion, work that should be his. It is rare, also, to find a really awkwardly shaped foot in an Indian. The near conformity to a uniform size in the case of the two sexes, which I have noticed as being peculiar with the hand, may also be observed with the foot. I would sum up my considerations here with the confident assertion that the examination of a number of specimens of the hand or foot in an Indian, would demonstrate a range in size positively immaterial. The Indian woman keeps up, to a large extent, the practice of wearing leggings and moccasins. I should be disposed to think that the blood coursing through the Indian's frame is of a richer consistency, and has, altogether, greater vitalizing properties than that in ourselves, since on the severest day in winter he will frequently scorn any covering beyond his shirt, and the nether garments usually suggested by its mention, and, so apparelled, will not recoil from the keenest blast. HIS CHIEFS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS. The dignity of a chief comes to the holder through the principle of hereditary succession, confined to, and operating only with, certain families. In the cage of the death of one of these chiefs, the distinction and powers he enjoyed devolve upon his kinsman, though not necessarily upon the next of kin. The naming and appointing of a successor, and the adjudicating upon the point as to whether he fulfils the qualifications esteemed necessary to maintain the dignity of the chiefship, are confided to the oldest woman of the tribe, thus deprived by death of one of its heads. She has a certain latitude in choosing, and, so long as she respects in the selection of her appointee, the principle of kinship to the dead chief (whether this be proximate or remote is immaterial) her appointment is approved and confirmed. The chiefs are looked upon as the heads or fathers of the tribe, and they rely, to a large extent, for their influence over the tribe, upon their wisdom, and eminence generally in qualities that excite or compel admiration or regard. In an earlier period of the history of the Indian communities, when their forests were astir with the demon of war, eligibility for the chiefship contemplated in the chief the conjoining of bravery with wisdom, and these were the keynote to his power over his people. He, by manifesting on occasion, these, desirable traits, had his followers' confidence confirmed in his selection; upheld those followers' and his own traditions; and often assured his tribe's pre-eminence. The chief, in addition, by bringing these qualities to bear in any contact or treaty with a hostile tribe, compelled in a sense the recognition by his enemies of the prestige and power of his entire following. Hospitality was also considered a desirable trait in the chief, who, while habitually dispensing it himself, strove (having his endeavors distinctly seconded by the advocacy of the duty enforced in the kindly precepts of the old sages of the tribe) to dispose the minds of his followers to entertain a perception of the happy results which would flow to themselves by their being inured to its practice, the expanding of the heart, and the offering of a vent to the unselfish side of their nature. If the chief do not, in the main, conserve the qualities that are deemed befitting in the holder of the chiefship; or if he originate any measure which finds popular disfavour, his power with the people declines. A number of the chiefs have supplementary functions, conferred upon them by their brother dignitaries. There is, for example, one called the Forest-Ranger, whose place it is to interpose for the effectual prevention and checking of sales of timber to whites, by members of the different tribes; or removal by whites of timber from the Reserve, where a license, which suffers either to be done, has not been granted. In cases where an Indian meditates, in a spirit of lofty contempt for the license, any such illicit sale; or attempts to abet any such unlawful removal, this functionary has authority to frustrate both objects. The chief who, at present, fulfils these duties has not been permitted to hold barren or dormant powers. In putting into effect that interference which his office exacts of him, he has been more than once terribly assaulted by whites, foiled in their plans, and exasperated by the agency that had stepped in for the baffling of their ill-formed designs. On one occasion, his death was all but brought about by a cruelly concerted attack upon him. Certain other chiefs are called Fire-keepers, though their functions are not in any way suggested by their rather remarkable title. They are, however, very important persons, and I have already, in treating of the Indian's meetings of Council, touched upon their duty. I believe the name Fire-keeper is retained from the circumstance that, in by-gone days, when the council was an open-air affair, the lighting of the fire was the initiatory step, and, taken in this way, therefore, the most important step, in the proceedings. Another chief is called Marshal, and it is incumbent upon him to co-operate with the officers of the law in effecting the capture of any suspected criminal or criminals, who may lie concealed, or be harbored, on the Reserve. He is a duly qualified county constable, though his services are not often in request, as the Chief of Police in Brantford, whose place it is to direct the way in which crimes (committed, of course, in the city) shall be ferreted out, or their authors tracked, usually confides in his own staff to promote these desirable purposes, from the fact of their accountability to him being well defined, whereas the county constable yields no obedience to him. HIS CHARACTER, MORAL AND GENERAL. It is often claimed for the Indian that, before the white man put him in the way of a freer indulgence of his unhappy craving for drink, he was as moral a being as one unrenewed by Divine grace could be expected to be. Unfortunately, this statement involves no definition of what might be considered moral, under the circumstances. Now, there will be disagreeing estimates of what a moral character, upon which there has been no descent of heavenly grace, or where grace has not supervened to essay its recreation, or its moulding anew, should be; and there will also, I think, be divergent views as to a code of morals to be practised which shall comport with the exhibition of a _reasonably_ seemly morality. I cannot, at least, concur in that definition of a moral character, upon which no operation of Divine grace has been expended, for its raising or its beautifying, which accepts that of the pagan Indian as its highest expression; and, distinctly, hesitate to affirm that a high moral instinct inheres in the Indian, or that such is permitted to dominate his mind; and, when I find one of these very writers who claim for him a high inborn morality, discovering in him such indwelling monsters as revenge, mercilessness, implacability, the affirmation falters not the less upon my tongue. That very many of the graver crimes laid at the Indian's door, and the revolting heinousness of which the records of our courts reveal; may be traced to his prescribing for himself, and practising, a lax standard of morals, is a statement which it would be idle to dispute. That the marriage tie exacts from him not the most onerous of interpretations, and that the scriptural basis for a sound morality, involved in the declaration, "and they twain shall be one flesh," not seldom escapes, in his case, its full and due honoring, are, likewise, affirmations not susceptible of being refuted. That, for instance, is not a high notion of marital constancy (marital is scarcely the term, for I am speaking now of the pagan, who rejects the idea of marriage, though often, I confess, living happily and uninterruptedly with the woman of his choice) which permits the summary disruption of the bond between man and woman; nor is paternal responsibility rigorously defined by one, who causes to cease, at will, his labor and care for, and support of, his children, leaving the reassuring of these to those children contingent upon the mother finding some one else to give them and herself a home. To follow a lighter vein for a moment. The Police Magistrate at Brantford, before whom many of these little domesticities come for their due appreciation (for they disclose, often, elements of really baffling complexity) not less than their ventilation and unravelling, is an eminently peace-loving man, and quite an adept at patching up such-like conjugal trifles. He will dispense from his tribunal sage advice, and prescribe remedial measures, which shall have untold efficacy, in dispelling mutual mistrust, restoring mutual confidence, and bringing about a lasting re-union. He will interpose, like some potent magician, to transform a discordant, recriminating, utterly unlovely couple, into a pair of harmless, peaceable, love-consumed doves. There rises before my mind a case for illustration. A couple lived on the Reserve, whose domestic life had become so completely embittered that every vestige of old-time happiness had fled. The agency of the Police Magistrate was sought to decree terms of separation, as there was an adamantine resolve on the part of each to no longer live with the other. Thus, in a frame of mind altogether repelling the notion of conversion to gentler views, or the idea of laudable endeavor, on the part of another, to instil milder counsels, being availingly expended, they repaired to the Police Magistrate's office. He, by invoking old recollections on either side, and judiciously inviting them to a retrospection of their former mutual courtesies, and early undimmed pleasures, gradually brought the would-be sundered people to a wiser mind. I believe there have only been two or three outbursts of domestic infelicity since. Certain notions, bound up with the Indian's practice, in times now happily passed away, of polygamy, may be construed into an advocacy of the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill, which engaged the attention of Parliament last session, and bids fair to take up the time and thought of our legislators, in sessions yet to come. The Indian usually sought to marry two sisters, holding that the children of the one would be loved and cared for more by the other than if the wives were not related. The concurrent existence of both mothers is, of course, presumed here. The question remains to be asked, would the children of the one sister, were their mother dead, be as well loved and cared for by the surviving sister, were she called upon to exercise the functions of a step-mother; and would the children of the dead sister love the children of the living sister, were they not viewed upon the same footing as those children? That the Indian--the _Christian_ Indian--frequently contemns the means unsparingly used, and the attempts and arguments put forth, by his spiritual overseers, to restrain his immoral propensities, to bridle his immoral instinct, and to ameliorate and elevate, generally, his moral tone, I fear, will not be gainsaid. That very many, on the other hand, practice a high morality, and set before themselves an exalted conception of conjugal duty, and strive, with a full-hearted earnestness, to fulfil that conception, none would-be so blind or so unjust as to deny. There are some features in the Indian character to which unstinted praise is due, and shall be rendered. He is very hospitable; and (herein nobly conserving his traditions) it is in no wise uncommon for him to resign the best of the rude comforts he has, in the way of accommodation, to some belated one, and content himself with the scantest of those scant comforts, impressing, at the same time, with his native delicacy, the notion, that he courts, rather than shrinks from, the almost penitential regime. Though one would naturally think, that the scorn of material comforts, suggested here, and which many others of his acts evince, would scarcely breed indolence in the Indian, yet this is with him an almost unconquerable weakness. It is, indeed, so ingrained within him, as to resist any attempt, on his own part, to excise it from his economy; and as to defy extirpating or uprooting process sought to be enforced by another. The Indian is, in truth, a supremely indolent being, and testifying to an utter abandonment of himself to the power of indolence over him, has often been known, when recourse solely to the chase was permitted him for the filling of his larder, to delay his steps to the forest, until the gnawing pangs of hunger should drive him there, as offering him the only plan for their appeasing. When I have said that the Indian is hospitable, I have said that he is kind and considerate, for these are involved with the other. He has much of native delicacy and politeness; and though, from deep-seated prepossession, he denies the woman equal footing with himself; and, though through misconception of woman's true purpose and mission in the world, or through failing to apprehend that higher, greater, more palpable helpfulness she brings to man (all these, because self-dictated, self-enforced) he commits to her much of the drudgery, and imposes upon her many of the heavy burdens, of life, the Indian is not wholly devoid of chivalric instinct. He is usually reticent in his manner with strangers, (but this is readily explained by his imperfect command of English, and his reluctance to expose his deficiency) though voluble to the last degree when he falls in with his own people. The Indian has been lauded and hymned by Longfellow and others as the hunter _par excellence;_ but, to apply this to his present condition, and look there for its truth, would be idle. The incitements to indulge his taste for hunting are now so few, and of such slight potency, and the opportunities for giving it play so narrowed down, and so rare, that the pursuit of the chase has become well-nigh obsolete, and something to him redolent only, as it were, with the breath of the past. As the Indian is at present circumstanced and environed, he can beat up little or no game, and his poverty frequently putting out of his reach the procuring of the needful sporting gear, where he _does_ follow hunting, it is pursued with much-weakened ardor, and often bootless issue. He is moved now to its pursuit, solely with the hope of realizing a paltry gain from the sale of the few prizes he may secure. Though his reputation as a hunter has so mournfully declined, the Indian is yet skilled in tracking rabbits, in the winter season, the youth, particularly, finding this a pleasant diversion. I trust I do not invoke the hasty ire of the sportsman if, in guilelessness of soul, I call this hunting. This very circumscribing of the occasions, and inefficacy of the motive powers, for engaging in hunting, will tend, it is hoped, to correct the indolent habits that the Indian nurses, and the inveteracy of which I have just dwelt upon, and emphasized; for it will not, I think, be denied that his former full-hearted pursuit of the chase (in submission, largely though it was, to imperious calls of nature), is responsible, mainly, for the inherence of this unpleasing trait. Though, of course, hunting in its very nature, enforces a certain activity, it is an activity, so far as any beneficent impressing of the character is concerned, void of wholesomeness, and barren of solid, lasting results; and, viewed in this way, an activity really akin to indolence. With the craving for hunting subdued, the Indian may take up, with less distraction, and devote himself, to good advantage, to his farming, and to industrial callings. Want of energy and of steadiness of purpose are with the Indian conspicuous weaknesses, and their bearing upon his farming operations may be briefly noticed. He will not devote himself to his work in the fields with that full-intentioned mind to put in an honest day's toil, that the white man brings to his work, often being beguiled, by some outside pleasure or amusement, into permitting his day's work to sustain a break, which he laments afterwards in a melancholy refrain, of farming operations behind, and domestic matters unhinged, generally. Though the white has endeavored (and I the more gladly bear my witness to these attempts at the redemption of the Indian from some of his weaknesses, since the white has been so freely charged with ministering to his appetite for drink, and to the evil side of his nature generally) to infuse these qualities of energy and resolution into the Indian, my observation has not yet discerned them in him. Though irresolute himself, the Indian will not tolerate, but is sufficiently warm in his disapprobation, of any unmanly surrender to weakness or vacillation on the part of whites set in authority over him. He imbibes freely (I fear the notion of a certain physiological process is embraced by some minds, and that these words will be taken as curtly enunciating the Indian's besetting weakness; but pray be not too eager to dissever them from what is yet to come, as I protest that I am not now wishing to revert to this sad failing). He imbibes freely--the current fashions of the hour amongst whites. If raffling, for instance, be held in honour as a method for expediting the sale of personal effects, the Indian will adapt the practice to the disposal of every conceivable chattel that he desires to get off his hands. HIS PRONENESS TO DRINK. The Indian Law, it is well known, puts a restraint, not only upon the purchase of liquor by the Indian, but upon its sale to him by the liquor-seller, or its supply, indeed, in any way, by any one. It forbids, as well, the introducing or harboring of it, in any shape, under any plea, on the Reserve. The law, in this respect, frequently proves a dead letter, since, where the Indian has not the assurance and hardihood to boldly demand the liquor from the hotel-keeper, or where the latter, imbued with a wholesome fear of the penalty for contravening the law, refrains from giving it, the agency of degraded whites is readily secured by the Indian, and, with their connivance, the unlawful object compassed. Of course the white abettor in these cases risks trifling, if any, publicity in the matter, and is inspired with the less fear of detection. There are some few hotel-keepers who, though they more than suspect the purpose to which the liquor these whites are demanding is to be applied, permit rapacity to overpower righteous compunction or scruple, and lend themselves, likewise, though indirectly, to the law's infraction. Happily, the penalty is now so heavy ($300) that the evil is, I think, being got under control. The effect of drink on the Indian is: to dethrone his; reason; cloud, even narcotize, his reasoning faculties; annul his self-control; confine and fetter all the gentler, enkindle and set ablaze, all the baser, emotions; of his nature, inciting him to acts lustful and bestial; and, with direful transforming power, to make the man the fiend, to leave him, in short, the mere sport of demoniac passion. It may be thought that this is an overdrawn picture, and that, even if it were true, which I aver that it is, to have withheld a part of its terribleness would be the wiser course. I wish, however, in exposing all its frightful features, to secure the pointing of a moral to all who lend themselves to the draughting of such a picture, or, in any way, hold in favor the draughts which lead to its draughting. Let not the Indian, then, resent this picturing of him in such unpleasing and repugnant light, but let him rather apply and use the lesson it is sought to teach, that it may turn to his enduring advantage. Let him overmaster the enslaving passion; let him foreswear the tempting indulgence; let him recoil from the envenomed cup, which savors of the hellish breath and the ensnaring craft of the Evil One, ever seeking to draw chains of Satanic forging about him. The Indian will plead utter obliviousness of the _fracas_, following some drunken bout, and during the progress of which the death-stroke has been dealt to some unhappy brother. He will disavow all recollection of the apparently systematic doing to death, when drunk, under circumstances of the most revolting atrocity, of an unfortunate wife. Though the proximate result of drink is with the Indian more alarming than with the white, the ultimate evils and sorrows wrought by continued excess in drink are, of course, identical in both cases: moral sensibilities blunted; manhood degraded; mind wrecked; worldly substance dissipated; health shattered; strength sapped; every mendacious and tortuous bent of one's nature stimulated, and given free scope. HIS HUMOR. In its very nature this essay will partake largely of the element of historical preciseness, and if it do not, I have so far failed to gain my end. I have wished to introduce matter of a kind calculated to relieve this, and to insure the escape of the essay from the charge of a well-sustained dryness. Of the humorous instinct of the Indian, as indulged toward his fellow-Indian, I cannot speak with confidence; of the malign operation upon myself of the same instinct, I can speak with somewhat more exactness, and with somewhat saddening recollections. The cases, indeed, where I have been exposed to the play of his humor exhibit him in so superlatively complacent an aspect, and myself in so painfully inglorious a one, that I refrain, nay shrink, from rehearsing the discomposing circumstances. I should be pleased if I could call to mind any instance which would convey some notion of the Indian's aptness in this line, and yet not involve myself, but I cannot. I would say, in a general way, that the Indian is a plausible being, and one needs to be wary with him, and not too loth to suspect him of meditating some dire practical joke, which shall issue in the utter confusion and discomfiture of its victim, whilst its author shall appropriate the main comfort and jubilation. Though the Indian, perhaps, does not conceive these in the determinedly hostile spirit with which the Mohometan who seeks to compass the Christian's undoing is credited, there is yet such striking accord in the two cases, so far as exultant approval of the issue is concerned, that I am disposed to look upon his creed in this respect as a modified Mahometanism. I could relate many instances, affecting myself, where trustfulness has incurred payment in this coin, but, having no desire to stimulate the Indian's existing proneness to practical joking, I stay my hand at further mention of the peculiarity. HIS INTELLECTUAL GIFTS. The Indian has little hope of occupying a sphere, where the discipline and cultivation of the mind shall be essential to the proper balancing and developing of its powers, and shall render it equal to the collision with other keen intellects. It would, therefore, be equally idle and unprofitable to attempt to measure his mental capabilities, until we shall have experience of his intellectuality, with proper stimulating and inciting influences in play, or under circumstances, conducing, generally, to mental strength and vigor, to note; and which we may employ as a reliable basis for judgment; and it would be manifestly unfair to argue weak mental calibre, or to presage small mental capacity in the Indian, from his present deplorable state of inertness, a condition which has been sadly impressed and confirmed by repressive legislation, and of which that legislation, by practically denying him occupation of improving fields of thought, and, indeed, scope for any enlarged mental activity, seeks to decree the melancholy perpetuity. In some of the few cases where supervenient aid has enabled him to qualify for, and embrace, a profession, I have perceived a tendency to subordinate its practice to the demands of some less exacting calling, which has rendered nugatory any efficient mastery of the profession. Memory is, undoubtedly, the Indian's strong point, and I can myself testify to exhibitions of it, truly phenomenal. The interpreter will placidly proceed to translate a long string of sentences, just fallen from a speaker's lips, to engraft which upon our memory would be a performance most trying and difficult; and to have their repetition. even with a proximate adherence to the sense and the expressions used, imposed upon us, in the peremptory fashion in which it is sprung upon the interpreter, would carry the wildest dismay to our mind. Those understanding the Indian tongue have frequently assured me that the Indian, when interpreting, reproduces with minuteness, if he be granted, of course, a certain latitude for differences of idiom, the speaker's thought and expressions. It is said by one of his own writers that the Indian is much more prone to follow the evil than the moral practices of the white; and there can be no doubt, I think, that, if habitually thrown with a corrupt community, or one where a low order of morality should obtain, the acquisition of higher knowledge would tend to make him better skilled in planning works of iniquity, than to give him higher and purer tastes. Actual experience of the Indian, in one or two cases, where there has been a more than common accession to his mental accomplishments, rather gives color to the notion of the misdirection of those accomplishments (even without the baneful white influence) that has been hinted at. I should think the Indian would, probably, even with proper discipline to bear, lack powers of concentration, with the kindred faculty of being able to direct the mind to the achieving or subserving of some one grand purpose or aim, and would, likely, be deficient in other allied ways, by which a gifted and powerful mind will be asserted; and would imagine, on the whole, that there is slight ground for thinking him capable, under the most favourable circumstances, of imperilling the eminence of the white in respect of intellectual power and attainments. HIS PASTIMES. Lacrosse, it is well-known, is the Indian's national game. The agile form with which nature has gifted him, and which I have mentioned already as one of his physical characteristics, brings an essential pre-requisite for success or eminence to a game, where the laggard is at heavy discount. Though a white team can often boast of two or three individual runners, whose fleetness will outstrip the capacity of an equal number on the side of the Indians, I think, perhaps, that it will be allowed that the Indian team, as a rule, will comprehend the greater number of fleet members. While the Indian, then, can scarcely be said to yield to the white in this respect, he lacks obviously that mental quick-sightedness which, with the latter, defines, as it were, intuitively, the exact location on the field, of a friend, and, with unerring certitude, calculates the degree of force that shall be needed to propel the ball, and the precise direction its flight shall take, in order to insure its reposing on the net of that friend. In the frequently recurring _mêlees_, begotten of the struggle amongst a number of contestants for the possession of the ball, the Indian exhibits, perhaps, in more marked degree than the white, the qualities of stubborn doggedness, and utter disregard of personal injury. The worsting of the Indian by the white in the majority of competitions of this kind is due to the latter submitting to be governed by system, and to his recognizing a directing power in the captain. The Indian, on the other hand, will not bend to such controlling influence, but chafes under direction of any kind. He has good facilities for practice at this game, and, I believe, really tries to excel in it, often, indeed, the expense of duties, which imperatively call him elsewhere than to the lacrosse-field. The Indian is a proficient canoeist, and will adventure himself with confidence in a canoe of the frailest construction, which he will guide in safety, and with surpassing skill. He will dispel the fears of his disquieted and faithless fellow-voyager (for the motion at times in canoeing is, unmistakably, perturbing and discomposing; indeed, in this unsettling experience, the body is a frequent, if not an inevitable, sharer) who, in view of his sublime disregard of danger, will quickly re-assert the courage that had waned. If, however, there be a second Indian in the canoe, he usually strives to counteract the reassuring effect that the pilot's bearing has upon you. He stands up in the bottom, and sways, to and fro, and, with fell and malignant intent proceeds to evolve out of the canoe a more approved see-saw action than _a priori_ and inherently attaches to that order of craft. On that really "Grand" river, which was his sometime heritage, the Indian can well improve his skill in this modest branch of nautical science. HIS TRADING RELATIONS WITH WHITES. The consciousness of unsatisfied pecuniary obligation does not, as a rule, weigh heavily on the Indian mind, nor does it usually awaken, or offer food for, burdensome reflection. The Indian Act, which decrees his minority, disables him from entering into a contract of any kind, though it scarcely needs any statement from me to assure my hearers that the law does not secure, nor does the majestic arm of that law exact, from him, the most rigid compliance. The Indian will make and tender to a white creditor his promissory note with a gleeful complacency. There are usually two elements contributing, in perhaps equal degree, to produce in him this complacent frame of mind: The first, that, for removing from his immediate consideration a debt, he is adopting a temporizing expedient, which in no way vouches for, and in no sense bespeaks, the ultimate payment of the debt; the other, that his act records his sense of rebellion against a restrictive law, ever welling up in his breast, and seeking such-like opportune vent for its relief. In trading with a merchant, who, appreciating the wiliness of his customer, felt a natural concern about trading upon as safe a basis as might be secured, it was, until quite recently, customary with the Indian to anticipate his interest-money, in paying for his goods. That the merchant might have a guarantee that previous instances of the setting on foot of this plan in the individual Indian's case, had not effected the entire appropriation or exhaustion of his allowance, or that in the immediate transaction with him, the Indian's allowance would not be exceeded, a chief of the particular tribe to which the Indian belonged, who was assumed to keep track of the various amounts that at different times impaired the interest-fund, signed an order for him to tender to the merchant; and in order that the Superintendent might properly award and pay the balance coming, these orders would go into his possession, before he should proceed with the season's payments. Now, however, the place and times at which interest payments are made, are not allowed to be viewed by merchants and others as a collection depôt, or as occasions on which their orders from Indians may be confirmed, or debts from those Indians made good. The merchant, foreseeing that a large proportion of the debts from Indians that he books are not recoverable, will frequently--and I presume there is nothing savoring of dubious dealing in the matter--add, perhaps, thirty or forty per cent. to the usual retail price of the goods sold to them, that the collection of some of the debts may, as it were, offset the loss from those that are irrecoverable. It is not pleasant to impugn the character of the Indian for uprightness and probity, but that there is no conspicuous prevalence of these qualities with him, I fear, can be sufficiently demonstrated. I am disposed to ascribe this state of things, to a large extent, to the operation of the Indian Law. If the Indian who buys, and does not pay, and who never intends to pay, were not exempted from the salutary lesson which the distraint, at suit of a creditor, upon his goods, teaches, he would not seek to evade payment of his debts. If, again, the Indian were not regarded as one "childlike," shall I say, "and bland" (no! I must dissever these words from the otherwise apt quotation, as, though this be to proclaim how immeasurably he has fallen, and to dissipate cherished popular beliefs about him, I conceive him to be bland, without being so decreed by the law) there would be a manifest accession to his fund of self-respect. The idea of holding him a minor, and as one who cannot be kept to his engagements is a mistake, and its effect is only to stimulate the dishonest bent of his nature, prompting him to take advantage of his white brother in every conceivable way, where the latter's business relations with him are concerned. HIS RELIGION. The pagan, though not so alive to the serene beauties of the Christian life, and not so attracted by the power, the promises, and the assurances of the Christian religion, as to evince the one, and embrace the other, or to make trial of the moral safeguards that its armoury supplies, would yet so honour, one would think, the persuasive Christian influences, operating around him and about him in so many benign and kindly ways, as to abandon many of the practices that savour of the superstition of a by-gone age. Though there has been a decline, if not a positive discontinuance, of his traditionary worship of idols; though his adoration of the sun, of certain of the birds of the air, and of the animal creation, is not now blindly followed, and the invocation of these, for the supposed assuring of success to various enterprises, is rarely put in effect, there is yet preserved a relic of his old traditions, in the designs with which he embellishes certain specimens of the handiwork, with which he oft vexes the public eye. (I must really, though, pay my tribute of admiration for the skilled workmanship many of these specimens disclose.) It is common for him, when at work upon the elaborate carving in wood that he practises, to engrave some hideous human figure, intended, obviously, to represent an idol. Does it not excite wonder with us that such refinements upon hideousness and repulsiveness could ever have provoked the worship or adoration of any one? One almost insuperable difficulty that the missionary experiences in his attempts to instil religious principles into the Indian mind, is to get him to entertain the theory that the human race sprang originally from one pair. The pagan believes in the existence of a Supreme Being, though, his idea of that Being's benignity and consideration relates solely to an earthly oversight of him, and a concern for his daily wants. His conception of future bliss is almost wholly sensual, and wrapped up with the notion of an unrestrained indulgence of animal appetite, and a whole-souled abandonment to feasting and dancing. His supreme view of happiness is that he shall be, assigned happy hunting-grounds, which shall be stocked with innumerable game, and where, equipped in perfection for the chase, he shall ever be incited to its ceaseless pursuit. Of course, such impressions, clogged and clouded as they are with earthliness, have been dispelled in the cases of those, who have opened their minds to the more desirable promises of the Gospel. The Indian's expectation of attaining and enjoying a future state of bliss, which shall transcend his mundane experience, is often present to his mind. I remember once walking with rather measured gait along one of the roads of the Reserve, bearing about me, it _may_ be, the idea of supreme reflection, when an Indian stopped me, and asked (though, as my eyes sought the ground at the time, I cannot conceive how his attributing to me thoughts of celestial concernment could have been suggested) if I were thinking of heaven. I should have been pleased to own to my mind's being occupied at the time with heavenly meditations, a confession not only worthy, if true, to have been indulged in, but one having in it possibly force for him, as helping, perhaps, to confirm the course of his thoughts in the only true and high and ennobling channel, which his question would suggest as being their frequent, if not their habitual, direction. Truth, however, compelled me to admit the subserviency of my mind, at the moment, to earthly thought. The pagan Indian celebrates what he calls dances, which frequently, if liquor can only be had, degenerate into mere drunken orgies. Here the war-whoop, with its direful music, greets the ear, carrying terror and dismay to the breasts of the uninitiated; and here the war-dance, with all the accessories of paint and feathers, gets free indulgence. HIS MODE OF LIFE. A mode of life will be suggested by the individual's estate and surroundings, and will, naturally, be accommodated to the exactions merely of the society in which he moves. With the Indian, poverty shapes his habits of life, and he bends to compulsion's decree in the matter. If we consider his hypothetical translation to a higher sphere, the Indian might develop and maintain a course of living which should not, in those altered circumstances, discredit him. As our notions of early Indian life are so associated with the wigwam, a description of the manner and stages of its construction may be interesting. Poles, twelve or fourteen feet long, are placed in the ground, these meeting at the top, and leaving an opening through which the smoke may escape. Over the poles are placed nets, made of flags, or birch bark, and, sometimes, the skins of animals. The Indian, in defining comfort, evidently does not mean soft beds and generous covering. His couch, as often as not, is the bare floor, without mattrass, or, indeed, aught that might be conceded to a weak impulse; and his covering _nil_, as a rule, in summer, and a buffalo robe, or some kindred substitute, in winter. He adopts very frugal fare, doing high honour to maize, or Indian corn. Indeed, to the growth and cultivation of this order of grain he appropriates the greater part of his land. In walking, the man usually goes before the woman, as he thinks it undignified to walk alongside. Nothing like social intercourse ever goes on between man and wife; and in their domestic experience they have no little pursuits in common, such as cheer and brighten life with us. The hut (for, in the majority of cases, it is really little better) that, with excess of boldness, commingles its cramped, unpleasing outlines with the forest's wealth of foliage; and has reared its unshapely structure on the site of the historic wigwam, obliterating, in its ruthless, intrusive, advent, that lingering relic of the picturesque aspect of Indian life--a relic that, with its emblems and inner garniture of war, bids a scion of the race indulge a prideful retrospect of his sometime grandeur, and pristine might; that has power to invoke stirring recollections of a momentous and a thrilling past; to re-animate and summon before him the shadowy figures of his redoubtable sires, and re-enact their lofty deeds: in view of which, there is wafted to him a breath, laden with moving memories of that glorious age, when aught but pre-eminence was foreign to his soul; when, though a rude and savage, he was yet a lordly, being; when he owned the supremacy, brooked the dictation, of none; when his existence was a round of joysome light-heartedness, and he, a stranger to constraint--this habitation of the Indian, to my mind, emphasizes his melancholy, and, perhaps, inevitable decadence, rather than symbolizes his partnership with the white in the more palpable pursuits of a practical, enlightened, and energetic age, or co-activity with him on a theatre of enlarged and more vigorous action. It is in some respects more comfortless than even was his experience under his primitive style of living, and is usually composed of one room, answering all the purposes of life--eating-room, bed-room, reception-room, principally, however, for the snow and mud, which have been persuaded here to relax their hold, after antecedent demonstration of their adhering qualities. HIS ALLEGED COMMISSION OF PERJURY. The Indian very frequently has the crime of perjury alleged against him, though what is assumed to be perjury is usually demonstrated to have nothing whatever of that element in it. These imputations come about in this way: If the Indian, about to give evidence, be declared to have a reasonable mastery of English, the Court, sometimes rather hastily, I think, dispenses with the interpreter, in order to save time. A question is put to a witness, who, though not understanding it sufficiently to appreciate its full import and bearing, yet protesting, in a self-sufficient spirit, that he does (for the Indian likes to have imputed to him extensive knowledge of English) returns an answer apart from the truth, and one which he really never intended to give, and becomes, through the interpreter, committed to it on the records. Or, the allegation may arise after this fashion:--The interpreter, having to master several different languages, will almost insensibly, in the confusion of idioms, misinterpret what has been said. The outrageous prevalence of this supposed perjury would of itself point to an explanation of this kind, since, we cannot believe that the Indian wishes to canonize untruthfulness. THE INDIAN AS A MUSICIAN. The Indian's musical taste is conceded on all hands. He is a proficient in the use of brass instruments, the Mohawk Brass Band always taking high rank at band competitions. He has usually fine vocal power, and is in great request as a chorister. He has a full repertory of plaintive airs, the singing of which he generally reserves for occasions, resembling much the "wakes" that obtain with Roman Catholics, where he watches over night the body of some departed member of the tribe. THE INDIAN AS AN ARTIST. As an artist in wood-carving, the Indian, I should say, stands almost without a rival. He will elaborate the most beautiful specimens in this kind of work; though he generally directs his skill to the embellishing of walking sticks and the like articles, which (their ornate appearance alone precluding their practical use) the white only buys with the view of preserving as ornaments. The Indian, therefore, would do well to allow his skill in this line to take a wider range, since, by so doing, he would not only bring about larger sales to enrich his not over-filled money-chest, but he would also extend his fame as an artist. The pencil, in the hand of the Indian, is often made to limn exquisite figures, and to trace delightful landscape-work. I am confident that he would, with appropriate training, cause his fame to be known in this line also. The Indian woman is a marvellous adept at bead-work, though her specimens disclose, usually, finer execution, than they do a tasteful or faultless associating of colours. HIS SCHOOLS. The New England Company, an English Corporation have established, and maintain, in addition to the Mohawk Institute, which is on unreserved lands, a large number of schools for the education of the Indian youth. It is a question whether these schools really secure the patronage that the philanthropic spirit of their founders hoped for. The shyness of the girls is so marked (a trait I have observed even among the adult women) as to lead to a small attendance, of this element, at least, where the teacher is a white young man--in truth, a very ultra-manifestation of the peculiarity. The Mohawk Institute contemplates the receiving of pupils who have reached a certain standard of proficiency, their boarding, and their education. It is an institution the aim of which is truly a noble one, the throwing back upon the Reserve of educated young men and women, who shall be qualified to go about life's work, fortified with knowledge, to pave the way to success in any walk of life that may be chosen. The Mohawk Institute has secured, in the person of its principal and directing power, one who is imbued with the desire so to use its powerful agency as to compass the maximum of good among the Indians. HIS MISSIONARIES. The missionary demands notice as he, above all others, has left his impress on the life and character of the Indian. The Ven. Archdeacon Nelles may be regarded as the pioneer missionary to the Indian. His work covers half a century, and, though, for some years, he has not been an active worker amongst the Indians, a solicitude for their welfare still actuates him. His province has been rather that of general superintendence of the New England Company's servants, than one involving much active mingling with the Indians. The association of his name with that time-honoured and revered structure, the old Mohawk Church, is his, grandest testimonial to his fruitful labour on the Reserve. The Rev. Adam Eliot, whose widow still lives in the old missionary home, was a man of a singularly gentle and lovable disposition. In his contact with the Indian, the influence, if haply any could be exerted, was certain to be on the side of the good. He was one who moved about the Reserve with the savor of a quiet and godly life ever cleaving to him, a life, radiating forth, as it were, to circle and embrace others in the folds of its benign influence. He was tender, and unaffected in his piety. His life and work have left their abiding mark on the Indian character. The Rev. R. J. Roberts was the first missionary who was really a constant resident on the Reserve, and this circumstance, no doubt, assured in larger measure his usefulness. I believe him to have been filled strongly with the missionary spirit, and with ardent zeal for the furthering of his Master's cause. His poor health always handicapped him, but I feel confident he leaves behind him, in the kind memories of many of his charges, a monument of his work not to be despised. The Rev. James Chance was one of the old English type of clergyman, cheery, genial, and whole-souled. Had he planned nothing higher than the infusing of some of his own geniality into the Indian nature; and, had his missionary work effected nothing greater than this, his would have been no unworthy part. As the spiritual husbandman, he strove so to break up the fallow ground, that the harvest of souls might be the more bountiful. I have not referred to the later or present occupants of the mission-field amongst the Indians, as they were, or have been identified for so short a time with them. I would also say, that it is from no denial to them of the achieving of solid, lasting work, that I have not alluded to missionaries outside of the Episcopal body. I have merely made such allusions here as personal contact with the missionaries has enabled me to record. It may be thought that any work which contemplates the chronicling of the Indian's history, will be incomplete, which should fail to trace the career of Thayandanagea, or Chief Joseph Brant; or which should, at least, withhold reference to that mighty chieftain. Lest my making no mention of Brant here might be taken as denying to him the possession of those sublime qualities, which have formed the theme for so much of laudatory writing, I make a passing allusion to his life, passing, because his acts and career have engaged the ability and eloquence of so many writers of repute for their due commemoration, that I cannot hope to say anything that should cause further honour or glory to attach to his name. Brant, above all others of his race, deserves an abiding place in the memories of his countrymen, and he is entitled to be held in enduring remembrance by us also. In the war waged by Britain against the United States in 1812-15, he allied himself, it is well known, with the British. He bridled license and excess among his people, and strove to add lustre to the British arms, by dissuading them from giving rein to any of those practices, nay, by putting his stern interdict on all those practices, into which Indian tribes are so prone to be betrayed, and to which they are frequently incited by merciless chiefs. He posed, indeed, during the war as the apostle of clemency, not as the upholder of the traditional cruelty of the Indian. He always displayed conspicuous bravery, and was the exponent, in his own person, of that intense and unflinching loyalty, which I verily believe to be bound up with the life of every Indian. His loyalty was untainted with the slightest suspicion of treachery, another vile characteristic from which he redeemed the Indian nature. The position of Brant and of Sir Walter Scott, so far as each has left living descendant to uphold his name, is almost analogous, and marks a rather interesting coincidence. The male line in both families is extinct. Sir Walter's blood runs now only in the daughter of his grand-daughter: two daughters alone of a grand-daughter are living, who own the blood of Brant. Brant is buried in the graveyard of the old Mohawk Church, a building instinct with memories of the departed might and prowess of the Indian. CONSIDERATIONS UPON HIS STANDING AS A MINOR. Is it a wise or a politic thing in the Government to seek to brand the Indian, in perpetuity, as a minor in the eye of the law? Repressing in him anything like self-assertion, is not, to hold him such, fatal to his self-respect? Does it not make him doubt his manhood entirely? Does it really, save in the single respect of the restraining of his drinking, conserve his true interests? Is that a judicious law, which, while decreeing the Indian's disability for making a contract with a white man, yet visits upon him no penalty when he evades and contemns such law; which, guaranteeing to him immunity for violating or dishonouring his engagement, prompts him to cast about for some new and, haply, more admired expedient, whereby he may circumvent and defraud his creditor? Is that an enviable position for one to be placed in, who, ignorant of the disability I have mentioned, and guileless enough to suppose, that an Indian, who has fair worldly substance, when he gives a promissory note, means to pay it, and who, in that belief, surrenders to him valuable property, only to find afterwards that the debt is irrecoverable by legal process, and the chattels are likewise, by moral, or any other effectual, process? It will be said that the white should not be a party to a contract with an Indian. Well, man is often trustful, and he does not always foresee the disaster that his trustfulness shall incur. He frequently credits his white fellow with an honourable instinct: why may he not, sometimes, impute it to the Indian? The law, so far as it involves the restraining of the Indian's drinking, cannot be impeached: and in the application to the white of a similar law lies the only solution of the temperance problem. REFLECTIONS AS TO THE POSSIBLE EFFECT UPON HIM OF ENFRANCHISEMENT. We cannot estimate the transforming power that his enfranchisement might exert over the Indian character. The Indian youth, who is now either a listless wanderer over the confines of his Reserve; or who finds his highest occupation in putting in, now and then, desultory work for some neighbouring farmer at harvest-time; who looks even upon elementary education as useless, and as something to be gone through, perforce, as a concession to his parents' wish, or at those parents' bid, would, if enfranchisement were assured to him, esteem it in its true light, as the first step to a higher training, which should qualify him for enjoying offices or taking up callings, from which he is now debarred, and in which, mayhap, he might achieve a degree of honour and success which should operate, in an incalculable way, as a stimulus to others of his race, to strive after and attain the like station and dignity. There can, I think, be no gainsaying of the view that the Indian, if he were enfranchised, would avail much more generally than he does now, of the excellent educational facilities which surround him. The very consciousness, which would then be at work within him, of his eligibility for filling any office of honour in the country, which enfranchisement would confer, would minister to a worthy ambition, and would spur him on to develop his powers of mind, and, viewing education as the one grand mean for subserving this end, he would so use it and honour it, as that he should not discredit his office, if, haply, he should be chosen to fill one. CONCLUDING REMARKS. The present Indian legislation, in my judgment, operates in every way to blight, to grind, and to oppress; blasts each roseate hope of an ameliorated, a less abject, estate: quenches each swelling aspiration after a higher and more tolerable destiny; withers each ennobling aim, cancels each creditable effort that would assure its eventuation; opposes each soul-stirring resolve to no longer rest under the galling, gangrenous imputation of a partial manhood. Though not authorised to speak for the Indian, I believe I express his views, when I say that he cherishes an ardent wish for enfranchisement, a right which should be conceded to him by the Legislature, though it should be urged only by the silent, though not, therefore, the less weighty and potent, appeal, of the unswerving devotion of his forefathers to England's crown. He desires, nay, fervently longs, to break free from his condition of tutelage; to bring to the general Government the aid of his counsels, feeble though such may seem, if we measure him by his present status; aid, which, erstwhile, was not despised, but was, rather, a mighty bulwark of the British crown; and pants for the occasion to assert, it may be on the honour-scroll of the nation's fame, his descent from a vaunted ancestry. ADDENDA TO SECTION ON ENFRANCHISEMENT. It will be said, perhaps, that to harbor the idea of the Indian's elevation, following, in any way, upon his closer assimilation with the white; his divestiture of the badge of political serfdom, and deliverance from even the suggestion of thraldom--all of which his enfranchisement contemplates; or that these would assure, in greater degree, his national weal, would be to indulge a wild chimera, which could but superinduce the purest visionary picture of his condition under the operation of the gift. Some might be found, as well, to discredit the notion that there would supervene, on the consigning to the limbo of inutile political systems of the disabling regime that now governs, an epoch, which would witness the shaking off, by the heavy, phlegmatic red man of the present, of his dull lethargy, with the casting behind him of former inaction and unproductiveness; and his being moved to assert a healthy, genuine, wholesome activity, to be directed to lofty or soulful purpose, or expressed in high and honourable endeavour. And it might be set down as a reasoning from the standpoint of an illusory optimism, to look for, through any change in the Indian's political condition, the incoming of an age, which should be distinguished by a hopeful and helpful accession to his character of honesty, uprightness, and self-respect, or by their conservation; or which should be the natal time for the benign rule over him of contentment, charity, and sobriety, or for the dominance of a seemly morality. That, likewise, might be deemed idle expectancy, which would foresee, as a result of the changed order of things, now being prospectively considered, a season in the Indian's experience, when should be illustrated the greater sacredness of the marriage relation, and the happy prevalence of full domestic inter-communion, harmony, and order; or should be honored a more gracious definition of the woman's province, with the license to her to embrace a kindlier lot than one decreeing for her mere slavish labour; or project a mission, to see its fruit in the softening and refining, and in the reviving of the slumbrous chivalry, of the man, or to leave, mayhap, some beauteous impress on the race. It may be maintained, indeed, that the withdrawal from the Indian of the Government's protecting arm, and the recognition of his position, as no longer that of a needy, grovelling annuitant, but as one of equal footing with the white before the law, would--far from bringing blessings in their train--promote, with other evils, a pernicious development, with calamitous reaction upon him, of the aggrandizing instinct of the white, who would lure and entrap him into every kind of disastrous negotiation--its outcome, in truth, a very maelstrom of artful intrigue and shameless rapacity, looking to the absorption of the Indian's land, and of the few worldly possessions he now has. Nay, many would foresee for the Indian, through the consummation of his enfranchisement, naught but gloom and sorest plight. These would invest their picture with the sombrest hues; and, making this assume, under their pessimist delineation, blackest Tartarean aspect, would crown it with the exhibition of the Indian, as one sunken, at the instance of the white, in extremest depths of human sorrow; as plunged, engulphed, and detained in a horrible slough of degradation and misery. Such would, in short, have an era opened up, which should mark, at once, the exaltation of the white to a revolting height of infamy, proclaiming the high carnival of unblushing trickery and chicane; and should signalize the whelming of the Indian in the noxious flood of the high-handed, unrighteous, and unprincipled practice of the white, who would project for him, and through whose unholy machinations he would be consigned to, a state of existence which should be the hideous climax of physical and moral debasement. Now I contend that the claim to ascendancy of the Indian over the white, in respect of sagacity and cunning and craft, which this condition of things presupposes, is not satisfactorily made out. And I can readily conceive of the application of that astuteness, that distinguishes the Indian in his present trading relations with the white, to the wider field for its display, which would arise from the extended intercourse and more frequent contact with the white, that would ensue upon the Indian's enfranchisement; and of this astuteness operating as his efficient shield against evil hap or worsting by the white in any coping of the kind with him. I do not deny, however, that there might be realization, in part, of such painful spectacle, as has just been imagined, were enfranchisement, _pure and simple,_ conferred upon the Indian; and I would distinctly demur to being taken as an advocate of enfranchisement for him without certain safeguards. Yet I honor a somewhat wide use of the term, and discredit the system of individual election for the right (if I may so call it)--which, I believe, obtains--with its vexatious exactions as to mental and moral fitness, and the very objectionable feature, to my mind, of laying upon the band, as a collective organization, the obligation of assigning to the individual member seeking enfranchisement so much land, thus imposing upon it, in effect, the onus of conferring the land qualification. Let its consummation be approached gradually, and with caution; and let a modified form of it, designed to meet the Indian's peculiar situation, be recognized and enforced. Let the enfranchisement be made a tentative thing; and let there be a provision for the divestiture of the Indian of the right, in case disaster to him should supervene upon its application. I have spoken elsewhere of the _fact_ of the Indian's enfranchisement prompting him, in view of the prospect of occupying various stations of dignity in the country, which, through the extension to him of the franchise, would be thrown open to him, to set a greater value upon education, as qualifying him for enjoying and filling with credit these stations. Perhaps, it would be the stricter view, and more apropos, to regard the Indian's more thorough education as that which would lead him to more readily perceive and better appreciate the full import and. significance of enfranchisement; which would bring home to his mind a clear apprehension of the duties and obligations it exacts, and enable him, as well, to exercise the rights thereto pertaining with a wiser foresight and greater intelligence. Let a higher order of mental attainment than he now displays be insured, by all means, and if possible, to the Indian; and, to this end, let the authorities concerned invite, through the inducement of something better than a mere bread-and-butter salary, the accession to the Reserve of teachers, no one of whom it shall be possible for an Indian youth of tender years to outstrip in knowledge; or shall be reduced to parrying, as best as he can, the questionings of a pupil on points bearing upon merely elementary education. I would mention a prospective result of the Indian's enfranchisement, which would suggest, forcibly, the desirability of, and the need for his anticipatory instruction in the English language. He, unlike the German or Frenchman, has never been able to maintain, indeed, has never had, a literature; and I can scarcely conceive of his _tongue_ even surviving the more general mingling with the white, which would be the certain concomitant of enfranchisement, which, indeed, with its other subverting tendencies, would seem to me to ordain its utter effacement. 
22131	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) THE STORY OF THE UPPER CANADIAN REBELLION. [Illustration: Yours truly, John Rolph] THE STORY OF THE =UPPER CANADIAN REBELLION= JOHN CHARLES DENT AUTHOR OF "THE LAST FORTY YEARS" &C. VOL. I. [Illustration] TORONTO. PUBLISHED BY C. BLACKETT ROBINSON 1865 _New York_ THE STORY OF THE UPPER CANADIAN REBELLION; LARGELY DERIVED FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES AND DOCUMENTS. BY JOHN CHARLES DENT, _Author of "The Last Forty Years," etc._ * * * * * "Well, God be thanked for these rebels."--_I Henry IV._, Act iii, sc. 3. "Truth is not always to be withheld because its expression may wound the feelings of public men, whose official acts have subjected them to public censure. If it were, history and biography would cease to be guiding stars, and, above all, would offer no wholesome restraint to the cruel, or corrupt, or incompetent exercise of authority."--_Tupper's Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock._ "We rebelled neither against Her Majesty's person nor her Government, but against Colonial _mis_-government.... We remonstrated; we were derided.... We were goaded on to madness, and were compelled to show that we had the spirit of resistance to repel injuries, or to be deemed a captive, degraded and recreant people. We took up arms, not to attack others, but to defend ourselves."--_Letter to Lord Durham from Dr. Wolfred Nelson and others, confined at Montreal, June 18th, 1838._ * * * * * =Toronto:= C. BLACKETT ROBINSON, 5 JORDAN STREET. 1885. _Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year 1885, by_ C. BLACKETT ROBINSON, _in the office of the Minister of Agriculture._ I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY ESTEEMED FRIEND, GEORGE STEWART, JUN'R. OF QUEBEC: WHOSE RESEARCHES IN A KINDRED DIRECTION WILL ENABLE HIM TO DO FULL JUSTICE TO WHATEVER IS MERITORIOUS IN IT; WHILE HIS GENEROUS APPRECIATION OF THE EFFORTS OF HIS LITERARY BRETHREN WILL RENDER HIM INDULGENT TO ITS DEFECTS. JOHN CHARLES DENT. Toronto, 1885. [Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors, including punctuation, have been corrected. All other inconsistencies have been left as they were in the original.] CONTENTS. PAGE. CHAPTER I. THE BANISHED BRITON 9 CHAPTER II. A BILL OF PARTICULARS 46 CHAPTER III. THE FAMILY COMPACT 71 CHAPTER IV. FATHERS OF REFORM 96 CHAPTER V. A "FREE AND UNFETTERED" PRESS 122 CHAPTER VI. THE CASE OF CAPTAIN MATTHEWS 144 CHAPTER VII. THE NIAGARA FALLS OUTRAGE 151 CHAPTER VIII. THE "AMOVAL" OF MR. JUSTICE WILLIS 162 CHAPTER IX. THE CASE OF FRANCIS COLLINS 195 CHAPTER X. LIGHTS--OLD AND NEW 213 CHAPTER XI. PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE 231 CHAPTER XII. DISENFRANCHISEMENT 253 CHAPTER XIII. MR. HUME'S "BANEFUL DOMINATION" LETTER 264 CHAPTER XIV. "SEE, THE CONQUERING HERO COMES!" 282 CHAPTER XV. "A TRIED REFORMER" 296 CHAPTER XVI. THE TRIUMPHS OF A TRIED REFORMER 324 CHAPTER XVII. REACTION 342 CHAPTER XVIII. THE FORGING OF THE PIKES 354 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS John Rolph Frontispiece David Gibson 284 THE STORY OF THE UPPER CANADIAN REBELLION. CHAPTER I. THE BANISHED BRITON. [Sidenote: 1819] In the afternoon of a warm and sultry day, towards the close of one of the warmest and most sultry summers which Upper Canada has ever known, an extraordinary trial took place at the court-house in the old town of Niagara. The time was more than threescore years ago, when York was a place of insignificant proportions; when Hamilton could barely be said to have an existence; and when the sites of most of the other towns of the Province whose names are now familiar to us still formed part of the hunting-grounds of the native Indian. The little town on the frontier was relatively a place of much greater importance than it is at present; though its fortunes, even at that early period, were decidedly on the wane, and such glory as it could ever boast of possessing, as the Provincial capital, had departed from it long before. To speak with absolute precision, the date was Friday, the 20th of August, 1819: so long ago that, as far as I have been able to learn, there are only two persons now living who were present on the occasion. The court-room, which was the largest in the Province, was packed to the doors, and though every window was thrown open for purposes of ventilation, the atmosphere was almost stifling. Even a stranger, had any such been present, could not have failed to perceive that the trial was one in which a keen interest was felt by the spectators, many of whom were restless and irritable, insomuch that they found it impossible to keep perfectly still, and from time to time shifted uneasily in their places. Whispers, "not loud, but deep," occasionally reverberated from the back benches to the quadrangular space in front assigned to gentlemen of the long robe, and ascended thence to the august presence upon the judgment seat. Ever and anon the stentorian voice of the crier proclaimed silence, in a tone which plainly signified that endurance had well-nigh reached its limits, and that he would really be compelled to proceed to extremities if his mandate were any longer disobeyed. The court-room was of the old conventional pattern. At the upper end was the large elevated desk, or throne, extending nearly half way across the chamber, with spacious cushioned chairs, and other suitable accommodation for the presiding judge and his associates. To right and left were the enclosed jury boxes, with seats raised considerably above the level of the floor, but not so high as those provided for the justices. Directly opposite the throne of justice, and about six yards distant therefrom, was the prisoners' dock, into which five or six persons might have been thrust, at a pinch. The intervening space enclosed by this quadrangle--throne, prisoners' dock, and jury boxes--was mainly appropriated to the use of barristers and attorneys, and their clients. A large portion of the space so appropriated was occupied by a table, around which were distributed a few chairs, every one of which was occupied; and at the end directly below the judicial throne was a small enclosure provided for the clerk of the court, set apart by a low railing, and containing a desk of diminutive size. Between the clerk's desk and the left-hand jury box was the witness stall, raised to a level with the highest seats provided for the jurors. A seat for the sheriff was placed a short distance to the right of the throne of justice, and on a slightly lower level. All these arrangements occupied perhaps one-third of the entire court-room. The rest of the space, extending from the rear of the prisoners' dock to the lower end of the chamber, was occupied by seats rising tier behind tier, with a passage down the middle. Between each of the ends of these seats and the walls of the chamber were passages of about three feet in width, leading to the doors, for purposes of "ingress, egress and regress." Such was the plan of the conventional Upper Canadian court-room in the olden time; and such, with a few inconsiderable modifications, many of them remain down to the present day. The sole occupant of the judgment seat, on this sultry afternoon, was a gentleman of somewhat diminutive size, but withal of handsome and imposing appearance. Though he had reached advanced middle life, he presented none of the signs of age, and evidently retained all his vigour unimpaired. His eyes were bright and keen, and his small but firm and clearly cut features were lighted up with the consciousness of mental power. No one, looking upon that countenance, could doubt that its owner had all his faculties under strict and thorough control, or that his faculties were considerably above those of average humanity. The face was not one for a child to fall in love with, for it was a perfect index to the character, and was firm and strong rather than amiable or kind. Evidently a man who, should the occasion for doing so arise, would deal out the utmost rigour of the law, if not with indifference, at least without a qualm. He was the Honourable William Dummer Powell, and he occupied the high office of Chief Justice of the Province. In conjunction with the Reverend Doctor Strachan, Rector of York, he had for several years practically directed the administration of affairs in Upper Canada. Francis Gore and Sir Peregrine Maitland might successively posture as figure-heads under the title of Lieutenant-Governors, but the real depositaries of power were the Rector and the Chief Justice. Ominous combination! which falsified the aphorism of a great writer--now, unhappily, lost to us--about the inevitable incompatibility of law and gospel. Both of them had seats in the Executive Council, and, under the then-existing state of things, were official but irresponsible advisers of the Crown's representative. More than one would-be innovator of those days had been made to feel the weight of their hands, without in the least knowing, or even suspecting, whence the blow proceeded. They were the head and front of the junto of oligarchs who formed the Vehmgericht known as the Family Compact, and for all practical purposes their judgment in matters relating to the dispensing of patronage and the disposal of Crown property was final and conclusive. The counsel for the prosecution was a handsome young man of twenty-eight, who for some years past had been steadily fitting himself for the important part he was destined to play--that of Mr. Powell's judicial[1] and political successor in the colony. The time was only ten years distant when he, in his turn, was to become Chief Justice of Upper Canada. The time was still less remote when he was to succeed Chief Justice Powell as Dr. Strachan's most active colleague--as the chief lay spokesman of his party, and the chief lay adviser of successive Lieutenant-Governors. His name was John Beverley Robinson, and his destiny was doubtless sufficiently clear before him on this 20th of August, 1819. He had strong claims upon his party, for he was the son of a United Empire Loyalist, and during the late war with the United States had proved that he was no degenerate scion of the stock whence he had sprung. He had been present at the surrender of Detroit, and had borne himself gallantly at the battle of Queenston Heights. Nor had his party shown any disposition to ignore his claims. On the contrary, they had pushed him forward with a rapidity which would have turned any head with a natural tendency to giddiness. He had been appointed Attorney-General of the Province before he had been called to the bar, and when he was only twenty-one years of age--a special Act of Parliament being subsequently passed to confirm the proceeding. In 1815 he had been appointed Solicitor-General, chiefly in order that he might draw the salary incidental to that office during a two years' visit to England. Soon after his return he had again been appointed Attorney-General, and had early signalized his re-accession to office by his manner of prosecuting certain criminals from the Red River country, who had been placed on trial at York. Those proceedings do not fall within the purview of this work, but it may be said with reference to the young Attorney-General's connection with them that he had proved himself an exceedingly narrow partisan and a docile pupil of Dr. Strachan. He now presented himself to take a leading part in one of the most shameless and iniquitous prosecutions that ever disgraced a court of justice. His personal appearance was decidedly prepossessing. His figure, clad in well-fitting garments of the fashionable cut of the period, was light, agile and compact, and his face, rather inclining to narrowness, was surmounted by a high and smoothly-finished brow, beneath which looked out a pair of steel-grey eyes, the usual expression of which was eager and firm, but on the whole not unkindly. His mouth was finely formed, and when he was in a pleasant humour--as indeed he not infrequently was--his smile was sweet and ingratiating. In intellectual capacity he was considerably in advance of most of his professional brethren of that day, and he had cultivated his natural abilities by constant watchfulness and study. His features, one and all, were well and sharply defined, and he was probably the handsomest man at the Provincial bar. Several other members of the legal profession, all of them more or less widely known in the forensic, judicial or political annals of the Province, were present. Conspicuous among them was the brilliant but unscrupulous Christoper Alexander Hagerman, who had already taken high rank at the bar, and was destined to be one of the most active and intolerant directors of the oligarchical policy. Archibald McLean, tall and lithe of limb, had then been more than four years at the bar, and he had already given evidence of the high abilities which were to gain for him an honoured seat upon the judicial bench. He had been retained to defend two prisoners at the Niagara assizes, and his presence in the court-room was due to this fact. Another figure at the barristers' table was Samuel Peters Jarvis, his hands yet red with the blood of young John Ridout, ruthlessly shed by him in a duel two years before, and never to be effaced from the tablets of his memory. There, too, sat Henry John Boulton, a young man of much pretension but mediocre intellect, who had been appointed acting Solicitor-General during the previous year, and who united in his own person all the bigotry and narrow selfishness of the faction to which he belonged. He, also, had been concerned in the shedding of young Ridout's blood, having acted as second to the surviving principal in that affair. With this exception his past life had been uneventful, but his future was fated to be marked by considerable variety of incident, and by actions which even the most favourable judgment cannot regard with unmixed complacency. The twelve jurymen sat in their places, in the jury-box to the left of the judge. The witnesses summoned on behalf of the Crown were the Honourable William Dickson and the Honourable William Claus, both of whom were members of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada. The former gentleman was an enterprising Scotchman who had settled in Niagara while it was yet known as Newark, where he had first kept a general store, and afterwards practised law and speculation with great pecuniary success. Like the Jarvis above mentioned, he was disfigured by a red right hand, having shot his man in a duel fought in the autumn of 1808 behind the United States fort on the opposite bank of the river. It is fair to Mr. Dickson, however, to say that he was the challenged party, and that the duel was in a measure forced upon him by the barbarous usages of society in those (happily) far-off days. The other witness, Mr. Claus, was at the head of the Indian department at Niagara, the abuses in the administration whereof were notorious. It was well understood throughout the district that Dickson and Claus between them had contrived to make a tolerably good thing out of the Indians, and that they had been concerned in some decidedly shady transactions. If it be true that Heaven helps those who help themselves, certainly both those gentlemen were entitled to look for divine assistance. They possessed and exercised a wide influence throughout the settlements in the Niagara peninsula, as well as at the Provincial capital, and were commonly regarded as being on the high road to great wealth. Two years before the date of the trial forming the subject of the present chapter, Dickson had purchased the whole of the splendid township of Dumfries, comprising 94,305 acres, at a trifle over a dollar an acre; and he had already begun to realize upon his investment. Claus and he occupied seats at the barristers' table, in close proximity to the Attorney-General. The spectators included pretty nearly every prominent resident of the town of Niagara and its immediate neighbourhood. But the most conspicuous figure in that crowded court-room yet remains to be considered. It has been mentioned that the prisoners' dock was large enough to hold five or six persons. On this occasion it held but a single, solitary prisoner. A man large and bony, who, when in his ordinary state of health, must have weighed not less than fifteen stone. Just at present he was very far from being in ordinary health, for during the preceding twelvemonth he had undergone sufficient worry and suffering to destroy the life of any man of average vitality. After having successfully defended himself through two criminal trials, he had been cast into prison, where he had languished for more than seven months. During his long confinement he had been subjected to a course of treatment which would have been highly culpable if meted out to a convicted criminal, and which was marked by a malignant cruelty hardly to be comprehended when the nature of the offence charged against him is considered. His own account of the matter is a plain and simple narration of facts, the truth whereof rests upon the clearest and most indisputable evidence. "After two months' close confinement," he writes, "in one of the cells of the jail, my health had begun to suffer, and, on complaint of this, the liberty of walking through the passages and sitting at the door was granted. This liberty prevented my getting worse the four succeeding months, although I never enjoyed a day's health, but by the power of medicine. At the end of this period I was again locked up in the cell, cut off from all conversation with my friends, but through a hole in the door, while the jailor or under-sheriff watched what was said, and for some time both my attorney and magistrates of my acquaintance were denied admission to me. The quarter sessions were held soon after this severe and unconstitutional treatment commenced, and on these occasions it was the custom and duty of the grand jury to perambulate the jail, and see that all was right with the prisoners. I prepared a memorial for their consideration, but on this occasion was not visited. I complained to a magistrate through the door, who promised to mention my case to the chairman of the sessions, but the chairman happened to be brother of one of those who had signed my commitment, and the court broke up without my obtaining the smallest relief. Exasperation of mind, now joined to the heat of the weather, which was excessive, rapidly wasted my health and impaired my faculties. I felt my memory sensibly affected, and could not connect my ideas through any length of reasoning, but by writing, which many days I was wholly unfitted for by the violence of continual headache." There is a pathos about this plain, unvarnished story that appeals to every heart. That a man, no matter what his crimes, should have his nervous system thus cruelly undermined; that his physical and mental faculties should be slowly but surely filched from him in this deliberate fashion, is an idea not to be borne with composure by anyone whose breast is susceptible to human impulses. But Robert Gourlay was no great criminal. He had engaged in no plot to blow up King, Lords and Commons. He had been guilty of no treason or felony. He had threatened no man's life, and taken no man's purse upon the highway. He was by no means the stuff of which great criminals are made. He was not even a vicious or immoral man. He was an affectionate husband, a fond and indulgent father. His story, from beginning to end, even when subjected to the fiercest light that can be thrown upon it, discloses nothing cruel or revengeful, nothing vile or outrageously wicked, nothing grovelling or base, nothing sordid or mean. On the other hand, it discloses a man of many noble and generous impulses; a man with a great heart in his bosom which could warmly sympathize with the wrongs of his fellow-creatures; a man in whom was no selfishness or greed; a man of decided principles and stainless morals; who was incapable of dishonesty or cruelty; who had a high sense of human responsibility; who feared his God and honoured his King. When we compare his virtuous and honourable, albeit turbulent and much misguided life, with that of any one of his immediate persecutors, the contrast is mournfully suggestive of Mr. Lowell's antithesis about "Truth forever on the scaffold; wrong forever on the throne." To what, then, was his long and bitter persecution to be attributed? Why had he been deprived of his liberty; thrust into a dark and unwholesome dungeon; refused the benefit of the Habeas Corpus Act; denied his enlargement upon bail or main-prize; branded as a malefactor of the most dangerous kind; badgered and tortured to the ruin of his health and his reason? Merely this: he had imbibed, in advance, the spirit of Mr. Arthur Clennam, and had "wanted to know."[2] He had displayed a persistent determination to let in the light of day upon the iniquities and rascalities of public officials. He had denounced the system of patronage and favouritism in the disposal of the Crown Lands. He had inveighed against some of the human bloodsuckers of that day, in language which certainly was not gracious or parliamentary, but which as certainly was both forcible and true. He had even ventured to speak in contumelious terms of the reverend Rector of York himself, whom he had stigmatized as "a lying little fool of a renegade Presbyterian." Nay, he had advised the sending of commissioners to England to entreat Imperial attention to colonial grievances. He had been the one man in Upper Canada possessed of sufficient courage to do and to dare: to lift the thin and flimsy veil which only half concealed the corruption whereby a score of greedy vampires were rapidly enriching themselves at the public cost. He had dared to hold up to general inspection the baneful effects of an irresponsible Executive, and of a dominating clique whose one hope lay in preserving the existing order of things undisturbed. It was for this that the Inquisition had wreaked its vengeance upon him; for this that the vials of Executive wrath had been poured upon his head; for this that his body had been subjugated and his nerves lacerated by more than seven months' close imprisonment; for this that he had been "ruined in his fortune and overwhelmed in his mind." And all these things took place in "this Canada of ours," in the year of grace eighteen hundred and nineteen--barely sixty-six years ago--while the Duke of Richmond was Governor-General, and his handsome scapegrace of a son-in-law nominally administered the government of the Upper Province. With a view to a clearer understanding of the circumstances which led to this most villainous of Canadian State prosecutions, it will be well to glance at some details of the prisoner's past life.[3] Robert Gourlay was the son of a gentleman of considerable fortune--a retired Writer to the Signet--and was born in the parish of Ceres, Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1778. He received an education suitable to his social position, and while at the University of St. Andrews was the fellow-student and personal friend of young Thomas Chalmers, who afterwards became one of the most eloquent pulpit orators of modern times.[4] Robert was the eldest son of his parents, and, being heir to the paternal estates, he grew up to manhood with the expectation of one day succeeding to wealth and station in society. He was put to no profession, and after leaving college, devoted himself to no settled pursuit. He was on visiting terms with the resident gentry of his native shire, and took some interest in local military matters. In 1806 he offered to take charge of an expedition for the invasion of Paris, being probably impelled thereto by the mad attempt of Lord Camelford several years before. He was full of energy and robust health, bountiful and generous to the poor of the parish, a practical philanthropist, possessed of great intelligence and a genuine love for his kind; but withal somewhat flighty and erratic, of impetuous temper, deficient in tact and discretion, and given to revery and theorizing. He was, in short, a bundle of contradictions, some of his idiosyncrasies being doubtless inherited from his father, who was a generous and high-minded but unpractical man. The sire would seem to have been conscious of his son's weaknesses. "Robert," he was wont to say, "will hurt himself, but do good to others." The son studied deeply the economical side of the pauper question, and his researches in this direction brought him into intimate relations with that eminent writer Mr. Arthur Young,[5] at whose suggestion he was appointed to conduct an inquiry into the condition of the poor in England. By virtue of this appointment he travelled, chiefly on foot, through the most important agricultural districts of the island, after which he was pronounced by competent authorities to be the best-informed man in the kingdom respecting the poor of Great Britain. As I have said elsewhere: "He was consulted by members of Parliament, political economists, parish overseers, and even by members of the Cabinet, as to the best means for reforming the poor laws, and was always ready to spend himself and his substance for the public good."[6] Having married and settled down on one of his father's estates, he took upon himself various offices of public usefulness and philanthropy. His enterprise and public spirit caused him to be much looked up to by the yeomanry of Fifeshire, and he soon came to be recognized as the special champion of the smaller tenantry at agricultural meetings. At one of these meetings he conceived himself to have been discourteously treated by his neighbour, the Earl of Kellie. The discourtesy does not seem to have been of a serious nature, but Mr. Gourlay became irritated to a degree altogether disproportionate to the offence. He wrote and published a pamphlet, in which Lord Kellie was handled with much severity. It was circulated by the author throughout Fifeshire, and widely read; and from this time forward he was much given to taking the public into his confidence respecting his personal grievances. His attack on Lord Kellie, however, weakened his popularity, and in 1809, partly owing to this cause, and partly to his being in temporary ill-health, he accepted a proposal from the Duke of Somerset to become the tenant of a farm belonging to his Grace, and situated in the parish of Wily, in Wiltshire. For a time all went well with him in his new abode. His farm was a model for the emulation of all the landholders in the parish, and his products gained prize after prize at successive agricultural exhibitions. But Mr. Gourlay was nothing if not critical, and certain of his surroundings afforded legitimate grounds for fault-finding. There were many and serious defects in the system of administering the poor-laws of Great Britain in those days, and the administration in the parish of Wily was attended by some specially objectionable features. These erelong became painfully apparent to the keen eyes of Mr. Gourlay, who began to agitate for a reform. He went into the matter with characteristic earnestness, and, by dint of constant speechifying and weekly letters addressed to the local newspapers, he soon began to produce an impression. His appetite for agitation grew by what it fed upon, insomuch that he became a confirmed grievance-monger and hunter-up of abuses. The magnates of the county began to look coldly upon him, and even, in some instances, to array themselves in open opposition to him. This only tended still further to arouse the native pugnacity of his disposition, and his attacks upon local abuses and those who upheld them became more and more violent. Now, in all this there can be no doubt that Mr. Gourlay was from first to last chiefly actuated by genuine philanthropy. He certainly had no selfish or pecuniary purpose to serve; and indeed it is hard to conceive of a man less influenced by mercenary motives. His life was passed in a perpetual war against veritable and undoubted evils; but unfortunately his hotheadedness and want of tact prevented him from doing justice to himself and his views. He lacked the calm intellect and patient temper necessary to the successful fighting of life's stern battle, and had the unhappy faculty of generally putting himself in the wrong, even when there could be no doubt that he had originally been in the right. Some of his letters to the newspapers were remarkable for nothing but their indiscretion, violence and bad taste, and he came to be looked upon by the landlords of Wiltshire as a visionary and dangerous man. His own landlord, the Duke of Somerset, was of this way of thinking, and after some remonstrances at second-hand which proved unavailing, his Grace resolved that this "pestilent Scotchman" must be got rid of. A bill in Chancery was filed against him on some pretext or other, with the view of putting an end to his tenancy. Years of irritating and ruinous litigation followed, the ultimate result of which was a decision in Mr. Gourlay's favour. But it was the old story of _Jarndyce_ v. _Jarndyce_. The protracted litigation had eaten up the substance of the successful litigant, and upon the promulgation of the decree the Wiltshire Radical was a ruined man. This would have been a matter of secondary importance to the heir of a wealthy Fifeshire laird, but unhappily his father had also come to the end of his resources. Injudicious speculation and the mismanagement of an agent, combined with the necessity of placing a large quantity of real estate in the market at an inauspicious time, were the causes which led to the bankruptcy of the elder Gourlay, who was stripped of his great possessions and left with a bare subsistence. The son's prospects of inheriting a fortune were thus at an end, and at thirty-seven years of age he found himself almost wholly without means, and with a family of five children and a wife in delicate health dependent upon him for support. The howl of the wolf began to be audible to him; distant, as yet, but still gradually drawing nearer. To his mind, a change of the base of his operations was clearly indicated. Five years before this time he had acquired a block of land in the Township of Dereham, in the County of Oxford, Upper Canada, where his wife also owned some property. He now began to cast his eyes anxiously towards the setting sun, with a view to the rehabilitation of his broken fortunes. After weighing the matter carefully, he resolved to cross the Atlantic and pay a visit to Canada, in order to ascertain whether it would be prudent to remove his family thither. He seems to have been very deliberate about making up his mind, as he did not set sail from Liverpool until the month of April, 1817, and did not reach Canada until early in June. The country delighted him, more especially the Upper Province; but one with so keen an eye for abuses had not far to look throughout our fair land in those days for subjects of criticism. Having made himself acquainted with some of the most glaring iniquities of the ruling faction, and with the various causes which tended to retard the progress of the colony, he began to liberate his mind by written and spoken utterances such as had not theretofore been heard in the Province. The effect of these appeals to popular sentiment was soon apparent. People who had long smarted silently under injustice did not hesitate to make known their discontent. The disturber of the public tranquillity continued to speak and write, and he made his presence felt more and more from month to month. Having resolved to engage in business as a land agent, and to set on foot a huge scheme of immigration to Canada from Great Britain, he went diligently to work to gather specific and definite information, and to attack one abuse after another. He travelled about the country hither and thither, addressed public meetings, and wrote letters to all the papers that would publish his animadversions. He was in deadly earnest, and put all the energy of his impassioned nature into his appeals. In commenting upon the delinquencies of public officials he did not mince matters, though I search in vain throughout his voluminous writings for any evidence that he was ever guilty of a misstatement, or even an exaggeration. He regaled his readers and hearers with indubitable facts--facts which, for the most part, were easily susceptible of proof, and which were eminently calculated to arouse public indignation against the harpies who reaped where they had sowed not, and who gathered where they had not strawed. These proceedings, as may readily be believed, rendered him inexpressibly obnoxious to the Executive, and to the horde of myrmidons who held office at their sufferance. But the cup of his transgressions was not yet full. His next proceeding filled it to overflowing. He addressed a series of thirty-one printed questions to prominent persons in different parts of the Province, asking for topographical and other information. The thirty-first question was so framed that, if truthfully replied to, it was certain to elicit facts which would form the groundwork of damnifying strictures on the principal abuses of the time. "What, in your opinion," asked Mr. Gourlay, "retards the improvement of your township in particular, or the Province in general?" Throughout the Home District the influence of the Compact was sufficient to prevent any replies from being returned to these queries. Elsewhere that influence was partial only, and many answers were received from other districts. The all but invariable reply to the thirty-first question attributed the slow development of the country to the Crown and Clergy Reserves. Mr. Gourlay did not attempt to conceal his intention of publishing the results of his investigations, and of circulating them all over Great Britain and Ireland. Having succeeded in arousing a good deal of popular enthusiasm, he proceeded to strike what he intended to be another damaging blow. Owing to his exertions, a convention was held at York, whereat he advocated a petition to the Imperial Parliament, praying for an investigation into the public affairs of Upper Canada. He also suggested the sending of deputies to England in support of the petition, and it is not improbable that such a course would eventually have been followed, but the petitioners were as yet not fully organized, and before any of their plans could be brought to maturity their champion's career of agitation received a sudden and, for the time, an effectual check. The oligarchs had taken alarm. If this man were permitted to go on as he had begun, there would soon be an end of the existing order of things, which they had so tremendous an interest in preserving. At any cost, and by whatever means, he must be suppressed. There must be a general and determined advance against him all along the line. The prime organizer of this most unrighteous crusade is believed to have been the Reverend Dr. John Strachan, Rector of York, member of the Executive Council, supreme director of the lay and ecclesiastical policy of the Church of England in Upper Canada, champion of the Clergy Reserves, and what not. It may seem a thankless task to write in strong depreciation of a man who, in his day and generation, was looked up to with reverence by a large and influential portion of the community, and whose memory is still warmly cherished by not a few. But truth is truth, and the simple fact of the matter is that Dr. Strachan did more to stifle freedom and retard progress in Upper Canada than any other man whose name figures in our history. His baneful influence made itself felt, directly or indirectly, in every one of the public offices. Wherever liberty of thought and expression, whether as affecting things spiritual or temporal, ventured to lift its head, there, bludgeon in hand, stood the great Protestant Pope, ready and eager to strike. It may perhaps be conceded that he acted according to his earnest convictions. So, doubtless, did Philip of Spain and Tomas de Torquemada. It is not going too far to say that Dr. Strachan was utterly incapable of seeing more than one side of any question involving the interests of himself and his church. When his cause was a just one, who so fond as he of appealing to the majesty of the law. When he wished to pervert the law to his own purposes, who so apt at enjoining a disregard therefor.[7] There is abundant reason for believing that he was the original instigator of the Gourlay prosecutions. They were at all events carried on by his satellites, and fostered by his fullest concurrence and approval. Their object was to drive Mr. Gourlay out of the country, and to this end it would appear that the Compact were prepared to go whatever lengths the necessities of the case might require. A criminal prosecution for libel was set on foot against the doomed victim of Executive malevolence, who was arrested and thrown into jail at Kingston, where he lay for some days. The trial took place on the 15th of August, 1818, when Mr. Attorney-General Robinson put forth the utmost power of his eloquence to secure a conviction. In vain. The prisoner conducted his own defence, and so clearly exposed the flimsiness of the indictment that the prosecution utterly failed. A second arrest on a similar charge resulted in another acquittal at Brockville. It was by this time manifest that no jury could be found subservient enough to become blind instruments of oppression. The alleged libel consisted of two paragraphs in a petition to the Prince Regent, drafted by Mr. Gourlay, approved of, printed and published by sixteen residents of Niagara District, six of whom were magistrates. These paragraphs contained a vivid but faithful picture of the abuses existing in the Crown Lands Department, and it would probably have been difficult to find a jury anywhere in Upper Canada, some members whereof had not had personal experience of those abuses. Having failed in two attempts to convict him of libel, Mr. Gourlay's foes hit on another and more effectual method of accomplishing his destruction. By a Provincial statute known as the Alien Act, passed in 1804, authority was given to certain officials to issue a warrant for the arrest of any person not having been an inhabitant of the Province for the preceding six months, who had not taken the oath of allegiance, and who had given reason for suspicion that he was "about to endeavour to alienate the minds of His Majesty's subjects of this Province from his person or government, or in anywise with a seditious intent to disturb the tranquillity thereof." In case the person so arrested failed to prove his innocence, he might be notified to depart this Province within a specified time, and if he failed so to depart he was liable to be imprisoned until he could be formally tried at the general jail delivery. If found guilty, upon trial, he was to be adjudged by the court to quit the Province, and if he still proved contumacious he was to be deemed guilty of felony, and to suffer death as a felon, without benefit of clergy. This statute, be it observed, was not passed at Westminster during the supremacy of the Plantagenets or the Tudors, but at York, Upper Canada, during the forty-fourth year of the reign of George the Third. More than one eminent authority has pronounced it an unconstitutional measure. There was, however, some show of justification for it at the time of its enactment, for the Province was then overrun by disloyal immigrants from Ireland and by republican immigrants from across the borders, many of whom tried to stir up discontent among the people, and were notoriously in favour of annexation to the United States.[8] It was against such persons that the Act had been levelled, and there had never been any question of attempting to apply it to anyone else. Now, however, it was pressed into requisition in order to compass the ruin of as loyal a subject as could have been found throughout the wide expanse of the British Empire; who had resided in Upper Canada for a continuous period of nearly eighteen months; who was no more an alien than the King upon the throne; and whose only real offence was that he would not stand calmly by while rapacious and dishonest placemen carried on their nefarious practices without protest. Among the various dignitaries authorized to put the law in motion, by the issue of a warrant under the Act, were the members of the Legislative and Executive Councils. William Dickson and William Claus, as has been seen, were members of the former body; and as such they had power over the liberty of anyone whose loyalty they thought fit to call in question. Dickson was a connection by marriage of Mr. Gourlay, and for some months after that gentleman's arrival in this Province had gone heart and hand with him in his schemes of reform. For Mr. Dickson then had a grievance of his own, arising out of the partial interdict of immigration from the United States which had been adopted after the War of 1812-15. He was the owner of an immense quantity of uncultivated land in the Province, including the township of Dumfries already mentioned, which he was desirous of selling to incoming settlers. The shutting out of United States immigrants tended to retard the progress of settlement and the sale of his property. His anger against the Administration had been hot and bitter, and he had even gone so far as to state publicly that he would rather live under the American than under the British Government. But he had managed to induce the Assembly to pass certain resolutions, recognizing the right of subjects of the United States to settle in Upper Canada. The restrictions being relaxed, his only cause of hostility to the Administration vanished, and he ceased to clamour against it. His sympathy with Mr. Gourlay's projects vanished into thin air. Those projects contemplated enquiry and reform. Dickson, having accomplished his own ends, desired no further reform; and as for enquiry, he had excellent reasons for burking it, as it would probably lead to the disclosure of certain reprehensible transactions on the part of himself and Claus, the Indian agent. He therefore presented a sudden change of front, and, so far from continuing to act with Mr. Gourlay, he became that unfortunate man's bitterest foe. How far Dickson's enmity was stimulated by coöperation with the leaders of the Compact party at York will probably never be known. That there was something more than a merely tacit understanding that Mr. Gourlay was to be got rid of is beyond question. But before any arrest could be effected under the Act of 1804 it was necessary that perjured testimony should be forthcoming. It was easily provided. On the 18th of December, 1818, a secret consultation took place between Dickson and one Isaac Swayze, at the former's private abode. Swayze was a resident of the Niagara District, and the representative of the Fourth Riding of Lincoln in the Legislative Assembly, but was nevertheless a man of indifferent character, and so illiterate as to be barely able to write his name. During the Revolutionary War he had been a spy and "horse-provider" to the loyalist troops. More recently he had been chiefly known as one of the most bigoted and unprincipled of the Compact's minor satellites; a hanger-on who was ever ready to undertake any disreputable work which the Executive might have for him to do. He was a smooth-tongued hypocrite, who made extravagant professions of zeal for religion when he was in the society of religious people, but afterwards laughed at their credulity for believing him. "When electioneering," said he, "I pray with the Methodists." At other times he gained votes by threatening to bring down upon the electors the vengeance of the Executive, who, he averred, were specially desirous of having his services in the Assembly. Corruption can always find apt tools to do its bidding. "Where'er down Tiber garbage floats, the greedy pike ye see; And wheresoe'er such lord is found, such client still will be." Isaac Swayze was a veritable modern counterpart of the client Marcus, and when he gained votes by holding his patrons _in terrorem_ over the heads of the electors, he was merely echoing his ancient prototype:-- "I wait on Appius Claudius, I waited on his sire; Let him who works the client wrong beware the patron's ire." His employers knew their man, and that he would not stick at a trifle to keep their favour. On the day after his secret interview with Dickson he proved his subordination to authority by committing wilful and deliberate perjury. He swore that Mr. Gourlay was an evil-minded and seditious person, who was endeavouring to raise a rebellion against the government of Upper Canada; that he, deponent, verily believed that said Gourlay had not been an inhabitant of the Province for six months, and had not taken the oath of allegiance.[9] On the strength of this sworn statement, Mr. Gourlay was arrested under the Alien Act of 1804, and carried before Dickson and Claus, both of whom were specially and personally interested in putting him to silence. The examination and hearing before them, which took place on the 21st of December, was a transparent mockery of justice. Dickson, Claus and Swayze, in common with nearly every one in Upper Canada, well knew that their victim had been resident in the Province for nearly three times the period specified in the Act. Dickson had been in constant and familiar intercourse with him for sixteen months. Claus had known him nearly as long. Swayze had conversed with him at York more than a year before, and had been acquainted with his proceedings from month to month--almost from week to week--during the entire interval. The charge of being an evil-minded and seditious person was too absurd to be seriously entertained for a moment by any one who knew Mr. Gourlay as intimately as Dickson had done for more than eight years.[10] As for his not having taken the oath of allegiance, it had never been required of him, and he was both able and willing to take it with a clear and honest conscience. But as matter of fact no one suspected his loyalty, and the charge against him was the veriest pretext that malice could invent. When he appeared before his judges, however, Messieurs Dickson and Claus professed to be dissatisfied with his defence, and alleged that his "words, actions, conduct and behaviour" had been such as to promote disaffection. They accordingly adjudged that he should leave the Province within ten days. A written order, signed by them, enjoining his departure, was delivered to him. "To have obeyed this order," writes Mr. Gourlay,[11] "would have proved ruinous to the business for which, at great expense, and with much trouble, I had qualified myself. It would have been a tacit acknowledgment of guilt, whereof I was unconscious. It would have been a surrender of the noblest British right; it would have been holding light my natural allegiance; it would have been a declaration that the Bill of Rights was a Bill of Wrongs. I resolved to endure any hardship rather than to submit voluntarily." He paid a heavy penalty for his disobedience. On the 4th of January, 1819--the third day after the expiration of the period allowed him for departure--Dickson and Claus issued an order of commitment, under which he was arrested and lodged in Niagara jail, there to remain until the next sitting of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. His pugnacity was by this time fully aroused, and he determined to fight his ground inch by inch. After some delay, he caused himself to be taken before Chief Justice Powell, at York, under a writ of _habeas corpus_, for the purpose of being either discharged from custody or admitted to bail. The argument was heard on the 8th of February, when several persons of wealth and good social position presented themselves, and offered to become responsible to any amount for his appearance whenever called upon to stand his trial. The attorney who argued the cause on behalf of the prisoner presented three affidavits, made respectively by the Honourable Robert Hamilton, Peter Hamilton, and the prisoner himself, who, in order to render his position doubly unassailable, had meanwhile taken the oath of allegiance. In the first affidavit it was deposed that Mr. Gourlay had been domiciliated at Queenston for more than nine months, and that the deponent verily believed him to be a natural-born subject of Great Britain. By the second it appeared that deponent had known Mr. Gourlay in Britain, where he was respected, esteemed, and taken to be a British subject; "and that he is so"--thus ran the affidavit--"this deponent verily believes is notoriously true in this district." The prisoner's own affidavit set forth that he was a British subject; that he had taken the oath of allegiance, and that he had been an inhabitant of Upper Canada for more than a year prior to the date of the warrant first issued against him. There could hardly have been a clearer case. But the prisoner's enlargement at this time would have been a triumph for him, and would have made him a popular idol, which would not have comported with the policy of the Unholy Inquisition at the capital. He was remanded to jail, the Chief Justice indorsing judgment on the writ to the effect that the warrant of commitment appeared to be regular, and that the Act under which it was issued made no provision for bail or main-prize. When Mr. Gourlay was first placed in durance at Niagara he was possessed of robust health, a vigorous frame, a seemingly unconquerable will, and a perfervid enthusiasm for the cause of truth and justice. But his sufferings during the ensuing six months were of a nature well calculated to sap the health of the most robust, to rack the frame of an athlete, to tame the wildest enthusiasm, and to subjugate the strongest will. When we read of what the gentle and erudite John Fisher or the eloquent and upright Sir John Eliot underwent in the Tower for conscience sake, the heart's blood within us is stirred with righteous indignation. But we are calmed by the reflection that these things took place centuries ago, and in a far-distant country. In the case of Robert Gourlay we can lay no such flattering unction to our souls. His slow crucifixion was accomplished in our own land, and at a time well remembered by many persons now living among us. Some idea of what he passed through may be derived from his own words already quoted. Further light on the subject may be obtained from noting his demeanour when placed on trial, as the reader will presently have an opportunity of doing. For some months after his incarceration his fine state of health and exuberant animal spirits kept him from utterly breaking down. His whole nature was up in arms at the wrongs he had sustained, and his pugnacity asserted itself as far as his circumstances would admit of. He obtained the opinions of eminent English lawyers as to the legal aspect of his case. The unanimous opinion of counsel was that his imprisonment was wholly unjustifiable. Sir Arthur Piggott was clear that Chief Justice Powell should have discharged the prisoner when brought before him under the writ of _habeas corpus_, and that Dickson and Claus were liable to actions for false imprisonment. This opinion was acted upon, and proceedings were instituted against the two last-named personages. But the contest was too unequal. Each of the defendants obtained an order for security for costs, which security the plaintiff, being in confinement, and subject to various disabilities, was unable to furnish. The actions accordingly lapsed, and Dickson and Claus thus escaped all civil liability for their most reprehensible deeds. The thread of the narrative may now be resumed pretty nearly where it was dropped a few pages back. It was, as has been said, the 20th of August--nearly a year subsequent to the Kingston trial[12]--when the prisoner was finally placed in the dock to undergo the semblance, without the reality, of a judicial investigation into his conduct. He was himself firmly persuaded that the jury empanelled in his case was a packed one. We have no means of knowing all the circumstances whereby he was led to this conclusion, but the idea is not in itself inherently improbable. In those days, and for long after, no man tried in Upper Canada for anything savouring of radicalism in politics could hope to receive fair play. In Gourlay's case there were one or two suspicious features which, to say the least, require explanation. The custom ordinarily adopted by the sheriff, in selecting jurymen, was to draw them in rotation from the various townships in the district. "In my case," says Mr. Gourlay, "it was said that he had varied his course; and not this only, but, instead of drawing from a square space of country, he chose a line of nearly twenty miles, along which it was well known that there were the greatest number of people prejudiced and influenced against me."[13] Mr. Gourlay further declares that it was observed by people in court that in the glass containing the folded transcripts from the jury-list some of the folded papers were distinctly set apart, so as to admit of their being drawn, apparently with fairness, in the ordinary manner. These papers so set apart from the rest, as Mr. Gourlay informs his readers, were "caught hold of" as the twelve which should decide his fate. The names of the jurors, which, so far as I am aware, have not hitherto appeared in print, are worthy of preservation. They were William Pew, John Grier, William Servos, James B. Jones, Ralfe M. Long, David Bastedo, John C. Ball, John Milton, James Lundy, William Powers, Peter M. Ball and John Holmes. The personal appearance of the prisoner had undergone a woful change during his confinement. Had his own wife seen him at that moment it is doubtful whether she would have recognized her lord. Could it be possible that that frail, tottering, wasted form, and that blanched, sunken-eyed, imbecile-looking countenance were all that were left of the once formidable Robert Gourlay? The sight was one which might have moved his bitterest enemy to tears. His clothing, a world too wide for so shrunken a tenant, hung sloppy and slovenly about him, and it was remarked by a spectator that he had aged fully ten years during the six months that had elapsed since his journey to York in the previous February. His limbs seemed too weak to support him where he stood, and as he leaned with his hands upon the rail in front of him his fingers twitched nervously, while his whole frame visibly trembled. The saddest change of all had been wrought in his once fine eyes. They were of light grey, and their ordinary expression had been more sharp and piercing than is commonly found in eyes of that colour. They had been clear and keen, and expressive of an active, vigorous brain behind them. At present they were wandering, weak and watery, altogether lacking in lustre or expression. They told their sad tale with piteous brevity. The brain was active and vigorous no longer, or, if still active, was so to no definite purpose. The spark of reason was for the time quenched within him. His oratory and his writings were no longer to be dreaded. The man whose large presence had once carried about with it unmistakable evidences of physical and mental power had been reduced to a physical and mental wreck. No man in that closely-packed court-room was now more harmless than he. The Compact had indeed set an indelible mark upon him--a mark which he was to carry to his grave, for during the forty-four years of life that remained to him he was never again the Robert Gourlay of old, and was subject to periodical seasons of mental aberration. And yet, as he stood there trembling and distraught, with that sea of faces turned upon him, he was not altogether without some glimmering of reason. He was at least passively conscious, like one in a troubled dream, of what was going on around him. He realized, in a misty, dazed sort of fashion that he was on his trial; but, cudgel his memory how he would, he could not recall the nature of his alleged offence. The fact is that, though no stimulant had passed his lips, he was in a state that can only be characterized as one of intoxication. We know, on undoubted authority, that very emotional persons are sometimes intoxicated by a plate of soup, and that invalids have become tipsy upon eating their first beefsteak after convalescence. Mr. Gourlay was endowed with an enthusiastic, exuberant nature, which required to be kept in subjection by abundant exercise. Up to the time of his imprisonment he had led an active out-of-door life, whereby the demon of nervousness within him had been kept at bay. But long-continued confinement in a close cell, deprivation of fresh air and suitable exercise, had hindered his exuberance from finding vent. His mind had been thrown back upon itself. He had not been permitted to confer with his friends, except under such restrictions as made converse intolerable. He had been kept in such a state of nervous tension that he had had no appetite, and had eaten scarcely any food. His sleep had been broken by mental discomfort, and he had sometimes lain the whole night through without a minute's unconsciousness. What wonder that his flesh had sunk away from his bones, and that his frame had lost its elasticity! For some hours every day he had lain prostrate on the bed in his cell, in a state of feebleness pitiful to behold, unable to speak or move, and hardly able to breathe. "One morning," he writes, "while gasping for breath, I besought the gaoler to let me have more air, by throwing up the window. 'You are no gentleman,' said he; 'you gave that letter[14] out of the window, and I will come presently to nail it down.' Happily a friend soon after called upon me, and through his interference the window was put up. The brutal gaoler had never before been uncivil to me ... but there is a spirit throughout animal nature, brute and human, to oppress in proportion as opportunity is safe, and the object defenceless. The wounded stag, and the close prisoner of a Provincial Government, experience similar treatment."[15] The summer heat, as before mentioned, had been excessive. No rain had fallen for weeks until just before the opening of the assizes, when there had been three days of damp, cool weather. During these three days the prisoner's strength had rallied wonderfully, and he had been able to prepare a written defence, as well as a written protest against the legality of his trial, in case of a hostile verdict. But the exertion had been too much for him in his enfeebled condition, and, as though to add to his miseries, the heat had become more intolerable than before. He had not known how utterly his nerves were shattered until his case had been called for trial, and he had been placed in the prisoners' dock. Hot and stifling as was the air of the court-room, it was balm itself when compared with the vitiated element which he had long been forced to breathe. The stimulus was too great, and he was no longer master of himself. To quote his own words, he became rampant with the fresh air, and was reduced to imbecility at the very moment when he specially needed strength, patience and recollection. Such was his condition when Mr. Attorney-General rose from his seat and proceeded to lay bare the prisoner's unspeakable enormities. It had been determined that no attempt should be made to convict him of sedition, and that the only charge to be pressed against him should be his refusal to leave the Province. The indictment, however, was read and commented upon, doubtless for the purpose of influencing the minds of the audience. It charged, with wearisome iteration and reiteration, that he, the said Robert Gourlay, being a seditious and ill-disposed person, and contriving and maliciously intending the peace and tranquillity of our lord the King within the Province of Upper Canada to disquiet and disturb, and to excite discontent and sedition among his Majesty's liege subjects of this Province--and so forth, and so forth, to the end of the tedious and tautological chapter. The patriotic and disinterested conduct of Dickson and Claus, in performing the imperative but unpleasant duty of committing their personal friend to jail, lest he should undermine the loyalty of the people, was commented upon with periphrastic eloquence. When the official inquiry was put to the prisoner: "How say you, Robert Gourlay, are you guilty or not guilty?" he instinctively replied "Not guilty." Then came the next query: "Are you ready for your trial?" Ready for his trial, indeed! when his helpless condition was apparent to everybody who could catch a glimpse of his tottering frame and his vacant, expressionless face. The unmeaning sound which issued from his lips was taken for an affirmative, and the farce of an impartial investigation proceeded with. During the whole of these proceedings the prisoner stood like one amazed and confounded; as one who gropes blindly in the dark for what he cannot find. From the various hints scattered here and there throughout his numerous writings, we are able to form some idea of what he underwent during that trying ordeal. His imagination had been rendered more lively by weakness and prostration of body, and he was so stimulated by the change of air from his cell to the court-room that his sensations were chiefly those of a vague and unreasoning delight--delight at the prospect of freedom; delight at the prospect of once more enjoying the luxury of heaven's sunlight unimpeded by the bars of a prison cell; of running rampant through the land, and feeling upon his sunken cheeks the deliciously invigorating air of the open fields. His high spirit had been effectually tamed by that rigid, excruciating torture of close confinement during the dog days, with no other companion than despair. By this time personal liberty and fresh air seemed to him the only things greatly to be desired. He was cognizant of a sensation of thankfulness that his trial had come on at last, even though it should result in his banishment. He rejoiced that he should even thus be set at liberty from his horrible situation.[16] He longed to feel the tide of human life ebbing and flowing around him, and to feel that he himself was not a mere drone in the hive. During the progress of the trial, though he was oblivious of most that was going on in the court-room, memory and fancy were keenly alert, and he rapidly lived over again many episodes of his past life. The dead and gone years rose up before him like the scenes of a rapidly-shifting panorama, even as the past is said to arise before the mental vision of those lying on beds of pain, just before the great mystery of the grave is unfolded to their view. Subjects and scenes long forgotten or seldom remembered presented themselves. There was the little Fifeshire school, with its umbrageous playground, where he had been a merry laughing lad, and where Dominie Angus had given him his first taste of ferule and Fotherup. There was the patched portrait of Cardinal Beaton, in St. Mary's College, at which he and his friend John Dean had been wont to gaze with rapt admiration in the old days left so far behind. There was that odd adventure among the Mendip Hills, during his professional peregrination through Somersetshire more than a dozen years before, and upon which he could not remember that he had bestowed a single thought since his arrival in Canada. There, too, was the drunken type-setter from Bristol, who had taught him the technical marks to be used in making corrections for the press, and whom he had neither seen nor thought of since the publication of his pamphlet in which be had portrayed the sufferings of Bet Bennam and Mary Bacon. Who shall say what other scenes, sad or mirthful, presented themselves among his "thick-coming fancies"? Possibly he recalled the high hopes of his boyhood, when he thirsted to better the condition of the poor, and was almost persuaded that he had been sent into the world expressly to guard their interests against the exactions of grasping landlords. Visions, too, may have arisen before him of his beautiful Wiltshire farm, where the modest daisies peeped above the grass, and the joyous lark sang from the meadow; where he had once been so happy in the companionship of his fond wife and little ones, who at this moment waited in longing expectation for tidings from the absent husband and father. Perchance also he called to mind, at that crisis, his little dead daughter, who had blossomed and faded among the green glades of Wily, and over whose grave the parson of the parish had refused to read the services of the Church.[17] The poor babe had died unchristened, and under such circumstances the rubric forbade the solemnization of funeral rites. From all such musings he was recalled by the voice of Chief Justice Powell, demanding if he had aught to say ere the sentence of the court should be pronounced upon him. The sentence of the court! For the best part of two hours he had been wool-gathering, and the words beat upon his brain without arousing any just appreciation of their significance. He now once more awoke to the fact that he was on his trial, but he could not grasp the potentialities of his situation, nor could he for the life of him recall the precise nature of the offence with which he had been charged. He did, however, realize that the jury had returned a verdict to the effect that he had been guilty of refusing to leave the Province, pursuant to the order served upon him. By a desperate effort he managed to rally his senses sufficiently to remember that he had been accused of being a seditious person, though whether the accusation had been made yesterday, or the day before, or half a century ago, he was wholly unaware. Turning towards the jury-box, he enquired of the nearest occupant whether he had been found guilty of sedition. Suddenly it flashed across him that he had prepared a defence, together with a written protest against the anticipated verdict. But by no mental exertion of which he was capable could he remember what he had done with the defence, nor could he call to mind the word "protest," although at that moment he had the written one in his pocket. After a moment's struggle to remember what he wished to say, he found himself hopelessly befogged, and abandoned the attempt. Then, to the amazement of all who heard him, he burst out into a loud, strident peal of unmeaning, maniacal laughter--laughter which had no spice of merriment in it, and which was a mere spontaneous effort of nature to relieve the strain upon the shattered nerves. Bench, bar, jury and spectators stared aghast. Such laughter sounded not only incongruous, but sinister, ominous. It was suggestive of the expiring wail of a lost soul. It was more eloquent than any mere words could have been, and spoke with most miraculous organ. Over more than one heart there crept a sort of premonition that a dread reckoning must sometime arrive for that day's work: that Eternal Justice would sooner or later exact a fit penalty for the cruel perversion of right which was then and there being consummated. It would be interesting to know what, at that particular moment, were the innermost sensations of William Dickson and William Claus, both of whom sat within a few feet of their victim, and both of whom had repeatedly received offices of kindness at his hands. Strange to say, the miserable man's memory was merely suspended, and he afterwards recalled with much clearness the thoughts and reflections which passed through his mind during that delirium of more than two hours. He even remembered the senseless bray of laughter which, to the sympathetic mind, is not the least impressive feature of that iniquitous trial. His overwrought nerves being temporarily relieved by the cachinnation, he regained for a few minutes some measure of composure and sanity. With the return of reason came a returning sense of injustice and oppression. He made a brief but ineffectual attempt to argue the matter with the Chief Justice, who informed him that the facts had been dealt with by the jury, and that he could be permitted to speak only on questions of law. The sentence of the Court was then pronounced. It was to the effect that the prisoner must quit the Province within twenty-four hours. He was reminded of the risk he would run in the event of his presuming to disobey, or to return to Upper Canada after his departure therefrom. He would be liable, according to the words of the Act of 1804, to suffer death as a felon, without benefit of clergy. The Chief Justice finally proceeded to read him a severe lecture upon his past course since his arrival in Canada, and furthermore to give him some excellent advice. He informed him that in this country the law is supreme; that no man can be permitted to run counter to it with impunity; that those who administer the law should be no respecters of persons; that justice is even-handed, and metes out impartially to the poor man and the rich. He advised him to turn his great abilities to practical account, whereby he would no doubt win happiness and distinction. "Perhaps," says George Eliot, "some of the most terrible irony of the human lot is to hear a deep truth uttered by lips that have no right to it." Poor Gourlay was conscious of some feeling of this sort when he heard such truths proclaimed from such lips. To his morbidly-sensitive nature, such irony seemed an aggravation of all he had endured. To think that, after such experiences as had fallen to his share, a Family Compact judge should gravely inform him that in Upper Canada the administrators of the law should be no respecters of persons! that justice is even-handed! To think that such an one should presume to advise him to become practical, with a view to wealth and happiness! It was like the adulterous woman who, on eloping with her paramour, wrote to her husband enjoining him to be virtuous if he would be happy. The incongruity struck the prisoner so forcibly that for a moment he was on the verge of another explosion of sardonic laughter. Before leaving the dock he made one last attempt to draw attention to the treatment he had sustained while in prison. By way of heightening the effect of his narration, he informed the Court that his letters had been suppressed by the sheriff:[18] that while his enemies had been allowed to fill the newspapers with lying diatribes against him, and to prejudice the public mind in view of his impending trial, his own letters to the Niagara _Spectator_ had been rigidly withheld from the light of day, and this by official interference. Chief Justice Powell put the cap-sheaf upon the pinnacle of absurdity by informing him that if he chose he might prosecute the sheriff. Prosecute the sheriff! when he had just been sentenced by the Chief Justice himself to leave the Province within twenty-four hours, and when he was liable to the last penalty of the law in case of his return to prosecute! The trial was ended, and--blissful thought!--for the ensuing twenty-four hours he was free to come and go whithersoever he would. He was taken in charge by his friends the Hamiltons, and spent the night in their house at Queenston. Next day--Saturday, the 21st of August--he obeyed the mandate of the law, and shook from his feet the parched dust of Upper Canadian soil. His mental condition was far from satisfactory, but he would brook no interference with his actions, even from his best friends. The feeling uppermost in his bosom was a delicious sense of being at large, with no one to shut the cell door upon him, or otherwise to control his actions. He felt like one recalled to life. The unhappy man was well aware that his brain was weak, but he also knew that he was not what is ordinarily understood as insane. Like Baldassarre, he carried within him that piteous stamp of sanity, the clear consciousness of shattered faculties. His feebleness was as patent to himself as to others. He knew that he was the mere wreck of what he had once been, and he knew further that his mental and bodily ruin was due to the triumph of tyranny and injustice. Still, he was, for the moment, happy. There was sunshine in his heart, and gladness in his eye. Having crossed the Niagara river, he knew that he was beyond the material grasp of those whose baneful shadow was nevertheless destined to darken the rest of his life. "I thanked God," he writes, several years afterwards, "as I set my first foot on the American shore, that I trod on a land of freedom. The flow of animal spirits carried me along for more than two miles in triumphant disgust. It carried me beyond my strength, till, staggering by the side of the road, I sunk down, almost lifeless, among the bushes, and awoke from my dream to a state of sensibility and horror past all power of description. If at my trial, and so long after it, I was callous to feeling; if I was blind to objects around me, and regardless of consequences, the scenes I had passed through were now too visible: my senses were too keen; my feelings too acute. Before, all was frozen and rigid; now, extreme relaxation resigned me to the torture of a distracted mind, feeble, doubting, and irresolute. In fact, my nervous system had undergone a most violent change; and, to this hour, the effects are permanent: to this hour, with every effort and every appliance, my natural tone of health and vigour cannot be regained."[19] One of the bitterest reflections which forced itself upon him was that he, a man of unimpeachable loyalty, had been banished--"flung out like a spoilt jelly,"[20] under a statute which had been passed to guard against the machinations of aliens and traitors. "Banishment" was to him a word replete with repulsive and disgraceful associations. He liked it no better than did the sweet rose of the Capulets. "Banished: that one word--_banished_. * * * * * There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word's death." * * * * * On the 27th of August, precisely a week after the trial above described, a high and mighty English nobleman who was for the time domiciled in Canada underwent a more terrible experience than ever fell to the lot of Robert Gourlay. He was travelling at the time through a part of the county of Carleton, and while wandering through the woods, attended by several companions, he found himself exceedingly unwell. His spirits were depressed, and he was dominated by what seemed an unaccountable dread of water. His valet had noticed that for a day or two previously he had shrunk from performing his customary ablutions, and had cleaned his hands and face by the application of a damp towel. On approaching within a few yards of a forest stream he was seized by violent spasms. By a desperate resolution he forced himself to take his seat in a canoe which had been provided, but the little craft had not proceeded many yards ere he was seized by a fresh paroxysm, and in a frenzied tone ordered the boatman to land him on the nearest bank. The order was promptly obeyed, and he had no sooner escaped from the boat than he ran frantically into the depths of the wood. He was pursued and overtaken by his companions, who found him foaming at the mouth and raving mad. They secured him until the paroxysm had spent itself, when they conveyed him to a neighbouring shanty. The sufferer, at his own request, was soon after removed to an adjoining barn, where he said he should be more comfortable than in the shanty, as it was _further from the water_. Throughout the rest of the day and ensuing night he was subject to repeated returns of the paroxysms, during which he suffered untold agonies. It was evident to himself and those about him that he was afflicted by the most terrible of all maladies to which humanity is subject--hydrophobia. He had been bitten by a tame fox a few weeks before, and the deadly rabies had ever since been rankling in his system. He realized that he must die, and the instincts of his race--he was a remote by-blow of royalty--taught him to make an ending in a manner becoming a gentleman. Towards evening he consented to be taken back to the shanty, where a bed had been prepared for him. Except while the paroxysms were upon him, he was perfectly calm and collected, and gave his last sad directions to a friend who stood by his side. About eight o'clock on the morning of the 28th the death-agony came upon him, and his excruciating tortures were at an end. Thus passed away Charles Gordon Lennox, Fourth Duke of Richmond, Earl of March and Baron Settrington in the peerage of England; Duke of Lennox, Earl of Darnley and Baron Methuen in the peerage of Scotland; Duc d'Aubigny in France, Governor-General of Canada, lord of Halnaker, Goodwood and West Hampnett. There was, as has been above hinted, a bar sinister in his escutcheon, for he was descended from King Charles the Second and the fair and frail Frenchwoman Louise Renée de Querouaille, who was commonly known among Englishmen of her day as Madam Carwell. This lady, who was probably the least bad of the unlicensed prostitutes of Charles's seraglio at Whitehall, was for her many virtues created Duchess of Portsmouth. Her descendants, like those of Nell Gwynn and the rest of that frail sisterhood, are reckoned among the great ones of the earth. The Duke whose melancholy fate has just been chronicled was the father of Lady Sarah, spouse of Sir Peregrine Maitland, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. * * * * * Was there any connection between these two tragical events: the trial of Robert Gourlay and the death of the Duke of Richmond? Mr. Gourlay evidently leaned to the belief that there was.[21] The Duke and his son-in-law had passed through Niagara during the hot weather of July, while the victim of Family Compact villainy was gradually having his health and reason tortured out of him in the jail at that place. He was of opinion that the two distinguished visitors should have exercised their prerogative by setting him at liberty. This, of course, was an altogether unreasonable belief. His Grace was not at all likely to interfere in the matter, and as for Sir Peregrine, he was completely in the hands of Mr. Gourlay's enemies. The belief, however, is worth recording, as exhibiting the extent to which Mr. Gourlay's persecution continued to prey upon his mind, even after the lapse of years, and when he was in as good health as he ever regained. It was deemed advisable that Mr. Gourlay's case should be a perpetual warning to any and every person who might thereafter dare to tread in his venturesome footsteps. Accordingly, as has been seen, he had to drink the cup of mortification to the very dregs. And, by way of deterring public writers from aiding and abetting any such pestilent innovators for the future, it was determined that a notable example should be made of the editor of the Niagara _Spectator_, who had dared to side with the oppressed against the oppressor, and had published some of Mr. Gourlay's attacks upon the abuses of the time. His name was Bartemus Ferguson, and he had on several occasions manifested his sympathy with projects of reform. The discipline inflicted upon him was swift and severe. He was seized while in bed, in the middle of the night, a hundred and fifty miles from home, conveyed to jail at Niagara, and thence to York, where he was detained in prison for some days out of the reach of friends to bail him. He was tried for sedition at the Niagara assizes a day or two before Mr. Gourlay. In order that public journalists of the present day may note in what comparatively pleasant places their lines have fallen, I transcribe the sentence of the court, which was as follows:--"Therefore it is considered by the said court here that the said Bartemus Ferguson do pay a fine to our said lord the King of fifty pounds of lawful money of Upper Canada: That he, the said Bartemus Ferguson, be imprisoned in the common jail of the District of Niagara for the space of eighteen calendar months, to be computed from the eighth day of November, in the sixtieth year of the reign of our said lord the King: that in the course of the first month of the said eighteen months he do stand in the public pillory one hour, between the hours of ten o'clock in the forenoon and two o'clock in the afternoon: and that at the expiration of the said imprisonment he do give security for his good behaviour for the term of seven years: he the said Bartemus Ferguson in the sum of five hundred pounds, and two sureties in the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds each; and further, that he, the said Bartemus Ferguson, do remain imprisoned in the said jail until the aforesaid fine be paid and security given." The composition for which the editor was thus held to so stern an account was a letter written by Mr. Gourlay, and signed by his name, published in the _Spectator_ during the editor's absence from home, and without his knowledge. It animadverted pretty sharply on the Administration of the day. In the jingling and jangling phraseology of the indictment, it was calculated to "detract, scandalize, and vilify His Grace Charles Duke of Richmond, Lennox and Aubigny, Captain-General and Governor in and over the Provinces of Lower and Upper Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and their dependencies; and to scandalize and vilify Sir Peregrine Maitland, Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Military Order of the Bath, His Majesty's Lieutenant-Governor of this Province of Upper Canada." Certain public officials, not specifically alluded to by name, were referred to as fools and sycophants. But the letter did not contain a syllable which was not literally true, and was mildness itself when compared with letters and articles which are constantly published with impunity in newspapers of all shades of political opinion in these present times. It appears that, upon the humble and unequivocal submission of the culprit, some of the most severe penalties imposed by the court were remitted, and that he was erelong allowed to resume his business;[22] but all enthusiasm for the public good had meanwhile been crushed out of him, and he became one more added to the list of subservient tools which the Executive always managed to have at their control. Such were the glories of a free press in enlightened Upper Canada sixty-six years ago. Such were the "good old times" which our grandfathers are never weary of belauding to the echo. How bright are the hues of retrospection! But for us of the present generation, let us be thankful to the Giver of all Good that such brave old times are long past, and that they can never return. Let them go; but surely it is too much to expect us to pronounce a benison upon their dead and departed dry bones. Even before the commencement of proceedings against Mr. Gourlay under the Alien Act, his conduct had furnished a pretext to those in authority for striking a heavy blow against freedom of speech and action. The holding of conventions, whereat meddlesome persons of the Gourlay stamp might air their grievances and agitate for investigations into public abuses, was a thing not to be tolerated in Upper Canada. Upon the assembling of the Legislature at York, in October, 1818, the Lieutenant-Governor, in his opening Speech, hinted at a law to prevent the holding of such meetings; and in the course of the ensuing session a Bill to effect that object was introduced into the Assembly by Mr. Jonas Jones, member for Grenville. The Bill was supported by twelve out of the thirteen members present, and was speedily passed into law; but, as will hereafter be seen, it was not destined to a long life. * * * * * After a brief delay in the State of New York, Mr. Gourlay repaired to Boston, and thence took ship for Liverpool. On a subsequent page we shall catch one more brief glimpse of him, but with that exception the present work has no further concern with his chequered existence. He will be referred to from time to time, but only incidentally, and for purposes of illustration. Those who may feel sufficient interest in him to follow his fortunes and misfortunes to the bitter end, will find some account of them in the authority quoted below.[23] FOOTNOTES: [1] Not, however, his _immediate_ judicial successor. Mr.--afterwards Sir William--Campbell became Chief Justice in 1825, and Mr. Robinson's succession did not take place until four years later. [2] "Upon my soul, you mustn't come into the place saying you want to know, you know! You have no right to come this sort of move!"--_Little Dorrit._ [3] For a much more comprehensive account of Mr. Gourlay's life than the one here given, the reader is referred to a sketch by the author of this work in _The Canadian Portrait Gallery_, Vol. III., pp. 240-256. [4] More than half a century later the venerable Doctor thus wrote to his old school-fellow: "... I received your interesting letter ... with no slight emotion of kindness and respect, having ever regarded you as one of the ablest of my fellow-students at St. Andrews; and who, if human life had not been the lottery it is, would have earned by his talents, and merited by his friendly disposition, a place of high and honourable distinction in society." [5] The following observations, written concerning Mr. Young by Mr. Gourlay many years afterwards, contain, so far as they go, a singularly accurate portraiture of the Banished Briton himself:--"He was an enthusiast, and of course honest: he was well educated, and a gentleman. In all his voluminous writings a mean sentiment is not to be found. His habit of making free with people's names, and taking liberties with their writings, arose from an uncontrollable ardour in the cause of improvement.... His inclination to accumulate crude and undigested information, sufficiently evinced in some of his tours, had their full scope: he then lost himself, and bewildered others, in the confusion of detail. I question if he ever had the power of correct abstract reasoning. His imagination was too busy for it: his eye was too ravenous, devouring all within its reach."--_General Introduction to Statistical Account of Upper Canada_; p. xcvii. [6] _Canadian Portrait Gallery_, Vol. III., p. 241. [7] _Ex. gr._:--"The law! the law!" impatiently exclaimed the Reverend Doctor, in his most strident vernacular, when the question of Barnabas Bidwell's expulsion from the Assembly was under discussion in his hearing--"Never mind the law; toorn him oot, toorn him oot." [8] "The local situation of Upper Canada exposes it to the inroad of aliens of all nations, who, having no tie of allegiance or affection to Britain, may thence be suspected of evil designs; and for that reason terrors may be held out to keep them at a distance; but for British subjects to be suspected and made liable to penalties on mere suspicion, is contrary at once to nature and the spirit of our constitution. It is more especially absurd when we consider that the law was expressly made for _their_ protection."--_General Introduction to Statistical Account of Upper Canada,_ p. lxviii. [9] Seven or eight years after this time Swayze narrowly escaped prosecution for the murder of Captain William Morgan, who is presumed to have been slain for his threatened disclosure of the Masonic Ritual. Swayze openly boasted that he had been concerned in the abduction of Morgan, and in the execution of Masonic vengeance upon him. He professed to be able to indicate the precise spot where the body was buried--which spot, he declared, was not far from the bottom of his garden. Upon investigation these vainglorious boastings proved to be utterly without any foundation in fact. [10] Dickson had originally made Gourlay's acquaintance in 1810, when he visited and spent a week with him at his farm in Wiltshire. See Gourlay's _Statistical Account of Upper Canada,_ Vol. 2, p. 494. [11] _General Introduction to Statistical Account of Upper Canada_, p. ix. [12] In these times there was but one jail delivery per annum in Upper Canada. [13] _Statistical Account_, Vol. II., p. 342. In a note to p. xv. of the _General Introduction_, Mr. Gourlay says further: "The jury in this case was notoriously packed. To guard against the effects of this as much as possible, I had, in the expectation of trial for libel, obtained lists of inimical jurymen, and had people willing to appear in court to swear that many of them had prejudged me openly, in the rancour of party dispute. These lists were handed to me through the door, before and during the assizes; but all caution and care forsook me in the time of need." [14] Referring to a letter written to attract sympathy to the case of the editor of the Niagara _Spectator_, who had been imprisoned and shamefully abused for publishing several of Mr. Gourlay's criticisms. Some account of the persecution to which this gentleman was subjected will be found on a future page. [15] _Statistical Account_, Vol. 2, pp. 393, 394. [16] _General Introduction_, p. xv. [17] _General Introduction_, pp. ccviii., ccix., and note. [18] The sheriff was Thomas Merritt, father of the gentleman who afterwards became the Hon. William Hamilton Merritt, to whose enterprise, more than to that of any other man, we owe the Welland Canal. It is right to add that most of the subordinate duties of the office of sheriff were discharged by an underling, and that Thomas Merritt may have been personally free from blame in respect of Mr. Gourlay. Assuming him to have been blamable, his son, the Hon. W. H. Merritt, in after days, did his utmost to atone for it by espousing Mr. Gourlay's cause in the Canadian Assembly, as will be seen by reference to the Parliamentary debates of 1856, 1857 and 1858. [19] _Statistical Account_, Vol. II., pp. 400, 401. [20] Ib., p. 401. [21] Mr. Gourlay was in error as to the date of the Duke's death. He represents him as "writhing in agony at the self same hour," and as dying on the same day when he, Mr. Gourlay, crossed over into the United States.--_Statistical Account_, vol. 2, p. 401. He was astray by exactly a week. By reference to the precept of the court, I find that Mr. Gourlay's trial took place on the day specified in the text--Friday, the 20th of August. He left the Province on the following day--Saturday, the 21st. The Duke's death took place on Saturday, the 28th. It may perhaps be as well for me to refer here to a story which seems to have obtained some currency, to the effect that the Duke of Richmond's death was due, not to hydrophobia, but to delirium tremens. There is not the shadow of truth in the story. The evidence as to the Duke's having been bitten at Sorel by a tame fox; as to his showing the healed wound on his thumb several weeks afterwards; as to his dread of water during the day before his death, and as to all the circumstances attending that tragical event, is as clear as evidence can very well be. Moreover, his habits were by no means such as to lead to _mania a potu_. He was a _bon vivant_, but, so far as I have been able to ascertain, he did not drink to excess, and was always master of such brains as he possessed. His end was one which his family might honestly mourn, and there was little in his life, nothing in his death, of which they had any cause to feel ashamed. [22] "Major-General" D. McLeod, in his "History of the Canadian Insurrection," p. 75, incorrectly states that Ferguson "died in jail from extremely cruel usage." [23] _Canadian Portrait Gallery_, Vol. III., pp. 240-256. CHAPTER II. A BILL OF PARTICULARS. The course of bitter persecution sustained by Mr. Gourlay was really the first remote germ of the Upper Canadian Rebellion. In making this statement I would not be understood as asserting that Gourlay was the first person to set himself up in opposition to authority in the Province, or even that he was the first victim of Executive tyranny. There had been more or less of dissatisfaction at the selfish and one-sided policy of the Administration ever since shortly after the departure of Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe in 1796. Between that date and Mr. Gourlay's arrival in the Province several personages of some local note had paid heavy penalties for daring to have opinions of their own. Mr. Wyatt, the Surveyor-General, had been dismissed from office because he had presumed to point out certain official irregularities, and because he would not betray the trust reposed in him. Joseph Willcocks had been goaded into treason by a long course of persecution. Judge Thorpe had been driven from the country quite as effectually as Mr. Gourlay, for no other reason than that he had persisted in holding up official corruption to the public gaze. But none of these manifestations of "the oppressor's wrath, the proud man's contumely," had taken so deep a hold upon the public mind as did the case of Mr. Gourlay. The injuries inflicted upon him had been so cruel, the perversion of justice so vile, that the public conscience received a shock from which it did not recover during the existing generation. For the first time in Upper Canada's history signs of an organized Opposition began to appear upon the floor of the Assembly. Thenceforward the antagonism between the two parties grew in intensity from year to year. In process of time the Opposition frequently became the controlling power in the House. At a later stage of its development it divided into two parts. One of these constituted the moderate Reform Party of the Province. The other was made up of the advanced Radical element, whence emanated the Rebellion which forms the especial subject of the present work. All of which will hereafter be narrated with greater amplitude of detail. It has been intimated that traces of dissatisfaction began to be apparent soon after Governor Simcoe's time. Upon his demission of authority the direction of affairs devolved upon the Honourable Peter Russell, as senior member of the Executive Council; and that gentleman had not been long in authority before murmurs began to be heard about the partial and defective administration of the important department of Crown Lands. There were comparatively few men in the country possessed of sufficient education and business experience to admit of their being entrusted with the charge of public affairs; and where all the offices were necessarily in the hands of a small number of persons, it was a foregone conclusion that irregularities should creep in, and that cliquishness and favouritism should prevail to a greater or less extent. When Lieutenant-Governor Hunter arrived, in 1799, he found that certain objectionable practices had become common, and that the foundation had been laid of serious public evils. Greed and favouritism had obtained a strong foothold, and scarcely any branch of the public service was efficiently managed. The sin of covetousness was not confined to subordinate officials, but included among its votaries some of the highest dignitaries of the Province. It would seem that President Russell himself had an itching palm, and that his individual interests were carefully watched over during his temporary administration of affairs. Everybody has heard how he made grants of public lands from himself to himself,[24] thereby violating one of the most cherished maxims of English jurisprudence. Lieutenant-Governor Hunter, in a letter written to a friend in England soon after his arrival at York, refers to P. R.--by whom Mr. Russell is clearly indicated--as "an avaricious one." In a subsequent part of the same epistle he adds: "So far as depended upon him [Mr. Russell] he would grant land to the de'il and all his family as good Loyalists, if they would only pay the fees." During Governor Hunter's own term of office, though there is no evidence of corruption or double-dealing on his own part, abuses continued to exist, and dishonesty too often stared honesty out of countenance. During the _régime_ of his successor, Commodore Grant, these abuses grew steadily, both in number and in bulk; and during Francis Gore's long though interrupted administration, they reached a height which called aloud for redress. And here it is desirable to enquire into the specific nature of the manifold evils which enriched a few at the expense of the many; which endowed a venal and corrupt clique with a practical monopoly of political and social power; which sowed the deadly seed of factious strife, and stemmed the tide of Upper Canadian prosperity. Theoretically speaking, the constitution granted to Upper Canada by the Act of 1791 was not unfairly represented by Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe as being "the very image and transcript of that of Great Britain."[25] We had a Legislative Council, the members whereof were appointed by the Crown for life. This body bore some resemblance to the British House of Lords. Next, we had a Legislative Assembly, the members whereof were periodically elected by the people--or rather by such of the people as possessed a sufficient property qualification to entitle them to exercise the franchise; and this property qualification was placed so low as almost to constitute universal suffrage.[26] The Assembly corresponded to the British House of Commons; and these two bodies--Council and Assembly--with the Lieutenant-Governor, constituted the Provincial Parliament. The last-named functionary of course corresponded to the Sovereign of Great Britain. He was appointed by the Crown, to whom he was solely responsible. He was in no constitutional sense responsible to either branch of the Legislature, or to both branches combined, or to any other cis-Atlantic authority whatsoever. With such substitutes for King, Lords and Commons, Upper Canada might therefore be said to possess a pretty close copy of the British constitution. But when carried into practice the resemblance failed in a matter of the very highest import. The absence of ministerial responsibility was an all-comprehending divergence. When a British ministry fails to command the confidence of the electorate, as represented by the House of Commons, resignation must follow. In other words, the Government of the day derives its power from the people, to whom it is responsible for the manner in which it discharges the trust reposed in it; and the moment it fails to command public confidence it must give way to those who possess such confidence. The test of confidence is the vote in the House of Commons. This has been a recognized principle of English Parliamentary Government for nearly two hundred years; in fact, ever since the settlement of the constitution after the Revolution of 1688. With us in Upper Canada there was none of this ministerial responsibility. We had a ministry, but not a responsible ministry. It was manifestly impossible that each member of the Legislative Council and Assembly should be consulted as to every minute detail of the administration. Such a system would be cumbrous, and altogether impracticable. The actual task of carrying on the Government was therefore, as in England, entrusted to a small body of men who, from the nature of their functions, were known as the Executive Council. The members of this body were appointed by the Crown--that is to say, by the Lieutenant-Governor--at will. It was not necessary that they should have seats in either branch of the Legislature, to neither of which were they in any sense responsible. They were not required to possess any property or other qualification. In a word, the Crown's representative was at liberty to select them without any restriction, and no one in the Province would have had any constitutional right to call him to account if he had seen fit to enrol his own valet as an Executive Councillor. As matter of fact they were commonly selected from the judiciary and other salaried officials, and from the members of the Legislative Council. Their number was indeterminate, but was seldom less than four or more than six, in addition to the Lieutenant-Governor himself. Their functions consisted of giving advice to the Lieutenant-Governor on all matters of governmental policy, whenever he might deem it expedient to consult them. With respect to mere matters of detail, such as appointments to office, he was not supposed to be under the necessity of advising with them, nor, according to an opinion long and ostentatiously proclaimed, was he in these early days under the smallest obligation to follow their advice after it had been given. This, however, was merely the prescriptive view, and it derived no sanction from the Constitutional Act itself, which incidentally refers to the Executive Council as being appointed "within such Province, for the affairs thereof." On the other hand, the Executive Councillors themselves were not legally or constitutionally responsible to the Upper Canadian people, either individually or collectively, for any line of policy they might inculcate, or for any advice they might give. There were no means whereby they could be called to account by the people, even should they corruptly and openly abuse the trust reposed in them. It is not difficult to foresee the result of so anomalous a state of things, though in this Province, owing to sparsity of population and other local causes, the result did not immediately become apparent. Simcoe was a strong-minded, as well as a conscientious man. He had a policy of his own for the government of the country, both at large and in detail, and during his _régime_ he carried out that policy as to him seemed best. He from time to time went through the form of consulting with his Executive Council, but, so far from receiving any impulse from them, he invariably carried all before him at the Council Board, and was the be-all and end-all of the Administration. He was, in short, a beneficent despot, of high and disinterested views, who accomplished much good for Upper Canada, and would doubtless have accomplished more but for his too early removal. The moment his all-pervading influence was gone, however, the mischief, as has already been seen, began to work. President Russell granted public lands to Peter Russell, and rapidly laid up a store of wealth. Where the head of the public service was thus disposed to help himself, we may be sure that subordinate officials were not slow to follow his example. Subsequent Lieutenant-Governors were for the most part military men, with little knowledge of the country's needs, and with a disposition to make their voluntary exile as easy and agreeable--and withal as profitable--as might be.[27] They naturally turned for counsel and assistance to their Executive Councillors, who thus became the dispensers of patronage and the supreme power in the State. The Crown's representative was a mere tool in their hands. Their domination was complete. "A body of holders of office thus constituted," says Lord Durham,[28] "without reference to the people or their representatives, must in fact, from the very nature of colonial government, acquire the entire direction of the affairs of the Province. A Governor, arriving in a colony in which he almost invariably has had no previous acquaintance with the state of parties or the character of individuals, is compelled to throw himself almost entirely upon those whom he finds placed in the position of his official advisers. His first acts must necessarily be performed, and his first appointments made, at their suggestion. And as these first acts and appointments give a character to his policy, he is generally brought thereby into immediate collision with the other parties in the country, and thrown into more complete dependence upon the official party and its friends." It has been the fashion with most writers on our early history to represent the Executive Council as an arbitrary creation of the early Lieutenant-Governors: as an arrangement sanctioned by the Imperial authorities, but not authorized by the Provincial constitution. Such writers cannot have read the debates which took place in the House of Commons while the Constitutional Act of 1791 was under discussion there. Nay, they cannot have read the Act itself with much care. Nothing is more certain than that the framers of that statute contemplated the creation of an Executive Council. By reference to the seventh, thirty-fourth and thirty-eighth clauses it will be seen that the Executive Council is definitely mentioned by name, and that the appointment of such a body is assumed, and treated as a matter of course. But that the Council should occupy the same relative position as in Great Britain, and that it should be amenable to public opinion as expressed by the vote of the House of Assembly, does not appear to have been clearly understood. Indeed, with the exception of a few master minds, such as Pitt, Fox, and Burke, but little interest seems to have been taken by British legislators in this important colonial experiment. Parliamentary Government, though it had been long established in England, had not then been reduced to a science. Even such clear-sighted statesmen as Pitt and Fox were blind to facts which at the present day force themselves upon the attention of every student of constitutional history. What wonder, then, that there should have been defects in the measure of 1791? What wonder that even eminent statesmen should have attempted to square the circle in politics by introducing such an incongruity as representative institutions without Executive responsibility? Power was given to the popular branch of the Legislature to pass measures for the public good. But, no matter how overwhelming might be the majorities whereby such measures were passed, there was no obligation on the other branches of the Legislature to accept or act upon them. In the words of one of our own writers: "the Legislative Councils, nominated by the Crown, held the Legislative Assemblies by the throat, kept them prostrate, and paralyzed them."[29] As for the members of the Executive Council, they were to all intents and purposes independent of public opinion, and could override a unanimous vote of the Assembly without incurring any responsibility whatever. By reference to the correspondence between successive colonial Governors and the Home Office, it appears to have been tacitly recognized by the magnates on both sides of the Atlantic that it was unnecessary for a colonial Executive to defer to a Parliamentary majority. The right of appointment to office was considered to be the exclusive prerogative of the representative of the Sovereign, and it was regarded as a badge of colonial dependence that the people should have no voice in such matters. It seems to have been assumed that certain Imperial interests were involved in this great question, and that to give way to the popular demand would be to render the colonies free from Imperial control. What those particular interests were which required to be protected by so jealous and anomalous a doctrine does not appear to be anywhere specified with precision. But nothing is more certain than that confusion and chaos must be the inevitable outcome of any attempt to reduce to practice such opposite principles as are involved in Representative Government and Executive irresponsibility. Such an attempt in England would very soon produce revolution. Such an attempt in France did actually produce revolution in 1830, when Charles the Tenth was deposed for his persistent endeavours to maintain an unpopular ministry in power. No country in the world would long continue to tolerate a Parliamentary system which was free and representative in theory, but tyrannous and despotic in practice. Upper Canada was indeed long-suffering, but a time arrived when it became evident that there was a limit to her powers of endurance. As the years rolled by, and the country steadily advanced in wealth and population, abuses grew apace.[30] The Executive became rapacious and tyrannical. Commanding, as they did, the entire administrative and official influence of the Province, they ordered all things according to their own pleasure. They could count upon the support of every member of the Legislative Council. Indeed, through their pliant tool, the Lieutenant-Governor for the time being, they controlled the membership of the latter body, and took care that no man was appointed a Legislative Councillor unless he was either one of themselves or wholly subject to their influence. The Assembly soon found that it was deliberately and systematically deprived of the privileges which of right belonged to it, and that it was little better than a nullity. It might meet and go through the form of passing such measures as it saw fit, but if the measures so passed were not acceptable to the Legislative and Executive Councils they were contumeliously vetoed when they reached the Upper House. This brought the two deliberative branches of the Legislature into direct and perpetual conflict. The Assembly, however, in early years, was always largely made up of such men as Isaac Swayze--subservient creatures of the Administration, who opposed their influence to that of the tribunes of the people, and prevented any collision between the two Houses from assuming a very serious constitutional aspect. It was not till the third decade of the century that the conflict assumed such a character as to threaten the foundations of the constitution itself; and it was not till the fourth decade that any actual attempt was made to subvert those foundations. The Province was about fifteen years old before the inhabitants of Upper Canada generally began to realize what an intolerable burden they had to bear in this irresponsible Executive. Before that time some of the better educated and more intelligent among them recognized its existence as an evil with which they or their descendants would at some future time be called upon to deal. But such persons were comparatively few in number, and as the burden did not lie with special heaviness upon their own backs, they did not feel called upon to involve themselves in what might prove a ruinous quarrel with persons who would not tamely submit to interference. As for the inhabitants generally, they were too busily occupied in clearing their lands, in hewing out homes for themselves and their families in the vast wilderness, and in reducing the soil to a state fit for cultivation, to give themselves much concern about public affairs. There was no newspaper press to stimulate them to enquiry. The only sheet published in the Province which by any license of language could be called a regular newspaper was _The Upper Canada Gazette_, which was the official mouthpiece of the Administration. _The Canada Constellation_, which was a quaint long folio, published at the old capital, Niagara, had but a brief existence, and expired during the very early years of the century. The _Upper Canada Guardian_, to be hereafter referred to, did not come into being till 1807. Editorial articles, except of the briefest and crudest sort, were a still later development. The bucolic mind had no intellectual stimulant whatever except such as was to be obtained from contact with other bucolic minds through the medium of conversation. It was no wonder, then, that for the first fifteen years after the creation of Upper Canada, the Provincial Government should have been permitted to do very much as it chose, without being subjected to any formidable criticism on the part of the community. The Legislative Council, as has been said, was composed of members nominated by the Sovereign's representative. By the sixth section of the Constitutional Act provision had been made for the creation of a hereditary nobility, with the hereditary right of being summoned to the Legislative Council. Happily this authority was not exercised; otherwise, as Gourlay has remarked, "we should have seen, perhaps, the Duke of Ontario leading in a cart of hay, my Lord Erie pitching, and Sir Peter Superior making the rick; or perhaps his Grace might now have been figuring as a pettifogging lawyer, his Lordship as a pedlar, and Sir Knight, as a poor parson, starving on five thousand acres of Clergy Reserves."[31] We were spared the spectacle of such absurdities, and life members of the Legislative Council were the nearest approach to a nobility vouchsafed to us. Some of the first appointees were men of intelligence and probity, but few of those subsequently created could with any show of truthfulness be so characterized. They were for the most part dependants of the Government, with no fitness, educational or otherwise, for the discharge of grave legislative functions, and with no motive but to do the bidding of those who had clothed them with the dignity of office. All things considered, this condition of things was to be looked for; but the inevitable result followed. The few upright members either died off in the course of time, and were succeeded by sycophantic placemen, or, finding themselves outnumbered, ceased to attend the sittings of the branch of the Legislature to which they belonged. In one way and another, those who really wished to preserve the public interests were weeded out, and nothing was left but a rump devoted to the Executive will. Instead of answering the purpose for which it was originally intended, the Legislative Council became a mere instrument in the hands of the oligarchy for stemming back the tide of public opinion. Instead of forming a seasonable and wholesome check upon extravagance and inconsiderate legislation in the Lower House, it contributed to the impoverishment of the Provincial revenue by assisting to keep the control of public affairs in the hands of selfish and unprincipled men. Instead of preserving the "happy balance of our glorious Constitution"--a phrase constantly placed in the mouths of Lieutenant-Governors, and embodied in their addresses to our Canadian simulacrum of the House of Lords--it tended to keep the balance all on one side, and that side was the one most prejudicial to the public good. It became a mere stop-gap interposed by the Government between itself and the Assembly. The Assembly passed measure after measure with careful deliberation, only to find that their time had been thrown away, for upon reaching the Upper House these measures were ignominously thrust aside. One who had himself been a member of the Assembly, and who had had personal experience of the evils whereof he wrote, has left the following description of the manner in which Bills from the Lower Chamber were treated in the Upper: "Sitting for a short time each day, the Bills of the Assembly are despatched under the table with unexampled celerity. Deputations, conveying up popular measures, no sooner have their backs turned than the process of strangulation commences. Bills that have undergone discussion for days in the other House, and that have been amended and perfected with the greatest care, no sooner arrive in their august presence than their fate is sealed."[32] He adds: "Of those who attend to their duties, two-thirds are dependent on the Government for either salaries or pensions. It is not harsh to say that they become the willing tools of the hand that feeds them, instead of looking to the interests of those from whom they indirectly derive their support. Such gratitude may be very amiable, but it is no qualification for an independent legislator."[33] These lines were written as late as the year 1837, and their author informs us that within the preceding eight years the Council had rejected no fewer than three hundred and twenty-five Bills passed by the Assembly, being an average of more than forty for each session[34]--a statement which is fully confirmed by reference to the official journals of the respective Houses. Such a method of procedure, leading to inevitable conflicts between the two Houses, caused the public business to be impeded and the public interests to be very inefficiently conserved. The whole administrative system of the Province was disorganized. The contest was very unequal, for the Government could frequently command a majority of votes in the Assembly. The minority in that House smarted under a sense of tyranny and injustice, and felt that they were of no weight in the body politic. That sense of dignity which is imparted by a consciousness of contributing to the formation of public policy and opinion was wanting. Not only were the benefits arising from a proper organization of labour altogether lost, but the antagonism between the two factors in political life was so great that they to a large extent neutralized each other. The Upper House had no weight with the people; the Lower House had no weight with the Crown. One of the greatest drawbacks to the country's prosperity was the method of granting public lands. It had been the policy of Governor Simcoe to encourage immigration from the United States, as well as from Great Britain and continental Europe. He had offered great inducements, in the shape of free grants of wild lands, to persons settling in Upper Canada, and his offer had produced the expected results in the shape of a full tide of immigrants. He had, however, exercised a rigid personal supervision over these grants, and had done his utmost to prevent the abuse of his bountiful regulations. His successors were less scrupulous, and being, as has been seen, under the control of greedy and selfish persons, they permitted the public lands to be used as means of enriching and corrupting the favourites of the Administration. The land-granting department was honeycombed by jobbery and corruption. Grants of five thousand acres were made to each member of the Executive Council, and of twelve hundred acres to each of their children. Similar grants were made to certain favoured members of the Legislative Council and their children.[35] Numerous other personages who could command sufficient influence at Court obtained grants of twelve hundred acres each. The extent of an ordinary grant was two hundred acres. From the creation of the Province down to 1804 these donations were unattended by any cost whatever to the grantees beyond trifling fees to the officials for their trouble in passing the entries through the office books. The privilege of obtaining landed estates for nothing was abused to such an extent, however, that the Home Office interfered, and in the year last named a scale of fees proportionate to the extent of the grant was introduced; but U. E. Loyalists, officers, soldiers, Executive Councillors and their children were exempt even from this trifling burden. In 1818 the performance of certain settlement duties was imposed upon all persons receiving grants, without any exemptions, and in after years several other scales of fees were introduced from time to time. The public lands were committed to the care of an official called the Surveyor-General, and it was not until 1827 that a Commissioner of Crown Lands was appointed. During the first thirty-five years of the Province's history grants of land were entirely subject to the discretion of the Governor-in-Council, not merely as to the quantity and situation of the land itself, but also as to whether the applicant should receive any grant at all.[36] Under such a system it was inevitable that the grossest partiality should prevail, and it was but seldom that any one succeeded in obtaining a grant until those in authority had satisfied themselves that he was to be relied upon to uphold any policy which they might see fit to dictate. Official dignitaries granted lands to their servants and other dependants, and, as soon as certain requisite forms had been complied with, these lands were transferred to themselves or their children. In other cases persons were actually hired by the month to draw land and perform the settlement duties, after which the land was conveyed to their employers. Having the run of the official books, these cormorants contrived in one way and another to acquire for themselves and their creatures all the best lands in the Province, either wholly for nothing or at a price which was merely nominal. "The keys of office," says a writer already quoted from, "were held by themselves or friends, and no admittance to their secrets was allowed except to the initiated, whose favourable out-of-door statements could be relied on. Never since the Norman invasion of England was there such a wholesale partition of plunder."[37] Many persons owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, entire townships.[38] Others owned thousands of acres which they had never seen. As the taxes imposed on unsettled lands were trifling, these immense tracts were no appreciable expense to their owners, who could hold them from year to year, until the progress of settlement rendered them of immense value. Such progress was inevitable, for though these huge reservations tended to keep back the country, settlers obtained grants of adjoining lands, and their labours could not fail to increase the value of all contiguous territory. The Home District, including the most valuable portion of Upper Canada, was especially afflicted by these wholesale reservations, but every part of the Province was more or leas crippled by them. The ruling faction and their favourites, not satisfied with the enormous direct and indirect grants of lands which they managed in one way and another to obtain, availed themselves of every opportunity to buy up land which had been granted to persons who had expended their little all on their properties, and had thereby become impoverished. Among these latter were many half-pay officers and others of good birth but limited means, who had sought homes for themselves in the Canadian wilderness. Not a few had been compelled to sell their commissions in order to obtain the wherewithal to settle themselves and their families on the lands granted to them. Finding themselves cut off from society, and ill-suited to face the privations of pioneer life, they became discouraged, and sold their lands for whatever meagre price they could get. The land-jobbers were ever on the alert to buy up these tracts at a few shillings an acre, not with any intention of settling upon or improving them, but solely for the purpose of holding them for an increased value. The grants to the children of U. E. Loyalists were the constant subjects of bargain and sale, and wrought great evil to the Province without producing any corresponding benefit to the recipients. Very few of the lots so granted were ever occupied by the grantees, most of whom were young persons of both sexes who resided with their parents, and had no inclination to set up for themselves in the wilderness. These grants were frequently sold at ridiculously low prices. From two to five pounds was an ordinary price for a lot of two hundred acres. Mr. John Radenhurst, who was Chief Clerk in the office of the Surveyor-General for many years, is entitled to speak on this subject with authority. In his evidence taken before Lord Durham's Commissioner, in 1838, he states that the general price paid by speculators for the two-hundred-acre lots granted to sons and daughters of U. E. Loyalists was "from a gallon of rum up to perhaps six pounds." In answer to another question, he states that while millions of acres were granted in this way, the settlement of the Province was not advanced, nor the advantage of the grantee secured in the manner that may be supposed to have been contemplated by Government. He mentions the Honourable Robert Hamilton, a member of the Legislative Council, and the two Chief Justices, Elmsley and Powell, as among the largest purchasers of these lands. Mr. Hamilton's acquisitions amounted to about a hundred thousand acres.[39] Elmsley and Powell, in addition to the five thousand acres which each of them had obtained for nothing as members of the Executive Council, managed to acquire quantities of land which, had they been brought together in one spot, would have made a township of average size. Thus was monopoly perpetuated and increased from year to year, and thus were large tracts of the Provincial territory maintained in a state of primitive wilderness. Intimations of the gigantic abuses existing in the land-granting system of Upper Canada were more than once sent across the Atlantic to the Colonial Secretary, who instructed the Lieutenant-Governor to impose certain regulations with a view to preventing the continuous repetition of injustice. The Colonial Office, however, was more than three thousand miles away, and means were easily found for evading any restrictions imposed at such a distance. Some idea of the extent which the evil had attained in the year 1818 may be derived from the two passages in that very petition to the Prince Regent for which Mr. Gourlay was indicted at Kingston and Brockville, as related in the preceding chapter. "The lands of the Crown in Upper Canada," proceeds the petition, "are of immense extent, not only stretching far and wide into the wilderness, but scattered over the Province, and intermixed with private property already cultivated. The disposal of this land is left to ministers at home, who are palpably ignorant of existing circumstances, and to a council of men resident in the Province, who, it is believed, have long converted the trust reposed in them to purposes of selfishness. The scandalous abuses in this department came some years ago to such a pitch of monstrous magnitude that the Home ministers wisely imposed restrictions upon the Land Council of Upper Canada. These, however, have by no means removed the evil; and a system of patronage and favouritism, in the disposal of the Crown Lands, still exists; altogether destructive of moral rectitude and virtuous feeling in the management of public affairs. Corruption, indeed, has reached such a height in this Province that it is thought no other part of the British Empire witnesses the like, and it is vain to look for improvement until a radical change is effected. It matters not what characters fill situations of public trust at present--all sink beneath the dignity of men--become vitiated and weak, as soon as they are placed within the vortex of destruction. Confusion on confusion has grown out of this unhappy system; and the very lands of the Crown, the giving away of which has created such mischief and iniquity, have ultimately come to little value from abuse. The poor subjects of His Majesty, driven from home by distress, to whom portions of land are granted, can now find in the grant no benefit; and Loyalists of the United Empire--the descendants of those who sacrificed their all in America in behalf of British rule--men whose names were ordered on record for their virtuous adherence to your Royal Father--the descendants of these men find now no favour in their destined rewards; nay, these rewards, when granted, have in many cases been rendered worse than nothing, for the legal rights in the enjoyment of them have been held at nought; their land has been rendered unsaleable, and, in some cases, only a source of distraction and care. Under this system of internal management, and weakened from other evil influences, Upper Canada now pines in comparative decay; discontent and poverty are experienced in a land supremely blessed with the gifts of nature; dread of arbitrary power wars, here, against the free exercise of reason and manly sentiment; laws have been set aside; legislators have come into derision; and contempt from the mother-country seems fast gathering strength to disunite the people of Canada from their friends at home." Notwithstanding these long, involved, awkwardly-constructed sentences, there is no more accurate picture to be found anywhere of the effect of the pernicious administration of affairs in the Public Lands Office at York in 1818. Twenty years later Lord Durham found it not much improved.[40] Another hydra-headed monster which ate into the very vitals of the commonwealth was the provision for the clergy, known as the Clergy Reserves. This was perhaps the greatest of all the curses imposed upon Upper Canada by the Constitutional Act, for its ill effects were both direct and incidental. It not only tended to stop the march of progress, but it created a degree of sectarian animosity and hatred little calculated to inspire respect for Christianity in the breasts of the secular portion of the community, and it disturbed the public tranquillity for nearly two generations. By the thirty-sixth section of the Act of 1791, power was given to reserve out of all future grants of land in Upper and Lower Canada, as well as in respect of all past grants, an allotment for the support of "a Protestant Clergy." It was provided that this allotment should be "equal in value to the seventh part of the lands so granted." By the thirty-seventh section, the rents, profits and emoluments arising from the lands so appropriated were to be applicable solely to the maintenance and support of a Protestant Clergy. By subsequent sections provision was made for the erection and endowment by the Lieutenant-Governor, under instructions from the Crown, of parsonages or rectories, one or more in every township or parish, according to the establishment of the Church of England, and for the presentation of incumbents, subject to the bishop's right of institution. By section forty-two it was enacted that no Provincial statute varying or repealing these provisions should receive the royal assent until thirty days after it had been laid before both Houses of Parliament in Great Britain. These famous enactments were destined to produce more discord and heartburning than all the other clauses of the Constitutional Act combined. They were destined to make the Church of England more cordially detested in this Province by persons without the pale of her communion than she has ever been in any other part of the world. They were destined to set one Legislative faction against another in such fierce array that the public business frequently had to be suspended. They were destined to divide the Provincial population into two hostile camps, each filled with envy, malice and all uncharitableness towards the other. They were destined to be the key-note of general elections, and to shape the policy of successive Administrations. They were destined to be the chief factor in bringing about a Rebellion which for a time seriously disturbed the industries of the Province; which filled the Provincial jails with suffering prisoners; which consigned a number of persons to a premature and ignominous death; which brought sorrow and ruin to many a once happy fireside; which bequeathed a legacy of hatred to the children of those who took part in it; and which seriously disturbed the international amity between Great Britain and the United States. It may be doubted whether all the ill effects of these appropriations were foreseen by their promoters in the early years of our history. It was at all events some time before those effects began to be apparent to the people generally. In making the appropriations, care was taken that the reserved lands should be intermixed with grants to actual settlers, whereby they were spread over a large area; the manifest intention being to increase their value by their proximity to cultivated farms, and at the same time to create a tenantry in the settled townships, with a view to the creation of parishes and the endowment of rectories. In several portions of the Province, however, it was impossible to follow this plan. Much of the Niagara peninsula had been granted to Butler's Rangers before the passing of the Constitutional Act. In like manner, certain townships along the north bank of the St. Lawrence, as well as several portions of the Western District, had been granted to other United Empire Loyalists. In none of these cases had any reservations been made, and the lands had already become vested in the grantees. The appropriators accordingly set apart large tracts of aggregated reservations in contiguous townships which were yet unsettled. The prejudicial results soon began to appear. Huge tracts of reserves interposed themselves between one settler and another, enhancing the difficulties of communication and transportation, and hindering or altogether preventing that coöperation of labour which is essential to the prosperity of pioneer settlements. The inhabitants, instead of being drawn together, were isolated from one another, and combination for municipal or other public purposes was rendered all but impracticable. They were kept remote from a market for the sale of their produce, cut off from the privileges of public worship and public education for their children; deprived, in a word, of the blessings of civilization. Settlement was seriously obstructed, and the industrious immigrant was to a great extent paralyzed by his surroundings. The evils arising out of these Clergy Reserves were intensified by the unfair and illegal manner in which the appropriations were made. It has been seen that by the Act of 1791 the land reserved for the clergy was to be equal to one-seventh of all grants made by the Crown. One-seventh of all grants would obviously be one-eighth of the whole. Yet, instead of acting on this self-evident proposition, it was the practice of those to whom the duty of reservation was entrusted to set apart for the clergy one-seventh of _all_ the land, which was equal to a sixth of the land granted. The surplus thus unjustly appropriated on behalf of the clergy had in 1838 footed up to a total of three hundred thousand acres. The excess was confined to about two-thirds of the surveyed townships, from which circumstance, as well as from the obvious construction of the statute, it is to be inferred that the excessive reservations were made deliberately, and not from mere oversight or inadvertence.[41] As the Province increased in population, and as land advanced in value, the grievance became more and more manifest. The growl of discontent began to be heard, and the people began to combine against the intolerable evil. This, at first, was chiefly due to the purely secular reasons above indicated. By degrees, however, the sectarian element was developed, and the growl of discontent became a roar of opposition. A dominant church was not acceptable to the Dissenters[42] who composed the bulk of the population; yet it was contended by those in authority--all of whom were Episcopalians--that the Clergy Reserves were the exclusive domain of the Church of England. It must be conceded that there was some ground for this contention, and that the question was not quite free from doubt. The Act authorizing the setting apart of the Reserves had appropriated them for the maintenance and support of "a Protestant Clergy." The word "clergy" was not commonly applied in those days to dissenting ministers of religion. It had never been used in any English statute to designate any ministers except those of the Church of Rome and the Church of England. The Church of Rome being excluded by the term "Protestant," it was contended that the provision had been for the exclusive benefit of the Church of England, more especially as the creation and endowment of parsonages and rectories--which are institutions peculiar to the Church of England--had been expressly provided for by the same Act. Such was the plea put forward on behalf of the Church of England. Dissenters took a different view. They argued that the term "Protestant Clergy" had been used in the Act in mere contradistinction to the clergy of the Church of Rome. They further urged that the limited construction sought to be put upon the term by the Anglicans was plainly negatived by the thirty-ninth section of the Act, wherein the words "incumbent or minister of the Church of England" were expressly employed. Such terms, it was said, would not have been used by the framers of the Act if they had regarded them as synonymous with "Protestant Clergy," as used in other clauses. "The manifest intention of the Act," said the Dissenters, "was to provide for a _Protestant_--as distinguished from a _Roman Catholic_--clergy. The provision for the establishment of parsonages and rectories is a mere matter of detail, which cannot be allowed to override the larger intention so plainly evidenced by other sections." The Presbyterian body took higher ground than their non-Anglican brethren. The Church of Scotland had been expressly recognized as a Protestant Church by the Act of Union of England and Scotland in 1707. It was therefore contended that the ministers of that church were entitled to be considered as "Protestant Clergy;" and this contention was sustained by the English law officers of the Crown in 1819. The opinion expressed by those learned officials was acted upon, and the Presbyterians of Upper Canada put forward claims to a share of the Reserves. Their claims were allowed; whereupon other Protestant denominations followed their example, and demanded, as "Protestant Clergy," to participate in the provision made for them. The private and public quarrels which ensued between leaders of the different sects kept the country in a state of chronic disturbance; while the greed displayed by professed ministers of religion furnished a striking practical commentary upon the doctrines taught by the Founder of all Christian faiths. Opinions were obtained from eminent lawyers as to the respective rights of the various sects, and as to the true meaning of the Constitutional Act. The most opposite conclusions were arrived at by different lawyers, and it became manifest that no apportionment satisfactory to all the claimants could be made by any tribunal. The Church of England meanwhile contrived to secure the great bulk of the spoils. According to a return to the House of Assembly of lands set apart as glebes in Upper Canada during the forty-six years from 1787 to 1833, it appears that 22,345 acres were so set apart for the Clergy of the Church of England, 1160 acres for Ministers of the Kirk of Scotland, 400 for Roman Catholics, and "none for any other denomination of Christians."[43] But there was a broader and stronger argument than any of these purely technical contentions: an argument founded on experience and practical utility. No matter what had been the intent of the original framers of the Constitutional Act, the fact had become patent to all Dissenters, and even to many liberal-minded lay members of the Anglican Church, that the Clergy Reserves were a curse to the Province--a mill-stone about her neck, which dragged her down in spite of all exertions to raise her to the surface. Not long after this fact had become generally recognized, an agitation arose in favour of the total abolition of State aid to religious bodies. The plan advocated by Reformers was the sale of the Reserves, and the application of the proceeds to public education and municipal improvements. The agitation was kept up until long after the period covered by this work, and the object sought to be attained by it was not fully accomplished until the year 1854. Meanwhile, however, it was the most important question before the country, and it occupied the attention of the Legislature during a large part of almost every session. Here was where the conflict between the two Houses was felt with most pernicious effect. The advocates of abolition and secularization clearly had the country with them, and the Assembly passed Bill after Bill to effect those objects. Their efforts were utterly nullified by the Upper House, which would not listen to any such proposals, and which threw out as many Bills relating to this important subject as the Assembly thought proper to send up for its consideration. Such were the merits of the long and fiercely-contested question of the Clergy Reserves. Another serious obstacle to Upper Canadian prosperity was the continual interference of the Colonial Office in our domestic concerns. Bills passed by the Provincial Legislature for the regulation of our own internal affairs were disallowed with vexatious frequency, and sometimes, apparently, from mere caprice. Sometimes the irresponsible Executive, unwilling that their obedient servants in the Upper House should incur popular odium by opposing the will of the Assembly, permitted Bills to pass both Houses, and then, through their tool the Lieutenant-Governor, had these identical measures disallowed. Advice, the compliance with which could not fail to be prejudicial to the interests of the colony, was also sent across the Atlantic through the Lieutenant-Governor, to whom it came back by return post in the shape of Imperial instructions to be acted upon. The Colonial Minister, whoever he might for the time happen to be, knew little and cared little about the British North American colonies, and did not generally concern himself with despatches to colonial Governors any further than to sign his name to them. He was thus the unconscious means of furthering Executive tyranny, and to some extent of alienating the loyalty of the colonists. Among other drawbacks, sufficiently serious in themselves and in their ulterior consequences, but of minor importance when compared with the all-permeating grievances already referred to, may be mentioned the quartering of military men upon the colony in the capacity of Lieutenant-Governors; the unequal representation of the people in the Assembly; the exorbitant salaries of certain public officials; the union of judicial and legislative functions in the same persons; the appointment of judges, sheriffs, magistrates, and other officials during the pleasure of the Executive, and not during good behaviour. The evils attendant upon placing the local administration of the colonies in the hands of military officers, who were inexperienced in constitutional government, and unfitted by training for such duties as were demanded of them, have already been glanced at.[44] Such persons naturally enough found themselves altogether out of their proper element upon their arrival in the colony, and looked to the Executive Councillors for advice and instruction. That they should follow the instruction received, and that they should surrender themselves to the judgment of those enemies of the public weal, followed almost as a matter of course. In this way the strength of the oligarchy was consolidated and enlarged, and its members rendered more and more independent of public opinion. All that can be urged on behalf of the Home Ministry, by way of excuse for committing the direction of our affairs to such persons, is that the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was not a sufficient inducement to make it sought after by really capable men. The office, in at least one instance to be hereafter recorded, went a-begging. Unequal representation was a fruitful source of discontent, though Upper Canada was no worse off in that respect than the mother-country prior to the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. For years before the Rebellion, the little district towns of Niagara, Brockville and Cornwall each enjoyed the privilege of sending a representative to the Assembly. All three of them were notoriously rotten boroughs--as rotten as Gatton, Grampound or Old Sarum--and always returned Tory members prepared to do the bidding of the Executive. By such means was the Assembly corrupted, and the elective franchise turned into an instrument of oppression. Some of the salaries of public officials were altogether out of proportion to the state of the revenue, and to the nature and extent of the duties performed. Certain highly-paid offices were the merest sinecures, and had been created for no other purpose than to provide for serviceable tools of the Administration. The practice of permitting judges to sit and vote in the Legislature needs no comment. Whatever justification there might have been for such a union of functions in the first infancy of the Province, when educated men were few in the land, there was certainly none in the days when Chief Justice Robinson was Speaker of the Legislative Council. The effect of making the tenure of office of judges and other dignitaries dependent on the will of the Executive was such as has attended upon such a system in all countries where it has been in vogue. The officials were selected almost entirely from one political party, and had always an eye upon the nod of their taskmasters, who had the power to make or unmake them. Whenever it was desirable, in the supposed interests of the Executive, that the authority of the courts should be strained to the perversion of judgment, the dispensing of even-handed justice was altogether a secondary consideration. Mr. Gourlay's case, to say nothing of that of Bartemus Ferguson, affords a sufficient illustration of the extent to which the traditions of the Star Chamber were revived in Upper Canadian practice, when it was thought desirable to crush a champion of popular liberty and equal rights. Such were a few of the burdens which the people of Upper Canada were compelled to bear in the by-gone epoch when tyranny reigned supreme throughout the Province: when "the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes," were the all too frequent portion of such of the inhabitants as dared to call in question the righteousness of existing ordinances. There was a further intolerable grievance which was closely bound up with, and which, so to speak, grew out of or sustained all the rest: which comprehended within itself all the evils affecting the body politic, and which left traces of its existence that have survived down to the present time. This was the Family Compact--a phrase which is in everybody's mouth, but the significance whereof, I venture to think, is in general but imperfectly understood. The subject deserves a chapter to itself. FOOTNOTES: [24] Being somewhat doubtful as to the truth of this oft-repeated story, I have taken the trouble to consult the records in the Crown Lands Office, where I find that Mr. Russell on several occasions made grants of land to himself. Among other such grants I may mention lot number twenty-two, in the third concession of the township of York, which was made on the 16th of July, 1797. See Liber A., folio 382, Provincial Registry Office. He also granted various tracts of land to his sister, Miss Elizabeth Russell, the first of which bears date the 15th of December, 1796. See Liber B., folio 334. So that the President appears to have begun to "do good unto himself" and his family before he had been three months in office as Administrator of the Government. Further investigation would doubtless prove that he kept up the practice until the arrival of Governor Hunter. [25] See his speech at the close of the first session of the First Parliament of Upper Canada, on the 15th of October, 1792. [26] The property qualification for a voter was, in counties, the possession of lands or tenements of the yearly value of forty shillings sterling or upwards, over and above all rents and charges; and in towns or townships, the possession of a dwelling house and lot of the yearly value of five pounds sterling or upwards, or the having been a resident for twelve months, and the having paid a year's rent at the rate of ten pounds sterling or upwards. See the twentieth section of the Constitutional Act. [27] The latter part of this clause has no application to Brock, who was made of manlier stuff. Brock, however, was not Lieutenant-Governor, but merely Provisional Administrator of the Province. [28] _Report on the Affairs of British North America_, English folio edition, p. 29. [29] _The Constitutional History of Canada_, by Samuel James Watson, Vol. I., p. 128. [30] The abuses specified in the present chapter were not confined to Upper Canada. They existed, with certain local variations, throughout all the British North American colonies, and produced similar results in each; viz., ever-recurring conflicts between the Executive and the popular branch of the Legislature, followed by more or less alienation of loyalty to the mother country on the part of the more radical element in the community. In the Maritime Provinces the alienation was not sufficiently widespread to manifest itself in actual rebellion, though the conflict between the oligarchy and the popular tribunes sometimes produced a very disturbed state of feeling. In Lower Canada, where the element of race-hatred was added to all other sources of disturbance, the conflict attained an intensity far beyond what was reached in any of the other colonies, and left traces behind it which are not even yet wholly obliterated. [31] _Statistical Account_, Vol. II., p. 296. [32] _Canadiana_, by W. B. Wells, p. 103. [33] Ib. [34] Ib., p. 104. [35] These grants of five thousand acres to members of the Executive Council were in direct violation of the instructions framed by the Home Government for the regulation of land-granting in Upper Canada. They continued to be made down to 1807, when they were stopped by a peremptory order to that effect from the Colonial Secretary. There is one instance on record of a reserve being applied for and made on behalf of the child of a member of the Legislative Council, though the child was not three days old. See the evidence of John Radenhurst, Chief Clerk in the office of the Surveyor-General, in Appendix B. to Lord Durham's _Report on the Affairs of British North America_. [36] Most of these facts with reference to the granting of public lands may be obtained from the archives of the Crown Lands Office in Toronto, and from the newspapers and official reports of the period. They may also be found, together with a vast accumulation of other important facts bearing on the same subject, in Charles Buller's Report on Public Lands and Emigration, forming Appendix B. to Lord Durham's _Report on the Affairs of British North America_. [37] _Canadiana_, p. 130. [38] In 1796 or thereabouts the Executive offered to grant entire townships to persons who would undertake to settle them with a certain number of colonists within a specified time. The number of colonists required was made proportionate to the extent of territory to be settled. This offer was taken advantage of by ten different individuals. The grants were not actually made, but the respective townships were allocated in the official books to the various persons concerned. Upon the faith of the pledge of the Executive, several of the ten assignees proceeded to carry out the conditions imposed. Among them was Mr. William Berczy, who, having obtained an assignment of the township of Markham, went to great expense in bringing over a number of German families, whom he settled according to the conditions of the contemplated grant. After he had spent a sum of money variously stated at from twenty to thirty thousand pounds sterling, the Executive coolly announced that they had determined to abandon the township system, and that they did not even intend to carry out the grants to those who had complied with the conditions. The compensation offered for this unparalleled breach of faith was a grant of twelve hundred acres to each assignee. Nine of the individuals concerned assented to those terms, but Mr. Berczy refused to accept any such inadequate recompense, and he remained for the rest of his life a ruined man. He shook the dust of Upper Canada from his feet, and took up his abode in Montreal, whence he subsequently repaired to New York, where he died in the year 1813. [39] See Appendix B. to Lord Durham's _Report_, folio edition, p. 99. Mr. Charles Rankin, Deputy-Surveyor in the Western District, in his evidence before the Commission (_ib._ pp. 120, 121), says:--"The system of making large grants to individuals who had no intention of settling them has tended to retard the prosperity of the colony by separating the actual settlers, and rendering it so much more difficult, and in some cases impossible, for them to make the necessary roads. It has also made the markets more distant and more precarious. To such an extent have these difficulties been experienced as to occasion the abandonment of settlements which had been formed. I may mention, as an instance of this, the township of Rama, where after a trial of three years, the settlers were compelled to abandon their improvements. It should be noticed that the settlers in this instance were not of a class fitted to encounter the privations of the wilderness, being half-pay officers. In the township of St. Vincent almost all the most valuable settlers have left their farms from the same cause, the townships of Nottawasaga and Collingwood, the whole of the land in which had been granted, and which are almost entirely unsettled (Collingwood, I believe, has only one settler), intervening between them and the settled township, and rendering communication impossible. There have been numerous instances in which, though the settlement has not been altogether abandoned, the most valuable settlers, after unavailing struggles of several years with the difficulties which I have described, have left their farms." This witness further states his belief that nine-tenths of the lands in the Western District were still--in 1838--in a state of wilderness. [40] See his _Report, passim_; also see the portion of Appendix B. relating to Upper Canada. [41] See the Special Report of Mr. R. Davies Hanson, Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands and Emigration, forming the commencement of Appendix A. to Lord Durham's _Report on the Affairs of British North America_. [42] I use this word for want of a better, though it is not strictly accurate as applied to Upper Canada, where there were no clearly prescribed standards of religious faith from which non-supporters of Episcopacy could be said to dissent. The word "Nonconformist" is objectionable for a similar reason. [43] See _Seventh Grievance Committee's Report_, p. 164. [44] _Ante_, p. 51. CHAPTER III. THE FAMILY COMPACT. What was the nature and origin of this powerful organization--this informally-constituted league, the name whereof has been familiar to the ears of Upper Canadians during the whole, or nearly the whole, of the present century; which is referred to in nearly all books dealing with the political and social life of this Province before the Union of 1841; which for forty years regulated the public policy of the colony, and ruled with an iron hand over the liberties of the inhabitants? Immediately after the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, whereby Canada was ceded by France to Great Britain, it became necessary for the British Government to appoint a considerable number of officials to fill the public offices in the country so ceded. It did not suit the policy of the conquerors to leave much power in the hands of the conquered. The introduction of the English language and laws was moreover a practical disqualification for most of the native inhabitants of the colony, and the new officials were nearly all sent over from England. Some of the principal personages among them were men of probity and brains. Others, though possessed of a full share of brains, had but a younger brother's portion of the other commodity. The underlings, generally speaking, had but a slender allowance of either. They were for the most part appointed on the recommendation of various supporters of the Government of the day, who were thus able to provide for a number of their needy relatives and dependants--a matter of vastly greater importance in their eyes than the proper administration of the affairs of a distant and newly-acquired colony. The Conquest thus proved a boon to many servile hangers-on of public men in Great Britain, and scores of the waifs and strays of British aristocracy began to turn their eyes towards Canada as a possible resource in the last emergency. It was said to be a cold and comfortless land, but it was surely preferable to the Fleet Prison or the Marshalsea, with the alternative of starvation or enlistment in the army. Many of these pimps and panders to the whims or the passions of those in high station found their way to Quebec and Montreal, and were provided for at the public expense by being installed in places of greater or less emolument.[45] When Upper Canada was set apart as a separate Province, in 1791, the field of operations was considerably extended. Indeed, the Upper Province soon came to be regarded with special favour by intending aspirants to office, as it was in all respects an English colony; whereas Lower Canada, in spite of all attempts to Anglicize it, remained much more French than English. Lower Canada, indeed, remained in some respects more French than any other part of the world, not even excepting France itself, for in that country the Great Revolution had swept away many effete institutions which were still retained in all their decrepitude among the Frenchmen of the New World. Now, the French Canadians, though most of the avenues to power and office were closed to them, composed a vast majority of the population. They did not take kindly to the British colonists, and declined to fraternize with them. The latter could bear this isolation, as they were comforted by the spoils of office, but their lives were rendered much less agreeable than they would have been in a colony where no such disturbing elements were known. Upper Canada was precisely such a colony. No part of Britain was more British in sentiment. In no part of the world would an expatriated Englishman find himself more entirely in harmony with his environment, from a purely patriotic point of view. What wonder, then, that Upper Canada was regarded by place-hunting emigrants from England with wistful eyes? What wonder that an appointment to a public office in Upper Canada should have been regarded by such persons as a thing greatly to be coveted? Such aspirants were regarded with but little favour by Governor Simcoe. His great object was to launch the Province successfully on its career, and to lay the foundations of good government. He brought with him his own staff, selected by himself with a single eye to their fitness for the positions which they were respectively intended to fill. During his day there was little or no favouritism in public appointments, and but little, if anything, to find fault with in the conduct of the administration. His demission of office was almost immediately followed by a relaxation of discipline, and by a looseness in the management of the public business. As the years passed by, the Province became the resort of numerous office-seekers from beyond sea--half-pay officers and scions of good English, Scotch and Irish families, who sought to better their fortunes by expatriation. As they were, generally speaking, men of some education, and of manners more polished than were ordinarily found among the colonists, they naturally assimilated, and were drawn towards each other. They likewise coalesced, to some extent, with a few United Empire Loyalist families of exclusive pretensions, in whose veins the blood was supposed to possess an exceptionally cerulean tint. Several persons who had rapidly gained wealth by trade and speculation, and who had thereby acquired influence in the community, were also admitted. In an inconceivably short space of time this union of several influential cliques was followed by important results. They acquired a strength and influence which, in the then primitive state of the colony, carried all before them. They wormed themselves into all the more important offices, directed the Councils of the Sovereign's representative, and, in a word, became the power behind the Throne. In the early years of their domination they organized their forces with much tact and judgment, and did not develop their plans until they had been carefully matured. They may be said to have practically absorbed the Executive and Legislative Councils, as those bodies were entirely made up of persons either selected from among them or entirely subservient to their influence. No man, whatever his abilities, could hope to succeed in any profession or calling in Upper Canada if he dared to declare himself in opposition to them. A few made the attempt, and failed most signally. Such was the Family Compact. "For a long time," says Lord Durham,[46] writing in 1838, "this body of men, receiving at times accessions to its members, possessed almost all the highest public offices, by means of which, and of its influence in the Executive Council, it wielded all the powers of Government; it maintained influence in the Legislature by means of its predominance in the Legislative Council; and it disposed of the large number of petty posts which are in the patronage of the Government all over the Province. Successive Governors, as they came in their turn, are said to have either submitted quietly to its influence, or, after a short and unavailing struggle, to have yielded to this well-organized party the conduct of affairs. The bench, the magistracy, the high offices of the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal profession, are filled by the adherents of this party: by grant or purchase they have acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the Province; they are all-powerful in the chartered banks, and, till lately, shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust and profit." The influences which produced the Family Compact were not confined to Upper Canada. In the Lower Province, as well as in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, similar causes led to similar results, and the term "Family Compact" has at one time or another been a familiar one in all the British North American colonies. But in none of them did the organization attain to such a plenitude of power as in this Province, and in none of them did it wield the sceptre of authority with so thorough an indifference to the principles of right and wrong. Its name is a rather indefinite, but not inapt characterization. Lord Durham refers to the term "Family Compact," as being not much more appropriate than party designations usually are; "inasmuch as," he writes, "there is, in truth, very little of family connexion among the persons thus united.[47]" "Much" is a saving clause, but if his Lordship had thought it worth his while to enquire minutely into the relations subsisting between the members of this body, he would have found that there had been a good many intermarriages between them, and that the pecuniary interests which bound them together had been welded by the most powerful of social bonds.[48] The designation "Family Compact," however, did not owe its origin to any combination of North American colonists, but was borrowed from the diplomatic history of Europe. By the treaty signed at Paris on the 15th of August, 1761, by representatives on behalf of France and Spain, the contracting parties agreed to guarantee each other's territories, to provide mutual succours by sea and land, and to consider the enemy of either as the enemy of both. This treaty, being contracted between the two branches of the House of Bourbon, is known to history as the Family Compact Treaty, and the name was adopted in the Canadas, as well as in the Maritime Provinces, to designate the combination which enjoyed a monopoly of power and place in the community, and among the members whereof there seemed to be a perfect, if unexpressed, understanding, that they were to make common cause against any and all persons who might attempt to diminish or destroy their influence. The members of the Family Compact, with very few exceptions, were members of the Church of England, which, owing to the before-mentioned provisions in the Constitutional Act, they regarded as the State Church of Upper Canada, established by law, and entitled to the special veneration of the inhabitants. They accounted all persons as members of the Church of England who were not actual members of some other religious body, and in enumerating the people for statistical purposes they sometimes even went so far as to include the infant children of Dissenters as Episcopalians. They sought to defend the alleged establishment of a State Church in Canada by arguments which it is astonishing to think that men of education and intelligence should ever have stooped to employ. "There should be in every Christian country an established religion," said Dr. Strachan, in his evidence before the Select Committee on Grievances, in 1835, "otherwise it is not a Christian but an infidel country."[49] According to their theory, one of the principal ends of the Government of Upper Canada was the propagation of religious truth as set forth in the doctrines of the Church of England. True, the arguments on the subject were not so well understood then as now. Mr. Gladstone's little volume on "The State in its Relations with the Church," and Macaulay's answer thereto in the _Edinburgh Review_, had not then been published. But some of the most conclusive arguments adduced by Macaulay were as old as the world itself; and even Mr. Gladstone, in all his youthful exuberance, did not venture to take so preposterous a stand as was assumed by the upholders of a State Church in this Province. Their bigotry and intolerance were utterly out of keeping with the times in which they lived, and were better suited to the days of Archbishop Laud or Sir Robert Filmer. Of that heaven-born charity which suffereth long, and is kind; which vaunteth not itself, and is not puffed up; which seeketh not her own, and is not easily provoked; which thinketh no evil; which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; which beareth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things--of the spirit which impels to such a state of mind as this, we find few traces in the lives and writings of the upholders of State-Churchism in Upper Canada in those days. We find, on the contrary, much unkindness, much vaunting of themselves, much selfish conceit, much seeking, not only of their own, but of that which of right belonged to their neighbours. The champions of ecclesiastical monopoly were easily provoked to anger, and to thinking and speaking all manner of evil of those who differed from them as to the distribution of the Clergy Reserves. Roman Catholicism they contemplated with a certain amount of toleration, as the Roman Catholic hierarchy yielded the Government an unwavering support in return for the freedom and privileges which they enjoyed. But their toleration was not broad enough to cover any other form of religious belief. Dissent, in all its multiform phases, they looked upon with mingled abhorrence and contempt--as a thing to be shunned and tabooed by all right-minded persons. Dissenting ministers of religion were regarded as "low fellows," whom it was no sin to persecute, and, if possible, drive out of the country. Comparatively few of the latter were permitted to solemnize matrimony during the first forty years of the Province's history. By the statute 38 George III., chapter 4, passed in 1798, the privilege of doing so was accorded to ministers of "The Church of Scotland, or Lutherans or Calvinists;" but it was hedged about with cumbrous restrictions which must have been felt as humiliating and unnecessary. No person was to be regarded as a minister under the Act until he had appeared before the Justices of the Peace in Quarter Sessions, and had produced satisfactory credentials of his ordination. He was also compelled to take the oath of allegiance. Even after complying with all formalities, his functions were restricted to cases where one or both of the parties to be joined together belonged to his own religious society. Ministers of other denominations, including those of the Methodist body, which was the most numerous religious community in the Province, were not allowed the privilege of solemnizing marriage rites till the year 1831. The ignominous disqualification was removed by the statute 11 George IV., chapter 36, which was passed in 1830, but which did not receive the royal assent until the following year. A similar measure had repeatedly been passed by the Assembly in former sessions, but had as often been rejected by the Upper House. Before the law was finally and equitably settled as above mentioned, several ministers of religion had been tried and banished from the Province for having ventured to solemnize matrimony without legal authority. It is said that in one case where a minister was tried on a charge of this kind, the accused protested against his sentence, alleging that the Chief Justice, who presided at the trial, had himself sanctioned the performance of the ceremony. The Chief Justice, being called upon to descend from the judgment seat and give evidence as to this fact, declined to do so; but he afterwards procured a pardon for the prisoner.[50] The Compact always contained within its ranks a few persons of more than average ability. Some of them doubtless believed that the course pursued by their organization was for the advantage of the colony, though, reasoning by the light of present knowledge, it is difficult to comprehend how men of even moderate perspicacity and judgment could have brought themselves to such a conclusion. It was, however, inevitable that persons of such narrow and contracted views--persons to whom self and pelf were the mainsprings of life--should degenerate, mentally as well as morally. The persons composing the second generation were, with very few exceptions, striking illustrations of the doctrine of the descent of man. Their sires had been men of energy and force of character. They themselves were--to borrow a phrase from the acting drama--the mere walking gentlemen of the colony. The sires had originated a bold and determined policy, and had from first to last pursued it with consistent vigour. The sons had neither brains to conceive nor discretion to carry out the conceptions of others. The sires had been persons whom it had been possible for the commonalty to respect. The sons were persons whom it was impossible not to despise. Surely a more superlatively commonplace and contemptible race of human beings has seldom been seen on the earth than four-fifths of the second generation of this bastard aristocracy of Upper Canada. It bore no resemblance to any other aristocracy whereof history has preserved any record. The old Roman commonalty, while they groaned beneath the iron heel of tyranny, were one and all conscious of a secret pride in their imperial oppressors. For the Roman aristocracy was an aristocracy of nature. The Roman patricians made foreign rulers to crouch and tremble at the name of Rome. Their triumphs were the triumphs of the nation. Caius of Corioli, Furius Camillus, Titus Capitolinus, were names the mere utterance of which stirred the Roman blood like the blast of a trumpet. For many a long year after one haughty dictator had slept his last sleep beneath the walls of Præneste, and after another had taken his final plunge beneath the yellow Tiber or from the Tarpeian rock, their exploits furnished themes for tale and song around the Roman camp-fires. These puissant representatives of the dominant class had shown little sympathy for the plebeians, upon whom they had looked down from a lofty height, and towards whom they had ever borne themselves with haughtiness and disdain. But their pride was a something to be tolerated by Romans of every degree, for they had achieved much glory for the Roman name. In the words of one who has interpreted the sentiment of those times with rare felicity, Rome could bear the pride of him of whom herself was proud. The old French noblesse, again, were not devoid of redeeming qualities. Their galling yoke would not have been borne from reign to reign, and through century after century, even by such seeming reconcilables as constituted the bulk of the French populace during the ante-Revolutionary period, if they had all been like the wicked St. Evrémonde of Mr. Dickens's tragic story. As a class, they had a subtle French grace about them which rendered their most grievous exactions less hard to bear than were the exactions of their eastern neighbours. They were an unmistakable _haute noblesse_, ever polished and dignified. Some of them, like Philippe Egalité, had the cunning, when the time of trial arrived, to bend to the popular storm, and even to affect a zeal for citizenship. Comparatively few of them were at once _blasé_ and brainless. It may be doubted if a single one of them combined--as did many of the rank and file of the second generation of the Family Compact of Upper Canada--the pretensions of an aristocrat with the sentiments of a boor and the intellectual development of a child. Yet further. The feeling of veneration with which the English commonalty have for centuries regarded the House of Lords is easy enough to understand. That feeling seems to be rapidly passing away, if, indeed, it has not already departed. But it would not have endured from the time of the Plantagenets to the time of Queen Victoria if it had not had some substantial foundation to rest upon. The House of Lords has always contained a number of men of high integrity and ability. Take it for all and all, it is probably the most just-minded and intellectual aristocratic assembly the world has ever seen. This may not be very high praise, but it may at least be taken for what it is worth. Its individual members are seldom brought sufficiently near to the lower order of the commonalty to enable the latter to detect their weaknesses. Their wealth, prestige and social position give them a vast influence, while at the same time their legislative powers are held in check by the direct representatives of the people. Most of these conditions were directly reversed in Upper Canada, where the members of the dominant faction were brought into the closest relations with the people generally, insomuch that their many deficiencies could not be concealed. Such wealth as they had they were too often known to have obtained at the expense of the rest of the community. The Lower House formed no efficacious check upon them, for they either managed to return a sufficient number of their tools to control the vote in that body, or else they rendered the Assembly's operations of no avail by means of their influence in the Legislative Council. They had none of the graceful suavity of the Lower Canadian seigneurs. Nor could they boast of the superiority derived from a liberal education. Many of them--even including some of those who held high public offices--were so illiterate that they were unable to write a simple business letter without committing errors of orthography of which any one but Artemus Ward or Jeames de la Pluche might well feel ashamed. Nearly all the leading spirits of this strangely-assorted oligarchy were either wealthy or on the direct road to wealth. Being comfortably provided for at the public cost, in the form of fat offices or wild lands, or both, they assumed a swelling port, and aped, as best they knew how, the manners and customs of the upper classes in Great Britain. They built their dwellings in imitation of old-fashioned English manor-houses, with a variety of wings and gables, and with broad entrance halls which in an emergency might have served the purpose of presence-chambers. They dined long and late, and with much old-world pomp and ceremonial. They drove out in coaches emblazoned with heraldic bearings, and attended by broad-calved flunkeys in family livery. Certain social observances of the early Georgian era, long since effete and worn out in England, flourished in the social life of Little York down to a period within the memory of many persons who are still living. The aristocratic clique which preserved these customs was in the highest degree rigid and exclusive. No outsider was admitted into the charmed circle unless he came duly ticketed and accredited. The attempt to transplant the usages of an old and advanced state of society into the primitive streets and lanes of such places as York, Kingston, and Woodstock was for a time more successful than might be supposed. Such of the families as had been to the manner born carried off these observances with considerable grace. They had brought their traditions with them across the Atlantic, and though such traditions were not well suited to the genius of a young and sparsely-settled colony, they were at least maintained with some regard to the sources whence they had been derived. With the pretenders who formed a portion of the clique, and who had been admitted into it for special political reasons, the attempt to copy the habits of their social superiors was, generally speaking, less satisfactory. There was, in truth, an inner social circle which these latter were never invited to join. They, however, enjoyed all the political and pecuniary advantages arising from their connection, and were not easily distinguishable by outsiders from the very head and front of the organization. So far as to the wealthy members of the ruling faction. But there were a good many of them who not only were not wealthy, but who were in positively indigent circumstances. These, for the most part, were members of old country families who had sent them to Canada with the sole object of getting rid of them. Others were half-pay officers who had spent their whole fortunes in settling on land, after which they had found themselves unable to make a livelihood, and had then sold their property for as much--or as little--as they could manage to get. These latter, after having disposed of their lands, generally repaired to the towns, and most of them sooner or later found their way to the Provincial capital. There they became obedient slaves of those in authority, and picked up a precarious livelihood by making themselves useful in various ways. The Executive could always find a certain amount of work for such persons, though, if the truth must be told, the supply was often greater than the demand. The code of social ethics in vogue among this class was such as might have been expected from persons who had been reared to regard themselves as the objects of a special dispensation of fortune. They looked upon manual labour as degrading. Any person, no matter what his abilities, who earned a livelihood by the sweat of his brow, or even by honest trade, was considered as no fit company for the brood of parasites who hung on to the heels of the Compact, and who nevertheless did not hesitate to perform tasks from which the average costermonger would have shrunk in disgust. Their employers occasionally admitted them to their tables, and even to some degree of social intimacy. More frequently they presented them with their cast-off clothing, with new gowns for their wives at Christmas, or--when things were at a remarkably low ebb--with a hundredweight of flour or half a barrel of mess pork. Yet the recipients of these favours piqued themselves upon their good birth and high connexions, and would have felt themselves insulted if anyone had ventured to hint that they should visit, upon terms of equality, with the grocer or the butcher in the next street. The reader now has before him a sufficient array of facts to enable him to form a pretty accurate conception of the state of social life in Upper Canada during ante-Rebellion times. It was a matter of course that such a monopoly of power as was possessed and exercised by the ruling faction should excite envy and opposition on the part of those who did not revel in its smiles or share in its plunder. Loud murmurings began to make themselves heard against the delay and partiality in the land-granting department, and against the corrupt manner in which the public affairs of the Province generally were carried on. Before the close of Governor Hunter's _régime_ these murmurings had become loud enough to occasion no little disquiet to some of the officials who had most reason to dread enquiry and investigation. The abuses were greater in some branches of the service than in others, but peculation prevailed to a greater or less extent almost everywhere. The Indian department was notorious for the corruption of its officials. A sum of sixty thousand pounds sterling was annually granted by the Imperial Government for distribution among the various tribes, and for the payment of agents and interpreters. The distribution among the Indians chiefly took the form of commodities which had a particular fascination for the mind of the noble savage--such commodities, for instance, as muskets, powder, bullets, knives, tomahawks, hatchets, blankets, spangles, pocket mirrors, and--last, but by no means least--fire-water. The opportunities which this grant afforded for peculation and plunder were too tempting to be resisted. The agents and their subordinates, from highest to lowest, owed their positions to their servility and usefulness to those in authority. So long as they proved serviceable and obedient to their masters, there was not much likelihood of their being called to serious account for any iniquities they might commit towards Mohawk or Seneca, Oneida or Mississauga. By way of consequence, the Indians were robbed and the Government was robbed; and the robbers, feeling secure of protection from their superiors, plied their nefarious traffic with impunity.[51] There were equally culpable but less notorious abuses of power in other branches of the service. Probably not one in ten of these ever came to light, but from time to time there were awkward revelations which could not be suppressed. All these things combined to beget a widespread lack of confidence in the official clique. The want of confidence, not without good reason, extended even to the administrators of the law. The judges, as already mentioned, held office at the will of the Executive, and, at least in some instances, were shamelessly servile and corrupt. This led to their dicta being disregarded by sturdy juries who cared less for the letter of the law than for its spirit. Mr. John Mills Jackson, in his "View of the Political Situation of the Province of Upper Canada," published in 1809, speaks of an instance where the people became tumultuous, and broke the public stocks in the presence of the Chief Justice.[52] The public distrust of the administrators of the law does not seem to have been confined to the judges of the Superior Courts. It extended to the rural magistrates, some of whom turned their offices to commodity in a manner which would have excited the admiration of Falstaff himself. "The shop-keepers," writes Mr. Jackson, "are Justices of Peace. They have the means of extortion, and the power of enforcing payments. They are first the criminals, then the judges; and the court of appeal seems to be so constructed as to prevent an honest verdict from passing into effect. The practice of the court is unjust, oppressive, and influenced. Favourite attorneys were made deputy clerks of the peace, so that process might be entered and writs obtained most partially. The crown lawyer is allowed nearly seven pounds sterling for every criminal prosecution! an inducement to listen to trifling complaints, and prefer frivolous indictments, when, if power was gratified and independence harassed, it was a sufficient excuse for an inflated contingent account." The author of this scathing philippic against petty oppression proceeds to recount a case wherein an action was brought against a magistrate who had exerted his authority in an illegal and oppressive manner. A verdict was obtained against him for a hundred pounds. An application was made to the Court of King's Bench to set the verdict aside, which was rejected; whereupon the clerk of the court in which the judgment had been obtained was ordered by the Crown lawyer not to issue execution. The clerk knew better than to disobey an order from such a source, and the plaintiff accordingly took nothing by his verdict. The unrighteous magistrate escaped the penalty of his misdeeds, and furnished a sort of standing precedent for magisterial iniquity. Other equally flagrant perversions of justice are recorded by the same authority. An illegal and unjustifiable extent issued, at the suit of the Crown, against one of the civil officers. It lasted for years; yet the officer dared not resist oppression by applying for justice. "When [the extent] was as imperiously taken off as it was arbitrarily laid on," writes Mr. Jackson, "the sheriff dared not apply for fees expended in holding possession under the writ, or the printer sue for the money voted him by the House of Assembly for printing their journals. The surveyors could not obtain the money they had actually expended in the public service, nor the people find redress for extorted fees. Therefore, when there was neither substance nor shadow of law or justice, but the will of power was the rule of decision, the public mind was agitated in the extreme, and universal gloom pervaded the Province." The discontent produced by official tyranny was however almost impotent as against the wrong-doers, who were so strongly entrenched in their places that it seemed as though nothing could shake them. Many of them, conscious of their misconduct, doubtless felt secret misgivings whenever any specially significant outburst of popular dissatisfaction occurred. But for many years they were able to present a united and brazen front, and to crush anyone who dared to so much as wag a finger against them. It was intimated on a former page that Robert Gourlay was not the first victim of Executive tyranny. The first conspicuous victim of whom any record has been preserved was Mr. Robert Thorpe, an English barrister of much learning and acumen, who in 1805 was appointed a puisne judge of the Court of King's Bench for Upper Canada. Previous to his arrival in this country Mr. Thorpe had never been remarkable for any specially liberal opinions, but he was a man of enlightened mind, and actuated by an honest desire to do his duty. He was not long in perceiving that the administration of justice in this Province was little better than a hollow mockery. He resolved to do what one man could to restore public confidence in the judicial bench, and his court erelong became a popular forum for honest litigants, for it was evident to all that he held the scales of justice with an even hand, and was not to be either cajoled or bullied into perverting the law. Before he had been a twelvemonth in the country he was known far and wide as an upright judge, and as a sort of champion of popular rights. Grand juries took him into their confidence, and tabulated their grievances before him. These were laid by him before the authorities at York, upon his return from circuit; a proceeding which was quite sufficient to bring down upon his head the opposition of the faction which flourished by reason of those very grievances. The whole of the Family Compact influence arrayed itself against him in deadly enmity. Francis Gore arrived in the capacity of Lieutenant-Governor in the summer of 1806. He was informed by his Councillors that Judge Thorpe was a dangerous and revolutionary personage. It was certain that the past year had been signalized by a decided propensity on the part of the people to assert themselves against the intolerable exactions of their oppressors, and that a spirit of opposition was on the increase throughout the land. Governor Gore and his Councillors reversed the inductive process, and attributed the popular discontent to the influence of the new judge. This seeming conviction on their parts was strengthened by certain remarks of Judge Thorpe himself, made in reply to an address from the Grand Jury of the London District. "The art of governing," said he, "is a difficult science. Knowledge is not instinctive, and the days of inspiration have passed away. Therefore, when there was neither talent, education, information, nor even manners in the Administration, little could be expected, and nothing was produced." The reference here is manifestly to the _régime_ of Governor Hunter and Commodore Grant; and the intimation is that better things are to be hoped for under the recently-arrived Governor. "But," continued the judge, "there is an ultimate point of depression, as well as of exaltation, from whence all human affairs naturally advance or recede. Therefore, proportionate to your depression, we may expect your progress in prosperity will advance with accelerated velocity." He also in the course of his address, inveighed against the Alien Act of 1804. When he reached York, at the close of the circuit, he laid before the new Lieutenant-Governor the various recapitulations of grievances which had been entrusted to him. They were received by Mr. Gore and his Councillors with a very ill grace. The complaints from the London District were stated with great vigour and lucidity, and as they had got into print they could not be suppressed or wholly ignored. An attempt was made to show that the chapter of grievances had been presented by the jurors, not because there was really anything of importance to complain of, but because Judge Thorpe himself had instigated them to such a course. As this charge was openly made, Mr. Thorpe in his capacity of a Justice of the King's Bench, caused a proceeding of the nature of _scandalum magnatum_ to be instituted. His brother judges, however, some of whom were members of the Executive Council, and all of whom were subject to strong influences from that quarter, ruled that the proceeding could not be maintained, and it accordingly fell through. An attempt was also made, first to intimidate, and afterwards to corrupt the Grand Jury. A letter was sent to them from the office of the Lieutenant-Governor, requesting them to state the grounds of their complaints more specifically. The recipients responded by preparing and forwarding a stronger case than before. A recantation was then drawn up by a skilful hand, and presented to each individual member of the Jury, a reward being at the same time offered as an inducement to sign it. The jurymen, however, were not prepared to barter away their liberties in this manner, and the attempt wholly failed. While the Executive were deliberating as to how they could most effectually strike Judge Thorpe, a vacancy occurred in the representation of one of the constituencies in the Home District. In those times, as has already been seen, a judgeship was no disqualification for political life, and a deputation waited on Mr. Thorpe with a numerously signed address, requesting him to become their representative. He replied that he would not become a partisan, but that if he were returned to Parliament he would not hesitate to do his duty. No sooner did it become known that "the Radical Judge," as he was called, was a candidate for the Assembly than the leading spirits of the Compact aroused themselves to defeat him. This was natural enough. That they should employ against him every means which their ingenuity could devise--among others, bribery, vilification and deliberate slander--that also was natural, when the time and persons are considered. "Every engine within the reach of authority," writes Mr. Jackson, "was used for the purpose of defeating the wishes of the people on this occasion. All interests were required to yield in favour of the candidate most likely to succeed as against Mr. Thorpe. Any person in employment, in expectation of, or entitled to land, was gratified, promised, or threatened; magistrates were made and unmade, as best suited the purposes of electioneering; grants were given; fees excused, or promised to be paid by those high in authority. Even domestics were bribed with places, land, and money, to vilify and accuse, by direct falsehoods, the most upright, serviceable and esteemed persons in the Province." For once public opinion proved too strong for Family Compact influence. Judge Thorpe was returned, and great things were hoped for from his career in Parliament. But the triumph of freedom was short-lived. The Compact was too strong to be opposed by the multitude with impunity. Lieutenant-Governor Gore was subservient to its wishes, and besides he had by this time come to hate the popular judge on his own account, and his mind was fully made up to solicit from the Colonial Secretary Judge Thorpe's recall. One of his private letters, written from Kingston, during a journey from York to Montreal, several months after the Judge's election to the Assembly, announces this resolution in unmistakable terms. "The object of Mr. T.'s [Thorpe's] emissions," he writes, "appears to be to persuade the people to turn every gentleman out of the House of Assembly. However, keep your temper with the rascals, I beseech you. I shall represent everything at St. James'." He was as good as his word, and in October, 1807, the announcement was made in the _Gazette_ that the Lieutenant-Governor had been instructed to suspend Mr. Thorpe from his judgeship, which we may be quite sure was done without unnecessary loss of time. Thus did might continue to triumph over right. There was not the slightest imputation of any sort against the Judge's character. His professional attainments were high; his personal character without a stain. His continued presence in Canada would have been a blessing to all but the race of tyrants who trampled on popular liberty. Yet he was removed because he respected himself and his office too highly to pervert judgment, and because he bade fair to abridge the rule of corruption. Upon his return to England the Colonial Office urged nothing whatever against him, and merely suggested, by way of justification for his recall, that his stay in Upper Canada would have led to perpetual disturbance of the public tranquillity. He instituted proceedings in one of the English courts against Mr. Gore, who was convicted of libel, but who escaped much more easily than he deserved with a fine of trifling amount. By way of recompense for his recall from Upper Canada, Judge Thorpe was appointed Chief Justice of Sierra Leone. There he remained for two years, by which time his constitution had become so much broken by the climate that he was compelled to return home. At the request of a number of the inhabitants he carried with him to England a petition complaining of certain abuses of power there. For this he was discarded by the Ministry of the day. His appointment as Chief Justice was cancelled, and another judge was sent out to West Africa in his stead. The rest of his life was passed in obscurity and neglect, and when he died his family were left without any provision for their future. Such was the untoward fate of an honourable and high-minded man, whose only fault was that he was too pure for the times in which he lived, and for the people among whom his lot was cast. Another early victim, whose life record seems to contradict the adage that honesty is the best policy, was Surveyor-General Wyatt. There is no need to go minutely into the particulars of his case. He was universally recognized as a competent and honest official, insomuch that it was currently said of him that he was too good for the masters whom he served. But he ventured to interfere on behalf of one of the subordinates in his office, who had been refused a stipend to which Mr. Wyatt considered him entitled. Then, he presumed to oppose the Council in respect of an irregular purchase of a large tract of land from the Mississauga Indians. Finally, he went so far as to profess a high degree of respect for the manly and independent conduct of Judge Thorpe. The secret conclave speedily pronounced his doom. No one ventured to allege any fault against him, yet he was deprived of his situation by the Lieutenant-Governor, and a pliable tool was installed in his office. Joseph Willcocks had a more bitter experience still. He was an Irishman, of liberal education, and of much energy of character, whose influence in official circles was wide enough to obtain for him the post of Sheriff of the Home District. For several years no occasion for any difference of opinion arose between him and his superiors. He was known as a competent officer, who discharged his duties with great consideration for the impecunious and unfortunate. But his frequent official peregrinations through the Home District enabled him to see with his own eyes the disastrous effects of the Clergy Reserves, of the land-granting system, and of Family Compact domination generally; and on several occasions he had sufficient courage to express his opinions thereupon. Attempts were made to silence him, first by remonstrances, and afterwards by threats, but all to no purpose. When Judge Thorpe began to figure as a sort of popular tribune, Willcocks declared himself as being also on the side of the people. When the Judge became a candidate for Parliament, the Sheriff, who had a vote in the constituency, recorded it in his favour. For this he shared the fate of the Surveyor-General, and was promptly dismissed from office by the Lieutenant-Governor. But he came of a fighting stock, and was not to be suppressed by the mere circumstance of being deprived of an official income. He started a newspaper called _The Upper Canada Guardian, or Freeman's Journal_. In this sheet, which was edited by Mr. Willcocks himself, various desirable measures of reform were advocated, and the dominant faction were from time to time referred to in opprobrious, but certainly not untruthful or unmerited language. The paper obtained a considerable circulation, and soon made its editor an object of bitter hatred on the part of the authorities. The vilest abuse was poured out upon him, and he was subjected to a course of persecution well-nigh as grievous as subsequently fell to the lot of Robert Gourlay. Governor Gore himself, in a letter still extant, written in 1807, refers to him as "that execrable monster who would deluge the Province with blood." The execrable monster's influence, however, continued to grow, and upon Judge Thorpe's retirement from Upper Canada, he was returned to the Assembly in his stead, for the West Riding of the County of York, the First Riding of the County of Lincoln, and the County of Haldimand. As he was a ready and powerful speaker, as well as a vigorous writer, it was felt that he would soon become intolerable if his career were not effectively checked. He was accordingly tried before the Assembly on a frivolous charge of having, in a private conversation held at the house of a Mr. Glennan, in York, spoken disrespectfully of some of the members. The proceedings were the veriest travesty of the forms of justice. The accused was found guilty, and committed to the common jail of the Home District, there to remain during the sitting of Parliament.[53] This indignity he was compelled to suffer, being confined for many weeks in a small close cell, which he was not permitted to leave for a single moment. He was further wrought upon by informations for libel, as well as by secret inquisitions into his private affairs. After his enlargement he continued to publish his paper, but he was so tortured by the incessant persecutions to which he was subjected that he could accomplish little or nothing in the way of reform. From some of his votes in the Assembly it would appear that he made tacit overtures towards reconciliation with his enemies,[54] but he had offended too deeply to be forgiven, and their rancour was not to be appeased. Eventually he was compelled to relinquish the publication of the _Guardian_ for want of funds to carry it on. Notwithstanding all that he had endured, his loyalty remained unshaken, and when the War of 1812[55] broke out he responded to the call for volunteers by shouldering his musket and doing his devoirs like a man at the battle of Queenston Heights. Even this obtained for him neither complaisance nor immunity from abuse. He found himself ruined in fortune, opposed and hated by those in authority, without any prospect before him but starvation. It is not singular that a man subjected to such conditions should become disheartened. In a moment of exasperation he deserted the ranks where he had been held as of so little account. Accompanied by a small body of Canadian volunteers, he repaired to the camp of the enemy, where he offered his services, and obtained a colonel's commission. He served under Major-General Brown at the siege of Fort Erie, where he was slain while planting a guard. Such are three of the most notable examples of ministerial tyranny in comparatively early times. As before mentioned, they attracted less widespread attention than did Mr. Gourlay's case some years later, because, though they were signal instances of the abuse of power, they were not marked by such refinement in cruelty, and because they appealed to the political sympathies of comparatively few. In the time of Judge Thorpe, Wyatt and Willcocks, the dominating class not only held a monopoly of power, but they and their adherents were numerically in the ascendant. At the time of Gourlay's persecution the population was much more evenly divided. The oligarchy still had control of all the avenues to power, but there was a large and steadily-increasing class in the community who recognized the fact that many changes were necessary before Upper Canada could become a prosperous and well-governed colony, and a satisfactory place of abode for the average British immigrant. In closing this hasty review of the nature and effects of Family Compact domination in Upper Canada, I would not be understood as pronouncing a sweeping condemnation upon all the individual members of that body. John Beverley Robinson, for instance, though he lent himself to many high-handed acts of oppression, was a man of undoubted ability, and of a character which inspired respect. His descendants are to-day among the most respected and influential members of society in our Provincial capital. Several others were men of high personal character, and of abilities above the average. They acted in accordance with time and circumstance, and must be supposed to have done so conscientiously. But such persons as these composed but a very slender proportion of the Compact's entire membership. The rank and file were of a totally different complexion. The characteristics of the more poverty-stricken among them have already been hinted at; but, independently of these, there were many who were well-to-do, and who held their heads high in the air, who were nevertheless very ill qualified to win admiration for the caste to which they belonged. To state the simple truth, most of them were very ordinary commonplace personages, respectable, sapless, idealess--what Dr. Johnson would have characterized as exceedingly barren rascals. Some were of obscure origin, and would have been hard put to it if required to trace their ancestry beyond a single generation. Of these latter, a few, as has already been seen, had amassed wealth by trade or speculation, and had made their way into the exclusive circle by a fortunate combination of circumstances. Among the Compact, then, the number of persons of good birth and descent, possessed of sufficient qualifications to justify their aristocratic predilections, and of sufficient capacity to enable them to direct the colonial policy, was small. And it must by no means be supposed that all the good blood in the Province was confined to the Compact. There were many persons among the pioneers of Upper Canada of gentle nurture and breeding, who nevertheless scorned to pose in the character of aristocrats in a land where such assumptions were altogether out of place, and who manfully accommodated themselves to their primitive surroundings. As has been well remarked by Mr. MacMullen,[56] "While they learned to wield the axe and swing the cradle with the energy and skill of the roughest backwoodsman, they retained their polished manners, their literary tastes, their love for the beautiful and the elegant; and thus exercised the most beneficial influence upon their rustic neighbours. In the absence of schools, of churches, of most of the refining influences of civilized society, this class of the early settlers of Upper Canada were foremost in usefulness. Their superior education, their well-bred manners, their more refined habits, raised them in the estimation of the rural population, who soon tacitly admitted a superiority which would never have been conceded [had it been] more directly asserted." Most, though not all, of these gentlemen were Tories, and, with hardly an exception, preserved their loyalty through all chances and changes. During the War of 1812-15, and again during the agitation arising out of the Rebellion, they proved true to their Tory instincts, and rallied to the side of the Government with ready fervour. Their social proclivities were equally removed from the rude boorishness of the ordinary settler as from the pretence and ceremonial of the clique of self-constituted aristocrats. They generally preserved a modicum of state in the regulation of their household affairs, though they kept aloof from the Compact and its practices, and devoted themselves to various branches of industry--among others, to the education of youth; to the practice of the learned professions; to the opening and cultivating of new avenues of commerce; and to reducing the pathless forests to arable and smiling fields. One other fact it is essential to bear in mind, in estimating the effects of the Compact's _régime_. In seizing upon all the official and other spoils within their reach, and in trampling upon the liberties of the people, the magnates of Upper Canada were merely treading in the footsteps of the Tite Barnacles of Great Britain. The period was one of transition, all over the civilized world. Popular rights were but imperfectly understood, and the idea that good government is best served by the extension of justice and equal rights to all classes was only beginning to dawn upon the minds of public men, even in old and long-established communities. That Canada was not in advance of the times is not to be wondered at; but the ordeal through which she was compelled to pass on the way to full and assured liberty forms an epoch highly necessary to be understood and frequently remembered by all who appreciate the blessings which are the birthright of every Canadian of the present day. A knowledge of the principles and practices of the Family Compact in the olden days constitutes the most effectual guarantee that such days can never return, and that neither our children nor our children's children will ever be compelled to fight over again the battle which was so long and so patiently waged by their ancestors. FOOTNOTES: [45] It may perhaps be thought by some readers that the closing sentences of this paragraph are pitched in too high a key. Those who entertain that opinion will receive light on the subject by a careful perusal of various official reports issued just prior to the passing of the Quebec Act in 1774, and more especially of _A Cry from Quebec_, published at Montreal in 1809. [46] _Report on the Affairs of British North America_, English folio edition, p. 53. [47] _Ib._ [48] How far Lord Durham was justified in saying that there was "little of family connexion" among the members of the Compact will appear from the following "curious but accurate statement," prepared by Mr. W. L. Mackenzie for his _Sketches of Canada and the United States_, published in England in 1833. It will be found on pp. 405-409 of that work. "When I left Upper Canada last year," writes Mr. Mackenzie, "some of the offices, sinecures, and pensions of the Government were divided as follows:--No. 1. D'ARCY BOULTON, senior, a retired pensioner, £500 sterling. 2. HENRY, son to No. 1, Attorney-General and Bank Solicitor, £2400. 3. D'ARCY, son to No. 1, Auditor-General, Master in Chancery, Police Justice, etc. Income unknown. 4. WILLIAM, son to No. 1, Church Missionary, King's College Professor, etc., £650. 5. GEORGE, son to No. 1, Registrar of Northumberland, Member of Assembly for Durham, etc. Income unknown. 6. JOHN BEVERLEY ROBINSON, brother-in-law to No. 3, Chief Justice of Upper Canada, Member for life of the Legislative Council, Speaker of ditto, £2000. 7. PETER, brother to No. 6, Member of the Executive Council, Member for life of the Legislative Council, Crown Land Commissioner, Surveyor-General of Woods, Clergy Reserve Commissioner, etc. £1300. 8. WILLIAM, brother to Nos. 6 and 7, Postmaster of Newmarket, Member of Assembly for Simcoe, Government Contractor, Colonel of Militia, Justice of the Peace, etc. Income unknown. 9. JONAS JONES, brother-in-law to No. 2, Judge of the District Court in three districts containing eight counties, and filling a number of other offices. Income about £1000. 10. CHARLES, brother to No. 9, Member for life of Legislative Council, Justice of the Peace in twenty seven counties, etc. 11. ALPHEUS, brother to Nos. 9 and 10, Collector of Customs, Prescott, Postmaster at ditto, Agent for Government Bank at ditto, etc. Income £900. 12. LEVIUS P. SHERWOOD, brother-in-law to Nos. 9, 10, 11, one of the Justices of the Court of King's Bench. Income £1000. 13. HENRY, son to No. 12, Clerk of Assize, etc. 14. JOHN ELMSLEY, son-in-law to No. 12, Member of the Legislative Council for life, Bank Director, Justice of the Peace, etc. 15. CHARLES HEWARD, nephew to No. 6, Clerk of the District Court, etc. Income £100. 16. JAMES B. MACAULAY, brother-in-law to Nos. 17 and 19, one of the Justices of the Court of King's Bench. Income £1000. 17. CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER HAGERMAN, brother-in-law to No. 16, Solicitor-General. £800. 18. JOHN MCGILL, a relation of Nos. 16 and 17, Legislative Councillor for life. Pensioner, £500. 19 and 20. W. ALLAN AND GEORGE CROOKSHANKS, connexions by marriage of 16 and 17, Legislative Councillors for life, the latter President of the Bank. £500. 21. HENRY JONES, cousin to Nos. 9, 10, etc., Postmaster of Brockville, Justice of the Peace, Member of Assembly for Brockville, Income unknown. 22. WILLIAM DUMMER POWELL, father of No. 24, Legislative Councillor for life, Justice of the Peace, Pensioner. Pension, £1000. 23. SAMUEL PETERS JARVIS, son-in-law to No. 22, Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, Deputy-Secretary of the Province, Bank Director, etc. Income unknown. 24. GRANT, son to No. 22, Clerk of the Legislative Council, Police Justice, Judge Home District Court, Official Principal of Probate Court, Commissioner of Customs, etc. Income £675. 25. WILLIAM M., brother to 23, High Sheriff Gore District. Income from £500 to £800. 26. WILLIAM B., cousin to Nos. 23 and 25, High Sheriff, Home District, Member of Assembly. Income £900. 27. ADIEL SHERWOOD, cousin to No. 12, High Sheriff of Johnstown, and Treasurer of that district. Income from £500 to £800. 28. GEORGE SHERWOOD, son to No. 12, Clerk of Assize. 29. JOHN STRACHAN, their family tutor and political schoolmaster, archdeacon and rector of York, Member of the Executive and Legislative Councils, President of the University, President of the Board of Education, and twenty other situations. Income, on an average of years, upwards of £1800. 30. THOMAS MERCER JONES, son-in-law to No. 29, associated with No. 19, as the Canada Company's Agents and Managers in Canada. This family connexion rules Upper Canada according to its own good pleasure, and has no efficient check from this country to guard the people against its acts of tyranny and oppression. It includes the whole of the judges of the supreme civil and criminal tribunal (Nos. 6, 12, and 16)--active Tory politicians. Judge Macaulay was a clerk in the office of No. 2, not long since. It includes half the Executive Council or provincial cabinet. It includes the Speaker and other eight Members of the Legislative Council. It includes the persons who have the control of the Canada Land Company's monopoly. It includes the President and Solicitor of the Bank, and about half the Bank Directors; together with shareholders, holding, to the best of my recollection, about 1800 shares. And it included the crown lawyers until last March, when they carried their opposition to Viscount Goderich's measures of reform to such a height as personally to insult the government, and to declare their belief that he had not the royal authority for his despatches. They were then removed; but, with this exception, the chain remains unbroken. This family compact surround the Lieutenant-Governor, and mould him, like wax, to their will; they fill every office with their relatives, dependants, and partisans; by them justices of the peace and officers of the militia are made and unmade; they have increased the number of the Legislative Council by recommending, through the Governor, half a dozen of nobodies and a few placemen, pensioners, and individuals of well-known narrow and bigoted principle; the whole of the revenues of Upper Canada are in reality at their mercy;--they are Paymasters, Receivers, Auditors, King, Lords, and Commons!" [49] See his evidence annexed to the Committee's Report, p. 86. [50] Gourlay, commenting upon this episode, remarks: "Who pardoned all the poor sinners that for years had been getting bastards, and who legitimized these, was not determined when I bade farewell to Upper Canada."--_Statistical Account_, Vol. 2, p. 348. [51] Those who wish to gain an insight into some of the most revolting features of this traffic may consult _Claws and the Clauses_, a pamphlet published at Buffalo in 1818; also _Gourlay_, vol. 2, pp. 486, 487; together with Jackson's pamphlet referred to in the text. [52] This must have been Chief Justice Thomas Scott, after whom Scott Street, Toronto, was called. He was Chief Justice from August, 1806, to Michaelmas Term, 1816. He is referred to by Dr. Scadding in _Toronto of Old_, p. 51, as "a man of fine culture, spoken of affectionately by those who knew him." A picture of him in his decline is presented on page 130 of the same work. [53] For a full account of these infamous proceedings, the reader is referred to _The Upper Canada Guardian_ of February 6th and March 18th, 1808, quoted by Gourlay in his _Statistical Account_, Vol. 2, pp. 655-662. [54] See an extract from the minutes of the proceedings in the Assembly, 10th March, 1810, quoted by Gourlay, Vol. 2, pp. 328, 329. See also Gourlay's remarks thereon, Vol. 2, pp. 334, 335. [55] There is reason to believe that the discontent begotten of the abuse of power in Canada was one of the inducements to this attempt on the part of the United States, the Government of which was led to believe that Canadians generally would welcome any relief from the yoke which the Compact had placed upon their necks. [56] _History of Canada_, p. 243. CHAPTER IV. FATHERS OF REFORM. The history of Upper Canada, from the time of Mr. Gourlay's banishment, in 1819, down to the actual outbreak of rebellion, is largely made up of a succession of abuses on the part of the Executive, and of more or less passive endurance on the part of the great body of the people. As has been intimated, the Gourlay prosecutions and their attendant circumstances aroused much popular indignation, and led to the formation of an organized Opposition. During the session of 1820 the "Gagging Bill," as it was called, which had been introduced and carried through the Assembly under the auspices of Mr. Jonas Jones[57] two years before, was repealed,[58] and the holding of conventions was no longer prohibited by law. It is a fact worth mentioning that Attorney-General Robinson was the only member who recorded his vote against the repealing statute, whereas at the time of the enactment of the original repressive law in 1818 only one vote had been given against it. Such a change of opinion among the members of the Assembly within so brief a space of time is in itself significant of the progress of liberal views among the people generally. The vote on this repealing statute was somewhat of a surprise to the authorities. It was evident that Reform sentiment was growing, and that many persons who had never been classed as Reformers were weary of the long reign of tyranny. It was not the policy of the Compact, however, to yield anything to popular demands, and they held on their course with dogged pertinacity, as though animated by a fixed resolve that the public indignation which had been aroused by the Gourlay prosecutions should not be permitted to subside. Erelong a new opportunity for applying the thumb-screw presented itself, and it was taken advantage of to the fullest practicable extent. During the recess following the close of the first session of the Eighth Provincial Parliament, which was prorogued on the 14th of April, 1821, a vacancy occurred in the representation of the constituency of the United Counties of Lennox and Addington. The local Reformers took advantage of the opportunity thus afforded of bringing out a candidate who had rendered much service to Liberal principles in Upper Canada, and who was eminently fitted to impart strength to the Opposition in the Assembly. His name was Barnabas Bidwell, and he was known far and wide as one of the keenest intellects and as one of the best public speakers in the country. His past history had been unfortunate, and as it was soon to be made the subject of strict Parliamentary enquiry, a few leading facts in connection with it may as well be set down here. He was a native of Massachusetts, where he was born in the old colonial days before the Revolution. He came of a Whig family which espoused the colonial cause with ardour, but he was himself too young to take any part in the great struggle which gave birth to the United States. Having completed his education at Yale College, he studied law, and at an early age rose to eminence at the Massachusetts bar. He became Attorney-General of the State, and, though he had for his rivals some of the ablest men known to American history, he was regarded by his countrymen as one whose future was in his own hands. His manners were courtly and refined, and his scholastic attainments wide and various. He soon found his way to Congress, where his brilliant eloquence caused him to be listened to with attention and respect. Up to this time his career had been an uninterrupted success. But in achieving his political eminence he had been unfortunate enough to make for himself a good many bitter enemies. His political course seems to have been somewhat arbitrary and uncompromising, insomuch that his opponents regarded him with more rancorous feelings than are commonly entertained among public men where there are no personal grounds for enmity. Whether such personal grounds existed in the case of Barnabas Bidwell cannot now be readily ascertained. It is however certain that he was regarded by a host of clever and unscrupulous persons with a bitterness of enmity almost amounting to ferocity. He seems to have made no attempt to conciliate his foes, but treated them with a sort of haughty contempt. In the year 1810 the weight of their anger descended upon him like an avalanche. He was then, and he for some years previously had been, Treasurer of the County of Berkshire, Massachusetts. An accusation of a very serious nature was brought against him. He was charged with having applied the public funds to his own use, and with having falsified entries in his books in order to cover up his malversations. It is difficult to get at the exact truth in the matter. Mr. Bidwell's attention to public affairs had caused him to neglect his private and professional business, which consequently had not flourished. He was far from wealthy, and it is not improbable that he was sometimes financially embarrassed. Whether he succumbed to temptation, and dipped his hands into the treasury without leave, cannot now be certainly declared. His own version of the matter was that he was entirely free from blame, but that his enemies had deliberately woven a subtle web about him from which he was unable to extricate himself, as it would have been impossible for him, under the existing state of things, to obtain justice. At all events, he seems to have felt himself to be unable to face the situation. Learning that an indictment had been laid, and that a warrant had been issued for his apprehension, he fled from his native country, and took refuge in Upper Canada. Accompanied by his family, consisting of a son and daughter, he settled at the village of Bath, in the County of Addington, on the Bay of Quinté. He soon obtained employment as a school teacher, and encountered no difficulty in gaining a livelihood, though the humble role he was compelled to play comported ill with his past experience and present ambition. There is little doubt that he was an admirer of republican institutions, and that he so remained to the end of his life, though his admiration was thrown away in this country, and it was impossible for him to return to his own. He was a useful man in the little community where he resided, and his education and intelligence caused him to be looked up to by people of all classes. He did not intrude his political views further than to proclaim himself an advocate of Liberal ideas, and upon the breaking out of the War of 1812 he took the oath of allegiance to His Majesty. His ordinary pursuits were altogether insufficient for his enthusiastic nature, and after the lapse of several years he removed to Kingston, and took up his abode there. He found an outlet for his superabundant energy through the medium of frequent contributions to the press. Among the best known of his writings are a series of letters on practical agriculture and political economy, originally contributed to a Kingston newspaper, and subsequently republished in pamphlet form under the title of "The Prompter." The series of historical and topographical sketches forming the first half of the first volume of Gourlay's "Statistical Account of Upper Canada" are also from Mr. Bidwell's pen, and they are upon the whole the most valuable portion of the entire work. He espoused Mr. Gourlay's cause with great fervour, and by his written and spoken words did much to arouse public sympathy for that unfortunate man, as well as to awaken abhorrence for the cruelty and selfishness of his persecutors. From that time forward he began to take a more conspicuous part in politics than he had been accustomed to take since his arrival in Canada. From the hustings and elsewhere he thundered against the Compact domination with an eloquence which thrilled his audiences. He soon made himself felt as a power in the land, and as one from whom the ruling faction had good reason to apprehend more serious antagonism than they had ever had to encounter. Such was the man chosen by the Reform element in Lennox and Addington, during the summer of 1821, to represent its interests in the Provincial Assembly. The ensuing campaign was an exciting one, but at its close Barnabas Bidwell was the undoubted choice of a large majority of the electors. This was a heavy blow to the Executive party. The Reformers would now have a representative in the House who could not be cajoled or bullied. His eloquence, aggressiveness, intelligence and shrewdness could not fail to produce a decided impression on the House and on the country. Would it not be well if he could be got rid of, as Thorpe and Gourlay had been got rid of before him? During the progress of the election campaign, some of the main facts connected with Mr. Bidwell's migration from Massachusetts to Upper Canada had become known to his opponents. The pretext afforded by these disclosures was too good to be neglected. An emissary was despatched to Berkshire County, where there was no difficulty in ascertaining that he had been Treasurer of the municipality; that he had been indicted for misapplying public funds; that a warrant had thereupon been issued for his apprehension; and that he had then fled beyond the jurisdiction. Certified copies of the indictment and of several other important documents bearing on the matter were obtained by the agent, and by him brought over to Upper Canada. On the strength of the information and documents thus obtained a petition was filed against the election of Mr. Bidwell, upon the ground that he was an alien and a fugitive from justice, who had moreover taken an oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States. The accused notwithstanding appeared in his place in the Assembly upon the opening of the session, and when the matter of the petition came up for discussion he defended himself before the House with an eloquence and pathos which stirred every heart. He declared, in language and tones which left no doubt of his sincerity, that he was guiltless of the embezzlement with which he had been charged, and that the accusation had been solely due to the machinations of a powerful clique of enemies. He further urged that, whatever might be the facts as to the charge, he had never been tried or convicted, and that the Assembly had no right to assume his guilt in the absence of positive proof. He admitted having taken the oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States, but urged that such an oath was required of every man assuming a public office in all civilized countries; that it applied only to the period of his actual residence, and was no legitimate bar to his advancement in another country. Since his arrival in Canada he had taken an oath of allegiance to the King of Great Britain. That his loyalty was not open to suspicion was sufficiently manifest from the mere fact of his having been returned to Parliament by a constituency the inhabitants whereof were largely composed of United Empire Loyalists and their immediate descendants. Such was the course of his argument, which from beginning to end was singularly lucid and clear. But all was unavailing. He was assailed by the Government party in language such as is rarely to be met with in the annals of Parliamentary debate in this country. Mr. Attorney-General Robinson went beyond any former effort of his life in the way of vituperation, and overleapt the bounds of the commonest decency. He proclaimed himself to be the son of a United Empire Loyalist who had fought and bled for his country, and as therefore being no fit company for runaway felons and pickpockets. His sympathy with himself was so great that the tears chased one another down his cheeks as he was speaking. All the amiability which commonly marked his intercourse with his fellowmen seemed to have utterly departed from him, and he towered above his seat in a perfect whirlwind of rage and fiery indignation. Mr. Bidwell's calm and temperate reply was in striking contrast to the levin bolts which had been hurled at him, and produced a marked effect upon his hearers. But the Compact commanded a majority in the Assembly,[59] which sustained a motion for his expulsion. And as it was well known that the electors of Lennox and Addington would again return him, and that he could not be permanently excluded by any ordinary means, it was determined to disqualify him by special legislation. An Act was accordingly passed intituled "An Act to render ineligible to a seat in the Commons House of Assembly of this Province certain descriptions of persons therein mentioned."[60] Among the persons declared ineligible were those who had held any of the principal public offices in a foreign country, which was of course an effectual disqualification for Barnabas Bidwell, who, as already mentioned, had been Attorney-General of Massachusetts. It was a veritable Act of Exclusion, aimed at a particular person, and it served its purpose by keeping the obnoxious individual perpetually out of public life.[61] In consequence of Mr. Bidwell's expulsion a new election for Lennox and Addington became necessary. The writ was issued, and, to the chagrin and disgust of the supporters of the Government, a new champion of popular rights appeared in the field in the person of Marshall Spring Bidwell, the only son of the recently-expelled member. The new candidate was a young man of twenty-three years of age. He was a native of Massachusetts, and had accompanied his parents to Canada at the time of their migration in 1810. At an early age he had given proofs of the possession of splendid abilities. His father, who was exceedingly proud of the bright boy, had cultivated his faculties to the utmost, and by the time that Marshall Spring Bidwell had attained his majority he was regarded by all who knew him as having a brilliant future before him. A year before his candidature he had been called to the Provincial bar. He now presented himself before the electors of Lennox and Addington in opposition to the Tory candidate, a gentleman named Clark. The combined modesty and assurance displayed by young Bidwell throughout the contest gained for him many warm friends, while at the same time his earnestness and flowing eloquence proved that he was a true son of his father. He conducted the campaign with signal ability, and laid the foundation of a lasting reputation in the constituency. At the close of the poll the returning-officer declared Mr. Clark to have been duly elected, but, as it was notorious that corrupt practices had been resorted to, a protest was entered by the friends of the Reform candidate, who himself appeared in person at the bar of the House to conduct the argument. The result of the enquiry was that the return was set aside and a new election ordered. Young Bidwell so distinguished himself by his argument before the House that the official party perceived that he was likely to be no less formidable as an opponent than his father would have been. When the new election was held he again presented himself as a candidate, but found that the returning-officer had received instructions to accept no votes for him, upon the ground that he was an alien. The Tory candidate, Mr. Ham, was accordingly returned; but another protest was filed, with a similar result. The election was once more set aside, and Lennox and Addington still remained without a Parliamentary representative. It had by this time become notorious that the whole power of the Executive was exerted to keep the Bidwells out of public life, and the conviction that such was the fact gave rise to a counter-movement on the part of the victims. The friends of Reform bestirred themselves to such purpose that during the session of 1823-24 an Act was passed[62] repealing the measure of two years before, and relaxing the conditions under which persons who had resided in or taken the oath of allegiance to a foreign state should be eligible for election to the Provincial Parliament. It was provided that a residence in the Province of seven years next before election should render such persons eligible for membership in the Assembly. This clause removed all existing disqualifications from young Mr. Bidwell; but his father still remained disqualified, for it was expressly re-enacted that no person who had been a member of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States, or who had held office in any of the executive departments of "the United States of America, or any one of the said United States," should be capable of being elected to the Assembly. Under this clause the elder Bidwell was doubly disqualified, for he had not only been Attorney-General of Massachusetts, but had also sat in Congress. It was much, however, that the son was rendered eligible. A general election took place during the summer of 1824, at which he was returned for the constituency which he then contested for the third time. He continued to sit in Parliament for eleven successive years. He is properly regarded as one of the founders of the Reform party in Upper Canada, and by his eloquence, tact and discretion, no less than by the high respect in which his character was held, he did much to advance the progress of Reform principles. The general election of 1824 resulted in the return of a number of prominent Reformers who now for the first time came forward to take part in public affairs. It was evident that a spirit of Reform had been awakened, and that from this time forward every important public question was likely to have two sides to it. The most conspicuous of all the new members was Mr. John Rolph, who had been returned as one of the representatives for the County of Middlesex. As he played an important part in the event which forms the subject of this work, and as he was one of the ablest men who have ever taken part in public affairs in this country, it is desirable to give some fuller account of him than is to be found in the various books relating to the place and times in which he lived. John Rolph was unquestionably one of the most extraordinary personalities who have ever figured in the annals of Upper Canada. He possessed talents which, under favouring circumstances, would have made him a marked man in either professional or public life in any country. Chief among his qualifications may be mentioned a comprehensive, subtle intellect, high scholastic and professional attainments, a style of eloquence which was at once ornate and logical, a noble and handsome countenance, a voice of silvery sweetness and great power of modulation, and an address at once impressive, dignified and ingratiating. His keenness of perception and his faculty for detecting the weak point in an argument were almost abnormal, while his power of eloquent and subtle exposition had no rival among the Canadian public men of those times. His famous speech--to be hereafter more particularly referred to--delivered in the Assembly, in 1836, on the subject of the Clergy Reserves, was one of the most powerful indictments ever heard within the walls of a Canadian Parliament. His arraignment of Sir Francis Bond Head before the same body early in the following year was hardly less impressive. He was of a full habit of body, even in comparative youth, and though he was rather under than above the middle height, there was a dignity and even majesty in his presence that gave the world assurance of a strong man, while it at the same time effectually repelled unseemly familiarity. A pair of deep clear blue eyes, surmounted by rather heavy eyebrows, glanced out from beneath his smooth and expansive forehead. He had light brown hair, a well-moulded chin, a firmly-set nose, and a somewhat large and flexible mouth, capable of imparting to the countenance great variety of expression. Such, according to the universal testimony of those who knew him, and according to portraits painted from life and preserved in his family, was the John Rolph of fifty to sixty years ago. There was unquestionably a _per contra_. Though he was a man of many friends, and was the repository of many familiar confidences, there was probably no human being--not even the wife of his bosom--who ever possessed John Rolph's entire confidence. There was about him no such thing as self-abandonment. This was not because he was devoid of natural passions or affections, or even of warm friendship, for he was a kind, if not a tender husband and father, and there were many persons whom he held in very high esteem, and for whom he cheerfully made great sacrifices. But the quality of caution seems to have been preternaturally developed within his breast. No man was ever less open to the imputation of wearing his heart upon his sleeve. He had a temperament of great equableness, and doubtless felt much more deeply than was suspected, even by those who were constantly about him. To the outer world he was ever self-possessed, calm and dignified, of pleasant and amiable manners, and not deficient in good-fellowship, but seldom or never abandoning himself to frolicsomeness or fun. His smile had a winsome sweetness about it, but it was a very rare occurrence indeed for him to indulge in anything approaching to hearty laughter. His self-control was marvellous. He was never surprised or startled, never dismayed by unexpected intelligence, never taken off his guard. Yet he possessed great dramatic talent, and in his addresses to juries and public audiences could successfully simulate the most contradictory feelings and emotions. One who judged him simply from such exhibitions as these might well have set him down for an emotional and impetuous man, apt to be led away by the fleeting passions and weaknesses of the moment. Yet no one coming to such a conclusion would have had any conception of his real character and idiosyncrasies. He certainly never acted without motive, but his motives were sometimes dark and unfathomable to everyone but himself. Not one among his contemporaries was able to take his moral and intellectual measure with anything approaching to completeness; and throughout the entire length and breadth of Canadian biography there is no man of equal eminence respecting whose real individuality so little is known. Mr. Rolph's peculiarities were probably inherent, for the facts of his early life, so far as known, afford no clue to the reading of the riddle. He was the second son in a family consisting of eighteen children, and was born at Grovesend, in the market town of Thornbury, Gloucestershire, England, on the 4th of March, 1793. His father, Thomas Rolph, was a physician of some local repute, who seems to have been impelled to emigrate in consequence of the impossibility of making any suitable provision in England for so numerous a progeny. The ascertained facts with reference to John Rolph's early life in England are singularly meagre. He accompanied his parents to Canada some time prior to the War of 1812, for he served as a volunteer during the early part of that conflict, and was for some months a paymaster of militia. During the progress of the war he was taken prisoner by the enemy, and was detained in custody for a short time at Batavia, in the State of New York. An exchange of prisoners having been effected, he was set at liberty. After his liberation he returned to England, where he entered one of the colleges of the University of Cambridge; and, though he seems to have left there without taking a degree, he was recognized as a young man of very remarkable and precocious intellectual powers, likely to become conspicuous in after-life. He absorbed knowledge with marvellous facility, and never forgot anything he had learned. After leaving college he repaired to London, where he was entered as a student-at-law, and was in due time called to the bar of the Inner Temple. Like Bacon, he seems to have taken all knowledge to be his province, for, not satisfied with having acquired what, in so young a man, was accounted a wide knowledge of jurisprudence, he studied for some time under Sir Astley Cooper, and was enrolled as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He soon afterwards returned to Canada, and took up his abode on a lot of land in the Township of Charlotteville, about midway between the villages of Turkey Point and Vittoria, in what is now the County of Norfolk, but which then and for long afterwards formed part of the Talbot District. In Michaelmas Term of 1821 he was called to the bar of Upper Canada, and for some years thereafter he appears to have practised the two professions of law and medicine concurrently. His great acquirements and pleasant manners made him a favourite with all classes of the people, and caused him to be regarded as a genuine acquisition to the district in which he resided. He became the professional adviser and familiar friend of Colonel Thomas Talbot, founder of the Talbot Settlement, and was one of the originators of the Talbot Anniversary, established in 1817, and kept up for more than twenty years thereafter, in honour of the day of the Colonel's arrival at Port Talbot--the 21st of May, 1803. The Colonel was not, in the strict sense of the term, a politician, but he was a member of the Legislative Council, and naturally supported the official party; whereas Rolph, though a man of equable mind, and by no means constitutionally inclined towards Radicalism, had much better opportunities for mixing with the people than had Colonel Talbot, and his keen eye revealed to him many official abuses which did not commend themselves to his sense of justice. It is probable that differences of opinion on public questions led to their ultimate estrangement. At all events, Rolph espoused the side of the people, and declared himself a foe to the Family Compact policy, and from that time forward the intimacy between him and Colonel Talbot seems to have grown less and less. The Gourlay prosecutions aroused Rolph's hot indignation, which he did not hesitate to express with much freedom whithersoever he went. Being a brilliant and eloquent talker, strong in opinion and logical in argument, he made many converts to his views, the number of whom was not lessened by the course of treatment adopted towards the Bidwells. It seems to have been about this time that he took up his abode at Dundas, where he subsequently resided for many years. When the general elections of 1824 took place the Reformers of Middlesex brought out John Rolph and Captain John Matthews, both of whom were returned at the head of the poll. Rolph made his presence felt in the Assembly from the time of taking his seat there. He was then thirty-one years of age, and of a compact, well-built figure, inclining to portliness. His face was at once handsome and intellectual, and his presence carried with it a suggestion of undoubted power. He spoke comparatively seldom during his early Parliamentary sessions, but when he did speak it was always with effect. His diction was singularly luminous and expressive, and would have attracted attention in any public assembly in the world. There was a clear metallic ring in his voice which did full justice to the language employed, and there were few empty benches in the House when it was known that Rolph was to speak. His colleague from Middlesex, though a staunch Reformer, was a man of very different cast. Captain Matthews was a retired officer of the royal artillery, who had seen twenty-seven years' service. At a very early period of his residence in Upper Canada he had become disgusted with Family Compact rule, and had spoken his mind on the subject with much freedom. Being a resident of the County of Middlesex, and being held in much esteem there among the adherents of Liberal principles, he was induced to offer himself along with Dr. Rolph at the general election of 1824 as one of the candidates for the county. His candidature was successful, and he became very popular in the House, though the texture of his mind was somewhat light and airy, and he was not well fitted, either by nature or by training, to deal with such grave constitutional questions as were continually forcing themselves upon public attention. Another prominent Reformer who now took his seat in Parliament for the first time was Peter Perry, who had been returned as young Marshall Bidwell's colleague in the representation of Lennox and Addington. Although thirty-four years have elapsed since his death, Mr. Perry is still well remembered by the older generation of our politicians. During the twelve years succeeding his entry into public life he was one of the most conspicuous Reformers in the Province. Though not possessed of a liberal education, and though his demeanour and address were marred by a sort of impetuous coarseness, he was master of a rude, vigorous eloquence which under certain conditions was far more effective than the most polished oratory would have been. He was certainly the ablest stump orator of his time in this country, and there was no man in the Reform ranks who could so effectively conduct a difficult election campaign. No man was more dreaded by his opponents, more especially by those who had to encounter him while a contest was pending. It may here be added that he continued to take an active part in politics down to a short time before his death in 1851, and that he rendered great services to the cause of Reform, but in the years following the Union of the Provinces he was overshadowed by Robert Baldwin, whose social position, spotless reputation and disinterestedness of purpose combined to place him on a pedestal beyond the reach of ordinary politicians. Peter Perry, however, while yielding a loyal support to Mr. Baldwin, continued to the end of his life to fight his political battles in his own way. The sincerity of his convictions was beyond any sort of question, and his shrewdness, experience and hard common sense caused his opinions to be regarded with respect, even by such men as Rolph, Baldwin and the Bidwells. Mr. Perry was a native Upper Canadian, having been born at Ernestown in 1793, during the early part of Governor Simcoe's administration of affairs. He was the son of a U. E. Loyalist, and was brought up on a farm, at a time when public schools were few and far between in the rural districts. He grew to manhood without having acquired much in the way of education, but the quickness of his parts and the soundness of his judgment did much to atone for his want of regular school training. He began to take an active interest in public affairs at an early age, and before he was thirty he had acquired wide notoriety as a strongly-pronounced Reformer. Living in the same part of the country as the Bidwells, he took a warm interest in their candidature. As his political ideas coincided with theirs, and as his rough eloquence had already made him well known throughout the constituency, he espoused their side in the successive election contests, and at the general election of 1824 was himself returned to the Assembly as the colleague of the brilliant young lawyer. In addition to John Rolph, Marshall Spring Bidwell, Captain John Matthews and Peter Perry, a number of other advocates of Reform principles were returned at the general election of 1824. For the first time in Upper Canadian annals, it was manifest not only that the Reformers had a majority in point of numbers in the Assembly, but that they had a decided preponderance of ability. No adherent of the official party--not even the Attorney-General, John Beverley Robinson--was a match for Rolph or Bidwell, to say nothing of Perry, whose oratory was of an altogether different complexion, though scarcely less effective. Upon the meeting of the Houses the numerical strength of the respective parties was fairly tested by the vote on the Speakership. The Reformers nominated as their candidate John Willson, one of the members for Wentworth. Mr. Willson was an unpretending farmer, of strong political convictions, but of good sense and calm judgment, who had allied himself with the Reformers, and who might safely be depended upon to discharge the duties incidental to the Speakership with judicial impartiality. The vote stood twenty-one to nineteen, the majority of two being in Mr. Willson's favour. The Reformers felt that they had achieved a triumph, and were accordingly jubilant; but they soon found that the mere control of the Assembly signified very little in the absence of Executive responsibility. The Legislative Council interposed its dead weight, and vetoed one bill after another sent up by the Assembly. The Reform preponderance in the Assembly, however, and the bringing together of the leading supporters of Liberal principles, led to the establishment of an organized body of Reformers, which from that time forward made its existence felt throughout the constituencies, and presented an obstacle to the continued rule of the Compact. Conspicuous among the Fathers of Reform, in addition to John Rolph, Peter Perry, Captain Matthews and the two Bidwells, were Doctor William Warren Baldwin, his son Robert, and William Lyon Mackenzie. None of the three last-named gentlemen was at this time in Parliament, but they were nevertheless all able to render very valuable services to Reform principles--the first two by reason of their wealth and high social position, and the third from the fact that he was the publisher of a newspaper, and that he was a man of strong opinions and superabundant energy in giving expression to them. The elder Baldwin was a gentleman of high character and social position, resident at York. He had emigrated from Ireland to Canada towards the close of the last century, and, like Mr. Rolph, had for some time practised law and medicine concurrently. He achieved considerable success, both pecuniarily and otherwise, and, notwithstanding his political principles, which were of a decidedly advanced character, he was respected by the entire community of the little Provincial capital. The family to which he belonged were well known in Ireland for their adherence to advanced political doctrines, and he himself remained true to family traditions. At a time when it required no slight courage to espouse the Liberal side in York, Dr. Baldwin was always to be found in the ranks of Reform. He was wealthy, as, in addition to the property which he had personally accumulated, he had succeeded, by bequest, to the bulk of the large possessions of the Honourable Peter Russell--whose method of doing good unto himself has already been glanced at--and of that gentleman's maiden sister Elizabeth. Miss Russell resided in Dr. Baldwin's family during the last few years of her life, and survived until 1822. The Russells and the Baldwins were remotely connected by ties of relationship, and as neither the Administrator nor his sister ever married, there was nothing strange in the disposition made by them of their property. High as Dr. Baldwin stood in the Reform ranks, however, he was destined to be eclipsed by his more distinguished son. It is safe to say that no public man in Canada has ever gained so enviable a reputation as attaches to the name of Robert Baldwin. As was intimated two or three pages back, he stood upon a lofty pedestal, and was a very man _per se_. And this high position he attained, not by means of brilliant oratory, keenness of perception, or subtle comprehensiveness of judgment. No one has ever pretended to claim for him any special intellectual greatness of any kind. He was a plain man, of abilities not much above the average, who possessed strong convictions, and whose high principles, sterling honesty and disinterestedness of purpose were unimpeachable. Had he been a member of the British House of Commons during Sir Robert Walpole's régime, the proverbial dictum of that high priest of corruption would never have been uttered, for certainly no man would ever have dreamed of offering a bribe to Robert Baldwin. He has been in his grave for more than a quarter of a century; thirty-four years have elapsed since his withdrawal from public life; yet he is still referred to by adherents of both political parties in Canada as a statesman of unblemished integrity, whose character was without spot, and in whose bosom was no guile. He more than once occupied the foremost position in the public eye. During much of his career a fierce light beat upon him, yet failed to disclose anything whereof the most august character in history would have had any cause for feeling ashamed. As I have said elsewhere: "We can still point to him with the admiration due to a man who, during a time of the grossest political corruption, took a foremost part in our public affairs, and who yet preserved his integrity untarnished. We can point to him as the man who, if not the actual author of Responsible Government in Canada, yet spent the best years of his life in contending for it, and who contributed more than any other person to make that project an accomplished fact. We can point to him as one who, though a politician by predilection and by profession, never stooped to disreputable practices, either to win votes or to maintain himself in office. Robert Baldwin was a man who was not only incapable of falsehood or meanness to gain his ends, but who was to the last degree intolerant of such practices on the part of his warmest supporters. If intellectual greatness cannot be claimed for him, moral greatness was most indisputably his. Every action of his life was marked by sincerity and good faith, alike toward friend and foe. He was not only true to others, but was from first to last true to himself.... Robert Baldwin was neither a bigot nor a fanatic, but he was in the best and truest sense of the word a Christian. He was strict in his observance of religious duties, and brought up his children to seek those things which make for righteousness, rather than the things of this world. His piety was an ever-present influence in his life, and was practically manifested in his daily walk and conversation. As we contemplate the fifty-four years which made up the measure of his earthly span, we cannot fail to be impressed by its uniform consistency, its thorough conscientiousness, its devotion to high and noble objects. It is a grand thing to acquire a famous name, but it is a much grander thing to live a pure and noble life; and in estimating the character of Robert Baldwin it should be remembered that he was not merely a statesman and a lawyer, but was, over and above all else, a man and a Christian."[63] The foregoing account, be it understood, applies to a later period. At the date of the general election in 1824 Robert Baldwin was still a young man, whose reputation, professional and political, was yet to be made. He had not even been called to the bar, and was still a student in his father's office. Notwithstanding his youth, however--he was only in his twenty-first year--he had given some thought to the political questions of the time, and had even begun to look forward to the possibility of an ultimate political career. His father, from whom he had learned many political lessons, had recently become very wealthy through the death of Miss Russell, as already mentioned. Much of his wealth consisted of landed property. Robert was the first-born child of his parents, and, as the law of primogeniture was then in force in Upper Canada,[64] it was to be anticipated that he would succeed to large possessions, and would be independent of any income arising from his own exertions. He bore an honoured name, and it was tolerably certain that, under such a combination of circumstances, he would sooner or later find his way to Parliament. He had already imbibed what were in those days considered as advanced Liberal views, and was in full accord with his father, who had to a large extent moulded his opinions. He was present at the meetings of the Reform members held during the first session following the elections of 1824, for the purpose of organization. It was then that a distinct Reform Party, with common objects and a specific policy, may be said to have been formed in this Province. There had been Upper Canadian Reformers from the very foundation of the Province, but no Reform Party can strictly be said to have had an existence prior to the latter part of the year 1824. No man was more conspicuous in contributing to the founding of the Reform Party than was William Lyon Mackenzie, whose personality yet remains to be considered. Owing in some measure to the force of circumstances, but chiefly to his own energy, impulsiveness and love of notoriety, Mr. Mackenzie's name and achievements have become more widely known than have those of many abler and wiser men. He was the only child of humble parents, and was born at Springfield, a suburb of Dundee, in Forfarshire, Scotland, on the 12th of March, 1795. When he was four weeks old his father died, leaving him and his mother wholly unprovided for, insomuch that they were dependent upon the bounty of relatives. To adopt his own language, poverty and adversity were his nurses, and want and misery were his familiar friends. "It is among the earliest of my recollections," wrote he in 1824, "that I lay in bed one morning during the grievous famine in Britain in 1800-1, while my poor mother took from our large kist the handsome plaid of the tartan of our clan, which in her early life her own hands had spun, and went and sold it for a trifle, to obtain for us a little coarse barley meal, whereof to make our scanty breakfast; and of another time during the same famine when she left me at home crying from hunger, and for (I think) eight shillings sold a handsome and hitherto carefully preserved priest-gray coat of my father's, to get us a little food." His mother, from whom he inherited his most salient peculiarities, was a woman of strongly-marked character. She was endowed by nature with a high temper, and with a tendency to act from impulse rather than from reason. To these qualities were added great energy and strength of will. She brought up her son in the straitest of theological creeds, which left a certain permanent mental impress upon him, though during the last quarter of a century of his life he wandered far afield from the religious teachings of his childhood. He seems to have been born with a genuine love for knowledge, for, notwithstanding the inauspicious surroundings of his youth, he contrived to acquire a better education than was commonly obtainable by lads in his rank of life in Scotland in those times. The education thus acquired was almost to the end of his days supplemented by reading and study. As soon as he was old enough to enter upon employment he became an assistant in a draper's shop, after which he filled various temporary situations which led to nothing. When only nineteen he opened a small store on his own account at Alyth, a village about twenty miles from Dundee. This he conducted for about three years, by which time it had become apparent that the business could not be successfully carried on, so he abandoned it and removed to England. There he spent more than two years, during some part of which he acted as clerk to a coal company. In the spring of 1820 he sailed for Canada, where he was destined to gain great notoriety, and to become an important factor in the moulding of public opinion. In a new country like Canada a young man of Mackenzie's energy was soon able to make his presence felt. After being employed for a short time on the survey of the Lachine Canal, he opened a store at York, whence he removed to Dundas, and entered on a more extensive mercantile business in partnership with Mr. John Lesslie, the style of the firm being "Mackenzie & Lesslie." His mercantile venture in Dundas was fairly successful. During his residence there he married Miss Isabel Baxter, a native of Dundee, after a brief courtship of three weeks. In the spring of 1823 the firm of Mackenzie & Lesslie was dissolved, and for a few months thereafter the senior partner carried on business by himself. In the autumn of the same year he removed to Queenston, where he embarked in business by opening a general store. The store had not been many months in operation before its proprietor abandoned commercial pursuits and embraced the life of a journalist. This change seems to have been the result of some deliberation, and it must be admitted that Mr. Mackenzie possessed considerable aptitude for the new field of labour which he had chosen. His writing, though very unequal, and sometimes exceedingly verbose and amateurish in point of style, was almost always direct and easy to understand. His observation was keen, and he had taken a warm interest in politics ever since his arrival in the country. Though many of his views were what would now be considered Toryish and out of date, they were then classed by the Compact and their adherents as ultra-Radical and revolutionary. He had formed the acquaintance of Rolph, Perry, the Bidwells, and other prominent Reformers, by all of whom the sincerity of his political professions were regarded as being beyond question. The first number of his newspaper, which was christened _The Colonial Advocate_, made its appearance on the 18th of May, 1824. It consisted of thirty-two pages, and, although its owner had neither received nor sought a single subscriber, he issued an edition of twelve hundred copies. Whether he embarked in newspaper life at this particular time with a view to influencing votes during the impending general election cannot now be known with certainty. Probably enough this may have been one of his motives, which were doubtless of a mixed nature. That he was sincere in his advocacy of Reform must in all fairness be conceded, though his itch for notoriety must always be considered in reviewing and estimating his actions. This tendency of his mind would readily lead him to select journalism as his vocation in life, more especially as he found that his opinions were regarded as having some value. As compared with his life in Britain, his career in Canada had been an undoubted success. He had acquired some property, and was in fair pecuniary circumstances. From the inner side of his counter he had been in the habit of holding forth to his customers on the political and other questions of the day, and had found that his arguments were accepted by a majority of the unlettered yeomen of Wentworth as being unanswerable. He was looked up to as a man of weight and influence in the community, and the consciousness of this was naturally gratifying to the whilom shop-boy of Dumfries. He felt incited to address larger audiences than any which had hitherto listened to him. The time seemed propitious for the establishment of a Reform newspaper. There was a general awakening in the direction of Reform, extending over the greater part of the Province. There could be no sort of doubt that public opinion was in a state of transition: that many people had begun to look forward to a time when Responsible Government would be conceded, and when the domination of the Compact would be no more. When that much-wished-for epoch should arrive, those who had been the means of bringing it about, or of hastening its advent, would stand high among the Reformers of Upper Canada. Who would be likely to stand higher than a clever and aspiring man who was at once editor and proprietor of the leading organ of Liberal opinion in the Province? Such a personage might command anything within the power of his party to grant. That he would soon be able to write his way into Parliament was a foregone conclusion; and a seat in Parliament appeared a very proud distinction in the eyes of one whose past surroundings had been so far removed from such a sphere. That these, or something like these, were among the chief motives whereby Mr. Mackenzie was actuated in establishing _The Colonial Advocate_ seems tolerably certain. Nor is there anything unusual or censurable in such an ambition. The labourer is worthy of his hire, and no labourer is better entitled to a full recompense than is the man who, through long and weary years, struggles to win success for a depressed and righteous cause. That he was not devoid of a spirit of sincere patriotism is evident, alike from his words and his deeds. He had amassed a few hundreds of pounds, and was in no dread of poverty, being sanguine and self-confident to an uncommon degree. He ardently longed to see this fair colony rescued from the thraldom under which it groaned. In a letter[65] written many years afterwards, when he was an outlaw and an exile, he gives his own version of the motives which impelled him to embark upon what he calls "the stormy sea of politics." "I had long," he writes, "seen the country in the hands of a few shrewd, crafty, covetous men, under whose management one of the most lovely and desirable sections of America remained a comparative desert. The most obvious public improvements were stayed; dissension was created among classes; citizens were banished and imprisoned in defiance of all law; the people had been long forbidden, under severe pains and penalties, from meeting anywhere to petition for justice; large estates were wrested from their owners in utter contempt of even the forms of the courts; the Church of England, the adherents of which were few, monopolized as much of the lands of the colony as all the religious houses and dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church had had the control of in Scotland at the era of the Reformation; other sects were treated with contempt and scarcely tolerated; a sordid band of land-jobbers grasped the soil as their patrimony, and with a few leading officials, who divided the public revenue among themselves, formed the Family Compact, and were the avowed enemies of common schools, of civil and religious liberty, of all legislative or other checks to their own will. Other men had opposed, and been converted by them. At nine-and-twenty I might have united with them, but chose rather to join the oppressed, nor have I ever regretted that choice, or wavered from the object of my early pursuit." A man entertaining such views as these, more especially a man of energy and intelligence, with a newspaper at his back, could not fail to be acceptable to the little knot of politicians who formed the nucleus of the Reform Party of Upper Canada. Mr. Mackenzie was cordially welcomed into the ranks, and was soon recognized as a most useful and valuable acquisition thereto. He could make no pretence to the various learning, fine presence, subtle intellect or polished eloquence of Rolph, nor even to the high but less marked qualities of the Bidwells, but the time was at hand when he was to prove that he possessed the power to move audiences, by his voice as well as by his pen. In person he would have been pronounced by a casual passer-by to be rather insignificant, being exceedingly short in stature, and not well proportioned as to his figure, which was slight, wiry, and--owing to a restless habit and a highly-strung nervous system--seldom in repose. Still, no one who contemplated his features with attention would ever have dreamed of pronouncing him commonplace. His intellectual vigour and determination were attested by his large head, massive brow, keen, light-blue eyes and firmly-set mouth. His physical energy was placed equally beyond doubt by the nervous activity above mentioned. Until he was long past the prime of his manhood he was never still for many consecutive moments during his waking hours. When labouring under any unusual excitement his frame seemed to be set on steel springs. As his temper was easily aroused, it was no uncommon thing to see him in one of these phases of excitement. But though he was thus quickly moved to anger, it could not with justice be said that his temper was bad, for, so far from being implacable, he was readily appeased, and always quick to forget and forgive. Altogether, he had an active but ill-balanced organization. His sympathies were too quick and strong for his judgment, and he frequently acted from impulse and hot blood. From his cradle to his grave he was never fit to walk alone and without guidance through any great emergency. No two human beings could well be more unlike than were William Lyon Mackenzie and John Rolph. They were compelled to work together in a common cause for many years, but the two entities were thoroughly antagonistic, and there was never much personal liking between them. The structure of their bodies was not more dissimilar than was that of their minds. The one, slight, wiry, and ever in motion, seemed as though it might be blown hither and thither by any strong current. The other, solid almost to portliness, was suggestive of fixity--of self-dependence, and unsusceptibility to outside influences. The one was suggestive of being in a great measure the creature of circumstances; the other of being a law unto himself--one who would be more likely to influence circumstances than to be influenced by them. Mackenzie's nature, though it could not strictly be called a shallow one, at any rate lay near the surface, and its characters were not hard to decipher, even upon a brief acquaintance. There were depths in Rolph's nature which were never fathomed by those nearest and dearest to him--possibly not even by himself. Mackenzie seems to have long regarded Rolph with a sort of distant awe--as a Sphinx, close, oracular, inscrutable. Rolph evidently estimated Mackenzie correctly, as one whose politics were founded upon deeply-rooted convictions, and not upon mere opinions, although he would probably have found it difficult to subject those opinions to a rigid analysis; as one whose energy and journalistic resources might be turned to good account in the cause of Reform, but whose discretion was not always to be relied on. This estimate, indeed, was sufficiently obvious to any one who maintained frequent or familiar relations with Mackenzie, and was concurred in by most, if not all, of his friends. His earnestness and good faith, however, were manifest to all who knew him, and these were sufficient to cover much more culpable weaknesses than any which he had hitherto displayed. Having now become acquainted with some of the FATHERS of Reform, it is desirable to cast a momentary glance at the material which went to the composition of the Reform Party generally. That material was of the most heterogeneous character imaginable. It included a few U. E. Loyalists of advanced opinions, and their descendants; but the bone and sinew were made up of more recent immigrants from Great Britain and the United States. The organization of the party, such as it was, was of too recent a date at this time to admit of any absolute unanimity of opinion on all questions of public policy having been arrived at among so numerous a body. On one cardinal point, however, all were agreed: it was in the highest degree desirable that the Canadian constitution should be more closely assimilated to that of the mother-country, and that the Executive Council should be made responsible to the popular branch of the Legislature. True, there was a small element--almost entirely made up of immigrants from across the border--who held republican theories, but no class of the community clamoured more loudly for Responsible Government than did the advocates of republicanism, very few of whom regarded their opinions as coming within the domain of practical politics in Upper Canada. On the question of the Clergy Reserves there was less uniformity of sentiment. Many sincere Reformers disapproved of the voluntary principle, and believed in a State provision for the Clergy,[66] though very few of them went so far in that direction as to defend the exclusive pretensions of the Church of England. On this and other important public questions, however, the diversity of opinion henceforth became less and leas from year to year. In point of numbers the adherents of Reform principles constituted a majority of the inhabitants of the Province. The _Advocate_ was only six months old when its proprietor removed to York. If any good service was to be done to Reform by his means it was clear that the Provincial capital must be the seat of his operations. The removal took place in November, 1824, and in the following January the new Parliament met for the first time. Much of the interval was spent by the Reformers in preparations for organization. In all these proceedings Mr. Mackenzie took an active and prominent part. He also assumed, to a greater extent than he had previously done, the _role_ of a public censor, and, in the columns of his paper, opened a hot fire upon the official party and their myrmidons. His writing was "personal journalism," with a vengeance, for he usually expressed himself in the first person singular, and directed his animadversions against any one who, for the time being, happened to have attracted his notice. He wrote very erratically, and from the impulse of the moment; in one number lauding some particular personage in extravagant terms, and in subsequent numbers assailing the self-same individual in language which certainly reflected no credit upon the writer. Sometimes he even extended his attacks to the friends and relatives of those who had become obnoxious to him. In all this he merely followed the example of his opponents, from whom better things might have been expected, but he certainly lessened his influence, even among his friends and fellow-labourers, by his onslaughts upon particular individuals. There can be no manner of doubt, however, that he achieved his object of holding some of his opponents up to public ridicule, and that in at least one or two instances he was the means of affecting votes in the Assembly thereby. To what extent, if at all, his efforts in this direction contributed to the election of Mr. Willson, the Reform candidate for the Speakership in the Assembly, already referred to, is not easy to say. That his deliverances may have produced an effect upon one or two waverers, and thereby have brought about the desired result--the vote, it will be remembered, was a close one, standing twenty-one to nineteen[67]--is possible enough. It is at all events certain that the combined action of the Reform Party in and out of Parliament produced early and specific consequences. On a number of questions the Government found themselves confronted by a hostile majority considerably greater than they had encountered on the Speakership. But these seeming triumphs were of no immediate advantage to the Opposition. Let the majority against the Government be ever so great in the Assembly, the official policy remained the same. The Upper House rejected Bill after Bill which had been passed by the Lower, and the Executive clung to their places in undisturbed serenity. FOOTNOTES: [57] _Ante_, p. 44. [58] The repealing statute is 1 Geo. IV. chapter 4. The statute repealed is 59 Geo. III., sess. 1, chapter 2. [59] It was however a bare majority, the vote standing 17 to 16. [60] See Stat. 2 Geo. IV. chapter 4, passed 17th January, 1822. [61] Six years later Francis Collins, editor of _The Canadian Freeman_, lay in York jail for having charged Attorney-General Robinson with "native malignancy." During his incarceration he addressed several open letters to his prosecutor, in one of which may be found the following comments upon the episode referred to in the text:-- "In the next place, a most respectable portion of the colony returned the venerable Mr. Bidwell, Sen., to Parliament, and upon this occasion I think you displayed more 'native malignancy' than I ever witnessed, in a political way, in the colony. A hired pimp was despatched to Boston to hunt up slanders, originating in political feuds there. Mr. Bidwell was put on his trial before a corrupt House, and when thus you saw your innocent victim within your reach, then it was you lifted up the flood-gates of your loyal wrath, and let your vengeance fall upon his devoted head. Then it was that the overflowings of your 'native malignancy' hurled the tears of loyalty down your pallid cheeks. Then it was that your natural flippancy gave rapid birth to the most gross, unqualified and unjustifiable abuse I ever heard heaped, not only upon a member of Parliament, but even upon the commonest member of society. 'Am I,' said you, 'the son of a U. E. Loyalist, who fought and bled for his country, to sit within these walls with disloyal runaway felons, pickpockets and murderers from the United States?'--(the loyal tears flowing.) Yes, Sir, you coaxed, you threatened, you argued, you wept, until you prevailed upon a corrupt and cringing House, as I have before remarked, to turn Mr. Bidwell out of his seat, unconstitutionally, illegally and unjustly; and the next day you were obliged to get one of your tools to bring in a Bill to cover this illegal proceeding, and prevent his re-election, thus forever depriving the country of the valuable services of a man better qualified for a legislator, in point of learning, talent and experience than yourself, or any other man, perhaps, in Upper Canada. Now, Sir, if you viewed it as a disgrace to sit in the same House with the father, although in every respect your superior, how will it suit you to bend your outrageously loyal neck to his son in the Speaker's chair, who, it is my opinion, is the most fit person in the new House to fill it, and who, I doubt not, will be elected?" The letter from which the foregoing extract is taken bears date December 25th, and appears in the _Freeman_ of that date. The prediction in the concluding sentence was verified. Mr. M. S. Bidwell was elected Speaker at the opening of the session in January, 1829. [62] See 4 Geo. IV., sess. 2, chapter 3, passed 19th January, 1824. [63] _Canadian Portrait Gallery_, Vol. I., pp. 17, 46. [64] It is to the exertions of Robert Baldwin himself that we owe the abolition of the doctrine of primogeniture as applied to real estate in Upper Canada. He it was who, while Attorney-General for the Western Province, introduced and carried through the measure of 1851. [65] Quoted by Mr. Lindsey, in his _Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie_, Vol. I., pp. 40, 41. [66] Among those who approved of such a provision no one was more outspoken than was Mr. Mackenzie himself. In the very first number of the _Advocate_ he clearly laid down his platform on this question. "In no part of the constitution of the Canadas," he writes, "is the wisdom of the British Legislature more apparent than in its setting apart a portion of the country, while yet it remained it wilderness, for the support of religion." He expressed himself in favour of a law whereby the ministers of every body of professing Christians, being British subjects, should receive equal benefits from the Reserves. On this, as on many other subjects, however, the editor of the _Advocate_ subsequently saw fit to alter his opinions. The instability of his opinions, indeed, was one of his most dangerous characteristics, and this alone marked him out as unfit to be trusted with the guidance of others. [67] _Ante_, p. 110. CHAPTER V. A "FREE AND UNFETTERED" PRESS. Mr. Mackenzie's newspaper devoted much space to the advocacy of Responsible Government, which for many years constituted the main plank in the Liberal platform. He pointed out the injustice and absurdity of the existing state of things, where the people were beguiled with a mockery of representation in Parliament without having any voice in the nomination of the persons composing the Government of the day. There was no attempt on the part of the official body to distort the real facts of the case. They straightforwardly avowed their independence of public opinion, and sneered at arguments founded on the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. They proclaimed their immunity from all outdoor influence whatever, and smiled pleasantly when taunted across the floor of the Assembly with repeated violations of the constitution. Rolph, Bidwell, and other Reform members in the House were sufficiently masters of themselves to argue this and other questions on purely public grounds, and without gross violations of the laws of Parliamentary discipline. This, however, Mr. Mackenzie's impetuous temperament prevented him from doing, and as he was not in the House he felt at liberty to give full rein to his impetuosity. He made every important question a personal matter between himself and each individual supporter of the Government who contradicted him. Through the columns of his paper he poured out much bitter invective. What he said was for the most part undeniably true, but he had such an offensive way of expressing himself that the amenities of journalism were constantly violated. By this means he brought down upon his head the rancorous hatred of those whom he made the objects of attack. The feelings entertained towards him by the members of the Government, and by the Tory party generally, were largely personal and independent of politics. The conflict between them may be said to have begun before the removal from Queenston to York, and indeed almost before the ink was dry upon the first number of the _Advocate_. In that number Sir Peregrine Maitland, the Lieutenant-Governor, was accused of indolence, and of being the cause why Upper Canada was less progressive than her enterprising republican neighbour. He was referred to as one who, after spending his earlier days in the din of war and the turmoil of camps, had gained enough renown in Europe to enable him to enjoy himself, like the country he governed, in inactivity; whose migrations were, by water, from York to Queenston and from Queenston to York, like the Vicar of Wakefield, from the brown bed to the blue, and from the blue bed to the brown. Such comparisons as these could not be expected to find much favour with Sir Peregrine, more especially as they notoriously contained more than a _soupçon_ of truth. The faction naturally sympathized with the Lieutenant-Governor, and only waited a suitable opportunity to give adequate expression to their abhorrence of Mackenzie and his doctrines. As for Sir Peregrine, he was ready enough to coöperate with his supporters in any proceeding for the suppression of this free-spoken and most objectionable little Radical, who dared to wag his plebeian tongue against the son-in-law of a Duke. An occasion for the first overt act of hostility was afforded by certain rites connected with the erection of the monument on Queenston Heights to the memory of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. The construction of the monument having been determined upon, and considerable sums of money having been granted by Parliament for the purpose, commissioners were appointed to superintend the work, which was duly proceeded with. The second funeral of the dead hero, and the removal of his remains from Fort George, had been fixed for the 18th of October (1824), being the twelfth anniversary of the battle; but in the interim some of the local magnates of the Niagara District resolved that the foundation-stone should be laid with masonic honours. The 1st of June was appointed for this ceremonial, and on that date a considerable number of persons assembled on the Heights to witness it. Mr. Mackenzie, who, it will be remembered, then resided at Queenston, seems to have taken an active part in the proceedings, and this with the full consent and approval of the committee of management. A glass vessel, hermetically sealed, and enclosing a number of coins and a copy of _The Upper Canada Gazette_, together with the recently-issued first number of _The Colonial Advocate_, was produced for the purpose of being placed within the hollow of the foundation-stone. The vessel and its contents, enveloped in an otter's skin, were placed by Mr. Mackenzie in the cavity, the spectators looking on in quiet approval. The stone was then touched with the trowel, the deposit was covered up, and the rite was complete. An account of the proceedings found its way into the newspapers, and Sir Peregrine Maitland learned, to his intense disgust, of the part which Mackenzie had been permitted to take in the ceremony. He sent for Colonel Thomas Clark, one of the commissioners appointed by Parliament to superintend the construction of the column, and, in a voice of undisguised passion, gave orders to that gentleman that the glass vessel should forthwith be disinterred, and the copy of the _Advocate_ removed therefrom. The mandate was of course obeyed. As the column had by this time reached a considerable height, the excavation was no slight task. Mr. Mackenzie himself, who personally attended at what he called the "premature resurrection," claimed and obtained possession of the number of the paper which had caused so much unnecessary labour and ill-temper. From this time forward there was almost incessant warfare between Mr. Mackenzie and the official party: warfare sometimes suppressed, sometimes altogether concealed for a brief season, but always ready to break out upon the slightest pretext--sometimes, indeed, without any apparent pretext at all. Soon after the _Advocate's_ removal to York, and not long before the opening of the Legislature, the Honourable D'Arcy Boulton, one of the puisne judges, laid himself open to attack by conduct of the most reprehensible kind. In a case tried before him, in which his son, the Solicitor-General, appeared on behalf of the Crown, the Judge displayed such gross partiality that one cannot read the report of the proceedings, even as chronicled by one of the organs of the Government, without mingled feelings of wonder and disgust. At the present day such conduct on the part of an occupant of the judicial bench would bring down upon his head the animadversions of the press of the whole country. Sixty years ago it passed without editorial remark from any of the journals of the time, with the single exception of the _Advocate_, which certainly used some very plain words in characterizing the Judge's behaviour. It appealed to the Legislature to address the Governor on the subject, with a request to dismiss from office the whole of the Boulton race, root and branch. "If a Government emanating from England," wrote Mr. Mackenzie, "can cherish such a corrupt, such a Star Chamber crew, then the days of the infamous Scroggs and Jeffries are returned upon us; and we may lament for ourselves, for our wives and for our children, that the British Constitution is, in Canada, a phantom to delude to destruction, instead of being the day-star of our dearest liberties." Such language as this, which was a mild specimen of the writer's trenchant style, was not, upon the whole, too strong for the occasion. In other instances he was roused to greater fury on less provocation, and used phrases unbefitting the columns of any paper which aspires to be a public instructor. But he was not alone in his scurrility. Some of the persons attacked in the _Advocate_ retorted upon the editor through the official press in language far less defensible than his own. He was denounced as an upstart and a demagogue, whose low origin placed him far beneath the notice of gentlemen. This language, be it understood, was used by at least one wealthy and influential personage whose own origin was such that Mr. Mackenzie's might have been pronounced aristocratic by comparison. To all such vapourings Mr. Mackenzie responded in the _Advocate_ in kind. He had a large vocabulary of Billingsgate at his command, and as his temper became thoroughly aroused he proved that he could fully hold his own in this sort of wordy warfare. He followed the example of his antagonists, invaded the sanctities of private life, and descended to outrageous personalities. The persons thus placed in the journalistic pillory were merely paid back in their own coin, but they had never been accustomed to yield to others the privileges they claimed for themselves, and could not understand how "this fellow" dared presume to retort the foulness hurled at him. His paper meanwhile enjoyed a fair circulation, and his enemies periodically saw themselves held up before the people of the Province in a light well calculated to bring down public execration upon them. They winced, and hated their aggressor with a hatred which knew no bounds. Before the close of the first session of the Ninth Parliament, in 1825, the struggle between the two political parties had assumed a distinct form. The Opposition contended for a responsible Executive; the Government repudiated the contention with sarcastic contempt. There were various other grounds of dispute, but this great question overshadowed and practically included all. It cannot truly be said that there was much perceptible progress in reform during the session; indeed material progress was impossible so long as the Government controlled the Legislative Council, and while the Executive Councillors held on to office in spite of the hostile votes of the Assembly. The way towards reform was however paved by the debates. Never before had the Government of Upper Canada been subjected to the incessant criticism of a watchful and vigorous phalanx of censors within the walls of Parliament. They were not wise enough to read the signs of the times, and would yield nothing to the demands of their opponents. They still believed in the efficacy of repression, and the next few years were marked by a series of high-handed persecutions which did more to speed the progress of reform than all the eloquence of Rolph and Bidwell could have effected in half a century. As for Mackenzie, he would doubtless have been dealt with as Gourlay had been, could such a course have been adopted towards him with safety. Isaac Swayzes in abundance might no doubt have been found to swear that the obnoxious personage had not been a resident of the Province for the preceding six months. Doubtless, also, phrases had been used in the _Advocate_ which, isolated from the context, might have been tortured into something like sedition. But the party in power were not so dull as to be unable to perceive that _that_ experiment must not be repeated. The Liberal schoolmaster had been actively at work within the last few years, and any attempt to re-enact that glaring iniquity would, to say the least, be attended with serious risk to the actors. The most feasible method of disposing of the noisy little firebrand presented itself in the shape of successive indictments for libel, to which his aggressive and unguarded mode of writing would be certain to expose him. It is of course impossible to obtain direct evidence of an express conspiracy on the part of the Government to destroy him by such means. A conspiracy of that nature would not be likely to take the shape of a written contract which might be produced against the contracting parties in the future. Nor would the parties to such a conspiracy be likely to leave any written traces of it behind them. Still, anyone who has the opportunity and inclination to go minutely into the question will be irresistibly driven to the conclusion that there was some sort of understanding among the chiefs of the official party that the publication of the _Advocate_ was to be stopped, and that its editor was to be either driven out of the country or reduced to silence. In the meantime Mr. Mackenzie himself had serious difficulties to contend with. The _Advocate_, notwithstanding its considerable circulation, did not yield any appreciable income. Subscribers were backward in their payments, and the cost of making collections reduced the profit to little or nothing. The postage to country subscribers had to be paid in advance by the publisher, which was in itself a considerable drain upon his resources. The issue of the paper was moreover necessarily attended by a good deal of expense. It did not appear regularly, and the intervals between successive numbers were sometimes of considerable duration. This irregularity was a serious drawback to its prosperity, and a source of much dissatisfaction to its patrons. Such a combination of discouragements could have but one result. By the beginning of June, 1826, Mr. Mackenzie had been reduced to serious pecuniary embarrassment, and had temporarily withdrawn himself from the jurisdiction, pending an arrangement with his creditors. It is in the highest degree improbable that another number of the paper would ever have been issued. It was moribund, if not already dead. But when matters had arrived at this pass, the violence of Mackenzie's enemies led them to commit an act of lawless ruffianism which gave the _Advocate_ a new lease of life. The act moreover aroused much popular indignation against the perpetrators, and a proportionate degree of sympathy for their victim, to whom it gave additional importance, while it at the same time materially improved his financial condition. During the spring of the year 1826 the _Advocate's_ criticisms upon certain members of the oligarchical faction were marked by exceptional acerbity. The persons attacked, however, sought in vain throughout the closely-packed columns for any material upon which a criminal prosecution might be founded; for Mr. Mackenzie, whether by prudence or good fortune, contrived for some weeks to say very acrid things without rendering himself liable to an indictment. Among the persons who were compelled to pass through the fire of his criticism was the Honourable James Buchanan Macaulay, a gentleman who in after years attained the honour of knighthood, and became Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Upper Canada. At the period under consideration he was a member of the Executive Council, and occupied a high position at the local bar. The language employed by the _Advocate_ with respect to him was comparatively mild, and did not even mention him by name. Moreover, the editor's remarks appear to have been entirely in accordance with facts. At any rate they were altogether insufficient to account for the state of ferocity into which Mr. Macaulay allowed himself to be lashed. He prepared and published a pamphlet, in which he gave vent to such scurrility as it seems incredible that any man of education, or even of decent social training, could ever have descended to write. Truly, no man is ever so effectually written down as when he himself holds the pen. Those readers who wish to be better acquainted with the depths to which an angry man can lower himself, and who have not access to Mr. Macaulay's pamphlet, can obtain some inkling of the truth by reference to Mr. Lindsey's "Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie."[68] As Mr. Lindsey very justly remarks:--"The cause of the quarrel was utterly contemptible, and Mr. Macaulay showed to great disadvantage in it." It seems probable enough that one main object of the publication of the pamphlet was to goad Mr. Mackenzie into a retort which would render him amenable to the law of libel. In one sense this plan--if such there were--succeeded. The _Advocate_ came out with a long reply which contained an abundance of scandalous matter, a great part of which, as the writer must have been well aware, had no shadow of foundation in truth. The matter related not only to persons occupying public situations, but to individuals altogether unconnected with public life, including respectable married women and persons who had long been dead. But most of the statements and insinuations, even those which were unsupported by a tittle of evidence--nay, even those which were notoriously groundless--related to and were interwoven with circumstances which, as the persons involved well knew, would not bear discussion. It would never do to permit such matters to become the subject of judicial investigation. Anything in the shape of an enquiry would inevitably lead to disclosures seriously affecting the honour of more than one member of the Compact. An indictment, therefore, was out of the question. It has often been asserted that the oligarchy are to be held accountable for the display of ruffianly violence which followed Mackenzie's retort to Macaulay's pamphlet. In one sense this is true, for it was in consequence of their long abuse of the supremacy which they enjoyed that feelings of hatred and enmity were begotten between one stratum of society and another; and it was this hatred which gave rise to violent measures. But if it is meant to be implied that the oligarchy, as a body, conceived the design, or that it was carried out under their auspices, the implication is too absurd to stand in need of serious rebuttal. To carry the argument no farther, the body was too numerous to admit of any general secret coöperation between them for such a purpose. As simple matter of fact, all knowledge of the contemplated violence was confined to the breasts of those who took part in it. No one familiar with the circumstances, however, can doubt that it met with the fullest approval of the ruling faction after it had been effected, and that, so far as such a thing was possible, the wrong-doers were protected by them from the consequences of the outrage. To this charge they must perforce plead guilty; but there are degrees in guilt, and the endorsation, or even the approval of an act after it has been committed, is a different thing from the original conception and carrying out of it. The respective weight of culpability, in the case under consideration, is a matter which the reader may very well be left to estimate according to his own judgment. And now for the outrage itself. [Sidenote: 1826.] The office of the _Advocate_ was situated on the north-west corner of Frederick and Front[69] streets, in a building which had been the birthplace of Robert Baldwin, and in which the Cawthras subsequently carried on a large and very successful mercantile business.[70] Readers acquainted with the neighbourhood will not need to be informed that this site is in close proximity to the bay. Mr. Mackenzie, with his aged mother--who had long before followed him to Canada--and the rest of his family, resided in the building, which was therefore his home, as well as his place of business. At about half-past six o'clock in the afternoon of Thursday, the 8th of June, 1826, in broad daylight, and while the proprietor was absent in the United States,[71] a raid was made upon the printing establishment, which, in the course of a few minutes, was reduced to a state of confusion and chaos. The door was broken open, the press partly demolished, the imposing-stone overturned, and a quantity of type battered and thrown into the adjacent bay. The contents of some of the cases were "pied" and scattered around the floor. Frames, chases, galleys, composing-sticks and office furniture were thrown together in one confused heap. In a word, the entire office was turned topsy-turvy. Mr. Mackenzie's mother, who was then in her seventy-eighth year, stood and watched the proceedings in a state of great fear and agitation from a corner of the office.[72] The most remarkable feature about the whole of this extraordinary transaction was that there appeared to be no attempt at concealment. It was carried out as though it had been the most legitimate and ordinary business enterprise, to which no one could reasonably offer any sort of objection. The raiders did not think it necessary to wait for darkness, nor did they resort to any disguises. If they did not court publicity, they at least took no care to avoid it. They chose a time of day when the journeymen and apprentices connected with the establishment were almost certain to be absent, and when there would be no one to oppose their entrance; though, according to the printed admission of the prime mover and instigator of the affair, they were prepared, if necessary, to oppose force to force in order to effect their purpose. As there was nobody in the office, any such display of force was happily uncalled for. Having made their way inside, the work of destruction was proceeded with coolly and calmly, as though there was no necessity for extraordinary haste. When they had fully worked their will, they departed as quietly as they had arrived. The actual perpetrators of this unique act of ruffianism were nine in number. They were none of them ruffians by profession, and were not commonly rated as blackguards. They could not even plead the poor excuse that they were under the influence of strong drink. Most of them were young men, and nearly all of them were closely identified, either by interest or by close relationship, with prominent members of the oligarchy. They were, in short, with few exceptions, the flower of the aristocracy of the little capital. Chief among them was Samuel Peters Jarvis, barrister, the slayer of poor young John Ridout, mentioned on a former page.[73] He, at least, could not plead in extenuation of his share in the transaction that he had been carried away by the uncontrollable effervescence of youth, for he was at this time not far short of thirty-four years of age[74]. His acquittal on a more serious charge nearly nine years before might well have led him to believe that he could with impunity set the law at defiance. His identification with the ruling faction is easily traced, for he was a son of Mr. William Jarvis, who was for many years Secretary of the Province; and he was moreover son-in-law to ex-Chief Justice Powell.[75] He himself held a situation under Government at this time--being Clerk of the Crown in Chancery--and stood high in the favour of Sir Peregrine Maitland, towards whom he sometimes acted in the capacity of private secretary. He was the chief offender, for it was by him that the outrage was planned, and he was the directing spirit throughout, as well as the most noisy and impudent apologist for it afterwards. Another active participant in the raid was Captain John Lyons, a confidential clerk in the Lieutenant-Governor's office. A third was Henry Sherwood, student at law in the office of Attorney-General Robinson, and Clerk of Assize. He was a son of the Honourable Levius Petere Sherwood, one of the puisne judges, and was also connected with other leading members of the ruling faction. It is due to him to say that he eventually outgrew the follies of his youth, and became an able lawyer, a prominent politician, and a useful member of society. He alone, of all the participators in this shameful business, attained to anything like honourable distinction. A fourth member of the gang of kid-gloved housebreakers was Charles Heward, a son of Colonel Stephen Heward, who, in addition to being an active spirit among the Compact, was a magistrate, Clerk of the Peace in and for the Home District, and Auditor-General of Land Patents. The others were Charles Richardson, a student in the office of Attorney-General Robinson; James King, a student in Solicitor-General Boulton's office; Peter McDougall, a well-known shopkeeper in York in those times; and two sons of the Honourable James Baby, Inspector-General, and member of the Executive Council. These were all the active participants in the outrage. While it was in progress a number of other persons appeared upon the scene, but did not take any part therein otherwise than as spectators. It is of course not to be supposed that this incursion was attributable, either directly or indirectly, to the Government as a body, or that it had formed a subject of deliberation at the Council Board. The charge that it was attributable to the entire oligarchy has already been disposed of.[76] But it is at least fairly to be inferred that, after the thing had been done, the Government considered themselves as being under obligations to the misguided persons concerned in it. Several of the latter received appointments to positions of public trust and emolument, such as are usually conferred by Governments upon deserving supporters. Jarvis was successively appointed to various posts, the most important of which was that of Indian Commissioner, in which capacity he became a defaulter to the Government, and was involved in serious pecuniary and other difficulties. The avenging ghost of John Ridout pursued him, and his subsequent career was not one to be contemplated with admiration. Richardson, again, was appointed Clerk of the Peace for the Niagara District. Sir Peregrine Maitland could not pretend to overlook the dereliction of his confidential clerk, Captain Lyons, who was accordingly dismissed from that position. But this was not the end of the story. Many readers are doubtless familiar with Halifax's remark when Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, was removed from the post of First Lord of the Treasury and installed in that of Lord President. "I have seen people kicked downstairs," remarked the great Trimmer, "but my Lord Rochester is the first person that I ever saw kicked up-stairs."[77] In like manner the Lieutenant-Governor's clerk was soon afterwards kicked up-stairs, by being appointed Registrar of the Niagara District. It really seemed as though this wanton and most reprehensible invasion of private rights was regarded by those in authority as a high and meritorious action. It was certainly so regarded by "the best society" of York at the time. The young men, who ought to have been made to suffer social ostracism, were petted and caressed as heroes who had done some grand service to the State; and, as will presently be seen, they were not even permitted to suffer any considerable pecuniary loss by reason of their breach of the law. Finding that their conduct led to their being made the subjects of a sort of hero-worship, it is not surprising that they soon came to pique themselves upon what they had done, and, so far from feeling any consciousness of shame or regret, to openly court publicity for their proceedings. Jarvis was especially culpable in this respect, and was not ashamed to write letters to the papers on the subject, in one of which he avowed himself as the author and originator of the outrage. He admitted having led on his band of semi-official desperadoes, determined to "persevere, if resistance had been made." As to the morality or immorality of the act, he professed himself "easy on that head." Such language as this, coming, as it did, from one who had shed the blood of a fellow-creature upon very slight provocation; who had been tried for murder, and acquitted because the crime was sanctioned by the usages of society; and who, moreover, in the estimation of many people, richly deserved the hangman's noose--such language, under the circumstances, was not merely injudicious and unfeeling, but positively revolting. The only conceivable excuse that can be made for it arises from the fact that Jarvis was at the time irritated by a succession of attacks in the newspapers, in which his conduct, bad as it had been, was held up in even a more odious light than it deserved. The excuse may be taken for what it is worth. It is at least certain that had the transgressor been imbued with feelings of ordinary delicacy he would not have permitted himself to be goaded into using such expressions as are to be found in his "Statement of Facts," published at York nearly two years after the type riot.[78] His callousness stirred the hot blood of Francis Collins, of _The Canadian Freeman_, to speak his mind editorially on the subject:--"We view it," he wrote, "as the greatest misfortune that could happen to any man in this life to imbrue his hands in the blood of a fellow-man. But as this barbarous practice has, by long usage, become familiar to the mind of civilized society, we think it is a misfortune that might occur to an otherwise virtuous and well-disposed man, and therefore ought not (unless under aggravated circumstances) to be a reproach either to himself or to his children; provided that, during the remainder of his life he will show that caution which becomes his delicate situation, and prove by his subsequent benevolence that he regrets his misfortune. But if, after once having stained his hands with human blood, he will act the desperado, and become a leader in such outrages as may end in a repetition of his former act--then, we say, he is worthy of reproach, and ought to be viewed as the common enemy of mankind."[79] News of the aggression soon found its way to Mr. Mackenzie at Lewiston.[80] He at once returned to York, and lost no time in instituting proceedings against eight of the aggressors who had constituted themselves a vigilance committee at his expense. He brought a civil action for damages, and erelong these incipient "Regulators of Upper Canada" began to realize that they had acted with some precipitation and foolhardiness. It seemed probable that they would be mulcted in heavy damages; and even these would be no bar to a criminal prosecution. The aforementioned James Buchanan Macaulay was appointed to conduct their defence. The plaintiff's attorney was James Edward Small, a rising young lawyer who afterwards made some figure in political life, and who belonged to a well-known family in York. Overtures in the direction of a compromise were made on behalf of the raiders, who offered first two hundred pounds and afterwards three hundred by way of full compensation. The smaller amount would have been an abundant recompense for the actual loss,[81] but Mackenzie felt that public sympathy was with him, and he was desirous that the facts should go to a jury. The offer of the defendants was rejected, and the case came on for trial before Chief Justice Campbell and a special jury in the following October. Associated with the Chief Justice were the Honourable William Allan and Mr. Alexander McDonnell, as Justices of the Peace. The plaintiff's counsel were Marshall Spring Bidwell, J. E. Small, and Alexander Stewart, of Niagara. The defendants were represented by J. B. Macaulay and Christopher Alexander Hagerman. These names afford sufficient evidence that full justice was done to the case on both sides. Hagerman was a counsel of remarkable ability, and he fought very hard. His argument was a masterpiece of clever, specious reasoning, well calculated to produce an effect upon uneducated or half-educated jurymen. He took an enlightened stand, admitting the advantage to a community of a free and unfettered press. He then proceeded to argue away all the consequences of the admission, alleging that the career of the _Advocate_ had been one of license, and not of mere freedom. But the evidence of the outrage was clear and unassailable, and the defence did not venture to call any witnesses. It was proved on behalf of the plaintiff that three members of the ruling faction, two of whom were magistrates, had been in close proximity to the scene of the raid at the time when it took place; and there appears to be very little doubt that all three must have been eye-witnesses of the outrage. One of these was the Honourable William Allan, who, at the very moment when this evidence was given, sat on the bench to the right of the Chief Justice as an associate judge on the trial. Colonel Heward, whose son Charles was one of the delinquents, was the other magistrate compromised by the evidence. The third person alleged to have witnessed the transaction was Mr. Macaulay, leading counsel for the defence. The utter incongruity and unseemliness of the whole affair from first to last seems incomprehensible at the present day. All sense of the fitness of things seems to have been wanting. The trespass had been flagrant and bold, and the only question which the jury had to consider was the amount of damages. There were conflicting elements among the jurors, who were long in coming to a decision. After much deliberation they returned a verdict of £625, which sum, together with costs of suit, was soon afterwards paid over to the plaintiff's attorney.[82] But the rioters themselves were not suffered to sustain this loss. Prominent adherents of the official party did not hesitate to say that by the attack upon Mr. Mackenzie's press and type, and by the consequent stoppage of publication of his paper,[83] the perpetrators of the outrage had rendered an essential service to society, by abating an intolerable nuisance. Under such circumstances it was only just that society should bear harmless those who had thrown themselves into the breach and vindicated her rights. It was resolved that a subscription should be set on foot with this laudable object. Among the few high Tories resident at York in those days upon whose characters it is possible for one of modern ideas to look with sympathy, and even with a considerable degree of admiration, was Colonel James Fitz Gibbon. The Colonel was a gallant veteran who had fought the battles of his country on two continents, at Copenhagen and the Helder, at Fort Erie and the Beaver Dams. His military career was not yet quite at an end, for he was destined to play an important part in the putting-down of the Upper Canadian Rebellion; a circumstance which furnishes a sufficient justification for a somewhat more extended reference to him in this place than his mere connection with the press riot would have rendered necessary. He was an Irishman of humble origin, who had enlisted as a private soldier at the age of seventeen, and who, by sheer force of energy, bravery and aptitude for his profession, had fought his way to military rank and honour. After seeing much service on the continent, and passing through as many adventures as a knight-errant of old, he was transferred to British North America. His gallant services in this country are imperfectly recorded in various accounts of the War of 1812, and in Tupper's "Life of Brock." Every Canadian is, or ought to be, familiar with the circumstances attending the capture by him of a force of 450 infantry, fifty cavalry, and two guns, he himself being at the time in command of only forty-eight men. After the close of the war he was placed on half pay, and took up his abode at York. He attached himself to the Provincial militia, whence he derived his rank of Colonel. He likewise obtained a post in the Adjutant-General's office, and subsequently became Deputy Adjutant-General, which position he held at the period at which the narrative has arrived. He was also in the Commission of the Peace, and frequently sat in Quarter Sessions. His share in suppressing the revolt in 1837 will be narrated in its proper place. For the rest it may be added that he was always impecunious, for, apart from the fact that he was no financier, and never knew how to take care of money when he had any, the expenses of his outfit when promoted to the rank of Adjutant, in 1806, formed the nucleus of a debt which hampered him from youth to old age. His indigence often subjected him to straits which must have been hard to bear; but he was of a sanguine, joyous disposition, and poverty, though it might temporarily overcloud his happiness, had no power to break his indomitable spirit. During his long residence in Canada he was a persistent seeker after office, because he was almost always in pecuniary straits; but he fully earned all the emoluments he ever received from the Government, and if his income had been five times as large as it ever was he would probably have been neither more comfortable nor less impecunious. It seemed as though no experience could lead him to take thought for the morrow. His chief characteristics were such as are not uncommon among his fellow-countrymen. He was generous and open-hearted to a fault, ever ready to bestow his last shilling upon anybody who needed it, or who even made a plausible pretence of needing it. He was rash, impetuous and indiscreet, but the ranks of the British army held no braver or more loyal heart than his. In his simple and gentle soul there was no room for envy or guile. He seems, indeed, to have been in many respects a sort of Irish reflection of Colonel Newcome; and the parallel even extended to the outward circumstances attending the close of their respective lives. Colonel Newcome, when all his worldly possessions had gone from him, retired to Grey Friars--the Charterhouse--a retreat for "poor and decayed brethren," when the world seemed to afford no other asylum. There he passed the remainder of his days, and there he said "Adsum" when his name was called for the last time in this world. In like manner Colonel Fitz Gibbon, when all other resources failed him, was able, through the kindness of Lord Seaton, to obtain a place in an asylum of somewhat similar character. At Royal Windsor there is an institution which provides a retreat from the cares and storms of life for a limited number of depleted old military officers. The members are styled Military Knights of Windsor, and the abodes provided for them are situated "within the precincts." Hither, in 1850, when he had entered upon his seventieth year, the battered old hero of many fights retired to pass in quiet the evening of an active life. He survived for more than ten years, during which period he succeeded in obtaining for himself and his brother knights certain important privileges of which they had theretofore been deprived. Though he was not, in the proper sense of the word, a politician, both his interests and his superabundant loyalty impelled him to the side of those in power. No one in the Province had less respect for radicals of the Mackenzie stamp. It was sufficient for him to reflect that the official party reflected the might and majesty of the Crown of Great Britain. His whole nature, fostered by his military training, revolted at the idea of opposition to those in authority. He was moreover dependent upon the Government for his place in the Adjutant-General's office, and would naturally espouse the side of his patrons. The Compact had no more faithful adherent, and by no one were "low radicals" held in more profound abhorrence. He was roused to a high pitch of fervour by the trial of the press rioters, who, in his opinion, had acted in the most patriotic and praiseworthy spirit. When the verdict had been rendered, and when it had become manifest that the defendants must pay the penalty of their acts, the Colonel regarded them as martyrs. He promptly volunteered to canvass the town for subscriptions to a fund for discharging the liability, and thus saving "the boys," as he called them, from loss. He was as good as his word, and the requisite sum was soon forthcoming. Who the contributors to this fund were has never been fully revealed, and the secret is likely to be well kept, for the list was burned by Colonel Fitz Gibbon immediately after it had served its purpose, and there is probably no man now living who can throw any light upon the subject. Mr. Lindsey observes[84] that "it is believed the officials of the day were not backward in assisting to indemnify the defendants in the type-riot trial, for the adverse verdict of an impartial jury"--a belief which, under the circumstances, is certainly not an extravagant one. It was commonly rumoured that several heads of departments had contributed twenty pounds each to the fund, and Francis Collins gave currency to the rumour through the columns of his paper. The controversy to which this gave rise was the indirect means of furnishing almost the only evidence now obtainable as to the signatures to the subscription list. Collins asserted that Sir Peregrine Maitland's own name was understood to be at the head of the list, opposite to a large contribution. Colonel Fitz Gibbon was so indiscreet as to write a reply, in which he distinctly declared that the latter's assertion was wholly untrue, _so far as the Lieutenant-Governor was concerned_. From this letter, which was duly given to the public in the _Freeman_, it was not unfairly to be inferred that the assertion, so far as it related to the heads of departments, could not be truthfully denied. That some, at least, of the members of the official body contributed to the fund was matter of notoriety in York at the time, and, so far as I am aware, has never been denied. The Honourable James Baby, indeed, who was then or shortly afterwards the senior member of the Executive Council, and who, as before mentioned, was the father of two of the young men concerned in the raid, contributed his share with great reluctance. He was at this time advanced in life--he was in his sixty-fifth year--and he had ceased to carry much weight in the Great Council of the Province, having been to a large extent superseded by younger and more energetic men. His opinions were no longer deferred to as they had once been, and on one or two occasions he had, as he conceived, been treated with inadequate respect by some of his junior colleagues. He felt his position keenly, and there is reason for believing that he would have resigned his office of Inspector-General and his seat at the Council Board, had it not been that there were many demands upon his purse, and that he was largely dependent upon his official salary for the support of his family. On a subsequent page a notable instance will be given of the degradation to which his poverty compelled him to submit at the hands of the Lieutenant-Governor. Under the circumstances, however, he could not refuse to contribute to Colonel Fitz Gibbon's list; and it is recorded that when one of his sons called upon him for the amount which he had subscribed, he handed over the sum with justifiable petulance, saying: "There, go and make one great fool of yourself again."[85] Such of the rioters as were possessed of means contributed to the fund according to their respective ability, but the others were not allowed to bear more than a very small share of the loss. The only other documentary evidence to be had on the subject of the subscribers to the fund is to be found in the "Statement of Facts" of Samuel Peters Jarvis himself. "I have on my part to assure the public," he writes, "that so far from being indemnified by the contributions which from various motives were made for our relief, the burthen fell heavily upon such of us as had the means of paying anything; and I affirm that the share of the verdict which I myself had to defray, from no very abundant means, was such that if Mr. Mackenzie had made as much clear profit by his press during the whole time he has employed it in the work of detraction, he would not have found it necessary to leave the concern, and abandon it to his creditors." To which statement it may be added that a gentleman now living in Toronto distinctly remembers hearing Mr. Jarvis say that his own contribution to the fund was precisely £109; that that of Peter McDougall was about the same; and that none of the rest of the rioters paid anything, except through their parents or relatives. The civil liability having been discharged, the public looked forward to a criminal prosecution, for it seemed outrageous that the perpetrators of such an offence against society should escape without any greater penalty than had thus far been exacted from them. Mr. Mackenzie himself seems to have been desirous of proceeding to extremities, although the amount which he had recovered was far more than compensation for any loss he had sustained, whether direct or incidental. But the brains of his professional advisers were cooler than his own, and saved him from the consequences of his want of judgment. Mr. Bidwell dissuaded him from taking any steps which might seem to be dictated by a feeling of revenge. It was represented to him that he was a decided gainer by the raid, not only in pocket but in popularity. The public sympathy had been with him from first to last. A policy of war to the knife on his part would certainly cool, and in some cases altogether alienate that sympathy. The jury's liberal verdict bad placed him "in funds," and he was thus in a position to resume the publication of the _Advocate_ under favourable circumstances. The transaction had distinctly increased his prestige in the rural constituencies, and he might reasonably hope to be a successful candidate for Parliament when a suitable vacancy should occur. Such being the position of affairs, he was strongly advised to let well alone. Contrary to his habit, he proved amenable to advice, and refrained from a criminal prosecution. The issue fully justified the advice of Mr. Mackenzie's counsellors. Several of the newspapers in the Province commended his forbearance, and contrasted his conduct with that of his enemies. But, it was asked, what was the Attorney-General about? How was it that he, who never failed to stretch his authority to the utmost when a Reformer rendered himself amenable to the law--how was it that he permitted such an outrage as this to pass without notice? Surely it was his duty to officially proceed against the wrong-doers. But the Attorney-General was deaf to all such remonstrances, and did not concern himself with the matter further than to maintain the most cordial relations with the persons implicated. How far his conduct in this respect was consistent will hereafter appear. Colonel Fitz Gibbon was rewarded for his zeal in a bad cause by receiving the appointment of Clerk to the Legislative Assembly, and the additional income thus afforded him left him neither better off nor worse than before. The participators in perhaps the grossest outrage ever committed in the Provincial capital thus escaped, for the time, all due penalty for their misconduct. It may almost be said, indeed, that they escaped altogether, for though, as will hereafter be seen, seven of them were eventually brought to trial and convicted at the instance of another person, they received no adequate punishment, and were thus able to boast that gentlemen in their station of life in York were above the law. Rash deeds often produce unlooked-for consequences. So it was in the case under review. The attempt to suppress the _Advocate_ was the means of re-establishing it on a fairly satisfactory financial basis, and of extending its life for about seven years. The indignity to which the printing-office had been subjected, and the trial resulting therefrom, had furnished the best advertisements that could possibly have been desired. With a portion of the sum recovered from the hands of the spoilers Mr. Mackenzie was able to satisfy the most pressing of his creditors. With the balance he provided himself with new printing material, and the _Advocate_ soon made its appearance under more favourable auspices than ever. It continued to be marked by the same characteristics as during the first epoch of its existence. It was not conducted with more discretion, and there were as many gross personalities in its columns. It however contributed much to the spread of Reform doctrines, and during much of its life it rendered undoubted service to the party to which it yielded its support. Had the editor's judgment been commensurate with his energies, his journal would undoubtedly have been a great power for good. Even as it was, it probably acted to some extent as a check upon Executive aggression, and thus served a beneficial purpose in spite of its many weaknesses and shortcomings. As for Mr. Mackenzie, his persecutions were by no means at an end. They had, in fact, only begun. Of the many other shameful indignities to which he was subjected--indignities which finally drove him into rebellion, and involved him in overwhelming disaster--the narrative will hereafter take full account. It is at present desirable to advert to a number of other pregnant examples of abuse of power in which Mr. Mackenzie had no special concern. FOOTNOTES: [68] Vol. I., p. 89, et seq. [69] This portion of Front Street was then and for many years afterward known as Palace Street. It had been so named, in the early years of York's history, from the circumstance that it led down to the Parliament Buildings in the east end of the town, and because it was believed that the official residence or "palace" of the Lieutenant-Governor would be built there. [70] This historic landmark was burned down during the winter of 1854-5. [71] He had, as previously mentioned in the text, withdrawn from the Province with a view to a settlement with his creditors. He was at Lewiston, in the State of New York. In the beginning of the second part of his pamphlet, published at York in 1826, giving an account of the affair, he represents himself as having been at Queenston when he received news of the raid. [72] The statement to be found in various books--among others in Wells's _Canadiana_, p. 164, and Roger's _Rise of Canada from Barbarism to Civilization_, Vol. I., p. 405--that Mr. Mackenzie's mother was grossly maltreated by the rioters is wholly without foundation. The affair was disgraceful enough, in all conscience, and needs no fictitious embellishments. [73] _Ante_, p. 13. [74] According to a contemporary pamphlet giving an account of the duel, which took place in 1817, he was then twenty-five years of age. He would therefore be at least in his thirty-fourth year at the time of the press riot in 1826. By reference to the Barristers' Roll I find that he was called to the bar in Trinity Term, 55 Geo. III., 1815, at which time he must have been at least twenty-one years old, so that the statement in the text cannot be far from the fact. It is from him that Jarvis Street, Toronto, derives its name. [75] The Hon. W. D. Powell ceased to be Chief Justice during the previous year (1825), when he was succeeded by Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Campbell. [76] _Ante_, p. 129. [77] Macaulay's _History of England_, Vol. I., Chapter 2. [78] _Statement of Facts relating to the Trespass on the Printing Press in the Possession of Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie, in June, 1826. Addressed to the Public generally, and particularly to the Subscribers and Supporters of the Colonial Advocate._ York, 1828. [79] See the _Freeman_ for Thursday, Feb. 21st, 1828. [80] See note to p. 130 _ante_. [81] Mr. Mackenzie, when taken before the Grand Jury to give evidence in support of a criminal prosecution of the type rioters, admitted that his actual, as distinguished from his incidental loss by the riot, did not exceed £12 10_s._ sterling. [82] It was the policy of the official party to suppress, as far as was practicable, all reference in the public newspapers to the misdoings of themselves and their adherents. This was but natural. No one likes to see his transgressions preserved to future ages in all the pitiless coldness of type, which may rise up against his descendants long after he himself is forgotten. The following is a complete transcript of the contemporary report of the trial of these rioters, as published in _The U. E. Loyalist_, a sheet issued as a sort of supplement or rider to the official _Gazette_. It appears in the _Loyalist_ for October 21st, 1826: "_Court of King's Bench._--In the suit of MacKenzie _vs_ Jarvis, McDougall, and others, for Trespass, the Jury, after a consultation of twenty-four hours, returned into Court--Verdict for the Plaintiff £625." This is absolutely the only information obtainable from the contemporary number of the official organ on a subject which was _par excellence_ the topic of the time. It may be added that the organ contained no reference whatever to the type riot until many weeks after its occurrence. [83] Apparently they were not then aware that the publication had actually ceased before the riot took place. [84] _Life of Mackenzie_, Vol. I., p. 99. [85] See Dr. Scadding's _Toronto of Old_, p. 38. Mr. Baby's idiom was due to his French origin and training. CHAPTER VI. THE CASE OF CAPTAIN MATTHEWS. Captain Matthews, who, it will be remembered, had been returned to the Assembly for the County of Middlesex, gave great umbrage to the official party by allying himself with the Opposition. His birth and social standing, it was said, unfitted him for such companionship. The Captain himself was apparently conscious of no incongruity, and bent all his energies to the advancement of the Reform cause. Upon his first arrival in the country he could not be said to have had any political convictions at all. He had been bred a Tory, and his military career had been such as might naturally have led him to seek his allies in the ranks of those in authority. But his own experience of the abuses in the Land Office had impelled him to consider the political situation of affairs in Upper Canada generally, and the upshot of his deliberations had been his alliance with the new movement in the direction of Reform. Being a man of much local influence, his example had won to his side a number of the Middlesex farmers, more especially in the Township of Lobo, in which he resided. During his first session in Parliament he attracted considerable attention to himself, for he spoke frequently and well, and generally with a humorous eloquence which made him a favourite with those who were not bitter partisans on the other side. It was to be expected that Captain Matthew's defection from the political faith of his ancestors would render him specially odious to the High Tories of Upper Canada. It was shameful, they thought, that an officer deriving an income from His Majesty's Government should entertain, much less give utterance to, such vile democratic opinions as were constantly heard from his lips. The Captain was indiscreet, and became more and more outspoken the oftener he was charged with radicalism; but on no occasion did he utter anything savouring of disloyalty, for the very sufficient reason that there was no disloyalty in his heart. It was apparent to the Compact that his influence was most pernicious to them; yet no feasible plan for getting rid of him presented itself. Would it not be possible, by a little extra exertion, to deprive him of his pension? Could this laudable object be accomplished, the obnoxious Captain, who was of an impetuous temperament, would probably be goaded into saying or doing something really culpable--something which would place weapons in the hands of his enemies whereby he might be effectually silenced. The plan was at any rate worth trying. A system of espionage was accordingly adopted towards him.[86] During the sitting of the Legislature, myrmidons of the Executive dogged his footsteps wherever he went, in order to obtain some grounds for a hostile accusation against him. The spies did not have long to wait, for any shallow pretext was sufficient to serve as a peg upon which to hang an imputation of disloyalty, and the doomed man himself was unsuspicious of any design against him. The pretext actually resorted to was so utterly contemptible that one feels almost ashamed to record the attendant circumstances. A company of theatrical performers from the United States visited York during the session which assembled in the autumn of 1825. The actors met with little encouragement, and became, in stage parlance, "stranded." Being reduced to extremity, they resolved upon giving a special performance for the delectation of the members of the Legislature, whose patronage was solicited for the occasion. Sixteen or eighteen of the members--among whom was Captain Matthews--complied with the solicitation, and the performance took place at the little York theatre on the night of December 31st. During the intervals between the acts the orchestra played the national airs, "God Save the King," "Rule Britannia," and "The British Grenadiers." Several persons in the audience--Captain Matthews among the number[87]--apparently out of compliment to the actors, all of whom were from across the lines, called out for "Yankee Doodle" and "Hail Columbia." The demand was complied with, at least in part. The orchestra were unable to play "Hail Columbia," but the audience were regaled with the lively strains of "Yankee Doodle." Captain Matthews joined in the applause which followed, and removed his hat, calling upon others to do the same. The weight of evidence would seem to favour the idea that he was not the first to raise his hat, or to request the removal of the hats of his fellow-members. At all events the request was generally complied with. And this was the gist of the story. Captain Matthews's share in the events of the evening was the having joined in the demand for the two objectionable airs, in the applause which ensued upon the rendering of one of them, and in the request for the uncovering of heads. These dire offences sealed the doom of a gallant officer who had served his king for more than a quarter of a century, and whose acquiescence in the call for the national airs of the republic was probably due, at least in part, to the effervescence of feeling begotten of a good dinner. It is difficult to trace, step by step, the progress of the measures adopted against him. Distorted and exaggerated accounts appeared in _The Kingston Chronicle_ and _The Quebec Mercury_. But it is hardly likely that any _ex officio_ notice would have been taken of the affair if the newspaper reports had not been backed by a specific charge. Captain Matthews appears to have been secretly accused to the military authorities. He soon afterwards received a letter from the military secretary to the Earl of Dalhousie, Commander of the Forces in Lower Canada, stating that that dignitary's attention had been attracted by a report in the public prints of a representation that Captain Matthews had, in a riotous and outrageous manner, in the theatre at York, called for the national airs and tunes of the United States, "urging the audience there assembled to take off their hats, as is usual in the British Dominions in honour of 'God Save the King.'" The letter went on to say that "finding the statement corroborated, upon inquiry," the Commander of the Forces called upon Captain Matthews to explain conduct which was pronounced to be "utterly disloyal and disgraceful." Even this was not all. By a subsequent letter, received from the Board of Ordnance, the Captain was directed to repair forthwith to Quebec, and there remain until he could, by the first vessel in the spring, proceed to England, there to give an account of his conduct. This order was stated to have been made in consequence of a communication from the authorities in Canada to Lord Bathurst, the Colonial Secretary, and by him transmitted to the Master-General and Board of Ordnance. Mr. Mackenzie asserts that the object of the authorities was to get the Captain out of the Province, and thus deprive the Opposition of his vote, "in order to give the local Government a preponderance in the Legislature against the people's rights."[88] This, however, can hardly be accepted as a full or true explanation, as the Captain's absence at the time would not have given such a preponderance to the Government on any test vote. The weakening of the Opposition may or may not have been one of the objects sought to be achieved by the Captain's accusers. If so, it signally failed. Captain Matthews, be it understood, was not in receipt of half-pay, but of a pension. He had served twenty-seven years, and, on his corps being totally disbanded, he had settled in Upper Canada with the approbation of the Government. Having since been elected a member of the Provincial Assembly, his first duty was to that body, and it was necessary that he should obtain its leave before proceeding to obey the order of the Master-General. Accordingly, on Thursday, the 28th of December, 1826, he rose in his place and made a motion involving an application for leave of absence. He explained the circumstances, and, in the course of the debate which ensued, expressly stated that he asked for leave, not with any desire of its being granted, but merely in order that the House might do its duty. The Opposition stood faithfully by him in this emergency. The House felt that the honour of one of its members was concerned. It refused the application for leave, and, on motion of Mr. Rolph, set on foot an inquiry into the circumstances on its own behalf. The inquiry was searching and minute, and the witnesses were not examined in presence of each other. Much of the evidence was beyond measure ludicrous and absurd. The scene at the theatre was described by one witness after another in endless variety. The merits of "Yankee Doodle" and "Hail Columbia," philologically and aesthetically, were made the subjects of the gravest investigation. It appeared that with the exception of Mr. John Beikie, Clerk of the Executive Council, and a very few of the townspeople, the audience was entirely made up of members of the Legislature. There were no ladies present, and, as it was New Year's Eve, the audience generally felt a considerable freedom from restraint. Many of the members had partaken freely of the cup that cheers--assuredly not the cup indicated by Cowper--and were in the blissful condition of Tam O'Shanter upon a certain memorable occasion to which no more specific reference is necessary. In plain English, some of them were so drunk as to be unable to recall anything that occurred. All were full of mirth and jollity, and the scene enacted was of the most uproarious description. Three grave legislators "danced while 'Yankee Doodle' was played." Several others had reached the quarrelsome stage of inebriety, and, in the language of one of the witnesses, "showed fight." Mr. Philip Vankoughnet, one of the members for Stormont, was constrained to admit that he had stripped off his coat, and threatened to knock somebody down. Captain Matthews, among others, called for "Hail Columbia" and "Yankee Doodle," but the general opinion among the more sober of the party appeared to be that he had done so "in derision." It was a bibulous age, and sobriety was the exception rather than the rule. The whole affair was little better than a bar-room orgy, and could properly be regarded in no other light. When the Assembly's report made its appearance, early in 1827, Captain Matthews was fully exonerated, so far as that body was concerned, from everything savouring of disloyalty. "The circumstances of the transaction"--thus ran the report--"as they are related without the contradiction of a single witness, irresistibly bespeak the absence of that disloyalty with which it has been basely attempted to sully the character of a most honourable man." The report moreover read a sharp lesson to the promoters of the accusation against him. It declared that "If every effervescence of feeling upon every jovial or innocent occasion is, in these Provinces, to be magnified into crime by the testimony of secret informers--if there can longer exist a political inquisition which shall scan the motives of every faithful servant of the public--if the authorities in Canada shall humble the independence of the Legislature by scandalizing its members and causing them to be ordered to Quebec, and thence to England, to sustain a fate which, under such corroboration as Lord Dalhousie received, might cover them with ignominy, or bring them, however innocent, to the block--or if the members of our community shall be awed into political subserviency by fear of oppression, or lured by the corrupt hope of participating guilty favours, then, indeed, will the prospect before us four, and this fine Province become a distant appendage of a mighty empire, ruled by a few aspiring men with the scourge of power."[89] The Committee professed their inability to learn by whom the pernicious representations had been made to the newspapers, or to the authorities in Canada, or from what source Lord Dalhousie had obtained his "corroboration." They expressed their conviction that there was no ground for the charge preferred against Captain Matthews, the malignity and falsity of which they believed to have derived their origin and support from political hostility towards him. The United States press was loud in its expressions of contempt. "Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth;" said _The New York Enquirer_--"truly, there is something very undignified in such vexatious stretches of authority"--referring, of course, to the attempt to drag Captain Matthews across the Atlantic on a charge depending on such ridiculous evidence. Attention was drawn to the fact that the national airs of Great Britain, "God Save the Queen," and "Rule Britannia," are often heard at theatres and elsewhere in the republic without any such momentous consequences, and without being received either with laughter, dancing or contempt. "The evidence," continued the _Enquirer_, "does not speak very strongly in favour of the amenity and decorum of the M. P.'s of Upper Canada. If calling for one of our national airs, in a time of profound peace, within a few miles of the frontiers, is regarded as an unpardonable crime by the British Government, who shall wonder or complain that the British people are full of prejudice against us." The Liberal press of the Maritime Provinces harped to the same tune. "Really," remarked _The Halifax Recorder_, "we think people must have their wits about them now-a-days, if such things as these are to be construed into disaffection." But though Captain Matthews had been cleared by the Legislature, he had still to run the gauntlet of the military inquisition. They could not compel his attendance during the existence of the Parliament then in being, but they possessed an effectual means of reducing him to ultimate submission. This power they exercised. His pension was stopped--a very serious matter to a man with a large family and many responsibilities. He continued to fight the battles of Reform with dogged courage and pertinacity as long as his means admitted of his doing so, but he was soon reduced to a condition of great pecuniary distress, and was compelled to succumb. Broken-hearted and worn out, he resigned his seat in the Assembly, and returned to England, where, after grievous delays, he succeeded in getting his pension restored. He never returned to Canada, and survived the restoration of his pension but a short time. Thus, through the malignity of a selfish and secret cabal, was Upper Canada deprived of the services of a zealous and useful citizen and legislator, whose residence among us, had it been continued, could not have failed to advance the cause of freedom and justice. FOOTNOTES: [86] That spies were employed by Sir Peregrine Maitland and his Council, and that certain Government officials were encouraged to act in that capacity, are facts which will be denied by no one who familiarizes himself with the local legislative, official and newspaper literature of the time. An apparently well-informed contributor to _Blackwood's Magazine_ for September, 1829, in an article headed "Colonial Discontent," comments on this retrograde system in the following terms:--"A system of espionage assumes that there is something which ought to be watched and to be prevented; and as the existence of such a system probably did exist in Upper Canada during the administration of Sir Peregrine Maitland, it may be said that so far his Government was led to act on false principles.... We do not suppose that there was anything like an organized system, but only that tales to the personal disadvantage of the Anti-Ministerial party were too readily listened to. No doubt the members of that party were as credulous in listening to tales to the prejudice of the adherents of Government, but then they had it not in their power, like them, to inflict punishment. It is unnecessary to explain in what manner a system of espionage begets heart-burnings. It is to the public what tattle and malicious gossip are to private society, with this essential difference, however, that the tale of the slanderer is in time forgotten or refuted, whereas the report of the spy is received in secret, placed in the confidential archives of office, and referred to as a testimonial of character, in which such set of testimonials can be applied with effect when the occasion arises." [87] Mr. Mackenzie, in his _Sketches of Canada and the United States_, p. 419, denies that Captain Matthews called for these airs, as stated in the text. But anyone who carefully examines into the Provincial events of those times will not be long in arriving at the conclusion that Mr. Mackenzie's unsupported testimony, more especially as to matters in any way coming within the scope of politics, is of very little value. The evidence as to the Captain's having called for "Yankee Doodle" is conclusive. That his doing so constituted a serious offence is another matter, as to which there will, at the present day, be very little difference of opinion. [88] _Sketches of Canada_, etc., p. 419. [89] See Journal of Assembly for 1826-7, Appendix P. See also Journal for 1828, p. 122. CHAPTER VII. THE NIAGARA FALLS OUTRAGE. The case of William Forsyth--commonly known in the chronicles of the time as the Niagara Falls outrage--differed materially from that of Captain Matthews, not only in kind, but in degree. In the latter case there was no gross violation of the decencies of life, or of the outward forms of law. The mischief was effected by means of spies and secret information, and the damage inflicted was incidental rather than direct. The Forsyth case, on the contrary, was more in the manner of the type riot. It was a violent and utterly unjustifiable exercise of brute force. But in one important respect it was worse than the type riot. _That_ display of ruffianism had been accomplished without the open approbation of the authorities. The Niagara Falls outrage was committed not only with the full assent, but by the express command, of the Lieutenant-Governor himself. Not even the poor excuse that it was done in a moment of anger or irritation could be made for it. It was done deliberately, in cold blood, and was as deliberately repeated. It was a simple case of Might _versus_ Right. A few words of explanation are necessary by way of prologue. In the year 1786, before the setting apart of Upper Canada as a separate Province, and just after the commencement of the settlement of the Niagara Peninsula by Butler's Rangers, the territory contiguous to the west bank of the Niagara River was surveyed and laid out into lots by Augustus Jones, a surveyor whose name is familiar to all students of the early history of this Province. In pursuance of instructions received from the Government, Mr. Jones, in laying out these lots, made a reservation of a chain in width--sixty-six feet--along the top of the bank. The reservation was made partly with a view to the military defence of the Province, and partly for the purpose of preserving a convenient communication.[90] It was expressly specified in the Crown Patents to the owners of adjoining lands, and embodied in all subsequent deeds upon successive transfers. It may therefore be conceded that the Crown's title to the reserved land was indisputable. In the year 1827, and for some time previously, the principal inn on the Canadian side of the river at Niagara Falls was owned and kept by one William Forsyth. The man and his establishment were well known to travellers, and "Forsyth's" had a high reputation as one of the most comfortable houses of public entertainment in the country. During the heat of summer, many residents of York paid more or less frequent visits to the Falls, not more to enjoy the change of air and the majestic scenery, than to partake of "mine host" Forsyth's hospitality. The inn was in close proximity to the great cataract, and was known as the Niagara Falls Pavilion. It was built on ground that bordered upon and ran up to the Government's reservation, which alone intervened between it and the top of the bank. [Sidenote: 1827.] Mr. Forsyth drove a flourishing business, but, like some of his successors at the same spot, his greed grew with his increasing gains, and he was not content to grow rich by degrees. He determined to augment his income by the erection of a high post and rail fence, placed so as to shut out visitors from approaching near to the Falls, and rendering it necessary for them to pass through his house before the desired view could be obtained. It should be mentioned that Mr. Forsyth, in addition to the Pavilion and its immediate grounds, owned the adjoining lands for a considerable distance, including all the points from which the great spectacle was to be seen to advantage. By the erection of the fence, therefore, visitors would be debarred and shut off from all that was best worth seeing in the neighbourhood, until they had passed through his inn; and it was of course anticipated that most of those so passing through would spend more or less money on the premises. There was, however, one rather serious objection to the contemplated change. It would involve the enclosure of the Government reservation, a proceeding which was not likely to be permanently tolerated. Forsyth was probably ill advised by his attorney in the matter, for he seems to have been really of opinion that the Government's title to the land was at least open to question, and he had been permitted to occupy a portion of it without remonstrance for about six years. Sometime during the early spring of the above-mentioned year--in time to catch the expected influx of summer visitors--he carried out his design, and constructed the enclosure. His house was thus converted into a thoroughfare, which necessarily gave rise to a greatly increased number of visitors, and to much additional expenditure within its walls. But the public serenity soon began to show signs of disturbance. There was a rival innkeeper named Browne, who was not long in discovering that his own losses were in proportion to Forsyth's gains. He bestirred himself in the matter, and soon succeeded in arousing a good deal of indignation in the minds of visitors. No one was allowed to either enter or pass by his door without being importuned to sign a petition to the Government, praying for a removal of the objectionable fence. Other persons residing in the neighbourhood took umbrage at the innovation, and also made appeals to the Government on the subject. In this way several numerously-signed petitions were obtained and forwarded to headquarters. Such proceedings as these were in themselves reasonable and proper enough. Forsyth had acted in a selfish and unwarrantable manner, and it would have been nothing more than he had a right to expect if the Government had instituted immediate action against him. It would have been an injustice to the public if he had been permitted to enjoy his monopoly undisturbed. But neither the trespasser himself nor any of those who protested against his conduct was prepared for such high-handed measures as were actually resorted to; measures which effectually proved the unfitness of Sir Peregrine Maitland for his high office; which led to his being cordially hated throughout the length and breadth of Upper Canada; and which doubtless had something to do with his removal to another sphere of action. One day about the middle of May, when the enclosure had been erected about six weeks, and when the season's regular flow of tourists had fairly set in, the landlord of the Pavilion received a call from Captain George Phillpotts, of the Royal Engineers, who then held command in the District. The latter demanded why Forsyth had presumed to fence-in the Government reserve. Forsyth replied, denying that the reserve belonged to the Government, and asserting his own title thereto, whereupon he was informed that unless the enclosure was removed without delay, he, Captain Phillpotts, would himself undertake its removal. Forsyth professed to feel strong in his rights, and threatened to prosecute the Captain or any one else who might interfere with his property. Here the interview ended. Several days afterwards--on the 18th--the landlord was summoned to his door by a message that a gentleman there wished to see him. The gentleman proved to be Captain Phillpotts, who was accompanied by a sergeant and four other soldiers in fatigue jackets, without arms. Major Richard Leonard, Sheriff of the Niagara District, and Augustus Jones, who had made the original survey of the property forty-one years before, were also in attendance. The Sheriff, who had merely accompanied the party at the Captain's request, took no part in the subsequent proceedings, but contented himself with quietly looking on. Mr. Jones had been brought for a specific purpose, and, at the request of Captain Phillpotts, he then and there made a hasty re-survey of the reserve, the limits of which he indicated by pickets. Upon the completion of this task, the Captain demanded that Forsyth should immediately remove the enclosing fence, and upon his refusal to do so, the soldiers, under orders from their Captain, deliberately cut and threw down the fence, exposing the gardens, meadows and about sixty acres of growing crops to waste. A blacksmith's shop which had been erected on the reserve was demolished, and the building material thrown over the bank. The Captain avowed that he was acting under express orders from the Lieutenant-Governor, which proved to be the fact. Having accomplished his purpose, Captain Phillpotts and his soldiers departed, accompanied by the Sheriff and the surveyor. They were no sooner out of the way than Forsyth and his servants set themselves to work to repair damages, and before nightfall the enclosure was rebuilt; the premises, with the exception of the blacksmith's shop, being restored to the condition in which they had been before the assault upon them. But intelligence of the restoration was speedily conveyed to Sir Peregrine Maitland, who again despatched the same emissary, and the drama of demolition was re-enacted. The landlord of the Pavilion then gave up the contest, so far as any attempt at reconstruction was concerned, and proceeded to obtain redress by due course of law. Now, it may perhaps be admitted that Forsyth was rightly served, or at any rate that he deserved little or no sympathy. His enclosure of the Crown reserve had been without any strict colour of right, and had been due to pure greed and selfishness. But his blacksmith's shop had been constructed on the land as far back as 1821, when he had purchased the adjoining lot from William Dickson, and no one had ever questioned his right to maintain it there. He seems to have thought that he had as good a claim to the property as anybody. He had been informed, contrary to the fact, that the Government reserve extended only to the lower bank, and did not cover the land at the top. He might easily have discovered that his information was misleading, but he had not chosen to take so much trouble, and deserved to suffer the legal consequences of his neglect. He could undoubtedly have been dispossessed by means of an action of ejectment, with the costs of which he would justly have been saddled. But he had a right to expect that, after being allowed to remain so many years in undisturbed possession, he should only be dispossessed by civil process. It was not a case where an arbitrary removal was justifiable, such as may lawfully take place when it becomes necessary to abate a nuisance. But it was above all things intolerable that the military should have been employed for such a purpose. Sir Peregrine Maitland, in sending Captain Phillpotts on the expedition, had acted, not in his capacity of Lieutenant-Governor, but in that of Major-General Commanding the Forces in Upper Canada. This it was that wrought up the public pulse to such a pitch of excitement. This it was that created a dangerous antagonism between the people and the soldiery, and led to frequent quarrels and bickerings between them. The Committee subsequently appointed by the Assembly to investigate the subject echoed the popular sentiment when they reported that "a person long in possession of land, like the petitioner, ought to have been ejected by the law of the land, which is ample, when impartially administered, for securing the rights of property, but the interference of the military, by such acts of violence, for maintaining supposed or contested rights, is justly regarded with jealousy in all free countries, and ought to be seriously regarded in a colony where the most unprecedented outrages have been perpetrated without prosecution, and even followed by the patronage of the local Government upon the wrong-doers."[91] The presence of the civil power on the occasion, in the person of the Sheriff, had been even an aggravation of the offence, for the Sheriff had thus been made to lend his countenance to the proceeding. As for the Lieutenant-Governor's action in the matter, he himself was solely to blame, for his intentions were not made known to the Executive Council, or, so far as appears, to any member of that body. It was simply and solely a barefaced and most impudent abuse of authority, the responsibility for which rests upon no shoulders but his own. Forsyth had no success in his appeals to the law. He brought two actions of trespass, one of which was against Sheriff Leonard and Captain Phillpotts jointly, for removing the fence and blacksmith's shop; and the other of which was against Captain Phillpotts alone for removing the fence the second time. Sir Peregrine instructed Attorney-General Robinson to defend both these suits, and to vindicate the Crown's title to the reserved land.[92] To effect the latter object in the most formal and decisive manner, the Attorney-General filed an information for intrusion against Forsyth, upon which a verdict was rendered in favour of the Crown. The plaintiff altogether failed in his action against Phillpotts and the Sheriff, and the decision in that case rendered it useless for him to proceed with the action against Phillpotts alone.[93] [Sidenote: 1828.] While those suits were in progress, Forsyth, finding that public opinion, if not in his favour, was at least hostile to the Lieutenant-Governor, sent in a petition to the Assembly, setting forth the circumstances, and praying for redress. This was during the session of 1828. The Assembly entertained the petition, and appointed a Committee of Inquiry. The Committee proceeded to inquire accordingly. While their investigations were in progress they resolved to examine two of the Government officials, who, as there was reason to believe, could throw light upon Sir Peregrine's reasons for such arbitrary conduct as that of which he had been guilty. The officials whose evidence it was thought desirable to obtain were Colonels Coffin and Givins, both of whom were heads of departments. The former occupied the position of Adjutant-General of Militia for Upper Canada; the latter was Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Both of these gentlemen were summoned to attend before the Committee at a specified time. In this there was nothing strange or unusual. It was a matter of frequent occurrence for officials of the Government, high and low, to be summoned before Parliamentary committees while the Legislature was in session; and there was no question as to the right of such committees to require such attendance. In this instance, however, the persons summoned were not permitted to obey the behests of the Committee, and in the attendant circumstances there were pretty plain indications of crookedness and collusion between the Crown officers and Sir Peregrine Maitland. Each of the two officers concerned, immediately upon receiving his summons, caused the fact to be communicated to the Lieutenant-Governor, and each wrote a shuffling letter to the Chairman of the Committee. Later in the day the Lieutenant-Governor positively declined to permit the attendance of the persons summoned, assigning as a reason that he had not been made acquainted with the facts as to which it was desired to interrogate them. Now, when one considers all the facts and circumstances of the case, one is driven to the conclusion that Colonels Coffin and Givins were in possession of certain information which the Executive, or at any rate the Lieutenant-Governor, had a strong interest in keeping secret. Why else were they forbidden to attend? The reason assigned was certainly not a sufficient one. In the first place it was not founded upon fact. That the Committee had been appointed for the specific purpose of investigating the circumstances connected with the Niagara Falls outrage was matter of common notoriety. When the two Government officers were summoned to give evidence before that Committee there could be no doubt that the intention was to examine them touching their knowledge of the matter in hand.[94] Some years before this time, when the Compact were all-powerful in the Assembly, as well as in the Upper House, a custom had been introduced of notifying the Lieutenant-Governor whenever it was proposed to examine any of the Government officials as witnesses before a Parliamentary committee. It had been customary to specify, in the address of notification, the subject on which it was intended to take evidence. This, however, had been a mere matter of courtesy and conventionality, upon which nobody had any right to insist; and the practice had not been uniform or consistent, various instances having occurred where Crown officers had been summoned and examined as witnesses without any such notification having been given. Upon such a flimsy pretext, however, did Sir Peregrine Maitland base his refusal to permit the two witnesses to attend for examination in the Forsyth case. The Chairman of the Committee duly reported to the Assembly the non-attendance of the witnesses, and that body determined that its authority should not thus be defied and set at naught with impunity. The chief offender, the Lieutenant-Governor--or the Commander of the Forces, if he was to be considered as acting in that capacity--was of course beyond reach, but proceedings were forthwith instituted against the recalcitrant witnesses. Warrants were issued against them by the Speaker, in order that they might be brought up before the House, in custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, to answer for their contempt. Acting under legal advice, they declined to submit to such authority unless compelled to do so by force; and they boldly threatened that in case of force being resorted to they would prosecute the Speaker. It is to be presumed that the warrants would in any case have been acted upon, but this impudent threat left the Assembly no alternative. If Government officers, paid out of the public purse, were to be allowed to defy that branch of the Legislature which alone represented the popular voice--if they were to be permitted to treat its mandates with contempt, and to threaten its representative with ulterior consequences in the event of those mandates being enforced--then, indeed, liberty and equal rights were at a low ebb in Upper Canada. The warrants were promptly executed, the house in which the two officials had ensconced themselves being forcibly entered for the purpose. Being brought to the bar of the House, and charged with their contempt, they sought to vindicate themselves by pleading the action of the Lieutenant-Governor in refusing to sanction their attendance. The House then adopted a resolution under which they were handed over to the custody of the Sheriff, and committed to the common jail of the Home District. They formally notified the Lieutenant-Governor, through his private secretary, of the calamity which had come upon them through obedience to his behests, and requested that the advice and assistance of the Crown officers--that is to say, of the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General--might be vouchsafed to them. They however remained in confinement only three days, for the Lieutenant-Governor, in accordance with an intimation previously given, prorogued the Legislature on the 25th of March--they had been committed on the 22nd--and the power of the Assembly to commit did not extend beyond the time when it was actually in session. Colonels Coffin and Givins carried out their threat, and sued the Speaker for damages for false imprisonment. The right of the Assembly to commit for contempt was however a matter too well established, and was confirmed by the Court of King's Bench in another cause then pending. So that the Adjutant-General of Militia and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, in addition to their respective bills of costs, had their three days' imprisonment as a reward for their fealty to Sir Peregrine Maitland, and for their disloyalty to the Canadian people. Sir Peregrine appears to have felt a little dubious as to how his proceedings would be regarded at the Home Office. It was quite certain that the Colonial Secretary would hear of the affair, but that dignitary's approval was open to question. It would at all events be well that the official mind should receive its first impression on the subject from Sir Peregrine himself, who accordingly lost no time in sending over his own version of the transaction. His despatch, which bears internal evidence of having been written or revised by Attorney-General Robinson, is dated the 29th of March--the fourth day after the prorogation. Under the pretext of asking for advice as to how he should act in the future in case of any of the officials being summoned before Parliamentary committees without any notification having been made to himself, he recounts the story of the Niagara Falls outrage. His narrative, it is almost needless to say, is from first to last garbled and one-sided. Forsyth is referred to therein as "a person notoriously of indifferent character;" and the Assembly and its committees are maligned in language highly improper to be employed in a confidential communication from the Lieutenant-Governor of a colony to his superiors at home.[95] The Colonial Secretary, however, was shrewd enough to penetrate the veil of misrepresentation in which the despatch was enveloped, and to arrive at a pretty just appreciation of the merits of the case. He officially expressed his opinion that there had been adequate grounds for inquiry by the Assembly. "I cannot but consider," he wrote, "that Sir Peregrine Maitland would have exercised a sounder discretion had he permitted the officers to appear before the Assembly; and I regret that he did not accomplish the object he had in view in preventing Forsyth's encroachments by means of the civil power, which is said to have been at hand, rather than by calling in military aid." This despatch, however, was written, not to Sir Peregrine Maitland himself, but to his successor, Sir John Colborne. The Forsyth case, coming, as it did, in the wake of other ill-advised proceedings on the part of Sir Peregrine, determined the Home Government to withdraw him from Upper Canada, where it was quite evident that his usefulness--if he had ever had any--was gone. He was transferred to Nova Scotia, whither it is not necessary that this narrative should follow him. With respect to Forsyth, it may he added that, being unable to obtain any recompense for the Phillpotts invasion, and being harassed by protracted litigation, he sold his property at Niagara Falls at a price considerably below its value, and removed from the spot. It cannot be said that he deserved much sympathy, for he had brought his losses on himself by his own selfishness. He took advantage of the situation to pose in the character of a martyr to Executive tyranny, and he succeeded in deceiving many of his contemporaries into the belief that he was a much injured man. The historical interest, however, centres not in him, but in the consequences arising out of the employment of soldiers to do the Sheriff's work in a time of profound peace, and without any initiatory civil process having been issued. The popular excitement consequent on the outrage encouraged Forsyth to petition the Assembly. The petition led to the appointment of the Committee of Inquiry, which in its turn led to the summoning of witnesses and the conflict between the Assembly and the Lieutenant-Governor. The conflict led to the latter's removal, and, from that point of view, is not to be regarded in the light of an unmixed evil. FOOTNOTES: [90] See the letter from Chief Justice Robinson to Lieutenant-Colonel Rowan, Secretary, etc., etc., dated at York, 31st December, 1832, and appended to the Report of the Committee of the House of Assembly on the Petition of William Forsyth, dated April 1st, 1835. In one part of this letter the Chief Justice says that the laying out of the lots took place "some time between the years 1785 and 1790, and while General Haldimand administered the Government of Canada." General Haldimand did not administer the Government of Canada during any part of the time thus specified--a fact of which Chief Justice Robinson ought to have been aware. In a subsequent part of the same letter he properly gives the date as 1786. [91] See the report, p. iv., appended to the _Seventh Report of the Grievance Committee_. [92] The defence of these two suits would seem to have been the means of considerably augmenting the Attorney-General's already ample income. From certain accounts sent down to the Assembly it appears that a sum of _£127 6s. 6-3/4d._ sterling were paid to him during the year 1834 for "expenses incurred by him in defending two suits with costs in reference to the military reserve near the Falls of Niagara." [93] There was a very general belief throughout the Niagara District at the time that Major Leonard, who was an obedient servant to the Executive, had manipulated the lists from which the jurors in those cases were selected. The truth or falsity of the belief cannot now be pronounced upon, the circumstances upon which it was founded being buried in oblivion. [94] "He [Sir Peregrine Maitland] must have inferred that the Committee proposed to examine these officers respecting the employment of a military force for the ejecting of Forsyth from the land."--See Despatch from the Colonial Secretary, Sir George Murray, to Major-General Sir John Colborne, dated 20th October, 1828, appended to the Report on Forsyth's petition. [95] See the despatch, appended to the Report on the Forsyth Case, at end of Grievance Committee's Report. The Colonial Secretary's despatch quoted in the text will be found appended to the same Report. CHAPTER VIII. THE "AMOVAL" OF MR. JUSTICE WILLIS. The Forsyth embroilment extended over a long period, and from time to time during several years it continued, at longer or shorter intervals, to thrust itself upon public attention. Meanwhile it was not the only instance of abuse of power on the part of the Executive to which the people of Upper Canada were constrained to submit. Several other notable contemporaneous examples shared with it in the unenviable work of widening the breach between the Government and the people, and in destroying popular confidence in the impartial administration of justice. It is a rather singular fact that of all the many high-handed measures resorted to during the existence of the Ninth Parliament, the one which aroused the greatest indignation was perhaps the least blameworthy of them all. It has been the fashion with writers who have dealt with this period of our history to represent the amoval of Justice Willis as being upon the whole the most glaring iniquity of the time. This view is not borne out by the facts. In the Willis affair Sir Peregrine Maitland had recourse to the espionage system, and certainly went to the utmost verge of his authority, but he cannot be said to have run violently in the teeth of precedent and good sense, as was done, for instance, in the Forsyth case. Nor can it be said that he acted with despotic rashness or precipitation. His decade of misrule in Upper Canada was characterized by many cruel, tyrannical and shameful deeds: deeds which stare out from the pages of the past with lurid distinctness. He has enough to answer for at the bar of history; and it is quite unnecessary to load the formidable indictment against him with surplusage or dubious matter. A careful and dispassionate examination of all the circumstances in the Willis case must convince the inquirer that the faults were not all on one side, and that the Judge himself is bound to at least share with Sir Peregrine the responsibility for the bitterness arising out of the "amoval." John Walpole Willis, whose name was destined to win considerable celebrity in the judicial annals of this Province; was a lawyer of good standing at the English Chancery bar. He came of a respectable county family, but had no hereditary expectations, and from his earliest youth had applied himself to study with a zeal begotten of the conviction that he would be compelled to depend upon his own exertions for a livelihood. He devoted himself with assiduity to studying the literature pertaining to the equity branch of the law. By the time he reached manhood he had acquired considerable erudition, and it was predicted of him that he would make a mark in his profession. He did his utmost to justify the prediction, for he had no sooner been called to the bar than he came before the world as an author. His first publication was a work bearing upon the law of Evidence. In 1820 he issued a work on Equity Pleading; and in 1827 appeared his treatise "On the Duties and responsibilities of Trustees." These works obtained a fair share of recognition, and doubtless tended to promote his professional success. He enjoyed the reputation of being an industrious and painstaking lawyer, and a brilliant and accomplished member of society. In 1823, when he had reached the age of thirty-one years, he was applied to for professional advice by the Earl of Strathmore. This event was destined to have important consequences. The advice led to important professional employment extending over several months, during which the clever lawyer was a frequent guest in the Earl's household, and on terms of intimate social intercourse with the family. In an unhappy hour for his future peace of mind he formed an attachment to Lady Mary Isabella Bowes Lyon Willis, one of his lordship's daughters. His attachment was reciprocated by the young lady, who was possessed of great personal attractions, and who might doubtless have looked forward to a more ambitious match; but her noble father had little to offer in the shape of dowry, and did not oppose her wishes. The marriage took place at Marylebone Church, in August, 1824. The bridegroom was then thirty-two years of age, and the bride had just completed her twenty-second year. This disparity was not sufficient to excite any remark, for Lady Mary was mature for her age, and the bridegroom had scarcely taken leave of his youth. For about three years after the marriage the pair resided with Mr. Willis's mother, at Hendon, a pleasant suburb lying to the north-west of London; he meanwhile continuing the practice of his profession in town. All these circumstances materially contributed to the shaping of the young barrister's future career. [Sidenote: 1827.] Mr. Willis enjoyed the social advantages which his union with a nobleman's daughter was certain to confer. These advantages were fully appreciated, but they involved certain inevitable consequences, the principal of which was a material increase in the domestic expenditure. As neither Lady Mary nor her husband was possessed of much property, and as the latter's income was almost entirely derived from his profession, he resolved to try for some public appointment whereby his pecuniary condition might be improved. Early in 1827 the project of establishing a Court of Equity in Upper Canada was for a short time under some sort of consideration at the Colonial Office. Through the influence of his father-in-law, Mr. Willis was mentioned as a most suitable man to undertake that important duty. His heart responded to the idea. He felt that he was well fitted for such a responsibility, and that a congenial sphere of usefulness would thus be presented to him. His vanity also seems to have been flattered by the prospect of being raised to the bench--even the colonial bench--at so early an age. Visions of social and intellectual supremacy among the magnates of Upper Canada doubtless presented themselves in alluring shapes before his mind. He had no difficulty in obtaining a promise that in the event of the contemplated appointment being made it should be offered to him. The project, however, was still in embryo, and--as the event proved--was not fully carried out until about ten years later. It was meanwhile desirable that a puisne judge of the Court of King's Bench for Upper Canada should be appointed without delay, and that position was offered to Mr. Willis. It was at the same time represented to him that his acceptance would in no wise interfere with the scheme of the establishment of a Court of Chancery, and that he would be none the less fitted, to carry out such a scheme from his having resided for some time in the Province, and from his having become to some extent familiar with local laws and institutions. After mature reflection he accepted the offer, and set out for Canada towards the end of the summer, accompanied by his wife, mother, sister and infant son. His marriage had not proved in all respects a felicitous one. Lady Mary was imbued with patrician ideas, and bore herself towards her husband's family with considerable hauteur. She was very particular in exacting certain observances in which she considered herself entitled. There were doubtless faults on both sides. Mrs. and Miss Willis took umbrage at the patronizing airs of Lady Mary, who, in her turn, complained that she was made a cipher in her own house. There were also petty jealousies on the part of Lady Mary, which led to disputes between herself and her husband. Altogether the domestic establishment at Hendon was not a harmonious one, but the means of the family were insufficient to admit of the keeping up of two separate households. The true remedy for such a state of things lay in the exercise of a spirit of mutual forbearance--an exercise to which Lady Mary, at least, seems to have been little accustomed. Under such ominous auspices was the Willis household transferred from Hendon to Upper Canada. The Willises reached the Upper Province on the 17th of September, and on the following day the new judge proceeded to Stamford Cottage, the summer residence of the Lieutenant-Governor, in the Niagara District. Having presented the royal warrant for his appointment, together with certain other documents, he was cordially received by Sir Peregrine. He dined and spent the evening at the Cottage. In the course of conversation he referred to the project of establishing a Court of Equity--which by this time was no secret--and was surprised to find that the theme was distasteful to his host, who, in a tone not to be misunderstood, remarked: "Sir, you have not got your Court of Equity yet." "The words," wrote Mr. Willis,[96] "made some impression at the time, and subsequent events tended to throw further light upon their meaning." Upon his arrival at York, on the 20th, Mr. Willis was welcomed with apparent cordiality by the judiciary, the bar, and society generally. The leaders of local fashion vied with each other in their attentions to the ladies of the family, more especially to Lady Mary, who was almost overwhelmed with civilities. The new judge was sworn in on the 11th of October. He entered with avidity upon the duties of his office, and also made himself conspicuous in society, where he was from the first regarded in the light of a decided acquisition. He entered with keen zest into plans for party-giving and entertaining, and evidently derived heartfelt pleasure from receiving and dispensing courteous hospitalities. He attended several public meetings which had been called for charitable and other purposes, at all of which he spoke with what was considered a somewhat perfervid eloquence. In a word, he not only took the rank to which he was entitled by virtue of his office, but jumped at once into the position of a leader of society and social movements. His name was on everybody's lips. Persons to the manner born, who had been accustomed to fill the foremost places in the public eye, found themselves, for the time, almost superseded and ignored. Judge Willis duly appreciated the homage which was rendered to him, and exhibited himself to society in his brightest and most amiable colours. To a few great personages, however, it seemed as if the new-comer carried himself with wonderful _sang-froid_, and contemplated himself and his position with too much complacency. To them it appeared as if he regarded all the eager admiration which was lavished upon him as being nothing more than his transcendent qualifications entitled him to look for at the hands of the little world of York. He seemed, they thought, to accept it all as his just due. And the belief was not unreasonable on their part, for the Judge seems to have been in a measure carried off his feet by the attentions paid to him on every hand. His position was one calling for the exercise of calm judgment and discretion. It was not surprising that leading members of the bench and bar, who had long served the Government with zeal and acceptance, should entertain some jealousy at the appointment of an outsider to a place of high honour and emolument. Attorney-General Robinson, for instance, had filled his responsible office for many years, and the Crown had certainly no reason to complain that he had favoured liberty at the expense of prerogative. Hagerman and Boulton, too, had for years lent themselves to the purposes of the Executive. It was not singular that these persons should feel as though their own claims to preferment had been passed over in favour of Judge Willis, a stranger to Canada, her institutions and her polity. Nor was it wonderful that their deportment towards the stranger should, in spite of themselves, be influenced by the feeling. Judge Willie was not long in discovering that some sentiment of this sort was in the air, but he does not appear to have made sufficient allowance for it, and manifested a disposition to carry things with a high hand. He entertained a poor opinion of the Attorney-General's professional attainments, and did not sufficiently conceal this opinion. He was at first disposed to think highly of Judge Sherwood's abilities, but erelong came to the conclusion that he had greatly overestimated them,[97] and plainly showed, by his conduct, that he attached little weight to his brother judge's decisions. This course was the very opposite to what would have been adopted by a discreet and really able man. Such a man would have made due allowance for jealousies which, under the circumstances, were almost inevitable. Such a man would have adopted a policy of friendly conciliation. Such a man would have refrained from making himself specially conspicuous, at least until he had been some time settled in his new career, and had become accustomed to the novel atmosphere. Judge Willis's conduct was the very reverse of all this. In his intercourse with his brother judges--one of whom, it must be remembered, was Chief Justice--he adopted a tone of superiority, and even, to some extent, of dictation. He was of course not to be blamed for dissenting from their opinions--which he very frequently did--provided that he was honest in his dissent; but he acted very cavalierly on such occasions, and in pronouncing his own judgments seldom thought it necessary to make any reference to the decisions of his brethren on the bench. It was impossible for the latter to ignore the fact that he despised, or affected to despise their legal attainments; and their recognition of this necessarily gave rise to irritation and anger on their part. They felt his conduct to be all the more disrespectful to them in consequence of his admitted want of familiarity with Common Law, his own reading and practice having been almost exclusively confined to the Equity branch of the profession. In the very first judgment ever rendered by him, he gave utterance to sentiments which, to put the matter mildly, were very much out of place. The case was one brought by George Rolph, of Dundas, against T. G. Simons and others, for a gross outrage which had been perpetrated on the plaintiff, who was a brother of the Attorney-General's great political rival. The outrage had arisen out of private complications, and no political question arose in the course of the trial. In concluding his judgment Mr. Willis took occasion to remark that he had formed his opinion of the case on its intrinsic merits, unbiased by any political considerations. He added that he was totally devoid of party feelings, and that it would ever be his most earnest desire to render to every one impartial justice. It goes without saying that these are very proper sentiments on the part of an occupant of the judicial bench. Such principles were especially required in Upper Canada, where there had long been much judicial partiality and frequent miscarriages of justice by reason of political differences. But a judge should at least assume that his integrity is taken for granted, and should deem it beneath his dignity to attempt any vindication of his rectitude while an occupant of the bench. Moreover, there were no circumstances to call forth such expressions as were used by Judge Willis. No hint of any partiality had ever been heard against him. There had been no opportunity for any display of partiality by him, for he then took his seat on the bench for the first time. Saith the proverb: "He who makes unnecessary excuses accuses himself." In this case the Judge certainly indulged in wholly unnecessary self-vindication. And there were reasons why any such vindication by him was especially indelicate. The Radical newspapers had heralded his arrival as the dawn of a new era, when judicial corruption would cease in the land. It is pretty evident that he had been flattered by the eulogy, and that he now went out of his way to administer a covert reproof to his colleagues on the bench. His remarks were undoubtedly taken in that sense, and tacitly resented by them. It may have been that they were all the more ready to take the remarks as applying to themselves from their consciousness of past shortcomings; but it was not from a brother on the bench--one, too, who had been only a few weeks in the country--that they should have been subjected to reproof. To the feelings of his colleagues, however, Mr. Willis paid little consideration. His heart was specially set upon the establishment of a court of equitable jurisdiction, and to this end he bent much of his energy. He forced the matter upon the attention of the Attorney-General, who, he found, differed from him in respect of certain important details. He also prepared and submitted a scheme to the Lieutenant-Governor. He found great difficulty in inducing any member of the Government to discuss the matter with him. He was informed that an Act of the Provincial Legislature was considered necessary to the creation of such a court as the one contemplated by him. In this opinion he did not coincide, but by way of expediting matters he bestirred himself with a view to bringing about the necessary legislation. After a Bill, originally prepared by his own hand, had been introduced into the Assembly, he attended to hear the debates, and fraternized with Rolph, Bidwell, and other members of the Opposition--a circumstance which was afterwards very strongly urged against him at the Colonial Office. The Bill did not run smoothly, and was denuded of certain clauses which he deemed to be essential to the successful carrying out of the scheme. He vainly endeavoured to bring the Attorney-General round to his view of the matter. Mr. Robinson had too long been supreme in all legal affairs to submit to any dictation, more especially from one towards whom he bore no good will. Judge Willis found himself opposed and thwarted at every turn; and he erelong discovered that the Government were averse to the scheme, although the aversion was not directly avowed. He then recalled the Lieutenant-Governor's remark on the subject made to him some months before at Stamford Cottage. Certain dubious expressions which had from time to time fallen from the lips of the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, the Judges, and other prominent officials also recurred to his mind. As for Attorney-General Robinson, "I at length discovered," wrote Judge Willis, "that any proposition that did not originate with himself was not generally attended with his approbation."[98] A despatch from the Colonial Secretary to the Lieutenant-Governor was promulgated about this time, from which it appeared that the project of establishing a Court of equitable jurisdiction was in abeyance, or had, for the time, been abandoned. Judge Willis was greatly disappointed at this abandonment, which, in conversation, he openly ascribed to the influence of Sir James Scarlett, the English Attorney-General, with whom he had once had some unpleasantness while on circuit. But it also became known about the same time that Chief Justice Campbell was about to retire from the bench, and that his office would accordingly soon be vacant. Judge Willis lost no time in making application for the post. Neither did Attorney-General Robinson, whose application was backed by the entire influence of the Upper Canadian Executive. Here was a fresh ground of rivalry, whereby the unpleasant relations between these two officials were intensified. It soon became impossible for the new Judge and the Attorney General to come into contact without feelings and expressions indicative of personal hostility. The hollow friendship which had at first seemed to subsist between them was cast to the winds, and all social intercourse between them was at an end. Any proposition emanating from Judge Willis was systematically opposed by the Attorney-General. The Judge in his turn availed himself of several opportunities of showing how little weight he attached to the Attorney-General's opinions. Worse still, he brought upon himself the lasting indignation of the Lieutenant-Governor. It would perhaps be more correct to say that his wife brought this calamity upon him, for the origin of the trouble was a hot dispute between Lady Mary Willis and Lady Sarah Maitland on a question of rank and precedence. In this quarrel it is quite clear that Lady Mary was in the wrong, but the whole affair was utterly contemptible on both sides. The ladies dragged their respective liege-lords into the dispute, and each of the latter espoused the side of his helpmeet. Sir Peregrine necessarily got the better of his adversary, whom he never forgave. It is impossible to say how far this unseemly women's wrangle contributed to the humiliation which Judge Willis was subsequently compelled to endure, but it is pretty clear that from that time forward Sir Peregrine was bent upon getting his adversary removed from his position. Unhappily the Judge, by his want of discretion, made this resolution comparatively easy of accomplishment. He constituted himself a sort of general censor of judicial and official shortcomings, and from his seat on the bench gave utterance to petulant and unbecoming strictures on various transactions with which he had no need to concern himself. [Sidenote: 1828.] At the York Assizes held in April, 1828, Judge Willis came into such serious public collision with the Attorney-General that the affair was bruited abroad, and made considerable noise throughout the Province. On Thursday, the 10th of the month, Francis Collins, editor of the _Freeman_, was brought up on certain indictments for libel preferred against him by Attorney-General Robinson, under circumstances which will be detailed in a subsequent chapter. The bench was occupied by Mr. Justice Sherwood. The Clerk was just about to proceed to arraign the accused, when a postponement was asked for on the latter's behalf. The application was granted, and there the matter ended for the day. Next morning--Friday, the 11th--the bench was occupied by Justice Willis, who then for the first time in his life presided at an Assize. He had no sooner taken his seat than Collins rose at the bar. "May it please your Lordship," said he, "I have a motion or two to make in Court, if I, not being a lawyer, am in order in so doing." "Certainly," replied the Judge; "step forward, that the Court may hear you." Collins then stepped forward, and addressed the Court in a speech which had evidently been prepared for the occasion.[99] "My Lord," said he, "I am the humble conductor of a public press in this town. I come forward to accuse His Majesty's Attorney-General of vindictiveness and foul partiality in the discharge of his duty as prosecuting officer for the Crown. He has sent his nephews and apprentices as spies into my office in order to hunt up imaginary offences. He has preferred bills of indictment against me on supposition of libel, and I have been dragged from my business by a common constable, and obliged to give bail in this Court, while he, the Attorney-General, has allowed the most infamous crimes to pass in review before him, without taking any notice whatever of them." And so on, with much more to the same purport. The speaker was interrupted by the Attorney-General, who had been conferring with a member of the bar in an adjoining room, but who had been specially summoned into Court by his clerk, Henry Sherwood, who had informed him that Collins was making a long harangue to the Judge. Observing that the Judge showed no disposition to put a stop to the proceedings, Mr. Robinson requested to be informed what was the defendant's object in addressing the Court, and whether he had made any motion. "If Mr. Collins is allowed to proceed," replied Judge Willis, "I dare say his object will appear." Collins accordingly proceeded:-- "My Lord, while I have been dragged into this Court, on the mere suspicion of libel, by His Majesty's Attorney-General, I hold in my hand the printed confession of His Majesty's Solicitor-General, Henry John Boulton Esquire, of a crime that the law of England calls murder, committed ten or eleven years ago.[100] Yet no indictment has been brought against him, and this confession is attested by James Fitz Gibbon Esquire, a magistrate of this District, and by the Sheriff of this Court. I hold also in my hand the printed history of an outrage of the grossest character, where a number of young official gentlemen in this town assembled together and committed a noonday burglary, by breaking into the private house of William Lyon Mackenzie, and destroying his property. This atrocious outrage, please your Lordship, was proved on the floor of this Court, in the presence of His Majesty's Attorney-General. The perpetrators were identified and sworn to, yet no indictment has ever been brought against them, while the Attorney-General is busying himself in sending spies and informers into my printing office to bring me up for imaginary offences." The Attorney-General could hardly be expected to sit quietly under such accusations as these, made in open Court, and listened to by the bench without any expression of disapprobation. He rose in some heat, and remarked that he hoped the Court would not allow the public business to be thus interrupted. "The defendant," said he, "is not upon his trial, nor has he ever been arraigned. He seems merely to be indulging himself in an attack upon me as Attorney-General--an attack which could not have any bearing upon his own case, even if it were now before a jury; but which at present is nothing but a most improper interruption of the business of the Court, by an harangue intended to prejudice the public mind before he shall be put upon his trial. As to the matters of which he has spoken, I am not to be called to account by him, or by any other defendant, for the discharge of my official duties with respect to other parties not now before the Court. I am at all times ready to account for my proceedings as Attorney-General to the Government for whom I act, and to whom I am responsible; but I trust that the Court will not suffer a person whom I merely know as defendant upon bills for libels of the most disgraceful kind, and whose arraignment upon these charges has been postponed, as an indulgence, at his own request--I trust that such a person will not be allowed to address the Court in this irregular manner, for the mere object of calumniating me, whose duty it is to conduct the prosecutions against him." A brief silence followed these words, after which Collins resumed, and was allowed to proceed without further interruption. "The object of my present motion, then, my Lord, is to compel the Attorney-General to do that duty which he has so long neglected when his own friends were concerned; and as I think his present proceedings against me are both partial and unjust, I shall press the criminal prosecution of his friends, Henry John Boulton Esquire, for murder, and Samuel P. Jarvis and others for riot. In the latter case, please your Lordship, the rioters were sued in a civil action, and damages to a considerable amount recovered from them; yet I feel it my duty to press the criminal prosecution, because James Fitz Gibbon Esquire, a magistrate of this District, begged the amount of the fine from door to door in this town, and the rioters have so far gone wholly unpunished. All I ask, please your Lordship, is justice and impartiality, and from your Lordship's character I doubt not I shall receive them at your hands." After a moment's consideration, during which silence reigned supreme in the Court-room, Judge Willis remarked:--"If the Attorney-General has acted as you say, he has very much neglected his duty. Go you before the Grand Jury, and if you meet with any obstruction or difficulty I will see that the Attorney-General affords you every facility." This was, beyond doubt, very unbecoming language to be used by a Judge under such circumstances. It must be understood that Judge Willis had not properly before him any facts upon which to base his opinion as to the Attorney-General's having neglected his duty. That that official had much to answer for; that his practice had been one-sided and inconsistent; that much of his life had been spent in endeavouring to smother public opinion and to maintain the supremacy of a selfish and corrupt caste--this must be conceded at the bar of history. But no such allegations were before Judge Willis in an official form, and he had no right to assume anything against the Attorney-General in the absence of the most irrefragable evidence. Instead of evidence, he had merely heard the _ex parte_ statements of an alleged libeller. This was the legal aspect of the matter, and it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Judge permitted himself to be influenced, by his personal dislike to Attorney-General Robinson. The Attorney-General sat for a moment as if thunderstruck. He had so long been accustomed to having his own way in Courts of Justice, and to seeing his opinions deferred to by the bench, that he could scarcely credit what was passing before his eyes. That a Judge should dare to censure him in this irregular way, before the bar and the public, was almost beyond belief. A contemporary account says that he turned to "a rich cream colour."[101] He was at all events labouring under suppressed rage as he deliberately arose to address the Court. He denied that he had neglected his duty in not preferring indictments against persons in cases where no formal complaint had been laid, and he utterly repudiated the idea that his office imposed upon him the _role_ of a thief-catcher. "It is not my business," said he, "to play the part of a detective, or to hunt about the country for evidence in support of voluntary prosecutions. I have now discharged the duties of a Crown officer for nearly thirteen years, and this is the first time that a failure in my duty has been imputed to me. I have always conceived it to be my duty to take official cognizance of offences against the State. As to other cases, I have been accustomed to proceed only upon informations and complaints placed in my hands by justices of the peace, and upon presentments of Grand Juries. In cases of injuries to individuals and their properties, such as assaults and riots, where a double remedy is afforded by action and indictment, I have not been accustomed to set the law in operation on my own motion." "That," interrupted Judge Willis, "merely proves that your practice has been uniformly wrong, and I take leave to remark that you have neglected your duty. Why are you placed here, as prosecuting officer? To prevent the violation of the public peace, or, when it has been violated, to punish the offenders, whoever they may be, or whatever may be your private feelings with respect to them. The moment a violation of the public peace was proved before you, as in the case mentioned by Mr. Collins, it was your duty to proceed against the offenders. Do you not consider that the Solicitor-General and yourself have the exclusive right to conduct all criminal prosecutions; or do you admit them to be open to the bar in general, as in England?" The Attorney-General's feelings were by this time worked up to a tremendous pitch of excitement. To think that a Judge--a junior Judge, who had been only a few months in the country--should presume to lecture him in this manner, and to instruct him in his duties as though he were a petty juryman! "My Lord," he burst forth, in a tone of hot anger, "I know my duty as well as any Judge on the bench. I have always acted in the way I have indicated, in which respect I have followed the practice of all my predecessors in this Province; and I shall continue to act in the same manner as long as I am prosecuting officer for the Crown." "Then, Sir," retorted Judge Willis, "if you know your duty you have wilfully neglected it; and as you say you will continue to act as you have done hitherto, I shall feel it to be my duty--holding, as I do, His Majesty's commission on this bench--to make a representation of your conduct to His Majesty's Government." This far from edifying scene was without precedent in the annals of Upper Canadian courts of justice, and was for some days the talk of the town, more especially among the members of the legal profession. The bar generally sided with the Attorney-General, and were loud in their aspersions upon Judge Willis. Some of the leading members, however, among whom were Rolph, Bidwell and the two Baldwins, took a different view, so far, at least, as the legal aspect of the dispute was concerned. As for public opinion generally, it was largely in favour of Judge Willis. On Monday, the 14th, before the public pulse had had time to cool, there was a scarcely less notable interchange of asperities between the same personages. The Attorney-General, in a criminal case in which he was officially concerned, took occasion to reiterate, in effect, the views to which he had given expression on the previous Thursday as to the duties of a Crown prosecutor. When he had finished his remarks Judge Willis expressed himself to the same effect as before. "The practice in this country," said the Judge, "as stated by the Attorney-General, does not agree with my notions as to the duty of that officer, and I have laid a statement of the question before His Majesty's Government here for the purpose of having it transmitted to England, where it will be decided how far the Attorney-General is right in expressing his sentiments as he has done." Mr. Robinson hereupon remarked that he was Attorney-General to His Majesty, and not to Judge Willis, and that he would act as he believed to be right, even though he should differ in opinion from his Lordship. JUSTICE WILLIS.--Mr. Attorney-General, I am one of His Majesty's Judges in this Province. As such, it is my place to state to the Crown officers what their duties are, and it is for them to perform those duties according to direction. If the interests of the Crown had not been concerned I would not have permitted any discussion on the question. But I am sure His Majesty's Government will protect me from insult in the exercise of my judicial functions, and in stating to any public officer what I conceive to be his duties. ATTORNEY-GENERAL ROBINSON.--And will also protect His Majesty's officers in the execution of their duty. JUSTICE WILLIS.--Mr. Attorney-General, I beg that you will not reply to the bench in that manner. The unseemliness of thus discussing, in open Court, how far the Attorney-General had proved to be an effective public servant, must be apparent to everybody. And it must be admitted that the discussion was provoked by Justice Willis, who had made something very like an attack upon the Attorney-General--an attack based upon the unsworn statements of an indicted libeller. He had moreover permitted Collins to go a most unwarrantable length in his onslaught upon the Crown prosecutor, more especially as no affidavits had been produced in support of the motion. A layman who comes before the Courts _inops consilii_ is allowed more latitude in the conduct of his case than is generally conceded to a counsel whose professional business it is to plead at the bar; but the latitude permitted in the case under consideration was beyond all legitimate bounds. The Judge's dislike to the Attorney-General seems to have predisposed him to believe that all Collins's allegations were true. In reality they were exaggerated presentations of notorious facts. That they were largely founded upon facts Judge Willis probably knew from common hearsay. But while sitting on the bench he had nothing to do with common hearsay. _A fortiori_, he was not justified, upon the mere assumption of a hypothetical case,[102] in admonishing the Attorney-General in the presence of his accuser, and in humiliating him in the presence of the bar of which he was the rightful head. An English judge would be considered as departing widely beyond the sphere of his duty if he were thus openly to arraign the conduct of the Attorney-General, especially in a matter clearly lying, as in the case under consideration, within that officer's discretion. English judges, on the contrary, are much more likely to interpose on behalf of the officers of the Crown, and to prevent their acts and motives from being called in question in open Court by persons against whom proceedings have been instituted by them. Judge Willis seems to have been wrong in his law, wrong in his etiquette, wrong in his temper, and wrong in his construction of judicial amenities. Henceforth the Judge's "amoval" was only a matter of time, for the entire influence of the Executive, direct and indirect, was arrayed against him. From the Lieutenant-Governor down to the most insignificant clerk in the departments there arose a howl of indignation against the man who had dared to set up his wife in opposition to Lady Sarah Maitland; who had dissented from the judgments of Chief Justice Campbell and Mr. Sherwood, and sneered at their legal acumen; who consorted with the leading members of the Opposition; who had even gone the inconceivable length of berating Attorney-General Robinson for neglecting his duty. Such a man was not to be tolerated. He must surely be a Radical, who had got himself sent over to this colony in order that he might stir up dissatisfaction among the people. To go over all the interminable squabbles which took place between Judge Willis, on the one hand, and the various judicial and official dignitaries on the other, would be alike wearisome and profitless. Judge Willis availed himself of every opportunity which presented itself for officially and publicly animadverting upon the conduct of those who were opposed to him. He added to his enormities by announcing, through the newspapers, that he was preparing for publication a work on Upper Canadian jurisprudence, and it appeared that the title-page was to bear the deprecatory motto _Meliora sperans_.[103] _Meliora sperans_, indeed! What manner of personage was this outsider, who arrogated to himself the responsibility of ameliorating the rigours of Upper Canadian laws?[104] It was not long before an opposition announcement appeared, being an exact counterpart of the other, except that the motto was _Deteriora timens_. The authorship of the latter, whether rightly or wrongly, was very generally attributed to Attorney-General Robinson. Judge Willis's announcement gave great offence to the official guardians of the law, from the highest to the lowest. The motto, which in reality had been adopted by him prior to his coming to Canada, was believed to have been specially assumed for the occasion, and was regarded as a covert sneer at existing institutions in the Province. As a consequence, it was taken as additional evidence of disrespect. Owing to the Judge's "amoval" the projected treatise was never issued, though several chapters of it had actually been written. A small portion of it was incorporated in a work published by the author in England twenty-two years afterwards.[105] In an elaborately-worded despatch to the Colonial Secretary, dated the 6th of June, 1828, Sir Peregrine Maitland called the attention of that official to Judge Willis's announcement and the accompanying motto, which he declared to be, in his opinion, neither discreet nor delicate, as emanating from a Judge upon the bench, who had been but a few months in the Province. The laws of Upper Canada, in Sir Peregrine's estimation, were highly satisfactory, and needed nothing so much as to be let alone. "I have been ten years in this government," he wrote, "and as I have never received any representation against the laws, or the manner in which they have been administered, I must conclude that the people are content with both." Content with laws which prescribed capital punishment for the killing of a cow! Content with laws which had been conceived in an iron age, and under a state of society which was now happily passing away! Content with the laws! When a majority of the population, through their representatives in the Assembly, had for years been using their utmost endeavours to procure the repeal of the Sedition Act of 1804! When a Select Committee of the British House of Commons had directed the attention of Government to this mediævally-conceived statute, and had expressly recommended its repeal! Content with the manner in which the laws had been administered, when the trial of Robert Gourlay was yet fresh in the public memory! When a score of almost equally vile but less conspicuous perversions of justice were matters of yesterday! When no obscure litigant could sue a member of the Family Compact with any assurance of obtaining his rights! When the Reform newspapers had for years been filled to overflowing with complaints about the imperfect administration of justice! When a very strongly-worded complaint of neglect in the administration of justice had only a few weeks before been made in open court to Judge Willis when he first took his seat in a Court of Assize! When a large proportion of the population had ceased to have any confidence in the integrity of the judiciary! When this want of confidence was shared by several leaders of the Provincial bar, who certainly had exceptional opportunities for forming a correct opinion on the subject! The time was not far distant when one of the most eminent and successful lawyers in the country was to abandon his profession, owing to this very want of confidence. Truly, a wonderful manifestation of content with the laws and the manner in which they were administered. Sir Peregrine thought and acted as other opponents of reform have acted from time immemorial. He refused to believe in the existence of discontent which he did not share. He refused to believe that he himself was not an object of adoration to the great body of the people, because the official lickspittles by whom he was surrounded vied with each other in flattering his imbecile vanity. Had he been left to his own devices he would have been like the doomed king who refused to believe that his people were hungry until thirty thousand starving _sans-culottes_ were thundering at his palace gates. It soon became generally known throughout the country that strained relations existed between Judge Willis and the whole race of officialdom at the capital. The new Judge was known to have given expression to a desire for a reform of the law; and it was commonly assumed that it was to his liberal ideas that he was indebted for the hostility with which he was regarded by the ruling faction. The Reform Party warmly espoused his cause, and their organs devoted much space to extolling his wisdom, moderation and other high qualities. Addresses to him were circulated throughout some of the rural constituencies, and there was a manifest disposition to cater for his favour and patronage. Had he been endowed with discretion and good judgment he might, without any dereliction from his judicial duty or integrity, have rendered incalculable service to the cause of freedom and good government. Doubtless the rendering of such service would sooner or later have involved him in complications with the official party, but if he had kept his head it is doubtful if they could have prevailed against him. Unfortunately he proved to be too weak for his position, and allowed himself to be completely out-manoeuvred. He ruined himself, without accomplishing anything for the cause which he wished to serve. The time was rapidly drawing near when, by means of a judicial decision, he was to shut the door forever upon any prospect of his advancement in this country, and when he was to be made the subject of official communications resulting in his permanent removal therefrom. As has already been mentioned, there had been frequent differences of opinion between Mr. Willis and his colleagues, almost from the beginning of the former's assumption of judicial functions. The acting justices of the Court of King's Bench were at that time three in number, and consisted of the Hon. William Campbell, Chief Justice, the Hon. Levius Peters Sherwood, senior puisne judge, and Mr. Justice Willis himself. During the first Term which ensued after Mr. Willis's arrival in this country--which was Michaelmas Term, 1827--he had occupied the bench along with the other two judges. In Hilary Term of 1828 the Court had been presided over by the same three judges, except that Chief Justice Campbell had occasionally been absent from his seat in consequence of infirm health. Immediately after the close of the last-named Term the Chief Justice, having obtained from the Lieutenant-Governor six months' leave of absence, departed for England, whence he did not return until after a long holiday. The Court of King's Bench was thus left with only the two puisne judges, who accordingly presided by themselves during the following Easter Term. They had by this time come to dislike each other most cordially, insomuch that it taxed their powers to the utmost to treat each other with becoming respect. Sometimes the effort was beyond their power, and they snapped and snarled at one another upon the bench like two querulous old women. They now differed in opinion upon almost every case which came before them, and it is impossible to doubt that their differences were in large measure due to their personal hostility. This was a serious matter, for, as no third judge was at hand to give the preponderance of authority to either side, there was a practical dead-lock in much of the business of the Court. Suitors were put to serious delay, inconvenience, and consequent expense. Counsel were profoundly disgusted, and of course took sides for and against. Judge Willis was so sensible of the deplorable consequences of such a state of things that, as soon as Term was over, he entered into a minute and searching investigation of the constitution and power of the Court of King's Bench as established in Upper Canada.[106] He was desirous of finding some way out of the difficulty, or at all events of knowing precisely upon what ground he stood. But a still more serious evil soon began to loom up before his mind, for the result of his investigations was a conviction that the Court could not legally sit in Term, unless the full court--_i.e._, the Chief Justice and the two puisne Justices--were present. This conviction was a momentous one, for, if sustained, it would nullify much that had been done in the Court ever since its establishment in 1794. The frequent practice had been for two Judges, and sometimes even for only one, to sit during Term; and, as has been seen, Judge Willis himself had so far acquiesced in this practice as to sit during a part of the preceding Hilary Term, and during the whole of Easter Term, with Justice Sherwood as his only colleague. He had however assumed the prevailing practice to be justified by the constitution of the Court, and had not examined the matter on his own account until impelled to do so by the reasons already indicated. He now discovered, as he believed, that the practice was altogether unwarranted, and that all that had been done under it was liable to be upset. The first section of the Provincial Statute under which the Court had been created[107] enacted that "His Majesty's Chief Justice, together with two puisne justices," should preside therein. All the subsequent sections except those relating to appeals had been repealed by a later Provincial Act,[108] and although power was given to the senior puisne Judge, in the absence of the Chief Justice, to _teste_ the process, and to _any_ of the Judges to sit at _Nisi Prius_, there was no authority to sit _in Banco_, unless the Court were full. Having arrived at a conclusion on the subject, Judge Willis at once communicated the fact to the Colonial Secretary, the communication being made by letter, forwarded through the Lieutenant-Governor, and left purposely unsealed in order that that dignitary might possess himself of the contents, to which his attention was specially called by a separate note. Sir Peregrine could not refuse to transmit the Judge's missive, but he took good care to malign him in an accompanying despatch. "It is with pain" he wrote, "I am compelled to observe that, having presided as a Judge for the first two terms after his arrival, without finding more occasion than all the respectable Judges who have preceded him to make the administration of justice subservient to popular excitement, Mr. Willis has been either unable or unwilling within the last few months to avoid making his proceedings, either in the Civil or Criminal Court, the prominent subject of political discussion, and the pretence of attacks _from the vilest quarters_, and of the grossest kind, upon those who were associated with him in the administration of justice, and of whom I shall speak only justly when I say that the measure of respect and esteem in which their public conduct has ever hitherto been held, and is now held, by their Government, and by every person except by Mr. Willis, and by a party with whom I have lamented to find him associate himself, and _who are not very respectable in any sense_, is not to be attained but by a long period of correct and honourable service." The italics are not Sir Peregrine's, but they are deserving of all the emphasis which distinguishing type can give them, as exemplifying the way in which the representative of Majesty in those days was not ashamed to secretly vilify persons who opposed his policy: persons who, whether contemplated from a moral or an intellectual point of view, were elevated so far above him that it is impossible to institute any comparison between them. Will it be believed that the gentlemen who were "not very respectable in any sense" were John Rolph, Marshall Spring Bidwell, Dr. William Warren Baldwin, and Robert Baldwin? Was it not an honour to be disreputable in such company? Some of these, at least, were men whom no pressure of outward circumstances could have induced to stab their bitterest foe in the dark, as this eminently respectable vice-regal assassin was in the frequent habit of doing in his despatches, and as he did when he wrote the mendacious words above quoted. Judge Willis doubtless associated with these men because he found them more to his taste than anyone else with whom he became acquainted in York. And his doing so was made much more of than the facts warranted. His acquaintance with the persons named was not of such a nature as to be called intimate. In his "Narrative," already quoted from, he has recorded that to the best of his recollection he never conversed with Dr. Baldwin, Mr. Rolph, Mr. Bidwell, "or any other person politically opposed to Mr. Robinson" a dozen times in the course of his life; and in a separate defence of his conduct written at Bath in December, 1828, he says: "From what I know of Dr. Baldwin and his family, I must always sincerely regret that I have not known more."[109] Having arrived at such a decision as to the constitution of the Court, and having apprised the Colonial Secretary thereof, he took the earliest feasible opportunity of making it known to the Provincial bar. At ten o'clock in the forenoon of the opening day of Trinity Term--which was Monday, the 16th of June--he repaired to the Court House at York. While robing himself in the Judge's chamber he was joined by his colleague, Justice Sherwood, and a few moments afterward they both proceeded to the Court room, attended by the Sheriff in the usual manner. The Court having been formally opened, Judge Willis arose and addressed the audience, standing all the while, after the manner of a counsel at the bar. In the course of his remarks, which occupied nearly an hour in delivery, he expressed himself in very positive terms as to the constitution of the Court. He declared it to be his decided opinion that the Court could not be legally held without the presence of the Chief Justice and two puisne Judges; that everything which had theretofore been done in the Court by two Judges only was null and void; that the Lieutenant-Governor had no authority to grant leave of absence to a Judge without the express approbation of the Executive Council; that he (Judge Willis) had made enquiry at the office of the Executive Council, and had found that leave had always been granted by the Lieutenant-Governor alone, in pursuance of which leave Chief Justice Campbell was now absent from the Province. The manner in which the leave of absence to the Chief Justice, as well as to many other persons holding situations under the Provincial Government, had been granted by the Lieutenant-Governor, was pronounced to be, in Judge Willis's opinion, not only irregular but illegal, whereby the incumbents had forfeited their several offices. During the preceding Term an order of the Court had been passed by Judge Sherwood and himself. That order he now rescinded, so far as his authority was concerned, and he expressed his regret that he had entered upon the discharge of his judicial functions without having previously acquainted himself with the state of the law. He added that he had felt it to be his imperative duty to declare his opinion as to the incapacity of the Court to legally proceed with the business before it; and that, holding that opinion, he had resolved to decline to sit any longer upon the bench, though he would remain at hand to attend to any functions which he could legally discharge. This extraordinary address, it may be presumed, was not altogether a surprise to Justice Sherwood, as Justice Willis had previously notified the Lieutenant-Governor of his intention to give currency to his views at the commencement of Term, and Sir Peregrine would be certain to discuss the matter with the Attorney-General, through which medium the facts would be tolerably sure to find their way to Justice Sherwood. The latter seemed to take the matter very coolly. He informed the bar that he would not take upon himself to pronounce an opinion on the subject of the constitution of the Court, as there was nothing before him which rendered it necessary for him to do so. He added that he would adhere to the practice which had uniformly prevailed, and that he would not hesitate to proceed with the ordinary business of the Court, adjourning it from day to day as occasion required. Judge Willis, still standing, then said: "You cannot adjourn a Court that does not exist. The Court is not legally constituted. Its functions cannot be exercised, and any proceedings you may take will be void." "I am aware," replied Mr. Sherwood, "that such is your opinion; but I have a right to mine and I shall pursue the course I have indicated. If that course, notwithstanding the practice which has hitherto prevailed, should prove to be wrong, I shall extremely regret it; but I feel it to be a matter of too much importance to the business of the country to take upon myself to vary from it, without the interference of a higher authority." Judge Willis then briefly repeated his protest, and retired from the bench. His colleague, after transacting some unimportant routine business, adjourned the Court until the following day. Throughout the rest of the Term he was the sole occupant of the Bench. Judge Willis's conduct on this occasion does not admit of much diversity of opinion. For one thing, as was subsequently decided by the Privy Council, he was wrong in his view of the law. This is of itself an important consideration. But even if his view had been a sound one, admitting of no doubt, he incurred a very serious responsibility in giving currency to it at such a time, and in such a manner. His conduct was certain to produce great excitement and disturbance in the public mind. It was certain to create an increased distrust of long-settled institutions, which it was highly essential for the well-being of society that the public should regard with confidence and respect. Besides, the rendering of the past and present proceedings of the Court liable to doubt and uncertainty could not fail to seriously affect the business interests of the country. If the practice of the Court had been wrong, and if many of its proceedings were invalid, the wisest course would have been to quietly take steps to bring about remedial legislation, whereby all defects might have been cured, without the serious risk of reviving old animosities and long-settled disputes. But such a course as Judge Willis saw fit to adopt was wholly uncalled for, no plea to the jurisdiction having been pleaded in any case before the Court. It was certain to produce ill, without any possibility of good. He moreover placed in the hands of the Executive a rod for his own back--an implement of which they speedily availed themselves to inflict grievous punishment. On the following day, which was Thursday, the 17th, Judge Willis formally notified the Lieutenant-Governor of the public delivery of his opinion, adding that he was nevertheless most desirous of discharging such duties as he could legally perform consistently with his view of the law. Judge Sherwood meanwhile continued to sit on the bench alone, and to transact such business as came before him. Some influential members of the bar found themselves in a quandary. After Judge Willis's decision, they entertained grave doubts as to the legality of the Court, and hesitated as to the advisability of taking any further proceedings in cases committed to them, until the vexed question should be settled. Judge Sherwood, though he had dissented from his colleague's view, and though he plainly testified by his persisting in sitting and holding Court that he still continued to dissent, had not given any formal judgment, nor had he even verbally stated any grounds for his opinion. With a view to obtaining light for their guidance in this perplexing emergency, Dr. Baldwin, his son Robert, and Mr. Simon Washburn, another prominent member of the bar, addressed a written application to the Court, in the person of Justice Sherwood, requesting to be favoured with his opinion on the matter. The application was made on Thursday, the 17th, and replied to by Mr. Sherwood in writing next day. The phraseology of the reply made it quite clear that the Judge felt by no means strong in his position. "You are desirous," he wrote, "that I should express an opinion from the bench on the present state of this Court, but it appears to me any opinion of that sort would be extra-judicial. No one but His Majesty's Representative has any right to ask for the opinion of a Judge where no cause or regular motion, according to the practice of the Court, is pending before him." There was more to the same no-purport. It was clear that the applicants were not to receive much assistance from Justice Sherwood in resolving their doubts. The Judge's response was no sooner communicated from the bench than the two Baldwins and Mr Rolph then and there threw off their gowns and left the Court, declaring that they concurred in opinion with Judge Willis, and that they could not continue to transact business in a Court which they believed to illegally constituted. The emergency brought about by Judge Willis's decision, and by his consequent withdrawal from the bench, was one for which the Executive deemed it essential to provide without unnecessary delay. It was manifestly impossible that matters should remain _in statu quo_. The time for holding the annual circuits was approaching. Mr. Sherwood was the only Judge remaining on the bench, and a Court composed of a single Judge is not a satisfactory tribunal for all purposes of justice. The Council took the opinions of the law officers of the Crown as to the soundness of the Judge's views with respect to the constitutionality of the Court of King's Bench. Those opinions were in direct opposition to the conclusion at which Judge Willis had arrived. The Attorney-General's was a remarkably exhaustive and lucid exposition of the law bearing upon the question. It was also free from ambiguity, and left little room for doubt. These opinions were strengthened by that of Justice Sherwood, who, at the request of the Executive, also prepared an elaborate paper on the subject, in which he expressed precisely similar views to those enunciated by the Attorney-General. The question was then submitted to the Crown officers whether the Lieutenant-Governor could legally remove Judge Willis from office and appoint a successor. The answer prepared by the Attorney-General, and signed both by him and Solicitor-General Boulton, came with remarkable promptitude. "Upon the points submitted to us," it ran, "we are of opinion, 1st: That the power to remove an officer depends on the tenure of his office. In this, as in other colonies, the appointment of a judge is during pleasure; and we conceive that in law any person holding an office on such a tenure is removable at pleasure: that is, at the pleasure of the Lieutenant-Governor, acting in the name and on behalf of the King. The reasons for such removal are to be rendered to His Majesty by the Lieutenant-Governor, who is responsible for their sufficiency.... 2nd: We are of opinion that a removal of a Judge of the Court of King's Bench necessarily vacates the office, and that another person may be appointed to fill the vacancy, subject to be confirmed or disallowed by His Majesty." The Executive acted with great circumspection. Fortified as they were by these strongly-worded opinions, and assured as they felt of the legality of their contemplated proceedings, they did not permit themselves to be betrayed into indiscretion. On the 25th of the month they addressed a letter to Judge Willis, referring to his communication to the Lieutenant-Governor on the 17th, in which he had professed willingness to discharge such duties as he could legally perform. He was asked what explanation he had to offer, and what duties he was prepared to undertake. On the 26th he replied that he did not feel at liberty to pronounce an extra-judicial opinion, and that he could only define the precise nature of his duties when the matter should come judicially before him. The Executive thereupon pronounced his doom, and a writ was issued whereby he was removed from office until His Majesty's pleasure should be known. The Lieutenant-Governor, through his Secretary, notified him that the Council had felt it incumbent upon them to advise this step.[110] The "amoval" was now an accomplished fact. A vacancy was thus created on the bench, which was filled on the 2nd of July by the appointment of Christopher Alexander Hagerman to a puisne judgeship. The news of Judge Willis's "amoval" spread rapidly through the Province, and produced widespread excitement. The circumstance that his course had met with the approval of Rolph and the Baldwins led to the belief among non-professional people that he was sound on the legal question, and that he had been driven from the bench because he would not stoop to corruption. The case of Judge Thorpe was exhumed from the dust of twenty years, and the amoval of Judge Willis was believed to be a mere re-enactment of that forgotten iniquity. As for Judge Willis himself, he determined to proceed at once to England to present his side or his case, in the form of an appeal from the order of amotion, at the Colonial Office. Before his departure he received addresses of condolence from various parts of the Province. Numerously-signed petitions in his favour were transmitted to the king, and to the several other branches of the Imperial and Provincial Legislatures. A long requisition from a number of influential persons in the County of Lincoln entreated him to represent their constituency in the Assembly. People who were usually sensible appear to have lost their heads for a time during this exciting period. A large meeting of the Judge's sympathizers was held in Toronto, at which Dr. Baldwin and Mr. John Galt,[111] with their wives, were appointed a Committee to watch over the interests and insure the protection of Lady Mary and her family during the absence of her lord; and Robert Baldwin was added to the Committee as her Ladyship's solicitor. Judge Willis took his departure from York on the 11th of July. As he expected that he would very soon be able to procure from the Colonial Office a reversal of his "amoval," and that he would be reinstated in his judgeship, to the great discomfiture of the Lieutenant-Governor and his satellites, he did not think it necessary that his family should accompany him to England. The suitable disposal of the members of his household was an embarrassing problem for him. In good sooth, he was in a situation somewhat analogous to the man in the familiar old story, who came to the bank of a wide stream, having in his possession a fox, a goose, and a bag of corn. The application is easy. Mrs. Willis and Lady Mary could by no means be left to keep house together unless the head of the establishment was near at hand to keep the peace between them. The relations between Lady Mary and Miss Willis, though far from amicable, were somewhat less strained. Mr. Willis accordingly took with him his mother only, leaving his wife, child and sister behind him; though it is to be presumed that the above-mentioned Committee had a sinecure, so far as any special attendance upon or protection over Lady Mary was concerned. A series of acrimonious despatches from the Lieutenant-Governor preceded Mr. Willis across the Atlantic. For weeks--probably for months--before the delivery of his unfortunate decision, the espionage system had been put in full operation against him, and measures had been taken to watch his personal habits and pastimes. There had been a firm determination to effect his ruin,[112] and the strong suspicion that such was the case had done much to array a majority of the inhabitants on his side. "It is my duty to state to you in the most decided terms," wrote Sir Peregrine Maitland to the Colonial Secretary, on the 6th of July, "that his [Mr. Willis's] restitution to office, while it would be received by the most portion of the population as a triumph over the Government which Mr. Willis has ungratefully and wantonly insulted, would be most pernicious to the peace of this colony, and an act of the most aggravating injustice to those faithful servants of the Crown against whom he has, for unworthy purposes, dishonourably laboured to excite the prejudice and hatred of the ignorant and malicious." It is worth while to note that this extract contains a clear admission by the Lieutenant-Governor that his Government was regarded with disfavour by "the most portion of the population:" an admission directly at variance with many statements made by him in former despatches, as well as in speeches to the Provincial Parliament. Upon reaching England Mr. Willis put himself into immediate communication with the Colonial Office. He took up his quarters at the house of his brother, the Reverend W. D. Willis, at Bath. There he prepared an elaborate statement of his case, which was duly forwarded to the Colonial Secretary. After some delay he succeeded in obtaining copies of the several despatches of Sir Peregrine Maitland in which the charges against him were formulated with wearisome reiteration. These indictments against him, which, though signed by Sir Peregrine, were doubtless in reality prepared by Mr. Willis's arch-enemy, Attorney-General Robinson, were certainly of the most formidable character. They went over the whole course of the Judge's procedure, from the time of his arrival in the Province down to his departure therefrom. To the serious grounds of complaint which had unquestionably been given were added numerous delinquencies of the most petty and trifling nature. It was stigmatized as "a great indecency" that Judge Willis had been seen in a dress "but little according with his situation."[113] In view of the interests involved, and of the grave nature of the questions to be decided, it seems ludicrous that the appellant should have been called upon to reply to an accusation of this nature.[114] A perusal of these despatches, however, rendered necessary a supplementary statement and narrative, wherein every count in the indictment was either traversed, or, in legal parlance, confessed and avoided. But Mr. Willis soon found that he was not to gain so easy a triumph over his enemies as he had previously allowed himself to suppose would be the case. The question to be decided was a purely technical one, and after the matter had been for some time under consideration at the Colonial Office it was referred for decision to the Privy Council, where it was not disposed of for nearly a year. The conclusion finally arrived at was that Mr. Willis had been wrong in his view of the question in dispute, and that the Executive Council, in amoving him from office, had not acted in excess of their authority. Under such circumstances his return to Upper Canada was of course out of the question; but as his conduct was attributed to error of judgment rather than to any serious dereliction from duty, he received an appointment to a judgeship in the South American colony of Demerara. From all the circumstances, then, it is clear that Judge Willis, though he was in some sense a victim of Executive intolerance in Upper Canada, was himself largely to blame for his downfall, to which he contributed by his want of caution and calm good sense. But many of the circumstances detailed in the present chapter were unknown to the bulk of the Canadian people, by whom he was regarded as a martyr to his upright and liberal principles. His amoval produced a wider excitement than any event since Gourlay's time. It tended greatly to embitter public opinion, and was unquestionably a strong factor in producing the discontent which ultimately found expression in open rebellion. For this reason it has been thought desirable to go somewhat minutely into details which are in themselves fraught with instruction, and as to which the people of Canada, even at the present day, are very inadequately informed. [Sidenote: 1829.] Mr. Willis felt his defeat very keenly, more especially as he had confidently looked forward to a successful termination of his appeal. At his instigation the subject was brought before the attention of the House of Commons by Lord Milton, on Tuesday, the 11th day of May, 1830.[115] Sir George's Murray's explanation, which involved a narrative of the circumstances in detail, proved satisfactory to the House, and the matter was allowed to drop. But the amoved Judge was fated to have greater reasons still for deploring that he had ever taken up his abode in Canada, as his residence there led to the rupture of his family ties and the total wreck of his domestic happiness. It will be remembered that Lady Mary and her child, together with Miss Willis, had remained at York. Upon learning the decision of the Privy Council in his case, Mr. Willis wrote to his wife and sister, requesting them to dispose of his house there, and to return home as speedily as possible. During the long interval which had elapsed since the ex-Judge's departure for England, the two ladies had been left to amuse themselves as best they could in the little capital. They occasionally went into society, and received a certain amount of attention from that portion of it which had been favourable to Judge Willis, as well as from some of the military officers stationed there. Among others whose acquaintance they formed was a certain Lieutenant Bernard, an officer of the 68th Light Infantry, whose regiment was then in Canada. He occasionally rode out with Miss Willis, who was an accomplished equestrienne, but he did not appear to be on specially intimate terms with Lady Mary. On the 16th of May, 1829, Lady Mary set out for England by way of Montreal, Miss Willis remaining behind for a week to make a final disposition of the house. On reaching Kingston, Lady Mary was met by Lieutenant Bernard, who accompanied her to Montreal, whence the pair several months afterwards fled together to England, Lady Mary leaving her child behind her in the care of one of her maids. Mr. Willis brought an action against Bernard, who had by that time succeeded to a Captaincy. The case was tried in the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster on Thursday, the 9th of February, 1832, when the plaintiff recovered £1000 by way of damages. A report of the proceedings will be found in _The Times_ of the following day.[116] [Sidenote: 1832.] It may be of interest to Canadian readers to learn that Mr. Willis was some years afterwards appointed to a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. On the 8th of February, 1841, he was under a local statute appointed resident Judge for the District of Port Philip. While officiating in that capacity he came into conflict with Sir George Gipps, Governor of the Colony, and the Executive Council, by whom he was once more "amoved" from office. The order of amotion, which was made on the 17th of June, 1843, was however reversed by the Imperial Privy Council for irregularity. The Lords of the Judicial Committee, before whom the case was heard in June and July, 1846, reported that in their opinion the Governor-in-Council had power in law to amove Mr. Willis, and that the facts were sufficient to justify his amoval, but that an opportunity ought to have been afforded him of being previously heard. The requisite notice not having been given, the omission was held to vacate the order of amotion, and judgment was rendered accordingly.[117] FOOTNOTES: [96] See his "Narrative of Occurrences in Upper Canada," written from Bath to the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, dated 5th December, 1828, and included in pp. 273-288 of the blue book on the subject issued by the Imperial Government in 1829. [97] There is a covert irony in the portion of Judge Willis's _Narrative_ which refers to this subject. "I wished to think," he writes, "and from the attention he seemed to pay to business I actually worked myself up into the belief, which I frequently expressed, that Mr. Justice Sherwood was a _hard-headed_ sensible man; but I became convinced that, though right in the former conjecture, yet so far as legal knowledge or abilities were concerned, I was mistaken in the latter part of my conclusion." The italics are Judge Willis's own. [98] See Judge Willis's _Narrative_, ubi supra. [99] So far as mere diction is concerned I have here chiefly followed Collins's own report of this episode, as published in the _Freeman_, but I have also before me the Attorney-General's account, as well as the more elaborate one of Judge Willis himself, and the three do not materially differ in this respect. [100] _Ante_, p. 13. [101] The _Freeman_, April 17th, 1828. [102] The case, as put by the Judge, was purely hypothetical. "_If_ the Attorney-General has acted so and so, he has neglected his duty." See _ante_, p. 174. [103] The announcement ran as follows:--"Preparing for publication.--A View of the Present System of Jurisprudence in Upper Canada; by an English Barrister, now one of His Majesty's Judges in this Province.--_Meliora sperans._" [104] It was time for some one to undertake the duty of ameliorating the criminal law of Upper Canada, which was that of England as it stood on the 17th of September, 1792, except in so far as it had been altered by subsequent legislation. At the Assizes for the Home District, held at York in the autumn of 1827, within a few weeks after Judge Willis's arrival in the Province, a boy was capitally convicted and sentenced to death for killing a cow. [105] _On the Government of the British Colonies._ London, 1850. [106] The investigation, according to Judge Willis's own testimony, was entered into partly in consequence of a suggestion which he received on the subject. See the text of his written opinion, embodied in pp. 66-74 of the Imperial blue book issued in 1829, entitled "Papers relating to the Removal of the Honourable John Walpole Willis from the Office of One of His Majesty's Judges of the Court of King's Bench of Upper Canada." It seems probable that the suggestion emanated from Dr. Baldwin. [107] 34 Geo. III., c. 2. This statute was framed by the Hon. William Osgoode, first Chief Justice of Upper Canada, a gentleman of great learning, who had been sent out from England for the express purpose of organizing the Courts of the Province. [108] 2 Geo. IV., c. 1. [109] See pp. 249-267 of the Imperial Government's blue book on the subject, _ubi supra_. [110] The notification was dated the 26th of June, whereas the formal document issued by the Council was not signed until the 27th. Mr. Willis attached a good deal of weight to this irregularity, which however was of less importance than might at first sight be supposed. The Council had fully made up their minds on the 26th, and the notification was despatched accordingly, though the order of amotion was not actually ready for signature until the day following. [111] The well-known author, who was then in Canada as representative of the Canada Land Company. [112] "Cabot," in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for September, 1829. [113] See despatch marked "Separate," from Major-General Sir Peregrine Maitland to Mr. Secretary Huskisson, dated 6th July, 1828. [114] His reply will be matter of surprise to the staid and decorously-attired judges of the present day. "On all ordinary occasions," he wrote, "I usually wore a _black velvet coat and waistcoat_. The first time I saw the Chief Justice he had on a black kalimanco or camlet jacket, which I have seen him wear even on the bench. I have met the Lieutenant-Governor frequently walking through the streets with an olive-coloured square-cut velveteen jacket and waistcoat; and a few days before I left York I beheld Mr. Justice Sherwood in a grass-green cloth jacket with white metal buttons. I merely mention these 'extravagancies' to show that my dress was neither improper nor extraordinary."--See the _Narrative_, ubi supra. [115] See Hansard's _Parliamentary Debates_, N. S., Vol. xxiv., 551-555. [116] Some further particulars may be found in 8 Bingham, 376; also in 5 C. & P., 342. [117] See the case of John Walpole Willis, Appellant, _versus_ Sir George Gipps, Knt., Respondent, 5 Moore's Reports of Privy Council Cases, 379. From an _obiter dictum_ of one of the judges in the case it would appear that the order of amotion from the bench of this Province was finally set aside on technical grounds, owing to the appellant's not having been heard in Canada. After diligent search, I have been unable to find any report of this decision, either in the official reports of the Privy Council or in any of the newspapers or periodicals of the time. CHAPTER IX. THE CASE OF FRANCIS COLLINS. In the foregoing pages mention has several times been made of Francis Collins, editor, proprietor and publisher of _The Canadian Freeman_, a Radical weekly newspaper issued at York. Mr. Collins was an enthusiastic young Irish Roman Catholic, who had immigrated to Canada a short time before the excitement arising out of the Gourlay persecution reached its height, and when he himself was barely twenty years of age. He was a printer by trade, and for some time after his arrival worked as a compositor in the office of _The Upper Canada Gazette_, published at York by the King's Printer, Dr. Robert Charles Horne. Finding that he possessed much intelligence and a fair education, his employer deputed him to report the debates in the Assembly during the sessions of Parliament. In 1821 he reported certain proceedings which the Government were annoyed at seeing in print, more especially as the version given was not strictly accurate. For this offence Dr. Horne was summoned to the bar of the House, where he sought to evade responsibility by pleading that the debates had not been reported by himself, but by Francis Collins. The Doctor further offered a humble apology, and was glad to escape with a sharp reprimand, accompanied by a caution from the Speaker that he would thereafter be held responsible for the reports in the _Gazette_.[118] Within a short time after receiving this admonition Dr. Horne ceased to be King's Printer, whereby the post became vacant. As Collins was familiar with the nature of the work, and was naturally desirous of bettering his condition, he applied for the appointment. The office was at the disposal of the Lieutenant-Governor, and was held entirely at his pleasure. Collins was curtly checked for his presumption by a leading official, who informed him that the office would be conferred upon "no one but a gentleman." It would be interesting to know whence the official who was guilty of this wanton insult had derived his ideas of courtesy and good breeding. If his statement were to be credited, any application on his part for the post of King's Printer would most assuredly have been made in vain. The appointment was given to Mr. Charles Fothergill, who belonged to a good Yorkshire family, and was therefore fully entitled to rank as a gentleman.[119] Collins was excusably indignant at the gross insult which had been hurled at him. He considered himself as at least the social equal of any member of the Government, for he claimed descent from the old Irish kings, and on one or two occasions when more than ordinarily exhilarated he had even been known to refer to his ancestor, Brian Boru. Yet, for all this mendacious and vainglorious boasting, Collins was a man of unquestionable ability, and when fully aroused could write a paragraph well calculated to make the ears of his enemies to tingle. His nationality was clearly indicated by his personal appearance, his features being rough-hewn and unmistakably Celtic; while his red hair and beard, usually not very well cared for, gave him an aspect of uncouth wildness. Up to this time he had not taken any very conspicuous part in politics since his arrival in Canada; but henceforward the Executive had no more bitter or sleepless foe. He continued to report the proceedings in Parliament, and kept his eyes ever open for an opportunity to strike the Government with effect. In 1825 he succeeded in establishing the _Freeman_, which was thenceforth to some extent a rival of Mackenzie's _Advocate_. It was from the first conducted with great energy, and the editorials, which were often set up without being committed to paper, displayed exceptional vigour, but they were frequently disfigured by a coarseness and bad taste equal to anything of Mackenzie's production. For some time the better class of Liberals fought shy of the enterprise, but the editor steadily forced his way into general recognition. The _Freeman_ was permitted to continue its course unchecked for nearly three years. During that time it followed up the shortcomings of the Executive with ceaseless vigilance. To Sir Peregrine Maitland and Attorney-General Robinson it was a veritable thorn in the flesh. There was abundant occasion for criticism, and it was seldom, if ever, that Collins resorted to pure invention for the purpose of attacking the innumerable abuses of the time. There was always a sufficient substratum of truth in his accusations to render it inexpedient to prosecute him for libel. The punishment of what was false would have involved the public exposure of what was true. The official party realized the force of the laureate's dictum, not then propounded, that "A lie that is all a lie may be met with and fought outright, But a lie that is part of a truth is a harder matter to fight." [Sidenote: 1828.] They of course did not present the matter in this aspect to the world at large. On the contrary, their organs claimed for them a spirit of generous and Christian forbearance. But this could not go on for ever. Collins continued to pour in his chain-shot from week to week with never-failing pertinacity, and with seeming impunity from the law. The Executive in the first place tried to check his career by crippling him financially. The Assembly had for some years previously been accustomed to vote him an annual sum by way of remuneration for reporting their proceedings. The paying over of this sum, however, was a matter entirely within the control of the Lieutenant-Governor. As it was known that Collins was poor, and that his resources were sometimes taxed to the uttermost to enable him to bring out his paper, it was hoped that, by withholding payment for his services as reporter to the Assembly, he might be compelled to suspend publication. He was accordingly informed, when he applied for his money in the early spring of 1828, that the funds were not forthcoming. The sum in question was £118 10s., and was a matter of serious importance to him; but he well understood the object of the Executive, and spurred himself up to fresh effort. His paper appeared with the most provoking regularity, and its tone was, if possible, intensified by the withholding of the sum due to its editor. He told the story to the public, his account being garnished with profuse comments in his bitterest vein. The Executive found that they had miscalculated his resources, and that his press was conducted with renewed vigour. It was finally resolved that a dead-set should be made upon him, and that he should be overwhelmed by a shower of contemporaneous indictments. On Thursday, the 10th of April, 1828, as mentioned in the preceding chapter,[120] two bills of indictment for libel were found against him. One of these was for having, in his paper, charged the Lieutenant-Governor with partiality, injustice and fraud, in not paying over the money voted by the Assembly. The other was on the information of the Solicitor-General, Henry John Boulton, for animadversions on his conduct in connection with the duel, in 1817, between Samuel Peters Jarvis and John Ridout.[121] Upon the strength of these indictments Collins was forthwith arrested, and compelled to appear and give the required bail. On the following morning two other bills were found, upon which he also gave bail. It was at this time that he made his extraordinary attack upon the Attorney-General, before Justice Willis, as already narrated at length.[122] It will be remembered that he was instructed by the Judge to go before the Grand Jury and prefer his complaints. These instructions he followed without a moment's unnecessary delay. He appeared before the Grand Jury, and charged H. J. Boulton and J. E. Small with being accessary to murder in the killing of young Ridout. He next laid a charge of rioting against S. P. Jarvis and six other persons who had figured as defendants in the action brought by Mackenzie. The Grand Jury speedily returned a true bill against Boulton and Small. Both those gentlemen were then in Court with their gowns on. They were immediately put under arrest, and they so remained until late in the afternoon, when Judge Willis, upon the application of Mr. Macaulay, admitted them to bail. As Jarvis had been tried for the offence and acquitted, shortly after the duel in 1817, the Grand Jury now returned "No bill" as to him. On the following Monday a true bill was returned by the Grand Jury against the seven persons charged with riot. They were promptly arrested and held to bail. Collins, having no faith in Attorney-General Robinson's integrity, was very unwilling that the prosecution of these cases should be conducted by him. Boulton was not only the Attorney-General's colleague as a law officer of the Crown, but was his warm personal friend, as well as a connexion by marriage. Boulton, in fact, was a profound admirer and faint _umbra_ of the Attorney-General, in whose professional sunshine he basked, and at whose feet he may in an intellectual sense be said to have grovelled. Even the most Spartan of Crown prosecutors could hardly be expected to do his utmost to secure a conviction under such circumstances; and Attorney-General Robinson had nothing of the Spartan in his composition where the interests of his friends were concerned. Collins accordingly applied to Robert Baldwin to conduct the prosecution for murder. But the prosecution of criminal cases was not then open to the bar as a matter of course, and without the consent of the Crown. Mr. Baldwin applied to the Court for the necessary permission, which was granted with the Attorney-General's consent. The trial was proceeded with before Justice Willis at the opening of the Court on the morning of Monday, the 14th. The defendants, upon being arraigned, pleaded "Not guilty." The proceedings extended over two days, during which the same evidence was given that had been adduced at the trial in 1817. All the horrible details of the duel were revived for the edification of a crowded Court-room. Many of the spectators, as well as the Judge himself, were affected to tears. The custom of society was once more successfully pleaded in extenuation of a cruel and dastardly murder. As the chief offender had himself escaped scot-free, however, it would have seemed anomalous to punish the accessaries. The charge from the bench was eloquent and judicial, and the jury were absent from the box only ten minutes, when they returned into Court with a verdict of acquittal. The trial of the type-rioters next required consideration. Collins's counsel moved for leave to the prosecutor to conduct this case also by private counsel, but to this the Attorney-General firmly refused to consent. It was urged that one of the accused was his nephew, and that two others had been clerks in his office at the time of the outrage. No matter; he was determined to withstand any further interference with Crown prosecutions on the part of the bar. There was no telling, he remarked, where such interference would end. There had already been too much of it. He was about to proceed with the prosecution, when Mr. Rolph arose on behalf of Collins, and expressed a wish that, as the painful investigation of the murder case had been finished, the prosecutions for libel might be discontinued. Judge Willis warmly seconded the proposal, and further suggested that the prosecution of the type-rioters might also be dropped. The type-rioters, however, were ready and waiting for their trial, and, through their counsel, objected to any abandonment so far as they were concerned. It was urged on their part that they had never wished to avoid prosecution, but had rather courted it; that they would accept of no compromise of a proceeding which had been maliciously and vexatiously instituted, not by the person injured, but by one who, being brought into Court for libel, had been received as a sort of public prosecutor, and allowed to harass them by raking into old transactions which had long since been investigated and atoned for. They insisted upon the matter being there and then finally disposed of, so that it might no longer be in the power of any malicious person wholly unconnected with the case to prosecute them at his pleasure. The trial was then proceeded with. The persons charged were of course found guilty. Judge Willis was very lenient, and sentenced them to a nominal fine of five shillings each, expressly stating as a reason for this slight punishment that more than ample recompense had already been obtained in the civil action.[123] With respect to the indictments against Collins, the Judge's appeal to the Attorney-General was not altogether without efficacy, notwithstanding the ill blood between them. The fact is that the latter was glad enough of any excuse for abandoning the two prosecutions instituted by Boulton and Jarvis, feeling well assured that there was no likelihood of securing a conviction in either case. He could subserve his own and his friends' interests, and at the same time assume the appearance of deferring to the suggestion from the bench. The consent of the prosecutors having been obtained, he therefore announced in open Court that he would proceed no further upon those indictments. He added, however, that there were further indictments against Collins which had emanated from the Grand Jury, and that he could not with proper deference to them at once relinquish proceedings therein. "But I have no objections to state," said the Attorney-General, "that I will forbear any further action during the present Assizes, and that in proceeding or not hereafter, I shall be governed in a great measure by the sense which the defendant shall show of his duty and obligations as the conductor of a public newspaper." Bail was accordingly furnished by Collins on one of the presentments. The other was tacitly allowed to lapse; and there, for the time, the matter ended. The editor of the _Freeman_ certainly gave the Attorney-General no excuse for leaving him unmolested. In each successive issue of his paper he lashed the whole race of officials, to some of whom he applied the most opprobrious epithets. The Government organs pursued a similar course on their side, and characterized Collins and his friends in language too gross for quotation. The Attorney-General probably repented that he had not proceeded on at least one of the indictments during the late Assizes, and resolved that another opportunity should not pass unimproved. The autumn Assizes opened during the second week in October, when he attempted to press one of the old charges against Collins. The defendant appealed to Judge Sherwood, who occupied the bench, representing that his counsel was not in Court, and that he had never been arraigned. The Attorney-General replied that the absence of the defendant's counsel was not the fault of the Crown, and that he had been arraigned at the spring Assizes. The latter statement was denied by the defendant, and upon referring to the Clerk of Assize it appeared that there had been no arraignment. Next day the Attorney-General again attempted to force on the trial, but as it was clear that the defendant had not been arraigned the latter now claimed the right to traverse. As this right was indisputable it was conceded by the Court, the result being that the defendant was entitled to have the trial held over until the next sittings, which would not take place until the following spring. The Attorney-General, however, was entitled to demand that the defendant should find security, and promptly urged his demand. Collins knew that were he to find the required security it would embarrass him in the conduct of his paper, and stated that he would prefer to be tried at once rather than adopt such an alternative. He was accordingly tried, and, though the prosecution was pressed against him with all the vigour at the Attorney-General's command, he was acquitted by the jury. But the Attorney-General was not the man to allow his prey to escape him while any chance remained of securing a conviction. A fresh indictment was laid against him for a personal libel upon the Attorney-General himself. Collins, in reporting the trial which had just resulted in his acquittal, had accused the Attorney-General of "open palpable falsehood," and "native malignancy," and had referred to Judge Hagerman as "our old customer." This report had been published at full length in the _Freeman_, and it was the ground of the prosecution now instituted. The defendant laboured under the same compulsion with regard to security as before, and elected to stand his trial at once, which was precisely what the Attorney-General desired. The indictment, which may still be seen among the records at Osgoode Hall, was a truly formidable instrument, and set out the offence with great prolixity. The trial took place on Saturday, the 25th, before Mr. Justice Sherwood, who, in charging the jury, inveighed against the defendant with nearly as great vehemence as did the Crown prosecutor, stigmatizing him as "a wholesale retailer of calumny." He pronounced the _Freeman's_ report to be "a gross and scandalous libel."[124] It was plainly evident that Mr. Sherwood's mind was not equable, and that he was influenced by considerations not properly before him. The fact that his son Henry, and his brother-in-law, H. J. Boulton, had respectively been prosecuted for riot and murder at Collins's instigation was too clearly held in remembrance, insomuch that every point was strained to the utmost against the defendant. Judge Sherwood, however, was absent from the bench when the jury returned into Court with their verdict, his place being taken by Judge Hagerman, who had many times been subjected to the arrows of Collins's satire, and who was referred to with bantering contumely in the very report which formed the subject of the present prosecution. The jury, after deliberating about five hours, brought in a verdict of "Guilty of a libel on the Attorney-General." The Clerk recorded a general verdict of "Guilty," which was read to the jury. The defendant's counsel objected to the recording of the verdict in this form, inasmuch as the jury had found his client guilty of libel on the Attorney-General only. A brief argument on the subject ensued, whereupon the Judge charged the jury to the effect that such a verdict as they had found could not be received. He informed them that if they found the defendant guilty of any part of the alleged libel, they ought to return a general verdict of "Guilty;" but that they might, if they thought proper, suggest to the Court on what particular part of the publication their verdict was founded, in which case the Court would confine the punishment to that part only. The jury thereupon retired a second time, but soon returned with a general verdict of "Guilty." On being asked by the Judge whether they adhered to their former opinion as to the libellous part of the publication, they answered in the affirmative. The sentence of the Court was not pronounced until sufficient time had elapsed to admit of a conference on the subject between Justices Sherwood and Hagerman. That such a conference really took place is clear enough from a letter of Judge Sherwood himself, to be presently referred to. The sentence, when it came, created much surprise, not only in the bosom of the individual who was directly concerned, but among the public at large. It condemned the defendant to pay a fine of fifty pounds, to be imprisoned for twelve calendar months, to find securities for his good behaviour for three years after his liberation, himself in four hundred pounds and two sureties in one hundred pounds each, and to stand committed until all these conditions should be complied with. Certainly it was no wonder that the little world of upper Canada opened its eyes at such a Star Chamber sentence as this, pronounced in the year of Grace 1828. It seemed as if the whirligig of time had brought back the days of Bartemus Ferguson and _The Niagara Spectator_.[125] It was an open question with many persons, even among those who were upon the whole favourable to the measures of the Government, whether the prosecution should have been sustained at all or not. A charge of "native malignancy" was not likely to seriously affect the character or standing of Attorney-General Robinson, who was ready enough to apply much stronger epithets to his enemies. But, however that might be, there could be no sort of doubt that the punishment awarded was wholly disproportionate to the offence, more especially when the defendant's circumstances were considered. If persisted in, the sentence really involved the latter's perpetual imprisonment, for no two men of substance were likely to be found who would feel safe in guaranteeing the good behaviour of such a turbulent spirit as Francis Collins for so long a period as three years. Throughout the whole of this infamous persecution the Attorney-General showed to very little advantage. As previously mentioned, he had showered four indictments upon the defendant within the brief space of two days. Three of these he had withdrawn, and upon the fourth the defendant had been acquitted. He had then gone out of his way to lay a personal information upon a very insignificant pretext. Poor Collins was his enemy, and must not be allowed to characterize his conduct as "native malignancy," whereas the editors of newspapers under the patronage and pay of the Government were permitted to pursue a deliberate system of malicious vilification with impunity. The latter were allowed to publicly malign not only individual members of the Opposition, but to circulate the grossest libels upon the House of Assembly itself. With these offences the Attorney-General did not think fit to meddle. They were committed by his personal and political friends, and, unless common rumour seriously belied him, were not seldom committed at his own instigation. At any rate he maintained the most amicable relations with the libellers, and allowed no opportunity of serving their material interests to pass unimproved. Such inconsistency forced itself upon public attention. People who up to that time had supported the official party began to ask where this one-sidedness was to end. The Attorney-General had no right, it was said, to reward his friends for doing precisely the same things as those for which he punished and imprisoned his enemies. It was remembered against him how, when disputing with Judge Willis as to the nature of his official duties, he had with scorn repudiated the suggestion that he should proceed in the absence of instructions, even against notorious evil-doers. It was remembered that he had declined to take any official cognizance of so serious an offence against the public peace as the type-riot, which had been committed by his own friends and protégés. Yet he had here gone out of his way to prosecute to his ruin a poor wretch who, certainly not without great provocation, had merely accused him of falsehood and native malignancy. A man who accommodated his conduct to his inclinations in this way might perhaps be much beloved by his friends, but he certainly had no claim to be considered either good or great. The faction, from Dr. Strachan downwards, had for years been holding up John Beverley Robinson to the admiration of Upper Canadians. By many he had been accepted at their valuation. The Selkirk and Gourlay episodes, together with a score of others less noteworthy, had been slurred over. As the worst of these had occurred some years before, they had been partly forgotten by the existing generation. But the remorseless vindictiveness and cruelty displayed throughout the Collins prosecution were patent to everybody. They did much to lower the Attorney-General in popular estimation, and to destroy public confidence in the integrity of the Judges. They gave rise to an uneasy feeling of discontent, and doubtless had their share in bringing about the troubles of 1837-38. Collins went to jail, where, in spite of great exertions on his behalf, he was compelled to remain for many months. The fine was paid, like the damages in the type-riot case, by public subscription. Appeals from various quarters to the Lieutenant-Governor on the prisoner's behalf were made in vain. The incumbent of that office was no longer Sir Peregrine Maitland, whose torpid and nerveless administration had come to an end some weeks before,[126] when, as previously mentioned, he had taken his departure for Nova Scotia. His successor as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was Major-General Sir John Colborne, a distinguished officer of the 52nd Regiment, who had done gallant service in the Peninsula, and had fought at Waterloo. He is described by Napier, the historian of the Peninsular War, as having developed "an extraordinary genius for war." After the return of peace he had had some experience in diplomacy, having for some time been placed in charge of the Government in the island of Guernsey. His appointment to the more onerous and responsible post of Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was heralded as the precursor of better times. It was announced that he had come over charged with instructions to reverse the fatuous policy of his predecessor, and to conduct the administration in accordance with the well understood wishes of the people. It seems tolerably certain that some such general directions as these had actually been given, but great latitude was necessarily left to Sir John himself; and, as after events proved, he was ill fitted for the discharge of such duties as had been entrusted to him. He was destined to furnish, in his own person, a sufficient argument against the absurd system pursued by the Home Government of saddling the colonies with military rulers. That Sir John was an excellent soldier goes without saying. It is certain, too, that he was in the main actuated by upright and honourable motives. But he had been "a man of war from his youth," and his early training and long military career had made him stern and unbending. He had no sympathy with the aspirations of a people who were just beginning to grasp the principles of constitutional liberty, and who saw many things in the body politic which called aloud for reform. It did not take long for the people of Upper Canada to gauge the character of the new Governor, for he had not been a fortnight in the Province before he had practically allied himself with the Compact. Hardly had he assumed the functions of his office ere a petition, signed by a number of influential inhabitants of York and its neighbourhood, was presented to him by a Committee on behalf of Collins. The facts were set out in detail, and his Excellency was asked to exercise the royal clemency by releasing the prisoner from his melancholy situation. Sir John's reply was non-committal, but not wholly discouraging. It conceded the advantages resulting from a free and well-conducted press, but expressed reverence for trial by jury, and referred to the danger of interfering with the verdicts of juries or the opinions of Judges unless their illegality could be clearly demonstrated. It added, however, that if his Excellency; after inquiring into the case, should come to the conclusion that his interposition was called for, a communication to that effect would be made to the person chiefly concerned. In the face of this reply, it behooved the prisoner and his friends to wait a reasonable time before taking any further steps. Within the next few days a number of facts came to light which certainly went to show that there were at least good grounds for a new trial. It appeared that John Hayden, one of the jurymen, had been ignorant of the true meaning of the word "malignancy," and had sent out to the Court for Johnson's Dictionary, in order to arrive at a true definition. This indulgence was refused by the Court, and Hayden was constrained to accept the definition of another juror, whereby he was led to believe that the word in question has a much more serious significance than really attaches to it. By this means he had been induced to give his voice for the conviction of the defendant. Two other jurymen,[127] who were servile tools of the Attorney-General, had been actuated by undue prejudice, insomuch that they had expressed a strong pre-determination to convict the defendant. Then, the conduct of Mr. Hagerman, in sitting as a Judge in a case wherein he was personally concerned--it will be remembered that he had been derisively referred to in the report which formed the subject of the indictment--was an infringement of decency, to say nothing of its being a perversion of the letter and spirit of the law. He had also conferred with the Judge by whom the sentence was pronounced as to the measure of punishment to be awarded. But he had not only sat in judgment in his own cause: he had refused to record the finding of the jury, whom he had misled and coerced into bringing in a verdict contrary to what they really intended. Judge Sherwood's conduct had been little better. He had delivered a charge to the jury which practically left them no alternative but to convict, unless they altogether disregarded his counsels. John Carey, editor of the York _Observer_, who was present on the occasion, testified that the Judge's charge appeared to him to outrage law and common sense.[128] Then, the sentence itself was so grossly out of proportion to the offence as to shock all ideas of justice, and to form a standing menace against the liberty of the press in Upper Canada. Yet Judge Sherwood, in pronouncing it, had expressly stated that it should be light, in consequence of its being awarded for a first conviction. It would be curious to know what punishment he would have awarded if the defendant had been previously convicted on a similar charge. All these circumstances went far to prove that the defendant had met with considerably more or less than justice. And there were other facts which had an ugly look. The defendant, as already mentioned, was a Roman Catholic; yet, out of a large and respectable population professing the same religious faith, not one was to be found on the panel, although at the Quarter Sessions, held a few days later, the number of Roman Catholics summoned to serve on juries was exceptionally large. The Sheriff who empanelled the jury was a political enemy of the accused. So was each individual member of the Grand Jury who found the true bill against him. So were a large majority of the petty jury by whom he was tried. So was the Attorney-General who prosecuted him. So were the two Judges who presided at the trial. Taken in connection with the specific facts mentioned in the preceding paragraph, these matters gave rise to many unpleasant conjectures, and it was no wonder that the public voice exclaimed against the verdict as an unrighteous one. It was no wonder that public meetings were held in some of the rural districts to protest against what was almost universally pronounced to be a tyrannical abuse of the process of the Courts. It was no wonder that hisses and groans were sometimes heard from quiet nooks and corners when the Attorney-General passed along the streets of York. And it was no wonder that, coming, as it did, on the heels of other trials that differed with it only in degree, the case of Francis Collins caused many theretofore loyal subjects to ask themselves whether their loyalty demanded that they should forever continue to bend their necks to the yoke of the oppressor. What was Collins's case to-day might possibly be theirs or their sons' on the morrow. On the 26th of November Collins sent in to the Lieutenant-Governor a pathetically-worded petition, in which the desolate condition of his young and helpless family was alluded to in brief but moving terms. It set out that, in consequence of his imprisonment, the business whereby he had supported his family was all but ruined, as its success depended solely on his personal exertions. Finally, he prayed to be restored to his liberty. Accompanying the petition were affidavits setting forth the admitted ignorance of one of the jurymen, and the pre-determination of the other two to convict. But the prisoner knocked at the gates of Sir John Colborne's heart in vain. The Lieutenant-Governor was by this time as completely hand and glove with the official party as his predecessor had ever been. Dr. Strachan and John Beverley Robinson managed him with great skill, and, by dint of much seeming deference, had him under complete control. Without being in the least aware of it, he was clay in the hands of the potter, who moulded him at will. As well might poor Collins have appealed for mercy to a half-famished tiger of the jungle as to these two Provincial representatives of law and gospel. His memorial, dated "York Gaol, November 26th, 1829," was not replied to until more than three weeks had elapsed, and when the answer came its contents indicated perfect callousness to the prisoner's unhappy condition. He was curtly informed that the Lieutenant-Governor could not think it right to comply with the petition, but that on the expiration of the specified term of imprisonment, any application which he might desire to make would be taken into consideration. From this time forward the prisoner seems to have resigned himself to his fate, although his friends did not relax their exertions on his behalf. It seemed useless to apply for a new trial, as the application would have to be made to either Sherwood or Hagerman, from neither of whom could he hope to obtain justice. The _Freeman_ continued to make its appearance, although its publication was necessarily carried on under great disadvantages. The editor's spirit was by no means broken, and he sent forth from his place of confinement a succession of editorials as bitterly vigorous as any previous efforts of his pen. He also wrote a series of open letters addressed to the Attorney-General, in which that official's career, from his infancy onwards, was reviewed with caustic bitterness.[129] These letters were published in successive numbers of the _Freeman_, and must be presumed to have been a source of great annoyance to the gentleman to whom they were directed. Though many of the statements therein were perverse and wilful distortions of facts, there was a large element of truth, and it would not have been easy to expose the falsehood without admitting much that could not be denied. The Attorney-General contemplated another prosecution, but thought better of it--not, it is to be presumed, from any want of vindictiveness, but because he felt that there was a limit to the public endurance, and that that limit had pretty nearly been reached. [Sidenote: 1829.] In January, 1829, the Collins case was taken into consideration by the Assembly. A Committee was appointed, and a rigid inquiry instituted into some of the most interesting features. Attorney-General Robinson was examined at considerable length. Judges Sherwood and Hagerman were summoned before the Committee, but both of them declined to answer any questions. A good many important facts were elicited, upon the strength of which an Address to his Excellency was passed, recapitulating the circumstances, and praying for a remission of the sentence. The reply was of the same inexorable character as that previously made to Collins's own petition. "It is my anxious wish," was the response of the Lieutenant-Governor, "to render service to the Province, by concurring with the Legislature in everything that can promote its peace, prosperity and happiness; and I regret exceedingly that the House of Assembly should have made an application to me which the obligation I am under to support the laws, and my duty to society, forbid me, I think, to comply with." For the information of the House, his Excellency forwarded a copy of a letter addressed by Justice Sherwood to the Governor's Secretary, embodying certain reasons for the judgment of the Court in the case. The Judge, it will be remembered, refused to assign any such reasons when questioned on the subject by the Committee of the House of Assembly. As to his right to so refuse there can hardly be much difference of opinion, but he would have been more consistent if he had also refused when applied to by the Lieutenant-Governor. After admitting the right to publish fair and candid opinions on the Government and constitution, the Judge declared that if a publisher "steps aside from the high road of decency and peaceable deportment, and adopts a course of public calumny and open abuse against the officers of Government generally, or particularly against the principal law officer of the Crown, in the legal discharge of his duty in the King's Courts, as the defendant did," then it was the Judge's conviction that the publisher so offending should be "punished to that extent which, in human probability, would prevent a recurrence of the offence." And yet this same Judge, in pronouncing sentence, had expressly declared that the sentence should be a light one, as it was the defendant's first offence. The conclusion of the letter showed plainly enough that a conference had taken place between Justices Sherwood and Hagerman before the imposition of the penalty. It proved, indeed, that the sentence was to be considered as the joint sentence of the two Judges. "Taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration," it ran, "Mr. Justice Hagerman and myself deemed the sentence which we passed on the defendant both proper and necessary for the public good, and what the case itself required." Two or three further appeals were made to the Lieutenant-Governor on the prisoner's behalf, all of which proved ineffectual. The matter was really in the hands of the Attorney-General himself, who was inexorable, and would be satisfied with nothing short of the fullest expiation. The Assembly meanwhile did not relax its efforts to obtain a commutation of the sentence. On the 12th of March an address to the King was passed by that body, whereby His Majesty was entreated "to extend to Francis Collins the royal clemency, by remitting the residue of his punishment." Not much was hoped for from this proceeding, as it was felt that the whole influence of the Executive would be put forward against it. The prisoner himself made up his mind to accept the inevitable, and to serve out at least the full term of the sentence imposed. He continued to supply editorial articles for his paper, couched in a strain which seemed to indicate his superiority to circumstances. But his buoyant spirit was measurably tamed by his long imprisonment, and it was remarked that he was never again quite the same man as before. Contrary to his anticipations, the address of the Assembly finally proved effective, and he was permitted to walk forth from the jail a free man. His paper came forth from week to week, but its tone was evidently modified and subdued. Something of the old spirit occasionally flashed forth, but fitfully and transitorily only, like the flicker of a lamp before its extinction. It was clear that the editor had not forgotten the indignity and mental suffering he had undergone, and throughout the remaining years of his life he always dwelt more or less in the shadow of the cold and solitary cell. The records of the jurisprudence of civilized countries contain few modern instances of the exaction of so severe a penalty for so insignificant an offence. The narrative has no further concern with Francis Collins, except to record that he continued to edit and publish the _Freeman_ down to 1834, when he fell a victim to the cholera invasion by which the Provincial capital was ravaged during that year. He died on the 2nd of September, and the _Freeman_ thenceforth ceased to exist. FOOTNOTES: [118] The Attorney-General, John Beverley Robinson, was ever valiant on the stronger side. He tried to induce the Assembly to compel Dr. Horne to insert in the next issue of the _Gazette_ a paragraph in the following words: "From the incompetence or negligence of our reporter, the debates of the House of Assembly inserted in the last number of this paper were so imperfect and so untruly reported that no dependence can be placed in their accuracy." The Assembly, however, were satisfied with the humiliation to which the Doctor had been subjected, and would not compel him to further self-abasement. [119] Mr. Fothergill held the office barely three years, when he was dismissed for voting with the Opposition in the Assembly against the Government. It was an anomaly to permit the King's Printer to hold a seat in the Legislative Assembly, and the Government could hardly be expected to tolerate opposition from such a quarter. Mr. Fothergill was the first incumbent of the office to develop liberal opinions. He was sufficiently deep in the secrets of the Administration to make him a dangerous opponent if he had felt disposed to wage war to the knife. Of this fact the Administration seem to have taken a sort of oblique cognizance. He had overdrawn his account by £360, and in settling with him this sum was not taken into consideration. In other words, the Government made him a present of £360. His successor in the office of King's Printer was Mr. Robert Stanton. [120] _Ante_, p. 171. [121] _Ante_, p. 13. [122] _Ante_, pp. 171-174. [123] _Ante_, p. 136. [124] The charge, as reported by Collins, will be found in the Appendix to the _Journals of Assembly_ for 1829, pp. 27, 28. [125] _Ante_, p. 42 et seq. [126] Sir Peregrine was gazetted to be "Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia and its dependencies" on the 14th of August, 1828. On the same date Sir John Colborne was gazetted as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, but he did not reach the seat of his Government until late in the autumn, and Sir Peregrine did not actually demit office until the arrival of his successor. [127] William Davenish and Andrew A. Thompson. The former stated that in the event of his being called as a juror he would "put it on to" Collins. See the _Freeman_ for Thursday December 25th, 1828. [128] See Appendix to _Journals of Assembly_ for 1829. [129] _Ante_, pp. 101, 102, note. CHAPTER X. LIGHTS--OLD AND NEW. In the preceding five chapters an attempt has been made to reduce to narrative form a great mass of heterogeneous material bearing upon the "Story" which it is the purpose of these volumes to relate. A considerable proportion of this material is to all practical intents inaccessible to the general reading public, being scattered here and there through old and long-forgotten newspapers, blue-books, pamphlets and unedited manuscripts. Yet some acquaintance with it is absolutely necessary to a clear comprehension of the deplorable state of things which existed in this Province during the régime of Sir Peregrine Maitland and his successor. No one who is ignorant of it is capable of expressing an intelligent opinion as to the merits or demerits of the Rebellion and those who took part therein. The principal facts and circumstances attendant upon some of the most flagrant exhibitions of Family Compact oppression which mark the fourth decade of Upper Canadian history have therefore been set forth in consecutive order, and with considerable minuteness. The picture thus afforded of Provincial-society and Government, though pregnant with instruction, is by no means an attractive one, and any person contemplating it for the first time may well be excused for questioning its perfect accuracy. The drawing, at times, seems to be too wavy in outline, and some of the details have the appearance of being painted in colours too glaring to be natural. But a strict examination of the properties will correct all such impressions. Varying themes require varying methods of treatment. There are certain features of landscape which must not be drawn with absolute sharpness of outline, and there are subjects to which neutral tints altogether fail to do justice. Of such a character are more than one of the scenes here reproduced. Independently of the mere method of treatment, the historical evidence is so clear and explicit that it can be questioned by no one who takes the trouble to examine it. As to mere matters of fact, there will be little or no difference of opinion among those who consult and compare the various authorities cited in the notes.[130] The cases hitherto recorded are merely a few out of many, but they suffice to tell the story of Executive cruelty and selfishness during the period referred to more effectively than it could possibly be told without their aid. To set forth with equal fulness of detail the circumstances attendant upon the persecution of Jonah Brown, Robert Randal, Hugh Christopher Thompson, and a round score of minor victims, would be to extend this work to an interminable length. The materials for a work written on such a plan are abundant, as they include all the facts arising out of the stupendous iniquity sought to be perpetrated under the guise of the Alien Bill. The particulars connected with the attempt to force this infamous measure upon the people of Upper Canada cannot be inquired into in these pages. Sufficient to say that it was a most dishonest and unstatesmanlike attempt on the part of the Executive to get rid of political opponents by repudiating the well-understood obligations of their predecessors in office: an attempt to dispossess persons who, relying upon the faith of the Government of the day, had settled in the country and taken up lands, to which they had received titles, and upon which they and their parents had in many cases resided ever since Governor Simcoe's time. The attempt failed through the vigilance of the Opposition and the interference of the Imperial Government, but it proved the length to which the official party were prepared to go in order to maintain the existing order of things. It was of a piece with the rest of the Executive policy, which seemed to wax more and more exacting and one-sided with lapse of time. It was abundantly clear to many persons unconnected with the Reform party that there was no justice in the land for a Reformer, and that the oligarchy by whom the country was dominated cared nothing for its best interests. Constitutional liberty was systematically trampled under foot. The oft-quoted boast of the Founder of the Province about the Upper Canadian constitution being "the very image and transcript of that of Great Britain"[131] seemed the hollowest mockery when viewed in the light of events which had become a matter of frequent occurrence. It was not only to the thumbs of political opponents that the Executive screw was applied. When occasion arose it was applied with surprising energy and vigour to the thumbs of those who had long been obedient slaves of the Administration. Nothing more clearly shows the shameless exercise of power on the part of the faction: nothing more clearly proves the complete subordination of their tools, and the depths of degradation to which public men could be made to stoop: than an episode which occurred during the Parliamentary session of 1828. The persons chiefly involved were the Hon. James Baby, who was himself Inspector-General of Public Accounts and senior member of the Executive Council, and ex-Chief Justice Powell. It has already been explained that the first-named personage had for some time past ceased to carry any great weight at the Council Board, where he had been to a considerable extent superseded by his juniors.[132] His seniority was merely in point of time, and his influence on the policy of the Government was as insignificant as it possibly could be, consistently with the position which he held. He keenly felt his having been, so to speak, thrust into the background, and in several instances showed a disposition to assert himself by acting independently. A similar feeling, but milder in degree, animated the breast of the ex-Chief Justice, whose place as principal lay adviser of the Lieutenant-Governor had long since been taken by Attorney-General Robinson. During the session of 1823-4 he had seen fit to protest against a School Bill passed by the Assembly, under which Dr. Strachan was intended to and did actually derive a sinecure salary of three hundred pounds a year. His protest, at his own urgent request, was entered on the journal, where it seemed likely to remain a perpetual memento of his independence and of the servility of his colleagues. But this was by no means desired by the Lieutenant-Governor and the Attorney-General. Pressure was brought to bear upon the recalcitrant member, under the influence of which he was forced to succumb. He consented that the protest should be erased from the journal, and it was erased accordingly.[133] But a still more sickening humiliation was in store for him, as well as for the venerable Mr. Baby. During the session of 1828 several petitions were received by the Assembly praying for relief against a law passed in 1825, whereby certain taxes had been imposed on wild lands.[134] Among other grievances complained of was the manner in which the law had been passed. It was distinctly alleged in one of the petitions that the measure had been pushed through both Houses with too great rapidity, and that most culpable means had been employed in order to procure the assent of certain members to whom it was objectionable. The Assembly entertained the petitions, and appointed a Committee to inquire into the matter. A number of witnesses were examined, and some astounding facts elicited. The allegations as to undue influence were proved by the clearest evidence, and by witnesses who had generally been accustomed to act with the Government. One of these was our somewhile acquaintance, the Hon. William Dickson, who, as has previously been seen, was the owner of an immense tract of land,[135] and was consequently seriously affected by the law enacted in 1825. His evidence, as printed in the Appendix to the Journals of the Assembly,[136] stands as a perpetual indictment against Sir Peregrine Maitland and the venal clique by whom he was surrounded. It appears that from the time when the Bill relating to the taxation of wild lands was first introduced into the Upper House it was an unpopular measure, and that it was opposed by a majority of the members. Most of the latter were large landholders by virtue of their membership, and some of them had acquired additional blocks by purchase. The obnoxious Bill was opposed at every stage, and there seemed to be no possibility of its becoming law. Its defeat being regarded as inevitable, its opponents to some extent relaxed their efforts, and congratulated each other upon their apparent success. On the third reading, however, Mr. Dickson found, to his supreme astonishment and disgust, that some of the members upon whom he had relied for votes presented an entire change of front, and appeared in the _role_ of supporters of the measure. It was noticeable that all the converts, or perverts, held offices under the Government. The Hon. John Henry Dunn, Provincial Receiver-General, took a different course. He had been among the most determined opponents of the Bill, and had declared that it would never pass.[137] He had too much self-respect, after taking such a stand, to give the lie to all his protestations by voting for the measure, so he quietly staid at home on a pretence of sickness.[138] Referring to those who took a more determined stand, by voting contrary to their pledges, Mr. Dickson says: "This change, I am satisfied, arose from intimidation by the Local Government, who seemed determined to carry the measure at any sacrifice. It was most painfully manifest from their countenances and demeanour that the change was not from conviction, but from coercion. The business of the Legislative Council was suspended for two hours for a meeting of the Executive Council. And I do believe that at that Council the members of the Legislative Council holding offices were constrained at the peril of their situations to vote for the measures they had a week before decidedly opposed. Upon those members returning that day to their legislative duties there was a change of voting, and one of those who staid away on pretence of sickness was, to my knowledge, able to attend." The reference here is presumably to Mr. Dunn. Mr. Dickson's evidence then goes on to say that about ten minutes before the vote was taken, a message was delivered to the Hon. James Baby that Major Hillier wished to speak to him. Major Hillier was the Lieutenant-Governor's most confidential secretary, and was employed in numberless little transactions requiring the exercise of coolness and tact. In response to the message Mr. Baby left his place in the House, and did not return for some time. Upon his return from the interview to his accustomed seat he was evidently much confused and agitated. Being spoken to by Mr. Dickson he found it impossible to conceal his agitation, but told his interlocutor, to that gentleman's great astonishment, that he must vote for the Bill. When the time came he accordingly voted with the Government, and the Bill was carried by a small majority, Messieurs Dickson and Clark entering a determined protest against it. "After the passing of the Bill," continues Mr. Dickson, "the Hon. Mr. Baby, after leaving the House, put his hand upon his heart, and, with reference to his change of conduct on the measure, said something about his children, expressive of his regret at the necessity which drove him to the abandonment of the course he had pursued." Mr. Powell, who was then Speaker of the Legislative Council, was evidently subjected to similar influences. Like Mr. Baby, he had been strenuous in his opposition to the Bill, and had even gone so far as to speak harshly of some of those who promoted it. But he was speedily made to know his place, and the tenure by which he held it. During a portion of the two hours when the business of the Legislative Council was suspended he was in secret conference with Major Hillier and one or more members of the Executive Council.[139] When he took his seat upon the resumption of the business of the day, it was noticeable that he, as well as Baby, was labouring under undue embarrassment and agitation. It was beyond any reasonable doubt that they had been shamelessly coerced, and had been compelled to choose between voting as they were commanded or being dismissed from their respective offices. Upon being questioned by Mr. Dickson, Powell admitted that he had changed his opinion, and added, in seeming sincerity, that he had received new light on the matter within the last ten minutes. Such an exchange of an old lamp for a new one must surely have been the work of some malignant and monstrous genie at the Council Board. It should be mentioned that Dickson's evidence, so far as "extraordinary and undue influence by the Local Government" is concerned, is fully confirmed by the evidence of the Hon. Thomas Clark, who was also a member of the Upper House, and was present at the proceedings above described. There could not well be any more conclusive proof of the unconstitutional and corrupt manner in which the Government was carried on during Sir Peregrine Maitland's time than is afforded by the circumstances just narrated. They read like a chapter out of the political history of England during the last century. The methods employed by Walpole exhibit nothing baser or more repulsive than these. His aphorism about "every one of them" having his price might well have been echoed by Sir Peregrine, so far as the Legislative Council was concerned, with the addition that the price in Upper Canada was sometimes ridiculously low. The persons who were guilty of these gross violations of the constitution, to say nothing of the commonest principles of honesty, were incessantly prating of their devoted loyalty to the Crown. Yet it is plain enough that their fealty was always subservient to what they deemed to be their personal interests. This was as clearly apparent in 1837 as it had been in 1828. When, a few years later,[140] a crisis arose in which they were compelled to choose between those interests and their devotion to the Crown, it was once more abundantly manifest that theirs was the veriest lip-loyalty. The burning of the Parliament Buildings at Montreal was as direct an act of treason as was the affair at Montgomery's Farm. [Sidenote: 1829.] In 1828 there was a general election, in the course of which the Executive party made tremendous exertions to regain a predominating influence in the Assembly. They perceived plainly enough that a hostile majority in the Lower House must in the end prove fatal to them. They might temporarily set it at naught, through their control over the Legislative Council and the absence of ministerial responsibility, but they could not hope to keep up such a farce for all time. This knowledge impelled them to adopt every means which their ingenuity could devise to secure the return of candidates who might be relied upon to support their policy. Their success was by no means proportionate to their efforts. When the returns were all in it appeared that the Opposition had rather gained than lost by the contest. Two staunch members of the Compact were defeated in what had theretofore been regarded as safe Tory boroughs, and Attorney-General Robinson's majority in the Town of York was greatly diminished. All the most prominent Reformers were returned, and at the opening of the session on the 8th of January, 1829, Rolph, Bidwell, Perry, Matthews and Dr. Baldwin took their seats on the Opposition benches. To their number was now added William Lyon Mackenzie, who had been returned for the County of York. His election was a surprise to the Government party, and was pronounced by them to be an everlasting disgrace to the intelligent and populous constituency which had returned him. He repaid such compliments as these with others of a like character, and gave back as much as he received, if not with usury, at least with fair interest. Mr. Bidwell was elected to the Speaker's chair by the new Assembly, and on every test question the Government were left in a hopeless minority. The vote on the Address in Reply will afford some clue to the political complexion of the House. It referred to the Lieutenant-Governor's advisers as having deeply wounded the feelings and injured the best interests of the country; yet it was carried with only one dissentient vote--that of J. H. Samson, one of the members for Hastings. Reform was evidently in the ascendant throughout the Province; but, as during the preceding Parliament, the exertions of the majority in the Assembly could do little for Reform under the existing state of the constitution. The Lieutenant-Governor responded with curt ambiguity to the Assembly's Address, and cemented his alliance with the Compact by refusing to grant the prayer of the petition for the release of Collins. The Government submitted to one defeat after another with dogged sullenness, but with undiminished contempt for the idea that successive defeats imposed upon them any obligation to resign. The session of 1829 was a noisy and quarrelsome one. Hardly had Mackenzie taken his seat before he began that system of inquiry and agitation which he thenceforward pursued throughout the whole of his career as a member of Parliament. He instituted an investigation into the management of the Provincial Post Office, conducted an inquiry as to the privileges of members of the Assembly, and as to the behaviour of certain returning officers, and generally busied himself with important matters of detail. He displayed precisely the same characteristics as a legislator that he had displayed as the conductor of a newspaper--great energy and vigilance, accompanied by a critical and fault-finding spirit, and an almost entire absence of tact and discretion. He gave wanton and unnecessary offence to those who differed from him in opinion, not only on important political questions, but even on comparatively insignificant matters of every-day occurrence. His coadjutors found that, independently of the sincerity or insincerity of his intentions, his judgment was not to be trusted. He could be misled by any _ignis fatuus_ that displayed a bright light, and was led into many a Serbonian bog from which he was not extricated without serious difficulty. Some men have an unerring instinct which, even in the absence of calm judgment or mature reflection, commonly leads them in the right path. Mackenzie's first conceptions, on the contrary, were almost invariably erroneous; and he had a perverse habit of frequently clinging to an idea once formed, even when experience and deliberation had proved it to be unsound.[141] At other times his opinions were as changeable as the hue of the chameleon. In short, he was a creature of impulse, and too often acted upon the motto of "First fire--then inquire." This was perhaps a misfortune rather than a fault, and under ordinary circumstances would have merited lightness of touch on the part of the historian. But Mr. Mackenzie is identified with a movement which forms a conspicuous and dramatic passage in Upper Canadian chronicles, and in justice to others it becomes highly necessary to form a correct estimate of his personality. This is all the more essential from the fact that he himself at different times gave various and conflicting accounts of the episode with which his name is inseparably blended, which accounts have hitherto been the only sources of information drawn upon by so-called historians. All the references to the Upper Canadian Rebellion to be found in current histories are traceable, directly or indirectly, to Mackenzie himself, and all are built upon false hypotheses and perverted representations of events. To Mackenzie, more than to any other person, or to all other persons combined, are to be attributed all the worst consequences which flowed from that feebly-planned and ill-starred movement. All the facts point to the conclusion that if he had been content to play the patient and subordinate part properly belonging to him, the whole course of his subsequent life might have been shaped much more smoothly, and he might have been saved the most serious of the privations which he was compelled to undergo. Much sorrow and suffering would also have been spared to others. The injury that may be done in a primitive community by a man who combines good intentions and great energy with excessive obstinacy, misguided ambition, and perversity of judgment, is simply incalculable. The subsequent course of the narrative will be found to fully bear out these reflections, and to point a moral even where there is no intention to moralize. Beyond the perpetual friction which was kept up between the Executive body and the Opposition, the session of 1829 was barren of events of permanent political importance. The Executive was tolerably independent of the popular branch of the Legislature, for it retained the casual and territorial revenues, and could get along without an annual vote for supplies. No fewer than twenty-one Bills passed by the Assembly were rejected by the Legislative Council during the session. "The Province," says Mr. MacMullen,[142] "presented the unconstitutional spectacle of a Government requiring no moneys from the Assembly, and a Legislative Council of a totally different political complexion from the popular branch of the Legislature. No restraint could now be imposed on the Executive by an annual vote of supplies. It was completely independent of the people." And it declared its independence in the most emphatic manner by inserting in one of the Lieutenant-Governor's messages a direct intimation that the Assembly would not be asked to trouble itself about ways and means. Certain episodes occurred during this session which are deserving of something more than passing reference, not only as indicative of the manners of those times, but because they concern personages whose achievements were fated to occupy much space in the annals of our country. The Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Colborne, had not long been installed in office before he was exhibited in effigy in the streets of Hamilton. Certain Tories who were believed to have taken part in the exhibition openly asserted that the Hamilton Reformers were responsible for it. It was at the same time alleged that there was a plot on the part of the Reformers to release Francis Collins from York jail by force of arms. The two stories emanated from a common source, and as they were without any foundation in truth the Reform leaders in the Assembly deemed it proper to institute an inquiry into the matter. Upon motion of Mr. John Rolph a Committee of Investigation was appointed, with power to send for persons and papers. It was known that Allan Napier MacNab, who was then an impecunious young lawyer in Hamilton, could give certain important information about the affair, and he was summoned to appear before the Committee during the second week in February. He obeyed the summons, so far as presenting an appearance was concerned, but he refused to reply to certain questions put to him, and conducted himself with great insolence and want of discretion. Being again summoned before the Committee, to answer for his conduct, he read a written defence which had been prepared for him, and which rather aggravated his offence than otherwise. Accordingly, on motion of Dr. Baldwin, seconded by George Rolph, the future baronet was committed to York jail, under warrant of the Speaker, during the pleasure of the House. After remaining in custody about ten days, Mr. MacNab addressed a letter to the House which reads very much like a repetition of his former contempt, but which the Assembly seem to have construed very charitably, as on the 3rd of March a motion was carried for his discharge, and he was set at liberty. This brief term of imprisonment, which in all lasted less than a fortnight, was the turning point in the reckless young lawyer's career. Up to that time he had been nobody, and had had no apparent prospect of ever attaining to any importance. But from this time forward the official party regarded him in the light of a martyr who had suffered in the good cause. They feasted and lionized him, and did their utmost to advance his fortunes. At the elections which took place during the following year they returned him as one of the representatives of the County of Wentworth in the Assembly, where, though he lacked sufficient ballast to display anything like statesmanship, he made considerable noise, and erelong became a notable personage. He was voluble, and made many verbose speeches, the matter of which never rose above the veriest commonplace, but as it was always charged with emphatic High Toryism it was applauded to the echo by the official party. Eventually, as every Canadian knows, he obtained high distinction and eminence, and had abundant reason to bless the discipline which he had received at the hands of a Parliamentary Committee. But for that discipline he might have lived and died an obscure country lawyer. To that discipline he was indebted for all the honours which subsequently descended upon him. By its aid he successively became a member of the Upper Canadian Parliament, Speaker of the Assembly, Commander-in-Chief of the Upper Canadian land forces during the Rebellion, Knight, Queen's Counsel, member of the United Parliament of Canada, leader of the Tory Party in the Canadian Legislature, Premier, President of the Council and Minister of Agriculture, Baronet, honorary Colonel in the British Army, Aide-de-Camp to the Queen, Speaker of the Legislative Council. He also became father-in-law to a peer of the realm, and died Sir Allan MacNab of Dundurn. Certain passages of his life will form the subject of future consideration. Meanwhile it will be sufficient to remark that each successive link in the long chain of his triumphs may be distinctly traced to his supposed martyrdom at the hands of the Reform majority in the Upper Canadian Assembly in 1829. Another personage cited to appear before the Assembly's Committee on the same investigation was the Hon. H. J. Boulton, Solicitor-General. He displayed the same reticence as young MacNab, and refused to reply to certain questions put to him by the Chairman. He was soon taught that the high position which he occupied, backed, as it was, by the support of the party in power, could not shield him from the consequences of his refusal. Upon motion of Dr. Baldwin a resolution was adopted that the Solicitor-General had been guilty of a high contempt and breach of the privileges of the House. He was placed at the bar, where he showed more sense of propriety than had been shown by his predecessor. He had no desire to wear a crown of martyrdom, and did his utmost to purge himself of his contempt. He pleaded that he had intended no disrespect to the Committee, nor any breach of the privileges of the Assembly, and concluded by saying that he stood ready to answer, if the House so desired. The House acted magnanimously, not choosing to humiliate a beaten man any farther than was necessary for the due vindication of its own authority. John Rolph, seconded by Dr. Ambrose Blacklock, one of the members for Stormont, moved that the Solicitor-General be admonished by the Speaker, and discharged on payment of fees to the Sergeant-at-Arms. The motion was carried, and it only remained for the culprit to submit to the mild discipline which he had been adjudged to bear. But there was reason for believing that that discipline would be a trying ordeal for the Solicitor-General. The Speaker who was to pronounce the admonition was no commonplace piece of clay, trained to the set phrase of office, like the previous occupant had been. He was no less a personage than Marshall Spring Bidwell, who, with perhaps the single exception of John Rolph, was the most eloquent and powerful speaker in the Province. When moved to righteous anger, he was capable of administering a scorching reproof, and if a man is ever justified in taking his antagonist at a disadvantage, ample justification was to be found in the present instance. Mr. Bidwell had reason to hate the very name of Boulton, and might well be expected to avail himself of such an opportunity of darting the hot iron into his enemy's soul. There was a feud of long standing between the Bidwells and the Boultons. The Bidwells had sustained serious wrong and insult at the hands of the Boultons, and the Boultons hated the Bidwells with the hatred which small natures always feel towards higher natures which they have wronged. It was a Boulton who had been despatched to Massachusetts in 1821, to hunt up evidence as to the alleged misconduct of the elder Bidwell.[143] It was this same Henry John Boulton who had joined with his friend the Attorney-General in abusing and maligning the elder Bidwell during the election campaign of 1821, and afterwards. It was he who had put forth all the little strength that was in him to assist his party in bringing about the expulsion of the elder Bidwell from the Assembly.[144] He had done his utmost, and successfully, to induce members of Parliament to vote for the statute which had forever closed the doors of the Upper Canadian Legislature to the ex-member of Congress.[145] He had opposed the return of the younger Bidwell to the Assembly, and more recently, though he was not then a member of the House, he had done what he could to keep him out of the Speaker's Chair by influencing members in favour of John Willson. He had lost no opportunity of making himself personally offensive to Mr. Bidwell, whose abilities he envied, and whose character he was utterly incapable of appreciating. It will thus be seen that all the attendant circumstances combined to make Mr. Bidwell hate and contemn his adversary. If he failed to do so the explanation was to be found in his own gentle nature, and not in the lessons of humiliation which the Boultons had endeavoured to impose upon him. It was a memorable scene when the Solicitor-General stood up, on the 20th of February, to receive the admonition which he had been adjudged to endure. He was in a state of tremor, for he was conscious of the disadvantage of his position, and he dreaded the power of the Speaker's tongue. His friends also felt much solicitude on his account, for they knew how little consideration he deserved at the hands of the man who now had him in his power. For some moments a solemn silence reigned supreme. Then the Speaker's voice was heard; low at first, but steadily rising into clear and impressive tones which made every word sink deep into the hearts of the listeners. And the words themselves: how different from what the expectant personage at the bar had looked for! Nothing of malice or revenge there. Nothing but quiet dignity and forbearance. No mere spectator could have told whether the offender was a personal friend or an enemy of the Speaker. The voice was full of feeling, but utterly devoid of passion or malevolence. The power of Parliament was fully vindicated, yet the transgressor escaped without any unnecessary laceration of his pride. "By every member of the community," proceeded Mr. Bidwell, "a ready and cheerful respect should be shown towards the House of Assembly, who represent the people of the Province, whom the constitution has entrusted with important privileges for the benefit of their constituents, and who are amenable to them for all that they do. But it might in a peculiar degree have been expected of you, whose duty it is to enforce submission to the laws and respect for the institutions of the country." Here Mr. Boulton bowed his head as if in mute assent. He was then informed that the House could not permit this formal and gratuitous denial of its authority to pass unnoticed. "It is important," continued the Speaker, "that by its proceedings against you a warning should be given, before others are led by the influence of your sentiments and conduct to dispute an authority which the House is bound to vindicate and enforce. It is necessary that it should go thus far; but it gives me great satisfaction to observe that its duty does not compel, nor its inclination induce it, in your case, to go any farther than is requisite to attain this object; and, finding from your answer that you are now disposed to treat its privileges with just and becoming respect, and to defer your own private opinion to the judgment of that body whose constitutional right it is to decide upon its own privileges, it is willing to dismiss you with no other punishment than this admonition from its Speaker. This moderation is a proof that these privileges have been safely lodged by the constitution in its hands, and that they will never be used in a wanton or oppressive manner. It is by the order and in the name of the House that I thus admonish you, and direct that the Sergeant-at-Arms do now discharge you from custody." He was discharged accordingly, and left the house profoundly affected by the magnanimity of the man whom he had so grievously injured. One who seems to have watched him as he took his departure has recorded that the Boulton crest never hung so low as at that hour.[146] Nothing could have more clearly proved the greatness of soul of Mr. Bidwell than this episode; nothing could have more effectually illustrated his capacity to rise superior to all merely personal considerations when entrusted with the discharge of a public duty. The London _Times_ published a full report of his admonition, which it pronounced to be the best paper of the kind on record. During the following summer an event took place which removed Attorney-General Robinson from the atmosphere of the Assembly, and was the indirect means of introducing Robert Baldwin to public life. This was the appointment of Mr. Robinson to the place of Chief Justice of Upper Canada. The office had just become vacant through the retirement of Chief Justice Campbell, who had received the honour of knighthood during his absence in England. Mr. Robinson thus obtained the reward which he had long coveted, and which his devotion to successive Lieutenant-Governors had richly earned. There was some doubt as to the strict legality of his passing directly from the office of Attorney-General to that of Chief Justice. To remove the doubt he accepted the position of Registrar of the County of Kent, which he resigned after holding it a few days. His appointment to the Chief Justiceship was made on the 13th of July, but owing to the delay occasioned by his acceptance of the inferior office it was confirmed and re-dated on the 3rd of August following. He then took his seat on the bench, and was destined to remain there for more than thirty-three years. As Chief Justice he succeeded to the Presidency of the Executive Council, and at the opening of the session in the beginning of 1830 he was nominated Speaker of the Upper House. His removal from the Assembly therefore did not remove him from the political arena, and for years afterwards he continued, in conjunction with his friend and quondam tutor Dr. Strachan, to direct the policy of the Government as completely as he had done for some years previously. He was succeeded in the office of Attorney-General by Henry John Boulton. The temporary purpose for which Mr. Hagerman had been appointed to the bench, in place of Mr. Justice Willis, having been fully effected, that gentleman now threw off his official robes and succeeded his friend Boulton as Solicitor-General. Mr. Robinson's elevation to the bench left a vacancy in the representation of the Town of York. This vacancy young Robert Baldwin successfully aspired to fill. At the last general election, in conjunction with J. E. Small, he had unsuccessfully contested the County of York with W. L. Mackenzie and Jesse Ketchum. He was now opposed in the town by the same individual who had so lately been his coadjutor in the county. Mr. Small was defeated, but, at his instance, the return was declared void, the writ for the election having inadvertently been issued by the Lieutenant-Governor instead of by the Speaker of the Assembly, as in strictness it should have been. A new writ was issued, and Mr. Baldwin again contested the seat, his opponent now being the Sheriff of the County, William Botsford Jarvis. The Sheriff naturally enjoyed many advantages in such a contest, but he was defeated by a considerable majority, and on the opening of the session in the following January, Robert Baldwin, then in his twenty-sixth year, took his seat in Parliament for the first time. He however did not make any conspicuous figure during the session. He had already fully imbibed the idea that a responsible Executive was the great want of Upper Canadian polity, and took comparatively little interest in the subordinate questions of the day. He could see no good purpose to be served by recording successive majorities against the Government, so long as the members of that Government could retain their offices, together with the favour of the Lieutenant-Governor, in spite of any vote which the Assembly might see fit to record. He made no remarkable speeches, and seemed rather disposed to remain in the background. It so happened that he did not again have an opportunity of winning honours in the Legislature for many years, as, in consequence of the death of the king, a dissolution of Parliament took place before the time had arrived for the meeting of another session, and Robert Baldwin was one of the many Reform candidates who were beaten at the general elections which ensued. There are few facts worthy of record in connection with the session of 1830. In the Speech from the Throne the Lieutenant-Governor was able to announce that the revenue at the disposal of the Crown had been found sufficient to meet the requirements of the civil list, and that there still remained a considerable surplus in the Provincial Treasury. The Assembly's Address in Reply once more drew his Excellency's attention to the want of confidence felt in the advisers by whom he was surrounded. "We still feel unabated solicitude about the administration of public justice," it ran, "and entertain a settled conviction that the continuance about your Excellency of those advisers who from the unhappy policy they pursued have long deservedly lost the confidence of the country, is highly inexpedient, and calculated seriously to weaken the expectations of the people from the impartial and disinterested justice of His Majesty's Government." The response to this intimation is probably the briefest official deliverance of the kind on record. Divested of the formal commencement, it contained exactly six short words: "I thank you for your Address." The number of Bills passed by the Assembly and rejected by the Upper House during the session was twenty-seven. In addition to these there were several Bills which originated in the Assembly, but were afterwards rejected by that House by reason of amendments made to them by the Legislative Council.[147] FOOTNOTES: [130] It has not been thought desirable to incumber the text with footnotes except where they seemed to be needed for purposes of elucidation; but in every matter of real importance, where the reader of average information and intelligence may reasonably be supposed to be in doubt as to the source of the narrative, care has been taken to indicate the authority. [131] _Ante_, p. 48. [132] _Ante_, p. 140. [133] See _Seventh Report of Grievance Committee_, p. xxxvii. The School Act referred to was 4 George IV. cap. 8, passed on the 19th of January, 1824. John Henry Dunn, Receiver-General of the Province, seems also to have protested against the measure, and to have consented, under pressure, to the erasure of his protest. See the evidence of the Hon. William Dickson and the Hon. Thomas Clark, referred to in the ensuing paragraph of the text. [134] The royal assent to this Act was promulgated by a proclamation bearing date April 4th, 1825. [135] _Ante_, p. 14. [136] See _Report on Petitions against Wild Lands Assessment Law_, in Appendix to _Journals of Assembly_ for 1828, p. 107 _et seq._ [137] See _The Split in the Legislative Council_, by F. C. [? Francis Collins], p. 7. [138] _Ib._, p. 8. [139] _The Split in the Legislative Council_, ubi supra, p. 10. [140] In 1849. [141] Such, as far as I have been able to learn, was the conviction of all Mackenzie's contemporaries, even of those most favourably disposed, including those who were thrown into the most intimate relations with him, and were bound to him by close ties. One of the foremost of these, in a conversation with me a short time since, remarked: "Mackenzie generally meant well, but he was unpractical and unmanageable. I knew him intimately from his boyhood, and I am compelled to say that whenever he was in the least excited he acted like a spoiled child. He underwent no change in this respect, and was the same in youth, manhood and old age. A more unfit person to be entrusted with the management of any great enterprise, or with the control of his fellow-creatures, I can hardly conceive." I have abundant written testimony to the same effect. [142] _History of Canada_, p. 370. [143] _Ante_, p. 100. [144] _Ante_, p. 101. [145] _Ib._ [146] _The Hamilton Outrage_, by "Vindex," p. 9. York, 1829. [147] For the titles of these measures, see the _Seventh Report of Grievance Committee_, pp. 266, 267. CHAPTER XI. PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE. For several years before this time a quiet and almost imperceptible change had been taking place in Upper Canadian politics. On one side was the old High Tory or Family Compact party, who revelled in the spoils of office, and held the representative of Majesty in the hollow of their hands. The policy of this body was unchanged and unchangeable. The Reform party, though it had not been in existence more than six years, already began to show symptoms of want of cohesion. The men of moderate views, like the Rolphs, the Baldwins and the Bidwells, composed fully two-thirds of the entire number. The ultra-Radicals, composed for the most part of unlettered farmers and recently-arrived immigrants, began to show evidence of a desire to rally themselves under the banner of Mackenzie, who, through the combined influence of his paper and his election to Parliament, had of late come prominently before the public. A large and intelligent body of electors had however grown up within the last few years who, while they professed Conservative principles, were disgusted with the greedy, self-seeking Compact, whose practices they held in utter disdain. They held politicians of the Mackenzie stamp in still greater abhorrence, to which was added a large modicum of contempt. With the moderate Reformers, on the other hand, they had much in common. Many of them approved of the doctrine of Responsible Government, and almost all of them desired to see the end of Compact domination. At the last general election their votes had been very much divided. But they were now disposed to hold aloof from the Reformers in consequence of the latter's being nominally of the same party as the Mackenzie Radicals, who had only recently come into existence. The exercise of a little diplomacy and mutual forbearance at this time might, it is believed, have effected that union between these two classes of persons which was actually accomplished about a quarter of a century later. Such an union would have made the united party all powerful. It would have swept away the Compact, together with the long-standing abuses which had grown up under their rule, and the united party would quietly have assumed the reins of power with an overwhelming majority at its back. There would thus have been no _raison d'être_ for the Radical element, which would necessarily have been absorbed, or would at least have ceased to be an important factor in political life. These things, however, were not to be. Neither of the parties primarily interested made any advances to the other, and each was left to pursue its own line of policy. As a consequence the moderate Conservatives henceforth voted as one man. They saw the Radical element assuming an importance which, as they believed, was fraught with far greater danger to the commonwealth than was likely to arise from the continued ascendency of the Compact. They gave the official party a qualified support, merely because they regarded them as the less of two evils, and their votes at the general election of 1830 resulted in the return of a considerable majority of candidates favourable to the official body. [Sidenote: 1831.] The Reformers could no longer hope to obtain justice, even in the Assembly, where they had exerted a predominating influence during the last two Parliaments. So long as they had had control of the Lower House they had possessed the shadow of power without the reality. Even the shadow had been better than nothing; but of this shadow they were henceforth to be deprived. They had not only sustained numerical defeat. Some of their most trusted leaders had been beaten at the polls, and were no longer able to raise their voices in Parliament. Robert Baldwin's defeat in York has already been mentioned.[148] His father had suffered a similar fate in Norfolk. In Middlesex John Rolph and Captain Matthews had been succeeded by Colonel Mahlon Burwell and another adherent of the Compact. Lennox and Addington had again returned Bidwell and Perry, but, owing to the changed complexion of the House, there was no possibility of the former's re-election to the Speaker's chair. Among other triumphs scored by the official party were the return of the Solicitor-General, Christopher A. Hagerman, for Kingston; of the Attorney-General, H. J. Boulton, for Niagara; of William B. Robinson (brother of the Chief Justice) for Simcoe, and of Allan N. MacNab for Wentworth. York still remained true to Mackenzie, and, as will presently be seen, his presence in a House composed mainly of political opponents was destined to lead to serious complications. Upon the assembling of the Legislature early in the following year, Archibald McLean, the official candidate for the Speakership, was elected by a majority of twelve votes. No adherent of the official party could have been more acceptable to the Reformers than Mr. McLean, who was a gentleman of high standing at the bar, and who personally enjoyed great popularity. He sat for the County of Stormont, which he had represented for many years, during all of which period he had maintained friendly personal relations with the members of the Opposition. Great confidence was felt in his personal integrity, and in his earnestness for the country's welfare. He had special claims to consideration, for he was a Canadian by birth, and had fought and bled in defence of his native land during the War of 1812. Still, he represented political principles which the Reform members had been expressly returned to combat, and the mere fact of his election to the Speaker's Chair by a majority of twelve votes in a House which numbered fewer than fifty members was in itself a sufficient indication that those principles were for the time unmistakably in the ascendant in Upper Canada. The proceedings of the House during the session furnished an apt and conclusive commentary upon this fact. The session of 1831 was chiefly memorable for two things: the passing of the Everlasting Salary Bill, as it was called by those opposed to it; and the commencement of the agitation which had for its object the exclusion of Mr. Mackenzie from the Legislature. The Salary Bill was simply a measure granting to the Provincial Government a permanent Civil List, in return for the cession by the Crown of the control of the Imperial duties. It was introduced in accordance with a suggestion from the King, but the Provincial Executive concealed certain facts in connection with it, of which the Opposition did not become aware until some time afterwards.[149] By this Bill provision was made for the salaries of the Lieutenant-Governor, the three Judges of the Court of King's Bench, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, five Executive Councillors, and the Clerk of the Executive Council. Reformers were strenuously opposed to the measure, which they regarded as another blow at the constitutional rights of the Assembly. It of course had the effect of rendering the Executive more independent of the Assembly, and more indifferent to its opposition, than ever. Hagerman and Boulton, whose official salaries were thereby provided for, were conspicuous above all other persons in the House in defending this measure, and in browbeating those who ventured to raise their voices against it. The Reform members found Attorney-General Boulton an infliction specially hard to bear. His predecessor, Mr. Robinson, had been a sufficiently galling yoke, but his abilities had made him respected, and he had seldom attempted to play the bully. In cases where no important party interests were at stake he had generally been amenable to reason, and had not gone out of his way to needlessly exacerbate the feelings of those who disagreed with him. Now, a different order of things prevailed. Boulton was simply unendurable. His capacity was barely such as to enable him to discharge his official functions, and what he lacked in ability he made up for in bluster. He had an abominable temper, and a haughty, overbearing manner. He was always committing blunders which he refused to acknowledge, and he roared and bullied his way through one complication after another in a fashion which disgusted even those with whom he acted. During the discussion on the Salary Bill he shrieked and raved himself hoarse in denouncing what he called the "factious insolence" of the Opposition. Of his own factious insolence he seems to have been altogether oblivious. The Bill was passed, but he was not destined to a long enjoyment of the provision thereby made for the Attorney-General. The Mackenzie persecution was a matter of greater moment than the Salary Bill, and was fated to produce results altogether unexpected by those who set it on foot. The session was not many days old when Mr. Mackenzie once more began to make himself conspicuous in Opposition. He moved a resolution denying the authority of the Executive to prescribe the religious observances of the Assembly, and affirming the right of the latter body to appoint its own chaplain. He made a forcible but exasperating speech in support of his motion, which, by vote of the House, was not submitted. He then moved that the ministers of religion of various denominations resident in York should be requested to say prayers in the House during the session. This motion was equally unsuccessful. During the debate, the Assembly was favoured with a characteristic specimen of Attorney-General Boulton's oratory. He stigmatized the assumption that the House was entitled to appoint its own chaplain as of a piece with the assumption of an assassin that he has a right to shoot down a man in the street--the right of brute force. This nonsensical tirade he shrieked out by way of peroration to a speech intended as a defence of the right of the Government in the matter of the chaplaincy. It is strange that the House should have listened to such balderdash, not only with patience, but even with apparent submission. Solicitor-General Hagerman spoke in a similar strain, but with less of irascibility. He warned the House that the Government was too powerful for them; that the Lieutenant-Governor had strong feelings on this subject, and that if they persisted in opposing his wishes confusion would ensue, and an end would be put to their proceedings. But Mackenzie was not to be dismayed by the want of success of his exertions to popularize the religious ceremonial of the Assembly. He next moved for an inquiry into the state of the representation. Such an inquiry was urgently needed, for the House was full of postmasters, county registrars, inspectors of licenses, and other placemen who held office at the will of the Executive, and who therefore could not be expected to be honest exponents of public opinion in their respective constituencies. Mackenzie, in the course of a vigorous speech, presented such an array of facts that a committee of inquiry was appointed. This success he followed up by a motion for an inquiry into certain pensions, fees and salaries. Then he instituted a crusade against the management of the Bank of Upper Canada, of which institution Attorney-General Boulton was solicitor. Each of these motions afforded opportunities for inflammatory speeches, in the course of which the Government and its official favourites were handled with scant consideration. The Attorney-General was several times lashed into a state of almost insane fury, and on one occasion seemed to be on the point of rushing across the floor and making a personal onslaught upon Mr. Mackenzie. The "little mannikin from York," as he was called, always had the courage of his opinions, and rather courted such an attack than otherwise. That he had many and grave faults cannot be denied, but certainly cowardice was not among the number. No more certain means of intensifying his opposition could have been found than an attempt to put him down by the strong hand. He continued to make motion upon motion and speech upon speech, and before the session was half over he had managed to cause an amount of annoyance to the Government such as they had never before known. And all this time the party to which he belonged was in an insignificant minority in the Assembly. What then was to be anticipated when the chances and changes of time should once more place that party in the ascendant there? In former times it had been possible for the official party to rid themselves of a troublesome opponent upon any slight pretext. Why not now, when the Assembly was well-nigh as obedient as the Upper House, and when some of the ablest members of the Reform party had ceased to occupy themselves with public affairs? Certainly there had never been a time when suppression was more imperatively required, for did not this man Mackenzie spout something very much like democracy in their very faces? Had he not made several speeches in the House which had aroused a spirit of inquiry? If he were allowed to continue, was it not inevitable that some of his waspish stings must take serious effect? Prosecutions for libel had become unpopular. The case of Francis Collins had aroused such a clamour that it was not deemed wise to try further experiments in that direction. In April, 1828--about the same time when measures had been instituted against Collins--an indictment for libel had actually been laid against Mackenzie for a paragraph published in the _Advocate_, in which the Crown lawyers and other supporters of the Government had been referred to in contumelious terms, and wherein a hope had been expressed that the constituencies returning certain Tory members to Parliament would clear the Assembly of "the whole of that ominous nest of unclean birds."[150] But the Attorney-General, after keeping the prosecution impending over the defendant's head for many months, had seen fit to abandon it. The times, in fact, had ceased to be propitious for libel prosecutions, and some other way out of the difficulty had to be found. The device actually hit upon to get rid of Mackenzie's opposition in the Assembly was worthy of the minds which had plotted the ruin of Captain Matthews, Justice Willis and Francis Collins. Mackenzie, who had the contract for printing the journals of the House, and who generally had a number of copies of those journals on hand, had distributed a hundred and sixty-eight of them throughout some of the constituencies just prior to the last general election. This had been done at his own expense, and in the interest of the Reform candidates; for he believed that no more effective campaign document could be devised than a truthful record of the proceedings in the House. But as strict matter of Parliamentary law he had been guilty of a breach of privilege, no one having a right to publish reports of the proceedings of the Houses without authority. The existence of such a rule is perhaps salutary, as there are conceivable cases in which it would be inexpedient to allow such publication. But, as everybody knew, Parliament had long been accustomed to wink at perpetual violations of this rule. Newspapers all over the world had been permitted, and even encouraged, to transgress it. Some of the leading organs of public opinion in different parts of the world had built up their reputations mainly by the fulness and accuracy of their reports of Parliamentary proceedings. Nothing can be more certain than that there would have been no talk about enforcing the obsolete rule at this time but for the fact that it seemed to afford a pretext for punishing the man whom the Government party wished to destroy. The attempt to enforce it was not a success. The motion to that end was made by Allan MacNab, and was to the effect that Mackenzie had abused the trust reposed in him as the printer of the journals, by distributing portions of the same for political purposes, and among persons not entitled to copies thereof, thereby committing a breach of the privileges of the House. The junior member for Wentworth thundered with tremendous vehemence in support of his motion. To judge from his language, his soul had been stirred to its nethermost depths by this lamentable violation of Parliamentary privilege, which he characterized as a species of treason. Hagerman and Boulton followed in the same strain, the latter waxing almost pathetic in his expressions of devotion to the British constitution. But their exertions were ineffectual. The House, subservient though it was, was not to be coerced into supporting a motion which, if carried, would almost certainly be converted into a basis of attack on persons who were favourable to the Administration. A majority of the members foresaw that if Mackenzie were punished on such a pretext, his fellow-workers in the Assembly would not fail to institute measures against the publishers of various newspapers throughout the land who had been in the constant habit of reporting the proceedings in Parliament without leave. Only fifteen members voted for MacNab's motion, while twenty recorded their votes against it, and among the latter were several of the most redoubtable Tories in the House. The organizers of the attack perceived that they had made a false move, and withdrew their forces for a fresh assault in a different quarter. The opportunity for a fresh attack did not present itself until the following session. Meanwhile, Mackenzie occupied himself in turning his notoriety to account, and in developing his policy of agitation. He resolved upon getting up a series of petitions to the King and the Imperial Parliament, calling attention to the various grievances wherewith the inhabitants of the Province were burdened, and praying for redress. During the summer he carried out his project by organizing a series of public meetings in some of the most populous cities and towns of the Province, at each of which a petition was adopted and numerously signed. It is said that the aggregate number of signatures obtained exceeded 24,500. The agitator's success encouraged him to persevere in the course he had adopted, and when Parliament re-assembled in November he was ripe and ready for the fray that was sure to follow. The assault against him now took the shape of a charge of gross, scandalous and malicious libel, intended and calculated to bring the House and the Government of the Province into contempt, and to excite groundless suspicion and distrust in the minds of the inhabitants, thereby constituting a breach of privilege. The matter complained of was embodied in two articles published in the _Advocate_ subsequent to the opening of the session, and both publication and authorship were admitted by Mackenzie. One of the articles was a sharp criticism on the manner in which the House had treated a petition from certain inhabitants of Vaughan. The other was a well-merited tirade against the local Executive, which was unfavourably contrasted with that of the sister Province. Neither of them was grossly abusive, nor even unfair. They were indeed exceptionally favourable specimens of the Mackenzie style of journalism, and were incomparably milder than articles which may constantly be seen in the Canadian party journals of the present day. Being called upon for his defence, Mackenzie addressed the House with more than his wonted ability. He exposed the flimsiness of the charges against him, and the gross partiality of the proceedings. But the House was in search, not of justice, but of a victim, and neither the eloquence of a Demosthenes nor the reasoning powers of a Pascal would have availed aught with that hostile majority. Attorney-General Boulton, in the course of the discussion, delivered himself of a tempest of characteristic abuse against the accused, to whom he referred as a reptile. Solicitor-General Hagerman could always be depended upon as a good second in such emergencies, and followed up by referring to Mr. Mackenzie as a spaniel dog. The House seemed to accept these choice Parliamentary epithets with approval. They came from an official source, and it is so easy to be strong upon the stronger side. Little chance was there for the maimed and bleeding under dog in the fight among that crowd of venal and merciless sycophants, some of whom had libelled the late Assembly in terms thrice as gross as any that had been employed in the articles in question. The _tu quoque_ argument is not generally admissible in legal investigations, but surely it might have been permitted to have some weight with the judges--who were likewise the jurors--in this case. Neither that nor any argument appears to have been seriously considered. The usual forms were gone through, in order to preserve some appearance of conventional propriety, but a verdict of guilty was altogether certain and beyond peradventure from the moment when the indictment was laid. By a vote of twenty-seven to fifteen it was resolved that Mackenzie was guilty of the libel charged against him. By a vote of twenty-six to fourteen it was resolved that he was guilty of a high breach of the privileges of the House. And by a vote of twenty-four to fifteen, it was resolved that he be expelled therefrom. To characterize these proceedings as a series of shameful abuses of power is certainly not to exceed the bounds of moderation. The persons responsible for them must stand tainted at the bar of history for all time to come. It is far from desirable to perpetuate the bitterness of the past, but it is possible for oblivion to be too charitable. It is well that those who are accustomed to speak of "the rebels" of 1837 with contumely and indignation should bear in mind against whom and what it was that they rebelled. The expulsion of Mackenzie from the Assembly was not the greatest act of tyranny to which the people of Upper Canada were compelled to submit in the far-away days that are gone; but the nature of the abuse was such that it awoke widespread alarm, and gave rise to ominous forebodings. It indicated that constitutional opposition to the Government was no longer safe in the Assembly, as it had been during the two preceding Parliaments. It indicated that nothing approaching to a fair trial was to be had, even from the High Court of Parliament, for a politician who dared to criticize the official methods of transacting the public business. Growls of discontent were heard from all over the County of York, whose representative was treated with such ignominy. People were heard to express an opinion that Upper Canada was no longer a fit place of abode for free men and women. The public indignation found expression in several petitions, addressed to the Lieutenant-Governor by electors in York and elsewhere, in which his Excellency was asked to "dismiss a House tainted with the worst vices of judicial partiality." A deputation, consisting of more than nine hundred persons, called at Government House to present one of these manifestations of popular sentiment. His Excellency could not well refuse to receive a respectfully-worded petition, but his reply was so curt and unsatisfactory as to amount to positive insolence. "Gentlemen," said he, "I have received the petition of the inhabitants." And with this wholly unnecessary item of information the deputation was compelled to withdraw. So utter a disregard for the expression of the opinion of a considerable body of the inhabitants was without precedent in the annals of the Province. That the prayer of the petition would be granted, or even that it would be taken into serious consideration, was hardly to be expected. Its very nature forbade any such expectation. But, considering the number of names appended to it, it certainly merited a serious response, in which light the actual rejoinder could not be regarded. The proceeding showed not merely indifference, but contempt; and thenceforward Sir John Colborne was as cordially hated by the Reformers of Upper Canada as ever Sir Peregrine Maitland had been.[151] The efforts of the faction to ruin and humiliate Mackenzie had the effect which such treatment always produces in communities where the inhabitants have been indoctrinated with ideas of fair play and equal rights. It made a popular hero of one who, if the truth must be told, had very little of the heroic in his composition. Had the Government been wise enough in their own interests to let him have his say in the Assembly, he would soon have found his proper level, and would have ceased to carry any weight there.[152] He would undoubtedly have raised a good deal of temporary excitement by unearthing abuses, and by vituperating persons whom he disliked. But he could never have seriously threatened the supremacy of the Compact, for the very sufficient reason that he could not command the sympathies or respect of the leading spirits of his own party. Rolph, the Bidwells and the Baldwins had by this time come to rate Mackenzie at about his true value. They recognized his talents, which were many and considerable. He had a clear head for accounts, and was full of suggestive ideas about matters of finance. Some of these ideas were unpractical, and even chimerical, but anyone capable of separating the wheat from the chaff could learn much from him, and could render his suggestions available. He was an excellent subordinate, useful on committees, and active in the management of details. He also had his uses as the conductor of a public press, though, owing to the erratic and ill-balanced mind of its editor, the _Advocate_ was in some respects a source of weakness rather than of strength. His influence was pretty much confined to the farmers and mechanics of that portion of the country where his paper was chiefly circulated; and even there his influence would never have been anything like so great as it actually became had it not been for the persecution to which he was subjected. Over and beyond, he could not be said to have any distinctive _locus standi_ in the Reform party. Of statesmanship, properly so called, he had nothing beyond the most misty conception. The structure of his mind prevented him from seeing a question in its various aspects, and in judging of future political events he was much more often wrong than right. That he was honestly desirous of advancing the cause which he had espoused there seemed no good reason to doubt, but it was evident to those who were brought into intimate relations with him that the fiery zeal which he displayed was made up at least as much of hatred of his foes as of any overpowering enthusiasm for Reform. Another quality which seriously interfered with his usefulness was his exceeding want of discretion. He seemed to be utterly incapable of keeping his own counsel, and a secret once told to him was a secret no longer. His rashness and impetuosity were proverbial, and were perpetually involving him in disputes, not only with enemies but with friends. [Sidenote: 1832.] It was surely a short-sighted policy which gave to a man so constituted a factitious importance, and which made him for some years the most notorious personage in Upper Canada. The treatment he had received aroused popular sympathy on his behalf, and preparations were made to return him again for the County of York by an increased majority. When the new election was held, on the 2nd of January in the following year, a long procession of sleighs escorted him to the polling-place, which was the Red Lion Tavern, on Yonge Street. Two thousand persons assembled to witness the triumph of "the people's friend." An Oppositionist was nominated, but as he received only one vote during the hour and a half which elapsed after the opening of the poll, he abandoned the contest, and Mackenzie's triumph was assured. The close of the poll was followed by the presentation of a gold medal by his constituents, as a token of their approbation. A number of sleighs were then formed in line and paraded down Yonge Street, and thence past Government House and down to the Parliament Buildings. The foremost sleigh was decorated with enthusiastic mottoes painted on calico, and cheers for the successful candidate rent the air as the procession passed along the principal thoroughfares. All this popular adulation was grateful to Mackenzie's soul. He was in his element. There is no need to linger over this part of the narrative. Parliament was still in session, and the Assembly were resolved that, no matter what the electors of York might think proper to do, Mackenzie should not sit in the House. A new pretext for his expulsion was found in an article of which he avowed himself to be the author, and which appeared in the _Advocate_ of the 5th of January. This article was a true and by no means intemperate recital of certain well-known facts as to certain measures which had been passed by the Assembly. It was notwithstanding adjudged, by a vote of twenty-seven to nineteen, to be a libel on the House, and a high breach of its privileges; and it was further resolved that Mr. Mackenzie be expelled the House, and declared unfit and unworthy to hold a seat therein during the existing Parliament. But his constituency stood loyally by him, and again re-elected him by an overwhelming majority within a few weeks after this second expulsion. His popularity reached a higher point than ever. Public meetings were held all over the Province to protest against the measures which had been adopted towards him, and petitions to the King and the Imperial Parliament were again circulated and signed by great numbers of the inhabitants. These meetings proved so successful that the Government party deemed it wise to take some steps of a similar character on their own behalf, with a view to checkmating the operations of the Reformers. Nothing is more easy than to obtain signatures to petitions, which are frequently signed without being read. Opposition meetings were held by supporters of the Government, at which excuses were attempted to be made for the expulsions of Mackenzie, and at which counter petitions to the King and Parliament of Great Britain were signed by many thousands of persons. One of the meetings was held at Hamilton on the 19th of March, and Mackenzie attended it by special invitation. That same night an attack was made upon him by certain myrmidons of the official party, who kicked and beat him severely. At another meeting held at York four days later the proceedings became so riotous that the Sheriff professed himself unable to preserve the peace. An attack was made upon the office of the _Advocate_, the windows of which were broken. The town remained in a very disturbed state throughout the ensuing night, and a large proportion of the inhabitants did not venture to seek repose. Mackenzie deemed it prudent to retire into the country for several weeks; and almost immediately after his return to town he set off on an important mission to England. It was considered that the most effectual method of impressing the subject-matter of the various Reform petitions upon those to whom they were addressed would he to send Mackenzie himself across the Atlantic to present them, and to urge the many much-needed colonial reforms upon the attention of members of the British House of Commons. It was believed that he could accomplish the various objects of his mission and return in time to take his seat in the Assembly at its opening towards the close of the year. He deputed the editing and publication of the _Advocate_ to other hands, and sailed from New York on the 1st of May. In due course he reached his destination, and put himself into communication with Hume, Roebuck, Cobbett, O'Connell, and other eminent persons of Liberal proclivities, including Lord Goderich, the Colonial Secretary. The reader hardly needs to be informed that this was a momentous period in the history of England. It was the epoch of Reform, and the nation was in a state of ferment. During the brief space while Mackenzie had been crossing the Atlantic great events had taken place. Earl Grey's ministry had resigned; Sir Robert Peel had refused to join the Duke of Wellington in an attempt to form a Government; and Earl Grey had resumed office, armed with the King's written authority to Lord Brougham and himself to create as many peers as might be necessary to ensure the passing of the Reform Bill. This authority it did not become necessary to exercise. The titled aristocracy bowed to the unconquerable will of a great and thoroughly-aroused people, and Mackenzie reached London in time to hear the third reading of the Great Bill in the House of Lords. He was soon afterwards received at the Colonial Office, not as the representative of any particular class of Canadian politicians, but as a person interested in Canadian affairs, and able to afford much valuable information concerning them.[153] He then found that the efforts of the official party in Upper Canada to render his mission inoperative had not been barren of results. Petitions had been received at the Colonial Office in which entire satisfaction was expressed with the existing laws and institutions of the Province; and the signatures thereto slightly exceeded in number those appended to the petitions of which he himself had been the bearer. He however devoted himself with characteristic energy to the presentation of his case, and prepared a memoir wherein all the most serious grievances of the Upper Canadian people were set forth in detail. In this document the writer adopted a discursive and rhetorical style which, as the Colonial Secretary justly remarked, were "singularly ill adapted to bring questions of so much intricacy and importance to a definite issue." The facts were nevertheless pretty comprehensively embodied, and were generally speaking of such a character as to tell their own story. The perusal of the memoir seems to have produced an impression upon the Colonial Secretary's mind. He wrote a long and elaborate despatch to Sir John Colborne, in which the weak points of Mackenzie's arguments were exposed with cutting severity, and wherein it was evident that very little weight had been attached to most of his representations; but at the same time certain concessions to popular opinion were plainly hinted at. When this despatch was submitted to the Legislative Council and Assembly of Upper Canada at the ensuing session it was treated with scant respect. The Upper House formally declared that it did not regard it as calling for serious attention, and returned it to the Lieutenant-Governor. The Assembly discussed the propriety of sending it back, but finally resolved not to do so. Both the Crown Law Officers made hot-headed speeches on the subject, and referred to the Colonial Secretary in the most contemptuous terms. Meanwhile, Mackenzie, who still remained in England, was in his absence expelled from the Assembly a third time. On this occasion there was no preliminary attempt to convict him of any fresh libel or breach of privilege. The Law Officers of the Crown simplified the proceedings by declaring that the House had a right to determine as to the eligibility of members, and a resolution to that effect was moved and carried. It was then resolved that the person returned for York was the same William Lyon Mackenzie who had been twice expelled the House and declared unfit to hold a seat therein; and that by reason thereof the said Mackenzie could not sit or vote in the House as a member thereof. He was then expelled for the third time, and a new writ was issued for the County of York. The inhabitants of that constituency felt so much aggrieved, and gave such loud-mouthed expression to their dissatisfaction, that no candidate hostile to Mackenzie dared to present himself at the ensuing election, and the choice of the people was returned by acclamation. [Sidenote: 1833.] The part taken by the Law Officers of the Crown in these repeated expulsions was not acceptable to the Colonial Office. Neither was the contemptuous manner in which they had seen fit to refer to the Secretary's despatch written after the perusal of Mackenzie's memoir. A missive on the former subject had been sent to Sir John Colborne some months before the commencement of the session of 1832-3, the contents of which seem to have been promptly communicated to Messieurs Boulton and Hagerman.[154] Notwithstanding that communication, those gentlemen had seen fit, soon after the opening of the session, to take a leading part in another expulsion, and to make contemptuous references to the conduct of the Colonial Secretary himself. The Attorney-General had expressed an opinion that the Secretary might have found something better to do than to sit down and answer "Mackenzie's rigmarole trash." Solicitor-General Hagerman had remarked that the Secretary had stultified himself by noticing statements which rested on no better authority than that of a person who had been twice expelled the Assembly, and who had been declared unfit to sit therein in consequence of his having "fabricated and reiterated libels of the grossest description." Lord Goderich signified his disapprobation of this conduct in the most emphatic manner by dismissing the two virulent critics from office. Their dismissal was effected by a despatch to Sir John Colborne dated March 6th, 1833. "By the accounts I have lately received of the proceedings of the Legislature of Upper Canada," wrote his Lordship, "I have learnt that the Attorney and Solicitor-General of that Province have, in their places in the Assembly, taken a part directly opposed to the avowed policy of His Majesty's Government. As members of the Provincial Parliament, Mr. Boulton and Mr. Hagerman are of course bound to act upon their own view of what is most for the interest of their constituents, and of the colony at large. But if, upon questions of great political importance, they unfortunately differ in opinion from His Majesty's Government, it is obvious that they cannot continue to hold confidential situations in His Majesty's service without either betraying their duty as members of the Legislature, or bringing the sincerity of the Government into question by their opposition to the policy which His Majesty has been advised to pursue." It was intimated that the Law Officers of the Crown could not be permitted to impede the Government policy, and that in order that those gentlemen might be at full liberty to follow their own judgment, they were to be relieved from their offices.[155] When this despatch reached York, towards the end of April, its contents were communicated to Attorney-General Boulton. Mr. Hagerman had started for England a short time before on a mission connected with the Clergy Reserves, and, as was said,[156] in order to obtain a permanent appointment to a judgeship. He learned of his dismissal immediately upon his arrival in London, and lost no time in putting himself in communication with the Colonial Minister. An important change had recently taken place at the Colonial Office. Lord Goderich had vacated the Secretaryship, and had become Lord Privy Seal, being at the same time created Earl of Ripon. He was succeeded as Colonial Secretary by Mr. Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby, who had been Secretary for Ireland, but had aroused such hostility against himself among O'Connell's followers by his stand on the Irish question[157] that it had been deemed prudent to find another portfolio for him. He now admitted Mr. Hagerman to an audience, and was so won upon by that gentleman's specious representations that he restored him to his stewardship. Accordingly, although he had been only moderately successful in carrying out the specific objects of his mission, Mr. Hagerman returned to Upper Canada in triumph; and he was greeted, upon his arrival, with a tempest of acclamation from the Tory press. Mr. Boulton, upon receiving from the Lieutenant-Governor's secretary an intimation of his dismissal, raised a howl of indignation against Lord Goderich and the Imperial Government generally. It was notorious that he controlled the columns of _The Upper Canada Courier_, a newspaper published at York in the interests of the official party, and edited by Mr. George Gurnett. That paper, in its next issue, contained an article more scurrilous and abusive than had been either of those articles in the _Advocate_ on the pretext whereof Mackenzie had been expelled from the Assembly. It reeked with scurrility and disloyalty from beginning to end. It alleged that the well-affected people in the country were more than half alienated from the Home Government, and that they began to cast about in their mind's eye for some new state of political existence. There was more to the same purport. Some new state of political existence! This was a pretty strong suggestion of rebellion! And it emanated from the organ of a faction in whose mouths the word "loyalty" was ever present; whose "loyalty" had for years been vaunted from every hustings, and who, so long as the tide ran in their favour, had preached doctrines worthy of the middle ages about submission to the higher powers. How changed was the tone now that there seemed to be some prospect of their being placed upon the same footing, and judged by the same standard as their neighbours. If they did these things in the green tree, what would they do in the dry? What might have been expected from them if they had been subjected to such injustice and ignominy as the party to which they were opposed? Here was a faction professedly ready to throw off their allegiance because two of their number had been deprived of offices which they had notoriously prostituted and disgraced.[158] Here was a "well-affected" people "casting about" in their "mind's eye" for a new state of political existence, because two of the most corrupt, brazen and audacious officials in the colony were no longer to be allowed to pervert legislation under the mantle of Imperial countenance. And they were as little disposed to brook interference with their pecuniary interests by the Colonial Office. Early in the following year they gave utterance to rank treason in consequence of the threatened disallowance by the Imperial Government of certain Bank Charter Acts passed by the Provincial Parliament.[159] A pearl is proverbially uncomely in the snout of a swine; and truly the word "loyalty" was never more absurdly out of place than when pronounced by such lips. The ex-Attorney-General followed the ex-Solicitor-General to England, where he represented his case to the new Colonial Minister. After giving much attention to the matter, Mr. Stanley expressed himself as satisfied with the explanations which had been offered. The explanations seem to have chiefly consisted of solemn declarations on the part of Mr. Boulton that he had been insufficiently informed of the views of the Home Government, and that he had had no desire whatever to set up his own will in opposition to those views.[160] He doubtless professed his readiness to go any length in the way of sycophancy which might be required of him for the future. It was however impossible to restore him to the Attorney-Generalship, as a successor to that office had been appointed in the person of Mr. Robert Sympson Jameson,[161] an English barrister, who had actually sailed from Liverpool for Canada, and was already well on his way thither. Mr. Boulton was informed that he should have the first good appointment at the Secretary's disposal. His success was even greater than that of his recent colleague, for on the 17th of June he was notified that the King had been graciously pleased to accept of his further services, and that the Colonial Secretary had His Majesty's commands to offer him the appointment of Chief Justice of Newfoundland, which situation had recently become vacant.[162] This appointment was fully approved by the Earl of Ripon, under whose advice he had been dismissed from the Attorney-Generalship of Upper Canada,[163] but who had been induced to change his views after hearing Mr. Boulton's explanations. Mr. Boulton's triumph, however, was to be followed by a downfall more humiliating than that which he had so narrowly escaped. He repaired to Newfoundland in the autumn, and entered upon the performance of his duties. He had not been long in his new position before he had aroused a feeling of disgust and alarm on the part of a large proportion of the public and the profession. He began by being arbitrary, tyrannical and unjust. He proceeded from bad to worse, until it was found impossible to permit him to retain his position.[164] There is no need to follow the proceedings adopted against him. He was not finally got rid of until 1838, when he returned to Upper Canada, and once more entered political life as member for Niagara. The Home Government turned a deaf ear to his perpetual applications for employment, and would have nothing more to do with him. Some years after the Union of the Provinces, finding that he had nothing to hope for from the Conservative party, who refused to elevate him to a judgeship, he abandoned them, and for some time acted with Mr. Baldwin. It seems almost cruel to record the fact that he supported Responsible Government and the Rebellion Losses Bill. FOOTNOTES: [148] _Ante_, p. 229. [149] "When, in the year 1831, His Majesty was graciously pleased to suggest a further provision for the Civil List, which the Colonial Ministry required to be made either for seven years or for the life of His Majesty, the terms of the proposition were not candidly submitted to the Assembly, and notwithstanding the strenuous exertions of those who desired to make no provision at variance with the spirit of our constitution, the Executive influence in the Assembly succeeded in carrying a measure for a permanent and extravagant supply, popularly called 'the Everlasting Salary Bill,' while the liberal and gracious terms proposed by His Majesty on the subject were concealed and known only to those who, feeling themselves to be above responsibility, consummated a measure which has spread universal dissatisfaction and distrust. If this undue and impolitic concealment was practised from any pretended apprehension that a just provision would not be made for His Majesty's Government by his faithful Commons, there is nothing in the country to justify it, and as it encroached upon the privileges of the Legislature there is no language of censure too strong against it."--_Seventh Report of Grievance Committee_, p. xlii. [150] See _The Colonial Advocate_ of April 3rd, 1828. [151] I can find no confirmation of the statement made by Mackenzie, and re-echoed by subsequent writers, about the excessive fears of the Government at this juncture, and the preparations made by them to resist an uprising of the people. There were no grounds for any such fears, nor for any anticipations of an uprising. The people were long-suffering, and were by no means ripe for revolt. [152] If any evidence were needed of this obvious truth, it is furnished by Mackenzie's career in the Canadian Parliament after his return from exile. He was there brought into contact with politicians of a succeeding generation, most of whom knew him by tradition only. His misfortunes, and the manifold sufferings he had been compelled to endure, impelled most of the contemporaries to regard him with a large measure of forbearance, and he was permitted to indulge a license of speech which would not have been tolerated in any other member. He adopted precisely the same _role_ as of yore, and delivered himself with great vehemence on matters which he did not understand. The inevitable result was that the Assembly soon ceased to attach any weight to his opinions. He had lived long enough to repudiate many of his old doctrines, and to eat many of his past words. His views on Tuesday were frequently the very opposite to what they had been on Monday, and neither were any indication of what they would be on Wednesday. Members ceased to attach any importance to his statements, or to think of them as calling for serious consideration. He came to be regarded as a sort of unlicensed jester who might be permitted to amuse the House by his antics when there was no pressing business on hand; but as to any real influence, he had no more than the junior messenger. It took him several years to find this out, and when it was brought thoroughly home to him he resigned his seat. Had the Family Compact politicians of fifty to sixty years ago been as wise in their generation as the members of the Assembly during the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Parliaments of United Canada, they would have ceased to defend the indefensible, and would have let Mackenzie alone. They might then have held the reins of power for ten--or possibly twenty--years longer; but the day of reckoning, when it came, would probably have been a darker one. [153] Lord Howick, writing on behalf of the Colonial Secretary, under date of June 23rd, 1832, in reply to Mackenzie's application for an interview, informed the applicant that although the Secretary was ready to hear any observations which he (Mackenzie) might have to offer upon the affairs of Upper Canada, as an individual interested in the welfare of that Province, and as a member of the Assembly, yet that the Secretary could not recognize him as being deputed to act for any other person, nor could he enter into any discussion with him on measures which His Majesty's Government might think it right to pursue. "The views and intentions of His Majesty's Government with respect to the affairs of the Province," wrote his Lordship, "can only be made known to the people of Upper Canada through the medium of the Governor or of the Legislature; it is to one or other of these authorities that any complaints which individuals may have occasion to make should properly be addressed; and if the course pursued by the Executive Government should be such as to give just ground for dissatisfaction, the inhabitants have, by their Representatives, the means of bringing their grievances under the immediate attention of His Majesty." The full text of the letter will be found on pp. 191, 192 of the _Seventh Report of Grievance Committee_. [154] Mr. Boulton denied, at least by implication, that any such communication had been made to him. See his letter dated April 30th, 1833, and published in the _Courier_ of the following day. But it is certain that the contents of the missive had been made known to Mr. Hagerman, and it is hardly conceivable that he would have failed to communicate to his colleague matters of such vital importance to their welfare. [155] The full text of the despatch will be found on p. 295 of the _Seventh Report of Grievance Committee_. [156] "We have been very credibly informed that, on account of the extent of the settlements and consequent increase of court business, it was thought expedient by our wise ones that a fourth judge was necessary, and that he [Mr. Hagerman] had obtained (previous to his leaving here) a recommend from the other judges for himself to be appointed to the new created situation."--_Colonial Advocate_, Thursday, May 2nd, 1833. [157] It was at this time that Mr. Stanley, by his fiery speech against O'Connell, won for himself the sobriquet of "the Rupert of Debate." [158] Henry Sherwood, who had by this time attained to a prominent place in the ranks of the official party, was especially loud in his denunciations of the British Government for dismissing Boulton and Hagerman. According to a correspondent of the _Colonial Advocate_, he declared, in the course of an ordinary conversation, that if such proceedings were to continue, he, for his part, did not care how soon the British authority was superseded by a republican one.--See letter of "John Bull," on first page of the _Advocate_ of December 14th, 1833. [159] They were equally intolerant of opposition from their own adherents when their pecuniary interests were at stake. In December, 1833, the Hon. John Elmsley, who had been called to the Executive Council three years before, was forced to resign his seat in that body because he could not act independently there. In his letter of resignation, which is dated "Holland House, York, December 3rd, 1833," he says: "Since I have assumed the duties of that high office [_i.e._, the office of an Executive Councillor], I find that I cannot fearlessly express my real sentiments and opinions, if opposed to the Government for the time being, without incurring the risk of dismissal from that Honourable Board, which constitutes my inability to advance the public good. I have therefore deemed it expedient most respectfully, but reluctantly, to tender the resignation of my seat in the Executive Council."--See evidence of the Hon. Peter Robinson, in Appendix to _Seventh Report on Grievance_, p. 91. See also p. xxvii of the Report itself. [160] See _Case of the Honourable Henry John Boulton, Chief Justice of the Island of Newfoundland_, etc.--being a report of the Case before the Privy Council--p. 3. [161] This was the husband of the accomplished Anna Jameson, whose brilliant art criticisms are among the most readable things of their kind in the English language, and whose Canadian sketches have made her name well known in this country. [162] _Case of the Hon. H. J. Boulton_, etc., p. 3. [163] _Ib._, p. 4. [164] Full particulars of his misconduct may be found in the work already quoted from. CHAPTER XII. DISENFRANCHISEMENT. Mackenzie remained in England much longer than he had anticipated, and did not return to Canada until towards the end of August, 1833. He was absent in all nearly sixteen months, which was considerably longer than was necessary for the accomplishment of the objects of his mission. He doubtless enjoyed life in the metropolis, and was loth to relinquish it.[165] His mission had not been wholly fruitless, for his representations at the Colonial Office had led to the writing of Lord Goderich's despatch already referred to, by which the faction in Upper Canada were led to see that they would for the future be compelled to act with somewhat more of circumspection. Several much-needed suggestions were made in the despatch on subjects of practical importance--among others as to the remuneration of members of the Assembly representing Town constituencies; as to the extension of the franchise to persons who, by reason of their religious scruples, could not conscientiously take the prescribed oath; as to the repeal of the law disqualifying British subjects from voting at elections till the expiration of seven years after their return from a residence in a foreign country; and as to the interference of ecclesiastical Legislative Councillors in secular matters.[166] Mackenzie was also entitled to claim credit for obtaining important reforms in the management of the Provincial Post Office. He had brought the affairs of the Province conspicuously before the minds of several eminent public men, whose interest in Canada had thus been aroused, and who were thenceforth able to display some familiarity with Canadian questions as they came up for discussion in the House of Commons. During his stay in London he had published a duodecimo volume, extending to 504 pages, entitled "Sketches in Canada and the United States," in which a good many Provincial abuses had been specified. The information contained in this work had been thrown together in a higgledy-piggledy fashion, and it could not be said to have much real value, more especially as many of its statements were inaccurate, and must have been known to be so when they were written.[167] Still, it probably had some effect in seconding the author's efforts to attract attention to himself and the interests which he represented. He had moreover acquainted the Colonial Secretary with matters which could not possibly have been clearly explained otherwise than orally. It was tolerably certain that information furnished by him had led to the dismissal of Boulton and Hagerman, a proceeding which had wonderfully exhilarated his mind; and his depression had been correspondently deep upon learning that the one had been promoted and the other reinstated. He had hoped to see Mr. Rolph appointed to the Solicitor-Generalship, and, if his word is to be credited, he really seems to have had some grounds for believing that such an appointment would be made.[168] He afterwards declared that he had "good reasons for believing" that Mr. Rolph's appointment had actually been made out and transmitted to Canada, but that Sir John Colborne and Chief Justice Robinson had prevented it from taking effect.[169] As has already been seen,[170] Mackenzie, during his absence in England, had once more been elected to represent the County of York in the Assembly. Upon the first meeting of Parliament after his return he presented himself as a member. There was however a persistent determination that he should not be permitted to take his seat. The hostile majority in the House professed to believe that they had a right to exercise a discretion as to who should be permitted to sit therein. Mackenzie, they alleged, had libelled the House by libelling a majority of its members, and he had neither made nor attempted to make any reparation or apology. The Clerk, acting most probably on instructions, refused to administer the oath to him. A resolution was adopted that he should not be permitted to sit or vote as a member during the session, and a writ for a new election was ordered. Again did he return to his constituents, and again was he returned without opposition. The electors of York were by this time heartily tired of the farce, the perpetual re-enactment whereof had the effect of partly disfranchising them by leaving them with only one representative in the Assembly instead of two. They were nevertheless fully resolved not to yield their undoubted rights without some further assertion of them. The member of their choice was under no legal disability. They were advised that there was no constitutional justification for the action of the Assembly. They declared that they owed it to themselves and those who were to come after them not to submit tamely to injustice of such a nature. The election being over, a considerable body of them escorted him to the Houses of Parliament. But a short time had elapsed since the last expulsion, and the Legislature was still in session. The members of the Assembly stared in astonishment at the sudden and altogether unlooked-for incursion of strangers, who poured into the gallery and into the space below the bar, where they were permitted to intrude themselves, and where Mackenzie presented himself to take the oath. Those who could not find room inside remained without in the lobbies. In a few moments a lull occurred in the proceedings of the House, whereupon burly Peter Perry rose in his place and announced that he had a petition to present on behalf of the inhabitants of the County of York. The contents of the petition were not of a nature to render it acceptable to a majority of the members. It referred to Mackenzie's expulsion, and prayed that that indignity might not be repeated. There was a very general feeling among the supporters of the Government that the House ought not to receive such a petition, and several of them gave utterance to their opinions on the subject. Allan MacNab expressed himself to this effect with his customary emphasis, and was greeted with a storm of hisses from the York electors in the gallery. Ominous sounds! The House could not be expected to tamely brook such a manifestation, and an order was given to clear the gallery. While the order was being obeyed, the Sergeant-at-Arms approached Mackenzie where he stood below the bar, and directed him to leave. Mackenzie replied to the effect that he had a right to be there, and that he intended to remain. The door was then opened by the Sergeant-at-Arms, who proceeded to eject Mackenzie by force; but before he could carry out his purpose a rush was made from the adjacent lobby. The door was promptly closed and barricaded, but not until several of the invaders had effected an entrance. The excitement was intense, and for some minutes the proceedings of the House were suspended. When quiet had been in some measure restored, the Speaker directed the Sergeant-at-Arms to clear the space below the bar of strangers. That functionary again ordered Mackenzie to leave, and he received the same reply as before. This was communicated to the Speaker, who decided that, as Mackenzie had not taken the oath, he was not a member of the House, and was not entitled to remain. Mackenzie was there, ready and anxious to take the oath; but he was nevertheless removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and the Assembly was once more purged of his presence. On the next day he was again formally expelled by a vote of the House[171]--an anomalous proceeding in view of the Speaker's decision that he was not a member! He had thus been thrice expelled from the House, and once excluded therefrom upon the ground that he was not a member. [Sidenote: 1834.] It was by this time clear that from a House so constituted Mackenzie could not expect to meet with fair play. Mr. Bidwell, Mr. Perry, and others of his friends had all along spoken manfully on his behalf whenever an opportunity of doing so had presented itself, but their arguments had simply been thrown away. His pugnacious spirit was however fully aroused, and he determined to exhaust every means before abandoning his endeavours to take the seat to which he was entitled. He applied to the Lieutenant-Governor for permission to take the oath prescribed for members of the Legislature before his Excellency, or before some one specially appointed for the purpose, under the twenty-ninth section of the Constitutional Act of 1791.[172] The question involved in this application was submitted to the Attorney-General, Mr. Jameson, who pronounced the opinion that Mackenzie was entitled to the privilege asked for. The matter was nevertheless allowed to remain in abeyance for some weeks, as the hostile members of Assembly had been worked up to a great pitch of excitement by the incursion of the rural population, and were in no humour to tolerate Mackenzie's presence. Meanwhile petitions to the Lieutenant-Governor were sent in from various parts of the County of York, as well as from other places. The language in some of these was of the most unmistakable kind, and it was evident that endurance had nearly reached its limits. On Monday, the 10th of February, Mackenzie, having taken the oath before the Clerk of the Executive Council, and having obtained a duly attested certificate of the ceremonial, ventured once more to present himself in the Chamber of the Assembly. The House was in Committee on the question of improving the navigation of the St. Lawrence when he entered. The gallery was crowded with spectators, most of whom were sympathizers with Mackenzie, and had assembled there to impart to him a sort of outside numerical support. He walked to the seat which he had once been accustomed to occupy, and quietly sat down in it. Ere many minutes the Sergeant-at-Arms[173] approached and requested him to withdraw. This he declined to do, alleging that he was a member legally elected, duly sworn, and charged with no offence or irregularity which could disqualify him from sitting and voting.[174] He produced the attested copy of the oath, and bade the Sergeant-at-Arms interfere at his peril. The following is Mackenzie's own account of what ensued; and, unlike most of his narratives, it is in all substantial respects confirmed by several eye-witnesses. "He [the Sergeant-at-Arms] said he must use force, and he did so in as gentle a manner as was consistent with the act. Although his proceedings were illegal, his whole conduct in carrying them into effect was marked by a discretion wisely adopted in the excited state of the minds of the dense audience by whom he was surrounded. I almost immediately returned to the seat I had occupied, and while on my way was seized hold of by Colonel Frazer, Collector of Customs at Brockville, and obliged to change my route. Before I had got well seated, one of the members, I think Mr. Boulton[175] moved that the Speaker take the chair. He did so, and I addressed him, stating the insult I had received while in the performance of my duty as a member. To this he made no reply, but said that the Sergeant-at-Arms must know his duty. He then left the chair; the Committee resumed, and I was a second time forced from my seat by violent means. After a little reflection I decided to resume my seat; was a third time forced from it by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and when the Speaker had returned I was placed at the bar, charged by the Sergeant-at-Arms with refusing to leave the House."[176] The Sergeant-at-Arms then reported to the Speaker that he had taken into custody William Lyon Mackenzie for disorderly conduct, and that he had him in charge at the bar; whereupon it was moved by Mr. Samson, and seconded by Mr. Vankoughnet, member for Stormont, that William Lyon Mackenzie, having been brought to the bar of the House by the Sergeant-at-Arms for disorderly conduct, be called upon to state what he might have to say in his defence. To this motion Mr. Perry moved an amendment to the effect that Mackenzie was under no legal disqualifications, and had a right to sit and vote in the House. Then followed a long debate which lasted nearly six hours,[177] and which left the question at issue pretty nearly where it had been. Mr. Perry's motion was lost by a vote of twenty-one to fifteen. A dense crowd occupied the gallery until far into the night, but good order was preserved, the only demonstration being a subdued hiss while Mr. William B. Robinson, member for Simcoe, and brother of the Chief Justice, was speaking. Much rancour was exhibited by some of the Tory speakers, several of whom approved their loyalty by inveighing loudly against the Lieutenant-Governor for permitting the Clerk of the Executive Council to administer the oath to Mackenzie. Allan MacNab declared his intention to vote for committing Mackenzie to the common jail. Casting his eyes up to the gallery, he scowled at the occupants, to whom he referred as a band of ruffians who had come there to intimidate the House. The Lieutenant-Governor, he said, had interfered very improperly, and in a manner no way creditable to himself. He had acted like the Vicar of Bray, and might yet find, like that individual, that by taking both sides of a question he might fall through between. Mr. Samson, member for Hastings, spoke to a similar purport, declaring himself to be in favour of sending Mackenzie to jail without a hearing, and referring to the Lieutenant-Governor in terms of strong censure. "His Excellency," remarked Mr. Samson, "knew perfectly well that Mr. Mackenzie had been expelled by us, and for him to allow the oath to be administered under such circumstances was a most unwarrantable proceeding. He had no right whatever to interfere. I do say he acted a most improper part, and I do not know but this House ought to take it up." When Mackenzie attempted to speak at the bar, William Hamilton Merritt, member for Haldimand, rose in much anger, and exclaimed: "Drown his voice. He ought to be put out of the House, and two men stationed continually at the door to keep him out." Absalom Shade, of Galt, member for Halton, was of the same opinion. The speech of the member for Simcoe, which evoked the hiss from the gallery as already mentioned, was perhaps the most violent of all. He advocated that Mackenzie should be punished and consigned to jail without being allowed to utter "one single word" in defence of his outrageous proceedings. "Mackenzie," said he, "would never have dared to show himself in this House again if he had not had his Excellency's sanction for doing so in his pocket. His Excellency's conduct, I maintain, has been utterly unjustifiable. Indeed, I could not have believed it possible that his Excellency should have thought of taking such a step without consulting the Speaker of this House. He had no right whatever to do so, and now that he is told that we do not recognize such a right on the part of the Executive, I trust he will not persevere."[178] For milder language than this, many of the Reformers had been branded as "traitors," "disaffected," and "republicans," by the very person who now gave utterance to it. The beam in one's own eye is so much harder to perceive than the mote in the eye of one's brother. The plain fact of the matter is, that no sentiment of either loyalty or disloyalty had anything whatever to do with the treatment to which Mackenzie was subjected at the hands of the Compact and their supporters. It was simply this: Mackenzie was a thorn in their sides. He watched them closely, and exposed their conduct in language which was telling and vigorous, albeit often ill-considered and unbecoming. They felt that their supremacy was menaced, and largely by his instrumentality. His expulsions were due to a fixed determination to keep him out of Parliament, irrespective not only of what was constitutional or unconstitutional, but even of what was right or wrong. To carry out this determination they resorted to all the party devices which a majority in the Assembly placed at their disposal. "From first to last," as Mr. Lindsey remarks,[179] "the proceedings against Mr. Mackenzie were conceived in a party spirit, and carried by party votes. No worse description or condemnation of them could be given, seeing that they were in their nature judicial." The debate, as has been said, came to nothing. Mackenzie was not permitted to take his seat, and did not again attempt to do so during the session. No new writ was issued for the election of a member by the County of York. Mackenzie's supporters opposed the issue of a writ because such a proceeding would have assumed that the expulsion had been legal, and that there was a legal vacancy in the representation. Others, who were not friendly to Mackenzie, felt that a new election would only lead to fresh complications. York would undoubtedly return the expelled member, and he would again be refused a seat in the House. The session accordingly dragged on to its close without any writ having been issued: a matter of little practical importance, inasmuch as there was to be a general election in the course of a few months. It will thus be seen that the County of York underwent a partial disfranchisement for three years, during which three sessions were held. Before another session came round a new Parliament had come into being, and the political situation had undergone a complete metamorphosis. During the session of 1833-4, which witnessed the tumultuous scene just described, the Provincial Parliament made one important concession to public opinion by passing an Act to render the Judges of the Court of King's Bench independent of the Crown. It is right to state, however, that this was done in consequence of pressure from the Imperial Government,[180] and not from any wish to remove an abuse of long standing. The Act provided that "the Judges of His Majesty's Court of King's Bench for this Province shall hold their offices during their good behaviour, notwithstanding the commissions which have been heretofore granted to them, or either of them, may specify that the office is to be held during the pleasure of His Majesty; and that from and after the passing of this Act the commissions to the Judges of the said Court shall be made to them respectively to hold during their good behaviour, and that the commissions of Judges of the said Court for the time being shall be, continue, and remain in full force during their good behaviour, notwithstanding the demise of His Majesty, or of any of his heirs and successors." Thus were the Judiciary rendered independent of the humours of the Executive, whereby a long step was taken towards securing a pure administration of justice in the Superior Court of the Province. Had a similar policy been pursued with respect to other gross abuses, the effect upon the public mind would have been most pacificatory. Standing, as it did, alone, the Act exhibited a striking contrast to every other feature of the Executive policy, and it may be doubted whether a solitary inhabitant of the Province was conciliated thereby. FOOTNOTES: [165] Prior to his departure from Canada he travelled about here and there through the country to collect subscriptions towards the expenses of his journey. He met with but slender success. After his return he made further efforts in the same direction, and with similar results. Persons who professed much zeal for Reform were slow to put their hands in their pockets for such a purpose, and he succeeded in collecting only about £150. It should however be remembered that most Upper Canadian Reformers in those days were poor. Mackenzie's actual disbursements during his absence are stated by Mr. Lindsey to have been £676 (_Life of Mackenzie_, vol. i., p. 287), but a considerable part of this sum was expended on a visit to Scotland. It is probable, too, that the amount stated includes the cost of publishing _Sketches in Canada and the United States_, which must have been considerable. It is fairly to be inferred from Mr. Lindsey's account that Mackenzie was himself compelled to pay the difference between £150, the amount collected from subscribers, and £676, the amount actually expended. "The people's agent," he informs us, "was left to bear the greater part of the expense." This, no doubt, was Mr. Lindsay's belief when his book was written; but nothing could be further from the fact. It would be much nearer the truth to say that Mackenzie enjoyed a sixteen months' holiday at the expense of his political friends, for all, or nearly all the money expended over and above the £150 was contributed by Dr. Morrison, Dr. Rolph, David Gibson, the Lesslies, Shepards, and others; and as no portion of the money so contributed was ever repaid, they, and not Mackenzie, were compelled to bear the loss. The implied slur upon the Reform party is therefore wholly undeserved. [166] His Lordship expressed himself with much clearness on this subject. "Whether," he wrote, "even under this restriction [_i.e._, the restriction of non-interference in secular affairs], their holding such seats is really desirable, is a question upon which I am fully prepared to listen with the utmost attention to any advice which I may receive from yourself, from the House of Assembly, or from any other competent authority. I have no solicitude for retaining either the Bishop [McDonnell] or the Archdeacon [Strachan] on the list of Councillors, but am, on the contrary, rather predisposed to the opinion that by resigning their seats they would best consult their own personal comfort and the success of their designs for the spiritual good of the people. But any such resignation must be voluntary, since the office is held for life; and were it otherwise, no consideration could induce me to advise His Majesty to degrade the Bishop or the Archdeacon from the stations they occupy, except upon the most conclusive proof of misconduct." One might not unreasonably construe these words into a pretty broad hint to Bishop McDonnell and Dr. Strachan that they ought to resign. [167] The London _Morning Herald_ of July 11th, 1833, correctly characterized it as "the oddest mixture of slander and truth, of knowledge and ignorance, of bold assertion and vacillating opinion." [168] "Mr. Rolph will, we have no doubt, have the offer of the Solicitorship, but whether he will accept it is a matter more doubtful; though we think he possibly may, provided he is to be associated in the administration with men of a liberal policy; otherwise we are of opinion he will decline. Such an appointment would certainly do credit to our country, and we hope he (Mr. Rolph) will accept the appointment if offered--that is, if he can consistently do so."--_Colonial Advocate_, Thursday, May 2nd, 1833. See also the _Advocate_ for October 3rd, 1833. [169] See _An Account of the Dismissal of the Attorney and Solicitor-General from Office, and of the Re-appointment of Mr. Hagerman_, written by Mackenzie for the General [Reform] Committee at York, and published in the _Advocate_ for Thursday, August 29th, 1833. [170] _Ante_, p. 247. [171] As the resolution recited the facts relating to the two former expulsions, as well as the grounds of the present one, it may not be amiss to transcribe it in full. It was voted upon on Tuesday, the 17th of December (1833). Its mover was William Morris, member for Lanark. It was in the following words: "That this House, on the thirteenth day of December, 1831, in consequence of a false and scandalous libel published against a majority of its members by William Lyon Mackenzie, Esquire, one of the members then representing the County of York, of which he avowed himself the author and publisher, was induced to expel him, the said William Lyon Mackenzie, from this House: That notwithstanding the gross and scandalous nature of the said libel, this House, in the hope that the said William Lyon Mackenzie would abstain from a continuance of the offensive conduct for which he had been expelled, permitted him to take his seat on the third day of January following, as a member for the County of York, after being re-elected: That in this hope, so important to the deliberate transaction of public business, so essential to the respectability of the Legislature and peace of the country, a few days' experience convinced this House there was so little reason to rely, that on the seventh day of the same month of January, it was by a large majority again deemed necessary to expel the said William Lyon Mackenzie, for a repetition and aggravated reiteration of the aforesaid false and scandalous libel; and in doing so, this House, in order to support the dignity which ought to belong to a Legislative body, considered it just and proper to declare the said William Lyon Mackenzie unfit and unworthy to hold a seat in this House during the continuance of the present Parliament: That as the said William Lyon Mackenzie has never made reparation to this House for the gross injuries which he has attempted to inflict on its character and proceedings, there is no reason to depart from the resolution of the said seventh day of January, 1832." In amendment, Mr. MacNab, seconded by Mr. Robinson, moved that the following words be added to the original resolution: "And therefore he, the said William Lyon Mackenzie, again elected and returned to represent the County of York in this present Parliament, is hereby expelled." The amendment, as well as the original motion, was carried by a vote of 22 to 18. [172] This section provides for the taking of the oath before the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or person administering the Government, or "before some person or persons authorized by the said Governor or Lieutenant-Governor," etc. [173] The Sergeant-at-Arms was Allan MacNab, Sr., father of the junior member for Wentworth. [174] See the _Advocate_ of Thursday, February 13th, 1834. [175] Not H. J. Boulton, who had several months before departed for Newfoundland, but George Strange Boulton, one of the members for Durham. [176] See the _Advocate_ of February 13th, 1834. [177] Mackenzie, in the _Advocate_, says "full seven hours," but he did not reach the Assembly Chamber until nearly half-past three in the afternoon, and the House adjourned at 9.30 for want of a quorum. See the sessional journal. The three removals of Mackenzie from his seat must have occupied some minutes, and the entire debate could not possibly have extended over quite six hours. The matter is of no particular importance, but it shows how carefully all unsupported statements of Mackenzie ought to be scrutinized before being admitted as evidence. [178] "It is probable," says Mackenzie (_Colonial Advocate_, Feb. 13th), "that the provoking language of some of the members would have ended in a disturbance had I not warned the people through the press, personally at many of their dwelling houses, and in the House before I took my seat, to preserve perfect silence whatever the members said or did. They were very orderly, and it is creditable to them that they were so. If public opinion will not avenge our cause, violence and tumult will not help us." The irony of fate had decreed that this admirable sentiment should not find a permanent lodgement in the writer's breast. [179] _Life and Times of Mackenzie_, vol. i., p. 311. [180] See Lord Goderich's despatch of 8th November, 1832. CHAPTER XIII. MR. HUME'S "BANEFUL DOMINATION" LETTER. Mackenzie's repeated expulsions, unjust as they were, and humiliating as were some of the attendant circumstances, were not wholly without compensation. For one thing they caused him to be more talked about than any other man in Upper Canada. This, of itself, would have gone far towards reconciling him to the indignities which had been heaped upon him, for notoriety was very dear to his heart. But a more substantial reward, and one altogether unlooked for, was in store for him. Within a month after the scene in the Assembly described towards the close of the last chapter, the town of York ceased to exist, having exchanged its name for the old Indian appellation which it has ever since borne. An Act of incorporation had been obtained during the session, whereby it was enacted that York should be constituted a body corporate and politic by the name of the City of Toronto. The city was to be divided into wards, with two aldermen and two common councilmen for each ward, to be elected by the inhabitants; and with a mayor, to be elected by the aldermen and councilmen from among themselves. This Act, like the rest of the measures passed during the session, was assented to on the day of adjournment--the 6th of March, 1834. On the 15th of the same month an official proclamation appeared whereby Thursday, the 27th, was appointed for the first election of municipal representatives. A campaign of active canvassing was forthwith set on foot throughout the city. As has often happened in more recent times, the contest assumed a political complexion. The Act of incorporation had been procured by Tory influences, and had been carried through the Assembly under the auspices of Sheriff Jarvis, the local member. In his speeches on the subject in the House Mr. Jarvis had taken the reasonable and legitimate ground that the Provincial capital had attained dimensions which rendered a separate government necessary to the efficient management of its affairs. This view was participated in by Tory residents generally. The Reformers, on the other hand, had all along been opposed to incorporation. York, they argued, was the main fortress and stronghold of the official party, who would be almost certain to acquire a pernicious ascendency in municipal affairs, to the detriment of the rest of the community. The Province at large had already suffered enough from Compact domination, and it was far from desirable to afford an opportunity for its exercise in a more restricted field. Again, it was urged that the expense of a separate administration for the city would more than counterbalance any advantages to be derived therefrom. These views were put forward with much vehemence by reformers, both in Parliament and through the medium of the press. From all which it was evident that the impending elections would afford a pretty accurate test of the strength of the respective political parties in the city. Generally speaking, the Tory vote in the capital had been largely in excess of that polled by the Reformers. That it was not so in the spring of 1834 was due in no small degree to public indignation at the unfair treatment to which Mackenzie had been subjected. Persons who had never recorded a Reform vote before now came forward to support candidates who were known to be strong Reformers. It was not so much that these persons sympathized with Mackenzie, who was by many of them held in detestation and abhorrence; but they felt that gross injustice had been done, against which it behooved them to record their formal protest. The result was that the sanguine calculations of the Tories were altogether falsified, and that a majority of Reform candidates were returned to the first Council of the City of Toronto. Among the latter were Mackenzie himself, who was elected as one of the aldermen for St. David's Ward, and John Rolph, who was elected for the Ward of St. Patrick. A few words of explanation are necessary in this place with regard to Mr. Rolph. It will be remembered that he and the two Baldwins had divested themselves of their gowns during the progress of the Willis dispute, and had declined to transact any further business in a court which they believed to be illegally constituted.[181] They did not again present themselves before the court during Term until after the decision of the Privy Council had set their minds at rest on the subject. There was no longer anything to prevent them from resuming their practice. The Baldwins did so, and Rolph for a time followed their example, albeit in a half-hearted manner. He had long been profoundly disgusted with the partiality displayed by the judges, and by their complete subserviency to the wishes of the Executive, as expressed by their forensic mouthpiece, Attorney-General Robinson. On account, as he believed, of his political opinions, he had been forced to contend against the persistent hostility of the judiciary. His triumphs at the bar had been won by reason of his power over juries, and in spite of one-sided charges from the bench. Of the understanding and judicial integrity of Mr. Sherwood he had formed a very low estimate. Hagerman, who temporarily succeeded Judge Willis, was an abler man, but his political feelings were so strong that Rolph would not imperil the interests of his clients by appearing before him. Upon the accession of Attorney-General Robinson to the bench the state of affairs from Rolph's point of view was not much improved. Mr. Robinson and he had so long fought each other at the bar and on the floor of the Assembly that they had come to regard each other as personal enemies. Rolph, rightly or wrongly, came to the conclusion that he could no longer hope to obtain any measure of justice. The necessary consequence of such a conclusion was a resolve to abandon the practice of law, and to resume that of medicine, which latter, indeed, he had never wholly abandoned. This resolution was not fully carried out until more than two years after it had been formed, though he meanwhile accepted no new suits, and steadily prepared himself for the impending change. The decisive step does not appear to have been taken until 1832, when he transferred his legal practice to his brother George. Thenceforward John Rolph never again appeared in a Court of justice in the capacity of an advocate. It was a momentous decision, for he had a fine legal practice, and enjoyed the reputation of being the most eloquent man at the Upper Canadian bar. He had outlived the exuberance of youth, and was at this time nearly forty years old--an age at which few men would have had the courage to abandon a pursuit which had been followed with signal success for many years. He resumed the practice of medicine and surgery, and was thenceforward known as "Doctor" Rolph. For some years before this time he had resided at Dundas. He now removed to the capital, where he was well known, and where he continued to reside until the breaking out of the Rebellion towards the close of 1837. He soon won a distinguished place in the ranks of his new calling, and reached a preeminence therein as great as he had ever attained at the bar. There was no regularly-organized medical college in Upper Canada, and the facilities for acquiring a competent medical training were few. In response to urgent requests from a number of influential persons in Toronto he established a private medical class, and gave instruction to a limited number of students. His teaching was eminently successful, and he made himself greatly beloved by his students. He seemed to have the whole round of medical literature at his fingers' ends, and his marvellous knowledge and graphic power of expression kindled in the breasts of the young men a love of knowledge for its own sake.[182] By no one were his attainments held in higher respect than by the Lieutenant-Governor. Sir John urged him to found a permanent medical college, and promised that Government aid for such an enterprise should not be wanting. But Dr. Rolph had other views. He had for several years been out of public life, but with no idea of so remaining. He was resolved to re-enter Parliament at the first suitable opportunity, and did not allow his professional pursuits to absorb all his attention. Unlike Robert Baldwin, who to a great extent held himself aloof from politics at this time, Rolph took a leading part at Reform meetings and caucuses, and did his utmost to give practical shape to the Reform policy. Baldwin, notwithstanding his undoubted zeal for Liberal principles, was imbued with somewhat exclusive social ideas, and was not in active sympathy with the Reformers at this period. He regarded Mackenzie as very much of a demagogue, and as a person with whom he could not hold any very intimate relations. The sentiments entertained by Baldwin for Mackenzie seem to have been closely akin to those entertained by Sir John Falstaff for the troops with whom he declared that he would not march through Coventry. Mackenzie's noisy verbosity and self-assertion offended the patrician instincts of Mr. Baldwin, to whom, indeed, the little proletarian was altogether distasteful and repulsive. This feeling, however, seems to have been due to the antipathetic natures of the two men, rather than to any mere feeling of exclusiveness on the part of Mr. Baldwin. They had as little in common as two persons very well could have. Without entering any further into the question, it will be sufficient to say that the one had a judgment under strict discipline, while the judgment of the other was always subordinate to the circumstances or prejudices of the moment--a fatal defect in one who aspires to be a leader of men. Mr. Baldwin made no secret of his conviction that no substantial progress could be made by the Reform party so long as one like Mackenzie was permitted to have any commanding voice in its counsels, or at any rate to have any hand in the shaping or directing of its policy. Rolph took a broader view, and while he admitted the notoriously weak points in Mackenzie's character, did not feel disposed either to throw him overboard altogether or to deprive him of a share in the direction of party affairs. He naturally felt and spoke strongly on the subject of the expulsions. For Mackenzie personally he had never felt much liking, but he hated injustice, and did not hesitate to give the expelled member all the support, moral and otherwise, which he could command. He was wont to say that Mackenzie might yet do much good work for Reform, if he could only be kept in his proper place. Mackenzie, on his side, never wearied of sounding Rolph's praises, and he sometimes did so in extravagant terms. Wherever he went he proclaimed the Doctor as the one man in Upper Canada capable of leading the Reform party to triumph and permanent power. Bidwell and Perry were well enough in their way, but to neither of them would he pin his faith if Rolph questioned the wisdom of their counsels. Such was the state of affairs at the time of the election of the first Council of the City of Toronto. In that Council, as already mentioned, there was a preponderance of Reform members. According to the provisions of the Act of incorporation the aldermen and councilmen were to hold their first meeting on Thursday, the 3rd of April, when they were to proceed to the election of a mayor. As the Reform members were able to command the situation, they held a caucus on the evening of Monday, the 31st of March, to concert a scheme of action, and to take steps to turn their numerical superiority in the Council to the best account. An understanding had already been arrived at as to the mayoralty. Dr. Rolph had been pitched upon by common consent to fill the chair of the chief magistrate. He was upon the whole better fitted to grace the position than any other man in the city, and the Reform members contemplated their candidate with pride. But at the caucus held on the evening of the 31st matters took an altogether unexpected turn. Dr. Rolph did not attend, being kept away by professional duties. It was suggested by James Lesslie, one of the aldermen from St. David's Ward, that the Doctor was indifferent as to the mayoralty, and that he would be quite willing to waive any claims to the position which he might be supposed to have. It was further suggested that the interests of the Reformers would be best promoted by the elevation of the editor of the _Advocate_ to the chief magistracy. Mackenzie, it was urged, had been treated with shameful indignity by the Assembly, and had been held up to contempt by the official party generally. He had been maligned at the Home Office as a personage whom the Secretary could not admit to his presence consistently with due respect to himself and his office. He had been represented as a snarling little upstart who, by the votes of the lowest and most rascally section of the Radicals, had been placed in a position unsuited to his character and belongings. It had been especially urged against him in England that the better class of Reformers held aloof from and thoroughly despised him. There could be no doubt that by such representations as these Mackenzie had been subjected to much unmerited obloquy and annoyance during his sojourn in the old country. The present conjuncture of affairs, it was said, afforded an excellent opportunity for atoning to him for what he had endured, and at the same time for scoring a double victory for Reform principles. His elevation to the chief magistracy of the capital city of Upper Canada would furnish the most conclusive answer that could possibly be made to the abuse and slander wherewith he had been assailed. The position was one of high honour and dignity. It would be impossible to represent the occupant of that position as the mere tool and mouthpiece of a low Radical clique, or as a person whom no gentleman could admit to a conference. There was much plausibility about these arguments, and they had the more weight inasmuch as Dr. Rolph was said to be personally indifferent about the matter. Dr. Rolph, moreover, needed no accession of dignity. He could certainly derive none from being elected to the mayoralty, and could very well afford to waive his claims. This view of the matter finally prevailed, and it was agreed, before the adjournment of the caucus, that, provided Dr. Rolph were a consenting party, Mackenzie should be the first mayor of Toronto. When the matter was submitted to Dr. Rolph he expressed some surprise at the action of the caucus. He appears to have felt convinced that no credit to the Reform cause was to be won by placing Mackenzie in a prominent position. He knew Mackenzie to be a man who could not stand prosperity, and whose want of mental ballast was such that he was not fit to be trusted with power. He was moreover very much disposed to suspect that the little man himself was at the bottom of the movement in his favour, which was probably the fact. Still, the Doctor was compelled to admit that there was much force in the arguments put forward, and he was by no means disposed to press his own claims. He therefore gave his assent; and from that moment the question was to be regarded as practically settled, although the matter was kept a profound secret among the persons most immediately concerned. The Conservative members of the Council also held a caucus before the day appointed for the election of a mayor. Their purpose was to organize their forces, and to present the best front which their numerical inferiority would admit of. They had assumed that Dr. Rolph would as a matter of course be the choice of the Reform members for the chief magistracy, and this assumption had been confirmed by common rumour, so that they entertained no doubt on the subject. The selection met with their full approval. In fact, unless a mayor was to be chosen from their own number--a thing out of the question with such a preponderance of Reform members--no man would have been so acceptable to them as Dr. Rolph. He was known to and respected by them all, and it was felt that he would fill the chair with credit to the city. They accordingly resolved to give him their support, and one of their number, Mr. Thomas Carfrae, Jr., wrote to him on the subject. But, Dr. Rolph had meanwhile given his assent to the project of Mackenzie's election, and was not in a position to accept support from any quarter. After careful consideration he had determined to resign his seat in the Council. He foresaw that Mackenzie would render himself unpopular, and deemed it probable that he would be guilty of indiscretions which no public representative of a political party could properly defend. The course of subsequent events was such as to fully justify this forecast. Dr. Rolph replied to Mr. Carfrae, thanking him for his offer of support, but announcing that he was about to resign his seat. He also wrote to his friend Dr. Morrison, one of the representatives of St. Andrew's Ward, to the same effect. The contents of these two letters did not become known until the meeting of the Council on the 3rd of April, otherwise steps would unquestionably have been taken to prevent Mackenzie's election; for the Reformers, with two or three exceptions, were not sufficiently anxious to elect him to oust Dr. Rolph for his sake; and as for the Conservatives, the idea of Mackenzie's elevation to the highest seat in the Council would at all times have been simply intolerable to them. At the appointed time all the aldermen and councilmen were in their places except Dr. Rolph. The chair was temporarily taken by John Doel, one of the representatives from St. Andrew's Ward. It was moved by Franklin Jackes, councilman from St. David's Ward, and seconded by James Lesslie, Mackenzie's colleague as aldermanic representative from the same ward, "that William Lyon Mackenzie, Esquire, be the mayor of this city." The motion took the Conservative members completely by surprise, and they did not attempt to conceal their dissatisfaction, and even disgust. Several of them arose in succession, and spoke in favour of Dr. Rolph. Dr. Morrison then announced Dr. Rolph's decision, and read his letter by way of confirmation. Mr. Carfrae intimated that he had received from the Doctor a letter to the same purport. There was thus no room for further discussion. The pre-concerted programme was carried out. Mackenzie received ten votes in support of his candidature, which constituted a majority. He was declared duly elected, and took the chair of honour. During the afternoon of the same day he took the prescribed oath, and his authority was complete. He could boast that he was the first mayor of Toronto, and also the first mayor ever elected in Upper Canada. Scarcely had he been installed in office ere he began to furnish examples of that perverse and almost inconceivable want of judgment which attended upon him from the beginning of his life to its end. Knowing the light in which he was regarded by the Conservative members of the Council, it might have been supposed that he would be specially circumspect in his demeanour towards them, and careful not to give gratuitous offence. On the contrary, he conducted himself like a veritable Jack-in-Office, and disgusted not only the Conservatives but some of his own friends. He was constantly intruding his personal antagonisms upon the Council, and trying to induce the members to take sides. His indiscretion in the matter of the famous "baneful domination" letter is absolutely incomprehensible. The particulars can only be given very briefly in these pages. During the month of May, Mr. Mackenzie received from Joseph Hume, the Radical member for Middlesex in the British House of Commons, an extraordinary letter--a letter which, for violence of tone and intemperance of language, might almost have been written by the editor of the _Advocate_ himself. It referred to the Reverend Egerton Ryerson, a leading minister of the Methodist Church and editor of _The Christian Guardian_, in terms which it is astonishing to think that a gentleman in Mr. Hume's position should have permitted himself to employ. Now, Mackenzie had quarrelled with Mr. Ryerson not long before, and had devoted much space in the _Advocate_ to maligning him. He saw here an opportunity for a further attack, with which view he deliberately published "copious extracts"[183] from the letter in the issue of his paper dated the 22nd of May. The effect was electrical, for the references to Mr. Ryerson, bad as they were, were not the portions of the letter most calculated to excite astonishment in the public mind. The phrase which called forth prompt execration from all classes of the community was one in which the writer, referring to Mackenzie's last election to the Assembly and his expulsion therefrom, characterized those proceedings as events which must hasten the crisis that was fast approaching in the affairs of the Canadas, and which would "terminate in independence and freedom from the baneful domination of the mother country." These extraordinary words--extraordinary as proceeding from a British statesman to a colonist who was likewise a public character--were printed in the _Advocate_, like the rest of the letter, in large type. It was subsequently urged[184] on Mr. Hume's behalf that he had not meant to imply _separation_ from the mother country, but only an end to the false and pernicious system of governing the colony; and this explanation was admitted by him[185] to express what he had intended to signify. But if Mr. Hume could write so indiscreetly on such a subject, what is to be thought of the newspaper editor and the politician who had no better sense than to give such a production to the world of Upper Canada, more especially while he himself occupied the position of mayor of its most important city? No sooner was the number of the _Advocate_ containing this letter in the hands of the public than an outcry arose on every hand. The Tories saw their advantage, and made the most of it. Now, it was said, the real designs of Mackenzie and those who acted with him were no longer masked. What they wanted was not constitutional Reform, but separation from the Empire, and the establishment of a republic. And it was not only Tories who spoke and felt thus. Persons who cordially hated the domination of the Compact, and who had condemned the treatment of Mackenzie as unconstitutional, tyrannical and unjust, now felt that such a man deserved no sympathy. He was evidently a rebel at heart.[186] He had brought reproach not only on himself, but upon the party to which he belonged. Reform journals hastened to signify their repudiation of the sentiments of the objectionable letter. "We profess ourselves Radical Reformers," said the _Freeman_, "and willing to go any reasonable length in correcting abuses, because we know extensive grievances have existed both in the mother country and in these colonies.... but we cannot bring ourselves to support violent and unprincipled factions." "It has often been the misfortune," said _The British Whig_, of Kingston, "for those who have laboured to emancipate the people of this colony from Tory misrule to be accused of disaffection to the mother country, and of a design to effect the substitution of a republican mode of Government for their present monarchical form. That no accusation is more generally false we are thoroughly satisfied; and yet, owing to the indiscreetness of certain writers, the enemies of political change have had too many opportunities afforded them to ground their assertions on something like proof. Here is a letter published by a leading Reformer, without one single remark in detestation of the doctrine it promulgates.... Does Mr. Mackenzie sincerely believe that the independence of this Province would be beneficial to its inhabitants; or is he of opinion that the domination of the mother country is baneful? If he answer in the negative, as we think he will, why in the name of common sense did he afford his enemies so much occasion to brand him with disloyalty?" Said _The Free Press_, of Hamilton, "It is not the domination of the mother country that Reformers complain of; it is only the tyrannical conduct of a small and despicable faction in the colony. The domination of the mother country is as necessary to our present happiness and future greatness as the mother's breast is to the infant." "There can be but one opinion," said _The British American Journal_, of St. Catharines, "in the minds of honest men, relative to the sentiments contained in this letter. That they are seditious and revolutionary is painfully evident; besides the language in which it is couched, the brief reference to the important subjects treated of, and the peculiar manner of its appearance before the Canadian public, irresistibly force the conclusion upon our mind that it is the premature disclosure of a plan long premeditated to separate the Canadas from the empire of Great Britain, and either annex them to the confederated union of the States, or establish separate independent republic Governments; as far as the author or publisher of the letter is concerned, it is immaterial which." Mackenzie himself was characterized as a man who was doing his best to drive the people headlong and blindfold into rebellion. Such being the tone of the Liberal press, that of the Tory journals may readily be conceived. Some of them demanded that the Government should institute an immediate prosecution of Mackenzie. Indignation meetings were held all over the Province, at which loyal addresses to His Majesty were passed. The Methodist Conference and other bodies, secular as well as religious, hastened to pass resolutions condemnatory of Mr. Hume's sentiments, and to forward the same to the Lieutenant-Governor. The excitement in Toronto was tremendous. Before noon of the day on which the offensive letter appeared in print a public meeting had been called to protest against the disloyal sentiments embodied in it. It was numerously attended, and, though a good many Reformers were present, a vote of censure on Mackenzie was passed without a dissentient voice. The matter was brought up in the City Council, and, though the support of the Reform members enabled him to escape the official censure of that body, he was compelled to submit to a series of criticisms which must have been exceedingly galling to his feelings. By this one misguided act he had contrived to do enough harm to far more than counterbalance any good which had been effected through his mission to England; and there were many Reformers who, in spite of all his protestations, never again felt any confidence in him, politically or otherwise. In his capacity of mayor he was fairly assiduous in his attention to his duties. The city was subjected to a visitation of Asiatic cholera during the year, and he appears to have done his utmost to stay the progress of the pestilence, as well as to provide for the treatment of the stricken patients. He was nevertheless guilty of a number of indiscretions which rendered him odious to a large proportion of the population. His pettiness of spirit was incessantly asserting itself. No person in the community, however insignificant, was beneath his wrath when his sense of personal dignity was wounded. On one occasion a wretched woman of intemperate habits and loose character was brought before him in the Mayor's Court. She was loquacious and abusive, and Mackenzie, in a rage, ordered her to be placed in the public stocks. There were still a public pillory and stocks within the city, but, like those in Squire Hazeldean's parish, they had long been disused. Mackenzie had probably never heard of the maxim _Quieta non movere_. At any rate, the greater part of his life was spent in efforts in an opposite direction. His sentence was carried out, and the culprit was placed in the stocks. Had this been the act of a fossilized member of the Compact it would not have appeared very incongruous, but in Mackenzie it seemed ludicrously out of keeping with his professions. It aroused the popular indignation against him to a higher pitch than ever; but it had one good effect: it led to the removal and destruction of the barbarous relics of mediævalism. To Mackenzie belongs the questionable credit of reviving their use when Tory magistrates had become ashamed to employ them any longer. He is entitled to the further distinction of being the last magistrate in Upper Canada to sanction their use; and that, too, in the case of a poor and defenceless woman, whose wretchedness ought to have removed her far from the possibility of his vengeance. A considerable part of the summer was spent by both the political parties in the Province in preparing for the general election contest which was to take place before the close of the year. It was held in October. Had it been held some months earlier, while the public sympathy with Mackenzie in consequence of his repeated expulsions was at its height, an overwhelming preponderance of Reform members would have been returned. The publication of Mr. Hume's letter in the interval had alienated many sympathies and lost many votes to the Reform cause. Still, there was a strong tendency throughout the greater part of the Province in the direction of Reform, and the Reformers made unprecedented exertions. They succeeded in winning to their side a large number of the Roman Catholic electorate, and they absorbed most of the recent arrivals from beyond sea. Bidwell and Perry were re-elected for Lennox and Addington. William Benjamin Wells, a young lawyer of twenty-five, who afterwards made some mark as a newspaper writer on the Reform side, and from whose "Canadiana" several extracts have already been made in these pages, was returned for the County of Grenville. He was an Upper Canadian by birth, of U. E. Loyalist stock, and the grandson of a volunteer who fought at the siege of Louisbourg. Oxford returned for one of its members Dr. Charles Duncombe, who was destined to take a conspicuous part in the insurrectionary events of two years later. He was a medical practitioner of great intelligence and wide influence, an eloquent and forcible speaker, and an ardent Reformer. He resided on the Burford Plains, near the present village of Bishopsgate, a few miles west of Brantford. The two members returned for the County of Simcoe represented very nearly the two extremes of political opinion. William Benjamin Robinson, a brother of the Chief Justice, was, as became one of his race, the incarnation of Family Compact Toryism. His colleague was Samuel Lount, whose name, owing to his untimely fate and the melancholy circumstances attending it, arouses a host of sad memories. It may safely be said that of all the victims of the rising of 1837 none has been so sincerely and generally mourned. His execution is justly regarded in the light of a judicial murder and a stain upon our country's annals. As a peculiar interest has ever since attached to his name, and as but little is generally known with respect to him, it may be proper to record a few particulars. He was born on the banks of the Susquehanna River, in the State of Pennsylvania, on the 24th of September, 1791. His father, Gabriel Lount, was an Englishman, and a native of Bristol, who settled in the United States after the close of the Revolutionary War, and married an American lady of English descent. Gabriel Lount never lost his British proclivities during his residence in the republic, and in the spring of the year 1811, accompanied by his son and the rest of his family, he removed to Upper Canada. He settled in the township of Whitchurch, where he practised as a surveyor, and in the course of the nest few years laid out many official surveys for the Provincial Government. Samuel, prior to his removal to Canada, had learned the trade of a blacksmith, which he carried on for some years at Holland Landing. He had a farm in the same neighbourhood which he cultivated with much pecuniary success. Being a man of great industry and intelligence, he gradually amassed considerable property, and became what for those days might be regarded as wealthy. Better still, he acquired the respect and confidence of the people around him, for he was kind-hearted and generous, and spent much of his time in ministering to the necessities of those incoming settlers who were less advantageously situated than himself. To this day the neighbourhood abounds with traditions of his noble unselfishness, and there are old men and women who, after the lapse of half a century, cannot speak of Samuel Lount without a dimness of vision and a huskiness of the voice.[187] Though a zealous loyalist, he was an enthusiastic Reformer, and vehemently opposed to the domination of the faction whose selfishness went far to paralyze the life of the Province. He was an excellent speaker, and during election contests did much to awaken public opinion on the fruitful subject of Executive abuses. He now, in response to pressing solicitations, allowed himself to be nominated as a candidate for the representation of Simcoe in the Assembly, and, as has been seen, was returned for that constituency along with an ultra-Tory. In personal appearance he was considerably above the medium height, and of robust figure; of dark complexion, and with a pleasant, intelligent expression of countenance. [Illustration: I am your obt Servant David Gibson][TR: Handwritten.] The County of York, smarting under a sense of indignity and partial disfranchisement, rendered itself specially conspicuous in the contest. During the preceding year an Act[188] had been passed extending and readjusting the representation of the County, and dividing it for electoral purposes into four Ridings, designated respectively the First, Second, Third and Fourth. Each of these now returned a Radical Reformer. The First Riding returned David Gibson, a land surveyor who resided on Yonge Street, about eight miles north of the city, near the present village of Willowdale. He was of Scottish nationality, having been born in the parish of Glammis, Forfarshire, on the 9th of March, 1804. Within legitimate bounds there was no more pronounced Reformer in the Province than Mr. Gibson, whose house was a sort of rendezvous or place of meeting for party caucuses. He was an honourable and high-minded man, much esteemed by his neighbours, and in high favour with his party. The Second Riding chose Mackenzie. Many of the voters disapproved of some of his acts, but his paper was largely read among them, and it was felt that some recompense was due to him for the indignities which he had suffered. The Third Riding returned Dr. Thomas David Morrison, of Toronto, who has already been referred to in connection with the municipal affairs of the city. He was a physician enjoying a good practice; a man of good sense and wise counsels, and a prominent personage in the ranks of Reform. For the Fourth Riding was returned John Mackintosh, a resident of Toronto, and a connexion, by marriage, of Mackenzie. He was a steady Reformer, of no remarkable abilities, who a few months previously had been elected President of the Metropolitan District Reform Convention, and was known to be to a large extent under Mackenzie's control. Such were the four York representatives. At the close of the contest the Reformers of the Province had secured a certain majority, which led them to look eagerly forward to the meeting of Parliament, although, with the exception of Bidwell and Perry, their best and most trusted chiefs had no seats therein. Rolph and the Baldwins had positively refused to stand for any of the constituencies, although strongly urged to do so. They seem to have felt that the political pulse was not healthy, and that no credit was to be won, either for themselves or for the Reform cause, while the morbid symptoms continued. The worst symptom of all in their eyes was the ascendency of Mackenzie and his satellites among the rural and uneducated part of the community.[189] With this ascendency they were wholly out of accord, and they awaited the time when he should find his proper level in public opinion. Dr. Rolph had brought himself to acquiesce in this estimate of Mackenzie with great reluctance; and it is probable that his strong suspicions of double-dealing in the matter of the mayoralty election had something to do with his change of views. By this time Mackenzie had become tired of publishing the _Advocate_, which was not a commercial success. Early in November the last number published under his auspices made its appearance, and the editor was at liberty to devote his chief energies to his legislative duties.[190] During the second week in December he and a number of his political friends formed what they called the Canadian Alliance Society, for the promotion of Responsible Government, the abolition of the law of Primogeniture, the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, and other needful reforms, most of which have since been conceded. At the beginning of the new year (1835) Mackenzie again offered himself as a candidate for the representation of St. David's Ward in the City Council of Toronto, but he was defeated by Robert Baldwin Sullivan, a brilliant Toronto lawyer, and a kinsman of Robert Baldwin. The Council elected the successful candidate as mayor for the ensuing year. FOOTNOTES: [181] _Ante_, p. 187. [182] "To his instruction, and the love of knowledge which he never failed to inspire in those who came within the magic of his eloquence, many men who have since made their mark on the history of Canada owe their first start in intellectual progress. Notable among these is the present Chief Superintendent of Education, who has acknowledged that if he has achieved any distinction, it is mainly due to the love of knowledge with which he was inspired by the eloquence and example of Dr. Rolph." Such was the late Dr. Ryerson's own testimony, as published in the _Journal of Education_, upon Dr. Rolph's death in 1870. [183] The phrase is Mackenzie's own. See his remarks preceding the extracts in the _Advocate_ of May 22nd. [184] By Dr. Morrison in the Toronto City Council. See the report of the proceedings of that body at the meeting held on Monday, June 9th, 1834. On the subject generally, see the pamphlet published in Toronto in 1834 entitled _The Celebrated Letter of Joseph Hume_, etc. [185] In a letter dated 14th July, 1834, and published in the _Advocate_ of September 25th. Mr. Hume there states his meaning to have been "that the misrule of the Government in Canada, and the monopolizing selfish domination of such men as had lately (though but a small faction of the people) resisted all improvement and reform, would lose the countenance of the authorities in Downing Street, and leave the people in freedom to manage their own affairs." [186] The following extract is from a cleverly-written letter signed "O. P. Q.," which appeared in the _Courier_ of June 5th, 1834. It spoke the sentiments of nearly all the newspapers in the country, of whatsoever shade of politics: "But for that letter the people of this Province might long remain in ignorance of the real motives by which your conduct has been actuated. They might long regard you as a persecuted patriot.... But your imprudence or your vanity has been the means of completely unmasking and placing you before the people of this country in all the naked deformity of an acknowledged traitor. Henceforth you must be content to be regarded as the secret abettor of a heartless conspiracy.... Do not think, Sir, that these are the sentiments of a violent political opponent who approves of the measures adopted towards you by the House of Assembly.... These views, Sir, are the views of a man who has ever denounced the course your adversaries have pursued towards you as unwise, unjust and unconstitutional. They are the sentiments of a man who, if he had the power to punish the persons who first rose you from poverty, ignominy and ruin, to comparative affluence and popular notoriety, would have sent the destroyers of your press to less favoured regions. They are the sentiments of one who had up to the publication of the letter ... regarded you as a man attached to the institutions of your country.... It is an old adage, 'Give him rope enough,' etc. You have a moderate quantity, and if the avowal of such sentiments as you have lately promulgated do not afford you a few yards more, you may regard yourself as infinitely more fortunate than many better and bolder men." [187] "To the many poor settlers who came from Europe, and obtained grants of lands from the government, he was a friend and adviser, and in cases of necessity their wants were supplied from his purse or his granaries. Many is the time, said some of our fellow-prisoners, that we have seen him, after the toils of the day were over, leave his home to carry provisions for miles through the pathless forest, to the shanty of some poor and destitute settler, who with wife and family were rendered by want and sickness utterly destitute. Those acquainted with the history of new settlements need not be told how often those who have been accustomed to better days are obliged to embark in a new career of life, the duties of which they are totally ignorant and wholly unfitted for, nor how often sickness is engendered by their great bodily exertions, by neglect and deprivation. In a country like that in which Mr. Lount was settled, the inhabitants resided far apart, and consisted generally of old, worn, and superannuated British officers, who, at the close of the war, pitched their tents, for the last time, in the wilderness. The sums which they obtained from the sale of their half-pay, almost expended in the transportation of their little families, before arriving on the lands assigned them by government--unfitted, from their former pursuits, to bear the drudgery their new course of life required, it was frequently the case, that before they could raise anything from their lands, they became perfectly destitute of the necessaries of subsistence. Too proud to seek assistance, they would starve rather than communicate their situation; but in Lount, their generous neighbour, they found one quick to discover and prompt in affording relief, and he would minister to their wants with such delicacy that the most sensitive would experience a pleasure rather than the pang of wounded pride."--Theller's _Canada in 1837-38_, vol. i., pp. 233, 234. I transfer these remarks, not because I have any respect for Theller's personal testimony on any subject, but because in the present instance his language clearly expresses the general sentiment of the period with regard to Samuel Lount, and is confirmed by the remembrance of many persons still living in and near Holland Landing. [188] 3 Wm. IV., c. 15, passed 13th February, 1833. [189] In the preceding February Dr. Baldwin had thus written in reply to a notification to attend as a delegate at the District Convention: "This honour I beg leave to decline, and for this reason: that having heretofore served the country to the utmost of my humble abilities as their representative in Parliament, with the sincerest integrity of purpose in maintenance of popular rights, unspotted, I trust, by one single vote of a contrary tendency, I, together with many others of the staunchest friends of those rights, experienced such extreme fickleness of popular opinion that this conclusion has long been formed in my mind: that the great body of the people of this Province (without doubt there are many honourable exceptions), in no wise ignorant of their rights or the great value of them, are nevertheless shamefully indifferent into whose hands they commit their preservation and due exercise. Experience alone must teach the people. This experience is coming to them by painful lessons.... Under these circumstances I beg you will make my apology," etc. The letter appears in the _Advocate_ of March 13th, 1834, following one to a similar purport from Dr. Rolph. [190] It was continued for some time after by another hand, under the name of _The Correspondent and Advocate_. CHAPTER XIV. SEE, THE CONQUERING HERO COMES! [Sidenote: 1835.] Parliament met on the 15th of January, 1835, when the Reform majority in the Assembly were able to once more elect Mr. Bidwell to the Speakership. The vote stood thirty-one to twenty-seven. Among the minority were five or six Conservative members who repudiated the name of Tory, and were opposed to the policy of the official party, to whom, as has been seen,[191] they merely yielded a qualified support as the less of two evils. Such being the state of affairs in the Assembly, the Compact party were of course precluded from making any further serious attempts to keep Mackenzie out of the House. The proceedings of previous sessions relative to the several expulsions were upon motion of Mackenzie himself expunged from the journals of the House. The baneful domination letter was made the subject of a long discussion, in the course of which Mackenzie received some exceedingly hard hits from Solicitor-General Hagerman; but as he had been manifestly in the wrong in giving publicity to that letter, and as he had been disciplined by members of his party to keep silence in the event of an attack on that score, he sat quietly through the Solicitor-General's onslaught. The most important proceedings of the session, and the only ones of which it is necessary to take cognizance in these pages, were those relating to the Seventh Report of the Grievance Committee, to which frequent reference has already been made. On Friday, the 23rd of January, Mackenzie moved for and obtained the appointment of a Special Committee on Grievances, with power to send for persons, papers and records, and with authority to report to the House from time to time by bill, address or otherwise. Mackenzie himself acted as Chairman of the Committee, the other members of which, as finally struck, were Dr. Morrison, David Gibson and Charles Waters, one of the members for Prescott. The famous Seventh Report, which did more to arouse the Home Government on the subject of Upper Canadian affairs than all previous efforts in that direction, was completed and presented to the Assembly on Friday, the 10th of April. It was a truly formidable indictment. It recapitulated the various grievances under which the Province laboured, and which called loudly for remedy. These have been already set forth in former chapters of the present work, and need not here be enlarged upon. The prevailing tone of the Report was temperate and calm, and there is little or nothing in it to which serious exception can be taken, although, as may easily be discerned from internal evidence, the compilers felt strongly the importance of a vivid presentation of their case. The Report proper occupies only fifteen folio pages of the appendix to the official journals of the session; but the evidence taken by the Committee, and the various letters, papers and documents which go to make up the mass of valuable information submitted to the Assembly, extend to voluminous dimensions. In addition to the copies printed for insertion in the appendix to the journal, two thousand copies of the complete work were issued separately in octavo form for distribution. It thus obtained a considerable circulation throughout the Province; and a copy was also sent to each member of the British House of Commons. The first copy that left the binder's hands was forwarded to the Colonial Secretary. All the most pressing grievances were dealt with in greater or less detail, but special prominence was given to the necessity for a responsible Government--a Government responsible to public opinion, which must cease to exist when it ceases to command popular confidence. The wished-for settlement of this important question would necessarily comprehend and include the removal of many of the most glaring abuses to which the people of the Province had long been subject and the Reform party were keenly alive to the importance of obtaining the concession. More than a third of the Report proper was devoted to dealing with the question in its various aspects, and it was shown that the Provincial Executive were not only impervious to public opinion, but were also ready enough to disregard the views of the Home Government itself when those views failed to coincide with their own plans for self-aggrandizement. Some of the evidence taken was of the most compromising character, while the refusal of leading members of the Compact to answer certain questions propounded to them did not tend to place matters in a more favourable light. Archdeacon Strachan's response to many of the questions put to him amounted to a practical contempt of the Committee. "I do not answer that question."--"I have no answer to give."--"I refer you to the Constitutional Act."--"I cannot answer that question, owing to its assumptions, which I do not admit." Such are a few of his replies. The whole of his examination is worth reading, as exemplifying how far an intelligent man will sometimes permit bigotry and intolerance to gain possession of his soul. Indeed, the evidence of all the witnesses may be read with profit by those who wish to gain a full insight into the state of the Province at that time, and to fully appreciate the necessity which existed for a change in the mode of conducting public affairs. The report, though presented to the Assembly as above intimated, does not appear to have been formally adopted during the session, but the passing of the order for the printing of it, together with two thousand extra copies, amounted to a practical adoption, and was probably so considered. The Committee could easily have secured its adoption, for the vote on the Speakership had not fully represented the strength of the Opposition, who on several questions were able to command a majority of from ten to eleven. But the fact was again brought vividly home to the Reform party that mere success at the polls had availed them little. Notwithstanding the numerical minority of the official party in the Assembly, they continued to exercise supreme power, and to strengthen themselves by the constant dispensing of patronage. They controlled the Legislative Council, and could thus control the legislative powers of the Assembly, independently of any question of the numerical strength or weakness of the Opposition in that House. The Legislative Council now assumed an attitude of determined antagonism to the popular voice, and would entertain no legislation of a liberal character. The vivid realization of these facts gave a keen edge to the remarks on Responsible Government in the Grievance Committee's Report. An Address setting forth these various discouragements was forwarded to His Majesty by the Assembly. The language was respectful but firm, and it was hinted that, if a remedy were not provided, resort would have to be had to the extreme measure of withholding the usual supplies. Earnest petitions to His Majesty were at the same time sent across the Atlantic from some of the rural districts, praying that the principles of the British constitution might be applied to Canadian affairs. The Address and petitions were accompanied by the fullest documentary and other evidence, and, in conjunction with the Grievance Committee's Report, they stirred the Home Government to action. The Colonial Secretaryship had changed hands more than once since Mr. Stanley's tenure of office. The incumbent at this time, and for several years afterwards, was Lord Glenelg. His Lordship gave much consideration to the Report, and laid it before the King in person. The Home Government had by this time fully realized that there was much well-grounded discontent in the Canadas, and that something must be done to allay it. It was clear that the Reformers were justified in at least some of their demands, and that reasonable concessions should be made to them. This conviction led to an ungracious correspondence between the Colonial Office and Sir John Colborne,[192] who, owing, as is to be presumed, to the advice of Chief Justice Robinson and Archdeacon Strachan, was very reluctant to make concessions as suggested. As this reluctance was made manifest in the course of the correspondence, the Colonial Secretary resolved upon His Excellency's recall. Sir John had been appointed by a Tory Government, the traditions of which had been pretty well swept away by the effect of the Reform Bill. His mode of conducting the Provincial Administration may perhaps be to some extent palliated by the circumstances attending his appointment. But a Whig Government had now been for some time in power, and an effete colonial policy could not be permitted to be maintained to the detriment of colonial loyalty. If Sir John Colborne was not amenable to Whig discipline he must make way for some one of a more plastic mind. He was meanwhile instructed to delay the assembling of the Legislature until the Home Government could fully consider the aspect of affairs, and take such steps for the redress of the Provincial grievances as might seem advisable. Having arrived at this conclusion, the Colonial Secretary began to look about him for a successor to Sir John Colborne. It was not easy to find one in all respects suitable, for the appointment was not a prize of such magnitude as to attract persons of really first-rate abilities. There seems good reason to believe that the place was offered to at least two fairly competent public servants, both of whom declined it.[193] In view of his subsequent conduct, it is fair to assume that Lord Glenelg was sincerely anxious to do his best for Upper Canada, and to confer the appointment upon the best man within his reach. How ignominously he failed to carry out his wishes in this particular is known to every student of Upper Canadian history; but what is not known, either to students of history or anyone else, is--What was the motive power which directed his choice? By what whimsical combination of circumstances it came about that the appointment was finally offered to, and accepted by, one of the most unlikely men in the three kingdoms, is one of those official riddles which appear to defy solution. The fact remains, that the post of Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was conferred upon Sir Francis Bond Head, a Knight of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order, a retired half-pay Major, an Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner for one of the Kentish districts, and the author of several entertaining but exceedingly superficial books of travel. To no one was the appointment a greater surprise than to Sir Francis himself. He must have felt the utter absurdity of the thing--that he had no claim to such a post, and was disqualified from filling it with credit. He neither knew nor cared anything about Canada. He was altogether ignorant of politics. He had never joined any political party; never attended a political discussion; never even voted at an election or taken any part in one.[194] So far as any knowledge of the British constitution was concerned, he had as little as any Englishman of decent education could possibly have. He had no claim upon the Government; was not acquainted with any member of it; and had never so much as seen Lord Glenelg in his life.[195] It is certainly not strange that he should have been, as he says,[196] "altogether at a loss to conceive" why this appointment should have been offered to him. From that day down to the present time the circumstance has puzzled wiser heads than his, and there have been various attempts to solve the mystery. A tradition is said to be current in the Colonial Office that the appointment was the result of a singular misapprehension of identity, and the late Mr. Roebuck assured Sir Francis Hincks that such was really the fact.[197] A "distinguished Imperial statesman" also assured Sir Francis that he had heard the same statement,[198] which was to the effect that the person for whom the appointment was really intended was the kinsman of Sir Francis, afterwards Sir Edmund Walker Head, Governor-General of Canada. It is said that at a meeting of the Cabinet, while the selection of a successor to Sir John Colborne was under consideration, one of the Ministers suggested that "young Head" would be a likely man for the position--the person meant being Edmund Walker Head, who was even then known as possessing wide political knowledge, in so far, at least, as such knowledge can be obtained from books. Edmund was moreover known to many public men in Great Britain as an able writer on political subjects, and was a protégé of the Marquis of Lansdowne, who was at this time President of the Council, and, by consequence, a colleague of Lord Glenelg. Edmund, as well as Francis, was a Poor-Law Commissioner, though he occupied a more exalted position than his kinsman. Thus, it is argued, there was some show of excuse for confusing the one with the other. Lord Glenelg, so the story goes, took the suggestion of his colleague as applying to Sir Francis, and acted upon it; and before the error was discovered the appointment had been offered to and accepted by the wrong man.[199] How much truth there may be in this account of the matter it is not easy to say. Such a blunder would imply an amount of carelessness barely conceivable in the management of an important Department of the State. Sir Francis Hincks, however, who has enjoyed exceptional opportunities of discussing the story with leading English statesmen, is strongly disposed to believe it.[200] Whatever opinion may be formed as to its truth or falsity, certain it is that Sir Francis Bond Head received the appointment, and that his conduct in Upper Canada did more to alienate the minds of the colonists generally than anything which had been done by either Sir John Colborne or Sir Peregrine Maitland. There is this to be said on his behalf: that he came to Canada at a very critical time--at a time when diplomatic shrewdness and statesmanlike sagacity were imperatively demanded of one occupying the position of Lieutenant-Governor. Injustice had so long borne sway in the land that many of the inhabitants had ceased to hope for better times. Many despaired of the future, and a few, whose natural element was opposition, had little desire to be conciliated.[201] Even a born statesman would have found his task by no means a sinecure. To statesmanship no shadow of pretence could be made on behalf of Sir Francis Head. The texture of his mind was light and airy. He was inordinately vain and self-conscious; and, as has been seen, he was devoid of political knowledge and experience. The whole course of his previous life had been of a character to render him unfit for such greatness as was now thrust upon him. A considerable part of it had been spent in travel and adventure, and very little of it in study. He had left school at an early age, since which time he had encountered innumerable moving accidents by flood and field in various parts of the world. He had received a certain amount of training at the Military Academy at Woolwich, and had obtained a commission in the Royal Engineers in his nineteenth year. He had seen some active service in Spain towards the close of the Peninsular War; had been present at Quatre Bras and Waterloo, and had fought at Fleurus under the Prussian General Ziethan, where he had had his horse shot under him. After the restoration of peace he had for some time been engaged in making a trigonometrical survey of the island of Lampedoza, in the Mediterranean. Thence he had embarked in a Greek vessel for Tripoli; had been nearly wrecked through the skipper's intemperance, and had finally been put ashore at Malta. He had also been Byron-smitten, and had followed in the wake of the author of "Childe Harold" to the Levant; had contemplated "the Niobe of nations" among the ruins of Rome; had witnessed the dance of the dervishes amid the fallen temples of Athens; and had "felt his patriotism gain force upon the plain of Marathon."[202] He had twice visited South America as the agent of a company formed for the working of certain gold and silver mines, and known as the Rio de la Plata Mining Association. During one of these expeditions he had ridden on horseback from the port of Buenos Aires across the pampas to the silver mines of Upsallata, near the foot of the Andes, whence, without any companion whatever, he had galloped back to Buenos Aires--a distance of nearly a thousand miles--in the brief space of eight days. Then he had retraced his course across the pampas, and, collecting a party of miners at Mendoza, had conducted them over the Andes to Santiago, the capital of Chili. After "prospecting" the country in various directions, he had ridden back across the Andes and the pampas to Buenos Aires, having traversed six thousand miles on horseback in an inconceivably short time. His "Rough Notes" contains a graphic account of this expedition, and is very interesting reading. It won for him wide notoriety, and led to his being commonly referred to in the current literature of the time as "Galloping Head." His adventurous career had left an indelible stamp upon his character. He was rash, impetuous, inconsiderate and superficial, fond of producing dramatic effects, and ever with an eye to some _coup de théâtre_. He had not been a Poor-Law Commissioner long enough to have become thoroughly settled down when a king's messenger arrived at his Kentish abode about midnight, with a missive offering him the appointment of Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. He seems to have at first had sufficient good sense to decline the proffered honour; but he allowed himself to be talked into accepting it by Lord Glenelg and his under-secretary, Mr. Stephen. As I have said elsewhere: "The result of an appointment made under such circumstances was disaster to the Province, and something nearly approaching ignominy to himself. As a civil administrator in a disturbed and grievance-ridden colony, he was altogether out of his proper element, and furnished a signal instance of the round peg in the square hole. His administration extended over little more than two years, but during that period he contrived to embroil himself with his own Executive, with the Home Government from which he had received his appointment, and with pretty nearly every one who was desirous of promoting the cause of political liberty in Upper Canada. He also contrived to do an amount of mischief which left traces behind it for many years after he had ceased to have any control over Canadian affairs. And yet it would be most unjust to represent him as a deliberately bad or ill-intentioned man. He was simply a weak man out of his proper sphere."[203] That a man of such mental endowments should have been sent out to stem the tide of Upper Canadian discontent, and to conciliate noisy Radicals of the Mackenzie stamp, is in itself sufficient proof that a huge official blunder of some sort was committed. What was wanted was a statesman, and a man of Liberal political views. Had there been any, even the slightest inquiry, it would have been ascertained that Sir Francis hardly knew the meaning of the word statesman, and that he had no political views whatever. It is hardly going too far to say that on all current political subjects, whether pertaining to the colonies or the mother country, his mind was little more than a blank. Lord Glenelg had an elaborate paper of instructions prepared for the new Lieutenant-Governor, This was intended as the Imperial response to the strong representations which had been received from Upper Canada in the course of the year. Sir Francis was directed to communicate the substance of his instructions to both Houses of the Provincial Parliament. Having been schooled for a few days by Mr. Stephen, and having gone down to Brighton and been presented to the King, he set sail, with his suite, from Liverpool for Canada, by way of New York. While crossing the Atlantic he devoted some time to studying his instructions, together with the Seventh Report of the Grievance Committee, with which he had been provided at the Colonial office.[204] Upon arriving at New York he pushed on to his final destination. "There would be no end to this chapter," he writes, in the third chapter of his "Narrative," "were I to describe the simplicity of mind, ill-naturedly called ignorance, with which I approached the city of Toronto. With Mr. Mackenzie's heavy book of lamentations in my portmanteau, and with my remedial instructions in my writing case, I considered myself as a political physician, who, whether regularly educated or not, was about to effect a surprising cure; for, as I never doubted for a moment either the existence of the 553 pages of grievances, nor that I would mercilessly destroy them, root and branch, I felt perfectly confident that I should very soon be able proudly to report that the grievances of Upper Canada were defunct--in fact, that I had veni-ed, vidi-ed and vici-ed them." Infatuated man, to compare himself to Caesar, even in this half-jocular manner, at such a time, and to suppose that the bitter animosities which had been accumulating for the best part of a generation could be swept out of existence at the mere wave of the hand of such a weak substitute for "the mighty Julius" as he! [Sidenote: 1836.] He reached Toronto on the 23rd of January, 1836. Sir John Colborne was just ready to take his departure, to the great regret of the official party, and very much to the delight of the Reformers, who had been led to believe that the incoming Lieutenant-Governor was a thorough-going Liberal, sent over expressly to redress their grievances, and to hurl the Compact from the seat of power which they had so long usurped. Parliament had been assembled on the 14th of the month, and had ever since been expecting the arrival of the King's new representative. As for Sir John Colborne, he was in no good humour with the Imperial Government, although his rigid ideas as to discipline prevented him from giving utterance to his displeasure except to some of the members of the Executive, and even to them his views were imparted with great caution, and in the strictest secrecy.[205] In consequence of his unsatisfactory communications from the Colonial Office, he had for some time felt his position growing more and more uncomfortable, and had solicited his recall; but his deposition had been fully resolved upon before the receipt of his request by the Colonial Secretary. He had served out his full term of six years, and somewhat more, so that his removal did not imply any reflection upon him. His nature and training unfitted him to carry out the projects of Reform which it had been determined to set on foot, but, in his proper sphere, he was recognized as a valuable public servant, who had all his life done his duty according to the light which had been vouchsafed to him. The leading spirits of the ruling party in the Province contemplated his departure with gloomy forebodings. They also had been led to suppose that Sir Francis Head was a Reformer of wide experience, who was coming among them to introduce a new order of things. They resolved to put forth one great effort while the chance remained to them. They induced Sir John, before his departure, to perpetrate what may fitly be characterized as the most unstatesmanlike act of his life: an act which aroused a perfect transport of public indignation, and caused the name of the perpetrator to be execrated throughout the length and breadth of the Province. It will be remembered that[206] provision had been made by the Constitutional Act for the creation and endowment, out of the lands reserved for the support of a Protestant Clergy, of parsonages or rectories, according to the establishment of the Church of England. The discussion to which the Clergy Reserves had repeatedly given rise had prevented any advantage being taken of this authority. Nearly half a century had elapsed since the passing of the Constitutional Act, and as the power had been allowed to remain unexercised during all that time, there was good reason to believe that there would be no attempt to put it in operation, more especially in view of the strong feeling entertained with regard to the Reserves, and of the fact that the Provincial Parliament had been requested by the Imperial Government to legislate on the subject. Previous Colonial Secretaries, Lord Goderich among the number, had given what might fairly be construed as pledges on the part of the Imperial Government that no steps would be taken with respect to the disposal of any part of the Reserves, unless in accord with the views of a majority of the Upper Canadian people. Yet Sir John allowed himself to be persuaded into creating and endowing forty-four rectories[207] with more that 17,000 acres of land, giving an average of about 386 acres to each. These were put in possession of clergymen, who were thus enabled to acquire such a personal vested and possessory interest in the lands as, it was believed, would enable them to make good their titles thereto in a court of law. This most reprehensible "clerical land grab" was made on the 15th of January, eight days before the arrival of Sir John Colborne's successor, and while Sir Francis was actually _en route_ for Toronto. It was thus one of Sir John's last official acts. It is said that he was with difficulty brought to accede to the advice of his Council on the subject. He at all events seemed to feel that his creation of the rectories was an extraordinary act, and he took care to say nothing about the matter to the Imperial Government, who did not discover the facts until Sir Francis Head had been for some time in office. That the creation and endowment of the rectories were the means of greatly intensifying the general discontent throughout the Province, and that they were thus factors in bringing about the Rebellion, is beyond question; though to say, as has been said by Mackenzie and others, that they were the _prime_ factors, is to talk nonsense. The sequel of the story may as well be briefly outlined here. The Executive Council kept the matter secret as long as they could, but it was of such a nature that its early disclosure was inevitable. The transaction became public property in the course of the spring, soon after the close of the session of Parliament. No sooner did it become known than the public indignation began to manifest itself in lurid speeches and newspaper articles. Meetings were held to denounce Sir John Colborne and those who had prompted him to this high-handed iniquity. The Wesleyan Methodist Conference and the Synod of the Church of Scotland in Upper Canada, if agreeing on no other subject, were of one mind as to this, and officially pronounced upon it with a vehemence which commended itself to popular opinion. Petitions without number were sent over the sea. "The Imperial Government," says Mr. Lindsey,[208] "was besieged with petitions, praying for the annulment of the rectories. The temper of the public mind became imbued with that sullenness which a sense of injury begets, and which forebodes the approach of civil commotion. It was the idea of violated Imperial faith; of a broken compact between the Sovereign and his Canadian subjects, that constituted the sting of the injury. The people recurred to the promise of Lord Goderich that their wishes should be the Sovereign's guide in the matter, and regarded themselves as the victims of a deception which brought dishonour on the Crown and distrust on Imperial faith." The Home Government were in two minds about repudiating the transaction. The right of the Lieutenant-Governor to create and endow without the express assent of the King was not perfectly clear, and the Law Officers of the Crown were consulted on the question. Those gentlemen, on the case submitted for their consideration, pronounced the opinion that there had been an excess of authority, and that the creation and endowment were invalid. Dr. Strachan, upon becoming acquainted with this circumstance, prepared a report embodying certain facts and documents which had not been before the Law Officers, to whom the case was now submitted a second time. The additional data placed a different face upon the question, and the Law Officers arrived at a conclusion contrary to that which they had formerly expressed. The grantees were accordingly permitted to retain their property undisturbed, but the name of Sir John Colborne continued to be execrated in Upper Canada for his share in the transaction for many a year.[209] FOOTNOTES: [191] _Ante_, pp. 231, 232. [192] See _Report of a Select Committee of the House of Assembly on the Political State of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada_, p. 25. Toronto, 1838. [193] See _Rough Notes on Head's Narrative_, by a Liberal, p. 17. London, 1840. [194] See his _Narrative_, Chapter III. [195] _Narrative_, Chapter II. [196] _Ib._ [197] See _Reminiscences of his Public Life_, by Sir Francis Hincks, K.C.M.G., C.B. p. 14. Montreal, 1884. [198] _Ib._, p. 15. [199] See _The Canadian Portrait Gallery_, vol iv., p. 172. [200] _Reminiscences_, etc., pp. 14, 15. [201] The Colonial Office could not even plead, in extenuation of such a fatal blunder as the appointment of Sir F. B. Head, that it was unaware of the importance of the crisis in colonial affairs. In the beginning of the instructions prepared for Sir Francis, dated "Downing Street, December 15th, 1835," the following words may be found: "I have the honour herewith to transmit to you a Commission, under His Majesty's sign-manual, appointing you Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Upper Canada. You have been selected for this office at an era of more difficulty and importance than any which has hitherto occurred in the history of that part of His Majesty's dominions. The expression of confidence in your discretion and ability which the choice implies would only be weakened by any more formal assurance which I could convey to you." What a commentary upon such language was furnished by the mere fact of the appointment of such an one as Sir Francis Head! [202] See a brief account of Sir F. B. Head's life published in _The Courier of Upper Canada_ of June 11th, 1836, written by Alan Fairford (John Kent), and prefixed, with notes, to the collection of his Excellency's _Speeches, Messages and Replies_, published at Toronto during the same year. [203] _Canadian Portrait Gallery_, Vol. II., p. 169, where the sentences above quoted form part of a tolerably full sketch of the life of Sir F. B. Head. [204] He seems to have been provided with a duplicate copy by Joseph Hume. See that gentleman's letter to Mackenzie, dated 5th December, 1835, and included in the third chapter of Head's _Narrative_. [205] See _Report of a Select Committee of the Assembly_, etc., 1838. See also _The Rectory Question_, p. 2. Toronto, 1836. [206] _Ante_, p. 63. [207] The intention was to create fifty-seven rectories, and patents for that number were actually made out, but thirteen of them were left unsigned by the Lieutenant-Governor, and the authorities refused to complete them or to admit their validity. See _The Rectories of Upper Canada, being a Return to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons_, etc. Colonial Office, Downing Street, 1839. See also _The Last Forty Years_, vol. ii., p. 199: _Religious Endowments in Canada; a Chapter of Canadian History_, by Sir Francis Hincks, K.C.M.G., C.B.; London, 1869. [208] See _The Clergy Reserves, their History and Present Position_, by Charles Lindsey, pp. 30, 31. Toronto, 1851. [209] It has not been deemed necessary to go very fully into the Rectory question in these pages. Anyone desiring to do so will find very full details in the various authorities above cited. CHAPTER XV. "A TRIED REFORMER." Sir Francis Head, upon reaching Toronto on Saturday, the 23rd of January, temporarily took up his quarters at a hotel, where apartments had been engaged for him. He was not a little surprised, as he rode along the streets, to see himself placarded in large letters on the walls as "Sir Francis Head, a Tried Reformer." What a farce the thing must have appeared in his eyes, knowing, as he did, that up to the date of receiving the king's messenger, he had never read a page of practical politics; that he had never recorded a political vote, and that he was at this present moment, to use his own frank expression, no more connected with human politics than the horses that were drawing him! How he must have marvelled at Fate for playing him such a trick! On the same day, at the urgent request of Sir John Colborne, he removed to Government House. On Monday, the 25th, he was sworn into office as Lieutenant-Governor; and on Tuesday Sir John and his family took their departure for Montreal. The Compact took care that their staunch friend should not leave the seat of his Government without some mark of what might pass for popular favour. A crowd of persons was got together to cheer as Sir John passed along the streets on his way eastward, and a stranger might have been excused for believing that the ex-Lieutenant-Governor was regarded by the populace with feelings of the warmest affection. He proceeded to Montreal, and had arranged to sail from New York for England, when he received a despatch appointing him Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in Canada. He accordingly repaired to Quebec, the capital of the Lower Province, which was already in a state of ferment, and preparing for the outburst which ensued towards the close of the following year. Sir Francis being now formally installed in office, an era of Reform was commonly supposed to have begun. His manner and address were in the highest degree pleasing, and he at first produced a most favourable impression upon all who came within the immediate circle of his influence. The Reform press sang paeans in his praise. He held no sooner received his appointment than Joseph Hume had written to Mackenzie congratulating the Province on the circumstance, and stating that the conduct and principles of Sir Francis had been much approved of. "My anxiety is," wrote Mr. Hume, "that you and all the Reformers should receive Sir Francis in the best possible manner, and do everything consistent with principle to meet his views and wishes."[210] The fact was that Mr. Hume was in precisely the same condition as Lord Glenelg himself with respect to Sir Francis: that is to say, he knew nothing whatever about him. He seems to have very unwisely taken it for granted that the new Lieutenant-Governor was a good man for the position because he had been appointed under Whig auspices. His letter found its way into all the Reform newspapers in Upper Canada, and Sir Francis had no reason to complain of the treatment he received at their hands. He was welcomed as the "Tried Reformer" for whom they had so long prayed in vain. The Tories and Conservatives, on the other hand, naturally regarded him with considerable apprehension. They entertained no doubt that his advent boded their downfall; but they were too wise to betray any solicitude, and quietly waited the march of events. Parliament being in session, he received from both Houses congratulatory addresses upon his assumption of the Government. On the 27th he went down to the Council Chamber, and made a brief and rather meaningless speech to the Legislature.[211] "As regards myself," said he, "I have nothing either to promise or profess, but I trust I shall not call in vain upon you to give me that loyal, constitutional, unbiased and fearless assistance which your King expects, and which the rising interests of your country require." He had been directed by Lord Glenelg to communicate to the Provincial Legislature the substance of his instructions. He not only communicated the substance, but a verbatim copy of the letter itself, together with a copy of the appendix, to each of the Houses. By this injudicious proceeding he caused no little embarrassment to the Colonial Secretary, and proved his utter want of experience in diplomatic affairs.[212] Lord Glenelg, in common with the official world of Great Britain generally, felt and expressed strong disapprobation of this extraordinary conduct on the part of the Lieutenant-Governor, who ought to have been recalled for this act alone, and probably would have been but for the difficulty of finding a competent man to succeed him. A certain space must be devoted to an examination of these instructions. Speaking generally, it may be premised that they showed a disposition to conciliate the discontent of the colonists, but only after a partial and piecemeal fashion, such as might be exercised towards persons in a state of tutelage. It was evident that the Home Government regarded the colonists as persons who had not reached full political stature, who were not in all cases able to judge as to what was best for themselves, and who needed the constant supervision of calmer and loftier intelligences than their own. In reply to the allegation that the number of public offices in the colony was in excess of the people's needs, it was said that in Upper Canada, as in other new countries, the number of public employments was necessarily larger in proportion than in older and more densely-peopled states. "In the early stages of such a society," wrote Lord Glenelg, "many duties devolve upon the Government which, at a more advanced period, are undertaken by the better educated and wealthier classes, as an honourable occupation of their leisure time." He went on to say that His Majesty's Government were not solicitous to retain more patronage than was necessary for the people's welfare, but that the selection of public officers must be entrusted to the head of the local Government, and could not wisely be exercised in any form of popular election, or committed to any popular body. Such exercise or transfer, it was suggested, would be destructive of responsibility and discipline. This doctrine was laid down as a general rule of action, but any wish to urge it beyond its just and necessary limits was expressly disclaimed, and it was even suggested that there were cases in which the doctrine might be contravened. There was no attempt to go into details as to specific cases, but it was stated as a general principle that whatever patronage was necessary to maintain perfect subordination to the prerogatives of the Crown must be retained, and that whatever was unnecessary for that purpose should be abandoned. His Excellency was directed to review and consider the subject with diligence, and to report the result of his investigation. Should he meanwhile deem it wise to reduce the number of offices, either by abolition or consolidation, he was authorized to exercise his discretion in that respect, but any appointment made under such circumstances was to be merely provisional, and subject to cancellation by the Home Government. In the selection of persons for public offices his Excellency was to be guided exclusively by the comparison of the claims of the candidates by reason of past services or personal qualifications; and as a general rule no person was to be appointed to office who was not either a native of the Province or a settled inhabitant of it. Exceptions to this latter rule were admitted where a knowledge of some particular art or science was demanded, and where no Provincial candidate could be found possessing the necessary qualifications. His Excellency was also left free from restriction in the choice of those officers immediately attached to his own person. There were various other directions, not necessary to be specified, on the subjects of patronage and pensions, salaries and fees, and the Provincial Post Office. The Clergy Reserves question was dealt with in the most general manner, no definite course being suggested; and the instructions on this subject are absolutely devoid of historical or other value. With regard to the Land-Granting Department, it was assumed that some of the grievances had been remedied. Reference was made to a despatch of Lord Ripon's on the subject, and it was stated that any ambiguity therein was to be removed, while prompt obedience to the instructions embodied therein was inculcated. Upper Canada College, established by Sir John Colborne only five years before this time, had already become a ground of offence to many Reformers. The Assembly, in their Address to His Majesty, had declared that it was upheld at great public expense, with high salaries to its principal masters. They had expressed the opinion that the Province in general derived very little advantage from it, and that it might be dispensed with. On this subject Lord Glenelg remarked that there was no desire to retain any charge for the establishment more than sufficient to suitably provide for the effective performance of the teachers; but the advantages of such an institution, it was said, ought to be great, and if the Province derived no benefit from it the explanation was to be found in some error of management susceptible of remedy. His Lordship remarked that he should deeply lament the abolition of a college "of which the defects would appear so remediable, and of which it does not seem easy to exaggerate the benefits." As for King's College, which was another educational bone of contention between the two branches of the Provincial Legislature, it was intimated that His Majesty would cheerfully resume the consideration of the charter, provided the assent of both Houses to his doing so could be obtained, but that, as the subject had been committed to the local Legislature, he could not withdraw it from their cognizance at the instance of one branch only. The system of auditing the public accounts had been complained of as being insufficient for ensuring the proper application of the revenue. As a remedy, the establishment of a Board of Audit, the regulation of which should be secured by well-considered legislation, had been suggested. In this suggestion the Colonial Secretary expressed his concurrence, and he transmitted various documents explanatory of the system of auditing the public accounts of the Kingdom. The Assembly having expressed its belief that the Legislative Council would not assent to any efficient legislation on the subject, the Lieutenant-Governor was empowered, in case of that belief being realized, to constitute a provisional Board of Audit. To remedy another evil which had been complained of--the withholding of public accounts from the Assembly--it was proposed that a statute should be passed providing the time and manner of making periodical returns, and naming the officers who should render them to the Legislature. Then followed brief instructions to be observed by the Lieutenant-Governor in his intercourse with the Assembly. "You will always," wrote his Lordship, "receive the addresses of the Assembly with the most studious attention and courtesy. As far as may be consistent with your duty to the King, you will accede to their wishes cheerfully and frankly. Should that duty ever compel you to differ from their opinion, or to decline compliance with their desires, you will explain in the most direct, and of course in the most conciliatory terms, the ground of your conduct." His Excellency was instructed to adopt Lord Goderich's despatch to Sir John Colborne of the 8th of November, 1832,[213] as a rule for the guidance of his conduct. He was directed to select Justices of the Peace without reference to political considerations. In the Grievance Committee's Report, as well as in the Address from the Assembly to the King, great stress had been laid on the mode of appointing members of the Legislative Council. It had been represented that that body had utterly failed to answer the ends for which it had been created, and that the restoration of legislative harmony and good government required its reconstruction on the elective principle.[214] The inhabitants of the Lower Province felt still more strongly on this subject than did their fellow-colonists in Upper Canada, and had made urgent representations to His Majesty thereupon in ninety-two resolutions which had been adopted by the local Assembly during the session of 1834. "The greatest defect in the constitution of Canada," said they, "is the right of nomination, by the Crown, of the Legislative Councillors." These resolutions had led to the appointment by the Imperial Government of a commission of investigation into the affairs of Lower Canada, and as the principles bearing upon the question of an elective Legislative Council were the same in both Provinces, Lord Glenelg now contented himself with appending the instructions issued to the commissioners, and referring to the views therein contained as having received the deliberate sanction of the King. A similar device was adopted with respect to the demand for the control by the Assembly of the territorial and casual revenues of the Crown. The one great overshadowing question of Executive responsibility was dealt with by Lord Glenelg in a most perfunctory and unsatisfactory manner. It was apparent that he either wholly failed to grasp the real significance of the theme, or that he fenced with it for the mere purpose of beguiling the colonists with a counterfeit presentment. "Experience would seem to prove," he wrote, "that the administration of public affairs in Canada is by no means exempt from the control of a sufficient practical responsibility. To His Majesty and to Parliament the Governor of Upper Canada is at all times most fully responsible for his official acts. That this responsibility is not merely nominal, but that His Majesty feels the most lively interest in the welfare of his Canadian subjects, and is ever anxious to devote a patient and laborious attention to any representations which they may address to him, either through their representatives or as individuals, is proved not only by the whole tenor of the correspondence of my predecessors in this office, but by the despatch which I am now addressing to you. That the Imperial Parliament is not disposed to receive with inattention the representations of their Canadian fellow-subjects is attested by the labours of the committees which have been appointed by the House of Commons during the last few years to inquire into matters relating to those Provinces." It was declared to be the Lieutenant-Governor's duty to vindicate to the King and the Imperial Parliament every act of his administration. In the event of any complaint being preferred against him, his conduct was to receive the most favourable construction. The Assembly, it was said, were at all times able to invoke the interference of the King and Parliament. Every public officer was to depend on the King's pleasure--_i.e._, upon the pleasure of the Lieutenant-Governor--for the tenure of his office. Certain rules were then laid down, the observance of which, it was said, would produce a system of perfect responsibility. As these rules differed in no essential respect from those which had consistently been acted upon by Francis Gore, Sir Peregrine Maitland and Sir John Colborne, it was evident that the system of responsibility contemplated by Lord Glenelg was not identical with that desired by Upper Canadian Reformers. Lord Glenelg certainly made good his asseveration that the Upper Canadian Executive were "practically responsible." But to whom were they responsible? To the Upper Canadian people? Not at all. The responsibility was to the King and Parliament of Great Britain--that is to say, to Downing Street, several thousand miles away. Of what avail was such responsibility, guarded, as it was, by secret despatches, "like a system of espionage"?[215] Had this responsibility to Downing Street ever saved "a single martyr to Executive displeasure"?[216] Had it been of any avail for the protection of Robert Gourlay, Captain Matthews, Francis Collins or Robert Randal? Had it preserved from the dry pan and the slow fire any one of a score of individuals whose only offence against the State was that they would not willingly sacrifice their rights, and become the tools of venality and corruption? In not one solitary instance had it served any such purpose. Such responsibility was a mockery, "a broken reed, which it would be folly ever again to rest upon."[217] Of real, constitutional responsibility to the people there was not so much as a pretence. "All the powers of the Government," says Mr. Lindsey, "were centralized in Downing Street, and all the colonial officers, from the highest to the lowest, were puppets in the hands of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. At the same time, the outward trappings of a constitutional system, intended to amuse the colonists, served no other end than to irritate and exasperate men who had penetration enough to detect the mockery, and whose self-respect made them abhor the sham."[218] In an early paragraph of these instructions, Lord Glenelg had objected, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, to any resort on the part of the Assembly to that ulterior measure--the stoppage of the supplies--to which allusion had been made in the Address of that body, and had referred to it as a proceeding to be justified only by an extreme emergency. He concluded with an expression of earnest hope that the representatives of the Upper Canadian people would receive with gratitude and cordiality this renewed proof of His Majesty's paternal solicitude for the welfare of his loyal subjects in the Province, and that, laying aside all groundless distrusts, they would cheerfully coöperate with the King and the Lieutenant-Governor in advancing the prosperity of "that interesting and valuable portion of the British Empire." As already mentioned, the full text of the instructions was communicated by the new Lieutenant-Governor to the Upper Canadian Assembly. Apart from the fact that this proceeding was not warranted either by usage or express permission, it was short-sighted and unwise, for the instructions were not such as to be by any means satisfactory, either to the official party or the Opposition. The Opposition perceived that, under a cover of many fair words and specious phrases, there was very little substantial concession. To the official party it seemed that the spirit of concession was manifested much too strongly, and as the appointment of Sir Francis Head had been hailed by the Reformers as a triumph, anything in the nature of concession, filtered through such a medium, was naturally regarded with strong suspicion. As for Sir Francis himself, his mind seems to have been for some weeks in a chaotic state. He had not been installed in office many days before he had a succession of private interviews with several leading members of the Reform party. In the course of a conversation with Mr. Bidwell, who, it will be remembered, was Speaker of the Assembly, he for the first time became aware that the Report of the Grievance Committee was not recognized by the Reform party as being a complete exposition of the case as between the Home Government and themselves.[219] He soon after had an interview with Mackenzie, who, in conjunction with Dr. Morrison, was chiefly responsible for the existence of the Report. "I thought," writes Sir Francis,[220] "that of course he would be too happy to discuss with me the contents of his own book, but his mind seemed to nauseate its subjects even more than Mr. Bidwell's. Afraid to look me in the face, he sat, with his feet not reaching the ground, and with his countenance averted from me, at an angle of about seventy degrees; while, with the eccentricity, the volubility, and indeed the appearance of a madman, the tiny creature raved about grievances here and grievances there, which the Committee, he said, had not ventured to enumerate." This was a revelation to the Lieutenant-Governor, and set him thinking. He attempted to discuss the merits of the Report with various persons, but encountered what was to him an inexplicable reluctance to talk about it. All were ready to discuss the grievances themselves, but no leading Reformer was disposed to admit the Report into the discussion. The reason of this was doubtless because the Report had been chiefly fathered by Mackenzie, and they were unwilling to accept him as their mouthpiece. As for Mackenzie's own disinclination to enter into a discussion of the matter, it probably arose from a feeling that it would be unwise for him to tie himself down to a particular record, beyond which he would not be permitted to travel. Sir Francis, writing three years afterwards, declares that "the light of truth" at once burst upon his mind, and that he perceived that the Grievance Report was a mere pretext for Rebellion.[221] It is quite clear that he perceived nothing of the kind, and that "the light of truth" was a mere after-thought with him. It is impossible for one in his sober senses to see what does not exist, and at this time there was no purpose of rebellion in the heart of anyone with whom the Lieutenant-Governor came in contact--not even in the heart of Mackenzie himself, who might easily have been conciliated by wisdom and prudence. Had Sir Francis been half as clever and astute as he professed to believe himself to be--nay, had he even been fairly honest and truthful, and possessed of the most ordinary good sense--there would probably have been no such thing as an Upper Canadian Rebellion. He had not been a fortnight in the country when suggestions began to be made to him from various quarters as to the membership of the Executive Council. That body, for the nonce, consisted of only three persons, namely, Peter Robinson, Commissioner of Crown Lands; George Herchmer Markland, Inspector-General; and Joseph Wells, Bursar of King's College. The presence of all three of these persons was necessary to the formation of a quorum, and in case of the illness or unavoidable absence of any one of them the public business would have been interrupted and delayed. Mr. Robinson, moreover, was not only an Executive Councillor, but, as just mentioned, was also Commissioner of Crown Lands. In the former capacity the duty was imposed upon him of taking part in the auditing of his own accounts. This invidious necessity would no longer exist if additional members were appointed, as a quorum could easily be obtained without Mr. Robinson's presence being required at the Council Board. These facts were indisputable, and the argument to be deduced therefrom was unanswerable. Additional Councillors must be appointed. But from what class of the community should they be selected? Sir Francis, the "Tried Reformer," had begun to conceive a distaste for the Reformers of Upper Canada. There seemed to be a natural antagonism between him and them. The reason is not far to seek. Persons of the social grade of Mackenzie were inconceivably odious to this "diner-out of the first water;" while men like Bidwell and Baldwin made him painfully conscious of his own littleness and insufficiency for the task which he had undertaken. Yet he could not venture to call to his Council any of the remnant of the Tory Compact, and thereby utterly ignore the Liberal principles which were presumed to have dictated his appointment. The Tories, moreover, had seen fit to petition the King against his very first administrative act--the appointment of a Surveyor-General. As for the Conservatives, as distinct from the Tories, they had not yet formulated a distinct policy, and none of their leaders had come very conspicuously to the front. It seemed clear, then, that the choice must be made from the Reform ranks. After much deliberation and inquiry,[222] the Lieutenant-Governor came to the conclusion that approaches should be made to Robert Baldwin, a gentleman to whom he refers as "highly respected for his moral character, being moderate in his politics, and possessing the esteem and confidence of all parties."[223] His Excellency's resolve on this subject was approved of by the Speakers of the two Houses, as well as by the three members of the Council, to all of whom the project was submitted before any attempt was made to carry it out. When the proposal was made to Mr. Baldwin it was received by him with becoming respect, but with a coolness of demeanour which was far from flattering to the vanity of Sir Francis, who seems to have expected that the recipient would be well-nigh overwhelmed by the honour. The latter stated that he was very reluctant to again embark in public life, and he explained his views on the political situation with great frankness. There were several interviews, in the course of which Sir Francis did his utmost to induce Mr. Baldwin to accede to his wishes. Mr. Baldwin required time for consideration, an indulgence which was of course accorded. The Lieutenant-Governor being anxious to carry his point, sent for Mr. Baldwin's father, Dr. W. W. Baldwin, for the purpose of securing his influence in the negotiations. Father and son were both of one mind. There was little or nothing in common between the political sentiments of the three members of the existing Executive Council and the man whom it was proposed to add to their number. How, then, could it be expected that they would agree as to the policy of the Administration. If they did not agree, what would Mr. Baldwin's single voice avail against the other three? And, even admitting that this anomaly could be got rid of, it was deemed necessary that there should be some understanding on the subject of Executive responsibility before Mr. Baldwin could consent to accept a seat in the Council. He and his father, from whom his political ideas had been chiefly derived, had for years contended that Responsible Government already existed in Upper Canada by virtue of the Constitutional Act, and that when a Government failed to command a majority of votes in the Assembly it was legally bound to resign. It was of course notorious that this principle had never been recognized by the Provincial Administration, but Mr. Baldwin was of opinion that the constitution had been systematically violated in this particular. In talking over the matter with the Lieutenant-Governor he now discovered that the latter was entirely unacquainted with constitutional questions, and that he had no ideas on the subject whatever, beyond such as he had picked up within the past few days. Still, his Excellency's good temper, and his seeming anxiety to do his duty, won upon the sympathies of Mr. Baldwin, who naturally felt desirous to be of service to a man who had come to Canada in the guise of a tried Reformer, and who professed to be actuated by a sincere desire to govern the colony on Liberal principles. After several courteous refusals, and after much consideration and repeated consultations with his friends, Mr. Baldwin consented to accept office, provided that seats in the Council were at the same time offered to his father, and to Dr. Rolph and Mr. Bidwell. Dr. Baldwin was so unwilling to accept the cares of office that his name was dropped by common consent. To Dr. Rolph no objection was felt, but his Excellency had conceived an antagonism towards Mr. Bidwell, with whom he had had frequent interviews, and who had not scrupled to express himself with much freedom on the necessity for a regular system of Provincial Reform. After considerable discussion, it was agreed that John Henry Dunn, the Provincial Receiver-General, should be substituted for Mr. Bidwell. Mr. Dunn was not a member of any political party, nor had he any special aptitude for political life; but he was a man of high character and moderate views, and was held in much public estimation. On Saturday the 20th of February the three new Councillors were sworn into office and gazetted, "until the King's pleasure be known."[224] The three old members retained their places. This manifestation of a resolve to carry on the Government of the Province by means of Councillors possessing the public confidence was hailed with great favour by the Reform party, and indeed by the Conservatives as well, for Messieurs Baldwin, Rolph and Dunn were persons for whom the highest respect was felt by all classes of the community, and were regarded as being altogether above suspicion. Even the members of the Compact were disposed to favour the arrangement, for, in consequence of rumours which had reached their ears, they had dreaded that the Lieutenant-Governor might possibly ally himself with the Radicals, who, if placed in power, would have done their utmost to exact a reckoning for past abuses. Upon the whole, then, Sir Francis had materially strengthened his position. But the strength was fictitious rather than real, and the baseless fabric which he had reared with such pains quickly tottered and fell. The three new Councillors were not long in discovering that their places were sinecures. His Excellency wanted none of their counsel, and had no intention of permitting them to have any real voice in the carrying-on of the Government. To one person only did he apply for advice in every emergency. That person was not a member of the Government, and was therefore an unsworn counsellor, under no semblance of responsibility to anybody. He was a power behind the throne, with all the privileges and none of the disabilities attaching to such a position. The gentleman elevated to this anomalous dignity was Chief Justice Robinson, Speaker of the Legislative Council, the master-spirit of the Family Compact, and the life-long champion of those very abuses which the "Tried Reformer" was currently supposed to have been sent out to remove. The Councillors, old as well as new, were treated as mere figure-heads. They were consulted about land matters and insignificant questions of detail, but the policy and measures of the Government seldom passed under their review, or were submitted to them for advice.[225] Some of these measures were such as they could not approve or sanction. His Excellency nominated two adherents of the old official party to vacant offices upon which they had no sort of claim. He refused the royal assent to the Felons' Counsel Bill, a measure "demanded by justice and humanity, and passed for more than ten years, almost unanimously, by repeated and different Houses of Assembly."[226] The Councillors were thus made to seem responsible for acts over which they had no control, and of which some of them, at least, highly disapproved. The Reform party were astonished to see such things done under the auspices of a Government of which Robert Baldwin and Dr. Rolph were members. They however acquitted both those gentleman of having advised such acts. It was believed by Reformers generally that the three new Councillors were not consulted, or else that the old members, with the umpirage of the Lieutenant-Governor, predominated.[227] This state of things could not be allowed to continue. The Executive Councillors consulted together, and determined upon a remonstrance with the Lieutenant-Governor. This remonstrance was formally prepared in writing, and sent in to his Excellency on Friday, the 4th of March. The three old members concurred in it, and it was signed by all the six in order of seniority. The mere fact of this concurrence affords strong evidence of the growth of the power of public opinion in the Province. In past times members of the Executive Council had been content to pose as figure-heads year after year, while John Beverley Robinson and one or two others manipulated and directed the whole course of public affairs. It is probable, however, that in the present instance the three senior Councillors may have been influenced by the arguments of Baldwin and Rolph, who felt very strongly on the question at issue. The Lieutenant-Governor's reply, every paragraph of which bears evidence of the Chief Justice's cunning hand, is dated on the following day, but was not actually communicated until the next regular Council day, which was Thursday, the 10th. It contained a firm but courteous expression of his Excellency's dissent from the opinions expressed by the Executive Councillors as to their privileges and duties. It was contended that the Lieutenant-Governor was the sole responsible minister, and the difference between the constitution of the mother-country and the colony was referred to as being highly advantageous to the latter. His Excellency, it was said, was only bound to consult his Council when he felt the need of their advice, and to do so on the innumerable subjects upon which he was daily compelled to decide would be "as utterly impossible as for any one but himself to decide upon what points his mind required or needed" advice. The position taken by the Councillors was declared to be unconstitutional, but his Excellency informed them that his estimation of their talents and integrity, as well as his personal regard for them, remained unshaken, and that he was not insensible to the difficulties to which he would be exposed should they deem it necessary to resign. He added, however, that should they be of opinion that their oaths required them to retire from office, he begged that they would not on his account hesitate to do so. As they were very strongly of that opinion, they waited on his Excellency on Saturday, the 12th, and tendered their resignations, which were accepted. They had held office precisely three weeks. The clue to this puzzle is easily found. Sir Francis had conceived an utter distaste for the persons and political principles of the Reformers of Upper Canada. There was an inherent antagonism between the nature of this shallow, feather-brained sketcher by the wayside and the natures of men like Rolph, Bidwell and the Baldwins, whose quiet earnestness and fixity of purpose had been intensified by the long course of injustice to which they, in common with their party, had been subjected. The earnestness of these gentlemen presented itself to him in the light of importunity, if not of impertinence. He could hardly be expected to sympathize very strongly with their unconquerable zeal for principles which he did not understand: which he was perhaps incapable of understanding. Then, Sir Francis was an eminently social personage, and the social qualities of the leaders of Upper Canadian Reform were not of a high order. To them, small talk across the walnuts and the wine seemed utterly incongruous in view of the momentous public questions which were urgently pressing for a solution. In this particular they presented a marked contrast to the leading spirits of the Compact. The Robinsons, Hagermans and Sherwoods, one and all, could not only advise the Lieutenant-Governor on the affairs of the Province, but could be pleasant and entertaining companions. They were not very different from the county magistrates and other officials with whom he had been accustomed to confer in his capacity of a poor-law commissioner. They were moreover exceedingly diplomatic. They saw the importance of winning him to their side, and governed themselves accordingly. They lost no opportunity of making themselves agreeable to him. Instead of boring him with what, to his understanding, seemed abstruse speculations on executive responsibility and an elective Legislative Council, they scouted such doctrines as myths begotten in the moody brains of unpractical and discontented men. The wide knowledge, long experience and specious eloquence of the Chief Justice enabled him to present the Tory side of these arguments with much plausibility. Sir Francis soon became convinced that the issue was not merely between two sides of colonial politics, but between monarchy and republicanism, between loyalty and disloyalty, between Great Britain and the United States. As he afterwards declared, he believed that he was "sentenced to contend on the soil of America with Democracy,[228]" and that if he did not overpower it, he would himself be compelled to succumb. Having brought himself to this conclusion, he not unnaturally preferred the _role_ of the hammer to that of the anvil. It was surely better to strike than to be struck. Acting on this principle, he made a complete surrender of himself to the Family Compact, and from that time forward was in all essential respects guided by their counsels. His rashness and impetuosity sometimes led him to act on his own motion, and without waiting to take counsel from any quarter; but in all ordinary affairs of administration he was guided by Sir John Robinson quite as effectually as Sir John Colborne had ever been. No sooner was it announced that the Executive Councillors had all resigned office than the public pulse began to beat at an accelerated pace. The excitement was greatly intensified upon the publication of a letter written by Robert Baldwin to Peter Perry, in which, by the Lieutenant-Governor's special permission, all the attendant circumstances were set forth in detail. This letter, having been written for the express purpose of being read by Mr. Perry from his place in the Assembly, and of being afterwards published in the newspapers, is somewhat formal and official in its tone, but it presents the subject-matter in a clear light, and must be regarded as an important contribution to the history of Responsible Government in Upper Canada. It is the chief, indeed the only trustworthy original authority for the facts as to the precise dispute between Sir Francis and his Council, for the former's account[229] is more than usually incomplete and one-sided when dealing with this episode. The essential portions of Mr. Baldwin's presentation of the case have been embodied in the foregoing narrative. The Lieutenant-Governor lost no time in providing himself with a new Council. On the 14th of March, when the resignation was only two days old, an extraordinary issue of the _Gazette_ announced that Robert Baldwin Sullivan, John Elmsley, Augustus Baldwin and William Allan had been appointed members of the Executive Council of the Province. The reader has already made the acquaintance of all these gentlemen with the exception of Augustus Baldwin, who was a retired naval officer of high character, but of no particular politics; a brother of Dr. Baldwin, and by consequence an uncle of Robert Baldwin. All four of the new Councillors were persons of character and position, but they were not in sympathy with the Liberal sentiments of the period, and the people generally were not disposed to place any political confidence in them. Elmsley and Allan were consistent, old-fashioned Tories. Baldwin's leanings, so far as he had any, were in the same direction. Sullivan's youth and early life had been passed amid more or less Liberal influences, but of late he had shown a retrogressive tendency in political matters. This was largely due to personal rivalry between Mackenzie and himself in municipal affairs. As previously mentioned, he had defeated Mackenzie at the municipal elections for St. David's Ward, and had been elected mayor of Toronto in the beginning of 1835. The contest had been waged between them with unseemly rancour. Sullivan had denounced Mackenzie as a noisy upstart and demagogue; while Mackenzie had characterized Sullivan as an oily-tongued, unprincipled lawyer, who would lie the loudest for the client who had the longest purse. All Mackenzie's supporters during the contest had been Radicals, or at least persons of strong Reform proclivities. This had arrayed the whole Tory and Conservative vote on the side of Sullivan, who was thus in a measure brought under anti-Reform influences. His social tastes also inclined him in the same direction, so that he soon came to be classed as a Conservative. Reformers were disposed to look askance at him as a political renegade, and this disposition was increased upon his acceptance of office under Sir Francis Head at the present juncture. He alone, of all the new Councillors, was a man of exceptional ability. He was not inaccurately described, a few years later, as "an Irishman by birth, and a lawyer by profession; a man who, if he had united consistency of political conduct and weight of personal character with the great and original talents which he unquestionably possessed, might have taken a conspicuous part in the public affairs of any country."[230] These transactions--the resignation of the Councillors and the appointment of their successors--produced a tremendous effervescence of feeling among the Opposition in the Assembly, who had already conceived strong suspicions of the Lieutenant-Governor's motives. But the excitement was not confined to the Opposition. It was participated in by the Conservatives, and, even, for a time, by most of the ultra-Tories. On the 14th of March, the House, by a vote of fifty-three to two, adopted a resolution unequivocally assertive of the principles which the ex-Councillors had endeavoured to maintain. Ten days later an address to the Lieutenant-Governor, based on this resolution, was passed by a vote of thirty-two to nineteen. It expressed deep regret that his Excellency had consented to accept the resignation of his late Council. It declared the Assembly's entire want of confidence in the new appointments, and humbly requested that immediate steps might be taken to remove the new Councillors from office. Meanwhile, petitions on the all-engrossing subject poured into the Assembly from all over the Province.[231] Public meetings were called in Toronto, as well as in some other of the principal towns, at which resolutions were passed echoing the Assembly's address, imploring the Lieutenant-Governor to dismiss his present advisers, and to call to his Council gentlemen possessing public confidence. One of these gatherings tended in an especial manner to widen the irreparable breach between Sir Francis Head and the Reform party. On the 25th of March a meeting was held in the City Hall, Toronto, at which an Address to his Excellency of exceptional significance was passed. It dealt at considerable length with the constitutional question at issue; referred to Responsible Government as having been introduced by the Constitutional Act; expressed surprise and sorrow at the resignation of the late Councillors, and an entire want of confidence in their successors. It deplored the apparent fact that his Excellency was acting under the influence of evil and unknown advisers. In conclusion, it claimed all the rights and privileges of the British constitution, and that the representative of the Crown should be advised by men known to and possessing the confidence of the people. When the deputation called at Government House to present this Address, they were treated with an off-hand abruptness and _brusquerie_ which gave them much offence. The reply of his Excellency was wordy and unsatisfying in tone; but its most objectionable feature was the air of assumed superiority by which it was pervaded. It referred to the meeting represented by the deputation as having been composed principally of "the industrious classes," but added, with a seeming loftiness of condescension, that the Address should be replied to with as much attention as if it had proceeded from either of the branches of the Legislature--"although," said his Excellency, "I shall express myself in plainer and more homely language." This was bad enough, but its effect was intensified by the demeanour of the Lieutenant-Governor and several military officers who were in attendance upon him. It seemed to the deputation that those gentlemen regarded them with supercilious impertinence; as a something which viceroyalty must be content, for the nonce, to endure, but as being altogether beyond the pale of their sympathies or interests. Nothing could have been in worse taste than such conduct as this, though it is possible enough that more sensitiveness was displayed than was called for by the actual circumstances. The deputation withdrew, cut to the quick by the indignities which they, rightly or wrongly, conceived themselves to have sustained. On the succeeding evening a meeting of themselves and some of their friends was held at the house of Dr. Morrison--who was now mayor of the city--at which a bitterly sarcastic rejoinder was prepared. It thanked his Excellency for replying to an Address from "the industrious classes" with as much attention as if it had proceeded from either branch of the Legislature, and acknowledged his condescension in expressing himself in plain and homely language--language presumed to be brought down to the level of the plain and homely understandings of his interlocutors, whose deplorable want of education was accounted for by the maladministration by former Governments of the endowments of King's College, and by the impossibility of obtaining a sale of the Clergy Reserves and the appropriation of the proceeds to educational purposes. "It is," proceeded this cutting rejoinder, "because we have been thus maltreated, neglected and despised, in our education and interests, under the system of Government that has hitherto prevailed, that we are now driven to insist upon a change that cannot be for the worse." Reference was made to the desire to bring about a system of Responsible Government, and the utter futility of mere responsibility to Downing Street was pointed out with a pointed eloquence which proved that the signatories were in deadly earnest. The misgovernment of Dalhousie and Aylmer in Lower Canada, and of Gore, Maitland and Colborne in Upper Canada, was touched upon in a few brief, vitriolic sentences. It was shown that, though these gentlemen had been responsible to Downing Street, they had not only met with no punishment, but had actually been promoted to higher honours. "We do not mean," said they, "in our plain and homely statement, to be discourteous, by declaring our unalterable conviction that a nominal responsibility to Downing Street, which has failed of any good with the above gentlemen of high pretensions to honour, character and station, cannot have any magic operation in your Excellency's administration, which, should it end as it has unhappily begun, might make us drink the cup of national misgovernment to the very dregs, without (as experience proves) redress on our part, or retribution on yours." There was much more of the same sort. The document concluded by stating that if the Lieutenant-Governor would not govern upon sound constitutional principles he would violate the charter, virtually abrogate the law, and justly forfeit submission to his authority. This was beyond doubt the most vigorously-written protest that had ever been presented to an Upper Canadian Lieutenant-Governor. It was signed by Jesse Ketchum, James Hervey Price, James Lesslie, Andrew McGlashan, James Shannon, Robert McKay, M. McLellan, Timothy Parsons, William Lesslie, John Mills, E. T. Henderson, John Doel, John E. Tims, and William J. O'Grady. All these were ardent Radicals, and coadjutors of Mackenzie. Two of them--Jesse Ketchum and James Lesslie--delivered the rejoinder at Government House, without waiting for a reply. It was already in type, and during the next day was widely read and commented upon. The Lieutenant-Governor was not insensible to its cutting irony, but it did not admit of any sur-rejoinder, and after the first transient ebullition of his wrath, the matter, so far as he was concerned, was quietly permitted to drop out of sight. The document, however, acted as an additional stimulus to the public excitement, and it continued to be quoted against Sir Francis from time to time so long as he remained in the colony. While these events were occurring the Provincial Legislature still remained in session. A Committee having been appointed by the Assembly to consider the correspondence between the Lieutenant-Governor and the ex-Councillors, it proceeded to deal with the question in the usual manner. The report was presented to the Assembly on the 18th of April. In the course of the debate which ensued, several eloquent speeches were made on the Tory side. The most effective Tory arguments were founded upon the assumption that the concession of Responsible Government would be a mere preliminary to separation from the mother country. The speech made by Mr. Hagerman on this occasion was one of the most brilliant efforts of his life. Mere verbal eloquence, however, exhausted itself in vain. The report was adopted by a vote of thirty-two to twenty-one. It was even more directly condemnatory of the Lieutenant-Governor than the rejoinder above referred to had been. It expressed the Committee's belief that the appointment of the three ex-Councillors had been a deceitful manoeuvre to gain credit with the country for Liberal feelings and intentions where none really existed. The question of Executive responsibility was gone into at considerable length, and the conduct of the ex-Councillors was approved of in every particular. There is no need to analyze the entire report, which was long and exhaustive. It distinctly recommended the withholding of the annual supplies. The Assembly, by adopting the report, and by committing itself to this extreme measure, proved that, in the language of Lord Glenelg's instructions,[232] it regarded the present in the light of "an emergency." The supplies, however, were not entirely withheld. Money was granted for the construction of roads, for schools, for the improvement of navigation, and other useful purposes; but all these grants were nullified by the Lieutenant-Governor, who signified his disapprobation of the Assembly's conduct by refusing his assent to the money-bills of the session. He afterwards stated as one of his reasons for this refusal that he had good grounds for believing a portion of the money would have been spent by the Assembly in sending an agent to England[233]--which was probably the fact. The Assembly, feeling that some reason should be assigned for their action in the matter of the supplies, which were now withheld for the first time in the history of Upper Canada, passed an Address to the King, in which the Lieutenant-Governor's conduct was painted in no neutral tints. He was directly charged with being despotic, tyrannical, unjust and deceitful. His conduct was declared to have been "derogatory to the honour" of his Majesty, and "demoralizing to the community." A memorial to the House of Commons was also adopted, in which his public acts were referred to as having been arbitrary and vindictive, and wherein he was charged with mis-statements, misrepresentations, and "deviations from candour and truth." This bitterly-worded memorial was formally signed by Mr. Bidwell as Speaker of the House--a circumstance which was long remembered against him by the person implicated. It must have been gall and wormwood to Sir Francis to be compelled to forward these documents to the Colonial Office. It was the first time that clear and undisguised charges of so humiliating a nature had been officially laid against a colonial Lieutenant-Governor, and one must needs confess that nothing short of the most unassailable evidence could have justified the employment of such terms in a communication between two representative bodies respecting a trusted servant of the Crown, more especially in the case of one occupying so lofty a position. Something is due to the proprieties, and to accuse a man of deviations from candour and truth is of course merely a slightly periphrastic method of charging him with falsehood. The Assembly, however, had become convinced, not without reason, that Sir Francis's word was not to be trusted. Other persons who had been brought into more or less intimate relations with him had been driven to the same conclusion.[234] The fact is that when his feelings were much stirred he knew not how to speak the language of truth and soberness. He talked so much and so thoughtlessly that he very frequently gave utterance to the thing which was not. Some excuse might perhaps be made for one who, in the heat or haste of verbal controversy, gives currency to erroneous statements. But Sir Francis's mis-statements were not confined to verbal controversy. He had been distinctly convicted of "a deviation from candour and truth" in a deliberate official communication. The Assembly had requested that they might be furnished with copies of any bond or agreement between him and his Councillors respecting the administration of the Government in the event of his Excellency's death or removal. To this request Sir Francis had replied, explicitly denying the existence of any document of such a nature. Yet upon the examination of certain of the Councillors it had been proved that an agreement on the subject had actually been made, and that it had been reduced to writing by his Excellency's own hand. The devices to which he had had recourse in his attempts to prove that he had merely been guilty of tergiversation instead of downright lying, were such as positively to aggravate the original offence, and to fully justify the Assembly in refusing to attach any weight to his unsupported statement upon any subject.[235] As the weeks passed by, the quarrel between him and the Assembly waxed positively ferocious. On the 20th of April he prorogued Parliament, making a speech on the occasion which must have occupied a full hour or more in delivery, and wherein he reviewed, in his own inimitable fashion, and from his own point of view, the various events by which his Administration had up to this time been characterized. Any attempt to analyze it here is altogether out of the question. It should be read in its entirety in the official Journal of the session. During the weeks following the prorogation the public excitement continued to increase, until it had reached a height without precedent in the history of the Province. The Reformers felt that they had been wofully deceived in the Lieutenant-Governor, and many of them placed no bounds to their censure. Some of the Reform newspapers hinted pretty strongly that no people could be expected to remain permanently loyal when they were deprived of their rights year after year, and when all their petitions were set at naught. The political atmosphere was charged with electricity. The outlook was lurid and ominous. Some of the loyalists began to dread an actual uprising of the people. Such an uprising, they thought, would be a legitimate sequel to so extraordinary a proceeding as the stoppage of the supplies. To not a few well-meaning but old-fashioned people the mere act of refusing to vote the supplies was in itself a species of treason. To more practical people this act presented itself in a different aspect. It seemed to them indicative of a niggard and ruinous parsimony. They gazed with ill-concealed envy at the marvellous prosperity of the neighbouring State of New York. Any one crossing the Canadian frontier in that direction at once became aware that he had passed from a land of comparative stagnation to a land of activity and progress. This contrast had been largely brought about by the construction of great public works, and a lavish policy on the part of the State Legislature. There seemed no reason to doubt that the adoption of a similar policy would bring about similar results in Upper Canada, where large and costly public works were urgently needed for the proper development of the resources of the colony. But, instead of liberal grants of money for such purposes, the Assembly had cut down the supplies to meet the barest works of necessity. The colony could never hope to hold up its head by the side of its enterprising neighbour while such a cheese-paring system prevailed. The Lieutenant-Governor's advisers were shrewd enough to make the most of this unpromising state of affairs. The cheese-paring policy went for something, but it was almost lost sight of in the much more effective imputation of disloyalty to the Empire. Nothing was so certain to turn the scale of public opinion in favour of his Excellency as an apparently well-founded stigma of disloyalty cast upon his opponents. The official party accordingly set themselves deliberately to work to disseminate the belief that the bulk of the Opposition were ripe for treason, and that, under the guise of agitation for Reform, they concealed a design of effecting the separation of the colony from Great Britain. It is not improbable that many of those who industriously circulated the report did so in good faith, for the language of some of the Reformers, used in moments of irritation, was of a nature to lead to such a conclusion. No sooner did this report gain credence than there was a very perceptible turning of the scale of popular opinion. Many who had grumbled loudly at Sir Francis's conduct now declared themselves as being on his side. They favoured the doctrine of a responsible Executive, but devotion to the mother country was as the breath of their nostrils. Whatever tended to relax the tie which bound the colony to the Empire was a thing to be utterly opposed and stamped out. The domination of the Compact was bad, but even at its worst it was better than separation. So argued many persons who had always been conspicuous for the moderation of their political views. The official party of course turned such sentiments as these to the utmost account. The cry of disloyalty was heard on every side. The state of the Lower Province, which was rapidly gliding into insurrection, was triumphantly pointed to as evidence of what was to be looked for if democratic ideas were allowed to make headway. Twice within the last four years had the Lower Canadian Assembly resorted to the extreme measure of refusing to grant supplies to the Government. By so doing they had embroiled themselves with the Imperial Ministry, and drawn down upon themselves the indignation of persons of moderate views. It was no secret that the Upper Canadian Reformers generally were in sympathy with the projects of Reform entertained by the Lower Canadian agitators; and it suited the Tories to assume that the sympathy extended not only to legitimate projects of Reform, but to less openly-avowed schemes of rebellion. Just before the prorogation Mr. Bidwell had laid before the Assembly a letter written by Louis Joseph Papineau, Speaker of the Lower Canada Assembly, wherein the great agitator had given utterance to sentiments which, read in the light of subsequent events, cannot be construed otherwise than as treasonable. Several members of the Reform party had publicly spoken enthusiastically of M. Papineau, and had even gone so far as to express approbation of his most indiscreet and objectionable language. This circumstance was now urged to show that the objects of the anti-Executive party in both Provinces were identical. There was no attempt to discriminate between constitutional Reformers of the Baldwin stamp and advanced Radicals like Mackenzie. All were included in one sweeping verdict as "disloyal" persons, against whom it was necessary for right-minded citizens to organize in self-defence. Early in May these sentiments began to find expression in outward acts. A number of Tory gentlemen of Toronto formed themselves into what they called the British Constitutional Society, with the fundamental principle and object of perpetuating the connection between Upper Canada and the United Kingdom. A society bearing the same name had been formed upon the breaking out of the War of 1812, and this of 1836 professed to be a reorganization of the former one. In reality, however, it was to all intents and purposes a new society, started for the specific purpose of opposing the cry for Responsible Government, and of gaining support for Sir Francis Head. During the previous year, Colonel Fitzgibbon had, under Sir John Colborne's auspices, formed a drill corps for such young men of Toronto as desired military instruction. A handful of well-connected young men had availed themselves of the opportunity. The Colonel now devoted himself with redoubled ardour to preparations for the insurrection which he declared would burst forth before the next winter. He got together a rifle corps to the number of seventy, and drilled them twice a week with tireless enthusiasm, declaring that when the hour of trial should come, he and "his boys" would be found in their places, however the rest of the community might see fit to demean themselves. Notwithstanding these preparations, and the prevailing sentiments which inspired them, it is doubtful whether the idea of rebellion had up to this time taken definite possession of the mind of a single human being in Upper Canada. There seems abundant reason for believing that the time for wise concession was not past, and that a prudent and discreet Administrator might have restored tranquillity to the land without going an iota beyond the scope of Lord Glenelg's instructions. But Sir Francis Head acted in no such spirit. He set his mind firmly against concession, feeling convinced, as he said, that the more he yielded the more would be demanded of him. In this respect he--no doubt unconsciously--emulated the example of James the Second, who was of opinion that his father owed the loss of his head to his concessions to the House of Commons. That this opinion was altogether erroneous does not admit of argument. Sir Francis was equally wrong, and equally stubborn in maintaining his opinion. His conduct was the last straw heaped upon the back of the much-enduring camel, and the outbreak which followed must in large measure be attributed to his misgovernment. FOOTNOTES: [210] See the letter, in Head's _Narrative_, chap. iii. [211] This proceeding was not relished by the Assembly. Sir John Colborne had already delivered one Speech from the Throne at the opening of the session, and this delivery of a second one was resented as a breach of privilege. After much time had been wasted in discussion, a precedent for the Lieutenant-Governor's action was found under date of December, 1765, and this matter was allowed to drop. [212] In the third chapter of his _Narrative_ Sir Francis attempts to excuse himself for this senseless act. The reader who thinks it worth while to consult the rhetorical plea there attempted to be set up will recall Pembroke's dictum, in _King John_, that "----oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse." [213] This is the despatch referred to _ante_, p. 246, which had been treated with such contempt by the Law Officers of the Crown, and which had been returned by the Provincial Legislative Council to the Lieutenant-Governor. [214] See the 8vo edition of the Report, p. xxxix. [215] See the rejoinder of certain citizens of Toronto to the reply of the Lieutenant-Governor to their address, dated 25th March, 1836. [216] _Ib._ [217] _Ib._ [218] _Life of Mackenzie_, vol i., pp. 345, 346. [219] _Narrative_, chap. iii. [220] _Ib._ [221] _Narrative_, chap. iii. [222] See Head's despatch to Lord Glenelg, dated February 22nd, 1836, in _Narrative_, chap. iv. [223] _Ib._ [224] See the extra number of the _Gazette_ issued on that date. A very full account of the negotiations and conferences which led to this result will be found in a letter written by Robert Baldwin to Peter Perry, dated "Front Street, 16th March, 1836," and published in the papers of the time. See _post_, p. 312. [225] See the representations of the Councillors to the Lieutenant-Governor, dated Friday, 4th March, 1836. [226] See _Report of the Select Committee to which was referred the Answer of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor to an Address of the House of Assembly, relative to a Responsible Executive Council_, p. 6. Toronto, 1836. [227] _Ib._, p. 7. [228] _Narrative_, chap. v. [229] _Narrative_, chapters iv., v. [230] Kaye's _Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe_, vol. ii., p. 339. Revised edition, 1858. [231] It is fair to say that some of these were due to the efforts of the Radicals in the Assembly, who had sent out blank petitions to local friends, with instructions to obtain signatures and fill in the name of the constituency. [232] _Ante_, pp. 303, 304. [233] See his despatch to Lord Glenelg, dated April 28th, 1836, in _Narrative_, chap. v. [234] Sir Francis himself has gravely recorded that certain militia officers publicly declared him to be "the d----dest liar and d----dest rascal in the Province." See despatch of 6th February, 1837, in _Narrative_, chap. ix. [235] The evidence will be found in appendix to Journal of 1836, 2nd Session, Twelfth Parliament, vol. iii., No. 106, pp. 57, 58. CHAPTER XVI. THE TRIUMPHS OF A TRIED REFORMER. While the public excitement continued unabated, the Lieutenant-Governor resolved upon a step which was little calculated to allay it. This step was the dissolution of the existing Parliament. He and his advisers, sworn and unsworn, believed that the time was opportune for a general election. If the numerical majority of the Opposition in the Assembly were reversed, the Government could afford to laugh at what they called "low-bred democracy." Such a reversal, it was thought, might now be effected. The disloyalty cry might safely be trusted to do its work, not only by clearing the Assembly of the chief members of the Opposition, but by giving the Government party an easy working majority. In order, however, that his Excellency might seem to be following public opinion in this matter instead of guiding it, the official party caused petitions to be sent in from various quarters, praying that a dissolution and a general election might take place. This not only served the intended purpose of misleading the public as to the designs of the Executive, but also afforded Sir Francis an opportunity of pouring out oceans of words in the form of replies. The concluding sentence of his reply to an address from certain electors of the Home District is eminently characteristic of the man. Portions of the already-mentioned letter from Papineau to Bidwell had seemed to point to a possible invasion of the Province by inhabitants of the United States. This idea was eagerly seized upon by Sir Francis, as indicative of concerted action between the hypothetical invaders and the Upper Canadian Radicals. "In the name of every regiment of militia in Upper Canada," said he--"_Let them come if they dare!_"[236] Nothing but actual perusal of his despatches will afford any accurate idea of his blatant self-confidence at this time. It is quite evident that he regarded the above-quoted reply as a master-stroke of vigorous diplomacy. He drew special attention to it in a communication to Lord Glenelg, in the course of which he made use of language which must have almost stunned the conventional and decorous Colonial Secretary. "I am aware," he wrote, "that the answer may be cavilled at in Downing Street, for I know it is not exactly according to Hoyle. _Mais, man seigneur, croyez-vous done qu'on fasse des revolutions avec de l'eau de rose?_"[237] The tone of his despatches is from first to last extraordinary. It would seem as if they ought to have told their own miserable tale of superficiality and unfitness to the Colonial Secretary. In announcing the probability of an early dissolution of the Provincial Parliament, Sir Francis requests his Lordship to send him no orders on the subject, but to allow him to work the matter in his own way.[238] The Opposition are constantly referred to in such phrases as "the republicans in the House of Assembly," and "the revolutionists of Upper Canada."[239] His Lordship is warned that if the demands of the Opposition be complied with in the matter of Executive responsibility, "democracy, in the worst possible form, will prevail in our colonies."[240] "In South America," he remarks, "truth and justice carried me through difficulties even greater than those I have now to contend with, and I have the firmest reliance they will again be triumphant."[241] In another despatch[242] his Lordship is notified that Robert Baldwin, who is referred to as an agent of "the revolutionary party," is about to start for London. "It is stated," writes Sir Francis, "that he goes there for the recovery of his health, but it is acknowledged by his party that he will be prepared to answer any questions which the Government may feel disposed to put to him." This intimation is followed by the expression of a confidence that his Lordship will discountenance "the system of sending agents from the British North American colonies, and their being received by the Government." A hope is expressed that should Mr. Baldwin directly or indirectly communicate with the Colonial Office during his stay in England, he may be effectually sat upon, and that he may receive "that style of answer," a copy of which may be transmitted to Sir Francis, and published in the Canadian papers, as a means of deterring further "left-handed attacks upon the constitution." It may be added that the expression of confidence above referred to was justified by the result, as Mr. Baldwin, during his stay in England, was not admitted to an interview with Lord Glenelg, though a written statement of his views was received by his Lordship, and submitted to the Cabinet. The Reformers, moderate and radical, were brought closer together by the agitated state of the public mind, and by the efforts of the official party to destroy their influence. Several weeks before the dissolution actually took place it became known that such a step was imminent, and quiet preparations were made for the general election which was to follow. The formation of the Canadian Alliance Society by the Radicals, towards the close of 1834, has already been referred to.[243] Neither the platform of this society nor the mode of conducting it was such as to commend it to Reformers generally, and it was now deemed advisable to organize a new association on a broader basis, with a special eye to coöperation with Reformers who resided in the rural districts. This was accordingly done under the auspices of some of the leading Reformers of Toronto. In contradistinction to the British Constitutional Society mentioned towards the close of the last chapter, the new association was called the Constitutional Reform Society. Dr. Baldwin accepted the Presidency, and Francis Hincks, who was then engaged in commercial life in Toronto, was appointed Secretary. Steps were taken to counteract the misrepresentations of the official party, and generally for the efficient maintenance of the impending election campaign. The Reformers seem to have greatly underestimated the efforts of their opponents. As the event proved, they were also hopelessly astray in gauging the public opinion of the Province, for they looked forward to the approaching contest with the utmost confidence in the result. The new society, it was thought, would accomplish wonders in the way of thorough organization, and it was confidently believed that the existing Reform majority in the Assembly would be fully maintained, if not increased. The efforts of the official party to spread a belief prejudicial to the patriotism of the Reformers were laughed to scorn. So also was the attempt of the Lieutenant-Governor to imbue the inhabitants with a belief in the probability of a foreign invasion. Upon the promulgation of the challenge to the imaginary invader, a number of the Toronto Reformers, with Mr. Hincks at their head, amused themselves by perpetrating a practical joke. Having taken counsel together, they formed themselves into a deputation, and called upon his Excellency in a state of well-assumed perturbation. In a formal address they expressed much solicitude on the subject of the contemplated invasion. They professed to re-echo his unbounded confidence in the Provincial militia, but begged to be informed of the quarter whence the attack was anticipated. "We do not doubt," said they, in their Address, "the readiness with which would be answered upon any emergency your appeal to the militia, which appeal we are satisfied would not have been made without adequate cause. In a matter so seriously affecting the peace and tranquillity of the country, and the security of its commerce, we beg to learn from your Excellency from what quarter the invasion is alleged to be threatened." To this not unreasonable demand the Lieutenant-Governor was unable to make any definite reply. The absurdity of his challenge was for the first time fully brought home to him. According to the testimony of eye-witnesses, he "did not sit, but stood with that personal oscillation which you witness in a man so situated as not well to know what to say or what to do."[244] When at last his reply came, it proved to be the briefest and most sensible of all his replies. "Gentlemen," said he, "I have no further observations to make to you on this subject." The deputation, struggling with suppressed laughter, withdrew. The Provincial Parliament was dissolved on the 28th of May, and as it was thought desirable to strike while the iron was hot, the elections were hurried on with unseemly haste. They began on the 20th of June, and all the returns were in during the first week in July. The issue was an exciting, but not a doubtful one, for the official party entered upon the contest with loaded dice and a determination to win. Numerous attempts have been made to explain and excuse their conduct during this eventful epoch; but it is impossible to blink the fact that the result was a foregone conclusion from the very moment of the issue of the writs. The whole weight of the Government was put forward to ensure the return of Tory candidates, and this was done in the most direct and shameless manner. The Lieutenant-Governor openly made himself a party to the contest. His replies to the various addresses which he had himself promoted were one and all set to the same tune.[245] The issue was presented in such a light that no inconsiderable part of the population were led to believe that the maintenance of British connection depended upon the result of the contest. Owing to the representations of Government emissaries, backed by the Tory press, and reinforced by the inflammatory speeches and addresses of the Lieutenant-Governor, it was widely believed that should the Reformers succeed there would be a speedy uprooting of cherished institutions, followed by separation from the mother country and ultimate annexation to the United States. The indiscreet language of Mackenzie and some other Radicals had been such as to lend colour to misrepresentations of this nature, and the spirit thereby aroused was decisive of the result. Not only professed Tories, but most of the moderate-minded of the population, rallied to the side of the Lieutenant-Governor, to uphold British connection, and to oppose the encroachment of republican and revolutionary ideas. Loyalty was rampant, and patriotic fervour was aroused to a height which it had not reached in Upper Canada since the War of 1812. "Down with democracy!" "Down with republicanism!" "Hurrah for Sir Francis Head and British connection!" Such were the legends inscribed on the dead-walls in the principal towns of the Province.[246] Tory votes were manufactured by wholesale, and Tory funds were squandered with reckless profusion. For the first time in the history of Upper Canada, Government agents were sent down to the polling-places armed with patents for land, to be distributed among the electors. It is open to doubt whether some of these were not conferred upon persons who had no title to them.[247] Reform votes were rejected by partisan returning-officers upon the most frivolous pretexts. Gangs of ruffians were stationed at the polls to intimidate those who ventured near to record their votes in favour of anti-Government candidates. In at least one instance, the Lieutenant-Governor presented himself in person at the polling-place while the contest was at its height, and remained there for some time on horseback, in close proximity to the spot where votes were recorded.[248] As for the Reformers, they were soon aroused from their dreams of confidence. But their rude awakening, early as it was, came all too late. They perceived that the seed had been well sown, and that the crop would have to be reaped. They found themselves looked upon with suspicion and dislike among their neighbours and others from whom they had been accustomed to receive confidence and respect. They needed all the courage of their opinions to support them against the obloquy which official slander had aroused. The courageous among them faced the polls in the spirit of a forlorn hope. The more timid quietly remained at home and refrained from voting, rather than subject themselves to certain insult and probable physical violence. It may perhaps be urged, in reply to some of the foregoing allegations, that a Committee of the Assembly subsequently inquired into the various matters complained of, and that their report acquitted the Governor of all culpability. But anyone who is familiar with the proceedings of election committees in those days, and even in times much more recent, will not need to be informed how much--or how little--weight should be attached to a verdict from such a source. In the case under consideration, the proceedings were conducted with exceptional disregard to propriety, and the verdict of acquittal cannot be considered as of any value whatever. Only one member of the Committee heard the whole of the evidence upon which the report was based. Three of the members declared that the report was adopted without their knowledge or consent. Of the other five members who prepared the document, one attended only two meetings out of fourteen; while another attended four, and another five. A fourth member attended twelve meetings, and one only of the five attended all the fourteen. The inquiry was from first to last conducted in a spirit of partisanship, and the report, in the language of Dr. Rolph, was "the offspring of untempered zeal, insufficient evidence, hasty conclusions, and executive devotion."[249] As a general rule, it is a difficult matter to convict a Government of actual, direct interference with the freedom of election. But in the case of the general election of 1836, there is unfortunately no room for doubt. That patents were issued in great numbers by the Commissioner of Crown Lands, and despatched by the hands of trusted agents of the Government to the polling-places, to be used by the voters, is as well established as is the fact of the election itself. Nay, the fact is admitted by Sir Francis Head in the supplemental chapter to his "Narrative," as well as by the Committee appointed by the Assembly to investigate the matter, and the attempts to explain it away are of the weakest kind. The number of patents issued was so great as to require a special staff of extra clerks to get them ready by the time they were wanted. In some cases the patents covered only a quarter of an acre of wild, uncultivated land, upon which no buildings had been erected. Many of them were issued between the date of the dissolution of Parliament and the close of the election a month later,[250] and in some instances they were issued after the actual opening of the poll. They were distributed openly at the places where the elections were held, to persons who had not applied for them, and who, at least in some instances, received them without paying the usual fees, merely that they might thereby be enabled to vote. Whether the issue of the patents affected the result of the election in any single instance is altogether beside the question. It would be absurd to pretend, in the face of such tactics as these, that there was any real freedom of choice offered to the people in the matter of Parliamentary representation. Freedom of election was paralyzed. Reform voters were literally overwhelmed, and their franchise rendered of no avail. All this was done with the cognizance and assent of the Lieutenant-Governor, who thereby wilfully violated the instructions which he had received from the Home Office.[251] The result of an election contest conducted on these lines was such as to fully realize the expectations of Sir Francis and his advisers. Not only were all the old Tory members returned--and this, in several cases, without any opposition--but a number of new adherents of that side found seats. Hagerman was returned for Kingston by acclamation, McLean was returned for Stormont, George S. Jarvis for the Town of Cornwall, Jonas Jones and Ogle B. Gowan for Leeds, A. N. MacNab for Wentworth, W. B. Robinson for Simcoe, Mahlon Burwell for the Town of London, Henry Sherwood for Brockville, and William Henry Draper for Toronto. The last-named gentleman, known to later times as Chief Justice Draper, now entered public life for the first time. He was a very decided acquisition to the ranks of Upper Canadian Toryism, and was destined to exert a wide and far-reaching influence upon successive representatives of the Crown in this colony. But the triumphs of the official party were not confined to mere numerical successes. They wrested some important constituencies from the hands of their opponents. The Reformers were not only left in an insignificant minority, but nearly all their ablest members were defeated in what had long been regarded as safe Reform constituencies. Bidwell and Perry suffered defeat in Lennox and Addington; Lount underwent a similar fate in Simcoe; and Mackenzie was signally worsted in the Second Riding of York by a man of no political standing. Gibson, Morrison and Mackintosh gained their respective elections in the other three Ridings of York, but none of them possessed much Parliamentary ability, or was to be depended upon in any great emergency. The one significant gain to the Reform party arose out of the election of Dr. Rolph. The Doctor, after having allowed himself to be talked into accepting a seat in the Executive Council whose resignation had been the beginning of the contest between the Reformers and the Lieutenant-Governor, had not felt himself at liberty to reject the overtures of his friends. He had been put in nomination for the County of Norfolk, and his candidature had been successful. He was a host in himself, and his return was the one streak of bright light which appeared in the Reform horizon at the close of the campaign. Perhaps the most unsatisfactory feature about the whole unsatisfactory business, from the Reform point of view, was that the ignominous discomfiture of the Reformers had been brought about by defections from their own ranks. Moderate-minded Reformers had come to think, with the Conservatives, that even Family Compact domination was preferable to the ascendency of such men as Mackenzie. The publication of the baneful domination letter, followed, as it had been, by Tory misrepresentation, had led thousands of persons to believe that the Radicals secretly favoured the separation of the colony from Great Britain. The Wesleyan Methodists, a numerous body, were doubly impelled to oppose Mackenzie and all who favoured his cause. The quarrel between Mackenzie and the Rev. Egerton Ryerson has already been referred to.[252] Mr. Ryerson was in those days one of the most prominent figures in Upper Canadian Methodism, and in conjunction with his brothers, exerted a predominant influence among the members of that body. At the time of the general election of 1836 he was absent from the Province on a mission to England, whither he had gone to obtain a charter for the Upper Canada Academy, and to solicit subscriptions for the establishment and maintenance of that institution, which subsequently developed into the University of Victoria College. But the reverend gentleman's arm was far-reaching, and stretched across the broad expanse of the Atlantic. In common with a large and respectable portion of the Upper Canadian population, he cherished a feeling of personal contempt for Mackenzie, whose character he thoroughly despised, and whose projects he regarded as prejudicial to the welfare of the colony. The publication of the baneful domination letter had convinced him that rebellion and separation were among the cherished schemes of the Radicals. To all such schemes he was prepared to oppose his firmest resistance, for his loyalty was of the perfervid order, and his dislike of Mackenzie probably imparted additional zeal to his opposition. As has been seen, Mackenzie, with the aid of Hume, Roebuck and other British statesmen, had succeeded in creating in the minds of the English public considerable sympathy for Canadian Reform. To counteract this influence Mr. Ryerson, under the signature of "A Canadian," contributed a series of letters to the London _Times_. They were vigorously written, and attracted much attention, not only in England but in Canada, where they were republished in the columns of the Tory newspapers, and where they were circulated in pamphlet form as a campaign document. Mr. Ryerson also wrote to leading members of the Methodist body in Canada, urging them to cast all their influence for Government candidates, and against the revolutionary policy of the Radicals. His appeals served their purpose, and the great bulk of the Wesleyan Methodists of Upper Canada, who had theretofore supported Reform members, went over to the side of the Government. In many constituencies--notably so in Lennox and Addington--they held the balance of power, and their secession from the Reform cause decided the fortunes of the candidates.[253] A few remained unaffected by Mr. Ryerson's lucubrations, and some even went so far as to denounce his conduct and reply to his arguments, but these were too few in number to affect the general result. Some of the successful candidates were compelled to pledge themselves in advance to the Methodists and other Nonconformists to take immediate steps for the settlement of the Clergy Reserves question, but the pledges were neglected or forgotten during the turbulent epoch which ensued. It will thus be seen that, as is clearly pointed out in the Report of Lord Durham,[254] the contest which had been commenced on the question of a responsible Executive Council had afterwards been adroitly turned by the official party, and had been decided on very different grounds. The question of a responsible Executive, as well as the question of the Clergy Reserves, had for the time sunk out of public notice. All other matters had given way to a resolve to return candidates who would "rally round the throne." The triumph of the Government went far beyond what several members of it had ventured to anticipate. On the 8th of July, Sir Francis was able to report to Lord Glenelg that "the Constitutionists"--by which name he designated the official party and all who supported them--had a majority of twenty-five,[255] whereas in the preceding Assembly they had been in a minority of eleven. In the same despatch he availed himself of the opportunity to malign Mr. Bidwell, whom he characterized as the "twin or Siamese companion of Mr. Speaker Papineau." He descanted upon the powerful reaction which had been brought about, and exultingly informed his Lordship that of the four candidates who had contested the constituency of Lennox and Addington Mr. Bidwell had polled the fewest votes. The Colonial Minister must have been sore puzzled to know what to make of this gushing and galloping Lieutenant-Governor, who was so evidently devoid of the peculiar qualifications supposed to be requisite for one in his station, and who framed his official despatches upon the model of a sensation novel. Here was a man who had been selected for an elevated and honourable post because be had been supposed to be an adept in the science of politics, but who, as it now turned out, was utterly unacquainted with the principles and practice of Government; who was ignorant of the proprieties and amenities of official intercourse; who, in what were intended for grave official despatches, indulged in extracts from French vaudevilles, and referred to certain methods of procedure as not being _according to Hoyle_! By all known theory and precedent, the accession to office of such a man ought to have been attended by immediate and ignominous failure. Yet, so far as could be judged, he had by no means failed. Nay, he actually appeared to have scored a marvellous success, and to have brought about what men of greater ability and wider experience had been utterly unable to accomplish. Such a success was an inscrutable mystery to the official mind, and Lord Glenelg, after the first few weeks, appears to have abandoned all attempts to penetrate it. The entire demeanour of this unconventional Lieutenant-Governor was incomprehensible. He had expressed his total dissent from the policy of the Commissioners of Inquiry in Lower Canada, who had reported in favour of a responsible Executive.[256] He had even gone so far as to tender his resignation in consequence of his inability to concur in the liberal measures of Reform advocated by the Commissioners.[257] But the Home Government had by no means been disposed to accept his resignation just at that time. They had no available person to put in his place, and it had been thought desirable that he should be permitted to try his hand a little longer. And now this news as to the result of the elections seemed to fully justify their determination to retain him in office. If he had really inaugurated a new and improved order of things in Upper Canada, it was only fair that he should enjoy the prestige of his success. But the ill effects of Sir Francis's superficial and disastrous policy were already beginning to be apparent to those whose eyes were keen enough to look below the surface of things. The Reformers felt that they had been out-manoeuvred. That they could have borne, for they had often been compelled to bear a similar infliction in past times. But they considered that they had been cheated out of their rights by one whose especial duty it was to watch over and preserve those rights inviolate. They had endured much at the hands of a Gore, a Maitland and a Colborne. But Gore, Maitland and Colborne had not presented themselves before them in the garb of tried Reformers. They had been the Tory emissaries of Tory superiors beyond sea, whose instructions they had generally carried out. All this had been changed; but the change, so far as Upper Canada was concerned, had been for the worse. The Reformers of the Province felt that the man who had been placed at the helm of State--the man who had been sent over by an ostensibly Liberal Government to redress the accumulated wrongs of the past--was in some respects far more dangerous than any of his predecessors had been. Carlyle had not then delivered his celebrated discourse on fools, but the idea that a fool may sometimes be far more dread-inspiring than a wise man is sufficiently obvious, and had presented itself in vivid shape before the minds of a good many of the Reformers of Upper Canada. They had by this time come to know something of Sir Francis Head. They had brought themselves to regard him as not only a fool, but a fool devoid of right feeling or principle; a fool who would stop at no injustice or iniquity the perpetration whereof would conduce, in however small a degree, to his own glorification. He evidently regarded his personal interference in the elections as a thing upon which he ought to plume himself. Such a state of things was not to be borne. It was clear that life, for Canadian Reformers, would very soon be not worth living. They despaired of the future, which, to their depressed vision, seemed to be overhung by a sky of unrelieved blackness. Their despair was accompanied by a smarting sense of defeat and injustice proportionate to the circumstances. Such feelings were not confined to defeated candidates and their immediate friends, but were participated in by Reformers generally. Some of them began to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of removal from the Province. Others, after the first effervescence of disappointment had expended itself, determined to endure in patience and to hope for the best. A comparatively small number, yielding to the influence of mingled despair and exasperation, began to contemplate armed resistance to authority as among the possibilities of the near future. Constitutional resistance, they thought, had had a fair trial. Might it not be worth while to try a more drastic remedy? Conspicuous among the personages who were strongly influenced by such thoughts as those last indicated was William Lyon Mackenzie, who, as previously mentioned, had lost his election in the Second Riding of York. It might have been supposed that if any constituency in the Province was beyond the reach of Tory influence, the Second Riding was entitled to that distinction. It was notoriously the most Radical constituency in the colony. It had stood loyally by Mackenzie all through the troubled epoch of the successive expulsions. Yet it had now thrown him overboard on behalf of a political nobody. The explanation is to be found in the fact that the Riding had been the scene of some of the moat scandalous abuses committed during the campaign. The Tories had resolved that Mackenzie should be defeated at any cost, and had resorted to the most reprehensible means to secure that end. To elect a professed Tory would have been an impossibility, so the person fixed upon to oppose him was one whom the author of "Middlemarch" might have had in her eye when she described Sir James Chettam as "a man of acquiescent temper, miscellaneous opinions and uncertain vote."[258] His name was Edward William Thomson, and he professed to be a moderate Reformer. His moderation was acceptable to a considerable proportion of the electors, many of whom were tired of Mackenzie. The official party, however, did not choose to rely upon legitimate means for defeating the Radical candidate. Money was spent freely, and brawny bullies were hired for purposes of intimidation. Good votes were rejected on one side, and bad ones accepted on the other. Patents were sent down to the polling place, certain recipients whereof voted for Thomson. Sheriff Jarvis attended, and by his language and demeanour did what he could to discourage Mackenzie's supporters. Not a stone was left unturned to effect the desired object. Such means as Mackenzie had at his command were altogether insufficient to counteract the devices employed against him. He was beaten, and by a majority of a hundred votes. This result took Mackenzie completely by surprise. It came upon him in the form of a revelation. He had not permitted himself to entertain any doubt of his success, and the conviction that he had lost his popularity cut him to his inmost soul. He retired to the house of one of his supporters in the neighbourhood, where he completely broke down, and wept with a bitterness which evoked the active sympathy of those present. But this mood did not last. It was succeeded by a sullenness and stolidity such as had never before been observed in him. He knew that he had been beaten unfairly, and resolved to petition against the election. Meanwhile his rage against the party which had been concerned in his defeat was ungovernable, and must have vent. He resolved that he must again have control of a newspaper. He accordingly established _The Constitution_, a weekly paper, the first number of which made its appearance in Toronto on the sixtieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the United States--namely, the 4th of July, 1836. Its tone was such as might have been anticipated from the mood of its editor. It was more outspoken than the _Advocate_ had ever been under his management, and might from the first have been styled a revolutionary organ. In its columns every phase of discontent found utterance, and some of its editorial articles were marked by a spirit of bitterness and implacability such as had not commonly been supposed to belong to Mackenzie's nature. Means would doubtless have been taken for its suppression, had not the Government felt that they had achieved a signal triumph, and that they could afford to ignore its attacks. Many others of the Radicals felt little less rancour towards the Government party than did Mackenzie. Indeed, the conduct of the party in power had been such as to make temporary Radicals of not a few persons who had theretofore been known as moderate Reformers. It may be said indeed that nearly all the moderates had either made common cause with the Government party for fear of the Radicals, or had coalesced with the Radicals from a sense of official tyranny and injustice. Public meetings were held, at which the Lieutenant-Governor and his myrmidons were subjected to the most vehement denunciations. At a meeting of the Constitutional Reform Society Dr. Baldwin, George Ridout, James E. Small and others referred to his Excellency's conduct in terms which public audiences had never before heard from their lips. An official address issued by the Society on the subject of the resignation of the Executive Councillors also contained some severe but well-merited strictures. The Lieutenant-Governor marked his condemnation of the language employed by promptly dismissing the three gentlemen above named from certain offices which they held.[259] As will hereafter be seen, this proceeding eventually led to serious complications between the Home Office and Sir Francis. Meantime, the latter was permitted to have his own way, but not without stubborn attempts at resistance on the part of some of his opponents. A number of the most pronounced Radicals resolved to make a strong representation of election and other abuses to the British House of Commons, and to that end sent Dr. Charles Duncombe to England. Dr. Duncombe had been re-elected for Oxford, but had had to contend against similar influences to those which had been employed in other constituencies, and was thus able to speak of the partisan conduct of the Lieutenant-Governor's emissaries from personal observation. He prepared a statement of the case against Sir Francis, which was laid before the House of Commons by Mr. Hume. The Colonial Secretary despatched a copy of it to Sir Francis for explanations. It is unlikely that Dr. Duncombe's mission would have been a successful one under any circumstances, but he made the mistake of protesting too much. The greater part of the indictment could easily have been substantiated before any impartial tribunal, but it also contained charges which, whether true or not, the prosecutor was unable to prove. As mentioned on a former page[260], the matter was referred to a Committee of the Provincial Assembly, by whom the Lieutenant-Governor was completely exonerated. A further reference to the matter will be made in connection with the proceedings of the following session. The Lieutenant-Governor was meanwhile engaged in a voluminous correspondence with the Colonial Secretary. The subjects dealt with therein were many and various. Perhaps the most important of all was the Lower Canadian Commission of Inquiry. The Commissioners had made a report in which they had recommended the concession of Responsible Government, and other much-needed Reforms. As previously mentioned, Sir Francis had no sympathy with these views, and distinctly repudiated the policy thus recommended. The idea of a responsible Executive was utterly repugnant to him. He erelong perceived that the Imperial Government would sooner or later yield to the imperative demand made on behalf of the different British North American colonies, but he determined to fight against it as long as opposition was possible, and his despatches teem with what he doubtless regarded as arguments on the negative side. He predicted the most serious results if the policy of the Commissioners was adopted. The language of the Ninety-two resolutions of the Lower Canada Assembly he pronounced to be not only insulting to the British Government, but traitorous. He proposed various measures for establishing the power of the Crown in the Canadas on a firm basis. Among these were the repeal of the Act surrendering the revenue, the annexation of the District of Gaspé to the Province of New Brunswick, and the annexation of Montreal to Upper Canada. It may safely be assumed that these ideas were not his own, and nobody who has read "Canada and the Canada Bill,"[261] published several years later, will entertain much doubt as to the individual from whom he derived his inspiration. FOOTNOTES: [236] Sir Francis afterwards denied that this challenge was addressed to the Americans. See his despatch to Lord Glenelg dated 6th November, 1836, embodied in his _Narrative_, chap, vi. But it is quite evident that the denial, as well as the construction there sought to be put upon his language, was an after-thought. If, as he there asserts, "the Americans had no more to do with the subject than the Chinese," there was no appropriate significance whatever in his doughty defiance. [237] See despatch of May 28th. [238] See despatch of 21st April. [239] _Ib._ [240] _Ib._ [241] Despatch of May 28th. [242] Of April 28th. [243] _Ante_, p. 281. [244] See Dr. Rolph's _Speech to the House in Committee on the Report of the Select Committee on the Petition of Dr. Charles Duncombe to the British House of Commons_, delivered on Monday, January 30th, 1837. [245] It was afterwards urged by Sir Francis that his replies to addresses were made before, and not during the election. The plea will not bear a moment's examination. The mischief was done by the inflammatory and menacing tone of the replies, and the mere question of the time of their delivery in of no importance whatever. An English writer thus effectually disposes of this attempted defence: "Surely he [Sir F. B. Head] must have some glimmering perception that this is not a question of time, and that, if promises or threats are addressed to the electoral body with regard to their exercise of the electoral franchise, it is a matter of no importance whether this is done before or at the time of the election. Illogical as he has proved himself, we cannot suppose him to be so utterly destitute of the reasoning faculty as a sincerity in this defence would imply; and we must therefore believe that he knows the charge to be well founded, and has recourse to this shuffling evasion in pure despair."--See _London and Westminster Review_, vol. xxxii., No. 2, article vi. [246] During the contest people on the hustings actually demanded of the candidates: "Do you vote for the House of Assembly or for Sir Francis Head?"--a question which, as Sir Francis himself remarks, amounted in plain terms to this: "Are you for a republican government, or are you not?"--See _Memorandum on the Present Political State of the Canadas_, in _Narrative_, chap. vi. [247] Lord Durham, reasoning from such evidence as he had before him, proceeds upon the assumption that no patents were issued except to persons entitled to the land. But, as his Lordship admits, the granting of patents at all under such circumstances was an act of official favouritism which no Lieutenant-Governor with a proper sense of his duty would have permitted. See _Report_, U.C. folio edition, p. 51. [248] This was at Streetsville, while the contest for the Second Riding of York was in progress between William Lyon Mackenzie and Edward William Thomson. [249] See his speech in the Assembly on January 30th, 1837. [250] From official returns it appears that 1,478 patents passed the Great Seal between the 20th of April (the date of the prorogation) and the close of the contest in June. Of this number 1,245 were issued in pursuance of Orders in Council made prior to Sir Francis Head's arrival in the Province. Between his arrival and the close of the election 233 were issued, whereof only 150 were issued under Order in Council on his authority. But that the entire 1,478 were passed under Sir Francis's régime within a very brief period; that a special staff of clerks was employed for the purpose; that for the first time in the history of the Province these patents were distributed at the polling-booths by Government agents who were strong adherents of the official party, and who were moreover dependent upon the Government for their situations--these are circumstances which admit of but one brief explanation. The only one of these agents whom the Committee of Inquiry ventured to summon before them was Mr. Welsley Richey, of Barrie, who, on his examination, deposed that he mentioned to the Lieutenant-Governor that the persons who wanted their deeds were entitled to them, and that _he thought they would vote for Constitutional candidates_; that Sir F. B. Head strictly commanded witness not in any manner to interfere as Government agent, or to use any influence which his situation gave him at the election; that out of a number not exceeding 130 patents which persons residing in the County of Simcoe were entitled to, and which were in witness's possession for them, only about thirty were called for, and only part of that thirty voted. This is mere petty evasion. As pointed out in the text, the extent to which such tactics as these affected the result is not the chief question to be decided. The mere fact that they were employed is sufficient to settle the question of culpability. Richey was directed not to interfere with the elections as _Government agent_. How was it possible for an official known to be connected with the Government to divest himself of the influence inseparable from such a connection, more especially when his strong political bias was well known, and when he presented himself at the poll as a distributor of deeds among the voters? The mere fact of a conference on such a subject between the head of the Government and a subordinate is in itself a suspicious circumstance. [251] In Lord Goderich's despatch to Sir John Colborne, dated 8th November, 1832, referred to _ante_, p. 246, the following language is employed: "His Majesty expects and requires of you neither to practise, nor to allow on the part of those who are officially subordinate to you, any interference with the rights of his subjects to the free and unbiased choice of their representatives;" and, as previously mentioned, Lord Glenelg had expressly instructed Sir Francis Head to adopt that despatch as a rule for the guidance of his conduct. See _ante_, p. 301. [252] _Ante_, p. 272. [253] Sir Francis Hincks, who, as previously mentioned in the text, then resided in Toronto, and was identified with the Reform party, has, in his _Reminiscences_, recorded his views on this subject, and as they are founded upon personal experience and recollection they are worth quoting. "Bearing in mind," he writes, "that there are exceptions to all general rules, I think that I am not wrong in my belief that the members of the Church of England and the Presbyterians generally voted for the Tory candidates, while the Roman Catholics and the Baptists, Congregationalists, etc., voted as uniformly for the Reformers. The Wesleyan Methodists held the balance of power in a great many constituencies, and I believe that it has been generally acknowledged that the elections in 1836 were carried against the Reformers by their votes." Again: "I believe that I am correct in asserting that Sir Francis Head carried the elections in 1836 against the Reformers mainly through the influence of the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, who, though absent from Canada at the time, had, by his published impressions, induced those who confided in him to abandon the Reform cause."--_Reminiscences_, etc., pp. 17, 18. [254] U.C. folio edition, p, 49. [255] The House contained in all only sixty-two members, so that a majority of twenty-five constituted what might be called absolute control. The actual majority was twenty-six, as there were but eighteen Reform representatives as against forty-four supporters of the Government. [256] See his despatch of 1st June. [257] _Ib._ [258] This language aptly characterizes Mr. Thomson, for afterwards, in the Assembly, it was impossible to predict how he would vote on any conceivable question. His "Reform" principles must have been very "moderate," for he frequently supported the measures of the Compact. His votes seem to have been dictated by chance or caprice, rather than political conviction of any kind. [259] Dr. Baldwin was Judge of the Surrogate Court of the Home District. His dismissal was probably due quite as much to the fact that he was President of the Society as to his remarks about the Lieutenant-Governor, or to the official address. Mr. Ridout was Judge of the Niagara District Court, Justice of the Peace, and Colonel of the Second Regiment of East York Militia. He was dismissed from all three offices, although he was not a member of the Reform Society. Mr. Small was Commissioner of the Court of Requests in Toronto, and also Lieutenant-Colonel of the First East York Militia. [260] _Ante_, p. 330. [261] Written by Chief Justice Robinson, in opposition to the project for uniting the two Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. CHAPTER XVII. REACTION. The closing weeks of the summer and a part of the early autumn were spent by the Lieutenant-Governor in an informal tour through some of the most interesting and picturesque districts of the Province. A great part of the tour, which occupied in all about two months, was performed on horseback, and with only two attendants. A pleasantly-written account of some of the experiences encountered during this invigorating holiday may be found in "The Emigrant," a light, sketchy, and most readable little volume put forth by Sir Francis ten years afterwards. Soon after his return to the Seat of Government his self-complacency received a check in the form of a despatch from the Colonial Office, enclosing copies of instructions which had been sent to Sir Archibald Campbell, Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick. It appeared that the strenuous exertions of the Reformers of that Province had been crowned with success. Sir Archibald had been directed to surrender to the Assembly the casual and territorial revenues of the Crown, and to concede a responsible Executive. This was not all. Sir Francis was himself distinctly informed that what had been conceded in one British North American Province could not be withheld from the rest. Scarcely had this piece of intelligence been chewed and digested ere he received another despatch which added to his discomfiture by confirming the previous one, and by seating the obnoxious doctrine at his very door. He was instructed that the Executive Councils in the various North American colonies were thenceforward to be composed of individuals possessing the confidence of the people. This, though not altogether unexpected, was almost past bearing. He saw the house of cards which he had constructed with such pains about to crumble before him. If this course were persisted in, all his efforts to pack a House of Assembly would erelong prove to have been made in vain; for no Assembly would permanently uphold a clique of Councillors in whose appointment they themselves had had no voice, and in whose principles they had no confidence. Sir Archibald Campbell and he were entirely of one mind as to the vexed question at issue, and they were both firmly determined to resist such a policy to the last ditch. Of Sir Archibald's proceedings it is unnecessary for this work to present any detailed account. It will be sufficient to say that he preferred to resign his office rather than obey the instructions he had received, and that he carried out this resolve during the following year, when he was succeeded by Sir John Harvey. Sir Francis Head meanwhile contented himself as best he could with vehement protests addressed to the Home Office. "The more seriously I contemplate the political tranquillity of this Province," he wrote,[262] "the more steadfastly am I confirmed in my opinion that cool, stern, decisive, un-conciliating measures form the most popular description of government that can be exercised towards the free and high-minded inhabitants of the Canadas." The style of his despatches did not improve with time. It was wordy, bombastic and slangy. The despatches themselves were largely made up of inflated, impertinent phraseology, and quotations from the light literature of the period. Lord Glenelg, however, had become accustomed to the unconventional methods of his protégé, and was by no means disposed to judge him with severity. On the 8th of September he wrote to him to the effect that his "foresight, energy and moral courage" had been approved of by the King. "It is peculiarly gratifying to me," wrote his Lordship, "to be the channel of conveying to you this high and honourable testimony of His Majesty's favourable acceptance of your services." From all which it is sufficiently apparent that the real state of Upper Canadian affairs was not much more clearly understood by the Colonial Office than by Sir Francis Head. The new Parliament was assembled on the 8th of November. Archibald McLean, of Stormont, was elected Speaker by a majority of fifteen, the vote standing thirty-six to twenty-one. This vote did not by any means indicate the full strength of the Government, which was simply irresistible. The power of the Compact was not only completely restored, but increased. Never had its ascendency been so great. It was absolute, overwhelming; and any opposition to it was a bootless kicking against the pricks. In the Speech from the Throne his Excellency congratulated the Houses on the loyal feeling pervading the Province, and on the stillness and serenity of the public mind. He drew attention to "the conspicuous tranquillity of the country," and briefly referred to the legislation contemplated by the Government, which, as thus indicated, was of an exceedingly practical character. The Speech concluded with a declaration of his Excellency's intention "to maintain the happy constitution of this Province inviolate." If the Speech, as a whole, contained a faithful reflex of the official mind, it indicated that the Government greatly misjudged the state of opinion in the country. True, there was little conspicuous agitation, for the Reform party had sustained so signal a defeat that they for the time felt powerless. But they were feverishly sensible of the crushing blow that had been dealt them, and reeled from it in a spirit which was far removed from "serenity." Scores of them despaired of the future, sold out their belongings, and removed to the United States. During the months of September and October there had been a considerable emigration of farmers from the western part of the Province to Michigan. Such was the "tranquillity" upon which Sir Francis plumed himself, and upon which he continued to dilate at recurring intervals until he was roused from his slumbers by the intelligence that "the rebels" were at Montgomery's. The Legislature at once proceeded to pass a Bill to provide for the support of the Civil Government for the current year, a circumstance of which the Lieutenant-Governor hastened to apprise Lord Glenelg. Various matters of importance occupied the attention of Parliament during the session. Among other questions which came up for discussion was the long-standing grievance of the Clergy Reserves. On Thursday, the 8th of December, a Bill was introduced into the Assembly by Hiram Norton, member for Grenville, having for its object the disposal of the Reserves for purposes of general education. It passed the second reading on the 13th of the same month, whereupon the House, in Committee of the Whole, after several days consideration and discussion, reported a resolution in favour of appropriating the Clergy Reserves lands and the proceeds arising from the sales thereof to the religious and moral instruction of the people. This gave rise to a motion of amendment by Dr. Rolph, "That it is expedient to provide for the sale of the Clergy Reserves, and the application of the proceeds to the purposes of general education, as one of the most legitimate ways of giving free scope to the progress of religious truth in the community." In support of this amendment the Doctor made what was unquestionably the most noteworthy speech of his life--a speech which a well-known writer[263] has pronounced to be without a parallel in the annals of Canadian Parliamentary debate. Its copiousness and felicity of illustration, its fluent and harmonious elegance of diction, could not have failed to stamp it as a great effort if it had been delivered before any audience in the world. No higher praise can be awarded to it than to record the simple fact that it added to the Doctor's already high reputation as an orator, and that it evoked the admiration of many persons who could not subscribe to the doctrines and arguments it contained. But no oratory and no arguments would have availed with that House. The amendment was lost, and on Friday, the 16th, the original resolution was carried by a vote of thirty-five to twenty-one. The matter was then referred to the Upper House for its concurrence. As the measure fell through during the session, and ultimately came to nothing, it seems unnecessary to follow its fortunes any farther. [Sidenote: 1837.] Dr. Rolph made another powerful speech during the session; a speech which would of itself have entitled him to a high place as a Parliamentary orator, and which was inferior in vigour only to the one on the Clergy Reserves. It arose out of Dr. Duncombe's charges against the Lieutenant-Governor. Having received from the Colonial Secretary a copy of the complaint which had been submitted to the House of Commons, his Excellency, who was of course able to rely implicitly upon the Assembly as then constituted, handed it over to that body to be dealt with. The result fully justified his confidence. A partisan Committee was appointed, by whom the question was approached in a spirit very far removed from judicial fairness. How the inquiry was conducted has already been recorded.[264] Dr. Duncombe had made certain charges, some of which were easily susceptible of positive proof, while others were from their nature of a kind which admitted of nothing stronger than indirect evidence. With regard to one or two damnatory charges, he implicitly believed them to be true, but he failed to secure any substantial proof whatever. He presented himself once before the Committee, only to find, as he had expected, that he must not look to obtain a fair or patient hearing. Under these circumstances he felt that nothing was to be gained by any further attempt to establish the truth of his allegations, and permitted the case to go by default. The Committee accordingly proceeded to take evidence on their own responsibility. The verdict arrived at was such as might easily have been foreseen. Every charge and insinuation made against his Excellency was declared to be "wholly and utterly destitute of truth." Not only was his conduct vindicated in this comprehensive manner, but he was referred to as one to whom the Province owed a large debt of gratitude. In due course the report came before the Assembly on a motion for its adoption. The proceeding had from the first been of the nature of a practical impeachment of the Lieutenant-Governor, a matter which was really beyond the jurisdiction of any Canadian tribunal. It afforded to Dr. Rolph an opportunity for addressing the House at considerable length, and in a speech which, as remarked by Mr. Mackenzie's biographer, "will ever be memorable in Canadian history."[265] It was delivered on the 30th of January, 1837. It dealt in most trenchant fashion with the various abuses which had been practised during the elections. The serio-comic tone which pervaded a great part of it evoked roars of laughter, while its more earnest passages aroused the most conflicting feelings in the minds of the auditors. True oratory is never altogether fruitless, and it would seem as if this powerful speech must have given the spur to feelings which, sooner or later, were bound to produce specific results. So far, however, as any immediate effects upon the action of the House were concerned, it might as well have remained unuttered. The report was adopted by a vote of more than two-thirds of the members present, and the Lieutenant-Governor stood officially exonerated from blame. Among other matters presented for the consideration of the Assembly was a petition from Mr. Mackenzie. Ever since the election, he had publicly announced his determination to petition against the return in the Second Riding of York. He was prevented by illness from filing his memorial within the prescribed period, and an extension of time was obtained on his behalf. He got together a great mass of evidence, some portions of which the Government would certainly have found it hard to answer to the public satisfaction. He was jubilant, and openly boasted that he would expose such a mass of corruption as would make the country stare aghast. He was however so intent on collecting evidence and on discounting his contemplated triumph over his enemies that he failed to enter into the necessary recognizance until the allotted period for doing so had elapsed. The statute governing the case required that the petitioner should enter into recognizance within fourteen days from the presentation of the petition. In this case the petition was presented on the 20th of December, 1836, so that the fourteen days expired on the 3rd of January, 1837. "If at the expiration of the said fourteen days"--so ran the statute--"such recognizance shall not have been entered into, the Speaker shall report the same to the House, and the order for taking such petition into consideration shall thereupon be discharged; unless, upon matter specially stated and verified to the satisfaction of the House, the House shall see cause to enlarge the time for entering into such recognizance." Accordingly, on the opening of the House on Wednesday, the 4th of January, Mr. Speaker McLean announced that the time limited for W. L. Mackenzie, the petitioning candidate for the representation of the Second Riding of York, to proceed upon his petition, had expired. Mr. Boulton, one of the members for Durham, then moved that the further consideration of the petition be discharged. Dr. Morrison sought to obtain additional time for the furnishing of the statutory recognizance, but the House was under no obligation to grant any indulgence, and after a long debate declined to do so. Mr. Boulton's motion was carried; whereupon Dr. Morrison moved that Mr. Mackenzie have leave to present a new petition. The House negatived this motion, and Mr. Thomson was confirmed in his seat. The matter was again brought before the notice of the House a few days afterwards by Dr. Morrison, who moved that Mr. Mackenzie be allowed further time to enter into the requisite security. The motion was made in order to give Dr. Rolph--who had not been present during the former discussion--an opportunity of speaking on the subject. The member for Norfolk delivered himself of a vigorous and subtle argument, in the course of which he reviewed the English practice, as well as the practice which had generally prevailed in similar cases in Upper Canada. The fourteen days, he argued, should be computed from the time when the petition was read to the House, not from the date when it was handed in. The presentation referred to in the statute, he alleged, was not complete until the reading of the petition, which could not take place until it had lain on the table two days. Still further, the petitioner's delay had been in part due to the Clerk of the House, who had led Mr. Mackenzie to believe that the fourteen days would not begin to run against him until two days after the delivery of the petition. The argument throughout was plausible and powerful, but it shared the fate of many other powerful appeals in those days. The motion was lost. There seems to have been a strong determination on the part of the Government to burke the investigation. This was suggestive of a fear of the result, and was so regarded by many wholly disinterested persons. Some of the charges were of the gravest nature, and, if the Government had felt that their skirts were clean, it is incomprehensible that they should not have availed themselves of such an opportunity of establishing the fact by official record. There seems but too good reason to believe that, if the inquiry had been proceeded with, Mackenzie would have made good his boast, and that a disgraceful exposure of Executive corruption would have been made. One of the significant measures of the session was an Act to prevent the dissolution of the Provincial Parliament upon the demise of the Crown. The desire of the Executive for such an enactment arose in this manner. During the brief election campaign of the preceding summer the most tempting promises had been made to the electors on behalf of the Government. This had been done with the full knowledge and consent--nay, probably at the instigation--of the members of the Government themselves. The fulfilment of some of the promises would have been feasible enough. Others had been as absurdly impossible of fulfilment as were Jack Cade's pledges that seven halfpenny loaves should be sold for a penny, and that the three-hooped pot should have ten hoops. The Government now realized that their performances were far from being commensurate with the promises so lavishly made. In the event of a new election taking place within the next few months it would be easy for the Reformers to make out a strong case, and it would be hard for the Government party to reply thereto with effect. It seemed not improbable that a new election might erelong become necessary, for King William the Fourth was more than three score and ten years old, and was known to be in a state of health which rendered it unlikely that he would live much longer. Now, his death, in the ordinary course of things, would bring about a dissolution and a general election, and this was the contingency against which it was thought desirable to guard. A measure was accordingly passed whereby it was enacted "That the Parliament of this Province shall not in any case be deemed to be determined or dissolved by the death or demise of His Majesty, his heirs or successors; nor shall any session of the Parliament of this Province be deemed to be determined, or the proceedings therein pending in any manner abated, interrupted or affected by the demise of His Majesty, his heirs or successors; but notwithstanding such death or demise the Parliament of this Province shall continue, and, if sitting, shall proceed to act until dissolved or prorogued in the usual manner, or until the legal expiration of the term of such Parliament." The Reformers fought this Bill inch by inch on its way through the Assembly, but in vain. Upon its coming up for its third reading, Norton, of Grenville, moved its recommittal, and, upon the defeat of his motion, he made a final effort by moving "That the Act shall not go into operation before the expiration of the present Parliament." This, too, was defeated, and the Bill was finally passed by a vote of twenty-six to eighteen. The measure is suggestive of the English Act passed by the Long Parliament during the reign of Charles the First, which enacted that Parliament should not be dissolved by the King without its own consent. There was a good deal of extravagant legislation during the session. Large sums were voted for the construction and improvement of Provincial highways, for surveys of the Ottawa River and the territory contiguous thereto, for the improvement of the navigation of the Trent and Grand Rivers, for the completion of the Welland Canal, and for the construction of various other canals, harbours, and lighthouses. Provision was also made for loans to several railway and other companies. Most, perhaps of all these, were enterprises deserving of aid and encouragement, but the aggregate sum of the moneys voted was nearly four millions of dollars, being considerably more than the condition of the Province and the circumstances of the people justified. This exceeding liberality was probably to some extent due to a wish to respond to the popular demand for the expenditure of money on public improvements. It was during this session that an Act was passed providing for the establishment of a Provincial Court of Chancery. Mr. Jameson was soon after appointed Vice Chancellor, the Chancellorship being vested in the Crown. The session terminated on Saturday, the 4th of March, and its termination was attended by a scene of "most admired disorder" in the Assembly. The project of uniting the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada had occupied a certain amount of attention on the part of both Houses, and had been on the order of the day throughout the greater part of the session. When the final day of deliberation arrived, the Legislative Council sent down to the Lower House an Address embodying certain resolutions against the proposed union. The Address was accompanied by a request that the Assembly would concur therein, after which it was to be despatched to the King. It reached the hands of the Clerk of the Lower House about noon, and was at once submitted in the form of a motion of concurrence. This was not relished by the Reformers, who were strongly disposed in favour of an equitable union of the two Provinces, a step which, as they believed, would go far to adjust the balance of parties. A considerable number of the members had already left for their homes, and Dr. Rolph took advantage of this circumstance as a plea for postponing the further consideration of the matter until the next session. He moved an amendment to that effect, and said a few words in support of his motion. Dr. Morrison and Thomas Parke[266] took up the argument, and spoke for some minutes. They were subjected to frequent interruptions from the supporters of the Government, who were evidently anxious to prevent discussion. Dr. Rolph then rose to speak to the question of order, upon which the interruptions were renewed. Frequent appeals were made to the Speaker, who soon found himself involved in an animated discussion with Dr. Rolph. Nearly all the prominent members of the House erelong became participants, and the situation became critical. Hard words were freely bandied about, amid the greatest confusion and disorder. An eye-witness compares the scene to a wasp's nest disturbed.[267] The Speaker finally put a stop to the ebullitions of temper, and brought the scene to a close by announcing that the time had arrived for waiting on the Lieutenant-Governor with certain addresses. There was no opportunity of renewing the discussion, and at half-past three o'clock Black Rod summoned the House to the bar of the Legislative Council. In proroguing Parliament the Lieutenant-Governor referred in complacent terms to the legislation of the session, and applauded the harmony which had prevailed between the two branches of the Legislature. By this time it began to be apparent to discerning persons that Sir Francis's success as an Administrator had been rather apparent than real. All through the election campaign, as well as for some time before and after, the Tory party had sounded his praises with stentorian lungs. He had to a large extent been accepted by the country at their valuation. But sufficient time had now elapsed to enable the people to judge for themselves, and it was shrewdly suspected that the current estimate of him had been too high. He had triumphed at the elections, and had managed to pack the Assembly with an overwhelming majority of members pledged to support his policy; but he now began to discover that he had raised a spirit which he could not control. Neither the majority in the Assembly nor the members of the Legislative Council were prepared to slavishly accept his dictation, or to follow him blindfold whithersoever he might choose to lead them. Some of the official utterances of these bodies during the session had been as strongly assertive of their own dignity and independence as the deliverances of the former Assembly had ever been. Even the Executive Council had begun to exhibit an impatience of being indirectly dictated to by unsworn advisers who were permitted by the Lieutenant-Governor to usurp the functions peculiarly belonging to themselves. His Excellency's popularity was evidently waning throughout the land. There was a decided reaction against him, and thousands of Reformers who had voted for Government candidates at the election were now animated by a strong sentiment of opposition. The Lieutenant-Governor was also at issue with the Colonial Office on several matters of importance. To the recommendations of the Lower Canada Commissioners, as previously mentioned, he had strenuously opposed himself. He had failed to carry out the direction of Lord Glenelg to restore Mr. Ridout to the offices from which that gentleman had been dismissed. He now displayed further insubordination by neglecting to obey several minor injunctions received from headquarters, by which course of procedure he involved himself in much disputatious correspondence. His anxieties were increased by a commercial crisis which set in about this time in the United States. There had been an era of seeming prosperity but real inflation in that favoured land, of which the present crisis was the legitimate consequence. Specie payments were suspended, and business was all but paralyzed. This disheartening state of things was speedily reflected in Canada, which was ill qualified to bear such an infliction. The banks and the mercantile community generally became alarmed. In the Lower Province the banks suspended specie payments, and our own were much disposed to follow the example. The directors of some of our leading financial institutions applied to the Lieutenant-Governor for advice and direction. As all these matters, however, belong rather to the mercantile history of the country than to the story of the Rebellion, there is no need to go into them with minuteness. Suffice it to say that Sir Francis Head deemed it proper in this emergency to convene an extra session of the Legislature, which met accordingly on Monday, the 19th of June. As Mr. McLean had accepted a seat on the bench since the close of the preceding session, it was necessary that a new Speaker should be elected, and A. N. MacNab was chosen as his successor.[268] The session lasted only three weeks, and terminated on Tuesday, the 11th of July. It was purely a session of emergency, and the legislation was confined to relieving the banks from certain penalties which the crisis had threatened to impose upon them. FOOTNOTES: [262] See despatch of 30th December, 1836, in _Narrative_, chap. vii. [263] Mr. Charles Lindsey, in his pamphlet on "_The Clergy Reserves: their History and Present Position_;" appendix, p. i. He adds: "The clear, pointed, classical diction of the speaker; the learning and historical research he displayed; the beauty and appositeness of his illustrations; the breadth and depth and immovable basis of his arguments; the clearness, the syllogistic accuracy and force of his logic, and the impressive eloquence of his delivery produced an effect upon those who heard the speech never to be forgotten. Its publication in the newspapers of the day aroused the people. It convinced them (for, strange as it may seem now, there were many who needed to be convinced) of the unscriptural, immoral and unjust character of a State religion; while it confirmed them in their determination to rest not until they had exterminated the curse from Canadian soil.... This noble effort of an able, learned, bold and patriotic defender of the cause of the people against their corrupt, unscrupulous and then powerful enemies, ought to be printed in letters of gold, and preserved for the instruction and warning of all future generations of Canadian freemen." This was written in 1851, when the Clergy Reserves question yet remained unsettled, and while it still continued to agitate the public mind almost to the exclusion of other matters. Now that the subject has ceased to be a practical one, the encomiums so lavishly bestowed upon Dr. Rolph's famous speech will perhaps seem a little over-strained; but it was most unquestionably a great oratorical and intellectual effort, such as had never before been heard within the walls of the Provincial Legislature. Even at this distance of time, when all interest in the subject has died out, the speech cannot be read without arousing a feeling of admiration for the orator. [264] _Ante_, p. 330. [265] Lindsey's _Life of Mackenzie_, vol. i., p. 392. [266] Member for Middlesex. [267] See the report in the number of _The Correspondent and Advocate_ for Wednesday, March 15th. [268] Forty-two members were present at the vote on the Speakership, all of whom voted for Mr. McNab with the exception of David Gibson, of the First Riding of York, who recorded his solitary vote in the negative. CHAPTER XVIII. THE FORGING OF THE PIKES. It will be remembered that, during the summer of 1836, Dr. Baldwin, George Ridout and J. E. Small had been dismissed by Sir Francis Head from certain offices held by them at the pleasure of the Crown. Mr. Ridout had appealed to Lord Glenelg, to whom the Lieutenant-Governor had soon afterwards found himself called upon to defend his conduct. The only reason which had at first been assigned by his Excellency for Mr. Ridout's dismissal was that the latter was presumed to be a member of the Constitutional Reform Society. This society, just before the election, had issued and circulated a printed address wherein his Excellency was charged with a disregard of constitutional Government, and of candour and truth in his statements. Mr. Ridout had undoubtedly attended and spoken at some of the meetings of the society, but he was not a member of it, and had no difficulty in establishing the fact to the satisfaction of the Colonial Secretary, who, after mature consideration, conveyed to Sir Francis His Majesty's commands that Mr. Ridout should be reinstated in the various offices from which he had been removed. With this command, as mentioned towards the close of the last chapter, Sir Francis did not see fit to comply. Finding himself beaten upon the case as it stood, he proceeded to amend the record by alleging other matters against the accused. In this course he met with little encouragement from his Lordship, who patiently combated his untenable positions, and repeated the injunction that Mr. Ridout should be reinstated. While the matter was in abeyance, another difference of opinion arose between Lord Glenelg and Sir Francis. During the spring of 1837, Mr. Jameson having been appointed Vice Chancellor, and Archibald McLean and Jonas Jonas having been appointed Judges of the Court of King's Bench, it became necessary for Sir Francis to submit these appointments to his Lordship, together with those of Mr. Hagerman and Mr. Draper respectively to the offices of Attorney-General and Solicitor-General. His Excellency seems to have felt that it was necessary to assign some reason for passing over Mr. Bidwell, whose legal acquirements were certainly superior to those of any other member of the Upper Canada bar since John Rolph had abandoned the long robe. "That gentleman's legal acquirements," wrote Sir Francis,[269] "are, I consider, superior to at least one of the individuals whom I have elevated. His moral character is irreproachable. But, anxious as I am to give to talent its due, yet I cannot but feel that the welfare and honour of this Province depend on His Majesty never promoting a disloyal man." His Excellency then went on to represent Mr. Bidwell as having been desirous of effecting the separation of the colony from the parent state, and of exchanging the British constitution for "the low, grovelling principles of democracy." There was no allegation that any such desire had ever been personally expressed or manifested by Mr. Bidwell, but it was inferred _from the conduct of his associates_. This was somewhat more than the Colonial Secretary could quietly pass over. He pointed out[270] to the Lieutenant-Governor that the disloyalty imputed to Mr. Bidwell's associates had not been charged against himself, or attempted to be proved by any act of his; that he had withdrawn himself from political strife; and that as his professional abilities and high moral character were respected by his political opponents, the political stand formerly taken by him ought not to operate against his advancement. It was further urged by his Lordship that the elevation of such a man to the bench would convince the Upper Canadian public of the impartiality of the Executive in such matters. Finally, his Excellency was informed that should another vacancy occur among the Judges of the Court of King's Bench, it was the wish of His Majesty's Government that the situation should be offered to Mr. Bidwell. Upon receipt of the missive containing this intimation the Tried Reformer was almost beside himself. He had none of that magnanimity which impels a man to admit that he is in the wrong when he has been clearly proved to be so. Nor could he boast of that skill of graceful concession which enables its possessor to recede without discredit from an untenable position. He replied to his Lordship[271] in the following blunt and explicit terms: "After very deliberate consideration, I have determined to take upon myself the serious responsibility of positively refusing to place Mr. Bidwell on the bench, or to restore Mr. George Ridout to the Judgeship from which I have removed him." He went on to deprecate the necessity for this "overt act of hostility," but added that disobedience on the part of a Lieutenant-Governor does not necessarily imply disaffection to the Minister. He hinted that he was quite prepared for an immediate dismissal. A great part of the despatch was taken up with libels upon Mr. Bidwell and his father. In order that there might be no misunderstanding on the matter, he emphatically repeated his refusal to elevate the former. "So long as I remain Lieutenant-Governor of this Province," he wrote, "I will _never_ raise Mr. Bidwell to the bench; and I think it proper to confess to your Lordship that I have at this moment two appointments to make of King's Counsel, neither of which can I conscientiously bestow upon that gentleman." He declined to argue the question as to Mr. Ridout any further, and again refused in the most explicit terms to reinstate him in office. This language left the Colonial Secretary no other discretion than to "accept Sir Francis's resignation," but before this determination was officially conveyed to him the peace of the Province was disturbed by the outbreak of the rebellion. During the whole summer of this year Mackenzie was doing his utmost to add to the prevalent feeling of discontent against the Government. A superlative bitterness had possessed him ever since the elections, and the fate of his petition had inflamed his resentment almost to madness. He felt that he had been cheated out of his seat, and that nothing was to be hoped for on behalf of either himself or his fellow-workers so long as the existing Government remained in power. To subvert that Government thenceforth became the dominant passion of his life. He was ready to adopt any means, lawful or unlawful, to secure that end. The tone of the _Constitution_ was not to be mistaken. The mind of the editor had evidently run a long course since he had first begun to concern himself with public affairs. In one of the early numbers of the _Advocate_[272] he had boasted that disloyalty could never enter his breast. "Even the name I bear," he had written, "has in all ages proved talismanic, an insurmountable barrier." What a change had come over him since giving utterance to those words. He now boasted of his "rebel blood," which he declared would always be uppermost. "I am proud," he wrote, "of my descent from a rebel race."[273] And, as if this were not sufficiently specific, he added: "If the people felt as I feel, there is never a Grant or Glenelg who crossed the Tay and Tweed to exchange high-born Highland poverty for substantial Lowland wealth, who would dare to insult Upper Canada with the official presence, as its ruler, of such an equivocal character as this Mr. What-do-they-call-him--Francis Bond Head." Ever and anon the Tory press retorted on him in a spirit by no means calculated to soften the asperity of his heart. The most contemptuous epithets were freely bestowed upon him, and he was from time to time taunted with his humble origin. It seems almost unnecessary to say that those who indulged in such taunts as these had very little wherewith to reproach Mackenzie on the score of birth and breeding. There must surely be some foul taint in the blood of any man who can stoop to such methods of humiliating a beaten enemy. Still, such insults, coming, as they did, in the wake of serious material injury, added fuel to the flame which burned within Mackenzie's heart like a consuming fire. All the worst part of his nature was up in arms. There were times when he wrote and spoke like one who has lost all self-control. But he was in such deadly earnest that he carried conviction to many a wavering mind. In the Home District, where his paper chiefly circulated, there were scores of people who had seen enough of irresponsible Government to be ready to receive his preachments with favour. His efforts were not restricted to writing virulent articles. He openly went among the people, and disseminated his doctrines by word of mouth. He spoke better than he wrote; and it was only natural that he should exercise a strong influence over the rural communities wherein the Radical element was in the ascendant. His influence became specially conspicuous at this time throughout the Second Riding of York, which he had represented in Parliament, and which, as previously mentioned, had been the scene of much high-handed corruption during the last election contest. The voters of that constituency awoke to the fact that they had been beguiled by the Tories, and that their representative, Mr. Thomson, was not likely to be of much service in the role of a Reformer. They eagerly listened to Mackenzie's tabulation of grievances, and cheered him to the echo when he hinted that the time had arrived for the Spirit of Freedom to assert herself. Among those who warmly sympathized with Mackenzie was Samuel Lount, of Holland Landing, who, it will be remembered, had sat in the last Parliament for Simcoe, and who had been beaten, as he believed, by corrupt methods, at the last election. He had contemplated a petition to the Assembly, but had been discouraged by the conviction that it would be impossible to obtain an impartial inquiry. He now made common cause with Mackenzie in promoting the establishment of a series of "Union meetings," as they were called, in the various townships of North York and Simcoe. These meetings were convened at irregular intervals for the ostensible purpose of political organization. At first they seem to have been conducted with a good deal of craftiness, for as a general thing nothing was said which could in strictness be regarded as treasonable. But there can be little doubt that the intention of the original promoter of these assemblages was the spread of revolutionary ideas, with a view to an ultimate resort to arms, and in a short time the mask of political organization was completely thrown off. Those who had once put their hands to the plough did not care to draw back, and, before they were aware of what they were doing, they found themselves committed to projects of which at the outset they had not so much as dreamed. Lount's example was followed by most of the leading Radicals among the farming community where he was best known. The Lloyds, Gorhams, Doans, Fletchers and others had long been active advocates of Radical principles, and had marked with ever-growing hostility the tactics of Sir Francis Head. They saw right persistently violated by might. They saw the respectful complaints and petitions of the people disregarded and set at naught. They saw the Government in the hands of persons who were not only devoid of sympathy with progressive ideas, but who seemed to have no regard for the principles of plain right and wrong. They found themselves of no account in the commonwealth. Their cherished principles were held up to public scorn, and their chosen candidates for Parliament were beaten by fraudulent means. They were utterly without weight in public affairs. After a long and hard fight with the Family Compact, they saw that clique more strongly entrenched in power than ever before. The Tried Reformer who, in response to their long and loud appeals, had been sent over to administer the Government, had stooped to a barefaced violence and tyranny in excess of anything which could be truly charged against the Tory Sir John Colborne. All the old abuses were maintained in full vigour. The incubus of the Clergy Reserves was not removed. Appointments to office were still made from one political body only. The Legislative Council still had the power to paralyze the efforts of the Assembly. The Assembly itself was at present as retrograde as the Upper House, and it had been formed by a corrupt and venal race of officials against whom there was no remedy. The Act to prevent the dissolution of Parliament would probably have the effect of maintaining the existing Assembly for years. To all these evils was now superadded great commercial depression. And there seemed to be no prospect of brighter times. The future seemed overcast and hopeless. Is it any wonder if those who were compelled to contemplate the picture from this dark point of view were forced to the conclusion that a change of any kind must surely be for the better? It is impossible to say at what precise date the idea of armed resistance to authority was adopted among the rural Reformers, but I can find no distinct trace of it until the 30th of June, when, at a secret meeting held at Lloydtown, a resolution was passed to the effect that constitutional resistance to oppression having been for many years tried in vain, it behooved every Reformer to arm himself in defence of his rights and those of his fellow-countrymen. Within a fortnight afterwards resolutions of a similar character were passed by small gatherings in other parts of the Home District. As yet, however, the idea of actual rebellion does not seem to have taken definite shape in the minds of the supporters of Mackenzie and Lount. At most, there appears to have been a sort of understanding that recourse to arms was justifiable, and might some day become expedient; but even this view of the case did not meet with universal acquiescence, and the advocates of insurrection sometimes found themselves confronted by hostile majorities, even among assemblies of the most trusted Radicals. But meanwhile Reformers in the cities and towns were beginning to bestir themselves. Toronto was the headquarters of the Reform party of Upper Canada, and it was natural that the adherents of that party throughout the Province generally should contemplate their proceedings with interest. As yet the idea of an armed rising against the Government had not been seriously hinted at among the Reformers of the capital. Profound sympathy, however, was felt and expressed among them for the Lower Canadians, who made no secret of their determination to rebel in case certain resolutions adopted by the British Parliament, at the instance of the Ministry, were acted upon. These resolutions had been adopted in consequence of the Lower Canadian Assembly's persistent refusal to grant supplies. They authorized the seizure of certain funds in the hands of the Provincial Receiver-General, and the application of them to the general purposes of the Provincial government. Papineau and his adherents had been maddened by this proceeding, and were actively engaged in preparations for an outbreak. The Upper Canadian Reformers warmly sympathized with their neighbours, and passed resolutions condemnatory of the obnoxious resolutions. On the 5th of July, Mackenzie, in the _Constitution_, reviewed the state of affairs in the Lower Province with exceeding boldness. He discussed the probability of an outbreak there, and the chances of success, very clearly indicating his own opinion in the affirmative as to both contingencies. Other Reform papers expressed strong opinions in favour of Papineau's side of the quarrel, but, with the exception of the _Constitution_, none of them ventured to predict and hope for the success of the rebel arms. The fact is, that a comparatively small number of Upper Canadian Reformers were either ripe for or desirous of rebellion. They were aroused to hot anger, and were prepared to advocate the most radical measures of agitation. Their hostility, however, was not chiefly directed against Great Britain, but against Sir Francis Head and those by whom he was surrounded. It was felt that the Home Office had failed in its duty, but the more intelligent were ready to make allowances for the ignorance respecting Canadian affairs of a Minister three thousand miles away. Such were the sentiments of Robert Baldwin and hundreds of other persons the sincerity of whose Reform principles were equally free from doubt. Dr. Baldwin felt and expressed less moderation than his son, though he was not the man to venture upon what he could not have regarded otherwise than as a hare-brained scheme of rebellion, more especially when his chief allies would be composed of the Mackenzie element of Radicals. Rolph and Bidwell were precisely of the same opinion as Dr. Baldwin. They were sick and weary of all that they saw around them. They would have cordially welcomed a bloodless revolution. As for Bidwell, he would gladly have seen the Province quietly absorbed by the United States, for Family Compact domination would then have been at an end, and there would have been a chance for a man to be rated according to his merits. One situated as he was could not be expected to be devotedly loyal to a Government which did its utmost to keep him down, and which raised a lawyer like Jonas Jones to the bench over his head. Like his father before him, he was a republican in principle, and would doubtless have been willing enough to see a republican form of Government established in Upper Canada; but he had never permitted his predilections to interfere with his duties as a citizen and legislator. Moreover, he was before all things a Christian and a man of peace. It is not by such as he that revolutions are planned or accomplished. If questioned on the subject, he would doubtless have admitted that rebellion, under certain circumstances, may be justifiable, but it is hardly possible to conceive of any circumstances under which he could have been induced to take part in such a movement. Assuredly, nothing short of an almost absolute certainty of success would have impelled him to such a course. The inherent probabilities of success in the case of the Upper Canadian rebellion were from the first very few and remote. There was a brief interval during which, owing to the stupidity and supineness of the Government, success might have been achieved, but whether it would have been temporary or permanent must ever remain an open question. In any case, the contingency was one upon which no prudent man would have allowed himself to count beforehand. As a matter of fact Mr. Bidwell had no more to do with the rebellion than had Robert Baldwin.[274] Dr. Rolph, Dr. Morrison, David Gibson, James Hervey Price, Francis Hincks, John Doel, James and William Lesslie, John Mackintosh,[275] and many other leading Reformers were full of vehemence and indignation, ready to go any reasonable length to bring about a state of things more satisfactory to their party; but up to the close of summer I cannot learn that any serious thought of rebellion had taken possession of the minds of any prominent Toronto Reformer with the exception of Mackenzie himself. Even up in North York and Simcoe, where the feeling of discontent was strongest, and where there was much talk about rebellion against the Government, no one seems to have realized or believed that there would be any actual outbreak. There could be no doubt, however, that the Reformers in both town and country were more thoroughly in earnest than they had ever been before. Energetic measures were in favour among them, and the number of advocates of passive endurance was very small. There were regular communications between them and the opponents of the Government in Lower Canada. They held frequent meetings, at which schemes of agitation were discussed, and where every member was encouraged to speak his mind without fear or favour. A very frequent place of meeting in Toronto was Elliott's tavern, on the north-west corner of Yonge and Queen Streets. A place for holding more secret and confidential caucuses was the brewery of John Doel, situated at the rear of his house on the north-west corner of Adelaide and Bay Streets.[276] Towards the end of July a number of leading Radicals assembled at Elliott's for the purpose of discussing the draft of a written Declaration, which was intended to embody the platform of the local members of the party. It reads very much like a cautious parody on the Declaration of Independence of the United States, upon which it was evidently modelled. It set forth the principal grievances of which the Reform party complained; declared that the time had arrived for the assertion of rights and the redress of wrongs; and expressed the warmest admiration of Papineau and his compatriots for their opposition to the British Government. It further expressed the opinion that the Reformers of Upper Canada were bound to make common cause with their fellow-citizens in the Lower Province; and to render their coöperation more effectual it recommended that public meetings should be held and political associations organized throughout the country. Finally, it recommended that a convention of delegates should be held at Toronto to consider the political situation, "with authority to its members to appoint commissioners to meet others to be named on behalf of Lower Canada and any of the other colonies, armed with suitable powers as a congress to seek an effectual remedy for the grievances of the colonists." Mr. Lindsey,[277] doubtless upon the authority of Mackenzie, represents this Declaration as having been the joint work of Dr. Rolph and Dr. W. J. O'Grady, somewhile editor of _The Correspondent and Advocate_. I can find no confirmatory evidence of this statement, and some of Dr. Rolph's letters would seem, at least by implication, to contradict the assertion that he had any hand in its preparation. The question of authorship, however, is not important. The document was discussed at considerable length. Dr. Morrison, who was present, fully approved of its contents, but objected to sign it, as he would thereby place himself in a dubious position as a member of Parliament. This argument was not acquiesced in by James Lesslie, and the Doctor finally appended his signature. His example was followed by all the other members present except James Lesslie, who withheld his name until the document should be signed by Dr. Rolph, who was absent from the meeting.[278] On the afternoon of Friday, the 28th of the same month, the Declaration was submitted to and discussed for the second time by a number of Reformers assembled at Elliott's. There was to be a large meeting the same evening at Doel's brewery, at which it was thought desirable that the platform should be adopted. Some discussion arose as to several clauses, however, and one or two immaterial alterations were made, after which it was thought best to postpone the final adoption of the Declaration in its entirety until a subsequent meeting. The meeting held during the evening at Doel's was very numerously attended. About three hundred persons were present,[279] and a good deal of important discussion took place. A motion expressive of sympathy and admiration for Papineau and his compatriots was proposed by Mackenzie, and passed without a dissentient voice, and it was resolved that "the Reformers of Upper Canada" should make common cause with those of the Lower Province. The persons present at this meeting of course had no authority to speak on behalf of the Reformers of Upper Canada as a whole, but they fairly enough represented the Radical wing of the party, which was quite large enough to be formidable. The meeting further resolved that a convention of delegates should be assembled at an early period in Toronto, "to take into consideration the state of the Province, the causes of the present pecuniary and other difficulties, and the means whereby they may be effectually removed;" and that persons be appointed by the said convention to proceed to Lower Canada, "there to meet the delegates of any congress of these Provinces which may be appointed to sit and deliberate on matters of mutual interest to the colonies during the present year." The Declaration was not submitted, as final judgment had not been passed upon it by those who had it in charge. After a long and busy session, the assemblage adjourned to meet in the same place on the evening of Monday, the 31st. It was matter of much regret among the Radical leaders that Dr. Rolph had not up to this time taken any active part in their deliberations. He was known to be in sympathy with the project of a movement in concert with the Lower Canadians for the purpose of impressing the Imperial Government with the necessity of changing their colonial policy. He had become the trusted counsellor of all the leading Radicals, who looked up to him as the one man in the Province who was capable of directing any large or wise measure of Reform. But he had not identified himself with them by actual coöperation in their projects, and had attended none of their secret meetings, although he was kept fully informed of all that occurred thereat. The Radicals, recognizing how much would be gained by securing the presence among them of Rolph and Bidwell, resolved to press both those gentlemen into service. At the adjourned meeting on the evening of the 31st, the movement made considerable progress. The Declaration was formally adopted clause by clause. According to a contemporary newspaper report,[280] it "called forth from the meeting the most unequivocal marks of approbation." As already mentioned, one of its clauses recommended the holding of a convention at Toronto. A resolution was accordingly unanimously adopted appointing Rolph, Bidwell, Dr. Morrison, James Lesslie and others as delegates to the proposed convention. This, it was confidently believed, would have the effect of identifying Rolph and Bidwell with the Radical cause, for it was not thought that either of them would refuse to attend as delegates. Other resolutions were adopted with a view to placing the party in a state of efficient organization throughout the Province. The persons who had previously appended their names to the Declaration[281] were appointed "a permanent Committee of Vigilance, for this city and liberties, and to carry into immediate and practical effect the resolutions of this meeting for the effectual organization of the Reformers of Upper Canada." John Elliott, a Toronto scrivener, who was also Assistant Clerk of the City Council, was requested to continue to act as Secretary-in-Ordinary, and Mackenzie to act as "Agent and Corresponding Secretary." Both of these requests were assented to. A resolution, doubtless adopted in emulation of similar resolutions at meetings held under Papineau's auspices in Lower Canada, pledged the members to abstain as far as possible "from the consumption of articles coming from beyond sea, or paying duties." A sort of rider to this was moved by Mackenzie, and adopted by the meeting: "That the right of obtaining articles of luxury or necessity in the cheapest market is inherent in the people, who only consent to the imposition of duties for the creation of revenues with the express understanding that the revenues so raised from them shall be devoted to the necessary expenses of Government, and appointed by the people's representatives; and therefore, when the contract is broken by an Executive or any foreign authority, the people are released from their engagement, and are no longer under any moral obligation to contribute to or aid in the collection of such revenues." On Wednesday, the 2nd of August, the Declaration was published in full, together with the names of the committee, in _The Correspondent and Advocate_, and in Mackenzie's _Constitution_. Each of these papers also published a report of the proceedings at the meeting. The part assigned to Mackenzie--that of "Agent and Corresponding Secretary"--was an important one, and involved him in the necessity of giving up all his time and energies to the cause. In so far as his abilities enabled him to do so, he was to virtually play the same part in Upper Canada that had long been enacted by Papineau in the Lower Province. He was to be a supreme itinerant organizer, and was to go about the country stirring up opposition to the Government. This would involve the arranging and holding of public meetings and secret caucuses, the selection of local correspondents, the supervision of local reports, and various other duties not definitely specified, much being necessarily left to his own discretion. He had been engaged in precisely similar tasks for some weeks previously, but henceforth he was able to carry out his designs as the accredited emissary of the Reformers of Toronto, a fact which of course gave him additional importance in the eyes of the Reformers generally. His appointment was due to his own manoeuvres, but it must be confessed that he was in many respects well qualified for the post. He addressed himself to his tasks with redoubled assiduity. The Province was mapped out into four districts, each of which was again subdivided into minor divisions. Local branch societies were formed or remodelled in all neighbourhoods where Reformers were numerous. Each of these was directed to report regularly to a central society, and all the latter were to report to the Corresponding Secretary, by whom the reports were classified, digested, and laid before the central committee in Toronto. Mackenzie at once proceeded to hold a fresh series of meetings, beginning with the townships in which he was best known, and thence flitting hither and thither as was deemed advisable. In this way, in the course of the late summer and autumn he went over the whole of the Home District, and over a great part of the adjoining country. His soul was in the work he was doing, and he put into it all the energy which he could command. He did not succeed in arousing such a feeling in the west as Papineau did in the east. He had not Papineau's marvellous Gallic eloquence, nor were the farmers of Upper Canada composed of such inflammable material as the _habitans_ of the Lower Province. But Mackenzie, when thoroughly aroused, as he now was, had considerable power to move the masses, and he exerted himself to this end as he had never done before. The manifold wrongs he had endured had exasperated his nature almost beyond endurance, and he could lash himself into a storm of indignation at a moment's notice. He succeeded in awakening enthusiasm in persons who had formerly been remarkable for stolidity. He presented few new subjects for the consideration of his auditors, but he presented old subjects in a light which was suggestive of new ideas. He declaimed against the iniquities of the Executive, the supineness of the Imperial Government, and the culpable indifference of the British Parliament. The Declaration, in fact, was the test upon which his harangues were founded, but he presented its respective clauses in ever-recurring novelty of aspect. The document was itself submitted to the various meetings for approval, accompanied by Mackenzie's fiery commentary. As a general thing the Radical element was largely in the ascendant at the gatherings, and he had no trouble about carrying his resolutions, frequently by very large majorities. He adapted his oratory to his audience. Where he knew that he would encounter little or no opposition he was much more outspoken than where the feeling was less favourable to him. Wherever he felt that he could carry his audience with him, he boldly advocated separation from the mother-country, and the establishment of elective institutions under an independent Government; though he took care to deprecate any appeal to physical force,[282] and generally advocated a money payment to the British Government as the price of a full release and quittance of all Imperial claims upon the colony. He employed all the paraphernalia which he thought likely to impress the people, and banners bearing revolutionary inscriptions were freely displayed from the platform in neighbourhoods where such a course was deemed safe. Lount, Gibson, Nelson Gorham and others occasionally reinforced him by their presence and their oratory. These gentlemen were all gifted with more than ordinary powers of expression. The subject-matter was one which they all had deeply at heart, and upon which they could speak with never-failing freshness and vigour. The audiences were sometimes moved to rapturous demonstrations of applause. Even in communities where the popular sentiment was less enthusiastic the recommendations embodied in the Declaration were generally assented to, and local vigilance committees were formed. Delegates to the proposed Toronto convention were appointed, but the date of holding it was for the time left open. About seventy of these delegates were appointed in the Home District alone. The necessity for making common cause with the Lower Canadian Opposition in their efforts to establish civil and religious liberty was vehemently pressed by the speakers, and commonly recognized by the audiences. Any reference on the part of the speakers to what "our brethren in Lower Canada" were doing for the cause of liberty was almost certain to evoke applause. A trusted emissary--Jesse Lloyd of Lloydtown--acted as a medium of communication between the Radical leaders in the two Provinces, and passed to and fro from time to time with despatches and intelligence between Papineau and Mackenzie. By this and other means the Lower Canadian leaders were from first to last kept promptly informed of the progress of the movement in the Upper Province. Sometimes--not often--Mackenzie met with considerable opposition. The idea of separation from Great Britain was a stumbling-block to a few even of the ultra-Radicals, and had to be handled with extreme delicacy. Others were chary of any concerted action with the Lower Canadians on account of the latter's religious faith. In several instances, moreover, the meetings were actually broken up by the Tories, in whose ears the language used by Mackenzie and his coadjutors was neither more nor less than treason. In other instances, though the opposition was not effective enough to actually break up the meetings, it was found impossible to carry any resolutions founded upon the Declaration. In two cases the meetings were broken up in confusion by local bodies of Orangemen, and a number of persons sustained more or less physical violence. Such incidents as these, however, were the exception, and not the rule. Out of all the meetings--considerably more than a hundred in number[283]--held between the adoption of the Declaration and the actual outbreak of rebellion, seventy-five per cent seem to have passed off without serious disturbance or interference. Most of those who disapproved of the meetings staid away from them, and regarded those who promoted them with settled hostility, frequently accompanied by contempt. Of those who attended and supported the resolutions, a very small number had any suspicion that matters were shaping themselves, or were being shaped by Mackenzie, towards rebellion. As for Mackenzie himself, he seems to have been intent on mischief during the whole summer of this eventful year. He however recognized the necessity of moving slowly, for no one knew better than he that a very small percentage of the Reformers of the Province could be brought to sanction such a project as rebellion under his auspices. What they might have been disposed to do if rebellion had been mooted by Robert Baldwin, Bidwell, Rolph, and other eminent Reformers, it would now be idle to inquire. It would be as profitless as to discuss what would have been the fate of the Revolution of 1688 if James the Second had died while he was Duke of York. The mental constitution of Baldwin and Bidwell were such that it would have been an impossibility for them to take part in a rebellion, and the general belief with respect to Rolph was that his doing so was equally out of the question. All this was well known to Mackenzie. He also well knew that the Reform press would have promptly denounced him had his designs been known. If he had encountered such denunciation his bubble would have burst there and then. But the Reform press knew nothing of his designs. He was believed to be agitating for constitutional Reform. It was of course known that he was carrying his agitation to an unprecedented length, but it was supposed that he was doing so for the purpose of intimidating the Government, and thereby coercing them into concessions; and the Reform press throughout the land was fully prepared to support him in such a course. He accordingly acted with much greater caution than he had been wont to display in the management of either public or private affairs. He perceived that the machinery of vigilance committees, branch societies, public meetings and what not, which had been so successfully set in motion under the auspices of the Reformers, might be turned to account for insurrectionary purposes. To a few of his friends in the country, over whom he possessed almost unbounded influence, and who, as he knew, felt almost as bitterly towards the Government as he himself did, he imparted a project involving a resort to arms. Among them were Samuel Lount, Jesse Lloyd, Silas Fletcher, Nelson Gorham and Peter Matthews. The communication was doubtless made to the several persons at different times, but all of those mentioned seem to have been made acquainted with the project before the beginning of autumn. They all yielded a ready enough acquiescence, but no thought of bloodshed was in their minds. It was intended to get together a great body of Reformers from all over the country, and then to advance upon the capital in the form of a monster demonstration. This idea seems to have originated with Lount. It was at first objected to by Mackenzie as unlikely to prove efficacious. He urged that demonstrations had been made in his favour several years before, and that none of them had had any effect in moderating the policy of the Government, or in inducing the Assembly to permit him to sit therein. He especially instanced the occasion upon which a great crowd of the York electors had accompanied him to the House of Assembly, and had filled the galleries and lobbies while Parliament was sitting.[284] All this, he pointed out, had been labour in vain, and if such a scene were to be re-enacted it must, in order to produce any satisfactory effect, be on a very large scale indeed. His argument was unanswerable. It was clear that any appeal to the Government's sense of right would be made in vain, and that they could only be influenced through their fears. If anything was to be effected by means of a demonstration, the number of persons taking part in it must be sufficiently numerous to overawe, and if necessary to coerce, the Government. Some weeks appear to have elapsed before any scheme was definitely fixed upon and approved by all the nine or ten persons concerned, who thus took upon themselves the responsibility of directing the future course of our colonial polity. The understanding arrived at was that the time of holding the proposed convention in Toronto would also be the appropriate time for making the proposed demonstration. The convention would afford a reasonable pretext for the assembling of great numbers of Reformers at the capital. It will be remembered that no definite time had been fixed upon for the holding of the convention. It was now settled that it should be held early in the spring of the year 1838. When the gathering should be complete, it was proposed to wait upon the Government, as the barons waited on King John at Runnymede, and wring from them their assent to a constitution founded upon the propositions embodied in the Declaration. It was agreed that if this assent should be obtained, Sir Francis Head was, at any rate temporarily, to be left undisturbed in his position of Lieutenant-Governor, but that the Executive Council should be altogether remodelled, and that Rolph, Bidwell and Mackenzie should have seats therein. The Government was to be carried on upon the principle of Executive responsibility to the Assembly. This re-adjustment was to be followed by a general election, after which the future of the colony would be in the hands of the Assembly. But how if the Government would not be coerced? What was to be done if they refused to be dictated to? In that case there was only one course open. The Lieutenant-Governor and his Council were to be seized with _as_ little violence as possible. A Provisional Government was to be formed with Dr. Rolph at its head, provided that that gentleman could be induced to accept the position. It was not believed that the carrying out of this project would necessarily involve any sacrifice of life, for the force at the disposal of the Provisional Government would be such as to render any opposition futile. Moreover, the bulk of the population of the capital were known to be favourable to Reform principles, and it was believed that they would readily take part in the movement if they saw an assured prospect of success. The conspirators were sanguine as to obtaining Rolph's coöperation, for, unlike Bidwell, he had not repudiated the position of a member of the convention, which had been thrust upon him by the meeting at Doel's brewery in July. Bidwell, immediately upon becoming acquainted with what had been done, had notified the secretary that he had withdrawn from political life, and that he could have nothing to do with the proposed convention. Rolph also had at first felt disposed to decline the appointment, but he had taken time to consider, and had talked the matter over with Dr. Baldwin, who had strongly counselled him to accept. I can find no documentary evidence of either acceptance or rejection on his part, but he seems to have been favourable to the holding of the convention, which he doubtless regarded as a possible means of consolidating the Reform party, and of rendering its opposition to the Government more effective. It was agreed that for the present nothing should be said to him about the contemplated subversion of the Government by force. The boldest features of the scheme were intended to be kept secret from nearly everyone until the time for action should be near at hand, but no oath of secrecy was imposed, and, in spite of all resolutions, more or less accurate hints of what was in contemplation were conveyed to hundreds of Radicals throughout the Home District and elsewhere. As the autumn advanced, the conspirators proceeded to prepare their adherents for the impressive display of the ensuing spring. It was evident that even a very numerously-attended demonstration would not impress the Government unless those taking part in it carried about with them a suggestion of strength. In order to be strong they must have arms, and they must furthermore know how to use them should the necessity arise. A system of secret training and drill was accordingly organized throughout the townships. People met after nightfall in the corners of quiet fields, in the shadow of the woods, and in other sequestered places, and there received such instruction in military drill and movements as was possible under the circumstances. Old muskets, pistols and cutlasses were furbished up after long disuse, and pressed into service once more. Small quantities of rifles and ammunition were surreptitiously obtained from the United States. Disaffected blacksmiths in the rural districts devoted themselves to the manufacture of rude pike-heads, which, after being fitted to hickory handles of five or six feet in length, formed no contemptible weapons for either attack or defence. Lount's blacksmith shop at Holland Landing was for some weeks largely given up to this manufacture. As there was no attempt at interference with these proceedings, the disaffected became bolder, and began to assemble at regular periods to engage in rifle practice, pigeon-matches, and the slaughter of turkeys. As intimated in a previous note,[285] Mr. Bidwell was applied to for a legal opinion as to the lawfulness of such gatherings. He advised with great caution, specifying how far he conceived this sort of thing might be carried with impunity. Gatherings for the slaughter of birds and for trials of skill with the rifle he conceived to be clearly within the law. Before the middle of October the movement had extended in all directions. The four districts into which the Province had been mapped out were called respectively the Toronto Division, the Midland Division, the Western Division and the Eastern Division. The first-named consisted of the counties of York, Simcoe, Durham, Halton, Wentworth, Haldimand and Lincoln. The second included the counties of Northumberland, Hastings, Prince Edward, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington. The Western Division consisted of Oxford, Norfolk, Middlesex, Huron, Kent and Essex; and the Eastern included all that portion of the Province to the east and north-east of the Midland. Preparations for the demonstration were more or less active everywhere, and there were nights when the whole country side might be said to be in arms. In some portions of the Western Division, which was under the direction of Dr. Charles Duncombe, the feeling against the Government was as intense as in any part of the Home District, and the preparations there were carried on with special activity. Dr. Duncombe and a few leading personages among the Radicals were entrusted with the full plan of the conspiracy, so far as it had been matured; but in no part of the Province were the rank and file taken into anything like full confidence. Most of those who engaged in drill, and in the manufacture of pike-heads and handles, supposed that they were merely getting ready for a formidable procession which was to intimidate the Government by reason of its numerical strength. The enquiry may not unnaturally be made: What were the Government about all this time? Were they in total ignorance of what was going on all around them? Not at all. They were kept regularly informed of the banners, speech-makings, drillings, pigeon-matches and what not; and--at least in some instances--they contrived to obtain pretty accurate reports of the proceedings at Mackenzie's meetings. But they committed the grave error of undervaluing their opponents. They would not believe it possible that Mackenzie could ever again be dangerous. He had been so completely worsted in his hand-to-hand fight with Toryism that it was not to be credited that he would ever again be able to secure a following large enough to be worth seriously considering. True, he threatened all manner of dire calamities, but he had for so many years been accustomed to indulge in loud-mouthed threats that he had lost all power to create alarm. He was like the shepherd's boy who had cried "wolf" so often that nobody paid heed to him. The official party spoke of him as an upstart mannikin who had enjoyed his little day of notoriety, but whose power for either good or ill was past and gone. Sometimes, when he published anything of special ferocity in his paper, the attention of the Lieutenant-Governor would be drawn to it by his supporters, who would urge that a prosecution should be instituted. But Sir Francis's wiser counsellors knew better than to adopt any such foolish course. They knew that State prosecutions had done more to alienate popular sympathy and to weaken the power of the Government in times past than any other cause whatever. The editor of the _Constitution_, they believed, had steadily lost his influence--an influence which he could never hope to regain unless some imprudent act of his enemies should once more create for him a specious sympathy and notoriety. Nothing, it was felt, would be so certain to give him a fictitious importance as to prosecute him for treason, at least until he should proceed to such lengths as to render a prosecution imperative. Sir Francis Head, Chief Justice Robinson, Attorney-General Hagerman, Judge Jones, and the whole race of officialdom refused to believe in the possibility of an actual rebellion. They all declared that there were not fifty men in the Province who would consent to take arms against the Government. Plenty of low Radicals, it was said, were ready enough to boast and bluster, but their courage was only skin-deep. As for Mackenzie, he was admitted to be an exception, so far as the mere disposition to rebel was concerned, but he had lost any influence he had ever possessed, and counted for nothing. It was tolerably certain that he would sooner or later overstep the limits at which it would be possible to leave him alone. Then, when he should have placed himself in such a position that no loyal subject could defend him, would be the time to make an effectual disposition of him. By all means, then, give him an abundance of rope. This was the spirit in which the little man and his proceedings were regarded by the authorities, and he availed himself of the freedom of speech and action to the fullest conceivable extent. "First," says Sir Francis,[286] "he wrote, and then be printed, and then he rode, and then he spoke, stamped, foamed, wiped his seditious little mouth, and then spoke again; and thus, like a squirrel in a cage, he continued with astounding assiduity the centre of a revolutionary career." Attorney-General Hagerman was instructed to report to his Excellency as soon as Mackenzie had proceeded so far in the direction of treason that his conviction would be certain, and meanwhile he was permitted to invoke the Spirit of Freedom, both in prose and poetry, to his heart's content. In the Lower Province matters had so shaped themselves as to favour Mackenzie's designs. Sir John Colborne was kept tolerably well informed as to the proceedings of Papineau and the other fomenters of revolt, and he had become aware that he would very soon be compelled to have recourse to the strong hand. He felt perfectly secure, but at the same time determined to neglect no precaution which might conduce to a swift and decisive victory. He mustered all the forces at his command, and satisfied himself, from personal supervision, as to their efficiency. There were a few troops stationed in Toronto. Sir John shared Sir Francis Head's confidence in the loyalty of the Upper Canadians, and acquiesced in the opinion that an Upper Canadian rebellion was altogether out of the question. As he believed that there was no likelihood of the troops being needed there, he deemed it prudent to strengthen his position by removing them to Kingston, where they would be more readily available in case of his requiring their services to crush the rebellion in Lower Canada. When this removal had been effected, Toronto was left wholly unguarded by military. By command of the Lieutenant-Governor, several thousand stand of arms which had recently been sent from Kingston, together with a quantity of ammunition, were committed to the custody of the municipal authorities and deposited in the City Hall. Two constables were placed in charge, and this was absolutely the only precaution taken against the seizure of both arms and ammunition by any determined body of men who might think proper to possess themselves thereof. Mackenzie believed that the propitious time had arrived, and that the resolve to postpone until the following spring any active measures against the Government should be rescinded. He received an additional impetus from certain messages which reached him through Jesse Lloyd, on Monday, the 9th of October, from the leaders of the movement in Lower Canada. These messages apprised him that the French Canadians were about to make what they called a "brave stroke for liberty" without further delay. They entreated him to coöperate with them by simultaneously raising the standard of revolt in the Upper Province. Lloyd himself favoured the idea, and counselled its adoption. Such a momentous step, however, could not very well be taken without the concurrence of others. Mackenzie, who at the time of receiving the messages was out on Yonge Street, some miles from Toronto, hastened into town, and summoned a small secret caucus to meet at Doel's brewery. I am unable to fix the exact date of holding this caucus, but it must have been on the evening of either Monday the 9th or Tuesday the 10th of October.[287] Eleven persons were present. They were, 1. Mackenzie himself; 2. John Doel, the owner of the brewery; 3. Dr. Morrison; 4. John Mackintosh, who sat in the Assembly for the Fourth Riding of York; 5. John Elliott, who, as already mentioned, acted as Secretary-in-Ordinary to the Reform Union meetings in Toronto; 6. Timothy Parson, who kept a straw bonnet and fancy warehouse on King Street; 7. Robert Mackay, a grocer and wine merchant; 8. William Lesslie, one of the firm of Lesslie & Sons, booksellers, stationers and druggists, at number 110-1/2 King Street; 9. John Armstrong, a manufacturer of edged tools, having a place of business at number 33 Yonge Street; 10. Thomas Armstrong, a carpenter, residing at number 11 Lot (now Queen) Street; 11. John Mills, hatter, 191 King Street. Dr. Rolph and J. H. Price had been asked to attend, but they did not see fit to do so. No one except Mackenzie appears to have had any idea of the real object for which the meeting had been summoned. The other ten merely repaired to the appointed place to hear whatever communication the Agent and Corresponding Secretary might have to make to them. Upon being called upon to state the purpose for which he had called them together, Mackenzie proceeded to unfold his project. He had no sooner entered upon it than he encountered murmurs and expressions of dissent. He stated that he could count upon the active coöperation of at least fifteen hundred men in the Home District alone, of whom, however, not more than a third were supplied with arms. Beyond the limits of the Home District he could count upon from two to three thousand, but of these not one-fifth were properly armed. All these, he declared, might be implicitly depended upon to support any project which might then and there be determined upon. He proposed to send out trusty messengers in all directions to summon these "good men and true" to repair at once to Toronto. But there was no need, he said, to wait for the arrival of these supporters. He had taken pains to ascertain the exact condition of the city, and it was absolutely defenceless, owing to the sending away of the troops. Why should not the decisive blow be struck at once? Why not instantly send for Dutcher's[288] foundry-men and Armstrong's axe-makers, all of whom were true to the good cause? With these men at their backs, they might proceed straightway to Government House and seize Sir Francis, who had just come in from his daily ride on horseback, and who was guarded by only one sentinel. His capture having been effected, they might proceed to the City Hall and seize the arms and ammunition. The next thing would be to proclaim a Provisional Government, and give Sir Francis the alternative of conceding what the Radicals demanded or taking the consequences of refusal. There was absolutely nothing, Mackenzie averred, to interfere with the carrying out of this programme. Four-fifths of the citizens would join them when they saw that success had attended their efforts, and of the other fifth at least half would remain neutral, while the small residue of the population would be too insignificant in point of numbers to render it possible for them to offer any serious opposition. Such was the astounding scheme propounded by Mackenzie. His small audience could hardly credit the evidence of their senses. When he had proceeded thus far, Dr. Morrison could restrain himself no longer, but burst forth with an impetuosity and indignation which had but seldom been observed in him. He asked if it was possible that Mackenzie could be serious in unfolding so foolhardy a design. "This," said he, "is treason; and if you think to entrap me into any such mad scheme, you will find I am not your man!" He declared that if another word were said on the subject he would forthwith leave the room. The others present also repudiated the proposal with more or less of vehemence, but they all regarded it as a mad freak of Mackenzie's, and hardly worth grave consideration. Mackenzie found that nothing was to be done, and a few minutes later the little conclave broke up. On the following day Mackenzie called upon Dr. Rolph, who had meanwhile heard from Dr. Morrison of the proposal of the previous evening. Dr. Rolph questioned Mackenzie strictly respecting the accuracy of his details as to the number of men who could be depended upon as adherents in the event of a revolution. Mackenzie repeated his assertion that about four thousand could easily be got together, every one of whom was ripe and ready for taking up arms. He produced certain documentary evidence which went to confirm the truth of his statements, and vehemently declared that a successful revolution was not only feasible, but inevitable. He proposed not to wait for the proposed convention, but to speedily assemble all the men who could be got together at some point within a few miles of the city. This he proposed to effect as secretly as possible. The men could then advance upon the city and proceed in a body to the City Hall, where they could possess themselves of arms and ammunition. They would then be masters of the situation, and could set up a Provisional Government on such terms as might be agreed upon. Dr. Rolph was so far impressed by the documentary and other evidence placed before him that he consented to give the matter his consideration, and to discuss it with some of his friends. After turning the subject over in his mind, Dr. Rolph appears to have arrived at the conclusion that the subversion of the Government was perfectly feasible. The capital of the Province was defenceless. The Lieutenant-Governor had not only sent away the troops, but had persistently refused to take any steps for the organization of the militia. If several thousands of the people were really disposed to assert themselves, there was nothing to prevent them from carrying out the programme outlined by Mackenzie. They could capture Toronto and seize the members of the Government before any measures could be taken to successfully oppose them. This having been quietly effected without bloodshed, it seemed probable enough that the population at large would not refuse their support. The Reformers of the Province constituted a large majority of the inhabitants, and there was not a Reformer in Upper Canada but was heartily weary of Sir Francis Head and his clique. Only a small minority would have consented to enter upon the risks and dangers of a rebellion; but there is a great difference between a rebellion to be encountered and one which has been successfully accomplished. Thousands of persons who would strenuously refuse to have any connection with the former would readily acquiesce in the latter. If the Government were once subverted and in the hands of the Reformers, and if the entire Reform element were in sympathy with the change, the rebellion would so far be a success, for at this time there were comparatively few persons in the Province who cared sufficiently for the Family Compact to risk life or limb for the purpose of restoring them to power. But there was another important question to be considered: What would the Imperial Government have to say about it? If the might and majesty of Britain were to be enlisted against the project, no Upper Canadian rebellion could hope for permanent success, unless in the very unlikely event of national interference on the part of the United States. But was it not probable that the Imperial Government would be strongly impressed by this uprising of a long-enduring and much-wronged people, and that a sense of justice would compel them to adopt a new policy with respect to the Canadas? Should this conjecture prove to be correct, all that was sought to be effected by rebellion would have been accomplished. In any case, the condition of the Reformers could hardly be altered for the worse. The leaders of the movement would be driven to take refuge in the States, but some of them had already begun to regard such an emigration as desirable, for there seemed to be no future for them under Family Compact rule. With such thoughts as these passing through his mind, Dr. Rolph had several conferences with Dr. Morrison, with whom Mackenzie also had some conversation after the caucus at the brewery. Dr. Morrison was disposed to attach great weight to any suggestion emanating from his professional colleague, and when he had been placed in possession of the latter's views he was able to contemplate a rising of the people with much greater complacency than before. The idea gradually took form and shape in his mind. At Mackenzie's urgent request he gave him a letter introducing Jesse Lloyd to Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, of Montreal, who was editor of a Radical newspaper, and known to be favourable to insurrection. Lloyd was about to start from his home in the township of King on one of his expeditions to the Lower Province, to confer with the leaders of the insurrectionary movements there. This was sometime during the third week in October. Dr. Morrison, having thus put his hand to the plough, regarded himself as in a measure pledged to support the cause of the people, if they were really bent on subverting the Government. One day about a fortnight later he received an urgent message from Dr. Rolph to call at the latter's house on Lot (Queen) Street. Upon repairing thither he found Rolph and Mackenzie in conference with Lloyd, who _had_ just returned from the Lower Province with a letter to Mackenzie from Thomas Storrow Brown, one of the directors of the insurrectionary movement there. The letter seemed, on the surface, to be a mere business communication, but its phraseology had a secret meaning understood by Mackenzie, who expounded it to the others. Lloyd supplemented the letter by certain verbal communications. It appeared that the Lower Canadians were prepared to act, but they wished the Upper Canadian Radicals to make the first move, so as to divert attention from their proceedings. This would involve grave consequences, and could not be resolved upon all in a moment. After some consideration, it was agreed that Rolph, Morrison and Mackenzie should meet at Morrison's house on Newgate (Adelaide) Street that same evening to take serious counsel together. The meeting was held as agreed upon. Rolph and Morrison pointed out to Mackenzie the momentous consequences which would flow from acting on the suggestion from Lower Canada. They expressed some doubt as to whether the people were really sufficiently desirous of a change to risk their liberties and lives in a rebellion, and they pointed out the disastrous consequences of failure. Mackenzie, however, who possessed much better opportunities for judging as to the bent of popular opinion among the Radicals, would hardly listen to such remonstrances. For the hundredth time he pointed out the defenceless state of the capital. Within the last few days the troops which had been removed from Toronto to Kingston had been withdrawn from the Province altogether by Sir John Colborne, in order that they might be used against the rebels in Lower Canada. The whole of the Upper Province was therefore without means of defence. Mackenzie pledged his word that the whole Radical element were anxious to rise in the good cause. He asserted that he had received lists signed by thousands of persons, each one of whom had pledged himself to rise in revolt at any moment when summoned. Rebellion, he declared, must come, as the spirit of insurrection had been thoroughly aroused; and he upbraided his interlocutors for their lukewarmness in the cause of the people. After several hours of discussion and deliberation it was agreed that Mackenzie should proceed through the country and distinctly submit the question to the different political unions. If they really felt ready and anxious to put down the existing Government by force of arms, as Mackenzie declared, they should have their way. A plan was discussed for seizing the arms in the City Hall, for taking into custody the chief Government officials, and for establishing a Provisional Government with Dr. Rolph at its head. All this, it was believed, could be easily effected without firing a shot, and without the sacrifice of a single life. It was also distinctly understood that private property was to be respected, and that all money in the banks was to be regarded as private property, except such as actually belonged to the Government. It was however expressly stipulated that nobody was to be finally committed to any definite course of procedure until Mackenzie's return from his rural tour with the sanction of the various political unions. No authority whatever was meanwhile given to Mackenzie, either expressly or by implication, to stir the people up to rebellion. He was simply authorized to ascertain their views. At his own urgent request permission was given him to use the names of Rolph and Morrison, but only so far as to state that if the people were really desirous of effecting a revolution, they might depend upon receiving the countenance of those two gentlemen. On this distinct understanding Mackenzie left Dr. Morrison's house, and started the same night or early on the following morning for the north. FOOTNOTES: [269] See his Despatch to Lord Glenelg, dated 5th April, 1837, in Narrative, chap. ix. [270] See his Despatch dated July 14th, 1837. [271] On the 10th of September. [272] See the number for June 10th, 1824. [273] This boast seems to have been made in the columns of _The Constitution_, but I have been unable to find it there. I make the quotation on the authority of Mr. Lindsey's _Life of Mackenzie_, vol. i., p. 395, note. [274] Mr. MacMullen, writing, doubtless, from honest conviction, endeavours to convey the impression that Bidwell was more deeply implicated in the rebellion than he chose to acknowledge. See his _History of Canada_, p. 446, note. But no substantial proof has ever been offered in support of such a belief, whereas the proof on the other side is unanswerable. There is, first of all, the character of the man. His moral courage was great, and he could stand up for a cherished principle with much firmness and vigour. But he fought with weapons which were not carnal, and would have suffered almost any wrong that could have been inflicted upon him rather than resort to physical violence. Then, there is the fact that he always denied all knowledge of the rising. No man who knew Marshall Spring Bidwell would have hesitated to accept his bare word as against any but the most direct evidence to the contrary, and in this case there can hardly be said to be any countervailing evidence whatever. Again, there is the fact that he declined to act as a delegate to the proposed Reform convention, as subsequently mentioned in the text. But there is no need to resort to circumstantial or conjectural evidence. We have the testimony of Mackenzie himself, who, after his return to Canada, was ready enough to betray the secrets of his somewhile coadjutors, and who would have been only too glad if he could have pointed to Bidwell as one of the number. In his _Flag of Truce_, published in 1853, he says; "The question is often asked me--What part Mr. Bidwell took in 1837"--and his answer is explicit enough: "None that I know." It is quite certain that Bidwell could not have been concerned in the movement without Mackenzie's knowledge. The only circumstances which might be adduced as indicating a knowledge of the intended rising on the part of Mr. Bidwell are two in number, and neither of them will bear a moment's examination. First, it is true that he was consulted by the Radicals as to the lawfulness of their assembling for drill exercise and other purposes. He advised that, under certain restrictions, such assemblies were within the law, and that there could be nothing culpable in rifle-matches involving mere trials of skill. But when his advice was sought there was no intention, even on Mackenzie's part, to rise at any definite period, and Mr. Bidwell may very well have believed that the projects would end as most of Mackenzie's enterprises had ended--in talk. The other circumstance calling for explanation is his allowing himself to be frightened into leaving the country. This will be duly considered in its proper place. Suffice it for the present to say that, taking everything into account, the mere fact of his expatriation affords no evidence either one way or the other; whereas the attendant circumstances afford strong presumptive evidence of his innocence. In examining the papers of the late David Gibson within the last few weeks _I_ have come upon what may not unfairly be regarded as conclusive evidence that Bidwell was in no manner privy to the rising. Gibson, after his escape to the State of New York, was desirous of obtaining employment as a land surveyor, and, at Dr. Rolph's suggestion, he wrote to Bidwell for a certificate as to his character, and for advice as to the best means of obtaining employment. Bidwell was then in the City of New York, casting about in his mind to what he should direct his attention as a means of livelihood. His reply and the certificate enclosed therein--both in his own handwriting--are now lying before me. The latter is as follows:-- "I was acquainted with David Gibson, Esquire, until the recent disturbance in Upper Canada, and know that by his integrity, good sense and amiable character, he had acquired the confidence and esteem of his neighbours and acquaintances. His services as a land surveyor were highly valued. Since the trouble commenced in Upper Canada I have not been in communication with him, but I have no doubt that the utmost reliance may be placed on his industry, ability and fidelity in all his engagements. I have seen his name mentioned with respect for his humanity in one of the most violent newspapers published in Upper Canada. He has my warmest wishes for his success and happiness. "MARSHALL S. BIDWELL." The following is the text of the letter accompanying the certificate:-- MY DEAR SIR: I received to-day your letter, and have sent you a certificate. I am unable to refer you to any place or situation for employment. I am myself unsettled, and _do_ not know what I shall do or where I shall settle. I lament the recent proceedings in Upper Canada, and cannot to this day reflect upon them but with amazement. How men of good sense like you and others could be involved in so absurd and hopeless a project fills me with continual surprise. However, I would not upbraid you, though I shall perhaps be ruined in consequence of these movements. On the contrary, I wish you well, and have the same kind feelings towards you as I was wont to have. I trust you may find some situation where you may be happy. Yours truly, MARSHALL S. BIDWELL. David Gibson, Esq., 6th March. After the publication of this letter--written, it will be remembered, to one of the chief participators in the rebellion--it will hardly be pretended that Bidwell was concerned in the enterprise. It is a characteristic epistle, breathing Christian kindness and good will, and, independently of its bearing upon the question at issue, is well worthy of publication as illustrative of Bidwell's individuality. [275] For the sake of consistency I adopt a uniform spelling of this gentleman's name, which however is spelt indifferently "Mackintosh" and "McIntosh," in the Journals of Assembly, in various official documents, in the newspapers and advertisements of the time, and even in private correspondence. Walton's Toronto Directory for 1837 gives it as "McIntosh," which seems to have been the form commonly adopted by members of the family. [276] A part of this building, used as a planing-mill, is still in existence on Bay Street, a short distance north of Adelaide Street. [277] _Life of Mackenzie_, vol. ii., p. 17. [278] According to Mr. Lindsey, James Lesslie induced his brother William, who had signed the Declaration, to erase his signature. _See Life of Mackenzie_, vol. ii., p. 18. [279] See the evidence of John Elliott, on the trial of Dr. Morrison for high treason, at Toronto, in the following April. [280] _Correspondent and Advocate_ for Wednesday, August 2nd. [281] These were nineteen in number, and consisted of Dr. Morrison, John Elliott, David Gibson, John Mackintosh, Dr. O'Grady, E. B. Gilbert, John Montgomery, Dr. John Edward Tims, J. H. Price, John Doel, M. Reynolds, Edward Wright, Robert McKay, Thomas Elliott, James Armstrong, James Hunter, John Armstrong, William Ketchum and W. L. Mackenzie. [282] At a meeting held in the township of Caledon, however, during the second week in August, a very outspoken resolution was discussed. After setting out with some general principles as to the duties of kings, governors and subjects, it ran as follows:--"If the redress of our wrongs can be otherwise obtained, the people of Upper Canada have not a just cause to use force. But the highest obligation of a citizen being to preserve the community, and every other political duty being derived from, and subordinate to it, every citizen is bound to defend his country against its enemies, both foreign and domestic. When a government is engaged in systematically oppressing a people, and destroying their securities against future oppression, it commits the same species of wrong to them which warrants an appeal to force against a foreign enemy. The history of England and of this continent is not wanting in examples by which the rulers and the ruled may see that, although the people have been often willing to endure bad government with patience, there are legal and constitutional limits to that endurance. The glorious revolutions obstinately persisting in withholding from their subjects adequate security for good government, although obviously necessary for the permanence of that blessing, that they are placing themselves in a state of hostility against the governed; and that to prolong a state of irresponsibility and insecurity, such as existed in England during the reign of James II., and as now exists in Lower Canada, is a dangerous act of aggression against a people. A magistrate who degenerates into a systematic oppressor, and shuts the gates of justice on the public, thereby restores them to their original right of defending themselves, for he withholds the protection of the law, and so forfeits his claim to enforce their obedience by the authority of law."--For the text of this resolution I am indebted to Mr. Lindsey. See his _Life of Mackenzie_, vol. ii., p. 27, note. [283] Mr. Lindsey places the number at two hundred. See _Life of Mackenzie_, vol. ii., p. 32. I have not been able to find any trace of more than 117. Mackenzie seems to have been present at fully half of these. [284] _Ante_, p. 256. [285] _Ante_, p. 362. [286] _The Emigrant_, p. 157. [287] John Elliott, in his testimony on Dr. Morrison's trial, places the date in October; and I have evidence in my possession that Mackenzie received the intimation mentioned in the text on the second Monday in October. The second Monday fell on the 9th. There would be no delay in summoning the caucus, which would therefore be held on the evening of either Monday or Tuesday. [288] William A. Dutcher had a foundry on Yonge Street, where a good many hands were employed, most of whom were readers of the _Constitution_, and supporters of the Radical cause. The Armstrong whose axe-makers it was proposed to press into service was John Armstrong, who was himself present at the meeting. NOTE TO CHAPTER X. My authorities for the foregoing chapter are too numerous for citation. In addition to printed works and official records, they consist of manuscript letters, statements, affidavits and other documents which have never seen the light, and the most important of which will be given, in whole or in part, in the second volume. END OF VOL. I. 
39924	----	Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This book was created from images of public domain material made available by the University of Toronto Libraries) DOWN THE RIVER TO THE SEA BY MISS MACHAR NEW YORK HOME BOOK COMPANY 45 VESEY STREET Copyrighted, 1894, by Home Book Company DOWN THE RIVER TO THE SEA CHAPTER I NIAGARA. The brilliant sunshine of a July day lighted up the great cataract and the rich verdure of the surrounding landscape, bringing out all the wonderful variety of hue in the surging mass of falling water, the snowy clouds that perpetually veiled and unveiled it, the iridescence that floated elusively amid their ever-shifting billows, and the deep emerald of the islands that nestled so confidingly among the foaming, seething rapids that swept down the slope above, in order to take the fatal leap. The Clifton House veranda had its usual complement of lounging groups of guests, most of them so absorbed in gossip, flirting, or the last sensational novel, that they scarcely seemed to notice the grandeur of the scene they had come so far to enjoy. Of a very different class of visitors was May Thorburn, who sat silently in a vacant corner of the wide veranda, gazing at the ceaseless rush of the Horse-shoe Fall, in a speechless ecstasy of delight. The brown-haired, brown-eyed, rather pale girl, who sat so absorbed in the wonderful grandeur of the scene before her, was not quite sure whether she was the same May Thorburn, who, only a few days before, had been all engrossed in the usual endless round of home duties, sweeping, dusting, or stitching away at the family mending (and how much mending _that_ family needed!), and trying to squeeze in, between these homely avocations, a little of the poetry and music in which her soul delighted. And now, here she was, in the midst of Nature's grandest poetry and music, realizing what had been the day-dream of years! And all this wonderful happiness had come about through the thoughtful kindness of her cousin, Kate Severne, in inviting her to share the delights of a trip all the way from Niagara to the Saguenay--names that had so long stood in her mind as equivalents for the greatest enjoyment that any tourist could hope for--at least outside of Mont Blanc. She had come by way of Hamilton, and as the train swept her rapidly through the region of peach orchards, her mind was full of vague anticipations of the delights of the prospective journey, with occasional speculations as to Kate's two Scotch cousins, Hugh and Flora Macnab, whose visit to Canada was the immediate occasion of this present trip. Kate, who had repeatedly gone over the whole ground before, and knew it well, wished to act the part of _cicerone_ herself, while her kind, though somewhat peculiar aunt, Mrs. Sandford, was the _chaperone_ of the little party. It had been the thoughtful suggestion of this aunt that May, who so seldom had a holiday, should be invited to join them, a suggestion which Kate had gladly carried out, in the kind and welcome letter of invitation which had put May into such a little flurry of delightful excitement and preparation. The rest of the party had arrived before May; and her cousin Kate had met her at the Clifton House station with an enthusiastic welcome and a torrent of information as to their future plans, scarcely half of which May could take in, being quite happy enough in the sense of being _really at the Falls_ at last, and of getting her first glimpse of them. She only vaguely heard, in an unreal sort of way, Kate's eager account of her cousins--how "nice" and amiable Flora was, and how well she could sketch; and how Hugh, though very quiet, was very clever, too,--had taken honors at college, had somewhat injured his health by over-study, so that he was obliged to take a rest, and had even written a little book of poems which was soon to be published,--indeed, was now in the press. "And I shouldn't wonder if he were to write another about his travels here, and put us all into it," she added. May had no particular desire to "be put into a book," but, just then, the interest of the scene before her, with the thunder of "many waters" in her ears, was strong enough to exclude all other ideas. Her eager, watching eye just caught a glimpse of what seemed a giant's caldron of milky spray, and behind it a dazzling sheet of snow; but her cousin hurried her on into the hotel and up to her room, which, to her delight, commanded a splendid view of the Horse-shoe Fall, on which she could feast her eyes at leisure to her heart's content. And now, indeed, anticipation and faith were swallowed up in sight! She had, of course, frequently seen photographs of the great cataract, so that the outlines of the view were familiar enough; but the exquisite coloring, the ceaseless motion, the sense of infinite power, no picture could possibly supply. As she Lay dreamily back in a lounging chair, on the veranda, scarcely conscious of anything but the grandeur of the scene, a line or two from Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited" flitted across her mind: ----"this is the scene Of which my fancy cherished So faithfully a waking dream!" "No!" she mentally decided, "no 'waking dream' could picture Niagara." "Well, dreaming as usual?" May looked up with a start, as she felt Mrs. Sandford's plump hand on her shoulder. "Kate wants you to make haste and get ready for an expedition. Here are the Scotch cousins. This is Flora, and this is her brother Hugh. You don't need any formal introduction. Kate will be down in a moment, and you are all going for a long stroll, she says, for which I don't feel quite equal yet after my journey, though it _is_ a charming afternoon; so I shall stay here and rest. Kate has promised me not to let you run into any sort of danger, and I am sure you'll find her a capital _cicerone_." Kate, who appeared just then, renewed her promise to be most prudent, and especially to look after her cousin Hugh--her aunt's chief object of anxiety. "And, indeed, you _need_ taking care of," she said, in answer to his attempted disclaimer. "You know you're under orders not to overwalk yourself, or get heated or chilled, so mind, Kate, you _don't let him_. I don't want to have to stop on the way to nurse an invalid!" "I don't think you need be at all afraid, Aunt Bella," the young man replied, with what May thought a pleasant touch of Scottish accent, though his pale face had flushed a little at the allusion to his semi-invalidism, which had been the immediate cause of his journey to Canada. His sister Flora, however, with her abundant fair hair, which, like her brother's, just missed being red, looked the picture of health and youthful energy. May, with her straw hat beside her, needed no further preparation for the expedition, on which she was, indeed, impatient to set out at once, Kate, to her relief, leading the way with Mr. Hugh Macnab, who was not _her_ cousin, and it did not seem to her that she could find anything to say to any one so learned and clever as this quiet-looking young man must be. It seemed much easier to talk to the frank and merry Flora, who tripped on by her side, looking very fresh and trim and tourist-like, in her plain gray traveling hat and gray tweed dress, made as short as a sensible fashion would allow, and showing off to perfection a lithe, well-rounded figure and a pair of shapely and very capable feet. The party entered what is now called Victoria Park, and walked leisurely along the brink of the precipitous cliff that here formed the river bank, stopping at frequent intervals the better to take in some particular aspect of the wonderful scene before them. "That's the advantage of not taking a carriage, _here_," explained Kate, who had relentlessly refused all the entreaties of the hackmen. "It's ever so much nicer to go on your own feet, and stop just where you please, and as long as you please! We don't want to hurry _here_. It's a charming walk, now that all the old photographic saloons and so-called museums have been cleared away! By and by, when we feel a little tired, we can take a carriage for the rest of the way." May soon felt the dreamlike sensation come over her again, as they wandered slowly along the steep cliffs of shade, and came from time to time on some specially charming view of the white foaming sheet of the American Falls, so dazzlingly pure in its virgin beauty, as it vaults over the hollow cliff into the soft veil of mist that perpetually rises about its feet--always dispersing and ever rising anew. Then, as their eager gaze followed the line of the opposite bank, black, jagged and shining with its perpetual shower-bath of spray, what a glorious revelation of almost infinite grandeur was that curving, quivering sheet of thundering surge, with its heart of purest green, and its mighty masses of dazzling foam, and its ascending clouds of milky spray,--sometimes entirely obscuring the fall itself, as they float across the boiling caldron,--sometimes partially dispersed and spanned by the soft-hued arc, which here, as at the close of the thunder-storm, seems like the tender kiss of love, hushing the wild tumult into peace. From many other points she could get better views of individual details, but no nobler view of the mighty whole, than from this silent, never-to-be-forgotten ramble. No one said much; even the lively Kate lapsed from her office of _cicerone_, or, rather, best fulfilled it, by her silence; for, when the infinite in Nature speaks, the human voice may well be still. And how grand a voice was that which the cataract was speaking,--even to the outward ear! The "voice of many waters"--mighty as thunder, yet soft as a summer breeze--seemed to leave the whole being immersed and absorbed in the ceaseless rush and roar of the "Thunder of Waters"--the majesty of whose motion appeared to be, itself, repose. This feeling deepened as they advanced nearer to the edge of the Horse-shoe Falls. They paused on Table Rock, so much less prominent than it used to be years ago. At every turn they paused, lost in the grandeur of the present impression. It was Kate who first roused them to a sense of the passage of time, and gave the order to proceed, for the afternoon was swiftly gliding by. "Well!" said Hugh, "I never felt as if I had got so near the state of self-annihilation, the '_Nirvana_' we read about. I don't wonder at suicides here, under the fascinating influence of these rushing waters!" "Really, Hugh," exclaimed his sister, "I should scarcely have expected to hear _you_ rhapsodizing at such a rate! We shall have to look after him, Kate." Hugh replied only by a half smile, but May noticed his heightened color and the absorbed expression of his dark blue eyes, and began to feel much less shy of him. She had much the same feeling herself, though too reserved to say it out. Kate hurried them on, until they had reached the very edge of the great Horse-shoe Fall. Here they stopped and sat down on a long black beam of timber that lay on the side of the quivering torrent, there seeming almost stationary, as if pausing in awe of the mighty leap before it. Just inside the old beam lay a quiet pool, reflecting the sky, in which a child might bathe its feet without the slightest danger, while, on the outside, swept the great resistless flood of white-breasted rapids, moving down the steep incline with a majesty only less inspiring than that of the cataract itself. "Well! don't you think Niagara deserves its name, which means 'Thunder of Waters'?" asked Kate, after a long silence. "It scarcely could have one that better describes the impression it makes," said Hugh Macnab, in a low, meditative tone. "Are _you_ tired yet, Hugh?" asked Kate; "shall we walk on--it's a good mile--or take a carriage?" "Walk, by all means," said Hugh, "if the rest of you are not tired." They walked leisurely on by the shore, washed by the swift hurrying water, while, above them, to their right, Kate pointed out the railway track along which they had come, and the point at which they had stopped, in order to get the celebrated "Fall view." "I shall never forget it," said Flora. "I was a little disappointed at first about the _height_. I couldn't see _that_ from there, nor realize it at all! But the grandeur of the scale quite took my breath away. It was like seeing Mont Blanc for the first time. It takes a little while before you can feel yourself grow up to it!" "That's it exactly!" exclaimed Kate. "That just expresses my own feelings when I saw them first. Well, May, you look sober enough over it all." "Oh, Kate, it's too grand for words; I'm trying to 'grow up to it,'" she added, smiling. They reached the bridge leading to the lovely Sister or Cynthia Islands, nestling amid the tumult and foam as safely as in the embrace of a calmly winding river where the constant shower-bath of the spray keeps the foliage and the ferns at their greenest and freshest; and the contrast between the tranquil beauty of the woodland ways and the turmoil of the rapids beyond greatly heightened the charm of the scene. "Now, we must take a carriage back," said Kate decidedly; and no one objected now, for all were tolerably tired, between the physical fatigue and the mental strain involved in the mere appreciation of so much beauty. They stopped for a few minutes at the Burning Spring, to look, as in duty bound, at that natural curiosity, and then settled themselves comfortably in the carriage they had hailed, while Kate gave the order to return by Prospect Drive, along the bluffs above, whence they could take in the whole sweep of the grand river from Navy Island, at the foot of Lake Erie, to the dark, narrow gorge below the Falls, where the waters fret and toss their crests, like angry coursers fretting at the curbing bit. "Now," said Kate, "if it were not so late already, I should have had you driven to Lundy's Lane,--only about a mile and a half west of us; but it's too late, for to-day." "What is remarkable about Lundy's Lane?" inquired Hugh Macnab. "I confess my ignorance." "Oh, of course; one doesn't expect _you_ to be posted in Canadian history," Kate replied. "Lundy's Lane is where the British troops and Canadian volunteers beat the Americans eighty years ago, when they tried to take Canada." "Oh! I see. Pardon my ignorance. I never happened to hear of such things as battle-grounds in connection with Niagara. I shall have to read up these historical associations." "May can tell you all about it," replied Kate. "She's great on Canadian history. And there is something about it in my guide book; so you can read up in the evenings all about Lundy's Lane and Queenston Heights, and then you can see them both, if you care enough about it." The drive was charming, under the slanting rays of the August sun; the sky and water taking on such exquisite ethereal tints, the iris on the clouds of spray so delicately bright, that their gaze was constantly turning backwards as they glided rapidly over the smooth high-road back towards the "Clifton." "Now for a rest, then dinner--and then, you know, we shall have the moon, and a lovely time for watching the Falls by moonlight." Kate's programme was fully enjoyed--not least the latter portion of it. They were all tempted forth for another stroll along the river bank, halting again at some of the points from whence they had so greatly enjoyed the afternoon views, to compare the difference of the moonlight effect--less distinct, but more romantic and suggestive. Kate and Flora preferred, on the whole, the play of color and cheerful light of day, while Hugh Macnab endorsed May's preference for the moonlight, which is as effective at Niagara as at Melrose Abbey. They sat long on the piazza that night, saying little, but silently enjoying the marvelous scene--the glory of the white, shimmering water, the solemn majesty of the ascending column of misty spray, and the strong contrast of light and shade--until the picture seemed to have become a part of their mental consciousness, never to be forgotten and a "joy forever." Next morning the party met at breakfast in good time, as they had a long day before them, and meant to make the best possible use of it. It was a charming morning, and they all set off in the best possible spirits, enjoying the Falls both in the present and the future. To begin with, however, there was a difficulty to be got over. The juniors were all eager to cross the river in the ferry-boat, so as to have the glorious view of the great cataract from a point of view which gives a different and grander impression than almost any other. But Aunt Bella stoutly refused even to consider the suggestion of trusting herself to the tender mercies of a cockle-shell of a boat tossed on that "boiling flood." The difficulty was finally settled by Kate, who put her aunt under the care of a hackman who promised to take her across the suspension bridge and meet them at Prospect Point. The rest of the party, in high glee, followed the winding road that leads down to the ferry, and were soon packed into the large, heavy skiff. Here, indeed, they had the full view of both of the magnificent falls and of the boiling, white caldron below, and the dark, malachite-green rapids that seem to press like a solid body down the narrow river gorge, after leaving the turbulence of the boiling basin behind them. The cool spray dashed in the faces of the happy party as the boat danced lightly over the heaving waters, under the strong strokes of the sturdy rowers; and, when they reached the other side, after a short passage, they all felt as if the exciting pleasure had been quite too brief. On landing they ascended in the elevator to the bank above, and at once took their way to Prospect Point, where they stood for some time lost in the fascination of the scene before them--the majestic American Fall rushing down in snowy foam from the slope of furious white-crested rapids just above the headlong torrent. The thundering sheet filled their ears with its mighty music, and as they could now see its outline curved inwards almost as much as that of the "Horse-shoe" itself, for, of course, the action of falling water is the same on both sides of the river. But the fact that the rapids are here compressed by scattered islands seems to add to the force and fury with which they dash themselves wildly over the stony ledges with a resistless strength which makes us realize the power of the one spiritual force which is described as stronger than "many waters." After they had stood silently watching the ceaseless progress of the waters, until all their senses had seemed to be filled with its mighty rush and roar, they joined Mrs. Sandford in the carriage, and were speedily driven across the bridge leading over the rapids to Goat Island, which seemed to May like a little tranquil paradise nestling amid the wild fury of the raging floods. Here, indeed, they could have all varieties of scenery. The whole party left the carriage, so that they might feel at liberty to enjoy all the charming nooks of the island at their own sweet will; Aunt Bella, however, preferring to make a leisurely circuit in the carriage, and take them up again at the end of it. "Only see that Hugh doesn't tire himself out," she called out as they left her behind, and Kate, who noticed the young man's rising color and expression of repressed annoyance at the allusion to them, hurried into a lively talk about the natural history of the island, explaining that it was fast wearing away under the force of the torrent; that it had been gradually growing smaller during the last hundred years, and that probably, in the course of another century, it would have almost entirely disappeared. "Now, come round this way," she said, "and soon you will almost forget that you are on the edge of the biggest waterfall in the world." They followed her lead, taking the woodland path to the left, catching charming glimpses of the fleecy rapids between the overhanging boughs of the trees, on which birds sang sweetly and merry squirrels frisked and chattered, as if in a solitary wilderness far from the busy haunts of men. As they came out presently on the open ground at the head of the island, they found themselves beside "still waters," the shoal water rippling gently over the gravel, as if it were a quiet reach of woodland stream; while, above them, lay a smooth stretch of Lake Erie, with Grand Island in the distance, its apparent placidity concealing the fierce undercurrent which no power of man could stem. "One might 'moralize the spectacle' to any extent," said Hugh Macnab, as Kate told some stories of the deadly strength of that hidden current--that delusively peaceful expanse of water. "But we haven't time for moralizing," retorted Kate. "Now for a change of scene." A change of scene it was, when they came out on one of the light rustic bridges which lead across the foaming rapids to the nearest small island, and from one to another of these fairy islets, so tiny that it only seems strange that they are not swept bodily over the Falls, with their wave-worn rocks and trees, gnarled and twisted by the prevailing winds. Under the bridges they saw pretty silver cascades, and swift rushing streams, looking innocent enough, but all charged with a portion of the same overpowering force. On the outer verge of the farthest one they stood, gazing across the boiling sea of rapids that extends unbroken from the Canada shore. Kate pointed out the column of spray which rose at one point, produced by the collision of cross-currents, driving the water forcibly upwards. Then, recrossing the little bridges, they slowly walked along the road leading by the edge of the island overlooking the rapids, till they found themselves standing on the verge of the great Horse-shoe Fall. "Our Canadian Fall is the grandest, after all," said May. "Yes," replied Kate, "only it isn't all Canadian, you see, for the boundary-line runs somewhere about the middle of the river. The Americans have more than their own share--all their own, and nearly half of ours." "I shouldn't think it mattered much," observed Hugh, "as they certainly can't take it away, or fence it in, and forbid trespassers." Their eyes followed the long, irregular curve, more like the figure _five_ than like a horse-shoe, and so deeply indented in the center that they could scarcely mark the center of the abyss, whose almost apple-green tint was every moment hidden by the perpetually ascending clouds of milky spray, sometimes touched by the tinted bow, and always descending into the cloudy veil that eternally conceals the seething abyss below. "This is Terrapin Rock," said Kate, after they had looked in silence for a time; "and there used to be a tower here from which you could look down on all this wild raging commotion, feeling the strong stone structure tremble beneath you. It came down at last--or was pulled down, because it was thought dangerous, I forget which." "Well, _this_ is fearful enough for me," said Flora, turning away, at last, with Kate, while May still stood lost in the fascination of the scene, till roused by Kate's call, when she discovered that Hugh Macnab had lingered also, absorbed in the same fascination, and was now waiting to help her back across the little bridge which joined the rocky point to the island. "It seems like waking up to one's own identity again, after having lost it in a vague sense of 'the Immensities,'" remarked Hugh, as they joined the others; and May felt that the words exactly expressed her own feeling. "But we _must_ wake up in earnest," said Kate, "and hurry on, or Aunt Bella will be certainly imagining that we have all gone over the Falls." They hurried along the smooth, broad road till they at last came up with Aunt Bella, seated on a rustic bench, with a large basket beside her. "Oh, my dears! what have--" she began, but Kate playfully laid her finger on her lips, saying: "We are all here, Auntie, quite safe, and now we are going to look at the Fall from Luna Island." "My dear, not I! I never could go there since that dreadful thing happened there, years ago. It makes me faint, just to think of it! If you go, do be careful! Don't go and stand near the brink!" "No; we'll be careful, I assure you. Now don't worry about us! We'll be back soon, and then we'll have our luncheon." And she led the way down the stair that leads from Goat Island to the charming bit of bosky green which cuts off the small "Central Fall" from the great "American Fall." May and Flora both exclaimed with delight over its wonderful combination of beauty and terror, its glancing, silvery sheen and terrible velocity, as it rushed past them at headlong speed, on to the misty depths below. And while they stood fascinated by the sight, Kate told them the tale of the tragedy which had happened there on one bright summer day like this, when a young man thoughtlessly caught up a little child and sportingly held her over the brink,--when the struggling little one somehow escaped from his grasp, and the horror-stricken young man madly leaped after her, both being instantly lost to sight in the wild rush of the torrent. Hugh Macnab turned away with a blanched face. "What a penalty for a momentary thoughtlessness!" he said, in a scarcely audible tone. And a hush seemed to steal over the little party, as they turned silently away from the fateful spot. "Yes," remarked Kate, as they reascended the stairway to Goat Island, "the old Indian legend was not so far wrong--that the deity of the Falls demanded a victim yearly. There is scarcely a year in which more than one victim is not secured by these insatiable waters, though it is not always a young maiden--as the legend has it." When they reached Mrs. Sandford, they found that she had spread the contents of the basket on a white cloth on the grass, and they were all hungry enough to enjoy their luncheon in the midst of such romantic surroundings. After the lunch was finished, and they had all rested for awhile, they made their way to the little staircase close by, down which they were all to go in order to get the wonderful view from below. Mrs. Sandford chose to descend in the elevator, and insisted that Hugh should accompany her, while the three girls ran merrily down the long stair, Flora counting the steps on the way. Hugh was determined, in spite of all his aunt's persuasive eloquence, to don a waterproof suit in order to go under the Falls and explore the Cave of the Winds; and Kate agreed to be his companion, the rest preferring to venture along the rocky pathway, only so far as they could safely do, under cover of their umbrellas. Mrs. Sandford took her seat on a mass of black rock, declaring that she would remain there, in fear and trembling, until they all returned in safety from their expedition. May and Flora strolled about the surrounding rocks, looking up, with some dread, at the precipices towering above them, and at the tremendous columns of falling water, which filled in the view in every direction. Presently, three frightful figures in bulky garments of yellow oilskin emerged from the building at the foot of the stairs, from two of which they presently, to their great amusement, recognized the voices of Hugh and Kate, accompanied by the guide. Allowing these extraordinary figures to precede them, May and Flora clung closely together, holding an umbrella between them, and following, as closely as they could, along the narrow pathway, where the spray rained down perpetually on the shining black rocks below. As they left the American Fall farther behind them, skirting the rugged brown cliffs that support Goat Island high overhead, the pathway became comparatively dry, and they could see more clearly before them the great Fall they were approaching from beneath--its tremendous wall of fleecy foam rising high above them into the deep blue sky, and losing itself below in the floating clouds of spray, which they soon began to feel again in a renewal of the light shower. The two girls had to stop, at last, and stood spellbound, watching the mighty expanse of eternally falling water, its fleecy, flashing masses of milk-white foam, and its gray impalpable billows of ever-ascending spray--through the rifts in which they could ever and anon catch glimpses of that seemingly solid gray wall of water behind. Strange sensations of awe at its solemn grandeur alternating with the sense of the exquisite beauty of the scene absorbed their consciousness, while they mechanically observed, also, the yellow figures--so infinitesimally small beside the mighty cataract--as they passed onward, and were for a few moments, to their momentary terror, lost to view among the clouds of spray that hid their farther progress. Very soon, however, they emerged again, and soon regained the point where the girls were standing, breathless and dripping, but in overflowing spirits. "And what did you see, when you got in behind the Falls?" asked Flora. "We certainly did not _see_ much," replied her brother. "Everything visible seemed swallowed up in a gray mist, but the whole experience was a wonderful one! I wouldn't have missed it for anything." "Well, I'm quite contented with what I've had!" said Flora. May had for a moment a little wistful sense of having missed something, but, after all, intense satisfaction preponderated. Returning again to the starting-point, they gave Mrs. Sandford reassuring evidence of their safety, so far, and promising a quick return, they pursued their way to the entrance of the "Cave of the Winds," the name given to the hollow arched over by the concave rock and the falling sheet of the lovely little Central Fall. May and Flora again followed under their umbrella, as far as they dared, and there waited, enjoying the wonder and novelty of the sight. May gazed into the mysterious cavern before her, veiled by the clouds of milky spray, as if it were indeed the veritable Cave of �olus, in which were confined the wailing winds which clamored to be let loose on their mission of destruction, and also, it might be, of blessing; whose hollow roar seemed blended with the full soft "thunder of waters." May had lost all count of time, absorbed in the scene before her, when Flora's relieved exclamation, "Oh, here they are at last!" recalled her absorbed senses, and she perceived the dripping figures of what might have been disguised river-gods, scrambling back along the wet, rocky pathway. "Oh, it was _grand_!" Kate declared. "I'll never forget it! To stand, just between those two lovely falls, till you felt as if you were actually a part of them! And then we went on a little way behind the American sheet, too." "Well, Hugh, are you satisfied _now_?" asked Flora. Hugh's eyes were shining through the dripping moisture, and his face, so far as it was visible, was glowing with exercise and excitement. "Satisfied? No!--delighted? Yes. But when is the eye satisfied with seeing? The grandest sights only seem to quicken our aspirations towards the Infinite." But Aunt Bella was now beckoning to the party to hasten back, and, as soon as they were within speaking distance, she hurried Hugh off to change his clothes as speedily as possible. Kate and he were soon out of their grotesque disguise, and in a few minutes they were all ascending, in the elevator, to the upper bank. Here they found the carriage awaiting them, which had been ordered to come back to meet them, and discovered, to their surprise, that they would have to drive home as rapidly as possible if they wished to be at the Clifton in time for the hotel dinner. It was a quiet drive across the suspension bridge, with the Falls to their left, and the deep green gorge of the winding river to their right. Each felt the silent enjoyment of the scenes they had just left, and of the fair evening view around them--with the wonderful Falls always in the distance,--quite enough for the present, without trying to talk about it. Even Mrs. Sandford, usually discursive, was too much fatigued with the day's outing to do her usual part in the matter of conversation. They made up for it later, however, when, too tired for further roaming, they all sat on the balcony watching the sunset tints fade into those of the brightening moonlight, whose whiteness seemed to harmonize so well with the snowy sheen of the Falls. Kate got out her guidebook, and, with occasional appeals to May to fill up her outlines, gave the strangers a few particulars as to the historical associations of the locality. "You see," she said, "all this frontier was the natural scene of hostilities when the two countries were at war. This is one of the points at which New York troops could most easily make their entrance into Canada." And then Hugh Macnab, by dint of cross-questioning, drew from the two girls, in turn, the main outlines of the war of 1812, concluding with the battle of Lundy's Lane. As they at last said good-night to each other, and to the beauty of the moonlit Falls, they noticed regretfully that a yellowish halo had formed round the moon. "Yes," said Mrs. Sandford, "it's quite likely we shall have a rainy day to-morrow, and, when it once begins, I shouldn't wonder if we had two or three days of it, after such a dry time!" "Well, we won't believe anything quite so dreadful just now," said Kate. "We'll go to sleep now, and hope for the best." Mrs. Sandford was somewhat triumphant in the justification of her weather wisdom, when they heard, next morning, the sound of the rain pattering down on the veranda without. The morning _did_, indeed, look gray, dull, unpromising, as even a July day can sometimes look. May was rather mournful over the loss of the light and color, and the general change that had come over the landscape. But Kate persisted in her optimistic declaration that she believed it would soon clear up, and then everything would be even more lovely than before. Meantime they would have the chance of seeing how the Falls looked in bad weather! And, indeed, they were by no means without beauty, even now. The purity of the central green was gone, but the soft gray tones melting away into gray mist, under a gray sky, gave the effect of a sketch rather than a finished picture, with suggestions of sublimity far beyond the visible. As they wistfully scanned the sky after breakfast, watching for a promising gleam of blue, Kate proposed a programme to be carried out as soon as it should clear. "You see it will be too wet for much walking and scrambling about, which would never do for Hugh, at any rate. Now, let us order a carriage and take a nice leisurely drive all about the country. We've seen the Falls pretty well now, and we can do the battle-grounds--Lundy's Lane and Queenston Heights, and take the Whirlpool on the way." "Well, we'll see," said Mrs. Sandford resignedly, "if it _does_ clear." So she settled down to her knitting. Hugh Macnab sat scribbling in his note-book; Flora amused herself at the piano, and May hovered about the veranda, still enthralled by the spell of the "Thunder of Waters," even in a washed-out sketch, as Kate styled it. But by and by, a warm, soft gleam stole through the mist-laden atmosphere, small patches of blue sky appeared, and, in a very short time, the color had, as if by magic, come back to the scene; the foliage stood out greener than before, and the emerald once more gemmed the center of the Horse-shoe Falls, though somewhat less than it had previously appeared. The carriage was quickly summoned, and they were soon rolling smoothly along the road that led away from the river, through the quiet little village of Drummondville--back to Lundy's Lane. "You see we are really beginning at the end," said Kate. "Lundy's Lane came at the close of the war, in 1814, and it began in October, 1812, at Queenston Heights, which we are going to see this afternoon. For, you see, the American troops kept harassing this border for a couple of years." "Just as your English forefathers used to harass my Scotch ones long ago," said Hugh. "Oh, and I suppose the Scotch never did likewise! Indeed, I rather think they were a good deal the worst," laughed Kate. "But, at any rate, this sort of thing had been going on for nearly two years, keeping the poor people in a state of constant dread, and I think Sir Gordon Drummond and his sixteen hundred men, part of them British troops and part Canadian volunteers, must have been pretty tired of it. He made up his mind, however, that, come what might, he wouldn't retire before even five thousand Americans. That hill there was where he stationed his troops, and, as the guidebook says, they _stayed_ there, though the Americans did their best to drive them off. At last they tired out the American general, who fell off with his defeated army to their camp, away up there beyond Chippewa--in the direction we walked the first afternoon--and I believe they never halted till they got back to Fort Erie, from whence they had come." "Your Canadian volunteers must have been a plucky lot of fellows; no disgrace to the British flag they bore," Hugh observed. "Yes, and it wasn't only the _men_ who were plucky," May remarked, somewhat shyly. "The summer before Lundy's Lane, a woman did one of the bravest deeds of the whole war. Her name was Laura Secord, and she was the wife of a militiaman who had been crippled in the war. She found out that the American troops were on the march from Fort George, down at the mouth of the river, with the object of cutting off a little garrison of volunteers entrenched at a place called Beaver Dam. If the Americans could have managed this it would have been a great blow to the Canadians; and, as there was no one to warn them, this brave young woman determined to walk all the way--and a very lonely way it was--through the woods, to warn Fitzgibbon, the British commander. She succeeded in getting through the Yankee lines, and arrived safely at the little Canadian garrison; and when the American troops arrived they met so hot a reception from sharp-shooters concealed in the woods, with a few British soldiers in front, that the commander thought he was trapped into an encounter with the whole British force, and precipitately surrendered his six hundred men, guns and all, to a Canadian force of much less than half his own numbers." "Well," exclaimed Hugh, his eye lighting, and his cheek flushing, "that _was_ a brave woman. Such an exploit as that, in our old border wars would have been immortalized in a ballad." "It has been the subject of two or three Canadian poems," Kate replied. "May knows all about them, and I have no doubt she could recite some of the verses about Laura Secord." And May, on being pressed, recited a portion of a ballad rather shyly, but still with a good deal of spirit, and seeming to feel more at home with the formidable Hugh, through their fellow-feeling about such traditionary tales. They looked at the little hill and tried to imagine the scene, when, at sunset, the guns mingled their ominous roar with the majestic thunder of the Falls, until recalled by Mrs. Sandford to the recollection that it was nearly lunch-time. They drove some distance further along the pretty shady lane, with its bordering gardens and orchards on either side, and then rapidly returned to the hotel. In the afternoon they set out again to drive down the river,--the afternoon being a lovely one,--the air fragrant with wandering scents from the woods, and the roads freed from dust by the recent rain. They drove past the little town of Niagara Falls, or Clifton, as it is still sometimes called, at the point where the railway crosses the river on its great suspension bridge, and whose chief center of life is the great railway station for the whole vicinity. Leaving that behind, they followed the road along the river bank till they turned in at the gate leading to the descent to the Whirlpool. A steep, wooded incline descended the abrupt and densely wooded cliffs, down which, at intervals, ran a car, drawn up and down by a chain that passed over a wheel at the top. The fatigue of a descent in any other way was not to be thought of; so, although this way looked rather formidable, they all committed themselves to the car, except Mrs. Sandford, who preferred to remain at the top until their return--remarking that she had no fancy for tobogganing, especially on dry land! And, indeed, the dizzy speed at which they descended was not altogether unlike tobogganing--at least, according to Kate--which, Hugh said, was some satisfaction, since he should not be able to enjoy the thing itself. At the foot of the rapid descent they had only to follow a woodland path for a short distance in order to get a full view of the boiling and raging torrent; the waters, to a depth of more than two hundred feet, being compressed into a narrow channel of about a hundred yards between the high precipitous banks, till the confined and chafing stream seemed to rise into a ridge of great seething, foaming waves, tossing their heads up like small geysers, or waterspouts, some twenty feet high, as they dashed furiously against each other with all the force of the strong hidden currents. Just here, where the river swerved suddenly to the right, the sweep of the river round the American cliff made a sort of back-eddy in the bay formed by the receding heights above them--where, under a surface of apparently still water, its solemn depths, dark and somber, like a mountain tarn set in the midst of dusky pines, lay concealed, save for a few whirling eddies, a fierce vortex, which nothing that approached it could resist. Looking only on the placid surface, it was difficult to realize the hidden power beneath, until Hugh Macnab threw a large piece of stick near the center, where they saw it continue to gyrate with tremendous speed as long as they cared to watch it. Kate said there were gruesome stories of bodies which had been carried over the Falls, reappearing here for a horrible dance of death, which it made them shudder to imagine. Hugh enthusiastically declared that the dark and savage grandeur of this lonely gorge, with its steep overhanging heights, rising in their dusky green against the sky, like prison walls about the little Maëlstrom, was the finest bit of scenery he had yet seen about the Falls, and seemed just the place in which to imagine any tragedy. "Can't you invent one for it?" asked Flora. "Nothing worthy of the scene, I am afraid," he replied. "It recalls Schiller's 'Diver,' though, which has been haunting me constantly during the last few days. Do you remember it?" Kate did not, but May had read Lord Lytton's translation of it, and remembered it, though not distinctly. "Couldn't you repeat a verse or two of your own translation?" said Flora. "I should _have_ to repeat my own, if I did any," he said, smiling, "for it's the only one I could manage to remember." "Well, give us a bit of it, do," commanded Kate. Hugh thought for a moment. "I'll give you the two stanzas that might do for a description of the present scene," he said, and went on to recite, with great spirit: "And it boils and it seethes, and it hisses and roars, As if fire struggled fierce with the wave, And a misty spray-cloud from its bosom outpours, And the chasing floods endlessly rave; And, like thunder remote, with its low distant rumbles, The foam-crested stream from the dark cañon tumbles! But at last comes a lull in the turbulent war, And black in the midst of white foam A yawning rift gapes in the center, that far Leads downwards to bottomless gloom; And lo! all the surges, swift, rushing and roaring, Down into the whirlpool are endlessly pouring!" "It has the merit of being pretty literal, at any rate," he added, as they all thanked him, while Flora whispered to May that the whole translation was in the new book that was nearly ready. "But it is so strong and terse in the original that it is extremely difficult to render with any justice in a translation." "It would do for a description of _this_ whirlpool, at any rate," said Kate. And then she told them of a real tragedy, not unlike that of "The Diver," which had been recently enacted there, the feat of a bold swimmer, who had ventured to oppose his own strength and skill to that resistless force of the flood, with a similar result. "Poor fellow!" said Hugh, "that's tragedy enough for the place without inventing one. But why will man be so foolhardy?" "I can tell you of another daring feat, that _succeeded_ though," replied Kate, "though _that_ might have seemed foolhardy, too." And she went on to tell them how a little steamboat called the "Maid of the Mist," which used to ply up and down, just below the Falls, in order to give visitors the same view they now had from the ferry boat, had finally been taken down the river to Niagara, at its mouth, piloted through these fierce rapids and that greedy whirlpool; and how, when at last the pilot had successfully accomplished his anxious task, and left the boat at its dock, he looked at least ten years older than he had done only an hour or two before. While they talked Flora was trying to make a rapid sketch of the view had from where they sat on the bank--just as a help to remember it by, she said, for there was far too much to attempt in a hasty sketch, and the others were not sorry for an excuse to linger a little longer in so striking and picturesque a spot; but at last they felt compelled to bid it farewell, and tore themselves away, ascending in the same way in which they had come down, not without some tremor on the part of the girls, lest the stout chain should part while they were on the way. Rejoining Mrs. Sandford, who had grown very impatient, they were soon in the carriage again, but before pursuing their onward way they made a little _détour_, driving through a charming glen which led gradually downwards, under embowering trees and among mossy rocks and ferny glades, to where a pretty little bay lay, cut off from the raving stream by a beach of weather-worn pebbles. At the other extremity of the picturesque glen lay a little placid pool formed by an eddy of the river, at which Hugh declared he should like to stand all day with his fishing-rod, taking in leisurely all the influences of the tranquil scene. Flora, also, went into raptures over the place, which she said reminded her so much of a Scottish glen, and she and her brother eagerly discussed its points of similarity and contrast with several glens well known to them at home. Returning once more to the high-road they continued their drive in the slanting afternoon light, with rich farms and orchards on either side of them and lovely glimpses of the river and the opposite bank, till they found themselves among the picturesque dingles that lie round Queenston Heights, ascending the noble eminence, crowned by a stately shaft, which had been for some time looming before them in the distance. This height, Kate declared, was a natural monument, marking the Thermopylæ of Canada. But when they came out at last on its brow, close to the base of the shaft, they all exclaimed with delight at the exquisite beauty of the view that lay at their feet, which for the time made them forget that such things as historical associations had any existence. Just below them lay a fair, broad bay, into which the narrow, precipitous gorge had suddenly expanded; while away to their left they could trace, as on a map, the windings of the now placid river, round point after point, between banks that in the nearer distance looked like escarpments crowned with foliage, and, as they receded, gradually fell away in height until they descended almost to the level of the great Lake Ontario, which stretched--a blue, sea-like expanse--to the horizon line. Across the river, before them, the eye traveled over miles on miles of woodland and fertile farming country, dotted with villages and homesteads; the pretty little town of Lewiston, close to the river, just below. Immediately beneath them the rugged heights fell away abruptly to the river beach, and they looked down on the picturesque little village of Queenston, nestling among its graceful weeping willows, while, from its dock, a small ferry steamer was just leaving the quiet river, on its way to the nearly opposite dock at Lewiston. One or two sailing vessels and skiffs added animation to the charming foreground, and the whole seemed an embodiment of tranquil beauty. "Who would ever dream," said Flora, "that this was the same river we saw raging away up there?" though May, listening attentively, could still hear the soft, distant murmur of the "Thunder of Waters." "War and Peace," said Hugh. "But are we not going to ascend the monument?" "Of course," said Kate, when they had all read the commemorative inscription, and duly admired the graceful shaft, crowned by the figure of General Wolfe, with one hand resting on his sword and the other extended as if to cheer on his men. They climbed the winding stair within to the summit, from whence they could command still more extensive and varied panorama on all sides of them. Kate eagerly pointed out on the last headland at the mouth of the river the little Canadian town of Niagara, which, she informed her Scotch cousins, was almost the oldest town in Ontario, and had even enjoyed the dignity of being its first constitutional capital. Close beside it they could trace just through an opera glass the ramparts of old Fort George, which had played an important part in stormy days gone by. On the opposite point rose the white walls of the American Fort Niagara. Landward, Kate pointed out the spires of St. Catherine's, fourteen miles off, and the silver streak of the Welland Canal, winding its devious way from Lake Erie to Port Dalhousie, on Lake Ontario. And, "if they only had a good spy-glass," she added, "they could catch a glimpse of Toronto, just across a blue stretch of lake." After feasting their eyes on the lovely landscape, lighted by the warm afternoon sun, they were not sorry to descend from their lofty perch and sit down a while in a shady spot on the verge of the height, looking down over its dense foliage of oak and maple, birch and sumach, to the blue-green river that flowed beneath, half concealed by the rocky ledges. And as they sat there and Flora sketched, Kate described--helped out by May--how, early in one October morning of 1812, a line of boats filled with American troops had stolen silently across the stream, until the gallant "forlorn hope" had made a landing on the Canadian shore; and how the fire of the guns that greeted their passage had roused General Wolfe at Fort George, and brought him galloping up at the head of his suite to take command of the gallant little British and Canadian force, of only about eight hundred men, all told. But this little force had opposed the progress of the invaders every inch of ground with such desperate valor as speedily to change the attack into a rout, in which numbers of the brave American soldiers, fighting gallantly, even after all was lost, fell victims to the uncontrollable ferocity of the Indians, determined to avenge the death of the brave Wolfe, who had fallen while fighting like one of his own men, and cheering on the "York Volunteers." Many of the invaders who escaped the pursuing Indians were killed in trying to descend the rocky height or drowned in attempting to swim across the river. "A well-fought fight it must have been," exclaimed Hugh, "worthy to take its place beside any of our historical battlefields. Why don't we know more about these affairs at home? Then we might feel more as if Canada were indeed a 'Greater Britain!' And so these heights had _their_ dead hero, too, as well as the 'Heights of Abraham'?" "Yes, indeed," said May; "General Brock was indeed a hero, just as much as Wolfe, though he only helped to _keep_ Canada, instead of conquering it." "But," said Kate, "to go back to ancient history, do you know that this ridge here is said to have been once the shore of an ocean, and, at a later time, the boundary of the lake; and that here the Falls are supposed to have made their first plunge. The geologists have traced it all the way--its gradually receding front all the way back to where it is now." "I'm sure I'm much obliged to them," said Hugh, "but somehow these vast blank periods of geological history don't touch me half so much as a little bit of human interest. That battle you have been describing is far more interesting than æons of conflict between water and shale." "If it interests you so much," Kate rejoined, "you can read more about it when we get home, in a Canadian story I have, called 'For King and Country,' which ends with the battle of Queenston Heights." And now Flora had finished her little sketch, and Mrs. Sandford warned the lingering party that the afternoon was waning fast, in which undoubted fact they acquiesced with a general sigh of regret. They descended by the steep winding road on the other side of the height, through thickets of aromatic red cedar, down to the scattered little village, embowered among its orchards below, and drove some distance farther on along the road in order that they might enjoy, in returning, the charming view of the Heights, approached from the Niagara side. They followed, for a mile or two, the undulating road which, after leaving the village behind, was skirted with white villas, surrounded by wide stretches of soft green sward, flecked by the shadows of fine old trees, looking like a bit of an English park; and then, turning at last, enjoyed the charming view of the now distant bay, with wooded point after point intervening, and the bold eminence of Queenston Heights always fitly closing in the picturesque vista. They all thought the drive such an enchanting one that there was not a dissenting voice when Kate proposed that, since they were going to take the daily steamer to Toronto from Niagara, on their onward route, by far the pleasantest plan would be to _drive_ thither, when at last they must leave the Falls. Leaving the Falls seemed a sad prospect to all of them, but more especially so to May, over whom the Falls had thrown such a spell of fascination that she would have liked nothing better than to stay there all summer, feasting eyes and ears on their grandeur. But Hugh Macnab, who owned to the same feeling, added the consoling reflection that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," and May felt convinced that the memory of the Falls would indeed be "a joy forever" to _her_ as long as she lived. They could only spare three days more to Niagara, and as they sat that evening as usual on the piazza, regretting the lateness of the already waning moon, they agreed that now, having taken a general survey of the main points of view, they should not attempt any plans for the remaining days, but should spend them in those leisurely, unpremeditated loiterings, which are always the pleasantest way of absorbing all the more subtile and indefinite influences of noble scenery. So the remaining days turned out to be, perhaps, the most delightful of the sojourn, spent in charming desultory strolls, as the fancy of the moment dictated, revisiting all the points which had most impressed them, taking in new beauties which they had not observed before, while they talked or were silent, as the mood suggested, and Flora filled her sketch-book with pretty "bits," and Hugh occasionally withdrew to a little distance and scribbled in his note-book, and Mrs. Sandford, sitting near while the others discursively rambled, accomplished yards on yards of her endless knitting. Their last day was Sunday, when they walked down to the pretty little church at Clifton, and enjoyed the quiet service, and sat most of the afternoon on the piazza, of the view from whence they never tired. It was a lovely sunset, and they walked as far as Table Rock to have a last lingering look at the superb view from there in the rich evening glow. As they watched the two magnificent Falls into which the stream divides, to re-unite below, Kate told her cousin Hugh of a beautiful simile which she had seen in a new Canadian book called "The New Empire," in which the author suggests that though the stream of the British race in America had divided like that sweeping river into two magnificent sections, so, like it, they might re-unite in the future citizenship of a world-wide Britain. "And then, perhaps, we shall go on to our laureate's dream of the federation of the world! It is at all events a pleasant thought to finish this glorious visit with; and I suppose this is our farewell look?" "I am afraid so," said Kate. "We shall not have much time in the morning for loitering. Let us be glad we have such a glorious sight of it--for the last!" And they sat silently gazing, as if they would fain have prolonged the sunset light. But at length its last vestige had vanished, and they slowly walked back to the hotel in the starlight, while the grand music of the "Thunder of Waters" still filled their ears, and sounded even through their dreams. CHAPTER II ON THE LAKE. "Dreaming again, May! Are you saying a last fond good-bye to the Falls? I'm afraid you've left your heart up there," said Mrs. Sandford, as she smilingly laid her hand on the shoulder of her niece, who stood alone at the stern of the steamboat, silently gazing in the direction of the faint, distant cloud of spray that rose, just traceable against the clear blue sky, with a wistful regret in her soft gray eyes--regret at parting from that wonderful revelation of the sublime which had so powerfully impressed her imagination, and which, just at present, overpowered even the happy anticipations of the further revelations of beauty and grandeur that still lay in the future progress of this wonderful voyage down the glorious river to the sea. They had a delightful morning drive through the long stretch of charming rural scenery that lies between the Falls and Niagara, studded with pretty bowery old homesteads, long green lawns flecked with the long shadows of spreading walnut and tulip trees, and dark stately pines, through which they could catch glimpses of old-fashioned, pillared piazzas, or of old gray farm buildings, till at last they reached the picturesque suburbs of the quiet little town of "Niagara-on-the-Lake." As they drove through the grove of fine oaks that skirts the edge of the town, and admired the pretty little church of St. Mark's, making a charming picture in the foreground, Mrs. Sandford, who in her youth had often sojourned in the vicinity, pointed out the spot where she remembered having seen the "hollow beech-tree,"--long since gone,--commemorated by Moore in his poem of "The Woodpecker," though, it must be added, that this same beech-tree has been also located in the neighborhood of Kingston. Beyond the oak grove lay a broad green or "common" stretching away to the wide blue lake, on which the Iroquois used to hold an annual encampment to receive their yearly gifts and allowances. To the right of the road, just above the river, Mrs. Sandford pointed out the grassy mound and bit of massive masonry, which is all that is left of old Fort George, with its eventful history, and a little further on the tower of Fort Mississauga, built after the final retreat of the American troops in 1813, out of the ruins of the original town, burned by the American soldiers on a dreary December day. No traces of these old conflicts can now be seen, being long since smoothed over by the gentle yet strong hand of time, and a beneficent Nature. Just opposite them, across the broad blue-green river, which has now lost all traces of its turbulent passion, and subsided into a most peaceful and easy-going stream, they could see the white walls of the American Fort Niagara, which had exchanged so many rounds of cannonade with its opposite neighbor. May, fresh from reading Parkman, was eager to fix the exact spot where her special hero, LaSalle, had built his ill-fated "Griffin," the first sailing vessel that ever floated on these waters; but here her aunt could give her no information. _Her_ interest was entirely in later history, and she pointed out the place where Governor Simcoe had opened the first Parliament of Upper Canada and delivered his first speech, with all the usual formalities, to an assembly of eight members and two Legislative Councilors; after which the Governor, with his two Secretaries, departed in due pomp attended by a guard of honor of fifty soldiers from the old fort; and also, how, with less ceremonial, during the warm summer days, the Governor and his Council met on the green sward, under the spreading trees, and arranged the affairs of the Provinces, passing, among other useful measures, the memorable one which put an end forever to all possibilities of negro slavery in the young colony, thereby saving it from much future difficulty and dishonor. The mention of this last subject had brought on a discussion of the history of slavery in the American Republic, which much interested Hugh Macnab, whose Celtic sympathies had been rather with the South in the great struggle, while Kate was a warm partisan of the North, and argued their cause so well that her cousin had at last to confess himself mistaken on several important points. The argument lasted until they found themselves on board the Cibola, getting up her steam to carry them from Niagara and its glories. While Mrs. Sandford had been dilating on the attractions of Niagara-on-the-Lake as a delightful and quiet health resort, May, who had been very quiet during the drive, had stolen off to a quiet corner in the stern, where the others found her at last, sitting very still and trying to fix the glorious Falls in her memory by calling up once again the picture of them as she had seen them last. "So this is Lake Ontario!" said Hugh Macnab, looking around with keen enjoyment. "How well I remember stumbling over the name at school in my geography lessons, and reading with awe that line of Campbell's about the tiger roaming along Ontario's shores!" "Oh, did he really say that?" said Kate. "Who would have thought a great poet would have made such a mistake in his zoology?" "Oh, as for that," said Hugh, smiling, "poets, especially when they are city-bred--are very apt to make mistakes about natural facts. And Ruskin had not written then, you know. But what a magnificent lake!" he exclaimed again, inhaling the fresh, bracing breeze, and surveying with delight the turquoise-blue expanse of water, whose horizon-line blended softly with a pale azure sky, banked here and there by delicate violet clouds which might have passed for distant mountains. "Over there," he added, "one could imagine it the ocean, at least on one of the rare days when the ocean sleeps at peace!" "It can be stormy enough, too," remarked Mrs. Sandford, with a grimace, called forth by some vivid remembrance of it in that aspect. "I've been on it when even good sailors at sea have had to give in. For, you see, the short, chopping waves are more trying than the big ocean rollers." "And how long shall we be on it, after leaving Toronto?" asked Hugh, with some anxiety, for he was by no means a good sailor in such circumstances. "Oh, you can have fourteen or fifteen hours of it, if you wish," replied Kate, mischievously, suspecting the reason for his question. "But I've been planning a little variation that, because, of course, you see nothing of the country in traveling by lake, and I want you to see some of our really pretty places by the way; and besides, the Armstrongs, our Port Hope cousins, want to have a glimpse of you, of course, and would like us all to give them a day, at least, _en route_. And my plan is, that we take the lake steamer to Port Hope, which we reach in a lovely hour,--just in the gloaming, as Flora would say. We can all stay with the Armstrongs, for they have a good large house and some of the family are away; and we can have some very pretty drives about Port Hope next day. And then, the following morning, we can take the train, and go by the 'Grand Trunk' to a pretty little town called Belleville, on a charming bay called the Bay of Quinte, on which we can have a lovely sail down to Kingston. That will be better than spending the night on the lake--seeing nothing of the scenery and having to turn out of our berths at the unearthly hour of four o'clock in the morning, which is about the time the steamboat from Toronto arrives at that good old city." "That's a splendid plan, Cousin Kate," exclaimed both Hugh and Flora at once. "What a schemer you are, to be sure," continued Hugh. "I don't know how we should ever get on without you." May had been sitting by, silently watching the little group, as she had rather a way of doing; Kate's bright face, Hugh's more reserved and sensitive one,--yet seeming so much more animated and healthful than when she had first met him, only a few days ago,--and Flora's sweet, rosy, good-humored countenance,--they made a pleasant picture. How much better Hugh seemed already, and how much he seemed to depend on Kate! May was much addicted to weaving little romances for the people about her,--often on very slender foundation,--and she had already begun to weave one for her cousin. How well they would supplement each other, she thought,--Kate's quick, practical sense and Hugh's more contemplative tendencies. From which it will be seen that May was somewhat given to theories, as well as to modern fiction. Meantime, they had been swiftly steaming across the azure surface of the lake, and, even by straining her eyes, May could barely discern the faint cloud of mist that represented so much to her inward eye. Indeed they had all begun to look onward for Toronto, and could dimly trace the long succession of buildings and spires that had begun to separate itself from the blue line of distant shore towards which they were approaching. "We shall be there very soon now," said Mrs. Sandford, rising to collect her numerous satchels, wraps, etc., long before there was any occasion for it. It was a sort of occupation, and she had relinquished, for the time, the sedative of her knitting. While she was thus busied, Kate pointed out, as they drew nearer, the principal landmarks, and the strangers were surprised to find so extensive and imposing a city. "That low bar of land, there," she said, somewhat slightingly, "is what they call their Island, though it really is only a sandbar cut through. I suppose it's better than nothing, for at least they get the fresh lake breezes; but no one who has seen our beautiful 'Thousand Islands' in the St. Lawrence could be content with that for an island. But it is the Coney Island, the Nantasket Beach, the Saratoga, of Toronto!" "Toronto is an Indian name, I suppose," said Hugh. "Do you know what it means?" "I do," said May, when Kate had confessed her ignorance. "At least I have read somewhere that it means 'The Place of Meeting,' from having been the point where the roving bands of Indians and the French traders used to meet in the old French time. At first it was only a little stockaded fort, called Fort Kouilly, after a French Colonial Minister, I think, and there the traders and Indians used to make their bargains." "And after that," said Mrs. Sandford, "it was never known at all until Governor Simcoe made it the first capital, instead of Niagara, which was too near the frontier, and called it York, after the then Duke of York." "What a pity!" exclaimed Hugh. "But they went back to the Indian name, after all!" "Yes," replied Mrs. Sandford, "they got tired of hearing it called 'muddy little York,' and changed back to Toronto about fifty years ago; and Toronto it has remained ever since. My father has often told me about the first Parliament buildings here, and the Vice-Regal residence, which the 'Queen City' would not think good enough now for a school building. At the time when it was made the capital, the woods clothed the shore down to the water's edge, and there were only two wigwams here, in which lived two families of Mississauga Indians, from whom the whole site of the city is said to have been bought for _ten shillings sterling_, with some beads, blankets, and, I'm afraid, a little fire-water thrown in." "Well," said Hugh, "everything is relative; I suppose that represented a small fortune to them, and it has taken a good while to get the 'unearned increment' up to its present value." "I don't understand your new-fangled terms," said Mrs. Sandford. "There weren't any of them in my day. Now, make haste and get your traps together, for we'll be at the dock in two minutes. Look for the Arlington carriage, Hugh, that's where we're going; I think you will find it there." And in a few minutes they were all stowed into the carriage, and driven rapidly away from the noisy dock to the quiet family hotel on King Street, which seemed an inviting resting place in the very warm afternoon. They felt the heat all the more after the cool lake breeze they had been enjoying; and they were all tired enough with their early start to enjoy a _siesta_ before their luncheon, which was also much appreciated in its turn. The afternoon was to be devoted to seeing Toronto, and a large double hack was soon at the door, in which the whole party ensconced themselves for a leisurely drive about the busy and beautiful city. Kate, as usual, directed the route, and Hugh sat on the box beside the driver, where he could hear all the information given behind, as well as secure some more on his own account from the communicative charioteer. They drove first eastward, along the fine stretch of King Street, admiring on their way the pretty, shady grounds of Government House, and the massive Norman architecture of St. Andrew's Church opposite, in which Hugh, as a Scotchman, took a special interest. Passing on, along the favorite resort of Toronto promenaders, they admired the stately rows of buildings, though Hugh and Flora protested against the monotonous white brick, so new to their English eyes. They turned up the busy thoroughfare of Yonge Street, and, after a few blocks, left the region of shops and turned aside into the cool shadiness of Jarvis and Sherbourne Streets, with their handsome residences, surrounded by well-kept grounds; and so up to the rural quiet of Bloor Street. They crossed the fine bridge over the ravine at Rosedale, and admired the picturesque bits of scenery lying about that romantic spot. Then, after following Bloor Street into the new section of the city that has grown up so rapidly about Spadina Avenue, they turned into the beautiful "Queen's Park," and drove through its shady precincts, the Scottish strangers surveying with great interest the new academic buildings that are springing up about the University as a center. At the University, of course, they halted for a closer inspection of the beautiful building, which, as Kate remarked, had just risen, Ph[oe]nix-like, from the conflagration that had, a short time ago, left it a mass of magnificent ruins. "You see they are building the library quite separate, over there, now," Kate said, pointing to where the graceful library building was beginning to show its beauty of design. "It is really wonderful," she added, "how generous people everywhere have been in restoring the loss of the books." "Yes," replied Hugh. "And I have no doubt the University will be the gainer in the end, as the _trash_ will have been all disposed of, and the scientific books will be all new and up to date. But I can imagine what a catastrophe it must have been at the time. It made quite a sensation, even among us students in Edinburgh. Though, apart from the associations, I'm afraid some of us wouldn't have been sorry to have had our old building and old books renewed in the same way! It's too bad for a Scotch university to be eclipsed, architecturally, by a Canadian one!" "Ah, well, you see, we had the improved taste of this age to guide us," remarked Kate. "And the taste of a Scotchman, at that, if I am not mistaken," added Hugh. "Oh, yes, we must grant you the credit of Sir Daniel Wilson and his Edinburgh training. But look at this fine gateway. Fortunately it was not injured by the fire, and is just as it was. I think it's the finest bit of the building." Hugh admired it all so enthusiastically that May, who had of course seen very little of fine architecture, was glad to have her own admiration endorsed by one who had seen so much more. And, happily, they encountered a stray professor, well known to Mrs. Sandford, who insisted on looking up the janitor, and personally conducting them through the interior of the building, which the tourists were very anxious to see, and which Hugh inspected with the critical eye of a student, approving of the various improvements everywhere introduced, and only regretting the lost glories of the Convocation Hall, on which the professor regretfully descanted. "But we must wait for some Canadian millionaire to give us a Canadian Christ's Church," he said, smiling. "Indeed, I think it is wonderful, as it _is_, for a new country," said Hugh, as they exchanged a cordial adieu, Hugh promising in return to show him Edinburgh University if he would look him up over there. From the University they drove down the fine shady avenue, to show the strangers, a little way from the University, on a little knoll in its picturesque grounds, a monument to the young volunteers who fell at Ridgeway. Hugh and Flora had already heard the story of the Fenian _émeute_ that caused so much temporary excitement, and they looked with respectful sympathy at the monument so justly raised to these gallant young men, as true patriots as if the field on which they fell had been one of the historic battle-grounds of the world. The monument to George Brown also claimed their attention for a few moments, and Hugh triumphantly declared to Kate, that, so far as he could see, all the great leaders of Canada had been his fellow-countrymen. Then they continued their drive down the fine avenue, past the School of Technology, and the great, new Parliament buildings, fast rising to completion, and down the alley of chestnuts on to which, under the spreading horse-chestnuts, leads down Queen Street, where they duly admired the classic stateliness of Osgoode Hall,--the law center of Ontario. Then they returned to King Street once more, and followed its coarse westward for some miles, to see the former site of the Old Fort near the Exhibition buildings, and the various great institutions of Toronto along its line. The old red brick building of Upper Canada College,--one of the oldest grammar schools in Canada; the handsome front of Trinity College, farther on, in its beautiful park, the grounds and buildings of which Hugh would fain have stopped to explore; the great gloomy-looking, high-walled inclosure of the Lunatic Asylum, with its saddening associations; and then, still sadder sight, the grim Central Prison and the Mercer Reformatory for women. A somewhat more cheerful object of contemplation was the large pile of buildings that form the beautiful Home for Incurables, which Kate declared was quite an ideal institution, at least so far as its plan and appointments were concerned. "But it is a rather melancholy place too," she admitted, "though, if people _are_ incurable, it is nice to know that they will be comfortably provided for!" "I don't believe much in institutions," said Flora, in her soft voice and pretty Scotch accent; "I would rather have one of the plainest little rooms, in a wee, real home, than the most luxurious one in these great institutions!" and May warmly endorsed the sentiment. "Still, if people can't have even that," said Hugh, "it's well there _are_ institutions. I must say myself, that I don't care much for doing things by wholesale, so I for one could never be a socialist. Things were better planned originally. 'He setteth the solitary in families.'" "That was long ago, my dear boy," remarked Mrs. Sandford. "It's getting to be an old world, and a cold world, too, I fear." "Oh, I hope not, Aunt Bella. The old order faileth, giving place to new, only the new hasn't got well worked out yet." On their way back they took a look at the Old Fort Barracks, and at the site of the old French Fort, near which the exhibition buildings, or "Fair grounds," yearly present such a striking contrast to what must have been the silence and loneliness of the spot when it first became a British settlement. And the cool lake breeze was most refreshing after the heat of the July day, and sent them back to the hotel, reinforced for dinner, after which they were not disposed to do more than sit quietly on one of the balconies of the hotel, Mrs. Sandford knitting with great satisfaction, and the others amusing themselves with observing the ever-varying line of pedestrians constantly passing to and fro on their way from places of evening entertainment. Next morning all the junior members of the party started for a ramble on foot, going first along King Street and looking in a more leisurely fashion at the various handsome public buildings, the banks, the great newspaper offices, a little off King Street, the fine post-office on Adelaide Street, the attractive picture and bookstores, and then turning up Church Street, pursued their way to the Normal School buildings, where Kate exhibited to her companions with some pride, the various educational appliances of that center of the public school education of the province, the handsome, and even luxurious lecture-rooms, class-rooms, library, and last, but not least, the spacious and delightful Kindergarten, a paradise of infantine education, which was Kate's especial delight, and which to Hugh and Flora was a charming novelty in "school-keeping." After that they continued their walk in a desultory fashion along the shady streets of that quarter of the city, admiring the handsome churches and villa-like residences which there abound. Then they crossed the Park to take one more look at the beautiful University buildings, and came back to the Arlington by the way of St. George Street with its fine residences, and Spadina Avenue, just in time for an early luncheon before preparing for their departure by the good steamer _Corsican_. The early afternoon found them all on the deck of the steamer, gliding swiftly out of Toronto Bay, leaving in the distance the long mass of fine buildings that extends along Front Street and gives the stranger some idea of the wealth and business of Toronto; past the long sandbar, which at once protects Toronto Harbor and serves as a "health resort" and "_villegiature_" for so many Torontonians. Very soon, as the steamer ploughed her way through the blue lake, calm as a millpond, Toronto had become invisible, and the high land of Scarboro Heights rose to the left, while to the right the blue horizon line again reminded the travelers of the sea. Presently, there arose the fresh, bracing afternoon breeze, most grateful to the strangers especially, who had felt the heat at Toronto rather oppressive. It was a delicious afternoon, and as the sparkling and quivering golden pathway thrown on the waters by the westering sun showed them that it was passing away all too soon, Hugh declared that if he lived in Canada he should want to spend most of the summer on a yacht on such halcyon waters. "Yes," said Mrs. Sandford, "yachting is very well in summer weather, when it is calm like this, but it's dangerous at best on these great lakes where sudden squalls are apt to rise at any moment. Don't you remember, Kate----" "Oh, yes, Auntie," Kate interposed, hurriedly, "don't talk about it now. It's too sad. But, Hugh, how would you like to 'paddle your own canoe' all the way down from Toronto to the foot of the lake, as they used to do in the brave days of old?" "I shouldn't fancy any one would try such an experiment in these days of rapid locomotion," said Flora. "Indeed, some people _would_, and think it great fun," replied Kate. "A friend of ours, with his wife and little girl, paddled down the whole way to the St. Lawrence one summer, just for the pleasure of it. And his wife--just as the squaws used to do--helped him with the paddling." "And how long did it take them?" asked Hugh. "About ten or eleven days. And they kept a log, or at least a diary of each day's events, for future edification. Of course, they stopped over night at some place where they could sleep comfortably and have a good breakfast to start with." "Oh, I should think _that_ might be very pleasant. But, in 'the brave days of old,' they had not any of these conveniences, and I suppose they did not take it so leisurely." "Poor LaSalle had many a hard paddle up and down the lakes in all sorts of weather," said May. "It makes one shudder to think of some of his voyages, and with so many hardships, too!" "Well," said Hugh, "I think I prefer the more expeditious way, where there's no particular scenery to tempt one." "Oh, of course, there isn't _much_ of what you would call scenery along this coast," said Kate. "Nothing like what there is along Lake Superior or Lake Huron. But still, if you were to keep close along shore, there are many pretty little 'bits' to enjoy; and just think what a delicious lotus-eating life it would be." "Except for the paddler," interposed Hugh. "Oh, indeed, you don't know how the paddlers get to love it! There seems a sort of fascination about it, and it gets to be a passion with them. There is much more interest and variety about it than about rowing. Do you know, there's a great American Canoe Association to which many Canadians belong, which has its 'meets' every summer, at some pleasant spot, with good boating. They have all sorts of exercises, races, canoe-gymnastics, prize contests, and a splendid time generally. And ladies belong to it as well as men. This year it is to be held at one of the 'Thousand Islands'; and, by the way, I shouldn't wonder if you might have a glimpse of it. You know we are all invited to spend a few days at the summer cottage of a friend there, with whom I have often stayed, and it isn't very far from where they have the Canoe Camp; so we may just manage to have a look at it." "That would be charming! I should like that," exclaimed Hugh and Flora both together; while May began to think that too many delights were clustering about this wonderful expedition, and that she should suddenly awake to find it all a dream; and Cinderella at home again, amid her dusters and her stocking-mending--as if there were no Niagara and no "Thousand Islands" in the world. Meantime, they were ploughing their way through the gleaming blue and gold waves, with water and sky meeting at the horizon line, all around them, save for a blue strip of shore to their left, while the steering was done by compass, a new experience for the strangers, on an inland lake. "I don't wonder," Hugh remarked, "now that I've seen this lake for myself, I don't wonder that the British Foreign Office, long ago, should have sent out water-casks for the frigates here, as you were telling me. It is hard to realize that this great blue expanse is really _fresh_ water." And May felt delighted that she now could the better picture to herself what the _sea_ was actually like. But the soft shadows of evening were falling on the woods and hills before them, as the steamer glided into the beautiful harbor of Port Hope--a noted harbor even in the old Indian times, under the name of Ganeraské. The placid water, afire with rich sunset tints, and smooth as a mirror, was dotted with the skiffs of pleasure seekers, and the pretty little town looked most attractive, as, half in shadow, it nestled in its picturesque valley and straggled up the sides of its protecting hills. The long railway viaduct seemed to lend it an additional charm, and Flora McNab appealed to her brother whether it were not more like one of their old-country towns, than any they had yet seen. On the pier were a number of strollers, who had come out to catch the evening breeze, or to see the arrival of the daily boat; and, among them, Kate's quick eye easily recognized Nellie Armstrong and her brother, who gave them all a warm welcome, and speedily packed them into a dog-cart and a light-covered carriage, in which they were driven through the shady, sloping streets to the pretty bowery home of the Armstrongs, where another kind welcome awaited them from the host and hostess, and where an inviting supper was laid out in a cool, pleasant dining-room, opening on a velvety lawn overshadowed by a great "bass-wood" or linden tree. To May it all seemed like a delightful romance, nor did she mind a bit the soft rain, which, during the night, she heard through her dreams, pattering on the great leafy bough with that peculiarly tranquilizing effect which a soft summer rain has on the sleepy listener at night. The morning was wet and misty, but their host declared the latter to be a good sign. And so it proved, for by the time the carriages, ordered for a long drive, were at the door, the mists were rolling gently up the sides of the hills, giving to the charming landscape just the touch of poetry that could best enhance its charm. It was a delightful drive, taking in most of the hills around the town, and the fine view from the one called "Fort Orton" was particularly enjoyed by the travelers. "It's very like a pretty English or Scotch view," said Flora. "Not what one is apt to imagine _Canadian_ scenery." "Well, you see, this is one of the oldest settled parts of Canada," said Mr. Armstrong. "The whole vicinity is associated with the early French Missions to the Indians, and with some of the early French and Indian wars. There was an old Sulpician Mission at the Indian village on the very site of Port Hope--a mission whose director was the Abbé Fénelon, the first explorer of this lake shore, and no other than a brother of the celebrated Fénelon, who was the distinguished Archbishop of Cambray, and instructor of the Dauphin of France." "And who wrote 'Télémaque?'" said Kate. "Precisely. And while he was writing it for his royal pupil, his brother, devoted to the spiritual good of the poor ignorant Indians, was trying to teach the Catechism and the Lord's Prayer to the little Indian children, and enduring among the fierce Senecas, hardships far greater than those through which his brother was leading Télémaque. He was a real hero, that Abbé Fénelon." "I must read up those old French Missions," said Hugh. "They seem to be wonderfully rich in heroic deeds." "They are, indeed," said Mr. Armstrong, "but I wish you had time to go back to the neighborhood of Rice Lake and Peterboro', with its lovely little lakes. By the way, there is a pretty waterfall thereabout, named after this Abbé Fénelon, and the whole country is full of associations, not only with those old French explorers and missionaries, but also with the almost equally gallant fight of the old U. E. Loyalist settlers, with hardships and privation." "And what _is_ a 'U. E. Loyalist?'" asked Hugh. "I've seen the expression before, but have no idea what it means." "We should not expect you to understand our Canadian terms, without explanation," said Mr. Armstrong, laughingly. "Well, a U. E. Loyalist means one of those first settlers of Canada who were driven to take refuge here at the time of the American revolution, because they would not give up their allegiance to the British Empire, and so they left their farms and possessions behind, and came to settle in the wilderness under the 'old flag.'" "Oh, I see," said Hugh. "I have heard that many did so, but did not know that they were called by that particular name." "Well, they gave good proof of their loyalty," said Mrs. Sandford; "for many of them had pretty hard times. Mrs. Moodie's experiences which she records in her book, 'Roughing it in the Bush,' were endured in this section of the country. I must try to get the book for you to read. You know she was a sister of Miss Agnes Strickland, and she and her sister, Mrs. Traill, may be called our pioneer authoresses, though we can hardly call them Canadians." "Yes, and this is a neighborhood full of Indian legend, too," said Mr. Armstrong; "we have a village called _Hiawatha_, not many miles from here, and a 'Minnehaha,' 'laughing water,' in the same neighborhood; and not far from either dwelt the magician Megissogwon, who, 'guarded by the black pitch-water, sends fever from the marshes,' as, indeed, many a pale-face victim of fever and ague has known to his cost. And old Indian battlefields have been discovered hereabout, besides the connection of this point with warlike expeditions between white men in later times." "And so we can never get away from 'old unhappy things and battles long ago,'" said Hugh, moralizingly. "Well, let us give them the go-by, just now," said Kate and Flora together. "On such a lovely evening, we don't want to think of battles and unhappy things,--old or new." "Only, somehow, they seem to add the touch of human interest, even if it be a sad one," rejoined Hugh, who was so much interested in all he could learn of the past history of the country that Kate laughingly chaffed him about the book or magazine article he must be going to write when he got home. However, the chaffing had no effect on his thirst for knowledge, and when they returned in the lovely summer twilight,--more than ready for the substantial repast which awaited them, notwithstanding the luncheon they had enjoyed on the way,--Hugh eagerly set to work thereafter, to devour, in addition, all the scraps of information which Mr. Armstrong hunted up for him among the historical works in his library. But his attention was somewhat distracted by the songs which Nellie and Flora and May were singing, sometimes in concert, sometimes separately, at the piano in the adjoining drawing-room. Flora delighted them all with the sweetness and pathos with which she sang some of the "Songs from the North," which the others had not previously heard. They gave her an enthusiastic _encore_ for the spirited song "Over the Hills to Skye," and at last, after hearing it two or three times, they all joined in the chorus. "Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, Onward! the sailors cry. And carry the lad who was born to be King, Over the hills to Skye." And they were almost as much fascinated by the chorus of the other, "The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch-Lomond," and sang again and again the mournful refrain:-- "Oh, ye'll tak' the high road, an' I'll tak' the low road, An' I'll be in Scotland afore ye; But I'll never, never see my true love again On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch-Lomond!" "You see, you can't get away from the 'old unhappy things,'" said Hugh, at last leaving his books and coming to join the group at the piano. "It's always the same two minor chords we have in every pathetic song or story--love and war--in some form!" "Yes," said Mr. Armstrong, "see how the American war struck into life the latent possibilities of pathos and poetry in the practical American people." "Oh, by the way, Kate," said Nellie, "don't you remember that Mr. Winthrop we met at Old Orchard last summer, with whom you used to have so many arguments about the North and South, and all the rest of it? I think he made a convert of you." "Nonsense!" said Kate; "but what of him?" "Oh, he called here two or three weeks ago in the course of a tour he was making, and he asked most particularly for you. I really believe he was going to look you up; and you were away from home. What a pity!" "Indeed, I think it very unlikely that he would do anything of the kind. It would be quite out of his way," said Kate, nonchalantly. "Well, I do think he meant to do so," returned Nellie. "He made most particular inquiries about just how to get there." "I shall certainly be very much surprised to hear that he took any such trouble. Was he as argumentative as ever?" "No, for most of his time here was spent in making the inquiries I referred to!" retorted Nellie, rather mischievously. "I only wonder you have not stumbled across him in the course of your travels." Hugh had looked up with a sudden air of interest. "I noticed the name of Winthrop in the register of the _Clifton_, only a few days before we arrived." "Then we just missed him," said Kate, in an indifferent tone, though with a somewhat heightened color. "You would have enjoyed meeting him, Hugh. He would have given you the American side of everything at first hand. What I have given you is only a very faint echo." "But haven't you any Canadian songs to give me?" asked Hugh, as the girls were about leaving the piano. "There's the old 'Canadian Boat-song,'" said Nellie, doubtfully. "No, no," said Kate, "that's all very well for singing on the river. We'll have it _there_, by and by. Give Hugh something that has more of a native flavor about it. Sing him one or two of those French Canadian songs you used to be so fond of--'_La Claire_ _Fontaine_,' you know, or '_En Roulant Ma Boule_.'" "But they are so silly," objected Nellie. "Dear me! who expects songs to be sensible nowadays, especially songs of that sort? And Hugh can enjoy a little nonsense to a pretty air, as well as anybody, I'm quite sure. Remember how much Mr. Winthrop used to like them," said Mrs. Sandford. "Well, I'll sing them," said Nellie; "only, as the air is so simple, you must all of you join in the chorus, after the first time. You can easily catch it up." And she proceeded to sing, with much spirit and expression, two or three of the lively French-Canadian airs, which have come down from the old times of _voyageurs_ and trappers--and the whole party caught the fascination and were soon singing, all together, the rollicking chorus of:-- "_En roulant ma boule roulant,--en roulant ma boule._" and the prettier, half-playful, half-serious love ditty, the refrain to "_La Claire Fontaine_": "_Il y'a longtemps que je t'aime_, _Jamais je ne t'oublierai_," till every one was surprised to find that it was eleven o'clock, and time for the travelers to seek their rest in preparation for an early start. It was with great regret that the good-byes were said next morning, and the little party separated at the Grand Trunk station. May thought she could see very well that Jack Armstrong had fallen a victim to the fresh, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed Flora, and, accordingly, was not surprised when something was said about a possibility that he and Nellie might meet them at Quebec, by and by, and go with them down the Saguenay. "At all events we will live in _Hope_," said Jack, who was too fond of puns. "You know this is a _hopeful_ atmosphere." And so they were off from old _Ganeraské_, as this Port of Good Hope was first called, and on the road once more. The next stage was not very long, however. At Cobourg they utilized the "twenty minutes for refreshments" by driving rapidly about the principal streets of this old town, commemorating in its name the marriage of the young Queen with the good Albert of Cobourg. They got a distant glimpse of the tower of the Victoria University, soon to be removed to Toronto, where its name will not have the historical significance which it had here. Mrs. Sandford informed Hugh how many factories the little town contained, cloth, cars, leather, and more besides. Then they had a run of some two hours through a fertile farming country, leaving the train at Belleville, where they were to spend the remainder of the day. Taking an early luncheon, they devoted the rest of the afternoon and evening to pleasant drives about the picturesque vicinity of the pretty little city, which, Mrs. Sandford said, was first named _Belleville_ in honor of Arabella, the wife of an early governor. That it deserved the added "e" no one doubted, for all admired its fine situation at the head of the noble Bay of Quinte, with two rapid rivers, the Trent and the Moira, running through the town. Everywhere that they drove in the neighborhood they came upon charming glimpses of bay and river, or rich fields of waving grain, thriving orchards and pleasant old homesteads surrounded by their farm-buildings, making many delightful rural pictures to carry away. And again Mrs. Sandford reminded them how all that comfort and prosperity was the late fruit of the hard labors and patiently borne privations of the loyal old settlers, who chose to begin life over again in the wilderness, rather than sacrifice their political principles and disown the flag they loved so well. "I'm afraid I'm not such a Tory as you are, Aunt Bella," said Hugh; "few of us juniors are in these latter days. But, all the same, it was a noble thing to do--to follow their principles to the bitter end, and go out, like Abraham, into the wilderness." "But I'm not sure that they were _all_ noble," interposed Kate, who always loved to take the other side for argument's sake. "You know some of them, at any rate, never thought that the American 'rebels' would succeed; and when they did, of course, with feeling running so high, they couldn't expect much comfort among _them_, in any case; and many of the Loyalists had their farms confiscated, so that they hadn't much choice but to move out!" "Yes; and a burning shame it was for those who confiscated them!" rejoined Mrs. Sandford, who had some traditions of the kind in her own family. "And I know well enough you got these Yankee ideas from _that_ Mr. Winthrop!" "Well," said Kate, calmly, "it was all for the best in the end, though, of course, it was hard for the people who were driven from their homes. But you see, if they had not _had_ to leave them, we might never have had this glorious 'Canada of ours,' of which we are so proud!" "Yes," remarked Hugh, "Mr. Armstrong told me that the narrow and mistaken policy of the American leaders at that time was really the foundation of British Canada." And then he went on give them some of the information he had got out of Mr. Armstrong's books, the preceding evening, in regard to the beautiful valley of the Trent, through which they were driving. He told them how Champlain, three centuries ago, had sung its praises at the Court of the _Grand Monarque_, as "a region very charming and delightful," where the park-like aspect of the trees suggested the previous occupancy of the country in bygone days by some superior race. Then, putting aside this pre-historic period, it was here that Champlain, on his way to his mistaken raid on the Iroquois, which was the beginning of so much strife and trouble, had joined his savage allies in an Indian "Chevy Chase"--in which, by mishap, he wounded one of his dusky friends. But these old stories have long ago been forgotten, in the interest of mines--gold and iron--which, found in the vicinity, have, as usual, somewhat deteriorated the region to which they have given an artificial stimulus. As they drove in from Trenton, a small place at the confluence of the Trent with the bay, in the soft falling dusk, Hugh entertained his companions by repeating some of his favorite passages from "Hiawatha;" and May, who was poetical and patriotic enough to be something of a student of Canadian poetry, repeated a sonnet by one of Canada's earliest singers, Charles Sangster, who, falling on evil days, has not achieved the fame which his genius deserved:-- "My footsteps press, where, centuries ago, The red man fought and conquered, lost and won; Where tribes and races, gone like last year's snow, Have found th' eternal hunting grounds, and run The fiery gauntlet of their active days, Till few are left to tell the mournful tale; And these inspire us with such wild amaze, They seem like spectres passing down a vale Steeped in uncertain moonlight on their way Towards some bourne where darkness blinds the day, And night is wrapped in mystery profound. We cannot lift the mantle of the past: We seem to wander over hallowed ground, We scan the trail of thought, but all is over-cast." "Thank you," said Hugh, "I should like to see more of that poet. I like his vein very much." "Oh, May can give you screeds of any length from his 'St. Lawrence and the Saguenay' as we go along. And I daresay you can get the book in Kingston--he is a Kingstonian, I believe," said Kate, who was not particularly poetical. And then as the shadows of night drew softly about them, the fireflies flashed in and out of the woods with unusual brilliancy, affording the Scotch cousins a new subject for observation and delight. "I declare," said Hugh, "one can scarcely get rid of the feeling that they might set the woods on fire!" "They are not common so late in the season," said Kate. "Only now and then, for some reason best known to themselves, they show themselves, but only in the woods." "And there is the whip-poor-will!" exclaimed May, eagerly. "Oh, I'm so glad!" said Flora, after listening attentively. "That is one thing I _did_ want to see or hear!" "You are much more likely to hear it than to see it," said May. "It is very hard to get a good look at one, for it seldom appears in daylight." But soon the fireflies and the whip-poor-will were left behind, and they were once more rattling over city streets. And then, after a substantial tea, they went to rest, for the steamer for Kingston was to start at six in the morning. As the scenery of the Bay of Quinte depends very much on the weather, the little party were fortunate in having a lovely changeful morning, with soft mists and cloud-shadows that gave a charming variety of tint and tone to the beautiful bay and its fair, gently sloping shores. The little steamer "Hero" passed in rapid succession one picturesque point after another--the bay sometimes expanding into a broad, wind-rippled expanse; sometimes narrowing into calm reaches or inlets, mirroring the foliage on either side. At the head of the largest reach or arm of the bay, the steamer stopped at the pretty little town of Picton, nestling beneath a noble wooded hill, with gentler slopes rising about it in all directions. Whether Picton or Port Hope possessed the more picturesque site was a question they found it hard to decide. Returning down this long reach Hugh was seized with a desire to see the "Lake of the Mountain," on the high table-land above the bay, of which he had often heard. And Kate, who considered nothing impossible, actually persuaded the obliging captain to keep the boat at the landing below it for half an hour, in order to give them time for a hurried visit. Mrs. Sandford, of course, graciously declined the climb, but the others hastened up the steep ascent, where a mill-race came rushing down the height, amid a lush growth of ferns that grew luxuriously among the dark, wet rocks, between which they picked their way. But, once at the top, what a glorious view! Right below their feet stretched the lovely reach--widening out into the broad bay at the end of a long promontory diversified with fields and farms and wooded shores. Close beside them, on the other hand, lay the lovely little lake they had come to see--calmly sleeping in the sunshine, with as little apparent mystery about it as if its very existence were not an unsolved problem; one supposition being, that, as it is at about the same level as Lake Erie, it may be fed by a secret communication with that distant sheet. But they had only a few minutes to stay beside the beautiful mysterious little tarn, and to enjoy the lovely view spread before their eyes, for the steamer just below was already whistling to recall them, and they hurried down to rejoin her,--somewhat warm and out of breath, but with all the satisfaction one feels in making the best of one's opportunities. As they left the reach, a sun-shower rolled up, accompanied with distant thunder; but it only seemed to add a bewitching variety to the tones of the distance, and of the water, and, when the sunshine broke out again, conjuring up an exquisite rainbow, and the light and shade chased each other over the golden fields of waving barley--the beauty of the bay with the perspective of the "Long Reach" in the distance, seemed still greater than before. The travelers were content to sit still, passively absorbing the charm of the hour, while they looked on in a dreamy fashion at the various points of interest; at Point Mississauga, named, of course, in honor of the former "lords of the soil," whose "_totem_," a crane, seemed to be appropriately keeping guard over the spot; then at the various villages and townships;--at Deseronto, a busy little lumbering place, named after an Indian chief, whose formidable name signifies "Thunder and Lightning;"--at a forsaken-looking little "Bath," with its ambitious name, and at a long succession of "towns," or rather townships, named, by the overflowing enthusiasm of the U. E. Loyalists, after the numerous olive branches of old George the Third. There is Ernestown and Adolphustown, and Ameliasburg and Marysburgh; and there is Amherst Island, named, like Picton, after an English general, and said to have been lost by a noble owner at a game of cards! Hugh declared that the loyalty and _Britishness_ of everything were rather monotonous, and could not refrain from heartily wishing that these good people had not, in their zeal, undertaken to change to the commonplace name of Kingston the melodious Indian name of Cataraqui! For here they were now coming in sight of this old "limestone city"--the oldest settlement in Ontario, the cradle of British Canada--and, to May, surrounded with a halo of romance from its close association with the history and fortune of her brave but hapless hero, the dauntless explorer, LaSalle. CHAPTER III AMONG THE BEAUTIFUL ISLANDS. And now they were rapidly approaching the gray, "limestone city," which rises picturesquely on its slope behind its line of wharves, and elevators, and masts of vessels, with a certain quiet dignity not unbecoming its antiquity, and derived, partly from its harmonious gray coloring, and partly from the graceful towers and spires that form so prominent a feature in its aspect. And it was by no means easy for May to call up in imagination--as she tried to do--the wild, savage loneliness of the place, with its wooded slopes, as yet untouched by the hand of the settler, as it presented itself to LaSalle, when he first discovered the advantages of making Cataraqui his base of operations; or even as it was seen by the first detachment of U. E. Loyalists, when their _batteaux_, slowly making their way up the St. Lawrence, rounded the long promontory now surmounted by the ramparts of Fort Henry. One tall tower, seen long before any other evidence of a city appeared, belonged, the captain told them, to the Roman Catholic Cathedral. Presently, however, extensive piles of fine public buildings attracted their attention, which they found were unfortunately the shelter of lunacy and crime, Kingston being the seat of the Provincial Penitentiary, as well as of a large asylum. In welcome contrast, they were shown the Gothic tower of Queen's University, rising above an _entourage_ of trees, though far from being as imposing in its dimensions as these palaces of gloom. From thence, the eye wandered over other towers and domes and spires, relieved by masses of verdure, which led them easily to believe the captain's report that Kingston is a very attractive city, especially when summer had embowered it in shade. And there were great schooners, under a full spread of canvas, and massive lake steamers and propellers, and little active steam-launches, flitting about, in striking contrast--May thought--to the stillness of the scene, broken only by the Iroquois canoes, when Frontenac's flotilla came in state up the lonely river to found old Fort Frontenac. "And what a glorious sheet of water around it!" exclaimed Hugh, taking in with an admiring gaze the westward blue expanse of lake and the great wide sweep of river studded with islands, stretching away to eastward, which they told him was the St. Lawrence, at last. And then, as they rounded the curve of the fine harbor, and saw before them, on the one side, the fine cut-stone front of the City Hall and on the other, on a long, green promontory, the Royal Military College, with its smart Norman towers, they observed a long bridge behind which the river Cataraqui winds its way down from the northeast, and forms this beautiful harbor by its confluence with the St. Lawrence. Six miles up its placid stream, they were told, the Rideau Canal had its beginning at a picturesque gorge where are the first massive stone locks, which form one of the finest pieces of masonry on the continent. This Rideau Canal binds together a chain of lovely little lakes, and finally meets the Rideau River, and so makes a convenient water-way to Ottawa,--designed, it is said, by the Duke of Wellington, as a means of intercommunication remote from the frontier. "And where are the old _Tête-du-pont_ barracks?" asked May, who had got that name, by heart, out of Parkman, that she might be able to fix for herself the site of the old French fort which Frontenac had inaugurated and La Salle had commanded. She was shown some gray stone buildings, enclosing a quadrangle, at the nearer end of the long, low bridge crossing the Cataraqui to the opposite plateau with the green slope beyond it, on which stood the main defences of Kingston,--Fort Henry above, and, near the Military College, certain round stone towers, which, scattered about the harbor, gave quite an air of military distinction to the place. "I'm afraid none of them would be of much good, nowadays," remarked a passenger, and Hugh laughingly assented, adding, "We may trust, I hope, that they will never be needed." "Not much danger, I think," was the reply. "We may have a tiff with the 'States' once in a while; but there are too many Canadians there now! We can't afford to quarrel." They went, on landing, to a hotel bearing the appropriate name of "Hotel Frontenac," where they did full justice to an early dinner. And, after that, having a couple of hours or so to spare, before starting for the island, they drove through the pleasant little city, embowered in the shady avenues extending in every direction, its streets striking off at all angles. Of course they went to look at the two cathedrals, the Roman Catholic one being a massive Gothic building with an equally massive tower, and at the graceful Gothic temple of Queen's University, on its fine open _campus_, and then followed the charming drive by the lake shore, till they passed the great, and as they thought, gloomy masses of the Penitentiary and Asylum buildings, and then came out on another unimpeded view of the blue lake. Then returning, they drove back past quiet suburban residences, within spacious and shady grounds, admiring the substantial and comfortable look of the houses, and the tastefully kept surroundings;--and through the pretty little park, stretching on one side, down to the breezy lake shore, with its round stone tower, and, on the other, rising in a gentle slope crowned by a stately Grecian court-house, with picturesque church towers rising around it in the background. And at one side of this park, they made a little _détour_ to look at the Hospital, whose plain central building was the first local habitation of the Parliament of Upper and Lower Canada, when Kingston for a few years occupied the position of capital of the recently united provinces. Then returning to their boat, they passed a handsome post-office and custom-house, of which, with her spacious city hall, Kingston is naturally somewhat vain. The houses they passed were bright with window flowers and baskets of blooming plants, prettily relieving the green sward in front; and they all agreed that Kingston bore worthily enough its _prestige_ of being the oldest historical city in Ontario--the present name of western Canada. But though it was nearly four o'clock, and the beautiful islands were before them--they went to snatch, at May's desire--a peep at the old _Tête-du-pont_ barracks, with weather-worn gateway and interior square, in which, when the foundations of the barracks were laid, there were some traces found of old Fort Frontenac, which had therefore evidently stood on that very site. May, at least, looked at it with a sincere reverence, as she thought of how many changing phases of fortune in her hero's history that square had been the scene. But now it was almost four o'clock, and they must hasten to the boat that was to carry them to the beautiful islands which had been beckoning them so long. As the Pierrepont glided out of the protected harbor, the afternoon sun lighted up the grey mass of the city, and the Norman towers of the Royal Military College, standing on its strip of _campus_, to their left, as they entered the real St. Lawrence, while beyond it rose above them the green hill-slope which forms the _glacis_ of the low, long-stretching ramparts of Fort Henry, with its fortified water-way, and the round grey towers at its base. And as they rounded its long promontory, leaving the distant city behind it, May once more tried to picture the solitude of the scene as La Salle first knew it, broken only by his own canoe and those of the ferocious Iroquois. Meantime Hugh, not less interested in the historical associations of the place, drew from her, by cross-questioning, an outline of some of the tragic events of which Fort Frontenac had been the scene. But gradually the charm of the present hour asserted itself and all else was forgotten in watching the changing beauty of the scenery around them. A slight thunder-shower seemed to have purified the air, and the brightly shining sun lighted up the rich green of the woods, the golden tones of the harvest fields on the shores they were passing, and the grey rocks and shaggy foliage of some scattered islets on their course, one of which, Cedar island, was crowned by a round tower,--islets which were, they were told, really the outrunners of the great archipelago farther down the river. As they passed the water-rampart of the fort, Hugh observed that it seemed to be falling to pieces, and remarked that the government might look better after its property. "It may just as well go to pieces," said a voice behind them. "It would be of very little use if we did go in for conquest, and I hope there is no likelihood of any serious hostilities between the two countries." --"Well, Mrs. Sandford, have you forgotten me?" the voice continued. "How do you do, Miss Severne? I am delighted to meet you again." Kate had looked up with a start as the first tones of the stranger's voice caught her ear, and perhaps there was just a tinge of heightened colour on her cheek as she greeted the speaker with her usual frank ease. "Why, Mr. Winthrop! I never thought of encountering you in this quiet corner of the world. What accident brings you this way?" "It was not quite an accident," he replied, smiling. "I met Jack Armstrong yesterday on the train between Port Hope and Cobourg, and he told me of your arrangements; and as I just got in an hour or two ago, and found out that this was the speediest way of getting over to Clayton, where I am bound for a few days' fishing, I thought I would waylay you--and here I am, as you see." "As we are very glad to see," Kate replied, gracefully. "Let me introduce my cousin, Miss Thorburn, and my Scotch cousins, Mr. and Miss Macnab." May eyed the newcomer critically, and a little jealously, for in the interests of the incipient romance that she had begun to weave for Kate and Hugh, she did not relish his appearance--especially taken in connection with the remarks she had heard from Nellie Armstrong. He was, however, as she could not help admitting, a very pleasant-looking man, not very young, in fact, a good deal older than Hugh Macnab, with keen, scrutinizing gray eyes and mobile face, full of intelligence and expression. To May, Hugh's was much the finer face, but she could not help feeling that Mr. Winthrop's was decidedly attractive, and she inwardly trembled for the prospects of the younger man. She felt that Mr. Winthrop's quick glance took in the whole _personnel_ of the little party, as the introductions were made. "Well, Mrs. Sandford," he resumed, when he had courteously greeted each in turn, his eye resting for a moment, with evident admiration upon the rosy, fresh-faced Scotch lassie,--"I hope you are prepared in the goodness of your heart, to extend a little toleration to a reprobate Republican like me. I'll try not to wound your sensibilities quite so much, this time!" "Oh, you didn't hurt me at all!" said that lady, good-humoredly. "I know you don't mean any harm; it's the way you were brought up. But you must not put traitorous ideas into these young people's heads. There's Kate, now----" But here that young woman hastily interposed: "Would you mind getting us another seat, Mr. Winthrop?" said she, "Miss Macnab is quite in the sun." Mr. Winthrop at once performed the suggested service, and then, the previous topic having been shunted off, the whole party surrendered themselves to the dreamy charm of the afternoon--of the golden sunshine and dappling shade, that threw such a spell of beauty over the undulating shore, with its yellow harvest-fields and deep, green woods, country houses gleaming white through trees, and comfortable farmhouses nestling amid bowery orchards, beginning to be weighed down with their load of fruit. The real width of the river, here about eight miles, is at some points narrowed down to apparently two or three miles and sometimes much less, by the large islands that divide it and extend for some twenty miles below Kingston. One of these--Howe Island, named after a British general--cuts off a very picturesque channel down which lay the course of their boat. At intervals of a few miles, the boat stopped at primitive wharves, where the country folk, who had been to market, landed with their innumerable parcels and baskets, of all shapes and sizes, farming implements, perambulators, etcetera. At one landing they put ashore a pile of dressed lumber--at another, a horse; at still another, the heterogeneous mass of luggage belonging to a family "going into _villegiatura_"--as Mrs. Sandford put it--including a great box containing a parlor organ. For the farmer-folk their horses and conveyances were patiently waiting, and very soon they might be seen driving slowly homewards along the country roads that followed the curve of the shore, or struck back among the fields and woods. A beautiful, new, varnished boat that had excited Hugh's rather envious admiration from the time he came on board, was at last unshipped and rowed away by its happy owner, whose camping outfit proclaimed that he was bound on a delightful holiday. Here and there they caught glimpses of white tents and gay flags, where lived a little community of campers, who waved their handkerchiefs as the boat went by; and cheered as if a steamboat were a new and unheard-of triumph of inventive skill. At one point, the shore of the island to their right, rose picturesquely into high banks clothed with a rich growth of light, fluttering birch and sombre cedar, the contrast of which delighted the travelers. There was quite a romantic-looking landing here, beside an old ruined lime-kiln, and the road wound picturesquely up the wooded height, the two or three figures seen walking up the winding path, as the boat receded, looking--May declared--"just like people in the beginning of a story." "And so they are--or in the middle of it," said Mr. Winthrop. "Each of us is living in a story of our own, after all, and I suppose each would have its own interest if it could only be read just as it is." "Only some stories are more interesting than others," suggested Hugh. "And those people evidently think theirs is particularly interesting just now," remarked Kate, for they were just passing a little cluster of tiny cottages and tents, where a large and merry party were summering, with much display of bright bunting and many skiffs; and where young and old alike seemed to get into a state of wild excitement as the boat passed, saluting her with horns and a white flutter of handkerchiefs that might have passed for a flight of pigeons. The captain of the steamboat courteously returned the salute with his steam whistle, with the laconic remark: "Makes them feel happy," which seemed true, for the demonstrations were renewed with fresh vigor and continued till the little encampment was out of sight. But the dark thunder-clouds had been again stealing up behind them, and now the lights on the shore and the foliage disappeared, the cedars looking especially sombre in the growing gloom. "There's a squall coming down the river," said Hugh Macnab, who had been watching from the stern the pretty grouping of the small islands that here studded the channel. "Yes, indeed," said Kate. "They often come up here suddenly. Look how one point after another is sponged out by the gray mist. See there, how the rain is driving down over there already." "And it will be here in a minute," said Mr. Winthrop, rising hastily. "Come, you must all get into the centre of the boat, well under the awning, if you won't go down stairs." Mrs. Sandford thought it best to retreat to the cabin below, being afraid of thunder, but all the others protested that it was much too interesting to watch the arrival of the storm. At a suggestion from Mr. Winthrop, however, he and Hugh made a dash down to the cabin for wraps and umbrella, returning in a second or two with an armful of waterproofs, in which the ladies were all carefully wrapped before the first heavy rain-drops came pattering down on deck. And then, for a minute, how they _did_ come down, lashing the deck till it was flooded;--even where they sat the drops flew, into their faces, and, but for the waterproofs, would have drenched their garments. Kate, who loved a storm, was looking brilliantly handsome, and so--May was sure--thought Mr. Winthrop, who kept his position near her, so as to shelter a little from the onslaught of the rain. And how--she inwardly wondered--would Hugh Macnab like the sudden invasion from this stranger and foreigner, who seemed to make himself so very much at home? She fancied that his somewhat sensitive face looked clouded, but perhaps it was only the reflection of the clouds without, for, presently when the rain-drops gradually ceased, and the sun shone out again, brighter, as it seemed, than ever, his face brightened, too, and he watched eagerly for the first appearance of what might properly be called the real Thousand Island group. "There they are!" Kate exclaimed, at length, as some soft, cloud-like forms loomed up against the distant horizon, still somewhat misty with the receding rain. "See how they cluster there together! And do you see those tiny white specks? Those are the lighthouses that mark the channel. And there, if you can catch a glimpse of some white houses beyond those islands--, those are part of the poetically named town of Gananoque, '_Rocks in Deep Water_,' as the Indian name signifies. And it is a good enough description, if only they would have added 'Rocks in Shallow Water' as well; for there is certainly no lack of rocks in either the depths or the shallows!" And now the little steamer began to wind in and out among the clustered islets, some of them little more than rough granite crags, bristling with wind-tossed pines, others masses of tangled foliage, and others still, partially cleared, with fanciful little cottages embowered in trees and clustering vines. At some of these cottages the inhabitants, like the campers, amused themselves by blowing a horn as a salute, to which the steamer amiably responded, after which there would be another flutter of handkerchiefs from the loungers on the verandas or by the shore. "Well," said Hugh, "though we know it really means nothing, it does seem pleasant to be waved at, as if one were coming home!" "And yet the same people would only stare critically at you if they met you in the street." "It's the air of these charming islands," laughed Kate. "It makes every one so genial and overflowing with the milk of human kindness that they can't help expressing it all round!" "Or so idle that even this mild excitement is entertaining," said Mr. Winthrop. "Wait till you have tried it a little while!" said Kate. "Perhaps even you may grow less cynical there. But where are you going now?" "I believe this little steamer will take me to Clayton to-night. My friends are there fishing, and are expecting me to join them." "And that is how far from here?" asked Hugh. "About eight miles," Kate replied--"on the American side of the river." "Oh, then, we shall meet again, I hope, and improve our acquaintance," said Hugh, as he rose in response to Mrs. Sandford's commands, for now they had rounded the last island and were rapidly approaching the pretty little town of Gananoque, while the slanting rays of the westering sun threw out the foliage of the islands and the shore into the richest green, and gave the whole scene its brightest aspect. Close by the wharf lay a tiny steam-yacht, on whose floating pennon Kate speedily recognized the name "_Oneida_," and in a moment more the waving of white handkerchiefs announced the presence of the friends who were waiting them there. To May it seemed like a fairy tale to be received into a private steam-yacht as an expected guest, instead of the open skiff she had been looking for. It was more than ever like a dream;--the little cabin, the dainty furnishings, the miniature engine with its polished brass fittings--everything seemed new, beautiful, delightful. Flora Macnab was equally delighted, declaring she had "never seen such a dear wee vessel before;" and Hugh, though quiet as usual, mentally noted everything with much satisfaction. Mr. Winthrop accompanied them on board, carrying Kate's wraps, and was just hurrying off back to the steamer when their host, Mr. Leslie, after a brief introduction, urged that he should accompany the others as his guest.--"For I can assure you we can always make room for one guest more,"--he said with cheery hospitality. But Mr. Winthrop declined the invitation with many thanks, on the ground that his friends were expecting him, adding that if he might be allowed to come a little later, for a day or two, he should be delighted to do so. "Any time you will," said Mr. Leslie, and he hurried off to catch his boat, which was on the point of starting again, while the others were duly introduced to the members of Mr. Leslie's family who had come to meet them. The little steam-yacht only waited for a supply of baskets, containing supplies, to be stowed away on board, and then it, too, uttered its shrill little parting whistle, and darted off on its way to the island, some miles distant, which was Mr. Leslie's summer home. To May it seemed like fairyland--this little evening sail among these lovely islands, in a yacht so low as to bring the eye on a level with their base, and not going too fast to enable her to enjoy in detail the beauty of lichen-crested rocks festooned with creepers and wild roses, and of still, placid reaches, dyed crimson and purple by the sunset hues, where clusters of snowy water-lilies were shining like stars amid the dark leaves. In the subdued evening light, the nearer islands were so soft a green--the distant ones looked softly purple in the light haze that helped to idealize the scene,--that May, for one, would have liked to wind in and out in this dreamy, leisurely fashion for hours, and was almost sorry when she was startled from her dream by the shrill whistle of the yacht, and found they were nearing a little rustic pier flanked by dusky pines and cedars. The party were soon disembarked amid the lively little group that stood awaiting them on the pier--young men in boating flannels, lively children, young girls in cool, light blouses and dark blue skirts. Ready hands seized packages and baskets, and then they all followed an ascending, fragrant, sloping path that led between lichened rocks and nodding ferns to an open glade higher up, where stood their pretty summer cottage, with its wide verandas, looking capacious enough to accommodate two or three city houses. Mr. and Mrs. Leslie were excellent hosts; and, in a few minutes, every one was conducted to a room, and May found herself installed in what she mentally styled the dearest little nest, up under the eaves, commanding what seemed, in the transfiguring evening light, the most enchanting view of the island-studded channel. It reminded her of her room and window at the _Clifton_;--both views so beautiful, and yet so altogether different. But she was not long left to her dreaming, for a peremptory horn sounded, and Kate and Flora were calling to her to hasten down to tea. Downstairs, in a simply-furnished room, with large French windows opening on a wide piazza, they found a long tea-table spread for the recent arrivals--the rest of the party having already finished their evening meal, being, indeed, too hungry to wait for anybody. "For we're all as hungry as hawks here!" declared one of the merry girls in a boating-dress. "Between boating and fishing and running about, we're out all day long, and that gives one no end of an appetite." After tea there was a delicious hour or two on the veranda, the only alloy being the visits of a few mosquitoes. "Nothing like what we have had, however," Mrs. Leslie observed. "We've often been obliged to retreat within the shelter of our mosquito-blinds in the evening. But to-morrow will be the first of August, and we are not likely to be troubled with them much longer." "That is a comfort!" exclaimed Flora, who seemed to be a favorite victim of the troublesome little insects. "But how startlingly bright the fireflies are," she said presently, as it grew darker, and the scintillating living sparks of fire--as they seemed--flashed in and out of the trees, giving the impression--as Hugh remarked--that they might really set fire to them. And presently she joyously descried, faintly visible near the horizon, a silver thread of crescent moon, the promiser of much additional enjoyment during the weeks of their stay. Next morning was as charming a morning as any one could have desired to see. The river lay still and calm, and blue as a dream, sleeping, as it seemed, in the embrace of the clustering green islands, which looked so fresh and so cool in the early morning light. May was so excited that she could not sleep a moment after the first rosy gleams of sunshine stole into her casement, which she had left wide open, that she might not lose a moment of the view which had so delighted her the evening before. As she dressed, she feasted her eyes on the delicious freshness of the early morning, on the exquisite tint of the water here and there, just rippled by the faintest breeze, the soft, distant, blue islands that seemed to float on the placid stream like "purple isles of Eden," the rich contrast of dark evergreen and rich deciduous foliage, on the nearer shores, till it all seemed too exquisite for a reality, and in the stillness of the morning she felt as if she were still in a dream. She was soon dressed, however, and hastened down, eager to explore, all alone, the island where she was. She had only to go a few steps from the piazza to find herself among the primitive rocks, crusted with gray lichen and cushioned with soft, velvet moss, or overhung with the glossy foliage of the bear-berry or the vines of the whortle-berry, from which the dark blue fruit was dropping as she raised them. She followed a winding pathway leading under a fragrant archway of overhanging foliage, which wound its way in a rambling fashion about the island, giving, now and then, lovely glimpses, vistas between mossy banks of rock, or pretty little vignettes framed in by an overhanging hemlock. At length, after making pretty nearly the tour of the island, wending her way among thickets of feathery sumach and broad-leaved rubus, bearing deep crimson flowers, with long festoons of partridge-berry, and its white, star-like flowers amid the pine-needles under her feet, and finding, to her great delight, some specimens of the exquisite, snowy Indian-pipe, looking--in the early morning light--more ghostly than ever--she found herself at the little landing beside the boat-house, where they had disembarked on the previous evening. There she sat down to rest on a rustic seat, placed so as to command a charming vista, with a tiny island in the foreground, which she was absorbed in contemplating, when the plash of oars broke in upon her reverie, and she turned to see who might be the early oars-man. It was Hugh Macnab, arrayed in white flannels, with a lovely cluster of wild roses in his hand. He greeted her with a smile and came up at once, holding out the roses as he approached. "I scarcely expected to find any one up yet," he said, laughing. "I came out just about dawn, to have the full enjoyment of this exquisite morning, and thought I would try a little cruise by myself to see whether I had forgotten the rowing I learned in my Oxford summer. And I found a little island out yonder, so inviting for a swim that I couldn't resist it. I should like to show you that same little island,'"--he added. "It's only a little way; won't you come? But what is that you have got in your hand?" he said, looking at the waxen flowers she held. May explained what the ghostly little plant was, and he eagerly took it in order to examine it. "Oh, yes, I've read of this curious plant,"--he said. "I am so glad to actually see one! Now, suppose we exchange bouquets, if you will take my roses for your spectral flowers. I brought them over from that island, intending to give them to the first lady I met. Please take them;--it's a case of the early bird getting the worm, you know." For May at first hesitated a little. She felt as if the roses ought by right to go to Kate, but then she could not say so. So she ended by thanking him as gracefully as her embarrassment would let her, and putting the roses carefully in her belt. They were lovely roses, too, of a peculiarly deep crimson, as the late wild roses are, and glistening still with the early dew. Hugh placed his "Pipes" carefully in his hat, for the present, and then led the way to the pretty cedar skiff, with its luxurious cane east chair at the stern, in which she took her seat, with a little inward wonder whether she were doing quite right, and the skiff was soon rapidly cleaving its way through the glassy water under the quick strokes of Hugh's oar. It was wonderful, she thought, how much he seemed to have improved in health and spirits during the fortnight which had passed since she had first met him; and how much more color and animation he now had. Surely, she thought, Kate would never be so blind as to prefer _that_ Mr. Winthrop, who, to her eye, was so much less attractive-looking than Hugh! She was too much preoccupied in thinking out this problem to say much, though she could silently take in the loveliness of the scene. Rounding a rocky point covered with wild roses, from which Hugh had picked his bouquet, they found themselves in a tiny bay, where the limpid wavelets lapped gently upon a beach of silver sand, while the rocks of rosy granite which formed the bay were draped in part with a tangle of luxuriant creepers and crested with sweeping pine-boughs. Presently the boat grated on the sandy beach, and Hugh handed her out of the boat and led the way to a granite ledge commanding an exquisite view of sleeping river and clustering islets. The river lay almost absolutely still, only barred here and there with long streaks of ripple that betokened an incipient breeze. The heavy masses of verdure on the opposite shore and the surrounding islands seemed also asleep; only an occasional carol of a bird broke the charmed silence. May and her companion were very silent also, for ordinary talk in such a spot, at such an hour, seemed well-nigh profane, and both were too reserved to express the deeper feelings the scene awakened. After a silent interval, May turned to call Hugh's attention to a distant sail just catching the still slanting rays of the sun, when she noticed that he had taken a slip of paper which had been lying in the boat and was writing rapidly. She refrained from disturbing him, for how could she tell that he might not be writing _poetry_? But he had caught her movement, and presently stopped writing and turned towards her, when the slip of paper, which he was holding carelessly, was caught by the freshening breeze and carried close to her feet. She naturally stooped to pick it up, and involuntarily glancing at it, could see that it _was_ poetry; but Hugh caught it from her, with so much apparent discomposure, coloring vividly, that May felt sure he was annoyed by her intervention, and felt a little uncomfortable; the more so because she could not say anything about it. She wondered whether the verses had any reference to Kate, since he seemed so much afraid of their being seen. They rowed back as silently as they had come, and the momentary annoyance soon cleared off the faces of both under the potent charm of the exquisite beauty around them. They found only the children astir; but Kate and Flora, when they came down soon after to breakfast, were very curious to know what May had been doing with herself--out all alone "almost before daylight," they declared--and especially curious to know from whence she had got the lovely little bouquet of wild roses that looked so charming in her belt. But May laughingly declared that she did not intend to tell where she got it; and Hugh, of course, said nothing about it. She did not, however, wear it long. The roses were carefully put away before they withered, and eventually some of them were pressed to serve as a memento of the loveliest morning, May thought, that she had ever seen. She told Kate, however, that Hugh had given her a row to a neighboring island, feeling a little guilty as she did so. But Kate only remarked, as if the thing were a matter of course: "Well, I'm glad Hugh has gained so much in energy! Since he can row so well, I shall make him row me about everywhere!" Both she and Flora, however, soon found that they had an _embarras des richesses_ in the matter of rowing, for there were half a dozen youthful oarsmen ready and eager to row or paddle them wherever they desired to go, so that Hugh's services were not so much in demand, and it happened, not infrequently, that May found herself his companion in their boating expeditions, and as she had not had much opportunity for rowing, he undertook to teach her to use the oars in a more artistic manner than she had as yet attained, which proved a very interesting occupation to both; though May sometimes regretted that Kate so often declined to accompany them, fancying that it really hurt Hugh. That day and several others glided away only too swiftly. No one could imagine where the hours had gone. There were evening rows, and sails in a good-sized sailboat, always at the disposal of any of the party who cared to use it, and aimless meanderings through the tangled paths of the island, sometimes with the ostensible object of berry-picking, for the wild raspberries were still found in great abundance, and were in great request for breakfast and tea. In the forenoon there was always a general bathing party, when the young men took themselves to one end of the island, in order to practise their aquatic feats by themselves, and the girls, in their loose, short bathing suits, disported themselves to their hearts' content in the limpid tide, in a pretty little sandy bay, lined to the water's edge with luxuriant foliage, which almost concealed the little rustic bathing box. Then there was the luxurious lounge, with a pleasant book, before the early dinner, in a shady corner of the veranda, for these August days were pretty warm. For a while after dinner there was a suspiciously quiet air about Sumach Lodge, as it was called; but when the heat of the day began to give place to the cool afternoon breeze, the little party began to wake up from its _siesta_, and skiffs and canoes were hauled out and filled, as little groups departed on various expeditions, some simply to explore island nooks, some to fish, and some to gather the water-lilies which grew in a secluded bay not far off, or, on a breezy afternoon, to try a sailing cruise in a pretty "butterfly" sailboat belonging to one of he young men, who was always glad to muster a crew. In the cool of the evening the "boys" often tried their canoe races, sometimes playfully wrestling as they passed each other, for they never minded an upset, but were back in their canoes again almost as soon as they were out of them. And now that the moon was rapidly growing in size and light, no one wanted to do anything in the evening, but sit on the veranda or the shore, and enjoy the charming moonlight effects. May, of course, was never tired of watching the tremulous path of silver stretching from island to island, or the exquisite effect when some picturesque cluster of islets stood out in dark relief on what seemed a silver sea, and--a very unusual phenomenon--when the shadow of the island was thrown across its reflection in the scarcely rippled river. Hugh Macnab, like herself, seemed fascinated with the mysterious beauty of the moonlit scene, and was frequently suspected of endeavoring to reproduce its charm in verse. These seemed truly enchanted evenings, which no one wished to cut short, so that May found that the late hours she kept at night came a good deal in the way of the enjoyment of those early morning hours which she had at first thought so delightful. But, with such moonlight pictures spread around them for their delectation, it seemed a waste of privileges to spend any of these wonderful hours in sleep; and as the moon grew later and later so did the hours of the junior members of the party. One of the favorite spots which May, for one, was never tired of visiting, either under the idealizing influence of moonlight or in the rich glow of sunset, was a charming little land-locked bay which wound its way for some distance into one of the larger islands in the vicinity. The entrance looked like any other curving recess of the shore, but, once within, it was a surprise to find the bay continuing its course like a tiny river, between banks of high jagged crags, partially draped with nodding birch, shaggy hemlock, and spreading oak and maple. And however rough the waves might be outside of this charmed spot, the water within was always calm and glassy in its stillness. In its innermost recess, where further progress was stayed by the increasing shallowness of its bed, reeds and water-plants grew and clustered, water-lily leaves lay floating as if asleep, and here the little basin was walled in on one side by a sheer, bare granite cliff, concave towards the basin, and evidently worn smooth, in the long past, by the action of grinding ice, though its bareness was relieved, here and there, by a drooping birch or a cluster of shaggy ferns. At the top of the wall of scarred, lichen-crusted rock, were some of the curious natural perforations known as "pot-holes," apparently formed by the action of a stone revolving in a crevice under glacial action. The opposite bank was more sloping and densely wooded, and the effect in the moonlight, under a rich sunset sky, was peculiarly striking and impressive. This secluded spot was sometimes used by the summer residents of the neighborhood as a natural chapel, where a little congregation assembled in their boats for a short service, with a shorter address, in circumstances which might well recall the divinest sermon ever preached; and made Hugh Macnab think of secret services attended by his covenanting ancestors in the secluded Highland glens which hid them from their persecutors. Very different, however, were _these_ happy meetings. The songs of praise seemed to gain a peculiar sweetness from the tranquil quietude of the spot, while the vesper carol of a bird occasionally blended with the human melody. Every part of the service was just as solemn as in any church built with hands, and the very novelty of the surroundings tended to carry some of the "winged words" into hearts which might have heard them unheedingly under ordinary circumstances. On the cooler and more breezy afternoons the "butterfly sailboat" set out with a merry crew for a more extended voyage, flying hither and thither, as the wind suited and inclination prompted. Or the little steam-yacht was called into service, and a large party would start for a prolonged cruise, winding in and out of the many Channels, as the fancy guided, steering down the broad, breezy reach that lay between the main shore and the clustering islands, with the cool, sparkling waves within touch of their hands, as the little screw turned them up in showers of sparkling diamonds on the azure behind, while one lovely channel after another spread itself before them in fascinating vista. Now they were passing thickly wooded islands, cool with billowy foliage--now a great granite fortress rising from a fringe of foliage, with battlements and barbican, escarpment and buttress, festooned with creepers and evergreens, like some hoary medieval ruin. Anon, they were gliding through some glassy strait, with snowy water lilies gleaming amid the dark green floating leaves that lined the sheltered bays. Again their course lay under a line of frowning cliffs, crusted with moss and lichen, and tufted with ferns; and presently another broad channel opened before them, through which they could catch distant glimpses of clustered tents, or summer hotels, or a pleasant country house peeping out from embowering trees. And, ever and anon, they passed graceful light varnished skiffs, laden with fishing parties, or canoes paddled swiftly by skillful hands, with a fair maiden reclining luxuriously among her cushions; and to each the little yacht addressed a shrill cheery salutation, responded to by waving handkerchiefs and hats, as each party desired to convey an expression of what a pleasant time they were enjoying, combined with good wishes for the enjoyment of every one else. As these delightful excursions were apt to be prolonged for some hours, their hospitable hostess, knowing that people are apt to be hungry under such circumstances, had "afternoon tea" set out on the little table in the stern, and the guests thought that nowhere did coffee and cake seem so delicious, while merry talk and travelers' tales, and some of Flora's Scotch songs enhanced the enjoyment of the happy hours. Hugh, who had a good tenor voice, would sometimes join his sister in the old-fashioned Jacobite airs which had been familiar to both from childhood, such as "A Wee Bird Came to Our Ha' Door," or "Bonny Charlie's Now Awa'." May thought she had heard few songs so sweet as the refrain "_Will ye no come back again?_" One verse in particular, seemed to catch her and haunt her: "Sweet the lev'rock's note, and lang, Lilting wildly down the glen, Still to me he sings ae song, _Will ye no come back again?_" And sometimes their talk would drift to graver subjects, as they returned homewards through lovely vistas of "purple isles of Eden," under a sky flushed with the rich glow of sunset, making the calm river burn with crimson and gold, while the rich claret lines of shadow made it seem as if the water were indeed turned into wine, and the peace of the purple twilight gradually faded into the silvery moonlight, and the whole lovely scene seemed hushed into a gentle slumber. Sometimes, after such an excursion, when a few neighbors had joined their party, at Sumach Lodge, the young folks would beg for a "camp fire," and a pile of brushwood, set ready on the rocks, would be lighted, and the party would sit round it, telling stories and cracking jokes, and singing songs, till the red glare of the fire at length gave way to the still pale moonlight, and at last they reluctantly broke up, scarcely able to tear themselves away from the fascinations of the hour. A still longer excursion they made one day, in the swift steamer "Island Wanderer," which they took at Gananoque, and which carried them by much the same route for a longer distance, down the turns and twists of the "Lost Channel" to the little hamlet of Rockport; then--crossing swiftly to the quiet shady resort of Westminster Park on Well's Island--carried them around its bold wooded headland to the villa-studded archipelago that teems with island-paradises, turrets, pagodas, fairy bridges, till it almost reminds the visitor of a willow pattern plate, and on to the little town of Alexandria Bay, with its monster hotels. Here Kate showed them a spot most interesting to May--the pretty mansion of "Bonniecastle," for years the summer home of Dr. Holland, the first editor of the _Century_ magazine, and author of "Arthur Bonniecastle," after which he named this pleasant home. Kate told them how he had once landed in his steam-yacht at an island on which she had been picnicking at the time, and how charmed she and her friends had been with his genial personality and talk. Then they steamed swiftly through the bewildering succession of castles and cottages of every conceivable variety, which make the American channel here seem like a long water-way or street, lined by suburban villas. May did not much like the extent to which the islands had been trimmed and smoothed out of the shaggy individuality of their primitive state; and Hugh and Flora emphatically agreed with her, in preferring the comparative wildness of the Canadian channel, where the islands still retain their wild sylvan charm. They scanned with interest the great caravanserai of Thousand Island Park, with its streets and avenues of tents and cottages and crowds of tourists; and then, just as they were leaving the little cluster of country houses at Round Island, a gentleman in a light-gray suit, carrying a valise and overcoat, came briskly on board, speedily recognized by May as Mr. Winthrop, who, coming up to greet the party, declared himself bound for Sumach Lodge. It was curious, May thought, how he seemed to have a faculty for joining them at the most opportune moments, and she wondered much whether he had any private means of tracing the movements of the party. On this occasion, Kate, at all events, took his appearance with a coolness in keeping with the nonchalance of his manner. In fact, Flora declared privately to May that they were both "refreshingly cool for a warm day," a remark which May thought a trifle heartless, considering that this addition to the party must be a "thorn in the flesh" to her brother. However, he betrayed no visible annoyance, but talked very pleasantly with Mr. Winthrop, all the way home, discussing politics, British and American and Canadian, including the "Behring Sea" difficulty, which last they had not settled, even when they had arrived at Sumach Lodge, and the discussion was finally terminated by the ringing of the tea-bell. After tea, such of the party as were not tired out by the long day's outing, dispersed in various directions to enjoy the cool air and the moonlight on the river. Mr. Winthrop and Kate had mysteriously disappeared, and so had one of the skiffs. Hugh Macnab, who had become quite expert at managing a canoe, asked his sister and May to let him paddle them both as far as the favorite nook already referred to, and both willingly agreed. But Flora, just at starting, was claimed by one of the boys, who was her special slave, and not liking to disappoint him, she good-naturedly consented to go in _his_ boat instead. Flora and her cavalier followed in the wake of some of the other young people, and her fresh Scotch voice was soon heard warbling her favorite refrain:-- "And carry the lad that was born to be king the hills to Skye!" "That sounds out of place _here_, somehow," said Hugh. "This new world has nothing to do with our old Jacobite struggles. It ought to be one of those pretty French Canadian airs, at least." And he hummed "_La Claire Fontaine_," which had greatly taken his fancy, with its pretty chorus,-- "_Il y'a longtemps que je t'aime_ _Jamais je ne t'oublierai._" which certainly seemed much more in harmony with the exquisite summer evening and the light, gliding motion of the little canoe, as it bounded forward so noiselessly under the ashen paddle, over the purple and crimson tide. Neither seemed disposed to talk. The beauty of the evening, for one thing, was too absorbing to encourage much conversation. Moreover, May was still worrying a little over the three-cornered problem of Kate and Hugh and Mr. Winthrop, and thought that Hugh's meditations were possibly wandering in a somewhat similar direction. They entered the "Lonely Bay" very quietly, as was their wont. The spot seemed like a church, in which loud tones or careless words were a desecration. As the canoe glided noiselessly into the deep shadow of the high crags, they both became aware that another boat had come in before them, and was lying motionless in the inmost recess of the little basin. The occupants were unconscious of any intrusion on their solitude, and, as Hugh paused, irresolute whether to proceed or not, a few low spoken words reached their ears in Mr. Winthrop's very distinct enunciation--words that both thought were: "Then I need not altogether despair!" May colored to the very roots of her hair, feeling by proxy the "pang" which she believed Hugh must experience, as he silently but swiftly rowed away, lest they should involuntarily hear any more of so very confidential a conversation. Whether the other pair heard the sound of the light dip of the retreating paddle they could not tell; and not a word was exchanged between them concerning the unexpected _rencontre_, both feeling the subject too delicate to touch. But as they were rowing slowly homeward, by a circuitous route, the other boat overtook them, and they rowed side by side for the remainder of the way, Mr. Winthrop evidently exerting himself to talk, while Kate remained unusually silent. The moon--rather more than half full, flooded the air and river with her silvery light; and on one side of them lay a glittering expanse, studded with the dark silhouettes of islands. Mr. Winthrop quoted some of the well-known lines from the Merchant of Venice, "On such a night," etc., Hugh helping him out when he halted for a line. And then Kate asked Hugh whether he could not recite something appropriate to the scene. "Original, if possible; if not, then quoted. And we won't even ask you whether it is original, or not," she added. "You know, we can't _hear_ the quotation marks." "On that condition, I will," said Hugh, and, after a few moments' thought, he began:-- "Never a ripple on all the river As it lies like a mirror beneath the moon, Only the shadows tremble and quiver, With the balmy breath of a night in June; All dark and silent, each shadowy island Like a silhouette lies on the silver ground, While, just above us, a rocky highland Towers grim and dusk, with its pine trees crowned. Never a sound, save the oar's soft splashing, As the boat drifts idly the shore along, And the arrowy fireflies, silently flashing, Gleam, living diamonds, the woods among! And the night-hawk darts o'er the bay's broad bosom, And the loon's laugh breaks on the midnight calm, And the luscious breath of the wild vine's blossom, Wafts from the rocks, like a tide of balm! Drifting, why cannot we drift forever Let all the world and its worries go!-- Let us float and float on the flowing river, Whither,--we neither care nor know;-- Dreaming a dream, might we ne'er awaken! There's joy enough in this passive bliss; The wrestling crowd and its cares forsaken Was ever Nirvana more blest than this? Nay! but our hearts are forever lifting The screen of the present,--however fair,-- Not long, not long, may we go on drifting,-- Not long enjoy surcease from care! Ours is a nobler task and guerdon Than aimless, drifting, however blest; Only the heart that can bear the burden Can share the joy of the victor's rest!" "Well, I appreciate the poetry, of course," said Mr. Winthrop, when Kate had duly thanked the reciter, "but, I am glad _that_ did not come from _me_! We Americans are always getting the credit of being too restless for repose,--for enjoying anything in a leisurely manner. But it seems there are other people who, like Faust, cannot say to the present moment, 'Stay, thou art fair!'" "I'm afraid that's a trait of the age," replied Hugh. "But I rather think it is nobler, on the whole, to be always 'pressing on to the things that are before.'" "We look before and after And pine for what is not!" quoted Mr. Winthrop--"even in the beauty of this exquisite night." And after that no words were spoken till the two canoes grated, almost at the same moment, on the pebbly beach. The sojourn at Sumach Lodge was now nearly at an end, for our party had still far to go, and much to see. The next day was to be devoted to an excursion in the steam-yacht to a bit of very picturesque scenery some few miles down the main shore of the river--"a miniature Saguenay," as Mr. Leslie described it, and, at the same time, they were to get a glimpse of the Canoe Camp which had been just opened, and which was to have an illumination in the evening that they all wanted to see. They started early next morning for Halstead Bay, where the picturesque little "rift" or _cañon_ began. The _Oneida_ carried them swiftly down the few miles of river, till within the curve of the bay which was hemmed in by high wooded hills, where they disembarked from the yacht, in which they could not proceed much further, and had recourse to the skiffs which they had brought in tow. As they rowed farther up, the hills drew nearer to the bay or creek until they became almost sheer precipices, rising up, weather-worn and splintered, from the narrowing channel, which was full of reeds and water plants and fleets of water-lilies, from which they supplied themselves to their hearts' content. Here and there the stern rugged crags were festooned with trailing plants and delicate harebells, in what May declared were natural hanging baskets. Cranes and water-hens flew up from the tall sedges, and Kate pointed out to Mr. Winthrop a fine loon diving for his food. "Very likely you will hear him laugh, by and by,"--said Kate, for he had been expressing some curiosity as to the loon's laugh in the verses Hugh had recited. "We often hear its 'laugh' at Sumach Lodge," she said, "and very weird it sounds at night. I don't know whether its elfin 'laugh' or its cry seems the most uncanny. It has interested Hugh so much, and so has the old legend of Clote-scarp and the loon." And as Mr. Winthrop had never heard this legend, Hugh told the Indian story, how Clote-scarp, or Glooscap--the Micmac Hiawatha, had at length, wearied with the cruelty and wickedness of man and the savage warfare of the brute creation, departed from the land until the reign of peace should be re-established; and that the loon awaits his return, and laments his absence in the melancholy cry which it utters from time to time. "Curious," he added, "how that idea of the Deliverer, temporarily departed, seems to have taken root in all lands, from Arthur and Barbaroosa to Hiawatha and Clote-scarp. But what a magnificent cliff that is!" for now they had nearly reached the head of the little _cañon_, and the higher bluffs seemed to grow grander and more picturesque as the channel narrowed. "It is really a very good reduction of the Saguenay," said Mr. Winthrop, "and the scale of proportion is very well carried out. That, for instance, would do very well for a miniature Cape Eternity. But it is as well to see _this first_!" At the head of the _cañon_ the crags closed up, leaving only a narrow channel, through which a tiny stream struggled through the great rugged boulders in a miniature cascade. They all landed and amused themselves for some time in scrambling about among the rocks, trying to thread the course of the streamlet, or climbing the neighboring hill, from which some of the young men, including Hugh and Mr. Winthrop, reported a magnificent view. The less ambitious of the party strolled about at the lower level, plucking raspberries which grew in great abundance among the rocks, while Flora tried to sketch roughly the charming view from the high ground above the little waterfall. Too soon, as it seemed, the order was given to re-embark and descend the _cañon_ to the bay, where the steam-yacht had been left, and where their lunch was also awaiting them. Mrs. Leslie with Mrs. Sandford and one or two ladies who had visited the place before, had remained near the steam-yacht, and when the party in the skiffs returned,--a little hot and very hungry,--they found a most attractive-looking luncheon, with fresh fruit, iced milk and various other luxuries most tempting to tired sight-seers on a warm day, spread on a charming point, with glimpses of still waters and beds of snowy water lilies on both sides of its wooded slope. After thoroughly enjoying their luncheon, they all had a long rest under the softly waving trees, through which a light breeze was whispering, cooling the noontide heat of the August day. Then they re-embarked on the steam-yacht and directed their course across the river towards the Canoe Camp, which was pitched on a picturesque island most admirably adapted for its purposes. They soon encountered token of its presence, in the light canoes which darted gracefully hither and thither, some of them winged by the daintiest little snowy sails, looking like white butterflies as they danced over the sparkling blue waves rippled by the freshening afternoon breeze. The steam launch soon glided up to the landing pier, in a sheltered bay overlooked by charming wooded slopes, on which gleamed the white tents which dotted the island. It abounded in pretty sheltered coves, each of which formed the harbor for a little fleet of canoes belonging to some particular club--all nearly uniform in pattern. Some of the clubs used "Rob Roy" canoes, which were marvels of beauty, with their finely polished wood, and paddles, and luxurious silver mountings. Each club had its tents near its harbor, and a large marquee did duty as a common dining-hall. The lady members of the association had their own particular little settlement, which was called the "Squaw's Point." Camp fires were lighted here and there, carrying out the primitive Indian character of the whole. The party had just time for a hasty stroll about the island before the beginning of the races, which they had the best opportunity of witnessing from their steam-yacht, carrying them from point to point, in order to extend their view at will. Some of the races were so-called "hurdle races," in which the racer went through a variety of performances, swimming a few hundred yards, then getting into his canoe, paddling it for a certain distance, and in returning, upsetting it, righting it again and paddling to shore. These last man[oe]uvres caused great fun and excitement. The party in the steam launch had a number of acquaintances at the camp, and Kate was soon discovered by various youths in parti-colored flannels, who gathered around her for a chat in the intervals of the races; Hugh being eager to hear all he could concerning the art of paddling, which he had been practising on every available opportunity during his stay among the islands. The afternoon flew swiftly by, and, when tea-time came, the yacht party had invitations to tea in several tents, and distributed themselves accordingly. After tea, a visiting band discoursed music as the evening shades grew on; and then came the great sight of the evening. Suddenly the clusters of tents gleamed out like brilliant constellations amid the dark foliage, while the canoes, which had been formed into a long snake-like coil were decked from stem to stern with flambeaux and Chinese lanterns, some of these being curiously arranged so as to imitate the forms of animals. The swan was the favorite design, and the most easily managed, but there were elephants, camels and other still more curious imitations. At short intervals, rockets and Roman candles went up with a rush and roar, and some Greek fire on the beach threw a rich roseate light over the wonderful scene. The steam-yacht darted about hither and thither, the better to command the whole view. Hugh and Flora were enchanted, and declared that they could almost imagine themselves in a gondola in Venice, so brilliant was the effect of the procession of illuminated boats, and the _cordon_ of lights which studded the sombre background of the island. As the fiery serpent began to coil and uncoil itself on the dark river, while the rockets sparkled against the sky, and the moon--partially obscured--threw fitful gleams between slow-moving clouds upon the distant islands, it seemed more like a transformation scene on the stage than one of actual reality, the contrast of the blaze of artificial light with the calm serenity of the moonbeams being singularly striking. But our friends had had a long day of it, and were beginning to feel its fatiguing effects, so that no one felt inclined to object when Mr. Leslie gave the order for departing, and, in a few minutes, they found themselves far away from the brilliant scene, steaming quietly through lonely channels where the moonlit waves broke softly on pebbly shores, under dark overhanging boughs of hemlock and pine. May awoke next morning with the regretful thought that it was her last day at Sumach Lodge. It was mainly devoted to farewell visits to all the favorite haunts which would remain graven on her mind--at least for years to come. In the afternoon Mr. Winthrop announced that he must go to Gananoque in order to telegraph to New York, for he had been recently talking--to May's inward consternation--of joining their party on the trip to the Saguenay. She felt sure it would spoil Hugh's pleasure, at any rate. But Kate showed no desire to veto the plan; on the contrary, May had misgivings that her cousin had no objection to it. Their good-natured host at once ordered the steam-yacht for Mr. Winthrop, and a few of the guests willingly accompanied them, including Flora, who lost no opportunity of gliding about in that delightful little vessel,--Kate and May preferring not to lose an hour of their now short stay on the island. One of her youthful admirers, however, the youth who owned the "butterfly sailboat," coaxed Kate to take a last short sail with him in the invitingly freshening breeze. No one noticed, however, that the sky had gradually clouded over and become grey instead of blue, while, despite the breeze, the air had grown very sultry. Hugh noticed it at last from the quiet nook where he sat reading, and came slowly back towards the house, where he found May reclining in a hammock on the veranda, professedly reading, but in reality half asleep, while Mrs. Sandford, close by, was complacently nodding over her knitting. "Where are all the rest of you?" he inquired; "the place seems deserted!" May explained that Flora had gone with the party in the steam-yacht, while most of the boys had gone off with their boats to the other end of the island for a swim, and that Kate had gone out with Dick Morris in his "butterfly sailboat." "I hope they haven't gone far," he said. "We are going to have a tremendous storm. I'll go and signal them back." May sprang out of her hammock and looked about her, while Mrs. Sandford got into a flurry of alarm at once. Certainly the sky had a rather alarming appearance. A great black cloud had swept down from the southwest, flanked by another that seemed to extend over the whole river in two great curves or scollops of dark slate color, edged with a strange light bluish gray that had a lurid and terrible effect. The river, usually so softly blue, had darkened in the distance to an inky blackness, while somewhat nearer it assumed an angry grey. As yet the stretch of water in front of the island seemed comparatively calm, but, two or three miles away, sails were flying at full speed before a strong gale. The squall was evidently coming up fast, and the "butterfly sailboat" was some distance out and would certainly feel it very soon. The steam-yacht was swiftly approaching the pier from a different direction. Hugh said not a word, but began to unmoor the lightest of the only two skiffs that lay at the landing, to which they had hurried, while May watched the sailboat through an opera-glass. "The squall has caught it now!" she said, as Hugh was busy with the boat. "Oh, I'm afraid it is upsetting!" "_What!_" exclaimed Hugh, anxiously watching the little craft as the sail dipped lower, and lower, and lower, and finally lay flat on the waves. Hugh in the meantime had hastily pulled off his boots and jumped into the skiff, and now threw his watch into May's hands, seized the oars and pushed out in hot haste. Meantime the steam-yacht had arrived at the pier, a little way off, and Mr. Winthrop, coming up, took in the situation at a glance. He almost snatched the opera-glass from May, looked through it, and then rushed out on the landing-stage, from which Hugh's boat was swiftly receding. "Stop!" he shouted, "and let _me_ go, too!" The voice scarcely seemed like Mr. Winthrop's usually suave and even tones. It had a ring not only of anxiety, but of passion and command. But it had no effect on Hugh. He only shook his head as he called out, "No time to delay!" and rowed on, at a pace that frightened May, into the teeth of the waves, which were now dashing themselves into snowy wreaths of foam, while the trees were lashing their branches about, as if in agony. Meantime she had caught up the opera-glass which Mr. Winthrop had thrown down, and could see that the boat had partially righted itself, and that Kate and her young cavalier were clinging to its side, helplessly drifting before the wind. Mrs. Sandford, who had now reached the landing, stood crying and wringing her hands in a way that intensified May's own terror. Meantime Mr. Winthrop had hurriedly looked round for the only skiff left, which was a heavy and awkward one, but seldom used. He did not hesitate, however, but jumped in and made what speed he could towards the craft in distress, towards which Hugh by this time was half-way out. May breathlessly watched him as he rapidly covered the remaining distance. Then she could see him help Kate from her perilous hold into the skiff, and the young man into the sailboat, which the efforts of the two men had soon righted, after which Hugh rapidly rowed back, leaving to poor Mr. Winthrop, who was following, the comparatively uninteresting task of picking up the floating oars and other traps which had been cast adrift in the upset, and of towing the unlucky mariner and his boat back to the island. As all the boys had by this time returned, half a dozen hands were outstretched to draw the skiff ashore and help out the pale but laughing Kate, with her dripping garments clinging about her feet. Mrs. Leslie took possession of her at once, and she and Mrs. Sandford hurried her up to the house to be put to bed and dosed with hot brandy and every other restorative that her ingenuity could devise, while Hugh also came in for a large share of her anxiety, as well as of her pharmacopeia. Meantime poor Dick Morris had managed, with Mr. Winthrop's assistance, to get his water-logged boat back to shore, somewhat crestfallen as well as wet, under the heavy downpour of rain which followed the squall. Dick came in for his share of the coddling, but Mr. Winthrop became invisible for an hour or two, and it was only after all were gathered round the tea-table that he reappeared, looking paler and graver than they had ever yet seen him. Kate was, of course, still under orders to remain in bed for the rest of the evening, but Hugh disclaimed any need for such precautions, and had evidently by no means lost _his_ appetite, at least. He greeted Mr. Winthrop pleasantly, as usual, saying apologetically: "I was sorry I couldn't wait for you, Winthrop, but I saw there was no time to be lost." "Oh, it was of no consequence; you were quite right," he replied coolly, but very curtly, and May inwardly wondered why it was that people always said things were "of no consequence," just when they evidently cared most. The incident seemed to have cast a damper--figuratively as well as literally--over the last evening among the islands. The squall had gone down as rapidly as it had come up, and the rain cleared off by degrees; but the sunset cast only a few golden gleams through the parting clouds, and the moonlight was fitful and disappointing; and it seemed to May that the sadness of the parting colored the external scene as well as her own feelings. It had been arranged that the steam launch should take them all across to Clayton, to catch the river steamboat there about seven A. M., thus necessitating a very early start. It was an exquisite August morning, very like the first one after their arrival, but there was little time to enjoy its charming pictures. An early breakfast was hurried over by the time the little yacht blew her whistle for departure, and, before any one could realize that the moment for departure had come, the travellers had passed through an avalanche of good-byes, and were steaming swiftly away from the enchanted island, as May then thought it, and will always continue to dream of it hereafter. Kate treated Mr. Winthrop very coolly during the sail across, as May observed, and this inconsistent young woman began forthwith to feel sorry for him, especially when he announced, with apparent indifference, that he should have to say good-bye to them all at Clayton, as he feared, from the news he had received the previous day, that he should not be able to rejoin them at Quebec, as he had hoped to do. May thought that Kate looked somewhat startled, but she said little, and they parted with cool civility. And as they left him behind, with a sense of something unsatisfactory about it, Mr. Winthrop seemed to have left more of a blank in the little party than might have been expected from his short stay among them. Hugh missed his clear-cut criticism and incisive talk. May felt as if she ought to be glad that this rival of Hugh's--as she regarded him--was out of the way, and yet she was conscious of a feeling of regret that surprised herself. For, after all, undoubtedly Mr. Winthrop had been very pleasant and courteous, and it certainly was not _his_ fault that he had not had the honor of rescuing Kate. And now they were fairly embarked on the steamer, which turned out to be their old friend, the _Corsican_, and were soon rapidly losing sight of the charming "Admiralty Group,"--the fairyland amid which she had, for the past ten days, enjoyed so delightful a resting-place. CHAPTER IV THE RIVER OF HOCHELAGA. It was about three hours before the _Corsican_ emerged from the last labyrinth of foliage-clad, pine-crested islands, and came in sight of the little town of Brockville. The banks of the river, as they approached, varying from a high table-land to a low, rocky shore, were lined with summer cottages, where holiday makers were evidently enjoying themselves with a prodigality of hunting and an ample supply of skiffs. Here and there, they came upon a little flotilla of boats, setting out for an all-day excursion, whose passengers waved their hats and cheered, as if they had been the first Indians who beheld the white man's "winged canoes." A ferry boat was busily plying up and down, embarking and disembarking passengers at the little piers that fringed the shore, and an air of holiday brightness seemed to pervade the scene. There was a short stoppage at Brockville, and then the _Corsican_ was off again, and the last of the "Thousand Islands" were soon left far behind. It was a still, soft, dreamy August day, and the sail down the calm, broad stretch succeeding was almost sleepy in its tranquillity. Prescott and its neighboring windmill elicited some historic reminiscences from Mrs. Sandford concerning the time when poor rash Von Schultz held his extemporized fortress against an unequal force, only to be overpowered at last, and to expiate his reckless credulity on a scaffold at Fort Henry, which they had so recently seen. Then there were the _Galops_ Rapids, and a little later the small Rapid Du Plat, and then the historic associations of Chrysler's Farm. Afterwards the steamer began to heave and plunge as the snowy crests of the great white coursers of the _Long Sault_ gleamed before them, rising like ocean breakers to meet the gallant vessel, which plunged in upon them with almost conscious pride, and rode triumphantly over them with an exultant swaying movement, more like the bounding of a spirited steed than of a piece of inanimate matter. Hugh was delighted beyond expression, and so were May and Flora. It was even grander than either had anticipated, and both breathed a deep sigh of regret when the last buoyant leap was over, and the steamer floated, with her ordinary motion, into the calm expanse in front of the town of Cornwall. And now there were blue hills to be seen on the horizon to their right, as they passed down the quiet sweep of river, with a few green islands dotting the channel, on which they could catch, here and there, glimpses of summer cottages and camping parties that reminded them of the "Thousand Islands," though with a considerable difference, for here was nothing like the same scope for boating or variety of scenery as in that enchanted region. Then there was the long, sleepy afternoon sail across the wide Lake St. Francis, during which Mrs. Sandford retired to her state-room to make up for her lost morning slumber, and the three girls drowsed over the books they were professing to read. May had brought out her cherished copy of "The Chance Acquaintance," which she had with her, but had kept in reserve till now, that she might revive her recollections of its fascinating pictures, and enjoy in advance the grey old city, which she had already seen so often in imagination; and was now, at length, to behold with her bodily eyes. As she dropped the book at last, overcome by the sleepy influence of the afternoon, Hugh took it up, and had become much interested in its fascinating pages, when the whistle of the steamer, on arriving at Coteau Du Lac, startled the girls out of their nap, and woke them up, laughing over the oblivion which had swallowed up the last two hours. The little French village of "The Coteau," with its long pier, and the little brown houses and big church, gave the travellers a first glimpse into French Canada, quite in keeping with the spirit of the little book; and the succeeding scenery, growing every moment more picturesque, was to May idealized with a touch of poetry reflected from Mr. Howells' charming little romance. After leaving the Coteau village, they passed the short Coteau Rapids, and then the drowsy old village of Beauharnois, with a pastoral landscape of green uplands and bowery orchards behind it,--after which they saw before them, beneath a richly wooded shore, a glittering stretch of interwoven blue and silver. And soon the steamer began to pitch herself forward, as she was swiftly hurried down the rapid incline, past cedar-covered points and islets,--so swiftly that it seemed as if they could scarcely take in the striking beauty of the scene till it had been left behind and the rapid was past. And thus in quick succession they passed "The Cascades" with its white breakers glittering in the sun, and the "Split Rock" with its great black jagged boulders, past which they flew like a flash; after which, as the afternoon sunshine began to slant softly on the water, they glided out on the great placid reach of Lake St. Louis. The distant blue range of the Adirondacks had remained on their right for a considerable portion of their way, but now, before them, rose the soft, cloud-like vision,--apparently triple in its conformation, which Kate announced was Cartier's "Mont Royal," at the feet of which lay the city of Montreal. It held their eyes with a spell of fascination as they crossed the lake, growing more and more distinct until they could distinguish its various divisions and the masses of woodland that clothed it, and even the large buildings which here and there gleamed out from its darker mass. And now they were passing the Indian village of Caughnawaga, with its long line of little French-looking houses fringing the shore, while on their left lay Lachine, with the glorious green mountain--a mass of verdure from top to bottom, rising behind the straggling white village, flanked by its grey stone church and _Presbytère_, while the western sun shed a flood of golden glory over the shining lake. Then came the descent of the Lachine Rapids, the most exciting of all, and the three travellers who saw it for the first time, held their breath as the steamer rushed on, within a hair-breadth, as it seemed, of striking the jagged rocks, that raised their rough black heads above the white breakers. There was not the mass and the thunder of water of the Long Sault, nor the silvery beauty and rush of the Cedars and Cascades, but the black rocks and ledges that seemed lying in wait, like black monsters, to crush the vessel between their cruel teeth, recalled to Hugh the old fable of Scylla and Charybdis. It was grandly exciting to see the steamer, like a living thing, dart shuddering by them, and rush at headlong speed through the boiling surges, with the long wooded stretch of Nun's Island nestling, as it seemed, amid the tossing waves, while the long spans of the Lachine and Victoria bridges loomed up in front of them, and the bold mountain summits of Bel[oe]il and Boucherville assumed exquisite violet hues under the magic touch of the rapidly setting sun, which also lighted up the massive city before them. There was hardly time to take in the full beauty of the _coup d'[oe]il_ before the steamer was under Victoria Bridge, the height of which they could not realize till they saw that the tall masts could pass under it without being lowered. Presently they were in the Canal Basin, amid what seemed a forest of masts and shipping, and May, to her delight, could distinguish the great black hulls of some ocean steamers lying in port. The long lines of massive grey store-houses and docks also much impressed her unaccustomed eye; but these were soon left behind as they drove rapidly up to the Windsor Hotel, where they were to spend the next day. They were all hungry enough, after their long afternoon in the open air, to enjoy heartily the late dinner in the spacious dining-room of the Windsor, with its glittering lights, its long rows of tables and lively groups of guests. After dinner, the girls wandered through the long corridors and sumptuous drawing-rooms, till May, at least, who had never been in so large a hotel in her life, was quite bewildered by all the grandeur. Then they sat on a balcony looking out on the long twinkling ranks of electric lights, contrasting with the silvery radiance of the moonlight, while Kate described to them vividly the glories of a winter carnival she had seen, and the pure white, translucent beauty of the wondrous Ice Palace which had silently risen in the Square before them, and had afterwards, as it seemed, dissolved like a dream, under the gentle touch of approaching spring. Next morning they were all assembled at breakfast so early that they had the dining-hall pretty much to themselves. A carriage had been ordered for nine o'clock, as they did not wish to lose any of the bright morning, and they drove for some hours--first, through the old-fashioned French streets, past Notre Dame and the old Gray Nunnery and the Bonsecours market, and the point where the first settlement of Ville Marie was inaugurated, as Parkman has so graphically described it. They looked at the old Bonsecours church, which recalled to Hugh and Flora similar old churches in Normandy, then drove up St. Denis street, past Our Lady of Lourdes and the other ecclesiastical buildings which cluster around it, and finished their morning with a glimpse at the pretty Art Gallery. After luncheon they again set off, and drove along Sherbrooke Street and through McGill College grounds, inspecting its groups of fine buildings, and through the bosky avenues that run upward to "the mountain," and then up to "the mountain" itself, enjoying the magnificent views, from the Mountain Park drive, of plain and river and distant hills, quite as much as did Champlain, who could not see, even in a vision, the stately city that now replaces the Indian wigwams and maize-fields, which then bore the name of Hochelaga. They ascended to the very brow of the noble hill, taking in, as they went, the whole sweep of view, from the winding course towards Quebec on the left, to the extreme right, where they could catch a glimpse of the Lachine Rapids, flashing white in the sunshine. The day passed only too swiftly in this pleasant sight-seeing, and they had to be at their hotel for a six o'clock dinner, in order to be ready to leave for Quebec at seven. When at last they drove off, Kate gave the order, "to the Quebec boat!" May heaved a deep sigh of pleasure. It seemed as if her cup was now indeed full. They found the large double-decked steamer filling up rapidly with parties of tourists, some of them evidently--from their piles of luggage--_en route_ for Murray Bay, or Métis, or some other watering-place on the Gulf. Quebec was to them an everyday affair, and they talked of it in a careless and cursory fashion which to May, with her enthusiastic veneration for its associations, seemed little less than sacrilege. As they passed down the smooth winding river, while the twilight was falling, silvered by the brightening moon, Flora began to talk of Mr. Winthrop, and to express her regret at his inability to come on with them. "It was too bad," she added, "that Hugh forestalled him, in going to Kate's rescue, was it not? I'm afraid he will hardly forgive Hugh in a hurry." "But Hugh couldn't have waited for him," said May. "What are you two talking about?" asked Kate, whose ear had been caught by the words, while talking to her aunt and Hugh. "Oh, we were only talking about poor Mr. Winthrop," replied Flora, "and his vexation with Hugh for getting before him in rescuing you." "Why should he have _let_ Hugh get before him, then?" she asked. Hugh looked up with a half-puzzled air; then it seemed as if something had dawned upon him--previously unthought of--and, in a few explicit words, he explained the whole situation, doing ample justice to Mr. Winthrop. Kate listened attentively, and though she was very quiet all the rest of the evening, May fancied that her face was cleared of a shadow that had clouded it before. She took up May's "Chance Acquaintance" and soon became absorbed in it,--not laying it down till she had rushed through it to the last page. "Wasn't it too bad," said Flora, "that Kitty sent off Mr. Arbuton like that?" "_I_ think it was too bad that Mr. Arbuton didn't _come back_," retorted Kate. "If he only had done _that_, a few days after, Kitty would have forgiven him and he could have made a fresh start." "I feel sure that he _did_, in the end," asserted May, dogmatically. "I mean to write a sequel to it some day!" and then they all went off to their berths. The three girls were up almost by daylight in the morning, watching the brightening sunshine flush the red rock of Cap Rouge, and then the gradual unfolding of the river panoramas as they passed headland after headland, each opening a fair, new vista beyond. Soon a glittering church steeple gleamed out from the southern shore, rising protectingly over white villages nestling at their feet. Curving recesses of the wooded bank, outlined by one long, picturesque French village street, followed the bend of the shore to the left. "That is Sillery," said Kate, in reply to May's eager enquiries. "Oh," said May, "that is the place where the old Jesuit residence was,--that Kitty and Mr. Arbuton went to see." After the point of Sillery was rounded, there rose, at last, before their delighted eyes, the historic grey rock of Quebec, with its mural-crowned rampart and bastions, and the houses and convents and great churches of the old city climbing up its sides or rambling along the plateau at its foot. "Oh, that is the citadel!" exclaimed May, breathless with delight. "And that is Dufferin Terrace, with the straight line of railing and the little pavilions," explained Kate, while the grim old grey houses above them recalled to Hugh and Flora memories of the old French towns they had seen abroad. As soon as they could disengage themselves from the bustle and confusion of the crowded quay, Kate, who had declared that a _calèche_ was as much "the thing" in Quebec as a gondola in Venice, signalled to two _calèche_ drivers, and the junior members of the party were soon perched on their high seats, while Mrs. Sandford and the luggage went up more comfortably in a commonplace cab. As they rattled over the rough pavements and through the tortuous narrow streets, which--as Kate remarked to Flora--"are just like Europe, I'm sure," they drove up Mountain Hill, passing the spot where Prescott Gate used to be of old, and catching a glimpse of the Basilica, or cathedral, _en route_. They clattered rapidly over the hard paved streets of the upper town, and drove, to May's delight, through a massive old gate with deep, round arches, which the smiling driver announced as "Porte St. Jean." Just outside it they passed a little French marketplace, and then, after passing one or two crowded streets, they were finally set down in front of a tall, three-story stone house with a red door. The travelers were, of course, expected, and received with kind courtesy by their hostess, Mrs. Dale, who took them at once up two flights of stairs. "If they _are_ high, they have the better view," she said, smiling. And so they had. The girls broke out into exclamations of delight, as they gazed from the old-fashioned open windows. In front they looked across streets and houses to the _glacis_ of the Citadel, crowned by its line of ramparts, and could follow, for some distance, the city wall without. The back window commanded a glorious picture. Across a dusky mass of brown, steep-roofed houses, only half lighted up yet by the morning sun, they looked out on a green, undulating champaign country, flecked with patches of deep green woodland, and little white villages clustering here and there round their great church spires; while, for background, rose a grand range of hills, stretching far away in interminable blue vista--all grey and violet in shadow and silvery blue in the sunlight, as the morning mists drifted away, and a wandering sunbeam caught and glorified a tiny white hamlet nestling in the folds of a wooded hill. Just where the sunbeams straggled away into the green country a silver stream wound glittering in the sun, making a bright loop round a point, on which, amid some trees, stood a large stone building. "That is the St. Charles, you know," explained Kate, "and there, where you see it twisted like a silver loop, is the place where stood the first mission house of the Recollets, and the Jesuits afterwards." "Oh!" said May quickly, "I know! Notre Dame des Anges, was it not? So _that_ was the place where they had their thatched log cabin and where they used to be half frozen in winter, when they were trying to learn the Indian language from their interpreter, while their biggest wood fires could not keep them warm, or their ink from freezing!" "And, just a little farther down is the place where they suppose Jacques Cartier laid up his ships, when he first came; as you were reading to us the other day, Hugh." "Ah, and so that is the place where they went through so much suffering, that terrible winter, when the ships and masts and rigging were all cased in ice, like ghostly ships at the North Pole, and when the cold and the scurvy were killing them off so fast, that it seemed as if none of them would be left to see the spring. How they must have welcomed its coming at last!" Then Kate pointed out the green, low-lying meadow beyond the St. Charles, called _La Canardière_, because wild ducks used there to abound, and their eyes followed the long white line of the village of Beauport, running between the grand Laurentian hills and the green slopes that edged the blue St. Lawrence, studded with white sails, and winding away between the Island of Orleans and the northern shore; while, far down the high river bank, they could just distinguish the dark purple cleft of the Montmorency Falls. But they were presently reminded that breakfast was waiting, and, after their early start they were quite ready thoroughly to enjoy the fresh rolls and eggs and delicious raspberries and cream, while they planned their day's sight-seeing, so as to accomplish the utmost that could be done in the hours before them. They determined first of all to scale the Citadel, taking Dufferin Terrace on their way. They went round by the new Parliament buildings, entering the city by the St. Louis gate, with its new Norman towers and embrasures. Kate, to whom the place was familiar of old, grew indignant over the ravages made in the solid old fortifications just outside the walls, and thought the fine new Parliament buildings did not by any means make up for it. "One could see new buildings any day, but that wasn't what one came to Quebec for," she remarked. They passed by the Esplanade and the winding ascent to the Citadel, and the sedate old-fashioned houses of St. Louis Street, and the little steep-roofed wooden cottage near the hotel, now a saloon, where once lay the body of the brave Montcalm. Presently they came to the "Ring," as the old _Place d'Armes_ is often called--the scene, as May reminded them, of so many interesting events in the old French _régime_. "For there, you know," she said, "the gate of the old Chateau St. Louis fronted the square, and here there used to be state receptions of the Indians, when treaties were concluded; and here, too, they let the poor Hurons build a fort when they had been almost exterminated by the Iroquois." Hugh was much interested, as they passed on, in the sight of the old Chateau near the shady walks of the Governor's Gardens, and in the monument erected to the joint memory of the two brave heroes, Wolfe and Montcalm. And then they came out on the long promenade, now known as Dufferin Terrace, and stopped to take in the magnificent panorama, the wide river, with the picturesque heights of Lévis immediately opposite, and the crowded shipping below; and then, immediately beneath them, they looked down into the depths of the Lower Town at their feet, in which May was eager to discover the site of the old "_Abitation_" of Champlain. "I think it was just about where the Champlain Market is now," Kate replied--"that open space with all the market-carts of the _habitans_, and all the people doing their marketing." Then they gazed down into the narrow alleys of Little Champlain Street, with the tall, grimy houses that rose up just below them, which, as Flora said, reminded her so much of some of the old "wynds" of Edinburgh; and were shown the little old church, "_Notre Dame des Victoires_," which played so important a part in the early history of Quebec. May could have remained all day dreaming over these old historic associations, nor did Hugh Macnab seem much inclined to tear himself away from the fascinating scene. But Kate was determined to keep them up to "schedule time," and she and her watch were relentless, so they reluctantly tore themselves away, being promised a still finer view from above, and mounted a long steep stair rising from the end of the Terrace. They could not resist the temptation of looking around from time to time as the view widened at every step, till at last, drawing a deep breath, they stood at the top of the _glacis_ and gazed at the superb view around them, the closely built Lower Town, the forest of shipping, the steamboats darting to and fro, the opposite heights, fringed with steep-roofed, balconied houses and sprinkled with distant white villages creeping up their receding sides, and large, stately convents peeping out of clustered and embosoming trees; while just beneath their feet a black ocean steamer was getting up her steam to sail away down the great river to the sea. Walking back along the _glacis_, they reached the winding ascent to the Citadel, which they followed, between its high stone-faced banks, till they reached the ancient, curiously-woven chain gates, said to be impregnable, and leading into the wide green ditch. Then they passed through the massive portals of Dalhousie Gate, with its guardrooms and casemates built into the solid walls on either side, where the warlike-looking sentries politely saluted the ladies and put them under the charge of a soldier guide. He led them first across the wide court-yard to the King's Bastion by the flagstaff, from whence they could feast their eyes on such a view as May, at least, had never seen before. All about them lay the city, mapped out with its walls and ramparts, its church towers and steeples; at their feet, far below them, the Terrace on which they had been recently standing; and below that again, the grim old town, the docks and shipping and flitting boats diminished to the size of playthings; then the green heights opposite, and the bold blue outline of the Isle of Orleans, and the calm broad river stealing silently away through the vista of distant hills. It seemed like a dream that held them in its spell, till the French soldier, to whom the view was an every-day affair, shrugged his shoulders and said, "_allons_." They continued their walk past the Officers' Quarters, in one of which was the Governor General's summer residence;--past the magazine and stables, where many little dogs were playing about, and came out at last on what they thought the most glorious view of all,--that from the Prince's Bastion, so called, because a Prince's feather, carved in stone on the wall, marks the spot where the Prince of Wales once laid his hand when visiting Quebec. From it they could see, far away to the south, rank after rank of distant blue hills, some of them in Maine and Vermont. To westward they could follow the river till it was hidden behind a green projecting point which shut in the Bay of Sillery, while away to the west and north stretched a long succession of blue hills, with white villages gleaming among their wooded sides, amidst which, too, they could trace the silvery ribbon of the St. Charles, winding its way down out of the shadowy recesses of the distant mountains. The travellers found no words adequate to express the delight awakened by the glorious picture, and gazed on in silence, while light mists floated away from the summits of the hills, and sudden glints of sunshine gave them an added touch of glorious beauty. But they could not stay there all day, and all too soon they turned away from the beautiful picture, which they would often hereafter see before the inner eye; and returned along the walls, past little piles of cannon balls and gun-mounted embrasures, till they came down again into the court-yard and the wide, green ditch, on the slope of which sleek cows were peacefully grazing, close to the now harmless guns. Whither should they go next? They would just have time, Kate said, to take in the Basilica and the Ursuline convent before luncheon. Thither, accordingly, they went, meeting long-robed ecclesiastics and bright-eyed academy boys in their trim gray uniforms;--pretty French nurse-maids and British orderlies, hurrying along laden with packages of official papers, all just as it had been described in "A Chance Acquaintance." The Basilica, or great French Cathedral, they found rather disappointing within, for the impression of massiveness made by the exterior seemed incongruous with the gaudy white and gold of the interior decorations. "It seems rather out of keeping," said Hugh, a little discontentedly, "with what one reads of its history, in those stormy old times, when the French colonists used to come here to pray for deliverance from Iroquois raids, or to offer up thanksgiving for some timely succor." "But you know, it has been rebuilt more than once since those old times," said Kate; and May tried to recall in imagination the great bare-raftered building of those old days, and found much satisfaction in the high porcelain stoves at the entrance, which gave a "foreign look" to the building at once. To the Ursuline chapel they went next, and, after application made at a grated window of the convent, a tranquil-faced nun opened the great door, and they passed into the quiet little chapel, so dainty in all its arrangements, and looked at the great picture, by Champlain, of Christ at the house of Simon, the Pharisee,--at the tablet to the memory of Montcalm, whose skull is still preserved there;--and then, with still more interest at the tiny jet of flame in the glass chandelier, kept alight, for a hundred and fifty years, in memory of a young French girl who took the veil all those years ago, and whose brothers made provision to preserve in perpetuity this touching tribute to her memory. But the rosy-faced, contented looking s[oe]ur, who acted as guide, would by no means let them pass out without special attention to the elaborate flower painting on velvet which adorned the altar, and testified at least to the skill and industry of the present nuns. Just as they came out, Kate had an unexpected _rencontre_ with an old school-mate visiting Quebec on her wedding tour. As they were about to part,--after a hundred rapid questions and answers had been exchanged,--Kate's friend exclaimed: "And where do you think I am boarding? At the very house where Kitty in 'A Chance Acquaintance,' stayed; and if you will just come with me you shall look from the very window of Kitty's room and see the view of which the book gives such a lively description." May was enchanted, and the girls were soon looking into the garden of the Ursuline convent from the window at which her favorite heroine was supposed to have stood, looking down at the shady walks below. Kate and Flora declared that it did not look quite so poetical as in Mr. Howell's pages, but May would not entertain the idea of disappointment, and tried to see all Kitty saw, though encroaching buildings have a good deal spoiled the quaint old garden, amid whose lilacs and tall hollyhocks that young lady used, on moonlight nights, to evolve the shades of Madame de la Peltrie and the first heroic tenants of the convent. After the morning's adventures the early dinner was very welcome, as well as a little rest, with the view from their fascinating windows before them; after which they strolled along the Grand Battery and quiet Esplanade, and penetrated into the quaintly picturesque grounds of the Artillery Barracks, and looked from the weather-beaten old arsenal on the wall, at the beautiful glimpse, across docks and grimy old suburbs, of the fair green valley of the St. Charles, with Charlesbourg opposite, sitting royally on her hilltops. "And, beyond it, you know," said May, mixing up fact and fiction, "are the ruins of the old Chateau Bigot, where the wicked Intendant had his pleasure-parties and carousals, and where Kitty and Mr. Arbuton went for a picnic,--don't you recollect?" They did not find time to go to see it, however, but explored the city pretty thoroughly, finding in the name of every street a bit of crystallized history, recalling some name or incident connected with its past. There was Donnacona Street,--recalling the kidnapped Indian chief, and Breboeuf Street, reminding them of the two heroic Jesuit martyrs,--and Buade Street, associated with the haughty and energetic Governor, Louis Buade de Frontenac, under whom the French _régime_ saw its proudest days. They walked along the ramparts as far as the new "improvements," then in progress, would let them and sighed over the ruthless demolition of the old gates--Prescott Gate and Palace Gate, and the picturesque old Hope Gate, so graphically described by Mr. Howells, and even over the renovation of the others, which had lost all their historic interest. They spent some hours in diving into the recesses of the old town, its marketplace and churches and curious old alleys, dignified by the name of streets, and walked along the Saulx Aux Matelots, trying to fix the very place where Arnold fell, on that miserable December morning of 1775; and looked long at the "Golden Dog"--_Chien d'or_--above the Post Office, whereby hangs a tragic tale. And they had a quiet Sunday for resting, with those lovely glimpses of distant hills meeting their eyes wherever they turned; and attended a service in the quaint old-fashioned English Cathedral, which, with the equally old-fashioned Scottish church and Manse, have such a quaint old-world air, like everything else in Quebec. But of course they drove to Montmorency Falls, devoting to it a whole delightful afternoon. Their course lay across Dorchester Bridge, and then between meadows of emerald green, stretching down to the river and fringed with graceful elms and beeches, with pretty old-fashioned country houses here and there, which the girls of course called _chateaux_, and then down the long village street of Beauport,--the steep-roofed little houses in bright variety of color succeeding each other for several miles, with their long garden-like strips of farm extending down to the river on one side, and upwards towards the hills on the other. Bright flowers grew in front of the windows, and trim, dark-eyed French girls sat at the doors and on the little balconies, sewing or knitting away busily, while they chattered in their native tongue. In the middle of the village stood the great stone church, with its bright tin-covered steeples, seen ever so many miles off. After passing Beauport the scenery grew wilder, and soon they rattled over a wooden bridge, below which the foaming Montmorency brawled over the brown rocks, at this late season partially dry. A little farther on stood the inn, where carriages wait, and they had only to pass through a gate and walk along the high river bank to the dizzy stair down the cliff, from whence they could see to the best advantage the beautiful fall, plunging in one avalanche of foam from the giddy height above, crowned by deep green woods that contrasted strongly with the glittering sheet of foam and spray, while a few beautiful little outlying cascades trickled over the dark brown rock in braided threads of silver. "How delightful it would be," said May and Flora together, "to stay a whole month at that little inn, and come every day to sit here; and look and look, till one was satisfied!" And the others sighed regretfully as the fast descending sun warned them that it was time to return to the inn where they had left the carriage, and drive home past the bright little gardens and picturesque cottages of Beauport--brighter in the slanting rays of the evening sun,--and rejoiced in the golden glory which the sunset threw over the tin roofs of Quebec, glittering with an intense golden radiance out of the grey setting of rock and misty distance. But May thought their morning at Sillery the climax of all the delights of Quebec. They went by one of the steamboats which are always darting up and down the river, so that from its deck, they had another fine view of the quaint grey town rising, tier above tier, to the Terrace above, where the people looked like Lilliputian figures out of a doll's house. Then they steamed slowly past the crowded docks, the great black steamships and stately sailing vessels, some of them bearing strange Swedish or Norwegian names,--past the root of Cape Diamond, crowned by the Citadel, on the rocky side of which they could distinctly read the inscription: "Here Montgomery Fell;" past the long street of French houses that lines the shore below the plains; past fine wooded heights with stately white country houses gleaming through the deep green foliage; till, on turning a point of the leafy cliff, they saw before them the curve of Sillery Bay, with its fringe of many colored cottages and yellow rafts and lumber piles; while opposite, the great stone church with its gleaming steeple towered over the flourishing village of New Liverpool. Stepping out upon the wooden pier, the travellers walked on past the anchored rafts on which men were busy squaring timber with practised strokes, and up to where the gracefully curving village street began. And there May had a delightful surprise. A dilapidated weather-worn old cottage stood before them, and above it, from an overhanging elm, hung a board on which they read the inscription: "_Emplacement du convent des Religieuses Hospitalières_." "There!" exclaimed May, "that is the place where the nuns of the Hotel Dieu lived when they first arrived with Madame de la Peltrie, before they could make up their minds to build on the rough rocky site they gave to them in Quebec." They all stood for a little while, looking at the shabby old cottage, trying to imagine what that first Canadian hospital looked like; and then they walked up the quaint old-fashioned street, with its gambrel-roofed houses, each having its gay little flower-garden in front, till they came to a gray stuccoed, two-story house, standing a little way back from the street, with a square enclosure just opposite, in which stood a plain white monument. "There it is!" May exclaimed, with breathless delight; "the old Jesuit residence! And that square opposite is the place where their little church stood, just as it was all described." They opened the stiff gate with some difficulty, and walked into the little enclosure, where they read the inscription in French and English,--one commemorating the rude little church where the Jesuits and their Algonquin converts had worshipped, about two hundred and fifty years ago; and the other dedicated to the memory of the first missionary who died there--Père Enemond Massé--the Père utile, as he was called, because he could do anything, from saying mass to ship-building, or even tending the pigs of the establishment, thinking nothing beneath him that needed to be done, and being such a favorite with all that he was always chosen to accompany their expeditions as Father Confessor. Most of this May was able to tell the rest of the party, as they stood beneath the two maples that shaded the enclosure. Then they took a look at the outside of the old residence, which, however, has been renewed more than once since the substantial inner framework was built, and tried to imagine the strange solitary life that its inmates must have lived, especially in bitter winter weather, shut out from all society, except that of a few Algonquins and trappers. That afternoon was their last in Quebec. They drove in from Sillery by the pretty St. Louis road, fringed with shady country seats, and commanding, at many points, glorious glimpses of the grand mountain panorama on both sides of the city. As they passed the "Plains of Abraham" they stopped once more to look at the rather forlorn-looking monument which commemorates Wolfe's death, and the victory for Great Britain, which secured half a continent; and tried to trace the lines of advance up the rugged cliffs by which the hero had surprised the unsuspecting French. This was, appropriately enough, their last sight-seeing in Quebec, and the evening following was spent on Dufferin Terrace watching the exquisite sunset tints melt away from the river and the distant hills, with a pathetic touch which seemed to them like the memories they would always cherish of the romantic old town. CHAPTER V AMONG THE HILLS. As the little party went on board the Saguenay boat next morning, a surprise was in store for them, for who should come to meet them, with the most smiling air, but Mr. Winthrop himself, looking very bright, and meeting them all as if it had been the most matter-of-course thing in the world! Kate met him with the same cordial, matter-of-course air, but May observed that they exchanged a few words in a low tone, which seemed to set them on their old footing at once. "Do you know," said Flora, to her, as they stood apart in the stern, taking a last look at the great frowning rock and the tall, dark houses looming above them,--"I believe some one wrote to him and explained Kate's misconception, and I have my suspicions as to who it was. I saw Hugh scribbling off a few lines in a great hurry, that evening on the boat, and I shouldn't wonder in the least if it was to Mr. Winthrop! But I'm glad it's all right, for I think he is a very nice fellow, and Kate and he would suit each other very well." May was completely taken back. Had Flora no thought of Hugh, then? Or did it not occur to her that _his_ happiness might be in some degree involved in this matter? But if Hugh really did what she supposed, how very noble it was of him! He was a real hero, a chivalrous knight! However, she could not, of course, say anything of this to Flora, so she silently determined to put Hugh and his fortunes quite out of her thoughts for the present, as too perplexing a problem, and give herself up entirely to the influence of the glorious scenery and the lovely morning. They were, by this time, fast losing sight of the grey old fortress about which had raged so many fierce conflicts in the days of old. The Isle of Orleans, along whose southern shore the steamer took her course, quickly hid from them the picturesque old town and its beautiful setting, and even the rocky cleft in which Montmorency was ceaselessly pouring down its masses of snowy foam, and raising its great mist-cloud to the sky. As the Isle of Orleans was itself left behind, the glorious river grew wider and grander, as point after point opened before them in ever-receding vista. The blue, cloud-like masses of Cap Tourmente and Ste. Anne gradually became great dark hills, covered from head to foot with a dense growth of foliage, chiefly birch and fir. One after another of this magnificent range of superb hills rose on their left, wooded from base to summit, and looking almost as lonely and untouched by civilization as when Cartier's "white-winged canoes" first ascended the "great river of Hochelaga." Here and there a white village or two gleamed out from the encompassing verdure, or stood perched on a hill-top beside its protecting church. To May, who had so often dreamed over the voyages of these early explorers, it seemed like an enchanted land. The Isle of Orleans was to her the old "_Ile de Bacchus_," purple with the festoons of wild vines that offered their clusters of grapes to the French adventurers, and the beautiful Ile aux Coudres, which the Captain pointed out, she recalled as in like manner an old acquaintance, surveying it with much interest, as she pictured to herself the hardy explorers regaling themselves on its native filberts. Then the noble bay of St. Paul's opened out its grand spreading curve, with the pretty village of Les Eboulements nestling in its breast; and by and by they had stopped at the massive light-house with its high pier, intended to suit the variations of the tide. "What a lonely life it must be in these solitudes!" observed Mr. Winthrop, as they watched the great lumbering ferry-boat carrying off the passengers whose homes lay among these hills;--"just think of the contrast between life here and life in the crowded bustle of New York." "And yet," said Hugh, "I fancy life is, in the main, not so very different here, if we could only see below the surface. I suppose the main outlines of life are pretty much the same everywhere, after all!" May had been inwardly following out the same thought, and trying to imagine the sort of life and surroundings to which the pale girl in gray, who had specially excited her interest as a supposed bride, was going in her future home. Then the voyagers dreamily watched for some time in silence the long silent procession of wooded hills, dappled by the shadow of the great fleecy white clouds that swept up across the blue sky, while, ever and anon, snowy sea-gulls darted down to catch from the tossing crests of the sparkling waves, the fragments of food thrown to them by passengers, seeming to spy it unerringly from afar, and now and then white whales or porpoises would toss up a miniature geyser, as they disported themselves in the azure tide. At length they came in sight of the headland forming the upper end of picturesque Murray Bay, where they were to spend some time on their return from the Saguenay. They all admired the lovely vista opened up by this long and narrow bay with its white church, marking the village from afar, with its grand promontory of Cap à l'Aigle at its lower extremity, and its green valley, hemmed in by rank after rank of billowy blue hills. But they could not see much of the long straggling village of Pointe-au-Pic, or the quaint foreign-looking French hamlet in the centre of the curve of the bay. Indeed, their attention was quickly diverted from examining its details, for, among the people who stood on the high pier awaiting the steamboat, they speedily recognized Jack and Nellie Armstrong, who greeted them with much delight, and were soon beside them on the steamer's deck. "You see we got here in advance of you," said Jack Armstrong, and Nellie exclaimed: "We've been wondering what could possibly have become of you. We have been watching the last two boats, prepared to join you if you were there, and were beginning to despair of you altogether. You must have been bewitched, either by Quebec or the Thousand Islands, to have been so long on the way." "And you have very nearly missed the moon," added Jack. "We've been watching it for the last two or three evenings in fear and trembling lest Miss Macnab and Miss Thorburn should miss their cherished desire of seeing Cape Eternity by moonlight." "Oh, I think there is enough of it left yet," said Kate, while Mrs. Sandford remarked that she thought she never should have been able to tear those people away from the delights of the Thousand Islands. "Or from Quebec," said Flora and May together. "_That_ was almost the loveliest of all." "Ah, I told you you would enjoy Quebec, Miss Macnab!" said Jack Armstrong. And presently May observed that he had drawn Flora a little aside, and engaged her in an animated description of what she had most enjoyed since they had left Port Hope. And, indeed, she was looking charming enough, in her Inverness cape and deerstalker cap, to draw forth a good deal of admiration, May thought. As for Kate, in her rough ulster and cap to match, with her color heightened by the sharp sea breeze, she was looking brilliantly handsome, so evidently thought Mr. Winthrop, who kept near her, displacing Hugh altogether, as May at last believed. But now they were nearly opposite Les Pèlerins, the strange parallel rocks that stand, silent, stately warders beside the great river, widening into a broad sea-like expanse, with a line of distant hills faintly breaking the horizon to the right, while on the left, the great hills which had been accompanying them all day now receded somewhat into the distance. Then the little red brick town of Rivière-du-Loup gleamed out ruddy on its sloping hill, growing more and more distinct until the steamer had drawn up beside the high pier, on which were a number of summer tourists eager to see who were on the boat, or to get a little fresh news from the outside world. Bidding these farewell, they quickly passed the long, straggling line of white cottages that marked the pleasant watering-place of Cacouna. Our travelers meant to visit it, and also Rivière-du-Loup, with its grand, romantic waterfall, on the homeward way, but at present their thoughts were engrossed with the Saguenay, and May's dreaming imagination was already busy with the blue ridge of rounded hills that, as she was told, marked the entrance and the course of that mysterious river. But, as they crossed over towards the south side of the sea-like river, they had a specimen of the glorious sunsets which form one of the chief charms of Cacouna, shedding over the calm expanse of water a flood of golden glory, and touching the distant hills with the richest amethystine hues, till they seemed to float in a dreamy haze, between the amber sky and the shimmering golden tide below. The sight held the little party fascinated with its entrancing spell, and they remained on deck heedless of the summons of the clamorous tea-bell, until the rich hues and the golden glory had faded at last, not into the "light of common day," but into the soft vagueness of the long northern twilight. Then at last, with a sigh for the brief duration of the beautiful vision, they descended to the lamp-lit cabin to enjoy the appetizing evening meal, which their long afternoon in the bracing air had made them all ready to thoroughly enjoy. When they again came on deck they were just passing some straggling islets, darkly green in the fast fading light, and rounding Pointe Noire,--the fitly-named dark point of rock that guards the entrance to the strange mysterious dark northern fiord about which have gathered so many a marvelous story. And now May was eagerly looking out for Tadousac, with her heroine Kitty, and the venerable old church and all the little romance that followed, uppermost in her imagination. Then those rounded sand-hills, skirted by rocks and fringed with a scanty vegetation of stunted firs, were, Mr. Winthrop said, the "Mamelons,"[1] about which cluster strange old Indian legends, of fierce conflicts between the Algonquins and the Esquimaux--weird tales, too, of a doom or curse on intermarriage of an Algonquin with an alien race, which here overtook the offender with its inevitable Nemesis. In the deepening gloaming, in the shadow of the dusky heights that towered on high, casting long, dark, quivering reflections in the dark mysterious stream, with scattered lights twinkling out here and there, through the clustering foliage, is Tadousac. With its straggling brown dwellings, and the massive timbers of the great pier storehouse looming up in undefined vagueness above them, it was easy to imagine any number of legendary tales of love and conflict; of "Old unhappy things And battles long ago." as Hugh quoted once more. The steamer was made fast to the pier, with much creaking and groaning, as if shuddering to begin the ascent of the dark, fateful river, which, it is said, one of the earliest explorers attempting with his men, found a fatal enterprise, none of them ever returning to the light of day. As the steamer was to remain here half an hour, the whole party landed, as did most of the other passengers, to inspect the little rude ancient church, built nearly three hundred years ago for the Indians and the trappers who traded with them--the oldest surviving building north of Mexico. They took the route which May had so often followed in imagination with her shadowy friends of the story, across the ravine and through the village, with its lights twinkling all over its little cove, till they reached the plain, bare old wooden church, beside which they stood for some time almost in silence, reverently regarding the little wilderness-temple which had so long alone met the needs and witnessed the devotions of men rough and rude, but men still with the felt need of Divine help in their strange wild lives. But the visitors could not enter, nor were they indeed anxious to do so, for they felt that this might have broken the spell thrown over them by the bare sombre, weather-beaten exterior and venerable associations. Moreover, the steamer was already whistling its summons, so they set out on their return through the same shadowy, suggestive gloom of dark pine-studded rocks and deep murmuring unseen waterfalls, till they came out suddenly on the clustered lights of the landing and the steamer streaming with light through every crevice, just as May had seen it so often, already, through the eyes of Miss Kitty Ellison. Well, they had left Tadousac behind now, and had fairly entered into the shadows of the dark and sullen Saguenay, which seems to lie like a prisoner between its stern frowning warders and to have hewn out its difficult passage to unite with the St. Lawrence, through the stern rocks that would have shut it up in its lonely gloom forever. To Hugh, the passage left behind seemed indeed a fortress-gate, strongly flanked by tall overhanging rocks, crags with gnarled _savins_, and white-stemmed birches gleaming even in the deepening dusk, clinging, as if for life, to the jagged precipices. They had lost sight of the twinkling lights of Tadousac, set in its little rocky niche of the "_petite montagne qui est presque coupée par la mer_," as Champlain had described it long ago, with its "little harbor," which would hold only nine or ten ships in the _embouchure_ of the Saguenay, though many more could find shelter in the bay that fronts the St. Lawrence. The captain of the steamer told the young men about the little lake close at hand, which guards the precious young salmon raised there for the Government's fish-breeding establishment at Anse de l'eau. And now the dark, vague forms of Titans seemed to rise up on either hand,--great massive hills and cliffs that seemed almost to shut out the light of the stars; and most of the party, growing tired of the somewhat awesome silent procession, took refuge in the lighted saloon, from whence soon came strains of sweet music, and the tones of Flora's fresh young voice, in "Over the Sea to Skye," which seemed not inappropriate to the _genius loci_. Mr. Winthrop and Hugh remained talking with the captain about the more striking features of the scenery and its historical associations; and to May, half listening to them, half dreaming out again the vivid sketches of Parkman, the solitude seemed peopled once more with the old explorers who established ties of commerce between far-away St. Malo and these lonely wilds,--Cartier and Roberval, Pontgravé and Chauvin, and their bands of trappers and _voyageurs_, for whom the Indians paddled their canoes, laden with costly furs, down this dark, fathomless stream. She could realize more vividly the fate of one unfortunate band, left at so lonely a post to starve, through one miserable winter. For, first, by reason of its fabled wealth of gold and silver and precious stones, and afterwards for the sake of its real riches in furs, the Saguenay was even better known to the early pioneers than was the river between Quebec and Montreal. Then, too, May's thoughts went back to that very different little band of missionaries,--Recollets first, Jesuits afterwards,--who came bearing a Christian message of love to the savages of this wild region. She remembered how the trio of Jesuits who first reached the river Sagne, as it was then called, in their delight at reaching their goal, described it as being "as beautiful as the Seine, almost as rapid as the Rhone, and deeper than many parts of the sea," and how Père Le Jeune, in particular, felt that they were the forerunners of a host of brave soldiers of the Cross who should subdue the land for the Lord. She remembered how the sight of some poor Indian captives, cruelly tortured by their captors arrayed in all their uncouth adornment of parti-colored paint, had so impressed the good Fathers with pity, that they only longed for an opportunity of preaching to them the gospel of love and peace, although, as Père Le Jeune observed, the same fate might at any time befall themselves. And, indeed, Père Le Jeune's, observation on that head is well worthy of being recorded: "In truth, I was cut to the heart. I had thought of coming to Canada, only because I was sent. I felt no particular regard for the savages, but I would have rendered obedience, had they sent me a thousand times further; but I can truly say, that, even if I should have detested this country, I should have been touched by what I have seen, had my heart been brass. Would to God, that those who can help these poor souls, and do something for their salvation, could be here for three days! I think the desire of saving them would seize their whole souls." Then he proceeds to reflect that in England, in Spain, in Germany, when the Gospel was first carried thither, the barbarism of the people had been as great. (He says nothing about France, evidently considering that the time of _its_ barbarism belonged to remote antiquity.) And further, that the Indians do not lack sense, but instruction; and then goes on to speak of his plans for founding schools for the more docile children; thus anticipating the common-sense missionary policy of our own day. And he takes refuge in the end, as all souls yearning for the salvation of their fellows have had to do, in the promise of the Eternal: "_Dabo tibi gentes heridatatem tuam, et possessionem termios terræ_." In that same bay of Tadousac, too, May recollected, the good Fathers had their first experience of what the St. Lawrence could do in the way of a storm, and had reason to be thankful for the measure of shelter which this bay could give them. As another sample of New World experience, they were nearly eaten up by the mosquitoes and a host of other insect persecutors, while the fireflies formed at least one cheering exception as they glittered among the woods "like sparks of fire, by which he could even see to read at night." But the captain went on to talk about some of the old floating legends that still increase the romantic interest attaching to this strange river of the North,--of the fierce battles between the rival tribes, in the course of one of which is said to have taken place the terrible earthquake which rent asunder these scarped and jagged cliffs, to form this sublime channel of the Saguenay. And he spoke, also, of the romantic story which has been woven out of the old legend that a mixed marriage between the white man and the Indian was followed by the impending doom; and the terrible forest fires which have at times swept over the whole region, scorching and destroying all life, vegetable and animal, that lay in their course, and leaving their melancholy traces in the splintered, seamed crags that raise aloft majestic forms once clothed in a graceful drapery of green, now only crested here and there with a dreary skeleton of their departed forests. It was not difficult to imagine the awfulness of the scene at night, when the billows of red flame and ruddy smoke rolled in dread majesty over those grand hills, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, till they were suddenly checked by the dark, deep waters of the cold and deep river. But the captain's talk ended, and Mr. Winthrop, who had gone up the Saguenay before, was by and by attracted into the saloon, and only May and Hugh Macnab were left on deck, with a few of the other passengers, who, like themselves, were held by a sort of fascination in the savage and sombre grandeur of the dark, cloud-like shapes that seemed to unroll themselves before them in endless succession. It seemed strange to sit there, as it were in the presence of the Infinities, in their awful, everlasting silence, while lights were streaming from the saloon and from it also were coming,--now snatches of the wild, wailing melody of "Loch-Lomond," now of the gay little French love ditty; "Il y'a long temps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai!" which Hugh absently hummed in concert with the singers within, setting May again at work on her little romance, the ending of which was so perplexing her at present. But this was only for a passing moment; for the presence of these dark hills was too absorbing to admit other thoughts. And now the faintly diffused light of the rising moon, itself still hidden from view, made a pale background for the great bold _silhouettes_, and showed, too, something more of their minor features; and at last the bright silver disk, shorn of something of its roundness, rose clear above the sharply defined edge of a jagged crag, partially clothed with trees. And now the great grooves and seams of the rocks could be distinctly discerned in unrelieved light and shade,--and the dark lines of such vegetation as could here find a foothold, with here and there a cluster of twinkling lights, marking a little centre of human life in the midst of the wilderness. As they advanced, the precipices grew bolder and bolder; one bold profile after another became defined in the moonlight, then opened up new vistas of the sea of hills and precipices which was continually changing its relation to the spectator. And presently Hugh went in to summon the rest of the party to come out, for, far away in the distance, a practised eye could already discern, just touched by the moonlight, the commanding peak and striking triple profile of Cape Trinity. It seemed an impressive and solemn approach to the mighty crag, growing every moment grander and more majestic in the pale radiance of the moonlight. The triple effect, both vertically and laterally, showed more effectively, though less distinctly, the bare-browed cliff looking even more imposing than in daylight,--every scarped crag and splintered pinnacle and barbicon standing out in the sharpest contrast of light and shade. The travellers gazed up at the giant, towering above them to such a height that it made one dizzy to try to follow it with the eye; and so close did it seem impending over the vessel, that they could scarcely realize their real distance from it, till a copper coin, thrown by Mr. Winthrop with all his force, came far short of the rocky wall, and fell into the dark stream below. Cape Trinity left behind, Cape Eternity began to loom up in lonely majesty beyond--its mighty mass partially clothed with verdure, and, like the other, idealized in the moonlight. The awesomeness of its grandeur oppressed them with an overpowering effect of dread sublimity, and it was almost a relief when the steamer at last glided away from those tremendous embodiments of nature's savage grandeur, and saw rising before them vistas of a somewhat gentler, though still bold and picturesque type. But it was now long past midnight, and most of the party, despite interest of the scene, were growing exceedingly sleepy. Mrs. Sandford, indeed, had long ago retired to her state-room, declaring that neither of the two famous cliffs were worth losing the best half of a night's rest for! The rest of the party now followed her example, and as May passed through the ladies' cabin to her state-room, she was startled for a moment by seeing the dark forms of a number of sleeping nuns, who occupied the sofas instead of berths. They were doubtless going out from one of the great nunneries on a missionary expedition, and to May it seemed delightfully in harmony with the spirit of the scene. Nor would it have been at all difficult for her to imagine figures called up from the old days when these dark uniforms were the only civilized female dress in all the region of the Saguenay. She regarded her own simple dark blue travelling dress with a sigh. It certainly was not nearly so picturesque! May slept soundly enough, notwithstanding the motion of the boat and the creaking of the chains and timbers during the occasional stoppages. But about daybreak she was awakened by the rattling of chains and the confused clatter of voices, and started up in haste, that she might not lose an hour of the wonderful scenery about her. On coming out of her state-room, she was again somewhat startled by the cluster of dark-robed nuns, some of whom were already up, and absorbed in their morning devotions. But she had no time to think much about them just then, for through the cabin window she caught a glimpse of some wonderful granite peaks, touched with the loveliest rose-color by the light of the sun, which had not yet risen above the rugged hills that close in about the crescent curve of Ha-Ha Bay. Calling Flora to make haste to follow her, she stood for a little time at the stern, feasting her eyes on the exquisite solemn beauty of those granite hills thus glorified by the coming day. Then, joined by Flora, to whom the scene recalled her own Highland hills, she hastened on deck to enjoy the full extent of the lovely view around them. They were lying, stranded by the receding tide, near one end of the long bay, which takes its name, according to some, from the surprised laugh of some of the first explorers at finding themselves _cul-de-sac_;--according to others, from their expression of satisfaction at having at last found soundings in this apparently fathomless river. Just above them, now gilded by the level sunlight, rose a rugged height of richly-tinted granite, sprinkled by birch and balsam, at the foot of which clustered the little grey-peaked wooden houses of the tiny hamlet of St. Alphonse. The piazzas of the summer hotel, and the steep-roofed stone church looked down from the hill-slope beyond the pier, and, far along the sweeping curve of the bay, the gleaming village of St. Alexis shone white on the green shore behind it, long sloping uplands of arable land, while near it a black-hulled ship lay at anchor, the first anchorage for the mariner on this dark rock-bound stream. One by one the little party had collected on deck, with the exception of Mrs. Sandford, keenly enjoying the loveliness of the hour and scene; and already their fellow-passengers were beginning to leave the steamer on various little expeditions, to fill up the hours which they must wait for the turning of the tide--some to drive across the hills or along the shore of the bay; others to stroll along the shining sands and examine the long-stretching weir, composed of interlaced boughs, jutting far out into the stream, which here presents the most fascinating combination of sea-shore and inland river. A little party of long-robed ecclesiastics, whom our travellers had noticed the evening before, in a corner of the saloon, poring over their breviaries, were seen slowly ascending the hill-slope, towards the church, and Hugh suggested a stroll in the same direction, as the hill-slope seemed a good point for observation of the surrounding landscape. The morning air blew cool and bracing in their faces as they left the pier, the view before them growing grander and wider at every step. They skirted the hotel grounds, where a few early stirring guests on the piazza watched them with great interest, and soon found themselves at the door of the church, from whence they could command a noble panorama of hills and river in their cool, pale northern coloring, somewhat warmed by the slanting rays of the early August sun. But when they presently entered the church, the solemn hush of the scene within carried off their thoughts in an entirely different direction. It seemed a large church for so small a settlement, and the fresh and new look, the white and gold decoration, and the robes of the priests, seemed curiously out of keeping with the primitive wildness of the surroundings. The party of ecclesiastics, who, it now appeared, numbered a bishop among them, were there in full force, and a small congregation, including several officers of the steamboat, were already gathered for early mass. Hugh sat down reverently in the nearest seat, and the others followed his example, and remained there until the short service was completed. It was singularly restful and soothing, and to May and Flora, despite their staunch Protestant preferences, it was a memorable experience. The deep tones of the officiating priest and the solemn chant of the psalms, seemed laden with memories of the days when these same chants first arose in these savage solitudes, from the rude bark chapel or the simpler forest sanctuary, before the wondering eyes of the half-hostile Indians. As the last chant died away on the ear, it was like awaking from a dream of the remote past, to come out once more on the wide summer landscape lying at their feet, the long line of level sands, the stranded vessel, the still receding tide, the long stretch of gray uplands and dark green hills. But breakfast began to seem a welcome possibility, which quickened the steps of the travellers back to the steamer, where they found Mrs. Sandford in a little flurry of concern about their long absence, and more than ready, she declared, for her breakfast. And after their early rising and their long stroll, it scarcely needs be said how keenly they enjoyed the excellent breakfast of porridge, smelts, salmon, fresh rolls, and excellent coffee--not forgetting the blueberries for which the region is so famous. After breakfast there was still some time before the steamer could move. Flora hunted up her sketch-book, and went, accompanied by May and Nellie, to make a sketch on shore, while Hugh Macnab and Jack Armstrong, who insisted on coming, too, amused themselves by clambering up the rocky height above them, to see what sorts of plants might be growing among the crevices--for Hugh was something of a naturalist as well as a poet. The others, including Mrs. Sandford, preferred to remain on the deck of the steamer, watching the lumber vessel take in her load, and the swift return of the tide, nearly as remarkable for its speed as is the Scottish Solway, which has furnished the comparison:-- "Love flows like the Solway And ebbs like its tide." As the girls sat there, a young, pleasant-faced _habitante_ came up to them, followed by two or three tiny children, glad to exchange a word with the strangers, and to offer for sale tiny canoes, which the inexperienced hands of the children had shaped, in imitation of the pretty toy canoes offered for sale at all the booths of French and Indian wares. They spoke no English, and May was too doubtful of _her_ French to try it, but Nellie and Flora opened a conversation with her, to her evident pleasure, for, in so secluded a spot, a talk with a stranger is an event. "Yes," she said, after telling the names and ages of the children; "yes, the summer _is_ very short, and the winter long and cold." But then her husband stays at home, and in summer he is away, working on boats, and that is evidently compensation--for he is "_un bon garçon_." And indeed she seemed a happy wife and mother, for the blessings of life, happily, generally counterbalance its privations. The girls gladly bought the tiny canoes, the "'prentice work" of the little childish hands, and, after an interested inspection of Flora's sketch, and many admiring comments thereupon, they parted--the travellers to return to the steamer, the children and their mother to return to their _cabane_, happy in their little store of silver coins. And now the tide has flowed in, up to the end of the weirs, the scattered passengers are collected on board, and the steamer, with screw revolving once more, glides swiftly out of Ha-Ha Bay, leaving behind all its rugged beauty and its primitive, secluded life; and turns up another bend of the fiord, towards the great hill curves that bound the vista. Point after point, bend after bend, succeed each other in bewildering succession, while the travellers feel once more how distinct is the stern sublimity of the Saguenay from the grand beauty of the St. Lawrence. The great, bare splintered crags that rear their grey, furrowed brows to the sky, the endless succession of pine-crested hills, craggy points, dark, deep gorges, and weather-worn and lichen-scarred rocks, contorted by fire and water into every conceivable form, seemed almost oppressive, at last, in their almost unbroken savage wilderness. Here and there green uplands and stretches of softer forest verdure, or sheltered valleys, with little settlements nestling in their laps, or clinging to the sheltering rocks, introduce a gentler tone; but the general impression is one of savage sterility, scarred by the traces of devastation on the fire-swept hills, bristling with dark tree skeletons, and by the sullen darkness of the stream itself. And now and then the sky grew grey, too, as a sudden squall swept down the gorge; and it was easy to associate with the wild mountain fiord the strange tales told to the early explorers, and to see in imagination the fur-laden canoes, with their silent, dusky paddlers wending their way down the rocky _cañon_, which the river seems to have hewn for itself with such difficulty, from the inaccessible solitudes behind, through the sea of rocks between these and the St. Lawrence. As they steamed onward towards Chicoutimi, however, which is the real head of the bay, the scenery becomes softer in type, and, amid the rolling uplands, cluster little white villages, each with its guardian church. Chicoutimi, with its fine stone church on the hill, and its sawmill and lumber-yard below, comes into view, as they round one of the numberless points, a place of some consequence in this lumbering country. The steamer stops at the pier, and the little band of _religieuses_ disembark and wend their way to the convent on the hill, while May and Flora watch their black-robed figures and vainly speculate on their past and their future, wondering what routine of duties awaits them here, and whether they are of the same heroic fibre with those who, two hundred years ago, crossed the stormy ocean into exile in this wilderness, in order to nurse sick Indians and teach Indian children their _Pater-Noster_. As the steamer left Chicoutimi behind, Hugh Macnab and Mr. Winthrop discovered two or three half-breed _voyageurs_, coming down with the luggage, boats, etc., of a party of gentlemen who had been canoeing among the rocks and rapids of the "Grand Discharge" of the Saguenay, in the comparatively untrodden wilds into which no steamer can penetrate, and tracing the dark waters up to their source in Lake St. John. The swarthy good-humored boatmen were eagerly questioned and cross-questioned by the three young men, till it became clear, to the observant Kate, at least, that they were planning some private excursion of their own, not in the original programme of their party, though at present they all observed an obstinate silence as to any such idea. Meantime, they all sat dreamily watching the long procession of headland, rock, and hill,--a silver thread of cascade occasionally trickling down the dark precipices, wondering at the variety and effect produced with such apparent sameness of material. But, behold! a great grey Titan looms up behind a distant headland, seeming to pierce the sky; and the passengers, English, American and Canadian, begin to crowd the forward deck, with eager outlook. A little farther, and the vast breadth and height of Cape Eternity uprears its mighty mass overhead,--its summit seeming lost in the sky, across which great clouds are rapidly drifting. May thought it had looked even grander in the moonlight, which seemed to expand it into infinity; but Hugh and Mr. Winthrop declared that to them it was no less imposing in the clear light of day, which gave it the strength and force of reality. Scarcely had they ceased gazing in fascination at its mighty mass, when Kate, pointing triumphantly before them, drew their attention to the still grander headland, the mighty triple profile of Cape Trinity. And now, just above their heads, as it seemed, that sublime rock was unfolding its triple unity, both vertical and lateral, each way divided into three distinct heads; a far more impressive individuality, they all agreed, than the sister cape. Again came that curious optical illusion of the great precipice towering immediately overhead in close proximity to the boat,--a delusion only dispelled with much difficulty after seeing that the pebbles which the passengers amused themselves by throwing at it, fell invariably a long way short of their aim. And a feeling of soul-subduing awe stole over May, as she threw back her head, and tried to scan the entire face of those lofty summits which seemed to rear their grey, weather-beaten heads into the very empyrean! Here and there, a stray bit of vegetation clung with difficulty to a cleft in the rock, seeming to emphasize its ruggedness and stern majesty. But, as Hugh observed, and all agreed, the white statue of the Virgin, placed, by Roman Catholic piety, in a niche of the crag seemed an impertinence, even from the broadest point of view, for surely they felt that grand Mount Horeb, symbol of Divine Majesty, should have been profaned by no mortal image. Nevertheless, when the steamer slackened speed, just under the precipice, and the sailors in solemn cadence chanted an "Ave Maria," there was a pathetic earnestness and an antique, old-world air about the proceeding which was very impressive. What Hugh himself thought of the grand, wonderful bit of nature's architecture, found its way to paper in the course of the afternoon, the lines taking shape in his mind as the too swiftly receding lines of Cape Trinity faded away into dim remoteness, when it seemed to all the party that the central figure, the chief interest of the Saguenay, had passed out of the scene. And, after the long strain of attention,--the effort to lose none of the ever-changing grandeur of the shifting panorama,--it was almost a relief when the showery clouds that had gathered so grandly about Cape Trinity, deepened into a leaden grey; and mist and rain began to blot out all save the nearest hills. As they sat watching in somewhat sombre mood the silent procession of mist-laden hills, with here and there a white thread of waterfall trickling down their sides, and the white whales and porpoises splashing in the dark stream below,--the only sign of life in all the great solitude, while an occasional gleam of sunshine, from an opening cloud, threw a golden gleam to relieve the stern aspect of the scene, Hugh was called on for a reading from a volume into which he had been dipping during the day. It was the copy of Charles Sangster's poems, which he had procured in Montreal, and he willingly gave them a few stanzas from the poet's description of the Saguenay;--the following lines, in particular, seeming to express the very spirit of the scenery about them:-- "In golden volumes rolls the blessed light Along the sterile mountains. Pile on pile The granite masses rise to left and right;-- Bald, stately bluffs that never wear a smile; Where vegetation fails to reconcile The parched shrubbery and stunted trees To the stern mercies of the flinty soil. And we must pass a thousand bluffs like these, Within whose breasts are locked a myriad mysteries. "Dreaming of the old years, before they rose, Triumphant from the deep, whose waters rolled Above their solemn and unknown repose; Dreaming of that bright morning, when, of old, Beyond the red man's memory, they told The secrets of the Ages to the sun, That smiled upon them from his throne of gold,-- Dreaming of the bright stars and loving moon, That first shone on them from the night's impressive noon; "--Dreaming of the long ages that have passed Since then, and with them that diminished race Whose birchen fleets those inky waters glassed, As they swept o'er them with the wind's swift pace. Of their wild legends scarce remains a trace; Thou hold'st the myriad secrets in thy brain, Oh stately bluffs! as well seek to efface The light of the bless'd stars, as to obtain From thy sealed, granite lips, tradition or refrain!" "That is striking poetry," said Mr. Winthrop. "The author deserves to be better known! But the wild legends of the past have not entirely passed away. Now and then, one comes across an old legend or story among a set of fellows like our _voyageur_ friends there." "Yes," said Hugh, "that is one reason why I should like to explore the wilds about Lake St. John! I think one might pick up from our guides some old stories that would be interesting. But I was reading, this morning, a pathetic little legend which is said to be still cherished among the Montagnais Indians, concerning one of the pious Jesuit Fathers, who was wont long ago to minister in that little grey church at Tadousac." "Oh, do tell it to us!" said Kate and Nellie, in a breath; and Hugh readily complied, telling the tale, in substance as follows: "One of the most benignant and beloved of these pioneer missionaries was Père La Brosse, the last of the old Jesuit Fathers of Tadousac, and the story of his 'Passing' reads almost like a French-Indian version of the 'Passing of Arthur.' Strange, how that wistful, pathetic interest, clustering round the death of the good and gentle and strong, crops up everywhere, among all sorts and conditions of men! "Well, the story runs, that, at the close of an April day, spent as usual in fulfilling the duties of his pastoral office among his Indian converts, the venerable Father had spent the evening in cheerful converse with some of the French officers of the post. As he rose to leave them, to their amazement he solemnly bade them a last adieu, telling them that, at midnight, he would be a corpse, and at that hour the chapel bell would toll for his passing soul. He charged them not to touch his body, but to go at once to the lower end of the Ile aux Coudres, which, you know, we passed yesterday, many miles up the St. Lawrence, and bring thence Messire Compain, whom they would find awaiting them, and who would wrap him in his shroud and lay him in his grave. They were to carry out his bidding, regardless of what the weather might be, and he would answer for their safety. The astonished and awe-stricken party of rough traders and Indians kept anxious vigil, till, at midnight, the chapel bell began to toll. Startled by the solemn sound at dead of night, they all rushed tremblingly into the church. There, as he had foretold, they found Père La Brosse, lying prostrate before the altar, his hands joined in prayer, and the seal of death on his tranquil face. With awe-struck sorrow, they watched for dawn, that they might fulfil the father's last command. With sunrise, arose an April gale, but trusting to the promise of one who had won their unfaltering trust, four brave men set out on their appointed errand, in a fragile canoe, breasting the big rolling waves, which, however, seemed to open a passage for the frail bark, and, in a marvellously short time, they had reached Ile aux Coudres; and there, as Père La Brosse had said, sat Père Compain on the rocks, breviary in hand, ready to accompany them back to do the last offices for the dead. He, too, had received a mysterious warning. The night before, his chapel bell had tolled at midnight for a passing soul, and a voice had told him what had happened and what he was expected to do. And it said, moreover, that in all the Missions where Père La Brosse had served the chapel bells tolled at the moment of his death." "Well!" exclaimed Mr. Winthrop, "that is a story that _ought_ to be true, _ben trovato_, at least, as the Italians say, if we only had faith enough. One could almost find it in one's heart to believe it here, in these wild solitudes, even in this degenerate, sceptical age!" "Now, Hugh," observed Kate, "why shouldn't _you_ write a '_Mort de Père La Brosse_' _à la_ Tennyson? I'm sure it would make a lovely poem." "Perhaps he will, by and by," said Flora, a little mischievously. "Meantime, I found in a book of his this sonnet on Cape Trinity. I was sure he was composing something of the kind!" "Oh, that's not fair!" said Hugh. "That's not revised yet." But there was an unanimous demand for the reading of it, and under protest, Hugh allowed Flora to read it. "Thou weather-beaten watchman, grim and grey, Towering majestic, with thy regal brow, O'er all the thronging hills that seem to bow In humble homage, near and far away;-- Even thy great consort seems to own thy sway, In her calm grandeur, scarce less grand than thou Rising, star-crowned, from the dark world below, So lonely in thy might and majesty! Thy rugged, storm-scarred forehead to the blast Thou barest,--all unscreened thy Titan form, Radiant in sunset, dark in winter storm, So thou hast stood, through countless ages past, What comes or goes, it matters not to thee, Serene, self-poised in triple unity!" As she finished reading the lines, a rift in the breaking clouds let a rich gleam of sunset through, and they caught a brief glimpse of a distant lofty summit, probably Cape Trinity, glowing out in crimson glory, like a great garnet, set amid the grey mountain curves. They all watched it silently, till it passed out of sight in the windings of the stream. It was a sight to carry away as "a joy forever,"--a fitting parting gleam of the grandeur of the Saguenay. And swiftly it all fades from sight as the veil of twilight falls once more about them, softening the hard outlines of the iron hills into cloud-like phantasms, while the twinkling lights of Tadousac again gleam out from the shaggy cliffs, soon again to be left behind, as they pass out of the rocky _embouchure_, under the starlight, into the wide reach of the St. Lawrence and cross its wide expanse to the distant shore, where they stop at length at the long-stretching pier of Rivière-du-Loup. This time they disembark, and are soon driving rapidly along the two mile sweep of curving road, with a late gibbous moon rising above the trees, as they approach the straggling environs of Fraserville. They are speedily installed in a comfortable little French inn, with a plain but comfortable supper before them, and a lively group of French Canadians chattering gayly around them in their rapid patois. As it happens, these prove to be a party of musicians, whose music, vocal and instrumental, and gay little French Canadian songs serenade them till irresistible sleep closes eyes more weary with sight-seeing than their owners had before realized. No one was up very early next morning, for human nature cannot stand perpetual motion. But, as the day was fine, though cool, a carriage was ordered immediately after breakfast and the whole party were once more _en route_, driving over a straight smooth road to the old Rivière-du-Loup, and thence to the noble waterfall, whose wild picturesque beauty seems close to the little town. Leaving the carriages, they all walked on by a winding path, till they came to a grassy spur of the slope, jutting out, as it seemed, rather more than half down, close to one side of the fall. Here, though they could not see the whole extent of the cascade, they could get an impressive view of its volume and beauty, as it came thundering down the dark grey height, clad with dusky pines; so that, looking up to the crest of foliage above, it seemed to come thundering down in snowy spray and foam, out of the very bosom of the primeval forest. To May it seemed almost as grand as _Montmorency_, though far short of it in height. And, like Montmorency, it vividly brought back the memory of incomparable Niagara. The spell of the falling water,--"falling forever and aye,"--had its usual influence on her, and she sat dreaming there, scarcely conscious of herself or the flight of time, while the rest of the party wandered about, surveying the waterfall from other points of view. But at last she was aroused from her reverie by Hugh, who came, despatched by Kate, in quest of her, to bring her down to the foot of the Fall where the others were resting, and where she could see it, as it were, _en masse_. She lingered a moment, however, reluctant to leave the charming little nook. "See!" she said to Hugh, as she rose to accompany him down,--"look at those exquisite little harebells, growing so peacefully out of that green moss under the very spray of this rush of foaming water." Hugh smiled as he looked down at the fragile flower, cradled, as it were, in the midst of the turbulent commotion. He stooped over and picked two of the drooping blossoms carefully, handing one to May, while he studied the other, in its graceful, delicate beauty. "It is an embodied poem!" he exclaimed, as they turned slowly away. "Then, won't you write out the poem it embodies, for the rest of us to read?" said May, somewhat timidly, and surprised at her own temerity. "If I can, I will," he replied, frankly. "It doesn't always follow, because one may _see_ an embodied poem, that one can translate it into verse!" At the foot of the Falls, they all sat for an hour or two, enjoying the comprehensive, though somewhat less impressive view of the whole fall, as it came rushing down the dark gorge, in sheets of silvery foam and clouds of snowy spray. And here, in a grassy nook, under some trees, they sat for some time watching the Falls, Flora declaring that it reminded her of some of their finest Scottish waterfalls and also of one or two she had seen in Switzerland. Before they left their quiet halting place, Hugh, who had been sitting very silent for some time, handed quietly to May, a leaf from his note-book, on which, with much satisfaction, she read the following lines:-- "Where the great, thundering cataract tosses high Its crest of foam, 'mid thunders deep and dread, A tiny harebell, from its mossy bed, Smiles, softly blue, to the blue summer sky, And the great roaring flood that rages by, In sheets of foam on the grey rocks outspread But sheds a tender dew upon its head. --Emblem of hearts whose gentle purity, Seeks only heaven in this rude earth of ours; Dwelling in safety 'mid the roar and din Of human passion, as in sheltered bowers; Growing in beauty, 'mid turmoil and sin, --Keeping the hue of heaven, like the flowers, Because they keep the hue of heaven within!" "Oh," exclaimed May, looking up from its perusal, "_that_ is almost just what I was thinking about it, myself, only I couldn't put it into words like that!" "I'm glad I happened to catch your thought," he replied. "Keep the lines for yourself, if you care for them, in memory of this pleasant day." "We've had so many pleasant days!" said May,--wistfully,--for she felt that they were fast drawing to a close. And if the young men really took that canoe trip up the Saguenay, their party would be divided during the sojourn at Murray Bay,--their last halting place. But she felt that she could never lose the memory of that delightful journey, and all its enjoyments. After going back to the hotel for an early dinner, they ordered the carriages again and drove in the soft afternoon sunshine,--now beginning to assume a slightly autumnal air, over the low, level stretch of sandy road, leading through skirting spruce and cedar, to the long straggling settlement of Cacouna, mainly composed of summer cottages, with its hotels and little church. Most of the cottages are scattered along a high sloping bank, just above the sea-like river, where the bathing, albeit lacking the surf, is almost as good as in the open sea. The Armstrongs had friends residing in Cacouna for the summer, and the party drove directly to their cottage, where they met with a most cordial welcome, were shown all the sights of the vicinity, and finally regaled with "afternoon tea" on the veranda, from whence they enjoyed one of the grand sunsets for which Cacouna is famous, the bold hills on the north shore, here etherealized by distance,--reflecting the glory of the rich sunset sky in the most exquisite tones of purple and rose. Next morning, the little party took an early train from Rivière-du-Loup, on the Intercolonial Railway, to see the remainder of the river shore as far as Bic, where the Gulf may almost be said to begin, and the river end. It was a charming ride along the high land a little back from the river, yet still occasionally in sight of it, with the grand hills of the north shore looking cloud-like and remote, as they came into view of the beautiful bay of Bic, surrounded by its noble hills, with its picturesque coves, its level beach, and its wide flats, studded with black rocks. Away in the distance, beyond the tall bluffs which guard the mouth of the bay, and the islands which also protect its harbor, lay the deep blue wooded island of Bic, and beyond that, again, the far distant north shore, looking like a cloud of mist on the horizon. Here they had to stop, for, beyond that, the railway leaves the river to wind its way through the ravines of Métis, and then over the hills to the famous valley of the Matapedia, whose charms, fascinating as they are, were not for the travelers--on this journey at least. They spent a few hours pleasantly at Bic, strolling through its village, set on a plateau high above the beach, or wandering over the flats, where two rivers sluggishly find the end of their journey, and gathering seaweeds among the little pools and rocks, which reminded the Scotch cousins so strongly of their own seaside home. They climbed up some of the gentler slopes of the high rugged hills, to get a still wider view, and to feel the bracing salt breath of the sea come sweeping up the river, while Kate described the beauties of Gaspé, peninsula and basin, and the wonderful Percé rock, which she had once visited on a voyage down the Gulf; and Mr. Winthrop told them of a grim old tradition of the island of Bic,--of a sort of Indian edition of the massacre of Glencoe, when a branch of the fierce Iroquois had caught a comparatively helpless band of Micmacs with many women and children, in a cave, and had smoked them out, to meet death if they escaped it within. But they had now reached the eastern-most limit of their progress--still leaving, as Hugh said, some "Yarrow unvisited." They took the returning afternoon train back to Rivière-du-Loup, for their course must now be "Westward-Ho!" At Rivière-du-Loup, they waited for the Saguenay boat, and re-embarked for Murray Bay, which they reached about midnight, landing at the high pier under the pale ghostly light of the waning moon, which gave a strange unreal look to the houses on the shore, and especially to the strangely shapen rock, which, rising solitary near the point, gives it its name of "Point Au Pic" (or Pique). There were an abundance of _calèches_ in waiting, and the travellers distributed themselves among these, and were soon driven along the straggling village street to their destination,--the "Central Hotel," chosen by Kate on account of its delightful view. But the "Central" was too full for so large a party, as the landlord declared with many regrets,--so the ladies were accommodated very comfortably at the "Warren House," next door, while the young men were put up temporarily at the "Central" as they intended leaving on their canoe trip very early in the week. May had been feeling that, since this trip began, she had had so many delightful impressions, that she could scarcely find room for any more. But the first sight of the grand vista of noble hills that enfold Murray Bay, as it were, in their embrace, gleaming out under snowy mists, in the fair breezy morning, made her feel that she had by no means lost the receptive power, and that she had much to see and admire yet. It was a peaceful Sunday morning, and a Sabbath rest seemed to enwrap the blue hills that encompassed the long bay, receding in lovely curves and peaks behind each other, till they were lost in a soft vagueness of distance. Just about the middle of the long curve of the bay, and showing whitely against a background of deep green woods, a white church stood out as a sort of centre to the little brown French village that clustered about it on both sides of the Murray River. Below the bridge stretched long brown sands with a strip of blue water in the middle, and a three-masted vessel lying stranded by the receding tide;--while just across the bay, narrowed by the low tide, rose the long bold headland of Cap à l'Aigle, jutting far out into the wide blue expanse of the St. Lawrence, bounded on the southern shore by a wavy line of soft blue and purple hills, glistening with silvery specks, which were, in reality, distant French villages. It was a feast to the eye, a refreshing to the whole being, simply to sit there and take in the lovely vista. May, for one, was glad that it was Sunday, and that, therefore, there could be no excursions, but that she could sit quietly there as long as she liked,--dreaming or thinking, or reading a little of the old Scripture poetry about the "Everlasting hills;"--but ever and anon looking up to see the realization of words which had formerly left on her mind a rather vague impression of their meaning. Nothing which she had seen seemed to her so satisfying to her ideal of beauty. Niagara had its own solitary overpowering grandeur, but no surrounding scenery. The Saguenay hills were too stern in their solemn splendor. At Quebec, the view seemed almost too wide, too complex; but this charming valley, with its brown-beached blue bay, nestling amongst these richly wooded hills, with rank after rank of mountain tops,--as they seemed to her, fading away into the distant blue, seemed to have all the unity and beauty of a well-composed picture, and to satisfy her imagination without her knowing why. Flora was in an ecstasy. The scene reminded her strongly of some of her own Highland glens; and Hugh and she were soon eagerly comparing it with one after another of their favorite resorts,--tracing its points both of resemblance and of dissimilarity. The young men of the party had taken an early bath, and pronounced the water very bracing indeed, but also decidedly cold--too cold, they thought, for the girls to attempt; notwithstanding which, however, Kate and Flora announced their intention of trying it next day. At eleven they all went to church at a neat little chapel close by, built for the use of the Protestant visitors, and used alternately for an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian service, an instance of brotherly unity which might be indefinitely extended. To Flora's great satisfaction, (for she was a staunch little Scottish churchwoman,) the service that day happened to be the Presbyterian one--the first time, she observed, that she had had the pleasure of attending her own service since she had left her native land. To Hugh it did not matter, she observed, for he liked one just as well as another, to which he replied that he was by no means so superior to the power of association, which must, in most cases, after all, determine our ecclesiastical preferences. As there was no evening service, an evening stroll in Nature's great temple around them was proposed instead, for which the young people were ready enough after the long, quiet day of rest. Mrs. Sandford, who had not yet recovered from the fatigue of so incessant travelling, preferring to sit on the veranda with her book,--the latter taking the place of her knitting-needles, which lately had had an unusual respite. Nellie Armstrong, however, who had a headache, elected to stay with her, so the rest started, perhaps all the more satisfied, pairing off naturally--Mr. Winthrop, of course, with Kate; Jack Armstrong with Flora; while Hugh and May were left as inevitable companions. May, as on some similar occasions, felt at first slightly uncomfortable; but this feeling soon wore off, for Hugh and she had become excellent comrades, and now found many subjects for conversation; and she felt that he had by this time accepted Mr. Winthrop as a permanent factor in the situation, and was determined to make the best of it. And May in her heart esteemed him all the more for the cheerfulness with which he had adapted himself to the inevitable! They walked, by a rambling footpath, along the sandy, reedy shore of the bay, until they had at length to betake themselves to the ordinary road, striking it close to a picturesque old mill, with a little waterfall plashing over the moss-grown old waterwheel, just as she had so often seen it in pictures of English scenery. They reached the French village of Murray Bay, and passed close to the white church which had made the centre of the picture in the distance, and the pretty little _Presbytère_, with its shady garden-walks overlooking the river, on one of which May discerned a black-cassocked figure, in whom she immediately conjured up a modern Père La Brosse. Then on, past the little brown French houses, with their steep roofs and balconies, and tidy, if bare, exteriors,--each one apparently possessing its great wooden cupboard, and large box stove for the cold winter days. Crossing the bridge over the Murray, from which there was a lovely view up the valley, into the heart of the hills, they held on their way up the wooded slope beyond, past a little memorial chapel under the shadowing pines, which interested the girls so much that they declared they must get the key and see the interior some day; and then onward by an open, breezy bit of road, skirting on one side undulating woods, gilded by slanting sunlight, and on the other affording glimpses of pleasant manorial residences between them and the river. And then they came out on the high table-land of the "_Cap_," from whence they could see the wide river expanse, now taking on soft hues of rose, and purple, and opal, and the far distant hills beyond, also glorified by the sunset. But May's steps had begun to flag a little, and her cheek to grow rather pale, and Hugh said that he was sure she was tired, and proposed that they should go no farther, but take a rest until the others returned. May looked rather wistfully at Kate and Flora, still stepping on, evidently unwearied. But although much stronger than when she had left home, May was not so strong, yet, as the other two, and it was of no use to pretend that she was not very tired. "Let us walk back to that pine-crested bluff," said Hugh. "There we can sit quite comfortably till the others come back." They strolled back very slowly, and it occurred to May, _à propos_ of her own fatigue, how much more Hugh could stand than he could have done a month ago; and how seldom even "Aunt Bella" now worried him with well-meant exhortations to take extra care. The outdoor life of the past weeks had certainly done wonders for this sunburnt, active young man, with elastic step and firm tread, who seemed so different a being from the pale and somewhat languid stranger to whom she had been first introduced. But she soon forgot everything else in the fair scene that lay at their feet, half screened by the pine boughs that drooped above them; for no fairer view had greeted her during the whole journey. Opposite, across the blue bay below them, lay Point au Pic, with its pier and its monumental rock, its straggling cottages, and the long, hilly, wooded ridge that swept round the corner of the bay on the other side. To their left lay the broad, sunset-flushed river, with the wavy line of delicate hues beyond it. The two watched the lovely glow of color for some time in silence. At last, when the scene was swiftly taking on the grayness of evening, Hugh remarked: "How many lovely evenings we have seen! And this seems almost the loveliest of all." "Yes. It almost makes one sad to think that they are nearly all past,"--she replied, with a little wistful sigh. "I don't know that it _should_, however," replied Hugh. "We can't lose their memories and their influences. _That_ seems to become part of our being, and we shall always be the richer for it. You know 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever.' Do you know," he continued, after a pause, as May did not reply, "this great river on which we have been wandering so long, seems to me to present a very fair parable of human life. It comes, like Wordsworth's version of our infancy, out of the mysterious majesty of Niagara, and that great sea-like lake. Then it has its tranquil sunny morning amid the lovely mazes of the Thousand Islands, which, like ourselves, it seems reluctant to forsake, for the more work-a-day rural stretch below. Then comes the strenuous time of conflict,--the '_sturm und drang_' period of the rapids, and then the calm strength, the gradual expansion, the growing dignity of a noble life, till at last we have this exquisite sunset, glorifying a river that is swiftly passing on, to lose itself in the great 'silent sea,' symbolizing the beauty of the same rich and noble life, passing away from its old familiar shores to lose itself in the boundlessness of eternity." "I think you have got material for another poem there," May observed, smiling, though touched by the emotion which seemed to have carried him on unconsciously. She and Hugh had got into the way of talking about his literary endeavors. There was another pause, and then Hugh looked up from his note-book, into which he had been looking. "Do you recollect," he asked, "a lovely morning we had, just after coming to Sumach Lodge?" "Yes," replied May, promptly, "the morning you rowed me over to that pretty little island, when the river was so calm, and it all looked so lovely." "And I wrote some verses there, which I should like to read to you, to see how you like them. May I?" May looked a little perplexed, for she had not forgotten that he had seemed anxious that she should _not_ see them, _then_, and with her _idée fixé_ of his hopeless passion for Kate--she had connected those verses in some way with that imaginary romance. However, she listened with great interest to his low toned reading: In gleam of pale, translucent amber woke The perfect August day, Through rose-flushed bars of pearl and opal broke The sunlight's golden way. Serenely the placid river seemed to flow In tide of amethyst, Save where it rippled o'er the sands below, And granite boulders kissed; The heavy woodland masses hung unstirred In languorous slumber deep, While, from their green recesses, one small bird Piped to her brood--asleep. The clustering lichens wore a tenderer tint, The rocks a warmer glow; The emerald dewdrops, in the sunbeam's glint, Gemmed the rich moss below. Our fairy shallop idly stranded lay, Half mirrored in the stream; Wild roses drooped above the tiny bay, Ethereal as a dream. You sat upon your rock, a woodland queen, As on a granite throne; All that still world of loveliness serene Held but us twain alone. Nay! But there seemed another presence there Beneath, around, above; It breathed a poem through the crystal air, Its name was _Love_!" May listened to the poem with a rather bewildered feeling: it was so different from what she had expected. But gradually the images suggested by it took possession of her mind to the exclusion of other thoughts, and she scarcely noticed the closing lines, in the pleasure which it gave her to have that lovely morning so vividly recalled. But Hugh seemed to look for more than the pleasure she frankly expressed. He was silent for a few moments, then said in a very low tone, looking straight into her eyes, "I think that what brought the poem was my finding out, then, _that I loved you_!" May was utterly taken by surprise, which indeed, overpowered every other feeling. She had not a word to say. Hugh saw how unprepared she had been for his avowal. Presently she managed to stammer out, "I thought it was--Kate!" "I _know_ you did, at first," he replied, "but I thought you must have known better, _now_! I haven't acted very much like a jealous lover, have I, since Mr. Winthrop appeared on the scene? And any one could see how that was going to turn out. No, May, I'm sure I've tried to make you understand!" But May still sat silent, in a sort of dazed bewilderment. At last, the ludicrous aspect of the mistake--all her sincere, misplaced sympathy with Hugh in troubles which were entirely of her own imagining, struck her so vividly that she laughed outright, though her laugh had a rather hysterical note in it, and she felt that it was most inappropriate to so serious a crisis. But the personal aspect of the affair, she could not yet at all take in. Hugh laughed a little, too, reading her thoughts; but presently he said gravely enough: "Well, May, now that the mistake is cleared up, you're not going to say you can't care for me! Why should we not travel down the river of life together? I mean down the river to the sea,"--he added pleadingly. "Oh, Mr. Macnab," she replied, at last, "it is so strange to me! I don't seem able to realize it. And I have never thought of you in that way." "Well, dear," he said, gently, "I won't hurry you; but you and I are very good friends, I think, which is an excellent beginning, and I don't see why we couldn't be something _more_. But take plenty of time to find out! I'll promise to be patient meantime. Only, as I am going away to-morrow for a few days, I wanted to try my fate, at least, and make sure that you knew my feelings before I left--for one never knows _what_ may turn up." May's face changed when he spoke of the approaching parting, which was only, of course, the prelude to one of much longer duration, since she herself must return home as soon as the party reached Toronto, on its homeward journey. And the thought gave her a sharp pang which she could not ignore. Still, she was not sorry to hear the voices of the others not far off, and to know that this rather embarrassing _tête-à-tête_ was nearly over. Hugh detained her a moment, however. "I won't press you any farther now," he said; "only promise me that you will think about it while I am gone, and perhaps you may be able to answer me as I wish, when I come back." May readily promised this,--glad to have a little time to grow familiar with an idea which had seemed so strange to her at first. The rest of the walk was very quiet,--Hugh talking about indifferent things, while she found it difficult to keep up conversation at all. Next morning it was decided that, as it was too fine a morning to lose, where there was so much to see, the whole party should drive down to the Falls of the Fraser, taking luncheon with them, that so they might not have to hurry back until the time when the three young men should have to tear themselves away from the society which, to say the truth, they were all reluctant to leave,--in order to take the steamer down again to Tadousac for the projected canoe trip on the upper Saguenay, and so on to the wilds about Lake St. John. As they were to go in _calèches_, however, Mrs. Sandford begged off, and Nellie Armstrong was packed into a _calèche_ with her brother and Flora Macnab--Jack, who was familiar with the vehicle, having volunteered to act as charioteer. It was a charming drive on such a charming day,--the light cloud-shadows chasing each other over the hills, and causing bewitching effects of light and shade on the distant hills. Their course lay along the Murray River for some distance, past the bridge and village, then back among the hills beyond, up and down short hills, so abrupt that the descent was often like to jerk the riders off the little high seats; but Jack assured them all, in his cheery voice, that the _calèche_ was at once the easiest and the safest vehicle for these hills, and that every French-Canadian pony knew just how to behave on such roads, if only his driver gave him fair play. And the French drivers of the other _calèches_ smiled and declared that it was "shoost as de shentleman said." Kate and Mr. Winthrop had of course paired off, so that Hugh and May went together, as a matter of course; but Hugh abstained from the slightest reference of any kind to their conversation of the previous evening, for which May felt duly grateful; for as yet his declaration seemed to her an unreal dream, and she did not like to think about it, or what seemed to her, a mortifying mistake. As they left the road altogether, and struck across fields with the utmost recklessness about taking down fences, and driving over trackless meadows, they could hear the distant murmur of a waterfall, and soon they came in sight of a small river winding its way to the gorge, into which it speedily disappeared. Then they dismounted from their _calèches_, and sought a point of view from which they could best see this lovely waterfall, which rushes down, not in one sheer descent, but in several leaps, over the brown rocks; so that they could stand, as it were, part of the way down, looking up to the topmost fall, and also far down below them, where, at the foot of it, there lay a pretty green, level point, on which cows were browsing under some noble trees--as charming a pastoral picture as could be found. Flora took out her sketch-book and color-box, and set to work diligently to make a few rough sketches from the most favorable points, Jack willingly offering his services in carrying her appliances from place to place, and watching the progress of the sketches with an intensity of interest which was slightly embarrassing to the artist and somewhat amusing to Nellie, who declared, to Jack's indignation, that she had never known before that he took so much interest in artistic pursuits. Jack, however, was a most amiable critic, ready to admire generously all the work of Flora's nimble fingers, each sketch being, in his opinion, "awfully pretty;--you'd know it anywhere!" Meantime the rest of the party strolled about, finding out new points of view, and exploring pretty nooks, till it was time to set out the simple luncheon of sandwiches, cold fowl, coffee, and blueberry pie, after the due discussion of which it was necessary to set out at once on the return trip--in the order in which they had come. When they drove up to the hotel they were met by the intelligence that the Quebec steamer was in sight, and that they must drive down to the pier at once. The young men's valises were quickly thrown into the _calèches_, and they all drove to the pier, to find the big white steamboat just approaching the point. There was a hurried and, truth to tell, a reluctant leave-taking on the part of the intending _voyageurs_, who declared that they would be sure to be back in about a week; and then the steamer gave her parting whistle and they were off, their waving hats and handkerchiefs being soon lost in the distance. Hugh had just said to May, in a low tone, at parting,--keeping her hand for a few seconds closely pressed in his own, "Don't forget your promise--or me--while I am gone," and May had replied only by a smile, from which, perhaps, tears were not very far away. At all events, there was a strange, inexplicable _ache_ in her heart, as the four girls walked slowly back to the hotel, a trifle less merrily than was their wont. It was curious indeed, what a blank there seemed to be, now that three out of their number were gone, though no one except Mrs. Sandford and Nellie were willing to admit it in words. As for May, she could not help feeling that she missed Hugh, in particular, at every turn! His low-toned voice and slightly Celtic accentuation seemed to be perpetually in her ear, and every particular charm of the landscape seemed to recall his always quick appreciation of such beauty. Some occasion on which she wanted to appeal to him for sympathy or appreciation was constantly turning up; and she found herself perpetually laying up a stock of things about which she wanted to talk to him, when he should return. She had no idea how much he had gradually become a part of her life, and how important his ever-ready sympathy had come to be, until the lack of that sympathy made itself so strongly felt. If she had not been so simply and dreamily romantic, so free from egoistic self-consciousness, she would never have made the mistake she had done, and even now there was a constant struggle between the instincts of her heart and the power of the firmly-rooted impression. Kate, who had divined the real state of the case, but had been afraid to enlighten her cousin too suddenly, now ventured on a little good-humored chaffing; but with great and praiseworthy caution. Seeing that May sensitively shrank from the subject, she soon desisted. Whatever Kate's own sense of loss may have been in the absence of Mr. Winthrop, she was not the sort of girl to let the absence of the three young men take away all the zest of the pleasure of Murray Bay. She constituted herself the leader of the little party, and the four girls and Mrs. Sandford had what they all voted as a "very quiet, pleasant time," in which they took things easily and enjoyed themselves just as the fancy seized them. They strolled about the beach in the sunny mornings, while Flora sketched the vista of distant hills, and a gentle inquisitive French Canadian would come up to look respectfully at the sketch of "Mademoiselle," and to express his admiration of "the _facilité_" with which she accomplished the task of coloring, evidently an inscrutable mystery to him, though he declared that he could draw "in _crayons_." Kate and Flora occasionally tried a dip into the cold waters of the bay, but their experience was not sufficiently encouraging to tempt the other two, and Mrs. Sandford shook her head, and declared that she considered it unsafe for any of them. But they enjoyed watching the sturdy children who daily rushed in for a few moments and then came out with skins as red as lobsters, laughing, and rosy, and ready for any number of races on the beach afterwards. They went to inspect the neighboring "Fresh Air" establishment, originated by a benevolent lady of Montreal, and maintained by private beneficence, where a number of convalescents, old and young, received without cost, the benefit of the pure bracing air and lovely scenery, a true and refreshing instance of Christian charity. They explored over and over again, the road leading past the long strips of farm and pasture land which ran up the hill that overhung it, and the little French farmhouses, with the curious clay ovens which stood near them, but quite detached, and sometimes on the other side of the road, and which Flora was so delighted to see and sketch; and the long straggling French village, and the little chapel on the hill, which was so disappointing on a near acquaintance. They scraped acquaintance with the simple French folk and talked to the polite village children whom they met, so respectful in their address, and whom Flora delighted by including some of them in a sketch from the bridge. They wandered down the road to the pier, between the rows of summer cottages, and roamed about the pretty grounds of the "Lorne House," where some old friends of Kate's were staying, and lounged away an hour or so, inspecting the little Indian huts and booths at the pier, and the various wares therein displayed, and the dark impassive faces of the Indian vendors, and purchased all manner of little souvenirs, toy canoes, snowshoes, toboggans, birch-bark napkin rings and other pretty trifles, as presents for the people at home; while Flora sketched the curiously shaped rock which has so often stood for its picture. Or they strolled up the hillside among the fragrant spruce and cedar, and enjoyed the charming views from thence of Cap-à-l'Aigle and the river and bay, and examined the primitive little wooden aqueducts that led the water from springs on the hill, to the houses down below. Everything was as quaint and primitive as Normandy, Flora declared, except only the manners and dress of the summer visitors! And sometimes they went on little canoe parties with those friends of Kate's at the "Lorne House,"--up the winding Murray River under the bridge, from which Flora took a pretty sketch, and on for some distance farther, picking their way among the brown shallows and stones which narrowed the navigable water of the stream. Or they would drive up the solitary Quebec road, among its aromatic pine woods, and past its little clearings, with their patches of tobacco and maize and little log cabins, and the peculiar exhilarating aroma of the mountain air;--or by another pretty road to the picturesque cascade of "Les Trous" beside which they took their luncheon, and spent the best part of an afternoon. And so the days went quickly by--happily enough, and on Saturday, May found herself realizing that the travellers would very soon be back. Half a dozen other expeditions were still reserved for the last few days, after the party should be reunited, before they should leave for the West. But these plans, like many other human projects, were not destined to be realized. For Monday morning brought May a letter, containing an unexpected summons to return home at once, as her father and mother were called away by the illness of a relative, and her presence as eldest daughter was needed at home. Dearly as May loved her home and ready as she was to comply with and obey the summons, this hastening of her departure from Murray Bay was a great disappointment, in more ways than one. There was, however, no boat before Tuesday night, and as Mrs. Sandford had begun to feel anxious herself to return home, and would not hear of letting May go back alone, it was finally decided in a cabinet council, that they should arrange to take their departure by the Tuesday's boat, and that, in case the young men had not returned by that time, they could follow and overtake them somewhere on the way. May's heart had sunk more than she could have believed, when she contemplated the possibility that Hugh might return and find her gone! She had not in the least made up her mind as to what she should say to him, when he did return, and, even if she herself cared ever so much, she could not see how she could possibly be ever separated from her home, nor indeed, could she as yet bear to think of that aspect of the affair. But she could not help feeling it no small trial to return without seeing him again; apart from the disappointment that she knew it would be to him should he return only after her departure. And as Mrs. Sandford was always reminding them, so many things might happen to detain the _voyageurs_, for they intended to find their way back somehow, by land, through the wilds that lay between Murray Bay and Lake St. John. That evening she could not settle down with the others on the veranda, but wandered down alone to the beach and took her seat on one of their favorite rocks. It had been a day of thunder showers with lovely bursts of sunshine between, and some of the glorious rainbows so frequent there; and now, after a golden sunset, breaking through purple clouds, the bright tints were fading out of the sky and from the great gray stretch of water, on whose breast some stately ships were gradually disappearing from view. The scene vividly recalled to her mind Hugh's parable of human life, and his unexpected application of it. A sense of the evanescence of all beautiful things and all human enjoyments had taken hold of her, and the tears welled up in her soft gray eyes as she said in her heart a mute farewell to the lovely scene around her, which had so fascinated her, and her mind went wistfully back over all the fair scenes she had beheld since the day on which she had set out, full of happy anticipation. How much better it had all been than even her brightest anticipations! A vesper sparrow--our Canadian nightingale--was carolling sweetly close at hand, and its song seemed to bring back to her the sweet refrain of the old song:-- "Sweet the lev'rock's note, an' lang,-- Wildly liltin' doun the glen;-- But, to me, he sings ae sang Will ye no come back again?" The last line seemed to haunt her with an indescribable pathetic intonation. She rose to go back in order to fight off thoughts that were too much for her when lo! a familiar step sounded close to her, and a well-known voice was in her ear, with a low-toned, "Well, May?" And May, startled and overjoyed, could scarcely exclaim,--"Oh, Hugh! is it really you?" and then, for all answer to his question, she burst into tears. Perhaps this was almost answer enough, but it encouraged Hugh to go on, and to secure a still better and more satisfying one, before they returned together to join the rest, and to exchange quiet congratulations and a little teasing with Kate, whose engagement to Mr. Winthrop was now definitely admitted. Jack Armstrong looked very wistful and rather envious over the two engaged couples, but the merry Flora is inscrutable, and whether his warm admiration will ever be returned is still a matter of conjecture to both Kate and May. The three _voyageurs_ had many adventures to relate and much to say about the wild beauty of the upper Saguenay, its _portages_, waterfalls, tributary streams, and especially about the solitary beauty of the lonely Lake St. John. Hugh declared that he would not have missed it on any account, and _that_, as he remarked, _sotto voce_, to May, was, in the circumstances, saying a good deal. Mr. Winthrop was to write a description of it for an American periodical, and Jack Armstrong declared it would give enough to talk about, and excite other fellows with envy, for the next year, at all events. And the last day at Murray Bay was, after all, happier than May in her lonely reverie of the preceding evening had thought possible. They visited several of their favorite haunts during the morning, and it was wonderful how much Hugh and May had to say to each other,--said Kate, mischievously, careless of the retort that "People who lived in glass houses needn't throw stones." In the afternoon they took a long drive along the Cap-à-l'Aigle heights, watching another gorgeous sunset bathe the hills and river in its exquisite dyes. And as these once more faded into the greyness of twilight, and the stars gleamed out, and the white sails of a large vessel that had caught the last glow of day became dimly spectral in the distance, Hugh whispered to May, as they turned downwards, and away from the beautiful scene they had been contemplating: "And now, dearest, what can we desire better, than the hope of the long voyage together down the great river to the silent sea?" THE END. Footnote 1: The Mamelons--rounded bluffs. 
6479	----	This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions. LADY MARY AND HER NURSE; OR, A PEEP INTO THE CANADIAN FOREST. by MRS. TRAILL CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE FLYING SQUIRREL--ITS FOOD--STORY OF A WOLF--INDIAN VILLAGE--WILD RICE CHAPTER II. SLEIGHING--SLEIGH ROBES--FUR CAPS--OTTER SKINS--OLD SNOW-STORM--OTTER HUNTING--OTTER SLIDES--INDIAN NAMES--REMARKS ON WILD ANIMALS AND THEIR HABITS CHAPTER III. PART I.--LADY MARY READS TO MRS. FRAZER THE FIRST PART OF THE HISTORY OF THE SQUIRREL FAMILY PART II.--WHICH TELLS HOW THE GREY SQUIRRELS GET ON WHILE THEY REMAINED ON PINE ISLAND--HOW THEY BEHAVED TO THEIR POOR RELATIONS, THE CHITMUNKS-- AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM IN THE FOREST PART III.--HOW THE SQUIRRELS GOT TO THE MILL AT THE RAPIDS--AND WHAT HAPPENED TO VELVET-PAW CHAPTER IV. SQUIRRELS--THE CHITMUNKS--DOCILITY OF A PET ONE--ROGUERY OF A YANKEE PEDLAR--RETURN OF THE MUSICAL CHITMUNK TO HIS MASTER'S BOSOM--SAGACITY OF A BLACK SQUIRREL CHAPTER V. INDIAN BASKETS--THREAD--PLANTS--MAPLE SUGAR-TREE--INDIAN ORNAMENTAL WORKS --RACOONS CHAPTER VI. CANADIAN FLOWERS--AMERICAN PORCUPINE--CANADIAN BIRDS--SNOW SPARROW-ROBIN RED-BREAST CHAPTER VII. INDIAN BAG--INDIAN EMBROIDERY--BEAVER'S TAIL--BEAVER ARCHITECTURE--HABITS OF THE BEAVER--BEAVER TOOLS--BEAVER MEADOWS CHAPTER VIII. INDIAN BOY AND HIS PETS--TAME BEAVER AT HOME--KITTEN, WILDFIRE--PET RACOON AND THE SPANIEL PUPPIES--CANADIAN FLORA CHAPTER IX. NURSE TELLS LADY MARY ABOUT A LITTLE BOY WHO WAS EATEN BY A BEAR IN THE PROVINCE OF NEW BRUNSWICK--OF A BABY THAT WAS CARRIED AWAY, BUT TAKEN ALIVE--A WALK IN THE GARDEN--HUMMING BIRDS--CANADIAN BALSAMS CHAPTER X. AURORA BOREALIS, OR NORTHERN LIGHTS, MOST FREQUENTLY SEEN IN NORTHERN CLIMATES--CALLED MERRY DANCERS--ROSE TINTS--TINT-LIKE APPEARANCE--LADY MARY FRIGHTENED CHAPTER XI STRAWBERRIES--CANADIAN WILD FRUITS--WILD RASPBERRIES--THE HUNTER AND THE LOST CHILD--CRANBERRIES--CRANBERRY MARSHES--NUTS CHAPTER XII GARTER SNAKES--RATTLE SNAKES--ANECDOTE OF A LITTLE BOY--FISHERMAN AND SNAKE--SNAKE CHARMERS--SPIDERS--LAND TORTOISE CHAPTER XIII ELLEN AND HER PET PAWNS--DOCILITY OF PAN--JACK'S DROLL TRICKS-- AFFECTIONATE WOLF--FALL FLOWERS--DEPARTURE OF LADY MARY--THE END A PEEP INTO THE CANADIAN FOREST. CHAPTER I. THE FLYING SQUIRREL--ITS FOOD--STORY OF A WOLF--INDIAN VILLAGE--WILD RICE. "Nurse, what is the name of that pretty creature you have in your hand? What bright eyes it has! What a soft tail, just like a grey feather! Is it a little beaver?" asked the Governor's [Footnote: Lady Mary's father was Governor of Canada.] little daughter, as her nurse came into the room where her young charge, whom we shall call Lady Mary, was playing with her doll. Carefully sheltered against her breast, its velvet nose just peeping from beneath her muslin neckerchief, the nurse held a small grey-furred animal, of the most delicate form and colour. "No, my lady," she replied, "this is not a young beaver; a beaver is a much larger animal. A beaver's tail is not covered with fur; it is scaly, broad, and flat; it looks something like black leather, not very unlike that of my seal-skin slippers. The Indians eat beavers' tails at their great feasts, and think they make an excellent dish." "If they are black, and look like leather shoes, I am very sure I should not like to eat them; so, if you please, Mrs. Frazer, do not let me have any beavers' tails cooked for my dinner," said the little lady in a very decided tone. "Indeed, my lady," replied her nurse, smiling, "it would not be an easy thing to obtain, if you wished to taste one, for beavers are not brought to our market. It is only the Indians and hunters who know how to trap them, and beavers are not so plentiful as they used to be." Mrs. Frazer would have told Lady Mary a great deal about the way in which the trappers take the beavers, but the little girl interrupted her by saying, "Please, nurse, will you tell me the name of your pretty pet? Ah, sweet thing! what bright eyes you have!" she added, caressing the soft little head which was just seen from beneath the folds of the muslin handkerchief to which it timidly nestled, casting furtive glances at the admiring child, while the panting of its breast told the mortal terror that shook its frame whenever the little girl's hand was advanced to coax its soft back. "It is a flying squirrel, Lady Mary," replied her nurse; "one of my brothers caught it a month ago, when he was chopping in the forest. He thought it might amuse your ladyship, and so he tamed it and sent it to me in a basket filled with moss, with some acorns, and hickory-nuts, and beech-mast for him to eat on his journey, for the little fellow has travelled a long way: he came from the beech-woods near the town of Coburg, in the Upper Province." "And where is Coburg, nurse? Is it a large city like Montreal or Quebec?" "No, my lady; it is a large town on the shores of the great Lake Ontario." "And are there many woods near it?" "Yes; but not so many as there used to be many years ago. The forest is almost all cleared, and there are fields of wheat and Indian corn, and nice farms and pretty houses, where a few years back the lofty forest grew dark and thick." "Nurse, you said there were acorns, and hickory-nuts, and beech-mast in the basket. I have seen acorns at home in dear England and Scotland, and I have eaten the hickory-nuts here; but what is beech-mast? Is it in granaries for winter stores; and wild ducks and wild pigeons come from the far north at the season when the beech-mast fall, to eat them; for God teaches these, His creatures, to know the times and the seasons when His bounteous hand is open to give them food from His boundless store. A great many other birds and beasts also feed upon the beech-mast." "It was very good of your brother to send me this pretty creature, nurse," said the little lady; "I will ask Papa to give him some money." "There is no need of that, Lady Mary. My brother is not in want; he has a farm in the Upper Province, and is very well off." "I am glad he is well off," said Lady Mary; "indeed, I do not see so many beggars here as in England." "People need not beg in Canada, if they are well and strong and can work; a poor man can soon earn enough money to keep himself and his little ones." "Nurse, will you be so kind as to ask Campbell to get a pretty cage for my squirrel? I will let him live close to my dormice, who will be pleasant company for him, and I will feed him every day myself with nuts and sugar, and sweet cake and white bread. Now do not tremble and look so frightened, as though I were going to hurt you; and pray, Mr. Squirrel, do not bite. Oh! nurse, nurse, the wicked, spiteful creature has bitten my finger! See, see, it has made it bleed! Naughty thing! I will not love you if you bite. Pray, nurse, bind up my finger, or it will soil my frock." Great was the pity bestowed upon the wound by Lady Mary's kind attendant, till the little girl, tired of hearing so much said about the bitten finger, gravely desired her maid to go in search of the cage, and catch the truant, which had effected its escape, and was clinging to the curtains of the bed. The cage was procured--a large wooden cage, with an outer and an inner chamber, a bar for the little fellow to swing himself on, and a drawer for his food, and a little dish for his water. The sleeping-room was furnished by the nurse with soft wool, and a fine store of nuts was put in the drawer; all his wants were well supplied, and Lady Mary watched the catching of the little animal with much interest. Great was the activity displayed by the runaway squirrel, and still greater the astonishment evinced by the Governor's little daughter, at the flying leaps made by the squirrel in its attempts to elude the grasp of its pursuers. "It flies! I am sure it must have wings. Look, look, nurse! it is here, now it is on the wall, now on the curtains! It must have wings, but it has no feathers!" "It has no wings, dear lady, but it has a fine ridge of fur, that covers a strong sinew or muscle between the fore and hinder legs; and it is by the help of this muscle that it is able to spring so far, and so fast; and its claws are so sharp that it can cling to a wall, or any flat surface. The black and red squirrels, and the common grey, can jump very far, and run up the bark of the trees very fast, but not so fast as the flying squirrel." At last Lady Mary's maid, with the help of one of the housemaids, succeeded in catching the squirrel, and securing him within his cage. But though Lady Mary tried all her words of endearment to coax the little creature to eat some of the good things that had been provided so liberally for his entertainment, he remained sullen and motionless at the bottom of the cage. A captive is no less a captive in a cage with gilded bars, and with dainties to eat, than if rusted iron shut him in, and kept him from enjoying his freedom. It is for dear liberty that he pines, and is sad, even in the midst of plenty! "Dear nurse, why does my little squirrel tremble and look so unhappy? Tell me if he wants anything to eat that we have not given him. Why does he not lie down and sleep on the nice soft bed you have made for him in his little chamber? See, he has not tasted the nice sweet cake and sugar that I gave him." "He is not used to such dainties, Lady Mary. In the forest, he feeds upon hickory-nuts, and butter-nuts, and acorns, and beech-mast, and the buds of the spruce, fir and pine kernels, and many other seeds and nuts and berries, that we could not get for him; he loves grain too, and Indian corn. He sleeps on green moss and leaves, and fine fibres of grass and roots; and drinks heaven's blessed dew, as it lies bright and pure upon the herbs of the field." "Dear little squirrel, pretty creature! I know now what makes you sad. You long to be abroad among your own green woods, and sleeping on the soft green moss, which is far prettier than this ugly cotton wool. But you shall stay with me, my sweet one, till the cold winter is passed and gone, and the spring flowers have come again; and then, my pretty squirrel, I will take you out of your dull cage, and we will go to St. Helen's green island, and I will let you go free; but I will put a scarlet collar about your neck before I let you go, that, if any one finds you, they may know that you are my squirrel. Were you ever in the green forest, nurse? I hear Papa talk about the 'Bush' and the 'Backwoods;' it must be very pleasant in the summer, to live among the green trees. Were you ever there?" "Yes, dear lady, I did live in the woods when I was a child. I was born in a little log-shanty, far, far away up the country, near a beautiful lake, called Rice Lake, among woods, and valleys, and hills covered with flowers, and groves of pine, and white and black oaks." "Stop, nurse, and tell me why they are called black and white; are the flowers black and white?" "No, my lady; it is because the wood of the one is darker than the other, and the leaves of the black oak are dark and shining, while those of the white oak are brighter and lighter. The black oak is a beautiful tree. When I was a young girl, I used to like to climb the sides of the steep valleys, and look down upon the tops of the oaks that grew beneath; and to watch the wind lifting the boughs all glittering in the moonlight; they looked like a sea of ruffled green water. It is very solemn, Lady Mary, to be in the woods by night, and to hear no sound but the cry of the great wood-owl, or the voice of the whip-poor-will, calling to his fellow from the tamarack swamp; or, may be, the timid bleating of a fawn that has lost its mother, or the howl of a wolf." "Nurse, I should be so afraid; I am sure I should cry if I heard the wicked wolves howling in the dark woods, by night. Did you ever know any one who was eaten by a wolf?" "No, my lady; the Canadian wolf is a great coward. I have heard the hunters say, that they never attack any one, unless there is a great flock together and the man is alone and unarmed. My uncle used to go out a great deal hunting, sometimes by torchlight, and sometimes on the lake in a canoe, with the Indians; and he shot and trapped a great many wolves and foxes and racoons. He has a great many heads of wild animals nailed up on the stoup in front of his log-house." "Please tell me what a stoup is, nurse?" "A verandah, my lady, is the same thing, only the old Dutch settlers gave it the name of a stoup; and the stoup is heavier and broader, and not quite so nicely made as a verandah. One day my uncle was crossing the lake on the ice; it was a cold winter afternoon; he was in a hurry to take some food to his brothers, who were drawing pine-logs in the bush. He had, besides a bag of meal and flour, a new axe on his shoulder. He heard steps as of a dog trotting after him; he turned his head, and there he saw close at his heels, a big, hungry-looking grey wolf; he stopped and faced about, and the big beast stopped and showed his white sharp teeth. My uncle did not feel afraid, but looked steadily at the wolf, as much as to say, 'Follow me if you dare,' and walked on. When my uncle stopped, the wolf stopped; when he went on, the beast also went on. "I would have run away," said Lady Mary. "If my uncle had let the wolf see that he was afraid of him, he would have grown bolder, and have run after him and seized him. All animals are afraid of brave men, but not of cowards. When the beast came too near, my uncle faced him, and showed the bright axe, and the wolf then shrank back a few paces. When my uncle got near the shore, he heard a long wild cry, as if from twenty wolves at once. It might have been the echoes from the islands that increased the sound; but it was very frightful, and made his blood chill, for he knew that without his rifle he should stand a poor chance against a large pack of hungry wolves. Just then a gun went off; he heard the wolf give a terrible yell, he felt the whizzing of a bullet pass him, and, turning about, saw the wolf lying dead on the ice. A loud shout from the cedars in front told him from whom the shot came; it was my father, who had been on the look-out on the lake shore, and he had fired at and hit the wolf, when he saw that he could do so without hurting his brother." "Nurse, it would have been a sad thing if the gun had shot your uncle." "It would; but my father was one of the best shots in the district, and could hit a white spot on the bark of a tree at a great distance without missing. It was an old Indian from Buckhorn Lake, who taught him to shoot deer by torchlight, and to trap beavers." "Well, I am glad that horrid wolf was killed, for wolves eat sheep and lambs; and I dare say they would devour my little squirrel if they could get him. Nurse, please to tell me again the name of the lake near which you were born." "It is called Rice Lake, my lady. It is a fine piece of water, more than twenty miles long, and from three to five miles broad. It has pretty wooded islands, and several rivers or streams empty themselves into it. The Otonabee River is a fine broad stream, which flows through the forest a long way. Many years ago, there were no clearings on the banks, and no houses, only Indian tents or wigwams; but now, there are a great many houses and farms." "What are wigwams?" "A sort of light tent, made with poles stuck into the ground, in a circle, fastened together at the top, and covered on the outside with skins of wild animals, or with birch bark. The Indians light a fire of sticks and logs on the ground, in the middle of the wigwam, and lie or sit all round it; the smoke goes up to the top and escapes. In the winter, they bank it up with snow, and it is very warm." "I think it must be a very ugly sort of house; and I am glad I do not live in an Indian wigwam," said the little lady. "The Indians are a very simple folk, my lady, and do not need fine houses, like this in which your papa lives. They do not know the names or uses of half the fine things that are in the houses of the white people. They are happy and contented without them. It is not the richest that are happiest, Lady Mary, and the Lord careth for the poor and the lowly. There is a village on the shores of Rice Lake where the Indians live. It is not very pretty. The houses are all built of logs, and some of them have gardens and orchards. They have a neat church, and they have a good minister, who takes great pains to teach them the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The poor Indians were Pagans until within the last few years." "What are Pagans, nurse?" "People, Lady Mary, who do not believe in God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed Saviour." "Nurse, is there real rice growing in the Rice Lake? I heard my governess say that rice grew only in warm countries. Now, your lake must be very cold if your uncle walked across the ice." "This rice, my lady, is not real rice. I heard a gentleman tell my father, that it was, properly speaking, a species of oats, [Footnote: Zizania or water oats.]--water oats he called it, but the common name for it is wild rice. This wild rice grows in vast beds in the lake, in patches of many acres. It will grow in water from eight to ten or twelve feet deep; the grassy leaves float upon the water like long narrow green ribbons. In the month of August, the stem that is to bear the flower and the grain rises straight up, above the surface, and light delicate blossoms come out of a pale straw colour and lilac. They are very pretty, and wave in the wind with a rustling noise. In the month of October, when the rice is ripe, the leaves turn yellow, and the rice-heads grow heavy and droop; then the squaws--as the Indian women are called--go out in their birch-bark canoes, holding in one hand a stick, in the other a short curved paddle, with a sharp edge. With this, they bend down the rice across the stick, and strike off the heads, which fall into the canoe, as they push it along through the rice-beds. In this way they collect a great many bushels in the course of the day. The wild rice is not the least like the rice which your ladyship has eaten; it is thin and covered with a light chaffy husk. The colour of the grain itself is a brownish green, or olive, smooth, shining, and brittle. After separating the outward chaff, the squaws put by a large portion of the clean rice in its natural state for sale; for this they get from a dollar and a half to two dollars a bushel. Some they parch, either in large pots, or on mats made of the inner bark of cedar or bass wood, beneath which they light a slow fire, and plant around it a temporary hedge of green boughs, closely set to prevent the heat from escaping; they also plant stakes, over which they stretch the matting at a certain height above the fire. On this they spread the green rice, stirring it about with wooden paddles, till it is properly parched; this is known by its bursting and showing the white grain of the flour. When quite cool it is stowed away in troughs, scooped out of butter-nut wood, or else sewed up in sheets of birch-bark or bass-mats, or in coarsely made birch-bark baskets." "And is the rice good to eat, nurse?" "Some people like it as well as the white rice of Carolina; but it does not look so well. It is a great blessing to the poor Indians, who boil it in their soups, or eat it with maple molasses. And they eat it when parched without any other cooking, when they are on a long journey in the woods, or on the lakes. I have often eaten nice puddings made of it with milk. The deer feed upon the green rice. They swim into the water, and eat the green leaves and tops. The Indians go out at night to shoot the deer on the water; they listen for them, and shoot them in the dark. The wild ducks and water-fowls come down in great flocks to fatten on the ripe rice in the fall of the year; also large flocks of rice buntings and red wings which make their roosts among the low willows, flags, and lilies close to the shallows of the lake." "It seems very useful to birds as well as to men and beasts," said little Lady Mary. "Yes, my lady, and to fishes also, I make no doubt; for the good God has cast it so abundantly abroad on the waters, that I dare say they also have their share. When the rice is fully ripe, the sun shining on it gives it a golden hue, just like a field of ripened grain. Surrounded by the deep blue waters, it looks very pretty." "I am very much obliged to you, nurse, for telling me so much about the Indian rice, and I will ask mamma to let me have some one day for my dinner, that I may know how it tastes." Just then Lady Mary's governess came to bid her nurse dress her for a sleigh-ride, and so for the present we shall leave her; but we will tell our little readers something more in another chapter about Lady Mary and her flying squirrel. CHAPTER II. SLEIGHING--SLEIGH ROBES--FUR CAPS--OTTER SKINS--OLD SNOW-STORM--OTTER HUNTING--OTTER SLIDES--INDIAN NAMES--REMARKS ON WILD ANIMALS AND THEIR HABITS. "Nurse, we have had a very nice sleigh-drive. I like sleighing very much over the white snow. The trees look so pretty, as if they were covered with white flowers, and the ground sparkled just like mamma's diamonds." "It is pleasant, Lady Mary, to ride through the woods on a bright sunshiny day, after a fresh fall of snow. The young evergreens, hemlocks, balsams, and spruce-trees, are loaded with great masses of the new-fallen snow; while the slender saplings of the beech, birch, and basswood are bent down to the very ground, making bowers so bright and beautiful, you would be delighted to see them. Sometimes, as you drive along, great masses of the snow come showering down upon you; but it is so light and dry, that it shakes off without wetting you. It is pleasant to be wrapped up in warm blankets, or buffalo robes, at the bottom of a lumber-sleigh, and to travel through the forest by moonlight; the merry bells echoing through the silent woods, and the stars just peeping down through the frosted trees, which sparkle like diamonds in the moonbeams." "Nurse, I should like to take a drive through the forest in winter. It is so nice to hear the sleigh-bells. We used sometimes to go out in the snow in Scotland, but we were in the carriage, and had no bells." "No, Lady Mary: the snow seldom lies long enough in the old country to make it worth while to have sleighs there; but in Russia and Sweden, and other cold Northern countries, they use sleighs with bells." Lady Mary ran to the little bookcase where she had a collection of children's books, and very soon found, in one of Peter Parley's books, a picture of Laplanders and Russians wrapped in furs sleighing. "How long will the winter last, nurse?" said the child, after she had tired herself with looking at the prints; "a long, long time--a great many weeks?--a great many months?" "Yes, my lady; five or six months." "Oh, that is nice--nearly half a year of white snow, and sleigh-drives every day, and bells ringing all the time! I tried to make out a tune, but they only seemed to say, 'Up-hill, up-hill! down-hill, down-hill!' all the way. Nurse, please tell me what are sleigh-robes made of?" "Some sleigh-robes, Lady Mary, are made of bear-skins, lined with red or blue flannel; some are of wolf-skins, lined with bright scarlet cloth; and some of racoon; the commonest are buffalo-skins: I have seen some of deer-skins, but these last are not so good, as the hair comes off, and they are not so warm as the skins of the furred or woolly-coated animals." "I sometimes see long tails hanging down over the backs of the sleigh and cutters--they look very pretty, like the end of mamma's boa." "The wolf and racoon skin robes are generally made up with the tails, and sometimes the heads of the animals are also left. I noticed the head of a wolf, with its sharp ears, and long white teeth, looking very fierce, at the back of a cutter, the other day." "Nurse, that must have looked very droll. Do you know, I saw a gentleman the other day, walking with papa, who had a fox-skin cap on his head, and the fox's nose was just peeping over his shoulder, and the tail hung down his back, and I saw its bright black eyes looking so cunning. I thought it must be alive, and that it had curled itself round his head; but the gentleman took it off, and showed me that the eyes were glass." "Some hunters, Lady Mary, make caps of otter, mink, or badger skins, and ornament them with the tails, heads, and claws." "I have seen a picture of the otter, nurse; it is a pretty, soft-looking thing, with a round head and black eyes. Where do otters live?" "The Canadian otters, Lady Mary, live in holes in the banks of sedgy, shallow lakes, mill-ponds, and sheltered creeks. The Indian hunters find their haunts by tracking their steps in the snow; for an Indian or Canadian hunter knows the track made by any bird or beast, from the deep broad print of the bear, to the tiny one of the little shrewmouse, which is the smallest four-footed beast in this or any other country. "Indians catch the otter, and many other wild animals, in a sort of trap, which they call a 'dead-fall.' Wolves are often so trapped, and then shot. The Indians catch the otter for the sake of its dark shining fur, which is used by the hatters and furriers. Old Jacob Snowstorm, an old Indian who lived on the banks of the Rice Lake, used to catch otters; and I have often listened to him, and laughed at his stories." "Do, please, nurse, tell me what old Jacob Snow-storm told you about the otters; I like to hear stories about wild beasts. But what a droll surname Snow-storm is!" "Yes, Lady Mary; Indians have very odd names; they are called after all sorts of strange things. They do not name the children, as we do, soon after they are born, but wait for some remarkable circumstance, some dream or accident. Some call them after the first strange animal or bird that appears to the new-born. Old Snow-storm most likely owed his name to a heavy fall of snow when he was a baby. I knew a chief named Musk-rat, and a pretty Indian girl who was named 'Badau'-bun,' or the 'Light of the Morning.'" "And what is the Indian name for Old Snow-storm?" "'Be-che-go-ke-poor,' my lady." Lady Mary said it was a funny sounding name, and not at all like Snow-storm, which she liked a great deal better; and she was much amused while her nurse repeated to her some names of squaws and papooses (Indian women and children); such as Long Thrush, Little Fox, Running Stream, Snow-bird, Red Cloud, Young Eagle, Big Bush, and many others. "Now, nurse, will you tell me some more about Jacob Snow-storm and the otters?" "Well, Lady Mary, the old man had a cap of otter-skin, of which he was very proud, and only wore on great days. One day as he was playing with it, he said:--'Otter funny fellow; he like play too, sometimes. Indian go hunting up Ottawa, that great big river, you know. Go one moonlight night; lie down under bushes in snow: see lot of little fellow and big fellow at play. Run tip and down bank; bank all ice. Sit down top of bank; good slide there. Down he go splash into water; out again. Funny fellow those!' And then the old hunter threw back his head, and laughed, till you could have seen all his white teeth, he opened his mouth so wide." Lady Mary was very much amused at the comical way in which the old Indian talked. "Can otters swim, nurse?" "Yes, Lady Mary; the good God, who has created all things well, has given to this animal webbed feet, which enable it to swim; and it can also dive down in the deep water, where it finds fish and mussels, and perhaps the roots of some water-plants to eat. It makes very little motion or disturbance in the water when it goes down in search of its prey. Its coat is thick, and formed of two kinds of hair; the outer hair is long, silky, and shining; the under part is short, fine, and warm. The water cannot penetrate to wet them,--the oily nature of the fur throws off the moisture. They dig large holes with their claws, which are short, but very strong. They line their nests with dry grass and rushes and roots gnawed fine, and do not pass the winter in sleep, as the dormice, flying squirrels, racoons, and bears do. They are very innocent and playful, both when young and even after they grow old. The lumberers often tame them, and they become so docile that they will come at a call or whistle. Like all wild animals, they are most lively at night, when they come out to feed and play." "Dear little things! I should like to have a tame otter to play with, and run after me; but do you think he would eat my squirrel? You know cats will eat squirrels--so mamma says." "Cats belong to a very different class of animals; they are beasts of prey, formed to spring and bound, and tear with their teeth and claws. The otter is also a beast of prey, but its prey is found in the still waters, and not on the land; it can neither climb nor leap. So I do not think he would hurt your squirrel, if you had one." "See, nurse, my dear little squirrel is still where I left him, clinging to the wires of the cage, his bright eyes looking like two black beads." "As soon as it grows dark he will begin to be more lively, and perhaps he will eat something, but not while we look at him--he is too shy for that." "Nurse, how can they see to eat in the dark?" "The good God, Lady Mary, has so formed their eyes that they can see best by night. I will read you, Lady Mary, a few Verses from Psalm civ.:-- "Verse 19. He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. 20. Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. 21. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. 22. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. 23. Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening. 24. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the eath is full of thy riches. "Thus you see, my dear lady, that our heavenly Father taketh care of all his creatures, and provideth for them both by day and by night." "I remember, nurse, that my dormice used to lie quite still, nestled among the moss and wool in their little dark chamber in the cage, all day long; but when it was night they used to come out and frisk about, and run along the wires, and play all sorts of tricks, chasing one another round and round, and they were not afraid of me, but would let me look at them while they ate a nut, or a bit of sugar; and the dear little things would drink out of their little white saucer, and wash their faces and tails--it was so pretty to see them!" "Did you notice, Lady Mary, how the dormice held their food?" "Yes, they sat up, and held it in their fore-paws, which looked just like tiny hands." "There are many animals whose fore-feet resemble hands, and these, generally, convey their food to their mouths--among these are the squirrel and dormice. They are good climbers and diggers. You see, my dear young lady, how the merciful Creator has given to all his creatures, however lowly, the best means of supplying their wants, whether of food or shelter." "Indeed, nurse, I have learned a great deal about squirrels, Canadian rice, otters, and Indians; but, if you please, I must now have a little play with my doll. Good-bye, Mrs. Frazer,--pray take care of my dear little squirrel, and mind that he does not fly away." And Lady Mary was soon busily engaged in drawing her wax doll about the nursery in a little sleigh lined with red squirrel fur robes, and talking to her as all children like to talk to their dolls, whether they be rich or poor--the children of peasants, or governors' daughters. CHAPTER III. LADY MARY READS TO MRS. FRAZER THE FIRST PART OF THE HISTORY OF THE SQUIRREL FAMILY. One day Lady Mary came to her nurse, and putting her arms about her neck, whispered to her,--"Mrs. Frazer, my dear good governess has given me something--it is in my hand," and she slily held her hand behind her-- "will you guess what it is?" "Is it a book, my lady?" "Yes, yes, it is a book, a pretty book; and see, here are pictures of squirrels in it. Mrs. Frazer, if you like, I will sit down on this cushion by you and read some of my new book. It does not seem very hard." Then Mrs. Frazer took out her work-basket and sat down to sew, and Lady Mary began to read the little story, which, I hope, may entertain my little readers as much as it did the Governor's daughter. THE HISTORY OF A SQUIRREL FAMILY It must be a pleasant thing to be a squirrel, and live a life of freedom in the boundless forests; to leap and bound among the branches of the tall trees; to gambol in the deep shade of the cool glossy leaves, through the long warm summer day; to gather the fresh nuts and berries; to drink the pure dews of heaven, all bright and sparkling from the opening flowers; to sleep on soft beds of moss and thistle-down in some hollow branch rocked by the wind as in a cradle. Yet, though this was the happy life led by a family of pretty grey squirrels that had their dwelling in the hoary branch of an old oak-tree that grew on one of the rocky islands in a beautiful lake in Upper Canada, called _Stony Lake_ (because it was full of rocky islands), these little creatures were far from being contented, and were always wishing for a change. Indeed, they had been very happy, till one day when a great black squirrel swam to the island and paid them a visit. He was a very fine handsome fellow, nearly twice as large as any of the grey squirrels; he had a tail that flourished over his back, when he set it up, like a great black feather; his claws were sharp and strong, and his eyes very round and bright; he had upright ears, and long, sharp teeth, of which he made good use. The old grey squirrels called him cousin, and invited him to dinner. They very civilly set before him some acorns and beech-nuts; but he proved a hungry visitor, and ate as much as would have fed the whole family for a week. After the grey squirrels had cleared away the shells and scraps, they asked their greedy guest where he came from, when Blackie told them he was a great traveller, and had seen many wonderful things; that he had once lived on a forked pine at the head of the Waterfall, but being tired of a dull life, he had gone out on his travels to see the world; that he had been down the lake, and along the river shore, where there were great places cut out in the thick forest, called clearings, where some very tall creatures lived, who were called men and women, with young ones called children; that though they were not so pretty as squirrels--for they had no fur on them, and were obliged to make clothes to cover them and keep them warm--they were very useful, and sowed corn and planted fruit-trees and roots for squirrels to eat, and even built large grain stores to keep it safe and dry for them. This seemed very strange, and the simple little grey squirrels were very much pleased, and said they should like very much to go down the lakes too, and see these wonderful things. The black squirrel then told them that there were many things to be seen in these clearings: that there were large beasts, called oxen, and cows, and sheep, and pigs; and these creatures had houses built for them to live in; and all the men and women seemed to employ themselves about, was feeding and taking care of them. Now this cunning fellow never told his simple cousins that the oxen had to bear a heavy wooden yoke and chain, and were made to work very hard; nor that the cows were fed that they might give milk to the children; nor that the pigs were fatted to make pork; nor that the sheep had their warm fleeces cut off every year that the settlers might have the wool to spin and weave. Blackie did not say that the men carried guns, and the dogs were fierce, and would hunt poor squirrels from tree to tree, frightening them almost to death with their loud, angry barking; that cats haunted the barns and houses, and, in short, that there were dangers as well as pleasures to be met with in these clearings; and that the barns were built to shelter the grain for men, and not for the benefit of squirrels. The black squirrel proved rather a troublesome guest, for he stayed several days, and ate so heartily, that the old grey squirrels were obliged to hint that he had better go back to the clearings, where there was so much food, for that their store was nearly done. When Blackie found that all the nice nuts were eaten, and that even pine-kernels and beech-nuts were becoming scarce, he went away, saying that he should soon come again. The old grey squirrels were glad when they saw the tip of Blackie's tail disappear, as he whisked down the trunk of the old oak; but their young ones were very sorry that he was gone, for they liked very much to listen to all his wonderful stories, which they thought were true; and they told their father and mother how they wished they would leave the dull island and the old tree, and go down the lakes, and see the wonderful things that their black cousin had described. But the old ones shook their heads, and said they feared there was more fiction than truth in the tales they had heard, and that if they were wise they would stay where they were. "What do you want more, my dear children," said their mother, "than you enjoy here? Have you not this grand old oak for a palace to live in; its leaves and branches spreading like a canopy over your heads, to shelter you from the hot sun by day and the dews by night? Are there not moss, dried grass, and roots beneath, to make a soft bed for you to lie upon? and do not the boughs drop down a plentiful store of brown ripe acorns? That silver lake, studded with islands of all shapes and sizes, produces cool clear water for you to drink and bathe yourselves in. Look at those flowers that droop their blossoms down to its glassy surface, and the white lilies that rest upon its bosom,--will you see anything fairer or better if you leave this place? Stay at home and be contented." "If I hear any more grumbling," said their father, "I shall pinch your ears and tails." So the little squirrels said no more, but I am sorry to say they did not pay much heed to their wise, old mother's counsels; for whenever they were alone, all their talk was how to run away, and go abroad to see the world, as their black cousin had called the new settlement down the lakes. It never came into the heads of the silly creatures that those wonderful stories they had been told originated in an artful scheme of the greedy black squirrel, to induce them to leave their warm pleasant house in the oak, that he and his children might come and live in it, and get the hoards of grain, and nuts, and acorns, that their father and mother had been laying up for winter stores. Moreover, the wily black squirrel had privately told them that their father and mother intended to turn them out of the nest very soon, and make provision for a new family. This indeed was really the case; for as soon as young animals can provide for themselves, their parents turn them off, and care no more for them. Very different, indeed, is this from our parents; for they love and cherish us as long as they live, and afford us a home and shelter as long as we need it. Every hour these little grey squirrels grew more and more impatient to leave the lonely little rocky island, though it was a pretty spot, and the place of their birth; but they were now eager to go abroad and seek their fortunes. "Let us keep our own counsel," said Nimble-foot to his sisters Velvet-paw and Silver-nose, "or we may chance to get our tails pulled; but be all ready for a start by early dawn to-morrow." Velvet-paw and Silver-nose said they would be up before sunrise, as they should have a long voyage down the lake, and agreed to rest on Pine Island near the opening of Clear Lake. "And then take to the shore and travel through the woods, where, no doubt, we shall have a pleasant time," said Nimble-foot, who was the most hopeful of the party. The sun was scarcely yet risen over the fringe of dark pines that skirted the shores of the lake, and a soft creamy mist hung on the surface of the still waters, which were unruffled by the slightest breeze. The little grey squirrels awoke, and looked sleepily out from the leafy screen that shaded their mossy nest. The early notes of the wood-thrush and song-sparrow, with the tender warbling of the tiny wren, sounded sweetly in the still, dewy morning air; while from a cedar swamp was heard the trill of the green frogs, which the squirrels thought very pretty music. As the sun rose above the tops of the trees, the mist rolled off in light fleecy clouds, and soon was lost in the blue sky, or lay in large bright drops on the cool grass and shining leaves. Then all the birds awoke, and the insects shook their gauzy wings which had been folded all the night in the flower-cups, and the flowers began to lift their heads, and the leaves to expand to catch the golden light. There was a murmur on the water as it played among the sedges, and lifted the broad floating leaves of the white water-lilies, with their carved ivory cups; and the great green, brown, and blue dragon-flies rose with a whirring sound, and darted to and fro among the water flowers. It is a glorious sight to see the sun rise at any time, for then we can look upon him without having our eyes dazzled with the brightness of his beams; and though there were no men and women and little children, in the lonely waters and woods, to lift up their hands and voices in prayer and praise to God, who makes the sun to rise each day, yet no doubt the great Creator is pleased to see his creatures rejoice in the blessings of light and heat. Lightly running down the rugged bark of the old oak-tree, the little squirrels bade farewell to their island home--to the rocks, mosses, ferns, and flowers that had sheltered them, among which they had so often chased each other in merry gambols. They thought little of all this, when they launched themselves on the silver bosom of the cool lake. "How easy it is to swim in this clear water!" said Silver-nose to her sister Velvet-paw. "We shall not be long in reaching yonder island, and there, no doubt, we shall get a good breakfast." So the little swimmers proceeded on their voyage, furrowing the calm waters as they glided noiselessly along; their soft grey heads and ears and round black eyes only being seen, and the bright streaks caused by the motion of their tails, which lay flat on the surface, looking like silver threads gently floating on the stream. Not being much used to the fatigue of swimming, the little squirrels were soon tired, and if it had not been for a friendly bit of stick that happened to float near her, poor Velvet-paw would have been drowned; however, she got up on the stick, and, setting up her fine broad tail, went merrily on, and soon passed Nimble-foot and Silver-nose. The current drew the stick towards the Pine Island that lay at the entrance of Clear Lake, and Velvet-paw leaped ashore, and sat down on a mossy stone to dry her fur, and watch for her brother and sister: they, too, found a large piece of birch-bark which the winds had blown into the water, and as a little breeze had sprung up to waft them along, they were not very long before they landed on the island. They were all very glad when they met again, after the perils and fatigues of the voyage. The first thing to be done was to look for something to eat, for their early rising had made them very hungry. They found abundance of pine-cones strewn on the ground, but, alas for our little squirrels! very few kernels in them; for the crossbills and chiccadees had been at work for many weeks on the trees; and also many families of their poor relations, the chitmunks or ground squirrels, had not been idle, as our little voyagers could easily guess by the chips and empty cones round their holes. So, weary as they were, they were obliged to run up the tall pine and hemlock trees, to search among the cones that grew on their very top branches. While our squirrels were busy with the few kernels they chanced to find, they were startled from their repast by the screams of a large slate-coloured hawk, and Velvet-paw very narrowly escaped being pounced upon and carried off in its sharp-hooked talons. Silver-nose at the same time was nearly frightened to death by the keen round eyes of a cunning racoon, which had come within a few feet of the mossy branch of an old cedar, where she sat picking the seeds out of a dry head of a blue flag-flower she had found on the shore. Silvy, at this sight, gave a spring that left her many yards beyond her sharp-sighted enemy. A lively note of joy was uttered by Nimblefoot, for, perched at his ease on a top branch of the hemlock-tree, he had seen the bound made by Silver-nose. "Well jumped, Silvy," said he; "Mister Coon must be a smart fellow to equal that. But look sharp, or you will get your neck wrung yet; I see we must keep a good look-out in this strange country." "I begin to wish we were safe back again in our old one," whined Silvy, who was much frightened by the danger she had just escaped. "Pooh, pooh, child; don't be a coward," said Nimble, laughing. "Cousin Blackie never told us there were hawks and coons on this island," said Velvet-paw. "My dear, he thought we were too brave to be afraid of hawks and coons," said Nimble. "For my part, I think it is a fine thing to go out a little into the world. We should never see anything better than the sky and the water, and the old oak-tree on that little island." "Ay, but I think it is safer to see than to be seen," said Silvy, "for hawks and eagles have strong beaks, and racoons sharp claws and hungry-looking teeth; and it is not very pleasant, Nimble, to be obliged to look out for such wicked creatures." "Oh, true indeed," said Nimble; "if it had not been for that famous jump you made, Silvy, and, Velvet, your two admirers, the hawk and racoon, would soon have hid all your beauties from the world, and put a stop to your travels." "It is very well for brother Nimble to make light of our dangers," whispered Velvet-paw, "but let us see how he will jump if a big eagle were to pounce down to carry him off." "Yes, yes," said Silvy; "it is easy to brag before one is in danger." The squirrels thought they would now go and look for some partridge-berries, of which they were very fond, for the pine-kernels were but dry husky food after all. There were plenty of the pretty white star-shaped blossoms, growing all over the ground under the pine-trees, but the bright scarlet twin-berries were not yet ripe. In winter the partridges eat this fruit from under the snow; and it furnishes food for many little animals as well as birds. The leaves are small, of a dark green, and the white flowers have a very fine fragrant scent. Though the runaways found none of these berries fit to eat, they saw some ripe strawberries among the bushes; and, having satisfied their hunger, began to grow very merry, and whisked here and there and everywhere, peeping into this hole and under that stone. Sometimes they had a good game of play, chasing one another up and down the trees, chattering and squeaking as grey squirrels only can chatter and squeak, when they are gambolling about in the wild woods of Canada. Indeed, they made such a noise, that the great ugly black snakes lifted up their heads, and stared at them with their wicked spiteful-looking eyes, and the little ducklings swimming among the water-lilies, gathered round their mother, and a red-winged blackbird perched on a dead tree gave alarm to the rest of the flock by calling out, _Geck, geck, geck,_ as loudly as he could. In the midst of their frolics, Nimble skipped into a hollow log--but was glad to run out again; for a porcupine covered with sharp spines was there, and was so angry at being disturbed, that he stuck one of his spines into poor Nimble-foot's soft velvet nose, and there it would have remained if Silvy had not seized it with her teeth and pulled it out. Nimble-foot squeaked sadly, and would not play any longer, but rolled himself up and went to sleep in a red-headed woodpecker's old nest; while Silvy and Velvet-paw frisked about in the moonlight, and when tired of play got up into an old oak which had a large hollow place in the crown of it, and fell asleep, fancying, no doubt, that they were on the rocky island in Stony Lake; and so we will bid them good night, and wish them pleasant dreams. * * * * * Lady Mary had read a long while, and was now tired; so she kissed her nurse, and-said "Now, Mrs. Frazer, I will play with my doll, and feed my squirrel and my dormice." The dormice were two soft, brown creatures, almost as pretty and as innocent as the squirrel, and a great deal tamer; and they were called Jeannette and Jeannot, and would come when they were called by their names, and take a bit of cake or a lump of sugar out of the fingers of their little mistress. Lady Mary had two canaries, Dick and Pet; and she loved her dormice and birds, and her new pet the flying squirrel, very much, and never let them want for food, or water, or any nice thing she could get for them. She liked the history of the grey squirrels very much; and was quite eager to get her book the next afternoon, to read the second part of the adventures and wanderings of the family. PART II. WHICH TELLS HOW THE GREY SQUIRRELS GET ON WHILE THEY REMAINED ON PINE ISLAND--HOW THEY BEHAVED TO THEIR POOR RELATIONS, THE CHITMUNKS--AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM IN THE FOREST. It was noon when the little squirrels awoke, and, of course, they were quite ready for their breakfast; but there was no good, kind old mother to provide for their wants, and to bring nuts, acorns, roots, or fruit for them; they must now get up, go forth, and seek food for themselves. When Velvet-paw and Silver-nose went to call Nimble-foot, they were surprised to find his nest empty; but after searching a long while, they found him sitting on the root of an upturned tree, looking at a family of little chitmunks busily picking over the pine-cones on the ground; but as soon as one of the poor little fellows, with great labour, had dug out a kernel, and was preparing to eat it, down leaped Nimble-foot, and carried off the prize; and if one of the little chitmunks ventured to say a word, he very uncivilly gave him a scratch, or bit his ears, calling him a mean, shabby fellow. Now, the chitmunks were really very pretty. They were, to be sure, not more than half the size of the grey squirrels, and their fur was short, without the soft thick glossy look upon it of the grey squirrels'. They were of a lively tawny yellow-brown colour, with long black and white stripes down their backs; their tails were not so long nor so thickly furred; and instead of living in the trees, they made their nests in logs and wind-falls, and had their granaries and winter houses too under ground, where they made warm nests of dried moss and grass and thistledown; to these they had several entrances, so that they had always a chance of refuge if danger were nigh. Like the dormice, flying squirrels, and ground hogs, they slept soundly during the cold weather, only awakening when the warm spring sun had melted the snow. [Footnote: It is not quite certain that the chitmunk is a true squirrel, and he is sometimes called a striped rat. This pretty animal seems, indeed, to form a link between the rat and squirrel.] The vain little grey squirrels thought themselves much better than these little chitmunks, whom they treated with very little politeness, laughing at them for living in holes in the ground, instead of upon lofty trees, as they did; they even called them low-bred fellows, and wondered why they did not imitate their high breeding and behaviour. The chitmunks took very little notice of their rudeness, but merely said that, if being high-bred made people rude, they would rather remain humble as they were. "As we are the head of all the squirrel families," said Silver-nose, "we shall do you the honour of breakfasting with you to-day." "We breakfasted hours ago, while you lazy fellows were fast asleep," replied an old chitmunk, poking his little nose out of a hole in the ground. "Then we shall dine with you: so make haste and get something good for us," said Nimble-foot. "I have no doubt you have plenty of butter and hickory-nuts laid up in your holes." The old chitmunk told him he might come and get them, if he could. At this the grey squirrels skipped down from the branches, and began to run hither and thither, and to scratch among the moss and leaves, to find the entrance to the chitmunks' grain stores. They peeped under the old twisted roots of the pines and cedars, into every chink and cranny, but no sign of a granary was to be seen. Then the chitmunks said, "My dear friends, this is a bad season to visit us; we are very poor just now, finding it difficult to get a few dry pine-kernels and berries, but if you will come and see us after harvest, we shall have a store of nuts and acorns." "Pretty fellows you are!" replied Nimble, "to put us off with promises, when we are so hungry; we might starve between this and harvest." "If you leave this island, and go down the lake, you will come to a mill, where the red squirrels live, and where you will have fine times," said one of the chitmunks. "Which is the nearest way to the mill?" asked Velvet-paw. "Swim to the shore, and keep the Indian, path, and you will soon see it." But while the grey squirrels were looking out for the path, the cunning chitmunks whisked away into their holes, and left the inquirers in the lurch, who could not tell what had become of them; for though they did find a round hole that they thought might be one of their burrows, it was so narrow that they could only poke in their noses, but could get no further; the grey squirrels being much fatter and bigger than the slim little chitmunks. "After all," said Silvy, who was the best of the three, "perhaps, if we had been civil, the chitmunks would have treated us better." "Well," said Nimble, "if they had been good fellows, they would have invited us, as our mother did cousin Blackie, and have set before us the best they had. I could find it in my heart to dig them out of their holes, and give them a good bite." This was all brag on Nimble's part, who was not near so brave as he wished Silvy and Velvet-paw to suppose he was. After spending some time in hunting for acorns, they made up their minds to leave the island; and as it was not very far to the mainland, they decided on swimming thither. "Indeed," said Silver-nose, "I am tired of this dull place; we are not better off here than we were in the little island in Stony Lake, where our good old mother took care we should have plenty to eat, and we had a nice warm nest to shelter us." "Ah! well, it is of no use grumbling now; if we were to go back, we should only get a scolding, and perhaps be chased off the island," said Nimble. "Now let us have a race, and see which of us will get to shore first;" and he leaped over Velvet-paw's head, and was soon swimming merrily for the shore. He was soon followed by his companions, and in half an hour they were all safely landed. Instead of going into the thick forest, they agreed to take the path by the margin of the lake, for there they had a better chance of getting nuts and fruit; but though it was the merry month of June, and there were plenty of pretty flowers in bloom, the berries were hardly ripe, and our little vagrants fared but badly. Besides being hungry, they were sadly afraid of the eagles and fish-hawks that kept hovering over the water; and when they went further into the forest to avoid them, they saw a great white wood-owl, noiselessly flying out from among the close cedar swamps, that seemed just ready to pounce down upon them. The grey squirrels did not like the look of the owl's great round shining eyes, as they peered at them, under the tufts of silky white feathers, which almost hid his hooked bill; and their hearts sunk within them, when they heard his hollow cry, "_Ho, ho, ho, ho!" "Waugh, ho!"_ dismally sounding in their ears. It was well that Velvet-paw was as swift afoot as she was soft, for one of these great owls had very nearly caught her, while she was eating a filbert that she had found in a cleft branch, where a nuthatch had fixed it, while she pecked a hole in the shell. Some bird of prey had scared away the poor nuthatch, and Velvet-paw no doubt thought she was in luck when she found the prize; but it would have been a dear nut to her, if Nimble, who was a sharp-sighted fellow, had not seen the owl, and cried _"Chit, chit, chit, chit!"_ to warn her of her danger. _"Chit, chit, chit, chit!"_ cried Velvet-paw, and away she flew to the very top of a tall pine-tree, springing from one tree-top to another, till she was soon out of the old owl's reach. "What shall we do for supper to-night?" said Silver-nose, looking very pitifully at Nimble-foot; whom they looked upon as the head of the family. "We shall not want for a good supper and breakfast too, or I am very much mistaken. Do you see that red squirrel yonder, climbing the hemlock-tree? Well, my dears, he has a fine store of good things in that beech-tree. I watched him run down with a nut in his teeth. Let us wait patiently, and we shall see him come again for another; and as soon as he has done his meal, we will go and take ours." The red squirrel ran to and fro several times, each time carrying off a nut to his nest in the hemlock; after a while, he came no more. As soon as he was out of sight Nimble led the way, and found the hoard. The beech was quite hollow in the heart, and they went down through a hole in the branch, and found a store of hazel-nuts, with acorns, hickory-nuts, butter-nuts, and beech-mast, all packed quite close and dry. They soon made a great hole in the red squirrel's store of provisions, and were just choosing some nuts to carry off with them, when they were disturbed by a scratching against the bark of the tree. Nimble, who was always the first to take care of himself, gave the alarm, and he and Velvet-paw, being nearest to the hole, got off safely; but poor Silvy had the ill luck to sneeze, and before she had time to hide herself the angry red squirrel sprang upon her, and gave her such a terrible cuffing and scratching, that Silvy cried out for mercy. As to Nimble-foot and Velvet-paw, they paid no heed to her cries for help; they ran away, and left her to bear the blame of all their misdeeds, as well as her own. Thieves are always cowards, and are sure to forsake one another when danger is nigh. The angry red squirrel pushed poor Silvy out of her granary, and she was glad to crawl away, and hide herself in a hole at the root of a neighbouring tree, where she lay in great pain and terror, licking her wounds, and crying to think how cruel it was of her brother and sister to leave her to the mercy of the red squirrel. It was surely very cowardly of Foot-foot and Velvet-paw to forsake her in such a time of need; nor was this the only danger that befel poor Silvy. One morning, when she put her nose out of the hole, to look about her before venturing out, she saw seated on a branch, close beside the tree she was under, a racoon, staring full at her, with his sharp cunning black eyes. She was very much afraid of him, for she thought he looked very hungry; but as she knew that racoons are very fond of nuts and fruit, she said to herself, "Perhaps if I show him where the red squirrel's granary in the beech-tree is, he will not kill me." Then she said very softly to him, "Good Mister Coon, if you want a very nice breakfast, and will promise to do me no hurt, I will tell you where to find plenty of nuts." The coon eyed her with a sly grin, and said, "If I can get anything more to my taste than a pretty grey squirrel, I will take it, my dear, and not lay a paw upon your soft back." "Ah! but you must promise not to touch me, if I come out and show you where to find the nuts," said Silvy. "Upon the word and honour of a coon!" replied the racoon, laying one black paw upon his breast; "but if you do not come out of your hole, I shall soon come and dig you out, so you had best be quick; and if you trust me, you shall come to no hurt." Then Silvy thought it wisest to seem to trust the racoon's word, and she came out of her hole, and went a few paces to point out the tree, where her enemy the red squirrel's store of nuts was; but as soon as she saw Mister Coon disappear in the hollow of the tree, she bade him good-bye, and whisked up a tall tree, where she knew the racoon could not reach her; and having now quite recovered her strength, she was able to leap from branch to branch, and even from one tree to another, whenever they grew, close and the boughs touched, as they often do in the grand old woods in Canada; and so she was soon far, far away from the artful coon, who waited a long time, hoping to carry off poor Silvy for his dinner. Silvy contrived to pick up a living by digging for roots, and eating such fruits as she could find; but one day she came to a grassy cleared spot, where she saw a strange-looking tent, made with poles stuck into the ground and meeting at the top, from which came a bluish cloud that spread among the trees; and as Silvy was very curious, she came nearer, and at last, hearing no sound, ran up one of the poles, and peeped in, to see what was within side, thinking it might be one of the fine stores of grain that people built for the squirrels, as her cousin Blackie had made her believe. The poles were covered with sheets of birch-bark, and skins of deer and wolves, and there was a fire of sticks burning in the middle, round which some large creatures were sitting on a bear's skin, eating something that smelt very nice. They had long black hair, and black eyes, and very white teeth. Silvy felt alarmed at first; but thinking they must be the people who were kind to squirrels, she ventured to slip through a slit in the bark, and ran down into the wigwam, hoping to get something to eat; but in a minute the Indians jumped up, and before she had time to make her escape she was seized by a young squaw, and popped into a birch box, and the lid shut down upon her: so poor Silvy was caught in a trap; and all for believing the artful black squirrel's tales. Silver-nose remembered her mother's warning now, when it was too late; she tried to get out of her prison, but in vain; the sides of the box were too strong, and there was not so much as a single crack for a peep-hole. After she had been shut up some time, the lid was raised a little, and a dark hand put in some bright, shining hard grains for her to eat. This was Indian corn, and it was excellent food; but Silvy was a long, long time before she would eat any of this sweet corn, she was so vexed at being caught and shut up in prison; besides, she was very much afraid that the Indians were going to eat her. After some days, she began to get used to her captive state; the little squaw used to feed her, and one day took her out of the box, and put her into a nice light cage, where there was soft green moss to lie on, a little bark dish with clear water, and abundance of food. The cage was hung up on the bough of a tree, near the wigwam, to swing to and fro as the wind waved the tree. Here Silvy could see the birds flying to and fro, and listen to their cheerful songs. The Indian women and children had always a kind look, or a word to say to her; and her little mistress was so kind to her, that Silvy could not help loving her. She was very grateful for her care; for when she was sick and sulky, the little squaw gave her bits of maple-sugar and parched rice out of her hand. At last Silvy grew tame, and would suffer herself to be taken out of her house, to sit on her mistress's shoulder, or in her lap; and though she sometimes ran away and hid herself, out of fun, she would not have gone far from the tent of the good Indians, on any account. Sometimes she saw the red squirrels running about in the forest, but they never came very near her; but she used to watch ail day long for her brother Nimble-foot, or sister Velvet; but they were now far away from her, and no doubt thought that she had been killed by the red squirrel, or eaten up by a fox or racoon. * * * * * "Nurse, I am so glad pretty Silvy was not killed, and that the good Indians took care of her." "It is time now, my dear, for you to put down your book," said Mrs. Frazer, "and to-morrow we will read some more." "Yes, if you please, Mrs. Frazer," said Lady Mary. PART III. HOW THE SQUIRRELS GOT TO THE MILL AT THE RAPIDS--AND WHAT HAPPENED TO VELVET-PAW. Nimble-foot and Velvet-paw were so frightened by the sight of the red squirrel, that they ran down the tree without once looking back to see what had become of poor Silver-nose; indeed the cowards, instead of waiting for their poor sister, fled through the forest as if an army of red squirrels were behind them. At last they reached the banks of the lake, and, jumping into the water, swam down the current till they came to a place called the "Narrow," where the wide lake poured its waters through a deep rocky channel, not more than a hundred yards wide; here the waters became so rough and rapid, that our little swimmers thought it wisest to go on shore. They scrambled up the steep rocky bank, and found themselves on a wide open space, quite free from trees, which they knew must be one of the great clearings the traveller squirrel had spoken of. There was a very high building on the water's edge, that they thought must be the mill that the chitmunks had told them they would come to; and they were in good spirits, as they now expected to find plenty of good things laid up for them to eat, so they went in by the door of the mill. "Dear me, what a dust there is!", said Nimble, looking about him; "I think it must be snowing." "Snow does not fall in hot weather," said Velvet; "besides, this white powder is very sweet and nice;" and she began to lick some of the flour that lay in the cracks of the floor. "I have found some nice seeds here," said Nimble, running to the top of a sack that stood with the mouth untied; "these are better than pine-kernels, and not so hard. We must have come to one of the great grain-stores that our cousin told us of. Well, I am sure the people are very kind to have laid up so many good things for us squirrels." When they had eaten as much as they liked, they began to run about to see what was in the mill. Presently, a man came in, and they saw him take one of the sacks of wheat, and pour it into a large upright box, and in a few minutes there was a great noise--a sort of buzzing, whirring, rumbling, dashing, and splashing;--and away ran Velvet-paw in a terrible fright, and scrambled up some beams and rafters to the top of the wall, where she sat watching what was going--on, trembling all over; but finding that no harm happened to her, took courage, and after a time ceased to be afraid. She saw Nimble perched on a cross-beam looking down very intently at something; so she came out of her corner and ran to him, and asked what he was looking at. "There is a great black thing here," said he, "I cannot tell what to make of him at all; it turns round, and round, and round, and dashes the water about, making a fine splash." (This was the water-wheel.) "It looks very ugly indeed," said Velvet-paw, "and makes my head giddy to look at it; let us go away. I want to find out what these two big stones are doing," said she; "they keep rubbing against one another, and making a great noise." "There is nothing so wonderful in two big stones, my dear," said Nimble; "I have seen plenty bigger than these in Stony Lake." "But they did not move about as these do; and only look here at the white stuff that is running down all the time into this great box. Well, we shall not want for food for the rest of our lives; I wish poor Silvy were with us to share in our good luck." They saw a great many other strange things in the mill, and they thought that the miller was a very funny-looking creature; but as they fancied that he was grinding the wheat into flour for them, they were not much afraid of him; they were more troubled at the sight of a black dog, which spied them out as they sat on the beams of the mill, and ran about in a great rage, barking at them in a frightful way, and never left off till the miller went out of the mill, when he went away with his master, and did not return till the next day; but whenever he saw the grey squirrels, this little dog, whose name was "Pinch," was sure to set up his ears and tail, and snap and bark, showing all his sharp white teeth in a very savage manner. Not far from the mill was another building: this was the house the miller lived in; and close by the house was a barn, a stable, a cow-shed, and a sheep-pen, and there was a garden full of fruit and flowers, and an orchard of apple-trees close by. One day Velvet-paw ran up one of the apple-trees and began to eat an apple; it looked very good, for it had a bright red cheek, but it was hard and sour, not being ripe. "I do not like these big, sour berries," said she, making wry faces as she tried to get the bad taste out of her mouth by wiping her tongue on her fore-paw. Nimble had found some ripe currants; so he only laughed at poor Velvet for the trouble she was in. These little grey squirrels now led a merry life; they found plenty to eat and drink, and would not have had a care in the world, if it had not been for the noisy little dog Pinch, who let them have no quiet, barking and baying at them whenever he saw them; and also for the watchful eyes of a great tom-cat, who was always prowling about the mill, or creeping round the orchard and outhouses; so that with all their good food they were not quite free from causes of fear, and no doubt sometimes wished themselves safe back on the little rocky island, in their nest in the old oak-tree. Time passed away--the wheat and the oats were now ripe and fit for the scythe, for in Canada the settlers mow wheat with an instrument called a "cradle scythe." The beautiful Indian corn was in bloom, and its long pale green silken threads were waving in the summer breeze. The blue-jays were busy in the fields of wheat; so were the red-winged blackbirds, and the sparrows, and many other birds, great and small; field-mice in dozens were cutting the straw with their sharp teeth, and carrying off the grain to their nests; and as to the squirrels and chitmunks, there were scores of them, black, red, and grey, filling their cheeks with the grain, and laying it out on the rail fences and on the top of the stumps to dry, before they carried it away to their storehouses. And many a battle the red and the black squirrels had, and sometimes the grey joined with the red, to beat the black ones off the ground. Nimble-foot and his sister kept out of these quarrels as much as they could; but once they got a severe beating from the red squirrels for not helping them to drive off the saucy black ones, who would carry away the little heaps of wheat, as soon as they were dry. "We do not mean to trouble ourselves with laying up winter stores," said Nimble one day to his red cousins; "don't you see Peter, the miller's man, has got a great wagon and horses, and is carting wheat into the barn for us?" The red squirrel opened his round eyes very wide at this speech. "Why, Cousin Nimble," he said, "you are not so foolish as to think the miller is harvesting that grain for your use. No, no, my friend; if you want any, you must work as we do, or run the chance of starving in the winter." Then Nimble told him what their cousin Blackie had said. "You were wise fellows to believe such nonsense!" said the red squirrel. "These mills and barns are all stored for the use of the miller and his family; and what is more, my friend, I can tell you that men are no great friends to us poor squirrels, and will kill us when they get the chance, and begrudge us the grain we help ourselves to." "Well, that is very stingy," said Velvet-paw; "I am sure there is enough for men and squirrels too. However, I suppose all must live, so we will let them have what we leave; I shall help myself after they have stored it up in yonder barn." "You had better do as we do, and make hay while the sun shines," said the red squirrel. "I would rather play in the sunshine, and eat what I want here," said idle Velvet-paw, setting up her fine tail like a feather over her back, as she ate an ear of corn. "You are a foolish, idle thing, and will come to no good," said the red squirrel. "I wonder where you were brought up?" I am very sorry to relate that Velvet-paw did not come to a good end, for she did not take the advice of her red cousin, to lay up provisions during the harvest; but instead of that, she ate all day long, and grew fat and lazy; and after the fields were all cleared, she went to the mill one day, when the mill was grinding, and seeing a quantity of wheat in the feeder of the mill, she ran up a beam and jumped down, thinking to make a good dinner from the grain she saw; but it kept sliding down and sliding down so fast, that she could not get one grain, so at last she began to be frightened, and tried to get up again, but, alas! this was not possible. She cried out to Nimble to help her; and while he ran to look for a stick for her to raise herself up by, the mill-wheel kept on turning, and the great stones went round faster and faster, till poor Velvet-paw was crushed to death between them. Nimble was now left all alone, and sad enough he was, you may suppose. "Ah," said he, "idleness is the ruin of grey squirrels, as well as men, so I will go away from this place, and try and earn an honest living in the forest. I wish I had not believed all the fine tales my cousin the black squirrel told me." Then Nimble went away from the clearing, and once more resolved to seek his fortune in the woods. He knew there were plenty butter-nuts, acorns, hickory-nuts, and beech-nuts, to be found, besides many sorts of berries; and he very diligently set to work to lay up stores against the coming winter. As it was now getting cold at night, Nimble-foot thought it would be wise to make himself a warm house; so he found out a tall hemlock-pine that was very thick and bushy at the top; there was a forked branch in the tree, with a hollow just fit for his nest. He carried twigs of birch and beech, and over these he laid dry green moss, which he collected on the north side of the cedar-trees, and some long grey moss that he found on the swamp maples, and then he stripped the silky threads from the milk-weeds, and the bark of the cedar and birch-trees. These he gnawed fine, and soon made a soft bed; he wove and twisted the sticks, and roots, and mosses together, till the walls of his house were quite thick, and he made a sort of thatch over the top with dry leaves and long moss, with a round hole to creep in and out of. Making this warm house took him many days' labour; but many strokes will fell great oaks, so at last Nimble-foot's work came to an end, and he had the comfort of a charming house to shelter him from the cold season. He laid up a good store of nuts, acorns, and roots: some he put in a hollow branch of the hemlock-tree close to his nest; some he hid in a stump, and another store he laid under the roots of a mossy cedar. When all this was done, he began to feet very lonely, and often wished no doubt that he had had his sisters Silvy and Velvet-paw with him, to share his nice warm house; but of Silvy he knew nothing, and poor Velvet-paw was dead. One fine moonlight night, as Nimble was frisking about on the bough of a birch-tree, not very far from his house in the hemlock, he saw a canoe land on the shore of the lake, and some Indians with an axe cut down some bushes, and having cleared a small piece of ground, begin to sharpen, the ends of some long poles. These they stuck into the ground close together in a circle; and having stripped some sheets of birch-bark from the birch-trees close by, they thatched the sides of the hut, and made a fire of sticks inside. They had a dead deer in the canoe, and there were several hares and black squirrels, the sight of which rather alarmed Nimble; for he thought if they killed one sort of squirrel, they might another, and he was very much scared at one of the Indians firing off a gun close by him. The noise made him fall down to the ground, and it was a good thing that it was dark among the leaves and grass where the trunk of the tree threw its long shadow, so that the Indian did not see him, or perhaps he might have loaded the gun again, and shot our little friend, and made soup of him for his supper. Nimble ran swiftly up a pine-tree, and was soon out of danger. While he was watching some of the Indian children at play, he saw a girl come out of the hut with a grey squirrel in her arms; it did not seem at all afraid of her, but nestled to her shoulder, and even ate out of her hand; and what was Nimble's surprise to see that this tame grey squirrel was none other than his own pretty sister Silver-nose, whom he had left in the hollow tree when they both ran away from the red squirrel. You may suppose the sight of his lost companion was a joyful one; he waited for a long, long time, till the fire went out, and all the Indians were fast asleep, and little Silvy came out to play in the moonlight, and frisk about on the dewy grass as she used to do. Then Nimble, when he saw her, ran down the tree, and came to her and rubbed his nose against her, and licked her soft fur, and told her who he was, and how sorry he was for having left her in so cowardly a manner, to be beaten by the red squirrel. The good little Silvy told Nimble not to fret about what was past, and then she asked him for her sister Velvet-paw. Nimble had a long sorrowful tale to tell about the death of poor Velvet; and Silvy was much grieved. Then in her turn she told Nimble all her adventures, and how she had been caught by the Indian, girl, and kept, and fed, and tamed, and had passed her time very happily, if it had not been for thinking about her dear lost companions. "But now," she said, "my dear brother, we will never, part again; you shall be quite welcome, to share my cage, and my nice stores of Indian corn, rice, and nuts, which my kind mistress gives me." "I would not be shut up in a cage, not even for one day," said Nimble, "for all the nice and grain in Canada. I am a free squirrel, and love my liberty. I would not exchange a life of freedom in these fine old woods, for all the dainties in the world. So, Silvy, if you prefer a life of idleness and ease to living with me in the forest, I must say good-bye to you." "But there is nothing to hurt us, my dear Nimble--no racoons, nor foxes, nor hawks, nor owls, nor weasels; if I see any hungry-looking birds or beasts, I have a safe place to run to, and never need be hungry!" "I would not lead a life like that, for the world," said Nimble. "I should die of dullness; if there is danger in a life of freedom, there is pleasure too, which you cannot enjoy, shut up in a wooden cage, and fed at the will of a master or mistress." "Well, I shall be shot if the Indians awake and see me; so I shall be off." Silvy looked very sorrowful; she did not like to part from her newly-found brother, but she was unwilling to forego all the comforts and luxuries her life of captivity afforded her. "You will not tell the Indians where I live, I hope, Silvy, for they would think it a fine thing to hunt me with their dogs, or shoot me down with their bows and arrows." At these words Silvy was overcome with grief, so jumping off from the log on which she was standing, she said, "Nimble, I will go with you and share all your perils, and we will never part again." She then ran into the wigwam; and going softly to the little squaw, who was asleep, licked her hands and face, as if she would say, "Good-bye, my good kind friend; I shall not forget all your love for me, though I am going away from you for ever." Silvy then followed Nimble into the forest, and they soon reached his nice comfortable nest in the tall hemlock-tree. * * * * * "Nurse, I am glad Silvy went away with Nimble, are not you? Poor Nimble must have been so lonely without her, and then you know it must have seemed so hard to him if Silvy had preferred staying with the Indians, to living with him." "Those who have been used to a life of ease do not willingly give it up, my dear lady; thus you see, love for her old companion was stronger even than love of self. But I think you must have tired yourself with reading so long to me." "Indeed, nurse, I must read a little more, for I want you to hear how Silvy and Nimble amused themselves in the hemlock-tree." Then Lady Mary went on and read as follows. * * * * * Silvy was greatly pleased with her new home, which was as soft and as warm as clean dry moss, hay, and fibres of roots could make it. The squirrels built a sort of pent or outer roof of twigs, dry leaves, and roots of withered grass, which was pitched so high that it threw off the rain and kept the inner house very dry. They worked at this very diligently, and also laid up a store of nuts and berries. They knew that they must not only provide plenty of food for the winter, but also for the spring months, when they could get little to eat beside the buds and bark of some sort of trees, and the chance seeds that might still remain in the pine-cones. Thus the autumn months passed away very quickly and cheerfully with the squirrels while preparing for the coming winter. Half the cold season was spent, too, in sleep; but on mild sunny days the little squirrels, roused by the bright light of the sunbeams on the white and glittering snow, would shake themselves, rub their black eyes, and after licking themselves clean from dust, would whisk out of their house and indulge in merry gambols up and down the trunks of the trees, skipping from bough to bough, and frolicking over the hard crisp snow, which scarcely showed on its surface the delicate print of their tiny feet, and the sweep of their fine light feathery tails. Sometimes they met with some little shrewmice, running on the snow. These very tiny things are so small, they hardly look bigger than a large black beetle; they lived on the seeds of the tall weeds, which they, might be seen climbing and clinging to, yet were hardly heavy enough to weigh down the heads of the dry stalks. It is pretty to see the footprints of these small shrewmice, on the surface of the fresh fallen snow in the deep forest-glades. They are not dormant during the winter like many of the mouse tribe, for they are up and abroad at all seasons; for however stormy and severe the weather may be, they do not seem to heed its inclemency. Surely, children, there is One who cares for the small tender things of earth, and shelters them from the rude blasts. Nimble-foot and Silver-nose often saw their cousins, the black squirrels, playing in the sunshine, chasing each other merrily up and down the trees, or over the brush-heaps; their jetty coats, and long feathery tails, forming a striking contrast with the whiteness of the snow, above which they were sporting. Sometimes they saw a few red squirrels too, but there was generally war between them and the black ones. In these lonely forests, everything seems still and silent, during the long wintry season, as if death had spread a white pall over, the earth, and hushed every living thing into silence. Few sounds are heard through the winter days, to break the death-like silence that reigns around, excepting the sudden rending and cracking of the trees in the frosty air, the fall of a decayed branch, the tapping of a solitary woodpecker, two or three small species of which still remain after all the summer birds are flown; and the gentle, weak chirp of the little tree-creeper, as it runs up and down the hemlocks and pines, searching the crevices of the bark for insects. Yet in all this seeming death lies hidden the life of myriads of insects, the huge beast of the forest, asleep in his lair, with many of the smaller quadrupeds, and forest-birds, that, hushed in lonely places, shall awake to life and activity as soon as the sun-beams shall once more dissolve the snow, unbind the frozen streams, and loosen the bands which held them in repose. At last the spring, the glad joyous spring, returned. The leaf-buds, wrapped within their gummy and downy cases, began to unfold; the dark green pines, spruce, and balsams began to shoot out fresh spiny leaves, like tassels, from the ends of every bough, giving out the most refreshing fragrance; the crimson buds of the young hazels, and the scarlet blossoms of the soft maple, enlivened the edges of the streams; the bright coral bark of the dogwood seemed as if freshly varnished, so brightly it glowed in the morning sunshine; the scream of the blue jay, the song of the robin and wood-thrush, the merry note of the chiccadee, and plaintive cry of the pheobe, with loud hammering strokes of the great red-headed woodpecker, mingled with the rush of the unbound forest streams, gurgling and murmuring as their water flowed over the stones, and the sighing of the breeze, playing in the tree-tops, made pleasant and ceaseless music. And then as time passed on, the trees unfolded all their bright green leaves, the buds and forest flowers opened; and many a bright bell our little squirrels looked down upon, from their leafy home, that the eye of man had never seen. It was pleasant for our little squirrels, just after sunset, in the still summer evenings, when the small silver stars came stealing out, one by one, in the blue sky, to play among the cool dewy leaves of the grand old oaks and maples; to watch the fitful flash of the fireflies, as they glanced here and there, flitting through the deep gloom of the forest boughs, now lost to sight, as they closed their wings, now flashing out like tiny tapers, borne aloft by unseen hands in the darkness. Where that little creek runs singing over its mossy bed, and the cedar-boughs bend down so thick and close, that only a gleam of the bright water can be seen, even in the sunlight--there the fireflies crowd, and the damp foliage is all alive with their dazzling light. In this sweet still hour, just at the dewfall, the rush of whirring wings may be heard from the islands, or in the forest, bordering on the water's edge; and out of hollow logs and hoary trunks of trees come forth the speckled night-hawks, cutting the air with their thin sharp wide wings, and open beak, ready to entrap the unwary moth, or moskitoe, that float so joyously upon the evening air. One after another, sweeping in wider circles, come forth these birds of prey, till the whole air seems alive with them; darting hither and thither, and uttering wild shrill screams, as they rise higher and higher in the upper air, till some are almost lost to sight. Sometimes one of them will descend with a sudden swoop, to the lower regions of the air, just above the highest tree-tops, with a hollow booming sound, as if some one were blowing in an empty vessel. At this hour, too, the bats would quit their homes in hollow trees and old rocky banks, and flit noiselessly abroad, over the surface of the quiet star-lit lake; and now also would begin the shrill, trilling note of the green-frog, and the deep hoarse bass of the bull-frog, which ceases only at intervals, through the long, warm summer night. You might fancy a droll sort of dialogue was being carried on among them. At first, a great fellow, the patriarch of the swamp, will put up his head, which looks very much like a small pair of bellows, with yellow leather sides; and say in a harsh, guttural tone, "Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed." After a moment's pause, two or three will rise and reply, "No, I won't! no, I won't! no, I won't!" Then the old fellow, with a growl, replies,--"Get out, get out, get out," --and forthwith, with a rush, and a splash, and a dash, they raise a chorus of whirring, grating, growling, grunting, whistling sounds, which make you hold your ears. When all this hubbub has lasted some minutes, there is a pop, and a splash, and down go all the heads under the weeds and mud; and after another pause, up comes the old father of the frogs, and begins again with the old story--"Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed," and so on. During the heat of the day, the bull-frogs are silent; but as the day declines, and the air becomes cooler, they re-commence their noisy chorus. I suppose these sounds, though not very pleasant to the ears of men, may not be so disagreeable to those of wild animals. I dare say neither Nimble nor Silvy were in the least annoyed by the hoarse note of the bull-frog; but gambolled as merrily among the boughs and fresh dewy leaves, as if they were listening to sweet music, or the songs of the birds. The summer passed away very happily; but towards the close of the warm season, the squirrels, Nimble and Silvy, resolved to make a journey to the rocky island on Stony lake, to see the old squirrels, their father and mother. So they started at sunrise one fine pleasant day, and travelled along, till one cool evening, just as the moon was beginning to rise above the pine-trees, they arrived at the little rocky islet where they first saw the light; but when they eagerly ran up the trunk of the old oak-tree, expecting to have seen their old father and mother, they were surprised and terrified by seeing a wood-owl in the nest. As soon as she espied our little squirrels, she shook her feathers, and set up her ears--for she was a long-eared owl--and said, "What do you want here?--ho, ho, ho, ho! "Indeed, Mrs. Owl," said Nimble, "we come hither to see our parents, whom we left here a year ago. Can you tell us where we shall find them?" The owl peered out of her ruff of silken feathers, and after wiping her sharp bill on her breast, said, "Your cousin the black squirrel beat your father and mother out of their nest a long time ago, and took possession of the tree and all that was in it, and they brought up a large family of little ones, all of which I pounced upon one after another, and ate. Indeed, the oaks here belong to my family; so finding these impudent intruders would not quit the premises, I made short work of the matter, and took the law into my own hands." "Did you kill them?" asked Silvy, in a trembling voice. "Of course I did, and very nice tender meat they were," replied the horrid old owl, beginning to scramble out of the nest, and eyeing the squirrels at the same time with a wicked look. "But you did not eat our parents too?" asked the trembling squirrels. "Yes, I did; they were very tough, to be sure, but I am not very particular." The grey squirrels, though full of grief and vain regret, were obliged to take care of themselves. There was, indeed, no time to fee lost, so they made a hasty retreat. They crept under the roots of an old tree, where they lay till the morning; they were not much concerned for the death of the treacherous black squirrel who had told so many stories, got possession of their old nest, and caused the death of their parents; but they said--"We will go home again to our dear old hemlock-tree, and never leave it more." So these dear little squirrels returned to their forest home, and may be living there yet. * * * * * "Nurse," said Lady Mary, "how do you like the story?" Mrs. Frazer said it was a very pretty one. "Perhaps my dear little pet is one of Nimble or Silvy's children. You know, nurse, they might have gone on their travels too when they were old enough, and then your brother may have chopped down the tree and found them in the forest." "But your squirrel, Lady Mary, is a flying squirrel, and these were only common grey ones, which are a different species. Besides, my dear, this history is but a fable." "I suppose, nurse," said the child, looking up in her nurse's face, "squirrels do not really talk." "No, my dear, they have not the use of speech as we have, but in all ages people have written little tales called fables, in which they make birds and beasts speak as if they were men and women, it being an easy method of conveying instruction." "My book is only a fable then, nurse? I wish it had been true; but it is very pretty." CHAPTER IV. SQUIRRELS--THE CHITMUNKS-DOCILITY OF A PET ONE--ROGUERY OF A YANKEE PEDLAR--RETURN OF THE MUSICAL CHITMUNK TO HIS MASTER'S BOSOM--SAGACITY OF A BLACK SQUIRREL. "Mrs. Frazer, are you very busy just now?" asked Lady Mary, coming up to the table where her nurse was ironing some lace. "No, my dear, not very busy, only preparing these lace edgings for your frocks. Do you want me to do anything for you?" "I only want to tell you that my governess has promised to paint my dear squirrel's picture, as soon as it is tame, and will let me hold it in my lap, without flying away. I saw a picture of a flying squirrel to-day, but it was very ugly--not at all like mine; it was long and flat, and its legs looked like sticks, and it was stretched out, just like one of those muskrat skins that you pointed out to me in a fur store. Mamma said it was drawn so, to show it while it was in the act of flying; but it is not pretty--it does not show its beautiful tail, nor its bright eyes, nor soft silky fur. I heard a lady tell mamma about a nest full of dear, tiny little flying squirrels; [Footnote: Tame flying squirrels may be purchased at the Pantheon, in Oxford Street.] that her brother once found in a tree in the forest; he tamed them, and they lived very happily together, and would feed from his hand. They slept in the cold weather like dormice; in the day-time they lay very still, but would come out, and gambol, and frisk about at night. But somebody left the cage open, and they all ran away except one, and that he found in his bed, where it had run for shelter with its little nose under his pillow. He caught the little fellow, and it lived with him till the spring, when it grew restless, and one day got away, and went off to the woods." "These little creatures are impatient of confinement, and will gnaw through the woodwork of the cage to get free, especially in the spring of the year. Doubtless, my dear, they pine for the liberty which they used to enjoy before they were captured by man." "Nurse, I will not let my little pet be unhappy. As soon as the warm days come again, and my governess has taken his picture, I will let him go free. Are there many squirrels in this part of Canada?" "Not so many as in Upper Canada, Lady Mary. They abound more in some years than in others. I have seen the beech and oak woods swarming with black squirrels. My brothers have brought in two or three dozen in one day. The Indians used to tell us that want of food, or very severe weather setting in, in the north, drive these little animals from their haunts. The Indians, who observe these things more than we do, can generally tell what sort of winter it will be, from the number of wild animals in the fall." "What do you mean by the fall, nurse?" "The autumn in Canada, my lady, is called so from the fall of the leaves. I remember one year was remarkable for the great number of black, grey, and flying squirrels; the little striped chitmunk was also plentiful, and so were weasels and foxes. They came into the barns and granaries, and into the houses, and destroyed great quantities of grain; besides gnawing clothes that were laid out to dry; this they did to line their nests with. Next year there were very few to be seen." "What became of them, nurse?" "Some, no doubt, fell a prey to their enemies, the cats, foxes, and weasels, which were also very numerous that year; and the rest, perhaps, went back to their own country again." "I should like to see a great number of these pretty creatures travelling together," said Lady Mary. "All wild animals, my dear, are more active by night than by day, and probably make their long journeys during that season. The eyes of many animals and birds are so formed, that they see best in the dim twilight, as cats, and owls, and others. Our heavenly Father has fitted all his. creatures for the state in which he has placed them." "Can squirrels swim like otters and beavers, nurse? If they come to a lake or river, can they cross it?" "I think they can, Lady Mary; for though these creatures are not formed like the otter, or beaver, or muskrat, to get their living in the water, they are able to swim when necessity requires them to do so. I heard a lady say that she was crossing a lake, between one of the islands and the shore, in a canoe, with a baby on her lap. She noticed a movement on the surface of the water. At first she thought it might be a water snake, but the servant lad who was paddling the canoe, said it was a red squirrel, and he tried to strike it with the paddle; but the little squirrel leaped out of the water to the blade of the paddle, and sprang on the head of the baby, as it lay on her lap; from whence it jumped to her shoulder, and before she had recovered from her surprise, was in the water again, swimming straight for the shore, where it was soon safe in the dark pine woods." This feat of the squirrel delighted Lady Mary, who expressed her joy at the bravery of the little creature. Besides, she said she had heard that grey squirrels, when they wished to go to a distance in search of food, would all meet together, and collect pieces of bark to serve them for boats, and would set up their broad tails like sails, to catch the wind, and in this way cross large sheets of water. "I do not think this can be true," observed Mrs. Frazer; "for the squirrel, when swimming, uses his tail as an oar or rudder to help the motion, the tail lying flat on the surface of the water; nor do these creatures need a boat, for God, who made them, has _given them_ the power of swimming at their need." "Nurse, you said something about a ground squirrel, and called it a chitmunk. If you please, will you tell me something about it, and why it is called by such a curious name?" "I believe it is the Indian name for this sort of squirrel, my dear. The chitmunk is not so large as the black, red, or grey squirrels. It is marked along the back with black and white stripes; the rest of its fur is a yellowish tawny colour. It is a very playful, lively, cleanly animal, somewhat resembling the dormouse in its habits. It burrows under ground. Its nest is made with great care, with many galleries which open at the surface, so that when attacked by an enemy, it can run from one to another for security." [Footnote: The squirrel has many enemies; all the weasel tribe, cats, and even dogs attack them. Cats kill great numbers of these little animals. The farmer shows them as little mercy as he does rats and mice, as they are very destructive, and carry off vast quantities of grain, which they store in hollow trees for use. Not contenting themselves with one, granary, they have several in case one should fail, or perhaps become injured by accidental causes. Thus do these simple little creatures teach us a lesson of providential care for future events.] "How wise of these little chitmunks to think of that!" said Lady Mary. "Nay, my dear child, it is God's wisdom, not theirs. These creatures work according to his will; and so they always do what is fittest and best for their own comfort and safety. Man is the only one of God's creatures who disobeys Him." These words made Lady Mary look grave, till her nurse began to talk to her again about the chitmunk. "It is very easily tamed, and becomes very fond of its master. It will obey his voice, come at a call or a whistle, sit up and beg, take a nut or an acorn out of his hand, run up a stick, nestle in his bosom, and become quite familiar. My uncle had a tame chitmunk that was much attached to him; it lived in his pocket or bosom; it was his companion by day and by night. When he was out in the forest lumbering, or on the lake fishing, or in the fields at work, it was always with him. At meals it sat by the side of his plate, eating what he gave it; but he did not give it meat, as he thought that might injure its health. One day he and his pet were in the steam-boat, going to Toronto. He had been showing off the little chitmunk's tricks to the ladies and gentlemen on board the boat, and several persons offered him money if he would sell it; but my uncle was fond of the little thing, and would not part with it. However, just before he left the boat, he missed his pet; for a cunning Yankee pedlar on board had stolen it. My uncle knew that his little friend would not desert its old master; so he went on deck where the passengers were assembled, and whistled a popular tune familiar to the chitmunk. The little fellow, on hearing it, whisked out of the pedlar's pocket, and running swiftly along a railing against which he was standing, soon sought refuge in his master's bosom." Lady Mary clapped her hands with joy, and said, "I am so glad, nurse, that the chitmunk ran back to his old friend. I wish it had bitten that Yankee pedlar's fingers." "When angry, these creatures will bite very sharply, set up their tails, and run to and fro, and make a chattering sound with their teeth. The red squirrel is very fearless for its size, and will sometimes turn round and face you, set up its tail, and scold. But they will, when busy eating the seeds of the sunflower or thistle, of which they are very fond, suffer you to stand and watch them without attempting to run away. When near their granaries, or the tree where their nest is, they are unwilling to leave it, running to and fro, and uttering their angry notes; but if a dog is near, they make for a tree, and as soon as they are out of his reach, turn round to chatter and scold, as long as he remains in sight. When hard pressed, the black and flying squirrels will take prodigious leaps, springing from bough to bough, and from tree to tree. In this manner they baffle the hunters, and travel a great distance over the tops of the trees. Once I saw my uncle and brothers chasing a large black squirrel. He kept out of reach of the dogs, as well as out of sight of the men, by passing round and round the tree as he went up, so that they could never get a fair shot at him. At last, they got so provoked that they took their axes, and set to work to chop down the tree. It was a large pine-tree, and took them some time. Just as the tree was ready to fall, and was wavering to and fro, the squirrel, who had kept on the topmost bough, sprang nimbly to the next tree, and then to another, and by the time the great pine had reached the ground, the squirrel was far away in his nest among his little ones, safe from hunters, guns, and dogs." "The black squirrel must have wondered, I think, nurse, why so many men and dogs tried to kill such a little creature as he was. Do the black squirrels sleep in the winter as well as the flying squirrels and chitmunks?" "No, Lady Mary; I have often seen them on bright days chasing each other over logs and brush heaps, and running gaily up the pine-trees. They are easily seen from the contrast which their jetty black coats make with the sparkling white snow. These creatures feed a good deal on the kernels of the pines and hemlocks; they also eat the buds of some trees. They lay up great stores of nuts and grain for winter use. The flying squirrels sleep much, and in the cold season lie heaped upon each other, for the sake of warmth. As many as seven or eight may be found in one nest asleep. They sometimes awaken, if there come a succession of warm days, as in the January thaw; for I must tell you that in this country we generally have rain and mild weather for a few days in the beginning of January, when the snow nearly disappears from the ground. About the 12th, [Footnote: This remark applies more particularly to the Upper Province.] the weather sets in again steadily cold; when the little animals retire once more to sleep in their winter cradles, which they rarely leave till the hard weather is over." "I suppose, nurse, when they awake, they are glad to eat some of the food they hare laid up in their granaries?" "Yes, my dear, it is for this they gather their hoards in mild weather; which also supports them in the spring months, and possibly even during the summer, till grain and fruit are ripe. I was walking in the harvest field one day, where my brothers were cradling wheat. As I passed along the fence, I noticed a great many little heaps of wheat lying here and there on the rails, also upon the tops of the stumps in the field. I wondered at first who could have placed them there, but presently noticed a number of red squirrels running very swiftly along the fence, and perceived that they emptied their mouths of a quantity of the new wheat, which they had been diligently employed in collecting from the ears that lay scattered over the ground. These little gleaners did not seem to be at all alarmed at my presence, but went to and fro as busy as bees. On taking some of the grains into my hand, I noticed that the germ or eye of the kernels was bitten clean out." "What was that for, nurse? can you tell me?" "My dear young lady, I did not know at first, till, upon showing it to my father, he told me that the squirrels destroyed the germ of the grain, such as wheat or Indian corn, that they stored up for winter use, that it might not sprout when buried in the ground or in a hollow tree." "This is very strange, nurse," said the little girl. "But I suppose," she added, after a moment's thought, "it was God who taught the squirrels to do so. But why would biting out the eye prevent the grain from growing?" "Because the eye or bud contains the life of the plant; from it springs the green blade, and the stem that bears the ear, and the root that strikes down to the earth. The flowery part, which swells and becomes soft and jelly-like, serves to nourish the young plant till the tender fibres of the roots are able to draw moisture from the ground." Lady Mary asked if all seeds had an eye or germ. Her nurse replied that all had, though some were so minute that they looked no bigger than dust, or a grain of sand; yet each was perfect in its kind, and contained the plant that would, when sown in the earth, bring forth roots, leaves, buds, flowers, and fruits in due season. "How glad I should have been to see the little squirrels gleaning the wheat, and laying it in the little heaps on the rail fence. Why did they not carry it at once to their nests?" "They laid it out in the sun and wind to dry; for if it had been stored away while damp, it would have moulded, and have been spoiled. The squirrels were busy all that day; when I went to see them again, the grain was gone. I saw several red squirrels running up and down a large pine-tree, which had been broken by the wind at the top; and there, no doubt, they had laid up stores. These squirrels did not follow each other in a straight line, but ran round and round in a spiral direction, so that they never hindered each other, nor came in each other's way: two were always going up, while the other two were going down. They seem to work in families; for the young ones, though old enough to get their own living, usually inhabit the same nest, and help to store up the grain for winter use. They all separate again in spring. The little chitmunk does not live in trees, but burrows in the ground, or makes its nest in some large hollow log. It is very pretty to see the little chitmunks, on a warm spring day, running about and chasing each other among the moss and leaves; they are not bigger than mice, but look bright and lively. The fur of all the squirrel tribe is used in trimming, but the grey is the best and most valuable. It has often been remarked by the Indians, and others, that the red and black squirrels never live in the same place; for the red, though the smallest, beat away the black ones. The flesh of the black squirrel is very good to eat; the Indians also eat the red." Lady Mary was very glad to hear all these things, and quite forgot to play with her doll. "Please, Mrs. Frazer," said the little lady, "tell me now about beavers and muskrats." But Mrs. Frazer was obliged to go out on business; she promised, however, to tell Lady Mary all she knew about these animals another day. CHAPTER V. INDIAN BASKETS--THREAD PLANTS--MAPLE SUGAR TREE--INDIAN ORNAMENTAL WORKS-- RACOONS It was some time before Lady Mary's nurse could tell her any more stories. She received a letter from her sister-in-law, informing her that her brother was dangerously ill, confined to what was feared would prove his deathbed, and that he earnestly desired to see her before he died. The Governor's lady, who was very kind and good to all her household, readily consented to let Mrs. Frazer go to her sick relation. Lady Mary parted from her dear nurse, whom she loved very tenderly, with much regret. Mrs. Frazer told her that it might be a fortnight before she could return, as her brother lived on the shores of one of the small lakes, near the head waters of the Otonabee river, a great way off; but she promised to return as soon as she could, and to console her young mistress for her absence, said she would bring her some Indian toys from the backwoods. The month of March passed away pleasantly, for Lady Mary enjoyed many delightful sleigh-drives with her papa and mamma, who took every opportunity to instruct and amuse her. On entering her nursery one day, after enjoying a long drive in the country, great was her joy to find her good nurse sitting quietly at work by the stove. She was dressed in deep mourning, and looked much thinner and paler than when she had last seen her. The kind little girl knew, when she saw her nurse's black dress, that her brother must be dead; and with the thoughtfulness of a true lady, remained very quiet, and did not annoy her with questions about trifling matters; she spoke low and gently to her, and tried to comfort her when she saw large tears falling on the work which she held in her hand, kindly said, "Mrs, Frazer, you had better go and lie down and rest yourself, for you must be tired after your long long journey." The next day Mrs. Frazer seemed to be much better; and she showed Lady Mary an Indian basket, made of birch-bark, very richly wrought with coloured porcupine-quills, and which had two lids. Lady Mary admired the splendid colours, and strange patterns on the basket. "It is for you, my dear," said her nurse, "open it, and see what is in it." Lady Mary lifted one of the lids, and took out another small basket, of a different shape and pattern. It had a top, which was sewn down with coarse-looking thread, which her nurse told her was nothing but the sinews of the deer, dried and beaten fine, and drawn out like thread. Then, taking an end of it in her hand, she made Lady Mary observe that these coarse threads could be separated into a great number of finer ones, sufficiently delicate to pass through the eye of a fine needle, or to string tiny beads. "The Indians, my lady, sew with the sinews of the wild animals they kill. These sinews are much stronger and tougher than thread, and therefore are well adapted to sew together such things as moccasins, leggings, and garments made of the skins of wild animals. The finer threads are used for sewing the beads and quill ornaments on moccasins, sheaths, and pouches, besides other things that I cannot now think of. "They sew some things with the roots of the tamarack, of larch; such as coarse birch-baskets, bark canoes, and the covering of their wigwams. They call this 'wah-tap,' [Footnote: Asclepia paviflora.] (wood-thread,) and they prepare it by pulling off the outer rind and steeping it in water. It is the larger fibres which have the appearance of small cordage when coiled up and fit for use. This 'wah-tap' is very valuable to these poor Indians. There is also another plant, called Indian hemp, which is a small shrubby kind of milk-weed, that grows on gravelly islands. It bears white flowers, and the branches are long and slender; under the bark there is a fine silky thread covering the wood; this is tough, and can be twisted and spun into cloth. It is very white and fine, and does not easily break. There are other plants of the same family, with pods full of fine shining silk; but these are too brittle to spin into thread. This last kind, Lady Mary, which is called Milk-weed flytrap, I will show you in summer." [Footnote: Asclepia Syriaca.] But while Mrs. Frazer was talking about these plants, the little lady was examining the contents of the small birch-box. "If you please, nurse, will you tell me what these dark shining seeds are?" "These seeds, my dear, are Indian rice; an old squaw, Mrs. Peter Noggan, gave me this as a present for 'Governor's daughter,'" and Mrs. Frazer imitated the soft, whining tone of the Indian, which made Lady Mary laugh. "The box is called a 'mowkowk.' There is another just like it, only there is a white bird,--a snow-bird, I suppose it is intended for--worked on the lid." The lid of this box was fastened down with a narrow slip of deer-skin; Lady Mary cut the fastening, and raised the lid,--"Nurse, it is only yellow sand; how droll, to send me a box of sand!" "It is not sand; taste it, Lady Mary." "It is sweet--it is sugar! Ah! now I know what it is that this kind old squaw has sent me; it is maple-sugar; and is very nice. I will go and show it to mamma." "Wait a little, Lady Mary, let us see what there is in the basket besides the rice and the maple-sugar." "What a lovely thing this is! dear nurse, what can it be?" "It is a sheath for your scissors, my dear; it is made of doe-skin, embroidered with white beads, and coloured quills split fine, and sewn with deer-sinew thread. Look at these curious bracelets." Lady Mary examined the bracelets, and said she thought they were wrought with beads; but Mrs. Frazer told her that what she took for beads were porcupine quills, cut out very finely, and strung in a pattern. They were not only neatly but tastefully made; the pattern, though a Grecian scroll, having been carefully imitated by some Indian squaw. "This embroidered knife-sheath is large enough for a hunting-knife," said Lady Mary, "a '_couteau de chasse_,'--is it not?" "This sheath was worked by the wife of Isaac Iron, an educated chief of the Mud Lake Indians; she gave it to me because I had been kind to her in sickness." "I will give it to my dear papa," said Lady Mary, "for I never go out hunting, and do not wish to carry a large knife by my side;" and she laid the sheath away, after having admired its gay colours, and particularly the figure of a little animal worked in black and white quills, which was intended to represent a racoon. "This is a present for your doll; it is a doll's mat, woven by a little girl, aged seven years, Rachel Muskrat; and here is a little canoe of red cedar, made by a little Indian boy." "What a darling little boat, and there is a fish carved on the paddles." This device greatly pleased Lady Mary, who said she would send Rachel a wax doll, and little Moses a knife, or some other useful article, when Mrs. Frazer went again to the Lakes; but when her nurse took out of the other end of the basket a birch-bark cradle, made for her doll, worked very richly, she clapped her hands for joy, saying, "Ah, nurse, you should not have brought me so many pretty things at once, for I am too happy!" The remaining contents of the basket consisted of seeds and berries, and a small cake of maple-sugar, which Mrs. Frazer had made for the young lady. This was very different in appearance from the Indian sugar; it was bright and sparkling, like sugar-candy, and tasted sweeter. The other sugar was dry, and slightly bitter: Mrs. Frazer told Lady Mary that this peculiar taste was caused by the birch-bark vessels, which the Indians used for catching the sap as it flowed from the maple-trees. "I wonder who taught the Indians how to make maple-sugar?" asked the child. "I do not know;" replied the nurse. "I have heard that they knew how to make this sugar when the discoverers of the country found them. [Footnote: However this may be, the French settlers claim the merit of converting the sap into sugar.] It may be that they found it out by accident. The sugar-maple when wounded in March, and April, yields a great deal of sweet liquor. Some Indians may have supplied themselves with this juice, when pressed for want of water; for it flows so freely in warm days in spring, that several pints can be obtained from one tree in the course of the day. By boiling this juice, it becomes very sweet; and at last, when all the thin watery part has gone off in steam, it becomes thick, like honey; by boiling it still-longer, it turns to sugar, when cold. So you see, my dear, that the Indians may have found it out by boiling some sap, instead of water, and letting it remain on the fire till it grew thick." "Are there many kinds of maple-trees, that sugar can be made from, nurse?" asked the little girl. "Yes, [Footnote: All the maple tribe are of a saccharine nature. Sugar has been made in England from the sap of the sycamore.] my lady; but I believe the sugar-maple yields the best sap for the purpose; that of the birch-tree, I have heard, can be made into sugar; but it would require a larger quantity; weak wine, or vinegar, is made by the settlers of birch-sap, which is very pleasant tasted. The people who live in the backwoods, and make maple-sugar, always make a keg of vinegar at the sugaring off." "That must be very useful; but if the sap is sweet, how can it be made into such sour stuff as vinegar?" Then nurse tried to make Lady Mary understand that the heat of the sun, or of a warm room, would make the liquor ferment, unless it had been boiled a long time, so as to become very sweet, and somewhat thick. The first fermentation, she told her, would give only a winy taste; but if it continued to ferment a great deal, it turned sour, and became vinegar. "How very useful the maple-tree is, nurse! I wish there were maples in the garden, and I would make sugar, molasses, wine, and vinegar; and what else would I do with my maple-tree?" Mrs. Frazer laughed, and said,--"The wood makes excellent fuel; but is also used in making bedsteads, chests of drawers, and many other things. There is a very pretty wood for furniture, called 'bird's-eye maple;' the drawers in my bedroom that you think so pretty are made of it; but it is a disease in the tree that causes it to have these little marks all through the wood. In autumn, this tree improves the forest landscape, for the bright scarlet leaves of the maple give a beautiful look to the woods in the fall. The soft maple, another species, is very bright when the leaves are changing, but it gives no sugar." "Then I will not let it grow in my garden, nurse!" "It is good for other purposes, my dear. The settlers use the bark for dyeing wool; and a jet black ink can be made from it, by boiling down the bark with a bit of copperas, in an iron vessel; so you see it is useful. The bright red flowers of this tree look very pretty in the spring; it grows best by the water-side, and some call it 'the swamp maple.'" This was all Mrs. Frazer could tell Lady Mary about the maple-trees. Many little girls, as young as the Governor's daughter, would have thought it very dull to listen to what her nurse had to say about plants and trees; but Lady Mary would put aside her dolls and toys, to stand beside her to ask questions, and listen to her answers; the more she heard, the more she desired to hear, about these things. "The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, are two things that are never satisfied," saith the wise king Solomon. Lady Mary was delighted with the contents of her Indian basket, and spent the rest of her play-hours in looking at the various articles it contained, and asking her nurse questions about the materials of which they were made. Some of the bark boxes were lined with paper, but the doll's cradle was not, and Lady Mary perceived that the inside of it was very rough, caused by the hard ends of the quills with which it was ornamented. At first, she could not think how the squaws worked with the quills, as they could not possibly thread them through the eye of a needle; but her nurse told her that when they want to work any pattern in birch-bark, they trace it with some sharp-pointed instrument, such as a nail, or bodkin, or even a sharp thorn; with which they pierce holes close together round the edge of the leaf, or blade, or bird they have drawn out on the birch-bark; into these holes they insert one end of the quill, the other end is then drawn through the opposite hole, pulled tight, bent a little, and cut off on the inside. This any one of my young readers may see, if they examine the Indian baskets or toys, made of birch-bark. "I have seen the squaws in their wigwams at work on these things, sitting cross-legged on their mats,--some had the quills in a little bark dish on their laps, while others held them in their mouths--not a very safe nor delicate way; but Indians are not very nice in some of their habits," said Mrs. Frazer. "Nurse, if you please, will you tell me what this little animal is designed to represent," said Lady Mary, pointing to the figure of the racoon worked in quills on the sheath of the hunting-knife. "It is intended for a racoon, my lady," replied her nurse. "Is the racoon a pretty creature like my squirrel?" "It is much larger than your squirrel; its fur is not nearly so soft or so fine; the colour being black and grey, or dun; the tail barred across, and bushy,--you have seen many sleigh-robes made of racoon-skins, with the tails looking like tassels at the back of the sleighs." "Oh, yes, and a funny cunning-looking face peeping out too!" "The face of this little animal is sharp, and the eyes black and keen, like a fox; the feet bare, like the soles of our feet, only black and leathery; their claws are very sharp; they can climb trees very fast. During the winter the racoons sleep in hollow trees, and cling together for the sake of keeping each other warm. The choppers find as many as seven or eight in one nest, fast asleep. Most probably the young family remain with the old ones until spring, when, they separate. The racoon in its habits is said to resemble the bear; like the bear, it lives chiefly on vegetables, especially Indian corn, but I do not think that it lays by any store for winter. They sometimes awake if there come a few warm days, but soon retire again to their warm cosy nests." "Racoons will eat eggs; and fowls are often taken by them,--perhaps this is in the winter, when they wake up and are pressed by hunger." Her nurse said that one of her friends had a racoon which he kept in a wooden cage, but he was obliged to have a chain and collar to keep him from getting away, as he used to gnaw the bars asunder; and had slily stolen away and killed some ducks, and was almost as mischievous as a fox, but was very lively and amusing in his way. Lady Mary now left her good nurse, and took her basket, with all its Indian treasures, to show to her mamma,--with whom we leave her for the present. CHAPTER VI. CANADIAN BIRDS--SNOW SPARROW--ROBIN RED-BREAST--CANADIAN FLOWERS-- AMERICAN PORCUPINE. "Spring is coming, nurse! Spring is coming at last!" exclaimed the Governor's little daughter, joyfully. "The snow is going away at last. I am tired of the white snow, it makes my eyes ache. I want to see the brown earth, and the grass, and the green moss, and the pretty flowers again." "It will be some days before this deep covering of snow is gone. The streets are still slippery with ice, which it will take some time, my lady, to soften." "But, nurse, the sun shines, and there are little streams of water running along the streets in every direction; see, the snow is gone from under the bushes and trees in the garden. I saw some dear little birds flying about, and I watched them perching on the dry stalks of the tall rough weeds, and they appeared to be picking seeds out of the husks. Can you tell me what birds they were?" "I saw the flock of birds you mean, Lady Mary; they are the common snow-sparrows; [Footnote: Fringilla nivalis.] almost our earliest visitants; for they may be seen in April, mingled with the brown song-sparrow, [Footnote: Fringilla melodia.] flitting about the garden fences, or picking the stalks of the tall mullein and amaranths, to find the seeds that have not been shaken out by the autumn winds; and possibly they also find insects cradled in the husks of the old seed-vessels. These snow-sparrows are very hardy, and though some migrate to the States in the beginning of winter, a few stay in the Upper Province, and others come back to us before the snow is all gone." "They are very pretty, neat-looking birds, nurse; dark slate colour, with white breasts." "When I was a little girl, I used to call them my Quaker-birds, they looked so neat and prim. In the summer you may find their nests in the brush-heaps near the edge of the forest; they sing a soft, low song." "Nurse, I heard a bird singing yesterday, when I was in the garden; a little plain brown bird, nurse." "It was a song-sparrow, Lady Mary. This cheerful little bird comes with the snow-birds, often before the robin." "Oh, nurse, the robin! I wish you would show me a darling robin redbreast. I did not know they lived in Canada." "The bird that we call the robin in this country, my dear, is not like the little redbreast you have seen at home; our robin is twice as large; though in shape resembling the European robin; I believe it is really a kind of thrush. It migrates in the fall, and returns to us early in the spring." "What is migrating, nurse; is it the same as emigrating?" "Yes, Lady Mary, for when a person leaves his native country, and goes to live in another country, he is said to emigrate. This is the reason why the English, Scotch, and Irish families who come to live in Canada are called Emigrants." "What colour are the Canadian robins, nurse?" "The head is blackish, the back lead colour, and the breast is pale orange; not so bright a red, however, as the real robin." "Have you ever seen their nests, nurse?" "Yes, my dear, many of them. It is not a pretty nest; it is large, and coarsely put together, of old dried grass, roots, and dead leaves, plastered inside with clay, mixed with bits of straw, so as to form a sort of mortar. You know, Lady Mary, that the blackbird and thrush build nests, and plaster them in this way." The little lady nodded her head in assent. "Nurse, I once saw a robin's nest when I was in England; it was in the side of a mossy ditch, with primroses growing close beside it; it was made of green moss, and lined with white wool and hair; it was a pretty nest, with nice eggs in it, much better than your Canadian robin's nest." "Our robins build in upturned roots, in the corners of rail fences, and in the young pear-trees and apple-trees in the orchard. The eggs are a greenish blue. The robin sings a full, clear song; indeed he is our best songster. We have so few singing-birds, that we prize those that do sing very much." "Does the Canadian robin come into the house in winter, and pick up the crumbs, as the dear little redbreasts do at home?" "No, Lady Mary, they are able to find plenty of food abroad, when they return to us; but they hop about the houses and gardens pretty freely. In the fall, before they go away, they may be seen in great numbers, running about the old pastures, picking up worms and seeds." "Do people see the birds flying away together, nurse?" "Not often, my dear, for most birds congregate together in small flocks and depart unnoticed; many go away at night, when we are sleeping; and some fly very high on cloudy days, so that they are not distinctly seen against the dull grey sky. The water birds, such as geese, swans, and ducks, take their flight in large bodies. They are heard making a continual noise in the air, and may be seen grouped in long lines, or in the form of the letter V lying on its side, (<), the point generally directed southward or westward, the strongest and oldest birds acting as leaders: when tired, these aquatic generals fall backward into the main body, and are replaced by others." Lady Mary was much surprised at the order and sagacity displayed by wild fowl in their flight; and Mrs. Frazer told her that some other time she would tell her some more facts respecting their migration to other countries. "Nurse, will you tell me something about birds' nests, and what they make them of?" "Birds that live chiefly in the depths of the forest, or in solitary places, far away from the haunts of men, build their nests of ruder materials, and with less care in the manner of putting them together; dried grass, roots, and a little moss, seem to be the materials they make use of. It has been noticed by many persons, my dear, that those birds that live near towns and villages and cleared farms, soon learn to make better sorts of nests, and to weave into them soft and comfortable things, such as silk, wool, cotton, and hair." "That is very strange, nurse." "It is so, Lady Mary; but the same thing may also be seen among human beings. The savage nations are contented with rude dwellings made of sticks and cane, covered with skins of beasts, bark, or reeds; but when they once unite together in a more social state, and live in villages and towns, a desire for improvement takes place; the tent of skins, or the rude shanty, is exchanged for a hut of better shape; and this in time gives place to houses and furniture of more useful and ornamental kinds." "Nurse, I heard mamma say, that the Britons who lived in England were once savages, and lived in caves, huts, and thick woods; that they dressed in skins, and painted their bodies like the Indians." "When you read the history of England, you will see that such was the case," said Mrs. Frazer. "Nurse, perhaps the little birds like to see the flowers, and the sunshine, and the blue sky, and men's houses. I will make my garden very pretty this spring, and plant some nice flowers to please the dear little birds." Many persons would have thought such remarks very foolish in our little lady, but Mrs. Frazer, who was a good and wise woman, did not laugh at the little girl; for she thought it was a lovely thing to see her wish to give happiness to the least of God's creatures, for it was imitating His own goodness and mercy, which delight in the enjoyment of the things which He has called into existence. "Please, Mrs. Frazer, will you tell me which flowers will be first in bloom?" "The very first is a plant that comes up without leaves." "Nurse, that is the Christmas-rose; [Footnote: Winter Aconite.] I have seen it in the old country." "No, Lady Mary, it is the colt's-foot; [Footnote: Tussilago Farfara.] it is a common looking, coarse, yellow-blossomed flower; it is the first that blooms after the snow; then comes the pretty snow-flower or hepatica. Its pretty tufts of white, pink, or blue starry flowers, may be seen on the open clearing, or beneath the shade of the half-cleared woods, or upturned roots and sunny banks. Like the English daisy, it grows everywhere, and the sight of its bright starry blossoms delights every eye." "The next flower that comes in is the dog's-tooth-violet." [Footnote: Erythronium.] "What a droll name!" exclaimed Lady Mary, laughing. "I suppose it is called so from the sharpness of the flower-leaves (petals), my lady, but it is a beautiful yellow lily; the leaves are also pretty; they are veined or clouded with milky white or dusky purple. The plant has a bulbous root, and in the month of April sends up its single, nodding, yellow-spotted flowers; they grow in large beds, where the ground is black, moist and rich, near creeks on the edge of the forest." "Do you know any other pretty flowers, nurse?" "Yes, my lady, there are a great many that bloom in April and May; white violets, and blue, and yellow, of many kinds; and then there is the spring beauty, [Footnote: Claytonia.] a delicate little flower with pink striped bells, and the everlasting flower, [Footnote: Graphalium.] and saxifrage, and the white and dark red lily, that the Yankees call 'white and red death.' [Footnote: Trillium, or Wake Robin.] These have three green leaves about the middle of the stalk, and the flower is composed of three pure white or deep red leaves--petals my father used to call them; for my father, Lady Mary, was a botanist, and knew the names of all the flowers, and I learned them from him. "The most curious is the mocassin flower. The early one is bright golden yellow, and has a bag or sack which is curiously spotted with ruby red, and its petals are twisted like horns. There is a hard thick piece that lies down just above the sack or mocassin part; and if you lift this up, you see a pair of round dark spots like eyes, and the Indians say it is like the face of a hound, with the nose and black eyes plain to be seen; two of the shorter curled brown petals look like flapped ears, one on each side of the face. "There is a more beautiful sort, purple and white, which blooms in August; the plant is taller, and bears large lovely flowers." "And has it a funny face and ears too, nurse?" "Yes, my dear, but the face is more like an ape's; it is even more distinct than in the yellow mocassin. When my brother and I were children, we used to fold back the petals and call them baby flowers; the sack, we thought, looked like a baby's white frock." Lady Mary was much amused at this notion. "There are a great number of very beautiful and also very curious flowers growing in the forest," said Mrs. Frazer; "some of them are used in medicine, and some by the Indians for dyes, with which they stain the baskets and porcupine quills. One of our earliest flowers is called the blood-root; [Footnote: Sanguivaria.] it comes up a delicate white folded bud, within a vine-shaped leaf, which is veined on the under side with orange yellow. If the stem or the root of this plant be broken, a scarlet juice drops out very fast--it is with this the squaws dye red and orange colours." "I am glad to hear this, nurse; now I can tell my dear mamma what the baskets and quills are dyed with." "The flower is very pretty, like a white crocus, only not so large. You saw some crocuses in the conservatory the other day, I think, my dear lady." "Oh, yes, yellow ones, and purple too, in a funny china thing with holes in its back, and the flowers came up through the holes. The gardener said it was a porcupine." "Please, nurse, tell me of what colours real porcupine quills are?" "They are white and greyish-brown." Then Lady Mary brought a print and showed it to her nurse, saying, "Nurse, is the porcupine like this picture?" "The American porcupine, my dear, is not so large as this species; its spines are smaller and weaker. It resembles the common hedgehog more nearly. It is an innocent animal, feeding mostly on roots [Footnote: There is a plant of the lily tribe, upon the roots of which the porcupine feeds, as well as on wild bulbs and berries, and the bark of the black spruce and larch. It will also eat apples and Indian corn.] and small fruits; it burrows in dry stony hillocks, and passes the cold weather in sleep. It goes abroad chiefly during the night. The spines of the Canadian porcupine are much weaker than those of the African species. The Indians trap these creatures and eat their flesh. They bake them in their skins in native ovens,--holes made in the earth, lined with stones, which they make very hot, covering them over with embers." Mrs. Frazer had told Lady Mary all she knew about the porcupine, when Campbell, the footman, came to say that her papa wanted to see her. CHAPTER VII. INDIAN BAG--INDIAN EMBROIDERY--BEAVER'S TAIL--BEAVER ARCHITECTURE--HABITS OF THE BEAVER--BEAVER TOOLS--BEAVER MEADOWS. When Lady Mary went down to her father, he presented her with a beautiful Indian bag, which he had brought from Lake Huron, in the Upper Province. It was of fine doeskin, very nicely wrought with dyed moose-hair, and the pattern was very pretty; the border was of scarlet feathers on one side, and blue on the other, which formed a rich silken fringe at each edge. This was a present from the wife of a chief on Manitoulin Island. Lady Mary was much delighted with her present, and admired this new-fashioned work in moose-hair very much. The feathers, Mrs. Frazer told her, were from the summer red bird or war bird, and the blue bird, both of which, Lady Mary said, she had seen. The Indians use these feathers as ornaments for their heads and shoulders on grand occasions. Lady Mary recollected hearing her mamma speak of Indians who wore mantles and dresses of gay feathers. They were chiefs of the Sandwich Islands, she believed, who had these superb habits. "Dear nurse, will you tell me anything more about birds and flowers to-day?" asked Lady Mary, after she had put away her pretty bag. "I promised to tell you about the beavers, my lady," replied Mrs. Frazer. "Oh, yes, about the beavers that make the dams and the nice houses, and cut down whole trees. I am glad you can tell me something about those curious creatures; for mamma bought me a pretty picture, which I will show you, if you please," said the little girl. "But what is this odd-looking, black thing here? Is it a dried fish? It must be a black bass? Yes, nurse, I am sure it is." The nurse smiled, and said, "It is not a fish at all, my dear; it is a dried beaver's tail. I brought it from the back lakes when I was at home, that you might see it. See, my lady, how curiously the beaver's tail is covered with scales; it looks like some sort of black leather, stamped in a diaper pattern. Before it is dried, it is very heavy, weighing three or four pounds. I have heard my brothers and some of the Indian trappers say, that the animal makes use of its tail to beat the sides of the dams and smoothe the mud and clay, as a plasterer uses a trowel. Some people think otherwise, but it seems well suited from its shape and weight for the purpose, and, indeed, as the walls they raise seem to have been smoothed by some implement, I see no reason to disbelieve the story." "And what do the beavers make dams with, nurse?" "With small trees cut into pieces, and drawn in close to each other; and then the beavers fill the spaces between with sods, and stones, and clay, and all sorts of things that they gather together and work up into a solid wall. The walls are made broad at the bottom, and are several feet in thickness, to make them strong enough to keep the water from washing through them. The beavers assemble together in the fall, about the months of October and November, to build their houses and repair their dams. They prefer running water, as it is less likely to freeze. They work in large parties, sometimes fifty or a hundred together, and do a great deal in a short time. They work during the night." "Of what use is the dam, nurse?" "The dam is for the purpose of securing a constant supply of water, without which they could not live. When they have enclosed the beaver-pond, they separate into family parties of eleven [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote moved to end of chapter] or twelve, perhaps more, sometimes less, and construct dwellings, which are raised against the inner walls of the dam. These little huts have two chambers, one in which they sleep, which is warm and soft and dry, lined with roots and sedges and dry grass, and any odds and ends that serve their purpose. The feeding place is below; in this is stored the wood or the bark on which they feed. The entrance to this is under water, and hidden from sight; but it is there that the cunning hunter sets his trap to catch the unsuspecting beavers." "Nurse, do not beavers, and otters, and muskrats feel cold while living in the water; and do they not get wet?" "No, my dear; they do not feel cold, and cannot get wet, for the thick coating of hair and down keeps them warm; and these animals, like ducks and geese and all kinds of water-fowls, are supplied with a bag of oil, with which they dress their coats, and that throws off the moisture; for you know, Lady Mary, that oil and water will not mix. All creatures that live in the water are provided with oily fur, or smooth scales that no water can penetrate; and water birds, such as ducks and geese, have a little bag of oil, with which they dress their feathers." "Are there any beavers in England, nurse?" asked Lady Mary. "No, my lady, not now; but I remember my father told me that this animal once existed in numbers in different countries of Europe; he said they were still to be found in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Germany, and even in France. [Footnote: The remains of bearer dams in Wales prove that this interesting animal was once a native of Great Britain.] The beaver abounds mostly in North America, and in its cold portions; in solitudes that no foot of man but the wild Indian has ever penetrated; in lonely streams and inland lakes,--these harmless creatures are found fulfilling God's purpose, and doing injury to none. "I think if there had been any beavers in the land of Israel, in Solomon's time, that the wise king, who spake of ants, spiders, grasshoppers, and conies, [Footnote: The rock rabbits of Judaea.] would have named the beavers also, as patterns of gentleness, cleanliness, and industry. They work together in bands, and live in families and never fight or disagree. They have no chief or leader; they seem to have neither king nor ruler; yet they work in perfect love and harmony. How pleasant it would be, Lady Mary, if all Christian people would love each other as these poor beavers seem to do!" "Nurse how can beavers cut down trees; they have neither axes nor saws?" "Here, Lady Mary, are the axes and saws with which God has provided these little creatures;" and Mrs. Frazer showed Lady Mary two long curved tusks, of a reddish-brown colour, which she told her were the tools used by the beavers to cut and gnaw the trees; she said she had seen trees as thick as a man's leg, that had been felled by these simple tools. Lady Mary was much surprised that such small animals could cut through any thing so thick. "In nature," replied her nurse, "we often see great things done by very small means. Patience and perseverance work well. The poplar, birch, and some other trees, on which beavers feed, and which they also use in making their dams, are softer and more easily cut than oak, elm or birch would be: these trees are found growing near the water, and in such places as the beavers build in. The settler owes to the industrious habits of this animal those large open tracts of land called beaver meadows, covered with long, thick, rank grass, which he cuts down and uses as hay. These beaver meadows have the appearance of dried-up lakes. The soil is black and spongy; for you may put a stick down to the depth of many feet; it is only in the months of July, August, and September, that they are dry. Bushes of black alder, with a few poplars and twining shrubs, are scattered over the beaver meadows; some of which have high stony banks; and little islands of trees. On these are many pretty wild flowers; among others, I found growing on the dry banks some real hare-bells, both blue and white." "Ah, dear nurse, hare-bells! did you find real hare-bells, such as grow on the bonny Highland hills among the heather? I wish papa would let me go to the Upper Province, to see the beaver meadows, and gather the dear blue-bells." "My father, Lady Mary, wept when I brought him a handful of these flowers, for he said it reminded him of his Highland home. I have found these pretty bells growing on the wild hills about Rice Lake, near the water, as well as near the beaver meadows." "Do the beavers sleep in the winter time, nurse?" "They do not lie torpid, as racoons do, though they may sleep a good deal; but as they lay up a great store of provisions for the winter, of course they must awake sometimes to eat it." Lady Mary thought so too. "In the spring, when the long warm days return, they quit their winter retreat, and separate in pairs, living in holes in the banks of lakes and rivers, and do not unite again till the approach of the cold calls them together to prepare for winter, as I told you." "Who calls them all to build their winter houses?" asked the child. "The providence of God; usually called instinct, that guides these wild animals; doubtless it is the law of nature given to them by God. "There is a great resemblance in the habits of the musk-rat and the beaver. They all live in the water; all separate in the spring, and meet again in the fall to build and work together; and, having helped each other in these things, they retire to a private dwelling, each family by itself. The otter does not make a dam, like the beaver, and I am not sure that it works in companies, as the beaver; it lives on fish and roots; the musk-rats on shell-fish and roots, and the beaver on vegetable food mostly. Musk-rats and beavers are used for food, but the flesh of the otter is too fishy to be eaten." "Nurse, can people eat musk-rats?" asked Lady Mary, with surprise. "Yes, my lady, in the spring months the hunters and Indians reckon them good food; I have eaten them myself, but I did not like them, they were too fat. Musk-rats build a little house of rushes, and plaster it; they have two chambers, and do not lie torpid; they build in shallow, rushy places in lakes, but in spring they quit their winter houses and are often found in holes among the roots of trees; they live on mussels and shell-fish. The fur is used in making caps, and hats, and fur gloves." "Nurse, did you ever see a tame beaver?" "Yes, my dear; I knew a squaw who had a tame beaver, which she used to take out in her canoe with her, and it sat in her lap, or on her shoulder, and was very playful." Just then the dinner-bell rang, and as dinner at Government-house waits for no one, Lady Mary was obliged to defer hearing more about beavers until another time. [Relocated Footnote: I copy for the reader an account of the beavers, written by an Indian chief, who was born at Rice Lake, in Canada, and becoming a Christian, learned to read and write, and went on a mission to teach the poor Indians, who did not know Christ, to worship God in spirit and in truth. During some months while he was journeying towards a settlement belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, he wrote a journal of the things he saw in that wild country; and, among other matters, he made the following note about the habits of those curious animals the beavers, which I think is most likely to be correct, as Indians are very observant of the habits of wild animals. He says,--"The country here is marshy, covered with low evergreens. Here begins an extensive beaver settlement; it continues up the river for sixty miles. When travelling with a row-boat, the noise frightens the timid beavers, and they dive under water; but as we had a light birch-bark canoe, we saw them at evening and at day-break going to and fro from their work to the shore. They sleep, during the day, and chop and gnaw during the night. They cut the wood that they use, from slender wands up to poles four inches through, and from one to two fathoms long (a fathom is a measure of six feet). A large beaver will carry in his mouth a stick I should not like to carry on my shoulder, for two or three hundred yards to the water, and then float it off to where he wants to take it. The kinds of trees used by the beavers are willow and poplar--the round-leaved poplar they prefer. The Canada beavers, where the poplars are large, lumber (_i.e._ cut down) on a larger scale; they cut trees a foot through, but in that case only make use of the limbs, which are gnawed off the trunk in suitable lengths. The beaver is not a climbing animal. About two cords of wood serve Mister Beaver and his family for the winter. A beaver's house is large enough to allow two men a comfortable sleeping-room, and it is kept very clean. It is built of sticks, stones, and mud, and is well plastered outside and in. The trowel the beaver uses in plastering is his tail; this is considered a great delicacy at the table. Their beds are made of chips, split as fine as the brush of an Indian broom; these are disposed in one corner, and kept dry and sweet and clean. It is the bark of the green wood that is used by the beavers for food; after the stick is peeled, they float it out at a distance from the house. Many good housewives might learn a lesson of neatness and order from the humble beaver. "In large lakes and rivers, the beavers make no dams; they have water enough without putting themselves to that trouble; but in small creeks they dam up, and make a better stop-water than is done by the millers. The spot where they build their dams is the most labour-saving place in the valley, and where the work will stand best. When the dam is finished, not a drop of water escapes; their work is always well done. "This part of the country abounds in beavers. An Indian will kill upwards of three hundred in a season. The skin of the beaver is not worth as much as it used to be, but their flesh is an excellent article of food." --_Journal of the_ REV. PETER JACOBS, _Indian Missionary_.] CHAPTER VIII. INDIAN BOY AND HIS PETS--TAME BEAVER AT HOME--KITTEN, WILDFIRE--PET RACOON AND THE SPANIEL PUPPIES--CANADIAN FLORA. "Nurse, you have told me a great many nice stories; now I can tell you one, if you would like to hear it," and the Governor's little daughter fixed her bright eyes, teaming with intelligence, on the face of her nurse, who smiled, and said she should like very much to hear the story. "You must guess what it is to be about, nurse." "I am afraid I shall not guess right. Is it 'Little Red Riding Hood,' or 'Old Mother Hubbard,' or 'Jack the Giant Killer?'" "Oh, nurse, to guess such silly stories!" said the little girl, stopping her ears. "Those are too silly for me even to tell baby. My story is nice story about a darling tame beaver. Major Pickford took me on his knee and told me the story last night." Mrs. Frazer begged Lady Mary's pardon for making such foolish guesses, and declared she should like very much to hear Major Pickford's story of the tame beaver. "Well, nurse, you must know there was once a gentleman who lived in the bush, on the banks of a small lake, somewhere in Canada, a long, long way from Montreal. He lived all alone in a little log-house, and spent his time in fishing, and trapping, and hunting; and he was very dull, for he had no wife and no child like me to talk to. The only people whom he used to see were some French lumberers, and now and then the Indians would come in their canoes and fish on his lake, and make their wigwams on the lake shore, and hunt deer in the wood. The gentleman was very fond of the Indians, and used to pass a great deal of his time with them, and talk to them in their own language. "Well, nurse, one day he found a poor little Indian boy who had been lost in the woods and was half starved, sick and weak, and the kind gentleman took him home to his house, and fed and nursed him till he got quite strong again. Was not that good, nurse?" "It was quite right, my lady. People should always be kind to the sick and weak, and especially a poor Indian stranger. I like the story very much, and shall be glad to hear more about the Indian boy." "Nurse, there is not a great deal more about the Indian boy; for when the Indian party to which he belonged returned from hunting, he went away to his own home; but I forgot to tell you that the gentleman had often said how much he should like to have a young beaver to make a pet of. He was very fond of pets; he had a dear little squirrel, just like mine, nurse, a flying squirrel, which he had made so tame that it slept in his bosom and lived in his pocket, where he kept nuts and acorns and apples for it to eat, and he had a racoon too, nurse,--only think! a real racoon; and Major Pickford told me something so droll about the racoon, only I want first to go on with the story about the beaver. "One day, as the gentleman was sitting by the fire reading, he heard a slight noise, and when he looked up was quite surprised to see an Indian boy in a blanket coat,--with his dark eyes fixed upon his face, while his long black hair hung down on his shoulders. He looked quite wild, and did not say a word, but only opened his blanket coat, and showed a brown furred animal asleep on his breast. What do you think it was, nurse?" "A young beaver, my lady." "Yes, nurse, it was a little beaver. The good Indian boy had caught it, and tamed it on purpose to bring it to his white friend, who had been so good to him. "I cannot tell you all the amusing things the Indian boy said about the beaver, though the Major told them to me; but I cannot talk like an Indian, you know, Mrs. Frazer. After the boy went away, the gentleman set to work and made a little log-house for his beaver to live in, and set it in a corner of the shanty; and he hollowed a large sugar-trough for his water, that he might have water to wash in, and cut down some young willows and poplars and birch-trees for him to eat, and the little beaver grew-very fond of his new master; it would fondle him just like a little squirrel, put its soft head on his knee, and climb upon his lap; he taught it to eat bread, sweet cake, and biscuit, and even roast and boiled meat, and it would drink milk too. "Well, nurse, the little beaver lived very happily with this kind gentleman till the next fall, and then it began to get very restless and active, as if it were tired of doing nothing. One day his master heard of the arrival of a friend some miles off, so he left Mister Beaver to take care of himself, and went away; but he did not forget to give him some green wood, and plenty of water to drink and play in; he stayed several days, for he was very glad to meet with a friend in that lonely place; but when he came, he could not open his door, and was obliged to get in at the window. What do you think the beaver had done? It had built a dam against the side of the trough, and a wall across the door, and it had dug up the hearth and the floor, and carried the earth and the stones to help to make his dam, and puddled it with water, and made such work! the house was in perfect confusion, with mud, chips, bark, and stone; and, oh nurse, worse than all that, it had gnawed through the legs of the tables and chairs, and they were lying on the floor in such a state, and it cost the poor gentleman so much trouble to put things to rights again, and make more chairs and another table! and when I laughed at the pranks of that wicked beaver, for I could not help laughing, the Major pinched my ear, and called me a mischievous puss." Mrs. Frazer was very much entertained with the story, and she told Lady Mary that she had heard of tame beavers doing such things before; for in the season of the year when beavers congregate together to repair their works and build their winter houses, those that are in confinement become restless and unquiet, and show the instinct that moves these animals to provide their winter retreats, and lay up their stores of food. "Nurse," said Lady Mary, "I did not think that beavers and racoons could be taught to eat sweet cake, and bread and meat." "Many animals learn to eat very different food to what they are accustomed to live upon in a wild state. The wild cat lives on raw flesh; while the domestic cat, you know, my dear, will eat cooked meat, and even salt meat, with bread and milk and many other things. I knew a person who had a black kitten called 'Wildfire,' who would sip whiskey-toddy out of his glass, and seemed to like it as well as milk or water, only it made him too wild and frisky." "Nurse, the racoon that the gentleman had, would drink sweet whiskey-punch; but my governess said it was not right to give it to him; and Major Pickford laughed, and declared the racoon must have looked very funny when it was tipsy. Was not the Major naughty to say so?" Mrs. Frazer said it was not quite proper. "But, nurse, I have not told you about the racoon,--he was a funny fellow; he was very fond of a little spaniel and her puppies, and took a great deal of care of them; he brought them meat and anything nice that had been given him to eat; but one day he thought he would give them a fine treat, so he contrived to catch a poor cat by the tail, and drag her into his den, where he and the puppies lived together. His pets of course would not eat the cat, so the wicked creature ate up poor pussy himself; and the gentleman was so angry with the naughty thing that he killed him and made a cap of his skin, for he was afraid the cunning racoon would kill his beaver and eat up his tame squirrel." "The racoon, Lady Mary, in its natural state, has all the wildness and cunning of the fox and weasel; he will eat flesh, poultry, and sucking pigs, and is, also very destructive to Indian corn. These creatures abound in the western states, and are killed in great numbers for their skins. The Indian hunters eat the flesh, and say it is very tender and good; but it is not used for food in Canada. The racoon belongs to the same class of animals as the bear, which it resembles in some points, though, being small, it is not so dangerous either to man or the larger animals. "And now, my dear, let me show you some pretty wild flowers a little girl brought me this morning for you, as she heard that you loved flowers. There are yellow mocassins, or Ladies'-slippers, the same that I told you of a little while ago; and white lilies, crane-bills, and these pretty lilac geraniums; here are scarlet-cups, and blue lupines, they are all in bloom now, and many others. If we were on the Rice Lake plains, my lady, we could gather all these and many, many more. In the months of June I and July those plains are like a garden, and their roses scent the air." "Nurse, I will ask my dear papa to take me to the Rice Lake plains," said the little girl, as she gazed with delight on the lovely Canadian flowers. CHAPTER IX. NURSE TELLS LADY MARY ABOUT A LITTLE BOY WHO WAS EATEN BY A BEAR IN THE PROVINCE OP NEW BRUNSWICK--OF A BABY THAT WAS CARRIED AWAY, BUT TAKEN ALIVE--A WALK IN THE GARDEN--HUMMING-BIRDS--CANADIAN BALSAMS. "Nurse," said Lady Mary, "did you ever hear of any one having been eaten by a wolf or bear?" "I have heard of such things happening, my dear, in this country; but only in lonely, unsettled parts of the country, near swamps and deep woods." "Did you ever hear of any little boy or girl having been carried off by a wolf or bear?" asked the child. "No, my lady, not in Canada, though similar accidents may have happened there; but when I was a young girl I heard of such tragedies at New Brunswick; one of the British provinces lying to the east of this, and a cold and rather barren country, but containing many minerals, such as coal, limestone, and marble, besides vast forests of pine, and small lakes and rivers. It resembles Lower Canada in many respects; but it is not so pleasant as the province of Upper Canada, neither is it so productive. "Thirty years ago it was not so well cleared or cultivated as it is now, and the woods were full of wild beasts that dwelt among the swamps and wild rocky valleys. Bears, wolves, and catamounts abounded, with foxes of several kinds, and many of the fine furred and smaller species of animals, which were much sought for, on account of their skins. Well, my dear, near the little village where my aunt and uncle were, living, there were great tracts of unbroken swamps and forests, which of course sheltered many wild animals. A sad accident happened a few days before we arrived, which caused much sorrow, and no little fright, in the place. "An old man went out into the woods one morning with his little grandson, to look for the oxen, which had strayed from the clearing. They had not gone many yards from the enclosure when they heard a crackling and rustling among the underwood and dry timbers that strewed the ground. The old man, thinking it was caused by the cattle they were looking for, bade the little boy go forward and drive them, on the track; but in a few minutes he heard a fearful cry from the child, and hurrying forward through the tangled brushwood, saw the poor little boy in the deadly grasp of a huge black bear, who was making off at a fast trot with his prey. "The old man was unarmed, and too feeble to pursue the dreadful beast. He could only wring his hands and rend his grey hairs in grief and terror; but his lamentations would not restore the child to life. A band of hunters and lumberers, armed with rifles and knives, turned out to beat the woods, and were not long in tracking the savage animal to his retreat in a neighbouring cedar swamp. A few fragments of the child's dress were all that remained of him; but the villagers had the satisfaction of killing the great she-bear with her two half-grown cubs. The magistrates of the district gave them a large sum for shooting these creatures, and the skins were sold, and the money given to the parents of the little boy; but no money could console them for the loss of their beloved child. "The flesh of the bear is eaten both by Indians and hunters; it is like coarse beef. The hams are cured a led, the woods disappear. The axe and the fire destroy the haunts that sheltered these wild beasts, and they retreat further back, where the deer and other creatures on which they principally feed abound." "Nurse, that was a very sad story about the poor little boy," said Lady Mary. "I also heard of a little child," continued nurse, "not more than two years old, who was with her mother in the harvest field; who had spread a shawl on the ground near a tall tree, and laid the child upon it to sleep or play, when a bear came out of the wood and carried her off, leaping the fence with her in its arms; but the mother ran screaming after the beast, and the reapers pursued so closely with their pitchforks and reaping-hooks, that Bruin, who was only a half-grown bear, being hard pressed, made for a tree; and as it was not easy to climb with a babe in his arms, he quietly laid the little one down at the foot of the tree, and soon was among the thick branches out of the reach of the enemy. I dare say baby must have wondered what rough nurse had taken her up; but she was unhurt, and is alive now." "I am so glad, nurse, the dear baby was not hugged to death by that horrid black bear; and I hope he was killed." "I dare say, my lady, he was shot by some of the men; for they seldom worked near the forest without having a gun with them, in case of seeing deer, or pigeons, or partridges." "I should not like to live in that country, Mrs. Frazer; for a bear, a wolf, or a catamount might eat me." "I never heard of a governor's daughter being eaten by a bear," said Mrs. Frazer, laughing, as she noticed the earnest expression on the face of her little charge. She then continued her account of the ursine family. "The bear retires in cold weather, and sleeps till warmer seasons awaken him; he does not lay up any store of winter provisions, because he seldom rouses himself during the time of his long sleep, and in the spring he finds food, both vegetable and animal, for he can eat anything when hungry, like the hog. He often robs the wild bees of their honey, and his hide being so very thick, seems insensible to the stings of the angry bees. Bruin will sometimes find odd places for his winter bed, for a farmer, who was taking a stack of wheat into his barn to be threshed in the winter time, once found a large black bear comfortably asleep in the middle of the sheaves." "How could the bear have got into the stack of wheat, nurse?" "The claws of this animal are so strong, and he makes so much use of his paws, which are almost like hands, that he must have pulled the sheaves out, and so made an entrance for himself. His skin and flesh amply repaid the farmer for any injury the grain had received. I remember seeing the bear brought home in triumph on the top of the load of wheat. Bears often do great mischief by eating the Indian corn when it is ripening; for besides what they devour, they spoil a vast deal by trampling the plants down with their clumsy feet. They will, when hard pressed by hunger, come close to the farmer's house and rob the pig-sty of its tenants. Many years ago, before the forest was cleared away in the neighbourhood of what is now a large town, but in those days consisted of only a few poor log-houses, a settler was much annoyed by the frequent visits of a bear to his hog-pen. At last he resolved to get a neighbour who was a very expert hunter to come with his rifle and watch with him. The pen where the fatling hogs were was close to the log-house; it had a long low shingled roof, and was carefully fastened up, so that no bear could find entrance. Well, the farmer's son and the hunter had watched for two nights, and no bear came; on the third they were both tired, and lay down to sleep upon the floor of the kitchen, when the farmer's son was awakened by a sound as of some one tearing and stripping the shingles from the pen. He looked out; it was moonlight, and there he saw the dark shadow of some tall figure on the ground, and spied the great black bear standing on its hinder legs, and pulling the shingles off as fast as it could lay its big black paws upon them. The hogs were in a great fright, screaming and grunting with terror. The young man stepped back into the house, roused up the hunter, who took aim from the doorway, and shot the bear dead. The head of the huge beast was nailed up as a trophy, and the meat was dried or salted for winter use, and great were the rejoicings of the settlers who had suffered so much from Bruin's thefts of corn and pork." "I am glad the hunter killed him, nurse, for he might have eaten up some of the little children, when they were playing about in the fields." "Sometimes," continued Mrs. Frazer, "the bears used to visit the sugar-bush, when the settlers were making maple sugar, and overturn the sap-troughs, and drink the sweet liquid. I dare say they would have been glad of a taste of the sugar too, if they could have got at it. The bear is not so often met with now as it used to be many years ago. The fur of the bear used to be worn as muffs and tippets, but, is now little used for that purpose, being thought to be too coarse and heavy, but it is still made into caps for soldiers, and worn as sleigh-robes." This was all Mrs. Frazer chose to recollect about bears, for she was unwilling to dwell long on any gloomy subject, which she knew was not good for young minds, so she took her charge into the garden to look at the flowerbeds, and watch the birds and butterflies; and soon the child was gaily running from flower to flower, watching with childish interest the insects flitting to and fro. At last she stopped, and holding up her finger to warn Mrs. Frazer not to come too near, stood gazing in wonder and admiration on a fluttering object that was hovering over the full-blown honeysuckles on a trellis near the greenhouse. Mrs. Frazer approached her with due caution. "Nurse," whispered the child, "look at that curious moth with a long bill like a bird; see its beautiful shining colours. It has a red necklace, like mamma's rubies. Oh, what a curious creature! It must be a moth or a butterfly. What is it?" "It is neither a moth nor a butterfly, my dear. It is a humming-bird." "Oh, nurse, a humming-bird--a real humming-bird--pretty creature! but it is gone. Oh, nurse, it darts through the air as swift as an arrow. What was it doing? Looking at the honeysuckles,--I dare say it thought them very pretty; or was it smelling them? They are very sweet." "My dear child, it might be doing so; I don't know. Perhaps the good God has given to these creatures the same senses for enjoying sweet scents and bright colours, as we have; yet it was not for the perfume, but the honey, that this little bird came to visit the open flowers. The long slender bill which the humming-bird inserts into the tubes of the flowers, is his instrument for extracting the honey. Look at the pretty creature's ruby throat, and green and gold feathers." "How does it make that whirring noise, nurse, just like the humming of a top?" asked the child. "The little bird produces the sound from which he derives his name, by beating the air with his wings. This rapid motion is necessary to sustain its position in the air while sucking the flowers. "I remember, Lady Mary, first seeing humming-birds when I was about your age, while walking in the garden. It was a bright September morning, and the rail-fences and every dry twig of the brushwood were filled with the webs of the field-spider. Some, like thick white muslin, lay upon the grass; while others were suspended from trees like forest lace-work, on the threads of which the dewdrops hung like strings of shining pearls; and hovering round the flowers were several ruby-throated humming-birds, the whirring of whose wings as they beat the air sounded like the humming of a spinning-wheel; and I thought as I gazed upon them, and the beautiful lace webs that hung among the bushes, that they must have been the work of these curious creatures, who had made them to catch flies, and had strung the bright dewdrops thereon to entice them, so little did I know of the nature of these birds; but my father told me a great deal about them, and read me some very pretty things about humming-birds; and one day, Lady Mary, I will show you a stuffed one a friend gave me, with its tiny nest and eggs not bigger than peas." Lady Mary was much delighted at the idea of seeing the little nest and eggs, and Mrs. Frazer said, "There is a wild flower [Footnote: _Noli me tangere_, Canadian Balsam.] that is known to the Canadians by the name of the Humming-flower, on account of the fondness which those birds evince for it. This plant grows on the moist banks of creeks. It is very beautiful, of a bright orange-scarlet colour. The stalks and stem of the plant are almost transparent; some call it Speckled Jewels, for the bright blossoms are spotted with dark purple, and some, Touch-me-not." "That is a droll name, nurse," said Lady Mary. "Does it prick one's finger like a thistle?" "No, my lady; but when the seed-pods are nearly ripe, if you touch them, they spring open and curl into little rings, and the seed drops out." "Nurse, when you see any of these curious flowers, will you show them to me?" Mrs. Frazer said they would soon be in bloom, and promised Lady Mary to bring her some, and to show her the singular manner in which the pods burst. "But, my lady," said she, "the gardener will show you the same thing in the greenhouse. As soon as the seed-pods of the balsams in the pots begin to harden they will spring and curl, if touched, and drop the seeds like the wild plant, for they belong to the same family. But it is time for your ladyship to go in." When Lady Mary returned to the schoolroom, her governess read to her some interesting accounts of the habits of the humming-bird. "'This lively little feathered gem--for in its hues it unites the brightness of the emerald, the richness of the ruby, and the lustre of the topaz--includes in its wide range more than one hundred species. It is the smallest, and at the same time the most brilliant, of all the American birds. Its head-quarters may be said to be among the glowing flowers and luxurious fruits of the torrid zone and the tropics. But one species, the ruby-throated, is widely diffused, and is a summer visitor all over North America, even within the Arctic Circle, where, for a brief space of time, it revels in the ardent heat of the short-lived summer of the North. Like the cuckoo, she follows the summer wherever she flies. "'The ruby-throated humming-bird [Footnote: _Trochilus rubus_.] is the only species that is known in Canada. With us it builds and breeds, and then returns to summer skies and warmer airs. The length of the humming-bird is only three inches and a half, and four and a quarter in extent, from one tip of the wing to the other. When on the wing, the bird has the form of a cross, the wings forming no curve, though the tail is depressed during the time that it is poised in the act of sucking the honey of the flower. The tongue is long and slender; the bill long and straight; the legs are very short, so that the feet are hardly visible when on the wing. They are seldom seen walking, but rest on the slender sprigs when tired. The flight is so rapid that it seems without effort. The humming sound is produced by the wing, in the act of keeping itself balanced while feeding in this position. They resemble the hawk-moth, which also keeps up a constant vibratory motion with its wings. This little creature is of a temper as fierce and fiery as its plumes, often attacking birds of treble its size; but it seems very little disturbed by the near approach of the Truman species, often entering open windows, and hovering around the flowers in the flower-stand; it has even been known to approach the vase on the table, and insert its bill among the flowers, quite fearless of those persons who sat in the room. Sometimes these beautiful creatures have suffered themselves to be captured by the hand. "'The nest of the ruby-throated hummingbird is usually built on a mossy branch. At first sight, it looks like a tuft of grey lichens; but when closely examined, shows both care and skill in its construction, the outer wall being of fine bluish lichens cemented together, and the interior lined with the silken threads of the milk-weed, the velvety down of the tall mullein, or the brown hair-like filaments of the fern. These, or similar soft materials, form the bed of the tiny young ones. The eggs are white, two in number, and about the size of a pea, but oblong in shape. The parents hatch their eggs in about ten days, and in a week the little ones are able to fly, though the old birds continue to supply them with honey for some time longer. The Mexican Indians give the name of Sunbeam to the humming-bird, either in reference to its bright plumage or its love of sunshine. "'The young of the humming-bird does not attain its gay plumage till the second year. The male displays the finest colours--the ruby necklace being confined to the old male bird. The green and coppery lustre of the feathers is also finer in the male bird.'" Lady Mary was much pleased with what she had heard about the humming-bird, and she liked the name of Sunbeam for this lovely creature. CHAPTER X. AURORA BOREALIS, OR NORTHERN LIGHTS, MOST FREQUENTLY SEEN IN NORTHERN CLIMATES--CALLED MERRY DANCERS--ROSE TINTS--TINT-LIKE APPEARANCE--LADY MARY FRIGHTENED. One evening, just as Mrs. Frazer was preparing to undress Lady Mary, Miss Campbell, her governess, came into the nursery, and taking the little girl by the hand, led her to an open balcony, and bade her look out on the sky towards the north, where a low dark arch, surmounted by an irregular border, like a silver fringe, was visible. For some moments Lady Mary stood silently regarding this singular appearance; at length she said, "It is a rainbow, Miss Campbell; but where is the sun that you told me shone into the drops of rain to make the pretty colours?" "It is not a rainbow, my dear; the sun has been long set." "Can the moon make rainbows at night?" asked the little girl. make what is called a _lunar_ rainbow. Luna was the ancient "The moon does sometimes, but very rarely, name for the moon; but the arch you now see is caused neither by the light of the sun nor of the moon, but is known by the name of Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. The word Aurora means morning, or dawn; and Borealis, northern. You know, my dear, what is meant by the word dawn; it is the light that is seen in the sky before the sun rises." Lady Mary replied, "Yes, Miss Campbell, I have often seen the sun rise, and once very early too, when I was ill, and could not sleep; for nurse lifted me in her arms out of bed, and took me to the window. The sky was all over of a bright golden colour, with streaks of rosy red; and nurse said, 'It is dawn; the sun will soon be up.' And I saw the beautiful sun rise from behind the trees and hills. He came up so gloriously, larger than when we see him in the middle of the sky, and I could look at him without hurting my eyes." "Sunrise is indeed a glorious sight, my dear; but He who made the sun is more glorious still. Do you remember what we read yesterday in the Psalms?-- "Verse 1. The Heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament sheweth his handywork. 2. One day telleth another, and one night certifieth another. 3. There is neither speech nor language where their voice is not heard. 5. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, which cometh forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course." "The Northern Lights, Lady Mary, are frequently visible in Canada, but are most brilliant in the colder regions near the North Pole, where they serve to give light during the dark season, to those dismal countries from which the sun is so many months absent. The light of the Aurora Borealis is so soft and beautiful, that any object can be distinctly seen; though in those cold countries there are few human beings to be benefited by this beautiful provision of nature." "The wild beasts and birds must be glad of the pretty lights," said the child thoughtfully; for Lady Mary's young heart always rejoiced when she thought that God's gifts could be shared by the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, as well as by mankind. "Look now, my dear," said Miss Campbell, directing the attention of her pupil to the horizon; "what a change has taken place whilst we have been speaking. See, the arch is sending up long shafts of light; now they divide, and shift from side to side, gliding along among the darker portions of vapour, like moving pillars." "Ah! there, there they go!" cried the little girl, clapping her hands her hands with delight. "See, nurse, how the pretty lights' chase each other, and dance about! Up they go! higher and higher! How pretty they look! but now they are gone. They are fading away; I am so sorry," said the child despondingly, for a sudden cessation had taken place in the motions of the heavens. "We will go in for a little time, my dear," said her governess; "and then look out again. Great changes take place sometimes in these aerial phenomena in a few minutes." "I suppose," said Lady Mary, "these lights are the same that the peasants of Northern England and Ireland call the Merry Dancers." "Yes, they are the same; and they fancy that they are seen when war and troubles are about to break out. But this idea is a very ignorant one; for were, that the case, some of the cold countries of the world, where the sky is illumined night after night by the Aurora Borealis, would be one continual scene of misery. I have seen in this country a succession of these lights for four or five successive nights. This phenomenon owes its origin to _electricity_, which is a very wonderful agent in nature, and exists in various bodies, perhaps in all created things. It is this that shoots across the sky in the form of lightning, and causes the thunder to be heard; circulates in the air we breathe; occasions whirlwinds, waterspouts, earthquakes, and volcanoes; and makes one substance attract another. "Look at this piece of amber; if I rub it on the table, it will become warm to the touch. Now I will take a bit of thread, and hold near it. See, the thread moves towards the amber, and clings to it. Sealing-wax, and many other substances, when heated, have this property. Some bodies give out flashes and sparks by being rubbed. If you stroke a black cat briskly in the dark, you will see faint flashes of light come from her fur; and on very cold nights in the winter season, flannels that are worn next the skin crackle, and give sparks when taken off and shaken." These things astonished Lady Mary. She tried the experiment with the amber and thread, and was much amused by seeing the thread attracted, and wanted to see the sparks from the cat's back, only there happened, unfortunately, to be no black cat or kitten in Government House. Mrs. Frazer, however, promised to procure a beautiful black kitten for her, that she might enjoy the singular sight of the electric sparks from its coat; and Lady Mary wished winter were come, that she might see the sparks from her flannel petticoat, and hear the sounds. "Let us now go and look out again at the sky," said Miss Campbell; and Lady Mary skipped joyfully through the French window to the balcony, but ran back, and flinging her arms about her nurse, cried out in accents of alarm, "Nurse, nurse, the sky is all closing together! Oh, Miss Campbell, what shall we do?" "There is no cause for fear, my dear child; do not be frightened. There is nothing to harm us." Indeed, during the short time they had been absent, a great and remarkable change had taken place in the appearance of the sky. The electric fluid had diffused itself over the face of the whole heavens; the pale colour of the streamers had changed to bright rose, pale violet, and greenish yellow. At the zenith, or that part more immediately over head, a vast ring of deep indigo was presented to the eye; from this swept down, as it were, a flowing curtain of rosy light, which wavered and moved incessantly as if agitated by a gentle breeze, though a perfect stillness reigned through the air. The child's young heart was awed by this sublime spectacle; it seemed to her as if it were indeed the throne of the Great Creator of the world that she was gazing upon; and she veiled her face in her nurse's arms, and trembled exceedingly, even as the children of Israel when the fire of Mount Sinai was revealed, and they feared to behold the glory of the Most High God. After a while, Lady Mary, encouraged by the cheerful voices of her governess and nurse, ventured to look up to watch the silver stars shining dimly as from beneath a veil, and she whispered to herself the words that her governess had before repeated to her, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handywork." After a little while, Mrs. Frazer thought it better to put Lady Mary to bed, as she had been up much longer than usual, and Miss Campbell was afraid lest the excitement should make her ill; but the child did not soon fall asleep, for her thoughts were full of the strange and glorious things she had seen that night. [Footnote: Singularly splendid exhibitions of Aurora Borealis were visible in the month, of August, 1839; in August, 1851; and again on the 21st February, 1852. The colours were rosy red, varied with other prismatic colours. But the most singular feature was the ring-like circle from which the broad streams of light seemed to flow down in a curtain that appeared to reach from heaven to earth. In looking upwards, the sky had the appearance of a tent narrowed to a small circle at the top, which seemed to be the centre of illimitable space. Though we listened with great attention, none of the crackling sounds that some Northern travellers have declared to accompany the Aurora Borealis could be heard; neither did any one experience any of the disagreeable bodily sensations that are often felt during thunder-storms. The atmosphere was unusually calm, and in two of the three instances warm and agreeable.] CHAPTER XI. STRAWBERRIES--CANADIAN WILD FRUITS--WILD RASPBERRIES--THE HUNTER AND THE LOST CHILD--CRANBERRIES-CRANBERRY MARSHES--NUTS. One day Lady Mary's nurse brought her a small Indian basket, filled with ripe red strawberries. "Nurse, where did you get these nice strawberries?" said the little girl, peeping beneath the fresh leaves with which they were covered. "I bought them from a little Indian squaw, in the street; she had brought them from a wooded meadow, some miles off, my lady. They are very fine; see, they are as large as those that the gardener sent in yesterday from the forcing-house, and these wild ones have grown without any pains having been bestowed upon them." "I did not think, nurse, that wild strawberries could have been so fine as these; may I taste them?" Mrs. Frazer said she might. "These are not so large, so red, or so sweet as some that I have gathered when I lived at home with my father," said the nurse. "I have seen acres and acres of strawberries, as large as the early scarlet that are sold so high in the market, on the Rice Lake plains. When the farmers have ploughed a fallow on the Rice Lake plains, the following summer it will be covered with a crop of the finest strawberries. I have gathered pailsful day after day; these, however, have been partly cultivated by the plough breaking up the sod; but they seem as if sown by the hand of nature. These fruits, and many sorts of flowers, appear on the new soil that were never seen there before. After a fallow has been chopped, logged, and burnt, if it be left for a few years, trees, shrubs and plants will cover it, unlike those that grew there before." "That is curious," said the child. "Does God sow the seeds in the new ground?" "My lady, no doubt they come from Him; for He openeth his hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness. My father, who thought a great deal on these subjects, said that the seeds of many plants may fall upon the earth, and yet none of them take root till the soil be favourable for their growth. It may be that these seeds had lain for years, preserved in the earth, till the forest was cleared away, and the sun, air, and rain caused them to spring up. Or the earth may still bring forth the herb of the field, after its kind, as in the day of the creation; but whether it be so or not, we must bless the Lord for his goodness and for the blessings that He giveth us at all times." "Are there many sorts of wild fruits fit to eat, nurse, in this country? Please, will you tell me all that you know about them?" "There are so many, Lady Mary, that I am afraid I shall weary you before I have told you half of them." "Nurse, I shall not be tired, for I like to hear about fruits and flowers very much; and my dear mamma likes you to tell me all you know about the plants, trees, birds and beasts of Canada." "Besides many sorts of strawberries, there are wild currants, both black and red, and many kinds of wild gooseberries," said Mrs. Frazer: "some grow on wastes by the roadside, in dry soil, others in swamps; but most gooseberries are covered with thorns, which grow not only on the wood, but on the berries themselves." "I would not eat those disagreeable, thorny gooseberries; they would prick my tongue," said the little girl. "They cannot be eaten without first being scalded. The settlers' wives contrive to make good pies and preserves with them by first scalding the fruit and then rubbing it between coarse linen cloths; I have heard these tarts called thornberry pies, which, I think, was a good name for them. When emigrants first come to Canada, and clear the backwoods, they have little time to make nice fruit-gardens for themselves, and they are glad to gather the wild berries that grow in the woods and swamps to make tarts and preserves, so that they do not even despise the thorny gooseberries or the wild black currants. Some swamp-gooseberries, however, are quite smooth, of a dark red colour, but small, and they are very nice when ripe. The blossoms of the wild currants are very beautiful, of a pale yellowish green, and hang down in long, graceful branches; the fruit is harsh, but makes wholesome preserves: but there are thorny currants as well as thorny gooseberries; these have long, weak, trailing branches; the berries are small, covered with stiff bristles, and of a pale red colour. They are not wholesome; I have seen people made very ill by eating them; I have heard even of their dying in consequence of having done so." "I am sure, nurse, I will not eat those wild currants," said Lady Mary; "I am glad you have told me about their being poisonous." "This sort is not often met with, my dear; and these berries, though they are not good for man, doubtless give nourishment to some of the wild creatures that seek their food from God, and we have enough dainties, and to spare, without them. "The red raspberry is one of the most common and the most useful to us of the wild fruits. It grows in abundance all over the country, by the roadside, in the half-opened woods, on upturned roots, or in old neglected clearings; there is no place so wild but it will grow, wherever its roots can find a crevice. With maple sugar, the farmers' wives never need lack a tart, nor a dish of fruit and cream. The poor Irish emigrants' children go out and gather pailsful, which they carry to the towns and villages to sell. The birds, too, live upon the fruit, and, flying away with it to distant places, help to sow the seed. A great many small animals eat the ripe raspberry, for even the racoon and great black bear come in for their share." "The black bears! Oh, nurse, oh, Mrs. Frazer!" exclaimed Lady Mary, in great astonishment. "What! do bears eat raspberries?" "Yes, indeed, my lady, they do. Bears are fond of all ripe fruits. The bear resembles the hog in all its tastes very closely; both in their wild state will eat flesh, grain, fruit, and roots. There is a small red berry in the woods that is known by the name of the bear-berry, [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote moved to end of chapter.] of which they say the young bears are particularly fond." "I should be afraid of going to gather raspberries, nurse, for fear of the bears coming to eat them too." "The hunters know that the bears are partial to this fruit, and often seek them in large thickets, where they grow. A young gentleman, Lady Mary, once went out shooting game, in the province of New Brunswick, in the month of July, when the weather was warm, and there were plenty of wild berries ripe. He had been out for many hours, and at last found himself on the banks of a creek. But the bridge he had been use to cross was gone, having been swept away by heavy rains in the spring. Passing on a little higher up, he saw an old clearing full of bushes; and knowing that wild animals were often to be met in such spots, he determined to cross over and try his luck for a bear, a racoon, or a young fawn. Not far from the spot, he saw a large fallen swamp elm-tree, which made a capital bridge. Just as he was preparing to cross, he heard the sound of footsteps on the dry crackling sticks, and saw a movement among the raspberry bushes; his finger was on the lock of his rifle in an instant, for he thought it must be a bear or a deer; but just as he was about to fire, he saw a small, thin, brown hand, all red and stained from the juice of the ripe berries, reaching down a branch of the fruit; his very heart leaped within him with fright, for in another moment he would have shot the poor little child that, with wan, wasted face, was looking at him from between the raspberry bushes. It was a little girl, about as old as you are, Lady Mary. She was without hat or shoes, and her clothes were all in tatters; her hands and neck were quite brown and sun-burnt. She seemed frightened at first, and would have hid herself, had not the stranger called out gently to her to stay, and not to be afraid; and then he hurried over the log bridge, and asked her who she was, and where she lived. And she said 'she did not live anywhere, for she was lost.' She could not tell how many days, but she thought she had been seven nights out in the woods. She had been sent to take some dinner to her father, who was at work in the forest; but had missed the path, and gone on a cattle track, and did not find her mistake until it was too late; when she became frightened, and tried to get back, but only lost herself deeper in the woods. The first night she wrapped her frock about her head, and lay down beneath the shelter of a great upturned root. She had eaten but little of the food she had in the basket that day, for it lasted her nearly two; after it was gone, she chewed some leaves, till she came to the raspberry clearing, and got berries of several kinds, and plenty of water to drink from the creek. One night, she said, she was awakened by a heavy tramping near her, and looking up in the moonlight, saw two great black beasts, which she thought were her father's oxen, and so she sat up and called, 'Buck,' 'Bright,'-- for these were their names,--but they had no bells, and looked like two great shaggy black dogs; they stood on their hind legs upright, and looked at her, but went away. These animals were bears, but the child did not know that, and she said she felt no fear--for she said her prayers every night before she lay down to sleep, and she knew that God would take care of her, both sleeping and waking." [Footnote: The facts of this story I met with, many years ago, in a provincial paper. They afterwards appeared in a Canadian sketch, in Chambers' Journal, contributed by me in 1838.] "And did the hunter take her home?" asked Lady Mary, who was much interested in the story. "Yes, my dear, he did. Finding that the poor little girl was very weak, the young man took her on his back,--fortunately he happened to have a little wine in a flask, and a bit of dry biscuit in his knapsack, and this greatly revived the little creature; sometimes she ran by his side, while holding by his coat, talking to her new friend, seemingly quite happy and cheerful, bidding him not to be afraid even if they had to pass another night in the wood; but just as the sun was setting, they came out of the dark forest into an open clearing. "It was not the child's home, but a farm belonging to a miller who knew her father, and had been in search of her for several days; and he and his wife were very glad when they saw the lost child, and gladly showed her preserver the way; and they rejoiced much when the poor little girl was restored safe and well to her sorrowing parents." "Nurse," said Lady Mary, "I am so glad the good hunter found the little girl. I must tell my own dear mamma that nice story. How sorry my mamma and papa would be to lose me in the woods." The nurse smiled, and said, "My dear lady, there is no fear of such an accident happening to you. You are not exposed to the same trials and dangers as the children of poor emigrants; therefore, you must be very grateful to God, and do all you can to serve and please Him; and when you are able, be kind and good to those who are not as well off as you are." "Are there any other wild fruits, nurse, besides raspberries and strawberries, and currants and gooseberries?" "Yes, my dear lady, a great many more. We will begin with wild plums: these we often preserve; and when the trees are planted in gardens, and taken care of, the fruit is very good to eat. The wild cherries are not very nice; but the bark of the black cherry is good for agues and low fevers. The choke-cherry is very beautiful to look at, but hurts the throat, closing it up if many are eaten, and making it quite sore. The huckleberry is a sweet, dark blue berry, that grows on a very delicate low shrub, the blossoms are very pretty, pale pink or greenish white bells, the fruit is very wholesome; it grows on light dry ground, on those parts of the country that are called plains in Canada. The settlers' children go out in parties, and gather great quantities, either to eat or dry for winter use. These berries are a great blessing to every one, besides forming abundant food for the broods of young quails and partridges; squirrels, too, of every kind eat them. There are blackberries also, Lady Mary; and some people call them thimbleberries." "Nurse, I have heard mamma talk about blackberries." "The Canadian blackberries are not so sweet, I am told, my lady, as those at home, though they are very rich and nice tasted; neither do they grow so high. Then there are high bush cranberries, and low bush cranberries. The first grow on a tall bush, and the fruit has a fine appearance, hanging in large bunches of light scarlet, among the dark green leaves; but they are very, very sour, and take a great deal of sugar to sweeten them. The low bush cranberries grow on a slender trailing plant; the blossom is very pretty, and the fruit about the size of a common gooseberry, of a dark purplish red, very smooth and shining; the seeds are minute, and lie in the white pulp within the skin; this berry is not nice till it is cooked with sugar. There is a large cranberry marsh somewhere at the back of Kingston, where vast quantities grow. I heard a young gentleman say that he passed over this tract when he was hunting, while the snow was on the ground, and that the red juice of the dropped berries dyed the snow crimson beneath his feet. The Indians go every year to a small lake called Buckhorn Lake, many miles up the river Otonabee, in the Upper Province, to gather cranberries, which they sell to the settlers in the towns and villages, or trade away for pork, flour, and clothes. The cranberries, when spread out on a dry floor, will keep fresh and good for a long time. Great quantities of cranberries are brought to England from Russia, Norway, and Lapland, in barrels, or large earthern jars, filled with brine; but the fruit thus roughly preserved must be drained, and washed many times, and stirred with sugar, before it can be put into tarts, or it would be salt and bitter. I will boil some cranberries with sugar, that you may taste them; for they are very wholesome." Lady Mary said she should like to have some in her own garden. "The cranberry requires a particular kind of soil, not usually found in gardens, my dear lady; for as the cranberry marshes are often covered with water in the spring, I suppose they need a damp, cool soil, near lakes or rivers; perhaps sand, too, may be good for them. But we can plant some berries, and water them well; in a light soil they may grow, and bear fruit, but I am not sure that they will do so. Besides these fruits, there are many others, that are little used by men, but are of great service as food to the birds and small animals. There are many kinds of nuts, too-- filberts, with rough prickly husks, walnuts, butternuts, and hickory-nuts; these last are large trees, the nuts of which are very nice to eat, and the wood very fine for cabinet-work, and for firewood; the bark is used for dyeing. Now, my dear, I think you must be quite tired with hearing so much about Canadian fruits." Lady Mary said she was glad to learn that there were so many good things in Canada, for she heard a lady say to her mamma, that it was an ugly country, with nothing good or pretty in it. "There is something good and pretty to be found everywhere, my dear child, if people will but open their eyes to see it, and their hearts to enjoy the good things that God has so mercifully spread abroad for us and all his creatures to enjoy. But Canada is really a fine country, and is fast becoming a great one." [Relocated Footnote: Arbutus ursursi--"Kinnikinnick," Indian name. There is a story about a bear and an Indian hunter, which will show how bears eat berries. It is from the Journal of Peter Jacobs, the Indian Missionary:-- "At sunrise, next morning," he says, "we tried to land, but the water was so full of shoals, we could not without wading a great distance. "The beach before us was of bright sand, and the sun was about, [Footnote: We find some curious expressions in this Journal, for Peter Jacobs is an Indian, writing not his own, but a foreign language.] when I saw an object moving on the shore; it appeared to be a man, and seemed to be making signals of distress. We were all weary and hungry, but thinking it was a fellow-creature in distress, we pulled towards him. Judge of our surprise when the stranger proved to be an enormous bear. "He was seated on his hams, and what we thought his signals were his raising himself on his hind legs to pull down the berries from a high bush, and, with his paws full sitting down again to eat them at his leisure. "Thus he continued daintily enjoying his ripe fruit in the posture some lapdogs are taught to assume while eating. On we pulled, and forgot our hunger and weariness; the bear still continued breakfasting. "We got as close on shore as the shoals would permit, and John, (one of the Indians,) taking my double-barrelled gun, leaped into the water, gun in hand, and gained the beach. Some dead brushwood hid the bear from John's sight, but from the canoe we could see both John and the bear. "The bear now discovered us, and advanced towards us; and John, not seeing him for the bush, ran along the beach towards him. The weariness from pulling all night, and having eaten no food, made me lose my presence of mind, for I now remembered that the gun was only loaded with duck-shot, and you might as well meet a bear with a gun loaded with peas. "John was in danger, and we strained at our paddles to get to his assistance; but as the bear was a very large one, and as we had no other firearms, we should have been but poor helps to John in the hug of a wounded bear. The bear was at the other side of the brush-heap: John heard the dry branches cracking, and he dodged into a hollow under a bush. The bear passed, and was coursing along the sand, but as he passed by where John lay, bang went the gun.--The bear was struck. "We saw him leap through the smoke to the very spot where we had last seen John. We held our breath; but instead of the cry of agony we expected to hear from John, bang went the gun again--John is not yet caught. Our canoe rushed through the water.--We might yet be in time; but my paddle fell from my hand with joy as I saw John pop his head above the bush, and with a shout point to the side of the log on which he stood, 'There he lies, dead enough.' We were thankful indeed to our Great Preserver."--_Peter Jacob's Journal._ Though fruit and vegetables seem to be the natural food of the bear, they also devour flesh, and even fish,--a fact of which the good Indian Missionary assures us; and that being new to my young readers, I shall give them in his own words:-- "A few evenings after we left the 'Rock,' while the men were before me 'tracking,' (towing the canoe,) by pulling her along by a rope from the shore, I observed behind a rock in the river, what I took to be a black fox. I stole upon it as quietly as possible, hoping to get a shot, but the animal saw me, and waded to the shore. It turned out to be a young bear fishing. The bear is a great fisherman. His mode of fishing is very curious. He wades into a current, and seating himself upright on his hams, lets the water come about up to his shoulders; he patiently waits until the little fishes come along and rub themselves against his sides, he seizes them instantly, gives them a nip, and with his left paw tosses them over his shoulder to the shore. His left paw is always the one used for tossing ashore the produce of his fishing. Feeling is the sense of which Bruin makes use here, not sight. "The Indians of that part say that the bear catches sturgeon when spawning in the shoal-water; but the only fish that I know of their catching, is the sucker: of these, in the months of April and May, the bear makes his daily breakfast and supper, devouring about thirty or forty at a meal. As soon as he has caught a sufficient number, he wades ashore, and regales himself on the best morsels, which are the thick of the neck, behind the gills. The Indians often shoot him when thus engaged."--Peter Jacob's Journal, p. 46_] CHAPTER XII. GARTER-SNAKES--RATTLESNAKES--ANECDOTE OF A LITTLE BOY--FISHERMAN AND SNAKE--SNAKE CHARMERS--SPIDERS--LAND-TORTOISE. "Nurse, I have been so terrified. I was walking in the meadow, and a great snake--so big, I am sure"--and Lady Mary held out her arms as wide as she could--"came out of a tuft of grass. His tongue was like a scarlet thread, and had two sharp points; and, do you know, he raised his wicked head, and hissed at me; I was so frightened that I ran away. I think, Mrs. Frazer, it must have been a rattlesnake. Only feel now how my heart beats" --and the little girl took her nurse's hand, and laid it on her heart. "What colour was the snake, my dear?" asked her nurse. "It was green and black, chequered all over; and it was very large, and opened its mouth very wide, and showed its red tongue. It would have killed me if it had bitten me, would it not, nurse?" "It would not have harmed you, my lady or even if it had bitten you, it would not have killed you. The chequered green snake of Canada is not poisonous. It was more afraid of you than you were of it, I make no doubt." "Do you think it was a rattlesnake, nurse?" "No, my dear; there are no snakes of that kind in Lower Canada, and very few below Toronto. The winters are too cold for them, but there are plenty in the western part of the province, where the summers are warmer, and the winters milder. The rattlesnake is a dangerous reptile, and its bite causes death, unless the wound be burnt or cut out. The Indians apply different sorts of herbs to the wound. They have several plants, known by the names of rattlesnake root, rattlesnake weed, and snake root. It is a good thing that the rattlesnake gives warning of its approach before it strikes the traveller with its deadly fangs. Some people think that the rattle is a sign of fear, and that it would not wound people, if it were not afraid they were coming near to hurt it. I will tell you a story, Lady Mary, about a brave little boy. He went out nutting one day with another boy about his own age; and while they were in the grove gathering nuts, a large black snake, that was in a low tree, dropped down and suddenly coiled itself round the throat of his companion. The child's screams were dreadful; his eyes were starting from his head with pain and terror. The other, regardless of the danger, opened a clasp-knife that he had in his pocket, and seizing the snake near the head, cut it apart, and so saved his friend's life, who was well-nigh strangled by the tight folds of the reptile, which was one of a very venomous species, the bite of which generally proves fatal." "What a brave little fellow!" said Lady Mary. "You do not think it was cruel, nurse, to kill the snake?" she added, looking up in Mrs. Frazer's face. "No, Lady Mary, for he did it to save a fellow-creature from a painful death; and we are taught by God's word that the soul of man is precious in the sight of his Creator. We should be cruel were we wantonly to inflict pain upon the least of God's creatures; but to kill them in self-defence, or for necessary food, is not cruel; for when God made Adam, He gave him dominion, or power, over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and every creeping thing. It was an act of great courage and humanity in the little boy, who perilled his own life to save that of his helpless comrade, especially as he was not naturally a child of much courage, and was very much afraid of snakes; but love for his friend overcame all thought of his own personal danger. [Footnote: A fact related to me by an old gentleman from the State of Vermont, as an instance of impulsive feeling overcoming natural timidity.] "The large garter-snake, that which you saw, my dear lady, is comparatively harmless. It lives on toads and frogs, and robs the nests of young birds, and the eggs also. Its long forked tongue enables it to catch insects of different kinds; it will even eat fish, and for that purpose frequents the water as well as the black snake. "I heard a gentleman once relate a circumstance to my father that surprised me a good deal. He was fishing one day in a river near his own house, but, being tired, seated himself on a log or fallen tree, where his basket of fish also stood; when a large garter-snake came up the log, and took a small fish out of his basket, which it speedily swallowed. The gentleman, seeing the snake so bold as not to mind his presence, took a small rock-bass by the tail, and half in joke held it towards him, when, to his great surprise, the snake glided towards him, took the fish out of his hand, and sliding away with its prize to a hole beneath the log, began by slow degrees to swallow it, stretching its mouth and the skin of its neck to a great extent; till, after a long while, it was fairly gorged, and then slid down its hole, leaving its neck and head only to be seen." "I should have been so frightened, nurse, if I had been the gentleman, when the snake came to take the fish," said Lady Mary. "The gentleman was well aware of the nature of the reptile, and knew that it would not bite him. I have read of snakes of the most poisonous kinds being tamed and taught all manner of tricks. There are in India and Egypt people that are called snake-charmers, who will contrive to extract the fangs containing the venom from the Cobra capella, or hooded snake; which then become quite harmless. These snakes are very fond of music, and will come out of the leather bag or basket that their master carries them in, and will dance or run up his arms, twining about his neck, and even entering his mouth. They do not tell people that the poison-teeth have been extracted, so that it is thought to be the music that keeps the snake from biting. The snake has a power of charming birds and small animals by fixing its eye steadily upon them, when the little creatures become paralysed with fear, either standing quite still, or coming nearer and nearer to their cruel enemy, till they are within his reach. The cat has the same power, and can by this art draw birds from the tops of trees within her reach. These little creatures seem unable to resist the temptation of approaching her, and, even when driven away, will return from a distance to the same spot, seeking, instead of shunning, the danger which is certain to prove fatal to them in the end. Some writers assert that all wild animals have this power in the eye, especially those of the cat tribe, as the lion and tiger, leopard and panther. Before they spring upon their prey, the eye is always steadily fixed, the back lowered, the neck stretched out, and the tail waved from side to side; if the eye is averted, they lose the animal, and do not make the spring." "Are there any other kinds of snakes in Canada, nurse," asked Lady Mary, "besides the garter-snake?" "Yes, my lady, several; the black snake, which is the most deadly next to the rattlesnake, is sometimes called the puff-adder, as it inflates the skin of the head and neck when angry. The copper-bellied snake is also poisonous. There is a small snake of a deep grass green colour sometimes seen in the fields and open copse-woods. I do not think it is dangerous; I never heard of its biting any one. The stare-worm is also harmless. I am not sure whether the black snakes that live in the water are the same as the puff or black adder. It is a great blessing, my dear, that these deadly snakes are so rare, and do so little harm to man. Indeed, I believe they would never harm him, were they let alone; but if trodden upon, they cannot tell that it was by accident, and so put forth the weapons that God has armed them with in self-defence. The Indians in the north-west, I have been told, eat snakes, after cutting off their heads. The cat also eats snakes, leaving the head; she will also catch and eat frogs, a thing I have witnessed myself, and know to be true. [Footnote: I saw a half grown kitten eat a live green frog, which she first caught and brought into the parlour, playing with it like a mouse.] One day a snake fixed itself on a little girl's arm and wound itself around it; the mother of the child was too much terrified to tear the deadly creature off, but filled the air with cries. Just then a cat came out of the house, and quick as lightning sprang upon the snake, and fastened on its neck, which caused the reptile to uncoil its folds, and it fell to the earth in the grasp of the cat; thus the child's life was saved, and the snake killed. Thus you see, my dear, that God provided a preserver for this little one when no help was nigh; perhaps the child cried to Him for aid, and He heard her and saved her by means of the cat." Lady Mary was much interested in all that Mrs. Frazer had told her; she remembered having heard some one say that the snake would swallow her own young ones, and she asked her nurse if it was true, and if they laid eggs. "The snake will swallow her young ones," said Mrs. Frazer. "I have seen the garter-snake open her mouth and let the little ones run into it when danger was nigh; the snake also lays eggs: I have seen and handled them often; they are not covered with a hard, brittle shell, like that of a hen, but with a sort of whitish skin, like leather; they are about the size of a blackbird's egg, long in shape, some are rounder and larger. They are laid in some warm place, where the heat of the sun and earth hatches them; but though the mother does not brood over them, as a hen does over her eggs, she seems to take great care of them, and defends them from their many enemies by hiding them out of sight in the singular manner I have just told you. This love of offspring, my dear child, has been wisely given to all mothers, from the human mother down to the very lowest of the insect tribe. The fiercest beast of prey loves its young, and provides food and shelter for them; forgetting its savage nature to play with and caress them. Even the spider, which is a disagreeable insect, fierce and unloving to its fellows, displays the tenderest care for its brood, providing a safe retreat for them in the fine silken cradle she spins to envelope the eggs, which she leaves in some warm spot, where she secures them from danger; some glue a leaf down, and overlap it, to ensure it from being agitated by the winds, or discovered by birds. There is a curious spider, commonly known as the nursing spider, who carries her sack of eggs with her, wherever she goes; and when the young ones come out, they cluster on her back, and so travel with her; when a little older, they attach themselves to the old one by threads, and run after her in a train." Lady Mary laughed, and said she should like to see the funny little spiders all tied to their mother, trotting along behind her. "If you go into the meadow, my dear," said Mrs. Frazer, "you will see on the larger stones some pretty shining little cases, quite round, looking like grey satin." "Nurse, I know what they are," said Lady Mary; "last year I was playing in the green meadow, and I found a piece of granite with several of these satin cases. I called them silk pies, for they looked like tiny mince-pies. I tried to pick one off, but it stuck so hard that I could not; so I asked the gardener to lend me his knife, and when I raised the crust, it had a little rim under the top, and I slipped the knife in, and what do you think I saw? The pie was full of tiny black shining spiders, and they ran out, such a number of them,--more than I could count, they ran so fast. I was sorry I opened the crust, for it was a cold, cold day, and the little spiders must have been frozen out of their warm air-tight house." "They are able to bear a great deal of cold, Lady Mary--all insects can; and even when frozen hard, so that they will break if any one tries to bend them, yet when spring comes again to warm them, they revive, and are as full of life as ever. Caterpillars thus frozen will become butterflies in due time. Spiders, and many other creatures, lie torpid during the winter, and then revive in the same way as dormice, bears, and marmots do." "Nurse, please will you tell me something about tortoises and porcupines?" said Lady Mary. "I cannot tell you a great deal about the tortoise, my dear," replied her nurse. "I have seen them sometimes on the shores of the lakes, and once or twice I have met with the small land-tortoise, in the woods on the banks of the Otonabee river. The shell that covers these reptiles is black and yellow, divided into squares--those which I saw were about the size of my two hands. They are very harmless creatures, living chiefly on roots and bitter herbs: perhaps they eat insects as well. They lie buried in the sand during the long winters, in a torpid state: they lay a number of eggs, about the size of a blackbird's, the shell of which is tough and soft, like a snake's egg. The old tortoise buries these in the loose sand near the water's edge, and leaves them to be hatched by the heat of the sun. The little tortoise, when it comes out of the shell, is about as big as a large spider--it is a funny-looking thing. I have heard some of the Indians say that they dive into the water, and swim, as soon as they are hatched; but this I am not sure of. I saw one about the size of a crown-piece that was caught in a hole in the sand; it was very lively, and ran along the table, making a rattling noise with its hard shell as it moved. An old one that one of my brothers brought in he put under a large heavy box, meaning to feed and keep it; but in the morning it was gone: it had lifted the edge of the box and was away, nor could he find out how it had contrived to make its escape from the room. This is all that I know about the Canadian land-tortoise." CHAPTER XIII. ELLEN AND HER PET FAWNS--DOCILITY OF FAN--JACK'S DROLL TRICKS-- AFFECTIONATE WOLF--FALL FLOWERS--DEPARTURE OF LADY MARY--THE END. One day Lady Mary came to seek her nurse in great haste, to describe to her a fine deer that had been sent as a present to her father by one of his Canadian friends. She said the great antlers were to be put up over the library-door. "Papa called me down to see the poor dead deer, nurse, and I was very sorry it had been killed; it was such a fine creature. Major Pickford laughed when I said so, but he promised to get me a live fawn. Nurse, what is a fawn?" "It is a young deer, my lady." "Nurse, please can you tell me anything about fawns? Are they pretty creatures, and can they be tamed; or are they fierce, wild little things?" "They are very gentle animals; and if taken young, can be brought up by sucking the finger like a young calf or a pet lamb. They are playful and lively, and will follow the person who feeds them like a dog. They are very pretty, of a pale dun or red colour, with small white spots on the back like large hailstones; the eyes are large and soft, and black, with a very meek expression in them; the hoofs are black and sharp: they are clean and delicate in their habits, and easy and graceful in their movements." "Did you ever see a tame fawn?" asked Lady Mary. "I have seen several, my dear. I will tell you about a fawn that belonged to a little girl whom I knew many years ago. A hunter had shot a poor doe, which was very wrong, and contrary to the Indian hunting law; for the native hunter will not, unless pressed for hunger, kill the deer in the spring of the year, when the fawns are young. The Indian wanted to find the little one after he had shot the dam, so he sounded a decoy whistle, to imitate the call of the doe, and the harmless thing answered it with a bleat, thinking no doubt it was its mother calling to it. This betrayed its hiding-place, and it was taken unhurt by the hunter, who took it home, and gave it to my little friend Ellen to feed and take care of." "Please, Mrs. Frazer, will you tell me what sort of trees hemlocks are? Hemlocks in England are poisonous weeds." "These are not weeds, but large forest trees--a species of pine. I will show you some the next time we go out for a drive--they are very handsome trees." "And what are creeks, nurse." "Creeks are small streams, such as in Scotland would be termed 'burns,' and in England rivulets." "Now, nurse, you may go on about the dear little fawn; I want you to tell me all you know about it." "Little Ellen took the poor timid thing, and laid it in an old Indian basket near the hearth, and put some wool in it, and covered it with an old cloak to keep it warm; and she tended it very carefully, letting it suck her fingers dipped in warm milk, as she had seen the dairy-maid do in weaning young calves. In a few days it began to grow strong and lively, and would jump out of its basket, and run bleating after its foster-mother: if it missed her from the room, it would wait at the door watching for her return. "When it was older, it used to run on the grass plot in the garden; but if it heard its little mistress's step or voice in the parlour, it would bound through the open window to her side; and her call of 'Fan, Fan, Fan!' would bring it home from the fields near the edge of the forest; but poor Fan got killed by a careless boy throwing some fire-wood down upon it, as it lay asleep in the wood-shed. Ellen's grief was very great, but all she could do was to bury it in the garden near the river-side, and plant lilac bushes round its little green-sodded grave." "I am so sorry, nurse, that this good little girl lost her pretty pet." "Some time after the death of 'Fan,' Ellen had another fawn given to her. She called this one Jack,--it was older, larger, and stronger, but was more mischievous and frolicsome than her first pet. It would lie in front of the fire on the hearth, like a dog, and rub its soft velvet nose against the hand that patted it very affectionately, but gave a good deal of trouble in the house: it would eat the carrots, potatoes, and cabbages, while the cook was preparing them for dinner; and when the housemaid had laid the cloth for dinner, Jack would go round the table and eat up the bread she had laid to each plate, to the great delight of the children, who thought it good fun to see him do so. "Ellen put a red leather collar about Jack's neck, and some months after this he swam across the rapid river, and went off to the wild woods, and was shot by some hunters, a great many miles away from his old home, being known by his fine red collar. After the sad end of her two favourites, Ellen would have no more fawns brought in for her to tame." Lady Mary was much interested in the account of the little girl and her pets. "Is this all you know about fawns, nurse?" "I once went to call on a clergyman's wife who lived in a small log-house near a new village. The youngest child, a fat baby of two years old, was lying on the rug before a large log-fire, fast asleep; its little head was pillowed on the back of a tame half-grown fawn that lay stretched on its side, enjoying the warmth of the fire, as tame and familiar as a spaniel dog. This fawn had been brought up with the children, and they were very fond of it, and would share their bread and milk with it at meal times; but it got into disgrace by gnawing the bark of the young orchard-trees, and cropping the bushes in the garden; besides, it had a trick of opening the cupboard, and eating the bread, and drinking any milk it could find; so the master of the house gave it away to a baker who lived in the village; but it did not forget its old friends, and used to watch for the children going to school, and as soon as it caught sight of them, it would trot after them, poking its nose into the basket to get a share of their dinner, and very often managed to get it all." "And what became of this nice fellow, nurse?" "Unfortunately, my lady, it was chased by some dogs, and ran away to the woods near the town, and never came back again. Dogs will always hunt tame fawns when they can get near them, so it seems a pity to domesticate them only to be killed in so cruel a way. The forest is the best home for these pretty creatures, though even there they have many enemies beside the hunter. The bear, the wolf, and the wolverine kill them. Their only means of defence lies in their fleetness of foot. The stag will defend himself with his strong horns; but the doe and her little fawn have no such weapons to guard them when attacked by beasts of prey. The wolf is one of the greatest enemies they have." "I hate wolves," said Lady Mary; "wolves can never be tamed, nurse." "I have heard and read of wolves being tamed and becoming very fond of their masters. A gentleman in Canada once brought up a wolf puppy, which became so fond of him that when he left it to go home to England, it refused to eat, and died of grief at his absence. Kindness will tame even fierce beasts, who soon learn to love the hand that feeds them. Bears and foxes have often been kept tame in this country, and eagles and owls; but I think they cannot be so happy shut up, away from their natural companions and habits, as if they were free to go and come at their own will." "I should not like to be shut up, nurse, far away from my own dear home," said the little girl, thoughtfully. "I think, sometimes, I ought not to keep my dear squirrel in a cage--shall I let him go?" "My dear, he has now been so used to the cage, and to have all his daily wants supplied, that I am sure he would suffer from cold and hunger at this season of the year if he were left to provide for himself, and if he remained here the cats and weasels might kill him." "I will keep him safe from harm, then, till the warm weather comes again; and then, nurse, we will take him to the mountain, and let him go, if he likes to be free, among the trees and bushes." It was now the middle of October; the rainy season that usually comes in the end of September and beginning of October in Canada was over. The soft hazy season, called Indian summer, was come again; the few forest leaves that yet lingered were ready to fall--bright and beautiful they still looked, but Lady Mary missed the flowers. "I do not love the fall--I see no flowers now, except those in the greenhouse. The cold, cold winter will soon be here again," she added sadly. "Last year, dear lady, you said you loved the white snow, and the sleighing, and the merry bells, and wished that winter would last all the year round." "Ah! yes, nurse; but I did not know how many pretty birds and flowers I should see in the spring and the summer; and now they are all gone, and I shall see them no more for a long time." "There are still a few flowers, Lady Mary, to be found; look at these." "Ah, dear nurse, where did you get them? How lovely they are!" "Your little French maid picked them for you, on the side of the mountain. Rosette loves the wild flowers of her native land." "Nurse, do you know the names of these pretty starry flowers on this little branch, that look so light and pretty?" "These are asters; a word, your governess told me the other day, meaning starlike; some people call these flowers Michaelmas daisies. These lovely lilac asters grow in light dry ground; they are among the prettiest of our fall flowers. These with the small white starry flowers crowded upon the stalks, with the crimson and gold in the middle, are dwarf asters." "I like these white ones, nurse; the little branches look so nicely loaded with blossoms; see, they are quite bowed down with the weight of all these flowers." "These small shrubby asters grow on dry gravelly banks of lakes and rivers." "But here are some large dark purple ones." "These are also asters; they are to be found on dry wastes, in stony barren fields, by the corners of rail-fences; they form large spreading bushes, and look very lovely, covered with their large dark purple flowers. There is no waste so wild, my lady, but the hand of the Most High can plant it with some blossom, and make the waste and desert place flourish like a garden. Here are others, still brighter and larger, with yellow disks, and sky-blue flowers; these grow by still waters, near milldams and swampy places. Though they are larger and gayer, I do not think they will please you so well as the small ones that I first showed you; they do not fade so fast, and that is one good quality they have." "They are more like the china asters in the garden, nurse, only more upright and stiff; but here is another sweet blue flower--can you tell me its name?" "No, my dear, you must ask your governess." Lady Mary carried the nosegay to Miss Campbell, who told her the blue flower was called the Fringed Gentian, and that the gentians and asters bloomed the latest of all the autumn flowers in Canada. Among these wild flowers, she also showed her the large dark blue bell flowered gentian, which was indeed the last flower of the year." "Are there no more flowers in bloom now, nurse?" asked the child, as she watched Mrs. Frazer arranging them for her in a flower-glass. "I do not know of any now in bloom but the golden rods and the latest of the ever-listings. Rosette shall go out, and try to get some of them for you. The French children make little mats and garlands of them to ornament their houses, and to hang on the little crosses above the graves of their friends, because they do not fade away like other flowers." Next day, Rosette, the little nursery-maid, brought Lady Mary an Indian basket full of Sweet-scented everlastings. This flower had a fragrant smell; the leaves were less downy than some of the earlier sorts, but were covered with a resinous gum, that caused it to stick to the fingers; it looked quite silky, from the thistledown, which, falling upon the leaves, were gummed down to the surface. "The country folks," said Mrs. Frazer, "call this plant Neglected everlasting, because it grows on dry wastes by road-sides, among thistles and fireweed; but I love it for its sweetness; it is like a true friend-- it never changes. See, my dear, how shining its straw-coloured blossoms and buds are, just like satin flowers." "Nurse, it shall be my own flower," said the little girl, "and I will make a pretty garland of it, to hang over my own dear mamma's picture. Rosette says she will show me how to tie the flowers together; she has made me a pretty wreath for my doll's straw hat, and she means to make her a mat and a carpet too." The little maid promised to bring her young lady some wreaths of the festoon pine; a low-creeping plant, with dry, green chaffy leaves, that grows in the barren pine woods, of which the Canadians make Christmas garlands, and also some of the winter berries, and spice berries, which look so gay in the fall and early spring, with berries of brightest scarlet, and shining dark green leaves, that trail over the ground on the gravelly hills and plains. Nurse Frazer brought Lady Mary some sweetmeats, flavored with an extract of the spicy winter green, from the confectioner's shop; the Canadians being very fond of the flavor of this plant. The Indians chew the leaves, and eat the ripe mealy berries, which have something of the taste of the bay-laurel leaves. The Indian men smoke the leaves as tobacco. One day, while Mrs. Frazer was at work in the nursery, her little charge came to her in a great state of agitation--her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were dancing with joy; she threw herself into her arms, and said, "Oh! dear nurse, I am going home to dear old England and Scotland. Papa and mamma are going away from Government House, and I am to return to the old country with them; I am so glad, are not you?" But the tears gathered in Mrs. Frazer's eyes and fell fast upon the work she held in her hand. Lady Mary looked surprised, when she saw how her kind nurse was weeping. "Nurse, you are to go too; mamma says so; now you need not cry, for you are not going to leave me." "I cannot go with you, my dearest child," whispered her weeping attendant, "much as I love you; for I have a dear son of my own. I have but him, and it would break my heart to part from him;" and she softly put aside the bright curls from Lady Mary's fair forehead, and tenderly kissed her. "This child is all I have in the world to love me, and when his father, my own kind husband, died, he vowed to take care of me, and cherish me in my old age, and I promised that I would never leave him; so I cannot go away from Canada with you, my lady, though I dearly love you." "Then, Mrs. Frazer, I shall be sorry to leave Canada; for when I go home, I shall have no one to talk to me about beavers, and squirrels, and Indians, and flowers, and birds." "Indeed, my lady, you will not want for amusement there, for England and Scotland are finer places than Canada. Your good governess and your new nurse will be able to tell you many things that will delight you; and you will not quite forget your poor old nurse, I am sure, when you think about the time you have spent in this country." "Ah, dear good old nurse, I will not forget you," said Lady Mary, springing into her nurse's lap, and fondly caressing her, while big bright tears fell from her eyes. There was so much to do, and so much to think about before the Governor's departure, that Lady Mary had no time to hear any more stories, nor to ask any more questions about the natural history of Canada; though, doubtless, there were many other curious things that Mrs. Frazer could have related; for she was a person of good education, who had seen and noticed as well as read a great deal. She had not always been a poor woman, but had once been a respectable farmer's wife, though her husband's death had reduced her to a state of servitude; and she had earned money enough while in the Governor's service to educate her son, and this was how she came to be Lady Mary's nurse. Lady Mary did not forget to have all her Indian curiosities packed up with some dried plants and flower seeds, collected by her governess; but she left the cage, with her flying squirrel, to Mrs. Frazer, to take care of till the following spring, when she told her to take it to the mountain, or St. Helen's Island, and let it go free, that it might be a happy squirrel once more, and bound away among the green trees in the Canadian woods. When Mrs. Frazer was called in to take leave of the Governor and his lady, after receiving a handsome salary for her care and attendance on their little daughter, the Governor gave her a sealed parchment, which, when she opened, was found to contain a Government deed for a fine lot of land, in a fertile township in Upper Canada. It was with many tears and blessings that Mrs. Frazer took leave of the good Governor's family; and, above all, of her beloved charge, Lady Mary. THE END. 
35586	----	Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net ( This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) REMINISCENCES OF A Canadian Pioneer. REMINISCENCES OF A CANADIAN PIONEER FOR THE LAST FIFTY YEARS. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. BY SAMUEL THOMPSON, _Formerly Editor of the "Toronto Daily Colonist," the "Parliamentary Hansard," &c., &c._ Toronto: HUNTER, ROSE & COMPANY. MDCCCLXXXIV. Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-four, by Samuel Thompson, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture. PREFACE. It was in consequence of a suggestion by the late S. J. Watson, Librarian of the Ontario Legislature--who urged that one who had gone through so many experiences of early Canadian history as myself, ought to put the same on record--that I first thought of writing these "Reminiscences," a portion of which appeared in the _Canadian Monthly Magazine_. For the assistance which has enabled me to complete and issue this volume, I am obliged to the kind support of those friends who have subscribed for its publication; for which they will please accept my grateful thanks. In the space at my disposal, I have necessarily been compelled to give little more than a gossiping narrative of events coming under my own observation. But I have been careful to verify every statement of which I was not personally cognizant; and to avoid everything of a controversial character; as well as to touch gently on those faults of public men which I felt obliged to notice. It has been a labour of love to me, to place on record many honourable deeds of Nature's gentlemen, whose lights ought not to be hidden altogether "under a bushel," and whose names should be enrolled by Canada amongst her earliest worthies. I have had the advantage, in several cases, of the use of family records, which have assisted me materially in rendering more complete several of the earlier chapters, particularly the account of Mackenzie's movements while in the neighbourhood of Gallows Hill; also the sketches of the "Tories of Rebellion Times;" as well as the history of the Mechanics' Institute, in which though a very old member, I never occupied any official position. Since the first part of these pages was in type, I have had to lament the deaths of more than one comrade whose name is recorded therein; amongst them Dr. A. A. Riddel--my "Archie"--and my dearest friend Dr. Alpheus Todd, to whom I have been indebted for a thousand proofs of generous sympathy. THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface iii Chap. I. The Author's Antecedents and Forbears 9 II. History of a Man of Genius 14 III. Some Reminiscences of a London Apprentice 19 IV. Westward, Ho! 21 V. Connemara and Galway fifty years ago 27 VI. More Sea Experiences 33 VII. Up the St. Lawrence 36 VIII. Muddy Little York 39 IX. A Pioneer Tavern 42 X. A First Day in the Bush 46 XI. A Chapter on Chopping 52 XII. Life in the Backwoods 65 XIII. Some Gatherings from Natural History 69 XIV. Our Removal to Nottawasaga 78 XV. Society in the Backwoods 84 XVI. More about Nottawasaga and its People 91 XVII. A Rude Winter Experience 93 XVIII. The Forest Wealth of Canada 98 XIX. A Melancholy Tale 101 XX. From Barrie to Nottawasaga 104 XXI. Farewell to the Backwoods 107 XXII. A Journey to Toronto 109 XXIII. Some Glimpses of Upper Canadian Politics 116 XXIV. Toronto During the Rebellion 119 XXV. The Victor and the Vanquished 134 XXVI. Results in the Future 140 XXVII. A Confirmed Tory 143 XXVIII. Newspaper Experiences 146 XXIX. Introduction to Canadian Politics 154 XXX. Lord Sydenham's Mission 156 XXXI. Tories of the Rebellion Times: Ald. G. T. Denison, Sen 165 Col. R. L. Denison 171 Col. Geo. T. Denison, of Rusholme 172 Alderman Dixon 174 XXXII. More Tories of Rebellion Times: Edward G. O'Brien 186 John W. Gamble 198 XXXIII. A Choice of a Church 201 XXXIV. The Clergy Reserves 210 XXXV. A Political Seed-time 215 XXXVI. The Maple Leaf 217 XXXVII. {St. George's Society 229 {North America St. George's Union 234 XXXVIII. A Great Conflagration 239 XXXIX. The Rebellion Losses Bill 242 XL. The British American League 245 XLI. Results of the B. A. League 261 XLII. Toronto Civic Affairs 262 XLIII. Lord Elgin in Toronto 268 XLIV. Toronto Harbour and Esplanade 274 XLV. Mayor Bowes--City Debentures 281 XLVI. Carlton Ocean Beach 285 XLVII. Canadian Politics from 1853 to 1860 288 XLVIII. Business Troubles 295 XLIX. Business Experiences in Quebec 300 L. Quebec in 1859-60 303 LI. Departure From Quebec 315 LII. John A. Macdonald and George Brown 317 LIII. John Sheridan Hogan 320 LIV. Domestic Notes 322 LV. The Beaver Insurance Company 325 LVI. The Ottawa Fires 326 LVII. Some Insurance Experiences 329 LVIII. A Heavy Calamity 333 LIX. The Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron 336 LX. The Toronto Athenæum 340 LXI. The Buffalo Fête 344 LXII. The Boston Jubilee 349 LXIII. Vestiges of the Mosaic Deluge 365 LXIV. The Franchise 368 LXV. Free Trade and Protection 371 LXVI. The Future of Canada 374 LXVII. The Toronto Mechanics' Institute 377 LXVIII. The Free Public Library 384 LXIX. Postscript 392 REMINISCENCES OF A CANADIAN PIONEER. CHAPTER I. THE AUTHOR'S ANTECEDENTS AND FORBEARS. The writer of these pages was born in the year 1810, in the City of London, and in the Parish of Clerkenwell, being within sound of Bow Bells. My father was churchwarden of St. James's, Clerkenwell, and was a master-manufacturer of coal measures and coal shovels, now amongst the obsolete implements of by-gone days. His father was, I believe, a Scotsman, and has been illnaturedly surmised to have run away from the field of Culloden, where he may have fought under the name and style of Evan McTavish, a name which, like those of numbers of his fellow clansmen, would naturally anglicise itself into John Thompson, in order to save its owner's neck from a threatened Hanoverian halter. But he was both canny and winsome, and by-and-by succeeded in capturing the affections and "tocher" of Sarah Reynolds, daughter of the wealthy landlord of the Bull Inn, of Meriden, in Warwickshire, the greatest and oldest of those famous English hostelries, which did duty as the resting-place of monarchs _en route_, and combined within their solid walls whole troops of blacksmiths, carpenters, hostlers, and many other crafts and callings. No doubt from this source I got my Warwickshire blood, and English ways of thinking, in testimony of which I may cite the following facts: while living in Quebec, in 1859-60, a mason employed to rebuild a brick chimney challenged me as a brother Warwickshire man, saying he knew dozens of gentlemen there who were as like me "as two peas." Again, in 1841, a lady who claimed to be the last direct descendant of William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, and the possessor of the watch and other relics of the poet, said she was quite startled at my likeness to an original portrait of her great ancestor, in the possession of her family. My grandfather carried on the business of timber dealer (we in Canada should call it lumber merchant), between Scotland and England, buying up the standing timber in gentlemen's parks, squaring and teaming it southward, and so became a prosperous man. Finally, at his death, he left a large family of sons and daughters, all in thriving circumstances. His second son, William, married my mother, Anna Hawkins, daughter of the Rev. Isaac Hawkins, of Taunton, in Somersetshire, and his wife, Joan Wilmington, of Wilmington Park, near Taunton. My grandfather Hawkins was one of John Wesley's earliest converts, and was by him ordained to the ministry. Through my mother, we are understood to be descended from Sir John Hawkins, the world-renowned buccaneer, admiral, and founder of the English Royal Navy, who was honoured by being associated with her most sacred Majesty Queen Elizabeth, in a secret partnership in the profits of piratical raids undertaken in the name and for the behoof of Protestant Christianity. So at least says the historian, Froude. One word more about my father. He was a member of the London trained-bands, and served during the Gordon riots, described by Dickens in "Barnaby Rudge." He personally rescued a family of Roman Catholics from the rioters, secreted them in his house on Holborn Hill, and aided them to escape to Jamaica, whence they sent us many valuable presents of mahogany furniture, which must be still in the possession of some of my nephews or nieces in England. My mother has often told me, that she remembered well seeing dozens of miserable victims of riot and drunkenness lying in the kennel in front of her house, lapping up the streams of gin which ran burning down the foul gutter, consuming the poor wretches themselves in its fiery progress. My father died the same year I was born. My dear mother, who was the meekest and most pious of women, did her best to teach her children to avoid the snares of worldly pride and ambition, and to be contented with the humble lot in which they had been placed by Providence. She was by religious profession a Swedenborgian, and in that denomination educated a family of eleven children, of whom I am the youngest. I was sent to a respectable day-school, and afterwards as boarder to a commercial academy, where I learnt the English branches of education, with a little Latin, French, and drawing. I was, as a child, passionately fond of reading, especially of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and of Sir Walter Scott's novels, which latter delightful books have influenced my tastes through life, and still hold me fascinated whenever I happen to take them up. So things went on till 1823, when I was thirteen years old. My mother had been left a life-interest in freehold and leasehold property worth some thirty thousand pounds sterling; but, following the advice of her father and brother, was induced to invest in losing speculations, until scarcely sufficient was left to keep the wolf from the door. It was, therefore, settled that I must be sent to learn a trade, and, by my uncle's advice, I was placed as apprentice to one William Molineux, of the Liberty of the Rolls, in the district of Lincoln's Inn, printer. He was a hard master, though not an unkind man. For seven long years was I kept at press and case, working eleven hours a day usually, sometimes sixteen, and occasionally all night, for which latter indulgence I got half a crown for the night's work, but no other payment or present from year's end to year's end. The factory laws had not then been thought of, and the condition of apprentices in England was much the same as that of convicts condemned to hard labour, except for a couple of hours' freedom, and too often of vicious license, in the evenings. CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF A MAN OF GENIUS. The course of my narrative now requires a brief account of my mother's only brother, whose example and conversation, more than anything else, taught me to turn my thoughts westwards, and finally to follow his example by crossing the Atlantic ocean, and seeking "fresh fields and pastures new" under a transatlantic sky. John Isaac Hawkins was a name well known, both in European and American scientific circles, fifty years ago, as an inventor of the most fertile resource, and an expert in all matters relating to civil engineering. He must have left England for America somewhere about the year 1790, full of republican enthusiasm and of schemes of universal benevolence. Of his record in the United States I know very little, except that he married a wife in New Jersey, that he resided at Bordenton, that he acquired some property adjacent to Philadelphia, that he was intimate with the elder Adams, Jefferson, and many other eminent men. Returning with his wife to England, after twenty-five years' absence, he established a sugar refinery in Titchfield Street, Cavendish square, London, patronized his English relatives with much condescension, and won my childish heart by great lumps of rock-candy, and scientific experiments of a delightfully awful character. Also, he borrowed my mother's money, to be expended for the good of mankind, and the elaboration of the teeming offspring of his inexhaustible inventive faculty. Morden's patent lead pencils, Bramah's patent locks, and, I think, Gillott's steel pens were among his numerous useful achievements, from some or all of which he enjoyed to the day of his death a small income, in the shape of a royalty on the profits. He assisted in the perfecting of Perkins's steam-gun, which the Duke of Wellington condemned as too barbarous for civilized warfare, but which its discoverer, Mr. Perkins, looked upon as the destined extirpator of all warfare, by the simple process of rendering resistance utterly impossible. This appalling and destructive weapon has culminated in these times in the famous mitrailleuses of Napoleon III, at Woerth and Sedan, which, however, certainly neither exterminated the Prussians nor added glory to the French empire. At his home I was in the habit of meeting the leading men of the Royal Society and the Society of Arts, of which he was a member, and of listening to their discussions about scientific novelties. The eccentric Duke of Norfolk, Earl Stanhope, the inventor of the Stanhope press, and other noble amateur scientists, availed themselves of his practical skill, and his name became known throughout Europe. In 1825 or thereabouts, he was selected by the Emperor Francis Joseph, of Austria, to design and superintend the first extensive works erected in Vienna for the promotion of the new manufacture of beet-root sugar, now an important national industry throughout Germany. He described the intercourse of the Austrian Imperial-Royal family with all who approached them, and even with the mendicants who were daily admitted to an audience with the Emperor at five o'clock in the morning, as of the most cordial and lovable character. From Vienna my uncle went to Paris, and performed the same duties there for the French Government, in the erection of extensive sugar works. The chief difficulty he encountered there, was in parrying the determination of the Parisian artisans not to lose their Sunday's labour. They could not, they said, support their families on six days' wages, and unless he paid them for remaining idle on the Sabbath day, they must and would work seven days in the week. I believe they gained their point, much to his distress and chagrin. His next exploit was in the construction of the Thames tunnel, in connection with which he acted as superintendent of the works under Sir Isambert Brunel. This occupied him nearly up to the time of my own departure for Canada, in 1833. The sequel of his story is a melancholy one. He made fortunes for other men who bought his inventions but himself sank into debt, and at last died in obscurity at Rahway, New Jersey, whither he had returned as a last resort, there to find his former friends dead, his beloved republic become a paradise for office-grabbers and sharpers, his life a mere tale of talents dissipated, and vague ambition unsatisfied.[1] After his return from Vienna, I lived much at my uncle's house, in London, as my mother had removed to the pleasant village of Epsom in Surrey. There I studied German with some degree of success, and learnt much about foreign nations and the world at large. There too I learnt to distrust my own ability to make my way amidst the crowded industries of the old country, and began to cast a longing eye to lands where there was plenty of room for individual effort, and a reasonable prospect of a life unblighted by the dread of the parish workhouse and a pauper's grave. [Footnote 1: Since writing the above, I find in _Scribner's Monthly_ for November 1880, the following notice of my uncle, which forms a sad sequel to a long career of untiring enthusiasm in the service of his fellow-creatures. It is the closing paragraph of an article headed "Bordentown and the Bonapartes," from the pen of Joseph B. Gilder: "It yet remains to say a few words of Dr. John Isaac Hawkins--civil engineer, inventor, poet, preacher, phrenologist and 'mentor-general to mankind,'--who visited the village towards the close of the last century, married and lived there for many years; then disappeared, and, after a long absence, returned a gray old man, with a wife barely out of her teens. 'This isn't the wife you, took away, doctor,' some one ventured to remark. 'No,' the blushing girl replied, 'and he's buried one between us.' The poor fellow had hard work to gain a livelihood. For a time, the ladies paid him to lecture to them in their parlours; but when he brought a bag of skulls, and the heart and windpipe of his [adopted] son preserved in spirits, they would have nothing more to do with him. As a last resort, he started the 'Journal of Human Nature and Human Progress,' his wife 'setting up' for the press her husband's contributions in prose and rhyme. But the 'Journal' died after a brief and inglorious career. Hawkins claimed to have made the first survey for a tunnel under the Thames, and he invented the 'ever-pointed pencil,' the 'iridium-pointed gold pen,' and a method of condensing coffee. He also constructed a little stove with a handle, which he carried into the kitchen to cook his meals or into the reception-room when visitors called, and at night into his bedroom. He invented also a new religion, whose altar was erected in his own small parlour, where Dr. John Isaac Hawkins, priest, held forth to Mrs. John Isaac Hawkins, people. But a shadow stretched along the poor man's path from the loss of his only [adopted] son--'a companion in all of his philosophical researches,' who died and was dissected at the early age of seven. Thereafter the old man wandered, as 'lonely as a cloud,' sometimes in England, sometimes in America; but attended patiently and faithfully by his first wife, then by a second, and finally by a third, who clung to him with the devotion of Little Nell to her doting grandfather."] CHAPTER III. SOME REMINISCENCES OF A LONDON APPRENTICE. Having been an indulged youngest child, I found the life of a printer's boy bitterly distasteful, and it was long before I could brace myself up to the required tasks. But time worked a change; I got to be a smart pressman and compositor; and at eighteen the foremanship of the office was entrusted to me, still without remuneration or reward. Those were the days of the Corn Law League. Col. Peyronnet Thompson, the apostle of Free Trade, author of the "Catholic State Waggon" and other political tracts, got his work done at our office. We printed the _Examiner_, which brought me into contact with John and Leigh Hunt, with Jeremy Bentham, then a feeble old man whose life was passed in an easy chair, and with his _protegé_ Edwin Chadwick; also with Albany Fonblanque, Sir John Morland the philanthropist, and other eminent men. Last but not least, we printed "Figaro in London," the forerunner of "Punch," and I was favoured with the kindest encouragement by De Walden, its first editor, afterwards Police Magistrate. I have known that gentleman come into the office on the morning of publication, ask how much copy was still wanted, and have seen him stand at a desk, and without preparation or hesitation, dash off paragraph after paragraph of the pungent witticisms, which the same afternoon sent all London into roars of laughter at the expense of political humbugs of all kinds, whether friends or foes. These were not unhappy days for me. With such associations, I became a zealous Reformer, and heartily applauded my elder brother, when he refused, with thousands of others, to pay taxes at the time the first Reform Bill was rejected by the House of Lords. At this period of my life, as might have been expected from the nature of my education and the course of reading which I preferred, I began to try my hand at poetry, and wrote several slight pieces for the Christmas Annuals, which, sad to say, were never accepted. But the fate of Chatterton, of Coleridge, and other like sufferers, discouraged me; and I adopted the prudent resolution, to prefer wealth to fame, and comfort to martyrdom in the service of the Muses. With the termination of my seven years' apprenticeship, these literary efforts came also to an end. Disgusted with printing, I entered the service of my brother, a timber merchant, and in consequence obtained a general knowledge of the many varieties of wood used in manufactures, which I have since found serviceable. And this brings me to the year 1831, from which date to the present day, I have identified myself thoroughly with Canada, her industries and progress, without for a moment ceasing to be an Englishman of the English, a loyal subject of the Queen, and a firm believer in the high destinies of the Pan-Anglican Empire of the future. CHAPTER IV. WESTWARD, HO! "Martin Doyle," was the text-book which first awakened, amongst tens of thousands of British readers, a keen interest in the backwoods of what is now the Province of Ontario. The year 1832, the first dread year of Asiatic cholera, contributed by its terrors to the exodus of alarmed fugitives from the crowded cities of the old country. My brothers Thomas and Isaac, both a few years older than myself, made up their minds to emigrate, and I joyously offered to join them, in the expectation of a good deal of fun of the kind described by Dr. Dunlop. So we set seriously to work, "pooled" our small means, learnt to make seine-nets, economized to an unheard of extent, became curious in the purchase of stores, including pannikins and other primitive tinware, and at length engaged passage in the bark _Asia_, 500 tons, rated A. No. 1, formerly an East Indiaman, and now bound for Quebec, to seek a cargo of white pine lumber for the London market. So sanguine were we of returning in the course of six or seven years, with plenty of money to enrich, and perhaps bring back with us, our dear mother and unmarried sisters, that we scarcely realized the pain of leave-taking, and went on board ship in the St. Catherine's Docks, surrounded by applauding friends, and in the highest possible spirits. Our fellow-passengers were not of the most desirable class. With the exception of a London hairdresser and his wife, very respectable people, with whom we shared the second-cabin, the emigrants were chiefly rough countrymen, with their wives and numerous children, sent out by the parish authorities from the neighbourhood of Dorking, in Surrey, and more ignorant than can readily be conceived. Helpless as infants under suffering, sulky and even savage under privations, they were a troublesome charge to the ship's officers, and very ill-fitted for the dangers of the sea which lay before us. Captain Ward was the ship's master; there were first and second mates, the former a tall Scot, the latter a short thick-set Englishman, and both good sailors. The boatswain, cook and crew of about a dozen men and boys, made up our ship's company. All things went reasonably well for some time. Heavy head-winds detained us in the channel for a fortnight, which was relieved by landing at Torbay, climbing the heights of Brixham, and living on fresh fish for twenty-four hours. Then came a fair wind, which lasted until we got near the banks of Newfoundland. Head-winds beset us again, and this time so seriously that our vessel, which was timber-sheathed, sprang a plank, and immediately began to leak dangerously. The passengers had taken to their berths for the night, and were of course ignorant of what had happened, but feared something wrong from the hurry of tramping of feet overhead, the vehement shouts of the mates giving orders for lowering sail, and the other usual accompaniments of a heavy squall on board ship. It was not long, however, before we learned the alarming truth. "All hands on deck to pump ship," came thundering down both hatchways, in the coarse tones of the second mate. We hurried on deck half-dressed, to face a scene of confusion affrighting in the eyes of landsmen--the ship stripped to her storm-sails, almost on her beam-ends in a tremendous sea, the wind blowing "great guns," the deck at an angle of at least fifteen degrees, flooded with rain pouring in torrents, and encumbered with ropes which there had not been time to clew away, the four ship's pumps manned by twice as many landsmen, the sailors all engaged in desperate efforts to stop the leak by thrumming sails together and drawing them under the ship's bows. Captain Ward told us very calmly that he had been in gales off the Cape of Good Hope, and thought nothing of a "little puff" like this; he also told us that he should keep on his course in the hope that the wind would abate, and that we could manage the leak; but if not, he had no doubt of carrying us safely back to the west coast of Ireland, where he might comfortably refit. Certainly courage is infectious. We were twelve hundred miles at sea, with a great leak in our ship's side, and very little hope of escape, but the master's coolness and bravery delighted us, and even the weakest man on board took his spell at the pumps, and worked away for dear life. My brother Thomas was a martyr to sea-sickness, and could hardly stand without help; but Isaac had been bred a farmer, accustomed to hard work and field sports, and speedily took command of the pumps, worked two spells for another man's one, and by his example encouraged the grumbling steerage passengers to persevere, if only for very shame. Some of their wives even took turns with great spirit and effect. I did my best, but it was not much that I could accomplish. In all my after-life I never experienced such supreme comfort and peace of mind, as during that night, while lying under wet sails on the sloping deck, talking with my brother of the certainty of our being at the bottom of the sea before morning, of our mother and friends at home, and of our hope of meeting them in the great Hereafter. Tired out at last, we fell asleep where we lay, and woke only at the cry, "spell ho!" which summoned us again to the pumps. The report of "five feet of water in the hold--the ballast shifted!" determined matters for us towards morning. Capt. Ward decided that he must put about and run for Galway, and so he did. The sea had by daylight gone down so much, that the captain's cutter could be lowered and the leak examined from the outside. This was done by the first mate, Mr. Cattanagh, who brought back the cheering news that so long as we were running before the wind the leak was four feet out of water, and that we were saved for the present. The bark still remained at the same unsightly angle, her ballast, which was chiefly coals, having shifted bodily over to leeward; the pumps had to be kept going, and in this deplorable state, in constant dread of squalls, and wearied with incessant hard work, we sailed for eight days and nights, never sighting a ship until nearly off the mouth of the Shannon, where we hailed a brig whose name I forget. She passed on, however, refusing to answer our signals of distress. Next day, to our immense relief, the _Asia_ entered Galway Bay, and here we lay six weeks for repairs, enjoying ourselves not a little, and forgetting past danger, except as a memorable episode in the battle of life. CHAPTER V. CONNEMARA AND GALWAY FIFTY YEARS AGO. The Town of Galway is a relic of the times when Spain maintained an active commerce with the west of Ireland, and meddled not a little in the intrigues of the time. Everybody has read of the warden of Galway, who hanged his son outside a window of his own house, to prevent a rescue from justice by a popular rising in the young man's favour. That house still stood, and probably yet stands, a mournful memento of a most dismal tragedy. In 1833 it was in ruins, as was also the whole long row of massive cut stone buildings of which it formed part. In front there was a tablet recording the above event; the walls were entire, but the roof was quite gone, and the upper stories open to the winds and storms. The basement story appeared to have been solidly arched, and in its cavernous recesses, and those of the adjoining cellars along that side of the street, dwelt a race of butchers and of small hucksters, dealing in potatoes, oats, some groceries and rough wares of many kinds. The first floor of a brick store opposite was occupied by a hair-dresser with whom our London fellow-passenger claimed acquaintance. One day we were sitting at his window, looking across at the old warden's house, when a singular scene was enacted under our astonished eyes. A beggarman, so ragged as barely to comply with the demands of common decency, and bearing an old sack suspended over his shoulder on a short cudgel, came lounging along the middle of the street seeking alms. A butcher's dog of aristocratic tastes took offence at the man's rags, and attacked him savagely. The old man struck at the dog, the dog's owner darted out of his cellar and struck at the beggar, somebody else took a part, and in the twinkling of an eye as it were, the narrow street was blocked up with men furiously-wielding shillelaghs, striking right and left at whoever happened to be most handy, and yelling like Dante's devils in full chorus. Another minute, and a squad of policemen in green uniforms--peelers, they are popularly called--appeared as if by magic, and with the effect of magic; for instantly, and with a celerity evidently the result of long practice, the crowd, beggarman, butcher, dog and all, vanished into the yawning cellars, and the street was left as quiet as before, the police marching leisurely back to their barracks. We spent much of our time in rambling along the shore of Galway Bay, a beautiful and extensive harbour, where we found many curious specimens of sea-weeds, particularly the edible dilosk, and rare shells and minerals. Some of our people went out shooting snipe, and were warned on all hands to go in parties, and to take care of their guns, which would prove too strong a temptation for the native peasantry, as the spirit of Ribbonism was rife throughout Connemara. Another amusement was, to watch the groups of visitors from Tuam and the surrounding parts of Clare and other counties, who were attracted by the marvel of a ship of five hundred tons in their bay, no such phenomenon having happened within the memory of man. At another time we explored the rapid river Corrib, and the beautiful lake of the same name, a few miles distant. The salmon weirs on the river were exceedingly interesting, where we saw the largest fish confined in cribs for market, and apparently quite unconscious of their captivity. The castle of one of the Lynch family was visible from the bay, an ancient structure with its walls mounted with cannon to keep sheriffs' officers at a distance. Other feudal castles were also in sight. Across the bay loomed the rugged mountains of Clare, seemingly utterly barren in their bleak nakedness. With the aid of the captain's telescope we could see on these inhospitable hills dark objects, which turned out to be the mud cabins of a numerous peasantry, the very class for whom, in this present year of 1883, Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues are trying to create an elysium of rural contentment. We traversed the country roads for miles, to observe the mode of farming there, and could find nothing, even up to the very streets of Galway, but mud cabins with one or two rooms, shared with the cow and pigs, and entrenched, as it were, behind a huge pile of manure that must have been the accumulation of years. Anything in the shape of valuable improvements was conspicuously absent. Everything in Connemara seems paradoxical. These rough-coated, hard-worked, down-trodden Celts proved to be the liveliest, brightest, wittiest of mankind. They came in shoals to our ship, danced reels by the hour upon deck to a whistled accompaniment, with the most extravagant leaps and snapping of fingers. It was an amusing sight to see women driving huge pigs into the sea, held by a string tied to the hind leg, and there scraping and sluicing the unwieldy, squealing creatures until they came out as white as new cream. These Galway women are singularly handsome, with a decidedly Murillo cast of features, betokening plainly their Iberian ancestry. They might well have sat as models to the chief of Spanish painters. In the suburbs of Galway are many acres of boggy land, which are cultivated as potato plots, highly enriched with salt sea-weed manure, and very productive. These farms--by which title they are dignified--were rented, we were told, at three to four pounds sterling per acre. Rents in the open country ranged from one pound upwards. Yet we bought cup potatoes at twopence per stone of sixteen lbs.; and for a leg of mutton paid sixpence English. Enquiring the cause of these singular anomalies, we were assured on all hands, that the system of renting through middlemen was the bane of Ireland. A farm might be sub-let two or three times, each tenant paying an increased rental, and the landlord-in-chief, a Blake, a Lynch, or a Martin, realizing less rent than he would obtain in Scotland or England. We heard of no Protestant oppressors here; the gentry and nobility worshipped at the same altar with the humblest of their dependents, and certainly meant them well and treated them considerately. We attended the English service in the ancient Gothic Abbey Church. The ministrations were of the strictest Puritan type; the sculptured escutcheons and tablets on the walls--the groined arches and bosses of the roof--were almost obliterated by thick coat upon coat of whitewash, laid on in an iconoclastic spirit which I have since seen equalled in the Dutch Cathedral of Rotterdam, and nowhere else. Another Sunday we visited a small Roman Catholic chapel at some distance. It was impossible to get inside the building, as the crowd of worshippers not only filled the sacred edifice, but spread themselves over a pretty extensive and well-filled churchyard, where they knelt throughout morning prayer, lasting a full hour or more. The party-feuds of the town are quite free from sectarian feeling. The fishermen, who were dressed from head to foot in hoddengray, and the butchers, who clothed themselves entirely in sky-blue--coats, waistcoats, breeches, and stockings alike, with black hats and shoes--constituted the belligerent powers. Every Saturday night, or oftener, they would marshal their forces respectively on the wide fish-market place, by the sea-shore, or on the long wharf extending into deep water, and with their shillelaghs hold high tournament for the honour of their craft and the love of fair maidens. One night, while the _Asia_ lay off the wharf, an unfortunate combatant fell senseless into the water and was drowned. But no inquiry followed, and no surprise was expressed at a circumstance so trivial. By the way, it would be unpardonable to quit Connemara without recording its "potheen." Every homestead had its peat-stack, and every peat-stack might be the hiding-place of a keg of illicit native spirits. We were invited, and encouraged by example, to taste a glass; but a single mouthful almost choked us; and never again did we dare to put the fiery liquid to our lips. Our recollections of Galway are of a mixed character--painful, because of the consciousness that the empire at large must be held responsible for the unequal distribution of nature's blessings amongst her people--pleasant, because of the uniform hospitality and courtesy shown to us by all classes and creeds of the townsfolk. CHAPTER VI. MORE SEA EXPERIENCES. In the month of July we were ready for sea again. In the meantime Captain Ward had got together a new list of passengers, and we more than doubled our numbers by the addition of several Roman Catholic gentlemen of birth and education with their followers, and a party of Orangemen and their families, of a rather rough farming sort, escaping from religious feuds and hostile neighbours. A blooming widow Culleeney, of the former class, was added to the scanty female society on board; and for the first few hours after leaving port, we had fun and dancing on deck galore. But alas, sea-sickness put an end to our merriment all too soon. Our new recruits fled below, and scarcely showed their faces on deck for several days. Yet, in this apparently quiet interval, discord had found her way between decks. We were listening one fine evening to the comical jokes and rich brogue of the most gentlemanly of the Irish Catholics above-mentioned, when suddenly a dozen men, women and children, armed with sticks and foaming at the mouth, rushed up the steerage hatchway, and without note of warning or apparent provocation, attacked the defenceless group standing near us with the blindness of insanity and the most frantic cries of rage. Fortunately there were several of the ship's officers and sailors on deck, who laid about them lustily with their fists, and speedily drove the attacking party below, where they were confined for some days, under a threat of severe punishment from the captain, who meant what he said. So this breeze passed over. What it was about, who was offended, and how, we never could discover; we set it down to the general principle, that the poor creatures were merely 'blue-mowlded for want of a bating.' Moderately fair breezes, occasional dead calms, rude, baffling head-winds, attended us until we reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence. After sailing all day northward, and all night southerly, we found ourselves next morning actually retrograded some thirty or forty knots. But we were rewarded sometimes by strange sights and wondrous spectacles. Once a shoal of porpoises and grampuses crossed our course, frolicking and turning summersets in the air, and continuing to stream onwards for full two hours. Another time, when far north, we had the most magnificent display of aurora borealis. Night after night the sea became radiant with phosphorescent light. Icebergs attended us in thousands, compelling our captain to shorten sail frequently; once we passed near two of these ice-cliffs which exceeded five hundred feet in height, and again we were nearly overwhelmed by the sudden break-down of a huge mass as big as a cathedral. Near the Island of Anticosti we saw at least three hundred spouting whales at one view. I have crossed the Atlantic four times since, and have scarcely seen a single whale or shark. It seems that modern steamship travel has driven away the inhabitants of the deep to quieter seas, and robbed "life on the ocean wave" of much of its romance. CHAPTER VII. UP THE ST. LAWRENCE. The St. Lawrence River was gained, and escaping with a few days' quarantine at Grosse Isle, we reached Quebec, there to be transferred to a fine steamer for Montreal. At Lachine we were provided with large barges, here called batteaux, which sufficed to accommodate the whole of the _Asia's_ passengers going west, with their luggage. They were drawn by Canadian ponies, lively and perfectly hardy little animals, which, with their French-Canadian drivers, amused us exceedingly. While loading up, we were favoured with one of those accidental historical "bits"--as a painter would say--which occur so rarely in a lifetime. The then despot of the North-West, Sir George Simpson, was just starting for the seat of his government _via_ the Ottawa River. With him were some half-dozen officers, civil and military, and the party was escorted by six or eight Nor'-West canoes--each thirty or forty feet long, and manned by some twenty-four Indians, in the full glory of war-paint, feathers, and most dazzling costumes. To see these stately boats, and their no less stately crews, gliding with measured stroke, in gallant procession, on their way to the vasty wilderness of the Hudson's Bay territory, with the British flag displayed at each prow, was a sight never to be forgotten. And as they paddled, the woods echoed far and wide to the strange weird sounds of their favourite boat-song:-- "A la claire fontaine, M'en allant promener, J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle, Que je m'y suis baigné. Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublirai." From Lachine to the Coteau, thence by canal and along shore successively to Cornwall, Prescott, and Kingston, occupied several days. We were charmed to get on dry land, to follow our batteau along well-beaten paths, gathering nuts, stealing a few apples now and then from some orchard skirting the road; dining at some weather-boarded way-side tavern, with painted floors, and French cuisine, all delightfully strange and comical to us; then on board the batteau again at night. Once, in a cedar swamp, we were enraptured at finding a dazzling specimen of the scarlet _lobelia fulgens_, the most brilliant of wild flowers, which Indians use for making red ink. At another time, the Long Sault rapids, up which was steaming the double-hulled steamer _Iroquois_, amazed us by their grandeur and power, and filled our minds with a sense of the vastness of the land we had come to inhabit. And so we wended on our way until put aboard the Lake Ontario steamer _United Kingdom_ for Little York, where we landed about the first week in September, 1833, after a journey of four months. Now-a-days, a trip to England by the Allan Line is thought tedious if it last ten days, and even five days is considered not unattainable. When we left England, a thirty mile railway from Liverpool to Manchester was all that Europe had seen. Dr. Dionysius Lardner pronounced steam voyages across the Atlantic an impossibility, and men believed him. Now, even China and Japan have their railways and steamships; Canada is being spanned from the Atlantic to the Pacific by a railroad, destined, I believe, to work still greater changes in the future of our race, and of the world. CHAPTER VIII. MUDDY LITTLE YORK. When we landed at York, it contained 8,500 inhabitants or thereabouts, being the same population nearly as Belleville, St. Catharines, and Brantford severally claimed in 1881. In addition to King street the principal thoroughfares were Lot, Hospital, and Newgate streets, now more euphoniously styled Queen, Richmond and Adelaide streets respectively; Church, George, Bay and York streets were almost without buildings; Yonge street ran north thirty-three miles to Lake Simcoe, and Dundas street extended westward a hundred miles to London. More or less isolated wooden stores there were on King and Yonge streets; taverns were pretty numerous; a wooden English church; Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic churches of the like construction; a brick gaol and court-house of the ugliest architecture: scattered private houses, a wheat-field where now stands the Rossin House; beyond it a rough-cast Government House, brick Parliament Buildings uglier even than the gaol, and some government offices located in one-story brick buildings twenty-five feet square,--comprised the lions of the Toronto of that day. Of brick private buildings, only Moore's hotel at the corner of Market square; J. S. Baldwin's residence, now the Canada Company's office; James F. Smith's grocery (afterwards the _Colonist_ office), on King street; Ridout's hardware store at the corner of King and Yonge streets, occur to my memory, but there may have been one or two others. So well did the town merit its muddy soubriquet, that in crossing Church street near St. James's Church, boots were drawn off the feet by the tough clay soil; and to reach our tavern on Market lane (now Colborne street), we had to hop from stone to stone placed loosely along the roadside. There was rude flagged pavement here and there, but not a solitary planked footpath throughout the town. To us the sole attraction was the Emigrant Office. At that time, Sir John Colborne, Lieut. Governor of Upper Canada, was exerting himself to induce retired army officers, and other well-to-do settlers, to take up lands in the country north and west of Lake Simcoe. U. E. rights, _i.e._, location tickets for two hundred acres of land, subject to conditions of actual settlement, were easily obtainable. We purchased one of these for a hundred dollars, or rather for twenty pounds sterling--dollars and cents not being current in Canada at that date--and forthwith booked ourselves for Lake Simcoe, in an open waggon without springs, loaded with the bedding and cooking utensils of intending settlers, some of them our shipmates of the _Asia_. A day's journey brought us to Holland Landing, whence a small steamer conveyed us across the lake to Barrie. The Holland River was then a mere muddy ditch, swarming with huge bullfrogs and black snakes, and winding in and out through thickets of reeds and rushes. Arrived at Barrie, we found a wharf, a log bakery, two log taverns--one of them also a store--and a farm house, likewise log. Other farm-houses there were at some little distance, hidden by trees. Some of our fellow travellers were discouraged by the solitary appearance of things here, and turned back at once. My brothers and myself, and one other emigrant, determined to go on; and next afternoon, armed with axes, guns, and mosquito nets, off we started for the unknown forest, then reaching, unbroken, from Lake Simcoe to Lake Huron. From Barrie to the Nottawasaga river, eleven miles, a road had been chopped and logged sixty-six feet wide; beyond the river, nothing but a bush path existed. CHAPTER IX. A PIONEER TAVERN. We had walked a distance of eight miles, and it was quite dark, when we came within sight of the clearing where we were advised to stop for the night. Completely blockading the road, and full in our way, was a confused mass of felled timber, which we were afterwards told was a wind-row or brush-fence. It consisted of an irregular heap of prostrate trees, branches and all, thrown together in line, to serve as a fence against stray cattle. After several fruitless attempts to effect an entrance, there was nothing for it but to shout at the top of our voices for assistance. Presently we heard a shrill cry, rather like the call of some strange bird than a human voice; immediately afterwards, the reflection of a strong light became visible, and a man emerged from the brush-wood, bearing a large blazing fragment of resinous wood, which lighted up every object around in a picturesque and singular manner. High over head, eighty feet at least, was a vivid green canopy of leaves, extending on all sides as far as the eye could penetrate, varied here and there by the twinkling of some lustrous star that peeped through from the dark sky without, and supported by the straight trunks and arching branches of innumerable trees--the rustic pillars of this superb natural temple. The effect was strikingly beautiful and surprising. Nor was the figure of our guide less strange. He was the first genuine specimen of a Yankee we had encountered--a Vermonter--tall, bony and awkward, but with a good-natured simplicity in his shrewd features; he wore uncouth leather leggings, tied with deer sinews--loose mocassins, a Guernsey shirt, a scarlet sash confining his patched trowsers at the waist, and a palmetto hat, dragged out of all describable shape, the colour of each article so obscured by stains and rough usage, as to be matter rather of conjecture than certainty. He proved to be our landlord for the night, David Root by name. Following his guidance, and climbing successively over a number of huge trunks, stumbling through a net-work of branches, and plunging into a shallow stream up to the ankles in soft mud, we reached at length what he called his tavern, at the further side of the clearing. It was a log building of a single apartment, where presided "the wife," a smart, plump, good-looking little Irishwoman, in a stuff gown, and without shoes or stockings. They had been recently married, as he promptly informed us, had selected this wild spot on a half-opened road, impassable for waggons, without a neighbour for miles, and under the inevitable necessity of shouldering all their provisions from the embryo village we had just quitted: all this with the resolute determination of "keeping tavern." The floor was of loose split logs, hewn into some approach to evenness with an adze; the walls of logs entire, filled in the interstices with chips of pine, which, however, did not prevent an occasional glimpse of the objects visible outside, and had the advantage, moreover, of rendering a window unnecessary; the hearth was the bare soil, the ceiling slabs of pine wood, the chimney a square hole in the roof; the fire literally an entire tree, branches and all, cut into four-feet lengths, and heaped up to the height of as many feet. It was a chill evening, and the dancing flames were inspiriting, as they threw a cheerful radiance all around, and revealed to our curious eyes extraordinary pieces of furniture--a log bedstead in the darkest corner, a pair of snow-shoes, sundry spiral augers and rough tools, a bundle of dried deer-sinews, together with some articles of feminine gear, a small red framed looking-glass, a clumsy comb suspended from a nail by a string, and other similar treasures. We were accommodated with stools of various sizes and heights, on three legs or on four, or mere pieces of log sawn short off, which latter our host justly recommended as being more steady on the uneven floor. We exchanged our wet boots for slippers, mocassins, or whatever the good-natured fellow could supply us with. The hostess was intently busy making large flat cakes; roasting them, first on one side, then on the other; and alternately boiling and frying broad slices of salt pork, when, suddenly suspending operations, she exclaimed, with a vivacity that startled us, "Oh, Root, I've cracked my spider!" Inquiring with alarm what was the matter, we learned that the cast-iron pan on three feet, which she used for her cookery, was called a "spider," and that its fracture had occasioned the exclamation. The injured spider performed "its spiriting gently" notwithstanding, and, sooth to say, all parties did full justice to its savoury contents. Bed-time drew near. A heap of odd-looking rugs and clean blankets was laid for our accommodation and pronounced to be ready. But how to get into it? We had heard of some rather primitive practices among the steerage passengers on board ship, it is true, but had not accustomed ourselves to "uncase" before company, and hesitated to lie down in our clothes. After waiting some little time in blank dismay, Mr. Root kindly set us an example by quietly slipping out of his nether integuments and turning into bed. There was no help for it; by one means or other we contrived to sneak under the blankets; and, after hanging up a large coloured quilt between our lair and the couch occupied by her now snoring spouse, the good wife also disappeared. In spite of the novelty of the situation, and some occasional disturbance from gusts of wind stealing through the "chinks," and fanning into brightness the dying embers on the hearth, we slept deliciously and awoke refreshed. CHAPTER X. A FIRST DAY IN THE BUSH. Before day-break breakfast was ready, and proved to be a more tempting meal than the supper of the night before. There were fine dry potatoes, roast wild pigeon, fried pork, cakes, butter, eggs, milk, "China tea," and chocolate--which last was a brown-coloured extract of cherry-tree bark, sassafras root, and wild sarsaparilla, warmly recommended by our host as "first-rate bitters." Declining this latter beverage, we made a hearty meal. It was now day-break. As we were new comers, Root offered to convoy us "a piece of the way," a very serviceable act of kindness, for, in the dim twilight we experienced at first no little difficulty in discerning it. Pointing out some faint glimmerings of morning, which were showing themselves more and more brightly over the tall tree-tops, our friend remarked, "I guess that's where the sun's calc'lating to rise." The day had advanced sufficiently to enable us to distinguish the road with ease. Our tavern-keeper returned to his work, and in a few minutes the forest echoed to the quick strokes of his lustily-wielded axe. We found ourselves advancing along a wide avenue, unmarked as yet by the track of wheels, and unimpeded by growing brush-wood. To the width of sixty-six feet, all the trees had been cut down to a height of between two and three feet, in a precisely straight course for miles, and burnt or drawn into the woods; while along the centre, or winding from side to side like the course of a drunken man, a waggon-track had been made by grubbing up smaller and evading the larger stumps, or by throwing a collection of small limbs and decayed wood into the deeper inequalities. Here and there, a ravine would be rendered passable by placing across it two long trunks of trees, often at a sharp angle, and crossing these transversely with shorter logs; the whole covered with brush-wood and earth, and dignified with the name of a "corduroy bridge." At the Nottawasaga River, we found a log house recently erected, the temporary residence of Wellesley Richey, Esq., an Irish gentleman, then in charge of the new settlements thereabouts. Mr. Richey received us very courteously, and handed us over to the charge of an experienced guide, whose business it was to show lands to intending settlers--a very necessary precaution indeed, as after a mile or two the road ceased altogether. For some miles further, the forest consisted of Norway and white pine, almost unmixed with any other timber. There is something majestic in these vast and thickly-set labyrinths of brown columnar stems averaging a hundred and fifty feet in height, perhaps, and from one to five in thickness, making a traveller feel somewhat like a Lilliputian Gulliver in a field of Brobdignagian wheat. It is singular to observe the effect of an occasional gust of wind in such situations. It may not even fan your cheek; but you hear a low surging sound, like the moaning of breakers in a calm sea, which gradually increases to a loud boisterous roar, still seemingly at a great distance; the branches remain in perfect repose, you can discover no evidence of a stirring breeze, till, looking perpendicularly upwards, you are astonished to see some patriarchal giant close at hand--six yards round and sixty high--which alone has caught the breeze, waving its huge fantastic arms wildly at a dizzy height above your head. There are times when the hardiest woodman dares not enter the pine woods; when some unusually severe gale sweeping over them bends their strong but slender stems like willow wands, or catches the wide-spreading branches of the loftier trees with a force that fairly wrenches them out by the roots, which creeping along on the surface of the soil, present no very powerful resistance. Nothing but the close contiguity of the trees saves them from general prostration. Interlocked branches are every moment broken off and flung to a distance, and even the trunks clash, and as it were, whet themselves against each other, with a shock and uproar that startles the firmest nerves. It were tedious to detail all the events of our morning's march: How armed with English fowling pieces and laden with ammunition, we momentarily expected to encounter some grisly she-bear, with a numerous family of cubs; or at the least a herd of deer or a flock of wild turkeys: how we saw nothing more dangerous than woodpeckers with crimson heads, hammering away at decayed trees like transmigrated carpenters; how we at last shot two partridges sitting on branches, very unlike English ones, of which we were fain to make a meal, which was utterly detestable for want of salt; how the government guide led us, helter-skelter, into the untracked woods, walking as for a wager, through thickets of ground hemlock,[2] which entangled our feet and often tripped us up; how we were obliged to follow him over and under wind-falls, to pass which it was necessary to climb sometimes twenty feet along some half-recumbent tree; how when we enquired whether clay or sand were considered the best soil, he said some preferred one, and some the other; how he showed us the front of a lot that was bad, and guessed that the rear ought to be better; how we turned back at last, thoroughly jaded, but no wiser than when we set out--all this and much more, must be left to the reader's imagination. It was drawing towards evening. The guide strode in advance, tired and taciturn, like some evil fate. We followed in pairs, each of us provided with a small bunch of leafy twigs to flap away the mosquitoes, which rose in myriads from the thick, damp underbrush. "It will be getting dark," said the guide, "you must look out for the blaze." We glanced anxiously around. "What does he mean?" asked one of the party, "I see no blaze." The man explained that the blaze (query, blazon?) was a white mark which we had noticed on some of the trees in our route, made by slicing off a portion of the bark with an axe, and invariably used by surveyors to indicate the road, as well as divisions and sub-divisions of townships. After a time this mark loses its whiteness and becomes undistinguishable in the dusk of evening, even to an experienced eye. Not a little rejoiced were we, when we presently saw a genuine blaze in the form of a log fire, that brilliantly lighted up the forest in front of a wigwam, which, like everything else on that eventful day, was to us delightfully new and interesting. We found, seated on logs near the fire, two persons in blanket coats and red sashes, evidently gentlemen; and occupying a second wigwam at a little distance, half-a-dozen axemen. The gentlemen proved to be the Messrs. Walker, afterwards of Barrie, sons of the wealthy owner of the great shot-works at Waterloo Bridge, London, England. They had purchased a tract of a thousand acres, and commenced operations by hiring men to cut a road through the forest eight or ten miles to their new estate, which pioneering exploit they were now superintending in person. Nothing could exceed the vigour of their plans. Their property was to be enclosed in a ring fence like a park, to exclude trespassers on their game. They would have herds of deer and wild horses. The river which intersected their land was to be cleared of the drift logs, and made navigable. In short, they meant to convert it into another England. In the meanwhile, the elder brother had cut his foot with an axe, and was disabled for the present; and the younger was busily engaged in the unromantic occupation of frying pancakes, which the axemen, who were unskilled in cookery, were to have for their supper. Nowhere does good-fellowship spring up so readily as in the bush. We were soon engaged in discussing the aforesaid pancakes, with some fried pork, as well as in sharing the sanguine hopes and bright visions which accorded so well with our own ideas and feelings. We quitted the wigwam and its cheerful tenants with mutual good wishes for success, and shortly afterwards reached the river whence we had started, where Mr. Richey kindly invited us to stay for the night. Exhausted by our rough progress, we slept soundly till the morning sun shone high over the forest. [Footnote 2: Taxus Canadensis, or Canadian Yew, is a trailing evergreen shrub which covers the ground in places. Its stems are as strong as cart-ropes, and often reach the length of twenty feet.] CHAPTER XI. A CHAPTER ON CHOPPING. Imagine yourself, gentle reader, who have perhaps passed most of your days between the wearisome confinement of an office or counting-house, and a rare holiday visit of a few days or weeks at your cousin's or grandfather's pleasant farm in the country--imagine yourself, I say, transplanted to a "home" like ours. No road approaches within ten miles; no footpath nearer than half that distance; the surveyor's blaze is the sole distinctive mark between the adjoining lots and your own; there are trees innumerable--splendid trees--beech, maple, elm, ash, cherry--above and around you, which, while you are wondering what on earth to do with them, as you see no chance of conveying them to market for sale, you are horrified to hear, must be consumed by fire--yea, burnt ruthlessly to ashes, and scattered over the surface of the earth as "good manure"; unless indeed--a desperately forlorn hope--you may "some day" have an opportunity of selling them in the shape of potash, "when there is a road out" to some navigable lake or river. Well, say you, let us set to work and chop down some of these trees. Softly, good sir. In the first place, you must underbrush. With an axe or a strong, long handled bill-hook, made to be used with both hands, you cut away for some distance round--a quarter or half an acre perhaps--all the small saplings and underwood which would otherwise impede your operations upon the larger trees. In "a good hard-wood bush," that is, where the principal timber is maple, white oak, elm, white ash, hickory, and other of the harder species of timber--the "underbrush" is very trifling indeed; and in an hour or two may be cleared off sufficiently to give the forest an agreeable park-like appearance--so much so that, as has been said of English Acts of Parliament, any skilful hand might drive a coach and six through. When you have finished "under-brushing," you stand with whetted axe, ready and willing to attack the fathers of the forest--but stay--you don't know how to chop? It is rather doubtful, as you have travelled hither in a great hurry, whether you have ever seen an axeman at work. Your man, Carroll, who has been in the country five or six years, and is quite _au fait_, will readily instruct you. Observe--you strike your axe, by a dexterous swing backwards and round over your shoulder,--take care there are no twigs near you, or you may perhaps hurt yourself seriously--you strike your axe into the tree with a downward slant, at about thirty inches from the ground; then, by an upward stroke you meet the former incision and release a chip, which flies out briskly. Thus you proceed, by alternate downward and upward or horizontal strokes on that side of the tree which leans over, or towards which you wish to compel it to fall, until you have made a clear gap rather more than half way through, when you attack it in rear. Now for the reward of your perspiring exertions--a few well-aimed blows on the reverse side of the tree, rather higher than in front, and the vast mass "totters to its fall,"--another for the _coup-de-grace_--crack! crack! cra-a-ack!--aha!--away with you behind yon beech--the noble tree bows gently its leafy honours with graceful sweep towards the earth--for a moment slowly and leisurely, presently with giddy velocity, until it strikes the ground, amidst a whirlwind of leaves, with a loud _thud_, and a concussion both of air and earth, that may be _felt_ at a considerable distance. You feel yourself a second David, who has overthrown a mightier Goliath. Now do you step exultingly upon the prostrate trunk, which you forthwith proceed to cut up into about fourteen-foot lengths, chopping all the branches close off, and throwing the smaller on to your brush piles. It is a common mistake of new immigrants, who are naturally enough pleased with the novel spectacle of falling trees, to cut down so many before they begin to chop them into lengths, that the ground is wholly encumbered, and becomes a perfect chaos of confused and heaped-up trunks and branches, which nothing but the joint operation of decay and fire will clear off, unless at an immense waste of time and trouble. To an experienced axeman, these first attempts at chopping afford a ready text for all kinds of ironical comments upon the unworkmanlike appearance of the stumps and "cuts," which are generally--like those gnawn off by beavers in making their dams--haggled all round the tree, instead of presenting two clear smooth surfaces, in front and rear, as if sliced off with a knife. Your genuine axeman is not a little jealous of his reputation as a "clean cutter"--his axe is always bright as burnished silver, guiltless of rust or flaw, and fitted with a handle which, with its graceful curve and slender proportions, is a tolerable approach to Hogarth's "line of beauty;" he would as soon think of deserting his beloved "bush" and settling in a town! as trust his keen weapon in the hands of inexperience or even mediocrity. With him every blow tells--he never leaves the slightest chip in the "cut," nor makes a false stroke, so that in passing your hand over the surface thus left, you are almost unable to detect roughness or inequality. But we must return to our work, and take care in so doing to avoid the mishap which befel a settler in our neighbourhood. He was busy chopping away manfully at one of those numerous trees which, yielding to the force of some sudden gust of wind, have fallen so gently among their compeers, that the greater portion of their roots still retains a powerful hold upon the soil, and the branches put forth their annual verdure as regularly as when erect. Standing on the recumbent trunk, at a height of five or six feet from the ground, the man toiled away, in happy ignorance of his danger, until having chopped nearly to the centre on both sides of the tree, instead of leaping off and completing the cut in safety on terra firma, he dealt a mighty stroke which severed at once the slight portion that remained uncut--in an instant, as if from a mortar, the poor fellow was launched sixteen feet into the air, by the powerful elasticity of the roots, which, relieved from the immense weight of the trunk and branches, reverted violently to their natural position, and flung their innocent releaser to the winds. The astonished chopper, falling on his back, lay stunned for many minutes, and when he was at length able to rise, crawled to his shanty sorely bruised and bewildered. He was able, however, to return to his work in a few days, but not without vowing earnestly never again to trust himself next the root. There are other precautions to be observed, such as whether the branches interlock with other trees, in which case they will probably break off, and must be carefully watched, lest they fall or are flung back upon oneself--what space you have to escape at the last moment--whether the tree is likely to be caught and twisted aside in its fall, or held upright, a very dangerous position, as then you must cut down others to release it, and can hardly calculate which way it will tend: these and many other circumstances are to be noted and watched with a cool judgment and steady eye, to avoid the numerous accidents to which the inexperienced and rash are constantly exposed. One of these mischances befel an Amazonian chopper of our neighbourhood, whose history, as we can both chop and talk, I shall relate. Mary ---- was the second of several daughters of an emigrant from the county of Galway, whose family, having suffered from continual hardship and privation in their native land, had found no difficulty in adapting themselves to the habits and exigencies of the wilderness. Hardworking they were all and thrifty. Mary and her elder sister, neither of them older than eighteen, would start before day-break to the nearest store, seventeen miles off, and return the same evening laden each with a full sack flung across the shoulder, containing about a bushel and a half, or 90lbs. weight of potatoes, destined to supply food for the family, as well as seed for their first crop. Being much out of doors, and accustomed to work about the clearing, Mary became in time a "first-rate" chopper, and would yield to none of the new settlers in the dexterity with which she would fell, brush and cut up maple or beech; and preferring such active exercise to the dull routine of household work, took her place at chopping, logging or burning, as regularly and with at least as much spirit as her brothers. Indeed, chopping is quite an accomplishment among young women in the more remote parts of the woods, where schools are unknown, and fashions from New York or Philadelphia have not yet penetrated. A belle of this class will employ her leisure hours in learning to play--not the piano-forte--but the dinner-horn, a bright tin tube sometimes nearly four feet in length, requiring the lungs of that almost forgotten individual, an English mail-coach-guard; and an intriguing mamma of those parts will bid her daughter exhibit the strength of her throat and the delicacy of her musical ear, by a series of flourishes and "mots" upon her graceful "tooting-weapon." I do not mean, however, that Mary possessed this fashionable acquirement, as the neighbourhood had not then arrived at such an advanced era of musical taste, but she made up in hard work for all other deficiencies; and being a good-looking, sunny-faced, dark-eyed, joyous-hearted girl, was not a little admired among the young axe-men of the township. But she preferred remaining under her parents' roof-tree, where her stout-arm and resolute disposition rendered her absolute mistress of the household, to the indignity of promising to "obey" any man, who could wield no better axe than her own. At length it was whispered that Mary's heart, long hard as rock-elm, had become soft as basswood, under the combined influence of the stalwart figure, handsome face and good axe of Johnny, a lad of eighteen recently arrived in the neighbourhood, who was born in one of the early Scotch settlements in the Newcastle District--settlements which have turned out a race of choppers, accustomed from their infancy to handle the axe, and unsurpassed in the cleanness of their cut, the keenness of their weapon, or the amount of cordwood they can chop, split and pile in a day. Many a fair denizen of the abodes of fashion might have envied Mary the bright smiles and gay greetings which passed between her and young Johnny, when they met in her father's clearing at sunrise to commence the day's work. It is common for axemen to exchange labour, as they prefer working in couples, and Johnny was under a treaty of this kind with Patsy, Mary's brother. But Patsy vacated his place for Mary, who was emulous of beating the young Scotch lad at his own weapon; and she had tucked up her sleeves and taken in the slack, as a sailor would say, of her dress--Johnny meanwhile laying aside his coat, waistcoat and neckcloth, baring his brawny arms, and drawing tight the bright scarlet sash round his waist--thus equipped for their favourite occupation, they chopped away in merry rivalry, at maple, elm, ash, birch and basswood--Johnny sometimes gallantly fetching water from the deliciously-cold natural spring that oozed out of the mossy hill-side, to quench Mary's thirst, and stealing now and then a kiss by way of guerdon--for which he never failed to get a vehement box on the ear, a penalty which, although it would certainly have annihilated any lover of less robust frame, he seemed nowise unwilling to incur again and again. Thus matters proceeded, the maiden by no means acknowledging herself beaten, and the young man too gallant to outstrip overmuch his fair opponent--until the harsh sound of the breakfast or dinner horn would summon both to the house, to partake of the rude but plentiful mess of "colcannon" and milk, which was to supply strength for a long and severe day's labour. Alas! that I should have to relate the melancholy termination of poor Mary's unsophisticated career. Whether Johnny's image occupied her thoughts, to the exclusion of the huge yellow birch she was one day chopping, or that the wicked genius who takes delight in thwarting the course of true love had caught her guardian angel asleep on his post, I know not; but certain it is, that in an evil hour she miscalculated the cut, and was thoughtlessly continuing her work, when the birch, overbalancing, split upwards, and the side nearest to Mary, springing suddenly out, struck her a blow so severe as to destroy life instantaneously. Her yet warm remains were carried hastily to the house, and every expedient for her recovery that the slender knowledge of the family could suggest, was resorted to, but in vain. I pass over the silent agony of poor Johnny, and the heart-rending lamentations of the mother and sisters. In a decent coffin, contrived after many unsuccessful attempts by Johnny and Patsy, the unfortunate girl was carried to her grave, in the same field which she had assisted to clear, amid a concourse of simple-minded, coarsely-clad, but kindly sympathising neighbours, from all parts of the surrounding district. Many years have rolled away since I stood by Mary's fresh-made grave, and it may be that Johnny has forgotten his first love; but I was told, that no other had yet taken the place of her, whom he once hoped to make his "bonny bride." By this time you have cut down trees enough to enable you fairly to see the sky! Yes, dear sir, it was entirely hidden before, and the sight is not a little exhilarating to a new "bush-whacker." We must think of preparing fire-wood for the night. It is highly amusing to see a party of axemen, just returning from their work, set about this necessary task. Four "hands" commence at once upon some luckless maple, whose excellent burning qualities ensure it the preference. Two on each side, they strike alternate blows--one with the right hand, his "mate" with the left--in a rapid succession of strokes that seem perfectly miraculous to the inexperienced beholder--the tree is felled in a trice--a dozen men jump upon it, each intent on exhibiting his skill by making his "cut" in the shortest possible time. The more modest select the upper end of the tree--the bolder attack the butt--their bright axes, flashing vividly in the sunbeams, are whirled around their heads with such velocity as to elude the eye--huge chips a foot broad are thrown off incessantly--they wheel round for the "back cut" at the same instant, like a file of soldiers facing about upon some enemy in rear--and in the space of two or three minutes, the once tall and graceful trunk lies dissevered in as many fragments as there are choppers. It invariably astonishes new comers to observe with what dexterity and ease an axeman will fell a tree in the precise spot which he wishes it to occupy so as to suit his convenience in cutting it up, or in removing it by oxen to the log-pile where it is destined to be consumed. If it should happen to overhang a creek or "swale" (wet places where oxen cannot readily operate), every contrivance is resorted to, to overcome its apparently inevitable tendency. Choosing a time when not a breath of air is stirring to defeat his operations, or better still, when the wind is favourable, he cuts deeply into the huge victim on the side to which he wishes to throw it, until it actually trembles on the slight remaining support, cautiously regulating the direction of the "cut" so that the tree may not overbalance itself--then he gently fells among its branches on the reverse side all the smaller trees with which it may be reached--and last and boldest expedient of all, he cuts several "spring poles"--trimmed saplings from twenty to forty feet in length and four to eight inches thick--which with great care and labour are set up against the stem, and by the united strength and weight of several men used as spring levers, after the manner in which ladders are employed by fire-men to overthrow tottering stacks of chimneys; the squared end of these poles holding firmly in the rough bark, they slowly but surely compel the unwilling monster to obey the might of its hereditary ruler, man. With such certainty is this feat accomplished, that I have seen a solitary pine, nearly five feet thick and somewhere about a hundred and seventy feet in height, forced by this latter means, aided by the strength of two men only, against its decided natural bearing, to fall down the side of a mound, at the bottom of which a saw-pit was already prepared to convert it into lumber. The moment when the enormous mass is about yielding to its fate, is one of breathless interest--it sways alarmingly, as if it must inevitably fall backward, crushing poles and perhaps axemen to atoms in its overwhelming descent--ha! there is a slight cat's paw of air in our favour--cling to your pole--now! an inch or two gained!--the stout stick trembles and bends at the revulsive sway of the monstrous tree but still holds its own--drive your axe into the back cut--that helps her--again, another axe! soh, the first is loose--again!--she _must_ go--both axes are fixed in the cut as immovably as her roots in the ground--another puff of wind--she sways the wrong way--no, no! hold on--she cracks--strike in again the slackened axes--bravo! one blow more--quick, catch your axe and clear out!--see! what a sweep--what a rush of wind--what an enormous top--down! down! how beautifully she falls--hurrah! _just in the right place!_ CHAPTER XII. LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS. We had selected, on the advice of our guide, a tolerably good hard-wood lot in the centre of the Township of Sunnidale, part of which is now the site of the village of New Lowell, on the Northern Railway. To engage a young Scotch axeman from the County of Lanark, on the Ottawa river; to try our virgin axes upon the splendid maples and beeches which it seemed almost a profanation to destroy; to fell half an acre of trees; to build a bark wigwam for our night's lodging; and in time to put up a substantial log shanty, roofed with wooden troughs and "chinked" with slats and moss--these things were to us more than mortal felicity. Our mansion was twenty-five feet long and eighteen wide. At one end an open fire-place, at the other sumptuous beds laid on flatted logs, cushioned with soft hemlock twigs, redolent of turpentine and health. For our provisions, cakes made of flour; salt pork of the best; tea and coffee without milk; with the occasional luxury of a few partridges and pigeons, and even a haunch of venison of our own shooting; also some potatoes. We wanted no more. There were few other settlers within many miles, and those as raw as ourselves; so we mended our own clothes, did our own cooking, and washed our own linen. Owing to the tedious length of our sea voyage, there was no time for getting in crops that year; not even fall wheat; so we had plenty of leisure to make ourselves comfortable for the winter. And we were by no means without visitors. Sometimes a surveyor's party sought shelter for the night on their way to the strangely-named townships of Alta and Zero--now Collingwood and St. Vincent. Among these were Charles Rankin, surveyor, now of London; his brother, Arthur Rankin, since M.P. for Essex; a young gentleman from England, now Dr. Barrett, late of Upper Canada College. By-and-by came some Chippawa Indians, _en route_ to or from the Christian Islands of Lake Huron; we were great friends with them. I had made a sort of harp or zittern, and they were charmed with its simple music. Their mode of counting money on their fingers was highly comical--"one cop, one cop, one cop, three cop!" and so on up to twenty, which was the largest sum they could accomplish. At night, they wrapped their blankets round them, lay down on the bare earthen floor near the fire, and slept quietly till day-break, when they would start on their way with many smiles and hand-shakings. In fact, our shanty, being the only comfortable shelter between Barrie and the Georgian Bay, became a sort of half-way house, at which travellers looked for a night's lodging; and we were not sorry when the opening of a log-tavern, a mile off, by an old Scotchwoman, ycleped Mother McNeil, enabled us to select our visitors. This tavern was a curiosity in its way, built of the roughest logs, with no artificial floor, but the soil being swaley or wet--a mud-hole yawned just inside the door, where bullfrogs not unfrequently saluted the wayfarer with their deepest diapason notes. I must record my own experiences with their congeners, the toads. We were annoyed by flies, and I noticed an old toad creep stealthily from under the house logs, wait patiently near a patch of sunshine on the floor, and as soon as two or three flies, attracted by the sun's warmth, drew near its post, dart out its long slender tongue, and so catch them all one after another. Improving upon the hint, we afterwards regularly scattered a few grains of sugar, to attract more flies within the old fellow's reach, and thus kept the shanty comparatively clear of those winged nuisances, and secured quiet repose for ourselves in the early mornings. Another toad soon joined the first one, and they became so much at home as to allow us to scratch their backs gently with a stick, when they would heave up their puffed sides to be scrubbed. These toads swallow mice and young ducks, and in their turn fall victims to garter and other snakes. During the following year, 1834, the Government opened up a settlement on the Sunnidale road, employing the new immigrants in road making, chopping and clearing, and putting up log shanties; and gave them the land so cleared to live on, but without power of sale. In this way, two or three hundred settlers, English, Irish and Highland Scotch, chiefly the latter, were located in Sunnidale. A Scottish gentleman, a Mr. H. C. Young, was appointed local immigrant agent, and spent some time with us. Eventually it was found that the laud was too aguish for settlement, being close to a large cedar swamp extending several miles to the Nottawasaga River; and on the representation of the agent, it was in 1835 determined to transfer operations to the adjoining township of Nottawasaga, in which the town of Collingwood is now situated. It was about this time that the prospect of a railway from Toronto to the Georgian Bay was first mooted, the mouth of the Nottawasaga River being the expected terminus. A talented Toronto engineer whose name I think was Lynn, published a pamphlet containing an outline route for the railroad, which was extended through to the North-West. To him, doubtless, is due the first practical suggestion of a Canadian Pacific Railway. We, in Sunnidale, were confidently assured that the line would pass directly through our own land, and many a weary sigh at hope deferred did the delusion cost us. CHAPTER XIII. SOME GATHERINGS FROM NATURAL HISTORY. I need not weary the reader with details of our farming proceedings, which differed in no respect from the now well-known routine of bush life. I will, however, add one or two notices of occurrences which may be thought worth relating. We were not without wild animals in our bush. Bears, wolves, foxes, racoons, skunks, mink and ermine among beasts; eagles, jays, many kinds of hawks, wood-peckers, loons, partridges and pigeons, besides a host of other birds, were common enough. Bears' nests abounded, consisting of a kind of arbour which the bear makes for himself in the top of the loftiest beech trees, by dragging inwards all the upper branches laden with their wealth of nuts, upon which he feasts at leisure. The marks of his formidable claws are plainly visible the whole length of the trunks of most large beech-trees. In Canada West the bear is seldom dangerous. One old fellow which we often encountered, haunted a favourite raspberry patch on the road-side; when anybody passed near him he would scamper off in such haste that I have seen him dash himself violently against any tree or fallen branch that might be in his way. Once we saw a bear roll himself headlong from the forks of a tree fully forty feet from the ground, tumbling over and over, but alighting safely, and "making tracks" with the utmost expedition. An Englishman whom I knew, of a very studious temperament, was strolling along the Medonte road deeply intent upon a volume of Ovid or some other Latin author, when, looking up to ascertain the cause of a shadow which fell across his book, he found himself nearly stumbling against a huge brown bear, standing erect on its hind legs, and with formidable paw raised ready to strike. The surprise seems to have been mutual, for after waiting a moment or two as if to recognise each other's features should they meet again, the student merely said "Oh! a bear!" coolly turned on his heel, plunged into his book again, and walked slowly back toward the village, leaving Bruin to move off at leisure in an opposite direction. So saith my informant. Another friend, when a youth, was quail-shooting on the site of the City of Toronto, which was nothing but a rough swampy thicket of cedars and pines mixed with hardwood. Stepping hastily across a rotten pine log, the lad plumped full upon a great fat bear taking its siesta in the shade. Which of the two fled the fastest is not known, but it was probably the animal, judging by my own experience in Sunnidale. Wolves often disturbed us with their hideous howlings. We had a beautiful liver and white English setter, called Dash, with her two pups. One night in winter, poor Dash, whom we kept within doors, was excited by the yelping of her pups outside, which appeared to be alarmed by some intruder about the premises. A wolf had been seen prowling near, so we got out our guns and whatever weapon was handy, but incautiously opened the door and let out the slut before we were ourselves quite dressed. She rushed out in eager haste, and in a few seconds we heard the wolf and dog fighting, with the most frightful discord of yells and howls that ever deafened the human ear. The noise ceased as suddenly as it had begun. We followed as fast as we could to the scene of the struggle, but found nothing there except a trampled space in the snow stained with blood, the dog having evidently been killed and dragged away. Next morning we followed the track further, and found at no great distance another similar spot, where the wolf had devoured its victim so utterly, that not a hair, bone, nor anything else was left, save the poor animal's heart, which had been flung away to a little distance in the snow. Beyond this were no signs of blood. We set a trap for the wolf, and tracked him for miles in the hope of avenging poor Dash, but without effect. This same wolf, we heard afterwards, was killed by a settler with a handspike, to our great satisfaction. Among our neighbours of the Sunnidale settlement was a married couple from England, named Sewell, very well-conducted and industrious. They had a fair little child under two years old, named Hetty, whom we often stopped to admire for her prettiness and engaging simplicity. They also possessed, and were very proud of, several broods of newly-hatched chickens, some of which had been carried off by an immense falcon, which would swoop down from the lofty elm-trees still left standing in the half-chopped clearing, too suddenly to be easily shot. One day Hetty was feeding the young chickens when the hawk pounced upon the old hen, which struggled desperately; whereupon little Hetty bravely joined in the battle, seized the intruder by the wings from behind and held him fast, crying out loudly, "I've got him, mother!" It turned out, after the hawk was killed, that it had been blind of one eye. In the spring of 1834, we had with infinite labour managed to clear off a small patch of ground, which we sowed with spring wheat, and watched its growth with the most intense anxiety, until it attained a height of ten inches, and began to put forth tender ears. Already the exquisite pleasure of eating bread the product of our own land, and of our own labour, was present to our imaginations, and the number of bushels to be reaped, the barn for storage, the journeys to mill, were eagerly discussed. But one day in August, occurred a hail-storm such as is seldom experienced in half a century. A perfect cataract of ice fell upon our hapless wheat crop. Flattened hailstones measuring two and a half inches in diameter, seven and a half in circumference, covered the ground several inches deep. Every blade of wheat was utterly destroyed, and with it all our sanguine hopes of plenty for that year. I have preserved a tracing which I made at the time, of one of those hailstones. The centre was spherical, an inch in girth, from which laterally radiated lines three fourths of an inch long, like the spokes of a wheel, and outside of them again a wavy border resembling the undulating edge of pie crust. The superficial structure of the whole, was much like that of a full blown rose. A remarkable hail-storm occurred in Toronto, in the year 1878, but the stones, although similar in formation, were scarcely as bulky. It was one night in November following, when our axeman, William Whitelaw, who had risen from bed at eleven o'clock to fetch a new log for the fire shouted to us to come out and see a strange sight. Lazily we complied, expecting nothing extraordinary; but, on getting into the cold frosty air outside, we were transfixed with astonishment and admiration. Our clearing being small, and the timber partly hemlock, we seemed to be environed with a dense black wall the height of the forest trees, while over all, in dazzling splendour, shone a canopy of the most brilliant meteors, radiating in all directions from a single point in the heavens, nearly over-head, but slightly to the north-west. I have since read all the descriptions of meteoric showers I could find in our scientific annals, and watched year after year for a return of the same wonderful vision, but neither in the records of history nor otherwise, since that night, have I read of or seen anything so marvellously beautiful. Hour after hour we gazed in wonder and awe, as the radiant messengers streamed on their courses, sometimes singly, sometimes in starry cohorts of thousands, appearing to descend amongst the trees close beside us, but in reality shooting far beyond the horizon. Those who have looked upwards during a fall of snow will remember how the large flakes seem to radiate from a centre. Thus I believe astronomers account for the appearance of these showers of stars, by the circumstance that they meet the earth full in its orbit, and so dart past it from an opposite point, like a flight of birds confronting a locomotive, or a storm of hail directly facing a vessel under full steam. No description I have read has given even a faint idea of the reality as I saw it on that memorable night. From eleven p.m. to three in the morning, the majestic spectacle continued in full glory, gradually fading away before the approach of daybreak. We often had knotty and not very logical discussions about the origin of seeds, and the cause of the thick growth of new varieties of plants and trees wherever the forest had been burnt over. On our land, and everywhere in the immediate neighbourhood, the process of clearing by fire was sure to be followed by a spontaneous growth, first of fire-weed or wild lettuce, and secondly by a crop of young cherry trees, so thick as to choke one another. At other spots, where pine-trees had stood for a century, the outcome of their destruction by fire was invariably a thick growth of raspberries, with poplars of the aspen variety. Our Celtic friends, most of whom were pious Presbyterians, insisted that a new creation of plants must be constantly going on to account for such miraculous growth. To test the matter, I scooped up a panful of black soil from our clearing, washed it, and got a small tea-cupful of cherry-stones, exactly similar to those growing in the forest. The cause of this surprising accumulation of seed was not far to find. A few miles distant was a pigeon-roost. In spring, the birds would come flying round the east shore of Lake Huron, skirting the Georgian Bay, in such vast clouds as to darken the sun; and so swiftly that swan-shot failed to bring them down unless striking them in rear; and, even then, we rarely got them, as the velocity of their flight impelled them far into the thicket before falling. These beautiful creatures attacked our crops with serious results, and devoured all our young peas. I have known twenty-five pigeons killed at a single shot; and have myself got a dozen by firing at random into a maple-tree on which they had alighted, but where not one had been visible. The pigeon-roost itself was a marvel. Men, women and children went by the hundred, some with guns, but the majority with baskets, to pick up the countless birds that had been disabled by the fall of great branches of trees broken off by the weight of their roosting comrades overhead. The women skinned the birds, cut off their plump breasts, throwing the remainder away, and packed them in barrels with salt, for keeping. To these pigeons we were, doubtless, indebted for our crop of young cherry-trees. Where there was so much seed, a corresponding crop might be expected; and dense thickets of choke-cherry trees grew up in neglected clearings accordingly. Forcing my way through one of these, I found myself literally face to face with a garter snake five feet long, which was also in search of cherries, and had wriggled its way to the upper branches of a young tree ten feet high. Garter snakes, however, are as harmless as frogs, and like them, are the victims of a general persecution. In some places they are exceedingly numerous. One summer's evening I was travelling on foot from Holland Landing to Bradford, across the Holland river, a distance of three miles, nearly all marsh, laid with cedar logs placed crosswise, to form a passable road. The sun was nearing the horizon; the snakes--garter chiefly, but a few copperhead and black--glided on to the logs to bask apparently in the sunshine, in such numbers, that after vainly trying to step across without treading on them, I was fain to take to flight, springing from log to log like some long-legged bird, and so escaping from the unpleasant companionship.[3] One of the most perplexing tasks to new settlers is that of keeping cows. "Bossy" soon learns that the bush is "all before her where to choose," and she indulges her whims by straying away in the most unexpected directions, and putting you to half-a-day's toilsome search before she can be captured. The obvious remedy is the cow-bell, but even with this tell-tale appendage, the experienced cow contrives to baffle your vigilance. She will ensconce herself in the midst of a clump of underbrush, lying perfectly still, and paying no heed to your most endearing appeals of "Co' bossy, co' bossy," until some fly-sting obliges her to jerk her head and betray her hiding-place by a single note of the bell. Then she will deliberately get up, and walk off straight to the shanty, ready to be milked. [Footnote 3: It is affirmed that in two or three localities in Manitoba, garter snakes sometimes congregate in such multitudes as to form ropes as thick as a man's leg, which, by their constant writhing and twining in and out, present a strangely glittering and moving spectacle.] CHAPTER XIV. OUR REMOVAL TO NOTTAWASAGA. In the autumn of 1835, we were favoured with a visit from Mr. A. B. Hawke, chief emigrant agent for Upper Canada, and a gentleman held in general esteem, as a friend to emigrants, and a kind-hearted man. He slept, or rather tried to sleep, at our shanty. It was very hot weather, the mosquitoes were in full vigour, and the tortures they inflicted on the poor man were truly pitiable. We being acclimatised, could cover our heads, and lie _perdu_, sleeping in spite of the humming hosts outside. But our visitor had learnt no such philosophy. He threw off the bedclothes on account of the heat; slapped his face and hands to kill his tormentors; and actually roared with pain and anger, relieving himself now and then by objurgations mingled with expletives not a little profane. It was impossible to resist laughing at the desperate emphasis of his protests, although our mirth did not help much to soothe the annoyance, at which, however, he could not help laughing in turn. Mosquitoes do not plague all night, and our friend got a little repose in the cool of the morning, but vowed, most solemnly, that nothing should induce him to pass another night in Sunnidale. To this circumstance, perhaps, were we indebted for the permission we soon afterwards obtained, to exchange our Sunnidale lot for one in Nottawasaga, where some clearing had been done by the new settlers, on what was called the Scotch line; and gladly we quitted our first location for land decidedly more eligible for farm purposes, although seventeen miles further distant from Barrie, which was still the only village within reasonably easy access. We had obtained small government contracts for corduroying, or causewaying, the many swampy spots on the Sunnidale road, which enabled us to employ a number of axemen, and to live a little more comfortably; and about this time, Mr. Young being in weak health, and unequal to the hardships of bush life, resigned his agency, and got my brother Thomas appointed temporarily as his successor; so we had the benefit of a good log-house he had built on the Nottawasaga road, near the Batteau creek, on which is now situated the Batteau station of the Northern Railway. We abode there until we found time to cut a road to our land, and afterwards to erect a comfortable cedar-log house thereon. Here, with a large open clearing around us, plenty of neighbours, and a sawmill at no great distance, we were able to make our home nearly as comfortable as are the majority of Canadian farm-houses of to-day. We had a neat picket-fenced garden, a large double log barn, a yoke of oxen, and plenty of poultry. The house stood on a handsome rising eminence, and commanded a noble prospect, which included the Georgian Bay, visible at a distance of six miles, and the Christian Islands, twenty miles further north. The land was productive, and the air highly salubrious. Would some of my readers like to know how to raise a log barn? I shall try to teach them. For such an undertaking much previous labour and foresight are required. In our case, fortunately, there was a small cedar swamp within a hundred paces of the site we had chosen for our barn, which was picturesquely separated from the house by a ravine some thirty feet deep, with a clear spring of the sweetest and coldest water flowing between steep banks. The barn was to consist of two large bays, each thirty feet square and eight logs high, with a threshing floor twelve feet wide between, the whole combined into one by an upper story or loft, twenty by seventy-two feet, and four logs high, including the roof-plates. It will be seen, then, that to build such a barn would require sixty-four logs of thirty feet each for the lower story; and sixteen more of the same length, as well as eight of seventy-two feet each, for the loft. Our handy swamp provided all these, not from standing trees only, but from many fallen patriarchs buried four or five feet under the surface in black muck, and perfectly sound. To get them out of the mud required both skill and patience. All the branches having been cleared off as thoroughly as possible, the entire tree was drawn out by those most patient of all patient drudges, the oxen, and when on solid ground, sawn to the required length. A number of skids were also provided, of the size and kind of the spring-poles already described in chapter XI., and plenty of handspikes. Having got these prime essentials ready, the next business was to summon our good neighbours to a "raising bee." On the day named, accordingly, we had about thirty practised axemen on the ground by day-break, all in the best of spirits, and confident in their powers for work. Eight of the heaviest logs, about two feet thick, had been placed in position as sleepers or foundation logs, duly saddled at the corners. Parallel with these at a distance of twenty-feet on either side, were ranged in order all the logs required to complete the building. Well, now we begin. Eight of the smartest men jump at once on the eight corners. In a few minutes each of the four men in front has his saddle ready--that is, he has chopped his end of the first log into an angular shape, thus /\. The four men in rear have done the same thing no less expeditiously, and all are waiting for the next log. Meanwhile, at the ends of both bays, four several parties of three men each, stationed below, have placed their skids in a sloping position--the upper end on the rising wall and the lower on the ground--and up these skids they roll additional logs transversely to those already in position. These are received by the corner-men above, and carefully adjusted in their places according to their "natural lie," that is, so that they will be least likely to render the wall unsteady; then turned half-back to receive the undercut, which should be exactly an inverse counterpart of the saddle. A skilful hand will make this undercut with unerring certainty, so that the log when turned forward again, will fit down upon its two saddles without further adjustment. Now for more logs back and front; then others at the ends, and so on, every log fitted as before, and each one somewhat lighter than its predecessor. All this time the oxen have been busily employed in drawing more logs where needed. The skids have to be re-adjusted for every successive log, and a supply of new logs rolled up as fast as wanted. The quick strokes of eight axes wielded by active fellows perched on the still rising walls, and balancing themselves dexterously and even gracefully as they work, the constant demand for "another log," and the merry voices and rough jokes of the workers, altogether form as lively and exciting a picture as is often witnessed. Add to these a bright sky and a fresh breeze, with the beautiful green back-ground of the noble hardwood trees around--and I know of no mere pleasure party that I would rather join. Breakfast and dinner form welcome interludes. Ample stores of provender, meat, bread, potatoes, puddings various, tea and coffee, have been prepared and are thoroughly enjoyed, inasmuch as they are rare luxuries to many of the guests. Then again to work, until the last crowning effort of all--the raising of the seventy-two-foot logs--has to be encountered. Great care is necessary here, as accidents are not infrequent. The best skids, the stoutest handspikes, the strongest and hardiest men, must be selected. Our logs being cedar and therefore light, there was comparatively little danger; and they were all successfully raised, and well secured by cross-girders before sundown. Then, and not till then, after supper, a little whiskey was allowed. Teetotalism had not made its way into our backwoods; and we were considered very straightlaced indeed to set our faces as we did against all excess. Our Highland and Irish neighbours looked upon the weak stuff sold in Canada with supreme contempt; and recollecting our Galway experience, we felt no surprise thereat. The roofing such a building is a subsequent operation, for which no "bee" is required. Shingles four feet long, on round rafters, are generally used for log barns, to be replaced at some future day by more perfect roofing. A well-made cedar barn will stand for forty years with proper care, by which time there should be no difficulty in replacing it by a good substantial, roomy frame building. CHAPTER XV. SOCIETY IN THE BACKWOODS. Sir John Colborne, as has been mentioned already, did all in his power to induce well-to-do immigrants, and particularly military men, to settle on lands west and north of Lake Simcoe. Some of these gentlemen were entitled, in those days, to draw from three to twelve hundred acres of land in their own right; but the privilege was of very doubtful value. Take an example. Captain Workman, with his wife, highly educated and thoroughly estimable people, were persuaded to select their land on the Georgian Bay, near the site of the present village of Meaford. A small rivulet which enters the bay there, is still called "the Captain's creek." To get there, they had to go to Penetanguishene, then a military station, now the seat of a Reformatory for boys. From thence they embarked on scows, with their servants, furniture, cows, farm implements and provisions. Rough weather obliged them to land on one of the Christian Islands, very bleak spots outside of Penetanguishene harbour, occupied only by a few Chippewa Indians. After nearly two weeks' delay and severe privation, they at length reached their destination, and had then to camp out until a roof could be put up to shelter them from the storms, not uncommon on that exposed coast. We had ourselves, along with others, taken up additional land on what was called "the Blue Mountains," which are considered to be a spur of the Alleghanies, extending northerly across by Niagara, from the State of New York. The then newly-surveyed townships of St. Vincent and Euphrasia were attracting settlers, and amongst them our axe-man, Whitelaw, and many more of the like class. To reach this land, we had bought a smart sail-boat, and in her enjoyed ourselves by coasting from the Nottawasaga river north-westerly along the bay. In this way we happened one evening to put in at the little harbour where Capt. Workman had chosen his location. It was early in the spring. The snows from the uplands had swelled the rivulet into a rushing torrent. The garden, prettily laid out, was converted into an island, the water whirling and eddying close to the house both in front and rear, and altogether presenting a scene of wild confusion. We found the captain highly excited, but bravely contending with his watery adversary; the lady of the house in a state of alarmed perplexity; the servants at their wits' end, hurrying here and there with little effect. Fortunately, when we got there the actual danger was past, the waters subsiding rapidly during the night. But it struck us as a most cruel and inconsiderate act on the part of the Government, to expose tenderly reared families to hazards which even the rudest of rough pioneers would not care to encounter. After enduring several years of severe hardship, and expending a considerable income in this out-of-the-world spot, Captain Workman and his family removed to Toronto, and afterwards returned to England, wiser, perhaps, but no richer certainly, than when they left the old country. A couple of miles along the shore, we found another military settler, Lieutenant Waddell, who had served as brigade-major at the Battle of Waterloo; with him were his wife, two sons, and two daughters. On landing, the first person we encountered was the eldest son, John, a youth of twenty years--six feet in stature at least, and bearing on his shoulder, sustained by a stick thrust through its gills, a sturgeon so large that its tail trailed on the ground behind him. He had just caught it with a floating line. Here again the same melancholy story: ladies delicately nurtured, exposed to rough labour, and deprived of all the comforts of civilized life, exhausting themselves in weary struggle with the elements. Brave soldiers in the decline of life, condemned to tasks only adapted to hinds and navvies. What worse fate can be reserved for Siberian exiles! This family also soon removed to Toronto, and afterwards to Niagara, where the kindly, excellent old soldier is well remembered; then to Chatham, where he became barrack-master, and died there. His son, John Waddell, married into the Eberts family, and prospered; later he was member for Kent; and ultimately met his death by drowning on a lumbering excursion in the Georgian Bay. Other members of the family now reside at Goderich. Along the west shore of Lake Simcoe, several other military and naval officers, with their households, were scattered. Some, whose names I shall not record, had left their families at home, and brought out with them female companions of questionable position, whom, nevertheless, they introduced as their wives. The appearance of the true wives rid the county of the scandal and its actors. Conspicuous among the best class of gentlemen settlers was the late Col. E. G. O'Brien, of Shanty Bay, near Barrie, of whom I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Capt. St. John, of Lake Couchiching, was equally respected. The Messrs. Lally, of Medonte; Walker, of Tecumseth and Barrie; Sibbald, of Kempenfeldt Bay; are all names well known in those days, as are also many others of the like class. But where are the results of the policy which sent them there? What did they gain--what have their families and descendants gained--by the ruinous outlay to which they were subjected? With one or two exceptions, absolutely nothing but wasted means and saddest memories. It is pleasant to turn to a different class of settlers--the hardy Scots, Irish, English, and Germans, to whom the Counties of Simcoe and Grey stand indebted for their present state of prosperity. The Sunnidale settlement was ill-chosen, and therefore a failure. But in the north of that township, much better land and a healthier situation are found, and there, as well as in Nottawasaga adjoining, the true conditions of rational colonization, and the practical development of those conditions, are plainly to be seen. The system of clearing five acre lots, and erecting log shanties thereon, to be given to immigrants without power of sale, which was commenced in Sunnidale, was continued in Nottawasaga. The settlement was called the Scotch line, nearly all the people being from the islands of Arran and Islay, lying off Argyleshire, in Scotland. Very few of them knew a word of English. There were Campbells, McGillivrays, Livingstons, McDiarmids, McAlmons, McNees, Jardines, and other characteristic names. The chief man among them was Angus Campbell, who had been a tradesman of some kind in the old country, and exercised a beneficial influence over the rest. He was well informed, sternly Presbyterian, and often reminded us of "douce Davie Deans" in the "Heart of Midlothian." One of the Livingstons was a school-master. They were, one and all, hardy and industrious folk. Day after day, month after month, year after year, added to their wealth and comfort. Cows were purchased, and soon became common. There were a few oxen and horses before long. When I visited the township of Nottawasaga some years since, I found Angus Campbell, postmaster and justice of the peace; Andrew Jardine, township clerk or treasurer; and McDiarmids, Livingstons, Shaws, &c., spread all over the surrounding country, possessing large farms richly stocked, good barns well-filled, and even commodious frame houses comfortably furnished. They ride to church or market in handsome buggies well horsed; have their temperance meetings and political gatherings of the most zealous sort, and altogether present a model specimen of a prosperous farming community. What has been said of the Scotch, is no less applicable to the Irish, Germans and English, who formed the minority in that township. I hear of their sons, and their sons' sons, as thriving farmers and storekeepers, all over Ontario. Our axeman, Whitelaw, was of Scottish parentage, but a Canadian by birth, and won his way with the rest. He settled in St. Vincent, married a smart and pretty Irish lass, had many sons and daughters, acquired a farm of five hundred acres, of which he cleared and cultivated a large portion almost single-handed, and in time became able to build the finest frame house in the township; served as reeve, was a justice of peace, and even a candidate for parliament, in which, well for himself, he failed. His excessive labours, however, brought on asthma, of which he died not long since, leaving several families of descendants to represent him. I could go on with the list of prosperous settlers of this class, to fill a volume. Some of the young men entered the ministry, and I recognise their names occasionally at Presbyterian and Wesleyan conventions. Some less fortunate were tempted away to Iowa and Illinois, and there died victims to ague and heat. But if we "look on this picture and on that;" if we compare the results of the settlement of educated people and of the labouring classes, the former withering away and leaving no sign behind--the latter growing in numbers and advancing in wealth and position until they fill the whole land, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion, that except as leaders and teachers of their companions, gentlefolk of refined tastes and of superior education, have no place in the bush, and should shun it as a wild delusion and a cruel snare. CHAPTER XVI. MORE ABOUT NOTTAWASAGA AND ITS PEOPLE. Among the duties handed over to my brother Thomas, by his predecessor in the emigrant agency, was the care of a large medicine chest full of quinine, rhubarb, jalap, and a host of other drugs, strong enough for horses as well as men, including a long catalogue of poisons, such as arsenic, belladonna, vitriol, &c. To assist in the distribution of this rather formidable charge, a copy of "Buchan's Domestic Medicine" was added. My brother had no taste for drugs, and therefore deputed the care of the medicine chest to me. So I studied "Buchan" zealously, and was fortunate enough to secure the aid of an old army sergeant, an Irishman who had been accustomed to camp hospital life, and knew how to bleed, and treat wounds. Time and practice gave me courage to dispense the medicines, which I did cautiously, and so successfully as to earn the soubriquet of "Doctor," and to be sought after in cases both dangerous and difficult. As, however, about this time, a clever, licensed practitioner had established himself at Barrie, thirty-four miles distant, I declined to prescribe in serious cases, except in one or two of great urgency. A Prussian soldier named Murtz, had received a gun-shot wound in the chest at the battle of Quatre Bras, under Marshal Blücher, and had frequently suffered therefrom. One day in winter, when the thermometer ranged far below zero, this man had been threshing in our barn, when he was seized with inflammation of the chest, and forced to return home. As it appeared to be a case of life and death, I ventured to act boldly, ordered bleeding, a blister on the chest, and poultices to the feet--in fact, everything that Buchan directed. My brave serjeant took charge of the patient; and between us, or perhaps in spite of us, the man got over the attack. The singular part of the case was, that the old bullet wound never troubled him afterwards, and he looked upon me as the first of living physicians. In 1836, a band of Potawatomie Indians, claiming allegiance to the Queen, was allowed to leave the State of Michigan and settle in Canada. They travelled from Sarnia through the woods, along the eastern shore of Lake Huron, and passed through Nottawasaga, on their way to Penetanguishene. Between the Scotch line and Sunnidale, near the present village of Stayner, lived an old Highland piper named Campbell, very partial to whiskey and dirt. There were two or three small clearings grouped together, and the principal crop was potatoes, nearly full grown. The old man was sitting sunning himself at his shanty-door. The young men were all absent at mill or elsewhere, and none but women and children about, when a party of Indians, men and squaws with their papooses, came stealing from the woods, and very quietly began to dig the potatoes with their fingers and fill their bags with the spoil. The poor old piper was horribly frightened and perplexed; and in his agitation could think of nothing but climbing on to his shanty roof, which was covered with earth, and there playing with all his might upon his Highland pipes, partly as a summons for assistance from his friends, partly to terrify the enemy. But the enemy were not at all terrified. They gathered in a ring round the shanty, laughed, danced, and enjoyed the fun immensely; nor would they pass on until the return of some of the younger settlers summoned by the din of the bagpipes, relieved the old piper from his elevated post. In the meantime, the presence and efforts of the women of the settlement sufficed to rescue their potato crop. CHAPTER XVII. A RUDE WINTER EXPERIENCE. The chief inconvenience we sustained in Nottawasaga arose from the depth of snow in winter, which was generally four feet and sometimes more. We had got our large log barn well filled with grain and hay. Two feet of snow had fallen during the day, and it continued snowing throughout the night. Next morning, to our great tribulation, neither snow nor roof was to be seen on the barn, the whole having fallen inside. No time was to be lost. My share of the work was to hurry to the Scotch line, there to warn every settler to send at least one stout hand to assist in re-raising the roof. None but those who have suffered can imagine what it is to have to walk at speed through several feet of soft snow. The sinews of the knees very soon begin to be painfully affected, and finally to feel as if they were being cut with a sharp knife. This is what Indians call "snow evil," their cure for which is to apply a hot cinder to the spot, thus raising a blister. I toiled on, however, and once in the settlement, walked with comparative ease. Everybody was ready and eager to help, and so we had plenty of assistance at our need, and before night got our barn roof restored. The practice of exchanging work is universal in new settlements; and, indeed, without it nothing of importance can be effected. Each man gives a day's work to his neighbour, for a logging or raising-bee; and looks for the same help when he is ready for it. Thus as many as twenty or forty able axemen can be relied upon at an emergency. At a later time, some of us became expert in the use of snow-shoes, and took long journeys through the woods, not merely with ease but with a great deal of pleasure. As a rule, snow is far from being considered an evil in the backwoods, on account of the very great facility it affords for travelling and teaming, both for business and pleasure, as well as for the aid it gives to the hunter or trapper. My own feelings on the subject, I found leisure to embody in the following verses: THE TRAPPER. Away, away! my dog and I; The woodland boughs are bare, The radiant sun shines warm and high, The frost-flake[4] gems the air. Away, away! thro' forests wide Our course is swift and free; Warm 'neath the snow the saplings hide-- Its ice-crust firm pace we. The partridge[5] with expanded crest Struts proudly by his mate; The squirrel trims its glossy vest, Or eats its nut in state. Quick echoes answer, shrill and short, The woodcock's frequent cry; We heed them not--a keener sport We seek--my dog and I. Far in the woods our traps are set In loneliest, thickest glade, Where summer's soil is soft and wet, And dark firs lend their shade. Hurrah! a gallant spoil is here To glad a trapper's sight-- The warm-clad marten, sleek and fair, The ermine soft and white; Or mink, or fox--a welcome prize-- Or useful squirrel grey, Or wild-cat fierce with flaming eyes, Or fisher,[6] meaner prey. On, on! the cautious toils once more Are set--the task is done; Our pleasant morning's labour o'er, Our pastime but begun. Away, away! till fall of eve, The deer-track be our guide, The antler'd stag our quarry brave, Our park the forest wide. At night, the bright fire at our feet, Our couch the wigwam dry-- No laggard tastes a rest so sweet As thou, good dog, and I. [Footnote 4: On a fine, bright winter morning, when the slight feathery crystals formed from the congealed dew, which have silently settled on the trees during the night, are wafted thence by the morning breeze, filling the translucent atmosphere with innumerable minute, sparkling stars; when the thick, strong coat of ice on the four-foot deep snow is slightly covered by the same fine, white dust, betraying the foot-print of the smallest wild animal--on such a morning the hardy trapper is best able to follow his solitary pursuits. In the glorious winters of Canada, he will sometimes remain from home for days, or even weeks, with no companions but his dog and rifle, and no other shelter than such as his own hands can procure--carried away by his ardour for the sport, and the hope of the rich booty which usually rewards his perseverance.] [Footnote 5: The partridge of Canada--a grey variety of grouse--not only displays a handsome black-barred tail like that of the turkey, but has the power of erecting his head-feathers, as well as of spreading a black fan-like tuft placed on either side of his neck. Although timid when alarmed, he is not naturally shy, but at times may be approached near enough to observe his very graceful and playful habits--a facility of access for which the poor bird commonly pays with his life.] [Footnote 6: Dr. Johnson, in one of his peculiar moods, has described the _fitchew_ or _fitchat_, which is here called the "fisher" as "_a stinking little beast that robs the hen-roost and warren_"--a very ungrateful libel upon an animal that supplies exceedingly useful fur for common purposes.] CHAPTER XVIII. THE FOREST WEALTH OF CANADA. Having been accustomed to gardening all my life, I have taken great pleasure in roaming the bush in search of botanical treasures of all kinds, and have often thought that it would be easy to fill a large and showy garden with the native plants of Canada alone. But of course, her main vegetable wealth consists in the forests with which the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario were formerly clothed. In the country around the Georgian Bay, especially, abound the very finest specimens of hardwood timber. Standing on a hill overlooking the River Saugeen at the village of Durham, one sees for twenty miles round scarcely a single pine tree in the whole prospect. The townships of Arran and Derby, when first surveyed, were wonderfully studded with noble trees. Oak, elm, beech, butternut, ash and maple, seemed to vie with each other in the size of their stems and the spread of their branches. In our own clearing in St. Vincent, the axemen considered that five of these great forest kings would occupy an acre of ground, leaving little space for younger trees or underbrush. I once saw a white or wainscot oak that measured fully twelve feet in circumference at the butt, and eighty feet clear of branches. This noble tree must have contained somewhere about seven thousand square feet of inch boarding, and would represent a value approaching one hundred and thirty pounds sterling in the English market. White and black ash, black birch, red beech, maple and even basswood or lime, are of little, if any, less intrinsic worth. Rock elm is very valuable, competing as it does with hickory for many purposes. When residing in the city of Quebec, in the year 1859-60, I published a series of articles in the Quebec _Advertiser_, descriptive of the hardwoods of Ontario. The lumber merchants of that city held then, that their correspondents in Liverpool was so wedded to old-fashioned ideas, that they would not so much as look at any price-list except for pine and the few other woods for which there was an assured demand. But I know that my papers were transmitted home, and they may possibly have converted some few readers, as, since then, our rock elm, our white ash, and the black birch of Lower Canada, have been in increased demand, and are regularly quoted at London and Liverpool. But even though old country dealers should make light of our products, that is no reason why we should undervalue them ourselves. Not merely is our larger timber improvidently wasted, but the smaller kinds, such as blue beech, ironwood or hornbeam, buttonwood or plane tree, and red and white cedar, are swept away without a thought of their great marketable value in the Old World.[7] It seems absolute fatuity to allow this waste of our natural wealth to go on unheeded. We send our pine across the Atlantic, as if it were the most valuable wood that we have, instead of being, as it really is, amongst the most inferior. From our eastern seaports white oak is shipped in the form of staves chiefly, also some ash, birch and elm. So far well. But what about the millions of tons of hardwood of all kinds which we destroy annually for fuel, and which ought to realize, if exported, four times as many millions of dollars? Besides the plain, straight-grained timber which we heedlessly burn up to get it out of the way, there are our ornamental woods--our beautiful curled and bird's eye maple, our waved ash, our serviceable butternut or yellow walnut, our comely cherry, and even our exquisite black walnut, all doomed to the same perdition. Little of this waste would occur if once the owners of land knew that a market could be got for their timber. Cheese and butter factories for export, have already spread over the land--why not furniture factories also? Why not warm ourselves with the coal of Nova Scotia, of Manitoba, and, by-and-by, of the Saskatchewan, and spare our forest treasures for nobler uses? Would not this whole question be a fitting subject for the appointment of a competent parliamentary commission? To me these reflections are not the birth of to-day, but date from my bush residence in the township of Nottawasaga. If I should succeed now in bringing them effectively before my fellow Canadians ere it is too late, I shall feel that I have neither thought nor written in vain. [Footnote 7: I have myself, when a youth, sold red cedar in London at sixpence sterling per square foot, inch thick. Lime (or basswood) was sold at twopence, and ash and beech at about the same price. White or yellow pine was then worth one penny, or just half the value of basswood. These are retail prices. On referring to the London wholesale quotations for July 1881, I find these statements fully borne out. It will be news to most of my readers, that Canadian black birch has been proved by test, under the authority of the British Admiralty, to be of greater specific gravity than English oak, and therefore better fitted for ships' flooring, for which purpose it is now extensively used. Also for staircases in large mansions.] CHAPTER XIX. A MELANCHOLY TALE. The Scottish settlers in Nottawasaga were respectable, God-fearing, and though somewhat stern in their manners, thoroughly estimable people on the whole. They married young, had numerous families, and taught their children at an early age the duties of good citizenship, and the religious principles of their Presbyterian forefathers. Among them, not the prettiest certainly, but the most amiable and beloved, was Flora McDiarmid, a tall, bright-complexioned lass of twenty, perhaps, who was the chief mainstay of her widowed father, whose log shanty she kept in perfect order as far as their simple resources permitted, while she exercised a vigilant watch over her younger brothers and sisters, and with their assistance contrived to work their four acre allotment to good advantage. Wherever there was trouble in the settlement, or mirth afoot, Flora was sure to be there, nursing the sick, cheering the unhappy, helping to provide the good things for the simple feast,--she was, in fact, the life of the somewhat dull and overworked community. Was the minister from afar to be received with due honour, was the sober church service to be celebrated in a shanty with becoming propriety--Flora was ever on hand, at the head of all the other lassies, guiding and directing everything, and in so kindly and cheerful a way that none thought of disputing her behests or hesitating at their fulfilment. Such being the case, no wonder that Malcolm McAlmon and other young fellows contended for her hand in marriage. But Malcolm won the preference, and blithely he set to work to build a splendid log shanty, twenty-five feet square, divided into inner compartments, with windows and doors, and other unequalled conveniences for domestic comfort new to the settlement; and when it was ready, and supplied with plenishings of all kinds, Flora and Malcolm were married amid the rejoicings of the whole township, and settled quietly down to the steady hard work of a life in the extreme backwoods, some miles distant from our clearing. The next thing I heard of them was many months afterwards, when Malcolm was happy in the expectation of an heir to his two hundred acre lot, in the ninth or tenth concession of the township. But alas! as time stole on, accounts were unfavourable, and grew worse and worse. The nearest professional man lived at Barrie, thirty-four miles distant. A wandering herb doctor, as he called himself, of the Yankee eclectic school, was the best who had yet visited the township, and even he was far away at this time. There were experienced matrons enough in the settlement, but their skill deserted them, or the case was beyond their ability. And so poor Flora died, and her infant with her. The same day her brother John, in deep distress, came to beg us to lend them pine boards enough to make the poor dead woman a coffin. Except the pine tree which we had cut down and sawn up, as related already, there was not a foot of sawn lumber in the settlement, and scarcely a hammer or a nail either, but what we possessed ourselves. So, being very sorry for their affliction, I told them they should have the coffin by next morning; and I set to work myself, made a tolerably handsome box, stained in black, of the right shape and dimensions, and gave it to them at the appointed hour. We of course attended the funeral, which was conducted with due solemnity by the Presbyterian minister above-mentioned. And never shall I forget the weeping bearers, staggering under their burthen through tangled brushwood and round upturned roots and cradle holes, and the long train of mourners following in their rear, to the chosen grave in the wilderness, where now I hear stands a small Presbyterian church in the village of Duntroon. CHAPTER XX. FROM BARRIE TO NOTTAWASAGA. For nearly three years we continued to work on contentedly at our bush farm. In the summer of 1837, we received intelligence that two of our sisters were on their way to join us in Canada, and soon afterwards that they had reached Toronto, and expected to meet us at Barrie on a certain day. At the same time we learnt that the bridge across the Nottawasaga river, eleven miles from Barrie, had given way, and was barely passable on foot, as it lay floating on the water. One of our span of horses had been killed and his fellow sold, so that we had to hire a team to convey our sisters' goods from Barrie to the bridge where it was necessary to meet them with our own ox-team and waggon. I walked to Barrie accordingly, and found my sisters at Bingham's tavern, very glad to see me, but in a state of complete bewilderment and some alarm at the rough ways of the place, then only containing a tavern or two, and some twenty stores and dwellings. My fustian clothes, which I had made myself, and considered first-rate, they "laughed at consumedly." My boots! they were soaked and trod out of all fashionable proportions. Fortunately, other people in Barrie were nearly as open to criticism as myself, and as we had to get on our way without loss of time, I forgot my eccentricities of dress in the rough experiences of the road. From Barrie to Root's tavern was pleasant travelling, the day being fine and the road fairly good. We took some rest and refreshment there, and started again, but had not gone two miles before a serious misfortune befel us. I have mentioned corduroy-bridges before; one of these had been thrown across a beautifully clear white-paved streamlet known to travellers on this road as "sweet-water." The waggon was heavily laden with chests and other luggage, and the horses not being very strong, found it beyond their power to drag the load across the bridge on account of its steepness. Alarmed for my eldest sister, who was riding, I persuaded her to descend and walk on. Again and again, the teamster whipped his horses, and again and again, after they had almost scaled the crest, the weight of the load dragged them backward. I wanted to lighten the load, but the man said it was needless, and bade me block the wheels with a piece of broken branch lying near, which I did; the next moment I was petrified to see the waggon overbalance itself and fall sideways into the stream seven or eight feet beneath, dragging the horses over with it, their forefeet clinging to the bridge and their hind feet entangled amongst the spokes of the wheels below. My elder sister had gone on. The younger bravely caught the horses' heads and held them by main force to quiet their struggles, while the man and I got out an axe, cut the spokes of the wheels, and so in a few minutes got the horses on to firm ground, where they stood panting and terrified for some minutes. Meanwhile, to get the heavy sea-boxes out of the water and carry them up the face of a nearly perpendicular bank, then get up the waggon and reload it, was no easy task, but was accomplished at last. The teamster, being afraid of injury to his horses' legs, at first refused to go further on the road. However, they had suffered no harm; and we finished our journey to the bridge where my brother awaited us. Here the unlucky boxes had to be carried across loose floating logs, and loaded on to the ox-waggon, which ended our hard work for that day. Two days longer were we slowly travelling through Sunnidale and into Nottawasaga, spending each night at some friendly settler's shanty, and so lightening the fatigues of the way. CHAPTER XXI. FAREWELL TO THE BACKWOODS. My sisters had come into the woods fresh from the lovely village of Epsom, in Surrey, and accustomed to all the comforts of English life. Their consternation at the rudeness of the accommodations which we had considered rather luxurious than otherwise, dispelled all our illusions, and made us think seriously of moving nearer to Toronto. I was the first to feel the need of change, and as I had occasionally walked ninety miles to the city, to draw money for our road contracts, and the same distance back again, and had gained some friends there, it took me very little time to make up my mind. My brothers and sisters remained throughout the following winter, and then removed to a rented farm at Bradford. Not that the bush has ever lost its charms for me. I still delight to escape thither, to roam at large, admiring the stately trees with their graceful outlines of varied foliage, seeking in their delicious shade for ferns and all kinds of wild plants, forgetting the turmoil and anxieties of the business world, and wishing I could leave it behind for ever and aye. In some such mood it was that I wrote-- "COME TO THE WOODS."[8] Come to the woods--the dark old woods, Where our life is blithe and free; No thought of sorrow or strife intrudes Beneath the wild woodland tree. Our wigwam is raised with skill and care In some quiet forest nook; Our healthful fare is of ven'son rare, Our draught from the crystal brook. In summer we trap the beaver shy, In winter we chase the deer, And, summer or winter, our days pass by In honest and hearty cheer. And when at the last we fall asleep On mother earth's ancient breast, The forest-dirge deep shall o'er us sweep, And lull us to peaceful rest. [Footnote 8: These lines were set to music by the late J. P. Clarke, Mus. Bac. of Toronto University, in his "Songs of Canada."] CHAPTER XXII. A JOURNEY TO TORONTO. To make my narrative intelligible to those who are not familiar with the times of which I am about to write, I must revert briefly to the year 1834. During that year I made my first business visit to Toronto, then newly erected into a city. As the journey may be taken as a fair specimen of our facilities for travelling in those days, I shall describe it. I left our shanty in Sunnidale in the bright early morning, equipped only with an umbrella and a blue bag, such as is usually carried by lawyers, containing some articles of clothing. The first three or four miles of the road lay over felled trees cut into logs, but not hauled out of the way. To step or jump over these logs every few feet may be amusing enough by way of sport, but it becomes not a little tiresome when repeated mile after mile, with scarcely any intermission, and without the stimulus of companionship. After getting into a better cleared road, the chief difficulty lay with the imperfectly "stubbed" underbrush and the frequency of cradle-holes--that is, hollows caused by up-turned roots--in roughly timbered land. This kind of travelling continued till mid-day, when I got a substantial dinner and a boisterous welcome from my old friend Root and his family. He had a pretty little daughter by this time. An hour's rest, and an easy walk of seven miles to Barrie, were pleasant enough, in spite of stumps and hollows. At Barrie I met with more friends, who would have had me remain there for the night; but time was too valuable. So on I trudged, skirting round the sandy beach of beautiful Kempenfeldt Bay, and into the thick dark woods of Innisfil, where the road was a mere brushed track, easily missed in the twilight, and very muddy from recent rains. Making all the expedition in my power, I sped on towards Clement's tavern, then the only hostelry between Barrie and Bradford, and situated close to the height of land whence arise, in a single field, the sources of various streams flowing into the Nottawasaga, the Holland, and the Credit Rivers. But rain came on, and the road became a succession of water-holes so deep that I all but lost my boots, and, moreover, it was so dark that it was impossible to walk along logs laid by the roadside, which was the local custom in daylight. I felt myself in a dilemma. To go forward or backward seemed equally unpromising. I had often spent nights in the bush, with or without a wigwam, and the thought of danger did not occur to me. Suddenly I recollected that about half a mile back I had passed a newly chopped and partially-logged clearing, and that there might possibly be workmen still about. So I returned to the place, and shouted for assistance; but no person was within hearing. There was, however, a small log hut, about six feet square, which the axe-men had roughly put up for protection from the rain, and in it had left some fire still burning. I was glad enough to secure even so poor a shelter as this. Everything was wet. I was without supper, and very tired after thirty miles' walk. But I tried to make the best of a bad job: collected plenty of half-consumed brands from the still blazing log-heaps, to keep up some warmth during the night, and then lay down on the round logs that had been used for seats, to sleep as best I might. But this was not to be. At about nine o'clock there arose from the woods, first a sharp snapping bark, answered by a single yelp; then two or three yells at intervals. Again a silence, lasting perhaps five minutes. This kept on, the noise increasing in frequency, and coming nearer and again nearer, until it became impossible to mistake it for aught but the howling of wolves. The clearing might be five or six acres. Scattered over it were partially or wholly burnt log heaps. I knew that wolves would not be likely to venture amongst the fires, and that I was practically safe. But the position was not pleasant, and I should have preferred a bed at Clement's, as a matter of choice. I, however, kept up my fire very assiduously, and the evil brutes continued their concert of fiendish discords--sometimes remaining silent for a time, and anon bursting into a full chorus _fortissimo_--for many long, long hours, until the glad beams of morning peeped through the trees, and the sky grew brighter and brighter; when the wolves ceased their serenade, and I fell fast asleep, with my damp umbrella for a pillow. With the advancing day, I awoke, stiffened in every joint, and very hungry. A few minutes' walk on my road showed me a distant opening in the woods, towards which I hastened, and found a new shanty, inhabited by a good-natured settler and his family, from whom I got some breakfast, for which they would accept nothing but thanks. They had lately been much troubled, they said, with wolves about their cattle sheds at night. From thence I proceeded to Bradford, fifteen miles, by a road interlaced with pine roots, with deep water-holes between, and so desperately rugged as to defy any wheeled vehicle but an ox-cart to struggle over it. Here my troubles ended for the present. Mr. Thomas Drury, of that village, had been in partnership with a cousin of my own, as brewers, at Mile End, London. His hospitable reception, and a good night's repose, made me forget previous discomforts, and I went on my way next morning with a light heart, carrying with me a letter of introduction to a man of whom I had occasionally heard in the bush, one William Lyon Mackenzie. The day's journey by way of Yonge Street was easily accomplished by stage--an old-fashioned conveyance enough, swung on leather straps, and subject to tremendous jerks from loose stones on the rough road, innocent of Macadam, and full of the deepest ruts. A fellow-passenger, by way of encouragement, told me how an old man, a few weeks before, had been jolted so violently against the roof, as to leave marks of his blood there, which, being not uncommon, were left unheeded for days. My friend advised me to keep on my hat, which I had laid aside on account of the heat of the day, and I was not slow to adopt the suggestion. Arrived in town, my first business was to seek out Mr. William Hawkins, well-known in those days as an eminent provincial land surveyor. I found him at a house on the south side of Newgate (now Adelaide) street, two or three doors west of Bay Street. He was living as a private boarder with an English family; and, at his friendly intercession, I was admitted to the same privilege. The home was that of Mr. H. C. Todd, with his wife and two sons. With them, I continued to reside as often as I visited Toronto, and for long after I became a citizen. That I spent there many happy days, among kind and considerate friends, numbers of my readers will be well assured when I mention, that the two boys were Alfred and Alpheus Todd, the one loved and lamented as the late Clerk of Committees in the Canadian House of Commons--the other widely known in Europe and America, as the late Librarian of the Dominion Parliament. My stay in Toronto on that occasion was very brief. To wait upon the Chief Emigrant Agent for instructions about road-making in Sunnidale; to make a few small purchases of clothing and tea; and to start back again, without loss of time, were matters of course. One thing, however, I found time to do, which had more bearing upon this narrative, and that was, to present Mr. Drury's letter of introduction to William L. Mackenzie, M. P. P., at his printing-office on Hospital Street. I had often seen copies, in the bush, of the _Colonial Advocate_, as well as of the _Courier_ and _Gazette_ newspapers, but had the faintest possible idea of Canadian politics. The letter was from one whose hospitality Mackenzie had experienced for weeks in London, and consequently I felt certain of a courteous reception. Without descending from the high stool he used at his desk, he received the letter, read it, looked at me frigidly, and said in his singular, harsh Dundee dialect: "We must look after our own people before doing anything for strangers." Mr. Drury had told him that I wished to know if there were any opening for proof-readers in Toronto. I was not a little surprised to find myself ostracized as a stranger in a British colony, but, having other views, thought no more of the circumstance at the time. This reminds me of another characteristic anecdote of Mackenzie, which was related to me by one who was on the spot where it happened. In 1820, on his first arrival in Montreal from Scotland, he got an engagement as chain-bearer on the survey of the Lachine canal. A few days afterwards, the surveying party, as usual at noon, sat down on a grassy bank to eat their dinner. They had been thus occupied for half an hour, and were getting ready for a smoke, when the new chain-bearer suddenly jumped up with an exclamation, "Now, boys, time for work! we mustn't waste the government money!" The consequence of which ill-timed outburst was his prompt dismissal from the service. CHAPTER XXIII. SOME GLIMPSES OF UPPER CANADIAN POLITICS. In the course of the years 1835, '6 and '7, I made many journeys to Toronto, sometimes wholly on foot, sometimes partly by steamboat and stage. I became very intimate with the Todd family and connections, which included Mrs. Todd's brother, William P. Patrick, then, and long afterwards, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly; his brother-in-law, Dr. Thomas D. Morrison, M. P. P.; Thomas Vaux, Accountant of the Legislature; Caleb Hopkins, M. P. P., for Halton; William H. Doel, brewer; William C. Keele, attorney, and their families. Nearly all these persons were, or had been, zealous admirers of Wm. L. Mackenzie's political course. And the same thing must be said of my friend Mr. Drury, of Bradford; his sister married Edward Henderson, merchant tailor, of King Street west, whose father, E. T. Henderson, was well known amongst Mackenzie's supporters. It was his cottage on Yonge Street (near what is now Gloucester Street), at which the leaders of the popular party used often to meet in council. The house stood in an orchard, well fenced, and was then very rural and secluded from observation. Amongst all these really estimable people, and at their houses, nothing of course was heard disparaging to the Reformers of that day, and their active leader. My own political prejudices also were in his favour. And so matters went on until the arrival, in 1835, of Sir Francis Bond Head, as Lieutenant-Governor, when we, in the bush, began to hear of violent struggles between the House of Assembly on the one side, and the Lieutenant-Governor supported by the Legislative Council on the other. Each political party, by turns, had had its successes and reverses at the polls. In 1825, the majority of the Assembly was Tory; in 1826, and for several years afterwards, a Reform majority was elected; in 1831, again, Toryism was successful; in 1835, the balance veered over to the popular side once more, by a majority only of four. This majority, led by Mackenzie, refused to pass the supplies; whereupon, Sir Francis appealed to the people by dissolving the Parliament. What were the precise grounds of difference in principle between the opposing parties, did not very clearly appear to us in the bush. Sir Francis Head had no power to grant "Responsible Government," as it has since been interpreted. On each side there were friends and opponents of that system. Among Tories, Ogle R. Gowan, Charles Fothergill, and others, advocated a responsible ministry, and were loud in their denunciations of the "Family Compact." On the Reform side were ranged such men as Marshall S. Bidwell and Dr. Rolph, who preferred American Republicanism, in which "Responsible Government" was and is utterly unknown. We consequently found it hard to understand the party cries of the day. But we began to perceive that there was a Republican bias on one hand, contending with a Monarchical leaning on the other; and we had come to Canada, as had most well-informed immigrants, expressly to avoid the evils of Republicanism, and to preserve our British constitutional heritage intact. When therefore Sir Francis Head threw himself with great energy into the electoral arena, when he bade the foes of the Empire "come if they dare!" when he called upon the "United Empire Loyalists,"--men, who in 1770 had thrown away their all, rather than accept an alien rule--to vindicate once more their right to choose whom they would follow, King or President--when he traversed the length and breadth of the land, making himself at home in the farm-houses, and calling upon fathers and husbands and sons to stand up for their hearths, and their old traditions of honour and fealty to the Crown, it would have been strange indeed had he failed. The next House of Assembly, elected in 1837, contained a majority of twenty-six to fourteen in favour of Sir F. B. Head's policy. This precipitated matters. Had Mackenzie been capable of enduring defeat with a good grace; had he restrained his natural irritability of temper, and kept his skirts cautiously clear of all contact with men of Republican aspirations, he might and probably would have recovered his position as a parliamentary leader, and died an honoured and very likely even a titled veteran! But he became frantic with choler and disappointment, and rushed headlong into the most passionate extremes, which ended in making him a mere cat's-paw in the hands of cunning schemers, who did not fail, after their manner, to disavow their own handiwork when it had ceased to serve their purposes. CHAPTER XXIV. TORONTO DURING THE REBELLION. In November, 1837, I had travelled to Toronto for the purpose of seeking permanent employment in the city, and meant to return in the first week of December, to spend my last Christmas in the woods. But the fates and William Lyon Mackenzie had decided otherwise. I was staying for a few days with my friend Joseph Heughen, the London hairdresser mentioned as a fellow-passenger on board the _Asia_, whose name must be familiar to most Toronto citizens of that day. His shop was near Ridout's hardware-store, on King Street, at the corner of Yonge Street. On Sunday, the 3rd, we heard that armed men were assembling at the Holland Landing and Newmarket to attack the city, and that lists of houses to be burned by them were in the hands of their leaders; that Samuel Lount, blacksmith, had been manufacturing pikes at the Landing for their use; that two or three persons had been warned by friends in the secret to sell their houses, or to leave the city, or to look for startling changes of some sort. Then it was known that a quantity of arms and a couple of cannon were being brought from the garrison, and stored in the covered way under the old City Hall. Every idle report was eagerly caught up, and magnified a hundred-fold. But the burthen of all invariably was, an expected invasion by the Yankees to drive all loyalists from Canada. In this way rumour followed rumour, all business ceased, and everybody listened anxiously for the next alarm. At length it came in earnest. At eleven o'clock on Monday night, the 4th of December, every bell in the city was set ringing, occasional gun-shots were fired, by accident as it turned out, but none the less startling to nervous people; a confused murmur arose in the streets, becoming louder every minute; presently the sound of a horse's hoofs was heard, echoing loudly along Yonge Street. With others I hurried out, and found at Ridout's corner a horseman, who proved to be Alderman John Powell, who told his breathless listeners, how he had been stopped beyond the Yonge Street toll-gate, two miles out, by Mackenzie and Anderson at the head of a number of rebels in arms; how he had shot Anderson and missed Mackenzie; how he had dodged behind a log when pursued; and had finally got into town by the College Avenue. There was but little sleep in Toronto that night, and next day everything was uproar and excitement, heightened by the news that Col. Moodie, of Richmond Hill, a retired officer of the army, who was determined to force his way through the armed bodies of rebels, to bring tidings of the rising to the Government in Toronto, had been shot down and inhumanly left to bleed to death at Montgomery's tavern. The flames and smoke from Dr. Horne's house at Rosedale, were visible all over the city; it had been fired in the presence of Mackenzie in person, in retaliation, it was said, for the refusal of discount by the Bank of Upper Canada, of which Dr. Horne was teller. The ruins of the still-burning building were visited by hundreds of citizens, and added greatly to the excitement and exasperation of the hour. By-and-by it became known that Mr. Robert Baldwin and Dr. John Rolph had been sent, with a flag of truce, to learn the wants of the insurgents. Many citizens accompanied the party at a little distance. A flag of truce was in itself a delightful novelty, and the street urchins cheered vociferously, scudding away at the smallest alarm. Arrived at the toll-gate, there were waiting outside Mackenzie, Lount, Gibson, Fletcher and other leaders, with a couple of hundred of their men. In reply to the Lieutenant-Governor's message of inquiry, as to what was wanted, the answer was, "Independence, and a convention to arrange details," which rather compendious demand, being reported to Sir Francis, was at once rejected. So there was nothing for it but to fight. Mackenzie did his best to induce his men to advance on the city that evening; but as most of his followers had been led to expect that there would be no resistance, and no bloodshed, they were shocked and discouraged by Col. Moodie's death, as well as by those of Anderson and one or two others. A picket of volunteers under Col. Jarvis, fired on them, when not far within the toll-gate, killing one and wounding two others, and retired still firing. After this the insurgents lost all confidence, and even threatened to shoot Mackenzie himself, for reproaching them with cowardice. A farmer living by the roadside told me at the time, that while a detachment of rebels were marching southwards down the hill, since known as Mount Pleasant, they saw a waggon-load of cordwood standing on the opposite rise, and supposing it to be a piece of artillery loaded to the muzzle with grape or canister, these brave warriors leaped the fences right and left like squirrels, and could by no effort of their officers be induced again to advance. By this time the principal buildings in the city--the City Hall, Upper Canada Bank, the Parliament Buildings, Osgoode Hall, Government House, the Canada Company's office, and many private dwellings and shops, were put in a state of defence by barricading the windows and doors with two-inch plank, loopholed for musketry; and the city bore a rather formidable appearance. Arms and ammunition were distributed to all householders who chose to accept them. I remember well the trepidation with which my friend Heughen shrank from touching the musket that was held out for his acceptance; and the outspoken indignation of the militia sergeant, whose proffer of the firearm was declined. The poor hairdresser told me afterwards, that many of his customers were rebels, and that he dreaded the loss of their patronage. The same evening came Mr. Speaker McNab, with a steamer from Hamilton, bringing sixty of the "men of Gore." It was an inspiriting thing to see these fine fellows land on the wharf, bright and fresh from their short voyage, and full of zeal and loyalty. The ringing cheers they sent forth were re-echoed with interest by the townsmen. From Scarborough also, marched in a party of militia, under Captain McLean. It was on the same day that a lady, still living, was travelling by stage from Streetsville, on her way through Toronto to Cornwall, having with her a large trunk of new clothing prepared for a long visit to her relatives. Very awkwardly for her, Mackenzie had started, at the head of a few men, from Yonge Street across to Dundas Street, to stop the stage and capture the mails, so as to intercept news of Dr. Duncombe's rising in the London District. Not content with seizing the mail-bags and all the money they contained, Mackenzie himself, pistol in hand, demanded the surrender of the poor woman's portmanteau, and carried it off bodily. It was asserted at the time that he only succeeded in evading capture a few days after, at Oakville, by disguising himself in woman's clothes, which may explain his raid upon the lady's wardrobe; for which, I believe, she failed to get any compensation whatsoever under the Rebellion Losses Act. This lady afterwards became the wife of John F. Rogers, who was my partner in business for several subsequent years. In the course of the next day, Wednesday, parties of men arrived from Niagara, Hamilton, Oakville, Port Credit and other places in greater or less numbers--many of them Orangemen, delighted with their new occupation. The Lieutenant-Governor was thus enabled to vacate the City Hall and take up his headquarters in the Parliament Buildings; and before night as many as fifteen hundred volunteers were armed and partially drilled. Among them were a number of Mackenzie's former supporters, with their sons and relatives, now thoroughly ashamed of the man, and utterly alienated by his declared republicanism. Next morning followed the "Battle of Gallows Hill," or, as it might more fitly be styled, the "Skirmish of Montgomery's Farm." Being a stranger in the city, I had not then formally volunteered, but took upon myself to accompany the advancing force, on the chance of finding something to do, either as a volunteer or a newspaper correspondent, should an opening occur. The main body, led by Sir Francis himself, with Colonels Fitzgibbon and McNab as Adjutants, marched by Yonge Street, and consisted of six hundred men with two guns; while two other bodies, of two hundred and a hundred and twenty men, respectively, headed by Colonels W. Chisholm and S. P. Jarvis, advanced by bye-roads and fields on the east and on the west of Yonge Street. Nothing was seen of the enemy till within half-a-mile of Montgomery's tavern. The road was there bordered on the west side by pine woods, from whence dropping rifle-shots began to be heard, which were answered by the louder muskets of the militia. Presently our artillery opened their hoarse throats, and the woods rang with strong reverberations. Splinters were dashed from the trees, threatening, and I believe causing worse mischief than the shots themselves. It is said that this kind of skirmishing continued for half-an-hour--to me it seemed but a few minutes. As the militia advanced, their opponents melted away. Parties of volunteers dashed over the fences and into the woods, shouting and firing as they ran. Two or three wounded men of both parties were lifted tenderly into carts and sent off to the city to be placed in hospital. Others lay bleeding by the road-side--rebels by their rustic clothing; their wounds were bound up, and they were removed in their turn. Soon a movement was visible through the smoke, on the hill fronting the tavern, where some tall pines were then standing. I could see there two or three hundred men, now firing irregularly at the advancing loyalists; now swaying to and fro without any apparent design. Some horsemen were among them, who seemed to act more as scouts than as leaders. We had by this time arrived within cannon shot of the tavern itself. Two or three balls were seen to strike and pass through it. A crowd of men rushed from the doors, and scattered wildly in a northerly direction. Those on the hill wavered, receded under shelter of the undulating land, and then fled like their fellows. Their horsemen took the side-road westward, and were pursued, but not in time to prevent their escape. Had our right and left wings kept pace with the main body, the whole insurgent force must have been captured. Sir Francis halted his men opposite the tavern, and gave the word to demolish the building, by way of a severe lesson to the disaffected. This was promptly done by firing the furniture in the lower rooms, and presently thick clouds of smoke and vivid flames burst from doors and windows. The battalion next moved on to perform the same service at Gibson's house, several miles further north. Many prisoners were taken in the pursuit, all of whom Sir Francis released, after admonishing them to be better subjects in future. The march back to Toronto was very leisurely executed, several of the mounted officers carrying dead pigs and geese slung across their saddle-bows as trophies of victory. Next day, volunteers for the city guard were called for, and among them I was regularly enrolled and placed under pay, at three shillings and nine pence per diem. My captain was George Percival Ridout; and his brother, Joseph D. Ridout, was lieutenant. Our company was duly drilled at the City Hall, and continued to do duty as long as their services were required, which was about four months. I have a vivid recollection of being stationed at the Don Bridge to look out for a second visit from Peter Matthews's band of rebels, eighty of whom had attempted to burn the bridge, and succeeded in burning three adjoining houses; also, of being forgotten and kept there without food or relief throughout a bitter cold winter's night and morning. Also, of doing duty as sentry over poor old Colonel Van Egmond, a Dutch officer who had served under Napoleon I., and who was grievously sick from exposure in the woods and confinement in gaol, of which he soon afterwards died. Another day, I was placed, as one of a corporal's guard, in charge of Lesslie's stationery and drug-store, and found there a saucy little shop-boy who has since developed into the portly person of Alderman Baxter, now one, and not the least, of our city notabilities. The guards and the guarded were on the best of terms. We were treated with much hospitality by Mr. Joseph Lesslie, late Postmaster of Toronto, and have all been excellent friends ever since. Our corporal, I ought to say, was Anthony Blachford, since a well-known and respected citizen. Those were exciting times in Toronto. The day after the battle, six hundred men of Simcoe, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Dewson, came marching down Yonge Street, headed by Highland pipers playing the national pibroch. In their ranks I first saw Hugh Scobie, a stalwart Scotsman, afterwards widely known as publisher of the _British Colonist_ newspaper. With this party were brought in sixty prisoners, tied to a long rope, most of whom were afterwards released on parole. A day or two afterwards, entered the volunteers from the Newcastle District, who had marched the whole distance from Brockville, under the command, I think, of Lieutenant-Colonel Ogle R. Gowan. They were a fine body of men, and in the highest spirits at the prospect of a fight with the young Queen Victoria's enemies. A great sensation was created when the leaders who had been arrested after the battle, Dr. Thomas D. Morrison, John G. Parker, and two others, preceded by a loaded cannon pointed towards the prisoners, were marched along King Street to the Common Jail, which is the same building now occupied as York Chambers, at the corner of Toronto and Court Streets. The Court House stood, and still stands, converted into shops and offices, on Church Street; between the two was an open common which was used in those days as the place of public executions. It was here that, on the 12th of April following, I witnessed, with great sorrow, the execution by hanging of Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, two of the principal rebel leaders. Sir F. B. Head had then left the Province. * * * * * The following narrative of circumstances which occurred during the time when Mackenzie was in command of the rebel force on Yonge Street, has been kindly communicated to me by a gentleman, who, as a young lad, was personally cognizant of the facts described. It has, I believe, never been published, and will interest many of my readers: "It was on Monday morning, the 5th of December, 1837, when rumours of the disturbances that had broken out in Lower Canada were causing great excitement throughout the Home District, that the late James S. Howard's servant-man, named Bolton, went into his master's bed-room and asked if Mr. H. had heard shots fired during the night. He replied that he had not, and told the man to go down to the street and find out what was the matter. Bolton returned shortly with the news, that a man named Anderson had been shot at the foot of the hill, and that his body was lying in a house near by. Shortly after came the startling report of the death of poor Col. Moodie, which was a great shock to Mrs. Howard, who knew him well, and was herself a native of Fredericton, where the Colonel's regiment (the old Hundred and Fourth) had been raised during the war of 1812. Mr. Howard immediately ordered his carriage, and started for the city, from whence he did not return for ten days. About nine o'clock, a man named Pool, who held the rank of captain in the rebel army, called at Mr. Howard's house, to ask if Anderson's body was there. Being told where it was said to be, he turned and went away. Immediately afterwards, the first detachment of the rebel army came in sight, consisting of some fifteen or twenty men, who drew up on the lawn in front of the house. Presently, at the word of command they wheeled round and went away in search of the dead rebel. Next came three or four men (loyalists) hurrying down the road, who said that there were five hundred rebels behind them. Then was heard the report of fire arms, and anon more armed men showed themselves along the brow of Gallows Hill, and took up ground near the present residence of Mr. Hooper. About eleven o'clock, another detachment appeared, headed by a man on a small white horse, almost a pony, who turned out to be the commander-in-chief, Mackenzie himself. He wore a great coat buttoned up to the chin, and presented the appearance of being stuffed. In talking among themselves, the men intimated that he had on a great many coats, as if to make himself bullet proof. To enable the man on the white pony to enter the lawn, his men wrenched off the fence boards; he entered the house without knocking, took possession of the sitting room where Mrs. and Miss Howard and her brother were sitting, and ordered dinner to be got ready for fifty men. Utterly astonished at such a demand, Mrs. Howard said she could do nothing of the kind. After abusing Mr. Howard for some time--who had incurred his dislike by refusing him special privileges at the Post Office--Mackenzie said Howard had held his office long enough, and that it was time somebody else had it. Mrs. Howard at length referred him to the servant in the kitchen; which hint he took, and went to see about dinner himself. There happened to be a large iron sugar-kettle, in which was boiling a sheep killed by dogs shortly before. This they emptied, and refilled with beef from a barrel in the cellar. A baking of bread just made was also confiscated, and cut up by a tall thin man, named Eckhardt, from Markham. While these preparations were going on, other men were busy in the tool house mending their arms, which consisted of all sorts of weapons, from chisels and gouges fixed on poles, to hatchets, knives and guns of all descriptions. About two o'clock there was a regular stampede, and the family were left quite alone, much to their relief; with the exception of a young Highland Scotchman mounting guard. He must have been a recent arrival from the old country, as he wore the blue jacket and trowsers of the sea-faring men of the western isles. Mrs. Howard seeing all the rest had left, went out to speak to him, saying she regretted to see so fine a young Scotchman turning rebel against his Queen. His answer was, "Country first, Queen next." He told her that it was the flag of truce which had called his comrades away. About half-past three they all returned, headed by the commander-in-chief, who demanded of Mrs. Howard whether the dinner he had ordered was ready? She said it was just as they had left it. Irritated at her coolness he got very angry, shook his horse-whip, pulled her from her chair to the window, bidding her look out and be thankful that her own house was not in the same state. He pointed to Dr. Horne's house at Blue Hill, on the east side of the road, which during his absence he had set on fire, much to the disappointment of his men, whom, though very hungry, he would not allow to touch anything, but burnt all up. There was considerable grumbling among the men about it. Poor Lount, who was with them, told Mrs. Howard not to mind Mackenzie, but to give them all they wanted, and they would not harm her. They got through their dinner about dusk, and returned to the lawn, where they had some barrels of whiskey. They kept up a regular--or rather an irregular firing all night. The family were much alarmed, having only one servant woman with them; the man Bolton had escaped for fear as he said of being taken prisoner by the rebels. There the men remained until Wednesday, when they returned to Montgomery's tavern, a mile or two up the street, where is now the village of Eglinton. About eleven o'clock in the morning, the loyalist force marched out to attack the rebels, who were posted at the Paul Pry Inn, on the east side of the road, with their main body at Montgomery's, some distance further north. It was a very fine sunny day, and the loyalists made a formidable appearance, as the sun shone on their bright musket-barrels and bayonets. The first shot fired was from the artillery, under the command of Captain Craig; it went through the Paul Pry under the eaves and out of the roof. The rebels took to the woods on each side of the road, which at that time were much nearer than at present. Thomas Bell, who had charge of a company of volunteers, said that on the morning of the battle, a stranger asked leave to accompany him. The man wore a long beard, and was rumoured to have been one of Napoleon's officers. Mr. Bell saw him take aim at one of the retreating rebels, who was crouching behind a stump, firing at the loyalists. Nothing could be seen but the top of his head. The stranger fired with fatal effect. The dead man turned out to be a farmer of the name of Widman, from Whitchurch. Montgomery's tavern, a large building on the hill-side of the road, was next attacked, and was quickly evacuated by the flying rebels, who got into the woods to the west and dispersed. It was then that Mackenzie made his escape. The tavern having been the rebel head-quarters, and the place from which Col. Moodie was shot, was set on fire and burned down. The house of Gibson, another rebel rendezvous, about eight miles north, was also burnt. With that small effort the rebellion in Upper Canada was crushed. A few days after, some fifty or sixty rebel prisoners from about Sharon and Lloydtown, were marched down to the city, roped together, two and two in a long string; and shortly afterwards a volunteer corps--commanded by Colonels Hill and Dewson, raised amongst the log-cabin settlers, in the County of Simcoe, came down in sleighs to the city, where they did duty all winter. It was an extraordinary fact, that these poor settlers, living in contentment in their log-cabins, with their potato patches around, should turn out and put down a rebellion, originated among old settlers and wealthy farmers in the prosperous County of York. Mackenzie early lost the sympathies of a great proportion of his followers. One of them, named Jacob Kurtz, swore most lustily, the same winter, that if he could catch his old leader he would shoot him. While retreating eastward, a party of the rebels attempted to burn the Don Bridge, and would have succeeded, but for the determined efforts of a Mrs. Ross, who put out the fire, at the expense of a bullet in her knee; the ball was extracted by the late Dr. Widmer, who was very popular about Yorkville and the east end of the city." CHAPTER XXV. THE VICTOR AND THE VANQUISHED. It is now forty-five years since the last act of the rebellion was consummated, by the defeat of Duncombe's party in the London district, the punishment of Sutherland's brigands at Windsor, and the destruction of the steamer _Caroline_ and dispersal of the discreditable ruffians, of whom their "president," Mackenzie, was heartily sick, at Navy Island. None of these events came within my own observation, and I pass them by without special remark. But respecting Sir Francis Bond Head and his antagonist, I feel that more should be said, in justice to both. It is eminently unfair to censure Sir Francis for not doing that which he was not commissioned to do. Even so thorough a Reformer and so just a man as Earl Russell, had failed to see the advisability of extending "responsible government" to any of Her Majesty's Colonies. Up to the time of Lord Durham's report in 1839, no such proposal had been even mooted; and it appears to have been the general opinion of British statesmen, at the date of Sir Francis Head's appointment, that to give a responsible ministry to Canada was equivalent to offering her independence. In taking it for granted that Canadians as a whole were unfit to have conferred on them the same rights of self-government as were possessed by Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotchmen in the old country, consisted the original error. This error, however, Sir Francis shared with the Colonial Office and both Houses of the Imperial Parliament. Since those days the mistake has been admitted, and not Canada alone, but the Australian colonies and South Africa have profited by our advancement in self-government. As for Sir Francis's personal character, even Mackenzie's biographer allows that he was frank, kindly and generous in an unusual degree. That he won the entire esteem of so many men of whom all Canadians of whatever party are proud--such men as Chief Justice Robinson, Bishop Strachan, Chief Justices Macaulay, Draper and McLean, Sir Allan N. McNab, Messrs. Henry Ruttan, Mahlon Burwell, Jno. W. Gamble and many others, I hold to be indubitable proof of his high qualities and honest intentions. Nobody can doubt that had he been sent here to carry out responsible government, he would have done it zealously and honourably. But he was sent to oppose it, and, in opposing it, he simply did his duty. A gentleman[9] well qualified to judge, and who knew him personally, has favoured me with the following remarks apropos of the subject, which I have pleasure in laying before my readers: "As a boy, I had a sincere admiration for his [Sir Francis's] devoted loyalty, and genuine English character; and I have since learnt to respect and appreciate with greater discrimination his great services to the Crown and Empire. He was a little Quixotic perhaps. He had a marked individuality of his own. But he was as true as steel, and most staunch to British law and British principle in the trying days of his administration in Canada. His loyalty was chivalrous and magnetic; by his enlightened enthusiasm in a good cause he evoked a true spirit of loyalty in Upper Canada, that had well-nigh become extinct, being overlaid with the spirit of ultra-radicalism that had for years previously got uppermost among our people. But Upper Canada loyalty had a deep and solid foundation in the patriotism of the U. E. Loyalists, a noble race who had proved by deeds, not words, their attachment to the Crown and government of the mother land. These U. E. Loyalists were the true founders of Upper Canada; and they were forefathers of whom we may be justly proud--themselves 'honouring the father and the mother'--their sovereign and the institutions under which they were born--they did literally obtain the promised reward of that 'first commandment with promise,' viz.: length of days and honour." * * * * * William Lyon Mackenzie was principally remarkable for his indomitable perseverance and unhesitating self-reliance. Of toleration for other men's opinions, he seems to have had none. He did, or strove to do, whatsoever he himself thought right, and those who differed with him he denounced in the most unmeasured terms. For example, writing of the Imperial Government in 1837, he says: "Small cause have Highlanders and the descendants of Highlanders to feel a friendship for the Guelphic family. If the Stuarts had their faults, they never enforced loyalty in the glens and valleys of the north by banishing and extirpating the people; it was reserved for the Brunswickers to give, as a sequel to the massacre of Glencoe, the cruel order for depopulation. I am proud of my descent from a rebel race; who held borrowed chieftains, a scrip nobility, rag money and national debt in abomination. . . . Words cannot express my contempt at witnessing the servile, crouching attitude of the country of my choice. If the people felt as I feel, there is never a Grant or Glenelg who crossed the Tay and Tweed to exchange high-born Highland poverty for substantial Lowland wealth, who would dare to insult Upper Canada with the official presence, as its ruler, of such an equivocal character as this Mr. what do they call him--Francis Bond Head." Had Mackenzie confined himself to this kind of vituperation, all might have gone well for him, and for his followers. People would only have laughed at his vehemence. The advocacy of the principle of responsible government in Canada would have been and was taken up by Orangemen, U. E. Loyalists, and other known Tories. Ever since the day when the manufacture of even a hob-nail in the American colonies was declared by English statesmen to be intolerable, the struggle has gone on for colonial equality as against imperial centralization. The final adoption of the theory of ministerial responsibility by all political parties in Canada, is Mackenzie's best justification. But he sold himself in his disappointment to the republican tempter, and justly paid the penalty. That he felt this himself long before he died, will be incontestably shown by his own words, which I copy from Mr. Lindsey's "Life of Mackenzie," vol. ii., page 290: "After what I have seen here, I frankly confess to you that, had I passed nine years in the United States before, instead of after, the outbreak, I am very sure I would have been the last man in America to be engaged in it." And, again, page 291: "A course of careful observations during the last eleven years has fully satisfied me that, had the violent movements in which I and many others were engaged on both sides of the Niagara proved successful, that success would have deeply injured the people of Canada, whom I then believed I was serving at great risks; that it would have deprived millions, perhaps, of our own countrymen in Europe of a home upon this continent, except upon conditions which, though many hundreds of thousands of immigrants have been constrained to accept them, are of an exceedingly onerous and degrading character. . . . There is not a living man on this continent who more sincerely desires that British Government in Canada may long continue, and give a home and a welcome to the old countryman, than myself." Of Mackenzie's imprisonment and career in the United States, nothing need be said here. I saw him once more in the Canadian Parliament after his return from exile, in the year 1858. He was then remarkable for his good humour, and for his personal independence of party. His chosen associates were, as it seemed to me, chiefly on the Opposition or Conservative side of the House. Before closing this chapter, I cannot help referring to the unfortunate men who suffered in various ways. They were farmers of the best class, and of the most simple habits. The poor fellows who lay wounded by the road side on Yonge Street, were not persons astute enough to discuss political theories, but feeble creatures who could only shed bitter tears over their bodily sufferings, and look helplessly for assistance from their conquerors. There were among them boys of twelve or fifteen years old, one of whom had been commissioned by his ignorant old mother at St. Catharines, to be sure and bring her home a check-apron full of tea from one of the Toronto groceries. I thought at the time, and I think still, that the Government ought to have interfered before matters came to a head, and so saved all these hapless people from the cruel consequences of their leaders' folly. On the other hand, it is asserted that neither Sir Francis nor his Council could be brought to credit the probability of an armed rising. A friend has told me that his father, who was then a member of the Executive Council, attended a meeting as late as nine o'clock on the 4th December, 1837. That he returned home and retired to rest at eleven. In half an hour a messenger from Government House came knocking violently at the door, with the news of the rising; when he jumped out of bed exclaiming, "I hope Robinson will believe me next time." The Chief Justice had received with entire incredulity the information laid before the Council, of the threatened movement that week. [Footnote 9: The late lamented Dr. Alpheus Todd, librarian of the Dominion Parliament.] CHAPTER XXVI. RESULTS IN THE FUTURE. Whatever may be thought of Sir Francis B. Head's policy--whether we prefer to call it mere foolhardiness or chivalric zeal--there can be no doubt that he served as an effective instrument in the hands of Providence for the building up of a "Greater Britain" on the American continent. The success of the outbreak of 1837 could only have ended in Canada's absorption by the United States, which must surely have proved a lamentable finale to the grand heroic act of the loyalists of the old colonies, who came here to preserve what they held to be their duty alike to their God and their earthly sovereign. It is certain, I think, that religious principle is the true basis, and the one only safeguard of Canadian existence. It was the influence of the Anglican, and especially of the Methodist pastors, of 1770, that led their flocks into the wilderness to find here a congenial home. In Lower Canada, in 1837, it was in like manner the influence of the clergy, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, that defeated Papineau and his Republican followers. And it is the religious and moral sentiment of Canada, in all her seven Provinces, that now constitutes the true bond of union between us and the parent Empire. Only a few years since, the statesmen of the old country felt no shame in preferring United States amity to Colonial connection. To-day a British premier openly and even ostentatiously repudiates any such policy as suicidal. That Canada possesses, in every sense of the word, a healthier atmosphere than its Southern neighbour, and that it owes its continued moral salubrity to the defeat of Mackenzie's allies in 1837-8, I for one confidently hold--with Mackenzie himself. That this superiority is due to the greater and more habitual respect paid to all authority--Divine and secular--I devoutly believe. That our present and future welfare hangs, as by a thread, upon that one inherent, all-important characteristic, that we are a religious community, seems to me plain to all who care to read correctly the signs of the times. The historian of the future will find in these considerations his best clue to our existing status in relation to our cousins to the south of us. He will discover on the one side of the line, peaceful industry, home affections, unaffected charity, harmless recreations, a general desire for education, and a sincere reverence for law and authority. On the other, he may observe a heterogeneous commixture of many races, and notably of their worst elements; he will see the marriage-tie degraded into a mockery, the Sabbath-day a scoffing, the house of God a rostrum or a concert-hall, the law a screen for crime, the judicial bench a purchasable commodity, the patrimony of the State an asylum for Mormonism. I am fully sensible that the United States possesses estimable citizens in great numbers, who feel, and lament more than anybody else, the flagrant abuses of her free institutions. But do they exercise any controlling voice in elections? Do they even hope to influence the popular vote? They tell us themselves that they are powerless. And so--we have only to wish them a fairer prospect; and to pray that Canada may escape the inevitable Nemesis that attends upon great national faults such as theirs. CHAPTER XXVII. A CONFIRMED TORY. My good friend and host, Henry Cook Todd, was one of the most uncompromising Tories I ever met with. He might have sat for the portrait of Mr. Grimwig in "Oliver Twist." Like that celebrated old gentleman, "his bark was aye waur than his bite." He would pour out a torrent of scorn and sarcasm upon some luckless object of his indignation, public or private; and, having exhausted the full vials of his wrath, would end with some kind act toward, perhaps, the very person he had been anathematizing, and subside into an amiable mood of compassion for the weaknesses of erring mankind generally. He was a graduate of the University of Oxford, and afterwards had charge of a large private school in one of the English counties. Having inherited and acquired a moderate competency, he retired into private life; but later on he lost by the failure of companies wherein his savings had been invested. He then commenced business as a bookseller, did not succeed, and finally decided, at the persuasion of his wife's brother, Mr. William P. Patrick, of Toronto, to emigrate to Canada. Having first satisfied himself of the prudence of the step, by a tour in the United States and Canada, he sent for his family, who arrived here in 1833. His two sons, Alfred and Alpheus, got the full benefit of their father's classical attainments, and were kept closely to their studies. At an early age, their uncle Patrick took charge of their interests, and placed them about him in the Legislative Assembly, where I recollect to have seen one or both of them, in the capacity of pages, on the floor of the House. From that lowly position, step by step, they worked their way, as we have seen, to the very summit of their respective departments. Mr. Todd was also an accomplished amateur artist, and drew exquisitely. An etching of the interior of Winchester Cathedral, by him, I have never seen surpassed. He was fond of retirement and of antiquarian reading, and, while engaged in some learned philological investigation, would shut himself up in his peculiar sanctum and remain invisible for days, even to his own family. Between the years 1833 and 1840, Mr. Todd published a book, entitled "Notes on Canada and the United States," and I cannot better illustrate his peculiar habits of thought, and mode of expressing them, than by quoting two or three brief passages from that work, and from "Addenda" which I printed for him myself, in 1840: "As an acidulated mixture with the purest element will embitter its sweetness, so vice and impurity imported to any country must corrupt and debase it. To this hour, when plunderers no longer feel secure in the scenes of their misdeeds, or culprits would evade the strong arm of the law, to what country do they escape? America--for here, if not positively welcomed (?), they are, at least, safe. If it be asked, did not ancient Rome do the same thing? I answer, slightly so, whilst yet an infant, but never in any shape afterwards; but America, by still receiving, and with open arms, the vicious and the vile from all corners of the earth, does so in her full growth. As she therefore plants, so must she also reap. * * * "The Episcopal clergy in this country [United States] were originally supported by an annual contribution of tobacco, each male, so tithable, paying 40lbs.; the regular clergy of the then thinly-settled state of Virginia receiving 16,000 lbs. yearly as salary. In Canada they are maintained by an assignment of lands from the Crown, which moreover extends its assistance to ministers of other denominations; so that the people are not called upon to contribute for that or any similar purpose; and yet, such is the deplorable abandonment to error, and obstinate perversion of fact, amongst the low or radical party here--a small one, it is true, but not on that account less censurable--that this very thing which should ensure their gratitude is a never-ending theme for their vituperation and abuse; proving to demonstration, that no government on earth, or any concession whatever, can long satisfy or please them. * * * "The mention of periodicals reminds me, that newspapers on the arrival of a stranger are about the first things he takes up; but on perusing them, he must exercise his utmost judgment and penetration; for of all the fabrications, clothed too in the coarsest language, that ever came under my observation, many papers here, for low scurrility, and vilifying the authorities, certainly surpass any I ever met with. It is to be regretted that men without principle and others void of character should be permitted thus to abuse the public ear. * * The misguided individuals in the late disturbance, on being questioned upon the subject, unreservedly admitted, that until reading Mackenzie's flagitious and slanderous newspaper, they were happy, contented, and loyal subjects." When the seat of Government was removed to Kingston, Mr. Todd's family accompanied it thither; but he remained in Toronto, to look after his property, which was considerable, and died here at the age of 77. CHAPTER XXVIII. NEWSPAPER EXPERIENCES. Early in the year 1838, I obtained an engagement as manager of the _Palladium_, a newspaper issued by Charles Fothergill, on the plan of the New York _Albion_. The printing office, situated on the corner of York and Boulton Streets, was very small, and I found it a mass of little better than _pi_, with an old hand-press of the Columbian pattern. To bring this office into something like presentable order, to train a rough lot of lads to their business, and to supply an occasional original article, occupied me during great part of that year. Mr. Fothergill was a man of talent, a scholar, and a gentleman; but so entirely given up to the study of natural history and the practice of taxidermy, that his newspaper received but scant attention, and his personal appearance and the cleanliness of his surroundings still less. He had been King's Printer under the Family Compact régime, and was dismissed for some imprudent criticism upon the policy of the Government. His family sometimes suffered from the want of common necessaries, while the money which should have fed them went to pay for some rare bird or strange fish. This could not last long. The _Palladium_ died a natural death, and I had to seek elsewhere for employment. Amongst the visitors at Mr. Todd's house was John F. Rogers, an Englishman, who, in conjunction with George H. Hackstaff, published the Toronto _Herald_, a weekly journal of very humble pretensions. Mr. Hackstaff was from the United States, and found himself regarded with great distrust, in consequence of the Navy Island and Prescott invasions. He therefore offered to sell me his interest in the newspaper and printing office for a few dollars. I accepted the offer, and thus became a member of the Fourth Estate, with all the dignities, immunities, and profits attaching thereto. From that time until the year 1860, I continued in the same profession, publishing successively the _Herald_, _Patriot_, _News of the Week_, _Atlas_ and _Daily Colonist_ newspapers, and lastly the Quebec _Advertiser_. I mention them all now, to save wearisome details hereafter. I have a very lively recollection of the first job which I printed in my new office. It was on the Sunday on which St. James's Cathedral was burnt owing to some negligence about the stoves. Our office was two doors north of the burnt edifice, on Church Street, where the Public Library now stands; and I was hurriedly required to print a small placard, announcing that divine service would be held that afternoon at the City Hall, where I had then recently drilled as a volunteer in the City Guard. The _Herald_ was the organ, and Mr. Rogers an active member, of the Orange body in Toronto. I had no previous knowledge of the peculiar features of Orangeism, and it took me some months to acquire an insight into the ways of thinking and acting of the order. I busied myself chiefly in the practical work of the office, such as type-setting and press-work, and took no part in editorials, except to write an occasional paragraph or musical notice. The first book I undertook to print, and the first law book published in Canada, was my young friend Alpheus Todd's "Parliamentary Law," a volume of 400 pages, which was a creditable achievement for an office which could boast but two or three hundred dollars worth of type in all. With this book is connected an anecdote which I cannot refrain from relating: I had removed my office to a small frame building on Church Street, next door south of C. Clinkinbroomer, the watchmaker's, at the south-west corner of King and Church Streets. One day, a strange-looking youth of fourteen or fifteen entered the office. He had in his hand a roll of manuscript, soiled and dog's-eared, which he asked me to look at. I did so, expecting to find verses intended for publication. It consisted indeed of a number of poems, extending to thirty or forty pages or more, defective in grammar and spelling, and in some parts not very legible. Feeling interested in the lad, I enquired where he came from, what he could do, and what he wanted. It appeared that his father held some subordinate position in the English House of Commons; that, being put to a trade that he disliked, the boy ran away to Canada, where he verbally apprenticed himself to a shoemaker in Toronto, whom he quitted because his master wanted him to mend shoes, while he wished to spend his time in writing poetry; and that for the last year or so he had been working on a farm. He begged me to give him a trial as an apprentice to the printing business. I had known a fellow-apprentice of my own, who was first taken in as an office-boy, subsequently acquired a little education, became a printer's-devil, and when last I heard of him, was King's printer in Australia. Well, I told the lad, whose name was Archie, that I would try him. I was just then perplexed with the problem of making and using composition rollers in the cold winter of Canada, and in an old frame office, where it was almost impossible to keep anything from freezing. So I resolved to use a composition ball, such as may be seen in the pictures of early German printing offices, printing four duodecimo pages of book-work at one impression, and perfecting the sheet--or printing the obverse, as medallists would say--with other four pages. Archie was tall and strong--I gave him a regular drilling in the use of the ball, and after some days' practice, found I could trust him as beater at the press. Robinson Crusoe's man Friday was not a more willing, faithful, conscientious slave than was my Archie. Never absent, never grumbling, never idle; if there was no work ready for him, there was always plenty of mischief at hand. He was very fond of a tough argument; plodded on with his press-work; learnt to set type pretty well, before it was suspected that he even knew the letter boxes; studied hard at grammar and the dictionary; acquired knowledge with facility, and retained it tenaciously. He remained with me many years, and ultimately became my foreman. After the destruction of the establishment by fire in 1849, he was engaged as foreman of the University printing office of Mr. Henry Rowsell, and left there after a long term to enter the Toronto School of Medicine, then presided over by Dr. Rolph, on Richmond Street, just west of where Knox's Church now stands. After obtaining his license to practise the profession of medicine, he studied Spanish, and then went to Mexico, to practise among the semi-savages of that politically and naturally volcanic republic. There he made a little money. The country was at the time in a state of general civil war; not only was there national strife between two political parties for the ascendency, but in many of the separate states _pronunciamentos_ (proclamations) were issued against the men in power, followed by bloody contests between the different factions. In the "united state" of Coahuila and Nuevo-Leon, in which the doctor then resided, General Vidauri held the reins of power at Monterey, the capital; and General Aramberri flew to arms to wrest the government from him. The opposing armies were no other than bands of robbers and murderers. Aramberri's forces had passed near the town of Salinas, where the doctor lived, plundering everybody on their route. Next day Vidauri's troops came in pursuit, appropriating everything of value which had not been already confiscated. General Julio Quiroga, one of the most inhuman and cruel monsters of the republic--a native of the town, near which he had but recently been a cowherd (gauadéro)--commanded the pursuing force. On the evening previous to his entry, a _peon_ (really a slave, though slavery was said to have been abolished in the republic) had been severely injured in a quarrel with another of his class, and the doctor was sent for by the Alcalde to dress his wounds. As the man was said to belong to a rich proprietor, the doctor objected unless his fee were assured. An old, rough, and dirty-looking man thereupon stepped forward and said he would be answerable for the pay, stating at the same time that his name was Quiroga, and that he was the father of Don Julio! When General Quiroga heard his father's account of the affair, he had the wounded man placed in the stocks in the open plaza under a broiling sun; fined the Alcalde $500 for not having done so himself, as well as for not having imprisoned the Doctor; had the Doctor arrested by an armed guard under a lieutenant, and in the presence of a dozen or more officers ordered him to be shot within twenty minutes for having insulted his (Quiroga's) father. The execution, however, as may be inferred, did not take place. The explanation the Doctor gives of his escape is a curious one. He cursed and swore at the General so bitterly and rapidly in English (not being at the time well versed in Spanish expletives) that Don Julio was frightened by his grimaces, and the horrible unknown words that issued from his lips, and fell off his chair in an epileptic fit, to which he was subject. The Doctor had the clothing about the General's throat and chest thrown open, and dashed some cold water in his face. On reviving, Quiroga told the Doctor to return to his house; that he need be under no fear; said he supposed the difficulty was caused by his (the Doctor's) not understanding the Spanish language; and added, that he intended to consult our friend some day about those _atagues_ (fits). Quiroga never returned to Salinas during the Doctor's stay there, and some years after these events, like most Mexican generals, was publicly executed, thus meeting the fate he had so cruelly dealt out to many better men than himself, and to which he had sentenced our fellow-citizen. The Doctor remained in Mexico till the French invasion in 1863, when, partly on account of the illness of his wife, and partly because of the disturbed state of the country, he returned to Toronto. He practised his profession here and became a well-known public character, still, he said, cherishing a warm love for the sunny south, styling the land of the Montezumas "_Mi Mejico amado_"--my beloved Mexico--and corresponding with his friends there, who but very recently offered him some inducements to return. That truant boy was afterwards known as Dr. Archibald A. Riddel, ex-alderman, and for many years coroner for the City of Toronto, which latter office he resigned so lately as the 30th of June, 1883. He died in December last, and was buried in the Necropolis, whither his remains were followed by a large concourse of sympathizing friends. CHAPTER XXIX. The burning of St. James's Cathedral in 1839, marks another phase of my Toronto life, which is associated with many pleasant and some sorrowful memories. The services of the Church of England were, for some months after that event, conducted in the old City Hall. The choir was an amateur one, led by Mr. J. D. Humphreys, whose reputation as an accomplished musician must be familiar to many of my readers. Of that choir I became a member, and continued one until my removal to Carlton in 1853. During those fourteen years I was concerned in almost every musical movement in Toronto, wrote musical notices, and even composed some music to my own poetry. An amateur glee club, of which Mr. E. L. Cull, until lately of the Canada Company's office, and myself are probably the only survivors, used occasionally to meet and amuse ourselves with singing glees and quartettes on Christmas and New Year's Eve, opposite the houses of our several friends. It was then the custom to invite our party indoors, to be sumptuously entertained with the good things provided for the purpose. Thus the time passed away after the rebellion, and during the period of Sir George Arthur's stay in Canada, without the occurrence of any public event in which I was personally concerned. Lord Durham came; made his celebrated Report: and went home again. Then followed Lord Sydenham, to whom I propose to pay some attention, as with him commenced my first experience of Canadian party politics. Mackenzie's rebellion had convinced me of the necessity of taking and holding firm ground in defence of monarchical institutions, as opposed to republicanism. It is well known that nearly all Old Country Whigs, when transplanted to Canada, become staunch Tories. So most moderate Reformers from the British Isles are classed here as Liberal Conservatives. Even English Chartists are transformed into Canadian Anti-Republicans. I had been neither Chartist nor ultra-Radical, but simply a quiet Reformer, disposed to venerate, but not blindly to idolize, old institutions, and by no means to pull down an ancient fabric without knowing what kind of structure was to be erected in its place. Thus it followed, as a matter of course, that I should gravitate towards the Conservative side of Canadian party politics, in which I found so many of the solid, respectable, well-to-do citizens of Toronto had ranged themselves. CHAPTER XXX. LORD SYDENHAM'S MISSION. I have frequently remarked that, although in England any person may pass a life-time without becoming acquainted with his next-door neighbour, he can hardly fall into conversation with a fellow-countryman in Canada, without finding some latent link of relationship or propinquity between them. Thus, in the case of Mr. C. Poulett Thomson, I trace more than one circumstance connecting that great man with my humble self. He was a member--the active member--of the firm of Thomson, Bonar & Co., Russia Merchants, Cannon Street, London, at the same time that my brother-in-law, William Tatchell, of the firm of Tatchell & Clarke, carried on the same business of Russia Merchants in Upper Thames Street. There were occasional transactions between them: and my brother Thomas, who was chief accountant in the Thames Street house, has told me that the firm of Thomson, Bonar & Co. was looked upon in the trade with a good deal of distrust, for certain sharp practices to which they were addicted. Again, Sir John Rae Reid, of the East India Company, had been the Tory member of Parliament for Dover. On his retirement, Mr. Poulett Thomson started as Reform candidate for the same city. I knew the former slightly as a neighbour of my mother's, at Ewell, in Surrey, and felt some interest in the Dover election in consequence. It was in the old borough-mongering times, and the newspapers on both sides rang with accounts of the immense sums that were expended in this little Dover contest, in which Mr. Thomson, aided by his party, literally bought every inch of his way, and succeeded in obtaining his first seat in the House of Commons, at a cost, as his biographer states, of £3,000 sterling. In the matter of corruption, there was probably little difference between the rival candidates. The Right Hon. Charles Poulett Thomson, it was understood in England, always had the dirty work of the Melbourne Ministry to do; and it was probably his usefulness in that capacity that recommended him for the task of uniting the two Canadas, in accordance with that report of Lord Durham, which his lordship himself disavowed.[10] That Mr. Thomson did his work well, cannot be denied. He was, in fact, the Castlereagh of Canadian Union. What were the exact means employed by him in Montreal and Toronto is not known, but the results were visible enough. Government officials coerced, sometimes through the agency of their wives, sometimes by direct threats of dismissal; the Legislature overawed by the presence and interference of His Excellency's secretaries and aides-de-camp; votes sought and obtained by appeals to the personal interests of members of Parliament. These and such-like were the dignified processes by which the Union of the Canadas was effected, in spite of the unwillingness of at least one of the parties to that ceremony. His Excellency did not even condescend to veil his contempt for his tools. When a newly nominated Cabinet Minister waited upon the great man with humility, to thank him for an honour for which he felt his education did not qualify him, the reported answer was--"Oh, I think you are all pretty much alike here." In Toronto, anything like opposition to His Excellency's policy was sought to be silenced by the threat of depriving the city of its tenure of the Seat of Government. The offices of the principal city journals, the _Patriot_ and _Courier_, were besieged by anxious subscribers, entreating that nothing should appear at all distasteful to His Excellency. Therefore it happened, that our little sheet, the _Herald_, became the only mouth-piece of Toronto dissentients; and was well supplied with satires and criticisms upon the politic manoeuvres of Government House. We used to issue on New Year's Day a sheet of doggerel verses, styled, "The News Boy's Address to his Patrons," which gave me an opportunity, of which I did not fail to avail myself, of telling His Excellency some wholesome truths in not very complimentary phrase. It is but justice to him to say, that he enjoyed the fun, such as it was, as much as anybody, and sent a servant in livery to our office, for extra copies to be placed on his drawing-room tables for the amusement of New Year's callers, to whom he read them himself. I am sorry that I cannot now treat my readers to extracts from those sheets, which may some centuries hence be unearthed by future Canadian antiquaries, as rare and priceless historical documents. Whether the course he pursued be thought creditable or the reverse, there is no doubt that Lord Sydenham did Canada immense service by the measures enacted under his dictation. The Union of the Provinces, Municipal Councils, Educational Institutions, sound financial arrangements, and other minor matters, are benefits which cannot be ignored. But all these questions were carried in a high-handed, arbitrary manner, and some of them by downright compulsion. To connect in any way with his name the credit of bestowing upon the united provinces "Responsible Government" upon the British model, is a gross absurdity. In the Memoirs of his lordship, by his brother, Mr. G. Poulett Scrope, page 236, I find the following plain statements: "On the subject of 'Responsible Government,' which question was again dragged into discussion by Mr. Baldwin, with a view of putting the sincerity of the Government to the test, he (Lord S.) introduced and carried unanimously a series of resolutions in opposition to those proposed by Mr. Baldwin, distinctly recognising the irresponsibility of the Governor to any but the Imperial authorities, and placing the doctrine on the sound and rational basis which he had ever maintained." What that "sound and rational basis" was, is conclusively shown in an extract from one of his own private letters, given on page 143 of the same work: "I am not a bit afraid of the Responsible Government cry. I have already done much to put it down in its inadmissible sense, namely, that the Council shall be responsible to the Assembly, and that the Government shall take their advice, and be bound by it. In fact, this demand has been made much more _for_ the people than _by_ them. And I have not met with any one who has not at once admitted the absurdity of claiming to put the Council over the head of the Governor. It is but fair too, to say that everything has in times past been done by the different Governors to excite the feelings of the people on this question. First, the Executive Council has generally been composed of the persons most obnoxious to the majority of the Assembly; and next, the Governor has taken extreme care to make every act of his own go forth to the public _on the responsibility_ of the Executive Council. So the people have been carefully taught to believe that the Governor is nobody, and the Executive Council the real power, and that by the Governor himself. At the same time they have seen that power placed in the hands of their opponents. Under such a system it is not to be wondered at, if one argument founded on the responsibility of the Governor to the Home Government falls to the ground. I have told the people plainly that, as I cannot get rid of my responsibility to the Home Government, I will place no responsibility on the Council; that they are _a Council_ for the Governor to consult, but no more. And I have yet met with no 'Responsible Government' man, who was not satisfied with the doctrine. In fact, there is no other theory which has common sense. Either the Governor is the Sovereign or the Minister. If the first, he may have ministers, but he cannot be responsible to the Government at home, and all colonial government becomes impossible. He must, therefore, be the Minister, in which case he cannot be under the control of men in the colony." It is only just that the truth should be clearly established on this question. Responsible Government was not an issue between Canadian Reformers and Tories in any sense; but exclusively between the Colonies and the statesmen of the Mother Country. On several occasions prior to Mackenzie's Rebellion, Tory majorities had affirmed the principle; and Ogle R. Gowan, an influential Orangeman, had published a pamphlet in its favour. Yet some recent historians of Canada have fallen into the foolish habit of claiming for the Reform party all the good legislation of the past forty years, until they seem really to believe the figment themselves.[11] I am surprised that writers who condemn Sir F. B. Head for acting as his own Prime Minister, in strict accordance with his instructions, can see nothing to find fault with in Lord Sydenham's doing the very same thing in an infinitely more arbitrary and offensive manner. Where Sir Francis persuaded, Lord Sydenham coerced, bribed and derided. Lower Canada was never consulted as to her own destiny. Because a fraction of her people chose to strike for independence, peaceable French Canadians were treated bodily as a conquered race, with the undisguised object of swamping their nationality and language, and over-riding their feelings and wishes. It is said that the result has justified the means. But what casuistry is this? What sort of friend to Responsible Government must he be, who employs force to back his argument? To inculcate the voluntary principle at the point of the bayonet, is a peculiarly Hibernian process, to say the least. [Footnote 10: On reference to Sir F. B. Head's "Emigrant," pp. 376-8, the reader will find the following letters:-- "1. _From the Hon. Sir. A. N. MacNab._ "Legislative Assembly, "Montreal, 28th March, 1846. "My dear Sir Francis, "I have no hesitation in putting on paper the conversation which took place between Lord Durham and myself, on the subject of the Union. He asked me if I was in favour of the Union; I said, 'No;' he replied, 'If you are a friend to your country, _oppose it to the death._' "I am, &c., "(Signed) Allan N. MacNab. "Sir F. B. Head, Bart." "2. _From W. E. Jervis, Esq._ "Toronto, March 12th, 1846. "Dear Sir Allan, "In answer to the inquiry contained in your letter of the 2nd inst., I beg leave to state, that, in the year 1838, I was in Quebec, and had a long conversation with the Earl of Durham upon the subject of an Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada--a measure which I had understood his Lordship intended to propose. "I was much gratified by his Lordship then, in the most unqualified terms, declaring his strong disapprobation of such a measure, as tending, in his opinion, to the injury of this Province; and he advised me, as a friend to Upper Canada, _to use all the influence I might possess in opposition to it_. "His Lordship declared that, in his opinion, no statesman could propose so injurious a project, and authorized me to assure my friends in Upper Canada, _that he was decidedly averse to the measure_. "I have a perfect recollection of having had a similar enquiry made of me, by the private secretary of Sir George Arthur, and that I made a written reply to the communication. I have no copy of the letter which I sent upon that occasion, but the substance must have been similar to that I now send you. "I remain, &c., "(Signed) W. E. Jervis. "Sir Allan MacNab." "3. _From the Hon. Justice Hagerman._ "13 St. James's Street, "London, 12th July, 1846. "My dear Sir Francis, "It is well known to many persons that the late Lord Durham, up to the time of his departure from Canada, expressed himself strongly opposed to the Union of the then two Provinces. I accompanied Sir George Arthur on a visit to Lord Durham, late in the autumn, and a very few days only before he threw up his Government and embarked for this country. In a conversation I had with him, he spoke of the Union as _the selfish scheme of a few merchants of Montreal--that no statesman would advise the measure--and that it was absurd to suppose that Upper and Lower Canada could ever exist in harmony as one Province_. "In returning to Toronto with Sir George Arthur, he told me that Lord Durham had expressed to him similar opinions, and had at considerable length detailed to him reasons and arguments which existed against a measure which he considered would be destructive of the legitimate authority of the British Government, and in which opinion _Sir George declared he fully coincided._ "I am, Sir, "(Signed) C. A. Hagerman. "Sir F. B. Head, Bart." "4. _From the Earl of Durham._ "Quebec, Oct. 2nd, 1838. "Dear Sir, "I thank you kindly for your account of the meeting [in Montreal], which was the first I received. I fully expected the 'outbreak' about the Union of the two Provinces:--It is a pet Montreal project, beginning and ending in Montreal selfishness. "Yours, truly, "(Signed) Durham."] [Footnote 11: I am very glad to see that Mr. Dent, in his "Forty Years--Canada since the Union of 1841," recently published, has avoided the current fault of those writers who can recognise no historical truth not endorsed by the _Globe_. In vol. i, p. 357, he says: "There can be no doubt that the Reform party, as a whole, were unjust to Mr. Draper. They did not even give him credit for sincerity or good intentions. The historian of to-day, no matter what his political opinions may be, who contemplates Mr. Draper's career as an Executive Councillor, must doubtless arrive at the conclusion that he was wrong; that he was an obstructionist--a drag on the wheel of progress. But this fact was by no means so easy of recognition in 1844 as it is in 1881; and there is no good reason for impugning his motives, which, so far as can be ascertained, were honourable and patriotic. No impartial mind can review the acts and characters of the leading members of the Conservative party of those times, and come to the conclusion that they were all selfish and insincere. Nay, it is evident enough that they were at least as sincere and as zealous for the public good as were their opponents." I wish I could also compliment Mr. Dent upon doing like justice to Sir Francis B. Head.] CHAPTER XXXI. TORIES OF THE REBELLION TIMES. Having, I hope, sufficiently exposed the misrepresentations of party writers, who have persistently made it their business to calumniate the Loyalists of 1837-8, I now proceed to the pleasanter task of recording the good deeds of some of those Loyalists, with whom I was brought into personal contact. I begin with-- ALDERMAN GEORGE T. DENISON, SEN. No Toronto citizen of '37 can fail to recall the bluff, hale, strongly-built figure of George Taylor Denison, of Bellevue, the very embodiment of the English country squire of the times of Addison and Goldsmith. Resolute to enforce obedience, generous to the poor, just and fair as a magistrate, hospitable to strangers and friends, a sound and consistent Churchman, a brave soldier and a loyal subject, it seemed almost an anachronism to meet with him anywhere else than at his own birth-place of Dover Court, within sight of the Goodwin Sands, in the old-fashioned County of Essex, in England. He was the son of John Denison, of Hedon, Yorkshire, and was born in 1783. He came with his father to Canada in 1792, and to Toronto in 1796. Here he married the only daughter of Captain Richard Lippincott, a noted U. E. Loyalist, who had fought through the Civil War in the revolted Colonies now forming the United States. In the war of 1812, Mr. Denison served as Ensign in the York Volunteers, and was frequently employed on special service. He was the officer who, with sixty men, cut out the present line of the Dundas Road, from the Garrison Common to Lambton Mills, which was necessary to enable communication between York and the Mills to be carried on without interruption from the hostile fleet on the lake. During the attack on York, in the following year, he was commissioned to destroy our vessels in the Bay, to save them from falling into the enemy's hands. With some he succeeded, but on one frigate the captain refused to obey the order, and while the point was in dispute, the enemy settled the question by capturing the ship, in consequence of which Mr. Denison was held as a prisoner for several months, until exchanged. Of his services and escapes during the war many amusing stories are told. He was once sent with a very large sum in army bills--some $40,000--to pay the force then on the Niagara River. To avoid suspicion, the money was concealed in his saddle-bags, and he wore civilian's clothing. His destination was the village of St. David's. Within a mile or two of the place, he became aware of a cavalry soldier galloping furiously towards him, who, on coming up, asked if he was the officer with the money, and said he must ride back as fast as possible; the Yankees had driven the British out of St. David's, and parties of their cavalry were spreading over the country. Presently another dragoon came in sight, riding at speed and pursued by several of the enemy's horsemen. Ensign Denison turned at once, and after an exciting chase for many miles, succeeded in distancing his foes and escaping with his valuable charge. On another occasion, he had under his orders a number of boats employed in bringing army munitions from Kingston to York. Somewhere near Port Hope, while creeping alongshore to avoid the United States vessels cruising in the lake, he observed several of them bearing down in his direction. Immediately he ran his boats up a small stream, destroying a bridge across its mouth to open a passage, and hid them so effectually that the enemy's fleet passed by without suspecting their presence. About the year 1821, Captain Denison formed the design to purchase the farm west of the city, now known as the Rusholme property. The owner lived at Niagara. A friend who knew of his intention, told him one summer's morning, while he was looking at some goods in a store, that he would not get the land, as another man had left that morning for Niagara, in Oates's sloop, to gain the start of him. The day being unusually fine, Mr. Denison noticed that the sloop was still in sight, becalmed a mile or two off Gibraltar Point. Home he went, put up some money for the purchase, mounted his horse and set out for Niagara round the head of the lake, travelling all day and through the night, and arriving shortly after daybreak. There he saw the sloop in the river, endeavouring with the morning breeze to make the landing. To rouse up the intending vendor, to close the bargain, and get a receipt for the money, was soon accomplished; and when the gentleman who had hoped to forestall him came on the scene, he was wofully chopfallen to find himself distanced in the race. From the close of the war until the year 1837, Mr. Denison was occupied, like other men of his position, with his duties as a magistrate, the cultivation of his farm, and the rearing of his family. In 1822, he organized the cavalry corps now known as the Governor-General's Body-Guard. When the rebellion broke out, he took up arms again in defence of the Crown, and on the day of the march up Yonge Street, was entrusted with the command of the Old Fort. At about noon a body of men was seen approaching. Eagerly and anxiously the defenders waited, expecting every moment an onset, and determined to meet it like men. The suspense lasted some minutes, when suddenly the Major exclaimed, "Why surely that's my brother Tom!" And so it was. The party consisted of a number of good loyalists, headed by Thomas Denison, of Weston, hastening to the aid of the Government against Mackenzie and his adherents. Of course, the gates were soon thrown open, and, with hearty cheers on both sides, the new-comers entered the Fort. For six months Major Denison continued in active service with his cavalry, and in the summer of 1838, was promoted to command the battalion of West York Militia. His eldest son, the late Richard L. Denison, succeeded to the command of the cavalry corps, which was kept on service for six months in the winter of 1838-9. Mr. Denison was elected an alderman of Toronto in the year 1834, and served in the same capacity up to the end of 1843. That he was quite independent of the "Family Compact," or of any other official clique, is shown by the fact, that on Mackenzie's second expulsion from the House of Assembly in 1832, Alderman Denison voted for his re-election for the County of York. Our old friend died in 1853, leaving four sons, viz.: Richard L. Denison, of Dover Court, named above; the late George Taylor Denison, of Rusholme; Robert B. Denison, of Bellevue, now Deputy-Adjutant-General for this district; Charles L. Denison, of Brockton: and also one daughter, living. Among his grandchildren are Colonel George T. Denison, commanding the Governor-General's Body Guard, and Police Magistrate; Major F. C. Denison, of the same corps: and Lieutenant John Denison, R. N. The whole number of the Canadian descendants of John Denison, of Hedon, now living, is over one hundred. * * * * * Col. Richard Lippincott Denison, eldest son of the above, was born June 13th, 1814, at the old family estate near Weston, on the Humber River, and followed the occupation of farming all his life. During the troubles of 1837-8, he served his country as captain in command of a troop of the Queen's Light Dragoons. He took a prominent part in the organization of the Agricultural and Arts Association in 1844, and for twenty-two years was its treasurer. In 1855, he was a commissioner from Canada at the great exposition in Paris, France. He also held a prominent position in the different county and township agricultural societies for over forty-five years; was one of the first directors of the Canada Landed Credit Company, and served on its board for several years; was at one time President of the late Beaver Fire Insurance Company; and at the time of his death, President of the Society of York Pioneers. For many years he commanded the Militia in the West Riding of the City of Toronto; and was alderman for St. Stephen's Ward in the City Council, which he represented at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876. As a private citizen, Richard L. Denison was generally popular, notwithstanding his strongly-marked Toryism, and outspoken bluntness of speech. His portly presence, handsome features, flowing beard, and kindly smile were universally welcomed; and when he drove along in his sleigh on a bright winter's day, strangers stopped to look at him with admiration, and to ask who that fine-looking man was? Nor did his personal qualities belie his noble exterior. For many years his house at Dover Court was one continuous scene of open-handed hospitality. He was generous to a fault; a warm friend, and an ever reliable comrade. He died March 10th, 1878, at the age of sixty-four years, leaving his widow and eight sons and one daughter. Few deaths have left so wide a gap as his, in our social circles. * * * * * Colonel George T. Denison, of Rusholme, second son of Alderman George T. Denison, sen., was born 17th of July, 1816, at Bellevue, Toronto. He was educated at Upper Canada College, and became a barrister in 1840. He was a volunteer in Col. Fitzgibbon's rifle company, prior to the Rebellion of 1837, and attended every drill until it was disbanded. On the Rebellion breaking out, he served for a while as one of the guard protecting the Commercial Bank; and was in the force that marched out to Gallows Hill and dispersed Mackenzie's followers. A few days after, he went as lieutenant in a company of militia, forming part of the column commanded by Col. Sir A. MacNab, to the village of Scotland, in the County of Brant, and from thence to Navy Island, where he served throughout the whole siege. He was one of the three officers who carried the information to Sir Allan, which led to the cutting out and destruction of the steamer _Caroline_. In November, 1838, he was appointed lieutenant in his father's troop of cavalry, now the Governor-General's Body Guard; and then just placed under the command of his brother, the late Col. Richard L. Denison. He served for six months in active service that winter, and put in a course of drill for some weeks with the King's Dragoon Guards, at Niagara. He was alderman for St. Patrick's ward for some years. In 1849, when Lord Elgin, in Toronto, opened the session of Parliament, Col. G. T. Denison escorted His Excellency to and from the Parliament House. The following account of this affair is copied from the "Historical Record of the Governor-General's Body Guard," by Capt. F. C. Denison:-- "In Montreal, during the riots that followed the passage of the Rebellion Losses bill, the troops of cavalry that had been on regular service for over ten years, forgot their discipline, forgot their duty to their Queen's representative, forgot their _esprit de corps_, and sat on their horses and laughed while the mob were engaged in pelting Lord Elgin with eggs. This Toronto troop acted differently, and established a name then for obedience to orders, that should be looked back to with pride by every man who ever serves in its ranks. Unquestionably there was a great deal politically to tempt them from their duty, and to lead them to remain inactive if nothing worse. But their sense of duty to their Queen, through her representative, was so strong, that they turned out, taking the Governor-General safely to and from the Parliament Buildings, much against the will of a noisy, turbulent crowd. This was an excellent proof of what _esprit de corps_ will do, and of the good state the troop must have been in. His Excellency was so pleased with the loyalty, discipline and general conduct of the escort on this occasion, that he sent orders to the officer commanding, to dismount his men, and bring them into the drawing room. By His Excellency's request, Captain Denison presented each man individually to him, and he shook hands with them all, thanking them personally for their services. They were then invited to sit down to a handsome lunch with His Excellency's staff." In 1855, when the volunteer force was created, Col. Denison took a squadron of cavalry into the new force, and afterwards organized the Toronto Field Battery, and in 1860, the Queen's Own Rifles; and was appointed commandant of the 5th and 10th Military Districts, which position he held until his death. He was recommended, with Colonel Sewell and Colonel Dyde, for the order of St. Michael and St. George; but before the order was granted he had died, and Col. Dyde, C.M.G., alone of the three, lived to enjoy the honour. Col. Denison was the senior officer in Ontario at the time of his death, and may be said to have been the father of the volunteer force of this district. * * * * * ALDERMAN DIXON. Few persons engaged in business took a more prominent part in the early history of Toronto, and in the political events of the time, than the subject of this sketch. For several years he was engaged in trade in the City of Dublin, being the proprietor of the most extensive business of the kind, in saddlery and hardware, having the contracts for the supply of the cavalry in the Dublin garrison, and also the Viceregal establishment. At that time he took a very active part in the political warfare of the day, when Daniel O'Connell was in the zenith of his power. He and Mr. S. P. Bull--father of the late Senator Harcourt P. Bull--were active agents in organizing the "Brunswick Lodges," which played no inconsiderable part in the politics of that exciting period. The despondency that fell upon Irish Protestant loyalists when the Emancipation Bill became law, induced many to emigrate to America, and among them Mr. Dixon. Though actively employed in the management of his business both in Dublin and Toronto, yet he had found time to lay in a solid foundation of standard literature, and even of theological lore, which qualified him to take a position in intellectual society of a high order. He also possessed great readiness of speech, a genial, good-natured countenance and manner, and a fund of drollery and comic wit, which, added to a strong Irish accent he at times assumed, made him a special favourite in the City Council, as well as at public dinners, and on social festive occasions. I had the privilege of an intimate acquaintance with him from 1838 until his death, and can speak with confidence of his feelings and principles. Though so thoroughly Irish, his ancestors came originally from Lanarkshire in Scotland, in the reign of James I., and held a grant of land in the north of Ireland. He felt proud of one of his ancestors, who raised a troop of volunteer cavalry, lost an arm at the Battle of the Boyne, and was rewarded by a captain's commission given under King William's own hand a few days after. His own father served in the "Black Horse," a volunteer regiment of much note in the Irish rebellion. When Mr. Dixon came to York, his intention was to settle at Mount Vernon, in the State of Ohio, where he had been informed there was an Episcopal College, and a settlement of Episcopalians on the College territory. In order to satisfy himself of the truth of these statements, he travelled thither alone, leaving his family in the then town of York. Disappointed in the result of his visit, he returned here, and had almost made up his mind to go back to Dublin, but abandoned the intention in consequence of the urgent arguments of the Hon. John Henry Dunn, Receiver-General,[12] who persuaded him to remain. His first step was to secure a lease of the lot of land on King Street, where the Messrs. W. A. Murray & Co's. warehouses now stand. He built there two frame shops, which were considered marvels of architecture at that day, and continued to occupy one of them until Wellington Buildings, between Church and Toronto Streets, were erected by himself and other enterprising tradesmen. Merchants of all ranks lived over their shops in those times, and very handsome residences these buildings made. In 1834, Mr. Dixon was elected alderman for St. Lawrence Ward, which position he continued to hold against all assailants, up to the end of 1850. He was also a justice of the peace, and did good service in that capacity. In the City Council no man was more useful and industrious in all good works, and none exercised greater influence over its deliberations. When the troubles of 1837 began, Alderman Dixon threw all his energies into the cause of loyalty, and took so active a part in support of Sir F. B. Head's policy, that his advice was on most occasions sought by the Lieutenant-Governor, and frequently acted upon. Many communications on the burning questions of the day passed between them. This continued throughout the rule of Sir George Arthur, and until the arrival of the Right Hon. C. Poulett Thomson, who cared little for the opinions of other men, however well qualified to advise and inform. Mr. Dixon was too independent and too incorruptible a patriot for that accomplished politician. Few men in Toronto have done more for the beautifying of our city. The Adelaide Buildings on King Street were long the handsomest, as they were the best built, of their class. His house, at the corner of Jarvis and Gerrard Streets, set an example for our finest private residences. The St. Lawrence Hall, which is considered by visitors a great ornament to the city, was erected from plans suggested by him. And among religious edifices, Trinity Church and St. James's Cathedral are indebted to him, the former mainly and the latter in part, for their complete adaptation in style and convenience, to the services of the Church to which he belonged and which he highly venerated. To Trinity Church, especially, which was finished and opened for divine service on February 14th, 1844, he gave himself up with the most unflagging zeal and watchfulness, examining the plans in the minutest details, supervising the work as it progressed, almost counting the bricks and measuring the stonework, with the eye of a father watching his infant's first footsteps. In fact, he was popularly styled "the father and founder of Trinity Church," a designation which was justly recognised by Bishop Strachan in his dedication sermon.[13] As a friend, I had something to say respecting most of his building plans, and fully sympathized with the objects he had in view; one of the fruits of my appreciation was the following poem, which, although of little merit in itself, is perhaps worth preserving as a record of honourable deeds and well employed talents: THE POOR MAN'S CHURCH. Wake, harp of Zion, silent long, Nor voiceless and unheard be thou While meetest theme of sacred song Awaits thy chorded numbers now! Too seldom, 'mid the sounds of strife That rudely ring unwelcome here, Thy music soothes this fever'd life With breathings from a holier sphere. The warrior, wading deep in crime, Desertless, lives in poets' lays; The statesman wants not stirring rhyme To cheer the chequer'd part he plays: And Zion's harp, to whom alone, Soft-echoing, higher themes belong, Oh lend thy sweet aerial tone-- 'Tis meek-eyed Virtue claims the song. * * * * * Beyond the limits of the town A summer's ramble, may be seen A scattered suburb, newly grown, Rude huts, and ruder fields between. Life's luxuries abound not there, Labour and hardship share the spot; Hope wrestles hard with frowning care, And lesser wants are heeded not. Religion was neglected too-- 'Twas far to town--the poor are proud-- They could not boast a garb as new, And shunn'd to join the well-drest crowd. No country church adorned the scene, In modest beauty smiling fair, Of mien so peaceful and serene, The poor man feels his home is there. Oh England! with thy village chimes, Thy church-wed hamlets, scattered wide, The emigrant to other climes Remembers thee with grateful pride; And owns that once at home again, With fonder love his heart would bless Each humble, lowly, haloëd fane That sanctifies thy loveliness. But here, alas! the heart was wrung To see so wan, so drear a waste-- Life's thorns and briars rankly sprung, And peace and love, its flowers, displaced. And weary seasons pass'd away, As time's fast ebbing tide roll'd by, To thousands rose no Sabbath-day, They lived--to suffer--sin--and die! Then men of Christian spirit came, They saw the mournful scene with grief; To such it e'er hath been the same To know distress and give relief. They told the tale, nor vainly told-- They won assistance far and wide; His heart were dull indeed and cold Who such petitioner denied. They chose a slightly rising hill That bordered closely on the road, And workmen brought of care and skill, And wains with many a cumbrous load. With holy prayer and chanted hymn The task was sped upon its way; And hearts beat high and eyes were dim To see so glad a sight that day. And slowly as the work ascends, In just proportions strong and fair, How watchfully its early friends With zealous ardour linger near. 'Tis finished now--a Gothic pile, --Brave handiwork of faith and love-- In England's ancient hallowed style, That pointeth aye, like hope, above: With stately tower and turret high, And quaint-arch'd door, and buttress'd wall, And window stain'd of various dye, And antique moulding over all. And hark! the Sabbath-going bell! A solemn tale it peals abroad-- To all around its echoes tell "This building is the house of God!" * * * * * Say, Churchman! doth no still, small voice Within you whisper--"while 'tis day Go bid the desert place rejoice!" Your Saviour's high behest obey: "Say not your pow'rs are scant and weak, What hath been done, may be anew; He addeth strength to all who seek To serve Him with affection true." Alderman Dixon was not only a thorough-going and free-handed Churchman, but was very popular with the ministers and pastors of other religious denominations. The heads of the Methodist Church, and even the higher Roman Catholic clergy of Toronto, frequently sought his advice and assistance to smooth down asperities and reconcile feuds. He was every man's friend, and had no enemies of whom I ever heard. He wrote with facility, and argued with skill and readiness. His memory was exceedingly retentive; he knew and could repeat page after page from Dryden's "Virgil" and Pope's "Homer." Any allusion to them would draw from him forty or fifty lines in connection with its subject. Mickle's "Lusiad" he knew equally well, and was fond of reciting its most beautiful descriptions of scenery and places in South Africa and India. He was an enthusiastic book-collector, and left a valuable library, containing many very rare and curious books he had brought from Dublin, and to which he made several additions. It is now in the possession of his eldest son, Archdeacon Dixon, of Guelph. With the Orange body, Alderman Dixon exercised considerable influence, which he always exerted in favour of a Christian regard for the rights and feelings of those who differed from them. On one occasion, and only one, I remember his suffering some indignity at their hands. He and others had exerted themselves to induce the Orangemen to waive their annual procession, and had succeeded so far as the city lodges were concerned. But the country lodges would not forego their cherished rights, and on "the 12th"--I forget the year--entered Toronto from the west in imposing numbers. At the request of the other magistrates, Alderman Dixon and, I think, the late Mayor Gurnett, met the procession opposite Osgoode Hall, and remonstrated with the leaders for disregarding the wishes of the City Council and the example of their city brethren. His eloquence, however, was of no avail, and he and his colleague were rudely thrust aside. As president of the St. Patrick's Society, he did much to preserve unanimity in that body, which then embraced Irishmen of all creeds among its members. His speeches at its annual dinners were greatly admired for their ability and liberality; and it was a favourite theme of his, that the three nationalities--Irish, Scotch and English--together formed an invincible combination; while if unhappily separated, they might have to succumb to inferior races. He concluded his argument on one occasion by quoting Scott's striking lines on the Battle of Waterloo:-- "Yes--Agincourt may be forgot, And Cressy be an unknown spot, And Blenheim's name be new: But still in glory and in song, For many an age remembered long, Shall live the tow'rs of Hougoumont And Field of Waterloo." The peals of applause and rapture with which these patriotic sentiments were received, will not easily be forgotten by his hearers. Nor were his literary acquirements limited to such subjects. The works of Jeremy Taylor and the other great divines of the Stewart period, he was very familiar with, and esteemed highly. He was also a great authority in Irish history and antiquities; enquiries often came to him from persons in the United States and elsewhere, respecting disputed and doubtful questions, which he was generally competent to solve. Mr. Dixon was long an active member of the committee of the Church Society; and the first delegate of St. James's Church to the first Diocesan Synod. In these and all other good works, he was untiring and disinterested. Whenever there was any gathering of clergy he received as many as possible in his house, treating them with warm-hearted hospitality. Mr. Dixon died in the year 1855, leaving a large family of sons and daughters, of whom several have acquired distinction in various ways. His eldest son, Alexander, graduated in King's College, at the time when Adam Crooks, Judge Boyd, Christopher Robinson, Judge Kingsmill, D. McMichael, the Rev. W. Stennett, and others well known in public life, were connected with that university. Mr. Dixon was university prizeman in History and Belles-Lettres in his third year; took the prize for English oration; and wrote the prize poem two years in succession. He is now Rector of Guelph, and Archdeacon of the northern half of the Niagara diocese. He was also one of the contributors to the "Maple Leaf." William, second son of Alderman Dixon, was Dominion Emigration Agent in London, England, where he died in 1873. Concerning him, the Hon. J. H. Pope, Minister of Agriculture, stated that he "was the most correct and conscientious administrator he had ever met." He said further in Parliament:-- "The Premier had gone so far as to state that the present Agent General was a person of wonderful ability, and had done more than his predecessors to promote emigration to Canada. He (Mr. Pope) regretted more than he could express the death of Mr. Dixon, the late agent. He was held in high esteem both here and in the old country, and was a gentleman who never identified himself with any political party, but fairly and honestly represented Canada." Another son, Major Fred. E. Dixon, is well known in connection with the Queen's Own, of Toronto. [Footnote 12: Father of the lamented Lieut.-Col. A. R. Dunn, who won the Victoria Cross at Balaklava, and died as is believed, by the accidental discharge of a gun in Abyssinia.] [Footnote 13: The Building Committee of Trinity Church comprised, besides Alderman Dixon, Messrs. William Gooderham, Enoch Turner, and Joseph Shuter, all since deceased.] CHAPTER XXXII. MORE TORIES OF REBELLION TIMES. EDWARD G. O'BRIEN. My first introduction to this gentleman was on the day after I landed at Barrie, in 1833. He was then living at his log cottage at Shanty Bay, an indentation of the shore near the mouth of Kempenfeldt Bay, at the south-west angle of Lake Simcoe. I was struck with the comparative elegance pervading so primitive an establishment. Its owner was evidently a thorough gentleman, his wife an accomplished lady, and their children well taught and courteous. The surrounding scenery was picturesque and delightful. The broad expanse of the bay opening out to Lake Simcoe--the graceful sweep of the natural foliage sloping down from high banks to the water's edge--are impressed vividly upon my memory, even at this long interval of fifty years. It seemed to me a perfect gem of civilization, set in the wildest of natural surroundings. I was a commissioner of the Court of Requests at Barrie, along with Col. O'Brien, in 1834, and in that capacity had constant opportunities of meeting and appreciating him. He had seen service as midshipman in the Royal Navy, as well as in the Army; was an expert yachtsman of course; and had ample opportunities of indulging his predilection for the water, on the fine bay fronting his house. At that time it was no unusual thing in winter, to see wolves chasing deer over the thick ice of the bay. On one occasion, being laid up with illness, the Captain was holding a magistrate's court in his dining-room overlooking the bay. In front of the house was a wide lawn, and beyond it a sunken fence, not visible from the house. The case under consideration was probably some riotous quarrel among the inhabitants of a coloured settlement near at hand, who were constantly at loggerheads with each other or with their white neighbours. In the midst of the proceedings, the Captain happened to catch sight of a noble stag dashing across the ice, pursued by several wolves. He beckoned a relative who assisted on the farm, and whispered to him to get out the dogs. A few seconds afterwards the baying of the hounds was heard. The unruly suitors caught the sound, rushed to the window and door, then out to the grounds, plaintiff, defendant, constables and all, helter skelter, until they reached the sunken fence, deeply buried in snow, over which they tumbled _en masse_, amid a chorus of mingled shouts and objurgations that baffles description. Whether the hearing of the case was resumed that day or not, I cannot say, but it seems doubtful. His naval and military experience naturally showed itself in Colonel O'Brien's general bearing; he possessed the polished manners and high-bred courtesy of some old Spanish hidalgo, together with a sufficient share of corresponding hauteur when displeased. The first whispers of the Rebellion of 1837, brought him to the front. He called together his loyal neighbours, who responded so promptly that not a single able-bodied man was left in the locality; only women and children, and two or three male invalids, staying behind. With his men he marched for Toronto; but, when at Bond Head, received orders from the Lieutenant-Governor to remain there, and take charge of the district, which had been the head quarters of disaffection. When quiet was restored, he returned to Shanty Bay, and resided there for several years; occupying the position of chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the Simcoe District. After the erection of the County of Simcoe into a municipality, he removed with his family to Toronto, where he entered into business as a land agent; was instrumental in forming a company to construct a railroad to Lake Huron _via_ Sarnia, of which he acted as secretary; afterwards organized and became manager of the Provincial Insurance Company, which position he occupied until 1857. In the year 1840, died Mr. Thos. Dalton, proprietor and editor of the _Toronto Patriot_ newspaper; the paper was continued by his widow until 1848, when Col. O'Brien, through my agency, became proprietor of that journal, which I engaged to manage for him. The editor was his brother, Dr. Lucius O'Brien, a highly educated and talented, but not popular, writer. Col. O'Brien's motive in purchasing the paper was solely patriotic, and he was anxiously desirous that its columns should be closed to everything that was not strictly--even quixotically--chivalrous. His sensitiveness on this score finally led to a difference of opinion between the brothers, which ended in Dr. O'Brien's retirement. At that time, as a matter of course, the _Patriot_ and the _Globe_ were politically antagonistic. The _Colonist_, then conducted by Hugh Scobie, represented the Scottish Conservatives in politics, and the Kirk of Scotland in religious matters. Therefore, it often happened, that the _Patriot_ and _Colonist_ were allied together against the _Globe_; while at other times, the _Patriot_ stood alone in its support of the English Church, and had to meet the assaults of the other two journals--a triangular duel, in fact. A spiteful correspondent of the _Colonist_ had raked up some old Edinburgh slanders affecting the personal reputation of Mr. Peter Brown, father of George Brown, and joint publisher of the _Globe_. Those slanders were quoted editorially in the _Patriot_, without my knowledge until I saw them in print on the morning of publication. I at once expressed my entire disapproval of their insertion; and Col. O'Brien took the matter so much to heart, that, without letting me know his decision, he removed his brother from the editorship, and placed it temporarily in my hands. My first editorial act was, by Col. O'Brien's desire, to disavow the offensive allusions, and to apologize personally to Mr. Peter Brown therefor. This led to a friendly feeling between the latter gentleman and myself, which continued during his lifetime. On the 25th of May, 1849, the great fire occurred in Toronto, which consumed the _Patriot_ office, as well as the cathedral and many other buildings. Soon afterwards Col. O'Brien sold his interest in the _Patriot_ to Mr. Ogle R. Gowan. I have been favoured with the perusal of some "jottings" in the Colonel's own hand-writing, from which I make an extract, describing his first experience of the service at the age of fourteen, as midshipman on board H. M. 36 gun Frigate _Doris_, commanded by his father's cousin, Capt. (afterwards Admiral) Robert O'Brien: "The _Doris_ joined the outward-bound fleet at Portsmouth, where about 1700 vessels of all sizes, from first-class Indiamen of 1400 tons to small fruit-carriers from the Mediterranean of 60 tons, were assembled for convoy. At first, and along the more dangerous parts of the Channel from privateers, the convoy continued to be a large one, including especially many of the smaller men-of-war, but among them were two or three line-of-battle ships and heavy frigates under orders for the Mediterranean. The whole formed a magnificent sight, not often seen. After a while the outsiders dropped off, some to one place, some to another, one large section being the North American trade, another the Mediterranean, until the _Doris_ was left commodore of the main body, being the West Indiamen, South American traders, and Cape and East Indiamen, and a stately fleet it was. With the _Doris_ was the _Salsette_, a frigate of the same class, and some smaller craft. This convoy, though small apparently for such a fleet in that very active war, was materially strengthened by the heavy armaments of the regular traders in the East India Company's service in the China trade, of which there were twelve, I think. These ships were arranged in two lines, between which all the others were directed to keep their course; the _Doris_ leading in the centre between the two lines of Chinamen, and the _Salsette_ bringing up the rear, while two or three sloops of war hovered about. My berth on board the _Doris_ was that of signal midshipman, which was simply to keep an eye on every individual craft in the fleet. . . . . On reaching the Canaries, the fleet came to an anchor in Santa Cruz roads, at the island of Teneriffe, for the purpose of filling up water, and enabling the Indiamen to lay in a stock of wine for the round voyage. The _Doris_ and larger ships outside, and the _Salsette_ and smaller ones closer in, and an uncommon tight pack it was. The proper landing place, and only place indeed where casks could be conveniently shipped, was the mole, a long, narrow, high pier or wharf, with a flight of stairs or steps to the water. This was generally one jam from end to end, as well on the pier as on the water, crowded above by casks of all sizes, wine and water, every spare foot or interstice between the casks crammed with idle, lazy, loafing Portuguese, the scum and chief part of the population of the town, assembled there certainly not to work, but amazingly active and busy in looking on, swearing, directing and scolding--terribly in the seamen's way, and by them very unceremoniously kicked and flung aside and into the next man's path. Sometimes there was a scuffle, and then a rare scrimmage caused by a party of soldiers from the mole rushing in to keep the peace. They were immediately pitched into by the blue jackets, who instead of rolling their casks towards their boats, tacked as they called it, and sent the barrels flying among the soldiers' legs. More than one cask of wine in this manner went the wrong way over the pier, down among the boats below, where there was, in its own way, much the same state of confusion, with a good deal more danger. Ships' boats, from the jolly-boat manned by lads, hurried ashore to seek stray pursers' clerks with their small plunder, or stewards and servants with bundles of washed clothing--to the heavy launch loaded with water casks pushing out or striving to get in--each boat's crew utterly reckless, and under no control, intent only on breaking their own way in or out, so that it was marvellous how any escaped damage. And the thing reached its climax, when at daylight on the last day, the signal was made to prepare to weigh anchor. I had been ashore the day before, with a strong working party and three of the frigate's boats, under the command of one of the lieutenants, assisting the Indiamen in getting off their wine and water; and so, when sent this morning on the same duty, I was somewhat up to the work. I had therefore put on my worst clothes; all I wanted was to have my midshipman's jacket as conspicuous as possible, having discovered in the previous day's experience the value of the authority of discipline. Our work this day was also increased by the sure precursor of bad weather, a rising sea; and as the town is situated on an open roadstead, the surf on the beach, which, though always more or less an obstruction, had been hitherto passable, was now insurmountable; all traffic had to be crowded over the pier, including late passengers, men and women, and more than one bunch of children, with all the odds and ends of clothes-baskets, marketing, curiosities, &c., &c. What a scene! We naval mids found ourselves suddenly raised to great importance; and towards noon I became a very great man indeed. The _Doris_ being outside, she was of course the first under weigh, and around her were the larger Indiamen, also getting under sail--the commodore constantly enforcing his signals by heavy firing. But big as these ships were, and notwithstanding their superior discipline, they had nearly as many laggards as the smaller fry. . . . All the forenoon the weather had been getting more and more threatening, and the breeze and sea rose together. About 11 o'clock a.m. we all knew that we were in for something in the shape of a gale, and the _Doris_ made signal for her boats and the working party to return to the ship; and soon after, for the _Salsette_ and the inshore ships to get under weigh. Our lieutenant, however, seeing the state of things ashore, directed me to remain with one of the cutters and three or four spare hands; and if the frigate should be blown off during the night, to get on board a particular vessel--a fast sailing South Sea whaler, that had acted as tender to the frigate, and whose master promised to look after us, as well as any others of the _Doris's_ people who might still be on shore. Thus I was left in sole command, as the _Salsette_ had also recalled her boats and working parties. Although she would send no help ashore, she remained still at anchor. Capt. Bowen, her commander, contenting himself with sheeting home his top-sails, and repeating the commodore's signal to the inshore ships. We afterwards found out the secret of all this. Bowen disliked the idea of playing second fiddle, and wanted to be commodore himself, and this was a beautiful opportunity to divide the fleet. But as matters got worse, and difficulties increased, we succeeded in getting them more under control. The crowd, both of casks and live stock on the wharf, and of boats beneath, gradually diminished. The merchant seamen, and especially the crews of the larger boats of the Indiamen, worked manfully. The smaller boats were taken outside, and regular gangs formed to pass all small parcels, and especially women and children passengers, across the inner heavy tier to them. This, the moment the seamen caught the idea, became great fun; and a rousing cheer was raised when a fat, jolly steward's wife was regularly parbuckled over the side of the pier, and passed, decently and decorously (on her back, she dare not kick for fear of showing her legs) like a bale of goods, from hand to hand, or rather from arms to arms, to a light gig outside all. This being successfully achieved, I turned to a party of passengers standing by, and who, though anxious themselves, could not help laughing, and proposed to pass them out in the same manner; making the first offer to a comely nurse-maid of the party. I was very near getting my ears boxed for my kindness and courtesy, so I turned to the mistress instead, who however contented herself by quietly enquiring whether there was no other way; of course another way was soon found; a few chairs were got, which were soon rigged by the seamen, by means of which, first the children, and then their elders, men and women, were easily passed down to the boats below, and from thence to the boat waiting safely outside. In all this work I was not only supported in authority by the different ships' officers and mates superintending their own immediate concerns, but also by a number of gentlemen, merchants and others, most of whom came down to the pier to see and assist their friends among the passengers safe off. By their help also I was enabled, not knowing a word of their language myself, to get material help from the Portuguese standing by; and also got the officer in command of the guard at the mole-head, to clear the pier of all useless hands, and place sentries here and there over stray packages, put down while the owners sought their own proper boats among the crowd. And so at length our work was fairly pushed through, and though late, I managed to get my party safe aboard our friend the whaler, who had kept his signal lights burning for us. Long before, the _Doris_ had bore up, and under bare poles had drifted with a large portion of the fleet to the southward; and I saw no more of her, until some months afterwards I joined her in Macao Roads." This was in the year 1814; soon afterwards the peace with America put an end to our midshipman's prospects of advancement in the navy, to his great and life-long regret. He obtained a commission in the Scots Greys, and exchanged into the 58th Regiment, then under orders for service in the West Indies, where his health failed him, and he was compelled to retire on half-pay. But his love for the sea soon induced him to enter the merchant service, in which he made many voyages to the East. This also, a severe illness obliged him to resign, and to abandon the sea for ever. He then came to Canada, to seek his fortune in the backwoods, where I found him in 1833. Mr. O'Brien's relations with his neighbours in the backwoods were always kindly, and gratifying to both parties. One evening, some friends of his heard voices on the water, as a boat rowed past his grounds. One man asked "Who lives here?" "Mr. O'Brien," was the reply. "What is he like?" "He's a regular old tory." "Oh then, I suppose he's very proud and distant?" But that he was either proud or distant, his neighbour would not allow, and other voices joined in describing him as the freest and kindest of men--still they all agreed that he was a "regular old tory." The colonel was the last man in the world to object to such an epithet, but those who used it meant probably to describe his sturdy, uncompromising principles, and manly independence. A more utterly guileless, single-hearted man never breathed. Warm and tender-hearted, humble-minded and forgiving, he deplored his hastiness of temper, which was, indeed, due to nervous irritability, the result of severe illness coupled with heavy mental strain when young, from the effects of which he never entirely recovered. He was incapable of a mean thought or dishonourable deed, and never fully realized that there could be others who were unlike him in this respect. Hence, during the long course of his happy and useful, but not wholly prosperous life, he met each such lapse from his own high standard of honour with the same indignant surprise and pain. His habitual reverent-mindedness led him to respect men of all shades of thought and feeling, while to sympathize with sorrow and suffering was as natural to him as the air he breathed. A neighbour who had had a sudden, sharp attack of illness, meeting one of the colonel's family, said very simply, "I knew you had not heard that I was ill, for Mr. O'Brien has not been to see me; but please tell him I shall not be about for some time." The man looked upon it as a matter of course that his old friend the colonel would have gone to see him if informed of his illness. And if Mr. O'Brien's friends and neighbours have kindly recollections of him and of his family, these latter on their part are never tired of recalling unvarying friendliness and countless acts of kindness from all their neighbours. Before leaving this subject, it may be appropriately added that Mrs. O'Brien (his wife) was his guardian angel--a mother in Israel--the nurse of the sick, the comforter of the miserable; wise, discreet, loving, patient, adored by children, the embodiment of unselfishness. To her Toronto was indebted for its first ragged school. A few years before the colonel's death, his foreman on the farm, living at the lodge, had five children, of whom three died there of diphtheria. Mrs. O'Brien brought the remainder to her own house--"The Woods,"--to try and save them, the parents being broken-hearted and helpless. It is said to have been a touching spectacle to see the old Colonel carrying about one poor dying child to soothe it, while Mrs. O'Brien nursed the other. Of these two, one died and the other recovered. The selfish are--happily--forgotten. The unselfish, never. Their memory lives in Shanty Bay as a sweet odour that never seems to pass away. It is still a frequent suggestion, "what would Mrs. O'Brien or the Colonel have done under the circumstances." In his declining years, failing health, and disease contracted in India, dimmed the cheerfulness of Mr. O'Brien's nature. But none so chivalrously anxious to repair an unintentional injury or a hasty word. He and his wife lie side by side in the burial ground of the church he was mainly instrumental in building. Over them is a simple monument in shape of an Irish cross--on it these words:-- "In loving remembrance of Edward George O'Brien, who died September 8, 1875, age 76: and of Mary Sophia his wife, who died October 14, 1876, age 78: This stone is raised by their children. He, having served his country by sea and land, became A.D. 1830 the founder of the settlement and mission of Shanty Bay. She was a true wife and zealous in all good works. Faithful servants, they rest in hope." JOHN W. GAMBLE. "Squire Gamble"--the name by which this gentleman was familiarly known throughout the County of York--was born at the Old Fort in Toronto, in 1799. His father, Dr. John Gamble, was stationed there as resident surgeon to the garrison. The family afterwards removed to Kingston, where the boy received his education. It was characteristic of him, that when about to travel to York, at the age of fifteen, to enter the store of the late Hon. Wm. Allan, he chose to make the journey in a canoe, in which he coasted along by day, and by night camped on shore. In course of time, he entered extensively into the business of a miller and country merchant, in which he continued all his life with some intervals. In manner and appearance Mr. Gamble was a fine specimen of a country magistrate of half a century ago. While the rougher sort of farming men looked up to him with very salutary apprehension, as a stern represser of vice and evil doing, they and everybody else did justice to his innate kindness of heart, and his generosity towards the poor and suffering. He was, in the best sense of the phrase, a popular man. His neighbours knew that in every good work, either in the way of personal enterprise, in the promotion of religious and educational objects, or in the furtherance of the general welfare, Squire Gamble was sure to be in the foremost place. His farm was a model to all others; his fields were better cleared; his fences better kept; his homestead was just perfection, both in point of orderly management and in an intellectual sense--at least, such was the opinion of his country neighbours, and they were not very far astray. Add to these merits, a tall manly form, an eagle eye, and a commanding mien, and you have a pretty fair picture of Squire Gamble. As a member of parliament, to which he was three times elected by considerable majorities, Mr. Gamble was hard-working and independent. He supported good measures, from whichever side of the House they might originate, and his vote was always safe for progressive reforms. His toryism was limited entirely to questions of a constitutional character, particularly such as involved loyalty to the throne and the Empire. And in this, Mr. Gamble was a fair representative of his class. And here I venture to assert, that more narrowness of political views, more rigidity of theological dogma, more absolutism in a party sense, has been exhibited in Canada by men of the Puritan school calling themselves Reformers, than by those who are styled Tories. Perhaps the most important act of Mr. Gamble's political life, was the part he took in the organization of the British American League in 1849. Into that movement he threw all his energies, and the ultimate realization of its views affords the best proof of the correctness of his judgment and foresight. About it, however, I shall have more to say in another chapter. Mr. Gamble, as I have said, was foremost in all public improvements. To his exertions are chiefly due the opening and construction of the Vaughan plank road, from near Weston, by St. Andrew's, to Woodbridge, Pine Grove, and Kleinburg; which gave an easy outlet to a large tract of country to the north-west of Toronto, and enabled the farmers to reach our market to their and our great mutual advantage. He was a man who made warm friends and active enemies, being very outspoken in the expression of his opinions and feelings. But even his strongest political foes came to him in full confidence that they were certain to get justice at his hands. And occasionally his friends found out, that no inducement of personal regard could warp his judgment in any matter affecting the rights of other men. In this way he made some bitter adversaries on his own side of politics. Among Mr. Gamble's public acts was the erection of the church at Mimico, and that at Pine Grove; in aid of which he was the chief promoter, giving freely both time and means to their completion. For years he acted as lay-reader at one or other of those churches, travelling some distance in all weathers to do so. His whole life, indeed, was spent in benefiting his neighbours in all possible ways. He died in December, 1873, and was buried at Woodbridge. CHAPTER XXXIII. A CHOICE OF A CHURCH. I have mentioned that I was educated as a Swedenborgian, or rather a member of the New Jerusalem Church, as the followers of Emanuel Swedenborg prefer to be called. As a boy, I was well read in his works, and was prepared to tilt with all comers in his cause. But I grew less confident as I became more conversant with the world and with general literature. At the age of fifteen I was nominated a Sunday-school teacher in a small Swedenborgian chapel in the Waterloo road, and declined to act because the school was established with the object of converting from the religion of their parents the children of poor Roman Catholic families in that neighbourhood, which I thought an insidious, and therefore an evil mode of disseminating religious doctrine. Of course, this was a sufficiently conceited proceeding on the part of so young a theologian. But the same feeling has grown up with me in after life. I hold that Christians are ill-employed, who spend their strength in missionary attempts to change the creed of other branches of the Christian Church, while their efforts at conversion might be much better utilised in behalf of the heathen, or, what is the same thing in effect, the untaught multitudes in our midst who know nothing whatever of the teachings of the Gospel of Christ. It will, perhaps, surprise some of my readers to hear that Swedenborg never contemplated the founding of a sect. He was a civil engineer, high in rank at the Swedish court, and was ennobled for the marvellous feat of transporting the Swedish fleet from sea to sea, across the kingdom and over a formidable chain of mountains. He was also what would now be called an eminent scientist, ranking with Buffon, Humboldt, Kant, Herschel, and others of the first men of his day in Europe, and even surpassing them all in the extent and variety of his philosophical researches. His "Animal Kingdom" and "Physical Sciences" are wonderful efforts of the human mind, and still maintain a high reputation as scientific works. At length Swedenborg conceived the idea that he enjoyed supernatural privileges--that he had communings with angels and archangels--that he was permitted to enter the spiritual world, and to record what he there saw and heard. Nay, even to approach our Saviour himself, in His character of the Triune God, or sole impersonation of the Divine Trinity. Unlike Mahomet and most other pretenders to inspired missions, Swedenborg never sought for power, honour or applause. He was to the day of his death a quiet gentleman of the old school, unassuming, courteous, and a good man in every sense of the word. I remember that one of my first objections to the writings of Swedenborg, was on account of his declaring the Church of France to be the most spiritual of all the churches on earth; which dogma immensely offended my youthful English pride. His first "readers" were members of various churches--clergymen of the Church of England, professors in universities, literary students, followers of Wesley, and generally devout men and women of all denominations. In time they began to assemble together for "reading meetings;" and so at length grew into a sect--a designation, by the way, which they still stoutly repudiate. I remember one clergyman, the Rev. John Clowes, rector of a church in Manchester, who applied to the Bishop of Lichfield for leave to read and teach from the works of Swedenborg, and was permitted to do so on account of their entirely harmless character. When still young, I noticed with astonishment, that the transcendental virtues which Swedenborg inculcated were very feebly evidenced in the lives of his followers; that they were not by any means free from pride, ostentation, even peculation and the ordinary trickery of trade--in fact, that they were no better than their fellow-Christians generally. When I came to Toronto, I of course mixed with all sorts of people, and found examples of thoroughly consistent Christian life amongst all the various denominations--Roman Catholics, English Churchmen, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and many others--which taught me the lesson, that it is not a man's formal creed that is of importance, so much as his personal sincerity as a follower of Christ's teachings and example. I was at the same time forcibly impressed with another leading idea--that no where in the Scriptures have we any instance of a divinely regulated government, in which the worship of God did not occupy a chief place. I thought--I still think--that the same beneficent principle which makes Christianity a part of the common law of England, and of all her colonies, including the United States, should extend to the religious instruction of every soul in the community, gentle or simple, and more especially to what are called the off-scourings of society. Looking around me, I saw that of all the churches within my purview, the Church of England most completely met my ideal--that she was the Church by law established in my motherland--that she allowed the utmost latitude to individual opinion--in fine, that she held the Bible wide open to all her children, and did her best to extend its knowledge to all mankind. Had I been a native of Scotland, upon the same reasoning I must have become a Presbyterian, or a Lutheran in Holland or Germany, or a Roman Catholic in France or Spain. But that contingency did not then present itself to me. So I entered the Church of England; was confirmed by Bishop Strachan, at St. James's Cathedral, in the year 1839, if I remember rightly, and have never since, for one instant, doubted the soundness of my conclusions. On this occasion, as on many others, my emotions shaped themselves in a poetical form. The two following pieces were written for the _Church_ newspaper, of which I was then the printer, in partnership with the Messrs. Rowsell:-- HYMN FOR EASTER. "CHRIST IS RISEN."[14] "Christ is risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. "For since by man came death; by man came also the resurrection of the dead. "For as in Adam all die; even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Christ is risen! Jesu lives; He lives His faithful ones to bless; The grave to life its victim gives-- Our grief is changed to joyfulness. The sleeping Saints, whom Israel slew, Waking, shall list the joyful sound; He--their first fruits--doth live anew, Hell hath a mighty conqueror found. Paschal offering! spotless Lamb! For us was heard thy plaintive cry; For us, in agony and shame, Thy blood's sweet incense soar'd on high. By erring man came woe--the grave-- The ground accurs'd--the blighted tree-- Jesus, as man, for ransom gave Himself, from death to set us free. Christ is risen! saints, rejoice! Your hymns of praise enraptured pour-- Ye heavenly angels, lend your voice-- Jesus shall reign for evermore! Hallelujah! Amen. THE SINNER'S COMPLAINT AND CONSOLATION. Oh for a conscience free from sin! Oh for a breast all pure within-- A soul that, seraph winged, might fly 'Mid heav'n's full blaze unshrinkingly, And bask in rays of wisdom, bright From His own throne of life and light. Peace, pining spirit! know'st thou not that Jesus died for thee-- For thee alone His last sigh breathed upon th' accursed tree; For thee His Omnipresence chain'd within a mortal "clod"-- And bore _thy_ guilt, to be as well thy Saviour as thy God: Aye, suffered anguish more--far more--than thou canst e'en conceive, _Thy_ sins to cleanse--_thy_ self-earnt condemnation to relieve. And did He suffer so for me? Did HE endure upon the tree A living death--a mortal's woe, With pangs that mortals _cannot_ know! Oh triumph won most wofully! My SAVIOUR died for me--for _me_! And have I basely wish'd to make this wondrous off'ring vain; Shall love so vast, be unrepaid by grateful love again? Oh! true affection never chafes at obligation's chain, But hugs with joy the gracious yoke whose guidance is its gain; And such the Saviour's ardent love--His suff'ring patience--these Most unlike human bonds, are cancell'd by their own increase. Rejoice, my soul! though sin be thine, Thy refuge seek in grace divine: And mark His Word--more joy shall be In heav'n for sinners such as thee Repenting, than can e'er be shown For scores whom guilt hath never known. * * * * * In explanation of my having become, in 1840, printer of the _Church_ newspaper, I must go back to the date of Lord Sydenham's residence in Toronto. The Loyalist party, as stated already, became grievously disgusted with the iron grasp which that nobleman fastened upon each and every person in the remotest degree under government control. Not only the high officers of the Crown, such as the Provincial Treasurer and Secretary, the Executive Councillors, the Attorney-General and the Sheriff, but also the editors of newspapers publishing the government advertisements, in Toronto and elsewhere, were dictated to, as to what measures they should oppose, and what support. It was "my government,"--"my policy"--not "the policy of my administration," before which they were required to bow down and blindly worship. There were, however, still men in Toronto independent enough to refuse to stoop to the dust; and they met together and taking up the _Toronto Herald_ as their mouth-piece, subscribed sufficient funds for the payment of a competent editor, in the person of George Anthony Barber, English Master of Upper Canada College, now chiefly remembered as the introducer and fosterer of the manly game of cricket in Toronto. He was an eloquent and polished writer, and created for the paper a wide reputation as a conservative journal. About the same time, Messrs. Henry and William Rowsell, well-known booksellers, undertook the printing of the _Church_ newspaper, which was transferred from Cobourg to Toronto, under the editorship of Mr. John Kent,--a giant in his way--and subsequently of the Rev. A. N. Bethune, since, and until lately, Bishop of Toronto. Being intimate friends of my own, they offered me the charge of their printing office, with the position of a partner, which I accepted; and made over my interest in the _Herald_ to Mr. Barber. [Footnote 14: Easter salutation of the Primitive Church.] CHAPTER XXXIV. THE CLERGY RESERVES. I have lately astonished some of my friends with the information, that William Lyon Mackenzie was originally an advocate of the Clergy Reserves--that is, of state endowment for religious purposes--a fact which makes his fatal plunge into treason the more to be regretted by all who coincide with him on the religious question. In Lindsey's "Memoirs" we read (vol. 1, p. 46): "A Calvinist in religion, proclaiming his belief in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and a Liberal in politics, yet was Mr. Mackenzie, at that time, no advocate of the voluntary principle. On the contrary, he lauded the British Government for making a landed endowment for the Protestant clergy in the Provinces, and was shocked at the report that, in 1812, voluntaryism had robbed three millions of people of all means of religious ordinances. 'In no part of the constitution of the Canadas,' he said, 'is the wisdom of the British Legislature more apparent than in its setting apart a portion of the country, while yet it remained a wilderness, for the support of religion.' . . . "Mr. Mackenzie compared the setting apart of one-seventh of the public lands for religious purposes to a like dedication in the time of the [early] Christians. But he objected that the revenues were monopolized by one church, to which only a fraction of the population belonged. The envy of the non-recipient denominations made the favoured Church of England unpopular. . . . "Where the majority of the present generation of Canadians will differ from him, is that on the Clergy Reserves question, he did not hold the voluntary view. At that time, he would have denounced secularization as a monstrous piece of sacrilege."[15] How much to be regretted is it, that instead of splitting up the Clergy Reserves into fragments, the friends of religious education had not joined their forces for the purpose of endowing all Christian denominations with the like means of usefulness. We are now extending across the entire continent what I cannot help regarding as the anti-Christian practice of non-religious popular education. We are, I believe, but smoothing the road to crime in the majority of cases. Cannot something be done now, while yet the lands of the vast North-West are at our disposal? Will no courageous legislator raise his voice to advocate the dedication of a few hundred thousand acres to unselfish purposes? Have we wiled away the Indian prairies from their aboriginal owners, to make them little better than a race-course for speculating gamblers? Even if the jealousy of rival politicians--each bent upon self-aggrandizement at the expense of more honourable aims--should defeat all efforts in behalf of religious endowments through the Dominion Legislature, cannot the religious associations amongst us bestir themselves in time? Cannot the necessity for actual settlement be waived in favour of donations by individuals for Church uses? Cannot the powerful Pacific Railway Syndicate themselves take up this great duty, of setting apart certain sections in favour of a Christian ministry? The signs of the times are dark--dark and fearful. In Europe, by the confession of many eminent public writers, heathenism is overspreading the land. In the United States, a community of the sexes is shamelessly advocated; and there is no single safeguard of public or private order and morality, that is not openly scoffed at and set at nought. Oh, men! men! preachers, and dogmatists, and hierarchs of all sects! see ye not that your strifes and your jealousies are making ye as traitors in the camp, in the face of the common enemy? See ye not the multitudes approaching, armed with the fell weapons of secular knowledge--cynicism, self-esteem, greed, envy, ambition, ill-regulated passions unrestrained! One symptom of a nobler spirit has shown itself in England, in the understanding lately suggested, or arrived at, that the missions of any one Protestant Church in the South Sea Islands shall be entirely undisturbed by rival missionaries. This is right; and if right in Polynesia, why not in Great Britain? why not in Canada? Why cultivate half-a-dozen contentious creeds in every new township or village? Would it not be more amiable, more humble, more self-denying, more exemplary--in one word, more like our Master and Saviour--if each Christian teacher were required to respect the ministrations of his next neighbour, even though there might be some faint shade of variety in their theological opinions; provided always that those ministrations were accredited by some duly constituted branch of the Christian Church. I profess that I can see no reason why an endowment should not be provided in every county in the North-West, to be awarded to the first congregation, no matter how many or how few, that could secure the services of a missionary duly licensed, be he Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregationalist, Disciple--aye, even Anglican or Roman Catholic. No sane man pretends, I think, that eternal salvation is limited to any one, or excluded from any one, of those different churches. That great essential, then, being admitted, what right have I, or have you, dear reader, to demand more? What right have you or I to withhold the Word of God from the orphan or the outcast, for no better reason than such as depends upon the construction of particular words or texts of Holy Scripture, apart from its general tenor and teaching? Again I say, it is much to be deplored that Canada had not more Reformers, and Conservatives too, as liberal-minded as was W. L. Mackenzie, in regard to the maintenance and proper use of the Clergy Reserves. It was not the Imperial Government, it was not Lord John Russell, or Sir Robert Peel, or Lords Durham and Sydenham, that were answerable for the dispersion of the Clergy Reserves. What they did was to leave the question in the hands of the Canadian Legislature. It was the old, old story of the false mother in the "Judgment of Solomon," who preferred that the infant should be cut in twain rather than not wrested from a rival claimant. I would fain hope that the future may yet see a reversal of that disgrace to our Canadian Statute Book. Not by restoring the lands to the Church of England, or the Churches of England and Scotland--they do not now need them--but by endowing all Christian churches for the religious teaching of the poorer classes in the vast North-West. [Footnote 15: Mackenzie afterwards drew up petitions which prayed, amongst other things, for the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, but I judge that on that question these petitions rather represented the opinions of other men than his own, and were specially aimed at the Church of England monopoly.] CHAPTER XXXV. A POLITICAL SEED-TIME. From the arrival of Sir Charles Bagot in January, 1842, up to the departure of Lord Metcalfe in November, 1844, was a period chiefly remarkable for the struggles of political leaders for power, without any very essential difference of principle between them. Lord Cathcart succeeded as Administrator, but took no decided stand on any Canadian question. And it was not until the Earl of Elgin arrived, in January, 1847, that anything like violent party spirit began again to agitate the Provinces. In that interval, some events happened of a minor class, which should not be forgotten. It was, I think, somewhere about the month of May, 1843, that there walked into my office on Nelson Street, a young man of twenty-five years, tall, broad-shouldered, somewhat lantern jawed, and emphatically Scottish, who introduced himself to me as the travelling agent of the New York _British Chronicle_, published by his father. This was George Brown, afterwards publisher and editor of the _Globe_ newspaper. He was a very pleasant-mannered, courteous, gentlemanly young fellow, and impressed me favourably. His father, he said, found the political atmosphere of New York hostile to everything British, and that it was as much as a man's life was worth to give expression to any British predilections whatsoever (which I knew to be true). They had, therefore, thought of transferring their publication to Toronto, and intended to continue it as a thoroughly Conservative journal. I, of course, welcomed him as a co-worker in the same cause with ourselves; little expecting how his ideas of conservatism were to develop themselves in subsequent years. The publication of the _Banner_--a religious journal, edited by Mr. Peter Brown--commenced on the 18th of August following, and was succeeded by the _Globe_, on March 5th, 1844. About the same time, there entered upon public life, another noted Canadian politician, Mr. John A. Macdonald, then member for Kingston, with whom I first became personally acquainted at the meeting of the British American League in 1849, of which I shall have occasion to speak more fully in its order; as it seems to have escaped the notice of Canadian historians, although an event of the first magnitude in our annals. CHAPTER XXXVI. "THE MAPLE LEAF." It was in the year 1841, that the Rev. Dr. John McCaul entered upon his duties as Vice-President of King's College, after having been Principal of Upper Canada College since 1838. With this gentleman are closely connected some of the most pleasurable memories of my own life. He was a zealous promoter of public amusement, musical as well as literary. Some of the best concerts ever witnessed in Toronto were those got up by him in honour of the Convocation of the University of Toronto, October 23rd, 1845, and at the several public concerts of the Philharmonic Society, of which he was president, in that and following years. As a member of the managing committee, I had the honour of conducting one of the Society's public concerts, which happened, being a mixed concert of sacred and secular music, to be the most popular and profitable of the series, greatly to my delight. In 1846, 1847 and 1848, Dr. McCaul edited the _Maple Leaf, or Canadian Annual_, a handsomely illustrated and bound quarto volume, which has not since been surpassed, if equalled, in combined beauty and literary merit, by any work that has issued from the Canadian press. Each volume appeared about Christmas day, and was eagerly looked for. The principal contributors were Dr. McCaul himself; the Hon. Chief Justice Hagarty; the late Rev. R. J. McGeorge, then of Streetsville, since of Scotland; the late Hon. Justice Wilson, of London; Miss Page, of Cobourg; the Rev. Dr. Scadding; the late Rev. J. G. D. McKenzie; the late Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron; the Rev. Alex. (now Archdeacon) Dixon, of Guelph; the Rev. Walter Stennett, of Cobourg; C. W. Cooper, Esq., now of Chicago; the late T. C. Breckenridge; the late Judge Cooper, of Goderich; and myself; besides a few whose names are unknown to me. My own connection, as a writer, with the "Maple Leaf" originated thus: While printing the first volume, I had ventured to send to Dr. McCaul, through the post-office, anonymously, a copy of my poem entitled "Emmeline," as a contribution to the work. It did not appear, and I felt much discouraged in consequence. Some months afterwards, I happened to mention to him my unsuccessful effusion, when he at once said that he had preserved it for the second volume. This was the first ray of encouragement I had ever received as a poet, and it was very welcome to me. He also handed me two or three of the plates intended for the second volume, to try what I could make of them, and most kindly gave me carte-blanche to take up any subject I pleased. The consequence of which was, that I set to work with a new spirit, and supplied four pieces for the second and five for the third volume. Two of my prose pieces--"A Chapter on Chopping," and "A First Day in the Bush"--with two of the poems, I have incorporated in these "Reminiscences:" my other accepted poems, I give below. After this explanation, the reader will not be surprised at the affection with which I regard the "Maple Leaf." I know that the generous encouragement which Dr. McCaul invariably extended to even the humblest rising talent, in his position as head of our Toronto University, has been the means of encouraging many a youthful student to exertions, which have ultimately placed him in the front rank among our public men. Had I met with Dr. McCaul thirty years earlier, he would certainly have made of me a poet by profession. EMMELINE. The faynt-rayed moone shynes dimme and hoar, The nor-wynde moans with fittful roare, The snow-drift hydes the cottage doore, Emmeline, I wander lonelie on the moore, Emmeline. Thou sittest in the castle halle In festal tyre and silken palle, 'Mid smylinge friendes--all hartes thy thrall, Emmeline, My best-beloved--my lyfe--my all, Emmeline. I marke the brightness quit thy cheeke, I knowe the thought thou dost not speake, Some absent one thy glances seeke, Emmeline, I pace alone the mooreland bleake, Emmeline. Thy willfull brother--woe the daye! Why did hee cross mee on my waye? I slewe him that I would not slaye, Emmeline, I cannot washe his bloode awaye, Emmeline. Oh, why, when stricken from his hande, Far flew his weapon o'er the strande-- Why did hee rush upon my brande? Emmeline, Colde lyes his corse upon the sande, Emmeline. Thou'rt too, too younge--too younge and fayre To learne the wearie rede of care-- My bitter griefe thou must not share, Emmeline, I could not bidde thee wedde despaire, Emmeline. Through noisome fenne and tangled brake, Where crawle the lizard and the snake, My mournfull hopelesse way I take, Emmeline, To live a hermitt for thy sake, Emmeline. Thy buoyaunt spirit may forgett The happie houre when last we mett-- My sunne of hope is darklie sett, Emmeline, I'll bee thy guardian-angell yett, Emmeline. CHANGES OF AN HOUR ON LAKE ERIE. Smiles the sunbeam on the waters-- On the waters glad and free; Sparkling, flashing, laughing, dancing-- Emblem fair of childhood's glee. Ruddy on the waves reflected, Deeper glows the sinking ray; Like the smile of young affection Flushed by fancy's changeful play. Mist-enwreathing, chill and gloomy, Steals grey twilight o'er the lake-- Ah! to days of autumn sadness Soon our dreaming souls awake. Night has fallen, dark and silent, Starry myriads gem the sky; Thus, when earthly hopes have failed us, Brighter visions beam on high. A CANADIAN ECLOGUE. An aged man sat lonesomely within a rustic porch, His eyes in troubled thoughtfulness were bent upon the ground: Why pondered he so mournfully, that venerable man? He dreamt sad dreams of early days, the happy days of youth. He dreamt fond dreams of early days, the lightsome days of youth; He saw his distant island home--the cot his fathers built-- The bright green fields their hands had tilled--the once accustomed haunts; And, dearer still, the old churchyard where now their ashes lie. Long, weary years had slowly passed--long years of thrift and toil-- The hair, once glossy brown, was white, the hands were rough and hard; Deep-delving care had plainly marked its furrows on the brow; The form, once tall and lithe and strong, now bent and stiff and weak. His many kind and duteous sons, his daughters, meek and good, Like scattered leaves from autumn gales, were reft the parent tree; Tho' lands, and flocks, and rustic wealth, an ample store he owned, They seemed but transitory gains--a coil of earthly care. Old neighbours, from that childhood's home, have paused before his door; Oh, gladly hath he welcomed them, and warmly doth he greet; They bring him--token of old love--a little cage of birds, The songsters of his native vale, companions of his youth. Those warbled notes, too well they tell of other, happier hours, Of joyous, childish innocence, of boyhood's gleeful sports, A mother's tender watchfulness, a father's gentle sway-- The silent tear rolls stealthily adown his furrowed cheek. Sweet choristers of England's fields, how fondly are ye prized! Your melody, like mystic strains upon the dying ear, Awakes a chord that, all unheard, long slumbered in the breast, That vibrates but to one loved sound--the sacred name of "Home." ZAYDA. "Come lay thy head upon my breast, And I will kiss thee into rest." _--Byron._ Wherefore art thou sad, my brother? why that shade upon thy brow, Like yon clouds each other chasing o'er the summer landscape now? What hath moved thy gentle spirit from its wonted calm the while? Shall not Zayda share thy sorrow, as she loves to share thy smile? Tell me, hath our cousin Hassan passed thee on a fleeter steed? Hath thy practised arm betrayed thee when thou threwst the light jereed? Hath some rival, too ungently, taunted thee with scoffing pride? Tell me what hath grieved thee, Selim--ah, I will not be denied. Some dark eye, I much mistrust me, hath too brightly answered thine; Some sweet voice hath, all too sweetly, whispered in the Bezestein. Nay, doth sadder, deeper feeling dim the gladness of thine eye? Tell me, dearest, tell me truly, why thou breath'st that mournful sigh? Oh, if thou upon poor Zayda cast one look of cold regard, Whither shall she turn for comfort in a world unkind and hard? Since our tender mother, dying, gave me trustfully to thee, Selim, brother, thou hast always been far more than worlds to me. Take this rose--upon my bosom I have worn it all the day; Like thy sister's true affection, never can its scent decay: As the pure wave, murm'ring fondly, lingers round some lonely isle, Life-long shall my love enchain thee, Selim, asking but a smile. THE TWO FOSCARI.[16] Ho! gentlemen of Venice! Ho! soldiers of St. Mark! Pile high your blazing beacon-fire, The night is wild and dark, Behoves us all be wary, Behoves us have a care No traitor spy of Austria Our watch is prowling near. Time was, would princely Venice No foreign tyrant brook; Time was, before her stately wrath The proudest Kaiser shook; When o'er the Adriatic The Wingéd Lion hurled Destruction on his enemies-- Defiance to the world. 'Twas when the Turkish crescent Contended with the cross, And many a Christian kingdom rued Discomfiture and loss; We taught the turban'd Paynim-- We taught his boastful fleet, Venetian freemen scorned alike Submission or retreat. Alas, for fair Venezia, When wealth and pomp and pride --The pride of her patrician lords-- Her freedom thrust aside: When o'er the trembling commons The haughty nobles rode, And red with patriotic blood The Adrian waters flowed. 'Twas in the year of mercy Just fourteen fifty two --When Francis Foscari was Doge, A valiant prince and true-- He won for the Republic Ravenna--Brescia bright-- And Crema--aye, and Bergamo Submitted to his might: Young Giacopo, his darling, --His last and fairest child-- A gallant soldier in the wars, In peace serene and mild-- Woo'd gentle Mariana, Old Contarini's pride, And glad was Venice on that day He claimed her for his bride. The Bucentaur showed bravely In silks and cloth of gold, And thousands of swift gondolas Were gay with young and old; Where spann'd the Canalazo A boat-bridge wide and strong, Amid three hundred cavaliers The bridegroom rode along. Three days were joust and tourney, Three days the Plaza bore Such gallant shock of knight and steed Was never dealt before, And thrice ten thousand voices With warm and honest zeal, Loud shouted for the Foscari Who loved the Commonweal. For this the Secret Council-- The dark and subtle Ten-- Pray God and good San Marco None like may rule again! Because the people honoured Pursued with bitter hate, And foully charged young Giacopo With treason to the state. The good old prince, his father-- Was ever grief like his!-- They forced, as judge, to gaze upon His own child's agonies! No outward mark of sorrow Disturb'd his awful mien-- No bursting sigh escaped to tell The anguish'd heart within. Twice tortured and twice banish'd, The hapless victim sighed To see his old ancestral home, His children and his bride: Life seem'd a weary burthen Too heavy to be borne, From all might cheer his waning hours A hopeless exile torn. In vain--no fond entreaty Could pierce the ear of hate-- He knew the Senate pitiless, Yet rashly sought his fate; A letter to the Sforza Invoking Milan's aid, He wrote, and placed where spies might see-- 'Twas seen, and was betrayed. Again the rack--the torture-- Oh! cruelty accurst!-- The wretched victim meekly bore-- They could but wreak their worst; So he but lay in Venice, Contented, if they gave What little space his bones might fill-- The measure of a grave. The white-haired sire, heart-broken, Survived his happier son, To learn a Senate's gratitude For faithful service done; What never Doge of Venice Before had lived to tell, He heard for a successor peal San Marco's solemn bell. When, years before, his honours Twice would he fain lay down, They bound him by his princely oath To wear for life the crown; But now, his brow o'ershadow'd By fourscore winters' snows, Their eager malice would not wait A spent life's mournful close. He doff'd his ducal ensigns In proud obedient haste, And through the sculptured corridors With staff-propt footsteps paced; Till on the giant's staircase, Which first in princely pride He mounted as Venezia's Doge, The old man paused--and died. Thus govern'd the Patricians When Venice owned their sway, And thus Venetian liberties Became a helpless prey: They sold us to the Teuton, They sold us to the Gaul-- Thank God and good San Marco, We've triumph'd over all! Ho! gentlemen of Venice! Ho! soldiers of St. Mark! You've driven from your palaces The Austrian, cold and dark! But better for Venezia The stranger ruled again, Than the old patrician tyranny, The Senate and the Ten! [Footnote 16: This and the preceding poem were written as illustrations of two beautiful plates which appeared in the Maple Leaf. One, Zayda presenting a rose to her supposed brother, Selim; the other, the Doge Foscari passing sentence of exile upon his son. The incidents in the Venetian story are all historical facts.] CHAPTER XXXVII. ST. GEORGE'S SOCIETY. My new partner, Mr. William Rowsell, and Mr. Geo. A. Barber, are entitled to be called the founders of the St. George's Society of Toronto. Mr. Barber was appointed secretary at its first meeting in 1835, and was very efficient in that capacity. But it was the enthusiastic spirit and the galvanic energy of William Rowsell that raised the society to the high position it has ever since maintained in Toronto. Other members, especially George P. Ridout, William Wakefield, W. B. Phipps, Jos. D. Ridout, W. B. Jarvis, Rev. H. Scadding, and many more, gave their hearty co-operation then and afterwards. In those early days, the ministrations of the three national societies of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick, were as angels' visits to thousands of poor emigrants, who landed here in the midst of the horrors of fever and want. Those poor fellows, who, like my companions on board the _Asia_, were sent out by some parochial authority, and found themselves, with their wives and half a dozen young children, left without a shilling to buy their first meal, must have been driven to desperation and crime but for the help extended to them by the three societies. The earliest authorized report of the Society's proceedings which I can find, is that for the year 1843-4, and I think I cannot do better than give the list of the officers and members entire: ST. GEORGE'S SOCIETY OF TORONTO. _Officers for 1844._ Patron--His Excellency the Right Hon. Sir Charles T. Metcalfe, Bart., K. G. B., Governor-General of British North America, &c. President--William Wakefield. Vice-Presidents--W. B. Jarvis, G. P. Ridout, W. Atkinson. Chaplain--The Rev. Henry Scadding, M. A. Physician--Robt. Hornby, M. D. Treasurer--Henry Rowsell. Managing Committee--G. Walton, T. Clarke, J. D. Ridout, F. Lewis, J. Moore, J. G. Beard, W. H. Boulton. Secretary--W. Rowsell. Standard Bearers--G. D. Wells, A. Wasnidge, F. W. Coate, T. Moore. _List of Members, March, 1844._ E. H. Ades, E. S. Alport, Thos. Armstrong, W. Atkinson. Thos. Baines, G. W. Baker, Jr.; G. A. Barber, F. W. Barron, Robert Barwick, J. G. Beard, Robt. Beard, Edwin Bell, Matthew Betley, J. C. Bettridge, G. Bilton, T. W. Birchall, W. H. Boulton, Josh. Bound, W. Bright, Jas. Brown, Jno. Brown, Thos. Brunskill, E. C. Bull, Jas. Burgess, Mark Burgess, Thos. Burgess. F. C. Capreol, W. Cayley, Thos. Champion, E. C. Chapman, Jas. Christie, Edw. Clarke, Jno. Clarke, Thos. Clarke, Thos. Clarkson, D. Cleal, F. W. Coate, Edw. Cooper, C. N. B. Cozens. Jno. Davis, Nath. Davis, G. T. Denison, Sen., Robt. B. Denison, Hon. W. H. Draper. Jno. Eastwood, Jno. Elgie, Thos. Elgie, Jno. Ellis, Christopher Elliott, J. P. Esten, Jas. Eykelbosch. C. T. Gardner, Jno. Garfield, W. Gooderham, G. Gurnett. Chas. Hannath, W. Harnett, Josh. Hill, Rich. Hockridge, Joseph Hodgson, Dr. R. Hornby, G. C. Horwood, J. G. Howard. Æ. Irving, Jr. Hon. R. S. Jameson, W. B. Jarvis, H. B. Jessopp. Alfred Laing, Jno. Lee, F. Lewis, Henry Lutwych, C. Lynes, S. G. Lynn. Hon. J. S. Macaulay, Rich. Machell, J. F. Maddock, Jno. Mead, And. Mercer, Jas. Mirfield, Sam. Mitchell, Jno. Moore, Thos. Moore, Jas. Moore, Jas. Morris, W. Morrison, J. G. Mountain, W. Mudford. J. R. Nash. Thos. Pearson, Jno. E. Pell, W. B. Phipps, Sam. Phillips, Hiram Piper, Jno. Popplewell, Jno. Powell. M. Raines, J. D. Ridout, G. P. Ridout, Sam. G. Ridout, Ewd. Robson, H. Rowsell, W. Rowsell, F. Rudyerd. Chas. Sabine, J. H. Savigny, Hugh Savigny, Geo. Sawdon, Rev. H. Scadding, Jas. Severs, Rich. Sewell, Hon. Henry Sherwood, Jno. Sleigh, I. A. Smith, L. W. Smith, Thos. Smith (Newgate Street), Thos. Smith, (Market Square), J. G. Spragge, Jos. Spragge, W. Steers, J. Stone. Leonard Thompson, S. Thompson, Rich. Tinning, Enoch Turner. Wm. Wakefield, Jas. Wallis, Geo. Walton, W. Walton, Alf. Wasnidge, Hon. Col. Wells, G. D. Wells, Thos. Wheeler, F. Widder, H. B. Williams, J. Williams, W. Wynn. Thos. Young. The list of Englishmen thus reproduced, may well raise emotions of love and regret in us their survivors. Most of them have died full of years, and rich in the respect of their compatriots of all nations. There are still living some twenty out of the above one hundred and thirty-seven members. The following song, written and set to music by me for the occasion, was sung by the late Mr. J. D. Humphreys, the well-known Toronto tenor, at the annual dinner held on the 24th April, 1845:-- THE ROSE OF ENGLAND. The Rose, the Rose of England, The gallant and the free! Of all our flow'rs the fairest, The Rose, the Rose for me! Our good old English fashion What other flow'r can show? Its smiles of beauty greet its friends, Its thorns defy the foe! _Chorus_--The Rose, the Rose of England, The gallant and the free! Of all our flow'rs the fairest, The Rose, the Rose for me! Though proudly for the Thistle Each Scottish bosom swell, The Thistle hath no charms for me Like the Rose I love so well. And Erin's native Shamrock, In lonely wilds that grows, Its modest leaflet would not strive To vie with England's Rose. _Chorus_--The Rose, the Rose, etc. Yet Scotia's Thistle bravely Withstands the rudest blast, And Erin's cherished Shamrock Keeps verdant to the last; And long as British feeling In British bosoms glows, Right joyfully we'll honour them, As they will England's Rose. _Chorus_--The Rose, the Rose, etc. Before closing my reminiscences of the St. George's Society, it may not be out of place to give some account of its legitimate congener, the North America St. George's Union. Englishmen in the United States, like those of Canada, have formed themselves into societies for the relief of their suffering brethren from the Fatherland, in all their principal cities. The necessity of frequent correspondence respecting cases of destitution, naturally led the officers of those societies to feel an interest in each other's welfare and system of relief, which at length gave rise to a desire for formal meeting and consultation, and that finally to the establishment of an organized association. In 1876, the fourth annual convention of the St. George's Union was for the first time held in Canada, at the City of Hamilton; in 1878 at Guelph; in 1880 at Ottawa; and in August, 1883, at Toronto--the intervening meetings taking place at Philadelphia, Bridgeport and Washington, U. S., respectively. To give an idea of what has been done, and of the spirit which actuates this great representative body of Englishmen, I avail myself of the opening speech of the President, our fellow-citizen and much esteemed friend, J. Herbert Mason, Esq., which was delivered at the City Hall here, on the 29th of August last. After welcoming the delegates from other cities, he went on to say:-- "Met together to promote objects purely beneficent, for which, in the interests of humanity, we claim the support of all good citizens, of whatever flag or origin, we may here give expression to our sentiments and opinions without reserve, and with confidence that they will be received with respect, even by those who may not be able to share in the glorious memories, and vastly more glorious anticipations, with which we, as Englishmen and the descendants of Englishmen, are animated. "And in the term Englishmen, I wish to be understood as including all loyal Irishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen. There need be no division among men of British origin in regard to the objects we are banded together to promote. "The city of Toronto is in some respects peculiarly suitable as a place for holding a convention of representative men of English blood. Its Indian name, Toronto, signifies a place of meeting. Ninety years ago its site was selected as that of the future capital of Upper Canada, by General Simcoe, a Devonshire man, distinguished both as a soldier and a statesman, who, in the following year, founded the city. "At that time the shore of our beautiful bay, and nearly the entire country from the Detroit river to Montreal, was a dense forest, the home of the wolf, the beaver and the bear. In earlier years the surrounding country had been inhabited by powerful Indian tribes; but after a prolonged contest, carried on with the persistence and ferocity which distinguished them, the dreaded Iroquois from the southern shores of Lake Ontario had exterminated or driven away the Hurons, their less warlike kinsmen, and at the time I speak of, the only human beings that were found here was a single family of the Mississaga Indians. The story of the contest which ended in the supremacy of the Iroquois Confederacy, taken from the records of the Jesuit fathers, who shared in the destruction of their Huron converts, so graphically described by Parkman, the New England historian, furnishes one of the most interesting and romantic chapters of American history. In the names and general appearance of its streets, the style of its habitations, in its social life, and the characteristics of its people (if the opinions of tourists and visitors may be accepted), Toronto recals to Englishmen vivid impressions of home in a greater degree than any other American city. "The opening up of the Canadian North-West, and the increased tendency of English emigration towards this Continent, instead of, as formerly, towards those great English communities in the Southern hemisphere, proportionately increases the responsibility thrown upon their kindred living here, to see that all reasonable and necessary counsel and assistance are afforded to them on their arrival. One of the most suitable agencies for effecting this object is the formation of St. George's Societies in every city and town where Englishmen exist. To the friendless immigrant, suddenly placed in a new and unknown world, not understanding the conditions of success, and, in many cases, suffering in health from change of climate, the familiar tones, the kindly hand, and the brotherly sympathy of a fellow-countryman, are most welcome. It supplies to the stranger help of the right kind when most needed, and is one of those acts of divine charity which covers a multitude of sins. One of the chief objects of the St. George's Union is to increase the number and usefulness, and enlarge the membership of such societies, and if, under its fostering influence and encouraging example, Englishmen generally, and their descendants, are aroused to a more faithful discharge of their duty in this respect, the Union is surely well worth maintaining. In this connection, and for the information and example of younger societies, permit me to point out some features of the work of the St. George's Society of this city. It was organized in 1835, when the population of the city was only 8,000. In the nearly fifty years of its existence, it has had enrolled among its chief officers, men of distinguished position and high moral excellence. It is a notable circumstance, that at the time of the meeting of this Union in Toronto, the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, whose official residence is here, as well as the Mayor, the Police Magistrate, the Treasurer, the Commissioners, the Acting Engineer, and the Chairman of the Free Library Board of Toronto, are all members of the St. George's Society, and two of them past-presidents of it. It has a membership of about six hundred, an annual income of about $2,400, and invested funds to the amount of nearly $9,000. The office of the Society is open daily, where cases requiring immediate advice or assistance are promptly attended to by its indefatigable Secretary, Mr. J. E. Pell. The Committee for General Relief meets weekly. Every case is investigated and treated on its merits. Efforts are made to secure employment for those who are able to work, and all tendencies towards pauperism, or the formation of a pauper class, are severely discouraged. One feature in the work of this society I invite special attention to, which is its annual distribution of 'Christmas Cheer' to the English poor. Last Christmas Eve there were given away 7,500 pounds of excellent beef; 4,400 pounds of bread; 175 pounds of tea, and 650 pounds of sugar. Each member of the society had, therefore, the satisfaction of knowing when he sat down to his Yule-tide table, loaded with the good things of this life, and surrounded by the happy faces of those he loved best, that every one of his needy fellow-countrymen was, on that day, bountifully supplied with the necessaries of life." From the Annual Report of the Committee I gather a few items: "Reports from nineteen societies (affiliated to the Union) show the following results:-- Membership (excluding honorary members) 3,247 Receipts during the year $19,618 Expended for charity during the year (excluding private donations) 12,003 Value of investments, furniture and fixtures 96,568 "The Society of St. George, of London, England, has intimate relations with the Union. The General Committee embraces such eminent names as those of the Duke of Manchester, Lord Alfred Churchill, Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen; Messrs. Beresford-Hope and Puleston, of the House of Commons; Blanchard Jerrold and Hyde Clarke, while death has removed from the Committee Messrs. W. Hepworth Dixon and Walter Besant. St. George's Day has been publicly celebrated ever since the institution of the Society in 1879. A new history of the titular saint, by the Rev. Dr. Barons, has been promoted by the Society, and by its efforts appropriate mortuary honours were paid to Colonel Chester, the Anglo-American antiquarian, who died while prosecuting in England his researches concerning the genealogy of the Pilgrim Fathers. Through the industry and zeal of the chairman of the Executive Committee there has been much revival of interest, at home and abroad, respecting England's patron saint and the ancient celebrations of his legendary natal day." After the official business of the convention had been disposed of, the American and Canadian visitors were hospitably entertained, on Wednesday the 30th, at "Ermeleigh," the private residence of the President, on Jarvis street; on Thursday afternoon at Government House, as guests of the Lieutenant-Governor and Mrs. Robinson; and in the evening at the Queen's Hotel, where a handsome entertainment was provided. CHAPTER XXXVIII. A GREAT CONFLAGRATION. The 7th of April, 1849, will be fresh in the memory of many old Torontonians. It was an unusually fine spring day, and a large number of farmers' teams thronged the old market, then the only place within the city where meat was allowed to be sold. The hotel stables were crowded, and among them those of Graham's tavern on King and George Streets. At two o'clock in the afternoon, an alarm of fire was heard, occasioned by the heedlessness of some teamster smoking his after-dinner pipe. It was only a wooden stable, and but little notice was taken at first. The three or four hand-engines which constituted the effective strength of the fire brigade of that day, were brought into play one by one; but the stable, and Post's stable adjoining, were soon in full blaze. A powerful east wind carried the flames in rear of a range of brick stores extending on the north side of King Street from George to Nelson (now Jarvis) Street, and they attacked a small building on the latter street, next adjoining my own printing office, which was in the third story of a large brick building on the corner of King and Nelson Streets, afterwards well-known as Foy & Austin's corner. The _Patriot_ newspaper was printed there, and the compositors and press-men not only of that office, but of nearly all the newspaper offices in the city, were busily occupied in removing the type and presses downstairs. Suddenly the flames burst through our north windows with frightful strength, and we shouted to the men to escape, some by the side windows, some by the staircase. As we supposed, all got safely away; but unhappily it proved otherwise. Mr. Richard Watson was well known and respected as Queen's Printer since the rebellion times. He was at the head of the profession, universally liked, and always foremost on occasions of danger and necessity. He had persisted in spite of all remonstrance in carrying cases of type down the long, three-story staircase, and was forgotten for a while. Being speedily missed, however, cries were frantically raised for ladders to the south windows; and our brave friend, Col. O'Brien, was the first to climb to the third story, dash in the window-sash--using his hat as a weapon--but not escaping severe cuts from the broken glass--and shouting to the prisoner within. But in vain. No person could be seen, and the smoke and flames forcing their way at that moment through the front windows, rendered all efforts at rescue futile. In the meantime, the flames had crossed Nelson Street to St. James's buildings on King Street; thence across King Street to the old city hall and the market block, and here it was thought the destruction would cease. But not so. One or two men noticed a burning flake, carried by the fierce gale, lodge itself in the belfry of St. James's Cathedral, two or three hundred yards to the west. The men of the fire brigade were all busy and well-nigh exhausted by their previous efforts, but one of them was found, who, armed with an axe, hastily rushed up the tower-stairs and essayed to cut away the burning woodwork. The fire had gained too much headway. Down through the tower to the loft over the nave, then through the flat ceiling in flakes, setting in a blaze the furniture and prayer-books in the pews; and up to the splendid organ not long before erected by May & Son, of the Adelphi Terrace, London, at an expense of £1200 sterling, if I recollect rightly. I was a member of the choir, and with other members stood looking on in an agony of suspense, hoping against hope that our beloved instrument might yet be saved; but what the flames had spared, the intense heat effected. While we were gazing at the sea of fire visible through the wide front doorway, a dense shower of liquid silvery metal, white hot, suddenly descended from the organ loft. The pipes had all melted at once, and the noble organ was only an empty case, soon to be consumed with the whole interior of the building, leaving nothing but ghostly-looking charred limestone walls. Next morning there was a general cry to recover the remains of poor Watson. The brick walls of our office had fallen in, and the heat of the burning mass in the cellar was that of a vast furnace. But nothing checked the zeal of the men, all of whom knew and liked him. Still hissing hot, the burnt masses were gradually cleared away, and after long hours of labour, an incremated skeleton was found, and restored to his sorrowing family for interment, with funeral obsequies which were attended by nearly all the citizens. Shortly afterwards, Col. O'Brien's interest in the _Patriot_ newspaper was sold to Mr. Ogle R. Gowan, and it continued to be conducted by him and myself until, in 1853, we dissolved partnership by arbitration, he being awarded the weekly, and I the daily edition. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE REBELLION LOSSES BILL. On the 25th of the same month of April, 1849, the Parliament Houses at Montreal were sacked and burnt by a disorderly mob, stirred up to riot by the unfortunate act of Lord Elgin, in giving the royal assent to a bill for compensating persons whose property had been destroyed or injured during the rebellion in Lower Canada in 1837-8. That the payment of those losses was a logical consequence of the general amnesty proclaimed earlier in the same year, and that men equally guilty in Upper Canada, such as Montgomery and others, were similarly compensated, is indisputable. But in Upper Canada there was no race hatred, such as Lord Durham, in the Report written for him by Messrs. C. Buller & E. G. Wakefield, describes as existing between the French and British of Lower Canada.[17] The rebels of Gallows Hill and the militia of Toronto were literally brothers and cousins; while the rival factions of Montreal were national enemies, with their passions aroused by long-standing mutual injuries and insults. Had Lord Elgin reserved the bill for imperial consideration, no mischief would probably have followed. What might have been considered magnanimous generosity if voluntarily accorded by the conquerors, became a stinging insult when claimed by conquered enemies and aliens. And so it was felt to be in Montreal and the Eastern Townships. But the opportunity of putting in force the new theory of ministerial responsibility to the Canadian commons, seems to have fascinated Lord Elgin's mind, and so he "threw a cast" which all but upset the loyalty of Lower Canada, and caused that of the Upper Province almost to hesitate for a brief instant. In Toronto, sympathy with the resentment of the rioters was blended with a deep sense of the necessity for enforcing law and order. To the passionate movement in Montreal for annexation to the English race south of the line, no corresponding sentiment gained a hold in the Upper Province. And in the subsequent interchange of views between Montreal and Toronto, which resulted in the convention of the British American League at Kingston in the following July, it was sternly insisted by western men, that no breath of disloyalty to the Empire would be for a moment tolerated here. By the loss of her metropolitan honours which resulted, Montreal paid a heavy penalty for her mad act of lawlessness. [Footnote 17: As originally introduced by the Lafontaine-Baldwin Ministry, the bill recognised no distinction between the claims of men actually in arms and innocent sufferers, nor was it until the last reading that a pledge not to compensate actual criminals was wrested from the Government.] CHAPTER XL. THE BRITISH AMERICAN LEAGUE. The Union of all the British American colonies now forming the Dominion of Canada, was discussed at Quebec as long ago as the year 1815; and at various times afterwards it came to the surface amid the politics of the day. The Tories of 1837 were generally favourable to union, while many Reformers objected to it. Lord Durham's report recommended a general union of the five Provinces, as a desirable sequel to the proposed union of Upper and Lower Canada. But it was not until the passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill, that the question of a larger confederation began to assume importance. The British population of Montreal, exasperated at the action of the Parliament in recognising claims for compensation on the part of the French Canadian rebels of 1837--that is, on the part of those who had slain loyalists and ruined their families--were ready to adopt any means--reasonable or unreasonable--of escaping from the hated domination of an alien majority. The Rebellion Losses Bill was felt by them to imply a surrender of all those rights which they and theirs had fought hard to maintain. Hence the burning of the Parliament buildings by an infuriated populace. Hence the demand in Montreal for annexation to the United States. Hence the attack upon Lord Elgin's carriage in the same city, and the less serious demonstration in Toronto. But wiser men and cooler politicians saw in the union of all the British-American Provinces a more constitutional, as well as a more pacific remedy. The first public meetings of the British American League were held in Montreal, where the movement early assumed a formal organization; auxiliary branches rapidly sprang up in almost every city, town and village throughout Upper Canada, and the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada. In Toronto, meetings were held at Smith's Hotel, at the corner of Colborne Street and West Market Square, and were attended by large numbers, chiefly of the Tory party, but including several known Reformers. In fact, from first to last, the sympathies of the Reformers were with the League; and hence there was no serious attempt at a counter demonstration, notwithstanding that the Government and the _Globe_ newspaper--at the time--did their best to ridicule and contemn the proposed union. The principal speakers at the Toronto meetings were P. M. Vankoughnet, John W. Gamble, Ogle R. Gowan, David B. Read, E. G. O'Brien, John Duggan and others. They were warmly supported. After some correspondence between Toronto and Montreal, it was arranged that a general meeting of the League, to consist of delegates from all the town and country branches, formally accredited, should be held at Kingston, in the new Town Hall, which had been placed at their disposal by the city authorities. Here, in a lofty, well-lighted and commodiously-seated hall, the British American League assembled on the 25th day of July, 1849. The number of delegates present was one hundred and forty, each representing some hundreds of stout yeomen, loyal to the death, and in intelligence equal to any constituency in the Empire or the world. The number of people so represented, with their families, could not have been less than half a million. The first day was spent in discussion (with closed doors) of the manner in which the proceedings should be conducted, and in the appointment of a committee to prepare resolutions for submission on the morrow. On the 26th, accordingly, the public business commenced.[18] The proceedings were conducted in accordance with parliamentary practice. The chairman, the Hon. George Moffatt, of Montreal, sat on a raised platform at the east end of the hall; at a table in front of him were placed the two secretaries, W. G. Mack, of Montreal, and Wm. Brooke, of Shipton, C. E. On either side were seated the delegates, and outside a rail, running transversely across the room, benches were provided for spectators, of whom a large number attended. A table for reporters stood on the south side, near the secretaries' table. I was present both as delegate and reporter. The business of the day was commenced with prayer, by a clergyman of Kingston. Mr. John W. Gamble, of Vaughan, then, as chairman of the committee nominated the previous day, introduced a series of resolutions, the first of which was as follows:-- "That it is essential to the prosperity of the country that the tariff should be so proportioned and levied, as to give just and adequate protection to the manufacturing and industrial classes of the country, and to secure to the agricultural population a home market with fair and remunerative prices for all descriptions of farm produce." Resolutions in favour of economy in public expenditure, of equal justice to all classes of the people, and condemnatory of the Government in connection with the Rebellion Losses Bill, were proposed in turn, and unanimously adopted, after discussions extending over two or three days. The principal speakers in support of the resolution were J. W. Gamble, Ogle R. Gowan, P. M. Vankoughnet, Thos. Wilson, of Quebec, Geo. Crawford, A. A. Burnham,--Aikman, John Duggan, Col. Frazer, Geo. Benjamin, and John A. Macdonald. At length, the main object of the assemblage was reached, and embodied in the form of a motion introduced by Mr. Breckenridge, of Cobourg. That delegates be appointed to consult with similar delegates from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, concerning the practicability of a union of all the provinces. This resolution was adopted unanimously after a full discussion. Other resolutions giving effect thereto were passed, and a committee appointed to draft an address founded thereon, which was issued immediately afterwards. On the 1st November following, the League reassembled in the City Hall, Toronto, to receive the report of the delegates to the Maritime Provinces, which was altogether favourable. It was then decided, that the proper course would be to bring the subject before the several legislatures through the people's representatives; and so the matter rested for the time. In consequence of the removal of the seat of government to Toronto, I was appointed secretary of the League, with Mr. C. W. Cooper as assistant secretary. Meetings of the Executive Committee took place from time to time. At one of these Mr. J. W. Gamble submitted a resolution, pledging the League to join its forces with the extreme radical party represented by Mr. Peter Perry and other Reformers, who were dissatisfied with the action of the Baldwin-Lafontaine-Hincks administration, and the course of the _Globe_ newspaper in sustaining the same. This proposition I felt it my duty to oppose, as being unwarranted by the committee's powers; it was negatived by a majority of two, and never afterwards revived. I subjoin Mr. Gamble's speech on Protection to Native Industry, reported by myself for the _Patriot_, July 27, 1849, as a valuable historical document, which the _Globe_ of that day refused to publish: J. W. Gamble, Esq., in rising to support the motion said:--He came to this convention to represent the views and opinions of a portion of the people of the Home District, and to deliberate upon important measures necessary for the good of the country, and not to subserve the interests of any party whatever; to consider what it was that retarded the onward progress of this country in improvement, in wealth, in the arts and amenities of life; why we were behind a neighbouring country in so many important respects. Unless we made some great change, unless we learnt speedily how to overtake that country, it followed in the natural course of events that we should be inevitably merged in that great republic, which he (Mr. G.) wished to avoid. The political questions which would engage the attention of the convention, embracing gross violations of our constitution and involving momentous consequences, were yet of small importance when compared with the great question of protection to native industry. A perusal of the statutes enacted by the Parliament of Great Britain from the time of the conquest of Canada to the abolition of the corn laws, for the regulation of the commercial intercourse of this colony, leads to the unavoidable conviction, that the first object of the framers of those statutes was to protect and advance the interests of the people of England and such of them as might temporarily resort to the colony for the purpose of trade; and that when their tendency was to promote colonial interests, that tendency was more incidental than their chief purpose. That such a course of legislation was to be expected in the outset it was but reasonable to suppose, and that a continuation of enactments in the same spirit should be suffered by the British Canadians, with but few and feeble remonstrances on their part, might be accounted for and even anticipated when we remember the material of which a large portion of the original population of Canada was composed. Ten thousand U. E. Loyalists had emigrated from the United States to Upper Canada in 1783, rather than surrender their allegiance to the British throne; their enthusiastic attachment to the Crown of Great Britain had made them ever prone to sacrifice their own, to what had been improperly termed the _interests of the empire_. He (Mr. G.) was himself a grandson of one of those U. E. Loyalists, and might be said to have imbibed his British feelings with his mother's milk. He remembered the time well, when the utterance of a word disrespectful of the Sovereign was looked upon as an insult to be resented on the spot. Remembering all this, and that these same people, Canada's earliest settlers, rather than live under a foreign government, though the people of that government were their own countrymen, yea, their very kinsmen and relatives--that they had forsaken their cultivated farms, their lands and possessions, to take up their abode with their families in a wilderness; remembering these circumstances, it need excite no surprise that the old colonial commercial system was allowed to continue without any very weighty remonstrance from the colonists, until it expired in Britain's free trade policy. Although that same system, primarily intended for Britain's benefit, was not calculated to advance the settlement, the improvement, or the wealth of Canada, with equal rapidity to that of the adjoining country, whose inhabitants enacted their own commercial regulations with a view to their own immediate benefit and without reference to that of others. The United States had legislated solely for their own interests. Our commercial legislation, instead of consulting exclusively our good, had been directed for the benefit of England. If that same policy were continued hereafter, to overtake our neighbours would be hopeless, and he reiterated that the consequences would be fatal to our connexion with Great Britain. We must protect the industry of our country. The people of this country surely are the first entitled to the benefits of the markets of their country. He had been brought up a commercial man, and until lately held to the free trade principles of commercial men. From his youth, Smith's "Wealth of Nations" had been almost as familiar to him as his Catechism, and was regarded with almost equal deference; but practical experience had of late forced upon him the conviction, that that beautiful theory was not borne out by corresponding benefits; he had looked at its practical results, and was constrained to acknowledge, in spite of early predilections, that that theory was a fallacy. He had adopted the views of the American Protectionists as those most consonant with sound reason and common sense. Their arguments he looked upon as unanswerable; with them he believed that economists and free trade advocates had overlooked three principles which to him appeared like economic laws of nature, and the disregard of which alone was sufficient to account for the present position of our country. They say, and he believed with them, that the earth, the only source of all production, requires the refuse of its products to be returned to its soil, or productiveness diminishes and eventually ceases. That the expense of carriage to distant markets not only wastes the manure of animals on the road, but that the expenses of freight and commissions, of charges to carriers and exchangers, are in themselves a _waste_, avoided by a home market whenever the _consumer_ is not separated from the _producer_; and that those productions fitted for distant markets, such as wheat and other grains, are only _yielded by bushels_, while those adapted for the use of the home consumer, and unsuited for distant transportation, as potatoes, turnips, cabbages, are yielded by tons. These were facts well worthy the attention of our agriculturists--eight-tenths of our whole population--and which could not be too often or too plainly placed before them. It is essential to the prosperity of every agricultural country that the consumer should be placed side by side with the producer, the loom and anvil side by side with the plough and harrow. The truth of these principles is well known in England, and practically carried out there by her agriculturists every day. She possesses within herself unlimited stores of lime, chalk and marl, besides animal manures, valued in McQueen's Statistics in 1840 at nearly sixty millions of pounds, more than the then value of the whole of her cotton manufactures. Yet England employs whole fleets in conveying manure, guano and animal bones to her shores; yes, has ransacked the whole habitable globe for materials to enrich her fields, and yet, forsooth, her economists and hosts of other writers would fain persuade all nations and make the world believe, that all countries are to be enriched by sending their food, their raw produce, their wheat, their rye, their barley, their oats and their grains to her market, to be eaten upon her ground, which thus receives the benefit of the refuse of the food of man, while that of animals employed in its carriage is wasted on the road, and the grower's profits are reduced by freight to her ship-owners and commission to her merchants. Behold the inconsistency, behold the practice of England and the preaching of England; behold how it is exemplified in the countries most closely in connection with her: look at Portugal, "our ancient ally." By the famous Methuen treaty she surrendered her manufactures for a market for her wines, and thus separated the _producer_ from the consumer. From that hour Portugal declined, and is now--what?--the least among the nations of the earth. Next, let us direct our attention to the West India Islands. They do not even refine their own sugar, but import what they consume of that article from England, whither they send the raw material from which it is made, in order, he supposed, to enrich the British ship-owner with two voyages across the Atlantic, and the British refiner in England, instead of bringing him and his property within their own islands. Such is their commercial policy; and with free trade the West India planter has been ruined, the prospects of the country are blighted, and discord and discontent pervade the land. Next comes the East Indies: partial free trade with England has destroyed her manufactures. He (Mr. G.) could well recollect when Indian looms supplied the nation with cottons; here in Canada they were the only cottons used: he appealed to the chairman, who could corroborate his statement, and must remember the Salampores and Baftas of India. But Arkwright's invention of the spinning jenny enabled England to import the raw material from India, and send back the finished article better and cheaper than the native operatives could furnish it. It was forced into their markets in spite of their earnest protests, which only sought for the imposition on British goods in India of like duties to those levied upon Indian products in Britain, and which was denied them. Now, mark the result. The agriculture of India is impoverished, many tracts of her richest soil have relapsed into jungle, and both her import and export trade are now in a most unsatisfactory state--at least so says the "Economist," the best free trade journal in England. India was prosperous while clothed in fabrics the work of her own people. What country can compare with her in the richness of her raw products? But England forced her to separate the producer and consumer, and bitter fruits--the inevitable results of the breach of that economic law of nature which requires they should be placed side by side--have been the consequence. Turn next to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and our own Canada. Are those countries in a prosperous condition? (No, No!) Are we prosperous in Canada? The meeting of this convention tells another story. Canada exports the sweat of her sons; she sends to England her wheat, her flour, her timber, and other raw produce, the product of manual labour, and receives in return England's cottons, woollens and hardwares, the product of labour-saving, self-acting and inexpensive machinery. We separate the consumer and the producer; we seek in distant markets a reward for our labour; it is denied us, and this suicidal policy must exist no longer. Behold its effects in our currency; not a dollar in specie can we retain, unless it is circulated at a greater value than it bears in the countries of our indebtedness, while our government is obliged to issue shin-plasters to eke out its revenue. The true policy for Canada is to consult her own interests, as the people of the United States have consulted theirs, irrespective of the interests of any other country. Leave others to take care of themselves. Our present system has inundated us with English and Foreign manufactures, and has swept away all the products of our soil, all the products of our forests, all the capital brought into the country by emigration, all the money expended by the British Government for military purposes, and leaves us poor enough. Why does not Canada prosper equally with the adjacent republic? He had often asked the question. "Oh, the Americans have more enterprise, more capital, and more emigration than Canada," is the universal answer. It is true, these are causes of prosperity in the Union, but they are secondary causes only; in the first instance, they are effects, the legitimate effects of her commercial code, which protects the industry of her citizens, stimulates enterprise and largely rewards labour. Why does the poor western emigrant leave Canada?--because in the union he gets better reward for his labour. * * * * This was strictly a labour question. He desired not to see the wages of labour reduced until a man's unremitting toil procured barely sufficient for the supply of his animal wants--he desired to behold our labourers, mechanics, and operatives a well fed, well clothed and well educated part of the community. The country must support its labour; is it not then far preferable to support it in the position of an independent, intelligent body, than as a mass of paupers--you may bring it down, down, down, until, as in Ireland, the man will be forced to do his daily work for his daily potatoes. He had forgotten Ireland, a case just in point; she exports to England vast quantities of food, of raw produce--who has not heard in the English markets of Irish wheat, Irish oats, Irish pork, beef and butter. Ireland has but few manufactures--she has separated the producer and consumer, and has reaped the consequence of exporting her food, in poverty, wretchedness and rags. Ireland has denied the earth the refuse of its productions, and the earth has cast out her sons. Ask the reason--it is the con-acre system, says one; it is the absentee landlords, says another. But if the absenteeism invariably produced such results, why is it not the case in Scotland? Scotland, since the union, has doubled, trebled, aye, quadrupled her wealth, he knew not how often. Since the union, Scotland exports but little food, the food produced by the soil is there consumed upon the soil, and to her absentee landlords, she pays the rent of that soil in the produce of her looms and her furnaces. This led him to consider the policy of those countries that support the greatest number of human beings in proportion to their area. First, Belgium, the battle field of Europe; that country had suffered immeasurably from the effects of war, yet her people were always prosperous, quiet and contented, amid the convulsions of Europe, for there the consumer and producer were side by side. In Normandy, China, the North of England, and South of Scotland, in the Eastern States, the same system prevailed. The speaker that preceded him (Mr. Gowan), had said that under the present system we were led to speculate in human blood, upon the chance of European wars; it was too true, it was horrible to contemplate; but he would say, was it not more horrible still, to speculate upon the chance of famine? Had we never looked, never hoped, for a famine in Ireland, England or the continent of Europe, that we might increase our store thereby!!! put money in our pockets!!! to such dreadful shifts, dreadful to reflect upon, had the disregard of the great principle he had enunciated reduced us. The proper remedy was to protect our native industry, to protect it from the surplus products of the industry of other countries--surplus products sold in our markets without any reference to the cost of production. Manufacturers look at home consumption in the first place for their profits; that market being filled, they do not force off their surplus among their own people--that might injure their credit, or permanently lower the value of their manufactures at home. They send their surplus abroad to sell for what it will bring. Another view of the question was, that in the exchanging produce for foreign manufactures, one half of the commodities is raised by native industry and capital, and one half by foreign. One half goes to promote native industry and capital, and the other half foreign industry and capital, but if the exchange is made at home, it stands to common sense, that all the commodities are raised by native industry and capital, and the benefit of the barter if retained _at home_, to promote and support them. Where the raw material produced in any country is worked up in that country, the difference between the value of the material and the finished article is retained in the country. * * * * * He would be met, he supposed, with a stale objection that protection is a tax imposed for the benefit of one class upon the rest of the community. Never was any assertion more fallacious. Admitting that the value of an article was enhanced by protection, which he (Mr. G.) did not admit, the rest of the community were benefited a thousand fold by that very protection; for instance, if a farmer paid a little more for his coat, was he not doubly, quadruply compensated for his wool, to say nothing of the market, also at his own door, for his potatoes, turnips, cabbages, eggs, and milk. But he denied that increase of price invariably followed a protective policy; that policy furnished the manufacturer a market at home _for quantity and quantity only_, while home competition, stimulated by a system securing a fair reward for industrial pursuits, soon brought down the manufactured article as low as it ought to be. He might be answered, your system will destroy our foreign trade altogether. The fact was the very reverse; the saving made by home consumption of food and raw produce on the soil where it was grown, to the producer, enabled that producer to purchase a greater quantity of articles brought from a distance, and made him a greater consumer of those very articles than when the value of the produce of his own farm was diminished by carriage to, and by charges in a distant market. He had now in his possession statistical tables of the United States, for successive periods, sufficient to convince the most sceptical, that during the periods their manufacturers had been most strongly protected, the average prices of such manufactures had been less, while the amount of imported goods had exceeded that of similar periods under low duties. Mr. Gowan had alluded to a case in which the very sand of the opposite shore was turned into a source of wealth by a glass manufactory, and also to the rocks of New Hampshire. He had also visited the Eastern States, and was delighted with the industry, the economy and intelligence of the people; but as to the country, he believed it would be a hard matter to induce a Canadian to take up his abode among its granite rocks and ice, yet those very rocks and that ice were by that thrifty people converted into wealth, and formed no small item in their resources. Such are the results, the legitimate results of a protective policy, but the United States have not always followed that policy. The revolution did not do away with their prejudices in favour of British goods; for a long period after, nothing would go down but British cloths, cottons, and hardware. Then came the war of 1812, which showed them that they were but nominally independent while other nations supplied their wants; the war forced them to manufacture for themselves. After that war, excepting in some coarse goods, low _ad valorem_ duties were imposed; the consequence was, a general prostration of the manufacturing interests, followed by low prices in all agricultural staples. In 1824 recourse was again had to protection; national prosperity was soon visible; but why should he further detail the experiments made by that country? Suffice it to say, three times was the trial of free trade made, and three times had they to retrace their steps and return to the protective system, now so successfully in operation. England herself, with above one hundred millions of unprotected subjects, now declares the partially protected United States her best customer; in 1844 the amount of her exports to that country was eight millions, a sum equal to the whole of her exports to all her colonies. In 1846 the amount of cotton goods imported into the United States was one-fifth of their whole consumption, the amount of woollens likewise a fifth, and the amount of iron imported one-eighth of the entire quantity consumed. What proportion our importation of these articles in Canada bears to our consumption he had not been able to ascertain; but his conviction was, that if we adopted a similar commercial policy to that of the United States, the time would come when we should only import one-fifth of our cottons, one-fifth of our woollens, one-eighth of our iron; and when that time did come, and not till then, might we hope to cast our eye upon our republican neighbour without envying her greater prosperity. [Footnote 18: Although no notice of the annexation movement in Montreal was taken publicly at the meeting, it was well known that in the discussions with closed doors, all violence, and all tendencies towards disloyalty were utterly condemned and repudiated. The best possible testimony on this point is contained in the following extract from the Kingston correspondence of the _Globe_ newspaper, of July 31st, 1849, the perusal of which now must, I think, rather astonish the well-known writer himself, should he happen to cast his eye upon these pages: "The British Anglo-Saxons of Lower Canada will be most miserably disappointed in the League. They have held lately that they owed no allegiance to the crown of England, even if they did not go for annexation. _The League is loyal to the backbone_; many of the Lower Canadians are Free Traders, at least they look to Free Trade with the United States as the great means for promoting the prosperity of the Province--_the League is strong for protection as the means of reviving our trade_. * * * * Will the old Tory compact party, with protection and vested rights as its cry, ever raise its head in Upper Canada again, think you?"] CHAPTER XLI. RESULTS OF THE B. A. LEAGUE. The very brief summary which I have been able to give in the preceding chapter, may suffice to show, as I have desired to do, that no lack of progressiveness, no lack of patriotism, no lack of energy on great public occasions, is justly chargeable against Canadian Tories. I could produce page after page of extracts, in proof that the objects of the League were jeered at and condemned by the Reform press, led by the _Globe_ newspaper. But in that instance stance Mr. George Brown was deserted by his own party. I spoke at the time with numbers of Reformers who entirely sympathized with us; and it was not long before we had our triumph, which was in the year 1864, when the Hon. George Brown and the Hon. John A. Macdonald clasped hands together, for the purpose of forming an administration expressly pledged to effect the union of the five Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. In the importance of the object, the number and intelligence of the actors, and, above all, in the determined earnestness of every man concerned, the meetings of the British American League may well claim to rank with those famous gatherings of the people, which have marked great eras in the world's progress both in ancient and modern times. In spite of every effort to dwarf its importance, and even to ignore its existence, the British American League fulfilled its mission. By the action of the League, was Canada lifted into a front rank amongst progressive peoples. By the action of the League, the day was hastened, when our rivers, our lakes, our canals, our railroads, shall constitute the great highway from Europe to Eastern Asia and Australasia. By the action of the League, a forward step was taken towards that great future of the British race, which is destined to include in its heaven-directed mission, the whole world--east, west, north and south! CHAPTER XLII. TORONTO CIVIC AFFAIRS. My first step in public life was in 1848. I had leased from the heirs of the late Major Hartney (who had been barrack-master of York during its siege and capture by the American forces under Generals Pike and Dearborn in 1813) his house on Wellington street, opposite the rear of Bishop Strachan's palace. I thus became a resident ratepayer of the ward of St. George, and in that capacity contested the representation of the ward as councilman, in opposition to the late Ezekiel F. Whittemore, whose American antecedents rendered him unpopular just then. As neither Mr. Whittemore nor myself resorted to illegitimate means of influencing votes, we speedily became fast friends--a friendship which lasted until his death. I was defeated after a close contest. Before the end of the year, however, Mr. Whittemore resigned his seat in the council and offered me his support, so that I was elected councilman in his stead, and held the seat as councilman, and afterwards as alderman, continuously until 1854, when I removed to Carlton, on the Davenport Road, five miles north-west of the city. The electors have since told me that I taught them how to vote without bribery, and certainly I never purchased a vote. My chief outlay arose from a custom--not bad, as I think--originated by the late Alderman Wakefield, of providing a hearty English dinner at the expense of the successful candidates, at the Shades Hotel, in which the candidates and voters on both sides were wont to participate. Need I add, that the company was jovial, and the toasts effusively loyal. The members of the council, when I took my seat, were: George Gurnett, Mayor, who had been conspicuous as an officer of the City Guard in 1837-38; aldermen, G. Duggan, jr., Geo. P. Ridout, Geo. W. Allan, R. Dempsey, Thos. Bell, Jno. Bell, Q.C., Hon. H. Sherwood, Q.C., Robt. Beard, Jas. Beatty, Geo. T. Denison, jr., and Wm. A. Campbell; also, councilmen Thos. Armstrong, Jno. Ritchey, W. Davis, Geo. Coulter, Jas. Ashfield, R. James, jr., Edwin Bell, Samuel Platt, Jno. T. Smith, Jno. Carr and Robt. B. Denison. My own name made up the twenty-four that then constituted the council. The city officers were: Chas. Daly, clerk; A. T. McCord, chamberlain; Clarke Gamble, solicitor; Jno. G. Howard, engineer; Geo. L. Allen, chief of police; Jno. Kidd, governor of jail; and Robt. Beard, chief engineer of fire brigade. During the years 1850, '1, '2 and '3, I had for colleagues, in addition to those of the above who were re-elected: aldermen John G. Bowes, Hon. J. H. Cameron, Q.C., R. Kneeshaw, Wm. Wakefield, E. F. Whittemore, Jno. B. Robinson, Jos. Sheard, Geo. Brooke, J. M. Strachan, Jno. Hutchison, Wm. H. Boulton, John Carr, S. Shaw, Jas. Beaty, Samuel Platt, E. H. Rutherford, Angus Morrison, Ogle R. Gowan, M. P. Hayes, Wm. Gooderham and Hon. Wm. Cayley; and councilmen Jonathan Dunn, Jno. Bugg, Adam Beatty, D. C. Maclean, Edw. Wright, Jas. Price, Kivas Tully, Geo. Platt, Chas. E. Romain, R. C. McMullen, Jos. Lee, Alex. Macdonald, Samuel Rogers, F. C. Capreol, Samuel T. Green, Wm. Hall, Robert Dodds, Thos. McConkey and Jas. Baxter. The great majority of these men were persons of high character and standing, with whom it was both a privilege and a pleasure to work; and the affairs of the city were, generally speaking, honestly and disinterestedly administered. Many of my old colleagues still fill conspicuous positions in the public service, while others have died full of years and honours. My share of the civic service consisted principally in doing most of the hard work, in which I took a delight, and found my colleagues remarkably willing to cede to me. All the city buildings were re-erected or improved under my direct charge, as chairman of the Market Block and Market committees. The St. Lawrence Hall, St. Lawrence Market, City Hall, St. Patrick's Market, St. Andrew's Market, the Weigh-House, were all constructed in my time. And lastly, the original contract for the esplanade was negotiated by the late Ald. W. Gooderham and myself, as active members of the Wharves and Harbours committee. The by-laws for granting £25,000 to the Northern Railway, and £100,000 to the Toronto & Guelph Railway, were both introduced and carried through by me, as chairman of the Finance committee, in 1853. The old market was a curiously ugly and ill-contrived erection. Low brick shops surrounded three sides of the square, with cellars used for slaughtering sheep and calves; the centre space was paved with rubble stones, and was rarely free from heaps of cabbage leaves, bones and skins. The old City Hall formed the fourth or King Street side, open underneath for fruit and other stalls. The owners of imaginary vested rights in the old stalls raised a small rebellion when their dirty purlieus were invaded; and the decision of the Council, to rent the new stalls by public auction to avoid charges of favouritism, brought matters to a climax. On the Saturday evening when the new arcade and market were lighted with gas and opened to the public, the Market committee walked through from King to Front Street to observe the effect. The indignation of the butchers took the form of closing all their shutters, and as a last expression of contempt nailing thereon miserable shanks of mutton! Dire as this omen was meant to be, it does not seem to have prevented the St. Lawrence Market from being a credit to the city ever since. There is a historical incident connected with the old market, of a very tragic character. One day towards the latter end of 1837, William Lyon Mackenzie held there a political meeting to denounce the Family Compact. There was a wooden gallery round the square, the upright posts of which were full of sharp hooks, used by the butchers to expose their meat for sale, as were also the cross beams from post to post. A considerable number of people--from three to four hundred--were present, and the great agitator spoke from an auctioneer's desk placed near the western stalls. Many young men of Tory families, as well as Orangemen and their party allies, attended to hear the speeches. In the midst of the excitement--applauding or derisive, according to the varying feelings of the crowd--the iron stays of the balcony gave way and precipitated numbers to the ground. Two or three were caught on the meat-hooks, and one--young Fitzgibbon, a son of Col. Fitzgibbon who afterwards commanded at Gallows Hill--was killed. Others were seriously wounded, amongst whom was Charles Daly, then stationer, and afterwards city clerk, whose leg was broken in the fall. I well remember seeing him carried into his own shop insensible, and supposed to be fatally hurt. The routine of city business does not afford much occasion for entertaining details, and I shall therefore only trouble my readers with notices of the principal civic events to which I was a party, from 1849 to 1853. CHAPTER XLIII. LORD ELGIN IN TORONTO. On the 9th day of October, 1849, Lord Elgin made his second public entry into Toronto. The announcement of his intention to do so, communicated to the mayor, Geo. Gurnett, Esq., by letter signed by his lordship's brother and secretary, Col. Bruce, raised a storm of excitement in the city, which was naturally felt in the city council. The members were almost to a man Tories, a large proportion of whom had served as volunteers in 1837-8. The more violent insisted upon holding His Excellency personally responsible for the payment of rebels for losses arising out of the rebellion in Lower Canada; while moderate men contended, that as representative of the Queen, the Governor-General should be received with respect and courtesy at least, if not with enthusiasm. So high did party feeling run, that inflammatory placards were posted about the streets, calling on all loyal men to oppose His Excellency's entrance, as an encourager and abettor of treason. A special meeting of the council was summoned in consequence, for September 13th, at which the Hon. Henry Sherwood, member for the city, moved a resolution declaring the determination of the council to repress all violence, whether of word or deed, which was carried by a large majority. The draft of an address which had been prepared by a committee of the citizens, and another by Ald. G. T. Denison, were considered at a subsequent meeting of the council held on the 17th, and strongly objected to--the first as too adulatory, the second as too political. As I had the readiest pen in the council, and was in the habit of helping members on both sides to draft their ideas in the form of resolutions, the mayor requested me to prepare an address embodying the general feelings of the members. I accordingly did so to the best of my ability, and succeeded in writing one which might express the loyalty of the citizens, without committing them to an approval of the conduct of the Hincks-Taché government in carrying through Parliament the Rebellion Losses Bill. The other addresses having been either defeated or withdrawn, I submitted mine, which was carried by a majority of seventeen to four. And thus was harmony restored. His Excellency arrived on the appointed day, being the 9th of October. The weather was beautiful, and the city was alive with excitement, not unmingled with apprehension. Lieut.-Col. and Ald. G. T. Denison had volunteered the services of the Governor-General's Body Guard, which were graciously accepted. A numerous cortege of officials and prominent citizens met and accompanied the Vice-regal party from the Yonge St. wharf to Ellah's Hotel, on King St. west. As they were proceeding up Yonge street, one or two rotten eggs were thrown at the Governor-General's carriage, by men who were immediately arrested. On arriving at Ellah's Hotel, His Excellency took his stand on the porch, where the City Address was presented, which with the reply I give in full:-- ADDRESS. _To His Excellency the Right Hon. James Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, Governor-General, &c., &c._ May it Please Your Excellency, We, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of Toronto, in Common Council assembled, beg leave to approach Your Excellency as the representative of our Most Gracious and beloved Sovereign, with renewed assurances of our attachment and devotion to Her Majesty's person and government. We will not conceal from Your Excellency, that great diversity of opinion, and much consequent excitement, exists among us on questions connected with the political condition of the Province; but we beg to assure Your Excellency, that however warmly the citizens of Toronto may feel on such subjects, they will be prepared on all occasions to demonstrate their high appreciation of the blessings of the British Constitution, by according to the Governor-General of this Province that respect and consideration which are no less due to his exalted position, than to the well tried loyalty and decorum which have ever distinguished the inhabitants of this peaceful and flourishing community. The City of Toronto has not escaped the commercial depression which has for some time so generally prevailed. We trust, however, that the crisis is now past, and that the abundant harvest with which a kind Providence has blessed us, will ere long restore the commerce of the country to a healthy tone. We watch with lively interest the prospect which the completion of our great water communications with the ocean, will open to us; and we fervently hope that the extension of trade thus opened to Her Majesty's North American Provinces will tend to strengthen the union between these Provinces and the Parent State. We congratulate Your Excellency and Lady Elgin upon the birth of an heir to Your Excellency's house; and we truly sympathise with Her Ladyship upon her present delicate and weak state, and venture to hope that her tour through Upper Canada will have the effect of restoring her to the enjoyment of perfect health. REPLY. Gentlemen,--I receive with much satisfaction the assurance of your attachment and devotion to Her Majesty's person and government. That the diversities of opinion which exist among you, on questions connected with the political condition of the Province, should be attended with much excitement, is greatly to be regretted, and I fully appreciate the motives which induce you at the present time, to call my attention to the fact. I am willing, nevertheless, to believe that however warmly the citizens of Toronto may feel on such subjects, they will be prepared, on all occasions, to demonstrate their high appreciation of the blessings of the British Constitution, by according to the Governor-General that respect and consideration which are no less due to his position than to their own well-tried loyalty and decorum. It is my firm conviction, moreover, that the inhabitants of Canada, generally, are averse to agitation, and that all communities as well as individuals, who aspire to take a lead in the affairs of the Province, will best fit themselves for that high avocation, by exhibiting habitually in their demeanour, the love of order and of peaceful progress. I have observed with much anxiety and concern the commercial depression from which the City of Toronto, in common with other important towns in the Province, has of late so seriously suffered. I trust, however, with you, that the crisis is now past, and that the abundant harvest, with which a kind Providence has blessed the country, will ere long restore its commerce to a healthy tone. The completion of your water communications with the ocean must indeed be watched with a lively interest by all who have at heart the welfare of Canada and the continuance of the connection so happily subsisting between the Province and the Parent State. These great works have undoubtedly been costly, and the occasion of some financial embarrassment while in progress. But I firmly believe that the investment you have made in them has been judicious, and that you have secured thereby for your children, and your children's children, an inheritance that will not fail them so long as the law of nature endures which causes the waters of your vast inland seas to seek an outlet to the ocean. I am truly obliged to you for the congratulations which you offer me on the birth of my son, and for the kind interest which you express in Lady Elgin's health: I am happy to be able to inform you, that she has already derived much benefit from her sojourn in Upper Canada. As not a little fictitious history has been woven out of these events, I shall call in evidence here the _Globe_ newspaper of the 11th, the following day, in which I find this editorial paragraph:-- "It is seldom we have had an opportunity of speaking in terms of approbation of our civic authorities, but we cannot but express our high sense of the manly, independent manner in which all have done their duty on this occasion. The grand jury[19] is chiefly composed of Conservatives, the Mayor, Aldermen and the police are all Conservatives, but no men could have carried out more fearlessly their determination to maintain order in the community." Of all the Governors-General who have been sent out to Canada, Lord Elgin was by far the best fitted, by personal suavity of manners, eloquence in speech, and readiness in catching the tone of his hearers, to tide over a stormy political crisis. He had not been long in Toronto before his praises rang from every tongue, even the most embittered. Americans who came in contact with him, went away charmed with his flattering attentions. [Footnote 19: The grand jury, who happened to be in session, had presented some thirteen young men as parties to an attempt to create a riot. Some months afterwards, the persons accused were brought to trial, and three of them found guilty and sentenced to short terms of imprisonment.] CHAPTER XLIV. TORONTO HARBOUR AND ESPLANADE. The number of citizens is becoming few indeed, who remember Toronto Bay when its natural surroundings were still undefaced and its waters pure and pellucid. From the French Fort to the Don River, curving gently in a circular sweep, under a steep bank forty feet high covered with luxuriant forest trees, was a narrow sandy beach used as a pleasant carriage-drive, much frequented by those residents who could boast private conveyances. A wooden bridge spanned the Don, and the road was continued thence, still under the shade of umbrageous trees, almost to Gibraltar Point on the west, and past Ashbridge's Bay eastward. At that part of the peninsula, forming the site of the present east entrance, the ground rose at least thirty feet above high-water mark, and was crested with trees. Those trees and that bank were destroyed through the cupidity of city builders, who excavated the sand and brought it away in barges to be used in making mortar. This went on unchecked till about the year 1848, when a violent storm--almost a tornado--from the east swept across the peninsula, near Ashbridge's Bay, where it had been denuded of sand nearly to the ordinary level of the water. This aroused public attention to the danger of further neglect. The harbour had been for some years under the charge of a Board of Commissioners, of which the chairman was nominated by the Government, two members by the City Council, and two by the Board of Trade. The Government, through the chairman, exercised of course the chief control of the harbour and of the harbour dues. In the spring of 1849, the chairman of the Harbour Commission was Col. J. G. Chewett, a retired officer I think of the Royal Engineers; the other members were Ald. Geo. W. Allan and myself, representing the City Council; Messrs. Thos. D. Harris, hardware merchant, and Jno. G. Worts, miller, nominees of the Board of Trade. I well remember accompanying Messrs. Allan, Harris and Worts round the entire outer beach, on wheels and afoot, and a very pleasant trip it was. The waters on retiring had left a large pool at the place where they had crossed, but no actual gap then existed. Our object was to observe the extent of the mischief, and to adopt a remedy if possible. Among the several plans submitted was one by Mr. Sandford Fleming, for carrying out into the water a number of groynes or jetties, so as to intercept the soil washed down from the Scarboro' heights, and thus gradually widen the peninsula as well as resist the further erasion of the existing beach. At a subsequent meeting of the Harbour Commission, this suggestion was fully discussed. The chairman, who was much enfeebled by age and ill-health, resented angrily the interference of non-professional men, and refused even to put a motion on the subject. Thereupon, Mr. Allan, who was as zealously sanguine as Col. Chewett was the reverse, offered to pay the whole cost of the groynes out of his own pocket. Still the chairman continued obdurate, and became so offensive in his remarks, that the proposition was abandoned in disgust.[20] In following years, the breach recurred again and again, until it produced an established gap. Efforts were made at various times to have the gap closed, but always defeated by the influence of eastern property owners, who contended that a free current through the Bay was necessary to the health of the east end of the city. The only thing accomplished from 1849 to 1853, was the establishment of buoys at the western entrance of the harbour, and a lighthouse and guide light on the Queen's wharf; also the employment of dredges in deepening the channel between the wharf and the buoys, in which Mr. T. D. Harris took a lively interest, and did great service to the mercantile community. Beyond the erection of wharves at several points, no attempt was made to change the shore line until 1853, when it became necessary to settle the mode in which the Northern and Grand Trunk Railways should enter the city. An esplanade had been determined upon so long ago as 1838; and in 1840 a by-law was passed by the City Council, making it a condition of all water-lot leases, that the lessees should construct their own portion of the work. In May, 1852, the first active step was taken by notifying lessees that their covenants would be enforced. The Mayor, John G. Bowes, having reported to the Council that he had made verbal application to members of the government at Quebec, for a grant of the water-lots west of Simcoe Street, then under the control of the Respective Officers of Her Majesty's Ordnance in Upper Canada, a formal memorial applying for those lots was adopted and transmitted accordingly. The Committee on Wharves, Harbours, etc., for 1852, consisted of the Mayor, Councilmen Tully and Lee, with myself as chairman. We were actively engaged during the latter half of the year and the following spring, in negotiations with the Northern and Grand Trunk Railway boards, in making surveys and obtaining suggestions for the work of the Esplanade, and in carrying through Parliament the necessary legislation. Messrs. J. G. Howard, city engineer; William Thomas, architect; and Walter Shanly, chief engineer of the Grand Trunk Railway, were severally employed to prepare plans and estimates; and no pains were spared to get the best advice from all quarters. The Mayor was indefatigable on behalf of the city's interests, and to him undoubtedly, is mainly due the success of the Council in obtaining the desired grant from Government, both of the water-lots and the peninsula. The chairman of the Committee on Wharves and Harbours, etc., for 1853, was the late Alderman W. Gooderham, a thoroughly respected and respectable citizen, who took the deepest interest in the subject. I acted with and for him on all occasions, preparing reports for the Council, and even went so far as to calculate minutely from the soundings the whole details of excavation, filling in, breastwork, etc., in order to satisfy myself that the interests of the city were duly protected. In September, 1853, tenders for the work were received from numerous parties, and subjected to rigorous examination, the opinions of citizens being freely taken thereon. In the meantime, it was necessary, before closing the contract, to obtain authority from the Government with respect to the western water lots, and I was sent to Quebec for that purpose, in which, but for the influence of the Grand Trunk Company, and of Messrs. Gzowski & Macpherson, I might have failed. The Hon. Mr. Hincks, then premier, received me rather brusquely at first, and it was not until he was thoroughly satisfied that the railway interests were fairly consulted, that I made much progress with him. I did succeed, however, and brought back with me all necessary powers both as to the water lots and the peninsula. Finally, the tender of Messrs. Gzowski & Co. was very generally judged to be most for the interests of the city. They offered to allow £10,000 for the right of way for the Grand Trunk Railway along the Esplanade; and engaged for the same sum to erect five bridges, with brick abutments and stone facings, to be built on George, Church, Yonge, Bay, and either York or Simcoe Streets, to the wharves.[21] The contract also provided that the cribwork should be of sufficient strength to carry stone facing hereafter.[22] When canvassing St. George's Ward in December, 1852, for re-election as alderman, I told my constituents that nothing but my desire to complete the Esplanade arrangements could induce me to sacrifice my own business interests by giving up more than half my time for another year: and it was with infinite satisfaction that on the 4th of January, 1854--the last week but one of my term in the Council--I saw the Esplanade contract "signed, sealed and delivered" in the presence of the Wharves and Harbours Committee. On the 11th January, a report of the same committee, recommending the appointment of a proper officer to take charge of the peninsula, and put a stop to the removal of sand, was adopted in Council. I heartily wish that my reminiscences of the Esplanade contract could end here. I ceased to have any connection with it, officially or otherwise; but in 1854, an agitation was commenced within the Council and out of doors, the result of which was, the cancellation by mutual consent of the contract made with Messrs. Gzowski & Co., and the making a new contract with other parties, by which it was understood the city lost money to the tune of some $50,000, while Messrs. Gzowski & Co. benefited to the extent of at least $16,000, being the difference between the rates of wages in 1853 and 1855. The five bridges were set aside, to which circumstance is due the unhappy loss of life by which we have all been shocked of late years. Of the true cause of all these painful consequences, I shall treat in my next chapter. [Footnote 20: After I had left the Council, the question of harbour preservation was formally taken up at Mayor Allan's instance, and three premiums offered for the best reports on the subject. The first prize was adjudged to the joint report of Mr. Sandford Fleming and Mr. H. Y. Hind, in which the system of groynes was recommended. The reports were printed, but the Council--did nothing. Mr. Allan again offered to put down a groyne at his own expense, Mr. Fleming agreeing to superintend the work. The offer, however, was never accepted.] [Footnote 21: The necessary plans and specifications for these five bridges were prepared by Mr. Shanly accordingly,--their value when completed, being put at fully £15,000.] [Footnote 22: The same year, I was chairman of the Walks and Gardens Committee, and in that capacity instructed Mr. John Tully, City Surveyor, to extend the surveys of all streets leading towards the Bay, completely to the water line of the Esplanade. This was before any concession was made to the Northern, or any other railway. I mention this by way of reminder to the city authorities, who seem to me to have overlooked the fact.] CHAPTER XLV. MAYOR BOWES--CITY DEBENTURES. Of all the members of the City Council for 1850, and up to 1852, John G. Bowes was the most active and most popular. In educational affairs, in financial arrangements, and indeed, in all questions affecting the city's interests, he was by far the ablest man who had ever filled the civic chair. His acquirements as an arithmetician were extraordinary; and as a speaker he possessed remarkable powers. I took pleasure in seconding his declared views on nearly all public questions; and in return, he showed me a degree of friendship which I could not but highly appreciate. By his persuasion, and rather against my own wish, I accepted, in 1852, the secretaryship of the Toronto and Guelph Railway Company, which I held until it was absorbed by the Grand Trunk Company in 1853.[23] In the same year, rumours began to be rife in the city, that Mr. Bowes, in conjunction with the Hon. Francis Hincks, then premier, had made $10,000 profits out of the sale of city debentures issued to the Northern Railway Company. Had the Mayor admitted the facts at once, stating his belief that he was right in so doing, it is probable that his friends would have been spared the pain, and himself the loss and disgrace which ensued. But he denied in the most solemn manner, in full Council, that he had any interest whatever in the sale of those debentures, and his word was accepted by all his friends there. When, in 1854, he was compelled to admit in the Court of Chancery, that he had not only sold the debentures for his own profit to the extent of $4,800, but that the Hon. Francis Hincks was a partner in the speculation, and had profited to the same amount, the Council and citizens were alike astounded. Not so much at the transaction itself, for it must be remembered that more than one judge in chancery held the dealing in city debentures to be perfectly legal both on the part of Mr. Bowes and Sir Francis Hincks, but at the palpable deception which had been perpetrated on the Finance Committee, and through them on the Council. While the sale of the $50,000 Northern Railway debentures was under consideration, Mr. Bowes as Mayor had been commissioned to get a bill passed at Quebec to legalize such sale. On his return it was found that new clauses had been introduced into the bill, and particularly one requiring the debentures to be made payable in England, to which Alderman Joshua G. Beard and myself took objection as unnecessarily tying the hands of the Council. Mr. Bowes said, "Mr. Hincks would have it so." Had the committee supposed that in insisting upon those clauses Mr. Hincks was using his official powers for his own private profit, they could never have consented to the change in the bill, but would have insisted upon the right of the Council to make their own debentures payable wheresoever the city's interests would be best subserved.[24] It is matter of history, that the suit in Chancery resulted in a judgment against Mr. Bowes for the whole amount of his profits, and that in addition to that loss he had to pay a heavy sum in costs, not only of the suit, but of appeals both here and in England. The consequence to myself was a great deal of pain, and the severance of a friendship that I had valued greatly. In October, 1853, a very strong resolution denouncing his conduct was moved by Alderman G. T. Denison, to which I moved an amendment declaring him to have been guilty of "a want of candour," which was carried, and which was the utmost censure that the majority of the Council would consent to pass. For this I was subjected to much animadversion in the public press. Yet from the termination of the trial to the day of his death, I never afterwards met Mr. Bowes on terms of amity. At an interview with him, at the request and in presence of my partner, Col. O. R. Gowan, I told the Mayor that I considered him morally responsible for all the ill-feeling that had caused the cancellation of the first Esplanade contract, and for the loss to the city which followed. I told him that it had become impossible for any man to trust his word. And afterwards when he became a candidate for a seat in parliament, I opposed his election in the columns of the _Colonist_, which I had then recently purchased; for which he denounced me personally, at his election meetings, as a man capable of assassination. Notwithstanding, I believe John G. Bowes to have been punished more severely than justice required; that he acted in ignorance of the law; and that his great services to the city more than outweighed any injury sustained. His subsequent election to Parliament, while it may have soothed his pride, can hardly have repaid him for the forfeiture of the respect of a very large number of his fellow-citizens. [Footnote 23: I was offered by Sir Cusack Roney, chief secretary of the G. T. R. Co., a position worth $2,000 a year in their Montreal office, but declined to break up my connections in Toronto. On my resigning the secretaryship, the Board honoured me with a resolution of thanks, and a gratuity of a year's salary.] [Footnote 24: The judgment given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council expressly stated that "the evidence of Ald. Thompson and Councilman Tully was conclusive as to the effect of their having been kept in ignorance of the corrupt bargain respecting the sale of the city debentures issued for the construction of the Northern Railway; and that they would not have voted for the proposed bill for the consolidation of the city debt, if they had been aware of the transaction."] CHAPTER XLVI. CARLTON OCEAN BEACH. In 1853, I removed to the village of Carlton West, on the gravel road to Weston, and distant seven miles north-west of the city. My house stood on a gravel ridge which stretches from the Carlton station of the Northern Railway to the River Humber, and which must have formed the beach of the antediluvian northern ocean, one hundred and eighty feet above the present lake, and four hundred and thirty above the sea. This gravel ridge plainly marks the Toronto Harbour at the mouth of the Humber, as it existed in those ancient days, before the Niagara River and the Falls had any place on our world's surface. East of Carlton station, a high bluff of clay continues the old-line of coast, like the modern, to Scarboro' Heights, showing frequent depressions caused by the ice of the glacial period. In corroboration of this theory, I remember that for the first house built on the Avenue Road, north of Davenport Road, the excavations for a cellar laid bare great boulders of granite, limestone, and other rock, evidently deposited there by icebergs, which had crossed the clay bluff by channels of their own dredging, and melted away in the warmer waters to the south. I think it was Professor Chapman, of Toronto University, who pointed this out to me, and mentioned a still more remarkable case of glacial action which occurred in the Township of Albion, where a limestone quarry which had been worked profitably for several years, turned out to the great disappointment of its owner to be neither more nor less than a vast glacial boulder, which had been transported from its natural site at a distance of at least eighty miles. This locomotive rock is said to have been seventy feet in thickness and as much in breadth. While speaking of the Carlton gravel ridge, it is worth while to note that, in taking gravel from its southern face, at a depth of twenty feet, I found an Indian flint arrow-head; also a stone implement similar to what is called by painters a muller, used for grinding paint. Several massive bones, and the horns of some large species of deer, were also found in the same gravel pit, and carried or given away by the workmen. The two articles first named are still in my possession. Being at the very bottom of the gravel deposit, they must have lain there when no such beach existed, or ever since the Oak Ridges ceased to be an ocean beach. My house on the Davenport Road was a very pleasant residence, with a fine lawn ornamented with trees chiefly planted by my own hands, and was supplied with all the necessaries for modest competence. It is worth recording, that some of the saplings--silver poplars (abeles) planted by me, grew in twelve years to be eighteen inches thick at the butt, and sixty feet in spread of branches; while maples and other hardwoods did not attain more than half that size. Thus it would seem, that our North-West prairies might be all re-clothed with full-grown ash-leaved maples--their natural timber--in twenty-five years, or with balm of Gilead and abele poplars in half that time. Would it not be wise to enact laws at once, having that object in view? I have been an amateur gardener since early childhood; and at Carlton indulged my taste to the full by collecting all kinds of flowers cultivated and wild. I still envy the man who, settling in the new lands, say in the milder climates of Vancouver's Island or British Columbia, may utilize to the full his abundant opportunities of gathering into one group the endless floral riches of the Canadian wilderness. We find exquisite lobelias, scarlet, blue and lilac; orchises with pellucid stems and fairy elegance of blossom; lovely prairie roses; cacti of infinite delicacy and the richest hues. Then as to shrubs--the papaw, the xeranthemum of many varieties, the Indian pear (or saskatoon of the North-West), spiræa prunifolia of several kinds, shrubby St. John's-wort, oenothera grandiflora, _cum multis aliis_. Now that the taste for wild-flower gardens has become the fashion in Great Britain, it will doubtless soon spread to this Continent. No English park is considered complete without its special garden for wild flowers, carefully tended and kept as free from stray weeds as the more formal parterre of the front lawn. Our wealthier Canadian families cannot do better than follow the example of the Old Country in this respect, and assuredly they will be abundantly repaid for the little trouble and expenditure required. CHAPTER XLVII. CANADIAN POLITICS FROM 1853 to 1860. In May, 1853, I sold out my interest in the _Patriot_ to Mr. Ogle R. Gowan, and having a little capital of my own, invested it in the purchase of the _Colonist_ from the widow of the late Hugh Scobie, who died December 6th, 1852. It was a heavy undertaking, but I was sanguine and energetic, and--as one of my friends told me--thorough. The _Colonist_, as an organ of the old Scottish Kirk party in Canada, had suffered from the rivalry of its Free Kirk competitor, the _Globe_; and its remaining subscribers, being, as a rule, strongly Conservative, made no objection to the change of proprietorship; while I carried over with me, by agreement, the subscribers to the daily _Patriot_, thus combining the mercantile strength of the two journals. I had hitherto confined myself to the printing department, leaving the duties of editorship to others. On taking charge of the _Colonist_, I assumed the whole political responsibility, with Mr. John Sheridan Hogan as assistant editor and Quebec correspondent. My partners were the late Hugh C. Thomson, afterwards secretary to the Board of Agriculture, who acted as local editor; and James Bain, now of the firm of Jas. Bain & Son, to whom the book-selling and stationery departments were committed. We had a strong staff of reporters, and commenced the new enterprise under promising circumstances. Our office and store were in the old brick building extending from King to Colborne Street, long previously known as the grocery store of Jas. F. Smith. The ministry then in power was that known as the Hincks-Taché Government. Francis Hincks had parted with his old radical allies, and become more conservative than many of the Tories whom he used to denounce. People remembered Wm. Lyon Mackenzie's prophecy, who said he feared that Francis Hincks could not be trusted to resist temptation. When Lord Elgin went to England, it was whispered that his lordship had paid off £80,000 sterling of mortgages on his Scottish estates, out of the proceeds of speculations which he had shared with his clever minister. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic purchase, the £50,000 Grand Trunk stock placed to Mr. Hincks' credit--as he asserted without his consent--and the Bowes transaction, gave colour to the many stories circulated to his prejudice. And when he went to England, and received the governorship of Barbadoes, many people believed that it was the price of his private services to the Earl of Elgin. Whatever the exact truth in these cases may have been, I am convinced that from the seed then sown, sprang up a crop of corrupt influences that have since permeated all the avenues to power, and borne their natural fruit in the universal distrust of public men, and the wide-spread greed of public money, which now prevail. Neither political party escapes the imputation of bribing the constituencies, both personally at elections, and by parliamentary grants for local improvements. The wholesale expenditure at old country elections, which transferred so much money from the pockets of the rich to those of the poor, without any prospect of pecuniary return, has with us taken the form of a speculative investment to be "re-couped" by value in the shape of substantial government favours. Could I venture to enter the lists against so tremendous a rhetorical athlete as Professor Goldwin Smith, I should say, that his idea of abolishing party government to secure purity of election is an utter fallacy; I should say that the great factor of corruption in Canada has been the adoption of the principle of coalitions. I told a prominent Conservative leader in 1853, that I looked upon coalitions as essentially immoral, and that the duty of either political party was to remain contentedly "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition," and to support frankly all good measures emanating from the party in office, until the voice of the country, fairly expressed, should call the Opposition to assume the reins of power legitimately. I told the late Hon. Mr. Spence, when he joined the coalition ministry of 1854, that we (of the _Colonist_) looked upon that combination as an organized attempt to govern the country through its vices; and that nothing but the violence of the _Globe_ party could induce us to support any coalition whatsoever. And I think still that I was right, and that the Minister who buys politicians to desert their principles, resembles nothing so much as the lawyer who gains a verdict in favour of his client by bribing the jury. The union of Upper and Lower Canada is chargeable, no doubt, with a large share of the evils that have crept into our constitutional system. The French Canadian _habitans_, at the time of the Union, were true scions of the old peasantry of Normandy and Brittany, with which their songs identify them so strikingly. All their ideas of government were ultra-monarchical; their allegiance to the old French Kings had been transferred to the Romish hierarchy and clergy, who, it must be said, looked after their flocks with undying zeal and beneficent care. But this formed an ill preparation for representative institutions. The _Rouge_ party, at first limited to lawyers and notaries chiefly, had taken up the principles of the first French revolution, and for some years made but little progress; in time, however, they learnt the necessity of cultivating the assistance, or at least the neutrality of the clergy, and in this they were aided by ties of relationship. As in Ireland, where almost every poor family emaciates itself to provide for the education of one of its sons as a "counsellor" or a priest, so in Lower Canada, most families contain within themselves both priest and lawyer. Thus it came to pass, that in the Lower Province, a large proportion of the people lived in the hope that they might sooner or later share in "government pap," and looked upon any means to that end as unquestionably lawful. It is not difficult to perceive how much and how readily this idea would communicate itself to their Upper Canadian allies after the Union; that it did so, is matter of history. In fact, the combination of French and British representatives in a single cabinet, itself constitutes a coalition of the most objectionable kind; as the result can only be a perpetual system of compromises. For example, one of the effects of the Union, and of the coalition of 1854, was the passage of the bill secularizing the Clergy Reserves, and abolishing all connection between church and state in Upper Canada, while leaving untouched the privileges of the Romish Church in the Lower Province. That some day, there will arise a formidable Nemesis spawned of this one-sided act, when the agitation for disendowment shall have reached the Province of Quebec, who can doubt? In 1855 and subsequently, followed a series of struggles for office, without any great political object in view, each party or clique striving to bid higher than all the rest for popular votes, which went on amid alternate successes and reverses, until the denouement came in 1859, when neither political party could form a Ministry that should command a majority in parliament, and they were fain to coalesce _en masse_ in favour of confederation. At one time, Mr. George Brown was defeated by Wm. Lyon Mackenzie in Halton; at another, he voted with the Tories against the Hincks ministry; again, he was a party to a proposed coalition with Sir Allan MacNab. I was myself present at Sir Allan's house in Richey's Terrace, Adelaide Street, where I was astonished to meet Mr. Brown himself in confidential discussion with Sir Allan. I recollect a member of the Lower House--I think Mr. Hillyard Cameron--hurrying in with the information that at a meeting of Conservative members which he had just left, they had chosen Mr. John A. Macdonald as their leader in place of Sir Allan, which report broke up the conference, and defeated the plans of the coalitionists. This was, I think, in 1855. Then came on the "Rep. by Pop." agitation led by the _Globe_, in 1856.[25] In 1857, the great business panic superseded all other questions. In 1858, the turn of the Reform party came, with Mr. Brown again at their head, who held power for precisely four days. In 1858, also, the question of protection for native industry, which had been advocated by the British-American League, was taken up in parliament by the Hon. Wm. Cayley and Hon. Isaac Buchanan separately. In 1859, came Mr. Brown's and Mr. Galt's federal union resolutions, and Mr. Cayley's motion for protection once more. All these years--from 1853 to 1860--I was in confidential communication with the leaders of the Conservative party, and after 1857 with the Upper Canadian members of the administration personally; and I am bound to bear testimony to their entire patriotism and general disinterestedness whenever the public weal was involved. I was never asked to print a line which I could not conscientiously endorse; and had I been so requested, I should assuredly have refused. [Footnote 25: The same year occurred the elections for members of the Legislative Council. I was a member of Mr. G. W. Allan's committee, and saw many things there which disgusted me with all election tactics. Men received considerable sums of money for expenses, which it was believed never left their own pockets. Mr. Allan was in England, and sent positive instructions against any kind of bribery whatsoever, yet when he arrived here, claims were lodged against him amounting to several thousand dollars, which he was too high-minded to repudiate.] CHAPTER XLVIII. BUSINESS TROUBLES. Up to the year 1857, I had gone on prosperously, enlarging my establishment, increasing my subscription list, and proud to own the most enterprising newspaper published in Canada up to that day. The _Daily Colonist_ consisted of eight pages, and was an exact counterpart of the _London Times_ in typographical appearance, size of page and type, style of advertisements, and above all, in independence of editorial comment and fairness in its treatment of opponents. No communication courteously worded was refused admission, however caustic its criticisms on the course taken editorially. The circulation of the four editions (daily, morning and evening, bi-weekly and weekly) amounted to, as nearly as I can recollect, 30,000 subscribers, and its readers comprised all classes and creeds. In illustration of the kindly feeling existing towards me on the part of my political adversaries, I may record the fact that, when in the latter part of 1857, it became known in the profession that I had suffered great losses arising out of the commercial panic of that year, Mr. George Brown, with whom I was on familiar terms, told me that he was authorized by two or three gentlemen of high standing in the Liberal party, whom he named, to advance me whatever sums of money I might require to carry on the _Colonist_ independently, if I would accept their aid. I thanked him and replied, that I could publish none other than a Conservative paper, which ended the discussion. The Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron, being himself embarrassed by the tremendous pressure of the money market, in which he had operated heavily, counselled me to act upon a suggestion that the _Colonist_ should become the organ of the Macdonald-Cartier Government, to which position would be attached the right of furnishing certain of the public departments with stationery, theretofore supplied by the Queen's Printer at fixed rates. I did so, reserving to myself the absolute control of the editorial department, and engaging the services of Mr. Robert A. Harrison (of the Attorney-General's office, afterwards Chief Justice), as assistant editor. Instead, however, of alleviating, this change of base only intensified my troubles. I found that, throughout the government offices, a system had been prevalent, something like that described in _Gil Blas_ as existing at the Court of Spain, by which, along with the stationery required for the departments, articles for ladies' toilet use, etc., were included, and had always theretofore been charged in the government accounts as a matter of course. I directed that those items should be supplied as ordered, but that their cost be placed to my own private account, and that the parties be notified, that they must thereafter furnish separate orders for such things. I also took an early opportunity of pointing out the abuse to the Attorney-General, who said his colleagues had suspected the practice before, but had no proof of misconduct; and added, that if I would lay an information, he would send the offenders to the Penitentiary; as in fact he did in the Reiffenstein case some years afterwards. I replied, that were I to do so, nearly every man in the public service would be likely to become my personal enemy, which he admitted to be probable. As it was, the apparent consequence of my refusal to make fraudulent entries, was an accusation that I charged excessive prices, although I had never charged as much as the rate allowed the Queen's Printer, considering it unreasonable. My accounts were at my request referred to an expert, and adjudged by him to be fair in proportion to quality of stationery furnished. Gradually I succeeded in stopping the time-honoured custom as far as I was concerned. Years after, when I had the contract for Parliamentary printing at Quebec, matters proved even more vexatious. When the Session had commenced, and I had with great outlay and exertion got every thing into working order, I was refused copies of papers from certain sub-officers of the Legislature, until I had agreed upon the percentage expected upon my contract rates. My reply, through my clerk, was, that I had contracted at low rates, and could not afford gratuities such as were claimed, and that if I could, I would not. The consequence was a deadlock, and it was not until I brought the matter to the attention of the Speaker, Sir Henry Smith, that I was enabled to get on with the work. These things happened a quarter of a century ago, and although I suffer the injurious consequences myself to this day, I trust no other living person can be affected by their publication now. The position of ministerial organist, besides being both onerous and unpleasant, was to me an actual money loss. My newspaper expenses amounted to over four hundred dollars per week, with a constantly decreasing subscription list.[26] The profits on the government stationery were no greater than those realized by contractors who gave no additional _quid pro quo_; and I was only too glad, when the opportunity of competing for the Legislative printing presented itself in 1858, to close my costly newspaper business in Toronto. I sold the goodwill of the _Colonist_ to Messrs. Sheppard & Morrison,[27] and on my removal to Quebec next year, established a cheap journal there called the _Advertiser_, the history of which in 1859-60, I shall relate in a chapter by itself. [Footnote 26: The late Mr. George Brown has often told me, that whenever the _Globe_ became a Government organ, the loss in circulation and advertising was so great as to counter-balance twice over the profits derived from government advertising and printing.] [Footnote 27: On my retirement from the publication of the _Colonist_, the Attorney-General offered me a position under Government to which was attached a salary of $1,400 a year, which I declined as unsuited to my tastes and habits.] CHAPTER XLIX. BUSINESS EXPERIENCES IN QUEBEC. When I began to feel the effects of official hostility in Quebec, as above stated, I was also suffering from another and more vital evil. I had taken the contract for parliamentary printing at prices slightly lower than had before prevailed. My knowledge of printing in my own person gave me an advantage over most other competitors. The consequence of this has been, that large sums of money were saved to the country yearly for the last twenty-four years. But the former race of contractors owed me a violent grudge, for, as they alleged, taking the contract below paying prices. I went to work, however, confident of my resources and success. But no sooner had I got well under weigh, than my arrangements were frustrated, my expenditure nullified, my just hopes dashed to the ground, by the action of the Legislature itself. A joint committee on printing had been appointed, of which the Hon. Mr. Simpson, of Bowmanville, was chairman, which proceeded deliberately to cut down the amount of printing to be executed, and particularly the quantity of French documents to be printed, to such an extent as to reduce the work for which I had contracted by at least one-third. And this without the smallest regard to the terms of my contract. Thus were one-half of all my expenditures--one-half of my thirty thousand dollars worth of type--one-half of my fifteen thousand dollars worth of presses and machinery--literally rendered useless, and reduced to the condition of second-hand material. I applied to my solicitor for advice. He told me that, unless I threw up the contract, I could make no claim for breach of conditions. Unfortunately for me, the many precedents since established, of actions on "petition of right" for breach of contract by the Government and the Legislature, had not then been recorded, and I had to submit to what I was told was the inevitable. I struggled on through the session amid a hurricane of calumny and malicious opposition. The Queen's Printers, the former French contractor, and, above all, the principal defeated competitor in Toronto, joined their forces to destroy my credit, to entice away my workmen, to disseminate but too successfully the falsehood, that my contract was taken at unprofitable rates, until I was fairly driven to my wits' end, and ultimately forced into actual insolvency. The cashier of the Upper Canada Bank told me very kindly, that everybody in the Houses and the Bank knew my honesty and energy, but the combination against me was too strong, and it was useless for me to resist it, unless my Toronto friends would come to my assistance. I was not easily dismayed by opposition, and determined at least to send a Parthian shaft into my enemies' camp. The session being over, I hastened to Toronto, called my creditors together at the office of Messrs Cameron & Harman, and laid my position before them. All I could command in the way of valuable assets was invested in the business of the contract. I had besides, in the shape of nominal assets, over a hundred thousand dollars in newspaper debts scattered over Upper Canada, which I was obliged to report as utterly uncollectable, being mainly due by farmers who--as was generally done throughout Ontario in 1857--had made over their farms to their sons or other parties, to evade payment of their own debts. All my creditors were old personal friends, and so thoroughly satisfied were they of the good faith of the statements submitted by me, that they unanimously decided to appoint no assignee, and to accept the offer I made them to conduct the contract for their benefit, on their providing the necessary sinews of war, which they undertook to do in three days. What was my disappointment and chagrin to find, at the end of that term, that the impression which had been so industriously disseminated in Quebec, that my contract prices were impracticably low, had reached and influenced my Toronto friends, and that it was thought wisest to abandon the undertaking. I refused to do so. Among my employees in the office were four young men, of excellent abilities, who had grown into experience under my charge, and had, by marriage and economy, acquired means of their own, and could besides command the support of monied relatives. These young men I took into my counsels. At the bailiff's sale of my office which followed, they bought in such materials as they thought sufficient for the contract work, and in less than a month we had the whole office complete again, and with the sanction of the Hon. the Speaker, got the contract work once more into shape. The members of the new firm were Samuel Thompson, Robert Hunter, George M. Rose, John Moore, and François Lemieux. CHAPTER L. QUEBEC IN 1859-60. I resided for eighteen months in the old, picturesque and many-memoried city. My house was a three-story cedar log building known as the White House, near the corner of Salaberry Street and Mount Pleasant Road. It was weather-boarded outside, comfortably plastered and finished within, and was the most easily warmed house I ever occupied. The windows were French, double in winter, opening both inwards and outwards, with sliding panes for ventilation. It had a good garden, sloping northerly at an angle of about fifteen degrees, which I found a desolate place enough, and left a little oasis of beauty and productiveness. One of my amusements there was to stroll along the garden paths, watching for the sparkle of Quebec diamonds, which after every rainfall glittered in the paths and flower-beds. They are very pretty, well shaped octagonal crystals of rock quartz, and are often worn in necklaces by the Quebec demoiselles. On the plains of Abraham I found similar specimens brilliantly black. Quebec is famous for good roads and pleasant shady promenades. By the St. Foy Road to Spencer Wood, thence onward to Cap Rouge, back by the St. Louis Road or Grande Allée, past the citadel and through the old-fashioned St. Louis Gate, is a charming stroll; or along the by-path from St. Louis Road to the pretty Gothic chapel overhanging the Cove, and so down steep rocky steps descending four hundred feet to the mighty river St. Lawrence; or along the St. Charles river and the country road to Lorette; or by the Beauport road to the old chateau or manor house of Colonel Gugy, known by the name of "Darnoc." The toll-gate on the St. Foy Road was quite an important institution to the simple _habitans_, who paid their shilling toll for the privilege of bringing to market a bunch or two of carrots and as many turnips, with a basket of eggs, or some cabbages and onions, in a little cart drawn by a little pony, with which surprising equipage they would stand patiently all morning in St. Anne's market, under the shadow of the old ruined Jesuits' barracks, and return home contented with the three or four shillings realized from their day's traffic. One of the specialties of the city is its rats. In my house-yard was a sink, or rather hole in the rock, covered by a wooden grating. A large cat, who made herself at home on the premises, would sit watching at the grating for hours, every now and then inserting her paw between the bars and hooking out leisurely a squeaking young rat, of which thirty or forty at a time showed themselves within the cavity. I was assured that these rats have underground communications, like those of the rock of Gibraltar, from every quarter of the city to the citadel, and so downward to the quays and river below. Besides the cat, there was a rough terrier dog named Cæsar, also exercising right of occupancy. To see him pouncing upon rats in the pantry, from which they could not be easily excluded by reason of a dozen entrances through the stone basement walls, was something to enchant sporting characters. I was not of that class, so stopped up the rock with broken bottles and mortar, and provided traps for stray intruders. The Laurentine mountains, distant a few miles north of the city, rise to a height of twenty-five hundred feet. By daylight they are bleak and barren enough; but at night, seen in the light of the glorious Aurora Borealis which so often irradiates that part of Canada, they are a vision of enchanting beauty. This reminds me of a conversation which I was privileged to have with the late Sir William Logan, who most kindly answered my many inquisitive questions on geological subjects. He explained that the mountains of Newfoundland, of Quebec, of the height of land between the St. Lawrence and Lake Nipissing, and of Manitoba and Keewatin in the North-West, are all links of one continuous chain, of nearly equal elevation, and marked throughout that vast extent by ancient sea-beaches at an uniform level of twelve hundred feet above the sea, with other ancient beaches seven hundred feet above the sea at various points; two remarkable examples of which latter class are the rock of Quebec and the Oak Ridges eighteen miles north of Toronto. He pointed out further, that those two points indicate precisely the level of the great ocean which covered North America in the glacial period, when Toronto was six hundred feet under salt water, and Quebec was the solitary rock visible above water for hundreds of miles east, west and south--the Laurentides then, as now, towering eighteen hundred feet higher, on the north. In winter also, Quebec has many features peculiar to itself. Close beside, and high above the little steep roofed houses--crowded into streets barely wide enough to admit the diminutive French carts without crushing unlucky foot-passengers,--rise massive frowning bastions crowned with huge cannon, all black with age and gloomy with desperate legends of attack and defence. The snow accumulates in these streets to the height of the upper-floor windows, with precipitous steps cut suddenly down to each doorway, so that at night it is a work of no little peril to navigate one's way home. Near the old Palace Gate are beetling cliffs, seventy feet above the hill of rocky debris which forms one side of the street below. It is high carnival with the Quebec _gamins_, when they can collect there in hundreds, each with his frail handsleigh, and poising themselves on the giddy edge of the "horrent summit," recklessly shoot down in fearful descent, first to the sharp rocky slope, and thence with alarming velocity to the lower level of the street. Outside St. John's Gate is another of these infantile race-grounds. Down the steep incline of the glacis, crowds of children are seen every fine winter's day, sleighing and tobogganing from morning till night, not without occasional accidents of a serious nature. But the crowning triumph of Quebec scenery, summer and winter, centres in the Falls of Montmorenci, a seven mile drive, over Dorchester bridge, along the Beauport road, commanding fine views of the wide St. Lawrence and the smiling Isle of Orleans, with its pilot-inhabited houses painted blue, red and yellow--all three colours at once occasionally--(the paints wickedly supposed to be perquisites acquired in a professional capacity from ships' stores)--and so along shady avenues varied by brightest sunshine, we find ourselves in front and at the foot of a cascade four hundred feet above us, broken into exquisite facets and dancing foam by projecting rocky points, and set in a bordering of lovely foliage on all sides. This is of course in summer. In winter how different. Still the descending torrent, but only bare tree-stems and icy masses for the frame-work, and at the base a conical mountain of snow and ice, a hundred and fifty feet high, sloping steeply on all sides, and with the frozen St. Lawrence spread out for miles to the east. He who covets a sensation for life, has only to climb the gelid hill by the aid of ice-steps cut in its side, and commit himself to the charge of the habitant who first offers his services, and the thing is soon accomplished. The gentleman adventurer sits at the back of the sleigh,--which is about four feet long--tucks his legs round the habitant, who sits in front and steers with his heels; for an instant the steersman manoeuvres into position on the edge of the cone, which slightly overhangs--then away we go, launching into mid-air, striking ground--or rather ice--thirty feet below, and down and still down, fleet as lightning, to the level river plain, over which we glide by the impetus of our descent fully half-a-mile further. I tried it twice. My companion was severely affected by the shock, and gave in with a bad headache at the first experiment. The same day, several reckless young officers of the garrison would insist upon steering themselves, paying a guinea each for the privilege. One of them suffered for his freak from a broken arm. But with experienced guides no ill-consequences are on record. An appalling tragedy is related of this ice-mountain. An American tourist with his bride was among the visitors to the Falls one day some years back. They were both young and high-spirited, and had immensely enjoyed their marriage trip by way of the St. Lawrence. Standing on the summit of the cone, in raptures with the cataract, the cliffs ice-bedecked, the trees ice-laden, their attention was for an instant diverted from each other. The young man, gazing eastward across the river, talking gaily to his wife, was surprised at receiving no reply, and looking round found himself alone. Shouting frantically, no answering cry could be distinguished,--the roaring of the cascade was loud enough to drown any human voice. Hanging madly over the edge next the Falls, which is quite precipitous, there was nothing to be seen but a boiling whirlpool of angry waters. The poor girl had stepped unconsciously backward,--had slipped down into the boiling surf,--had been instantaneously carried beneath the ice of the river. Another peculiarity of Quebec is its ice-freshets in spring. Near the vast tasteless church of St. John, on the road of that name, a torrent of water from the higher level crosses the street, and thunders down the steep ways descending to the Lower Town. At night it freezes solidly again, and becomes so dangerously slippery, that I have seen ladies piloted across for several hundred feet, by holding on to the courteously extended walking stick of the first gentlemanly stranger to whom they could appeal for help in their utter distress and perplexity. These freshets flood the business streets named after St. Peter and St. Paul on the level of the wharves. To cross them at such times, floating planks are put in requisition, and no little skill is required to escape a wetting up to the knees. The social aspects of the city are as unique as its natural features. The Romish hierarchy exercises an arbitrary, and I must add a beneficial, rule over the mixed maritime and crimping elements which form its lowest stratum. Private charity is universal on the part of the well-to-do citizens. It is an interesting sight to watch the numbers of paupers who are supplied weekly from heaps of loaves of bread piled high on the tradesmen's counters, to which all comers are free to help themselves. The upper classes are divided into castes as marked as those of Hindostan. French Canadian seigniors, priestly functionaries of high rank, government officials of the ruling race, form an exclusive, and it is said almost impenetrable coterie by themselves. The sons or nephews of Liverpool merchants having branch firms in the city, and wealthy Protestant tradesmen, generally English churchmen, constitute a second division scarcely less isolated. Next to these come the members of other religious denominations, who keep pretty much to themselves. I am sorry to hear from a respected Methodist minister whom I met in Toronto lately, that the last named valuable element of the population has been gradually diminishing in numbers and influence, and that it is becoming difficult to keep their congregations comfortably together. This is a consequence, and an evil consequence, of confederation. Another characteristic singularity of Quebec life arises from the association, without coalescing, of two distinct nationalities having diverse creeds and habits. This is often ludicrously illustrated by the system of mixed juries. I was present in the Recorder's Court on one occasion, when a big, burly Irishman was in the prisoner's dock, charged with violently ejecting a bailiff in possession, which I believe in Scotland is called a deforcement on the premises. It appeared that the bailiff, a little habitant, had been riotously drunk and disorderly, having helped himself to the contents of a number of bottles of ale which he discovered in a cupboard. The prisoner, moved to indignation, coolly took up the drunken offender in his arms, tossed him down a flight of steps into the middle of the street, and shut the door in his face. The counsel for the complainant, a popular Irish barrister, lamented privately that he was on the wrong side, being more used to defending breaches of the laws than to enforcing them--that there was no hope of a verdict in favour of authority--and that the jury were certain to disagree, however clearly the facts and the law were shown. And so it proved. The French jurors looked puzzled--the English enjoyed the fun--the judge charged with a half smile on his countenance--and the jury disagreed--six to six. On leaving the court, one of the jurors whispered to the discharged prisoner, "Did you think we were agoing to give in to them French fellows?" CHAPTER LI. DEPARTURE FROM QUEBEC. I suppose it is in the very nature of an autobiography to be egotistical, a fault which I have desired to avoid; but find that my own personal affairs have been often so strangely interwoven with public events, that I could not make the one intelligible without describing the other. My departure from Quebec, for instance, was caused by circumstances which involved many public men of that day, and made me an involuntary party to important political movements. I have mentioned that, with the sanction of the Upper Canadian section of the Ministry, I had commenced the publication in Quebec of a daily newspaper with an evening edition, under the title of the _Advertiser_. I strove to make it an improvement upon the style of then existing Quebec journals, but without any attempt at business rivalry, devoting my attention chiefly to the mercantile interests of the city, including its important lumber trade. I wrote articles describing the various qualities of Upper Canadian timber, which I thought should be made known in the British market. This was to some degree successful, and as a consequence I gained the friendship of several influential men of business. But I did not suspect upon how inflammable a mine I was standing. A discourteous remark in a morning contemporary, upon some observations in the _Courrier du Canada_, in which the ground was taken by the latter that French institutions in Europe exceeded in liberality, and ensured greater personal freedom than those of Great Britain, and by consequence of Canada, induced me to enter into an amicable controversy with the _Courrier_ as to the relative merits of French imperial and British monarchical government. About the same time, I gave publicity to some complaints of injustice suffered by Protestant--I think Orange--workmen who had been dismissed from employment under a local contractor on one of the wharves, owing as was asserted to their religious creed. Just then a French journalist, the editor of the _Courrier de Paris_, was expelled by the Emperor Louis Napoleon for some critique on "my policy." This afforded so pungent an opportunity for retort upon my Quebec friend, that I could not resist the temptation to use it. From that moment, it appears, I was considered an enemy of French Canadians and a hater of Roman Catholics, to whom in truth I never felt the least antipathy, and never even dreamt of enquiring either the religious or political principles of men in my employment. I was informed, that the Hon. Mr. Cartier desired that I should discontinue the _Advertiser_. Astonished at this, I spoke to one of his colleagues on the subject. He said I had been quite in the right; that the editor of the _Courrier_ was a d--d fool; but I had better see Cartier. I did so; pointed out that I had no idea of having offended any man's prejudices; and could not understand why my paper should be objectionable. He vouchsafed no argument; said curtly that his friends were annoyed; and that I had better give up the paper. I declined to do so, and left him. This was subsequent to the events related in Chapter xlix. I spoke to others of the Ministers. One of them--he is still living--said that I was getting too old [I was fifty], and it was time I was superannuated--but that--they could not go against Cartier! My pride was not then subdued, and revolted against such treatment. I was under no obligations to the Ministry; on the contrary, I felt they were heavily indebted to me. I waited on the Hon. L. V. Sicotte, who was on neutral terms with the government, placed my columns at his disposal, and shortly afterwards, on the conclusion of an understanding between him and the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald, to which the Hon. A. A. Dorion was a party, I published an article prepared by them, temperately but strongly opposed to the policy of the existing government. This combination ultimately resulted in the formation of the Macdonald-Sicotte Ministry in 1862. But this was not all. The French local press took up the quarrel respecting French institutions--told me plainly that Quebec was a "Catholic city," and that I would not be allowed to insult their institutions with impunity--hinted at mob-chastisement, and other consequences. I knew that years before, the printing office of a friend of my own--since high in the public service--had been burnt in Quebec under similar circumstances. I could not expose my partners to absolute ruin by provoking a similar fate. The Protestants of the city were quite willing to make my cause a religious and national feud, and told me so. There was no knowing where the consequences might end. For myself, I had really no interest in the dispute; no prejudices to gratify; no love of fighting for its own sake, although I had willingly borne arms for my Queen; so I gave up the dispute; sold out my interest in the printing contract to my partners for a small sum, which I handed to the rightful owner of the materials, and left Quebec with little more than means enough to pay my way to Toronto. CHAPTER LII. JOHN A. MACDONALD AND GEORGE BROWN. In chapter XXXV. I noticed the almost simultaneous entrance of these two men into political life. Their history and achievements have been severally recorded by friendly biographers, and it is unnecessary for me to add anything thereto. Personally, nothing but kindly courtesy was ever shown me by either. In some respects their record was much alike, in some how different. Both Scotchmen, both ambitious, both resolute and persevering, both carried away by political excitement into errors which they would gladly forget--both unquestionably loyal and true to the empire. But in temper and demeanour, no two men could be more unlike. Mr. Brown was naturally austere, autocratic, domineering. Sir John was kindly, whether to friends or foes, and always ready to forget past differences. A country member, who had been newly elected for a Reform constituency, said to a friend of mine, "What a contrast between Brown and Macdonald! I was at the Reform Convention the other day, and there was George Brown dictating to us all, and treating rudely every man who dared to make a suggestion. Next day, I was talking to some fellows in the lobby, when a stranger coming up slapped me on the shoulder, and said in the heartiest way 'How d'ye do, M----? shake hands--glad to see you here--I'm John A.!'" Another member, the late J. Sheridan Hogan--who, after writing for the _Colonist_, had gone into opposition, and was elected member for Grey--told me that it was impossible to help liking Sir John--he was so good-natured to men on both sides of the House, and never seemed to remember an injury, or resent an attack after it was past. Hence probably the cause of the differing careers of these two men. Standing together as equals during the coalition of 1862, and separating again after a brief alliance of eighteen months' duration, the one retained the confidence of his party under very discouraging circumstances, while the other gradually lapsed into the position of a governmental impossibility, and only escaped formal deposition as a party leader by his own violent death. I am strongly under the impression that the assassination of George Brown by the hands of a dismissed employee, in May, 1880, was one of the consequences of his own imperious temper. Many years ago, Mr. Brown conceived the idea of employing females as compositors in the _Globe_ printing office, which caused a "strike" amongst the men. Great excitement was created, and angry threats were used against him; while the popular feeling was intensified by his arresting several of the workmen under an old English statute of the Restoration. The ill-will thus aroused extended among the working classes throughout Ontario, and doubtless caused his party the loss of more than one constituency. It seems highly probable, that the bitterness which rankled in the breast of his murderer, had its origin in this old class-feud. Sir John is reported to have said, that he liked supporters who voted with him, not because they thought him in the right, but even when they believed him to be in the wrong. I fancy that in so saying, he only gave candid expression to the secret feeling of all ambitious leaders. This brusque candour is a marked feature of Sir John's character, and no doubt goes a great way with the populace. A friend told me, that one of our leading citizens met the Premier on King Street, and accosted him with--"Sir John, our friend ---- says that you are the d--st liar in all Canada!" Assuming a very grave look, the answer came--"I dare say it's true enough!" Sir John once said to myself. "I don't care for office for the sake of money, but for the sake of power, and for the sake of carrying out my own views of what is best for the country." And I believe he spoke sincerely. Mr. Collins, his biographer, has evidently pictured to himself his hero some day taking the lead in the demand for Canadian independence. I trust and think he is mistaken, and that the great Conservative leader would rather die as did his late rival, than quit for a moment the straight path of loyalty to his Sovereign and the Empire. CHAPTER LIII. JOHN SHERIDAN HOGAN. I have several times had occasion to mention this gentleman, who first came into notice on his being arrested, when a young man, and temporarily imprisoned in Buffalo, for being concerned in the burning of the steamer _Caroline_, in 1838. He was then twenty-three years old, was a native of Ireland, a Roman Catholic by religious profession, and emigrated to Canada in 1827. I engaged him in 1853, as assistant-editor and correspondent at Quebec, then the seat of the Canadian legislature. He had previously distinguished himself at college, and became one of the ablest Canadian writers of his day. He was the successful competitor for the prize given for the best essay on Canada at the Universal Exhibition of 1856, and had he lived, might have proved a strong man in political life. In 1858, Mr. Hogan suddenly disappeared, and it was reported that he had gone on a shooting expedition to Texas. But in the following spring, a partially decomposed corpse was found in the melting snow near the mouth of the Don, in Toronto Bay. Gradually the fearful truth came to light through the remorse of one of the women accessory to the crime. A gang of loose men and women who infested what was called Brooks's Bush, east of the Don, were in the habit of robbing people who had occasion to cross the Don bridge at late hours of the night. Mr. Hogan frequently visited a friend who resided east of the bridge, on the Kingston Road, and on the night in question, was about crossing the bridge, when a woman who knew him, accosted him familiarly, while at the same moment another woman struck him on the forehead with a stone slung in a stocking; two or three men then rushed upon him, while partially insensible, and rifled his pockets. He recovered sufficiently to cry faintly, "Don't murder me!" to a man whom he recognised and called by name. This recognition was fatal to him. To avoid discovery, the villains lifted him bodily, in spite of his cries and struggles, and tossed him over the parapet into the stream, where he was drowned. In 1861, some of the parties were arrested; one of them, named Brown, was convicted and hanged for the murder; two others managed to prove an _alibi_, and so escaped punishment. CHAPTER LIV. DOMESTIC NOTES. The Rev. Henry C. Cooper was the eldest of a family of four brothers, who emigrated to Canada in 1832, and settled in what is known as the old Exeter settlement in the Huron tract. He was accompanied to Canada by his wife and two children, afterwards increased to nine, who endured with him all the hardships and privations of a bush life. In 1848 he was appointed to the rectory of Mimico, in the township of Etobicoke, to which was afterwards added the charge of the church and parish of St. George's, Islington, including the village of Lambton on the Humber. In 1863, his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, became my wife. Our married life was in all respects a happy one, saddened only by anxieties arising from illness, which resulted in the death of one child, a daughter, at the age of six months, and of two others prematurely. These losses affected their mother's health, and she died in November, 1868, aged 36 years. To express my sense of her loss, I quote from Tennyson's "In Memoriam": "The path by which we twain did go, Which led by tracts which pleased us well, Through four sweet years arose and fell, From flower to flower, from snow to snow: "And we with singing cheer'd the way, And crown'd with all the season lent, From April on to April went, And glad at heart from May to May: "But where the path we walked began To slant the fifth autumnal slope, As we descended, following Hope, There sat the Shadow fear'd of man; "Who broke our fair companionship, And spread his mantle dark and cold, And wrapt thee formless in the fold, And dull'd the murmur on thy lip; "And bore thee where I could not see Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste, And think that somewhere in the waste The Shadow sits and waits for me." For the following epitaph on our infant daughter, I am myself responsible. It is carved on a tomb-stone where the mother and her little ones lie together in St. George's churchyard: We loved thee as a budding flow'r That bloomed in beauty for awhile; We loved thee as a ray of light To bless us with its sunny smile; We loved thee as a heavenly gift So rich, we trembled to possess,-- A hope to sweeten life's decline, And charm our griefs to happiness. The flower, the ray, the hope is past-- The chill of death rests on thy brow-- But ah! our Father's will be done, We love thee as an angel now! Mr. Cooper died Sept. 10, 1877, leaving behind him the reputation of an earnest, upright life, and a strong attachment to the evangelical school in the English Church. His widow still resides at St. George's Hill, with one of her daughters. Two of her sons are in the ministry, the Rev. Horace Cooper, of Lloydtown, and the Rev. Robert St. P. O. Cooper, of Chatham. One of Mr. H. C. Cooper's brothers became Judge Cooper, of Huron, who died some years since. Another, still living, is Mr. C. W. Cooper, barrister, formerly of Toronto, now of Chicago. He was recording secretary to the B. A. League, in 1849, and is a talented writer for the press. CHAPTER LV. THE BEAVER INSURANCE COMPANY. In 1860, soon after my return to Toronto, I was asked by my old friend and former partner, Mr. Henry Rowsell, to take charge of the Beaver Mutual Fire Insurance Company, which had been organized a year or two before by W. H. Smith, author of a work called "Canada--Past, Present, and Future," and a Canadian Gazetteer. Of this company I became managing director, and continued to conduct it until the year 1876, when it was legislated out of existence by the Mackenzie government. I do not propose to inflict upon my readers any details respecting its operations or fortunes, except in so far as they were matters of public history. Suffice it here to say, that I assumed its charge with two hundred members or policy holders; that, up to the spring of 1876, it had issued seventy-four thousand policies, and that not a just claim remained unsatisfied. Its annual income amounted to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and its agencies numbered a hundred. That so powerful an organization should have to succumb to hostile influences, is a striking example of the ups and downs of fortune. CHAPTER LVI. THE OTTAWA FIRES. The summer of 1870 will be long remembered as the year of the Ottawa fires, which severely tried the strength of the Beaver Company. On the 17th August in that year, a storm of wind from the south-west fanned into flames the expiring embers of bush-fires and burning log-heaps, throughout the Counties of Lanark, Renfrew, Carleton and Ottawa, bordering on the Ottawa River between Upper and Lower Canada. No rain had fallen there for months previously, and the fields were parched to such a degree as seemingly to fill the air with inflammable gaseous exhalations, and to render buildings, fences, trees and pastures so dry, that the slightest spark would set them in a blaze. Such was the condition of the Townships of Fitzroy, Huntley, Goulburn, March, Nepean, Gloucester, and Hull, when the storm swept over them, and in the brief space of four hours left them a blackened desert, with here and there a dwelling-house or barn saved, but everything else--dwellings, out-buildings, fences, bridges, crops, meadows--nay, even horses, horned cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, all kinds of domestic and wild animals, and most deplorable of all, twelve human beings--involved in one common destruction. Those farmers who escaped with their lives did so with extreme difficulty, in many cases only by driving their waggons laden with their wives and children into the middle of the Ottawa or some smaller stream, where the poor creatures had to remain all night, their flesh blistered with the heat, and their clothing consumed on their bodies. The soil in places was burned so deeply as to render farms worthless, while the highways were made impassable by the destruction of bridges and corduroy roads. To the horrors of fire were added those of starvation and exposure; it was many days before shelter could be provided, or even food furnished to all who needed it. The harvest, just gathered, had been utterly consumed in the barns and stacks; and the green crops, such as corn, oats, turnips and potatoes, were so scorched in the fields as to render them worthless. The number of families burnt out was stated at over four hundred, of whom eighty-two were insurers in the Beaver Company to the extent of some seventy thousand dollars, all of which was satisfactorily paid. The government and people of Canada generally took up promptly the charitable task of providing relief, and it is pleasant to be able to add that, within two years after, the farmers of the burnt district themselves acknowledged that they were better off than before the great fire--partly owing to a succession of good harvests, but mainly to the thorough cleansing which the land had received, and the perfect destruction of all stumps and roots by the fervid heat. One or two remarkable circumstances are worth recording. A farmer was sitting at his door, having just finished his evening meal, when he noticed a lurid smoke with flames miles off. In two or three minutes it had swept over the intervening country, across his farm and through his house, licking up everything as it went, and leaving nothing but ashes behind it. He escaped by throwing himself down in a piece of wet swamp close at hand. His wife and children were from home fortunately. Every other living thing was consumed. Another family was less fortunate. It consisted of a mother and several children. Driven into a swamp for shelter, they became separated and bewildered. The calcined skeletons of the poor woman and one child were found several days afterward. The rest escaped. The fire seems to have resembled an electric flash, leaping from place to place, passing over whole farms to pounce upon others in rear, and again vaulting to some other spot still further eastward. CHAPTER LVII. SOME INSURANCE EXPERIENCES. In the course of the ordinary routine of a fire insurance office, circumstances are frequently occurring that may well figure in a sensational novel. One or two such may not be uninteresting here. I suppress the true names and localities, and some of the particulars. One dark night, in a frontier settlement of the County of Simcoe, a young man was returning through the bush from a township gathering, when he noticed loaded teams passing along a concession line not far distant. As this was no unusual occurrence, he thought little of it, until some miles further on, he came to a clearing of some forty acres, where there was no dwelling-house apparently, but a solitary barn, which, while he was looking at it, seemed to be lighted up by a lanthorn, and after some minutes, by a flickering flame which gradually increased to a blaze, and shortly enveloped the whole building. Hastening to the spot, no living being was to be seen there, and he was about to leave the place; but giving a last look at the burning building, it struck him that there was very little fire inside, and he turned to satisfy his curiosity. There was nothing whatever in the barn. In due course, a notice was received at our office, that on a certain night the barn of one Dennis ----, containing one thousand bushels of wheat, had been burnt from an unknown cause, and that the value thereof, some eight-hundred dollars, was claimed from the company. At the same time, an anonymous letter reached me, suggesting an inquiry into the causes of the fire. The inquiry was instituted accordingly. The holder of the policy, an old man upwards of sixty years of age, a miser, reputed worth ten thousand dollars at least, was arrested, committed to ---- gaol, and finally tried and found guilty, without a doubt of his criminality being left on any body's mind who was present. Through the skill of his counsel, however, he escaped on a petty technicality; and considering his miserable condition, the loss he had inflicted on himself, and his seven months' detention in gaol, we took no further steps for his punishment. A country magistrate of high standing and good circumstances at ----, had a son aged about twenty-seven, to whom he had given the best education that grammar-school and college could afford, and who was regarded in his own neighbourhood as the model of gallantry and spirited enterprise. His father had supplied him with funds to erect substantial farm buildings, well stocked and furnished, in anticipation of his marriage with an estimable and well-educated young lady. Amongst the other buildings was a cheese-factory, in connection with which the young man commenced the business of making and selling cheese on an extensive scale. So matters went on for some months, until we received advices that the factory which we had insured, had been burnt during the night, and that the owner claimed three-thousand dollars for his loss. Our inspector was sent to examine and report, and was returning quite satisfied of the integrity of the party and the justice of the claim, when just as he was leaving the hotel where he had staid, a bystander happened to remark how curious it was that cheese should burn without smell. "That is impossible," said the landlord. "I am certain," said the former speaker, "that this had no smell, for I remarked it to Jack at the time." The inspector reported this conversation, and I sent a detective to investigate the case. He remained there, disguised of course, for two or three weeks, and then reported that large shipments of cheese to distant parts had taken place previously to the fire; but he could find nothing to criminate any individual, until accidentally he noticed what looked like a dog's muzzle lying in a corner of the stable. He picked it up, and untying a string that was wound around it, found it to be the leg of a new pair of pantaloons of fine quality. Watching his opportunity the same evening, while in conversation with the claimant, he produced the trowser-leg quietly, and enquired where the fellow-leg was? Taken by surprise, the young man slunk silently away. He had evidently cut off a leg of his own pants, and used it to muzzle his house-dog, to silence its barking while he set the factory afire. He left the country that night, and we heard no more of the claim. A letter was received one day from a Roman Catholic priest, which informed me that a woman whose dying confession he had received, had acknowledged that several years before she had been accessary to a fraud upon our company of one hundred dollars. Her husband had insured a horse with us for that amount. The horse had been burnt in his stable. The claim was paid. Her confession was, that the horse had died a natural death, and that the stable was set on fire for the purpose of recovering the value of the horse. In this case, the woman's confession becoming known to her husband, he left the country for the United States. The woman recovered and followed him. CHAPTER LVIII. A HEAVY CALAMITY. In the year 1875, the blow fell which destroyed the Beaver Insurance Company, and well nigh ruined every man concerned in it, from the president to the remotest agent. In April of that year, a bill was passed by the Dominion Legislature relative to mutual fire insurance companies. It so happened that the Premier of Canada was then the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, for whose benefit, it was understood, the Hon. George Brown had got up a stock company styled the Isolated Risk Insurance Co., of which Mr. Mackenzie became president. There was a strong rivalry between the two companies, and possibly from this cause the legislation of the Dominion took a complexion hostile to mutual insurance. Be that as it may, a clause was introduced into the Act without attracting attention, which required the Beaver Company to deposit with the Government the sum of fifty-thousand dollars, being the same amount as had been customary with companies possessing a stock capital. For eighteen months this clause remained unobserved, when the Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron, being engaged as counsel in an insurance case, happened to light upon it, and mentioned it to me at the last meeting of the Board which he attended before his death, which took place two or three weeks afterwards. At the following Board meeting, I stated the facts as reported by him, and was instructed to take the opinion of Mr. Christopher Robinson, the eminent Queen's counsel, upon the case. I did so at once, and was advised by him to submit the question to Professor Cherriman, superintendent of insurance, by whom it was referred to the law officers of the Crown at Ottawa. Their decision was, that the Beaver Company had been required by the new Act to make a deposit of fifty thousand dollars before transacting any new business since April, 1876, and that nothing but an Act of Parliament could relieve the company and its agents from the penalties already incurred in ignorance of the statute. On receipt of this opinion, immediate notice was sent by circular to all the company's agents, warning them to suspend operations at once. A bill was introduced at the following session, in February, 1877, which received the royal assent in April, remitting all penalties, and authorizing the company either to wind up its business or to transmute itself into a stock company. But in the meantime, fire insurance had received so severe a shock from the calamitous fire at St. John, N. B., by which many companies were ruined, and all shaken, that it was found impossible to raise the necessary capital to resume the Beaver business. Thus, without fault or error on the part of its Board of Management, without warning or notice of any kind, was a strong and useful institution struck to the ground as by a levin-bolt. The directors, who included men of high standing of all political parties, lost, in the shape of paid-up guarantee stock and promissory notes, about sixty thousand dollars of their own money, and the officers suffered in the same way. The expenses of winding up, owing to vexatious litigation, have amounted to a sum sufficient to cover the outside liabilities of the company. These particulars may not interest the majority of my readers, but I have felt it my duty to give them, as the best act of justice in my power to the public-spirited and honourable men, with whom for twenty-three years I have acted, and finally suffered. That the members of the company--the insured--have sustained losses by fire since October, 1876, to the amount of over $45,000, which remain unpaid in consequence of its inability to collect its assets, adds another to the many evils which are chargeable to ill-considered and reckless legislation, in disregard of the lawful vested rights of innocent people, including helpless widows and orphans. CHAPTER LIX. THE HON. JOHN HILLYARD CAMERON. On the 20th day of April, 1844, I was standing outside the railing of St. James's churchyard, Toronto, on the occasion of a very sad funeral. The chief mourner was a slightly built, delicate-looking young man of prepossessing appearance. His youthful wife, the daughter of the late Hon. H. J. Boulton, at one time Chief Justice of Newfoundland, had died, and it was at her burial he was assisting. When the coffin had been committed to the earth, the widowed husband's feelings utterly overcame him, and he fell insensible beside the still open grave. This was my first knowledge of John Hillyard Cameron. From that day, until his death in November, 1876, I knew him more or less intimately, enjoyed his confidence personally and politically, and felt a very sincere regard for him in return. I used at one time to oppose his views in the City Council, but always good-naturedly on both sides. I was chairman of the Market Committee, and it was my duty to resist his efforts to establish a second market near the corner of Queen and Yonge Streets, in the rear of the buildings now known as the Page Block. He was a prosperous lawyer, highly in repute, gaining a considerable revenue from his profession, and being of a lively, sanguine temperament, launched out into heavy speculations in exchange operations and in real estate. As an eloquent pleader in the courts, he excelled all his contemporaries, and it was a common saying among solicitors, that Cameron ruled the Bench by force of argument, and the jury by power of persuasion. In the Legislature he was no less influential. His speeches on the Clergy Reserve question, on the Duval case, and many others, excited the House of Assembly to such a degree, that on one occasion an adjournment was carried on the motion of the ministerial leader, to give time for sober reflection. So it was in religious assemblies. At meetings of the Synod of the Church of England, at missionary meetings, and others, his fervid zeal and flowing sentences carried all before them, and left little for others to say. In 1849, Mr. Cameron married again, this time a daughter of General Mallett, of Baltimore, who survives him, and still resides in Toronto. After that date, and for years until 1857, everything appeared to prosper with him. A comfortable residence, well stored with valuable paintings, books and rarities of all kinds. The choicest of society and hosts of friends. An amiable growing family of sons and daughters. Affluence and elegance, popular favour, and the full sunshine of prosperity. Honours were showered upon him from all sides. Solicitor-General in 1846, member of Parliament for several constituencies in turn, Treasurer of the Law Society, and Grand Master of the Orange Association. Judgeships and Chief-Justiceships were known to be at his disposal, but declined for personal reasons. My political connection with Mr. Cameron commenced in 1854, when, having purchased from the widow of the late Hugh Scobie the _Colonist_ newspaper, I thought it prudent to strengthen myself by party alliances. He entered into the project with an energy and disinterestedness that surprised me. It had been a semi-weekly paper; he offered to furnish five thousand dollars a year to make it a daily journal, independent of party control; stipulated for no personal influence over its editorial views, leaving them entirely in my discretion, and undertaking that he would never reclaim the money so advanced, as long as his means should last. I was then comparatively young, enterprising, and unembarrassed in circumstances, popular amongst my fellow-citizens, and mixed up in nearly every public enterprise and literary association then in existence in Toronto. Quite ready, in fact, for any kind of newspaper enterprise. My arrangement with Mr. Cameron continued, with complete success, until 1857. The paper was acknowledged as a power in the state; my relations with contemporary journals were friendly, and all seemed well. In the summer of 1857 occurred the great business panic, which spread ruin and calamity throughout Canada West, caused by the cessation of the vast railway expenditure of preceding years, and by the simultaneous occurrence of a business pressure in the United States. The great house of Duncan Sherman & Co., of New York, through which Mr. Cameron was in the habit of transacting a large exchange business with England, broke down suddenly and unexpectedly. Drafts on London were dishonoured, and Mr. Cameron's bankers there, to protect themselves, sold without notice the securities he had placed in their hands, at a loss to him personally of over a hundred thousand pounds sterling. Mr. Cameron was for a time prostrated by this reverse, but soon rallied his energies. Friends advised him to offer a compromise to his creditors, which would have been gladly accepted; but he refused to do so, saying, he would either pay twenty shillings in the pound or die in the effort. He made the most extraordinary exertions, refusing the highest seats on the judicial bench to work the harder at his profession; toiling day and night to retrieve his fortunes; insuring his life for heavy sums by way of security to his creditors; and felt confident of final success, when in October, 1876, while attending the assize at Orillia, he imprudently refreshed himself after a night's labour in court, by bathing in the cold waters of the Narrows of Lake Couchiching, and contracted a severe cold which laid him on a sick bed, which he never quitted alive. I saw him a day or two before his death, when he spoke of a heavy draft becoming due, for which he had made provision. In this he was disappointed. He tried to leave his bed to rectify the error, but fell back from exhaustion, and died in the struggle--as his friends think--from a broken heart. CHAPTER LX. TORONTO ATHENÆUM. About the year 1843, the first effort to establish a free public library in Toronto, was made by myself. Having been a member of the Birkbeck Institute of London, I exerted myself to get up a similar society here, and succeeded in enlisting the sympathies of several of the masters of Upper Canada College, of whom Mr. Henry Scadding (now the Rev. Dr. Scadding) was the chief. He became president of the Athenæum, a literary association, of which I was secretary and librarian. In that capacity I corresponded with the learned societies of England and Scotland, and in two or three years got together several hundred volumes of standard works, all in good order and well bound. Meetings for literary discussion were held weekly, the principal speakers being Philip M. Vankoughnet (since chancellor), Alex. Vidal (now senator), David B. Read (now Q.C.), J. Crickmore,-- Martin, Macdonald the younger (of Greenfield), and many others whose names I cannot recall. I recollect being infinitely amused by a naïve observation of one of these young men-- "Remember, gentlemen, that we are the future legislators of Canada!" which proved to be prophetic, as most of them have since made their mark in some conspicuous public capacity. We met in the west wing of the old City Hall. The eastern wing was occupied by the Commercial News room, and in course of time the two associations were united. As an interesting memento of many honoured citizens, I copy the deed of transfer in full: "We, the undersigned shareholders of the Commercial News Room, do hereby make over, assign, and transfer unto the members, for the time being, of the Toronto Athenæum, all our right, title, and interest in and to each our share in the said Commercial News Room, for the purposes and on the terms and conditions mentioned in the copy of a Resolution of the Committee of the said Commercial News Room, hereunto annexed. "In witness whereof we have hereunto placed our hands and seals this 3rd day of September, 1847." Thos. D. Harris. Jos. D. Ridout. W. C. Ross. A. T. McCord. D. Paterson. Wm. Proudfoot. F. W. Birchall. Geo. Perc. Ridout. Alexander Murray. W. Allan. J. Mitchell. James F. Smith. W. Gamble. Richard Kneeshaw. John Ewart. George Munro. Thos. Mercer Jones. Joseph Dixon. Signed, sealed and delivered } in the presence of } Samuel Thompson. } After the destruction by fire of the old City Hall, the Athenæum occupied handsome rooms in the St. Lawrence Hall, until 1855, when a proposition was received to unite with the Canadian Institute, then under the presidency of Chief Justice Sir J. B. Robinson. Dr. Wilson (now President Toronto University) was its leading spirit. It was thereupon decided to transfer the library and some minerals, with the government grant of $400, to the Canadian Institute. In order to legalize the transfer, application was made to Parliament, and on the 19th May, 1855, the Act 18 Vic., c. 236, received the royal assent. The first clause reads as follows:-- "The members of the Toronto Athenæum shall have power to transfer and convey to the Canadian Institute, such and so much of the books, minerals, and other property of the said Toronto Athenæum, whether held absolutely or in trust, as they may decide upon so conveying, and upon such conditions as they may think advisable, which conditions, if accepted by the said Canadian Institute, shall be binding." Accordingly a deed of transfer was prepared and executed by the two contracting parties, by which it was provided: "That the library formed by the books of the two institutions, with such additions as may be made from the common funds, should constitute a library to which the public should have access for reference, free of charge, under such regulations as may be adopted by the said Canadian Institute in view of the proper care and management of the same." The books and minerals were handed over in due time, and acknowledged in the _Canadian Journal_, vol. 3, p. 394, old series. On the 9th February, 1856, Professor Chapman presented his report as curator, "on the minerals handed over by the Toronto Athenæum," which does not appear to have been published in the _Journal_. The reading room was subsequently handed over to the Mechanics' Institute, which was then in full vigour. It will be seen, therefore, that the library of the Canadian Institute is, to all intents and purposes, a public library by statute, and free to all citizens for ever. I am sorry to add, that for many years back the conditions of the trust have been very indifferently carried out--few citizens know their rights respecting it, and still fewer avail themselves thereof. The Institute now has a substantial building, very comfortably fitted up, on Richmond Street east; has a good reading room in excellent order, and very obliging officials; gives weekly readings or lectures on Saturday evenings, and has accumulated a valuable library of some eight thousand volumes. I have thus been identified with almost every movement made in Toronto, for affording literary recreation to her citizens, and rejoice to see the good work progressing in younger and abler hands. CHAPTER LXI. THE BUFFALO FETE. In the month of July, 1850, the Mayor and citizens of Buffalo, hearing that our Canadian legislators were about to attend the formal opening of the Welland Canal, very courteously invited them to extend their trip to that city, and made preparations for their reception. Circumstances prevented the visit, but in acknowledgment of the good will thus shown, a number of members of the Canadian Parliament, then in session here, acting in concert with our City Council, proposed a counter-invitation, which was accordingly sent and accepted, and a joint committee formed to carry out the project. The St. Lawrence Hall, then nearly finished, was hurriedly fitted up as a ball-room for the occasion, under the volunteered charge chiefly of Messrs. F. W. Cumberland and Kivas Tully, architects. The hall was lined throughout, tent-fashion, the ceiling with blue and white, the walls with pink and white calico, in alternate stripes, varied with a multitude of flags, British and American, mottoes and other showy devices. The staircase was decorated with evergreens, which were also utilized to convert the unfinished butchers' arcade into a bowery vista 500 feet long, lighted with gas laid for the occasion, and extending across Front Street to the entrance of the City Hall, then newly restored, painted and papered. Lord Elgin warmly seconded the hospitable views of the joint committee, and Colonel Sir Hew Dalrymple promised a review of the troops then in garrison. All was life and preparation throughout the city. On Friday, August 8th, the steamer _Chief Justice_ was despatched to Lewiston to receive the guests from Buffalo. On her return, in the afternoon, she was welcomed with a salute of cannon, the men of the Fire Brigade lining the wharf and Front Street, along which the visitors were conveyed in carriages to the North American Hotel. Soon after nine o'clock, the Hall began to fill with a brilliant and joyous assemblage of visitors and citizens with their ladies. Lord and Lady Elgin arrived at about ten o'clock, and were received with the strains of "God Save the Queen," by the admirable military band, which was one of the city's chief attractions in those times. The day was very wet, and the evening still rainy. The arcade had been laid with matting, but it was nevertheless rather difficult for the fair dancers to trip all the way to the City Hall, in the council chamber of which supper had been prepared. However, they got safely through, and seemed delighted with the adventure. Never since, I think, has the City Hall presented so distinguished and charming a scene. Of course there was a lady to every gentleman. The fair Buffalonians were loud in their praises of the whole arrangements, and thoroughly disposed to enjoy themselves. On a raised dais at the south side of the room was a table, at which were seated Mayor Gurnett as host, with Lady Elgin; the Governor-General and Mrs. Judge Sill, of Buffalo; Mayor Smith, of Buffalo, and Madame Lafontaine; the Speakers of the two Houses of Parliament, with Mrs. Alderman Tiffany of Buffalo, and the Hon. Mrs. Bruce. Four long tables placed north and south, and two side tables, accommodated the rest of the party, amounting to about three hundred. All the tables were tastefully decorated with floral and other ornaments, and spread with every delicacy that could be procured. The presiding stewards were the Hon. Mr. Bourret, Hon. Sir Allan N. McNab, Hon. Messrs. Hincks, Cayley, J. H. Cameron, S. Taché, Drummond and Merritt. Toasts and speeches followed in the usual order, after which everybody returned to the St. Lawrence Hall, where dancing was resumed and kept up till an early hour next morning. The next day, being the 9th, the promised review of the 71st Regiment took place, with favourable weather, and was a decided success. In the afternoon, Lord Elgin gave a fête champêtre at Elmsley Villa, where he then resided, and which has since been occupied as Knox's College. The grounds then extended from Yonge Street to the University Park, and an equal distance north and south. They were well kept, and on this occasion charmingly in unison with the bright smiles and gay costumes of the ladies who, with their gentlemen escorts, made up the most joyous of scenes. Having paid my respects at the Government House on New Year's day, I was present as an invited guest at the garden party. His Excellency showed me marked attention, in recognition probably of my services as a peacemaker. The corporation, as a body, were not invited, which was the only instance in which Lord Elgin betrayed any pique at the unflattering reception given him in October, 1849.[28] While conversing with him, I was amused at the enthusiasm of a handsome Buffalo lady, who came up, unceremoniously exclaiming, "Oh, my lord, I heard your beautiful speech (in the marquee), you should come among us and go into politics. If you would only take the stump for the Presidency, I am confident you would sweep every state of the Union!" An excellent déjeuner had been served in a large tent on the lawn. Speeches and toasts were numerous and complimentary. The conservatory was cleared for dancing, which was greatly enjoyed, and the festivities were wound up by a brilliant display of fireworks. The guests departed next morning, amid hearty handshaking and professions of friendship. Before leaving the wharf, the Mayor of Buffalo expressed in warm and pleasing terms, his high sense of the hospitality shown himself and his fellow-citizens. And so ended the Buffalo Fête. [Footnote 28: Some members of the corporation were much annoyed at their exclusion, and inclined to resent it as a studied insult, but wiser counsels prevailed.] CHAPTER LXII. THE BOSTON JUBILEE. The year 1851 is memorable for the celebration, at Boston, of the opening of the Ogdensburg Railway, to connect Boston with Canada and the Lakes, and also of the Grand Junction Railway, a semicircular line by which all the railways radiating from that city are linked together, so that a passenger starting from any one of the city stations can take his ticket for any other station on any of those railways, either in the suburbs or at distant points. I am not aware that so perfect a system has been attempted elsewhere. The natural configuration of its site has probably suggested the scheme. Boston proper is built on an irregular tri-conical hill, with its famous bay to the east; on the north the wide Charles River, with the promontory and hills of Charlestown and East Cambridge; on the south Dorchester Heights. Between the principal elevations are extensive salt marshes, now rapidly disappearing under the encroachments of artificial soil, covered in turn by vast warehouses, streets, railway tracks, and all the various structures common to large commercial cities. It was in the month of July, that a deputation from the Boston City Council visited our principal Canadian cities, as the bearers of an invitation to Lord Elgin and his staff, with the government officials, as well as the mayors and corporations and leading merchants of those cities, and other principal towns of Upper and Lower Canada, to visit Boston on the occasion of a great jubilee to be held in honour of the opening of its new railway system. Numerous as were the invited Canadian guests, however, they formed but a mere fraction of the visitors expected. Every railway staff, every municipal corporation throughout the Northern States, was included in the list of invitations; free passes and free quarters were provided for all; and it would be hard to conceive a more joyous invasion of merry travellers, than those who were pouring in by a rapid succession of loaded trains on all the numerous lines converging upon "the hub of the universe." Our Toronto party was pretty numerous. Mr. J. G. Bowes was mayor, and among the aldermen present were Messrs. W. Wakefield (who was a host of jollity in himself), G. P. Ridout, R. Dempsey, E. F. Whittemore, J. G. Beard, Robt. Beard, John B. Robinson, Jos. Sheard and myself; also councilmen James Ashfield, James Price, M. P. Hayes, S. Platt, Jonathan Dunn, and others. There were besides, of leading citizens, Messrs. Alex. Dixon, E. G. O'Brien, Alex. Manning, E. Goldsmith, Kivas Tully, Fred. Perkins, Rice Lewis, George Brown, &c. We had a delightful trip down the lake by steamer, and at Ogdensburg took the cars for Lake Champlain. We arrived at Boston about 10 a.m. Waiting for us at the Western Railroad Depot were the mayor and several of the city council of Boston, with carriages for our whole party. But we were too dusty and tired with our long journey to think of anything but refreshments and baths, and all the other excellent things which awaited us at the American Hotel. Here we were confidentially informed that the Jubilee was to be celebrated on temperance principles, but that in compliment to the Canadian guests, a few baskets of champagne had been provided for our especial delectation; and I am compelled to add, that on the strength thereof, two or three worshipful aldermen of Toronto got themselves locked up for the night in the police stations. It is but justice to explain here, that a very small offence is sufficient to procure such a distinction in Boston. Even the smoking of a cigar on the side-walks, or the least symptom of unsteadiness in gait, is enough to consign a man to durance vile. The police were everywhere. The first day of the Jubilee was occupied by the members of the committee in receiving their visitors, providing them with comfortable and generally luxurious quarters, and introducing the principal guests to each other--also in exhibiting the local lions. On the second day there was an excursion down the harbour, which is many miles long and broad. Six steamboats and two large cutters, gay with flags and streamers, conveyed the party; champagne was in abundance (always for the Canadian visitors!)--each boat had its band of music--very fine German bands too. Then, as the flotilla left the wharf and passed in succession the fortifications and other prominent points, salvoes of cannon boomed across the bright waters, re-echoing far and wide amid the surrounding hills. President Fillmore and his suite were on board the leading vessel, and to him, of course, these honours were paid. On every boat was spread a banquet for the guests; toasts and sentiments were given and duly honoured; and to judge by the noise and excited gesticulations of the banqueters, nothing could be more complete than the fusion of Yankees and Canadians. At noon, a regatta was held, which, the weather being fine, with a light breeze, was pronounced by yachtsmen a distinguished success. At five o'clock the citizens crowded in vast numbers to the Western Railway Station, there to meet His Excellency the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, with his brother Colonel Bruce and a numerous staff. He was welcomed by Mayor Bigelow, a fine venerable old man of the Mayflower stock. Mutual compliments were exchanged, and the new comers escorted to the Revere House, a very handsome hotel, the best in Boston. Everywhere the streets were lined with throngs of people, who cheered our Governor-General to the uttermost extent of their lung-power. On the third day took place a monster procession, at least a mile and a-half in length, and modelled after the plan of the German trades festivals. Besides the long line of carriages filled with guests, from the President and the Governor-General down to the humblest city officer, there was an immense array of "trades expositions" or pageants, that is, huge waggons drawn by four, six, eight and sometimes ten horses, each waggon serving as a model workshop, whereon printers, hatters, bootmakers, turners, carriage-makers, boat-riggers, stone-cutters, silversmiths, plumbers, market-men, piano-forte makers, and many other handicraftsmen worked at their respective callings. The finest street of private residences was Dover Street, a noble avenue of cut stone buildings, occupied by wealthy people of old Boston families. The decorations here were both costly and tasteful; and the hospitality unbounded. As each carriage passed slowly along, footmen in livery presented at its doors silver trays loaded with refreshments, in the shape of pastry, bon-bons, and costly wines. The ladies of each house, richly dressed, stood on the lower steps and welcomed the visitors with smiles and waving of handkerchiefs. At two or three places in the line of procession, were platforms handsomely festooned, occupied by bevies of fair girls in white, or by hundreds of children of both sexes, belonging to the common schools, prettily dressed, and bearing bouquets of bright flowers which they presented to the occupants of the carriages. I could not help remarking to my companion, one of the members of the Boston City Council, that more aristocratic-looking women than these Dover Street matrons, were not, I thought, to be found in all Europe. He told me not to whisper such a sentiment in Boston, for fear it might expose the objects of my complimentary remark to being mobbed by the democracy. At length the procession came to an end. But it was only a prelude to a still more magnificent demonstration, which was the great banquet given to four thousand people under one vast tent covering half an acre of ground on the Common. Thither the visitors were escorted in carriages, with the usual attention and solicitude for their every comfort, and when within, and placed according to their several ranks and localities, it was truly a sight to be remembered. The tent was two hundred and fifty feet in length by ninety in width. The roof and sides were all but hidden by the profusion of flags and bunting festooned everywhere. A raised table for the visitors extended around the entire tent. For the citizens proper were placed ten rows of parallel tables running the whole length of the inner area; altogether providing seats for three thousand six hundred people, besides smaller tables at convenient spots. There were present also a whole army of waiters, one to each dozen guests, and indefatigable in their duties. The repast included all kinds of cold meats and temperance drinks. Flowers for every person and great flower trophies on the tables; abundance of huge water and musk melons, and other fruits in great variety and perfection, especially native grown peaches and Bartlett pears, which Boston produces of the finest quality. Also plenty of pastry of many tempting kinds. It took scarcely twenty minutes to seat the entire "dinner party" comfortably, so excellent were the arrangements. Before dinner commenced, Mayor Bigelow, who presided, announced that President Fillmore was required to leave for Washington on urgent state business; which he did after his health had been proposed and acknowledged. A little piece of dramatic acting was noticeable here, when the President and Lord Elgin, one on each side of the Mayor, shook hands across his worshipful breast, the President retaining his lordship's hand firmly clasped in his own for some time; a tableau which gave rise to a tumultuous burst of applause from the whole assemblage. Then commenced in earnest the play of knives and forks, four thousand of each, producing a unique and somewhat droll effect. After the President had gone, Lord Elgin became the chief lion of the day, and right well did his lordship play his part, entering thoroughly into the prejudices of his auditors while disclaiming all flattery, pouring out witticism after witticism, sometimes of the broadest, and altogether carrying the audience with him until they were worked up into a perfect frenzy of applause. "The health of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" having been proposed by His Honour Mayor John P. Bigelow, was received, as the Boston account of the Jubilee says, "with nine such cheers as would have made Her Majesty, had she been present, forget that she was beyond the limits of her own dominions; and the band struck up 'God save the Queen,' as if to complete the illusion." The compliment was acknowledged by Lord Elgin, who said: "Allow me, gentlemen, as there seems to be in America some little misconception on these points, to observe, that we, monarchists though we be, enjoy the advantages of self-government, of popular elections, of deliberative assemblies, with their attendant blessings of caucuses, stump orators, lobbyings and log-rollings--(Laughter)--and I am not sure but we sometimes have a little pipe-laying--(renewed laughter)--almost, if not altogether, in equal perfection with yourselves. I must own, gentlemen, that I was exceedingly amused the other day, when one of the gentlemen who did me the honour to visit me at Toronto, bearing the invitation of the Common Council and Corporation of the City of Boston, observed to me, with the utmost gravity, that he had been delighted to find, upon entering our Legislative Assembly at Toronto, that there was quite as much liberty of speech there as in any body of the kind he had ever visited. (Laughter.) I could not help thinking that if my kind friend would only favour us with his company in Canada for a few weeks, we should be able to demonstrate, to his entire satisfaction, that the tongue is quite as 'unruly' a 'member' on the north side of the line as on this side. (Renewed laughter.) "Now, gentlemen, you must not expect it, for I have not the voice for it, and I cannot pretend to undertake to make a regular speech to you. I belong to a people who are notoriously slow of speech. (Laughter.) If any doubt ever existed on this point, it must have been set at rest by the verdict which a high authority has recently pronounced. A distinguished American--a member of the Senate of the United States, who has lately been in England, informed his countrymen, on his return, that sadly backward as poor John Bull is in many things, in no one particular does he make so lamentable a failure as when he tries his hand at public speaking. (Laughter.) Now, gentlemen, deferring, as I feel bound to do, to that high authority, and conscious that in no particular do I more faithfully represent my countrymen than in my stammering tongue and embarrassed utterance (continued laughter), you may judge what my feelings are when I am asked to address an assembly like this, convened under the hospitable auspices of the Corporation of Boston, I believe to the tune of some four thousand, in this State of Massachusetts, a State which is so famous for its orators and its statesmen, a State that can boast of Franklins, and Adamses, and Everetts, and Winthrops and Lawrences, and Sumners and Bigelows, and a host of other distinguished men; a State, moreover, which is the chosen home, if not the birthplace of the illustrious Secretary of State of the American Union. (Applause.) "But, gentlemen, although I cannot make a speech to you, I must tell you, in the plain and homely way in which John Bull tries to express his feelings when his heart is full--that is to say, when they do not choke him and prevent his utterance altogether (sensation)--in that homely way I must express to you how deeply grateful I and all who are with me (hear, hear), feel for the kind and gratifying reception we have met with in the City of Boston. For myself, I may say that the citizens of Boston could not have conferred upon me a greater favour than that which they have conferred, in inviting me to this festival, and in thus enabling me not only to receive the hand of kindness which has been extended to me by the authorities of the City and of the State, but also giving me the opportunity, which I never had before, and perhaps may never have again, of paying my respects to the President of the United States. (Applause.) And although it would ill become me, a stranger, to presume to eulogise the conduct or the services of President Fillmore, yet as a bystander, as an observer, and by no means an indifferent or careless observer, of your progress and prosperity, I think I may venture to affirm that it is the opinion of all impartial men, that President Fillmore will occupy an honourable place on the roll of illustrious men on whom the mantle of Washington has fallen. (Applause and cheers.) "Somebody must write to the President, and tell him how that remark about him was received. (Laughter.) "Gentlemen: I have always felt a very deep interest in the progress of the lines of railway communication, of which we are now assembled to celebrate the completion. The first railway that I ever travelled upon in North America, forms part of the iron band which now unites Montreal to Boston. I had the pleasure, about five years ago, of travelling with a friend of mine, whom I see now present--Governor Paine--I think as far as Concord, upon that line. "Ex-Governor Paine, of Vermont--It was Franklin. "Lord Elgin--He contradicts me; he says it was not Concord, but Franklin; but I will make a statement which I am sure he will not contradict; it is this--that although we travelled together two or three days--after leaving the cars, over bad roads, and in all sorts of queer conveyances, we never reached a place which we could with any propriety have christened Discord. (Laughter and applause.) * * * * * "As to the citizens of Boston, I shall not attempt to detail their merits, for their name is Legion; but there is one merit, which I do not like to pass unnoticed, because they always seem to have possessed it in the highest perfection. It is the virtue of courage. Upon looking very accurately into history, I find one occasion, and one only upon which it appears to me that their courage entirely failed them. I see a great many military men present, and I am afraid that they will call me to account for this observation (laughter)--and what do you think that occasion was? I find, from the most authentic records, that the citizens of Boston were altogether carried away by panic, when it was first proposed to build a railroad from Boston to Providence, under the apprehension that they themselves, their wives and their children, their stores and their goods, and all they possessed, would be swallowed up bodily by New York. (Laughter.) "I hope that Boston has wholly recovered from that panic. I think it is some evidence of it, that she has laid out fifty millions in railways since that time." After his lordship, followed Edward Everett, whose speech was a complete contrast in every respect. Eloquent exceedingly, but chaste, terse and poetical; it charmed the Canadian visitors as much as Lord Elgin's had delighted the natives. Here are a few extracts:-- "It is not easy for me to express to you the admiration with which I have listened to the very beautiful and appropriate speech with which his Excellency, the Governor-General of Canada, has just delighted us. You know, sir, that the truest and highest art is to conceal art; and I could not but be reminded of that maxim, when I heard that gentleman, after beginning with disabling himself, and cautioning us at the onset that he was slow of speech, proceed to make one of the happiest, most appropriate and eloquent speeches ever uttered. If I were travelling with his lordship in his native mountains of Gael, I should say to him, in the language of the natives of those regions, sma sheen--very well, my lord. But in plain English, sir, that which has fallen from his lordship has given me indeed new cause to rejoice that 'Chatham's language is my mother tongue.' (Great cheering.) * * * * * "We have, Sir, in this part of the country long been convinced of the importance of this system of communication; although it may be doubted whether the most sagacious and sanguine have even yet fully comprehended its manifold influences. We have, however, felt them on the sea board and in the interior. We have felt them in the growth of our manufactures, in the extension of our commerce, in the growing demand for the products of agriculture, in the increase of our population. We have felt them prodigiously in transportation and travel. The inhabitant of the country has felt them in the ease with which he resorts to the city markets, whether as a seller or a purchaser. The inhabitant of the city has felt them in the facility with which he can get to a sister city, or to the country; with which he can get back to his native village;--to see the old folks, aye, Sir, and some of the young folks--with which he can get a mouthful of pure mountain air--or run down in dog days to Gloucester or Phillips' beach, or Plymouth, or Cohassett, or New Bedford. "I say, Sir, we have felt the benefit of our railway system in these and a hundred other forms, in which, penetrating far beyond material interests, it intertwines itself with all the concerns and relations of life and society; but I have never had its benefits brought home to me so sensibly as on the present occasion. Think, Sir, how it has annihilated time and space, in reference to this festival, and how greatly to our advantage and delight! "When Dr. Franklin, in 1754, projected a plan of union for these colonies, with Philadelphia as the metropolis, he gave as a reason for this part of the plan, that Philadelphia was situated about half way between the extremes, and could be conveniently reached even from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in eighteen days! I believe the President of the United States, who has honoured us with his company at this joyous festival, was not more than twenty-four hours actually on the road from Washington to Boston; two to Baltimore, seven more to Philadelphia, five more to New York, and ten more to Boston. "And then Canada, sir, once remote, inaccessible region--but now brought to our very door. If a journey had been contemplated in that direction in Dr. Franklin's time, it would have been with such feelings as a man would have now-a-days, who was going to start for the mouth of Copper Mine River, and the shores of the Arctic Sea. But no, sir; such a thing was never thought of--never dreamed of. A horrible wilderness, rivers and lakes unspanned by human art, pathless swamps, dismal forests that it made the flesh creep to enter, threaded by nothing more practicable than the Indian's trail, echoing with no sound more inviting than the yell of the wolf and the warwhoop of the savage; these it was that filled the space between us and Canada. The inhabitants of the British Colonies never entered Canada in those days but as provincial troops or Indian captives; and lucky he that got back with his scalp on. (Laughter.) This state of things existed less than one hundred years ago; there are men living in Massachusetts who were born before the last party of hostile Indians made an incursion to the banks of the Connecticut river. "As lately as when I had the honour to be the Governor of the Commonwealth, I signed the pension warrant of a man who lost his arm in the year 1757, in a conflict with the Indians and French in one of the border wars, in those dreary Canadian forests. His Honour the Mayor will recollect it, for he countersigned the warrant as Secretary of State. Now, Sir, by the magic power of these modern works of art, the forest is thrown open--the rivers and lakes are bridged--the valleys rise, the mountains bow their everlasting heads; and the Governor-General of Canada takes his breakfast in Montreal, and his dinner in Boston;--reading a newspaper leisurely by the way which was printed a fortnight ago in London. [Great Applause.] In the excavations made in the construction of the Vermont railroads, the skeletons of fossil whales and paloeozoic elephants have been brought to light. I believe, Sir, if a live spermaciti whale had been seen spouting in Lake Champlain, or a native elephant had walked leisurely into Burlington from the neighbouring woods, of a summer's morning, it would not be thought more wonderful than our fathers would have regarded Lord Elgin's journey to us this week, could it have been foretold to them a century ago, with all the circumstances of despatch, convenience and safety. [Applause.] "I recollect that seven or eight years ago there was a project to carry a railroad into the lake country in England--into the heart of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Mr. Wordsworth, the lately deceased poet, a resident in the centre of this region, opposed the project. He thought that the retirement and seclusion of this delightful region would be disturbed by the panting of the locomotive, and the cry of the steam whistle. If I am not mistaken, he published one or two sonnets in deprecation of the enterprise. Mr. Wordsworth was a kind-hearted man, as well as a most distinguished poet, but he was entirely mistaken, as it seems to me, in this matter. The quiet of a few spots may be disturbed; but a hundred quiet spots are rendered accessible. The bustle of the station house may take the place of the Druidical silence of some shady dell; but, Gracious Heavens! sir, how many of those verdant cathedral arches, entwined by the hand of God in our pathless woods, are opened to the grateful worship of man by these means of communication. (Cheers). "How little of rural beauty you lose, even in a country of comparatively narrow dimensions like England--how less than little in a country so vast as this--by works of this description. You lose a little strip along the line of the road, which partially changes its character; while, as the compensation, you bring all this rural beauty-- "The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields," within the reach, not of a score of luxurious, sauntering tourists, but of the great mass of the population, who have senses and tastes as keen as the keenest. You throw it open, with all its soothing and humanizing influences, to thousands who, but for your railways and steamers, would have lived and died without ever having breathed the life giving air of the mountains; yes, sir, to tens of thousands, who would have gone to their graves, and the sooner for the privation, without ever having caught a glimpse of the most magnificent and beautiful spectacle which nature presents to the eye of man--that of a glorious combing wave, a quarter of a mile long, as it comes swelling and breasting towards the shore, till its soft green ridge bursts into a crest of snow, and settles and dies along the whispering sands!" (Immense cheering.) "But even this is nothing compared with the great social and moral effects of this system, a subject admirably treated, in many of its aspects, in a sermon by Dr. Gannett, which has been kindly given to the public. All important also are its political effects in binding the States together as one family, and uniting us to our neighbours as brethren and kinsfolk. I do not know, Sir, [turning to Lord Elgin,] but in this way, from the kindly seeds which have been sown this week, in your visit to Boston, and that of the distinguished gentlemen who have preceded and accompanied you, our children and grandchildren, as long as this great Anglo-Saxon race shall occupy the continent, may reap a harvest worth all the cost which has devolved on this generation." [Cheers.] Other speeches followed, which would not now interest my readers. In due time the assemblage broke up, and the guests streamed away over the lovely Common in all directions, forming even in their departure a wonderful and pleasing spectacle. We Canadians remained in Boston several days, visiting the public institutions, presenting and receiving addresses, and participating in a series of civic pageants, the more enjoyable because to us altogether novel and unprecedented. Our hosts informed us, that they were quite accustomed to and always prepared for such gatherings. CHAPTER LXIII. VESTIGES OF THE MOSAIC DELUGE. In chapters xlvi. and l. of this book, I have referred to certain conversations I had with Sir Wm. Logan, on the existence of ocean beaches, extending from Newfoundland to the North-West Territory, at an altitude of from twelve to fifteen hundred feet above the present sea level. Also of a secondary series of beaches, seven hundred feet above Lake Ontario, at Oak Ridges, eighteen miles north of Toronto; and a third series, one hundred and eighty to two hundred feet above the Lake, which I believe also occur at many points on the opposite lake-shore. In chapter xlvi. I mentioned the fact of my finding evidences of human remains at the very base of one of these lower beaches, at Carlton, on the Weston and Davenport Roads, near Toronto. When I wrote those chapters, and until this present month of January, 1884, I was doubtful whether I should not be regarded as fanciful or unreliable. I have now, however, just seen in _Good Words_ for this month, an article headed "Geology and the Deluge," from the pen of the Duke of Argyle, which appears to me conclusive on the points to which I allude, namely, first, that there was spread over the whole northern portion of this continent, a sea fifteen hundred feet above the land; secondly, that the depth of water was reduced to a thousand feet, and remained so during the formation of our Oak Ridges; and lastly, that a further subsidence of eight hundred feet took place, reducing the sea to the height of the Carlton beach; and that the latest of these subsidences must have occurred after our earth had been long peopled, and within historic times--probably at the date of the deluge recorded by Moses. His Grace says:-- "I think I could take any one, however unaccustomed he might be to geological observation or to geological reasoning, to a place within a few miles of Inverary, and point out a number of facts which would convince him that the whole of our mountains, the whole of Scotland, had been lying deeper in the sea than it does now to a depth of at least 2,000 feet. . . . I believe that the submergence of the land towards the close of what is called the Glacial Period, was to a considerable extent a sudden submergence, probably more sudden to the south of the country than it was here, and that the Deluge was closely connected with that submergence. . . . The enormous stretch of country which lies between Russia and Behring's Straits is very little known, and almost uninhabited. It is frozen to within a very few feet of the surface all the year round. In that frozen mud the Mammoth has been preserved untouched. There have been numerous carcases found with the flesh, the skin, the hair and the eyes complete. . . . Has this great catastrophe of the submergence of the land to the depth of at least two or three thousand feet, taken place since the birth of Man? In answer to this question I must refer to the fact now clearly ascertained, that Man co-existed with the Mammoth, and that stone implements are found in numbers in the very gravels and brick earths which contain the bones of those great mammalia." I should be glad to quote more, but this is enough to account for the circumstances I have myself noted, and to explain also, I think, the vast deposit of mud which forms the prairies of the Western States, and of the Canadian North-West; which has its counterpart in the European prairie countries of Moldavia and Wallachia. But the Duke appears to me to overlook the circumstance, that the vast accumulation of animal remains in Siberia, mostly of southern varieties, to which he refers, must have been swept there, not by an upheaval, but by a depression in the northern hemisphere, and a corresponding rise in the southern, whence all these mammoths, lions and tigers, are supposed to have been swept. To account for their present elevated position, a second convulsion restoring the depressed parts to their original altitude, must apparently have occurred--at least that is my unscientific conclusion. It would seem that we ought to look for similar accumulations of animal matter in our own Hudson's Bay territory, where, also, it is stated, the ground remains frozen throughout summer to within three feet of the surface, as in Siberia. CHAPTER LXIV. THE FRANCHISE. While I was a member of the City Council, the question of the proper qualification for electors of municipal councils and of the legislature, was much under discussion. I told my Reform opponents, who advocated an extremely low standard, that the lower they fixed the qualification for voters, the more bitterly they would be disappointed; that the poorer the electors the greater the corruption that must necessarily prevail. And so it has proved. In thinking over the subject since, I have been led to compare the body politic to a pyramid, the stones in every layer of which shall be more numerous than the aggregate of all the layers above it. And this comparison is by no means strained, as I believe it will be found, that each and every class is indeed numerically greater than all the classes higher in social rank--the idlers than the industrious--the workers than the employers--the children than the parents--the illiterate than the instructed--and so on. Thus it follows as a necessary consequence, that the adoption of the principle of manhood suffrage, now so much advocated, must necessarily place all political power in the hands of the worst offscourings of the community--law-breakers, vagrants, and outcasts of all kinds. This would be equivalent to inverting the pyramid, and expecting it to remain poised upon its apex--which is a mere impossibility. Whether the capstone of the social pyramid ought to be king or president, is not material to my argument. On republican principles--and with the French King, Louis Philippe, I hold that the British constitutional monarchy is "the best of all republics"--the true theory of representative institutions must be, that each class of the electors should have a voice in the councils of the country equal to, and no greater than, each of the several classes (or strata) above. This would greatly resemble the old Scandinavian storthings, in which there were four orders of legislators--king, nobles, clergy, and peasants, each of which had a veto on all questions brought before any one of them. Thus, the election of members of local municipal councils would be vested in the rate-payers, much as at present. The district (not county) councils would be elected by the local municipalities; and would themselves be entitled to elect members of the provincial legislatures. These latter again might properly be entrusted with the election of the Dominion House of Commons. And to carry the idea a step further, the Dominion Legislature itself would be a fitting body to nominate representatives to a great council of the Empire, which should decide all questions of peace or war, of commerce, and other matters affecting the whole body politic. To make the analogy complete, and bind the whole structure together, each class should be limited in its choice to the class next above it, by which process, it is to be presumed, "the survival of the fittest" would be secured, and every man elected to the higher bodies must have won his way from the municipal council up through all the other grades. I should give each municipal voter such number of votes as would represent his stake in the municipality, say one vote for every four hundred dollars of assessable property, and an additional vote for every additional four hundred dollars, up to a maximum of perhaps ten votes, and no more, which would sufficiently protect the richer ratepayers without neutralizing the wishes of the poorer voters. On such a system, every voter would influence the entire legislation of the country to the exact extent of his intelligence, and of his contributions to the general expenditure. Corruption would be almost, and intimidation quite, impracticable. To meet the need for a revisory body or senate, the retired judges of the Upper Courts, and retired members of the House of Commons, after ten or twenty years' service, should form an unexceptionable tribunal for any of the colonies. I am aware that the election of legislators by the county councils has been already advocated in Canada, and that in other respects this chapter may be considered not a little presumptuous; but I conclude, nevertheless, to print it for what it is worth. CHAPTER LXV. FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. I have, I believe, in the preceding pages, established beyond contradiction the historical fact, that the Conservative party, whatever their other faults may have been, are not justly chargeable with making use of the Protection cry as a mere political manoeuvre, only adopted immediately prior to the general elections of 1878. I have mentioned, that when I was about eighteen years of age, the Corn-Law League was in full blast in England. I was foreman and proof-reader of the printing office whence all its principal publications issued, and was in daily communication with Col. Peyronnet Thompson, M. P., and the other free-trade leaders. I was even then struck with the circumstance, that while loudly professing their disinterested desire for the welfare of the whole human race, the authors of the movement urged as their main argument with the manufacturers and farmers, that England could undersell the whole world in cheap goods, while her agriculturists could never be under-sold in their own markets. This reasoning appeared to me both hypocritical and fraudulent; and I hold that it has proved so, and that for England and Scotland, the day of retribution is already looming in the near future. As righteously might a single shop-keeper build his hopes of profit upon the utter ruin of all his trade competitors, as a single country dare to speculate, as the British free-trader has done, on the destruction of the manufacturing industries of all other nations. The present troubles in Ireland, are they not the direct fruit of the crushing out of its linen industry? The Scindian war in India, was it not caused by the depopulation of a whole province of a million and a half of people, through the annihilation of its nankeen manufacture. And if Manchester and Birmingham had their way, would not France and Germany, and Switzerland and America--including Canada--become the mere bond-slaves of the Cobdens and the Brights--_et hoc genus omne_? But there is a Power above all, that has ordered events otherwise. I assume it to be undeniable, that according to natural laws, the country which produces any raw material, must ultimately become its cheapest manipulator. England has no inherent claim to control any manufactures but those of tin, iron, brass and wool; and with time, all or most of these may be wrested from her. Her cotton mills must ultimately fade away before those of India, the Southern States, and Africa. Her grain can never again compete with that of Russia and the Canadian North-West. Her iron-works with difficulty now hold their own against Germany and the United States. Birmingham and Sheffield are threatened by Switzerland, by the New England States, and--before many decades--by Canada. And so on with all the rest of England's monopolies. Dear labour, dear farming, dear soil, will tell unfavourably in the end, in spite of all trade theories and _ex parte_ arguments. Yet more. It would not be hard to show, I think, that the tenant-right and agrarian agitations of the present day are due to Free Trade; that the cry, "the land belongs to the labourer," is the direct offspring of the Cobden teaching; and that the issue will but too probably be, a disastrous revulsion of labour against capital, and poverty against wealth. They who sow the wind, must reap the whirlwind! God send that it may not happen in our day! CHAPTER LXVI. THE FUTURE OF CANADA. I may venture, I hope, to put down here some of the conclusions to which my fifty years' experience in Canada, and my observation of what has been going on during the same term in the United States, have led me. It is a favourite boast with our neighbours, that all North America must ultimately be brought under one government, and that the manifest destiny of Canada will irresistibly lead her on to annexation. And we have had, and still have amongst us, those who welcome the idea, and some who have lately grown audacious enough to stigmatize as traitors those who, like myself, claim to be citizens, not of the Dominion only, but of the Empire. To say nothing of the semi-barbarous population of Mexico, who would have to be consulted, there is a section of the Southern States which may yet demand autonomy for the Negro race, and which will in all probability seize the first opportunity for so doing. Then in Canada, we have a million of French Canadians, who make no secret of their preference for French over British alliance; and who will surely claim their right to act upon their convictions the moment British authority shall have become relaxed. Nor can they be blamed for this, however we may doubt the soundness of their conclusions. Then we have the Acadians of Nova Scotia, who would probably follow French Canada wheresoever she might lead; nor could the few British people of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island--unaided by England--escape the same fate. Even Eastern Ontario might have to fight hard to escape a French Republican régime. There remain Middle and Western Ontario, and the North-West--two naturally isolated territories, neither of which could be expected to incur the horrors of war for the sake of the other. It is not, I think, difficult to foresee, that, given independence, Ontario must inevitably cast her lot in with the United States. But with the North-West, the case is entirely different. From Liverpool to Winnipeg, _via_ Hudson's Bay, the distance is less by eleven hundred miles than by way of the St. Lawrence. From Liverpool to China and Japan, _via_ the same northern route, the distance is--as a San Francisco journal points out--a thousand miles shorter than by any other trans-American line. It is really _two thousand miles_ shorter than _via_ San Francisco and New York. From James's Bay as a centre, the cities of Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, London, and Winnipeg, are pretty nearly equidistant. How immense, then, will be the power which the possession of the Hudson's Bay, and of the railway route through to the Pacific, must confer upon Great Britain, so long as she holds it under her sole control. And where is the nation that can prevent her so holding it, while her fleets command the North Atlantic Ocean. Is it not utterly inconceivable, that English statesmen can be found so mad or so unpatriotic, as to throw away the very key of the world's commerce, by neglecting or surrendering British interests in the North-West; or that Manchester and Birmingham--Sheffield and Glasgow--should sustain for a moment any government that could dream of so doing. I firmly believe, in fine, that either by the St. Lawrence or the Hudson's Bay route, or both, British connexion with Canada is destined to endure, all prognostications to the contrary notwithstanding. England may afford to be shut out of the Suez canal, or the Panama canal, or the entire of her South African colonies, better than she can afford to part with the Dominion, and notably the Canadian North-West. If there be any two countries in the world whose interests are inseparable, they are the British Isles and North-Western Canada--the former being constrained by her food necessities, the latter by her want of a secure grain market. Old Canada, some say, has her natural outlet in the United States--which is only very partially true, as the reverse might be asserted with equal force. Not so the North-West. She has her natural market in Great Britain; and Great Britain, in turn, will find in the near future her best customer in Manitoba and the North-Western prairies. So mote it be! CHAPTER LXVII. THE TORONTO MECHANICS' INSTITUTE. The following account of the rise and progress of this institution, has been obligingly furnished me by one of its earliest and best friends, Mr. William Edwards, to whom, undoubtedly, more than to any other man, it has been indebted for its past success and usefulness: The Toronto Mechanics' Institute was established in January, 1831, at a meeting of influential citizens called together by James Lesslie, Esq., now of Eglinton. Its first quarterly meeting of members was held in Mr. Thompson's school-room; the report being read by Mr. Bates, and the number of enrolled members being fifty-six. Dr. W. W. Baldwin (father of the Hon. Robert Baldwin), Dr. Dunlop, Capt. Fitzgibbon, John Ewart, Wm. Lawson, Dr. Rolph, James Cockshutt, James and James G. Worts, John Harper, E. R. Denham, W. Musson, J. M. Murchison, W. B. Jarvis, T. Carfrae, T. F. (the late Rev. Dr.) Caldicott, James Cull, Dr. Dunscombe, C. C. Small, J. H. Price, Timothy Parsons, A. Thomson, and others, were active workers in promoting the organization and progress of the Institute. Where the institute was at first located, the writer has not been able to ascertain; but meetings were held in the "Masonic Lodge" rooms in Market (now Colborne) Street, a wooden building, on the ground floor of which was the common school taught by Thomas Appleton. A library and museum were formed, lectures delivered, and evening classes of instruction carried on for the improvement of its members. During the year 1835, a grant of £200 was made by the legislature, for the purchase of apparatus. The amount was entrusted to Dr. Birkbeck, of London, and the purchases were made by him or by those to whom he committed the trust. The apparatus was of an expensive character, and very incomplete, and was never of much value to the Institute. The outbreak of the rebellion of Upper Canada in December, 1837, and the excitement incident thereto, checked the progress of the Institute for awhile; but in 1838, the directors reported they had secured from the city corporation a suite of rooms for the accommodation of the Institute, in the south-east corner of the Market Buildings--the site of the present St. Lawrence Market. In the year 1844, the Institute surrendered the rooms in the Market Buildings, and occupied others above the store No. 12 Wellington Buildings, just east of the Wesleyan Book-room; and, through the kindness of the late sheriff, W. B. Jarvis, had the use of the county court-room for its winter lectures. During this year the city corporation contracted to erect a two-story fire-hall on the site of the present fire-hall and police-court buildings. On the memorial of the Institute, the council extended its ground plan, so as to give all necessary accommodation to the fire department in the lower story, and the Institute continued the building of the second story for its accommodation, and paid to the contractors the difference between the cost of the extended building and the building first contracted for, which amounted to £465 5s. 6d.--this sum being raised by voluntary subscriptions of from 1s. to £1 each. The foundation stone of the building was laid on the 27th of August, 1845, and the opening of the rooms took place (John Ewart, Esq., in the chair), on the 12th of February, 1846; when the annual meeting of the Institute was held, and the Hon. R. B. Sullivan delivered an eloquent address, congratulatory to the Institute on its possession of a building so convenient for its purposes. The statute for the incorporation of the Institute was assented to on the 28th July, 1847, and a legislative grant of money was made to the Institute during the same year. In 1848, the Institute inaugurated the first of a series, of exhibitions of works of art and mechanism, ladies' work, antiquities, curiosities, &c. This was kept open for two weeks, and was a means of instruction and amusement to the public, and of profit to the Institute funds. Similar exhibitions were repeated in 1849, 1850, 1851, 1861, and 1866; and in 1868 an exclusively fine arts exhibition was held, of upwards of 700 paintings and drawings--many of them being copies of the old masters. In obtaining specimens for, and in the management of nearly all these exhibitions, as well as in several other departments of the Institute's operations, Mr. J. E. Pell was always an indefatigable worker. In 1851, the members of the Institute began to realize the fact that their hall accommodation was too limited; and in September, 1853, the site at the corner of Church and Adelaide Streets was purchased by public auction, for £1,632 5s. 0d., and plans for a new building were at once prepared, and committees were appointed to canvas for subscriptions. The appeal to the citizens was nobly responded to, and before the close of the year the sum of £1,200 was contributed. The president of the Institute, the late F. W. Cumberland, Esq., generously presented the plans and specifications and superintendence, free of charge. A contract for the erection of the new building was entered into in November, and the chief corner stone was laid with Masonic honours on the 17th of April, 1854. During the year 1855, the Provincial Government leased the unfinished building for four years, for departmental purposes, the Government paying at the time $5,283.20 to enable the Institute to discharge its then liabilities thereon. At the expiration of the lease, the Government paid to the Institute the sum of $16,000, to cover the expense of making the necessary changes in the building, and to finish it as nearly as possible in accordance with the original plans. The building had a frontage of eighty feet on Church Street, and of 104 feet on Adelaide Street, and its cost to the Institute when finished was $48,380.78. The amount received by subscription was $8,190.49; sale of old hall, $2,000; sale of old building on the new site, $14.50; from Government, to meet building fund liabilities, $5,283.20; by loans from the U. C. College funds, $18,400; and from the Government for completion of the building, $16,000; leaving a balance to be expended for general purposes of $1,507.41. This commodious building was finished and occupied during the year 1861. A soiree was held as a suitable entertainment for the inauguration; and this was followed by a bazaar--the two resulting in a profit of about $400 to the funds of the Institute. During the year 1862, the very successful annual series of literary and musical entertainments was instituted. From the first organization of the Institute, evening class instruction, in the rudimentary and more advanced studies, had been a special feature of its operations; but the session of 1861-2 inaugurated a more complete system than had before been carried out. These classes were continued annually with marked success until the winter of 1879-80; when the Institute gave up this portion of its work in consequence of the Public School Board establishing evening classes in three of its best city schoolhouses. In 1868, the Institute purchased a vacant lot on the east of its building, on Adelaide Street, with the intention of erecting thereon a larger music hall than it possessed. The contemplated improvement was not carried out by the Institute; but the Free Library Board has now made the extension very much as at first intended, but for library purposes only. In the year 1871, the Ontario Government purchased the property from the Institute for the sum of $36,500, for the purposes of a School of Technology, then being established. The sale left in the Institute treasury upwards of $11,000, after paying off all its liabilities; and owing to the liberality of the Government in allowing the Institute to occupy the library, reading-room, and boardroom free of rent during its tenancy, it was placed in a very favourable position, and considerably improved its finances. In 1876, the Government resolved to erect a more suitable building for the School of Technology (then named "School of Science"), in the University Park, and re-sold the property it had purchased to the Institute for $28,000. Many alterations were made in the building when the Institute got possession. A ladies' reading-room was established, the music hall was made a recreation-room, with eleven billiard tables, chess-boards, &c., for the use of the members. This latter feature was a success, both financially and otherwise. In the year 1882, the "Free Libraries Act" was passed, which provided that if adopted in any municipality, the Mechanics' Institute situated therein may transfer to such municipality all its property for the purposes of the Act. The ratepayers of Toronto having, by a large majority, decided to establish a Free Library, the members of the Institute in special general meeting held on 29th March, 1883, by an almost unanimous vote, resolved to make over all its property, with its assets and liabilities, to the City Corporation of Toronto for such library purposes; and both the parties having agreed thereto, the transfer deed giving legal effect to the same, was executed on the 30th day of June, in the said year 1883. With the adoption of the Free Library system in this city, the usefulness of the Institute as an educator would have passed away. It was better for it to go honourably out of existence, than to die a lingering death, of debt and starvation. During its fifty-three years of existence it had done a good work. Thousands of the young men of this city, by its refining and educating influences, had their thoughts and resolves turned into channels of industry and usefulness, that might otherwise have run in directions far less beneficial to themselves and to society. Its courses off winter lectures in philosophy, mechanics, and historical and literary subjects, inaugurated with its earliest life and provided year by year in the face of great difficulties until the year 1875, led many of its members to study the useful books in the library, to join with their fellows in the class-rooms, and in after years to take responsible positions in the professions and in the workshops, that only for the Institute they would not have attained to. Until the Canadian Institute--which was nursed into existence in the Mechanics' Institute, through the energy and activity of Sandford A. Fleming, Esq., one of its members--the Institute had the lecture field in Toronto to itself. Next came the Young Men's Christian Association, with its lectures, and free reading-room and library. In the face of all these noble and better sustained associations, it would have been but folly to have endeavoured to keep the Mechanics' Institute in existence. This notice of the Institute in some of the leading events in its history, is necessarily brief; but it would be unjust to close without noticing some of those who have for extended periods been its active workers. They have been so many, that I fear to name any when I cannot name them all. I give, however, the names of those who served the Institute in the various positions of president, vice-presidents, treasurer, secretaries, librarians and directors, for periods of from eight to thirty years in all, as follows:-- W. Edwards (30 years consecutively), W. Atkinson (17), J. E. Pell (15), Hiram Piper, R. Edwards, Thos. Davison (each 13), John Harrington, M. Sweetnam (each 12), Francis Thomas, W. H. Sheppard, Charles Sewell (each 11), F. W. Cumberland, R. H. Ramsay, J. J. Withrow, John Taylor, Lewis Samuel, Walter S. Lee (each 10), Daniel Spry, Prof. Croft, Patrick Freeland, Rice Lewis (each 9), James Lesslie, H. E. Clarke, Dr. Trotter (each 8 years). Except for the years 1833, 5, 8, 9 and 1840, of which no records have been found, the successive presidents of the Institute have been as follows: John Ewart, (1831, 1844), Dr. Baldwin (1832, 4, 7), Dr. Rolph (1836), R. S. Jameson (1841), Rev. W. T. Leach (1842), W. B. Jarvis (1843), T. G. Ridout, (1845, 6, 8), R. B. Sullivan (1847), Professor Croft (1849, 1850), F. W. Cumberland (1851, 2, 1865, 6), T. J. Robertson, (1853), Patrick Freeland (1854, 9), Hon. G. W. Allan (1855, 1868, 9), E. F. Whittemore (1856), J. E. Pell (1857), John Harrington (1858), J. D. Ridout (1860), Rice Lewis (1861, 2), W. Edwards (1863), F. W. Coate (1864), J. J. Withrow (1867), James McLennan (part of 1870), John Turner (part of 1870), M. Sweetnam (1871, 2, 3, 4), Thos. Davison (1875, 6, 8), Lewis Samuel (1877), Donald C. Ridout (1879), W. S. Lee (1880, 1), James Mason (1882, 3). The recording secretaries have been in the following order and number of years' service: Jos. Bates (1831), T. Parson (1832, 3, 4, 5, 6), C. Sewell (1837, 8 and 1841), J. F. Westland (1840 and 1842), W. Edwards (1843, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1850, 1859, 1860), R. Edwards (1851, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), G. Longman (1861, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Moss (1867), Richard Lewis (1868), Samuel Brodie (1869, 1870, 1), John Davy (1872, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1880, 1, 2, 3). The corresponding secretaries have been A. T. McCord (1836), C. Sewell (1842, 3, 4, 5), J. F. Westland (1841), W. Steward (1846), Alex. Christie (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 3), Patrick Freeland (1851, 2), M. Sweetnam (1854, 5), J. J. Woodhouse (1856), John Elliott (1857), J. H. Mason (1858, 9, 1860). From this date the office was not continued. The treasurers have been, James Lesslie (1831, 4, 5, 6), H. M. Mosley (1832), T. Carfrae (1833), W. Atkinson (1840, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Harrington (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Paterson (1857, 8, 9, 1860, 1, 2), John Cowan (1863), W. Edwards (1864, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1870), John Hallam (1871), Thos. Maclear (1872, 3, 4, 5), W. B. Hartill (1876), R. H. Ramsay (1877, 1881, 2, 3), G. B. Morris (1878, 9), John Taylor (1880). CHAPTER LXVIII. THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY. The establishment of Free Libraries, adapted to meet the wants of readers of all classes, has made rapid progress within the last few years. Some, such as the Chetham Library of Manchester, owe their origin to the bequests of public-spirited citizens of former days; some, like the British Museum Library, to national support; but they remained comparatively unused, until the modern system of common school education, and the wonderful development of newspaper enterprise, made readers of the working classes. I remember when London had but one daily journal, the _Times_, and one weekly, the _News_, which latter paper was sold for sixpence sterling by men whom I have seen running through the streets on Sunday morning, blowing tin horns to announce their approach to their customers. The introduction of Mechanics' Institutes by the joint efforts of Lord Brougham and Dr. Birkbeck, I also recollect; as a lad I was one of the first members. They spread over all English-speaking communities, throve for many years, then gradually waned. Scientific knowledge became so common, that lectures on chemistry, astronomy, &c., ceased to attract audiences. But the appetite for reading did not diminish in the least, and hence it happened that Free Libraries began to supersede Mechanics' Institutes. Toronto has heretofore done but little in this way, and it remained for a few public-spirited citizens of the present decade, to effect any marked advance in the direction of free reading for all classes. In August, 1880, the Rev. Dr. Scadding addressed a letter to the City Council, calling its attention to the propriety of establishing a Public Library in Toronto. In the following December, Alderman Taylor, in an address to his constituents, wrote--"In 1881 the nucleus of a free Public Library should be secured by purchase or otherwise, so that in a few years we may boast of a library that will do no discredit to the educational centre of the Dominion. Cities across the lake annually vote a sum to be so applied, Chicago alone voting $39,000 per annum for a similar purpose. Surely Toronto can afford say $5,000 a year for the mental improvement of her citizens." In the City Council for 1881, the subject was zealously taken up by Aldermen Hallam, Taylor and Mitchell. Later in the year, Alderman Hallam presented to the council an interesting report of his investigations among English public libraries, describing their system and condition. Early in 1882, an Act was passed by the Ontario Legislature, giving power to the ratepayers of any municipality in Ontario to tax themselves for the purchase or erection and maintenance of a Free Public Library, limiting the rate to be so levied to one half mill on the dollar on taxable property.[29] The Town of Guelph was the first to avail itself of the privilege, and was followed by Toronto, which, on 1st January, 1883, adopted a by-law submitted by the City Council in accordance with the statute, the majority thereon being 2,543, the largest ever polled at any Toronto city election for raising money for any special object. This result was not obtained without very active exertions on the part of the friends of the movement, amongst whom, as is admitted on all hands, Alderman Hallam is entitled to the chief credit. But for his liberal expenditure for printing, his unwearied activity in addressing public meetings, and his successful appeals through the children of the common schools to their parents, the by-law might have failed. Ald. Taylor and other gentlemen gave efficient aid. Professor Wilson, President of Toronto University, presided at meetings held in its favour; and Messrs. John Hague, W. H. Knowlton and other citizens supported it warmly through the press. The editors of the principal city papers also doing good service through their columns. In Toronto, as elsewhere, the Mechanics' Institute has had its day. But times change, and the public taste changes with them. A library and reading-room supported by subscription, could hardly hope to compete with an amply endowed rival, to which admission would be absolutely free. So the officers of the Mechanics' Institute threw themselves heartily into the new movement, and after consultation with their members, offered, in accordance with the statute, to transfer their property, valued at some twenty thousand dollars, exclusive of all encumbrances, to the City Council for the use of the Free Library, which offer was gladly accepted. The first Board of Management was composed as follows:--The Mayor, A. R. Boswell (ex-officio); John Hallam, John Taylor and George D'Arcy Boulton,[30] nominated by the City Council; Dr. George Wright, W. H. Knowlton and J. A. Mills, nominees of the Public School Board; and James Mason and Wm. Scully, representing the Board of Separate School Trustees. At their first meeting, held February 15th, 1883, the new Board elected John Hallam to be their chairman for the year, and myself as secretary _pro tem_. The following extract from the Chairman's opening address, illustrates the spirit in which the library is to be conducted: "Toronto is pre-eminently a city of educational institutions. We all feel a pride in her progress, and feel more so now that it is possible to add a free public library to her many noble and useful institutions. I feel sure that the benefit to the people of a reference and lending library of carefully selected books, is undisputed by all who are interested in the mental, moral, and social advancement of our city. The books in such a library should be as general and as fascinating as possible. I would have this library a representative one, with a grand foundation of solid, standard fact literature, with a choice, clear-minded, finely- imaginative superstructure of light reading, and avoid the vulgar, the sensuously sensational, the garbage of the modern press. A rate- supported library should be practical in its aims, and not a mere curiosity shop for a collection of curious and rare books--their only merit being their rarity, their peculiar binding, singular type, or quaint illustrations. It is very nice to have these literary rare-bits; but the taxes of the people should not be spent in buying them. A library of this kind, to be valuable as far as our own country is concerned, should contain a full collection of-- "1. Manuscript statements and narratives of pioneer settlers; old letters and journals relative to the early history and settlement of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island, and the wars of 1776 and 1812; biographical notes of our pioneers and of eminent citizens deceased, and facts illustrative of our Indian tribes, their history, characteristics, sketches of their prominent chiefs, orators, and warriors. "2. Diaries, narratives, and documents relative to the U. E. Loyalists, their expulsion from the old colonies, and their settlement in the Maritime Provinces. "3. Files of newspapers, books, pamphlets, college catalogues, minutes of ecclesiastical conventions, associations, conferences, and synods, and all other publications relating to this and other provinces. "4. Indian geographical names of streams and localities, with their signification, and all information generally respecting the condition, language, and history of different tribes of the Indians. "5. Books of all kinds, especially such as relate to Canadian history, travels, and biography in general, and Lower Canada or Quebec in particular, family genealogies, old magazines, pamphlets, files of newspapers, maps, historical manuscripts and autographs of distinguished persons. "I feel sure such a library will rank and demand recognition among the permanent institutions in the city for sustaining, encouraging and stimulating everything that is great and good. "Free libraries have a special claim on every ratepayer who desires to see our country advance to the front, and keep pace with the world in art, science, and commerce, and augment the sum of human happiness. This far-reaching movement is likely to extend to every city and considerable town in this Province. The advantages are many. They help on the cause of education. They tend to promote public virtue. Their influence is on the side of order, self-respect, and general enlightenment. There are few associations so pleasant as those excited by them. They are a literary park where all can enjoy themselves during their leisure hours. To all lovers of books and students, to the rich and poor alike, the doors of these institutions are open without money and without price." The year 1883 was employed in getting things into working order. The City Council did their part by voting the sum of $50,000 in debentures, for the equipment and enlargement of the Mechanics' Institute building for the purposes of the main or central library and reading room; the opening of branch libraries and reading rooms in the north and west; and for the purchase of 25,000 volumes of books, of which 5,000 each were destined for the two branches. On the 3rd July, the Board of Management appointed Mr. James Bain, jr., as librarian-in-chief, with a staff of three assistant librarians, and four junior assistants (females). The duties of secretary were at the same time attached to the office of first assistant-librarian, which was given to Mr. John Davy, former secretary and librarian to the Mechanics' Institute. I was relegated to the charge of the Northern Branch, at St. Paul's Hall; while the Western Branch, at St. Andrew's Market, was placed in the hands of Miss O'Dowd, an accomplished scholar and teacher. The Chairman and Librarian, Messrs. Hallam and Bain, proceeded in October to England for the purchase of books, most of which arrived here in January. _The Week_ for December 13th last says of the books selected, that they "would make the mouth water of every bibliophile in the country." While I am writing these lines they are being catalogued and arranged for use, and the Free Library of Toronto will become an accomplished fact, almost simultaneously with the publication of these "Reminiscences." [Footnote 29: "Whatever may be its fate, the friends of progress will remember that the Province is indebted for this bill (the Free Libraries Act) to the zeal and public spirit of an alderman of the City of Toronto, Mr. John Hallam. With a disinterested enthusiasm and an assurance that the inhabitants of the towns and villages of Ontario would derive substantial benefits from the introduction of free public libraries, Mr. Hallam has spared no pains to stimulate public opinion in their favour. He has freely distributed a pamphlet on the subject, which embodies the result of much enquiry and reflection, gathered from various sources, and he seems to be very sanguine of success."--See Dr. Alpheus Todd's paper "_On the Establishment of Free Libraries in Canada_," read before the Royal Society of Canada, 25th May, 1882.] [Footnote 30: Mr. Boulton retired January 1st, 1884, and Alderman Bernard Saunders was appointed in his stead.] CHAPTER LXIX. Postscript. After having spent the greater part of half a century in various public capacities--after having been the recipient of nearly every honorary distinction which it was in the power of my fellow-citizens to confer--there now remains for me no further object of ambition, unless to die in harness, and so escape the taunt-- "Unheeded lags the veteran on the stage." Three times have I succeeded in gaining a position of reasonable competence; and as often--in 1857, 1860 and 1876--the "great waterfloods" have swept over me, and left me to begin life anew. It is too late now, however, to scale another Alp, so let us plod on in the valley, watching the sunshine fading away behind the mountains, until the darkness comes on; and aye singing-- "Night is falling dark and silent, Starry myriads gem the sky; Thus, when earthly hopes have failed us, Brighter visions beam on high." =Transcriber's Notes:= hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the original Page 13, and occassionally all night ==> and occasionally all night Page 34, want of a bating." ==> want of a bating."' Page 38, and of the world ==> and of the world. Page 62, have cutdown trees enough ==> have cut down trees enough Page 74, the appeoach of daybreak ==> the approach of daybreak Page 105, streamlet know to travellers ==> streamlet known to travellers Page 127, further north Many prisoners ==> further north. Many prisoners Page 136, greater discriminatiou his ==> greater discrimination his Page 156, Thomson, Bonar &. Co. ==> Thomson, Bonar & Co. Page 166, Mr Denison served ==> Mr. Denison served Page 169, it was The party ==> it was. The party Page 181, many a cumbrous load ==> many a cumbrous load. Page 258, (Mr. G) did not admit ==> (Mr. G.) did not admit Page 362, signed the pen ion warrant ==> signed the pension warrant Page 362, the vallesy rise ==> the valleys rise Page 364, on this generation. ==> on this generation." Page 383, T. G. Ridout, 1845, 6, 8) ==> T. G. Ridout, (1845, 6, 8) Page 389, 2. "Diaries, narratives ==> "2. Diaries, narratives Page 389, 3. "Files of newspapers ==> "3. Files of newspapers 
35224	----	the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) SKETCHES IN CANADA, AND RAMBLES AMONG THE RED MEN. London: Spottiswoodes and Shaw, New-street-Square. SKETCHES IN CANADA, AND RAMBLES AMONG THE RED MEN. BY MRS. JAMESON. NEW EDITION. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 1852. PREFACE. Nobody reads prefaces on a Railway journey. The leaves are turned over for something to arrest attention, or to dissipate weariness, or to "fleet the time," which even at railway speed moves slowly compared to the "march of ideas." It is, however, necessary to state in few words that these pages are a reprint of the most amusing and interesting chapters of the "Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada,"--first published in 1838, in three octavo volumes, favourably received at the time and now out of print. The Authoress in the original preface to the work represents herself as "thrown into scenes and regions hitherto undescribed by any traveller (for the northern shores of Lake Huron are almost new ground), and into relations with the Indian tribes such as few European women of refined and civilised habits have ever risked, and none have recorded;" and the adventures and sketches of character and scenery among the Red-skins, still retain that freshness which belongs only to what is genuine. All that was of a merely transient or merely personal nature, or obsolete in politics or criticism, has been omitted. The rest, the book must say for itself. SKETCHES IN CANADA, &c. TORONTO IN 1837. December 20. Toronto--such is now the sonorous name of this our sublime capital--was, thirty years ago, a wilderness, the haunt of the bear and deer, with a little, ugly, inefficient fort, which, however, could not be more ugly or inefficient than the present one. Ten years ago Toronto was a village, with one brick house and four or five hundred inhabitants; five years ago it became a city, containing about five thousand inhabitants, and then bore the name of Little York: now it is Toronto, with an increasing trade, and a population of ten thousand people. So far I write as _per_ book. What Toronto may be in summer, I cannot tell; they say it is a pretty place. At present its appearance to me, a stranger, is most strangely mean and melancholy. A little ill-built town, on low land, at the bottom of a frozen bay, with one very ugly church, without tower or steeple; some government offices, built of staring red brick, in the most tasteless, vulgar style imaginable; three feet of snow all around; and the grey, sullen, wintry lake, and the dark gloom of the pine forest bounding the prospect: such seems Toronto to me now. I did not expect much; but for this I was not prepared. I know no better way of coming at the truth than by observing and recording faithfully the impressions made by objects and characters on my own mind--or, rather, the impress they _receive_ from my own mind--shadowed by the clouds which pass over its horizon, taking each tincture of its varying mood--until they emerge into light, to be corrected, or at least modified, by observation and comparison. Neither do I know any better way than this of conveying to the mind of another the truth, and nothing but the truth, if not the whole truth. So I shall write on. There is much in first impressions, and as yet I have not recovered from the pain and annoyance of my outset here. My friends at New York expended much eloquence--eloquence wasted in vain!--in endeavouring to dissuade me from a winter journey to Canada. I listened, and was grateful for their solicitude, but must own I did not credit the picture they drew of the difficulties and _désagrémens_ I was destined to meet by the way. I had chosen, they said, the very worst season for a journey through the state of New York; the usual facilities for travelling were now suspended; a few weeks sooner the rivers and canals had been open; a few weeks later the roads, smoothed up with snow, had been in sleighing order;--now, the navigation was frozen, and the roads so broken up as to be nearly impassable. Then there was only a night boat on the Hudson, "to proceed," as the printed paper set forth, "to Albany, _or as far as the ice permitted_." All this, and more, were represented to me--and with so much apparent reason and real feeling, and in words and tones so difficult to resist! But though I could appreciate the kindness of those persuasive words, they brought no definite idea to my mind; I could form no notion of difficulties which by fair words, presence of mind, and money in my pocket, could not be obviated. I had travelled half over the continent of Europe, often alone, and had never yet been in circumstances where these availed not. In my ignorance I could conceive none; but, with the experience I have gained, I would not lightly counsel a similar journey to any one, certainly not to a woman. As we ascended the Hudson in the night, I lost, of course, the view of that superb scenery which I was assured even winter could not divest of all its beauty--rather clothed it in a different kind of beauty. At the very first blush of morning I escaped from the heated cabin, crowded with listless women and clamorous children, and found my way to the deck. I was surprised by a spectacle as beautiful as it was new to me. The Catskill mountains, which we had left behind us in the night, were still visible, but just melting from the view, robed in a misty purple light, while our magnificent steamer--the prow armed with a sharp iron sheath for the purpose--was _crashing_ its way through solid ice four inches thick, which seemed to close behind us into an adhesive mass, so that the wake of the vessel was not distinguished a few yards from the stern: yet in the path thus opened, and only seemingly closed, followed at some little distance a beautiful schooner and two smaller steam-vessels. I walked up and down, from the prow to the stern, refreshed by the keen frosty air, and the excitement caused by various picturesque effects, on the ice-bound river and the frozen shores, till we reached Hudson. Beyond this town it was not safe for the boat to advance, and we were still thirty miles below Albany. After leaving Hudson (with the exception of the railroad between Albany and Utica), it was all heavy, weary work; the most painfully fatiguing journey I ever remember. Such were the roads, that we were once six hours going eleven miles. What was usually a day's journey from one town, or one good inn, to another, occupied sometimes a day and a night, or even two days.[1] After six days and three nights of this travelling, unrelieved by companionship, or interest of any kind, I began to sink with fatigue. The first thing that roused me was our arrival at the ferry of the Niagara river at Queenston, about seven miles below the Falls. It was a dark night, and while our little boat was tossed in the eddying waters and guided by a light to the opposite shore, we could distinctly hear the deep roar of the cataract, filling, and, as it seemed to me, shaking the atmosphere around us. That mighty cataract, the dream and vision of my childhood and youth, so near--yet unseen,--making itself thus heard and felt,--like Job's vision, consciously present, yet unrevealed and undiscerned! You may believe that I woke up very decidedly from my lethargy of weariness to listen to that mysterious voice, which made my blood pause and thrill. At Queenston we slept, and proceeded next morning to the town of Niagara on the shore of Lake Ontario. Now, as we had heard, the navigation on the lake had ceased, and we looked for nothing better than a further journey of one hundred miles round the head of the lake, and by the most execrable roads, instead of an easy passage of thirty miles across from shore to shore. But Fortune, seized with one of those freaks which, when we met them in books, we pronounce improbable and unnatural, (and she has played me many such, some good, some bad,) had ordered matters otherwise. A steam-vessel, making a last trip, had called accidentally at the port, and was just going off; the paddles were actually in motion as I and my baggage together were hurried--almost _flung_--on board. No sooner there, than I threw myself down in the cabin utterly overwhelmed with fatigue, and sank at once into a profound and dreamless sleep. How long I slept I knew not: they roused me suddenly to tell me we were at Toronto, and, not very well able to stand, I hurried on deck. The wharf was utterly deserted, the arrival of the steam-boat being accidental and unexpected; and as I stepped out of the boat I sank ankle-deep into mud and ice. The day was intensely cold and damp; the sky lowered sulkily, laden with snow, which was just beginning to fall. Half-blinded by the sleet driven into my face and the tears which filled my eyes, I walked about a mile through a quarter of the town mean in appearance, not thickly inhabited, and to me, as yet, an unknown wilderness; and through dreary, miry ways, never much thronged, and now, by reason of the impending snow-storm, nearly solitary. I heard no voices, no quick footsteps of men or children; I met no familiar face, no look of welcome!--Up to the present hour all objects wear one hue. Land is not distinguishable from water. I see nothing but snow heaped up against my windows, not only without but within; I hear no sound but the tinkling of sleigh-bells and the occasional lowing of a poor half-starved cow, that, standing up to the knees in a snowdrift, presents herself at the door of a wretched little shanty opposite, and supplicates for her small modicum of hay. * * * * * The choice of this site for the capital of the Upper Province was decided by the fine harbour, the only one between Burlington Bay and Cobourg, a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles. General Simcoe, the first governor after the division of the two provinces, and a man of great activity and energy of character, entertained the idea of founding a metropolis. At that time the head quarters of the government were at Niagara, then called Newark, on the opposite shore; but this was too near the frontiers to be a safe position. Nor is Toronto much safer: from its low situation, and the want of any commanding height in the neighbourhood, it is nearly defenceless. In case of a war with America, a few boats sent from the opposite coast of New York could easily lay the fort and town in ashes; and, in fact, during the last war, in 1813, such was the fate of both. But the same reasons which rendered the place indefensible to us, rendered it untenable for the enemy, and it was immediately evacuated. Another objection was, and _is_, the unhealthiness of its situation,--in a low swamp not yet wholly drained, and with large portions of uncleared land immediately round it: still the beauty and safety of the spacious harbour, and its central position about half-way between Lake Huron and the frontier line of Lower Canada, have fixed its rank as capital of the province and the seat of the legislature.[2] When the engineer, Bouchette, was sent by General Simcoe to survey the site (in 1793), it was a mere swamp, a tangled wilderness; the birch, the hemlock, and the tamarac-trees were growing down to the water's edge, and even into the lake. I have been told that Toronto, the Indian appellation of the whole district, signifies _trees growing out of water_. Colonel Bouchette says, that at this time the only vestige of humanity for a hundred miles on every side was one solitary wigwam on the shore, the dwelling of a few Missassagua Indians. Three years afterwards, when the Duc de Rochefoucauld was here, the infant metropolis consisted of a fort and twelve miserable log huts, the inhabitants of which, as the duke tells us, bore no good reputation. The town was, however, already marked out in streets running parallel with the shore of the bay for about two miles, and crossed by others at right angles. It is a pity that while they were about it they did not follow the example of the Americans in such cases, and make the principal streets of ample width; some hundred feet, or even furlongs, more or less, would have made little difference where the wild unowned forest extended, for all they knew, from the lake to the north pole,--_now_, it would not be so easy to amend the error. King Street, the principal street, looks narrow, and will look narrower when the houses are higher, better, and more regularly built. I perceive that in laying out the _fashionable_, or west-end of the city, they have avoided the same mistake. A wide space between the building lots and Lake Ontario has been reserved very properly as a road or esplanade, but I doubt whether even this be wide enough. One of the most curious and inexplicable phenomena connected with these immense inland seas is the gradual rise of the waters; and even within these few years, as I am informed, great part of the high bank has been washed away, and a carriage-road at the foot of it along the shore has been wholly covered. If this process goes on, and at the same rate, there must be a solid embankment, or quay, raised as a barrier against the encroaching waters, or the esplanade itself will in time disappear. * * * * * January 14. It should seem that this wintry season, which appears to me so dismal, is for the Canadians the season of festivity. Now is the time for visiting, for sleighing excursions, for all intercourse of business and friendship, for balls in town, and dances in farm-houses, and courtships and marriages, and prayer-meetings and assignations of all sorts. In summer, the heat and the mosquitos render travelling disagreeable at best; in spring the roads are absolutely impassable; in autumn there is too much agricultural occupation: but in winter the forests are pervious; the roads present a smooth surface of dazzling snow; the settlers in the woods drive into the towns, supply themselves with stores and clothing, and fresh meat,--the latter a luxury which they can seldom obtain in the summer. I stood at my window to-day watching the sleighs as they glided past. They are of all shapes and sizes. A few of the carriage-sleighs are well appointed and handsome. The market-sleighs are often two or three boards nailed together in form of a wooden box upon runners; some straw and a buffalo skin or blanket serve for the seat; barrels of flour and baskets of eggs fill up the empty space. Others are like cars, and others, called _cutters_, are mounted on high runners, like sleigh phaetons; these are sported by the young men and officers of the garrison, and require no inconsiderable skill in driving: however, as I am assured, they are overturned in the snow not above once in a quarter of an hour, and no harm and much mirth ensues: but the wood sleighs are my delight; a large platform of boards is raised upon runners, with a few upright poles held together at top by a rope, the logs of oak, pine, and maple, are then heaped up to the height of six or seven feet. On the summit lie a couple of deer frozen stiff their huge antlers projecting in a most picturesque fashion, and on these, again, a man is seated with a blanket round him, his furred cap drawn down upon his ears, and his scarlet woollen comforter forming a fine bit of colour. He guides with a pole his two patient oxen, the clouds of vapour curling from their nostrils into the keen frosty air--the whole machine, in short, as wildly picturesque as the grape waggons in Italy, though to be sure, the associations are somewhat different. * * * * * January 16. This morning, before I was quite dressed, a singular visit was announced. I had expressed to my friend Mr. H * * * a wish to see some of the aborigines of the country: he had the kindness to remember my request; and Colonel Givins, the principal Indian agent, had accordingly brought some Indians to visit us. The party consisted of three--a chief named the White Deer, and two of his friends. The chief wore a blanket coat and leggings, and a blanket hood with a peak, from which depended a long black eagle plume; stout mocazins (shoes of undressed deer-skin) completed his attire: he had about fifty strings of blue wampum round his neck. The other two were similarly dressed, with the exception of the wampum and the feathers. Before I went down I had thrown a chain of wampum round my neck, which seemed to please them. Chairs being presented, they sat down at once (though, as Colonel Givins said, they would certainly have preferred the floor), and answered with a grave and quiet dignity the compliments and questions addressed to them. Their deportment was taciturn and self-possessed, and their countenances melancholy; that of the chief was by far the most intelligent. They informed me that they were Chippewas from the neighbourhood of Lake Huron, that the hunting season had been unsuccessful, that their tribe was suffering the extremity of hunger and cold, and that they had come to beg from their Great Father the Governor rations of food, and a supply of blankets for their women and children. They had walked over the snow, in their snow-shoes, from the Lake, one hundred and eighty miles; and for the last forty-eight hours none of them had tasted food. A breakfast of cold meat, bread, and beer, was immediately ordered for them; and though they had certainly never beheld in their lives the arrangement of an European table, and were besides half famished, they sat down with unembarrassed tranquillity, and helped themselves to what they wished with the utmost propriety--only, after one or two trials, using their own knives and fingers in preference to the table knife and fork. After they had eaten and drunk sufficiently, they were conducted to the government-house to receive from the governor presents of blankets, rifles, and provisions; and each, on parting, held out his hand to me, and the chief, with a grave earnestness, prayed for the blessing of the Great Spirit on me and my house. On the whole, the impression they left, though amusing and exciting from its mere novelty, was melancholy. The sort of desperate resignation in their swarthy countenances, their squalid, dingy habiliments, and their forlorn story, filled me with pity, and, I may add, disappointment; and all my previous impressions of the independent children of the forest are for the present disturbed. These are the first specimens I have seen of that fated race, with which I hope to become better acquainted before I leave the country. Notwithstanding all I have heard and read, I have yet but a vague idea of the Indian character; and the very different aspect under which it has been represented by various travellers as well as writers of fiction, adds to the difficulty of forming a correct estimate of the people, and more particularly of the true position of their women. Colonel Givins, who has passed thirty year of his life among the north west tribes, till he has become in habits and language almost identified with them, is hardly an impartial judge. He was their interpreter on this occasion; and he says that there is as much difference between the customs and language of different nations--the Chippewas and Mohawks, for instance--as there is between any two nations of Europe. The cold is at this time so intense that the ink freezes while I write, and my fingers stiffen round the pen. A glass of water by the bed-side, within a few feet of the hearth (heaped with logs of oak and maple kept burning all night long), is a solid mass of ice in the morning. God help the poor emigrants who are yet unprepared against the rigour of the season!--yet this is nothing to the climate of the Lower Province, where, as we hear, the thermometer has been thirty degrees below zero. I lose all heart to write home, or to register a reflection or a feeling--thought stagnates in my head as the ink in my pen--and this will never do!--I _must_ arouse myself to occupation; and if I cannot find it without, I must create it from within. There are yet four months of winter and leisure to be disposed of. How?--I know not; but they _must_ be employed, not wholly lost. [Footnote 1: Through all these districts there are now railroads, and every facility for comfortable travelling.] [Footnote 2: Now removed to Kingston, though some of the courts of law still remain at Toronto.] * * * * * WINTER EXCURSION TO NIAGARA. January 23. At half-past eight my escort was at the door in a very pretty commodious sleigh, in form like a barouche with the head up. I was absolutely buried in furs; a blanket netted for me by the kindest hands, of the finest lamb's wool, rich in colour, and as light and elastic as it was deliciously warm, was folded round my limbs; buffalo and bear skins were heaped over all, and every breath of the external air excluded by every possible device. Mr. C. drove his own grey horses; and thus fortified and accoutred, off we flew, literally "urged by storms along the slippery way," for the weather was terrific. I think that but for this journey I never could have imagined the sublime desolation of a northern winter; and it has impressed me strongly. In the first place, the whole atmosphere appeared as if converted into snow, which fell in thick, tiny, starry flakes, till the buffalo robes and furs about us appeared like swansdown, and the harness on the horses of the same delicate material. The whole earth was a white waste. The road, on which the sleigh-track was only just perceptible, ran for miles in a straight line; on each side rose the dark, melancholy pine-forest, slumbering drearily in the hazy air. Between us and the edge of the forest were frequent spaces of cleared or half-cleared land, spotted over with the black charred stumps and blasted trunks of once magnificent trees, projecting from the snow-drift. These, which are perpetually recurring objects in a Canadian landscape, have a most melancholy appearance. Sometimes wide openings occurred to the left, bringing us in sight of Lake Ontario, and even in some places down upon the edge of it: in this part of the lake the enormous body of the water and its incessant movement prevents it from freezing, and the dark waves rolled in, heavily plunging on the icy shore with a sullen booming sound. A few roods from the land, the cold grey waters, and the cold, grey, snow-encumbered atmosphere, were mingled with each other, and each seemed either. The only living thing I saw in a space of about twenty miles was a magnificent bald-headed eagle, which, after sailing a few turns in advance of us, alighted on the topmost bough of a blasted pine, and slowly folding his great wide wings, looked down upon us as we glided beneath him. The first village we passed through was Springfield, on the river Credit, a river of some importance in summer, but now converted into ice, heaped up with snow, and undistinguishable. Twenty miles further, we stopped at Oakville to refresh ourselves and the horses. Oakville stands close upon the lake, at the mouth of a little river called Sixteen-mile Creek; it owes its existence to a gentleman of the name of Chisholm, and, from its situation and other local circumstances, bids fair to become a place of importance. In the summer it is a frequented harbour, and carries on a considerable trade in _lumber_, for so they characteristically call timber in this country. From its dock-yards I am told that a fine steam-boat and a dozen schooners have been already launched. In summer, the country round is rich and beautiful, with a number of farms all in a high state of cultivation; but Canada in winter and in summer must be like two different regions. At present the mouth of the creek is frozen up; all trade, all ship-building suspended. Oakville presents the appearance of a straggling hamlet, containing a few frame and log-houses; one brick-house (the grocery store, or general shop, which in a new Canadian village is always the best house in the place), a little Methodist church, painted green and white, but as yet no resident preacher; and an inn dignified by the name of the "Oakville House Hotel." Where there is a store, a tavern, and a church, habitations soon rise around them. Oakville contains at present more than three hundred inhabitants, who are now subscribing among themselves for a schoolmaster and a resident clergyman. I stood conversing in the porch, and looking about me, till I found it necessary to seek shelter in the house, before my nose was absolutely taken off by the ice-blast. The little parlour was solitary, and heated like an oven. Against the wall were stuck a few vile prints, taken out of old American magazines; there was the Duchess de Berri in her wedding-dress, and, as a pendant, the Modes de Paris--"Robe de tulle garnie de fleurs--coiffure nouvelle, inventée par Mons. Plaisir." The incongruity was but too laughable! I looked round for some amusement or occupation, and at last spied a book open, and turned down upon its face. I pounced upon it as a prize; and what do you think it was? "Dévinez, madame! je vous le donne en trois, je vous le donne en quatre!" it was--Don Juan! And so, while looking from the window on a scene which realised all you can imagine of the desolation of savage life, mixed up with just so much of the common-place vulgarity of civilised life as sufficed to spoil it, I amused myself reading of the Lady Adeline Amundeville and her precious coterie, and there anent. Society is smoothed to that excess, That manners hardly differ more than dress. Our ridicules are kept in the background, Ridiculous enough, but also dull; Professions, too, are no more to be found Professional, and there is nought to cull Of Folly's fruit; for tho' your fools abound, They're barren, and not worth the pains to pull. Society is now one polished horde, Form'd of two mighty tribes--the _bores_ and _bored_. A delineation, by the way, which might almost reconcile one to a more savage locality than that around me. While I was reading, the mail-coach between Hamilton and Toronto drove up to the door; and because you shall understand what sort of a thing a Canadian mail is, and thereupon sympathise in my irrepressible wonder and amusement, I must sketch it for you. It was a heavy wooden edifice, about the size and form of an old-fashioned lord mayor's coach, placed on runners raised about a foot from the ground: the whole was painted of a bright red, and long icicles hung from the roof. This monstrous machine disgorged from its portal eight men-creatures, all enveloped in bear-skins and shaggy dreadnoughts, and pea-jackets, and fur-caps down upon their noses, looking like a procession of bears on their hind-legs, tumbling out of a showman's caravan. They proved, however, when undisguised, to be gentlemen, most of them going up to Toronto to attend their duties in the House of Assembly. One of these, a personage of remarkable height and size, and a peculiar cast of features, was introduced to me as Mr. Kerr, the possessor of large estates in the neighbourhood, partly acquired, and partly inherited from his father-in-law Brandt, the famous chief of the Six Nations. Kerr himself has Indian blood in his veins. His son, young Kerr, a fine boy about ten years old, is the present acknowledged chief of the Six Nations, in his mother's right, the hereditary chieftainship being always transmitted _through_ the female, though passing _over_ her. Mrs. Kerr, the eldest daughter of Brandt, is a squaw of unmixed Indian blood, and has been described to me as a very superior creature. She has the good sense to wear habitually her Indian costume, slightly modified, in which she looks and moves a princess, graceful and unrestrained, while in a fashionable European dress the effect would be exactly the reverse. Much mischief has been done in this neighbourhood by beasts of prey, and the deer, driven by hunger, and the wolves from their forest haunts, have been killed, near the settlements, in unusual numbers. One of the Indians whom I saw at Toronto, on returning by this road, shot with his new rifle eight deer in one day, and sold them at Hamilton for three dollars each--no bad day's hunting. The venison in Canada is good and abundant, but very lean, very unlike English venison; the price is generally four or six cents (twopence or threepence) a pound. After taking some refreshment, we set forth again. The next village we passed was called, oddly enough, Wellington Square; it has been recently laid out, and contains about twenty wooden houses;--then came Port Nelson, Mr. Kerr's place. Instead of going round the head of the lake by Hamilton, we crossed that very remarkable tongue or slip of land which divides Burlington Bay from Lake Ontario: these were, in fact, two separate lakes till a channel was cut through the narrow isthmus. Burlington Bay, containing about forty square miles, is now one sheet of ice, and on the slip of land, which is near seven miles in length, and about two hundred yards in width, we found the snow lying so deep, and in such irregular drifts, that we proceeded with difficulty. At length we reached Stony Creek, a village celebrated in these parts as the scene of the bloodiest battle fought between the English and Americans during the last war. We had intended to sleep here, but the inn was so uncomfortable and unpromising, that, after a short rest, we determined on proceeding ten miles further to Beamsville. It was now dark, and the snow falling thick, it soon became impossible to distinguish the sleigh-track. Mr. Campbell loosened the reins and left the horses to their own instinct, assuring me it was the safest way of proceeding. After this I remember no more distinctly, except that I ceased to hear the ever-jingling sleigh-bells. I awoke, as if from the influence of nightmare, to find the sleigh overturned, myself lying in the bottom of it half-smothered, and my companions nowhere to be seen;--they were floundering in the snow behind. Luckily, when we had stretched ourselves and shaken off the snow, we were found unhurt in life and limb. We had fallen down a bank into the bed of a rivulet, or a mill-race, I believe, which, being filled up with snow, was quite as soft, only a little colder, than a down-bed. Frightened I was, bewildered rather, but "effective" in a moment. It was impossible for the gentlemen to leave the horses, which were plunging furiously up to the shoulders in the snow, and had already broken the sleigh; so I set off to seek assistance, having received proper directions. Fortunately we were not far from Beamsville. My beacon-light was to be the chimney of a forge, from which the bright sparks were streaming up into the dark wintry air, visible from a great distance. After scrambling through many a snow-drift, up hill and down hill, I at last reached the forge, where a man was hammering amain at a ploughshare; such was the din, that I called for some time unheard; at last, as I advanced into the red light of the fire, the man's eyes fell upon me, and I shall never forget his look as he stood poising his hammer, with the most comical expression of bewildered amazement. I could not get an answer from him; he opened his mouth and repeated _aw!_ staring at me, but without speaking or moving. I turned away in despair, yet half laughing, and after some more scrambling up and down, I found myself in the village, and was directed to the inn. Assistance was immediately sent off to my friends, and in a few minutes the supper-table was spread, a pile of logs higher than myself blazing away in the chimney; venison-steaks, and fried fish, coffee, hot cakes, cheese, and whisky punch (the traveller's fare in Canada), were soon smoking on the table: our landlady presided, and the evening passed merrily away. The old landlady of this inn amused me exceedingly; she had passed all her life among her equals in station and education, and had no idea of any distinction between guests and customers; and while caressing and attending on me, like an old mother or an old nurse, gave me her history, and that of all her kith and kin. Forty years before, her husband had emigrated, and built a hovel, and made a little clearing on the edge of the lake. At that time there was no other habitation within many miles of them, and they passed several years in almost absolute solitude. They have now three farms, some hundred acres of land, and have brought up nine sons and daughters, most of whom are married, and settled on lands of their own. She gave me a horrid picture of the prevalence of drunkenness, the vice and the curse of this country. I can give you no idea of the intense cold of this night. Next morning we proceeded eighteen miles farther, to St. Catherine's, the situation of which appeared very pretty even in winter, and must be beautiful in summer. I am told it is a place of importance, owing to the vicinity of the Welland Canal, which connects Lake Ontario with Lake Erie: it contains more than seven hundred inhabitants. The school here is reckoned the best in the district. We passed this morning several streams, which in summer flow into the lake, now all frozen up and undistinguishable, except by the wooden bridges which cross them, and the mills, now still and useless, erected along their banks. The streams have the names of Thirty Mile Creek, Forty Mile Creek, Twenty Mile Creek, and so on; but wherefore I could not discover. From St. Catherine's we proceeded twelve miles farther, to Niagara. There I found some old English or rather Irish friends ready to welcome me with joyous affection; and surely there is not a more blessed sight than the face of an old friend in a new land! * * * * * NIAGARA IN WINTER. January 26. The town of Niagara presents the same torpid appearance which seems to prevail everywhere at this season; it is situated at the mouth of the river Niagara, and is a place of much business and resort when the navigation is open. The lake does not freeze here, owing to the depth of its majestic waters; neither does the river, from the velocity of its current; yet both are blocked up by the huge fragments of ice which are brought down from Lake Erie, and which, uniting and accumulating at the mouth of the river, form a field of ice extending far into the lake. How beautiful it looked to-day, broken into vast longitudinal flakes of alternate white and azure, and sparkling in the sunshine! The land all round Niagara is particularly fine and fertile: it has been longer cleared and cultivated than in other parts of the province, and the country, they say, is most beautiful in summer. The opposite shore, about a quarter of a mile off, is the State of New York. The Americans have a fort on their side, and we also have a fort on ours. What the amount of _their_ garrison may be I know not, but our force consists of three privates and a corporal, with adequate arms and ammunition, i. e. rusty firelocks and damaged guns. The fortress itself I mistook for a dilapidated brewery. This is charming--it _looks_ like peace and security, at all events. * * * * * WINTER STUDIES IN CANADA. January 29. Well! I have seen these Cataracts of Niagara, which have thundered in my mind's ear ever since I can remember--which have been my "childhood's thought, my youth's desire," since first my imagination was awakened to wonder and to wish. I have beheld them, and shall I whisper it to you?--but, O tell it not among the Philistines!--I wish I had not! I wish they were still a thing unbeheld--a thing to be imagined, hoped, and anticipated--something to live for:--the reality has displaced from my mind an illusion far more magnificent than itself--I have no words for my utter disappointment: yet I have not the presumption to suppose that all I have heard and read of Niagara is false or exaggerated--that every expression of astonishment, enthusiasm, rapture, is affectation or hyperbole. No! it must be my own fault. Terni, and some of the Swiss cataracts leaping from their mountains, have affected me a thousand times more than all the immensity of Niagara. O I could beat myself! and now there is no help!--the first moment, the first impression is over--is lost; though I should live a thousand years, long as Niagara itself shall roll, I can never see it again for the _first_ time. Something is gone that cannot be restored. But, to take things in order: we set off for the Falls yesterday morning, with the intention of spending the day there, sleeping, and returning the next day to Niagara. The distance is fourteen miles, by a road winding along the banks of the Niagara river, and over the Queenston heights;--and beautiful must this land be in summer, since even now it is beautiful. The flower garden, the trim shrubbery, the lawn, the meadow with its hedgerows, when frozen up and wrapt in snow, always give me the idea of something not only desolate but dead: Nature is the ghost of herself, and trails a spectral pall; I always feel a kind of pity--a touch of melancholy--when at this season I have wandered among withered shrubs and buried flower-beds; but here, in the wilderness, where Nature is wholly independent of Art, she does not die, nor yet mourn; she lies down to rest on the bosom of Winter, and the aged one folds her in his robe of ermine and jewels, and rocks her with his hurricanes, and hushes her to sleep. How still it was! how calm, how vast the glittering white waste and the dark purple forests! The sun shone out, and the sky was without a cloud; yet we saw few people, and for many miles the hissing of our sleigh, as we flew along upon our dazzling path, and the tinkling of the sleigh-bells, were the only sounds we heard. When we were within four or five miles of the Falls, I stopped the sleigh from time to time to listen to the roar of the cataracts; but the state of the atmosphere was not favourable for the transmission of sound, and the silence was unbroken. Such was the deep, monotonous tranquillity which prevailed on every side--so exquisitely pure and vestal-like the robe in which all Nature lay slumbering around us, I could scarce believe that this whole frontier district is not only remarkable for the prevalence of vice--but of dark and desperate crime. Mr. A., who is a magistrate, pointed out to me a lonely house by the way-side, where, on a dark stormy night in the preceding winter, he had surprised and arrested a gang of forgers and coiners; it was a fearful description. For some time my impatience had been thus beguiled--impatience and suspense much like those of a child at a theatre before the curtain rises. My imagination had been so impressed by the vast height of the Falls, that I was constantly looking in an upward direction, when, as we came to the brow of a hill, my companion suddenly checked the horses, and exclaimed, "The Falls!" I was not, for an instant, aware of their presence; we were yet at a distance, looking _down_ upon them; and I saw at one glance a flat extensive plain; the sun having withdrawn its beams for the moment, there was neither light, nor shade, nor colour. In the midst were seen the two great cataracts, but merely as a feature in the wide landscape. The sound was by no means overpowering, and the clouds of spray, which Fanny Kemble called so beautifully the "everlasting incense of the waters," now condensed ere they rose by the excessive cold, fell round the base of the cataracts in fleecy folds, just concealing that furious embrace of the waters above and the waters below. All the associations which in imagination I had gathered round the scene, its appalling terrors, its soul-subduing beauty, its power and height, and velocity and immensity, were diminished in effect, or wholly lost. * * * * * I was quite silent--my very soul sank within me. On seeing my disappointment (written, I suppose, most legibly in my countenance) my companion began to comfort me, by telling me of all those who had been disappointed on the first view of Niagara, and had confessed it. I _did_ confess; but I was not to be comforted. We held on our way to the Clifton hotel, at the foot of the hill; most desolate it looked with its summer verandahs and open balconies cumbered up with snow, and hung round with icicles--its forlorn, empty rooms, broken windows, and dusty dinner tables. The poor people who kept the house in winter had gathered themselves for warmth and comfort into a little kitchen, and, when we made our appearance, stared at us with a blank amazement, which showed what a rare thing was the sight of a visitor at this season. While the horses were cared for, I went up into the highest balcony to command a better view of the cataracts; a little Yankee boy, with a shrewd, sharp face, and twinkling black eyes, acting as my gentleman usher. As I stood gazing on the scene which seemed to enlarge upon my vision, the little fellow stuck his hands into his pockets, and, looking up in my face, said-- "You be from the old country, I reckon?" "Yes." "Out over there, beyond the sea?" "Yes." "And did you come all that way across the sea for these here falls?" "Yes." "My!!" Then after a long pause, and eyeing me with a most comical expression of impudence and fun, he added, "Now, do _you_ know what them 'ere birds are, out yonder?" pointing to a number of gulls which were hovering and sporting amid the spray, rising and sinking and wheeling around, appearing to delight in playing on the verge of this "hell of waters," and almost dipping their wings into the foam. My eyes were, in truth, fixed on these fair, fearless creatures, and they had suggested already twenty fanciful similitudes, when I was roused by his question. "Those birds?" said I. "Why, _what_ are they?" "Why, them's EAGLES!" "Eagles?" it was impossible to help laughing. "Yes," said the urchin sturdily; "and I guess you have none of them in the old country?" "Not many eagles, my boy; but plenty of _gulls_!" and I gave him a "pretty considerable" pinch by the ear. "Ay!" said he, laughing; "well now you be dreadful smart--smarter than many folks that come here!" We now prepared to walk to the Crescent fall, and I bound some crampons to my feet, like those they use among the Alps, without which I could not for a moment have kept my footing on the frozen surface of the snow. As we approached the Table Rock, the whole scene assumed a wild and wonderful magnificence; down came the dark-green waters, hurrying with them over the edge of the precipice enormous blocks of ice brought down from Lake Erie. On each side of the Falls, from the ledges and overhanging cliffs, were suspended huge icicles, some twenty, some thirty feet in length, thicker than the body of a man, and in colour of a paly green, like the glaciers of the Alps; and all the crags below, which projected from the boiling eddying waters, were encrusted, and in a manner built round with ice, which had formed into immense crystals, like basaltic columns, such as I have seen in the pictures of Staffa and the Giant's Causeway; and every tree, and leaf, and branch, fringing the rocks and ravines, was wrought in ice. On them, and on the wooden buildings erected near the Table Rock, the spray from the cataract had accumulated and formed into the most beautiful crystals and tracery work; they looked like houses of glass, welted and moulded into regular and ornamental shapes, and hung round with a rich fringe of icy points. Wherever we stood we were on unsafe ground, for the snow, when heaped up as now to the height of three or four feet, frequently slipped in masses from the bare rock, and on its surface the spray, for ever falling, was converted into a sheet of ice, smooth, compact, and glassy, on which I could not have stood a moment without my _crampons_. It was very fearful, and yet I could not tear myself away, but remained on the Table Rock, even on the very edge of it, till a kind of dreamy fascination came over me; the continuous thunder, and might and movement of the lapsing waters, held all my vital spirits bound up as by a spell. Then as at last I turned away, the descending sun broke out, and an Iris appeared below the American Fall, one extremity resting on a snow mound; and motionless there it hung in the midst of restless terrors, its beautiful but rather pale hues contrasting with the death-like colourless objects around; it reminded me of the faint ethereal smile of a dying martyr. It was near midnight when we mounted our sleigh to return to the town of Niagara, and, as I remember, I did not utter a word during the whole fourteen miles. The air was still, though keen, the snow lay around, the whole earth seemed to slumber in a ghastly, calm repose; but the heavens were wide awake. There the Aurora Borealis was holding her revels, and dancing and flashing, and varying through all shapes and all hues--pale amber, rose tint, blood red--and the stars shone out with a fitful, restless brilliance; and every now and then a meteor would shoot athwart the skies, or fall to earth, and all around me was wild, and strange, and exciting--more like a fever dream than a reality. * * * * * TORONTO. Toronto, February 7. Mr. B. gave me a seat in his sleigh, and after a rapid and very pleasant journey, during which I gained a good deal of information, we reached Toronto yesterday morning. The road was the same as before, with one deviation however--it was found expedient to cross Burlington Bay on the ice, about seven miles over, the lake beneath being twenty, and five-and-twenty fathoms in depth. It was ten o'clock at night, and the only light was that reflected from the snow. The beaten track, from which it is not safe to deviate, was very narrow, and a man, in the worst, if not the last stage of intoxication, noisy and brutally reckless, was driving before us in a sleigh. All this, with the novelty of the situation, the tremendous cracking of the ice at every instant, gave me a sense of apprehension just sufficient to be exciting, rather than very unpleasant, though I will confess to a feeling of relief when we were once more on the solid earth. It is a remarkable fact, with which you are probably acquainted, that when one growth of timber is cleared from the land, another of quite a different species springs up spontaneously in its place. Thus, the oak or the beech succeeds to the pine, and the pine to the oak or maple. This is not accounted for, at least I have found no one yet who can give me a reason for it. We passed by a forest lately consumed by fire, and I asked why, in clearing the woods, they did not leave groups of the finest trees, or even single trees, here and there, to embellish the country? But it seems that this is impossible--for the trees thus left standing, when deprived of the shelter and society to which they have been accustomed, uniformly perish--which, for mine own poor part, I thought very natural. A Canadian settler _hates_ a tree, regards it as his natural enemy, as something to be destroyed, eradicated, annihilated by all and any means. The idea of useful or ornamental is seldom associated here even with the most magnificent timber trees, such as among the Druids had been consecrated, and among the Greeks would have sheltered oracles and votive temples. The beautiful faith which assigned to every tree of the forest its guardian nymph, to every leafy grove its tutelary divinity, would find no votaries here. Alas! for the Dryads and Hamadryads of Canada! There are two principal methods of killing trees in this country, besides the quick, unfailing destruction of the axe; the first by setting fire to them, which sometimes leaves the root uninjured to rot gradually and unseen, or be grubbed up at leisure, or, more generally, there remains a visible fragment of a charred and blackened stump, deformed and painful to look upon: the other method is slower, but even more effectual; a deep gash is cut through the bark into the stem, quite round the bole of the tree. This prevents the circulation of the vital juices, and by degrees the tree droops and dies. This is technically called _ringing_ timber. Is not this like the two ways in which a woman's heart may be killed in this world of ours--by passion and by sorrow? But better far the swift fiery death than this "ringing," as they call it! * * * * * February 21. The monotony of this my most monotonous existence was fearfully broken last night. I had gone early to my room, and had just rung for my maid, when I was aware of a strange light flashing through the atmosphere,--a fire was raging in the lower parts of the city. I looked out; there was the full moon, brighter than ever she shows her fair face in our dear cloudy England, looking down upon the snowy landscape, and the icy bay glittered like a sheet of silver; while on the other side of the heavens all was terror and tumult--clouds of smoke mingled with spires of flame rose into the sky. Far off the garrison was beating to arms--the bells tolling; yet all around there was not a living being to be seen, and the snow-waste was still as death. Fires are not uncommon in Toronto, where the houses are mostly wood; they have generally an alarum once or twice a week, and six or eight houses burned in the course of the winter; but it was evident this was of more fearful extent than usual. Finding, on inquiry, that all the household had gone off to the scene of action, my own maid excepted, I prepared to follow, for it was impossible to remain here idly gazing on the flames, and listening to the distant shouts in ignorance and suspense. The fire was in the principal street (King Street), and five houses were burning together. I made my way through the snow-heaped, deserted streets, and into a kind of court or garden at the back of the blazing houses. There was a vast and motley pile of household stuff in the midst, and a poor woman keeping guard over it, nearly up to her knees in the snow. I stood on the top of a bedstead, leaning on her shoulder, and thus we remained till the whole row of buildings had fallen in. The Irishmen (God bless my countrymen! for in all good--all mischief--all frolic--all danger--they are sure to be the first) risked their lives most bravely; their dark figures moving to and fro amid the blazing rafters, their fine attitudes, and the recklessness with which they flung themselves into the most horrible situations, became at last too fearfully exciting. I was myself so near, and the flames were so tremendous, that one side of my face was scorched and blistered. All this time the poor woman on whose shoulder I was leaning stood silent and motionless, gazing with apparent tranquillity on her burning house. I remember saying to her with a shudder--"But this is dreadful! to stand by and look on while one's home and property are destroyed!" And she replied quietly, "Yes, ma'am; but I dare say some good will come of it. All is for the best, if one knew it; and now Jemmy's safe, I don't care for the rest." Now Jemmy was not her son, as I found, but a poor little orphan, of whom she took charge. There had been at first a scarcity of water, but a hole being hewed through the ice on the lake, the supply was soon quick and plentiful. All would have been well over, if the sudden fall of a stack of chimneys had not caused some horrible injuries. One poor boy was killed, and some others maimed--poor Mr. B. among the number. After this I returned home rather heart-sick; and nigh to the house a sleigh glanced by at full gallop, on which I could just perceive, in the moonlight, the extended form of a man with his hands clenched over his head--as in agony, or lifeless. * * * * * MUSIC. March 1. In the different branches of art, each artist thinks his own the highest, and is filled with the idea of all its value and all its capabilities which he understands best and has most largely studied and developed. "But," says Dr. Chalmers, "we must take the testimony of each man to the worth of that which he does know, and reject the testimony of each to the comparative worthlessness of that which he does not know." For it is not, generally speaking, that he overrates his own particular walk of art from over enthusiasm, (no art, when considered separately, as a means of human delight and improvement, _can_ be over-rated,) but such a _one-sided_ artist, whose mind and powers have flowed in only one direction, underrates from ignorance the walks of others which diverge from his own. Of all artists, musicians are most exclusive in devotion to their own art, and in the want of sympathy, if not absolute contempt, for other arts. A painter has more sympathies with a musician, than a musician with a painter. Vernet used to bring his easel into Pergolesi's room, to paint beside his harpsichord, and used to say that he owed some of his finest skies to the inspired harmonies of his friend. Pergolesi never felt, perhaps, any harmonies but those of his own delicious art. "Aspasia, he who loves not music is a beast of one species, and he who overloves it is a beast of another, whose brain is smaller than a nightingale's, and his heart than that of a lizard!" I refer you for the rest to a striking passage in Landor's "Pericles and Aspasia," containing a most severe philippic, not only against the professors, but the _profession_, of music, and which concludes very aptly, "Panenus said this: let us never believe a word of it!" It is too true that some excellent musicians have been ignorant, and sensual, and dissipated; but there are sufficient exceptions to the sweeping censure of Panenus to show that "imprudence, intemperance, and gluttony" do not always, or necessarily, "open their channels into the sacred stream of music." Musicians are not selfish, careless, sensual, ignorant, because they are musicians, but because, from a defective education, they are nothing else. The German musicians are generally more moral and more intellectual men than English or Italian musicians, and hence their music has taken a higher flight, is more intellectual than the music of other countries. Music as an art has not degraded them, but they have elevated music. The most accomplished and intellectual musician I ever met with is Felix Mendelssohn. I do not recollect if it were himself or some one else who told me of a letter which Carl von Weber had addressed to him, warning him that he never could attain the highest honours in his profession without cultivating the virtues and the decencies of life. "A great artist," said Weber, "ought to be a good man." While I am "i' the vein," I must give you a few more musical reminiscences before my fingers are quite frozen. I had once some conversation with Thalberg and Felix Mendelssohn, on the unmeaning names which musicians often give to their works, as "Concerto in F," "Concerto in B flat," "First Symphony," "Second Symphony," &c. Mendelssohn said, that though in almost every case the composer might have a leading idea, it would be often difficult, or even impossible, to give any title sufficiently comprehensive to convey the same idea or feeling to the mind of the hearer. But music, except to musicians, can only give ideas, or rather raise images, by association; it can give the pleasure which the just accordance of musical sounds must give to sensitive ears, but the associated ideas or images, if any, must be quite accidental. Haydn, we are told, when he sat down to compose, used first to invent a story in his own fancy--a regular succession of imaginary incidents and feelings--to which he framed or suited the successive movements (motivi) of his concerto. Would it not have been an advantage if Haydn could have given to his composition such a title as would have pitched the imagination of the listener at once upon the same key? Mendelssohn himself has done this in the pieces which he has entitled "Overture to Melusina," "Overture to the Hebrides," "Meeres Stille und Glückliche Fahrt," "The Brook," and others,--which is better surely than Sonata No. 1, Sonata No. 2. Take the Melusina, for example; is there not in the sentiment of the music all the sentiment of the beautiful old fairy tale?--first, in the flowing, intermingling harmony, we have the soft elemental delicacy of the water nymph; then, the gushing of fountains, the undulating waves; then the martial prowess of the knightly lover, and the splendour of chivalry prevailing over the softer and more ethereal nature; and then, at last, the dissolution of the charm; the ebbing, fainting, and failing away into silence of the beautiful water spirit. You will say it might answer just as well for Ondine; but this signifies little, provided we have our fancy pitched to certain poetical associations pre-existing in the composer's mind. Thus not only poems, but pictures and statues, might be set to music. I suggested to Thalberg as a subject the Aurora of Guido. It should begin with a slow, subdued, and solemn movement, to express the slumbrous softness of that dewy hour which precedes the coming of the day, and which in the picture broods over the distant landscape, still wrapt in darkness and sleep; then the stealing upwards of the gradual dawn; the brightening, the quickening of all life; the awakening of the birds, the burst of the sun-light, the rushing of the steeds of Hyperion through the sky, the aerial dance of the Hours, and the whole concluding with a magnificent choral song of triumph and rejoicing sent up from universal nature. And then in the same spirit--no, in his own grander spirit--I would have Mendelssohn improviser the Laocoon. There would be the pomp and procession of the sacrifice on the seashore; the flowing in of the waves; the two serpents which come gliding on their foamy crests, wreathing, and rearing, and undulating; the horror, the lamentation, the clash of confusion, the death struggle, and, after a deep pause, the wail of lamentation, the funereal march;--the whole closing with a hymn to Apollo. Can you not just imagine such a piece of music, and composed by Mendelssohn? and can you not fancy the possibility of setting to music in the same manner Raffaelle's Cupid and Psyche, or his Galatea, or the group of the Niobe? Niobe would be a magnificent subject either for a concerto, or for a kind of mythological oratorio. * * * * * March 2. Turning over Boswell to-day, I came upon this passage: Johnson says, "I do not commend a society where there is an agreement that what would not otherwise be fair shall be fair; but I maintain that an individual of any society who practises what is allowed is not dishonest." What say you to this reasoning of our great moralist? does it not reduce the whole moral law to something merely conventional? In another place, Dr. Johnson asks, "What proportion does climate bear to the complex system of human life." I shiver while I answer, "A good deal, my dear Doctor, to some individuals, and yet more to whole races of men." He says afterwards, "I deal more in _notions_ than in facts." And so do I, it seems. He talks of "men being _held down_ in conversation by the presence of women"--_held up_ rather, where moral feeling is concerned; and if held down where intellect and social interests are concerned, then so much the worse for such a state of society. Johnson knew absolutely nothing about women. Witness that one assertion, among others more insulting, that it is matter of indifference to a woman whether her husband be faithful or not. He says, in another place, "If we men require more perfection from women than from ourselves, it is doing them honour." Indeed! If, in exacting from us more perfection, you do not allow us the higher and nobler nature, you do us not honour but gross injustice; and if you do allow us the higher nature, and yet regard us as subject and inferior, then the injustice is the greater. There, Doctor, is a dilemma for you. * * * * * March 8. This relentless winter seems to stiffen and contract every nerve, and the frost is of that fierceness and intensity, that it penetrates even to the marrow of one's bones. One of the workmen told me yesterday, that on taking hold of an iron bar it had taken the skin off his hand, as if he had grasped it red hot: it is a favourite trick with the children to persuade each other to touch with the tongue a piece of metal which has been exposed to the open air; adhesion takes place immediately: even the metal knobs on the doors of the room I carefully avoid touching--the contact is worse than unpleasant. Let but the spring come again, and I will take to myself wings and fly off to the west!--But will spring _ever_ come? When I look out upon the bleak, shrouded, changeless scene, there is something so awfully silent, fixed, and immutable in its aspect, that it is enough to disturb one's faith in the everlasting revolutions of the seasons. Green leaves and flowers, and streams that murmur as they flow, soft summer airs, to which we open the panting bosom--panting with too much life--shades grateful for their coolness,--can such things be, or do they exist only in poetry and Paradise? * * * * * GOETHE. "When I look back," said Goethe, "on my early and middle life, and now in my old age reflect how few of those remain who were young with me, life seems to me like a summer residence in a watering-place. When we first arrive, we form friendships with those who have already spent some time there, and must be gone the next week. The loss is painful, but we connect ourselves with the second generation of visitors, with whom we spend some time and become dearly intimate; but these also depart, and we are left alone with a third set, who arrive just as we are preparing for our departure, in whom we feel little or no interest." Goethe thought that a knowledge of the universe must be _innate_ with some poets. (It seems to have been so with Shakspeare.) He says he wrote "Götz von Berlichingen" when he was a young inexperienced man of two-and-twenty. "Ten years later," he adds, "I stood astonished at the truth of my own delineation; I had never beheld or experienced the like, therefore the knowledge of these multifarious aspects of human nature I must have possessed through a kind of anticipation." Yes; the "kind of anticipation" through which Joanna Baillie conceived and wrote her noble tragedies. Where did she, whose life was pure and "retired as noontide dew," find the dark, stern, terrible elements, out of which she framed the delineations of character and passion in De Montfort, Ethwald, Basil, Constantine?--where but in her own prophetic heart and genius?--in that intuitive, almost unconscious revelation of the universal nature, which makes the poet, and not experience or knowledge. Joanna Baillie, whose most tender and refined, and womanly and christian spirit never, I believe, admitted an ungentle thought of any living being, created De Montfort, and gave us the physiology of Hatred; and might well, like Goethe, stand astonished at the truth of her own delineation. * * * * * LITERARY WOMEN. Rehbein once observed to Goethe "that the women who had distinguished themselves in literature, poetry especially, were almost universally women who had been disappointed in their best affections, and sought in this direction of the intellect a sort of compensation. When women are married, and have children to take care of, they do not often think of writing poetry." This is not very politely or delicately expressed; but we must not therefore shrink from it, for it involves some important considerations. It is most certain that among the women who have been distinguished in literature, three-fourths have been either by nature, or fate, or the law of society, placed in a painful or a false position; it is also most certain that in these days when society is becoming every day more artificial and more complex, and marriage, as the gentlemen assure us, more and more expensive, hazardous, and inexpedient, women _must_ find means to fill up the void of existence. Men, our natural protectors, our lawgivers, our masters, throw us upon our own resources; the qualities which they pretend to admire in us,--the overflowing, the clinging affections of a warm heart--the household devotion,--the submissive wish to please, that feels "every vanity in fondness lost,"--the tender shrinking sensitiveness which Adam thought so charming in his Eve,--to cultivate these, to make them, by artificial means, the staple of the womanly character, is it not to cultivate a taste for sunshine and roses, in those we send to pass their lives in the arctic zone? We have gone away from nature, and we must--if we can--substitute another nature. Art, literature, and science remain to us. Religion, which formerly opened the doors of nunneries and convents to forlorn women, now mingling her beautiful and soothing influence with resources which the prejudices of the world have yet left open to us, teaches us another lesson, that only in utility, such as is left to us,--only in the assiduous employment of such faculties as we are permitted to exercise, can we find health and peace, and compensation for the wasted or repressed impulses and energies more proper to our sex--more natural--perhaps more pleasing to God; but trusting in His mercy, and using the means He has given, we must do the best we can for ourselves and for our sisterhood. The cruel prejudices which would have shut us out from nobler consolation and occupations have ceased in great part, and will soon be remembered only as the rude, coarse barbarism of a by-gone age. Let us then have no more caricatures of methodistical, card-playing, and acrimonious old maids. Let us hear no more of scandal, parrots, cats, and lap-dogs--or worse!--these never-failing subjects of derision with the vulgar and the frivolous, but the source of a thousand compassionate and melancholy feelings in those who can reflect! In the name of humanity and womanhood, let us have no more of them! Coleridge, who has said and written the most beautiful, the most tender, the most reverential things of women--who understands better than any man, any poet, what I will call the metaphysics of love--Coleridge has asserted that the perfection of a woman's character is to be _characterless_. "Every man," said he, "would like to have an Ophelia or a Desdemona for his wife." No doubt; the sentiment is truly a masculine one: and what was _their_ fate? What would now be the fate of such unresisting and confiding angels? Is this the age of Arcadia? Do we live among Paladins and Sir Charles Grandisons, and are our weakness, and our innocence, and our ignorance, safe-guards--or snares? Do we indeed find our account in being "Fine by defect, and beautifully weak?" No; women need in these times _character_ beyond everything else; the qualities which will enable us to endure and to resist evil; the self-governed, the cultivated, active mind, to protect and to maintain ourselves. How many wretched women marry for a maintenance! How many wretched women sell themselves to dishonour for bread!--and there is small difference, if any, in the infamy and the misery! How many unmarried women live in heart-wearing dependence;--if poor, in solitary penury, loveless, joyless, unendeared;--if rich, in aimless, pitiful trifling! How many, strange to say, marry for the independence they dare not otherwise claim! But the more paths opened to us, the less fear that we should go astray. Surely, it is dangerous, it is wicked, in these days, to follow the old saw, to bring up women to be "happy wives and mothers;" that is to say, to let all their accomplishments, their sentiments, their views of life, take one direction, as if for women there existed only one destiny--one hope, one blessing, one object, one passion in existence. Some people say it ought to be so, but we know that it is _not_ so; we know that hundreds, that thousands of women are not happy wives and mothers--are never either wives or mothers at all. The cultivation of the moral strength and the active energies of a woman's mind, together with the intellectual faculties and tastes, will not make a woman a less good, less happy wife and mother, and will enable her to find content and independence when denied love and happiness. * * * * * QUESTIONINGS. March 15. This last paragraph, which I wrote last evening, sent me to bed with my head full of all manner of thoughts, and memories, and fancies. Whence and what are we, "that things whose sense we see not, frey us with things that be not?" If I had the heart of that wondrous bird in the Persian tales, which being pressed upon a human heart, obliged that heart to utter truth through the lips, sleeping or waking, then I think I would inquire how far in each bosom exists the belief in the supernatural? In many minds which I know, and otherwise strong minds, it certainly exists a hidden source of torment; in others, not stronger, it exists a source of absolute pleasure and excitement. I have known people most wittily ridicule, or gravely discountenance, a belief in spectral appearances, and all the time I could see in their faces that once in their lives at least they had been frightened at their own shadow. The conventional cowardice, the fear of ridicule, even the self-respect which prevents intelligent persons from revealing the exact truth of what passes through their own minds on this point, deprives us of a means to trace to its sources and develop an interesting branch of Psychology. Between vulgar credulity and exaggeration on the one hand, and the absolute scepticism and materialism of some would-be philosophers on the other, lies a vast space of debatable ground, a sort of twilight region or _limbo_, through which I do not see my way distinctly. How far are our perceptions confined to our outward senses? Can any one tell?--for that our perceptions are not wholly confined to impressions taken in by the outward senses, seems the only one thing proved; and are such sensible impressions the only real ones? When any one asks me gaily the so common and common-place question--common even in these our rational times--"Do you now really believe in ghosts?" I generally answer as gaily--"I really don't know!" In the common, vulgar meaning of the words, I certainly do _not_; but in the reality of many things termed imaginary I certainly do. * * * * * The following beautiful and original interpretation of Goethe's ballad of the "Erl-King" is not in Ekermann's book (the "Gespräche mit Goethe," which I am now studying), but I give it to you in the words in which it was given to me. "Goethe's 'Erl-König' is a moral allegory of deep meaning, though I am not sure he meant it as such, or intended all that it signifies. There are beings in the world who see, who feel, with a finer sense than that granted to other mortals. They see the spiritual, the imaginative sorrow, or danger, or terror which threatens them; and those who see not with the same eyes, talk reason and philosophy to them. The poor frightened child cries out for aid, for mercy; and Papa Wisdom--worldly wisdom--answers,-- "'Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstrief!' "Or,-- "'Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau!' "It is only the vapour-wreath, or the grey willows waving, and tells him to be quiet! At last the poor child of feeling is found dead in the arms of Wisdom, from causes which no one else perceived--or believed! Is it not often so?" * * * * * On the subject of religion I find this beautiful comparison, but am not sure whether it be Ekermann's or Goethe's. "A connoisseur standing before the picture of a great master will regard it as a whole. He knows how to combine instantly the scattered parts into the general effect; the universal, as well as the individual, is to him animated. He has no preference for certain portions: he does not ask why this or that face is beautiful or otherwise; why _this_ part is light, _that_ dark; only he requires that all shall be in the right place, and according to the just rules of art; but place an ignorant person before such a picture, and you will see that the great design of the whole will either be overlooked by him, or confuse him utterly. Some small portion will attract him, another will offend him, and in the end he will dwell upon some trifling object which is familiar to him, and praise this helmet, or that feather, as being well executed. "We men, before the great picture of the destinies of the universe, play the part of such dunces, such novices in art. Here we are attracted by a bright spot, a graceful configuration; _there_ we are repelled by a deep shadow, a painful object; the immense WHOLE bewilders and perplexes us; we seek in vain to penetrate the leading idea of that great Being, who designed the whole upon a plan which our limited human intellect cannot comprehend." * * * * * SOUTHEY'S DOCTOR. March 29. To those who see only with their eyes, the distant is always indistinct and little, becoming less and less as it recedes, till utterly lost; but to the imagination, which thus reverses the perspective of the senses, the far off is great and imposing, the magnitude increasing with the distance. * * * * * I amused myself this morning with that most charming book "The Doctor;"--it is not the second nor the third time of reading. How delicious it is wherever it opens!--how brimful of erudition and wit, and how rich in thought, and sentiment, and humour! but containing assumptions, and opinions, and prognostications, in which I would not believe;--no, not for the world! * * * * * How true what Southey says! (the Doctor I mean--I beg his pardon)--"We make the greater part of the evil circumstances in which we are placed, and then we fit ourselves for those circumstances by a process of degradation, the effect of which most people see in the classes below them, though they may not be conscious that it is operating in a different manner, but with equal force, upon themselves." The effect of those pre-ordained evils--if they are such--which we inherit with our mortal state, inevitable death--the separation from those we love--old age with its wants, its feebleness, its helplessness--those sufferings which are in the course of nature, are quite sufficient in the infliction, or in the fear of them, to keep the spirit chastened, and the reflecting mind humble before God. But what I _do_ deprecate, is to hear people preaching resignation to social, self-created evils; fitting, or trying to fit, their own natures by "a process of degradation" to circumstances which they ought to resist, and which they do _inwardly_ resist, keeping up a constant, wearing, impotent strife between the life that is _within_ and the life that is _without_. How constantly do I read this in the countenances of those I meet in the world!--They do not know themselves why there should be this perpetual uneasiness, this jarring and discord within; but it is the vain struggle of the soul, which God created in his own image, to fit its strong, immortal nature for the society which men have framed after their own devices. A _vain_ struggle it is! succeeding only in appearance, never in reality,--so we walk about the world the masks of ourselves, pitying each other. When we meet truth we are as much astonished as I used to be at the carnival, when, in the midst of a crowd of fantastic, lifeless, painted faces, I met with some one who had plucked away his mask and stuck it in his hat, and looked out upon me with the real human smile. * * * * * The Aurora Borealis is of almost nightly occurrence, but this evening it has been more than usually resplendent; radiating up from the north, and spreading to the east and west in form like a fan, the lower point of a pale white, then yellow, amber, orange, successively, and the extremities of a glowing crimson, intense, yet most delicate, like the heart of an unblown rose. It shifted its form and hue at every moment, flashing and waving like a banner in the breeze; and through this portentous veil, transparent as light itself, the stars shone out with a calm and steady brightness; and I thought, as I looked upon them, of a character we both know, where, like those fair stars, the intellectual powers shine serenely bright through a veil of passions, fancies, and caprices. It is most awfully beautiful! I have been standing at my window watching its evolutions, till it is no longer night, but morning. * * * * * LAKE ONTARIO. April 15. The ice in the Bay of Toronto has been, during the winter months, from four to five feet in thickness: within the last few days it has been cracking in every direction with strange noises, and last night, during a tremendous gale from the east, it was rent, and loosened, and driven at once out of the bay. "It moveth altogether, if it move at all." The last time I drove across the bay, the ice beneath me appeared as fixed and firm as the foundations of the earth, and within twelve hours it has disappeared, and to-day the first steam-boat of the season entered our harbour. They called me to the window to see it, as, with flags and streamers flying, and amid the cheers of the people, it swept majestically into the bay. I sympathised with the general rejoicing, for I can fully understand all the animation and bustle which the opening of the navigation will bring to our torpid capital. * * * * * May 19. This beautiful Lake Ontario!--my lake--for I begin to be in love with it, and look on it as mine!--it changed its hues every moment, the shades of purple and green fleeting over it, now dark, now lustrous, now pale--like a dolphin dying; or, to use a more exact though less poetical comparison, dappled, and varying like the back of a mackerel, with every now and then a streak of silver light dividing the shades of green: magnificent, tumultuous clouds came rolling round the horizon; and the little graceful schooners, falling into every beautiful attitude, and catching every variety of light and shade, came curtseying into the bay: and flights of wild geese, and great black loons, were skimming, diving, sporting over the bosom of the lake; and beautiful little unknown birds, in gorgeous plumage of crimson and black, were fluttering about the garden: all life, and light, and beauty were abroad--the resurrection of Nature! How beautiful it was! how dearly welcome to my senses--to my heart--this spring which comes at last--so long wished for, so long waited for! * * * * * ERINDALE. --A very pretty place, with a very pretty name. A kind invitation led me hither, to seek change of air, change of scene, and every other change I most needed. The Britannia steam-boat, which plies daily between Toronto and Hamilton, brought us to the mouth of the Credit River in an hour and a half. By the orders of Mr. M * * *, a spring cart or wagon, the usual vehicle of the country, was waiting by the inn, on the shore of the lake, to convey me through the Woods to his house; and the master of the inn, a decent, respectable man, drove the wagon. He had left England a mere child, thirty years ago, with his father, mother, and seven brothers and sisters, and eighteen years ago had come to Canada from the United States, at the suggestion of a relation, to "settle in the bush," the common term for uncleared land; at that time they had nothing, as he said, but "health and hands." The family, now reduced to five, are all doing well. He has himself a farm of two hundred and fifty acres, his own property; his brother has much more; his sisters are well settled. "Any man," said he, "with health and a pair of hands, could get on well in this country, if it were not for _the drink; that_ ruins hundreds." They are forming a harbour at the mouth of the river--widening and deepening the channel; but, owing to the want of means and money during the present perplexities, the works are not going on. There is a clean, tidy inn, and some log and frame houses; the situation is low, swampy, and I should suppose unhealthy; but they assured me, that though still subject to ague and fever in the spring, every year diminished this inconvenience, as the draining and clearing of the lands around was proceeding rapidly. The River Credit is so called, because in _ancient_ times (_i. e._ forty or fifty years ago) the fur traders met the Indians on its banks, and delivered to them on _credit_ the goods for which, the following year, they received the value, or rather ten times the value, in skins. In a country where there is no law of debtor or creditor, no bonds, stamps, bills, or bailiffs, no possibility of punishing, or even catching a refractory or fraudulent debtor, but, on the contrary, every possibility of being tomahawked by said debtor, this might seem a hazardous arrangement; yet I have been assured by those long engaged in the trade, both in the upper and lower province, that for an Indian to break his engagements is a thing unheard of: and if, by any personal accident, he should be prevented from bringing in the stipulated number of beaver skins, his relatives and friends consider their honour implicated, and make up the quantity for him. The fur trade has long ceased upon these shores, once the scene of bloody conflicts between the Hurons and the Missassaguas. The latter were at length nearly extirpated; a wretched, degenerate remnant of the tribe still continued to skulk about their old haunts and the burial-place of their fathers, which is a high mound on the west bank of the river, and close upon the lake. These were collected by the Methodist missionaries into a village or settlement, about two miles farther on, where an attempt has been made to civilise and convert them. The government has expended a large sum in aid of this charitable purpose, and about fifty log-huts have been constructed for the Indians, each hut being divided by a partition, and capable of lodging two or more families. There is also a chapel and a school-house. Peter Jones, otherwise Kahkewaquonaby, a half-caste Indian, is the second chief and religious teacher; he was in England a few years ago to raise contributions for his people, and married a young enthusiastic Englishwoman with a small property. She has recently quitted the village to return to Europe. There is, besides, a regular Methodist preacher established here, who cannot speak one word of the language of the natives, nor hold any communion with them, except through an interpreter. He complained of the mortality among the children, and the yearly diminution of numbers in the settlement. The greater number of those who remain are half-breeds, and of these, some of the young women and children are really splendid creatures; but the general appearance of the place and people struck me as gloomy. The Indians, whom I saw wandering and lounging about, and the squaws wrapped in dirty blankets, with their long black hair falling over their faces and eyes, filled me with compassion. When the tribe were first gathered together, they amounted to seven hundred men, women, and children; there are now about two hundred and twenty. The missionary and his wife looked dejected; he told me that the conference never allowed them (the missionaries) to remain with any congregation long enough to know the people, or take a personal interest in their welfare. In general the term of their residence in any settlement or district was from two to three years, and they were then exchanged for another. Among the inhabitants a few have cultivated the portion of land allotted to them, and live in comparative comfort; three or four women (half-caste) are favourably distinguished by the cleanliness of their houses, and general good conduct; and some of the children are remarkably intelligent, and can read both their own language and English; but these are exceptions, and dirt, indolence, and drunkenness, are but too general. Consumption is the prevalent disease, and carries off numbers[3] of these wretched people. After passing the Indian village, we plunged again into the depth of the green forests, through a road or path which presented every now and then ruts and abysses of mud, into which we sank nearly up to the axletree, and I began to appreciate feelingly the fitness of a Canadian wagon. On each side of this forest path the eye sought in vain to penetrate the labyrinth of foliage, and intermingled flowers of every dye, where life in myriad forms was creeping, humming, rustling in the air or on the earth, on which the morning dew still glittered under the thick shades. From these woods we emerged, after five or six miles of travelling, and arrived at Springfield, a little village we had passed through in the depth of winter--how different its appearance now!--and diverging from the road, a beautiful path along the high banks above the river Credit, brought us to Erindale, for so Mr. M * * *, in fond recollection of his native country, has named his romantic residence. Mr. M * * * is the clergyman and magistrate of the district, beside being the principal farmer and land proprietor. His wife, sprung from a noble and historical race, blended much sweetness and frankheartedness, with more of courtesy and manner than I expected to find. My reception was most cordial, though the whole house was in unusual bustle, for it was the 4th of June, parade day, when the district militia were to be turned out; and two of the young men of the family were buckling on swords and accoutrements, and furbishing up helmets, while the sister was officiating with a sister's pride at this military toilette, tying on sashes and arranging epaulettes; and certainly when they appeared--one in the pretty green costume of a rifleman, the other all covered with embroidery as a captain of lancers--I thought I had seldom seen two finer-looking men. After taking coffee and refreshments, we drove down to the scene of action. On a rising ground above the river which ran gurgling and sparkling through the green ravine beneath, the motley troops, about three or four hundred men, were marshalled--no, not marshalled, but scattered in a far more picturesque fashion hither and thither: a few log-houses and a saw-mill on the river-bank, and a little wooden church crowning the opposite height, formed the chief features of the scene. The boundless forest spread all around us. A few men, well mounted, and dressed as lancers, in uniforms which were, however, anything but uniform, flourished backwards on the green sward, to the manifest peril of the spectators; themselves and their horses, equally wild, disorderly, spirited, undisciplined: but this was perfection compared with the infantry. Here there was no uniformity attempted of dress, of appearance, of movement; a few had coats, others jackets; a greater number had neither coats nor jackets, but appeared in their shirt-sleeves, white or checked, or clean or dirty, in edifying variety! Some wore hats, others caps, others their own shaggy heads of hair. Some had firelocks; some had old swords suspended in belts, or stuck in their waistbands; but the greater number shouldered sticks or umbrellas. Mrs. M * * * told us that on a former parade day she had heard the word of command given thus--"Gentlemen with the umbrellas, take ground to the right! Gentlemen with the walking sticks, take ground to the left!" Now they ran after each other, elbowed and kicked each other, straddled, stooped, chattered; and if the commanding officer turned his back for a moment, very coolly sat down on the bank to rest. Not to laugh was impossible, and defied all power of face. Charles M. made himself hoarse with shouting out orders which no one obeyed, except, perhaps, two or three men in the front; and James, with his horsemen, flourished their lances, and galloped, and capered, and curveted to admiration. James is the popular storekeeper and postmaster of the village, and when, after the show, we went into his warehouse to rest, I was not a little amused to see our captain of lancers come in, and, taking off his plumed helmet, jump over the counter to serve one customer to a "pennyworth of tobacco," and another to a "yard of check." Willy, the younger brother, a fine young man, who had been our cavalier on the field, assisted; and half in jest, half in earnest, I gravely presented myself as the purchaser of something or other, which Willy served out with a laughing gaiety and unembarrassed simplicity quite delightful. We returned to sit down to a plain, plenteous, and excellent dinner; everything on the table, the wine excepted, was the produce of their own farm. Our wine, water, and butter were iced, and everything was the best of its kind. The parade day ended in a drunken bout and a riot, in which, as I was afterwards informed, the colonel had been knocked down, and one or two serious, and even fatal accidents had occurred; but it was all taken so very lightly, so very much as a thing of course, in this half-civilised community, that I soon ceased to think about the matter. The next morning I looked out from my window upon a scene of wild yet tranquil loveliness. The house is built on the edge of a steep bank (what in Scotland they term a _scaur_), perhaps a hundred feet high, and descending precipitously to the rapid river.[4] The banks on either side were clothed with overhanging woods, of the sumach, maple, tamarisk, birch, in all the rich yet delicate array of the fresh opening year. Beyond, as usual, lay the dark pine-forest: and near to the house there were several groups of lofty pines, the original giant-brood of the soil; beyond these again lay the "clearing." The sky was without a cloud, and the heat intense. I found breakfast laid in the verandah: excellent tea and coffee, rich cream, delicious hot cakes, new laid eggs--a banquet for a king! The young men and their labourers had been out since sunrise, and the younger ladies of the house were busied in domestic affairs; the rest of us sat lounging all the morning in the verandah; and in the intervals of sketching and reading, my kind host and hostess gave me an account of their emigration to this country ten years ago. Mr. M. was a Protestant clergyman of good family, and had held a considerable living in Ireland; but such was the disturbed state of the county in which he resided, that he was not only unable to collect his tithes, but for several years neither his own life nor that of any of his family was safe. They never went out unarmed, and never went to rest at night without having barricadoed their house like a fortress. The health of his wife began to fail under this anxiety, and at length, after a severe struggle with old feelings and old habits, he came to the determination to convert his Irish property into ready money, and emigrate to Canada, with four fine sons, from seven to seventeen years old, and one little daughter. Thus Canada has become an asylum, not only for those who cannot pay tithes, but for those who cannot get them. Soon after his arrival, he purchased eight hundred acres of land along the banks of the Credit. With the assistance of his sons and a few labourers, he soon cleared a space of ground for a house, in a situation of great natural beauty, but then a perfect wilderness; and with no other aid, designed and built it in very pretty taste. Being thus secure of lodging and shelter, they proceeded in their toilsome work--toilsome, most laborious, he allowed it to be, but not unrewarded; and they have now one hundred and fifty acres of land cleared and in cultivation; a noble barn, entirely constructed by his sons, measuring sixty feet long by forty in width; a carpenter's shop, a turning-lathe, in the use of which the old gentleman and one of his sons are very ingenious and effective; a forge; extensive outhouses; a farmyard well stocked; and a house comfortably furnished, much of the ornamental furniture being contrived, carved, turned, by the father and his sons. These young men, who had received in Ireland the rudiments of a classical education, had all a mechanical genius, and here, with all their energies awakened, and all their physical and mental powers in full occupation, they are a striking example of what may be done by activity and perseverance; they are their own architects, masons, smiths, carpenters, farmers, gardeners; they are, moreover, bold and keen hunters, quick in resource, intelligent, cheerful, united by strong affection, and doating on their gentle sister, who has grown up among these four tall, manly brothers, like a beautiful azalia under the towering and sheltering pines. Then I should add, that one of the young men knows something of surgery, can bleed or set a broken limb in case of necessity; while another knows as much of law as enables him to draw up an agreement, and settle the quarrels and arrange the little difficulties of their poorer neighbours, without having recourse to the "attorney." The whole family appear to have a lively feeling for natural beauty, and a taste for natural history; they know the habits and the haunts of the wild animals which people their forest domain; they have made collections of minerals and insects; and have "traced each herb and flower that sips the silvery dew." Not only the stout servant girl, (whom I met running about with a sucking-pig in her arms, looking for its mother,) and the little black boy Alick,--but the animals in the farmyard, the old favourite mare, the fowls which come trooping round the benignant old gentleman, or are the peculiar pets of the ladies of the family,--the very dogs and cats appear to me, each and all, the most enviable of their species. There is an atmosphere of benevolence and cheerfulness breathing round, which penetrates to my very heart. I know not when I have felt so quietly--so entirely happy--so full of sympathy--so light-hearted--so inclined to shut out the world, and its cares and vanities, and "fleet the time as they did i' the golden age." Mr. M. told me, that for the first seven or eight years they had all lived and worked together on his farm; but latterly he had reflected that though the proceeds of the farm afforded a subsistence, it did not furnish the means of independence for his sons, so as to enable them to marry and settle in the world. He has therefore established two of his sons as storekeepers, the one in Springfield, the other at Streetsville, both within a short distance of his own residence, and they have already, by their intelligence, activity, and popular manners, succeeded beyond his hopes. I could perceive that in taking this step there had been certain prejudices and feelings to be overcome on his own part and that of his wife: the family pride of the well-born Irish gentleman, and the antipathy to anything like trade, once cherished by a certain class in the old country--these were to be conquered, before he could reconcile himself to the idea of his boys serving out groceries in a Canadian village; but they _were_ overcome. Some lingering of the "old Adam" made him think it necessary to excuse--to account for this state of things. He did not know with what entire and approving sympathy I regarded, not the foolish national prejudices of my country, but the honest, generous spirit and good sense through which he had conquered them, and provided for the future independence of his children. I inquired concerning the extent of his parish, and the morals and condition of his parishioners. He said that on two sides the district under his charge might be considered as without bounds, for, in fact, there was no parish boundary line between him and the North Pole. He has frequently ridden from sixteen to thirty miles to officiate at a marriage or a funeral, or baptize a child, or preach a sermon, wherever a small congregation could be collected together; but latterly his increasing age rendered such exertion difficult. His parish church is in Springfield. When he first took the living, to which he was appointed on his arrival in the country, the salary--for here there are no tithes--was two hundred a year: some late measure, fathered by Mr. Hume, had reduced it to one hundred. He spoke of this without bitterness as regarded himself, observing that he was old, and had other means of subsistence; but he considered it as a great injustice both to himself and to his successors--"For," said he, "it is clear that no man could take charge of this extensive district without keeping a good horse, and a boy to rub him down. Now, in this country, where wages are high, he could not keep a horse and a servant, and wear a whole coat, for less than one hundred a year. No man, therefore, who had not other resources, could live upon this sum; and no man who _had_ other resources, and had received a fitting education, would be likely to come here. I say nothing of the toil, the fatigue, the deep responsibility--these belong to his vocation, in which, though a man must labour, he need not surely starve:--yet starve he must, unless he takes a farm or a store in addition to his clerical duties. A clergyman in such circumstances could hardly command the respect of his parishioners: what do _you_ think, madam?" When the question was thus put, I could only think the same: it seems to me that there must be something wrong in the whole of this Canadian church system, from beginning to end. With regard to the morals of the population around him, he spoke of two things as especially lamentable, the prevalence of drunkenness, and the early severing of parental and family ties; the first, partly owing to the low price of whisky, the latter to the high price of labour, which rendered it the interest of the young of both sexes to leave their home, and look out and provide for themselves as soon as possible. This fact, and its consequences, struck him the more painfully, from the contrast it exhibited to the strong family affections, and respect for parental authority, which even in the midst of squalid, reckless misery and ruin, he had been accustomed to in poor Ireland. The general morals of the women he considered infinitely superior to those of the men; and in the midst of the horrid example and temptation, and one may add, provocation, round them, their habits were generally sober. He knew himself but two females abandoned to habits of intoxication, and in both instances the cause had been the same--an unhappy home and a brutal husband. He told me many other interesting circumstances and anecdotes, but being of a personal nature, and his permission not expressly given, I do not note them down here. On the whole, I shall never forget the few days spent with this excellent family. We bade farewell, after many a cordial entreaty on their part, many a promise on mine, to visit them again. Charles M. drove me over to the Credit, where we met the steam-boat, and I returned to Toronto with my heart full of kindly feelings, my fancy full of delightful images, and my lap full of flowers, which Charles had gathered for me along the margin of the forest: flowers such as we transplant and nurture with care in our gardens and green-houses, most dazzling and lovely in colour, strange and new to me in their forms, and names, and uses: unluckily I am no botanist, so will not venture to particularize farther; but one plant struck me particularly, growing everywhere in thousands: the stalk is about two feet in height, and at the top are two large fan-like leaves, one being always larger than the other; from between the two springs a single flower, in size and shape somewhat resembling a large wild rose, the petal white, just tinted with a pale blush. The flower is succeeded by an oval-shaped fruit, which is eaten, and makes an excellent preserve. They call it here the May-apple. [Footnote 3: The notes thrown together here are the result of three different visits to the Credit, and information otherwise obtained.] [Footnote 4: In this river the young sportsmen of the family had speared two hundred salmon in a single night. The salmon-hunts in Canada are exactly like that described so vividly in Guy Mannering. The fish thus caught is rather a large species of trout than genuine salmon. The sport is most exciting.] * * * * * LAKE ONTARIO. June 8. We have already exchanged "the bloom and ravishment of spring" for all the glowing maturity of summer; we gasp with heat, we long for ices, and are planning venetian blinds; and three weeks ago there was snow lying beneath our garden fences, and not a leaf on the trees! In England, when Nature wakes up from her long winter, it is like a sluggard in the morning,--she opens one eye and then another, and shivers and draws her snow coverlet over her face again, and turns round to slumber more than once, before she emerges at last lazily and slowly, from her winter chamber; but here, no sooner has the sun peeped through her curtains, than up she springs, like a huntress for the chase, and dons her kirtle of green, and walks abroad in full-blown life and beauty. I am basking in her smile like an insect or a bird!--Apropos to birds, we have, alas! no singing birds in Canada. There is, indeed, a little creature of the ouzel kind, which haunts my garden, and has a low, sweet warble, to which I listen with pleasure; but we have nothing like the rich, continuous song of the nightingale or lark, or even the linnet. We have no music in our groves but that of the frogs, which set up such a shrill and perpetual chorus every evening, that we can scarce hear each other speak. The regular manner in which the bass and treble voices respond to each other is perfectly ludicrous, so that in the midst of my impatience I have caught myself laughing. Then we have every possible variety of note, from the piping squeak of the tree-frog, to the deep, guttural croak, almost roar, of the bull-frog. The other day, while walking near a piece of water, I was startled by a very loud deep croak, as like the croak of an ordinary frog, as the bellow of a bull is like the bleat of a calf; and looking round, perceived one of those enormous bull-frogs of the country seated with great dignity on the end of a plank, and staring at me. The monster was at least a foot in length, with a pair of eyes like spectacles; on shaking my parasol at him, he plunged to the bottom in a moment. They are quite harmless, I believe, though slander accuses them of attacking the young ducks and chickens. There is considerable beauty around me--not that I am going to give you descriptions of scenery, which are always, however eloquent, in some respect failures. Words can no more give you a definite idea of the combination of forms and colours in scenery, than so many musical notes: music were, indeed, the better vehicle of the two. Felix Mendelssohn, when a child, used to say, "I cannot tell you how such or such a thing was--I cannot speak it--I will play it to you!"--and run to his piano: sound was then to him a more perfect vehicle than words;--so, if I were a musician, I would _play_ you Lake Ontario, rather than describe it. Ontario means _the beautiful_, and the word is worthy of its signification, and the lake is worthy of its beautiful name; yet I can hardly tell you in what this fascination consists: there is no scenery around it, no high lands, no bold shores, no picture to be taken in at once by the eye; the swamp and the forest enclose it, and it is so wide and so vast that it presents all the monotony without the majesty of the ocean. Yet, like that great ocean, when I lived beside it, the expanse of this lake has become to me like the face of a friend. I have all its various _expressions_ by heart. I go down upon the green bank, or along the King's Pier, which projects about two hundred yards into the bay. I sit there with my book, reading sometimes, but oftener watching untired the changeful colours as they flit over the bosom of the lake. Sometimes a thunder-squall from the west sends the little sloops and schooners sweeping and scudding into the harbour for shelter. Sometimes the sunset converts its surface into a sea of molten gold, and sometimes the young moon walks trembling in a path of silver; sometimes a purple haze floats over its bosom like a veil; sometimes the wind blows strong, and the wild turbid waves come rolling in like breakers, flinging themselves over the pier in wrath and foam, or dancing like spirits in their glee. Nor is the land without some charm. About four miles from Toronto the river Humber comes down between high wood-covered banks, and rushes into the lake: a more charming situation for villas and garden-houses could hardly be desired than the vicinity of this beautiful little river, and such no doubt we shall see in time. The opposite shore of the bay of Toronto is formed by a long sand-bank, called "the Island," though, in fact, no island, but a very narrow promontory, about three miles in length, and forming a rampart against the main waters of the lake. At the extremity is a light-house, and a few stunted trees and underwood. This marsh, intersected by islets and covered with reeds, is the haunt of thousands of wild-fowl, and of the terrapin, or small turtle of the lake; and as evening comes on, we see long rows of red lights from the fishing-boats gleaming along the surface of the water, for thus they spear the lake salmon, the bass, and the pickereen. The only road on which it is possible to take a drive with comfort is Yonge Street, which is macadamised for the first twelve miles. This road leads from Toronto northwards to Lake Simcoe, through a well-settled and fertile country. There are some commodious, and even elegant houses in this neighbourhood. Dundas Street, leading west to the London district and Lake Huron, is a very rough road for a carriage, but a most delightful ride. On this side of Toronto you are immediately in the pine forest, which extends with little interruption (except a new settlement rising here and there) for about fifty miles to Hamilton, which is the next important town. The wooded shores of the lake are very beautiful, and abounding in game. In short, a reasonable person might make himself very happy here, if it were not for some few things, among which, those Egyptian plagues, the flies and frogs in summer, and the relentless iron winter, are not the most intolerable; add, perhaps, the prevalence of sickness at certain seasons. At present many families are flying off to Niagara, for two or three days together, for change of air; and I am meditating a flight myself, of such serious extent, that some of my friends here laugh outright; others look kindly alarmed, and others civilly incredulous. Bad roads, bad inns--or rather _no_ roads, no inns;--wild Indians, and white men more savage far than they;--dangers and difficulties of every kind are threatened and prognosticated, enough to make one's hair stand on end. To undertake such a journey _alone_ is rash perhaps--yet alone it must be achieved, I find, or not at all; I shall have neither companion nor man-servant, nor _femme de chambre_, nor even a "little foot-page" to give notice of my fate, should I be swamped in a bog, or eaten up by a bear, or scalped, or disposed of in some strange way; but shall I leave this fine country without seeing anything of its great characteristic features?--and, above all, of its aboriginal inhabitants? The French have a proverb which does honour to their gallantry, and to which, from experience, I am inclined to give full credence--"_Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut_." We shall see. * * * * * MADAME DE MAINTENON. How admirable what Sir James Mackintosh says of Madame de Maintenon!--that "she was as virtuous as the fear of hell and the fear of shame could make her." The same might be said of the virtue of many women I know, and of these, I believe, that more are virtuous from the fear of shame than the fear of hell.--Shame is the woman's hell. Who that has lived in the world, in society, and looked on both with observing eye, but has often been astonished at the fearlessness of women, and the cowardice of men, with regard to public opinion? The reverse would seem to be the natural, the necessary result of the existing order of things, but it is not always so. Exceptions occur so often, and so immediately within my own province of observation, that they have made me reflect a good deal. Perhaps this seeming discrepancy might be thus explained. Women are brought up in the fear of opinion, but, from their ignorance of the world, they are in fact ignorant of that which they fear. They fear opinion as a child fears a spectre, as something shadowy and horrible, not defined or palpable. It is a fear based on habit, on feeling, not on principle or reason. When their passions are strongly excited, or when reason becomes matured, this exaggerated fear vanishes, and the probability is, that they are immediately thrown into the opposite extreme of incredulity, defiance, and rashness: but a man, even while courage is preached to him, learns from habitual intercourse with the world the immense, the terrible power of opinion. It wraps him round like despotism; it is a reality to him; to a woman a shadow, and if she can overcome the fear in her own person, all is overcome. A man fears opinion for himself, his wife, his daughter; and if the fear of opinion be brought into conflict with primary sentiments and principles, it is ten to one but the habit of fear prevails, and opinion triumphs over reason and feeling too. * * * * * MRS. MACMURRAY. June 13. In these latter days I have lived in friendly communion with so many excellent people, that my departure from Toronto was not what I anticipated--an escape on one side, or a riddance on the other. My projected tour to the west has excited not only some interest, but much kind solicitude; and aid and counsel have been tendered with a feeling which touched me deeply. The first bell of the steam-boat had not yet rung, when one of my friends came running up to tell me that the missionary from the Sault-Saint-Marie, and his Indian wife, had arrived at Toronto, and were then at the inn, and that there was just time to introduce me to them. No sooner thought than done: in another moment we were in the hotel, and I was introduced to Mrs. MacMurray, otherwise O-ge-ne-bu-go-quay, (i. e. _the wild rose_). I must confess that the specimens of Indian squaws and half-caste women I had met with, had in no wise prepared me for what I found in Mrs. MacMurray. The first glance, the first sound of her voice, struck me with a pleased surprise. Her figure is tall--at least it is rather above than below the middle size, with that indescribable grace and undulation of movement which speaks the perfection of form. Her features are distinctly Indian, but softened and refined, and their expression at once bright and kindly. Her dark eyes have a sort of fawn-like shyness in their glance, but her manner, though timid, was quite free from embarrassment or restraint. She speaks English well, with a slightly foreign intonation, not the less pleasing to my ear that it reminded me of the voice and accent of some of my German friends. In two minutes I was seated by her--my hand kindly folded in hers--and we were talking over the possibility of my plans. It seems that there is some chance of my reaching the Island of Michilimackinac, but of the Sault-Saint-Marie I dare hardly think as yet--it looms in my imagination dimly described in far space, a kind of Ultima Thule; yet the sight of Mrs. MacMurray seemed to give something definite to the vague hope which had been floating in my mind. Her sister, she said, was married to the American Indian agent at Michilimackinac, and from both she promised me a welcome, should I reach their island. To her own far off home at the Sault-Saint-Marie, between Lake Huron and Lake Superior, she warmly invited me--without, however, being able to point out any conveyance or mode of travelling thither that could be depended on--only a possible chance of such. Meantime there was _some_ hope of our meeting _some_where on the road, but it was of the faintest. She thanked me feelingly for the interest I took in her own fated race, and gave me excellent hints as to my manner of proceeding. We were in the full tide of conversation when the bell of the steam-boat rang for the last time, and I was hurried off. On the deck of the vessel I found her husband, Mr. MacMurray, who had only time to say, in fewest words, all that was proper, polite, and hospitable. This rencontre, which some would call accidental, and some providential, pleased and encouraged me. Then came blessings, good wishes, kind pressures of the hand, and last adieus, and waving of handkerchiefs from the shore, as the paddles were set in motion, and we glided swiftly over the mirror-like bay. The day was sultry, the air heavy and still, and a strange fog, or rather a series of dark clouds, hung resting on the bosom of the lake, which in some places was smooth and transparent as glass--in others, little eddies of wind had ruffled it into tiny waves, or welts rather--so that it presented the appearance of patchwork. The boatmen looked up, and foretold a storm; but when we came within three or four miles from the mouth of the river Niagara, the fog drew off like a curtain, and the interminable line of the dark forest came into view, stretching right and left along the whole horizon; then the white buildings of the American fort, and the spires of the town of Niagara, became visible against the rich purple-green back-ground, and we landed after a four hours' voyage. The threatened storm came on that night. The summer storms of Canada are like those of the tropics: not in Italy, not among the Apennines, where I have in my time heard the "live thunder leaping from crag to crag," did I ever hear such terrific explosions of sound as burst over our heads this night. The silence and the darkness lent an added horror to the elemental tumult--and for the first time in my life I felt sickened and unpleasantly affected in the intervals between the thunder-claps, though I cannot say I felt fear. Meantime the rain fell as in a deluge, threatening to wash us into the lake, which reared itself up, and roared--like a monster for its prey. Yet, the next morning, when I went down upon the shore, how beautiful it looked--the hypocrite!--there it lay rocking and sleeping in the sunshine, quiet as a cradled infant. Niagara, in its girdle of verdure and foliage, glowing with fresh life, and breathing perfume, appeared to me a far different place from what I had seen in winter. As I stood on the shore, quietly thinking, I was startled by the sound of the death-bell, pealing along the sunny blue waters. They said it was tolled for a young man of respectable family, who, at the age of three or four and twenty, had died from habitual drinking; his elder brother having a year or two before fallen from his horse in a state of intoxication, and perished in consequence. Yes, everything I see and hear on this subject convinces me that it should be one of the first objects of the government to put down, by all and every means, a vice which is rotting at the core of this colony--poisoning the very sources of existence; but all their taxes, and prohibitions, and excise laws, will do little good, unless they facilitate the means of education. In society, the same evening, the appearance of a very young, very pretty, sad-looking creature, with her first baby at her bosom, whose husband was staggering and talking drunken gibberish at her side, completed the impression of disgust and affright with which the continual spectacle of this vile habit strikes me since I have been in this country. Before quitting the subject of Niagara, I may as well mention an incident which occurred shortly afterwards, on my last visit to the town, which interested me much at the time, and threw the whole of this little community into a wonderful ferment. THE SLAVE. A black man, a slave somewhere in Kentucky, having been sent on a message, mounted on a very valuable horse, seized the opportunity of escaping. He reached Buffalo after many days of hard riding, sold the horse, and escaped beyond the lines into Canada. Here, as in all the British dominions, God be praised! the slave is slave no more, but free, and protected in his freedom.[5] This man acknowledged that he had not been ill treated; he had received some education, and had been a favourite with his master. He gave as a reason for his flight, that he had long wished to marry, but was resolved that his children should not be born slaves. In Canada, a runaway slave is assured of legal protection; but, by an international compact between the United States and our provinces, all felons are mutually surrendered. Against this young man the jury in Kentucky had found a true bill for horse-stealing; as a felon, therefore, he was pursued, and, on the proper legal requisition, arrested; and then lodged in the jail of Niagara, to be given up to his master, who, with an American constable, was in readiness to take him into custody, as soon as the government order should arrive. His case excited a strong interest among the whites, while the coloured population, consisting of many hundreds in the districts of Gore and Niagara, chiefly refugees from the States, were half frantic with excitement. They loudly and openly declared that they would peril their lives to prevent his being carried again across the frontiers, and surrendered to the vengeance of his angry master. Meantime there was some delay about legal forms, and the mayor and several of the inhabitants of the town united in a petition to the governor in his favour. In this petition it was expressly mentioned, that the master of the slave had been heard to avow that his intention was not to give the culprit up to justice, but to make what he called an _example_ of him. Now there had been lately some frightful instances of what the slave proprietors of the south called "making an example;" and the petitioners entreated the governor to interpose, and save the man from a torturing death "under the lash or at the stake." Probably the governor's own humane feelings pleaded even more strongly in behalf of the poor fellow. But it was a case in which he could not act from feeling, or, "to do a great right, do a little wrong." The law was too expressly and distinctly laid down, and his duty as governor was clear and imperative--to give up the felon, although, to have protected the slave, he would, if necessary, have armed the province. In the mean time the coloured people assembled from the adjacent villages, and among them a great number of their women. The conduct of this black mob, animated and even directed by the females, was really admirable for its good sense, forbearance, and resolution. They were quite unarmed, and declared their intention not to commit any violence against the English law. The culprit, they said, might lie in the jail, till they could raise among them the price of the horse; but if any attempt were made to take him from the prison, and send him across to Lewiston, they would resist it at the hazard of their lives. The fatal order _did_ at length come; the sheriff with a party of constables prepared to enforce it. The blacks, still unarmed, assembled round the jail, and waited till their comrade, or their brother as they called him, was brought out and placed handcuffed in a cart. They then threw themselves simultaneously on the sheriff's party, and a dreadful scuffle ensued; the artillery men from the little fort, our only military, were called in aid of the civil authorities, and ordered to fire on the assailants. Two blacks were killed, and two or three wounded. In the _melée_ the poor slave escaped, and has not since been retaken, neither was he, I believe, pursued. But it was the conduct of the women which, on this occasion, excited the strongest surprise and interest. By all those passionate and persuasive arguments that a woman knows so well how to use, whatever be her colour, country, or class, they had prevailed on their husbands, brothers, and lovers to use no arms, to do no illegal violence, but to lose their lives rather than see their comrade taken by force across the lines. They had been most active in the fray, throwing themselves fearlessly between the black men and the whites, who, of course, shrank from injuring them. One woman had seized the sheriff, and held him pinioned in her arms; another, on one of the artillery-men presenting his piece, and swearing that he would shoot her if she did not get out of his way, gave him only one glance of unutterable contempt, and with one hand knocking up his piece, and collaring him with the other, held him in such a manner as to prevent his firing. I was curious to see a mulatto woman who had been foremost in the fray, and whose intelligence and influence had mainly contributed to the success of her people; M----, under pretence of inquiring after a sick child, drove me round to the hovel in which she lived, outside the town. She came out to speak to us. She was a fine creature, apparently about five-and-twenty, with a kindly animated countenance; but the feelings of exasperation and indignation had evidently not yet subsided. She told us, in answer to my close questioning, that she had formerly been a slave in Virginia; that, so far from being ill treated, she had been regarded with especial kindness by the family on whose estate she was born. When she was about sixteen her master died, and it was said that all the slaves on the estate would be sold, and therefore she ran away. "Were you not attached to your mistress?" I asked. "Yes," said she, "I liked my mistress, but I did not like to be sold." I asked her if she was happy here in Canada? She hesitated a moment, and then replied, on my repeating the question, "Yes--that is, I _was_ happy here--but now--I don't know--I thought we were safe _here_--I thought nothing could touch us _here_, on your British ground, but it seems I was mistaken, and if so, I won't stay here--I won't--I won't! I'll go and find some country where they cannot reach us! I'll go to the end of the world, I will!" And as she spoke, her black eyes flashing, she extended her arms, and folded them across her bosom, with an attitude and expression of resolute dignity, which a painter might have studied; and truly the fairest white face I ever looked on never beamed with more of soul and high resolve than hers at that moment. [Footnote 5: Among the addresses presented to Sir Francis Head in 1836, was one from the coloured inhabitants of this part of the province, signed by four hundred and thirty-one individuals, most of them refugees from the United States, or their descendants.] * * * * * NIAGARA IN SUMMER. Between the town of Queenston and the cataract of Niagara lies the pretty little village of Stamford (close to Lundy Lane, the site of a famous battle in the last war), and celebrated for its fine air. Near it is a beautiful house with its domain, called Stamford Park, built and laid out by a former governor (Sir Peregrine Maitland). It is the only place I saw in Upper Canada combining our ideas of an elegant, well-furnished English villa and ornamented grounds, with some of the grandest and wildest features of the forest scene. It enchanted me altogether. From the lawn before the house, an open glade, commanding a park-like range of broken and undulating ground and wooded valleys, displayed beyond them the wide expanse of Lake Ontario, even the Toronto light-house, at a distance of thirty miles, being frequently visible to the naked eye. By the hostess of this charming seat I was conveyed in a light pony carriage to the hotel at the Falls, and left, with real kindness, to follow my own devices. The moment I was alone, I hurried down to the Table-rock. The body of water was more full and tremendous than in the winter. The spray rose, densely falling again in thick showers, and behind those rolling volumes of vapour the last gleams of the evening light shone in lurid brightness, amid amber and crimson clouds; on the other side, night was rapidly coming on, and all was black, impenetrable gloom, and "boundless contiguity of shade." It was very, very beautiful, and strangely awful too! For now it was late, and as I stood there, lost in a thousand reveries, there was no human being near, no light but that reflected from the leaping, whirling foam; and in spite of the deep-voiced continuous thunder of the cataract, there was such a stillness that I could hear my own heart's pulse throb--or did I mistake feeling for hearing?--so I strayed homewards, or housewards I should say, through the leafy, gloomy, pathways,--wet with the spray, and fairly tired out. * * * * * The good people, travellers, describers, poets, and others, who seem to have hunted through the dictionary for words in which to depict these cataracts under every aspect, have never said enough of the rapids above--even for which reason, perhaps, they have struck me the more; not that any words in any language would have prepared me for what I now feel in this wondrous scene. Standing to-day on the banks above the Crescent Fall, near Mr. Street's mill, gazing on the rapids, they left in my fancy two impressions which seldom meet together,--that of the sublime and terrible, and that of the elegant and graceful--like a tiger at play. I could not withdraw my eyes; it was like a fascination. The verge of the rapids is considerably above the eye; the whole mighty river comes rushing over the brow of a hill, and as you look up, it seems coming down to overwhelm you. Then meeting with the rocks, as it pours down the declivity, it boils and frets like the breakers of the ocean. Huge mounds of water, smooth, transparent, and gleaming like the emerald, or rather like the more delicate hue of the chrysopaz, rise up and bound over some unseen impediment, then break into silver foam, which leaps into the air in the most graceful fantastic forms; and so it rushes on, whirling, boiling, dancing, sparkling along, with a playful impatience, rather than overwhelming fury, rejoicing as if escaped from bondage, rather than raging in angry might,--wildly, magnificently beautiful! The idea, too, of the immediate danger, the consciousness that anything caught within its verge is inevitably hurried to a swift destination, swallowed up, annihilated, thrills the blood; the immensity of the picture, spreading a mile at least each way, and framed in by the interminable forests, adds to the feeling of grandeur; while the giddy, infinite motion of the headlong waters, dancing and leaping, and revelling and roaring, in their mad glee, gave me a sensation of rapturous terror, and at last caused a tension of the nerves in my head, which obliged me to turn away. The great ocean, when thus agitated by conflicting winds or opposing rocks, is a more tremendous thing, but it is merely tremendous,--it makes us think of our prayers; whereas, while I was looking on these rapids, beauty and terror, and power and joy, were blended, and so thoroughly, that even while I trembled and admired, I could have burst into a wild laugh, and joined the dancing billows in their glorious, fearful mirth,-- Leaping like Bacchanals from rock to rock, Flinging the frantic Thyrsus wild and high! I shall never see again, or feel again, aught like it--never! I did not think there was an object in nature, animate or inanimate, that could thus overset me! * * * * * To-day I accompanied the family of Colonel Delatre to the American side, and dined on Goat Island. Though the various views of the two cataracts be here wonderfully grand and beautiful, and the bridge across the rapids a sort of miracle, as they say, still it is not altogether to be compared to the Canadian shore for picturesque scenery. The Americans have disfigured their share of the rapids with mills and manufactories, and horrid red brick houses, and other unacceptable, unseasonable sights and signs of sordid industry. Worse than all is the round tower, which some profane wretch has erected on the Crescent Fall; it stands there so detestably impudent and _mal-à-propos_,--it is such a signal, yet puny monument of bad taste,--so miserably _mesquin_, and so presumptuous, that I do hope the violated majesty of nature will take the matter in hand, and overwhelm or cast it down the precipice one of these fine days, though indeed a barrel of gunpowder were a shorter if not a surer method. Can you not send us out some Guy Faux, heroically ready to be victimised in the great cause of insulted nature, and no less insulted art? But not to tire you with descriptions of precipices, caves, rocks, woods, and rushing waters, which I can buy here ready made for sixpence, I will only tell you that our party was very pleasant. The people who have spoken or written of these Falls of Niagara, have surely never done justice to their loveliness, their inexpressible, inconceivable beauty. The feeling of their beauty has become with me a deeper feeling than that of their sublimity. What a scene this evening! What splendour of colour! The emerald and chrysopaz of the transparent waters, the dazzling gleam of the foam, and the snow-white vapour, on which was displayed the most perfect and gigantic iris I ever beheld,--forming not a half, but at least two thirds of an entire circle, one extremity resting on the lesser (or American) Fall, the other in the very lap of the Crescent Fall, spanning perhaps half a mile, perfectly resplendent in hue--so gorgeous, so vivid, and yet so ethereally delicate, and apparently within a few feet of the eye; the vapours rising into the blue heavens at least four hundred feet, three times the height of the Falls, and tinted rose and amber with the evening sun; and over the woods around every possible variety of the richest foliage,--no, nothing was ever so transcendently lovely! The effect, too, was so grandly uniform in its eternal sound and movement: it was quite different from that of those wild, impatient, tumultuous rapids. It soothed, it melted, it composed, rather than excited. There are no water-fowl now as in the winter--when driven from the ice-bound shores and shallows of the lake, they came up here to seek their food, and sported and wheeled amid the showers of spray. They have returned to their old quiet haunts; sometimes I miss them: they were a beautiful variety in the picture. * * * * * BUFFALO. After an absence of a few days, during which there had raged a perpetual storm, I came back to the Clifton Hotel, to find my beautiful Falls quite spoiled and discoloured. Instead of the soft aquamarine hue, relieved with purest white, a dull dirty brown now imbued the waters. This is owing to the shallowness of Lake Erie, where every storm turns up the muddy bed from the bottom, and discolours the whole river. The spray, instead of hovering in light clouds round and above the cataracts, was beaten down, and rolled in volumes round their base; then by the gusty winds driven along the surface of the river hither and thither, covering everything in the neighbourhood with a small rain. I sat down to draw, and in a moment the paper was wet through. It is as if all had been metamorphosed during my absence--and I feel very disconsolate. The whole of this district between the two great lakes is superlatively beautiful, and was the first settled district in Upper Canada; it is now the best cultivated. The population is larger in proportion to its extent than that of any other district. In Niagara, and in the neighbouring district of Gore, many fruits come to perfection, which are not found to thrive in other parts of the province, and cargoes of fruit are sent yearly to the cities of Lower Canada, where the climate is much more severe and the winter longer than with us. On the other side the country is far less beautiful, and they say less fertile, but rich in activity and in population; and there are within the same space at least half a dozen flourishing towns. Our speculating energetic Yankee neighbours, not satisfied with their Manchester, their manufactories, and their furnaces, and their mill "privileges," have opened a railroad from Lewiston to Buffalo, thus connecting Lake Erie with the Erie Canal. On our side, we have the Welland Canal, a magnificent work, of which the province is justly proud; it unites Lake Erie with Lake Ontario. Yet from the Falls all along the shores of the Lake Erie to the Grand River and far beyond it, the only place we have approaching to a town is Chippewa, just above the rapids, as yet a small village, but lying immediately in the road from the Western States to the Falls. From Buffalo to this place the Americans run a steam-boat daily; they have also planned a suspension bridge across the Niagara river, between Lewiston and Queenston. Another village, Dunnville, on the Grand River, is likely to be the commercial depôt of that part of the province; it is situated where the Welland Canal joins Lake Erie. As the weather continued damp and gloomy, without hope of change, a sudden whim seized me to go to Buffalo for a day or two; so I crossed the turbulent ferry to Manchester, and thence an engine, snorting, shrieking like fifty tortured animals, conveyed us to Tonawando[6], once a little village of Seneca Indians, now rising into a town of some size and importance; and there to my great delight I encountered once more my new friends, Mr. and Mrs. MacMurray, who were on their return from Toronto to the Sault-Sainte-Marie. We proceeded on to Buffalo together, and during the rest of the day had some pleasant opportunities of improving our acquaintance. Buffalo, as all travel-books will tell you, is a very fine young city, about ten years old, and containing already about twenty thousand inhabitants. There is here the largest and most splendid hotel I have ever seen, except at Frankfort. Long rows of magnificent houses--not of painted wood, but of brick and stone--are rising on every side. The season is unusually dull and dead, and I hear nothing but complaints around me; but compared to our Canadian shore, all here is bustle, animation, activity. In the port I counted about fifty vessels, sloops, schooners and steam-boats; the crowds of people buying, selling, talking, bawling; the Indians lounging by in their blankets, the men looking so dark, and indifferent, and lazy; the women so busy, care-worn, and eager; and the numbers of sturdy children, squalling, frisking among the feet of busy sailors,--formed altogether a strange and amusing scene. On board the Michigan steamer, then lying ready for her voyage up the lakes to Chicago, I found all the arrangements magnificent to a degree I could not have anticipated. This is one of three great steam-boats navigating the Upper Lakes, which are from five to seven hundred tons burthen, and there are nearly forty smaller ones coasting Lake Erie, between Buffalo and Detroit, besides schooners. [Footnote 6: Near this place lived and died the chief Red-jacket, one of the last and greatest specimens of the Indian patriot and warrior.] * * * * * THE ENGLISH EMIGRANT. June 27. In a strange country much is to be learned by travelling in the public carriages: in Germany and elsewhere I have preferred this mode of conveyance, even when the alternative lay within my choice, and I never had reason to regret it. The Canadian stage-coaches[7] are like those of the United States, heavy lumbering vehicles, well calculated to live in roads where any decent carriage must needs founder. In one of these I embarked to return to the town of Niagara, thence to pursue my journey westward: a much easier and shorter course had been by the lake steamers; but my object was not haste, nor to see merely sky and water, but to see the country. In the stage-coach two persons were already seated--an English emigrant and his wife, with whom I quickly made acquaintance after my usual fashion. The circumstances and the story of this man I thought worth noting--not because there was anything uncommon or peculiarly interesting in his case, but simply because his case is that of so many others, while the direct good sense, honesty, and intelligence of the man pleased me exceedingly. He told me that he had come to America in his own behalf and that of several others of his own class--men who had each a large family and a small capital, who found it difficult to _get on_ and settle their children in England. In his own case, he had been some years ago the only one of his trade in a flourishing country town where he had now fourteen competitors. Six families, in a similar position, had delegated him on a voyage of discovery: it was left to him to decide whether they should settle in the United States or in the Canadas; so leaving his children at school in Long Island, "he was just," to use his own phrase, "taking a turn through the two countries, to look about him and gather information before he decided, and had brought his little wife to see the grand Falls of Niagara, of which he had heard so much in the old country." As we proceeded, my companion mingled with his acute questions, and his learned calculations on crops and prices of land, certain observations on the beauty of the scenery, and talked of lights and shades and foregrounds, and effects, in very homely, plebeian English, but with so much of real taste and feeling that I was rather astonished, till I found he had been a printseller and frame-maker, which last branch of trade had brought him into contact with artists and amateurs; and he told me, with no little exultation, that among his stock of moveables, he had brought out with him several fine drawings of Prout, Hunt, and even Turner, acquired in his business. He said he had no wish at present to part with these, for it was his intention, wherever he settled, to hang them up in his house, though that house were a log-hut, that his children might have the pleasure of looking at them, and learn to distinguish what is excellent in its kind. The next day, on going on from Niagara to Hamilton in a storm of rain, I found, to my no small gratification, the English emigrant and his quiet, silent little wife, already seated in the stage, and my only _compagnons de voyage_. In the deportment of this man there was that deferential courtesy which you see in the manners of respectable tradesmen, who are brought much into intercourse with their superiors in rank, without, however, a tinge of servility; and his conversation amused and interested me more and more. He told me he had been born on a farm, and had first worked as a farmer's boy, then as a house-carpenter, lastly, as a decorative carver and gilder, so that there was no kind of business to which he could not readily turn his hand. His wife was a good sempstress, and he had brought up all his six children to be useful, giving them such opportunities of acquiring knowledge as he could. He regretted his own ignorance, but, as he said, he had been all his life too busy to find time for reading much. He was, however, resolved that his boys and girls should read, because, as he well observed, "every sort of knowledge, be it much or little, was sure to turn to account, some time or other." His notions on education, his objections to the common routine of common schools, and his views for his children, were all marked by the same originality and good sense. Altogether he appeared to be, in every respect, just the kind of settler we want in Upper Canada. I was therefore pleased to hear that hitherto he was better satisfied with the little he had seen of this province than with those States of the Union through which he had journeyed; he said truly, it was more "home-like, more English-like." I did my best to encourage him in this favourable opinion, promising myself that the little I might be able to do to promote his views, that I _would_ do. [Footnote 7: That is, the better class of them. In some parts of Upper Canada, the stage-coaches conveying the mail were large oblong wooden boxes, formed of a few planks nailed together and placed on wheels, into which you entered by the windows, there being no doors to open and shut, and no springs. Two or three seats were suspended inside on leather straps. The travellers provided their own buffalo-skins or cushions to sit on.] THE DRUNKARD. While the conversation was thus kept up with wonderful pertinacity, considering that our vehicle was reeling and tumbling along the detestable road, pitching like a scow among the breakers in a lake-storm, our driver stopped before a vile little log-hut, over the door of which hung, crooked-wise, a board, setting forth that "wiskey and tabacky" were to be had there. The windows were broken, and the loud voice of some intoxicated wretch was heard from within, in one uninterrupted, torrent of oaths and blasphemies, so shocking in their variety, and so new to my ears, that I was really horror-struck. After leaving the hut, the coach stopped again. I called to the driver in some terror, "You are not surely going to admit that drunken man into the coach?" He replied coolly, "O no, I an't; don't you be afeard!" In the next moment he opened the door, and the very wretch I stood in fear of was tumbled in head foremost, smelling of spirits, and looking--O most horrible! Expostulation was in vain. Without even listening, the driver shut the door, and drove on at a gallop. The rain was at this time falling in torrents, the road knee-deep in mud, the wild forest on either side of us dark, grim, impenetrable. Help there was none, nor remedy, nor redress, nor hope, but in patience. Here then was one of those inflictions to which speculative travellers are exposed now and then, appearing, _for the time_, to outweigh all the possible advantages of experience or knowledge bought at such a price. I had never before in my whole life been obliged to endure the presence or proximity of such an object for two minutes together, and the astonishment, horror, disgust, even to sickness and loathing, which it now inspired, are really unspeakable. The Englishman placing himself in the middle seat, in front of his wife and myself, did his best to protect us from all possibility of contact with the object of our abomination; while the wretched being, aware of our adverse feeling, put on at one moment an air of chuckling self-complacency, and the next glared on us with ferocious defiance. When I had recovered myself sufficiently to observe, I could see that the man was not more than five-and-twenty, probably much younger, with a face and figure which must have been by nature not only fine, but uncommonly fine, though now deformed, degraded, haggard with filth and inflamed with inebriety--a dreadful and humiliating spectacle. Some glimmering remains of sense and decency prevented him from swearing and blaspheming when once in the coach; but he abused us horribly: his nasal accent, and his drunken objurgations against the old country, and all who came from it, betrayed his own birth and breeding to have been on the other side of the Niagara, or "down east." Once he addressed some words to me, and, offended by my resolute silence, he exclaimed with a scowl, and a hiccup of abomination at every word, "I should like--to know--madam--how--I came under your diabolical influence?" Here my friend the emigrant, seeing my alarm, interposed, and a scene ensued, which, in spite of the horrors of this horrible propinquity, was irresistibly comic, and not without its pathetic significance too, now I think of it. The Englishman, forgetting that the condition of the man placed him for the time beyond the influence of reasoning or sympathy, began with grave and benevolent earnestness to lecture him on his profligate habits, expressing his amazement and his pity at seeing such a fine young man fallen into such evil ways, and exhorting him to amend,--the fellow, meanwhile, rolling himself from side to side with laughter. But suddenly his countenance changed, and he said, with a wistful expression, and the tears in his eyes, "Friend, do you believe in the devil?" "Yes, I do," replied the Englishman with solemnity. "Then it's your opinion, I guess, that a man may be tempted by the devil?" "Yes, and I should suppose as how that has been your case, friend; though," added he, looking at him from head to foot with no equivocal expression, "I think the devil himself might have more charity than to put a man in such a pickle." "What do you mean by that?" exclaimed the wretch fiercely, and for the first time uttering a horrid oath. The emigrant only replied by shaking his head significantly; and the other, after pouring forth a volley of abuse against the insolence of the "old country folk," stretched himself on his back, and kicking up his legs on high, and setting his feet against the roof of the Coach, fell asleep in this attitude, and snored, till, at the end of a long hour, he was tumbled out at the door of another drinking hovel as he had tumbled in, and we saw him no more. HAMILTON. The distance from the town of Niagara to Hamilton is about forty miles. We had left the former place at ten in the morning, yet it was nearly midnight before we arrived, having had no refreshment during the whole day. It was market-day, and the time of the assizes, and not a bed to be had at the only tolerable hotel, which, I should add, is large and commodious. The people were civil beyond measure, and a bed was made up for me in a back parlour, into which I sank half starved, and very completely tired. The next day rose bright and beautiful, and I amused myself walking up and down the pretty town for two or three hours. Hamilton is the capital of the Gore district, and one of the most flourishing places in Upper Canada. It is situated at the extreme point of Burlington Bay, at the head of Lake Ontario, with a population, annually increasing, of about three thousand. The town is about a mile from the lake shore, a space which, in the course of time, will probably be covered with buildings. I understand that seventeen thousand bushels of wheat were shipped here in one month. There is a bank here; a court-house and jail looking unfinished, and the commencement of a public reading-room and literary society, of which I cannot speak from my own knowledge, and which appears as yet in embryo. Some of the linendrapers' shops, called here clothing stores, and the grocery stores, or shops for all descriptions of imported merchandise, made a very good appearance; and there was an air of business, and bustle, and animation about the place, which pleased me. I saw no bookseller's shop, but a few books on the shelves of a grocery store, of the most common and coarse description. I should not forget to mention, that in the Niagara and Gore districts there is a vast number of Dutch and German settlers, favourably distinguished by their industrious, sober, and thriving habits. They are always to be distinguished in person and dress from the British settlers; and their houses and churches, and, above all, their burial-places, have a distinct and characteristic look. At Berlin, the Germans have a printing-press, and publish a newspaper in their own language, which is circulated among their countrymen through the whole province. At Hamilton I hired a light _wagon_, as they call it, a sort of gig perched in the middle of a wooden tray, wherein my baggage was stowed; and a man to drive me over to Brandtford, the distance being about five-and-twenty miles, and the charge five dollars. The country all the way was rich, and beautiful, and fertile beyond description--the roads abominable as could be imagined to exist. So I then thought, but have learned since that there are degrees of badness in this respect, to which the human imagination has not yet descended. I remember a space of about three miles on this road, bordered entirely on each side by dead trees, which had been artificially blasted by fire, or by girdling. It was a ghastly forest of tall white spectres, strangely contrasting with the glowing luxurious foliage all around. The pity I have for the trees in Canada, shows how far I am yet from being a true Canadian. How do we know that trees do not feel their downfall? We know nothing about it. The line which divides animal from vegetable sensibility is as undefined as the line which divides animal from human intelligence. And if it be true "that nothing dies on earth but nature mourns," how must she mourn for these the mighty children of her bosom--her pride, her glory, her garment? Without exactly believing the assertion of the old philosopher, quoted by Evelyn, that a tree _feels_ the first stroke of the axe, I know I never witness nor hear the first stroke without a shudder; and as yet I cannot look on with indifference, far less share the Canadian's exultation, when these huge oaks, these umbrageous elms and stately pines, are lying prostrate, lopped of all their honours, and piled in heaps with the brushwood, to be fired,--or burned down to a charred and blackened fragment,--or standing, leafless, sapless, seared, ghastly, having been "girdled," and left to perish. The "Fool i' the Forest" moralised not more quaintly over the wounded deer, than I could sometimes over those prostrate and mangled trees. I remember, in one of the clearings to-day, one particular tree which had been burned and blasted; only a blackened stump of mouldering bark--a mere shell remained; and from the centre of this, as from some hidden source of vitality, sprang up a young green shoot, tall and flourishing, and fresh and leafy. I looked and thought of hope! Why, indeed, should we ever despair? Can Heaven do for the blasted tree what it cannot do for the human heart? The largest place we passed was Ancaster, very prettily situated among pastures and rich woods, and rapidly improving. Before sunset I arrived at Brandtford, and took a walk about the town and its environs. The situation of this place is most beautiful--on a hill above the left bank of the Grand River. And as I stood and traced this noble stream, winding through richly-wooded flats, with green meadows and cultivated fields, I was involuntarily reminded of the Thames near Richmond; the scenery has the same character of tranquil and luxuriant beauty. In Canada the traveller can enjoy little of the interest derived from association, either historical or poetical. Yet the memory of General Brock, and some anecdotes of the last war, lend something of this kind of interest to the Niagara frontier; and this place, or rather the name of this place, has certain recollections connected with it, which might well make an idle contemplative wayfarer a little pensive. THE CHIEF BRANDT. Brandt was the chief of that band of Mohawk warriors which served on the British side during the American War of Independence. After the termination of the contest, the "Six Nations" left their ancient seats to the south of Lake Ontario, and having received from the English Government a grant of land along the banks of the Grand River, and the adjacent shore of Lake Erie, they settled here under their chief, Brandt, in 1783. Great part of this land, some of the finest in the province, has lately been purchased back from them by the Government and settled by thriving English farmers. Brandt, who had intelligence enough to perceive and acknowledge the superiority of the whites in all the arts of life, was at first anxious for the conversion and civilisation of his nation; but I was told by a gentleman who had known him, that after a visit he paid to England, this wish no longer existed. He returned to his own people with no very sublime idea either of our morals or manners, and died in 1807. He is the Brandt whom Campbell has handed down to most undeserved execration as the leader in the massacre at Wyoming. The poet indeed tells us, in the notes to Gertrude of Wyoming, that all he has said against Brandt must be considered as pure fiction, "for that he was remarkable for his humanity, and not even present at the massacre;" but the name stands in the text as heretofore, apostrophised as the "accursed Brandt," the "monster Brandt;" and is not this most unfair, to be hitched into elegant and popular rhyme as an assassin by wholesale, and justice done in a little fag-end of prose? His son, John Brandt, received a good education, and was member of the house of assembly for his district. He too died in a short time before my arrival in this country; and the son of his sister, Mrs. Kerr, is at present the hereditary chief of the Six Nations. They consist at present of two thousand five hundred, out of the seven or eight thousand who first settled here. Here, as everywhere else, the decrease of the Indian population settled on the reserved lands is uniform. The white population throughout America is supposed to double itself on an average in twenty-three years; in about the same proportion do the Indians perish before them. The interests and property of these Indians are at present managed by the Government. The revenue arising from the sale of their lands is in the hands of commissioners, and much is done for their conversion and civilisation. It will, however, be the affair of two, or three, or more generations; and by that time not many, I am afraid, will be left. Consumption makes dreadful havoc among them. At present they have churches, schools, and an able missionary who has studied their language, besides several resident Methodist preachers. Of the two thousand five hundred already mentioned, the far greater part retain their old faith and customs, having borrowed from the whites only those habits which certainly "were more honoured in the breach than in the observance." I saw many of these people, and spoke to some, who replied with a quiet, self-possessed courtesy, and in very intelligible English. One group which I met outside the town, consisting of two young men in blanket coats and leggings, one haggard old woman, with a man's hat on her head, a blue blanket and deer-skin moccasins, and a very beautiful girl, apparently not more than fifteen, similarly dressed, with long black hair hanging loose over her face and shoulders, and a little baby, many shades fairer than herself, peeping from the folds of her blanket behind,--altogether reminded me of a group of gipsies, such as I have seen on the borders of Sherwood Forest many years ago. BRANDTFORD. The Grand River is navigable for steam-boats from Lake Erie up to the landing-place, about two miles below Brandtford, and from thence a canal is to be cut, some time or other, to the town. The present site of Brandtford was chosen on account of those very rapids which do indeed obstruct the navigation, but turn a number of mills, here of the first importance. The usual progress of a Canadian village is this: first, on some running stream, the erection of a saw-mill and grist-mill for the convenience of the neighbouring scattered settlers; then a few shanties or log-houses for the work-people; then a grocery-store; then a tavern--a chapel--perchance a school-house. Not having been properly forewarned, I unfortunately allowed the driver to take me to a wrong inn. I ought to have put up at the Mansion-house, well kept by a retired half-pay British officer; instead of which I was brought to the Commercial Hotel, newly undertaken by an American. I sent to the landlord to say I wished to speak to him about proceeding on my journey next day. The next moment the man walked into my bed-room without hesitation or apology. I was too much accustomed to foreign manners to be greatly discomfited; but when he proceeded to fling his hat down on my bed, and throw himself into the only arm-chair in the room, while I was standing, I must own I did look at him with some surprise. To those who have been accustomed to the almost servile courtesy of English innkeepers, the manners of the innkeepers in the United States are not pleasant. I cannot say they ever discomposed me: I always met with civility and attention; but the manners of the country innkeepers in Canada are worse than anything you can meet with in the United States, being generally kept by refugee Americans of the lowest class, or by Canadians who, in affecting American manners and phraseology, grossly exaggerate both. In the present case I saw at once that no incivility was intended; my landlord was ready at a fair price to drive me over himself, in his own "wagon," to Woodstock; and after this was settled, finding, after a few questions, that the man was really a most stupid, ignorant fellow, I turned to the window, and took up a book, as a hint for him to be gone. He continued, however, to lounge in the chair, rocking himself in silence to and fro, till at last he _did_ condescend to take my hint, and to take his departure. * * * * * At ten o'clock next morning, a little vehicle, like that which brought me from Hamilton, was at the door; and I set off for Woodstock, driven by my American landlord, who showed himself as good-natured and civil as he was impenetrably stupid. No one who has a single atom of imagination, can travel through these forest roads of Canada without being strongly impressed and excited. The seemingly interminable line of trees before you; the boundless wilderness around; the mysterious depths amid the multitudinous foliage, where foot of man hath never penetrated,--and which partial gleams of the noontide sun, now seen, now lost, lit up with a changeful magical beauty,--the wondrous splendour and novelty of the flowers,--the silence, unbroken but by the low cry of a bird, or hum of insect, or the splash and croak of some huge bull-frog,--the solitude in which we proceeded mile after mile, no human being, no human dwelling within sight,--are all either exciting to the fancy, or oppressive to the spirits, according to the mood one may be in. * * * * * DRIVE TO WOODSTOCK. I observed some birds of a species new to me; there was the lovely blue-bird, with its brilliant violet plumage; and a most gorgeous species of woodpecker, with a black head, white breast, and back and wings of the brightest scarlet; hence it is called by some the field-officer, and more generally the cock of the woods. I should have called it the coxcomb of the woods, for it came flitting across our road, clinging to the trees before us, and remaining pertinaciously in sight, as if conscious of its own splendid array, and pleased to be admired. There was also the Canadian robin, a bird as large as a thrush, but in plumage and shape resembling the sweet bird at home "that wears the scarlet stomacher." There were great numbers of small birds of a bright yellow, like canaries, and I believe of the same genus. Sometimes, when I looked up from the depth of foliage to the blue firmament above, I saw an eagle sailing through the air on apparently motionless wings. Nor let me forget the splendour of the flowers which carpeted the woods on either side. I might have exclaimed with Eichendorff, "O Welt! Du schöne welt, Du! Mann sieht Dich vor Blümen kaum!" for thus in some places did a rich embroidered pall of flowers literally _hide_ the earth. There those beautiful plants, which we cultivate with such care in our gardens, azalias, rhododendrons, all the gorgeous family of the lobelia, were flourishing in wild luxuriance. Festoons of creeping and parasitical plants hung from branch to branch. The purple and scarlet iris, blue larkspur, and the elegant Canadian columbine with its bright pink flowers; the scarlet lychnis, a species of orchis of the most dazzling geranium-colour, and the white, and yellow, and purple cyprepedium[8], bordered the path, and a thousand others of most resplendent hues, for which I knew no names. I could not pass them with forbearance, and my Yankee driver, alighting, gathered for me a superb bouquet from the swampy margin of the forest. I contrived to fasten my flowers in a wreath along the front of the wagon, that I might enjoy at leisure their novelty and beauty. How lavish, how carelessly profuse, is Nature in her handiwork! In the interior of the cyprepedium, which I tore open, there was variety of configuration and colour, and gem-like richness of ornament, enough to fashion twenty different flowers; and for the little fly, in jewelled cuirass, which I found couched within its recesses--what a palace! that of Aladdin could not have been more splendid! From Brandtford we came to Paris, a new settlement, beautifully situated, and thence to Woodstock, a distance of eighteen miles. There is no village, only isolated inns, far removed from each other. In one of these, kept by a Frenchman, I dined on milk and eggs and excellent bread. Here I found every appearance of prosperity and plenty. The landlady, an American woman, told me they had come into this wilderness twenty years ago, when there was not another farmhouse within fifty miles. She had brought up and settled in comfort several sons and daughters. An Irish farmer came in, who had refreshments spread for him in the porch, and with whom I had some amusing conversation. He, too, was prospering with a large farm and a large family--here a blessing and a means of wealth, too often in the old country a curse and a burden. The good-natured fellow was extremely scandalised by my homely and temperate fare, which he besought me to mend by accepting a glass of whisky out of his own travelling-store, genuine potheen, which he swore deeply, and not unpoetically, "had never seen God's beautiful world, nor the blessed light of day, since it had been bottled in ould Ireland." He told me, boastingly, that at Hamilton he had made eight hundred dollars by the present extraordinary rise in the price of wheat. In the early part of the year wheat had been selling for three or four dollars a bushel, and rose this summer to twelve and fourteen dollars a bushel, owing to the immense quantities exported during the winter to the back settlements of Michigan and the Illinois. [Footnote 8: From its resemblance in form to a shoe, this splendid flower bears every where the same name. The English call it lady's-slipper; the Indians know it as the moccasin flower.] ROADS IN CANADA. The whole drive would have been productive of unmixed enjoyment, but for one almost intolerable drawback. The roads were throughout so execrably bad, that no words can give you an idea of them. We often sank into mud-holes above the axletree; then, over trunks of trees laid across swamps, called here corduroy roads, were my poor bones dislocated. A wheel here and there, or broken shaft lying by the way-side, told of former wrecks and disasters. In some places they had, in desperation, flung huge boughs of oak into the mud abyss, and covered them with clay and sod, the rich green foliage projecting on either side. This sort of illusive contrivance would sometimes give way, and we were nearly precipitated into the midst. By the time we arrived at Blandford, my hands were swelled and blistered by continually grasping with all my strength an iron bar in front of my vehicle, to prevent myself from being flung out, and my limbs ached wofully. I never beheld or imagined such roads. It is clear that the people do not apply any, even the commonest, principles of roadmaking; no drains are cut, no attempt is made at levelling or preparing a foundation. The settlers around are too much engrossed by the necessary toil for a daily subsistence to give a moment of their time to road-making, without compulsion or good payment. The statute labour does not appear to be duly enforced by the commissioners and magistrates, and there are no labourers, and no spare money: specie, never very plentiful in these parts, is not to be had at present, and the 500,000_l_. voted during the last session of the provincial parliament for the repair of the roads is not yet even raised, I believe. Nor is this all: the vile state of the roads, the very little communication between places not far distant from each other, leave it in the power of ill-disposed persons to sow mischief among the ignorant, isolated people. On emerging from a forest road seven miles in length, we stopped at a little inn to refresh the poor jaded horses. Several labourers were lounging about the door, and I spoke to them of the horrible state of the roads. They agreed, one and all, that it was entirely the fault of the Government; that their welfare was not cared for; that it was true that money had been voted for the roads, but that before anything could be done, or a shilling of it expended, it was always necessary to write to the old country to ask the king's permission--which might be sent or not--who could tell? And meantime they were ruined for want of roads, which it was nobody's business to reclaim. It was in vain that I attempted to point out to the orator of the party the falsehood and absurdity of this notion. He only shook his head, and said he knew better. One man observed, that as the team of Admiral Vansittart (one of the largest proprietors in the district) had lately broken down in a mud-hole, there was some hope that the roads about here might be looked to. About sunset I arrived at Blandford, dreadfully weary, and fevered, and bruised, having been more than nine hours travelling twenty-five miles; and I must needs own that not all my _savoir faire_ could prevent me from feeling rather dejected and shy, as I drove up to the residence of a gentleman, to whom, indeed, I had not a letter, but whose family, as I had been assured, were prepared to receive me. It was rather formidable to arrive thus, at fall of night, a wayfaring lonely woman, spiritless, half-dead with fatigue, among entire strangers; but my reception set me at ease in a moment. The words "We have been long expecting you!" uttered in a kind, cordial voice, sounded "like sweetest music to attending ears." A handsome, elegant-looking woman, blending French ease and politeness with English cordiality, and a whole brood of lively children of all sizes and ages, stood beneath the porch to welcome me with smiles and outstretched hands. Can you imagine my bliss, my gratitude?--no!--impossible, unless you had travelled for three days through the wilds of Canada. In a few hours I felt quite at home, and my day of rest was insensibly prolonged to a week, spent with this amiable and interesting family--a week, ever while I live, to be remembered with pleasurable and grateful feelings. WOODSTOCK. The region of Canada in which I now find myself, is called the London District; you will see its situation at once by a glance on the map. It lies between the Gore District and the Western District, having to the south a large extent of the coast of Lake Erie; and on the north the Indian territories, and part of the southern shore of Lake Huron. It is watered by rivers flowing into both lakes, but chiefly by the river Thames, which is here (about one hundred miles from its mouth) a small but most beautiful stream, winding like the Isis at Oxford. Woodstock, the nearest _village_, as I suppose I must in modesty call it, is fast rising into an important town, and the whole district is, for its scenery, fertility, and advantages of every kind, perhaps the finest in Upper Canada.[9] The society in this immediate neighbourhood is particularly good; several gentlemen of family, superior education, and large capital, (among whom is the brother of an English and the son of an Irish peer, a colonel and a major in the army,) have made very extensive purchases of land, and their estates are in flourishing progress. One day we drove over to the settlement of one of these magnificos, Admiral Vansittart, who has already expended upwards of twenty thousand pounds in purchases and improvements. His house is really a curiosity, and at the first glance reminded me of an African village--a sort of Timbuctoo set down in the woods; it is two or three miles from the high road, in the midst of the forest, and looked as if a number of log-huts had jostled against each other by accident, and there stuck fast. The admiral had begun, I imagine, by erecting, as is usual, a log-house, while the woods were clearing; then, being in want of space, he added another, then another and another, and so on, all of different shapes and sizes, and full of a seaman's contrivances--odd galleries, passages, porticos, corridors, saloons, cabins and cupboards; so that if the outside reminded me of an African village, the interior was no less like that of a man-of-war. The drawing-room, which occupies an entire building, is really a noble room, with a chimney in which they pile twenty oak logs at once. Around this room runs a gallery, well lighted with windows from without, through which there is a constant circulation of air, keeping the room warm in winter and cool in summer. The admiral has, besides, so many ingenious and inexplicable contrivances for warming and airing his house, that no insurance office will insure him upon any terms. Altogether it was the most strangely picturesque sort of dwelling I ever beheld. The admiral's sister, an accomplished woman of independent fortune, has lately arrived from Europe, to take up her residence in the wilds. Having recently spent some years in Italy, she has brought out with her all those pretty objects of _virtù_, with which English travellers load themselves in that country. Here, ranged round the room, I found views of Rome and Naples; tazzi, and marbles, and sculpture in lava, or alabaster; miniature copies of the eternal Sibyl and Cenci, Raphael's Vatican, &c.--things not wonderful nor rare in themselves--the wonder was to see them here. The woods are yet close up to the house; but there is a fine well-cultivated garden, and the process of clearing and log-burning proceeds all around with great animation. On Sunday we attended the pretty little church at Woodstock, which was filled by the neighbouring settlers of all classes: the service was well read, and the hymns were sung by the ladies of the congregation. The sermon, which treated of some abstract and speculative point of theology, seemed to me not well adapted to the sort of congregation assembled. The situation of those who had here met together to seek a new existence in a new world, might have afforded topics of instruction, praise, and gratitude, far more practical, more congenial, more intelligible, than a mere controversial essay on a disputed text, which elicited no remark nor sympathy that I could perceive. After the service, the congregation remained some time assembled before the church-door, in various and interesting groups--the well-dressed families of settlers who had come from many miles' distance in vehicles well suited to the roads--that is to say, carts, or as they call them here teams or wagons; the belles and the beaux of "the Bush," in Sunday trim--and innumerable children. Many were the greetings and inquiries; the news and gossip of all the neighbourhood had to be exchanged. The conversation among the ladies was of marriages and births--lamentations on the want of servants, and the state of the roads--the last arrival of letters from England--and speculations upon the character of a new neighbour come to settle in the Bush: Among the gentlemen, it was of crops and clearings, lumber, price of wheat, road-mending, deer-shooting, log-burning, and so forth--subjects in which I felt a lively interest and curiosity; and if I could not take a very brilliant and prominent part in the discourse, I could at least listen, like the Irish corn-field, "with all my ears." I think it was this day at dinner that a gentleman described to me a family of Mohawk Indians, consisting of seven individuals, who had encamped upon some of his uncleared land in two wigwams. They had made their first appearance in the early spring, and had since subsisted by hunting, selling their venison for whisky or tobacco; their appearance and situation were, he said, most wretched, and their indolence extreme. Within three months, five out of the seven were dead of consumption; two only were left--languid, squalid, helpless, hopeless, heartless. [Footnote 9: The average produce of an acre of land is greater throughout Canada than in England. In these western districts greater than in the rest of Canada.] * * * * * BLANDFORD. After several pleasant and interesting visits to the neighbouring settlers, I took leave of my hospitable friends at Blandford with deep and real regret; and, in the best and only vehicle which could be procured--videlicet, a baker's cart--set out for London, the chief town of the district; the distance being about thirty miles--a long day's journey; the cost seven dollars. The man who drove me proved a very intelligent and civilised person. He had come out to Canada in the capacity of a gentleman's servant; he now owned some land--I forget how many acres--and was besides baker-general for a large neighbourhood, rarely receiving money in pay, but wheat, and other farm produce. He had served as constable of the district for two years, and gave me some interesting accounts of his thief-taking expeditions through the wild forests in the deep winter nights. He considered himself, on the whole, a prosperous man. He said he should be quite happy here, were it not for his wife, who fretted and pined continually after her "home." The case of this poor fellow with his discontented wife is of no unfrequent occurrence in Canada; and among the better class of settlers the matter is worse still, the suffering more acute, and of graver consequences. I have not often in my life met with contented and cheerful-minded women, but I never met with so many repining and discontented women as in Canada. I never met with _one_ woman recently settled here, who considered herself happy in her new home and country: I _heard_ of one, and doubtless there are others, but they are exceptions to the general rule. Those born here, or brought here early by their parents and relations, seemed to me very happy, and many of them had adopted a sort of pride in their new country, which I liked much. There was always a great desire to visit England, and some little airs of self-complacency and superiority in those who had been there, though for a few months only; but all, without a single exception, returned with pleasure, unable to forego the early habitual influences of their native land. I like patriotism and nationality in women. Among the German women both these feelings give a strong tincture to the character; and, seldom disunited, they blend with peculiar grace in our sex: but with a great statesman they should stand well distinguished. Nationality is not always patriotism, and patriotism is not, necessarily, nationality. The English are more patriotic than national; the Americans generally more national than patriotic; the Germans both national and patriotic. I have observed that really accomplished women, accustomed to what is called the best society, have more resources here, and manage better, than some women who have no pretensions of any kind, and whose claims to social distinction could not have been great anywhere, but whom I found lamenting over themselves as if they had been so many exiled princesses. Imagine the position of a fretful, frivolous woman, strong neither in mind nor frame, abandoned to her own resources in the wilds of Upper Canada! No--nothing can be imagined so pitiable, so ridiculous, and, to borrow the Canadian word, "so shiftless." My new friend and kind hostess was a being of quite a different stamp; and though I believe she was far from thinking that she had found in Canada a terrestrial paradise, and the want of servants and the difficulty of educating her family as she wished, were subjects of great annoyance to her; yet these and other evils she had met with a cheerful spirit. Here, amid these forest wilds, she had recently given birth to a lovely baby, the tenth, or indeed I believe the twelfth, of a flock of manly boys and blooming girls. Her eldest daughter mean time, a fair and elegant girl, was acquiring, at the age of fifteen, qualities and habits which might well make ample amends for the possession of mere accomplishments. She acted as manager in chief, and glided about in her household avocations with a serene and quiet grace which was quite charming. OXFORD. The road, after leaving Woodstock, pursued the course of the winding Thames. We passed by the house of Colonel Light, in a situation of superlative natural beauty on a rising ground above the river. A lawn, tolerably cleared, sloped down to the margin, while the opposite shore rose clothed in varied woods, which had been managed with great taste, and a feeling for the picturesque not common here; but the Colonel being himself an accomplished artist accounts for this. We also passed Beechville, a small but beautiful village, round which the soil is reckoned very fine and fertile; a number of most respectable settlers have recently bought land and erected houses here. The next place we came to was Oxford, or rather Ingersol, where we stopped to dine and rest previous to plunging into an extensive forest called the Pine Woods. Oxford is a little village, presenting the usual saw-mill, grocery-store and tavern, with a dozen shanties congregated on the bank of the stream, which is here rapid and confined by high banks. Two back-woodsmen were in deep consultation over a wagon which had broken down in the midst of that very forest road we were about to traverse, and which they described as most execrable--in some parts even dangerous. As it was necessary to gird up my strength for the undertaking, I laid in a good dinner, consisting of slices of dried venison, broiled, hot cakes of Indian corn, eggs, butter, and a bowl of milk. Of this good fare I partook in company with the two back-woodsmen, who appeared to me perfect specimens of their class--tall and strong, and bronzed and brawny, and shaggy and unshaven--very much like two bears set on their hind legs; rude, but not uncivil, and spare of speech, as men who had lived long at a distance from their kind. They were too busy, however, and so was I, to feel or express any mutual curiosity. Time was valuable, appetite urgent; so we discussed our venison steaks in silence, and after dinner I proceeded. The forest land through which I had lately passed was principally covered with _hard timber_, as oak, walnut, elm, basswood. We were now in a forest of pines, rising tall and dark, and monotonous on either side. The road, worse certainly "than fancy ever feigned or fear conceived," put my neck in perpetual jeopardy. The driver had often to dismount and partly fill up some tremendous hole with boughs before we could pass, or drag or lift the wagon over trunks of trees; or we sometimes sank into abysses from which it is a wonder to me that we _ever_ emerged. A natural question were--why did you not get out and walk?--Yes indeed! I only wish it had been possible. Immediately on the border of the road, so called, was the wild, tangled, untrodden thicket, as impervious to the foot as the road was impassable, rich with vegetation, variegated verdure, and flowers of loveliest dye, but the haunt of the rattlesnake, and all manner of living and creeping things not pleasant to encounter, or even to think of. The mosquitos, too, began to be troublesome; but not being yet in full force, I contrived to defend myself pretty well, by waving a green branch before me whenever my two hands were not employed in forcible endeavours to keep my seat. These seven miles of pine forest we traversed in three hours and a half; and then succeeded some miles of open flat country called the Oak Plains, and so called because covered with thickets and groups of oak dispersed with a park-like and beautiful effect; and still flowers, flowers everywhere. The soil appeared sandy, and not so rich as in other parts. The road was comparatively good; and as we approached London, clearings and new settlements appeared on every side. The sun had set amid a tumultuous mass of lurid threatening clouds, and a tempest was brooding in the air, when I reached the town, and found very tolerable accommodations in the principal inn. I was so terribly bruised and beaten with fatigue, that to move was impossible, and even to speak too great an effort. I cast my weary aching limbs upon the bed, and requested of the very civil and obliging young lady who attended to bring me some books and newspapers. She brought me thereupon an old compendium of geography, published at Philadelphia forty years ago, and three old newspapers. * * * * * LONDON. July 5. The next morning the weather continued very lowering and stormy. I received several visitors, who, hearing of my arrival, had come with kind offers of hospitality and attention, such as are most grateful to a solitary stranger. I had also much conversation relative to the place and people, and the settlements around; and then I took a long walk about the town, of which I here give you the results. When Governor Simcoe was planning the foundation of a capital for the whole province, he fixed at first upon the present site of London, struck by its many and obvious advantages. Its central position in the midst of these great lakes, being at an equal distance from Huron, Erie, and Ontario, in the finest and most fertile district of the whole province, on the bank of a beautiful stream, and at a safe distance from the frontier, all pointed it out as the most eligible site for a metropolis; but there was the want of land and water communication--a want which still remains the only drawback to its rising prosperity. A canal or railroad, running from Toronto and Hamilton to London, then branching off on the right to the harbour of Goderich on Lake Huron, and on the left to Sandwich on Lake Erie, were a glorious thing!--the one thing needful to make this fine country the granary and storehouse of the west; for here all grain, all fruits which flourish in the south of Europe, might be cultivated with success--the finest wheat and rice, and hemp and flax, and tobacco. Yet, in spite of this want, soon, I trust, to be supplied, the town of London has sprung up and become within ten years a place of great importance. In size and population it exceeds every town I have yet visited, except Toronto and Hamilton. The first house was erected in 1827; now, that is in 1837, it contains more than two hundred frame or brick houses; and there are many more building. The population may be about thirteen hundred people. The jail and court-house, comprised in one large stately edifice, seemed the glory of the townspeople. As for the style of architecture, I may not attempt to name or describe it; but a gentleman informed me, in rather equivocal phrase, that it was "_somewhat Gothic_." There are five places of worship, for the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Roman Catholics, and Baptists. The church is handsome. There are also three or four schools, and seven taverns. The Thames is very beautiful here, and navigable for boats and barges. I saw to-day a large timber raft floating down the stream, containing many thousand feet of timber. On the whole, I have nowhere seen such evident signs of progress and prosperity. The population consists principally of artisans--as blacksmiths, carpenters, builders, all flourishing. There is, I fear, a good deal of drunkenness and profligacy; for though the people have work and wealth, they have neither education nor amusements. Besides the seven taverns, there is a number of little grocery stores, which are, in fact, drinking houses. And though a law exists, which forbids the sale of spirituous liquors in small quantities by any but licensed publicans, they easily contrive to elude the law; as thus:--a customer enters the shop, and asks for two or three pennyworth of nuts, or cakes, and he receives a few nuts, and a large glass of whisky. The whisky, you observe, is given, not sold, and no one can swear to the contrary. In the same manner, the severe law against selling intoxicating liquors to the poor Indians is continually eluded or violated, and there is no redress for the injured, no punishment to reach the guilty. It appears to me that the Government should be more careful in the choice of the district-magistrates. While I was in London, a person who acted in this capacity was carried from the pavement dead drunk. WOMEN IN CANADA. Here, as everywhere else, I find the women of the better class lamenting over the want of all society, except of the lowest grade in manners and morals. For those who have recently emigrated, and are settled more in the interior, there is absolutely no social intercourse whatever; it is quite out of the question. They seem to me perishing of _ennui_, or from the want of sympathy which they cannot obtain, and, what is worse, which they cannot feel: for being in general unfitted for out-door occupations, unable to comprehend or enter into the interests around them, and all their earliest prejudices and ideas of the fitness of things continually outraged in a manner exceedingly unpleasant, they may be said to live in a perpetual state of inward passive discord and fretful endurance-- "All too timid and reserved For onset, for resistance too inert-- Too weak for suffering, and for hope too tame." In women, as now educated, there is a strength of local habits and attachments, a want of cheerful self-dependence, a cherished physical delicacy, a weakness of temperament,--deemed, and falsely deemed, in deference to the pride of man, essential to feminine grace and refinement,--altogether unfitting them for a life which were otherwise delightful:--the active out-of-door life in which she must share and sympathise, and the inn-door occupations which in England are considered servile; for a woman who cannot perform for herself and others all household offices, has no business here. But when I hear some men declare that they cannot endure to see women eat, and others speak of brilliant health and strength in young girls as being rude and vulgar, with various notions of the same kind too grossly absurd and perverted even for ridicule, I cannot wonder at any nonsensical affectations I meet with in my own sex; nor can I do otherwise than pity the mistakes and deficiencies of those who are sagely brought up with the one end and aim--to get married. A woman, blessed with good health, a cheerful spirit, larger sympathies, larger capabilities of reflection and action, some knowledge of herself, her own nature, and the common lot of humanity, with a plain understanding, which has been allowed to throw itself out unwarped by sickly fancies and prejudices,--such a woman would be as happy in Canada as anywhere in the world. A weak, frivolous, half-educated, or ill-educated woman may be as miserable in the heart of London as in the heart of the forest. But there her deficiencies are not so injurious, and are supplied to herself and others by the circumstances and advantages around her. I have heard it laid down as a principle, that the purpose of education is to fit us for the circumstances in which we are likely to be placed. I deny it absolutely. Even if it could be exactly known (which it cannot) what those circumstances may be, I should still deny it. Education has a far higher object. I remember to have read of some Russian prince (was it not Potemkin?), who, when he travelled, was preceded by a gardener, who around his marquee scattered an artificial soil, and stuck into it shrubs and bouquets of flowers, which, while assiduously watered, looked pretty for twenty-four hours perhaps, then withered or were plucked up. What shallow barbarism to take pleasure in such a mockery of a garden! better the wilderness--better the waste! that forest, that rock yonder, with creeping weeds around it! An education that is to fit us for circumstances, seems to me like that Russian garden. No; the true purpose of education is to cherish and unfold the seed of immortality already sown within us; to develope, to their fullest extent, the capacities of every kind with which God who made us has endowed us. Then we shall be fitted for all circumstances, or know how to fit circumstances to ourselves. Fit us for circumstances! Base and mechanical! Why not set up at once a "_fabrique d'education_," and educate us by steam? The human soul, be it man's or woman's, is not, I suppose, an empty bottle, into which you shall pour and cram just what you like, and as you like; nor a plot of waste soil, in which you shall sow what you like; but a divine, a living germ planted by an almighty hand, which you may indeed render more or less productive, or train to this or that form--no more. And when you have taken the oak sapling, and dwarfed it, and pruned it, and twisted it, into an ornament for the jardinière in your drawing-room, much have you gained truly; and a pretty figure your specimen is like to make in the broad plain and under the free air of heaven! * * * * * THE TALBOT COUNTRY. The plan of travel I had laid down for myself did not permit of my making any long stay in this new London. I was anxious to push on to the Talbot Settlement, or, as it is called here, the Talbot _Country_, a name not ill-applied to a vast tract of land stretching from east to west along the shore of Lake Erie, and of which Colonel Talbot is the sovereign _de facto_, if not _de jure_--be it spoken without any derogation to the rights of our lord the king. This immense settlement, the circumstances to which it owed its existence, and the character of the eccentric man who founded it on such principles as have insured its success and prosperity, altogether inspired me with the strongest interest and curiosity. To the residence of this "big chief," as an Indian styled him--a solitary mansion on a cliff above Lake Erie, where he lived alone in his glory--was I now bound, without exactly knowing what reception I was to meet there, for that was a point which the despotic habits and eccentricities of this hermit-lord of the forest rendered a little doubtful. The reports I had heard of his singular manners, of his being a sort of woman-hater, who had not for thirty years allowed a female to appear in his sight, I had partly discredited, yet enough remained to make me feel a little nervous. However, my resolution was taken, and the colonel had been apprised of my intended visit, though of his gracious acquiescence I was yet to learn; so, putting my trust in Providence, as heretofore, I prepared to encounter the old buffalo in his lair. From the master of the inn at London I hired a vehicle and a driver for eight dollars. The distance was about thirty miles; the road, as my Irish informant assured me, was quite "iligant!" but hilly, and so broken by the recent storms, that it was thought I could not reach my destination before nightfall, and I was advised to sleep at the little town of St. Thomas, about twelve or fifteen miles on this side of Port Talbot. However, I was resolute to try, and, with a pair of stout horses and a willing driver, did not despair. My conveyance from Blandford had been a baker's cart, on springs; but springs were a luxury I was in future to dispense with. My present vehicle, the best to be procured, was a common cart, with straw at the bottom; in the midst a seat was suspended on straps, and furnished with a cushion, not of the softest. A board nailed across the front served for the driver, a quiet, demure-looking boy of fifteen or sixteen, with a round straw hat and a fustian jacket. Such was the elegant and appropriate equipage in which the "chancellor's lady," as they call me here, paid her first visit of state to the "great Colonel Talbot." On leaving the town, we crossed the Thames on a wooden bridge, and turned to the south through a very beautiful valley, with cultivated farms and extensive clearings on every side. I was now in the Talbot country, and had the advantage of travelling on part of the road constructed under the colonel's direction, which, compared with those I had recently travelled, was better than tolerable. While we were slowly ascending an eminence, I took the opportunity of entering into some discourse with my driver, whose very demure and thoughtful, though boyish face, and very brief, but pithy and intelligent replies to some of my questions on the road, had excited my attention. Though perfectly civil, and remarkably self-possessed, he was not communicative nor talkative; I had to pluck out the information blade by blade, as it were. And here you have my catechism, with question and response, word for word, as nearly as possible. THE EMIGRANT BOY. "Were you born in this country?" "No; I'm from the old country." "From what part of it?" "From about Glasgow." "What is your name?" "Sholto ----." "Sholto!--that is rather an uncommon name, is it not?" "I was called Sholto after a son of Lord Douglas. My father was Lord Douglas's gardener." "How long have you been here?" "I came over with my father about five years, ago." (In 1832.) "How came your father to emigrate?" "My father was one of the commuted pensioners, as they call them.[10] He was an old soldier in the veteran battalion, and he sold his pension of fivepence a day for four years and a grant of land, and came out here. Many did the like." "But if he was gardener to Lord Douglas, he could not have suffered from want." "Why, he was not a gardener _then_; he was a weaver; he worked hard enough for us. I remember often waking in the middle of the night, and seeing my father working still at his loom, as if he would never give over, while my mother and all of us were asleep." "All of us!--how many of you?" "There were six of us: but my eldest brother and myself could do something." "And you all emigrated with your father?" "Why, you see, at last he couldn't get no work, and trade was dull, and we were nigh starving. I remember I was always hungry then--always." "And you all came out?" "All but my eldest brother. When we were on the way to the ship, he got frightened and turned back, and wouldn't come. My poor mother cried very much, and begged him hard. Now the last we heard of him is, that he is very badly off, and can't get no work at all." "Is your father yet alive?" "Yes, he has land up in Adelaide." "Is your mother alive?" "No; she died of the cholera, coming over. You see the cholera broke out in the ship, and fifty-three people died, one after t'other, and were thrown into the sea. My mother died, and they threw her into the sea. And then my little sister, only nine months old, died, because there was nobody to take care of her, and they threw _her_ into the sea--poor little thing!" "Was it not dreadful to see the people dying around you? Did you not feel frightened for yourself?" "Well--I don't know--one got used to it--it was nothing but splash, splash, all day long--first one, then another. There was one Martin on board, I remember, with a wife and nine children--one of those as sold his pension: he had fought in Spain with the Duke of Wellington. Well, first his wife died, and they threw her into the sea; and then _he_ died, and they threw _him_ into the sea; and then the children, one after t'other, till only two were left alive; the eldest, a girl about thirteen, who had nursed them all, one after another, and seen them die--well, _she_ died, and then there was only the little fellow left." "And what became of him?" "He went back, as I heard, in the same ship with the captain." "And did you not think sometimes it might be your turn next." "No--I didn't; and then I was down with the fever." "What do you mean by _the fever?_" "Why, you see, I was looking at some fish that was going by the ship in shoals, as they call it. It was very pretty, and I never saw anything like it, and I stood watching over the ship's side all day long. It poured rain, and I was wet through and through, and felt very cold, and I went into my berth and pulled the blanket round me, and fell asleep. After that I had the fever very bad. I didn't know when we landed at Quebec, and after that I didn't know where we were for five weeks, nor nothing." I assured him that this was only a natural and necessary consequence of his own conduct, and took the opportunity to explain to him some of those simple laws by which he held both health and existence, to all which he listened with an intelligent look, and thanked me cordially, adding,-- "Then I wonder I didn't die! and it was a great mercy I didn't." "I hope you will live to think so, and be thankful to Heaven. And so you were detained at Quebec?" "Yes; my father had some money to receive of his pension, but what with my illness and the expense of living, it soon went; and then he sold his silver watch, and that brought us on to York--that's Toronto now. And then there was a schooner provided by Government to take us on board, and we had rations provided, and that brought us on to Port Stanley, far below Port Talbot; and then they put us ashore, and we had to find our way, and pay our way, to Delaware, where our lot of land was: that cost eight dollars; and then we had nothing left--nothing at all. There were nine hundred emigrants encamped about Delaware, no better off then ourselves." "What did you do then? Had you not to build a house?" "No; the Government built each family a house, that is to say, a log-hut, eighteen feet long, with a hole for the chimney; no glass in the windows, and empty of course; not a bit of furniture, not even a table or a chair." "And how did you live?" "Why, the first year, my father and us, we cleared a couple of acres, and sowed wheat enough for next year." "But meantime you must have existed--and without food or money--?" "O, why we worked meantime on the roads, and got half a dollar a day and rations." "It must have been rather a hard life?" "_Hard!_ yes, I believe it was; why, many of them couldn't stand it, no ways. Some died; and then there were the poor children and the women--it was very bad for them. Some wouldn't sit down on their land at all; they lost all heart to see everywhere trees, and trees, and nothing besides. And then they didn't know nothing of farming--how should they? being soldiers by trade. There was one Jim Grey, of father's regiment--he didn't know how to handle his axe, but he could handle his gun well; so he went and shot deer, and sold them to the others; but one day we missed him, and he never came back; and we thought the bears had got him, or may be he cleared off to Michigan--there's no knowing." "And your father?" "O, _he_ stuck to his land, and he has now five acres cleared: and he's planted a bit of a garden, and he has two cows and a calf, and two pigs; and he's got his house comfortable--and stopped up the holes, and built himself a chimney." "That's well; but why are you not with him?" "O, he married again, and he's got two children, and I didn't like my stepmother, because she didn't use my sisters well, and so I came away." "Where are your sisters now?" "Both out at service, and they get good wages; one gets four, and the other gets five dollars a month. Then I've a brother younger than myself, and he's gone to work with a shoe-maker at London. But the man drinks hard--like a great many here--and I'm afeard my brother will learn to drink, and that frets me; and he won't come away, though I could get him a good place any day--no want of places here and good wages too." "What wages do you receive?" "Seven dollars a month and my board. Next month I shall have eight." "I hope you put by some of your wages?" "Why, I bought a yoke of steers for my father last fall, as cost me thirty dollars, but they wont be fit for ploughing these two years." (I should inform you, perhaps, that a yoke of oxen fit for ploughing costs about eighty dollars.) I pointed out to him the advantages of his present situation, compared with what might have been his fate in the old country, and urged him to avoid all temptations to drink, which he promised. "You can read, I suppose?" He hesitated and looked down. "I can read in the Testament a little. I never had no other book. But this winter," looking up brightly,--"I intend to give myself some schooling. A man who has reading and writing, and a pair of hands, and keeps sober, may make a fortune here--and so will I, with God's blessing!" Here he gave his whip a very expressive flourish. We were now near the summit of a hill, which he called Bear Hill; the people, he said, gave it that name because of the number of bears which used to be found here. Nothing could exceed the beauty and variety of the timber trees, intermingled with most luxuriant underwood, and festooned with the wild grape and flowering creepers. It was some time, he said, since a bear had been shot in these woods; but only last spring one of his comrades had found a bear's cub, which he had fed and taken care of, and had sold within the last few weeks to a travelling menagerie of wild beasts for five dollars. [Footnote 10: Of the commuted pensioners, and their fate in Canada, more will be said hereafter.] THE FUTURE OF CANADA. On reaching the summit of this hill, I found myself on the highest land I had yet stood upon in Canada, with the exception of Queenston heights. I stopped the horses and looked around, and on every side, far and near, east, west, north, and south, it was all forest--a boundless sea of forest, within whose leafy recesses lay hidden as infinite variety of life and movement as within the depths of the ocean; and it reposed in the noontide so still and so vast! _Here_ the bright sunshine rested on it in floods of golden light; _there_ cloud-shadows sped over its bosom, just like the effects I remember to have seen on the Atlantic; and here and there rose wreaths of white smoke from the new clearings which, collected into little silver clouds, and hung suspended in the quiet air. I gazed and meditated till, by a process like that of the Arabian sorcerer of old, the present fell like a film from my eyes: the future was before me, with its towns and cities, fields of waving grain, green lawns and villas, and churches, and temples--turret-crowned: and meadows tracked by the frequent foot-path; and railroads, with trains of rich merchandise steaming along:--for all this _will_ be! Will be? _It is_ already in the sight of Him who hath ordained it, and for whom there is no past nor future: though I cannot behold it with my bodily vision, even _now_ it is. But is _that_ NOW better than _this_ present NOW? When these forests, with all their solemn depth of shade and multitudinous life have fallen beneath the axe--when the wolf, and bear, and deer are driven from their native coverts, and all this infinitude of animal and vegetable being has made way for restless, erring, suffering humanity, will it then be better? _Better_--I know not; but surely it will be _well_, and right in His eyes who has ordained that thus the course of things shall run. Those who see nothing in civilised life but its complicated cares, mistakes, vanities, and miseries, may doubt this--or despair. For myself, I am of those who believe and hope; who behold in progressive civilisation, progressive happiness, progressive approximation to nature and to nature's God; for are we not in His hands?--and all that He does is good. Contemplations such as these were in my mind as we descended the Hill of Bears, and proceeded through a beautiful plain, sometimes richly wooded, sometimes opening into clearings and cultivated farms, on which were usually compact farm-houses, each flanked by a barn three times as large as the house, till we came on to a place called Five Stakes, where I found two or three tidy cottages, and procured some bread and milk. The road here was no longer so good, and we travelled slowly and with difficulty for some miles. About five o'clock we reached St. Thomas, one of the prettiest places I had yet seen. Here I found two or three inns, and at one of them, styled the "Mansion House Hotel," I ordered tea for myself and good entertainment for my young driver and his horses, and then walked out. ST. THOMAS. St. Thomas is situated on a high eminence, to which the ascent is rather abrupt. The view from it, over a fertile, well settled country, is very beautiful and cheering. The place bears the christian name of Colonel Talbot, who styles it his capital, and, from a combination of advantages, it is rising fast into importance. The climate, from its high position, is delicious and healthful; and the winters in this part of the province are milder by several degrees than elsewhere. At the foot of the cliff, or eminence, runs a deep rapid stream, called the Kettle Creek[11] (I wish they had given it a prettier name), which, after a course of eight miles, and turning a variety of saw-mills, grist-mills, &c., flows into Lake Erie, at Port Stanley, one of the best harbours on this side of the lake. Here steam-boats and schooners land their passengers and merchandise, or load with grain, flour, and lumber. The roads are good all round; and the Talbot road, carried directly through the town, is the finest in the province. This road runs nearly parallel with Lake Erie, from thirty miles below Port Stanley, westward as far as Delaware. The population of St. Thomas is at present rated at seven hundred, and it has doubled within two years. There are three churches, one of which is very neat; and three taverns. Two newspapers are published here, one violently tory, the other as violently radical. I found several houses building, and, in those I entered, a general air of cheerfulness and well-being very pleasing to contemplate. There is here an excellent manufacture of cabinet ware and furniture: some articles of the black walnut, a tree abounding here, appeared to me more beautiful in colour and grain than the finest mahogany; and the elegant veining of the maplewood cannot be surpassed. I wish they were sufficiently the fashion in England to make the transport worth while. Here I have seen whole piles, nay, whole forests of such trees, burning together. I was very much struck with this beautiful and cheerful little town, more, I think, than with any place I have yet seen. By the time my horses were refreshed, it was near seven o clock. The distance from Port Talbot is about twelve miles, but hearing the road was good, I resolved to venture. The sky looked turbulent and stormy, but luckily the storm was moving one way while I was moving another; and, except a little sprinkling from the tail of a cloud, we escaped very well. The road presented on either side a succession of farm-houses and well-cultivated farms. Near the houses there was generally a patch of ground planted with Indian corn and pumpkins, and sometimes a few cabbages and potatoes. I do not recollect to have seen one garden, or the least attempt to cultivate flowers. The goodness of the road is owing to the systematic regulations of Colonel Talbot. Throughout the whole "country" none can obtain land without first applying to him, and the price and conditions are uniform and absolute. The lands are divided into lots of two hundred acres, and to each settler fifty acres are given gratis, and one hundred and fifty at three dollars an acre. Each settler must clear and sow ten acres of land, build a house (a log-hut of eighteen feet in length), and construct one chain of road in front of his house, within three years; failing in this, he forfeits his deed. Colonel Talbot does not like gentlemen settlers, nor will he have any settlements within a certain distance of his own domain. He never associates with the people except on one grand occasion, the anniversary of the foundation of his settlement. This is celebrated at St. Thomas by a festive meeting of the most respectable settlers, and the colonel himself opens the ball with one of the ladies, generally showing his taste by selecting the youngest and prettiest. The evening now began to close in, night came on, with the stars and the fair young moon in her train. I felt much fatigued, and my driver appeared to be out in his reckoning--that is, with regard to distance--for luckily he could not miss the _way_, there being but one. I stopped a man who was trudging along with an axe on his shoulder, "How far to Colonel Talbot's?" "About three miles and a half." This was encouraging; but a quarter of an hour afterwards, on asking the same question of another, he replied, "About seven miles." A third informed me that it was about three miles beyond Major Burwell's. The next person I met advised me to put up at "Waters's," and not think of going any farther to-night; however, on arriving at Mr. Waters's hotel, I was not particularly charmed with the prospect of a night's rest within its precincts. It was a long-shaped wooden house, comfortless in appearance; a number of men were drinking at the bar, and sounds of revelry issued from the open door. I requested my driver to proceed, which he did with all willingness. We had travelled nearly the whole day through open, well-cleared land, more densely peopled than any part of the province I had seen since I left the Niagara district. Suddenly we came upon a thick wood, through which the road ran due west, in a straight line. The shadows fell deeper and deeper from the depth of foliage on either side, and I could not see a yard around, but exactly before me the last gleam of twilight lingered where the moon was setting. Once or twice I was startled by seeing a deer bound across the path, his large antlers being for one instant defined, _pencilled_, as it were, against the sky, then lost. The darkness fell deeper every moment, the silence more solemn. The whip-poor-will began his melancholy cry, and an owl sent forth a prolonged shriek, which, if I had not heard it before, would have frightened me. After a while my driver stopped and listened, and I could plainly hear the tinkling of cow-bells, I thought this a good sign, till the boy reminded me that it was the custom of the settlers to turn their cattle loose in the summer to seek their own food, and that they often strayed miles from the clearing. [Footnote 11: When I remonstrated against this name for so beautiful a stream, Colonel Talbot told me that his first settlers had found a kettle on the bank, left by some Indians, and had given the river, from this slight circumstance, a name which he had not thought it worth while to alter.] THE TALBOT COUNTRY. We were proceeding along our dark path very slowly, for fear of accidents, when I heard the approaching tread of a horse, and the welcome sound of a man whistling. The boy hailed him with some impatience in his voice, "I say!--mister! whereabouts _is_ Colonel Talbot's?" "The Colonel's? why, straight afore you;--follow your nose, you buzzard!" Here I interposed. "Be so good, friend, as to inform me how far we are yet from Colonel Talbot's house?" "Who have you got here?" cried the man in surprise. "A lady, comed over the sea to visit the Colonel." "Then," said the man, approaching my carriage--my cart, I should say--with much respect, "I guess you're the lady that the Colonel has been looking out for this week past. Why, I've been three times to St. Thomas's with the team after you!" "I'm very sorry you've had the trouble!" "O, no trouble at all--shall I ride back and tell him you're coming?" This I declined, for the poor man was evidently going home to his supper. To hear that the formidable Colonel was anxiously expecting me was very encouraging, and, from the man's description, I supposed that we were close to the house. Not so; the road, mocking my impatience, took so many bends, and sweeps, and windings, up hill and down hill, that it was an eternity before we arrived. The Colonel piques himself exceedingly on this graceful and picturesque approach to his residence, and not without reason; but on the present occasion I could have preferred a line more direct to the line of beauty. The darkness, which concealed its charms, left me sensible only to its length. On ascending some high ground, a group of buildings was dimly descried. And after oversetting part of a snake-fence before we found an entrance, we drove up to the door. Lights were gleaming in the windows, and the Colonel sallied forth with prompt gallantry to receive me. My welcome was not only cordial, but courtly. The Colonel, taking me under his arm, and ordering the boy and his horses to be well taken care of, handed me into the hall or vestibule, where sacks of wheat and piles of sheepskins lay heaped in primitive fashion; thence into a room, the walls of which were formed of naked logs. Here no fauteuil, spring-cushioned, extended its comfortable arms--no sofa here "insidiously stretched out its lazy length;" Colonel Talbot held all such luxuries in sovereign contempt. In front of a capacious chimney stood a long wooden table, flanked with two wooden chairs, cut from the forest in the midst of which they now stood. To one of these the Colonel handed me, with the air of a courtier, and took the other himself. Like all men who live out of the world, he retained a lively curiosity as to what was passing in it, and I was pressed with a profusion of questions as well as hospitable attentions; but wearied, exhausted, aching in every nerve, the spirit with which I had at first met him in his own style, was fast ebbing. I could neither speak nor eat, and was soon dismissed to repose. With courteous solicitude, he ushered me himself to the door of a comfortable, well furnished bed room, where a fire blazed cheerfully, where female hands had evidently presided to arrange my toilet, and where female aid awaited me;--so much had the good Colonel been calumniated! * * * * * COLONEL TALBOT. ---- You shall Go forth upon your arduous task alone, None shall assist you, none partake your toil, None share your triumph! still you must retain Some one to trust your glory to--to share Your rapture with. Browning's Paracelsus. Port Talbot, July 10. "Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope. He has no other possession but hope. This world of his is emphatically the place of hope:"[12] and more emphatically than of any other spot on the face of the globe, it is true of this new world of ours, in which I am now a traveller and a sojourner. This is the land of hope, of faith, aye, and of charity, for a man who hath not all three had better not come here:--with them he may, by strength of his own right hand and trusting heart, achieve miracles: witness Colonel Talbot. Of the four days in which I have gone wandering and wondering up and down, let me now tell you something--_all_ I cannot tell you; for the information I have gained, and the reflections and feelings which have passed through my mind would fill a volume--and I have little time for scribbling. And first of Colonel Talbot himself. This remarkable man is now about sixty-five, perhaps more, but he does not look so much. In spite of his rustic dress, his good-humoured, jovial, weather-beaten face, and the primitive simplicity, not to say rudeness, of his dwelling, he has in his features, air, and deportment, that _something_ which stamps him gentleman. And that _something_ which thirty-four years of solitude has not effaced, he derives, I suppose, from blood and birth, things of more consequence, when philosophically and philanthropically considered, than we are apt to allow. He came out to Upper Canada as aide-de-camp to Governor Simcoe in 1793, and accompanied the governor on the first expedition he made to survey the western district, in search (as it was said) of an eligible site for the new capital he was then projecting. At this time the whole of the beautiful and fertile region situated between the lakes was a vast wilderness. It contained not one white settler, except along the borders, and on the coast opposite to Detroit: a few wandering tribes of Hurons and Chippewas, and the Six Nations settled on Grand River, were its only inhabitants. It was then that the idea of founding a colony took possession of Colonel Talbot's mind, and became the ruling passion and sole interest of his future life. I had always heard and read of him, as the "eccentric" Colonel Talbot. Of his eccentricity I heard much more than of his benevolence, his invincible courage, his enthusiasm, his perseverance; but, perhaps, according to the wordly nomenclature, these qualities come under the general head of "eccentricity," when devotion to a favourite object cannot possibly be referred to self-interest. On his return to England, he asked and obtained a grant of 100,000 acres of land along the shores of Lake Erie, on condition of placing a settler on every two hundred acres. He came out again in 1802, and took possession of his domain, in the heart of the wilderness. Of the life he led for the first sixteen years, and the difficulties and obstacles he encountered, he drew, in his discourse with me, a strong, I might say a _terrible_ picture: and observe that it was not a life of wild, wandering freedom--the life of an Indian hunter, which is said to be so fascinating that "no man who has ever followed it for any length of time, _ever_ voluntarily returns to civilised society!"[13] Colonel Talbot's life has been one of persevering, heroic self-devotion to the completion of a magnificent plan, laid down in the first instance, and followed up with unflinching tenacity of purpose. For sixteen years he saw scarce a human being, except the few boors and blacks employed in clearing and logging his land: he himself assumed the blanket-coat and axe, slept upon the bare earth, cooked three meals a day for twenty woodsmen, cleaned his own boots, washed his own linen, milked his cows, churned the butter, and made and baked the bread. In this latter branch of household economy he became very expert, and still piques himself on it. To all these heterogeneous functions of sowing and reaping, felling and planting, frying, boiling, washing and wringing, brewing and baking, he added another, even more extraordinary;--for many years he solemnised all the marriages in his district! While Europe was converted into a vast battle-field, an arena "Where distract ambition compassed And was encompass'd," and his brothers in arms, the young men who had begun the career of life with him, were reaping bloody laurels, to be gazetted in the list of killed and wounded, as heroes--then forgotten;--Colonel Talbot, a true hero after another fashion, was encountering, amid the forest solitude, uncheered by sympathy, unbribed by fame, enemies far more formidable, and earning a far purer, as well as a more real and lasting immortality. Besides natural obstacles, he met with others far more trying to his temper and patience. His continual quarrels with the successive governors, who were jealous of the independent power he exercised in his own territory, are humorously alluded to by Dr. Dunlop. "After fifteen years of unremitting labour and privation," says the Doctor, "it became so notorious in the province, that even the executive government at Toronto became aware that there was such a place as the Talbot Settlement, where roads were cut and farms in progress; and hereupon they rejoiced--for it held out to them just what they had long felt the want of, a well-settled, opened, and cultivated country, wherein to obtain estates for themselves, their children, born and unborn, and their whole kith, kin, and allies. When this idea, so creditable to the paternal feelings of these worthy gentlemen, was intimated to the Colonel, he could not be brought to see the fitness of things in an arrangement which would confer on the next generation, or the next again, the fruits of the labour of the present; and accordingly, though his answer to the proposal was not couched in terms quite so diplomatic as might have been wished, it was brief, soldier-like, and not easily capable of misconstruction; it was in these words--'I'll be d--d if you get one foot of land here;' and thereupon the parties joined issue. "On this, war was declared against him by his Excellency in council, and every means were used to annoy him here, and misrepresent his proceedings at home; but he stood firm, and by an occasional visit to the Colonial Office in England, he opened the eyes of ministers to the proceedings of both parties, and for a while averted the danger. At length, some five years ago, finding the enemy was getting too strong for him, he repaired once more to England, and returned in triumph with an order from the Colonial Office, that nobody was in any way to interfere with his proceedings; and he has now the pleasure of contemplating some hundreds of miles of the best roads in the province, closely settled on each side by the most prosperous farmers within its bounds, who owe all they possess to his judgment, enthusiasm, and perseverance, and who are grateful to him in proportion to the benefits he has bestowed upon them, though in many instances, sorely against their will at the time." The original grant must have been much extended; for the territory now under Colonel Talbot's management, and bearing the general name of the Talbot Country, contains, according to the list I have in his own handwriting, twenty-eight townships, and about 650,000 acres of land, of which 98,700 are cleared and cultivated. The inhabitants, including the population of the towns, amount to about 50,000. "You see," said he gaily, "I may boast, like the Irishman in the farce, of having peopled a whole country with my own hands." He has built his house, like the eagle his eyry, on a bold high cliff overhanging the lake. On the east there is a precipitous descent into a wild, woody ravine, along the bottom of which winds a gentle stream, till it steals into the lake: this stream is in winter a raging torrent. The storms and the gradual action of the waves have detached large portions of the cliff in front of the house, and with them huge trees. Along the lake-shore I found trunks and roots of trees half buried in the sand, or half overflowed with water, which I often mistook for rocks. I remember one large tree which, in falling headlong, still remained suspended by its long and strong fibres to the cliff above. Its position was now reversed: the top hung downwards, shivered and denuded; the large spread root, upturned, formed a platform, on which new earth had accumulated, and a new vegetation sprung forth, of flowers, and bushes, and sucklings. Altogether it was a most picturesque and curious object. Lake Erie, as the geography book says, is two hundred and eighty miles long, and here, at Port Talbot, which is near the centre, about seventy miles across. The Colonel tells me that it has been more than once frozen over from side to side; but I do not see how this fact could be ascertained, as no one has been known to cross to the opposite shore on the ice. It is true that more ice accumulates in this lake than in any other of the great lakes, by reason of its shallowness: it can be sounded through its whole extent, while the other lakes are found in some parts unfathomable. But to return to the château. It is a long wooden building, chiefly of rough logs, with a covered porch running along the south side. Here I found suspended, among sundry implements of husbandry, one of those ferocious animals of the feline kind, called here the cat-a-mountain, and by some the American tiger, or panther, which it more resembles. This one, which had been killed in its attack on the fold or poultry-yard, was at least four feet in length, and glared on me from the rafters above ghastly and horrible. The interior of the house contains several comfortable lodging-rooms, and one really handsome one, the dining-room. There is a large kitchen with a tremendously hospitable chimney; and underground are cellars for storing wine, milk, and provisions. Around the house stands a vast variety of outbuildings of all imaginable shapes and sizes, and disposed without the slightest regard to order or symmetry. One of these is the very log hut which the Colonel erected for shelter when he first "sat down in the bush," four-and-thirty years ago, and which he is naturally unwilling to remove. Many of these outbuildings are to shelter the geese and poultry, of which he rears an innumerable quantity. Beyond these is the cliff, looking over the wide blue lake, on which I have counted six schooners at a time with their white sails. On the left is Port Stanley. Behind the house lies an open tract of land, prettily broken and varied, where large flocks of sheep and cattle are feeding, the whole enclosed by beautiful and luxuriant woods, through which runs the little creek or river above mentioned. The farm consists of six hundred acres; but as the Colonel is not quite so active as he used to be, and does not employ a bailiff or overseer, the management is said to be slovenly, and not so productive as it might be. He has sixteen acres of orchard-ground, in which he has planted and reared with success all the common European fruits, as apples, pears, plums, cherries, in abundance; but what delighted me beyond everything else, was a garden of more than two acres, very neatly laid out and enclosed, and in which he evidently took exceeding pride and pleasure; it was the first thing he showed me after my arrival. It abounds in roses of different kinds, the cuttings of which he had brought himself from England in the few visits he had made there. Of these he gathered the most beautiful buds, and presented them to me with such an air as might have become Dick Talbot presenting a bouquet to Miss Jennings.[14] We then sat down on a pretty seat under a tree, where he told me he often came to meditate. He described the appearance of the spot when he first came here as contrasted with its present appearance, or we discussed the exploits of some of his celebrated and gallant ancestors, with whom my acquaintance was (luckily) almost as intimate as his own. Family and aristocratic pride I found a prominent feature in the character of this remarkable man. A Talbot of Malahide, of a family representing the same barony from father to son for six hundred years, he set, not unreasonably, a high value on his noble and unstained lineage; and, in his lonely position, the simplicity of his life and manners lent to these lofty and not unreal pretensions a kind of poetical dignity. I told him of the surmises of the people relative to his early life and his motives for emigrating, at which he laughed. "Charlevoix," said he, "was, I believe, the true cause of my coming to this place. You know he calls this the 'Paradise of the Hurons.' Now I was resolved to get to paradise by hook or by crook, and so I came here." He added, more seriously, "I have accomplished what I resolved to do--it is done; but I would not, if any one was to offer me the universe, go through again the _horrors_ I have undergone in forming this settlement. But do not imagine I repent it; I like my retirement." He then broke out against the follies, and falsehoods, and restrictions of artificial life, in bitter and scornful terms; no ascetic monk or _radical_ philosopher could have been more eloquently indignant. I said it was granted to few to live a life of such complete retirement, and at the same time such general utility; in flying from the world, he had benefited it: and I added, that I was glad to see him so happy. "Why, yes, I'm very happy here." And then the old man sighed. I understood that sigh, and in my heart echoed it. No, "it is not good for man to be alone;" and this law, which the Father of all life pronounced himself at man's creation, was never yet violated with impunity. Never yet was the human being withdrawn from, or elevated above, the social wants and sympathies of his human nature, without paying a tremendous price for such isolated independence. With all my admiration for what this extraordinary man has achieved, and the means, the powers, through which he has achieved it, there mingles a feeling of commiseration which has more than once brought the tears to my eyes while listening to him. He has passed his life in worse than solitude. He will admit no equal in his vicinity. His only intercourse has been with inferiors and dependents, whose servility he despised, and whose resistance enraged him--men whose interests rested on his favour--on his will, from which there was no appeal. Hence despotic habits, and contempt even for those whom he benefited; hence, with much natural benevolence and generosity, a total disregard, or rather total ignorance, of the feelings of others--all the disadvantages, in short, of royalty, only on a smaller scale. Now, in his old age, where is to him the solace of age? He has honour, power, obedience; but where are the love, the troops of friends, which also should accompany old age? He is alone--a lonely man. His constitution has suffered by the dreadful toils and privations of his earlier life. His sympathies have had no natural outlet; his affections have wanted their natural food. He suffers, I think; and not being given to general or philosophical reasoning, causes and effects are felt, not known. But he is a great man who has done great things; and the good which he has done will live after him. He has planted, at a terrible sacrifice, an enduring name and fame, and will be commemorated in this "brave new world," this land of hope, as Triptolemus among the Greeks. For his indifference or dislike to female society, and his determination to have no settler within a certain distance of his own residence, I could easily account when I knew the man; both seemed to me the natural result of certain habits of life acting upon a certain organisation. He has a favourite servant, Jeffrey by name, who has served him faithfully for more than five-and-twenty years, ever since he left off cleaning his own shoes and mending his own coat. This honest fellow, not having forsworn female companionship, began to sigh after a wife-- "A wife! ah! Saint Marie Benedicité, How might a man have any adversité That hath a wife?" And, like the good knight in Chaucer, he did "Upon his bare knees pray God him to send A wife to last unto his life's end." So one morning he went and took unto himself the woman nearest at hand--one, of whom we must needs suppose that he chose her for her virtues, for most certainly it was not for her attractions. The Colonel swore at him for a fool; but, after a while, Jeffrey, who is a favourite, smuggled his wife into the house; and the Colonel, whose increasing age renders him rather more dependent on household help, seems to endure very patiently this addition to his family, and even the presence of a white-headed chubby little thing, which I found running about without let or hindrance. The room into which I first introduced you, with its rough log-walls, is Colonel Talbot's library and hall of audience. On leaving my apartment in the morning, I used to find groups of strange figures lounging round the door, ragged, black-bearded, gaunt, travel-worn and toil-worn emigrants, Irish, Scotch, and American, come to offer themselves as settlers. These he used to call his land-pirates; and curious, and characteristic, and dramatic beyond description, were the scenes which used to take place between this grand bashaw of the wilderness and his hungry, importunate clients and petitioners. Another thing which gave a singular interest to my conversations with Colonel Talbot was, the sort of indifference with which he regarded all the stirring events of the last thirty years. Dynasties rose and disappeared; kingdoms were passed from hand to hand like wine decanters; battles were lost and won;--he neither knew, nor heard, nor cared. No post, no newspaper brought to his forest-hut the tidings of victory and defeat, of revolutions of empires, "or rumours of unsuccessful and successful war." When he first took to the bush, Napoleon was consul; when he emerged from his solitude, the tremendous game of ambition had been played out, and Napoleon and his deeds and his dynasty were numbered with the things o'erpast. With the stream of events had flowed by equally unmarked the stream of mind, thought, literature--the progress of social improvement--the changes in public opinion. Conceive what a gulf between us! but though I could go to him, he could not come to me--my sympathies had the wider range of the two. The principal foreign and domestic events of his _reign_ are the last American war, in which he narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by a detachment of the enemy, who ransacked his house, and drove off his horses and cattle; and a visit which he received some years ago from three young Englishmen of rank and fortune, Lord Stanley, Mr. Stuart Wortley, and Mr. Labouchere, who spent some weeks with him. These events, and his voyages to England, seemed to be the epochs from which he dated. From these occasional flights he returns like an old eagle to his perch on the cliff, whence he looks down upon the world he has quitted with supreme contempt and indifference, and around that on which he has created, with much self-applause and self-gratulation. [Footnote 12: Vide Sartor Resartus.] [Footnote 13: Dr. Dunlop.] [Footnote 14: Dick Talbot married Frances Jennings--la belle Jennings of De Grammont's Memoirs, and elder sister of the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough.] * * * * * PORT TALBOT. It was not till the sixth day of my sojourn at Port Talbot that the good Colonel could be persuaded to allow of my departure. He told me, with good-humoured peremptoriness, that he was the grand autocrat of the forest, and that to presume to order horses, or take any step towards departing, without his express permission, was against "his laws." At last he was so good as to issue his commands--with flattering reluctance, however--that a vehicle should be prepared, and a trusty guide provided; and I bade farewell to this extraordinary man with a mixture of delighted, and grateful, and melancholy feelings not easily to be described, nor ever forgotten. My next journey was from Port Talbot to Chatham on the river Thames, whence it was my intention to cross Lake St. Clair to Detroit, and there take my chance of a vessel going up Lake Huron to Machinaw. I should, however, advise any future traveller, not limited to any particular time or plan of observation, to take the road along the shore of the Lake to Amherstberg and Sandwich, instead of turning off to Chatham. During the first day's journey I was promised a good road, as it lay through the Talbot settlements; what was to become of me the second day seemed a very doubtful matter. The best vehicle which the hospitality and influence of Colonel Talbot could provide was a farmer's cart or team, with two stout horses. The bottom of the cart was well filled with clean soft straw, on which my luggage was deposited. A seat was slung for me on straps, and another in front for the driver, who had been selected from among the most respectable settlers in the neighbourhood as a fit guide and protector for a lone woman. The charge for the two days' journey was to be twelve dollars. As soon as I had a little recovered from the many thoughts and feelings which came over me as we drove down the path from Colonel Talbot's house, I turned to take a survey of my driver, and from his physiognomy, his deportment, and the tone of his voice, to divine, if I could, what chance I had of comfort during the next two days. The survey was, on the whole, encouraging, though presenting some inconsistencies I could by no means reconcile. His dress and figure were remarkably neat, though plain and homely; his broad-brimmed straw hat, encircled with a green ribbon, was pulled over his brow, and from beneath it peered two sparkling, intelligent eyes. His accent was decidedly Irish. It was indeed a brogue as "nate and complate" as ever was sent forth from Cork or Kerry; but then his face was not an Irish face; its expression had nothing of the Irish character; the cut of his features, and his manner and figure altogether in no respect harmonised with his voice and accent. JOURNEY TO CHATHAM. After proceeding about three miles, we stopped in front of a neat farmhouse, surrounded with a garden and spacious outbuildings, and forth came a very pretty and modest-looking young woman, with a lovely child in her arms, and leading another by the hand. It was the wife of my driver; and I must confess she did not seem well pleased to have him taken away from her. They evidently parted with reluctance. She gave him many special charges to take care of himself, and commissions to execute by the way. The children were then held up to be kissed heartily by their father, and we drove off. This little family scene interested me, and augured well, I thought, for my own chances of comfort and protection. When we had jogged and jolted on at a reasonable pace for some time, and I had felt my way sufficiently, I began to make some inquiries into the position and circumstances of my companion. The first few words explained those discrepancies in his features, voice, and appearance, which had struck me. His grandfather was a Frenchman. His father had married an Irishwoman, and settled in consequence in the south of Ireland. He became, after some changes of fortune, a grazier and cattle-dealer; and having realised a small capital which could not be safely or easily invested in the old country, he had brought out his whole family, and settled his sons on farms in this neighbourhood. Many of the first settlers about this place, generally emigrants of the poorest and lowest description, after clearing a certain portion of the land, gladly disposed of their farms at an advanced price; and thus it is that a considerable improvement has taken place within these few years by the introduction of settlers of a higher grade, who have purchased half-cleared farms, rather than waste toil and time on the wild land. My new friend, John B----, had a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, for which, with a log-house and barn upon it, he had paid 800 dollars (about 200_l._); he has now one hundred acres of land cleared and laid down in pasture. This is the first instance I have met with in these parts of a grazing farm, the land being almost uniformly arable, and the staple produce of the country, wheat. He told me that he and his brother had applied most advantageously their knowledge of the management and rearing of live stock; he had now thirty cows and eighty sheep. His wife being clever in the dairy, he was enabled to sell a good deal of butter and cheese off his farm, which the neighbourhood of Port Stanley enabled him to ship with advantage. The wolves, he said, were his greatest annoyance; during the last winter they had carried off eight of his sheep and thirteen of his brother's flock, in spite of all their precautions. The Canadian wolf is about the size of a mastiff, in colour of a dirty yellowish brown, with a black stripe along his back, and a bushy tail of about a foot in length. His habits are those of the European wolf; they are equally bold, "hungry, and gaunt, and grim,"--equally destructive, ferocious, and troublesome to the farmer. The Canadian wolves hunt in packs, and their perpetual howling during the winter nights has often been described to me as frightful. The reward given by the magistracy for their destruction (six dollars for each wolf's head) is not enough. In the United States the reward is fifteen and twenty dollars a head, and from their new settlements the wolves are quickly extirpated. _Here_, if they would extend the reward to the Indians, it would be of some advantage; for at present they never think it worth while to expend their powder and shot on an animal whose flesh is uneatable, and the skin of little value; and there can be no doubt that it is the interest of the settlers to get rid of the wolves by all and any means. I have never heard of their destroying a man, but they are the terror of the sheepfold--as the wild cats are of the poultry yard. Bears become scarcer in proportion as the country is cleared, but there are still a great number in the vast tracts of forest land which afford them shelter. These, in the severe winters, advance to the borders of the settlements, and carry off the pigs and young cattle. Deer still abound, and venison is common food in the cottages and farmhouses. My guide concluded his accounts of himself by an eloquent and heartfelt eulogium on his wife, to whom, as he assured me, "he owed all his _peace of mind_ from the hour he was married!" Few men, I thought, could say the same. _She_, at least, is not to be numbered among the drooping and repining women of Upper Canada; but then she has left no family--no home on the other side of the Atlantic--all her near relations are settled here in the neighbourhood. SETTLERS IN THE BUSH. The road continued very tolerable during the greater part of this day, running due west, at a distance of about six or ten miles from the shore of Lake Erie. On either side I met a constant succession of farms partially cleared, and in cultivation, but no village, town, or hamlet. One part of the country through which I passed to-day is settled chiefly by Highlanders, who bring hither all their clannish attachments, and their thrifty, dirty habits--add also their pride and their honesty. We stopped about noon at one of these Highland settlements, to rest the horses and procure refreshments. The house was called Campbell's Inn, and consisted of a log-hut and a cattle-shed. A long pole, stuck into the decayed stump of a tree in front of the hut, served for a sign. The family spoke nothing but Gaelic; a brood of children, ragged, dirty, and without shoes or stockings (which latter I found hanging against the wall of the best room, as if for a show), were running about--and all stared upon me with a sort of half-scared, uncouth curiosity, which was quite savage. With some difficulty I made my wants understood, and procured some milk and Indian corn cakes. This family, notwithstanding their wretched appearance, might be considered prosperous. They have a property of two hundred acres of excellent land, of which sixty acres are cleared, and in cultivation: five cows and forty sheep. They have been settled here sixteen years,--had come out destitute, and obtained their land gratis. For them, what a change from abject poverty and want to independence and plenty! But the advantages are all outward; if there be any inward change, it is apparently retrogradation, not advancement. I know it has been laid down as a principle, that the more and the closer men are congregated together, the more prevalent is vice of every kind; and that an isolated or scattered population is favourable to virtue and simplicity. It may be so, if you are satisfied with negative virtues and the simplicity of ignorance. But here, where a small population is scattered over a wide extent of fruitful country, where there is not a village or a hamlet for twenty, or thirty, or forty miles together--where there are no manufactories--where there is almost entire equality of condition--where the means of subsistence are abundant--where there is no landed aristocracy--no poor laws, nor poor rates, to grind the souls and the substance of the people between them, till nothing remains but chaff,--to what shall we attribute the gross vices, the profligacy, the stupidity, and basely vulgar habits of a great part of the people, who know not even how to enjoy or turn to profit the inestimable advantages around them?--And, alas for them! there seems to be no one as yet to take an interest about them, or at least infuse a new spirit into the next generation. In one log-hut in the very heart of the wilderness, where I might well have expected primitive manners and simplicity, I found vulgar finery, vanity, affectation, under the most absurd and disgusting forms, combined with a want of the commonest physical comforts of life, and the total absence of even elementary knowledge. In another, I have seen drunkenness, profligacy, stolid indifference to all religion; and in another, the most senseless fanaticism. There are people, I know, who think--who fear, that the advancement of knowledge and civilisation must be the increase of vice and insubordination; who deem that a scattered agricultural population, where there is a sufficiency of daily food for the body; where no schoolmaster interferes to infuse ambition and discontent into the abject, self-satisfied mind; where the labourer reads not, writes not, thinks not--only loves, hates, prays, and toils--that such a state must be a sort of Arcadia. Let them come here!--there is no march of intellect here!--there is no "schoolmaster abroad" here! And what are the consequences? Not the most agreeable to contemplate, believe me. I passed in these journeys some school-houses built by the way side: of these, several were shut up for want of schoolmasters; and who that could earn a subsistence in any other way, would be a schoolmaster in the wilds of Upper Canada? Ill fed, ill clothed, ill paid, or not paid at all--boarded at the houses of the different farmers in turn, I found, indeed, some few men, poor creatures! always either Scotch or Americans, and totally unfit for the office they had undertaken. Of female teachers I found none whatever, except in the towns. Among all the excellent societies in London for the advancement of religion and education, are there none to send missionaries here?--such missionaries as we want, be it understood--not sectarian fanatics. Here, without means of instruction, of social amusement, of healthy and innocent excitements--can we wonder that whisky and camp-meetings assume their place, and "season toil" which is unseasoned by anything better? Nothing, believe me, that you may have heard or read of the frantic disorders of these Methodist love-feasts and camp-meetings in Upper Canada can exceed the truth; and yet it is no less a truth that the Methodists are in most parts the only religious teachers, and that without them the people were utterly abandoned. What then are our church and our government about? Here, as in the old country, they are quarrelling about the tenets to be inculcated, the means to be used: and so, while the shepherds are disputing whether the sheep are to be fed on old hay or fresh grass--out of the fold or in the fold--the poor sheep starve, or go astray. I supped here on eggs and radishes, and milk and bread. On going to my room, I found that the door, which had merely a latch, opened into the road. I expressed a wish to fasten it, on which the good lady of the house brought a long nail, and thrust it lengthways over the latch, saying, "That's the way we lock doors in Canada!" The want of a more secure defence did not trouble my rest, for I slept well till morning. After breakfast, my guide, who had found what he called a "shake-down" at a neighbouring farm, made his appearance, and we proceeded. For the first five or six miles the road continued good, but at length we reached a point where we had to diverge from the Talbot road, and turn into what they call a "town line," a road dividing the Howard from the Harwich township. My companion stopped the team to speak to a young man who was mixing lime, and as he stood talking to us, I thought I had never seen a better figure and countenance: his accent was Irish; his language and manner infinitely superior to his dress, which was that of a common workman. I soon understood that he was a member of one of the richest and most respectable families in the whole district, connected by marriage with my driver, who had been boasting to me of their station, education, and various attainments. There were many and kind greetings and inquiries after wives, sisters, brothers, and children. Towards the conclusion of this family conference, the following dialogue ensued. "I say, how are the roads before us?" "Pretty bad!" (with an ominous shake of the head.) "Would we get on at all, do you think?" "Well, I don't know, but you may." "If only we a'n't _mired down_ in that big hole up by Harris's, plaze God, we'll do finely! Have they done anything up there?" "No, I don't know that they have; but (with a glance and a good-humoured smile at me) don't be frightened! you have a good stout team there. I dare say you'll get along--first or last!" "How are the mosquitoes?" "Pretty bad too; it is cloudy, and then they are always worse; but there is some wind, and that's in your favour again. However, you've a long and hard day's work, and I wish you well through it; if you cannot manage, come back to _us_--that's all! Good-bye!" And lifting the gay handkerchief knotted round his head, he bowed us off with the air of a nobleman. Thus encouraged, we proceeded; and though I was not _mired down_, nor yet absolutely eaten up, I suffered from both the threatened plagues, and that most severely. The road was scarcely passable; there were no longer cheerful farms and clearings, but the dark pine forest, and the rank swamp, crossed by those terrific corduroy paths (my bones ache at the mere recollection!) and deep holes and pools of rotted vegetable matter, mixed with water, black, bottomless sloughs of despond! The very horses paused on the brink of some of these mud-gulfs, and trembled ere they made the plunge downwards. I set my teeth, screwed myself to my seat, and commended myself to Heaven--but I was well nigh dislocated! At length I abandoned my seat altogether, and made an attempt to recline on the straw at the bottom of the cart, disposing my cloaks, carpet-bags, and pillow, so as to afford some support--but all in vain; myself and all my well-contrived edifice of comfort were pitched hither and thither, and I expected at every moment to be thrown over headlong; while to walk, or to escape by any means from my disagreeable situation, was as impossible as if I had been in a ship's cabin in the midst of a rolling sea. But the worst was yet to come. At the entrance of a road through the woods, If road that might be called where road was none Distinguishable, we stopped a short time to gain breath and courage, and refresh the poor horses before plunging into a forest of about twenty miles in extent. The inn--the only one within a circuit of more than five-and-thirty miles, presented the usual aspect of these forest inns; that is, a rude log-hut, with one window and one room, answering all purposes, a lodging or sleeping place being divided off at one end by a few planks; outside, a shed of bark and boughs for the horses, and a hollow trunk of a tree disposed as a trough. Some of the trees around it were in full and luxuriant foliage; others, which had been girdled, stood bare and ghastly in the sunshine. To understand the full force of the scripture phrase, "desolate as a lodge in a wilderness," you should come here! The inmates, from whom I could not obtain a direct or intelligible answer to any question, continued during the whole time to stare upon me with stupid wonder. I took out a card to make a sketch of the place. A man stood near me, looking on, whose appearance was revolting beyond description--hideous, haggard and worn, sinewy and fierce and squalid. He led in one hand a wild-looking urchin of three or four years old; in the other he was crushing a beautiful young pigeon, which panted and struggled within his bony grasp in agony and terror. I looked on it, pitying. "Don't hurt it!" He replied with a grin, and giving the wretched bird another squeeze, "No, no, I won't hurt it." "Do you live here?" "Yes, I have a farm hard by--in the bush here." "How large is it?" "One hundred and forty acres." "How much cleared?" "Five or six acres--thereabout." "How long have you been on it?" "Five years." "And only five acres cleared? That is very little in five years. I have seen people who had cleared twice that quantity of land in half the time." He replied, almost with fierceness, "Then they had money, or friends, or hands to help them: I have neither. I have in this wide world only myself! and set a man with only a pair of hands at one of them big trees there!--see what he'll make of it! You may swing the axe here from morning to night for a week before you let the daylight in upon you." "You are right!" I said, in compassion and self-reproach, "and I was wrong! pray excuse me!" "No offence." "Are you from the old country?" "No, I was _raised_ here." "What will you do with your pigeon there?" "O, it will do for the boy's supper, or may be he may like it best to play with." I offered to redeem its life at the price of a shilling, which I held out. He stretched forth immediately one of his huge hands and eagerly clutched the shilling, at the same moment opening the other, and releasing his captive; it fluttered for a moment helplessly, but soon recovering its wings, wheeled round our heads, and then settled in the topmost boughs of a sugar-maple. The man turned away with an exulting laugh, thinking, no doubt, that he had the best of the bargain--but upon this point we differed. * * * * * Turning the horses' heads again westward, we plunged at once into the deep forest, where there was absolutely no road, no path, except that which is called a _blazed_ path, where the trees marked on either side are the only direction to the traveller. How savagely, how solemnly wild it was! So thick was the overhanging foliage, that it not only shut out the sunshine, but almost the daylight; and we travelled on through a perpetual gloom of vaulted boughs and intermingled shade. There were no flowers here--no herbage. The earth beneath us was a black, rich vegetable mould, into which the cart-wheels sank a foot deep; a rank, reedy grass grew round the roots of the trees, and sheltered rattlesnakes and reptiles. The timber was all hard timber, walnut, beech, and bass-wood, and oak and maple of most luxuriant growth; here and there the lightning had struck and shivered one of the loftiest of these trees, riving the great trunk in two, and flinging it horizontally upon its companions. There it lay, in strangely picturesque fashion, clasping with its huge boughs their outstretched arms as if for support. Those which had been hewn to open a path lay where they fell, and over their stumps and roots the cart had to be lifted or dragged. Sometimes a swamp or morass lay in our road, partly filled up or laid over with trunks of fallen trees, by way of bridge. As we neared the limits of the forest, some new clearings broke in upon the solemn twilight monotony of our path: the aspect of these was almost uniform, presenting an opening of felled trees of about an acre or two; the commencement of a log-house; a patch of ground surrounded by a snake-fence, enclosing the first crop of wheat, and perhaps a little Indian corn; great heaps of timber-trees and brushwood laid together and burning; a couple of oxen, dragging along another enormous trunk to add to the pile. These were the general features of the picture, framed in, as it were, by the dark mysterious woods. Here and there I saw a few cows, but no sheep. I remember particularly one of these clearings, which looked more desolate than the rest; there was an unfinished log-house, only one half of it roofed in and habitable, and this presented some attempt at taste, having a small rustic porch or portico, and the windows on either side framed. No ground was fenced in, and the newly-felled timber lay piled in heaps ready to burn; around lay the forest, its shadows darkening, deepening as the day declined. But what rivetted my attention was the light figure of a female, arrayed in a silk gown and a handsome shawl, who was pacing up and down in front of the house, with a slow and pensive air. She had an infant lying on her arm, and in the other hand she waved a green bough, to keep off the mosquitoes. I wished to stop--to speak, though at the hazard of appearing impertinent; but my driver represented so strongly the danger of being benighted within the verge of the forest, that I reluctantly suffered him to proceed, "And oft look'd back upon that vision fair, And wondering ask'd, whence and how came it there?" At length we emerged from the forest-path into a plain, through which ran a beautiful river (my old acquaintance the Thames), "winding at its own sweet will," and farmhouses with white walls and green shutters were scattered along its banks, and cheerful voices were heard, shouts of boys at play, sounds of labour and of life; and over all lay the last glow of the sinking sun. How I blessed the whole scene in my heart! Yes, I can well conceive what the exulting and joyous life of the hunter may be, roaming at large and independent through these boundless forests; but, believe me, that to be dragged along in a heavy cart through their impervious shades, tormented by mosquitoes, shut in on every side from the light and from the free air of heaven, is quite another thing; and its effect upon me, at least, was to bring down the tone of the mind and reflections to a gloomy, inert, vague resignation, or rather dejection, which made it difficult at last to speak. The first view of the beautiful little town of Chatham made my sinking spirits bound like the sight of a friend. There was, besides, the hope of a good inn; for my driver had cheered me on during the last few miles by a description of "Freeman's Hotel," which he said was one of the best in the whole district. Judge then of my disappointment to learn that Mr. Freeman, in consequence of the "high price of wheat," could no longer afford to take in hungry travellers, and had "no accommodation." I was driven to take refuge in a miserable little place, where I fared as ill as possible. I was shown to a bedroom without chair or table; but I was too utterly beaten down by fatigue and dejection, too sore in body and spirit, to remonstrate, or even to stir hand or foot. Wrapping my cloak round me, I flung myself on the bed, and was soon in a state of forgetfulness of all discomforts and miseries. Next morning I rose refreshed and able to bestir myself; and by dint of bribing, and bawling, and scolding, and cajoling, I at length procured plenty of hot and cold water, and then a good breakfast of eggs, tea, and corn-cakes;--and then I set forth to reconnoitre. * * * * * CHATHAM. At Chatham, in the Western District, and on board the steam-boat, between Chatham and Detroit. July 12, 13. I can hardly imagine a more beautiful or more fortunate position for a new city than this of Chatham (you will find it on the map just upon that neck of land between Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie). It is sufficiently inland to be safe, or easily secured against the sudden attacks of a foreign enemy; the river Thames is navigable from the mouth up to the town, a distance of sixteen miles, for all kinds of lake craft, including steamers and schooners of the largest class. Lake St. Clair, into which the Thames discharges itself, is between Lake Erie and Lake Huron; the banks are formed of extensive prairies of exhaustless fertility, where thousands of cattle might roam and feed at will. As a port and depôt for commerce, its position and capabilities can hardly be surpassed, while as an agricultural country it may be said literally to flow with milk and honey. A rich soil, abundant pasture, no rent, no taxes--what is wanting here but more intelligence and a better employment of capital to prevent the people from sinking into brutified laziness, and stimulate to something like mental activity and improvement? The profuse gifts of nature are here running to waste, while hundreds and thousands in the old country are trampling over each other in the eager, hungry conflict for daily food. This land of Upper Canada is in truth the very paradise of hope. In spite of all I see and hear, which might well move to censure, to regret, to pity,--how much there is in which the trustful spirit may reasonably rejoice! It would be possible, looking at things under one aspect, to draw such a picture of the mistakes of the government, the corruption of its petty agents, the social backwardness and moral destitution of the people, as would shock you, and tempt you to regard Canada as a place of exile for convicts. On the other hand, I could, without deviating from the sober and literal truth, give you such vivid pictures of the beauty and fertility of this land of the west, of its glorious capabilities for agriculture and commerce, of the goodness and kindliness and resources of poor, much-abused human nature, as developed amid all the crushing influences of oppression, ignorance, and prejudice; and of the gratitude and self-complacency of those who have exchanged want, servitude, and hopeless toil at home, for plenty and independence and liberty here,--as would transport you in fancy into an earthly elysium. Thus, as I travel on, I am disgusted, or I am enchanted; I despair or I exult by turns; and these inconsistent and apparently contradictory emotions and impressions I set down as they arise, leaving you to reconcile them as well as you can, and make out the result for yourself. TECUMSEH. It is seldom that in this country the mind is ever carried backward by associations or recollections of any kind. Horace Walpole said of Italy, that it was "a land in which the memory saw more than the eye," and in Canada hope must play the part of memory. It is all the difference between seed-time and harvest. We are rich in anticipation, but poor in possession--more poor in memorials. Some vague and general traditions, of no interest whatever to the ignorant settlers, do indeed exist, of horrid conflicts between the Hurons and the Iroquois, all along these shores, in the time and before the time of the French dominion; of the enterprise and daring of the early fur traders; above all, of the unrequited labours and sacrifices of the missionaries, whether Jesuits, or Moravians, or Methodists, some of whom perished in tortures; others devoted themselves to the most horrible privations--each for what he believed to be the cause of truth, and for the diffusion of the light of salvation; none near to applaud the fortitude with which they died, or to gain hope and courage from their example. During the last war between Great Britain and the United States[15]--that war, in its commencement dishonourable to the Americans, in its conclusion shameful to the British, and in its progress disgraceful and demoralising to both;--that war, which began and was continued in the worst passions of our nature, cupidity and vengeance;--which brought no advantage to any one human being--not even the foolish noise and empty glory which wait oftentimes on human conflicts; a war scarce heard of in Europe, even by the mother country, who paid its cost in millions, and in the blood of some of her best subjects; a war obscure, fratricidal, and barbarous, which has left behind no effect but a mutual exasperation and distress along the frontiers of both nations, and a hatred which, like hatred between near kinsmen, is more bitter and irreconcilable than any hostility between the mercenary armies of rival nations; for here, not only the two governments quarrelled, but the people, their institutions, feelings, opinions, prejudices, local and personal interests, were brought into collision;--during this vile, profitless, and unnatural war, a battle was fought near Chatham, called by some the battle of the Thames, and by others the battle of the Moravian towns, in which the Americans, under General Harrison, beat General Proctor with considerable loss. But it is chiefly worthy of notice, as the last scene of the life of Técumseh, a Shawanee chief, of whom it is possible you may not have heard, but who is the historical hero of these wild regions. Some American writers call him the "Indian Napoleon;" both began their plans of policy and conquest about the same time, and both about the same time terminated their career, the one by captivity, the other by death. But the genius of the Indian warrior and his exploits were limited to a narrow field along the confines of civilisation, and their record is necessarily imperfect. It is clear that he had entertained the daring and really magnificent plan formerly embraced by Pontiac--that of uniting all the Indian tribes and nations in a league against the whites. That he became the ally of the British was not from friendship to us, but hatred to the Americans, whom it was his first object to repel from any further encroachments on the rights and territories of the Red men--in vain! These attempts of a noble and a fated race, to oppose, or even to delay for a time, the rolling westward of the great tide of civilisation, are like efforts to dam up the rapids of Niagara. The moral world has its laws, fixed as those of physical nature. The hunter must make way before the agriculturist, and the Indian must learn to take the bit between his teeth, and set his hand to the ploughshare, or _perish_. As yet I am inclined to think that the idea of the Indians becoming what _we_ call a civilised people seems quite hopeless; those who entertain such benevolent anticipations should come here, and behold the effect which three centuries of contact with the whites have produced on the nature and habits of the Indian. The benevolent theorists in England should come and see with their own eyes that there is a bar to the civilisation of the Indians, and the increase or even preservation of their numbers, which no power can overleap. Their own principle, that "the Great Spirit did indeed create both the red man and the white man, but created them essentially different in nature and manners," is not, perhaps, far from the truth. [Footnote 15: The war of 1812.] MISSIONARIES AMONG THE INDIANS. Take, for instance, the following scene, as described with great naïveté by one of the Moravian missionaries. After a conference with some of the Delaware chief men, in which they were informed that these missionaries had come to teach them a better and purer religion, of which the one fundamental principle, leading to eternal salvation, was belief in the Redeemer, and atonement through his blood for the sins of all mankind--all which was contained in the book which he held in his hand,--"Wangoman, a great chief and medicine-man among them, rose to reply. He began by tracing two lines on the ground, and endeavoured to explain that there were two ways which led alike to God and to happiness, the way of the Red man, and the way of the White man, but the way of the Red man, he said, was the straighter and the shorter of the two." The missionary here interposed, and represented that God himself had descended on earth to teach men the _true_ way. Wangoman declared that "he had been intimately acquainted with God for many years, and had never heard that God became a man and shed his blood, and therefore the God of whom Brother Zeisberger preached could not be the true God, or he, Wangoman, would have been made acquainted with the circumstance." The missionary then declared, "in the power of the spirit, that the God in whom Wangoman and his Indians believed was no other than the devil, the father of lies." Wangoman replied in a very moderate tone, "I cannot understand your doctrine; it is quite new and strange to me. If it be true," he added, "that the Great Spirit came down into the world, became a man and suffered so much, I assure you the Indians are not in fault, but the white men alone. God has given us the beasts of the forest for food, and our employment is to hunt them. We know nothing of your book--we cannot learn it; it is much too difficult for an Indian to comprehend." Brother Zeisberger replied, "I will tell you the reason of it. Satan is the prince of darkness: where he reigns all is dark, and he dwells in you--therefore you can comprehend nothing of God and his word; but when you return from the evil of your ways, and come as a wretched lost sinner to Jesus Christ, it may be that he will have mercy upon you. Do not delay therefore; make haste and save your poor souls!" &c. I forbear to repeat the rest, because it would seem as if I intended to turn it into ridicule, which Heaven knows I do not; for it is of far too serious import. But if it be in this style that the simple and sublime precepts of Christianity are first presented to the understanding of the Indians, can we wonder at the little progress hitherto made in converting them to the truth? And with regard to all attempts to civilise them, what should the red man see in the civilisation of the white man which should move him to envy or emulation, or raise in his mind a wish to exchange his "own unshackled life, and his innate capacities of soul," for our artificial social habits, our morals, which are contradicted by our opinions, and our religion, which is violated both in our laws and our lives? When the good missionary said, with emphasis, that there was no hope for the conversion of the Indians but in removing them as far as possible from all intercourse with Europeans, he spoke a terrible truth, confirmed by all I see and hear--by the opinion of every one I have spoken to, who has ever had any intercourse with these people. It will be said, as it has often been said, that _here_ it is the selfishness of the white man which speaks; that it is for his interest, and for his wordly advantage, that the red man should be removed out of his way, and be thrust back from the extending limits of civilisation--even like these forests, which fall before us, and vanish from the earth, leaving for a while some decaying stumps and roots over which the plough goes in time, and no vestige remains to say that here they _have been_. True; it is for the advantage of the European agriculturist or artisan, that the hunter of the woods, who requires the range of many hundred square miles of land for the adequate support of a single family, should make way for populous towns, and fields teeming with the means of subsistence for thousands. There is no denying this; and if there be those who think that in the present state of things the interests of the red man and the white man can ever be blended, and their natures and habits brought to harmonise, then I repeat, let them come here, and behold and see the heathen and the so-called Christian placed in near neighbourhood and comparison, and judge what are the chances for both! Wherever the Christian comes, he brings the Bible in one hand, disease, corruption, and the accursed fire-water, in the other; or flinging down the book of peace, he boldly and openly proclaims that might gives right, and substitutes the sabre and the rifle for the slower desolation of starvation and whisky. Every means hitherto provided by the Canadian government for the protection of the Indians against the whites has failed. Every prohibition of the use or sale of ardent spirits among them has proved a mere mockery. The refuse of the white population along the back settlements have no perception of the genuine virtues of the Indian character. They see only their inferiority in the commonest arts of life; their subjection to our power. They contemn them, oppress them, cheat them, corrupt their women, and deprave them by the means and example of drunkenness. The missionaries alone have occasionally succeeded in averting or alleviating these evils, at least in some degree; but their influence is very, very limited. The chiefs and warriors of the different tribes are perfectly aware of the monstrous evils introduced by the use of ardent spirits. They have held councils, and made resolutions for themselves and their people to abstain from their use; but the very first temptation generally oversets all these good resolves. My Moravian friend described this intense passion for intoxicating liquors with a sort of awe and affright, and attributed it to the direct agency of the devil. Another missionary relates that soon after the Delaware Indians had agreed among themselves to reject every temptation of the kind, and punish those who yielded to it, a white dealer in rum came among them, and placing himself in the midst of one of their villages, with a barrel of spirits beside him, he introduced a straw into it, and with many professions of civility and friendship to his Indian friends, he invited every one to come and take a suck through the straw _gratis_. A young Indian approached with a grave and pensive air and slow step, but suddenly turning round, he ran off precipitately as one terrified. Soon after he returned, he approached yet nearer, but again ran off in the same manner as before. The third time he suffered himself to be persuaded by the white man to put his lips to the straw. No sooner had he tasted of the fiery drink, than he offered all his wampum for a dram; and subsequently parted with everything he possessed, even his rifle and his blanket, for more. THE FIREWATER. I have another illustrative anecdote for you, which I found among a number of documents, submitted to the society established at Toronto, for converting and civilising the Indians. There can be no doubt of its truth, and it is very graphically told. The narrator is a travelling schoolmaster, who has since been taken into the service of the society, but whose name I have forgotten. "In the winter of 1832, I was led, partly by business and partly by the novelty of the enterprise, to walk from the Indian Establishment of Coldwater, to the Sault-Saint-Marie, a distance of nearly four hundred miles. "The lake was well frozen, and the ice moderately covered with snow; with the assistance of snow-shoes, we were enabled to travel a distance of fifty miles in a day; but my business not requiring any expedition, I was tempted to linger among the thousand isles of Lake Huron. I hoped to ascertain some facts with regard to the real mode of life of the Indians frequenting the north side of the lake. With this view, I made a point of visiting every wigwam that we approached, and could, if it were my present purpose, detail many interesting pictures of extreme misery and destitution. Hunger, filth, and ignorance, with an entire absence of all knowledge of a Supreme Being, here reign triumphant.[16] "Near the close of a long and fatiguing day, my Indian guide came on the recent track of a single Indian, and, anxious to please me, pursued it to the head of a very deep bay. We passed two of those holes in the ice which the Indians use for fishing, and at one of them noticed, from the quantity of blood on the snow, that the spear had lately done considerable execution. At a very short distance from the shore, the track led us past the remains of a wigwam, adjoining to which we observed a large canoe and a small hunting canoe, both carefully laid up for the winter. After a considerable ascent, a narrow winding path brought us into a deep hollow, about four hundred yards from the bay. Here, surrounded on every side by hills, on the margin of one of the smallest inland lakes, we came to a wigwam, the smoke from which showed us that it was occupied. The path for a considerable distance was lined on both sides by billets of firewood, and a blanket cleaner than usual, suspended before the entrance, gave me at the very first a favourable opinion of the inmates. I noticed on the right hand a dog-train, and on the left, two pair of snow-shoes, and two barrels of salt-fish. The wigwam was of the square form, and so large, that I was surprised to find it occupied by two Indians only--a young man and his wife. "We were soon made welcome, and I had leisure to look round me in admiration of the comfort displayed in the arrangement of the interior. A covering of fresh branches of the young hemlock-pine was neatly spread all round. In the centre of the right hand side, as we entered, the master of the lodge was seated on a large mat; his wife occupied the station at his left hand; good and clean mats were spread for myself and my guide--my own being opposite the entrance, and my guide occupying the remaining side of the wigwam. Three dogs, well conditioned, and of a large breed, lay before the fire.--So much for the live stock. At the back of the wife, I saw, suspended near the door, a tin can full of water, with a small tin cup; next to it, a mat bag filled with tin dishes, and wooden spoons of Indian manufacture; above that were several portions of female dress--ornamented leggings, two showy shawls, &c. A small chest and bag were behind her on the ground. At the back of the Indian were suspended two spear heads, of three prongs each; an American rifle, an English fowling-piece, and an Indian chief piece, with shot and bullet pouches, and two powder horns; there were also a highly ornamented capuchin, and a pair of new blanket leggings. The corner was occupied by a small red-painted chest; a mokkuk of sugar was placed in the corner on my right hand, and a barrel of flour, half empty, on the right hand of my Indian; and between that and the door were hanging three large salmon trout, and several pieces of dried deer flesh. In the centre, as usual, we had a bright blazing fire, over which three kettles gave promise of one of the comforts of weary travellers. Our host had arrived but a few minutes before us, and was busied in pulling off his moccasins and blankets when we entered. We had scarcely time to remove our leggings and change our moccasins, preparatory to a full enjoyment of the fire, when the Indian's wife was prepared to set before us a plentiful mess of boiled fish; this was followed in a short space by soup made of deer flesh and Indian corn, and our repast terminated with hot cakes baked in the ashes, in addition to the tea supplied from our own stores. "Before daylight on the following morning we were about to set out, but could not be allowed to depart without again partaking of refreshment. Boiled and broiled fish were set before us, and to my surprise, the young Indian, before partaking of it, knelt to pray aloud. His prayer was short and fervent, and without that whining tone in which I had been accustomed to hear the Indians address the Deity. It appeared to combine the manliness and humility which one would naturally expect to find in an address spoken from the heart, and not got up for theatrical effect. "On taking our departure, I tried to scan the countenance of our host, and I flatter myself I could not mistake the marks of unfeigned pleasure at having exercised the feelings of hospitality, mixed with a little pride in the display of the riches of his wigwam. "You may be sure I did not omit the opportunity of diving into the secret of all his comfort and prosperity. It could not escape observation that here was real civilisation, and I anxiously sought for some explanation of the difference between the habits of this Indian and his neighbours. The story was soon told:--He had been brought up at the British settlement on Drummond Island, where, when a child, he had, in frequent conversations, but in no studied form, heard the principles of religion explained, and he had been told to observe the sabbath, and to pray to the Almighty. Industry and prudence had been frequently enjoined, and, above all things, an abhorrence of ardent spirits. Under the influence of this wholesome advice, his hunting, fishing, and sugar-making had succeeded to such an extent, as to provide him with every necessary and many luxuries. He already had abundance, and still retained some few skins, which he hoped, during the winter, to increase to an amount sufficient to purchase him the indulgence of a barrel of pork, and additional clothing for himself and his wife. "Further explanation was unnecessary, and the wearisomeness of this day's journey was pleasingly beguiled by reflections on the simple means by which a mind, yet in a state of nature, may be saved from degradation, and elevated to the best feelings of humanity. "Shall I lift the same blanket after the lapse of eighteen months?--The second summer has arrived since my last visit; the wigwam on the Lake shore, the fit residence of summer, is unoccupied--the fire is still burning in the wigwam of winter; but the situation, which has warmth and quiet to recommend it at that season when cold is our greatest enemy, is now gloomy and dark. Wondering what could have induced my friends to put up with the melancholy of the deep forest, instead of the sparkling of the sun-lit wave, I hastened to enter. How dreadful the change! There was, indeed, the same Indian girl that I had left healthy, cheerful, contented, and happy; but whisky, hunger, and distress of mind had marked her countenance with the furrows of premature old age. An infant, whose aspect was little better than its mother's, was hanging at her breast, half dressed and filthy. Every part of the wigwam was ruinous and dirty, and, with the exception of one kettle, entirely empty. Not one single article of furniture, clothing, or provision remained. Her husband had left in the morning to go out to fish, and she had not moved from the spot; this I thought strange, as his canoe and spear were on the beach. In a short time he returned, but without any food. He had, indeed, set out to fish, but had lain down to sleep in the bush, and had been awakened by his dog barking on our arrival. He appeared worn down and helpless both in body and mind, and seated himself in listless silence in his place in the wigwam. "Producing pork and flour from my travelling stores, I requested his wife to cook them. They were prepared, and I looked anxiously at the Indian, expecting to hear his accustomed prayer. He did not move. I therefore commenced asking a blessing, and was astonished to observe him immediately rise and walk out of the wigwam. "However, his wife and child joined us in partaking of the food, which they ate voraciously. In a little time the Indian returned and lay down. My curiosity was excited, and although anxious not to distress his feelings, I could not avoid seeking some explanation of the change I observed. It was with difficulty I ascertained the following facts:-- "On the opening of the spring of 1833, the Indian having got a sufficiency of furs for his purpose, set off to a distant trading post to make his purchase. The trader presented him with a plug of tobacco and a pipe on his entrance, and offered him a glass of whisky, which he declined; the trader was then occupied with other customers, but soon noticed the respectable collection of furs in the pack of the poor Indian. He was marked as his victim, and not expecting to be able to impose upon him unless he made him drunk, he determined to accomplish this by indirect means. "As soon as the store was clear of other customers, he entered into conversation with the Indian, and invited him to join him in drinking a glass of cider, which he unhesitatingly accepted; the cider was mixed with brandy, and soon began to affect the mind of the Indian; a second and a third glass were taken, and he became completely intoxicated. In this state the trader dealt with him; but it was not at first that even the draught he had taken could overcome his lessons of prudence. He parted with only one skin; the trader was, therefore, obliged to continue his contrivances, which he did with such effect, that for three weeks the Indian remained eating, drinking, and sleeping in his store. At length all the fur was sold; and the Indian returned home, with only a few ribbons and beads, and a bottle of whisky. The evil example of the husband, added to vexation of mind, broke the resolution of the wife, and she, too, partook of the accursed liquor. From this time there was no change. The resolution of the Indian once broken, his pride of spirit, and consequently his firmness were gone; he became a confirmed drinker,--his wife's and his own ornamented dresses, and at length all the furniture of his wigwam, even the guns and traps on which his hunting depended, were all sold to the store for whisky. When I arrived, they had been two days without food, and the Indian had not energy to save himself and his family from starvation. "All the arguments that occurred to me I made use of to convince the Indian of his folly, and to induce him even now to begin life again, and redeem his character. He heard me in silence. I felt that I should be distressing them by remaining all night, and prepared to set out again, first giving to the Indian a dollar, desiring him to purchase food with it at the nearest store, and promising shortly to see him again. "I had not proceeded far on my journey, when it appeared to me, that by remaining with them for the night, and in the morning renewing my solicitations to them, I might assist still more to effect a change. I therefore turned back, and in about two hours arrived again at the wigwam. The Indian had set off for the store, but had not returned. His wife still remained seated where I left her, and during the whole night (the Indian never coming back) neither moved nor raised her head. Morning came; I quickly despatched breakfast, and leaving my baggage, with the assistance of my guide set out for the trader's store. It was distant about two miles. I inquired for the Indian. He came there the evening before with a dollar: he purchased a pint of whisky, for which he paid half a dollar, and with the remainder bought six pounds of flour. He remained until he had drunk the whisky, and then requested to have the flour exchanged for another pint of whisky. This was done, and having consumed that also, he was so "stupidly drunk," (to use the words of the trader,) that it was necessary to shut him out of the store on closing it for the night. Search was immediately made for him, and at the distance of a few yards he was found lying on his face dead." [Footnote 16: We should perhaps read, "An entire absence of all knowledge of a Supreme Being, as revealed to us in the gospel of Christ;" for I never heard of any tribe of north-west Indians, however barbarous, who had not the notion of a God (the Great Spirit), and of a future life.] * * * * * THE INDIAN CHARACTER. That the poor Indians to whom reserved lands have been granted, and who, on the faith of treaties, have made their homes and gathered themselves into villages on such lands, should, whenever it is deemed expedient, be driven out of their possessions, either by purchase, or by persuasion, or by force, or by measures which include all three, and sent to seek a livelihood in distant and strange regions--as in the case of these Delawares--is horrible, and bears cruelty and injustice on the face of it. To say that they cannot exist in amicable relation with the whites, without deprivation of their morals, is a fearful imputation on us as Christians;--but thus it is. And I do wish that those excellent and benevolent people who have taken the cause of the aborigines to heart, and are making appeals in their behalf to the justice of the government and the compassion of the public, would, instead of theorising in England, come out here and behold the actual state of things with their own eyes--and having seen all, let them say _what_ is to be done, and what chances exist, for the independence, and happiness, and morality of a small remnant of Indians residing on a block of land, six miles square, surrounded on every side by a white population. To insure the accomplishment of those benevolent and earnest aspirations, in which so many good people indulge, what is required? what is expected? Of the white men such a pitch of lofty and self-sacrificing virtue, of humane philosophy and christian benevolence, that the future welfare of the wronged people they have supplanted shall be preferred above their own immediate interest--nay, their own immediate existence: of the red man, that he shall forget the wild hunter blood flowing through his veins, and take the plough in hand, and wield the axe and the spade instead of the rifle and the fishspear! Truly they know not what they ask, who ask this; and among all those with whom I have conversed--persons familiar from thirty to forty years together with the Indians and their mode of life--I never heard but one opinion on the subject. Without casting the slightest imputation on the general honesty of intention of the missionaries and others delegated and well paid by various societies to teach and protect the Indians, still I will say that the enthusiasm of some, the self-interest of others, and an unconscious mixture of pious enthusiasm and self-interest in many more, render it necessary to take their testimony with some reservation; for often with them "the wish is father to the thought" set down; and feeling no lack of faith in their cause or in themselves, they look for miracles, such as waited on the missions of the apostles of old. But in the mean time, and by human agency, what is to be done? Nothing so easy as to point out evils and injuries, resulting from foregone events, or deep-seated in natural and necessary causes, and lament over them with resistless eloquence in verse and prose, or hold them up to the sympathy and indignation of the universe; but let the real friends of religion, humanity, and the poor Indians, set down a probable and feasible remedy for their wrongs and miseries; and follow it up, as the advocates for the abolition of the slave-trade followed up their just and glorious purpose. With a definite object and plan, much might be done; but mere declamation against the evil does little good. The people who propose remedies, forget that there are two parties concerned. I remember to have read in some of the early missionary histories, that one of the Jesuit fathers, (Father le Jeune), full of sympathy and admiration for the noble qualities and lofty independence of the converted Indians, who could not and would not work, suggested the propriety of sending out some of the French peasantry to work and till the ground for them, as the only means of keeping them from running off to the woods. A doubtful sort of philanthropy, methinks! but it shows how _one-sided_ a life's devotion to one particular object will make even a benevolent and a just man. THE CHIPPEWAS. Higher up, on the river Thames, and above the Moravian settlements, a small tribe of the Chippewa nation has been for some time located. They have apparently attained a certain degree of civilisation, live in log-huts instead of bark wigwams, and have, from necessity, turned their attention to agriculture. I have now in my pocket-book an original document sent up from these Indians to the Indian agency at Toronto. It runs thus: "We, the undersigned chiefs of the Chippewa Indians of Colborne on the Thames, hereby request Mr. Superintendent Clench to procure for us-- "One yoke of working oxen. "Six ploughs. "Thirty-three tons of hay. "One hundred bushels of oats. "The price of the above to be deducted from our land-payments." Signed by ten chiefs, or, more properly, chief men, of the tribe, of whom one, the Beaver, signs his name in legible characters: the others, as is usual with the Indians, affix each their _totem_, (crest or sign-manual,) being a rude scratch of a bird, fish, deer, &c. Another of these papers, similarly signed, contains a requisition for working tools and mechanical instruments of various kinds. This looks well, and it _is_ well; but what are the present state and probable progress of this Chippewa settlement? Why, one half the number at least are half-caste, and as the white population closes and thickens around them, we shall see in another generation or two none of entire Indian blood; they will become, at length, almost wholly amalgamated with the white people. Is this _civilising the Indians_?[17] I should observe, that when an Indian woman gives herself to a white man, she considers herself as his wife to all intents and purposes. If forsaken by him, she considers herself as injured, not disgraced. There are great numbers of white settlers and traders along the borders living thus with Indian women. Some of these have been persuaded by the missionaries or magistrates to go through the ceremony of marriage; but the number is few in proportion. You must not imagine, after all I have said, that I consider the Indians as an inferior race, merely because they have no literature, no luxuries, no steam-engines; nor yet, because they regard our superiority in the arts with a sort of lofty indifference, which is neither contempt nor stupidity, look upon them as being beyond the pale of our sympathies. It is possible I may, on a nearer acquaintance, change my opinion, but they do strike me as an _untamable_ race. I can no more conceive a city filled with industrious Mohawks and Chippewas, than I can imagine a flock of panthers browsing in a penfold. The dirty, careless habits of the Indians, while sheltered only by the bark-covered wigwam, matter very little. Living almost constantly in the open air, and moving their dwellings perpetually from place to place, the worst effects of dirt and negligence are neither perceived nor experienced. But I have never heard of any attempt to make them stationary and congregate in houses, that has not been followed by disease and mortality, particularly among the children; a natural result of close air, confinement, heat, and filth. In our endeavours to civilise the Indians, we have not only to convince the mind and change the habits, but to overcome a certain physical organisation to which labour and constraint and confinement appear to be fatal. This cannot be done in less than three generations, if at all, in the unmixed race; and meantime--they perish! [Footnote 17: The Indian village of Lorette, near Quebec, which I visited subsequently, is a case in point. Seven hundred Indians, a wretched remnant of the Huron tribe, had once been congregated there under the protection of the Jesuits, and had always been cited as examples of what might be accomplished in the task of conversion and civilisation. When I was there, the number was under two hundred; many of the huts deserted, the inhabitants having fled to the woods and taken up the hunter's life again; in those who remained, there was scarce a trace of native Indian blood.] * * * * * LAKE ST. CLAIR. It is time, however, that I should introduce you to our party on board the little steam-boat, which is now puffing, and snorting, and gliding at no rapid rate over the blue tranquil waters of Lake St. Clair.[18] First, then, there are the captain, and his mate or steersman, two young men of good manners and appearance; one English--the other Irish; one a military, the other a naval officer: both have land, and are near neighbours up somewhere by Lake Simcoe; but both being wearied out by three years' solitary life in the bush, they have taken the steam-boat for this season on speculation, and it seems likely to answer. The boat was built to navigate the ports of Lake Huron from Penetanguishine, to Goderich and St. Joseph's Island, but there it utterly failed. It is a wretched little boat, dirty and ill contrived. The upper deck, to which I have fled from the close hot cabin, is an open platform, with no defence or railing around it, and I have here my establishment--a chair, a little table, with pencil and paper, and a great umbrella; a gust of wind or a pitch of the vessel would inevitably send me sliding overboard. The passengers consist of my acquaintance, the Moravian missionary, with a family of women and children (his own wife and the relatives of his assistant Vogler), who are about to emigrate with the Indians beyond the Missouri. These people speak a dialect of German among themselves, being descended from the early German Moravians. I find them civil, but neither prepossessing nor intelligent; in short, I can make nothing of them; I cannot extract an idea beyond eating, drinking, dressing, and praying; nor can I make out with what feelings, whether of regret, or hope, or indifference, they contemplate their intended exile to the far, far west. Meantime the children squeal, and the women chatter incessantly. We took in at Chatham a large cargo of the usual articles of exportation from Canada to the United States, viz. barrels of flour, sacks of grain, and emigrants proceeding to Michigan and the Illinois. There are on board, in the steerage, a great number of poor Scotch and Irish of the lowest grade, and also one large family of American emigrants, who have taken up their station on the deck, and whose operations amuse me exceedingly. I wish I could place before you this very original ménage, even as it is before me now while I write. Such a group could be encountered nowhere on earth, methinks, but here in the west, or among the migratory Tartar hordes of the east. They are from Vermont, and on their way to the Illinois, having been already eleven weeks travelling through New York and Upper Canada. They have two waggons covered in with canvass, a yoke of oxen, and a pair of horses. The chief or patriarch of the set is an old Vermont farmer, upwards of sixty at least, whose thin shrewd face has been burnt to a deep brick-dust colour by the sun and travel, and wrinkled by age or care into a texture like that of tanned sail-canvass--(the simile nearest to me at this moment). The sinews of his neck and hands are like knotted whipcord; his turned-up nose, with large nostrils, snuffs the wind, and his small light blue eyes have a most keen, cunning expression. He wears a smockfrock over a flannel shirt, blue woollen stockings, and a broken pipe stuck in his straw hat, and all day long he smokes or chews tobacco. He has with him fifteen children of different ages by three wives. The present wife, a delicate, intelligent, care-worn woman, seems about thirty years younger than her helpmate. She sits on the shaft of one of the waggons I have mentioned, a baby in her lap, and two of the three younger children crawling about her feet. Her time and attention are completely taken up in dispensing to the whole brood, young and old, rations of food, consisting of lard, bread of Indian corn, and pieces of sassafras root. The appearance of all (except the poor anxious mother) is equally robust and cheerful, half-civilised, coarse, and by no means clean: all are barefooted except the two eldest girls, who are uncommonly handsome, with fine dark eyes. The eldest son, a very young man, has been recently married to a very young wife, and these two recline together all day, hand in hand, under the shade of a sail, neither noticing the rest nor conversing with each other, but, as it seems to me, in silent contentment with their lot. I found these people, most unlike others of their class I have met with before, neither curious nor communicative, answering to all my questions and advances with cautious monosyllables, and the old man with even laconic rudeness. The contrast which the gentle anxious wife and her baby presented to all the others, interested me; but she looked so overpowered by fatigue, and so disinclined to converse, that I found no opportunity to satisfy my curiosity without being impertinently intrusive; so, after one or two ineffectual advances to the shy, wild children, I withdrew, and contented myself with observing the group at a distance. The banks of the Thames are studded with a succession of farms, cultivated by the descendants of the early French settlers--precisely the same class of people as the _Habitans_ in Lower Canada. They go on exactly as their ancestors did a century ago, raising on their rich fertile lands just sufficient for a subsistence, wholly uneducated, speaking only a French patois, without an idea of advance or improvement of any kind; submissive to their priests, gay, contented, courteous, and apparently retaining their ancestral tastes for dancing, singing, and flowers. In the midst of half-dilapidated, old-fashioned farm-houses, you could always distinguish the priest's dwelling, with a flower-garden in front, and the little chapel or church surmounted by a cross,--both being generally neat, clean, fresh-painted, and forming a strange contrast with the neglect and slovenliness around. Ague prevails very much at certain seasons along the banks of the river, and I could see by the manner in which the houses are built, that it overflows its banks annually; it abounds in the small fresh-water turtle (the Terrapin): every log floated on the water, or muddy islet, was covered with them. We stopped half-way down the river to take in wood. Opposite to the landing-place stood an extensive farmhouse, in better condition than any I had yet seen: and under the boughs of an enormous tree, which threw an ample and grateful shade around, our boat was moored. Two Indian boys, about seven or eight years old, were shooting with bow and arrows at a mark stuck up against the huge trunk of the tree. They wore cotton shirts, with a crimson belt round the waist ornamented with beads, such as is commonly worn by the Canadian Indians; one had a gay handkerchief knotted round his head, from beneath which his long black hair hung in matted elf locks on his shoulders. The elegant forms, free movements, and haughty indifference of these Indian boys, were contrasted with the figures of some little dirty, ragged Canadians, who stood staring upon us with their hands in their pockets, or importunately begging for cents. An Indian hunter and his wife, the father and mother of the boys, were standing by, and at the feet of the man a dead deer lay on the grass. The steward of the boat was bargaining with the squaw for some venison, while the hunter stood leaning on his rifle, haughty and silent. At the window of the farmhouse sat a well-dressed female, engaged in needlework. After looking up at me once or twice as I stood upon the deck gazing on this picture--just such a one as Edwin Landseer would have delighted to paint--the lady invited me into her house; an invitation I most gladly accepted. Everything within it and around it spoke riches and substantial plenty; she showed me her garden, abounding in roses, and an extensive orchard, in which stood two Indian wigwams. She told me that every year families of Chippewa hunters came down from the shore of Lake Huron, and encamped in her orchard, and those of her neighbours, without asking permission. They were perfectly inoffensive, and had never been known to meddle with her poultry, or injure her trees. "They are," said she, "an honest, excellent people; but I must shut the gates of my orchard upon them to-night--for this bargain with your steward will not conclude without whisky, and I shall have them all _ivres mort_ before to-morrow morning." [Footnote 18: Most of the small steam-boats on the American lakes have high-pressure engines, which make a horrible and perpetual snorting like the engine on a railroad.] * * * * * DETROIT. Detroit, at night. I passed half an hour in pleasant conversation with this lady, who had been born, educated, and married in the very house in which she now resided. She spoke English well and fluently, but with a foreign accent, and her deportment was frank and easy, with that sort of graceful courtesy which seems inherent in the French manner, or used to be so. On parting, she presented me with a large bouquet of roses, which has proved a great delight, and served all the purposes of a fan. Nor should I forget that in her garden I saw the only humming-birds I have yet seen in Canada: there were two lovely little gem-like creatures disporting among the blossoms of the scarlet-bean. They have been this year less numerous than usual, owing to the lateness and severity of the spring. The day has been most intolerably hot; even on the lake there was not a breath of air. But as the sun went down in his glory, the breeze freshened, and the spires and towers of the city of Detroit were seen against the western sky. The schooners at anchor, or dropping into the river--the little canoes flitting across from side to side--the lofty buildings,--the enormous steamers--the noisy port, and busy streets, all bathed in the light of a sunset such as I had never seen, not even in Italy--almost turned me giddy with excitement. I have emerged from the solitary forests of Canada to be thrown suddenly into the midst of crowded civilised life; and the effect for the present is a nervous flutter of the spirits which banishes sleep and rest; though I have got into a good hotel, (the American,) and have at last, after some trouble, obtained good accommodation. Detroit, June ----. The roads by which I have at length reached this beautiful little city were not, certainly, the smoothest and the easiest in the world; nor can it be said of Upper Canada, as of wisdom, "that all her ways are ways of pleasantness, and her paths are paths of peace." On the contrary, one might have fancied oneself in the road to paradise for that matter. It was difficult, and narrow; and foul, and steep enough to have led to the seventh heaven; but in heaven I am not yet-- * * * * * Since my arrival at Detroit, some malignant planet reigns in place of that favourable and guiding star which has hitherto led me so deftly on my way, "Through brake, through brier, Through mud, through mire." Here, where I expected all would go so well, every thing goes wrong, and cross, and contrary. A severe attack of illness, the combined effect of heat, fatigue, and some deleterious properties in the water at Detroit, against which travellers should be warned, has confined me to my room for the last three days. This _mal-à-propos_ indisposition has prevented me from taking my passage in the great steamer which has just gone up Lake Huron; and I must now wait here six days longer, till the next boat, bound for Mackinaw and Chicago, comes up Lake Erie from Buffalo. What is far worse, I have lost, for the time being, the advantage of seeing and knowing Daniel Webster, and of hearing a display of that wonderful eloquence which they say takes captive all ears, and hearts, and souls. He has been making public speeches here, appealing to the people against the money transactions of the government; and the whole city has been in a ferment. He left Detroit two days after my arrival, to my no small mortification. I had letters for him; and it so happens that several others to whom I had also letters have fled from the city on summer tours, or to escape the heat. Some have gone east, some west; some up the lakes, some down the lakes. So I am abandoned to my own resources, in a miserable state of languor, lassitude, and weakness. It is not, however, the first time I have had to endure sickness and solitude together in a strange land; and, the worst being over, we must needs make the best of it, and send the time away as well as we can. Of all the places I have yet seen in these far western regions, Detroit is the most interesting. It is, moreover, a most ancient and venerable place, dating back to the dark, immemorial ages, i.e. almost a century and a quarter ago! and having its history and antiquities, and traditions and heroes, and epochs of peace and war. No place in the United States presents such a series of events interesting in themselves, and permanently affecting, as they occurred, both its progress and prosperity. Five times its flag has changed; three different sovereignties have claimed its allegiance; and, since it has been held by the United States, its government has been thrice transferred: twice it has been besieged by the Indians, once captured in war, and once burned to the ground: truly a long list of events for a young city of a century old! Detroit may almost rival her old grandam Quebec, who sits bristling defiance on the summit of her rocky height, in warlike and tragic experience. Can you tell me why we gave up this fine and important place to the Americans, without leaving ourselves even a fort on the opposite shore? Dolts and blockheads as we have been in all that concerns the partition and management of these magnificent regions, now that we have ignorantly and blindly ceded whole countries, and millions and millions of square miles of land and water to our neighbours, I am told that we are likely to quarrel and go to war about a partition line through the barren tracts of the east! Well, let our legislators look to it! Colonel Talbot told me that when he took a map, and pointed out to one of the English commissioners the foolish bargain they had made, the real extent, value, and resources of the countries ceded to the United States, the man covered his eyes with his clenched hands, and burst into tears. The position of Detroit is one of the finest imaginable. It is on a strait between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, commanding the whole internal commerce of these great "successive seas." Michigan, of which it is the capital, being now received into the Union, its importance, both as a frontier town and a place of trade, increases every day. The origin of the city was a little palisadoed fort, erected here, in 1702, by the French under La Motte Cadillac, to defend their fur trade. It was then called Fort Portchartrain. From this time till 1760 it remained in possession of the French, and continued to increase slowly. So late as 1721, Charlevoix speaks of the vast herds of buffaloes ranging the plains west of the city. Meantime, under the protection of the fort, the settlement and cultivation of the neighbouring districts went on, in spite of the attacks of some of the neighbouring tribes of Indians, particularly the Ottagamies, who, with the Iroquois, seem to have been the only decided and irreconcilable enemies whom the French found in this province. The capture of Quebec, and the death of Wolfe, being followed by the cession of the whole of the French territory in North America to the power of Great Britain, Detroit, with all the other trading posts in the west, was given up to the English. It is curious that the French submitted to this change of masters more easily than the Indians, who were by no means inclined to exchange the French for the English alliance. "Whatever may have been the cause," says Governor Cass, "the fact is certain, that there is in the French character a peculiar adaptation to the habits and feelings of the Indians; and to this day the period of French domination is the era of all that is happy in Indian reminiscences." The conciliating manners of the French towards the Indians, and the judgment with which they managed all their intercourse with them, has had a permanent effect on the minds of those tribes who were in friendship with them. At this day, if the British are generally preferred to the Americans, the French are always preferred to either. A Chippewa chief, addressing the American agent at the Sault S^{te.} Marie, so late as 1826, thus fondly referred to the period of the French dominion:--"When the Frenchmen arrived at these Falls, they came and kissed us. They called us children; and we found them fathers. We lived like brethren in the same lodge; and we had always wherewithal to clothe us. They never mocked at our ceremonies, and they never molested the places of our dead. Seven generations of men have passed away, but we have not forgotten it. Just, very just, were they towards us!"[19] The discontent of the Indian tribes upon the transfer of the forts and trading posts into the possession of the British, showed itself early, and at length gave rise to one of the most prolonged and savage of all the Indian wars, that of Pontiac, in 1763. [Footnote 19: Vide Historical Sketches of Michigan.] PONTIAC. Of this Pontiac you have read, no doubt, in various books of travels and anecdotes of Indian chiefs. But it is one thing to read of these events by an English fireside, where the features of the scene--the forest wilds echoing to the war-whoop--the painted warriors--the very words scalping, tomahawking, bring no definite meaning to the mind, only a vague horror;--and quite _another_ thing to recall them here on the spot, arrayed in all their dread yet picturesque reality. Pontiac is the hero _par excellence_ of all these regions; and in all the histories of Detroit, when Detroit becomes a great capital of the west, he will figure like Caractacus or Arminius in the Roman history. The English contemporaries call him king and emperor of the Indians; but there is absolutely no sovereignty among these people. Pontiac was merely a war chief, chosen in the usual way, but exercising a more than usual influence, not by mere bravery--the universal savage virtue--but by talents of a rarer kind; a power of reflection and combination rarely met with in the character of the red warrior. Pontiac was a man of genius, and would have ruled his fellow-men under any circumstances, and in any country. He formed a project similar to that which Tecumseh entertained fifty years later. He united all the north-western tribes of Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottowottomies, in one great confederacy against the British, "the dogs in red coats;" and had very nearly caused the overthrow, at least the temporary overthrow of our power. He had planned a simultaneous attack on all the trading posts in the possession of the English, and so far succeeded that ten of these forts were surprised about the same time, and all the English soldiers and traders massacred, while the French were spared. Before any tidings of these horrors and outrages could reach Detroit, Pontiac was here in friendly guise, and all his measures admirably arranged for taking this fort also by stratagem, and murdering every Englishman within it. All had been lost, if a poor Indian woman, who had received much kindness from the family of the commandant (Major Gladwyn), had not revealed the danger. I do not yet quite understand why Major Gladwyn, on the discovery of Pontiac's treachery, and having him in his power, did not make him and his whole band prisoners; such a stroke would have ended, or rather it would have prevented, the war. But it must be remembered that Major Gladwyn was ignorant of the systematic plan of extermination adopted by Pontiac; the news of the massacres at the upper forts had not reached him; he knew of nothing but the attempt on himself, and from motives of humanity or magnanimity he suffered them to leave the fort and go free. No sooner were they on the outside of the palisades, than they set up the war-yell "like so many devils," as a bystander expressed it, and turned and discharged their rifles on the garrison. The war, thus savagely declared, was accompanied by all those atrocious barbarities, and turns of fate, and traits of heroism, and hair-breadth escapes, which render these Indian conflicts so exciting, so terrific, so picturesque. Detroit was in a state of siege by the Indians for twelve months, and gallantly and successfully defended by Major Gladwyn, till relieved by General Bradstreet. The first time I was able to go out, my good-natured landlord drove me himself in his waggon (_Anglicè_, gig), with as much attention and care for my comfort, as if I had been his near relation. The evening was glorious; the sky perfectly Italian--a genuine Claude Lorraine sky, that beautiful intense amber light reaching to the very zenith, while the purity and transparent loveliness of the atmospheric effects carried me back to Italy and times long past. I felt it all, as people feel things after a sharp fit of indisposition, when the nervous system, languid at once and sensitive, thrills and trembles to every breath of air. As we drove slowly and silently along, we came to a sluggish, melancholy looking rivulet, to which the man pointed with his whip. "I expect," said he, "you know all about the battle of Bloody Run?" I was obliged to confess my ignorance, not without a slight shudder at the hateful, ominous name which sounded in my ear like an epitome of all imaginable horrors. This was the scene of a night attack made by three hundred British upon the camp of the Indians, who were then besieging Detroit. The Indians had notice of their intention, and prepared an ambush to receive them. They had just reached the bank of this rivulet, when the Indian foe fell upon them suddenly. They fought hand to hand, bayonet and tomahawk, in the darkness of the night. Before the English could extricate themselves, seventy men and most of the officers fell and were scalped on the spot. "Them Indians," said my informant, "fought like brutes and devils" (as most men do, I thought, who fight for revenge and existence), "and they say the creek here, when morning came, ran red with blood; and so they call it the Bloody Run." There certainly is much in a name, whatever Juliet may say, and how much in fame! There is the brook Sanguinetto, which flows into Lake Thrasymene,--the meaning and the derivation are the same, but what a difference in sound! The Sanguinetto! 'tis a word one might set to music.--_The Bloody Run!_ pah! the very utterance pollutes one's fancy! And in associations, too, how different, though the circumstances were not unlike! This Indian Fabius, this Pontiac, wary and brave, and unbroken by defeat, fighting for his own land against a swarm of invaders, has had no poet, no historian to immortalise him, else all this ground over which I now tread had been as _classical_ as the shores of Thrasymene. As they have called Tecumseh the Indian Napoleon, they might style Pontiac the Indian Alexander--I do not mean him of Russia, but the Greek. Here, for instance, is a touch of magnanimity quite in the _Alexander-the-great_ style. Pontiac, before the commencement of the war, had provided for the safety of a British officer, Major Rogers by name, who was afterwards employed to relieve Detroit, when besieged by the Indians. On this occasion he sent Pontiac a present of a bottle of brandy, to show he had not forgotten his former obligations to him. Those who were around the Indian warrior when the present arrived, particularly some Frenchmen, warned him not to taste it, as it might be poisoned. Pontiac instantly took a draught from it, saying, as he put the bottle to his lips, that "it was not _in the power_ of Major Rogers to hurt him who had so lately saved his life." I think this story is no unworthy pendant to that of Alexander and his physician. But what avails it all! who knows or cares about Pontiac and his Ottawas? "Vain was the chief's, the warrior's pride! He had no poet--and he died!" If I dwell on these horrid and obscure conflicts, it is partly to amuse the languid idle hours of convalescence, partly to inspire you with some interest for the localities around me:--and I may as well, while the pen is in my hand, give you the conclusion of the story. Pontiac carried on the war with so much talent, courage, and resources, that the British government found it necessary to send a considerable force against him. General Bradstreet came up here with three thousand men, wasting the lands of the Miami and Wyandot Indians, "burning their villages, and destroying their corn-fields;" and I pray you to observe that in all the accounts of our expeditions against the Indians, as well as those of the Americans under General Wayne and General Harrison, mention is made of the destruction of corn-fields (plantations of Indian corn) to a great extent, which show that _some_ attention must have been paid to agriculture, even by these wild hunting tribes. I find mention also of a very interesting and beautiful tradition connected with these regions. To the east of the Detroit territory, there was settled from ancient times a band of Wyandots or Hurons, who were called the neutral nation; they never took part in the wars and conflicts of the other tribes. They had two principal villages, which were like the cities of refuge among the Israelites; whoever fled there from an enemy found a secure and inviolable sanctuary. If two enemies from tribes long at deadly variance met there, they were friends while standing on that consecrated ground. To what circumstances this extraordinary institution owed its existence is not known. It was destroyed after the arrival of the French in the country--not by them, but by some national and internal feud. But to return to Pontiac. With all his talents, he could not maintain a standing or permanent army, such a thing being contrary to all the Indian usages, and quite incompatible with their mode of life. His warriors fell away from him every season, and departed to their hunting grounds to provide food for their families. The British pressed forward, took possession of their whole country, and the tribes were obliged to beg for peace. Pontiac disdained to take any part in these negotiations, and retired to the Illinois, where he was murdered, from some motive of private animosity, by a Peoria Indian. The Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottowottomies, who had been allied under his command, thought it incumbent on them to avenge his death, and nearly exterminated the whole nation of the Peorias--and this was the life and the fall of Pontiac. The name of this great chief is commemorated in that of a flourishing village, or rising town, about twenty miles west of Detroit, which is called _Pontiac_, as one of the townships in Upper Canada is styled _Tecumseh_: thus literally illustrating those beautiful lines in Mrs. Sigourney's poem on Indian names:-- "Their memory liveth on your hills, _Their baptism on your shore_; Your everlasting rivers speak Their dialect of yore!" For rivers, bearing their old Indian names, we have here the Miami, the Huron, the Sandusky: but most of the points of land, rivers, islands, &c., bear the French appellations, as Point Pelée, River au Glaize, River des Canards, Gros-Isle, &c. The _mélange_ of proper names in this immediate neighbourhood is sufficiently curious. Here we have Pontiac, Romeo, Ypsilanti, and Byron, all within no great distance of each other. * * * * * Long after the time of Pontiac, Detroit and all the country round it became the scene of even more horrid and unnatural conflicts between the Americans and British, during the war of the revolution, in which the Indians were engaged against the Americans. When peace was proclaimed, and the independence of the United States recognised by Great Britain, this savage war on the frontiers still continued, and mutual aggressions and injuries have left bitter feelings rankling on both sides. Let us hope that in another generation they may be effaced. For myself, I cannot contemplate the possibility of another war between the English and Americans without a mingled disgust and terror, as something cruel, unnatural, fratricidal. Have we not the same ancestry, the same father-land, the same language? "Though to drain our blood from out their being were an aim," they cannot do it! The ruffian refuse of the two nations--the most ignorant, common-minded, and vulgar among them, may hate each other, and give each other nicknames--but every year diminishes the number of such; and while the two governments are shaking hands across the Atlantic, it were indeed supremely ridiculous if they were to go to cuffs across the Detroit and Niagara! * * * * * DETROIT. When the intolerable heat of the day has subsided, I sometimes take a languid stroll through the streets of the city, not unamused, not altogether unobserving, though unable to profit much by what I see and hear. There are many new houses building, and many new streets laid out. In the principal street, called the Jefferson Avenue, there are rows of large and handsome brick houses; the others are generally of wood, painted white, with bright green doors and windows. The footway in many of the streets is, like that of Toronto, of planks, which for my own part I like better than the burning brick or stone _pavé_. The crowd of emigrants constantly pouring through this little city on their way to the back settlements of the west, and the number of steamers, brigs, and schooners always passing up and down the lakes, occasion a perpetual bustle, variety, and animation on the shores and in the streets. Forty-two steamers touch at the port. In one of the Detroit papers (there are five or six published here either daily or weekly) I found a long column, headed Marine Intelligence, giving an account of the arrival and departure of the shipping. Last year the profits of the steam-boats averaged seventy or eighty per cent., one with another: this year it is supposed that many will lose. There are several boats which ply regularly between Detroit and some of the new-born cities on the south shore of Lake Erie--Sandusky, Cleveland, Port Clinton, Monroe, &c. The navigation of the Detroit river is generally open from the beginning of April to the end of November. In the depth of winter they pass and repass from the British to the American shore on the ice. There are some excellent shops in the town, a theatre, and a great number of taverns and gaming-houses:--also a great number of booksellers' shops; and I read in the papers long lists of books, newly arrived and unpacked, which the public are invited to inspect. Wishing to borrow some books, to while away the long solitary hours in which I am _obliged_ to rest, I asked for a circulating library, and was directed to the only one in the place. I had to ascend a steep staircase--so disgustingly dirty, that it was necessary to draw my drapery carefully around me to escape pollution. On entering a large room, unfurnished except with book shelves, I found several men sitting or rather sprawling upon chairs, and reading the newspapers. The collection of books was small; but they were not of a common or vulgar description. I found some of the best modern publications in French and English. The man--gentleman I should say, for all are gentlemen here--who stood behind the counter, neither moved his hat from his head, nor bowed on my entrance, nor showed any officious anxiety to serve or oblige; but, with this want of what _we_ English consider due courtesy, there was no deficiency of real civility--far from it. When I inquired on what terms I might have some books to read, this gentleman desired I would take any books I pleased, and not think about payment or deposit. I remonstrated, and represented that I was a stranger at an inn--that my stay was uncertain, &c.; and the reply was, that from a lady and a stranger he could not think of receiving remuneration: and then gave himself some trouble to look out the books I wished for, which I took away with me. He did not even ask the name of the hotel at which I was staying; and when I returned the books, persisted in declining all payment from "a lady and a stranger." Whatever attention and politeness may be tendered to me, in either character, as a lady or as a stranger, I am always glad to receive from any one, in any shape. In the present instance, I could indeed have dispensed with the _form_: a pecuniary obligation, small or large, not being much to my taste; but what was meant for courtesy, I accepted courteously--and so the matter ended. Nations differ in their idea of good manners, as they do on the subject of beauty--a far less conventional thing. But there exists luckily a standard for each, in reference to which we cannot err, and to which the progress of civilisation will, it is to be hoped, bring us all nearer and nearer still. For the type of perfection in physical beauty we go to Greece, and for that of politeness we go to the gospel. As it is written in a charming little book I have just bought here,--"He who should embody and manifest the virtues taught in Christ's sermon on the Mount, would, though he had never seen a drawing-room, nor ever heard of the artificial usages of society, commend himself to all nations, the most refined as well as the most simple."[20] If you look upon the map, you will find that the Detroit River, so called, is rather a strait or channel about thirty miles in length, and in breadth from one to two or three miles, dividing the British from the American shore. Through this channel all the waters of the upper lakes, Michigan, Superior, and Huron, come pouring down on their way to the ocean. Here, at Detroit, the breadth of the river does not exceed a mile. A pretty little steamer, gaily painted, with streamers flying, and shaded by an awning, is continually passing and repassing from shore to shore. I have sometimes sat in this ferry-boat for a couple of hours together, pleased to remain still, and enjoy, without exertion, the cool air, the sparkling redundant waters, and green islands:--amused, meantime, by the variety and conversation of the passengers, English emigrants, and French Canadians; brisk Americans; dark, sad-looking Indians folded in their blankets; farmers, storekeepers, speculators in wheat; artisans; trim girls with black eyes and short petticoats, speaking a Norman _patois_, and bringing baskets of fruit to the Detroit market; over-dressed, long-waisted, damsels of the city, attended by their beaux, going to make merry on the opposite shore. The passage is not of more than ten minutes duration, yet there is a tavern bar on the lower deck, and a constant demand for cigars, liquors, and mint julep--by the _men_ only, I pray you to observe, and the Americans chiefly; I never saw the French peasants ask for drink. [Footnote 20: "Home," by Miss Sedgwick.] * * * * * THE CONTRAST. Yesterday and to-day I have passed some hours straying or driving about on the British shore. I hardly know how to convey to you an idea of the difference between the two shores; it will appear to you as incredible as it is to me incomprehensible. Our shore is said to be the most fertile, and has been the longest settled; but to float between them (as I did to-day in a little canoe made of a hollow tree, and paddled by a half-breed imp of a boy)--to behold on one side a city, with its towers and spires and animated population, with villas and handsome houses stretching along the shore, and a hundred vessels or more, gigantic steamers, brigs, schooners, crowding the port, loading and unloading; all the bustle, in short, of prosperity and commerce;--and, on the other side, a little straggling hamlet, one schooner, one little wretched steam-boat, some windmills, a catholic chapel or two, a supine ignorant peasantry, all the symptoms of apathy, indolence, mistrust, hopelessness!--can I, can anyone, help wondering at the difference, and asking whence it arises? There must be a cause for it surely--but what is it? Does it lie in past or in present--in natural or accidental circumstances?--in the institutions of the government, or the character of the people? Is it remediable? is it a necessity? is it a mystery? what and whence is it?--Can you tell? or can you send some of our colonial officials across the Atlantic to behold and solve the difficulty? The little hamlet opposite to Detroit is called Richmond. I, was sitting there to-day on the grassy bank above the river resting in the shade of a tree, and speculating on all these things, when an old French Canadian stopped near me to arrange something about his cart. We entered forthwith into conversation; and though I had some difficulty in making out his _patois_, he understood my French, and we got on very well. If you would see the two extremes of manner brought into near comparison, you should turn from a Yankee storekeeper to a French Canadian! It was quite curious to find in this remote region such a perfect specimen of an old-fashioned Norman peasant--all bows, courtesy, and good-humour. He was carrying a cart-load of cherries to Sandwich, and when I begged for a ride, the little old man bowed and smiled, and poured forth a voluble speech, in which the words _enchanté! honneur!_ and _madame!_ were all I could understand; but these were enough. I mounted the cart, seated myself in an old chair surrounded with baskets heaped with ripe cherries, lovely as those of Shenstone-- "Scattering like blooming maid their glances round, And must be bought, though penury betide!" No occasion, however, to risk penury here; for after permission asked, and granted with a pleasant smile and a hundredth removal of the ragged hat, I failed not to profit by my situation, and dipped my hand pretty frequently into these tempting baskets. When the French penetrated into these regions a century ago, they brought with them not only their national courtesy, but some of their finest national fruits,--plums, cherries, apples, pears, of the best quality--excellent grapes, too, I am told--and all these are now grown in such abundance as to be almost valueless. For his cart-load of cherries my old man expected a sum not exceeding two shillings. Sandwich is about two miles below Detroit. It is the chief place in the Western District, the county town; yet the population does not much exceed four hundred. I had to regret much the absence of Mr. Prince, the great proprietor of the place, and a distinguished member of our house of assembly, both for ability and eloquence; but I saw sufficient to convince me that Sandwich makes no progress. The appearance of the place and people, so different from all I had left on the opposite side of the river, made me melancholy, or rather thoughtful. What can be the reason that all flourishes _there_, and all languishes _here_? Amherstberg, another village about ten miles farther, contains about six hundred inhabitants, has a good harbour, and all natural capabilities; but here also no progress is making. There is a wretched little useless fort, commanding, or rather _not_ commanding, the entrance to the Detroit river on our side, and memorable in the history of the last American war as Fort Malden. There are here a few idle soldiers, detached from the garrison at Toronto; and it is said that even these will be removed. In case of an attack or sudden outbreak, all this exposed and important line of shore is absolutely without defence.[21] I am hardly competent to give an opinion either way, but it seemeth to me, in my simple wit, that this is a case in which the government of the Crown, always supposing it to be wisely and paternally administered, must be preferable to the interposition of the colonial legislature, seeing that the interests of the colonists and settlers, and those of the Indians, are brought into perpetual collision, and that the colonists can scarcely be trusted to decide in their own case. As it is, the poor Indian seems hardly destined to meet with _justice_ either from the legislative or executive power. [Footnote 21: This was written on the spot. Since the troubles in Upper Canada, it is understood to be the intention of the governor to fortify this coast.] THE INDIANS. I believe that Sir Francis Head entertained an enthusiastic admiration for the Indian character, and was sincerely interested in the welfare of this fated people. It was his deliberate conviction that there was no salvation for them but in their removal as far as possible from the influence and dominion of the white settlers; and in this I agree with his Excellency; but seeing that the Indians are not virtually British subjects, no measure should be adopted, even for their supposed benefit, without their acquiescence. They are quite capable of judging for themselves in every case in which their interests are concerned. The fault of our executive is, that we acknowledge the Indians our _allies_, yet treat them, as well as call them, our _children_. They acknowledged in our government a _father_; they never acknowledged any master but the "Great Master of Life," and the rooted idea, or rather instinct of personal and political independence in which every Indian is born or reared, no earthly power can obliterate from his soul. One of the early missionaries expresses himself on this point with great _naïveté_. "The Indians," he says, "are convinced that every man is born free; that no one has a right to make any attempt upon his personal liberty, and that nothing can make him amends for its loss." He proceeds--"We have even had much pains to undeceive those converted to Christianity on this head, and to make them understand that in consequence of the corruption of our nature, which is the effect of sin, an unrestrained liberty of doing evil differs little from the necessity of doing it, considering the strength of the inclination which carries us to it; and that the law which restrains us brings us nearer to our first liberty in seeming to deprive us of it." That a man, because he has the free use of his will and his limbs, must therefore necessarily do evil, is a doctrine which the Indian can never be brought to understand. He is too polite to contradict us, but he insists that it was made for the pale-faces, who, it may be, are naturally inclined to all evil; but has nothing to do with the red skins, whom the Great Spirit created free. "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;"--but about liberty there may be as many differing notions as about charity. Of the number here I can form no exact idea; they say there are about two hundred. At present they are busied in preparations for their voyage up Lake Huron to the Great Manitoolin Island to receive their annual presents, and one fleet of canoes has already departed. * * * * * PLACES OF WORSHIP. My business here being not to dream, but to observe, and this morning being Sunday morning, I crept forth to attend the different church services merely as a spectator. I went first to the Roman Catholic church, called the Cathedral, and the largest and oldest in the place. The Catholic congregation is by far the most numerous here, and is composed chiefly of the lower classes and the descendants of the French settlers. On entering the porch, I found a board suspended with written regulations, to the effect that all Christians, of whatever denomination, were welcome to enter; but it was requested that all would observe the outward ceremonial, and that all gentlemen (_tous les messieurs_) would lay aside their pipes and cigars, take off their hats, and wipe their shoes. The interior of the church was similar to that of many other provincial Roman Catholic churches, exhibiting the usual assortment of wax tapers, gilding, artificial flowers, and daubed Madonnas. The music and singing were not good. In the course of the service, the officiating priest walked up and down the aisles, flinging about the holy water on either side, with a silver-handled brush. I had my share, though unworthy of this sprinkling, and then left the church, where the heat and the smell of incense, _et cetera_, were too overpowering. On the steps, and in the open space before the door, there was a crowd of peasants, all talking French--laughing, smoking, tobacco chewing, _et cetera, et cetera_. One or two were kneeling in the porch. Thence I went to the Methodist chapel, where I found a small congregation of the lower classes. A very ill-looking man, in comparison to whom Liston's Mawworm were no caricature, was holding forth in a most whining and lugubrious tone; the poor people around joined in sobs and ejaculations, which soon became howling, raving, and crying. In the midst of this woful assembly I observed a little boy who was grinning furtively, kicking his heels, and sliding bits of apple from his pocket into his mouth. Not being able to endure this with proper seriousness, I left the place. I then went into the Baptist church, on the opposite side of the road. It is one of the largest in the town, plain in appearance, but the interior handsome, and in good taste. The congregation was not crowded, but composed of most respectable, serious, well-dressed people. As I entered, the preacher was holding forth on the unpardonable sin, very incoherently and unintelligibly, but, on closing his sermon, he commenced a prayer; and I have seldom listened to one more eloquently fervent. Both the sermon and prayer were extemporaneous. He prayed for all people, nations, orders and conditions of men throughout the world, including the king of Great Britain: but the prayer for the president of the United States seemed to me a little original, and admirably calculated to suit the two parties who are at present divided on the merits of that gentleman. The suppliant besought the Almighty, that "if Mr. Van Buren were a good man, he might be made better; and if a bad man, he might be speedily regenerated." I was still in time for the Episcopal church, a very spacious and handsome building, though "somewhat Gothic." On entering, I perceived at one glance that the Episcopal church is here, as at New York, the _fashionable_ church of the place. It was crowded in every part: the women well dressed--but, as at New York, too much dressed, too fine for good taste and real fashion. I was handed immediately to the "strangers' pew," a book put into my hand, and it was whispered to me that the bishop would preach. Our English idea of the exterior of a bishop is an old gentleman in a wig and lawn sleeves, both equally _de rigueur_; I was therefore childishly surprised to find in the Bishop of Michigan a young man of very elegant appearance, wearing his own fine hair, and in a plain black silk gown. The sermon was on the well-worn subject of charity as it consists in _giving_--the least and lowest it may be of all the branches of charity, though indeed that depends on what we give, and how we give it. We may give our heart, our soul, our time, our health, our life, as well as our money; and the greatest of these, as well as the least, is still but charity. At home I have often thought that when people gave money they gave counters; here, when people give money they are really charitable--they give a portion of their time and their existence, both of which are devoted to money-making. On closing his sermon, which was short and unexceptionable, the bishop leaned forward over the pulpit, and commenced an extemporaneous address to his congregation. I have often had occasion in the United States to admire the ready, graceful fluency of their extemporaneous speakers and preachers, and I have never heard anything more eloquent and more elegant than this address; it was in perfect good taste, besides being very much to the purpose. He spoke in behalf of the domestic missions of his diocese. I understood that the missions hitherto supported in the back settlements are, in consequence of the extreme pressure of the times, likely to be withdrawn, and the new, thinly-peopled districts thus left without any ministry whatever. He called on the people to give their aid towards sustaining these domestic missionaries, at least for a time, and said, among other things, that if each individual of the Episcopal church in the United States subscribed one cent. per week for a year, it would amount to more than 300,000 dollars. This address was responded to by a subscription on the spot of above 400 dollars--a large sum for a small town, suffering, like all other places, from the present commercial difficulties. * * * * * LEAVE DETROIT. July 18. This evening the Thomas Jefferson arrived in the river from Buffalo, and starts early to-morrow morning for Chicago. I hastened to secure a passage as far as the island of Mackinaw: when once there, I must trust to Providence for some opportunity of going up Lake Huron to the Sault Ste. Marie to visits my friends the MacMurrays; or down the lake to the Great Manitoolin Island, where the annual distribution of presents to the Indians is to take place under the auspices of the governor. If both these plans--wild plans they are, I am told--should fail, I have only to retrace my way and come down the lake, as I went up, in a steamer; but this were horridly tedious and prosaic, and I _hope_ better things. So _evviva la speranza!_ and Westward Ho! * * * * * On board the Jefferson, River St. Clair, July 19. This morning I came down early to the steam-boat, attended by a _cortège_ of amiable people, who had heard of my sojourn at Detroit too late to be of any solace or service to me, but had seized this last and only opportunity of showing politeness and good-will. The sister of the governor, two other ladies, and a gentleman, came on board with me at that early hour, and remained on deck till the paddles were in motion. The talk was so pleasant, I could not but regret that I had not seen some of these kind people earlier, or might hope to see more of them; but it was too late. Time and steam wait neither for man nor woman: all expressions of hope and regret on both sides were cut short by the parting signal, which the great bell swung out from on high; all compliments and questions "fumbled up into a loose adieu;" and these new friendly faces--seen but for a moment, then to be lost, yet not quite forgotten--were soon left far behind. The morning was most lovely and auspicious; blazing hot though, and scarce a breath of air; and the magnificent machine, admirably appointed in all respects, gaily painted and gilt, with flags waving, glided over the dazzling waters with an easy, stately motion. I had suffered so much at Detroit, that as it disappeared and melted away in the bright southern haze like a vision, I turned from it with a sense of relief, put the past out of my mind, and resigned myself to the present--like a wise woman--or wiser child. The captain told me that last season he had never gone up the lakes with less than four or five hundred passengers. This year, fortunately for my individual comfort, the case is greatly altered: we have not more than one hundred and eighty passengers, consequently an abundance of accommodation, and air, and space--inestimable blessings in this sultry weather, and in the enjoyment of which I did not sympathise in the lamentations of the good-natured captain as much as I ought to have done. PASS SNAKE ISLAND. We passed a large and beautifully green island, formerly called Snake Island, from the immense number of rattlesnakes which infested it. These were destroyed by turning large herds of swine upon it, and it is now, in compliment to its last conquerors and possessors, the swinish multitude, called Hog Island. This was the scene of some most horrid Indian atrocities during the Pontiac war. A large party of British prisoners, surprised while they were coming up to relieve Detroit, were brought over here, and, almost within sight of their friends in the fort, put to death with all the unutterable accompaniments of savage ferocity. I have been told that since this war the custom of torturing persons to death has fallen gradually into disuse among the Indian tribes of these regions, and even along the whole frontier of the States an instance has not been known within these forty years. ASCEND THE ST. CLAIR. Leaving the channel of the river and the cluster of islands at its entrance, we stretched northward across Lake St. Clair. This beautiful lake, though three times the size of the Lake of Geneva, is a mere pond compared with the enormous seas in its neighbourhood. About one o'clock we entered the river St. Clair, (which, like the Detroit, is rather a strait or channel than a river,) forming the communication between Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron. Ascending this beautiful river, we had, on the right, part of the western district of Upper Canada, and on the left the Michigan territory. The shores on either side, though low and bounded always by the line of forest, were broken into bays and little promontories, or diversified by islands, richly wooded, and of every variety of form. The bateaux of the Canadians, or the canoes of the Indians, were perpetually seen gliding among these winding channels, or shooting across the river from side to side, as if playing at hide-and-seek among the leafy recesses. Now and then a beautiful schooner, with white sails, relieved against the green masses of foliage, passed us, gracefully curtseying and sidling along. Innumerable flocks of wild fowl were disporting among the reedy islets, and here and there the great black loon was seen diving and dipping, or skimming over the waters. As usual, the British coast is here the most beautiful and fertile, and the American coast the best settled and cleared. Along the former I see a few isolated log-shanties, and groups of Indian lodges; along the latter, several extensive clearings, and some hamlets and rising villages. The facility afforded by the American steam-boats for the transport of goods and sale of produce, &c., is one reason of this. There is a boat, for instance, which leaves Detroit every morning for Fort Gratiot, stopping at the intermediate "landings." We are now moored at a place called "Palmer's Landing," for the purpose of taking in wood for the Lake voyage. This process has already occupied two hours, and is to detain us two more, though there are fourteen men employed in flinging logs into the wood-hold. Meantime I have been sketching and lounging about the little hamlet, where there is a good grocery-store, a sawing-mill worked by steam, and about twenty houses. I was amused at Detroit to find the phraseology of the people imbued with metaphors taken from the most familiar mode of locomotion. "Will you take in wood?" signifies, will you take refreshment? "Is your steam up?" means, are you ready? The common phrase, "go ahead," has I suppose, the same derivation. A witty friend of mine once wrote to me not to be lightly alarmed at the political and social ferments in America, nor mistake the _whizzing of the safety-valves for the bursting of the boilers_! MY FELLOW PASSENGERS. But all this time I have not yet introduced you to my companions on board; and one of these great American steamers is really a little world, a little social system in itself, where a near observer of faces and manners may find endless subjects of observation, amusement, and interest. At the other end of the vessel we have about one hundred emigrants on their way to the Illinois and the settlements to the west of Lake Michigan. Among them I find a large party of Germans and Norwegians, with their wives and families, a very respectable, orderly community, consisting of some farmers and some artisans, having with them a large quantity of stock and utensils--just the sort of people best calculated to improve and enrich their adopted country, wherever that may be. Then we have twenty or thirty poor ragged Irish emigrants, with good-natured faces, and strong arms and willing hearts. Men are smoking, women nursing, washing, sewing; children squalling and rolling about. The ladies' saloon and upper deck exhibit a very different scene; there are about twenty ladies and children in the cabin and state-rooms, which are beautifully furnished and carpeted with draperies of blue silk, &c. On the upper deck, shaded by an awning, we have sofas, rocking-chairs, and people lounging up and down; some reading, some chattering, some sleeping: there are missionaries and missionaries' wives, and officers on their way to the garrisons on the Indian frontier; and settlers, and traders, and some few nondescripts--like myself. THE BISHOP OF MICHIGAN. Also among the passengers I find the Bishop of Michigan. The governor's sister, Miss Mason, introduced us at starting, and bespoke his good offices for me. His conversation has been a great resource and interest for me during the long day. He is still a young man, who began life as a lawyer, and afterwards from a real vocation adopted his present profession: his talents and popularity have placed him in the rank he now holds. He is on his way to visit the missions and churches in the back settlements, and at Green Bay. His diocese, he tells me, extends about eight hundred miles in length and four hundred in breadth. And then if you think of the scattered population, the _sort_ of population, the immensity of this spiritual charge, and the amount of labour and responsibility it necessarily brings with it, are enough to astound one. The amount of power is great in proportion; and the extensive moral influence exercised by such a man as this Bishop of Michigan struck me very much. In conversing with him and the missionaries on the spiritual and moral condition of his diocese, and these newly settled regions in general, I learned many things which interested me; and there was one thing discussed which especially surprised me. It was said that two thirds of the misery which came under the immediate notice of a popular clergyman, and to which he was called to minister, arose from the infelicity of the conjugal relations; there was no question here of open immorality and discord, but simply of infelicity and unfitness. The same thing has been brought before me in every country, every society in which I have been a sojourner and an observer; but I did not look to find it so broadly placed before me here in America, where the state of morals, as regards the two sexes, is comparatively pure; where the marriages are early, where conditions are equal, where the means of subsistence are abundant, where the women are much petted and considered by the men--too much so. For a result then so universal, there must be a cause or causes as universal, not depending on any particular customs, manners, or religion, or political institutions. And what are these causes? I cannot understand why an evil everywhere acknowledged and felt is not remedied somewhere, or discussed by some one, with a view to a remedy;--but no, it is like putting one's hand into the fire, only to touch upon it; it is the universal bruise, the putrefying sore, on which you must not lay a finger, or your patient (that is, society) cries out and resists, and, like a sick baby, scratches and kicks its physician. Strange, and passing strange, that the relation between the two sexes, the passion of love in short, should not be taken into deeper consideration by our teachers and our legislators. People educate and legislate as if there was no such thing in the world; but ask the priest, ask the physician--let _them_ reveal the amount of moral and physical results from this one cause. Must love be always discussed in blank verse, as if it were a thing to be played in tragedies or sung in songs--a subject for pretty poems and wicked novels, and had nothing to do with the prosaic current of our every-day existence, our moral welfare and eternal salvation? Must love be ever treated with profaneness, as a mere illusion? or with coarseness, as a mere impulse? or with fear, as a mere disease? or with shame, as a mere weakness? or with levity, as a mere accident? Whereas, it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the foundation of human existence, morality, and happiness; mysterious, universal, inevitable as death. Why then should love be treated less seriously than death? It is as serious a thing. Love and Death, the alpha and omega of human life, the author and finisher of existence, the two points on which God's universe turns; which He, our Father and Creator, has placed beyond our arbitration--beyond the reach of that election and free will which He has left us in all other things! LOVE AND DEATH. Death must come, and love must come; but the state in which they find us?--whether blinded, astonished, and frightened, and ignorant, or, like reasonable creatures, guarded, prepared, and fit to manage our own feelings?--_this_, I suppose, depends on ourselves; and for want of such self-management and self-knowledge, look at the evils that ensue!--hasty, improvident, unsuitable marriages; repining, diseased, or vicious celibacy; irretrievable infamy; cureless insanity:--the death that comes early, and the love that comes late, reversing the primal laws of our nature. It is of little consequence how unequal the conventional difference of rank, as in Germany--how equal the condition, station, and means, as in America,--if there be inequality between the sexes; and if the sentiment which attracts and unites them to each other, and the contracts and relations springing out of this sentiment, be not equally well understood by both, equally sacred with both, equally binding on both. * * * * * MISS SEDGWICK.--MRS. LEE.--MR. HENRY. At Detroit I had purchased Miss Sedgwick's tale of "The Rich Poor Man and the Poor Rich Man," and this sent away two hours delightfully, as we were gliding over the expanse of Lake St. Clair. Those who glanced on my book while I was reading always smiled--a significant sympathising smile, very expressive of that unenvious, affectionate homage and admiration which this genuine American writer inspires among her countrymen. I do not think I ever mentioned her name to any of them, that the countenance did not light up with pleasure and gratified pride. I have also a sensible little book, called "Three Experiments in Living," written by Mrs. Lee, of Boston: it must be popular, and _true_ to life and nature, for the edition I bought is the tenth. I have also another book to which I must introduce you more particularly--"The Travels and Adventures of Alexander Henry." Did you ever hear of such a man? No. Listen then, and perpend. This Mr. Henry was a fur-trader who journeyed over these lake regions about seventy years ago, and is quoted as first-rate authority in more recent books of travels. His book, which was lent to me at Toronto, struck me so much as to have had some influence in directing the course of my present tour. Plain, unaffected, telling what he has to tell in few and simple words, and without comment--the internal evidence of truth--the natural sensibility and power of fancy, betrayed rather than displayed--render not only the narrative, but the man himself, his personal character, unspeakably interesting. Wild as are the tales of his hairbreadth escapes, I never heard the slightest impeachment of his veracity. He was living at Montreal so late as 1810 or 1811, when a friend of mine saw him, and described him to me as a very old man past eighty, with white hair, and still hale-looking and cheerful, so that his hard and adventurous life, and the horrors he had witnessed and suffered, had in no respect impaired his spirits or his constitution. His book has been long out of print. I had the greatest difficulty in procuring the loan of a copy, after sending to Montreal, Quebec, and New York, in vain. Mr. Henry is to be my travelling companion. I do not know how he might have figured as a squire of dames when living, but I assure you that being dead he makes a very respectable hero of epic or romance. He is the Ulysses of these parts; and to cruise among the shores, rocks, and islands of Lake Huron without Henry's travels, were like coasting Calabria and Sicily without the Odyssey in your head or hand,--only here you have the island of Mackinaw instead of the island of Circe; the land of the Ottawas instead of the shores of the Lotophagi; cannibal Chippewas, instead of man-eating Læstrigons. Pontiac figures as Polypheme; and Wa,wa,tam plays the part of good king Alcinous. I can find no type for the women, as Henry does not tell us his adventures among the squaws; but no doubt he might have found both Calypsos and Nausicaas, and even a Penelope, among them. * * * * * July 20. Before I went down to my rest yesterday evening, I beheld a strange and beautiful scene. The night was coming on; the moon had risen round and full, like an enormous globe of fire; we were still in the channel of the river, when, to the right, I saw a crowd of Indians on a projecting point of land. They were encamping for the night, some hauling up their canoes, some building up their wigwams: there were numerous fires blazing amid the thick foliage, and the dusky figures of the Indians were seen glancing to and fro; and I heard loud laughs and shouts as our huge steamer swept past them. In another moment we turned a point, and all was dark: the whole had vanished like a scene in a melodrama. I rubbed my eyes, and began to think I was already dreaming. At the entrance of the river St. Clair, the Americans have a fort and garrison (Fort Gratiot), and a lighthouse, which we passed in the night. On the opposite side we have no station; so that, in case of any misunderstanding between the two nations, it would be in the power of the Americans to shut the entrance of Lake Huron upon us. LAKE HURON. At seven this morning, when I went on deck, we had advanced about one hundred miles into Lake Huron. We were coasting along the south shore, about four miles from the land, while, on the other side, we had about two hundred miles of open _sea_, and the same expanse before us. Soon after, we had to pass the entrance of Sagginaw Bay. Here we lost sight of land for the first time. Sagginaw Bay, I should suppose, is as large as the Gulf of Genoa; it runs seventy or eighty miles up into the land, and is as famous for storms as the Bay of Biscay. Here, if there be a capful of wind, or a cupful of sea, one is sure to have the benefit of it; for even in the finest weather there is a considerable swell. We were about three hours crossing from the Pointe Aux Barques to Cape Thunder; and during this time a number of my companions were put _hors de combat_. All this part of Michigan is unsettled, and is said to be sandy and barren. Along the whole horizon was nothing visible but the dark omnipresent pine-forest. The Sagginaw Indians, whose hunting-grounds extend along the shore, are, I believe, a tribe of Ottawas. I should add, that the Americans have built a lighthouse on a little island near Thunder Bay. A situation more terrific in its solitude you cannot imagine than that of the keeper of this lonely tower, among rocks, tempests, and savages. All their provisions come from a distance of at least one hundred miles, and a long course of stormy weather, which sometimes occurs, would place them in danger of starvation. THE ISLAND OF MACKINAW Doth the bright sun from the high arch of heaven, In all his beauteous robes of flecker'd clouds, And ruddy vapours, and deep glowing flames, And softly varied shades, look gloriously? Do the green woods dance to the wind? the lakes Cast up their sparkling waters to the light? Joanna Baillie. The next morning, at earliest dawn, I was wakened by an unusual noise and movement on board, and putting out my head to inquire the cause, was informed that we were arrived at the island of Mackinaw, and that the captain being most anxious to proceed on his voyage, only half an hour was allowed to make all my arrangements, take out my luggage, and so forth. I dressed in all haste and ran up to the deck, and there a scene burst at once on my enchanted gaze, such as I never had imagined, such as I wish I could place before you in words,--but I despair, unless words were of light, and lustrous hues, and breathing music. However, here is the picture as well as I can paint it. We were lying in a tiny bay, crescent-shaped, of which the two horns or extremities were formed by long narrow promontories projecting into the lake. On the east the whole sky was flushed with a deep amber glow, fleckered with softest shades of rose-colour--the same intense splendour being reflected in the lake; and upon the extremity of the point, between the glory above and the glory below, stood the little Missionary church, its light spire and belfry defined against the sky. On the opposite side of the heavens hung the moon, waxing paler and paler, and melting away, as it seemed, before the splendour of the rising day. Immediately in front rose the abrupt and picturesque heights of the island, robed in richest foliage, and crowned by the lines of the little fortress, snow-white, and gleaming in the morning light. At the base of these cliffs, all along the shore, immediately on the edge of the lake, which, transparent and unruffled, reflected every form as in a mirror, an encampment of Indian lodges extended as far as my eye could reach on either side. Even while I looked, the inmates were beginning to bestir themselves, and dusky figures were seen emerging into sight from their picturesque dormitories, and stood gazing on us with folded arms, or were busied about their canoes, of which some hundreds lay along the beach. BEAUTY OF SCENERY. There was not a breath of air; and while heaven and earth were glowing with light, and colour, and life, an elysian stillness, a delicious balmy serenity wrapt and interfused the whole. O how passing lovely it was! how wondrously beautiful and strange! I cannot tell how long I may have stood, lost--absolutely lost, and fearing even to wink my eyes, lest the spell should dissolve, and all should vanish away like some air-wrought phantasy, some dream out of fairy land,--when the good Bishop of Michigan came up to me, and with a smiling benevolence waked me out of my ecstatic trance; and reminding me that I had but two minutes left, seized upon some of my packages himself, and hurried me on to the little wooden pier just in time. We were then conducted to a little inn, or boarding-house, kept by a very fat half-caste Indian woman, who spoke Indian, bad French, and worse English, and who was addressed as _Madame_. Here I was able to arrange my hasty toilette, and we sat down to an excellent breakfast of white-fish, eggs, tea and coffee, for which the charge was twice what I should have given at the first hotel in the United States, and yet not unreasonable, considering that European luxuries were placed before us in this remote spot. By the time breakfast was discussed it was past six o'clock, and taking my sketch-book in my hand, I sauntered forth alone to the beach till it should be a fitting hour to present myself at the door of the American agent, Mr. Schoolcraft, whose wife was the sister of Mrs. MacMurray. The first object which caught my eye was the immense steamer gliding swiftly away towards the straits of Michilimackinac, already far, far to the west. Suddenly the thought of my extreme loneliness came over me--a momentary wonder and alarm to find myself so far from any human being who took the least interest about my fate. I had no letter to Mr. Schoolcraft; and if Mr. and Mrs. MacMurray had not passed this way, or had forgotten to mention me, what would be my reception? what should I do? Here I must stay for some days at least. All the accommodation that could be afforded by the half-French, half-Indian "Madame," had been already secured, and, without turning out the bishop, there was not even a room for me. These thoughts and many others, some natural doubts, and fears, came across my mind, but I cannot say that they remained there long, or that they had the effect of rendering me uneasy and anxious for more than half a minute. With a sense of enjoyment keen and unanticipative as that of a child--looking neither before nor after--I soon abandoned myself to the present, and all its delicious exciting novelty, leaving the future to take care of itself,--which I am more and more convinced is the truest wisdom, the most real philosophy, after all. GROUPS OF INDIANS. The sun had now risen in cloudless glory--all was life and movement. I strayed and loitered for full three hours along the shore, I hardly knew whither, sitting down occasionally under the shadow of a cliff or cedar fence to rest, and watching the operations of the Indian families. It were endless to tell you of each individual group or picture as successively presented before me. But there were some general features of the scene which struck me at once. There were more than one hundred lodges, and round each of these lurked several ill-looking, half-starved, yelping dogs. The women were busied about their children, or making fires and cooking, or pounding Indian corn, in a primitive sort of mortar, formed of part of a tree hollowed out, with a heavy rude pestle which they moved up and down, as if churning. The dress of the men was very various--the cotton shirt, blue or scarlet leggings, and deer-skin mocassins and blanket coat, were most general; but many had no shirt nor vest, merely the cloth leggings, and a blanket thrown round them as drapery; the faces of several being most grotesquely painted. The dress of the women was more uniform,--a cotton shirt, and cloth leggings and mocassins, and a dark blue blanket. Necklaces, silver armlets, silver earrings, and circular plates of silver fastened on the breast, were the usual ornaments of both sexes. There may be a general equality of rank among the Indians; but there is evidently all that inequality of condition which difference of character and intellect might naturally produce; there were rich wigwams and poor wigwams; whole families ragged, meagre, and squalid, and others gay with dress and ornaments, fat and well-favoured: on the whole, these were beings quite distinct from any Indians I had yet seen, and realised all my ideas of the wild and lordly savage. I remember I came upon a family group, consisting of a fine tall young man and two squaws; one had a child swaddled in one of their curious bark cradles, which she composedly hung up against the side of the wigwam. They were then busied launching a canoe, and in a moment it was dancing upon the rippling waves: one woman guided the canoe, the other paddled; the young man stood in the prow in a striking and graceful attitude, poising his fish-spear in his hand. When they were about a hundred yards from the shore, suddenly I saw the fish-spear darted into the water, and disappear beneath it; as it sprang up again to the surface, it was rapidly seized, and a large fish was sticking to the prongs; the same process was repeated with unerring success, and then the canoe was paddled back to the land. The young man flung his spear into the bottom of the canoe, and, drawing his blanket round him, leapt on shore, and lounged away without troubling himself farther; the women drew up the canoe, kindled a fire, and suspended the fish over it, to be cooked _à la mode Indienne_. There was another group which amused me exceedingly: it was a large family, and, compared with some others, they were certainly people of distinction and substance, rich in beads, blankets, and brass kettles, with "all things handsome about them;" they had two lodges and two canoes. But I must begin by making you understand the construction of an Indian lodge,--such, at least, as those which now crowded the shore. Eight or twelve long poles are stuck in the ground in a circle, meeting at a point at the top, where they are all fastened together. The skeleton thus erected is covered over, thatched in some sort with mats, or large pieces of birch bark, beginning at the bottom, and leaving an opening at top for the emission of smoke: there is a door about four feet high, before which a skin or blanket is suspended; and as it is summer time, they do not seem particular about closing the chinks and apertures.[22] As to the canoes, they are uniformly of birch bark, exceedingly light, flat-bottomed, and most elegant in shape, varying in size from eighteen to thirty-six feet in length, and from a foot and a half to four feet in width. The family I have mentioned were preparing to embark, and were dismantling their wigwams and packing up their goods, not at all discomposed by my vicinity, as I sat on a bank watching the whole process with no little interest. The most striking personage in this group was a very old man, seated on a log of wood, close upon the edge of the water; his head was quite bald, excepting a few gray hairs which were gathered in a tuft at the top, and decorated with a single feather--I think an eagle's feather; his blanket of scarlet cloth was so arranged as to fall round his limbs in graceful folds, leaving his chest and shoulders exposed; he held a green umbrella over his head, (a gift or purchase from some white trader,) and in the other hand a long pipe--and he smoked away, never stirring, nor taking the slightest interest in anything which was going on. Then there were two fine young men, and three women, one old and hideous, with matted grizzled hair, the youngest really a beautiful girl about fifteen. There were also three children; the eldest had on a cotton shirt, the breast of which was covered with silver ornaments. The men were examining the canoes, and preparing to launch them; the women were taking down their wigwams, and as they uncovered them, I had an opportunity of observing the whole interior economy of their dwellings. The ground within was spread over with mats, two or three deep, and skins and blankets, so as to form a general couch: then all around the internal circle of the wigwam were ranged their goods and chattels in very tidy order; I observed wooden chests, of European make, bags of woven grass, baskets and cases of birch bark (called _mokkuks_,) also brass kettles, pans, and, to my surprise, a large coffee-pot of queen's metal. When all was arranged, and the canoes afloat, the poles of the wigwams were first placed at the bottom, then the mats and bundles, which served apparently to sit on, and the kettles and chests were stowed in the middle; the old man was assisted by the others into the largest canoe; women, children, and dogs followed; the young men stood in the stern with their paddles as steersmen; the women and boys squatted down; each with a paddle;--with all this weight, the elegant buoyant little canoes scarcely sank an inch deeper in the water--and in this guise away they glided with surprising swiftness over the sparkling waves, directing their course eastwards for the Manitoolin Islands, where I hope to see them again. The whole process of preparation and embarkation did not occupy an hour. [Footnote 22: I learned subsequently, that the cone-like form of the wigwam is proper to the Ottawas and Pottowottomies, and that the oblong form, in which the branches or poles are bent over at top in an arch, is proper to the Chippewa tribe. But as this latter is more troublesome to erect, the former construction is usually adopted by the Chippewas also in their temporary encampments.] * * * * * MR. SCHOOLCRAFT. About ten o'clock I ventured to call on Mr. Schoolcraft, and was received by him with grave and quiet politeness. They were prepared, he said, for my arrival, and then he apologised for whatever might be deficient in my reception, and for the absence of his wife, by informing me that she was ill, and had not left her room for some days. Much was I discomposed and shocked to find myself an intruder under such circumstances! I said so, and begged that they would not think of me--that I could easily provide for myself--and so I could and would. I would have laid myself down in one of the Indian lodges rather than have been _de trop_. But Mr. Schoolcraft said, with much kindness, that they knew already of my arrival by one of my fellow-passengers--that a room was prepared for me, a servant already sent down for my goods, and Mrs. Schoolcraft, who was a little better that morning, hoped to see me. Here, then, I am installed for the next few days--and I know not how many more--so completely am I at the mercy of "fates, destinies, and such branches of learning!" * * * * * I am charmed with Mrs. Schoolcraft. When able to appear, she received me with true ladylike simplicity. The damp, tremulous hand, the soft, plaintive voice, the touching expression of her countenance, told too painfully of resigned and habitual suffering. Mrs. Schoolcraft's features are more decidedly Indian than those of her sister Mrs. MacMurray. Her accent is slightly foreign--her choice of language pure and remarkably elegant. In the course of an hour's talk, all my sympathies were enlisted in her behalf, and I thought that she, on her part, was inclined to return these benignant feelings. I promised myself to repay her hospitality by all the attention and gratitude in my power. I am here a lonely stranger, thrown upon her sufferance; but she is good, gentle, and in most delicate health, and there are a thousand quiet ways in which woman may be kind and useful to her sister woman. Then she has two sweet children about eight or nine years old--no fear, you see, but that we shall soon be the best friends in the world! This day, however, I took care not to be _à charge_, so I ran about along the lovely shore, and among the Indians, inexpressibly amused, and occupied, and excited by all I saw and heard. At last I returned--O so wearied out--so spent in body and mind! I was fain to go to rest soon after sunset. A nice little room had been prepared for me, and a _wide_ comfortable bed, into which I sank with such a feeling of peace, security, and thankfulness, as could only be conceived by one who had been living in comfortless inns and close steam-boats for the last fortnight. * * * * * THE RED MEN. On a little platform, not quite half way up the wooded height which overlooks the bay, embowered in foliage, and sheltered from the tyrannous breathing of the north by the precipitous cliff, rising almost perpendicularly behind, stands the house in which I find myself at present a grateful and contented inmate. The ground in front sloping down to the shore, is laid out in a garden, with an avenue of fruit trees, the gate at the end opening on the very edge of the lake. From the porch I look down upon the scene I have endeavoured--how inadequately!--to describe to you: the little crescent bay; the village of Mackinaw; the beach thickly studded with Indian lodges; canoes fishing, or darting hither and thither, light and buoyant as sea-birds; a tall graceful schooner swinging at anchor. Opposite rises the Island of Bois-blanc, with its tufted and most luxuriant foliage. To the east we see the open lake, and in the far western distance the promontory of Michilimackinac, and the strait of that name, the portal of Lake Michigan. The exceeding beauty of this little paradise of an island, the attention which has been excited by its enchanting scenery, and the salubrity of its summer climate, the facility of communication lately afforded by the lake steamers, and its situation half-way between Detroit and the newly-settled regions of the west, are likely to render Mackinaw a sort of watering-place for the Michigan and Wisconsin fashionables, or, as the bishop expressed it, the "Rockaway of the west;" so at least it is anticipated. How far such an accession of fashion and reputation may be desirable, I know not; I am only glad it has not yet taken place, and that I have beheld this lovely island in all its wild beauty. When I left my room this morning, I remained for some time in the parlour, looking over the Wisconsin Gazette, a good sized, well printed newspaper, published on the west shore of Lake Michigan. I was reading a most pathetic and serious address from the new settlers in Wisconsin to _the down-east girls_, (_i. e._ the women of the eastern states,) who are invited to the relief of these hapless hard-working bachelors in the backwoods. They are promised affluence and love,--the "picking and choosing among a set of the finest young fellows in the world," who are ready to fall at their feet, and make the most adoring and the most obedient of husbands! Can you fancy what a pretty thing a Wisconsin pastoral might be? Only imagine one of these despairing backwoodsmen inditing an Ovidian epistle to his unknown mistress--"_down east_,"--wooing her to come and be wooed! Well, I was enjoying this comical effusion, and thinking that women must certainly be at a premium in these parts, when suddenly the windows were darkened, and looking up, I beheld a crowd of faces, dusky, painted, wild, grotesque--with flashing eyes and white teeth, staring in upon me. I quickly threw down the paper and hastened out. The porch, the little lawn, the garden walks, were crowded with Indians, the elder chiefs and warriors sitting on the ground, or leaning silently against the pillars; the young men, women, and boys lounging and peeping about, with eager and animated looks, but all perfectly well conducted, and their voices low and pleasing to the ear. They were chiefly Ottawas and Pottowottomies, two tribes which "call brother," that is, claim relationship, and are usually in alliance, but widely different. The Ottawas are the most civilised, the Pottowottomies the least so of all the lake tribes. The Ottawa I soon distinguished by the decency of his dress, and the handkerchief knotted round the head--a custom borrowed from the early French settlers, with whom they have had much intercourse: the Pottowottomie by the more savage finery of his costume, his tall figure, and a sort of swagger in his gait. The dandyism of some of these Pottowottomie warriors is inexpressibly amusing and grotesque: I defy all Regent Street and Bond Street to go beyond them in the exhibition of self-decoration and self-complacency. One of these exquisites, whom I called Beau Brummel, was not indeed much indebted to a tailor, seeing he had neither a coat nor any thing else that gentlemen are accustomed to wear; but then his face was most artistically painted, the upper half of it being vermillion, with a black circle round one eye, and a white circle round the other; the lower half of a bright green, except the tip of his nose, which was also vermillion. His leggings of scarlet cloth were embroidered down the sides, and decorated with tufts of hair. The band, or garter, which confines the leggings, is always an especial bit of finery; and his were gorgeous, all embroidered with gay beads, and strings and tassels of the liveliest colours hanging down to his ankle. His moccasins were also beautifully worked with porcupine quills; he had armlets and bracelets of silver; and round his head a silver band stuck with tufts of moosehair died blue and red; and, conspicuous above all, the eagle feather in his hair, showing he was a warrior, and had taken a scalp--_i. e._ killed his man. Over his shoulders hung a blanket of scarlet cloth, very long and ample, which he had thrown back a little, so as to display his chest, on which a large outspread hand was painted in white. It is impossible to describe the air of perfect self-complacency with which this youth strutted about. Seeing my attention fixed upon him, he came up and shook hands with me, repeating "Bojou! bojou!"[23] Others immediately pressed forward also to shake hands, or rather take my hand, for they do not _shake_ it; and I was soon in the midst of a crowd of perhaps thirty or forty Indians, all holding out their hands to me, or snatching mine, and repeating "bojou" with every expression of delight and good-humour. This must suffice in the way of description, for I cannot further particularise dresses; they were very various, and few so fine as that of my young Pottowottomie. I remember another young man, who had a common black beaver hat, all round which, in several silver bands, he had stuck a profusion of feathers, and long tufts of dyed hair, so that it formed a most gorgeous helmet. Some wore their hair hanging loose and wild in elf-locks, but others again had combed and arranged it with much care and pains. The men seemed to engross the finery; none of the women that I saw were painted. Their blankets were mostly dark blue; some had strings of beads round their necks, and silver armlets. The hair of some of the young women was very prettily arranged, being parted smooth upon the forehead and twisted in a knot behind, very much _à la Grecque_. There is, I imagine, a very general and hearty aversion to cold water. * * * * * This morning there was a "talk" held in the commissioner's office, and he kindly invited me to witness the proceedings. About twenty of their principal men, including a venerable old chief, were present; the rest stood outside, crowding the doors and windows, but never attempting to enter, nor causing the slightest interruption. The old chief wore a quantity of wampum, but was otherwise undistinguished, except by his fine head and acute features. His gray hair was drawn back, and tied on the top of his head with a single feather. All, as they entered, took me by the hand with a quiet smile and a "bojou," to which I replied, as I had been instructed, "Bojou, neeje!" (good-day, friend). They then sat down upon the floor, all round the room. Mr. Johnston, Mrs. Schoolcraft's brother, acted as interpreter, and the business proceeded with the utmost gravity. After some whispering among themselves, an orator of the party addressed the commissioner with great emphasis. Extending his hand and raising his voice, he began: "Father, I am come to tell you a piece of my mind." But when he had uttered a few sentences, Mr. Schoolcraft desired the interpreter to tell him that it was useless to speak farther on _that_ subject, (I understood it to relate to some land-payments). The orator stopped immediately, and then, after a pause, he went up and took Mr. Schoolcraft's hand with a friendly air, as if to show he was not offended. Another orator then arose, and proceeded to the object of the visit, which was to ask an allowance of corn, salt, and tobacco, while they remained on the island, a request which I presume was granted, as they departed with much apparent satisfaction. There was not a figure among them that was not a study for a painter; and how I wished that my hand had been readier with the pencil to snatch some of those picturesque heads and attitudes. But it was all so new. I was so lost in gazing, listening, observing, and trying to comprehend, that I could not make a single sketch, except the above, in most poor and inadequate words. * * * * * The Indians here--and fresh parties are constantly arriving--are chiefly Ottawas, from Arbre Croche, on the east of Lake Michigan; Pottowottomies; and Winnebagos from the west of the lake; a few Menomonies and Chippewas from the shores north-west of us; the occasion of this assemblage being the same with all. They are on the way to the Manitoolin Islands, to receive the presents annually distributed by the British government to all those Indian tribes who were friendly to us during the wars with America, and call themselves our allies and our children, though living within the bounds of another state. Some of them make a voyage of five hundred miles to receive a few blankets and kettles; coasting along the shores, encamping at night, and paddling all day from sunrise to sunset, living on the fish or game they may meet, and the little provision they can carry with them, which consists chiefly of parched Indian corn and bear's fat. Some are out on this excursion during six weeks, or more, every year; returning to their hunting grounds by the end of September, when the great hunting season begins, which continues through October and November; they then return to their villages and wintering grounds. This applies generally to the tribes I find here, except the Ottawas of Arbre Croche, who have a good deal of land in cultivation, and are more stationary and civilised than the other Lake Indians. They have been for nearly a century under the care of the French Jesuit missions, but do not seem to have made much advance since Henry's time, and the days when they were organised under Pontiac; they were even then considered superior in humanity and intelligence to the Chippewas and Pottowottomies, and more inclined to agriculture. After some most sultry weather, we have had a grand storm. The wind shifted to the north-east, and rose to a hurricane. I was then sitting with my Irish friend in the mission-house; and while the little bay lay almost tranquil, gleam and shadow floating over its bosom, the expanse of the main lake was like the ocean lashed to fury. On the east side of the island the billows came "rolling with might," flinging themselves in wrath and foam far up the land. It was a magnificent spectacle. Returning home, I was anxious to see how the Indian establishment had stood out the storm, and was surprised to find that little or no damage had been done. I peeped into several, with a nod and a _bojou_, and found the inmates very snug. Here and there a mat was blown away, but none of the poles were displaced or blown down, which I had firmly expected. Though all these lodges seem nearly alike to a casual observer, I was soon aware of differences and gradations in the particular arrangements, which are amusingly characteristic of the various inhabitants. There is one lodge, a little to the east of us, which I call the Château. It is rather larger and loftier than the others: the mats which cover it are whiter and of a neater texture than usual. The blanket which hangs before the opening is new and clean. The inmates, ten in number, are well and handsomely dressed; even the women and children have abundance of ornaments; and as for the gay cradle of the baby, I quite covet it--it is so gorgeously elegant. I supposed at first that this must be the lodge of a chief; but I have since understood that the chief is seldom either so well lodged or so well dressed as the others, it being a part of his policy to avoid everything like ostentation, or rather to be ostentatiously poor and plain in his apparel and possessions. This wigwam belongs to an Ottawa, remarkable for his skill in hunting, and for his habitual abstinence from the "fire-water." He is a baptized Roman Catholic, belonging to the mission at Arbre Croche, and is reputed a rich man. Not far from this, and almost immediately in front of our house, stands another wigwam, a most wretched concern. The owners have not mats enough to screen them from the weather; and the bare poles are exposed on every side. The woman, with her long neglected hair, is always seen cowering despondingly over the embers of her fire, as if lost in sad reveries. Two naked children are scrambling among the pebbles on the shore. The man wrapt in a dirty ragged blanket, without a single ornament, looks the image of savage inebriety and ferocity. Observe that these are the two extremes, and that between them are many gradations of comfort, order, and respectability. An Indian is _respectable_ in his own community, in proportion as his wife and children look fat and well fed; this being a proof of his prowess and success as a hunter, and his consequent riches. I was loitering by the garden gate this evening, about sunset, looking at the beautiful effects which the storm of the morning had left in the sky and on the lake. I heard the sound of the Indian drum, mingled with the shouts and yells and shrieks of the intoxicated savages, who were drinking in front of the village whisky store;--when at this moment a man came slowly up, whom I recognised as one of the Ottawa chiefs, who had often attracted my attention. His name is Kim,e,wun, which signifies the Rain, or rather "it rains." He now stood before me, one of the noblest figures I ever beheld, above six feet high, erect as a forest pine. A red and green handkerchief was twined round his head with much elegance, and knotted in front, with the two ends projecting; his black hair fell from beneath it, and his small black piercing eyes glittered from among its masses, like stars glancing through the thunder clouds. His ample blanket was thrown over his left shoulder, and brought under his right arm, so as to leave it free and exposed; and a sculptor might have envied the disposition of the whole drapery--it was so felicitous, so richly graceful. He stood in a contemplative attitude, evidently undecided whether he should join his drunken companions in their night revel, or return, like a wise man, to his lodge and his mat. He advanced a few steps, then turned, then paused and listened--then turned back again. I retired a little within the gate, to watch, unseen, the issue of the conflict. Alas! it was soon decided--the fatal temptation prevailed over better thoughts. He suddenly drew his blanket round him, and strided onwards in the direction of the village, treading the earth with an air of defiance, and a step which would have become a prince. On returning home, I mentioned this scene to Mr. and Mrs. Schoolcraft, as I do everything which strikes me, that I may profit by their remarks and explanations. Mr. S. told me a laughable anecdote. A distinguished Pottowottomie warrior presented himself to the Indian agent at Chicago, and observing that he was a very good man, very good indeed--and a good friend to the Long-knives, (the Americans,) requested a dram of whisky. The agent replied, that he never gave whisky to _good_ men,--_good_ men never asked for whisky; and never drank it. It was only _bad_ Indians who asked for whisky, or liked to drink it. "Then," replied the Indian quickly in his broken English, "me damn rascal!" * * * * * The revel continued far through the night, for I heard the wild yelling and whooping of the savages long after I had gone to rest. I can now conceive what it must be to hear that shrill prolonged cry (unlike any sound I ever heard in my life before) in the solitude of the forest, and when it is the certain harbinger of death. It is surprising to me, considering the number of savages congregated together, and the excess of drunkenness, that no mischief is done; that there has been no fighting, no robberies committed, and that there is a feeling of perfect security around me. The women, they tell me, have taken away their husbands' knives and tomahawks, and hidden them--wisely enough. At this time there are about twelve hundred Indians here. The fort is empty--the garrison having been withdrawn as useless; and perhaps there are not a hundred white men in the island,--rather unequal odds! And then that fearful Michilimackinac in full view, with all its horrid, murderous associations![24] But do not for a moment imagine that I feel _fear_, or the slightest doubt of security; only a sort of thrill which enhances the enjoyment I have in these wild scenes--a thrill such as one feels in the presence of danger when most safe from it--such as I felt when bending over the rapids of Niagara. The Indians, apparently, have no idea of correcting or restraining their children; personal chastisement is unheard of. They say that before a child has any understanding there is no use in correcting it; and when old enough to understand, no one has a right to correct it. Thus the fixed, inherent sentiment of personal independence grows up with the Indians from earliest infancy. The will of an Indian child is not forced; he has nothing to learn but what he sees done around him, and he learns by imitation. I hear no scolding, no tones of command or reproof; but I see no evil results from this mild system, for the general reverence and affection of children for parents is delightful; where there is no obedience exacted, there can be no rebellion; they dream not of either, and all live in peace in the same lodge. I observe, while loitering among them, that they seldom raise their voices, and they pronounce several words much more softly than we write them. Wigwam, a house, they pronounce _wee-ga-waum_; moccasin, a shoe, _muck-a-zeen_; manito, spirit, _mo-nee-do_,--lengthening the vowels, and softening the aspirates. _Chippewa_ is properly _O,jîb-wày_; _ab,bin,no,jee_ is a little child. The accent of the women is particularly soft, with a sort of plaintive modulation, reminding me of recitative. Their low laugh is quite musical, and has something infantine in it. I sometimes hear them sing, and the strain is generally in a minor key; but I cannot succeed in detecting or retaining an entire or distinct tune. * * * * * There was a mission established on this island in 1823, for the conversion of the Indians, and the education of the Indian and half-breed children.[25] A large mission and school-house was erected, and a neat little church. Those who were interested about the Indians entertained the most sanguine expectations of the success of the undertaking. But at present the extensive buildings of the mission-house are used merely as Storehouses, or as lodgings; and if Mackinaw should become a place of resort, they will probably be converted into a fashionable hotel. The mission itself is established farther west, somewhere near Green Bay, on Lake Michigan; and when overtaken by the advancing stream of white civilisation, and the contagion which it carries with it, no doubt it must retire yet farther. As for the little missionary church, it has been for some time disused, the French Canadians and half-breed on the island being mostly Roman Catholics. To-day, however, divine service was performed in it by the Bishop of Michigan, to a congregation of about twenty persons. Around the open doors of the church, a crowd of Indians, principally women, had assembled, and a few came in, and stood leaning against the pews, with their blankets folded round them, mute and still, and respectfully attentive. Immediately before me sat a man who at once attracted my attention. He was an Indian, evidently of unmixed blood, though wearing a long blanket coat and a decent but worn hat. His eyes, during the whole service, were fixed on those of the Bishop with a passionate, eager gaze; not for a moment were they withdrawn: he seemed to devour every word both of the office and the sermon, and, by the working of his features, I supposed him to be strongly impressed--it was the very enthusiasm of devotion: and yet, strange to say, not one word did he understand. When I inquired how it was that his attention was so fixed, and that he seemed thus moved by what he could not possibly comprehend, I was told, "it was by the power of faith." I have the story of this man (whom I see frequently) from Mr. Schoolcraft. His name is Chusco. He was formerly a distinguished man in his tribe as professor of the _Meta_ and the _Wabeno_,--that is, physician and conjuror; and no less as a professor of whisky-drinking. His wife, who had been converted by one of the missionaries, converted her husband. He had long resisted her preaching and persuasion, but at last one day, as they were making maple sugar together on an island, "he was suddenly thrown into an agony as if an evil spirit haunted him, and from that moment had no peace till he had been baptized and received into the Christian church. From this time he avoided drunkenness, and surrendered his medicine-bag, manitos, and implements of sorcery into the hands of Mr. Schoolcraft. Subsequently he showed no indisposition to speak of the power and arts he had exercised. He would not allow that it was all mere trick and deception, but insisted that he had been enabled to perform certain cures, or extraordinary magical operations, by the direct agency of the evil spirit, _i. e._ the devil, who, now that he was become a Christian, had forsaken him, and left him in peace." I was a little surprised to find, in the course of this explanation, that there were educated and intelligent people who had no more doubt of this direct satanic agency than the poor Indian himself. Chusco has not touched ardent spirits for the last seven years, and, ever since his conversion in the sugar-camp, he has firmly adhered to his Christian profession. He is now between sixty and seventy years old, with a countenance indicating more of mildness and simplicity than intellect. Generally speaking, the men who practise medicine among the Indians make a great mystery of their art, and of the herbs and nostrums they are in the habit of using; and it were to be wished that one of these converted medicine-men could be prevailed on to disclose some of their medical arcana; for of the efficacy of some of their prescriptions, apart from the mummery with which they are accompanied, there can be no doubt. * * * * * We have taken several delicious drives over this lovely little island, and traversed it in different directions. It is not more than three miles in length, and wonderfully beautiful. There is no large or lofty timber upon it, but a perpetual succession of low, rich groves, "alleys green, dingles, and bosky dells." There is on the eastern coast a natural arch or bridge, where the waters of the Lake have undermined the rock, and left a fragment thrown across a chasm two hundred feet high. Strawberries, raspberries, whortleberries, and cherries, were growing everywhere wild, and in abundance. The whole island, when seen from a distance, has the form of a turtle sleeping on the water: hence its Indian appellation, Michilimackinac, which signifies the great turtle. The same name is given to a spirit of great power and might, "a spirit who never lies," whom the Indians invoke and consult before undertaking any important or dangerous enterprise[26]; and this island, as I apprehend, has been peculiarly dedicated to him; at all events, it has been from time immemorial a place of note and sanctity among the Indians. Its history, as far as the Europeans are connected with it, may be told in a few words. After the destruction of the fort at Michilimackinac, and the massacre of the garrison in 1763, the English removed the fort and the trading post to this island, and it continued for a long time a station of great importance. In 1796 it was ceded, with the whole of the Michigan territory, to the United States. The fort was then strengthened, and garrisoned by a detachment of General Wayne's army. In the war of 1813 it was taken and garrisoned by the British, who added to the strength of the fortifications. The Americans were so sensible of its importance, that they fitted out an expensive expedition in 1814 for the purpose of retaking it, but were repulsed with the loss of one of their bravest commanders and a great number of men, and forced to retreat to their vessels. After this, Michilimackinac remained in possession of the British, till at the peace it was again quietly ceded, one hardly knows why, to the Americans, and in their possession it now remains. The garrison, not being required in time of profound peace, has been withdrawn. The pretty little fort remains. [Footnote 23: This universal Indian salutation is merely a corruption of _bon jour_.] [Footnote 24: Michilimackinac was one of the forts surprised by the Indians at the breaking out of the Pontiac war, when seventy British soldiers with their officers were murdered and scalped. Henry gives a most vivid description of this scene of horror in few words. He was present, and escaped, through the friendship of an Indian (Wa,wa,tam) who, in consequence of a dream in early youth, had adopted him as his brother.] [Footnote 25: In 1828, Major Anderson, our Indian agent, computed the number of Canadians and mixed breed married to Indian women, and residing on the north shores of Lake Huron, and in the neighbourhood of Michilimackinac, at nine hundred. This he called the _lowest_ estimate.] [Footnote 26: See Henry's Travels, p. 117.] * * * * * MRS. SCHOOLCRAFT. The most delightful as well as most profitable hours I spent here, are those passed in the society of Mrs. Schoolcraft. Her genuine refinement and simplicity, and native taste for literature, are charming; and the exceeding delicacy of her health, and the trials to which it is exposed, interest all my womanly sympathies. While in conversation with her, new ideas of the Indian character suggest themselves; new sources of information are opened to me, such as are granted to few, and such as I gratefully appreciate. She is proud of her Indian origin; she takes an enthusiastic and enlightened interest in the welfare of her people, and in their conversion to Christianity, being herself most unaffectedly pious. But there is a melancholy and pity in her voice, when speaking of them, as if she did indeed consider them a doomed race. We were conversing to-day of her grandfather, Waub-Ojeeg, (the White-fisher), a distinguished Chippewa chief and warrior, of whose life and exploits she has promised to give me some connected particulars. Of her mother, O,shah,gush,ko,da,wa,qua, she speaks with fond and even longing affection, as if the very sight of this beloved mother would be sufficient to restore her to health and strength. "I should be well if I could see my mother," seems the predominant feeling. Nowhere is the instinctive affection between parent and child so strong, so deep, so sacred, as among these people. Celibacy in either sex is almost unknown among the Indians; equally rare is all profligate excess. One instance I heard of a woman who had remained unmarried from choice, not from accident or necessity. In consequence of a dream in early youth (the Indians are great dreamers), she not only regarded the sun as her manito or tutelary spirit (this had been a common case), but considered herself especially dedicated, or in fact married, to the luminary. She lived alone; she had built a wigwam for herself, which was remarkably neat and commodious; she could use a rifle, hunt, and provide herself with food and clothing. She had carved a rude image of the sun, and set it up in her lodge; the husband's place, the best mat, and a portion of food, were always appropriated to this image. She lived to a great age, and no one ever interfered with her mode of life, for that would have been contrary to all their ideas of individual freedom. Suppose that, according to our most approved European notions, the poor woman had been burnt at the stake, corporeally or metaphorically, or hunted beyond the pale of the village, for deviating from the law of custom, no doubt there would have been directly a new female sect in the nation of the Chippewas, an order of _wives of the sun_, and Chippewa vestal virgins; but these wise people trusted to nature and common sense. The vocation apparently was not generally admired, and found no imitators. Their laws, or rather their customs, command certain virtues and practices, as truth, abstinence, courage, hospitality; but, they have no prohibitory laws whatever that I could hear of. In this respect their moral code has something of the spirit of Christianity, as contrasted with the Hebrew dispensation. Polygamy is allowed, but it is not common; the second wife is considered as subject to the first, who remains mistress of the household, even though the younger wife should be the favourite. Jealousy, however, is a strong passion among them: not only has a man been known to murder a woman whose fidelity he suspected, but Mr. Schoolcraft mentioned to me an instance of a woman, who, in a transport of jealousy, had stabbed her husband. But these extremes are very rare. JEALOUSY. Some time ago, a young Chippewa girl conceived a violent passion for a hunter of a different tribe, and followed him from his winter hunting-ground to his own village. He was already married, and the wife, not being inclined to admit the rival, drove this love-sick damsel away, and treated her with the utmost indignity. The girl, in desperation, offered herself as a slave to the wife, to carry wood and water, and lie at her feet--anything to be admitted within the same lodge and only look upon the object of her affection. She prevailed at length. Now, the mere circumstance of her residing within the same lodge made her also the wife of the man, according to the Indian custom; but apparently she was content to forego all the privileges and honours of a wife. She endured, for several months, with uncomplaining resignation, every species of ill usage and cruelty on the part of the first wife, till at length this woman, unable any longer to suffer even the presence of a rival, watched an opportunity as the other entered the wigwam with a load of fire-wood, and cleft her skull with the husband's tomahawk. "And did the man permit all this?" was the natural question. The answer was remarkable. "What could _he_ do? he could not help it: a woman is always absolute mistress in her own wigwam!" In the end, the murder was not punished. The poor victim having fled from a distant tribe, there were no relatives to take vengeance, or do justice, and it concerned no one else. She lies buried at a short distance from the Sault-Ste-Marie, where the murderess and her husband yet live. Women sometimes perish of grief for the loss of a husband or a child, and men have been known to starve themselves on the grave of a beloved wife. Men have also been known to give up their wives to the traders for goods and whisky; but this, though forbidden by no law, is considered disreputable, or, as my informant expressed it, "only bad Indians do so." I should doubt, from all I see and hear, that the Indian squaw is that absolute slave, drudge, and nonentity in the community, which she has been described. She is despotic in her lodge, and every thing it contains is hers; even of the game her husband kills, she has the uncontrolled disposal. If her husband does not please her, she scolds and even cuffs him; and it is in the highest degree unmanly to answer or strike her. I have seen here a woman scolding and quarrelling with her husband, seize him by the hair, in a style that might have become civilised Billingsgate, or christian St. Giles's, and the next day I have beheld the same couple sit lovingly together on the sunny side of the wigwam, she kneeling behind him, and combing and arranging the hair she had been pulling from his head the day before; just such a group as I remember to have seen about Naples, or the Campagna di Roma, with very little obvious difference either in costume or complexion. There is no law against marrying near relations, but it is always avoided; it is contrary to their customs: even first cousins do not marry. The tie of blood seems considered as stronger than that of marriage. A woman considers that she belongs more to her own relatives than to her husband or his relatives; yet, notwithstanding this and the facility of divorce, separations between husband and wife are very rare. A couple will go on "squabbling and making it up" all their lives, without having recourse to this expedient. If from displeasure, satiety, or any other cause, a man sends his wife away, she goes back to her relations, and invariably takes her children with her. The indefeasible right of the mother to her offspring is Indian law, or rather, the contrary notion does not seem to have entered their minds. A widow remains subject to her husband's relations for two years after his death; this is the decent period of mourning. At the end of two years, she returns some of the presents made to her by her late husband, goes back to her own relatives, and may marry again. These particulars, and others which may follow, apply to the Chippewas and the Ottawas around me; other tribes have other customs. I speak merely of those things which are brought under my own immediate observation and attention. INDIAN AMAZON. During the last American war of 1813, the young widow of a chief who had been killed in battle, assumed his arms, ornaments, wampum, medal, and went out with several war parties, in which she distinguished herself by her exploits. Mrs. Schoolcraft, when a girl of eleven or twelve years old, saw this woman, who was brought into the Fort at Mackinaw and introduced to the commanding officer; and retains a lively recollection of her appearance, and the interest and curiosity she excited. She was rather below the middle size, slight and delicate in figure, like most of the squaws;--covered with rich ornaments, silver armlets, with the scalping-knife, pouch, medals, tomahawk--all the insignia, in short, of an Indian warrior, except the war-paint and feathers. In the room hung a large mirror, in which she surveyed herself with evident admiration and delight, turning round and round before it, and laughing triumphantly. She was invited to dine at the officers' mess, perhaps as a joke, but conducted herself with so much intuitive propriety and decorum, that she was dismissed with all honour and respect, and with handsome presents. I could not learn what became of her afterwards. Heroic women are not rare among the Indians, women who can bravely suffer--bravely die; but Amazonian women, female amateur warriors, are very extraordinary; I never heard but of this one instance. Generally, the squaws around me give me the impression of exceeding feminine delicacy and modesty, and of the most submissive gentleness. Female chiefs, however, are not unknown in Indian history. There was a famous _Squaw Sachem_, or chief, in the time of the early settlers. The present head chief of the Ottawas, a very fine old man, succeeded a female, who, it is further said, abdicated in his favour. Even the standing rule or custom that women are never admitted to councils has been evaded. At the treaty of Butte des Morts, in 1827, an old Chippewa woman, the wife of a superannuated chief, appeared in place of her husband, wearing his medal, and to all intents and purposes representing him. The American commissioners treated her with studied respect and distinction, and made her rich presents in cloth, ornaments, tobacco, &c. On her return to her own village, she was waylaid and murdered by a party of Menomonies. The next year two Menomonie women were taken and put to death by the Chippewas: such is the Indian law of retaliation. * * * * * CHIPPEWA LANGUAGE. The language spoken around me is the Chippewa tongue, which, with little variation, is spoken also by the Ottawas, Pottowottomies and Missasaguas, and diffused all over the country of the lakes, and through a population of about seventy thousand. It is in these countries what the French is in Europe, the language of trade and diplomacy, understood and spoken by those tribes, with whom it is not vernacular. In this language Mrs. Schoolcraft generally speaks to her children and Indian domestics. It is not only very sweet and musical to the ear, with its soft inflections and lengthened vowels, but very complex and artificial in its construction, and subject to strict grammatical rules; this, for an unwritten language--for they have no alphabet--appears to me very curious. The particulars which follow I have from Mr. Schoolcraft, who has deeply studied the Chippewa language, and what he terms, not without reason, the philosophy of its syntax. The great division of all words, and the pervading principle of the language, is the distinction into animate and inanimate objects: not only nouns, but adjectives, verbs, pronouns, are inflected in accordance with this principle. The distinction, however, seems as arbitrary as that between masculine and feminine nouns in some European languages. Trees, for instance, are of the animate gender. The sun, moon, thunder and lightning, a canoe, a pipe, a water-fall, are all animate. The verb is not only modified to agree with the subject, it must be farther modified to agree with the object spoken of, whether animate or inanimate: an Indian cannot say simply, I love, I eat; the word must express by its inflection what he loves or eats, whether it belong to the animate or inanimate gender. What is curious enough is, that the noun or name can be conjugated like a verb: the word _man_, for instance, can be inflected to express, I _am_ a man, thou _art_ a man, he _is_ a man, I _was_ a man, I _will be_ a man, and so forth; and the word husband can be so inflected as to signify by a change of syllables, _I have a_ husband, and _I have not_ a husband. They have three numbers, like the Greek, but of different signification: they have the singular, and two plurals, one indefinite and general like ours, and one including the persons or things present, and excluding those which are absent; and distinct inflections are required for these two plurals. There are distinct words to express certain distinctions of sex, as with us; for instance, man, woman, father, mother, sister, brother, are distinct words, but more commonly sex is distinguished by a masculine or feminine syllable or termination. The word _equay_, a woman, is thus used as a feminine termination where persons are concerned. Ogima, is a chief, and Ogimquay, a female chief. There are certain words and expressions which are in a manner masculine and feminine by some prescriptive right, and cannot be used indifferently by the two sexes. Thus, one man addressing another says "nichi," or "neejee," my friend. One woman addressing another woman says, "Nin,dong,quay" (as nearly as I can imitate the sound), my friend, or rather, I believe, female relation; and it would be indelicacy in one sex, and arrogance in the other, to exchange these terms between man and woman. When a woman is surprised at anything she sees or hears, she exclaims, "N'ya!" When a man is surprised he exclaims, "T'ya!" and it would be contrary to all Indian notions of propriety and decorum, if a man condescended to say "N'ya!" or if a woman presumed to use the masculine interjection "T'ya!" I could give you other curious instances of the same kind. They have different words for eldest brother, eldest sister, and for brother and sister in general. _Brother_ is a common expression of kindness, _father_, of respect, and grandfather is a title of very great respect. They have no form of imprecation or swearing. Closing the hand, then throwing it forth and opening it suddenly with a jerk, is the strongest gesture of contempt, and the words "bad dog," the strongest expression of abuse and vituperation: both are unpardonable insults, and used sparingly. A mother's term of endearment to her child is "My bird--my young one," and sometimes playfully "My old man." When I asked what words were used of reproach or menace, I was told that Indian children were _never_ scolded--_never_ menaced. The form of salutation in common use between the Indians and the whites is the _bo-jou_, borrowed from the early French settlers, the first Europeans with whom the North-west Indians were brought in contact. Among themselves there is no set form of salutation; when two friends meet after a long absence, they take hands, and exclaim, "We see each other!" * * * * * STORY-TELLERS. I have been "working like beaver," to borrow an Indian phrase. This has been a rich and busy day. What with listening, learning, scribbling, transcribing, my wits as well as my pen are well nigh worn to a stump. But I am not going to tell here of well-known Indian customs, and repeat anecdotes to be found in all the popular books of travel. With the general characteristics of Indian life and manners I suppose the reader already familiar, from the works of Cooper, Washington Irving, Charles Hoffman, and others. I can add nothing to these sources of information; only bear testimony to the vigour, and liveliness and truth of the pictures they have drawn. I am amused at every moment by the coincidence between what I see and what I have read; but I must confess I never read anything like the Indian fictions I have just been transcribing from the first and highest authority. We can easily understand that among a people whose objects in life are few and simple, society cannot be very brilliant, nor conversation very amusing. The taciturnity of the Indians does not arise from any ideas of gravity, decorum, or personal dignity, but rather from the dearth of ideas and of subjects of interest. Henry mentions the dulness of the long winters, when he was residing in the wigwam of his brother Wa,wa,tam, whose family were yet benevolent and intelligent. He had nothing to do but to smoke. Among the Indians, he says, the topics of conversation are few, and are limited to the transactions of the day and the incidents of the chase. The want of all variety in their lives, of all intellectual amusement, is one cause of their passion for gambling and for ardent spirits. The chase is to them a severe toil, not a recreation--the means of existence, not the means of excitement, They have, however an amusement which I do not remember to have seen noticed anywhere. Like the Arabians, they have among them story-tellers by profession, persons who go about from lodge to lodge amusing the inmates with traditional tales, histories of the wars and exploits of their ancestors, or inventions of their own, which are sometimes in the form of allegories or parables, and are either intended to teach some moral lesson, or are extravagant inventions, having no other aim or purpose but to excite wonder or amusement. The story-tellers are estimated according to their eloquence and powers of invention, and are always welcome, sure of the best place in the lodge, and the choicest mess of food wherever they go. Some individuals, not story-tellers by profession, possess and exercise these gifts of memory and invention. Mrs. Schoolcraft mentioned an Indian living at the Sault-Ste-Marie, who in this manner amuses and instructs his family almost every night before they go to rest. Her own mother is also celebrated for her stock of traditional lore, and her poetical and inventive faculties, which she inherited from her father Waub-Ojeeg, who was the greatest poet and story-teller, as well as the greatest warrior, of his tribe. The stories I give you from Mrs. Schoolcraft's translation have at least the merit of being genuine. Their very wildness and childishness, and dissimilarity to all other fictions, will recommend them. The first story was evidently intended to inculcate domestic union and brotherly love. * * * * * THE FORSAKEN BROTHER. It was a fine summer evening; the sun was scarcely an hour high, its departing rays shone through the leaves of the tall elms that skirted a little green knoll, whereon stood a solitary Indian lodge. The deep, deep silence that reigned around seemed to the dwellers in that lonely hut like the long sleep of death which was now about to close the eyes of the chief of this poor family; his low breathing was answered by the sighs and sobs of his wife and three children: two of the children were almost grown up, one was yet a mere child. These were the only human beings near the dying man: the door of the lodge[27] was thrown aside to admit the refreshing breeze of the lake on the banks of which it stood, and when the cool air visited the brow of the poor man, he felt a momentary return of strength. Raising himself a little, he thus addressed his weeping family:-- "I leave ye--I leave ye! thou who hast been my partner in life, thou wilt not stay long behind me, thou wilt soon join me in the pleasant land of spirits; therefore thou hast not long to suffer in this world. But O my children, my poor children, you have just commenced life, and unkindness, and ingratitude, and all wickedness, is in the scene before you. I have contented myself with the company of your mother and yourselves for many years, and you will find that my motive for separating myself from other men has been to preserve you from evil example. But I die content, if you, my children, promise me to love each other, and on no account to forsake your youngest brother. Of him I give you both particular charge--love him and cherish him." The father then became exhausted, and taking a hand of each of his elder children, he continued--"My daughter, never forsake your little brother! my son, never forsake your little brother!"--'Never! never!' they both exclaimed:--"Never! never!" repeated the father, and expired. The poor man died happy, because he thought that his commands would be obeyed: the sun sank down behind the trees and left a golden sky, which the family were wont to behold with pleasure; but now no one heeded it. The lodge, so still an hour before, was now filled with loud cries and lamentations. Time wore heavily away. Five long moons had passed, and the sixth was nearly full, when the mother also died. In her last moments, she pressed upon her children the fulfilment of their promise to their departed father. They readily renewed this promise, because they were as yet free from any selfish motives to break it. The winter passed away and spring came. The girl being the eldest, directed her brothers, and seemed to feel a more tender and sisterly affection for the youngest, who was sickly and delicate. The other boy soon showed signs of selfishness, and thus addressed his sister:-- "My sister, are we always to live as if there were no other human beings in the world? Must I be deprived of the pleasure of associating with men? I go to seek the villages of my brothers and my tribe. I have resolved, and you prevent me." The girl replied, "My brother, I do not say no to what you desire. We were not forbidden to associate with men, but we were commanded to cherish and never forsake each other--if we separate to follow our own selfish desires, will it not oblige us to forsake him, our brother, whom we are both bound to support?" The young man made no answer to this remonstrance, but taking up his bow and arrows, he left the wigwam and returned no more. Many moons had come and gone after the young man's departure, and still the girl ministered kindly and constantly to the wants of her little brother. At length, however, she too began to weary of solitude and her charge. Years added to her strength and her power of providing for the household wants, but also brought the desire of society, and made her solitude more and more irksome. At last she became quite impatient; she thought only of herself, and cruelly resolved to abandon her little brother, as her elder brother had done before. One day, after having collected all the provisions she had set apart for emergencies, and brought a quantity of wood to the door, she said to her little brother, "My brother, you must not stray far from the lodge. I am going to seek our brother, I shall soon be back." Then taking her bundle, she set off in search of the habitations of men. She soon found them, and became so much occupied with the pleasures of her new life, that all affection and remembrance of her brother were by degrees effaced from her heart. At last she was married, and after _that_ she never more thought of her poor helpless little brother, whom she had abandoned in the woods. In the mean time the eldest brother had also settled on the shores of the same lake, near which reposed the bones of his parents, and the abode of his forsaken brother. Now, as soon as the little boy had eaten all the provisions left by his sister, he was obliged to pick berries and dig up roots for food. Winter came on, and the poor child was exposed to all its rigour; the snow covered the earth; he was forced to quit the lodge in search of food, and strayed about without shelter or home: sometimes he passed the night in the clefts of old trees, and ate the fragments left by the wolves. Soon he had no other resource; and in seeking for food he became so fearless of these animals, that he would sit close to them while they devoured their prey, and the fierce hungry wolves themselves seemed to pity his condition, and would always leave something for him. Thus he lived on the bounty of the wolves till the spring. As soon as the lake was free from ice, he followed his new friends and companions to the shore. Now it happened that his brother was fishing in his canoe, out far on the lake, when he thought he heard a cry as of a child, and wondered how any one could exist on the bleak shore. He listened again more attentively, and heard the cry repeated, and he paddled towards the shore as quickly as possible, and there he beheld and recognised his little brother, whom he heard singing in a plaintive voice:-- "Neesya, neesya, shyegwich gushuh! Ween, ne myeeguniwh!" That is, "my brother, my brother, I am now turning into a wolf, I am turning into a wolf." At the end of his song he howled like a wolf, and his brother approaching, was dismayed to find him half a wolf and half a human being. He however leaped to the shore, strove to catch him in his arms, and said, soothingly, "My brother, my brother, come to me!" But the boy eluded his grasp and fled, still singing as he fled, "I am turning into a wolf! I am turning into a wolf!" and howling frightfully at the end of his song. His elder brother, conscious-struck, and feeling all his love return, exclaimed in anguish, "My brother, O my brother, come to me!" but the nearer he approached the child the more rapidly the transformation proceeded. Still he sung, and howling called upon his brother and sister alternately in his song, till the change was complete, and he fled towards the wood a perfect wolf. At last he cried, "I am a wolf!" and bounded out of sight. The young man felt the bitterness of remorse all his days; and the sister, when she heard the fate of her little brother whom she had promised to protect and cherish, wept many tears, and never ceased to mourn him till she died. The next story seems intended to admonish parental ambition, and inculcate filial obedience. The bird here called the robin is three times as large as the English robin redbreast, but in its form and habits very similar. [Footnote 27: The skin or blanket suspended before the opening.] * * * * * THE ORIGIN OF THE ROBIN. An old man had an only son, a fine promising lad, who had arrived at that age when the Chippewas thought it proper to make the long and final fast which is to secure through life a guardian spirit, on whom future prosperity or adversity are to depend, and who forms the character to great and noble deeds.[28] This old man was ambitious that his son should surpass all others in whatever was deemed most wise and great among his tribe; and to this effect he thought it necessary that his son should fast a much longer time than any of those persons celebrated for their uncommon power or wisdom, and whose fame he envied. He therefore directed his son to prepare with great ceremony for the important event: after he had been in the bath several times, he ordered him to lie down on a clean mat in a little lodge, expressly prepared for him, telling him at the same time to bear himself like a man, and that at the expiration of twelve days he should receive food and his father's blessing. The youth carefully observed these injunctions, lying with his face covered, with perfect composure, awaiting those spiritual visitations which were to seal his good or evil fortune. His father visited him every morning regularly to encourage him to perseverance--expatiating on the renown and honour which would attend him through life, if he accomplished the full term prescribed. To these exhortations the boy never replied, but lay still without a murmur till the ninth day, when he thus addressed his father--"My father, my dreams are ominous of evil. May I break my fast now, and at a more propitious time make a new fast?" The father answered--"My son, you know not what you ask; if you rise now, all your glory will depart. Wait patiently a little longer, you have but three days yet to accomplish what I desire: you know it is for your own good." The son assented, and covering himself up close, he lay till the eleventh day, when he repeated his request to his father. But the same answer was given by the old man, who, however, added that the next day he would himself prepare his first meal, and bring it to him. The boy remained silent, and lay like death. No one could have known he was living, but by the gentle heaving of his breast. The next morning, the father, elate at having gained his object, prepared a repast for his son, and hastened to set it before him. On coming to the door, he was surprised to hear his son talking to himself; he stooped to listen, and looking through a small aperture, he was more astonished when he saw his son painted with vermillion on his breast, and in the act of finishing his work by laying on the paint as far as his hand could reach on his shoulders, saying at the same time, "My father has destroyed me as a man--he would not listen to my request--he will now be the loser, while I shall be for ever happy in my new state, since I have been obedient to my parent. He alone will be a sufferer, for the Spirit is a just one, though not propitious to me. He has shown me pity, and now I must go!" At that moment the father, in despair, burst into the lodge, exclaiming, "My son, my son, do not leave me." But his son, with the quickness of a bird, had flown up to the top of the lodge, and perched upon the highest pole, a beautiful Robin Redbreast. He looked down on his father with pity beaming in his eyes, and told him he should always love to be near man's dwellings--that he should always be seen happy and contented by the constant sprightliness and joy he would display--and that he would ever strive to cheer his father by his songs, which would be some consolation to him for the loss of the glory he had expected--and that although no longer a man, he would ever be the harbinger of peace and joy to the human race. [Footnote 28: This custom is universal among the Chippewas and their kindred tribes. At a certain age, about twelve or fourteen, the youth or girl is shut up in a separate lodge to fast and dream. The usual term is from three to five or six days, or even longer. The object which during this time is most frequently presented in sleep--the disturbed feverish sleep of an exhausted frame and excited imagination--is the tutelary spirit or manito of the future life: it is the sun or moon or evening star; an eagle, a moose deer, a crane, a bat, &c. Wa,wa,tam, the Indian friend of Henry the traveller, had dreamed of a white man, whom the Great Spirit brought to him in his hand and presented as his brother. This dream saved Henry's life.] * * * * * RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. It is a mistake to suppose that these Indians are idolaters; heathens and pagans you may call them if you will; but the belief in one Great Spirit, who created all things, and is paramount to all things, and the belief in the distinction between body and soul, and the immortality of the latter--these two sublime principles pervade their wildest superstitions; but though none doubt of a future state, they have no distinct or universal tenets with regard to the condition of the soul after death. Each individual seems to have his own thoughts on the subject, and some doubtless never think about it at all. In general, however, their idea of a paradise (the land of spirits) is some far off country towards the south-west, abounding in sunshine, and placid lakes, and rivers full of fish, and forests full of game, whither they are transported by the Great Spirit, and where those who are separated on earth meet again in happiness, and part no more. Not only man, but everything animate, is spirit, and destined to immortality. According to the Indians, (and Sir Humphry Davy,) nothing dies, nothing is destroyed; what we look upon as death and destruction is only transition and change. The ancients, it is said--for I cannot speak from my own knowledge--without telescopes or logarithms, divined the grandest principles of astronomy, and calculated the revolutions of the planets; and so these Indians, who never heard of philosophy or chemistry, have contrived to hit upon some of the profoundest truths in physics and metaphysics; but they seem content, like Jaques, "to praise God, and make no boast of it." In some things, it is true, they are as far as possible from orthodox. Their idea of a hell seems altogether vague and negative. It consists in a temporary rejection from the land of good spirits, in a separation from lost relatives and friends, in being doomed to wander up and down desolately, having no fixed abode, weary, restless, and melancholy. To how many is the Indian hell already realised on this earth? Physical pain, or any pain which calls for the exercise of courage, and which it is manliness to meet and endure, does not apparently enter into their notions of _punishment_. They believe in evil spirits, but the idea of _the_ Evil _Spirit_, a permitted agency of evil and mischief, who divides with the Great Spirit the empire of the universe--who contradicts or renders nugatory His will, and takes especially in hand the province of tormenting sinners--of the devil, in short, they certainly had not an idea, till it was introduced by Europeans.[29] Those Indians whose politeness will not allow them to contradict this article of the white man's faith, still insist that the place of eternal torment was never intended for the Red-skins, the especial favourites of the Great Spirit, but for white men _only_. [Footnote 29: History of the Moravian Missions. Mr. Schoolcraft]. INDIAN CUSTOMS. Formerly it was customary with Chippewas to bury many articles with the dead, such as would be useful on their journey to the land of spirits. Henry describes in a touching manner the interment of a young girl, with an axe, snow-shoes, a small kettle, several pairs of moccasins, her own ornaments, and strings of beads; and, because it was a female--destined, it seems, to toil and carry burthens in the other world as well as this--the _carrying-belt_ and the paddle. The last act before the burial, performed by the poor mother, crying over the dead body of the child, was that of taking from it a lock of hair for a memorial. "While she did this," says Henry, "I endeavoured to console her by offering the usual arguments, that the child was happy in being released from the miseries of this life, and that she should forbear to grieve, because it would be restored to her in another world, happy and everlasting. She answered, that she knew it well, and that by the lock of hair she should know her daughter in the other world, for she would _take it with her_--alluding to the time when this relic, with the carrying-belt and axe, would be placed in her own grave." This custom of burying property with the dead was formerly carried to excess from the piety and generosity of surviving friends, until a chief, greatly respected and admired among them for his bravery and talents, took an ingenious method of giving his people a lesson. He was seized with a fit of illness, and after a few days expired, or seemed to expire. But after lying in this death-trance for some hours, he came to life again, and recovering his voice and senses, he informed his friends that he had been half-way to the land of spirits; that he found the road thither crowded with the souls of the dead, all so heavily laden with the guns, kettles, axes, blankets, and other articles buried with them, that their journey was retarded, and they complained grievously of the burthens which the love of their friends had laid on them. "I will tell you," said Gitchee Gauzinee, for that was his name, "our fathers have been wrong; they have buried too many things with the dead. It is too burthensome to them, and they have complained to me bitterly. There are many who, by reason of the heavy loads they bear, have not yet reached the land of spirits. Clothing will be very acceptable to the dead, also his moccasins to travel in, and his pipe to refresh him on the way; but let his other possessions be divided among his relatives and friends." This sensible hint was taken in good part. The custom of kindling a fire on the grave, to light the departed spirit on its road to the land of the dead, is very general, and will remind you of the oriental customs. AN INDIAN LEGEND. A Chippewa chief, heading his war party against the Sioux, received an arrow in his breast, and fell. No warrior thus slain is ever buried. According to ancient custom, he was placed in a sitting posture, with his back against a tree, his face towards his flying enemies; his head-dress, ornaments, and all his war-equipments, were arranged, with care, and thus he was left. But the chief was not dead; though he could neither move nor speak, he was sensible to all that passed. When he found himself abandoned by his friends as one dead, he was seized with a paroxysm of rage and anguish. When they took leave of him, lamenting, he rose up and followed them, but they saw him not. He pursued their track, and wheresoever they went, he went; when they ran, he ran; when they encamped and slept, he did the like; but he could not eat with them, and when he spoke they heard him not. "Is it possible," he cried, exalting his voice, "that my brothers do not see me--do not hear me? Will you suffer me to bleed to death without stanching my wounds? will you let me starve in the midst of food? have my fellow-warriors already forgotten me? is there none who will recollect my face, or offer me a morsel of flesh?" Thus he lamented and upbraided, but the sound of his voice reached them not. If they heard it at all they mistook it for that of the summer wind rustling among the leaves. The war party returned to the village: the women and children came out to welcome them. The chief heard the inquiries for himself, and the lamentations of his friends and relatives over his death. "It is not true!" he shrieked with a loud voice, "I am not dead,--I was not left on the field; I am here! I live! I move! see me! touch me! I shall again raise my spear in the battle, and sound my drum at the feast!" But no one heeded him; they mistook his voice for the wind rising and whistling among the boughs. He walked to his wigwam, and found his wife tearing her hair, and weeping for his death. He tried to comfort her, but she seemed insensible of his presence. He besought her to bind up his wounds--she moved not. He put his mouth close to her ear, and shouted, "I am hungry, give me food!" She thought she heard a mosquito buzzing in her ear. The chief, enraged past endurance, now summoned all his strength, and struck her a violent blow on the temple; on which she raised her hand to her head, and remarked, "I feel a slight aching here!" When the chief beheld these things, he began to reflect that possibly his body might have remained on the field of battle, while only his spirit was among his friends; so he determined to go back and seek his body. It was four days' journey thither, and on the last day, just as he was approaching the spot, he saw a flame in the path before him; he endeavoured to step aside and pass it, but was still opposed; whichever way he turned, still it was before him. "Thou spirit," he exclaimed in anger, "why dost thou oppose me? knowest thou not that I too am a spirit, and seek only to re-enter my body? thinkest thou to make me turn back? Know that I was never conquered by the enemies of my nation, and will not be conquered by thee!" So saying, he made an effort, and leapt through the opposing flame. He found himself seated under a tree on the field of battle, in all his warlike array, his bow and arrows at his side, just as he had been left by his friends, and looking up beheld a great war-eagle seated on the boughs; it was the manito of whom he had dreamed in his youth, his tutelary spirit who had kept watch over his body for eight days, and prevented the ravenous beasts and carrion birds from devouring it. In the end, he bound up his wounds and sustained himself by his bow and arrows, until he reached his village; there he was received with transport by his wife and friends, and concluded his account of his adventures by telling them that it is four days' journey to the land of spirits, and that the spirit stood in need of a fire every night; therefore the friends and relatives should build the funeral fire for four nights upon the grave, otherwise the spirit would be obliged to build and tend the fire itself,--a task which is always considered slavish and irksome. Such is the tradition by which the Chippewas account for the custom of lighting the funeral fire. INDIAN SUPERSTITIONS. The Indians have a very fanciful mythology, which would make exquisite machinery for poetry. It is quite distinct from the polytheism of the Greeks. The Greek mythology personified all nature, and materialised all abstractions: the Indians spiritualise all nature. They do not indeed place dryads and fauns in their woods, nor naiads in their streams; but every tree has a spirit; every rock, every river, every star that glistens, every wind that breathes, has a spirit; every thing they cannot comprehend is a spirit: this is the ready solution of every mystery, or rather makes every thing around them a mystery as great as the blending of soul and body in humanity. A watch, a compass, a gun, have each their spirit. The thunder is an angry spirit; the aurora borealis, dancing and rejoicing spirits; the milky way is the path of spirits. Birds, perhaps from their aerial movements, they consider as in some way particularly connected with the invisible world of spirits. Not only all animals have souls, but it is the settled belief of the Chippewa Indians that their souls will fare the better in another world, in the precise ratio that their lives and enjoyments are curtailed in this: hence, they have no remorse in hunting; but when they have killed a bear or rattle-snake, they solemnly beg his pardon, and excuse themselves on the plea of necessity. Besides this general _spiritualisation_ of the whole universe, which to an Indian is all spirit in diversity of forms (how delighted Bishop Berkeley would have been with them!), they have certain mythologic existences. Manabozho is a being very analogous to the Seeva of the Hindoo mythology. The four cardinal points are spirits, the west being the oldest and the father of the others, by a beautiful girl, who, one day while bathing, suffered the west wind to blow upon her. Weeng is the spirit of sleep, with numerous little subordinate spirits, his emissaries, whose employment is to close the eyes of mortals, and by tapping on their foreheads _knock_ them to sleep. Then they have Weendigos--great giants and cannibals, like the Ascaparts and Morgantes of the old romances; and little tiny spirits or fairies, which haunt the woods and cataracts. The Nibanàba, half human half fish, dwell in the waters of Lake Superior. Ghosts are plentiful, and so are transformations, as you have seen. The racoon was once a shell lying on the lake shore, and vivified by the sun-beams: the Indian name of the racoon, _aisebun_, is literally, _he was a shell_. The brains of a wicked adulteress, whose skull was beaten to pieces against the rocks, as it tumbled down a cataract, became the white fish.[30] As to the belief in sorcery, spells, talismans, incantations, all which go by the general name of _medicine_, it is unbounded. Henry mentions, that among the goods which some traders took up the country to exchange for furs, they had a large collection of the little rude prints, published for children, at a halfpenny a piece--I recollect such when I was a child. They sold these at a high price, for _medicines_ (_i. e._ talismans), and found them a very profitable and popular article of commerce. One of these, a little print of a sailor kissing his sweetheart, was an esteemed _medicine_ among the young, and eagerly purchased for a love-spell. A soldier presenting his gun, or brandishing his sabre, was a medicine to promote warlike courage--and so on. The medicines and manitos of the Indians will remind you of the fetishes of the negroes. [Footnote 30: I have heard the particulars of this wild story of the origin of the white-fish, but cannot remember them. I think the woman was put to death by her sons. Most of the above particulars I learned from oral communication, and from some of the papers published by Mr. Schoolcraft. This gentleman and others instituted a society at Detroit (1832), called the _Algic Society_, for "evangelising the north-western tribes, inquiring into their history and superstitions, and promoting education, agriculture, industry, peace, and temperance among them."] With regard to the belief in omens and incantations, I should like to see it ascertained how far we civilised Christians, with all our schools, our pastors, and our masters, are in advance of these (so-called) savages?[31] Who would believe that with a smile, whose blessing Would, like the patriarch's, soothe a dying hour; With voice as low, as gentle, as caressing, As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlit bower; With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil; With motions graceful as a bird's in air; Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil, That e'er clench'd fingers in a captive's hair!--Halleck. Mr. Johnson tells me, what pleases me much, that the Indians like me, and are gratified by my presence, and the interest I express for them, and that I am the subject of much conversation and speculation. Being in manners and complexion unlike the European women they have been accustomed to see, they have given me, he says, a name among themselves expressive of the most obvious characteristic in my appearance, and call me the _white_ or _fair English chieftainess_ (Ogima-quay). I go among them quite familiarly, and am always received with smiling good-humour. With the assistance of a few words, as ninni, a man; minno, good; mudjee, bad; mee gwedge, thank you; maja, good-bye; with nods, smiles, signs, and friendly hand-taking,--we hold most eloquent conversations. Even the little babies smile at me out of their comical cradles, slung at their mothers' backs, and with the help of beads and lolly-pops from the village store, I get on amazingly well; only when asked for some "English milk" (rum or whisky), I frown as much as I can, and cry Mudjee! Mudjee! bad! bad! then they laugh, and we are friends again. The scenes I at first described are of constant reiteration. Every morning when I leave my room and come out into the porch, I have to exchange _bo-jou!_ and shake hands with some twenty or thirty of my dingy, dusky, greasy, painted, blanketed smiling friends: but to-day we have had some new scenes. First, however, I forgot to tell you that yesterday afternoon there came in a numerous fleet of canoes, thirty or forty at least; and the wind blowing fresh from the west, each with its square blanket sail came scudding over the waters with astonishing velocity; it was a beautiful sight. Then there was the usual bustle, and wigwam building, fire-lighting and cooking, all along the shore, which is now excessively crowded: and yelling, shouting, drinking and dancing at the whisky store. But all this I have formerly described to you. [Footnote 31: "One of the most distinguished men of the age, who has left a reputation which will be as lasting as it is great, was, when a boy, in constant fear of a very able but unmerciful schoolmaster, and in the state of mind which that constant fear produced, he fixed upon a great spider for his fetish (or manito), and used every day to pray to it that he might not be flogged."--_The Doctor_, vol. v. When a child, I was myself taken to a witch (or medicine woman) to be cured of an accidental burn by charms and incantations. I was then about six years old, and have a very distinct recollection of the whole scene, which left a strong and frightful impression on my childish fancy.] AN INDIAN TALK. I presume it was in consequence of these new arrivals that we had a grand _talk_ or council after breakfast this morning, at which I was permitted to be present, or, as the French say, to _assist_. There were fifty-four of their chiefs, or rather chief men, present, and not less that two hundred Indians round the house, their dark eager faces filling up the windows and doorways; but they were silent, quiet, and none but those first admitted attempted to enter. All as they came up took my hand: some I had seen before, and some were entire strangers, but there was no look of surprise, and all was ease and grave self-possession: a set of more perfect gentlemen, in _manner_, I never met with. The council was convened to ask them if they would consent to receive goods instead of dollars in payment of the pensions due to them on the sale of their lands, and which, by the conditions of sale, were to be paid in money. So completely do the white men reckon on having everything their own way with the poor Indians, that a trader had contracted with the government to supply the goods which the Indians had not yet consented to receive, and was actually now on the island, having come with me in the steamer. As the chiefs entered, they sat down on the floor. The principal person was a venerable old man with a bald head, who did not speak. The orator of the party wore a long gray blanket-coat, crimson sash, and black neckcloth, with leggings and moccasins. There was also a well-looking young man dressed in the European fashion, and in black; he was of mixed blood, French and Indian; he had been carried early to Europe by the Catholic priests, had been educated in the Propaganda College at Rome, and was lately come out to settle as a teacher and interpreter among his people. He was the only person besides Mr. Schoolcraft who was seated on a chair, and he watched the proceedings with great attention. On examining one by one the assembled chiefs, I remarked five or six who had good heads--well developed, intellectual, and benevolent. The old chief, and my friend the Rain, were conspicuous among them, and also an old man with a fine square head and lofty brow, like the picture of Red-jacket[32], and a young man with a pleasing countenance, and two scalps hung as ornaments to his belt. Some faces were mild and vacant, some were stupid and coarse, but in none was there a trace of insolence or ferocity, or of that vile expression I have seen in a depraved European of the lowest class. The worst physiognomy was that of a famous medicine-man--it was mean and cunning. Not only the countenances but the features differed; even the distinct characteristics of the Indian, the small deep-set eye, breadth of face and high cheek-bones, were not universal: there were among them regular features, oval faces, aquiline noses. One chief had a head and face which reminded me strongly of the Marquis Wellesley. All looked dirty, grave, and picturesque, and most of them, on taking their seats on the ground, pulled out their tobacco-pouches and lighted their wooden pipes. The proposition made to them was evidently displeasing. The orator, after whispering with the chief, made a long and vehement speech in a loud emphatic voice, and at every pause the auditors exclaimed, "Hah!" in sign of approbation. I remarked that he sometimes made a jest which called forth a general smile, even from the interpreter and Mr. Schoolcraft. Only a few sentences were translated: from which I understood that they all considered this offer as a violation of the treaty which their great father at Washington, the president, had made with them. They did not want goods,--they wanted the stipulated dollars. Many of their young men had procured goods from the traders on credit, and depended on the money due to them to discharge their debts; and, in short, the refusal was distinct and decided. I am afraid, however, it will not avail them much.[33] The mean, petty-trader style in which the American officials make (and _break_) their treaties with the Indians is shameful. I met with none who attempted to deny it or excuse it. Mr. Schoolcraft told me that during the time he had been Indian agent (five-and-twenty years) he had never known the Indians to violate a treaty or break a promise. He could not say the same of his government, and the present business appeared most distasteful to him; but he was obliged to obey the order from the head of his department. The Indians themselves make witty jests on the bad faith of the "Big Knives."[34] "My father!" said a distinguished Pottowottomie chief at the treaty of Chicago--"my father, you have made several promises to your red children, and you have put the money down upon the table: but as fast as you put it upon the top, it has slipped away to the bottom, in a manner that is incomprehensible to us. We do not know what becomes of it. When we get together, and divide it among ourselves, it is nothing! and we remain as poor as ever. My father, I only explain to you the words of my brethren. We can only see what is before our eyes, and are unable to comprehend all things." Then pointing to a newspaper which lay on the table--"You see that paper on the table before you--it is double. You can see what is upon the upper sheet, but you cannot see what is below. We cannot tell how our money goes!" On the present occasion, two orators spoke, and the council lasted above two hours: but I left the room long before the proceedings were over. I must needs confess it to you--I cannot overcome one disagreeable obstacle to a near communion with these people. The genuine Indian has a very peculiar odour, unlike anything of the kind that ever annoyed my fastidious senses. One ought to get over these things; and after all it is not so offensive as it is peculiar. You have probably heard that horses brought up in the white settlements can smell an Indian at a great distance, and show evident signs of perturbation and terror whenever they snuff an Indian in the air. For myself, in passing over the place on which a lodge has stood, and whence it has been removed several hours, though it was the hard pebbly beach on the water edge, I could scent the Indian in the atmosphere. You can imagine, therefore, that fifty of them in one room, added to the smell of their tobacco, which is detestable, and the smoking and all its unmentionable consequences, drove me from the spot. The truth is, that a woman of very delicate and fastidious habits must learn to endure some very disagreeable things, or she had best stay at home. [Footnote 32: The picture by Weir, in the possession of Samuel Ward, Esq., of New York, which see--or rather see the beautiful lines of Halleck:-- "If he were with me, King of Tuscarora! Gazing as I upon thy portrait now, In all its medalled, fring'd, and beaded glory, Its eyes' dark beauty and its tranquil brow-- Its brow, half martial, and half diplomatic, Its eye, upsoaring like an eagle's wings-- Well might he boast that we, the democratic, Outrival Europe, even in our kings!"] [Footnote 33: Since my return to England I found the following passage in the Morning Chronicle, extracted from the American papers:----"The Indians of Michigan have committed several shocking murders, in consequence of the payments due to them on land-treaties being made in goods instead of money. Serious alarm on that subject prevails in the State." The wretched individuals murdered were probably settlers, quite innocent in this business, probably women and children; but such is the _well-known_ Indian law of retaliation.] [Footnote 34: The Indians gave the name of Cheemokomaun (Long Knives, or _Big Knives_) to the Americans at the time they were defeated by General Wayne, near the Miami river, in 1795, and suffered so severely from the _sabres_ of the cavalry.] THE INDIAN DANCE. In the afternoon Mr. Johnson informed me that the Indians were preparing to dance, for my particular amusement. I was, of course, most thankful and delighted. Almost in the same moment, I heard their yells and shrieks resounding along the shore, mingled with the measured monotonous drum. We had taken our place on an elevated platform behind the house--a kind of little lawn on the hill-side;--the precipitous rocks, clothed with trees and bushes, rose high like a wall above us: the glorious sunshine of a cloudless summer's day was over our heads--the dazzling blue lake and its islands at our feet. Soft and elysian in its beauty was all around. And when these wild and more than half-naked figures came up, leaping, whooping, drumming, shrieking, hideously painted, and flourishing clubs, tomahawks, javelins, it was like a masque of fiends breaking into paradise! The rabble of Comus might have boasted themselves comely in comparison, even though no self-deluding potion had bleared their eyes and intellect. It was a grotesque and horrible phantasmagoria. Of their style of clothing, I say nothing--for, as it is wisely said, nothing can come of _nothing:_--only if "all symbols be clothes," according to a great modern philosopher--my Indian friends were as little symbolical as you can dare to imagine:--_passons par là_. If the blankets and leggings were thrown aside, all the resources of the Indian toilette, all their store of feathers, and bears' claws, hawks' bells, vermilion, soot, and verdigris, were brought into requisition as decoration: and no two were alike. One man wore three or four heads of hair, composed of the manes and tails of animals; another wore a pair of deers' horns; another was _coiffé_ with the skins and feathers of a crane or some such bird--its long bill projecting from his forehead; another had the shell of a small turtle suspended from his back, and dangling behind; another used the skin of a polecat for the same purpose. One had painted his right leg with red bars, and his left leg with green lines: parti-coloured eyes and faces, green noses, and blue chins, or _vice versâ_, were general. I observed that in this grotesque deformity, in the care with which every thing like symmetry or harmony in form or colours was avoided, there was something evidently studied and artistical. The orchestra was composed of two drums and two rattles, and a chorus of voices. The song was without melody--a perpetual repetition of three or four notes, melancholy, harsh, and monotonous. A flag was stuck in the ground, and round this they began their dance--if dance it could be called,--the movements consisting of the alternate raising of one foot, then the other, and swinging the body to and fro. Every now and then they paused, and sent forth that dreadful, prolonged, tremulous yell, which re-echoed from the cliffs, and pierced my ears and thrilled along my nerves. The whole exhibition was of that finished barbarism, that it was at least _complete_ in its way, and for a time I looked on with curiosity and interest. But that innate loathing which dwells within me for all that is discordant and deformed, rendered it anything but pleasant to witness. It grated horribly upon all my perceptions. In the midst, one of those odd and unaccountable transitions of thought caused, by some mental or physical re-action--the law which brings extremes in contrast together--came across me. I was reminded that even on this very day last year I was seated in a box at the opera, looking at Carlotta Grisi and Perrot dancing, or rather flying through the galoppe in "Benyowsky." The oddity of this sudden association made me laugh, which being interpreted into the expression of my highest approbation, they became every moment more horribly ferocious and animated; redoubled the vigour of their detestably awkward movements and the shrillness of their savage yells, till I began involuntarily to look about for some means of escape--but this would have been absolutely rude, and I restrained myself. I should not forget to mention that the figures of most of the men were superb; more agile and elegant, however, than muscular, more fitted for the chase than for labour, with small and well-formed hands and feet. When the dance was ended, a young warrior, leaving the group, sat himself down on a little knoll to rest. His spear lay across his knees, and he reposed his head upon his hand. He was not painted, except with a little vermilion on his chest, and on his head he wore only the wing of the osprey. He sat there, a model for a sculptor. The perfection of his form, the graceful abandonment of his attitude, reminded me of a young Mercury, or of Thorwaldsen's "Shepherd Boy." I went up to speak to him, and thanked him for his exertions in the dance, which indeed had been conspicuous; and then, for want of something else to say, I asked him if he had a wife and children? The whole expression of his face suddenly changed, and with an air as tenderly coy as that of a young girl listening to the first whisper of a lover, he looked down and answered softly, "Kah-ween!"--No, indeed! Feeling that I had for the first time embarrassed an Indian, I withdrew, really as much out of countenance as the youth himself. I did not ask him his name, for that were a violation of the Indian form of good breeding, but I learn that he is called _the Pouncing Hawk_. West's comparison of the Apollo Belvedere to a young Mohawk warrior has more of likelihood and reasonableness than I ever believed or acknowledged before. A keg of tobacco and a barrel of flour were given to them, and they dispersed as they came, drumming, and yelling and leaping, and flourishing their clubs and war hatchets. * * * * * In the evening we paddled in a canoe over to the opposite island, with the intention of landing and looking at the site of an intended missionary settlement for the Indians. But no sooner did the keel of our canoe touch the woody shore than we were enveloped in a cloud of mosquitoes. It was in vain to think of dislodging the enemy, and after one or two attempts we were fairly beaten back. Mackinaw, as seen from hence, has exactly the form its name implies, that of a large turtle sleeping on the water. I believe Mackinaw is merely the abbreviation of Michilimackinac, _the great turtle_. It was a mass of purple shadow; and just at one extremity the sun plunged into the lake, leaving its reflection on the water, like the skirts of a robe of fire, floating. This too vanished, and we returned in the soft calm twilight, singing as we went. * * * * * July 29. Where was I? Where did I leave off four days ago? O--at Mackinaw! that fairy island, which I shall never see again, and which I should have dearly liked to filch from the Americans, and carry home to you in my dressing-box, or, perdie, in my toothpick case; but, good lack, to see the ups and downs of this (new) world. I take up my tale a hundred miles from it; but before I tell you where I am now, I must take you over the ground, or rather over the water, in a proper and journal-like style. PROCEED TO SAULT-SAINTE-MARIE. I was sitting last Friday, at sultry noon-tide, under the shadow of a schooner which had just anchored alongside the little pier--sketching and dreaming--when up came a messenger, breathless, to say that a boat was going off for the Sault-Sainte-Marie, in which I could be accommodated with a passage. Now this was precisely what I had been wishing and waiting for, and yet I heard the information with an emotion of regret. I had become every day more attached to the society of Mrs. Schoolcraft, more interested about her; and the idea of parting, and parting suddenly, took me by surprise, and was anything but agreeable. On reaching the house, I found all in movement, and learned, to my inexpressible delight, that my friend would take the opportunity of paying a visit to her mother and family, and, with her children, was to accompany me on my voyage. We had but one hour to prepare packages, provisions, everything--and in one hour all was ready. This voyage of two days was to be made in a little Canadian bateau, rowed by five _voyageurs_ from the Sault. The boat might have carried fifteen persons, hardly more, and was rather clumsy in form. The two ends were appropriated to the rowers, baggage, and provisions; in the centre there was a clear space, with a locker on each side, on which we sat or reclined, having stowed away in them our smaller and more valuable packages. This was the internal arrangement. The distance to the Sault, or, as the Americans call it, the _Sou_, is not more than thirty miles over land, as the bird flies; but the whole region being one mass of tangled forest and swamp, infested with bears and mosquitoes, it is seldom crossed but in winter, and in snow-shoes. The usual route by water is ninety-four miles. At three o'clock in the afternoon, with a favourable breeze, we launched forth on the lake, and having rowed about a mile from the shore, the little square sail was hoisted, and away we went merrily over the blue waves. THE VOYAGEURS. For a detailed account of the _voyageurs_, or Canadian boatmen, their peculiar condition and mode of life, I refer you to Washington Irving's "Astoria." What he describes them to _have been_, and what Henry represents them in his time, they are even now, in these regions of the upper lakes.[35] But the voyageurs in our boat were not favourable specimens of their very amusing and peculiar class. They were fatigued with rowing for three days previous, and had only two helpless women to deal with. As soon, therefore, as the sail was hoisted, two began to play cards on the top of a keg, the other two went to sleep. The youngest and most intelligent of the set, a lively half-breed boy of eighteen, took the helm. He told us with great self-complacency that he was _captain_, and that it was already the third time that he had been elected by his comrades to this dignity; but I cannot say he had a very obedient crew. [Footnote 35: As I shall have much to say hereafter of this peculiar class of people, to save both reader and author time and trouble, the passage is here given:-- "The voyageurs form a kind of confraternity in the Canadas, like the arrieros or carriers of Spain. The dress of these people is generally half civilised, half savage. They wear a capote or surcoat, made of a blanket, a striped cotton shirt, cloth trowsers or leathern leggings, moccasins of deer-skin, and a belt of variegated worsted, from which are suspended the knife, tobacco-pouch, and other articles. Their language is of the same piebald character, being a French patois embroidered with English and Italian words and phrases. They are generally of French descent, and inherit much of the gaiety and lightness of heart of their ancestors; they inherit, too, a fund of civility and complaisance, and instead of that hardness and grossness, which men in laborious life are apt to indulge towards each other, they are mutually obliging and accommodating, interchanging kind offices, yielding each other assistance and comfort in every emergency, and using the familiar appellations of _cousin_ and _brother_, when there is in fact no relationship. No men are more submissive to their leaders and employers, more capable of enduring hardships, or more good-humoured under privations. Never are they so happy as when on long and rough expeditions, towing up rivers or coasting lakes. They are dexterous boatmen, vigorous and adroit with the oar or paddle, and will row from morning till night without a murmur. The steersman often sings an old French song with some regular burthen in which they all join, keeping time with their oars. If at any time they flag in spirits or relax in exertion, it is but necessary to strike up a song of this kind to put them all in fresh spirits and activity."--Astoria, vol. i. chap. 4.] LAND ON GOOSE ISLAND. About seven o'clock we landed to cook our supper on an island which is commemorated by Henry as the Isle des Outardes, and is now Goose Island. Mrs. Schoolcraft undertook the general management with all the alertness of one accustomed to these impromptu arrangements, and I did my best in my new vocation--dragged one or two blasted boughs to the fire, the least of them twice as big as myself, and laid the cloth upon the pebbly beach. The enormous fire was to keep off the mosquitoes, in which we succeeded pretty well, swallowing, however, as much smoke as would have dried us externally into hams or red herrings. We then returned to the boat, spread a bed for the children (who were my delight) in the bottom of it with mats and blankets, and disposed our own, on the lockers on each side, with buffalo skins, blankets, shawls, cloaks, and whatever was available, with my writing-case for a pillow. After sunset, the breeze fell: the men were urged to row, but pleaded fatigue, and that they were hired for the day, and not for the night (which is the custom). One by one they sulkily abandoned their oars, and sunk to sleep under their blankets, all but our young captain: like Ulysses when steering away from Calypso-- "Placed at the helm he sat, and watched the skies, Nor closed in sleep his ever-watchful eyes." He kept himself awake by singing hymns, in which Mrs. Schoolcraft joined him. I lay still, looking up at the stars and listening: when there was a pause in the singing, we kept up the conversation, fearing lest sleep should overcome our only pilot and guardian. Thus we floated on beneath that divine canopy--"which love had spread to curtain the sleeping world:" it was a most lovely and blessed night, bright and calm and warm, and we made some little way, for both wind and current were in our favour. As we were coasting a little shadowy island, our captain mentioned a strange circumstance, very illustrative of Indian life and character. A short time ago a young Chippewa hunter, whom he knew, was shooting squirrels on this spot, when by some chance a large blighted pine fell upon him, knocking him down and crushing his leg, which was fractured in two places. He could not rise, he could not remove the tree which was lying across his broken leg. He was in a little uninhabited island, without the slightest probability of passing aid; and to lie there and starve to death in agonies, seemed all that was left to him. In this dilemma, with all the fortitude and promptitude of resource of a thorough-bred Indian, he took out his knife, cut off his own leg, bound it up, dragged himself along the ground to his hunting canoe, and paddled himself home to his wigwam on a distant island, where the cure of his wound was completed. The man is still alive. Perhaps this story appears incredible. I believe it firmly. At the time, and since then, I heard other instances of Indian fortitude, and of their courage and skill in performing some of the boldest and most critical operations in surgery, which I really cannot venture to set down. But I will mention one or two of the least marvellous. There was a young chief, and famous hunter, whose arm was shattered by the bursting of his rifle. No one would venture the amputation, and it was bound up with certain herbs and dressings, accompanied with many magical ceremonies. The young man, who seemed aware of the inefficacy of such expedients, waited till the moment when he should be left alone. He had meantime, with pain and difficulty, hatched one of his knives into a saw; with this he completed the amputation of his own arm; and when his relations appeared they found the arm lying at one end of the wigwam, and the patient sitting at the other, with his wound bound up, and smoking with great tranquillity. * * * * * VOYAGE ON LAKE HURON. We remained in conversation till long after midnight; then the boat was moored to a tree, but kept off shore, for fear of the mosquitoes, and we addressed ourselves to sleep. I remember lying awake for some minutes, looking up at the quiet stars, and around upon the dark weltering waters, and at the faint waning moon, just suspended on the very edge of the horizon. I saw it sink--sink into the bosom of the lake as if to rest, and then with a thought of far-off friends, and a most fervent thanksgiving, I dropped asleep. It is odd that I did not think of praying for protection, and that no sense of fear came over me; it seemed as if the eye of God himself looked down upon me; that I _was_ protected. I do not say I _thought_ this any more than the unweaned child in its cradle; but I had some such feeling of unconscious trust and love, now I recall those moments. I slept, however, uneasily, not being yet accustomed to a board and a blanket; _ça viendra avec le temps_. About dawn I awoke in a sort of stupor, but after bathing my face and hands over the boat side, I felt refreshed. The voyageurs, after a good night's rest, were in better humour, and took manfully to their oars. Soon after sunrise, we passed round that very conspicuous cape, famous in the history of north-west adventure, called the "Grand Détour," half-way between Mackinaw and the Sault. Now, if you look at the map, you will see that our course was henceforth quite altered; we had been running down the coast of the mainland towards the east; we had now to turn short round the point, and steer almost due west; hence its most fitting name, the Grand Détour. The wind, hitherto favourable, was now dead against us. This part of Lake Huron is studded with little islands, which, as well as the neighbouring mainland, are all uninhabited, yet clothed with the richest, loveliest, most fantastic vegetation, and no doubt swarming with animal life. I cannot, I dare not, attempt to describe to you the strange sensation one has, thus thrown for a time beyond the bounds of civilised humanity, or, indeed, any humanity; nor the wild yet solemn reveries which come over one in the midst of this wilderness of woods and waters. All was so solitary, so grand in its solitude, as if nature unviolated sufficed to herself. Two days and nights the solitude was unbroken; not a trace of social life, not a human being, not a canoe, not even a deserted wigwam, met our view. Our little boat held on its way over the placid lake, and among green tufted islands; and we its inmates, two women, differing in clime, nation, complexion, strangers to each other but a few days ago, might have fancied ourselves alone in a new-born world. THE ENCAMPMENT. We landed to boil our kettle, and breakfast on a point of the island of St. Joseph's. This most beautiful island is between thirty and forty miles in length, and nearly a hundred miles in circumference, and towards the centre the land is high and picturesque. They tell me that on the other side of the island there is a settlement of whites and Indians. Another large island, Drummond's Isle, was for a short time in view. We had also a settlement here, but it was unaccountably surrendered to the Americans. If now you look at the map, you will wonder, as I did, that in retaining St. Joseph's and the Manitoolin islands, we gave up Drummond's Island. Both these islands had forts and garrisons during the war. By the time breakfast was over, the children had gathered some fine strawberries; the heat had now become almost intolerable, and unluckily we had no awning. The men rowed languidly, and we made but little way; we coasted along the south shore of St. Joseph's, through fields of rushes, miles in extent, across Lake George, and Muddy Lake (the name, I thought, must be a libel, for it was as clear as crystal and as blue as heaven; but they say that, like a sulky temper, the least ruffle of wind turns it as black as ditchwater, and it does not subside again in a hurry), and then came a succession of openings spotted with lovely islands, all solitary. The sky was without a cloud, a speck--except when the great fish-eagle was descried sailing over its blue depths--the water without a wave. We were too hot and too languid to converse. Nothing disturbed the deep noon-tide stillness, but the dip of the oars, or the spring and splash of a sturgeon as he leapt from the surface of the lake, leaving a circle of little wavelets spreading around. All the islands we passed were so woody, and so infested with mosquitoes, that we could not land and light our fire, till we reached the entrance of St. Mary's River, between Nebish island and the mainland. MOSQUITOES. Here was a well-known spot, a sort of little opening on a flat shore, called the _Encampment_, because a party of boatmen coming down from Lake Superior, and camping here for the night, were surprised by the frost, and obliged to remain the whole winter till the opening of the ice, in the spring. After rowing all this hot day till seven o'clock against the wind (what there was of it), and against the current coming rapidly and strongly down from Lake Superior, we did at length reach this promised harbour of rest and refreshment. Alas! there was neither for us; the moment our boat touched the shore, we were enveloped in a cloud of mosquitoes. Fires were lighted instantly, six were burning in a circle at once; we were well nigh suffocated and smoke-dried--all in vain. At last we left the voyageurs to boil the kettle, and retreated to our boat, desiring them to make us fast to a tree by a long rope; then each of us taking an oar--I only wish you could have seen us--we pushed off from the land, while the children were sweeping away the enemy with green boughs. This being done, we commenced supper, really half famished, and were too much engrossed to look about us. Suddenly we were again surrounded by our adversaries; they came upon us in swarms, in clouds, in myriads, entering our eyes, our noses, our mouths, stinging till the blood followed. We had, unawares, and while absorbed in our culinary operations, drifted into the shore, got entangled among the roots of trees, and were with difficulty extricated, presenting all the time a fair mark and a rich banquet for our detested tormentors. The dear children cried with agony and impatience, and but for shame I could almost have cried too. I had suffered from these plagues in Italy; you too, by this time, may probably know what they are in the southern countries of the old world; but 'tis a jest, believe me, to encountering a forest full of them in these wild regions. I had heard much, and much was I forewarned, but never could have conceived the torture they can inflict, nor the impossibility of escape, defence, or endurance. Some amiable person who took an especial interest in our future welfare, in enumerating the torments prepared for hardened sinners, assures us that they will be stung by mosquitoes, all made of brass, and as large as black beetles--he was an ignoramus and a bungler; you may credit me, that the brass is quite an unnecessary improvement, and the increase of size equally superfluous. Mosquitoes, as they exist in this upper world, are as pretty and perfect a plague as the most ingenious amateur sinner-tormentor ever devised. Observe, that a mosquito does not sting like a wasp, or a gad-fly; he has a long proboscis like an awl, with which he bores your veins and pumps the life-blood out of you, leaving venom and fever behind. Enough of mosquitoes--I will never again do more than allude to them; only they are enough to make Philosophy go hang herself, and Patience swear like a Turk or a trooper. Well, we left this most detestable and inhospitable shore as soon as possible, but the enemy followed us, and we did not soon get rid of them; night came on, and we were still twenty miles below the Sault. THE SAULT-SAINTE-MARIE. I offered an extra gratuity to the men, if they would keep to their oars without interruption; and then, fairly exhausted, lay down on my locker and blanket. But whenever I woke from uneasy, restless slumbers, _there_ was Mrs. Schoolcraft, bending over her sleeping children, and waving off the mosquitoes, singing all the time a low, melancholy Indian song; while the northern lights were streaming and dancing in the sky, and the fitful moaning of the wind, the gathering clouds, and chilly atmosphere foretold a change of weather. This would have been the _comble de malheur_. When daylight came, we passed Sugar Island, where immense quantities of maple sugar are made every spring, and just as the rain began to fall in earnest we arrived at the Sault-Sainte-Marie. On one side of the river, Mrs. Schoolcraft was welcomed by her mother; and on the other, my friends, the MacMurrays, received me with delighted and delightful hospitality. I went to bed--oh! the luxury!--and slept for six hours. * * * * * Enough of solemn reveries on starlit lakes--enough--too much--of self and self-communings; I turn over a new leaf, and this shall be a chapter of geography, and topography, natural philosophy, and such wise-like things. Draw the curtain first, for if I look out any longer on those surging rapids, I shall certainly turn giddy--forget all the memoranda I have been collecting for you, lose my reckoning, and become unintelligible to you and myself too. This river of St. Mary is, like the Detroit and the St. Clair, already described, properly a strait, the channel of communication between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. About ten miles higher up, the great ocean-lake narrows to a point; then, forcing a channel through the high lands, comes rushing along till it meets with a downward ledge, or cliff, over which it throws itself in foam and fury, tearing a path for its billows through the rocks. The descent is about twenty-seven feet in three quarters of a mile, but the rush begins above, and the tumult continues below the fall, so that, on the whole, the eye embraces an expanse of white foam measuring about a mile each way, the effect being exactly that of the ocean breaking on a rocky shore: not so terrific, nor on so large a scale, as the rapids of Niagara, but quite as beautiful--quite as animated. What the French call a _saut_ (leap), we term a _fall_; the Sault-Sainte-Marie is translated into the falls of St. Mary. By this name the rapids are often mentioned, but the village on their shore still retains its old name, and is called the Sault. I do not know why the beautiful river and its glorious cataracts should have been placed under the peculiar patronage of the blessed Virgin; perhaps from the union of exceeding loveliness with irresistible power; or, more probably, because the first adventurers reached the spot on some day hallowed in the calendar. The French, ever active and enterprising, were the first who penetrated to this wild region. They had an important trading post here early in the last century, and also a small fort. They were ceded, with the rest of the country, to Great Britain, in 1762.[36] I wonder whether, at that time, the young king or any of his ministers had the least conception of the value and immensity of the magnificent country thrown into our possession, or gave a thought to the responsibilities it brought with it!--to be sure they made good haste, both king and ministers, to get rid of most of the responsibility. The American war began, and at its conclusion the south shore of St. Mary's, and the fort, were surrendered to the Americans. The rapids of Niagara, as I once told you, reminded me of a monstrous tiger at play, and threw me into a sort of ecstatic terror; but these rapids of St. Mary suggest quite another idea: as they come fretting and fuming down, curling up their light foam, and wreathing their glancing billows round the opposing rocks, with a sort of passionate self-will, they remind me of an exquisitely beautiful woman in a fit of rage, or of Walter Scott's simile--"one of the Graces possessed by a Fury;"--there is no terror in their anger, only the sense of excitement and loveliness; when it has spent this sudden, transient fit of impatience, the beautiful river resumes all its placid dignity, and holds on its course, deep and wide enough to float a squadron of seventy-fours, and rapid and pellucid as a mountain trout-stream. FORT AND SETTLEMENTS. Here, as everywhere else, I am struck by the difference between the two shores. On the American side there is a settlement of whites, as well as a large village of Chippewas; there is also a mission (I believe of the Methodists), for the conversion of the Indians. The fort, which has been lately strengthened, is merely a strong and high enclosure, surrounded with pickets of cedar-wood; within the stockade are the barracks, and the principal trading store. This fortress is called Fort Brady, after that gallant officer whom I have already mentioned to you. The garrison may be very effective for aught I know, but I never beheld such an unmilitary-looking set. When I was there to-day, the sentinels were lounging up and down in their flannel jackets and shirt sleeves, with muskets thrown over their shoulders--just for all the world like ploughboys going to shoot sparrows; however, they are in keeping with the fortress of cedar-posts, and no doubt both answer their purpose very well. The village is increasing into a town, and the commercial advantages of its situation must raise it ere long to a place of importance. On the Canada side we have not even these demonstrations of power or prosperity. Nearly opposite to the American fort there is a small factory belonging to the North-west Fur Company; below this, a few miserable log-huts, occupied by some French Canadians and voyageurs in the service of the company, a set of lawless _mauvais sujets_, from all I can learn. Lower down stands the house of Mr. and Mrs. MacMurray, with the Chippewa village under their care and tuition; but most of the wigwams and their inhabitants are now on their way down the lake, to join the congress at the Manitoolin Islands. A lofty eminence, partly cleared and partly clothed with forest, rises behind the house, on which stand the little missionary church and school-house for the use of the Indian converts. From the summit of this hill you look over the traverse into Lake Superior, and the two giant capes which guard its entrance. One of these capes is called Gros-Cap, from its bold and lofty cliffs, the yet unviolated haunt of the eagle. The opposite cape is more accessible, and bears an Indian name, which I cannot pretend to spell, but which signifies "the place of the Iroquois' bones:" it was the scene of a wild and terrific tradition. At the time that the Iroquois (or Six Nations) were driven before the French and Hurons up to the western lakes, they endeavoured to possess themselves of the hunting-grounds of the Chippewas, and hence a bitter and lasting feud between the two nations. The Iroquois, after defeating the Chippewas, encamped, a thousand strong, upon this point, where, thinking themselves secure, they made a war feast to torture and devour their prisoners. The Chippewas, from the opposite shore, beheld the sufferings and humiliation of their friends, and, roused to sudden fury by the sight, collected their warriors, only three hundred in all, crossed the channel, and at break of day fell upon the Iroquois, now sleeping after their horrible excesses, and massacred every one of them, men, women, and children. Of their own party they lost but one warrior, who was stabbed with an awl by an old woman who was sitting at the entrance of her wigwam, stitching moccasins: thus runs the tale. The bodies were left to bleach on the shore, and they say that bones and skulls are still found there. THE WHITE-FISH. Here, at the foot of the rapids, the celebrated white-fish of the lakes is caught in its highest perfection. The people down below[37], who boast of the excellence of the white-fish, really know nothing of the matter. There is no more comparison between the white-fish of the lower lakes and the white-fish of St. Mary's than between plaice and turbot, or between a clam and a Sandwich oyster. I ought to be a judge, who have eaten them fresh out of the river four times a day, and I declare to you that I never tasted anything of the fish kind half so exquisite. If the Roman Apicius had lived in these latter days, he would certainly have made a voyage up Lake Huron to breakfast on the white-fish of St. Mary's river, and would _not_ have returned in dudgeon, as he did, from the coast of Africa. But the epicures of our degenerate times have nothing of that gastronomical enthusiasm which inspired their ancient models, else we should have them all coming here to eat white-fish at the Sault, and scorning cockney white-bait. Henry declares that the flavour of the white-fish is "beyond any comparison whatever," and I add my testimony thereto--_probatum est!_ I have eaten tunny in the gulf of Genoa, anchovies fresh out of the bay of Naples, and trout of the Salz-kammergut, and divers other fishy dainties rich and rare,--but the exquisite, the refined white-fish exceeds them all; concerning those cannibal fish (mullets were they, or lampreys?) which Lucullus fed in his fish-ponds, I cannot speak, never having tasted them; but even if _they_ could be resuscitated, I would not degrade the refined, the delicate white-fish by a comparison with any such barbarian luxury. But seriously, and badinage apart, it is really the most luxurious delicacy that swims the waters. It is said that people never tire of them. Mr. MacMurray tells me that he has eaten them every day of his life for seven years, and that his relish for them is undiminished. The enormous quantities caught here, and in the bays and creeks round Lake Superior, remind me of herrings in the lochs of Scotland; besides subsisting the inhabitants, whites and Indians, during great part of the year, vast quantities are cured and barrelled every fall, and sent down to the eastern states. Not less than eight thousand barrels were shipped last year. [Footnote 36: The first British commandant of the fort was that miserable Lieutenant Jemette, who was scalped at the massacre at Michilimackinac.] [Footnote 37: That is, in the neighbourhood of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.] THE SKEVÁT. These enterprising Yankees have seized upon another profitable speculation here: there is a fish found in great quantities in the upper part of Lake Superior, called the skevát[38], so exceedingly rich, luscious, and oily, when fresh, as to be quite uneatable. A gentleman here told me that he had tried it, and though not very squeamish at any time, and then very hungry, he could not get beyond the first two or three mouthfuls; but it has been lately discovered that this fish makes a most luxurious pickle. It is very excellent, but so rich even in this state, that, like the tunny _marinée_, it is necessary either to taste abstemiously, or die heroically of indigestion. This fish is becoming a fashionable luxury, and in one of the stores here I saw three hundred barrels ready for embarkation. The Americans have several schooners on the lakes employed in these fisheries: we have not one. They have besides planned a ship canal through the portage here, which will open a communication for large vessels between Lake Huron and Lake Superior, as our Welland Canal has united Lake Erie with Lake Ontario. The ground has already been surveyed for this purpose. When this canal is completed, a vessel may load in the Thames, and discharge her burthen at the upper end of Lake Superior. I hope you have a map before you, that you may take in at a glance this wonderful extent of inland navigation. Ought a country possessing it, and all the means of life beside, to remain poor, oppressed, uncultivated, unknown? THE RAPIDS. But to return to my beautiful river and glorious rapids, which are to be treated, you see, as a man treats a passionate beauty--he does not oppose her, for that were madness--but he gets _round her_. Well, on the American side, further down the river, is the house of Tanner, the Indian interpreter, of whose story you may have heard--for, as I remember, it excited some attention in England. He is a European of unmixed blood, with the language, manners, habits of a Red-skin. He had been kidnapped somewhere on the American frontiers when a mere boy, and brought up among the Chippewas. He afterwards returned to civilised life, and having relearned his own language, drew up a very entertaining and valuable account of his adopted tribe. He is now in the American service here, having an Indian wife, and is still attached to his Indian mode of life. Just above the fort is the ancient burial-place of the Chippewas. I need not tell you of the profound veneration with which all the Indian tribes regard the places of their dead. In all their treaties for the cession of their lands, they stipulate with the white man for the inviolability of their sepulchres. They did the same with regard to this place, but I am sorry to say that it has not been attended to, for in enlarging one side of the fort, they have considerably encroached on the cemetery. The outrage excited both the sorrow and indignation of some of my friends here, but there is no redress. Perhaps it was this circumstance that gave rise to the allusion of the Indian chief here, when in speaking of the French he said, "_They_ never molested the places of our dead!" The view of the rapids from this spot is inexpressibly beautiful, and it has besides another attraction, which makes it to me a frequent lounge whenever I cross the river;--but of this by-and-bye. To complete my sketch of the localities, I will only add, that the whole country around is in its primitive state, covered with the interminable swamp and forest, where the bear and the moose-deer roam--and lakes and living streams where the beaver builds his hut.[39] The cariboo, or rein-deer, is still found on the northern shores. The hunting-grounds of the Chippewas are in the immediate neighbourhood, and extend all round Lake Superior. Beyond these, on the north, are the Chippewyans; and on the south, the Sioux, Ottagamies, and Pottowottomies. I might here multiply facts and details, but I have been obliged to throw these particulars together in haste, just to give you an idea of my present situation. Time presses, and my sojourn in this remote and interesting spot is like to be of short duration. [Footnote 38: I spell the word as pronounced, never having seen it written.] [Footnote 39: The beaver is, however, becoming rare in these regions. It is a curious fact connected with the physiology and psychology of instinct, that the beaver is found to change its instincts and modes of life, as it has been more and more persecuted, and, instead of being a gregarious, it is now a solitary animal. The beavers, which are found living in solitary holes instead of communities and villages, the Indians call by a name which signifies _Old Bachelor_.] * * * * * MRS. JOHNSTON. One of the gratifications I had anticipated in coming hither--my strongest inducement perhaps--was an introduction to the mother of my two friends, of whom her children so delighted to speak, and of whom I had heard much from other sources. A woman of pure Indian blood, of a race celebrated in these regions as warriors and chiefs from generation to generation, who had never resided within the pale of what we call civilised life, whose habits and manners were those of a genuine Indian squaw, and whose talents and domestic virtues commanded the highest respect, was, as you may suppose, an object of the deepest interest to me. I observed that not only her own children, but her two sons-in-law, Mr. MacMurray and Mr. Schoolcraft, both educated in good society, the one a clergyman and the other a man of science and literature, looked up to this remarkable woman with sentiments of affection and veneration. As soon, then, as I was a little refreshed after my two nights on the lake, and my battles with the mosquitoes, we paddled over the river to dine with Mrs. Johnston: she resides in a large log-house close upon the shore; there is a little portico in front with seats, and the interior is most comfortable. The old lady herself is rather large in person, with the strongest marked Indian features, a countenance open, benevolent, and intelligent, and a manner perfectly easy--simple, yet with something of motherly dignity, becoming the head of her large family. She received me most affectionately, and we entered into conversation--Mrs. Schoolcraft, who looked all animation and happiness, acting as interpreter. Mrs. Johnston speaks no English, but can understand it a little, and the Canadian French still better; but in her own language she is eloquent, and her voice, like that of her people, low and musical; many kind words were exchanged, and when I said anything that pleased her, she laughed softly like a child. I was not well and much fevered, and I remember she took me in her arms, laid me down on a couch, and began to rub my feet, soothing and caressing me. She called me Nindannis, daughter, and I called her Neengai, mother (though how different from my own fair mother, I thought, as I looked up gratefully in her dark Indian face!). She set before us the best dressed and best served dinner I had seen since I left Toronto, and presided at her table, and did the honours of her house with unembarrassed, unaffected propriety. My attempts to speak Indian caused, of course, considerable amusement; if I do not make progress, it will not be for want of teaching and teachers. AN INDIAN LODGE. After dinner we took a walk to visit Mrs. Johnston's brother, Wayish,ky, whose wigwam is at a little distance, on the verge of the burial-ground. The lodge is of the genuine Chippewa form, like an egg cut in half lengthways. It is formed of poles stuck in the ground, and bent over at top, strengthened with a few wattles and boards; the whole is covered over with mats, birch-bark, and skins; a large blanket formed the door or curtain, which was not ungracefully looped aside. Wayish,ky, being a great man, has also a smaller lodge hard by, which serves as a storehouse and kitchen. AN INDIAN FAMILY. Rude as was the exterior of Wayish,ky's hut, the interior presented every appearance of comfort, and even _elegance_, according to the Indian notions of both. It formed a good-sized room: a raised couch ran all round like a Turkish divan, serving both for seats and beds, and covered with very soft and beautiful matting of various colours and patterns. The chests and baskets of birch-bark, containing the family wardrobe and property; the rifles, the hunting and fishing tackle, were stowed away all round very tidily; I observed a coffee-mill nailed up to one of the posts or stakes; the floor was trodden down hard and perfectly clean, and there was a place for a fire in the middle: there was no window, but quite sufficient light and air were admitted through the door, and through an aperture in the roof. There was no disagreeable smell, and everything looked neat and clean. We found Wayish,ky and his wife and three of their children seated in the lodge, and as it was Sunday, and they are all Christians, no work was going forward. They received me with genuine and simple politeness, each taking my hand with a gentle inclination of the head, and some words of welcome murmured in their own soft language. We then sat down. The conversation became very lively; and, if I might judge from looks and tones, very affectionate. I _sported_ my last new words and phrases with great effect, and when I had exhausted my vocabulary--which was very soon--I amused myself with looking and listening. Mrs. Wayish,ky (I forget her proper name) must have been a very beautiful woman. Though now no longer young, and the mother of twelve children, she is one of the handsomest Indian women I have yet seen. The number of her children is remarkable, for in general there are few large families among the Indians. Her daughter, Zah,gah,see,ga,quay (_the sunbeams breaking through a cloud_), is a very beautiful girl, with eyes that are a warrant for her poetical name--she is about sixteen. Wayish,ky himself is a grave, dignified man about fifty. He told me that his eldest son had gone down to the Manitoolin Island to represent his family, and receive his quota of presents. His youngest son he had sent to a college in the United States, to be educated in the learning of the white men. Mrs. Schoolcraft whispered me that this poor boy is now dying of consumption, owing to the confinement and change of living, and that the parents knew it. Wayish,ky seemed aware that we were alluding to his son, for his eye at that moment rested on me, and such an expression of keen pain came suddenly over his fine countenance, it was as if a knife had struck him, and I really felt it in my heart, and see it still before me--that look of misery. After about an hour we left this good and interesting family. I lingered for a while on the burial-ground, looking over the rapids, and watching with a mixture of admiration and terror several little canoes which were fishing in the midst of the boiling surge, dancing and popping about like corks. The canoe used for fishing is very small and light; one man (or woman more commonly) sits in the stern, and steers with a paddle; the fisher places himself upright on the prow, balancing a long pole with both hands, at the end of which is a scoop-net. This he every minute dips into the water, bringing up at each dip a fish, and sometimes two. I used to admire the fishermen on the Arno, and those on the Lagune, and above all the Neapolitan fishermen, hauling in their nets, or diving like ducks, but I never saw anything like these Indians. The manner in which they keep their position upon a footing of a few inches, is to me as incomprehensible as the beauty of their forms and attitudes, swayed by every movement and turn of their dancing, fragile barks, is admirable. George Johnston, on whose arm I was leaning (and I had much ado to _reach_ it), gave me such a vivid idea of the delight of coming down the cataract in a canoe, that I am half resolved to attempt it. Terrific as it appears, yet in a good canoe, and with experienced guides, there is no absolute danger, and it must be a glorious sensation. INDIAN WARFARE. Mr. Johnston had spent the last fall and winter in the regions beyond Lake Superior, towards the forks of the Mississippi, where he had been employed as American agent to arrange the boundary line between the country of the Chippewas and that of their neighbours and implacable enemies, the Sioux. His mediation appeared successful for the time, and he smoked the pipe of peace with both tribes; but during the spring this ferocious war has again broken out, and he seems to think that nothing but the annihilation of either one nation or the other will entirely put an end to their conflicts; "for there is no point at which the Indian law of retaliation stops, short of the extermination of one of the parties." I asked him how it is that in their wars the Indians make no distinction between the warriors opposed to them and helpless women and children?--how it could be with a brave and manly people, that the scalps taken from the weak, the helpless, the unresisting, were as honourable as those torn from the warrior's skull? And I described to him the horror which this custom inspired--this, which of all their customs, most justifies the name of _savage_! He said it was inseparable from their principles of war and their mode of warfare; the first consists in inflicting the greatest possible insult and injury on their foe with the least possible risk to themselves. This truly savage law of honour we might call cowardly, but that, being associated with the bravest contempt of danger and pain, it seems nearer to the natural law. With regard to the mode of warfare, they have rarely pitched battles, but skirmishes, surprises, ambuscades, and sudden forays into each other's hunting-grounds and villages. The usual practice is to creep stealthily on the enemy's village or hunting-encampment, and wait till just after the dawn; then, at the moment the sleepers in the lodges are rising, the ambushed warriors stoop and level their pieces about two feet from the ground, which thus slaughter indiscriminately. If they find one of the enemy's lodges undefended they murder its inmates, that when the owner returns he may find his hearth desolate; for this is exquisite vengeance! But outrage against the chastity of women is absolutely unknown under any degree whatever of furious excitement.[40] This respect for female honour will remind you of the ancient Germans, as described by Julius Cæsar: he contrasts in some surprise their forbearance with the very opposite conduct of the Romans; and even down to this present day, if I recollect rightly, the history of our European wars and sieges will bear out this early and characteristic distinction between the Latin and the Teutonic nations. Am I right, or am I not? [Footnote 40: "The whole history of Indian warfare," says Mr. Schoolcraft, "might be challenged in vain for a solitary instance of this kind. The Indians believe that to take a dishonourable advantage of their female prisoners would destroy their luck in hunting; it would be considered as effeminate and degrading in a warrior, and render him unfit for, and unworthy of, all manly achievement."] THE SAVAGE AND THE CHRISTIAN. To return to the Indians. After telling me some other particulars, which gave me a clearer view of their notions and feelings on these points than I ever had before, my informant mildly added,--"It is a constant and favourite subject of reproach against the Indians--this barbarism of their desultory warfare; but I should think more women and children have perished in _one_ of your civilised sieges, and that in late times, than during the whole war between the Chippewas and Sioux, and _that_ has lasted a century." I was silent, for there is a sensible proverb about taking care of our own glass windows: and I wonder if any of the recorded atrocities of Indian warfare or Indian vengeance, or all of them together, ever exceeded Massena's retreat from Portugal,--and the French call themselves civilised. A war party of Indians, perhaps two or three hundred (and that is a very large number), dance their war dance, go out and burn a village, and bring back twenty or thirty scalps. _They_ are savages and heathens. We Europeans fight a battle, leave fifty thousand dead or dying by inches on the field, and a hundred thousand to mourn them, desolate; but _we_ are civilised and Christians. Then only look into the motives and causes of our bloodiest European wars as revealed in the private history of courts:--the miserable, puerile, degrading intrigues which set man against man--so horridly disproportioned to the horrid result! and then see the Indian take up his war-hatchet in vengeance for some personal injury, or from motives that rouse all the natural feelings of the natural man within him! Really I do not see that an Indian warrior, flourishing his tomahawk, and smeared with his enemy's blood, is so very much a greater savage than the pipe-clayed, padded, embroidered personage, who, without cause or motive, has sold himself to slay or be slain: one scalps his enemy, the other rips him open with a sabre; one smashes his brains with a tomahawk, and the other blows him to atoms with a cannon-ball: and to me, femininely speaking, there is not a needle's point difference between the one and the other. If war be unchristian and barbarous, then war as a _science_ is more absurd, unnatural, unchristian than war as a _passion_. This, perhaps, is putting it all too strongly, and a little exaggerated-- God forbid that I should think to disparage the blessings of civilisation! I am a woman, and to the progress of civilisation alone can we women look for release from many pains and penalties and liabilities, which now lie heavily upon us. Neither am I greatly in love with savage life, with all its picturesque accompaniments and lofty virtues. I see no reason why these virtues should be necessarily connected with dirt, ignorance, and barbarism. I am thankful to live in a land of literature and steam-engines. Chatsworth is better than a wigwam, and a seventy-four is a finer thing than a bark canoe. I do not _positively_ assert that Taglioni dances more gracefully than the Little-Pure tobacco-smoker, nor that soap and water are preferable as cosmetics to tallow and charcoal; for these are matters of taste, and mine may be disputed. But I do say, that if our advantages of intellect and refinement are not to lead on to farther moral superiority, I prefer the Indians on the score of consistency; they are what they profess to be, and we are _not_ what we profess to be. They profess to be warriors and hunters, and are so; we profess to be Christians and civilised--are we so? Then as to the mere point of cruelty;--there is something to be said on this point too. Ferocity, when the hot blood is up, and all the demon in man is roused by every conceivable excitement, I can understand better than the Indian can comprehend the tender mercies of our law. Owyawatta, better known by his English name, Red-Jacket, was once seen hurrying from the town of Buffalo, with rapid strides, and every mark of disgust and consternation in his face. Three malefactors were to be hung that morning, and the Indian warrior had not nerve to face the horrid spectacle, although-- "In sober truth the veriest devil That ere clenched fingers in a captive's hair." * * * * * THE DESCENT OF THE RAPIDS. The more I looked upon those glancing, dancing rapids, the more resolute I grew to venture myself in the midst of them. George Johnston went to seek a fit canoe and a dextrous steersman, and meantime I strolled away to pay a visit to Wayish,ky's family, and made a sketch of their lodge, while pretty Zah,gah,see,gah,qua, held the umbrella to shade me. The canoe being ready, I went up to the top of the portage, and we launched into the river. It was a small fishing canoe about ten feet long, quite new, and light and elegant and buoyant as a bird on the waters. I reclined on a mat at the bottom, Indian fashion (there are no seats in a genuine Indian canoe); in a minute we were within the verge of the rapids, and down we went, with a whirl and a splash!--the white surge leaping around me--over me. The Indian with astonishing dexterity kept the head of the canoe to the breakers, and somehow or other we danced through them. I could see, as I looked over the edge of the canoe, that the passage between the rocks was sometimes not more than two feet in width, and we had to turn sharp angles--a touch of which would have sent us to destruction--all this I could see through the transparent eddying waters, but I can truly say, I had not even a momentary sensation of fear, but rather of giddy, breathless, delicious excitement. I could even admire the beautiful attitude of a fisher, past whom we swept as we came to the bottom. The whole affair, from the moment I entered the canoe till I reached the landing place, occupied seven minutes, and the distance is about three quarters of a mile.[41] [Footnote 41: "The total descent of the Fall of St. Mary's has been ascertained to be twenty-two and a half perpendicular feet. It has been found impracticable to ascend the rapid; but canoes have ventured down, though the experiment is extremely nervous and hazardous, and avoided by a portage, two miles long, which connects the navigable parts of the strait."--_Bouchette's Canada._] THE CHIPPEWAS. My Indians were enchanted, and when I reached _home_, my good friends were not less delighted at my exploit: they told me I was the first European female who had ever performed it, and assuredly I shall not be the last. I recommend it as an exercise before breakfast. As for my Neengai, she laughed, clapped her hands, and embraced me several times. I was declared duly initiated, and adopted into the family by the name of Wah,sàh,ge,wah,nó,quà. They had already called me among themselves, in reference to my complexion and my travelling propensities, O,daw,yaun,gee, _the fair changing moon_, or rather, _the fair moon which changes her place_: but now, in compliment to my successful achievement, Mrs. Johnston bestowed this new appellation, which I much prefer. It signifies _the bright foam_, or more properly, with the feminine adjunct, _qua_, _the woman of the bright foam_; and by this name I am henceforth to be known among the Chippewas. * * * * * Now that I have been a Chippewa born, any time these four hours[42], I must introduce you to some of my new relations "of the totem of the rein-deer;" and first to my illustrious grandpapa, Waub-Ojeeg[43] (the White-fisher). The Chippewas, as you perhaps know, have long been reckoned among the most warlike and numerous, but also among the wildest and more untameable nations of the north-west. In progressing with the other Algonquin tribes from south to north, they seem to have crossed the St. Lawrence and dispersed themselves along the shores of Lake Ontario, and Lake Huron and its islands. Driven westward before the Iroquois, as _they_ retired before the French and Hurons, the Chippewas appear to have crossed the St. Mary's River, and then spread along the south shores of Lake Superior. Their council fire, and the chief seat of the nation, was upon a promontory at the farthest end of Lake Superior, called by the French La Pointe, and by the Indians Che,goi,me,gon: by one name or the other you will find it on most maps, as it has long been a place of importance in the fur trade. Here was the grand national council fire (the extinction of which foretold, if it did not occasion, some dread national calamity), and the residence of the presiding chief. The Indians know neither sovereignty nor nobility, but when one family has produced several distinguished war-chiefs, the dignity becomes by courtesy or custom hereditary; and from whatever reason, the family of Wayish,ki or the Mudgi,kiwis, exercised, even from a remote period, a sort of influence over the rest of the tribe. One traveller says that the present descendants of these chiefs evince such a pride of ancestry as could only be looked for in feudal or despotic monarchies. The present representative, Piz,hi,kee (the Buffalo), my illustrious cousin, still resides at La Pointe. When presented with a silver medal of authority from the American government, he said haughtily, "What need of this? it is known to all whence I am descended!" Family pride, you see, lies somewhere very deep in human nature. When the Chippewas first penetrated to these regions, they came in contact with the Ottagamies or Foxes, who, being descended from the same stock, received them as brothers, and at first ceded to them a part of their boundless hunting-grounds; and as these Ottagamies were friends and allies of the Sioux, these three nations continued for some time friends, and inter-marriages and family alliances took place. But the increasing power of the Chippewas soon excited the jealousy and apprehension of the other two tribes. The Ottagamies committed inroads on their hunting-grounds (this is the primary cause of almost all the Indian wars), the Chippewas sent an embassy to complain of the injury, and desired the Ottagamies to restrain their young men within the stipulated bounds. The latter returned an insulting answer. The war-hatchet was raised, and the Sioux and the Ottagamies united against the Chippewas: this was about 1726 or 1730. From this time there has been no peace between the Chippewas and Sioux. [Footnote 42: _Ant._ I know you now, Sir, a gentleman born. _Clo._ Aye, that I have been any time these four hours.--_Winter's Tale._] [Footnote 43: The name is thus pronounced, but I have seen it spelt Wabbajik.] WAUB-OJEEG. It happened just before the declaration of war, that a young Chippewa girl was married to a Sioux chief of great distinction, and bore him two sons. When hostilities commenced the Sioux chief retired to his own tribe, and his wife remained with her relations, according to Indian custom. The two children, belonging to both tribes, were hardly safe with either; but as the father was best able to protect them, it was at last decided that they should accompany him. The Sioux chief and his boys departed to join his warriors, accompanied by his Chippewa wife and her relations, till they were in safety: then the young wife returned home weeping and inconsolable for the loss of her husband and children. Some years afterwards she consented to become the wife of the great chief at Chegoimegon. Her son by this marriage was Mamongazida, or Mongazida (the Loon's-foot), a chief of great celebrity, who led a strong party of his nation in the Canadian wars between the French and English, fighting on the side of the French. He was present at the battle of Quebec, when Wolfe was killed, and according to the Indian tradition, the Marquis Montcalm died in Mongazida's arms. After the war was over, he "shook hands" with the English. He was at the grand assemblage of chiefs, convened by Sir William Johnstone, at Niagara, and from him received a rich gorget, and broad belt of wampum, as pledges of peace and alliance with the English. These relics were preserved in the family with great veneration, and inherited by Waub-Ojeeg, and afterwards by his younger brother, Camudwa; but it happened that when Camudwa was out on a winter-hunt near the river Broulé, he and all his family were overtaken by famine and starved to death, and these insignia were then lost and never recovered. This last incident is a specimen of the common vicissitudes of Indian life; and when listening to their domestic histories, I observe that the events of paramount interest are the want or the abundance of food--hunger or plenty. "We killed a moose, or a bear, and had meat for so many days:" or, "we followed on the track of a bear, and he escaped us; we had _no_ meat for so many days." These are the ever-recurring topics which in their conversation stand instead of the last brilliant essay in the Edinburgh or Quarterly, or the last news from Russia or Spain. Starvation from famine is not uncommon; and I am afraid, from all I hear, that cannibalism under such circumstances is not unknown. Remembering some recent instances nearer home, when extreme hunger produced the same horrid result, I could not be much astonished. To return. Waub-Ojeeg was the second son of this famous Mongazida. Once when the latter went out on his "fall hunts," on the grounds near the Sioux territory, taking all his relatives with him (upwards of twenty in number), they were attacked by the Sioux at early dawn, in the usual manner. The first volley had gone through the lodges; before the second could be fired, Mongazida rushed out, and proclaiming his own name with a loud voice, demanded if Wabash, his mother's son, were among the assailants. There was a pause, and then a tall figure in his war-dress, and a profusion of feathers in his head, stepped forward and gave his hand to his half-brother. They all repaired to the lodge in peace together; but at the moment the Sioux chief stooped to enter, Waub-Ojeeg, then a boy of eight years old, who had planted himself at the entrance to defend it, struck him a blow on the forehead with his little war-club. Wabash, enchanted, took him up in his arms and prophesied that he would become a great war chief, and an implacable enemy of the Sioux. Subsequently the prophecy was accomplished, and Waub-Ojeeg commanded his nation in all the war-parties against the Sioux and Ottagamies. He was generally victorious, and so entirely defeated the Ottagamies, that they never afterwards ventured to oppose him, but retired down the Wisconsin river, where they are now settled. But Waub-Ojeeg was something more and better than merely a successful warrior: he was remarkable for his eloquence, and composed a number of war-songs, which were sung through the Chippewa villages, and some of which his daughter can repeat. He was no less skilful in hunting than in war. His hunting-grounds extended to the river Broulé, at Fon du Lac; and he killed any one who dared to intrude on his district. The skins he took annually were worth three hundred and fifty dollars, a sum amply sufficient to make him rich in clothing, arms, powder, vermilion, and trinkets. Like Tecumseh, he would not marry early lest it should turn his attention from war, but at the age of thirty he married a widow, by whom he had two sons. Becoming tired of this elderly helpmate, he took a young wife, a beautiful girl of fourteen, by whom he had six children; of these my Neengai is the eldest. She described her father as affectionate and domestic. "There was always plenty of bear's meat and deer's flesh in the lodge." He had a splendid lodge, sixty feet in length, which he was fond of ornamenting. In the centre there was a strong post, which rose several feet above the roof, and on the top there was the carved figure of an owl, which veered with the wind. This owl seems to have answered the same purpose as the flag on the tower of Windsor Castle: it was the insignia of his power and of his presence. When absent on his long winter hunts the lodge was shut up, and the owl taken down. The skill of Waub-Ojeeg as a hunter and trapper, brought him into friendly communication with a fur-trader named Johnston, who had succeeded the enterprising Henry in exploring Lake Superior. This young man, of good Irish family, came out to Canada with such strong letters of recommendation to Lord Dorchester, that he was invited to reside in the government house till a vacancy occurred in his favour in one of the official departments; meantime, being of an active and adventurous turn, he joined a party of traders going up the lakes, merely as an excursion, but became so enamoured of that wild life, as to adopt it in earnest. On one of his expeditions, when encamped at Che,goi,me,gon, and trafficking with Waub-Ojeeg, he saw the eldest daughter of the chief, and "no sooner looked than he sighed, no sooner sighed than he asked himself the reason," and ended by asking his friend to give him his beautiful daughter. "White man!" said the chief with dignity, "your customs are not our customs! you white men desire our women, you marry them, and when they cease to please your eye, you say they are _not_ your wives, and you forsake them. Return, young friend, with your load of skins, to Montreal; and if there, the women of the pale faces do not put my child out of your mind, return hither in the spring and we will talk farther; she is young, and can wait." The young Irishman, ardently in love, and impatient and impetuous, after the manner of his countrymen, tried arguments, entreaties, presents, in vain--he was obliged to submit. He went down to Montreal, and the following spring returned and claimed his bride. The chief, after making him swear that he would take her as his _wife_ according to the law of the white man, _till death_, gave him his daughter, with a long speech of advice to both. AN INDIAN WIFE. Mrs. Johnston relates, that previous to her marriage, she _fasted_, according to the universal Indian custom, _for a guardian spirit_: to perform this ceremony, she went away to the summit of an eminence, and built herself a little lodge of cedar boughs, painted herself black, and began her fast in solitude. She dreamed continually of a white man, who approached her with a cup in his hand, saying, "Poor thing! why are you punishing yourself? why do you fast? here is food for you!" He was always accompanied by a dog, which looked up in her face as though he knew her. Also she dreamed of being on a high hill, which was surrounded by water, and from which she beheld many canoes full of Indians, coming to her and paying her homage; after this, she felt as if she were carried up into the heavens, and as she looked down upon the earth, she perceived it was on fire, and said to herself, "All my relations will be burned!" but a voice answered and said, "No, they will not be destroyed, they will be saved;" and she _knew it was a spirit_, because the voice was not human. She fasted for ten days, during which time her grandmother brought her at intervals some water. When satisfied that she had obtained a guardian spirit in the white stranger who haunted her dreams, she returned to her father's lodge, carrying green cedar boughs, which she threw on the ground, stepping on them as she went. When she entered the lodge, she threw some more down upon her usual place (next her mother), and took her seat. During the ten succeeding days she was not permitted to eat any meat, nor anything but a little corn boiled with a bitter herb. For ten days more she eat meat smoked in a particular manner, and she then partook of the usual food of her family. Notwithstanding that her future husband and future greatness were so clearly prefigured in this dream, the pretty O,shah,gush,ko,da,na,qua having always regarded a white man with awe, and as a being of quite another species (perhaps the more so in consequence of her dream), seems to have felt nothing throughout the whole negotiation for her hand but reluctance, terror, and aversion. On being carried with the usual ceremonies to her husband's lodge, she fled into a dark corner, rolled herself up in her blanket, and would not be comforted nor even looked upon. It is to the honour of Johnston, that he took no cruel advantage of their mutual position, and that she remained in his lodge ten days, during which he treated her with the utmost tenderness and respect, and sought by every gentle means to overcome her fear and gain her affection;--and it was touching to see how tenderly and gratefully this was remembered by his wife after a lapse of thirty-six years. On the tenth day, however, she ran away from him in a paroxysm of terror, and after fasting in the woods for four days, reached her grandfather's wigwam. Meantime, her father, Waub-Ojeeg, who was far off in his hunting camp, _dreamed_ that his daughter had not conducted herself according to his advice, with proper wife-like docility, and he returned in haste two days' journey to see after her; and finding all things _according to his dream_, he gave her a good beating with a stick, and threatened to cut off both her ears. He then took her back to her husband, with a propitiatory present of furs and Indian corn, and many apologies and exculpations of his own honour. Johnston succeeded at length in taming this shy wild fawn, and took her to his house at the Sault-Sainte-Marie. When she had been there some time, she was seized with a longing once more to behold her mother's face, and revisit her people. Her husband had lately purchased a small schooner to trade upon the lake; this he fitted out, and sent her, with a retinue of his clerks and retainers, and in such state as became the wife of the "great Englishman," to her home at La Pointe, loaded with magnificent presents for all her family. He did not go with her himself, apparently from motives of delicacy, and that he might be no constraint upon her feelings or movements. A few months' residence amid comparative splendour and luxury, with a man who treated her with respect and tenderness, enabled the fair O,shah,gush,ko,da,na,qua, to contrast her former with her present home. She soon returned to her husband, and we do not hear of any more languishing after her father's wigwam. She lived most happily with Johnston for thirty-six years, till his death, which occurred in 1828, and is the mother of eight children, four boys and four girls. She showed me her husband's picture, which he brought to her from Montreal; the features are very gentleman-like. He has been described to me by some of my Canadian friends, who knew him well, as a very clever, lively, and eccentric man, and a little of the _bon vivant_. Owing to his independent fortune, his talents, his long acquaintance with the country, and his connexion by marriage with the native blood, he had much influence in the country. During the last American war, he of course adhered to the English, on an understanding that he should be protected; in return for which the Americans _of course_ burnt his house, and destroyed his property. He never could obtain either redress or compensation from our government. The very spot on which his house stood was at the peace made over to the United States;--himself and all his family became, per force, Americans. His sons are in the service of the States. In a late treaty, when the Chippewas ceded an immense tract in this neighbourhood to the American government, a reserve was made in favour of O,shah,gush,ko,da,na,qua, of a considerable section of land, which will render her posterity rich territorial proprietors--although at present it is all unreclaimed forest. A large tract of Sugar Island is her property; and this year she manufactured herself three thousand five hundred weight of sugar of excellent quality. In the fall, she goes up with her people in canoes to the entrance of Lake Superior, to fish in the bays and creeks for a fortnight, and comes back with a load of fish cured for the winter's consumption. In her youth she hunted, and was accounted the surest eye and fleetest foot among the women of her tribe. Her talents, energy, activity, and strength of mind, and her skill in all the domestic avocations of the Indian women, have maintained comfort and plenty within her dwelling in spite of the losses sustained by her husband, while her descent from the blood of their ancient chiefs renders her an object of great veneration among the Indians around, who, in all their miseries, maladies, and difficulties, apply to her for aid or for counsel. She has inherited the poetical talent of her father Waub-Ojeeg; and here is a little fable or allegory which was written down from her recitation, and translated by her daughter. * * * * * THE ALLEGORY OF WINTER AND SUMMER. A man from the north, gray-haired, leaning on his staff, went roving over all countries. Looking around him one day, after having travelled without any intermission for four moons, he sought out a spot on which to recline and rest himself. He had not been long seated before he saw before him a young man, very beautiful in his appearance, with red cheeks, sparkling eyes, and his hair covered with flowers; and from between his lips he blew a breath that was as sweet as the wild rose. Said the old man to him, as he leaned upon his staff, his white beard reaching down upon his breast, "Let us repose here awhile, and converse a little. But first we will build up a fire, and we will bring together much wood, for it will be needed to keep us warm." The fire was made, and they took their seats by it, and began to converse, each telling the other where he came from, and what had befallen him by the way. Presently the young man felt cold. He looked round him to see what had produced this change, and pressed his hands against his cheeks to keep them warm. The old man spoke and said, "When I wish to cross a river, I breathe upon it and make it hard, and walk over upon its surface. I have only to speak, and bid the waters be still, and touch them with my finger, and they become hard as stone. The tread of my foot makes soft things hard--and my power is boundless." The young man, feeling ever moment still colder, and growing tired of the old man's boasting, and morning being nigh, as he perceived by the reddening east, thus began-- "Now, my father, I wish to speak." "Speak," said the old man; "my ear, though it be old, is open--it can hear." "Then," said the young man, "I also go over all the earth. I have seen it covered with snow, and the waters I have seen hard as stone; but I have only passed over them, and the snow has melted; the mountain streams have begun to flow, the rivers to move, the ice to melt: the earth has become green under my tread, the flowers blossomed, the birds were joyful, and all the power of which you boast vanished away!" The old man drew a deep sigh, and shaking his head, he said, "I know thee, thou art Summer!" "True," said the young man, "and here behold my head--see it crowned with flowers! and my cheeks how they bloom--come near and touch me. Thou art Winter! I know thy power is great; but, father, thou darest not come to my country,--thy beard would fall off, and all thy strength would fail, and thou wouldst die!" The old man felt this truth; for before the morning was come, he was seen vanishing away: but each, before they parted, expressed a hope that they might meet again before many moons. * * * * * INDIAN SONGS. The language of the Chippewas, however figurative and significant, is not copious. In their speeches and songs they are emphatic and impressive by the continual repetition of the same phrase or idea; and it seems to affect them like the perpetual recurrence of a few simple notes in music, by which I have been myself wound up to painful excitement, or melted to tears. A cousin of mine (I have now a large Chippewa cousinship) went on a hunting excursion, leaving his wife and child in his lodge. During his absence, a party of Sioux carried them off, and on his return he found his fire extinguished, and his lodge empty. He immediately blackened his face (Indian mourning), and repaired to the lodge of his wife's brother, to whom he sang, in a kind of mournful recitative, the following song; the purport of which seems to be partly a request for aid against his enemies, and partly an excuse for the seeming fault of leaving his family unprotected in his wigwam. My brother-in-law, do not wrongfully accuse me for this seeming neglect in exposing my family, for I have come to request aid from my brother-in-law! The cry of my little son was heard as they carried him across the prairie, and therefore I have come to supplicate aid from my brother-in-law. And the voice also of my wife was heard as they carried her across the prairie; do not then accuse your brother-in-law, for he has come to seek aid from his brother-in-law! This song is, in measure, ten and eight syllables alternately; and the perpetual recurrence of the word brother-in-law seems intended to impress the idea of their relationship on the mind of the hearer. The next is the address of a war party to their women, on leaving the village.[44] Do not weep, do not weep for me, Loved women, should I die; For yourselves alone should you weep! Poor are ye all and to be pitied: Ye women, ye are to be pitied! I seek, I seek our fallen relations, I go to revenge, revenge the slain, Our relations fallen and slain, And our foes, our foes shall lie Like them, like them shall they lie, I go to lay them low, to lay them low! And then _da capo_, over and over again. The next is a love song, in the same style of iteration. 'Tis now two days, two long days, Since last I tasted food; 'Tis for you, for you, my love, That I grieve, that I grieve, 'Tis for you, for you that I grieve! The waters flow deep and wide, On which, love, you have sailed; Dividing you far from me. 'Tis for you, for you, my love, 'Tis for you, for you that I grieve! If you look at some half thousand of our most fashionable and admired Italian songs--the Notturni of Blangini, for instance--you will find them very like this Chippewa canzonetta, in the no meaning and perpetual repetition of certain words and phrases; at the same time, I doubt if it be _always_ necessary for a song to have a meaning--it is enough if it have a sentiment. Here are some verses of a war song, in the same style as to composition, but breathing very different sentiments. I sing, I sing, under the centre of the sky, Under the centre of the sky Under the centre of the sky I sing, I sing, Under the centre of the sky! Every day I look at you, you morning star, You morning star; Every day I look at you, you morning star, You morning star. The birds of the brave take a flight round the sky, A flight round the sky; The birds of the brave take a flight, take a flight, A flight round the sky. They cross the enemies' line, the birds! They cross the enemies' line; The birds, the birds, the ravenous birds, They cross the enemies' line. The spirits on high repeat my name, Repeat my name; The spirits on high, the spirits on high, Repeat my name. Full happy am I to be slain and to lie, On the enemy's side of the line to lie; Full happy am I, full happy am I, On the enemies' side of the line to lie. I give you these as curiosities, and as being at least genuine; they have this merit, if they have no other. Of the next song, I subjoin the music. It seems to have been composed on a young American (_a Long-knife_), who made love to a Chippewa girl (_Ojibway quaince_). [Illustration: OJIBWAY QUAINCE.] _Slow._ Aun dush ween do we nain, Git-chee mo-ko-maum aince Kah zah wah da mood We yá yá hah há we yá yá hah há. We ah, bem, ah dè, We mah jah need dè, We ne moo, sha yun We yà, yà hah hà! we yà yà hah hà! O mow we mah ne We mah jah need dè, O jib way quaince un nè, We yà, yà hah hà! we yà yà hah hà! Kah ween, goo shah, ween nè, Keesh wan zhe e we ye O gah, mah we mah zeen. We yà, yà hah yà! we yà yà hah hà! Mee goo shah ween e goo Ke bish quah bem ah de Che wah nain ne mah de. We yà, yà hah hà! we yà yà hah hà! The literal meaning of the song, without the perpetual repetitions and transpositions, is just this: Hah! what is the matter with the young Long-knife? he crosses the river with tears in his eyes. He sees the young Chippewa girl preparing to leave the place; he sobs for his sweetheart because she is going away, but he will not sigh for her long: as soon as she is out of sight he will forget her! [Footnote 44: From Mr. Schoolcraft, translated literally by Mrs. Schoolcraft.] * * * * * INDIAN MISSIONS. I have been too long on the other side of the river; I must return to our Canadian shore, where indeed, I now reside, under the hospitable roof of our missionary. Mrs. MacMurray's overflowing good-nature, cleverness, and liveliness, are as delightful in their way as the more pensive intelligence of her sister. I have had some interesting talk with Mr. MacMurray on the subject of his mission and the character of the people consigned to his care and spiritual guidance. He arrived here in 1832, and married Charlotte Johnston (O,ge,bu,no,qua) the following year. During the five years which have elapsed since the establishment of the mission, there have been one hundred and forty-five baptisms, seven burials, and thirteen marriages; and the present number of communicants is sixty-six. He is satisfied with his success, and seems to have gained the good-will and attachment of the Indians around; he owes much, he says, to his sweet wife, whose perfect knowledge of the language and habits of her people have aided him in his task. She is a warm enthusiast in the cause of conversion, and the labour and fatigue of interpreting the prayers and sermons, and teaching the Indians to sing, at one time seriously affected her health. She has a good voice and correct ear, and has succeeded in teaching several of the women and children to sing some of our church hymns very pleasingly. She says all the Indians are passionately fond of music, and that it is a very effective means of interesting and fixing their attention. Mr. MacMurray says, they take the most eager delight in the parables, and his explanations of them--frequently melting into tears. When he collected them together and addressed them, on his first arrival, several of those present were intoxicated, he therefore took the opportunity of declaiming against their besetting vice in strong terms. After waiting till he had finished, one of their chief men arose and replied gravely: "My father, before the white men came, we could hunt and fish, and raise corn enough for our families; we knew nothing of your fire-water. If it is so very bad, why did the white men bring it here? _we_ did not desire it!" They were in a degraded state of poverty, recklessness, and misery: there is now at least _some_ improvement; about thirty children attend Mrs. MacMurray's school; many of them are decently clothed, and they have gardens in which they have raised crops of potatoes and Indian corn. The difficulty is to keep them together for any time sufficient to make a permanent impression: their wild, restless habits prevail: and even their necessities interfere against the efforts of their teachers; they go off to their winter hunting-grounds for weeks together, and when they return, the task of instruction has to begin again. One of their chiefs from the north came to Mr. MacMurray, and expressed a wish to become a Christian; unfortunately, he had three wives, and, as a necessary preliminary, he was informed that he must confine himself to one. He had no objection to keep the youngest, to whom he was lately married, and put away the two others, but this was not admissible. The one he had first taken to wife was to be the permitted wife, and no other. He expostulated; Mr. MacMurray insisted; in the end, the old man went off in high dudgeon. Next morning there was no sign of his wigwam, and he never applied again to be "made a Christian," the terms apparently being too hard to digest. "The Roman Catholic priests," said Mr. MacMurray, "are not so strict on this point as we are; they insist on the convert retaining only one wife, but they leave him the choice among those who bear that title." They have a story among themselves of a converted Indian, who, after death, applied for admittance to the paradise of the white men, and was refused; he then went to the paradise of the Red-skins, but _there_ too he was rejected: and after wandering about for some time disconsolate, he returned to life (like Gitchee Gausinee), to warn his companions by his experience in the other world. Mr. MacMurray reckons among his most zealous converts several great medicine-men and conjurors. I was surprised at first at the comparative number of these, and the readiness with which they become Christians; but it may be accounted for in two ways: they are in general the most intelligent men in the tribe, and they are more sensible than any others of the false and delusive nature of their own tricks and superstitious observances. When a sorcerer is converted, he, in the first place, surrenders his _meta,wa,aun_, or medicine-sack, containing his manitos. Mr. MacMurray showed me several; an owl-skin, a wild cat-skin, an otter-skin; and he gave me two, with the implements of sorcery; one of birch-bark, containing the skin of a black adder; the other, an embroidered mink-skin, contains the skin of an enormous rattle-snake (four feet long), a feather died crimson, a cowrie shell, and some magical pebbles, wrapped up in bark--the spells and charms of this Indian Archimago, whose name was, I think, Matabash. He also gave me a drum, formed of a skin stretched over a hoop, and filled with pebbles, and a most portentous looking rattle formed of about a hundred bears' claws, strung together by a thong, and suspended to a carved stick, both being used in their medicine dances. The chief of this Chippewa village is a very extraordinary character. His name is Shinguaconse, _the Little Pine_, but he chooses to drop the adjunct, and calls himself the Pine. He is not an hereditary chief, but an elective or war-chief, and owes his dignity to his bravery and to his eloquence; among these people, a man who unites both is sure to obtain power. Without letters, without laws, without any arbitrary distinctions of rank or wealth, and with a code of morality so simple, that upon _that_ point they are pretty much on a par, it is superior natural gifts, strength, and intelligence, that raise an Indian to distinction and influence. He has not the less to fish for his own dinner, and build his own canoe. Shinguaconse led a band of warriors in the war of 1812, was at Fort Malden, and in the battle of the Moravian towns. Besides being eloquent and brave he was a famous conjuror. He is now a Christian, with all his family; and Mr. MacMurray finds him a most efficient auxiliary in ameliorating the condition of his people. When the traders on the opposite side endeavoured to seduce him back to his old habit of drinking, he told them, "When I wanted it you would not give it to me; now I do not want it you try to force it upon me; drink it yourselves!" and turned his back. The ease with which liquor is procured from the opposite shore, and the bad example of many of the soldiers and traders are, however, a serious obstacle to the missionary's success. Nor is the love of whisky confined to the men. Mrs. MacMurray imitated with great humour the deportment of a tipsy squaw, dragging her blanket after her, with one corner over her shoulder, and singing, in most blissful independence and defiance of her lordly husband, a song, of which the burden is,-- "The Englishman will give me some of his milk! I will drink the Englishman's milk!" Her own personal efforts have reclaimed many of these wretched creatures. Next to the passion for ardent spirits is the passion for gambling. Their common game of chance is played with beans, or with small bones, painted of different colours; and these beans have been as fatal as ever were the dice in Christendom. They will gamble away even their blankets and moccasins; and while the game lasts not only the players but the lookers-on, are in a perfect ecstacy of suspense and agitation. Mr. MacMurray says, that when the Indians are here during the fishing season from the upper waters of the lake his rooms are crowded with them. Wherever there is an open door they come in. "It is _impossible_ to escape from an Indian who chooses to inflict his society on you, or wishes for yours. He comes at all hours, not having the remotest idea of convenience or inconvenience, or of the possibility of intrusion. There is absolutely no remedy but to sit still and endure. I have them in my room sometimes without intermission, from sunrise to sunset." He added, that they never took anything, nor did the least injury, except that which necessarily resulted from their vile, dirty habits, and the smell of their _kinnikinic_, which together, I should think, are quite _enough_. Those few which are now here, and the women especially, are always lounging in and out, coming to Mrs. MacMurray about every little trifle, and very frequently about nothing at all. Sir John Colborne took a strong interest in the conversion and civilisation of the Indians, and though often discouraged did not despair. He promised to found a village, and build log-houses for the converts here as at Coldwater (on Lake Simcoe); but this promise has not been fulfilled, nor is it likely to be so. I asked, very naturally, "Why, if the Indians wish for log-huts, do they not build them? They are on the verge of the forest, and the task is not difficult." I was told it was impossible; that they neither _could_ nor _would_!--that this sort of labour is absolutely inimical to their habits. It requires more strength than the women possess; and for the men to fell wood and carry logs were an unheard-of degradation. Mrs. MacMurray is very anxious that these houses should be built because she thinks it will keep her converts stationary. Whether their morality, cleanliness, health and happiness, will be thereby improved, I doubt; and the present governor seems to have very decidedly made up his mind on the matter. I should like to see an Indian brought to prefer a house to a wigwam, and live in a house of his own building; but what is gained by building houses for them? The promise was made however, and the Indians have no comprehension of a change of governors being a change of principles. They consider themselves deceived and ill-treated. Shinguaconse has lately (last January) addressed a letter or speech to Sir Francis Head on the subject, which is a curious specimen of expostulation. "My father," he says; "you have made promises to me and to my children. You promised me houses, but as yet nothing has been performed, although five years are past. I am now growing very old, and to judge by the way you have used me, I am afraid I shall be laid in my grave before I see any of your promises fulfilled. Many of your children address you, and tell you they are poor, and they are much better off than I am in everything. I can say, in sincerity, that I am poor. I am like the beast of the forest that has no shelter. I lie down on the snow, and cover myself with the boughs of the trees. If the promises had been made by a person of no standing, I should not be astonished to see his promises fail. But _you_, who are so great in riches and in power, I am astonished that I do not see your promises fulfilled! I would have been better pleased if you had never made such promises to me, than that you should have made them and not performed them." Then follows a stroke of Indian irony. "But, my father, perhaps I do not see clearly; I am old, and perhaps I have lost my eye-sight; and if you should come to visit us, you might discover these promises already performed! I have heard that you have visited all parts of the country around. This is the only place you have not yet seen; if you will promise to come I will have my little fish (_i. e._ the white-fish) ready drawn from the water, that you may taste of the food which sustains me." Shinguaconse then complains, that certain of the French Canadians had cut down their timber to sell it to the Americans, by permission of a British magistrate, residing at St. Joseph's. He says, "Is this right? I have never heard that the British had purchased our land and timber from us. But whenever I say a word, they say, 'Pay no attention to him, he knows nothing.' This will not do!" He concludes with infinite politeness; "And now, my father, I shall take my seat, and look towards your place, that I may hear the answer you will send me between this time and spring. "And now, my father, I have done! I have told you some things that were on my mind. I take you by the hand, and wish you a happy new year, trusting that we may be allowed to see one another again." * * * * * AN INDIAN LOVER. Mrs. Johnston told me that when her children are absent from her, and she looks for their return, she has a sensation, a merely physical sensation, like that she experienced when she first laid them to her bosom; this yearning amounts at times to absolute pain, almost as intolerable as the pang of child-birth, and is so common that the Indians have a word to express it. The maternal instinct, like all the other natural instincts, is strong in these people to a degree we can no more conceive than we can their quick senses. As a cat deprived of its kittens will suckle an animal of a different species, so an Indian woman who has lost her child _must_ have another. "Bring me my son! or see me die!" exclaimed a bereaved mother to her husband, and she lay down on her mat, covered her head with her blanket, and refused to eat. The man went and kidnapped one of the enemy's children, and brought it to her. She laid it in her bosom, and was consoled. Here is the animal woman. The mortality among the children is great among the unreclaimed Indians, from want of knowing how to treat infantine maladies, and from want of cleanliness. When dysentery is brought on from this cause, the children almost invariably perish. When kept clean, the bark-cradles are excellent things for their mode of life, and effectually preserve the head and limbs of the infant from external injury. When a young Chippewa of St. Mary's sees a young girl who pleases him, and whom he wishes to marry, he goes and catches a loach, boils it, and cuts off the tail, of which he takes the flat bone, and sticks it in his hair. He paints himself bewitchingly, takes a sort of rude flute or pipe, with two or three stops, which seems to be only used on these amatory occasions, and walks up and down his village, blowing on his flute, and looking, I presume, as sentimental as an Indian _can_ look. This is regarded as an indication of his intentions, and throws all the lodges in which there are young marriageable girls into a flutter, though probably the fair one who is his secret choice is pretty well aware of it. The next step is to make presents to the parents and relatives of the young woman; if these are accepted, and his suit prospers, he makes presents to his intended; and all that now remains is to bring her home to his lodge. He neither swears before God to love her till death--an oath which it depends not on his own will to keep, even if it be not perjury in the moment it is pronounced--nor to endow her with _all_ his worldly goods and chattels, when even by the act of union she loses all right of property; but apparently the arrangements answer all purposes, to their mutual satisfaction. The names of the women are almost always derived from some objects or appearances in nature, generally of a pleasing kind; the usual termination _qua_ or _quay_, immediately blending with their signification the idea of womanhood. Thus, my Indian mother is "the green prairie," (woman). Mrs. Schoolcraft's name, Obah,bahm,wa,wa,ge,zhe,go,quà, signifies literally the "sound which the stars make rushing through the sky," and which I translate into _the music of the spheres_. Mrs. MacMurray is "the wild rose:" one of her youngest sisters is Wah,bu,nung,o,quà, the morning star (woman): another is Omis,ka,bu,go,quà, (the woman of) "the red leaf." * * * * * I went to-day to take leave of my uncle Wayish,ky, and found him ill--poor fellow! he is fretting about his younger son. I learn with pleasure that his daughter Zah,gah,see,ga,quà is likely to accompany me to the Manitoolin Islands. * * * * * July 31. This last evening of my sojourn at the Sault-Sainte-Marie, is very melancholy--we have been all very sad. Mr. and Mrs. MacMurray are to accompany me in my voyage down the lake to the Manitoolin Islands, having some business to transact with the governor:--so you see Providence _does_ take care of me! how I could have got there alone, I cannot tell, but I must have tried. At first we had arranged to go in a bark canoe; the very canoe which belonged to Captain Back, and which is now lying in Mr. MacMurray's court-yard: but our party will be large, and we shall be encumbered with much baggage and provisions--not having yet learned to live on the portable maize and fat: our voyage is likely to take three days and a half, even if the weather continues favourable, and if it do not, why we shall be obliged to put into some creek or harbour, and pitch our tent, gipsy fashion, for a day or two. There is not a settlement nor a habitation on our route, nothing but lake and forest. The distance is about one hundred and seventy miles, rather more than less; Mr. MacMurray therefore advises a bateau, in which, if we do not get on so quickly, we shall have more space and comfort,--and thus it is to be. I am sorry to leave these kind, excellent people, but most I regret Mrs. Schoolcraft.[45] [Footnote 45: This amiable and interesting creature died a few years ago.] * * * * * WE EMBARK ON LAKE HURON. August 1. The morning of our departure rose bright and beautiful, and the loading and arranging our little boat was a scene of great animation. I thought I had said all my adieus the night before, but at early dawn my good Neengai came paddling across the river with various kind offerings for her daughter Wa,sàh,ge,wo,nò,quá, which she thought might be pleasant or useful, and more _last_ affectionate words from Mrs. Schoolcraft. We then exchanged a long farewell embrace, and she turned away with tears, got into her little canoe, which could scarcely contain two persons, and handling her paddle with singular grace and dexterity, shot over the blue water, without venturing once to look back! I leaned over the side of our boat, and strained my eyes to catch a last glimpse of the white spray of the rapids, and her little canoe skimming over the expanse between, like a black dot: and this was the last I saw of my dear good Chippewa mamma! Meantime we were proceeding rapidly down the beautiful river, and through its winding channels. Our party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. MacMurray and their lovely boy; myself; and the two Indian girls--my cousin Zah,gah,see,ga,quà, and Angelique, the child's attendant. These two girls were, for Indians, singularly beautiful; they would have been beautiful anywhere. Angelique, though of unmixed Indian blood, has a face of the most perfect oval, a clear brown complexion, the long, half-shaded eye, which the French call _coupé en amande_; the nose slightly aquiline, with the proud nostril open and well defined; dazzling teeth;--in short, her features had been faultless, but that her mouth is a little too large--but then, to amend that, her lips are like coral: and a more perfect figure I never beheld. Zah,gàh,see,ga,quà is on a less scale, and her features more decidedly Indian. We had a small, but compact and well-built boat, the seats of which we covered with mats, blankets, buffalo skins, cloaks, shawls, &c.: we had four voyageurs, Masta, Content, Le Blanc, and Pierrot; a very different set from those who brought me from Mackinaw: they were all Canadian voyageurs of the true breed, that is, half-breed, showing the Indian blood as strongly as the French. Pierrot, worthy his name, was a most comical fellow; Masta, a great talker, amused me exceedingly; Content was our steersman and captain; and Le Blanc, who was the best singer, generally led the song, to which the others responded in chorus. They had a fixed daily allowance of fat pork, Indian meal, and tobacco: finding that the latter was not agreeable to me, though I took care not to complain, they always contrived with genuine politeness to smoke out of my way, and to leeward. VOYAGE DOWN LAKE HURON. After passing Sugar Island, we took the channel to the left, and entered the narrow part of the lake between St. Joseph's Island and the mainland. We dined upon a small picturesque islet, consisting of ledges of rock, covered with shrubs and abounding with whortleberries; on the upper platform we arranged an awning or shade, by throwing a sail over some bushes, and made a luxuriant dinner, succeeded by a basin of good tea; meantime, on the rocky ledge below, Pierrot was making a _galette_, and Masta frying pork. Dinner being over, we proceeded, coasting along the north shore of St. Joseph's Island. There is, in the interior, an English settlement, and a village of Indians. The principal proprietor, who is a magistrate and justice of the peace; has two Indian women living with him--two sisters, and a family by each!--such are the examples sometimes set to the Indians on our frontiers. In the evening we came to an island consisting of a flat ledge of rock, on which were the remains of a former camp-fire, surrounded by tall trees and bushes: here we pitched our little marquee, and boiled our kettle. The sun-set was most glorious, with some floating ominous clouds. The stars and the fire-flies came out together: the latter swarmed around us, darting in and out among the trees, and gliding and sparkling over the surface of the water. Unfortunately the mosquitoes swarmed too, notwithstanding the antipathy which is said to exist between the mosquito and the fire-fly. We made our beds by spreading mats and blankets under us; and then, closing the curtain of the tent, Mr. MacMurray began a very effective slaughter and expulsion of the mosquitoes. We laid ourselves down, Mrs. MacMurray in the middle, with her child in her bosom; Mr. MacMurray on one side, myself at the other, and the two Indian girls at our feet: the voyageurs, rolled in their blankets, lay down on the naked rock round the fire we had built--and thus we all slept. I must needs confess that I found my rocky bed rather uneasy, and my bones ached as I turned from side to side, but this was only a beginning. The night was close and sultry, and just before dawn I was wakened by a tremendous clap of thunder; down came the storm in its fury, the lake swelling and roaring, the lightning gambolling over the rocks and waves, the rain falling in a torrent; but we were well sheltered, for the men had had the precaution, before they slept, to throw a large oil cloth over the top of our little marquee. The storm ceased suddenly: daylight came, and soon afterwards we again embarked. We had made forty-five miles. * * * * * BREAKFAST AT RATTLESNAKE ISLAND. The next morning was beautiful: the sun shone brightly, though the lake was yet heaving and swelling from the recent storm,--altogether it was like the laughing eyes and pouting lips of a half-appeased beauty. About nine o'clock we ran down into a lovely bay, and landed to breakfast on a little lawn surrounded by high trees and a thick wood, abounding in rattlesnakes and squirrels. Luckily for us, the storm had dispersed the mosquitoes. Keeping clear of the covert to avoid these fearful snakes, I strayed down by the edge of the lake, and found a tiny creek, which answered all purposes, both of bath and mirror, and there I arranged my toilette in peace and security. Returning to our breakfast-fire, I stood some moments to admire the group around it--it was a perfect picture: there lay the little boat rocking on the shining waves, and near it Content was washing plates and dishes; Pierrot and Masta were cooking; the two Indian girls were spreading the tablecloth on the turf. Mrs. MacMurray and her baby--looking like the Madonna and child in the "Repose in Egypt,"--were seated under a tree; while Mr. MacMurray, having suspended his shaving-glass against the trunk of a pine, was shaving himself with infinite gravity and _sang froid_. Never, I think, were the graceful, the wild, the comic, so strangely combined!--add the rich background of mingled foliage, the murmur of leaves and waters, and all the glory of a summer morning!--it was very beautiful! We breakfasted in much mirth, and then we set off again. The channel widened, the sky became overcast, the wind freshened, and at length blew hard. Though this part of the lake is protected by St. Joseph's and the chain of islands from the swell of the main lake, still the waves rose high, the wind increased, we were obliged to take in a reef or two of our sail, and scudded with an almost fearful rapidity before the wind. In crossing a wide, open expanse of about twenty miles, we became all at once very silent, then very grave, then very pathetic, and at last extremely sick. On arriving among the channels of the Rattlesnake Islands, the swell of course subsided; we landed on a most beautiful mass of rock, and lighted our fire under a group of pines and sycamores; but we were too sick to eat. Mr. MacMurray heated some port wine and water, into which we broke biscuit, and drank it most picturesquely out of a slop basin--too thankful to get it! Thus recruited, we proceeded. The wind continued fresh and fair, the day kept up fine, and our sail was most delightful and rapid. We passed successive groups of islands, countless in number, various in form, little fairy Edens--populous with life and love, and glowing with light and colour under a meridian sun. I remember we came into a circular basin, of about three miles in diameter, so surrounded with islands, that when once within the circle, I could perceive neither ingress nor egress; it was as if a spell of enchantment had been wrought to keep us there for ever; and I really thought we were going with our bows upon the rocks, when suddenly we darted through a narrow portal, not above two or three yards in width, and found ourselves in another wide expanse, studded with larger islands. At evening we entered the Missasagua river, having come sixty miles, right before the wind, since morning. BEAUTY OF AIRD'S BAY. The Missasagua (_i. e._ the river with two mouths) gives its name to a tribe of the Chippewa nation, once numerous and powerful, now scattered and degraded. This is the river called by Henry the _Missasaki_, where he found a horde of Indians who had never seen a white man before, and who, in the excess of their hospitality, crammed him with "a porridge of sturgeons' roe," which I apprehend, from his description, would be likely to prove "caviare to the general." There is a remnant of these Indians here still. We found a log-hut with a half-breed family, in the service of the fur company; and two or three bark wigwams. The rest of the village (dwellings and inhabitants together) had gone down to the Manitoolin. A number of little Red-skins were running about, half, or rather indeed wholly, naked--happy, healthy, active, dirty little urchins, resembling, except in colour, those you may see swarming in an Irish cabin. Poor Ireland! The worst Indian wigwam is not worse than some of her dwellings; and the most miserable of these Indians would spurn the destiny of an Irish _poor-slave_--for he is at least Lord o'er himself. As the river is still famous for sturgeon, we endeavoured to procure some for supper, and had just prepared a large piece to roast, (suspended by a cord to three sticks,) when one of those horrid curs so rife about the Indian dwellings ran off with it. We were asked to take up our night's lodging in the log-hut, but it was so abominably dirty and close, we all preferred the shore. While they pitched the marquee, I stood for some time looking at a little Indian boy, who, in a canoe about eight feet in length, was playing the most extraordinary gambols in the water; the buoyant thing seemed alive beneath him, and to obey every movement of his paddle. He shot backwards and forwards, described circles, whirled himself round and round, made pirouettes, exhibited, in short, as many tricks as I have seen played by a spirited English boy on a thorough-bred pony. BEACH LA CLOCHE. The mosquitoes were in great force, but we began by sweeping them out of the tent with boughs, and then, closing the curtain, we executed judgment on the remainder by wholesale. We then lay down in the same order as last night; and Mrs. MacMurray sang her little boy to sleep with a beautiful hymn. I felt all the luxury of having the turf under me instead of the rock, and slept well till wakened before dawn by some animal sniffing and snuffing close to my ear. I commanded my alarm, and did not disturb those who were enjoying a sound sleep near me, and the intruder turned out to be a cow belonging to the hut, who had got her nose under the edge of the tent. We set off early, and by sunrise had passed down the eastern channel of the river, and swept into the lake. It was a lovely morning, soft and calm; there was no breath of wind; no cloud in the sky, no vapour in the air; and the little islands lay around "under the opening eyelids of the morn," dewy, and green, and silent. We made eighteen miles before breakfast; and then pursued our way through Aird's bay, and among countless islands of all shapes and sizes; I cannot describe their beauty, nor their harmonious variety: at last we perceived in the east the high ridge called the mountains of La Cloche. They are really respectable hills in this level country, but hardly mountains: they are all of limestone, and partially clothed in wood. All this coast is very rocky and barren; but it is said to be rich in mineral productions. About five in the evening we landed at La Cloche. Here we found the first and only signs of civilised society during our voyage. The north-west company have an important station here; and two of their principal clerks, Mr. MacBean and Mr. Buthune were on the spot. We were received with much kindness, and pressed to spend the night, but there was yet so much day-light, and time was so valuable, that we declined. The factory consists of a large log-house, an extensive store to contain the goods bartered with the Indians, and huts inhabited by work people, hunters, voyageurs, and others; a small village, in short, and a number of boats and canoes of all sizes were lying in the bay. It is not merely the love of gain that induces well-educated men--gentlemen--to pass twenty years of their lives in such a place as this; you must add to the prospective acquirement of a large fortune, two possessions which men are most wont to covet--power and freedom. The table was laid in their hall for supper, and we carried off, with their good will, a large mess of broiled fish, dish and all, and a can of milk, which delicious viands we discussed in our boat with great satisfaction. THE BURNING PINE. The place derives its name from a large rock which they say, being struck, vibrates like a bell. But I had no opportunity of trying the experiment, therefore cannot tell how this may be: Henry, however, mentions this phenomenon; and the Indians regard the spot as sacred and enchanted. Just after sunset, we reached one of the most enchanting of these enchanting or enchanted isles. It rose sloping from the shore, in successive ledges of picturesque rocks, all fringed with trees and bushes, and clothed in many places with a species of grey lichen, nearly a foot deep. With a sort of anticipative wisdom (like that of a pig before a storm) I gathered a quantity of this lichen for our bed, and spread it under the mats; for in fear of the rattlesnakes and other creeping things, we had pitched our resting place on the naked rock. The men had built up the fire in a sheltered place below, and did not perceive that a stem of a blasted pine, about twenty feet in length, had fallen across the recess; it caught the flame. This at first delighted us and the men too; but soon it communicated to another tree against which it was leaning, and they blazed away together in a column of flame. We began to fear that it might communicate to the dried moss and the bushes, and cause a general conflagration; the men prevented this, however, by clearing a space around them. The waves, the trees and bushes and fantastic rocks, and the figures and faces of the men, caught the brilliant light as it flashed upon them with a fitful glare--the rest being lost in deepest shadow. Wildly magnificent it was! beyond all expression beautiful, and awful to!--the night, the solitude, the dark weltering waters, the blaze which put out the mild stars which just before had looked down upon us in their tender radiance!--I never beheld such a scene. By the light of this gigantic torch we supped and prepared our beds. As I lay down to rest, and closed my eyes on the flame which shone through our tent curtain, I thought that perhaps the wind might change in the night, and the flakes and sparks be carried over to us, and to the beds of lichen, dry and inflammable as tinder; but fatigue had subdued me so utterly, that even this apprehension could not keep me awake. The burning trees were still smouldering; daylight was just creeping up the sky, and some few stars yet out, when we bestirred ourselves, and in a very few minutes we were again afloat: we were now steering towards the south-east, where the Great Manitoolin Island was dimly discerned. There was a deep slumbrous calm all around, as if nature had not yet awoke from her night's rest: then the atmosphere began to kindle with gradual light; it grew brighter and brighter: towards the east, the lake and sky were intermingling in radiance; and _then_, just there, where they seemed flowing and glowing together like a bath of fire, we saw what seemed to us the huge black hull of a vessel, with masts and spars rising against the sky--but we knew not what to think or to believe! As we kept on rowing in that direction, it grew more distinct, but lessened in size: it proved to be a great heavy-built schooner, painted black, which was going up the lake against wind and current. One man was standing in her bows, with an immense oar, which he slowly pulled, walking backwards and forwards; but vain seemed all his toil, for still the vessel lay like a black log, and moved not: we rowed up to the side, and hailed him--"What news?" QUEEN VICTORIA. And the answer was that William the Fourth was dead, and that Queen Victoria reigned in his place! We sat silent looking at each other, and even in that very moment the orb of the sun rose out of the lake, and poured its beams full in our dazzled eyes. We asked if the governor were at the Manitoolin Island? No; he was not there; but the chief officer of the Indian department had come to represent him, and the presents were to be given out to the assembled Indians this morning. We urged the men to take to their oars with spirit, and held our course due east down by the woody shores of this immense island; among fields of reeds and rushes, and almost under the shadow of the towering forests. Meantime, many thoughts came into my mind, some tears too into my eyes--not certainly for that dead king, who in ripe age and in all honour was gathered to the tomb--but for that living queen so young and fair:-- "As many hopes hang on that noble head As there hang blossoms on the boughs in May!" And what will become of _them_--of _her_! The idea that even here, in this new world of woods and waters, amid these remote wilds, to her so utterly unknown, her power reaches and her sovereignty is acknowledged, filled me with compassionate awe. I say _compassionate_, for if she feel in their whole extent the liabilities of her position, alas for her! And if she feel them not!--O worse and worse! I tried to recall her childish figure and features. I thought over all I had heard concerning her. I thought she was not such a thing as they could make a mere pageant of; for _that_ there is too much within--too little without. And what _will_ they make of her? For at eighteen she will hardly make anything of them--I mean of the men and women round her. It is of the woman I think, more than of the queen; for as a part of the state machinery she will do quite as well as another--better, perhaps: so far her youth and sex are absolutely in her favour, or rather in _our_ favour. If she be but simple-minded, and true-hearted, and straightforward, with the common portion of intellect--if a royal education have not blunted in her the quick perceptions and pure kind instincts of the woman--if she has only had fair play, and carries into business plain distinct notions of right and wrong--and the fine moral sense that is not to be confounded by diplomatic verbiage and expediency--she will do better for us than a whole cabinet full of cut and dried officials, with Talleyrand at the head of them. And what a fair heritage is this which has fallen to her! A land young like herself--a land of hopes--and fair, most fair! Does she know--does she care any thing about it?--while hearts are beating warm for her, and voices bless her--and hands are stretched out towards her--even from these wild lake shores?[46] These thoughts were in my mind, or something like to these, as with aid of sail and oar we were gliding across the bay of Manitoolin. This bay is about three miles wide at the entrance, and runs about twelve miles in depth, in a southern direction. As we approached the further end, we discerned the whole line of shore, rising in bold and beautiful relief from the water, to be covered with wigwams, and crowded with Indians. Suddenly we entered a little opening or channel, which was not visible till we were just upon it, and rounding a promontory, to my infinite delight and surprise, we came upon an unexpected scene,--a little bay within the bay. It was a beautiful basin, nearly an exact circle, of about three miles in circumference; in the centre lay a little wooded island, and all around, the shores rose sloping from the margin of the lake, like an amphitheatre, covered with wigwams and lodges, thick as they could stand amid intermingled trees; and beyond these arose the tall pine forest crowning and enclosing the whole. Some hundred canoes were darting hither and thither on the waters, or gliding along the shore, and a beautiful schooner lay against the green bank--its tall masts almost mingling with the forest trees, and its white sails half furled, and half gracefully drooping. We landed, and were received with much politeness by Mr. Jarvis, the chief superintendent of Indian affairs, and by Major Anderson, the Indian agent; and a space was cleared to pitch our tent, until room could be made for our accommodation in one of the government log-houses. [Footnote 46: The reader will have the goodness to remark that all this passage relating to the Queen stands verbatim in the original printed in 1838.] * * * * * THE GREAT MANITOOLIN. The word Manitoolin is a corruption or frenchification of the Indian _Manitoawahning_, which signifies the "dwelling of spirits." They have given this name to a range of islands in Lake Huron, which extends from the channel of St. Mary's river nearly to Cape Hurd, a distance of about two hundred miles. Between this range of islands and the shore of the mainland, there is an archipelago, consisting of many thousand islands or islets.[47] The Great Manitoolin, on which I now am, is, according to the last survey, ninety-three miles in length, but very narrow, and so deeply and fantastically indented with gulfs and bays, that it was supposed to consist of many distinct islands. This is the second year that the presents to the Indians have been issued on this spot. The idea of forming on the Great Manitoolin, a settlement of the Indians, and inviting those tribes scattered round the lakes to adopt it as a residence, has been for the last few years entertained by the Indian department; I say for the last few years, because it did not originate with the present governor; though I believe it has his entire approbation, as a means of removing them more effectually from all contact with the white settlers. It is objected to this measure that by cutting off the Indians from agricultural pursuits, and throwing them back upon their habits of hunting and fishing, it will retard their civilisation; that removing them from the reserved land among the whites, their religious instruction will be rendered a matter of difficulty; that the islands, being masses of barren rock, are almost incapable of cultivation; and that they are so far north-west, that it would be difficult to raise even a little Indian corn[48]: and hence the plan of settling the Indians here has been termed _unjustifiable_. [Footnote 47: The islands which fringe the north shores of Lake Huron from Lake George to Penetanguishine have been estimated by Lieut. Bayfield (in his official survey) at upwards of thirty-three thousand.] [Footnote 48: It appears, however, from the notes of the missionary Elliott, that a great number of Ottawas and Portoganasees had been residing on the Great Manitoolin two or three years previous to 1834, and had cultivated a portion of land.] DISTRIBUTION OF PRESENTS. It is true that the smaller islands are rocky and barren; but the Great Manitoolin, Drummond's, and St. Joseph's, are fertile. The soil on which I now tread is rich and good; and all the experiments in cultivation already tried here have proved successful. As far as I can judge, the intentions of the government are benevolent and _justifiable_. There are a great number of Indians, Ottawas, and Pottowottomies, who receive annual presents from the British government, and are residing on the frontiers of the American settlements, near Lake Michigan. These people, having disposed of their lands, know not where to go, and it is the wish of our government to assemble all those Indians who are our allies, and receive our annual presents within the limits of the British territory--and this for reasons which certainly do appear very _reasonable_ and politic. There are three thousand seven hundred Indians, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottowottomies, Winnebagos, and Menomonies, encamped around us. The issue of the presents has just concluded, and appears to have given universal satisfaction; yet, were you to see their trifling nature, you would wonder that they think it worth while to travel from one to five hundred miles or more to receive them; and by an ordinance of the Indian department, every individual must present himself _in person_ to receive the allotted portion. The common equipment of each chief or warrior (that is, each man) consists of three quarters of a yard of blue cloth, three yards of linen, one blanket, half an ounce of thread, four strong needles, one comb, one awl, one butcher's knife, three pounds of tobacco, three pounds of ball, nine pounds of shot, four pounds of powder, and six flints. The equipment of a woman consists of one yard and three quarters of coarse woollen, two yards and a half of printed calico, one blanket, one ounce of thread, four needles, one comb, one awl, one knife. For each child there was a portion of woollen cloth and calico. Those chiefs who had been wounded in battle, or had extraordinary claims, had some little articles in extra quantity, and a gay shawl or handkerchief. To each principal chief of a tribe, the allotted portion of goods for his tribe was given, and he made the distribution to his people individually; and such a thing as injustice or partiality on one hand, or a murmur of dissatisfaction on the other, seemed equally unknown. There were, besides, extra presents of flags, medals, chiefs' guns, rifles, trinkets, brass kettles, the choice and distribution of which were left to the superintendent, with this proviso, that the expense on the whole was never to exceed nine pounds sterling for every one hundred chiefs or warriors. While the Indians remain on the island, which is generally about five days, they receive rations of Indian corn and tallow (fat melted down); with this they make a sort of soup, boiling the Indian corn till it is of the consistence of porridge,--then adding a handful of tallow and some salt, and stirring it well. Many a kettleful of this delectable mess did I see made, without feeling any temptation to taste it; but Major Anderson says it is not so _very_ bad, when a man is _very_ hungry, which I am content to believe on his testimony. On this and on the fish of the bay they live while here. * * * * * As soon as the distribution of the presents was over, a grand council of all the principal chiefs was convened, that they might be informed of the will of their great father. You must understand, that on the promontory I have mentioned as shutting in the little bay on the north side, there are some government edifices; one large house, consisting of one room, as accommodation for the superintendent and officers; also a carpenter's house and a magazine for the stores and presents, all of logs. A deal plank, raised on tressels, served as a table; there were a few stools and benches of deal-board, and two raised wooden platforms for beds: such were the furniture and decorations of the grand council-hall in which the _representative_ of the representative of their Great Mother had now assembled her red children; a flag was displayed in front upon a lofty pole--a new flag, with a new device, on which I saw troops of Indians gazing with much curiosity and interest, and the meaning of which was now to be explained to them. The council met about noon. At the upper end of the log-house I have mentioned, stood the chief superintendent, with his secretary or grand vizier, Major Anderson; the two interpreters, and some other officials. At some little distance I sat with Mr. and Mrs. MacMurray, and a young son of the lieutenant-governor; near me I perceived three Methodist missionaries and two Catholic priests. The chiefs came in, one after another, without any order of precedence. All those whom I had seen at Mackinaw recognised me immediately, and their dusky faces brightened as they held out their hands with the customary _bojou!_ There was my old acquaintance the Rain, looking magnificent, and the venerable old Ottawa chief, Kish,ke,nick (the Cut-hand). The other remarkable chiefs of the Ottawas were Gitchee, Mokomaun (the Great or Long-knife); So,wan,quet (the Forked-tree); Kim,e,ne,chau,zun (the Bustard); Mocomaun,ish (the Bad-knife); Pai,mau,se,gai (the Sun's course in a cloudless sky); and As,si,ke,nack (the Blackbird); the latter a very remarkable man, of whom I shall have to say more presently. Of the Chippewas, the most distinguished chiefs were, Aisence (the Little Clam); Wai,sow,win,de,bay (the Yellow-head), and Shin,gua,cose (the Pine); these three are Christians. There were besides Ken,ne,bec,áno (the Snake's-tail); Muc,konce,e,wa,yun (the Cub's-skin): and two others, whose style was quite grandiloquent,--Tai,bau,se,gai (Bursts of Thunder at a distance), and Me,twai,crush,kau (the sound of waves breaking on the rocks). Nearly opposite to me was a famous Pottowottomie chief and conjuror, called the Two Ears. He was most fantastically dressed, and hideously painted, and had two large clusters of swan's down depending from each ear--I suppose in illustration of his name. There were three men with their faces blacked with grease and soot, their hair dishevelled, and their whole appearance studiously squalid and miserable: I was told they were in mourning for near relations. With these exceptions the dresses were much what I have already described; but the chief whom I immediately distinguished from the rest, even before I knew his name, was my cousin, young Waub-Ojeeg, the son of Wayish,ky; in height he towered above them all, being about six feet three or four. His dress was equally splendid and tasteful; he wore a surtout of fine blue cloth, under which was seen a shirt of gay colours, and his father's medal hung on his breast. He had a magnificent embroidered belt of wampum, from which hung his scalping-knife and pouch. His leggings (metasses) were of scarlet cloth beautifully embroidered, with rich bands or garters depending to his ankle. Round his head was an embroidered band or handkerchief, in which were stuck four wing-feathers of the war-eagle, two on each side--the testimonies of his prowess as a warrior. He held a tomahawk in his hand. His features were fine, and his countenance not only mild, but almost femininely soft. Altogether he was in dress and personal appearance the finest specimen of his race I had yet seen; I was quite proud of my adopted kinsman. He was seated at some distance; but in far too near propinquity, for in truth they almost touched me, sat a group of creatures--human beings I must suppose them--such as had never been seen before within the lines of civilisation. I had remarked them in the morning surrounded by a group of Ottawas, among whom they seemed to excite as much wonder and curiosity as among ourselves: and when I inquired who and what they were, I was told they were _cannibals_ from the Red River, the title being, I suspect, quite gratuitous, and merely expressive of the disgust they excited. One man had his hair cut short on the top of his head, and it looked like a circular blacking-brush, while it grew long in a fringe all round, hanging on his shoulders. The skins thrown round them seemed on the point of rotting off; and their attitude, when squatted on the ground, was precisely that of the larger ape I have seen in a menagerie. More hideous, more pitiable specimens of humanity in its lowest, most degraded state, can hardly be conceived; melancholy, squalid, stupid--and yet not fierce. They had each received a kettle and a gun by way of encouragement. The whole number of chiefs assembled was seventy-five; and take notice that the half of them were smoking, that it was blazing noontide, and that every door and window was filled up with the eager faces of the crowd without, and then you may imagine that even a scene like this was not to be enjoyed without some drawbacks; in fact, it was a sort of purgatory to more senses than one, but I made up my mind to endure, and did so. I observed that although there were many hundreds around the house, not one woman, outside or inside, was visible during the whole time the council lasted. When all were assembled, and had seated themselves on the floor without hurry, noise, or confusion, there was a pause of solemn preparation, and then Mr. Jarvis rose and addressed them. At the end of every sentence, As,si,ke,nack (the Blackbird), our chief interpreter here, translated the meaning to the assembly, raising his voice to a high pitch, and speaking with much oratorical emphasis, the others responding at intervals, "Ha!" but listening generally in solemn silence. This man, the Blackbird, who understands English well, is the most celebrated orator of his nation. They relate with pride that on one occasion he began a speech at sunrise, and that it lasted without intermission till sunset: the longest breathed of our parliament orators must yield, I think, to the Blackbird. The address of the superintendent was in these words:-- "Children,--When your Great Father, the lieutenant-governor, parted with his Red children last year at this place, he promised again to meet them here at the council-fire, and witness in person the grand delivery of presents now just finished. "To fulfil this engagement, your Great Father left his residence at Toronto, and proceeded on his way to the Great Manitoolin Island, as far as Lake Simcoe. At this place, a messenger, who had been dispatched from Toronto, overtook him, and informed him of the death of our Great Father, on the other side of the Great Salt Lake, and the accession of the Queen Victoria. It consequently became necessary for your Great Father, the lieutenant-governor, to return to the seat of his government, and hold a council with his chief men. "Children!--Your Great Father, the lieutenant-governor, has deputed me to express to you his regret and disappointment at being thus unexpectedly deprived of the pleasure which he had promised to himself, in again seeing all his Red children, and in taking by the hand the chiefs and warriors of the numerous tribes now here assembled. "Children!--I am now to communicate to you a matter in which many of you are deeply interested. Listen with attention, and bear well in mind what I say to you. "Children!--Your Great Father the King had determined that presents should be continued to be given to all Indians resident in the Canadas. "But presents will be given to Indians residing in the United States only for three years, including the present delivery. "Children!--The reasons why presents will not be continued to the Indians residing in the United States I will explain to you. "First: All our countrymen who resided in the United States forfeited their claim to protection from the British government, from the moment their Great Father the King lost possession of that country. Consequently the Indians have no right to expect that their Great Father will continue to them what he does not continue to his own white children. "Secondly: The Indians of the United States, who served in the late war, have already received from the British government more than has been received by the soldiers of their Great Father, who have fought for him for twenty years. "Thirdly: Among the rules which civilised nations are bound to attend to, there is one which forbids your Great Father to give arms and ammunition to Indians of the United States, who are fighting against the government under which they live. "Fourthly: The people of England have, through their representatives in the great council of the nation, uttered great complaints at the expense attendant upon a continuation of the expenditure of so large a sum of money upon Indian presents. "But, Children! let it be distinctly understood, that the British government has not come to a determination to cease to give presents to the Indians of the United States. On the contrary, the government of your Great Father will be most happy to do so, provided they live in the British empire. Therefore, although your Great Father is willing that his Red children should all become permanent settlers in the island, it matters not in what part of the British empire they reside. They may go across the Great Salt Lake to the country of their Great Father the King, and there reside, and there receive their presents; or they may remove to any part of the provinces of Upper or Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, or any other British colony, and yet receive them. But they cannot and must not expect to receive them after the end of three years, if they continue to reside within the limits of the United States. "Children!--The Long Knives have complained (and with justice too) that your Great Father, whilst he is at peace with them, has supplied his Red children residing in their country, with whom the Long Knives are at war, with guns and powder and ball. "Children!--This, I repeat to you, is against the rules of civilised nations, and if continued, will bring on war between your Great Father and the Long Knives. "Children!--You must therefore come and live under the protection of your Great Father, or renounce the advantage which you have so long enjoyed, of annually receiving valuable presents from him. "Children!--I have one thing more to observe to you. There are many clergymen constantly visiting you for the avowed purpose of instructing you in religious principles. Listen to them with attention when they talk to you on that subject; but at the same time keep always in view, and bear it well in your minds, that they have nothing whatever to do with your temporal affairs. Your Great Father who lives across the Great Salt Lake is your guardian and protector, and he only. He has relinquished his claim to this large and beautiful island, on which we are assembled, in order that you may have a home of your own quite separate from his white children. The soil is good, and the waters which surround the shores of this island are abundantly supplied with the finest fish. If you cultivate the soil with only moderate industry, and exert yourselves to obtain fish, you can never want, and your Great Father will continue to bestow annually on all those who permanently reside here, or in any part of his dominions, valuable presents, and will from time to time visit you at this island, to behold your improvements. "Children!--Your Great Father, the lieutenant-governor, as a token of the above declaration, transmits to the Indians a silk British flag, which represents the British empire. Within this flag, and immediately under the symbol of the British crown, are delineated a British lion and a beaver; by which is designated that the British people and the Indians, the former being represented by the lion and the latter by the beaver, are and will be alike regarded by their sovereign, so long as their figures are imprinted on the British flag, or, in other words, so long as they continue to inhabit the British empire! "Children!--This flag is now yours. But it is necessary that some one tribe should take charge of it, in order that it may be exhibited in this island on all occasions, when your Great Father either visits or bestows presents on his Red children. Choose, therefore, from among you, the tribe to which you are willing to entrust it for safe keeping, and remember to have it with you when we next meet again at this place. "Children!--I bid you farewell. But before we part, let me express to you the high satisfaction I feel at witnessing the quiet, sober, and orderly conduct which has prevailed in the camp since my arrival. There are assembled here upwards of three thousand persons, composed of different tribes. I have not seen nor heard of any wrangling or quarrelling among you; I have not seen even one man, woman, or child, in a state of intoxication. "Children!--Let me entreat you to abstain from indulging in the use of fire-water. Let me entreat you to return immediately to your respective homes, with the presents now in your possession. Let me warn you against attempts that may be made by traders or other persons to induce you to part with your presents, in exchange for articles of little value.--Farewell." When Mr. Jarvis ceased speaking there was a pause, and then a fine Ottawa chief (I think Mokomaun,ish) arose, and spoke at some length. He said, that with regard to the condition on which the presents would be issued in future, they would deliberate on the affair, and bring their answer next year. Shinguaconse then came forward and made a long and emphatic speech, from which I gathered that he and his tribe requested that the principal council-fire might be transferred to St. Mary's River, and objected to a residence on the Manitoolin Island. After him spoke two other chiefs, who signified their entire acquiescence in what their Great Father had advised, and declared themselves satisfied to reside on the Manitoolin Islands. After some deliberation among themselves, the custody of the flag was consigned to the Ottawa tribe then residing on the island, and to their principal chief, who came forward and received it with great ceremony. There was then a distribution of extra presents, medals, silver gorgets, and amulets, to some of the chiefs and relatives of chiefs whose conduct was particularly approved, or whom it was thought expedient to gratify. The council then broke up, and I made my way into the open air as quickly as I could. * * * * * SCENES ON THE GREAT MANITOOLIN. In walking about among the wigwams to-day, I found some women on the shore, making a canoe. The frame had been put together by the men. The women were then joining the pieces of birch-bark, with the split ligaments of the pine-root, which they called _wattup_. Other women were employed in melting and applying the resinous gum, with which they smear the seams, and render them impervious to the water. There was much chattering and laughing meanwhile, and I never saw a merrier set of gossips. This canoe, which was about eighteen feet in length, was finished before night; and the next morning I saw it afloat. A man was pointed out to me (a Chippewa from Lake Superior), who, about three years ago, when threatened by starvation during his winter hunt, had devoured his wife and one or two of his children. You shudder--so did I; but since famine can prevail over every human feeling or instinct, till the "pitiful mother hath sodden her own children," and a woman devoured part of her lover[49], I do not think this wretched creature must necessarily be a born monster of ferocity. His features were very mild and sad--he is avoided by the other Chippewas here, and not considered _respectable_; and this from an opinion they entertain, that when a man has once tasted human flesh, he can relish no other: but I must quit this abominable subject. At sunset this evening, just as the air was beginning to grow cool, Major Anderson proclaimed a canoe race, the canoes to be paddled by the women only. The prize consisted of twenty-five pair of silver earrings and other trinkets. I can give you no idea of the state of commotion into which the whole camp, men and women and children, were thrown by this announcement. Thirty canoes started, each containing twelve women, and a man to steer. They were to go round the little island in the centre of the bay, and return to the starting point,--the first canoe which touched the shore to be the winner. They darted off together with a sudden velocity, like that of an arrow from the bow. The Indians on the shore ran backwards and forwards on the beach, exciting them to exertion by loud cries, leaping into the air, whooping and clapping their hands; and when at length the first canoe dashed up to the landing place, it was as if all had gone at once distracted and stark mad. The men, throwing themselves into the water, carried the winners out in their arms, who were laughing and panting for breath; and then the women cried "Ny'a! Ny'a!" and the men shouted "Ty'a!" till the pine woods rang again. But all was good humour, and even good order, in the midst of this confusion. There was no ill blood, not a dispute, not an outrage, not even a _sound_ of unkindness or anger; these are certainly the most good-natured, orderly savages imaginable! We are twenty white people, with 3,700 of these wild creatures around us, and I never in my life felt more security. I find it necessary, indeed, to suspend a blanket before each of the windows when I am dressing in the morning; for they have no idea of the possibility of being intrusive; they think "men's eyes were made to look," and windows to be looked through; but, with this exception, I never met with people more genuinely polite. [Footnote 49: See the Voyage of the Blonde.] * * * * * THE INDIAN WAR DANCE. After a very tiring day, I was standing to-night at the door of our log-house, looking out upon the tranquil stars, and admiring the peace and tranquillity which reigned all around. Within the house Mrs. MacMurray was hearing a young Chippewa read the Gospel, and the light of a lamp above fell upon her beautiful face--very beautiful it was at that moment--and on the dusky features of the Indian boy, akin to her own, and yet how different! and on his silver armlets and feathered head-dress. It was about nine o'clock, and though a few of the camp fires were yet burning, it seemed that almost all had gone to rest. At this moment old Solomon, the interpreter, came up, and told me that the warriors had arranged to give me an exhibition of their war-dance, and were then painting and preparing. In a few minutes more, the drum, and the shriek, and the long tremulous whoop, were heard. A large crowd had gathered silently in front of the house, leaving an open space in the midst; many of them carried great blazing torches, made of the bark of the pine rolled up into a cylinder. The innermost circle of the spectators sat down, and the rest stood around; some on the stumps of the felled trees, which were still at hand. I remember that a large piece of a flaming torch fell on the naked shoulder of a savage, and he jumped up with a yell which made me start; but they all laughed, and so did he, and sat himself down again quietly. Meantime the drumming and yelling drew nearer, and all at once a man leaped like a panther into the very middle of the circle, and, flinging off his blanket, began to caper and to flourish his war-club; then another, and another, till there were about forty; then they stamped round and round, and gesticulated a sort of fiercely grotesque pantomime, and sent forth their hideous yells, while the glare of the torches fell on their painted and naked figures, producing an effect altogether quite indescribable. Then a man suddenly stopped before me, and began a speech at the very top of his voice, so that it sounded like a reiteration of loud cries; it was, in fact, a string of exclamations, which a gentleman standing behind me translated as he went on. They were to this purport:--"I am a Red-skin! I am a warrior! look on me! I am a warrior! I am brave! I have fought! I have killed! I have killed my enemies! I have eaten the tops of the hearts of my enemies! I have drunk their blood! I have struck down seven Long-knives! I have taken their scalps!" This last vaunt he repeated several times with exultation, thinking, perhaps, it must be particularly agreeable to a daughter of the Red-coats; nothing was ever less so! and the human being who was thus boasting stood within half a yard of me, his grim painted face and gleaming eyes looking into mine! A-propos to scalps; I have seen many of the warriors here, who had one or more of these suspended as decorations to their dress; and they seemed to me so much a part and parcel of the _sauvagerie_ around me, that I looked on them generally without emotion or pain. But there was one thing I never _could_ see without a start, and a thrill of horror,--the scalp of _long fair hair_. * * * * * THE MISSIONARIES. Walking about early next morning, I saw that preparations for departure had already commenced; all was movement, and bustle, and hurry; taking down wigwams, launching canoes, tying up bundles and babies, cooking, and "sacrificing" wretched dogs to propitiate the spirits, and procure a favourable voyage. I came upon such a sacrifice just at the opposite side of the point, and took to flight forthwith. No interest, no curiosity, can overcome the sickness and abhorrence with which I shrink from certain things; so I can tell you nothing of this grand ceremony, which you will find described circumstantially by many less fastidious or less sensitive travellers. All the Christian Indians now on the island (about nine hundred in number) are, with the exception of Mr. MacMurray's congregation from the Sault, either Roman Catholics or Methodists. I had some conversation with Father Crue, the Roman Catholic missionary, a very clever and very zealous man, still in the prime of life. He has been here two years, is indefatigable in his calling, or, as Major Anderson said, "always on the go--up the lake and down--in every spot where he had the hope of being useful." I heard the Methodists and Churchmen complain greatly of his interference; but if he be a true believer in his religion, his active zeal does him honour, I think. One thing is most visible, certain, and undeniable, that the Roman Catholic converts are in appearance, dress, intelligence, industry, and general civilisation, superior to all the others. A band of Ottawas, under the particular care of Father Crue, have settled on the Manitoolin, about six miles to the south. They have large plantations of corn and potatoes, and they have built log-huts, a chapel for their religious services, and a house for their priest. I asked him distinctly whether they had erected these buildings themselves: he said they had. Here, in the encampment, the Roman Catholic Ottawas have erected a large temporary chapel of posts covered in with bark, the floor strewed over with green boughs and mats, and an altar and crucifix at the end. In front a bell is suspended between the forked branches of a pine. I have heard them sing mass here, with every demonstration of decency and piety. The Methodists have two congregations; the Indians of the Credit, under the direction of Peter Jones; and the Indians from Coldwater and the Narrows, under a preacher whose name I forget,--both zealous men; but the howling and weeping of these Methodist Indians, as they lie grovelling on the ground in their religious services, struck me painfully. Mr. MacMurray is the only missionary of the Church of England, and, with all his zeal, and his peculiar means of influence and success, it cannot be said that he is adequately aided and supported. "The English Church," said one of our most intelligent Indian agents, "either cannot or will not, certainly _does not_, sow; therefore cannot expect to reap." The zeal, activity, and benevolence of the travelling missionary Elliott are beyond all praise; but his ministry is devoted to the back settlers more than to the Indians. The Roman Catholic missions have been, of all, the most active and persevering; next to these the Methodists. The Presbyterian and the English Churches have been hitherto comparatively indifferent and negligent. * * * * * Information was brought to the superintendent, that a trader from Detroit, with a boat laden with whisky and rum, was lying concealed in a little cove near the entrance of the great bay, for the purpose of waylaying the Indians, and bartering the whisky for their new blankets, guns, and trinkets. I exclaimed with indignation!--but Mr. Jarvis did better than exclaim; he sent off the Blackbird, with a canoe full of stout men, to board the trader, and throw all the whisky into the lake, and then desire the owner to bring any complaint or claim for restitution down to Toronto; and this was done accordingly. The Blackbird is a Christian, and extremely noted for his general good conduct, and his declared enmity to the "dealers in fire-water." * * * * * INDIAN CIVILISATION. Yet a word more before I leave my Indians. There is one subject on which all travellers in these regions--all who have treated of the manners and modes of life of the north-west tribes, are accustomed to expatiate with great eloquence and indignation, which they think it incumbent on the gallantry and chivalry of Christendom to denounce, as constituting the true badge and distinction of barbarism and heathenism, opposed to civilisation and Christianity:--I mean the treatment and condition of their women. The women, they say, are "drudges," "slaves," "beasts of burthen," victims, martyrs, degraded, abject, oppressed; that not only the cares of the household and maternity, but the cares and labours proper to the men, fall upon them; and they seem to consider no expression of disapprobation, and even abhorrence, too strong for the occasion; and if there be any who should feel inclined to modify such objurgations, or speak in excuse or mitigation of the fact, he might well fear that the publication of such opinions would expose him, in every review, to the death of Orpheus or Pentheus. Luckily I have no such risk to run. Let but my woman's wit bestead me here as much as my womanhood, and I will, as the Indians say, "tell you a piece of my mind," and place the matter before you in another point of view. Under one aspect of the question, all these gentlemen travellers are right; they are right in their estimate of the condition of the Indian squaws--they _are_ drudges, slaves: and they are right in the opinion, that the condition of the women in any community is a test of the advance of moral and intellectual cultivation in that community; but it is not a test of the virtue or civilisation of the man; in these Indian tribes, where the men are the noblest and bravest of their kind, the women are held of no account, are despised and oppressed. But it does appear to me that the woman among these Indians holds her true natural position relatively to the state of the man and the state of society; and this cannot be said of all societies. Take into consideration, in the first place, that in these Indian communities the task of providing subsistence falls solely and entirely on the men. When it is said, in general terms, that the men do nothing but _hunt_ all day, while the women are engaged in perpetual _toil_, I suppose this suggests to civilised readers the idea of a party of gentlemen at Melton, or a turn-out of Mr. Meynell's hounds; or at most a deer-stalking excursion to the Highlands--a holiday affair; while the women, poor souls! must sit at home and sew, and spin, and cook victuals. But what is really the life of an Indian hunter?--one of incessant, almost killing toil, and often danger.[50] A hunter goes out at dawn, knowing that, if he returns empty, his wife and his little ones must _starve_--no uncommon predicament! He comes home at sunset, spent with fatigue, and unable even to speak. His wife takes off his moccasins, places before him what food she has, or, if latterly the chase has failed, probably no food at all, or only a little parched wild rice. She then examines his hunting-pouch, and in it finds the claws, or beak, or tongue of the game, or other indications by which she knows what it is, and where to find it. She then goes for it, and drags it home. When he is refreshed, the hunter caresses his wife and children, relates the events of his chase, smokes his pipe, and goes to sleep--to begin the same life on the following day. Where, then, the whole duty and labour of providing the means of subsistence, ennobled by danger and courage, fall upon the man, the woman naturally sinks in importance, and is a dependent drudge. But she is not therefore, I suppose, so _very_ miserable, nor, relatively, so very abject; she is sure of protection; sure of maintenance, at least while the man has it; sure of kind treatment; sure that she will never have her children taken from her but by death; sees none better off than herself, and has no conception of a superior destiny; and it is evident that in such a state the appointed and necessary share of the woman is the household work, and all other domestic labour. As to the necessity of carrying burthens, when moving the camp from place to place, and felling and carrying wood, this is the most dreadful part of her lot; and however accustomed from youth to the axe, the paddle, and the carrying-belt, it brings on internal injuries and severe suffering--and yet it _must_ be done. For a man to carry burthens would absolutely incapacitate him for a hunter, and consequently from procuring sufficient meat for his family. Hence, perhaps, the contempt with which they regard it. And an Indian woman is unhappy, and her pride is hurt, if her husband should be seen with a load on his back; this was strongly expressed by one among them who said it was "unmanly;" and that "she could not bear to see it!" Hence, however hard the lot of the woman, she is in no _false_ position. The two sexes are in their natural and true position relatively to the state of society, and the means of subsistence. The first step from the hunting to the agricultural state is the first step in the emancipation of the female. I know there are some writers who lament that the introduction of agriculture has not benefited the Indian women, but rather added to their toils, as a great proportion of the hoeing and planting has devolved on them; but among the Ottawas, where this is the case, the women are decidedly in a better state than among the hunting Chippewas; they can sell or dispose of the produce raised by themselves, if there be more than is necessary for the family, and they take some share in the bargains and business of the tribe: and add, that among all these tribes, in the division of the money payments for the ceded land, every woman receives her individual share. Lewis and Clarke, in exploring the Missouri, came upon a tribe of Indians who, from local circumstances, kill little game, and live principally on fish and roots; and as the women are equally expert with the men in procuring subsistence, they have a rank and influence very rarely found among Indians. The females are permitted to speak freely before the men, to whom indeed they sometimes address themselves in a tone of authority. On many subjects their judgment and opinion are respected, and in matters of trade their advice is generally asked and pursued; the labours of the family too are shared equally.[51] This seems to be a case in point. Then, when we speak of the _drudgery_ of the women, we must note the equal division of labour; there is no class of women privileged to sit still while others work. Every squaw makes the clothing, mats, moccasins, and boils the kettle for her own family. Compare her life with the refined leisure of an elegant woman in the higher classes of our society, and it is wretched and abject; but compare her life with that of a servant-maid of all work, or a factory-girl,--I do say that the condition of the squaw is gracious in comparison, dignified by domestic feelings, and by equality with all around her. If women are to be exempted from toil in reverence to the sex, and as _women_, I can understand this, though I think it unreasonable; but if it be merely a privilege of station, and confined to a certain set, while the great primeval penalty is doubled on the rest, then I do not see where is the great gallantry and consistency of this our Christendom, nor what right we have to look down upon the barbarism of the Indian savages who make _drudges_ of their women. I will just mention here the extreme delicacy and personal modesty of the women of these tribes, which may seem strange when we see them brought up and living in crowded wigwams, where a whole family is herded within a space of a few yards: but the lower classes of the Irish, brought up in their cabins, are remarkable for the same feminine characteristic: it is as if true modesty were from within, and could hardly be outwardly defiled. But to return. Another boast over the Indian savages in this respect is, that we set a much higher value on the chastity of women. We are told (with horror) that among some of the north-west tribes the man offers his wife or sister, nothing loth, to his guest, as a part of the duty of hospitality; and this is, in truth, _barbarism_!--the heartless brutality on one side, and the shameless indifference on the other, may well make a woman's heart shrink within her. But what right have civilised _men_ to exclaim, and look sublime and self-complacent about the matter? If they do not exactly imitate this fashion of the Indians, their exceeding and jealous reverence for the virtue of women is really indulged at a very cheap rate to themselves. If the chastity of women be a virtue, and respectable in the eyes of the community for its own sake, well and good; if it be a mere matter of expediency, and valuable only as it affects property, guarded by men just as far as it concerns their honour--as far as regards ours, a jest,--if this be the masculine creed of right and wrong--the fiat promulgated by our lords and masters, then I should reply that there is no woman, worthy the name, whose cheek does not burn in shame and indignation at the thought. With regard to female right of property, there is no such thing as real property among them, except the hunting-grounds or territory which are the possession of the tribe. The personal property, as the clothing, mats, cooking and hunting apparatus, all the interior of the wigwam, in short, seems to be under the control of the woman; and on the death of her husband the woman remains in possession of the lodge, and all it contains, except the medal, flag, or other insignia of dignity, which go to his son or male relatives. The corn she raises, and the maple sugar she makes, she can always dispose of as she thinks fit--they are _hers_. [Footnote 50: I had once a description of an encounter between my illustrious grandpapa Waub-Ojeeg and an enormous elk, in which he had to contend with the infuriated animal, for his very life, for a space of three hours, and the snows were stained with his blood and that of his adversary for a hundred yards round. At last, while dodging the elk round and round a tree, he contrived to tear off the thong from his moccasin, and with it, to fasten his knife to the end of a stick, and with this he literally hacked at the creature till it fell from loss of blood.] [Footnote 51: Travels up the Missouri.] INFLUENCE OF EUROPEANS. It seems to me a question whether the Europeans, who, Heaven knows, have much to answer for in their intercourse with these people, have not, in some degree, injured the cause of the Indian women:--first, by corrupting them; secondly, by checking the improvement of all their own peculiar manufactures. They prepared deer-skins with extraordinary skill; I have seen dresses of the mountain sheep and young buffalo skins, richly embroidered and almost equal in beauty and softness to a Cashmere shawl; and I could mention other things. It is reasonable to presume that as these manufactures must have been progressively improved, there might have been farther progression, had we not substituted for articles they could themselves procure or fabricate, those which we fabricate; we have taken the work out of their hands, and all motive to work, while we have created wants which they cannot supply. We have clothed them in blankets--we have not taught them to weave blankets. We have substituted guns for the bows and arrows--but they cannot make guns: for the natural progress of arts and civilisation springing from within, and from their own intelligence and resources, we have substituted a sort of civilisation from without, foreign to their habits, manners, organisation: we are making paupers of them; and this by a kind of terrible necessity. Some very economical members of our British parliament have remonstrated against the system of Indian presents, as too _expensive_; one would almost suppose, to hear their arguments, that pounds, shillings, and pence were the stuff of which life is made--the three primal elements of all human existence--all human morals. Surely they can know nothing of the real state of things here. If the issue of the presents from our government were now to cease, I cannot think without horror of what must ensue: trifling as they are, they are an Indian's existence; without the rifle he must die of hunger; without his blanket, perish of cold. Before he is reduced to this, we should have nightly plunder and massacre all along our frontiers and back settlements; a horrid brutalising contest like that carried on in Florida, in which the White man would be demoralised, and the Red man exterminated. The sole article of traffic with the Indians, their furs, is bartered for the necessaries of life; and these furs can _only_ be procured by the men. Thus their only trade, so far from tending to the general civilisation of the people, keeps up the wild hunting habits, and tells fearfully against the power and utility of the women, if it be not altogether fatal to any amelioration of their condition. Yet it should seem that we are ourselves just emerging from a similar state, only in another form. Until of late years there was no occupation for women by which a subsistence could be gained, except servitude in some shape or other. The change which has taken place in this respect is one of the most striking and interesting signs of the times in which we live. TRUE IMPORTANCE OF WOMAN. I must stop here: but may we not assume, as a general principle, that the true importance and real dignity of woman is every where, in savage and civilised communities, regulated by her capacity of being useful; or, in other words, that her condition is decided by the share she takes in providing for her own subsistence and the well being of society as a productive labourer? Where she is idle and useless by privilege of sex, a divinity and an idol, a victim or a toy, is not her position quite as lamentable, as false, as injurious to herself and all social progress, as where she is the drudge, slave, and possession of the man? * * * * * OUR ARRANGEMENTS. The ways through which my weary steps I guide, In this delightful land of faëry, Are so exceeding spacious and wide, And sprinkled with such sweet variety Of all that pleasant is to ear or eye, That I nigh ravish'd with rare thought's delight, My tedious travel doe forget thereby, And when I gin to feel decay of might, It strength to me supplies, and clears my dulled spright. Spenser. On the 6th of August I bade adieu to my good friends Mr. and Mrs. MacMurray. I had owed too much to their kindness to part from them without regret. They returned up the lake, with their beautiful child and Indian retinue, to St. Mary's, while I prepared to embark in a canoe with the superintendent, to go down the lake to Penetanguishene, a voyage of four days at least, supposing wind and weather to continue favourable. Thence to Toronto, across Lake Simcoe, was a journey of three days more. Always I have found efficient protection when I most needed and least expected it; and nothing could exceed the politeness of Mr. Jarvis and his people;--it _began_ with politeness,--but it ended with something more and better,--real and zealous kindness. VOYAGE DOWN LAKE HURON. Now to take things in order, and that you may accompany us in our canoe voyage, I must describe in the first place our arrangements. You shall confess ere long that the Roman emperor, who proclaimed a reward for the discovery of a new pleasure, ought to have made a voyage down Lake Huron in a birch-bark canoe. There were two canoes, each five-and-twenty feet in length, and four feet in width, tapering to the two extremities, and light, elegant, and buoyant as the sea-mew, when it skims the summer waves: in the first canoe were Mr. Jarvis and myself; the governor's son, a lively boy of fourteen or fifteen, old Solomon the interpreter, and seven voyageurs. My blankets and night-gear being rolled up in a bundle, served for a seat, and I had a pillow at my back; and thus I reclined in the bottom of the canoe, as in a litter, very much at my ease: my companions were almost equally comfortable. I had near me my cloak, umbrella, and parasol, note-books and sketch-books, and a little compact basket always by my side, containing eau de Cologne, and all those necessary luxuries which might be wanted in a moment, for I was well resolved that I would occasion no trouble but what was inevitable. The voyageurs were disposed on low wooden seats, suspended to the ribs of the canoe, except our Indian steersman, Martin, who, in a cotton shirt, arms bared to the shoulder, loose trowsers, a scarlet sash round his waist, richly embroidered with beads, and his long black hair waving, took his place in the stern, with a paddle twice as long as the others.[52] The manner in which he stood, turning and twisting himself with the lithe agility of a snake, and striking first on one side then on the other, was very graceful and picturesque. So much depends on the skill, and dexterity, and intelligence of these steersmen, that they have always double pay. The other men were all picked men, Canadian half-breeds, young, well-looking, full of glee and good-nature, with untiring arms and more untiring lungs and spirits; a handkerchief twisted round the head, a shirt and pair of trowsers, with a gay sash, formed the prevalent costume. We had on board a canteen, and other light baggage, two or three guns, and fishing tackle. The other canoe carried part of Mr. Jarvis's retinue, the heavy baggage, provisions, marquees, guns, &c., and was equipped with eight paddles. The party consisted altogether of twenty-two persons, twenty-one men, and myself, the only woman. We started off in swift and gallant style, looking grand and official, with the British flag floating at our stern. Major Anderson and his people, and the schooner's crew, gave us three cheers. The Indians uttered their wild cries, and discharged their rifles all along the shore. As we left the bay, I counted seventy-two canoes before us, already on their homeward voyage--some to the upper waters of the lake--some to the northern shores; as we passed them, they saluted us by discharging their rifles: the day was without a cloud, and it was altogether a most animated and beautiful scene. I forgot to tell you that the Indians are very fond of having pet animals in their wigwams, not only dogs, but tame foxes and hawks. Mr. Jarvis purchased a pair of young hawks, male and female, from an Indian, intending them for his children. Just as we left the island, one of these birds escaped from the basket, and flew directly to the shore of the bay, where it was lost in the thick forest. We proceeded, and after leaving the bay about twelve miles onwards, we landed on a little rocky island: some one heard the cry of a hawk over our heads; it was the poor bird we had lost; he had kept his companion in sight all the way, following us unseen along the shore, and now suffered himself to be taken and caged with the other. [Footnote 52: The common paddle (called by the Canadians _aviron_, and by the Indians _abwee_) is about two feet and a half long.] PURITY OF THE WATER. We bought some black-bass from an Indian who was spearing fish: and, _à propos_, I never yet have mentioned what is one of the greatest pleasures in the navigation of these magnificent upper lakes--the purity, the coldness, the transparency of the water. I have been told that if in the deeper parts of the lake a white handkerchief be sunk with the lead it is distinctly visible at a depth of thirty fathoms--we did not try the experiment, not being in deep water; but here, among shoals and islands, I could almost always see the rocky bottom, with glittering pebbles, and the fish gliding beneath us with their waving fins and staring eyes--and if I took a glass of water, it came up sparkling as from the well at Harrowgate, and the flavour was delicious. You can hardly imagine how much this added to the charm and animation of the voyage. About sunset, we came to the hut of a fur trader, whose name, I think, was Lemorondière; it was on the shore of a beautiful channel running between the mainland and a large island. On a neighbouring point, Wai-sow-win-de-bay (the Yellow-head) and his people were building their wigwams for the night. The appearance was most picturesque, particularly when the camp fires were lighted and the night came on. I cannot forget the figure of a squaw, as she stood, dark and tall, against the red flames, bending over a great black kettle, her blanket trailing behind her, her hair streaming on the night breeze;--most like to one of the witches in Macbeth. We supped here on excellent trout and white-fish, but the sand-flies and mosquitoes were horridly tormenting; the former, which are so diminutive as to be scarcely visible, were by far the worst. We were off next morning by daylight, the Yellow-head's people cracking their rifles by way of salute. The voyageurs measure the distance by _pipes_. At the end of a certain time there is a pause, and they light their pipes and smoke for about five minutes, then the paddles go off merrily again, at the rate of about fifty strokes in a minute, and we absolutely seem to fly over the water. "Trois pipes" are about twelve miles. We breakfasted this morning on a little island of exceeding beauty, rising precipitately from the water. In front we had the open lake, lying blue, and bright, and serene, under the morning sky, and the eastern extremity of the Manitoolin Island; and islands all around as far as we could see. The feeling of remoteness, of the profound solitude, added to the sentiment of beauty: it was nature in her first freshness and innocence, as she came from the hand of her Maker, and before she had been sighed upon by humanity--defiled at once, and sanctified by the contact. Our little island abounded with beautiful shrubs, flowers, green mosses, and scarlet lichens. I found a tiny recess, where I made my bath and toilette very comfortably. On returning, I found breakfast laid on a piece of rock; my seat, with my pillow and cloak all nicely arranged, and a bouquet of flowers lying on it. This was a never-failing _galanterie_, sometimes from one, sometimes from another of my numerous _cavaliers_. GROUP OF ISLANDS. This day we had a most delightful run among hundreds of islands; sometimes darting through narrow rocky channels, so narrow that I could not see the water on either side of the canoe; and then emerging, we glided through vast fields of white water-lilies; it was perpetual variety, perpetual beauty, perpetual delight and enchantment, from hour to hour. The men sang their gay French songs, the other canoe joining in the chorus. This peculiar singing has often been described; it is very animated on the water and in the open air, but not very harmonious. They all sing in unison, raising their voices and marking the time with their paddles. One always led, but in these there was a diversity of taste and skill. If I wished to hear "En roulant ma boule, roulette," I applied to Le Duc. Jacques excelled in "La belle rose blanche," and Lewis was great in "Trois canards s'en vont baignant." They often amused me by a specimen of dexterity, something like that of an accomplished whip in London. They would paddle up towards the rocky shore with such extreme velocity, that I expected to be dashed on the rock, and then in a moment, by a simultaneous back-stroke of the paddle, stop with a jerk, which made me breathless. My only discomposure arose from the destructive propensities of the gentlemen, all keen and eager sportsmen; the utmost I could gain from their mercy was, that the fish should gasp to death out of my sight, and the pigeons and the wild ducks be put out of pain instantly. I will, however, acknowledge, that when the bass-fish and pigeons were produced, broiled and fried, they looked so _appétissants_, smelt so savoury, and I was _so_ hungry, that I soon forgot all my sentimental pity for the victims. We found to-day, on a rock, the remains of an Indian lodge, over which we threw a sail-cloth, and dined luxuriously on our fish and pigeons, and a glass of good madeira. After dinner, the men dashed off with great animation, singing my favourite ditty, "Si mon moine voulait danser, Un beau cheval lui donnerai!" through groups of lovely islands, sometimes scattered wide, and sometimes clustered so close, that I often mistook twenty or thirty together for one large island; but on approaching nearer, they opened before us and appeared intersected by winding labyrinthine channels, where, amid flags and water-lilies, beneath the shade of rich embowering foliage, we glided on our way; and then we came upon a wide open space, where we could feel the heave of the waters under us, and across which the men--still singing with untiring vivacity--paddled with all their might to reach the opposite islands before sunset. The moment it becomes too dark for our steersman to see _through_ the surface of the water, it becomes in the highest degree dangerous to proceed; such is the frail texture of these canoes, that a pin's point might scratch a hole in the bottom; a sunk rock, or a _snag_ or projecting bough--and often we glided within an inch of them--had certainly swamped us. We passed this day two Indian sepulchres, on a point of rock, with the sparkling waters murmuring round it, and over-shadowed by birch and pine. I landed to examine them. The Indians cannot here _bury_ their dead, there not being a sufficiency of earth to cover them from sight, but they lay the body, wrapped up carefully in bark, on the flat rock, and then cover it over with rocks and stones. This was the tomb of a woman and her child, and fragments of the ornaments and other things buried with them were still perceptible. We landed at sunset on a flat ledge of rock, free from bushes, which we avoided as much as possible, from fear of mosquitoes and rattle-snakes; and while the men pitched the marquees and cooked supper, I walked and mused. I wish I could give you the least idea of the beauty of this evening; but while I try to put in words what was before me, the sense of its ineffable loveliness overpowers me _now_ even as it did then. The sun had set in that cloudless splendour, and that peculiar blending of rose and amber light that belongs only to these climes and Italy; the lake lay weltering under the western sky like a bath of molten gold; the rocky islands which studded its surface were of a dense purple, except where their edges seemed fringed with fire. They assumed, to the visionary eye, strange forms; some were like great horned beetles, and some like turtles, and some like crocodiles, and some like sleeping whales, and winged fishes. The foliage upon them resembled dorsal fins, and sometimes tufts of feathers: then, as the purple shadows came darkening from the east, the young crescent moon showed herself, flinging a paly splendour over the water. I remember standing on the shore, "my spirits as in a dream were all bound up," and overcome by such an intense feeling of _the beautiful_, such a deep adoration for the power that had created it, I must have suffocated if---- But why tell _you_ this? They pitched my tent at a _respectful_ distance from the rest, and made me a delicious elastic bed of some boughs, over which was spread a bear-skin, and over that blankets: but the night was hot and feverish. The voyageurs, after rowing since daylight, were dancing and singing on the shore till near midnight. Next morning we were off again at early dawn, paddled "trois pipes" before breakfast, over an open space which they call a "traverse," caught eleven bass-fish, and shot two pigeons. The island on which we breakfasted was in great part white marble; and in the clefts and hollows grew quantities of gooseberries and raspberries, wild roses, the crimson columbine, a large species of harebell, a sort of willow, juniper, birch, and stunted pine, and such was the usual vegetation. It is beautiful to see in these islands the whole process of preparatory vegetation unfolded and exemplified before one's eyes, each successive growth preparing a soil for that which is to follow. There was first the naked rock washed by the spray, where the white gulls were sitting: then you saw the rock covered with some moss or lichens; then in the clefts and seams, some long grass, a few wild flowers and strawberries; then a few juniper and rose bushes; then the dwarf pine, hardly rising two or three feet, and lastly trees and shrubs of large growth; and the nearer to the mainland, the richer of course the vegetation, for the seeds are wafted thence by the winds, or carried by the birds, and so dispersed from island to island. ISLAND OF SKULLS. We landed to-day on the "Island of Skulls," an ancient sepulchre of the Hurons. Some skulls and bones were scattered about, with the rough stones which had once been heaped over them. The spot was most wild and desolate, rising from the water edge in successive ledges of rock to a considerable height, with a few blasted gray pines here and there, round which several pair of hawks were wheeling and uttering their shrill cry. We all declared we would not dine on this ominous island, and proceeded. We doubled a remarkable cape mentioned by Henry as the _Pointe aux Grondines_. There is always a heavy swell here, and a perpetual sound of breakers on the rocks, whence its name. Only a few years ago a trader in his canoe, with sixteen people, were wrecked and lost on this spot. We also passed within some miles of the mouth of the Rivière des Français, the most important of all the rivers which flow into Lake Huron.[53] It forms the line of communication for the north-west traders from Montreal; the common route is up the Ottawa River, across Lake Nippissing, and down the River Français into Lake Huron, and by the Sault-Sainte-Marie into Lake Superior. Pray have a map before you during this voyage. Leaving behind this cape and river, we came again upon lovely groups of Elysian islands, channels winding among rocks and foliage, and more fields of water-lilies. In passing through a beautiful channel, I had an opportunity of seeing the manner in which an Indian communicates with his friends when _en route_. A branch was so arranged as to project far across the water and catch the eye: in a cleft at the extremity a piece of birch bark was stuck with some hieroglyphic marks scratched with red ochre, of which we could make nothing--one figure, I thought, represented a fish. To-day we caught eleven bass, shot four pigeons, also a large water-snake--which last I thought a gratuitous piece of cruelty. We dined upon a large and picturesque island--large in comparison with those we usually selected, being perhaps two or three miles round; it was very woody and wild, intersected by deep ravines, and rising in bold, abrupt precipices. We dined luxuriously under a group of trees: the heat was overpowering, and the mosquitoes very troublesome. After dinner we pursued our course through an archipelago of islets, rising out of the blue waves, and fringed with white water-lilies. Little fairy Edens, of such endless variety in form and colour, and of such wondrous and fantastic beauty, I know not how to describe them. We landed on one, where there was a rock so exactly resembling the head and part of a turtle, that I could have taken it for sculpture. The Indians look upon it as sacred, and it is customary for all who pass to leave an offering in money, tobacco, corn, &c., to the spirit. I duly left mine, but I could see by the laughing eyes of Jacques and Louis, that "the spirit" was not likely to be the better for my devotion. Mr. Jarvis asked me to sing a French song for the voyageurs, and Louis looked back with his bright arch face, as much as to say, "Pray do," when a shout was heard from the other canoe "A mink! A mink!"[54] and all the paddles were now in animated motion. We dashed up among the reeds, we chased the creature up and down, and at last to a hole under a rock; the voyageurs beat the reeds with their paddles, the gentlemen seized their guns; there were twenty-one men half frantic in pursuit of a wretched little creature, whose death could serve no purpose. It dived, but rose a few yards farther, and was seen making for the land: a shot was fired, it sprang from the water; another, and it floated dead;--thus we repaid the beauty, and enjoyment, and lavish loveliness spread around us with pain and with destruction. I recollect that as we passed a lovely bit of an island, all bordered with flags and white lilies, we saw a beautiful wild-duck emerge from a green covert, and lead into the lake a numerous brood of ducklings. It was a sight to touch the heart with a tender pleasure, and I pleaded hard, very hard, for mercy; but what thorough sportsman ever listened to such a word? The deadly guns were already levelled, and even while I spoke, the poor mother-bird was shot, and the little ones, which could not fly, went fluttering and scudding away into the open lake, to perish miserably. But what was really very touching was to see the poor gulls: sometimes we would startle a whole bevy of them as they were floating gracefully on the waves, and they would rise soaring away beyond our reach; but the voyageurs suspending their paddles, imitated exactly their own soft low whistle; and then the wretched, foolish birds, just as if they had been so many women, actually wheeled round in the air, and came flying back to meet the "fiery wound." The voyageurs eat these gulls, in spite of their fishy taste, with great satisfaction. I wonder how it is that some of those gentry whom I used to see in London, looking as though they would give an empire for a new pleasure or a new sensation, do not come here? If epicures, they should come to eat white-fish and beavers' tails; if sportsmen, here is a very paradise for bear-hunting, deer-hunting, otter-hunting;--and wild-fowl in thousands, and fish in shoals; and if they be contemplative lovers of the picturesque, _blasés_ with Italy and elbowed out of Switzerland, let them come here and find the true philosopher's stone--or rather the true elixir of life--_novelty!_ [Footnote 53: This part of Lake Huron, and indeed all its upper shores, are very incorrectly laid down in Wyld's map of Upper Canada. Bouchette's large map, and also a beautiful small one published by Blackwood in 1833, are much more accurate.] [Footnote 54: A species of otter.] THE BEAR ISLANDS. At sunset we encamped on a rocky island of most fantastic form, like a Z. They pitched my tent on a height, and close to the door was a precipitous descent into a hollow, where they lighted vast fires, and thus kept off the mosquitoes, which were in great force. I slept well, but towards morning some creature crept into my tent and over my bed--a snake, as I supposed; after this I slept no more. We started at half-past four. Hitherto the weather had been glorious; but this morning the sun rose among red and black clouds, fearfully ominous. As we were turning a point under some lofty rocks, we heard the crack of a rifle, and saw an Indian leaping along the rocks, and down towards the shore. We rowed in, not knowing what it meant, and came upon a night-camp of Indians, part of the tribe of Aisence (the Clam). They had only hailed us to make some trifling inquiries; and I heard Louis, sotto voce, send them _au diable_!--for now the weather lowered darker and darker, and every moment was precious. We breakfasted on an island almost covered with flowers, some gorgeous, and strange, and unknown, and others sweet and familiar; plenty of the wild pea, for instance, and wild-roses, of which I had many offerings. I made my toilette in a recess among some rocks; but just as I was emerging from my primitive dressing-room, I felt a few drops of rain, and saw too clearly that our good fortune was at an end. We swallowed a hasty breakfast, and had just time to arrange ourselves in the canoe with all the available defences of cloaks and umbrellas, when the rain came down heavily and hopelessly. But notwithstanding the rain and the dark gray sky, the scenery was even more beautiful than ever. The islands were larger, and assumed a richer appearance; the trees were of more luxuriant growth, no longer the dwarfed pine, but lofty oak and maple. These are called the Bear Islands, from the number of those animals found upon them; old Solomon told me that an Indian whom he knew had shot nine bears in the course of a single day. We found three bears' heads stuck upon the boughs of a dead pine--probably as offerings to the souls of the slaughtered animals, or to the "Great Spirit," both being usual. We dined on a wet rock, almost covered with that species of lichen which the Indians call wa,ac, and the Canadians _tripe de roche_, because, when boiled till soft, and then fried in grease, it makes a dish not unpalatable--when one has nothing else.[55] The Clam and some of his people landed and dined at the same time. After dinner the rain came on worse and worse. Old Solomon asked me once or twice how I felt; and I thought his anxiety for my health was caused by the rain; but no; he told me that on the island where we had dined he had observed a great quantity of a certain plant, which, if only touched, causes a dreadful eruption and ulcer all over the body. I asked why he had not shown it to me, and warned me against it? he replied, that such warning would only have increased the danger, for when there is any knowledge or apprehension of it existing in the mind, the very air blowing from it sometimes infects the frame. Here I appealed to Mr. Jarvis, who replied, "All I know is, that I once unconsciously touched a leaf of it, and became one ulcer from head to foot; I could not stir for a fortnight."[56] This was a dreadful day, for the rain came on more violently, accompanied by a storm of wind. It was necessary to land early, and make our fires for the night. The good-natured men were full of anxiety and compassion for me, poor, lonely, shivering woman that I was in the midst of them! The first thought with every one was to place me under shelter, and my tent was pitched instantly with such zeal, and such activity, that the sense of inconvenience and suffering was forgotten in the thankful sense of kindness, and all things became endurable. The tent was pitched on a height, so that the water ran off on all sides: I contrived for myself a dry bed, and Mr. Jarvis brought me some hot madeira. I rolled myself up in my German blanket, and fell into a deep, sound sleep. The voyageurs, who apparently need nothing but their own good spirits to feed and clothe them, lighted a great fire, turned the canoes upside down, and, sheltered under them, were heard singing and laughing during great part of this tempestuous night. Next morning we were off by five o'clock. My beautiful lake looked horribly sulky, and all the little islands were lost in a cold gray vapour: we were now in the Georgian Bay. Through the misty atmosphere loomed a distant shore of considerable height. Dupré told me that what I saw was the Isle des Chrétiens, and that formerly there was a large settlement of the Jesuits there, and that still there were to be seen the remains of "une grande cathédrale." About nine o'clock we entered the bay of Penetanguishene, so called from a high sand-bank at the entrance, which is continually crumbling away. The expressive Indian name signifies "Look! it is falling sand!" [Footnote 55: It is often mentioned in the Travels of Back and Franklin.] [Footnote 56: I do not know the botanical name of this plant, which resembles a dwarf sumach: it was subsequently pointed out to me in the woods by a Methodist preacher, who told me that his daughter, merely by standing to windward of the plant while looking at it, suffered dreadfully. It is said that formerly the Indians used it to poison their arrows.] * * * * * PENETANGUISHENE. We spent the greater part of two days at Penetanguishene, which is truly a most lovely spot. The bay runs up into the land like some of the Scottish lochs, and the shores are bolder and higher than usual, and as yet all clothed with the primeval forest. During the war there were dockyards and a military and naval depôt here, maintained at an immense expense to government; and it is likely, from its position, to rise into a station of great importance; at present, the only remains of all the warlike demonstrations of former times are a sloop sunk and rotting in the bay, and a large stone-building at the entrance, called the "Fort," but merely serving as barracks for a few soldiers from the garrison at Toronto. There are several pretty houses on the beautiful declivity, rising on the north side of the bay, and the families settled here have contrived to assemble round them many of the comforts and elegancies of life. I have reason to remember with pleasure a Russian lady, the wife of an English officer, who made my short sojourn here very agreeable. There was an inn here, not the worst of Canadian inns; and the _wee_ closet called a bed-room, and the little bed with its white cotton curtains appeared to me the _ne plus ultra_ of luxury. I recollect walking in and out of the room ten times a day for the mere pleasure of contemplating it, and anticipated with impatience the moment when I should throw myself down into it, and sleep once more on a christian bed. But nine nights passed in the open air, or on rocks, and on boards, had spoiled me for the comforts of civilisation, and to sleep _on a bed_ was impossible; I was smothered, I was suffocated, and altogether wretched and fevered;--I sighed for my rock on Lake Huron. THE COMMUTED PENSIONERS. At Penetanguishene there is a hamlet, consisting of twenty or thirty log-houses, where a small remnant of the poor commuted pensioners (in all a hundred and twenty-six persons) now reside, receiving daily rations of food, and some little clothing, just sufficient to sustain life. From some particular circumstances the case of these commuted pensioners was frequently brought under my observation while I was in Canada, and excited my strongest interest and compassion. I shall give you a brief sketch of this tragedy, for such it truly is; not by way of exciting sympathy, which can now avail nothing, but because it is in many points of view fraught with instruction. The commuted pensioners were veteran soldiers, entitled to a small yearly pension for wounds or length of service, and who accepted the offer made to them by our government in 1832, to commute their pensions for four years' purchase, and a grant of one hundred acres of land in Canada. The _intention_ of the government seems to have been to send out able-bodied men, who would thus cease, after a few years, to be a burthen on the country. A part of the money due to them was to be deducted for their voyage and expenses out; of the remaining sum a part was to be paid in London, part at Quebec, and the rest when settled on the land awarded to them. These _intentions_ sound well; unluckily they were not properly acted upon. Some received the whole of the money due to them in England, and drank themselves to death, or squandered it, and then refused to leave the country. Some drank themselves to death, or died of the cholera, at Quebec; and of those who came out, one half were described to me[57] as presenting a list of all the miseries and diseases incident to humanity--some with one arm, some with one leg, bent with old age or rheumatism, lame, halt, and even, will it be believed, blind![58] And such were the men to be set down in the midst of the swamp and forest, there to live as they could. When some few, who had been more provident, presented themselves to the commissary at Toronto for payment of the rest of the money due to them, it was found that the proper papers had not been forwarded; they were written for to the Chelsea Board, which had to apply to the War-office, which had to apply to the Treasury: the papers, after being bandied about from office to office, from clerk to secretary, from secretary to clerk, were sent, at length, after a lapse of eight or ten months, during which time the poor men, worn out with suspense, had taken to begging, or to drinking, in utter despondency; and when the order for their money _did_ at last arrive, they had become useless, abandoned creatures. Those who were located were sent far up into the bush (there being no disposable government lands nearer), where there were no roads, no markets for their produce if they _did_ raise it; and in this new position, if their hearts did not sink, and their limbs fail at once, their ignorance of farming, their improvidence and helplessness, arising from the want of self-dependence, and the mechanical docility of military service, were moral obstacles stronger than any physical ones. The forest-trees they had to contend with were not more deeply rooted than the adverse habits and prejudices and infirmities they had brought with them. According to the commissary, the number of those who commuted their pensions was about twelve hundred. Of these it is calculated that eight hundred reached Upper Canada; of these eight hundred, not more than four hundred and fifty are now living; and of these, some are begging through the townships, living on public charity: some are at Penetanguishene: and the greater part of those located on their land, have received from time to time rations of food, in order to avert "impending starvation." To bring them up from Quebec during the dreadful cholera season in 1832, was a heavy expense to the colony, and now they are likely to become a permanent burthen upon the colonial funds, there being no military funds to which they can be charged. I make no reflection on the commuting the pensions of these poor men at four instead of seven years' purchase: many of the men I saw did not know what was meant by _commuting their pension:_ they thought they merely gave up their pension for four years, and were then to receive it again; they knew nothing of Canada--had never heard of it--had a vague idea that a very fine offer was made, which it would be foolish to refuse. They were like children--which, indeed, disbanded soldiers and sailors usually are. All that benevolence and prudence _could_ suggest, was done for them by Sir John Colborne[59]: he aided them largely from his own purse--himself a soldier and a brave one, as well as a good man--the wrongs and miseries of these poor soldiers wrung his very heart. The strongest remonstrances and solicitations to the heads of the government at home were sent over in their behalf; but there came a change of ministry; the thing once done, could not be undone--redress was nobody's business--the mother country had got rid of a burthen, and it had fallen on Canada; and so the matter ended;--that is, as far as it concerned the Treasury and the War-office; but the tragedy has not yet ended _here_. Sir Francis Head, who never can allude to the subject without emotion and indignation, told me, that when he was at Penetanguishene last year, the poor veterans attempted to get up a feeble cheer in his honour, but, in doing so, the half of them fell down. "It was too much for me--too much," added he, with the tears actually in his eyes. As for Sir John Colborne, the least allusion to the subject seemed to give him a twinge of pain. From this sum of mischief and misery you may subtract a few instances where the men have done better; one of these I had occasion to mention. I have heard of two others, and there may be more, but the general case is as I have stated it. These were the men who fought our battles in Egypt, Spain, and France! and here is a new page for Alfred de Vigny's "Servitude et Grandeur Militaire!" But do you not think it includes another lesson? That this amount of suffering, and injury, and injustice can be inflicted, from the errors, ignorance, and remoteness of the home government, and that the responsibility apparently rests nowhere--and that nowhere lies redress--seems to me a very strange, a very lamentable state of things, and what _ought_ not to be. [Footnote 57: I have these particulars from the chief of the commissariat in Upper Canada, and the emigrant agent.] [Footnote 58: One of these men, stone-blind, was begging in the streets of Toronto.] [Footnote 59: Now Lord Seaton.] * * * * * DRIVE OVER THE NARROWS. Our voyageurs had spent the day in various excesses, and next morning were still half tipsy, lazy, and out of spirits, except Le Duc; he was the only one I could persuade to sing, as we crossed Gloucester Bay from Penetanguishene to Coldwater. This bay abounds in sturgeon, which are caught and cured in large quantities by the neighbouring settlers; some weigh ninety and one hundred pounds. At Matchadash (which signifies "bad and swampy place") we had nearly lost our way among the reeds. There is a portage here of sixteen miles across the forest to the Narrows, at the head of Lake Simcoe. The canoe and baggage were laid on a cart, and drawn by oxen; the gentlemen walked, as I must also have done, if a Methodist preacher of the neighbourhood had not kindly brought his little waggon and driven me over the portage. We stopped about half-way at his log-hut in the wilderness, where I found his wife, a pretty, refined looking woman, and five or six lovely children, of all ages and sizes. They entertained me with their best, and particularly with delicious preserves, made of the wood-strawberries and raspberries, boiled with the maple sugar. The country here (after leaving the low swamps) is very rich, and the settlers fast increasing. During the last winter the bears had the audacity to carry off some heifers to the great consternation of the new settlers, and the wolves did much mischief. I inquired about the Indian settlements at Coldwater and the Narrows; but the accounts were not encouraging. I had been told, as a proof of the advancement of the Indians, that they had here saw-mills and grist-mills. I now learned that they had a saw-mill and a grist-mill built for them, which they never used themselves, but _let out_ to the white settlers at a certain rate. The road through the forest was bordered in many places by wild raspberry bushes, bearing fruit as fine, and large, and abundant as any I have seen in our gardens. In spite of the mosquitoes, my drive was very pleasant; for my companion was good-natured, intelligent, and communicative, and gave me a most interesting, but rather sad, account of his missionary adventures. The road was, _as usual_, most detestable. We passed a lovely little lake called Bass Lake, from the numbers of these fish found in it; and arrived late at the inn at the Narrows. Though much fatigued, I was kept awake nearly the whole night by the sounds of drunken revelry in the room below. Many of the settlers in the neighbourhood are discharged soldiers and half-pay officers, who have received grants of land; and, removed from all social intercourse and all influence of opinion, many have become reckless and habitual drunkards. The only salvation of a man here is to have a wife and children; the poor wife must make up her mind to lead a hard life; but the children are almost _sure_ to do well--that is, if they have intelligent parents: it is the very land for the young, and the enterprising. I used to hear parents regret that they could not give what is called a _good_ education to their children: but where there are affection and common sense, and a boundless nature round them, and the means of health and subsistence, which (with common industry) all can command here, it seems that education--_i. e._ the development of all the faculties in a direction suited to the country in which they are to exist--comes of course. I saw an example of this in the excellent family at Erindale; but those persons are unfortunate and miserable, and truly pitiable, who come here with habits previously formed, and unable to adapt themselves to an entirely new existence--of such I saw too many. My landlady gave me no agreeable picture of the prevalent habits of the settlers round this place; the riot of which I complained was of nightly occurrence. LAKE CUCHUCHING. Next day we went on a fishing and shooting excursion to Lake Cuchuching, and to see the beautiful rapids of the river Severn, the outlet from these lakes into Lake Huron. If I had not exhausted all my superlatives of delight, I could be eloquent on the charms of this exquisite little lake, and the wild beauty of the rapids. Of our _sport_, I only recollect the massacre of a dozen snakes, which were holding a kind of conversazione in the hollow of a rocky islet where we landed to dine. The islands in Lake Cuchuching belong to the Indian chief, the Yellow-head; and I understand that he and others of his tribe have lately petitioned for _legal titles_ to their reserved lands. They represent to their Father the governor that their prosperity is retarded from the circumstance of their not having titles to their lands, like their white brethren. They say, "Many of our young men, and some of our chiefs, fear that the time will arrive when our white brethren will possess themselves of our farms; whereas, if our Father the governor would be pleased to grant us titles, we should work with more confidence,"--and they _humbly_ entreat (these original lords of the soil!) as a particular boon, that their "little bits of land" may be secured to their children and posterity for ever. Next morning we embarked on board the Peter Robinson steamer, and proceeded down Lake Simcoe. This most beautiful piece of water is above forty miles in length, and about twenty in breadth, and is in winter so firmly frozen over, that it is crossed in sledges in every direction. The shores are flat and fertile; and we passed a number of clearings, some very extensive. On a point projecting into the lake, and surrounded by cleared land, a village has been laid out, and some houses built. I went into one of them to rest while they were taking in wood, and found there the works of Shakspeare and Walter Scott, and a good guitar; but the family were absent. REACH THE HOLLAND LANDING. We reached the Holland Landing, at the southern extremity of the lake, about three o'clock; and the rest of our way lay through the Home District, and through some of the finest land and most prosperous estates in Upper Canada. It was a perpetual succession, not of clearings, such as I had seen of late, but of well-cultivated farms. The vicinity of the capital, and an excellent road leading to it (called Yonge Street), have raised the value of landed property here, and some of the farmers are reputed rich men. Mr. Jarvis gave me an account of an Irish emigrant, a labouring man, who had entered his service some years ago as teamster (or carter); he was then houseless and penniless. Seven years afterwards the same man was the proprietor of a farm of two hundred acres of cleared and cropped land, on which he could proudly set his foot, and say, "It is mine, and my children's after me!" ARRIVE HOME AT TORONTO. At three o'clock in the morning, just as the moon was setting in Lake Ontario, I arrived at the door of my own house in Toronto, having been absent on this wild expedition just two months. THE END. London: Spottiswoodes and Shaw, New-street-Square. =Transcriber's Notes:= original hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the original various pages, "Mac Murray" changed to "MacMurray" Page 10, "bnt" changed to "but" Page 23, "where the houses a" changed to "where the houses are" Page 32, "and our innocnece" changed to "and our innocence" Page 34, "Gesprache mit Goethe" changed to "Gespräche mit Goethe" Page 44, "ten years ago," changed to "ten years ago." Page 49, "Felix Mendelsohn" changed to "Felix Mendelssohn" Page 50, "terapin" changed to "terrapin" Page 58, "the last war," changed to "the last war" Page 65, "so many others;" changed to "so many others," Page 72, "ix Nations." changed to "Six Nations." Page 84, "I proceeded" changed to "I proceeded." Page 98, "have yet seen" changed to "have yet seen." Page 99, "farther to night" changed to "farther to-night" Page 121, "n couple of oxen" changed to "a couple of oxen" Page 121, "keep of the mosquitoes" changed to "keep off the mosquitoes" Page 124, "The war of 1813" changed to "The war of 1812" Page 149, "Pottowattomies" changed to "Pottowottomies" [Ed. for consistency] Page 151, "Ottowas" changed to "Ottawas" [Ed. for consistency] Page 152, "Pottowattomies" changed to "Pottowottomies" [Ed. for consistency] Page 161, "music and sing ing" changed to "music and singing" Page 170, "June 20" changed to "July 20" Page 171, "On the oppsoite side" changed to "On the opposite side" Page 182, "had been instructed,," changed to "had been instructed," Page 189, 'left him in peace.' changed to 'left him in peace."' Page 200, "brother!--'Never!" changed to "brother!"--'Never!" Page 201, "he left the wigwan" changed to "he left the wigwam" Page 203, "Wawatam" changed to "Wa,wa,tam" Page 234, "Ottagamis" changed to "Ottagamies" [Ed. for consistency] Page 236, "Manitooling" changed to "Manitoolin" Page 264, "wortle-berries" changed to "whortleberries" Page 273 footnote, "Penetanguishnie" changed to "Penetanguishine" Page 277, "Pottowottomi" changed to "Pottowottomie" [Ed. for consistency] Page 282, "Shinguacose" changed to "Shinguaconse" [Ed. for consistency] Page 296, "andfishing tackle" changed to "and fishing tackle" 
48194	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. Page 3: "+JOHN JOSEPH LYNCH"--the + denotes a cross symbol. * * * * * [Illustration: cover] [Illustration: Ryerson statue] RYERSON MEMORIAL VOLUME: PREPARED ON THE OCCASION OF THE UNVEILING OF THE RYERSON STATUE IN THE GROUNDS OF THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT ON THE QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY, 1889. BY J. GEORGE HODGINS, M.A., LL.D., BARRISTER-AT-LAW, AND DEPUTY MINISTER OF EDUCATION. _TORONTO_: PRINTED BY WARWICK & SONS 68 AND 70 FRONT STREET WEST. 1889. PREFATORY NOTE. I have two reasons to give for the part which I have taken in the preparation of the latter part of this Memorial Volume. The first is mentioned in the following paragraph from the brief _resumé_ of the historical and personal facts given in the volume, and which I read on the day of the unveiling of the statue, as follows:-- "It devolves upon me, as Chairman of the (Ryerson Memorial Statue) Committee, and at the kind request of my colleagues--no less than as the life-long friend and fellow-labourer of him whose deeds and memory we honour to-day--to trace back to their source the origin and underlying principles of our system of education, and to show that these underlying principles and other vital forces were so combined by a master-hand as to form the groundwork, as they have, in their combination, become the charter of our educational system of to-day." The second reason is contained in the following paragraphs--containing a brief record of Dr. Ryerson's thirty-two years in the Public Service, taken from _The Story of My Life_, page 351. "During my connection with the Education Department--from 1844 to 1876--I made five educational tours of inspection and enquiry to educating countries in Europe and the United States. I made an official tour through each county in Upper Canada, once in every five years, to hold a County Convention of municipal councillors, clergy, school trustees, teachers and local superintendents, and thus developed the School system as the result of repeated inquiries in foreign countries, and the freest consultation with my fellow-citizens of all classes, in the several County Conventions, as well as on many other occasions. "During the nearly thirty-two years of my administration of the Education Department, I met with strong opposition at first from individuals--some on personal, others on religious and political grounds; but that opposition was, for most part, partial and evanescent. During these years I had the support of each successive administration of Government, whether of one party or the other, and, at length, the co-operation of all religious persuasions; so that in 1876 I was allowed to retire, with the good-will of all political parties and religious denominations, and without diminution of my public means of subsistence. "I leave to Dr. J. George Hodgins, my devoted friend of over forty years, and my able colleague for over thirty of these years, the duty of filling up the details of our united labours in founding a system of education for my native Province which is spoken of in terms of strong commendation, not only within, but by people outside of the Dominion."[1] [1] It is the purpose of the writer of this Retrospect (in accordance with Dr. Ryerson's oft expressed wish) to prepare another volume, giving, from private letters, memoranda, and various documents, a personal history of the founding and vicissitudes of our educational system from 1844 to 1876 inclusive. My own estimate of Dr. Ryerson's educational life and labours is contained in the following paragraphs, which were written by me in 1883:-- Dr. Ryerson's fame in the future will mainly rest upon the fact that he was a distinguished Canadian Educationist, and the Founder of a great system of Public Education for Upper Canada. What makes this distinguishing excellence in his case the more marked, was the fact that the soil on which he had to labour was unprepared, and the social condition of the country was unpropitious. English ideas of schools for the poor, supported by subscriptions and voluntary offerings, prevailed in Upper Canada; free schools were unknown; the very principle on which they rest--that is, that the ratable property of the country is responsible for the education of the youth of the land--was denounced as communistic and an invasion of the rights of property; while "compulsory education"--the proper and necessary complement of free schools--was equally denounced as of the essence of "Prussian despotism," and an impertinent and unjustifiable interference with "the rights of British subjects." It was a reasonable boast at the time that only systems of popular education, based upon the principle of free schools, were possible in the republican American States, where the wide diffusion of education was regarded as a prime necessity for the stability and success of republican institutions, and, therefore, was fostered with unceasing care. It was the theme on which the popular orator loved to dilate to a people on whose sympathies with the subject he could always confidently reckon. The practical mind of Dr. Ryerson, however, at once saw that the American idea of free schools was the true one. He moreover perceived that by giving his countrymen facilities for freely discussing the question among the ratepayers once a year, they would educate themselves into the idea, without any interference from the State. These facilities were provided in 1850; and for twenty-one years the question of free schools _versus_ rate-bill schools (fees, etc.) was discussed every January in from 3,000 to 5,000 school sections, until free schools became voluntarily the rule, and rate-bill schools the exception. In 1871, by common consent, the free school principle was incorporated into our school system by the Legislature, and has ever since been the universal practice. In the adoption of this principle, and in the successful administration of the Education Department, Dr. Ryerson at length demonstrated that a popular (or, as it had been held in the United States, the democratic) system of public schools was admirably adapted to our monarchical institutions. In point of fact, leading American educationists have often pointed out that the Canadian system of public education was more efficient in all of its details, most practically successful in its results, than was the ordinary American school system in any one of the States of the Union. Thus it is that the fame of Dr. Ryerson as a successful founder of our educational system, rests upon a solid basis. What has been done by him will not be undone; and the ground gone over by him will not require to be traversed again. But I forbear, as I hope to devote a volume to the private and personal history of our educational system. * * * * * The first part of this volume contains an interesting account from the leading daily papers of Toronto of the ceremony of unveiling the great statue to a distinguished native of Ontario and a truly representative man--representative of her enterprize, energy and progress. As such, many of the leading men of the Province assembled on the Queen's Birthday to do honour to his memory. It also contains the addresses in full of those gentlemen who were appointed by their respective institutions, etc., to that duty, and who kindly consented to take part in the ceremonies and proceedings of the day. The second part of the volume contains a statement of the origin, with illustrations, of the underlying principles of our system of education--primary, secondary and university. There has also been added at the end some historical and personal sketches--some of them of a humorous cast--but all illustrative of the early days of education in this Province, and its vicissitudes of light and shade. They admirably serve to bring out in strong relief the present state of efficiency of our system of public instruction, as well as the substantial progress which has been made by it in its various departments since the early educational pioneers of Upper Canada first attempted to give it form and substance, over fifty years ago. The photograph from which the frontispiece is printed was by Mr. J. Bruce, of 118 King street west, Toronto. J. G. H. TORONTO, 24th May, 1889. PERSONAL NOTE. A few days after the ceremony of unveiling the Statue, I received the following very kind note from Rev. Dr. Ryerson's only son:-- 27 CECIL ST., TORONTO, May 28th, 1889. MY DEAR DR. HODGINS,--The 24th of May was indeed a red-letter day to me and to my family; and one I shall never forget. The Statue and Pedestal are beyond anything I expected; and the likeness is excellent. Allow me to thank you very heartily for your eloquent Historical Paper, and the touching references to my dear Father. I know that all you did was a labour of love. But I cannot allow this event to pass without expressing to you our deep gratitude for the time and pains you have taken in successfully carrying out this splendid memorial to my revered Father. Mrs. Ryerson joins me in very kind regards. Believe me, Yours very faithfully, C. EGERTON RYERSON. J. GEORGE HODGINS, Esq., LL.D., Toronto. CONTENTS. PAGE. Title and Prefatory Note iii. CHAPTER I. Preliminary Remarks 1 Appeal for Funds for the Erection of the Statue 3 The Financial Results of the Appeal Made--Particulars of the Statue 5 Programme of Arrangements for Unveiling the Statue 5 Inscription on the Statue Pedestal 6 Record of Rev. Dr. Ryerson's Services 7 CHAPTER II. Report of Ceremony of Unveiling the Statue (from _The Globe_) 8 Address of the Hon. G. W. Ross, Minister of Education 9 The Statue Unveiled by Sir Alexander Campbell, Lieutenant-Governor 11 Report of the unveiling by _The Empire_ and _The Mail_ 13 Comments of the Press on the Unveiling of the Statue 15 CHAPTER III. THE ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE, VIZ.: 1. By Mr. Robert McQueen, President of the Teachers' Association of Ontario 17 2. By Alderman McMillan, Acting Mayor of Toronto 19 3. By Hon. Senator Macdonald, representing the University of Toronto 20 4. By Rev. Dr. Burwash, representing the University of Victoria College 22 5. By Sandford Fleming, LL.D., C.M.G., representing the University of Queen's College 23 6. By Rev. Professor Clark, M.A., representing the University of Trinity College 24 7. By Professor T. H. Rand, D.C.L., representing McMaster University 25 CHAPTER IV. EDUCATION IN ONTARIO, PAST AND PRESENT--AN HISTORICAL RETROSPECT, BY J. GEORGE HODGINS, M.A., LL.D., VIZ.: Significance of the Event of the Day 27 The Ontario System of Education--Its Influence Abroad 27 Comprehensive Character of the Ontario Educational System 28 Character and System of Education Abroad, and Lessons Therefrom 29 Educational Lessons to be Learned Outside of Ontario 29 Three Educational Periods in the History of Ontario 30 Colonial Chapter in the History of American Education 30 The Nine British Colonial Universities in the Thirteen Colonies 32 The United Empire Loyalist Period in Upper Canada 36 Governor Simcoe's Educational Views in 1795 37 Early Beginnings of Education in Upper Canada, 1785-1805 37 State of Education in Upper Canada, 1795-1799 38 First Official Educational Movements in Upper Canada, 1797, 1798 38 Educational Pioneers in Upper Canada 39 Early Efforts to Establish Common Schools, 1816-1820 40 State of Education in Upper Canada, 1784-1819 41 Fitful Educational Progress from 1822 to 1829 41 State of Education in Upper Canada, 1827-1829 42 Rev. Dr. Strachan's Course of Study in Grammar Schools, 1829 43 Rev. Dr. Strachan's System of School Management 44 Rev. Dr. Strachan's Career as a Teacher 45 Mr. Joseph Hume's Essay on Education, edited by Mr. W. L. MacKenzie 46 Vicissitudes of Education in Upper Canada, 1830-1839 46 Educational Efforts in the House of Assembly, by Mr. M. Burwell, 1831-1836 47 Efforts at Educational Legislation, by Dr. Charles Duncombe, 1831-1836 48 Continued Educational Efforts of Mr. Burwell in the House of Assembly 50 Early Opinions on the Necessity for Manual or Industrial Education in our Schools 51 Later Opinions (on the same subject) 51 Further Educational Efforts in the House of Assembly, 1835, 1836 52 Analysis of Dr. Charles Duncombe's Report on Education, 1836 53 Summary of, and Reflection on, these Educational Efforts from 1830 to 1839 54 Extracts from Official Reports on Education in Upper Canada in 1838 55 Influences by American Teachers and School Books Deprecated 55 Extracts from Report of an Education Commission in 1839 57 Educational Opinions of Prominent Public Men in 1839 58 Separate Educational Forces Shaping Themselves in Upper Canada 59 Noted Educational Leaders--Dr. Strachan and Dr. Ryerson 59 The Educational Efforts of the U. E. Loyalists and the Ruling Party 60 An Educational Glance Backwards 60 Provision for Higher Education in Upper Canada by the Imperial Government 62 Rev. Dr. Strachan as an Educator 62 Rev. Dr. Strachan's Reasons for Establishing a University in Upper Canada 64 Rev. Dr. Strachan, the Founder of Two Universities in Toronto 65 The University of Toronto 66 The University of Victoria College 66 The Queen's College University 69 The University of Trinity College 70 The R. C. University College at Ottawa 70 The Western University, London 70 The McMaster University 71 Upper Canada College--Albert College--Woodstock College--The School of Practical Science, and various colleges and schools, etc. 71 Rev. Dr. Ryerson's advocacy of Popular Rights, 1827-1841 72 Educational Legislation in the United Parliament of 1841 and 1843 72 Origin of the annual grant of $200,000 for Common Schools in 1841 73 Educational efforts of Rev. Dr. Ryerson up to this time 74 First appointment of a Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada, 1842 74 Appointment of Rev. Dr. Ryerson as Superintendent of Education, 1844 75 Rev. Dr. Ryerson's Report on a System of Public Instruction for Upper Canada 75 Chief features of Dr. Ryerson's first report and School Bill, 1846 77 Objections to Dr. Ryerson's School Bill of 1846, answered. 77 First and Second Councils of Public Instruction, 1846 and 1850. 78 Religious Instruction in the Common Schools, 1846. 79 State of Common School Education in Upper Canada, 1845. 80 School Houses and School Teachers in 1845-1850. 81 Combined opposition to the projected system of Education. 82 Educational Proceedings of District Councils in 1847, 1848. 83 Estimate of Lord Elgin's character by Hon. W. H. Draper. 84 Invaluable assistance given to Dr. Ryerson by Lord Elgin. 85 Proceedings of the First Council of Public Instruction. The Normal School. 86 Laying the corner stone of the New Normal School Buildings, 1851. 87 The County Model Schools of 1843-1850. 88 Fundamental Principles of Dr. Ryerson's Scheme of Education. 90 Can Upper Canada Emulate the State of New York in Educational Matters? 90 Establishment of the Educational Depository and its Results. 92 Abstract of Depository Schedule Presented to the Legislature in 1877. 92 Dr. Ryerson a Commissioner on King's College, New Brunswick, in 1854. 93 Chronological Sketch of Dr. Ryerson's Educational Work, 1855, etc. 94 Bishop Fraser's Estimate of the Upper Canada System of Education in 1863. 95 Character of the Important School Legislation of 1871. 97 Review of the School Legislation of 1871. 98 Objections to Improve our School System Answered. 98 Necessity for the Change in the School Law of Ontario in 1871. 100 Hon. Adam Crooks on the School Inspection Legislation of 1871. 101 Inspector Harcourt's opinion of the effect of the School Act of 1871. 101 Inspector McKee, of the County of Simcoe, on the School Act of 1871. 101 CHAPTER V. A SPECIAL CHAPTER ON THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN THE OLDEN TIME IN UPPER CANADA. 103 Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald's School Days--His Reminiscences of them. 103 Hon. Charles Clarke on Education in the County of Wellington under Dr. Ryerson's Administration. 104 Early School Legislation in 1841, 1843 and 1846. 104 Inferior Qualification of Teachers and Varied Methods of Teaching. 105 Dr. Ryerson's Test of the Intelligence of a School Section. 105 The Character of the School-House, also a Test. 106 School Condition of the County of Wellington in 1847. 106 Great Educational Advance made by the Province of Ontario since 1847. 107 Great Advance also in the Standard of Teaching Ability. 108 Rev. W. H. Landon on the State of Education in Upper Canada in 1847-1849. 109 The Old Log School-House and its Belongings. 110 The Pioneer Teacher and the Trials of "Boarding-Round". 111 The Old School House (Poetry). 113 Mr. Canniff Haight on the Schools Fifty Years Ago. 113 A School Teacher's Personal Experience in 1865. 114 Mr. James Cumming's Reminiscences of Education in Hamilton in 1847-1852. 116 Education in the County of Simcoe, 1852-1872. 117 CHAPTER VI. PERSONAL CHAPTER RELATING TO THE REV. DR. RYERSON 119 His Early Life, as Sketched by Himself 119 Rev. Dr. Ryerson as a Teacher 121 The Rev. Dr. Ryerson and His Native County of Norfolk 122 Closing Official Acts and Utterances of Dr. Ryerson 124 Reasons for Dr. Ryerson's Retirement as Chief Superintendent of Education 125 Dr. Ryerson's Letter of Resignation in 1868 and Reply to it 126 Dr. Ryerson's Letter of Resignation in 1872 and Reply to it 128 A FEW WORDS PERSONAL TO THE WRITER OF THIS RETROSPECT 130 THE RYERSON MEMORIAL VOLUME. PRELIMINARY. The Rev. Dr. Ryerson's death occurred on the 19th of February, 1882. Early in the next month the following circular was issued:-- A preliminary meeting of trustees, inspectors and teachers connected with Public, Separate and High Schools--past and present--will be held in the theatre, or public hall, of the Education Department, on Tuesday afternoon, the 14th instant, at 4.30, to consider the proposal to erect a monument or other tribute of love and esteem to the memory of the late revered founder of the educational system of Ontario. J. GEORGE HODGINS, Toronto, March, 1882. Convener. The following account of the meeting appeared in _The Mail_ newspaper of the 15th March:-- A meeting of those connected with educational matters was held in the theatre of the Normal School yesterday afternoon, to consider the proposal to erect a monument or other token of esteem to the memory of the late Dr. Ryerson. There were present, Drs. Hodgins, Davies, Carlyle, Tassie; Inspectors Hughes, McKinnon, McBrien, Little, Fotheringham; Messrs. James Bain, G. McMurrich, and Crombie, Public School trustees, Toronto; Thomas Kirkland, M.A., Normal School; Mrs. Riches, Misses E. A. Scarlett, M. L. Williams, Boulton and Tomlinson; Messrs. McAllister, Doan, Lewis, Spence, McCausland, Martin, Clarke, Coyne, Parker, Cassidy, Campbell, teachers of Toronto city schools. Dr. Hodgins was appointed chairman, and Mr. James L. Hughes secretary. Letters expressing regret at inability to attend were read from Mr. G. W. Ross, M.P., Inspectors Scarlett, Bigg and Platt, and Mr. W. J. Gage. Also a letter from the Minister of Education, to the effect that every inspector and teacher was at full liberty to take such action as he might think proper in connection with so laudable an object as the erection of a memorial to the late superintendent. Dr. Hodgins related the circumstances which had led to the calling of a meeting, and said that the object was to unite all persons in any way connected with schools in a tribute of affection to the late chief, even the children might contribute a mite. There was some difference of opinion as to whether the tribute should take the form of a monument in the cemetery, or a statue in the Normal School grounds. He mentioned Dr. Ormiston as having taken a very strong interest in the matter. On motion of Mr. McAllister, seconded by Mr. McMurchy, a resolution expressing the approval, by the meeting, of the proposal to erect a memorial was unanimously adopted. Mr. Hughes suggested that a central committee of organization be appointed, and that local associations be formed in every county. Messrs. Fotheringham, McMurchy, George McMurrich, McAllister and Brother Odo, were appointed to nominate the central committee. Their report was presented to the meeting, and adopted with some amendments. In the discussion which took place, the general opinion was that the memorial should take the form of a statue of the late Chief Superintendent, to be erected in the Normal School grounds, Mr. Bain being one of those who strongly urged this view. Mr. Inspector Fotheringham thought that the amount of the contribution should be limited so as to make it general, and suggested one dollar for each teacher and trustee, and ten cents for each child, corporate bodies being left to their own discretion. The chairman having called for suggestions as to the formation of local committees, Mr. Little, Inspector for Halton, thought that the inspector for each county should appoint the teachers and trustees of each school to open a subscription list. Mr. McBrien, Inspector for Ontario County, suggested that the inspectors should send a postcard to every teacher in the county, requesting him to convene a meeting in his section. Mr. McKinnon, Inspector for Peel, was in favor of Mr. Little's plan. There was also considerable discussion as to whether others besides those directly connected with the schools should be asked to contribute. It was urged on the one hand that the tribute would come more fittingly from those more peculiarly interested in education, and on the other that it should be made national in its character, especially as a large majority of the people had been educated, and their characters formed under the school system of which Dr. Ryerson was the founder. These questions were left for future consideration, and, after a vote of thanks to the chairman, the meeting adjourned. * * * * * As the result of that meeting the following circular was issued by the secretary on the 15th March:-- At a preliminary meeting of trustees, inspectors and teachers connected with Public, Separate and High Schools, held in the public hall of the Education Department on the 14th instant, the following gentlemen were appointed members of a central committee to carry out the resolution unanimously agreed to by the meeting, viz.: to collect funds with which to erect a monument or other tribute of love and esteem to the memory of the late revered founder of the educational system of Ontario, viz.:-- Dr. _Hodgins_, chairman; Rev. Principal _Davies_; Principal McCabe; Rev. Dr. Ormiston, of New York; President Wilson and Prof. G. P. Young, Toronto University; Archbishop Lynch; Rev. Provost Body, Trinity College; Rev. Principal _Caven_, Knox College; Rev. President Castle, Toronto Baptist College; Rev. Father Vincent, Superior, St. Michael's College; Rev. President Nelles, Victoria University; Very Rev. Principal Grant, Queen's University; _A. McMurchy_, M.A., President of Ontario Teachers' Association; Very Rev. Dean Grassett, Chairman of Collegiate Institute Board; Edward Galley, Esq., Chairman, Public School Board; Vicar-General Rooney, Chairman, Separate School Board; Dr. McLellan, Inspector, High Schools; Mr. White, Inspector, Separate Schools for Ontario; Rev. Brother Tobias, city Inspector of Separate Schools; J. S. Carson, Esq., Chairman of inspectors' section Ontario Teachers' Association; R. Lewis, Esq., chairman of Public School section; D. C. McHenry, M.A., chairman of High School section; also the Public School Inspectors throughout the Province as _ex officio_ members, (Messrs. _D. Fotheringham_ and _J. R. Miller_). Mr. _James L. Hughes_ was appointed secretary of the committee, and Mr. _Walter S. Lee_, treasurer.[2] [2] James Carlyle, Esq., M.D., Master in the Normal School, was subsequently appointed joint secretary with Mr. Hughes. Both rendered most valuable service in promoting the object in view.--J. G. H. As some gentlemen here named declined, and others ceased to act, the committee was finally reduced to nineteen members, including the chairman, secretaries, treasurer and the new appointments. Only those whose names are printed in italics were members of the committee at the time the statue was unveiled in 1889--seven years after their appointment. The following were the members of the committee at the time of the unveiling, viz.:-- Rev. Principal Caven, D.D., Rev. Dr. Potts, Hon. G. W. Ross, Minister, Rev. H. W. Davies, D.D., Hon. Senator Macdonald, Principal Kirkland, M.A., Rev. W. H. Withrow, D.D., Principal Dickson, M.A., Rev. Hugh Johnston, D.D., Rector McMurchy, M.A., Mr. G. H. Robinson, M.A., ex head master Collegiate Institute; Mr. David Fotheringham, Inspector of North York; Mr. R. Doan, Mr. S. McAllister, public school teacher, Toronto, and Mr. J. R. Miller, ex-inspector. Chairman, J. George Hodgins, LL.D.; joint secretaries, Mr. James L. Hughes and James Carlyle, M.D.; treasurer, Mr. Walter S. Lee. The artist-sculptor was Mr. Hamilton McCarthy, R.C.A., and the contractor for pedestal, Mr. F. B. Gullett, monumental sculptor. APPEAL FOR FUNDS FOR ERECTION OF THE STATUE. At a subsequent meeting of the committee, Rev. Dr. Ormiston and Dr. Hodgins were requested to draw up an appeal soliciting aid for the proposed memorial. Dr. Ormiston did so as follows:-- _Appeal to Trustees, Inspectors, Teachers and Pupils--past and present--connected with Public, Separate[3] and High Schools, and to the other friends of Education in the Province of Ontario; from the General Committee appointed at Toronto on the 14th March, 1882, for the collection of funds with which to erect a Monument, or other Tribute of Esteem and Admiration to the memory of the late Rev. Dr. Ryerson, founder of the Educational System of Ontario:_ [3] Having asked Archbishop Lynch to commend this and subsequent appeals to the teachers of the Separate Schools, he replied as follows:-- "ST. MICHAEL'S PALACE, Toronto, December 12, 1882. "MY DEAR DR. HODGINS,--I do not like to assume a prominent part in writing to the teachers of the Separate Schools outside of my own diocese, or to set an example which I fear would be criticized. However, I send you my subscription ($10) towards the erection of the statue to the late lamented Dr. Ryerson. "I am, yours very sincerely, "+JOHN JOSEPH LYNCH, "Archbishop of Toronto. "J. GEORGE HODGINS, ESQ., LL.D., Chairman, etc." (The Very Reverend Vicar-General Rooney also sent $10, as his subscription to the fund). I also wrote to the Rev. Father Stafford, of Lindsay, on the subject. In his reply, dated March 9th, 1882, he said:-- "You ask my opinion as to whether the erection of a monument to the late Dr. Ryerson will receive support from the Separate Schools? "Not much from Separate Schools as such, nor much from Separate School supporters. The recollection of the old controversy with the bishops of our Church, is still fresh in the memories of many. "I think some of the Separate School teachers will subscribe--perhaps many of them. "Personally, I must give my mite. I always found Dr. Ryerson, as you are aware, very kind with me, and very attentive to any suggestions I had to offer, and very just in all his dealings with me. "I admired his ability and his love and enthusiasm for his work. No one knows better than you my admiration for that man. My idea is that the monument ought to be something very respectable--say, got up something like the one to Grattan, or Moore, or Burke, near Trinity College, Dublin; and it ought to be erected in the Normal School grounds. "I wished to send a word of sympathy to Dr. Ryerson's family, but I did not know where to address them. Will you kindly say a word for me to the proper person? "Yours faithfully, "M. STAFFORD, Pr. "DR. HODGINS, "Toronto." "Although still young our Province has already been called to mourn the removal of not a few of her gifted sons, who have severally adorned the different walks of public life. In weight of character, wealth of manhood, and width of human sympathy, the late Chief Superintendent of Education, stood amongst the foremost and mightiest of them all. Egerton Ryerson was a man of rare diversity of gifts, of remarkable energy, and of abundant mental resources. It would have been easy for him to have excelled in any one sphere of human greatness, but it was his to stand high in several. He was a many-sided man; richly endowed in various ways. He was a laborious farmer--a zealous student--a successful teacher--an eminent preacher--a prominent ecclesiastic--an influential editor--a forcible writer--a sagacious counsellor--a most efficient principal and professor--but he was chiefly noted as a great public educationist. For a third of a century he was the head and inspiring genius of our school system, establishing, moulding, adapting, controlling it; and this, the main work of his life, will endure and command in the future, as it has in the past, the admiration of all, both at home and abroad. During all these years he was the teacher's true friend, and the ardent well-wisher of the young. His sympathies--tender and true--as helpful as they were healthy, went out to every earnest worker, whether in acquiring or imparting knowledge. The enquiring left his presence directed; the downcast, cheered; the doubtful, confirmed. Unselfish, generous, disinterested, he devoted himself wholly to his work. How often did his lip quiver and his eye fill when he addressed the gatherings of teachers and pupils, upon whom he looked not only with the eye of a patriot, but of a parent,--"Ye are my children all." We can never forget him; we profoundly mourn our loss; we fondly cherish his memory. Affection, gratitude, a sense of what is due to so eminent a man, impel us to perpetuate that memory in some suitable way, which will render such a noble life an inspiring example to young men now and in the coming days. In obedience then, to one of the purest and loftiest instincts of our nature, let us unite in paying a common tribute of admiration and regard to the memory of him to whom we all sustained a common relationship, and to whom we also, without distinction as to nationality, political preferences, or religious belief, can pay sincere homage, as the founder of our present excellent and comprehensive system of education. In honoring him we do honor to our common country, and recognize our obligation to pay fitting homage to the great men of our Dominion, whose names, with his, are inscribed high upon the roll of Canada's famous sons." At intervals, during the years 1882-1886, circulars were issued by the committee to inspectors, trustees and masters of High, Public and Separate Schools, urging the collection of the necessary funds to erect the proposed memorial. In order to aid in this work, 7,500 copies of a biographical sketch of Dr. Ryerson and his educational work, prepared by the chairman, was sent to the inspectors for distribution. The chairman also made the following suggestions to inspectors (with a view to facilitate the collections from pupils), which was generally acted upon, viz.:-- "Permit me to suggest a simple way of securing a response from each school: You might request the teacher to give notice that, on the following week, he would devote _five minutes_ at noon of each day to taking down a list of contributions (from a cent upwards) to the fund. "In this way the pupils--and everyone in the locality, through the children--would have an opportunity of contributing his or her mite to the erection of a statue to one of Canada's most honored sons." The final circular issued by the committee was as follows:-- The appeal on behalf of the Ryerson Memorial Fund has been responded to by about two-thirds of the public, and less than one-third of the High-Schools in Ontario. The sum thus received amounts to $4,425.00, including accrued interest on the moneys received and invested. The 7,520 masters and teachers now employed in the Public and High Schools of Ontario, have not yet been appealed to, as a body, to contribute to this most desirable and patriotic object, although many of them have sent in their subscriptions. The General Committee have, therefore, decided to make this appeal to them through the various teachers' associations. The committee trust, therefore, that the individual masters and teachers concerned (if they have not already done so) will heartily and promptly respond to this appeal. The words with which Dr. Ormiston closes his appeal on behalf of this fund we would heartily commend to your sympathy and kind consideration. We do so with the earnest hope that you will give them a substantial and practical application. Dr. Ormiston says:-- "In obedience then, to one of the purest and loftiest instincts of our nature, let us unite in paying a common tribute of admiration and regard to the memory of him to whom we all sustained a common relationship, and to whom we also, without distinction as to nationality, political preferences, or religious belief, can pay sincere homage, as the founder of our present excellent and comprehensive system of education. "In honouring him we do honour our common country, and recognize our obligation to pay fitting homage to the great men of our Dominion, whose names, with his, are inscribed high upon the roll of Canada's famous sons." The Rev. T. Bowman Stephenson, L.L.D., delegate from the British to the General Conference of the Methodist Church in Canada, in his recent address to that Conference, said, referring to the late Rev. Dr. Ryerson:-- That gentleman "visited us in England twice. Old man as he then was, he seemed younger than most of us. I take him to have been one of those rare men who are never young and never old--old in wisdom whilst young in years--young in heart and feeling when already the snow is on the head. Eloquent, logical, far sighted, generous, independent, courageous, with an unhesitating faith in duty, and a boundless love of freedom and justice, he 'served his generation.'--O how well the inspired words describe him--by the will of God, 'he fell on sleep.'" THE FINANCIAL RESULTS OF THE APPEALS MADE--PARTICULARS OF THE STATUE. The following is the financial result of the labours of the committee up to the date of its final meeting on the 1st of June, 1889, viz.:-- Subscriptions received $4,647 95 Legislative grant 2,000 00 City of Toronto grant 500 00 Interest on deposits 1,119 14 --------- $8,267 09 Cost of bronze statue $5,100 00 Coat of granite pedestal 2,600 00 Fees and incidentals 381 09 --------- $8,081 09 --------- $186 00 To be expended on the Memorial Volume 186 00 ------- Height of bronze figure 9 feet 6 inches. Height of granite pedestal 10 feet 6 inches. The granite of the pedestal is from a quarry at St. George, in New Brunswick--a Province which was the first early home of Dr. Ryerson's father and mother, after the close of the American Revolutionary War. Dr. Ryerson's mother was a native of New Brunswick as were his elder brothers and sisters. PROGRAMME OF ARRANGEMENTS FOR UNVEILING THE STATUE. The following was the programme of arrangements agreed to by the Committee to be observed on the Queen's Birthday, 1889, at the ceremony of unveiling of the statue of the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, D.D., LL.D., founder of the school system of Ontario, 1844-1876, ceremony to commence at two o'clock p.m.:-- _Chairman for the Day._--The Hon. George W. Ross, LL.D., Minister of Education for Ontario. _Dedicatory Hymn._--("All People that on Earth do Dwell," Old Hundred) to be announced by the Rev. John Burton, B.D. _Selection of Scripture._--To be read by the Rev. John Potts, D.D., Secretary of Education of the Methodist General Conference. _Dedicatory Prayer._--By the Rev. G. M. Milligan, B.A., Minister of Old St. Andrew's Church, Toronto. _Opening Address._--By the Hon. George W. Ross, LL.D., Chairman of the Day. _Unveiling of the Statue._--By the Hon. Sir Alexander Campbell, K.C.M.G., Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario. _Patriotic School Song by the City School Children._--"Hurrah, Hurrah, for Canada!" to be led by Mr. Perrin, Music Teacher, City Schools. _Historical Paper on Education in Ontario._--The abstract only was read by J. George Hodgins, M.A., LL.D., Deputy Minister of Education for Ontario. _Address on behalf of the Ontario Teachers' Association._--By Mr. McQueen, President of the Association, 1889. _Address on behalf of the Citizens of Toronto._--By His Worship the Mayor, E. F. Clarke, Esq., M.P.P. (Mr. Clarke having gone to England, the address was read by Alderman McMillan, President of the City Council, and Acting Mayor _pro tem_). _Patriotic Song by the City School Children._--"The Maple Leaf for Ever!" _Address on behalf of the University of Toronto._--By the Hon. John Macdonald, Senator. _Address on behalf of Victoria University._--By the Rev. N. Burwash, S.T.D., Chancellor of Victoria University. _Address on behalf of Queen's University._--By Sandford Fleming, Esq., LL.D., C.M.G., Chancellor of Queen's University. _Address on behalf of Trinity University._--By the Rev. Professor William Clark, M.A. _Address on behalf of McMaster University._--By T. H. Rand, Esq., D.C.L. _The National Anthem. Benediction._--Pronounced by the Right Rev. Arthur Sweatman, D.D., D.C.L., Bishop of Toronto. _Representatives present._--The Mayor and Corporation of the City of Toronto, Chairman and members of the High School and Collegiate Institute Board of Toronto, Chairman and members of the Public School Board of Toronto. Upper Canada College, Hon. John Beverley Robinson; Knox College, Rev. William McLaren, D.D.; Wycliffe College, Colonel Gzowski, A.D.C.; McMaster Divinity Hall, Rev. Chancellor McVicar, D.D. LL. D.; Brantford Ladies' College, T. M. Macintyre, Esq., Ph. D.; Alma Ladies' College, Colin Macdougall, Esq., Q.C.[4]; Oshawa Ladies' College, Rev. A. B. Demill. [4] In a kind note received from Mr. Macdougall, dated St. Thomas, May 29th, 1889, he said:--"The ceremonies of unveiling were everything that could be looked for, and were well carried out. The speaking was good and quite sufficient of it.... It must be to you and to your family a gratifying reflection that you will be remembered in history as having largely contributed by personal exertion towards the erection of a monument to the memory of one of Canada's greatest sons." The following replies from other Colleges were received by the Secretaries, viz.:-- "ASSUMPTION COLLEGE, SANDWICH, March 12, 1889. "DEAR SIR,--I beg to return thanks for your invitation to the unveiling of the Statue to the late Doctor Ryerson. "I do not think it will be possible for any representative of this College to be present on that occasion. "I remain, dear Sir, yours respectfully, "(Sgd) DENNIS O'CONNOR. "J. CARLYLE, Esq., Secretary." "ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE, TORONTO, 15th March, 1889. "DEAR SIR,--I received in due time your letter inviting me to the unveiling of the Statue to the late Dr. Ryerson on the 24th of May next. Your invitation I must respectfully decline, and thanking you for it. "I remain yours very sincerely, "(Sgd) P. VINCENT. "JAMES CARLYLE, Esq., Secretary." "COLLEGE OF OTTAWA, March 21, 1889. "DEAR SIR,--I am in receipt at your circular, dated March 12th, with which you kindly favored me. Please accept my best thanks for your cordial invitation to send a representative of our College to the unveiling of the Statue of the late Dr. Ryerson. I am greatly sorry to state that it will be hardly possible to anybody of us to go on the 24th of May. Please excuse us and believe me. "Yours sincerely, "(Sgd.) J. M. FEAYARD, O.M.J. "Mr. J. CARLYLE, Secretary." No replies were received from the other Colleges in Ontario to which invitations had been sent by the Secretaries. The following representatives were also present: Ontario Teachers' Association, Public School Section, Mr. Robert Alexander; Inspectors' Section, Mr. David Fotheringham; High School Section, Mr. Archibald McMurchy, M.A. Inscription on the pedestal of the bronze statue of Rev. Dr. Ryerson, as approved by the General Committee, November, 1887, to be placed on the front of the pedestal, facing Bond Street:-- EGERTON RYERSON, FOUNDER of the SCHOOL SYSTEM OF ONTARIO. To be placed on the rear of the pedestal:-- BORN IN CHARLOTTEVILLE, COUNTY OF NORFOLK, ONTARIO, MARCH 24, 1803. DIED AT TORONTO, FEBRUARY 19, 1882. Record of Rev. Dr. Ryerson's services, as approved by the General Committee, November, 1887, and intended to have been engraved on the Pedestal. It was afterwards decided not to do so, but to insert the name only, as founder of the Ontario School System.[5] [5] Having submitted the draft of this inscription to several of Dr. Ryerson's clerical friends, I received the following in reply:-- From the Rev. Dr. Douglass, Montreal:-- "Thanks for your very kind favor. The name of Dr. Ryerson will be forever sacred in my heart's best affection. I have read the proposed inscription with very much care and interest. I think it is comprehensive in its scope, and accurate and elegant in detail. I really can offer no suggestion. I congratulate you upon the completeness with which you have executed your talk. With best wishes, ever and truly yours, G. D." From the Rev. J. A. Williams, D.D., Toronto:-- "I very much approve of the proposed inscription for the memorial to the late lamented Dr. Ryerson. It recognizes his worth and distinguished ability, as a writer, as an educationist, and as a patriot. It is a fitting tribute from one who knew him well and so long. With much and sincere respect, I am, yours very truly, J. A. W." From the Rev. John Potts, D.D., Toronto:-- "No pen but yours should write the inscription for Dr. Ryerson's monument. What you enclose is an elegant and eloquent tribute to our dear departed father. The committee will accept the inscription with thanks. Ever yours, J. P." From the late Rev. Dr. Nelles, Cobourg (whom the committee wished to be consulted on the matter). He said: "The inscription, in its present form, pleases me best of all, and is well nigh perfect, doing 'credit to your head and heart,' as the phrase is. "I am sure we shall get the thing perfect before we leave it. And the old Doctor deserves that two such loving sons should bestow their best efforts in such a matter. "The 'final revise' [subsequently sent] may, I think, now be accepted. It will bear criticism.... You have in you an illimitable power of improvement, and this last is still better than any other. Affectionately yours, S. S. N." From the Rev. Alexander Sutherland, D.D., Toronto:-- "I have read the draft of the proposed inscription for the Ryerson Statue with great care and a great deal of interest. It covers the whole ground, and contains nothing that could well be omitted. The extracts from the 'Letter of Acceptance' and 'Official Circular' give it a completeness which leaves nothing to be desired. Yours faithfully, A. S." From the Rev. Ephraim B. Harper, D.D., Brampton:-- "I have read over and over again with all possible attention and care your proposed inscription for Dr. Ryerson's Memorial, and candidly allow that I could not propose the change of a word, or even of a letter in it. I prepared something similar, twenty-three years ago, for a gravestone for the late Rev. Dr. Stinson, and know well the difficulty of compressing important facts within the limits permissible for an inscription. It could not have fallen into better hands, when it fell to your lot to write it. As ever, dear doctor, yours affectionately, E. B. H." From Rev. W. H. Withrow, D.D., Toronto:-- "I think the inscription admirable. Yours, W. H. D." THIS STATUE IS ERECTED AS A MEMORIAL OF THE GREAT PUBLIC SERVICES OF THE REV. EGERTON RYERSON, D.D., LL.D, SON OF COLONEL JOSEPH RYERSON, A BRITISH OFFICER WHO SERVED DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, AND WHO WAS ONE OF THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS WHO SETTLED IN THIS PROVINCE. * * * * * A DISTINGUISHED MINISTER OF THE METHODIST CHURCH, 1825-1852. HE OBTAINED FOR THAT CHURCH A ROYAL CHARTER IN ENGLAND FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF UPPER CANADA ACADEMY AT COBOURG, 1828-1841. AFTERWARDS THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA COLLEGE, OF WHICH HE WAS THE FIRST PRESIDENT. * * * * * IN FOUNDING THE SCHOOL SYSTEM OF HIS NATIVE PROVINCE, AND IN PROMOTING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF FREE SCHOOLS, HE DISPLAYED THE RARE GIFTS OF A FAR-SEEING AND ENLIGHTENED STATESMAN, AND FOR THIRTY-TWO YEARS WAS THE ABLE ADMINISTRATOR OF THAT SYSTEM, 1844-1876. * * * * * ERECTED BY CONTRIBUTIONS FROM SCHOOL TRUSTEES INSPECTORS, TEACHERS, PUPILS AND OTHERS; AIDED BY A GRANT FROM THE CITY OF TORONTO AND THE LEGISLATURE OF ONTARIO. CHAPTER II. CEREMONY OF UNVEILING THE STATUE, 24TH MAY, 1889. The ceremony of unveiling of the Statue is thus described by _The Globe_ of May the 25th (abridged):-- The number of truly great men is not large in any country. Ontario is not old yet in its physical and intellectual development, and yet it is with pride her people recall the memory of a few great men who are now with the overwhelming majority. Among the greatest of Canadian public men was Rev. Dr. Egerton Ryerson, the founder of the Ontario Public School system of education. Posterity recognizes this, and posterity seeks to perpetuate his memory in that loving manner which bespeaks gratitude, thankfulness and patriotism. The generation that now is speaks affectionately and reverently of him, who, by sheer force of character, founded a system of education which places the child of the poor man on an equal equality with that of the rich, and who so admirably developed his system that every office in the State is open through a complete system of elementary and secondary education to all classes in the Province. But this generation has done more. It erected a monument to the great man, so that generations yet unborn may not be unmindful of the heritage which shall be theirs, as the result of the untiring zeal and ability displayed by the Chief Superintendent of Education in Ontario for the moral and intellectual advancement of his country. The unveiling of this monument, fittingly erected in a commanding position of the Normal School grounds, which were the scene of the labors of the grand teacher, took place yesterday afternoon before a large concourse of people. There were there statesmen and politicians, presidents of universities and eminent divines, men learned in the law and merchant princes, manufacturers and agriculturists, teachers and pupils--all being assembled to do honor to the name of him whose monument was unveiled and whose virtues were extolled. The gathering was truly historical and unique in its character--there being seen representatives of the old class of teachers who presided over the school, houses of the country when there was no system of education in Ontario, and who, therefore, could the more appreciate the revolution wrought by the master mind of Dr. Ryerson, when he undertook to mould into shape the heterogeneous elements of public instruction over forty years ago. Then, again, it is seldom in the history of a nation that all classes, creeds and colors could be got together to do honor to the memory of one man, and seldom could there be seen such an array of intellectual leaders in all the walks of life as held seats on the platform when Her Majesty's representative unveiled the form of him whose memory is sought by it to be perpetuated. The sky itself seemed to favor the auspicious occasion. The weather could not have been finer if it had been designed to gladden and rejoice the hearts of those who were present, and thereby to assist in making the proceedings pass off as pleasantly as possible. A temporary platform was erected nearly in front of the monument commanding an admirable view of it, while seats were placed on both sides of the centre of attraction. (Among those present not mentioned in the programme were: Ex-Governor Aikens, of Manitoba, Sir Daniel Wilson, Hon. Oliver Mowat, Rev. Dr. Scadding, Rev. Dr. Rose, Judge McDougall, Rev. Leroy Hooker, Thomas Hodgins, Q.C., Mr. F. E. Hodgins, Rev. Dr. Parker, Rev. Dr. D. G. Sutherland, Mr. Wm. Houston, Lt.-Col. Allan, Rev. John Hunt, Mr. D. Rose, Dr. H. H. Wright, Professor Ashley, Mr. J. J. Withrow, O. A. Howland, Mr. A. Marling, James Beatty, Q.C., Rev. Dr. Thomas, Mr. J. E. Bryant, Mr. F. B. Hodgins, and Members of the City Corporation, etc. A very large number of ladies were also present, and many unenumerated old friends of the venerable ex-Chief.) The proceedings were opened by Rev. John Burton giving out Psalm 100, which was sung by the audience. Rev. John Potts, D.D., read a portion of Scripture, and the dedicatory prayer was offered by Rev. G. M. Milligan. THE HON. G. W. ROSS' ADDRESS. Hon. G. W. Ross, Minister of Education, spoke as follows:-- We are assembled to-day to do honor to the founder of the school system of the Province of Ontario. On the 18th of October, 1844, the Rev. Egerton Ryerson received a commission from Sir Charles Metcalfe as Superintendent of what was then called the Common Schools of Upper Canada. At the time he entered upon his duties there were in existence 2,885 Common Schools, with a registered attendance of 96,756 children of school age. The entire revenue from all sources for school purposes amounted to $340,000. When he retired in 1876 there were 5,092 schools, with a registered attendance of 489,664 pupils, and a revenue of $3,373,035. Besides the Common Schools in existence there were 25 Grammar Schools attended by 958 pupils, and maintained at an expense of $16,320 annually. At the close of his long career there were 104 High Schools attended by 8,541 pupils, and maintained at an annual expense of $304,948. The accommodation for the pupils attending the Common Schools was supplied by 2,887 school houses, of which 213 were brick or stone, 1,008 frame and 1,666 log. The teachers numbered 3,086, and were possessed of such varied qualifications as might be expected when I tell you that they obtained their certificates in most cases from the Boards of Trustees which employed them. When he surrendered his commission there were 4,926 school-houses, of which 1,931 were brick or stone, 2,253 frame, and only 742 log, all in charge of a staff of highly educated and accomplished teachers, numbering 6,185. The school law in existence at the time of Dr. Ryerson's appointment to office consisted of 71 sections, and was as crude in many respects as the education which was obtained under it. There were practically no authorized text-books, no Boards of Examiners, no Inspectors, no Department of Education. It was an era of primitive simplicity, but an era, nevertheless, the possibilities of which no man could estimate, the development of which no man could foresee. "The deep surge of nations yet to be" had struck our shores. Thousands of sturdy pioneers were at work hewing down our forests and wrestling with such social and political problems as are incident to a primitive order of things. The materials out of which to organize society on a higher plane were abundant though undeveloped. It was a great opportunity for a man possessed of a genius for organization. In the appointment of Dr. Ryerson the opportunity and the man met face to face, and the splendid system of education which we to-day enjoy is the best proof that the man was as great, if not greater, than the opportunity. But, while the opportunity was a great one, it must not be forgotten that the difficulties to be overcome, to a less vigorous and courageous man, would have been overwhelming. The executive machinery for administering the affairs of several thousand distinct corporations, with all the complex details necessarily connected with electing trustees, collecting rates, appointing teachers, framing a curriculum of studies, regulating the discipline of pupils and supplying text-books, had all to be re-cast, if not invented, and put into operation. Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament and Municipal Councils had to be indoctrinated with the new education. The press had to be directed, and the whole people educated to receive with favor a school system which ignored well established theories and deeply founded prejudices. Even popular indignation had to be set at defiance, and amid misrepresentation and calumny the master builder had often to do his work and to await the verdict of posterity for the vindication of his wisdom and foresight. It is well known, when Dr. Ryerson first proposed to make all the Common Schools of Upper Canada free alike to rich and poor, to citizen and alien, that he was charged with encroaching upon the rights of the subject, that he was charged with appropriating the money of the taxpayer who perhaps had no children to be educated for the benefit of the thriftless and pauperised classes of the community. What was his answer? It was this:--"The education of the people irrespective of rank or race or creed is a better investment even for the taxpayer than houses or lands, because it guarantees the safe possession of all his goods--it does even more--it guarantees his personal liberty and therefore the taxpayer must be made to pay for the common safety of the people." When he asked authority for trustees to erect school houses wherever, in their opinion, the public interests required them, he was told such a law would be arbitrary and harsh, that it would place too much power in the hands of a few men. His answer was: "School houses are cheaper than gaols, teachers are cheaper than police officers, the taxpayer must be made to pay for the common morality of the people." When he said: "Teachers must be educated and trained for their work, the success of thousands of children depend upon skilful handling and discipline in the school room, we must have Grammar Schools and Normal School and Township libraries and Boards of Examiners," he was told that the country could not afford such luxuries, that he must wait till the people were richer. His answer was: "Efficiency is the highest economy. If the springtime of life is wasted, life's greatest opportunities are wasted. The taxpayer must be made to pay for the common intelligence of the people." As a result of all this courage--may I not call it heroism--in the defence of sound principles of education he placed his native Province in the van of all the States of America and all the Colonies of the British Empire. Well may we to-day assemble to do honor to his memory. Not only Ontario, but Canada, owes much to his breadth of mind, his sagacity and his tremendous force of character. For thirty-two years his active brain and busy pen were devoted to the work of propagating sounder views on popular education. For thirty-two years he labored to establish the democracy of mind--the common citizenship of every child attending a Public School. With a patriotism which no man ever questioned, with talents which no man could fail to appreciate, with a tenacity of purpose which no difficulty could daunt, he devoted his life to one purpose, the establishment of a school system which would fully meet the wants of a free, strong and progressive people. (Applause). It is said of Augustus that he found Rome brick and left it marble. It may be said of Dr. Ryerson that he found our school system without any definite organisation, he left it highly organized. He found it weak in influence and poor in circumstances, he left it endowed with houses and lands and millions of treasure. He found it tolerated as traditionally respectable, he left it enthroned in the affections of a free people. Well may we honor his greatness, for we share in all it has produced. Well may we search our quarries for a fit emblem of the durability of his work, on which to carve his name, that generations yet unborn may recall the record of his life and be stirred to emulate his example. And yet when we have done all this, when we have committed his memory to the keeping of the bronze and granite now before us, I believe the judgment of those who know his work will be that all the monuments which mortal hands can erect, and all the eulogies which affection or admiration can prompt his contemporaries to utter, will be ephemeral and perishable compared with the educational edifice which his own hands builded or the intellectual life which of his own genius he imparted to his fellow countrymen. THE STATUE UNVEILED BY SIR ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. At the close of his address Mr. Ross invited the Governor to unveil the statue. Before doing so the Governor, turning to the audience, said in feeling terms:-- "Dr. Ryerson was known throughout the length and breadth of this Province. No Representative of Her Majesty has had ever as pleading a duty given to him to discharge as that which falls to my lot in unveiling the monument of that great man." Sir Alexander, accompanied by the Minister and Deputy Minister of Education, proceeded then to the statue, and the work of unveiling was only the question of a few moments. As soon as the British Canadian flag, which covered the massive form of the statue, was raised, the audience raised a cheer which is rarely heard within the Normal School grounds, It was the reflex of the inner gratitude of the sharers in a great heritage. The sculptor, Mr. McCarthy, who did his work well, was then introduced to the Lieutenant-Governor by the Minister of Education. The statue having been exposed to full view the song "Hurrah for Canada" was sung by city school children, led by Mr. Perrin, music teacher, city schools. The children acquitted themselves admirably. EDUCATIONAL RETROSPECT BY THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF EDUCATION. It was fitting that the next speaker should be a gentleman so long and so closely connected with Dr. Ryerson in moulding the educational institutions of the Province. The Chairman therefore introduced Dr. Hodgins, Deputy Minister of Education, who read a masterly and comprehensive historical paper on Education in Ontario. Dr. Hodgins traced the growth of education in the Province from 1841, dealing minutely and with a thorough knowledge of details with the difficulties encountered by Dr. Ryerson in gaining public endorsation for his scheme of popular education, and the phases through which the system passed until at the Centennial Exhibition, held in Philadelphia in 1876, the Chief Superintendent of Education was gratified by the Commissioners making the following award:-- For a quite complete and admirably arranged exhibition, illustrating the Ontario system of education and its excellent results. Also for the efficiency of an administration, which has gained for the Ontario department a most honorable distinction among Government educational agencies. Dr. Hodgins concluded as follows:--Having been intimately concerned in all of the events and educational matters to which I have referred, it may not be out of place for me to add a few words of a personal character in conclusion. At the end of this year I shall have completed my more than 45 years' service, as chief of the staff of the Education Department of Ontario. For over 40 years I enjoyed the personal friendship of the distinguished man whose memory we honor here to-day--32 years of which were passed in active and pleasant service under him. How can I, therefore, regard without emotion the events of to-day? They bring vividly to my recollection many memorable incidents and interesting events of our educational past known only to myself. They also deeply impress me with the fleeting and transitory nature of all things human. The chief and sixteen councillors, appointed and elected to assist him, have all passed away. His great work remains, however, and his invaluable services to the country we all gratefully recall to-day, while his native land lovingly acknowledges those services in erecting this noble monument to his memory. Truly indeed and faithfully did Egerton Ryerson make good his promise to the people of this Province, when he solemnly pledged himself, on accepting office in 1844-- To provide for my native country a system of education, and facilities for intellectual improvement, not second to those of any country in the world. God grant that the seed sown and the foundations thus laid, with such anxious toil and care--and yet in faith--may prove to be one of our richest heritages, so that in the future, wisdom and knowledge, in the highest and truest sense, may be the stability of our times! THE TEACHERS' REPRESENTATIVE. The audience was then introduced to Mr. R. McQueen, President of the Ontario Teachers' Association, who eulogised Dr. Ryerson for his marked individuality, tenacity of purpose, and the grand results he achieved through his influence for popular education in his native country. He deserved a monument from a thankful posterity because his whole aim in life was to ameliorate the condition of his fellow-countrymen. He was there in behalf of the teachers of Ontario to express their joy at the tribute paid to the memory of a great teacher and founder of a system of education. THE ACTING-MAYOR RESPONDS. In the absence of Mayor Clarke, Ald. McMillan was called on to reply in behalf of the citizens of Toronto. The Acting-Mayor said that Canada owes Dr. Ryerson a deep debt of gratitude. His life was grand and versatile; he was a teacher and a Christian; a combination of the scholar and gentleman; a leader of men. He impressed his genius on the educational institutions of the Province, he was loyal to the country of his birth, and he abhorred falsehood and oppression. Therefore it was eminently fitting that his greatness and worth should be commemorated by a public tribute. The school children at this stage sang the well-known Canadian song: "The Maple Leaf for Ever." THE UNIVERSITIES OF ONTARIO. The Universities of Ontario owe much to the painstaking care of the late Dr. Ryerson over the development of Public and High School education. The efficiency of the University and its possible influence depend on a sound and thorough system of elementary education. The High School depends on the Public School and the University on the High School. Our Universities have made tremendous strides during the last ten years, and without a doubt the cause of this has been due to the fact of the elementary schools putting forth the fruit of the good seed sowed thirty years ago. The Universities therefore were not unmindful of what they owe to the genius of Dr. Ryerson at yesterday's re-union. These five institutions were well and ably represented on the platform. The addresses of these representatives were one series of eulogies on the life and labors of him, whose memory they met to do honor to. Senator Macdonald, after praising the Ontario system of education, turned to the young people of the audience and said: "You are forcibly reminded to-day that Canada will cherish the memory of all those of her sons who will work patriotically and nobly for the good of their country." Rev. Dr. Burwash spoke of Dr. Ryerson as a public educator, but he would be great, the speaker said, in any other profession. Ontario, however, remembers him as an educator, statesman, philanthropist and Christian teacher in the highest sense of the word. Chancellor Fleming honored the name of Dr. Ryerson for having laid such a broad and national system of education as enables Ontario to rank among the first of enlightened nations. Rev. Professor Clark thought that the spirit of Dr. Ryerson was to provide such a system of education as would make men of earnestness, character and patriotic ardor. The University with which he was identified honored the name of Dr. Ryerson, and he was there to add his tribute to the worth of so great a Canadian. Professor Rand, eulogised also the elementary and secondary system of education in Ontario, declaring that its founder richly deserved to be commemorated by a public monument.[6] [6] These addresses are given in full, commencing on page 17. The audience then sang the national anthem. Bishop Sweatman pronounced the benediction, and the statue of the great educationist was left to posterity to admire and to preserve intact and inviolate. The report of _The Empire_ necessarily traversed the same ground. I can therefore only give the salient points in addition to those referred to by the _Globe_, it said:-- The great educational lights of the Province were present in front of the Education Department building yesterday afternoon, when the statue of the Rev. Dr. Ryerson was unveiled. The day was appropriate for doing honor to the memory of a man who had so ably served his Queen and country. A large crowd of citizens witnessed the unveiling and listened to the addresses that were delivered. The following relatives of Dr. Ryerson were present: Mr. Charles Egerton Ryerson, (his only son), Mrs. C. E. Ryerson and their two sons, (Egerton and Stanley), Mrs. Edward Harris, (his only daughter), Dr. G. S. Ryerson (his nephew) was absent with the Grenadiers at Berlin, Mrs. G. S. Ryerson and son were present; also, Mrs. Hardy (his niece) and her daughter, Miss Ethel Hardy, Dr. John Beatty, of Cobourg, and Mr. James R. Armstrong, (brothers-in-law), Mrs. J. R. Armstrong, Mrs. George Duggan, (sister-in-law), His Honor Judge McDougall, (a connection by marriage)." The main points of _The Mail_ report were as follows:-- It would perhaps be too much to say that, while the gay and thoughtless were seeking amusements in other parts of the city, it was only the wise who repaired to the grounds of the Education Department to take part in the unveiling of the Statue of the late Egerton Ryerson; yet it cannot but be admitted that those who assembled to witness and assist in this ceremony were men and women worthy to have the privilege of publicly honoring the memory of Canada's greatest educationist. Among those present were men who have attained to eminence in every department of public life, and it was but right that they should pay the tribute they did to the memory of him who was the founder and for many years the head of the greatest of all departments. There were men present who for years were associated with Dr. Ryerson in his great work; men whose characters were to a great extent moulded by his example, and men whose ambitions have been wakened and whose purposes have been inspired by the contemplation of his achievements. Early in the afternoon the crowd begin to gather around the statue, the front part of which was veiled by a large British flag, the folds of which hung almost to the foot of the pedestal. In front of the statue, under the shade of a couple of the maples that help to make the grounds of the Education Department and Normal School so attractive, a platform had been erected for the use of those who were to take part in the ceremony, and around it were placed a number of seats. At the close of his address (given on pages 9-11), Hon. Mr. Ross invited Sir Alexander Campbell to unveil the statue. Before proceeding with the ceremony Sir Alexander advanced to the front of the platform and briefly expressed himself as feeling highly honored by being called upon to perform such a task as the one that on this occasion had devolved upon him. He thought no pleasanter duty could fall to the lot of a Lieutenant-Governor of any province than that of assisting in honoring one of the province's noblest men. He then stepped down, and taking hold of the cords that kept the flag in place, drew them aside and the drapery fell to the ground. As the sunlight flashed on the exquisitely chiselled features, and the form so well known to many of those present stood out for the first time as it will stand, it is hoped, for many years to come, a prolonged cheer burst from those who had up to this moment watched Sir Alexander's movements with almost breathless interest. After a pause of a few moments, during which the naturalness and finish of the statue was freely commented on, Hon. Mr. Ross called forward Mr. Hamilton McCarthy, the sculptor, and amid great applause introduced him to Sir Alexander, who spoke in flattering terms of the pleasure he felt in meeting a man who had shown himself capable of producing so excellent a work of art. The bronze statue, nine feet six inches in height, represents the late Dr. Ryerson in the attitude of addressing an audience in the cause of education. The head is turned a little to the right, with the lips slightly parted, and with the massive brow and flowing locks, give a correct and forcible expression, in harmony with the action of the advanced arm and firm position of the right leg. The proportions of the figure are well kept through the ample folds of the Doctor's gown, which in their various lines, lend richness and interest to the work, and take away the stiffness of the modern costume. The left hand is raised nearly to the breast, and in it is grasped a book. A little to the left and rear of the figure stands a short pedestal bearing three books, carelessly laid one upon another; and on one of the panels of the pedestal is the arms of the Department of Education under Dr. Ryerson's _regime_. Dignity of bearing, repose and action, and distinct force of character, eminent qualities in the personality of the late doctor, mark the expression of the figure; and it is evident that no pains have been spared by the artist in the modelling of the details.[7] Mr. Hamilton McCarthy has also been very successful in the design of the pedestal, which has excited general admiration. It is 10 ft. 6 in. in height, and is of New Brunswick granite. The conception is unique in character. Pilasters at the four angles terminate in buttresses to the ground, and support above beautifully designed capitols with dentils on the face. The pyramidal form of the whole work gives it an effect of rising out of the ground. The finely polished panels of the die, in each of which a classic shield is outlined, contain the inscriptions. [7] In a note from Sir John Macdonald, he said:-- "Many thanks for your note, and for the photographic model of our dear old friend, Dr. Ryerson. The apparent frown on the brow is perhaps too pronounced, [the expression was modified after receipt of this note]. The pose seems to me very good." Rev. J. K. Smith, D.D., of Galt, in a note to me also said:-- "Please except my sincere thanks for the excellent photo of the lamented Dr. Ryerson which is an admirable likeness. It is I suppose, as nearly perfect in every respect as a statue could be. I am persuaded that the statue will be a splendid one, and I rejoice that his great name is thus to be handed down to successive generations of our Canadian youth as a sacred memory and a powerful stimulus." Mr. McCarthy can be congratulated upon the success of his work, and the province can be congratulated upon the possession of so noble an addition to the few works of art now in the country. Mr. Gullett, the contractor for the erection of the pedestal also performed his duties carefully and faithfully, as not the slightest hitch occurred, and no damage was sustained by the granite. COMMENTS OF THE PRESS ON THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE. The _Evangelical Churchman_ of May the 9th, anticipating the unveiling of Dr. Ryerson's statue, said:-- "On the 24th of this month, the Queen's Birthday, Ontario will do honor to one of her most distinguished sons. On that day will be unveiled the statue to the memory of Egerton Ryerson, the founder of the school system of his native province. The ceremony will be unique in many ways, not the least interesting fact in connection therewith being that the statue of Dr. Ryerson will be the first one erected by the Province of Ontario to one of its own sons. Dr Ryerson was a thorough Canadian and was born in Ontario. Thus this signal honor to his memory acquires additional lustre, and does much to redeem Ontario from the reproach an often uttered that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country. It reveals, indeed, another fact which, in a new country, is not without a peculiar significance. It is this, that national life is commencing in earnest, and that national characteristics are developing themselves. A country which can step aside, as it were, in the rush and hurry of existence to do honor to one of its sons, is not without aspirations after a national existence, is not wholly given up to considerations of material interest, and possesses within it something that is full of promise of permanence and true greatness." The Hamilton _Times_ of the 25th of May, under the beading of "The Memory of a Great Canadian," said:-- "The unveiling of the Ryerson statue in the Normal School grounds, at Toronto, yesterday, was the occasion of recalling the achievements of the late Dr. Ryerson in connection with Ontario's educational system. From 1844 until 1876 Rev. Egerton Ryerson was Chief Superintendent of Education in this Province.... But Dr. Ryerson's services to Canada did not begin in 1844. He was a great man before he touched the educational System. He was born in the County of Norfolk in 1803, and when he was about 20 years of age he was studying in Hamilton in a little house on Jackson Street, not far from the place where the new Y.M.C.A. building is in the course of construction.... In 1826 Archdeacon Strachan preached a sermon on the death of Bishop Mountain. The Methodists at that time were the most numerous religious body in upper Canada but Dr. Strachan set forth the claim of the Church of England to the Clergy Reserves.... Mr. Ryerson was junior preacher under the late Rev. James Richardson, who had his arm shot off while in naval service near Sackett's Harbour during the war.... When Dr. Strachan's sermon was published, it was agreed that Mr. Richardson and Mr. Ryerson should each write a reply to it. They separated, each going to a different part of their large circuit, and when they met a few weeks later young Ryerson had prepared his paper, but Mr. Richardson had nothing ready. It was read before the other preachers and published. The battle had now begun, and it did not end until the Clergy Reserves were secularised in 1854. During nearly all that time Mr. Ryerson was a leading character in Canadian public life. He wrote, he spoke, he worked, appearing before Parliamentary committees, interviewing the statesmen of Great Britain and occasionally taking his stand upon the hustings.... Dr. Ryerson was born in 1803 and became Superintendent of Education in 1844. He was only 42 years of age at the time of his appointment, yet he had performed a greater share of work, and had attained a greater degree of prominence in those forty-two years than most public men can boast of as the achievements of a lifetime. How many men in this latter end of the century get into the thick of the fight and make their influence felt while under 40 years of age? The point we wish to impress is this: Had Egerton Ryerson died in 1844, instead of becoming Superintendent of Education and living until 1882, his history would still have been worth writing, and he would have deserved a monument For the services he performed for his native Province. His long connection with educational affairs to a great extent blotted out the memory of his earlier work and struggles in another connection. He had much to do with founding Victoria College and getting that institution fairly established.... The impression remains with us to this day that if Dr. Ryerson had been a lawyer he would have made all other Canadian lawyers look small; if he had gone into politics he would have been perpetual Premier: in short, he was the ablest native Canadian who has so far helped to make history. The _Christian Guardian_ of the 29th May, said:-- The unveiling of the statue of the late D. Egerton Ryerson, last Friday, in the Normal School grounds in this city, recalls the memory of a worthy and honored Canadian, widely known as a successful journalist, a gifted and learned divine, and an eminent educationist. It will hardly be questioned that the principle of perpetuating the memory of benefactors of a country is a laudable one, or that the individual in this case was worthy of this honor. No one who has travelled in Britain or other European countries, has failed to have his attention arrested by statues, or other memorials, of eminent men whom the county delighted to honor. It is well adapted to inspire the young with high purpose to note that however partisan strife may obscure the patriotic services of public men during active life, when the work of life is over, as a general rule, men of all parties cheerfully recognize the value of the service rendered by those who have faithfully labored for the public good. Owing to the intensity of political feeling in Canada, there is a strong tendency to underestimate the work of our statesmen and politicians, until they have gone where human praise or blame cannot affect them. Though Dr. Ryerson passed through many fierce controversies, and at times came into conflict with hostile opponents, to-day men of all creeds and parties are ready to give him his due meed of praise as one of the greatest of Canada's sons, who achieved a work in organizing and building up a system of public education that shall tell powerfully for good through all coming time. He founded no cities; he led no armies to victory; he had no special influence on the material prosperity of the land; but in organizing a system of public schools, which placed the elements of a sound education within the reach of every boy and girl in this Province, he has exercised an undying influence over the future intellectual life of the country, that shall largely determine its place in the scale of civilization. It is not only since his death that the strife of tongues has ceased, and the value of his work has been generally acknowledged. For several years before his death the echoes of old battles had become silent; old strifes were healed; and he lived in a peaceful Beulah land awaiting the Master's call to cross the dark river. In the beginning of 1879 at the request of the editor of the _Guardian_, he wrote an article for the Jubilee number of this paper, of which he was the first editor. After giving an interesting account of the origin and growth of the paper, he concluded by saying; "May the success of the past be as a dim dawn to the success of the future! Such is the prayer and hope of the first editor of the _Guardian_--now retired from all office in Church and State, near the fifty-fifth year of his ministry and the seventy-seventh year of his age--_looking_ for a better country and _waiting_ for a heavenly home." The _Presbyterian Review_ of the 30th May, said:-- The various speakers dwelt upon the immense service which the late Dr. Ryerson rendered to the country in laying broad and deep the foundations of our educational system, and testified their satisfaction that gratitude and veneration had found expression in the noble work of art before them, which would perpetuate his name to many generations of students and scholars.... Dr. Hodgins and the other gentlemen associated with him on the Ryerson Statue Committee are to be heartily congratulated on the result of their well-directed efforts and well-sustained efforts to assist in perpetuating the memory of a native-born Canadian who, notwithstanding some errors of judgment, proved himself worthy to be held in grateful remembrance by his countrymen. _The Week_ of the 31st May, said:-- That was a grand purpose to which Rev. Egerton Ryerson pledged himself on accepting office as the first Superintendent of Education for Ontario in 1844, "To provide for my native country a system of education, and facilities for intellectual improvement, not second to those of any country in the world." The form and loftiness of the promise marked the courage, individuality and conscious strength of the man who made it. The statue in the Toronto Normal School grounds, which was unveiled with appropriate ceremonies on the 24th inst., will henceforth stand as the testimony of the people of Ontario, especially of its teachers and others interested in educational work, to the faithfulness and ability with which the pledge was redeemed through thirty-two years of indefatigable toil and struggle. The artistically wrought monument in bronze will also serve as a fitting reminder to all who visit the Educational Department that the people of Ontario do not mean to let those who faithfully served their country in its earlier days be forgotten. A monument "more enduring than bronze" stands out to view wherever a free public school is efficiently doing its work in training the young of both sexes and of all classes to become intelligent and patriotic citizens of this growing commonwealth. Whether it be literally true or not that Dr. Ryerson "placed his native Province in the van of all the States of America and all the colonies of the British Empire," as the Minister of Education avouches, his plan was certainly comprehensive and statesmanlike, and was followed out with a courage, perseverance and success, for which the Province must ever remain his debtor. The Toronto correspondent of the _Montreal Witness_, under date of 31st of May, says:-- One of the noblest public tributes ever paid to the memory of any man in Canada was paid the other day to the memory of the late Rev. Egerton Ryerson. From the time of his death, early in 1882, till now, the work of collecting subscriptions for the erection of a statue has gone steadily on. The amounts contributed were individually small, but the contributors were numerous, and now in front of the Departmental Buildings, in St. James' Square, stands a memorial of him which will fairly convey to future generations some idea of what the man himself was in personal appearance. The massiveness and rugged strength are there, and there were, after all, the most marked traits of Dr. Ryerson's personality, though he was by no means lacking in sympathy and intellectual ability.... The addresses were admirable alike for brevity and good taste, and nothing occurred to mar the success of the ceremony. The _Educational Journal_ of June 1st, said:-- The statue of the late Dr. Ryerson, which has been so long in course of preparation, has been set up on the Normal School grounds, and was unveiled, with appropriate ceremonies, on the 24th ult. The ceremony of unveiling was performed by Sir Alexander Campbell, the Lieutenant-Governor, who said that he thought no pleasanter duty could fall to the lot of any Lieutenant-Governor than that of assisting in honoring one of the Province's noblest men. The status is of bronze, nine feet six inches in height, and stands upon a pedestal of New Brunswick granite, ten feet six inches high. It represents Dr. Ryerson in the attitude of addressing an audience in the cause of education. The head is turned a little to the right, with the lips slightly parted, and with the massive brow and flowing locks, gives a correct and forcible expression, in harmony with the action of the advanced arm and firm position of the right leg. The proportions of the figure are very well kept through the ample folds of the doctor's gown, which in their various lines, lend richness and interest to the work, and take away the stiffness of the modern costume. The left hand is raised nearly to the breast, and in it is grasped a book. A little to the left and rear of the figure stands a short pedestal bearing three books, carelessly laid one upon another; and on one of the panels of the pedestal is the arms of the Department of Education. Dignity of bearing, repose and action, and distinct force of character, eminent qualities in the personality of the late doctor, mark the expression of the figure; and it is evident that no pains have been spared by the artist, Mr. Hamilton McCarthy, in the modelling of the details of both statue and pedestal. The statue stands in a commanding position in the Normal School grounds. It will add a new object of interest to the many attractions which these grounds present to teachers and others visiting the Department. The _Irish Canadian_ of the 6th of June, under the heading of "A Graceful Tribute," said:-- On the 24th of May (the Queen's Birthday), was unveiled the statue erected in the Normal School grounds to the memory of the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, the founder of the common school system of education in Ontario, and its Superintendent from its inception in 1844 till 1876, when he retired in the fullness of years, and after his labors had been crowned with signal success. The Catholics of this Province, in the matter of education, have nothing for which they should be thankful to the distinguished divine.... For all that, Dr. Ryerson was a man of great and good parts; and, from a Common School point of view, he has left a noble heritage in a system of education that will bear favorable comparison with the best of any land. It was the occasion of the unveiling of his statue that his co-laborer in the Education Department--Dr. J. George Hodgins--paid the memory of Dr. Ryerson a graceful tribute. Who so capable for so delicate a task as he who had been Dr. Ryerson's right-hand man, his able support, during his long and varied career in the Education office? And happily has the story of the ups and downs of the Common School system been told by the learned Deputy Minister, to whose ripe judgment, in no small degree, was due the system's unmeasured success. The part that Dr. Hodgins played, however, is kept in the background; and we see only what Dr. Ryerson done during his lengthened incumbency, and the difficulties with which he had to contend in maturing his plans and bringing them as nearly as possible to his own ideal of perfection. Dr. Hodgins' retrospect goes back to the period of the U. E. Loyalists, and thence downward to 1876. It leads us by degrees from the primitive system in vogue prior to the grammar schools (in one of which the late venerable Bishop Strachan taught as master), through a series of changes aiming at higher education, till we arrive at the year in which the foundations of the present system were laid. The corner-stone having been placed, the superstructure rose in fair proportions; and the edifice having been completed, to furnish it with all the adjuncts necessary to the best educational training was the Superintendent's constant care. How Dr. Ryerson finally overcame every obstacle to his darling object is told with tender affection by Dr. Hodgins, who, in laying a chaplet on the grave of his dead chief, does honor not only to the memory of a good man, but also to his own generous instincts. The _Canada Educational Monthly_ for June-July, said:-- The Rev. Dr. Ryerson has long been widely known as a gifted and learned divine, as well as a successful journalist, who took a prominent part in the religious and moral development of our country in its early days, ... but the fitting memorial which was unveiled on Her Majesty's seventieth birthday, is erected to him chiefly as a worthy Canadian and an eminent educationist.... The life work of this able man has now passed into other hands; in itself it forms a whole superstructure, and if the enlightened principles which he laid down and acted upon are carried out in their integrity, they must exercise an undying influence for good upon the intellectual life of the country, upon its gradual advance in the scale of civilization and refinement, and upon its moral and religious life. The ceremony of unveiling the statue brought together many true, patriotic and representative men. Some of his personal friends and fellow-workers were there, and others who remembered him with affection and gratitude. The Government, the city, the public and secondary schools, the colleges and universities were all represented, and all united in honoring the memory of the founder of the Ontario school system. CHAPTER III. THE ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE UNVEILING.[8] [8] The Historical Paper--an abstract of which was read by Dr. Hodgins, will be found on page 26. THE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO. Mr. Robert McQueen, President of the Ontario Teachers' association, spoke as follows:-- _Your Honor_, _Mr. Chairman_, _Ladies and Gentlemen_: We are gathered here to-day to do honor to the memory of one to whom this country owes a debt of deep and lasting gratitude; and should I fail entirely to give expression to any thought worthy of the man or the occasion, I feel certain that all will be overlooked, when I simply utter the two words "Egerton Ryerson." He was a man of marked individuality of character, of energetic action, of great power of will, and tenacity of purpose. His life-work bears the marks of his individuality and energy, the results he achieved are evidences of his power of will and his tenacity of purpose. And, in view of the results which he achieved, it is a meet and a becoming thing, that, as a people, we should meet and do honor to his memory, as we have gathered here this day to do. Men, even great men, only act permanently, as they act upon the institutions of their country. The greatness that centres in the individual is dependent upon and contingent on the existence of the individual, and the influence exercised by him as it centres in him, dies with him, passes away when he leaves the scene. But the man who leaves his impress on the institutions of his country, exercises an influence that is permanent in its action, pervasive in its power, and, within the range of these institutions, is universal in its beneficence. Every amelioration of these institutions is an abiding good, shared in by all who come within their sphere of operation. It becomes the common heritage of all. Such was the impress made, such still is the influence exercised by the individual to whose memory and life-work we have met this day to do honor. His connection with, his charge over, and his influence upon the educational institutions of this country, reaching backward nearly half a century from the present time, and lasting over a period of nearly thirty years, was that of a formative and meliorating kind. From the time of his acceptance of office in 1844, down to the period when he resigned his trust, his energies were directed, his powers brought to bear on organizing, modelling and consolidating the school system of this province. Let us for a few moments trace briefly the history of that system for the last fifty years. The Education Bill of 1837 may be said to have been the first legislative attempt at organization. This bill provided for the annual expenditure of fifteen thousand pounds for common school purposes, and that as soon as the permanently available Public School Fund of this Province amounted to ten thousand pounds per annum, a superintendent of common schools should be appointed by the Governor under the Seal of the Province, whose duty it should be to report annually to the Legislature on all matters pertaining to the administration of the public schools. The union of the Provinces brought the Act of 1841, introduced by the Hon. Mr. Day. This Act was simplified and improved by the Bill of 1843, introduced by the Hon. F. Hincks. By the provisions of that Act the Secretary of the Province was _ex-officio_ Chief Superintendent of Schools. In 1844 that office was tendered to the late Dr. Ryerson, and in the autumn of that year it was accepted by him on two conditions: (1st), that the administration of the school system should constitute a separate and distinct non-political department; (2nd), that he should be permitted to act by a deputy for one year and have leave of absence for that period, in order to enable him to visit and examine the educational systems of other countries, in Europe and America, before attempting to lay the foundations of a system in Upper Canada. The whole of 1845 was spent in these inquiries and investigations. The results were embodied in a report to the Legislature in 1846. Along with this report was a Draft School Bill, which was introduced and carried through by the Hon. W. Draper, and became law in June, 1846. In a few mouths a draft bill for cities and incorporated towns was submitted and carried through by the Hon. J. H. Cameron, and became law in June, 1847; these two Acts, with modifications and improvements, suggested by time and experience, were incorporated in the School Bill of 1850, which was introduced by the Hon. F. Hincks, and was the first Act to which the Earl of Elgin gave the Royal Assent after the removal of the Seat of Government to Upper Canada. The provision of this bill embodied the basis of our present system. It introduced the principle of free schools, leaving the adoption of that principle to the option of each school section. Subsequent changes and modifications were embodied in the Act of 1870, which abolished the office of township superintendent, introduced the county inspectorate, and made free schools compulsory. This Act may be said to be the last touch of the "Master Hand." In order to apprehend the true nature and extent of that impress which he made, of that influence which he exercised and exerted, we have only to look around, to look on that noble structure, whose foundations he was permitted and honored to lay, and whose superstructure he was so largely enabled to rear. Our school system is his true memorial. I have already said that it is a meet and a becoming thing for a nation to honor the memory of its public benefactors. The nation that ceases to cherish and manifest a grateful remembrance of those who have devoted their energies to the promotion of its welfare and spent their lives in its service, gives evidence of deterioration and decay, gives evidence that it is on the down grade of national existence. To-day we have gathered here to give expression to our gratitude in tangible form, by the erection in this public place, of this costly and enduring memorial of the individual and his life-work, that by its very presence it may speak to all who behold of the grateful sense of benefits received, cherished by the people of this Province. Yet there is another way in which we may manifest our gratitude, viz., by seeking to conserve, to consolidate, to ameliorate, our school system, which has thus come down to us from the moulding hand of the departed; and not only seeking to preserve what has thus been handed down to us, so far as the school system itself is concerned, but to seek to make it practically effective in its operation, so that all who live under its shadow, may share to the full of the blessings and privileges which it is fitted to confer and intended to bestow. Our sense of gratitude will thus assume a practical and beneficent form. That the management of our school system has fallen into, and now is in good and wise hands, we all feel confident. That its success depends largely on the energy, the zeal and the faithfulness of those who are entrusted with the education of the youth of this Province, our high and public school teachers, together with the co-operation of the people at large, of all classes and of all creeds, all will be prepared to admit. In one word: It is only by the united and concerted action of all three, the executive skill, the zeal and energy of the teachers, and the popular sympathy and support that we can hope to secure the full benefit of our school system on the one hand; and on the other, show ourselves worthy of the heritage that has been handed down to us by those who have gone before us. ADDRESS OF THE ACTING MAYOR. Alderman McMillan, President of the City Council and Acting Mayor of Toronto, in the absence of Mayor E. F. Clarke, M.P.P., in England, spoke as follows:-- I regret very much that His Worship the Mayor is not with us to-day to represent the citizens of Toronto on this interesting occasion. It is his loss, however, and I fear it will be your loss also, that it has fallen to my lot to act as his substitute and to speak on his behalf and on behalf of the citizens of Toronto. Knowing my own unfitness for the task, I have hesitated; feeling my own inability, I have shrunk from the duty imposed on me. Deeply conscious as I am of the fact that it requires more eloquence than I possess to do justice to the occasion, or to speak in fitting terms of the great work of the eminent divine and educationist to whose memory this statue has been erected. No more appropriate place could have been selected for its erection than here on the grounds of the department which is the creation of his genius, and in front of a building which stands a monument to the energy of its founder. He will be but a poor student of the history of his country who has not yet learned from its pages the deep debt of gratitude which every Canadian owes to the man whose memory is held in most affectionate rememberance by all classes of the community. He will be a poor judge of mental power or moral worth who has not yet learned to prize the grandeur of his life-work or the versatility of the attainments of the man who was not only a deep thinker and a notable teacher but an earnest and a humble Christian--a happy combination of the scholar and the gentleman. During a long and eventful career, and at a crucial period in our country's history the active part he played in public affairs has left on the institutions of our province the impress of his vigorous intellect. Prompted by pure motives, and guided by sound judgment, he gave evidences of an uncommon genius, which he devoted to the service of his country and the best interests of the people, and thus he became a leader among men. In the school system of this province he built for himself a more lasting monument than the granite and bronze we now raise to his memory. With fluent speech and ready pen he has oft been the defender of our most sacred rights and cherished privileges. A lover of truth, he abhorred falsehood. A lover of freedom, he hated oppression; and the cause of truth and of freedom found in him an able and willing champion. A staunch defender of British connection, he yet manfully battled for equal rights and privileges to all classes of the people. He loved the land of his birth with no ordinary affection and, during a long and busy life, he helped to mould her destiny and shape her course--guiding her feeble and often erratic steps, leading her into the paths of truth and righteousness which, we are assured, most surely exalteth the nation. In the pages of Canadian history the "Story of his Life" and labors will ever be instructive reading. In the chronicles of the Methodist Church of Canada (the church of his choice) his name will always stand pre-eminently conspicuous as one of her ablest scholars and one of her most eminent divines--an earnest preacher and a devoted missionary. Filled with a fervent love for his Lord and Master, he labored earnestly in His vineyard seeking souls for His hire. I am proud of the privilege I enjoy of being here on behalf of the citizens of this great city--pleased to be able to bear testimony to the high appreciation we have of his services and the strong affection we bear to the memory of the Rev. Egerton Ryerson. I am also pleased to have this opportunity of being allowed to tender my own humble tribute of respect to the memory of him who was both a statesman and a scholar, a patriot and a Christian. REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. The Honourable Senator John Macdonald, speaking on behalf of the University of Toronto, said:-- I wish first to express my regret--a regret I have no doubt in which you share--that some one better fitted than myself had not been selected to represent the University of Toronto upon this important occassion. My embarrassment is lessened however, and possibly your disappointment, in view of the handsome tribute paid to the memory of the great man by the Minister of Education in his admirable address, by the presentation of the historic paper by the Deputy Minister, and last, though not least, by the speech of Alderman McMillan on behalf of the city of Toronto. Patriotism is that passion which aims to serve one's country, either in defending it from invasion or protecting its rights and maintaining its laws and institutions in vigour and purity. If then we accord, as we ought to do, a place among the patriots of our country to those who readily respond to its call in the hour of danger, to those who bring their wisdom and judgment to bear in the making of laws for its good and healthful government, to those, also, who as diplomats in the carrying on of delicate and subtle international negotiations do so in such a way as not only to maintain their country's honor but to make their country respected, what place shall we assign to him who devoted his life to the best interests of the young of his own province in order that they might be fitted rightly to take their part in life, to do this all the better by reason of that educational system of which he was the moving spirit and which it was his to found? What place I ask, if it be not the very first place in the front rank of that distinguished class. Egerton Ryerson may fairly be regarded as the founder of the school system of his own province and as a consequence must, throughout all time, occupy a foremost place in the history of his country. His was a life spent not in the promotion of his personal ends. Indeed it may be affirmed that his devotion to his life-work so absorbed his time, his thoughts and his energies as to have disqualified him for making that suitable provision for the close of life for which his great abilities so eminently fitted him. It would scarcely be fair to claim for him all the honour of perfecting the school system of Ontario, scarcely fair to say that to him exclusively belongs the results seen to-day which give to the school system of Ontario so prominent a place among the school systems of other countries. A measure of the praise is doubtless due to the able staff of workers by which he was supported. His was the directing mind; 'twas theirs to carry out his plans. It would not be fair to ascribe to the architect all the credit for the grace, symmetry and safety of the most magnificent public buildings. True, he it was who planned the foundations, made them deep and broad, as that they might be safe and enduring. True, he it was who gave grace and beauty to the elevation, as that it might not only answer its purpose, but that it might be at the same time "a thing of beauty;" but how easily might not only the safety of the building be imperilled but its beauty marred by careless and by ignorant treatment; but skilful treatment has produced the needed strength, and has secured the grace of outline, and the building is perfect and harmonious in all its parts. What the architect is to the building that was Egerton Ryerson to our school system. His it was to lay the foundation upon which a structure which might be at once the pride and the glory of our Province could be erected; his it was to lay these deep and broad and enduring. How wisely and how well he did his work. How well his efforts have been supplemented by the able band of workers who were associated with him the splendid school system of our Province to-day abundantly testifies. It is fitting, therefore, that his statue should be placed on these grounds, so that the coming generations may be made familiar with the general appearance of the man who has done so much for the educational interests of his country. But it is not here, faithful as the bronze may speak of the man, that his most fitting and most enduring monument must be found. The group of happy faced children which throng our sidewalks wending their way each morning to our schools, the pupils of our Model Schools, our High Schools, the under-graduates of our Universities, and these seen not only in their school period, but in their subsequent career taking their place in our country as its legislators, its professional men, its merchants, mechanics, farmers, its matrons, taking their places in life, and taking them all the better for their own good and that of their country for the training, sound, thorough and scholarly, which they have received in the schools, colleges and universities of their own country, helping them to make their homes homes of comfort, elegance and refinement. Here must be found the true and abiding monument of the man; here the enduring fruit of his life-work, more imperishable also than either brass or marble. Statistics have been freely given, and these need not be repeated. Not often does it fall to the lot of one man to leave behind him such a record as that left by Dr. Ryerson in his life-work of thirty-three years. To see the old-log school house, with its imperfect appliances, supplanted by the palatial school buildings with their perfect equipment of our own day. To see the work done by our High Schools, our Colleges and Universities, which challenges not the attention only, but the admiration of other countries, that is an honour, even with the capabilities which exist in a young country like ours, reserved but for few, and yet among that number he stands out promptly whose statue has this day been unveiled by His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor. Any words of mine are poor and weak indeed in dealing with a matter so full of interest, not to the people of Ontario only but to the people of Canada, but full of interest to my own mind, as it must be to the mind of others, is the estimate placed upon Dr. Ryerson's work by many eminent men, all well qualified to judge from an educationalist standpoint. Dr. Hodgins has spoken of the late Dr. Fraser, Bishop of Manchester. Few men were so well able to form an opinion upon any educational system. Himself a great scholar, an Oriel man, an enthusiast on all matters connected with the educational system of his own country, appointed by the Royal Commission as an assistant commissioner to visit and report upon the educational system of the United States and Canada, thus speaks of our school system and of Dr. Ryerson. After referring to the system says: "It shows what can be accomplished by the energy, determination and devotion of a single earnest man. Through evil report and good report, he has found others to support him in the resolution that free education shall be placed within the reach of every Canadian parent for every Canadian child." Egerton Ryerson has deserved well of his country. His best days and his best energies were given to the upbuilding of its grandest institution. Well should his country guard and cherish his memory, so that the young who are here assembled to-day may learn this lesson, that he who devotes his life for his country's good, his country will hold his memory not in fragrant only, but in perpetual remembrance. REPRESENTATIVE OF VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, COBOURG. The Rev. N. Burwash, S.T.D., President and Chancellor of Victoria University, spoke as follows: _Ladies and Gentlemen_: It is particularly appropriate that on this occasion Victoria University should speak. We meet to do honor to one of the greatest of Canada's sons. Dr. Ryerson has written his name indelibly upon the pages of his country's history. He has done so not merely by superior gifts of intellect, although to few men have more noble talents been entrusted. Nor has he done so merely as the successful leader of a great party in Church or State, although he was a leader, one of the first three in one of Canada's greatest movements towards a perfect political constitution. The success of this movement, after a struggle stretching through the lifetime of a full generation, and its results of which all good men now approve, might well ennoble the name of any man. But that for which we honor Dr. Ryerson's name and memory to-day is his work as an educator; and from Victoria University he first received the call to consecrate his life to his work. He was the first President of Victoria College. He, a Canadian of the Canadians, was the first Canadian to occupy that position in our Province; and Victoria has maintained the Canadian succession unbroken from his day to the present. Victoria was the first institution in this Province in active operation as a teaching institution with University powers. And it fell to Dr. Ryerson to shape its character and curriculum, and to give it a form, many features of which it has retained to this present hour. It was from this duty of laying the foundations of our University in this young Province that Dr. Ryerson was called to the wider field of fashioning the primary and intermediate education of the whole people. It would be presumption on my part to attempt to speak to-day of the difficulties which beset him in his task, and of the skill and judgment with which those difficulties were met and overcome. That has already been the more appropriate duty of one who has just spoken, and who was for long years his most valued and honored associate in his life-work. But, as a Canadian of the fourth generation, and as a Canadian school boy who has enjoyed the advantages of the great work which to-day we commit to the perpetual memory of our country, I may venture to refer to the peculiarly Canadian character of the system founded by Dr. Ryerson. The early schools of this country were very varied in their type. Prepossession and usage rule imperiously in education. Each little colony or settlement, as it was called, had its national prepossessions. Here was an attempt to reproduce a miniature English Eton or Rugby. There was a genuine Scottish parish school with its Bible and Catechism. Here was an Irish school with its predilection for difficult problems in arithmetic and algebra. There was a Yankee school with its spelling-matches and dialogues on examination day. These were the heterogeneous elements of forty-five and fifty years ago. To-day, we have everywhere the Canadian school as unique in its character as any of these, and as well-known in its results all over this continent. The skilful mind that took possession of these materials, that carefully separated the good from the bad, that patiently and wisely removed or overcame prejudices, that calmly waited till the public mind was ready for each progressive movement, and then with vigor pushed it forward to speedy completion--this was the ----le gift which Dr. Ryerson devoted to his country's service. Gathering his materials for building up a perfect educational system from all lands, and from the wisdom and experience of all ages, this great man wrought out his life-task in the face of political prejudices, of national prejudices and of sectarian prejudices. I know of no man of his day who rose more fully than did he above the narrowness of all these. From the elevation of a broad catholicity, he grasped the great outlines of a comprehensive and national system of education for the Upper Canadian people, and patiently did he work toward that as his ideal. It would be too much to say that he completed the ideal. Such is not often given to mortal man. There are problems in this work still unsolved. There is still something for us to do. But in the solution of these problems we may well thank God for the broad, strong foundations, and structures planned, and so nearly completed by this master workman. In the inaugural address with which Dr. Ryerson opened his work in Victoria College, I find this passage "The education imparted in this college is to be British and Canadian. Youth should be educated for their country as well as for themselves." This motto, never forgotten, has given character to his great life-work, and has given us a system of public schools and intermediate schools which more enduring than any monument will perpetuate to our children for generations to come, the name of Egerton Ryerson.[9] [9] W. Kerr, Q.C., Vice-Chancellor, of Victoria University, in explaining the causes of his absence from the ceremonies of unveiling, said:--"I thank you very much for your ever thoughtful kindness in sending me a programme of the ceremonies of unveiling of the statue of our late great chief founder of the peerless school system of Ontario. I should very much like to have the privilege of being present on the occasion and of listening to the speeches and addresses, but especially your 'Historical Paper on Education in Ontario,' which no man now living so well understands as yourself.... How often I think of the late chief's farsightedness and patriotic efforts in connection with the Upper Canada Academy and subsequently with Victoria University."... REPRESENTATIVE OF QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON. Sandford Fleming, C.E., LL.D, C.M.G., Chancellor of Queen's University, spoke as follows:-- _Your Honor_, _Mr. Chairman_, _Ladies and Gentlemen_: In the name of Queen's University, and at the special request of the Senate of that institution, I come here to-day to take part in these interesting proceedings. On behalf of higher education in Eastern Ontario I have the honor to bear tribute to the memory of Dr. Egerton Ryerson. However unworthy the individual whom Queen's has sent on this occasion, I am warranted in stating that no institution in this country is more thoroughly alive to the importance of sound education for all classes of the community than the University I come here to represent. Moreover, I venture to say that there is no one here present who more fully appreciates the incalculable value of the school system of Ontario and the work accomplished in its establishment, by him to whose memory we are this day assembled to do honor. It is not simply an agreeable duty I am called upon to perform, I feel it to be a high privilege to be allowed to take part by my presence on this auspicious occasion. I have but to look back over a period of forty years to recall the living form of the sculptured figure before us, and to remember the time when in the zenith of his strength and intellectual power, he brought to bear on the great work of his life that wisdom and foresight, that indomitable perseverance and patriotism, that zeal and devotion with which he was gifted. I have but to recollect his persistent efforts to initiate and put in successful operation a comprehensive system of common school education in this province, to express my unalloyed satisfaction that those efforts--those great and sustained efforts were not in vain. I rejoiced then, as I rejoice now, that the noble work in which he took so conspicuous a part has been crowned with signal success. I thought then, and I think now, that the people of this province, I may indeed say the people of the whole of Canada, of all ages, of all classes, of all colors and of all creeds, owe a deep debt of gratitude to Dr. Ryerson, and I cannot be wrong in the firm opinion that we all do well to revere and perpetuate his memory. While Dr. Egerton Ryerson attached most importance to the establishment of the common schools of the country on a sound and efficient basis, he also warmly sympathized with every effort to promote higher education. He took an active part in founding Victoria University, of which he was chosen the first president. He was a strenuous supporter of that institution up to the day of his death, firmly believing that the resources of the country could support, and that the people of Ontario should possess, well endowed, independent seats of learning of different types. As a member of the community I have always had the highest esteem and veneration for this great pioneer of education in Canada. I feel now and have always felt with unnumbered thousands that his life has indeed been that of a foremost public benefactor. I am, therefore, greatly gratified that it has fallen to my lot, on behalf of Queen's University and higher education in Eastern Ontario to bear tribute to the memory of the founder and first administrator of our system of public instruction, a far-seeing Canadian, an enlightened statesman, a man who in his distinguished career rendered the most important services to the country of his birth. I am glad to have an opportunity of taking part in the formal inauguration of the work of art which we see before us. At the same time I cannot forget that Dr. Egerton Ryerson has left behind him an inheritance to unborn generations of Canadians in the schools which we behold everywhere throughout the land and the free public instruction which they represent. These are now and must always be recognized as his best and most enduring monument.[10] [10] In his letter enclosing the manuscript of his address, Chancellor Fleming, said:--"I write to congratulate you on the complete success of the affair of last Friday. Even the weather was every thing we could desire. It was a genuine pleasure for me to be present on the occasion. In the few remarks I offered I meant every word I said, The only omission was the absence of any reference, or sufficient reference, to the right hand man of Dr. Ryerson during all the years he laboured. This often happens; but you have the happy consciousness that your work and your life has so largely entered into the imperishable monument which he has raised in the school system of the century." REPRESENTATIVE OF TRINITY UNIVERSITY, TORONTO. The Representative of Trinity University, Rev. Professor Clark, remarked that he had the honor of representing the smallest of the universities of Ontario, but one in which they strove to do their work in a spirit of loyalty to their country as well as to their own convictions. He had naturally prepared to make some remarks on the distinguished and illustrious man in whose honor they were then assembled; but, as he supposed, nearly everything which had occurred to him as being suitable to be said had been anticipated by previous speakers. As he looked upon those Normal Schools by which they were imprinted, he could not help being reminded of the words inscribed on the interior of St. Paul's in memory of its founder, Sir Christopher Wren, "_Si monumentum requiris circumspice_." "If you ask for his memorial look around you." With equal propriety we might point to those schools as a monument and memorial of Dr. Ryerson, the founder of the educational system of this Province, no less fitting than the statue which had just been uncovered. But more enduring than the building or the effigy was the intellectual and moral work which he had accomplished in our educational institutions, for that work was eternal. Its effects and influences would never pass away, but would go on leavening generations yet unborn. Whatever changes or revolutions might occur, his work and its consequences would still live on. In one respect, perhaps, it was fortunate that others should have borne testimony to Dr. Ryerson's work and ability, and to the greatness of the work which he had done. His own knowledge of the man and of the work was only second-hand, and he could not speak with the freshness and vividness of those who had personal knowledge of them. "_Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem._" But although he had not direct and immediate knowledge of Dr. Ryerson, he had the opportunity of studying several of the publications which gave an account of his history, and especially of his educational work--more particularly some of those written by Dr. Hodgins. From these he had learnt something of the spirit in which the work had been accomplished, and the principles which were embodied in it; and these would account for the eulogiums which had already been bestowed upon the work and its principal doer. They might learn from such investigations something that would help to guard them from dangers which attended their educational work. It seemed to him that Dr. Ryerson's conception of the work of education was singularly simple, earnest, deep and comprehensive, free from affectation and one-sidedness. They were in danger of forgetting some of these elements, of making education showy instead of solid,--of forgetting that it was the education and discipline of the man and of the mind that we had to accomplish, and not the outward adornment of him, or the mere imparting of knowledge. Some of our dangers have been forcibly pointed out by the President of University College, Sir Daniel Wilson, in the March number of the _Canada Educational Monthly_. It would not be proper to go into details on such an occasion, but he would recommend those who were interested in these questions to study that article. There was great danger of their being one-sided in education, of their taking up cries on one side or another. We have often heard of a foolish Anglomania by which some people were possessed. But there are other manias which are quite as silly. There was an Americano-mania and a Canada mania (_mania Canadensis_, said the Minister), and they were all equally foolish. It was egregious folly merely to imitate an Englishman or an American. But it was equally foolish to imagine that we had everything and could do everything by ourselves. Our business was not to make Englishmen or Americans or Canadians, but to make men, furnished with sufficient knowledge, with cultivated, disciplined minds, with vigorous wills. This is our work, and we must do it with our might, remembering the limitations of our position and realizing what we could and could not accomplish. We must not at present expect the results of the education given at the great German universities or at Oxford and Cambridge, but we might make the best with the materials at our disposal. We might foster in the rising generations a love of truth and goodness, and instil into them a deep sense of duty, and thus help to qualify them for the position they would have to occupy, and the work which they had to perform. REPRESENTATIVE OF MCMASTER UNIVERSITY.[11] [11] Dr. Rand, in sending the manuscript of his address, said:--"I think the exercises were very successful indeed, and that the memorial volume, if brought out with some expedition, will prove very helpful in quickening a true appreciation of the great work done by Dr. Ryerson in building up the educational system of Ontario." Professor Theodore H. Rand, M.A., D.C.L., representative of McMaster University spoke as follows:-- Twice before it has been my privilege to unite in doing honor by a public memorial to the name of distinguished educationalists,--that of Horace Mann, of Massachusetts, and Alexander Forrester, of Nova Scotia; but in view of the breadth of the area over which Egerton Ryerson wrought, and the really national character of his work, this has been an occasion of surpassing interest to me, and one, I am sure, which marks an epoch in the educational history of Ontario. In speaking as a representative of McMaster University, which is just now being organized as one of the instruments of the higher education of this country, I may be permitted to say that the Christian denomination which controls the destiny of that University has in all parts of the world been in active sympathy with popular education, and in two of our Canadian provinces has been foremost in efforts to secure the efficient organization of systems of free education under government control. When a country has risen to the position of making adequate public provision against the blighting and destructive influences of ignorance, it has undertaken the discharge of one of those contingent and great obligations which, perhaps, will always await any people who are pressing forward to the attainment of the possibilities of Christian civilization. With all its imperfections our system of public education in an eminent degree commands the affectionate regard of our people and the admiration of strangers. While Ontario was not the first of our Canadian provinces to organize a free system of public schools, and while she has not maintained intact the principle which lies at the basis of the common schools, the grandeur of the outline of our system and the general completeness of its details are, I believe, unsurpassed by those of any other system on this continent or throughout the empire. This is especially true of the completeness of the provision made for passing from the elementary schools into the work of the higher education. Ontario occupies this advanced position to-day, with all its immeasurable advantages, largely because of Egerton Ryerson. He was possessed of a profound conviction that mind is the great creative power by which all resources of nature are to be turned to account. He had no idea that material good is a good at all only as it is a means for the development of the moral and social possibilities of the individual and of the nation. He did not argue, as many others in the country did, that since the area of the Province is vast, its population widely scattered, its forests waiting to be felled, its lands to be cleared and drained, therefore the organization of an efficient school system was a thing of the far future. On the contrary, having before him such examples as Prussia, Scotland, Ireland, the New England, Middle and Western States, and believing that our civic institutions should afford social conditions inferior to those of no country in the world, he poured all the energy of his great heart and mind into the effort to make available even to the remotest hamlets of the Province the blessings of knowledge. Intelligence, industry and morality were felt to be inseparably bound up with the progress of education. A system good enough for the rich and poor alike, and supported at the public expense, was his aim and his final achievement. The Christian communism underlying our systems of public education on this continent is proving one of the great safeguards of society against the forms of a false communism; and there is yet room, in my judgment, for a still wider application of kindred principles in our social system. The work of Egerton Ryerson furnishes an additional illustration of the truth that systems of popular education are, so to speak, the gift to the people of the Colleges and Universities. His relations to the higher education enabled him to grasp all the elements involved in the great problem he undertook to solve for Ontario, and to bring all parts of the educational system into helpful and sympathetic relations. Our Universities must always be sources of stimulus and enrichment to the schools of the Province at large, if they discharge in any original and adequate measure their functions to society. In attributing so important a share to Egerton Ryerson in the establishment of our school system, I am not, of course, unmindful of the public men who seconded his efforts, and above all, of the teachers and inspectors by whose self-sacrificing toils educational advance was rendered possible, and has been sustained. Were he whom we honor in our midst to-day he would be the first to speak thus, and especially of his friend, Dr. Hodgins, who for so many years was his able assistant and valued confidant. This bronze memorial is well--may it long testify to the patriotic virtues of a noble man--but it is as nothing, I trust, in comparison with the living and imperishable memorials of enriched and ennobled human lives. As time witnesses the increasing development of the material and spiritual forces of the present and coming generations of our people, as our social and national institutions are more fully perfected and widely recognized, we shall have hereby and herein perennial memorials of the founder of the school system of Ontario throughout all coming time. CHAPTER IV. EDUCATION IN ONTARIO--PAST AND PRESENT. AN HISTORICAL RETROSPECT BY J. GEORGE HODGINS, M.A., LL.D., BARRISTER-AT-LAW, AND DEPUTY MINISTER OF EDUCATION FOR ONTARIO. To-day will long be memorable in the educational history of Ontario--for to-day has been unveiled the first statue ever erected in this province to one of its own sons. It will be still more memorable from the fact that that special subject of public interest and national concern which has been signally honoured to-day, is the pre-eminently important one of popular education. These two facts combined give to the celebration and pleasant incidents of the day a peculiar significance and a special interest. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EVENT OF TO-DAY. One of the first indications of a growing national life and a patriotic national spirit is the erection of statues to noble sons who have rendered such valuable services to the state as are recognized and honoured here to-day. It is a most hopeful sign, as well as an assuring and happy augury for the future of a country, when its patriotism takes the grateful and graceful form of doing honour to those who have aided in laying the foundation of its future greatness and prosperity. This, we all rejoice has been done by Ontario to-day in the unveiling of the statue of the distinguished founder of her educational system. She has reared to-day to one of the sons of her soil a noble monument, expressive of grateful acknowledgment for services of the greatest importance and value to her and to the thousands of her sons and daughters yet unborn. The erection of this statue emphasizes in a striking manner a notable fact, chronicled by John Milton, which the mature judgment of the nineteenth century has everywhere endorsed, that-- "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war." That is, that it is not heroic deeds of valor alone which call forth a nation's gratitude. It further shows us that unswerving devotion to duty in any of the departments of the public service, or professional or private life, which have to do with matters which concern a nation's progress and welfare, is equally recognized, if not more signally honoured, than were deeds of prowess in the days gone by. We have, at all events on this continent, many notable examples of distinguished honour being done to literary men, to men of science and to noted educationists. Any one who has visited the chief city of Massachusetts cannot fail to have seen, on the broad terrace in front of the capitol, a massive bronze statue to Horace Mann, the well-known Founder of the Public School system, not only of Massachusetts, but practically of the New England States. THE ONTARIO SYSTEM OF EDUCATION--ITS INFLUENCE ABROAD. So, in like manner we unveil to-day the statue, not only of the Founder of the School System of Ontario, but of one, the impress of whose hand, and the practical suggestions of whose mature experience, may be recognized in the systems of education of some of the Maritime Provinces, and in those of Manitoba and British Columbia. The first Superintendent of British Columbia, and the second of Manitoba were trained in the schools of Ontario, and were thus experienced pioneers in the new Provinces of their educational systems. Also in the West Indies the educational example of Ontario was felt to be of some value by Sir Francis Hincks, when Governor of the Windward Islands.[12] [12] In a letter from Barbados, dated 31st May, 1856, he said: As to education, in which you will take the greatest interest, all I can say is that my own hopes are centered in getting a good Normal School in humble imitation of yours. I think with that all will be well. If we could train good teachers we would have an admirable system. There have been some attempts, but not to much effect. I want your advice as to the establishment of this school. Tell me how to go to work to get good men, etc. I must have your plan of boarding the Normal School pupils at the public expense, which I think essential. I also want to introduce the national books (as you did). Any advice or information will be conducive to good results. Even the grand old Mother Country has not failed to acknowledge her indebtedness to him whom we honour to-day, for practical suggestions in the solution of the educational problems which confronted her public men, notably the Duke of Newcastle and the Right Hon. W. E. Forster,[13] during the years reaching from 1860 to 1870. [13] Full information in regard to the working of our system of education was communicated from time to time to the Privy Council Committee on Education in England. This was of great practical value (as he assured us) to the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, promoter of the noted English School Bill of 1870. In 1875 Mr. Forster visited the Education Department of Ontario. The _Journal of Education_ of April, 1876, thus refers to Mr. Forster's visit:-- "During the recent visits of the Right Hon. W. E. Forster and Hepworth Dixon, Esq., to the Ontario Education Department, they were kind enough to explain and discuss some of the new problems in the English Educational system, and made enquiries as to the success of our attempts at a practical solution of the same question. The two principal subjects referred to by Mr. Forster were compulsory education and denominational schools, and on these two points full explanation of our Ontario system were given."--_"Journal of Education," Province of Ontario, Volume xxviii., page 49._ In 1860, at the request of the Duke of Newcastle, who accompanied the Prince of Wales to Canada, Dr. Ryerson prepared an elaborate sketch of the system of education in Upper Canada, and contrasted it with the English and other European systems of education. This report was embodied in a letter to the Duke, dated 12th October, 1860. As to the appropriateness of our erecting a Statue to Egerton Ryerson in Ontario, as was done to Horace Mann, in Massachusetts, I may here quote a reference to the equal value of the labors of those two noted men which was made twenty-five years ago by that acute observer and experienced educational commissioner, the late well-known and distinguished Bishop Fraser, of Manchester. He said: "What Education in New England owes to Horace Mann, Education in Canada owes to Egerton Ryerson." To-day we honour ourselves by seeking to discharge that obligation, at least in part. There is one circumstance connected with the erection of this statue which, to my mind, gives it a peculiar value and significance. The erection of statues by popular vote, or by the Legislature, gives a _quasi_, if not a real national character to such erection, but, a statue erected from the proceeds of thousands of small contributions, as in this case, shows that deep down in the hearts of the people of this country there must have been genuine regard for the man whom they thus seek to honour. When a memorial takes such a form as that we may well regard it as more enduring and precious than either the bronze or marble which constitute the material of its structure. COMPREHENSIVE CHARACTER OF THE ONTARIO EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. It devolves upon me, as Chairman of the Committee having charge of this work, and at the kind request of my colleagues,--no less than as the life-long friend and fellow-laborer of him whose deeds and memory we honor to-day--to trace back to their source the origin and underlying principles of our system of education, and to show that these underlying principles and other vital forces were so combined by a master-hand an to form the groundwork, as they have, in their combination, become the charter of our educational system of to-day. And here, in this connection, a thought or two strikes me; and each thought contains for us a moral and a lesson. The first is that educational systems are essentially progressive in their character and purposes, and truly they "never continue in one stay." The second is that the earliest sources of what might be called our educational inspiration are now uncertain guides, and, as such, are to-day of doubtful authority. No one will venture to affirm that even--as it was then considered--the broad and comprehensive scheme of public education sketched by Dr. Ryerson in 1846, should be considered as the acme of our educational achievements of to-day. Nor would any one at all conversant with the condition and progress of education on this continent alone be content to draw his inspiration from, or limit his range of observation to, the New England States as formerly. The examples to be seen, and the experience to be consulted, and the systems to be studied, must to-day, so far as the United States is concerned--be sought for in the far-off Western States. In this matter I speak of what I know; and I speak, therefore, with the more emphasis on this point, because of the primary importance of keeping this Province and the Dominion educationally abreast of the most advanced States of the American Union--our near neighbors, and our energetic and actively progressive educational rivals. As an illustration of these notable facts, I may state that having been selected by the United States Bureau of Education to act as one of the seven international educational jurors, at the New Orleans Exhibition in 1885, it was, during six weeks, my duty with others, to examine into and report upon the condition and results of the various state systems of education in the Union, and in other countries. CHARACTER OF SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION ABROAD, AND LESSONS THEREFROM. I need not more than state, what you likely anticipate, that France, by her enlightened educational legislation of 1881--providing for manual, or industrial, training in all of her schools--and Germany, by her earlier and more systematized educational legislation, stand at the head of European States, as does Japan at the head of the whole Eastern World. But, in this connection, the interest to us should be to note the fact that the educational centre in the United States has within the last few years been gradually shifted from the east to the west. As an illustration, I may say that the highest award for the extent, variety and completeness of its educational system in all its details, was unanimously made by the jurors to Minnesota, while Massachusetts and other New England States, with New York, Pennsylvania, etc., were entitled to only second and third class honors. France and Japan justly received first-class honors, while England and other countries (omitting Germany) had to be placed in the second and third class ranks as educating countries. A revelation of these and other suggestive facts in regard to the progress of education in countries outside of our own, more than ever convinced me of the wisdom of Dr. Ryerson's policy of observation while head of the Education Department. He laid it down, not so much an educational axiom, as a wise dictum--the result of his educational experience, that-- "There is no department of civil government in which careful preparation, varied study and observation, and independent and uniform action, are so important to success and efficiency, as in founding, maturing and developing a system of public instruction." He, therefore, wisely devoted a large portion of his time to this "careful preparation," as well as to "varied study and observation" of systems of education in Europe and America. And this fact largely accounts for the "success and efficiency" of his efforts in "founding, maturing and developing" our system of public instruction. In a reply to a resolution from the Council of the County of Norfolk, in 1851, Dr. Ryerson thus referred to this subject:-- "There is no poetry in the establishment and development of a public school system; it is a matter-of-fact-work from beginning to end; and its progress, like the growth of body and mind in an individual, is gradual, and is the joint result of time and labour. I am happy, however, to know that our school system has already become so far developed in its principles, objects and character as to command the attention and almost unanimous approbation of the country. I have laid it down as a first principle to educate the people through the people themselves, by their own voluntary co-operation and exertion, through the usual elective municipalities and other acknowledged and responsible organs of a free people." EDUCATIONAL LESSONS TO BE LEARNED OUTSIDE OF ONTARIO. When we reflect upon the fact of the immense growth, and the comprehensive character of the educational machinery in operation on this continent alone, and the vast sums expended to keep it in motion, we cannot fail to be profoundly impressed with the serious and grave responsibility which is constantly imposed upon our educational leaders, of being forever on the watch-tower of observation, to note the changes, improvements and advances which are continually taking place in the educational world outside. We are too apt to be content with our own progress, and to measure ourselves by ourselves. In this connection the words recently addressed to the Kingston Board of School Trustees by the Very Rev. Principal Grant, are of special value as an apt illustration of my meaning:-- "During my absence I have studied the school systems of many countries, and have learned lessons that ought to assist me in coming to right conclusions. The world is wider than Canada, or than America. The British Empire itself is wider than this continent, and within its boundaries there are so many educational systems and methods that a man who travels with eyes and ears open cannot help learning many things that confirm opinions previously held, and suggest improvements on what he may have thought perfect, or the necessity of revising his former judgments. He gets new points of view, and that of itself is a great matter." Our American neighbors became fully alive years ago to the evils of the fluctuating and uncertain character of the prevailing system of educational administration in vogue amongst them. They saw that new and officially untrained men, of merely local experience and knowledge, were constantly being elected to take charge of the administrative department of the schools of a state. Such men were often able educators, but by no means experienced educationists, or masters of systems of education. The American people, shrewd and practical as they are, felt the absolute necessity, therefore, of furnishing such men, and the vast army of their educationists and educators, with full and accurate information on systems and plans of education all over the world. With this object in view, they established a central observatory, or Bureau of Education at Washington. I need hardly say how ably the work of this Bureau was systematized and most efficiently performed under the direction of the Hon. John Eaton, Commissioner of Education. His successive reports and periodical circulars of information are mines of educational wealth. Their fullness and comprehensiveness have been a marvel. They have aroused and stimulated educational workers everywhere. They are largely welcomed, and are highly prized in these Provinces and elsewhere, as suggestive, and as invaluable storehouses of information, and of the practical details of education all over the world. They have, therefore, largely supplied the place of personal inquiry and research, and yet have greatly stimulated both. It was Dr. Ryerson's ideal that sooner or later a similar Bureau would be established by the Central Government at Ottawa, the object of which would be, not only the supplying of abundant and reliable information to each province on the subject of systems and plans of education, but also, by intercommunication, to secure a general harmony of aim and purpose. And that further, without attempting any interference in local administration, the Bureau would be the means of keeping up an active yet friendly intercolonial rivalry; and thus, on Dominion and national lines, to build up the confederacy, and to stimulate and encourage the efforts made in each province for the promotion of substantial educational progress, combined with efficiency and economy. THREE EDUCATIONAL PERIODS IN THE HISTORY OF ONTARIO. The educational history of Ontario naturally divides itself in three periods, viz.:-- 1. The early settlement, or United Empire Loyalist period. 2. The period preceding the union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1840. 3. The period since that union, and including the administration of the Education Department by the Rev. Dr. Ryerson, down to 1876. The United Empire Loyalists period takes us back to a period antecedent to that of their historical prominence as a factor in the events of the war of the American Revolution. In order, therefore, to estimate the value of the educational influence of those times on the future of the provinces in which the U. E. Loyalists settle, we must take a glance at the Colonial chapter in the History of American Education. COLONIAL CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION. It is, therefore, interesting in taking note of our educational progress to give a brief glance at what was done by our fellow colonists at a corresponding early period in the history of the "old thirteen colonies," which formed the nucleus of the present American Confederation. It has been the custom, probably unwittingly, but chiefly on the part of certain American writers, to exalt every good in their political and social condition, as of revolutionary origin, and reluctantly to admit that anything which was really excellent in both, in the early colonial times, was of British origin. One unacquainted with the processes and progress of civilization in America would, on consulting such writers, suppose that, Minerva-like, the young Republic had sprung from the head of Revolutionary Jove, fully equipped, if not fully armed for the battle of life, into the arena of the new world, and that this phenomenon happened just at the extinction of British power in the old colonies, and as the result of it. The policy of these writers has been either to ignore the facts of history, or to keep entirely out of view the forces which had been operating in the British colonial mind, before and at the time of the Revolution. They have never stopped to enquire as to the source whence they derived their idea of political freedom, but have attributed it to their own sagacity, or regard it as the outgrowth of their own enlightened speculations and thinkings when emancipated from British control. There never was a greater mistake as to fact, or a greater wrong done to the memory and example of such noble English patriots as Hampden and his compeers, who laid down their lives for political principles which, considering the times in which they lived, were even more exalted and ennobling than those which were professed by the American revolutionists of 1776. In fact, no proper parallel can be instituted between them. John Hampden, in our humble judgment, was as far superior to John Hancock, "President of the Continental Congress," in the purity of his political motives and aspirations, as Cromwell was above Jack Cade.[14] However, it is not our purpose to discuss this question, but rather to vindicate the sagacity of the old colonists, who (at a time when loyalty was the rule, and not the exception), laid the foundation of those educational institutions, which to this day are the glory of the American Republic. [14] Thus, in regard to the chivalrous destruction of tea in Boston harbour, in 1773, an American historian says: "The object of the mother country in imposing a duty of three pence per pound on tea imported by the East India Company into America, while it was _twelve_ pence per pound in England, was mainly to break up the contraband trade of the colonial merchants with Holland and her possessions."... "Sons of the merchants [of Boston] had become rich in the traffic, and a considerable part of the large fortune which Hancock [President of the Insurgent Congress] inherited from his uncle was thus acquired."... "It was fit, then, that Hancock, was ... was respondent in the Admiralty Courts, in suits of the Crown, to recover nearly half a million of dollars, ... should be the first to affix his name to the [declaration of independence] which, if made good, would save him from ruin."...--_Sabine's American Loyalists_, Vol. I. (Boston, 1865), pages 8, 9, 13. So much for the much-valued patriotic act, which was a vast pecuniary gain to Hancock and other contraband tea merchants of Boston. Nor were the British colonists into those early times peculiar in their zeal for the promotion of Education. The Dutch, Swedish, and Irish colonists who settled in Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland did their part in his great work, and on the whole did it well, according to the spirit of the times. In 1633, the first schoolmaster opened his school in the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam; and in 1638, the "articles for the colonization and trade of New Netherlands," provided that, "each householder and inhabitant shall bear such tax and public charge as shall hereafter be considered proper for the maintenance of schoolmasters." General Eaton, the United States Commissioner of Education, in his valuable report for 1875, says: "We find, in numerous instances, the civil authorities of these Dutch colonies acknowledging, (1) The duty of educating the young, (2) The care of the qualification of the teacher, (3) Provision for the payment of his services, and (4) The provision of the school-house. When, in 1653, municipal privileges were granted to the New Amsterdam [New York], the support of schools was included." In 1642, the instruction sent to the Governor of New Sweden [Pennsylvania], was "to urge instruction and virtuous education of youth and children." In 1693-6, large numbers of primers, tracts and cathechisms were received from Sweden, for these schools on the Delaware. This was the educational state of the Swedish settlement in what was afterwards known as Pennsylvania, on the arrival of its noble English founder, William Penn. His views on education were well expressed in the following declaration: "That which makes a good Constitution must keep it, viz.: men of wisdom and virtue; qualities which, because they descend not with worldly inheritance must be carefully propagated by virtuous education of youth, for which spare no cost; for by such parsimony, all that is loved is lost." The first real systematic efforts to promote popular education began in New England, from thence it has spread in all directions. In 1635 the first school was opened at Boston, Massachusetts, and brother Philemon Purmount was appointed schoolmaster by the Town Committee. Thirty acres of land were given for his support. In 1642 the General Court, (or Legislature) passed a resolution enjoining on the local authorities: "To keep a watchful eye on their brothers and neighbors, and above all things to see that there be no family in so barbarous a state, that the head thereof do not himself, or by the help of others, impart instruction to his children and servants, to enable them to read fluently the English language, and to acquire a knowledge of the penal laws, under a penalty of twenty shillings for such neglect." Speaking on this subject, in his inaugural address in 1853, President Walker of Harvard University said: What most distinguishes the early settlers of Massachusetts, is the interest and care they took in education, and especially in the institution of a system of common schools, to be sustained at the public charge. Here they were first. In other things they thought wisely and acted nobly; but in this, and perhaps in this alone, they were original. Honor, immortal honor to the men, who, while still struggling for a scanty and bare subsistence, could yet find the means and the heart to do what had never been done or attempted before: placing the advantages of a competent instruction within the reach of all. By taking this course, what a noble confidence they manifested in the truth of their principles and in the justice of their measures.... But the founders and early settlers of Massachusetts did not limit their views of education to common schools. Many of their leading men had studied at the English Universities and were imbued with, or at least, could appreciate the highest scholarship of that day. They also knew, on general grounds and as practical men, that the public good requires the advancement, as well as the diffusion, of knowledge; in short, that both must go together; that the streams will soon cease, if the fountains fail.--Pages 33, 34. To be brief on this point I may state that in 1847, the first legislative enactment in favor of schools was made in Massachusetts; and in 1670, the Governor of Connecticut declared that "one-fourth of her revenue was devoted to schools." * * * * * General Eaton in his comprehensive report of 1875 says: "History, with hardly a dissenting voice, accords to the English Colonists of New England, the credit of having developed those forms of action, in reference to the education of children, which contained more than any other the distinct features of the systems adopted in this cuntry." In the early colonial times, before the revolution, there were nine colleges established in seven out of the thirteen colonies. These colleges, with the date of their foundation, are as follow:-- 1. Harvard--Massachusetts, in 1638 2. William and Mary--Virginia, in 1693 3. Yale--Connecticut, in 1700 4. Nassau Hall (now Princeton)--New Jersey, in 1748 5. Kings (now Columbia)--New York, in 1754 6. Brown--Rhode Island, in 1765 7. Dartmouth--New Hampshire, in 1770 8. Queen's (now Rutgers)--New Jersey, in 1771 9. Hampden--Sydney, Virginia, in 1775 The Legislature of Massachusetts, aided by the Rev. John Harvard, founded Harvard Congregational College, in 1638, and the colonists of Connecticut, established the Yale Congregation College in 1700.[15] [15] "The project of founding a College in Connecticut was early taken up (in 1652), but was checked by well-founded remonstrance from Massachusetts, who (sic), very justly observed that the whole population of New England was scarcely sufficient to support one institution."--President Dwight's _Travels in New England_, vol. I. p. 168. The Legislature made a grant of £50 a year to Yale College, from 1701 to 1750, when "it was discontinued on account of the heavy taxes occasioned by the late _Canadian_ War."--C. K. Adams, in _North American Review_ for October, 1875, p. 381. The New Hampshire colonists endowed the Congregational College at Dartmouth with 44,000 acres of land in 1770. The Episcopalians of the English colony of New York, aided by the Legislature, founded King's now Columbia College, in 1753. Indeed, so true were the English colonists to the educational instincts of the mother land, that when the Dutch Province of New Netherlands fell into their hands in 1644, the King's Commissioners were instructed "to make due enquiry as to what progress hath been made towards ye foundaçon and maintenance of any College Schools for the educaçon of youth."--(Colonial History of N. Y., Vol. III. p. 53.) The English Province, _par excellence_, of Virginia made various praiseworthy efforts to promote education. In 1619, soon after the settlement of Jamestown, Sir Edwin Sandys, President of the Virginia Company, had 10,000 acres of land set apart for the establishment of a University at Henrico for the colonists and Indians. The churches in England gave £1,500 sterling in the same year to aid in the education of the Indians. In 1621, 1,000 acres of land as an endowment, and £150 were granted to establish a school at Charles city. Other efforts were made in the same direction in 1660 and 1688. The colony also nobly determined to establish a University; and in 1692-3, the project was practically realized by the founding by the King and Queen, under royal charter, of the Church of England College at Williamsburgh, of William and Mary. To this College the King gave nearly £2,000, besides 20,000 acres of land, and one penny per pound on all the tobacco exported from Maryland. The Legislature also gave it in 1693, the duty on skins and furs exported, and on liquors imported.[16] The plans of the College were prepared by Sir Christopher Wren. Among the first donors to the College was the celebrated Robert Boyle.[17] Of all the colonial Colleges few exercised a greater educational influence among the leading men than did this royal college. Jefferson, Munroe, Marshall (afterwards Chief Justice of the United States), the two Randolphs, and Governor Tyler, of Virginia, received their education here. [16] Circular of Information, U. S. Bureau of Education, No. 1, 1887, page 15. [17] General Eaton, United States Commissioner of Education, in an educational retrospect in his Report for 1875, speaking of this college, says:--"The first commencement, in 1700, was a noted event. Several planters came in their coaches, others in sloops, from New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Even Indians had the curiosity to visit Williamsburgh," the seat of the College.--Page xix. The Irish Roman Catholic Province of Maryland was not, at least in purpose, much behind her English sister. In 1671 an Act was passed by one of the Houses of the Legislature for the establishment of a School or College, but owing to religious differences the other House did not concur. In 1692, the Legislature passed an Act for the encouragement of learning; and in 1696, King William's Free School, Annapolis (afterwards St. John's College), was established. New Jersey was one of the colonies which early promoted higher education by founding the Presbyterian College at Princeton, under the name of Nassau Hall, in 1746, and the Dutch Reformed College at New Brunswick (N.J.), under the name of Queen's, now Rutger's College, in 1770. The little colony of Rhode Island did not fail in its duty to higher education, for in 1764 it founded the Rhode Island College, now Brown University. The Quaker colony of William Penn, following the example of the Anglicized Dutch colony of New York, established the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia--the metropolis of the colonies in 1755. Of these nine ante-revolution Colleges, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton maintain an equally high reputation, while Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, William and Mary and Dartmouth Colleges are more or less about the average standard of American Colleges. Governor Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, was a graduate of Oxford. He, with other English University colonists, conceived the idea of a College for this, the then youngest of the English colonies. The project of his friend, the Irish Bishop Berkeley, of Cloyne, of founding a College in the Bermudas having failed, he secured £10,000 of the Bishop's funds to aid him in his settlement of the colony. The seed sown by Oglethorpe bore fruit; and while Georgia was still a colony, provision was made for a generous system of education. D. C. Gilman, Esq. (President of the John Hopkins' University, Baltimore), in his admirable sketch of the growth of education in the United States during the last century, pays a high tribute to the nine Colonial Colleges to which we have referred. He says:-- "These nine Colleges were nurseries of virtue, intelligence, liberality and patriotism, as well as learning; so that when the revolution began, scores of the most enlightened leaders, both in council and upon the field (on both sides) were found among their graduates. The influence of academic culture may be distinctly traced in the formation of the Constitution of the United States, and in the political writings of Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Munroe and many other leading statesmen of the period. A careful student of American politics has remarked that nothing more strikingly indicates the education given at Cambridge than the masterly manner in which different problems of law and government were handled by those who had received their instruction only from that source."[18] [18] In illustrating the fact that college-bred graduates are considerably less numerous and less conspicuous in the professions and in political life than were men of a similar education 50 or 100 years ago, Mr. C. K. Adams, in the _North American Review_ for October, 1875, says that, "of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 36 were college-bred, and 15 of the 26 Senators in the first Congress; while now there are only 7 of the 26 Senators 'college-bred.'" He thinks that the comparison, if extended to the House of Representatives and the State Legislatures, would be still less favorable as to the number of college-bred men in these bodies. Prof. Charles Sprague Smith, A.M., (of Columbia College) in his essay on _The American University_, read June, 1887, thus refers to the character of these colonial colleges:-- "In New England the higher system at general education, brought over from Old England, was divided here, as there, into the two studies of the College and the Grammar School; the latter being superceded in quite recent times by the so-called Academy. The curriculum of the American (or Colonial) College was, in the main, modelled upon that of the parent country, special consideration being given to theological science, etc."--Page 13. A recent American publication on revolutionary topics, thus deals with the question of the superior education of the British colonists who formed the first American Congress:-- "An examination of the Continental Congress, composed as it was of leading men of all the colonies, affords some light upon the topic of popular education at that period. The Congress, whose sessions extended through some ten years, comprised in all some three hundred and fifty members, of whom one-third were graduates of colleges. A recent writer in one of the most intelligent and accurate of American journals has[19] taken pains to collect and array a paragraph of important statistics upon this subject, which we have taken leave to insert here, though without verification, that, however, being hardly necessary for our present purpose. [19] New York _Evening Post_, January, 1876. "There were in the Continental Congress during its existence, 350 members, of these 118, or about one-third of the whole, were graduates from Colleges. Of these, 28 were graduates from the College of New Jersey in Princeton, 23 from Harvard, 23 from Yale, 11 from William and Mary, 8 from the University of Pennsylvania, 4 from Columbia College, 1 from Brown University and 1 from Rutger's College, and 21 were educated in foreign Universities. These 118 graduates were distributed in the Colonies as follows:--New Hampshire had 4 College graduates among her delegates; Massachusetts had 17; Rhode Island had 4 graduates; Connecticut had 18 graduates; New York out of her large delegation had but 8 graduates; New Jersey had 11 graduates; Pennsylvania had 13 graduates; Delaware had 2 graduates; Maryland had 7 graduates; Virginia had 19 graduates; North Carolina had 4 graduates; South Carolina had 7 graduates; Georgia had 5 graduates. We find that Princeton had representatives from 10 of the colonies; Yale from 6; Harvard from 5; the University of Pennsylvania from 3; William and Mary from 2; and Columbia, Brown and Rutger's from 1 each. Fifty-six delegates signed the Declaration of Independence. Of these, 28, or just one-half, were College graduates." Incidentally, and as illustrative of the influence of college-bred men in the Legislature, Mr. Adams, speaking of the great liberality of South Carolina in founding a college in that State, says:-- "But no State ever made a better investment. During the first part of this century the general accomplishments and political ability of the statesmen of South Carolina were the just pride of the State, and would have been the pride of any State. In forming this high standard of intellectual and political power the influence of the College was immeasurable."--_North American Review_, January, 1876, pages 215, 216. It is gratifying to us, British Colonists, and to the descendants of the U. E. Loyalists, thus to have from so important a source, an acknowledgment so candid and so honorable to men, many of whom were the founders of Ontario and the Maritime Provinces of the Dominion. It is an historical fact of equal significance, and an element of social and political strength to us in these British provinces, to know that it was to the thoroughness and breadth of culture which the American "Revolutionary heroes" received in early days in British colonial institutions which fitted them afterwards to take so prominent and effective an intellectual part in the great struggle which took place when they were in the prime of manhood. Another gratifying reflection arises out of the fact that the high place which the United States has taken in later years as a great educating nation is due to her following out the traditional policy of the Colonists of ante-revolution times. This fact is clearly brought out by Mr. Gilman in the _North American Review_ for January, 1876. We only quote the following remarks on this point, he says:-- "When the new constitution of Massachusetts was adopted in 1780 public education received full recognition. An article (the spirit of which was fully in accordance with the legislation of 1647 [more than 200 years before]) was adopted, and _still remains the fundamental law of the State_.... The constitution of New Hampshire, as amended in 1784, transcribes very nearly the same words of that section of the constitution of Massachusetts already quoted," etc.--Pages 198, 199. Thus Andrew Ten-Brook, Esq., in his _American State Universities_, says:-- "The introduction of an educational system into the New England Colonies may be deemed substantially contemporaneous with their settlement. It was of such a character, too, and so energetically prosecuted, that education suffered little if any deterioration in passing from Old to New England. It was even more on this side than the other side of the ocean.... Thus Common School instruction at least was provided for all. Higher schools, too, had an early beginning. What afterwards was Harvard College was established but six years after the settlement of Boston.... Every town [township] of fifty families was obliged to support a school, and the same general state of facts existed throughout New England. Classical schools followed in regular succession. These were modelled after the Grammar Schools of England, in which the founders of the Colleges had themselves received their first classical training.... As early as 1701, the law of Connecticut required every parent to see that he had no child or apprentice in his household who could not read the Word of God, and 'the good laws of the colony.' The system embraced a High School in every town [township] of seventy families, a Grammar School in the four chief county towns to fit pupils for college, and a College to which the general court [Legislature] made an annual appropriation of £120."--Pages 1-3. Mr. Ten-Brook, speaking of these New England schools, which were afterwards transplanted to each of Western States, says:-- "They were the elements of that noble system out of which has grown the present one, by the natural laws of development," etc.--Page 18. Mr. C. K. Adams, in his interesting paper on State Universities in the _North American Review_ for October, 1875, in speaking of the educational policy of the colonies, "pursued up to the time of the Revolution, says:-- "In general terms it may be stated that, through all the dark periods of our Colonial history, the encouragement of higher education was regarded as one of the great interests of the State. It was no doctrine of the Fathers that higher education was less entitled to the fostering care of the commonwealth than was the education offered by the Common Schools."--Page 374. The "Free School" idea, of which we hear so much as the outgrowth of "modern American civilization and enlightenment," was due to Colonial thought and foresight. It was first broached by Jefferson, three or four years before the treaty with Great Britain was signed by which the United States became a nation. His plan was so comprehensive that we reproduce it here. In a letter to the veteran philosopher, Dr. Priestley, he thus unfolds it:-- "I drew a bill for our [Virginia] Legislature, which proposed to lay off every county into hundreds, or townships, of five or six miles square. In the centre of each of them was to be a free English School [to be supported, as his bill provided, "by taxation according to property."] The whole Commonwealth was further laid off into ten districts, in each of which was to be a college for teaching the languages, geography, surveying, and other useful things of that grade, and then a single University for the sciences. It was received with enthusiasm (he goes on to say), but as he had proposed to make the Episcopal College of William and Mary the University, "the dissenters after a while began to apprehend some secret design," etc.--_Ten-Brook's American State Universities_, pages 9, 10. A writer in the _North American Review_ for October, 1875, in referring to Jefferson's scheme, says:-- "The view entertained by Jefferson was by no means exceptional. Indeed, a similar spirit had pervaded the whole history of our Colonial life."--Page 379. Thus this comprehensive scheme of public instruction for Virginia unfortunately failed; and that noble "Old Dominion" is in consequence to-day immeasurably behind even the youngest of her then New England contemporaries in the matter of public education. As to the abiding influence of the old Colonial ideas in regard to higher education, we quote the following additional remarks from Mr. Gilman, in the _North American Review_, he says:-- "In reviewing the history of the century, it is easy to see how the colonial notions of college organization have affected ... the higher education of the country, even down to our own times. The graduates of the older colleges have migrated to the Western States, and have transplanted with them the college germs ... and every Western State can bear witness to the zeal for learning which has been manifested within its borders by enthusiastic teachers from the East."--Page 217. Mr. Ten-Brook, in his _American State Universities_, also says:-- "The New England colonists left the mother country in quest of greater religious freedom. Their religious system was put first, and carried with it a school system as perfect in organization, and administered with equal vigor. This formed an active leaven, which, at a later day, was to spread to other parts.... Everywhere there was a considerable infusion of men who had received in the European universities a liberal culture, which they desired to reproduce on those shores. Early action was full of promise. Probably, at a period from just before the Revolution to the end of it, the average position of the colonies in regard to lighter education relatively as to age, and to the population and wealth, was quite as good as it is at the present time."--Pages 16, 17. This opinion of the writer is a virtual admission that in reality higher education in the United States has not advanced in quality, though it has in quantity. To be in 1876 merely where education was "relatively" in 1776, is no advance at all, but rather retrogression. The cause of this declension, the writer thus incidentally admits:-- "Most of the colonies established, or aided, the (ante-revolution colleges named). The principle of the State support to higher learning was not merely accepted, but was the prevalent one."--Page 17. Mr. Gilman, President of the Johns Hopkins' University, touching on the same point, says:-- "There was a civil as well as an ecclesiastical element in most of these foundations. Harvard and Yale were chartered, and, to some extent, controlled by colonial government of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and were for a long time nurtured by appropriations from the public chest....--Page 215. "These institutions were colleges of an English parentage and model, not Scotch nor continental universities.... They were disciplinary in their aim, and had more regard for the general culture of large numbers, than for the advanced and special instruction of the chosen few. They were also, to a considerable extent, ecclesiastical foundations--finding the churches and ministers their constant, and sometimes their only efficient supporters. Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth were controlled by the Congregationalists; Princeton was founded by the Presbyterians; and New Brunswick, N.J. (Queen's, now Rutgers) by the Dutch Reformed; William and Mary was emphatically a child of the Church of England; and King's College (now Brown University) was under the patronage of the Baptists.... "The declaration of the original supporters of these colleges indicate a desire to train up young men for service of the State, not less distinctly and emphatically than to desire to provide an educated ministry. Individual aid was also expected and invited, and the names of Harvard and Yale perpetuate the remembrance of such generous gifts." Then follows a eulogy upon these colonial colleges, and a tribute to the intellectual vitality of their teaching, as shown in the mental equipment and breadth of culture exhibited by men who took part in the perilous and stormy times of the American revolution. To this we have already referred. Mr. Gilman, in following up his remarks in the extract which we have just given, says:-- "Hence these nine colleges were nurseries of virtue, intelligence, liberality and patriotism, as well as of learning; so that when the revolution began, scores of enlightened leaders, both in council and in the field (and on both sides), were found among their graduates. The influence of academic culture may be distinctly traced in the formation of the Constitution of the United States, and in the political writings of Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Munroe, and many other leading statesman of the period. A careful student of American politics has remarked that nothing more strikingly indicates the influence of the education given at Harvard, 'than the masterly manner in which difficult problems of law and government were handled by those who had received their instruction only from that source.'"--Pages 215, 216. THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALIST PERIOD IN UPPER CANADA. We might pursue this branch of our subject further, were it desirable. But that is not necessary. Our object was to show that to British Colonial foresight, zeal, and self-sacrifice, was due, not only the foundation of the best colleges and universities on the continent, but the introduction and diffusion of the principle of "free and universal education for the masses of the people." This we have done on the authority of American writers themselves. We might multiply examples on the subject; but the fact is already sufficiently established. We should rather seek to draw lessons of instruction from the noble example of the devotion to education on the part of our British colonial progenitors, whose descendants have shed such a lustre of heroic self-sacrifice and patriotism on the history and exploits of the United Empire Loyalists of the thirteen colonies. To the Americans they have left a rich legacy from the colonial times in such universities as Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton--of which the descendants of the expatriated Loyalists, no less than those of the victorious revolutionists, are so justly proud. Let us, as worthy representatives of these clear-headed and far-seeing Loyalists, bequeath to our children as noble a heritage as the fathers of the founders of this Province did to New England, and indeed to the whole Republic. Trained in such an educational school, and animated with the educational zeal of these old colonial times, the "United Empire Loyalists" brought with them into Canada their love for education and their devotion to the sovereign. In order to keep up the historical sequence of this Retrospect, I shall now refer to the early beginning of Educational life in Upper Canada, and then take up the thread of the narrative at the point where the educational forces--afterwards directed by the Rev. Dr. Strachan and the Rev. Dr. Ryerson--took practical form and shape. (See page 59.) GOVERNOR SIMCOE'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS IN 1795. Lieutenant-General J. Graves Simcoe, the first Governor of Upper Canada, arrived here in 1792. He was a man of comprehensive views and noble impulses in regard to university education. He was educated at Eton College and partly at Merton College, Oxford, but entered the army before taking his degree. He served with distinction under Wolfe at Quebec, and during the American revolutionary war. In April, 1795, Governor Simcoe addressed a letter to the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Quebec.[20] In that letter Governor Simcoe uses the following striking language in describing the social condition of the people in the rural parts of Upper Canada, and the utter absence of schools and churches, as contrasted with their existence on the United States side of the lines. He said:-- "There was nothing, in my late progress, that has given my equal uneasiness with the general application of all ranks of the most loyal inhabitants of the Province, that I would obtain for them churches and ministers. They say that the rising generation (of the U. E. Loyalist settlers) is rapidly returning into barbarism. They state that the Sabbath, so wisely set apart for devotion, is literally unknown to their children, who are busily employed in searching for amusements in which they may consume the day. And it is of serious consideration that on the approach of the settlements of the United States, particularly on the St. Lawrence frontier, these people, who, by experience, have found that schools and churches are essential to their rapid establishment (as a nation), may probably allure many of our most respectable settlers to emigrate to them, while in this respect we suffer a disgraceful deficiency." [20] For fuller details on this point, see the section on the universities, page 61. The remedy which Governor Simcoe suggested for the state of things which he so graphically described is thus set forth in the same letter to the Bishop of Quebec. It was, as will be seen, entirely general in its character:-- "Nothing has happened since I left England, in the least, to invalidate, to my own conception, the policy of the measure I then proposed. And as far as may be now in the power of His Majesty's ministers, I most earnestly hope that what remains to be effected--that is by giving the means of proper education in this Province, both in its rudiments and in its completion, that from ourselves we may raise up a loyal, and, in due progress, a learned clergy." EARLY BEGINNINGS OF EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA, 1785-1805. A few particulars as to the kind of schools which existed in Upper Canada before and after the date of this letter may be interesting. For instance, the first school opened (so far as I have been able to learn) was by the Rev. Dr. John Stuart, a Protestant Episcopal clergyman, and a United Empire Loyalist, who had been chaplain to the provincial volunteers, and came into Upper Canada with them as a refugee.[21] [21] Rev. John Stuart. D.D., was born in Virginia in 1736. In 1769 he went to England to be ordained, and returned to Philadelphia in 1770. For seven years he labored as a missionary among the Iroquois Indians at Fort Hunter. He was then aided by the famous Brant in translating the New Testament into Mohawk. In 1781 he came to Upper Canada and labored in this province as a missionary among the refugee loyalists and Iroquois. He subsequently became rector of Cataraqui (Kingston), and chaplain to the Legislative Council. He died in 1811, aged 75 years. One of his sons was the late Archdeacon Stuart, of Kingston; another was the late chief Justice, Sir James Stuart of Quebec. In the year 1785 Dr. Stuart opened a select classical school at Cataraqui, (Kingston); and a Mr. Donovan taught the Garrison school there. In 1786, Mr. J. Clarke taught a school in Frederickburg, and Mr. Smith one in Ernestown. In 1789, Mr Lyons kept school in Adolphustown. In the same year, Deacon Trayes, a Baptist, opened one at Port Rowan. In 1792, Rev. Mr. Addison, an Episcopalian, opened a school at Newark (Niagara), then the seat of government. In 1794, the Rev. Mr. Burns, a Presbyterian, (father of the late Judge Burns) opened a school at the same place; and in 1796, Mr. Richard Cockrel opened an evening school in Newark; Mr. Cockrel shortly afterwards transferred his school to the Rev. Mr. Arthur and removed to Ancaster, where he opened another school. A notice in the _York Gazette_ in 1796 stated that "as schools were now opened, ignorance would be no longer tolerated." In 1797, Mr. James Blayney opened a school at Niagara. In 1798, Mr. Wm. Cooper opened a school in George St., little York, (Toronto). In 1800, the late Bishop Strachan opened a private school at Kingston, and in 1804, one at Cornwall. In 1802, Mr. and Mrs. Tyler opened a school near Niagara; and in the same year, Dr. Baldwin, (father of the late Hon. Robert Baldwin) opened a classical school at York, and in 1803, the first school in Prince Edward district was opened at "High Shore," Sophiasburgh; another at "Grassy Point," was taught by John James. Rev. Wm. Wright, (Presbyterian) kept the first school at Meyer's Creek, (Belleville) in 1805. He was followed by Mr. Leslie. In that year, Rev. Mr. Strachan held the first public examination of his school at Cornwall. STATE OF EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA, 1795-1799. As to the actual state of education in Upper Canada at this time, we get a brief glimpse from the travels of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, who visited Kingston in July, 1795. He says:-- "In this district there are some schools, but they are few in number. The children are instructed in reading and writing, and pay each a dollar a month. One of the masters taught Latin, but he has left, without being succeeded by another instructor in the same language." As to the character of the private schools thus established, and the facilities of education which they afforded, we learn incidentally from letters and early books of travel, what they were. In a "_Tour through Upper Canada, by a Citizen of the United States_," published in 1799, we learn that the policy of the government of that day, was to exclude "schoolmasters from the States, lest they should instil Republicanism into the tender minds of the youth of the province." FIRST OFFICIAL EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS IN UPPER CANADA, 1797, 1798. As the result of the correspondence between the Governor and Bishop Mountain, the question of a University and free grammar schools was discussed. The Governor referred the matter to the Upper Canada Legislature, which, in 1797 memorialized King George III, soliciting a grant of land for the endowment of a grammar school in each district, and a University for the whole Province. To this request the King gave his assent, and, in 1798, the "chief civil officers" in Upper Canada recommended that "500,000 acres of land be set apart for the establishment of a grammar school in each district and a central University for the whole Province." They also recommended a grant for the erection of a "plain but solid and substantial building for a grammar school in each district, containing a school room capable of holding 100 boys without danger to their health from too many being crowded together, and also a set of apartments for the master, large enough for his family and from ten to twenty boarders." The salaries proposed to be given were: £100 for the head master, £50 for the assistant master; and £30 for repairs, etc., Kingston and Newark (Niagara) were recommended as eligible sites for schools; after which, when the funds were sufficient, schools were to be established at Cornwall and Sandwich. York (Toronto) was recommended as entitled to the University, and for the establishment and support of which a sum at least equal to that granted to the four schools was named. In 1799, an act was passed by the Upper Canada Legislature "to provide for the education and support of orphan children." It authorized the township wardens, with the consent of two magistrates, to bind and apprentice, until they became of age, children deserted by their parents. In the same year an orphan school was opened near St. Catherines. EDUCATIONAL PIONEERS IN UPPER CANADA. Governor Simcoe authorized the Hon. Messrs. Cartwright and Hamilton, to select a person to take charge of the proposed college. The celebrated Rev. Dr. Chalmers having declined the appointment, it was accepted by Mr. (late the Right Reverend Doctor) Strachan (Bishop of Toronto) then a schoolmaster at Kettle, Scotland; but his arrival at Kingston, on the 31st of December, 1799, he found that the project of a college had been abandoned, Governor Simcoe, in the meantime, having left for England. It was soon discovered that half a million of acres of land would endow but few grammar schools, land being then only worth a shilling per acre: the schema had, therefore, to be abandoned. Meanwhile the Hon. Mr. Cartwright made an arrangement with Mr. Strachan to instruct his sons, and a select number of pupils for three years. In 1804, Mr. Strachan, having been ordained, removed to the mission of Cornwall, where, at the request of the parents of his former pupils, he opened a private school. For several years this school was the only one of any note in Upper Canada; and in it and in Mr. Strachan's school at York, were educated many of those gentlemen who have filled some of the most important positions in the province. Subsequently Mr. Strachan's school was constituted the grammar school of the Eastern district. In 1806, a temporary act was passed by the Legislature and made permanent in 1808, establishing a classical and mathematical school in each of the eight districts into which Upper Canada was then divided. In the same year(1806) at the suggestion of Dr. Strachan an Act was passed, granting £400 for the purchase of apparatus for illustrating the principles of Natural Philosophy, which were to be deposited in the hands of a person employed in the instruction of youth. In 1807 an appropriation of £800 a year for four years was made to provide for the salaries of masters in the Grammar Schools to be maintained in each of the districts into which Upper Canada was divided. These masters were to be engaged by trustees appointed by the governor, and the governor's sanction was also necessary for the teacher's appointment. There is still in existence the letter, dated, April 16th, 1807, signed by Governor Gore, appointing the Rev. George Okill Stewart, D.D., Archdeacon of Kingston, first Head Master of the Home District Grammar School at York (Toronto). North of what is now Adelaide Street (formerly Newgate Street), bounded westward by Church Street, and eastward by Jarvis Street, was a large field, almost square, containing about six acres--for many years the playground of the District Grammar School. In the south-west corner of it, some hundred feet or more from the street boundaries, was elected the plain wooden building, about fifty-five feet long by forty wide in which, on the first Monday of June, 1807, when the population of the town was only about five hundred, the Grammar School was opened. It was attended by the sons and daughters of the well-to-do citizens of York, and on the few existing records may be found many a well known name. In 1812, the Rev. John Strachan. D.D., was appointed Rector of York, and succeeded the Rev. Mr. Stewart as Head Master of this school.[22] Mr. Barnabas Bidwell (father of the late Hon. M. S. Bidwell) kept a good Latin School at Bath, on the Bay of Quinté, in 1811. In 1813, he removed to Kingston, where he taught for twenty years until he died in 1833. [22] _Canadian Educational Monthly_, February 1889, page 58. In 1820, the "Central School at York" was opened under the mastership of Mr. Joseph Spragge, father of the late Chief Justice Spragge. Lieutenant-Governor and Lady Sarah Maitland took a special interest in the success of this school. In a _View of Upper Canada_, published at Baltimore in 1814, by Mr. M. Smith, (who resided in the Province from 1808 until the breaking out of the War in 1812) he said:-- "The greater part of the inhabitants are not well educated, for, as they were poor when they came to the Province and the country being but thinly settled for a number of years, they had but little chance for the benefit of schools. But since the country has become settled, or the inhabitants rich, or in a good way of living, which is almost universally the case, they pay considerable attention to learning. Ten dollars a year is the common price given for the tuition of each scholar by good teachers."--Page 52. In 1813, Rev. John Langhorn (a Church of England missionary at Earnestown and Bath from 1787 to 1812, and teacher of a school) made a present of his library to the inhabitants of the Bay of Quinte district. In 1814 Rev. Robert Baldwin was appointed Grammar schoolmaster at Cornwall, vice Rev. John (afterwards Dean) Bethune resigned. In 1815 the Midland District School, so-called, was incorporated. Dr. Strachan resigned the head mastership of the District School on July 1st, 1823. He was succeeded by Mr. Samuel Armour, M.A., a graduate of Glasgow University, who afterwards became a clergyman of the English Church, and officiated many years in the township of Cavan. The Rev. Thomas Phillips, D.D., an accomplished scholar, came out from England in 1825 to take charge of the school, and remained in the position of headmaster, much honored and beloved by his pupils, until, in 1830, chiefly by the exertions of the Governor, Sir John Colborne, Upper Canada College was established and the work of the college began in the old District Grammar School building. Classes were opened in the new buildings erected in another part of the city for the college in 1831, and the Grammar School was closed, the building being removed from its original site to the line of Nelson street (now Jarvis street), and fenced into a plot about 70 × 120 feet. The remaining portion of the six acres was handed over to Upper Canada College. On the active remonstrance of the citizens living in the eastern part of Toronto, the school was re-opened and secured to the city, Mr. Charles N. B. Cosens being appointed headmaster in 1836, and succeeded by Mr. Marcus C. Crombie in 1838.[23] [23] _Ibid._, page 59. EARLY EFFORTS TO ESTABLISH COMMON SCHOOLS 1816-1820. In 1816, seven years after the establishment of District Grammar Schools, a praiseworthy effort was made to provide for the establishment and maintenance of common schools."[24] A liberal grant of $24,000 a year, for four years, was made as an experiment. Whether the experiment was a success, or not, does not appear, but in 1820, the grant was reduced to $10,000 a year. [24] In 1816, an Act was passed granting £800 for the purchase of a library for the use of the Legislative Council and house of Assembly. STATE OF EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA, 1784-1819. In regard to the state of education of Upper Canada in 1817, and the fluctuating character of its progress since the settlement of the Province, in 1784, up to that time, Mr. Gourlay, a well-known Canadian politician and author, writes as follows:-- "There is no college in Upper Canada, but there are said to be several townships of land set apart for the purpose of endowing such institution, when the population and circumstances of the Province shall require it. "No provision is made by law for free schools. The inhabitants of the severe! townships are left to a voluntary support of schools, according to their own discretion. "An Act of the Provincial Legislature, in 1807, granted a hundred pounds a year to the teacher of one school, in each of the eight districts under the direction of trustees. In some districts the school thus provided for is made a free school; but in other districts the salary is considered as a public encouragement to a teacher of literary eminence, in addition to the compensation received for the tuition of each scholar."--_Statistical Account of Upper Canada, etc., by Robert Gourlay, 2 vols., London, 1822._ The Rev. Dr. Strachan became a master of one of these schools, and Rev. George Ryerson and his brother, Egerton, master and usher of another. As to the state of feeling in the rural parts of the oldest settled portions of Upper Canada, we make the following extracts from a letter written to Mr. Gourlay from the township of Grimsby, in 1818, by a highly respected resident there, William Crooks, Esq. Mr. Crooks remarks:-- "The state of education is at a very low ebb, not only in the township, but generally throughout the [Niagara] district; although the liberality of the legislature has been great in support of the district (Grammar) schools, (giving to the teachers of each £100 per annum), yet they have been productive of little or no good hitherto, for this obvious cause, they are looked upon as seminaries exclusively instituted for the education of the children of the more wealthy classes of society, and to which the poor man's child is considered as unfit to be admitted. From such causes, instead of their being a benefit to the Province, they are sunk into obscurity, and the heads of most of them are at this moment enjoying their situations as comfortable sinecures. Another class of schools has, within a short time, been likewise founded upon the liberality of the legislative purse, denominated common, or parish, schools, but like the preceding, the anxiety of the teacher employed, seems more alive to his stipend than the advancement of the education of those placed under his care: from the pecuniary advantages thus held out, we have been inundated with the worthless scum, under the character of school masters, not only of this, but of every other country where the knowledge has been promulgated, of the easy means our laws afford of getting a living here, by obtaining a parish school, which is done upon the recommendation of some few freeholders, getting his salary from the public, and making his employers contribute handsomely beside. "It is true, rules are laid down for their government, and the proper books prescribed for their use; but scarcely in one case in ten are they adhered to, for in the same class you will frequently see one child with Noah Webster's spelling book in this hand, and the next with Lindley Murray's. However prone the teachers are to variety in their schools, much blame is to be attributed to the trustees, who are in many instances too careless and I might almost add too ignorant to discriminate right from wrong, in the trust they have undertaken for the public benefit. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at why the parish school system should meet with almost universal reprobation from most discerning men. "Of these parish schools, we are burdened with a liberal share, having no less than three of them. If the establishment of this system was meant by the legislature to abbreviate the present enormous price of education, they have been miserably deceived; for I can see no alteration or reduction from the charge made before the passing of the act. The price then was 12_s._ 6_d._ [_i.e._ $2.50,] and is now the same, per quarter." In July, 1819, provisions was made for an additional district grammar school; for holding annual public examinations; for reporting the condition of the schools to the governor, and for educating ten common school pupils, free of charge, at each of the nine public grammar schools already established; but the provincial allowance to teachers of grammar schools was reduced to £50 in all cases where the numbers of pupils did not exceed ten. FITFUL EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS FROM 1822 TO 1829. In 1822, Sir Peregrine Maitland, the Lieutenant-Governor, submitted to the Imperial Government a plan for organizing a general system of education, including elementary schools; and, in 1823, he obtained permission from England to establish a Board of Education for the general superintendence of this system of education, and for the management of the university and school lands throughout the Province. The members of this Board, with Rev. Dr. Strachan at its head, as chairman, were: Hon. Joseph Wells, Hon. G. H. Markland, Rev. Robert Addison, Hon. J. B. Robinson, and Thomas Ridout, Esq. This Board prepared some general regulations in regard to the schools and proposed a plan by which to exchange 225,944 acres of the less valuable of the school lands for the more productive Clergy Reserve lands. The plan having been approved by the Home Government, was carried into effect by the Governor soon after. In 1824, the first attempts towards providing the public with general reading books, in connection with the Common and Sunday schools, were made. The sum of £150 was annually appropriated for this object, and authorized to be expended by the Provincial Board of Education in the purchase of "books and tracts designed to afford moral and religions instruction," and distributed equally among all the districts of Upper Canada. Thus were presented the dim outlines of a system of public instruction which it was clear the necessities of the country required, but which for want of a vigorous and systematic supervision was gradually permitted to languish, and the legislative enactments themselves were suffered to become almost obsolete on the statute book. In January, 1824, the Common School Act was made to apply "to all schools that are now or may hereafter be established and kept among the Indians who shall be resident within the limits of any organized county or township within this Province, excepting such schools as shall or may be otherwise provided for."[25] Provision was also made for the examination of Common School teachers by County Boards of Education. [25] All the Indian schools of the Province, which are chiefly sustained by various religious bodies are now under the control of the Indian Department at Ottawa. The following is an account of a typical Indian school at the Credit in 1830: The school room in a large and commodious apartment with tiers of raised benches in the rear: on one division of which sit the girls, and the boys on the other. There are also desks, and slates for ciphering and copy-books and copper-plate lines for whose who write. The Bible and Testaments, and some of the other books, are English printed and some American. No sectarian intolerance prevails in that way. Among the school furniture are a handsome map of the world, the arithmecon, attractive alphabets in pasteboard, regular figures illustrative of geometry, some of them cut out of wood and some of them made of pasteboard: the picture of Elijah fed by ravens, figures of birds, fishes and quadrupeds on pasteboard, coloured, accompanied with the history of each animal: the figure of a clock in pasteboard, by which to explain the principles of the time-piece. The walls are adorned with good, moral maxims; and I perceived that one of the rules was rather novel, though doubtful in place here. It was, "No blankets to be worn in school." The attendance is about 50 Indian children. The girls are taught by Miss Rolph, sister of the late Member of Middlesex: the boys by Mr. Edwy Ryerson, a younger brother of the late editor of the _Christian Guardian_, Rev. Egerton Ryerson. The translating office is occupied by Mr. Peter Jones, the Indian minister. STATE OF EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA, 1827-1829, FROM THE OFFICIAL REPORTS, ETC. The number and condition of the Common and other schools in Upper Canada in 1827 may be gathered from "An appeal to the Friends of Religion, and Literature, in behalf of the University of Upper Canada," published in London in 1827 (of which I have an original MS. copy). Dr. Strachan says:-- _School in Upper Canada, 1827._--"In about 340 Common Schools in Upper Canada from 12,000 to 14,000 children are taught reading and writing, the elements of arithmetic, and the first principles of religion. The people, scattered as they are over a vast wilderness, are thus becoming alive to the great advantage of educating their children ... insomuch so, that schools supported by subscriptions are more in number than those established by law. Provision is made by statute for the translation of some of the more promising scholars from the Common to the District Schools, where the classics and practical mathematics are taught. In these schools (eleven in number) there are at present 300 young men acquiring an education to qualify them for the different professions.... _Niagara District Board of Education, 1828._--"It must be admitted generally that after the approval and appointment of teachers by the Trustees the Board have not rejected teachers however incompetent, from a regards to the wishes of their employers, the terms for tuition being so very low as not to induce men of sufficient qualifications generally to engage in the humble and ill-requited duties. Reading, writing and arithmetic have been uniformly taught in all schools. Grammar and geography in a few. Religious instruction has not been overlooked. Upon the whole, the system of education in this district may be considered as efficient as can be expected upon the footing on which it is placed."--_Rev. Thomas Creen._ _Provincial Board of Education, 1828._--The number of District Grammar Schools in operation in the Province is 11; pupils in attendance, 372. Number of Common Schools, 401; number of pupils in attendance, 10,712--increase over 1827 of nearly 2,000 pupils. The President of the Board (Rev. Dr. Strachan) last summer visited in person all the districts of the Province, and not only inspected the grammar schools, but examined minutely the systems of management adopted by their respective teachers. In order to produce a greater uniformity of the system to supply, in some measure, the want of experience to younger teachers, the President has submitted an outline of study for the grammar schools, the adoption of which, the board cannot but think would be highly beneficial, and produce a higher standard of education throughout the Province.[26] [26] This course of study is appended herewith on the next page. In some places girls are admitted to the district schools, for want of good female schools, but the admission of female children interferes with the government which is required in classical seminaries. In a population of nearly 200,000, at least one-fifth, or 40,000, is composed of children between the ages of 5 and 15 who should be going to school. Taking the number of those who are benefited in the Common and Sunday schools at 15,000, then the expense to the Province is about 3_s._ 9_d._ each. In some districts the salaries allowed to the schoolmasters of the Common Schools are exceedingly small. They range from £12 10_s._ downwards. In some little more than £5, and in one less than that trifling sum. Many schools continue only six months; others eight months in the year. The natural consequence of this state of things is that superior teachers desert the Common Schools as soon as they can procure any other employment, and many persons resort to the occupation of teachers merely as a temporary expedient. These latter are without experience, which is all-important to an instructor of youth and can have little desire to establish a reputation in an employment to which they have only recourse for present convenience. In the sister Colony of Nova Scotia, the sum of £1,000 is annually appropriated to the Common Schools and divided among 12 counties, not equally, but in proportion to population. One law, by giving the same sum to each district, whether populous or not, in that particular requires alteration. The Board would submit that in addition to the public allowance, a power should be given to the townships to assess themselves for the schools. In Nova Scotia it is provided in the statute that two-thirds of the freeholders may, under certain conditions, tax themselves according to their ability for the support of education, and that no school of 30 scholars shall be entitled to the stipulated aid of £20, unless the teacher receives _bona fide_ from his employers £10, together with this sum, exclusive of and in addition to board, etc.; and that no school of 15 scholars shall be entitled to the stipulated sum of £15 unless the teacher receives from his employers £25 per annum as aforesaid. The Board had distributed to the Common Schools a large quantity of useful school books including Mavor's Spelling Book. They have also contracted for 2,000 copies of this excellent work to be executed on cards for the township schools. There appears to be a great scarcity of arithmetic books in the Province, and those in use are in general too difficult or deficient in matter, etc. The President has, therefore, undertaken to draw up a short manual on the subject, suitable to the state and business of the country. Neither the sick nor the destitute have higher claims upon the public than the ignorant. The want of knowledge brings all other wants in its train; and if education be regarded as a charity, it is a charity of which the blessings are without alloy. It demands no jealous scrutiny of the claims of its applicants, nor does it require to be so stinted as not to multiply their number.--_Rev. John Strachan, President, York, 5th February, 1829._ * * * * * _Midland District Grammar School, 1829._--It is to be lamented that so few of the wealthy farmers of the Midland District avail themselves of the means of giving their sons that degree of education which the public school can readily afford, which would qualify young persons to discharge the duties of the magistracy and other public situations with credit to themselves. The trustees regret that no poor children are educated gratis under the patriotic and very benevolent provision of the statute, in consequence of no returns being made to them of the most promising scholars from the Common School. The trustees, therefore, submit, whether in order to encourage native genius in humble circumstances, some means might not be devised of maintaining all the 10 children whom the statute authorizes the trustee to select for gratuitous instruction.--_Rev. George O'Kill Stuart, Thomas Markland and John Macaulay, Kingston, December 30th, 1829._ * * * * * NOTE.--The local reports for the succeeding year are chiefly statistical and explanatory and contain no general remarks. From a report signed by the Rev. Dr. Strachan and Hon. Wm. Allan in 1839, it would appear that things had for years remained in _statu quo_. They say:-- "For many years elaborate reports were sent from this (Home District) Board of Education detailing what were believed to be the alterations necessary to render the present Common School Act efficient. In consequence of these, and like reports from other districts, a measure for the establishment of such schools has been for more than six years before the Legislature, which purposes to provide remedies for the defects which are met with in the working of the present system." COURSE OF STUDY SUGGESTED BY REV. DR. STRACHAN AS SUITABLE FOR THE DISTRICT GRAMMAR SCHOOLS THROUGHOUT THE PROVINCE, 1829. In a "letter from the Rev. Dr. Strachan to Rev. A. N. Bethune, Rector of Cobourg," dated October 6th, 1829, he thus sketched a course of study for Grammar Schools: _First Year--Boys from 7 to 9._ 1st. _Latin._--Eton Grammar; Vocabulary; Corderius; Selectæ e Profanis. 2nd. _English._--Mavor's Spelling Book; Enfield's Lessons; Walker's Lessons; Murray's Lessons; Blair's Class Book; English Grammar; Writing; Arithmetic, chiefly mental. _Second Year--Boys from 9 to 11._ 1st. _Latin._--Grammar; Valpy's Delectas; New Testament; Daley's Exercises; Exampla Minora; Entropius; Phædrus; Cornelius Nepos. 2nd. _English._--Grammar and Reading, as before; Writing and Arithmetic (mental and mixed); Geography; Civil and Natural History and Elocution. 3rd.--To commence French. _Third Year--Boys from 11 to 13._ 1st. _Latin_--Grammar; Bailey's Exercises; Cornelius Nepos; Cæsar; Ovid's Metamorphoses; Nonsense Verses; Psalms into Latin Verse; Exampla Moralis; Versions or rendering English into Latin. 2nd. _Greek_--To commence about the middle of the third year: Eton Grammar, or Nelson's edition of Moore's Grammar; Greek Vocabulary; New Testament; Greek Exercises. 3rd. _English._--Grammar; Writing; Elocution; Civil and Natural History; Geography, Ancient and Modern; English Composition. 4th. _Arithmetic._--And to commence Algebra. 5th. _French._ _Fourth Year--Boys from 12 to 14._ 1st. _Latin._--Grammar; Terence Virgil; Horace; Sallust; Cicero; Livy; Latin composition, verse and prose; Grotius de Veritate Exampla Moralia. 2nd. _Greek._--Eton Grammar; Græca Minora; Greek and Latin Testament; Xenophon; Homer. 3rd. _English._--Grammar and Composition; Civil and Natural History; Geography, Ancient and Modern, use of the globes; construction of maps. 4th. _Mathematics._--Arithmetic; Book-keeping; Algebra; Euclid. 5th. _French._ _Fifth Year--Boys from 14 to 16._ 1st. _Latin._--Virgil; Horace; Livy, Juvenal; Tacitus; Composition, in prose and verse. 2nd. _Greek._--Græca Majora; Homer; Thucidides; Composition, in prose and verse. 3rd. _English._--Grammar and Composition; Elocution; Civil and Natural History; Geography, Ancient and Modern; use of the globes; construction of maps. 4th. _Mathematics._--Algebra; Euclid; Trigonometry, Application to heights and distances; Surveying; Navigation; Dialling; Elements of Astronomy, etc. 5th. _French._ REV. DR. STRACHAN'S SYSTEM OF SCHOOL MANAGEMENT. Rev. Dr. Scadding, in his sketch of Dr. Strachan, "The first Bishop of Toronto--a Review and a Study," says: "The system pursued in Dr. Stachan's school at Cornwall and afterwards at York, exhibited features that would have gratified the advanced educationists of the present age. In that system the practical and the useful were by no means sacrificed to the ornamental and theoretical, or the merely conventional. Things were regarded as well as words.... In regard to things--the science of common objects--we doubt if in the most complete of our modern schools there was ever awakened a greater interest or intelligence in relation to such matters. Who, that had once participated in the excitement of its natural history class, ever forgot it? Or in that of the historical or geographical exercises? We venture to think that, in many an instance, the fullest experience of after life, in travel or otherwise, had often their associations with ideas awakened then; and often compared satisfactorily and pleasurably with the pictures of places, animals and persons given, rudely it may be, in text books, ransacked and conned in a fervour of emulation then. The manner of study in these subjects was this: each lad was required to prepare a set of questions, to be put by himself to his fellows in the class. If a reply was not forthcoming, and the information furnished by the questioner was judged correct the latter 'went up' and took the place of the other. This process, besides being instructive and stimulating to the pupils, possessed the advantage of being, as it often proved, highly diverting to the teacher." On this system Dr. Strachan himself remarks: "The method of instruction by question and answer possesses many advantages over any other, and is not only the very best and shortest, but the most satisfactory. In this system the deficiencies of each scholar becomes manifest, and the teacher knows to what particular points he must direct his explanations. There is no time for inattention or wandering; the question and necessity for reply compel attention and recollection. The children, if the teacher proceed with conciliatory firmness, acquire lively interest in the lesson, for each is particularly addressed and brought forward with action."[27] [27] The _Christian Recorder_, edited by Rev. Dr. Strachan, York, 1830, vol. 1, page 182. The late Bishop Fuller, who was also one of Dr. Strachan's pupils, also states that:-- "He had a remarkable talent for interesting boys in their work; and, by taking a deep interest in it himself, he led them to do the same. He was very original in many of his plans for promoting the good of his school. Amongst others, which I never met with elsewhere, was one of making the boys question one another on certain of the lessons. This made the boys quick at seizing on the leading points in the lessons, ready at shaping questions, and deeply interested in the questions and answers. The Bishop took as deep an interest in the questioning and answering of the boys as they did themselves; and thus this plan, whilst it was of great service to the boys in various ways, tended strongly to bind master and scholars together."[28] [28] Sermon on the Death of Bishop Strachan, _Journal of Education_ for U. C., vol. xx. (1868), page 182. As to his method of teaching arithmetic, he explains it in the following words: "In a new country like this, a variety of branches must be taught in every respectable school. Young men ... are anxious to get forward as fast as possible, and even those destined for the learned professions are seldom allowed the time requisite for acquiring the knowledge previously necessary. These considerations induced me to turn my thoughts to the discovery of some sure, and at the same time, expeditious method of teaching arithmetic. This object I have accomplished with a much greater degree of success than I dared to promise myself. "I divide my pupils into separate classes according to their progress. Each class has one or more sums to produce every day, neatly wrought upon their slates. The work is carefully examined, after which I command every figure to be blotted out, and the sums to be wrought under my eye. The one whom I happen to pitch upon first gives, with an audible voice, the rules and reasons for every step, and as he proceeds the rest silently work along with him figure for figure, but ready to correct him if he blunder that they may get his place. As soon as this one is finished, the work is again blotted out and another called upon to work the question aloud as before, while the rest proceed along with him in silence, and so on round the whole class.... This method of teaching arithmetic possesses this important advantage, that it may be pursued without interrupting the pupils' progress in any other useful study. The same method of teaching Algebra has been used with equal success. Such a plan is certainly very laborious, but it will be found successful, _and he that is anxious to spare labor ought not to be a public teacher_."[29] [29] Preface to "A Concise Introduction to Practical Arithmetic, for the use of Schools: By the Rev. John Strachan, Montreal. Printed by Nahum Mower, 1809." Desiring to give a local interest to the exercises in his book, Dr. Strachan gave several examples from Canadian subjects. Thus a question is addition reads:-- "From Quebec to Montreal is 180 miles--from thence to Kingston 200--from thence to York 149--from thence to Niagara 78 miles--from thence to Detroit, 210. Required the distance from Quebec to Detroit. _Answer_--317 miles." Again a question in multiplication reads:-- "The distance from Quebec to Montreal is 180 miles, supposing the road 17 yards broad, how many square yards does it contain? _Answer_--5,385,600 yards." As to his diligence as a student, while yet a teacher. Dr. Fuller remarks:-- "The late Bishop said to me on one occasion: 'I had to study every night quite as hard as the boys; for I was not much in advance of the highest class in school. These and parochial duties demanded sixteen hours every day,--and yet these nine years were the happiest years of my life." REV. DR. STRACHAN'S CAREER AS A TEACHER. Having been appointed Minister at Cornwall in 1803, Dr. Fuller states that there he was:-- "Induced to resume his school, at the solicitation of the parents of those boys who had been in his school at Kingston, and of others, both in Lower and Upper Canada, who were desirous of placing their sons under a master so practical, wise and successful, as he had proved himself to be. Thus he commenced the school at Cornwall, which afterwards became so celebrated, and at which were educated the first men that Canada has produced, and of whom she may well be proud--such men as the late Sir J. B. Robinson, Judge Maclean, Sir J. B. Macaulay, Sir Allan MacNab, Judge Jones, Mr. Stanton, the Bethunes (Alexander, John and Donald), Sir James Stuart, and his brother Andrew Stuart, besides many others who have reflected credit on our country. "The Bishop had a great faculty for not only attaching his scholars to him, but also for inducing them to apply themselves most assiduously to their studies. He told me he made it a rule, during the time he kept school, to watch closely every new boy, and at the end of a fortnight, to note down in a book his estimate of the boys who had passed through his hands. "He was never afraid of having his dignity lowered by liberties taken with him, and he always felt every confidence in his position and entered warmly and personally into many of the boys' amusements, and thus gained an immense influence over them. The influence over his pupils has been shown in the fact, that almost all of them embraced his principles; and the love and affection for him of his celebrated Cornwall school was shown many years ago, when the surviving members thereof presented him with an address[30] and a most beautiful and costly candelabra. Nor did his more recent scholars entertain less affection for him, though they never proved it so substantially as did those of his Cornwall School.... He was an excellent teacher. His scholars were well grounded in their work. The grammar was well mastered, and every rule thereof deeply impressed on the memory. Every lesson was thoroughly dissected, and everything connected with it thoroughly understood, before we passed on to another lesson."[31] [30] The principal signers of the address were Sir J. B. Robinson, Sir J. B. Macaulay, Very Rev. Dean Bethune, Right Rev. Bishop Bethune, Hon. Chief Justice McLean, Hon. Justice Jones, Hon. W. B. Robinson, Hon. G. S. Boulton, Rev W. Macaulay, Judge (George) Ridout, Surveyor-General Chewett, Col. Gregg, Capt. Macaulay, R.A., Inspector-General Markland, Sheriff McLean, Messrs. T. G. Ridout, P. Vankoughnet, S. P. Jarvis, J. Radenhurst, R. G. Anderson, R. Stanton, and others. [31] _Journal of Education_ for U. C., Vol. xx. (1868), page 183. For further reference to Dr. Strachan's educational efforts see the sections on universities, page 59 _et seq._ MR. JOSEPH HUME'S ESSAY ON EDUCATION EDITED AS A CATECHISM BY MR. WM. LYON MACKENZIE IN 1830. In 1830 Mr. Mackenzie republished at York (Toronto), in pamphlet form, the first part of a Catechism of Education, prepared by Mr. Joseph Hume, M.P., in England. The pamphlet in my possession is worn and weather-stained. It is inscribed to David Thorburn, of Queenston, and extends to 46 pages. In his preface Mr. Mackenzie says: "To Mr. Joseph Hume.--The compiler is indebted for an Essay on Education, which lays down and explains principles of vital importance to the best interest of the Canadians, the perusal of which first suggested the design of this catechism. "In the first parts, under the heads Domestic, Technical, Social and Political Instruction, it has been attempted to shew chiefly what the means are by which the human mind may be endowed with those qualities on which the generation of happiness depends." VICISSITUDES OF EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA, 1830-1839. For many years subsequently spasmodic efforts were made from time to time by progressive and earnest men in the Legislature to establish a system of schools. Enquiries were instituted and reports made, chiefly but not wholly, by the House of Assembly. A vigorous contest was maintained between that body and the Legislative Council on the subject. Bills were passed by the Assembly and rejected by the Council. The contest continued until the Rebellion occurred, and this event turned all men's thoughts into another channel for the time. Of the able and zealous men who, almost single handed, fought the battle of elementary education in the Legislature, prior to the rebellion of 1837, I may refer to the efforts in this direction of Dr. Charles Duncombe and Mr. Malhon Burwell, who did good service in the cause, as also did Archdeacon Strachan, Hon. William Morris and others for higher education. In the light of the growth and educational progress of to-day, the miserable condition of public education in the days of the educational pioneers to whom I have referred, can hardly be credited. And were it not on record in the proceedings of the Legislature, the statements there made would appear to apply to some other country rather than to ours. There were in the House of Assembly in those days (as I have intimated) men of rare power and ability, who did noble service in the popular cause, and in behalf of general education. They passed school bills, founded on elaborate reports, year after year, only to see them defeated by a majority in the Legislative Council. This state of things continued for some years, and with disastrous effects on the intellectual life of the country. This fact is illustrated in the proceedings of the House of Assembly. For example: In a petition of the United Presbytery of Upper Canada, presented to the House in 1830, the signers say:-- "It is with deep regret that your petitioners (in their ministerial capacity, connected with a very large portion of His Majesty's subjects in this Province) are compelled to say that the state of education is, in general, in a deplorable condition." The reason for this state of things is thus clearly set forth by the House of Assembly in an address to the Lieutenant-Governor, adopted in the same year:-- "We the Commons of Upper Canada, in Parliament assembled, most respectfully represent that there is in this Province a very general want of education; that the insufficiency of the school fund to support competent, respectable and well-educated teachers, has degraded common school teaching from a regular business to a mere matter of convenience to transient persons, or common idlers, who often teach school one season and leave it vacant until it accommodates some other like person, whereby the minds of our youth are left without cultivation, or, what is still worse, frequently with vulgar, low-bred, vicious or intemperate examples before them, in the capacity of monitors." EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS OF MR. MAHLON BURWELL IN THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, 1831-1836. Few men exerted themselves more or to better purpose in the cause of education than did Mr. Burwell during the time he was a member of the old Upper Canada Legislature, in 1831-1838.[32] [32] Col. Mahlon Burwell was born in the State of New Jersey, but early in life came to Upper Canada. He settled first at Fort Erie, then at Long Point, and finally removed to the Talbot Settlement. He was near neighbor, and for a long time, right-hand man of the noted Col. Talbot, of Port Talbot. He was a surveyor by profession, and in 1810 surveyed the townships of Malahide, Bayham, and part of the then village of London. Amongst the many motions relating to education which were moved by Mr. Burwell in the House of Assembly from time to time, was the following important one, which was concurred in by the House in February, 1831:-- "That a standing committee be appointed on the subject of education generally in this Province.... "That it be a principal duty and business of the committee to enquire whether an appropriation of 500,000 acres of land was not made, in virtue of a joint address of both houses of the Provincial Parliament, adopted at their session of 1797, or 1798, and whether the same is not subject to the control of the Legislature of this Province; to enquire if anything, and what, has been done with the lands or any part of them, and what is their present situation. "That the said committee do enquire in what way the several district schools of the Province can best be endowed with portions of the said lands, so as to render them more efficient and fitting for the improvement of the rising generation than they are at present."... Such were the comprehensive terms of a motion which gave to the subject of education a status in the House of Assembly at the time by making a committee on the subject a Standing Committee of the House, and clothing it with important powers. Mr. Burwell also, of the same month, moved for the production of all the despatches, reports, and other documents relating to the royal grant of lands by George III. for grammar schools and colleges in Upper Canada. In response to this latter motion, the Lieut.-Governor, Sir John Colborne (Lord Seaton), sent down to the House a mass of papers of great value, showing what steps had been taken by the Imperial and Provincial Governments during the intervening years for the promotion of public education. These papers were printed at the time, but little is now known of their contents. In April, 1831, Mr. Burwell, as chairman of the Quarter Sessions of the London District, presented to the Lieut-Governor a memorial setting forth the advantages to that locality of endowing a college at London. Amongst the reasons given are the following:-- "Your memorialists are aware that education of a superior kind cannot be brought to every man's door, and that under any arrangements, the inhabitants of the Province generally must send their children a short distance from home; but such is the extent of the several districts, that the school can seldom be a day's journey from any part of them; and the scholars can return to their homes without expense during the holidays; and, if sick, they can be visited by their parents in a few hours, and removed to their habitations without difficulty. Added to all this the cheapness at which board can be obtained in country places, and the easiness with which, in most cases, it can be paid for by produce from their farms." These reasons are somewhat primitive in their character; but they throw light on the social condition of the people in these days, and illustrate the common practice then of paying even for education "in kind," or by "produce from the farms." The object of the memorialists was to obtain such an endowment for the London District Grammar School-- "As shall render it efficient as a classical seminary, and a nursery (as such schools are intended to be) for the University of King's College.... "The endowment should be such a one as would furnish a good school-house, a commodious residence for the head master--to enable him to keep boarders and produce an income of four or five hundred pounds." In the following June a similar, but a much longer and more strongly worded, memorial was presented to the Governor from the trustees of the Kingston "Royal Grammar School," protesting against the withdrawal from that school of an extra grant of £200 a year and giving it to Upper Canada College, thus reducing the rank of the Kingston "Royal Grammar School" to that of a district grammar school. EFFORTS AT EDUCATIONAL LEGISLATION BY DR. CHARLES DUNCOMBE, 1831-1836. As one of those who took a prominent part in the troublesome events of 1837-38, in Upper Canada, Dr. Duncombe acquired considerable notoriety. He was, nevertheless, a man of broad views, of comprehensive aims and large sympathies.[33] [33] Dr. Charles Duncombe was an American by birth, and win born in the State of New Jersey in or about the year 1796. He came to Upper Canada with his parents during the progress, or immediately after the close, of the war of 1812-15, and settled in the "London District." Charles Duncombe studied medicine and surgery, and in 1827 and 1828 began to practice his profession on the town line between the townships of Burford and Brantford, near Bishopsgate. He soon obtained a large practice and with it an extended influence. During the rebellion of 1837-8, Dr. Duncombe took part and went to the United States, and remained there until 1843, when he received a pardon from Sir Charles (afterwards Lord) Metcalfe. He did not, however, remain long in Upper Canada after his return, but soon left for the Western States, whence he subsequently removed to California, and died there. From his first entry into the House of Assembly, Dr. Charles Duncombe, M.P.P. for the county of Norfolk, took up warmly the cause of popular education. In this he was actively supported by two other medical gentlemen--Dr. Thomas D. Morrison and Dr. Thomas Bruce--who were also members of the House of Assembly at that time. Dr. Charles Duncombe's first motion in the House of Assembly (on the 13th December, 1831) was for an address to the Lieut.-Governor urging the setting apart of a sufficient quantity of the public lands of the Province to form a permanent fund for the support and maintenance of common schools. His motion was, however, defeated. As Dr. Duncombe's motion is of historical interest, so far as the facts which it alleges are concerned, I give some extracts from it. The motion stated:-- "That there is in this Province a very general want of education; that the insufficiency of the Common School Fund to support competent, respectable and well-educated teachers, has degraded common school teaching from a regular business to a mere matter of convenience to transient persons, or common idlers, who often stay but for one season, and leave the schools vacant until they accommodate some other like person, whereby the minds of the youth of this Province are left without due cultivation, or, what is worse, frequently with vulgar, low-bred, vicious and intemperate examples before them in the persons of their monitors," (_i.e._, teachers). The motion goes on to say that:-- "If provision were made for the liberal and punctual payment of common school teachers ... the teaching of common schools would soon become a regular and respectable calling, gentlemanly, well-educated persons would not be ashamed to take charge of youth, the schools would be no longer vacant, nor the scholars ignorant. Upper Canada would then form a national character that would command respect abroad and ensure peace, prosperity and happiness at home, perpetuate attachment to British principles and British institutions, and enable posterity to value, as they ought, the inestimable blessings of our glorious constitution." The motion went on to urge the Lieut.-Governor to represent to the Colonial Secretary the important necessity--in view of the facts cited--of entreating "That His Majesty, William IV., be graciously pleased to place at the disposal of the Provincial Legislature a portion of the waste lands of the Crown as a permanent fund for the support of common schools within the same." Dr. Charles Duncombe, with a prescience of the future, and of the necessities of the case, (which were not then recognized, nor for many years afterwards,) strongly urged, as did other members of the Assembly, that at least one million acres of the "waste lands" of the Province should be set apart for the support of common schools.[34] [34] It is gratifying to know that, although defeated at the time, Dr. Duncombe's efforts bore fruit nearly twenty years afterwards--in 1850--when Hon. Wm. Hamilton Merritt, then President of the Council, introduced and had a Bill passed by the Legislature setting apart 1,000,000 acres of the Crown Lands for the permanent endowment of public schools in United Canada. The motion was negatived. Dr. Duncombe was, however, determined not to be beaten. Mr. David Burn and other friends of his in the county of Oxford--no doubt on his suggestion--got up a petition to the Legislature on the subject, and on the 21st December--a week after his motion was defeated--Dr. Duncombe read this petition and had it referred to a select committee for report thereon. On the 26th December an elaborate report on the petition was brought in by Dr. Duncombe himself, as chairman of the committee. In that report the whole subject was gone into fully, and a scheme elaborated by which the 1,000,000 acres of land were proposed to be hypothecated in advance, so that by the issue of debentures for $500,000, redeemable in ten, fifteen and twenty years, a sufficient sum would be at once realized on the prospective value of these lands to form a permanent fund for the support of common schools. This report (as did the rejected motion) placed on record a few facts and principles which are interesting in the light of to-day. The report stated that-- "The common schools of this Province are generally in so deplorable a state that they scarcely deserve the name of schools." It recommended that the common school law of the Province be so amended that hereafter the school grant be paid only to-- "Organized schools, taught by a person who had a certificate from the District Board of Education, or school inspector, of his or her ability to teach a common school." It also urged that the Common School Fund should be large enough, with the local contributions, to provide an ample stipend for good teachers, instead of "transient persons" and "common idlers" then so often employed as teachers-- "So that common school teaching, instead of being a mere matter of convenience to transient persons, or common idlers, would become a regular, respectable business in the hands of gentlemanly, well-educated persons. For surely the foundation of the minds of our children (on which must depend the happiness or misery we are to enjoy with them) and their own success in life, is a business worthy to be respectable, worthy of the patronage of men in the highest walks of life." The report then laid down an important principle in regard to the necessity for a certain and permanent endowment for public education. It said:-- "Funds and appropriation for the support of education should be permanent. They should not depend upon the annual vote of the Legislature, nor on any other casualty that might, by possibility fail, and thereby check the regular progress of education." Dr. Duncombe, in stating this principle, had no doubt in view the example (then well known) of the fickleness of the Legislature in the matter of school grants. In 1816 the vote for the support of common schools was $24,000. In three subsequent years the same vote was repeated; but, in 1820, it was reduced to $10,000--closing schools here and there all over the Province, and inflicting grievous hardship on many worthy (and, in the language of the day and of the report, unworthy) teachers. This miserable state of things continued for many years, and, as I stated on this subject in 1863-- "Thus ebbed and flowed, without a master hand to stay the current, that tide which, in other lands, is regarded as the nation's life's blood; and thus was permitted to ensue that state of living death by which Upper Canada, in the significant and popular metaphor of the day was likened to a 'girdled tree,' destitute alike of life, of beauty, or of stately growth."[35] [35] Historical Sketch of Education in Upper Canada, by J. George Hodgins, M.A., LL.B., F.R.G.S. in "Eighty Years' Progress of British North America," 1863. No wonder that in these degenerate days the young men, with stirrings within them of noble impulses and patriotic devotion to their country, should have been compelled to depend upon themselves for intellectual enlightenment and advancement. The flippant sneer of many persons of to-day at such "self-made" men is unworthy of those who enjoy the advantages which these self-made men laboured to secure. They belonged to that noble band of pioneers, who achieved for us the civil and religious freedom which we now so richly enjoy. All honour to them, therefore! CONTINUED EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS BY MR. BURWELL IN THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY. In January, 1832, Mr. Burwell made a motion similar to the defeated one of Dr. C. Duncombe, which led to considerable discussion. It was as follows:-- "That this House do address His Majesty, humbly beseeching that His Majesty will be graciously pleased to grant an appropriation of one million of acres of waste lands of the Crown in this Province for the maintenance and support of common schools within the same."...[36] In the same month Mr. Burwell introduced a bill "for the establishment and support of common schools throughout the Province." It was printed but was not proceeded with that session. Mr. Burwell's object clearly was to keep the subject before the House and to promote discussion on it. In this he succeeded. The House of Assembly was alive to the importance of the question, but the Legislative Council was obstructive in regard to the same subject. In November, 1832, Mr. Burwell again had a committee of the House of Assembly appointed to enquire into the manner in which the King's wishes had been carried out in regard to the royal grant of lands for educational purposes in 1798. To expedite this enquiry the important despatches and reports formerly asked for by him and sent down to the House by the Governor, with others, were printed and distributed. Mr. Burwell also introduced a bill "for the establishment, maintenance and regulation of common schools," in the Province. He made several motions, too, on the subject of the King's College charter and school lands. On the 21st November he submitted the first report of his "Select Committee on the Subject of Education." The historical part of this report being somewhat interesting in its statements, I quote it as follows:-- "The committee have been forcibly struck with the uniform anxiety which has been manifested at all times by the Legislature and Provincial authorities for the establishment of a university. "It formed part of the prayer of both Houses in their address to the King in 1797. "It was strongly recommended by the Executive Government, the judges, and law officers of the Crown, in 1798. "In 1806 the Legislature, to show that something more was even then required than grammar schools, did all their limited means permitted, in providing a small apparatus for the instruction of youth in physical science, that they might enter the world with something more than a common district school education; such an institution was again noticed in 1820, and an earnest desire expressed by the Legislature, which knew best the wants of the Province, for its speedy establishment. "In 1825 so many young men were found turning their attention to the learned professions that the Executive Government thought that the establishment of a university could be no longer delayed without the greatest detriment to the Province, and, therefore, applied to His Majesty for a Royal Charter, which was granted in 1827, in terms as liberal, it is said, as the then Government would allow; but such has proved by no means satisfactory to your Honorable House."[36] [36] See also the opinion of Archdeacon Strachan on this subject, in a subsequent part of this Retrospect. About the middle of December, 1832, Mr. Burwell brought in the second and very elaborate report of the Select Committee on Education. This report was chiefly based upon the opinions of several witnesses examined by the committee on the subject of school lands, King's College charter, U. C. College, and education generally. The witnesses examined were Chief Justice Robinson, Archdeacon Strachan, Chairman, and the Hon. G. H. Markland, Secretary to the Provincial Board of Education; Hon. Joseph Wells, a member of the Board, and Treasurer of U. C. College; Rev. Dr. Joseph H. Harris, Principal of U. C. College; Rev. Dr. Thomas Phillips, Vice-Principal, and Mr. S. P. Hurd, Surveyor-General of the Province. The general views of these noted men on the subject of education are both interesting and instructive in the light of to-day. The report itself deals with the then pressing question of the extension of educational facilities to the entire Province. It points out in strong language the undesirability of continuing a system of district, or grammar, schools which were quite adequate to the wants of the Province when the population was only 50,000, but which was not at all equal to the requirements of Upper Canada when that population had increased to nearly 300,000. These references show how wonderfully the Province has progressed in population and in its educational advantages since that time. EARLY OPINIONS ON THE NECESSITY FOR MANUAL, OR INDUSTRIAL, EDUCATION. The following passage from the report of 1832 is prophetical in its anticipation of the future. By way of illustration I may mention the fact that a somewhat similar utterance was made by Sir Lyon Playfair in his address as president of the British Association, at Aberdeen, in 1887. The passage in the report of 1832 is as follows:-- "That the situation of the Province in wealth and commerce, and in its demand for superior attainments in the various professions is very different from what it formerly was; and that unless opportunities are immediately furnished by the establishment of superior schools for the instruction of our youth in the higher branches of science, we must fall behind the age in which we live." What was thus put forth as a local thought, but yet as an educational axiom, by these educational pioneers of Upper Canada, upwards of fifty years ago, is thus forcibly and beautifully amplified by the president of the British Association in 1887. Speaking generally, and contrasting the educational policy of the colonies and that of the mother country, he said:-- "The colonies, being young countries, value their raw materials as their chief source of wealth. When they become older they will discover it is not in these, but in the culture of scientific intellect, that their future prosperity depends.... Jules Simon tersely puts it:--'The nation which most educates her people will become the greatest nation, if not to-day, certainly to-morrow.' Higher education is the condition of higher prosperity, and the nation which neglects to develop the intellectual factor of production must degenerate, for it cannot stand still.... The illustrious consort of our Queen was not the first prince who saw how closely science is bound up with the welfare of states.... How unwise it is for England to lag in the onward march of science, when most other European powers are using the resources of their states to promote higher education and to advance the boundaries of knowledge. [She] alone fails to grasp the fact that the competition of the world has become a competition of intellect.... A nation in its industrial progress, when the competition of the world is keen, cannot stand still.... I contend that in public education there should be a free play to the scientific faculty, so that the youths who possess it should learn the richness of their possession during the educative process.... Science has impressed itself upon the age in which we live; and as science is not stationary, but progressive, men are required to advance its boundaries, acting as pioneers in the onward march of states. Human progress is so identified with scientific thought, both in its conception and realization, that it seems as if they were alternative terms in the history of civilization." In giving these extracts so fully I have done so for two reasons: First, I desire to do honour to the zeal and to acknowledge the forethought and prescience of those members of the House of Assembly who, in 1832, placed so strong an emphasis upon the value of "the instruction of our youth in the higher branches of science;" and secondly, to point out, in the weighty words of Sir Lyon Playfair, the immense importance (in the light of past experience) which he and other leaders of thought in regard to England's industrial life and practical progress, attach to the teaching of elementary science in the schools. He touches upon this point in another part of his address, in pointing out the absurdity of requiring all pupils to study the same subjects. He says:-- "In a school a boy should be aided to discover the class of knowledge that is best suited to his mental capacities, so that in the upper forms of the school, and in the university, knowledge may be specialized in order to cultivate the powers of the man to the fullest extent.... The adaptation of public schools to a scientific age does not involve a contest as to whether science or classics shall prevail, for both are indispensable to true education. The real question is, whether schools will undertake the duty of moulding the minds of boys according to their mental varieties." LATER OPINIONS ON THE NECESSITY FOR MANUAL TRAINING IN OUR SCHOOLS. So deeply impressed was I of the immense importance of this subject, and of the necessity of providing in our school system for a practical solution of the question which was then, and is now, of pressing importance--viz., manual training in our schools--that in 1876 I prepared and delivered a lecture on the subject, in various parts of the Province. The lecture was founded on the industrial lessons taught to us so impressively at the Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, in 1876. These lessons, in their educational aspects, were even more forcibly impressed upon me at the great Industrial Exhibition held in New Orleans, in 1885. Having been there six weeks, as an Educational Juror, on behalf of the United States Bureau of Education, I had abundant and admirable facilities for studying the whole question, and for seeing how it was being worked out (more or less effectually) in the various national school systems which came under review during that enquiry--especially in France. Thus the French school law of 1882 provides that "primary education includes [among other things] the elements of the natural, physical and mathematical sciences, and their application to agriculture, to hygiene, and to the industrial art; manual work, and the use of tools of the principal trades, the elements of drawing, modelling, etc." Apprenticeship schools have also been established, the object of which is to form workmen, as distinguished from foremen, and in which various trades are taught. An official report, published by the United States Bureau of Education in 1882, states that the apprentices of these schools "find employment readily after they have left the workshops, at wages, it is said, varying from five to even as much as eight francs per day." In discussing this question in the lecture to which I have referred, these passages occur:-- "It is not assumed that every pupil in our schools is qualified, or that he should be compelled, as a matter of course, to engage in the study of elementary science or practical drawing. Far from it. But what I do say is, that those pupils who exhibit a taste for any of the various subjects of natural history, elementary science or practical mechanics, should have an opportunity in the Public and High Schools (of cities and large towns) of learning something about them. In an address by Mr. Gladstone on this subject, he stated that the boys of the English schools, and it is so in our schools, had not yet had fair play in the study of elementary science and natural history.... "There are few schools in which there are not boys possessing talent scientific, inventive, or industrial talent, or constructive genius, which are never evoked, much less aroused or stimulated. As to the question whether for the few the country should be put to the expense of their special training, I answer it in the words of Professor Huxley, who says:-- "To the lad of genius, even to the one in a million, I would make accessible the highest and most complete training the country could afford. Whatever it might cost, depend upon it the investment would be invaluable. I weigh my words when I say: that if the nation could purchase a potential Watt, or Davy, or Faraday, at the cost of a hundred thousand pounds down, he would be dirt cheap at the money.... It is a mere commonplace and an every-day piece of knowledge to say that, what these three men did, (in their special departments of practical science), has produced untold millions of wealth for England and the world, speaking in its narrowest economical sense of the word." The educational mind of the United States, as well as Europe, is being constantly directed to the consideration of this interesting practical subject. Magazines and reviews, as well as educational journals, freely discuss it. One of the most useful articles on "Manual Training in the Public schools," will be found in the _Andover Review_ for October, 1888. The United States Bureau of Education has also published various reports and papers on the subject. One of the most valuable is an elaborate report on _Industrial Education in the United States_, published in 1883. Some of the more important railways in that country have also established training schools for their employés. FURTHER EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS IN THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, 1835, 1836. For the four years during which Dr. Duncombe was a member the Legislature of Upper Canada, his efforts to promote the cause of education were unceasing. With the exception of Mr. Burwell, who devoted himself almost entirely to the interests of education in the House, none excelled Dr. Duncombe in his zeal for the cause of public education. His efforts were chiefly directed to awaken an interest amongst his fellow members in the subject generally, and especially on behalf of the education of the deaf and dumb, in asylums for the insane, in prison discipline and similar matters. At length his efforts in the session of 1835 culminated in the appointment, by resolution of the House of Assembly, of Doctors Charles Duncombe, Thomas D. Morrison and William Bruce, Commissioners, to enquire, amongst other things, into "the system and management of schools and colleges" in the United States and elsewhere. Two of these commissioners deputed their colleague, Dr. Duncombe, to "go on a journey to the United States, or elsewhere, to obtain such information as is desired by a resolution" of the House of Assembly in that behalf. Six hundred dollars were granted by the House to defray the expenses of this enquiry. Late in 1835 Dr. Duncombe went on his mission of enquiry to the United States, and visited literary institutions in the Western, Middle, Eastern and some of the Southern States of the Union. He also obtained detailed information as to education in England, France and Prussia, and embodied the result in an elaborate report of nearly sixty pages and an appendix of one hundred and sixty pages. To this report he annexed the draft of a School Bill, extending to twenty-two pages, with a variety of forms and instructions appended. The whole document embraced two hundred and sixty pages of printed matter. The report is minute and exhaustive in its treatment of the subject in hand, although somewhat discursive and speculative in many parts. It is, nevertheless, in the light of to-day, both interesting and instructive. It presents a vivid picture, and not a very flattering one, of the condition of education in the United States and in Europe. Its discussions of special subjects--such as female education, classical studies, the management of colleges and universities, etc., etc.--are fair and enlightened, and, on the whole, intelligent and practical in their character. It is clear that the Legislative Council of the day did not sympathize with Dr. Duncombe and his colleagues in their zeal for popular education. The bill which he had so carefully prepared, although adopted by the House of Assembly by a vote of 35 to 10, early in 1836 failed to receive the sanction of the Council. His proposition to increase the common school grant from $22,600 to $80,000 per annum was considered too great a step in advance, and was not therefore pressed to a vote in the House of Assembly. He, however, got two influential committees appointed to deal with the questions of public education and school lands. These committees were subsequently united and enlarged. They did good service and kept public interest awakened as to the value of the important subjects entrusted to them. ANALYSIS OF DR. DUNCOMBE'S REPORT ON EDUCATION, 1836. The report, be it remembered, speaks of events and educational facts of more than fifty years ago. They are of special interest to us of to-day, since they form the background, so to speak, of our own educational history and progress. I shall make a few extracts from the report:--Dr. Duncombe says:-- "The first principles of the system recommended in this report with regard to common schools, schools for the education of the poorer classes, and for the education of teachers (or the normal schools) made their appearance almost simultaneously in Great Britain and on the Continent, as appears by the voluminous reports of Lord Brougham ... and by Mr. Dick's very able and splendid report upon the common schools ... of Scotland, and by M. Cousin's reports of the schools in Prussia and Germany, and Bulver's observations upon education as a prevention of crime in France.... The glimmering of this beacon light was soon seen across the ocean, and lighted up a similar flame in the United Slates. Commissioner after commissioner was sent to Scotland and to England by the authority of their State Legislatures to light their lamps at the fountain of science, that the whole continent of America might be ignited by the flame." Dr. Duncombe's observations in regard to the state of education in the United States are interesting, as by contrast they illustrate the remarkable progress made in that country during the last half century in the matter of public education. He says:-- "In the United States, where they devote much time and expense towards the promotion of literature, they are equally destitute of a system of national education with ourselves: and although by their greater exertion to import the improvements made in Great Britain and on the Continent, and their numerous attempts at systematizing these modern modes of education ... they have placed themselves in advance of us in their common school system. Yet, after all, their schools seemed to me to be good schools on bad or imperfect systems; they seem groping in the dark, no instruction in the past to guide the future, no beacon light, no council of wise men to guide them, more than we have, upon the subject of common schools. Our schools want in character, they want respectability, they want permanency in their character and in their support.... It should be so arranged that all the inhabitants should contribute something towards the [maintainance of the school fund], and all those who are benefited directly by it should pay, in proportion to such benefit, a small sum, but quite enough to interest them in the prudent expenditure of their share of the school moneys." The objection to a liberal education being too freely given for the benefit of the learned professions seems to have been urged even in these days. Dr. Duncombe answers it in the following language:-- "It has been supposed that there are too many in the learned professions already, and that, therefore, there are too many who obtain a liberal education. But this opinion is founded upon two errors: One is, that every liberally educated man must be above manual labor, and must, therefore, enter one of the learned professions; and the other is, that all who do enter these professions do it, and have a right to do it, from personal and family interests, and not for the public good--whereas a liberal education ought not to unfit a man, whether in his physical constitution or his feelings, for active business in any honest employment; and neither ought men who enter any of the learned professions to excuse themselves from labor and privation for the good of the world. There is a great and pernicious error on this subject." The question of free education is thus discussed by Dr. Duncombe:-- "Nothing is more important in the formation of an enterprising character than to let the youth early learn his own powers; and in order to this, he must be put upon his own recourses, and must understand, if he is ever [to be] anything, he must make himself, and that he has within himself all the means for his own advancement. It is not desirable, therefore, that institutions should be so richly endowed as to furnish the means of education free of expense to those who are of an age to help themselves; nor is it desirable that any man, or any society of men, should furnish an entirely gratuitous education to the youth of the Province. All the necessary advantages for educating himself ought to be put within the reach of the young man, and if, with these advantages, he cannot do much towards it he is not worthy of an education." After discussing several other topics in his report, Dr. Duncombe made a striking forecast of the educational future of Upper Canada. He said:-- "Was there ever a more auspicious period than the present for literary reform? If I rightly understand the signs of the times, we stand upon the threshold of a new dispensation in the science of education, and especially in the history of common schools, colleges and universities in this Province. The flattering prospects of our being permitted legally to dispose of the school lands of this Province, so long dormant--the sale and appropriation of the clergy reserves for the purposes of education, and, above all by our having control of the other natural resources of the Province, we shall be enabled to provide respectably and permanently for the support of literary institutions _in every part of the Province_, while by remodelling the charter of King's College, so as to adapt the institution to the present state of science of education, and the wishes and wants of the people of this Province.... With such charming prospects before us, with what alacrity and delight can we approach the subject of education to make liberal, permanent and efficient provision for the education of all the youth of Upper Canada, to cause 'the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak,' and, above all, to make certain and extensive provision for the support of schools for teachers and tutoresses."... It is sad to think that to the writer of these cheering, hopeful words, the future so vividly pictured by him became suddenly darkened, and the pleasant hopes in which he then indulged were never realized by him, or by many of those who, more than half a century ago, were like him so active in promoting the great cause of popular and collegiate education in this Province. Within one year Dr. Duncombe was a "proscribed rebel," as were many others who with him saw as in a vision the future which, he then pictured for Upper Canada. SUMMARY OF, AND REFLECTIONS ON, THESE EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS, FROM 1830 TO 1839. During the next session of the Legislature, in the winter of 1836, Mr. Burwell sought to give effect to Dr. Duncombe's liberal resolution of the preceding session, viz., to provide, out of the public in revenue, a grant of $80,000 a year for support of the common schools. He proposed two resolutions: one was to the effect that $40,000 a year be granted out of the public revenue for the support of these schools; the other was as follows:-- "That the sum of ten thousand pounds ($40,000), be raised annually by assessment, by order of the Quarter Sessions in the several districts on the ratable property of the inhabitants, in aid of the Provincial grant for the common school fund, in the same manner as other assessments are now made." When the matter came before the House of Assembly in February, 1837, the committee of supply reported a grant of only $22,400 for the year. The assessment proposition was not adopted, as the question of local taxation for school purposes though often before it had not yet been practically entertained by the Legislature. Next year, however, another effort was made to provide somewhat liberally for the common schools. But as the Bill as passed by the House of Assembly, embodied in it the principle of local taxation for schools for the first time, it was not concurred in by the Legislative Council. That body proposed a conference to explain the reason, and appointed the Honorable Messrs. Allan and Hamilton as its conferees. The House of Assembly nominated Messrs. Boulton, Cartwright, Thompson and Rykert as its representatives at the conference. The Legislative Council stated that:-- "It could not pass the Bill, because it proposes to levy an assessment at the discretion of the Justice of the Peace, to the extent of 1-1/2d. [3 cents] in the £ [$4] to support Common Schools; and as acts have lately passed imposing rates on the inhabitants of several of the districts, for the purpose of defraying the expense of building jails and court-houses and for the construction of macadamized roads, the Council fear that the proposed assessment for common school education might be burthensome," etc. Thus, because jails, court-houses and roads were considered more necessary and important than schools, the last Act for the promotion of education ever passed by the Upper Canada House of Assembly was rejected by the Legislative Council! Such was the untoward state of affairs when the Legislative Union of Upper and Lower Canada took place in 1840. EXTRACTS FROM OFFICIAL REPORTS ON EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA IN 1838. I shall now give a few extracts from official returns illustrative of the state of education in the Province in 1838 and 1839, while these efforts of improvements were being made. They also show how entirely practical were the views of those who took an active part in educational affairs of the time, how keenly alive they were to the educational deficiencies of those days. Other extracts from official reports and proceedings of the House of Assembly might be given to illustrate this part of the subject, but they would make this retrospect too long. They are all of a most interesting and instructive character, and well deserve publication in a connected form. They throw a vivid light upon the educational chaos which existed at the time. They also show how enlightened comparatively, as well as how darkened also, were the views of those who took part on both sides in the educational debates and proceedings of those years--especially during 1830,--1836, 1838 and 1839. What were then problematical theories and merely tentative schemes, are to-day educational truisms and successful fields of operation. The growth of the schools under the fitful system which prevailed in Upper Canada from 1816 to 1842 was painfully slow. The number of what was called "schools" was small, and the quality of them, with rare exceptions, was exceedingly inferior. Anything beyond the three R's was generally taught by itinerants. Dr. Ryerson mentions in an autobiographical letter, as an example, that his knowledge of English grammar was derived entirely from the "lectures" of a peripatetic teacher of that subject. He also mentions several of his after contemporaries who acquired a knowledge of grammar and other special subjects in the same way. No one, as he said to me, ever heard in these days of the possibility of a "royal road to learning." It was hard work, of the hardest kind, and few ever dreamt of reaching a higher eminence than that of mastering the first two R's--Reading and 'Riting. Arithmetic was approached with caution, and its higher "developments" with consternation. How could such a state of things be otherwise when "transient persons" and "common idlers" were with rare exceptions, the kind of "teachers" employed. Education had no money value then, except in so far as it receded from a rate of payment to that of a day laborer or a pensioner. The following are the extracts from the official reports:-- INFLUENCES BY AMERICAN TEACHERS AND SCHOOL BOOKS DEPRECATED. _Schools in the Home District--No United States books permitted._--The schoolmasters, with the exception of two Americans who have been long in the Province, are all British subjects--that they have all taken the oath of allegiance--that during the last year the salary allowed was £10 (ten pounds each), and no books from the United States are permitted to be used in the schools.--_John Strachan, Wm. Allan, Toronto, 8th March, 1839._ _Schools in the Eastern District--Transitory Teachers._--Were the allowance to be increased teachers would come forward better prepared and be induced to remain. Many at present seem to continue for a few months, as a matter of convenience, and to assist themselves in following other occupations, which greatly retards the improvement of the children.--_Joseph Aderson, D. McDonell, Cornwall, 9th May, 1839._ _Schools in the Western District: Their State and Suggestions for Improvement._--The situation of the school houses is not always judiciously chosen, it being situated often more for the convenience of some one influential person than for that of the inhabitants generally of the settlement. The school-house is often a wretched log hut, or a ruinous building altogether unfit for the purpose--especially in the winter season. In too many cases the teachers are badly qualified for the task which they undertake; and some of them having taken up the profession more from necessity than choice are seldom permanent, and consequently very ineffectual teachers. The remuneration which the teachers of common schools receive for their services are by no means sufficient to induce respectable and well qualified teachers to undertake the irksome and laborious task. _Hints for the Improvement of the Schools of the Province (condensed)._--1. The school should be erected in a dry and healthy situation if possible, and situated so as to suit the majority of the inhabitants of the settlement in which it is erected. It should be a neat and commodious building, sufficiently large to render it airy and healthy in the summer season and well finished inside and out to cause it to be comfortable in the winter. 2. A comfortable dwelling should be erected for the accommodation of the teacher and his family. 3. Teachers throughout the Province might be divided into three classes, allowance from Government to be not less than £100, £75 and £50 respectively. 4. Every teacher, previous to receiving any appointment, should be examined as to his literary acquirements, his political opinions and his moral character. 5. A uniform set of elementary books should be compiled and published for the use of the common schools of the Province, and those republican productions that tend to poison the minds of the youth of the country should be driven out of the Province. 6. A discreet and competent person should be appointed by his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor to visit the schools in each district eight, or at least four, times in the year to examine the scholars and the internal economy of the schools and to report thereon--_W. Johnson, Sandwich, 21st February, 1839._ _Schools in the London District--"Boarding Round"--American Books._--The Board of Education cannot abstain from remarking upon a system commonly practiced by teachers and generally encouraged by the employers in the country, of receiving the teachers as members or lodgers with each family who are subscribers to the school in succession for the period of engagement, which in its influence and consequence has not hitherto been productive of good; and more especially in cases where the teachers have been Americans, a system than which none can be more mischievous in its effects, added to which the circumstance, as will be seen by reference to the books used in the schools, that a portion of American books, particularly geographies, have been permitted to be used (notwithstanding the Board have the power to order the discontinuance of such) because others could not be procured in the country, nor has any provision been made by the legislature for the formation of depots where proper books could be had.--_John B. Askin, London, 12th February, 1838._ Names of text-books used in the common schools of Upper Canada in 1838, viz.:-- Old and New Testaments. _Readers_--English, Murray's, Canadian and Reading Made Easy. _Spelling Books_--Mavor's, Cobb's, Webster's, Graham's, Universal. _Grammars_--Murray's, Lennie's, Kirkham's, McCulloch's. _Arithmetics_--Walkingame's, Gray's, Dillworth's, Daboll's, Watson's, Pike's, Adams', Morrison's, Hutton's, Rogers', Bailey's, Hall's, Joyce's, Keith's, Allison's, Bonnycastle's. _Geographies_--Goldsmith's, Hutton's, Olney's, Woodbridge's, Willett's, Evans', Stewart's, Parley's, Elvey's. _History_--English, Goldsmith's, Tytler's, Hume's, Simpson's. _Geometry and Euclid_--Ingram's, Hutton's. _Dictionaries_--Walker's, Cobb's, Walker Johnson's. _Miscellaneous_--Dillworth's Teachers' Assistant, Burham's Primer, Mason's Primer, Child's A, B, C, Scott's Lessons, Morrison's Book-keeping, Blake's Natural Philosophy, Blair's Rhetoric. Number of schools in Upper Canada in 1838 (estimated), 835. Number of pupils in attendance, " 23,776. EXTRACTS FROM THE REPORT OF A COMMISSION APPOINTED TO ENQUIRE INTO THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA IN 1839. The Commissioners appointed to conduct this enquiry were the Rev. Dr. McCaul, Rev. H. J. Grasett and S. B. Harrison, Esq. James Hopkirk, Esq., was appointed Secretary. The following are the extracts: _Preliminary Educational History._--In 1797 both Houses of the Legislature petitioned the King for an appropriation of waste lands of the Crown to form a fund for the support of a Grammar School in each district and a College or University for instruction in the different branches of a liberal education. In 1807 an Act, limited to four years, was passed granting £800 for the support of eight district Grammar Schools. In 1808 the limiting clause (to four years) was repealed. In 1816 an Act establishing common schools was passed and £6,000 were granted for their support. In 1819 an amending Act was passed requiring annual examinations in the schools; that reports to the district Board of Education should be made each year; that "ten children of the poorer inhabitants," to be selected by ballot, should receive free tuition in each Grammar School, and that trustees should give certificates to teachers. In 1820 the grant to common schools was reduced from £6,000 to £2,500 per annum. In 1824 £150 per annum was granted for the supply of common schools, with books, tracts, etc., and that teachers must be examined and licensed by the District Board of Education, one member of which might certify as to the ability of the teacher before the payment to him of the public grant. In 1833, the annual grant to common schools was increased from £2,500 to £5,650. No grants to a teacher is to be made "unless the trustees shall make it appear that they have made provision for his support so as to secure him for his services in a sum at least equal to double the amount which may be allotted by the Board of Education from the public money." No school legislation took place during the years from 1833 to 1841. _District Grammar Schools._--The Commissioners made several recommendations for the improvement of the schools, viz:--1. Uniformity in the system applicable to all the schools. 2. Examination of teacher, so as to test his qualification for the office of teaching. 3. Assistant in each school where there are 30 pupils. 4. School-house built on a uniform plan. 5. Admission of a certain number of free pupils. 6. Quarterly reports from each school and systematic inspection of them. _Common Schools._--The Commissioners also made recommendation for the improvement of these schools, viz.:--1. That there should be a model school with two rooms in each township, and at least two acres of land attached thereto for the use of the master. 2. In each of these schools there should be a male and female teacher (married desirable), and, in addition, other "teachers licensed to itinerate through the township, beyond the sphere of the permanent school," say at places "more than two miles distant from it." "Thus provision is made for one permanent and four occasional schools in each township." 3. Fees to be $2 per quarter, while one pupil in five might be admitted free. 4. The subjects of the instruction should be: Spelling, reading, writing, the Holy Scriptures, geography, history, arithmetic, book-keeping, mensuration, and in girl's school sewing and knitting. 5. Books should be provided at a cheaper rate from Britain, or a series of compilations, or republications should be prepared and printed here, and that they should be appointed to be used in all the schools of the Province. 6. The general control of the schools should be vested in a Board of Commissioners, with a secretary at Toronto. One of the Board should be chairman and inspector general of the schools--having control over the Grammar and Common Schools, and should be the medium of communication between the District Boards and the Council of King's College. 7. There should be elected township director of schools. The Commissioners add:-- _Normal School._--"No plan of education can be efficiently carried out without the establishment of schools for the training of teachers." They, therefore, recommended that the Central School of Toronto should be a Normal School--others to be added afterwards. _Grants._--The Commissioners recommend that £21,410 be granted for District Grammar Schools--£12,000 from the sale of Grammar School lands, and £24,300 for Common Schools--£15,000 of the latter to be raised by taxation at the rate of 3/4d. in the £. EDUCATIONAL OPINIONS OF PROMINENT PUBLIC MEN IN 1839. _Hon. G. S. Boulton._--In his replies to the Commissioners, he said:--Teachers should be British subjects and should be examined by the Board of Education and approved previous to appointment. Each teacher should receive at least $20 per annum, exclusive of fees from pupils.... I recommend the passage of an Act appropriating 500,000 acres of land for the support of Common Schools, as proposed in the last session of the Legislature by a joint committee of both Houses." _Hon. Wm. Morris,_ in his reply to the Commissioners, said:--The hundreds of the youth of the country who, for want of convenient institutions of learning, have been sent to and educated in the neighboring Republic, where, if they have not imbibed a predilection for that form of government, have been greatly exposed to the danger of losing that attachment to monarchical government, and the principles of the British Constitution, which is the essential duty of those who administer the affairs of this colony to cherish in the minds of the rising generation. _Hon. James Crooks._--The system of Common Schools, although in some instances abused by the employment of improper persons, indeed sometimes aliens, as teachers, yet, on the whole, I think highly beneficial; perhaps were the system of parochial schools, as established in Scotland, with such modification as would be necessary under the different circumstances of this Province, engrafted upon the Common School system, it might be found to work well. _Hon. P. B. De Blacquiere._--The present condition of teachers is truly wretched, and reflects great disgrace upon the nation, and what but the actual results can or could be expected? I think a difficulty will arise as to finding inspectors properly qualified, or who, in the present state of the country, can be trusted.... _Rev. Robert McGill._--I know the qualifications of nearly all the Common School teachers in this (Niagara) District, and do not hesitate to say, that there is not more than one in ten fully qualified to instruct the young in this the humblest department. I should doubt, therefore, whether the money granted to them being an equivalent good, or whether the state of education in this Province would be worse were those funds entirely withdrawn. _Rev. Robert Murray._[37]--The great difficulty attending any change in the present wretched system of education in the Province is to ensure the efficiency of that scheme which may be adopted in its room. To leave the supervision in the hands of the electors in each district, or to a few individuals appointed by them, probably themselves without education, would certainly tend to perpetuate the system of gross oppression to which teachers have been subjected, and to disappoint the reasonable expectations of the Government.... It appears absolutely necessary to ensure the efficiency of a system (as suggested) that men of education, who themselves have had large experience in the education of youth should be appointed to superintend the whole system of operation.... [37] First Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada, and the immediate predecessor of Rev. Dr. Ryerson. _Malhon Burwell, Esq._--I cannot conceive anything more wanting in efficiency than our present system for Common School education. I annex for the notice of the Commission of Investigation a copy of a Common School bill, which I have several times endeavored to get passed through the House of Assembly. (NOTE.--See Bishop Strachan's estimate of this bill in next extract.) _Right Rev. Bishop Strachan._--The Common School Bill, drawn up by Mr. Burwell, appears to be an able performance; it has several times been entertained by the House of Assembly, and once passed that body, but was unfortunately lost in the Legislative Council. It is based on true principles, and contains within it the power of expansion as new townships, counties and districts are organized. It may, perhaps, admit of a few modifications, but is, on the whole, by far the best measure for the establishment of common schools which I have seen. SEPARATE EDUCATIONAL FORCES SHAPING THEMSELVES IN UPPER CANADA. I will now take up the thread of the historical narrative of education in Upper Canada from page -- of this Retrospect. During the early settlement period, and that preceding the union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1840, two social forces (which took an educational form later on), were slowly shaping themselves into an antagonism to each other which culminated in the events or political crisis of 1837-38. This was apparent from the position which the representatives of these forces assumed on the religious, political and other questions of the day. As yet the question of an educational system for the Province--beyond that of a University and district Grammar Schools--had, down to 1836, taken no definite shape in the public mind. Indeed, such a thing, as we now regard it, was not deemed practical, except by a few leading men, as I have shown, who were years in advance of their times. NOTED REPRESENTATIVE EDUCATIONAL LEADERS--DR. STRACHAN AND DR. RYERSON. It will simplify my statement of the case if I revert back to the transition period between the establishment of the district Grammar Schools in 1809 and the university charter of 1827; and from thence take a somewhat prospective view of events in the order in which they afterwards transpired. For convenience I would, therefore, select two noted men of their times as representatives of the two social forces to which I have referred, and of the opposite opinions on education and other subjects which then prevailed. The first was the Rev. Dr. Strachan (afterwards first Church of England Bishop of Toronto), and the other was the Rev. Dr. Ryerson, the representative and trusted leader of the members of the Methodist Church in the Province. Dr. Strachan was the undoubted representative of the English and particularly the Scotch views on educational matters. Dr. Ryerson, on the other hand, was the equally true and faithful exponent of the British Colonial, or United Empire Loyalist, views and opinions on the same subject. What these latter views and opinions were may be gathered from a reference to the educational chapter in the colonial history of the thirteen colonies, as given in an earlier portion of this Retrospect. THE EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS OF THE U. E. LOYALISTS AND THE RULING PARTY. The first settlers of Upper Canada were "exiled tories," so called, from the revolted colonies. In that, and in the other Provinces, they were warmly received and welcomed as the heroic defenders of the royal cause. They sacrificed everything but their principles and their honor in maintaining "the unity of the Empire." Even after the struggle was ended, they adhered to the "lost cause" with the same devotion as they had shown in following the royal standard, not only to victory, but even to disaster and defeat. They were men of wonderful resolution and daring, as well as of superior intelligence. Such were the first settlers of Upper Canada. Soon after the arrival of the "U. E. Loyalists" in Upper Canada, a tide of emigration set in, chiefly from the three kingdoms. These immigrants brought with them the feelings and habits of home life in the old world, with the opinions and prejudices of their class, illustrating the truth of the old Latin quotation, "_Cælum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt_." By degrees portions of the U. E. Loyalists and of these immigrants, whose views on "Church and State" coincided, united their forces and formed a powerful and dominant party. They ruled the Province with a high hand for many years. From their social position and frequent intermarriage they became a compact and exclusive party, and were distinguished by the _sobriquet_ of the "Family Compact." Against this powerful party was arrayed many of the U. E. Loyalists and their descendants, and the entire liberal and progressive party. It is sufficient to say in this connection that under the skillful leadership of Dr. Ryerson and other prominent men of moderate views who acted with him, the power of the Family Compact was broken, the compact itself was gradually dissolved. Its opponents became in turn the ruling party in this Province, a position which their legitimate successors still occupy. The Family Compact party, in the heyday of their power and influence, were not averse to education. Far from it; for they were men of education themselves. But it took the form of zeal for higher education and for the higher classes. Rev. Dr. Strachan, who was the most energetic and powerful leader of this party, occupied a seat in the Legislative Council (Senate) by appointment of the Governor. He devoted all his energies to the establishment of a university, with district classical schools as feeders. He practically ignored elementary schools, or rather made no provision for them; and it was not until nine years after these district classical schools were established that the U. E. Loyalists, (combined with the progressive party of which it formed no inconsiderable portion), were able to get a measure passed by the Legislature for the establishment and maintenance of common schools.[38] [38] See remarks on this anachronism on page 64. AN EDUCATIONAL GLANCE BACKWARDS. But in order to understand more fully the sequence of events which led to the development of the educational spirit in this Province, it will be necessary to give a condensed summary of the facts. With this historical background in prospective view, the distinguishing features of that comprehensive system of education which, in later years, Dr. Ryerson was privileged to found, can be more clearly seen. The U. E. Loyalists removed to British America in 1783, the year of their exile. Most of them settled in Upper Canada, along the north shore of the Upper St. Lawrence, and the corresponding margin of Lakes Ontario and Erie. They brought with them from the old colonies their educational traditions and their devotion to the flag of the Empire. Those of them who had settled along the Bay of Quinté, united in 1789, in framing a memorial to Governor-General Lord Dorchester (Sir Guy Carleton), in which lamenting the educational privations which they had endured since their settlement in Canada, they prayed the Governor to establish a "seminary of learning" at Frontenac (Kingston). Their prayer was granted, so far as the setting apart of lands for the support of the seminary was concerned, as well as the support of schools wherever the expatriated colonials had settled, or might settle, in the country. Immediately after the passing of the Constitutional or Quebec Act, of 1791, by which, among other things, Upper Canada was separated from Quebec, the Governor of the new Province (J. Graves Simcoe), sought the co-operation of the Church of England Bishop (Mountain), of Quebec, who had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over both Provinces, in urging upon the Home Government the necessity of providing for a University and for classical schools in Upper Canada. Provision for elementary schools formed no part of this scheme. The British Colonial idea of providing for such schools never crossed the minds of the leaders of public opinion in these days nor that of the bishop. They were chiefly Englishmen, with the old-fashioned English ideas of those times, that the education of the masses was unnecessary, for it would tend to revolution and the upsetting of the established order of things. In April, 1795, Governor Simcoe addressed a letter to the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Quebec--then having jurisdiction in Upper Canada--urging him to seek to promote the establishment of a "Protestant Episcopal University" in Upper Canada. The reasons which he gave for this appeal were characteristic of the English Churchmen and of the times, and reveal somewhat of the social and religious state of the colony. They showed, too, that he was a statesman as well as a Churchman. He said: The people of this Province enjoy the forms as well as the privileges of the British constitution. They have the means of governing themselves; and, having nothing to ask, must ever remain a part of the British Empire, provided they shall become sufficiently capable and enlightened to understand their relative situation and to manage their own power to the public interest. Liberal education seems to me, therefore, to be indispensably necessary; and the completion of it by the establishment of a university in the capital of the country, * * * would be most useful to inculcate just principles, habits, and manners into the rising generation; to coalesce the different customs of the various descriptions of settlers * * * into one form. In short, from distinct parts and ancient prejudices to new-form, as it were, and establish one nation, and thereby strengthen the union with Great Britain and preserve a lasting obedience to His Majesty's authority. * * * * * I naturally should wish that the clergy requisite for offices in the university, in the first instance, should be Englishmen, if possible. * * * I most earnestly hope that * * * by giving the means of proper education in this Province, both in its rudiments and in its completion, that from ourselves we may raise up a loyal, and in due progress, a learned clergy, which will speedily tend to unite not only the Puritans within the Province, but the clergy of the Episcopal Church, however dispersed * * * and on all sides, to bring within the pale [of the Episcopal Church] in Upper Canada a very great body of sectaries, who in my judgment, as it were, offer themselves to its protection and re-union. These objects would be materially promoted by a university in Upper Canada, which might, in due progress, acquire such a character as to become the place of education to many persons beyond the extent of the King's dominions. * * * The Episcopal clergy in Great Britain, from pious motives as well as policy, are materially interested that the Church should increase in this Province. I will venture to prophesy its preservation depends upon a university being erected therein. * * * I have not the smallest hesitation in saying that I believe if a Protestant Episcopal university should be proposed to be erected (even in the United States) the British nation would liberally subscribe to the undertaking. * * * The universities of England, I make no doubt, would contribute to the planting of a scion from their respectable stock in this distant colony. There are two or three things worth noticing in this vigorous letter of the Governor:-- (1) Among the objects sought to be attained by the establishment of a university was the conservation of "the privileges of the British Constitution"; (2) the fusing of the various nationalities represented in the colony; (3) the absorption of "Puritans" and "sectaries" into the Episcopal Church; (4) the growth and spread of loyalty to the King's authority. Two things also are noticeable: First, the Governor did not ignore, or underestimate, the necessity of popular education, or "education in the rudiments;" second, he gives no hint of a desire to appropriate the public domain to the building up of an "Episcopal university." On the other hand, he assumes that, if done at all, it is to be aided by contributions from England. I call attention to these two points, from the fact that they were quite lost sight of by those who afterwards took up the cause of university education in Upper Canada where he had left it. PROVISION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION IN U. C. BY THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. Governor Simcoe, having received a higher appointment in the colonial service, left soon after. The Bishop of Quebec, however, acted upon his suggestion and wrote to the Colonial Minister on the subject, in June, 1796. In November, 1797, the Legislature of Upper Canada addressed a memorial to King George III, asking: "That His Majesty would be graciously pleased to direct his Government in this Province to appropriate a certain portion of the waste lands of the Crown as a fund for the establishment and support of a respectable grammar school in each district thereof, and also of a college, or university, for the instruction of the youth in the different branches of liberal knowledge." To this memorial the King directed a gracious answer to be sent. The duke of Portland, Colonial Minister, therefore instructed the acting Governor, President Russell, to give practical effect to the prayer of the petitioners. In doing so he used the following language: [His Majesty] being always ready ... to assist and encourage the exertions of his Province in laying the foundation for promoting sound learning and a religious education, has condescended to express his [desire] to comply with the wishes of the Legislature ... in such a manner as shall be judged to be most effectual-- _First_, by the establishment of free grammar [classical] schools in those districts in which they are called for, and-- _Secondly_, in due process of time, by establishing other seminaries of a larger and more comprehensive nature, for the promotion of religious and moral learning, and the study of the arts and sciences. Such were the terms in which the King, through his Colonial Minister, intimated his desire that classical and university learning should be promoted in this Province. The very comprehensiveness and express terms of the duke of Portland's dispatch on this subject gave rise to a protracted controversy in after years, especially as the controverted expressions were embodied in substance in the royal charter for a university obtained in 1827 by Rev. Dr. Strachan (afterwards first Church of England Bishop of Toronto). Around the expressions--"religious education," "religious and moral learning," and "other seminaries of a larger and more comprehensive nature," etc., a fierce war was waged for many years, which, though virtually over now, has yet left traces of the bitter conflict. The result of the instructions to President Russell was, that 549,217 acres of crown lands was set apart for the twofold purpose set forth in the Colonial Minister's dispatch. Of these acres, 225,944 were, in 1827, devoted to the university that was virtually established, on paper, in that year, and by royal charter in 1828. As these lands thus set apart were, in those early days, unproductive of revenue, nothing could be done to give practical effect to the gracious act of the King. A principal for the proposed university was, however, selected in Scotland. The position was first offered to the afterwards justly celebrated Rev. Dr. Thomas Chalmers, but declined. It was then offered to a successful parish schoolmaster, Mr. (afterwards so distinguished in this Province as the Rev. Dr.) Strachan. THE REVEREND DOCTOR STRACHAN AS AN EDUCATOR. Rev. Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Strachan, though not a versatile man, was in many respects a many-sided one. In his day he had to do with all of one great public questions which came before the country. On many of them (and in their settlement), he has left the impress of his active mind and persistent will. This was particularly the case in regard to those questions which more deeply touched the best interests of Canadian life, in its religious and social aspects. And it was a singular yet characteristic fact, that the more he was opposed by those who differed _in toto_ from the policy of his acts, the more strenuously he persevered in his purpose--even against the wiser counsels and calmer judgment of many leading public men of his time. But this opens up a question which it is not my purpose to discuss. Dr. Strachan, as I have said,--although not versatile,--was a many-sided man. And this was quite true in regard to that department of his career which I desire to illustrate. He was both an educator and an educationist. In the former capacity he was successively the parish schoolmaster, near St. Andrew's, and at Kettle, (Scotland). He had there as a pupil the afterwards celebrated Sir David Wilkie. In Canada, he was first a tutor in the family of the Hon. Richard Cartwright, at Kingston; then master of the Cornwall Grammar School, at which most of the distinguished public men of the Bishop's later years were educated. Subsequently he was Chairman of the Provincial Board of Education at York. He was named by the late Hon. Peter McGill as first Principal of McGill College, Montreal--although he never was in a position to undertake its duties. He was afterwards President of King's College, Toronto, and subsequently President of Trinity College University. In his capacity as an educator, Dr. Strachan was considered one of the most successful teachers which this Province has yet produced. His aim was to call into active play the varied mental powers of his pupils, and to stimulate any desire which they had to excel in knowledge and virtue. One of his earliest _brochures_ is _a Letter to his Pupils_, and is in the nature of an appeal on behalf of the Christian religion. This, he inscribed, "as a mark of esteem to Mr. Andrew Stuart and Mr. James Cartwright, students-at-law." This letter was printed at Montreal, in 1807, in the quaint old type of the time. It is evidently a warning appeal against the infidelity and excesses of the French revolutionists. Dr. Strachan's early and practical experience as a teacher gave to him an additional and keen sense of the educational wants of the country. His success as an educator proved to him what could be done in that direction. It also enlisted his feelings and fired his ambition to be the founder of an institution of superior learning, in which the young men of the Province could be thoroughly educated. The education of the masses was not provided for by him, but in an Act passed in 1819 and relating to classical schools (which he promoted), it was agreed-- That in order to extend the benefits of a liberal education to promising children of the poorer inhabitants, trustees [of common schools wherever established] shall have the power of sending scholars, not exceeding ten in number, to be chosen by lot every four years, to be taught gratis at the [classical] schools. Thus, in this exceptional manner, provision was made so that, should a limited number of the children of the poorer inhabitants develop ability or taste for learning, they should not be wholly excluded from the privileges so liberally provided for children of the richer classes. These class distinctions have, happily, forever disappeared from our statute book. They were no doubt conceived in a benevolent spirit, and were characteristic of the social ethics of the times, but they were pernicious as a principle to embody in a school law. In his "Appeal" in behalf of a university in Upper Canada, published early in 1827, Dr. Strachan gave a fuller expression to this idea of providing education only for the wealthier classes. He said:-- It is indeed quite evident that the consequences of a university ... possessing in itself sufficient recommendations to attract to it the sons of the most opulent families, would soon be visible in the greater intelligence and more confirmed principles of loyalty of those who would be called to various public duties required in the country--_i.e._, the governing classes. In justice to Dr. Strachan, it is proper to state that a few years afterwards (in reply to a question put to him by a committee of the House of Assembly) he laid down a broader, a nobler and a more comprehensive principle in regard to a system of national education. He said:-- The whole expense [of education] in a free country like this should be defrayed by the public; that promising boys, giving indication of high talent, though poor, might have an opportunity of cultivating their faculties, and, if able and virtuous, taking a lead in the community. LACK OF COMPREHENSIVENESS IN THE EDUCATIONAL POLICY OF THE TIMES. The policy of the country in regard to education in these early times was further marked by a lack of comprehensiveness in its aims. The framework of the educational system, then projected, was constructed on a principle the very reverse of natural. And this fact led to the existence, subsequently, and for many years, of a singular anachronism as the result of its application of that principle. Thus, in 1797, lands were set apart in Upper Canada by the Crown for the establishment of district grammar schools and a university. But no provision was thought of for the establishment of elementary schools. These grammar schools were first established in 1807--eight in all, viz., at Sandwich, Townsend (London District), Niagara, York, Cobourg, Kingston, Augusta (District of Johnstown), and Cornwall. But no provision was made for elementary schools (and then only for four years) until 1816--nine years after the district grammar schools were established. Dr. Strachan's feelings in this matter were evidently in harmony with this spirit of the times, and he directed his efforts exclusively to the establishment of these higher institutions of learning. He never lost sight, however, of the crowning institution of all--the university. His speeches and addresses on education all pointed to "this consummation, devoutly to be wished." Referring to this educational anomaly, or anachronism, of establishing higher institutions of learning before providing for elementary schools, an English resident in a book entitled "Three Years in Canada," and published in 1839, thus forcibly points out the singular want of foresight in this matter. He says:-- "The Provincial Board of Education either assumed that elementary education in Upper Canada had attained its zenith or deemed it better to begin at the apex and work downward to the base of the structure they were called upon to rear than to follow the old-fashioned custom of first laying the foundation and then working upwards." The fact was, and the chief reason for the perpetration of this educational anachronism was, that the friends of popular education, while all-powerful in the House of Assembly, were few and consequently uninfluential in the Legislative Council. They were, therefore, not able at all times to influence that body so as to secure its assent to the elementary education bills passed by the popular branch. We have seen that, in 1838, the Council refused to concur in the Common School Bill passed in that year by the House of Assembly. Before another School Act was introduced, both Houses had ceased to exist in the Union of the two provinces in 1840. REV. DR. STRACHAN'S REASONS FOR ESTABLISHING A UNIVERSITY IN UPPER CANADA. The reasons which Dr. Strachan gave for urging the early establishment of a Provincial University were reasonable and weighty in themselves, had the other necessary kind of school been established and provided for. I shall give these reasons in Dr. Strachan's own words. They are characteristic of the Bishop's own feelings in regard to American institutions and their influence on the young. He said:-- "There is not in either province any English seminary ... at which a liberal education can be obtained. Thus the youth of 300,000 Englishmen have no opportunity of receiving instruction within the Canadas in law, medicine or divinity. "The consequence is that many young men ... are obliged to look beyond the province for the last two or three years of their education--undoubtedly the most important and critical period of their whole lives ... The youth are, therefore, in some degree, compelled to look towards the United States, where means of education, though of a description far inferior to those of Great Britain, are yet superior to anything within the province, and a growing necessity is arising of sending them to finish their education in that country." Dr. Strachan then proceeds to point out in his own graphic language, the peculiarly adverse influences to which loyal Canadians from youth were then subjected while attending schools and universities in the United States. He says:-- "Now, in the United States a custom prevails unknown to or unpractised in any other nation; in all other countries morals and religion are made the basis of public instruction, and the first books put into the hands of children teach them the domestic, the social and religious virtues; but in the United States politics pervade the whole system of education; the school books, from the very first elements, are stuffed with praises of their own institutions, and breathe hatred to everything English." Dr. Ryerson came to the same conclusions as did Dr. Strachan in regard to the character of American school books. Speaking on the same subject, twenty years afterwards, he said:-- "With very few exceptions American school books abound in statements and allusions prejudicial to the institutions and character of the British nation." Dr. Strachan still further refers to the anti-British influences of education obtained by Canadian youth in the United States. He said:-- "To such a country our youth may go, strongly attached to their native land ... but by hearing its institutions continually depreciated, and those of the United States praised ... some may become fascinated with that liberty which has degenerated into licentiousness, and imbibe, perhaps unconsciously, sentiments unfriendly to things of which Englishmen are proud." Dr. Strachan then proceeded to point out the advantages of having the youth of the province "carefully nurtured within the British Dominions." He said:-- "The establishment of an university at the seat of Government will complete a system of education in Upper Canada from the letters of the alphabet to the most profound investigations of science.... This establishment, by collecting all the promising youth of the colony into one place, will gradually give a new tone to public sentiment and feelings ... producing the most beneficial effects through the whole province. It is, indeed, quite evident that the consequences of an university ... possessing in itself sufficient recommendations to attract to it the sons of the most opulent families would soon be visible in the greater intelligence and more confirmed principles of loyalty of those who would be called to various public duties required in the country." From these wise and practical remarks, it will be seen how truly Bishop Strachan estimated the great advantages to the youth of the country of university training obtained within our borders. In this view he was far-seeing enough. But yet his range of vision, as to its beneficial effects, did not extend beyond "the sons of the most opulent families"--which was another indication of the prevailing feeling of the times, that higher education in the form of university training was not thought of even for "the promising children of the younger inhabitants." Happily our public men, and the Bishop himself, outgrew this narrow feeling and social prejudice. He even lived to see, and with great satisfaction as to the results, that, under the fostering care of men of large sympathies and more generous impulses, the doors of the educational institutions of the country, from the highest to the lowest, were thrown wide open to every boy, rich and poor, high and low, and to all the youth of the province, without distinction of race, or creed, or social rank. Rev. Dr. Strachan succeeded in getting a Royal Charter for the university in 1828. This charter virtually placed the proposed university under the control of the Episcopal Church. When its terms were known in Upper Canada it was fiercely assailed. The charter was subsequently modified, in deference to public opinion; but it was not until many years afterwards that the university was, by statute, declared to be free from denominational control. Out of the controversy which the Duke of Portland's despatch and the charter caused, arose other colleges and universities, viz, Victoria and Queen's. REV. DR. STRACHAN, THE FOUNDER OF TWO UNIVERSITIES IN TORONTO. In the Rev. Dr. Scadding's most interesting sketch of the "First Bishop of Toronto,--a Review and a Study"--occurs the following striking passage in regard to the founding of the "Twins of Learning" in Toronto:-- The results of the life of the first Anglican Bishop of Toronto are tangible realities.... He built the principal church edifice appertaining to his own communion four times.... "Twins of Learning" witness for him; he founded two universities in succession (1842 and 1852), both invested with the character borne by such institutions as originally instituted, by Royal charter--procured in both instances by his own personal travail; the later of the two by an individual and solitary effort, to which it is not easy to find a parallel. He saw both of them in operation, investigating, conserving and propagating truth, on somewhat different lines indeed, but probably with co-ordinate utility, as things are. The very park, with its widely renowned avenue, the Champs Elysées of Toronto, in which the bourgeoisie of the place love to take their pastime, are a provision of his--that property having been specially selected by him, as President of King's College, with the same judiciousness and the same careful prescience of the need of amplitude for such purposes which guided him also in choosing the fine site and grounds of Trinity College. THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. This university was originally established under the charter obtained by Rev. Dr. Strachan in 1828. But it only existed on paper until 1842-43. In April, 1842, the corner-stone of the new institution was laid by Governor-General Sir Charles Bagot, (M.A. of Christ Church, Oxford). In June, 1843, it was opened under the style and title of the "University of King's College," Toronto, by the Right Rev. John Strachan, D.D., LL. D., President of the University. In October of that year, an effort was made by Hon. Attorney-General Baldwin to introduce a comprehensive scheme of university reform, but it was defeated in the Legislature. In 1845 and 1847 other abortive attempts were made to "reform" the university; but in 1849 a comprehensive measure was introduced into the Legislature and passed into a law, by which it was reincorporated under the name of the "University of Toronto," and made a purely provincial institution, by placing it under the sole control of the Government, and of a senate and officers appointed by the Government. In 1853 another Act was passed, under which the University was constituted with two corporations, "The University of Toronto," and "University College," the functions of the former being limited to the examination of candidates for degrees in the several faculties, or for scholarships and honors, and the granting of such degrees, etc.; those of the latter being confined to the teaching of subjects in the Faculty of Arts.[39] By this Act certain institutions, from which students might be examined, were affiliated with the University. [39] By recent legislation University College has been merged in the University of Toronto. In 1873 further amendments were made in the constitution of the University. The Chancellor was made elective for a period of three years by Convocation, which was then re-established. By this Act the powers of the Senate were extended to all branches of knowledge, literature, science and arts, and also to granting certificates of proficiency to women; the power of affiliation was likewise extended; the Senate was also empowered to provide for local examinations. Latterly, the faculties of law and medicine have been restored and other extensions of the University course have been made. THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA COLLEGE, COBOURG. The Rev. Dr. Ryerson, who was the founder of this University, thus speaks of its early history, in an address to the students when he was appointed its first principal in 1841. He said:-- His late Most Gracious Majesty William IV., of precious memory, first invested this institution, in 1836, with a corporate charter as the Upper Canada Academy--the first institution of the kind established by Royal Charter unconnected with the Church of England, throughout the British colonies. It is a cause of renewed satisfaction and congratulation that, after five year's operation as an academy, it has been incorporated as a university and financially assisted by the unanimous vote of both branches of the Provincial Legislature--sanctioned by more than an official cordiality, in Her Majesty's name, by the late lamented Lord Sydenham, Governor-General, one of whose last messages to the Legislative Assembly was a recommendation to grant £500 as an aid to the Victoria College.... We have buoyant hopes for our country when our rulers and legislators direct their earliest and most liberal attention to in literary institutions and educational interests. A foundation for a common school system in this Province his been laid by the Legislature, which I believe will, at no distant day, exceed in efficiency any yet established on the American continent;[40] and I have reason to believe that the attention of the Government is earnestly directed to make permanent provision for the support of colleges also, that they may be rendered efficient in their operation and accessible to as large a number of the enterprising youth of our country as possible. [40] This memorable prophecy, made by Dr. Ryerson in 1841, was abundantly verified in after years, chiefly as the result of his own labors in maturing the school system, of which he was the founder. This institution originated with the Wesleyan Methodists in 1828-30. The conference in the latter year agreed to establish it as an Academy, and the following year, Dr. Ryerson, in the _Christian Guardian_ newspaper, of which he was then editor, issued a strong appeal in behalf of the proposed institution on the 21st April, 1831. On the 7th June, 1832, the foundation stone of the Academy was laid; and on the 18th June, 1836, it was formerly opened under the designation of "Upper Canada Academy." In the previous year Dr. Ryerson was deputed to go to England to collect subscriptions on behalf of the institution. He was there enabled to obtain a Royal Charter for the Academy and a grant of $16,400 from the Local Legislature. Amongst the last public acts performed by Lord Sydenham was the giving of the Royal assent to a Bill for the erection of the Upper Canada Academy into a College with University powers. This he did on the 27th August, 1841. Dr. Ryerson thus refers to the event, in a letter written from Kingston on that day:-- The establishment of such an institution by the members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada attests their estimate of education and science; and the passing of such an Act unanimously by both Houses of the Legislature, and the Royal assent to it by His Excellency in Her Majesty's name, is an ample refutation of recent statements and proceedings of the Wesleyan Committee in London ... while the Act itself will advance the paramount interests of literary education amongst Her Majesty's Canadian subjects.... For the accomplishment of this purpose, a grant must be added to the charter--a measure ... honorable to the enlightened liberality of the Government and Legislature. When they are securely laying a broad foundation for popular government, and devising comprehensive schemes for the development of the latent resources of the country, and the improvement of its internal communication, and proposing a liberal system of common school education, free from the domination of every church, and aiding colleges which may have been established by any church, we may rationally and confidently anticipate the arrival of a long-looked for era of civil government and civil liberty, social harmony, and public prosperity. The Academy was thus incorporated as a University, in August, 1841. In October, 1841, Rev. Dr. Ryerson was appointed the first president of the University, a position which he held until he was appointed Chief Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada in 1844. He was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. Macnab, now rector of Darlington. In 1850 the late accomplished president (Rev. S. S. Nelles, D.D., LL.D.) was appointed. He had been a pupil under Dr. Ryerson, but finished his university education at the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., and graduated there. He received the degree of D.D. from the Queen's University, Kingston, and that of LL.D. from his own university. His career was an unusually long and prosperous one; and under his administration the university has taken high rank amongst the sister universities of Ontario.[41] [41] It it a gratifying fact that Victoria College was the first university in Upper Canada whose doors were open to receive students. The first session commenced in October, 1841; that of Queen's College University in March, 1842, and King's College University in June, 1843. The first graduate in arts who received a diploma in Upper Canada was sent out from Victoria College in 1845-46. In the original appeal made by Dr. Ryerson in England on behalf of the Academy (in 1835), he stated the "specific objects of the institution" to be as follows:-- 1. To educate, upon terms equally moderate with similar institutions in the neighboring republic of the United States, and with strict attention to their morals, the youth of Canada generally. 2. To educate for common school masters, free of charge, poor young men of Christian principles and character, and of promising talent, who have an ardent thirst for knowledge. 3. To educate the most promising youth of the recently converted Indian tribes of Canada as teachers to their aboriginal countrymen.[42] [42] Several promising Indian youth were educated at Victoria College, and some of them became useful teachers and missionaries. These extracts are highly interesting, as showing the noble and comprehensive aims, in these early days of educational effort, which Dr. Ryerson had in view in founding this valuable institution of learning. He goes on then (apart from these objects) to show the grave necessity which existed for the early establishment of such an institution. He said:-- For want of such an institution upwards of sixty of the youth of Canada are now attending seminaries of learning, under a similar management, in the United States, where nearly two hundred Canadian youth have been taught the elementary branches of a professional education during the last eight years. There is good reason to believe that nearly, if not quite, all the Canadian youth now being taught in the United States seminaries of learning, will return to Canada as soon as this institution shall have been brought into operation.... In behalf, therefore, of this institution--most important to the best interests of a healthy, fertile and rapidly improving British colonial possession, the inhabitants of which have in this, as in other instances, shown the strongest desire to help themselves to the utmost of their very limited means--a respectful and earnest appeal is made to British liberality, an appeal which it is devotedly hoped will be responded to in a manner that will contribute to draw still closer the bonds by which the loyal Province of Upper and the British population of Lower Canada are united to the Mother Country. This appeal was endorsed by the Governor of the Province, Sir John Colborne (afterwards Lord Seaton), in the following terms:-- The Rev. Egerton Ryerson proceeds to England ... to solicit subscriptions ... to enable [the conference here] to bring into operation a seminary established at Cobourg, in Upper Canada.... As I am persuaded this colony will derive the greatest advantage from the institution and from the exertions of the conference to diffuse religions instruction, I cannot but strongly recommend that it may receive encouragement and support from all persons interested in the welfare of Upper Canada. The "appeal" was also heartily endorsed by the Hon. Peter McGill, founder of McGill College University, Montreal, and by other distinguished gentlemen and merchants in Montreal. In his letter Mr. McGill referred to Dr. Ryerson as "a gentleman who has distinguished himself in Upper Canada by his writings in defense of religion, order, and good government." After much delay and great discouragement, Dr. Ryerson succeeded in the objects of his mission--money and a royal charter; but at the close of his mission he writes to the Academy Committee as follows:-- Thus terminated this protracted [business], ... though I had to encounter successive, discouraging and almost insurmountable difficulties [in obtaining the charter]. Not having been able to effect any loan ... on account of the agitated state of the Canadas, and being in suspense as to the result of my application to the Government, I was several months pressed down with anxiety and fear, by this suspense and by reason of the failure of my efforts to obtain relief. In this anxiety and fear my own unassisted resolution and fortitude could not sustain me. I had to rely upon the unfailing support of the Lord my God. I have given these particulars somewhat in detail, as they afford a striking narrative illustration of the almost insurmountable difficulties which the early pioneers of education in this Province encountered in endeavoring to found these valuable institutions which have been so useful to this country, and which have shed such lustre upon their founders' names. It is also due to Victoria University, and (as I shall show) to Queen's University also to state these particulars, from the fact that the first practical, yet entirely abortive, attempt to make King's College a provincial university, was made in 1843, two years after the Methodists and Presbyterians had, in self-defence, been compelled to found universities of their own. This they did at a great sacrifice. By the time that the liberation of King's College took place, in 1849-'53, the really provincial universities at Cobourg and Kingston had become recognized as most important factors in our educational system; and from them alone, up to that time, could students of all denominations obtain a university education. In connection with the university, Faraday Hall, or School of Practical Science, was erected in 1877. It is a handsome and spacious building, and is admirably fitted up for the purpose of science teaching. THE QUEEN'S COLLEGE UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON. As early as 1829 it was felt among the members of the United Presbytery of Upper Canada that a seminary, or college, for the training of their ministers was highly desirable. As the management of King's College at Toronto was in the hands of the adherents of the Church of England, it was felt that such an institution could not be made available for Presbyterian theological instruction. A committee of the British House of Commons, to which had been referred petitions from Canada in 1828 and 1830 against the exclusive character of the charter of King's College, Toronto, were disposed to solve the difficulty by suggesting that two theological chairs be established in King's College (and did so recommend)--one for students of the Churches of England and Scotland, respectively. Nothing, however, of the kind was done; nor was there any arts college then open on equal terms to all the youth of the country. The Presbyterians, like the Methodists, had, therefore, to found an institution of their own. Steps were taken by the synod of the Church in 1831 and 1839 to found such an institution. At a meeting held in Hamilton, in November, 1839, the commission appointed for that purpose prepared the draft of a charter for the proposed college. Kingston was selected by the synod as the site for the new institution. An Act embodying the charter was passed by the Provincial Legislature in February, 1840, incorporating the "University of Kingston." The Act was, however, disallowed by the imperial authorities, on the ground that it conflicted with the royal prerogative of granting charters. A royal charter was, however, issued in 1841, incorporating the institution under the name of Queen's College, with "the style and privileges of a university." The opening of Queen's took place on the 7th of March, 1842. Rev. Thomas Liddell, D.D., of Edinburgh, was the Principal and Professor of Divinity, and Rev. P. C. Campbell, of Brockville, Professor of Classics. Rev. James Williamson, D.D., LL.D., in 1842, became Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He is, therefore, the oldest college professor in Ontario. After the opening of King's College, Toronto, in 1843, an agitation commenced with the view to unite the three universities then in operation into a single provincial institution. Many plans were proposed, and several measures tending to that end were introduced into Parliament and fully discussed. In 1843 the Hon. Robert Baldwin introduced a university bill, which, though it presented many popular features, was strongly objected to by the churches named and others also, because it was deficient in providing for religious instruction. A bill was introduced by Hon. W. H. Draper, in 1845, to amend the law so as to make it more generally acceptable to the religious bodies of the country; and in 1847 the late Hon. John Hillyard Cameron introduced a measure in which it was proposed to devote a large part of the endowment to increased support of high schools and also to largely subsidize the denominational colleges. The measure failed to carry in Parliament, however, and this practically ended the agitation for the union of colleges for many years. In 1846 Dr. Liddell resigned his position as Principal and returned to Scotland. Rev. J. Machar, D.D., was next appointed Principal, and under his administration there was slow but real improvement. Rev. Dr. Cook, of Quebec occupied the position of Principal for a time, but he refused to accept the position permanently. Rev. Dr. Leitch was next appointed, but his early death deprived the institution of his services. He was followed by the Rev. Dr. Snodgrass, and on his retirement the Rev. George Monro Grant, D.D., of Halifax, was appointed. Dr. Grant entered on his arduous duties with his accustomed energy, and occupies that position with great acceptance. He is an able speaker and a wise administrator. Queen's College has now faculties of arts, theology, and law, and there are affiliated with it the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, also in a prosperous condition, and the Kingston Women's Medical College. In 1869 it was resolved to make an appeal to the country for aid. The people of Kingston raised about $25,000, and the result of the whole effort was that about $103,000 was raised for the equipment of the college. In 1878 Principal Grant made the proposition to raise $150,000, in order to provide new buildings, additional professors, and apparatus. The appeal was successful; additional ground of about twenty acres was at once purchased--a site of rare beauty and convenience--and the present noble building was erected. THE UNIVERSITY OF TRINITY COLLEGE, TORONTO. The immediate cause of the founding of this College and University was the suppression, in 1849, of the Faculty of Divinity in King's College, now the University of Toronto. In consequence of this the Right Rev. J. Strachan D.D., Bishop of Toronto, issued in February, 1850, a pastoral appeal to members of the Church of England for funds to enable him to establish a Church University and College. In response to this pastoral, the Bishop succeeded in raising a large endowment from voluntary subscriptions from churchmen in Canada, England, and the United States, so that on April 30, 1851, the foundation stone of the college building was laid, and on January 15, 1852, the work of instruction was begun, the staff consisting of four professors in arts, besides those in the faculties of law and medicine. During the last thirty years the endowment has been largely increased by liberal contributions made from time to time, so that the original amount is now about trebled. In 1878 a large and handsome convocation hall was erected, and in 1884 a long felt want was supplied by the erection of a finely proportioned and beautiful chapel. The University of Trinity College at present consists of the faculty of arts and divinity, of an affiliated Medical School with a commodious building and a large staff of professors, and an affiliated Women's Medical College. Provision is also made for the higher education of women in connection with the Bishop Strachan School in Toronto, and connected with the University is a large school for boys at Port Hope. THE R. C. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE AT OTTAWA. The College (or University) of Ottawa is under the direction of the Roman Catholic Church. It was founded in 1848 by the Right Reverend Joseph Eugene Guignes, O.M.I., D.D., first R. C. Bishop of Ottawa. In 1856, the Bishop confided the direction of the college to the "Society of the Oblate Fathers of Mary Immaculate." The total value of the college building and grounds is about $75,000. It has also a good library and cabinet of natural philosophy (or physics), and of chemistry and natural history. The college obtained university powers in 1866. It confers degrees in arts, science, and literature--B. A., B. Sc., B. L., as well as M. A. THE WESTERN UNIVERSITY, LONDON. This institution, in connection with the Church of England in Canada, was incorporated in 1878, with power to affiliate with Huron Theological College and to confer Degrees in Arts, Divinity, Medicine and Law. The affiliation between that College and the University took place in 1881, and the University was inaugurated in the month of October of that year. The object of its establishment was, as a Church of England Institution in the Diocese of Huron, to obtain the same power of conferring Degrees as was possessed by the sister University of Trinity College; also, that a liberal Education in Arts, Science and Literature might be extended to that extensive portion of the Province of which London is the geographical centre. THE MCMASTER UNIVERSITY. By the munificence of the late Hon. Wm. McMaster, McMaster University is being established on a sound financial basis. McMaster Hall, Woodstock College and Moulton College (for ladies) are affiliated institutions. UPPER CANADA COLLEGE. Upper Canada College was founded in 1828 upon the model of the great public schools of England, and was endowed with a grant of 66,000 acres of public lands, from which it now derives an annual income of $15,000, in addition to its building and grounds in the city of Toronto. It is governed by a committee of the senate of the Provincial University. The curriculum extends over a six years' course of study in the same number of forms, and embraces the usual subjects. In other forms, known as the lower and upper modern, commercial and scientific training can be obtained. Scholarships may be established by the different county councils, while four exhibitions have been founded out of the University funds. This college and the high schools constitute the principal feeders of the Collegiate Institutes and provincial University. ALBERT COLLEGE, BELLEVILLE. This institution, founded in 1854, was the product of the zeal of the Methodism of that early day. Accordingly, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1854, adopted a scheme--initiated in the Bay of Quinté Conference in the preceding year--for the erection and maintenance of an educational institution of high grade in Belleville. Having been chartered by Parliament in 1857 as "Belleville Seminary," it was opened in July of the same year, and entered upon its work under very favorable auspices. In the year 1886, by Act of Parliament, the name was changed to "Albert College," and a senate created with ample powers. By the terms of the union of the Methodist Churches of Canada, Albert College was retained in Belleville, and adopted by the General Conference of the United Church as a church school. The charter was amended and the college was affiliated to the Victoria University, Cobourg. The senate has full powers to examine, grant prizes, scholarships, medals, honor certificates, and diplomas in music, fine arts, commercial science, collegiate courses, etc. WOODSTOCK COLLEGE. Woodstock College, formerly "The Canadian Literary Institute," was founded in 1867, principally through the exertions of the late R. A. Fife, D.D. Under his presidency, ably assisted for eighteen years by Prof. J. E. Wells, M.A., the school constantly increased in efficiency and power, until from a small beginning it has attained its present large proportions and wide influence. THE SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL SCIENCE, TORONTO. Prior to the year 1871 there was no institution in the Province for practical instruction in the industrial sciences. In 1870 the Government of the Province issued a commission to Dr. Hodgins, Deputy Superintendent of Education, and to Dr. Machatt of London, directing them to proceed to the United States for the purpose of inspecting and reporting upon any Technical or Science Schools or Colleges there established, as to their buildings, departments of study and general appliances. On their return a report was submitted to the Government, with full details as to the cost of the proposed institution. The Government acted upon the information contained in their report, and with a grant of $50,000 established a "College of Technology" in Toronto. In 1877 the name was changed to the School of Practical Science, and the Hon. Adam Crooks, Q.C., Minister of Education, had a suitable building for it erected close to the Provincial University, four of the University Professors are engaged in Departments of the School. The new building was opened for students in September, 1878. VARIOUS OTHER COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS, ETC. There are numerous superior colleges and schools for boys and colleges for ladies in Ontario, but the limits of this paper forbids a further reference to them, or to the other numerous educational institutions--theological, literary and commercial--in the Province. REV. DR. RYERSON'S ADVOCACY OF POPULAR RIGHTS, 1827-1841.[43] [43] In the preface to the _Story of My Life_, I thus referred to this period of Dr. Ryerson's labours:--"Public men of the present day looked upon Dr. Ryerson practically as one of their own contemporaries--noted for his zeal and energy in the successful management of a great Public Department, and as the founder of a system of Popular Education.... In this estimate of Dr. Ryerson's labours they were quite correct. And in their appreciation of the statesmanlike qualities of mind, which devised and developed such a system in the midst of difficulties which would have appalled less resolute hearts, they were equally correct. "But, after all, how immeasurably does this partial historical view of his character and labours fall short of a true estimate of that character and of those labours! "In a point of fact, Dr. Ryerson's great struggle for the civil and religious freedom which we now enjoy, was almost over when he assumed the position of Chief Director of our Educational System. No one can read the record of his labours from 1825 to 1845, as detailed in the pages of this 'story' without being impressed with the fact that, had he done no more for his native country than that which is therein recorded, he would have accomplished a great work, and have earned the gratitude of his fellow-countrymen." During all this time the friends of popular education were not idle. From 1827 and for many years Dr. Ryerson was engaged in waging war with the opponents of liberal institutions and religious equality. His chief antagonist was Dr. Strachan. The subjects in dispute related to a dominant church, the application of clergy-reserved lands to the purposes of education, and the liberation of the provincial university from exclusive control under the presidency of Dr. Strachan, first as archdeacon and afterwards as bishop. Not being eligible to the popular branch of the Legislature (being a minister), Dr. Ryerson had to develop his powers of resistance to the dominant and ruling party in other directions; and this he did with wonderful success. As a writer and debater few equalled him in his presentation of facts, and in his skill in detecting the weak points of his adversary's position or argument. As a controversialist and pamphleteer he had confessedly no rival. He, therefore, was able to furnish his friends in the House of Assembly with facts and arguments which were irresistible. They passed resolutions and school bills time and again, but could not always induce the Legislative Council (Senate) to concur in their adoption. This state of things continued for many years, and with disastrous effects on the intellectual growth and well-being of the province. This fact is attested by indubitable witnesses, and is recorded in the proceedings of the House of Assembly of the time, as is shown in the extracts from its proceedings which I have already given. EDUCATIONAL LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED PARLIAMENT OF 1841 AND 1843. In 1840 the House of Assembly and Legislative Council of Upper Canada ceased to exist, and the two Provinces of Upper and Lower were united under one Legislature. The momentous political events which preceded this union, and which led to the total disruption of all political parties and combinations, were very salutary in their effects. Under the liberal policy pursued by the Home Government, after the publication of Lord Durham's report, grievances were redressed, and a broad and comprehensive scheme of popular government inaugurated. The result was that the wise and statesmanlike measures, designed to promote public tranquility and local self-government, were proposed to and adopted by the Legislature. Amongst these was a measure providing for the establishment of a municipal council in each local division of the Province of Upper Canada (and partly so in Lower Canada) for the regulation of internal matters. In recommending the scheme of Common School Education to the favorable consideration of the first Parliament of United Canada, in 1841, Lord Sydenham, the first Governor-General, used the following language:-- A due provision for the education of the people is one of the first duties of the State, and, in this province especially, the want of it is grievously felt. The establishment of an efficient system, by which the blessings of instruction may be placed within the reach of all is a work of difficulty, but its overwhelming importance demands that it should be undertaken. I recommend the consideration of that subject to your best attention, and I shall be most anxious to afford you, in your labours, all the co-operation in my power. If it should be found impossible so to reconcile conflicting opinions as to obtain a measure which may meet the approbation of all, I trust that, at least, steps may be taken by which an advance to a more perfect system may be made, and the difficulty under which the people of this province now labor may be greatly diminished, subject to such improvements hereafter as time and experience may point out. The enlightened expectations of the Governor-General were, happily, realized. But so diverse were the populations of the two Canadas thus united, and so different were their social conditions, that the School Act then passed was repealed two years afterward (in 1843), and a school bill for each Province was passed by the Legislature in that year. Provision for Roman Catholic and Protestant Separate Schools was made in both Acts.[44] [44] This Retrospect would not be complete without reference, in fuller detail, to the history of the Separate School question and to legislation on it in Upper Canada. It was found, however, to be so extensive a subject that no adequate justice could be done to it in this somewhat brief Retrospect. The writer has, therefore, prepared a full and exhaustive paper on the subject, which will be published separately, should it be considered desirable. The details given are largely personal, and, therefore, of special interest. In addition to private letters bearing on the subject, the paper contains official and other authentic information in regard to the whole question. On this system was ingrafted, by means of a separate Act applicable to the whole Province, a scheme of public education, with a liberal provision ($200,000 per annum) for its maintenance. ORIGIN OF THE ANNUAL GRANT OF $200,000 FOR THE COMMON SCHOOLS IN 1841. In a letter to the writer of this Retrospect, from the Hon. Issac Buchanan, dated 11th April. 1883, in reply to some enquiries in regard to the appointment of Dr. Ryerson, Mr. Buchanan thus related the circumstances under which the munificent sum of $200,000 a year was granted by the Legislature in 1841 for the support of the then newly-established Common Schools in Upper and Lower Canada. He said:--"This first attempt of mine to get an endowment for education (out of the Clergy Reserve Fund), failed as there was no responsible government then. But five years afterwards when my election for Toronto had carried Responsible Government, and before the first parliament met, I was talking to the Governor-General (C. Poulett Thompson, Lord Sydenham). He felt under considerable obligation to me for standing in the breach when Mr. Robert Baldwin found that he could not succeed in carrying Toronto.... He spoke of Canada as 'a drag upon the mother country.' I replied warmly ... for I felt sure (as I told him), that if we were allowed to throw the affairs of the Province into regular books ... we would show a surplus over expenditure. His Excellency agreed to my proposal, and I stipulated that, if we showed a yearly surplus, one half would be given as an endowment for an educational system. Happily we found that Upper Canada had a surplus revenue of about £100,000 ($400,000), one half of which the parliament of 1841 laid aside for education, the law stipulating that every District Council getting a share of it would tax locally for as much more, and this constituted the fund of your educational system." EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS OF DR. RYERSON UP TO THIS TIME. Up to this time Dr. Ryerson's energies, as I have shown, were wholly engrossed in contending for the civil and religious rights of the people. He had also, ten years before, projected and collected money for the establishment of an academy or college for higher education at Cobourg, on the north shore of Lake Ontario. His efforts in this, and in the establishment of the Victoria College at Cobourg, as a university, in 1840, aroused a widespread interest in education generally, which bore good fruit afterward. This university has now been in operation forty-eight years, and from it the first arts graduate in Upper Canada was sent forth in 1846. Its first president was the Rev. Dr. Ryerson; the second was the Rev. Dr. Macnab, now of Bowmanville. Its late distinguished president, the Rev. Dr. Nelles, was Dr. Ryerson's pupil. He held his position with honor to himself for thirty-six years, and died in October, 1887, deeply and universally regretted by the entire community. FIRST APPOINTMENT OF A SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION FOR UPPER CANADA. In the _Canada Gazette_ of May, 1842, the following announcement was made:-- "SECRETARY'S OFFICE, KINGSTON, 11th May, 1842. "His Excellency the Governor-General has been pleased to make the following appointments:-- "The Honorable Robert Sympson Jameson, Vice-Chancellor, to be Superintendent of Education, under the Provincial Act, 4th and 5th Victoria, chapter 18. "The Reverend Robert Murray and Jean Baptiste Meilleur, Esquire, to be Assistant Superintendents of Education for Western and Eastern Canada, respectively. "By command, "S. B. HARRISON, Provincial Secretary." Had the Governor-General, Lord Sydenham, not met with the fatal accident which terminated his life, in September, 1841, the Rev. Dr. Ryerson would, without doubt, as I have shown in "The Story of my Life," have been appointed in that year. Mr. Murray, who was neighbor and friend of the Hon. S. B. Harrison, of Bronte, near Oakville, then Provincial Secretary, was nominated by him, and received his appointment from Lord Sydenham's successor, Sir Charles Bagot. In point of fact, the appointment was first spoken of to Dr. Ryerson by Lord Sydenham himself, in the autumn of 1841. The particulars of that circumstance are mentioned in detail in a letter written by Dr. Ryerson to T. W. C. Murdoch, Esq., Private Secretary to Sir Charles Bagot, on the 14th January, 1842. Dr. Ryerson said:-- "In the last interview with which I was honoured by [Lord Sydenham], he intimated that he thought I might be more usefully employed for this country than in my present limited sphere; and whether there was not some position in which I could more advantageously serve the country at large. I remarked that I could not resign my present official position in the Church, with the advocacy of whose interests I had been entrusted, until their final and satisfactory adjustment by the Government, as I might thereby be represented as having abandoned or sacrificed their interests; but that after such adjustment I should feel myself very differently situated, and free to do anything which might be beneficial to the country, and which involved no compromise of my professional character; that I knew of no such position likely to be at the disposal of the Government except the superintendency of Common Schools (provided for in the Bill then before the Legislature), which office would afford the incumbent a most favorable opportunity, by his communications, preparation and recommendation of books for libraries, etc., to abolish differences and jealousies on minor points; to promote agreement on great principles and interests; to introduce the best kind of reading for the youth of the country; and the not onerous duties of which office would also afford him leisure to prepare publications calculated to teach the people at large to appreciate, upon high moral and social considerations, the institutions established amongst them; and to furnish, from time to time, such expositions of great principles and measures of the administration as would secure the proper appreciation and support of them on the part of the people at large. Lord Sydenham expressed himself as highly gratified at this expression of my views and feelings; but the passing of the Bill was then doubtful, although His Lordship expressed his determination to get it passed if possible, and give effect to what he had proposed to me, and which was then contemplated by him." "What afterwards grew to be the Department of Education was (under the first general school law, passed in 1841, for the whole of the Province of Canada) originally a subordinate branch of the Provincial Secretary's office at Kingston. That for Upper Canada was managed by Assistant Superintendent Rev. Robert Murray, M.A., and one clerk (Mr. Robert Richardson). The nominal Chief Superintendent, as above noted, was the Hon. Vice-Chancellor Jameson. On the repeal of the General School Act of 1841 and the passing of a separate Act for each province in 1843 the Education branch of the Provincial Secretary's office was divided and reconstructed. The divisions then made were designated respectively "Education Office (East) and Education Office (West)."[45] [45] The _Evangelical Churchman_ of the 21st February, 1887, thus refers to the vicissitudes of the Education office:--The Education Department for Ontario, or rather Upper Canada as it was then called, had its first Toronto office in Bay Street, in the building now occupied by the publishers of the _Evangelical Churchman_. From 1841, when the first Provincial School Law was passed, until 1844, the office was a mere adjunct to the Provincial Secretary's Department at Kingston. In that year Rev. Dr. Ryerson was appointed to the office which he so ably filled until 1876, when he retired. In 1844 the Education office was removed to Cobourg, when the present Deputy Minister of Education became its chief and sole officer under Dr. Ryerson. In 1846 it was again removed and transferred to Toronto, and was placed in a room over the front door of the present _Evangelical Churchman_ office. The first Council of Public Instruction for the Province held its meetings in the west portion of the printing office, upstairs. In the room over the door the first reliable statistical report of the number of schools, etc., in this province was compiled. It was printed in the shape of a broad sheet, 12x15, on light blue paper, and bears date "September, 1846." This report, which is full of interesting statistics, has long since been out of print, but we have been fortunate enough to obtain a copy. The Education office had various vicissitudes in those early days of its existence. In 1847 it was removed from this building to the Secretary's office at the old Government House--long since demolished. In 1849, when the seat of Government was removed from Montreal to Toronto, it was transferred to the "Albany Chambers," now the Revere House, on King street. Thence, in 1852, it was finally removed to its present handsome quarters in St. James' square. APPOINTMENT OF REV. DR. RYERSON AS SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION. In 1844 Mr. Murray was made Professor of Mathematics in the University of King's College, and the Rev. Dr. Ryerson was appointed as Superintendent of Schools in his place. The announcement of this appointment appeared in the CANADA GAZETTE of October, 1844, as follows:-- "SECRETARY'S OFFICE, MONTREAL, 18th October, 1844. "His Excellency the Governor-General has been pleased to appoint:-- "The Reverend Egerton Ryerson, D.D., to be Assistant Superintendent of Education for that part of the province formerly Upper Canada, in place of the Reverend Robert Murray, appointed a Professor in the University of King's College, and all communications connected with the Education office for Upper Canada are to be addressed to him at Cobourg. "By command. "D. DALY, "Secretary of the Province." Dr. Ryerson was notified of the appointment by letter in September, 1844, but was not gazetted until the 18th of the next mouth. It was my good fortune to be associated with him from the time of his appointment in 1844 until he retired from office in 1876. DR. RYERSON'S REPORT ON A SYSTEM OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION FOR UPPER CANADA. Immediately after his appointment Dr. Ryerson went to Europe, and remained away for over a year in familiarizing himself with the systems of education there. On his return he published an elaborate report on his projected scheme of "Public Instruction for Upper Canada." That report was approved by the Governor-General in Council, and he was directed to prepare a bill to give effect to his recommendations, which he did in 1846. A brief analysis of that report may be interesting:--It is divided into two parts: 1. Principles of the system and subjects to be taught; 2. machinery of the system. After defining what was "meant by education," the principles of the system were laid down as follows:-- 1. It should be universal. 2. It should be practical. 3. It should be founded on religion and morality. 4. It should develop all the intellectual and physical powers. 5. It should provide for the efficient teaching of the following subjects: Biblical history and morality, reading and spelling, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, linear drawing, vocal music, history, natural history, natural philosophy, agriculture, human physiology, civil government, political economy. Each of these topics was fully discussed and illustrated in the first part of the report. * * * * * The second part explained the machinery of the system, which was summarized as follows:-- 1. Schools--their gradation and system. 2. The teacher and his training. 3. The text-books recommended. 4. Control and inspection on the part of the Government. 5. Individual and local efforts. These several topics wore also fully discussed and illustrated, so that the whole comprehensive scheme of education proposed by Dr. Ryerson was clearly and fully understood. The report occupied nearly 200 pages. The school law founded upon this report provided, amongst other things, for-- 1. A general Board of Education for the Province, to take charge of a normal school, and to aid the Chief Superintendent in certain matters. 2. A normal school, with practice or model schools attached. 3. The regulation of school libraries. 4. Plans of school houses. 5. Appointment of district, instead of county and township, school superintendents. 6. Apportionment of school moneys to each school according to the average number of children in each school district, as compared with those in the whole township. 7. Levy of a school rate by each district (county) municipal council, of a sum at least equal to the legislative grant to each such district. 8. The collection, by the local school trustees, of the balance required to defray the expenses of their school, in any way which the school ratepayers (at the annual meeting) might determine. 9. The recommendation of a uniform series of text books, with the proviso that no aid would be given to any school in which books disapproved of by the general Board of Education might be used. 10. The establishment of district model schools (reënacted from the Act of 1843). 11. Examination and licensing of teachers. 12. Visitation of schools by clergymen, magistrates, municipal councillors, etc. 13. Protection of children (reënacted from the Act of 1843) from being "required to read or study in or from any religious book, or join in any religious exercise or devotion, objected to by parents." 14. Establishment (reënacted from the laws of 1841 and 1843) of Roman Catholic Separate Schools, where the teacher of the locality was a Protestant, and _vice versa_. (These schools received grants in accordance with their average attendance of pupils.) 15. Levy of rates by district municipal councils, at their discretion, for the erection of school houses and teachers' residences. Such were the principal provisions of the first School Act, proposed and adapted from other school laws by Dr. Ryerson in 1846, so far as rural schools were concerned. In the following year he prepared a comprehensive measure in regard to schools in cities, towns and incorporated villages. CHIEF FEATURES OF DR. RYERSON'S FIRST REPORT AND SCHOOL BILL OF 1846. In sending his draft of School Bill to the Government, early in March, 1846, Dr. Ryerson, in a private letter to Hon. Attorney General Draper, dated 30th of that month, thus explained its general features:-- "I thank you sincerely for your kind favor of the 23rd instant, and feel not a little gratified that you approve of the draft of Bill which I had prepared for your consideration. I feel the justice of the high ground on which you place the moral qualifications of teachers and their duties.... "That to which I attach the highest importance in the measure is the authority of trustees to levy a rate-bill upon all the inhabitants of a school section. The rate-bill will thus be a second edition of the school tax imposed by the District Council. The principle, once established, it will be seen after a while that the Council may as well impose the whole of the school tax at once as to have the imposition of it divided between the Council and the trustees.... "I attach the greatest importance to the Normal School. I have no doubt the Legislature will be disposed to support it when once established.... I hope, however, that you will have in view the providing for it hereafter, and some appropriation for school libraries ... from which an offer to a district or township, five pounds for example, upon the condition that it would also contribute so as to purchase books from a list recommended by the Provincial Board of Education, and, therefore, the most suitable for the young and grown-up people of the country.... "It has been mentioned to me, and I have thought that the term inspector, instead of superintendent, would be the better designation of the District overseer of Schools.... "I this day transmit to Mr. Secretary Daly my 'Report on a system of Elementary Instruction for Upper Canada.'... I have introduced no debatable topics, except that of Christianity, the principle of maintaining which as the basis and cement of a system of public instruction, I have discussed at large. On the defective modes of teaching those branches (viz., reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar and geography), which are taught in the Common Schools, I have also dwelt at some length in order to furnish District Superintendents and other persons concerned with a proper standard of teaching and examination, and in order to inculcate the true principles of teaching which are applicable to all subjects. I hope the Report will be the means of laying a good foundation in the leading minds of the country on the great work of public instruction. "I should add in respect to my Report that, in pointing out defects in systems of instruction and modes of teaching, I have almost invariably quoted American authors, and have thus incidentally exposed the defects of almost every part of the American system, and have practically shown that every redeeming feature of the American school system has been or is being borrowed from European governments." OBJECTIONS TO DR. RYERSON'S SCHOOL BILL OF 1846 ANSWERED. In a private letter to Hon. Attorney-General Draper, dated 20th April, 1846, Dr. Ryerson replies to several objections made in the House of Assembly and by the press to his first School Act of 1846. I quote the following:-- "The Montreal _Pilot_ objects to appointing trustees for three years. This is one of the improvements adopted in the New York law of 1843. The superintendents, in their reports, speak largely of the evils of the annual system, and strongly on the advantages of the triennial one. The opposition to the Bill seems to be based on notions derived from what the State of New York system was several years ago. The opponents do not seem to be aware that it was amended in 1841, and amended again in 1843. Messrs. Price, Roblin, etc., seem to be where the Americans were ten years ago. "I anticipate the objection to the rate-bill clause. I look upon that above all others to be the poor man's clause, and at the very foundation of a system of public education. It is objected to by precisely the class of persons or rather by the individuals that I expected. I have heard of one rich man objecting to it, who educates his own children at colleges and ladies' seminaries, but who looks not beyond his own family. He says, I am told, that 'he does not wish to be compelled to educate _all the brats_ in the neighborhood.' Now, to educate 'all the brats in every neighborhood' is just the very object of this clause; and, in order to do so, it is proposed to compel selfish, rich men to do what they ought to do, but what they will not do voluntarily.[46] [46] In this matter of trustees' rate bill or school rate on the property of the school section, Dr. Ryerson was quite in advance of his times. The rate-bill clause, as he had prepared it, was rejected by the House of Assembly and a school fee substituted for it. In a brief, private note from Mr. Draper, dated 22nd April, 1846, he said:-- "Last night, or rather this morning at one, I got the School Bill through Committee of the Whole. I have been forced to submit to some changes, none very serious.... The rate-bill is to be on people sending children to school--not on the whole section. I fought this, but was well beaten." In his reply, Dr. Ryerson said:-- "I deeply regret the loss of the original rate-bill clause. It involved a new and important principle.... I am persuaded that it will on a future occasion pass by a strong majority." It did so pass in 1850; but it was not until 1871 that the Municipal Council was authorized by the Legislature to impose the whole of the school tax as desired and predicted by Dr. Ryerson in 1846. "Mr. Gowan's statements as to the evils of not extending the period of keeping a school open in each district beyond three months of the year are substantially what have been communicated to me in many reports and letters. In several of the annual district reports which I have received, it is stated that giving public money to districts in which a school is not taught more than three months of the year is an actual injury rather than a benefit, and an abuse of the intentions of the Legislature." FIRST AND SECOND COUNCILS OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, 1846 AND 1850. Dr. Ryerson was assisted in his important work by an able council of representative men, who were appointed in 1846. The members of this first council were as follows:-- Rev. Egerton Ryerson, D.D., Chief Superintendent of Schools; Right Rev. Michael Power, D.D., Roman Catholic Bishop of Toronto; Rev. Henry James Grasett, M.A., Rector of Toronto; Hon. Samuel Beaty Harrison, Q.C., Judge, County of York; Joseph Curran Morrison, Q.C., M.P.P.; Hugh Scobie, Esq., Editor of the _British Colonist_; James Scott Howard, Esq., Treasurer, County of York. Dr. Ryerson proposed to Bishop Strachan that he should represent the Church of England on the new Board. The Bishop was quite pleased at his request, and so expressed himself. He declined, however, on the ground that he feared his appointment might embarrass, rather than aid, in the promotion of the new scheme of education. He suggested that Rev. H. J. Grasett be appointed in his place.[47] He also gave friendly advice to Dr. Ryerson to be careful not to recommend a personal enemy for appointment on such a board. [47] In a letter to the writer of this Retrospect from the Very Rev. Dean Grasett in 1875, he said:--"I esteem it an honour that I should have been associated with Dr. Ryerson in his Council for so many years (30), and a privilege if I have been of the least assistance in upholding his hands in performing a work, the credit of which is exclusively his own. "I shall carry with me to the end of life the liveliest feelings of respect for the public character and regard for the private worth of one who has rendered to his country services which entitle him to her lasting gratitude. My venerable friend has had from time to time many cheering recognitions of his valuable public services from the heads of our Government ...; but I think that in his case, as in others that are familiar to us, it must be left to future generations adequately to appreciate their value when they shall be reaping the full benefit of them." Two more members were added in 1850, viz., Rev. John Jenning, D.D., Presbyterian Minister; Rev. Adam Lillie, D.D., Congregational Minister. Not one of the gentlemen named survive; but, in their day, they rendered effective service to the country as members of the first and second Councils of Public Instruction. The Hon. S. B. Harrison (afterwards Judge of the County of York) was nominated by Rev. Dr. Ryerson, as Chairman of the reconstructed Board of Education in 1850 (then named the Council of Public Instruction), as successor to the lamented Bishop Power, who died in 1847.[48] Mr. Harrison held that position until his death, in 1862. [48] In his address at the beginning of the Normal School for Upper Canada, in November, 1847, Dr. Ryerson thus referred to the then recent decease of Bishop Power. He said, referring to the harmony which had characterized the meetings of the Provincial Board of Education:-- "One event indeed has occurred, over which the members of the Board have reason to mourn--the decease of the Right Reverend Prelate, who, by his colleagues had been unanimously chosen Chairman of the Board, and whose conduct as Chairman and Member of the Board was marked by a punctuality, a courtesy, a fairness, a zeal and intelligence which entitle his memory to the affectionate remembrance of his colleagues and the grateful esteem of every member of the community.... I cannot reflect upon the full and frequent conversations which I have had with him on subjects of public instruction, and with the scrupulous regard which ever manifested for the views, and rights and wishes of Protestants, without feelings of the deepest respect for his character and memory." Dr. Ryerson did not enter practically upon the duties of his office until about the middle of 1846. In the meantime, the correspondence and routine duties of the Education Office were (on Dr. Ryerson's suggestion) placed in the hands of his friend, the Rev. Alexander MacNab, D.D., now Rector of Darlington (Bowmanville). RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS, 1846. Among the first duties of the new Provincial Board of Education was the establishment of a Normal School, the authorization of a series of text-books, and the preparation of regulations for the government of the Common Schools. The most important of these regulations was the one relating to religious instruction in the schools. Before submitting it to the Board for adoption Dr. Ryerson consulted various representative persons on the subject. In a private letter to Hon. Attorney-General Draper, dated December 17th, 1846, Dr. Ryerson thus explained his proceedings in regard to the preparation of the clause in the new regulations relating to religious instruction in the schools. He said:-- "I submitted the clause first to Rev. Mr. Grasett. He quite approved of it, as he felt exceedingly anxious that there should be such an explicit recognition of Christianity in our school system. I then waited on the Roman Catholic Bishop, who examined it and concurred in it.... I showed it also to the Bishop of Toronto. After he had read the section he said he believed I had done all that could be done on that subject, and that ... he would write a circular to his clergy, recommending them to act as school visitors, and to do all in their power to promote the efficiency and usefulness of the Common Schools." In his report for 1847, Dr. Ryerson stated that he consulted other ministers on the subject. The Hon. Mr. Draper, in a private note to Dr. Ryerson, dated 1st January, 1847, said:-- "I am more gratified than I can express that you have so successfully met the difficulty about the religious instruction of children in Common Schools. You (to whom I expressed myself about three years ago on the subject of the importance of not dividing religion from secular instruction) will readily understand the pleasure I feel that in Common Schools at least the principle and promoted application of it, for mixed schools, has been approved by the Bishop of my own Church and by the Roman Catholic Prelate." In a letter to the late Hon. Robert Baldwin, written in 1849, Dr. Ryerson thus refers to the question of religious instruction and the Bible in school: "Be assured that no system of popular education will flourish in a country which does violence to the religious sentiments and feelings of the churches of that country. Be assured, that every such system will droop and wither which does not take root in the Christian and patriotic sympathies of the people--which does not command the respect and confidence of the several religious persuasions, both ministers and laity--for these in fact make the aggregate of the Christianity of the country." Speaking in a subsequent letter of another feature of the question of the Bible in schools, Dr. Ryerson says: "The principal opposition which, in 1846 and for several years afterwards, I encountered was that I did not make the use of the Bible compulsory in the schools, but simply recognized the right of Protestants to use it in the school (not as an ordinary reading book), as it was not given to teach us how to read but to teach us the way to Heaven), as a book of religious instruction, without the right or the power of compelling any others to use it. The recognition of the right has been maintained inviolate to the present time; facilities for the exercise of it have been provided, and recommendations for that purpose have been given, but no compulsory authority assumed, or right of compulsion acknowledged; and the religious exercises in each school have been left to the decision of the authorities of such school, and the religious instruction of each child has always been under the absolute authority of the parents or guardian of each child." To the objection urged against the reading of the Bible in the schools because "a majority of the teachers are utterly unfit to give religious instruction," Dr. Ryerson replied: "The reading of the Bible and giving religious instruction from it are two very different things. The question is not the competency of teachers to give religious instruction, but the right of a Protestant to the reading of the Bible by his child in the school as a text-book of religious instruction. That right I hold to be sacred and divine." STATE OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA, 1845. From the reports then made to him by the County Superintendents of Schools, I select the following extracts, showing what was the actual state of education in the province when Dr. Ryerson commenced his labors as Superintendent of Education. Mr. Hamilton Hunter, Superintendent of Schools in the Home District (County of York), in his report for 1845, says:-- "There is one fact with which I have been forcibly struck, in my visits to the schools, which shows, in the clearest manner, the great necessity that existed in this Colony for the establishment of a system of Common School education. It is this: That in our schools the amount of attainment, on the part of the pupils, is generally in an inverse ratio to their size and age, after they have reached their twelfth or thirteenth year. The largest scholars that attend our schools are by far the lowest in point of attainment, which shows how sadly the education of that portion of the community, now about to attain the years of manhood and womanhood has been neglected. In many of our country schools, it is a very common thing to find persons advanced to the age of young men and women commencing to learn the first rudiments. The mind feels pained upon contemplating this; but it is gratifying to think that a remedy has been provided against it in the establishment of our Common Schools, by which the elementary branches of education are brought within the grasp of all. It leads us to reflect upon the melancholy state of ignorance that must have existed at no distant period in this Province had no means been provided other than those which formerly existed for placing the elements of knowledge within the reach of the rising generation." Hon. Hamnett Pinkey, Superintendent of Schools in the District of Dalhousie (Carleton, etc.), in his report, says:-- "The Common Schools are very indifferently conducted, and the masters in general very inadequately perform the duties required of them; a reform is expected from the establishment of the District Model School." Rev. Alexander Mann, M.A., Superintendent of Schools in the Bathurst District (Lanark, etc) says:-- "In existing circumstances I have declined giving a regular certificate to any teacher.... I made an effort on my own responsibility, and at my own expense to improve teachers, by opening a private school, solely for their benefit, but as I did not meet with proper encouragement I was obliged to relinquish my purpose." Richey Waugh, Esq., Superintendent of Schools in the Johnstown District (Leeds and Grenville), says:-- "The trustees of many schools employ teachers only for whatever time the school fund will pay their wages, and they receive but little benefit from the public money thus expended." Patrick Thornton, Esq., Superintendent of Schools in the Gore District (Wentworth, etc.), says:-- "It is a matter of regret that the old parrot system of repeating words without attaching ideas to them, does still in too many instances prevail; and the dregs must remain till some of the old formal teachers are off the field." Rev. Newton Bosworth, F.R.S., Superintendent of Schools in the Brock District (Oxford, etc.), says:-- "The diversity of books and modes of teaching referred to in my last report, still exists, nearly to the same extent; and in the qualifications of teachers also, as great a variety was observable as before.... It appears to me that parents should be impressed, to a much greater extent than at present, with a sense of the necessity and importance of education for their children." George Duck, jr., Esq., Superintendent of Schools in the Western District (Kent, etc.), says:-- "In many townships little or nothing was raised by rate-bill. In many places the poverty of the settlements prevented it; and the only school that was kept open in these districts was just during the time that the allowance from the aggregate fund was sufficient to pay the teacher. This course is, in fact, of very doubtful benefit, as the school is seldom kept open for more than three months in the year, and the children lose so much benefit continuous education produces." SCHOOL HOUSES AND SCHOOL TEACHERS IN 1845-1850. The Rev. Dr. Ryerson, in his report for 1845-46, speaking of school houses in the Province, says:-- "With a few exceptions, the school houses are deficient in almost every essential quality of places adopted for elementary instruction. Very few are furnished with any thing more than desks and forms of the most ordinary kind, and have no apparatus for instruction, nor appendages, or conveniences either for exercise or such as are required for the sake of modesty and decency." In his annual Report for 1847, Dr. Ryerson incidentally refers to the character of teachers in some districts. He says:-- "In one district, where intemperance heretofore prevailed to a considerable extent, even among school teachers, the Superintendent gave notice that he would not give a certificate of qualification to any but strictly sober candidates, and that, at the end of six months he would cancel the certificates of all teachers who suffered themselves at any time to become intoxicated.... I know of two other districts in which the Superintendents have acted thoroughly on the same principle, with the same happy results.... In a note in reference to it in the printed Form of Regulations, I remarked that 'no intemperate or profane person should be intrusted with the instruction of youth.'... No one will doubt that there are fewer unqualified and immoral teachers employed now than there were before the passing of the present School Act (of 1846)." Pages 8 and 9. In his circular issued to the newly formed County Boards of Examiners, dated 8th October, 1850, Dr. Ryerson thus referred to this matter:-- "Many representations have been made to this Department respecting intemperate and profane and Sabbath-breaking teachers.... I cannot but regard it as your special mission to rid the profession of common school teachers of unworthy character, and ... to protect the youth against the poison of a vicious teacher's example." _Report for 1850, pages 305, 306._ DR. RYERSON'S PRACTICAL AGENCIES TO GIVE INFORMATION AND REMOVE PREJUDICE. It will thus be seen from the foregoing, that at this time educational affairs were at a low ebb. Dr. Ryerson, therefore, sought in every practical way to overcome this educational apathy and inertia. His pen and personal effort were freely used. The first circular to municipal councils--prepared by him--was issued by the new Provincial Board of Education in August, 1846. This he followed up by one from himself addressed to county councils, in which he explained fully and at length the scope and objects of the new scheme of popular education. This was done under three heads:--1. That it was "based upon the principles of our common Christianity." 2. That "upon the duty of educating the youth of our country there exists but one opinion, and, therefore, there should be but one party." 3. That "the system of elementary education is public, not private." Another agency Dr. Ryerson sought to employ to aid the Department in its great work. And by it he hoped to educate and rightly influence public opinion in favor of the new departure then in progress. The plan he proposed to the Government in 1846, to authorize the issue, under his direction, of a departmental _Journal of Education_, "to be devoted," among other things, to the exposition of every part of our school system," then new to the people, ... "and to the discussion of the various means of promoting the efficiency of the schools." This the Government felt unwilling at the time to do. He, therefore, undertook the expense and responsibility of the publication himself in January, 1848. And it was not until years had demonstrated the practical value and success of the proposed agency that the expense of the publication was provided for by an annual vote of the Legislature. A third agency which Dr. Ryerson successfully employed to aid the Department was that of personally holding county school conventions. In explaining this project to the Government in 1846, he said:-- "I propose ... to visit and employ one or two days in school discourse and deliberation with the Superintendent, Visitors, Trustees and Teachers in each of the several Districts of Upper Canada. I know of no means so effectual to remove prejudice, to create unanimity of views and feelings, and to excite a general interest in the cause of popular education," etc. This project was concurred in by the Government, on condition that the expense of the proposed nearly three months' visitation "should not exceed £75." Thus was inaugurated, in 1846, a series of county school conventions which, at intervals of about five years each, were held all over the country. The early ones involved travelling in all kinds of weather and in all kinds of conveyances, so as to keep engagements made weeks before. They were, however, of immense service to the Department in removing prejudice, settling difficulties and solving doubts as to the practicability of plans proposed for improving the condition of the schools and raising the intellectual and social status of the teacher. COMBINED OPPOSITION TO THE PROJECTED SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. It was not to be expected that so comprehensive a scheme of education as that proposed by Dr. Ryerson in 1846 and 1847 would meet with general acceptance. The very reverse was the fact. It was assailed as revolutionary and oppressive. It certainly was revolutionary in the best sense; but not oppressive, for it was largely permissive and wholly tentative. And, for many years the Town of Richmond, in the County of Carleton, refused to establish schools under its provisions. The new measures were so far revolutionary that they differed almost wholly from the former projected school acts. The system proposed was composite. Its machinery was adopted chiefly from the State of New York. The principle upon which the schools were to be supported was taken from New England--Normal schools, from Germany, and the uniform series of school books, from Ireland. All were, however, so blended together and harmonized, to meet the requirements and circumstances of the country that they became, in Dr. Ryerson's moulding hands, "racy of the soil." Up to this time no one but Dr. Ryerson had been able to give a practical turn to the rather crude theories which had been held on the subject of popular education. He, however, had to pay the penalty of all such reformers; but yet he lived to see the fuller details of his system of education worked out on his own lines. It is needless to say that Dr. Ryerson's scheme was assailed as impracticable. This I have explained. It was held to be too comprehensive for the country. Even his reference to the compact and systematized plan adopted in Prussia was seized upon as an indication of his covert design to introduce the baneful system of so-called "Prussian despotism." His commendation of "free schools," as a prospective feature of our educational system was denounced as an attempt to legalize an "outrageous robbery," and as communistic "war against property." As an example of the injustice of these criticisms on Dr. Ryerson's scheme of education, he said in a lecture on education in 1847:-- "I have seen in certain of the public prints, a provision of our school law ascribed to Prussia, which was borrowed from the school law of the City of Buffalo; and another provision declared to be incompatible with the rights of man which forms the basis and glory of the common school system of Massachusetts." Although opposition to Dr. Ryerson's educational plans, as embodied in his school acts, was somewhat general, yet it was singularly illogical. The sore point was that it touched men's pockets in the form of school rates. EDUCATIONAL PROCEEDINGS OF DISTRICT COUNCILS IN 1847, 1848. An influential district council in the West sought to influence all of the others against the new system, especially against the establishment of a Normal School. In a memorial to the Legislature (which it sent broadcast), dated Hamilton, 10th November, 1847, and signed by James Little, Chairman of the Education Committee, John White and Francis Cameron, and adopted by the Gore District Council, the following passages occur: "With respect to the necessity of establishing a Normal, with Elementary Model Schools in this Province, memorialists are of opinion that, however well adapted, such an institution might be to the wants of the old and densely populated countries of Europe, where services in almost every vocation will scarcely yield the common necessaries of life, they are, so far as this object expected to be gained is concerned, altogether unsuited to a country like Upper Canada.... Nor do your memorialists hope to provide qualified teachers by any other means, in the present circumstances of the country than securing as heretofore, the services of those whose physical disabilities from age render this mode of obtaining a livelihood the only one suited to their decaying energies, or by employing such of the newly arrived emigrants as are qualified for common school teachers year by year as they come amongst us, and who will adopt this as a means of temporary support, until their character and ability are known and turned to better account for themselves." This memorial having been sent to each of the district councils in Upper Canada for their concurrence, and with a view to procure the repeal of the School Act, 9 Vic., ch. 20, the Colborne District Council not only refused to concur in it but subjected it to severe criticism. In regard to the foregoing extract from the Gore District Memorial, the Colborne Council (now Peterboro' and Victoria) in its report on that memorial said: "That the moneys required to pay for the establishment and support of Normal and Model Schools are little less than a waste of so much of the Legislative grant, is an opinion in which your committee are so far from concurring, that they believe it is from these sources must mainly arise the instrumentality through which the friends of education can alone hope for the first considerable amelioration of the evils they lament.... Nor can your committee reconcile it either with their just expectations, or their sense of duty to rest satisfied with the services of those whose physical disabilities from age and decaying energies render them unfit, or of those 'newly arrived emigrants,' whose 'unknown character and abilities' render them unable to procure a livelihood by any other means than by becoming the preceptors of our children; the dictators of their sentiments and manners; the guardians of their virtue; and in a high degree the masters of their future destinies in this world and the next." This report was prepared by Mr. Thomas Benson, Chairman of the Education Committee, and Warden of the District (father of Judge Benson of Port Hope). It was adopted by the Colborne District Council in February, 1848.[49] [49] Correspondence between members of the Government and the Chief Superintendent, 1850, pp. 17-20. The Western District Council, in its memorial to the Legislature against the School Act, represented that "spite, hatred and malice between neighbors and friends," existed, and was "occasioned by the present School Act." It added: "So numerous are the petitions on the subject that more than half of the time of the Council is taken up in endeavoring to settle the differences, but unfortunately without any beneficial effect." The Chief Superintendent, in his report, referring to this statement says: "Now, in examining the printed report of the committee, to whom all these petitions were referred, I find that of the twenty-nine petitions presented to the Council, one prayed for the establishment of a female school in one of the sections (which was granted); one prayed for a local school tax in a section; two related to the formation of new school sections, and the remaining twenty-five related to the disputes as to the boundaries of school sections and the non-payment of school moneys by township superintendents. Thus not one of these disputes could have arisen out of the School Act, but must have all been caused by an improper division of the school sections, either by the township superintendents under the late Act, or by the Council under the present statute." In this (Western) District the Council says: "We well know that a very large number of the trustees can neither read nor write, and, therefore, it must be obvious that the greater part of the requirements of the law remain undone." On this statement the Chief Superintendent remarks: "In other districts where the trustees can read and write, and where the councillors an correspondingly intelligent and discreet in their school proceedings, no disputes or inconvenience have, as far as I am aware, occurred on this subject." In the District of Dalhousie, the Chief Superintendent states: "Still greater dissatisfaction and confusion were created by the mode of proceeding adopted by the council. Before the passing of the present School Act the council of this district never imposed a school assessment.... The introduction of a district assessment (under the new Act) would naturally excite some dissatisfaction, and especially in a district bordering on counties in Lower Canada where the school assessment had been resisted.... In addition the Chief Superintendent adds: "The Council in the autumn of 1847 passed a by-law to this effect: "Whereas the school section division mode by this Council at its last session, are in many instances, discordant to the convenience and wishes of the inhabitants, and that to correct them satisfactorily this present session is impracticable. The District Superintendent is empowered and required to make a distribution of the school fund (legislative grant and county assessment) 'share and share alike,' among qualified teachers without reference to the number of scholars under their tuition, but in proportion to the time such teachers may have been teaching, etc." Thus the Superintendent remarks, "this by-law contemplated the abolition of the statute requiring the school grant to be distributed according to the school population of each section. It made no distinction between the able teacher who taught sixty scholars and the young one who taught twenty; it had no regard to the engagements which may have been made by trustees according to law; it required of teachers conditions which the law had not enjoined, and proposed to deprive many of them of advantages which the law had conferred.... Of course I pointed out the illegality and injustice of the by-law and it was not acted upon. At the session of the Council lately held, a resolution was adopted praying the Governor-General to dissolve the Council that the sense of the inhabitants of the Dalhousie District might be taken on the school law.... It is doubtless probable that many of the inhabitants have not distinguished between the provisions of the law and the proceedings of their own Council--attributing to the former what has been occasioned by the latter."[50] [50] Chief Superintendent's Annual Report for 1847-8, page 6. Contrast the enlightened discussion of such questions to-day with the ignorant dogmatism of that day, and you can form some idea of the magnitude of Dr. Ryerson's labors,--not only in laying broad and deep the foundations for his superstructure, but in seeking to overcome the deep-rooted and unreasoning prejudices of those days--days indeed of anxiety and toil and fierce opposition, which I so well remember. ESTIMATE OF LORD ELGIN'S CHARACTER BY THE HON. W. H. DRAPER. On the arrival in Canada of Lord Elgin, as Governor-General, Dr. Ryerson wrote confidentially to Hon. Attorney-General Draper (on the 16th February, 1847), asking him for his "opinion of the new Governor-General." Mr. Draper replied on the 22nd as follows:-- "As far as my opportunities of judging go, I think Canada will find cause of satisfaction in having Lord Elgin for a Governor. He is industrious in habit, pleasing in manner, extremely courteous and affable in bearing. I find him also diligent and shrewd in inquiry; and the observations which fall from him show that he has studiously kept pace with the great questions of the day (I do not mean our Canadian politics simply), and besides the cultivation of classical education in its broader sense, he possesses a mind stored with facts bearing on and illustrative of those questions. In these respects, or more correctly speaking in the latter, and as regards trade and finance, he reminds me more of Lord Sydenham than any other governor of my time. I think he possesses also caution and firmness;--that he will not resolve hastily, that he may not have to change his resolves. He has large ideas of the capabilities and resources both of Canada and of the British North American Provinces, and, as it strikes me, without any reference to a political union of these provinces, thinks that a course might be taken to develop the whole, by separate parts taking a common course in matters in which they have a common interest--internal communication, favorable to our European commerce and connections will serve as an illustration of the sort of questions to which I allude.... All this, of course, is mere opinion, but such are my first impressions, and as such, and no more, I readily give them to you in reply to your enquiry, etc." Subsequently, Dr. Ryerson met Lord Elgin in Montreal, and, in a letter to me, dated 24th July, 1847, he says:-- "At his own request I have had an interesting interview with Lord Elgin. He is exceedingly well versed in systems of education, and is a thoroughly practical man on the subject." INVALUABLE ASSISTANCE GIVEN TO DR. RYERSON BY LORD ELGIN. It was fortunate that just at this crisis Canada was favored with the presence of one of the most accomplished, in every sense of the term, of the Queen's representatives, the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine. That distinguished statesman, who afterwards filled with great dignity the highest post in the civil service of Great Britain, that of Governor-General of India, reached Canada at a critical transitional period in our history. Few can recall the incidents of those days without a feeling of admiration for the fearlessness, tact, and ability with which he discharged the delicate and difficult duties of his high office. When Lord Elgin arrived in Canada in 1847, and when he removed to Toronto, after the riot and burning of the Parliament House in Montreal in 1849, educational affairs were fiercely discussed and were yet almost at the low ebb at which Dr. Ryerson had found them. Not that they had previously reached a higher plane and had gradually settled down to a lower one. The reverse was the fact, but the question of education had only then (in Dr. Ryerson's hands) begun to attract serious public attention. It was, however, as I have explained, in an adverse direction, for the whole subject, in the advanced form in which it was presented by Dr. Ryerson, was unpopular. It involved taxation and other unpalatable "burdens," as its opponents averred. Notwithstanding the zeal and ability with which Dr. Ryerson had collected and arranged his facts, analyzed the various systems of education in Europe and America, and fortified himself with the opinions of the most experienced educationists in these countries, the system which he projected, and the school law which embodied it, continued to be fiercely assailed by a portion of the press, and by hostile politicians. This hostility culminated in an event which brought things to a crisis in 1849. At this time, an administration was in office, one or two members of which were personally unfavorable to Dr. Ryerson's continuation in office. One of these, a prominent and popular member of the cabinet (Hon. Malcolm Cameron, who afterward became a warm friend of Dr. Ryerson) induced his colleagues to assent to the passage of a school bill which practically legislated Dr. Ryerson out of office, besides being objectionable in other respects. He at once tendered his resignation. The Hon. Robert Baldwin, Attorney-General, declined to recommend its acceptance. By advice of the Cabinet, the operation of the bill was suspended until a new one, framed by Dr. Ryerson, could be prepared and passed. The result was the passage of the School Act of 1850--popular in its character and comprehensive in its provisions. It now forms the broad basis of the present school system of Ontario. It was at this period of our educational history that Lord Elgin first came into official contact with our educational system. Being familiar with the Scottish parochial school system, he soon mastered the whole subject, and perceived the great importance to the whole country of the question which was then being so fiercely discussed. Being in England in 1853, Dr. Ryerson wrote to me there:-- "I was glad to learn that Lord Elgin was to go in the same steamship with you from Boston. I have no doubt it will have proved interesting to him as well as to you, and perhaps useful to you. I miss you very much from the office, but I do not like to employ any more aid without sanction of the Government, though I could get no one to take your place. I would wish you to write me what Lord Elgin may have thought or have said as to our doings and plans of proceeding. If the library plan succeeds, it will achieve noble results.[51] I feel that our success and happiness in the Department are inseparably united." [51] Lord Elgin always referred to Dr. Ryerson's library scheme in his educational addresses as the "Crown and Glory of the Institutions of the Province." It was indeed fortunate for my mission that I was on the same Cunard steamer to England with His Excellency the late lamented Lord Elgin, to whom I entered into full detail in regard to the objects of that mission. Before leaving the steamer, Lord Elgin most kindly promised to aid me in every way he could while in England, and wrote me his address as "Broom Hall, Dumfermline," in case I should have occasion to refer to him. He also added the following paragraph to the letter of your instructions and authority, which, in more than one instance, I found to be of essential service to me:-- "I believe the object of Mr. Hodgins' mission to be most important to Canada, and I trust that he will meet with all support and encouragement. (Signed) "ELGIN AND KINCARDINE, "Governor-General. "September, 1853." One of my letters, reporting to Dr. Ryerson as far as I had gone, my proceedings in England, having been enclosed to the Hon. Mr. Hincks, he said in reply:--"I return you Mr. Hodgins' interesting letter, with thanks for its perusal. It was fortunate he went by the same steamer as Lord Elgin. I am much interested in the success of your libraries, which is beyond my most sanguine expectations. "QUEBEC, 11th Oct. 1853." I recall with pleasure the great services which Lord Elgin then rendered to the cause of education at a critical period of its history in this Province. His speeches and addresses on the subject at that time had a wonderful effect in moderating the opposition which Dr. Ryerson received while laying the foundations of our system of education. They had also the potent effect of popularizing that system in the estimation of the people which it was designed to benefit. That popularity has, happily, continued to this day, thanks in a great degree to the dignity imparted to the subject by the persuasive eloquence of Lord Elgin. His eminence as a distinguished graduate of Oxford, and his general knowledge of European systems of education, enabled him to speak with a precision and certainty which few could gainsay. It was a gratifying fact that he identified himself personally, as well as officially, throughout the whole of his seven years' administration, with the general education and intellectual improvement of the people of Canada. The first bill to which His Excellency assented in the Queen's name was the School Act of 1850, to which I have referred. PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST COUNCIL OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION--THE NORMAL SCHOOL. One of the first and necessary acts of the Provincial Board of Education, or first council of public instruction, was the adoption of a uniform series of text-books--one only on each subject. Those chosen were the Irish National Series, with two additions. The next important step taken by the Board was the establishment, in November, 1847, of a Normal School, with the necessary adjunct of a Model School. The old Government House was fitted up as a Normal School, and the stable connected with it was renovated and converted into a Model School, or school of practice for teachers-in-training.[52] On the removal of the seat of government to Toronto, in 1849, the Normal School was held in the Temperance Hall, and other arrangements were made. [52] _Apropros_ of this, Dr. Ryerson, in a private note to Hon. W. H. Draper, in April, 1846, said:-- "The stables of the Government House may be fitted up for Model Schools, etc. It is a curious and not interesting fact that the stables of Louis the Fourteenth, at Versailles, are now used for the great National Normal School of France, and is the most splendid establishment of the kind on the Continent of Europe." So successful were these schools in raising the status of the teaching profession that the government of the day--the memorable Baldwin-Lafontaine administration--willingly listened to a proposition of the Provincial Board of Education to grant funds for the purchase of a site and the erection of suitable buildings for these schools. The Hon. Francis Hincks, who was Inspector General, had (upon Dr. Ryerson's estimate) a proposed grant of £15,000 put in the estimates of 1850 for the purposes named. A site of seven acres and a half of land was purchased from the estate of the Hon. Peter M'Gill. The writer of this retrospect had the pleasure (in the absence of Dr. Ryerson in Europe) of signing the cheque for the purchase money, £4,500, and of seeing that the deed was duly made out in the name of Her Majesty the Queen and her successors, and transferred for safe keeping to the Crown Lands Department. After the plans for the buildings had been approved, certain important additions were considered desirable (chiefly a theatre, or central lecture hall, etc.). As the grant already made was quite insufficient for the proposed additions, Mr. Hincks was once more appealed to. He responded very promptly and heartily, and recommended to his colleagues that a further grant be made, which was done, and an item of £10,000 additional was placed in the estimates of 1851 and concurred in by the Legislature. The work then proceeded and near the close of the second year it was brought to a conclusion. So carefully had these two grants been husbanded that when the buildings were completed and furnished, there was a balance left over of £90. With this sum the expense of fitting up the Departmental Library was defrayed. The result was highly gratifying to Mr. Hincks, and he so expressed himself at the opening of the buildings in the following year. LAYING THE CORNER STONE OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL BUILDING, 1851. On Wednesday, the 2nd of July, 1851, the imposing ceremony of laying the corner stone of the new edifice took place. The guard of honor was the 71st Highlanders, under Sir Hew Dalrymple. Ministers of both Houses of Parliament, the city corporation, etc., attended. The inscription on the brass plate--I quote from the original, as written by Dr. Ryerson--was as follows: "This Institution, Erected by the Enlightened Liberality of Parliament, is Designed for the Instruction and Training of School Teachers upon Christian Principles." Right Rev. Bishop Charbonnell, to whom was assigned the duty of presenting the Governor-General with the silver trowel, spoke with great cordiality, and with French grace and eloquence. He said: "MONSEIGNEUR,--Je suis très heureux et très honoré d'avoir èté choisi par le Conseil de l'Instruction Publique, dont votre Excellence a daignè me faire membre, pour lui prèsenter cette truelle d'argent aux industrieuses emblèmes du blazon des Bruces. "L'etablissement dont votre Excellence va poser la pierre angulaire, Monseigneur, sera un des plus glorieux monuments de tout ce que son libéral gouvernment aura fait pour la prospérité, de ce pays: _ad ædificationem_." This in substance is as follows:-- "MY LORD,--I am very happy and am highly honored to have been chosen by the Council of Public Instruction--of which your Excellency has condescended to make me a member--to present to you, on their behalf, this silver trowel emblazoned with the industrial emblems which form the arms of the Bruces. "The institution, of which your Excellency is about to lay the corner stone, is destined to be, my Lord, one of the most glorious monuments amongst all of those which your liberal administration has devised for the welfare of this country." In laying the corner-stone, Lord Elgin was particularly happy in his reply to these remarks, and to the address of the newly-constituted Council of Public Instruction. He said, addressing Dr. Ryerson:-- "It appears to me, sir, ... that this young country has had the advantage of profiting by the experience of older countries--by their failures and disappointments, as well as by their successes; and that experience, improved by your diligent exertions and excellent judgment ... and fortified by the support of the Council of Education, and the Government and Parliament of the Province, has enabled Upper Canada to place herself in the van among the nations in the great and important work of providing an efficient system of general education for the whole community.... I do not think that I shall be charged with exaggeration when I affirm that this work is _the_ work of our day and generation--that it is the problem in our modern society which is most difficult of solution.... How has Upper Canada addressed herself to the execution of this great work?... Sir, I understand from your statements--and I come to the same conclusions from my own investigation and observation--that it is the principle of our educational system that its foundation be laid deep in the firm rock of our common Christianity.... Permit me to say, both as an humble Christian man and as the head of the Civil Government of the Province, that it gives me unfeigned pleasure to perceive that the youth of this country, ... who are destined in their maturer years to meet in the discharge of the duties of civil life upon terms of perfect civil and religious equality--I say it gives me pleasure to hear and to know that they are receiving an education which is fitted so well to qualify them for the discharge of these important duties; and that while their hearts are yet tender ... they are associated under conditions which are likely to provoke amongst them the growth of those truly Christian graces--mutual respect, forbearance and charity." One of His Excellency's last acts in Toronto, when about to leave the country, was to visit those buildings and express his satisfaction with the several departments of the system therein conducted. THE COUNTY MODEL SCHOOLS OF 1843-1850. The necessity of these schools was felt more than forty years ago, and provision was then made for their establishment. Thus, in the first School Act passed in 1843 to regulate Common Schools in this province, section 57 of that Act declares:-- "That it shall and may be lawful for the court of wardens of any county in Upper Canada ... to raise and levy by county rate a sum not exceeding £200 ($800), and to appropriate and expend the same for the maintenance of one or more _County Model Schools_, within such county and to constitute, by by-law, or by-laws, to that effect, any township, town, or city school, or schools within the county, to be, for any term not less than one year, such County Model School or Schools," etc. "A sum not less than £40" was appropriated to each such school towards 'the payment of the teachers and the purchase of books and apparatus.' The 66th section of the same Act also declared:-- "That in every such township, town or city Model School gratuitous instruction shall be given to teachers of Common Schools within the township, town or city, wherein such Model School may be established during such periods and under such regulations of the township, town or city superintendent may from time to time direct." "Again, in the first Common School Act prepared by Dr. Ryerson, and passed in 1846, after providing for the establishment of District Model Schools--it was declared (sec. 40):-- "That at every such District Model School gratuitous instruction shall be afforded to all teachers of Common Schools within the district in which such Model School may be established during such period and under such regulations as the district superintendent may from time to time direct." These County Model Schools (as will be seen) had higher functions than have the County Model Schools of the present day. They were designed to afford instruction to persons who were already teachers, and were thus in Dr. Ryerson's views constituted local Normal Schools for that purpose. So much importance did Dr. Ryerson attach to the value of training institutions for teaching, and so much did he anticipate a demand for them that on page 162 of his "Report on a System of Public Elementary Instruction," published in 1845, he said:-- "As soon as examples of the advantages of trained teachers can be given, I believe the ratio of demand will increase faster than that of supply, and that an additional Normal School will soon be required in each of the most populous districts." Then again so jealously was the efficiency of these District or County Model Schools guarded that in the same Act, 9 Victoria, chapter 20, it was provided that no teacher could be appointed to such school without the approval in writing of the district superintendent, and unless he held a certificate from the Normal School (which was established in 1847). In addition to these requirements power was given to the district superintendent to suspend or dismiss Model School teachers and to appoint others in their places, in case the local trustees neglected or refused to do so. This district superintendent was also authorized to examine (as they often did at the Model School) all "candidates for teaching in Common Schools" and to give them certificates of qualification, special or general, at his discretion. The question may here be asked, "Of what practical value were these County Model Schools in the work of training school teachers, and did they at all discharge the higher functions to which reference is made?" It was clear that these schools were regarded in those early days as a necessary adjunct to our system of education, for the very purpose of aiding teachers in their professional work. Thus, Mr. Hamilton Hunter, in his report as School Superintendent of the Home District for the year 1844 says:-- "The deficiency in the qualification of teachers could be remedied by establishing in each district a Model School upon a good scale, and having it under the management of a superior teacher or teachers.... The School Bill makes provision for this, etc." In his report for 1847 Dr. Ryerson thus speaks of the operation and success of these schools wherever they had been established:-- "The School Superintendent of Dalhousie District says: 'In this [County Model School] I have there held public examinations of Common School teachers; and on some occasions, when reluctant to give them certificates, I have sent them to the Model School Master for information and examination.... [These teachers] did not make any permanent stay except one, merely learning the mode of instruction, the value of the studies and discipline of the school.'... The Superintendent of the Johnstone District says:-- ... 'Much good has been done by the establishment of the Model School in this district. Several teachers, whose education was by no means good, have acquired a sound knowledge of the subjects which are required to be taught in the Common Schools.' The Superintendent of Schools in the Midland District says:--'Almost every teacher who has attended the Model School for any length of time is now teaching with good success.'" In the Act which was hurriedly passed in 1849, but which, by Order-in-Council, never went into operation, provision was made to establish, or continue the County Model Schools "in any township, town, or city," and granting to each of them "£25 over and above the sum to which such schools would be entitled as a Common School ... which sum shall be expended in the payment of a teacher or teachers, and for no other purpose." In the Act of 1850, provision for the establishment and maintenance of Township Model Schools was made. Township councils were authorized to raise a special tax for the support and efficiency of these schools; and it was "provided likewise, that tuition to student-teachers in such Model Schools should be free." The reason why Township Model Schools were substituted for county ones, is given by Dr. Ryerson in his circular to town reeves, dated 12th August, 1850. Other reasons contributed to this change, but the circular gives the chief reason. "The attempts of district councils to establish Model Schools have thus far proved entire failures...: The late district councils have in every instance, except one, abandoned the attempt.... To the success and usefulness of a Model School, a model teacher, at any expense, is indispensable, and then a Model School-house, properly furnished, and their judicious and energetic management." In addition, I may say that the causes of failure of these valuable training institutions in 1850, may be incidentally learned from the very words here used by Dr. Ryerson by way of suggestions to town reeves. These schools had neither model teachers, nor were the buildings "model school-houses." Besides, the district superintendents of that day, and after them, the township superintendents, had, as a rule, no experience as trained teachers themselves. By the Act of 1871, the status and qualifications of these most important officers were raised to their present high standard. The very name was changed, and that of inspector was substituted. It was felt by Dr. Ryerson that until these new officers had secured some degree of popular favor, and had proved their efficiency as organizers of schools, and as practical judges of the necessary qualifications of teachers, it would be useless for him to attempt the re-establishment of the County Model Schools. Before that time had fully arrived he retired from office--leaving this important and necessary duty to be undertaken (as it was efficiently) by his successor, Hon. Adam Crooks, as Minister of Education. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF DR. RYERSON'S SCHEME OF EDUCATION. In founding the system of public instruction for Upper Canada, Dr. Ryerson wisely laid down certain fundamental principles which he believed to be essential to the success and stability of that system. These general principles may be thus summarized: 1. That the machinery of education should be in the hands of the people themselves, and should be managed through their own agency; they should, therefore, be held, be consulted, by means of public meetings and conferences, in regard to all school legislation. This he himself did every few years. 2. That the aid of the Government should only be given where it could be used most effectually to stimulate and assist local effort in this great work. 3. That the property of the country is responsible for, and should contribute toward the education of the entire youth of the country; and that, as a complement to this, "compulsory education" should necessarily be enforced. 4. That a thorough and systematic inspection of the schools is essential to their vitality and efficiency. These and other important principles, Dr. Ryerson kept steadily in view during his long administration of the school system of his native Province. He was not able to embody them all at once in his earlier school bills, but he did so in the final legislation on the subject with which he was connected in 1870-1874. Their judicious application to the school system contributed largely, under the Divine blessing, which he ever sought, to the wonderful success of his labors. CAN UPPER CANADA EMULATE THE STATE OF NEW YORK IN EDUCATIONAL MATTERS? In his "Address to the People of Upper Canada" on school affairs in 1850, Dr. Ryerson thus answers this question:-- "Another ground of encouragement in our country's educational work is the practical proof already acquired of the possibility of not only improving our schools, but of successfully emulating our American neighbours in this respect. Often have we heard this, both publicly and privately, pronounced utopian; and often have we sought in friendly discussion to prove that it was neither impracticable nor extravagant to aim in rivalling our New York neighbours in our Common Schools."--_Journal of Education for Upper Canada_, vol. 3, page 2. In his report for 1851, Dr. Ryerson returns to this subject. He says:-- "The period is very recent when the [subject of educational comparison with the State of New York] would have been an absurdity--when the word 'contrast' must have been employed instead of the word 'comparison,' when not a few of our fellow countrymen, and some of our public men, considered the project, or the idea of emulating the Common School doings of our New York neighbours, as presumptuous and chimerical. I have not viewed the noble and patriotic exertions of the American people in any spirit of jealousy.... I hold up their example to the admiration and imitation of the people of Canada; but I have not despaired of, much less depreciated my own country; and have had, and have still in a higher degree than ever, a strong conviction that there are qualities in the people of Upper Canada, which, under a proper and possible organization, and with judicious counsel, would place schools and education in this country upon more than a level with what we have witnessed and admired in the State of New York. It is true our American neighbours have had more than thirty years the start of us; but I am persuaded we shall not require half that time to overtake them--profiting, as we have done, and doubtless will do, by their mistakes and failures, as well as by their ingenuity and success. To rebuke an unpatriotic spirit of Canadian degradation in which some Canadians indulge,[53] and to animate the hopes and exertions of the true friends of our intellectual and social progress, I will show what has already been accomplished in Upper Canada in respect to Common Schools by a comparison, in a few particulars, with what has been done in the State of New York." (The particulars which Dr. Ryerson points out are seven in number).--_Report for 1851_, (written in 1852), page 17. [53] Dr. Ryerson constantly deprecated, in these early years, this want of the spirit of Canadian Patriotism. In an eloquent paper (in the third volume of the _Journal of Education_) he shows that "_Canadian Patriotism (is) the Lever of Canadian Greatness_." He sums it up in these words: "It cannot be too strongly impressed upon every mind that it is on Canadian energy, Canadian ambition, Canadian self-reliance, skill and enterprize--in a word, on Canadian patriotism--that depends Canadian prosperity, elevation and happiness."--_Page 40._ In his reply to a complimentary letter from the Municipal Council of the County of Norfolk, in 1851, Dr. Ryerson thus referred to this subject:-- "No person who has at all studied the subject of comparative school legislation between Canada and other countries, can fail to observe that there is an extent of local discretion and power in each of our School and County Municipalities not found in any one of the neighbouring States, while there are other elements incorporated into our school system, which secure to the remotest municipality of Upper Canada the information and facilities which can alone be acquired and provided by a Public Department. But the rational conviction and voluntary co-operation of the people themselves have been relied upon and appealed to as the basis of exertion and the instrument of success. When, therefore, steps were taken to improve the text-books of the schools, a set of the books recommended was procured and furnished to each County Municipality in Upper Canada, that the people might examine and judge of the desirableness of the books proposed, in regard to both excellence and cheapness. In promoting an improvement in the condition and character of school-houses, plans and illustrations of school-houses and premises were procured and placed in the hands of the local councils, and several of them were published in the _Journal of Education_. The same course has been adopted in respect to School Maps, etc. And in pressing upon the public mind the necessity and advantage of duly qualified School Teachers, an institution has been established to train them; and the specimens of Teachers thus trained (though but partially trained in most instances, from the short period of their training) have excited a desire and demand for improved teachers in every County in Upper Canada. I trust this year will witness the introduction of Libraries--thus completing the establishment of every branch of our school system. "In all this there has been no coercion--but a perfect blending of freedom and unity, of conviction and action; and the entire absence of any opposition to the school system during the recent elections throughout Upper Canada, shows how general and cordial is the conviction of the people as to its adaptation to their circumstances and interests. "I have the deepest conviction of the strong common sense and patriotism of the Canadian people at large--a conviction founded on long observation and comparison between the people of Canada and those of many other countries; and I have a faith, little short of full assurance, as to the advancing and glorious future of our country. With this conviction and faith, and animated with the consciousness of general approval and co-operation on the part of the people, I shall renew my humble contributions of labour to the common treasury of Canadian progress and civilization." ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EDUCATIONAL DEPOSITORY, AND ITS RESULTS. In 1850-51, Dr. Ryerson, while in England, made arrangements for establishing a library, a prize book and an apparatus and map depository, in connection with his Department. His reasons for doing so may be thus briefly stated: 1. He felt it to be practically useless to train teachers in the best methods of imparting instruction, and in the use of apparatus and other school appliances in the normal school and not provide for them, when in charge of schools, a constant and abundant supply of these necessary appliances at the very cheapest rates. 2. He held it to be equally necessary that the pupils, who had acquired a taste for reading and knowledge in the schools, should have an equally abundant and perennial supply of the best and purest literature as it is issued from the press; otherwise they would be sure to procure reading matter (often pernicious, as he had painful proof) for themselves. 3. He could see no distinction, and therefore could not admit of any, in the principle of providing such a two-fold supply of school material and reading matter, and in that of providing trained teachers and skilled inspectors at the expense of the Province, as well as a money bonus to aid in maintaining the schools in a state of efficiency. 4. He further felt that it was immaterial whether the money voted by Parliament was expended in one direction or the other, so long as in each department of the system the best interests and necessities of the schools were consulted, and the symmetry and efficiency of the school system, as a whole, were preserved and promoted. 5. He projected this plan of supply on a purely commercial basis, and so arranged and successfully carried out his scheme that while there was distributed nearly a million dollars' worth of school material and books up to the time when the depository was closed, it did not cost the country anything for the expenses of its management, as it more than paid its way. An elaborate report on this subject was prepared by Mr. James Brown, an experienced accountant, under the direction of Hon. Adam Crooks, the first Minister of Education. It more than sustained the statement here made. The particulars are as follows:-- ABSTRACT OF DEPOSITORY SCHEDULE PRESENTED TO THE LEGISLATURE IN 1877. Total amount of legislative grants to the depository for all purposes, viz.: (1) Purchase of stock, and (2) Salaries and the entire cost of management, etc., 1850 to 1875 inclusive $811,523 72 Total value of books, maps and apparatus despatched from the depository, 1850 to 1875 inclusive 803,067 86 __________ Difference to be accounted for 8,455 86 Net value of the stock on hand at the end of 1875, after paying all expenses of management, etc 79,509 41 Deduct the difference to be accounted for (as above) 8,455 86 ---------- Grand total of profits made by the depository after paying all charges, as above, during the years 1850-1875 71,054 55 DR. RYERSON A COMMISSIONER ON KING'S COLLEGE, ETC., NEW BRUNSWICK IN 1854. On the 1st of May, 1854, the Legislature of New Brunswick passed an Act empowering the Lieutenant-Governor to appoint a Royal Commission:-- "To enquire into the present state of King's College, its management and utility, with a view of improving the same, and rendering that institution more generally useful, and of suggesting the best mode of effecting that desirable object," etc. In accordance with this Act, Sir Edmund Head, the then Lieutenant-Governor, in August, 1854, appointed the following gentlemen as commissioners, viz.:--Hon. John Hamilton Gray, (late Judge of the High Court of British Columbia), Rev. Dr. Egerton Ryerson, John William (now Sir Wm.) Dawson, Hon. John Simcoe Saunders, and Hon. James Brown. In accepting the position of commissioner, Dr. Ryerson, at the close of his letter to Provincial Secretary Partelow, said:-- "When I mentioned to the head of the Canadian Administration the request which had been made to me from New Brunswick, and the probability that a compliance with it would cause my absence for two or three weeks from the duties of my department, he thought I ought, by all means, to go--that it was part of my appropriate work, and that we should regard each Province of British North America as a part of our own country. "New Brunswick is so to me, in a peculiar sense, as the birth-place of my sainted mother and my elder brothers and sisters." The commission met first at Fredericton, and afterwards at Toronto. To Dr. Ryerson was entrusted the principal duty of drawing up the elaborate report, and in Hon. J. H. Gray's letter as chairman, accompanying the report in December, 1854, he says: "I beg to express, with the full concurrence of my fellow commissioners, our acknowledgements of the very valuable assistance afforded us by Dr. Ryerson. His great experience and unquestioned proficiency on all subjects connected with education, justly entitle his opinion to great weight." Sir Wm. Dawson, in a letter to Mr. Gray, thus summarizes the contents of the report:-- "1st. The improvement of the College course of instruction and its extension by the introduction of special courses. 2ndly, The definition of the true place of the Provincial College in its relations to the other educational institutions of the Province, and to the religious beliefs of the people; and 3rdly, The union of all the educational institutions in a Provincial university system, under official supervision." A change in the Government of New Brunswick in 1854, prevented the report being considered in the Legislature at that time. In a letter from Mr. Gray to Dr. Ryerson, dated May 15, 1855, he says:-- "The change of Government prevented our report being adopted and acted upon, but it met with universal approbation, and from every portion of the Province the voice of praise has gone up. I give you credit for it all; and in my remarks in the House, I made my acknowledgements publicly to you and Mr. Dawson." In a confidential letter to me, on Separate School matters, from Dr. Ryerson, dated Quebec, January 30, 1858, he said:-- "Sir Edmund Head (now Governor-General), highly approved of my Report, etc., on the New Brunswick College question and has sent it to the authorities of McGill College to see if they cannot adopt something of the same kind." Mr. Gray had hoped that the comprehensive bill proposed by the commission in 1854, and to give effect to their recommendations relating to King's College, Normal and Model Schools, and a Chief Superintendent of Education, would be passed in the following year, 1855. In this he was disappointed, for the bill did not pass until 1860. In a letter to Dr. Ryerson from the Hon. Charles Fisher, dated Fredericton, 14th May, 1860, he said:-- "After years of controversy and difficulty we have passed an Act to remodel King's College on the plan proposed by your commission, under the title of the University of New Brunswick. We have not connected the College or the head of it with the other educational interests in the Province, but confined him to the University, and he must be a layman. This provision was inserted to prevent difficulty."[54] [54] In 1858 Mr. Henry Fisher (Brother of Hon. Charles Fisher) was appointed Superintendent of Education for New Brunswick. He visited Dr. Ryerson in that year to confer with him before undertaking the duties of his new office. His death occurred in 1860, and in communicating the sad news to Dr. Ryerson, Hon. Charles Fisher, referring to his brother, said:-- "He wished particularly (just before his death) to be remembered to you, and that I should thank you for your kindness to him on all occasions. He was succeeding in his efforts to improve the educational interests of the Province, and had been enabled to secure the support of all parties." PARTIAL CHRONOLOGICAL SKETCH OF DR. RYERSON'S EDUCATIONAL WORK, 1855, ETC. I will now give a brief summary, in chronological order, of the successive steps which Dr. Ryerson took to develop the system of education which he had founded. In 1855 Dr. Ryerson established meteorological stations in connection with twelve selected county grammar schools, ten following the coast line of the lakes and on the large rivers, and two entirely inland. In this he was aided by Colonel now General Sir (J. H.) Lefroy, R.E., for many years director of the Provincial (now Dominion) Magnetical Observatory at Toronto. Sets of instruments, having been purchased in London and tested at the Kew Observatory, were sent out to the twelve stations, duly equipped and provided with all necessary appliances. In 1857 Dr. Ryerson made his third educational tour in Europe, where he procured, at Antwerp, Brussels, Florence, Rome, Paris and London, an admirable collection of copies of paintings by the Old Masters, statues, busts, etc., besides various other articles of a typical character for an educational museum in connection with the Department. In 1867 I was deputed to largely add to this museum collection, which I did in Paris, London, etc., especially in the direction of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities, busts, casts, fictile ivory, etc. In 1858-61 Dr. Ryerson took a leading part in a protracted public discussion before a committee of the House of Assembly, in favor of grants to the various "outlying" denominational universities, chiefly in terms of Hon. Robert Baldwin's liberalized University Act of 1853. He maintained that these colleges "did the State some service," and that it was right that their claims should be recognised in a substantial manner, as colleges of a central university. He deprecated the multiplication of universities in the Province, which he held would be the result of a rejection of the proposed scheme. His plan was not adopted, and universities were increased from five to eight subsequently. Twenty-five years after the close of that discussion a scheme for the confederation of these colleges was again considered but without much effect. In 1862, Dr. Ryerson addressed a circular to boards of trustees in cities and towns, deploring the "numbers of children in these centers of population, growing up with no other education than a training in idleness, vagrancy and crime." He added: "I have, at different times, submitted three propositions or plans for the accomplishment of the object of free schools in cities and towns. First, that as the property of all is taxed for the common school education of all, all should be compelled to allow their children the means of such education at either public or private schools. Or, secondly, that each municipality should be empowered to deal with the vagrancy of children of school age, or the neglect of their education, as a crime, subject to such penalties and such measures for its prevention as each municipality, in its own discretion, might from time to time adopt. Or, thirdly, that the aid of religious benevolence should be invoked and encouraged to supplement the agency of our present school system." Before bringing the matter again before the Government, Dr. Ryerson solicited the opinion and suggestions of the school boards on the subject. BISHOP FRASER'S ESTIMATE OF THE U. C. SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IN 1863. In 1863, Rev. James (afterwards Bishop) Fraser (of Manchester), was appointed a Royal Commission to enquire into the American and Canadian systems of education. From his report, published after his return to England, I quote the following passages:-- "The Canadian system of education, in those main features of it which are common to both Provinces, makes no pretence of being original. It confesses to a borrowed and eclectic character. The neighboring States of New York and Massachusetts, the Irish, English and Prussian systems, have all contributed elements, which have been combined with considerable skill, and the whole administered with remarkable energy, by those to whom its construction was confided. It appears to me, however, that its fundamental ideas were first developed by Mr. (now, I believe, Sir Arthur) Buller, in the masterly report on the state of education in Canada, which he addressed in the year 1838 to Lord Durham, the then Governor-General, in which he sketched the programme of a system, 'making,' as he candidly admitted, 'no attempt at originality, but keeping constantly in view, as models, the system in force in Prussia and the United States, particularly the latter, as being most adapted to the circumstances of the colony.' "As a result of Mr. Buller's recommendations, (not, however, till after the legislative union of the Provinces which Lord Durham had suggested, as the best remedy for the various political ills under which they severally laboured,) a law was passed in 1841, covering both Provinces in its range, for the establishment and maintenance of public schools. It provided for the appointment of a Superintendent of Education for the whole Province, with two Assistant Superintendents under him, one for each of the sections. A sum of $200,000 was appropriated for the support of schools, which was to be distributed among the several municipal districts, in proportion to the number of children of school age in each of them; $80,000 being assigned to Upper and $120,000 to Lower Canada, such being the then ratio of their respective populations. "The circumstances of the two sections, however, particularly in the proportions of Roman Catholics to Protestants in each, and the extent to which the Roman Catholic religion may be said to be established in Lower Canada, were soon found to be so different that insuperable difficulties were encountered in working a combined system under one central administration, and in 1845 the law was changed. The nominal office of Chief Superintendent was abolished, and the entire executive administration of the system was confined to the sectional superintendents, and the Provinces, for all educational purposes, again became separated. The law itself was thoroughly revised and adapted to the peculiar wants of each Province, as ascertained by experience; and ever since there have been two systems at work, identical in their leading idea, differing, sometimes widely, in their details, administered by independent executives, and without any organic relations at all. "Before we proceed to observe the manner and record the results of its practical working, it is proper to premise that it is a purely permissive, not a compulsory system, and its adoption by any municipality is entirely voluntary.... Entering a Canadian school, with American impressions fresh upon the mind, the first feeling is one of disappointment. One misses the life, the motion, the vivacity, the precision--in a word, the brilliancy. But as you stay, and pass both teacher and pupils in review, the feeling of disappointment gives way to a feeling of surprise. You find that this plain, unpretending teacher has the power, and has successfully used the power, of communicating real, solid knowledge and good sense to those youthful minds, which, if they do not move rapidly, at least grasp, when they do take hold, firmly. If there is an appearance of what the Americans call "loose ends" in the school, it is only an appearance. The knowledge is stowed away compactly enough in its proper compartments, and is at hand, not perhaps very promptly, but pretty surely, when wanted. To set off against their quickness, I heard many random answers in American schools; while, per contra to the slowness of the Canadian scholar, I seldom got a reply very wide of the mark. The whole teaching was homely, but it was sound. I chanced to meet a schoolmaster at Toronto, who had kept school in Canada, and was then keeping school at Haarlem, New York, and he gave Canadian education the preference for thoroughness and solid results. Each system--or rather, I should say, the result of each system--seems to harmonize best with the character of the respective peoples. The Canadian chooses his type of school as the Vicar of Wakefield's wife chose her wedding-gown, and as the Vicar of Wakefield chose his wife, "not for a fine, glossy surface, but for such qualities as will wear well." I cannot say, judging from the schools which I have seen--which I take to be types of their best schools--that their choice has been misplaced, or that they have any reason to be disappointed with the results. I speak of the general character of education to which they evidently lean. That the actual results should be unequal, often in the widest possible degree, is true of education under all systems, everywhere. "One of the most interesting features in the Canadian system is the way in which it has endeavored to deal with what we find to be one of our most formidable difficulties, the religious difficulty. In Canada it has been dealt with by the use of two expedients; one, by prescribing certain rules and regulations, which it was hoped would allow of religious instruction being given in the schools without introducing sectarianism or hurting consciences; the other, by permitting, in certain cases, the establishment of "separate," which are practically denominational, and in fact Roman Catholic schools. "The permission under certain circumstances to establish separate, that is, denominational schools, is a peculiar feature of the system both of Upper and Lower Canada. Dr. Ryerson thinks that the admission of the principle is a thing to be regretted, though at the same time he considers that the advantages which it entails entirely rest with those who avail themselves of its provisions, and he would not desire to see any coercion used either to repeal or modify them. "Such, in all its main features, is the school system of Upper Canada. A system, in the eyes of its administrators, who regard it with justifiable self-complacency, not perfect but yet far in advance, as a system of national education, of anything that we can show at home. It is indeed very remarkable to me that in a country, occupied in the greater part of its area by a sparse and anything but wealthy population, whose predominant characteristic is as far as possible removed from the spirit of enterprise, an educational system so complete in its theory and so capable of adaptation in practice should have been originally organized, and have been maintained in what, with all allowances, must still be called successful operation for so long a period as twenty-five years. It shows what can be accomplished by the energy, determination and devotion of a single earnest man. What national education in Great Britain owes to Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, what education in New England owes to Horace Mann, that debt education in Canada owes to Egerton Ryerson. He has been the object of bitter abuse, of not a little misrepresentation; but he has not swerved from his policy or from his fixed ideas. Through evil report and good report he has resolved, and he has found others to support him in the resolution, that free education shall be placed within the reach of every Canadian parent for every Canadian child. I hope I have not been ungenerous in dwelling sometimes upon the deficiencies in this noble work. To point out a defect is sometimes the first step towards repairing it; and if this report should ever cross the ocean and be read by those of whom it speaks, I hope, not with too great freedom, they will perhaps accept the assurance that, while I desired to appreciate, I was bound, above all, to be true; and that even where I could not wholly praise) I never meant to blame. Honest criticism is not hostility." * * * * * In a letter addressed to Dr. Ryerson in 1875, the Bishop says:-- "I take it very kindly in you that you remember an old acquaintance, and I have read with interest your last report. I am glad to observe progress in the old lines almost everywhere. I was flattered also to find that some words of mine, written in 1865, are thought worthy of being quoted.... It is pleasant to find a public servant now in the thirty-second year of his incumbency, still so hopeful and so vigorous. Few men have lived a more useful or active life than you, and your highest reward must be to look back upon what you have been permitted to achieve." Speaking of the character of Dr. Ryerson's educational work and of the way in which he met difficulties in accomplishing it, Mr. J. Antisell Allen, of Kingston, in his paper on "_Dr. Ryerson, a Review and a Study_," says:-- "There is hardly a foot-length of our civilization on which he has not left his mark. For those who believe that, on the grounds of expediency, a government is justified in interfering with the ordinary working of the great human life-struggle, and so, in taking one man's money to benefit another man's children, that is to a majority so overwhelming as to come almost under the category of universal, as to be every one's belief--what system of general education can recommend itself more fully, or work more smoothly, than does his? In his struggles in this direction, neither seduced by friends, nor cowed by enemies, nor damped in his ardour by the vastness of the undertaking--turning neither to the right hand nor to the left--he has raised to himself a "_monumentum perennius ære_," and has bequeathed to us and posterity a system of public and high school education second to none anywhere, and, making some deduction for possible mistakes incident to our weak humanity, a system almost as perfect as we in this generation are perhaps capable of generally acquiescing in." In 1867 Dr. Ryerson made his fourth and final educational tour in Europe and America. On his return he submitted to the Government a highly valuable "Special Report on the Systems and State of Popular Education in the several countries in Europe and the United States of America, with practical suggestions for the improvement of public instruction in Upper Canada." He also made a separate and interesting "Report on the Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb in various countries." A few years afterwards he had the happiness of seeing institutions of a similar kind in successful operation in this Province. CHARACTER OF THE IMPORTANT SCHOOL LEGISLATION OF 1871. The fifth and last series of conventions was held in 1869, and on the results of the consultations and deliberations of these conventions, Dr. Ryerson framed that crowning measure of his administration, which received the sanction of the legislature in 1871--twenty-one years after the first great departure in school legislation--that of 1850. For the various objects which he had recommended during the years from 1850 to 1871, liberal grants were made by the Legislature. The policy of the Government during those years was to sustain Dr. Ryerson and to second his efforts to build up and consolidate the system of public instruction which he had taken such pains to establish. The result was that our school system expanded and grew in every direction, and became firmly rooted in the affections of the people. In this way it came to be regarded as one of the most successful and popular systems of education on the continent. And yet, as I have shown, he was continually suggesting improvements in it, for he always held that there was room, as well as a necessity, for them. School legislation, chiefly in regard to high schools and matters of detail, took place at intervals during the intervening years, but it was is 1871 and 1874 that the final legislation under Dr. Ryerson's auspices took place. That of 1871 was strikingly progressive and took a wide range. That of 1874 was largely supplemental and remedial. The Act of 1871 introduced into our school law for the first time some important principles, which, as yet, had not received legislative sanction. They were chiefly those which related, among others, to the following matters: 1. Governmental, combined with improved local, inspection of schools. 2. A high and fixed standard of qualifications for inspectors of public schools. 3. The abolition of non-certificated township superintendents of schools, and the substitution therefor of duly licensed county inspectors. 4. The institution of simultaneous and uniform examinations in the several counties for teachers desiring certificates of qualification. This principle was soon extended to other examinations, including competitive examinations in counties, etc. REVIEW OF THE SCHOOL LEGISLATION OF 1871. At Dr. Ryerson's request I prepared for him and wrote the text of his education report for 1870. In that report I reviewed in detail the various provisions and improvements introduced into our school system by the School Act of 1871. I reproduce here the more salient points of that report, touching upon the reasons for the passing of that progressive measure, and indicating some of its main features. I said:-- So many and important have been the changes recently made in the law affecting our System of Public Instruction, that it may be well, as a preliminary to a discussion of those changes, briefly to refer to a few facts relating to the history and progress of our School System. In 1844, our municipal system (on which our then elementary School Law was engrafted), was in its infancy. The principle of local self-government was new, and much opposition was experienced in giving effect to the School Law then in operation. The theory of local taxation for the support of schools was in some places vigorously opposed, and in others regarded as a doubtful experiment. Even as late as 1850, some municipalities refused to accept the improved law enacted that year, or act under its provisions, and thus deprived their constituents of the great boon of popular education. It is only six years since the last disability, caused by such refusal, was removed,--thus uniting the entire Province in a cordial acceptance of the School Law. The following brief statistical references will illustrate the growth and advance of our School System:-- In 1844, there were but 2,610 Public Schools, in 1870, there were 4,566. In that year, (1844), the school population was 183,539--of which 96,756 children attended the Public Schools, while 86,783 (or nearly as many more) were reported as not in attendance at any school whatever. In 1870, the school population was 483,966--of which 420,488 children were in attendance in our schools, and 63,478 reported as not in attendance--not one-seventh, instead of nearly one-half of the children of school age, as in 1844. In 1844, the whole sum available for the support of the Public Schools was about $280,000--of which, approximately $190,000 were raised by local taxation.[55] In 1870, the whole sum available for Public Schools was $1,712,060--of which $1,336,383 were raised by local taxation and fees--an increase of more than seven hundred per cent over 1844! [55] In 1850, (the first year in which we have positive information on this subject), we find that the total sum expended in this Province for public elementary education, was $410,472; of which $326,472 were raised by local rates and fees. There are few Canadians who do not now refer with an mixed pride and satisfaction to the vastly improved condition of our Public Schools under the operation of the present law, revised in 1850, and now revised and extended.[56] On no one point have we greater cause for thankfulness and congratulation, than in the fact of the unanimity and cordiality with which our School System is supported by all classes of the community, by men of all shades of political feeling, and, with a single exception (and that in part only), of all religious persuasions in the Province. [56] No one is more sensible than I am of the numerous defects of our School system, and for this reason I have labored all the more assiduously to have these detects removed by our recent school legislation. As I have stated further on, I have even had to combat the views of those friends of the system who had thought that it was not susceptible of much improvement. OBJECTIONS TO IMPROVE OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM ANSWERED. It is a singular and gratifying (yet in some respect it has proved an embarrassing) fact that the chief difficulty experienced in promoting the improvement of our School System has arisen from the somewhat over-sensitiveness of the friends of our Schools, lest the proposed changes should disturb the foundations of a system which they had learned to regard with so much favor and affection. This solicitude arose partly from a mistaken view of the condition and necessities of our system, and partly from a misapprehension of the scope and objects of the proposed ameliorations in our School Law. It will be my aim, however, in the following remarks to justify and illustrate the principles and policy involved in the recent important changes which have been made in our School Law. I would, in the first place, remark that were we, in making improvements in our School System, to confine our observation and experience to our own Province alone, we might be disposed to look with complacency upon that system, and to rest satisfied with the progress which we have already made. The effect of such a state of feeling would be that we would seek to profit little by the educational experience and advancement of other countries. But such a short-sighted and unpatriotic course, though approved by some on the principle of "let well-alone," yet would not commend itself to the maturer judgment of those who are accustomed to look at the "stern logic of facts," and to take a comprehensive and practical view of the underlying causes of the social progress in other countries. 5. The fixing and rendering uniform of a higher standard of qualification for public and high school teachers. 6. Giving the profession of teaching a fixed legal status, and providing more fully and equitably for the retirement and united support, by the profession and the legislature, of worn out or disabled teachers. 7. The establishment by law of a national system of free schools. 8. Declaring the right by law, as well as the necessity, of every child to attend some school, thus recognizing the principle of, and providing for, "compulsory education." 9. Requiring, by law, that adequate school accommodation, in regard to school house, playground and site, be provided by the trustees, for all of the resident children of school age in their localities. 10. Prescribing a more systematic and practical course of study for each of the classes in the public schools. 11. Discriminating, by a clearly defined line, the course of study in public and high schools respectively. 12. Providing for the establishment and support of collegiate institutes, or local colleges. 13. Requiring municipalities to maintain high schools and collegiate institutes, equally with the public schools, and as part of the general school system. 14. Providing, at the option of the ratepayers, for the substitution of township boards of education, in place of local trustee boards. 15. Authorizing the establishment of industrial schools. * * * * * Such were the main features of the comprehensive and progressive School Act passed in 1871. In many respects it revolutionized the existing state of things. It gave a wonderful impetus to the schools, and to every department of school system--the effects of which we feel to this day. We are a young country, placed in close proximity to a large and wonderfully progressive people. In the good providence of God, we are permitted to construct on the broad and deep foundations of British liberty, the corner-stone of a new nationality, leaving to those who come after us to raise the stately edifice itself. Apart from the vital Christianity of our people, what more lasting bond and cement of society in that new nationality, than a free and comprehensive system of Christian education for the youth of the land, such as we have sought to establish? Our aim should, therefore, be to make that system commensurate with the wants of our people, in harmony with the progressive spirit of the times, and comprehensive enough to embrace the various branches of human knowledge which are now continually being called into requisition in the daily life of the farmer, the artizan, and the man of business. In no department of social and national progress have our neighbors made greater advances, or prided themselves more justly, than, in that of free popular education. On the other hand, in no feature of progress under British institutions up to a late period has there been less satisfaction, as a whole, or less positive advancement than in that of public education. By many of our neighbors on the other side of the lines, such inertness and non-appreciation of a vital part of national life has been regarded as inherent in monarchical institutions. The fact, however, has been overlooked that the lingering effects of the long prevalence in Britain of the feudal theory, on which her social and political institutions were originally founded, has, in spite of various ameliorations in the condition of her people, exercised a sure but silent influence against the earlier adoption of the principle of the free and universal education of the people. But so surely and certainly has this latent feeling of opposition to popular education given way before the prevalence of more enlightened views, that, even in the most monarchical countries of Europe, the desire felt and the efforts put forth for the diffusion of public education in all its comprehensiveness and fulness have been remarkable. Nevertheless, even among ourselves, that principle of latent opposition to popular education did exist in the earlier stages of our educational history. Its gradual removal, therefore, under the beneficent operation of our School Laws, and the prevalence of juster and more patriotic views in matter of education are subjects of sincere congratulation to our people. NECESSITY FOR THE CHANGES IN THE SCHOOL LAW OF ONTARIO IN 1871. We will now proceed, in the light of the educational facts and illustrations which we have given from other countries, to discuss the recent improvements which have been effected in our own law. The population of this Province, according to the recent census, is 1,620,842. The number of children of school age is 483,966, or a little over one-fourth of the whole. The number of Elementary Schools is not much below 5,000, and are maintained at an annual cost of nearly $1,800,000, or one dollar per head of the population. Such being the magnitude to which our Educational System has grown, every man will feel how imperative it is upon us to see that that system is as thorough and complete in all of its details as possible; and that in no respect should it be allowed to fall below the standard now reached by the other educating countries to which we have referred. So long as our system of schools was in its infancy, and might be fairly regarded as yet an experiment, so long as we confine our efforts to mere elementary organization and be content with very moderate results. Experience has shown, however, that without great care and constant effort the tendency of all systems of education, and ours among the rest, is to a state of equilibrium, or to a uniform dead level of passable respectability. This is the stage in its history, as elsewhere, at which our system has arrived, and at which, as we have explained, many of its friends are disposed to leave it. But those who have carefully studied the subject in all its bearings, and have looked more closely into the educational history, the progress and failures of other countries, know full well that our school system would fall behind that of other countries and become stationary, unless it embodies within itself from time to time the true elements of progress, and provides fully and on a sufficient scale for the educational wants of the youth of the country. Since 1850 it was left to the ratepayers in each school division to decide annually whether the schools should be free or partly supported by rate-bill on pupils attending the school. The principle, that a Public School education is the right of every child in the land, and that every man should contribute, according to his property, to the education of every child in the community, by whose influence and labors such property is protected and rendered valuable, had greatly obtained, so that Free Schools had increased from one hundred to five hundred per annum, until upwards of four thousand of the four thousand four hundred Public Schools were made free by actual experiments, and by the annual discussions and votes in these primary meetings of the people. The demand was very general for several years, that all the Public Schools should now be made free by law, and all local disputes on the subject be thus terminated. This has now been happily accomplished by the new law. It is not necessary to go farther into detail in this retrospect, as the foregoing extracts indicate the scope and spirit of the improved Act of 1871. HON. ADAM CROOKS ON THE SCHOOL INSPECTION LEGISLATION OF 1871. In his speech before the Legislative Assembly on the 18th of February, 1877, the first Minister of Education for Ontario, in referring to the improved system of school inspection introduced by the Act of 1871, and the more certain tenure of office secured to County Inspectors under that Act, said: "I have also been ready to say that most valuable results were secured by the change in the law in 1871, under which the present mode of school inspection took the place of the old plan of local superintendence. Inspectors now must possess high qualifications, both as teachers and in scholarship, while the emoluments of the office make it an object of ambition to every school teacher; and we have many teachers in the Province who posses qualifications of the high standard prescribed for Public School Inspectors. The tenure of the office of County Inspector is such as should secure their impartiality. So long as an Inspector discharges his duties efficiently, he can be removed only by a two-thirds majority of the County Council. It is unlikely that such two-thirds majority would be found unless the Inspector had given reasonable cause for his dismissal. It would not be wise therefore to alter the tenure by which County Inspectors hold office." EFFECT OF THE SCHOOL ACT OF 1871 IN THE COUNTY OF HALDIMAND. The following valuable testimony as to the great improvement in our schools which was wrought through the agency of the School Act of 1871, is highly suggestive and practical in its character. What is true of Haldimand, as here expressed, is also true of other parts of the Province. In an address to the teachers of Haldimand in 1873, Mr. Inspector Harcourt, M.P.P., said:-- "No one, whose attention has been called to the matter, could imagine the miserable condition of the majority of the school-houses of 1871. At that time there were not ten properly furnished buildings in Haldimand. Many of them with low ceilings, broken floors and damaged windows, had for seats nothing better than the antiquated bench facing the wall. Too cold or too hot by turns in winter, and suffocating in summer. With nothing to attract and everything to discourage scholars, we wonder that an intelligent public has so long tolerated their existence.... In the main, however, I am especially gratified at the improvements effected. In two years sixteen brick buildings have been erected; all of them substantial and well furnished--some of them models of neatness and finish. In a dozen sections preparations are being made for replacing the old houses, so that we have good reason to hope that in a year or two, at furthest, our country will no longer be noticeable for the miserable style of its school-houses." "Connected with the question of progress in certain branches of study, in relation of which I might say of cause and effect, are the two items of Examination of Teachers and School Accommodation. The provisions now in force for the examination of teachers are such that, if wisely carried out, the standard of the profession must be raised, and along with it the status of our schools.... The fact that somehow or another teachers received first and second class certificates, three or four years ago, who could not now obtain a third; that while it was exceptional for an applicant to fail then, those who succeed now are but thirty per cent. of the whole is known to all of us.... "To summarize the foregoing statements we HAVE progressed since 1871, swiftly in one particular, slowly and steadily in several others."--_Address, pages 5-7._ EFFECT OF THE SCHOOL LAW OF 1871 IN THE COUNTY OF SIMCOE (SOUTH.) At the inauguration of the new school-house in Barrie in 1872, the Rev. Wm. McKee, B.A., Inspector of Schools in South Simcoe, stated what had been the salutary effect of the School Law of 1871 in his county. He said:-- During my visits to the schools I found many of the school-houses of a very inferior description--being rude log buildings, old and dilapidated, with seats and desks of a corresponding character, often situated on the edge of the road, and without wells, offices, playgrounds or fencing of any kind; so that it is quite certain and plain the requirements of the new School Law have not come into force at all too soon, so far as the interests and advancement of education in this part of Ontario are concerned. Indeed truth obliges me to state that in the Riding which forms my field of labour--and I believe the remark will hold true with still greater force in regard to North Simcoe--the school-houses which are sufficiently large, well ventilated, fully furnished, and provided with an adequate supply of requisites are very few--perhaps less than half-a-dozen all told. It is true, however, that since the New School Law and Regulations came into operation there are indications of a change for the better in regard to the matters to which I have alluded. I could mention not less than twelve or fourteen school sections in which steps have _already_ been, or are being taken for the erection of new school-houses which are designed to replace the old buildings, and which, in regard to adequate school accommodation, are also intended to meet the requirements of the New School Law, and to be in every way suitable for school purposes. And it is to be distinctly noticed that in all the cases to which I have referred, the _initiative_ has been taken by the people or the trustees themselves; and I, for my part, feel that I cannot but regard this as a very significant fact--a very hopeful and encouraging symptom. I look upon it as an omen for good, and as an important and gratifying evidence of the favourable and successful working of the New School Law and Regulations. For being intimately acquainted with the southern part of the county for the last fifteen years, I have no hesitation in maintaining that the effects spoken of, or the action taken by school trustees or the people, can be fairly traced to no other cause than to the working and influence of the New School Law and Regulations. I can testify that latterly--I mean particularly since the passing of the New School Act--I have marked among the people of these townships a deepening sense of the importance of a sound education, and likewise an increasing desire to encourage and promote it. I have noticed, also, I think, both among trustees and parents, a growing conviction that not only the efficiency of the teacher, but, also the discipline and spirit of a school, the progress of children in their studies, their proper training, and their successful education, are far more intimately connected than it was one time imagined, with the style and character of the schoolroom in which the work of instruction is carried on, and with the kind of school accommodations provided for and enjoyed by pupils.[57] [57] These two extracts are given simply as illustrative examples, and as they were public utterances of the Inspectors named. Similar testimony was received by the Department from other Inspectors, but, from the nature of the case, and their non-publication in the local newspapers, they were not subject to the same criticism as were the statements publicly made and published in the localities concerned. CHAPTER V. A SPECIAL CHAPTER ON THE STATE EDUCATION IN THE "OLDEN TIME" IN UPPER CANADA. In this special chapter, I insert a series of interesting papers, illustrative of what may be called the interior or domestic character of school life in its various phases, in Upper Canada, from the time of the passing of Dr. Ryerson's first School Act, in 1846, to the passing of his last School Act, in 1871. These papers give a graphic, bird's-eye view of the state of the school, school houses and school teachers in the years gone by. They are by representative men--inspectors, public men and school teachers, and they are, therefore, interesting and valuable, as giving the result of the personal observation of these gentlemen. The personal experience of the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald is of an earlier date than those which follow, and refers to one of the most noted of the old District Grammar Schools. It is highly interesting as a reminiscence of the early training of one of our most noted public men, and one, under whose auspices, the important School Act of 1871 was passed. HON. J. SANDFIELD MACDONALD'S SCHOOL DAYS--HIS REMINISCENCES OF THEM. At a public dinner given to the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald in 1870, he thus referred to his early school days:-- "My friend, Judge Jarvis, has referred to my early life, and has very properly remarked that this is the country that offers the widest field to the industrious, or to a man of energy if he only possesses a modicum of brains.... It is true what the Judge states that I arrived in Cornwall forty years ago next autumn.... I was engaged in a dry goods store. But the Judge has told you that I was not satisfied with that state of things. I went to the school here, which has had a reputation it may be proud of ever since the time of the late Bishop Strachan. It was the school that educated the Boultons, the McGills, and the Jarvises. In the school I entered, and there I had to strive with those who were able to be maintained by their parents. I worked against them at a great disadvantage, and would have succumbed but that I was cheered on by my venerable preceptor. Many others have struggled in that school of whom Canada should be proud. One of them particularly. He was one of the brightest and most talented of the men our eastern district can boast of. But providence has thought proper to take him away from his sphere of usefulness. Need I say that I refer to that ornament of the Bench, the late Chancellor Vankoughnet.--Were Dr. Urquhart able to boast of no other pupil but that honourable gentleman, he might have retired on his laurels. If that old gentleman had not sent me a letter of encouragement I would not have been here, as I was about to break down for want of means. This letter was written in 1835, and ... I cannot help shewing what was thought of me by one who had the most perceptive idea of the ability of his pupils. This letter had the effect of making me bear up in my struggle with my superiors in position and was as follows: "'These certify that the bearer, Mr. John S. McDonald, was a pupil in the Eastern District School, from the 19th Nov., 1832, to the 23rd Dec. last; that during that period his industry and application were close and assiduous, and that his progress in the several branches of study, to which he directed his attention, was highly respectable, and very considerably exceeded what is usually made in the same space of time; that the perseverance manifested in overcoming the difficulties to be encountered at the outset of a classical and mathematical education, called forth the particular remark and approval of his teacher, as indicating considerable energy of character, and as an earnest of future success in the prosecution of his studies. Moreover, that his general deportment during the same period, was most exemplary, and becoming, evincing at all times a kindly disposition towards his fellow students and a most respectful deference to the discipline of the school; and that, if the good opinion and good wishes of his teacher can on any occasion profit him, he is justly entitled to both.'" "I owe all the spirit of independence which I have maintained throughout my career, to my learning in that school. After I left school I went into the study of the law, in the office of the late Mr. McLean." EDUCATION IN THE COUNTY OF WELLINGTON UNDER DR. RYERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. The following admirable resumé of the former state of education and of educational progress in the county of Wellington, and indeed throughout Ontario generally, was given in an address on "Then and Now," delivered before a public meeting in Guelph, in May, 1880, by Hon. Charles Clarke, ex-Speaker of the House of Assembly. After some preliminary remarks, Mr. Clarke said:-- Little more than thirty years ago, much of the country, now known as the county of Wellington, was a wilderness. The territory north of Guelph was almost unsettled, beyond the townships of Nichol, and the settled portion possessed but few residents. In Wellington, the upper tier of townships had scarcely been entered upon, and names of places now "familiar as household words" were unknown. Such roads as there were had been simply cut through the bush, and had experienced little other improvement than that which the axe, the handspike, the logging chain and fire had afforded. Peel was in the early stage of settlement; Maryboro was almost unknown; Minto was really a _terra incognito_; Luther was, in popular estimation, a vast and irreclaimable swamp; Arthur had a mere handful of settlers; Mount Forest was a nameless and unbroken government reserve for a town plot, covered with virgin forest; Elora possessed some half-dozen houses; such places as Harriston, Palmerston and Drayton were not even a dream of the future; and the gravel roads, thrifty villages, and smiling farms which now make pleasant travel from the northern bank of the Grand River to the utmost bounds of Wellington, were covered with thick and luxuriant growth of maple, hemlock, elm and cedar. Everything was in primitive shape, and yet the mark of future progress was made, here and there, and coming events cast their shadow. Oxen were far more numerous than teams of horses, and neither could be regarded as plentiful. The axe was more busy than the plough, and regularly prepared more acres for the annual sowing. Money was scarce, produce was low in price, barter was the rule and not the exception, postal communication was defective, wages were poor, and "hard times" were as commonly talked about and as earnestly believed in as to-day, when, measured by the past, the term is comparatively meaningless. There was a feeling of despondency throughout the community, and people were divided as to the cause of the general depression. Some blamed the Rebellion of a few years before; others said that the effects of Family Compactism had not yet died away; and still others attributed all evils to the newly effected Union between Upper and Lower Canada. There is little wonder that, at such a time, schools and schoolmasters were under the weather, and reckoned as but of "small account" by many of our people. EARLY SCHOOL LEGISLATION IN 1841, 1843 AND 1846. Thanks to the energy, however, of a noble few, prominent amongst whom stood Egerton Ryerson, the Government of that day took steps to obtain information as to the system of public education in force in some of the states of the American Union and in Europe, and, taking Massachussetts and Prussia as a guide, enacted a sweeping amendment to School Act for Upper Canada, in the ninth year of Her Majesty's reign, and put it into operation in 1847. In 1841, the first Common School Law had been passed, and in 1843 it was amended, but the system was defective and unproductive of expected results. Under it, townships were divided into school sections, by township superintendents, who were practically uncontrolled, and therefore, in many instances, arbitrary, and these divisions were unequal in size, often unnecessarily small, and frequently unfairly made. The consequence of this state of things was unpopularity of the law, and a pretty general conviction that common schools were too often common nuisances. The report of the Superintendent of Education, for 1847, tells us that the system produced "miserable school-houses, poor and cheap teachers, interrupted and temporary instruction and heavy rate-bills." In some districts, before the passage of the amending School Act, 9 Vic. Chap. 20, the District Council had never imposed a school assessment, depending for school maintenance entirely upon the small legislative grant apportioned to each district, and an equivalent raised solely by rate-bills or voluntary contributions. No uniformity existed in the use of class books, the township superintendent or the teacher, or even the parent dictating what should be employed in each particular section. In 1846, no fewer than 13 different spelling books, 107 readers, 35 arithmetics, 20 geographies, 21 histories, and 16 grammars, were used in our Common Schools, besides varying class books on other subjects. INFERIOR QUALIFICATIONS OF TEACHERS AND VARIED METHODS OF TEACHING. The methods of teaching were almost as numerous as the teachers, and followed no specified rule. Sometimes it was by classes, often by individuals, and in other cases by an extensive use of monitors, being generally a mixture of the three styles, and nearly always a higgledy-piggledy, go-as-you-please arrangement, as easy as possible to the teacher, and as unproductive of good results to the pupil as such indefinite work might be fully expected to be. And the character of the teachers, speaking in general terms, and not forgetting many bright exceptions, was not above suspicion. Certificates were granted by township superintendents, who too often relieved the charitable, and the district council, by thrusting into the school-house the ne'er-do-wells, the infirm, the crippled, the sickly and the unfortunate, who, under ordinary circumstances, would have become dependent upon the good nature and benevolence of their fellow-citizens. In one district a superintendent, after the passage of the new School Law, was compelled to give notice that he would not grant certificates to any candidates unless they were strictly sober, and that he would cancel the certificates of all teachers who suffered themselves at any time to become intoxicated. And, we are gravely informed, the result was that a majority, not all, of the hitherto intemperate teachers became thoroughly temperate men, and that the incorrigible were dismissed. The quality of the teachers may be guessed at very fairly, it is safe to say, from the salaries paid to them. In 1845, the average was £26 2s, or $104.40; in 1846, £26 4s, or $104.80; and in 1847, £28 10s, or $114, and this, too, for the most part, exclusive of board. Had the schools been kept open during the whole of the teaching months of these years, the salaries would have averaged $134 in 1845, $147 in 1846, and $148 in 1847. It must be borne in mind that, in those days, male were much more numerous than female teachers, so that the smaller amounts generally paid to those of the gentler sex had comparatively little influence in lessening the general average. The parsimony and poverty of the people had much to do, of course, with the quality of the teacher, for men who could obtain higher wages at almost any other occupation, through physical or intellectual superiority, would not waste time and opportunity to earn more than the paltry pittance paid to the pedagogue, simply through philanthropic desire to advance the interests of the rising generation. DR. RYERSON'S TEST OF THE INTELLIGENCE OF A SCHOOL SECTION. Says Dr. Ryerson, in the report to which I am indebted for these facts: "This small compensation of teachers is the great source of inefficiency in the common schools. Persons of good abilities and attainments will not teach for little or nothing so long as they can obtain a more ample remuneration in other pursuits." He adds, in language as truthful, and as worthy of notice to-day, as when it was written: "People cannot obtain good teachers any more than good lawyers or physicians without paying for their services." And, as he says in the next sentence, so say we all, and so I am happy to observe are many of our school corporations saying all over the province: "The intelligence of any school section or corporation of trustees may be tested by the amount of salary they are disposed to give a good teacher." If Egerton Ryerson had said and done nothing more than this, he would have deserved the gratitude of every teacher in Ontario, simply because he had the courage to put upon record a sentiment which, at the time when he used the words, was eminently unpopular, and a direct and stinging rebuke to nearly every school-board then existent. In those days, cheap teachers were wanted, and the supply equalled the demand, while the pockets of the charitable were saved, a semblance of education was kept up, and the county poorhouses were not required so long as every other school section provided for one, at least, of those who would, in these days, be generally regarded as eligible candidates for admission thereto. The amount of interest taken in educational matters was not evidenced in small salaries alone. THE CHARACTER OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE ALSO A TEST. The school-house, in its quality, too often matched the teacher. Of 2,572 school-houses in Upper Canada in 1847, 49 only were of brick, and 84 of stone, the others being frame and log. Of the 2,500, 800, or about one-third, were in good repair; 98 had more than one room; 1,125, or less than half, were properly furnished with desks and seats; only 367 were provided with a suitable play-ground; and not more than 163, out of 2,572, had necessary outbuildings. Coming nearer home, we find that the municipalities now comprised in the county of Wellington contained, in 1847, 43 school-houses, of which one was built of stone, 9 were frame, and 33 were log, and the report states that only 13 were good, 25 were middling, and the balance were inferior. When we remember the standard of "goodness" in those days, when school authorities at Toronto were thankful for small favors in rural districts, we can have some faint idea of the character of the buildings pronounced inferior. It is probable that they came up to the style of accommodation of the Mapleton school, in Manitoba, which I find described in the last report of the Superintendent of Protestant Schools for that Province, as follows: "Found that since my last visit the school-house has been floored; it still required plastering and ceiling and weather-boarding." What sort of a building it was before these improvements were effected, it doesn't require a very active brain to imagine, and when you have the picture in your mind's eye you will have some conception of the pleasures of teaching in the "good old times," of less than half a century ago, in Upper Canada. SCHOOL CONDITION OF THE COUNTY OF WELLINGTON IN 1847. Returning to 1847, we are told that in the whole of Wellington District, composed of the territory now forming the three counties of Wellington, Waterloo and Grey, there were 102 schools, of which only 22 possessed good buildings. Let us glance for a moment at the then state of finances of the school corporations in which we feel most interested. Guelph township, including the village of Guelph, raised $507.38 by the municipal assessment, for school purposes, realized $556.75 from rate-bills, and received $416.69 from the legislative grant, or a total of $1,480.82, wherewith to pay seven teachers, maintain, more or less efficiently, ten schools, and afford instruction, good, bad or indifferent, as the case might be, to 517 scholars. The township of Puslinch was nearly abreast of Guelph, and kept up 10 schools, paid 13 teachers, and had 558 scholars on the roll, at an outlay of $1,381.86, but it must be remembered that if two or three teachers were employed, at different portions of the year, in one school, they increased the grand total of teachers for the year. It may have been that, while thirteen appear to have been engaged, there were not more, and probably less than ten employed for the full teaching year. In 1847, Erin had the highest number of scholars of any municipality in the county, having returned a total of 585, in six schools, and with eleven teachers, at an outlay of $1,039.06. Amaranth was at the foot of the list, with one school, one teacher, thirty-eight scholars, and an outlay, made up from rate-bill, assessment and legislative grant, of $68.04. Peel and Wellesley, combined, had one school, three teachers,--employed at some portion or other of the year,--and spent $80.52. Nichol (including Fergus and Elora), Eramosa and Garafraxa made returns,--the name Garafraxa being spelt with a double r, as I have found it to be in all old official documents,--but Pilkington, Arthur, Maryboro, Luther and Minto do not appear to have had school organization, not even municipal existence, while, of the whole county of Grey, Derby and Sydenham were alone mentioned in the return. It may be interesting to know--although I am aware, from painful experience, that listening to strings of figures is not the most enlivening occupation in the world,--that the whole amount paid for school purposes, in the county of Wellington, for that year, was $5,862, of which $5,763 was given to teachers, and that the average cost for each pupil taught was $2.10. One other fact may be adduced which will enable you to form a still clearer estimate of the educational status of Upper Canada at the date referred to. The Chief Superintendent had, in forms and regulations issued by him, specified the lowest general standard of qualification for teachers, but was forced to believe that a much lower standard had been acted upon by school visitors. These visitors were clergymen, magistrates and district councillors,--equivalent to our reeves,--and any two of them could examine a teacher, test his or her qualification, pretty much as they deemed best, and grant a certificate, available only for one school and one year, it is true, but nevertheless renewable, and answering every purpose of the certificate of to-day. It is not difficult to imagine a much more easy and varying examination, under such circumstances, than that which an improved system soon rendered necessary, and the quality of teachers so produced need not be further particularized. We have thus obtained some glimpse of the THEN of our educational facilities of a generation ago. The picture might be elaborated. It would be easy to fill in details from memory; to tell how the blind oft times led the blind; how the ignorant teacher insured the ignorant pupil; and how "schooling" was frequently a farce, and mere waste of time.... GREAT EDUCATIONAL ADVANCE MADE BY THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO SINCE 1847. That the Province has made enormous strides in population, wealth, intelligence and importance, during the last thirty years, admits of no doubt. Our forests have disappeared, an improved system of agriculture has followed, manufactories have sprung up, railways have connected every county, a daily press has become an established and indispensable institution, the telegraph has economized time by practically annihilating distance, while numerous inventions and discoveries have created new wants, and supplied as rapidly as they have made them. Without losing our characteristic love of hard work--I here speak of everybody in general, and nobody in particular, and purposely avoid all personal allusions--and that industrial enterprise which springs from it, we have become a reading and much more cultured people. The scholar, endowed with physical capacity equal to that possessed by an illiterate competitor, is worth more than he in the factory, the workshop, the store, the mill, the mine, or on the sea or farm. Cultivated brain has a market value, and book learning is no longer despised, or regarded with half contempt, as the mark distinguishing the mere dreamer from the worker. To possess the "Reason Why" is no proof now-a-days of physical and practical inferiority; to know a little of everything, and everything of something, is not now the peculiar privilege of the English Gentleman. Little wonder is there, therefore, that what the school has helped to bring about, should tend to make the school more valued. That such has been its effect we have but to look around to see. Where in 1847, we, in Upper Canada, had 2,863 school houses, our last returns show that we possess more than 5,000, and while the number has so largely increased the advance in value has been in much greater proportion. In 1847 we had, in all Upper Canada, but 49 school-houses built of brick; now we boast of 1,569 built of that material, or over thirty times as many. In 1847 we had eighty-four constructed of stone; now we claim more than 500. In 1847 half of our school buildings were of logs; now not more than a seventh are of that primitive character. There are no returns of money cost of buildings or of amount expended in their erection in 1847, but we find that the expenditure for all school purposes in that year, inclusive of teachers' salaries, was $350,000, while for 1877, for erection and repairs of school-houses, fuel, etc., alone we paid $1,035,390, and a total for school purposes of $3,073,489, or, in round numbers, nine times as much as in 1847. The improved financial value of the teacher is another strong testimony, willingly borne by the people, to their increased interest in education, for, as a rule, a free people will not pay for that which they fail to appreciate. In 1847 there was paid for teachers' salaries a total sum of $310,398. In 1877 the amount was $2,038,099. In 1847 there were 3,028 teachers employed, while in 1877 there were 6,468. In 1847, board was often given in addition to the nominal salary, and was, in fact, part of the teacher's remuneration. Grant that the teachers here enumerated as serving in 1847 were employed eight months in that year--which is more than the average--and put board at $2 per week, which was higher than was the average rate in those days--the average payment to each teacher would not exceed $170, and this was fully equal to, if not greater than was actually allowed. In 1877 the average amount paid to each teacher was $315. The larger amount willingly paid in 1877 for the support of Free Schools, than was unwillingly given in 1847, for the maintenance of rate-supported schools--for payment was then made under protest, and the school law was exceedingly unpopular, while rate-bills and contributions were nearly everywhere necessary, in addition to municipal assessments, to make up the teachers' salaries--is yet another proof of the hold which the educational movement has taken upon the judgment and sympathy of the people of Ontario. In 1847, too, pupils were grudgingly taught, at a cost of $2.80 per head, while in 1877 the average was $6.20. And when we add to all these things the fact that, in 1847, only 124,829 pupils attended our common schools, out of a school population of 230,975, or scarcely one in two, while in 1877, out of a school population of 494,804, not less than 490,860 names were entered on the roll, it is needless to say anything further in illustration of the marked contrast between the two periods, of the immense superiority of the present over the past condition of our schools, and of the public opinion which is necessary to their effective maintenance. GREAT ADVANCE ALSO IN THE STANDARD OF TEACHING ABILITY. And the standard of teaching ability, in so far as literary acquirements go, has kept pace with the progress which has otherwise characterized the history of a scholastic generation. We have long got past the period when any two magistrates, any two reeves, or even any two clergymen, could grant permission to teach, and annually invest the teacher with legal status. We subject our examiners themselves to examinations, have uniformity in the character of our examination papers, and propound questions to candidates which fully and fairly test their educational attainments. We have gone beyond _that_, and instituted county Normal Schools--for such our Model Schools may be fairly termed--at which we require applicants for a certificate to still further establish their fitness for the work upon which they seek to enter. We have not reached perfection, but we have travelled a long distance in the direction in which it lies. We have made every school practically free, built up a High School system which opens up to all seekers after higher education ample opportunity to prepare for the University course, at a minimum of cost, and placed our University upon such a footing that its advantages are not the exclusive privilege of the well-to-do, but are proffered to even the poorest student who cares to submit to a period of self-denial, and lose a little extra time in early life, for the purpose of securing them. As a people we have done no more than, probably not so much as, we ought to do, with the view of placing educational facilities within the reach of every child born or brought into the Province, but we have, nevertheless, ventured and effected more than has been attempted in many older and more wealthy lands. We have the consciousness of having done our duty, according to our lights. In our long-settled sections of country the school-house bell is within the hearing, or the school-house itself is within sight of nearly every family. In newer portions of the Province, wherever half-a-dozen or so of clearances are commenced, in the wilds of Muskoka or Algoma, provision is made for the instruction of the little ones who bless those backwoods' homes. The school-master is abroad throughout the land, and is doing much to ensure a glowing future for our country, and when his work is done, and he is compelled to retire from his labors, we willingly open the public purse and give to him that which keeps him above absolute penury, and assures him that, while Ontario cares only to help those who possess the disposition to help themselves, she is neither ungrateful nor forgetful. And, seeing all these things, we cannot help feeling that our youthful Province may modestly and yet proudly lift her head amongst the nations of the earth, assured that there are none who can reproach her with neglect of the first and best interests of those little children whom God has entrusted to her keeping. STATE OF EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA IN 1847-1849. From an elaborate report prepared by the Rev. W. H. Landon, School Superintendent, to the Municipal Council of the district of Brock (county of Oxford) in 1849, I make the following extracts. The first refers to the educational supineness of the people:-- "Up to a recent period (say the last two years), the people, generally, seems to have entered upon no enquiries, and to have formed no just conclusion on the subject of education, or the proper means of imparting it. They seemed to think, if they thought at all, that all schools were equal, and that all teachers who could read, write, etc., in a better manner than their pupils were equally good.... As to books, it was supposed that any one, or any ten of the fifty different varieties of spelling books in use, with the English Reader, was all that was requisite for the reading classes, while a few treatises on arithmetic taken at random from the almost endless variety with which the country was flooded, would supply the means of imparting & knowledge of the science of numbers, and two or three grammars by as many different authors, would supply material for the grammar class and complete the stock of text books for the schools."... Mr. Landon draws the following graphic picture of the school-house "shanties" of those days. He also gives a vivid view of the interior: "The school-houses in many instances (though not in all) are miserable shanties made of logs loosely and roughly put together; the interstices filled with clay, portions of which are from time to time crumbling down filling the place with filth and dust. Under your feet are loose boards, without nails, across which, when one walks, a clatter is produced equal to that heard in a lumber yard. Over your head are the naked rafters, stained with smoke and hung with cobwebs and dust. Two or three little windows, generally half way up the walls, admit the light; and a rough door which does not fit the opening, creaks upon its wooden hinges.... The writing desks are generally long sloping shelves pinned up against the walls as high as the breasts of the pupils who sit before them. The seats are without backs and from eighteen inches to two feet high. Sometimes we have a master's desk, but awkwardly constructed, for the most part too high for the sitting posture and too low for the standing one.... We have no blackboards, no maps and no illustrative apparatus of any kind. "When we enter one of these schools, we behold a picture of discomfort and misery. The children are perched upon the benches before described: but as they have no support for their backs, and as only the taller of them can reach the floor with their feet, marks of weariness and pain are visible in their features and postures. Some to procure rest and ease to their aching frames have drawn up both feet upon the bench and are sitting cross-legged like a tailor on the shop board. Others stooping forward, rest their elbows upon their knees, with one hand supporting their chins and with the other holding up their books before their weary eyes; while all avail themselves of every possible excuse to change their position and so obtain relief. Some asking permission to go out, others to get a drink, and many constantly flocking to the teacher's desk with words to be pronounced, sums to be examined and corrected, pens to be mended, or difficulties to be explained, in connection with grammar, or other lesson, etc. So that the place is filled with noise and disorder, rendering study impossible and anything like the cultivation of cheerful and benevolent affections entirely out of the question."... Then follows an example of the character of the teaching "in a school in the centre of one of the largest and wealthiest townships" in the district of Brock:-- "This school was taught by a person who in his youth had enjoyed what we term superior advantages, being connected with a family of highest respectability. Notice of my intended visit had several days before been sent to the teacher. The female pupils had ... decorated the place with evergreens and bouquets of flowers. The room, though humble and coarse, was neat and tidy. When I entered, the class in the fourth book of lessons was reading. A book was put into my hands and I desired them to proceed.... When they were done reading I proceeded to examine them on the lesson. Great Britain was mentioned in the lesson and allusion made to her people and institutions. My first question, therefore was--Where is Great Britain? From the vacant and surprised stare with which this question was received I was satisfied that they had no clear conception of what Great Britain was.... I finally asked what is the form of Government in Great Britain? As no answer was given, I ... asked whether a King, Queen or President governed in Great Britain? To this question a pupil, aided by the teacher, who whispered in her ear, replied a Queen. I than asked her name.... After a good deal of hesitation, a young woman of eighteen or twenty years of age, replied "Queen Elizabeth!" THE OLD LOG SCHOOL HOUSE AND ITS BELONGINGS. In connection with the realistic picture of education in the County of Oxford, in 1847-49, sketched by the Rev. W. H. Landon, District Superintendent, the following dual pictures of "The Old Log School" and "The Pioneer Teachers," taken from the Toronto _Globe_ of 1887, will be found to be highly interesting. The pictures are graphically drawn by a teacher, and from a teacher's standpoint. Speaking of the representative teacher of a former generation recalling the past, he said:-- The old days come up vividly before him, when he first engaged in the work in some country district, engaging to devote to it the best energies of body and mind, for, it may be, some such munificent salary as eight or ten dollars a month, said salary to be supplemented by the saving in expense effected through the process formerly so much in vogue of boarding around. How well he remembers the old log school house, with its low ceiling on which a tall man could easily lay his hand; the narrow apertures, fitted with a few panes of 7×9 glass which served for windows; the floor of unplaned boards, whose crevices were either compactly filled with accumulations of dust and litter characteristic of the school room, or worse still, yawning to swallow up pen-knife and slate pencil as they would ever and anon drop from the fingers of some luckless wight, started from the half slumber into which the drowsy monotony of the ill-ventilated school room had beguiled him, by the stentorian tones, or possibly the vigorous cuffs, of the master of ceremonies. Very distinctly the vision of such a school room of the old type, though at a date much less than fifty years ago, rises before the writer as memory carries him back to the little Canadian hamlet in which his boyhood was passed. The desks, so as far any were provided, consisted of a wide shelf fixed at a pretty sharp angle against the wall, and extending all around the room, with an intermission only at the narrow space occupied by the door. This primitive arrangement was sometimes supplemented with a long, flat table composed of three or four loose planks in the rough, supported by wooden benches or horses placed transversely beneath. The seats were of planks or slabs, likewise unsmoothed, constructed by driving rudely hewn legs into holes bored with a large augur, at a suitable angle, in the lower surface of the plank or slab. These legs often projected an inch or so above the surface of the seat. It could not be said of these rude structures as in Cowper's "Evolution of the sofa," that "the slippery seat betrayed the sliding part that pressed it," for between the projecting legs and the innumerable "splinters" the unhappy occupant was in much greater danger of being impaled and pinned fast than of slipping off. Perhaps it was better so, for in view of the great height usually given them, the fall, for a small child, while it would most surely have been a "laughing matter," might yet have proved a serious one.... It was certainly a strange and cruel infatuation which constrained our grandfathers to think that the proper position for a boy or girl at school was upon a narrow perch, without back or arm support of any kind, and with the feet dangling some six or eight inches above the floor. The picture of the old school bench would not be accurate without reference to the warping of the plank which was pretty sure soon to take place, with the result of raising one or other of the diagonal legs an inch or two from the floor, thus converting the seat, when filled with its living, aching load, into a tilting board, provocation of many a trick from the omnipresent mischievous boy of the school, and resulting in many a blow from the palm or cane of the irate master, which would, of course, generally descend upon innocent ears or shoulders. What a picture did the wooden desks and walls of those old-time school houses present, worn smooth with the elbows, smeared with the jackets, variegated with the ink, carved with the jack-knives and stained with the tears of boisterous and blubbering boys and rosy-cheeked, hoydenish or timid girls. What burlesque, too, upon every intelligent idea of education were the processes carried on in them. From nine o'clock to twelve, and from one till four, six long hours, as marked by the sun's shadow on the rude dial marked out on the windowsill, did the work go on. Murray's Reader, and in the most ambitious districts his Grammar, Walker's Dictionary, Walkingame's Arithmetic, Goldsmith's Geography and somebody's spelling-book, with slate and pencil, a scanty supply of paper and ink, and pen shaped with a keen pen-knife from a quill picked up from the wayside or plucked ruthlessly from the wing of some reluctant "squawking" goose, would complete the scholar's outfit. It is the hour for preparation of the reading lesson. The school room resounds with the loud hum of a score or two of boys and girls all "studying aloud" with a most distracting din, and all the heads and bodies swaying constantly and simultaneously back and forth as an accompaniment to the voice. This voice in the case of perhaps a majority would be modulated without the slightest relation to the contents of the printed page, while the thoughts of the ostentatiously industrious student would be busy with some projected game or trick for the coming recess. And yet how often would the Scotch school master's eye gleam with pride and pleasure when he had, by dint of persuasion or threat, succeeded in getting every boy and girl engaged in the horrible, monotonous chant. Then the recitation--what a scene of confusion and stripes, tears and bellowings. Perhaps it was the column of spellings. A few, fitted by nature with memories adapted for that kind of work, would make their way in triumph to the head of the long semicircular class. But woe, woe to the dullards and the dunces, under a regime whose penalty for missing a word a foot and a half long would be, very likely, two or three strokes on the tingling fingers or aching palm with the pitiless hardwood ferule, this process being occasionally varied as some noisy or idling youngster was called up from a back seat to be visited with a still sterner chastisement for some trifling misdemeanor.... The writer can recall instances and experiences innumerable, the infliction being sometimes accompanied with a caution to tell no tales at home under pain of a worse infliction. In his own case he well remembers the wrath of his father, who would have thought it wrong and encouraging insubordination to listen to any complaints against the master, when, on occasion of the victim of a tendency to juvenile pranks being dangerously ill with scarlet fever, and that father being called on by the doctor to annoint his back with some soothing lotion, he found said back striped and checked with a network of "black and blue." It is needless to add that at this point ended both the writer's experience under that schoolmaster and the schoolmaster's term of engagement in that district. As a significant comment upon the moral effects of the regime of the schoolmasters of the old school the writer may add that one of his most vivid memories of the mental status produced by the school training referred to is that of an intense longing for the day when he should be large enough to repay that old schoolmaster in his own coin. That day came. The flagellated boy, transformed into a tolerably lusty youth, found himself face to face with his quondam tormenter. But his long cherished wrath speedily gave place to pity for the decrepit, friendless and lonely old bachelor, whose days were drawing to a close, with no loving hand of wife or daughter to minister to their feebleness. THE PIONEER TEACHERS, AND THE TRIALS OF "BOARDING ROUND." The writer of the foregoing paper pictured roughly the rural Canadian school of forty or fifty years ago. It may not be without interest to have that picture supplemented with a glimpse of rural Canadian life as seen by the schoolmaster of the period. The "boarding 'round" system afforded him excellent facilities for observation. The venerable custom of boarding round died, no doubt, a good many years ago, so far as Canada is concerned.... But thirty or forty years ago it was, in some parts of Canada at least, almost a matter of course that the teacher should "board 'round." When a school became vacant or a new and ambitious settlement had reached the pitch of development at which a school was deemed a necessary sequent to the carpenter's shop, the smithy and the shoemaker's shanty, one of the first steps was, of course, to pitch upon a suitable candidate for the scanty honors and still more scanty emoluments of the village pedagogue. Probably some influential member of the community had a son or a daughter in the teens, who was thought pretty well up in "the three R's." If so, it would usually be deemed quite unnecessary to look farther. In fact it would, in such a case, be useless for an outsider to contest the constituency. It never entered the unsophisticated heads of the trustees to invite competition by advertising for candidates "to state salary expected." This method of putting up professional talent in a kind of Dutch auction is an evolution of our present "best educational system on earth." Our grandfathers went about the business in a different way. The coming teacher being fixed upon, the next step was for the candidate himself, or some interested relative or friend on his behalf, to circulate a subscription sheet. A form of heading would be prepared somewhat in the following style:--"We, the undersigned residents of Smithton District, being desirous of securing the services of Henry Schoolman as teacher of the district school, hereby agree to engage the services of said H. S. for the period of six months, and to pay him at the rate of £1 2s 6d for each and every pupil we hereunto subscribe or send to said school. We further agree to supply the teacher with board in proportion to our several subscriptions; also to furnish our proportions of wood for the use of said school. Signed, etc." The average juvenile Canadian made, no doubt, a much more merciful, and often much more efficient, teacher than the ex-soldier, or broken-down tradesman from the Old Country. One of the first duties of the newly-fledged teacher would be to go carefully over his treasured list of subscribers and ascertain, by a careful arithmetical calculation, the exact number of weeks and days for which he was entitled to board and lodging at the house of each of his respective patrons. The next step would be to find out, by personal or written enquiries, at what time it would be most convenient for each family to open its doors to him. This process, and the subsequent installation in each home would, it may well be imagined, be trying ordeals to the young and bashful pedagogue.... The receptions accorded the poor itinerant would be, of course, as various as the feelings, dispositions and circumstances of the householders, or, more strictly speaking, of the presiding divinities of the parlor and the kitchen, especially the kitchen. In many cases he would quickly feel at home. The welcome would be cordial, the hospitality ungrudging, the companionship agreeable. In such cases the bashful beginner would soon be able to shake off the intolerably humiliating dread of being regarded as an intruder, an interloper, or half-mendicant. But in numerous instances, as may readily be conceived, the situation would be most galling to a sensitive nature. The over-worked, perpetually tired and fretful mistress of the house would receive him with an ill-concealed frown or an involuntary sigh. To her he represented just so much addition, for so long a time, to her hourly toils and cares, already too heavy to be borne. Unwashed specimens of "the heritage of the poor" would swarm in every corner. The fear and awe which secured him immunity for a time would soon wear away, and as they were replaced with the familiarity that breeds contempt, he would be exposed to all manner of well-meant advances and indignities. The scorn at the roughly-spread supper table would be a scramble, and the twilight hour, which, if he happened to have a spice of romance in his composition, he would fain have consecrated to quiet thought or fancy, would be made hideous by a juvenile pandemonium, as amidst stripes and cuffs and yells and tears the unruly flock would finally be got to bed. These, of course, were the ill-regulated householders, but they exist. Well does the writer remember some personal experiences in this delightful phase of the professional life of an earlier day--not much more than half a semi-centennial distant. The old, dingy farmhouse, the bare floors, the hard seats, the utter absence of everything in the shape of books or other literature, the teeming olive branches at every age and stage of development, the little "spare" bedroom, whose sole furnishings consisted of the bed and bedding, on whose hard floor he reclined for lack of chair and table evening after evening for hours after he was supposed to be in bed, reading by the feeble rays of a tallow candle the ponderous volumes of Dr. Dick's philosophies, which had been kindly loaned him by a friend, and which were devoured with an eagerness begotten of a genuine hunger, though out of all proportion to the literary merits of the works. THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE. Rude and unfinished and uncomfortable as it was, "The Old School House" would be sure to bring up to many an "old boy" tender memories, which would be recalled in after years in words somewhat like those in poetic form as follows: It stood on a bleak country corner, The houses were distant and few; A meadow lay back in the distance, Beyond rose the hills to our view. The road, crossing there at right angles, Untraversed by pomp and array; Were cropped by the cows in the summer, I've watched them there many a day. In memory's hall hangs the picture, And years of sad care are between; It hangs with a beautiful gilding, And well do I love it, I ween. It stood on a bleak country corner, But boyhood's young heart made it warm; It glowed in the sunshine of summer, 'Twas cheerful in winter and storm. The teacher, O well I remember, My heart has long kept him in place; Perhaps by the world he's forgotten, His memory no touch can efface. He met us with smiles on the threshold, And in that rude temple of art, He left, with the skill of a workman, His touch on the mind and the heart. Oh! gay were the sports of the noontide, When winter winds frolicked with snow; We laughed at the freaks of the storm-king, And shouted him on all aglow. We flashed at his beautiful sculpture, Regardless of all its array; We plunged in the feathery snow-drifts, And sported the winter away. We sat on the old-fashioned benches, Beguiled with our pencil and slate; We thought of the opening future, And dreamed of our manhood's estate. I cast a fond glance o'er the meadow, The hills just behind it I see; Away in the charm of the distance, Old school house! a blessing on thee! _Mr. Canniff Haight_, in Canada of "Fifty Years Ago," gives the following account of the common school education of his day:--"The schoolhouse was close at hand, and its aspect is deeply graven in my memory. It was a small, square structure, with low ceiling. In the centre of the room was a box stove, around which the long wooden benches, without backs, were ranged. Next the wall were the desks, raised a little from the floor. In the summer time the pupils were all of tender years, the elder ones being kept at home to help with the work. I was one of a lot of little urchins ranged daily on hard wooden seats, with our feet dangling in the air for seven or eight hours a day. In such a plight we were expected to be very good children, to make no noise, and to learn our lessons. It is a marvel that so many years had to elapse before parents and teachers could be brought to see that keeping children in such a position for so many hours was an act of great cruelty. The terror of the rod was the only thing that could keep us still, and at that often failed. Sometimes, tired and weary, we fell asleep and tumbled off the bench, to be awakened by the fall of the rod. In the winter time, the small school was filled to overflowing with the larger boys and girls. This did not improve our condition, for we were more closely packed together, and were either shivering with the cold or being roasted with a red-hot stove.... I next sat under the rod of an Irish pedagogue--an old man who evidently believed that the only way to get anything into a boy's head was to pound it in with a stick through his back. There was no discipline, and the noise we made seemed to rival a bedlam.--_pp. 17, 18._ "As far as my recollection goes, the teachers were generally of a very inferior order, and rarely possessed more than a smattering of the rudiments of grammar and arithmetic. They were poorly paid, and "boarded round" the neighbourhood. But it is not improbable that they generally received all that their services were worth.... The school-houses where the youth were taught were in keeping with the extent of instruction received within them. They were invariably small, with low ceilings, badly lighted, and without ventilation."--_pp. 157, 158._ A SCHOOL TEACHER'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN 1865. From the Toronto _Mail_ of November 28th, 1888, I select the following graphic account of the personal experience of a school teacher in 1865:-- "'Yes," said an old teacher to a representative of the _Mail_ yesterday, "education has been wonderfully revolutionized in Ontario during the last twenty-five years. It was in January, 1865, that I first took up the birch, swaying it until I cautiously made up my mind to quit when the new Act requiring higher qualifications came into force in 1871. At that time the school houses in my county were all constructed of logs, and more uninviting buildings than these were not to be found in the country. It did appear that the ratepayers were more led to educate their children out of a feeling of latent and legal compulsion, than out of duty and parental regard. The life of a teacher in those days was not the high-toned one of to-day. Let me give my own experience, and when I have related it you will see how much there is in the complaints and grumblings of the existing generation of school teachers. "'A school became vacant in the neighboring township, and I made up my mind, armed as I was with a first-class certificate awarded me by the County Board of Examaminers, that I would apply for the position. "'I went to two influential men in the neighborhood and succeeded in coaxing them to go with me to the trustees of the school. We arrived at the section in due time, and after making due enquiries proceeded to the house of one of the trustees, who had the reputation of knowing everything worth discovering in the school law of the period. I felt an awful dread and confusion come over me when in the presence of that trustee. I was introduced, and I immediately told my errand. The horny-handed son of toil gave me one of those inscrutable looks that nearly sunk me to the earth. He coughed slightly, jerked his head back, put his two hands in the pockets of his trousers, and immediately proceeded to business.' "'So yous wants the school, does you?' "'I do, sir.' "'Well, I might as well tell ye at once that the teacher we intend hiring must be better than the present one. He is a curse to the children of this section, with his grammar and his jography, and all his other fal da rals. Why, sir; my son Bill comes home the other night and says he, "'Father, what is grammar?' "I says, Bill, I never studied grammar, and you see how I am able to get along without it. Grammar is no good for ploughing or cutting up that slash fornent the house." "Well," says the boy, "would you tell me what our teacher meant by saying that Berlin is on the Spree?" I then got mad, and says I, "Bill, never let me hear ye say anything more about these things. Sure they were never taught to us from the New Testament when I was in school." But that is not all, the boy began to say to himself, orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody, going over them again and again, until I says to Moriah, "is the child getting mad, wife!" No sooner had he heard that than he began to say, "Noun, adjective, pronoun, adverb, preposition, noun, adjective, pronoun, preposition," as before. I then got afeard the child was clean crazy, and when I was in the act of rising to catch hold of him, says he, "Father, the earth is not flat, it is a round ball and goes round." "Och, och," says I, "that spalpeen of a school master has driven my son mad."... So I calls a meeting, and my two colleages, Thomas Ginty and Edward Crawford, and myself, met at the school house and dismissed the rascal. When the leader of education of school section No. 5 ---- stopped, I turned to my companions, not knowing what qualifications were expected of me. The trustee continued:--"Can you read?" "Yes." "Can you cipher?" "Yes." "Do you know how to count by long division?" "I do." "You don't know grammar?" Here was the crucial test. I resolved, however, to get out of it the best way possible, and replied:--"I don't like grammar, and don't know much about it," which was true. "Good." The trustee smiled sweetly and said:--"The school is yours; but, remember, no grammar or jography, or out you go." I was taken to the other trustees, and in their presence I was put through the same examination as above recorded. The bargain was struck there and then. I was promised fifteen dollars a month board from house to house, with the condition that I should put on the fires in winter, and keep the school house clean--a herculean task in those days. On the morning that I was to assume my pedagogic duties, I arrived at the school house about 8 a.m., and at once proceeded to build a fire. I never can forget the feeling of utter loneliness which came over me, as I stood opposite a fireplace wide enough to accommodate an ox. On the walls of the building were three maps, of what countries I do not now remember, because geography was proscribed during my _regime_. Daylight was seen through the walls. The seats were of the most primitive character, while my own desk resembled more the top of a toboggan slide than the rostrum of one who was teaching the young idea how to shoot. There was no fence round the building, the play ground being illimitable in its dimensions and capacities. In short the whole of the surroundings of this rural academy congealed all literary aspirations, and it was little wonder that the boys and girls meeting there, and pretending to be drinking at the fountain of knowledge, grew up utterly destitute of the first principles of a rational and suitable education. The children arrived, and I immediately began to assert my authority as the head of the institution. I made a short speech, telling the children that nothing would be taught in my school but reading, writing and 'rithmetic, adding that the ten commandments would be included in the curriculum. I got along famously that day with the pupils, and as I was told afterwards, when my charges went home and told their parents the new order of things, I was universally pronounced the greatest teacher of the age. I lodged that night with Trustee Fallis, my examiner. He was delighted with the reports given by Bill of my mode of teaching, and in a moment of confidence told me that the school was mine as long as I liked to keep it. I humbly thanked him, and retired to my room, where I found Bill, the heir of the house, in innocent slumber. Bill did not by any means prove a pleasant bed-fellow. Occasionally his feet were found where his head should be, and he repeatedly called out, "No grammar! Hurrah!" Next morning I rose, and after breakfast majestically strode through two feet of snow to the log school house, and then put in another day's grinding. At four o'clock the trustees met and handed me a badly written and worse spelled manuscript, which on perusal I found to be the list of houses I was to board at during the coming three months.... Now, sir, continued the dominie, I put in a whole year of that kind of work; listened to all the gossip of the neighborhood, slept occasionally on the floor, nursed all the babies of the section, and just as I thought that my position was secure, disaster overcame me. One of the trustees had a daughter of prepossessing appearance, and I could not resist the temptation of falling in love with her. When the news got abroad that I was paying attentions to her, the section began to talk adversely of myself. Complaints were soon heard as to my teaching. Some said that I was teaching grammar on the sly, and that I was partial to some of the children. The result of it all was that a meeting of the board took place, and, despite the protests of Thomas Ginty, I was, in the language of modern times, "fired." "Now," continued the old teacher, "the moral of what I told you is this:--Compare the log school house, its internal arrangements and play grounds, with those of to-day throughout the whole country, and you have the greatest exemplification possible of the progress made by Ontario during the last quarter of a century. There is scarcely a section now but has its brick school house, with surroundings attractive and neat. The teacher is given ample opportunity to cultivate the minds of his pupils to the highest pitch possible, at least as far as requisite for the general affairs of life. The old prejudices against teaching anything else but the three R's are gone. You have the walls of the buildings ornamented with maps, charts and other appliances. Text-books are provided of the most modern character, while a rigid system of examinations acts as an incentive to the teacher and makes him an instructor in fact and reality. Lastly, we have an intelligent and cultured class of teachers, and taking all things into consideration, they are well paid, and still better, their services are year by year becoming more appreciated. A better class of people now act in the capacity of trustees, and as years roll by a still more intelligent class will be found in these positions. REMINISCENCES OF EDUCATION IN THE CITY OF HAMILTON IN 1852. In conversation with a Reporter of the _Hamilton Times_ in 1888, Mr. James Cummings, who, after thirty-seven years service on the City Board of Education, thus related his early educational experience:-- "At the time I first became connected with the board in 1852," said Mr. Cummings, "education was at rather a low ebb, not only in Hamilton, but throughout the country. Dr. Ryerson had just commenced his excellent common school scheme and in 1847, had established a training school for teachers in Toronto. Hamilton had decided to adopt the common school system and the reorganization of the schools was just being effected. Previous to that time the education of the children of the better class was almost wholly in the hands of private school teachers. There were a few small school rooms in the different wards, but they were wretched places, where usually fifty children were crowded into a small room reeking with fetid atmosphere. On the site of the present Cannon street school was a small frame grammar school, at which many of the present leading citizens received the ground-work of their education. A great reform was inaugurated here in the year 1852. Under the new Ryerson Act of 1850 trustees were clothed with new powers, and we immediately proceeded to reorganize the schools here on the new plan. Tenders were let for the erection of the present Central school and for ward schools in different parts of the city. Mr. (now Dr. J. H.) Sangster was appointed head master, and to him was entrusted the appointment of teachers, and he was made responsible for the efficiency of the schools. He had been a teacher in the Ryerson model school in Toronto, and he appointed as his assistants thoroughly trained graduates of that excellent institution. This was the founding of Hamilton's excellent common school system. It kept improving from year to year and soon closed out the private schools. Larger ward schools were erected, and since that day Hamilton has taken a high position educationally in the Province." EDUCATION IN THE COUNTY OF SIMCOE, 1852-1872. Dr. Ryerson was invited to open the new Public School in the town of Barrie in 1872. Before the ceremony was proceeded with a letter was read from Judge (now the Hon. Senator) Gowan, who was unable to be present, referring to his long services in the cause of education in the County of Simcoe. He said:-- "Ever since I came to this country, nearly thirty years ago, I have been connected with the school system, having held the office of Trustee of the Grammar School, and the position of Chairman of the Board of Public Instruction from its first institution till superseded by recent enactment, and, with the exception of my friend, Mr. Dallas, I am the only member of the original Board now living. "I have seen the gradual improvement in the school system, and the improvement in the schools in this country from very small beginnings to the present advanced and most prosperous condition, so you will understand my disappointment in not being able to be present on the interesting occasion of laying the corner-stone of the Public School house of Barrie, by the Chief Superintendent of Education. "My position as Secretary and Treasurer of the Grammar School, and Chairman of the Board of Public Instruction, in this, the largest county in Ontario, brought me in constant communication with the Education Office in Toronto; and I can say that the able, zealous, and wise administration of the school law by Dr. Ryerson and his assistant, Dr. Hodgins, has, here at least, had a happy effect--fostering the increase of schools, securing their better management, giving them efficient teachers, and providing the means, within easy access to all, of securing a good common education to the youth of this country, and a very superior education in the Grammar Schools." Mr. (now Judge) Boys, gave a sketch of the educational history of Barrie as follows: "Twenty years ago there was no Public or Common School, not, however, without school accommodation, as we were then included in what was known as School Section No. 1 of the adjoining Township of Vespra. We had no building specially set apart as a school house, but a rented room then sufficed to carry on the daily teaching embraced within the section.... Twenty years ago one teacher took charge of all our scholars--both male and female--and if there is any doubt as to his labor having been great, there can be none as to his salary having been small, for he subsisted on a sum of £60 per annum. "In January, 1854, Barrie became possessed of a school of its own, and built a school house of frame 24 × 36, just about large enough to fill up one room in the building we are now erecting. It was, no doubt, at the time it was built, amply large, yet I find, from the record of the school, that such was the growth of the town by September, 1854, non-residents were refused admittance to the Barrie school on the ground of its over-crowded state, the average attendance of males being seventy--the females were then taught in another building by a female teacher. This state of things continued for nearly a year, when a separate school was established for Barrie, which brought some relief to the over-crowded building. But it was evident that more school accommodation would have to be supplied, and I see by the minute book of the school, that a new school house was talked of so far back as January, 1855. The new school house, however, never came. The difficulty at last was settled by an enlargement of the old building, which then assumed the appearance it now presents. With the enlarged school house, supplemented by some rented rooms, the schools of Barrie have ever since continued to the present time. It took time to convince our people of the imperative necessity there was for a large outlay in providing a new school house. But the ratepayers became convinced at last, and gave their hearty approval to an expenditure which will enable us, during the next year, to erect a school building suitable to the place, and one worthy of the trouble you, sir, have taken to be present at its official commencement. During the time I refer to, a Grammar School building of brick was erected and enlarged, and a Separate School building put up. "To-day, with your kind assistance, we have inaugurated a system of Public School accommodation which, with our school known as the Barrie School, Separate and High Schools, will ultimately provide for the educational wants of the neighborhood. I use the expression 'inaugurated a system,' because I hope and trust that our efforts in this direction will not be slackened on the completion of this building.... We believe this building will be worthy of the honor you have done us in coming here to-day, we also believe at some future day, we shall have a system of Public School accommodation worthy of the life-long and successful efforts you have made to give to Ontario an almost perfect system of education. It is seldom that public men are asked to assist in building a monument to themselves, but I have asked you to do so on this occasion, for I look upon buildings of this nature as memorials of your well-directed public work during the last thirty years, and when you have gone to your long home, and the envy--aye--and the malice of your enemies are forgotten, your name associated with the noble work you have accomplished, will be handed down from generation to generation, and each school section throughout the country will contain a monument to your memory, as enduring as the foundations of this continent." CHAPTER VI. PERSONAL CHAPTER RELATING TO THE REV. DR. RYERSON. In Dr. Ryerson's personal sketch of his early history he gives the following particulars as to his student and teacher life: I was born on the 24th of March, 1803, in the Township of Charlotteville, near the Village of Vittoria, in the then London District, now the County of Norfolk.... The district grammar-school was then kept within half-a-mile of my father's residence, by Mr. James Mitchell (afterwards Judge Mitchell), an excellent classical scholar; he came from Scotland with the late Rt. Rev. Dr. Strachan, first Bishop of Toronto. He treated me with much kindness. When I recited to him my lessons in English grammar he often said that he had never studied the English grammar himself, that he wrote and spoke English by the Latin grammar. At the age of fourteen I had the opportunity of attending a course of instruction in the English language given by two professors, the one an Englishman, and the other an American, who taught nothing but English grammar. They professed in one course of instruction, by lectures, to enable a diligent pupil to parse any sentence in the English language. I was sent to attend these lectures, the only boarding abroad for school instruction I ever enjoyed. My previous knowledge of the _letter_ of the grammar was of great service to me, and gave me an advantage over other pupils, so that before the end of the course I was generally called up to give visitors an illustration of the success of the system, which was certainly the most effective I have ever since witnessed, having charts, etc., to illustrate the agreement and government of words. This whole course of instruction by two able men, who did nothing but teach grammar from one week's end to another had to me all the attraction of a charm and a new discovery. It gratified both curiosity and ambition, and I pursued it with absorbing interest, until I had gone through Murray's two volumes of "Expositions and Exercises," Lord Kames' "Elements of Criticism," and Blair's "Lectures on Rhetoric," of which I still have the notes which I then made. The same professors obtained sufficient encouragement to give a second course of instruction and lectures at Vittoria, and one of them becoming ill, the other solicited my father to allow me to assist him, as it would be useful to me, while it would enable him to fulfil his engagements. Thus, before I was sixteen, I was inducted as a teacher, by lecturing on my native language. This course of instruction, and exercises in English, have proved of the greatest advantage to me, not less in enabling me to study foreign languages than in using my own. While working on the farm I did more than ordinary day's work, that I might show how industrious, instead of lazy, as some said, religion made a person. I studied between three and six o'clock in the morning, carried a book in my pocket during the day to improve odd moments by reading or learning, and then reviewed my studies of the day aloud while walking out in the evening.... A kind friend offered to give me any book that I would commit to memory, and submit to his examination of the same. In this way I obtained my first Latin grammar, "Watts on the Mind," and "Watts' Logic." My eldest brother, George, after the war, went to Union College, U. S., where he finished his collegiate studies. He was a fellow-student with the late Dr. Wayland, and afterwards succeeded my brother-in-law as Master of the London District Grammar School. His counsels, examinations, and ever kind assistance were a great encouragement and of immense service to me. I felt a strong desire to pursue further my classical studies, and determined, with the kind counsel and aid of my eldest brother, to proceed to Hamilton, and place myself for a year under the tuition of a man of high reputation both as a scholar and a teacher, the late John Law, Esq., then head master of the Gore District Grammar School. I applied myself with such ardour, and prepared such an amount of work in both Latin and Greek, that Mr. Law said it was impossible for him to give the time and hear me read all that I had prepared, and that he would, therefore, examine me on the translation and construction of the more difficult passages, remarking more than once that it was impossible for any human mind to sustain long the strain that I was imposing upon mine.[58] In the course of some six months his apprehensions were realized, as I was seized with a brain fever, and on partially recovering took cold, which resulted in inflammation of the lungs by which I was so reduced that my physician, the late Dr. James Graham, of Norfolk, pronounced my case hopeless, and my death was hourly expected. [58] Having written to the late Hon. Samuel Mills for his recollections of these school days, Mr. Mills replied as follows: "I have a distinct recollection of having had the honor of being at the Hamilton Grammar School with yourself in the years 1823 and 1824, and that the late John Law was head master at the time. He was considered a highly educated and accomplished scholar, and was so well qualified for the position he held, that the school had a provincial reputation and was patronized by many parties living at a great distance by sending their sons to it; and the very fact of your attending the school gave éclat to it, as you were then considered a well educated young man, far in advance of the rest of us. Your studies, if my recollection serves me right, were confined entirely to reading Latin and Greek, and I know Mr. Law and the whole school looked upon you as being a credit to it." After a severe illness Dr. Ryerson happily recovered. His narrative states that, "the next day after my recovery, I left home and became usher in the London District Grammar School, applying myself to my new work with much diligence and earnestness, so that I soon succeeded in gaining the good-will of parents and pupils, and they were quite satisfied with my services,--leaving the head master to his favorite pursuits of gardening and building! In 1872, Dr. Ryerson wrote to Mr. Simpson McCall, of Vittoria and asked: "Will you have the kindness to let me know what is your own recollection as to the attendance at the school, especially in the winter months, and the impression of the neighborhood generally as to its efficiency during the two years that I taught it?" Mr. McCall replied as follows: I can assure you that I have a vivid recollection of the London District School during the winters of 1821 and 1822, being an attendant myself. I also remember several of the scholars with whom I associated, viz: H. V. A. Rapelje, Esq., late Sheriff of the County of Norfolk; Capt. Joseph Bostwick, of Port Stanley; James and Hannah Moore. The number generally attending during the winters of those two years, if I remember correctly, were from forty to fifty. The school while under your charge was well and efficiently conducted, and was so considered and appreciated throughout the neighborhood at the time; and after you left the charge of the London District School it was generally regretted in the neighborhood. I remember hearing this frequently remarked not only by pupils who attended the school under your tuition but also by their parents. "During two years I was thus teacher and student, advancing considerably in classical studies, I took great delight in "Locke on the Human Understanding," Paley's "Moral and Political Philosophy," and "Blackstone's Commentaries," especially the sections of the latter on the Prerogatives of the Crown, the Rights of the subject, and the Province of Parliament." In an address before the Ontario Teachers' Association in 1872, Dr. Ryerson said: "As it has of late been stated, so confidently and largely, that he had yet to learn the elements of his native tongue. Such had been the representations on the subject, that he had begun to suspect his own identity, and to ask himself whether it was not a delusion that he had in boyhood not only studied, but, as he supposed, had mastered Murray's two octavo volumes of English Grammar and Kame's Elements of Criticism and Blair's Rhetoric, of which he still had the notes that he made in early life; and had been called to assist teaching a special class of young persons in English Grammar when he was only fifteen years of age; and whether it was not a fancy that he had taught, as he supposed, with some degree of acceptance and success, what was then known as the London District Grammar School for two years, and had subsequently placed himself for a year under an accomplished scholar in order to read Latin and Greek. Somewhat disturbed by these doubts, he thought he would satisfy himself by writing to the only two gentlemen with whom he was now acquainted, who knew him in these early relations. In reference to these statements he would read the correspondence on the subject." (See the foot notes appended.) THE REV. DR. RYERSON AS A TEACHER. As to Dr. Ryerson's influence as a teacher, Rev. Dr. Ormiston thus referred to it at the Ontario Teacher's Convention in 1872. He said: "The teacher has a reward peculiar to his work--a living, lasting memorial of his worth. The feelings of loving reverence which we entertain for those who have awakened our intellectual life, and guided us in our earliest attempts at the acquisition of knowledge, are as enduring as they are grateful. I shall never forget, as I can never repay, the obligations under which I lie to the venerable and honorable Chief Superintendent, Dr. Ryerson, not only for the kindly paternal greeting with which, as principal, he welcomed me, a raw, timid, untutored lad, on my first entrance into Victoria College, when words of encouragement fell like dew-drops on my heart, and for the many acts of thoughtful generosity which aided me in my early career, and for the faithful friendship and Christian sympathy which has extended over nearly thirty years, unbroken and unclouded, a friendship which, strengthened and intensified by prolonged and endearing intimacy, I now cherish as one of the highest honors and dearest delights of my life; but especially for the quickening, energizing influence of his instructions as professor, when he taught me how to think, to reason and to learn. How I enjoyed the hours spent in his lecture-room--hours of mental and moral growth never to be forgotten! I owe him much, and but for his presence here to-day, I would say more of what I think and feel of his character and worth. He has won for himself a place in the heart of many a young Canadian, and his name will be ever associated with the educational advantages and history of Ontario. May he be spared for many years to see the result of his labors, in the growing prospects and success of the common schools and educational institutions of this noble and prosperous province, whose best interests he has patriotically done so much to promote." In 1882, after Dr. Ryerson's death, Dr. Ormiston thus referred to his experience at Victoria College, then under Dr. Ryerson's presidency. He said:-- "In the autumn of 1843, I went to Victoria College, doubting much whether I was prepared to matriculate as a freshman. Though my attainments in some of the subjects prescribed for examination were far in advance of the requirements, in other subjects I knew I was sadly deficient. On the evening of my arrival, while my mind was burdened with the importance of the step I had taken, and by no means free from anxiety about the issue, Dr. Ryerson, at that time Principal of the College, visited me in my room. I shall never forget that interview. He took me by the hand; and few men could express as much by a mere hand-shake as he. It was a welcome, an encouragement, an inspiration, and an earnest of future fellowship and friendship. It lessened the timid awe I naturally felt towards one in such an elevated position--I had never before seen a Principal of a College--it dissipated all boyish awkwardness and awakened filial confidence. He spoke of Scotland, my native land, and of her noble sons, distinguished in every branch of philosophy and literature; specially of the number, the diligence, the frugality, self-denial and success of her college students. In this way he soon led me to tell him of my parentage, past life and efforts, present hopes and aspirations. His manner was so gracious and paternal--his sympathy so quick and genuine--his counsel so ready and cheering--his assurances so grateful and inspiriting, that not only was my heart _his_ from that hour, but my future career seemed brighter and more certain than it had ever appeared before. "Many times in after years have I been instructed, and guided, and delighted with his conversation, always replete with interest and information; but that first interview I can never forget, it is as fresh and clear to me to-day as it was on the morning after it took place. It has exerted a profound, enduring, moulding influence on my whole life. For what, under God, I am, and have been enabled to achieve, I owe more to that noble, unselfish, kind-hearted man than to any one else. "As a teacher he was earnest and efficient, eloquent and inspiring, but he expected and exacted rather too much work from the average student. His own ready and affluent mind sympathized keenly with the apt, bright scholar, to whom his praise was warmly given, but he scarcely made sufficient allowance for the dullness or lack of previous preparation which failed to keep pace with him in his long and rapid strides; hence his censures were occasionally severe. His methods of examination furnished the very best kind of mental discipline, fitted alike to cultivate the memory and to strengthen the judgment. All the students revered him, but the best of the class appreciated him most. His counsels were faithful and judicious; his admonitions paternal and discriminating; his rebukes seldom administered, but scathingly severe. No student ever left his presence, without resolving to do better, to aim higher, and to win his approval." THE REV. DR. RYERSON AND HIS NATIVE COUNTY OF NORFOLK. Mr. P. K. Olyne, in the _New Dominion Monthly_ for July, 1869, in an article on "Norfolk, or the Long-Point County," thus referrs to its settlement and to the boyhood there of Dr. Ryerson:-- "After undergoing many hardships which were only a foretaste of what they had to endure in the future, a company arrived in the Long Point region about the year 1780. This was then a solitary wilderness. These pioneer Loyalists went to work with zeal unsurpassed in clearing away the forest, in building roads and erecting houses as commodious as it was possible to erect out of rude materials. Among those who first came to the Long Point country, worthy of particular notice, were Colonel Ryerson, Colonel Backhouse, Walsh and Tisdale. In the pioneer home of Joseph Ryerson might have been seen a remarkably bright lad. Being extremely fond of books, he spent his spare moments in studying. So regular was his habits in this respect, that when a neighbour would drop in and ask for Egerton, the answer was sure to be: "You will find him in such a place, with a book." Notwithstanding he was placed in a position where opportunities for gaining an education were very meagre indeed, yet he overcame all obstacles--obstacles that he could not forget in after life, and which, like a true patriot, he set himself to remove. How much Dr. Egerton Ryerson, Chief Superintendent of Education, has done for the educational interests of Canada the reader is left to judge for himself. Of late the Doctor has made a practice of visiting the home of his childhood annually. Not always by rail and stage has he accomplished the journey from Toronto, but still clinging to the sport of his youthful days he would set forward in an open boat, and paddling it himself along the shores of the lakes would finally reach the place so dear to him, and which, no doubt, brought afresh to his memory many recollections both joyous and sad. "A rude log schoolhouse was constructed by the early settlers as soon as they could do so conveniently. A fire-place extended along nearly a whole side of the building. Logs of considerable length were rolled into this in cold weather for fuel, before which rude benches or hewed logs were placed as seats for the instructor and pupils. The close of the teacher's term was denominated "the last day." It was customary on this occasion for the children to turn the pedagogue out of doors by force, and for this purpose some whiskey was generally provided as a stimulant. Such was the state of educational institutions in the days of young Ryerson. What advancement has education made since? We trace it step by step as onward it has advanced, until to-day Norfolk can proudly boast of institutions and teachers second to none of the kind in the world." In 1851, Dr. Ryerson sent to each County Council specimens of maps, charts, natural history, prints, etc., to the value of $30, the Council of the County of Norfolk, acknowledged the gift in a very hearty manner. In reply to the County Council, Dr. Ryerson said:-- From the Municipal Council of my native county, I have never experienced unkind opposition, but have been encouraged by its patriotic co-operation: and it affords me no small satisfaction, that that same Council is the first in Upper Canada to acknowledge the receipt of the documents and maps referred to--that the resolution of the Council was seconded by an old school-fellow,[59] and couched in terms to me the most gratifying and encouraging; and that my first official letter of a new year, relates to topics which call up the earliest associations of my youth, and are calculated to prompt and impel me to renewed exertions for the intellectual and social advancement of my native land. [59] Mr. I. W. Powell, M.P.P., father of Colonel Powell, Adjutant-General of Canada. To the County Board of Public Instruction he said: "I hope the poorest boy in my native County may have access to a better common school than existed there when I was a lad. What I witnessed and felt in my boyhood, gave birth to the strongest impulses of my own mind, to do what I could to place the means and facilities of mental development and culture within the reach of every youth in the land." "I am more than gratified, I am profoundly impressed, that such efforts are made for the interests of the young, and of future generations in the County of Norfolk. That county is dear to me by a thousand tender recollections; and I still seem to hear in the midst of it, a voice issuing from a mother's grave, as was wont formerly from the living tongue, telling me that the only life worthy the name, is that which makes man one with his fellow-men, and with his country." In September, 1864, Dr. Ryerson thus referred to the trip in his frail skiff to his native county of Norfolk in the preceding month: "In my lonely voyage from Toronto to Port Ryerse the scene was often enchanting and the solitude sweet beyond expression. I have witnessed the setting sun amidst the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps from lofty elevations, on the plains of Lombardy, from the highest eminence of the Appenines, between Bologna and Florence, and from the crater summit of Vesuvius, but I was never more delighted and impressed (owing, perhaps, in part to the susceptible state of my feelings) with the beauty, effulgence, and even sublimity of atmospheric phenomena, and the softened magnificence of surrounding objects, than in witnessing the setting sun on the 23rd of June, from the unruffled bosom of Lake Erie, a few miles east of Port Dover, and about a mile from the thickly wooded shore, with its deepening and variously reflected shadows. And when the silent darkness enveloped all this beauty, and grandeur, and magnificence in undistinguishable gloom, my mind experienced that wonderful sense of freedom and relief which come from all that suggests the idea of boundlessness--the deep sky, the dark night, the endless circle, the illimitable waters. The world with its tumult of cares seemed to have retired, and God and His works appeared all in all, suggesting the enquiry which faith and experience promptly answered in the affirmative-- With glorious clouds encompassed round Whom angels dimly see; Will the unsearchable be found; Will God appear to me? "My last remark is the vivifying influence and unspeakable pleasure of visiting scenes endeared to me by many tender, and comparatively few painful recollections. Amid the fields, woods, out-door exercises, and associations of the first twenty years of my life, I have seemed to forget the sorrows, labors and burdens of more than two score years, and be transported back to what was youthful, simple, healthy, active, and happy. I can heartily sympathise with the feelings of Sir Walter Scott when, in reply to Washington Irving, who had expressed disapprobation in the scenery of the Tweed, immortalized by the genius of the border minstrel, he said: "'It may be partiality, but to my eyes these gray hills and all this wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the very nakedness of the land. It has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich scenery of Edinburgh, which is ornamented garden land, I begin to wish myself back again among my honest gray hills, and if I did not see the heather at least once a year I think I should die.' "Last autumn I lodged two weeks on the farm on which I was born, with the family of Mr. Joseph Duncan, where the meals were taken daily in a room the wood-work of which I, as an amateur carpenter, had finished more than forty years ago, while recovering from a long and serious illness."[60] [60] The island within Long Point, which Mr. Ryerson's father obtained from the Crown, but which then belonged to him, was marked on old maps as Pottshawk Point, but designated on later maps, and more generally known, as "Ryerson's Island." CLOSING OFFICIAL ACTS AND UTTERANCES OF DR. RYERSON. An entire revision and consolidation of the laws relating to public and high schools took place in 1874, in which Dr. Ryerson took a leading part. But the revision related chiefly to details and to the supply of former omissions in the law. The last important official act of Dr. Ryerson was to arrange for the educational exhibit of the department at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. That was most successfully carried out; and, at the close of that exhibition, the following highly gratifying "award" was communicated to the then venerable ex-chief, after he had retired from office. The award was made by the American Centennial Commission, and was to the following effect: For a quite complete and admirably arranged exhibition, illustrating the Ontario system of education and its excellent results; also for the efficiency of an administration which has gained for the Ontario Department a most honorable distinction among government educational agencies. This award was quite a gratification to the now retired chief of the Department, then in his seventy-third year, and amply repaid him, as he said, for many years of anxious toil and solicitude, while it was a gratifying and unlooked-for compensation for all of the undeserved opposition which he had encountered while laying the foundations of our educational system. In a letter to a friend toward the close of his official career, Dr. Ryerson thus explained the principles upon which he had conducted the educational affairs of the Province during his long administration of them. He said:-- During these many years I have organized and administered the Education Department upon the broad and impartial principles which I have always advocated. During the long period of my administration of the Department I knew neither religious sect nor political party; I knew no party other than that of the country at large; I never exercised any patronage for personal or party purposes; I never made or recommended one of the numerous appointments of teachers in the Normal or Model Schools, or clerk in the education office, except upon the ground of testimonials as to personal characters and qualifications, and on a probationary trial of six months. * * * * * I believe this is the true method of managing all the public departments, and every branch of the public service. I believe it would contribute immensely to both the efficiency and economy of the public service. * * * It would greatly elevate the standard of action and attainments and stimulate the ambition of the young men of the country, when they know that their selection and advancement in their country's service depended upon their individual merits, irrespective of sect or party, and not as the reward of zeal as political partisans in elections or otherwise, on their own part, or on that of their fathers or relatives. The power of a government in a country is immense for good or ill. It is designed by the Supreme Being to be a "minister of God for good" to a whole people, without partiality, as well as without hypocrisy, like the rays of the sun; and the administration of infinite wisdom and justice and truth and purity. * * * * * I know it has been contended that party patronage * * * is an essential element in the existence of a government. * * * The Education Department has existed--and it is the highest public department in Upper Canada--for more than thirty years without such an element, with increasing efficiency and increasing strength, in the public estimation, during the whole of that period. Justice, and virtue, and patriotism, and intelligence are stronger elements of power and usefulness than those of rewarding partisans; and if the rivalship and competition of public men should consist in devising and promoting measures for the advancement of the country and in exercising the executive power most impartially and intelligently for the best interests of all classes, then the moral standard of government and of public men would be greatly exalted, and the highest civilization of the whole country be advanced. In a series of letters published in defence of his administration of the Education Department in 1872, he thus pointed out the character of his difficult and delicate task. He also gave a brief glance at what had been accomplished by the Department since he took office in 1844. He said:-- The Department of which I have had charge since 1844, and during several administrations of government, is confessedly the most difficult and complicated, if not the most important, of any department of the public service. Since 1844, it has devolved on me to frame laws, and to devise, develop, and administer a system of public instruction for the people of this Province. That system has been more eulogized by both English and American educationists, and more largely adopted in other British colonies, on both sides of the globe, than any other system of public instruction in America. The system of popular education in Ontario has opened a free school to every child in the land, and proclaimed his right to its advantages; it has planted a school house in nearly every neighborhood, and in hundreds of instances, made the school house the best building in the neighborhood; it has superseded the topers and broken-down characters, so common as teachers of a former age, by a class of teachers not excelled in morals by the teachers of any other country, and who, as a whole, compare favorably in qualifications with those of any State in America; it has achieved a uniformity of excellent text-books, earnestly prayed for by educators in the neighboring States, and has spread throughout the land books of useful and entertaining knowledge to the number of nearly a million of volumes; it is the nearest approach to a voluntary system of any public school system in the world; and it has developed larger resources than that of any other State in America, in proportion to the wealth and number of inhabitants. This unparalleled success is due to the Christian feeling, the energy, patriotism and liberality of the people of this Province; but it has been imposed on me to construct the machinery, devise the facilities and agencies by which so great a work has been accomplished, and to do what I could to encourage my fellow-countrymen in its promotion. The administration of laws generally is by learned judges, by the pleadings of learned counsel, and the deliberations of selected juries; but the administration of the school law and system is through the agency of several hundred elected councils, and nearly twenty thousand elected trustees,--thus embodying, not the learned professions, but the intelligence, common sense, feelings and interests of the people at large in the work of school administration and local self-government. REASONS FOR DR. RYERSON'S RETIREMENT AS CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION. In "The Story of My Life," I gave the following reasons, amongst others, which induced Dr. Ryerson to propose a change in the headship of the Education Department. I said: "For many years after confederation Dr. Ryerson felt that the new political condition of the Province, which localized, as well as circumscribed, its civil administration of affairs, required a change in the management of the Education Department. He, therefore, (as early as in 1868, and again in 1872) urged upon the Government the desirability of relieving him from the anomalous position in which he found himself placed under the new system. The reasons which he urged for his retirement are given in a pamphlet devoted to a 'defence' of the system of education, which he published in 1872, and are as follows:-- "When political men have made attacks upon the school law, or the school system and myself, and I have answered them, then the cry has been raised by my assailants and their abettors, that I was interfering with politics. They would assail me without stint, in hopes of crushing me, and then gag me against all defence or reply. "So deeply did I feel the disadvantage and growing evil of this state of things to the department and school system itself, that I proposed, four years ago last December, to retire from the department, and recommended the creation and appointment of a Minister of Public Instruction. My resignation was not accepted, nor my recommendation adopted; when, two months later, I proposed that, at the commencement of each session of the legislature, a committee of seven or nine (including the Provincial Secretary for the time being) should be elected by ballot, or by mutual agreement of the leading men of both parties, on the Education Department; which committee should examine into all the operations of the department for the year then ending, consider the school estimates, and any bill or recommendations which might be submitted for the advancement of the school system, and report to the house accordingly. By many thoughtful men, this system has been considered more safe, more likely to secure a competent and working head of the department, and less liable to make the school system a tool of party politics, than for the head of it to have a seat in Parliament, and thus leave the educational interests of the country dependent upon the votes of a majority of electors in one riding. This recommendation, submitted on the 30th of January, 1869, has not yet been adopted; and I am left isolated, responsible in the estimation of legislators and everybody else for the department--the target of every attack, whether in the newspapers or in the Legislative Assembly, yet without any access to it or to its members, except through the press, and no other support than the character of my work and the general confidence of the public." DR. RYERSON'S LETTER OF RESIGNATION IN 1868 AND REPLY TO IT. The salient points of Dr. Ryerson's letter of resignation, dated 7th December, 1868, and addressed to Hon. M. C. Cameron, Provincial Secretary, are as follows:-- "I have the honor to submit to the favourable consideration of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council what, some three weeks since, I submitted to the individual members of the Government, namely, that "The Department of Public Instruction shall be under the management of a member of the Executive Council, to be designated 'Minister of Public Instruction,' who shall be an _ex officio_ member of the Toronto University and of the Council of Public Instruction, and who, in addition to the powers and functions vested in the Chief Superintendent of Education, shall have the oversight of all educational institutions which are or may be, aided by public endowment or legislative grant, to inspect and examine, from time to time, personally or any person appointed by him, into the character and working of such institution; and by him shall all public moneys be paid in support or aid of such institutions, and to him they will report at such times and in such manner as he shall direct.... "Our system of public instruction has acquired such gigantic dimensions, and the network of its operations so pervades every municipality of the land, and is so interwoven with our municipal and judicial systems of government, that I think its administration should now be vested in a responsible Minister of the Crown, with a seat in Parliament; and that I should not stand in the way of the application to our varied educational interests of that ministerial responsibility, which is sound in principle and wise in policy. During the past year I have presented a report on school systems in other countries, with a view of improving my own; and the Legislative Assembly has appointed a Select Committee for the same purpose. I have, therefore, thought this was the proper time to suggest the modification and extension of the Department of Public Instruction.... "While, in addition to the duties imposed upon me by law as Chief Superintendent of Education, I have voluntarily established a system of providing the municipal and school authorities with libraries, text-books and every description of school furniture and school apparatus--devising and developing their domestic manufacture. I have thus saved the country very many thousands of dollars in the prices as well as the quality of the books, maps, etc., etc. I can truly say that I have not derived one farthing's advantage from any of these arrangements, beyond the consciousness of conferring material, intellectual and social benefits upon the country."... To this letter the Government of the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald replied, through Provincial Secretary Cameron, on the 30th of January, 1869, as follows:-- "In acknowledging your letter of the 7th December last, placing your resignation of the office of Chief Superintendent of Education in the hands of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, and suggesting that the Department of Public Instruction should be placed under the more direct management of the Government, through a Minister, to be designated 'the Minister of Public Instruction,' holding a place in the Executive Council and a seat in the Legislative Assembly, thus bringing this department, in common with all other branches of the Government, within the control of the people through the responsible advisers of the Crown. I am directed by His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, to thank you for the valuable suggestions contained in your letter, and to request that you will continue to discharge those important duties, which you have performed for a quarter of a century with so much credit to yourself and benefit to the people of this Province, until His Excellency's advisers shall have more fully considered your suggestions, and matured a measure for placing your department under the direct supervision of a member of the Executive Council. "The services that you have rendered your country, and your now advanced age, fully warrant your asking to be relieved from the further discharge of your arduous duties; but knowing your vigor of mind and energy of character, His Excellency ventures to hope that compliance with the request now made will not prove too great a tax upon your energies, or interfere seriously with any other plans you may have formed for the employment of the remaining years of a life devoted to the moral and intellectual improvement of your fellowmen." To this letter Dr. Ryerson replied on the 30th January, 1869, as follows:-- "I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date conveying the most kind expression of his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor in regard to myself and my past humble services, and the request that I would continue in my present office until His Excellency's advisers should be able to mature a measure to give effect to the recommendations of my letter of 7th of December last respecting the direct responsibility of the Education Department to Parliament, and the creation of the office of Minister of Public Instruction to be filled by a responsible Minister of the Crown, having a seat in Parliament. The more than kind reference to myself on the part of His Excellency has deeply affected me, and for which I desire to express my most heartfelt thanks. "I beg to assure you for the satisfaction of His Excellency that I will subordinate every inclination and contemplated engagement, to the great work of the Education Department and the system of Public Instruction, as long as I have strength and may be desired by the constituted authorities to do so. "I have found that the apprehensions first expressed by the Hon. M. C. Cameron, as Chairman of the Education Committee of the Legislative Assembly during the late session, that connecting the Department of Public Instruction with the political Ministry of the day might draw the system of Public Instruction into the arena of party politics and thus impede its progress, is largely shared in by thoughtful men, and that my recommendation has been coldly received generally, and strongly objected to in many quarters. "Under these circumstances I have been led to review the whole question; and aided by the experience which the recent session of the Legislature has afforded, I would respectfully suggest that, until a better system can be devised, a committee of say seven or nine members of the Legislative Assembly (to be presided over by the Provincial Secretary) be elected by ballot, (or if not by ballot, by the mutual agreement of the leaders of both parties in the House,) at the commencement of each session, to examine into the working, and report upon all matters relating to the Education Department and its administration, as well as upon any measures which might be suggested for the promotion of Public Instruction. The Provincial Secretary, being _ex officio_ Chairman of such Committee, would be able to bring before it any thing that had required the interposition of, or had been brought before the Government during the year and meriting the attention of the Committee. The Committee being chosen by ballot, or by mutual agreement on both sides of the House, would preclude the character of party in its mode of appointment, and give weight and influence to its recommendations. In this way the Education Department, necessarily so identified with matters affecting popular progress and enlightenment would, it its whole administration be more directly responsible to Parliament and through it to the people than any other Public Department is now, and that without being identified or connected with any political party, and on the occasion of a vacancy in the Administration of the Department, a selection and appointment could be made free from the exigencies of party or of party elections, upon the simple and sole ground of qualifications for the office and with a view of promoting the interests of public education irrespective of sect or party." DR. RYERSON'S LETTER OF RESIGNATION IN 1872 AND REPLY TO IT. On the 10th of February, 1872, Dr. Ryerson addressed a letter to the Hon. Edward Blake, then Premier of Ontario, in which he said: "After much deliberation, I have thought it advisable to address you in respect to my long desired retirement from the Education Department, of which I have had charge longer than any Judge has ever occupied the Bench in Canada, and to a greater age.... "The infirmities of age must compel me to retire before long; and I have thought my immediate or early retirement would enable the Government to exercise its discretion more freely in regard to the Department, and system of Public Instruction.... "In case you concur in what I have above intimated, I would suggest the creation of the office of Minister of Public Instruction, and the appointment of yourself to it, as is the Premier in Lower Canada, bringing the University, U. C. College, Institutions of Deaf and Blind, as well as the Normal, High and Public Schools, under direct governmental supervision. "In the practical administration of the Education Department an abler, more judicious and reliable man cannot be found than Dr. Hodgins, who has been in the Department twenty-seven years--who was first educated to business in a retail store in Galt, and afterwards in a wholesale establishment in Hamilton with the Stinsons--clerk in the same establishment with Mr. Charles McGill, M.P., and was offered to be set up in business by the Stinsons or admitted as a partner within a year or so if he would remain, but he chose literature and went to Victoria College in 1840, where I found him; and on account of his punctuality, thoroughness, neatness, method, and excellent conduct, I appointed him on trial first clerk in my office in 1844; and having proved his ability, I wrote to him when I was in Europe, to come home to his widowed mother in Dublin, and spend a year in the great education office there, to learn the whole system and management--I having arranged with the late Archbishop Whately and other members of the National Board, to admit Mr. H. into their office to study the principles and details of its management and of the Normal and Model Schools connected with it. Mr. Hodgins did so at his own expense, and losing the salary for the year; at the end of which he returned to my office with the testimonials of the Irish National Board, as to his diligence and the thorough manner in which he had mastered the modes of proceeding in the several branches of that great Education Department. He also brought drawings, of his own make, of the Dublin Education Offices, Normal and Model Schools. Then since you know that Mr. Hodgins having taken his degree of M. A., has proceeded regularly to his degree of law in the Toronto University, and has been admitted to the Bar as Barrister at Law. He is, therefore, the most thoroughly trained man in all Canada for the Education Department; and is the ablest, most thorough administrator of a public department of any man with whom I have met. I think he has not been appreciated according to his merits; but should you create and fill the office of Minister of Public Instruction, you may safely confide the ordinary administration of the Education Department to Dr. Hodgins, with the title of my office. "In the meantime you can make yourself familiar with the principles and branches, and modes of its arrangement. Whatever you may find to approve of in my policy and course of procedure, I have no doubt you will have the fairness to avow and the patriotism to maintain, whatever may be your views and feelings in regard to myself, personally; and if you find defects in, and can improve upon, my plans or proceedings, no one will rejoice at your success more than myself. I enclose a printed paper, which will afford information of the details of the Department.... "I may add that should I retire from my present office, I would have no objections, if desired, to be appointed Member of the Council of Public Instruction and give any assistance I could in its proceedings as the result of my experience." * * * * * In his reply, dated 12th of February, 1872, Mr. Blake said:-- "I have your note of the 10th instant, marked private, proposing your retirement and the reconstruction of the Education Office, and enclosing copies of a former official correspondence on the same subject. At this late stage of the session, and under the present pressure of public business, there is no probability of our giving this matter the consideration which it deserves, and it must therefore be postponed till the recess, when, if you will have the goodness to put yourself in communication with the Provincial Secretary, as on the former occasion, the subject will receive the early and earnest attention of the Government."... * * * * * Nothing further was done in this matter until 1876, when Dr. Ryerson finally retired from office on full salary, after having filled his responsible post for nearly thirty-two years. A FEW WORDS, PERSONAL TO THE WRITER OF THIS RETROSPECT. Having been intimately concerned in all of the events and educational matters to which I have referred in the foregoing Retrospect, it may not be out of place for me to add a few words of a personal character in conclusion. At the end of this year I shall have completed my more than 45 years' service, as chief of the staff of the Education Department of Ontario. For over 40 years I enjoyed the personal friendship of the distinguished man whose memory we honor here to-day--32 years of which were passed in active and pleasant service under him. The day on which he took official leave of the Department was indeed a memorable one. As he bade farewell to each of his assistants in the office, he and they were deeply moved. He could not, however, bring himself to utter a word to me at our official parting, but as soon as he reached home he wrote to me the following tender and loving note:-- 171 VICTORIA STREET, TORONTO, MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 21ST, 1876. MY DEAR HODGINS,--I felt too deeply to-day when parting with you in the Office to be able to say a word. I was quite overcome with the thought of severing our official connection, which has existed between us for thirty-two years, during the whole of which time, without interruption, we have labored as one mind and heart in two bodies, and I believe with a single eye to promote the best interests of our country, irrespective of religious sect or political party--to devise, develop, and mature a system of instruction which embraces and provides for every child in the land a good education; good teachers to teach; good inspectors to oversee the Schools; good maps, globes, and text-books; good books to read; and every provision whereby Municipal Councils and Trustees can provide suitable accommodation, teachers, and facilities for imparting education and knowledge to the rising generation of the land. While I devoted the year 1845 to visiting educating countries and investigating their system of instruction, in order to devise one for our country, you devoted the same time in Dublin in mastering, under the special auspices of the Board of education there, the several different branches of their Education Office, in administering the system of National Education in Ireland, so that in the details of our Education Office here, as well as in our general school system, we have been enabled to build up the most extensive establishment in the country, leaving nothing, as far as I know, to be devised in the completeness of its arrangements, and in the good character and efficiency of its officers. Whatever credit or satisfaction may attach to the accomplishment of this work, I feel that you are entitled to share equally with myself. Although I know that you have been opposed to the change, yet could I have believed that I might have been of any service to you, or to others with whom I have labored so cordially, or that I could have advanced the school system, I would not have voluntarily retired from office.[61] But all circumstances considered, and entering within a few days upon my 74th year, I have felt that this was the time for me to commit to other hands the reins of the government of the public school system, and labor during the last hours of my day and life, in a more retired sphere. [61] This remark evidently refers to the oft expression of my dissent from Dr. Ryerson's views in regard to the important change which he had proposed to the Government for the future administration of the Education Department. It was one of the very few subjects on which I had occasion to differ from the views of my venerated friend. But my heart is, and ever will be, with you in its sympathies and prayers, and neither you nor yours will more truly rejoice in you success and happiness, than Your old life-long Friend and Fellow-laborer, E. RYERSON. J. GEORGE HODGINS, Esq., LL.D. While in England, in reply to a retrospective letter from me at the close of that eventful year, Dr. Ryerson wrote as follows:-- "LONDON, December 12th, 1876. "DEAR HODGINS,-- . . . . . . . . . . "Had we been enabled to work together, as in former years, we would have done great things for our country, and I could have died in the harness with you. But it was not to be so.... I have no doubt it will be seen that the hand of God is in this, as it has been in all our work together for more than thirty years. "Your ever Affectionate Friend, "E. RYERSON. "J. GEORGE HODGINS, Esq., LL.D." Under these circumstances how can I, therefore, regard without emotion the events of to-day? They bring vividly to my recollection many memorable incidents and interesting events of our educational past known only to myself. They also deeply impress me with the fleeting and transitory nature of all things human. The Chief and sixteen counsellors, appointed and elected to assist him, (besides more than twenty persons connected with various branches of the Department) have all passed away since my first connection with the Department in 1844.[62] His great work remains, however, and his invaluable services to the country we all gratefully recall to-day, while his native land lovingly acknowledges these services in erecting this noble monument to his memory. Truly indeed and faithfully did Egerton Ryerson make good his promise to the people of this Province, when he solemnly pledged himself, on accepting office in 1844-- "To provide for my native country a system of education, and facilities for intellectual improvement not second to those of any country in the world." God grant that the seed sown and the foundations thus laid with such anxious toil and care--and yet in faith--may prove to be one of our richest heritages, so that in the future, wisdom and knowledge, in the highest and truest sense, may be the stability of our times! J. G. H. Toronto, 24th May, 1889. [62] These sixteen were:-- 1. The Right Reverend Michael Power, D.D. 2. Hugh Scobie, Esquire. 3. Hon. Samuel Bealey Harrison, Q.C. 4. The Reverend Adam Lillie, D.D. 5. James Scott Howard, Esquire. 6. The Reverend John Jennings, D.D. 7. The Very Reverend Henry James Grasett, D.D. 8. The Hon. Mr. Justice Morrison. 9. The Reverend John Ambery, M.A. 10. The Right Reverend Thomas Brock Fuller, D.D. 11. The Reverend J. Tabarat, D.D. 12. The Reverend John McCaul, LL.D. 13. The Reverend John Barclay, D.D. 14. The Honorable William McMaster. 15. The Reverend Samuel S. Nelles, D.D., LL.D. 16. The Most Reverend John Joseph Lynch, D.D. * * * * * Transcriber's note: Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. Mismatched quotes are not fixed if it's not sufficiently clear where the missing quote should be placed. In the table of contents the page number for the Title and Prefatory note has been changed from i. to iii. to match the book. Page 17: "and the difficultiee with which he had to contend"--changed to "difficulties". Page 22: "this was the ----le gift which Dr. Ryerson devoted"--The dash (----le) has been inserted where there was a blank area in the printed book. Page 64: "the social and religions virtues"--"religions" changed to "religious". 
8607	----	file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions. Editorial note: This book is essentially identical to LADY MARY AND HER NURSE, by Mrs. Traill, Project Gutenberg EBook #6479, but the two come from different sources. IN THE FOREST or, PICTURES OF LIFE AND SCENERY IN THE WOODS OF CANADA A TALE BY MRS. TRAILL WITH 19 ILLUSTRATIONS 1881 [Illustration: A NARROW ESCAPE] CHAPTER I The Flying Squirrel--Its Food--Story of a Wolf--Indian Village--Wild Rice CHAPTER II Sleighing--Sleigh Robes--Fur Caps--Otter Skins--Old Snow-Storm--Otter Hunting--Otter Slides--Indian Names--Remarks on Wild Animals and their Habits CHAPTER III PART I--Lady Mary reads to Mrs. Frazer the First Part of the History of the Squirrel Family PART II--Which tells how the Gray Squirrels fared while they remained on Pine Island--How they behaved to their poor Relations, the Chipmunks--And what happens to them in the Forest PART III--How the Squirrels got to the Mill at the Rapids--And what happened to the Velvet-paw CHAPTER IV Squirrels--The Chipmunks--Docility of a Pet One--Roguery of a Yankee Pedlar--Return of the Musical Chipmunk to his Master's Bosom--Sagacity of a Black Squirrel CHAPTER V Indian Baskets--Thread Plants--Maple Sugar Tree--Indian Ornamental Works--Racoons CHAPTER VI. Canadian Birds--Snow Sparrow--Robin Redbreast--Canadian Flowers--American Porcupine CHAPTER VII. Indian Bag--Indian Embroidery--Beaver's Tail--Beaver Architecture--Habits of the Beaver--Beaver Tools--Beaver Meadows CHAPTER VIII. Indian Boy and his Pets--Tame Beaver at Home--Kitten, Wildfire--Pet Racoon and the Spaniel Puppies--Canadian Flora CHAPTER IX. Nurse tells Lady Mary about a Little Boy who was eaten by a Bear in the Province of New Brunswick--Of a Baby who was carried away but taken alive--A Walk in the Garden--Humming Birds--Canadian Balsams CHAPTER X. Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, most frequently seen in northern Climates--Called Merry Dancers--Rose Tints--Tintlike Appearance--Lady Mary frightened CHAPTER XI. Strawberries--Canadian Wild Fruits--Wild Raspberries--The Hunter and the Lost Child--Cranberries--Cranberry Marshes--Nuts CHAPTER XII. Garter snakes--Rattle-snakes--Anecdote of a Little Boy--Fisherman and Snake--Snake Charmers--Spiders--Land Tortoise CHAPTER XIII. Ellen and her Pet Fawns--Docility of Fan--Jack's Droll Tricks-- Affectionate Wolf--Fall Flowers--Departure of Lady Mary--The End. List of Illustrations. LADY MARY AND THE NOSEGAY A NARROW ESCAPE THE FLYING SQUIRREL ADVENTURE WITH A WOLF INDIAN WIGWAMS THE OTTERS DOLLY'S SLEIGH RIDE LADY MARY READING HER PICTURE BOOK THE GRAY SQUIRREL AND THE CHIPMUNKS THE PET SQUIRREL NIMBLE RECOVERING HIS SISTER WATCHING THE BIRDS THE PRESENT FROM FATHER BEAVERS MAKING A DAM "CAUGHT AT LAST" THE AURORA BOREALIS THE LOST CHILD AND THE BEARS A BOY HERO THE INDIAN HUNTER IN THE FOREST. CHAPTER I. THE FLYING SQUIRREL--ITS FOOD--STORY OF A WOLF--INDIAN VILLAGE--WILD RICE. "Nurse, what is the name of that pretty creature you have in your hand? What bright eyes it has! What a soft tail--just like a gray feather! Is it a little beaver?" asked the Governor's little daughter, as her nurse came into the room where her young charge, whom we shall call Lady Mary, was playing with her doll. Carefully sheltered against her breast, its velvet nose just peeping from beneath her muslin neckerchief, the nurse held a small gray-furred animal, of the most delicate form and colour. "No, my lady," she replied, "this is not a young beaver; a beaver is a much larger animal. A beaver's tail is not covered with fur; it is scaly, broad, and flat; it looks something like black leather, not very unlike that of my seal-skin slippers. The Indians eat beavers' tails at their great feasts, and think they make an excellent dish." "If they are black, and look like leather shoes, I am very sure I should not like to eat them; so, if you please, Mrs. Frazer, do not let me have any beavers' tails cooked for my dinner," said the little lady, in a very decided tone. "Indeed, my lady," replied her nurse, smiling, "it would not be an easy thing to obtain, if you wished to taste one, for beavers are not brought to our market. It is only the Indians and hunters who know how to trap them, and beavers are not so plentiful as they used to be." Mrs. Frazer would have told Lady Mary a great deal about the way in which the trappers take the beavers, but the little girl interrupted her by saying, "Please, nurse, will you tell me the name of your pretty pet? Ah, sweet thing, what bright eyes you have!" she added, caressing the soft little head which was just seen from beneath the folds of the muslin handkerchief to which it timidly nestled, casting furtive glances at the admiring child, while the panting of its breast told the mortal terror that shook its frame whenever the little girl's hand was advanced to coax its soft back. [Illustration: THE FLYING SQUIRREL] "It is a flying squirrel, Lady Mary," replied her nurse; "one of my brothers caught it a month ago, when he was chopping in the forest. He thought it might amuse your ladyship, and so he tamed it and sent it to me in a basket filled with moss, with some acorns, and hickory-nuts, and beech-mast for him to eat on his journey, for the little fellow has travelled a long way: he came from the beech-woods near the town of Coburg, in the Upper Province." "And where is Coburg, nurse? Is it a large city like Montreal or Quebec?" "No, my lady; it is a large town on the shores of the great Lake Ontario." "And are there many woods near it?" "Yes; but not so many as there used to be many years ago. The forest is almost all cleared, and there are fields of wheat and Indian corn, and nice farms and pretty houses, where a few years back the lofty forest grew dark and thick." "Nurse, you said there were acorns, and hickory-nuts, and beech-mast in the basket. I have seen acorns at home in dear England and Scotland, and I have eaten the hickory-nuts here; but what is beech-mast? Is it in granaries for winter stores; and wild ducks and wild pigeons come from the far north at the season when the beech-mast fall, to eat them; for God teaches these, His creatures, to know the times and the seasons when His bounteous hand is open to give them food from His boundless store. A great many other birds and beasts also feed upon the beech-mast." "It was very good of your brother to send me this pretty creature, nurse," said the little lady; "I will ask Papa to give him some money." "There is no need of that, Lady Mary. My brother is not in want; he has a farm in the Upper Province, and is very well off." "I am glad he is well off," said Lady Mary; "indeed, I do not see so many beggars here as in England." "People need not beg in Canada, if they are well and strong and can work; a poor man can soon earn enough money to keep himself and his little ones." "Nurse, will you be so kind as to ask Campbell to get a pretty cage for my squirrel? I will let him live close to my dormice, who will be pleasant company for him, and I will feed him every day myself with nuts and sugar, and sweet cake and white bread. Now do not tremble and look so frightened, as though I were going to hurt you; and pray, Mr Squirrel, do not bite. Oh! nurse, nurse, the wicked, spiteful creature has bitten my finger! See, see, it has made it bleed! Naughty thing! I will not love you if you bite. Pray, nurse, bind up my finger, or it will soil my frock." Great was the pity bestowed upon the wound by Lady Mary's kind attendant, till the little girl, tired of hearing so much said about the bitten finger, gravely desired her maid to go in search of the cage and catch the truant, which had effected its escape, and was clinging to the curtains of the bed. The cage was procured--a large wooden cage, with an outer and an inner chamber, a bar for the little fellow to swing himself on, a drawer for his food, and a little dish for his water. The sleeping-room was furnished by the nurse with soft wool, and a fine store of nuts was put in the drawer; all his wants were well supplied, and Lady Mary watched the catching of the little animal with much interest. Great was the activity displayed by the runaway squirrel, and still greater the astonishment evinced by the Governor's little daughter at the flying leaps made by the squirrel in its attempts to elude the grasp of its pursuers. "It flies! I am sure it must have wings. Look, look, nurse! it is here, now it is on the wall, now on the curtains! It must have wings; but it has no feathers!" "It has, no wings, dear lady, but it has a fine ridge of fur that covers a strong sinew or muscle between the fore and hinder legs; and it is by the help of this muscle that it is able to spring so far and so fast; and its claws are so sharp, that it can cling to a wall or any flat surface. The black and red squirrels, and the common gray, can jump very far and run up the bark of the trees very fast, but not so fast as the flying squirrel." At last Lady Mary's maid, with the help of one of the housemaids, succeeded in catching the squirrel and securing him within his cage. But though Lady Mary tried all her words of endearment to coax the little creature to eat some of the good things that had been provided so liberally for his entertainment, he remained sullen and motionless at the bottom of the cage. A captive is no less a captive in a cage with gilded bars and with dainties to eat, than if rusted iron shut him in, and kept him from enjoying his freedom. It is for dear liberty that he pines and is sad, even in the midst of plenty! "Dear nurse, why does my little squirrel tremble and look so unhappy? Tell me if he wants anything to eat that we have not given him. Why does he not lie down and sleep on the nice soft bed you have made for him in his little chamber? See, he has not tasted the nice sweet cake and sugar that I gave him." "He is not used to such dainties, Lady Mary. In the forest he feeds upon hickory-nuts, and butternuts, and acorns, and beech-mast, and the buds of the spruce, fir and pine kernels, and many other seeds and nuts and berries that we could not get for him; he loves grain too, and Indian corn. He sleeps on green moss and leaves, and fine fibres of grass and roots, and drinks heaven's blessed dew, as it lies bright and pure upon the herbs of the field." "Dear little squirrel! pretty creature! I know now what makes you sad. You long to be abroad among your own green woods, and sleeping on the soft green moss, which is far prettier than this ugly cotton wool. But you shall stay with me, my sweet one, till the cold winter is past and gone, and the spring flowers have come again; and then, my pretty squirrel, I will take you out of your dull cage, and we will go to St. Helen's green island, and I will let you go free; but I will put a scarlet collar about your neck before I let you go, that if any one finds you, they may know that you are my squirrel. Were you ever in the green forest, nurse? I hear papa talk about the 'Bush' and the 'Backwoods;' it must be very pleasant in the summer to live among the green trees. Were you ever there?" "Yes, dear lady; I did live in the woods when I was a child. I was born in a little log-shanty, far, far away up the country, near a beautiful lake called Rice Lake, among woods, and valleys, and hills covered with flowers, and groves of pine, and white and black oaks." "Stop, nurse, and tell me why they are called black and white; are the flowers black and white?" "No, my lady; it is because the wood of the one is darker than the other, and the leaves of the black oak are dark and shining, while those of the white oak are brighter and lighter. The black oak is a beautiful tree. When I was a young girl, I used to like to climb the sides of the steep valleys, and look down upon the tops of the oaks that grew beneath, and to watch the wind lifting the boughs all glittering in the moonlight; they looked like a sea of ruffled green water. It is very solemn, Lady Mary, to be in the woods by night, and to hear no sound but the cry of the great wood-owl, or the voice of the whip-poor-will, calling to his fellow from the tamarack swamp, or, may be, the timid bleating of a fawn that has lost its mother, or the howl of a wolf." "Nurse, I should be so afraid; I am sure I should cry if I heard the wicked wolves howling in the dark woods by night. Did you ever know any one who was eaten by a wolf?" "No, my lady; the Canadian wolf is a great coward. I have heard the hunters say that they never attack any one unless there is a great flock together and the man is alone and unarmed. My uncle used to go out a great deal hunting, sometimes by torchlight, and sometimes on the lake, in a canoe with the Indians; and he shot and trapped a great many wolves and foxes and racoons. He has a great many heads of wild animals nailed up on the stoup in front of his log-house." "Please tell me what a stoup is, nurse?" "A verandah, my lady, is the same thing, only the old Dutch settlers gave it the name of a stoup, and the stoup is heavier and broader, and not quite so nicely made as a verandah. One day my uncle was crossing the lake on the ice; it was a cold winter afternoon, he was in a hurry to take some food to his brothers, who were drawing pine-logs in the bush. He had, besides a bag of meal and flour, a new axe on his shoulder. He heard steps as of a dog trotting after him; he turned his head, and there he saw, close at his heels, a big, hungry-looking gray wolf; he stopped and faced about, and the big beast stopped and showed his white sharp teeth. My uncle did not feel afraid, but looked steadily at the wolf, as much as to say, 'Follow me if you dare,' and walked on. When my uncle stopped, the wolf stopped; when he went on, the beast also went on." "I would have run away," said Lady Mary. "If my uncle had let the wolf see that he was afraid of him, he would have grown bolder, and have run after him and seized him. All animals are afraid of brave men, but not of cowards. When the beast came too near, my uncle faced him and showed the bright axe, and the wolf then shrank back a few paces. When my uncle got near the shore, he heard a long wild cry, as if from twenty wolves at once. It might have been the echoes from the islands that increased the sound; but it was very frightful and made his blood chill, for he knew that without his rifle he should stand a poor chance against a large pack of hungry wolves. Just then a gun went off; he heard the wolf give a terrible yell, he felt the whizzing of a bullet pass him, and turning about, saw the wolf lying dead on the ice. A loud shout from the cedars in front told him from whom the shot came; it was my father, who had been on the look-out on the lake shore, and he had fired at and hit the wolf when he saw that he could do so without hurting his brother." "Nurse, it would have been a sad thing if the gun had shot your uncle." "It would; but my father was one of the best shots in the district, and could hit a white spot on the bark of a tree with a precision that was perfectly wonderful. It was an old Indian from Buckhorn Lake who taught him to shoot deer by torchlight and to trap beavers." "Well, I am glad that horrid wolf was killed, for wolves eat sheep and lambs; and I daresay they would devour my little squirrel if they could get him. Nurse, please to tell me again the name of the lake near which you were born." "It is called Rice Lake, my lady. It is a fine piece of water, more than twenty miles long, and from three to five miles broad. It has pretty wooded islands, and several rivers or streams empty themselves into it. The Otonabee River is a fine broad stream, which flows through the forest a long way. Many years ago, there were no clearings on the banks, and no houses, only Indian tents or wigwams; but now there are a great many houses and farms." "What are wigwams?" "A sort of light tent, made with poles stuck into the ground in a circle, fastened together at the top, and covered on the outside with skins of wild animals, or with birch bark. The Indians light a fire of sticks and logs on the ground, in the middle of the wigwam, and lie or sit all round it; the smoke goes up to the top and escapes. Or sometimes, in the warm summer weather, they kindle their fire without, and their squaws, or wives, attend to it; while they go hunting in the forest, or, mounted on swift horses, pursue the trail of their enemies. In the winter, they bank up the wigwam with snow, and make it very warm." [Illustration: INDIAN WIGWAMS] "I think it must be a very ugly sort of house, and I am glad I do not live in an Indian wigwam," said the little lady. "The Indians are a very simple folk, my lady, and do not need fine houses like this in which your papa lives. They do not know the names or uses of half the fine things that are in the houses of the white people. They are happy and contented without them. It is not the richest that are happiest, Lady Mary, and the Lord careth for the poor and the lowly. There is a village on the shores of Rice Lake where the Indians live. It is not very pretty. The houses are all built of logs, and some of them have gardens and orchards. They have a neat church, and they have a good minister, who takes great pains to teach them the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The poor Indians were Pagans until within the last few years." "What are Pagans, nurse?" "People, Lady Mary, who do not believe in God and the Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed Saviour." "Nurse, is there real rice growing in the Rice Lake? I heard my governess say that rice grew only in warm countries. Now, your lake must be very cold if your uncle walked across the ice." "This rice, my lady, is not real rice. I heard a gentleman tell my father that it was, properly speaking, a species of oats [Footnote: Zizania, or water oats]--water oats, he called it; but the common name for it is wild rice. This wild rice grows in vast beds in the lake in patches of many acres. It will grow in water from eight to ten or twelve feet deep; the grassy leaves float upon the water like long narrow green ribbons. In the month of August, the stem that is to bear the flower and the grain rises straight up above the surface, and light delicate blossoms come out of a pale straw colour and lilac. They are very pretty, and wave in the wind with a rustling noise. In the month of October, when the rice is ripe, the leaves torn yellow, and the rice-heads grow heavy and droop; then the squaws--as the Indian women are called--go out in their birch-bark canoes, holding in one hand a stick, in the other a short curved paddle with a sharp edge. With this they bend down the rice across the stick and strike off the heads, which fall into the canoe, as they push it along through the rice-beds. In this way they collect a great many bushels in the course of the day. The wild rice is not the least like the rice which your ladyship has eaten; it is thin, and covered with a light chaffy husk. The colour of the grain itself is a brownish-green, or olive, smooth, shining, and brittle. After separating the outward chaff, the squaws put by a large portion of the clean rice in its natural state for sale; for this they get from a dollar and a half to two dollars a bushel. Some they parch, either in large pots, or on mats made of the inner bark of cedar or bass wood, beneath which they light a slow fire, and plant around it a temporary hedge of green boughs closely set, to prevent the heat from escaping; they also drive stakes into the ground, over which they stretch the matting at a certain height above the fire. On this they spread the green rice, stirring it about with wooden paddles till it is properly parched; this is known by its bursting and showing the white grain of the flour. When quite cool it is stowed away in troughs, scooped out of butter-nut wood, or else sewed up in sheets of birch bark or bass-mats, or in coarsely-made birch-bark baskets." "And is the rice good to eat, nurse?" "Some people like it as well as the white rice of Carolina; but it does not look so well. It is a great blessing to the poor Indians, who boil it in their soups, or eat it with maple molasses. And they eat it when parched without any other cooking, when they are on a long journey in the woods, or on the lakes. I have often eaten nice puddings made of it with milk. The deer feed upon the green rice. They swim into the water and eat the green leaves and tops. The Indians go out at night to shoot the deer on the water; they listen for them, and shoot them in the dark. The wild ducks and water-fowls come down in great flocks to fatten on the ripe rice in the fall of the year; also large flocks of rice buntings and red wings, which make their roosts among the low willows, flags, and lilies, close to the shallows of the lake." "It seems very useful to birds as well as to men and beasts," said little Lady Mary. "Yes, my lady, and to fishes also, I make no doubt; for the good God has cast it so abundantly abroad on the waters, that I daresay they also have their share. When the rice is fully ripe, the sun shining on it gives it a golden hue, just like a field of ripened grain. Surrounded by the deep-blue waters, it looks very pretty." "I am very much obliged to you nurse, for telling me so much about the Indian rice, and I will ask mamma to let me have some one day for my dinner, that I may know how it tastes." Just then Lady Mary's governess came to bid her nurse dress her for a sleigh-ride, and so for the present we shall leave her; but we will tell our little readers something more in another chapter about Lady Mary and her flying squirrel. CHAPTER II. SLEIGHING--SLEIGH ROBES--FUR CAPS--OTTER SKINS--OLD SNOW-STORM--OTTER HUNTING--OTTER SLIDES--INDIAN NAMES--REMARKS ON WILD ANIMALS AND THEIR HABITS Nurse, we have had a very nice sleigh-drive. I like sleighing very much over the white snow. The trees look so pretty, as if they were covered with white flowers, and the ground sparkled just like mamma's diamonds." "It is pleasant, Lady Mary, to ride through the woods on a bright sunshiny day, after a fresh fall of snow. The young evergreens, hemlocks, balsams, and spruce-trees, are loaded with great masses of the new-fallen snow; while the slender saplings of the beech, birch, and basswood (the lime or linden) are bent down to the very ground, making bowers so bright and beautiful, you would be delighted to see them. Sometimes, as you drive along, great masses of the snow come showering down upon you; but it is so light and dry, that it shakes off without wetting you. It is pleasant to be wrapped up in warm blankets, or buffalo robes, at the bottom of a lumber-sleigh, and to travel through the forest by moonlight; the merry bells echoing through the silent woods, and the stars just peeping down through the frosted trees, which sparkle like diamonds in the moonbeams." "Nurse, I should like to take a drive through the forest in winter. It is so nice to hear the sleigh-bells. We used sometimes to go out in the snow in Scotland, but we were in the carriage, and had no bells." "No, Lady Mary; the snow seldom lies long enough in the old country to make it worth while to have sleighs there; but in Russia and Sweden, and other cold Northern countries, they use sleighs with bells." Lady Mary ran to the little bookcase where she had a collection of children's books, and very soon found a picture of Laplanders and Russians wrapped in furs. "How long will the winter last, nurse?" said the child, after she had tired herself with looking at the prints, "a long, long time--a great many weeks?--a great many months?" "Yes, my lady; five or six months." "Oh, that is nice--nearly half a year of white snow, and sleigh-drives every day, and bells ringing all the time! I tried to make out a tune, but they only seemed to say, 'Up-hill, up-hill! down-hill, down-hill!' all the way. Nurse, please tell me what are sleigh-robes made of?" "Some sleigh-robes, Lady Mary, are made of bear-skins, lined with red or blue flannel; some are of wolf-skins, lined with bright scarlet cloth; and some of racoon, the commonest are buffalo-skins; I have seen some of deer-skins, but these last are not so good, as the hair comes off, and they are not so warm as the skins of the furred or woolly-coated animals" "I sometimes see long tails hanging down over the backs of the sleigh and cutters--they look very pretty, like the end of mamma's boa." "The wolf and racoon skin robes are generally made up with the tails, and sometimes the heads of the animals are also left. I noticed the head of a wolf, with its sharp ears, and long white teeth, looking very fierce, at the back of a cutter, the other day." "Nurse, that must have looked very droll. Do you know I saw a gentleman the other day, walking with papa, who had a fox-skin cap on his head, and the fox's nose was just peeping over his shoulder, and the tail hung down his back, and I saw its bright black eyes looking so cunning I thought it must be alive, and that it had curled itself round his head; but the gentleman took it off, and showed me that the eyes were glass." "Some hunters, Lady Mary, make caps of otter, mink, or badger skins, and ornament them with the tails, heads, and claws." "I have seen a picture of the otter, nurse; it is a pretty, soft-looking thing, with a round head and black eyes. Where do otters live?" "The Canadian otters, Lady Mary, live in holes in the banks of sedgy, shallow lakes, mill-ponds, and sheltered creeks. The Indian hunters find their haunts by tracking their steps in the snow; for an Indian or Canadian hunter knows the track made by any bird or beast, from the deep broad print of the bear, to the tiny one of the little shrewmouse, which is the smallest four-footed beast in this or any other country. "Indians catch the otter, and many other wild animals, in a sort of trap, which they call a 'deadfall.' Wolves are often so trapped, and then shot. The Indians catch the otter for the sake of its dark shining fur, which is used by the hatters and furriers Old Jacob Snow-storm, an old Indian who lived on the banks of the Rice Lake, used to catch otters; and I have often listened to him, and laughed at his stories." "Do, please, nurse, tell me what old Jacob Snow-storm told you about the otters; I like to hear stories about wild beasts. But what a droll surname Snow-storm is!" "Yes, Lady Mary; Indians have very odd names; they are called after all sorts of strange things. They do not name the children, as we do, soon after they are born, but wait for some remarkable circumstance, some dream or accident. Some call them after the first strange animal or bird that appears to the new-born. Old Snow-storm most likely owed his name to a heavy fall of snow when he was a baby. I knew a chief named Musk-rat, and a pretty Indian girl who was named 'Badau'-bun'--_Light of the Morning._" "And what is the Indian name for Old Snow-storm?" "'Be-che-go-ke-poor,' my lady." Lady Mary said it was a funny sounding name, and not at all like Snow-storm, which she liked a great deal better; and she was much amused while her nurse repeated to her some names of squaws and papooses (Indian women and children); such as Long Thrush, Little Fox, Running Stream, Snowbird, Red Cloud, Young Eagle, Big Bush, and many others. "Now, nurse, will you tell me some more about Jacob Snow-storm and the otters?" "Well, Lady Mary, the old man had a cap of otter-skin, of which he was very proud, and only wore on great days. One day as he was playing with it, he said:--'Otter funny fellow; he like play too, sometimes. Indian go hunting up Ottawa, that great big river, you know. Go one moonlight night; lie down under bushes in snow; see lot of little fellow and big fellow at play. Run up and down bank; bank all ice. Sit down top of bank; good slide there. Down he go splash into water; out again. Funny fellow those!' And then the old hunter threw hack his head, and laughed, till you could have seen all his white teeth, he opened his mouth so wide." [Illustration: The Otters] Lady Mary was very much amused at the comical way in which the old Indian talked. "Can otters swim, nurse?" "Yes, Lady Mary, the good God who has created all things well, has given to this animal webbed feet, which enable it to swim, and it can also dive down in the deep water, where it finds fish and mussels, and perhaps the roots of some water-plants to eat. It makes very little motion or disturbance in the water when it goes down in search of its prey. Its coat is thick, and formed of two kinds of hair; the outer hair is long, silky, and shining; the under part is short, fine, and warm. The water cannot penetrate to wet them,--the oily nature of the fur throws off the moisture. They dig large holes with their claws, which are short, but very strong. They line their nests with dry grass, and rushes, and roots gnawed fine, and do not pass the winter in sleep, as the dormice, flying squirrels, racoons, and bears do. They are very innocent and playful, both when young, and even after they grow old. The lumberers often tame them, and they become so docile that they will come at a call or whistle. Like all wild animals, they are most lively at night, when they come out to feed and play." "Dear little things! I should like to have a tame otter to play with, and run after me; but do you think he would eat my squirrel? You know cats will eat squirrels--so mamma says." "Cats belong to a very different class of animals; they are beasts of prey, formed to spring and bound, and tear with their teeth and claws. The otter is also a beast of prey, but its prey is found in the still waters, and not on the land; it can neither climb nor leap. So I do not think he would hurt your squirrel, if you had one." "See, nurse, my dear little squirrel is still where I left him, clinging to the wires of the cage, his bright eyes looking like two black beads." "As soon as it grows dark he will begin to be more lively, and perhaps he will eat something, but not while we look at him--he is too shy for that." "Nurse, how can they see to eat in the dark?" "The good God, Lady Mary, has so formed their eyes that they can see best by night. I will read you, Lady Mary, a few verses from Psalm civ.:-- "'Verse 19. He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. "'20. Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beast of the forest do creep forth. "'21. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. "'22. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. "'23. Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour, until the evening. "'24. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.' "Thus you see, my dear lady, that our heavenly Father taketh care of all his creatures, and provideth for them both by day and by night." "I remember, nurse, that my dormice used to lie quite still, nestled among the moss and wool in their little dark chamber in the cage, all day long; but when it was night they used to come out and frisk about, and run along the wires, and play all sorts of tricks, chasing one another round and round, and they were not afraid of me, but would let me look at them while they ate a nut, or a hit of sugar; and the dear little things would drink out of their little white saucer, and wash their faces and tails--it was so pretty to see them!" "Did you notice, Lady Mary, how the dormice held their food?" "Yes; they sat up, and held it in their fore-paws, which looked just like tiny hands." "There are many animals whose fore-feet resemble hands, and these, generally, convey their food to their mouths--among these are the squirrel and dormice. They are good climbers and diggers. You see, my dear young lady, how the merciful Creator has given to all his creatures, however lowly, the best means of supplying their wants, whether of food or shelter." "Indeed, nurse. I have learned a great deal about squirrels, Canadian rice, otters, and Indians; but, if you please, I must now have a little play with my doll. Good-bye, Mrs. Frazer; pray take care of my dear little squirrel, and mind that he does not fly away." And Lady Mary was soon busily engaged in drawing her wax doll about the nursery in a little sleigh lined with red squirrel fur robes, and talking to her as all children like to talk to their dolls, whether they be rich or poor--the children of peasants, or governors' daughters. [Illustration: Dolly's Sleigh-Ride] CHAPTER III. LADY MARY READS TO MRS. FRAZER THE FIRST PART OF THE HISTORY OF THE SQUIRREL FAMILY. One day Lady Mary came to her nurse, and putting her arms about her neck, whispered to her,--"Mrs. Frazer, my dear good governess has given me something--it is in my hand," and she slily held her hand behind her--"will you guess what it is?" "Is it a book, my lady?" "Yes, yes, it is a book, a pretty book; and see, here are pictures of squirrels in it. Mrs. Frazer, if you like, I will sit down on this cushion by you and read some of my new book. It does not seem very hard." Then Mrs. Frazer took out her work-basket and sat down to sew, and Lady Mary began to read the little story, which, I hope, may entertain my little readers as much as it did the Governor's daughter. * * * * * PART I THE HISTORY OF A SQUIRREL FAMILY. [Illustration: LADY MARY READING HER PICTURE-BOOK.] It must be a pleasant thing to be a squirrel, and live a life of freedom in the boundless forests; to leap and bound among the branches of the tall trees, to gambol in the deep shade of the cool glossy leaves, through the long warm summer day; to gather the fresh nuts and berries; to drink the pure dews of heaven, all bright and sparkling from the opening flowers; to sleep on soft beds of moss and thistle-down in some hollow branch rocked by the wind as in a cradle. Yet, though this was the happy life led by a family of pretty gray squirrels that had their dwelling in the hoary branch of an old oak-tree that grew on one of the rocky islands in a beautiful lake in Upper Canada, called _Stony Lake_ (because it was full of rocky islands), these little creatures were far from being contented, and were always wishing for a change. Indeed, they had been very happy, till one day when a great black squirrel swam to the island and paid them a visit. He was a very fine handsome fellow, nearly twice as large as any of the gray squirrels; he had a tail that flourished over his back, when he set it up, like a great black feather; his claws were sharp and strong, and his eyes very round and bright; he had upright ears, and long, sharp teeth, of which he made good use. The old gray squirrels called him cousin, and invited him to dinner. They very civilly set before him some acorns and beechnuts; but he proved a hungry visitor, and ate as much as would have fed the whole family for a week. After the gray squirrels had cleared away the shells and scraps, they asked their greedy guest where he came from, when Blackie told them he was a great traveller, and had seen many wonderful things; that he had once lived on a forked pine at the head of the Waterfall, but being tired of a dull life, he had gone out on his travels to see the world; that he had been down the lake, and along the river shore, where there were great places cut out in the thick forest, called clearings, where some very tall creatures lived, who were called men and women, with young ones called children; that though they were not so pretty as squirrels--for they had no fur on them, and were obliged to make clothes to cover them and keep them warm--they were very useful, and sowed corn and planted fruit-trees and roots for squirrels to eat, and even built large grain stores to keep it safe and dry for them. This seemed very strange, and the simple little gray squirrels were very much pleased, and said they should like very much to go down the lakes too, and see these wonderful things. The black squirrel then told them that there were many things to be seen in these clearings; that there were large beasts, called oxen, and cows, and sheep, and pigs; and these creatures had houses built for them to live in; and all the men and women seemed to employ themselves about, was feeding and taking care of them. Now this cunning fellow never told his simple cousins that the oxen had to bear a heavy wooden yoke and chain, and were made to work very hard; nor that the cows were fed that they might give milk to the children; nor that the pigs were fatted to make pork; nor that the sheep had their warm fleeces cut off every year that the settlers might have the wool to spin and weave. Blackie did not say that the men carried guns, and the dogs were fierce, and would hunt poor squirrels from tree to tree, frightening them almost to death with their loud, angry barking; that cats haunted the barns and houses; and, in short, that there were dangers as well as pleasures to be met with in these clearings; and that the barns were built to shelter the grain for men, and not for the benefit of squirrels. The black squirrel proved rather a troublesome guest, for he stayed several days, and ate so heartily, that the old gray squirrels were obliged to hint that he had better go back to the clearings, where there was so much food, for that their store was nearly done. When Blackie found that all the nice nuts were eaten, and that even pine-kernels and beech-nuts were becoming scarce, he went away, saying that he should soon come again. The old gray squirrels were glad when they saw the tip of Blackie's tail disappear, as he whisked down the trunk of the old oak; but their young ones were very sorry that he was gone, for they liked very much to listen to all his wonderful stories, which they thought were true; and they told their father and mother how they wished they would leave the dull island and the old tree, and go down the lakes, and see the wonderful things that their black cousin had described. But the old ones shook their heads, and said they feared there was more fiction than truth in the tales they had heard, and that if they were wise they would stay where they were. "What do you want more, my dear children," said their mother, "than you enjoy here? Have you not this grand old oak for a palace to live in; its leaves and branches spreading like a canopy over your heads, to shelter you from the hot sun by day and the dews by night? Are there not moss, dried grass, and roots beneath, to make a soft bed for you to lie upon? and do not the boughs drop down a plentiful store of brown ripe acorns? That silver lake, studded with islands of all shapes and sizes, produces cool clear water for you to drink and bathe yourselves in. Look at those flowers that droop their blossoms down to its glassy surface, and the white lilies that rest upon its bosom,--will you see anything fairer or better if you leave this place? Stay at home and be contented." "If I hear any more grumbling," said their father, "I shall pinch your ears and tails." So the little squirrels said no more, but I am sorry to say they did not pay much heed to their wise old mother's counsels; for whenever they were alone, all their talk was how to run away, and go abroad to see the world, as their black cousin had called the new settlement down the lakes. It never came into the heads of the silly creatures that those wonderful stories they had been told originated in an artful scheme of the greedy black squirrel, to induce them to leave their warm pleasant house in the oak, that he and his children might come and live in it, and get the hoards of grain, and nuts, and acorns, that their father and mother had been laying up for winter stores. Moreover, the wily black squirrel had privately told them that their father and mother intended to turn them out of the nest very soon, and make provision for a new family. This indeed was really the case; for as soon as young animals can provide for themselves, their parents turn them off, and care no more for them. Very different, indeed, is this from our parents; for they love and cherish us as long as they live, and afford us a home and shelter as long as we need it. Every hour these little gray squirrels grew more and more impatient to leave the lonely little rocky island, though it was a pretty spot, and the place of their birth; but they were now eager to go abroad and seek their fortunes. "Let us keep our own counsel," said Nimble-foot to his sisters Velvet-paw and Silver-nose, "or we may chance to get our tails pulled; but be all ready for a start by early dawn to-morrow." Velvet-paw and Silver-nose said they would be up before sunrise, as they should have a long voyage down the lake, and agreed to rest on Pine Island near the opening of Clear Lake. "And then take to the shore and travel through the woods, where, no doubt, we shall have a pleasant time," said Nimble-foot, who was the most hopeful of the party. The sun was scarcely yet risen over the fringe of dark pines that skirted the shores of the lake, and a soft creamy mist hung on the surface of the still waters, which were unruffled by the slightest breeze. The little gray squirrels awoke, and looked sleepily out from the leafy screen that shaded their mossy nest. The early notes of the wood-thrush and song-sparrow, with the tender warbling of the tiny wren, sounded sweetly in the still, dewy morning air; while from a cedar swamp was heard the trill of the green frogs, which the squirrels thought very pretty music. As the sun rose above the tops of the trees, the mist rolled off in light fleecy clouds, and soon was lost in the blue sky, or lay in large bright drops on the cool grass and shining leaves. Then all the birds awoke, and the insects shook their gauzy wings which had been folded all the night in the flower-cups, and the flowers began to lift their heads, and the leaves to expand to catch the golden light. There was a murmur on the water as it played among the sedges, and lifted the broad floating leaves of the white water-lilies, with their carved ivory cups; and the great green, brown, and blue dragon-flies rose with a whirring sound, and darted to and fro among the water-flowers. It is a glorious sight to see the sun rise at any time, for then we can look upon him without having our eyes dazzled with the brightness of his beams; and though there were no men and women and little children, in the lonely waters and woods, to lift up their hands and voices in prayer and praise to God, who makes the sun to rise each day, yet no doubt the great Creator is pleased to see his creatures rejoice in the blessings of light and heat. Lightly running down the rugged bark of the old oak-tree, the little squirrels bade farewell to their island home--to the rocks, mosses, ferns, and flowers that had sheltered them, among which they had so often chased each other in merry gambols. They thought little of all this, when they launched themselves on the silver bosom of the cool lake. "How easy it is to swim in this clear water!" said Silver-nose to her sister Velvet-paw. "We shall not be long in reaching yonder island, and there, no doubt, we shall get a good breakfast." So the little swimmers proceeded on their voyage, furrowing the calm waters as they glided noiselessly along; their soft gray heads and ears and round black eyes only being seen, and the bright streaks caused by the motion of their tails, which lay flat on the surface, looking like silver threads gently floating on the stream. Not being much used to the fatigue of swimming, the little squirrels were soon tired, and if it had not been for a friendly bit of stick that happened to float near her, poor Velvet-paw would have been drowned; however, she got up on the stick, and, setting up her fine broad tail, went merrily on, and soon passed Nimble-foot and Silver-nose. The current drew the stick towards the Pine Island that lay at the entrance of Clear Lake, and Velvet-paw leaped ashore, and sat down on a mossy stone to dry her fur, and watch for her brother and sister: they, too, found a large piece of birch-bark which the winds had blown into the water, and as a little breeze had sprung up to waft them along, they were not very long before they landed on the island. They were all very glad when they met again, after the perils and fatigues of the voyage. The first thing to be done was to look for something to eat, for their early rising had made them very hungry. They found abundance of pine-cones strewn on the ground, but, alas for our little squirrels! very few kernels in them; for the crossbills and chiccadees had been at work for many weeks on the trees; and also many families of their poor relations, the chitmunks or ground squirrels, had not been idle, as our little voyagers could easily guess by the chips and empty cones round their holes. So, weary as they were, they were obliged to run up the tall pine and hemlock trees, to search among the cones that grew on their very top branches. While our squirrels were busy with the few kernels they chanced to find, they were started from their repast by the screams of a large slate-coloured hawk, and Velvet-paw very narrowly escaped being pounced upon and carried off in its sharp-hooked talons. Silver-nose at the same time was nearly frightened to death by the keen round eyes of a cunning racoon, which had come within a few feet of the mossy branch of an old cedar, where she sat picking the seeds out of a dry head of a blue flag-flower she had found on the shore. Silvy, at this sight, gave a spring that left her many yards beyond her sharp-sighted enemy. A lively note of joy was uttered by Nimble-foot, for, perched at his ease on a top branch of the hemlock-tree, he had seen the bound made by Silver-nose. "Well jumped, Silvy," said he; "Mister Coon must be a smart fellow to equal that. But look sharp, or you will get your neck wrung yet; I see we must keep a good look-out in this strange country." "I begin to wish we were safe back again in our old one," whined Silvy, who was much frightened by the danger she had just escaped. "Pooh, pooh, child; don't be a coward," said Nimble, laughing. "Cousin Blackie never told us there were hawks and coons on this island," said Vehret-paw. "My dear, he thought we were too brave to be afraid of hawks and coons," said Nimble. "For my part, I think it is a fine thing to go out a little into the world. We should never see anything better than the sky, and the water, and the old oak-tree on that little island." "Ay, but I think it is safer to see than to be seen," said Silvy, "for hawks and eagles have strong beaks, and racoons sharp claws and hungry-looking teeth; and it is not very pleasant, Nimble, to be obliged to look out for such wicked creatures." "Oh, true indeed," said Nimble; "if it had not been for that famous jump you made, Silvy, and, Velvet, your two admirers, the hawk and racoon, would soon have hid all your beauties from the world, and put a stop to your travels." "It is very well for brother Nimble to make light of our dangers," whispered Velvet-paw, "but let us see how he will jump if a big eagle were to pounce down to carry him off." "Yes, yes," said Silvy; "it is easy to brag before one is in danger." The squirrels thought they would now go and look for some partridge-berries, of which they were very fond, for the pine-kernels were but dry husky food after all. There were plenty of the pretty white star-shaped blossoms, growing all over the ground under the pine-trees, but the bright scarlet twin-berries were not yet ripe. In winter the partridges eat this fruit from under the snow; and it furnishes food for many little animals as well as birds. The leaves are small, of a dark green, and the white flowers have a very fine fragrant scent. Though the runaways found none of these berries fit to eat, they saw some ripe strawberries among the bushes; and, having satisfied their hunger, began to grow very merry, and whisked here and there and everywhere, peeping into this hole and under that stone. Sometimes they had a good game of play, chasing one another up and down the trees, chattering and squeaking as gray squirrels only can chatter and squeak, when they are gambolling about in the wild woods of Canada. Indeed, they made such a noise, that the great ugly black snakes lifted up their heads, and stared at them with their wicked spiteful-looking eyes, and the little ducklings swimming among the water-lilies gathered round their mother, and a red-winged blackbird perched on a dead tree gave alarm to the rest of the flock by calling out, _Geck_, _geck_, _geck_, as loudly as he could. In the midst of their frolics, Nimble skipped into a hollow log--but was glad to run out again; for a porcupine covered with sharp spines was there, and was so angry at being disturbed, that he stuck one of his spines into poor Nimble-foot's soft velvet nose, and there it could have remained if Silvy had not seized it with her teeth and pulled it out. Nimble-foot squeaked sadly, and would not play any longer, but rolled himself up and went to sleep in a red-headed woodpecker's old nest; while Silvy and Velvet-paw frisked about in the moonlight, and when tired of play got up into an old oak which had a large hollow place in the crown of it, and fell asleep, fancying, no doubt, that they were on the rocky island in Stony Lake; and so we will bid them good night, and wish them pleasant dreams. * * * * * Lady Mary had read a long while, and was now tired; so she kissed her nurse, and said, "Now, Mrs. Frazer, I will play with my doll, and feed my squirrel and my dormice." The dormice were two soft, brown creatures, almost as pretty and as innocent as the squirrel, and a great deal tamer; and they were called Jeannette and Jeannot, and would come when they were called by their names, and take a bit of cake or a lump of sugar out of the fingers of their little mistress. Lady Mary had two canaries, Dick and Pet; and she loved her dormice and birds, and her new pet, the flying squirrel, very much, and never let them want for food, or water, or any nice thing she could get for them. She liked the history of the gray squirrels very much, and was quite eager to get her book the next afternoon, to read the second part of the adventures and wanderings of the family. * * * * * PART II. WHICH TELLS HOW THE GRAY SQUIRRELS GET ON WHILE THEY REMAINED ON PIKE ISLAND--HOW THEY BEHAVED TO THEIR POOR RELATIONS, THE CHITMUNKS--AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM IN THE FOREST. It was noon when the little squirrels awoke, and, of course, they were quite ready for their breakfast; but there was no good, kind old mother to provide for their wants, and to bring nuts, acorns, roots, or fruit for them; they must now get up, go forth, and seek food for themselves. When Velvet-paw and Silver-nose went to call Nimble-foot, they were surprised to find his nest empty; but after searching a long while, they found him sitting on the root of an up-turned tree, looking at a family of little chitmunks busily picking over the pine-cones on the ground; but as soon as one of the poor little fellows, with great labour, had dug out a kernel, and was preparing to eat it, down leaped Nimble-foot and carried off the prize; and if one of the little chitmunks ventured to say a word, he very uncivilly gave him a scratch, or bit his ears, calling him a mean, shabby fellow. Now the chitmunks were really very pretty. They were, to be sure, not more than half the size of the gray squirrels, and their fur was short, without the soft, thick glossy look upon it of the gray squirrels'. They were of a lively, tawny yellow-brown colour, with long black and white stripes down their backs; their tails were not so long nor so thickly furred; and instead of living in the trees, they made their nests in logs and windfalls, and had their granaries and winter houses too underground, where they made warm nests of dried moss and grass and thistledown; to these they had several entrances, so that they had always a chance of refuge if danger were nigh. Like the dormice, flying squirrels, and ground hogs, they slept soundly during the cold weather, only awakening when the warm spring sun had melted the snow. [Footnote: It is not quite certain that the chitmunk is a true squirrel, and he is sometimes called a striped rat. This pretty animal seems, indeed, to form a link between the rat and squirrel.] The vain little gray squirrels thought themselves much better than these little chitmunks, whom they treated with very little politeness, laughing at them for living in holes in the ground, instead of upon lofty trees, as they did; they even called them low-bred fellows, and wondered why they did not imitate their high-breeding and behaviour. The chitmunks took very little notice of their rudeness, but merely said that, if being high-bred made people rude, they would rather remain humble as they were. "As we are the head of all the squirrel families," said Silver-nose, "we shall do you the honour of breakfasting with you to-day." "We breakfasted hours ago, while you lazy fellows were fast asleep," replied an old chitmunk, poking his little nose out of a hole in the ground. "Then we shall dine with you; so make haste and get something good for us," said Nimble-foot. "I have no doubt you have plenty of butter and hickory-nuts laid up in your holes." The old chitmunk told him he might come and get them, if he could. At this the gray squirrels skipped down from the branches, and began to run hither and thither, and to scratch among the moss and leaves, to find the entrance to the chitmunks' grain stores. They peeped under the old twisted roots of the pines and cedars, into every chink and cranny, but no sign of a granary was to be seen. [Illustration: THE GRAY SQUIRREL AND THE CHITMUNKS.] Then the chitmunks said, "My dear friends, this is a bad season to visit us; we are very poor just now, finding it difficult to get a few dry pine-kernels and berries; but if you will come and see us after harvest, we shall have a store of nuts and acorns." "Pretty fellows you are!" replied Nimble, "to put us off with promises, when we are so hungry; we might starve between this and harvest." "If you leave this island, and go down the lake, you will come to a mill, where the red squirrels live, and where you will have fine times," said one of the chitmunks. "Which is the nearest way to the mill?" asked Velvet-paw. "Swim to the shore, and keep the Indian path, and you will soon see it." But while the gray squirrels were looking out for the path, the cunning chitmunks whisked away into their holes, and left the inquirers in the lurch, who could not tell what had become of them; for though they did find a round hole that they thought might be one of their burrows, it was so narrow that they could only poke in their noses, but could get no further--the gray squirrels being much fatter and bigger than the slim little chitmunks. "After all," said Silvy, who was the best of the three, "perhaps, if we had been civil, the chitmunks would have treated us better." "Well," said Nimble, "if they had been good fellows, they would have invited us, as our mother did Cousin Blackie, and have set before us the best they had. I could find it in my heart to dig them out of their holes and give them a good bite." This was all brag on Nimble's part, who was not near so brave as he wished Silvy and Velvet-paw to suppose he was. After spending some time in hunting for acorns they made up their minds to leave the island, and as it was not very far to the mainland, they decided on swimming thither. "Indeed," said Silver-nose, "I am tired of this dull place; we are not better off here than we were in the little island in Stony Lake, where our good old mother took care we should have plenty to eat, and we had a nice warm nest to shelter us." "Ah, well, it is of no use grumbling now; if we were to go back, we should only get a scolding, and perhaps be chased off the island," said Nimble. "Now let us have a race, and see which of us will get to shore first;" and he leaped over Velvet-paw's head, and was soon swimming merrily for the shore. He was soon followed by his companions, and in half an hour they were all safely landed. Instead of going into the thick forest, they agreed to take the path by the margin of the lake, for there they had a better chance of getting nuts and fruit; but though it was the merry month of June, and there were plenty of pretty flowers in bloom, the berries were hardly ripe, and our little vagrants fared but badly. Besides being hungry, they were sadly afraid of the eagles and fish-hawks that kept hovering over the water; and when they went further into the forest to avoid them, they saw a great white wood-owl, noiselessly flying out from among the close cedar swamps, that seemed just ready to pounce down upon them. The gray squirrels did not like the look of the owl's great round shining eyes, as they peered at them, under the tufts of silky white feathers, which almost hid his hooked bill, and their hearts sunk within them when they heard his hollow cry, _"Ho, ho, ho, ho!" "Waugh, ho!"_ dismally sounding in their ears. It was well that Velvet-paw was as swift afoot as she was soft, for one of these great owls had very nearly caught her, while she was eating a filbert that she had found in a cleft branch, where a nuthatch had fixed it, while she pecked a hole in the shell. Some bird of prey had scared away the poor nuthatch, and Velvet-paw no doubt thought she was in luck when she found the prize; but it would have been a dear nut to her, if Nimble, who was a sharp-sighted fellow, had not seen the owl, and cried, _"Chit, chit, chit, chit!"_ to warn her of her danger. _"Chit, chit, chit, chit!"_ cried Velvet-paw, and away she flew to the very top of a tall pine-tree, springing from one tree-top to another, till she was soon out of the old owl's reach. "What shall we do for supper to-night?" said Silver-nose, looking very pitifully at Nimble-foot, whom they looked upon as the head of the family. "We shall not want for a good supper and breakfast too, or I am very much mistaken. Do you see that red squirrel yonder, climbing the hemlock-tree? Well, my dears, he has a fine store of good things in that beech-tree. I watched him run down with a nut in his teeth. Let us wait patiently, and we shall see him come again for another; and as soon as he has done his meal, we will go and take ours." The red squirrel ran to and fro several times, each time carrying off a nut to his nest in the hemlock; after a while, he came no more. As soon as he was out of sight, Nimble led the way and found the hoard. The beech was quite hollow in the heart; and they went down through a hole in the branch, and found a store of hazel-nuts, with acorns, hickory-nuts, butter-nuts, and beech-mast, all packed quite close and dry. They soon made a great hole in the red squirrel's store of provisions, and were just choosing some nuts to carry off with them, when they were disturbed by a scratching against the bark of the tree. Nimble, who was always the first to take care of himself, gave the alarm, and he and Velvet-paw, being nearest to the hole, got off safely; but poor Silvy had the ill luck to sneeze, and before she had time to hide herself, the angry red squirrel sprang upon her, and gave her such a terrible cuffing and scratching, that Silvy cried out for mercy. As to Nimble-foot and Velvet-paw, they paid no heed to her cries for help; they ran away, and left her to bear the blame of all their misdeeds as well as her own. Thieves are always cowards, and are sure to forsake one another when danger is nigh. The angry red squirrel pushed poor Silvy out of her granary, and she was glad to crawl away and hide herself in a hole at the root of a neighbouring tree, where she lay in great pain and terror, licking her wounds and crying to think how cruel it was of her brother and sister to leave her to the mercy of the red squirrel. It was surely very cowardly of Nimble-foot and Velvet-paw to forsake her in such a time of need; nor was this the only danger that befell poor Silvy. One morning, when she put her nose out of the hole to look about her before venturing out, she saw seated on a branch, close beside the tree she was under, a racoon, staring full at her with his sharp cunning black eyes. She was very much afraid of him, for she thought he looked very hungry; but as she knew that racoons are very fond of nuts and fruit, she said to herself, "Perhaps if I show him where the red squirrel's granary in the beech-tree is, he will not kill me." Then she said very softly to him, "Good Mister Coon, if you want a very nice breakfast, and will promise to do me no hurt, I will tell you where to find plenty of nuts." The coon eyed her with a sly grin, and said, "If I can get anything more to my taste than a pretty gray squirrel, I will take it, my dear, and not lay a paw upon your soft back." "Ah, but you must promise not to touch me, if I come out and show you where to find the nuts," said Silvy. "Upon the word and honour of a coon!" replied the racoon, laying one black paw upon his breast; "but if you do not come out of your hole, I shall soon come and dig you out, so you had best be quick; and if you trust me, you shall come to no hurt." Then Silvy thought it wisest to seem to trust the racoon's word, and she came out of her hole, and went a few paces to point out the tree where her enemy the red squirrel's store of nuts was; but as soon as she saw Mister Coon disappear in the hollow of the tree, she bade him good-bye, and whisked up a tall tree, where she knew the racoon could not reach her; and having now quite recovered her strength, she was able to leap from branch to branch, and even from one tree to another, whenever they grew close and the boughs touched, as they often do in the grand old woods in Canada, and so she was soon far, far away from the artful coon, who waited a long time, hoping to carry off poor Silvy for his dinner. Silvy contrived to pick up a living by digging for roots and eating such fruits as she could find; but one day she came to a grassy cleared spot, where she saw a strange-looking tent, made with poles stuck into the ground and meeting at the top, from which came a bluish cloud that spread among the trees; and as Silvy was very curious, she came nearer, and at last, hearing no sound, ran up one of the poles and peeped in, to see what was within side, thinking it might be one of the fine stores of grain that people built for the squirrels, as her cousin Blackie had made her believe. The poles were covered with sheets of birch-bark and skins of deer and wolves, and there was a fire of sticks burning in the middle, round which some large creatures were sitting on a bear's skin, eating something that smelt very nice. They had long black hair and black eyes and very white teeth. Silvy felt alarmed at first; but thinking they must be the people who were kind to squirrels, she ventured to slip through a slit in the bark, and ran down into the wigwam, hoping to get something to eat; but in a minute the Indians jumped up, and before she had time to make her escape, she was seized by a young squaw, and popped into a birch box, and the lid shut down upon her; so poor Silvy was caught in a trap, and all for believing the artful black squirrel's tales. Silver-nose remembered her mother's warning now when it was too late; she tried to get out of her prison, but in vain; the sides of the box were too strong, and there was not so much as a single crack for a peep-hole. After she had been shut up some time, the lid was raised a little, and a dark hand put in some bright, shining hard grains for her to eat. This was Indian corn, and it was excellent food; but Silvy was a long, long time before she would eat any of this sweet corn, she was so vexed at being caught and shut up in prison; besides, she was very much afraid that the Indians were going to eat her. After some days, she began to get used to her captive state; the little squaw used to feed her, and one day took her out of the box and put her into a nice light cage, where there was soft green moss to be on, a little bark dish with clear water, and abundance of food. The cage was hung up on the bough of a tree near the wigwam, to swing to and fro as the wind waved the tree. Here Silvy could see the birds flying to and fro, and listen to their cheerful songs. The Indian women and children had always a kind look or a word to say to her; and her little mistress was so kind to her, that Silvy could not help loving her. She was very grateful for her care; for when she was sick and sulky, the little squaw gave her bits of maple-sugar and parched rice out of her hand. At last Silvy grew tame, and would suffer herself to be taken out of her house to sit on her mistress's shoulder or in her lap; and though she sometimes ran away and hid herself, out of fun, she would not have gone far from the tent of the good Indians on any account. Sometimes she saw the red squirrels running about in the forest, but they never came very near her; but she used to watch all day long for her brother Nimble-foot, or sister Velvet-paw, but they were now far away from her, and no doubt thought that she had been killed by the red squirrel, or eaten up by a fox or racoon. [Illustration: THE PET SQUIRREL] * * * * * "Nurse, I am so glad pretty Silvy was not killed, and that the good Indians took care of her." "It is time now, my dear, for you to put down your book," said Mrs. Frazer, "and to-morrow we will read some more." * * * * * PART III. HOW THE SQUIRRELS GOT TO THE MILL AT THE RAPIDS--AND WHAT HAPPENED TO VELVET-PAW. Nimble-foot and Velvet-paw were so frightened by the sight of the red squirrel, that they ran down the tree without once looking back to see what had become of poor Silver-nose; indeed, the cowards, instead of waiting for their poor sister, fled through the forest as if an army of red squirrels were behind them. At last they reached the banks of the lake, and jumping into the water, swam down the current till they came to a place called the "Narrow," where the wide lake poured its waters through a deep rocky channel, not more than a hundred yards wide; here the waters became so rough and rapid, that our little swimmers thought it wisest to go on shore. They scrambled up the steep rocky bank, and found themselves on a wide open space, quite free from trees, which they knew must be one of the great clearings the traveller squirrel had spoken of. There was a very high building on the water's edge that they thought must be the mill that the chitmunks had told them they would come to; and they were in good spirits, as they now expected to find plenty of good things laid up for them to eat, so they went in by the door of the mill. "Dear me, what a dust there is!" said Nimble, looking about him; "I think it must be snowing." "Snow does not fall in hot weather," said Velvet; "besides, this white powder is very sweet and nice;" and she began to lick some of the flour that lay in the cracks of the floor. "I have found some nice seeds here," said Nimble, running to the top of a sack that stood with the mouth untied; "these are better than pine-kernels, and not so hard. We must have come to one of the great grain-stores that our cousin told us of. Well, I am sure the people are very kind to have laid up so many good things for us squirrels." When they had eaten as much as they liked, they began to ran about to see what was in the mill. Presently, a man came in, and they saw him take one of the sacks of wheat, and pour it into a large upright box, and in a few minutes there was a great noise--a sort of buzzing, whirring, rumbling, dashing, and splashing--and away ran Velvet-paw in a terrible fright, and scrambled up some beams and rafters to the top of the wall, where she sat watching what was going on, trembling all over; but finding that no harm happened to her, took courage, and after a time ceased to be afraid. She saw Nimble perched on a cross-beam looking down very intently at something; so she came out of her corner and ran to him, and asked what he was looking at. "There is a great black thing here," said he, "I cannot tell what to make of him at all; it turns round and round, and dashes the water about, making a fine splash." (This was the water-wheel.) "It looks very ugly indeed," said Velvet-paw, "and makes my head giddy to look at it; let us go away. I want to find out what these two big stones are doing," said she; "they keep rubbing against one another, and making a great noise." "There is nothing so wonderful in two big stones, my dear," said Nimble; "I have seen plenty bigger than these in Stony Lake." "But they did not move about as these do; and only look here at the white stuff that is running down all the time into this great box. Well, we shall not want for food for the rest of our lives; I wish poor Silvy were with us to share in our good luck." They saw a great many other strange things in the mill, and they thought that the miller was a very funny-looking creature; but as they fancied that he was grinding the wheat into flour for them, they were not much afraid of him; they were more troubled at the sight of a black dog, which spied them, out as they sat on the beams of the mill, and ran about in a great rage, harking at them in a frightful way, and never left off till the miller went out of the mill, when he went away with his master, and did not return till the next day; but whenever he saw the gray squirrels, this little dog, whose name was "Pinch," was sure to set up his ears and tail, and snap and bark, showing all his sharp white teeth in a very savage manner. Not far from the mill was another building: this was the house the miller lived in; and close by the house was a barn, a stable, a cow-shed, and a sheep-pen, and there was a garden full of fruit and flowers, and an orchard of apple-trees close by. One day Velvet-paw ran up one of the apple-trees and began to eat an apple; it looked very good, for it had a bright red cheek, but it was hard and sour, not being ripe. "I do not like these big, sour berries," said she, making wry faces as she tried to get the bad taste out of her mouth by wiping her tongue on her fore-paw. Nimble had found some ripe currants; so he only laughed at poor Velvet for the trouble she was in. These little gray squirrels now led a merry life; they found plenty to eat and drink, and would not have had a care in the world, if it had not been for the noisy little dog Pinch, who let them have no quiet, barking and baying at them whenever he saw them; and also for the watchful eyes of a great tomcat, who was always prowling about the mill, or creeping round the orchard and outhouses; so that with all their good food they were not quite free from causes of fear, and no doubt sometimes wished themselves safe back on the little rocky island, in their nest in the old oak-tree. Time passed away--the wheat and the oats were now ripe and fit for the scythe, for in Canada the settlers mow wheat with an instrument called a "cradle scythe." The beautiful Indian corn was in bloom, and its long pale green silken threads were waving in the summer breeze. The blue jays were busy in the fields of wheat; so were the red-winged blackbirds, and the sparrows, and many other birds, great and small; field-mice in dozens were cutting the straw with their sharp teeth, and carrying off the grain to their nests; and as to the squirrels and chitmunks, there were scores of them--black, red, and gray--filling their cheeks with the grain, and laying it out on the rail fences and on the top of the stumps to dry, before they carried it away to their storehouses. And many a battle the red and the black squirrels had, and sometimes the gray joined with the red, to beat the black ones off the ground. Nimble-foot and his sister kept out of these quarrels as much as they could; but once they got a severe beating from the red squirrels for not helping them to drive off the saucy black ones, which would carry away the little heaps of wheat, as soon as they were dry. "We do not mean to trouble ourselves with laying up winter stores," said Nimble one day to his red cousins; "don't you see Peter, the miller's man, has got a great waggon and horses, and is carting wheat into the barn for us?" The red squirrel opened his round eyes very wide at this speech. "Why, Cousin Nimble," he said, "you are not so foolish as to think the miller is harvesting that grain for your use. No, no, my friend; if you want any, you must work as we do, or run the chance of starving in the winter." Then Nimble told him what their cousin Blackie had said. "You were wise fellows to believe such nonsense!" said the red squirrel. "These mills and barns are all stored for the use of the miller and his family; and what is more, my friend, I can tell you that men are no great friends to us poor squirrels, and will kill us when they get the chance, and begrudge us the grain we help ourselves to." "Well, that is very stingy," said Velvet-paw; "I am sure there is enough for men and squirrels too. However, I suppose all must live, so we will let them have what we leave; I shall help myself after they have stored it up in yonder barn." "You had better do as we do, and make hay while the sun shines," said the red squirrel. "I would rather play in the sunshine, and eat what I want here," said idle Velvet-paw, setting up her fine tail like a feather over her back, as she ate an ear of corn. "You are a foolish, idle thing, and will come to no good," said the red squirrel. "I wonder where you were brought up?" I am very sorry to relate that Velvet-paw did not come to a good end, for she did not take the advice of her red cousin, to lay up provisions during the harvest; but instead of that, she ate all day long, and grew fat and lazy; and after the fields were all cleared, she went to the mill one day, when the mill was grinding, and seeing a quantity of wheat in the feeder of the mill, she ran up a beam and jumped down, thinking to make a good dinner from the grain she saw; but it kept sliding down and sliding down so fast, that she could not get one grain, so at last she began to be frightened, and tried to get up again, but, alas! this was not possible. She cried out to Nimble to help her; and while he ran to look for a stick for her to raise herself up by, the mill-wheel kept on turning, and the great stones went round faster and faster, till poor Velvet-paw was crushed to death between them. Nimble was now left all alone, and sad enough he was, you may suppose. "Ah," said he, "idleness is the ruin of gray squirrels, as well as men, so I will go away from this place, and try and earn an honest living in the forest. I wish I had not believed all the fine tales my cousin the black squirrel told me." Then Nimble went away from the clearing, and once more resolved to seek his fortune in the woods. He knew there were plenty of butter-nuts, acorns, hickory-nuts, and beech-nuts, to be found, besides many sorts of berries; and he very diligently set to work to lay up stores against the coming winter. As it was now getting cold at night, Nimble-foot thought it would be wise to make himself a warm house; so he found out a tall hemlock-pine that was very thick and bushy at the top; there was a forked branch in the tree, with a hollow just fit for his nest. He carried twigs of birch and beech, and over these he laid dry green moss, which he collected on the north side of the cedar trees, and some long gray moss that he found on the swamp maples, and then he stripped the silky threads from the milk-weeds, and the bark of the cedar and birch-trees. These he gnawed fine, and soon made a soft bed; he wove and twisted the sticks, and roots, and mosses together, till the walls of his house were quite thick, and he made a sort of thatch over the top with dry leaves and long moss, with a round hole to creep in and out of. Making this warm house took him many days' labour; but many strokes will fell great oaks, so at last Nimble-foot's work came to an end, and he had the comfort of a charming house to shelter him from the cold season. He laid up a good store of nuts, acorns, and roots: some he put in a hollow branch of the hemlock-tree close to his nest; some he hid in a stump, and another store he laid under the roots of a mossy cedar. When all this was done, he began to feel very lonely, and often wished, no doubt, that he had had his sisters Silvy and Velvet-paw with him, to share his nice warm house; but of Silvy he knew nothing, and poor Velvet-paw was dead. One fine moonlight night, as Nimble was frisking about on the bough of a birch-tree, not very far from his house in the hemlock, he saw a canoe land on the shore of the lake, and some Indians with an axe cut down some bushes, and having cleared a small piece of ground, begin to sharpen the ends of some long poles. These they stuck into the ground close together in a circle; and having stripped some sheets of birch-bark from the birch trees close by, they thatched the sides of the hut, and made a fire of sticks inside. They had a dead deer in the canoe, and there were several hares and black squirrels, the sight of which rather alarmed Nimble; for he thought if they killed one sort of squirrel, they might another, and he was very much scared at one of the Indians firing off a gun close by him. The noise made him fall down to the ground, and it was a good thing that it was dark among the leaves and grass where the trunk of the tree threw its long shadow, so that the Indian did not see him, or perhaps he might have loaded the gun again, and shot our little friend, and made soup of him for his supper. Nimble ran swiftly up a pine-tree, and was soon out of danger. While he was watching some of the Indian children at play, he saw a girl come out of the hut with a gray squirrel in her arms; it did not seem at all afraid of her, but nestled to her shoulder, and even ate out of her hand; and what was Nimble's surprise to see that this tame gray squirrel was none other than his own pretty sister Silver-nose, whom he had left in the hollow tree when they both ran away from the red squirrel. You may suppose the sight of his lost companion was a joyful one; he waited for a long, long time, till the fire went out, and all the Indians were fast asleep, and little Silvy came out to play in the moonlight, and frisk about on the dewy grass as she used to do. Then Nimble when he saw her, ran down the tree, and came to her and rubbed his nose against her, and licked her soft fur, and told her who he was, and how sorry he was for having left her in so cowardly a manner, to be beaten by the red squirrel. [Illustration: NIMBLE RECOVERING HIS SISTER.] The good little Silvy told Nimble not to fret about what was past, and then she asked him for her sister Velvet-paw. Nimble had a long sorrowful tale to tell about the death of poor Velvet; and Silvy was much grieved. Then in her turn she told Nimble all her adventures, and how she had been caught by the Indian girl, and kept, and fed, and tamed, and had passed her time very happily, if it had not been for thinking about her dear lost companions. "But now," she said, "my dear brother, we will never part again; you shall be quite welcome to share my cage, and my nice stores of Indian corn, rice, and nuts, which my kind mistress gives me." "I would not be shut up in a cage, not even for one day," said Nimble, "for all the nice fruit and grain in Canada. I am a free squirrel, and love my liberty. I would not exchange a life of freedom in these fine old woods, for all the dainties in the world. So, Silvy, if you prefer a life of idleness and ease to living with me in the forest, I must say good-bye to you." "But there is nothing to hurt us, my dear Nimble--no racoons, no foxes, nor hawks, nor owls, nor weasels; if I see any hungry-looking birds or beasts, I have a safe place to run to, and never need be hungry!" "I would not lead a life like that, for the world," said Nimble. "I should die of dulness; if there is danger in a life of freedom, there is pleasure too, which you cannot enjoy, shut up in, a wooden cage, and fed at the will of a master or mistress.--Well, I shall be shot if the Indians awake and see me; so I shall be off." Silvy looked very sorrowful; she did not like to part from her newly-found brother, but she was unwilling to forego all the comforts and luxuries her life of captivity afforded her. "You will not tell the Indians where I live, I hope, Silvy, for they would think it a fine thing to hunt me with their dogs, or shoot me down with their bows and arrows." At these words Silvy was overcome with grief, so jumping off from the log on which she was standing, she said, "Nimble, I will go with you and share all your perils, and we will never part again." She then ran into the wigwam; and going softly to the little squaw, who was asleep, licked her hands and face, as if she would say, "Good-bye, my good kind friend; I shall not forget all your love for me, though I am going away from you for ever." Silvy then followed Nimble into the forest, and they soon reached his nice comfortable nest in the tall hemlock-tree. * * * * * "Nurse, I am glad Silvy went away with Nimble; are not you? Poor Nimble must have been so lonely without her; and then you know it must have seemed so hard to him if Silvy had preferred staying with the Indians to living with him." "Those who have been used to a life of ease do not willingly give it up, my dear lady. Thus you see love for her old companion was stronger even than love of self. But I think you must have tired yourself with reading so long to me." "Indeed, nurse, I must read a little more, for I want you to hear how Silvy and Nimble amused themselves in the hemlock-tree." Then Lady Mary continued reading as follows:-- Silvy was greatly pleased with her new home, which was as soft and as warm as clean dry moss, hay, and fibres of roots could make it. The squirrels built a sort of pent or outer roof of twigs, dry leaves, and roots of withered grass, which was pitched so high that it threw off the rain and kept the inner house very dry. They worked at this very diligently, and also laid up a store of nuts and berries. They knew that they must not only provide plenty of food for the winter, but also for the spring months, when they could get little to eat beside the buds and bark of some sort of trees, and the chance seeds that might still remain in the pine-cones. Thus the autumn months passed away very quickly and cheerfully with the squirrels while preparing for the coming winter. Half the cold season was spent, too, in sleep; but on mild, sunny days the little squirrels, roused by the bright light of the sunbeams on the white and glittering snow, would shake themselves, rub their black eyes, and after licking themselves clean from dust, would whisk out of their house, and indulge in merry gambols up and down the trunks of the trees, skipping from bough to bough, and frolicking over the hard, crisp snow, which scarcely showed on its surface the delicate print of their tiny feet and the sweep of their fine light feathery tails. Sometimes they met with some little shrewmice running on the snow. These very tiny things are so small, they hardly look bigger than a large black beetle. They lived on the seeds of the tall weeds, which they might be seen climbing and clinging to, yet were hardly heavy enough to weigh down the heads of the dry stalks. It is pretty to see the footprints of these small shrewmice on the surface of the fresh fallen snow in the deep forest glades. They are not dormant during the winter, like many of the mouse tribe, for they are up and abroad at all seasons; for however stormy and severe the weather may be, they do not seem to heed its inclemency. Surely, children, there is One who cares for the small tender things of earth, and shelters them from the rude blasts. Nimble-foot and Silver-nose often saw their cousins, the black squirrels, playing in the sunshine, chasing each other merrily up and down the trees or over the brush-heaps; their jetty coats and long feathery tails forming a striking contrast with the whiteness of the snow. Sometimes they saw a few red squirrels too, but there was generally war between them and the black ones. In these lonely forests everything seems still and silent during the long wintry season, as if death had spread a white pall over the earth and hushed every living thing into silence. Few sounds are heard through the winter days to break the deathlike silence that reigns around, excepting the sudden rending and cracking of the trees in the frosty air, the fall of a decayed branch, the tapping of a solitary woodpecker--two or three small species of which still remain after all the summer-birds are flown--and the gentle, weak chirp of the little tree-creeper, as it runs up and down the hemlocks and pines, searching the crevices of the bark for insects. Yet in all this seeming death lies hidden the life of myriads of insects, the huge beast of the forest asleep in his lair, with many of the smaller quadrupeds and forest-birds, that, hushed in lonely places, shall awake to life and activity as soon as the sun-beams once more dissolve the snow, unbind the frozen streams, and loosen the bands which held them in repose. At last the spring, the glad, joyous spring, returned. The leaf-buds, wrapped within their gummy and downy cases, began to unfold; the dark green pines, spruce, and balsams began to shoot out fresh spiny leaves, like tassels, from the ends of every bough, giving out the most refreshing fragrance; the crimson buds of the young hazels and the scarlet blossoms of the soft maple enlivened the edges of the streams; the bright coral bark of the dogwood seemed as if freshly varnished, so brightly it glowed in the morning sunshine; the scream of the blue jay, the song of the robin and woodthrush, the merry note of the chiccadee and plaintive cry of the pheobe, with loud hammering strokes of the great red-headed woodpecker, mingled with the rush of the unbound forest streams, gurgling and murmuring as their water flowed over their stones, and the sighing of the breeze playing in the tree tops, made pleasant and ceaseless music. And then, as time passed on, the trees unfolded all their bright green leaves--the buds and forest flowers opened; and many a bright bell our little squirrels looked down upon, from their leafy home, that the eye of man had never seen. It was pleasant for our little squirrels, just after sunset, in the still summer evenings, when the small silver stars came stealing out one by one in the blue sky, to play among the cool dewy leaves of the grand old oaks and maples; to watch the fitful flash of the fireflies, as they glanced here and there, flitting through the deep gloom of the forest boughs, now lost to sight, as they closed their wings, now flashing out like tiny tapers, borne aloft by unseen hands in the darkness. Where that little creek runs singing over its mossy bed, and the cedar-boughs bend down so thick and close that only a gleam of the bright water can be seen, even in the sunlight, there the fireflies crowd, and the damp foliage is all alive with their dazzling light. In this sweet, still hour, just at the dewfall, the rush of whirring wings may be heard from the islands, or in the forest, bordering on the water's edge; and out of hollow logs and hoary trunks of trees come forth the speckled night-hawks, cutting the air with their thin, sharp, wide wings and open beak, ready to intrap the unwary moth or musquito that float so joyously upon the evening air. One after another, sweeping in wider circles, come forth these birds of prey, till the whole air seems alive with them; darting hither and thither, and uttering wild, shrill screams, as they rise higher and higher in the upper air, till some are almost lost to sight. Sometimes one of them will descend with a sudden swoop to the lower regions of the air, just above the highest treetops, with a hollow, booming sound, as if some one were blowing in an empty vessel. At this hour, too, the bats would quit their homes in hollow trees and old rocky banks, and flit noiselessly abroad over the surface of the quiet, star-lit lake: and now also would begin the shrill, trilling note of the green-frog, and the deep, hoarse bass of the bull-frog, which ceases only at intervals, through the long, warm summer night. You might fancy a droll sort of dialogue was being carried on among them. At first a great fellow, the patriarch of the swamp, will put up his head, which looks very much like a small pair of bellows, with yellow leather sides, and say, in a harsh, guttural tone, "Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed." After a moment's pause, two or three will rise and reply, "No, I won't; no, I won't; no, I won't." Then the old fellow, with a growl, replies, "Get out, get out, get out." And forthwith, with a rush, and a splash, and a dash, they raise a chorus of whirring, grating, growling, grunting, whistling sounds, which make you stop up your ears. When all this hubbub has lasted some minutes, there is a pop and a splash, and down go all the heads under the weeds and mud; and after another pause, up comes the aged father of the frogs, and begins again with the old story, "Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed," and so on. During the heat of the day the bull-frogs are silent; but as the day declines and the air becomes cooler, they recommence their noisy chorus. I suppose these sounds, though not very pleasant to the ears of men, may not be so disagreeable to those of wild animals. I daresay neither Nimble nor Silvy were in the least annoyed by the hoarse note of the bull-frog, but gambolled as merrily among the boughs and fresh dewy leaves as if they were listening to sweet music or the songs of the birds. The summer passed away very happily; but towards the close of the warm season the squirrels, Nimble and Silvy, resolved to make a journey to the rocky island on Stony Lake, to see the old squirrels, their father and mother. So they started at sunrise one fine pleasant day, and travelled along; till one cool evening, just as the moon was beginning to rise above the pine-trees, they arrived at the little rocky islet where they first saw the light. But when they eagerly ran up the trunk of the old oak tree, expecting to have seen their old father and mother, they were surprised and terrified by seeing a wood-owl in the nest. As soon as she espied our little squirrels she shook her feathers and set up her ears--for she was a long-eared owl--and said,-- "What do you want here?--ho, ho, ho, ho!" "Indeed, Mrs. Owl," said Nimble, "we come hither to see our parents, whom we left here a year ago. Can you tell us where we shall find them?" The owl peered out of her ruff of silken feathers, and, after wiping her sharp bill on her breast, said,-- "Your cousin, the black squirrel, beat your father and mother out of their nest a long time ago, and took possession of the tree and all that was in it; and they brought up a large family of little ones, all of which I pounced upon one after another, and ate. Indeed, the oaks here belong to my family; so, finding these impudent intruders would not quit the premises, I made short work of the matter, and took the law into my own hands." "Did you kill them?" asked Silvy, in a trembling voice. "Of course I did; and very nice, tender meat they were," replied the horrid old owl, beginning to scramble out of the nest, and eyeing the squirrels at the same time with a wicked look. "But you did not eat our parents too?" asked the trembling squirrels. "Yes, I did. They were very tough, to be sure; but I am not very particular." The gray squirrels, though full of grief and vain regret, were obliged to take care of themselves. There was, indeed, no time to be lost; so made a hasty retreat. They crept under the roots of an old tree, where they lay till the morning. They were not much concerned for the death of the treacherous black squirrel who had told so many stories, got possession of their old nest, and caused the death of their parents; but they said, "We will go home again to our dear old hemlock-tree, and never leave it more." So these dear little squirrels returned to their forest home, and may be living there yet. * * * * * "Nurse," said Lady Mary, "how do you like the story?" Mrs. Frazer said it was a very pretty one. "Perhaps my dear little pet is one of Nimble or Silvy's children. You know, nurse, they might have gone on their travels too, when they were old enough, and then your brother may have chopped down the tree, and found them in the forest." "But your squirrel, Lady Mary, is a flying squirrel, and these were only common gray ones, which belong to a different species. Besides, my dear, this history is but a fable." "I suppose, nurse," said the child, looking up in her nurse's face, "squirrels do not really talk." "No, my dear; they have not the use of speech as we have. But in all ages people have written little tales called fables, in which they make birds and beasts speak as if they were men and women, it being an easy method of conveying instruction." "My book is only a fable, then, nurse? I wish it had been true: but it is very pretty." CHAPTER IV. SQUIRRELS--THE CHITMUNKS--DOCILITY OF A PET ONE--ROGUERY OF A YANKEE PEDLAR--RETURN OF THE MUSICAL CHITMUNK TO HIS MASTER'S BOSOM--SAGACITY OF A BLACK SQUIRREL. "Mrs. Frazer, are you very busy just now?" asked Lady Mary, coming up to the table where her nurse was ironing some lace. "No, my dear, not very busy, only preparing these lace edgings for your frocks. Do you want me to do anything for you?" "I only want to tell you that my governess has promised to paint my dear squirrel's picture, as soon as it is tame and will let me hold it in my lap, without flying away. I saw a picture of a flying squirrel to-day, but it was very ugly--not at all like mine; it was long and flat, and its legs looked like sticks, and it was stretched out, just like one of those muskrat skins that you pointed out to me in a fur store. Mamma said it was drawn so, to show it while it was in the act of flying; but it is not pretty--it does not show its beautiful tail, nor its bright eyes, nor soft silky fur. I heard a lady tell mamma about a nest full of dear, tiny little flying squirrels, that her brother once found in a tree in the forest; he tamed them, and they lived very happily together, and would feed from his hand. They slept in the cold weather like dormice; in the daytime they lay very still, but would come out, and gambol and frisk about at night. But somebody left the cage open, and they all ran away except one; and that he found in his bed, where it had run for shelter, with its little nose under his pillow. He caught the little fellow, and it lived with him till the spring, when it grew restless, and one day got away, and went off to the woods." "These little creatures are impatient of confinement, and will gnaw through the woodwork of the cage to get free, especially in the spring of the year. Doubtless, my dear, they pine for the liberty which they used to enjoy before they were captured by man." "Nurse, I will not let my little pet be unhappy. As soon as the warm days come again, and my governess has taken his picture, I will let him go free. Are there many squirrels in this part of Canada?" "Not so many as in Upper Canada, Lady Mary. They abound more in some years than in others. I have seen the beech and oak woods swarming with black squirrels. My brothers have brought in two or three dozen in one day. The Indians used to tell us that want of food, or very severe weather setting in in the north, drive these little animals from their haunts. The Indians, who observe these things more than we do, can generally tell what sort of winter it will be, from the number of wild animals in the fall." "What do you mean by the fall, nurse?" "The autumn in Canada, my lady, is called so from the fall of the leaves. I remember one year was remarkable for the great number of black, gray, and flying squirrels; the little striped chitmunk was also plentiful, and so were weasels and foxes. They came into the barns and granaries, and into the houses, and destroyed great quantities of grain; besides gnawing clothes that were laid out to dry; this they did to line their nests with. Next year there were very few to be seen." "What became of them, nurse?" "Some, no doubt, fell a prey to their enemies, the cats, foxes, and weasels, which were also very numerous that year; and the rest, perhaps, went back to their own country again." "I should like to see a great number of these pretty creatures travelling together," said Lady Mary. "All wild animals, my dear, are more active by night than by day, and probably make their long journeys during that season. The eyes of many animals and birds are so formed, that they see best in the dim twilight, as cats, and owls, and others. Our heavenly Father has fitted all his creatures for the state in which he has placed them." "Can squirrels swim like otters and beavers, nurse? If they come to a lake or river, can they cross it?" "I think they can, Lady Mary; for though these creatures are not formed, like the otter, or beaver, or muskrat, to get their living in the water, they are able to swim when necessity requires them to do so. I heard a lady say that she was crossing a lake, between one of the islands and the shore, in a canoe, with a baby on her lap. She noticed a movement on the surface of the water. At first she thought it might be a water-snake, but the servant lad who was paddling the canoe said it was a red squirrel and he tried to strike it with the paddle; but the little squirrel leaped out of the water to the blade of the paddle, and sprang on the head of the baby, as it lay on her lap; from whence it jumped to her shoulder, and before she had recovered from her surprise, was in the water again, swimming straight for the shore, where it was soon safe in the dark pine woods." This feat of the squirrel delighted Lady Mary, who expressed her joy at the bravery of the little creature. Besides, she said she had heard that gray squirrels, when they wished to go to a distance in search of food, would all meet together, and collect pieces of bark to serve them for boats, and would set up their broad tails like sails, to catch the wind, and in this way cross large sheets of water. "I do not think this can be true," observed Mrs. Frazer; "for the squirrel, when swimming, uses his tail as an oar or rudder to help the motion, the tail lying flat on the surface of the water; nor do these creatures need a boat, for God, who made them, has given them the power of swimming at their need." "Nurse, you said something about a ground squirrel, and called it a chitmunk. If you please, will you tell me something about it, and why it is called by such a curious name?" "I believe it is the Indian name for this sort of squirrel, my dear. The chitmunk is not so large as the black, red, and gray squirrels. It is marked along the back with black and white stripes; the rest of its fur is a yellowish tawny colour. It is a very playful, lively, cleanly animal, somewhat resembling the dormouse in its habits. It burrows underground. Its nest is made with great care, with many galleries which open at the surface, so that when attacked by an enemy, it can run from one to another for security. For the squirrel has many enemies; all the weasel tribe, cats, and even dogs attack them. Cats kill great numbers. The farmer shows them as little mercy as he does rats and mice, as they are very destructive, and carry off vast quantities of grain, which they store in hollow trees for use. Not contenting themselves with one granary, they have several in case one should fail, or perhaps become injured by accidental causes. Thus do these simple little creatures teach us a lesson of providential care for future events." "How wise of these little chitmunks to think of such precautions!" said Lady Mary. "Nay, my dear child, it is God's wisdom, not theirs. These creatures work according to his will; and so they always do what is fittest and best for their own comfort and safety. Man is the only one of God's creatures who disobeys him." These words made Lady Mary look grave, till her nurse began to talk to her again about the chitmunk. "It is very easily tamed, and becomes very fond of its master. It will obey his voice, come at a call or a whistle, sit up and beg, take a nut or an acorn out of his hand, run up a stick, nestle in his bosom, and become quite familiar. My uncle had a tame chitmunk that was much attached to him; it lived in his pocket or bosom; it was his companion by day and by night. When he was out in the forest lumbering, or on the lake fishing, or in the fields at work, it was always with him. At meals it sat by the side of his plate, eating what he gave it; but he did not give it meat, as he thought that might injure its health. One day he and his pet were in the steam-boat, going to Toronto. He had been showing off the little chitmunk's tricks to the ladies and gentlemen on board the boat, and several persons offered him money if he would sell it; but my uncle was fond of the little thing, and would not part with it. However, just before he left the boat, he missed his pet; for a cunning Yankee pedlar on board had stolen it. My uncle knew that his little friend would not desert its old master; so he went on deck where the passengers were assembled, and whistled a popular tune familiar to the chitmunk. The little fellow, on hearing it, whisked out of the pedlar's pocket, and running swiftly along a railing against which he was standing, soon sought refuge his master's bosom." Lady Mary clapped her hands with joy, and said, "I am so glad, nurse, that the chitmunk ran back to his old friend. I wish it had bitten that Yankee pedlar's fingers." "When angry these creatures will bite very sharply, set up their tails, and run to and fro, and make a chattering sound with their teeth. The red squirrel is very fearless for its size, and will sometimes turn round and face you, set up its tail, and scold. But they will, when busy eating the seeds of the sunflower or thistle, of which they are very fond, suffer you to stand and watch them without attempting to run away. When near their granaries, or the tree where their nest is, they are unwilling to leave it, running to and fro, and uttering their angry notes; but if a dog is near they make for a tree, and as soon as they are out of his reach, turn round to chatter and scold, as long as he remains in sight. When hard pressed, the black and flying squirrels will take prodigious leaps, springing from bough to bough, and from tree to tree. In this manner they baffle the hunters, and travel a great distance over the tops of the trees. Once I saw my uncle and brothers chasing a large black squirrel. He kept out of reach of the dogs, as well as out of sight of the men, bypassing round and round the tree as he went up, so that they could never get a fair shot at him. At last, they got so provoked that they took their axes, and set to work to chop down the tree. It was a large pine tree, and took them some time. Just as the tree was ready to fall, and was wavering to and fro, the squirrel, that had kept on the topmost bough, sprang nimbly to the next tree, and then to another, and by the time the great pine had reached the ground, the squirrel was far away in his nest among his little ones, safe from hunters, guns, and dogs." "The black squirrel must have wondered, I think, nurse, why so many men and dogs tried to kill such a little creature as he was. Do the black squirrels sleep in the winter as well as the flying squirrels and chitmunks?" "No, Lady Mary; I have often seen them on bright days chasing each other over logs and brush-heaps, and running gaily up the pine trees. They are easily seen from the contrast which their jetty black coats make with the sparkling white snow. These creatures feed a good deal on the kernels of the pines and hemlocks; they also eat the buds of some trees. They lay up great stores of nuts and grain for winter use. The flying squirrels sleep much, and in the cold season lie heaped upon each other, for the sake of warmth. As many as seven or eight may be found in one nest asleep. They sometimes awaken, if there come a succession of warm days, as in the January thaw; for I must tell you that in this country we generally have rain and mild weather for a few days in the beginning of January, when the snow nearly disappears from the ground. About the 12th, the weather sets in again steadily cold; when the little animals retire once more to sleep in their winter cradles, which they rarely leave till the hard weather is over." "I suppose, nurse, when they awake, they are glad to eat some of the food they have laid up in their granaries?" "Yes, my dear, it is for this they gather their hoards in mild weather; which also supports them in the spring months, and possibly even during the summer, till grain and fruit are ripe. I was walking in the harvest field one day, where my brothers were cradling wheat. As I passed along the fence, I noticed a great many little heaps of wheat lying here and there on the rails, also upon the tops of the stumps in the field. I wondered at first who could have placed them there, but presently noticed a number of red squirrels running very swiftly along the fence, and perceived that they emptied their mouths of a quantity of the new wheat, which they had been diligently employed in collecting from the ears that lay scattered over the ground. These little gleaners did not seem to be at all alarmed at my presence, but went to and fro as busy as bees. On taking some of the grains into my hand, I noticed that the germ or eye of the kernels was bitten clean out." "What was that for, nurse? can you tell me?" "My dear young lady, I did not know at first, till, upon showing it to my father, he told me that the squirrels destroyed the germ of the grain, such as wheat or Indian corn, that they stored up for winter use, that it might not sprout when buried in the ground or in a hollow tree." "This is very strange, nurse," said the little girl. "But I suppose," she added, after a moment's thought, "it was God who taught the squirrels to do so. But why would biting out the eye prevent the grain from growing?" "Because the eye or bud contains the life of the plant; from it springs the green blade, and the stem that bears the ear, and the root that strikes down to the earth. The flowery part, which swells and becomes soft and jelly-like, serves to nourish the young plant till the tender fibres of the roots are able to draw moisture from the ground." Lady Mary asked if all seeds had an eye or germ. Her nurse replied that all had, though some were so minute that they looked no bigger than dust, or a grain of sand; yet each was perfect in its kind, and contained the plant that would, when sown in the earth, bring forth roots, leaves, buds, flowers, and fruits in due season. "How glad I should have been to see the little squirrels gleaning the wheat, and laying it in the little heaps on the rail fence. Why did they not carry it at once to their nests?" "They laid it out in the sun and wind to dry; for if it had been stored away while damp, it would have moulded, and have been spoiled. The squirrels were busy all that day; when I went to see them again, the grain was gone. I saw several red squirrels running up and down a large pine tree, which had been broken by the wind at the top; and there, no doubt, they had laid up stores. These squirrels did not follow each other in a straight line, but ran round and round in a spiral direction, so that they never hindered each other, nor came in each other's way two were always going up, while the other two were going down. They seem to work in families; for the young ones, though old enough to get their own living, usually inhabit the same nest, and help to store up the grain for winter use. They all separate again in spring. The little chitmunk does not live in trees, but burrows in the ground, or makes its nest in some large hollow log. It is very pretty to see the little chitmunks, on a warm spring day, running about and chasing each other among the moss and leaves; they are not bigger than mice, but look bright and lively. The fur of all the squirrel tribe is used in trimming, but the gray is the best and most valuable. It has often been remarked by the Indians, and others, that the red and black squirrels never live in the same place; for the red, though the smallest, beat away the black ones. The flesh of the black squirrel is very good to eat; the Indians also eat the red." Lady Mary was very glad to hear all these things, and quite forgot to play with her doll. "Please, Mrs. Frazer," said the little lady, "tell me now about beavers and muskrats." But Mrs. Frazer was obliged to go out on business; she promised, however, to tell Lady Mary all she knew about these animals another day. CHAPTER V. INDIAN BASKETS--THREAD PLANTS--MAPLE SUGAR-TREE--INDIAN ORNAMENTAL WORKS --RACOONS. It was some time before Lady Mary's nurse could tell her any more stories. She received a letter from her sister-in-law, informing her that her brother was dangerously ill, confined to what was feared would prove his deathbed, and that he earnestly desired to see her before he died. The Governor's lady, who was very kind and good to all her household, readily consented to let Mrs. Frazer go to her sick relation. Lady Mary parted from her dear nurse, whom she loved very tenderly, with much regret. Mrs. Frazer told her that it might be a fortnight before she could return, as her brother lived on the shores of one of the small lakes, near the head waters of the Otonabee river, a great way off; but she promised to return as soon as she could, and, to console her young mistress for her absence, promised to bring her some Indian toys from the backwoods. The month of March passed away pleasantly, for Lady Mary enjoyed many delightful sleigh-drives with her papa and mamma, who took every opportunity to instruct and amuse her. On entering her nursery one day, after enjoying a long drive in the country, great was her joy to find her good nurse sitting quietly at work by the store. She was dressed in deep mourning, and looked much thinner and paler than when she had last seen her. The kind little girl knew, when she saw her nurse's black dress, that her brother must be dead; and with the thoughtfulness of a true lady, remained very quiet, and did not annoy her with questions about trifling matters: she spoke low and gently to her, and tried to comfort her when she saw large tears falling on the work which she held in her hand, and kindly said, "Mrs. Frazer, you had better lie down and rest yourself, for you must be tired after your long, long journey." The next day Mrs. Frazer seemed to be much better; and she showed Lady Mary an Indian basket made of birch-bark, very richly wrought with coloured porcupine-quills, and which had two lids. Lady Mary admired the splendid colours, and strange patterns on the basket. "It is for you, my dear," said her nurse; "open it, and see what is in it." Lady Mary lifted one of the lids, and took out another small basket, of a different shape and pattern. It had a top, which was sewn down with coarse-looking thread, which her nurse told her was nothing but the sinews of the deer, dried and beaten fine, and drawn out like thread. Then, taking an end of it in her hand, she made Lady Mary observe that these coarse threads could be separated into a great number of finer ones, sufficiently delicate to pass through the eye of a fine needle, or to string tiny beads. "The Indians, my lady, sew with the sinews of the wild animals they kill. These sinews are much stronger and tougher than thread, and therefore are well adapted to sew together such things as moccasins, leggings, and garments made of the skins of wild animals. The finer threads are used for sewing the beads and quill ornaments on moccasins, sheaths, and pouches, besides other things that I cannot now think of. "Oh yes, I must tell you one thing more they make with these sinews. How do you think the Indian women carry their infants when they go on a long journey? They tie them to a board, and wrap them up in strong bandages of linen or cotton, which they sew firmly together with their stoutest thread, and then they suspend the odd-looking burden to their backs. By this contrivance, they lessen the weight of the child considerably, and are able to walk many miles without showing signs of fatigue. It is also much more pleasant and healthy for the child than to be uncomfortably cramped up in its mother's arms, and shifted about from side to side, as first one arm aches, and then the other. "The Indian women sew some things with the roots of the tamarack, or larch; such as coarse birch-baskets, hark canoes, and the covering of their wigwams. They call this 'wah-tap' [Footnote: Asclepia parvilfora.] (wood-thread), and they prepare it by pulling off the outer rind and steeping it in water. It is the larger fibres which have the appearance of small cordage when coiled up and fit for use. This 'wah-tap' is very valuable to these poor Indians. There is also another plant, called Indian hemp, which is a small shrubby kind of milk-weed, that grows on gravelly islands. It bears white flowers, and the branches are long and slender; under the bark there is a fine silky thread covering the wood; this is tough, and can be twisted and spun into cloth. It is very white and fine, and does not easily break. There are other plants of the same family, with pods full of fine shining silk; but these are too brittle to spin into thread. This last kind, Lady Mary, which is called Milk-weed flytrap, I will show you in summer." [Footnote: Asclepia Syrica.] But while Mrs. Frazer was talking about these plants, the little lady was examining the contents of the small birch-box. "If you please, nurse, will you tell me what these dark shining seeds are?" "These seeds, my dear, are Indian rice; an old squaw, Mrs. Peter Noggan, gave me this as a present for 'Governor's daughter;'" and Mrs. Frazer imitated the soft, whining tone of the Indian, which made Lady Mary laugh. "The box is called a 'mowkowk.' There is another just like it, only there is a white bird--a snow bird, I suppose it is intended for--worked on the lid." The lid of this box was fastened down with a narrow slip of deer skin, Lady Mary cut the fastening, and raised the lid--"Nurse, it is only yellow sand, how droll, to send me a box of sand!" "It is not sand, taste it, Lady Mary." "It is sweet--it is sugar! Ah! now I know what it is that this kind old squaw has sent me, it is maple-sugar, and is very nice I will go and show it to mamma." "Wait a little, Lady Mary, let us see what there is in the basket besides the rice and the maple sugar." "What a lovely thing this is, dear nurse! what can it be?" "It is a sheath for your scissors, my dear, it is made of doe skin, embroidered with white beads, and coloured quills split fine, and sewn with deer sinew thread Look at these curious bracelets." Lady Mary examined the bracelets, and said she thought they were wrought with beads, but Mrs. Frazer told her that what she took for beads were porcupine quills, cut out very finely, and strung in a pattern. They were not only neatly but tastefully made, the pattern, though a Grecian scroll, having been carefully imitated by some Indian squaw. "This embroidered knife sheath is large enough for a hunting knife," said Lady Mary, "a '_couteau de chasse_,'--is it not?" "This sheath was worked by the wife of Isaac Iron, an educated chief of the Mud Lake Indians, she gave it to me because I had been kind to her in sickness." "I will give it to my dear papa," said Lady Mary, "for I never go out hunting, and do not wish to carry a large knife by my side;" and she laid the sheath away, after having admired its gay colours, and particularly the figure of a little animal worked in black and white quills. "This is a present for your doll; it is a doll's mat, woven by a little girl, aged seven years, Rachel Muskrat; and here is a little canoe of red cedar, made by a little Indian boy." "What a darling little boat! and there is a fish carved on the paddles." This device greatly pleased Lady Mary, who said she would send Rachel a wax doll, and little Moses a knife or some other useful article, when Mrs. Frazer went again to the Lakes; but when her nurse took out of the other end of the basket a birch-bark cradle, made for her doll, worked very richly, she clapped her hands for joy, saying, "Ah, nurse, you should not have brought me so many pretty things at once, for I am too happy!" The remaining contents of the basket consisted of seeds and berries, and a small cake of maple-sugar, which Mrs. Frazer had made for the young lady. This was very different in appearance from the Indian sugar; it was bright and sparkling, like sugar-candy, and tasted sweeter. The other sugar was dry, and slightly bitter: Mrs. Frazer told Lady Mary that this peculiar taste was caused by the birch-bark vessels, which the Indians used for catching the sap, as it flowed from the maple-trees. "I wonder who taught the Indians how to make maple-sugar?" asked the child. "I do not know," replied the nurse. "I have heard that they knew how to make this sugar when the discoverers of the country found them. [Footnote: However this may be, the French settlers claim the merit of converting the sap into sugar.] It may be that they found it out by accident. The sugar-maple when wounded in March or April, yields a great deal of sweet liquor. Some Indians may have supplied themselves with this juice, when pressed for want of water; for it flows so freely in warm days in spring, that several pints can be obtained from one tree in the course of the day. By boiling this juice, it becomes very sweet; and at last when all the thin watery part has gone off in steam, it becomes thick, like honey; by boiling it still longer, it turns to sugar, when cold. So you see, my dear, that the Indians may have found it out by boiling some sap, instead of water, and letting it remain on the fire till it grew thick." "Are there many kinds of maple-trees, that sugar can be made from, nurse?" asked the little girl. "Yes, [Footnote: All the maple tribe are of a saccharine nature. Sugar has been made in England from the sap of the sycamore.] my lady; but I the sugar-maple yields the best sap for the purpose; that of the birch-tree, I have heard, can be made into sugar; but it would require a larger quantity; weak wine, or vinegar, is made by the settlers of birch-sap, which is very pleasant tasted. The people who live in the backwoods, and make maple-sugar, always make a keg of vinegar at the sugaring off." "That must be very useful; but if the sap is sweet, how can it be made into such sour stuff as vinegar?" Then nurse tried to make Lady Mary understand that the heat of the sun, or of a warm room, would make the liquor ferment, unless it had been boiled a long time, so as to become very sweet, and somewhat thick. The first fermentation, she told her, would give only a winy taste; but if it continued to ferment a great deal, it turned sour, and became vinegar. "How very useful the maple-tree is, nurse! I wish there were maples in the garden, and I would make sugar, molasses, wine, and vinegar; and what else would I do with my maple-tree?" Mrs. Frazer said,--"The wood makes excellent fuel; but is also used in making bedsteads, chests of drawers, and many other things. There is a very pretty wood for furniture, called 'bird's-eye maple;' the drawers in my bedroom that you think so pretty are made of it; but it is a disease in the tree that causes it to have these little marks all through the wood. In autumn, this tree improves the forest landscape, for the bright scarlet leaves of the maple give a beautiful look to the woods. The red maple (_Acer rubrus_), another species, is very bright when the leaves are changing, but it gives no sugar." "Then I will not let it grow in my garden, nurse!" "It is good for other purposes, my dear. The settlers use the bark dyeing wool; and a jet black ink can be made from it, by boiling down the bark with a bit of copperas, in an iron vessel; so you see it is useful. The bright red flowers of this tree look very pretty in the spring; it grows best by the water-side, and some call it 'the swamp-maple.'" This was all Mrs. Frazer could tell Lady Mary about the maple-trees. Many little girls, as young as the Governor's daughter, would have thought it very dull to listen to what her nurse had to say about plants and trees; but Lady Mary would put aside her dolls and toys, to stand beside her to ask questions, and listen to her answers; the more she heard the more she desired to hear, about these things. "The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, are two things that are never satisfied," saith the wise king Solomon. Lady Mary was delighted with the contents of her Indian basket, and spent the rest of her play-hours in looking at the various articles it contained, and asking her nurse questions about the materials of which they were made. Some of the bark-boxes were lined with paper, but the doll's cradle was not, and Lady Mary perceived that the inside of it was very rough, caused by the hard ends of the quills with which it was ornamented. At first she could not think how the squaws worked with the quills, as they could not possibly thread them through the eye of a needle; but her nurse told her that when they want to work any pattern in birch-bark, they trace it with some sharp-pointed instrument, such as a nail, or bodkin, or even a sharp thorn, with which they pierce holes close together round the edge of the leaf, or blade, or bird they have drawn out on the birch-bark; into these holes they insert one end of the quill, the other end is then drawn through the opposite hole, pulled tight, bent a little, and cut off on the inside. This any one of my young readers may see, if they examine the Indian baskets or toys, made of birch-bark. "I have seen the squaws in their wigwams at work on these things, sitting cross-legged on their mats,--some had the quilla in a little bark dish on their laps, while others held them in their mouths--not a very safe nor delicate way; but Indians are not very nice in some of their habits," said Mrs. Frazer. "The prettiest sort of Indian work is done in coloured moose-hair, with which, formed into a sort of rich embroidery, they ornament the moccasins, hunting-knife, sheaths, and birch-bark baskets and toys." "Nurse, if you please, will you tell me what this little animal is designed to represent?" said Lady Mary, pointing to the figure of the racoon worked in quills on the sheath of the hunting-knife. "It is intended for a racoon, my lady," replied her nurse. "Is the racoon a pretty-creature like my squirrel?" "It is much larger than your squirrel; its fur is not nearly so soft or so fine; the colour being black and gray, or dun; the tail barred across, and bushy,--you have seen many sleigh-robes made of racoon-skins, with the tails looking like tassels at the back of the sleighs." "Oh yes, and a funny, cunning-looking face peeping out too!" "The face of this little animal is sharp, and the eyes black and keen, like a fox; the feet bare, like the soles of our feet, only black and leathery; their claws are very sharp; they can climb trees very fast. During the winter the racoons sleep in hollow trees, and cling together for the sake of keeping each other warm. The choppers find as many as seven or eight in one nest, fast asleep. Most probably the young family remain with the old ones until spring, when they separate. The racoon in its habits is said to resemble the bear; like the bear, it lives chiefly on vegetables, especially Indian corn, but I do not think that it lays by any store for winter. They sometimes awake if there come a few warm days, but soon retire again to their warm, cozy nests." "Racoons will eat eggs; and fowls are often taken by them,--perhaps this is in the winter, when they wake up and are pressed by hunger." Her nurse said that one of her friends had a racoon which he kept in a wooden cage, but he was obliged to have a chain and collar to keep him from getting away, as he used to gnaw the bars asunder; and had slily stolen away and killed some ducks, and was almost as mischievous as a fox, but was very lively and amusing in his way. Lady Mary now left her good nurse, and took her basket, with all its Indian treasures, to show to her mamma, with whom we leave her for the present. CHAPTER VI. CANADIAN BIRDS--SNOW SPARROW--ROBIN REDBREAST--CANADIAN FLOWERS--AMERICAN PORCUPINE. "Spring is coming, nurse--spring is coming at last!" exclaimed the Governor's little daughter, joyfully. "The snow is going away at last! I am tired of the white snow; it makes my eyes ache. I want to see the brown earth, and the grass, and the green moss, and the pretty flowers again." "It will be some days before this deep covering of snow is gone. The streets are still slippery with ice, which it will take some time, my lady, to soften." "But, nurse, the sun shines, and there are little streams of water running along the streets in every direction. See, the snow is gone from under the bushes and trees in the garden. I saw some dear little birds flying about, and I watched them perching on the dry stalks of the tall, rough weeds, and they appeared to be picking seeds out of the husks. Can you tell me what birds they were?" "I saw the flock of birds you mean, Lady Mary. They are the common snow-sparrows [Footnote: Fringilla nivalia.]--almost our earliest visitants, for they may be seen in April, mingled with the brown song-sparrow, [Footnote: Fringilla malodia.] flitting about the garden fences, or picking the stalks of the tall mullein and amaranths, to find the seeds that have not been shaken out by the autumn winds; and possibly they also find insects cradled in the husks of the old seed-vessels. These snow-sparrows are very hardy; and though some migrate to the States in the beginning of winter, a few stay in the Upper Province, and others come back to us before the snow is all gone." "They are very pretty, neat-looking birds, nurse; dark slate colour, with white breasts." "When I was a little girl I used to call them my Quaker-birds, they looked so neat and prim. In the summer you may find their nests in the brush-heaps near the edge of the forest. They sing a soft, low song." "Nurse, I heard a bird singing yesterday when I was in the garden; a little, plain, brown bird, nurse." "It was a song-sparrow, Lady Mary. This cheerful little bird comes with the snow-birds, often before the robin." "Oh, nurse, the robin! I wish you would show me a darling robin redbreast. I did not know they lived in Canada." "The bird that we call the robin in this country, my dear, is not like the little redbreast you have seen at home. Our robin is twice as large. Though in shape resembling the European robin, I believe it is really a kind of thrush. [Footnote: Turdus migratoria.] It migrates in the fall, and returns to us early in the spring." "What is migrating, nurse? Is it the same as emigrating?" "Yes, Lady Mary; for when a person leaves his native country, and goes to live in another country, he is said to emigrate. This is the reason why the English, Scotch, and Irish families who come to live in Canada are called emigrants." "What colour are the Canadian robins, nurse?" "The head is blackish; the back, lead colour; and the breast is pale orange--not so bright a red, however, as the real robin." "Have you ever seen their nests, nurse?" "Yes, my dear, many of them. It is not a pretty nest. It is large, and coarsely put together, of old dried grass, roots, and dead leaves, plastered inside with clay, mixed with bits of straw, so as to form a sort of mortar. You know, Lady Mary, that the blackbird and thrush build nests, and plaster them in this way?" The little lady nodded her head in assent. "Nurse, I once saw a robin's nest when I was in England. It was in the side of a mossy ditch, with primroses growing close beside it. It was made of green moss, and lined with white wool and hair. It was a pretty nest, with nice eggs in it; much better than your Canadian robin's nest." [Illustration: WATCHING THE BIRDS] "Our robins build in upturned roots, in the corners of rail fences, and in the young pear-trees and apple-trees in the orchard. The eggs are a greenish-blue. The robin sings a full, clear song; indeed, he is our best songster. We have so few singing-birds that we prize those that do sing very much." "Does the Canadian robin come into the house in winter, and pick up the crumbs, as the dear little redbreasts do at home?" "No, Lady Mary; they are able to find plenty of food abroad when they return to us, but they hop about the houses and gardens pretty freely. In the fall, before they go away, they may be seen in great numbers, running about the old pastures, picking up worms and seeds." "Do people see the birds flying away together, nurse?" "Not often, my dear; for most birds congregate together in small flocks, and depart unnoticed. Many go away at night, when we are sleeping; and some fly very high on cloudy days, so that they are not distinctly seen against the dull, gray sky. The water-birds--such as geese, swans, and ducks--take their flight in large bodies. They are heard making a continual noise in the air; and may be seen grouped in long lines, or in the form of the letter V lying on its side (>), the point generally directed southward or westward, the strongest and oldest birds acting as leaders. When tired, these aquatic generals fall backward into the main body, and are replaced by others." Lady Mary was much surprised at the order and sagacity displayed by wild-fowl in their flight; and Mrs. Frazer told her that some other time she would tell her some more facts respecting their migration to other countries. "Nurse, will you tell me something about birds' nests, and what they make them of?" "Birds that live chiefly in the depths of the forest, or in solitary places, far away from the haunts of men, build their nests of ruder materials, and with less care in the manner of putting them together. Dried grass, roots, and a little moss, seem to be the materials they make use of. It has been noticed by many persons, my dear, that those birds that live near towns and villages and cleared farms, soon learn to make better sorts of nests, and to weave into them soft and comfortable things, such--as silk, wool, cotton, and hair." "That is very strange, nurse." "It is so, Lady Mary; but the same thing may also be seen among human beings. The savage nations are contented with rude dwellings made of sticks and cane, covered with skins' of beasts, bark, or reeds; but when they once unite together in a more social state, and live in villages and towns, a desire for improvement takes place. The tent of skins or the rude shanty is exchanged for a hut of better shape; and this in time gives place to houses and furniture of more useful and ornamental kinds." "Nurse, I heard mamma say that the Britons who lived in England were once savages, and lived in caves, huts, and thick woods; that they dressed in skins, and painted their bodies like the Indians." "When you read the history of England, you will see that such was the case," said Mrs. Frazer. "Nurse, perhaps the little birds like to see the flowers, and the sunshine, and the blue sky, and men's houses. I will make my garden very pretty this spring, and plant some nice flowers, to please the dear little birds." Many persons would have thought such remarks very foolish in our little lady. But Mrs. Frazer, who was a good and wise woman, did not laugh at the little girl; for she thought it was a lovely thing to see her wish to give happiness to the least of God's creatures, for it was imitating his own goodness and mercy, which delight in the enjoyment of the things which he has called into existence. "Please, Mrs. Frazer, will you tell me which flowers will be first in bloom?" "The very first is a plant that comes up without leaves." "Nurse, that is the Christmas-rose. [Footnote: Winter Aconite] I have seen it in the old country." "No, Lady Mary; it is the colt's-foot. [Footnote: Tussilago Fartara] It is a common-looking, coarse, yellow-blossomed flower: it is the first that blooms after the snow. Then comes the pretty snow flower, or hepatica. Its pretty tufts of white, pink, or blue starry flowers may be seen on the open clearing, or beneath the shade of the half cleared woods or upturned roots and sunny banks. Like the English daisy, it grows everywhere, and the sight of its bright starry blossoms delights every eye. The next flower that comes in is the dog's tooth violet." [Footnote: Erythronium] "What a droll name!" exclaimed Lady Mary, laughing. "I suppose it is called so from the sharpness of the flower leaves (petals), my lady, but it is a beautiful yellow lily. The leaves are also pretty, they are veined or clouded with milky white or dusky purple. The plant has a bulbous root, and in the month of April sends up its single, nodding, yellow spotted flowers. They grow in large beds, where the ground is black, moist, and rich, near creeks on the edge of the forest." "Do you know any other pretty flowers, nurse?" "Yes, my lady, there are a great many that bloom in April and May. white violets, and blue and yellow of many kinds. And then there is the spring beauty, [Footnote: Claytonia] a delicate little flower, with pink striped bells, and the everlasting flower, [Footnote: Graphalium] and saxifrage, and the white and dark red lily, that the Yankees call 'white and red death.' [Footnote: Trillium or Wake Robin] These have three green leaves about the middle of the stalk, and the flower is composed of three pure white or deep red leaves--petals my father used to call them: for my father, Lady Mary, was a botanist, and knew the names of all the flowers, and I learned them from him. The most curious is the moccasin flower. The early one is bright golden yellow, and has a bag or sack which is curiously spotted with ruby red, and its petals are twisted like horns. There is a hard, thick piece that lies down just above the sack or moccasin part; and if you lift this up, you see a pair of round, dark spots like eyes, and the Indians say it is like the face of a hound, with the nose and black eyes plain to be seen. Two of the shorter, curled, brown petals look like flapped ears, one on each side of the face. There is a more beautiful sort, purple and white, which blooms in August. The plant is taller, and bears large, lovely flowers." "And has it a funny face and ears too, nurse?" "Yes, my dear, but the face is more like an ape's: it is even more distinct than in the yellow moccasin. When my brother and I were children, we used to fold back the petals, and call them baby flowers: the sack, we thought, looked like a baby's white frock." Lady Mary was much amused at this notion. "There are a great number of very beautiful and also very curious flowers growing in the forest," said Mrs. Frazer. "Some of them are used in medicine, and some by the Indians for dyes, with which they stain the baskets and porcupine quills. One of our earliest flowers is called the blood-root. [Footnote: Sanguivaria.] It comes up a delicate, white-folded bud, within a vine-shaped leaf, which is veined on the under side with orange yellow. If the stem or the root of this plant be broken, a scarlet juice drops out very fast. It is with this the squaws dye red and orange colours." "I am glad to hear this, nurse. Now I can tell my dear mamma what the baskets and quills are dyed with." "The flower is very pretty, like a white crocus, only not so large. You saw some crocuses in the conservatory the other day, I think, my dear lady." "Oh yes; yellow ones, and purple too, in a funny china thing, with holes in its back, and the flowers came up through the holes. The gardener said it was a porcupine. "Please, nurse, tell me of what colours real porcupine quills are?" "They are white and grayish-brown." Then Lady Mary brought a print and showed it to her nurse, saying,-- "Nurse, is the porcupine like this picture?" "The American porcupine, my dear, is not so large as this species: its spines are smaller and weaker. It resembles the common hedgehog more nearly. It is an innocent animal, feeding mostly on roots and small fruits. It burrows in dry, stony hillocks, and passes the cold weather in sleep. It goes abroad chiefly during the night. The spines of the Canadian porcupine are much weaker than those of the African species. The Indians trap these creatures, and eat their flesh. They bake them in their skins in native ovens--holes made in the earth, lined with stones, which they make very hot, covering them over with embers." [Footnote: There is a plant of the lily tribe, upon whose roots the porcupine feeds, as well as on wild bulbs and berries, and the bark of the black spruce and larch. It will also eat apples and Indian corn.] Mrs. Frazer had told Lady Mary all she knew about the porcupine, when Campbell, the footman, came to say that her papa wanted to see her. CHAPTER VII. INDIAN BAG--INDIAN EMBROIDERY--BEAVER'S TAIL--BEAVER ARCHITECTURE-- OF THE BEAVER--BEAVER TOOLS--BEAVER MEADOWS. When Lady Mary went down to her father, he presented her with a beautiful Indian bag, which he had brought from Lake Huron, in the Upper Province. It was of fine doeskin, very nicely wrought with dyed moose-hair, and the pattern was Very pretty; the border was of scarlet feathers on one side, and blue on the other, which formed a rich silken fringe at each edge. This was a present from the wife of a chief on Manitoulin Island. Lady Mary was much delighted with her present, and admired this new-fashioned work in moose-hair very much. The feathers, Mrs. Frazer told her, were from the summer red-bird or war-bird, and the blue-bird, both of which Lady Mary said she had seen. The Indians use these feathers as ornaments for their heads and shoulders on grand occasions. [Illustration: THE PRESENT FROM FATHER] Lady Mary recollected hearing her mamma speak of Indians who wore mantles and dresses of gay feathers. They were chiefs of the Sandwich Islands she believed, who had these superb habits. "You might tell me something about these Indians, nurse," said little Mary. "I might occupy whole days in describing their singular customs, my dear," replied Mrs. Frazer, "and I fear you would forget one half of what I told you. But there are numerous interesting books in reference to them, which you will read as you grow older. You would be much amused at the appearance of an Indian chief, when dressed out in the feathers we have been speaking of, his face covered with red paint, his robe flowing loose and free, and his calumet, or pipe, gaily decked with ribbons. The Indians are great orators, being distinguished by their graceful gestures, their animated air, and their vigorous and expressive style. They are tall well made, and athletic, their complexion of a reddish copper colour, their hair long, coarse, and jet black. Their senses are remarkably acute, and they can see and hear with extraordinary distinctness. They will follow up the track of a man or animal through the dense woods and across the vast plains by trifling signs, which no European can detect. Their temperament is cold and unimpassioned, they are capable of enduring extreme hunger and thirst, and seem almost insensible to pain. Under certain circumstances they are generous and hospitable, but when once roused, their vengeance is not easily satisfied. They will pursue a real or supposed foe with a hatred which never tires, and gratify their lust of cruelty by exposing him, when captured, to the most horrible torments. They support themselves by fishing and on the spoils of the chase; and though a few tribes have become partially civilized, and devoted themselves to the peaceful pursuits of husbandry, the majority retire further and further into the dense forests of the west as the white man continues his advance, and wander, like their forefathers, about the lonely shores of the great lakes, and on the banks of the vast rolling rivers." "Thank you, nurse; I will not forget what you have told me. And now, have you anything more to say about birds and flowers? I can never weary of hearing about such interesting objects." "I promised to tell you about the beavers, my lady," replied Mrs. Frazer. "Oh yes, about the beavers that make the dams and the nice houses, and cut down whole trees. I am glad you can tell me something about those curious creatures; for mamma bought me a pretty picture, which I will show you, if you please," said the little girl. "But what is this odd-looking, black thing here? Is it a dried fish? It must be a black bass. Yes, nurse, I am sure it is." The nurse smiled, and said: "It is not a fish at all, my dear; it is a dried beaver's tail. I brought it from the back lakes when I was at home, that you might see it. See, my lady, how curiously the beaver's tail is covered with scales; it looks like some sort of black leather, stamped in a diaper pattern. Before it is dried it is very heavy, weighing three or four pounds. I have heard my brothers and some of the Indian trappers say, that the animal makes use of its tail to beat the sides of the dams and smooth the mud and clay, as a plasterer uses a trowel. Some people think otherwise, but it seems well suited from its shape and weight for the purpose, and, indeed, as the walls they raise seem to have been smoothed by some implement, I see no reason to disbelieve the story." "And what do the beavers make dams with, nurse?" "With small trees cut into pieces, and drawn in close to each other; and then the beavers fill the spaces between with sods, and stones, and clay, and all sorts of things, that they gather together and work up into a solid wall. The walls are made broad at the bottom, and are several feet in thickness, to make them strong enough to keep the water from washing through them. The beavers assemble together in the fall, about the months of October and November, to build their houses and repair their dams. They prefer running water, as it is less likely to freeze. They work in large parties, sometimes fifty or a hundred together, and do a great deal in a short time. They work during the night." "Of what use is the dam, nurse?" "The dam is for the purpose of securing a constant supply of water, without which they could not live. When they have enclosed the beaver-pond, they separate into family parties of eleven or twelve, perhaps more, sometimes less, and construct dwellings, which are raised against the inner walls of the dam. These little huts have two chambers, one in which they sleep, which is warm and soft and dry, lined with roots and sedges and dry grass, and any odds and ends that serve their purpose. The feeding place is below; in this is stored the wood or the bark on which they feed. The entrance to this is under water, and hidden from sight; but it is there that the cunning hunter sets his trap to catch the unsuspecting beavers. "A beaver's house is large enough to allow two men a comfortable sleeping-room, and it is kept very clean. It is built of sticks, stones, and mud, and is well plastered outside and in. The trowel the beaver uses in plastering is his tail; this is considered a great delicacy at the table. Their beds are made of chips, split as fine as the brush of an Indian broom, these are disposed in one corner, and kept dry and sweet and clean. It is the bark of the green wood that is used by the beavers for food; after the stick is peeled, they float it out at a distance from the house. Many good housewives might learn a lesson of neatness and order from the humble beaver. [Illustration: BEAVERS MAKING A DAM] "In large lakes and rivers the beavers make no dams, they have water enough without putting themselves to that trouble; but in small creeks they dam up, and make a better stop-water than is done by the millers. The spot where they build their dams is the most labour-saving place in the valley, and where the work will stand best. When the dam is finished, not a drop of water escapes; their work is always well done." "Nurse, do not beavers, and otters, and musk rats feel cold while living in the water; and do they not get wet?" "No, my dear; they do not feel cold, and cannot get wet, for the thick coating of hair and down keeps them warm, and these animals, like ducks and geese, and all kinds of water-fowls, are supplied with a bag of oil, with which they dress their coats, and that throws off the moisture; for you know, Lady Mary, that oil and water will not mix. All creatures that live in the water are provided with oily fur, or smooth scales, that no water can penetrate; and water-birds, such as ducks and geese, have a little bag of oil, with which they dress their feathers." "Are there any beavers in England, nurse?" asked Lady Mary. "No, my lady, not now; but I remember my father told me that this animal once existed in numbers in different countries of Europe; he said they were still to be found in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Germany, and even in France. [Footnote: The remains of beaver dams in Wales prove that this interesting animal was once a native of Great Britain.] The beaver abounds mostly in North America, and in its cold portions; in solitudes that no foot of man but the wild Indian has ever penetrated--in lonely streams and inland lakes--these harmless creatures are found fulfilling God's purpose, and doing injury to none. "I think if there had been any beavers in the land of Israel in Solomon's time, that the wise king who spake of ants, spiders, grasshoppers, and conies, [Footnote: The rock rabbits of Judea.] would have named the beavers also, as patterns of gentleness, cleanliness, and industry. They work together in bands, and live in families, and never fight or disagree. They have no chief or leader; they seem to have neither king nor ruler; yet they work in perfect love and harmony. How pleasant it would be, Lady Mary, if all Christian people would love each other as these poor beavers seem to do." "Nurse, how can beavers cut down trees; they have neither axes nor saws?" "Here, Lady Mary, are the axes and saws with which God has provided these little creatures;" and Mrs. Frazer showed Lady Mary two long curved tusks, of a reddish-brown colour, which she told her were the tools used by the beavers to cut and gnaw the trees; she said she had seen trees as thick as a man's leg that had been felled by these simple tools. Lady Mary was much surprised that such small animals could cut through anything so thick. "In nature," replied her nurse, "we often see great things done by very small means. Patience and perseverance work well. The poplar, birch, and some other trees, on which beavers feed, and which they also use in making their dams, are softer and more easily cut than oak, elm, or birch would be; these trees are found growing near the water, and in such places as the beavers build in. The settler owes to the industrious habits of this animal those large open tracts of land called beaver meadows, covered with long, thick, rank grass, which he cuts down and uses as hay. These beaver meadows have the appearance of dried-up lakes. The soil is black and spongy; for you may put a stick down to the depth of many feet. It is only in the months of July, August, and September, that they are dry. Bushes of black alder, with a few poplars and twining shrubs, are scattered over the beaver meadows, some of which have high stony banks, and little islands of trees. On these are many pretty wild-flowers; among others, I found growing on the dry banks some real hare-bells, both blue and white." "Ah, dear nurse, hare-bells! did you find real hare-bells, such as grow on the bonny Highland hills among the heather? I wish papa would let me go to the Upper Province to see the beaver meadows, and gather the dear blue-bells." "My father, Lady Mary, wept when I brought him a handful of these flowers; for he said it reminded him of his Highland home. I have found these pretty bells growing on the wild hills about Rice Lake, near the water, as well as near the beaver meadows." "Do the beavers sleep in the winter time, nurse?" "They do not lie torpid, as racoons do, though they may sleep a good deal; but as they lay up a great store of provisions for the winter, of course they must awake sometimes to eat it." Lady Mary thought so too. "In the spring, when the long warm days return, they quit their winter retreat, and separate in pairs, living in holes in the banks of lakes and rivers, and do not unite again till the approach of the cold calls them together to prepare for winter, as I told you." "Who calls them all to build their winter houses?" asked the child. "The providence of God, usually called instinct, that guides these animals; doubtless it is the law of nature given to them by God. "There is a great resemblance in the habits of the musk-rat and the beaver. They all live in the water; all separate in the spring, and meet again in the fall to build and work together; and, having helped each other in these things, they retire to a private dwelling, each family to its own. The otter does not make a dam, like the beaver, and I am not sure that, like the beaver, it works in companies: it lives on fish and roots; the musk-rat on shell-fish and roots; and the beaver on vegetable food mostly. Musk-rats and beavers are used for food, but the flesh of the otter is too fishy to be eaten." "Nurse, can people eat musk-rats?" asked Lady Mary, with surprise. "Yes, my lady, in the spring months the hunters and Indians reckon them good food. I have eaten them myself, but I did not like them, they were too fat. Musk-rats build a little house of rushes, and plaster it, they have two chambers, and do not lie torpid, they build in shallow, rushy places in lakes but in spring they quit their winter houses and are often found in holes among the roots of trees. They live on mussels and shell fish. The fur is used in making caps, and hats, and fur gloves." "Nurse, did you ever see a tame beaver?" "Yes, my dear, I knew a squaw who had a tame beaver, which she used to take out in her canoe with her, and it sat in her lap, or on her shoulder, and was very playful." Just then the dinner bell rang, and as dinner at Government House waits for no one, Lady Mary was obliged to defer hearing more about beavers until another time. CHAPTER VIII. INDIAN BOY AND HIS PETS--TAME BEAVER AT HOME--KITTEN, WILDFIRE--PET RACOON AND THE SPANIEL PUPPIES--CANADIAN FLORA. "Nurse, you have told me a great many nice stories; now I can tell you one, if you would like to hear it;" and the Governor's little daughter fixed her bright eyes, beaming with intelligence, on the face of her nurse, who smiled, and said she should like very much to hear the story. "You must guess what it is to be about, nurse." "I am afraid I shall not guess right. Is it 'Little Red Riding Hood,' or 'Old Mother Hubbard,' or 'Jack the Giant-killer?'" "Oh, nurse, to guess such silly stories!" said the little girl, stopping her ears. "Those are too silly for me even to tell baby! My story is a nice story about a darling tame beaver. Major Pickford took me on his knee and told me the story last night." Mrs. Frazer begged Lady Mary's pardon for making such foolish guesses, and declared she should like very much to hear Major Pickford's story of the tame beaver. "Well, nurse, you must know there was once a gentleman who lived in the bush, on the banks of a small lake, somewhere in Canada, a long, long way from Montreal. He lived all alone in a little log-house, and spent his time in fishing and trapping and hunting; and he was very dull, for he had no wife, and no little child like me to talk to. The only people whom he used to see were some French lumberers; and now and then the Indians would come in their canoes and fish on his lake, and make their wigwams on the lake-shore, and hunt deer in the wood. The gentleman was very fond of the Indians, and used to pass a great deal of his time with them, and talk to them in their own language. "Well, nurse, one day he found a poor little Indian boy who had been lost in the woods, and was half starved, sick, and weak; and the kind gentleman took him home to his house, and fed and nursed him till he got quite strong again. Was not that good, nurse?" "It was quite right, my lady. People should always be kind to the sick and weak, and especially to a poor Indian stranger. I like the story very much, and shall be glad to hear more about the Indian boy." "Nurse, there is not a great deal more about the Indian boy; for when the Indian party to which he belonged returned from hunting, he went away to his own home; but I forgot to tell you that the gentleman had often said how much he should like to have a young beaver to make a pet of. He was very fond of pets; he had a dear little squirrel, just like mine, nurse, a flying squirrel, which he had made so tame that it slept in his bosom and lived in his pocket, where he kept nuts and acorns and apples for it to eat; and he had a racoon too, nurse--only think, a real racoon! and Major Pickford told me something so droll about the racoon, only I want first to go on with the story about the beaver." "One day, as the gentleman was sitting by the fire reading, he heard a slight noise, and when he looked up was quite surprised to see an Indian boy in a blanket coat, with his dark eyes fixed upon his face, while his long black hair hung down on his shoulders. He looked quite wild, and did not say a word, but only opened his blanket coat, and showed a brown-furred animal asleep on his breast. What do you think it was, nurse?" "A young beaver, my lady." "Yes, nurse, it was a little beaver. The good Indian boy had caught it and tamed it on purpose to bring it to his white friend, who had been so good to him. "I cannot tell you all the amusing things the Indian boy said about the beaver, though the Major told them to me; but I cannot talk like an Indian, you know, Mrs. Frazer. After the boy went away, the gentleman set to work and made a little log-house for his beaver to live in, and set it in a corner of the shanty, and he hollowed a large sugar trough for its water, that it might have water to wash in, and cut down some young willows and poplars and birch trees for it to eat. And the little beaver grew very fond of its new master, it would fondle him just like a little squirrel, put its soft head on his knee, and climb up on his lap. He taught it to eat bread, sweet cake, and biscuit, and even roast and boiled meat, and it would drink milk too. "Well, nurse, the little beaver lived very happily with this kind gentleman till the next fall, and then it began to get very restless and active, as if it were tired of doing nothing. One day its master heard of the arrival of a friend some miles off so he left the beaver to take care of itself, and went away, but he did not forget to give it some green wood, and plenty of water to drink and play in. He stayed several days, for he was very glad to meet with a friend in that lonely place, but when he came back, he could not open his door, and was obliged to get in at the window. What do you think the beaver had done? It had built a dam against the side of the trough, and a wall across the door, and it had dug up the hearth and the floor, and carried the earth and the stones to help to make its dam, and puddled it with water, and made such work. The house was in perfect confusion, with mud, chips bark, and stone, and oh, nurse, worse than all that, it had gnawed through the legs of the table and chairs, and they were lying on the floor in such a state; and it cost the poor gentleman so much trouble to put things to rights again, and make more chairs and another table! and when I laughed at the pranks of that wicked beaver--for I could not help laughing--the Major pinched my ear, and called me a mischievous puss." Mrs. Frazer was very much entertained with the story, and she told Lady Mary that she had heard of tame beavers doing such things before; for in the season of the year when beavers congregate together to repair their works and build their winter houses, those that are in confinement become restless and unquiet, and show the instinct that moves these animals to provide their winter retreats, and lay up their stores of food. "Nurse," said Lady Mary, "I did not think that beavers and racoons could be taught to eat sweet cake, and bread, and meat." "Many animals learn to eat very different food to what they are accustomed to live upon in a wild state. The wild cat lives on raw flesh; while the domestic cat, you know, my dear, will eat cooked meat, and even salt meat, with bread and milk and many other things. I knew a person who had a black kitten called 'Wildfire,' which would sip whisky toddy out of his glass, and seemed to like it as well as milk or water, only it made him too wild and frisky." "Nurse, the racoon that the gentleman had would drink sweet whisky punch; but my governess said it was not right to give it to him; and Major Pickford laughed, and declared the racoon must have looked very funny when he was tipsy. Was not the Major naughty to say so?" Mrs. Frazer said it was not quite proper. "The racoon, Lady Mary, in its natural state, has all the wildness and cunning of the fox and weasel. He will eat flesh, poultry, and sucking pigs, and is also very destructive to Indian corn. These creatures abound in the Western States, and are killed in great numbers for their skins. The Indian hunters eat the flesh, and say it is very tender and good; but it is not used for food in Canada. The racoon belongs to the same class of animals as the bear, which it resembles in some points, though; being small, it is not so dangerous either to man or the larger animals. "And now, my dear, let me show you some pretty wild-flowers a little girl brought me this morning for you, as she heard that you loved flowers. There are yellow-mocassins, or ladies'-slippers, the same that I told you of a little while ago; and white lilies, crane-bills, and these pretty lilac geraniums; here are scarlet cups, and blue lupines--they are all in bloom now--and many others. If we were on the Rice Lake Plains, my lady, we could gather all these, and many, many more. In the months of June and July those plains are like a garden, and their roses scent the air." "Nurse, I will ask my dear papa to take me to the Rice Lake Plains," said the little girl, as she gazed with delight on the lovely Canadian flowers. CHAPTER IX. NURSE TELLS LADY MARY ABOUT A LITTLE BOY WHO WAS EATEN BY A BEAR IN THE PROVINCE OF NEW BRUNSWICK--OF A BABY THAT WAS CARRIED AWAY, BUT TAKEN ALIVE--A WALK IN THE GARDEN--HUMMING-BIRDS--CANADIAN BALSAMS. "Nurse," said Lady Mary, "did you ever hear of any one having been eaten by a wolf or bear?" "I have heard of such things happening, my dear, in this country; but only in lonely, unsettled parts, near swamps and deep woods." "Did you ever hear of any little boy or girl having been carried off by a wolf or bear?" asked the child. "No, my lady, not in Canada, though similar accidents may have happened there; but when I was a young girl I heard of such tragedies at New Brunswick--one of the British provinces lying to the east of this, and a cold and rather barren country, but containing many minerals, such as coal, limestone, and marble, besides vast forests of pine, and small lakes and rivers. It resembles Lower Canada in many respects; but it is not so pleasant as the province of Upper Canada, neither is it so productive. "Thirty years ago it was not so well cleared or cultivated as it is now, and the woods were full of wild beasts that dwelt among the swamps and wild rocky valleys. Bears, and wolves, and catamounts abounded, with foxes of several kinds, and many of the fine-furred and smaller species of animals, which were much sought for on account of their skins. Well, my dear, near the little village where my aunt and uncle were living, there were great tracts of unbroken swamps and forests, which of course sheltered many wild animals. A sad accident happened a few days before we arrived, which caused much sorrow and no little fright in the place. "An old man went out into the woods one morning with his little grandson to look for the oxen, which had strayed from the clearing. They had not gone many yards from the enclosure when they heard a crackling and rustling among the underwood and dry timber that strewed the ground. The old man, thinking it was caused by the cattle they were looking for, bade the little boy go forward and drive them on the track; but in a few he heard a fearful cry from the child, and hurrying forward through the tangled brushwood, saw the poor little boy in the deadly grasp of a huge black bear, which was making off at a fast trot with his prey. "The old man was unarmed, and too feeble to pursue the dreadful beast. He could only wring his hands and rend his gray hairs in grief and terror; but his lamentations could not restore the child to life. A band of hunters and lumberers, armed with rifles and knives, turned out to beat the woods, and were not long in tracking the savage animal to his retreat in a neighbouring cedar swamp. A few fragments of the child's dress were all that remained of him; but the villagers had the satisfaction of killing the great she-bear with, her two half-grown cubs. The magistrates of the district gave them a large sum for shooting these creatures, and the skins were sold, and the money given to the parents of the little boy; but no money could console them for the loss of their beloved child. "The flesh of the bear is eaten both by Indians and hunters; it is like coarse beef. The hams are cured and dried, and by many thought to be a great dainty." "Mrs. Frazer, I would not eat a bit of the ham made from a wicked, cruel bear, that eats little children," said Lady Mary. "I wonder the hunters were not afraid to go into the swamps where such savage beasts lived. Are there as many bears and wolves now in those places?" "No, my lady; great changes have taken place since that time. As the country becomes more thickly settled, the woods disappear. The axe and the fire destroy the haunts that sheltered these wild beasts, and they retreat further back, where the deer and other creatures on which they principally feed abound." "Do the hunters follow them?" "There is no place, however difficult or perilous, where the hunter will not venture in search of game." "And do they pursue the graceful deer? They are so pretty, with their branching antlers and slender limbs, that I should have thought no man could be so cruel as to slay them." "But their flesh is very savoury, and the Indian, when tired of bear's meat, is glad of a dish of fresh venison. So with his gun--if he has one--or with his bow and arrow, he lies in wait among the foliage and brushwood of the forest, or behind the rocks on the bank of some swift torrent, and when the unsuspecting stag makes his appearance on the opposite crag, he takes a careful aim, lets fly his rapid arrow, and seldom fails to kill his victim; which, dropping into the stream below, is borne by the current within his reach." "They are brave men, those hunters," said Lady Mary; "but I fear they are very cruel. I wish they would only kill the furious bears. That was a sad story you told me just now, nurse, about the poor little boy. Have you heard of any other sufferers; or do people sometimes escape from these monsters?" "I also heard of a little child," continued nurse, "not more than two years old, who was with her mother in the harvest-field, who had spread a shawl on the ground near a tall tree, and laid the child upon it to sleep or play, when a bear came out of the wood and carried her off, leaping the fence with her in his arms. But the mother ran screaming after the beast, and the reapers pursued so closely with their pitch-forks and reaping-hooks, that Bruin, who was only a half-grown bear, being hard pressed, made for a tree; and as it was not easy to climb with a babe in his arms, he quietly laid the little one down at the foot of the tree, and soon was among the thick branches out of the reach of the enemy. I daresay baby must have wondered what rough nurse had taken her up; but she was unhurt, and is alive now." "I am so glad, nurse, the dear baby was not hugged to death by that horrid black bear; and I hope he was killed." "I daresay, my lady, he was shot by some of the men; for they seldom worked near the forest without having a gun with them, in case of seeing deer, or pigeons, or partridges." "I should not like to live in that country, Mrs. Frazer; for a bear, a wolf, or a catamount might eat me." "I never heard of a governor's daughter being eaten by a bear," said Mrs. Frazer, laughing, as she noticed the earnest expression on the face of her little charge. She then continued her account of the ursine family. "The bear retires in cold weather, and sleeps till warmer seasons awaken him. He does not lay up any store of winter provisions, because he seldom rouses himself during the time of his long sleep; and in the spring he finds food, both vegetable and animal, for he can eat anything when hungry, like the hog. He often robs the wild bees of their honey, and his hide, being so very thick, seems insensible to the stings of the angry bees. Bruin will sometimes find odd places for his winter bed, for a farmer, who was taking a stack of wheat into his barn to be threshed in the winter time, once found a large black bear comfortably asleep in the middle of the sheaves." "How could the bear have got into the stack of wheat, nurse?" "The claws of this animal are so strong, and he makes so much use of his paws, which are almost like hands, that he must have pulled the sheaves out and so made an entrance for himself. His skin and flesh amply repaid the farmer for any injury the grain had received. I remember seeing the bear brought home in triumph on the top of the load of wheat. Bears often do great mischief by eating the Indian corn when it is ripening; for besides what they devour, they spoil a vast deal by trampling the plants down with their clumsy feet. They will, when hard pressed by hunger, come close to the farmer's house and rob the pig-sty of its tenants. Many years ago, before the forest was cleared away in the neighbourhood of what is now a large town, but in those days consisted of only a few poor log-houses, a settler was much annoyed by the frequent visits of a bear to his hog-pen. At last he resolved to get a neighbour who was a very expert hunter to come with his rifle and watch with him. The pen where the fatling hogs were was close to the log house, it had a long, low, shingled roof, and was carefully fastened up, so that no bear could find entrance. Well, the farmer's son and the hunter had watched for two nights, and no bear came, on the third they were both tired, and lay down to sleep upon the floor of the kitchen, when the farmer's son was awakened by a sound as of some one tearing and stripping the shingles from the pen. He looked out, it was moonlight, and there he saw the dark shadow of some tall figure on the ground, and spied the great black bear standing on its hinder legs, and pulling the shingles off as fast as it could lay its big black paws upon them. The hogs were in a great fright, screaming and grunting with terror. The young man stepped back into the house, roused up the hunter, who took aim from the doorway, and shot the bear dead. The head of the huge beast was nailed up as a trophy, and the meat was dried or salted for winter use, and great were the rejoicings of the settlers, who had suffered so much from Bruin's thefts of corn and pork." "I am glad the hunter killed him, nurse, for he might, have eaten up some of the little children, when they were playing about in the fields." "Sometimes," continued Mrs. Frazer, "the bears used to visit the sugar bush, when the settlers were making maple sugar, and overturn the sap troughs and drink the sweet liquid. I daresay they would have been glad of a taste of the sugar too, if they could have got at it. The bear is not so often met with now as it used to be many years ago. The fur of the bear used to be worn as muffs and tippets, but is now little used for that purpose, being thought to be too coarse and heavy; but it is still made into caps for soldiers, and used for sleigh-robes." This was all Mrs. Frazer chose to recollect about bears, for she was unwilling to dwell long on any gloomy subject, which she knew was not good for young minds: so she took her charge into the garden to look at the flower-beds, and watch the birds and butterflies; and soon the child was gaily running from flower to flower, watching with childish interest the insects flitting to and fro. At last she stopped, and holding up her finger to warn Mrs. Frazer not to come too near, stood gazing in wonder and admiration on a fluttering object that was hovering over the full-blown honey-suckles on a trellis near the greenhouse. Mrs. Frazer approached her with due caution. "Nurse," whispered the child, "look at that curious moth with a long bill like a bird; see its beautiful shining colours. It has a red necklace, like mamma's rubies. Oh, what a curious creature! It must be a moth or a butterfly. What is it?" "It is neither a moth nor a butterfly, my dear. It is a humming-bird." [Illustration: CAUGHT AT LAST] "Oh, nurse, a humming-bird--a real humming-bird!--pretty creature! But it is gone. Oh, nurse, it darts through the air as swift as an arrow! What was it doing--looking at the honey-suckles? I daresay it thought them very pretty; or was it smelling them? They are very sweet." "My dear child, he might be doing so; I don't know. Perhaps the good God has given to these creatures the same senses for enjoying sweet scents and bright colours as we have; yet it was not for the perfume, but the honey, that this little bird came to visit the open flowers. The long slender bill, which the humming-bird inserts into the tubes of the flowers, is his instrument for extracting the honey. Look at the pretty creature's ruby throat, and green and gold feathers." "How does it make that whirring noise, nurse, just like the humming of a top?" asked the child. "The little bird produces the sound, from which he derives his name, by beating the air with his wings. This rapid motion is necessary to sustain his position in the air while sucking the flowers. "I remember, Lady Mary, first seeing humming-birds when I was about your age, while walking in the garden. It was a bright September morning, and the rail-fences and every dry twig of the brushwood were filled with the webs of the field-spider. Some, like thick white muslin, lay upon the grass; while others were suspended from trees like forest lace-work, on the threads of which the dewdrops hung like strings of shining pearls; and hovering round the flowers were several ruby-throated humming-birds, the whirring of whose wings as they beat the air sounded like the humming of a spinning-wheel. And I thought, as I gazed upon them, and the beautiful lace webs that hung among the bushes, that they must have been the work of these curious creatures, which had made them to catch flies, and had strung the bright dewdrops thereon to entice them--so little did I know of the nature of these birds. But my father told me a great deal about them, and read me some very pretty things about humming-birds; and one day, Lady Mary, I will show you a stuffed one a friend gave me, with its tiny nest and eggs not bigger than peas." Lady Mary was much delighted at the idea of seeing the little nest and eggs, and Mrs. Frazer said, "There is a wild-flower that is known to the Canadians by the name of the Humming-flower, on account of the fondness which those birds evince for it. This plant grows on the moist banks of creeks It is very beautiful, of a bright orange-scarlet colour. The stalks and stem of the plant are almost transparent. Some call it Speckled Jewels, for the bright blossoms are spotted with dark purple; and some, Touch-me-not." "That is a droll name, nurse," said Lady Mary. "Does it prick one's finger like a thistle?" "No, my lady; but when the seed-pods are nearly ripe, if you touch them they spring open and curl into little rings, and the seed drops out." "Nurse, when you see any of these curious flowers, will you show them to me?" Mrs. Frazer said they would soon be in bloom, and promised Lady Mary to bring her some, and to show her the singular manner in which the pods burst. "But, my lady," said she, "the gardener will show you the same thing in the greenhouse. As soon as the seed-pods of the balsams in the pots begin to harden they will spring and curl, if touched, and drop the seeds like the wild plant; for they belong to the same family. But it is time for your ladyship to go in." When Lady Mary returned to the schoolroom, her governess read to her some interesting accounts of the habits of the humming-bird. "'This lively little feathered gem--for in its hues it unites the brightness of the emerald, the richness of the ruby, and the lustre of the topaz--includes in its wide range more than one hundred species. It is the smallest, and at the same time the most brilliant, of all the American birds. Its headquarters may be said to be among the glowing flowers and luxurious fruits of the torrid zone and the tropics. But one species, the ruby-throated, is widely diffused, and is a summer visitor all over North America, even within the arctic circle, where, for a brief space of time, it revels in the ardent heat of the short-lived summer of the north. Like the cuckoo, it follows the summer wherever it flies. "'The ruby-throated humming-bird [Footnote: Trochilus Rubus] is the only species that is known in Canada. With us it builds and breeds, and then returns to summer skies and warmer airs. The length of the humming-bird is only three inches and a half, and four and a quarter in extent from one tip of the wing to the other When on the wing the bird has the form of a cross, the wings forming no curve, though the tail is depressed during the time that it is poised in the act of sucking the honey of the flower. The tongue is long and slender; the bill long and straight; the legs are very short, so that the feet are hardly visible when on the wing. They are seldom seen walking, but rest on the slender sprigs when tired. The flight is so rapid that it seems without effort. The humming sound is produced by the wing, in the act of keeping itself balanced while feeding in this position. They resemble the hawk-moth, which also keeps up a constant vibratory motion with its wings. This little creature is of a temper as fierce and fiery as its plumes, often attacking birds of treble its size; but it seems very little disturbed by the near approach of the human species, often entering open windows, and hovering around the flowers in the flower-stand; it has even been known to approach the vase on the table, and insert its bill among the flowers, quite fearless of those persons who sat in the room. Sometimes these beautiful creatures have suffered themselves to be captured by the hand. "'The nest of the ruby throated humming-bird is usually built on a mossy branch. At first sight it looks like a tuft of gray lichens, but when closely examined shows both care and skill in its construction, the outer wall being of fine bluish lichens cemented together, and the interior lined with the silken threads of the milk weed, the velvety down of the tall mullein, or the brown hair like filaments of the fern. These, or similar soft materials, form the bed of the tiny young ones. The eggs are white, two in number, and about the size of a pea, but oblong in shape. The parents hatch their eggs in about ten days and in a week the little ones are able to fly, though the old birds continue to supply them with honey for some time longer. The Mexican Indians give the name of Sunbeam to the humming-bird, either in reference to its bright plumage or its love of sunshine. "'The young of the humming-bird does not attain its gay plumage till the second year. The male displays the finer colours--the ruby necklace being confined to the old male bird. The green and coppery lustre of the feathers is also finer in the male bird.'" Lady Mary was much pleased with what she had heard about the humming-bird, and she liked the name of Sunbeam for this lovely creature. CHAPTER X. AURORA BOREALIS, OR NORTHERN LIGHTS, MOST FREQUENTLY SEEN IN NORTHERN CLIMATES--CALLED MERRY DANCERS--ROSE TINTS--TINT-LIKE APPEARANCE--LADY MARY FRIGHTENED. One evening, just as Mrs. Frazer was preparing to undress Lady Mary, Miss Campbell, her governess, came into the nursery, and taking the little girl by the hand, led her to the window, and bade her look out on the sky towards the north, where a low dark arch, surmounted by an irregular border, like a silver fringe, was visible. For some moments Lady Mary stood silently regarding this singular appearance; at length she said, "It is a rainbow, Miss Campbell; but where is the sun that you told me shone into the drops of rain to make the pretty colours?" "It is not a rainbow, my dear; the sun has been long set." "Can the moon make rainbows at night?" asked the little girl. [Illustration: THE AURORA BOREALIS] "The moon does sometimes, but very rarely, make what is called a _lunar_ rainbow. Luna was the ancient name for the moon. But the arch you now see is caused neither by the light of the sun nor of the moon, but is known by the name of Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. The word Aurora means morning or dawn; and Borealis, northern. You know, my dear, what is meant by the word dawn; it is the light that is seen in the sky before the sun rises." Lady Mary replied, "Yes, Miss Campbell, I have often seen the sun rise, and once very early too, when I was ill, and could not sleep, for nurse lifted me in her arms out of bed, and took me to the window. The sky was all over of a bright golden colour, with streaks of rosy red; and nurse said, 'It is dawn; the sun will soon be up.' And I saw the beautiful sun rise from behind the trees and hills. He came up so gloriously, larger than when we see him in the middle of the sky, and I could look at him without hurting my eyes." "Sunrise is indeed a glorious sight, my dear; but He who made the sun is more glorious still. Do you remember what we read yesterday in the Psalms?-- "Verse 1 The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handywork. 2 One day telleth another and one night certifieth another. 3 There is neither speech nor language, but their voices are heard among them. 5 In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course. "The Northern Lights, Lady Mary, are frequently visible in Canada, but are most brilliant in the colder regions near the North Pole, where they serve to give light during the dark season to those dismal countries from which the sun is so many months absent. The light of the Aurora Borealis is so soft and beautiful, that any object can be distinctly seen; though in those cold countries there are few human beings to be benefited by this beautiful provision of Nature." "The wild beasts and birds must be glad of the pretty lights," said the child thoughtfully; for Lady Mary's young heart always rejoiced when she thought that God's gifts could be shared by the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, as well as by mankind. "Look now, my dear," said Miss Campbell, directing the attention of her pupil to the horizon; "what a change has taken place whilst we have been speaking! See, the arch is sending up long shafts of light; now they divide, and shift from side to side, gliding along among the darker portions of vapour like moving pillars." "Ah, there, there they go!" cried the little girl, clapping her hands with delight. "See, nurse, how the pretty lights chase each other and dance about! Up they go, higher and higher! How pretty they look! But now they are gone! They are fading away. I am so sorry," said the child, despondingly, for a sudden cessation had taken place in the motions of the heavens. "We will go in for a little time, my dear," said her governess, "and then look out again. Great changes take place sometimes in these aerial phenomena in a few minutes." "I suppose," said Lady Mary, "these lights are the same that the peasants of Northern England and Ireland call the Merry Dancers?" "Yes, they are the same, and they fancy that they are seen when war and troubles are about to break out. But this idea is a very ignorant one, for were that the case, some of the cold countries of the world, where the sky is illumined night after night by the Aurora Borealis, would be one continual scene of misery. I have seen in this country a succession of these lights for four or five successive nights. This phenomenon owes its origin to _electricity_, which is a very wonderful agent in nature, and exists in various bodies, perhaps in all created things. It is this that shoots across the sky in the form of lightning, and causes the thunder to be heard, circulates in the air we breathe, occasions whirlwinds, waterspouts, earthquakes, and volcanoes, and makes one substance attract another. "Look at this piece of amber. If I rub it on the table, it will become warm to the touch. Now I will take a bit of thread and hold near it. See, the thread moves towards the amber and clings to it. Sealing-wax and many other substances when heated have this property. Some bodies give out flashes and sparks by being rubbed. If you stroke a black cat briskly in the dark, you will see faint flashes of light come from her fur, and on very cold nights in the winter season, flannels that are worn next the skin crackle and give sparks when taken off and shaken." These things astonished Lady Mary. She tried the experiment with the amber and thread, and was much amused by seeing the thread attracted; and she wanted to see the sparks from the cat's back, only there happened, unfortunately, to be no black cat or kitten in Government House. Mrs. Frazer, however, promised to procure a beautiful black kitten for her, that she might enjoy the singular sight of the electric sparks from its coat; and Lady Mary wished winter were come, that she might see the sparks from her flannel petticoat and hear the sounds. "Let us now go and look out again at the sky," said Miss Campbell; and Lady Mary skipped joyfully through the French window to the balcony, but ran back, and flinging her arms about her nurse, cried out, in accents of alarm, "Nurse, nurse, the sky is all closing together! Oh, Miss Campbell, what shall we do?" "There is no cause for fear, my dear child; do not be frightened. There is nothing to harm us." Indeed, during the short time they had been absent, a great and remarkable change had taken place in the appearance of the sky. The electric fluid had diffused itself over the face of the whole heavens; the pale colour of the streamers had changed to bright rose, pale violet, and greenish-yellow. At the zenith, or that part more immediately overhead, a vast ring of deep indigo was presented to the eye, from this swept down, as it were a flowing curtain of rosy light which wavered and moved incessantly, as if agitated by a gentle breeze, though a perfect stillness reigned through the air. The child's young heart was awed by this sublime spectacle, it seemed to her as if it were indeed the throne of the great Creator of the world that she was gazing upon, and she veiled her face in her nurse's arms and trembled exceedingly, even as the children of Israel when the fire of Mount Sinai was revealed, and they feared to behold the glory of the Most High God. After a while, Lady Mary, encouraged by the cheerful voices of her governess and nurse, ventured to look up to watch the silver stars shining dimly as from beneath a veil, and she whispered to herself the words that her governess had before repeated to her "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handywork." After a little while, Mrs. Frazer thought it better to put Lady Mary to bed, as she had been up much longer than usual, and Miss Campbell was afraid lest the excitement should make her ill, but the child did not soon fall asleep, for her thoughts were full of the strange and glorious things she had seen that night. CHAPTER XI. STRAWBERRIES--CANADIAN WILD FRUITS--WILD RASPBERRIES--THE HUNTER AND THE LOST CHILD--CRANBERRIES--CRANBERRY MARSHES--NUTS. One day Lady Mary's nurse brought her a small Indian basket, filled with ripe red strawberries. "Nurse, where did you get these nice strawberries?" said the little girl, peeping beneath the fresh leaves with which they were covered. "I bought them from a little Indian squaw in the street; she had brought them from a wooded meadow some miles off, my lady. They are very fine; see, they are as large as those that the gardener sent in yesterday from the forcing-house; and these wild ones have grown without any pains having been bestowed upon them." "I did not think, nurse, that wild strawberries could have been so fine as these; may I taste them?" Mrs. Frazer said she might. "These are not so large, so red, or so sweet as some that I have gathered when I lived at home with my father," said the nurse. "I have seen acres and acres of strawberries, as large as the early scarlet that are sold so high in the market, on the Rice Lake plains. When the farmers have ploughed a fallow on the Rice Lake plains, the following summer it will be covered with a crop of the finest strawberries. I have gathered pailsful day after day, these, however, have been partly cultivated by the plough breaking up the sod, but they seem as if sown by the hand of Nature. These fruits and many sorts of flowers appear on the new soil that were never seen there before. After a fallow has been chopped, logged, and burned, if it be left for a few years, trees, shrubs, and plants, will cover it, unlike those that grew there before." "That is curious," said the child, "Does God sow the seeds in the new ground?" "My lady, no doubt they come from Him, for He openeth His hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness. My father, who thought a great deal on these subjects, said that the seeds of many plants may fall upon the earth, and yet none of them take root till the soil be favourable for their growth. It may be that these seeds had lain for years, preserved in the earth till the forest was cleared away, and the sun, air, and rain caused them to spring up, or the earth may still bring forth the herb of the field, after its kind, as in the day of the creation, but whether it be so or not, we must bless the Lord for His goodness and for the blessings that He giveth us at all times." "Are there many sorts of wild fruits fit to eat, nurse, in this country? Please, will you tell me all that you know about them?" "There are so many, Lady Mary, that I am afraid I shall weary you before I have told you half of them." "Nurse, I shall not be tired, for I like to hear about fruits and flowers very much; and my dear mamma likes you to tell me all you know about the plants, trees, birds, and beasts of Canada." "Besides many sorts of strawberries, there are wild currants, both black and red, and many kinds of wild gooseberries," said Mrs. Frazer. "Some grow on wastes by the roadside, in dry soil, others in swamps; but most gooseberries are covered with thorns, which grow not only on the wood, but on the berries themselves." "I would not eat those disagreeable, thorny gooseberries; they would prick my tongue," said the little girl. "They cannot be eaten without first being scalded. The settlers' wives contrive to make good pies and preserves with them, by first scalding the fruit and then rubbing it between coarse linen cloths. I have heard these tarts called thornberry pies, which, I think, was a good name for them. When emigrants first come to Canada and clear the backwoods, they have little time to make nice fruit-gardens for themselves, and they are glad to gather the wild berries that grow in the woods and swamps to make tarts and preserves, so that they do not even despise the thorny gooseberries or the wild black currants. Some swamp gooseberries, however, are quite smooth, of a dark red colour, but small, and they are very nice when ripe. The blossoms of the wild currants are very beautiful, of a pale yellowish green, and hang down in long graceful branches, the fruit is harsh but makes wholesome preserves. But there are thorny currants as well as thorny gooseberries, these have long, weak, trailing branches, the berries are small, covered with stiff bristles, and of a pale red colour. They are not wholesome, I have seen people made very ill by eating them, I have heard even of their dying in consequence of having done so." "I am sure, nurse, I will not eat those wild currants," said Lady Mary, "I am glad you have told me about their being poisonous." "This sort is not often met with, my dear, and these berries, though they are not good for man, doubtless give nourishment to some of the wild creatures that seek their food from God, and we have enough dainties and to spare without them. "The red raspberry is one of the most common and the most useful to us of the wild fruits. It grows in abundance all over the country--by the roadside, in the half opened woods, on upturned roots, or in old neglected clearings, there is no place so wild but it will grow, wherever its roots can find a crevice. With maple sugar, the farmers' wives never need lack a tart nor a dish of fruit and cream The poor Irish emigrants' children go out and gather pailsful, which they carry to the towns and villages to sell. The birds, too, live upon the fruit, and flying away with it to distant places, help to sow the seed. A great many small animals eat the ripe raspberry, for even the racoon and great black bear come in for their share. "The black bears! O nurse! O Mrs. Frazer!" exclaimed Lady Mary, in great astonishment. "What! do bears eat raspberries?" "Yes, indeed, my lady, they do. Bears are fond of all ripe fruits. The bear resembles the hog in all it's tastes very closely; both in their wild state will eat flesh, grain, fruit, and roots." "There is a story about a beat and an Indian hunter, which will show how bears ear berries. It is from the Journal or Peter Jacobs, The Indian missionary:-- "At sunrise, next morning," he says, "we tried to land, but the water was so full of shoals, we could not without wading a great distance." "The beach before us was of bright sand, and the sun was about, when I saw an object moving on the shore: it appeared to be a man, and seemed to be making signals of distress. We were all weary and hungry, but thinking it was a fellow-creature in distress, we pulled towards him. Judge of our surprise when the stranger proved to be an enormous bear!" "He was seated on his hams, and what we thought his signals, were his raising himself on his hind legs to pull down the berries from a high bush, and with his paws full, sitting down again to eat them at his leisure. "'Thus he continued daintily enjoying his ripe fruit in the posture some lapdogs are taught to assume while eating. On we pulled, and forgot our hunger and weariness the bear still continued breakfasting. "'We got as close on shore as the shoals would permit, and John (one of the Indians), taking my double barrelled gun, leaped into the water, gun in hand, and gained the beach. Some dead brushwood hid the bear from John's sight, but from the canoe we could see both John and the bear. "'The bear now discovered us, and advanced towards us, and John, not seeing him for the bush, ran along the beach towards him. The weariness from pulling all night, and having eaten no food, made me lose my presence of mind, for I now remembered that the gun was only loaded with duck shot, and you might as well meet a bear with a gun loaded with pease. "'John was in danger, and we strained at our paddles to get to his assistance, but as the bear was a very large one, and as we had no other firearms we should have been but poor helps to John in the hug of a wounded bear. The bear was at the other side of the brush heap, John heard the dry branches cracking, and he dodged into a hollow under a bush. The bear passed, and was coursing along the sand but as he passed by where John lay, bang went the gun. The bear was struck. "'We saw him leap through the smoke to the very spot where we had last seen John. We held our breath; but instead of the cry of agony we expected to hear from John, bang went the gun again--John is not yet caught. Our canoe rushed through the water--we might yet be in time; but my paddle fell from my hand with joy, as I saw John pop his head above the bush, and with a shout point to the side of the log on which he stood, 'There he lies, dead enough.' We were thankful indeed to our Great Preserver.' "Though fruit and vegetables seem to be the natural food of the bear, they also devour flesh, and even fish--a fact of which the good Indian missionary assures us, and which I shall tell you, Lady Mary, in his own words:-- "'A few evenings after we left the _Rock_, while the men were before me 'tracking' (towing the canoe), by pulling her along by a rope from the shore, I observed behind a rock in the river what I took to be a black fox. I stole upon it as quietly as possible, hoping to get a shot; but the animal saw me, and waded to the shore. It turned out to be a young bear fishing. The bear is a great fisherman. His mode of fishing is very curious. He wades into a current, and seating himself upright on his hams, lets the water come about up to his shoulders; he patiently waits until the little fishes come along and rub themselves against his sides; he seizes them instantly, gives them a nip, and with his left paw tosses them over his shoulder to the shore. His left paw is always the one used for tossing ashore the produce of his fishing. Feeling is the sense of which Bruin makes use here, not sight. "'The Indians of that part say that the bear catches sturgeon when spawning in the shoal-water, but the only fish that I know of their catching is the sucker. Of these, in the months of April and May, the bear makes his daily breakfast and supper, devouring about thirty or forty at a meal. As soon as he has caught a sufficient number, he wades ashore and regales himself on the best morsels, which are the thick of the neck, behind the gills. The Indians often shoot him when thus engaged.' "There is a small red berry in the woods that is known by the name of the bear-berry, [Footnote: _Arbutus uva ursi_--"Kinnikinnick" is the Indian name.] of which they say the young bears are particularly fond." "I should be afraid of going to gather raspberries, nurse, for fear of the bears coming to eat them too." "The hunters know that the bears are partial to this fruit, and often seek them in large thickets where they grow. A young gentleman, Lady Mary, once went out shooting game, in the province of New Brunswick, in the month of July, when the weather was warm, and there were plenty of wild berries ripe. He had been out for many hours, and at last found himself on the banks of a creek. But the bridge he had been used to cross was gone, having been swept away by heavy rains in the spring. Passing on a little higher up, he saw an old clearing full of bushes, and knowing that wild animals were often to be met with in such spots, he determined to cross over and try his luck for a bear, a racoon, or a young fawn. Not far from the spot he saw a large fallen swamp elm-tree, which made a capital bridge. Just as he was preparing to cross, he heard the sound of footsteps on the dry crackling sticks, and saw a movement among the raspberry bushes. His finger was on the lock of his rifle in an instant, for he thought it must be a bear or a deer; but just as he was about to fire, he saw a small, thin, brown hand, all red and stained from the juice of the ripe berries, reaching down a branch of the fruit. His very heart leaped within him with fright, for in another moment he would have shot the poor little child that, with wan, wasted face, was looking at him from between the raspberry bushes. It was a little girl, about as old as you are, Lady Mary. She was without hat or shoes, and her clothes were all in tatters. Her hands and neck were quite brown and sun-burned. She seemed frightened at first, and would have hid herself, had not the stranger called out gently to her to stay, and not to be afraid, and then he hurried over the log bridge, and asked her who she was, and where she lived. And she said 'she did not live anywhere, for she was lost.' She could not tell how many days, but she thought she had been seven nights out in the woods. She had been sent to take some dinner to her father, who was at work in the forest, but had missed the path, and gone on a cattle track, and did not find her mistake until it was too late, when she became frightened, and tried to get back, but only lost herself deeper in the woods. The first night she wrapped her frock about her head, and lay down beneath the shelter of a great upturned root. She had eaten but little of the food she had in the basket that day, for it lasted her nearly two. After it was gone she chewed some leaves, till she came to the raspberry clearing, and got berries of several kinds, and plenty of water to drink from the creek. One night, she said, she was awakened by a heavy tramping near her, and looking up in the moonlight, saw two great black beasts, which she thought were her father's oxen, and so she sat up and called, 'Buck,' 'Bright,'--for these were their names, but they had no bells, and looked like two great shaggy black dogs. They stood on their hind legs upright and looked at her, but went away. These animals were bears, but the child did not know that, and she said she felt no fear, for she said her prayers every night before she lay down to sleep, and she knew that God would take care of her, both sleeping and waking." "And did the hunter take her home? asked Lady Mary, who was much interested in the story. "Yes, my dear, he did. Finding that the poor little girl was very weak, the young man took her on his back. Fortunately he happened to have a little wine in a flask, and a bit of dry biscuit in his knapsack, and this greatly revived the little creature. Sometimes she ran by his side, while holding by his coat, talking to her new friend, seemingly quite happy and cheerful, bidding him not be afraid even if they had to pass another night in the wood; but just as the sun was setting, they came out of the dark forest into an open clearing. "It was not the child's home, but a farm belonging to a miller who knew her father, and had been in search of her for several days; and he and his wife were very glad when they saw the lost child, and gladly showed her preserver the way. They rejoiced very much when the poor wanderer was restored safe and well to her sorrowing parents." "Nurse," said Lady Mary, "I am so glad the good hunter found the little girl. I must tell my own dear mamma that nice story. How sorry my mamma and papa would be to lose me in the woods!" The nurse smiled, and said, "My dear lady, there is no fear of such an accident happening to you. You are not exposed to the same trials and dangers as the children of poor emigrants; therefore you must be very grateful to God, and do all you can to serve and please Him; and when you are able, be kind and good to those who are not so well off as you are." [Illustration: THE LOST CHILD AND THE BEARS] "Are there any other wild fruits, nurse, besides raspberries and strawberries, and currants and goose berries?' "Yes, my dear lady, a great many more. We will begin with wild plums these we often preserve, and when the trees are planted in gardens, and taken care of, the fruit is very good to eat. The wild cherries are not very nice, but the bark of the black cherry is good for agues and low fevers. The choke cherry is very beautiful to look at, but hurts the throat, closing it up if many are eaten, and making it quite sore. The huckle berry is a sweet, dark blue berry, that grows on a very delicate low shrub, the blossoms are very pretty, pale pink or greenish white bells the fruit is very wholesome, it grows on light dry ground, on those parts of the country that are called plains in Canada. The settlers' children go out in parties, and gather great quantities, either to eat or dry for winter use. These berries are a great blessing to every one, besides forming abundant food for the broods of young quails and partridges, squirrels, too, of every kind eat them. There are blackberries also, Lady Mary, and some people call them thimble berries." "I have heard mamma talk about blackberries." "The Canadian blackberries are not so sweet, I am told, my lady, as those at home, though they are very rich and nice tasted, neither do they grow so high. Then there are high bush cranberries, and low bush cranberries. The first grow on a tall bush, and the fruit has a fine appearance, hanging in large bunches of light scarlet among the dark green leaves; but they are very, very sour, and take a great deal of sugar to sweeten them. The low-bush cranberries grow on a slender, trailing plant; the blossom is very pretty, and the fruit about the size of a common gooseberry, of a dark purplish red, very smooth and shining; the seeds are minute, and lie in the white pulp within the skin: this berry is not nice till it is cooked with sugar. There is a large cranberry marsh somewhere at the back of Kingston, where vast quantities grow. I heard a young gentleman, say that he passed over this tract when he was hunting, while the snow was on the ground, and that the red juice of the dropped berries dyed the snow crimson beneath his feet. The Indians go every year to a small lake called Buckhorn Lake, many miles up the river Otonabee, in the Upper Province, to gather cranberries; which they sell to the settlers in the towns and villages, or trade away for pork, flour, and clothes. The cranberries, when spread out on a dry floor, will keep fresh and good for a long time. Great quantities of cranberries are brought to England from Russia, Norway, and Lapland, in barrels, or large earthen jars, filled with spring water; but the fruit thus roughly preserved must be drained, and washed many times, and stirred with sugar, before it can be put into tarts, or it would be salt and bitter. I will boil some cranberries with sugar, that you may taste them; for they are very wholesome." Lady Mary said she should like to have some in her own garden. "The cranberry requires a particular kind of soil, not usually found in gardens, my dear lady, for as the cranberry marshes are often covered with water in the spring, I suppose they need a damp, cool soil, near lakes or rivers, perhaps sand, too, may be good for them. But we can plant some berries, and water them well, in a light soil they may grow, and bear fruit, but I am not sure that they will do so. Besides these fruits, there are many others, that are little used by man, but are of great service as food to the birds and small animals. There are many kinds of nuts, too--filberts, with rough prickly husks, walnuts, butternuts, and hickory nuts, these last are large trees, the nuts of which are very nice to eat, and the wood very fine for cabinet work, and for fire wood, the bark is used for dyeing. Now, my dear, I think you must be quite tired with hearing so much about Canadian fruits." Lady Mary said she was glad to learn that there were so many good things in Canada, for she heard a lady say to her mamma that it was an ugly country, with nothing good or pretty in it. "There is something good and pretty to be found everywhere, my dear child, if people will but open their eyes to see it, and their hearts to enjoy the good things that God has so mercifully spread abroad for all his creatures to enjoy. But Canada is really a fine country, and is fast becoming a great one." CHAPTER XII GARTER SNAKES--RATTLE-SNAKES--ANECDOTE OF A LITTLE BOY--FISHERMAN AND SNAKE--SNAKE CHARMERS--SPIDERS--LAND-TORTOISE "Nurse, I have been so terrified. I was walking in the meadow, and a great snake--so big, I am sure"--and Lady Mary held out her arms as wide as she could--"came out of a tuft of grass. His tongue was like a scarlet thread, and had two sharp points; and, do you know, he raised his wicked head, and hissed at me. I was so frightened that I ran away. I think, Mrs. Frazer, it must have been a rattle-snake. Only feel now how my heart beats"--and the little girl took her nurse's hand, and laid it on her heart. "What colour was it, my dear?" asked her nurse. "It was green and black, chequered all over; and it was very large, and opened its mouth very wide, and showed its red tongue. It would have killed me, if it had bitten me, would it not, nurse?" "It would not have harmed you, my lady; or even if it had bitten you, it would not have killed you. The chequered green snake of Canada is not poisonous. It was more afraid of you than you were of it I make no doubt." "Do you think it was a rattle snake, nurse?" "No, my dear, there are no snakes of that kind in Lower Canada, and very few below Toronto. The winters are too cold for them. But there are plenty in the western part of the Province, where the summers are warmer, and the winters milder. The rattle snake is a dangerous reptile, and its bite causes death, unless the wound be burned or cut out. The Indians apply different sorts of herbs to the wound. They have several plants, known by the names of rattle snake root, rattle snake weed, and snake root. It is a good thing that the rattlesnake gives warning of its approach before it strikes the traveller with its deadly fangs. Some people think that the rattle is a sign of fear, and that it would not wound people if it were not afraid they were coming near to hurt it. I will tell you a story Lady Mary, about a brave little boy. He went out nutting one day with another boy about his own age, and while they were in the grove gathering nuts a large black snake, that was in a low tree, dropped down and suddenly coiled itself round the throat of his companion. The child's screams were dreadful, his eyes were starting from his head with pain and terror. The other, regardless of the danger, opened a clasp knife that he had in his pocket, and seizing the snake near the head, cut it apart, and so saved his friend's life, who was well-nigh strangled by the tight folds of the reptile, which was one of a very venomous species, the bite of which generally proves fatal." "What a brave little fellow!" said Lady Mary. "You do not think it was cruel, nurse, to kill the snake?" she added, looking up in Mrs. Frazer's face. "No, Lady Mary, for he did it to save a fellow-creature from a painful death; and we are taught by God's Word that the soul of man is precious in the sight of his Creator. We should be cruel were we wantonly to inflict pain upon the least of God's creatures, but to kill them in self-defence, or for necessary food, is not cruel for when God made Adam, He gave him dominion, or power, over the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, and every creeping thing. It was an act of great courage and humanity in the little boy, who perilled his own life to save that of his helpless comrade, especially as he was not naturally a child of much courage, and was very much afraid of snakes but love for his friend entirely overcame all thoughts of his own personal danger. [Footnote: A fact related to me by a gentleman from the State of Vermont, as an instance of impulsive feeling overcoming natural timidity.] "The large garter snake which you saw, my dear lady, is comparatively harmless. It lives on toads and frogs, and robs the nests of young birds, and also pilfers the eggs. Its long forked tongue enables it to catch insects of different kinds, it will even eat fish, and for that purpose frequents the water as well as the black snake. [Illustration: A BOY HERO] "I heard a gentleman once relate a circumstance to my father that surprised me a good deal. He was fishing one day in a river near his own house, but, being tired, he seated himself on a log or fallen tree, where his basket of fish also stood; when a large garter-snake came up the log, and took a small fish out of his basket, which it speedily swallowed. The gentleman, seeing the snake so bold as not to mind his presence, took a small rock-bass by the tail, and half in joke held it towards it, when, to his great surprise, the snake glided towards him, took the fish out of his hand, and sliding away with its prize to a hole beneath the log, began by slow degrees to swallow it, stretching its mouth and the skin of its neck to a very great extent; till, after a long while, it was fairly gorged, and then it slid down its hole, leaving its head and neck only to be seen." "I should have been so frightened, nurse, if I had been the gentleman, when the snake came to take the fish," said Lady Mary. "The gentleman was well aware of the nature of the reptile, and knew that it would not bite him. I have read of snakes of the most poisonous kinds being tamed and taught all manner of tricks. There are in India and Egypt people that are called snake-charmers, who contrive to extract the fangs containing the venom from the Cobra da capella, or hooded snake; which then become quite harmless. These snakes are very fond of music, and will come out of the leather bag or basket that their master carries them in, and will dance or run up his arms, twining about his neck, and even entering his mouth! They do not tell people that the poison-teeth have been extracted, so that it is thought to be the music that keeps the snake from biting. The snake has a power of charming birds and small animals, by fixing its eye steadily upon them, when the little creatures become paralyzed with fear, either standing quite still, or coming nearer and nearer to their cruel enemy, till they are within his reach. The cat has the same power, and can by this art draw birds from the tops of trees within her reach. These little creatures seem unable to resist the temptation of approaching her, and, even when driven away, will return from a distance to the same spot, seeking, instead of shunning, the danger which is certain to prove fatal to them in the end. Some writers assert that all wild animals have this power in the eye, especially those of the cat tribe, as the lion and tiger, leopard and panther. Before they spring upon their prey, the eye is always steadily fixed, the back lowered, the neck stretched out, and the tail waved from side to side; if the eye is averted, they lose the animal, and do not make the spring." "Are there any other kinds of snakes in Canada, nurse," asked Lady Mary, "besides the garter-snake?" "Yes, my lady, several; the black snake, which is the most deadly, next to the rattle-snake is sometimes called the puff-adder, as it inflates the skin of the head and neck when angry. The copper-bellied snake is also poisonous. There is a small snake of a deep grass-green colour sometimes seen in the fields and open copse-woods. I do not think it is dangerous; I never heard of its biting any one. The stare-worm is also harmless. I am not sure whether the black snakes that live in the water are the same as the puff or black adder. It is a great blessing, my dear, that these deadly snakes are so rare, and do so little harm to man. Indeed I believe they would never harm him, were they let alone; but if trodden upon, they cannot know that it was by accident, and so put forth the weapons that God has armed them with in self-defence. The Indians in the north-west, I have been told, eat snakes, after cutting off their heads. The cat also eats snakes, leaving the head; she will also catch and eat frogs--a thing I have witnessed myself, and know to be true. [Footnote: I once saw a half-grown kitten eat a live green frog which she first brought into the parlour, playing with it as with a mouse.] One day a snake fixed itself on a little girl's arm, and wound itself around it. The mother of the child was too much terrified to tear the deadly creature off, but filled the air with cries. Just then a cat came out of the house, and quick as lightning sprang upon the snake, and fastened on its neck; which, caused the reptile to uncoil its folds, and it fell to the earth in the grasp of the cat. Thus the child's life was saved, and the snake killed. Thus you see, my dear, that God provided a preserver for this little one when no help was nigh. Perhaps the child cried to Him for aid, and He heard her and saved her by means of the cat." Lady Mary was much interested in all that Mrs. Frazer had told her. She remembered having heard some one say that the snake would swallow her own young ones, and she asked her nurse if it was true, and if they laid eggs. "The snake will swallow her young ones," said Mrs. Frazer. "I have seen the garter-snake open her mouth and let the little ones run into it when danger was nigh. The snake also lays eggs: I have been and handled them often. They are not covered with a hard, brittle shell, like that of a hen, but with a sort of whitish skin, like leather: they are about the size of a blackbird's egg, long in shape; some are rounder and larger. They are laid in some warm place, where the heat of the sun and earth hatches them. But though the mother does not brood over them, as a hen does over her eggs, she seems to take great care of her little ones, and defends them from their many enemies by hiding them out of sight in the singular manner I have just told you. This love of offspring, my dear child, has been wisely given to all mothers, from the human mother down to the very lowest of the insect tribe. The fiercest beast of prey loves its young, and provides food and shelter for them; forgetting its savage nature to play with and caress them. Even the spider, which is a disagreeable insect, fierce and unloving to its fellows, displays the tenderest care for its brood, providing a safe retreat for them in the fine silken cradle she spins to envelop the eggs, which she leaves in some warm spot, where she secures them from danger: some glue a leaf down, and overlap it, to insure it from being agitated by the winds, or discovered by birds. There is a curious spider, commonly known as the nursing spider, which carries her sack of eggs with her wherever she goes; and when the young ones come out, they cluster on her back, and so travel with her; when a little older, they attach themselves to the old one by threads, and run after her in a train." Lady Mary laughed, and said she should like to see the funny little spiders all tied to their mother, trotting along behind her. "If you go into the meadow, my dear," said Mrs. Frazer, "you will see on the larger stones some pretty shining little cases, quite round, looking like gray satin." "Nurse, I know what they are," said Lady Mary. "Last year I was playing in the green meadow, and I found a piece of granite with several of these satin cases. I called them silk pies, for they looked like tiny mince pies. I tried to pick one off, but it stuck so hard that I could not, so I asked the gardener to lend me his knife; and when I raised the crust it had a little rim under the top, and I slipped the knife in, and what do you think I saw? The pie was full of tiny black shining spiders; and they ran out, such a number of them,--more than I could count, they ran so fast. I was sorry I opened the crust, for it was a cold, cold day, and the little spiders must have been frozen, out of their warm air-tight house." "They are able to bear a great deal of cold, Lady Mary--all insects can; and even when frozen hard, so that they will break if any one tries to bend them, yet when spring comes again to warm them, they revive, and are as full of life as ever. Caterpillars thus frozen will become butterflies in due time. Spiders, and many other creatures, lie torpid during the winter, and then revive in the same way as dormice, bears, and marmots do." "Nurse, please will you tell me something about tortoises and porcupines?" said Lady Mary. "I cannot tell you a great deal about the tortoise, my dear," replied her nurse. "I have seen them sometimes on the shores of the lakes, and once or twice I have met with the small land-tortoise, in the woods on the banks of the Otonabee river. The shell that covers these reptiles is black and yellow, divided into squares--those which I saw were about the size of my two hands. They are very harmless creatures, living chiefly on roots and bitter herbs: perhaps they eat insects as well. They lie buried in the sand during the long winters, in a torpid state: they lay a number of eggs, about the size of a blackbird's, the shell of which is tough and soft, like a snake's egg. The old tortoise buries these in the loose sand near the water's edge, and leaves them to be hatched by the heat of the sun. The little tortoise, when it comes out of the shell, is about as big as a large spider--it is a funny-looking thing. I have heard some of the Indians say that they dive into the water, and swim, as soon as they are hatched; but this I am not sure of. I saw one about the size of a crown-piece that was caught in a hole in the sand: it was very lively, and ran along the table, making a rattling noise with its hard shell as it moved. An old one that one of my brothers brought in he put under a large heavy box, meaning to feed and keep it; but in the morning it was gone: it had lifted the edge of the box and was away, nor could he find out how it had contrived to make its escape from the room. This is all that I know about the Canadian land-tortoise." CHAPTER XIII. ELLEN AND HER PET FAWNS--DOCILITY OF FAN--JACK'S DROLL TRICKS-- AFFECTIONATE WOLF--FALL FLOWERS--DEPARTURE OF LADY MARY--THE END One day Lady Mary came to seek her nurse in great haste, and describe to her a fine deer that had been sent as a present to her father by one of his Canadian friends. She said the great antlers were to be put up over the library door. "Papa called me down to see the poor dead deer, nurse; and I was very sorry it had been killed: it was such a fine creature. Major Pickford laughed when I said so; but he promised to get me a live fawn. Nurse, what is a fawn?" "It is a young deer, my lady." "Nurse, please can you tell me anything about fawns? Are they pretty creatures, and can they be tamed; or are they fierce, wild little things?" "They are very gentle animals; and, if taken young, can be brought up by sucking the finger like a young calf or a pet lamb. They are playful and lively, and will follow the person who feeds them, like a dog. They are very pretty, of a pale dun or red colour, with small white spots on the back like large hailstones; the eyes are large, and soft, and black, with a very meek expression in them; the hoofs are black and sharp: they are clean and delicate in their habits, and easy and graceful in their movements. "I remember," continued Mrs. Frazer, "to have heard of a sad accident which was caused by a fawn." "Oh, what was it, nurse? Do tell me, for I don't see how such a timid pretty creature could hurt any one." "A party of Indians were rowing in a canoe on one of the great American rivers. As they passed a thick clump of trees, a young fawn suddenly sprang out, and, frightened by their cries, leaped into the water. For some days the rain had been heavy; the river was therefore running with a wild, impetuous current; and the fawn was carried along by the rushing tide at a tremendous rate. The Indians, determined to capture it, paddled down the stream with eager haste, and in their excitement forgot that they were in the neighbourhood of a great rapid, or cataract; dangerous at all times, but especially so after long-continued rains. On, on, they went! Suddenly the fawn disappeared, and looking behind them, the startled Indians found themselves on the very brink of the rapid! Two of their countrymen, standing on a rock overhanging the foaming waters, saw their peril, and by shouts and gestures warned them of it. With vigorous efforts they turned the prow of their canoe, and endeavoured to cross the river. They plied their paddles with all the desperation of men who knew that nothing could save them but their own exertions, that none on earth could help them. But the current proved too strong. It carried them over the fall, and dashed their bark broadside against a projecting rock. A moment, and all was over! Not one of them was ever seen again!" "Oh, what a sad story!" cried Lady Mary; "and all those men were killed through one poor little fawn! Still, nurse, it was not the fawn's fault; it was the result of their own impatience and folly. Did you ever see a tame fawn, nurse?" "I have seen many, my dear, and I can tell you of one that was the pet and companion of a little girl whom I knew several years ago. A hunter had shot a poor doe, which was very wrong, and contrary to the Indian hunting law; for the native hunter will not, unless pressed by hunger, kill the deer in the spring of the year, when the fawns are young. The Indian wanted to find the little one after he had shot the dam, so he sounded a decoy whistle, to imitate the call of the doe; and the harmless thing answered it with a bleat, thinking no doubt it was its mother calling to it. This betrayed its hiding-place, and it was taken unhurt by the hunter, who took it home, and gave it to my little friend Ellen to feed and take care of." [Illustration: THE INDIAN HUNTER] "Please, Mrs. Frazer, will you tell me what sort of trees hemlocks are? Hemlocks in England are poisonous weeds." "These are not weeds, but large forest trees--a species of pine. I will show you some the next time we go out for a drive--they are very handsome trees." "And what are creeks, nurse?" "Creeks are small streams, such as in Scotland would be termed 'burns,' and in England 'rivulets'" "Now, nurse, you may go on about the dear little fawn, I want you to tell me all you know about it." "Little Ellen took the poor timid thing, and laid it in an old Indian basket near the hearth, and put some wool in it, and covered it with an old cloak to keep it warm, and she tended it very carefully, letting it suck her fingers dipped in warm milk, as she had seen the dairy maid do in weaning young calves in a few days it began to grow strong and lively, and would jump out of its basket, and run bleating after its foster mother if it missed her from the room, it would wait at the door watching for her return. "When it was older, it used to run on the grass plot in the garden but if it heard its little mistress's step or voice in the parlour, it would bound through the open window to her side, and her call of 'Fan, Fan, Fan,' would bring it home from the fields near the edge of the forest. But poor Fan got killed by a careless boy throwing some fire wood down upon it, as it lay asleep in the wood-shed. Ellen's grief was very great, but all she could do was to bury it in the garden near the river-side, and plant lilac bushes round its little green-sodded grave." "I am so sorry, nurse, that this good little girl lost her pretty pet." "Some time after the death of 'Fan,' Ellen had another fawn given to her. She called this one Jack,--it was older, larger, and stronger, but was more mischievous and frolicsome than her first pet. It would lie in front of the fire on the hearth, like a dog, and rub its soft velvet nose against the hand that patted it very affectionately, but gave a good deal of trouble in the house. It would eat the carrots, potatoes, and cabbages, while the cook was preparing them for dinner; and when the housemaid had laid the cloth for dinner, Jack would go round the table and eat up the bread she had laid to each plate, to the great delight of the children, who thought it good fun to see him do so. "Ellen put a red leather collar about Jack's neck, and some months after this he swam across the rapid river, and went off to the wild woods, and was shot by some hunters, a great many miles away from his old home, being known by his fine red collar. After the sad end of her two favourites, Ellen would have no more fawns brought in for her to tame." Lady Mary was much interested in the account of the little girl and her pets "Is this all you know about fawns, nurse?" "I once went to call on a clergyman's wife who lived in a small log-house near a new village. The youngest child, a fat baby of two years old, was lying on the rug before a large log-fire, fast asleep; its little head was pillowed on the back of a tame half-grown fawn that lay stretched on its side, enjoying the warmth of the fire, as tame and familiar as a spaniel dog. This fawn had been brought up with the children, and they were very fond of it, and would share their bread and milk with it at meal times; but it got into disgrace by gnawing the bark of the young orchard-trees, and cropping the bushes in the garden; besides, it had a trick of opening the cupboard, and eating the bread, and drinking any milk it could find. So the master of the house gave it away to a baker who lived in the village; but it did not forget its old friends, and used to watch for the children going to school, and as soon as it caught sight of them, it would trot after them, poking its nose into the basket to get a share of their dinner, and very often managed to get it all!" "And what became of this nice fellow, nurse?" "Unfortunately, my lady, it was chased by some dogs, and ran away to the woods near the town, and never came back again. Dogs will always hunt tame fawns when they can get near them; so it seems a pity to domesticate them only to be killed in so cruel a way. The forest is the best home for these pretty creatures, though even there they have many enemies besides the hunter. The bear, the wolf, and the wolverine kill them. Their only means of defence lies in their fleetness of foot. The stag will defend himself with his strong horns; but the doe and her little fawn have no such weapons to guard themselves when attacked by beasts of prey. The Wolf is one of the greatest enemies they have." "I hate wolves," said Lady Mary; "wolves can never be tamed, nurse." "I have heard and read of wolves being tamed, and becoming very fond of their masters. A gentleman in Canada once brought up a wolf puppy, which became so fond of him that when he left it, to go home to England, it refused to eat, and died of grief at his absence! Kindness will tame even fierce beasts, who soon learn to love the hand that feeds them. Bears and foxes have often been kept tame in this country, and eagles and owls; but I think they cannot be so happy shut up, away from their natural companions and habits, as if they were free to go and come at their own will." "I should not like to be shut up, nurse, far away from my own dear home," said the little girl, thoughtfully. "I think, sometimes, I ought not to keep my dear squirrel in a cage--shall I let him go?" "My dear, he has now been so used to the cage, and to have all his daily wants supplied, that I am sure he would suffer from cold and hunger at this season of the year if he were left to provide for himself; and if he remained here the cats and weasels might kill him." "I will keep him safe from harm, then, till the warm weather comes again; and then, nurse, we will take him to the mountain, and let him go, if he likes to be free, among the trees and bushes." It was now the middle of October; the rainy season that usually comes in the end of September and beginning of October in Canada was over. The soft, hazy season, called Indian summer, was come again; the few forest leaves that yet lingered were ready to fall--bright and beautiful they still looked, but Lady Mary missed the flowers. "I do not love the fall--I see no flowers now, except those in the greenhouse. The cold, cold winter, will soon be here again," she added sadly. "Last year, dear lady, you said you loved the white snow, and the sleighing, and the merry bells, and wished that winter would last all the year round. "Ah, yes, nurse; but I did not know how many pretty birds and flowers I should see in the spring and the summer; and now they are all gone, and I shall see them no more for a long time." "There are still a few flowers. Lady Mary, to be found; look at these." "Ah, dear nurse, where did you get them? How lovely they are!" "Your little French maid picked them for you, on the side of the mountain. Rosette loves the wild-flowers of her native land." "Nurse, do you know the names of these pretty starry flowers on this little branch, that look so light and pretty?" "These are asters; a word, your governess told me the other day, meaning star-like. Some people call these flowers Michaelmas daisies. These lovely lilac asters grow in light, dry ground; they are among the prettiest of our fall flowers. These with the small white starry flowers crowded, upon the stalks, with the crimson and gold in the middle, are dwarf asters." "I like these white ones, nurse; the little branches look so loaded with blossoms; see, they are quite bowed down with the weight of all these flowers." "These small shrubby asters grow on dry gravelly banks of lakes and rivers." "But here are some large dark purple ones." "These are also asters. They are to be found on dry wastes, in stony, barren fields, and by the corners of rail-fences; they form large spreading bushes, and look very lovely, covered with their large dark purple flowers. There is no waste so wild, my lady, but the hand of the Most High can plant it with some blossom, and make the waste and desert place flourish like a garden. Here are others, still brighter and larger, with yellow disks, and sky-blue flowers. These grow by still waters, near mill-dams and swampy places. Though they are larger and gayer, I do not think they will please you so well as the small ones that I first showed you; they do not fade so fast, and that is one good quality they have." They are more like the China asters in the garden, nurse, only more upright and stiff, but here is another sweet blue flower--can you tell me its name? "No my dear, you must ask your governess." Lady Mary carried the nosegay to Miss Campbell, who told her the blue flower was called the Fringed Gentian, and that the gentians and asters bloomed the latest of all the autumn flowers in Canada. Among these wild flowers, she also showed her the large dark blue bell flowered gentian, which was in deed the last flower of the year. "Are there no more flowers in bloom now, nurse?" asked the child, as she watched Mrs. Frazer arranging them for her in a flower glass. "I do not know of any now in bloom but the Golden Rods and the latest of the Everlastings. Rosette shall go out and try to get some of them for you. The French children make little mats and garlands of them to ornament their houses, and to hang on the little crosses above the graves of their friends, because they do not fade away like other flowers." Next day, Rosette, the little nursery maid, brought Lady Mary an Indian basket full of Sweet scented Everlastings. This flower had a fragrant smell, the leaves were less downy than some of the earlier sorts but were covered with a resinous gum that caused it to stick to the fingers, it looked quite silky, from the thistle down, which, falling upon the leaves, was gummed down to the surface. "The country folks," said Mrs. Frazer, "call this plant Neglected Everlasting, because it grows on dry wastes by road-sides, among thistles and fire-weed; but I love it for its sweetness; it is like a true friend--it never changes. See, my dear, how shining its straw-coloured blossoms and buds are, just like satin flowers." "Nurse, it shall be my own flower," said the little girl; "and I will make a pretty garland of it, to hang over my own dear mamma's picture. Rosette says she will show me how to tie the flowers together; she has made me a pretty wreath for my doll's straw-hat, and she means to make her a mat and a carpet too." The little maid promised to bring her young lady some wreaths of the festoon pine--a low creeping plant, with dry, green, chaffy leaves, that grows in the barren pine woods, of which the Canadians make Christmas garlands; and also some of the winter berries, and spice berries, which look so gay in the fall and early spring, with berries of brightest scarlet, and shining dark-green leaves, that trail over the ground on the gravelly hills and plains. Nurse Frazer brought Lady Mary some sweetmeats, flavoured with an extract of the spicy winter-green, from the confectioner's shop; the Canadians being very fond of the flavour of this plant. The Indians chew the leaves, and eat the ripe mealy berries, which have something of the taste of the bay-laurel leaves. The Indian men smoke the leaves as tobacco. One day, while Mrs. Frazer was at work in the nursery, her little charge came to her in a great state of agitation--her cheeks were flashed, and her eyes were dancing with joy. She threw herself into her arms, and said, "Oh, dear nurse, I am going home to dear old England and Scotland. Papa and mamma are going away from Government House, and I am to return to the old country with them. I am so glad--are not you?" But the tears gathered in Mrs. Frazer's eyes, and fell fast upon the work she held in her hand. Lady Mary looked surprised, when she saw how her kind nurse was weeping. "Nurse, you are to go too; mamma says so. Now you need not cry, for you are not going to leave ma." "I cannot go with you, my dearest child," whispered her weeping attendant, "much as I love you; for I have a dear son of my own. I have but him, and it would break my heart to part from him;" and she softly put aside the bright curls from Lady Mary's fair forehead, and tenderly kissed her. "This child is all I have in the world to love me, and when his father, my own kind husband, died, he vowed to take care of me, and cherish me in my old age, and I promised that I would never leave him; so I cannot go away from Canada with you, my lady, though I dearly love you." "Then, Mrs. Frazer, I shall be sorry to leave Canada; for when I go home, I shall have no one to talk to me about beavers, and squirrels, and Indians, and flowers, and birds." "Indeed, my lady, you will not want for amusement there, for England and Scotland are finer places than Canada. Your good governess and your new nurse will be able to tell you many things that will delight you; and you will not quite forget your poor old nurse, I am sure, when you think about the time you have spent in this country." "Ah, dear good old nurse, I will not forget you," said Lady Mary, springing into her nurse's lap and fondly caressing her, while big bright tears fell from her eyes. There was so much to do, and so much to think about, before the Governor's departure, that Lady Mary had no time to hear any more stories, nor to ask any more questions about the natural history of Canada; though, doubtless, there were many other curious things that Mrs. Frazer could have related, for she was a person of good education, who had seen and noticed as well as read a great deal. She had not always been a poor woman, but had once been a respectable farmer's wife, though her husband's death had reduced her to a state of servitude; and she had earned money enough while in the Governor's service to educate her son, and this was how she came to be Lady Mary's nurse. Lady Mary did not forget to have all her Indian curiosities packed up with some dried plants and flower seeds collected by her governess; but she left the cage with her flying squirrel to Mrs. Frazer, to take care of till the following spring, when she told her to take it to the mountain, or St. Helen's Island, and let it go free, that it might be a happy squirrel once more, and bound away among the green trees in the Canadian woods. When Mrs. Frazer was called in to take leave of the Governor and his lady, after receiving a handsome salary for her care and attendance on their little daughter, the Governor gave her a sealed parchment, which, when she opened, was found to contain a Government deed for a fine lot of land, in a fertile township in Upper Canada. It was with many tears and blessings that Mrs. Frazer took leave of the good Governor's family; and, above all, of her beloved charge, Lady Mary. APPENDIX. The Indians, though so stolid and impassive in their general demeanour, are easily moved to laughter, having a quick perception of fun and drollery, and sometimes show themselves capable of much humour, and even of wit. The following passage I extract from a Hamilton paper, Canada West which will, I think, prove amusing to my readers-- At a missionary meeting in Hamilton which took place a short time since, John Sunday, a native preacher, was particularly happy in addressing his audience on the objects of the meeting, and towards the close astonished all present by the ingenuity and power of his appeal to their liberality. His closing words are too good to be lost. I give them as they were spoken by him-- "There is a gentleman who, I suppose, is now in this house. He is a very fine gentleman, but a very modest one He does not like to show himself at these meetings. I do not know how long it is since I have seen him, he comes out so little. I am very much afraid that he sleeps a great deal of his time when he ought to be out doing good. His name is GOLD--Mr. Gold, are you here to-night or are you sleeping in your iron chest? Come out, Mr Gold. Come out and help us to do this great work--to preach the gospel to every creature Ah, Mr. Gold, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to sleep so much in your iron chest. Look at your white brother, Mr. Silver. He does a great deal of good while you are sleeping. Come out Mr. Gold, Look too at your little brown brother, Mr. Copper. He is everywhere. Your poor little brown brother is running about doing all he can to help us. Why don't you come out, Mr. Gold? Well, if you won't show yourself send us your _shirt_--that is a _bank note_! "This is all I have to say." Whether the witty appeal of the Indian had the effect of bringing forth Mr Gold from his hiding place is not said, but we hope it moved some of the wealthy among his hearers to contribute a few sovereigns or gold dollars to the missionary work of converting the poor Indians in the far west regions of Canada. * * * * * LIST OF INDIAN WORDS. A-da-min, The strawberry Ah meek, The beaver Ajidamo The red squirrel Be-dau bun Dawn of the morning Chee-ma in in Birch canoe. Chee-to-waik The plover Dah hinda, The bull frog Gitche Manito, Giver of life The Great Spirit Ish koo-dah, Fire. Kah ga-gee The raven. Kaw No. Kaw win No, no indeed. Keen-o-beek, Serpent. Mad wa-oska, Sound of waves. Murmur of the waves Mun a gah Blue-berry Misko-deed Spring beauty Nee-chee Friend. Nap a nee Flour Nee me no-che shah Sweetheart Omee mee The wild pigeon. Opee chee The robin. O-waas sa The blue-bird Peta wan ooka The light of the morning Shaw Shaw The swallow Spook Spirit Ty yah! An exclamation of surprise Waa wassa The whip-poor will. Wah ho-no-mm A cry of lamentation. Many of the Indian names have been retained in Canada for various rivers and townships and are very expressive of the peculiar qualities and features of the country. 
6663	----	Tonya Allen, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions. LIFE IN CANADA FIFTY YEARS AGO: PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS AND REMINISCENCES OF A SEXAGENARIAN. BY CANNIFF HAIGHT "Ah, happy years! Once more who would not be a boy?" _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage._ TO THE YOUNG MEN OF CANADA, UPON WHOSE INTEGRITY AND ENERGY OF CHARACTER THE FUTURE OF THIS GREAT HERITAGE OF OURS RESTS, THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. When a man poses before the world--even the Canadian world--in the _role_ of an author, he is expected to step up to the footlights, and explain his purpose in presenting himself before the public in that capacity. The thoughts of the world are sown broadcast, very much as the seed falls from the sweep of the husbandman's hand. It drops here and there, in good ground and in stony places. Its future depends upon its vitality. Many a fair seed has fallen on rich soil, and never reached maturity. Many another has shot up luxuriantly, but in a short time has been choked by brambles. Other seeds have been cast out with the chaff upon the dung heap, and after various mutations, have come in contact with a clod of earth, through which they have sent their roots, and have finally grown into thrifty plants. A thought thrown out on the world, if it possesses vital force, never dies. How much is remembered of the work of our greatest men? Only a sentence here and there; and many a man whose name will go down through all the ages, owes it to the truth or the vital force of the thought embedded in a few brief lines. I have very little to say respecting the volume here with presented to the public. The principal contents appeared a short time ago in the _Canadian Monthly_ and the _Canadian Methodist Magazine_. They were written at a time when my way seemed hedged around with insurmountable difficulties, and when almost anything that could afford me a temporary respite from the mental anxieties that weighed me down, not only during the day, but into the long hours of the night, would have been welcomed. Like most unfortunates, I met Mr. Worldly Wiseman from day to day. I always found him ready to point out the way I should go and what I should do, but I have no recollection that he ever got the breadth of a hair beyond that. One evening I took up my pen and began jotting down a few memories of my boyhood. I think we are all fond of taking retrospective glances, and more particularly when life's pathway trends towards the end. The relief I found while thus engaged was very soothing, and for the time I got altogether away from the present, and lived over again many a joyous hour. After a time I had accumulated a good deal of matter, such as it was, but the thought of publication had not then entered my mind. One day, while in conversation with Dr. Withrow, I mentioned what I had done, and he expressed a desire to see what I had written. The papers were sent him, and in a short time he returned them with a note expressing the pleasure the perusal of them had afforded him, and advising me to submit them to the _Canadian Monthly_ for publication. Sometime afterwards I followed his advice. The portion of the papers that appeared in the last-named periodical were favourably received, and I was much gratified not only by that, but from private letters afterwards received from different parts of the Dominion, conveying expressions of commendation which I had certainly never anticipated. This is as much as need be said about the origin and first publication of the papers which make up the principal part of this volume. I do not deem it necessary to give any reasons for putting them in book form; but I may say this: the whole has been carefully revised, and in its present shape I hope will meet with a hearty welcome from a large number of Canadians. In conclusion, I wish to express my thanks to the Hon. J.C. Aikins, Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba, for information he procured for me at the time of publication, and particularly to J.C. Dent, Esq., to whom I am greatly indebted for many useful hints. CONTENTS. DEDICATION PREFACE CHAPTER I. The prose and poetry of pioneer life in the backwoods--The log house-- Sugar making--An omen of good luck--My Quaker grandparents--The old home--Winter evenings at the fireside--Rural hospitality--Aristocracy _versus_ Democracy--School days--Debating societies in the olden time--A rural orator clinches the nail--Cider, sweet and otherwise-- Husking in the barn--Hog killing and sausage making--Full cloth and corduroy--Winter work and winter amusements--A Canadian skating song. CHAPTER II. The round of pioneer life--Game--Night fishing--More details about sugar-making--Sugaring-off--Taking a hand at the old churn--Sheep- washing--Country girls, then and now--Substance and Shadow--"Old Gray" and his eccentricities--Harvest--My early emulation of Peter Paul Rubens--Meeting-houses--Elia on Quaker meetings--Variegated autumn landscapes--Logging and quilting bees--Evening fun--The touching lay of the young woman who sat down to sleep. CHAPTER III. Progress, material and social--Fondness of the young for dancing-- Magisterial nuptials--The charivari--Goon-hunting--Catching a tartar-- Wild pigeons--The old Dutch houses--Delights of summer and winter contrasted--Stilled voices. CHAPTER IV. The early settlers in Upper Canada--Prosperity, national and individual-- The old homes, without and within--Candle-making--Superstitions and omens--The death-watch--Old almanacs--Bees--The divining rod--The U. E. Loyalists--Their sufferings and heroism--An old and a new price list-- Primitive horologes--A jaunt in one of the conventional "carriages" of olden times--Then and now--A note of warning CHAPTER V. Jefferson's definition of "Liberty"--How it was acted upon--The Canadian renaissance--Burning political questions in Canada half a century ago-- Locomotion--Mrs. Jameson on Canadian stagecoaches--Batteaux and Durham boats CHAPTER VI. Road-making--Weller's line of stages and steamboats--My trip from Hamilton to Niagara--Schools and colleges--Pioneer Methodist Preachers-- Solemnization of matrimony--Literature and libraries--Early newspapers-- Primitive editorial articles CHAPTER VII. Banks--Insurance--Marine--Telegraph companies--Administration of Justice--Milling and manufactures--Rapid increase of population in cities and towns--Excerpts from Andrew Picken SKETCHES OF EARLY HISTORY:-- Early schools and schoolmasters--Birth of the American Republic--Love of country--Adventures of a U.E. Loyalist family ninety years ago--The wilds of Upper Canada--Hay bay--Hardships of pioneer life--Growth of population--Division of the Canadian Provinces--Fort Frontenac--The "dark days"--Celestial fireworks--Early steam navigation in Canada--The country merchant Progress--The Hare and the Tortoise RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS EARLY DAYS Paternal memories--A visit to the home of my boyhood--The old Quaker meeting-house--Flashes of silence--The old burying ground--"To the memory of Eliza"--Ghostly experiences--Hiving the Bees--Encounter with a bear--Giving "the mitten"--A "boundary question"--Song of the bullfrog-- Ring--Sagacity of animals--Training-days--Picturesque scenery on the Bay of Quinte--John A. Macdonald--A perilous journey--Aunt Jane and Willet Casey CHAPTER I. "I talk of dreams, For you and I are past our dancing days." --_Romeo and Juliet_. THE PROSE AND POETRY OF PIONEER LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS--THE LOG HOUSE-- SUGAR MAKING--AN OMEN OF GOOD LUCK--MY QUAKER GRANDPARENTS--THE OLD HOME--WINTER EVENINGS AT THE FIRESIDE--RURAL HOSPITALITY--ARISTOCRACY versus DEMOCRACY--SCHOOL DAYS--DEBATING SOCIETIES IN THE OLDEN TIME--A RURAL ORATOR CLINCHES THE NAIL--CIDER, SWEET AND OTHERWISE--HUSKING IN THE BARN--HOG KILLING AND SAUSAGE MAKING--FULL CLOTH AND CORDUROY-- WINTER WORK AND WINTER AMUSEMENTS--A CANADIAN SKATING SONG. I was born in the County of ----, Upper Canada, on the 4th day of June, in the early part of this present century. I have no recollection of my entry into the world, though I was present when the great event occurred; but I have every reason to believe the date given is correct, for I have it from my mother and father, who were there at the time, and I think my mother had pretty good reason to know all about it. I was the first of the family, though my parents had been married for more than five years before I presented myself as their hopeful heir, and to demand from them more attention than they anticipated. "Children," says the Psalmist, "are an heritage, and he who hath his quiver full of them shall not be ashamed; they shall speak with the enemies in the gate." I do not know what effect this had on my father's enemies, if he had any; but later experience has proved to me that those who rear a numerous progeny go through a vast deal of trouble and anxiety. At any rate I made my appearance on the stage, and began my performance behind the footlights of domestic bliss. I must have been a success, for I called forth a great deal of applause from my parents, and received their undivided attention. But other actors came upon the boards in more rapid succession, so that in a few years the quiver of my father was well filled, and he might have met "his enemies in the gate." My father, when he married, bought a farm. Of course it was all woods. Such were the only farms available for young folk to commence life with in those days. Doubtless there was a good deal of romance in it. Love in a cot; the smoke gracefully curling; the wood-pecker tapping, and all that; very pretty. But alas, in this work-a-day world, particularly the new one upon which my parents then entered, these silver linings were not observed. They had too much of the prose of life. A house was built--a log one, of the Canadian rustic style then much in vogue, containing one room, and that not very large either; and to this my father brought his young bride. Their outfit consisted, on his part, of a colt, a yoke of steers, a couple of sheep, some pigs, a gun, and an axe. My mother's _dot_ comprised a heifer, bed and bedding, a table and chairs, a chest of linen, some dishes, and a few other necessary items with which to begin housekeeping. This will not seem a very lavish set-out for a young couple on the part of parents who were at that time more than usually well-off. But there was a large family on both sides, and the old people then thought it the better way to let the young folk try their hand at making a living before they gave them of their abundance. If they succeeded they wouldn't need much, and if they did not, it would come better after a while. My father was one of a class of young men not uncommon in those days, who possessed energy and activity. He was bound to win. What the old people gave was cheerfully accepted, and he went to work to acquire the necessaries and comforts of life with his own hands. He chopped his way into the stubborn wood and added field to field. The battle had now been waged for seven or eight years; an addition had been made to the house; other small comforts had been added, and the nucleus of future competence fairly established. One of my first recollections is in connection with the small log barn he had built, and which up to that date had not been enlarged. He carried me out one day in his arms, and put me in a barrel in the middle of the floor. This was covered with loosened sheaves of wheat, which he kept turning over with a wooden fork, while the oxen and horse were driven round and round me. I did not know what it all meant then, but I afterwards learned that he was threshing. This was one of the first rude scenes in the drama of the early settlers' life to which I was introduced, and in which I had to take a more practical part in after years. I took part, also, very early in life, in sugar-making. The sap- bush was not very far away from the house, and the sap-boiling was under the direction of my mother, who mustered all the pots and kettles she could command, and when they were properly suspended over the fire on wooden hooks, she watched them, and rocked me in a sap-trough. Father's work consisted in bringing in the sap with two pails, which were carried by a wooden collar about three feet long, and made to fit the shoulder, from each end of which were fastened two cords with hooks to receive the bail of the pails, leaving the arms free except to steady them. He had also to cut wood for the fire. I afterwards came to take a more active part in these duties, and used to wish I could go back to my primitive cradle. But time pushed me on whether I would or not, until I scaled the mountain top of life's activities; and now, when quietly descending into the valley, my gaze is turned affectionately towards those early days. I do not think they were always bright and joyous, and I am sure I often chafed under the burdens imposed upon me; but how inviting they seem when viewed through the golden haze of retrospection. My next recollection is the raising of a frame barn behind the house, and of a niece of my father's holding me in her arms to see the men pushing up the heavy "bents" with long poles. The noise of the men shouting and driving in the wooden pins with great wooden beetles, away up in the beams and stringers, alarmed me a great deal, but it all went up, and then one of the men mounted the plate (the timber on which the foot of the rafter rests) with a bottle in his hand, and swinging it round his head three times, threw it off in the field. If the bottle was unbroken it was an omen of good luck. The bottle, I remember, was picked up whole, and shouts of congratulation followed. Hence, I suppose, the prosperity that attended my father. The only other recollection I have of this place was of my father, who was a very ingenious man, and could turn his hand to almost everything, making a cradle for my sister, for this addition to our number had occurred. I have no remembrance of any such fanciful crib being made for my slumbers. Perhaps the sap-trough did duty for me in the house as well as in the bush. The next thing was our removal, which took place in the winter, and all that I can recall of it is that my uncle took my mother, sister, and myself away in a sleigh, and we never returned to the little log house. My father had sold his farm, bought half of his old home, and come to live with his parents. They were Quakers. My grandfather was a short, robust old man, and very particular about his personal appearance. Half a century has elapsed since then, but the picture of the old man taking his walks about the place, in his closely-fitting snuff-brown cut-away coat, knee-breeches, broad-brimmed hat and silver- headed cane is distinctively fixed in my memory. He died soon after we took up our residence with him, and the number who came from all parts of the country to the funeral was a great surprise to me. I could not imagine where so many people came from. The custom prevailed then, and no doubt does still, when a death occurred, to send a messenger, who called at every house for many miles around to give notice of the death, and of when and where the interment would take place. [Illustration: THE FIRST HOME.] My grandmother was a tall, neat, motherly old woman, beloved by everybody. She lived a number of years after her husband's death, and I seem to see her now, sitting at one side of the old fire-place knitting. She was always knitting, and turning out scores of thick warm socks and mittens for her grandchildren. At this time a great change had taken place, both in the appearance of the country and in the condition of the people. It is true that many of the first settlers had ceased from their labours, but there were a good many left--old people now, who were quietly enjoying, in their declining years, the fruit of their early industry. Commodious dwellings had taken the place of the first rude houses. Large frame barns and outhouses had grown out of the small log ones. The forest in the immediate neighbourhood had been cleared away, and well-tilled fields occupied its place. Coarse and scanty fare had been supplanted by a rich abundance of all the requisites that go to make home a scene of pleasure and contentment. Altogether a substantial prosperity was apparent. A genuine content and a hearty good will, one towards another, existed in all the older parts. The settled part as yet, however, formed only a very narrow belt extending along the bay and lake shores. The great forest lay close at hand in the rear, and the second generation, as in the case of my father, had only to go a few miles to find it, and commence for themselves the laborious struggle of clearing it away. The old home, as it was called, was always a place of attraction, and especially so to the young people, who were sure of finding good cheer at grandfather's. What fun, after the small place called home, to have the run of a dozen rooms, to haunt the big cellar, with its great heaps of potatoes and vegetables, huge casks of cider, and well-filled bins of apples, or to sit at the table loaded with the good things which grandmother only could supply. How delicious the large piece of pumpkin pie tasted, and how toothsome the rich crullers that melted in the mouth! Dear old body! I can see her now going to the great cupboard to get me something saying as she goes, "I'm sure the child is hungry." And it was true, he was always hungry; and how he managed to stow away so much is a mystery I cannot now explain. There was no place in the world more to be desired than this, and no spot in all the past the recollection of which is more bright and joyous. My father now assumed the management of affairs. The old people reserved one room to themselves, but it was free to all, particularly to us children. It was hard to tell sometimes which to choose, whether the kitchen, where the family were gathered round the cheerful logs blazing brightly in the big fire-place, or a stretch on the soft rag-carpet beside the box stove in grandmother's room. This room was also a sanctuary to which we often fled to escape punishment after doing some mischief. We were sure of an advocate there, if we could reach it in time. The house was a frame one, as nearly all the best houses were in those days, and was painted a dark yellow. There were two kitchens, one used for washing and doing the heavier household work in; the other, considerably larger, was used by the family. In the latter was the large fire-place, around which gathered in the winter time bright and happy faces; where the old men smoked their pipes in peaceful reverie, or delighted us with stories of other days; where mother darned her socks, and father mended our boots; where the girls were sewing, and uncles were scraping axe-handles with bits of glass, to make them smooth. There were no drones in farm-houses then; there was something for every one to do. At one side of the fire-place was the large brick oven with its gaping mouth, closed with a small door, easily removed, where the bread and pies were baked. Within the fire-place was an iron crane securely fastened in the jamb, and made to swing in and out with its row of iron pot-hooks of different lengths, on which to hang the pots used in cooking. Cook stoves had not yet appeared to cheer the housewife and revolutionize the kitchen. Joints of meat and poultry were roasted on turning spits, or were suspended before the fire by a cord and wire attached to the ceiling. Cooking was attended with more difficulties then. Meat was fried in long-handled pans, and the short-cake that so often graced the supper table, and played such havoc with the butter and honey, with the pancakes that came piping hot on the breakfast table, owed their finishing touch to the frying pan. The latter, however, were more frequently baked on a large griddle with a bow handle made to hook on the crane. This, on account of its larger surface, enabled the cook to turn out these much-prized cakes, when properly made, with greater speed; and in a large family an expert hand was required to keep up the supply. Some years later an ingenious Yankee invented what was called a "Reflector," made of bright tin for baking. It was a small tin oven with a slanting top, open at one side, and when required for use was set before the fire on the hearth. This simple contrivance was a great convenience, and came into general use. Modern inventions in the appliances for cooking have very much lessened the labour and increased the possibilities of supplying a variety of dishes, but it has not improved the quality of them. There were no better caterers to hungry stomachs than our mothers, whose practical education had been received in grandmother's kitchen. The other rooms of the house comprised a sitting-room--used only when there was company--a parlour, four bedrooms, and the room reserved for the old people. Up-stairs were the sleeping and store-rooms. In the hall stood the tall old fashioned house clock, with its long pendulum swinging to and fro with slow and measured beat. Its face had looked upon the venerable sire before his locks were touched with the frost of age. When his children were born it indicated the hour, and it had gone on telling off the days and years until the children were grown. And when a wedding day had come, it had rung a joyful peal through the house, and through the years the old hands had travelled on, the hammer had struck off the hours, and another generation had come to look upon it and grow familiar with its constant tick. [Illustration: GRANDFATHER'S.] The furniture was plain and substantial, more attention being given to durability than to style or ornament. Easy chairs--save the spacious rocking-chair for old women--and lounges were not seen. There was no time for lolling on well-stuffed cushions. The rooms were heated with large double box stoves, very thick and heavy, made at Three Rivers; and by their side was always seen a large wood-box, well filled with sound maple or beech wood. But few pictures adorned the walls, and these were usually rude prints far inferior to those we get every day now from the illustrated papers. Books, so plentiful and cheap now-a-days, were then very scarce, and where a few could be found, they were mostly heavy doctrinal tomes piled away on some shelf where they were allowed to remain. The home we now inhabited was altogether a different one from that we had left in the back concession, but it was like many another to be found along the bay shore. Besides my own family, there were two younger brothers of my father, and two grown-up nieces, so that when we all mustered round the table, there was a goodly number of hearty people always ready to do justice to the abundant provision made. This reminds me of an incident or two illustrative of the lavish manner with which a well-to-do farmer's table was supplied in those days. A Montreal merchant and his wife were spending an evening at a very highly-esteemed farmer's house. At the proper time supper was announced, and the visitors, with the family, were gathered round the table, which groaned, metaphorically speaking, under the load it bore. There were turkey, beef and ham, bread and the favourite short cake, sweet cakes in endless variety, pies, preserves, sauces, tea, coffee, cider, and what not. The visitors were amazed, as they might well be, at the lavish display of cooking, and they were pressed, with well-meant kindness, to partake heartily of everything. They yielded good-naturedly to the entreaties to try this and that as long as they could, and paused only when it was impossible to take any more. When they were leaving, the merchant asked his friend when they were coming to Montreal, and insisted that they should come soon, promising if they would only let him know a little before when they were coming he would buy up everything there was to be had in the market for supper. On another occasion an English gentleman was spending an evening at a neighbour's, and, as usual, the supper table was crowded with everything the kind-hearted hostess could think of. The guest was plied with dish after dish, and, thinking it would be disrespectful if he did not take something from each, he continued to eat, and take from the dishes as they were passed, until he found his plate, and all the available space around him, heaped up with cakes and pie. To dispose of all he had carefully deposited on his plate and around it seemed utterly impossible, and yet he thought he would be considered rude if he did not finish what he had taken, and he struggled on, with the perspiration visible on his face, until in despair he asked to be excused, as he could not eat any more if it were to save his life. It was the custom in those days for the hired help (the term servant was not used) to sit at the table, with the family. On one occasion, a Montreal merchant prince was on a visit at a wealthy Quaker's, who owned a large farm, and employed a number of men in the summer. It was customary in this house for the family to seat themselves first at the head of the table, after which the hired hands all came in, and took the lower end. This was the only distinction. They were served just as the rest of the family. On this occasion the guest came out with the family, and they were seated. Then the hired men and girls came in and did the same, whereupon the merchant left the table and the room. The old lady, thinking there was something the matter with the man, soon after followed him into the sitting-room, and asked him if he was ill. He said "No." "Then why did thee leave the table?" thee old lady enquired. "Because," said he, "I am not accustomed to eat with servants." "Very well," replied the old lady, "if thee cannot eat with us, thee will have to go without thy dinner." His honour concluded to pocket his dignity, and submit to the rules of the house. I was sent to school early--more, I fancy, to get me out of the way for a good part of the day, than from any expectation that I would learn much. It took a long time to hammer the alphabet into my head. But if I was dull at school, I was noisy and mischievous enough at home, and very fond of tormenting my sisters. Hence, my parents--and no child ever had better ones--could not be blamed very much if they did send me to school for no other reason than to be rid of me. The school house was close at hand, and its aspect is deeply graven in my memory. My first schoolmaster was an Englishman who had seen better days. He was a good scholar, I believe, but a poor teacher. The school house was a small square structure, with low ceiling. In the centre of the room was a box stove, around which the long wooden benches without backs were ranged. Next the walls were the desks, raised a little from the floor. In the summer time the pupils were all of tender years, the elder ones being kept at home to help with the work. At the commencement of my educational course I was one of a little lot of urchins ranged daily on hard wooden seats, with our feet dangling in the air, for seven or eight hours a day. In such a plight we were expected to be very good children, to make no noise, and to learn our lessons. It is a marvel that so many years had to elapse before parents and teachers could be brought to see that keeping children in such a position for so many hours was an act of great cruelty. The terror of the rod was the only thing that could keep us still, and that often failed. Sometimes, tired and weary, we fell asleep and tumbled off the bench, to be roused by the fall and the rod. In the winter time the small school room was filled to overflowing with the larger boys and girls. This did not improve our condition, for we were mere closely packed together, and were either shivering with the cold or being cooked with the red-hot stove. In a short time after, the old school house, where my father, I believe, had got his schooling, was hoisted on runners, and, with the aid of several yoke of oxen, was taken up the road about a mile and enlarged a little. This event brought my course of study to an end for a while. I next sat under the rod of an Irish pedagogue--an old man who evidently believed that the only way to get anything into a boy's head was to pound it in with a stick through his back. There was no discipline, and the noise we made seemed to rival a Bedlam. We used to play all sorts of tricks on the old man, and I was not behind in contriving or carrying them into execution. One day, however, I was caught and severely thrashed. This so mortified me, that I jumped out of the window and went home. An investigation followed, and I was whipped by my father and sent back. Poor old Dominic, he has long since put by his stick, and passed beyond the reach of unruly boys. Thus I passed on from teacher to teacher, staying at home in the summer, and resuming my books again in the winter. Sometimes I went to the old school house up the road, sometimes to the one in an opposite direction. The latter was larger, and there was generally a better teacher, but it was much farther, and I had to set off early in the cold frosty mornings with my books and dinner basket, often through deep snow and drifts. At night I had to get home in time to help to feed the cattle and get in the wood for the fires. The school houses then were generally small and uncomfortable, and the teachers were often of a very inferior order. The school system of Canada, which has since been moulded by the skilful hand of Dr. Ryerson into one of the best in the world, and which will give to his industry and genius a more enduring record than stone or brass, was in my day very imperfect indeed. It was, perhaps, up with the times. But when the advantages which the youth of this country now possess are compared with the small facilities we had of picking up a little knowledge, it seems almost a marvel that we learned anything. Spelling matches came at this time into vogue, and were continued for several years. They occasioned a friendly rivalry between schools, and were productive of good. The meetings took place during the long winter nights, either weekly or fortnightly. Every school had one or more prize spellers, and these were selected to lead the match; or if the school was large, a contest between the girls and boys came off first. Sometimes two of the best spellers were selected by the scholars as leaders, and these would proceed to 'choose sides;' that is, one would choose a fellow pupil, who would rise and take his or her place, and then the other, continuing until the list was exhausted. The preliminaries being completed, the contest began. At first the lower end of the class was disposed of, and as time wore on one after another would make a slip and retire, until two or three only were left on either side. Then the struggle became exciting, and scores of eager eyes were fixed on the contestants. With the old hands there was a good deal of fencing, though the teacher usually had a reserve of difficult words to end the fight, which often lasted two or three hours. He failed sometimes, and then it was a drawn battle to be fought on another occasion. Debating classes also met and discussed grave questions, upon such old- fashioned subjects as these: "Which is the more useful to man, wood or iron?" "Which affords the greater enjoyment, anticipation or participation?" "Which was the greater general, Wellington or Napoleon?" Those who were to take part in the discussion were always selected at a previous meeting, so that all that had to be done was to select a chairman and commence the debate. I can give from memory a sample or two of these first attempts. "Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I rise to make a few remarks on this all important question-- ahem--Mr. President, this is the first time I ever tried to speak in public, and unaccustomed as I am to--to--ahem. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think our opponents are altogether wrong in arguing that Napoleon was a greater general than Wellington--ahem--I ask you, Mr. President, did Napoleon ever thrash Wellington? Didn't Wellington always thrash him, Mr. President? Didn't he whip him at Waterloo and take him prisoner? and then to say that he is a greater general than Wellington--why, Mr. President, he couldn't hold a candle to him. Ladies and Gentlemen, I say that Napoleon wasn't a match for him at all. Wellington licked him every time--and--yes, licked him every time. I can't think of any more, Mr. President, and I will take my seat, Sir, by saying that I'm sure you will decide in our favour from the strong arguments our side has produced." After listening to such powerful reasoning, some one of the older spectators would ask Mr. President to be allowed to say a few words on some other important question to be debated, and would proceed to air his eloquence and instruct the youth on such a topic as this: "Which is the greater evil, a scolding wife or a smoky chimney?" After this wise the harangue would proceed:--"Mr. President, I have been almost mad a- listening to the debates of these 'ere youngsters--they don't know nothing at all about the subject. What do they know about the evil of a scolding wife? Wait till they have had one for twenty years, and been hammered, and jammed, and slammed, all the while. Wait till they've been scolded because the baby cried, because the fire wouldn't burn, because the room was too hot, because the cow kicked over the milk, because it rained, because the sun shined, because the hens didn't lay, because the butter wouldn't come, because the old cat had kittens, because they came too soon for dinner, because they were a minute late--before they talk about the worry of a scolding wife. Why Mr. President, I'd rather hear the clatter of hammers and stones and twenty tin pans, and nine brass kettles, than the din, din, din of the tongue of a scolding woman; yes, sir, I would. To my mind, Mr. President, a smoky chimney is no more to be compared to a scolding wife than a little nigger is to a dark night." These meetings were generally well attended, and conducted with considerable spirit. If the discussions were not brilliant, and the young debater often lost the thread of his argument--in other words, got things "mixed"--he gained confidence, learned to talk in public, and to take higher flights. Many of our leading public men learned their first lessons in the art of public speaking in the country debating school. Apple trees were planted early by the bay settlers, and there were now numerous large orchards of excellent fruit. Pears, plums, cherries, currants and gooseberries were also common. The apple crop was gathered in October, the best fruit being sent to the cellar for family use during winter, and the rest to the cider mill. The cider mills of those days were somewhat rude contrivances. The mill proper consisted of two cogged wooden cylinders about fourteen inches in diameter and perhaps twenty-six inches in length, placed in an upright position in a frame. The pivot of one of these extended upward about six feet, and at its top was secured the long shaft to which the horse was attached, and as it was driven round and round, the mill crunched the apples, with many a creak and groan, and shot them out on the opposite side. The press which waited to receive the bruised mass was about eight feet square, round the floor of which, near the edge, ran a deep groove to carry off the juice. In making what is known as the cheese, the first process was to spread a thick layer of long rye or wheat straw round the outer edge, on the floor of the press. Upon this the pulp was placed to the depth of a foot or more. The first layer of straw was then turned in carefully, and another layer of straw put down as in the first place, upon which more pulp was placed, and so on from layer to layer, until the cheese was complete. Planks were then placed on the top, and the pressure of the powerful wooden screw brought to bear on the mass. At once a copious stream of cider began to flow into the casks or vat, and here the fun began with the boys, who, well armed with long straws, sucked their fill. By the roadside stands the cider mill, Where a lowland slumber waits the rill: A great brown building, two stories high, On the western hill face warm and dry; And odorous piles of apples there Fill with incense the golden air; And masses of pomace, mixed with straw, To their amber sweets the late flies draw. The carts back up to the upper door, And spill their treasures in on the floor; Down through the toothed wheels they go To the wide, deep cider press below. And the screws are turned by slow degrees Down on the straw-laid cider cheese; And with each turn a fuller stream Bursts from beneath the graning beam, An amber stream the gods might sip, And fear no morrow's parched lip. But therefore, gods? Those idle toys Were soulless to real _Canadian_ boys! What classic goblet ever felt Such thrilling touches through it melt, As throb electric along a straw, When the boyish lips the cider draw? The years are heavy with weary sounds, And their discords life's sweet music drowns But yet I hear, oh, sweet! oh, sweet! The rill that bathed my bare, brown feet; And yet the cider drips and falls On my inward ear at intervals And I lead at times in a sad, sweet dream To the bubbling of that little stream; And I sit in a visioned autumn still, In the sunny door of the cider mill. --WHITTIER. It was a universal custom to set a dish of apples and a pitcher of cider before everyone who came to the house. Any departure from this would have been thought disrespectful. The sweet cider was generally boiled down into a syrup, and, with apples quartered and cooked in it, was equal to a preserve, and made splendid pies. It was called apple sauce, and found its way to the table thrice a day. Then came the potatoes and roots, which had to be dug and brought to the cellar. It was not very nice work, particularly if the ground was damp and cold, to pick them out and throw them into the basket, but it had to be done, and I was compelled to do my share. One good thing about it was that it was never a long job. There was much more fun in gathering the pumpkins and corn into the barn. The corn was husked, generally at night, the bright golden ears finding their way into the old crib, from whence it was to come again to fatten the turkeys, the geese, and the ducks for Christmas. It was a very common thing to have husking bees. A few neighbours would be invited, the barn lit with candles. Strung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitchforks in the mow, Shone dimly down the lanterns on the pleasant scenes below; The growing pile of husks behind, the golden ears before, And laughing eyes, and busy hand, and brown cheeks glimmering o'er. Half hidden in a quiet nook, serene of look and heart, Talking their old times o'er, the old men sat apart; While up and down the unhusked pile, or nestling in its shade, At hide-and-seek, with laugh and shout, the happy children played. --WHITTIER. Amid jokes and laughter the husks and ears would fly, until the work was done, when all hands would repair to the house, and, after partaking of a hearty supper, leave for home in high spirits. Then came hog-killing time, a very heavy and disagreeable task, but the farmer has many of these, and learns to take them pleasantly. My father, with two or three expert hands dressed for the occasion, would slaughter and dress ten or a dozen large hogs in the course of a day. There were other actors besides in the play. It would be curious, indeed, if all hands were not employed when work was going on. My part in the performance was to attend to the fire under the great kettle in which the hogs were scalded, and to keep the water boiling, varied at intervals by blowing up bladders with a quill for my own amusement. In the house the fat had to be looked to, and after being washed and tried (the term used for melting), was poured into dishes and set aside to cool and become lard, afterwards finding its way into cakes and piecrust. The out-door task does not end with the first day either, for the hogs have to be carried in and cut up; the large meat tubs, in which the family supplies are kept, have to be filled; the hams and shoulders to be nicely cut and cured, and the rest packed into barrels for sale. Close on the heels of hog-killing came sausage-making, when meat had to be chopped and flavoured, and stuffed into cotton bags or prepared gut. Then the heads and feet had to be soaked and scraped over and over again, and when ready were boiled, the one being converted into head- cheese, the other into souse. All these matters, when conducted under the eye of a good housewife, contributed largely to the comfort and good living of the family. Who is there, with such an experience as mine, that receives these things at the hands of his city butcher and meets them on his table, who does not wish for the moment that he was a boy, and seated at his mother's board, that he might shake off the phantom canine and feline that rise on his plate, and call in one of mother's sausages. As the fall crept on, the preparations for winter increased. The large roll of full cloth, which had been lately brought from the mill, was carried down, and father and I set out for a tailor, who took our measurements and cut our clothes, which we brought home, and some woman, or perhaps a wandering tailor, was employed to make them up. There was no discussion as to style, and if the fit did not happen to be perfect, there was no one to criticise either the material or the make, nor were there any arbitrary rules of fashion to be respected. We had new clothes, which were warm and comfortable. What more did we want? A cobbler, too, was brought in to make our boots. My father was quite an expert at shoemaking, but he had so many irons in the fire now that he could not do more than mend or make a light pair of shoes for mother at odd spells. The work then turned out by the sons of St. Crispin was not highly finished. It was coarse, but, what was of greater consequence, it was strong, and wore well. While all this was going on for the benefit of the male portion of the house, mother and the girls were busy turning the white flannels into shirts and drawers, and the plaid roll that came with it into dresses for themselves. As in the case of our clothes, there was no consulting of fashion-books, for a very good reason, perhaps--there was none to consult. No talk about Miss Brown or Miss Smith having her dress made this way or that; and I am sure they were far happier and contented than the girls of to-day, with all their show and glitter. The roads at that time, more particularly in the fall, were almost impassable until frozen up. In the spring, until the frost was out of the ground, and they had settled and dried, they were no better. The bridges were rough, wooden affairs, covered with logs, usually flattened on one side with an axe. The swamps and marshes were made passable by laying down logs, of nearly equal size, close together in the worst places. These were known as corduroy roads, and were no pleasant highways to ride over for any distance, as all who have tried them know. But in the winter the frost and snow made good traveling everywhere, and hence the winter was the time for the farmer to do his teaming. One of the first things that claimed attention when the sleighing began, and before the snow got deep in the woods, was to get out the year's supply of fuel. The men set out for the bush before it was fairly daylight, and commenced chopping. The trees were cut in lengths of about ten feet, and the brush piled in heaps. Then my father, or myself, when I got old enough, followed with the sleigh, and began drawing it, until the wood yard was filled with sound beech and maple, with a few loads of dry pine for kindling. These huge wood-piles always bore a thrifty appearance, and spoke of comfort and good cheer within. Just before Christmas there was always one or two beef cattle to kill. Sheep had also to be slaughtered, with the turkeys, geese and ducks, which had been getting ready for decapitation. After home wants were provided for, the rest were sent to market. The winter's work now began in earnest, for whatever may be said about the enjoyment of Canadian winter life--and it is an enjoyable time to the Canadian--there are few who really enjoy it so much as the farmer. He cannot, however, do like bruin--roll himself up in the fall, and suck his paw until spring in a state of semi-unconsciousness, for his cares are numerous and imperious, his work varied and laborious. His large stock demands regular attention, and must be fed morning and night. The great barn filled with grain had to be threshed, for the cattle needed the straw, and the grain had to be got out for the market. So day after day he and his men hammered away with the flail, or spread the sheaves on the barn floor to be trampled out by horses. Threshing machines were unknown then, as were all the labour-saving machines now so extensively used by the farmer. His muscular arm was the only machine he then had to rely upon, and if it did not accomplish much, it succeeded in doing its work well, and in providing him with all his modest wants. Then the fanning mill came into play to clean the grain, after which it was carried to the granary, whence again it was taken either to the mill or to market. Winter was also the time to get out the logs from the woods, and to haul them to the mill to be sawed in the spring--we always had a use for boards. These saw mills, built on sap-streams, which ran dry as soon as the spring freshets were over, were like the cider mills, small rough structures. They had but one upright saw, which, owing to its primitive construction, did not move as now, with lightning rapidity, nor did it turn out a very large quantity of stuff. It answered the purpose of the day, however, and that was all that was required or expected of it. Rails, also, had to be split and drawn to where new fences were wanted, or where old ones needed repairs. There were flour, beef, mutton, butter, apples, and a score more of things to be taken to market and disposed of. But, notwithstanding all this, the winter was a good, joyful time for the farmer--a time, moreover, when the social requisites of his nature received the most attention. Often the horses would be put to the sleigh, and we would set off, well bundled up, to visit some friends a few miles distant, or, as frequently happened, to visit an uncle or an aunt, far away in the new settlements. The roads often wound along for miles through the forest, and it was great fun for us youngsters to be dashing along behind a spirited team, now around the trunks of great trees, or under the low-hanging boughs of the spruce or cedar, laden with snow, which sometimes shed their heavy load upon our head. But after a while the cold would seize upon us, and we would wish our journey at an end. The horses, white with frost, would then be pressed on faster, and would bring us at length to the door. In a few moments we would all be seated round the glowing fire, which would soon quiet our chattering teeth, thaw us out, and prepare us to take our places at the repast which had been getting ready in the meantime. We were sure to do justice to the good things which the table provided. Many of these early days start up vividly and brightly before me, particularly since I have grown to manhood, and lived amid other surroundings. Among the most pleasing of these recollections are some of my drives on a moonlight night, when the sleighing was good, and when the sleigh, with its robes and rugs, was packed with a merry lot of girls and boys (we had no ladies and gentlemen then). Off we would set, spanking along over the crisp snow, which creaked and cracked under the runners, making a low murmuring sound in harmony with the sleigh-bells. When could a more fitting time be found for a pleasure-ride than on one of those clear calm nights; when the earth, wrapped in her mantle of snow, glistened and sparkled in the moonbeams, and the blue vault of heaven glittered with countless stars, whose brilliancy seemed intensified by the cold--when the aurora borealis waved and danced across the northern sky, and the frost noiselessly fell like flakes of silver upon a scene at once inspiriting, exhilarating and joyous! How the merry laugh floated along in the evening air, as we dashed along the road! How sweetly the merry song and chorus echoed through the silent wood; while our hearts were aglow with excitement, and all nature seemed to respond to the happy scene! When the frosty nights set in, we were always on the _qui vive_ for a skating revel on some pond near by, and our eagerness to enjoy the sport frequently led to a ducking. But very soon the large ponds, and then the bay, were frozen over, when we could indulge in the fun to our heart's content. My first attempts were made under considerable difficulties, but perseverance bridges the way over many obstacles, and so, with my father's skates, which were over a foot long, and which required no little ingenuity to fasten to my feet, I made my first attempt on the ice. Soon, however, in the growth of my feet, this trouble was overcome, and I could whirl over the ice with anyone. The girls did not share in this exhilarating exercise then; indeed their doing so would have been thought quite improper. As our time was usually taken up with school through the day, and with such chores as feeding cattle and bringing wood in for the fire when we returned at night, we would sally out after supper, on moonlight nights, and, full of life and hilarity, fly over the ice, singing and shouting, and making the night ring with our merriment. There was plenty of room on the bay, and early in the season there were miles of ice, smooth as glass and clear as crystal, reflecting the stars which sparkled and glittered beneath our feet, as though we were gliding over a sea of silver set with brilliants. Ho for the bay, the ice-bound bay! The moon is up, the stars are bright; The air is keen, but let it play-- We're proof against Jack Frost to-night. With a sturdy swing and lengthy stride, The glassy ice shall feel our steel; And through the welkin far and wide The echo of our song shall peal. CHORUS.--Hurrah, boys, hurrah! skates on and away! You may lag at your work, but never at play; Give wing to your feet, and make the ice ring, Give voice to your mirth, and merrily sing. Ho for the boy who does not care A fig for cold or northern blast! Whose winged feet can cut the air Swift as an arrow from bowman cast: Who can give a long and hearty chase, And wheel and whirl; then in a trice Inscribe his name in the polished face, Of the cold and clear and glistening ice. CHORUS. Ho, boys! the night is waning fast; The moon's last rays but faintly gleam. The hours have glided swiftly past, And we must home to rest and dream. The morning's light must find us moving, Ready our daily tasks to do; This is the way we have of proving We can do our part at working too. CHORUS. CHAPTER II. THE ROUND OF PIONEER LIFE--GAME--NIGHT FISHING--MORE DETAILS ABOUT SUGAR-MAKING--SUGARING-OFF--TAKING A HAND AT THE OLD CHURN--SHEEP- WASHING-COUNTRY GIRLS, THEN AND NOW--SUBSTANCE AND SHADOW--"OLD GRAY" AND HIS ECCENTRICITIES--HARVEST--MY EARLY EMULATION OF PETER PAUL RUBENS--MEETING-HOUSES--ELIA ON QUAKER MEETINGS--VARIEGATED AUTUMN LANDSCAPES--LOGGING AND QUILTING BEES--EVENING FUN--THE TOUCHING LAY OF THE YOUNG WOMAN WHO SAT DOWN TO SLEEP. Visiting for the older folk and sleigh-riding for the younger were the principal amusements of the winter. The life then led was very plain and uneventful. There was no ostentatious display, or assumption of superiority by the "first families." Indeed there was no room for the lines of demarcation which exist in these days. All had to struggle for a home and home comforts, and if some had been more successful in the rough battle of pioneer life than others, they saw no reason why they should be elated or puffed up over it. Neighbours were too scarce to be coldly or haughtily treated. They had hewn their way, side by side, into the fastnesses of the Canadian bush, and therefore stood on one common level. But few superfluities could be found either in their houses or on their persons. Their dress was of home-made fabric, plain, often coarse, but substantial and comfortable. Their manners were cordial and hearty, even to brusqueness, but they were true friends and honest counsellors, rejoicing with their neighbours in prosperity, and sympathising when days of darkness visited their homes. Modern refinement had not crept into their domestic circle to disturb it with shams and pretensions. Fashion had no court wherein to adjudicate on matters of dress. Time- worn styles of dress and living were considered the best, and hence there was no rivalry or foolish display in either. Both old and young enjoyed an evening at a friend's house, where they were sure to be welcomed, and where a well-supplied table always greeted them. The home amusements were very limited. Music, with its refining power, was uncultivated, and indeed almost unknown. There were no musical instruments, unless some wandering fiddler happened to come along to delight both old and young with his crazy instrument. There were no critical ears to detect discordant sounds, or be displeased with the poor execution of the rambling musician. The young folk would sometimes spirit him away to the village tavern, which was usually provided with a large room called a ball-room, where he would fiddle while they danced the hours gaily away. At home the family gathered round the glowing fire, where work and conversation moved on together. The old motto of "Early to bed, and early to rise" was strictly observed. Nine o'clock usually found the household wrapt in slumber. In the morning all were up and breakfast was over usually before seven. As soon as it began to get light, the men and boys started for the barn to feed the cattle and thresh; and thus the winter wore away. Very little things sometimes contribute largely to the comfort of a family, and among those I may mention the lucifer match, then unknown. It was necessary to carefully cover up the live coals on the hearth before going to bed, so that there would be something to start the fire with in the morning. This precaution rarely failed with good hard-wood coals. But sometimes they died out, and then some one would have to go to a neighbour's house for fire, a thing which I have done sometimes, and it was not nice to have to crawl out of my warm nest and run through the keen cold air for a half mile or more to fetch some live coals, before the morning light had broken in the east. My father usually kept some bundles of finely split pine sticks tipped with brimstone for starting a fire. With these, if there was only a spark left, a fire could soon be made. But little time was given to sport, although there was plenty of large game. There was something of more importance always claiming attention. In the winter an occasional deer might be shot, and foxes were sometimes taken in traps. It required a good deal of experience and skill to set a trap so as to catch the cunning beast. Many stories have I heard trappers tell of tricks played by Reynard, and how he had, night after night, baffled all their ingenuity, upset the traps, set them off, or removed them, secured the bait, and away. Another sport more largely patronized in the spring, because it brought something fresh and inviting to the table, was night-fishing. When the creeks were swollen, and the nights were calm and warm, pike and mullet came up the streams in great abundance. Three or four would set out with spears, with a man to carry the jack, and also a supply of dry pine knots, as full of resin as could be found, and cut up small, which were deposited in different places along the creek. The jack was then filled and lit, and when it was all ablaze carried along the edge of the stream, closely followed by the spearsman, who, if an expert, would in a short time secure as many fish as could be carried. It required a sharp eye and a sure aim. The fish shot through the water with great rapidity, which rendered the sport all the more exciting. All hands, of course, returned home thoroughly soaked. Another and pleasanter way was fishing in a canoe on the bay, with the lighted jack secured in the bow. While there its light shone for a considerable distance around, and enabled the fishers to see the smallest fish low down in the clear calm water. This was really enjoyable sport, and generally resulted in a good catch of pike, pickerel, and, very often, a maskelonge or two. Early in the spring, before the snow had gone, the sugar-making time came. Success depended altogether upon the favourable condition of the weather. The days must be clear and mild, the nights frosty, and plenty of snow in the woods. When the time was at hand, the buckets and troughs were overhauled, spiles were made, and when all was ready the large kettles and casks were put in the sleigh, and all hands set out for the bush. Tapping the tree was the first thing in order. This was done either by boring the tree with an auger, and inserting a spile about a foot long to carry off the sap, or with a gouge-shaped tool about two inches wide, which was driven into the tree, under an inclined scar made with an axe. The spiles used in this case were split with the same instrument, sharpened at the end with a knife, and driven into the cut. A person accustomed to the work would tap a great many trees in a day, and usually continued until he had done two or three hundred or more. This finished, next came the placing and hanging of the kettles. A large log, or what was more common, the trunk of some great tree that had been blown down, would be selected, in as central a position as possible. Two crotches were erected by its side, and a strong pole was put across from one to the other. Hooks were then made, and the kettles suspended over the fire. The sap was collected once and sometimes twice a day, and when there was a good supply in the casks, the boiling began. Each day's run was finished, if possible, the same night, when the sugaring-off took place. There are various simple ways of telling when the syrup is sufficiently boiled, and when this is done, the kettle containing the result of the day's work is set off the fire, and the contents stirred until they turn to sugar, which is then dipped into dishes or moulds, and set aside to harden. Sometimes, when the run was large, the boiling continued until late at night, and, although there was a good deal of hard work connected with it, there was also more or less enjoyment, particularly when some half dozen merry girls dropped in upon you, and assisted at the closing scene. On these occasions the fun was free and boisterous. The woods rang with shouts and peals of laughter, and always ended by our faces and hair being all _stuck up_ with sugar. Then we would mount the sleigh and leave for the house. But the most satisfactory part of the whole was to survey the result of the toil in several hundred weight of sugar, and various vessels filled with rich molasses. [Illustration: NIGHT FISHING IN THE CREEK.] Now the hams and beef had to be got out of the casks, and hung up in the smoke-house to be smoked. The spring work crowded on rapidly. Ploughing, fencing, sawing and planting followed in quick succession. All hands were busy. The younger ones had to drive the cows to pasture in the morning and bring them up at night. They had also to take a hand at the old churn, and it was a weary task, as I remember well, to stand for an hour, perhaps, and drive the dasher up and down through the thick cream. How often the handle was examined to see if there were any indications of butter; and what satisfaction there was in getting over with it. As soon as my legs were long enough I had to follow a team, and drag in grain--in fact, before, for I was mounted on the back of one of the horses when my nether limbs were hardly long enough to hold me to my seat. The implements then in use were very rough. Iron ploughs, with cast iron mouldboards, shears, &c., were generally used. As compared with the ploughs of to-day they were clumsy things, but were a great advance over the old wooden ploughs which had not yet altogether gone out of use. Tree tops were frequently used for drags. Riding a horse in the field, under a hot sun, which I frequently had to do, was not as agreeable as it might seem at the first blush. [Illustration: SUGAR MAKING.] In June came sheep-washing. The sheep were driven to the bay shore and secured in a pen, whence they were taken one by one into the bay, and their fleece well washed, after which they were let go. In a few days they were brought to the barn and sheared. The wool was then sorted; some of it being retained to be carded by hand, the rest sent to the mill to be turned into rolls; and when they were brought home the hum of the spinning wheel was heard day after day, for weeks, and the steady beat of the girls' feet on the floor, as they walked forward and backward drawing out and twisting the thread, and then letting it run upon the spindle. Of course the quality of the cloth depended on the fineness and evenness of the thread; and a great deal of pains was taken to turn out good work. When the spinning was done, the yarn was taken away to the weaver to be converted into cloth. As I have said before, there were no drones in a farmer's house then. While the work was being pushed outside with vigour, it did not stand still inside. The thrifty housewife was always busy. Beside the daily round of cares that continually pressed upon her, the winter had hardly passed away before she began to make preparations for the next. There were wild strawberries and raspberries to pickle and preserve, of which the family had their share as they came, supplemented with an abundance of rich cream and sugar; and so with the other fruits in their turn. There was the daily task, too, of milking, and the less frequent one of making butter and cheese. The girls were always out in the yard by sunrise, and soon came tripping in with red cheeks and flowing pails of milk; and at sunset the scene was repeated. The matron required no nurse to take care of the children; no cook to superintend the kitchen; no chamber-maid to make the beds and do the dusting. She had, very likely, one or two hired girls, neighbours' daughters. It was quite common then for farmers' daughters to go out to work when their services could be dispensed with at home. They were treated as equals, and took as much interest in the affairs of the family as the mistress herself. The fact of a girl going out to work did not affect her position. On the contrary, it was rather in her favour, and showed that she had some ambition about her. The girls, in those days, were quite as much at home in the kitchen as in the drawing-room or boudoir. They could do better execution over a wash tub than at a spinet. They could handle a rolling pin with more satisfaction than a sketch book; and if necessity required, could go out in the field and handle a fork and rake with practical results. They were educated in the country school house-- "Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way," with their brothers, and not at a city boarding school. They had not so much as dreamed of fashion books, or heard of fashionable milliners. Their accomplishments were picked up at home, not abroad. And with all these drawbacks, they were pure, modest, affectionate. They made good wives; and that they were the best and most thoughtful mothers that ever watched over the well-being of their children, many remember full well. Country life was practical and plodding in those days. Ambition did not lure the husbandman to days of luxury and ease, but to the accomplishment of a good day's work, and a future crowned with the fruits of honest industry. If the girls were prepared for the future by the watchful care and example of the mothers, so the boys followed in the footsteps of their fathers. They did not look upon their lives as burdensome. They did not feel that the occupation of a farmer was less honourable than any other. The merchant's shop did not possess more attraction than the barn. Fine clothes were neither so durable nor so cheap as home-made suits. Fashionable tailors did not exist to lure them into extravagance, and the town-bred dandy had not broken loose to taint them with his follies. Their aspirations did not lead into ways of display and idleness, or their association to bad habits. They were content to work as their fathers had done, and their aim was to become as exemplary and respected as they were. It was in such a school and under such masters that the foundation of Canadian prosperity was laid, and it is not gratifying to the thoughtful mind, after the survey of such a picture, to find that although our material prosperity in the space of fifty years has been marvellous, we have been gradually departing from the sterling example set us by our progenitors, for twenty years at least. "Dead flies" of extravagance have found their way into the "ointment" of domestic life, and their "savour" is keenly felt. In our haste to become rich, we have abandoned the old road of honest industry. To acquire wealth, and to rise in the social scale, we have cast behind us those principles which give tone and value to position. We are not like the Israelites who longed for the "flesh pots" they had left behind in Egypt; yet when we look around it is difficult to keep back the question put by the Ecclesiast, "What is the cause that the former days were better than these?" and the answer we think is not difficult to find. Our daughters are brought up now like tender plants, more for ornament than use. The practical lessons of life are neglected for the superficial. We send our sons to college, and there they fly from the fostering care of home; they crowd into our towns and cities-- sometimes to rise, it is true, but more frequently to fall, and to become worthless members of society. Like the dog in the fable, we ourselves have let the substance drop, while our gaze has been glamoured by the shadow. Early in July the haying began. The mowers were expected to be in the meadow by sunrise; and all through the day the rasp of their whetstones could be heard, as they dexterously drew them with a quick motion of the hand, first along one side of the scythe and then the other; after which they went swinging across the field, the waving grass falling rapidly before their keen blades, and dropping in swathes at their side. The days were not then divided off into a stated number of working hours. The rule was to begin with the morning light and continue as long as you could see. Of course men had to eat in those days as well as now, and the blast of the old tin dinner-horn fell on the ear with more melodious sound than the grandest orchestra to the musical enthusiast. Even "Old Gray," when I followed the plough, used to give answer to the cheerful wind of the horn by a loud whinny, and stop in the furrow, as if to say, "There now, off with my harness, and let us to dinner." If I happened to be in the middle of the field, I had considerable trouble to get the old fellow to go on to the end. I must say a few words in this place about "Old Gray." Why he was always called "Old Gray" is more than I know. His colour could not have suggested the name, for he was a bright roan, almost a bay. He was by no means a pretty animal, being raw-boned, and never seeming to be in first-rate condition; but he was endowed with remarkable sagacity and great endurance, and was, moreover, a fleet trotter. When my father began the work for himself he was a part of his chattels, and survived his master several years. Father drove him twice to Little York one winter, a distance of over one hundred and fifty miles, accomplishing the trip both times inside of a week. He never would allow a team to pass him. It was customary in those days, particularly with youngsters in the winter, to turn out and run by, and many such races I have had; but the moment a team turned out of the track to pass "Old Gray," he was off like a shot, and you might as well try to hold a locomotive with pins as him with an ordinary bit. He was skittish, and often ran away. On one occasion, when I was very young, he ran off with father and myself in a single waggon. We were both thrown out, and, our feet becoming entangled in the lines, we were dragged some distance. The wheel passed over my head, and cut it so that it bled freely, but the wound was not serious. My father was badly hurt. After a while we started for home, and before we reached it the old scamp got frightened at a log, and set off full tilt. Again, father was thrown out, and I tipped over on the bottom of the waggon. Fortunately, the shafts gave way, and let him loose, when he stopped. Father was carried home, and did not leave the house for a long time. I used to ride the self-willed beast to school in the winter, and had great sport, sometimes, by getting boys on behind me, and, when they were not thinking, I would touch "Old Gray" under the flank with my heel, which would make him spring as though he were shot, and off the boys would tumble in the snow. When I reached school I tied up the reins and let him go home. I do not think he ever had an equal for mischief, and for the last years we had him we could do nothing with him. He was perpetually getting into the fields of grain, and leading all the other cattle after him. We used to hobble him in all sorts of ways, but he would manage to push or rub down the fence at some weak point, and unless his nose was fastened down almost to the ground by a chain from his head to his hind leg, he would let down the bars, or open all the gates about the place. There was not a door about the barn but he would open, if he could get at the latch, and if the key was left in the granary door he would unlock that. If left standing he was sure to get his head-stall off, and we had to get a halter made specially for him. He finally became such a perpetual torment that we sold him, and we all had a good cry when the old horse went away. He was upwards of twenty-five years old at this time. How much longer he lived I cannot say. I never saw him afterward. [Illustration: RUNNING BY.] As soon as the sun was well up, and our tasks about the house over, our part of this new play in the hayfield began, and with a fork or long stick we followed up the swathes and spread them out nicely, so that the grass would dry. In the afternoon, it had to be raked up into winrows-- work in which the girls often joined us--and after tea one or two of the men cocked it up, while we raked the ground clean after them. If the weather was clear and dry it would be left out for several days before it was drawn into the barn or stacked; but often it was housed as soon as dry. Another important matter which claimed the farmer's attention at this time was the preparation of his summer-fallow for fall wheat. The ground was first broken up after the spring sowing was over, and about hay time the second ploughing had to be done, to destroy weeds, and get the land in proper order. In August the last ploughing came, and about the first of September the wheat was sown. It almost always happened, too, that there were some acres of woodland that had been chopped over for fire wood and timber, to be cleaned up. Logs and bush had to be collected into piles, and burned. On new farms this was heavy work. Then the timber was cut down, and ruthlessly given over to the fire. Logging bees were of frequent occurrence, when the neighbours turned out with their oxen and logging chains, and, amid the ring of the axe and the shouting of drivers and men with their handspikes, the great logs were rolled one upon another into huge heaps, and left for the fire to eat them out of the way. When the work was done, all hands proceeded to the house, grim and black as a band of sweeps, where, with copious use of soap and water, they brought themselves back to their normal condition, and went in and did justice to the supper prepared for them. In August the wheat fields were ready for the reapers. This was the great crop of the year. Other grain was grown, such as rye, oats, peas, barley and corn, but principally for feeding. Wheat was the farmer's main dependence, his staff of life and his current coin. A good cradler would cut about five acres a day, and an expert with a rake would follow and bind up what he cut. There were men who would literally walk through the grain with a cradle, and then two men were required to follow. My father had no superior in swinging the cradle, and when the golden grain stood thick and straight, he gave two smart men all they could do to take up what he cut down. Again the younger fry came in for their share of the work, which was to gather the sheaves and put them in shocks. These, after standing a sufficient time, were brought into the barn and mowed away, and again the girls often gave a helping hand both in the field and the barn. In all these tasks good work was expected. My father was, as I have said before, a pushing man, and "thorough" in all he undertook. His mottoes with his men were, "Follow me," and "Anything that is worth doing, is worth doing well;" and this latter rule was always enforced. The ploughers had to throw their furrows neat and straight. When I got to be a strong lad, I could strike a furrow with the old team across a field as straight as an arrow, and I took pride in throwing my furrows in uniform precision. The mowers had to shear the land close and smooth. The rakers threw their winrows straight, and the men made their hay-cocks of a uniform size, and placed them at equal distances apart. So in the grain field, the stubble had to be cut clean and even, the sheaves well bound and shocked in straight rows, with ten sheaves to the shock. It was really a pleasure to inspect the fields when the work was done. Skill was required to load well, and also to mow away, the object being to get the greatest number of sheaves in the smallest space. About the first of September the crops were in and the barns were filled and surrounded with stacks of hay and grain. My father was admitted to be the best farmer in the district. His farm was a model of good order and neatness. He was one of the first to devote attention to the improvement of his stock, and was always on the look-out for improved implements or new ideas, which, if worthy of attention, he was the first to utilize. There is always something for a pushing farmer to do, and there are always rainy days through the season, when out-door work comes to a stand. At such times my father was almost always found in his workshop, making pails or tubs for the house, or repairing his tools or making new ones. At other times he would turn his attention to dressing the flax he had stowed away, and getting it ready for spinning. The linen for bags, as well as for the house, was then all home-made. It could hardly be expected that with such facilities at hand my ingenuity would not develop. One day I observed a pot of red paint on the workbench, and it struck me that the tools would look much better if I gave them a coat of paint. The thought was hardly conceived before it was put into execution, and in a short time planes, saws, augers, &c., were carefully coated over and set aside to dry. Father did not see the thing in the same light as I did. He was very much displeased, and I was punished. After this I turned my attention to water-wheels, waggons, boats, boxes, &c., and in time got to be quite an expert with tools, and could make almost anything out of wood. We children, although we had to drive cows, feed the calves, bring in wood, and all that, had our amusements, simple and rustic enough it is true; but we enjoyed them, and all the more because our parents very often entered into our play. Sunday was a day of enjoyment as well as rest. There were but few places of public worship, and those were generally far apart. In most places the schoolhouse or barn served the purpose. There were two meeting- houses--this was the term always used then for places of worship--a few miles from our place on Hay bay. The Methodist meeting-house was the first place built for public worship in Upper Canada, and was used for that purpose until a few years ago. It now belongs to Mr. Platt, and is used as a storehouse. The other, a Quaker meeting-house, built some years later, is still standing. It was used as a barrack by the Glengarry regiment in 1812, a part of which regiment was quartered in the neighbourhood during that year. The men left their bayonet-marks in the old posts. [Illustration: QUAKER MEETING HOUSE.] On Sunday morning the horses were brought up and put to the lumber waggon, the only carriage known then. The family, all arrayed in their Sunday clothes, arranged themselves in the spacious vehicle, and drove away. At that time, and for a good many years after, whether in the school-house or meeting-house, the men sat on one side and the women on the other, in all places of worship. The sacred bond which had been instituted by the Creator Himself in the Garden of Eden, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall be one flesh," did not seem to harmonize with that custom, for when they went up to His house they separated at the door. It would have been thought a very improper thing, even for a married couple, to take a seat side by side. Indeed I am inclined to think that the good brothers and sisters would have put them out of doors. So deeply rooted are the prejudices in matters of religious belief. That they are the most difficult to remove, the history of the past confirms through all ages. This custom prevailed for many years after. When meeting was over it was customary to go to some friend's to dinner, and make, as used to be said, a visit, or, what was equally as pleasant, father or mother would ask some old acquaintances to come home with us. Sunday in all seasons, and more particularly in the summer, was the grand visiting day with old and young. I do not state this out of any disrespect for the Sabbath. I think I venerate it as much as anyone, but I am simply recording facts as they then existed. The people at that time, as a rule, were not religious, but they were moral, and anxious for greater religious advantages. There were not many preachers, and these had such extended fields of labour that their appointments were irregular, and often, like angels' visits, few and far between. They could not ignore their social instincts altogether, and this was the only day when the toil and moil of work was put aside. They first went to meeting, when there was any, and devoted the rest of the day to friendly intercourse and enjoyment. People used to come to Methodist meeting for miles, and particularly on quarterly meeting day. On one of these occasions, fourteen young people who were crossing the bay in a skiff, on their way to the meeting, were upset near the shore and drowned. Some years later the missionary meeting possessed great attraction, when a deputation composed of Egerton Ryerson and Peter Jones, the latter with his Indian curiosities, drew the people in such numbers that half of them could not get into the house. There were a good many Quakers, and as my father's people belonged to that body we frequently went to their meeting. The broad brims on one side, with the scoop bonnets on the other, used to excite my curiosity, but I did not like to sit still so long. Sometimes not a word would be said, and after an hour of profound silence, two of the old men on one of the upper seats would shake hands. Then a general shaking of hands ensued on both sides of the house, and meeting was out. Many readers will recall gentle Charles Lamb's thoughtful paper on "A Quakers' Meeting." [Footnote: See _Essays of Elia_.] Several of his reflections rise up so vividly before me as I write these lines that I cannot forbear quoting them. "What," he asks, "is the stillness of the desert, compared with this place? what the uncommunicating muteness of fishes?--here the goddess reigns and revels.--'Boreas, and Cesias, and Argestes loud,' do not with their interconfounding uproars more augment the brawl--nor the waves of the blown Baltic with their clubbed sounds --than their opposite (Silence her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more intense by numbers, and by sympathy. She too hath her deeps, that call unto deeps. Negation itself hath a positive more and less; and closed eyes would seem to obscure the great obscurity of midnight. "There are wounds which an imperfect solitude cannot heal. By imperfect I mean that which a man enjoyeth by himself. The perfect is that which he can sometimes attain in crowds, but nowhere so absolutely as in a Quakers' Meeting.--Those first hermits did certainly understand this principle, when they retired into Egyptian solitudes, not singly, but in shoals, to enjoy one another's want of conversation. The Carthusian is bound to his brethren by this agreeing spirit of incommunicativeness. In secular occasions, what so pleasant as to be reading a book through a long winter evening, with a friend sitting by--say a wife--he, or she, too (if that be probable), reading another, without interruption, or oral communication?--can there be no sympathy without the gabble of words?--away with this inhuman, shy, single, shade-and-cavern-haunting solitariness. Give me, Master Zimmerman, a sympathetic solitude. "To pace alone in the cloisters, or side aisles of some cathedral, time- stricken; Or under hanging mountains, Or by the fall of fountains; is but a vulgar luxury compared with that which those enjoy who come together for the purposes of more complete, abstracted solitude. This is the loneliness 'to be felt.' The Abbey-Church of Westminster hath nothing so solemn, so spirit-soothing, as the naked walls and benches of a Quakers' Meeting. Here are no tombs, no inscriptions, --Sands, ignoble things, Dropt from the ruined sides of kings-- but here is something which throws Antiquity herself into the foreground--SILENCE--eldest of things--language of old Night--primitive Discourser--to which the insolent decays of mouldering grandeur have but arrived by a violent, and, as we may say, unnatural progression. How reverend is the view of these hushed heads, Looking tranquillity! "Nothing-plotting, nought-caballing, unmischievous synod! convocation without intrigue! parliament without debate! what a lesson dost thou read, to council and to consistory!--if my pen treat of you lightly--as haply it will wander--yet my spirit hath gravely felt the wisdom of your custom, when sitting among you in deepest peace, which some outwelling tears would rather confirm than disturb, I have reverted to the times of your beginnings, and the sowings of the seed by Fox and Dewesbury.--I have witnessed that which brought before my eyes your heroic tranquillity inflexible to the rude jests and serious violences of the insolent soldiery, republican or royalist sent to molest you--for ye sate betwixt the fires of two persecutions, the outcast and off-scouring of church and presbytery. "I have seen the reeling sea-ruffian, who had wandered into your receptacle with the avowed intention of disturbing your quiet, from the very spirit of the place receive in a moment a new heart, and presently sit among ye as a lamb amidst lambs. And I remember Penn before his accusers, and Fox in the bail-dock, where he was lifted up in spirit, as he tells us, and the judge and the jury became as dead men under his feet." Our old family carriage--the lumbering waggon--revives many pleasant recollections. Many long rides were taken in it, both to mill and market, and, sometimes I have curled myself up, and slept far into the night in it while waiting for my grist to be ground so I could take it home. But it was not used by the young folks as sleighs were in the winter. It was a staid, family vehicle, not suited to mirth or love- making. It was too noisy for that, and on a rough road, no very uncommon thing then, one was shaken up so thoroughly that there was but little room left for sentiment. In later times, lighter and much more comfortable vehicles were used. The elliptic or steel spring did not come into use until about 1840. I remember my grandfather starting off for New York in one of these light one-horse waggons. I do not know how long he was gone, but he made the journey, and returned safely. Long journeys by land were made, principally in summer, on horseback, both by men and women. The horse was also the young peoples' only vehicle at this season of the year. The girls were usually good riders, and could gallop away as well on the bare back as on the side-saddle. A female cousin of my father's several times made journeys of from one to two hundred miles on horseback, and on one occasion she carried her infant son for a hundred and fifty miles, a feat the women of to-day would consider impossible. Then as now, the early fall was not the least pleasant portion of the Canadian year. Everyone is familiar with the striking beauty of our woods after the frost begins, and the endless variety of shade and colour that mingles with such pleasing effect in every landscape. And in those days, as well as now, the farmers' attention was directed to preparation for the coming winter. His market staples then consisted of wheat or flour, pork and potash. The other products of his farm, such as coarse grain, were used by himself. Butter and eggs were almost valueless, save on his own table. The skins of his sheep, calves and beef cattle which were slaughtered for his own use, were sent to the tanners, who dressed them on shares, the remainder being brought home to be made up into boots, harness and mittens. Wood, which afterwards came into demand for steam purposes, was worthless. Sawn lumber was not wanted, except for home use, and the shingles that covered the buildings were split and made by the farmer himself. If the men had logging-bees, and other bees to help them on with their work, the women, by way of compensation, had bees of a more social and agreeable type. Among these were quilting bees, when the women and girls of the neighbourhood assembled in the afternoon, and turned out those skilfully and often artistically made rugs, so comfortable to lie under during the cold winter nights. There was often a great deal of sport at the close of one of these social industrial gatherings. When the men came in from the field to supper, some luckless wight was sure to be caught, and tossed up and down in the quilt amid the laughter and shouts of the company. But of all the bees, the apple-bee was the chief. In these old and young joined. The boys around the neighbourhood, with their home-made apple-machines, of all shapes and designs, would come pouring in with their girls early in the evening. The large kitchen, with its sanded floor, the split bottomed chairs ranged round the room, the large tubs of apples, and in the centre the clean scrubbed pine table filled with wooden trays and tallow-candles in tin candlesticks, made an attractive picture which had for its setting the mother and girls, all smiles and good nature, receiving and pleasing the company. Now the work begins amidst laughter and mirth; the boys toss the peeled apples away from their machines in rapid numbers, and the girls catch them, and with their knives quarter and core them, while others string them with needles on long threads, and tie them so that they can be hung up to dry. As soon as the work is done the room is cleared for supper, after which the old folks retire, and the second and most pleasing part of the performance begins. These after-scenes were always entered into with a spirit of fun and honest abandonment truly refreshing. Where dancing was not objected to, a rustic fiddler would be spirited in by some of the youngsters as the sport began. The dance was not that languid sort of thing, toned down by modern refinement to a sliding, easy motion round the room, and which, for the lack of conversational accomplishments, is made to do duty for want of wit. Full of life and vigour, they danced for the real fun of the thing. The quick and inspiriting strains of the music sent them spinning round the room, and amid the rush and whirl of the flying feet came the sharp voice of the fiddler as he flourished his bow: "Right and left--balance to your pardner--cross hands--swing your pardner--up and down the middle," and so on through reel after reel. Some one of the boys would perform a _pas seul_ with more energy than grace; but it was all the same-- the dancing master had not been abroad; the fiddler put life into their heels, and they let them play. Frequently there was no musician to be had, when the difficulty was overcome by the musical voices of the girls, assisted with combs covered with paper, or the shrill notes of some expert at whistling. It often happened that the old people objected to dancing, and then the company resorted to plays, of which there was a great variety: "Button, button, who's got the button;" "Measuring Tape;" "Going to Rome;" "Ladies Slipper;" all pretty much of the same character, and much appreciated by the boys, because they afforded a chance to kiss the girls. Some of our plays bordered very closely on a dance, and when our inclinations were checked, we approached the margin of the forbidden ground as nearly as possible. Among these I remember one which afforded an opportunity to swing around in a merry way. A chair was placed in the centre of the room, upon which one of the girls or boys was seated. Then we joined hands, and went dancing around singing the following refrain:-- There was a young woman sat down to sleep, Sat down to sleep, sat down to sleep; There was a young woman sat down to sleep, Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! There was a young man to keep her awake, To keep her awake, to keep her awake; There was a young man to keep her awake, Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho-! Heigh-ho! Tom Brown his name shall be, His name shall be, his name shall be; Tom Brown his name shall be, Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! Whereupon Mr. Brown was expected to step out, take the girl by the hand, salute her with a kiss, and then take her seat. Then the song went on again, with variations to suit; and thus the rustic mazurka proceeded until all had had a chance of tasting the rosy lips, so tempting to youthful swains. Often a coy maiden resisted, and then a pleasant scuffle ensued, in which she sometimes eluded the penalty, much to the chagrin of the claimant. CHAPTER III. PROGRESS, MATERIAL AND SOCIAL--FONDNESS OF THE YOUNG FOR DANCING-- MAGISTERIAL NUPTIALS--THE CHARIVARI--COON-HUNTING--CATCHING A TARTAR-- WILD PIGEONS--THE OLD DUTCH HOUSES--DELIGHTS OF SUMMER AND WINTER CONTRASTED--STILLED VOICES. As time wore on, and contact with the outer world became easier and more frequent, the refinements of advancing civilization found their way gradually into the country, and changed the amusements as well as the long-established habits of the people. An isolated community like that which stretched along the frontier of our Province, cut off from the older and more advanced stages of society, or holding but brief and irregular communication with it, could not be expected to keep up with the march of either social or intellectual improvement; and although the modern may turn up his nose as he looks back, and affect contempt at the amusements which fell across our paths like gleams of sunlight at the break of day, and call them rude and indelicate, he must not forget that we were not hedged about by the conventionalities, nor were we slaves to the caprice of fashion. We were free sons and daughters of an upright, sturdy parentage, with pure and honest hearts throbbing under rough exteriors. The girls who did not blush at a hearty kiss from our lips were as pure as the snow. They became ornaments in higher and brighter circles of society, and mothers, the savour of whose virtues and maternal affection rise before our memory like a perpetual incense. I am quite well aware of the fact that a large portion of the religious world is opposed to dancing, nor in this recital of country life as it then existed do I wish to be considered an advocate of this amusement. I joined in the sport then with as much eagerness and delight as one could do. I learned to step off on the light fantastic toe, as many another Canadian boy has done, on the barn floor, where, with the doors shut, I went sliding up and down, through the middle, balancing to the pitch- fork, turning round the old fanning-mill, then double-shuffling and closing with a profound bow to the splint broom in the corner. These were the kind of schools in which our accomplishments were learned; and, whether dancing be right or wrong, it is certain the inclination of the young to indulge in it is about as universal as the taint of sin. The young people then, as now, took it into their heads to get married; but parsons were scarce, and it did not always suit them to wait until one came along. To remedy this difficulty the Government authorized magistrates to perform the ceremony for any couple who resided more than eighteen miles from church. There were hardly any churches, and therefore a good many called upon the Justice to put a finishing touch to their happiness, and curious looking pairs presented themselves to have the knot tied. One morning a robust young man and a pretty, blushing girl presented themselves at my father's door, and were invited in. They were strangers, and it was some time before he could find out what they wanted; but after beating about the bush, the young man hesitatingly said they wanted to get married. They were duly tied, and, on leaving, I was asked to join in their wedding dinner. Though it was to be some distance away, I mounted my horse and joined them. The dinner was good, and served in the plain fashion of the day. After it came dancing, to the music of a couple of fiddlers, and we threaded through reel after reel until nearly daylight. On another occasion a goodly company gathered at a neighbour's house to assist at the nuptials of his daughter. The ceremony had passed, and we were collected around the supper table; the old man had spread out his hands to ask a blessing, when bang, bang, went a lot of guns, accompanied by horns, whistles, tin pans and anything and everything with which a noise could be made. A simultaneous shriek went up from the girls, and for a few moments the confusion was as great inside as out. It was a horrid din of discordant sounds. Conversation at the supper table was out of the question, and as soon as it was over we went out among the boys who had come to charivari us. There were perhaps fifty of them, with blackened faces and ludicrous dresses, and after the bride and bridegroom had shown themselves and received their congratulations, they went their way, and left us to enjoy ourselves in peace. It was after this manner the young folks wedded. There was but little attempt at display. No costly trousseau, no wedding tours. A night of enjoyment with friends, and the young couple set out at once on the practical journey of life. One of our favourite sports in those days was coon (short name for raccoon) hunting. This lasted only during the time of green corn. The raccoon is particularly fond of corn before it hardens, and if unmolested will destroy a good deal in a short time. He always visits the cornfields at night; so about nine o'clock we would set off with our dogs, trained for the purpose, and with as little noise as possible make our way to the edge of the corn, and then wait for him. If the field was not too large he could easily be heard breaking down the ears, and then the dogs were let loose. They cautiously and silently crept towards the unsuspecting foe. But the sharp ears and keen scent of the raccoon seldom let him fall into the clutch of the dogs without a scamper for life. The coon was almost always near the woods, and this gave him a chance of escape. As soon as a yelp was heard from the dogs, we knew the fun had begun, and pushing forward in the direction of the noise, we were pretty sure to find our dogs baffled and jumping and barking around the foot of a tree up which Mr. Coon had fled, and whence he was quietly looking down on his pursuers from a limb or crutch. Our movements now were guided by circumstances. If the tree was not too large, one of us would climb it and dislodge the coon. In the other case we generally cut it down. The dogs were always on the alert, and the moment the coon touched the ground they were on him. We used frequently to capture two or three in a night. The skin was dressed and made into caps or robes for the sleigh. On two or three of these expeditions, our dogs caught a Tartar by running foul of a _coon_ not so easily disposed of--in the shape of a bear; and then we were both glad to decamp, as he was rather too big a job to undertake in the night. Bruin was fond of young corn, but he and the wolves had ceased to be troublesome. The latter occasionally made a raid on a flock of sheep in the winter, but they were watched pretty closely, and were trapped or shot. There was a government bounty of $4 for every wolf's head. Another, and much more innocent sport, was netting wild pigeons after the wheat had been taken off. At that time they used to visit the stubbles in large flocks. Our mode of procedure was to build a house of boughs under which to hide ourselves. Then the ground was carefully cleaned and sprinkled with grain, at one side of which the net was set, and in the centre one stool pigeon, secured on a perch was placed, attached to which was a long string running into the house. When all was ready we retired and watched for the flying pigeons, and whenever a flock came within a seeing distance our stool pigeon was raised and then dropped. This would cause it to spread its wings and then flutter, which attracted the flying birds, and after a circle or two they would swoop down and commence to feed. Then the net was sprung, and in a trice we had scores of pigeons under it. I do not remember to have seen this method of capturing pigeons practised since. If we captured many we took them home, put them where they could not get away, and took them out as we wanted them. At the time of which I write Upper Canada had been settled about forty- five years. A good many of the first settlers had ended their labours, and were peacefully resting in the quiet grave-yard; but there were many left, and they were generally hale old people, who were enjoying in contentment and peace the evening of their days, surrounded by their children, who were then in their prime, and their grandchildren, ruddy and vigorous plants, shooting up rapidly around them. The years that had fled were eventful ones, not only to themselves, but to the new country which they had founded. "The little one had become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation." The forest had melted away before the force of their industry, and orchards with their russet fruit, and fields of waving corn, gladdened their hearts and filled their cellars and barns with abundance. The old log house which had been their shelter and their home for many a year had disappeared, or was converted into an out-house for cattle, or a place for keeping implements in during the winter; and now the commodious and well-arranged frame one had taken its place. Large barns for their increasing crops and warm sheds to protect the cattle had grown up out of the rude hovels and stables. Everything around them betokened thrift, and more than an ordinary degree of comfort. They had what must be pronounced to have been, for the time, good schools, where their children could acquire a tolerable education. They also had places in which they could assemble and worship God. There were merchants from whom they could purchase such articles as they required, and there were markets for their produce. The changes wrought in these forty-five years were wonderful, and to no class of persons could these changes seem more surprising than to themselves. Certainly no people appreciated more fully the rich ripe fruit of their toil. Among the pleasantest pictures I can recall are the old homes in which my boyhood was passed. I hardly know in what style of architecture they were built; indeed, I think it was one peculiar to the people and the age. They were strong, substantial structures, erected with an eye to comfort rather than show. They were known afterwards as Dutch houses, usually one story high, and built pretty much after the same model; a parallelogram, with a wing at one end, and often to both. The roofs were very steep, with a row of dormer windows, and sometimes two rows looking out of their broad sides, to give light to the chambers and sleeping rooms up-stairs. The living rooms were generally large, with low ceilings, and well supplied with cupboards, which were always filled with blankets and clothing, dishes, and a multitude of good things for the table. The bed rooms were always small and cramped, but they were sure to contain a good bed--a bed which required some ingenuity, perhaps, to get into, owing to its height; but when once in, the great feather tick fitted kindly to the weary body, and the blankets over you soon wooed your attention away from the narrowness of the apartment. Very often the roof projected over, giving an elliptic shape to one side, and the projection of about six feet formed a cover of what was then called a long stoop, but which now-a-days would be known as a veranda. This was no addition to the lighting of the rooms, for the windows were always small in size and few in number. The kitchen usually had a double outside door--that is a door cut cross-wise through the middle, so that the lower part could be kept shut, and the upper left open if necessary. I do not know what particular object there was in this, unless to let the smoke out, for chimneys were more apt to smoke then than now; or, perhaps, to keep the youngsters in and let in fresh air. Whatever the object was, this was the usual way the outside kitchen door was made, with a wooden latch and leather string hanging outside to lift it, which was easily pulled in, and then the door was quite secure against intruders. The barns and out-houses were curiosities in after years: large buildings with no end of timber and all roof, like a great box with an enormous candle extinguisher set on it. But houses and barns are gone, and modern structures occupy their places, as they succeeded the rough log ones, and one can only see them as they are photographed upon the memory. Early days are always bright to life's voyager, and whatever his condition may have been at the outset, he is ever wont to look back with fondness to the scenes of his youth. I can recall days of toil under a burning sun, but they were cheerful days, nevertheless. There was always "a bright spot in the future" to look forward to, which moved the arm and lightened the task. Youth is buoyant, and if its feet run in the way of obedience, it will leave a sweet fragrance behind, which will never lose its flavour. The days I worked in the harvest field, or when I followed the plough, whistling and singing through the hours, are not the least happy recollections of the past. The merry song of the girls, mingling with the hum of the spinning-wheel, as they tripped backward and forward to the cadence of their music, drawing out miles of thread, reeling it into skeins which the weaver's loom and shuttle was to turn into thick heavy cloth; or old grandmother treading away at her little wheel, making it buzz as she drew out the delicate fibres of flax, and let it run up the spindle a fine and evenly twisted thread, with which to sew our garments, or to make our linen; and mother, busy as a bee, thinking of us all, and never wearying in her endeavours to add to our comfort--these are pictures that stand out, clear and distinct, and are often reverted to with pleasure and delight. But though summer time in the country is bright and beautiful with its broad meadows waving before the western wind like seas of green, and the yellow corn, gleaming in the field where the sun-burnt reapers are singing; though the flowers shed their fragrance, and the breeze sighs softly through the branches overhead in monotones, but slightly varied, yet sweet and soothing; though the wood is made vocal with the song of birds, and all nature is jocund and bright--notwithstanding, all this, the winter, strange as it may seem, was the time of our greatest enjoyment. Winter, when "Old Gray," who used to scamper with me astride his bare back down the lane, stood munching his fodder in the stall; when the cattle, no longer lolling or browsing in the peaceful shade, moved around the barn-yard with humped backs, shaking their heads at the cold north wind; when the trees were stripped of their foliage, and the icicles hung in fantastic rows along the naked branches, glittering like jewels in the sunshine, or rattling in the northern blast; when the ground was covered deep with snow, and the wind "driving o'er the fields," whirled into huge drifts, blocking up the doors and paths and roads; when "The whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end;" when the frost silvered over the window-panes, or crept through the cracks and holes, and fringed them with its delicate fret-work; when the storm raged and howled without, and "Shook beams and rafters as it passed!" Within, happy faces were gathered around the blazing logs in the old fire-place. "Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north wind roar, In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost line back with tropic heat." The supper has been cleared away, and upon the clean white table is placed a large dish of apples and a pitcher of cider. On either end stands a tallow candle in a bright brass candlestick, with an extinguisher attached to each, and the indispensable snuffers and tray. Sometimes the fingers are made use of in the place of the snuffers; but it is not always satisfactory to the snuffer, as he sometimes burns himself, and hastens to snap his fingers to get rid of the burning wick. One of the candles is appropriated by father, who is quietly reading his paper; for we had newspapers then, though they would not compare very favourably with those of to-day, and we got them only once a week. Mother is darning socks. Grandmother is making the knitting needles fly, as though all her grandchildren were stockingless. The girls are sewing and making merry with the boys, and we are deeply engaged with our lessons, or what is more likely, playing fox and geese. "What matters how the night behaved; What matter how the north-wind raved; Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our ruddy hearth-fire's glow. * * * * * O time and change! with hair as gray As was my sire's that winter day, How strange it seems, with so much gone Of life and love, to still live on! Ah brother! only I and thou Are left of all the circle now-- The dear home faces whereupon The fitful fire-light paled and shone, Henceforth, listen as we will, The voices of that hearth are still." CHAPTER IV THE EARLY SETTLERS IN UPPER CANADA--PROSPERITY, NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL --THE OLD HOMES, WITHOUT AND WITHIN--CANDLE-MAKING--SUPERSTITIONS AND OMENS--THE DEATH-WATCH--OLD ALMANACS--BEES--THE DIVINING ROD--THE U. E. LOYALISTS--THEIR SUFFERINGS AND HEROISM--AN OLD AND A NEW PRICE LIST-- PRIMITIVE HOROLOGES--A JAUNT IN ONE OF THE CONVENTIONAL "CARRIAGES" OF OLDEN TIMES--THEN AND NOW--A NOTE OF WARNING. The settlement of Ontario, known up to the time of Confederation as the Province of Upper Canada, or Canada West, began in 1784, so that at the date I purpose to make a brief survey of the condition and progress of the country, it had been settled forty-six years. During those years--no insignificant period in a single life, but very small indeed in the history of a country--the advance in national prosperity and in the various items that go to make life pleasant and happy had been marvellous. The muscular arm of the sturdy pioneer had hewn its way into the primeval forest, and turned the gloomy wilderness into fruitful fields. It is well known that the first settlers located along the shores of the River St. Lawrence, the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie, and that, at the time of which I speak, this coastline of a few hundred miles, extending back but a very short distance--a long narrow strip cut from the serried edge of the boundless woods--comprised the settlement of Canada West as it then existed. Persistent hard work had placed the majority in circumstances of more than ordinary comfort. Good houses had taken the place of log cabins, and substantial frame barns that of rude hovels. Hard fare and scanty raiment had given place to an abundance of the necessaries of life, and no people, perhaps, ever appreciated these blessings with more sincere thankfulness or more hearty contentment. The farmer was a strong, hardy man, the wife a ruddy, cheerful body, careful of the comforts of her household. One table sufficed for themselves and their servants or hired help. Meat was provided twice and often thrice a day; it being more a matter of taste than economy as to the number of times it was served. Fruit was abundant, and every matron prided herself upon preserving and putting away quantities of it for home use. So that at this time the world was moving smoothly with the people. An immense track of wilderness had been reclaimed, and waving fields and fruitful orchards occupied its place. It may have seemed to them, and indeed I think it did to many, that the sum of all they could expect or even desire in this world had been attained; while we, who remember those days, and look back over the changes of fifty years, wonder how they managed to endure life at all. It is true that the father, more from the force of habit than necessity, perhaps continued to toil in the field, and the mother, moved by the same cause, and by her maternal anxiety for the well-being of her family, still spent many a long hour at the loom. The son, brought up to work, followed the plough, or did battle with the axe, making the woods ring with his rapid strokes. And as he laboured he pictured to himself the building of a nest in the unbroken forest behind the homestead, wherein the girl of his choice figured as the central charm. The daughter who toiled through the long summer's day to the monotonous hum of the spinning wheel, drawing out and twisting the threads that should enter into the make-up of her wedding outfit, was contented and happy. The time and circumstances in which they were placed presented nothing better, and in their estimation the world had little more to offer than they already possessed. It is more than probable that if we, with our modern notions and habits, could to-day be carried back into a similar condition of life, we would feel that our lines had fallen in anything but pleasant places. The flying years, with their changes and anxieties, like the constant dripping of water on a stone, have worn off the rough edges that wounded and worried during their progress, and only the sunny spots, burned in the plastic memory of younger days, remain. The old homes, as I remember them in those days, were thought palatial in their proportions and conveniences, and so they were as compared with the old log houses. The latter often still remained as relics of other days, but they had been converted into the base use of a cow stable, or a shelter for waggons and farm implements during the winter. Their successors were, with very few exceptions, wooden structures, clap- boarded, and painted either yellow or red. The majority, however, never received any touching up from the painter's brush, and as the years rolled on became rusty and gray from the beating of winter's storms and the heat of summer's sun. The interior rarely displayed any skill in arrangement or design. The living rooms were generally of goodly size, with low ceilings, but the sleeping rooms were invariably small, with barely room enough for a large high-posted bedstead, and a space to undress in. The exterior was void of any architectural embellishment, with a steep roof pierced by dormer windows. The kitchen, which always seemed to me like an after-thought, was a much lower part of the structure, welded on one end or the other of the main body of the house, and usually had a roof projecting some distance over one side, forming "the stoop." In very many cases, the entrance to the spacious cellar, where the roots, apples, cider, and other needs of the household were kept, was from this through a trap door, so that in summer or winter the good wife had actually to go out of doors when anything was required for the table, and that was very often. It really seemed as though the old saying of "the longest way round is the shortest way home" entered not only into the laying out of highways, but into all the domestic arrangements. Economy of time and space, convenience, or anything to facilitate or lighten labour, does not appear to have occupied the thoughts of the people. Work was the normal condition of their being, and, as we see it now, everything seems to have been so arranged as to preclude the possibility of any idle moments. At the end of the kitchen was invariably a large fire-place, with its wide, gaping mouth, an iron crane, with a row of pothooks of various lengths, from which to suspend the pots over the fire, and on the hearth a strong pair of andirons, flanked by a substantial pair of tongs and a shovel. During the winter, when the large back-log, often as much as two men could handle, was brought in and fixed in its place, and a good forestick put on the andirons, with well-split maple piled upon it and set ablaze with dry pine and chips, the old fire-place became aglow with cheerful fire, and dispensed its heat through the room. But in extremely cold weather it sometimes happened that while one side was being roasted the other was pinched with cold. At one side of the fire-place there was usually a large oven, which, when required, was heated by burning dry wood in it, and then the dough was put into tin pans and pushed in to be baked. Sometimes the ovens were built on frames in the yard, and then in wind or storm the baking had to be carried out doors and in. Every kitchen had one or more spacious cupboards; whatever need there was for other conveniences, these were always provided, and were well filled. The other rooms of the house were generally warmed by large box stoves. The spare bedrooms were invariably cold, and on a severe night it was like undressing out of doors and jumping into a snowbank. I have many a time shivered for half an hour before my body could generate heat enough to make me comfortable. The furniture made no pretensions to artistic design or elegance. It was plain and strong, and bore unmistakable evidence of having originated either at the carpenter's bench or at the hands of some member of the family, in odd spells of leisure on rainy days. Necessity is axiomatically said to be the mother of invention, and as there were no furniture makers with any artistic skill or taste in the country, and as the inclination of the people ran more in the direction of the useful than the ornamental, most of the domestic needs were of home manufacture. I have a clear recollection of the pine tables, with their strong square legs tapering to the floor, and of how carefully they were scrubbed. Table covers were seldom used, and only when there was company, and then the cherry table with its folding leaves was brought out, and the pure white linen cloth, most likely the production of the good wife's own hands, was carefully spread upon it. Then came the crockery. Who can ever forget the blue-edged plates, cups and saucers, and other dishes whereon indigo storks and mandarins, or something approaching a representation of them, glided airily over sky- blue hills in their pious way from one indigo pagoda to another. These things I have no doubt, would be rare prizes to Ceramic lovers of the present day. The cutlery and silver consisted mostly of bone-handled knives and iron forks, and iron and pewter spoons. On looking over an old inventory of my grandfather's personal effects not long since, I came upon these items: "two pair of spoon moulds," and I remembered melting pewter and making spoons with these moulds when I was very young. Cooking was done in the oven, and over the kitchen fire, and the utensils were a dinner pot, teakettle, frying-pan and skillet. There were no cooking stoves. The only washing machines were the ordinary wash tubs, soft soap, and the brawny arms and hands of the girls; and the only wringers were the strong wrists and firm grip that could give a vigorous twist to what passed through the hands. Water was drawn from the wells with a bucket fastened to a long slender pole attached to a sweep suspended to a crotch. Butter, as has already been intimated, was made in upright churns, and many an hour have I stood, with mother's apron pinned around me to keep my clothes from getting spattered, pounding at the stubborn cream, when every minute seemed an hour, thinking the butter would never come. When evening set in, we were wont to draw around the cheerful fire on the hearth, or perhaps up to the kitchen table, and read and work by the dim light of "tallow dips," placed in tin candlesticks, or, on extra occasions, in brass or silver ones, with their snuffers, trays and extinguishers. Now, we sit by the brilliant light of the coal oil lamp or of gas. Then, coal oil was in the far-off future, and there was not a gas jet in Canada, if indeed in America. The making of tallow candles, before moulds were used, was a slow and tiresome task. Small sticks were used, about two feet long, upon each of which six cotton wicks, made for the purpose, were placed about two inches apart, each wick being from ten to twelve inches long. A large kettle was next partly filled with hot water, upon which melted tallow was poured. Then, two sticks were taken in the right hand, and the wick slowly dipped up and down through the melted tallow. This process was continued until the candles had attained sufficient size, when they were put aside to harden, and then taken off the sticks and put away. It required considerable practical experience to make a smooth candle which would burn evenly; and a sputtering candle was an abomination. The cloth with which the male members of the family were clad, as well as the flannel that made the dresses and underclothing for both, was carded, spun, and often woven at home, as was also the flax that made the linen. There were no sewing or knitting machines, save the deft hands that plied the needle. Carpets were seldom seen. The floors of the spare rooms, as they were called, were painted almost invariably with yellow ochre paint, and the kitchen floor was kept clean and white with the file, and sanded. The old chairs, which, in point of comfort, modern times have in no way improved upon, were also of home make, with thin round legs and splint-bottomed seats, or, what was more common, elm bark evenly cut and plaited. Many a time have I gone to the woods in the spring, when the willow catkins in the swamp and along the side of the creek turned from silver to gold, and when the clusters of linwort nodded above the purple-green leaves in the April wind, and taken the bark in long strips from the elm trees to reseat the dilapidated chairs. If the labour-saving appliances were so scanty indoors, they were not more numerous outside. The farmer's implements were rude and rough. The wooden plough, with its wrought-iron share, had not disappeared, but ploughs with cast-iron mould-boards, land-sides and shares, were rapidly coming into use. These had hard-wood beams, and a short single handle with which to guide them. They were clumsy, awkward things to work with, as I remember full well, and though an improvement, it was impossible to do nice work with them. Indeed, that part of the question did not receive much consideration, the principal object being to get the ground turned over. They were called patent ploughs. Drags were either tree tops or square wooden frames with iron teeth. The scythe for hay and the cradle for grain, with strong backs and muscular arms to swing them, were the only mowers and reapers known. The hand rake had not been superseded by the horse rake, nor the hoe by the cultivator; and all through the winter, the regular thump, thump of the flails on the barn floor could be heard, or the trampling out of the grain by the horses' feet. The rattle of the fanning mill announced the finishing of the task. Threshing machines and cleaners were yet to come. It will be seen from what I have said that both in the house and out of it work was a stern and exacting master, whose demands were incessant, satisfied only by the utmost diligence. It was simply by this that so much was accomplished. It is true there were other incentives that gave force to the wills and nerves to the arms which enabled our forefathers to overcome the numberless arduous tasks that demanded attention daily throughout the year. All the inventions that have accumulated so rapidly for the last twenty years or more, to lighten the burden and facilitate the accomplishment of labour and production, as well as to promote the comfort of all classes, were unknown fifty years ago. Indeed many of the things that seem so simple and uninteresting to us now, as I shall have occasion to show further on, were then hidden in the future. Take for example the very common and indispensable article, the lucifer match, to the absence of which allusion has already been made. Its simple method of producing fire had never entered the imagination of our most gifted sires. The only way known to them was the primitive one of rubbing two sticks together and producing fire by friction--a somewhat tedious process--or with a flint, a heavy jackknife, and a bit of punk, a fungous growth, the best of which for this purpose is obtained from the beech. Gun flints were most generally used. One of these was placed on a bit of dry punk, and held firmly in the left hand, while the back of the closed blade of the knife thus brought into contact with the flint by a quick downward stroke of the right hand produced a shower of sparks, some of which, falling on the punk, would ignite; and thus a fire was produced. In the winter, if the fire went out, there were, as I have already stated, but two alternatives--either the flint and steel, or a run to a neighbour's house for live coals. There were many superstitious notions current among the people in those days. Many an omen both for good and evil was sincerely believed in, which even yet in quiet places finds a lodgement where the schoolmaster has not been much abroad. But the half century that has passed away has seen the last of many a foolish notion. A belief in omens was not confined to the poor and ignorant, for brave men have been known to tremble at seeing a winding-sheet in a candle, and learned men to gather their little ones around them, fearing that one would be snatched away, because a dog outside took a fancy to howl at the moon. And who has not heard the remark when a sudden shiver came over one; that an enemy was then walking over the spot which would be his grave? Or who has not noticed the alarm occasioned by the death watch--the noise, resembling the ticking of a watch, made by a harmless little insect in the wall--or the saying that if thirteen sit down to table, one is sure to die within a year? Somebody has said there is one case when he believed this omen to be true, and that is when thirteen sit down to dinner and there is only enough for twelve. There was no end to bad omens. It was bad luck to see the new moon for the first time over the left shoulder, but if seen over the right it was the reverse. It is well known that the moon has been supposed to exercise considerable influence over our planet, among the chief of which are the tides, and it was believed also to have a great deal to do with much smaller matters. There are few who have not seen on the first page of an almanac the curious picture representing a nude man with exposed bowels, and surrounded with the zodiacal signs. This was always found in the old almanacs, and indeed they would be altogether unsaleable without it and the weather forecast. How often have I seen the almanac consulted as to whether it was going to be fair or stormy, cold or hot; how often seen the mother studying the pictures when she wished to wean her babe. If she found the change of the moon occurred when the sign was in Aries or Gemini or Taurus, all of which were supposed to exercise a baneful influence on any part of the body above the heart, she would defer the matter until a change came, when the sign would be in Virgo or Libra, considering it extremely dangerous to undertake the operation in the former case. The wife was not alone in this, for the husband waited for a certain time in the moon to sow his peas--that is, if he wished to ensure a good crop. He also thought it unlucky to kill hogs in the wane of the moon, because the pork would shrink and waste in the boiling. The finding of an old horseshoe was a sure sign of good luck, and it was quite common to see one nailed up over the door. It is said that the late Horace Greeley always kept a rusty one over the door of his sanctum. To begin anything on Friday was sure to end badly. I had an esteemed friend, the late sheriff of the county of ----, who faithfully believed this, and adhered to it up to the time of his death. May was considered an unlucky month to marry in, and when I was thinking of this matter a number of years later, and wished the event to occur during the month, my wish was objected to on this ground, and the ceremony deferred until June in consequence. It is said that the honey bee came to America with the Pilgrim Fathers. Whether this be so or not I am unprepared to say. If it be true, then there were loyalists among them, for they found their way to Canada with the U. E.'s, and contributed very considerably to the enjoyment of the table. Short-cake and honey were things not to be despised in those days, I remember. There was a curious custom that prevailed of blowing horns and pounding tin pans to keep the bees from going away when swarming. The custom is an Old Country one, I fancy. The reader will remember that Dickens, in "Little Dorrit," makes Ferdinand Barnacle say: "You really have no idea how the human bees will swarm to the beating of any old tin kettle." Another peculiar notion prevailed with respect to discovering the proper place to dig wells. There were certain persons, I do not remember what they were called, whether water doctors or water witches, who professed to be able, with the aid of a small hazel crotched twig, which was held firmly in both hands with the crotch inverted, to tell where a well should be sunk with a certainty of finding water. The process was simply to walk about with the twig thus held, and when the right place was reached, the forked twig would turn downwards, however firmly held; and on the strength of this, digging would be commenced in the place indicated. A curious feature about this was that there were but very few in whose hands the experiment would work, and hence the water discoverer was a person of some repute. I never myself witnessed the performance, but it was of common occurrence. [Footnote: The reader will remember the occult operations of Dousterswivel in the seventeenth chapter of Scott's _Antiquary._ "In truth, the German was now got to a little copse- thicket at some distance from the ruins, where he affected busily to search for such a wand as should suit the purpose of his mystery; and after cutting off a small twig of hazel terminating in a forked end, which he pronounced to possess the virtue proper for the experiment that he was about to exhibit, holding the forked ends of the wand each between the finger and the thumb, and thus keeping the rod upright, he proceeded to pace the ruined aisles," &c. So it will be seen that we had Canadian successors of Dousterswivel in my time, but we had no Oldbucks.] The people of to-day will no doubt smile at these reminiscences of a past age, and think lightly of the life surroundings of these early pioneers of the Province. But it must not be forgotten that their condition of life was that of the first remove from the bush and the log cabin. There was abundance, without luxury, and it was so widely different from the struggle of earlier years that the people were contented and happy. "No people on earth," says Mr. Talbot, in 1823, "live better than the Canadians, so far as eating and drinking justify the use of the expression, for they may be truly said to fare sumptuously every day. Their breakfast not unfrequently consists of twelve or fourteen different ingredients, which are of the most heterogeneous nature. Green tea and fried pork, honeycomb and salted salmon, pound cake and pickled cucumbers, stewed chickens and apple- tarts, maple molasses and pease-pudding, gingerbread and sour-crout, are to be found at almost every table. The dinner differs not at all from the breakfast, and the afternoon repast, which they term supper, is equally substantial." The condition of the Province in 1830 could not be otherwise than pre- eminently satisfactory to its inhabitants. That a people who had been driven from their homes, in most cases destitute of the common needs of ordinary life, should have come into a vast wilderness, and, in the course of forty-six years, have founded a country, and placed themselves in circumstances of comfort and independence, seems to me to be one of the marvels of the century. The struggles and trials of the first settlers must ever be a subject of deepest interest to every true Canadian, and, as an illustration of the power of fixed principles upon the action of men, there are few things in the world's history that surpass it. It must be remembered that many, nay most, of the families who came here had, prior to and during the Revolutionary war, been men of means and position. All these advantages they were forced to abandon. They came into this country with empty hands, accepted the liberality of the British Government for two years, and went to work. Providence smiled upon their toils, and in the year of which I speak they had grown into a prosperous and happy people. The social aspect of things had changed but little. The habits and customs of early days still remained. The position of the inhabitants was one of exigency. The absorbing desire to succeed kept them at home. They knew but little of what was passing in the world outside, and as a general thing they cared less. Their chief interest was centred in the common welfare, and each contributed his or her share of intelligence and sagacity to further any plans that were calculated to promote the general good. Every day called for some new expedient in which the comfort or advantage of the whole was concerned, for there were no positions save those accorded to worth and intellect. The sufferings or misfortunes of a neighbour, as well as his enjoyments, were participated in by all. Knowledge and ability were respectfully looked up to, yet those who possessed these seemed hardly conscious of their gifts. The frequent occasions which called for the exercise of the mind, sharpened sagacity, and gave strength to character. Avarice and vanity were confined to narrow limits. Of money there was little. Dress was coarse and plain, and was not subject to the whims or caprices of fashion. The girls, from the examples set them by their mothers, were industrious and constantly employed. Pride of birth was unknown, and the affections flourished fair and vigorously, unchecked by the thorns and brambles with which our minds are cursed in the advanced stage of refinement of the present day. The secret of their success, if there was any secret in it, was the economy, industry and moderate wants of every member of the household. The clothing and living were the outcome of the farm. Most of the ordinary implements and requirements for both were procured at home. The neighbouring blacksmith made the axes, logging-chains and tools. He ironed the waggons and sleighs, and received his pay from the cellar and barn. Almost every farmer had his work-bench and carpenter's tools, which he could handle to advantage, as well as a shoemaker's bench; and during the long evenings of the fall and winter would devote some of his time to mending boots or repairing harness. Sometimes the old log-house was turned into a blacksmith shop. This was the case with the first home of my grandfather, and his seven sons could turn their hands to any trade, and do pretty good work. If the men's clothes were not made by a member of the household, they were made in the house by a sewing girl, or a roving tailor, and the boots and shoes were made by cobblers of the same itinerant stripe. Many of the productions of the farm were unsaleable, owing to the want of large towns for a market. Trade, such as then existed, was carried on mostly by a system of barter. The refuse apples from the orchard were turned into cider and vinegar for the table. The skins of the cattle, calves and sheep that were slaughtered for the wants of the family, were taken to the tanners, who dressed them, and returned half of each hide. The currency of the day was flour, pork and potash. The first two were in demand for the lumbermen's shanties, and the last went to Montreal for export. The ashes from the house and the log-heaps were either leached at home, and the lye boiled down in the large potash kettles--of which almost every farmer had one or two--and converted into potash, or became a perquisite of the wife, and were carried to the ashery, where they were exchanged for crockery or something for the house. Wood, save the large oak and pine timber, was valueless, and was cut down and burned to get it out of the way. I am enabled to give a list of prices current at that time of a number of things, from a domestic account-book, and an auction sale of my grandfather's personal estate, after his death in 1829. The term in use for an auction then was vendue. 1830 1880 A good horse $80.00 $120.00 Yoke of oxen 75.00 100.00 Milch cow 16.00 30.00 A hog 2.00 5.00 A sheep 2.00 5.00 Hay, per ton 7.00 12.00 Pork, per bbl. 15.00 12.00 Flour, per cwt. 3.00 3.00 Beef, " 3.50 6.00 Mutton, " 3.00 6.00 Turkeys, each 1.50 Ducks, per pair 1.00 Geese, each .80 Chickens, per pair .40 Wheat, per bushel 1.00 1.08 Rye, " .70 .85 Barley, " .50 1.00 Peas, " .40 .70 Oats, " .37 .36 Potatoes," .40 .35 Apples, " .50 .50 Butter, per pound .14 .25 Cheese, " .17 Lard, " .05 .12 Eggs, per dozen .10 .25 Wood, per cord 1.00 5.00 Calf skins, each 1.00 Sheep skins, each 1.00 West India molasses .80 .50 Tea, per pound .80 .60 Tobacco .25 .50 Honey .10 .25 Oysters, per quart .80 .40 Men's strong boots, per pair 3.00 Port wine, per gallon .80 2.75 Brandy, " 1.50 4.00 Rum, " 1.00 3.00 Whisky, " .40 1.40 Grey cotton, per yard .14 .10 Calico, " .20 .12 Nails, per pound .14 .04 Vegetables were unsaleable, and so were many other things for which the farmer now finds a ready market. The wages paid to a man were from eight to ten dollars, and a girl from two to three dollars, per month. For a day's work, except in harvest time, from fifty to seventy-five cents was the ordinary rate. Money was reckoned by L. s. d. Halifax currency, to distinguish it from the pound sterling. The former was equal to $4.00, and the latter, as now, to $4.87. Clocks were not common. It is true in most of the better class of old homes a stately old time-piece, whose face nearly reached the ceiling, stood in the hall or sitting-room, and measured off the hours with slow and steady beat. But the most common time-piece was a line cut in the floor, and when the sun touched his meridian height his rays were cast along this mark through a crack in the door; and thus the hour of noon was made known. A few years later the irrepressible Yankee invaded the country with his wooden clocks, and supplied the want. My father bought one which is still in existence (though I think it has got past keeping time), and paid ten pounds for it; a better one can be had now for as many shillings. The kitchen door, which, as I have already mentioned, was very often divided in the middle, so that the upper part could be opened and the lower half kept closed, was the general entrance to the house, and was usually provided with a wooden latch, which was lifted from the outside by a leather string put through the door. At night, when the family retired, the string was pulled in and the door was fastened against any one from the outside. From this originated the saying that a friend would always find the string on the latch. Carriages were not kept, for the simple reason that the farmer seldom had occasion to use them. He rarely went from home, and when he did he mounted his horse or drove in his lumber-waggon to market or to meeting. He usually had one or two waggon-chairs, as they were called, which would hold two persons very comfortably. These were put in the waggon and a buffalo skin thrown over them, and then the vehicle was equipped for the Sunday drive. There was a light waggon kept for the old people to drive about in, the box of which rested on the axles. The seat, however, was secured to wooden springs, which made it somewhat more comfortable to ride in. A specimen of this kind of carriage was shown by the York Pioneers at the Industrial Exhibition in this city. I have a clear recollection of the most common carriage kept in those days, and of my first ride in one. I was so delighted that I have never forgotten it. One Saturday afternoon, my father and mother determined to visit Grandfather C---, some six miles distant. We were made ready--that is to say, my sister and self--and the "yoke" was put to. Our carriage had but two wheels, the most fashionable mode then, and no steel springs; neither was the body hung upon straps. There was no cover to the seat, which was unique in its way, and original in its get-up. Neither was there a well-padded cushion to sit on, or a back to recline against. It was nothing more or less than a limber board placed across from one side of the box to the other. My father took his seat on the right, the place invariably accorded to the driver--we did not keep a coachman then--my mother and sister, the latter being an infant, sat on the opposite side, while I was wedged in the middle to keep me from tumbling out. My father held in his hand a long slender whip (commonly called a "gad") of blue beech, with which he touched the off-side animal, and said, "Haw Buck, gee 'long." The "yoke" obeyed, and brought us safely to our journey's end in the course of time. Many and many a pleasant ride have I had since in far more sumptuous vehicles, but none of them has left such a distinct and pleasing recollection. The houses were almost invariably inclosed with a picket or board fence, with a small yard in front. Shade and ornamental trees were not in much repute. All around lay the "boundless contiguity of shade;" but it awakened no poetic sentiment. To them it had been a standing menace, which had cost the expenditure of their best energies, year after year, to push further and further back. The time had not come for ornamenting their grounds and fields with shrubs and trees, unless they could minister to their comfort in a more substantial way. The gardens were generally well supplied with currant and gooseberry bushes. Pear, plum and cherry trees, as well as the orchard itself, were close at hand. Raspberries and strawberries were abundant in every new clearing. The sap-bush furnished the sugar and maple molasses. So that most of the requisites for good living were within easy hail. The first concern of a thrifty farmer was to possess a large barn, with out-houses or sheds attached for his hay and straw, and for the protection of his stock during the cold and stormy weather of fall and winter. Lumber cost him nothing, save the labour of getting it out. There was, therefore, but little to prevent him from having plenty of room in which to house his crops, and as the process of threshing was slow it necessitated more space than is required now. The granary, pig- pen and corncrib were usually separate. The number and extent of buildings on a flourishing homestead, inclosed with strong board fences, covered a wide area, but the barns, with their enormous peaked roofs, and the houses, with their dormer windows looking out from their steep sides, have nearly all disappeared, or have been transformed into more modern shape. It would be difficult to find much resemblance between the well-ordered house of the thriving farmer of to-day and that of half a century ago: In the first place the house itself is designed with an eye to convenience and comfort. There is more or less architectural taste displayed in its external appearance. It is kept carefully painted. The yawning fireplace in the kitchen, with its row of pots, has disappeared, and in its place the most approved cooking-stove or range, with its multifarious appendages, is found. On the walls hang numberless appliances to aid in cooking. Washing-machines, wringers, improved churns, and many other labour saving arrangements render the task of the house-wife comparatively easy, and enable her to accomplish much more work in a shorter time than the dear old grandmother ever dreamed of in the highest flights of her imagination. Her cupboards are filled with china and earthenware of the latest pattern. Pewter plates and buck- handled knives have vanished, and ivory-handled cutlery has taken their places. Britannia metal and pewter spoons have been sent to the melting- pot, and iron forks have given place to nickel and silver ones. The old furniture has found its way to the garret, and the house is furnished from the ware-rooms of the best makers. Fancy carpets cover the floor of every room. The old high-posted bedsteads, which almost required a ladder to get into, went to the lumber heap long ago, and low, sumptuous couches take their places. The great feather tick has been converted into the more healthy mattress, and the straw tick and cords have been replaced by spring bottoms. It used to be quite an arduous undertaking, I remember, to put up one of those old beds. One person took a wrench, kept for that purpose, and drew up the cord with it as tight as he could at every hole, and another followed with a hammer and pin, which was driven into the hole through which the end passed to hold it; and so you went on round the bed, until the cord was all drawn as tight as it could possibly be. Now a bedstead can be taken down and put up in a few moments by one person with the greatest ease. The dresses of both mother and daughters are made according to the latest styles, and of the best material. The family ride in their carriage, with fine horses, and richly-plated harness. The boys are sent to college, and the girls are polished in city boarding-schools. On the farm the change is no less marked. The grain is cut and bound with reaping machines, the grass with mowing machines, and raked with horse rakes. Threshing machines thresh and clean the grain. The farmer has machines for planting and sowing. The hoe is laid aside, and his corn and root crops are kept clean with cultivators. His ploughs and drags do better work with more ease to himself and his team. He has discovered that he can keep improved stock at less expense, and at far greater profit. In fact, the whole system of farming and farm labour has advanced with the same rapid strides that everything else has done; and now one man can accomplish more in the same time, and do it better, than half a dozen could fifty years ago. Musical instruments were almost unknown except by name. A stray fiddler, as I have said elsewhere, was about the only musician that ever delighted the ear of young or old in those days. I do not know that there was a piano in the Province. If there were any their number was so small that they could have been counted on the fingers of one hand. Now, every house in the land with any pretension to the ordinary comforts of life has either a piano or a melodeon, and every farmer's daughter of any position can run over the keys with as much ease and effect as a city belle. Passing along one of our streets not long since, I heard some one playing in a room adjoining a little grocery store. My attention was arrested by the skill of the player, and the fine tone of the instrument. While I was listening, a couple of ladies passed, one of whom said, "I do wonder if they have got a piano here." "Why not," said the other, "the pea-nut-man on ---- Street has one, and I don't see why every one else shouldn't have." I think all who have marked the changes that have taken place during the half century which is gone, will admit that we are a much faster people than our fathers were. We have jumped from change to change with marvellous rapidity. We could never endure the patient plodding way they travelled, nor the toil and privation they went through; and it is a good thing for us, perhaps, that they preceded us. Would it not be well for us occasionally to step aside from the bustle and haste which surrounds us, and look back. There are many valuable lessons to be gathered from the pages of the past, and it might be well, perhaps, were we to temper our anxiety to rise in the social scale with some of the sterling qualities that characterized our progenitors. Our smart boys now-a-days are far too clever to pursue the paths which their fathers trod, and in too many cases begin the career of life as second or third- rate professional men or merchants, while our daughters are too frequently turned into ornaments for the parlour. We know that fifty years ago the boys had to work early and late. West of England broadcloths and fine French fabrics were things that rarely, indeed, adorned their persons. Fashionable tailors and young gentlemen, according to the present acceptation of the term, are comparatively modern institutions in Canada. Fancy for a moment one of our young swells, with his fashionable suit, gold watch, chain, and rings, patent leather boots and kid gloves, and topped off with Christie's latest headgear, driving up to grandfather's door in a covered buggy and plated harness, fifty years ago! What would have been said, think you? My impression is that his astonishment would have been too great to find expression. The old man, no doubt, would have scratched his head in utter bewilderment, and the old lady would have pushed up her specs in order to take in the whole of the new revelation, and possibly might have exclaimed, "Did you ever see the beat?" The girls, I have no doubt, would have responded to their mother's ejaculation; and the boys, if at hand, would have laughed outright. My remarks, so far, have been confined altogether to the country settlements, and fifty years ago that was about all there was in this Province. Kingston was, in fact, the only town. The other places, which have far outstripped it since, were only commencing, as we shall see presently. Kingston was a place of considerable importance, owing to its being a garrison town; and its position at the foot of lake navigation gave promise of future greatness. The difference between town and country life as yet was not very marked, except with the few officers and officials. Clothes of finer and more expensive materials were worn, and a little more polish and refinement were noticeable. The professional man's office was in his house, and the merchant lived over his store. He dealt in all kinds of goods, and served his customers early and late. He bartered with the people for their produce, and weighed up the butter and counted out the eggs, for which he paid in groceries and dry goods. Now he has his house on a fashionable street, or a villa in the vicinity of the city, and is driven to his counting house in his carriage. His father, and himself, perhaps, in his boyhood, toiled in the summer time under a burning sun, and now he and his family take their vacation during hot weather at fashionable watering places, or make a tour in Europe. We have but little to complain of as a people. Our progress during the last fifty years has been such as cannot but be gratifying to every Canadian, and if we are only true to ourselves and the great principles that underlie real and permanent success, we should go on building up a yet greater and more substantial prosperity, as the avenues of trade which are being opened up from time to time become available. But let us guard against the enervating influences which are too apt to follow increase of wealth. The desire to rise in the social scale is one that finds a response in every breast; but it often happens that, as we ascend, habits and tastes are formed that are at variance not only with our own well-being, but with the well-being of those who may be influenced by us. One of the principal objects, it would seem, in making a fortune in these days, is to make a show. There are not many families in this Province, so far, fortunately, whose children can afford to lead a life of idleness. Indeed, if the truth must be told, the richest heir in our land cannot afford it. Still, when children are born with silver spoons in their mouths, the necessity to work is removed, and it requires some impulse to work when there is no actual need. But, fortunately, there are higher motives in this world than a life of inglorious ease. Wealth can give much, but it cannot make a man in the proper and higher sense, any more than iron can be transmuted into gold. It is a sad thing, I think, to find many of our wealthy farmers bringing up their children with the idea that a farmer is not as respectable as a counter-jumper in a city or village store, or that the kitchen is too trying for the delicate organization of the daughter, and that her vocation is to adorn the drawing-room, to be waited on by mamma, and to make a brilliant match. CHAPTER V. JEFFERSON'S DEFINITION OF "LIBERTY"--HOW IT WAS ACTED UPON--THE CANADIAN RENAISSANCE--BURNING POLITICAL QUESTIONS IN CANADA HALF A CENTURY AGO-- LOCOMOTION--MRS. JAMESON ON CANADIAN STAGE COACHES--BATTEAUX AND DURHAM BOATS. The American Revolution developed two striking pictures of the inconsistency of human nature. The author of the Declaration of Independence lays down at the very first this axiom: "We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are created _equal_; that among these, are life, _liberty_, and the pursuit of happiness." And yet this man, with members of others who signed the famous document, was a slave-holder, and contributed to the maintenance of a system which was a reproach and a stain upon the fair fame of the land, until it was wiped out with the blood of tens of thousands of its sons. The next picture that stands out in open contradiction to the declaration of equality of birth and liberty of action appears at the end of every war. The very men who had clamoured against oppression, and had fought for and won their freedom, in turn became the most intolerant oppressors. The men who had differed from them, and had adhered to the cause of the mother land, had their property confiscated, and were expelled from the country. Revolutions have ever been marked by cruelty. Liberty in France inaugurated the guillotine. The fathers of the American Revolution cast out their kindred, who found a refuge in the wilderness of Canada, where they endured for a time the most severe privations and hardships. This was the first illustration or definition of "liberty and the pursuit of happiness," from an American point of view. The result was not, perhaps, what was anticipated. The ten thousand or more of their expatriated countrymen were not to be subdued by acts of despotic injustice. Their opinions were dear to them, and were as fondly cherished as were the opinions of those who had succeeded in wrenching away a part of the old Empire under a plea of being oppressed. They claimed only the natural and sacred right of acting upon their honest convictions; and surely no one will pretend to say that their position was not as just and tenable, or that it was less honourable than that of those who had rebelled. I am not going to say that there was no cause of complaint on the part of those who threw down the gage of war. The truth about that matter has been conceded long ago. The enactments of the Home Government which brought about the revolt are matters with which we have nothing to do at this time. But when the war terminated and peace was declared, the attitude of the new Government toward those of their countrymen who had adhered to the Old Land from a sense of duty, was cruel, if not barbarous. It has no parallel in modern history, unless it be the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. The refugees, however, did not, like the Huguenots, find a home in an old settled country, but in the fastness of a Canadian forest; and it is wonderful that so many men and women, out of love for a distant land whose subjects they had been, and whose cause they had espoused, should have sacrificed everything, and passed from comfortable homes and dearly- loved kindred to desolation and poverty. It shows of what unbending material they were made. With their strong wills and stronger arms they laid the foundation of another country that yet may rival the land whence they were driven. This act no doubt occasioned the settlement of the Western Province many years earlier than it would have occurred under other circumstances; and notwithstanding the attempts that were made to subdue the country, our fathers proved, when the struggle came, that they had lost none of their patriotic fire, and though they were comparatively few in number, they were not slow to shoulder their muskets and march away in defence of the land of their adoption. There were no differences of opinion on this point. A people who had first been robbed of their worldly goods and then driven from the homes of their youth, were not likely soon to forget either their wrongs or their sufferings, nor to give up, without a struggle, the new homes they had made for themselves under the keenest privations and severest toils. As our fathers successfully resisted the one, so have their children treated the threats and blandishments that have been used from time to time to bring them under the protecting aegis of the stars and stripes. The wounds that were inflicted nearly a century ago have happily cicatrized, and we can now look with admiration on the happy progress of the American people in all that goes to make up a great and prosperous country. We hope to live in peace and unity with them. Still, we like our own country and its system of government better, and feel that we have no reason either to be discontented with its progress, or to doubt as to its future. The year 1830 may be taken as the commencement of a new order of things in Canada. The people were prosperous; immigration was rapidly increasing. A system of Government had been inaugurated which, if not all that could be desired, was capable of being moulded into a shape fit to meet the wants of a young and growing country. There were laws to protect society, encourage education, and foster trade and commerce. The application of steam in England and the United States, not only to manufacturing purposes but to navigation, which had made some progress, rapidly increased after this date, and the illustration given by Stephenson, in September of this year, of its capabilities as a motor in land transit, completely revolutionized the commerce of the world. It assailed every branch of industry, and in a few years transformed all. The inventive genius of mankind seemed to gather new energy. A clearer insight was obtained into the vast results opening out before it and into the innumerable inventions which have succeeded; for the more uniform and rapid production of almost every conceivable thing used by man has had its origin in this Nineteenth Century Renaissance. Our Province, though remote from this "new birth," could not but feel a touch of the pulsation that was stirring in the world, and, though but in its infancy, it was not backward in laying hold of these discoveries, and applying them as far as its limited resources would admit. As early as 1816 we had a steamer--the _Frontenac_--running on Lake Ontario, and others soon followed. The increase was much more rapid after the date referred to, and the improvement in construction and speed was equally marked. Owing to our sparse and scattered population, as well as our inability to build, we did not undertake the construction of railroads until 1853, when the Northern Railroad was opened to Bradford; but after that, we went at it in earnest, and we have kept at it until we have made our Province a network of railways. In order more fully to realize our position at this time, it must be borne in mind that our population only reached 210,437. Those whose recollection runs back to that time have witnessed changes in this Province difficult to realize as having taken place during the fifty years which have intervened. The first settlers found themselves in a position which, owing to the then existing state of things, can never occur again. They were cut off from communication, except by very slow and inadequate means, with the older and more advanced parts of America, and were, therefore, almost totally isolated. They adhered to the manners and customs of their fathers, and though they acquired property and grew up in sturdy independence, their habits and modes of living remained unchanged. But now the steamboat and locomotive brought them into contact with the world outside. They began to feel and see that a new state of things had been inaugurated; that the old paths had been forsaken; that the world had faced about and taken up a new line of march. And, as their lives had theretofore been lives of exigency, they were skilled in adapting themselves to the needs of the hour. Men who have been trained in such a school are quick at catching improvements and turning them to their advantage. It matters not in what direction these improvements tend, whether to agriculture, manufactures, education, or government; and we shall find that in all these our fathers were not slow to move, or unequal to the emergency when it was pressed upon them. One of the dearest privileges of a British subject is the right of free discussion on all topics, whether sacred or secular--more especially those of a political character--and of giving effect to his opinions at the polls. No people have exercised these privileges with more practical intelligence than the Anglo-Canadian. It must be confessed that half a century ago, and even much later, colonial affairs were not managed by the Home Government altogether in a satisfactory manner. At the same time there can hardly be a doubt that the measures emanating from the Colonial Office received careful consideration, or that they were designed with an honest wish to promote the well-being of the colonists, and not in the perfunctory manner which some writers have represented. The great difficulty has been for an old country like the mother land, with its long established usages, its time-honoured institutions, its veneration for precedent, its dislike to change, and its faith in its own wisdom and power, either to appreciate the wants of a new country, or to yield hastily to its demands. British statesmen took for granted that what was good for them was equally beneficial to us. Their system of government, though it had undergone many a change, even in its monarchical type, was the model on which the colonial governments were based; and when the time came we were set up with a Governor appointed by the Crown, a Council chosen by the Governor, and an Assembly elected by the people. They had an Established Church, an outcome of the Reformation, supported by the State. It was necessary for the welfare of the people and for their future salvation that we should have one, and it was given us, large grants of land being made for its support. A hereditary nobility was an impossibility, for the entire revenue of the Province in its early days would not have been a sufficient income for a noble lord. Still, there were needy gentlemen of good families, as there always have been, and probably ever will be, who were willing to sacrifice themselves for a government stipend. They were provided for and sent across the sea to this new land of ours, to fill the few offices that were of any importance. There was nothing strange or unnatural in all this, and if these newcomers had honestly applied themselves to the development of the country instead of to advancing their own interests, many of the difficulties which afterwards sprang up would have been avoided. The men who had made the country began to feel that they knew more about its wants than the Colonial Office, and that they could manage its affairs better than the appointees of the Crown, who had become grasping and arrogant. They began to discuss the question. A strong feeling pervaded the minds of many of the leading men of the day that a radical change was necessary for the well-being of the country, and they began to apply the lever of public opinion to the great fulcrum of agitation, in order to overturn the evils that had crept into the administration of public affairs. They demanded a government which should be responsible to the people, and not independent of them. They urged that the system of representation was unjust, and should be equalized. They assailed the party in power as being corrupt, and applied to them the epithet of the "Family Compact"-- a name which has stuck to them ever since, because they held every office of emolument, and dispensed the patronage to friends, to the exclusion of every man outside of a restricted pale. Another grievance which began to be talked about, and which remained a bone of contention for years, was the large grants of lands for the support of the Church of England. As the majority of the people did not belong to that body, they could not see why it should be taken under the protecting care of the State, while every other denomination was left in the cold. Hence a clamour for the secularization of the Clergy Reserves began to be heard throughout the land. These, with many other questions, which were termed abuses, raised up a political party the members whereof came to be known as Radicals, and who, later, were stigmatized by the opposing party as Rebels. The party lines between these two sides were soon sharply drawn and when Parliament met at York, early in January, 1830, it was discovered that a breach existed between the Executive Council and the House of Assembly which could not be closed up until sweeping changes had been effected. The Province at this time was divided into eleven districts, or twenty- six counties, which returned forty-one members to the Assembly, and the towns of York, Kingston, Brockville and Niagara returned one member each, making in all forty-five representatives. Obedient to the command of the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Colborne, the members of the different constituencies were finding their way with sleighs (the only means of conveyance in those days) through snow-drifts, on the first of the year, to the capital--the Town of York. The Province had not yet reached the dignity of possessing a city, and indeed the only towns were the four we have named, of which Kingston was the largest and most important. It had a population of 3,635, and York 2,860. A member from Winnipeg could reach Ottawa quicker, and with much more comfort now, than York could be reached from the Eastern and Western limits of the Province in those days. [Footnote: Fancy such an announcement as the following appearing in our newspapers in these days, prior to the opening of the House of Assembly:-- "To the proprietors and editors of the different papers in the Eastern part of the Province. Gentlemen: Presuming that the public will desire to be put in possession of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor's speech at the approaching Session of Parliament at an early date, and feeling desirous to gratify a public to which we are so much indebted, we shall make arrangements for having it delivered, free of expense, at Kingston, the day after it is issued from the press at York, that it may be forwarded to Montreal by mail on the Monday following. "We are, Gentlemen, "Your obedient servants, "H. NORTON & Co., Kingston, "W. WELLER, York. "January 2nd, 1830." The foregoing is clipped from an old number of the _Christian Guardian_.] Marshall Spring Bidwell was Speaker to the Assembly, and the following formed the Executive Council:--J. Baby, Inspector-General; John H. Dunn, Receiver-General; Henry John Boulton, Attorney-General; and Christopher A. Hagerman, Solicitor-General. On the opening of the House, the address was replied to by the Governor in one of the briefest speeches ever listened to on the floor of the Legislative Assembly: "Gentlemen of the House of Assembly, I thank you for your Address." The expense of Hansards would not be very considerable if the legislators of the present day followed the example of such brevity as this. Any one looking over the Journals of the Second Session of the Tenth Parliament will see that there was a liberal bill of fare provided. Every member had at least one petition to present, and altogether there were one hundred and fifty-one presented, some of which read strangely in the light of the present day. Among them was one from Addington, praying that means might be adopted "to secure these Provinces the trade of the West Indies, free from the United States competition." Another was from the Midland District, praying that an Act be passed to prevent itinerant preachers from coming over from the United States and spreading sedition, &c.; and another from Hastings, to dispose of the Clergy Reserves. "Mr. McKenzie gives notice that he will to-morrow move for leave to bring in a bill to establish finger posts;" and a few years later these "finger posts" could be seen at all the principal cross- roads in the Province. Among the bills there was a tavern and shop license bill; a bill establishing the Kingston Bank with a capital of L100,000; a bill authorizing a grant of L57,412 10s, for the relief of sufferers in the American War; and one authorizing a grant to the Kingston Benevolent Society, and also to the York Hospital and Dispensary established the year before. Among the one hundred and thirty-seven bills passed by the House of Assembly, nearly one hundred were rejected by the Legislative Council, which shows how near the two Houses had come to a dead-lock. In other respects there was nothing remarkable about the session. The really most important thing done was the formation of Agricultural Societies, and the aid granted them. But in looking over the returns asked for, and the grievance motions brought forward from time to time, one can see the gathering of the storm that broke upon the country in 1837-8, and, however much that outbreak is to be deplored, it hastened, no doubt, the settlement of the vexed questions which had agitated the public mind for years. The union of the two Provinces, Upper and Lower Canada, followed in 1841, and in 1867 Confederation took place, when our Province lost its old appellation, and has ever since been known as the Province of Ontario--the keystone Province of the Confederation. It was in 1830 that the name of Robert Baldwin first appeared in the list of members, and of the forty-five persons who represented the Province at that time I do not know that one survives. The death of George IV. brought about a dissolution, and an election took place in October. There was considerable excitement, and a good many seats changed occupants, but the Family Compact party were returned to power. A general election in those days was a weighty matter, because of the large extent of the constituencies, and the distance the widely- scattered electors had to travel--often over roads that were almost impassable--to exercise their franchise. There was but one polling place in each county, and that was made as central as possible for the convenience of the people. Often two weeks elapsed before all the votes could be got in, and during the contest it was not an uncommon thing for one side or the other to make an effort to get possession of the poll, and keep their opponents from voting. This frequently led to disgraceful fights, when sticks and stones were used with a freedom that would have done no discredit to Irish faction fights in their palmiest days. Happily, this is all changed now. The numerous polling places prevent a crowd of excited men from collecting together. Voters have but a short distance to go, and the whole thing is accomplished with ease in a day. Our representation, both for the Dominion and Provincial Parliaments, is now based upon population, and the older and more densely-populated counties are divided into ridings, so that the forty-eight counties and some cities and towns return to the Ontario Government eighty-eight members. Fifty years ago the Post Office Department was under the control of the British Government, and Thomas A. Stayner was Deputy Postmaster General of British North America. Whatever else the Deputy may have had to complain of, he certainly could not grumble at the extent of territory under his jurisdiction. The gross receipts of the Department were L8,029 2s 6d. [Footnote: I am indebted to W.H. Griffin, Esq., Deputy Postmaster General, for information, kindly furnished, respecting the Post Office Department, &c.] There were ninety-one post offices in Upper Canada. On the main line between York and Montreal the mails were carried by a public stage, and in spring and fall, owing to the bad roads, and even in winter, with its storms and snow-drifts, its progress was slow, and often difficult. There are persons still living who remember many a weary hour and trying adventure between these points. Passengers, almost perished with cold or famished with hunger, were often forced to trudge through mud and slush up to their knees, because the jaded horses could barely pull the empty vehicle through the mire or up the weary hill. They were frequently compelled to alight and grope around in impenetrable darkness and beating storm for rails from a neighbouring fence, with which to pry the wheels out of a mud-hole, into which they had, to all appearance, hopelessly sunk, or to dig themselves out of snow banks in which both horses and stage were firmly wedged. If they were so fortunate as to escape these mishaps, the deep ruts and corduroy bridges tried their powers of endurance to the utmost, and made the old coach creak and groan under the strain. Sometimes it toppled over with a crash, leaving the worried passengers to find shelter, if they could, in the nearest farm-house, until the damage was repaired. But with good roads and no break-downs they were enabled to spank along at the rate of seventy-five miles in a day, which was considered rapid travelling. Four-and-a-half days were required, and often more; to reach Montreal from York. A merchant posting a letter from the latter place, under the most favourable circumstances, could not get a reply from Montreal in less than ten days, or sometimes fifteen; and from Quebec the time required was from three weeks to a month. The English mails were brought by sailing vessels. Everything moved in those days with slow and uneven pace. The other parts of the Province were served by couriers on horseback, who announced their approach with blast of tin horn. That the offices were widely separated in most cases may be judged from their number. I recently came upon an entry made by my father in an old account book against his father's estate: "To one day going to the post office, 3s 9d." The charge, looked at in the light of these days, certainly is not large, but the idea of taking a day to go to and from a post office struck me as a good illustration of the inconveniences endured in those days. The correspondent, at that time, had never been blessed with a vision of the coming envelope, but carefully folded his sheet of paper into the desired shape, pushed one end of the fold into the other, and secured it with a wafer or sealing-wax. Envelopes, now universally used, were not introduced until about 1845-50, and even blotting paper, that indispensable requisite on every writing-table, was unknown. Every desk had its sand-box, filled with fine dry sand, which the writer sprinkled over his sheet to absorb the ink. Sometimes, at a pinch, ashes were used. Goose quill was the only pen. There was not such a thing, I suppose, as a steel pen in the Province. Gillott and Perry had invented them in 1828; but they were sold at $36 a gross, and were too expensive to come into general use. Neither was there such a thing as a bit of india rubber, so very common now. Erasures had to be made with a knife. Single rates of letter postage were, for distances not exceeding 60 miles, 4 1/2 d; not exceeding 100 miles, 7d; and not over 200 miles, 9d, increasing 2 1/4 d on every additional 100 miles. Letters weighing less than one ounce were rated as single, double or treble, as they consisted of one, two or more sheets. If weighing an ounce, or over, the charge was a single rate for every quarter of an ounce in weight. How is it now? The Post Office Department has been for many years under the control of our Government. There are in Ontario 2,353 Post-Offices, with a revenue of $914,382. The mails are carried by rail to all the principal points, and to outlying places and country villages by stage, and by couriers in light vehicles, with much greater despatch, owing to the improved condition of the highways. A letter of not over half an ounce in weight can be sent from Halifax to Vancouver for three cents. A book weighing five pounds can be sent the same distance for twenty cents, and parcels and samples at equally low rates. To England the rate for half an ounce is five cents, and for every additional half-ounce a single rate is added. Postage stamps and cards, the money order system, and Post Office savings banks have all been added since 1851. The merchant of Toronto can post a letter to-day, and get a reply from London; England, in less time than he could in the old days from Quebec. In 1830 correspondence was expensive and tedious. Letters were written only under the pressure of necessity. Now every one writes, and the number of letters and the revenue have increased a thousand fold. The steamship, locomotive and telegraph, all the growth of the last half century, have not only almost annihilated time and space, but have changed the face of the world. It is true there were steamboats running between York and Kingston on the Bay of Quinte and the St. Lawrence prior to 1830; but after that date they increased rapidly in number, and were greatly improved. It was on the 15th of September of that year that George Stephenson ran the first locomotive over the line between Liverpool and Manchester--a distance of thirty miles--so that fifty years ago this was the only railway with a locomotive in the world--a fact that can hardly be realised when the number of miles now in operation, and the vast sums of money expended in their construction, are considered. What have these agents done for us, apart from the wonderful impetus given to trade and commerce? You can post to your correspondent at Montreal at 6 p.m., and your letter is delivered at 11 a.m., and the next day at noon you have your answer. You take up your morning's paper, and you have the news from the very antipodes every day. The merchant has quotations placed before him, daily and hourly, from every great commercial centre in the world; and even the sporting man can deposit his money here, and have his bet booked in London the day before. From the first discovery of the country up to 1800, a period of about three hundred years, the bark canoe was the only mode of conveyance for long distances. Governor Simcoe made his journeys from Kingston to Detroit in a large bark canoe, rowed by twelve chasseurs, followed by another containing the tents and provisions. The cost of conveying merchandise between Kingston and Montreal before the Rideau and St. Lawrence canals were built is hardly credible to people of this day. Sir J. Murray stated in the House of Commons, in 1828, that the carriage of a twenty-four pound cannon cost between L150 and L200 sterling. In the early days of the Talbot Settlement (about 1817), Mr. Ermatinger states that eighteen bushels of wheat were required to pay for one barrel of salt, and that one bushel of wheat would no more than pay for one yard of cotton. Our fathers did not travel much, and there was a good reason, as we have seen, why they did not. The ordinary means of transit was the stage, which Mrs. Jameson describes as a "heavy lumbering vehicle, well calculated to live in roads where any decent carriage must needs founder." Another kind, used on rougher roads, consisted of "large oblong wooden boxes, formed of a few planks nailed together, and placed on wheels, in which you enter by the window, there being no door to open or shut, and no springs." On two or three wooden seats, suspended in leather straps, the passengers were perched. The behaviour of the better sort, in a journey from Niagara to Hamilton, is described by this writer as consisting of a "rolling and tumbling along the detestable road, pitching like a scow among the breakers of a lake storm." The road was knee-deep in mud, the "forest on either side dark, grim, and impenetrable." There were but three or four steamboats in existence, and these were not much more expeditious. Fares were high. The rate from York to Montreal was about $24. Nearly the only people who travelled were the merchants and officials, and they were not numerous. The former often took passage on sailing vessels or batteaux, and if engaged in the lumber trade, as many of them were, they went down on board their rafts and returned in the batteaux. "These boats were flat-bottomed, and made of pine boards, narrowed at bow and stern, forty feet by six, with a crew of four men and a pilot, provided with oars, sails, and iron-shod poles for pushing. They continued to carry, in cargoes of five tons, all the merchandise that passed to Upper Canada. Sometimes these boats were provided with a makeshift upper cabin, which consisted of an awning of oilcloth, supported on hoops like the roof of an American, Quaker, or gipsy waggon. If further provided with half a dozen chairs and a table, this cabin was deemed the height of primitive luxury. The batteaux went in brigades, which generally consisted of five boats. Against the swiftest currents and rapids the men poled their way up; and when the resisting element was too much for their strength, they fastened a rope to the bow, and, plunging into the water, dragged her by main strength up the boiling cataract. From Lachine to Kingston, the average voyage was ten to twelve days, though it was occasionally made in seven; an average as long as a voyage across the Atlantic now. The Durham boat, also then doing duty on this route, was a flat-bottomed barge, but it differed from the batteaux in having a slip-keel and nearly twice its capacity. This primitive mode of travelling had its poetic side. Amid all the hardships of their vocation, the French Canadian boatmen were ever light of spirit, and they enlivened the passage by carolling their boat songs; one of which inspired Moore to write his immortal ballad." [Footnote: Trout's Railways of Canada, 1870-1.] The country squire, if he had occasion to go from home, mounted his horse, and, with his saddle-bags strapped behind him, jogged along the highway or through the bush at the rate of forty or fifty miles a day. I remember my father going to New York in 1839. He crossed by steamboat from Kingston to Oswego; thence to Rome, in New York State, by canal- boat, and thence by rail and steamer to New York. CHAPTER VI. ROAD-MAKING--WELLER'S LINE OF STAGES AND STEAMBOATS--MY TRIP FROM HAMILTON TO NIAGARA--SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES--PIONEER METHODIST PREACHERS --SOLEMNIZATION OF MATRIMONY--LITERATURE AND LIBRARIES--WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS --PRIMITIVE EDITORIAL ARTICLES. The people were alive at a very early date to the importance of improving the roads; and as far back as 1793 an Act was passed at Niagara, then the seat of government, placing the roads under overseers or road-masters, as they were called, appointed by the ratepaying inhabitants at their annual town meetings. Every man was required to bring tools, and to work from three to twelve days. There was no property distinction, and the time was at the discretion of the roadmaster. This soon gave cause for dissatisfaction, and reasonably, for it was hardly fair to expect a poor man to contribute as much toward the improvement of highways as his rich neighbour. The Act was amended, and the number of days' work determined by the assessment roll. The power of opening new roads, or altering the course of old ones, was vested in the Quarter Sessions. This matter is now under the control of the County Councils. The first government appropriation for roads was made in 1804, when L1,000 was granted; but between 1830-33, $512,000 was provided for the improvement and opening up of new roads. The road from Kingston to York was contracted for by Dantford, an American, in 1800, at $90 per mile, two rods wide. The first Act required that every man should clear a road across his own lot, but it made no provision for the Clergy Reserves and Crown Lands, and hence the crooked roads that existed at one time in the Province. Originally the roads were marked out by blazing the trees through the woods as a guide for the pedestrian. Then the boughs were cut away, so that a man could ride through on horseback. Then followed the sleighs; and finally the trees were cleared off, so that a waggon could pass. "The great leading roads of the Province had received little improvement beyond being graded, and the swamps [had been] made passable by laying the round trunks of trees side by side across the roadway. Their supposed resemblance to the king's corduroy cloth gained for these crossways the name of corduroy roads. The earth roads were passably good when covered with the snows of winter, or when dried up in the summer sun; but even then a thaw or rain made them all but impassable. The rains of autumn and the thaws of spring converted them into a mass of liquid mud, such as amphibious animals might delight to revel in. Except an occasional legislative grant of a few thousand pounds for the whole Province, which was ill- expended, and often not accounted for at all, the great leading roads, as well as all other roads, depended, in Upper Canada, for their improvement on statute labour." [Footnote: II.] [Illustration: THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE.] The Rev. Isaac Fidler, writing in 1831, says: "On our arrival at Oswego, I proceeded to the harbour in quest of a trading vessel bound for York, in Canada, and had the good fortune to find one that would sail in an hour. I agreed with the captain for nine dollars, for myself, family, and baggage, and he on his part assured me that he would land me safe in twenty-four hours. Our provision was included in the fare. Instead of reaching York in one day, we were five days on the lake. There were two passengers, besides ourselves, equally disappointed and impatient. The cabin of the vessel served for the sitting, eating, and sleeping room of passengers, captain and crew. I expostulated strongly on this usage, but the captain informed me he had no alternative. The place commonly assigned to sailors had not been fitted up. We were forced to tolerate this inconvenience. The sailors slept on the floor, and assigned the berths to the passengers, but not from choice. The food generally placed before us for dinner was salt pork, potatoes, bread, water and salt; tea, bread and butter, and sometimes salt pork for breakfast and tea;" to which he adds, "no supper." One would think, under the circumstances, this privation would have been a cause for thankfulness. The same writer speaks of a journey to Montreal the following year: "From York to Montreal, we had three several alterations of steamboats and coaches. The steamboat we now entered was moored by a ledge of ice, of a thickness so great as to conceal entirely the vessel, till we approached close upon it. We embarked by steps excavated in the ice, for the convenience of the passengers." The following advertisement, from the _Christian Guardian_ of 1830, may prove not uninteresting as an evidence of the competition then existing between the coach and steamboat, and is pretty conclusive that at that date the latter was not considered very much superior or more expeditious: "NEW LINE OF STAGES AND STEAMBOATS FROM YORK TO PRESCOTT. "The public are respectfully informed that a line of stages will run regularly between YORK and the CARRYING PLACE, [Footnote: The Carrying Place is at the head of the Bay of Quinte.] twice a week, the remainder of the season, leaving YORK every MONDAY and THURSDAY morning at 4 o'clock; passing through the beautiful townships of Pickering, Whitby, Darlington and Clark, and the pleasant villages of Port Hope; Cobourg and Colborne, and arriving at the CARRYING PLACE the same evening. Will leave the CARRYING PLACE every TUESDAY and FRIDAY morning at 4 o'clock, and arrive at York the same evening. "The above arrangements are made in connection with the steamboat _Sir James Kempt_, so that passengers travelling this route will find a pleasant and speedy conveyance between York and Prescott, the road being very much repaired, and the line fitted up with good horses, new carriages, and careful drivers. Fare through from York to Prescott, L2 10s, the same as the lake boats. Intermediate distances, fare as usual. All baggage at the risk of the owner. N.B.--Extras furnished at York, Cobourg, or the Carrying Place, on reasonable terms. "WILLIAM WELLER. "York, June 9th. 1830." I remember travelling from Hamilton to Niagara in November, 1846. We left the hotel at 6 p.m. Our stage, for such it was called, was a lumber waggon, with a rude canvas cover to protect us from the rain, under which were four seats, and I have a distinct recollection that long before we got to our journey's end we discovered that they were not very comfortable. There were seven passengers and the driver. The luggage was corded on behind in some fashion, and under the seats were crowded parcels, so that when we got in we found it difficult to move or to get out. One of our passengers, a woman with a young child, did not contribute to our enjoyment, or make the ride any more pleasant, for the latter poor unfortunate screamed nearly the whole night through. Occasionally it would settle down into a low whine, when a sudden lurch of the waggon or a severe jolt would set it off again with full force. The night was very dark, and continued so throughout, with dashes of rain. The roads were very bad, and two or three times we had to get out and walk, a thing we did not relish, as it was almost impossible for us to pick our way, and the only thing for it was to push on as well as we could through the mud and darkness. We reached Niagara just as the sun was rising. Our appearance can readily be imagined. "In 1825, William L. Mackenzie described the road between York and Kingston as among the worst that human foot ever trod, and down to the latest day before the railroad era, the travellers in the Canadian stage coach were lucky if, when a hill had to be ascended, or a bad spot passed, they had not to alight and trudge ankle deep through the mud. The rate at which it was possible to travel in stage coaches depended on the elements. In spring, when the roads were water-choked and rut- gullied, the rate might be reduced to two miles an hour for several miles on the worst sections. The coaches were liable to be embedded in the mud, and the passengers had to dismount and assist in prying them out by means of rails obtained from the fences." [Footnote: Trout's _Railways of Canada_] Such was the condition of the roads up to, and for a considerable time after, 1830, and such were the means provided for the public who were forced to use them. It can easily be conceived, that the inducements for pleasure trips were so questionable that the only people who journeyed, either by land or water, were those whose business necessities compelled them to do so. Even in 1837, the only road near Toronto on which it was possible to take a drive was Y'onge Street, which had been macadamized a distance of twelve miles. But the improvements since then, and the facilities for quick transit, have been very great. The Government has spent large sums of money in the construction of roads and bridges. A system of thorough grading and drainage has been adopted. In wet swampy land, the corduroy has given place to macadamized or gravel roads, of which there are about 4,000 miles in the Province. [Footnote: In order to ascertain the number of miles of macadamized roads in the Province, after hunting in vain in other quarters, I addressed a circular to the Clerk of the County Council in each county, and received thirty replies, out of thirty-seven. From these I gathered that there were about the number of miles, above stated. Several replied that they had no means of giving the desired information, and others thought there were about so many miles. I was forced to the conclusion that the road accounts of the Province were not very systematically kept.] Old log bridges have been superseded by stone, iron, and well-constructed wooden ones, so that in the older sections the farmer is enabled to reach his market with a well-loaded waggon during the fall and spring. The old system of tolls has been pretty much done away with, and even in the remote townships the Government has been alive to the importance of uninterrupted communication, and has opened up good central highways. The batteaux and sailing vessels, as a means of travel, with the old steamer and its cramped up cabin in the hold, and its slow pace, have decayed and rotted in the dockyard, and we have now swift boats, with stately saloons running from bow to stern, fitted in luxurious style, on either sides rows of comfortable sleeping rooms, and with a _table d'hote_ served as well as at a first class modern hotel. Travelling by steamer now is no longer a tediously drawn out vexation, but in propitious weather a pleasure. A greater change has taken place in our land travel, but it is much more recent. The railroad has rooted out the stage, except to unimportant places, and you can now take a Pullman at Toronto at 7 p.m., go to bed at the proper time, and get up in Montreal at 10.30 a.m. the next day. The first railroad on which a locomotive was run was the Northern, opened in 1853, to Bradford. Since that time up to the present we have built, and now have in operation, 3,478 miles, in addition to 510 under construction or contract. [Footnote: This is exclusive of the C.P.R.] Washington, in his farewell address, says: "Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened." Fifty years ago, education, even in the older and more enlightened countries, did not receive that attention which its importance to the well-being of society and the state demanded, and it is only during recent years, comparatively speaking, that the education of the masses has been systematically attempted. Indeed, it used to be thought by men of birth and culture that to educate the poor would lead to strife and confusion--that ignorance was their normal condition, and that any departure therefrom would increase their misery and discontent. Those notions have, happily, been exploded, and it is found that education is the best corrective to the evils that used to afflict society and disturb the general peace. It goes hand in hand with religion and good order, and so convinced have our rulers become of its importance to the general weal, that not only free but compulsory education has become the law of the land. It is not to be wondered at that half a century ago our school system--if we could be said to have one--was defective. Our situation and the circumstances in which we were placed were not favourable to the promotion of general education. The sparseness of the population and the extent of territory over which it was scattered increased the difficulty; but its importance was not overlooked, and in the early days of the Province grants of land were made for educational purposes. The first classical school--indeed the first school of any kind--was opened in Kingston, by Dr. Stuart, in 1785, and the first common school was taught by J. Clark, in Fredericksburg, 1786. In 1807 an Act was passed to establish grammar schools in the various districts, with a grant of L100 to each. But it was not until 1816 that the government took any steps towards establishing common schools. The Lieutenant-Governor, in his Speech from the Throne on opening the House, in January, 1830, said:-- "The necessity of reforming the Royal Grammar School was evident from your Report at the close of the session. By the establishing of a college at York, under the guidance of an able master, the object which we have in view will, I trust, be speedily attained. The delay that may take place in revising the charter of the university, or in framing one suitable to the Province and the intention of the endowment, must, in fact, under present circumstances, tend to the advancement of the institution; as its use depended on the actual state of education in the Province. Dispersed as the population is over an extensive territory, a general efficiency in the common schools cannot be expected, particularly whilst the salaries of the masters will not admit of their devoting their whole time to their profession." As far as my recollection goes, the teachers were generally of a very inferior order, and rarely possessed more than a smattering of the rudiments of grammar and arithmetic. As the Governor points out, they were poorly paid, and "boarded around" the neighbourhood. But it is not improbable that they generally received all their services were worth. In those days most of the country youth who could manage to get to school in winter were content if they learned to read and write, and to wade through figures as far as the Rule of Three. Of course there were exceptions, as also with the teachers, but generally this was the extent of the aspiration of the rising generation, and it was not necessary for the teacher to be profoundly learned to lead them as far as they wished to go. I knew an old farmer of considerable wealth who would not allow his boys to go to school, because, he said, if they learned to read and write they might forge notes. He evidently considered "a little learning a dangerous thing," and must have had a very low estimate of the moral tone of his offspring, if he had any conception of morality at all. However, the safeguard of ignorance which the old man succeeded in throwing around his family did not save them, for they all turned out badly. The books in use were Murray's Grammar, Murray's English Reader, Walker's Dictionary, Goldsmith's and Morse's Geography, Mayor's Spelling Book; Walkingame's and Adam's Arithmetic. The pupil who could master this course of study was prepared, so far as the education within reach could fit him, to undertake the responsibilities of life; and it was generally acquired at the expense of a daily walk of several miles through deep snow and intense cold, with books and dinner-basket in hand. The school-houses where the youth were taught were in keeping with the extent of instruction received within them. They were invariably small, with low ceilings, badly lighted, and without ventilation. The floor was of rough pine boards laid loose, with cracks between them that were a standing menace to jackknives and slate pencils. [Footnote: Atlantic Monthly.] The seats and desks were of the same material, roughly planed and rudely put together. The seats were arranged around the room on three sides, without any support for the back, and all the scholars sat facing each other, the girls on one side and the boys on the other. The seats across the end were debatable ground between the two, but finally came to be monopolized by the larger boys and girls who, by some strange law of attraction, gravitated together. Between was an open space in which the stove stood, and when classes were drawn up to recite, the teacher's desk stood at the end facing the door, and so enabled the teacher to take in the school at a glance. But the order maintained was often very bad. In fact it would be safe to say the greatest disorder generally prevailed. The noise of recitations, and the buzz and drone of the scholars at their lessons, was sometimes intolerable, and one might as well try to study in the noisy caw-caw of a rookery. Occasionally strange performances were enacted in those country school-rooms. I remember a little boy between seven and eight years old getting a severe caning for misspelling a simple word of two syllables, and as I happened to be the little boy I have some reason to recollect the circumstance. The mistake certainly did not merit the castigation, the marks of which I carried on my back for many days, and it led to a revolt in the school which terminated disastrously to the teacher. Two strong young men attending the school remonstrated with the master, who was an irascible Englishman, during the progress of my punishment, and they were given to understand that if they did not hold their peace they would get a taste of the same, whereupon they immediately collared the teacher. After a brief tussle around the room, during which some of the benches were overturned, the pedagogue was thrown on the floor, and then one took him by the nape of the neck, and the other by the heels, and he was thrown out of doors in the snow. There were no more lessons heard that day. On the next an investigation followed, when the teacher was dismissed, and those guilty of the act of insubordination were admonished. Dr. Thomas Rolph thus refers to the state of schools two years later: "It is really melancholy to traverse the Province and go into many of the common schools; you find a brood of children, instructed by some Anti-British adventurer, instilling into the young and tender mind sentiments hostile to the parent State; false accounts of the late war in which Great Britain was engaged with the United States; geography setting forth New York, Philadelphia, Boston, &c., as the largest and finest cities in the world; historical reading books describing the American population as the most free and enlightened under heaven, insisting on the superiority of their laws and institutions to those of all the world, in defiance of the agrarian outrages and mob supremacy daily witnessed and lamented; and American spelling books, dictionaries, and grammars, teaching them an Anti-British dialect and idiom, although living in a British Province and being subjects to the British Crown." There was a Board of Education consisting of five members appointed to each district, who had the over-sight of the schools. Each school section met annually at what was called the School meeting, and appointed three trustees, who engaged teachers, and superintended the general management of the schools in their section. The law required that every teacher should be a British subject, or that he should take the oath of allegiance. He was paid a fee of fifteen shillings per quarter for each scholar, and received a further sum of $100 from the Government if there were not fewer than twenty scholars taught in the school. Upper Canada College, the only one in the Province, began this year (1830), under the management of Dr. Harris. Grantham Academy, in the Niagara District, was incorporated, and the Methodist Conference appointed a Committee to take up subscriptions to build an academy and select a site. The last named, when built, was located at Cobourg, and the building which was begun in 1832 was completed in 1836, when the school was opened. There were 11 district and 132 common schools, with an attendance of 3,677, and an expenditure of L3,866 11s 61/2 d. There was very little change in our school laws for several years. Grants were annually made in aid of common schools, but there was no system in the expenditure; consequently the good effected was not very apparent. The first really practical school law was passed in 1841, the next year when the union of the Provinces went into effect; and in 1844 Dr. Ryerson was appointed Chief Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada, which office he held for thirty-two years. During that time, through his indefatigable labours, our school laws have been moulded and perfected, until it is safe to say we have the most complete and efficient school system in the world. The influence it has exercised on the intellectual development of the people has been very great, and it is but reasonable to expect that it will continue to raise the standard of intelligence and high moral character throughout the land. Our Government has, from the very first, manifested an earliest desire to promote education in the Province. During Dr. Ryerson's long term of office, it liberally supplied him with the necessary means for maturing his plans and introducing such measures as would place our educational system on the best footing that could be devised. This has been accomplished in a way that does honour, not only to the head that conceived it, but to the enlightened liberality of the Government that seconded the untiring energy of the man who wrought it out. The advantages which the youth of Ontario to-day possess in acquiring an education over the time when I was first sent to school with dinner basket in hand, trudging along through mud or snow, to the old school- house by the road side, where I was perched upon a high pine bench without a back, with a Mavor's spelling book in hand, to begin the foundation of my education, are so many and great that it is difficult to realize the state of things that existed, or that men of intelligence should have selected such a dry and unattractive method of imparting instruction to children of tender years. It is to be feared that there are many of our Canadian youth who do not appreciate the vantage ground they occupy, nor the inviting opportunities that lie within the reach of all to obtain a generous education. There is absolutely nothing to prevent any young person possessing the smallest spark of ambition from acquiring it, and making himself a useful member of society. "It is the only thing," says Milton, in his "Literary Musings," "which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices both private and public of peace and war." There seems to be a growing disposition in the public mind to do away with the first important educational landmark established in the Province. Why this should be, or why its influence for good should at any time have been so much crippled as even to give occasion to call its usefulness in question seems strange. One would think that its intimate connection with our early history; the good work accomplished by it, and the number of men who have passed out of it to fill the highest public positions in the gift of the Province, would save it from violent hands, and furnish ample reasons for devising means to resuscitate it, if it needs resuscitation, and to place it in a position to hold its own with the various institutions that have come into existence since its doors were first thrown open to the young aspirants for a higher education half a century ago. The opening of Upper Canada College in 1830 gave an impetus to education which soon began to be felt throughout the Province. It was impossible, in the nature of things, that with increasing population and wealth there should be no advance in our educational status. If the forty-six years that had passed had been almost exclusively devoted to clearing away the bush and tilling the land, a time had now arrived when matters of higher import to future success and enjoyment pressed themselves upon the attention of the people. The farm could not produce all the requirements of life, nor furnish congenial employment to many active minds. The surplus products of the field and forest, in order to become available as a purchasing power, had to be converted into money, and this set in motion the various appliances of commerce. Vessels were needed to carry their produce to market, and merchants to purchase it, who, in turn, supplied the multifarious wants of the household. Then came the mechanic and the professional man, and with the latter education was a necessity. It was not to be expected that the tastes of the rising generation would always run in the same groove with the preceding, and as wealth and population increased, so did the openings for advancement in other pursuits; and scores of active young men throughout the Province were only too anxious to seize upon every opportunity that offered to push their way up in life. Hence it happened that when Upper Canada College first threw open its doors, more than a hundred young men enrolled their names. In a comparatively short time the need for greater facilities urged the establishment of other educational institutions, and this led to still greater effort to meet the want. Again, as the question pressed itself more and more upon the public mind, laws were enacted and grants made to further in every way so desirable an object. Hence, what was a crude and inadequate school organization prior to 1830, at that time and afterwards began to assume a more concrete shape, and continued to improve until it has grown into a system of which the country may well be proud. The contrast we are enabled to present is wonderful in every respect. Since the parent college opened its doors to the anxious youths of the Province, five universities and the same number of colleges have come into existence. The faculties of these several institutions are presided over by men of learning and ability. They are amply furnished with libraries, apparatus and all the modern requirements of first-class educational institutions. Their united rolls show an attendance of about 1,500 students last year. There are 10 Collegiate Institutes and 94 High Schools, with an attendance of 12,136 pupils; 5,147 Public Schools, with 494,424 enrolled scholars; and the total receipts for school purposes amounted to $3,226,730. Besides these, there are three Ladies' Colleges, and several other important educational establishments devoted entirely to the education of females, together with private and select schools in almost every city and town in the Province, many of which stand very high in public estimation. There are two Normal Schools for the training of teachers. The one in Toronto has been in existence for 29 years, and is so well known that it is unnecessary for me to attempt any description of it. The total number of admissions since its foundation have been 8,269. The Ottawa school, which has been in operation about two years, has admitted 433. Three other important educational institutions have been established by the Government in different parts of the Province. The Deaf and Dumb Institute at Belleville is pleasantly situated on the shore of the Bay of Quinte, a little west of the city. The number in attendance is 269, and the cost of maintenance for the past year $38,589. The Institute for the Blind at Brantford numbers 200 inmates, and the annual expenditure is about $30,000. These institutions, erected at a very large outlay, are admirably equipped, and under the best management, and prove a great boon to the unfortunate classes for whom they were established. The Agricultural College at Guelph, for the training of young men in scientific and practical husbandry, though in its infancy, is a step in the right direction, and must exercise a beneficial influence upon the agricultural interests of the country. Of medical corporations and schools, there are the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario; the Faculty of the Toronto School of Medicine; Trinity Medical School; Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons; Canada Medical Association; Ontario College of Pharmacy; Royal College of Dental Surgeons; and Ontario Veterinary College. There is also a School of Practical Science, now in its fourth year. This, though not a complete list of the educational institutions and schools of the Province, will nevertheless give a pretty correct idea of the progress made during the fifty years that are gone. The accommodation furnished by the school sections throughout the country has kept pace with the progress of the times. As a rule the school-houses are commodious, and are built with an eye to the health and comfort of the pupils. The old pine benches and desks have disappeared before the march of improvement--my recollection of them is anything but agreeable--and the school-rooms are furnished with comfortable seats and desks combined. The children are no longer crowded together in small, unventilated rooms. Blackboards, maps and apparatus are furnished to all schools. Trained teachers only are employed, and a uniform course of study is pursued, so that each Public School is a stepping-stone to the High School, and upward to the College or University. Great attention has been paid by the Education Department to the selection of a uniform series of text books throughout the course, adapted to the age and intelligence of the scholars; and if any fault can be found with it, I think it should be in the number. The variety required in a full course--even of English study--is a serious matter. The authorities, however, have laboured earnestly to remove every difficulty that lies in the student's path, and to make the way attractive and easy. That they have succeeded to a very great extent is evident from the highly satisfactory report recently presented by the Minister of Education. With the increasing desire for a better education there seems to be a growing tendency on the part of young men to avail themselves of such aids as shall push them towards the object in view with the smallest amount of work; and instead of applying themselves with energy and determination to overcome the difficulties that face them in various branches of study, they resort to the keys that may be had in any bookstore. It is needless to repeat what experience has proved, in thousands of instances, that the young man who goes through his mathematical course by the aid of these, or through his classical studies by the use of translations, will never make a scholar. Permanent success in any department of life depends on earnest work, and the more arduous the toil to secure an object, so much the more is it prized when won. Furthermore, it is certain to prove more lasting and beneficial. The same causes that hindered the progress of education also retarded the advance of religion. The first years of a settler's life are years of unremitting toil; a struggle, in fact, for existence. Yet, though settlers had now in a measure overcome their greater difficulties, the one absorbing thought that had ground its way into the very marrow of their life still pressed its claims upon their attention. The paramount question with them had been how to get on in the world. They were cut off, too, from all the amenities of society, and were scattered over a new country, which, prior to their coming, had been the home of the Indian--where all the requirements of civilization had to be planted and cultivated anew. They had but barely reached a point when really much attention could be devoted to anything but the very practical aim of gaining their daily bread. It will readily be admitted that there is no condition in life that can afford to put away religious instruction, and there is no doubt that the people at first missed these privileges, and often thought of the time when they visited God's House with regularity. But the toil and moil of years had worn away these recollections, and weakened the desire for sacred things. There can be no doubt that prior to, and even up to 1830, the religious sentiment of the greater portion of the people was anything but strong. The Methodists were among the first, if not actually the first, to enter the field and call them back to the allegiance they owed to the God who had blessed and protected them. [Footnote: Dr. Stuart, of Kingston, Church of England, was the first minister in Upper Canada, Mr. Langworth, of the same denomination, in Bath; and Mr. Scamerhorn, Lutheran minister at Williamsburgh, next.] Colonels Neal and McCarty began to preach in 1788, but the latter was hunted out of the country. [Footnote: Playter.] Three years later, itinerant preachers began their work and gathered hearers, and made converts in every settlement. But these men, the most of whom came from the United States, were looked upon with suspicion [Footnote: I have in my possession an old manuscript book, written by my grandfather in 1796, in which this point is brought out. Being a Quaker, he naturally did not approve of the way those early preachers conducted services. Yet he would not be likely to exaggerate what came under his notice. This is what he says of one he heard: "I thought he exerted every nerve by the various positions in which he placed himself to cry, stamp and smite, often turning from exhortation to prayer. Entreating the Almighty to thunder, or rather to enable him to do it. Also, to smite with the sword, and to use many destroying weapons, at which my mind was led from the more proper business of worship or devotion to observe, what appeared to me inconsistent with that quietude that becometh a messenger sent from the meek Jesus to declare the glad tidings of the gospel. If I compared the season to a shower, as has heretofore been done, it had only the appearance of a tempest of thunder, wind and hail, destitute of the sweet refreshing drops of a gospel-shower."] by many who did not fall in with their religious views; and it is not surprising that some even went so far as to petition the Legislature to pass an Act which should prevent their coming into the country to preach. It was said, and truly, when the matter about this was placed before the Government, that the connection existing between the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States and Canada was altogether a spiritual and not a political connection; that the Methodists of Canada were as loyal to the British Crown as any of its subjects, and had proved it again and again in the time of trouble. Yet, looking back and remembering the circumstances under which the people came, it does not seem so very strange to us that they should have looked very doubtfully upon evangelists from a land which not only stripped them and drove them away, but a little later invaded their country. Neither do we wonder that some of them were roughly treated, nor that unpleasant epithets were thrown out against their followers. This was the outcome, not only of prejudice, but the recollection of injuries received. There were a good many angularities about Christian character in those days, and they frequently stood out very sharply. They were not friends or enemies by halves. Their prejudices were deeply seated, and if assailed were likely to be resisted, and if pressed too closely in a controversy, were more disposed to use the _argumentum baculinum_, as being more effectual than the _argumentum ad judicicium_. But time gradually wore away many of those asperities, and now few will deny that the position our Province holds to-day is to a considerable extent owing to this large and influential body of Christians. They built the first house devoted to public worship in the Province; through their zeal and energy, the people were stirred up to a sense of their religious obligation; their activity infused life and action into other denominations. The people generally throughout the country had the bread of life broken to them with regularity, so that in the year of Grace 1830 a new order of things was inaugurated. But with all this, a vastly different state of affairs existed then from that now prevailing. No one could accuse the preachers of those days of mercenary motives, for they were poorly paid, and carried their worldly possessions on their backs. Their labour was arduous and unremitting. They travelled great distances on foot and on horseback, at all seasons and in all weathers, to fill appointments through the bush--fording rivers, and enduring hardships and privations that seem hardly possible to be borne. A circuit often embraced two or three districts. The places of worship were small and far apart, and fitted up with rude pine benches, the men sitting on the one side and the women on the other. Often forty or fifty miles would have to be traversed from one appointment to another, and when it was reached, whether at a neighbour's house, a school-house, a barn or a meeting house, the people assembled to hear the word, and then the preacher took his way to the next place on his circuit. Mr. Vanest says: "In summer we crossed ferries, and in winter we rode much on ice. Our appointment was thirty-four miles distant, without any stopping-place. Most of the way was through the Indian's land--otherwise called the Mohawk Woods. In summer I used to stop half-way in the woods and turn my horse out where the Indians had had their fires. In winter I would take some oats in my saddle-bags, and make a place in the snow to feed my horse. In many places there were trees fallen across the path, which made it difficult to get around in deep snow. I would ask the Indians why they did not cut out the trees. One said, 'Indian like deer; when he no cross under he jump over.' There was seldom any travelling that way, which made it bad in deep snow. At one time when the snow was deep, I went on the ice till I could see clear water, so I thought it time to go ashore. I got off my horse and led him, and the ice cracked at every step. If I had broken through, there would have been nothing but death for us both. I got to the woods in deep snow, and travelled up the shore till I found a small house, when I found the course of my path, keeping a good look-out for the marked trees. I at last found my appointment about seven o'clock. If I had missed my path I do not know what would have become of me. At my stopping-place the family had no bread or meal to make any of, till they borrowed some of a neighbour; so I got my dinner and supper about eleven o'clock on Saturday night. On Sabbath I preached. On Monday I rode about four miles, crossed the Bay (Quinte), and then rode seventeen miles through the woods without seeing a house, preached and met a class for a day's work." Another writer says: "We had to go twenty miles without seeing a house, and were guided by marked trees, there being no roads. At one time my colleague was lost in getting through the woods, when the wolves began to howl around him, and the poor man felt much alarmed; but he got through unhurt." [Footnote: Dr. Carroll.] These incidents occurred some years before the date of which I speak, but the same kind of adventures were happening still. It did not take long to get away from the three or four concessions that stretched along the bay and lakes, and outside of civilization. I remember going with my father and mother, about 1835, on a visit to an uncle who had settled in the bush [Footnote: This was in the oldest settled part of the Province--the Bay of Quinte.] just ten miles away, and in that distance, we travelled a wood road for more than five miles. The snow was deep and the day cold. We came out upon the clearing of a few acres, and drove up to the door of the small log house, the only one then to be seen. The tall trees which environed the few acres carved out of the heart of the bush waved their naked branches as if mocking at the attempt to put them away. The stumps thrust their heads up through the snow on every hand, and wore their winter caps with a jaunty look, as if they too did not intend to give up possession without a struggle. The horses were put in the log stable, and after warming ourselves we had supper, and then gathered round the cheerful fire. When bed-time came, we ascended to our sleeping room by a ladder, my father carrying me up in his arms. We had not been long in bed when a pack of wolves gathered round the place and began to howl, making through all the night a most dismal and frightful noise. Sleep was out of the question, and for many a night after that I was haunted by packs of howling wolves. On our return the next day I expected every moment to see them come dashing down upon us until we got clear of the woods. This neighbourhood is now one of the finest in the Province, and for miles fine houses and spacious well-kept barns and outhouses are to be seen on every farm. I have been unable to get at any correct data respecting the number of adherents of the various denominations in the Province for the year 1830. The total number of ministers did not reach 150, while they now exceed 2,500. [Footnote: The number of ministers, as given in the Journals of the House of Assembly for 1831, are 57 Methodist, 40 Baptist, 14 Presbyterian, and 32 Church of England. For the last I am indebted to Dr. Scadding.] There were but three churches in Toronto, then called York. One of these was an Episcopalian Church, occupying the present site of St. James's Cathedral. It was a plain wooden structure, 50 by 40, with its gables facing east and west; the entrance being by a single door off Church Street. [Footnote: _Toronto of Old._] The others were a Presbyterian and a Methodist church. The latter was built in 1818, and was a long, low building, 40 by 60. In the gable end, facing King Street, were two doors, one for each sex, the men occupying the right and the women the left side of the room. It was warmed in winter by a rudely constructed sheet-iron stove. The usual mode of lighting it for night services was by tallow candles placed in sconces along the walls, and in candlesticks in the pulpit. I am sure I shall be safe in saying that there were not 150 churches or chapels all told in the Province. All of them were small, and many of them were of the most humble character. There are probably as many clergymen and more than half as many churches in Toronto now, as there were in all Upper Canada fifty years ago. The difference does not consist in the number of the latter alone but in the size and character of the structures. The beautiful and commodious churches, with their lofty spires and richly arranged interiors, that meet the gaze on every hand in Toronto, have not inappropriately given it the proud title of "the city of churches," and there are several of them, any one of which would comfortably seat the entire population of York in the days of which I have spoken. There were no organs, and I am not sure that there were any in America. Indeed, if there had been the good people of those days would have objected to their use. Those who remember the three early churches I have mentioned--and those who do not can readily picture them with their fittings and seating capacity--will recall the dim, lurid light cast on the audience by the flickering candles. Turn, now, for example, to the Metropolitan Church on an evening's service. Notice the long carpeted aisles, the rich upholstery, the comfortable seats, the lofty ceilings, the spacious gallery and the vast congregation. An unseen hand touches an electric battery, and in a moment hundreds of gas jets are aflame, and the place is filled with a blaze of light. Now the great organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. Surely the contrast is almost incredible, and what we have said on this point in regard to Toronto may be said of every city, town, village or country place in the Province. It will be proper to notice here that from the settlement of the country up to 1831, marriage could only be legally solemnized by a minister of the Church of England, or of the established Church of Scotland. There was a provision which empowered a justice of the peace or a commanding officer to perform the rite in cases where there was no minister, or where the parties lived eighteen miles from a church. In 1831, an Act was passed making it lawful for ministers of other denominations to solemnize matrimony, and to confirm marriages previously contracted. This act of tardy justice gave great satisfaction to the people. The day for cheap books, periodicals and newspapers had not then arrived. There were but few of any kind in the country, and those that were to be found possessed few attractions for either old or young. The arduous lives led by the people precluded the cultivation of a taste for reading. Persons who toil early and late, week in and week out, have very little inclination for anything in the way of literary recreation. When the night came, the weary body demanded rest, and people sought their beds early. Consequently the few old volumes piled away on a shelf remained there undisturbed. Bacon says: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some to be chewed and digested;" and he might have added--"others still to be left alone." At all events the last was the prevailing sentiment in those days. I do not know that the fault was altogether with the books. It is true that those generally to be seen were either doctrinal works, or what might be termed heavy reading, requiring a good appetite and strong digestive powers to get through with them. They were the relics of a past age, survivors of obsolete controversies that had found their way into the country in its infancy; and though the age that delighted in such mental pabulum had passed away, these literary pioneers held their ground because the time had not arrived for the people to feel the necessity of cultivating the mind as well as providing for the wants of the body. Seneca says: "Leisure without books is the sepulchre of the living soul;" but books without leisure are practically valueless, and hence it made but little difference with our grandfathers what the few they possessed contained. [Footnote: From an inventory of my grandfather's personal effects I am enabled to give what would have been considered a large collection of books in those days. As I have said before, he was a Quaker, which will account for the character of a number of the books; and by changing these to volumes in accord with the religious tenets of the owner, the reader will get a very good idea of the kind of literature to be found in the houses of intelligent and well-to-do people:--1 large Bible, 3 Clarkson's works, 1 Buchan's Domestic Medicine, 1 Elliot's Medical Pocket Book, 1 Lewis's Dispensatory, 1 Franklin's Sermons, 1 Stackhouse's History of the Bible, 2 Brown's Union Gazetteer, 1 16th Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1 History United States, 1 Elias Hicks's Sermons, 2 Newton's Letters, 1 Ricketson on Health, 1 Jessy Kerzey, 1 Memorials of a Deceased Friend, 1 Hervey's Meditations, 1 Reply to Hibard, 1 Job's Scot's Journal, 1 Barclay on Church Government, 1 M. Liver on Shakerism, 1 Works of Dr. Franklin, 1 Journal of Richard Davis, 1 Lessons from Scripture, 1 Picket's Lessons, 1 Pownal, 1 Sequel to English Reader, Maps of United States, State of New York, England, Ireland and Scotland, and Holland Purchase.] Some years had to pass away before the need of them began to be felt. In a country, as we have already said, where intelligence commanded respect but did not give priority; where the best accomplishment was to get on in the world; where the standard of education seldom rose higher than to be able to read, write, and solve a simple sum in arithmetic, the absence of entertaining and instructive books was not felt to be a serious loss. But with the rapidly increasing facilities for moving about, and the growth of trade and commerce, the people were brought more frequently into contact with the intelligence and the progress of the world outside. And with the increase of wealth came the desire to take a higher stand in the social scale. The development of men's minds under the political and social changes of the day, and the advance in culture and refinement which accompanies worldly prosperity, quickened the general intelligence of the people, and created a demand for books to read. This demand has gone on increasing from year to year, until we have reached a time when we may say with the Ecclesiast: "Of making of books there is no end." If there was an excuse for the absence of books in our Canadian homes half a century ago, and if the slight draughts that were obtainable at the only fountains of knowledge that then existed were not sufficient to create a thirst for more, there is none now. Even the wealth that was to a certain extent necessary to gratify any desire to cultivate the mind is no longer required, for the one can be obtained free, and a few cents will procure the works of some of the best authors who have ever lived. But little had been done up to 1830 to establish libraries, either in town or village. Indeed the limited number of these, and the pursuits of the people, which were almost exclusively agricultural--and that too in a new country where during half of the year the toil of the field, and clearing away the bush the remaining half, occupied their constant attention--books were seldom thought of. Still, there was a mind here and there scattered through the settlements which, like the "little leaven," continued to work on silently, until a large portion of the "lump" had been leavened. The only public libraries whereof I have any trace were at Kingston, Ernesttown and Hallowell. The first two were in existence in 1811-13, and the last was established somewhere about 1821. In 1824, the Government voted a sum of L150 to be expended annually in the purchase of books and tracts, designed to afford moral and religious instruction to the people. These were to be equally distributed throughout all the Districts of the Province. It can readily be conceived that this small sum, however well intended, when invested in books at the prices which obtained at that time, and distributed over the Province, would be so limited as to be hardly worthy of notice. Eight years prior to this, a sum of L800 was granted to establish a Parliamentary Library. From these small beginnings we have gone on increasing until we have reached a point which warrants me, I think, in saying that no other country with the same population is better supplied with the best literature of the day than our own Province. Independent of the libraries in the various colleges and other educational institutions, Sunday schools and private libraries, there are in the Province 1,566 Free Public Libraries, with 298,743 volumes, valued at $178,282; and the grand total of books distributed by the Educational Department to Mechanics' Institutes, Sunday school libraries, and as prizes, is 1,398,140. [Footnote: The number of volumes in the principal libraries are, as nearly as I can ascertain, as follows:--Parliamentary Library, Ottawa, 100,000; Parliamentary Library, Ontario, 17,000; Toronto University, 23,000; Trinity College, 5,000; Knox College, 10,000; Osgoode Hall, 20,000; Normal School, 15,000; Canadian Institute, 3,800.] There are also upwards of one hundred incorporated Mechanics' Institutes, with 130,000 volumes, a net income of $59,928, and a membership of 10,785. These, according to the last Report, received legislative grants to the amount of $22,885 for the year 1879--an appropriation that in itself creditably attests the financial and intellectual progress of the Province. [Footnote: Report of the Minister of Education, 1879.] It is a very great pity that a systematic effort had not been made years ago to collect interesting incidents connected with the early settlement of the Province. A vast amount of information that would be invaluable to the future compiler of the history of this part of the Dominion has been irretrievably lost. The actors who were present at the birth of the Province are gone, and many of the records have perished. But even now, if the Government would interest itself, much valuable material scattered through the country might be recovered. The Americans have been always alive to this subject, and are constantly gathering up all they can procure relating to the early days of their country. More than that, they are securing early records and rare books on Canada wherever they can find them. Any one who has had occasion to hunt up information respecting this Province, even fifty years ago, knows the difficulty, and even impossibility in some cases, of procuring what one wants. It is hardly credible that the important and enterprising capital city of Toronto, with its numerous educational and professional institutions, is without a free public library in keeping with its other advantages. [Footnote: This want has since been supplied by an excellent Free Public Library.] This is a serious want to the well-being of our intellectual and moral nature. The benefits conferred by free access to a large collection of standard books is incalculable, and certainly if there is such a thing as retributive justice, it is about time it showed its hand. The first printing office in the Province was established by Louis Roy, in April, 1793, [Footnote: Mr. Bourinot, in his _Intellectual Development of Canada_, says this was in 1763, which is no doubt a typographical error.] at Newark (Niagara), and from it was issued the _Upper Canada Gazette_, or _American Oracle_ [Footnote: _Toronto of Old_], a formidable name for a sheet 15 in. x 9. It was an official organ and newspaper combined, and when a weekly journal of this size could furnish the current news of the day, and the Government notices as well, one looking at it by the light of the present day cannot help thinking that publishing a paper was up-hill work. Other journals were started, and, after running a brief course, expired. When one remembers the tedious means of communication in a country almost without roads, and the difficulty of getting items of news, it does not seem strange that those early adventures were short-lived. But as time wore on, one after another succeeded in getting a foothold, and in finding its way into the home of the settler. They were invariably small, and printed on coarse paper. Sometimes even this gave out, and the printer had to resort to blue wrapping paper in order to enable him to present his readers with the weekly literary feast. In 1830, the number had increased from the humble beginning in the then capital of Upper Canada, to twenty papers, and of these the following still survive: _The Chronicle and News_, of Kingston, established 1810; _Brockville Recorder_, 1820; St. Catharines _Journal_, 1824; _Christian Guardian_, 1829. There are now in Ontario 37 daily papers, 4 semi-weeklies; 1 tri-weekly, 282 weeklies, 27 monthlies, and 2 semi-monthlies, making a total of 353. The honour of establishing the first daily paper belongs to the late Dr. Barker, of Kingston, founder of the _British Whig_, in 1834. There is perhaps nothing that can give us a better idea the progress the Province has made than a comparison of the papers published now with those of 1830. The smallness of the sheets, and the meagreness of reading matter, the absence of advertisements, except in a very limited way, and the typographical work, makes us think that our fathers were a good-natured, easy-going kind of people, or they would never have put up with such apologies for newspapers. Dr. Scadding, in _Toronto of Old_, gives a number of interesting and amusing items respecting the "Early Press." He states that the whole of the editorial matter of the _Gazette and Oracle_, on the 2nd January, 1802, is the following: "The Printer presents his congratulatory compliments to his customers on the new year." If brevity is the soul of wit, this is a _chef d'oeuvre_. On another occasion the publisher apologises for the non- appearance of his paper by saying: "The Printer having been called to York last week upon business, is humbly tendered to his readers as an apology for the _Gazette's_ not appearing." This was another entire editorial, and it certainly could not have taken the readers long to get at the pith of it. What would be said over such an announcement in these days? We have every reason to feel proud of the advance the Press has made, both in number and influence, in Ontario. The leading papers are ably conducted and liberally supported, and they will compare favourably with those of any country. Various causes have led to this result. The prosperous condition of the people, the increase of immigration, the springing up of railway communication, the extension and perfecting of telegraphy, and, more than all, the completeness and efficiency of our school system throughout the Province, have worked changes not to be mistaken. These are the sure indices of our progress and enlightenment; the unerring registers that mark our advancement as a people. CHAPTER VII. BANKS--INSURANCE--MARINE-TELEGRAPH COMPANIES--ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE --MILLING AND MANUFACTURES--RAPID INCREASE OF POPULATION IN CITIES AND TOWNS--EXCERPTS FROM ANDREW PICKEN. The only bank in the Province in 1830 was the Bank of Upper Canada, with a capital of L100,000. There are now nine chartered banks owned in Ontario, with a capital of $17,000,000, and there are seven banks owned, with one exception, in the Province of Quebec, having offices in all the principal towns. There are also numbers of private banks and loan companies, the latter representing a capital of over $20,000,000. This is a prolific growth in half a century, and a satisfactory evidence of material success. Insurance has been the growth of the last fifty years. During the session of the House of Assembly in 1830, a bill was introduced to make some provision against accidents by fire. Since then the business has grown to immense proportions. According to the returns of the Dominion Government for the 31st December, 1879, the assets of Canadian Life, Fire, Marine, Accident, and Guarantee Companies were $10,346,587. British, doing business in Canada, $6,838,309. American, ditto, $1,685,599. Of Mutual Companies, there are 94 in Ontario, with a total income for 1879 of $485,579, and an expenditure of $455,861. [Footnote: Inspector of Insurance Report, 1880.] Fifty years ago the revenue of Upper Canada was L112,166 13s 4d; the amount of duty collected L9,283 19s. The exports amounted to L1,555,404, and the imports to L1,555,404. There were twenty-seven ports of entry and thirty-one collectors of customs. From the last published official reports we learn that the revenue for Ontario in 1879 was $4,018,287, and that for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1880, the exports were $28,063,980, and imports $27,869,444; amount of duty collected, $5,086,579; also that there are fifty-six ports of entry and thirty- eight outposts, with seventy-three collectors. One of the most interesting features in the progress of Canada is the rapid growth of its marine. It is correctly stated to rank fourth as to tonnage among the maritime powers of the world. The United States, with its fifty-four millions of people and its immense coast-line, exceeds us but by a very little, while in ocean steamers we are ahead. In fact, the Allan Line is one of the first in the world. This is something for a country with a population of only five-and-a-half millions to boast of, and it is not by any means the only thing. We have been spoken of as a people wanting enterprise--a good-natured, phlegmatic set--but it is libel disproved by half a century's progress. We have successfully carried out some of the grandest enterprises on this continent. At Montreal we have the finest docks in America. Our canals are unequalled; our country is intersected by railroads; every town and village in the land is linked to its neighbour by telegraph wires, and we have probably more miles of both, according to population, than any other people. The inland position of the Province of Ontario, although having the chain of great lakes lying along its southern border, never fostered a love for a sea-faring life. This is easily accounted for by the pursuits of the people, who as has been said before, were nearly all agriculturists. But the produce had to be moved, and the means were forthcoming to meet the necessities of the case. The great water-course which led to the seaports of Montreal and Quebec, owing to the rapids of the St. Lawrence, could only be navigated by the batteaux and Durham boats; and the navigator, after overcoming these difficulties, and laying his course through the noble lake from which our Province takes its name, encountered the Falls of Niagara. This was a huge barrier across his path which he had no possible means of surmounting. When the town of Niagara was reached, vessels had to be discharged, and the freight carted round the falls to Chippawa. This was a tedious matter, and a great drawback to settlement in the western part of the Province. Early in the century, the Hon. William Hamilton Merritt conceived the plan of connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario by a canal, and succeeded in getting the Government to assume the project in 1824. It was a great work for a young country to undertake, but it was pushed on, and completed in 1830. From that time to the present vessels have been enabled to pass from one lake to the other. This, with the Sault Ste. Marie canal, and those of the St. Lawrence, enables a vessel to pass from the head of Lake Superior to the ocean. The Ridean Canal undertaken about the same time as the Welland Canal, was also completed in the same year. It was constructed principally for military purposes, though at one time a large amount of freight came up the Ottawa, and thence by this canal to Kingston. The St. Lawrence was the only channel for freight going east. All the rapids were navigable with the batteaux except the Lachine, and up to 1830 there was a line of these boats running from Belleville to Montreal. [Footnote: The reader may be interested in learning the amount of produce shipped from the Province in 1830, via the St. Lawrence, and the mode of its conveyance. It is certainly a marked contrast, not only to the present facilities for carrying freight, but to the amount of produce, etc., going east and coming west. Statement of produce imported into Lower Canada through the Port of Coteau du Lac, to December 30th, 1830, in 584 Durham boats and 731 batteaux; 183,141 Bls. flour; 26,084 Bls. ashes; 14,110 Bls pork; 1,637 Bls. beef; 4,881 bus. corn and rye; 280,322 bus. wheat; 1,875 Bls. corn meal; 245 Bls. and 955 kegs lard; 27 Bls. and 858 kegs butter; 263 Bls. and 29 hds. tallow; 625 Bls. apples; 216 Bls. Raw hides; 148 hds. and 361 kegs tobacco; 1,021 casks and 3 hds. whiskey and spirits; 2,636 hogs. Quantity of merchandise brought to Upper Canada in the same year, 8,244 tons.--_Journal of the House of Assembly_, 1831.] Our canal system was completed fifty years ago, and all that has been done since has consisted of enlarging and keeping them in repair. The total number of miles of canal in the Province is 136. The number of vessels composing our marine in 1830 was 12 steamers and 110 sailing vessels, with a tonnage of 14,300; and it is worthy of remark that at that date the tonnage on the lakes was about equal to that of the United States. The number of steam vessels now owned by the Province is 385, with 657 [Footnote: Report Marine and Fisheries, 1880.] sailing vessels, having a total tonnage of 137,481, which at $30 per ton would make our shipping interest amount to $4,124,430. A great deal has been done these last few years to protect the sailor from disaster and loss. Independent of marine charts that give the soundings of all navigable waters, buoys mark the shoals and obstructions to the entrance of harbours or the windings of intricate channels; and from dangerous rocks and bold headlands, jutting out in the course of vessels, flash out through the storm and darkness of the long dreary night the brilliant lights from the domes of the lighthouses, warning the sailor to keep away. By a system of revolving and parti-coloured lights the mariner is enabled to tell where he is, and to lay his course so as to avoid the disaster that might otherwise overtake him. There are now 149 [Footnote: Ib.] lighthouses in the Ontario division. In 1830 there were only four. Another great boon to the mariners of the present day is the meteorological service, by which he is warned of approaching storms. It is only by the aid of telegraphy that this discovery has been made practically available; and the system has been so perfected that weather changes can be told twenty-four hours in advance, with almost positive certainty. We have fourteen drum stations, eight of which are on Lake Ontario, four on Lake Huron, and two on the Georgian Bay. The Montreal Telegraph Company, the first in Canada, was organized in 1847. It has 1,647 offices in the Dominion, 12,703 miles of poles, and 21,568 of wire. Number of messages for current year, 2,112,161; earnings, $550,840. The Dominion Company reports 608 offices, 5,112 miles of poles, and 11,501 of wire. Number of messages, 734,522; gross earnings, $229,994. This gives a total of 17,845 miles of telegraph, 2,282 offices, 2,846,623 messages, and gross earnings amounting to $780,834. [Footnote: Annual Report of Montreal and Dominion Telegraph Companies, 1881.] The administration of justice cost the Province in 1830, $23,600, and according to the latest official returns $274,013--a very striking proof that our propensity to litigate has kept pace with the increase of wealth and numbers. There were four Superior Court Judges, of whom the Hon. John Beverley Robinson was made Chief Justice in 1829 at a salary of $6,000. The remaining judges received $3,600 each. Besides these there were eleven District Judges, and in consequence of the extent of country embraced in these sections, and the distance jurors and others had to travel, the Court of Sessions was held frequently in alternate places in the district. In the Midland District, this court was held in Kingston and Adolphustown. The latter place has been laid out for a town by some farseeing individual, but it never even attained to the dignity of a village. There was, besides the courthouse, a tavern, a foundry, a Church of England--one of the first in the Province--the old homestead of the Hagermans, near the wharf; a small building occupied for a time by the father of Sir John A. Macdonald as a store, and where the future statesman romped in his youth, and four private residences close at hand. When the court was held there, which often lasted a week or more, judge, jury, lawyers and litigants had to be billeted around the neighbourhood. As a rule they fared pretty well, for the people in that section were well off and there was rarely any charge for board. The courts comprised the Court of King's Bench, the Quarter Sessions, and Court of Requests. The latter was similar to our Division Court, and was presided over by a commissioner or resident magistrate. The Quarter Sessions had control of nearly all municipal affairs, but when the Municipal Law came into force these matters passed into the hands of the County Councils. The machinery in connection with the administration of justice has been largely augmented for, beside the additional courts, we have six Superior Court Judges, one Chancellor, two Vice-Chancellors, one Chief-Justice, three Queen's Bench, three Common Pleas, three Court of Appeal Judges, and thirty-eight County Court Judges. The manufacturing interests of the Province in 1830 were very small indeed. I have been unable to put my hand on any trustworthy information respecting this matter at that time, but from my own recollection at a somewhat later period, I know that very little had been done to supply the people with even the most common articles in use. Everything was imported, save those things that were made at home. From the first grist mill, built below Kingston by the Government for the settlers--to which my grandfather carried his first few bushels of wheat in a canoe down the Bay of Quinte, a distance of thirty-five miles--the mills in course of time increased to 303. They were small, and the greater proportion had but a single run of stones. The constant demand for lumber for building purposes in every settlement necessitated the building of saw-mills, and in each township, wherever there was a creek or stream upon which a sufficient head of water could be procured to give power, there was a rude mill, with its single upright saw. Getting out logs in the winter was a part of the regular programme of every farmer who had pine timber, and in spring, for a short time, the mill was kept going, and the lumber taken home. According to the returns made to the Government, there were 429 of these mills in the Province at that time. [Footnote: Journals, House of Assembly, 1831.] There were also foundries where ploughs and other implements were made, and a few fulling mills, where the home-made flannel was converted into the thick coarse cloth known as full cloth, a warm and serviceable article, as many no doubt remember. Carding machines, which had almost entirely relieved the housewife from using hand cards in making rolls, were also in existence. There were also breweries and distilleries, and a paper mill on the Don, at York. This was about the sum total of our manufacturing enterprises at that date. There are now 508 grist and flour mills--not quite double the number, but owing to the great improvement in machinery the producing capacity has largely increased. Very few mills, at the present time, have fewer than two run of stones, and a great many have fewer, and even more, and the same may be said of the saw mills, of which there are 853. There are many in the Province capable of turning out nearly as much lumber in twelve months as all the mills did fifty years ago. It is only within a few years that we have made much progress in manufactures of any kind. Whatever the hindrances were, judging from the numerous factories that are springing into existence all over the Dominion, they seem to have been removed, and capitalists are embarking their money in all kinds of manufacturing enterprises. There is no way, as far as I know, of getting at the value annually produced by our mills and factories, except from the Trade and Navigation Returns for 1880, and this only gives the exports, which are but a fraction of the grand total. Our woolen mills turned out last year upwards of $4,000,000, [Footnote: Monetary Times, December 17, 1881.] of which we exported $222,425. This does not include the produce of what are called custom mills. There are 224 foundries, 285 tanneries, 164 woollen mills, 74 carding and fulling mills, 137 cheese factories, 127 agricultural and implement factories, 92 breweries, 8 boot and shoe factories, 5 button factories, 1 barley mill, 2 carpet factories, 4 chemical works, 9 rope and twine factories, 9 cotton mills, 3 crockery kilns, 11 flax mills, 4 glass works, 11 glove factories, 7 glue factories, 9 hat factories, 12 knitting factories, 9 oatmeal mills, 9 organ factories, 10 piano factories, 25 paper mills, 4 rubber factories, 6 shoddy mills, 3 sugar refineries; making, with the flour and saw mills, 2,642. Besides these there are carriage, cabinet and other factories and shops, to the number of 3,848. The value of flour exported was $1,547,910; of sawn lumber, $4,137,062; of cheese, $1,199,973; of flax, $95,292; of oatmeal, $215,131; and of other manufactures, $1,100,605. We may further illustrate the progress we have made by giving the estimated value of the trade in Toronto in 1880, taken from an interesting article on this subject which appeared in the Globe last January. The wholesale trade is placed at $30,650,000; produce, $23,000,000; a few leading factories, $1,770,000; live stock, local timber trade, coal, distilling and brewing, $8,910,000; in all, $64,330,000--a gross sum more than ten times greater than the value of the trade of the whole Province fifty years ago. Another interesting feature in our growth is the rapid increase in the cities and towns. Some of these were not even laid out in 1830, and others hardly deserved the humble appellation of village. The difference will be more apparent by giving the population, as far as possible, then and in 1881, when the last census was taken, of a number of the principal places:-- 1830. 1881. Toronto 2,860 86,445 Kingston 3,587 14,093 Hamilton, including township 2,013 35,965 London, including township 2,415 ---- Brantford, laid out in 1830 ---- 9,626 Guelph, including township 778 9,890 St. Catharines (Population in 1845, 3,000) ---- ---- Ottawa contained 150 houses ---- ---- Belleville, incorporated 1835 ---- 9,516 Brockville 1,130 7,608 Napanee (Population in 1845, 500) ---- 3,681 Cobourg ---- 4,957 Port Hope ---- 5,888 Peterboro', laid out in 1826 ---- 6,815 Lindsay, " 1833 ---- 5,081 Barrie, " 1832 ---- ---- Ingersoll, " 1831 ---- 4,322 Woodstock (Population in 1845, 1,085) ---- 5,373 Chatham, settled in 1830 ---- 7,881 Stratford, laid out in 1833 ---- 8,240 Sarnia, laid out in 1833 ---- 3,874 I hope the humble effort I have made to show what we Upper Canadians have done during the fifty years that are gone will induce some one better qualified to go over the same ground, and put it in a more attractive and effective shape. It is a period in our history which must ever demand attention, and although our Province had been settled for nearly half a century prior to 1830, it was not until after that date that men of intelligence began to look around them, and take an active interest in shaping the future of their country. There were many failures, but the practical sense of the people surmounted them, and pushed on. All were awake to the value of their heritage, and contributed their share to extend its influence; and so we have gone on breasting manfully political, commercial and other difficulties, but always advancing; and whatever may be said about the growth of other parts of America, figures will show that Canada is to the front. At the Provincial Exhibition in Ottawa, in 1879, the Governor of Vermont, in his address, stated (what we already knew), that Canada had outstripped the United States in rapidity of growth and development during recent years, and the Governors of Ohio and Maine endorsed the statement. We have a grand country, and I believe a grand future. "Fair land of peace! to Britain's rule and throne Adherent still, yet happier than alone, And free as happy, and as brave as free, Proud are thy children, justly proud of thee. Few are the years that have sufficed to change This whole broad land by transformation strange. Once far and wide the unbroken forests spread Their lonely waste, mysterious and dread-- Forest, whose echoes never had been stirred By the sweet music of an English word; Where only rang the red-browed hunter's yell, And the wolf's howl through the dark sunless dell. Now fruitful fields and waving orchard trees Spread their rich treasures to the summer breeze. Yonder, in queenly pride, a city stands, Whence stately vessels speed to distant lands; Here smiles a hamlet through embow'ring green, And there the statelier village spires are seen; Here by the brook-side clacks the noisy mill, There the white homestead nestles on the hill; The modest school-house here flings wide its door To smiling crowds that seek its simple lore; There Learning's statelier fane of massive walls Wooes the young aspirant to classic halls, And bids him in her hoarded treasure find The gathered wealth of all earth's gifted minds." --PAMELA S. VINING. Since writing the foregoing, I accidentally came across _The Canadas, &c._, by Andrew Picken, published in London in 1832, a work which I had never previously met with. It is written principally for the benefit of persons intending to emigrate to Canada, and contains notices of the most important places in both Provinces. I have made the following extracts, thinking that they would prove interesting to those of my readers who wish to get a correct idea of our towns and villages fifty years ago. "The largest and most populous of the towns in Upper Canada, and called the key to the Province, is Kingston, advantageously situated at the head of the St. Lawrence, and at the entrance of the great Lake Ontario. Its population is now about 5,500 souls; it is a military post of importance, as well as a naval depot, and from local position and advantages is well susceptible of fortification. It contains noble dockyards and conveniences for ship-building. Its bay affords, says Howison, so fine a harbour, that a vessel of one hundred and twenty guns can lie close to the quay, and the mercantile importance it has now attained as a commercial entrepot between Montreal below and the western settlements on the lakes above, may be inferred, among other things from the wharfs on the river and the many spacious and well-filled warehouses behind them, as well as the numerous stores and mercantile employes within the town. The streets are regularly formed upon the right-angular plan which is the favourite in the new settlements, but they are not paved; and though the houses are mostly built of limestone, inexhaustible quarries of which lie in the immediate vicinity of the town, and are of the greatest importance to it and the surrounding neighbourhood, there is nothing in the least degree remarkable or interesting in the appearance of either the streets or the buildings. The opening of the Rideau Canal there, which, with the intermediate lakes, forms a junction between the Ontario and other lakes above, the St. Lawrence below, and the Ottawa, opposite Hull, in its rear, with all the intervening districts and townships, will immensely increase the importance of this place; and its convenient hotels already afford comfortable accommodation to the host of travellers that are continually passing between the Upper and Lower Provinces, as well as to and from the States on the opposite side of the river. "York is well situated on the north side of an excellent harbour on the lake. It contains the public buildings of the Province, viz., the House of Assembly, where the Provincial Parliament generally holds its sittings; the Government House; the Provincial Bank; a College; a Court House; a hall for the Law Society; a gaol; an Episcopal Church; a Baptist Chapel (Methodist); a Scots' Kirk; a Garrison near the town, with barracks for the troops usually stationed here, and a battery which protects the entrance of the harbour. Regularly laid out under survey, as usual, the streets of the town are spacious, the houses mostly built of wood, but many of them of brick and stone. The population amounts now to between four and five thousand. "By-Town, situated on the southern bank of the Ottawa, a little below the Chaudiere Falls, and opposite to the flourishing Village of Hull, in Lower Canada, stands upon a bold eminence, surrounding the bay of the grand river, and occupies both banks of the canal, which here meets it. Laid out in the usual manner with streets crossing at right angles, the number of houses is already about 150, most of which are wood, and many built with much taste. Three stone barracks and a large and commodious hospital, built also of stone, stand conspicuous on the elevated banks of the bay; and the elegant residence of Colonel By, the commanding Royal Engineer of that station. "The town-plot of Peterborough is in the northeast angle of the Township of Monaghan. It is laid out in half acres, the streets nearly at right angles with the river; park lots of nine acres each are reserved near the town. The patent fee on each is L8, Provincial currency, and office fees and agency will increase it 15s or 20s more. "The settlement commenced in 1825, at which time it formed a depot of the emigration under Hon. P. Robinson. The situation is most favourable, being an elevated sandy plain, watered by a creek, which discharges into the river below the turn. The country round is fertile, and there is great water-power in the town-plot, on which mills are now being built by Government. These mills are on an extensive scale, being calculated to pack forty barrels of flour, and the saw-mill to cut 3,000 feet of boards _per diem_. "The situation of Cobourg is healthy and pleasant. It stands immediately on the shore of Lake Ontario. In 1812, it had only one house; it now contains upwards of forty houses, an Episcopal church, a Methodist chapel, two good inns, four stores, a distillery, an extensive grist mill; and the population may be estimated at about 350 souls. "The two projected towns of most consideration in this district (London district), however, are London-on-the-Thames, further inland, and Goderich, recently founded by the Canada Company, on Lake Huron. London is yet but inconsiderable, but from its position, in the heart of a fertile country, is likely to become of some importance hereafter, when the extreme wilds become more settled. The town is quite new, not containing above forty or fifty houses, all of bright boards and shingles. The streets and gardens full of black stumps &c. They were building a church, and had finished a handsome Gothic court-house, which must have been a costly work. "Guelph. Much of this tract belongs to the Canada Company, who have built, nearly in its centre, the town of Guelph, upon a small river, called the Speed, a remote branch of the Ouse, or Grand River. This important and rapidly rising town, which is likely to become the capital of the district, was founded by Mr. Galt, for the Company, on St. George's day, 1827, and already contains between 100 and 200 houses, several shops, a handsome market house near the centre, a schoolhouse, a printing office, and 700 or 800 inhabitants. "The Bay of Quinte settlement is the oldest in Upper Canada, and was begun at the close of the Revolutionary War. We crossed over the mouth of the River Trent, which flows from the Rice Lake, and it is said can be made practicable for steamboats, though at much expense; thence to Belleville, a neat village of recent date, but evidently addicted too much to lumbering. "Brockville is a most thriving new town, with several handsome stone houses, churches, court-house, &c., and about 1,500 souls." SKETCHES OF EARLY HISTORY. [Footnote: This paper was read before the Mechanics' Institute in Picton, twenty-six years ago. Soon afterwards, the then Superintendent of Education, Dr. Ryerson, requested me to send it to him, which I did, and a copy was taken of it. An extract will be found in his work, "The Loyalists of America," Vol. ii; page 219. Subsequently, in 1879, I made up two short papers from it which appeared in _The Canadian Methodist Magazine._ The paper is now given, with a few exceptions, as it was first written.] EARLY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS--BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC--LOVE OF COUNTRY--ADVENTURES OF A U. E. LOYALIST FAMILY NINETY YEARS AGO--THE WILDS OF UPPER CANADA--HAY BAY--HARDSHIPS OF PIONEER LIFE--GROWTH OF POPULATION--DIVISION OF THE CANADIAN PROVINCES--FORT FRONTENAC--THE "DARK DAYS"--CELESTIAL FIREWORKS--EARLY STEAM NAVIGATION IN CANADA--THE COUNTRY MERCHANT--PROGRESS--THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE. After having consented to read a paper on the subject which has already been announced, I do not think it would be quite proper for me to begin with apologies. That they are needed I confess at once, but then they should have been thought of before. How often have we heard the expression, "Circumstances alter cases," and this is just why I put in my plea. If I had not been preceded by gentlemen whose ability and attainments are far and away beyond mine, I should not have said a word. But when these persons, some of whom finished their education in British Universities, who have trodden the classic shores of Italy and mused over the magnificent monuments of her past greatness, or wandered through old German towns, where Christian liberty was born and cradled; who have ranged the spacious halls of Parisian Institutes, or sauntered in places where many historic scenes have been enacted in grand old England--when these persons, I repeat, must crave your indulgence, how much more earnestly should I plead, whose travels are bounded in the radius of a few hundred miles; and whose collegiate course began, and I may say ended, in the country school-house with which many of you are familiar. What wonderful scholars those early teachers were. "Amazed _we_, gazing rustics, rang'd around; And still _we_ gaz'd, and still our wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew." It is no wonder that we were often awed by their intellectual profundity, nor that they gave our youthful brains an impetus which sent them bounding through the severe curriculum we had to face. The narrow-minded and unyielding policy of George III., as every one now admits it to have been, brought about the American Revolution, and gave birth to the American Republic. As always happens in every great movement, there were two sides to this question, not only between Great Britain and her colonists, but among the colonists themselves. One side clamoured boldly for their rights, and, if need were, separation. The other side shrank from a contest with the mother land, and preferred a more peaceful solution of their difficulties. A moderate degree of liberality on the part of the British Government would have appeased the demands of the malcontents, and another destiny whether for better or worse, might have been in store for the American people. But those were days when the policy of the nation was stern and uncompromising, when the views of trade were narrow and contracted, when justice was untempered with mercy, and when men were bigoted and pugnacious. Protracted wars consumed the revenues and made many draughts on the national purse, and when the trade of the colonies was laid under contribution, they refused the demand. The Government, true to the spirit of the age, would not brook refusal on the part of its subjects, and must needs force them to comply. The contest began, and when, after a seven years' struggle, peace was declared, those who had sided with the old land found themselves homeless, and rather than swear allegiance to the new _regime_, abandoned their adopted country and emigrated to the wilds of Canada and the Eastern Provinces. Two results grew out of this contest: the establishment of a new and powerful nationality, and the settlement of a vast country subject to the British Crown, to the north, then an unbroken wilderness, now the Dominion of Canada, [Footnote: This has been changed. When the paper was written, the Confederation of the Provinces, if it had been thought of, had not assumed any definite shape. It followed eight years after, in 1867.] whose rapid strides in wealth and power bid fair to rival even those of the great Republic. The history of our country--I am speaking of Upper Canada--remains to be written. It is true we have numerous works, and valuable ones too, on Canada; but I refer to that part of history which gives a picture of the people, their habits and customs, which takes you into their homes and unfolds their every-day life. This, it seems to me, is the very soul of history, and when the coming Canadian Macaulay shall write ours, he will look in vain for many an argosy, richly freighted with fact and story, which might have been saved if a helping hand had been given, but which now, alas! is lost forever. It can hardly be expected that I should be as familiar with the early scenes enacted in this part of the Province as those who are very much older. Yet I have known many of the first settlers, and have heard from their lips, in the days of my boyhood, much about the hardships and severe privations they endured, as well as the story of many a rough and wild adventure. These old veterans have dropped, one by one, into the grave, until they have nearly all passed away, and we are left to enjoy many a luxury which their busy hands accumulated for us. As a Canadian--and I am sure I am giving expression, not so much to a personal sentiment, as an abiding principle deeply rooted in the heart of every son of this grand country--I feel as much satisfaction and pride in tracing my origin to the pioneers of this Province--nay more-- than if my veins throbbed with noble blood. The picture of the log cabins which my grandfathers erected in the wilderness on the bay shore, where my father and mother first saw the light, are far more inviting to me than hoary castle or rocky keep. I know that they were loyal, honest, industrious, and virtuous, and this is a record as much to be prized by their descendants as the mere distinction of noble birth. It has been said that love of country is not a characteristic of Canadians; that in consequence of our youth there is but little for affection to cling to; that the traditions that cluster around age and foster these sentiments are wanting. This may be to a certain extent true. But I cannot believe but that Canadians are as loyal to their country as any other people under the sun. The life-long struggle of those men whom the old land was wont "to put a mark of honour upon," are too near to us not to warm our hearts with love and veneration; they were too sturdy a race to be lightly over-looked by their descendants. Their memory is too sacred a trust to be forgotten, and their lives too worthy of our imitation not to bind us together as a people, whose home and country shall ever be first in our thoughts and affection. "Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said 'This is my own, my native land?' Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned As home his footsteps he hath turned?" Is there any place in the world where such marvellous changes have taken place as here? Where among the countries of the earth shall we find a more rapid and vigorous growth? Ninety years [Footnote: The reader will bear in mind the date when this was written.] ago this Province was a dense and unknown forest. We can hardly realize the fact that not a century has elapsed since these strong-handed and brave-hearted men pushed their way into the profound wilderness of Upper Canada. Were they not heroes? See that man whose strong arm first uplifts the threatening axe. Fix his image in your mind, and tell me if he is not a subject worthy the genius and chisel of a Chantrey. Mark him as he swings his axe and buries it deep into a giant tree. Hark! how that first blow rings through the wood, and echoes along the shores of the bay. The wild duck starts and flaps her wings; the timid deer bounds away. Yet stroke follows stroke in measured force. The huge tree, whose branches have been fanned and tossed by the breeze of centuries, begins to sway. Another blow, and it falls thundering to the ground. Far and wide does the crash reverberate. It is the first knell of destruction booming through the forest of Canada, and as it flies upon the wings of the wind, from hill-top to hill-top, it proclaims the first welcome sound of a new-born country. And did these men of whom we have been speaking make war alone upon the mighty forest? Did they find their way alone to the wilds of Canada? No: they were accompanied by women as true and brave as themselves; women who unmurmuringly shared their toils and hardships, who rejoiced in their success, and cheered them when weary and depressed. They left kindred and friends far behind, literally to bury themselves in the deep recesses of a boundless forest. They left comfortable homes to endure hunger and fatigue in log cabins which their own delicate hands helped to rear, far beyond the range of civilization. Let us follow a party of these adventurers to Canada. In the summer of the year 1795 or thereabouts, a company of six persons, composed of two men and their wives, with two small children, pushed a rough-looking and unwieldy boat away from the shore in the neighbourhood of Poughkeepsie, and turned its prow up the Hudson. A rude sail was hoisted, but it flapped lazily against the slender mast. The two men took up the oars and pulled quietly out into the river. They did not note the morning's sun gradually lifting himself above the eastern level, and scattering his cheerful rays of light across the river, and along its shores. All nature seemed rejoicing over the coming day, but they appeared not to heed it. They pulled on in silence, looking now ahead, and then wistfully back to the place they had left. Their boat was crowded with sundry household necessaries carefully packed up and stowed away. At the stern are the two women; one, ruddy and strong, steers the boat; the other, small and delicate, minds her children. Both are plainly and neatly dressed; and they, too, are taking backward glances through silent tears. Why do they weep, and whither are they bound? Their oars are faithfully plied, and they glide slowly on. And thus; day after day, may we follow them on their voyage. Now and then a gentle breeze fills the sail and wafts them on. When the shades of evening begin to fall around them they pull to shore and rear a temporary tent, after which they partake of the plain fare provided for the evening meal, with a relish which toil alone can give, and then lay them down to rest, and renew their strength for the labours of the morrow. They reach Albany, then a Dutch town on the verge of civilization. Beyond is a wilderness land but little known. Some necessaries are purchased here, and again our little company launch away. They reach the place where the city of Troy now stands, and turn away to the left into the Mohawk river, and proceed slowly, and often with great difficulty, up the rapids and windings of the stream. This rich and fertile valley of the Mohawk was then the home of the Indian. Here the celebrated Chief Brant had lived but a short time before, but had now withdrawn into the wilds of Western Canada. The voyageurs, after several days of hard labour and difficulty, emerge into the little lake Oneida, lying in the north-western part of the State of New York, through which they pass with ease and pleasure. The most difficult part of their journey has been overcome. In due time they reach the Onondaga River, and soon pass down it to Oswego, then an old fort which had been built by the French, when they were masters of the country, as a barrier against the encroachments of the wily Indian. Several bloody frays had occurred here, but our friends do not tarry to muse over its battle-ground, or to learn its history. Their small craft now dances on the bosom of Ontario, but they do not push out into the lake and across it. Oh no: they are careful sailors, and they remember, perhaps, that small boats should not venture far from shore, and so they wind along it until they reach Gravelly Point, now known by the more dignified name of Cape Vincent. Here they strike across the channel, and thence around the lower end of Wolfe Island, and into Kingston Bay, where they come to shore. There were not many streets or fine stone houses in the Limestone City at this time; a few log houses composed the town. After resting and transacting necessary business they again push away, and turn their course up the lovely Bay of Quinte. What a wild and beautiful scene opens out before them! The far-reaching bay, with its serried ranks of primeval forest crowding the shores on either hand. The clear pure water rippling along its beach, and its bosom dotted with flocks of wild fowl, could not fail to arrest the attention of the weary voyageurs. Frequently do they pause and rest upon their oars, to enjoy the wild beauty that surrounds them. With lighter hearts they coast along the shore, and continue up the bay until they reach township number four. This township, now known as Adolphustown, is composed of five points, or arms, which run out into the bay. They sail round four of these points of land, and turn into Hay Bay, and, after proceeding about three miles, pull to shore. Their journey it would seem has come to an end, for they begin to unload their boat and erect a tent. The sun sinks down in the west, and, weary and worn, they lay themselves down upon the bed of leaves to rest. Six weeks have passed since we saw them launch away in quest of this wilderness home. Look at them, and tell me what you think of their prospects. Is it far enough away from the busy haunts of men to suit you? Would you not rather sing-- "O solitude, where are the charms Which sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms Than reign in this horrible place." With the first glimmer of the morning's light all hands are up and at work. A small space is cleared away, trees are felled, and in due time a house is built--a house not large or commodious, with rooms not numerous or spacious, and with furniture neither elegant nor luxurious. A pot or two, perhaps a few plates, cups and saucers, with knives and forks and spoons, a box of linen, a small lot of bedding, etc., with "A chest, contrived a double debt to pay-- A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day." These constitute pretty nearly the sum total. This is not a fancy sketch. I have heard the story many a time from the lips of the little old grandmother [Footnote: The writer is one of her grandsons. The incident will be found in Dr. Ryerson's book.] who was of the party. She lived to rear a family of nine children, and to see most of them married and well settled; to exchange the log house for a large and comfortable home, and to die peacefully at a good old age. It is hardly possible for us to conceive the difficulties that beset the first settlers, nor the hardships and privations which they endured. They were not infrequently reduced to the very verge of starvation, yet they struggled on. Tree after tree fell before the axe, and the small clearing was turned to immediate account. A few necessaries of life were produced, and even these, limited and meagre as they were, were the beginnings of comfort. Comfort, indeed! but far removed not only from them, but from the idea we associate with the term. I have in my younger days taken grist to the mill, as the farmers say. But I can assure you I would prefer declining the task of carrying bags of wheat upon my back for three miles, and then paddling them in a canoe down to the Kingston Mills, [Footnote: This mill was built by the British Government in the first settlement of the Province for the benefit of the settlers.] and back again to Adolphustown--about seventy miles--after which resuming the pleasing exercise of backing them home. [Footnote: This was an early experience of my grandfather, which he liked to relate in his old age to young men.] Such things do not fatigue one much to talk about, but I fancy the reality would fit closer to the backs of some of our young exquisites than would be agreeable. Nor do we, when we stick up our noses at the plainer fare of some of our neighbours, remember often what a feast our fathers and mothers would have thought even a crust of bread. How often--alas, how often!--were they compelled to use anything they could put their hands upon, in order to keep soul and body together. Could we, the sons of these men, go through this? I am afraid, with one consent, we would say "No." But time rolled on. The openings in the forest grew larger and wider. The log cabins began to multiply, and the curling smoke, rising here and there above the woods, told a silent but more cheerful tale. There dwelt a neighbour--miles away, perhaps--but a neighbour, nevertheless. If you would like an idea of the proximity of humanity, and the luxury of society in those days, just place a few miles of dense woods between yourself and your nearest neighbour, and you will have a faint conception of the delights of a home in the forest. There are persons still living who have heard their parents or grandparents tell of the dreadful sufferings they endured the second year after the settlement of the Bay of Quinte country. The second year's Government supply, through some bad management, was frozen up in the lower part of the St. Lawrence, and, in consequence, the people were reduced to a state of famine. Men were glad, in some cases, to give all they possessed for that which would sustain life. Farms were given in exchange for small quantities of flour, but more frequently refused. A respectable old lady, long since gone to her rest, and whose grandchildren are somewhat aristocratic, was wont in those days to go away to the woods early in the morning to gather and eat the buds of the basswood, and then bring an apronfull home to her family. In one neighbourhood a beef bone passed from house to house, and was boiled again and again in order to extract some nutriment from it. This is no fiction, but a literal fact. Many other equally uninviting bills of fare might be given, but these no doubt will suffice. Sufficient has been said to show that our fathers and mothers did not repose upon rose-beds, nor did they fold their hands in despair, but with strong nerves and stout hearts, even when famine was in the pot, they pushed on and lived. The forest melted away before them, and we are now enjoying the happy results. The life of the first settler was for a long time one of hardship and adventure. When this Utopia was reached he frequently had difficulty in finding his land. He was not always very particular as to this, for land then was not of very much account, and yet he wished, if possible, to strike somewhere near his location. This involved sometimes long trips into the forest, or along the shores. After a day's paddling he would land, pull up his canoe, and look around. The night coming on, he had to make some preparation for it. How was it to be done in this howling wilderness? Where was he to sleep, and how was he to protect himself against the perils that surrounded him? He takes his axe and goes to work. A few small trees are cut down. Then he gathers some limbs and heaps them up together. From his pocket he brings a large knife; then a flint and a bit of punk. The punk he places carefully under the flint, holding it in his left hand, and then picks up his knife and gives the flint a few sharp strokes with the back of the blade, which sends forth a shower of sparks, some of which fall on the punk and ignite, and soon his heap is in a blaze. Now, this labour is not only necessary for his comfort, but for his safety. The smoke drives the flies and mosquitoes away, and keeps the wolves and bears from encroaching on his place of rest. But the light which affords him protection subjects him to a new annoyance. "Loud as the wolves in Oroa's stormy steep Howl to the roaring of the stormy deep," the wolves howled to the fire kindled to affright them away. Watching the whole night in the surrounding hills, they keep up a concert which truly "renders night hideous;" and bullfrogs in countless numbers from adjacent swamps, with an occasional "To-whit, to-whoo!" from the sombre owl, altogether make a native choir anything but conducive to calm repose. And yet, amid such a serenade, with a few boughs for a bed, and the gnarled root of a tree for a pillow, did many of our fathers spend their first nights in the wilderness of Canada. The first settlers of Upper Canada were principally American colonists who adhered to the cause of England. After the capitulation of General Burgoyne, many of the royalists, with their families, moved into Canada, and took up land along the shores of the St. Lawrence, the Bay of Quinte, and the lakes. Upon the evacuation of New York at the close of the war a still greater number followed, many of whom were soldiers disbanded and left without employment. Many had lost their property, so that nearly all were destitute and depending upon the liberality of the Government whose battles they had fought, and for whose cause they had suffered. They were not forgotten. The British Government was not tardy in its movement, and at once decided to reward their loyalty. Immediate steps were taken to provide for their present wants, and also to provide means for their future subsistence. These prompt measures on the part of the Government were not only acts of justice and humanity, but were sound in policy, and were crowned with universal success. Liberal grants of land were made free of expense on the following scale: A field officer received 5,000 acres; a captain, 3,000; a subaltern, 2,000, and a private, 200. Surveyors were sent on to lay out the land. They commenced their work near Lake St. Francis, then the highest French settlement, and extended along the shores of the St. Lawrence up to Lake Ontario, and thence along the lake, and round the Bay of Quinte. Townships were laid out, and then subdivided into concessions and lots of 200 acres. These townships were numbered, and remained without names for many years. Of these numbers there were two divisions: one, including the townships below Kingston in the line east to the St. Francis settlement; the other, west from Kingston to the head of the Bay of Quinte. They were known by the old people as first, second, third, fourth town, etc. No names were given to the townships by legal enactment for a long time, and hence the habit of designating them by numbers became fixed. The settlement of the surveyed portion of the Midland District, which then included the present counties of Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, Hastings, and the county of Prince Edward, commenced in the summer of 1784. The new settlers were supplied with farming implements, building materials, provisions, and some clothing for the first two years, at the expense of the nation, "And in order," it was stated, "that the love of country may take deeper root in the hearts of those true men, the government determined to put a mark of honour," as the order of the Council expresses it, "upon the families who had adhered to the unity of the Empire, and joined the royal standard in America, before the treaty of separation in the year 1783." A list of such persons was directed in 1789 to be made out and returned, "to the end that their posterity might be discriminated from the future settlers." From these two emphatic words--The Unity of the Empire--it was styled the U.E. list, and they whose names were entered therein were distinguished as U.E. Loyalists. This, as is well known, was not a mere empty distinction, but was notably a title of some consequence, for it not only provided for the U.E. Loyalists themselves, but guaranteed to all their children, upon arriving at the age of twenty-one years, two hundred acres of land free from all expense. It is a pleasing task to recall these generous acts on the part of the British Government towards the fathers of our country, and the descendants of those true and noble-hearted men who loved the old Empire so well that they preferred to endure toil and privation in the wilderness of Canada to ease and comfort under the protection of the revolted colonies. We should venerate their memory, and foster a love of country as deep and abiding as theirs. In order further to encourage the growth of population, and induce other settlers to come into the country, two hundred acres of land were allowed, upon condition of actual settlement, and the payment of surveying and office fees, which amounted in all to about thirty-eight dollars. In 1791 the provinces were divided, and styled Upper Canada and Lower Canada--the one embracing all the French seigneuries; the other all the newly-settled townships. The first Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, arrived in 1792, and took up his residence at Newark (Niagara), then the capital of the Province. Here the first Parliament of Upper Canada met and held five successive sessions, after which it was moved to York. Governor Simcoe laboured hard and successfully to promote the settlement of the Province. Kingston is the oldest town in Upper Canada by many years. The white man found his way here more than a century before any settlement in the west was made or thought of. Small expeditions had from time to time penetrated the vast wilderness far to the west, either for the purpose of trading with the Indians, or led by some zealous priest who sought for the glory of God to bring the wandering tribes into the fold of the Roman Church. The untiring energy and zeal displayed by these early Fathers, together with the hardships, dangers and privations they endured, form one of the most interesting pages of adventure in our country's history. The crafty and industrious French Governor, De Courcelles, in order to put a stop to the encroachments of the Five Nations, despatched a messenger from Quebec to their chief to inform him that he had some business of great importance to communicate, and wished them to proceed to Cataraqui, where he would meet them. As soon as the Indian deputies arrived, a council was held. The Governor informed them that he was going to build a fort there, to serve principally as a depot for merchandise; and to facilitate the trade that was springing up between them. The chiefs, ignorant of the real intention of the wily Governor readily agreed to a proposition which seemed intended for their advantage. But the object was far from what the Indians expected, and was really to create a barrier against them in future wars. While measures were being completed to build the fort Courcelles was recalled, and Count de Frontenac sent out in his place. Frontenac carried out the designs of his predecessor; and in 1672 completed the fort, which received and for many years retained his name. Father Charlevoix, who journeyed through Western Canada in the year 1720, thus describes Fort Cataraqui. "This fort is square, with four bastions built with stone, and the ground it occupies is a quarter of a league in compass. Its situation is really something very pleasant. The sides of the view present every way a landscape well varied, and it is the same at the entrance of Lake Ontario, which is but a small league distant. It is full of islands of different sizes, all well wooded, and nothing bounds the horizon on that side. The Lake was sometimes called St. Louis, afterwards Frontenac, as well as the fort of Cataraqui, of which the Count de Frontenac was the founder, but insensibly the Lake has regained its ancient name Ontario, which is Huron or Iroquois, and the fort that of the place where it is built. The soil from this place to la Sallette appears something barren, but this is only in the borders, it being very good further up. There is over against the fort a very pretty island in the middle of the river. They put some swine into it, which have multiplied, and given it the name of Isle du Porcs. "There are two other islands somewhat smaller, which are lower, and half a league distant from each other. One is called Cedars, the other Hart's Island. The Bay of Cataraqui is double; that is to say, that almost in the middle of it there is a point that runs out a great way, under which there is a good anchorage for large barks. M. de la Salle, so famous for his discoveries and his misfortunes, who was lord of Cataraqui, and governor of the fort, had two or three of them, which were sunk in this place, and remain there still. Behind the fort is a marsh, where there is a great plenty of wild fowl. This is a benefit to and employment for the garrison. There was formerly a great trade here, especially with the Iroquois, and it was to entice them to, as well as to hinder their carrying their skins to the English and keep these savages in awe, that the fort was built. But the trade did not last long, and the fort has not hindered the barbarians from doing us a great deal of mischief. They have still families here, in the outside of the place, and there are also some Missisaguas, an Algonquin nation, which still have a village on the west side of Lake Ontario, another at Niagara, and a third in the strait." Such is the description we have of Kingston a century and a half ago. The Mohawk name for it is Gu-doi-o-qui, or, "Fort in the Water." I am unable, from any information I can get, to give the origin of the name of our beautiful bay. It seems to have borne its present name at a very early date in the history of the country. It is supposed by some to be an Indian name with a French accent. I am disposed, however, to think that it came from the early French voyageurs, from the fact that not only the bay, but an island, are mentioned by the name of Quinte. The usual pronunciation until a few years ago was _Kanty._ In the year 1780, on the 14th day of October, and again in July, 1814, a most remarkable phenomenon occurred, the like of which was never before witnessed in the country. "At noonday a pitchy darkness completely obscured the light of the sun, continuing for about ten minutes at a time, and being frequently repeated during the afternoon. In the interval between each mysterious eclipse, dense masses of black clouds streaked with yellow drove athwart the darkened sky, with fitful gusts of wind. Thunder, lightning, black rain, and showers of ashes added to the terrors of the scene, and when the sun appeared its colour was a bright red." The people were filled with fear, and thought that the end of the world was at hand. These two periods are known as the "dark days." Many years after this, another phenomenon not less wonderful occurred, which I had the satisfaction of seeing; and although forty-five years have elapsed, the terrifying scene is as firmly fixed in my memory as though it had happened but an hour ago. I refer to the meteoric shower of the 13th of November, 1833. My father had been from home, and on his return, about midnight, his attention was arrested by the frequent fall of meteors, or stars, to use the common phrase. The number rapidly increased; and the sight was so grand and beautiful that he came in and woke us all up, and then walked up the road and roused some of the neighbours. Such a display of heaven's fireworks was never seen before. If the air had been filled with rockets they would have been but match strokes compared to the incessant play of brilliant dazzling meteors that flashed across the sky, furrowing it so thickly with golden lines that the whole heaven seemed ablaze until the morning's sun shut out the scene. One meteor of large size remained sometime almost stationary in the zenith, emitting streams of light. I stood like a statue, and gazed with fear and awe up to the glittering sky. Millions of stars seemed to be dashing across the blue dome of heaven. In fact I thought the whole starry firmament was tumbling down to earth. The neighbours were terror struck: the more enlightened of them were awed at contemplating so vivid a picture of the Apocalyptic image--that of the stars of heaven falling to the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken by a mighty wind; while the cries of others, on a calm night like that, might have been heard for miles around. Young and poor as Canada was half a century ago, she was not behind many of the older and more wealthy countries in enterprize. Her legislators were sound, practical men, who had the interest of their country at heart. Her merchants were pushing and intelligent; her farmers frugal and industrious. Under such auspices her success was assured. At an early day the Government gave material aid to every project that was calculated to foster and extend trade and commerce, as well as to open up and encourage the settlement of the country. Neither was individual enterprize behind in adopting the discoveries and improvements of the time, and in applying them not only to their own advantage but to that of the community at large. Four years after Fulton had made his successful experiment with steam as a propelling power for vessels on the Hudson, a small steamer was built and launched at Montreal; and in 1815 the keel of the first steamer that navigated the waters of Upper Canada was laid at Bath. She was named the _Frontenac_. The village of Bath, as you all know, is situated on the Bay of Quinte, about thirteen miles west of Kingston. It was formerly known as Ernesttown. Those of you who have passed that way will remember that about a mile west of the village there is a bend in the shore round which the road leads, and that a short gravelly beach juts out, inclosing a small pond of water. At the end of this, west, stands an old frame house, time-worn and dilapidated. Behind this house the steamer already mentioned was built, and three years later another known as the _Charlotte_ was launched here. [Footnote: I have often heard my father tell about going to see the launch of the _Charlotte_. He went on foot a round distance of over thirty miles.] Thousands of people were present, and the event was long remembered. They were, no doubt, marvellous things in those days--much more so, perhaps, than that huge mammoth of steam craft of later days, the _Great Eastern_, is to us. I cannot give the dimensions of these boats, but it is safe to say that they were not large. Their exploits in the way of speed were considered marvellous, and formed the topic of conversation in many a home. A trip in one of them down the bay to Kingston was a greater feat then than a voyage to Liverpool is now; and they went but little faster than a man could walk. Early travellers predicted that Ernesttown would be a place of importance, but their predictions have come to naught. It reached many years ago the culminating point in its history. Still, in the progress of our country the above must give it more than a passing interest. Gourlay speaks of Bath in 1811, and says, "The village contains a valuable social library"--a thing at that date which could not be found probably in any other part of the Province. Previous to the introduction of steamers, which gave a wonderful impetus to trade, and completely revolutionized it, the traffic of the country was carried on under great disadvantages. Montreal and Quebec, the one the depot of merchandise and the other the centre of the lumber trade, were far away, and could only be reached during six months in the year by the St. Lawrence, whose navigation, on account of its rapids, was difficult and dangerous. There was but little money, and business was conducted on an understood basis of exchange or barter. During the winter months the farmer threshed his grain and brought it with his pork and potash to the merchant, who gave him goods for his family in return. The merchant was usually a lumberman as well, and he busied himself in the winter time in getting out timber and hauling it to the bay, where it was rafted and made ready for moving early in the spring. As soon as navigation was open, barges and batteaux were loaded with potash and produce, and he set sail with these and his rafts down the river. It was always a voyage of hardship and danger. If good fortune attended him, he would, in the course of three or four weeks make Montreal, and Quebec with his rafts two or three weeks later. Then commenced the labour of disposing of his stuff, settling up the year's accounts, and purchasing more goods, with which his boats were loaded and despatched for home. The task of the country merchant in making his selections then, was much more difficult than it is now. Moreover, as he could reach his market but once in the year, his purchases had to be governed by this fact. He had to cater to the entire wants of his customers, and was in the letter, as well as the spirit, a general merchant, for he kept dry goods, groceries, crockery, hardware, tools, implements, drugs-- everything, in fact, from a needle to an anchor. The return trip with his merchandise was slow and difficult. The smooth stretches of the river were passed with the oar and sail, the currents with poles, while the more difficult rapids were overcome by the men, assisted with ox- teams. Thus he worried his way through, and by the time he got home two or three months had been consumed. During the winter months, while the western trader was busy in collecting his supplies for the spring, the general merchant of Montreal, a veritable nabob in those days, locked up his shop and set off with a team for Upper Canada, and spent it in visiting his customers. The world moved slowly then. The ocean was traversed by sailing ships--they brought our merchandise and mails. In winter, the only communication with Montreal and Quebec was by stage, and in the fall and spring it was maintained with no small difficulty. One of the wonders of swift travelling of the day was the feat of Weller, the mail contractor and stage proprietor, in sending Lord Durham through from Toronto to Montreal in thirty-six hours. Many a strange adventure could be told of stage rides between Toronto and Quebec, and of the merchants in their annual trips down the St. Lawrence, on rafts and in batteaux; and it seems a pity that so much that would amuse and interest readers of the present day has never been chronicled. There was one thing brought about by those batteaux voyages for which the farmer is by no means thankful. The men used to fill their beds with fresh straw on their return, and by this means the Canadian thistle found its way to Upper Canada. As Canada had not been behind in employing steam in navigation, so she was not behind in employing it in another direction. Stephenson built the first railroad between Liverpool and Manchester in 1829. Some years later, 1836, we had a railway in Canada, and now we have over 5,000 miles in the Dominion. These two agencies have entirely changed the character both of our commerce and mail service. The latter, in those early days, in the Midland district, was a private speculation of one Huff, who travelled the country and delivered papers and letters at the houses. This was a very irregular and unsatisfactory state of things, but was better than no mail at all. Then came the wonderful improvement of a weekly mail carried by a messenger on horseback; and as time wore on, the delivery became more frequent, post-offices multiplied, postage rates were reduced, and correspondence increased. There were two other enterprises which the country took hold of very soon after their discovery. I refer to the canals and the telegraph. The first, the Lachine Canal, was commenced in 1821, and the Welland in 1824. The Montreal Telegraph Company was organized in 1847. So that in those four great discoveries which have revolutionized the trade of the world, it will be seen that our young country kept abreast with the times, and her advance, not only in those improvements, but in every branch of science and art, has been marvellous. The Midland District, so named because of its central position, was one of the largest districts in the Province; but county after county was cut away from it on all sides, until it was greatly shorn of its proportions. Before this clipping had begun, the courts were held alternately in Kingston and Adolphustown. The old Court-House still stands [Footnote: It has been taken down since, and a town hall for the use of the township, erected on its site.] and is as melancholy a monument of its former importance as one could wish to see. The town which the original surveyors laid out here, and which early writers mention, I have never been able to find more of than the plot. It must have flourished long before my day. But what about Prince Edward county? Of course you know that it was set off in 1833, and that the first Court of Assize was held in this town-- then Hallowell--in 1834. I am not able to say much about its early history; though I am sure there are many incidents of very great interest connected with it, probably lost for the want of some friendly hand. Land was taken up in this neighbourhood by Barker, Washburn, Spencer, Vandusen, and others about the year 1790. Patents were issued by the Government in 1802-3-4. At a meeting held at Eyre's Inn, on the 14th of February, 1818, at which Ebenezer Washburn, Esq., presided, I learn that there was in the township of Hallowell at that time but two brick-houses, one carding, and fulling mill, one Methodist Chapel--now known as the old Chapel at Conger's Mill--one Quaker Meeting House. Preparations were being made to build a church. [Footnote: Known as St. Mary Magdalene. The Rev. W. Macaulay, I think, was the first rector, and he lived to a good old age.] Orchards were beginning to be planted, and other improvements. The first settlers paid at the rate of one shilling per acre for their land. Four-fifths of the entire Midland district, in 1818, was a dense forest. We can hardly realise the fact that seventy years ago there was probably not a soul living in this fair county. Let us skip over a period of about forty years from the first settlement, and have a look at the people and how they lived. The log houses, in very many cases had been transformed into comfortable and commodious dwellings. The log barns and hovels, too, had given place to larger frame barns and sheds, many of which are still to be seen around the country. The changes wrought in those short years were wonderful, and having followed the pioneer hither and noted his progress, let us step into one of these homes and take a seat with the family gathered around the spacious fire-place, with its glowing fire blazing up cheerfully through the heaped-up wood, and note the comforts and amusements of the contented circle. How clearly the picture stands out to many of us. How well we remember the time when, with young and vigorous step, we set our feet in the path which has led us farther and farther away. "A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows." Now, please understand me in this matter. We have not a particle of sympathy with the ordinary grumbler, by which we mean that class of persons whose noses are not only stuck up at any and every encroachment on their worn-out ideas of what is right and wrong, but, like crabbed terriers, snap at the heels of every man that passes. Nor do we wish you to think that we place our fathers on a higher plane of intellectual power and worth than we have reached or can reach. The world rolls on, and decade after decade adds to the accumulative brain force of humanity. Men of thought and power through all the ages have scattered seed, and while much of it has come to naught, a kernel here and there, possessed of vital force, has germinated and grown. You remember what the great Teacher said about "a rain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." Any man who looks around him must acknowledge that we are going ahead, but notwithstanding this, every careful observer cannot fail to see that there is growing up in our land a large amount of sham, and hence, as Isaiah tells us, it would be well for us to look more frequently "into the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged." Let us not only treasure the recollection of the noble example which our fore-fathers set us, but let us imitate those sterling qualities which render their names dear to us. "It is a common complaint perpetually reiterated," remarks a racy writer, "that the occupations of life are filled to overflowing; that the avenues to wealth or distinction are so crowded with competitors that it is hopeless to endeavour to make way in the dense and jostling masses. This desponding wail was doubtless heard when the young earth had scarcely commenced her career of glory, and it will be dolefully repeated by future generations to the end of time. Long before Cheops had planted the basement-stone of his pyramids, when Sphinx and Colossi had not yet been fashioned into their huge existence, and the untouched quarry had given out neither temple nor monument, the young Egyptian, as he looked along the Nile, may have mourned that he was born too late. Fate had done him injustice in withholding his individual being till the destinies of man were accomplished. His imagination exulted at what he might have been, had his chance been commensurate with his merits, but what remained for him now in this worn-out, battered, used-up hulk of a world, but to sorrow for the good times which had exhausted all resources? "The mournful lamentation of antiquity has not been weakened in its transmission, and it is not more reasonable now than when it groaned by the Nile. There is always room enough in the world, and work waiting for willing hands. The charm that conquers obstacles and commands success is strong will and strong work. Application is the friend and ally of genius. The laborious scholar, the diligent merchant, the industrious mechanic, the hard-working farmer, are thriving men, and take rank in the world; while genius by itself lies in idle admiration of a fame that is ever prospective. The hare sleeps or amuses himself by the wayside, and the tortoise wins the race." RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY DAYS. PATERNAL MEMORIES--A VISIT TO THE HOME OF MY BOYHOOD--THE OLD QUAKER MEETING-HOUSE--FLASHES OF SILENCE--THE OLD BURYING GROUND--"TO THE MEMORY OF ELIZA"--GHOSTLY EXPERIENCES--HIVING THE BEES--ENCOUNTER WITH A BEAR--GIVING "THE MITTEN"--A "BOUNDARY QUESTION"--SONG OF THE BULLFROG--RING--SAGACITY OF ANIMALS--TRAINING DAYS--PICTURESQUE SCENERY OF THE BAY OF QUINTE--JOHN A. MACDONALD--A PERILOUS JOURNEY--AUNT JANE AND WILLET CASEY. More than forty-five years have elapsed since my father departed this life, and left me a lad, the eldest of six children, to take his place, and assist my mother as well as I could in the management of affairs. Twenty years later mother was laid by his side, and before and since all my sisters have gone. For a number of years the only survivors of that once happy household, the memory of which is so fresh and dear to me, have been myself and brother. Upper Canada was a vastly different place at the time of my father's decease (1840) from what it is now. The opportunities he had when young were proportionately few. I have been a considerable wanderer in my day, and have had chances of seeing what the world has accomplished, and of contrasting it with his time and advantages. If his lines had fallen in another sphere of action he would have made his mark. As it was, during his short life--he died at the age of 42--he had with his own hands acquired an excellent farm of 250 acres, with a good, spacious, well-furnished house, barns, and out- buildings. His farm was a model of order and thorough tillage, well stocked with the best improved cattle, sheep, and hogs that could be had at that time, and all the implements were the newest that could be procured. He was out of debt, and therefore independent, and had money at interest. This, it seems to me, was something for a man to accomplish in twenty years. But this was not all. He was acknowledged to be a man of intelligence superior to most in those days, and was frequently consulted by neighbours and friends in matters of importance; a warm politician and a strict temperance man. He was one of the best speakers in the district, always in request at public meetings, and especially during an election campaign. Into political contests he entered with all his might, and would sometimes be away a week or more at a time, stumping--as they used to term it--the district. In politics he was a Reformer, and under the then existing circumstances I think I should have been one too. But the vexed questions that agitated the public mind then, and against which he fought and wrote, have been adjusted. An old co-worker of his said to me many years after at an election: "What a pity your father could not have seen that you would oppose the party he laboured so hard to build up. If a son of mine did it I would disinherit him as quick as I would shove a toad off a stick." I said to my old friend that I supposed the son had quite as good a right to form his opinions on certain matters as his father had. Political and religious prejudices are hard things to remove. I remember a deputation waiting on my father to get him to consent to be a candidate for an election which was on the eve of taking place, but he declined, on the ground that he was not prepared to assume so important a position then, nor did he feel that he had reached a point which would warrant him in leaving his business. He added that after a while, if his friends were disposed to confer such an honour upon him, he might consider it more favourably. Peter Perry was chosen, and I know my father worked hard for him, and the Tory candidate, Cartwright, was defeated. This reminds me of a little bit of banking history, which created some noise in the district at the time, but which is quite forgotten now. A number of leading farmers, of whom my father was one, conceived the idea of establishing a "Farmers' Joint Stock Bank," which was subsequently carried out, and a bank bearing that name was started in Bath. John S. Cartwright, the then member, through whom they expected to get a charter, and who was interested in the Commercial Bank at Kingston, failed to realize their expectations in that particular, and the new bank had to close its doors. The opening was premature, and cost the stockholders a considerable sum of money. This little banking episode helped to defeat Mr. Cartwright at the next election. Over thirty years have passed since I left my old home, and change after change has occurred as the years rolled along, until I have become a stranger to nearly all the people of the neighbourhood, and feel strange where I used to romp and play in boyhood. The houses and fields have changed, the woods have been pushed further back, and it is no longer the home that is fixed in my memory. My visits have consequently become less and less frequent. On one of these occasions I felt a strong inclination one Sabbath morning to visit the old Quaker Meeting House about three miles away. After making my toilette and breakfasting, I sallied forth, on foot and alone, through the fields and woods. The day was such as I would have selected from a thousand. It was towards the last of May--a season wherein if a man's heart fail to dance blithely, he must indeed be a victim of dulness. The sun was moving upward in his diurnal course, and had just acquired sufficient heat to render the shade of the wood desirable. The heaven was cloudless, and soft languor rested on the face of nature, stealing the mind's sympathy, and wooing it to the delights of repose. My mind was too much occupied with early recollections to do more than barely notice the splendour and the symphonies around me. The hum of the bee and the beetle, as they winged their swift flight onwards, the song of the robin and the meadow lark, as they tuned their throats to the praises of the risen sun, and the crowing of some distant chanticleer, moved lazily in the sluggish air. It was a season of general repose, just such a day, I think, as a saint would choose to assist his fancy in describing the sunny regions whither his thoughts delight to wander, or a poet would select to refine his ideas of the climate of Elysium. At length I arrived at the old meeting-house where I had often gone, when a lad with my father and mother. It was a wooden building standing at a corner of the road, and was among the first places of worship erected in the Province. The effects of the beating storms of nearly half a century were stamped on the unpainted clapboards, and the shingles which projected just far enough over the plate to carry off the water, were worn and partially covered with moss. One would look in vain, for anything that could by any possibility be claimed as an ornament. Two small doors gave access to the interior, which was as plain and ugly as the exterior. A partition, with doors, that were let down during the time of worship, divided the room into equal parts, and separated the men and women. It was furnished with strong pine benches, with backs; and at the far side were two rows of elevated benches, which were occupied on both sides by leading members of the society. I have often watched the row of broad-brims on one hand, and the scoop bonnets on the other, with boyish interest, and wondered what particular thing in the room they gazed at so steadily, and why some of them twirled one thumb round the other with such regularity. On this occasion I entered quietly, and took a seat near the door. There were a number of familiar faces in the audience. Some whom I had known when young were growing grey, but many of the well-remembered faces were gone. The gravity of the audience and the solemn silence were very impressive; but still recollections of the past crowded from my mind the sacred object which had brought the people together. Now I looked at the old bayonet marks in the posts, made by the soldiers who had used it as a barrack immediately after the war of 1812. Next, the letters of all shapes and sizes cut by mischievous boys with their jacknives in the backs of the seats years ago arrested my attention, and brought to mind how weary I used to get; but as I always sat with my father, I dared not try my hand at carving. Then, the thought came: Where are those boys now? Some of them were sober, sedate men sitting before me with their broad-brimmed hats shadowing their faces; others were sleeping in the yard outside; and others had left the neighbourhood years ago. Then I thought of the great Quaker preacher and author, Joseph John Gurney, whom I had heard in this room, and of J. Pease the philanthropic English banker. Then another incident of quite a different character came to my recollection. An old and well known Hicksite preacher was there one Sunday (always called First Day by the friends), and the spirit moved him to speak. The Hicksite and orthodox Quakers were something like the Jews and Samaritans of old--they dealt with one another, but had no religious fellowship. The old friend had said but a few words, when one of the leaders of the meeting rose and said very gravely: "Sit thee down, James;" but James did not seem disposed to be choked off in this peremptory way, and continued. Again the old friend stood up, and with stronger emphasis said: "James, I tell thee to sit thee down;" and this time James subsided. There was nothing more said on the occasion, and after a long silence, the meeting broke up. On another occasion, a young friend, who had aspired to become a teacher, stood up, and in that peculiar, drawling, sing-song tone which used to be a characteristic of nearly all their preachers, said: "The birds of the air have nests, the foxes have holes, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head;" and then sat down, leaving those who heard him to enlarge and apply the text to suit themselves. There was nothing more said that day. And so my mind wandered on from one thing to another, until at length my attention was arrested by a friend who rose and took off his hat (members of the society always sit with their hats on), and gave us a short and touching discourse. I have heard some of the most telling and heart-searching addresses at Quaker meetings. On this occasion there was no attempt-- there could be none from a plain people like this--to tickle the ear with well-turned periods or rhetorical display. After the meeting was over, I walked out into the graveyard; my father and mother and two sisters lie there together, and several members of my father's family. There is a peculiarity about a Quaker burying-ground that will arrest the attention of any visitor. Other denominations are wont to mark the last resting place of loved ones by costly stones and inscriptions; but here the majority of the graves are marked with a plain board, and many of them have only the initials of the deceased, and the rank grass interlocks its spines above the humble mounds. I remember my father having some difficulty to get consent to place a plain marble slab at the head of his father and mother's grave. But were those who slumbered beneath forgotten? Far otherwise. The husband here contemplated the lowly dwelling place of the former minister to his delight. The lover recognised the place where she whose presence was all-inspiring reposed, and each knew where were interred those who had been lights to their world of love, and on which grave to shed the drop born of affection and sorrow. Although the pomp, the state, and the pageantry of love were her ransom, yet hither, in moments when surrounding objects were forgotten, had retired the afflicted, and poured forth the watery tribute that bedews the cheek of those that mourn "in spirit and in truth." Hither came those whose spirits had been bowed down beneath the burden of distress, and indulged in the melancholy occupation of silent grief, from which no man ever went forth without benefit. I thought of Falconer's lines:-- "Full oft shall memory from oblivion's veil Relieve your scenes, and sigh with grief sincere?" After lingering for some time near the resting place of the dear ones of my own family, I turned away and threaded my way thoughtfully back. During another visit to the neighbourhood of my birth, after having tea with the Rev. H---, Rector of ----, I took a stroll through the graveyard that nearly surrounds the old church, and spent some time in reading the inscriptions on the headstones. There were numbers that were new and strange, but the most of them bore names that were familiar. Time, of course, had left his mark, and in some cases the lettering was almost gone. Many of those silent sleepers I remembered well, and had followed their remains to the grave, and had heard the old Rector pronounce the last sad rite: "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," long years ago. As I passed on from grave to grave of former friends and neighbours, "Each in his narrow cell forever laid," many curious and pleasing collections were brought to mind. I came at last to the large vault of the first Rector, who was among the first in the Province. I recollected well the building of this receptacle for the dead, and how his family, one after another, were placed in it; and then the summons came to him, and he was laid there. A few years later, his wife, the last survivor of the family, was put there too, and the large slabs were shut down for the last time, closing the final chapter of this family history, and--as does not often happen in this world--they were taking their last sleep undivided. But Time, the great destroyer, had been at work during the years that had fled, and I was sorry to find that the slabs that covered the upper part of the vault, and which bore the inscriptions, were broken, and that the walls were falling in. There were no friends left to interest themselves in repairing the crumbling structure, and in a few years more the probabilities are that every vestige of the last resting-place of this united couple will be gone. It is not a pleasing thought, and yet it is true, that however much we may be loved, and however many friends may follow us with tears to the grave, in a few short years they will be gone, and no one left to care for us, or perhaps know that we ever lived. I have stood of an evening in the grand cemetery of Pere la Chaise, Paris and watched the people trooping in with their wreaths of _immortelles_ to be placed on the tombs of departed friends, and others with cans of water and flowers to plant around the graves. Here and there could be seen where some loved one had been sprinkling the delicate flowers, or remained to water them with their tears. This respect paid to the memory of departed ones is pleasant, and yet, alas, how very few, after two or three generations are remembered. The name that meets the eye on one stone after another might as well be a blank for all we know of them. Anyone who has visited the old churchyards or ruined abbeys in England must have felt this, as his gaze has rested on time-worn tablets from which every mark had long since been obliterated, "By time subdued (what will not time subdue)!" Turning away from the vault, and passing down the yard, I came to a grave the headstone of which had fallen, and was broken. I turned the two pieces over, and read: "To the memory of Eliza ----." And is this, thought I, the end of the only record of the dear friend of my boyhood; the merry, happy girl whom every one loved? No one left after a score of years to care for her grave? So it is. The years sweep on. "Friend after friend departs," still on, and all recollection of us is lost; on still, and the very stones that were raised as a memorial disappear, and the place that knew us once knows us no more forever. I turned away, sad and thoughtful; but after a little my mind wandered back again to the sunny hours of youth, and I lived them over. Eliza had been in our family for several years, and was one of the most cheerful, kind-hearted girls one could wish to see. She had a fine voice, and it seemed as natural for her to sing as a bird. This, with her happy disposition, made her the light and life of the house. She was like the little burn that went dancing so lightly over the pebbles in the meadow--bright, sparkling, joyous, delighting in pranks and fun as much as a kitten. "True mirth resides not in the smiling skin-- The sweeted solace is to act no sin." --HERRICK. I do not think Eliza ever intentionally acted a sin. On one occasion, however, this excess of spirit led her perhaps beyond the bounds of maidenly propriety; but it was done without consideration, and when it was over caused her a good deal of pain. The mischievous little adventure referred to shall be mentioned presently. We had some neighbours who believed in ghosts; not an uncommon thing in those days. Eliza, with myself, had frequently heard from these people descriptions of remarkable sights they had seen, and dreadful noises they had heard at one time and another. She conceived the idea of making an addition to their experiences in this way, and as an experiment made a trial on me. I had been away one afternoon, and returned about nine o'clock. It was quite dark. In the meantime she had quietly made her preparations, and was on the look out for me. When my horse's feet were heard cantering up the road, she placed herself that I could not fail to see her. On I came, and, dashing up to the gate, dismounted; and there before me on the top of the stone wall was something, the height of a human figure draped in white, moving slowly and noiselessly towards me. I was startled at first, but a second thought satisfied me what was up, and that my supernatural visitor was quite harmless. I passed through the gate, but my pet mare did not seem inclined to follow, until I spoke to her, and then she bounded through with a snort. After putting her in the field, and returning, I found the ghost had vanished. But I was quite sure I had not done with it yet; and as I drew near the house I was in momentary expectation that it would come out upon me somewhere. I kept a sharp look-out, but saw nothing, and had reached the porch door to go in, when, lo, there stood the spectre barring my way! I paused and glanced at its appearance as well as I could, and I must confess if I had been at all superstitious, or had come on such an object in a strange place, I think I should have been somewhat shaken. However, I knew my spectre, boldly took hold of it, and found I had something tangible in my grip. After a brief and silent struggle, I thrust open the door, and brought my victim into the room. My mother and sisters, who knew nothing of what had been going on, were greatly alarmed to see me dragging into the house a white object, and, womanlike, began to scream; but the mystery was soon revealed. She had made up some thick paste, with which she had covered her face, and had really got up quite a sepulchral expression, to which the darkness gave effect; and being enveloped in a white sheet, made, we thought, a capital ghost. This did not satisfy her, and was only a preliminary to her appearance on the first suitable occasion to our neighbours. It was not long before they encountered the ghost on their way home after dark, and were so badly frightened that in the end I think Eliza was worse frightened than they. Eliza never had any confidants in these little affairs, and they were over before any one in the house knew of it. This was the end, so far as she was concerned, of this kind of amusement. Some time after this another little episode of a similar nature happened, but this time Eliza was one of the victims. We had a near neighbour, an old bachelor, who had a fine patch of melons close at hand. Eliza and a cousin who was on a visit had had their eyes on them, and one day declared they were going that night to get some of Tom's melons. Mother advised them not to do it, and told them there were melons enough in our own garden without their going to steal Tom's. No, they didn't want them, they were going to have a laugh on Tom;--and so when it was dark they set off to commit the trespass. They had been away but a few minutes when mother--who by the way was a remarkably timid woman, and I have often wondered how she got up enough courage to play the trick--put a white sheet under her arm and followed along the road to a turn, where was a pair of bars, through which the girls had passed to the field. Here she paused, and when she fancied the girls had reached their destination she drew the sheet around her, rapped on the bars with a stick, and called to them. Then, folding up the sheet, she ran away home. She was not sure whether they had seen her or not. The sheet was put away, and, taking up her knitting, she sat down quietly to await their return, which she anticipated almost immediately. A long time elapsed, and they did not appear. Then mother became alarmed, and as she happened to be alone she did not know what to do. Though she had gone out on purpose to frighten the girls, I do not think she could have been induced to go out again to see what was keeping them. After a while Mary came in, and then Eliza, both pale, and bearing evidence of having had a terrible fright. Mother asked them what in the world was the matter. "O, Aunt Polly!" they both exclaimed, "we have seen such an awful thing tonight." "What was it?" They could not tell; it was terrible! "Where did you see it?" "Over by the bars! Just as we had got a melon we heard an awful noise, and then we saw something white moving about, and then it was gone!" They were so badly frightened that they dropped down among the vines, and lay there for some minutes. They then got up, and, making a detour, walked home; but how, they never could tell. Mother was never suspected by them, and after a time she told them about it. There were no more ghosts seen in the neighbourhood after that. Time passed on, and Eliza's love of mischief drove her into another kind of adventure. She was a girl of fine presence; fair, with bright black eyes and soft black hair, which curled naturally, and was usually worn combed back off the forehead. The general verdict was that she was pretty. I have no doubt if she had had the opportunity she would have made a brilliant actress, as she was naturally clever, possessing an excellent memory and being a wonderful mimic. She would enter into a bit of fun with the abandon of a child, and if occasion required the stoicism of a deacon, the whole house might be convulsed with laughter, but in Eliza's face, if she set her mind to it, you could not discern the change of a muscle. Her features were regular, and of that peculiar cast which, when she was equipped in man's attire, made her a most attractive-looking beau. About half a mile away lived a poor widow with a couple of daughters, and very nice girls they were, but one was said to be a bit of a coquette. Eliza conceived the idea of giving this young lady a practical lesson in the following manner. She dressed herself in father's clothes, and set about making the girl's acquaintance. She possessed the necessary _sang-froid_ to carry on a scheme of this kind with success. The affair was altogether a secret. Well, in due course a strange young man called about dark one evening at the widow's to make enquiries respecting a person in the neighbourhood he wished to find. He gave out that he was a stranger, and was stopping at ----, a few miles away; asked for a drink of water, and to be allowed to rest for a few moments; made himself agreeable, chatted with the girls, and when he was leaving was invited to call again if he passed that way. He did call again in a short time, and again and again, and struck up a regular courtship with one of the girls, and succeeded to all appearance in winning her affection. Now, the question presented itself, when matters began to take this shape, how she was to break it off, and the affair was such a novelty that she became quite infatuated with it, and I have no doubt would have continued her visits if an accident had not happened which brought them to an abrupt termination. On her return one night she unexpectedly met father at the door, and as there was no chance for retreat, she very courteously asked if he could direct her to Mr. ----. It happened to be raining, and father, of course quite innocently, asked the stranger in until the shower was over. She hesitated, but finally came in and took a seat. There was something about the person, and particularly the clothes, that attracted his attention, but this probably would have passed if he had not, observed that the boots were on the wrong feet; that is to say, the right boot was on the left foot, _et vice versa_. Knowing Eliza's propensities well, he suspected her, and she was caught. Enjoying a romp now and then himself he called mother, and after tormenting poor Eliza for a while, let her go. This cured her effectually. But the poor girl never knew what became of her lover. He came no more, and she was left to grieve for a time, and I suppose to forget, for she married a couple of years after. The secret was kept at Eliza's request, after making a clean breast of it to mother, for a long time. She married not long after this, and was beloved by everyone. She was a devoted wife, and had several children, none of whom are now living. Poor Eliza! I thought of Hamlet's soliloquy on Yorick as I stood by her unkept grave, with its headstone fallen and broken. "Those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft--where be your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment." All gone, years ago! And they live only in the sweet recollections of the past. My father used to keep a large number of bees either in wood or straw hives, mostly of the former; and indeed most all our neighbours kept them too, and I remember a curious custom that prevailed of blowing horns and pounding tin pans when they were swarming, to keep them from going away. I never knew my father to resort to this expedient, but it was wonderful to see him work among them. He would go to the hives and change them from one to another, or go under a swarm, and without any protection to his face or hands, shake them into the hive, and carry it away and put it in its place. They never stung him unless by accident. If one of them got under his clothes and was crowded too much, he might be reminded that there was something wrong, but the sting only troubled him for a minute or two. With me it seemed if they got a sight of me they made a "bee line" for my face. After father's death they soon disappeared, as I would not have them about. We sometimes found bee trees in the woods, and on one occasion chopped down a large elm out of which we got a quantity of choice honey. I remember this well; for I ate so much that it made me sick, and cured me from wanting honey ever after. Another incident connected with the afternoon's work in robbing the bees. It was quite early in the spring, and though the snow had pretty much disappeared from the fields, yet there was some along the fences and in the woods. We left the house after dinner with a yoke of oxen and wood-sleigh freighted with pails and tubs to bring back our expected prize, and the afternoon was well spent before John--our hired man--had felled the tree, and by the time we had got the comb into the vessels it was growing dark. Just as everything had been got into the sleigh, and we were about to leave, we were startled by a shrill scream on one side, something like that made by a pair of quarrelsome tom-cats, only much louder, which was answered immediately by a prolonged mew on the other. The noise was so startling and unexpected that John for a moment was paralyzed. Old Ring, a large powerful dog, bounded away at once into the woods, and Buck and Bright started for home on the trot. I was too sick to care much about wild cats, or in fact anything else, and lay on my back in the straw among the pails and tubs, but I heard the racket, and what appeared a struggle with the dog. We did not see Ring until next morning, and felt sure that he had been killed. The poor old fellow looked as though he had had a hard time of it, and did not move about much for a day or two. The wild cat or Canadian lynx is a ferocious animal. The species generally go in pairs. I have frequently heard them calling to one another at apparently long distances, and then they would gradually come together. A man would fare very badly with a pair of them, particularly if he was laid on his back with a fit of colic. Like most lads, I was fond of shooting, and used frequently to shoulder my gun and stroll away through the fields in quest of game. On one occasion, somewhere about the first of September, I was out hunting black squirrels, and had skirted along the edge of the woods and corn fields for some distance. I had not met with very good success. The afternoon was warm, and I was discussing in my mind whether I should go further on or return home. Looking up the hill, I saw a couple of squirrels, and started after them at a sharp pace. On my right was a corn field and as I stepped along the path near the fence, I had a glimpse of something moving along on the other side of it, but I was so intent on watching the squirrels that I did not in fact think of anything else for the moment. As I drew near the tree I saw them go up. Keeping a sharp look-out for a shot, I chanced to look down, and there before me, not two rods away, sat a large red-nosed bear. The encounter was so unexpected that it is hardly necessary to say I was frightened, and it was a moment or two before I could collect my wits. Bruin seemed to be examining me very composedly, and when I did begin to realize the position the question was what to do. I was afraid to turn at once and run. Having but one charge of small shot in my gun, I knew it would not do to give him that, so we continued gazing at each other. At length I brought my gun to full cock, made a step forward, and gave a shout. The bear quietly dropped on his fore legs and moved off, and so did I, and as the distance widened I increased my speed. The little dog I had with me decamped before I did, having no doubt seen the bear. I ran to a neighbour's who had a large dog. One of the boys got his gun, and we went back in a somewhat better condition for a fight; but when the dog struck the scent he put his tail between his legs and trotted home, showing more sense probably than we did. However, we saw nothing of the bear, and returned. Some days after a neighbour shot a large bear, no doubt the same one. Very early in the history of mankind it was pronounced to be not good that man should be alone, and ever since then both male and female have seemed to think so too. At all events there is a certain time in life when this matter occupies a very prominent place in the minds of both, and it was no more of a novelty when I was young than now. The same desires warmed the heart, and the same craving for social enjoyment and companionship brought the young together, with the difference that then we were in the rough, while the young of the present have been touched up by education and polished by the refinements of fashionable society. I do not think they are any better at the core, or make more attentive companions. Now, when a young gentleman goes to see a young lady with other views than that of spending a little time agreeably, he is said to be paying his addresses, or, as Mrs. Grundy would say: It is an _affaire d'amour_. When I was young, if a boy went to see a girl (and they did whenever they could) he was said to be sparking her. If he was unsuccessful in his suit you would hear it spoken of in some such way as this: "Sally Jones gave Jim Brown the mitten;" and very often the unlucky swain was actually presented with a small mitten by the mischievous fair one whom he had hoped to win, as a broad hint that it was useless for him to hang around there any longer. Sunday afternoon was the usual time selected, and in fact it was the only time at their disposal for visiting the girls. There were favourite resorts in every neighbourhood, and girls whose attractions were very much more inviting than others, and thither three or four young gallants, well-mounted and equipped in their best Sunday gear, might be seen galloping from different directions of a Sunday evening. Of course it could not in the nature of things happen that all would be successful, and so after a while one unfortunate after another would ride away to more propitious fields, and leave the more fortunate candidate to entertain his lady- love until near midnight. Sometimes tricks were played on fortunate rivals by loosing their horses and starting them home, or hiding their saddles; and it was not a pleasant conclusion to such a delightful visit to have to trudge through the mud four or five miles of a dark night, or to ride home barebacked, as the best pants were likely to get somewhat soiled in the seat. However, these little affairs seldom proved very serious, and it would get whispered around that Tildy Smith was going to get married to Pete Robins. When I had grown to be quite a lad I got a lesson from Grandfather C--- that never required repeating. Those who are acquainted with the Quakers know that they do not indulge in complimentary forms of speech. A question is answered with a simple yes or no. My father's people were of this persuasion, and of course my replies whenever addressed were in the regular home style. It does not follow, however, that because the Friends as a people eschew conformity to the world both in dress and speech, that there is a want of parental respect. Quite the contrary. Their regular and temperate habits, their kindness and attention to the comfort and well-being of one another, make their homes the abode of peace and good-will, and, though their conversation is divested of the many little phrases the absence of which is thought disrespectful by very many, yet they have gained a reputation for consistency and truthfulness which is of more value than ten thousand empty words that drop smoothly from the lips but have no place in the heart. During a visit to my grandfather, the old gentleman asked me a number of questions to which he got the accustomed yes or no. This so displeased him that he caught me by the ear and gave it a twist that seemed to me to have deprived me of that member altogether, and said very sharply, "When you answer me, say SIR." That Sir was so thoroughly twisted into my head that I do not think the old man ever spoke to me after that it did not jump to my lips. Another anecdote, of much the same character as that related above, and quite as characteristic of the men of those days, was told me by an old man not long since--one of the very few of the second generation now living (Paul. C. Petersen, aged 84). Mr. Herman, one of the first settlers in the 4th Concession of Adolphustown, bought a farm, which happened to be situated on the boundary line between the above-named township and Fredericksburgh, in those days known as 3rd and 4th town. It seems that in the original survey, whether through magnetic influence, to which it was ascribed in later years, but more probably through carelessness, or something more potent, there was a wide variation in the line which should have run nearly directly north from the starting point on the shore of the Bay of Quinte. However, as time wore on, and land became more valuable, this question of boundary became a serious thing, and in after years resulted in a series of law suits which cost a large sum of money. Mr. Herman held his farm by the first survey, but if the error which had been made in a direction north was corrected, he would either lose his farm or would have been shoved over on to his neighbour west, and so on. He was not disposed to submit to this, and as he was getting old he took his eldest son one day out to the original post at the south-east corner of his farm on the north shore of Hay Bay, and said to him: "My son, this (pointing out the post), is the post put here by the first survey,--and which I saw planted--at the corner of my lot, and I wish you to look around and mark it well." While the son was looking about, the old man drew up his arm and struck him with the flat of his hand and knocked him over. He at once picked him up, and said: "My son, I had no intention of hurting you, but I wanted to impress the thing on your mind." Shortly after he took the second son out, and administered the same lesson. Not long after the old man passed away, and I remember well that for years this matter was a bone of contention. Most Canadians are familiar with the musical bullfrogs which in the spring, in a favourable locality, in countless numbers call to each other all night long from opposite swamps. These nightly concerts become very monotonous. The listener, however, if he pays attention, will catch a variety of sounds that he may train into something, and if of a poetical turn of mind might make a song that would rival some of those written to bells. I used to fancy I could make out what they were calling back to one another, and have often been a very attentive listener. There was an old man in the neighbourhood who very frequently came home drunk, and we used to wonder he did not fall off his horse and get badly hurt or killed; but the old horse seemed to understand how to keep under him and fetch him and his jug home all right. We had a little song which the frogs used to sing for him as he got near home. Old Brown--old Brown 1st baritone, last word drawn out. Been to town--been to town 2nd--answer same key. With his jug-jug-jug 3rd--high key in which more join. Coo-chung--coo-chung 4th--baritone in which several join. Chuck-chuck-chuck. 5th--alto from different quarters. Chr r r r r r r r.-- 6th--chorus, grand, after which there is a pause, and then an old leader will start as before. Old Brown--old Brown Get home--get home, Your drunk, drunk, drunk, Coo chung-cooo chung Chuck-chuck-chuck. Chr r r r r r r r. Many curious stories are told respecting the sagacity of animals, among which the dog takes a prominent place. My father had a large dog when I was a youngster that certainly deserves a place among the remarkable ones of his race. Ring was a true friend, and never of his own accord violated the rules of propriety with his kind, but woe to the dog who attempted to bully him. He possessed great strength, and when driven into a contest, generally made short work of it, and trotted away without any show of pride over his defeated contestant. He was in the habit of following my father on all occasions and although frequently shut up and driven back, was sure to be on hand at the stopping point to take charge of the team, etc. On the occasion I am about to mention, my father and mother were going on a visit to his brothers some twenty-four miles distant. Before starting in the morning the decree went forth that Ring must stop at home, and he was accordingly shut up, with instructions that he was not to be let out until after dinner. It was necessary to do this before any preparations were made for going away, for the simple reason that it had been done repeatedly before, and when there was the least sign of a departure, experience had taught him that the best plan was to keep out of the way, in which he generally succeeded until too late to capture him. On this occasion Ring was outwitted. The horses were put to the sleigh, and away they trotted. On the journey they stopped at Picton for a time, when the team was driven into the tavern yard and fed, during which time other teams were coming and going. After about an hour they started again, driving through the village, and on towards their destination. Some five or six hours after, when all possible chance of Ring's following seemed to have passed, he was let out. The dog seemed to know at once what had been going on, and after a careful inspection, discovered that father and mother, with the horses and sleigh, were gone. He rushed about the place with his nose to the ground, and when he had settled which way they had gone, set off in full chase up the road, and a few minutes before they had reached my uncle's, Ring passed them, on the road, wagging his tail, and looking as if he thought that was a good joke. The singular point is how the dog discovered their route, and how, hours after, he traced them up into the tavern yard and out through a street, and along a road where horses and sleighs were passing all the time; and how he distinguished the difference of the horses' feet and sleigh runners from scores of others which had passed to and fro in the meantime. It is a case of animal instinct, or whatever it may be called, beyond comprehension. Many years ago my father-in-law (the late Isaac Ingersoll, Esq.), a prominent man in the District, and a wealthy farmer, widely known, had frequent applications from parties in Kingston for a good milch cow. In those days milk was not delivered, as now, at every door in towns, and it became a necessity for every family to have a cow. The wealthier people wanted good ones, and as the old gentleman was known to keep good stock, he was enabled to get good prices. On one occasion he sold a cow to a gentleman in the town above named, and sent her by steamboat down the Bay of Quinte, a distance of over thirty miles. A week after, the old man was surprised one morning to find this cow in his yard. She had made her escape from her new master, and returned to her old quarters and associates. She was sent back, and after a time got away and travelled the thirty miles again, and was found in the yard. The second journey of course was not so difficult, but by what process did she discover, in the first place, the direction she was taken, and pursue a road which she had never travelled, back to her old quarters. At her new home she was, if anything, better fed and cared for; why should she embrace the first opportunity to steal away and seek her old companions? Who can explain these things? In this case there is an attachment evinced for home and associates, and a persistence in returning to them, most remarkable, and in the case of the dog, an intelligence (or what you may be pleased to call it), which enabled him to trace his master, and overtake him, which is altogether beyond human ken. There is the irrepressible cat, too. Every household is troubled from time to time with one or more of these animals, which from their _snuping_ propensities become a nuisance. I have on more than one occasion put one in a bag and carried it miles away, and then let it go, rather than kill it outright; but it was sure to be back almost as soon as myself. The 4th of June, the anniversary of the birth of King George III., as well as that of the very much more humble individual who pens these lines, for many years was the day selected for the annual drill of the militia of the Province. It was otherwise known as general training-day, and ten days or more previously, the men belonging to the various battalions were "warned" to appear at a certain place in the district. Each individual was subject to a fine of 10s or more if not on the ground to answer to his name when the roll was called. On the morning of that day, therefore, men on foot, on horseback and in waggons were to be seen wending their way to the "training ground," or field, in close proximity to a tavern. It was an amusing spectacle to see a few hundred rustics, whose ages ranged from 16 to 40, in all kinds of dress, with old muskets that had been used in the Revolutionary War or in that of 1812--fusees that many a year, as occasion required, had helped to contribute to the diminished larder--drawn up in a line, and marched round the field for a time. The evolutions were such as might be expected from a crowd of raw countrymen, and often got tangled up so that a military genius of more than superhuman skill would have been puzzled to get them in order again. There was no other way to do it, but to stop and re-form the line. Then would come the word of command: "Attention. Brown fall back. Johnson straighten up there. That will do. Now men, at the word 'Right about,' each man has to turn to his right, at the word 'Left about,' each man turns to his left. Now then: Attention--Right about face." Confusion again, some turning to the right and others to the left. A few strong phrases follow--"As you were"--and so the thing goes on; the men are wheeled to the right and left, marched about the field, and, after being put through various steps, are brought into line again. The commanding officer, sword in hand, looks along the serried ranks, the sergeants pass along the line, chucking one's head up, pushing one back, bringing another forward, and then rings out the word of command again: "Atten_tion_! Shoulder arms! Make ready, present, fire!" Down come the old guns and sticks in a very threatening attitude, a random pop along the line is heard, then "Stand at ease"--after which the Colonel, in his red coat, wheels his charger about, says a few words to the men, and dismisses them. The rest of the day was spent by every man in carousing, horse-racing, and games, with an occasional fight. After the arduous duties of the day, the officers had a special spread at the tavern, and afterwards left for home with very confused ideas as to the direction in which they should proceed to reach it. Fifty years ago, shaving the beard, in Canada at all events, was universal. If a man were to go about as the original Designer of his person no doubt intended, a razor would never have touched his face. But men, like other animals, are subject to crotchets, and are wont to imitate superiors, so when some big-bug like Peter the Great introduced the shears and razor, men appeared soon after with cropped heads and clean chops. I do not remember that I ever saw a man with a full beard until after I had passed manhood for some years, except on one occasion when I was a youngster at school in the old school house on the concession. A man passed through the neighbourhood--I do not remember what he was doing--with a long flowing beard. We had somehow got the idea that no men except Jews wore their beards, and the natural inference with us was that this man was one of that creed. He was as much of a curiosity to us as a chimpanzee or an African lion would have been, and we were about as afraid of him as we would have been on seeing either of the other animals. The township of Adolphustown, in the county of Lennox, is the smallest township in the Province. Originally the counties of Lennox and Addington, Frontenac, Hastings and Prince Edward were embraced in the Midland District. These counties, as the country advanced in population, were one after another set off, the last being the united counties of Lennox and Addington, separated from Frontenac, and with the town of Napanee as its capital. The township in my young days was known as fourth town, as the townships east of it as far as Kingston were known as first, second and third town. Immediately after the American War, the land along the Bay of Quinte, embracing these townships, with fifth, sixth and seventh town to the west, were taken up, and the arduous task of clearing away the bush at once began. The bay, from its debouche at Kingston, extends west about seventy miles, nearly severing at its termination the county of Prince Edward from the main land. The land on either hand, for about thirty miles west of Kingston, is undulating, with a gradual ascent from the shore, but when Adolphustown is reached, Marysburgh, in the county of Prince Edward, on the opposite side of the bay, presents a bold front, its steep banks rising from one to two hundred feet. From the Lake of the Mountain, looking across the wide stretch of water formed by the sharp detour of the bay in its westerly to a north-easterly course for fifteen or twenty miles, the observer has one of the most charming scenes in America spread out before him. In the distance, the lofty rocky shore of Sophiasburgh, with its trees and shrubs crowding down to the water's edge, stretch away to the right and left. To the west, the estuary known as Picton Bay curves around the high wooded shore of Marysburgh, and beneath and to the east, the four points of which the township of Adolphustown is composed reach out their woody banks into the wide sweep of the bay like the four fingers of a man's hand. For quiet, picturesque beauty, there is nothing to surpass it. On every hand the eye is arrested with charming landscapes, and looking across the several points of the township you have dwellings, grain fields, herds of cattle, and wood. Beyond you catch the shimmer of the water. Again you have clumps of trees and cultivated fields, and behind them another stretch of water, and so on as far as the eye can reach. The whole course of the bay, in fact, is a panorama of rural beauty, but the old homes that were to be seen along its banks twenty- five and thirty years ago have either disappeared altogether or have been modernized. It is now very nearly one hundred years since the first settlers found their way up it, and it must have been then a beautiful sight in its native wildness, the clear green water stretching away to the west, the sinuosities of the shore, the numberless inlets, the impenetrable forest and the streams that cut their way through it and poured their contingents into its broad bosom, the islands here and there, upon which the white man had never set his foot, water fowl in thousands, whose charming home was then for the first time invaded, skurrying away with noisy quake and whir, the wood made sweet with the song of birds, the chattering squirrel, the startled deer, the silent murmur of the water as it lapped the sedgy shore or gravelly beach-- these things must have combined to please, and to awaken thoughts of peaceful homes, in the near future to them all. The Bay of Quinte, apart from its delightful scenery, possesses an historical interest. It is not known from whence it received its name, but there is no doubt it is of French origin. Perhaps some of the old French voyageurs, halting at Fort Frontenac, on their way west, as they passed across it, and through one of the gaps that open the way to the broad expanse of Lake Ontario, may have christened it. Be this as it may, it was along its shores that the first settlers of the Province located. Here came the first preachers, offering to the lonely settler the bread of life. On its banks the first house devoted to the worship of God was erected, and the seed sown here, as the country grew, spread abroad. Here the first schoolmaster began his vocation of instructing the youth. The first steamboat was launched (1816) upon its waters at Ernesttown, near the present village of Bath. Kingston, for a long time the principal town of the Province, then composed of a few log houses, was the depot of supplies for the settlers. It has a history long anterior to this date. In 1673, Courcelles proceeded to Cataraqui with an armed force to bring the Iroquois to terms, and to get control of the fur trade. Then followed the building of Fort Frontenac. The restless trader and discoverer, La Salle, had the original grant for a large domain around the fort. Here, in 1683, La Barre built vessels for the navigation of the lake, and the year following held a great council with the Five Nations of Indians, at which Big Mouth was the spokesman. The fort was destroyed by Denonville in 1689, and rebuilt in 1696. It was again reduced by Colonel Bradstreet in 1758. In Adolphustown many of the first settlers still lived when I was a boy, and I have heard them recount their trials and hardships many a time. Besides the U. E. Loyalists there were a number of Quaker families which came to the Province about the same time, leaving the new Republic, not precisely for the same reasons, but because of their attachment to the old land. During the war, these people, who are opposed to war and bloodshed, suffered a good deal, and were frequently imprisoned, and their money and property appropriated. This did not occur in Canada, but they were subject to a fine for some time, for not answering to their names at the annual muster of the militia. The fine, however, was not exacted, except in cases where there were doubts as to membership with the society. This small township has contributed its quota to the Legislature of the country. T. Dorland represented the Midland District in the first Parliament of the Province, and was followed by Willet Casey, when Newark or Niagara was the capital. The latter was succeeded several years later by his son, Samuel Casey, but, as often happens, there was a difference in the political opinions of the father and son. The father was a Reformer, the son a Tory; and at the election, the old gentleman went to the poll and recorded his vote against his son, who was nevertheless elected. The Roblins, John P---, who represented the county of Prince Edward, and David, who sat for Lennox and Addington, were natives of the township. The Hagermans, Christopher and D---, were also fourth town boys, with whom my mother went to school. The old homestead, a low straggling old tenement, stood on the bay shore a few yards west of the road that leads to the wharf. I remember it well. It was destroyed by fire years ago. The father of Sir John A. Macdonald kept a store a short distance to the east of the Quaker meeting-house on Hay Bay, on the third concession. It was a small clap-boarded building, painted red, and was standing a few years ago. I remember being at a nomination in the village of Bath, on which occasion there were several speakers from Kingston, among them John A. Macdonald, then a young lawyer just feeling his way into political life. He made a speech, and began something in this way: "Yeomen of the county of Lennox and Addington, I remember well when I ran about in this district a barefooted boy," &c. He had the faculty then, which he has ever since preserved, of getting hold of the affections of the people. This _bonhommie_ has had much to do with his popularity and success. I recollect well how lustily he was cheered by the staunch old farmers on the occasion referred to. A few years later a contest came off in the county of Prince Edward, where I then resided. In those days political contests were quite as keen as now; but the alterations in the law which governs these matters has been greatly changed and improved. The elections were so arranged that people owning property in various counties could exercise their franchise. The old law, which required voters to come to a certain place in the district to record their vote, had been repealed; and now each voter had to go to the township in which he owned property, to vote. Foreign voters were more numerous then than now, and were looked after very sharply. On this occasion there was a sharp battle ahead, and arrangements were made to meet property owners at all points. There were a number from Kingston on our side, and it fell to me to meet them at the Stone Mills Ferry, and bring them to Picton. The ice had only recently taken in the bay, and was not quite safe, even for foot passengers. There were six or seven, and among them John A. Macdonald, Henry Smith, afterwards Sir Henry, and others. In crossing, Smith got in, but was pulled out by his companions, in no very nice plight for a long drive. The sleighing was good, and we dashed away. In the evening I brought them back, and before they set off across the bay on their return, John A. mounted the long, high stoop or platform in front of Teddy McGuire's, and gave us an harangue in imitation of ----, a well-known Quaker preacher, who had a marvellous method of intoning his discourses. It was a remarkable sing-song, which I, or any one else who ever heard it, could never forget. Well John A., who knew him well, had caught it, and his imitation was so perfect that I am inclined to think the old man, if he had been a listener, would have been puzzled to tell t'other from which. We had a hearty laugh, and then separated. [Illustration: SIR JOHN A. MACDONALD'S EARLY HOME.] I have often heard my mother tell of a trip she made down to the Bay of Quinte, when she was a young girl. She had been on a visit to her brother Jonas Canniff (recently deceased in this city at the age of ninety-two), who had settled on the river Moira, two miles north of the town of Belleville, then a wilderness. There were no steamboats then, and the modes of conveyance both by land and water were slow and tedious. She was sent home by her brother, who engaged two friendly Indians to take her in a bark canoe. The distance to be travelled was over twenty miles, and the morning they started the water in the bay was exceedingly rough. She was placed in the centre of the canoe, on the bottom, while her Indian _voyageurs_ took their place in either end, resting on their knees. They started, and the frail boat danced over the waves like a shell. The stoical yet watchful Indians were alive only to the necessities of their position, and with measured stroke they shot their light bark over the boisterous water. Being a timid girl, and unaccustomed to the water, especially under such circumstances, she was much frightened and never expected to reach her home. There was considerable danger, no doubt, and her fears were not allayed by one of the Indians telling her if she stirred he would break her head with the paddle. The threat may not have been unwise. Their safety depended on perfect control of the boat, and in their light shell a very slight movement might prove disastrous. Her situation was rendered more unpleasant by the splashing of the water, which wet her to the skin. This she had to put up with for hours, while the Indians bravely and skilfully breasted the sea, and at last set her safely on the beach in front of her father's house. When they came to the shore one of the Indians sprang lightly into the water, caught her in his arms and placed her on dry land. This trip was literally burned in her memory, and though she frequently mentioned it, she did so with a shudder, and an expression of thankfulness for her preservation. Of the old people who were living in my boyhood there are few more thoroughly fixed in my memory, with the exception, perhaps, of my grandfathers Canniff and Haight, than Willet and Jane Casey. There were few women better known, or more universally respected, than Aunt Jane. This was the title accorded to her by common consent, and though at that time she had passed the allotted term of three-score years and ten, she was an active woman--a matron among a thousand, a friend of everybody, and everybody's friend. Her house was noted far and wide for its hospitality, and none dispensed it more cordially than Aunt Jane. In those days the people passing to and fro did not hesitate to avail themselves of the comforts this old home afforded. In fact, it was a general stopping place, where both man and beast were refreshed with most cheerful liberality. [Illustration: AUNT JANE, AGE 92] Jane Niles, her maiden name, was born at Butternuts, Otsego County, in the central part of New York State, 1763; so that at the commencement of the American Revolution she was about eleven years old. She was married in 1782. The following year, 1783, the year in which peace was proclaimed, her husband, Willet Casey, left for Upper Canada, and located in the fourth town on the shore of the Bay of Quinte. After erecting a log house and a blacksmith shop, he returned for his wife. He was taken seriously ill, and nearly a year passed before he was able to set out again for the new home in the wilds of Upper Canada (which was reached early in the year 1785), where, after a long and prosperous life, he ended his days. Aunt Jane was a tall and well proportioned woman, of commanding presence and cheerful disposition; a woman of more than ordinary intelligence, and a good conversationalist. She had been a close observer of passing events, and possessed a wonderfully retentive memory. It was an epoch in one's life to hear her recount the recollections of her early days. These ran through the whole period of the American War, and many scenes which are now historical, that she had witnessed, or was cognizant of, were given with a vividness that not only delighted the listener but fixed them in his memory. Then, the story of the coming to Canada, with her first babe six months old, and the struggles and hardships in the bush, which in the days of which I speak she delighted to linger over, was a great treat to listen to. There were few of the first families she did not know, and whose history was not familiar to her, and in most cases she could give the names and ages of the children. The picture given of her in this volume is a copy from a daguerrotype taken when she was ninety-two years old. For several years before her demise she did not use spectacles, and could read ordinary print with ease, or do fine needlework. She retained her faculties to the last, and died at the age of ninety-six. She had eleven children, five of whom died young. Her eldest daughter, Martha, known as Patty Dorland, attained the age of ninety-two. Then followed Samuel, Elizabeth, Thomas, Mary and Jane. These, with the exception of Thomas and Mary Ingersoll, my wife's mother, died many years ago. Thomas Casey died at Brighton, in January of this year, aged eighty-seven, and Mary Ingersoll on the first of June, aged eighty-five, the last of the family. Willet Casey was an energetic man. He accumulated a large property, and in my boyhood there were not many days in the week that the old man could not be seen driving along the road in his one-horse waggon in some direction. He was one of the first representatives for the Midland District, when Newark was the capital of the Province. His son Samuel, a number of years subsequently, represented the district, and later, his grandson, Dr. Willet Dorland, represented the County of Prince Edward. NOTE: At the time my book was going through the press, I was under the impression that the fish known in this country as a Sucker was the same as the Mullet, but had no intention that the latter name should find its way into the text in place of Sucker. See page 41. According to Richardson, one of the best authorities we have, the Sucker is of the Carp family, the scientific name of which is _Cyprinus Hudsonius_, or Sucking Carp. On page 127, "and, as their lives had theretofore," read heretofore. 
6813	----	Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions. LOST IN THE BACKWOODS. A TALE OF THE CANADIAN FOREST. BY MRS. TRAILL Preface The interesting tale contained in this volume of romantic adventure in the forests of Canada, was much appreciated and enjoyed by a large circle of young readers when first published, under the title of "The Canadian Crusoes." After being many years out of print, it will now, we hope and believe, with a new and more descriptive title, prove equally attractive to our young friends of the present time. EDINBURGH, 1882. CHAPTER I. "The morning had shot her bright streamers on high, O'er Canada, opening all pale to the sky, Still dazzling and white was the robe that she wore, Except where the ocean wave lashed on the shore" _Jacobite Song_ There lies, between the Rice Lake and the Ontario, a deep and fertile valley, surrounded by lofty wood-crowned hills, clothed chiefly with groves of oak and pine, the sides of the hills and the alluvial bottoms display a variety of noble timber trees of various kinds, as the useful and beautiful maple, beech, and hemlock. This beautiful and highly picturesque valley is watered by many clear streams, whence it derives its appropriate appellation of "Cold Springs." At the period my little history commences, this now highly cultivated spot was an unbroken wilderness,--all but two clearings, where dwelt the only occupiers of the soil,--which previously owned no other possessors than the wandering hunting tribes of wild Indians, to whom the right of the hunting grounds north of Rice Lake appertained, according to their forest laws. I speak of the time when the neat and flourishing town of Cobourg, now an important port on Lake Ontario, was but a village in embryo,--if it contained even a log-house or a block-house, it was all that it did,--and the wild and picturesque ground upon which the fast increasing village of Port Hope is situated had not yielded one forest tree to the axe of the settler. No gallant vessel spread her sails to waft the abundant produce of grain and Canadian stores along the waters of that noble sheet of water; no steamer had then furrowed its bosom with her iron paddles, bearing the stream of emigration towards the wilds of our northern and western forests, there to render a lonely trackless desert a fruitful garden. What will not time and the industry of man, assisted by the blessing of a merciful God, effect? To him be the glory and honour; for we are taught that "unless the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it: without the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." But to my tale. And first it will be necessary to introduce to the acquaintance of my young readers the founders of our little settlement at Cold Springs. Duncan Maxwell was a young Highland soldier, a youth of eighteen, at the famous battle of Quebec, where, though only a private, he received the praise of his colonel for his brave conduct. At the close of the battle Duncan was wounded; and as the hospital was full at the time, he was billeted in the house of a poor French Canadian widow in the Quebec suburb. Here, though a foreigner and an enemy, he received much kind attention from his excellent hostess and her family, consisting of a young man about his own age, and a pretty black-eyed lass not more than sixteen. The widow Perron was so much occupied with other lodgers--for she kept a sort of boarding-house--that she had not much time to give to Duncan, so that he was left a great deal to her son Pierre, and a little to Catharine, her daughter. Duncan Maxwell was a fine, open-tempered, frank lad, and he soon won the regard of Pierre and his sister. In spite of the prejudices of country, and the difference of language and national customs, a steady and increasing friendship grew up between the young Highlander and the children of his hostess; therefore it was not without feelings of deep regret that they heard the news that the regiment to which Duncan belonged was ordered for embarkation to England, and Duncan was so far convalescent as to be pronounced quite well enough to join it. Alas for poor Catharine! she now found that parting with her patient was a source of the deepest sorrow to her young and guileless heart; nor was Duncan less moved at the separation from his gentle nurse. It might be for years, and it might be for ever, he could not tell; but he could not tear himself away without telling the object of his affections how dear she was to him, and to whisper a hope that he might yet return one day to claim her as his bride; and Catharine, weeping and blushing, promised to wait for that happy day, or to remain single for his sake. They say the course of true love never did run smooth; but with the exception of this great sorrow, the sorrow of separation, the love of our young Highland soldier and his betrothed knew no other interruption, for absence served only to strengthen the affection which was founded on gratitude and esteem. Two long years passed, however, and the prospect of reunion was yet distant, when an accident, which disabled Duncan from serving his country, enabled him to retire with the usual little pension, and return to Quebec to seek his affianced. Some changes had taken place during that short period: the widow Perron was dead; Pierre, the gay, lively-hearted Pierre, was married to a daughter of a lumberer; and Catharine, who had no relatives in Quebec, had gone up the country with her brother and his wife, and was living in some little settlement above Montreal with them. Thither Duncan followed, and shortly afterwards was married to his faithful Catharine. On one point they had never differed, both being of the same religion. Pierre had seen a good deal of the fine country on the shores of Lake Ontario; he had been hunting with some friendly Indians between the great waters and the Rice Lake; and he now thought if Duncan and himself could make up their minds to a quiet life in the woods, there was not a better spot than the hill pass between the plains and the big lake to fix themselves upon. Duncan was of the same opinion when he saw the spot. It was not rugged and bare like his own Highlands, but softer in character, yet his heart yearned for the hill country. In those days there was no obstacle to taking possession of any tract of land in the unsurveyed forests; therefore Duncan agreed with his brother-in-law to pioneer the way with him, get a dwelling put up, and some ground prepared and "seeded down," and then to return for their wives, and settle as farmers. Others had succeeded, had formed little colonies, and become the heads of villages in due time; why should not they? And now behold our two backwoodsmen fairly commencing their arduous life: it was nothing, after all, to Pierre, by previous occupation a hardy lumberer, or the Scottish soldier, accustomed to brave all sorts of hardships in a wild country, himself a mountaineer, inured to a stormy climate and scanty fare from his earliest youth. But it is not my intention to dwell upon the trials and difficulties courageously met and battled with by our settlers and their young wives. There was in those days a spirit of resistance among the first settlers on the soil, a spirit to do and bear, that is less commonly met with now. The spirit of civilization is now so widely diffused, that her comforts are felt even in the depths of the forest, so that the newly come emigrant feels comparatively few of the physical evils that were endured by the earlier inhabitants. The first seed-wheat that was cast into the ground by Duncan and Pierre was brought with infinite trouble a distance of fifty miles in a little skiff, navigated along the shores of Lake Ontario by the adventurous Pierre, and from the nearest landing-place transported on the shoulders of himself and Duncan to their homestead. A day of great labour but great joy it was when they deposited their precious freight in safety on the shanty floor. They were obliged to make two journeys for the contents of the little craft. What toil, what privation they endured for the first two years! and now the fruits of it began to appear. No two creatures could be more unlike than Pierre and Duncan. The Highlander, stern, steady, persevering, cautious, always giving ample reasons for his doing or his not doing. The Canadian, hopeful, lively, fertile in expedients, and gay as a lark; if one scheme failed, another was sure to present itself. Pierre and Duncan were admirably suited to be friends and neighbours. The steady perseverance of the Scot helped to temper the volatile temperament of the Frenchman. They generally contrived to compass the same end by different means, as two streams descending from opposite hills will meet in one broad river in the same valley. Years passed on: the farm, carefully cultivated, began to yield its increase; food and warm clothing were not wanting in the homestead. Catharine had become, in course of time, the happy mother of four healthy children; her sister-in-law had exceeded her in these welcome contributions to the population of a new colony. Between the children of Pierre and Catharine the most charming harmony prevailed; they grew up as one family, a pattern of affection and early friendship. Though different in tempers and dispositions, Hector Maxwell, the eldest son of the Scottish soldier, and his cousin, young Louis Perron, were greatly attached: they, with the young Catharine and Mathilde, formed a little coterie of inseparables; their amusements, tastes, pursuits, occupations, all blended and harmonized delightfully; there were none of those little envyings and bickerings among them that pave the way to strife and disunion in after-life. Catharine Maxwell and her cousin Louis were more like brother and sister than Hector and Catharine; but Mathilde was gentle and dove-like, and formed a contrast to the gravity of Hector and the vivacity of Louis and Catharine. Hector and Louis were fourteen--strong, vigorous, industrious, and hardy, both in constitution and habits. The girls were turned of twelve. It is not with Mathilde that our story is connected, but with the two lads and Catharine. With the gaiety and _naivete_ of the Frenchwoman, Catharine possessed, when occasion called it into action, a thoughtful and well-regulated mind, abilities which would well have repaid the care of mental cultivation; but of book-learning she knew nothing beyond a little reading, and that but imperfectly, acquired from her father's teaching. It was an accomplishment which he had gained when in the army, having been taught by his colonel's son, a lad of twelve years of age, who had taken a great fancy to him, and had at parting given him a few of his school-books, among which was a Testament without cover or title-page. At parting, the young gentleman recommended its daily perusal to Duncan. Had the gift been a Bible, perhaps the soldier's obedience to his priest might have rendered it a dead letter to him; but as it fortunately happened, he was unconscious of any prohibition to deter him from becoming acquainted with the truths of the gospel. He communicated the power of perusing his books to his children Hector and Catharine, Duncan and Kenneth, in succession, with a feeling of intense reverence; even the labour of teaching was regarded as a holy duty in itself, and was not undertaken without deeply impressing the obligation he was conferring upon them whenever they were brought to the task. It was indeed a precious boon, and the children learned to consider it as a pearl beyond all price in the trials that awaited them in their eventful career. To her knowledge of religious truths young Catharine added an intimate acquaintance with the songs and legends of her father's romantic country; often would her plaintive ballads and old tales, related in the hut or the wigwam to her attentive auditors, wile away heavy thoughts. It was a lovely sunny day in the flowery month of June. Canada had not only doffed that "dazzling white robe" mentioned in the songs of her Jacobite emigrants, but had assumed the beauties of her loveliest season; the last week in May and the first three of June being parallel to the English May, full of buds and flowers and fair promise of ripening fruits. The high sloping hills surrounding the fertile vale of Cold Springs were clothed with the blossoms of the gorgeous scarlet castilegia coccinea, or painted-cup; the large, pure, white blossoms of the lily-like trillium grandiflorum; the delicate and fragile lilac geranium, whose graceful flowers woo the hand of the flower-gatherer only to fade almost within his grasp: the golden cypripedium or moccasin flower, so singular, so lovely in its colour and formation, waved heavily its yellow blossoms as the breeze shook the stems; and there, mingling with a thousand various floral beauties, the azure lupine claimed its place, shedding almost a heavenly tint upon the earth. Thousands of roses were blooming on the more level ground, sending forth their rich fragrance, mixed with the delicate scent of the feathery ceanothus (New Jersey tea). The vivid greenness of the young leaves of the forest, the tender tint of the springing corn, was contrasted with the deep dark fringe of waving pines on the hills, and the yet darker shade of the spruce and balsams on the borders of the creeks, for so our Canadian forest rills are universally termed. The bright glancing wings of the summer red-bird, the crimson-headed woodpecker, the gay blue-bird, and noisy but splendid plumed jay might be seen among the branches; the air was filled with beauteous sights and soft murmuring sounds. Under the shade of the luxuriant hop-vines that covered the rustic porch in front of the little dwelling, the light step of Catharine Maxwell might be heard mixed with the drowsy whirring of the big wheel, as she passed to and fro guiding the thread of yarn in its course. And now she sang snatches of old mountain songs, such as she had learned from her father; and now, with livelier air, hummed some gay French tune to the household melody of her spinning-wheel, as she advanced and retreated with her thread, unconscious of the laughing black eyes that were watching her movements from among the embowering foliage that shielded her from the morning sun. "Come, ma belle cousine," for so Louis delighted to call her. "Hector and I are waiting for you to go with us to the 'Beaver Meadow.' The cattle have strayed, and we think we shall find them there. The day is delicious, the very flowers look as if they wanted to be admired and plucked, and we shall find early strawberries on the old Indian clearing." Catharine cast a longing look abroad, but said, "I fear I cannot go to-day; for see, I have all these rolls of wool to spin up, and my yarn to wind off the reel and twist; and then, my mother is away." "Yes, I left her with mamma," replied Louis, "and she said she would be home shortly, so her absence need not stay you. She said you could take a basket and try and bring home some berries for sick Louise. Hector is sure he knows a spot where we shall get some fine ones, ripe and red." As he spoke Louis whisked away the big wheel to one end of the porch, gathered up the hanks of yarn and tossed them into the open wicker basket, and the next minute the large, coarse, flapped straw hat, that hung upon the peg in the porch, was stuck not very gracefully on Catharine's head and tied beneath her chin, with a merry rattling laugh, which drowned effectually the small lecture that Catharine began to utter by way of reproving the light-hearted boy. "But where is Mathilde?" "Sitting like a dear good girl, as she is, with sick Louise's head in her lap, and would not disturb her for all the fruit and flowers in Canada. Marie cried sadly to go with us, but I promised her and Louise lots of flowers and berries if we get them, and the dear children were as happy as queens when I left." "But stay, cousin, you are sure my mother gave her consent to my going? We shall be away chief part of the day. You know it is a long walk to the Beaver Meadow and back again," said Catharine, hesitating as Louis took her hand to lead her out from the porch. "Yes, yes, ma belle," said the giddy boy quickly; "so come along, for Hector is waiting at the barn. But stay, we shall be hungry before we return, so let us have some cakes and butter, and do not forget a tin cup for water." Nothing doubting, Catharine, with buoyant spirits, set about her little preparations, which were soon completed; but just as she was leaving the little garden enclosure, she ran back to kiss Kenneth and Duncan, her young brothers. In the farm-yard she found Hector with his axe on his shoulder. "What are you taking the axe for, Hector? you will find it heavy to carry," said his sister. "In the first place, I have to cut a stick of blue beech to make a broom for sweeping the house, sister of mine, and that is for your use, Miss Kate, and in the next place, I have to find, if possible, a piece of rock elm or hickory for axe handles: so now you have the reason why I take the axe with me." The children left the clearing and struck into one of the deep defiles that lay between the hills, and cheerfully they laughed and sung and chattered, as they sped on their pleasant path, nor were they loath to exchange the glowing sunshine for the sober gloom of the forest shade. What handfuls of flowers of all hues, red, blue, yellow, and white, were gathered, only to be gazed at, carried for a while, then cast aside for others fresher and fairer. And now they came to cool rills that flowed, softly murmuring, among mossy limestone, or blocks of red or gray granite, wending their way beneath twisted roots and fallen trees; and often Catharine lingered to watch the eddying dimples of the clear water, to note the tiny bright fragments of quartz or crystallized limestone that formed a shining pavement below the stream. And often she paused to watch the angry movements of the red squirrel, as, with feathery tail erect, and sharp scolding note, he crossed their woodland path, and swiftly darting up the rugged bark of some neighbouring pine or hemlock, bade the intruders on his quiet haunts defiance; yet so bold in his indignation, he scarcely condescended to ascend beyond their reach. The long-continued, hollow tapping of the large red-headed woodpecker, or the singular subterranean sound caused by the drumming of the partridge striking his wings upon his breast to woo his gentle mate, and the soft whispering note of the little tree-creeper, as it flitted from one hemlock to another, collecting its food between the fissures of the bark, were among the few sounds that broke the noontide stillness of the woods; but to such sights and sounds the lively Catharine and her cousin were not indifferent. And often they wondered that Hector gravely pursued his onward way, and seldom lingered as they did to mark the bright colours of the flowers, or the sparkling of the forest rill, or the hurrying to and fro of the turkeys among the luxuriant grass. "What makes Hec so grave?" said Catharine to her companion, as they seated themselves upon a mossy trunk to await his coming up; for they had giddily chased each other till they had far outrun him. "Hector, sweet coz, is thinking perhaps of how many bushels of corn or wheat this land would grow if cleared, or he may be examining the soil or the trees, or is looking for his stick of blue beech for your broom, or the hickory for his axe handles, and never heeding such nonsense as woodpeckers, and squirrels, and lilies, and moss, and ferns; for Hector is not a giddy thing like his cousin Louis, or--" "His sister Kate," interrupted Catharine merrily. "But when shall we come to the Beaver Meadow?" "Patience, ma belle, all in good time. Hark! was not that the ox-bell? No; Hector whistling." And soon they heard the heavy stroke of his axe ringing among the trees; for he had found the blue beech, and was cutting it to leave on the path, that he might take it home on their return: he had also marked some hickory of a nice size for his axe handles, to bring home at some future time. The children had walked several miles, and were not sorry to sit down and rest till Hector joined them. He was well pleased with his success, and declared he felt no fatigue. "As soon as we reach the old Indian clearing, we shall find strawberries," he said, "and a fresh cold spring, and then we will have our dinner." "Come, Hector,--come, Louis," said Catharine, jumping up, "I long to be gathering the strawberries; and see, my flowers are faded, so I will throw them away, and the basket shall be filled with fresh fruit instead, and we must not forget petite Marie and sick Louise, or dear Mathilde. Ah, how I wish she were here at this minute! But there is the opening to the Beaver Meadow." And the sunlight was seen streaming through the opening trees as they approached the cleared space, which some called the "Indian clearing," but is now more generally known as the little Beaver Meadow. It was a pleasant spot, green, and surrounded with light bowery trees and flowering shrubs, of a different growth from those that belong to the dense forest. Here the children found, on the hilly ground above, fine ripe strawberries, the earliest they had seen that year, and soon all weariness was forgotten while pursuing the delightful occupation of gathering the tempting fruit; and when they had refreshed themselves, and filled the basket with leaves and fruit, they slaked their thirst at the stream which wound its way among the bushes. Catharine neglected not to reach down flowery bunches of the fragrant whitethorn, and the high-bush cranberry, then radiant with nodding umbels of snowy blossoms, or to wreathe the handle of the little basket with the graceful trailing runners of the lovely twin-flowered plant, the Linnaea borealis, which she always said reminded her of the twins Louise and Marie, her little cousins. And now the day began to wear away, for they had lingered long in the little clearing; they had wandered from the path by which they entered it, and had neglected, in their eagerness to look for the strawberries, to notice any particular mark by which they might regain it. Just when they began to think of returning, Louis noticed a beaten path, where there seemed recent prints of cattle hoofs on a soft spongy soil beyond the creek. "Come, Hector," said he gaily, "this is lucky; we are on the cattle-path; no fear but it will lead us directly home, and that by a nearer track." Hector was undecided about following it; he fancied it bent too much towards the setting sun; but his cousin overruled his objection. "And is not this our own creek?" he said. "I have often heard my father say it had its rise somewhere about this old clearing." Hector now thought Louis might be right, and they boldly followed the path among the poplars, thorns, and bushes that clothed its banks, surprised to see how open the ground became, and how swift and clear the stream swept onward. "Oh, this dear creek," cried the delighted Catharine, "how pretty it is! I shall often follow its course after this; no doubt it has its source from our own Cold Springs." And so they cheerfully pursued their way, till the sun, sinking behind the range of westerly hills, soon left them in gloom; but they anxiously hurried forward when the stream wound its noisy way among steep stony banks, clothed scantily with pines and a few scattered silver-barked poplars. And now they became bewildered by two paths leading in opposite directions; one upward among the rocky hills, the other through the opening gorge of a deep ravine. Here, overcome with fatigue, Catharine seated herself on a large block of granite, near a great bushy pine that grew beside the path by the ravine, unable to proceed; and Hector, with a grave and troubled countenance, stood beside her, looking round with an air of great perplexity. Louis, seating himself at Catharine's feet, surveyed the deep gloomy valley before them, and sighed heavily. The conviction forcibly struck him that they had mistaken the path altogether. The very aspect of the country was different; the growth of the trees, the flow of the stream, all indicated a change of soil and scene. Darkness was fast drawing its impenetrable veil around them; a few stars were stealing out, and gleaming down as if with pitying glance upon the young wanderers, but they could not light up their pathway or point their homeward track. The only sounds, save the lulling murmur of the rippling stream below, were the plaintive note of the whip-poor-will, from a gnarled oak that grew near them, and the harsh grating scream of the night hawk, darting about in the higher regions of the air, pursuing its noisy congeners, or swooping down with that peculiar hollow rushing sound, as of a person blowing into some empty vessel, when it seizes with wide-extended bill its insect prey. Hector was the first to break the silence. "Cousin Louis, we were wrong in following the course of the stream; I fear we shall never find our way back tonight." Louis made no reply; his sad and subdued air failed not to attract the attention of his cousins. "Why, Louis, how is this? you are not used to be cast down by difficulties," said Hector, as he marked something like tears glistening in the dark eyes of his cousin. Louis's heart was full; he did not reply, but cast a troubled glance upon the weary Catharine, who leaned heavily against the tree beneath which she sat. "It is not," resumed Hector, "that I mind passing a summer's night under such a sky as this, and with such a dry grassy bed below me; but I do not think it is good for Catharine to sleep on the bare ground in the night dews,--and then they will be so anxious at home about our absence." Louis burst into tears, and sobbed out,--"And it is all my doing that she came out with us; I deceived her, and my aunt will be angry and much alarmed, for she did not know of her going at all. Dear Catharine, good cousin Hector, pray forgive me!" But Catharine was weeping too much to reply to his passionate entreaties; and Hector, who never swerved from the truth, for which he had almost a stern reverence, hardly repressed his indignation at what appeared to him a most culpable act of deceit on the part of Louis. The sight of her cousin's grief and self-abasement touched the tender heart of Catharine; for she was kind and dove-like in her disposition, and loved Louis, with all his faults. Had it not been for the painful consciousness of the grief their unusual absence would occasion at home, Catharine would have thought nothing of their present adventure; but she could not endure the idea of her high-principled father taxing her with deceiving her kind indulgent mother and him. It was this humiliating thought which wounded the proud heart of Hector, causing him to upbraid his cousin in somewhat harsh terms for his want of truthfulness, and steeled him against the bitter grief that wrung the heart of the penitent Louis, who, leaning his wet cheek on the shoulder of Catharine, sobbed as if his heart would break, heedless of her soothing words and affectionate endeavours to console him. "Dear Hector," she said, turning her soft pleading eyes on the stern face of her brother, "you must not be so very angry with poor Louis. Remember it was to please me, and give me the enjoyment of a day of liberty with you and himself in the woods, among the flowers and trees and birds, that he committed this fault." "Catharine, Louis told an untruth, and acted deceitfully. And look at the consequences: we shall have forfeited our parents' confidence, and may have some days of painful privation to endure before we regain our home, if we ever do find our way back to Cold Springs," replied Hector. "It is the grief and anxiety our dear parents will endure this night," answered Catharine, "that distresses my mind; but," she added, in more cheerful tones, "let us not despair, no doubt to-morrow we shall be able to retrace our steps." With the young there is ever a magical spell in that little word _to-morrow_,--it is a point which they pursue as fast as it recedes from them; sad indeed is the young heart that does not look forward with hope to the future! The cloud still hung on Hector's brow, till Catharine gaily exclaimed, "Come, Hector! come Louis! we must not stand idling thus; we must think of providing some shelter for the night: it is not good to rest upon the bare ground exposed to the night dews.--See, here is a nice hut, half made," pointing to a large upturned root which some fierce whirlwind had hurled from the lofty bank into the gorge of the dark glen. "Now you must make haste, and lop off a few pine boughs, and stick them into the ground, or even lean them against the roots of this old oak, and there, you see, will be a capital house to shelter us. To work, to work, you idle boys, or poor wee Katty must turn squaw and build her own wigwam," she playfully added, taking up the axe which rested against the feathery pine beneath which Hector was leaning. Now, Catharine cared as little as her brother and cousin about passing a warm summer's night under the shade of the forest trees, for she was both hardy and healthy; but her woman's heart taught her that the surest means of reconciling the cousins would be by mutually interesting them in the same object,--and she was right. In endeavouring to provide for the comfort of their dear companion, all angry feelings were forgotten by Hector, while active employment chased away Louis's melancholy. Unlike the tall, straight, naked trunks of the pines of the forest, those of the plains are adorned with branches often to the very ground, varying in form and height, and often presenting most picturesque groups, or rising singly among scattered groves of the silver-barked poplar or graceful birch trees; the dark mossy greenness of the stately pine contrasting finely with the light waving foliage of its slender, graceful companions. Hector, with his axe, soon lopped boughs from one of the adjacent pines, which Louis sharpened with his knife and, with Catharine's assistance, drove into the ground, arranging them in such a way as to make the upturned oak, with its roots and the earth which adhered to them, form the back part of the hut, which when completed formed by no means a contemptible shelter. Catharine then cut fern and deer grass with Louis's _couteau de chasse_, which he always carried in a sheath at his girdle, and spread two beds,--one, parted off by dry boughs and bark, for herself, in the interior of the wigwam; and one for her brother and cousin, nearer the entrance. When all was finished to her satisfaction she called the two boys, and, according to the custom of her parents, joined them in the lifting up of their hands as an evening sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Nor were these simple-hearted children backward in imploring help and protection from the Most High. They earnestly prayed that no dangerous creature might come near to molest them during the hours of darkness and helplessness, no evil spirit visit them, no unholy or wicked thoughts intrude into their minds; but that holy angels and heavenly thoughts might hover over them, and fill their hearts with the peace of God which passeth all understanding. And the prayer of the poor wanderers was heard; they slept in peace, unharmed, in the vast solitude. So passed their first night on the Plains. CHAPTER II "Fear not: ye are of more value than many sparrows."--_St. Luke_. The sun had risen in all the splendour of a Canadian summer morning when the sleepers arose from their leafy beds. In spite of the novelty of their situation, they had slept as soundly and tranquilly as if they had been under the protecting care of their beloved parents, on their little palliasses of corn straw; but they had been cared for by Him who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth, and they waked full of youthful hope, and in fulness of faith in His mercy into whose hands they had commended their souls and bodies before they retired to rest. While the children slept in peace and safety, what terrors had filled the minds of their distracted parents! what a night of anguish and sorrow had they passed! When night had closed in without bringing back the absent children, the two fathers, lighting torches of fat pine, went forth in search of the wanderers. How often did they raise their voices in hopes their loud halloos might reach the hearing of the lost ones! How often did they check their hurried steps to listen for some replying call! But the sighing breeze in the pine tops, or sudden rustling of the leaves caused by the flight of the birds startled by the unusual glare of the torches, and the echoes of their own voices, were the only sounds that met their anxious ears. At daybreak they returned, sad and dispirited, to their homes, to snatch a morsel of food, endeavour to cheer the drooping hearts of the weeping mothers, and hurry off, taking different directions. But, unfortunately, they had little clue to the route which Hector and Louis had taken, there being many cattle-paths through the woods. Louis's want of truthfulness had caused this uncertainty, as he had left no intimation of the path he purposed taking when he quitted his mother's house. He had merely said he was going with Hector in search of the cattle, giving no hint of his intention of asking Catharine to accompany them; he had but told his sick sister that he would bring home strawberries and flowers, and that he would soon return. Alas! poor, thoughtless Louis! how little did you think of the web of woe you were then weaving for yourself, and all those to whom you and your companions were so dear! Children, think twice ere ye deceive once. Catharine's absence would have been quite unaccountable but for the testimony of Duncan and Kenneth, who had received her sisterly caresses before she joined Hector at the barn; and much her mother marvelled what could have induced her good, dutiful Catharine to have left her work and forsaken her household duties to go rambling away with the boys, for she never left the house when her mother was absent from it without her express permission. And now she was gone,--lost to them perhaps for ever. There stood the wheel she had been turning; there hung the untwisted hanks of yarn, her morning task; and there they remained week after week, and month after month, untouched,--a melancholy memorial to the hearts of the bereaved parents of their beloved. It were indeed a fruitless task to follow the agonized fathers in their vain search for their children, or to paint the bitter anguish that filled their hearts as day passed after day, and still no tidings of the lost ones. As hope faded, a deep and settled gloom stole over the sorrowing parents, and reigned throughout the once cheerful and gladsome homes. At the end of a week the only idea that remained was, that one of these three casualties had befallen the lost children,--death, a lingering death by famine; death, cruel and horrible, by wolves or bears; or, yet more terrible, with tortures by the hands of the dreaded Indians, who occasionally held their councils and hunting-parties on the hills about the Rice Lake, which was known only by the elder Perron as the scene of many bloody encounters between the rival tribes of the Mohawks and Chippewas. Its localities were scarcely ever visited by the settlers, lest haply they should fall into the hands of the bloody Mohawks, whose merciless disposition made them in those days a by-word even to the less cruel Chippewas and other Indian nations. It was not in the direction of the Rice Lake that Maxwell and his brother-in-law sought their lost children; and even if they had done so, among the deep glens and hill passes of what is now commonly called the Plains, they would have stood little chance of discovering the poor wanderers. After many days of fatigue of body and distress of mind, the sorrowing parents sadly relinquished the search as utterly hopeless, and mourned in bitterness of spirit over the disastrous fate of their first-born and beloved children. "There was a voice of woe, and lamentation, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they were not." The miserable uncertainty that involved the fate of the lost ones was an aggravation to the sufferings of the mourners. Could they but have been certified of the manner of their deaths, they fancied they should be more contented; but, alas! this fearful satisfaction was withheld "Oh, were their tale of sorrow known, 'Twere something to the breaking heart; The pangs of doubt would then be gone, And fancy's endless dreams depart." But let us quit the now mournful settlement of Cold Springs, and see how it really fared with the young wanderers. When they awoke, the valley was filled with a white creamy mist, that arose from the bed of the stream (now known as Cold Creek), and gave an indistinctness to the whole landscape, investing it with an appearance perfectly different to that which it had worn by the bright, clear light of the moon. No trace of their footsteps remained to guide them in retracing their path, so hard and dry was the stony ground that it left no impression on its surface. It was with some difficulty they found the creek, which was concealed from sight by a lofty screen of gigantic hawthorns, high-bush cranberries, poplars, and birch trees. The hawthorn was in blossom, and gave out a sweet perfume, not less fragrant than the "May," which makes the lanes and hedgerows of "merrie old England" so sweet and fair in May and June. At length their path began to grow more difficult. A tangled mass of cedars, balsams, birch, black ash, alders, and _tamarack_ (Indian name for the larch), with a dense thicket of bushes and shrubs, such as love the cool, damp soil of marshy ground, warned our travellers that they must quit the banks of the friendly stream, or they might become entangled in a trackless swamp. Having taken copious and refreshing draughts from the bright waters, and bathed their hands and faces, they ascended the grassy bank, and, again descending, found themselves in one of those long valleys, enclosed between lofty sloping banks, clothed with shrubs and oaks, with here and there a stately pine. Through this second valley they pursued their way, till, emerging into a wider space, they came among those singularly picturesque groups of rounded gravel-hills, where the Cold Creek once more met their view, winding its way towards a grove of evergreens, where it was again lost to the eye. This lovely spot was known as Sackville's Mill-dike. The hand of man had curbed the free course of the wild forest stream, and made it subservient to his will, but could not destroy the natural beauties of the scene. Fearing to entangle themselves in the swamp, they kept the hilly ground, winding their way up to the summit of the lofty ridge of the oak hills, the highest ground they had yet attained; and here it was that the silver waters of the Rice Lake in all its beauty burst upon the eyes of the wondering and delighted travellers. There it lay, a sheet of liquid silver, just emerging from the blue veil of mist that hung upon its surface and concealed its wooded shores on either side. All feeling of dread, and doubt, and danger was lost for the time in one rapturous glow of admiration at the scene so unexpected and so beautiful as that which they now gazed upon from the elevation they had gained. From this ridge they looked down the lake, and the eye could take in an extent of many miles, with its verdant wooded islands, which stole into view one by one as the rays of the morning sun drew up the moving curtain of mist that enveloped them; and soon both northern and southern shores became distinctly visible, with all their bays, and capes, and swelling oak and pine crowned hills. And now arose the question, "Where are we? What lake is this? Can it be the Ontario, or is it the Rice Lake? Can yonder shores be those of the Americans, or are they the hunting-grounds of the dreaded Indians?" Hector remembered having often heard his father say that the Ontario was like an inland sea, and the opposite shores not visible unless in some remarkable state of the atmosphere, when they had been occasionally discerned by the naked eye; while here they could distinctly see objects on the other side, the peculiar growth of the trees, and even flights of wild fowl winging their way among the rice and low bushes on its margin. The breadth of the lake from shore to shore could not, they thought, exceed three or four miles; while its length, in an easterly direction, seemed far greater,--beyond what the eye could take in. [Footnote: The length of the Rice Lake, from its head-waters near Black's Landing to the mouth of the Trent, is said to be twenty-five miles; its breadth, from north to south, varies from three to six.] They now quitted the lofty ridge, and bent their steps towards the lake. Wearied with their walk, they seated themselves beneath the shade of a beautiful feathery pine, on a high promontory that commanded a magnificent view down the lake. "How pleasant it would be to have a house on this delightful bank, overlooking the lake!" said Louis. "Only think of the fish we could take, and the ducks and wild fowl we could shoot; and it would be no very hard matter to hollow out a log canoe, such a one as I have heard my father say he has rowed in across many a lake and broad river below, when he was lumbering." "Yes, it would, indeed, be a pleasant spot to live upon," said Hector, "though I am not quite sure that the land is as good just here as it is at Cold Springs; but all those flats and rich valleys would make fine pastures, and produce plenty of grain, too, if cultivated." "You always look to the main chance, Hec," said Louis, laughing; "well, it was worth a few hours' walking this morning to look upon so lovely a sheet of water as this. I would spend two nights in a wigwam,--would not you, ma belle?--to enjoy such a sight." "Yes, Louis," replied his cousin, hesitating as she spoke; "it is very pretty, and I did not mind sleeping in the little hut; but then I cannot enjoy myself as much as I should have done had my father and mother been aware of my intention of accompanying you. Ah, my dear, dear parents!" she added, as the thought of the anguish the absence of her companions and herself would cause at home came over her. "How I wish I had remained at home! Selfish Catharine! foolish, idle girl!" Poor Louis was overwhelmed with grief at the sight of his cousin's tears; and as the kind-hearted but thoughtless boy bent over her to soothe and console her, his own tears fell upon the fair locks of the weeping girl, and dropped on the hand he held between his own. "If you cry thus, cousin," he whispered, "you will break poor Louis's heart, already sore enough with thinking of his foolish conduct." "Be not cast down, Catharine," said her brother cheeringly; "we may not be so far from home as you think. As soon as you are rested, we will set out again, and we may find something to eat; there must be strawberries on these sunny banks." Catharine soon yielded to the voice of her brother, and drying her eyes, proceeded to descend the sides of the steep valley that lay to one side of the high ground where they had been sitting. Suddenly darting down the bank, she exclaimed, "Come, Hector! come, Louis! here indeed is provision to keep us from starving;" for her eye had caught the bright red strawberries among the flowers and herbage on the slope--large ripe strawberries, the very finest she had ever seen. "There is, indeed, ma belle," said Louis, stooping as he spoke to gather up, not the fruit, but a dozen fresh partridge's eggs from the inner shade of a thick tuft of grass and herbs that grew beside a fallen tree. Catharine's voice and sudden movements had startled the ruffed grouse [Footnote: The Canadian partridge is a species of grouse, larger than the English or French partridge. We refer our young readers to the finely arranged specimens in the British Museum (open to the public), where they may discover "Louis's partridge."] from her nest, and the eggs were soon transferred to Louis's straw hat, while a stone flung by the steady hand of Hector stunned the parent bird. The boys laughed exultingly as they displayed their prizes to the astonished Catharine, who, in spite of hunger, could not help regretting the death of the mother bird. Girls and women rarely sympathize with men and boys in their field sports, and Hector laughed at his sister's doleful looks as he handed over the bird to her. "It was a lucky chance," said he, "and the stone was well aimed, but it is not the first partridge that I have killed in this way. They are so stupid you may even run them down at times; I hope to get another before the day is over. "Well, there is no fear of starving to-day, at all events," he added, as he inspected the contents of his cousin's hat; "twelve nice fresh eggs, a bird, and plenty of fruit." "But how shall we cook the bird and the eggs? We have no means of getting a fire made," said Catharine. "As to the eggs," said Louis, "we can eat them raw; it is not for hungry wanderers like us to be over-nice about our food." "They would satisfy us much better were they boiled, or roasted in the ashes," observed Hector. "True. Well, a fire, I think, can be got with a little trouble." "But how?" asked Hector. "Oh, there are many ways, but the readiest would be a flint with the help of my knife." "A flint?" "Yes, if we could get one: but I see nothing but granite, which crumbles and shivers when struck--we could not get a spark. However, I think it's very likely that one of the round pebbles I see on the beach yonder may be found hard enough for the purpose." To the shore they bent their steps as soon as the little basket had been well filled with strawberries; and descending the precipitous bank, fringed with young saplings; birch, ash, and poplars, they quickly found themselves beside the bright waters of the lake. A flint was soon found among the water-worn stones that lay thickly strewn upon the shore, and a handful of dry sedge, almost as inflammable as tinder, was collected without trouble: though Louis, with the recklessness of his nature, had coolly proposed to tear a strip from his cousin's apron as a substitute for tinder,--a proposal that somewhat raised the indignation of the tidy Catharine, whose ideas of economy and neatness were greatly outraged, especially as she had no sewing implements to assist in mending the rent. Louis thought nothing of that; it was a part of his character to think only of the present, little of the past, and to let the future provide for itself. Such was Louis's great failing, which had proved a fruitful source of trouble both to himself and others. In this respect he bore a striking contrast to his more cautious companion, who possessed much of the gravity of his father. Hector was as heedful and steady in his decisions as Louis was rash and impetuous. After many futile attempts, and some skin knocked off their knuckles through awkward handling of the knife and flint, a good fire was at last kindled, as there was no lack of dry wood on the shore. Catharine then triumphantly produced her tin pot, and the eggs were boiled, greatly to the satisfaction of all parties, who were by this time sufficiently hungry, having eaten nothing since the previous evening more substantial than the strawberries they had taken during the time they were gathering them in the morning. Catharine had selected a pretty, cool, shady recess, a natural bower, under the overhanging growth of [Illustration: THE FIRST BREAKFAST.] cedars, poplars, and birch, which were wreathed together by the flexible branches of the wild grape vine and bitter-sweet, which climbed to a height of fifteen feet [Footnote: _Celastrus scandens_,--bitter-sweet or woody nightshade. This plant, like the red-berried bryony of England, is highly ornamental. It possesses powerful properties as a medicine, and is in high reputation among the Indians.] among the branches of the trees, which it covered as with a mantle. A pure spring of cold, delicious water welled out from beneath the twisted roots of an old hoary-barked cedar, and found its way among the shingle on the beach to the lake, a humble but constant tributary to its waters. Some large blocks of water-worn stone formed convenient seats and a natural table, on which the little maiden arranged the forest fare; and never was a meal made with greater appetite or taken with more thankfulness than that which our wanderers ate that morning. The eggs (part of which they reserved for another time) were declared to be better than those that were daily produced from the little hen-house at Cold Springs. The strawberries, set out in little pottles made with the shining leaves of the oak, ingeniously pinned together by Catharine with the long spurs of the hawthorn, were voted delicious, and the pure water most refreshing, that they drank, for lack of better cups, from a large mussel-shell which Catharine had picked up among the weeds and pebbles on the beach. Many children would have wandered about weeping and disconsolate, lamenting their sad fate, or have imbittered the time by useless repining, or, perhaps, by venting their uneasiness in reviling the principal author of their calamity--poor, thoughtless Louis; but such were not the dispositions of our young Canadians. Early accustomed to the hardships incidental to the lives of the settlers in the bush, these young people had learned to bear with patience and cheerfulness privations that would have crushed the spirits of children more delicately nurtured. They had known every degree of hunger and nakedness: during the first few years of their lives they had often been compelled to subsist for days and weeks upon roots and herbs, wild fruits, and game which their fathers had learned to entrap, to decoy, and to shoot. Thus Louis and Hector had early been initiated into the mysteries of the chase. They could make dead-falls, and pits, and traps, and snares; they were as expert as Indians in the use of the bow; they could pitch a stone or fling a wooden dart at partridge, hare, and squirrel with almost unerring aim; and were as swift of foot as young fawns. Now it was that they learned to value in its fullest extent this useful and practical knowledge, which enabled them to face with fortitude the privations of a life so precarious as that to which they were now exposed. It was one of the elder Maxwell's maxims,--Never, let difficulties overcome you, but rather strive to conquer them; let the head direct the hand, and the hand, like a well-disciplined soldier, obey the head as chief. When his children expressed any doubts of not being able to accomplish any work they had begun, he would say, "Have you not hands, have you not a head, have you not eyes to see, and reason to guide you? As for impossibilities, they do not belong to the trade of a soldier,--he dare not see them." Thus were energy and perseverance early instilled into the minds of his children. They were now called upon to give practical proofs of the precepts that had been taught them in childhood. Hector trusted to his axe, and Louis to his _couteau de chasse_ and pocket-knife,--the latter was a present from an old forest friend of his father's, who had visited them the previous winter, and which, by good luck, Louis had in his pocket,--a capacious pouch, in which were stored many precious things, such as coils of twine and string, strips of leather, with odds and ends of various kinds--nails, bits of iron, leather, and such miscellaneous articles as find their way most mysteriously into boys' pockets in general, and Louis Perron's in particular, who was a wonderful collector of such small matters. The children were not easily daunted by the prospect of passing a few days abroad on so charming a spot, and at such a lovely season, where fruits were so abundant; and when they had finished their morning meal, so providentially placed within their reach, they gratefully acknowledged the mercy of God in this thing. Having refreshed themselves by bathing their hands and faces in the lake, they cheerfully renewed their wanderings, though something loath to leave the cool shade and the spring for an untrodden path among the hills and deep ravines that furrow the shores of the Rice Lake in so remarkable a manner; and often did our weary wanderers pause to look upon the wild glens and precipitous hills, where the fawn and the shy deer found safe retreats, unharmed by the rifle of the hunter, where the osprey and white-headed eagle built their nests, unheeded and unharmed. Twice that day, misled by following the track of the deer, had they returned to the samespot,--a deep and lovely glen, which had once been a watercourse, but was now a green and shady valley. This they named the Valley of the Rock, from a remarkable block of red granite that occupied a central position in the narrow defile; and here they prepared to pass their second night on the Plains. A few boughs cut down and interlaced with the shrubs round a small space cleared with Hector's axe, formed shelter, and leaves and grass, strewed on the ground, formed a bed--though not so smooth, perhaps, as the bark and cedar boughs that the Indians spread within their summer wigwams for carpets and couches, or the fresh heather that the Highlanders gather on the wild Scottish hills. While Hector and Louis were preparing the sleeping chamber, Catharine busied herself in preparing the partridge for their supper. Having collected some thin peelings from the rugged bark of a birch tree that grew on the side of the steep bank to which she gave the appropriate name of the "Birken Shaw," she dried it in her bosom, and then beat it fine upon a big stone, till it resembled the finest white paper. This proved excellent tinder, the aromatic oil contained in the bark of the birch being highly inflammable. Hector had prudently retained the flint that they had used in the morning, and a fire was now lighted in front of the rocky stone, and a forked stick, stuck in the ground, and bent over the coals, served as a spit, on which, gipsy-fashion, the partridge was suspended,--a scanty meal, but thankfully partaken of, though they knew not how they should breakfast next morning. The children felt they were pensioners on God's providence not less than the wild denizens of the wilderness around them. When Hector--who by nature was less sanguine than his sister or cousin--expressed some anxiety for their provisions for the morrow, Catharine, who had early listened with trusting piety of heart to the teaching of her father, when he read portions from the holy Word of God, gently laid her hand upon her brother's head, which rested on her knees, as he sat upon the grass beside her, and said, in a low and earnest tone, "'Consider the fowls of the air: they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?' Surely, my brother, God careth for us as much as for the wild creatures that have no sense to praise and glorify his holy name. God cares for the creatures he has made, and supplies them with knowledge where they shall find food when they hunger and thirst. So I have heard my father say; and surely our father knows, for is he not a wise man, Hector?" "I remember," said Louis thoughtfully, "hearing my mother repeat the words of a good old man she knew when she lived in Quebec. 'When you are in trouble, Mathilde,' he used to say to her, 'kneel down and ask God's help, nothing doubting but that he has the power as well as the will to serve you, if it be for your good; for he is able to bring all things to pass. It is our own want of faith that prevents our prayers from being heard.' And, truly, I think the wise old man was right," he added. It was strange to hear grave words like these from the lips of the giddy Louis. Possibly they had the greater weight on that account. And Hector, looking up with a serious air, replied, "Your mother's friend was a good man, Louis. Our want of trust in God's power must displease him. And when we think of all the great and glorious things he has made,--that blue sky, those sparkling stars, the beautiful moon that is now shining down upon us, and the hills and waters, the mighty forest, and little creeping plants and flowers that grow at our feet,--it must, indeed, seem foolish in his eyes that we should doubt his power to help us, who not only made all these things but ourselves also." "True," said Catharine; "but then, Hector, we are not as God made us; for the wicked one cast bad seed in the field where God had sown the good." "Let us, however, consider what we shall do for food; for you know God helps those that help themselves," said Louis. "Let us consider a little. There must be plenty of fish in the lake, both small and great." "But how are we to get them out of it?" rejoined Catharine. "I doubt the fish will swim at their ease there, while we go hungry." "Do not interrupt me, ma chere. Then, we see the track of deer, and the holes of the wood-chuck; we hear the cry of squirrels and chitmunks, and there are plenty of partridges, and ducks, and quails, and snipes;--of course, we have to contrive some way to kill them. Fruits there are in abundance, and plenty of nuts of different kinds. At present we have plenty of fine strawberries, and huckleberries will be ripe soon in profusion, and bilberries too, and you know how pleasant they are; as for raspberries, I see none; but by-and-by there will be May-apples (_Podophyllum peltatum_)--I see great quantities of them in the low grounds; grapes, high-bush cranberries, haws as large as cherries, and sweet too, squaw-berries, wild-plums, choke-cherries, and bird-cherries. As to sweet acorns, there will be bushels and bushels of them for the roasting, as good as chestnuts, to my taste, and butter-nuts, and hickory-nuts with many other good things." And here Louis stopped for want of breath to continue his catalogue of forest dainties. "Yes, and there are bears, and wolves, and raccoons too, that will eat us for want of better food," interrupted Hector slyly. "Nay, Katty, do not shudder, as if you were already in the clutches of a big bear. Neither bear nor wolf shall make mincemeat of thee, my girl, while Louis and thy brother are near to wield an axe or a knife in thy defence." "Nor catamount spring upon thee, ma belle cousine," added Louis gallantly, "while thy bold cousin Louis can scare him away." "Well, now that we know our resources, the next thing is to consider how we are to obtain them, my dears," said Catharine. "For fishing, you know, we must have a hook and line, a rod, or a net. Now, where are these to be met with?" Louis nodded his head sagaciously. "The line I think I can provide; the hook is more difficult, but I do not despair even of that. As to the rod, it can be cut from any slender sapling on the shore. A net, ma chere, I could make with very little trouble, if I had but a piece of cloth to sew over a hoop." Catharine laughed. "You are very ingenious, no doubt, Monsieur Louis; but where are you to get the cloth and the hoop, and the means of sewing it on?" Louis took up the corner of his cousin's apron with a provoking look. "My apron, sir, is not to be appropriated for any such purpose. You seem to covet it for everything." "Indeed, ma petite, I think it very unbecoming and very ugly, and never could see any good reason why you, and mamma, and Mathilde should wear such frightful things." "It is to keep our gowns clean, Louis, when we are milking, and scrubbing, and doing all sorts of household duties," said Catharine. "Well, ma belle, you have neither cows to milk nor house to clean," replied the annoying boy; "so there can be little want of the apron. I could turn it to fifty useful purposes." "Pooh, nonsense," said Hector impatiently; "let the child alone, and do not tease her about her apron." "Well, then, there is another good thing I did not think of before--water mussels. I have heard my father and old Jacob the lumberer say that, roasted in their shells in the ashes, with a seasoning of salt and pepper, they are good eating when nothing better is to be got." "No doubt, if the seasoning can be procured," said Hector; "but, alas for the salt and the pepper!" "Well, we can eat them with the best of all sauces--hunger. And then, no doubt, there are crayfish in the gravel under the stones; but we must not mind a pinch to our fingers in taking them." "To-morrow, then, let us breakfast on fish," said Hector. "You and I will try our luck, while Kate gathers strawberries; and if our line should break, we can easily cut those long locks from Catharine's head and twist them into lines." And Hector laid his hands upon the long fair hair that hung in shining curls about his sister's neck. "Cut my curls! This is even worse than cousin Louis's proposal of making tinder and fishing-nets of my apron," said Catharine, shaking back the bright tresses which, escaping from the snood that bound them, fell in golden waves over her shoulders. "In truth, Hec, it were a sin and a shame to cut her pretty curls, that become her so well," said Louis. "But we have no scissors, ma belle, so you need fear no injury to your precious locks." "For the matter of that, Louis, we could cut them with your _couteau de chaise_. I could tell you a story that my father told me, not long since, of Charles Stuart, the second king of that name in England. You know he was the granduncle of the young chevalier, Charles Edward, that my father talks of, and loves so much." "I know all about him," said Catharine, nodding sagaciously; "let us hear the story of his granduncle. But I should like to know what my hair and Louis's knife can have to do with King Charles." "Wait a bit, Kate, and you shall hear--that is, if you have patience," said her brother. "Well then, you must know, that after some great battle, the name of which I forget, [Footnote: Battle of Worcester] in which the king and his handful of brave soldiers were defeated by the forces of the Parliament (the Roundheads, as they were called), the poor young king was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains, a large price was set on his head, to be given to any traitor who should slay him or bring him prisoner to Oliver Cromwell. He was obliged to dress himself in all sorts of queer clothes, and hide in all manner of strange, out-of-the-way places, and keep company with rude and humble men, the better to hide his real rank from the cruel enemies that sought his life. Once he hid along with a gallant gentleman, [Footnote: Colonel Careless.] one of his own brave officers, in the branches of a great oak. Once he was hid in a mill; and another time he was in the house of one Pendril, a woodman. The soldiers of the Parliament, who were always prowling about, and popping in unawares wherever they suspected the poor king to be hidden, were at one time in the very room where he was standing beside the fire." "Oh!" exclaimed Catharine, "that was frightful. And did they take him prisoner?" "No; for the wise woodman and his brothers, fearing lest the soldiers should discover that he was a cavalier and a gentleman, by the long curls that the king's men all wore in those days, and called _lovelocks_, begged of his majesty to let his hair be cropped close to his head." "That was very hard, to lose his nice curls." "I dare say the young king thought so too; but it was better to lose his hair than his head. So, I suppose, the men told him; for he suffered them to cut it all close to his head, laying down his head on a rough deal table, or a chopping-block, while his faithful friends with a large knife trimmed off the curls." "I wonder if the young king thought at that minute of his poor father, who, you know, was forced by wicked men to lay down his head upon a block to have it cut from his shoulders, because Cromwell, and others as hard-hearted as himself, willed that he should die." "Poor king!" said Catharine, sighing; "I see that it is better to be poor children, wandering on these plains under God's own care, than to be kings and princes at the mercy of bad and sinful men." "Who told your father all these things, Hec?" said Louis. "It was the son of his brave colonel, who knew a great deal about the history of the Stuart kings, for our colonel had been with Prince Charles, the young chevalier, and fought by his side when he was in Scotland. He loved him dearly, and after the battle of Culloden, where the prince lost all, and was driven from place to place, and had not where to lay his head, he went abroad in hopes of better times. But those times did not come for the poor prince; and our colonel, after a while, through the friendship of General Wolfe, got a commission in the army that was embarking for Quebec, and at last commanded the regiment to which my father belonged. He was a kind man, and my father loved both him and his son, and grieved not a little when he parted from him." "Well," said-Catharine, "as you have told me such a nice story, Mister Hec, I shall forgive the affront about my curls." "Well, then, to-morrow we are to try our luck at fishing, and if we fail, we will make us bows and arrows to kill deer or small game; I fancy we shall not be over-particular as to its quality. Why should not we be able to find subsistence as well as the wild Indians?" "True," said Hector; "the wild men of the wilderness, and the animals and birds, all are fed by the things that He provideth; then wherefore should His white children fear?" "I have often heard my father tell of the privations of the lumberers, when they have fallen short of provisions, and of the contrivances of himself and old Jacob Morelle when they were lost for several days, nay, weeks I believe it was. Like the Indians, they made themselves bows and arrows, using the sinews of the deer, or fresh thongs of leather, for bow-strings; and when they could not get game to eat, they boiled the inner bark of the slippery elm to jelly, or birch bark, and drank the sap of the sugar maple when they could get no water but melted snow only, which is unwholesome: at last they even boiled their own moccasins." "Indeed, Louis, that must have been a very unsavoury dish," said Catharine. "That old buck-skin vest would have made a famous pot of soup of itself," added Hector, "or the deer-skin hunting shirt." "They might have been reduced even to that," said Louis, laughing, "but for the good fortune that befell them in the way of a half-roasted bear." "Nonsense, Cousin Louis; bears do not run about ready roasted in the forest, like the lambs in the old nursery tale." "Kate, this was a fact; at least it was told as one by old Jacob, and my father did not deny it. Shall I tell you about it? After passing several hungry days, with no better food to keep them alive than the scrapings of the inner bark of the poplars and elms, which was not very substantial for hearty men, they encamped one night in a thick dark swamp,--not the sort of place they would have chosen, but they could not help themselves, having been enticed into it by the tracks of a deer or a moose,--and night came upon them unawares, so they set to work to kindle a fire with spunk, and a flint and knife; rifle they had none, or maybe they would have had game to eat. "Old Jacob fixed upon a huge hollow pine that lay across their path, against which he soon piled a glorious heap of boughs and arms of trees, and whatever wood he could collect, and lighted up a fine fire. The wood was dry pine and cedar and birch, and it blazed away, and crackled and burned like a pine-torch. By-and-by they heard a most awful growling close to them. 'That's a big bear, as I live,' said old Jacob, looking all about, thinking to see one come out from the thick bush. But Bruin was nearer to him than he thought; for presently a great black bear burst out from the butt-end of the great burning log, and made towards Jacob. Just then the wind blew the flame outward, and it caught the bear's thick coat, and he was all in a blaze in a moment. No doubt the heat of the fire had penetrated to the hollow of the log, where he had lain himself snugly up for the winter, and wakened him. Jacob seeing the huge black brute all in a flame of fire, roared with fright; the bear roared with pain and rage; and my father roared with laughing to see Jacob's terror. But he did not let the bear laugh at him, for he seized a thick pole that he had used for closing in the brands and logs, and soon demolished the bear, who was so blinded with the fire and smoke that he made no fight; and they feasted on roast bear's flesh for many days, and got a capital skin to cover them beside." "What, Louis! after the fur was all singed?" said Catharine. "Kate, you are too particular," said Louis; "a story never loses, you know." Hector laughed heartily at the adventure, and enjoyed the dilemma of the bear in his winter quarters; but Catharine was somewhat shocked at the levity displayed by her cousin and brother when recounting the terror of old Jacob and the sufferings of the poor bear. "You boys are always so unfeeling," she said gravely. "Indeed, Kate," said her brother, "the day may come when the sight of a good piece of roast bear's flesh will be no unwelcome sight. If we do not find our way back to Cold Springs before the winter sets in, we may be reduced to as bad a state as poor Jacob and my uncle were in the pine swamps on the banks of the St. John." "Ah!" said Catharine, trembling, "that would be too bad to happen." "Courage, ma belle; let us not despair for the morrow. Let us see what tomorrow will do for us; meantime, we will not neglect the blessings we still possess. See, our partridge is ready; let us eat our supper, and be thankful; and for grace let us say, 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'" Long exposure to the air had sharpened their appetites. The hungry wanderers needed no further invitation. The scanty meal, equally divided, was soon despatched. It is a common saying, but excellent to be remembered by any wanderers in our forest wilds, that those who travel by the sun travel in a circle, and usually find themselves at night in the same place from whence they started in the morning; so it was with our wanderers. At sunset they found themselves once more in the ravine, beside the big stone, in which they had rested at noon. They had imagined themselves miles distant from it: they were grievously disappointed. They had encouraged each other with the confident hope that they were drawing near to the end of their bewildering journey: they were as far from their home as ever, without the slightest clue to guide them to the right path. Despair is not a feeling which takes deep root in the youthful breast. The young are always hopeful; so confident in their own wisdom and skill in averting or conquering danger; so trusting; so willing to believe that there is a peculiar Providence watching over them. Poor children! they had indeed need of such a belief to strengthen their minds and encourage them to fresh exertions, for new trials were at hand. The broad moon had already flooded the recesses of the glen with light, and all looked fresh and lovely in the dew which glittered on tree and leaf, on herb and flower. Catharine, who, though weary with her fatiguing wanderings, could not sleep, left the little hut of boughs her companions had put up near the granite rock in the valley for her accommodation, and ascended the western bank, where the last jutting spur of its steep side formed a lofty cliff-like promontory, at the extreme verge of which the roots of one tall spreading oak formed a most inviting seat, from whence the traveller looked down into a level tract, which stretched away to the edge of the lake. This flat had been the estuary of the mountain stream which had once rushed down between the hills, forming a narrow gorge; but now all was changed: the waters had ceased to flow, the granite bed was overgrown and carpeted with deer-grass and flowers of many hues, wild fruits and bushes, below, while majestic oaks and pines towered above. A sea of glittering foliage lay beneath Catharine's feet; in the distance the eye of the young girl rested on a belt of shining waters, which girt in the shores like a silver zone; beyond, yet more remote to the northward, stretched the illimitable forest. Never had Catharine looked upon a scene so still or so fair to the eye; a holy calm seemed to shed its influence over her young mind, and peaceful tears stole down her cheeks. Not a sound was there abroad, scarcely a leaf stirred; she could have stayed for hours there gazing on the calm beauty of nature, and communing with her own heart, when suddenly a stirring rustling sound caught her ear; it came from a hollow channel on one side of the promontory, which was thickly overgrown with the shrubby dogwood, wild roses, and bilberry bushes. Imagine the terror which seized the poor girl on perceiving the head of a black elk breaking through the covert of the bushes. With a scream and a bound, which the most deadly fear alone could have inspired, Catharine sprung from the supporting trunk of the oak, and dashed down the precipitous side of the ravine; now clinging to the bending sprays of the flexile dogwood, now to some fragile birch or poplar--now trusting to the yielding heads of the sweet-scented ceanothus, or filling her hands with sharp thorns from the roses that clothed the bank,--flowers, grass, all were alike clutched at in her rapid and fearful descent. A loose fragment of granite on which she had unwittingly placed her foot rolled from under her; unable to regain her balance she fell forwards, and was precipitated through the bushes into the ravine below, conscious only of unspeakable terror and an agonizing pain in one of her ankles which rendered her quite powerless. The noise of the stones she had dislodged in her fall, and her piteous cries, brought Louis and Hector to her side, and they bore her in their arms to the hut of boughs, and laid her down upon her bed of leaves and grass and young pine boughs. When Catharine was able to speak, she related to Louis and Hector the cause of her fright. She was sure it must have been a wolf by his sharp teeth, long jaws, and grizzly coat. The last glance she had had of him had filled her with terror; he was standing on a fallen tree, with his eyes fixed upon her. She could tell them no more that happened; she never felt the ground she was on, so great was her fright. Hector was half disposed to scold his sister for rambling over the hills alone; but Louis was full of tender compassion for _la belle cousine_, and would not suffer her to be chidden. Fortunately, no bones had been fractured, though the sinews of her ankle were severely sprained; but the pain was intense, and after a sleepless night, the boys found, to their grief and dismay, that Catharine was unable to put her foot to the ground. This was an unlooked-for aggravation of their misfortunes; to pursue their wanderings was for the present impossible; rest was their only remedy, excepting the application of such cooling medicaments as circumstances would supply them with. Cold water constantly applied to the swollen joint, was the first thing that was suggested; but, simple as was the lotion, it was not easy to obtain it in sufficient quantities. They were full a quarter of a mile from the lake shore, and the cold springs near it were yet further off; and then the only vessel they had was the tin pot, which hardly contained a pint; at the same time the thirst of the fevered sufferer was intolerable, and had also to be provided for. Poor Catharine, what unexpected misery she now endured! The valley and its neighbouring hills abounded in strawberries; they were now ripening in abundance; the ground was scarlet in places with this delicious fruit: they proved a blessed relief to the poor sufferer's burning thirst. Hector and Louis were unwearied in supplying her with them. Louis, ever fertile in expedients, crushed the cooling fruit and applied them to the sprained foot; rendering the application still more grateful by spreading them upon the large smooth leaves of the sapling oak: these he bound on with strips of the leathery bark of the moose-wood, [Footnote: "_Dirca palustris_," moose-wood American mezereon, leather-wood. From the Greek, _dirka_, a fountain or wet place, its usual place of growth.] which he had found growing in great abundance near the entrance of the ravine. Hector, in the meantime, was not idle. After having collected a good supply of ripe strawberries, he climbed the hills in search of birds' eggs and small game. About noon he returned with the good news of having discovered a spring of fine water in an adjoining ravine, beneath a clump of bass-wood and black cherry trees; he had also been so fortunate as to kill a woodchuck, having met with many of their burrows in the gravelly sides of the hills. The woodchuck seems to be a link between the rabbit and badger; its colour is that of a leveret: it climbs like the raccoon, and burrows like the rabbit; its eyes are large, full, and dark, the lip cleft, the soles of the feet naked, claws sharp, ears short; it feeds on grasses, grain, fruit, and berries. The flesh is white, oily, and, in the summer, rank, but is eaten in autumn by the Indians and woodsmen; the skin is not much valued. They are easily killed by dogs, though, being expert climbers, they often baffle their enemies, clinging to the bark beyond their reach. A stone or stick well aimed soon kills them; but they sometimes bite sharply. The woodchuck proved a providential supply; and Hector cheered his companions with the assurance that they could not starve, as there were plenty of these creatures to be found. They had seen one or two about Cold Springs, but they are less common in the deep forest lands than on the drier, more open plains. "It is a great pity we have no larger vessel to bring our water from the spring," said Hector, looking at the tin pot; "one is so apt to stumble among stones and tangled underwood. If we had only one of our old bark dishes we could get a good supply at once." "There is a fallen birch not far from this," said Louis. "I have here my trusty knife; what is there to hinder us from constructing a vessel capable of holding water, a gallon if you like?" "How can you sew it together, cousin?" asked Catharine; "you have neither deer sinews nor war-tap." The Indian name for the flexible roots of the _tamarack_, or swamp larch, which they make use of in manufacturing their birch baskets and canoes. "I have a substitute at hand, ma belle;" and Louis pointed to the strips of leather-wood he had collected for binding the dressings on her foot. When an idea once struck Louis, he never rested till he worked it out in some way. In a few minutes he was busily employed, stripping sheets of the ever-useful birch-bark from the birch tree that had fallen at the foot of the "Wolf's Crag;" for so the children had named the memorable spot where poor Catharine's accident had occurred. The rough outside coatings of the bark, which are of silvery whiteness, but ragged from exposure to the action of the weather in the larger and older trees, he peeled off, and then cutting the bark so that the sides lapped well over and the corners were secured from cracks, he proceeded to pierce holes opposite to each other, and with some trouble managed to stitch them tightly together, by drawing strips of the moose or leather-wood through and through. The first attempt, of course, was but rude and ill-shaped, but it answered the purpose, and only leaked a little at the corners for want of a sort of flap, which he had forgotten to allow in cutting out the bark,--this flap in the Indian baskets and dishes turns up, and keeps all tight and close,--a defect he remedied in his subsequent attempts. In spite of its deficiencies, Louis's water-jar was looked upon with great admiration, and highly commended by Catharine, who almost forgot her sufferings while watching her cousin's proceedings. Louis was elated by his own successful ingenuity, and was for running off directly to the spring. "Catharine shall now have cold water to bathe her poor ankle with, and to quench her thirst," he said, joyfully springing to his feet, ready for a start up the steep bank; but Hector quietly restrained his lively cousin, by suggesting the possibility of his not finding the "fountain in the wilderness," as Louis termed the spring, or losing himself altogether. "Let us both go together then," cried Louis. Catharine cast on her cousin an imploring glance. "Do not leave me, dear Louis--Hector, do not let me be left alone." Her sorrowful appeal stayed the steps of the volatile Louis. "Go you, Hector, as you know the way.--I will not leave you, Kate, since I was the cause of all you have suffered; I will abide by you, in joy or in sorrow, till I see you once more safe in your own dear mother's arms." Comforted by this assurance, Catharine quickly dashed away the gathering tears from her cheeks, and chid her own foolish fears. "But you know, dear cousin," she said, "I am so helpless; and then the dread of that horrible wolf makes a coward of me." After some little time had elapsed, Hector returned. The bark vessel had done its duty to admiration; it only wanted a very little improvement to make it complete. The water was cold and pure. Hector had spent a little time in deepening the mouth of the spring, and placing some stones about it. He described the ravine as being much deeper and wider and more gloomy than the one they occupied. The sides and bottom were clothed with magnificent oaks. It was a grand sight, he said, to stand on the jutting spurs of this great ravine, and look down upon the tops of the trees that lay below, tossing their rounded heads like the waves of a big sea. There were many lovely flowers-vetches of several kinds, blue, white, and pencilled, twining among the grass; a beautiful white-belled flower, that was like the "morning glory" _(Convolvulus major),_ and scarlet cups [Footnote: _Erichroma,_ or painted cup.] in abundance, with roses in profusion. The bottom of this ravine was strewed in places with huge blocks of black granite, cushioned with thick green moss; it opened out into a wide flat, similar to the one at the mouth of the valley of the "Big Stone." Both Hector and his sister had insensibly imbibed a love of the grand and picturesque, by listening with untiring interest to their father's animated and enthusiastic descriptions of his Highland home, and the wild mountainous scenery that surrounded it. Though brought up in solitude and uneducated, there was nothing vulgar or rude in the minds or manners of these young people. Simple and untaught they were, but they were guileless, earnest, and unsophisticated; and if they lacked the knowledge that is learned from books, they possessed much that was useful and practical, which had been taught by experience and observation in the school of necessity. For several days the pain and fever arising from her sprain rendered any attempt at removing Catharine from the valley of the "Big Stone" impracticable. The ripe fruit began to grow less abundant in their immediate vicinity; neither woodchuck, partridge, nor squirrel had been killed; and our poor wanderers now endured the agonizing pains of hunger. Continual exposure to the air by night and by day contributed not a little to increase the desire for food. It is true, there was the yet untried lake, "bright, boundless, and free," gleaming in silvery splendour, but in practice they knew nothing of the fisher's craft, though, as a matter of report, they were well acquainted with its mysteries, and had often listened with delight to the feats performed by their respective fathers in the art of angling, spearing, and netting. "I have heard my father say that so bold and numerous were the fish in the lakes and rivers he used to fish in, that they could be taken by the hand with a crooked pin and coarse thread, or wooden spear; but that was in the Lower Province. And oh, what glorious tales I have heard him tell of spearing fish by torchlight!" "The fish may be wiser or not so numerous in this lake," said Hector, "however, if Kate can bear to be moved, we will go down to the shore and try our luck. But what can we do? we have neither hook nor line provided." Louis nodded his head, and sitting down on a projecting root of a scrub oak, produced from the depths of his capacious pocket a bit of tin, which he carefully selected from among a miscellaneous hoard of treasures. "Here," said he, holding it up to the view as he spoke,--"here is the slide of an old powder-flask, which I picked up from among some rubbish my sister had thrown out the other day." "I fear you will make nothing of that," said Hector; "a bit of bone would be better. If you had a file now, you might do something." "Stay a moment, Monsieur Hec; what do you call this?" and Louis triumphantly handed out of his pocket the very instrument in question, a few inches of a broken, rusty file; very rusty, indeed, it was, but still it might be made to answer in such ingenious hands as those of our young French Canadian. "I well remember, Katty, how you and Mathilde laughed at me for treasuring up this old thing months ago.--Ah, Louis, Louis, you little knew the use it was to be put to then," he added thoughtfully, apostrophizing himself; "how little do we know what is to befall us in our young days!" "God knows it all," said Hector gravely; "we are under his good guidance." "You are right, Hec; let us trust in his mercy, and he will take good care of us. Come, let us go to the lake," Catharine added, and she sprang to her feet, but as quickly sank down upon the grass, and regarded her companions with a piteous look, saying, "I cannot walk one step; alas, alas! what is to become of me? I am only a useless burden to you. If you leave me here I shall fall a prey to some savage beast; and you cannot carry me with you in your search for food." "Dry your tears, sweet cousin; you shall go with us. Do you think that Hector or Louis would abandon you in your helpless state, to die of hunger or thirst, or to be torn by wolves or bears? We will carry you by turns; the distance to the lake is nothing, and you are not so very heavy, ma belle cousine; see, I could dance with you in my arms, you are so light a burden,"--and Louis gaily caught the suffering girl up in his arms, and with rapid steps struck into the deer-path that wound through the ravine towards the lake. But when they reached a pretty, rounded knoll (where Wolf Tower now stands), Louis was fain to place his cousin on a flat stone beneath a big oak that grew beside the bank, and fling himself on the flowery ground at her feet, while he drew a long breath, and gathered the fruit that grew among the long grass to refresh himself after his fatigue. And then, while resting on the "Elfin Knowe," as Catharine called the hill, he employed himself with manufacturing a rude sort of a fish-hook, with the aid of his knife, the bit of tin, and the rusty file. A bit of twine was next produced: boys have always a bit of string in their pockets; and Louis, as I have before hinted, was a provident hoarder of such small matters. The string was soon attached to the hook, and Hector was not long in cutting a sapling that answered well the purpose of a fishing-rod; and thus equipped they proceeded to the lake shore, Hector and Louis carrying the crippled Catharine by turns. When there, they selected a sheltered spot beneath a grove of overhanging cedars and birches, festooned with wild vines, which, closely woven, formed a natural bower, quite impervious to the rays of the sun. A waterfall dashing from the upper part of the bank fell headlong in spray and foam, and quietly spread itself among the round shingly fragments that formed the beach of the lake. Beneath this pleasant bower Catharine could repose and watch her companions at their novel employment, or bathe her feet and infirm ankle in the cool streamlet that rippled in tiny wavelets over its stony bed. If the amusement of fishing prove pleasant and exciting when pursued for pastime only, it may readily be conceived that its interest must be greatly heightened when its object is satisfying a craving degree of hunger. Among the sunny spots on the shore, innumerable swarms of the flying grasshopper or field crickets were sporting, and one of these proved an attractive bait. The line was no sooner cast into the water than the hook was seized, and many were the brilliant specimens of sun-fish that our eager fishermen cast at Catharine's feet, all gleaming with gold and azure scales. Nor was there any lack of perch, or that delicate fish commonly known in these waters as the pink roach. Tired at last with their easy sport, the hungry boys next proceeded to the grateful task of scaling and dressing their fish. This they did very expeditiously, as soon as the more difficult part of kindling a fire on the beach had been accomplished with the help of the flint, knife, and dried rushes. The fish were then suspended, Indian fashion, on forked, sticks stuck in the ground and inclined at a suitable angle towards the glowing embers,--a few minutes sufficed to cook them. "Truly," said Catharine, when the plentiful repast was set before her, "God hath, indeed, spread a table for us here in the wilderness;" so miraculous did this ample supply of delicious food seem in the eyes of this simple child of nature. They had often heard tell of the facility with which the fish could be caught, but they had known nothing of it from their own experience, as the streams and creeks about Cold Springs afforded them but little opportunity for exercising their skill as anglers; so that, with the rude implements with which they were furnished, the result of their morning success seemed little short of divine interference in their behalf. Happy and contented in the belief that they were not forgotten by their heavenly Father, these poor "children in the wood" looked up with gratitude to that beneficent Being who suffereth not even a sparrow to fall unheeded. Upon Catharine, in particular, these things made a deep impression; and there, as she sat in the green shade, soothed by the lulling sound of the flowing waters, and the soft murmuring of the many-coloured insects that hovered among the fragrant leaves which thatched her sylvan bower, her young heart was raised in humble and holy aspirations to the great Creator of all things living. A peaceful calm diffused itself over her mind, as with hands meekly folded across her breast, the young girl prayed with the guileless fervour of a trusting and faithful heart. The sun was just sinking in a flood of glory behind the dark pine-woods at the head of the lake, when Hector and Louis, who had been carefully providing fish for the morrow (which was the Sabbath), came loaded with their finny prey carefully strung upon a willow-wand, and found Catharine sleeping in her bower. Louis was loath to break her tranquil slumbers, but her careful brother reminded him of the danger to which she was exposed, sleeping in the dew by the water-side. "Moreover," he added, "we have some distance to go, and we have left the precious axe and the birch-bark vessel in the valley." These things were too valuable to be lost, so they roused the sleeper, and slowly recommenced their toilsome way, following the same path that they had made in the morning. Fortunately, Hector had taken the precaution to bend down the flexile branches of the dogwood and break the tops of the young trees that they had passed between on their route to the lake; and by this clue they were enabled with tolerable certainty to retrace their way, nothing doubting of arriving in time at the wigwam of boughs by the rock in the valley. Their progress was, however, slow, burdened with the care of the lame girl, and laden with the fish. The purple shades of twilight soon clouded the scene, deepened by the heavy masses of foliage, which cast greater obscurity upon their narrow path; for they had now left the oak-flat and entered the gorge of the valley. The utter loneliness of the path, the grotesque shadows of the trees that stretched in long array across the steep banks on either side, taking now this, now that wild and fanciful shape, awakened strange feelings of dread in the mind of these poor forlorn wanderers; like most persons bred up in solitude, their imaginations were strongly tinctured with superstitious fears. Here, then, in the lonely wilderness, far from their beloved parents and social hearth, with no visible arm to protect them from danger, none to encourage or to cheer them, they started with terror-blanched cheeks at every fitful breeze that rustled the leaves or waved the branches above them. The gay and lively Louis, blithe as any wild bird in the bright sunlight, was the most easily oppressed by this strange superstitious fear, when the shades of evening were closing round, and he would start with ill-disguised terror at every sound or shape that met his ear or eye, though the next minute he was the first to laugh at his own weakness. In Hector the feeling was of a graver, more solemn cast, recalling to his mind all the wild and wondrous tales with which his father was wont to entertain the children as they crouched round the huge log-fire of an evening. It is strange the charm these marvellous tales possess for the youthful mind: no matter how improbable or how often told, year after year they will be listened to with the same ardour, with an interest that appears to grow with repetition. And still, as they slowly wandered along, Hector would repeat to his breathless auditors those Highland legends that were as familiar to their ears as household words; and still they listened with fear and wonder, and deep awe, till at each pause he made the deep-drawn breath and half-repressed shudder might be heard. And now the little party paused irresolutely, fearing to proceed: they had omitted to notice some landmark in their progress; the moon had not long been up, and her light was as yet indistinct; so they sat them down on a little grassy spot on the bank, and rested till the moon should lighten their path. Louis was confident they were not far from the "Big Stone," but careful Hector had his doubts, and Catharine was weary. The children had already conceived a sort of home feeling for the valley and the mass of stone that had sheltered them for so many nights; and soon the dark mass came in sight, as the broad full light of the now risen moon fell upon its rugged sides: they were nearer to it than they had imagined. "Forward for the 'Big Stone' and the wigwam," cried Louis. "Hush!" said Catharine, "look there!" raising her hand with a warning gesture. "Where? what?" "The wolf! the wolf!" gasped out the terrified girl. There, indeed, upon the summit of the block, in the attitude of a sentinel or watcher, stood the gaunt-figured animal; and as she spoke, a long wild cry, the sound of which seemed as if it came midway between the earth and the tops of the tall pines on the lofty ridge above them, struck terror into their hearts, as with speechless horror they gazed upon the dark outline of the terrible beast. There it stood, with its head raised, its neck stretched outward, and ears erect, as if to catch the echo that gave back those dismal sounds; another minute and he was gone to join his companions, and the crashing of branches and the rush of many feet on the high bank above was followed by the prolonged cry of a poor fugitive animal,--a doe, or fawn, perhaps,--in the very climax of mortal agony; and then the lonely recesses of the forest took up that fearful death-cry, the far-off shores of the lake and the distant islands prolonged it, and the terrified children clung together in fear and trembling. A few minutes over, and all was still. The chase had turned across the hills to some distant ravine; the wolves were all gone--not even the watcher was left; and the little valley lay once more in silence, with all its dewy roses and sweet blossoms glittering in the moonlight. But though around them all was peace and loveliness, it was long ere confidence was restored to the hearts of the panic-stricken and trembling children. They beheld a savage enemy in every mass of leafy shade, and every rustling bough struck fresh terror into their excited minds. They might have exclaimed, with the patriarch Jacob, "How dreadful is this place!" With hand clasped in hand, they sat them down among the thick covert of the bushes; for now they feared to move forward, lest the wolves should return. Sleep was long a stranger to their watchful eyes, each fearing to be the only one left awake, and long and painful was their vigil. Yet nature, overtasked, at length gave way, and sleep came down upon their eyelids--deep, unbroken sleep, which lasted till the broad sunlight, breaking through the leafy curtains of their forest-bed, and the sound of waving boughs and twittering birds, once more awakened them to life and light, recalling them from happy dreams of home and friends to an aching sense of loneliness and desolation. This day they did not wander far from the valley, but took the precaution, as evening drew on, to light a large fire, the blaze of which they thought would keep away any beast of prey. They had no want of food, as the fish they had caught the day before proved an ample supply. The huckleberries were ripening too, and soon afforded them a never-failing source of food; there was also an abundance of bilberries, the sweet fruit of which proved a great treat, besides being very nourishing. CHAPTER III. "Oh for a lodge in the vast wilderness, The boundless contiguity of shade!" A fortnight had now passed, and Catharine still suffered so much from pain and fever that they were unable to continue their wanderings; all that Hector and his cousin could do was to carry her to the bower by the lake, where she reclined whilst they caught fish. The painful longing to regain their lost home had lost nothing of its intensity; and often would the poor sufferer start from her bed of leaves and boughs to wring her hands and weep, and call in piteous tones upon that dear father and mother who would have given worlds, had they been at their command, to have heard but one accent of her beloved voice, to have felt one loving pressure from that fevered hand. Hope, the consoler, hovered over the path of the young wanderers, long after she had ceased to whisper comfort to the desolate hearts of the mournful parents. Of all that suffered by this sad calamity, no one was more to be pitied than Louis Perron. Deeply did the poor boy lament the thoughtless folly which had involved his cousin Catharine in so terrible a misfortune. "If Kate had not been with me," he would say, "we should not have been lost; for Hector is so cautious and so careful, he would not have left the cattle-path. But we were so heedless, we thought only of flowers and insects, of birds and such trifles, and paid no heed to our way." Louis Perron, such is life. The young press gaily onward, gathering the flowers, and following the gay butterflies that attract them in the form of pleasure and amusement: they forget the grave counsels of the thoughtful, till they find the path they have followed is beset with briers and thorns; and a thousand painful difficulties that were unseen, unexpected, overwhelm and bring them to a sad sense of their own folly; and, perhaps, the punishment of their errors does not fall upon themselves alone, but upon the innocent, who have unknowingly been made participators in their fault. By the kindest and tenderest attention to all her comforts, Louis endeavoured to alleviate his cousin's sufferings, and soften her regrets; nay, he would often speak cheerfully and even gaily to her, when his own heart was heavy and his eyes ready to overflow with tears. "If it were not for our dear parents and the dear children at home," he would say, "we might spend our time most happily upon these charming plains; it is much more delightful here than in the dark, thick woods; see how brightly the sunbeams come down and gladden the ground, and cover the earth with fruit and flowers. It is pleasant to be able to fish and hunt, and trap the game. Yes, if they were all here, we would build us a nice log-house, and clear up these bushes on the flat near the lake. This 'Elfin Knowe,' as you call it, Kate, would be a nice spot to build upon. See these glorious old oaks--not one should be cut down; and we would have a boat and a canoe, and voyage across to yonder islands. Would it not be charming, ma belle?" and Catharine, smiling at the picture drawn so eloquently, would enter into the spirit of the project, and say,-- "Ah! Louis, that would be pleasant." "If we had but my father's rifle now," said Hector, "and old Wolfe." "Yes, and Fanchette, dear little Fanchette, that trees the partridges and black squirrels," said Louis. "I saw a doe and a half-grown fawn beside her this very morning, at break of day," said Hector. "The fawn was so little fearful, that if I had had a stick in my hand I could have killed it. I came within ten yards of the spot where it stood. I know it would be easy to catch one by making a dead-fall." A sort of trap in which game is taken in the woods, or on the banks of creeks. "If we had but a dear fawn to frolic about us, like Mignon, dear innocent Mignon," cried Catharine, "I should never feel lonely then." "And we should never want for meat, if we could catch a fine fawn from time to time, ma belle.--Hec, what are you thinking of?" "I was thinking, Louis, that if we were doomed to remain here all our lives, we must build a house for ourselves; we could not live in the open air without shelter as we have done. The summer will soon pass, and the rainy season will come, and the bitter frosts and snows of winter will have to be provided against." "But, Hector, do you really think there is no chance of finding our way back to Cold Springs? We know it must be behind this lake," said Lotus. "True, but whether east, west, or south, we cannot tell, and whichever way we take now is but a chance; and if once we leave the lake and get involved in the mazes of that dark forest, we should perish: for we know there is neither water nor fruit nor game to be had as there is here, and we might soon be starved to death. God was good who led us beside this fine lake, and upon these fruitful plains." "It is a good thing that I had my axe when we started from home," said Hector. "We should not have been so well off without it; we shall find the use of it if we have to build a house. We must look out for some spot where there is a spring of good water, and--" "No horrible wolves," interrupted Catharine. "Though I love this pretty ravine, and the banks and braes about us, I do not think I shall like to stay here. I heard the wolves only last night, when you and Louis were asleep." "We must not forget to keep watch-fires." "What shall we do for clothes?" said Catharine, glancing at her home-spun frock of wool and cotton plaid. "A weighty consideration indeed," sighed Hector; "clothes must be provided before ours are worn out and the winter comes on." "We must save all the skins of the woodchucks and squirrels," suggested Louis; "and fawns when we catch them." "Yes, and fawns when we get them," added Hector; "but it is time enough to think of all these things; we must not give up all hope of home." "I give up all hope? I shall hope on while I have life," said Catharine. "My dear, dear father, he will never forget his lost children; he will try and find us, alive or dead; he will never give up the search." Poor child, how long did this hope burn like a living torch in thy guileless breast. How often, as they roamed those hills and valleys, were thine eyes sent into the gloomy recesses of the dark ravines and thick bushes, with the hope that they would meet the advancing form and outstretched arms of thy earthly parents: all in vain. Yet the arms of thy heavenly Father were extended over thee, to guide, to guard, and to sustain thee. How often were Catharine's hands filled with wild-flowers, to carry home, as she fondly said, to sick Louise or her mother. Poor Catharine, how often did your bouquets fade; how often did the sad exile water them with her tears,--for hers was the hope that keeps alive despair. When they roused them in the morning to recommence their fruitless wanderings, they would say to each other, "Perhaps we shall see our father, he may find us here to-day;" but evening came, and still he came not, and they were no nearer to their father's home than they had been the day previous. "If we could but find our way back to the 'Cold Creek,' we might, by following its course, return to Cold Springs," said Hector. "I doubt much the fact of the 'Cold Creek' having any connection with our Spring," said Louis; "I think it has its rise in the Beaver Meadow, and following its course would only entangle us among those wolfish balsam and cedar swamps, or lead us yet further astray into the thick recesses of the pine forest. For my part, I believe we are already fifty miles from Cold Springs." Persons who lose their way in the pathless woods have no idea of distance, or the points of the compass, unless they can see the sun rise and set, which it is not possible to do when surrounded by the dense growth of forest-trees; they rather measure distance by the time they have been wandering, than by any other token. The children knew that they had been a long time absent from home, wandering hither and thither and they fancied their journey had been as long as it had been weary. They had indeed the comfort of seeing the sun in its course from east to west, but they knew not in what direction the home they had lost lay; it was this that troubled them in their choice of the course they should take each day, and at last determined them to lose no more time so fruitlessly, where the peril was so great, but seek for some pleasant spot where they might pass their time in safety, and provide for their present and future wants. "The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide." Catharine declared her ankle was so much stronger than it had been since the accident, and her health so much amended, that the day after the conversation just recorded, the little party bade farewell to the valley of the "Big Stone," and ascending the steep sides of the hills, bent their steps eastward, keeping the lake to their left hand. Hector led the way, loaded with the axe, which he would trust to no one but himself, the tin-pot, and the birch basket. Louis had to assist his cousin up the steep banks, likewise some fish to carry, which had been caught early in the morning. The wanderers thought at first to explore the ground near the lake shore, but soon abandoned this resolution on finding the undergrowth of trees and bushes become so thick that they made little progress, and the fatigue of travelling was greatly increased by having continually to put aside the bushes or bend them down. Hector advised trying the higher ground; and after following a deer-path through a small ravine that crossed the hills, they found themselves on a fine extent of table-land, richly but not too densely wooded with white and black oaks (_Quercus alba_, and _Quercus nigra_), diversified with here and there a solitary pine, which reared its straight and pillar-like trunk in stately grandeur above its leafy companions; a meet eyrie for the bald eagle, that kept watch from its dark crest over the silent waters of the lake, spread below like a silver zone studded with emeralds. In their progress they passed the head of many small ravines, which divided the hilly shores of the lake into deep furrows: these furrows had once been channels by which the waters of some upper lake (the site of which is now dry land) had at a former period poured down into the valley, filling the basin of what now is called the Rice Lake. These waters, with resistless sweep, had ploughed their way between the hills, bearing in their course those blocks of granite and limestone which are so widely scattered both on the hill-tops and the plains, or form a rocky pavement at the bottom of the narrow defiles. What a sight of sublime desolation must that outpouring of the waters have presented, when those deep banks were riven by the sweeping torrents that were loosened from their former bounds! The pleased eye rests upon these tranquil shores, now covered with oaks and pines, or waving with a flood of golden grain, or varied by neat dwellings and fruitful gardens; and the gazer on that peaceful scene scarcely pictures to himself what it must have been when no living eye was there to mark the rushing floods when they scooped to themselves the deep bed in which they now repose. Those lovely islands that sit like stately crowns upon the waters were doubtless the wreck that remained of the valley; elevated spots, whose rocky bases withstood the force of the rushing waters, that carried away the lighter portions of the soil. The southern shore, seen from the lake, seems to lie in regular ridges running from south to north: some few are parallel with the lake shore, possibly where some insurmountable impediment turned the current of the subsiding waters; but they all find an outlet through their connection with ravines communicating with the lake. There is a beautiful level tract of land; with only here and there a solitary oak or a few stately pines growing upon it; it is commonly called the "Upper Race-course," on account of the smoothness of the surface. It forms a high table-land, nearly three hundred feet above the lake, and is surrounded by high hills. This spot, though now dry and covered with turf and flowers, and low bushes, has evidently once been a broad sheet of water. To the eastward lies a still more lovely and attractive spot, known as the "Lower Race-course." It lies on a lower level than the former one, and, like it, is embanked by a ridge of distant hills. Both have ravines leading down to the Rice Lake, and may have been the sources from whence its channel was filled. Some convulsion of nature at a remote period, by raising the waters above their natural level, might have caused a disruption of the banks, and drained their beds, as they now appear ready for the ploughshare or the spade. In the month of June these flats are brilliant with the splendid blossoms of the _Castilegia coccinea_, or painted-cup, the azure lupine (_Lupinus perennis_), and snowy _Trillium_; dwarf roses (_Rosa blanda_) scent the evening air, and grow as if planted by the hand of taste. A carpeting of the small downy saxifrage (_Saxifraga nivalis_), with its white silky leaves, covers the ground in early spring. In autumn it is red with the bright berries and dark box-shaped leaves of a species of creeping winter-green, that the Indians call spice-berry (_Gaultheria procumbens_); the leaves are highly aromatic, and it is medicinal as well as agreeable to the taste and smell. In the month of July a gorgeous assemblage of orange lilies (_Lilium Philadelphicum_) take the place of the lupine and trilliums: these splendid lilies vary from orange to the brightest scarlet. Various species of sunflowers and coreopsis next appear, and elegant white _pyrolas_ [Footnote: Indian bean, also called Indian potato (_Apios tuberosa_).] scent the air and charm the eye. The delicate lilac and white shrubby asters next appear; and these are followed by the large deep-blue gentian, and here and there by the elegant fringed gentian. [Footnote: Gentiana linearis, G. crenata.] These are the latest and loveliest of the flowers that adorn this tract of land. It is indeed a garden of nature's own planting, but the wild garden is being converted into fields of grain, and the wild flowers give place to a new race of vegetables, less ornamental, but more useful to man and the races of domestic animals that depend upon him for their support. Our travellers, after wandering over this lovely plain, found themselves, at the close of the day, at the head of a fine ravine, [Footnote: Kilvert's Ravine, above Pine-tree Point.] where they had the good fortune to perceive a spring of pure water oozing beneath some large moss-covered blocks of black waterworn granite. The ground was thickly covered with moss about the edges of the spring, and many varieties of flowering shrubs and fruits were scattered along the valley and up the steep sides of the surrounding hills. There were whortleberries, or huckleberries, as they are more usually called, in abundance; bilberries dead ripe, and falling from the bushes at a touch. The vines that wreathed the low bushes and climbed the trees were loaded with clusters of grapes; but these were yet hard and green. Dwarf filberts grew on the dry gravelly sides of the hills, yet the rough prickly calyx that enclosed the nut filled their fingers with minute thorns that irritated the skin like the stings of the nettle; but as the kernel, when ripe, was sweet and good, they did not mind the consequences. The moist part of the valley was occupied by a large bed of May-apples, [Footnote: _Podophyllum peltatum_,--mandrake, or May-apple.] the fruit of which was of unusual size, but they were not ripe, August being the month when they ripen; there were also wild plums still green, and wild cherries and blackberries ripening. There were great numbers of the woodchucks' burrows on the hills; wild partridges and quails were seen under the thick covert of the blue-berried dog-wood, [Footnote: _Cornus sericea_. The blue berries of this shrub are eaten by the partridge and wild ducks; also by the pigeons, and other birds. There are several species of this shrub common to the Rice Lake.] that here grew in abundance at the mouth of the ravine where it opened to the lake. As this spot offered many advantages, our travellers halted for the night, and resolved to make it their headquarters for a season, till they should meet with an eligible situation for building a winter shelter. Here, then, at the head of the valley, sheltered by one of the rounded hills that formed its sides, our young people erected a summer hut, somewhat after the fashion of an Indian wigwam, which was all the shelter that was requisite while the weather remained so warm. Through the opening at the gorge of this ravine they enjoyed a peep at the distant waters of the lake, which terminated the vista, while they were quite removed from its unwholesome vapours. The temperature of the air for some days had been hot and sultry, scarcely modified by the cool, delicious breeze that usually sets in about nine o'clock and blows most refreshingly till four or five in the afternoon. Hector and Louis had gone down to fish for supper, while Catharine busied herself in collecting leaves and dried deer-grass, moss and fern, of which there was abundance near the spring. The boys had promised to cut some fresh cedar boughs near the lake shore, and bring them up to form a foundation for their beds, and also to strew Indian-fashion over the floor of the hut by way of a carpet. The fragrant carpet of cedar or hemlock-spruce sprigs strewn lightly over the earthen floor, was to them a luxury as great as if it had been taken from the looms of Persia or Turkey, so happy and contented were they in their ignorance. Their beds of freshly gathered grass and leaves, raised from the earth by a heap of branches carefully arranged, were to them as pleasant as beds of down, and the rude hut of bark and poles as curtains of damask or silk. Having collected as much of these materials as she deemed sufficient for the purpose, Catharine next gathered up the dry oak branches, to make a watch-fire for the night. This done, weary and warm, she sat down on a little hillock, beneath the cooling shade of a grove of young aspens that grew near the hut. Pleased with the dancing of the leaves, which fluttered above her head, and fanned her warm cheek with their incessant motion, she thought, like her cousin Louise, that the aspen was the merriest tree in the forest, for it was always dancing, dancing, dancing. She watched the gathering of the distant thunderclouds, which cast a deeper, more sombre shade upon the pines that girded the northern shores of the lake as with an ebon frame. Insensibly her thoughts wandered far away from the lonely spot whereon she sat, to the stoup [Footnote: The Dutch word for veranda, which is still in common use among the Canadians.] in front of her father's house, and in memory's eye she beheld it all exactly as she had left it. There stood the big spinning-wheel, just as she had set it aside; the hanks of dyed yarn suspended from the rafters, the basket filled with the carded wool ready for her work. She saw in fancy her father, with his fine athletic upright figure, his sunburnt cheeks and clustering sable hair, his clear energetic hazel eyes ever beaming upon her, his favourite child, with looks of love and kindness as she moved to and fro at her wheel. [Footnote: Such is the method of working at the large wool-wheel, unknown or obsolete in England.] There, too, was her mother, with her light step and sweet cheerful voice, singing as she pursued her daily avocations; and Donald and Kenneth driving up the cows to be milked, or chopping firewood. And as these images, like the figures of the magic-lantern, passed in all their living colours before her mental vision, her head drooped heavier and lower till it sank upon her arm; and then she started, looked round, and slept again, her face deeply buried in her young bosom, and long and peacefully the young girl slumbered. A sound of hurrying feet approaches, a wild cry is heard and panting breath, and the sleeper, with a startling scream, springs to her feet: she dreamed that she was struggling in the fangs of a wolf--its grisly paws were clasped about her throat; the feeling was agony and suffocation: her languid eyes open. Can it be?--what is it that she sees? Yes, it is Wolfe; not the fierce creature of her dreams by night and her fears by day, but her father's own brave, devoted dog. What joy, what hope rushed to her heart! She threw herself upon the shaggy neck of the faithful beast, and wept from fulness of heart. "Yes," she joyfully cried, "I knew that I should see him again. My own dear, dear, loving father! Father! father! dear, dear father, here are your children! Come, come quickly!" and she hurried to the head of the valley, raising her voice, that the beloved parent, who she now confidently believed was approaching, might be guided to the spot by the well-known sound of her voice. Poor child! the echoes of thy eager voice, prolonged by every projecting headland of the valley, replied in mocking tones, "Come quickly!" Bewildered she paused, listened breathlessly, and again she called, "Father, come quickly, come!" and again the deceitful sounds were repeated, "Quickly come!" The faithful dog, who had succeeded in tracking the steps of his lost mistress, raised his head and erected his ears as she called on her father's name; but he gave no joyful bark of recognition as he was wont to do when he heard his master's step approaching. Still Catharine could not but think that Wolfe had only hurried on before, and that her father must be very near. The sound of her voice had been heard by her brother and cousin, who, fearing some evil beast had made its way to the wigwam, hastily wound up their line and left the fishing-ground to hurry to her assistance. They could hardly believe their eyes when they saw Wolfe, faithful old Wolfe, their earliest friend and playfellow, named by their father after the gallant hero of Quebec. And they too, like Catharine, thought that their friends were not far distant; joyfully they climbed the hills and shouted aloud, and Wolfe was coaxed and caressed and besought to follow them to point out the way they should take. But all their entreaties were in vain. Worn out with fatigue and long fasting, the poor old dog refused to quit the embers of the fire, before which he stretched himself, and the boys now noticed his gaunt frame and wasted flesh--he looked almost starved. The fact now became evident that he was in a state of great exhaustion. Catharine thought he eyed the spring with wishful looks, and she soon supplied him with water in the bark dish to his great relief. Wolfe had been out for several days with his master, who would repeat, in tones of sad earnestness, to the faithful creature, "Lost, lost, lost!" It was his custom to do so when the cattle strayed, and Wolfe would travel in all directions till he found them, nor ceased his search till he discovered the objects he was ordered to bring home. The last night of the father's wanderings, when, sick and hopeless, he came back to his melancholy home, as he sat sleeplessly rocking himself to and fro, he involuntarily exclaimed, wringing his hands, "Lost, lost, lost!" Wolfe heard what to him was an imperative command; he rose, and stood at the door, and whined. Mechanically his master rose, lifted the latch, and again exclaimed in passionate tones those magic words, that sent the faithful messenger forth into the dark forest path. Once on the trail he never left it, but with an instinct incomprehensible as it was powerful, he continued to track the woods, lingering long on spots where the wanderers had left any signs of their sojourn; he had for some time been baffled at the Beaver Meadow, and again where they had crossed Cold Creek, but had regained the scent and traced them to the valley of the "Big Stone," and then, with the sagacity of the bloodhound and the affection of the terrier he had, at last, discovered the objects of his unwearied though often baffled search. What a state of excitement did the unexpected arrival of old Wolfe create! How many questions were put to the poor beast, as he lay with his head pillowed on the knees of his loving mistress! Catharine knew it was foolish, but she could not help talking to the dumb animal, as if he had been conversant with her own language. Ah, old Wolfe, if your homesick nurse could but have interpreted those expressive looks, those eloquent waggings of your bushy tail, as it flapped upon the grass, or waved from side to side; those gentle lickings of the hand, and mute sorrowful glances, as though he would have said, "Dear mistress, I know all your troubles; I know all you say; but I cannot answer you!" There is something touching in the silent sympathy of the dog, to which only the hard-hearted and depraved can be quite insensible. I remember once hearing of a felon who had shown the greatest obstinacy and callous indifference to the appeals of his relations and the clergyman who attended him in prison, but was softened by the sight of a little dog that had been his companion in his days of comparative innocence, forcing its way through the crowd, till it gained the foot of the gallows; its mute look of anguish and affection unlocked the fount of human feeling, and the condemned man wept--perhaps the first tears he had shed since childhood's happy days. The night closed in with a tempest of almost tropical violence. The inky darkness of the sky was relieved, at intervals, by sheets of lurid flame, which revealed every object far off or near. The distant lake, just seen amid the screen of leaves through the gorge of the valley, gleamed like a sea of molten sulphur; the deep narrow defile, shut in by the steep and wooded hills, looked deeper, more wild and gloomy, when revealed by that vivid glare of light. There was no stir among the trees, the heavy rounded masses of foliage remained unmoved; the very aspen, that tremulous sensitive tree, scarcely stirred: it seemed as if the very pulses of nature were at rest. The solemn murmur that preceded the thunder-peals might have been likened to the moaning of the dying. The children felt the loneliness of the spot. Seated at the entrance of their sylvan hut, in front of which their evening fire burned brightly, they looked out upon the storm in silence and in awe. Screened by the sheltering shrubs that grew near them, they felt comparatively safe from the dangers of the storm, which now burst in terrific violence above the valley. Cloud answered to cloud, and the echoes of the hills prolonged the sound, while shattered trunks and brittle branches filled the air, and shrieked and groaned in that wild war of elements. Between the pauses of the tempest the long howl of the wolves, from their covert in some distant cedar swamp at the edge of the lake, might be heard from time to time,--a sound that always thrilled their hearts with fear. To the mighty thunder-peals that burst above their heads they listened with awe and wonder. It seemed, indeed, to them as if it were the voice of Him who "sendeth out his voice, yea, and that a mighty voice." And they bowed and adored his majesty; but they shrank with curdled blood from the cry of the _felon wolf_. And now the storm was at its climax, and the hail and rain came down in a whitening flood upon that ocean of forest leaves; the old gray branches were lifted up and down, and the stout trunks rent, for they would not bow down before the fury of the whirlwind, and were scattered all abroad like chaff before the wind. The children thought not of danger for themselves, but they feared for the safety of their fathers, whom they believed to be not far off from them. And often amid the raging of the elements they fancied they could distinguish familiar voices calling upon their names. "Ah, if our fathers should have perished in this fearful storm," said Catharine, weeping, "or have been starved to death while seeking for us!" She covered her face and wept more bitterly. But Louis would not listen to such melancholy forebodings. Their fathers were both brave, hardy men, accustomed to every sort of danger and privation; they were able to take care of themselves. Yes, he was sure they were not far off; it was this unlucky storm coming on that had prevented them from meeting. "To-morrow, ma chere, will be a glorious day after the storm. It will be a joyful one too; we shall go out with Wolfe, and he will find his master, and then--oh, yes! I dare say my dear father will be with yours. They will have taken good heed to the track, and we shall soon see our dear mothers and chere petite Louise." The storm lasted till past midnight, when it gradually subsided, and the poor wanderers were glad to see the murky clouds roll off, and the stars peep forth among their broken masses; but they were reduced to a pitiful state, the hurricane having beaten down their little hut, and their garments were drenched with rain. However, the boys made a good fire with some bark and boughs they had in store: there were a few sparks in their back log unextinguished; these they gladly fanned up into a blaze, at which they dried their wet clothes, and warmed themselves. The air was now cool almost to chilliness; for some days the weather remained unsettled, and the sky overcast with clouds, while the lake presented a leaden hue, crested with white mimic waves. They soon set to work to make another hut, and found close to the head of the ravine a great pine uprooted, affording them large pieces of bark, which proved very serviceable in thatching the sides of the hut. The boys employed themselves in this work, while Catharine cooked the fish they had caught the day before, with a share of which old Wolfe seemed to be mightily well pleased. After they had breakfasted, they all went up towards the high table-land above the ravine, with Wolfe, to look round in hope of getting sight of their friends from Cold Springs; but though they kept an anxious look-out in every direction, they returned towards evening tired and hopeless. Hector had killed a red squirrel, and a partridge which Wolfe "treed,"--that is, stood barking at the foot of the tree in which it had perched,--and the supply of meat was a seasonable change. They also noticed and marked with the axe, several trees where there were bee-hives, intending to come in the cold weather and cut them down. Louis's father was a great and successful bee-hunter; and Louis rather prided himself on having learned something of his father's skill in that line. Here, where flowers were so abundant and water plentiful; the wild bees seemed to be abundant also; besides, the open space between the trees, admitting the warm sunbeams freely, was favourable both for the bees and the flowers on which they fed, and Louis talked joyfully of the fine stores of honey they should collect in autumn. He had taught little Fanchon, a small French spaniel of his father's, to find out the trees where the bees hived, and also the nests of the ground-bees, and she would bark at the foot of the tree, or scratch with her feet on the ground, as the other dogs barked at the squirrels or the woodchucks; but Fanchon was far away, and Wolfe was old and would learn no new tricks, so Louis knew he had nothing but his own observation and the axe to depend upon for procuring honey. The boys had been unsuccessful for some days past, in fishing; neither perch nor sunfish, pink roach nor mud-pouts [Footnote: All these fish are indigenous to the fresh waters of Canada.] were to be caught. However, they found water-mussels by groping in the sand, and cray-fish among the gravel at the edge of the water only; the latter pinched their fingers very spitefully. The mussels were not very palatable, for want of salt; but hungry folks must not be dainty, and Louis declared them very good when well roasted, covered up with hot embers. "The fish-hawks," said he, "set us a good example, for they eat them, and so do the eagles and herons. I watched one the other day with a mussel in his bill: he flew to a high tree, let his prey fall, and immediately darted down to secure it. But I drove him off; and, to my great amusement, perceived the wise fellow had just let it fall on a stone, which had cracked the shell for him just in the right place. I often see shells lying at the foot of trees, far up the hills, where these birds must have left them. There is one large thick-shelled mussel that I have found several times with a round hole drilled through the shell, just as if it had been done with a small auger,--doubtless the work of some bird with a strong beak." "Do you remember," said Catharine, "the fine pink mussel-shell that Hec picked up in the little corn-field last year? It had a hole in one of the shells too, [Footnote: This ingenious mode of cracking the shells of mussels is common to many birds. The crow (_Corvus corone_) has been long known by American naturalists to break the thick shells of the river mussels, by letting them fall from a height on to rocks and stones.] and when my uncle saw it, he said it must have been dropped by some large bird, a fish-hawk possibly, or a heron, and brought from the great lake, as it had been taken out of some deep water; the mussels in our creeks being quite thin-shelled and white." "Do you remember what a quantity of large fish bones we found in the eagle's nest on the top of our hill, Louis?" said Hector. "I do. Those fish must have been larger than our perch and sunfish; they were brought from this very lake, I dare say." "If we had a good canoe now, or a boat, and a strong hook and line, we might become great fishermen." "Louis," said Catharine, "is always thinking about canoes, and boats, and skiffs; he ought to have been a sailor." Louis was confident that if they had a canoe he could soon learn to manage her; he was an excellent sailor already in theory. Louis never saw difficulties; he was always hopeful, and had a very good opinion of his own cleverness; he was quicker in most things, his ideas flowed faster than Hector's. But Hector was more prudent, and possessed one valuable quality--steady perseverance: he was slow in adopting an opinion, but when once convinced, he pushed on steadily till he mastered the subject or overcame the obstacle. "Catharine," said Louis one day, "the huckleberries are now very plentiful, and I think it would be a wise thing to gather a good store of them and dry them for the winter. See, ma chere, wherever we turn our eyes or place our feet they are to be found; the hill-sides are purple with them. We may for aught we know, be obliged to pass the rest of our lives here; it will be well to prepare for the winter, when no berries are to be found." "It will be well, mon ami. But we must not dry them in the sun; for let me tell you, Mr. Louis, that they will be quite tasteless--mere dry husks." "Why so, ma belle?" "I do not know the reason, but I only know the fact; for when our mothers dried the currants and raspberries in the sun, such was the case; but when they dried them on the oven floor, or on the hearth, they were quite nice." "Well, Cath, I think I know of a flat thin stone that will make a good hearthstone; and we can get sheets of birch bark and sew into flat bags to keep the dried fruit in." They now turned all their attention to drying huckleberries (or whortleberries). [Footnote: From the abundance of this fruit, the Indians have given the name of Whortleberry Plain to the lands on the south shore. During the month of July and the early part of August, large parties come to the Rice Lake Plains to gather huckleberries, which they preserve by drying, for winter use. These berries make a delicious tart or pudding, mixed with bilberries and red currants, requiring little sugar.] Catharine and Louis (who fancied nothing could be contrived without his help) attended to the preparing and making of the bags of birch bark; but Hector was soon tired of girl's work, as he termed it, and after gathering some berries, would wander away over the hills in search of game and to explore the neighbouring hills and valleys, and sometimes it was sunset before he made his appearance. Hector had made an excellent strong bow, like the Indian bow, out of a tough piece of hickory wood, which he found in one of his rambles, and he made arrows with wood that he seasoned in the smoke, sharpening the heads with great care with his knife, and hardening them by exposure to strong heat, at a certain distance from the fire. The entrails of the woodchuck, stretched, and scraped, and dried, and rendered pliable by rubbing and drawing through the hands, answered for a bow-string; but afterwards, when they got the sinews and hide of the deer, they used them, properly dressed for the purpose. Hector also made a cross-bow, which he used with great effect, being a true and steady marksman. Louis and he would often amuse themselves with shooting at a mark, which they would chip on the bark of a tree, even Catharine was a tolerable archeress with the long-bow, and the hut was now seldom without game of one kind or other. Hector seldom returned from his rambles without partridges, quails, or young pigeons, which are plentiful at this season of the year; many of the old ones that pass over in their migratory flight in the spring stay to breed, or return thither for the acorns and berries that are to be found in great abundance. Squirrels, too, are very plentiful at this season. Hector and Louis remarked that the red and black squirrels never were to be found very near each other. It is a common belief that the red squirrels make common cause with the gray, and beat the larger enemy off the ground. The black squirrel, for a succession of years, was very rarely to be met with on the Plains, while there were plenty of the red and gray in the "oak openings." [Footnote: Within the last few years, however, the black squirrels have been very numerous, and the red are less frequently to be seen. The flesh of the black squirrel is tender, white, and delicate, like that of a young rabbit.] Deer, at the time our young Crusoes were living on the Rice Lake Plains, were plentiful, and, of course, so were those beasts that prey upon them,--wolves, bears, and wolverines, besides the Canadian lynx, or catamount, as it is here commonly called, a species of wild cat or panther. These wild animals are now no longer to be seen: it is a rare thing to hear of bears or wolves, and the wolverine and lynx are known only as matters of history in this part of the country. These animals disappear as civilization advances, while some others increase and follow man, especially many species of birds, which seem to pick up the crumbs that fall from the rich man's board, and multiply about his dwelling; some adopt new habits and modes of building and feeding, according to the alteration and improvement in their circumstances. While our young people seldom wanted for meat, they felt the privation of the bread to which they had been accustomed very sensibly. One day, while Hector and Louis were busily engaged with their assistant, Wolfe, in unearthing a woodchuck, that had taken refuge in his burrow, on one of the gravelly hills above the lake, Catharine amused herself by looking for flowers. She had filled her lap with ripe May-apples, [Footnote: The fruit of the May-apple, in rich, moist soil, will attain to the size of the magnum bonum, or egg-plum, which it resembles in colour and shape. It makes a delicious preserve, if seasoned with cloves or ginger. When eaten uncooked, the outer rind, which is thick and fleshy and has a rank taste, should be thrown aside; the fine seed pulp in which the seeds are embedded alone should be eaten. The root of the podophyllum is used as a cathartic by the Indians. The root of this plant is reticulated, and when a large body of them are uncovered, they present a singular appearance, interlacing each other in large meshes like an extensive net-work. These roots are white, as thick as a man's little finger, and fragrant, and spread horizontally along the surface. The blossom is like a small white rose.] but finding them cumbersome in climbing the steep wooded hills, she deposited them at the foot of a tree near the boys, and pursued her search; and it was not long before she perceived some pretty grassy-looking plants, with heads of bright lilac flowers, and on plucking one pulled up the root also. The root was about the size and shape of a large crocus: and on biting it, she found it far from disagreeable--sweet, and slightly astringent. It seemed to be a favourite root with the woodchucks, for she noticed that it grew about their burrows on dry, gravelly soil, and many of the stems were bitten and the roots eaten--a warrant, in full, of wholesomeness. Therefore, carrying home a parcel of the largest of the roots, she roasted them in the embers; and they proved almost as good as chestnuts, and more satisfying than the acorns of the white oak, which they had often roasted in the fire when they were out working on the fallow at the log heaps. Hector and Louis ate heartily of the roots, and commended Catharine for the discovery. Not many days afterwards, Louis accidentally found a much larger and more valuable root near the lake shore. He saw a fine climbing shrub, with close bunches of dark, reddish-purple, pea-shaped flowers, which scented the air with a delicious perfume. The plant climbed to a great height over the young trees, with a profusion of dark-green leaves and tendrils. Pleased with the bowery appearance of the plant, he tried to pull one up, that he might show it to his cousin, when the root displayed a number of large tubers, as big as good-sized potatoes, regular oval-shaped; the inside was quite white, tasting somewhat like a potato, only pleasanter, when in its raw state, than an uncooked potato. Louis gathered his pockets full, and hastened home with his prize; and on being roasted, these new roots were decided to be little inferior to potatoes--at all events, they were a valuable addition to their slender stores; and they procured as many as they could find, carefully storing them in a hole which they dug for that purpose in a corner of their hut. [Footnote: This plant appears to me to be a species of the _Psoralea esculenta_, or Indian bread-root, which it resembles in description, excepting that the root of the above is tuberous, oval, and connected by long filaments. The largest tubers are farthest from the stem of the plant.] Hector suggested that these roots would be far better late in autumn or early in the spring than during the time that the plant was in bloom; for he knew from observation and experience that at the flowering season the greater part of the nourishment derived from the soil goes to perfect the flower and the seeds. Upon scraping the cut tuber, there was a white, floury powder produced, resembling the starchy substance of the potato. "This flour," said Catharine, "would make good porridge with milk." "Excellent, no doubt, my wise little cook and housekeeper," said Louis laughing; "but, ma belle cousine, where is the milk and where is the porridge-pot to come from?" "Indeed," said Catharine, "I fear, Louis, we must wait long for both." One fine day Louis returned home from the lake shore in great haste for the bows and arrows, with the interesting news that a herd of five deer were in the water, and making for Long Island. "But, Louis, they will be gone out of sight and beyond the reach of the arrows," said Catharine, as she handed him down the bows and a sheaf of arrows, which she quickly slung round his shoulders by the belt of skin which the young hunter had made for himself. "No fear, ma chere; they will stop to feed on the beds of rice and lilies. We must have Wolfe. Here, Wolfe, Wolfe, Wolfe! here, boy, here!" Catharine caught a portion of the excitement that danced in the bright eyes of her cousin, and declaring that she too would go and witness the hunt, ran down the ravine by his side; while Wolfe, who evidently understood that they had some sport in view, trotted along by his mistress, wagging his great bushy tail, and looking in high good-humour. Hector was impatiently waiting the arrival of the bows and Wolfe. The herd of deer, consisting of a noble buck, two full-grown females, and two young half-grown males, were quietly feeding among the beds of rice and rushes not more than fifteen or twenty yards from the shore, apparently quite unconcerned at the presence of Hector, who stood on a fallen trunk, eagerly eying their motions. But the hurried steps of Louis and Catharine, with the deep, sonorous baying of Wolfe, soon roused the timid creatures to a sense of danger; and the stag, raising his head and making, as the children thought, a signal for retreat, now struck boldly out for the nearest point of Long Island. "We shall lose them," cried Louis despairingly, eying the long bright track that cut the silvery waters as the deer swam gallantly out. "Hist, hist, Louis," said Hector; "all depends upon Wolfe--Turn them, Wolfe! hey, hey, seek them, boy!" Wolfe dashed bravely into the lake. "Head them! head them!" shouted Hector. Wolfe knew what was meant. With the sagacity of a long-trained hunter, he made a desperate effort to gain the advantage by a circuitous route. Twice the stag turned irresolute, as if to face his foe, and Wolfe, taking the time, swam ahead, and then the race began. As soon as the boys saw the herd had turned, and that Wolfe was between them and the island, they separated, Louis making good his ambush to the right among the cedars, and Hector at the spring to the west, while Catharine was stationed at the solitary pine-tree, at the point which commanded the entrance of the ravine. "Now, Cathy," said her brother, "when you see the herd making for the ravine, shout and clap your hands, and they will turn either to the right or to the left. Do not let them land, or we shall lose them. We must trust to Wolfe for their not escaping to the island. Wolfe is well trained; he knows what he is about." Catharine proved a dutiful ally. She did as she was bid. She waited till the deer were within a few yards of the shore, then she shouted and clapped her hands. Frightened at the noise and clamour, the terrified creatures coasted along for some way, till within a little distance of the thicket where Hector lay concealed--the very spot from which they had emerged when they first took to the water; to this place they boldly steered. Louis, who had watched the direction the herd had taken with breathless interest, now noiselessly hurried to Hector's assistance, taking an advantageous post for aim, in case Hector's arrow missed, or only slightly wounded one of the deer. Hector, crouched beneath the trees, waited cautiously till one of the does was within reach of his arrow, and so good and true was his aim, that it hit the animal in the throat a little above the chest, The stag now turned again, but Wolfe was behind and pressed him forward, and again the noble animal strained every nerve for the shore. Louis now shot his arrow, but it swerved from the mark. He was too eager; the arrow glanced harmlessly along the water. But the cool, unimpassioned hand of Hector sent another arrow between the eyes of the doe, stunning her with its force; and then another from Louis laid her on her side, dying, and staining the water with her blood. The herd, abandoning their dying companion, dashed frantically to the shore; and the young hunters, elated by their success, suffered them to make good their landing without further molestation. Wolfe, at a signal from his master, ran in the quarry, and Louis declared exultingly that as his last arrow had given the _coup de grace_, he was entitled to the honour of cutting the throat of the doe; but this the stern Highlander protested against, and Louis, with a careless laugh, yielded the point, contenting himself with saying, "Ah well, I will get the first steak of the venison when it is roasted, and that is far more to my taste." Moreover, he privately recounted to Catharine the important share he had had in the exploit, giving her, at the same time, full credit for the worthy service she had performed in withstanding the landing of the herd. Wolfe, too, came in for a large share of the honour and glory of the chase. The boys were soon hard at work skinning the animal and cutting it up. This was the most valuable acquisition they had yet effected, for many uses were to be made of the deer besides eating the flesh. It was a store of wealth in their eyes. During the many years that their fathers had sojourned in the country, there had been occasional intercourse with the fur-traders and trappers, and sometimes with friendly-disposed Indians who had called at the lodges of their white brothers for food and tobacco. From all these men, rude as they were, some practical knowledge had been acquired; and their visits, though few and far between, had left good fruit behind them--something to think about and talk about and turn to future advantage. The boys had learned from the Indians how precious were the tough sinews of the deer for sewing. They knew how to prepare the skins of the deer for moccasins, which they could cut out and make as neatly as the squaws themselves. They could fashion arrow-heads, and knew how best to season the wood for making both the long and cross bow. They had seen the fish-hooks these people manufactured from bone and hard wood. They knew that strips of fresh-cut skins would make bowstrings, or the entrails of animals dried and rendered pliable. They had watched the squaws making baskets of the inner bark of the oak, elm, and bass-wood, and mats of the inner bark of the cedar, with many other ingenious works that they now found would prove useful to them, after a little practice had perfected their inexperienced attempts. They also knew how to dry venison as the Indians and trappers prepare it, by cutting the thick fleshy portions of the meat into strips from four to six inches in breadth and two or more in thickness. These strips they strung upon poles supported on forked sticks, and exposed them to the drying action of the sun and wind. Fish they split open, and removed the back and head bones, and smoked them slightly, or dried them in the sun. Their success in killing the doe greatly raised their spirits; in their joy they embraced each other, and bestowed the most affectionate caresses on Wolfe for his good conduct. "But for this dear, wise old fellow, we should have had no venison for dinner to-day," said Louis; "and so, Wolfe, you shall have a choice piece for your own share." Every part of the deer seemed valuable in the eyes of the young hunters. The skin they carefully stretched out upon sticks to dry gradually, and the entrails they also preserved for bow-strings. The sinews of the legs and back they drew out and laid carefully aside for future use. "We shall be glad enough of these strings by-and-by," said careful Hector; "for the summer will soon be at an end, and then we must turn our attention to making ourselves winter clothes and moccasins." "Yes, Hec, and a good warm shanty. These huts of bark and boughs will not do when once the cold weather sets in." "A shanty could soon be put up," said Hector; "for even Kate, wee bit lassie as she is, could give us some help in trimming up the logs." "That I could, indeed," replied Catharine; "for you may remember, Hec, that the last journey my father made to the Bay, [Footnote: Bay of Quinte.] with the pack of furs, that you and I called a _Bee_ [Footnote: A Bee is a practical instance of duty to a neighbour. We fear it is peculiar to Canada, although deserving of imitation in all Christian colonies. When any work which requires many hands is in the course of performance, as the building of log houses, barns, or shanties, all the neighbours are summoned, and give their best assistance in the construction. Of course the assisted party is liable to be called upon by the community in turn, to repay in kind the help he has received.] to put up a shed for the new cow that he was to drive back with him, and I am sure Mathilde and I did as much good as you and Louis. You know you said you could not have got on nearly so well without our help." "After all," said Hector thoughtfully, "children can do a great many things if they only resolutely set to work, and use the wits and the strength that God has given them to work with. A few weeks ago and we should have thought it utterly impossible to have supported ourselves in a lonely wilderness like this by our own exertions in fishing and hunting." "If we had been lost in the forest we must have died with hunger," said Catharine; "but let us be thankful to the good God who led us hither, and gave us health and strength to help ourselves." CHAPTER IV. "Aye from the sultry heat, We to our cave retreat, O'er canopied by huge roots, intertwined, Of wildest texture, blackened o'er with age." COLERIDGE. "Louis, what are you cutting out of that bit OF wood?" said Catharine, the very next day after the first ideas of the shanty had been started. "Hollowing out a canoe." "Out of that piece of stick!" said Catharine, laughing. "How many passengers is it to accommodate, my dear?" "I am only making a model. My canoe will be made out of a big pine log, and large enough to hold three." "Is it to be like the big sap-trough in the sugar-bush at home?" Louis nodded assent. "I long to go over to the island; I see lots of ducks popping in and out of the little bays beneath the cedars, and there are plenty of partridges, I am sure, and squirrels--it is the very place for them." "And shall we have a sail as well as oars?" "Yes; set up your apron for a sail." Catharine cast a rueful look upon the tattered remnant of the apron. "It is worth nothing now," she said, sighing; "and what am I to do when my gown is worn out? It is a good thing it is so strong; if it had been cotton, now, it would have been torn to bits among the bushes." "We must make clothes of skins as soon as we get enough," said Hector.--"Louis, I think you can manufacture a bone needle; we can pierce the hole with the strong thorns, or a little round bone bodkin that can be easily made." "The first rainy day we will see what we can do," replied Louis; "but I am full of my canoe just now." "Indeed, Louis, I believe you never think of anything else; but even if we had a canoe to-morrow, I do not think that either you or I could manage one," said cautious Hector. "I could soon learn as others have done before me. I wonder who first taught the Indians to make canoes, and venture out on the lakes and streams. Why should we be more stupid than these untaught heathens? I have listened so often to my father's stories and adventures when he was out lumbering on the St. John River, that I am as familiar with the idea of a boat as if I had been born in one. Only think now," he said, turning to Catharine; "just think of the fish, the big ones, we could get if we had but a canoe to push out from the shore beyond those rush-beds." "It strikes me, Louis, that those rush-beds, as you call them, must be the Indian rice that we have seen the squaws make their soup of." "Yes; and you remember old Jacob used to talk of a fine lake that he called Rice Lake, somewhere to the northward of the Cold Springs, where he said there was plenty of game of all kinds, and a fine open place where people could see through the openings among the trees. He said it was a great hunting-place for the Indians in the Fall of the year, and that they came there to hunt the peccary, which is, as you know, a kind of wild boar, and whose flesh is very good eating." "I hope the Indians will not come here and find us out," said Catharine, shuddering; "I think I should be more frightened at the Indians than at the wolves. Have we not heard fearful tales of their cruelty?" "But we have never been harmed by them; they have always been civil enough when they came to the Springs." "They came, you know, for food, or shelter or something that they wanted from us; but it may be different when they find us alone and unprotected, encroaching upon their hunting-grounds." "The place is wide enough for us and them; we will try and make them our friends." "The wolf and the lamb do not lie down in the fold together," observed Hector. "The Indian is treacherous. The wild man and the civilized man do not live well together, their habits and dispositions are so contrary the one to the other. We are open and they are cunning, and they suspect our openness to be only a greater degree of cunning than their own--they do not understand us. They are taught to be revengeful, and we are taught to forgive our enemies. So you see that what is a virtue with the savage is a crime with the Christian. If the Indian could be taught the Word of God he might be kind, and true, and gentle as well as brave." It was with conversations like this that our poor wanderers whiled away their weariness. The love of life, and the exertions necessary for self-preservation, occupied so large a portion of their thoughts and time, that they had hardly leisure for repining. They mutually cheered and animated each other to bear up against the sad fate that had thus severed them from every kindred tie, and shut them out from that home to which their young hearts were bound by every endearing remembrance from infancy upwards. One bright September morning our young people set off on an exploring expedition, leaving the faithful Wolfe to watch the wigwam; for they well knew he was too honest to touch their store of dried fish and venison himself, and too trusty and fierce to suffer wolf or wild cat near it. They crossed several narrow, deep ravines, and the low wooded flat along the lake shore, to the eastward of Pine-tree Point. Finding it difficult to force their way through the thick underwood that always impedes the progress of the traveller on the low shores of the lake, they followed the course of an ascending narrow ridge, which formed a sort of natural causeway between two parallel hollows, the top of this ridge being in many places not wider than a cart or wagon could pass along. The sides were most gracefully adorned with flowering shrubs, wild vines, creepers of various species, wild cherries of several kinds, hawthorns, bilberry bushes, high-bush cranberries, silver birch, poplars, oaks, and pines; while in the deep ravines on either side grew trees of the largest growth, the heads of which lay on a level with their path. Wild cliffy banks, beset with huge boulders of red and gray granite and water-worn limestone, showed that it had once formed the boundary of the lake, though now it was almost a quarter of a mile in its rear. Springs of pure water were in abundance, trickling down the steep rugged sides of this wooded glen. The children wandered onwards, delighted with the wild picturesque path they had chosen, sometimes resting on a huge block of moss-covered stone, or on the twisted roots of some ancient gray old oak or pine, whilst they gazed with curiosity and interest on the lonely but lovely landscape before them. Across the lake, the dark forest shut all else from their view, rising in gradual far-off slopes till it reached the utmost boundary of sight. Much the children marvelled what country it might be that lay in the dim, blue, hazy distance,--to them, indeed, a _terra incognita_--a land of mystery; but neither of her companions laughed when Catharine gravely suggested the probability of this unknown shore to the northward being her father's beloved Highlands. Let not the youthful and more learned reader smile at the ignorance of the Canadian girl; she knew nothing of maps, and globes, and hemispheres,--her only book of study had been the Holy Scriptures, her only teacher a poor Highland soldier. Following the elevated ground above this deep valley, the travellers at last halted on the extreme edge of a high and precipitous mound, that formed an abrupt termination to the deep glen. They found water not far from this spot fit for drinking by following a deer-path a little to the southward. And there, on the borders of a little basin on a pleasant brae, where the bright silver birch waved gracefully over its sides, they decided upon building a winter house. They named the spot Mount Ararat: "For here," said they, "we will build us an ark of refuge, and wander no more." And Mount Ararat is the name which the spot still bears. Here they sat them down on a fallen tree and ate a meal of dried venison and drank of the cold spring that welled out from beneath the edge of the bank. Hector felled a tree to mark the site of their house near the birches; and they made a blaze, as it is called, on he trees, by cutting away pieces of the outer bark as they returned home towards the wigwam, that they might not miss the place. They found less difficulty in retracing their path than they had formerly, as there were some striking peculiarities to mark it, and they had learned to be very minute in the marks they made as they travelled, so that they now seldom missed the way they came by. A few days after this they removed all their household stores--namely, the axe, the tin pot, bows and arrows, baskets, and bags of dried fruit, the dried venison and fish, and the deerskin; nor did they forget the deer-scalp, which they bore away as a trophy, to be fastened up over the door of their new dwelling, for a memorial of their first hunt on the shores of the Rice Lake. The skin was given to Catharine to sleep on. The boys were now busy from morning till night chopping down trees for house-logs. It was a work of time and labour, as the axe was blunt and the oaks hard to cut; but they laboured on without grumbling, and Kate watched the fall of each tree with lively joy. They were no longer dull; there was something to look forward to from day to day--they were going to commence housekeeping in good earnest; they would be warmly and well lodged before the bitter frosts of winter could come to chill their blood. It was a joyful day when the log walls of the little shanty were put up, and the door hewed out. Windows they had none, so they did not cut out the spaces for them; [Footnote: Many a shanty is put up in Canada without windows, and only an open space for a door, with a rude plank set up to close it in at night.] they could do very well without, as hundreds of Irish and Highland emigrants have done before and since. A pile of stones rudely cemented together with wet clay and ashes against the logs, and a hole cut in the roof, formed the chimney and hearth in this primitive dwelling. The chinks were filled with wedge-shaped pieces of wood, and plastered with clay: the trees, being chiefly oaks and pines, afforded no moss. This deficiency rather surprised the boys, for in the thick forest and close cedar-swamps moss grows in abundance on the north side of the trees, especially on the cedar, maple, beech, bass, and iron wood; but there were few of these, excepting a chance one or two in the little basin in front of the house. The roof was next put on, which consisted of split cedars. And when the little dwelling was thus far habitable, they were all very happy. While the boys had been putting on the roof, Catharine had collected the stones for the chimney, and cleared the earthen floor of the chips and rubbish with a broom of cedar boughs, bound together with a leathern thong. She had swept it all clean, carefully removing all unsightly objects, and strewing it over with fresh cedar sprigs, which gave out a pleasant odour and formed a smooth and not unseemly carpet for their little dwelling. How cheerful was the first fire blazing up on their own hearth! It was so pleasant to sit by its gladdening light, and chat away of all they had done and all that they meant to do! Here was to be a set of split cedar shelves, to hold their provisions and baskets; there a set of stout pegs was to be inserted between the logs, for hanging up strings of dried meat, bags of birch bark, or the skins of the animals they were to shoot or trap. A table was to be fixed on posts in the centre of the floor. Louis was to carve wooden platters and dishes, and some stools were to be made with hewn blocks of wood till something better could be devised. Their bedsteads were rough poles of ironwood, supported by posts driven into the ground, and partly upheld by the projection of the logs at the angles of the wall. Nothing could be more simple. The frame-work was of split cedar; and a safe bed was made by pine boughs being first laid upon the frame, and then thickly covered with dried grass, moss, and withered leaves. Such were the lowly but healthy couches on which these children of the forest slept. A dwelling so rudely framed and scantily furnished would be regarded with disdain by the poorest English peasant. Yet many a settler's family have I seen as roughly lodged, while a better house was being prepared for their reception; and many a gentleman's son has voluntarily submitted to privations as great as these from the love of novelty and adventure, or to embark in the tempting expectation of realizing money in the lumbering trade,--working hard, and sharing the rude log shanty and ruder society of those reckless and hardy men, the Canadian lumberers. During the spring, and summer months these men spread themselves through the trackless forests, and along the shores of nameless lakes and unknown streams, to cut the pine or oak lumber,--such being the name they give to the felled stems of trees,--which are then hewn, and in the winter dragged out upon the ice, where they are formed into rafts, and in spring floated down the waters till they reach the great St. Lawrence, and are, after innumerable difficulties and casualties, finally shipped for England. I have likewise known European gentlemen voluntarily leave the comforts of a civilized home and associate themselves with the Indian trappers and hunters, leading lives as wandering and as wild as the uncultivated children of the forest. The nights and early mornings were already growing sensibly more chilly. The dews at this season fall heavily, and the mists fill the valleys till the sun has risen with sufficient heat to draw up the vapours. It was a good thing that the shanty was finished so soon, or the exposure to the damp air might have been productive of ague and fever. Every hour almost they spent in making little additions to their household comforts, but some time was necessarily passed in trying to obtain provisions. One day Hector, who had been out from dawn till moonrise, returned with the welcome news that he had shot a young deer, and required the assistance of his cousin to bring it up the steep bank (it was just at the entrance of the great ravine) below the precipitous cliff near the lake: he had left old Wolfe to guard it in the meantime. They had now plenty of fresh broiled meat, and this store was very acceptable, as they were obliged to be very careful of the dried meat that they had. This time Catharine adopted a new plan. Instead of cutting the meat in strips, and drying it (or jerking it, as the lumberers term it), she roasted it before the fire, and hung it up, wrapping it in thin sheets of birch bark. The juices, instead of being dried up, were preserved, and the meat was more palatable. Catharine found great store of wild plums in a beautiful valley not far from the shanty; these she dried for the winter store, eating sparingly of them in their fresh state. She also found plenty of wild black currants and high-bush cranberries, on the banks of a charming creek of bright water that flowed between a range of high pine hills and finally emptied itself into the lake. There were great quantities of water-cresses in this pretty brook; they grew in bright, round, cushion-like tufts at the bottom of the water, and were tender and wholesome. These formed an agreeable addition to their diet, which had hitherto been chiefly confined to animal food, for they could not always meet with a supply of the bread-roots, as they grew chiefly in damp, swampy thickets on the lake shore, which were sometimes very difficult of access. However, they never missed any opportunity of increasing their stores, and laying up for the winter such roots as they could procure. As the cool weather and frosty nights drew on, the want of warm clothes and bed-covering became more sensibly felt; those they had were beginning to wear out. Catharine had managed to wash her clothes at the lake several times, and thus preserved them clean and wholesome; but she was often sorely puzzled how the want of her dress was to be supplied as time wore on, and many were the consultations she held with the boys on the important subject. With the aid of a needle she might be able to manufacture the skins of the small animals into some sort of jacket, and the doe-skin and deer-skin could be made into garments for the boys. Louis was always suppling and rubbing the skins to make them soft: they had taken off the hair by sprinkling it with wood ashes, and rolling it up with the hairy side inwards. Out of one of these skins he made excellent moccasins, piercing the holes with a sharpened bone bodkin, and passing the sinews of the deer through, as he had seen his father do, by fixing a stout fish-bone to the deer-sinew thread. Thus he had an excellent substitute for a needle; and, with the aid of the old file, he sharpened the point of the rusty nail, so that he was enabled, with a little trouble, to drill a hole in a bone needle for his cousin Catharine's use. After several attempts, he succeeded in making some of tolerable fineness, hardening them by exposure to a slow, steady degree of heat till she was able to work with them, and even mend her clothes with tolerable expertness. By degrees, Catharine contrived to cover the whole outer surface of her homespun woollen frock with squirrel and mink, musk-rat and woodchuck skins. A curious piece of fur patchwork of many hues and textures it presented to the eye,--a coat of many colours, it is true; but it kept the wearer warm, and Catharine was not a little proud of her ingenuity and industry,--every new patch that was added was a source of fresh satisfaction; and the moccasins that Louis fitted so nicely to her feet were great comforts. A fine skin that Hector brought triumphantly in one day, the spoil from a fox that had been caught in one of his dead-falls, was in due time converted into a dashing cap, the brush remaining as an ornament to hang down on one shoulder. Catharine might have passed for a small Diana when she went out, with her fur dress and bow and arrows, to hunt with Hector and Louis. Whenever game of any kind was killed, it was carefully skinned, and the fur stretched upon bent sticks, being first turned, so as to present the inner part to the drying action of the air. The young hunters were most expert in this work, having been accustomed for many years to assist their fathers in preparing the furs which they disposed of to the fur traders, who visited them from time to time, and gave them various articles in exchange for their peltries,--such as powder and shot, and cutlery of different kinds, as knives, scissors, needles, and pins, with gay calico and cotton handkerchiefs for the women. As the evenings lengthened, the boys employed themselves with carving wooden platters. Knives, and forks, and spoons they fashioned out of the larger bones of the deer, which they often found bleaching in the sun and wind, where they had been left by their enemies the wolves; baskets too they made, and birch dishes, which they could now finish so well that they held water or any liquid. But their great want was some vessel that would bear the heat of the fire; the tin pot was so small that it could be made little use of in the cooking way. Catharine had made tea of the leaves of the sweet fern,--a graceful woody fern, with a fine aromatic scent, like nutmegs. [Footnote: Comptoma asplenifolia, a small shrub of the sweet gale family.] This shrub is highly esteemed among the Canadians as a beverage, and also as a remedy against the ague. It grows in great abundance on dry sandy lands and wastes, by waysides. "If we could but make some sort of earthen pot that would stand the heat of the fire," said Louis, "we might get on nicely with cooking." But nothing like the sort of clay used by potters had been seen, and they were obliged to give up that thought and content themselves with roasting or broiling their food. Louis, however, who was fond of contrivances, made an oven, by hollowing out a place near the hearth and lining it with stones, filling up the intervals with wood ashes and such clay as they could find, beaten into a smooth mortar. Such cement answered very well, and the oven was heated by filling it with hot embers; these were removed when it was sufficiently heated, and the meat or roots placed within the oven being covered over with a flat stone previously heated before the fire and covered with hot embers. This sort of oven had often been described by old Jacob as one in common use among some of the Indian tribes in the Lower Province, in which they cook small animals; they could bake bread also in this oven, if they had had flour to use. [Footnote: This primitive oven is much like what voyagers have described as in use among the natives of many of the South Sea Islands.] Since the finishing of the house and furnishing it the young people were more reconciled to their lonely life, and even entertained decided home feelings for their little log cabin. They never ceased, it is true, to talk of their parents, and brothers, and sisters, and wonder if all were well, and whether they still hoped for their return, and to recall their happy days spent in the home which they now feared they were destined never again to behold. Nevertheless, they were becoming each day more cheerful and more active. Ardently attached to each other, they seemed bound together by a yet more sacred tie of brotherhood. They were now all the world to one another, and no cloud of disunion came to mar their happiness. Hector's habitual gravity and caution were tempered by Louis's lively vivacity and ardour of temper; and they both loved Catharine, and strove to smooth as much as possible the hard life to which she was exposed, by the most affectionate consideration for her comfort; and she, in return, endeavoured to repay them by cheerfully enduring all privations, and making light of all their trials, and taking a lively interest in all their plans and contrivances. Louis had gone out to fish at the lake one autumn morning. During his absence a sudden squall of wind came on, accompanied with heavy rain. As he stayed longer than usual, Hector began to feel uneasy lest some accident had befallen him, knowing his adventurous spirit, and that he had for some days previous been busy constructing a raft of cedar logs, which he had fastened together with wooden pins. This raft he had nearly finished, and was even talking of adventuring over to the nearest island to explore it, and see what game and roots and fruits it afforded. Bidding Catharine stay quietly within doors till his return, Hector ran off, not without some misgivings of evil having befallen his rash cousin, which fears he carefully concealed from his sister, as he did not wish to make her needlessly anxious. When he reached the shore, his mind was somewhat relieved by seeing the raft on the beach, just as it had been left the night before; but neither Louis nor the axe was to be seen, nor the fishing-rod and line. "Perhaps," thought he, "Louis has gone further down, to the mouth of the little creek in the flat east of this, where we caught our last fish; or maybe he has gone up to the old place at Pine-tree Point." While he yet stood hesitating within himself which way to turn, he heard steps as of some one running, and perceived his cousin hurrying through the bushes in the direction of the shanty. It was evident by his disordered air; and the hurried glances that he cast over his shoulder from time to time, that something unusual had occurred to disturb him. "Holloa, Louis! is it a bear, wolf, or catamount that is on your trail?" cried Hector; almost amused by the speed with which his cousin hurried onward. "Why, Louis, whither away?" Louis now turned and held up his hand, as if to enjoin silence, till Hector came up to him. "Why, man, what ails you? what makes you run as if you were hunted down by a pack of wolves?" "It is not wolves, or bears either," said Louis, as soon as he could get breath to speak; "but the Indians are all on Bare Hill, holding a war-council, I suppose, for there are several canoe-loads of them." "How came you to see them?" "I must tell you that when I parted from you and Cathy, instead of going down to my raft, as I thought at first I would do, I followed the deer-path through the little ravine, and then ascending the side of the valley, I crossed the birch grove, and kept down the slope within sight of the creek. While I was looking out upon the lake, and thinking how pretty the islands were, rising so green from the blue water, I was surprised by seeing several dark spots dotting the lake. At first, you may be sure, I thought they must be a herd of deer, only they kept too far apart, so I sat down on a log to watch, thinking if they turned out to be deer I would race off for you and Wolfe, and the bows and arrows, that we might try our chance for some venison; but as the black specks came nearer and nearer, I perceived they were canoes with Indians in them, three in each. One made for the mouth of the creek, and ran ashore among the thick bushes, while the others kept further along the shore. I watched them with a beating heart, and lay down flat, lest they should spy me out; for those fellows have eyes like catamounts, so keen and wild--they see everything without seeming to cast a glance on it. After closely examining what I suppose was one of our footmarks, I saw them wind up the ridge till they reached the Bare Hill. [Footnote: Supposed to be a council-hill. It is known by the name of Bare Hill, from the singular want of verdure on its surface, It is one of the steepest on the ridge above the little creek; being a picturesque object, with its fine pine-trees, seen from Mr. Hayward's grounds, and forms, I believe, a part of his property.] You remember that spot; we called it so from its barren appearance. In a few minutes a column of smoke rose and curled among the pine-trees, and then another and another, till I counted five fires burning brightly; and, as I stood on the high ground, I could distinguish the figures of many naked savages moving about, running to and fro like a parcel of black ants on a cedar log; and by-and-by I heard them raise a yell like a pack of ravenous wolves on a deer track. It made my heart leap up in my breast. I forgot all the schemes that had just got into my wise head of slipping quietly down and taking off one of the empty birch canoes, which you must own would have been a glorious thing for us; but when I heard the noise these wild wretches raised, I darted off, and ran as if the whole set were at my heels. I think I just saved my scalp." And Louis put his hand to his head, and tugged his thick black curls, as if to ascertain that they were still safe from the scalping-knives of his Indian enemies. "And now, Hec, what is to be done? We must hide ourselves from the Indians; they will kill us, or take us away with them, if they find us." "Let us go home and talk over our plans with Cathy." "Yes; for I have heard my father say two heads are better than one, and so three of course must be still better than two." "Why," said Hector, laughing, "it depends upon the stock of practical wisdom in the heads; for two fools, you know, Louis, will hardly form one rational plan." Various were the schemes devised for their security. Hector proposed pulling down the shanty and dispersing the logs, so as to leave no trace of the little dwelling; but to this neither his cousin nor his sister would agree. To pull down the new house that had cost them so much labour, and which had proved such a comfort to them, they could not endure even in idea. "Let us put out the fire, and hide ourselves in the big ravine below Mount Ararat; dig a cave in one of the hills, and convey our household goods thither." Such was Louis's plan. "The ravines would be searched directly," suggested Hector; "besides, the Indians know they are famous coverts for deer and game of all sorts: they might chance to pop upon us, and catch us like woodchucks in a burrow." "Yes, and burn us," said Catharine with a shudder. "I know the path that leads direct to the 'Happy Valley,' (the name she had given to the low flat now known as the 'Lower Race-course'), and it is not far from here, only ten minutes' walk in a straight line. We can conceal ourselves below the steep bank that we descended the other day; and there are several springs of fresh water, and plenty of nuts and berries; and the trees, though few, are so thickly covered with close-spreading branches that touch the very ground that we might hide ourselves from a hundred eyes, were they ever so cunning and prying." Catharine's counsel was deemed the most prudent, and the boys immediately busied themselves with hiding under the broken branches of a prostrate tree such articles as they could not conveniently carry away, leaving the rest to chance. With the most valuable they loaded themselves, guided by Catharine, who, with her dear old dog, marched forward along the narrow footpath that had been made by some wild animals, probably deer, in their passage from the lake to their feeding-place, or favourite covert, on the low sheltered plain, where, being quite open, and almost, in parts, free from trees, the grass and herbage was sweeter and more abundant, and the springs of water were fresh and cool. Catharine cast many a fearful glance through the brushwood as they moved onward, but saw no living thing, excepting a family of chitmunks gaily chasing each other along a fallen branch, and a covey of quails that were feeding quietly on the red berries of the _Mitchella repens_, or twinberry, [Footnote: Also partridge-berry and checker-berry, a lovely creeping winter-green, with white fragrant flowers and double scarlet berry.] as it is commonly called, of which the partridges and quails are extremely fond; for Nature with a liberal hand has spread abroad her bounties for the small denizens, furred or feathered, that haunt the Rice Lake and its flowery shores. After a continued but gentle ascent through the oak opening, they halted at the foot of a majestic pine, and looked round them. It was a lovely spot as any they had seen: from west to east, the lake, bending like a silver crescent, lay between the boundary hills of forest trees; in front, the long lines of undulating wood-covered heights faded away into mist, and blended with the horizon. To the east, a deep and fertile valley lay between the high lands on which they rested and the far ridge of oak hills. From their vantage height they could distinguish the outline of the Bare Hill, made more distinct by its flickering fires and the smoke wreaths that hung like a pearly-tinted robe among the dark pines that grew upon its crest. Not long tarrying did our fugitives make, though perfectly safe from detection by the distance and their shaded position, for many a winding vale and wood-crowned height lay between them and the encampment. But fear is not subject to the control of reason, and in the present instance it invested the dreaded Indians with superhuman powers of sight and of motion. A few minutes' hasty flight brought our travellers to the brow of a precipitous bank, nearly a hundred feet above the level open plain which they sought. Here, then, they felt comparatively safe: they were out of sight of the camp-fires, the spot they had chosen was open, and flight, in case of the approach of the Indians, not difficult, while hiding-places were easy of access. They found a deep, sheltered hollow in the bank, where two mighty pines had been torn up by the roots, and prostrated headlong down the steep, forming a regular cave, roofed by the earth and fibres that had been uplifted in their fall. Pendent from these roots hung a luxuriant curtain of wild grape-vines and other creepers, which formed a leafy screen, through which the most curious eye could scarcely penetrate. This friendly vegetable veil seemed as if provided for their concealment, and they carefully abstained from disturbing the pendent foliage, lest they should, by so doing, betray their hiding-place to their enemies. They found plenty of long grass, and abundance of long soft green moss and ferns near a small grove of poplars which surrounded a spring of fine water. They ate some dried fruit and smoked fish, and drank of the clear spring; and after they had said their evening prayers, they lay down to sleep, Catharine's head pillowed on the neck of her faithful guardian, Wolfe. In the middle of the night a startling sound, as of some heavy body falling, wakened them all simultaneously. The night was so dark they could see nothing, and, terror-stricken, they sat gazing into the impenetrable darkness of their cave, not even daring to speak to each other, hardly even to breathe. Wolfe gave a low grumbling bark, and resumed his couchant posture, as if nothing worthy of his attention was near to cause the disturbance. Catharine trembled and wept, and prayed for safety against the Indians and beasts of prey; and Hector and Louis listened, till they fell fast asleep in spite of their fears. In the morning, it seemed as if they had dreamed some terrible dream, so vague were their recollections of the fright they had had; but the cause was soon perceived. A large stone that had been heaved up with the clay that adhered to the roots and fibres had been loosened, and had fallen on the ground, close to the spot where Catharine lay. So ponderous was the mass, that had it struck her, death must have been the consequence of the blow; and Hector and Louis beheld it with fear and amazement, while Catharine regarded it as a proof of Divine mercy and protection from Him in whose hand her safety lay. The boys, warned by this accident, carefully removed several large stones from the roof, and tried the safety of the clay walls with a stout staff, to ascertain that all was secure, before they again ventured to sleep beneath this rugged canopy. CHAPTER V. "The soul of the wicked desireth evil: his neighbour findeth no favour in his eyes."--_Proverbs._ For several days they abstained from lighting a fire, lest the smoke should be seen; but this the great height of the bank would have effectually prevented. They suffered much cold at night from the copious dew, which, even on sultry summer evenings, is productive of much chilling. They could not account for the fact that the air at night was much warmer on the high hills than in the low valleys; they were even sensible of a rush of heat as they ascended to the higher ground. These simple children had not been taught that it is the nature of the heated air to ascend, and its place to be supplied by the colder and denser particles. They noticed the effects, but understood nothing of the causes that ruled them. The following days they procured several partridges, but feared to cook them; however, they plucked them, split them open, and dried the flesh for a future day. A fox or raccoon, attracted by the smell of the birds, came one night and carried them off, for in the morning they were gone. They saw several herd of deer crossing the plain, and one day Wolfe tracked a wounded doe to a covert under the poplars, near a hidden spring, where she had lain herself down to die in peace, far from the haunts of her fellows. The arrow was in her throat; it was of white flint, and had evidently been sent from an Indian bow. It was almost with fear and trembling that they availed themselves of the venison thus providentially thrown in their way, lest the Indians should track the blood of the doe, and take vengeance on them for appropriating it for their own use. Not having seen anything of the Indians, who seemed to confine themselves to the neighbourhood of the lake, after many days had passed they began to take courage, and even ventured to light an evening fire, at which they cooked as much of the venison as would last them for several days, and hung the remaining portions above the smoke to preserve it from injury. One morning Hector proclaimed his intention of ascending the hills in the direction of the Indian camp. "I am tired of remaining shut up in this dull place, where we can see nothing but this dead-flat, bounded by those melancholy pines in the distance that seem to shut us in." Little did Hector know that beyond that dark ridge of pine hills lay the home of their childhood, and but a few miles of forest intervened to hide it from their sight. Had he known it, how eagerly would his feet have pressed onward in the direction of that dark barrier of evergreens! Thus is it often in this life: we wander on, sad and perplexed, our path beset with thorns and briers. We cannot see our way clear; doubts and apprehensions assail us. We know not how near we are to the fulfilment of our wishes; we see only the insurmountable barriers, the dark thickets and thorns of our way; and we know not how near we are to our Father's home, where he is waiting to welcome the wanderers of the flock back to the everlasting home, the fold of the Good Shepherd. Hector became impatient of the restraint that the dread of the Indians imposed upon his movements; he wanted to see the lake again, and to roam abroad free and uncontrolled. "After all," said he, "we never met with any ill-treatment from the Indians that used to visit us at Cold Springs; we may even find old friends and acquaintances among them." "The thing is possible, but not very likely," replied Louis. "Nevertheless, Hector, I would not willingly put myself in their power. The Indian has his own notion of things, and might think himself quite justified in killing us if he found us on his hunting-grounds. I have heard my father say--and he knows a great deal about these people--that their chiefs are very strict in punishing any strangers that they find killing game on their bounds uninvited. They are both merciless and treacherous when angered, and we could not even speak to them in their own language, to explain by what evil chance we came here." This was very prudent of Louis, uncommonly so, for one who was naturally rash and headstrong; but unfortunately Hector was inflexible and wilful. When once he had made up his mind upon any point, he had too good an opinion of his own judgment to give it up. At last he declared his intention, rather than remain a slave to such cowardly fears as he now deemed them, to go forth boldly, and endeavour to ascertain what the Indians were about, how many there were of them, and what real danger was to be apprehended from facing them. "Depend upon it," he added, "cowards are never safer than brave men. The Indians despise cowards, and would be more likely to kill us if they found us cowering here in this hole like a parcel of wolf-cubs, than if we openly faced them and showed that we neither feared them nor cared for them." "Hector, dear Hector, be not so rash!" cried his sister, passionately weeping. "Ah! if we were to lose you, what would become of us?" "Never fear, Kate; I will run into no needless danger. I know how to take care of myself. I am of opinion that the Indian camp is broken up; they seldom stay long in one place. I will go over the hills and examine the camp at a distance and the lake shore. You and Louis may keep watch for my return from the big pine that we halted under on our way hither." "But, Hector, if the savages should see you, and take you prisoner," said Catharine, "what would you do?" "I will tell you what I would do. Instead of running away, I would boldly walk up to them, and by signs make them understand that I am no scout, but a friend in need of nothing but kindness and friendship. I never yet heard of the Indian that would tomahawk the defenceless stranger that sought his camp openly in peace and goodwill." "If you do not return by sunset, Hector, we shall believe that you have fallen into the hands of the savages," said Catharine, mournfully regarding her brother. "If it were not for Catharine," said Louis, "you should not go alone; but if evil were to befall this helpless one, her blood would be upon my head, who led her out with us, tempting her with false words." "Never mind that now, dearest cousin," said Catharine, tenderly laying her hand on his arm. "It is much better that we should have been all three together; I should never have been happy again if I had lost both Hec and you. It is better as it is; you and Hec would not have been so well off if I had not been with you to help you, and keep up your spirits by my songs and stories." "It is true; ma chere; but that is the reason that I am bound to take care of my little cousin, and I could not consent to exposing you to danger, or leaving you alone; so, if Hec will be so headstrong, I will abide by you." Hector was so confident that he should return in safety, that at last Louis and Catharine became more reconciled to his leaving them, and soon busied themselves in preparing some squirrels that Louis had brought in that morning. The day wore away slowly, and many were the anxious glances that Catharine cast over the crest of the high bank to watch for her brother's return. At last, unable to endure the suspense, she with Louis left the shelter of the valley; they ascended the high ground, and bent their steps to the trysting-tree, which commanded all the country within a wide sweep. A painful and oppressive sense of loneliness and desolation came over the minds of the cousins as they sat together at the foot of the pine, which cast its lengthened shadow upon the ground before them. The shades of evening were shrouding them, wrapping the lonely forest in gloom. The full moon had not yet risen, and they watched for the first gleam that should break above the eastern hills to cheer them as for the coming of a friend. Sadly these two poor lonely ones sat hand in hand, talking of the happy days of childhood, of the perplexing present and the uncertain future. At last, wearied out with watching and anxiety, Catharine leaned her head upon the neck of old Wolfe and fell asleep, while Louis restlessly paced to and fro in front of the sleeper; now straining his eyes to penetrate the surrounding gloom, now straining his ears to catch the first sound that might indicate the approach of his absent cousin. It was almost with a feeling of irritability that he heard the quick sharp note of the wakeful "whip-poor-will," as it flew from bough to bough of an old withered tree beside him. Another, and again another of these midnight watchers took up the monotonous never-varying cry of "Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will;" and then came forth, from many a hollow oak and birch, the spectral night-hawk from hidden dens, where it had lain hushed in silence all day from dawn till sunset. Sometimes their sharp hard wings almost swept his cheek as they wheeled round and round in circles, first narrow, then wide, and wider extending, till at last they soared far above the tallest tree-tops, and launching out in the high regions of the air, uttered from time to time a wild shrill scream, or hollow booming sound, as they suddenly descended to pounce with wide-extended throat upon some hapless moth or insect that sported all unheeding in mid-air, happily unconscious of the approach of so unerring a foe. Petulantly Louis chid these discordant minstrels of the night, and joyfully he hailed the first gush of moonlight that rose broad and full and red over the Oak Hills to the eastward. Louis envied the condition of the unconscious sleeper, who lay in happy forgetfulness of all her sorrows, her fair curls spread in unbound luxuriance over the dark shaggy neck of the faithful Wolfe, who seemed as if proud of the beloved burden that rested so trustingly upon him. Sometimes the careful dog just unclosed his large eyes, raised his nose from his shaggy paws, snuffed the night air, growled in a sort of undertone, and then dozed again, but watchfully. It would be no easy task to tell the painful feelings that agitated young Louis's breast. He was angry with Hector for having thus madly, as he thought, rushed into danger. "It was wilful and almost cruel," he thought, "to leave them the prey of such tormenting fears on his account;" and then the most painful fears for the safety of his beloved companion took the place of less kindly thoughts, and sorrow filled his heart. The broad moon now flooded the hills and vales with light, casting broad checkering shadows of the old oaks' gray branches and now reddened foliage across the ground. Suddenly the old dog raises his head, and utters a short half-angry note: slowly and carefully he rises, disengaging himself gently from the form of the sleeping girl, and stands forth in the full light of the moon. It is an open cleared space, that mound beneath the pine-tree; a few low shrubs and seedling pines, with the slender waving branches of the late-flowering pearly-tinted asters, the elegant fringed gentian with open bells of azure blue, the last and loveliest of autumn flowers and winter-greens, brighten the ground with wreaths of shining leaves and red berries. Louis is on the alert, though as yet he sees nothing. It is not a full free note of welcome that Wolfe gives; there is something uneasy and half angry in his tone. Yet it is not fierce, like the bark of angry defiance he gives when wolf, or bear, or wolverine is near. Louis steps forward from the shadow of the pine branches to the edge of the inclined plane in the foreground. The slow tread of approaching steps is now distinctly heard advancing; it may be a deer. Two figures approach, and Louis moves a little within the shadow again. A clear shrill whistle meets his ear. It is Hector's whistle, he knows that, and assured by its cheerful tone, he springs forward, and in an instant is at his side, but starts at the strange companion that he half leads, half carries. The moonlight streams broad and bright upon the shrinking figure of an Indian girl apparently about the same age as Catharine: her ashy face is concealed by the long mass of raven black hair which falls like a dark veil over her features; her step is weak and unsteady, and she seems ready to sink to the earth with sickness or fatigue. Hector, too, seems weary. The first words that Hector said were, "Help me, Louis, to lead this poor girl to the foot of the pine: I am so tired I can hardly walk another step." Louis and his cousin together carried the Indian girl to the foot of the pine. Catharine was just rousing herself from sleep, and she gazed with a bewildered air on the strange companion that Hector had brought with him. The stranger lay down, and in a few minutes sank into a sleep so profound it seemed to resemble that of death itself. Pity and deep interest soon took the place of curiosity and dread in the heart of the gentle Catharine, and she watched the young stranger's slumber as tenderly as though she had been a sister or beloved friend, while Hector proceeded to relate in what manner he had encountered the Indian girl. "When I struck the high slope near the little birch grove we called the '_Birken Skaw_,' I paused to examine if the council-fires were still burning on Bare Hill; but there was no smoke visible, neither was there a canoe to be seen at the lake shore where Louis had described their landing-place at the mouth of the creek. All seemed as silent and still as if no human footstep had trodden the shore. I sat down and watched for nearly an hour, till my attention was attracted by a noble eagle, which was sailing in wide circles over the tall pine-trees on Bare Hill. Assured that the Indian camp was broken up, and feeling some curiosity to examine the spot more closely, I crossed the thicket of cranberries and cedars and small underwood that fringed the borders of the little stream, and found myself, after a little pushing and scrambling, among the bushes at the foot of the hill. "I thoughts it not impossible I might find something to repay me for my trouble, flint arrowheads, a knife, or a tomahawk; but I little thought of what these cruel savages had left there,--a miserable wounded captive, bound by the long locks of her hair to the stem of a small tree! Her hands and feet were fastened by thongs of deer-skin to branches of the tree, which had been bent downward for that purpose. Her position was a most painful one. She had evidently been thus left to perish by a miserable death of hunger and thirst; for these savages, with a fiendish cruelty, had placed within sight of their victim an earthen jar of water, some dried deers' flesh, and a cob [Footnote: A head of the maize, or Indian corn, is called a "cob."] of Indian corn. I have the corn here," he added, putting his hand in his breast and displaying it to view. "Wounded she was, for I drew this arrow from her shoulder," and he showed the flint head as he spoke, "and fettered. With food and drink in sight the poor girl was to perish, perhaps to become a living prey to the eagle that I saw wheeling above the hill-top. The poor thing's lips were black and parched with pain and thirst. She turned her eyes piteously from my face to the water-jar, as if to implore a draught. This I gave her; and then having cooled the festering wound, and cut the thongs that bound her, I wondered that she still kept the same immovable attitude, and thinking she was stiff and cramped with remaining so long bound in one position, I took her two hands and tried to induce her to move. I then for the first time noticed that she was tied by the hair of her head to the tree against which her back was placed. I was obliged to cut the hair with my knife; and this I did not do without giving her pain, as she moaned impatiently. She sank her head on her breast, and large tears fell over my hands as I bathed her face and neck with the water from the jar. She then seated herself on the ground, and remained silent and still for the space of an hour; nor could I prevail upon her to speak, or quit the seat she had taken. Fearing that the Indians might return, I watched in all directions, and at last I began to think it would be best to carry her in my arms; but this I found no easy task, for she seemed greatly distressed at any attempt I made to lift her, and by her gestures I fancied she thought I was going to kill her. At least my patience began to be exhausted, but I did not like to annoy her. I spoke to her as gently and soothingly as I could. By degrees she seemed to listen with more composure to me, though she evidently knew not a word of what I said to her. She rose at last, and taking my hands, placed them above her head, stooping low as she did so; and this seemed to mean she was willing at last to submit to my wishes. I lifted her from the ground and carried her for some little way; but she was too heavy for me. She then suffered me to lead her along whithersoever I would take her; but her steps were so slow and feeble through weakness, that many times I was compelled to rest while she recovered herself. She seems quite subdued now, and as quiet as a lamb." Catharine listened, not without tears of genuine sympathy, to the recital of her brother's adventures. She seemed to think he had been inspired by God to go forth that day to the Indian camp to rescue the poor forlorn one from so dreadful a death. Louis's sympathy was also warmly aroused for the young savage, and he commended Hector for his bravery and humanity. He then set to work to light a good fire, which was a great addition to their comfort as well as cheerfulness. They did not go back to their cave beneath the upturned trees to sleep, preferring lying, with their feet to the fire, under the shade of the pine. Louis, however, was despatched for water and venison for supper. The following morning, by break of day, they collected their stores, and conveyed them back to the shanty. The boys were thus employed while Catharine watched beside the wounded Indian girl, whom she tended with the greatest care. She bathed the inflamed arm with water, and bound, the cool healing leaves of the _tacamahac_ [Footnote: Indian balsam.] about it with the last fragment of her apron; she steeped dried berries in water, and gave the cooling drink to quench the fever-thirst that burned in her veins and glittered in her full soft melancholy dark eyes, which were raised at intervals to the race of her youthful nurse with a timid hurried glance, as if she longed yet feared to say, "Who are you that thus tenderly bathe my aching head, and strive to soothe my wounded limbs, and cool my fevered blood? Are you a creature like myself, or a being sent by the Great Spirit from the far-off happy land to which my fathers have gone, to smooth my path of pain, and lead me to those blessed fields of sunbeams and flowers where the cruelty of the enemies of my people will no more have power to torment me?" CHAPTER VI "Here the wren of softest note Builds its nest and warbles well, Here the blackbird strains his throat Welcome, welcome to our cell." --COLERIDGE. The day was far advanced before the sick Indian girl could be brought home to their sylvan lodge, where Catharine made up a comfortable couch for her with boughs and grass, and spread one of the deer-skins over it, and laid her down as tenderly and carefully as if she had been a dear sister. This good girl was overjoyed at having found a companion of her own age and sex. "Now," said she, "I shall no more be lonely, I shall have a companion and friend to talk to and assist me." But when she turned in the fulness of her heart to address herself to the young stranger, she felt herself embarrassed in what way to make her comprehend the words she used to express the kindness that she felt for her and her sorrow for her sufferings. The young stranger would raise her head, look intently at her as if striving to interpret her words, then sadly shake her head, and utter her words in her own plaintive language, but, alas! Catharine felt it was to her as a sealed book. She tried to recall some Indian words of familiar import that she had heard from the Indians when they came to her father's house, but in vain. Not the simplest phrase occurred to her, and she almost cried with vexation at her own stupidity. Neither was Hector or Louis more fortunate in attempts at conversing with their guest. At the end of three days the fever began to abate; the restless eye grew more steady in its gaze, the dark flush faded from the cheek, leaving it of a gray ashy tint, not the hue of health, such as even the swarthy Indian shows, but wan and pallid, her eyes bent mournfully on the ground. She would sit quiet and passive while Catharine bound up the long tresses of her hair, and smoothed them with her hands and the small wooden comb that Louis had cut for her use. Sometimes she would raise her eyes to her new friend's face with a quiet sad smile, and once she took her hands within her own and gently pressed them to her breast and lips and forehead, in token of gratitude; but she seldom gave utterance to any words, and would remain with her eyes fixed vacantly on some object which seemed unseen, or to awaken no idea in her mind. At such times the face of the young squaw, wore a dreamy apathy of expression, or rather it might with more propriety have been said the absence of all expression, almost as blank as that of an infant of a few weeks old. How intently did Catharine study that face, and strive to read what was passing within her mind! How did the lively intelligent Canadian girl, the offspring of a more intellectual race, long to instruct her Indian friend, to enlarge her mind by pointing out such things to her attention as she herself took interest in! She would then repeat the name of the object that she showed her several times over, and by degrees the young squaw learned the names of all the familiar household articles about the shanty, and could repeat them in her own soft plaintive tone; and when she had learned a new word, and could pronounce it distinctly, she would laugh, and a gleam of innocent joy and pleasure would lighten up her fine dark eyes, generally so fixed and sad-looking. It was Catharine's delight to teach her pupil to speak a language familiar to her own ears. She would lead her out among the trees, and name to her all the natural objects that presented themselves to view. And she in her turn mae "Indiana" (for so they named the young squaw, after a negress that she had heard her father tell of, a nurse to one of his colonel's infant children) tell her the Indian names for each object they saw. Indiana soon began to enjoy in her turn the amusement arising from instructing Catharine and the boys, and often seemed to enjoy the blunders they made in pronouncing the words she taught them. When really interested in anything that was going on, her eyes would beam out, and her smile gave an inexpressible charm to her face; for her lips were red, and her teeth even and brilliantly white, so purely white that Catharine thought she had never seen any so beautiful in her life before. At such times her face was joyous and innocent as a little child's; but there were also hours of gloom, that transformed it into an expression of sullen apathy. Then a dull glassy look took possession of her eye, the full lip drooped and the form seemed rigid and stiff. Obstinate determination neither to move nor speak characterized her in what Louis used to call the young squaw's "dark hour." Then it was that the savage nature seemed predominant, and her gentle nurse almost feared to look at her _protegee_ or approach her. "Hector," said Louis, "you spoke about a jar of water being left at the camp. The jar would be a great treasure to us. Let us go over for it." Hector assented to the proposal. "And we may possibly pick up a few grains of Indian corn, to add to what you showed us." "If we are here in the spring," said Hector, "you and I will prepare a small patch of ground and plant it with this corn;" and he sat down on the end of a log and began carefully to count the rows of grain on the cob, and then each corn, grain by grain. "Three hundred and ten sound grains. Now if every one of these produce a strong plant, we shall have a great increase, and besides seed for another year, there will be, if it is a good year, several bushels to eat." "We shall have a glorious summer, mon ami, no doubt, and a fine flourishing crop; and Kate is a good hand at making supporne." [Footnote: Supporne probably an Indian word for a stirabout, or porridge, made of Indian meal, a common dish in every Canadian or Yankee farmer's house.] "You forget we have no porridge pot." "I was thinking of that Indian jar all the time. You will see what fine cookery we will make when we get it, if it will but stand fire. Come, let us be off; I am impatient till we get it home;" and Louis, who had now a new crotchet at work in his fertile and vivacious brain, walked and danced along at a rate which proved a great disturbance to his graver companion, who tried to keep down his cousin's lively spirits by suggesting the probability of the jar being cracked, or that the Indians might have returned for it; but Louis was not one of the doubting sort, and was right in not damping the ardour of his mind by causeless fears. The jar was there at the deserted camp, and though it had been knocked over by some animal, it was sound and strong, and excited great speculation in the two cousins as to the particular material of which it was made, as it was unlike any sort of pottery they had ever before seen. It seemed to have been manufactured from some very dark red earth, or clay mixed up with pounded granite, as it presented the appearance of some coarse crystals. It was very hard and ponderous, and the surface was marked over in a rude sort of pattern, as if punctured and scratched with some pointed instrument. It seemed to have been hardened by fire, and, from the smoked hue of one side, had evidently done good service as a cooking utensil. Subsequently they learned the way in which it was used. [Footnote: Pieces of this rude pottery are often found along the shores of the inland lakes, but I have never met with any of the perfect vessels in use with the Indians, who probably find it now easier to supply themselves with iron pots and crockery from the towns of the European settlers.] The jar, being placed near but not on the fire, was surrounded by hot embers, and the water made to boil by stones being made red hot and plunged into it. In this way soups and other food were prepared and kept stewing, with no further trouble, after once the simmering began, than adding a few fresh embers at the side farthest from the fire. A hot stone, also, placed on the top, facilitated the cooking process. Louis, who like all French people was addicted to cookery,--indeed it was an accomplishment he prided himself on,--was enchanted with the improvement made in their diet by the acquisition of the said earthen jar, or pipkin, and gave Indiana some praise for initiating his cousin in the use of it. Catharine and Hector declared that he went out with his bow and arrows, and visited his dead-falls and snares, ten times oftener than he used to do, just for the sake of proving the admirable properties of this precious utensil, and finding out some new way of dressing his game. At all events, there was a valuable increase of furs, for making up into clothing, caps, leggings, mitts, and other articles. From the Indian girl Catharine learned the value of many of the herbs and shrubs that grew in her path, the bark and leaves of various trees, and many dyes she could extract, with which she stained the quills of the porcupine and the strips of the wood of which she made baskets and mats. The little creeping winter-green, [Footnote: Gaultheria procumbens,--spice winter-green.] with its scarlet berries, that grows on the dry flats or sandy hills, which the Canadians call spice-berry, she showed them was good to eat; and she would crush the leaves, draw forth their fine aromatic flavour in her hands, and then inhale their fragrance with delight. She made an infusion of the leaves, and drank it as a tonic. The inner bark of the wild black cherry she said was good to cure ague and fever. The root of the bitter-sweet she scraped down and boiled in the deer-fat, or the fat of any other animal, and made an ointment that possessed very healing qualities, especially as an immediate application to fresh burns. Sometimes she showed a disposition to mystery, and would conceal the knowledge of the particular herbs she made use of; and Catharine several times noticed that she would go out and sprinkle a portion of the food she had assisted her in preparing, on the earth, or under some of the trees or bushes. When she was more familiar with their language, she told Catharine this was done in token of gratitude to the Good Spirit, who had given them success in hunting or trapping; or else it was to appease the malice of the Evil Spirit; who might bring mischief or loss to them, or sickness or death, unless his forbearance was purchased by some particular mark of attention. Attention, memory, and imitation appeared to form the three most remarkable of the mental faculties developed by the Indian girl. She examined (when once her attention was roused) any object with critical minuteness. Any knowledge she had once acquired she retained; her memory was great, she never missed a path she had once trodden; she seemed even to single out particular birds in a flock, to know them from their companions. Her powers of imitation were also great. She brought patience and perseverance to assist her: when once thoroughly interested in any work she began, she would toil on untiringly till it was completed; and then what triumph shone in her eyes! At such times they became darkly brilliant with the joy that filled her heart. But she possessed little talent for invention; what she had seen done, after a few imperfect attempts, she could do again, but she rarely struck out any new path for herself. At times she was docile and even playful, and appeared grateful for the kindness with which she was treated, each day seemed to increase her fondness for Catharine, and she appeared to delight in doing any little service to please and gratify her; but it was towards Hector that she displayed the deepest feeling of affection and respect. It was to him her first tribute of fruit, or flowers, furs, moccasins, or ornamental plumage of rare birds, was offered. She seemed to turn to him as to a master and protector. He was in her eyes the "_chief_," the head of his tribe. His bow was strung by her, and stained with quaint figures and devices; his arrows were carved by her; the sheath of deer-skin he carried his knife in was made and ornamented by her hands; also, the case for his arrows, of birch-bark, she wrought with especial neatness, and suspended by thongs to his neck when he was preparing to go out in search of game. She gave him the name of the "Young Eagle," while she called Louis "Nee-chee," or "Friend," to Catharine she gave the poetical name of "Music of the Winds,"--_Madwaosh_. When they asked her to tell them her own name, she would bend down her head in sorrow and refuse to pronounce it. She soon answered to the name of Indiana, and seemed pleased with the sound. But of all the household, next to Hector, old Wolfe was her greatest favourite. At first, it is true, the old dog regarded the new inmate with a jealous eye, and seemed uneasy when he saw her approach to caress him; but Indiana soon reconciled him to her person, and a mutual friendly feeling became established between them, which seemed daily and hourly to increase, greatly to the delight of the young stranger. She would seat herself Eastern fashion, cross-legged on the floor of the shanty, with the capacious head of the old dog in her lap, and address herself to this mute companion in wailing tones, as if she would unburden her heart by pouring into his unconscious ear her tale of desolation and woe. Catharine was always very particular and punctual in performing her personal ablutions, and she intimated to Indiana that it was good for her to do the same. The young girl seemed reluctant to follow her example, till daily custom had reconciled her to what she evidently at first regarded as an unnecessary ceremony; but she soon took pleasure in dressing her dark hair, and suffering Catharine to braid it and polish it till it looked glossy and soft. Indiana in her turn would adorn Catharine with the wings of the blue-bird or red-bird, the crest of the wood-duck, or quill feathers of the golden-winged flicker, which is called in the Indian tongue the shot-bird, in allusion to the round spots on its cream-coloured breast. [Footnote: The golden-winged flicker belongs to a sub-genus of woodpeckers, it is very handsome, and is said to be eatable, it lives on fruits and insects.] It was not in these things alone she indicated her grateful sense of the sisterly kindness that her young hostess showed to her; she soon learned to lighten her labours in every household work, and above all, she spent her time most usefully in manufacturing clothing from the skins of the wild animals, and in teaching Catharine how to fit and prepare them: but these were the occupations of the winter months. CHAPTER VII. "Go to the ant."--Proverbs. It was now the middle of September. The weather, which had continued serene and beautiful for some time, with dewy nights and misty mornings, began to show symptoms of the change of season usual at the approach of the equinox. Sudden squalls of wind, with hasty showers, would come sweeping over the lake; the nights and mornings were damp and chilly. Already the tints of autumn were beginning to crimson the foliage of the oaks, and where the islands were visible, the splendid colours of the maple shone out in gorgeous contrast with the deep verdure of the evergreens and light golden-yellow of the poplar; but lovely as they now looked, they had not yet reached the meridian of their beauty, which a few frosty nights at the close of the month were destined to bring to perfection--a glow of splendour to gladden the eye for a brief space, before the rushing winds and rains of the following month were to sweep them away and scatter them abroad upon the earth. One morning, after a night of heavy rain and wind, the two boys went down to see if the lake was calm enough for trying the raft, which Louis had finished before the coming on of the bad weather. The water was rough and crested with mimic waves, and they felt indisposed to launch the raft on so stormy a surface, but stood looking out over the lake and admiring the changing foliage, when Hector pointed out to his cousin a dark speck dancing on the waters, between the two nearest islands. The wind, which blew very strong still from the north-east, brought the object nearer every minute. At first they thought it might be a pine-branch that was floating on the surface, when as it came bounding over the waves, they perceived that it was a birch canoe, but impelled by no visible arm. It was a strange sight upon that lonely lake to see a vessel of any kind afloat, and, on first deciding that it was a canoe, the boys were inclined to hide themselves among the bushes, for fear of the Indians; but curiosity got the better of their fears. "The owner of yonder little craft is either asleep or absent from her; for I see no paddle, and it is evidently drifting without any one to guide it," said Hector, after intently watching the progress of the tempest-driven canoe. Assured as it approached nearer that such was the case, they hurried to the beach just as a fresh gust had lodged the canoe among the branches of a fallen cedar which projected out some way into the water. By creeping along the trunk of the tree, and trusting at times to the projecting boughs, Louis, who was the most active and the lightest of weight, succeeded in getting within reach of the canoe, and with some trouble and the help of a stout branch that Hector handed to him, he contrived to moor her in safety on the shore, taking the precaution of hauling her well up on the shingle, lest the wind and water should set her afloat again. "Hec, there is something in this canoe, the sight of which will gladden your heart," cried Louis, with a joyful look. "Come quickly, and see my treasures!" "Treasures! You may well call them treasures," exclaimed Hector, as he helped Louis to examine the contents of the canoe and place them on the shore side by side. The boys could hardly find words to express their joy and surprise at the discovery of a large jar of parched rice, a tomahawk, an Indian blanket almost as good as new, a large mat rolled up, with a bass-bark rope several yards in length wound round it, and, what was more precious than all, an iron three-legged pot in which was a quantity of Indian corn. These articles had evidently constituted the stores of some Indian hunter or trapper: possibly the canoe had been imperfectly secured, and had drifted from its moorings during the gale of the previous night, unless by some accident the owner had fallen into the lake and been drowned. This was of course only a matter of conjecture on which it was useless to speculate, and the boys joyfully took possession of the good fortune that had so providentially been wafted, as it were, to their very feet. "It was a capital chance for us, that old cedar having been blown down last night just where it was," said Louis; "for if the canoe had not been drawn into the eddy, and stopped by the branches, we might have lost it. I trembled, when I saw the wind driving it on so rapidly, that it would founder in the deep water or go off to Long Island." "I think we should have got it at Pine-tree Point," said Hector; "but I am glad it was lodged so cleverly among the cedar boughs. I was half afraid you would have fallen in once or twice when you were trying to draw it nearer to the shore." "Never fear for me, my friend; I can cling like a wild cat when I climb. But what a grand pot! What delightful soups, and stews, and boils Catharine will make! Hurrah!" and Louis tossed up the new fur cap he had made with great skill from an entire fox-skin, and cut sundry fantastic capers which Hector gravely condemned as unbecoming his mature age (Louis was turned of fifteen); but with the joyous spirit of a little child he sang and danced, and laughed and shouted, till the lonely echoes of the islands and far-off hills returned the unusual sounds, and even his more steady cousin caught the infection and laughed to see Louis so elated. Leaving Hector to guard the prize, Louis ran gaily off to fetch Catharine to share his joy and come and admire the canoe, and the blanket, and the tripod, and the corn, and the tomahawk. Indiana accompanied them to the lake shore, and long and carefully she examined the canoe and its contents, and many were the plaintive exclamations she uttered as she surveyed the things piece by piece, till she took notice of the broken handle of an Indian paddle which lay at the bottom of the vessel: this seemed to afford some solution to her of the mystery, and by broken words and signs she intimated that the paddle had possibly broken in the hand of the Indian, and that in endeavouring to regain the other part, he had lost his balance and been drowned. She showed Hector a rude figure of a bird engraved with some sharp instrument, and rubbed in with a blue colour. This she said was the totem or crest of the chief of the tribe, and was meant to represent a _crow_. The canoe had belonged to a chief of that name. While they were dividing the contents of the canoe among them to be carried to the shanty, Indiana, taking up the bass-rope and the blanket, bundled up the most of the things, and adjusting the broad thick part of the rope to the front of her head, she bore off the burden with as great apparent ease as a London or an Edinburgh porter would his trunks and packages, turning round with a merry glance and repeating some Indian words with a lively air as she climbed the steep bank, and soon distanced her companions, to her great delight. That night Indiana cooked some of the parched rice, Indian fashion, with venison, and they enjoyed the novelty very much; it made an excellent substitute for bread, of which they had been so long deprived. Indiana gave them to understand that the rice harvest would soon be ready on the lake, and that now they had got a canoe, they would go out and gather it, and so lay by a store to last them for many months. This little incident furnished the inhabitants of the shanty with frequent themes for discussion. Hector declared that the Indian corn was the most valuable of their acquisitions. "It will insure us a crop and bread and seed-corn for many years," he said. He also highly valued the tomahawk, as his axe was worn and blunt. Louis was divided between the iron pot and the canoe. Hector seemed to think the raft might have formed a substitute for the latter, besides, Indiana had signified her intention of helping him to make a canoe. Catharine declared in favour of the blanket, as it would make, after thorough ablutions, warm petticoats with tight bodices for herself and Indiana. With deer-skin leggings and a fur jacket, they should be comfortably clad. Indiana thought the canoe the most precious, and was charmed with the good jar and the store of rice; nor did she despise the packing-rope, which she soon showed was of use in carrying burdens from place to place, Indian fashion. By placing a pad of soft fur in front of the head, she could carry heavy loads with great ease. The mat, she said, would be useful for drying the rice she meant to store. The next day after this adventure, the two girls set to work, and with the help of Louis's large knife, which was called into requisition as a substitute for scissors, they cut out the blanket dresses, and in a short time made two comfortable and not very unsightly garments. The full, short, plaited skirts reached a little below the knees; light vests, bordered with fur, completed the upper part; and leggings, terminated at the ankles by knotted fringes of doeskin, with moccasins turned over with a band of squirrel fur, completed the novel costume; and many a glance of innocent satisfaction did our young damsels cast upon each other, when they walked forth in the pride of girlish vanity to display their dresses to Hector and Louis, who, for their part, regarded them as most skilful dressmakers, and were never tired of admiring and commending their ingenuity in the making and fitting, considering what rude implements they were obliged to use in the cutting out and sewing of the garments. The extensive rice-beds on the lake had now begun to assume a golden tinge, which contrasted very delightfully with the deep-blue waters, looking, when lighted up by the sunbeams, like islands of golden-coloured sand. The ears, heavy laden with the ripe grain, drooped towards; the water. The time of the rice-harvest was at hand, and with light and joyous hearts our young adventurers launched the canoe, and, guided in their movements by the little squaw, paddled to the extensive aquatic fields to gather it in, leaving Catharine and Wolfe to watch their proceedings from the raft, which Louis had fastened to a young tree that projected out over the lake, and which made a good landing-place, likewise a wharf where they could stand and fish very comfortably. As the canoe could not be overloaded on account of the rice-gathering, Catharine very readily consented to employ herself with fishing from the raft till their return. The manner of procuring the rice was very simple. One person steered the canoe with the aid of the paddle along the edge of the rice-beds, and another with a stick in one hand, and a curved sharp-edged paddle in the other, struck the heads off as they bent them over the edge of the stick; the chief art was in letting the heads fall into the canoe, which a little practice soon enabled them to do as expertly as the mower lets the grass fall in ridges beneath his scythe. Many bushels of wild rice were thus collected. Nothing could be more delightful than this sort of work to our young people, and merrily they worked, and laughed and sang as they came home each day with their light bark laden with a store of grain which they knew would preserve them from starving through the long, dreary winter that was coming on. The canoe was a source of great comfort and pleasure to them. They were now able to paddle out into the deep water and fish for masquinonje and black bass, which they caught in great numbers. Indiana seemed quite another creature when, armed with a paddle of her own carving, she knelt at the head of the canoe and sent it flying over the water; then her dark eyes, often so vacant and glassy, sparkled with delight, and her teeth gleamed with ivory whiteness as her face broke into smiles and dimples. It was delightful then to watch this child of nature, and see how innocently happy she could be when rejoicing in the excitement of healthy exercise, and elated by a consciousness of the power she possessed of excelling her companions in feats of strength and skill which they had yet to acquire by imitating her. Even Louis was obliged to confess that the young savage knew more of the management of a canoe, and the use of the bow and arrow and the fishing-line, than either himself or his cousin. Hector was lost in admiration of her skill in all these things, and Indiana rose highly in his estimation, the more he saw of her usefulness. "Every one to his craft," said Louis, laughing. "The little squaw has been brought up in the knowledge and practice of such matters from her babyhood; perhaps if we were to set her to knitting and spinning, milking cows, and house-work, and learning to read, I doubt if she would prove half as quick as Catharine or Mathilde." "I wonder if she knows anything of God or our Saviour," said Hector thoughtfully. "Who should have taught her? for the Indians are all heathens," replied Louis. "I have heard my dear mother say the missionaries have taken great pains to teach the Indian children about Quebec and Montreal, and that so far from being stupid, they learn very readily," said Catharine. "We must try and make Indiana learn to say her prayers. She sits quite still, and seems to take no notice of what we are doing when we kneel down before we go to bed," observed Hector. "She cannot understand what we say," said Catharine; "for she knows so little of our language yet, that of course she cannot comprehend the prayers, which are in other sort of words than what we use in speaking of hunting, and fishing, and cooking, and such matters." "Well, when she knows more of our way of speaking, then we must teach her. It is a sad thing for Christian children to live with an untaught pagan," said Louis, who, being rather bigoted in his creed, felt a sort of uneasiness in his own mind at the poor girl's total want of the rites of his church; but Hector and Catharine regarded her ignorance with feelings of compassionate interest, and lost no opportunity of trying to enlighten her darkened mind on the subject of belief in the God who made and the Lord who saved them. Simply and earnestly they entered into the task as a labour of love; and though for a long time Indiana seemed to pay little attention to what they said, by slow degrees the good seed took root and brought forth fruit worthy of Him whose Spirit poured the beams of spiritual light into her heart. But my young readers must not imagine these things were the work of a day: the process was slow, and so were the results, but they were good in the end. Catharine was glad when, after many months of patient teaching, the Indian girl asked permission to kneel down with her white friend and pray to the Great Spirit and his Son in the same words that Christ Jesus gave to his disciples; and if the full meaning of that holy prayer, so full of humility and love and moral justice, was not fully understood by her whose lips repeated it, yet even the act of worship and the desire to do that which she had been told was right were, doubtless, sacrifices better than the pagan rites which that young girl had witnessed among her father's people, who, blindly following the natural impulse of man in his depraved nature, regarded bloodshed and cruelty as among the highest of human virtues, and gloried in those deeds of vengeance at which the Christian mind revolts with horror. Indiana took upon herself the management of the rice, drying, husking, and storing it, the two lads working under her direction. She caused several forked stakes to be cut, sharpened, and driven into the ground. On these were laid four poles, so as to form a frame. Over it she stretched the bass-mat, which she secured by means of forked pegs to the frame. On the mat she then spread out the rice thinly, and lighted a fire beneath, taking good care not to let the flame set fire to the mat, the object being rather to keep up a strong, slow heat by means of the red embers. She next directed the boys to supply her with pine or cedar boughs, which she stuck in close together, so as to enclose the fire within the area of the stakes. This was done to concentrate the heat and cause it to bear upwards with more power, the rice being frequently stirred with a sort of long-handled, flat shovel. After the rice was sufficiently dried, the next thing to be done was separating it from the husk. This was effected by putting it, in small quantities, into the iron pot, and with a sort of wooden pestle or beetle rubbing it round and round against the sides. [Footnote: The Indians often make use of a very rude, primitive sort of mortar, by hollowing out a bass-wood stump, and rubbing the rice with a wooden pounder.] If they had not had the iron pot, a wooden trough must have been substituted in its stead. When the rice was husked, the loose chaff was winnowed from it in a flat basket like a sieve; and it was then put by in coarse birch baskets, roughly sewed with leather-wood bark, or bags made of matting woven by the little squaw from the cedar-bark. A portion was also parched, which was simply done by putting the rice dry into the iron pot, and setting it on hot embers, stirring the grain till it burst; it was then stored by for use. Rice thus prepared is eaten dry, as a substitute for bread, by the Indians. The lake was now swarming with wild-fowl of various kinds: crowds of ducks were winging their way across it from morning till night, floating in vast flocks upon its surface, or rising in noisy groups if an eagle or fish-hawk appeared sailing with slow, majestic circles above them, then settling down with noisy splash upon the calm water. The shores, too, were covered with these birds, feeding on the fallen acorns which fell ripe and brown with every passing breeze. The berries of the dogwood also furnished them with food; but the wild rice seemed the great attraction, and small shell-fish and the larvae of many insects that had been dropped into the waters, there to come to perfection in due season, or to form a provision for myriads of wild-fowl that had come from the far north-west to feed upon them, guided by that instinct which has so beautifully been termed by one of our modern poetesses,-- "God's gift to the weak." [Footnote: Mrs. Southey.] CHAPTER VIII. "Oh, come and hear what cruel wrongs Befell the Dark Ladye"--COLERIDGE. The Mohawk girl was in high spirits at the coming of the wild-fowl to the lake; she would clap her hands and laugh with almost childish glee as she looked at them darkening the lake like clouds resting on its surface. "If I had but my father's gun, his good old gun, now!" would Hector say, as he eyed the timorous flocks as they rose and fell upon the lake; "but these foolish birds are so shy they are away before an arrow can reach them." Indiana smiled in her quiet way; she was busy filling the canoe with green boughs, which she arranged so as completely to transform the little vessel into the semblance of a floating island of evergreen. Within this bower she motioned Hector to crouch down, leaving a small space for the free use of his bow; while concealed at the prow she gently and noiselessly paddled the canoe from the shore among the rice-beds, letting it remain stationary or merely rocking to and fro with the undulatory motion of the waters. The unsuspecting birds, deceived into full security, eagerly pursued their pastime or their prey, and it was no difficult matter for the hidden archer to hit many a black duck, or teal, or whistlewing, as it floated securely on the placid water, or rose to shift its place a few yards up or down the stream. Soon the lake around was strewed with the feathered game, which Wolfe, cheered on by Louis who was stationed on the shore, brought to land. Indiana told Hector that this was the season when the Indians made great gatherings on the lake for duck-shooting, which they pursued much after the same fashion as that which has been described, only instead of one, a dozen or more canoes would be thus disguised with boughs, with others stationed at different parts of the lake, or under the shelter of the island, to collect the birds. This sport generally concluded with a great feast. The Indians offered the first of the birds as an oblation to the Great Spirit, as a grateful acknowledgment of his bounty in having allowed them to gather food thus plentifully for their families. Sometimes distant tribes with whom they were on terms of friendship were invited to share the sport and partake of the spoils. Indiana could not understand why Hector did not follow the custom of her Indian fathers, and offer the first duck or the best fish to propitiate the Great Spirit. Hector told her that the God he worshipped desired no sacrifice; that his holy Son, when he came down from heaven and gave himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, had satisfied his Father, the Great Spirit, an hundredfold. They feasted now continually upon the water-fowl, and Catharine learned from Indiana how to skin them, and so preserve the feathers for making tippets, and bonnets, and ornamental trimmings, which are not only warm, but light and very becoming. They split open the birds they did not require for present consumption, and dried them for winter store, smoking some after the manner the Shetlanders and the Orkney people smoke the solan geese. Their shanty displayed an abundant store of provisions--fish, flesh, and fowl, besides baskets of wild rice and bags of dried fruit. One day Indiana came in from the brow of the hill, and told the boys that the lake eastward was covered with canoes, she showed, by holding up her two hands and then three fingers, that she had counted thirteen. The tribes had met for the annual duck-feast and the rice-harvest. She advised them to put out the fire, so that no smoke might be seen to attract them, but said they would not leave the lake for hunting over the plains just then, as the camp was lower down on the point [Footnote: This point, commonly known as _Andersen's Point_, now the seat of an Indian village, used in former times to be a great place of rendezvous for the Indians, and was the scene of a murderous carnage or massacre that took place about eighty years ago; the war weapons and bones of the Indians are often turned up with the plough at this day.] east of the mouth of a big river, which she called "Otonabee." Hector asked Indiana if she would go away and leave them in the event of meeting with any of her own tribe. The girl cast her eyes on the earth in silence; a dark cloud seemed to gather over her face. "If they should prove to be any of your father's people, or a friendly tribe, would you go away with them?" he again repeated; to which she solemnly replied,-- "Indiana has no father, no tribe, no people; no blood of her father warms the heart of any man, woman, or child, saving herself alone. But Indiana is a brave, and the daughter of a brave, and will not shrink from danger: her heart is warm; red blood flows warm here," and she laid her hand on her heart. Then lifting up her hand, she said in slow but impassioned tone, "They left not one drop of living blood to flow in any veins but these." She raised her eyes, and stretched her arms upwards toward heaven, as though calling down vengeance on the murderers of her father's house. "My father was a Mohawk, the son of a great chief, who owned these hunting-grounds far as your eye can see to the rising and setting sun, along the big waters of the big lakes; but the Ojebwas, a portion of the Chippewa nation, by treachery cut off my father's people by hundreds in cold blood, when they were defenceless and at rest. It was a bloody day and a bloody deed." Instead of hiding herself, as Hector and Louis strongly advised the young Mohawk to do, she preferred remaining, as a scout, she said, under the cover of the bushes on the edge of the steep that overlooked the lake, to watch the movements of the Indians. She told Hector to be under no apprehension if they came to the hut; not to attempt to conceal themselves, but offer them food to eat and water to drink. "If they come to the house and find you away, they will take your stores and burn your roof, suspecting that you are afraid to meet them openly; but they will not harm you if you meet them with open hand and fearless brow: if they eat of your bread, they will not harm you; me they would kill by a cruel death--the war-knife is in their heart against the daughter of the brave." The boys thought Indiana's advice good, and they felt no fear for themselves, only for Catharine, whom they counselled to remain in the shanty with Wolfe. The Indians, intent only on the sport which they had come to enjoy, seemed in high glee, and apparently peaceably disposed; every night they returned to the camp on the north side. The boys could see their fires gleaming among the trees on the opposite shore; and now and then, in the stillness of the evening, their wild shouts of revelry would come faintly to their ears, borne by the breeze over the waters of the lake. The allusion that Indiana had made to her own history, though conveyed in broken and hardly intelligible language, had awakened feelings of deep interest for her in the breasts of her faithful friends. Many months after this she related to her wondering auditors the fearful story of the massacre of her kindred, which I will now relate, as I have raised the curiosity of my youthful readers. There had been for some time a jealous feeling existing between the chiefs of two principal tribes of the Ojebwas and the Mohawks, which like a smothered fire had burned in the heart of each without having burst into a decided blaze; for each strove to compass his ends and obtain the advantage over the other by covert means. The tribe of the Mohawks of which I now speak claimed the southern shores of the Rice Lake for their hunting-grounds, and certain islands and parts of the lake for fishing, while that of the Ojebwas considered themselves masters of the northern shores and certain rights of water besides. [Footnote: The facts of this narrative were gathered from the lips of the eldest son of a Rice Lake chief. I have preferred giving it in the present form, rather than as the story of the Indian girl. Simple as it is, it is matter of history.] Possibly it was about these rights that the quarrel originated; but if so, it was not openly avowed between the "Black Snake" (that was the totem borne by the Mohawk chief) and the "Bald Eagle" (the totem of the Ojebwa). These chiefs had each a son, and the Bald Eagle had also a daughter of great and rare beauty, called by her people the "Beam of the Morning." She was the admiration of Mohawks as well as Ojebwas, and many of the young men of both the tribes had sought her hand, but hitherto in vain. Among her numerous suitors, the son of the Black Snake seemed to be the most enamoured of her beauty; and it was probably with some intention of winning the favour of the young Ojebwa squaw for his son, that the Black Snake accepted the formal invitation of the Bald Eagle to come to his hunting-grounds during the rice-harvest, and shoot deer and ducks on the lake, and to ratify a truce which had been for some time set on foot between them. But while outwardly professing friendship and a desire for peace, inwardly the fire of hatred burned fiercely in the breast of the Black Snake against the Ojebwa chief and his only son, a young man of great promise, renowned among his tribe as a great hunter and warrior, but who had once offended the Mohawk chief by declining a matrimonial alliance with one of the daughters of a chief of inferior rank who was closely connected to him by marriage. This affront rankled in the heart of the Black Snake, though outwardly he affected to have forgiven and forgotten the slight that had been put upon his relative. The hunting had been carried on for some days very amicably, when one day the Bald Eagle was requested, with all due attention to Indian etiquette, to go to the wigwam of the Black Snake. On entering the lodge, he perceived the Mohawk strangely disordered: he rose from his mat, on which he had been sleeping, with a countenance fearfully distorted, his eyes glaring hideously, his whole frame convulsed and writhing as in fearful bodily anguish; and casting himself upon the ground he rolled and grovelled on the earth, uttering frightful yells and groans. The Bald Eagle was moved at the distressing state in which he found his guest, and asked the cause of his disorder, but this the other refused to tell. After some hours the fit appeared to subside, but the chief remained moody and silent. The following day the same scene was repeated; and on the third, when the fit seemed to have increased in bodily agony, with great apparent reluctance, wrung seemingly from him by the importunity of his host, he consented to reveal the cause, which was, that the Bad Spirit had told him that these bodily tortures could not cease till the only son of his friend, the Ojebwa chief, had been sacrificed to appease his anger, neither could peace long continue between the two nations until this deed had been done; and not only must the chief's son be slain, but his flesh must be served up at a feast at which the father must preside. The Black Snake affected the utmost horror and aversion at so bloody and unnatural a deed being committed to save his life and the happiness of his tribe, but the peace was to be ratified for ever if the sacrifice were made,--if not, war to the knife was to be ever between the Mohawks and Ojebwas. The Bald Eagle, seeing that his treacherous guest would make this an occasion of renewing a deadly warfare, for which possibly he was not at the time well prepared, assumed a stoical calmness, and replied,-- "Be it so; great is the power of the Bad Spirit to cause evil to the tribes of the chiefs that rebel against his will. My son shall be sacrificed by my hand, that the evil one may be appeased, and that the Black Snake's body may have ease, and his people rest beside the fires of their lodges in peace." "The Bald Eagle has spoken like a chief with a large heart," was the specious response of the wily Mohawk, "moreover, the Good Spirit also appeared, and said, 'Let the Black Snake's son and the Bald Eagle's daughter become man and wife, that peace may be found to dwell among the lodges, and the war-hatchet be buried for ever.'" "The Beam of the Morning shall become the wife of the Young Pine," was the courteous answer; but stern revenge lay deep hidden beneath the unmoved brow and passionless lip. The fatal day arrived. The Bald Eagle, with unflinching hand and eye that dropped no human tear of sorrow for the son of his love, saw his son bound to the fatal post and pierced by the arrows of his own tribe. The fearful feast of human flesh was prepared, and the old chief, pale but unmoved, presided over the ceremonies. The war-dance was danced round the sacrifice, and all went off well, as if no such horrible rite had been enacted, but a fearful retribution was at hand. The Young Pine sought the tent of the Bald Eagle's daughter that evening, and was received with all due deference, as a son of so great a chief as the Black Snake merited. He was regarded now as a successful suitor; and, intoxicated with the beauty of the Beam of the Morning, he pressed her to allow the marriage to take place in a few days. The bride consented, and a day was named for the wedding feast to be celebrated; and, that due honour might be given to so great an event, invitations were sent out to the principal families of the Mohawk tribe, and these amounted to several hundreds of souls; while the young Ojebwa hunters were despatched up the river and to different parts of the country, avowedly to collect venison, beaver, and other delicacies, to regale their guests, but in reality to summon, by means of trusty scouts, a large war-party from the small lakes, to be in readiness to take part in the deadly revenge that was preparing for their enemies. Meantime the squaws had pitched the nuptial tent and prepared the bridal ornaments. A large wigwam, capable of containing all the expected guests, was then constructed, adorned with the thick branches of evergreens, so artfully contrived as to be capable of concealing the armed Ojebwas and their allies, who in due time were introduced beneath this leafy screen, armed with the murderous tomahawk and scalping-knife, with which to spring upon their defenceless and unsuspecting guests. According to the etiquette always observed upon such occasions, all deadly weapons were left outside the tent. The bridegroom had been conducted with songs and dancing to the tent of the bride. The guests, to the number of several hundred naked and painted warriors, were assembled. The feast was declared to be ready. A great iron pot or kettle occupied the centre of the tent. According to the custom of the Indians, the father of the bridegroom was invited to lift the most important dish from the pot, whilst the warriors commenced their war-dance around him. This dish was usually a bear's head, which was fastened to a string left for the purpose of raising it from the pot. "Let the Black Snake, the great chief of the Mohawks, draw up the head and set it on the table, that his people may eat and make merry, and that his wise heart may be glad," were the scornful words of the Bald Eagle. A yell of horror burst from the lips of the horror-stricken father as he lifted to view the fresh gory head of his only son, the _happy_ bridegroom the lovely daughter of the Ojebwa chief. "Ha!" shouted the Bald Eagle, "is the great chief of the Mohawks a squaw, that his blood grows white and his heart trembles at the sight of his son, the bridegroom of the Beam of the Morning? The Bald Eagle gave neither sigh nor groan when he saw the arrows pierce the heart of his child. Come, brother, take the knife; taste the flesh and drink the blood of thy son. The Bald Eagle shrank not when you bade him partake of the feast that was prepared from his young warrior's body." The wretched father dashed himself upon the earth, while his cries and howlings rent the air. These cries were answered by the war-whoop of the ambushed Ojebwas, as they sprang to their feet and with deafening yells attacked the guests, who, panic-stricken, naked and defenceless, fell an easy prey to their infuriated enemies. Not one living foe escaped to tell the tale of that fearful marriage feast. A second Judith had the chief's daughter proved. It was her plighted hand that had severed the head of her unsuspecting bridegroom, to complete the fearful vengeance that had been devised in return for the merciless and horrible murder of her brother. Nor was the sacrifice yet finished; for with fearful cries the Indians seized upon the canoes of their enemies, and with the utmost speed, urged by unsatisfied revenge, hurried down the lake to an island where the women and children and such of the aged or young men as were not included among the wedding guests were encamped in unsuspecting security. Panic-stricken, the Mohawks offered no resistance, but fell like sheep appointed for the slaughter. The Ojebwas slew there the gray-head with the infant of days. But while the youths and old men tamely yielded to their enemies, there was one who, her spirit roused to fury by the murder of her father, armed herself with the war-club and knife, and boldly withstood the successful warriors. At the door of the tent of the slaughtered chief the Amazon defended her children. While the war lightning kindled in her dark eyes, she called aloud in scornful tones to her people to hide themselves in the tents of their women, who alone were braves, and would fight their battles. Fiercely she taunted the men; but they shrank from the unequal contest, and she alone was found to deal the death-blow upon the foe, till, overpowered with numbers, and pierced with frightful wounds, she fell singing her own death-song and raising the wail for the dead who lay around her. Night closed in, but the work of blood still continued. Lower down they found another encampment, and there also they slew all the inhabitants of the lodges. They then returned to the island, to gather together their dead and to collect the spoils of the tents. They were weary with the fatigue of the slaughter of that fearful day. The retribution had satisfied even their love of blood. And when they found, on returning to the spot where the heroine had stood at bay, a young solitary female sitting beside the corpse of that dauntless woman, her mother, they led her away, and did all that their savage nature could suggest to soften her anguish and dry her tears. They brought her to the tents of their women, clothed and fed her, and bade her be comforted; but her young heart burned within her, and she refused consolation. She could not forget the wrongs of her people: she was the only living creature left of the Mohawks on that island. The young girl was Indiana--the same whom Hector Maxwell had found, wounded and bound, and ready to perish with hunger and thirst, on Bare Hill. Brooding with revenge in her heart, the young girl told them that she had stolen into the tent of the Bald Eagle, and aimed a knife at his throat; but the fatal blow was arrested by one of the young men, who had watched her enter the old chief's tent. A council was called, and she was taken to Bare Hill, bound, and left in the sad state already described. It was with feelings of horror and terror that the Christian children listened to this fearful tale, and Indiana read in their averted eyes and pale faces the feelings with which the recital of the tale of blood had inspired them. And then it was, as they sat beneath the shade of the trees, in the soft, misty light of an Indian summer moon, that Catharine, with simple earnestness, taught her young disciple those heavenly lessons of mercy and forgiveness which her Redeemer had set forth by his life, his doctrines, and his death--telling her that if she, would see that Saviour's face in heaven, and dwell with him in joy and peace for ever, she must learn to pray for those dreadful men who had made her fatherless and motherless and her home a desolation; and that the fire of revenge must be quenched within her heart, and replaced by the spirit of love, or she could not become a child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. How hard were these conditions to the young heathen! how contrary to her nature, to all that she had been taught in the tents of her fathers, where revenge was virtue, and to take the scalp of an enemy a glorious thing! Yet when she contrasted the gentle, kind, and dove-like characters of her Christian friends with the fierce, bloody people of her tribe and of her Ojebwa enemies, she could not but own they were more worthy of love and admiration. Had they not found her a poor, miserable, trembling captive, unbound her, fed and cherished her, pouring the balm of consolation into her wounded heart, drawing her in bands of tenderest love to forsake those wild and fearful passions that warred in her soul, and bringing her to the feet of the Saviour, to become his meek and holy child--a lamb of his "extended fold"? [Footnote: The Indian who related this narrative to the author was a son of a Rice Lake chief, Mosang Pondash by name. He vouched for its truth as a historic fact remembered by his father, whose grandsire had been one of the actors in the massacre.] CHAPTER IX. "The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill" _Irish Song_ While the Indians were actively pursuing their sports on the lake, shooting wildfowl, and hunting and fishing by torchlight, so exciting was the amusement of watching them that the two lads, Hector and Louis, quite forgot all sense of danger in the enjoyment of lying or sitting on the brow of the mount near the great ravine and looking at their proceedings. Once or twice the lads were near betraying themselves to the Indians by raising a shout of delight at some skilful manoeuvre that excited their unqualified admiration and applause. At night, when the canoes had all retired to the camp on the north shore, where the Indians assembled under the boughs of some venerable trees, and round the evening fires related the deeds of the preceding day, and all fear of detection had ceased for the time, they lighted up their own shanty fire, and cooked a good supper, and also prepared a sufficiency of food for the morrow. The Indians remained for a fortnight. At the end of that time Indiana, who was a watchful spy on their movements, told Hector and Louis that the camp was broken up, and the Indians had gone up the river, and would not return again for some weeks. The departure of the Indians was a matter of great rejoicing to Catharine, whose dread of these savages had greatly increased since she had been made acquainted with the fearful deeds which Indiana had described. Once, and only once during their stay, the Indians had passed within a short distance of their dwelling; but they were in full chase of a bear, which had been seen crossing the deep ravine near Mount Ararat, and were too intent upon their game to notice the shanty; for they never turned out of their path, and Catharine, who was alone at the time, drawing water from the spring, was so completely concealed by the high bank above her that she had quite escaped their notice. Fortunately, Indiana gave the two boys a signal to conceal themselves, where, effectually hidden among the thick, gray, mossy trunks of the cedars at the lake shore, they remained secure from molestation; while the Indian girl dropped noiselessly down among the tangled thicket of wild vines and brushwood, which she drew cautiously over her, and closed her eyes, lest, as she naively remarked, their glitter should be seen and betray her to her enemies. It was a moment of intense anxiety to our poor wanderers, whose terrors were more excited on behalf of the young Mohawk than for themselves, and they congratulated her on her escape with affectionate warmth. "Are my white brothers afraid to die?" was the young squaw's half-scornful reply. "Indiana is the daughter of a brave; she fears not to die." The latter end of September and the first week in October had been stormy and even cold. The rainy season, however, was now over. The nights were often illuminated by the aurora borealis, which might be seen forming an arch of soft and lovely brightness over the lake to the north and north-eastern portions of the horizon, or shooting upwards, in ever-varying shafts of greenish light, now hiding, now revealing the stars, which shone with softened radiance through the silvery veil that dimmed their beauty. Sometimes for many nights together the same appearance might be seen, and was usually the forerunner of frosty weather, though occasionally it was the precursor of cold winds and heavy rains. The Indian girl regarded it with superstitious feelings, but whether as an omen of good or evil she would not tell. On all matters connected with her religious notions she was shy and reserved, though occasionally she unconsciously revealed them. Thus the warnings of death or misfortunes were revealed to her by certain ominous sounds in the woods, the appearance of strange birds or animals, or the moanings of others. The screeching of the owl, the bleating of the doe, or barking of the fox, were evil auguries, while the flight of the eagle and the croaking of the raven were omens of good. She put faith in dreams, and would foretell good or evil fortune from them; she could read the morning and evening clouds, and knew from various appearances of the sky, or the coming or departing of certain birds or insects, changes in the atmosphere. Her ear was quick in distinguishing the changes in the voices of the birds or animals; she knew the times of their coming and going, and her eye was quick to see, as her ear to detect sounds. Her voice was soft, and low, and plaintive, and she delighted in imitating the little ballads or hymns that Catharine sang; though she knew nothing of their meaning, she would catch the tunes and sing the song with Catharine, touching the hearts of her delighted auditors by the melody and pathos of her voice. The season called Indian summer had now arrived. The air was soft and mild, almost oppressively warm; the sun looked red as though seen through the smoke-clouds of a populous city. A soft blue haze hung on the bosom of the glassy lake, which reflected on its waveless surface every passing shadow, and the gorgeous tints of its changing woods on shore and island. Sometimes the stillness of the air was relieved by a soft sighing wind, which rustled the dying foliage as it swept by. The Indian summer is the harvest of the Indian tribes. It is during this season that they hunt and shoot the wild-fowl that come in their annual flights to visit the waters of the American lakes and rivers; it is then that they gather in their rice, and prepare their winter stores of meat, and fish, and furs. The Indian girl knew the season they would resort to certain hunting-grounds. They were constant, and altered not their customs, as it was with their fathers, so it was with them. Louis had heard so much of the Otonabee river from Indiana that he was impatient to go and explore the entrance and the shores of the lake on that side, which hitherto they had not ventured to do for fear of being surprised by the Indians. "Some fine day," said Louis, "we will go out in the canoe, explore the distant islands, and go up the river a little way." Hector advised visiting all the islands by turns, beginning at the little islet which looks in the distance like a boat in full sail, it is level with the water, and has only three or four trees upon it. The name they had given to it was "Ship Island." The Indians have some name for it which I have forgotten, but it means, I have been told, "Witch Island." Hector's plan met with general approbation, and they resolved to take provisions with them for several days, and visit the islands and go up the river, passing the night under the shelter of the thick trees on the shore wherever they found a pleasant halting-place. The weather was mild and warm, the lake was as clear and calm as a mirror, and in joyous mood our little party embarked and paddled up the lake, first to Ship Island; but this did not detain them many minutes. They then went to Grape Island, which they so named from the abundance of wild vines, now rich with purple clusters of the ripe grapes--tart, but still not to be despised by our young adventurers, and they brought away a large birch basket heaped up with the fruit. "Ah, if we had but a good cake of maple sugar now, to preserve our grapes with, and make such grape jelly as my mother makes!" said Louis. "If we find out a sugar-bush we will manage to make plenty of sugar," said Catharine; "there are maples not two hundred yards from the shanty, near the side of the steep bank to the east. You remember the pleasant spot, which we named the Happy Valley, where the bright creek runs dancing along so merrily, below the pine-ridge?" "Oh yes; the same that winds along near the foot of Bare Hill, where the water-cresses grow." "Yes, where I gathered the milk-weed the other day." "What a beautiful pasture-field that will make when it is cleared!" said Hector thoughtfully. "Hector is always planning about fields, and clearing great farms," said Louis, laughing. "We shall see Hec a great man one of these days; I think he has in his own mind brushed, and burned, and logged up all the fine flats and table-land on the plains before now--ay, and cropped it all with wheat, and pease, and Indian corn." "We will have a clearing and a nice field of corn next year, if we live," replied Hector; "that corn that we found in the canoe will be a treasure." "Yes; and the corn-cob you got on Bare Hill," said Catharine. "How lucky we have been! We shall be so happy when we see our little field of corn flourishing round the shanty! It was a good thing, Hec, that you went to the Indian camp that day, though both Louis and I were very miserable while you were absent; but, you see, God must have directed you, that the life of this poor girl might be saved, to be a comfort to us. Everything has prospered well with us since she came to us. Perhaps it is because we try to make a Christian of her, and so God blesses all our endeavours." "We are told," said Hector, "that there is joy with the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth: doubtless, it is a joyful thing when the heathen, that knew not the name of God, are taught to glorify his holy name." Indiana, while exploring, had captured a porcupine. She declared that she should have plenty of quills for edging baskets and moccasins; besides, she said, the meat was white and good to eat. Hector looked with a suspicious eye upon the little animal, doubting the propriety of eating its flesh, though he had learned to eat musk-rats, and consider them good meat, baked in Louis's Indian oven, or roasted on a forked stick before the fire. The Indian porcupine is a small animal, not a very great deal larger than the common British hedgehog; the quills, however, are longer and stronger, and varied with alternate clouded marks of pure white and dark brownish-gray; they are minutely barbed, so that if one enters the flesh it is with difficulty extracted, but will work through of itself in an opposite direction, and can then be easily pulled out. Dogs and cattle often suffer great inconvenience from getting their muzzles filled with the quills of the porcupine, the former when worrying the poor little animal, and the latter by accidentally meeting a dead one among the herbage; great inflammation will sometimes attend the extraction. Indians often lose valuable hounds from this cause. Besides porcupines, Indiana told her companions, there were some fine butter-nut trees (_Juglans cinerea_) on the island, and they could collect a bagful of nuts in a very short time. This was good news, for the butter-nut is sweet and pleasant, almost equal to the walnut, of which it is a species. The day was passed pleasantly enough in collecting nuts and grapes; but as this island did not afford any good cleared spot for passing the night, and moreover, was tenanted by black snakes, several of which made their appearance among the stones near the edge of the water, they agreed by common counsel to go to Long Island, where Indiana said there was an old log-house, the walls of which were still standing, and where there was dry moss in plenty which would make them a comfortable bed for the night. This old log-house, she said, had been built, she had heard the Indians say, by a French Canadian trapper, who used to visit the lake some years ago. He was on friendly terms with the chiefs, who allowed him many privileges, and he bought their furs, and took them down the lake, through the river Trent, to some station-house on the great lake. They found they should have time enough to land and deposit their nuts and grapes and paddle to Long Island before sunset. Upon the western part of this fine island they had several times landed and passed some hours, exploring its shores; but Indiana told them that to reach the old log-house they must enter the low swampy bay to the east, at an opening which she called Indian Cove. To do this required some skill in the management of the canoe, which was rather overloaded for so light a vessel, and the trees grew so close and thick that they had some difficulty in pushing their way through them without injuring its frail sides. These trees or bushes were chiefly black alder (_Alnus incuna_), high-bush cranberries (_Viburnum opulus_), dogwood, willows, as they proceeded further, there was ground of a more solid nature, with cedar, poplar, swamp oak, and soft maple, silver birch, and wild cherries. Long strings of silver-gray tree-moss hung dangling over their heads, the bark and roots of the birch and cedars were covered with a luxuriant growth of green moss, but there was a dampness and closeness in this place that made it far from wholesome. The little band of voyagers were not sorry when the water became too shallow to admit of the canoe making its way through the swampy channel, and they landed on the bank of a small circular pond, as round as a ring, and nearly surrounded by tall trees hoary with moss and lichens; large water-lilies floated on the surface of this miniature lake; the brilliant red berries of the high-bush cranberry and the purple clusters of grapes festooned the trees. "A famous breeding-place this must be for ducks," observed Louis. "And for flowers," said Catharine, "and for grapes and cranberries. There is always some beauty or some usefulness to be found, however lonely the spot." "A fine place for musk-rats, and minks, and fishes," said Hector, looking round. "The old trapper knew what he was about when he made his lodge near this pond. And there, sure enough, is the log-hut, and not so bad a one either;" and scrambling up the bank he entered the deserted little tenement, well pleased to find it in tolerable repair. There were the ashes on the stone hearth, just as it had been left years back by the old trapper; some rough-hewn shelves, a rude bedstead of cedar poles still occupied a corner of the little dwelling; heaps of old dry moss and grass lay upon the ground; and the little squaw pointed with one of her silent laughs to a collection of broken egg-shells, where some wild-duck had sat and hatched her downy brood among the soft materials which she had found and appropriated to her own purpose. The only things pertaining to the former possessor of the log-hut were an old, rusty, battered tin pannikin, now, alas! unfit for holding water; a bit of a broken earthen whisky jar; a rusty nail, which Louis pocketed, or rather pouched--for he had substituted a fine pouch of deer-skin for his worn-out pocket; and a fishing-line of good stout cord, which was wound on a splinter of red cedar, and carefully stuck between one of the rafters and the roof of the shanty. A rusty but efficient hook was attached to the line, and Louis, who was the finder, was quite overjoyed at his good fortune in making so valuable an addition to his fishing tackle. Hector got only an odd worn-out moccasin, which he threw into the little pond in disdain: while Catharine declared she would keep the old tin pot as a relic, and carefully deposited it in the canoe. As they made their way into the interior of the island, they found that there were a great many fine sugar maples, which had been tapped by some one--as the boys thought, by the old trapper, but Indiana, on examining the incisions in the trees, and the remnants of birch-bark vessels that lay moldering on the earth below them, declared them to have been the work of her own people, and long and sadly did the young girl look upon these simple memorials of a race of whom she was the last living remnant. The young girl stood there in melancholy mood, a solitary, isolated being, with no kindred tie upon the earth to make life dear to her; a stranger in the land of her fathers, associating with those whose ways were not her ways, nor their thoughts her thoughts, whose language was scarcely known to her, whose God was not the god of her fathers. Yet the dark eyes of the Indian girl were not dimmed with tears as she thought of these things, she had learned of her people to suffer and be still. Silent and patient she stood, with her melancholy gaze bent on the earth, when she felt the gentle hand of Catharine laid upon her arm, and then kindly and lovingly passed round her neck, as she whispered,-- "Indiana, I will be to you as a sister, and will love you and cherish you, because you are an orphan girl and alone in the world; but God loves you, and will make you happy. He is a Father to the fatherless, and the Friend of the destitute and them that have no helper." The words of kindness and love need no interpretation; no book-learning is necessary to make them understood. The young, the old, the deaf, the dumb, the blind can read this universal language; its very silence is often more eloquent than words,--the gentle pressure of the hand, the half-echoed sigh, the look of sympathy will penetrate to the very heart, and unlock its hidden stores of human tenderness and love. The rock is smitten and the waters gush forth, a bright and living stream, to refresh and fertilize the thirsty soul. The heart of the poor mourner was touched; she bowed down her head upon the hand that held her so kindly in its sisterly grasp, and wept soft, sweet, human tears full of grateful love, while she whispered, in her own low, plaintive voice, "My white sister, I kiss you in my heart; I will love the God of my white brothers, and be his child." The two friends now busied themselves in preparing the evening meal: they found Louis and Hector had lighted up a charming blaze on the desolate hearth. A few branches of cedar, twisted together by Catharine, made a serviceable broom, with which she swept the floor, giving to the deserted dwelling a neat and comfortable aspect; some big stones were quickly rolled in, and made to answer for seats in the chimney-corner. The new-found fishing-line was soon put into requisition by Louis, and with very little delay a fine dish of black bass, broiled on the embers, was added to their store of dried venison and roasted bread-roots, which they found in abundance on a low spot on the island. Grapes and butter-nuts, which Hector cracked with a stone by way of a nutcracker, finished their sylvan meal. The boys then stretched themselves to sleep on the ground, with their feet, Indian fashion, to the fire; while Catharine and Indiana occupied the mossy couch which they had newly spread with fragrant cedar and hemlock boughs. The next island that claimed their attention was Sugar-Maple Island, a fine, thickly-wooded island, rising with steep, rocky banks from the water. A beautiful object, but too densely wooded to admit of our party penetrating beyond a few yards of its shores. The next island they named the Beaver, [Footnote: Commonly called Sheep Island, from some person having pastured a few sheep upon it some few years ago. I have taken the liberty of preserving the name, to which it bears an obvious resemblance, the nose of the Beaver lies towards the west, the tail to the east.] from its resemblance in shape to that animal. A fine, high, oval island beyond this they named Black Island, [Footnote: Black Island, the sixth from the head of the lake; an oval island, remarkable for its evergreens.] from its dark evergreens. The next was that which seemed most to excite the interest of their Indian guide, although but a small stony island, scantily clothed with trees, lower down the lake. This place she called Spoke Island, which means in the Indian tongue "a place for the dead." It is sometimes called Spirit Island; and here, in times past, the Indian people used to bury their dead. The island is now often the resort of parties of pleasure, who, from its being grassy and open, find it more available than those which are densely wooded. The young Mohawk regarded it with feelings of superstitious awe, and would not suffer Hector to land the canoe on its rocky shore. "It is a place of spirits," she said; "the ghosts of my fathers will be angry if we go there." Even her young companions felt that they were upon sacred ground, and gazed with silent reverence upon the burial isle. Strongly imbued with a love of the marvellous, which they had derived from their Highland origin, Indiana's respect for the spirits of her ancestors was regarded as most natural, and in silence, as if fearing to disturb the solemnity of the spot, they resumed their paddles, and after a while reached the mouth of the river Otonabee, which was divided into two separate channels by a long, low point of swampy land, covered with stunted, mossy bushes and trees, rushes, driftwood, and aquatic plants. Indiana told them this river flowed from the north, and that it was many days' journey up to the lakes. To illustrate its course, she drew with her paddle a long line, with sundry curves and broader spaces, some longer, some smaller, with bays and inlets, which she gave them to understand were the chain of lakes that she spoke of. There were beautiful hunting-grounds on the borders of these lakes, and many fine waterfalls and rocky islands; she had been taken up to these waters during the time of her captivity. The Ojebwas, she said, were a branch of the great Chippewa nation, who owned much land and great waters thereabouts. Compared with the creeks and streams that they had seen hitherto, the Otonabee appeared a majestic river, and an object of great admiration and curiosity, for it seemed to them as if it were the highroad leading up to an unknown, far-off land,--a land of dark, mysterious, impenetrable forests,--flowing on, flowing on, in lonely majesty, reflecting on its tranquil bosom the blue sky, the dark pines and gray cedars, the pure ivory-white water-lily, and every passing shadow of bird or leaf that flitted across its surface, so quiet was the onward flow of its waters. A few brilliant leaves yet clung to the soft maples and crimson-tinted oaks, but the glory of the forest had departed; the silent fall of many a sere and yellow leaf told of the death of summer and of winter's coming reign. Yet the air was wrapped in a deceitful stillness; no breath of wind moved the trees or dimpled the water. Bright wreaths of scarlet berries and wild grapes hung in festoons among the faded foliage. The silence of the forest was unbroken, save by the quick tapping of the little midland woodpecker or the shrill scream of the blue jay, the whirring sound of the large white-and-gray duck (called by the frequenters of these lonely waters the whistlewing) as its wings swept the waters in its flight, or the light dripping of the paddle,--so still, so quiet was the scene. As the day was now far advanced, the Indian girl advised them either to encamp for the night on the river-bank or to use all speed in returning. She seemed to view the aspect of the heavens with some anxiety. Vast volumes of light, copper-tinted clouds were rising; the sun, seen through its hazy veil, looked red and dim; and a hot, sultry air, unrelieved by a breath of refreshing wind, oppressed our young voyagers. And though the same coppery clouds and red sun had been seen for several successive days, a sort of instinctive feeling prompted the desire in all to return, and, after a few minutes' rest and refreshment, they turned their little bark towards the lake; and it was well that they did so. By the time they had reached the middle of the lake, the stillness of the air was rapidly changing; the rose-tinted clouds, that had lain so long piled upon each other in mountainous ridges, began to move upwards, at first slowly, then with rapidly accelerated motion. There was a hollow moaning in the pine-tops; and by fits a gusty breeze swept the surface of the water, raising it into rough, short, white-crested ridges. These signs were pointed out by Indiana as the harbingers of a rising hurricane; and now a swift spark of light, like a falling star, glanced on the water, as if there to quench its fiery light. Again the Indian girl raised her dark hand and pointed to the rolling storm-clouds, to the crested waters and the moving pine-tops; then to the head of the Beaver Island,--it was the one nearest to them. With an arm of energy she wielded the paddle, with an eye of fire she directed the course of their little vessel; for well she knew their danger and the need for straining every nerve to reach the nearest point of land. Low muttering peals of thunder were now heard; the wind was rising with electric speed. Away flew the light bark, with the swiftness of a bird, over the water; the tempest was above, around, and beneath. The hollow crash of the forest trees as they bowed to the earth could be heard sullenly sounding from shore to shore. And now the Indian girl, flinging back her black streaming hair from her brow, knelt at the head of the canoe and with renewed vigour plied the paddle. The waters, lashed into a state of turbulence by the violence of the storm, lifted the canoe up and down; but no word was spoken; they each felt the greatness of the peril, but they also knew that they were in the hands of Him who can say to the tempest-tossed waves, "Peace, be still," and they obey him. Every effort was made to gain the nearest island; to reach the mainland was impossible, for the rain poured down a blinding deluge. It was with difficulty the little craft was kept afloat by baling out the water; to do this, Louis was fain to use his cap, and Catharine assisted with the old tin pot which she had fortunately brought from the trapper's shanty. The tempest was at its height when they reached the nearest point of the Beaver, and joyful was the grating sound of the canoe as it was vigorously pushed up on the shingly beach, beneath the friendly shelter of the overhanging trees, where, perfectly exhausted by the exertions they had made, dripping with rain and overpowered by the terrors of the storm, they threw themselves on the ground, and in safety watched its progress, thankful for an escape from such imminent peril. Thus ended the Indian summer, so deceitful in its calmness and its beauty. The next day saw the ground white with snow, and hardened into stone by a premature frost. Our poor voyagers were not long in quitting the shelter of the Beaver Island, and betaking themselves once more to their ark of refuge, the log-house on Mount Ararat. The winter that year set in with unusual severity some weeks sooner than usual, so that from the beginning of November to the middle of April the snow never entirely left the ground. The lake was soon covered with ice, and by the month of December it was one compact, solid sheet from shore to shore. CHAPTER X. "Scared by the red and noisy light." --COLERIDGE. Hector and Louis had now little employment, except chopping fire-wood, which was no very arduous task for two stout, healthy lads used from childhood to handling the axe. Trapping, and hunting, and snaring hares were occupations which they pursued more for the excitement and exercise than from hunger, as they had laid by abundance of dried venison, fish, and birds, besides a plentiful store of rice. They now visited those trees that they had marked in the summer, where they had noticed the bees hiving, and cut them down. In one they got more than a pailful of rich honeycomb, and others yielded some more, some less; this afforded them a delicious addition to their boiled rice and dried acid fruits. They might have melted the wax and burned candles of it; but this was a refinement of luxury that never once occurred to our young housekeepers: the dry pineknots that are found in the woods are the settlers' candles. Catharine made some very good vinegar with the refuse of the honey and combs, by pouring water on it, and leaving it to ferment in a warm nook of the chimney, in one of the birch-bark vessels; and this was an excellent substitute for salt as a seasoning--to the fresh meat and fish. Like the Indians, they were now reconciled to the want of this seasonable article. Indiana seemed to enjoy the cold weather. The lake, though locked up to every one else, was open to her: with the aid of the tomahawk she patiently made an opening in the ice, and over this she built a little shelter of pine boughs stuck into the ice. Armed with a sharp spear carved out of hardened wood, she would lie upon the ice, and patiently await the rising of some large fish to the air-hole, when dexterously plunging the spear into the unwary creature, she dragged it to the surface. Many a noble fish did the young squaw bring home, and cast at the feet of him whom she had tacitly elected as her lord and master: to him she offered the voluntary service of a faithful and devoted servant--I might almost have said, slave. During the middle of December there were some days of such intense cold that even our young Crusoes, hardy as they were, preferred the blazing log-fire and warm ingle-nook to the frozen lake and cutting north-west wind which blew the loose snow in blinding drifts over its bleak, unsheltered surface. Clad in the warm tunic and petticoat of Indian blanket, with fur-lined moccasins, Catharine and her Indian friend felt little cold excepting to the face when they went abroad, unless the wind was high, and then experience taught them to keep at home. And these cold gloomy days they employed in many useful works. Indiana had succeeded in dyeing the quills of the porcupine that she had captured on Grape Island; with these she worked a pair of beautiful moccasins and an arrow-case for Hector, besides making a sheath for Louis's _couteau de chasse_, of which the young hunter was very proud, bestowing great praise on the workmanship. Indiana appeared to be deeply engrossed with some work that she was engaged in, but preserved a provoking degree of mystery about it, to the no small annoyance of Louis, who, among his other traits of character, was remarkably inquisitive, wanting to know the why and wherefore of everything he saw. Indiana first prepared a frame of some tough wood,--it might be the inner bark of the oak, or elm, or hickory; this was pointed at either end, and wide in the middle--not very much unlike the form of some broad, flat fish. Over this she wove an open network of narrow thongs of deer-hide, wetted to make it more pliable, and securely fastened to the frame: when dry it became quite tight, and resembled a sort of coarse bamboo-work, such as you see on cane-bottomed chairs and sofas. "And now, Indiana, tell us what sort of fish you are going to catch in your ingenious little net," said Louis, who had watched her proceedings with great interest. The girl shook her head, and laughed till she showed all her white teeth, but quietly proceeded to commence a second frame like the first. Louis put it on his head. No; it could not be meant to be worn there, that was plain. He turned it round and round. It must be intended for some kind of bird-trap; yes, that must be it, and he cast an inquiring glance at Indiana. She blushed, shook her head, and gave another of her silent laughs. "Some game like battledoor and shuttle-cock,"--and snatching up a light bass-wood chip, he began tossing the chip up and catching it on the netted frame. The little squaw was highly amused, but rapidly went on with her work. Louis was now almost angry at the perverse little savage persevering in keeping him in suspense. She would not tell him till, the other was done:--then there were to be a pair of these curious articles!--and he was forced at last to sit quietly down to watch the proceeding of the work. It was night before the two were completed and furnished with straps and loops. When the last stroke was put to them, the Indian girl knelt down at Hector's feet, and binding them on, pointed to them with a joyous laugh, and said, "Snow-shoe--for walk on snow--good!" The boys had heard of snow-shoes, but had never seen them, and now seemed to understand little of the benefit to be derived from the use of them. The young Mohawk quickly transferred the snow-shoes to her own feet, and soon proved to them that the broad surface prevented those who wore them from sinking into the deep snow.--After many trials, Hector began to acknowledge the advantage of walking with the snow-shoes, especially on the frozen snow on the ice-covered lake. Indiana was well pleased with the approbation her manufactures met with, and very soon manufactured for "Nee-chee," as they all now called Louis, a similar present. As to Catharine, she declared the snow-shoes made her ankles ache, and that she preferred the moccasins that her cousin Louis made for her. During the long bright days of February, they made several excursions on the lake, and likewise explored some of the high hills to the eastward. On this ridge there were few large trees; but it was thickly clothed with scrub-oaks, slender poplars, and here and there fine pines, and picturesque free-growing oaks of considerable size and great age--patriarchs, they might be termed, among the forest growth. Over this romantic range of hill and dale, free as the air they breathed, roamed many a gallant herd of deer, unmolested unless during certain seasons when the Indians came to hunt over these hills. Surprised at the different growth of the oaks on this side the plains, Hector could not help expressing his astonishment to Indiana, who told him that it was caused by the custom that her people had had from time immemorial of setting fire to the bushes in the early part of spring. This practice, she said, promoted the growth of the deer-grass, made good cover for the deer themselves, and effectually prevented the increase of the large timbers, giving a singular aspect to the high ridge of hills when contrasted with the more wooded portions to the westward. From the lake these eastern hills look verdant, and as if covered with tall green fern. In the month of October a rich rosy tint is cast upon the leaves of the scrub-oaks by the autumnal frosts, and they present a glowing unvaried crimson of the most glorious hue, only variegated in spots by a dark feathery evergreen, or a patch of light waving poplars turned by the same wizard's wand to golden yellow. There were many lovely spots,--lofty rounded hills, and deep shady dells, with extended table-land, and fine lake views; but, on the whole, our young folks preferred the oak openings and the beautiful wooded glens of the western side, where they had fixed their home. There was one amusement they used greatly to enjoy during the cold bright days and moonlight nights of midwinter. This was gliding down the frozen snow on the steep side of the dell near the spring, seated on small hand-sleighs, which carried them down with great velocity. Wrapped in their warm furs, with caps fastened closely over their ears, what cared they for the cold? Warm and glowing from head to foot, with cheeks brightened by delightful exercise, they would remain for hours enjoying the amusement of the snow-slide; the bright frost gemming the ground with myriads of diamonds, sparkling in their hair, or whitening it till it rivalled the snow beneath their feet. Then, when tired out with the exercise, they returned to the shanty, stirred up a blazing fire, till the smoked rafters glowed in the red light; spread their simple fare of stewed rice sweetened with honey, or savoury soup of hare or other game; and then, when warmed and fed, they kneeled together, side by side, and offered up a prayer of gratitude to their Maker, and besought his care over them during the dark and silent hours of night. Had these young people been idle in their habits and desponding in their tempers, they must have perished with cold and hunger, instead of enjoying many necessaries and eyen some little luxuries in their lonely forest home. Fortunately they had been brought up in the early practice of every sort of usefulness, to endure every privation with cheerful fortitude; not indeed quietly to sit down and wait for better times, but vigorously to create those better times by every possible exertion that could be brought into action to assist and ameliorate their condition. To be up and doing is the maxim of a Canadian; and it is this that nerves his arm to do and bear. The Canadian settler, following in the steps of the old Americans, learns to supply all his wants by the exercise of his own energy. He brings up his family to rely upon their own resources, instead of depending upon his neighbours. The children of the modern emigrant, though enjoying a higher degree of civilization and intelligence, arising from a liberal education, might not have fared so well under similar circumstances as did our Canadian Crusoes, because, unused to battle with the hardships incidental to a life of such privation as they had known, they could not have brought so much experience, or courage, or ingenuity to their aid. It requires courage to yield to circumstances, as well as to overcome them. Many little useful additions to the interior of their dwelling were made by Hector and Louis during the long winter. They made a smoother and better table than the first rough one that they put together. They also made a rough partition of split cedars, to form a distinct and separate sleeping-room for the two girls; but as this division greatly circumscribed their sitting and cooking apartment, they resolved, as soon as the spring came, to cut and draw in logs for putting up a better and larger room to be used as a summer parlour. Indiana and Louis made a complete set of wooden trenchers out of butter-nut, a fine hard wood of excellent grain, and less liable to warp or crack than many others. Louis's skill as a carpenter was much greater than that of his cousin. He not only possessed more judgment, and was more handy, but he had a certain taste and neatness in finishing his work, however rough his materials and rude his tools. He inherited some of that skill in mechanism for which the French have always been remarked. With his knife and a nail he would carve a plum-stone into a miniature basket, with handle across it, all delicately wrought with flowers and checker-work. The shell of a butter-nut would be transformed into a boat, with thwarts, and seats, and rudder, with sails of basswood or birch-bark. Combs he could cut out of wood or bone, so that Catharine could dress her hair or confine it in braids or bands at will. This was a source of great comfort to her; and Louis was always pleased when he could in any way contribute to his cousin's happiness. These little arts Louis had been taught by his father. Indeed, the great distance that their little settlement was from any town or village had necessarily forced their families to depend on their own ingenuity and invention to supply many of their wants. Once or twice a year they saw a trading fur-merchant, as I before observed; and those were glorious days for Hector and Louis, who were always on the alert to render the strangers any service in their power, as by that means they sometimes received little gifts from them, and gleaned up valuable information as to their craft as hunters and trappers. And then there were wonderful tales of marvellous feats and hair-breadth escapes to listen to, as they sat with eager looks and open ears round the blazing log-fire in the old log-house. Now they would in their turns have tales to tell of strange adventures, and all that had befallen them since the first day of their wanderings on the Rice Lake Plains. The long winter passed away unmarked by any very stirring event. The Indians had revisited the hunting-grounds; but they confined themselves chiefly to the eastern side of the Plains, the lake and the islands, and did not come near their dwelling to molest them. The latter end of the month of March presented fine sugar-making weather; and as they had the use of the big iron pot, they resolved to make maple sugar and some molasses. Long Island was decided upon as the most eligible place. It had the advantage over Maple Island of having a shanty ready built for a shelter during the time they might see fit to remain, and a good boiling-place, which would be a comfort to the girls, as they need not be exposed to the weather during the process of sugaring. The two boys soon cut down some small pines and bass-woods, which they hewed out into sugar-troughs Indiana manufactured some rough pails of birch-bark. The first favourable day for the work they loaded up a hand-sleigh with their vessels, and marched forth over the ice to the island, and tapped the trees they thought would yield sap for their purpose. And many pleasant days they passed during the sugar-making season. They did not leave the sugar-bush for good till the commencement of April, when the sun and wind beginning to unlock the springs that fed the lake, and to act upon its surface, taught them that it would not be prudent to remain longer on the island. The loud, booming sounds that were now frequently heard of the pent-up air beneath striving to break forth from its icy prison were warnings not to be neglected. Openings began to appear, especially at the entrance of the river and between the islands, and opposite to some of the larger creeks blue streams, that attracted the water-fowl, ducks, and wild geese, which came, guided by that instinct which never errs, from their abiding-places in far-off lands. Indiana knew the signs of the wild birds' coming and going with a certainty that seemed almost marvellous to her simple-minded companions. How delightful were the first indications of the coming spring! How joyously our young Crusoes heard the first tapping of the red-headed woodpecker! The low, sweet, warbling note of the early song-sparrow, and twittering chirp of the snow-bird, or that neat, Quakerly-looking bird that comes to cheer us with the news of sunny days and green buds; the low, tender, whispering note of the chiccadee, flitting among the pines or in the thick branches of the shore-side trees; the chattering note of the little, striped chitmunk, as it pursued its fellows over the fallen trees; and the hollow sound of the male partridge, heavily striking its wings against his sides to attract the notice of the female birds, were among the early spring melodies. For such they seemed to our forest dwellers, for they told them "That winter, cold winter, was past, And spring, lovely spring, was approaching at last." They watched for the first song of the robin, [Footnote: _Turdus migratorius_, or American robin.] and the full melody of the red wood-thrush; [Footnote: _Turdus melodus_, or wood-thrush.] the rushing sound of the passenger pigeons, as flocks of these birds darted above their heads, sometimes pausing to rest on the dry limb of some withered oak, or darting down to feed upon the scarlet berries of the spicy winter-green, the acorns that still lay upon the now uncovered ground, or the berries of hawthorn and dogwood that still hung on the bare bushes. The pines were now putting on their rich, mossy, green spring dresses; the skies were deep blue; Nature, weary of her long state of inaction, seemed waking into life and light. On the Plains the snow soon disappears, for the sun and air have access to the earth much easier than in the close, dense forest. Hector and Louis were soon able to move about with axe in hand, to cut the logs for the addition to their house they proposed making. They also set to work as soon as the frost was out of the ground to prepare their little field for the Indian corn. This kept them quite busy. Catharine attended to the house; and Indiana went out fishing and hunting, bringing in plenty of small game and fish every day. After they had piled and burned up the loose boughs and trunks that encumbered the space they had marked out, they proceeded to enclose it with a brush fence. This was done by felling the trees that stood in the line of the field, and letting them fall so as to form the bottom log of the fence, which they then made of sufficient height by piling up arms of trees and brushwood. Perhaps in this matter they were too particular, as there was no fear of "breachy cattle," or any cattle, intruding on the crop; but Hector maintained that deer and bears were as much to be guarded against as oxen and cows. The little enclosure was made secure from any such depredators, and was as clean as hands could make it. The two cousins sat on a log, contentedly surveying their work, and talking of the time when the grain was to be put in. It was about the beginning of the second week in May, as near as they could guess from the bursting of the forest buds and the blooming of such of the flowers as they were acquainted with. Hector's eyes had followed the flight of a large eagle that now, turning from the lake, soared away majestically toward the east or Oak Hills. But soon his eye was attracted to another object. The loftiest part of the ridge was enveloped in smoke. At first he thought it must be some mist-wreath hovering over its brow; but soon the dense, rolling clouds rapidly spread on each side, and he felt certain that it was from fire, and nothing but fire, that those dark volumes arose. "Louis, look yonder! the hills to the east are on fire!" "On fire, Hector? you are dreaming!" "Nay, but look there!" The hills were now shrouded in one dense, rolling cloud. It moved on with fearful rapidity down the shrubby side of the hill, supplied by the dry, withered foliage and deer-grass, which was like stubble to the flames. "It is two miles off, or more," said Louis; "and the creek will stop its progress long before it comes near us, and the swamp there beyond Bare Hill." "The cedars are as dry as tinder; and as to the creek, it is so narrow a burning tree falling across would convey the fire to this side; besides, when the wind rises, as it always does when the bush is on fire, you know how far the burning leaves will fly. Do you remember when the forest was on fire last spring how long it continued to burn and how fiercely it raged? It was lighted by the ashes of your father's pipe when he was out in the new fallow. The leaves were dry, and kindled, and before night the woods were burning for miles." "It was a grand spectacle, those pine-hills, when the fire got in among them," said Louis. "See! see how fast the fires kindle! That must be some fallen pine that they have got hold of. Now, look at the lighting up of that hill; is it not grand?" "If the wind would but change, and blow in the opposite direction," said Hector anxiously. "The wind, mon ami, seems to have little influence; for as long as the fire finds fuel from the dry bushes and grass, it drives on, even against the wind." As they spoke the wind freshened, and they could plainly see a long line of wicked, bright flames in advance of the dense mass of vapour which hung in its rear. On it came, that rolling sea of flame, with inconceivable rapidity, gathering strength as it advanced. The demon of destruction spread its red wings to the blast, rushing on with fiery speed, and soon hill and valley were wrapped in one sheet of flame. "It must have been the work of the Indians," said Louis. "We had better make a retreat to the island, in case of the fire crossing the valley. We must not neglect the canoe. If the fire sweeps round by the swamp, it may come upon us unawares, and then the loss of the canoe would prevent escape by the lake. But here are the girls; let us consult them." "It is the Indian burning," said Indiana; "that is the reason there are so few big trees, on that hill. They burn it to make the grass better for the deer." Hector had often pointed out to Louis the appearance of fire having scorched the bark of the trees where they were at work, but it seemed to have been many years back; and when they were digging for the site of the root-house [Footnote: Root-houses are built over deep excavations below the reach of the frost, or the roots stored would be spoiled.] below the bank, which they had just finished, they had met with charred wood at the depth of six feet below the soil, which must have lain there till the earth had accumulated over it. A period of many years must necessarily have passed since the wood had been burned, as it was so much decomposed as to crumble beneath the wooden shovel they were digging with. All day they watched the progress of that fiery sea whose waves were flame--red, rolling flame. Onward it came with resistless speed, overpowering every obstacle, widening its sphere of action, till it formed a perfect semicircle about them. As the night drew on, the splendour of the scene became more apparent, and the path of the fire better defined; but there was no fear of the conflagration spreading as it had done in the day-time. The wind had sunk, and the copious dews of evening effectually put a stop to the progress of the fire. The children could now gaze in security upon the magnificent spectacle before them without the excitement produced by its rapid spread during the day-time. They lay down to sleep in perfect security that night, but with the consciousness that, as the breeze sprung up in the morning, they must be on the alert to secure their little dwelling and its contents from the devastation that threatened it. They knew they had no power to stop its onward course, as they possessed no implement better than a rough wooden shovel, which would be found very ineffectual in opening a trench or turning the ground up, so as to cut off the communication with the dry grass, leaves, and branches which are the fuel for supplying the fires on the Plains. The little clearing on one side the house they thought would be its safeguard, but the fire was advancing on three sides of them. "Let us hold a council, as the Indians do, to consider what is to be done." "I propose," said Louis, "retreating, bag and baggage, to the nearest point of Long Island." "My French cousin has well spoken," said Hector, mimicking the Indian mode of speaking; "but listen to the words of the wise. I propose to take all our household stores that are of the most value to the island, and lodge the rest safely in our new root-house, first removing from its neighbourhood all such light, loose matter as is likely to take fire. The earthen roof will save it from destruction. As to the shanty, it must take its chance to stand or fall." "The fence of the little clearing will be burned, no doubt. Well, never mind; better that than our precious selves. And the corn, fortunately, is not yet sown," said Louis. Hector's advice met with general approval, and the girls soon set to work to secure the property they meant to leave. It was a fortunate thing that the root-house had been finished, as it formed a secure store-house for their goods, and could also be made available as a hiding-place from the Indians, in time of need. The boys carefully scraped away all the combustible matter from its vicinity and that of the house; but the rapid increase of the fire now warned them to hurry down to join Catharine and the young Mohawk, who had gone off to the lake shore with such things as they required to take with them. CHAPTER XI. "I know a lake where the cool waves break And softly fall on the silver sand; And no stranger intrudes on that solitude, And no voices but ours disturb the strand." _Irish Song_ The breeze had sprung up, and had already brought the fire down as far as the creek. The swamp had long been on fire; and now the flames were leaping among the decayed timbers, roaring and crackling among the pines, and rushing to the tops of the cedars, springing from heap to heap of the fallen branches, and filling the air with dense volumes of black and suffocating smoke. So quickly did the flames advance that Hector and Louis had only time to push off the canoe before the heights along the shore were wrapped in smoke and fire. Many a giant oak and noble pine fell crashing to the earth, sending up showers of red sparks as its burning trunk shivered in its fall. Glad to escape from the suffocating vapour, the boys quickly paddled out to the island, enjoying the cool, fresh air of the lake. Reposing on the grass beneath the trees, they passed the day sheltered from the noonday sun, and watched the progress of the fire upon the shore. At night the girls slept securely under the canoe, which they raised on one side by means of forked sticks stuck in the ground. It was a grand sight to see the burning Plains at night reflected on the water. A thousand flaming torches flickered upon its still surface, to which the glare of a gas-lighted city would have been dim and dull by contrast. Louis and Hector would speculate on the probable chances of the shanty escaping from the fire, and of the fence remaining untouched. Of the safety of the root-house they entertained no fear, as the grass was already springing green on the earthen roof; and, below they had taken every precaution to secure its safety, by scraping up the earth near it. [Footnote: Many a crop of grain and comfortable homestead has been saved by turning a furrow round the field; and great conflagrations have been effectually stopped by men beating the fire out with spades, and hoeing up the fresh earth so as to cut off all communication with the dry roots, grass, and leaves that feed its onward progress. Water, even could it be got, which is often impossible, is not nearly so effectual in stopping the progress of fire; even women and little children can assist in such emergencies.] Catharine lamented for the lovely spring-flowers that would be destroyed by the fire. "We shall have neither huckleberries nor strawberries this summer," she said mournfully; "and the pretty roses and bushes will be scorched, and the ground black and dreary." "The fire passes so rapidly over that it does not destroy many of the forest trees, only the dead ones are destroyed; and that, you know, leaves more space for the living ones to grow and thrive in," said Hector. "I have seen the year after a fire has run in the bush, a new and fresh set of plants spring up, and even some that looked withered recover; the earth is renewed and manured by the ashes, and it is not so great a misfortune as it at first appears." "But how black and dismal the burned pine-woods look for years!" said Louis; "I do not think there is a more melancholy sight in life than one of those burned pine-woods. There it stands, year after year, with the black, branchless trees pointing up to the blue sky, as if crying for vengeance against those that kindled the fire." "They do, indeed, look ugly," said Catharine, "yet the girdled ones look very nearly as ill." [Footnote: The girdled pines are killed by barking them round, to facilitate the clearing.] At the end of two days the fire had ceased to rage, though the dim smoke-wreaths to the westward showed where the work of destruction was still going on. As there was no appearance of any Indians on the lake, nor yet at the point (Anderson's Point, as it is now called) on the other side, they concluded the fire had possibly originated by accident,--some casual hunter or trapper having left his camp-fire unextinguished; but as they were not very likely to come across the scene of the conflagration, they decided on returning back to their old home without delay. It was with some feeling of anxiety that they hastened to see what evil had befallen their shanty. "The shanty is burned!" was the simultaneous exclamation of both Louis and Hector, as they reached the rising ground that should have commanded a view of its roof. "It is well for us that we secured our things in the root-house," said Hector. "Well, if that is safe, who cares? we can soon build up a new house, larger and better than the old one," said Louis. "The chief part of our fence is gone, too, I see; but that, we can renew at our leisure; no hurry, if we get it done a month hence, say I.--Come, ma belle, do not look so sorrowful. There is our little squaw will help us to set up a capital wigwam while the new house is building." "But the nice table that you made, Louis, and the benches and shelves!" "Never mind, Cathy; we will have better tables, and benches, and shelves too. Never fear, ma chere; the same industrious Louis will make things comfortable. I am not sorry the old shanty is down; we shall have a famous one put up, twice as large, for the winter. After the corn is planted we shall have nothing else to do but to think about it." The next two or three days were spent in erecting a wigwam, with poles and birch bark; and as the weather was warm and pleasant, they did not feel the inconvenience so much as they would have done had it been earlier in the season. The root-house formed an excellent store-house and pantry; and Indiana contrived, in putting up the wigwam, to leave certain loose folds between the birch-bark lining and outer covering, which formed a series of pouches or bags, in which many articles could be stowed away out of sight. [Footnote: In this way the winter wigwams of the Indians are constructed so as to give plenty of stowing room for all their little household matters, materials for work, &c.] While the girls were busy contriving the arrangements of the wigwam, the two boys were not idle. The time was come for planting the corn; a succession of heavy thunder-showers had soaked and softened the scorched earth, and rendered the labour of moving it much easier than they had anticipated. They had cut for themselves wooden trowels, with which they raised the hills for the seed. The corn planted, they next turned their attention to cutting house-logs; those which they had prepared had been burned up, so they had their labour to begin again. The two girls proved good helps at the raising; and in the course of a few weeks they had the comfort of seeing a more commodious dwelling than the former one put up. The finishing of this, with weeding the Indian corn, renewing the fence, and fishing, and trapping, and shooting partridges and ducks and pigeons, fully occupied their time this summer. The fruit season was less abundant this year than the previous one. The fire had done this mischief, and they had to go far a-field to collect fruits during the summer months. It so happened that Indiana had gone out early one morning with the boys, and Catharine was alone. She had gone down to the spring for water, and on her return, was surprised at the sight of a squaw and her family of three half-grown lad, and an innocent little brown papoose. [Footnote: An Indian baby, but "papoose" is not an Indian word. It is probably derived from the Indian imitation of the word "_babies_."] In their turn the strangers seemed equally astonished at Catharine's appearance. The smiling aspect and good-natured laugh of the female, however, soon reassured the frightened girl, and she gladly gave her the water which she had in her birch dish, on her signifying her desire for drink. To this Catharine added some berries and dried venison, and a bit of maple sugar, which was received with grateful looks by the boys; she patted the brown baby, and was glad when the mother released it from its wooden cradle, and fed and nursed it. The squaw seemed to notice the difference between the colour of her young hostess's fair skin and her own swarthy hue; for she often took her hand, stripped up the sleeve of her dress, and compared her arm with her own, uttering exclamations of astonishment and curiosity: possibly Catharine was the first of a fair-skinned race this poor savage had ever seen. After her meal was finished, she set the birchen dish on the floor, and restrapping the papoose in its cradle prison, she slipped the basswood-bark rope over her forehead, and silently signing to her sons to follow her, she departed. That evening a pair of ducks were found fastened to the wooden latch of the door, a silent offering of gratitude for the refreshment that had been afforded to this Indian woman and her children. Indiana thought, from Catharine's description, that these were Indians with whom she was acquainted; she spent some days in watching the lake and the ravine, lest a larger and more formidable party should be near. The squaw, she said, was a widow, and went by the name of Mother Snowstorm, from having been lost in the woods, when a little child, during a heavy storm of snow, and nearly starved to death. She was a gentle, kind woman, and, she believed, would not do any of them hurt. Her sons were good hunters, and, though so young, helped to support their mother, and were very good to her and the little one. I must now pass over a considerable interval of time, with merely a brief notice that the crop of corn was carefully harvested, and proved abundant, and a source of great comfort. The rice was gathered and stored, and plenty of game and fish laid by, with an additional store of honey. The Indians, for some reason, did not pay their accustomed visit to the lake this season. Indiana said they might be engaged with war among some hostile tribes, or had gone to other hunting-grounds. The winter was unusually mild, and it was long before it set in. Yet the spring following was tardy, and later than usual. It was the latter end of May before vegetation had made any very decided progress. The little log-house presented a neat and comfortable appearance, both within and without. Indiana had woven a handsome mat of bass bark for the floor; Louis and Hector had furnished it with seats and a table, rough, but still very respectably constructed, considering their only tools were a tomahawk, a knife, and wooden wedges for splitting the wood into slabs. These Louis afterwards smoothed with great care and patience. Their bedsteads were furnished with thick, soft mats, woven by Indiana and Catharine from rushes which they cut and dried; but the little squaw herself preferred lying on a mat or deerskin on the floor before the fire, as she had been accustomed. A new field had been enclosed, and a fresh crop of corn planted, which was now green and flourishing. Peace and happiness dwelt within the log-house; but for the regrets that ever attended the remembrance of all they had left and lost, no cloud would have dimmed the serenity of those who dwelt beneath its humble roof. The season of flowers had again arrived; the earth, renovated by the fire of the former year, bloomed with fresh beauty; June, with its fragrant store of roses and lilies, was now far advanced--the anniversary of that time when they had left their beloved parents' roofs, to become sojourners in the lonely wilderness, had returned. They felt they had much to be grateful for. Many privations, it is true, and much anxiety they had felt; but they had enjoyed blessings beyond what they could have expected, and might, like the psalmist when recounting the escapes of the people of God, have said, "Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness, and the wonders that he doeth for the children of men." And now they declared no greater evil could befall them than to lose one of their little party, for even Indiana had become as a dear and beloved sister; her gentleness, her gratitude, and faithful trusting love seemed each day to increase. Now, indeed, she was bound to them by a yet more sacred tie, for she knelt to the same God, and acknowledged with fervent love, the mercies of her Redeemer. She had made great progress in learning their language, and had also taught her friends to speak and understand much of her own tongue, so that they were now no longer at a loss to converse with her on any subject. Thus was this Indian girl united to them in bonds of social and Christian love. Hector, Louis, and Indiana had gone over the hills to follow the track of a deer which had paid a visit to the young corn, now sprouting and showing symptoms of shooting up to blossom. Catharine usually preferred staying at home and preparing the meals against their return. She had gathered some fine ripe strawberries, to add to the stewed rice, Indian meal cake, and maple sugar, for their dinner. She was weary and warm, for the day had been hot and sultry. Seating herself on the threshold of the door, she leaned against the door-post, and closed her eyes. Perhaps the poor child's thoughts were wandering back to her far-off, unforgotten home, or she might be thinking of the hunters and their game. Suddenly a vague, undefinable feeling of dread stole over her mind. She heard no steps, she felt no breath, she saw no form; but there was a strange consciousness that she was not alone--that some unseen being was near, some eye was upon her. I have heard of sleepers starting from sleep the most profound when the noiseless hand of the assassin has been raised to destroy them, as if the power of the human eye could be felt through the closed lids. Thus fared it with Catharine. She felt as if some unseen enemy was near her, and springing to her feet, she cast a wild, troubled glance around. No living being met her eye; and, ashamed of her cowardice, she resumed her seat. The tremulous cry of her little gray squirrel, a pet which she had tamed and taught to nestle in her bosom, attracted her attention. "What aileth thee, wee dearie?" she said tenderly, as the timid little creature crept trembling to her breast. "Thy mistress has seared thee by her own foolish fears. See, now, there is neither catamount nor weasel here to seize thee, silly one;" and as she spoke, she raised her head and flung back the thick clusters of soft fair hair that shaded her eyes. The deadly glare of a pair of dark eyes fixed upon her met her terrified gaze, gleaming with sullen ferocity from the angle of the door-post, whence the upper part of the face alone was visible, partly concealed by a mat of tangled, shaggy black hair. Paralyzed with fear, the poor girl neither spoke nor moved; she uttered no cry; but pressing her hands tightly across her breast, as if to still the loud beating of her heart, she sat gazing upon that fearful appearance, while, with stealthy step, the savage advanced from his lurking-place, keeping, as he did so, his eyes riveted upon hers, with such a gaze as the wily serpent is said to fascinate its prey. His hapless victim moved not:--whither could she flee to escape one whose fleet foot could so easily have overtaken her in the race? where conceal herself from him whose wary eye fixed upon her seemed to deprive her of all vital energy? Uttering that singular, expressive guttural which seems with the Indian to answer the purpose of every other exclamation, he advanced, and taking the girl's ice-cold hands in his, tightly bound them with a thong of deer-hide, and led her unresistingly away. By a circuitous path through the ravine they reached the foot of the mount, where lay a birch canoe, rocking gently on the waters, in which a middle-aged female and a young girl were seated. The females asked no questions, and expressed no word indicative of curiosity or surprise, as the strong arm of the Indian lifted his captive into the canoe, and made signs to the elder squaw to push from the shore. When all had taken their places, the woman, catching up a paddle from the bottom of the little vessel, stood up, and with a few rapid strokes sent it skimming over the lake. The miserable captive, overpowered with the sense of her calamitous situation, bowed down her head upon her knees, and concealing her agitated face in her garments, wept in silent agony. Visions of horror presented themselves to her bewildered brain; all that Indiana had described of the cruelty of this vindictive race came vividly before her mind. Poor child, what miserable thoughts were thine during that brief voyage! Had the Indians also captured her friends? or was she alone to be the victim of their vengeance? What would be the feelings of those beloved ones on returning to their home and finding it desolate! Was there no hope of release? As these ideas chased each other through her agitated mind, she raised her eyes, all streaming with tears, to the faces of the Indian and his companions with so piteous a look that any heart but the stoical one of an Indian would have softened at its sad appeal; but no answering glance of sympathy met hers, no eye gave back its silent look of pity--not a nerve or a muscle moved the cold, apathetic features of the Indians; and the woe-stricken girl again resumed her melancholy attitude, burying her face in her heaving bosom to hide its bitter emotions from the heartless strangers. She was not fully aware that it is part of the Indian's education to hide the inward feelings of the heart, to check all those soft and tender emotions which distinguish the civilized man from the savage. It does indeed need the softening influence of that powerful Spirit, which was shed abroad into the world to turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to break down the strongholds of unrighteousness, and to teach man that he is by nature the child of wrath and victim of sin, and that in his unregenerated nature his whole mind is at enmity with God and his fellow-men, and that in his flesh dwelleth no good thing. And the Indian has acknowledged that power; he has cast his idols of cruelty and revenge, those virtues on which he prided himself in the blindness of his heart, to the moles and the bats; he has bowed and adored at the foot of the Cross. But it was not so in the days whereof I have spoken. CHAPTER XII. "Must this sweet new-blown rose find such a winter Before her spring be past?" BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER The little bark touched the stony point of Long Island. The Indian lifted his weeping prisoner from the canoe, and motioned to her to move forward along the narrow path that led to the camp, about twenty yards higher up the bank, where there was a little grassy spot enclosed with shrubby trees; the squaws tarried at the lake-shore to bring up the paddles and secure the canoe. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an enemy, but doubly so when that enemy is a stranger to the language in which we would plead for mercy, whose god is not our God, nor his laws those by which we ourselves are governed. Thus felt the poor captive as she stood alone, mute with terror, among the half-naked, dusky forms with which she now found herself surrounded. She cast a hurried glance round that strange assembly, if by chance her eye might rest upon some dear familiar face; but she saw not the kind but grave face of Hector, nor met the bright sparkling eyes of her cousin Louis, nor the soft, subdued, pensive features of the Indian girl, her adopted sister. She stood alone among those wild, gloomy-looking men; some turned away their eyes as if they would not meet her woe-stricken countenance, lest they should be moved to pity her sad condition. No wonder that, overcome by the sense of her utter forlornness, she hid her face with her fettered hands and wept in despair. But the Indian's sympathy is not moved by tears and sighs; calmness, courage, defiance of danger, and contempt of death, are what he venerates and admires even in an enemy. The Indians beheld her grief unmoved. At length the old man, who seemed to be a chief among the rest, motioned to one of the women who leaned against the side of the wigwam to come forward and lead away the stranger. Catharine, whose senses were beginning to be more collected, heard the old man give orders that she was to be fed and cared for. Gladly did she escape from the presence of those pitiless men, from whose gaze she shrunk with maidenly modesty. And now when alone with the women she hesitated not to make use of that natural language which requires not the aid of speech to make itself understood. Clasping her hands imploringly, she knelt at the feet of the Indian woman, her conductress, kissed her dark hands, and bathed them with her fast-flowing tears, while she pointed passionately to the shore where lay the happy home from which she had been so suddenly torn. The squaw, though she evidently comprehended the meaning of her imploring gestures, shook her head, and in plaintive earnest tone replied in her own language that she must go with the canoes to the other shore, and she pointed to the north as she spoke. She then motioned to the young girl--the same that had been Catharine's companion in the canoe--to bring a hunting-knife which was thrust into one of the folds of the birch-bark of the wigwam. Catharine beheld the deadly weapon in the hands of the Indian woman with a pang of agony as great as if its sharp edge was already at her throat. So young--so young, to die by a cruel bloody death! what had been her crime? How should she find words to soften the heart of her murderess? The power of utterance seemed denied. She cast herself on her knees and held up her hands in silent prayer; not to the dreaded Indian woman, but to Him who heareth the prayer of the poor destitute--who alone can order the unruly wills and affections of men. The squaw stretched forth one dark hand and grasped the arm of the terror-stricken girl, while the other held the weapon of destruction. With a quick movement she severed the thongs that bound the fettered wrists of the pleading captive, and with a smile that seemed to light up her whole face she raised her from her prostrate position, laid her hand upon her young head and with an expression of good-humoured surprise lifted the flowing tresses of her sunny hair and spread them over the back of her own swarthy hand; then, as if amused by the striking contrast, she shook down her own jetty-black hair and twined a tress of it with one of the fair-haired girl's, then laughed till her teeth shone like pearls within her red lips. Many were the exclamations of childish wonder that broke from the other females as they compared the snowy arm of the stranger with their own dusky skins: it was plain that they had no intention of harming her, and by degrees distrust and dread of her singular companions began in some measure to subside. The squaw motioned her to take a seat on a mat beside her, and gave her a handful of parched rice and some deer's flesh to eat; but Catharine's heart was too heavy. She was suffering from thirst; and on pronouncing the Indian word for water, the young girl snatched up a piece of birch-bark from the floor of the tent, and gathering the corners together, ran to the lake, and soon returned with water in this most primitive drinking-vessel, which she held to the lips of her guest, and she seemed amused by the long, deep draught with which Catharine slaked her thirst. Something like a gleam of hope came over Catharine's mind as she marked the look of kindly feeling with which she caught the young Indian girl regarding her, and she strove to overcome the choking sensation that would from time to time rise to her throat as she fluctuated between hope and fear. The position of the Indian camp was so placed that it was quite hidden from the shore and Catharine could neither see the mouth of the ravine, nor the steep side of the mount that her brother and cousin were accustomed to ascend and descend in their visits to the lake-shore, nor had she any means of making a signal to them even if she had seen them on the beach. The long, anxious, watchful night passed, and soon after sunrise, while the morning mists still hung over the lake, the canoes of the Indians were launched, and long before noon they were in the mouth of the river. Catharine's heart sunk within her as the fast receding shores of the lake showed each minute fainter in the distance. At mid-day they halted at a fine bend in the river, and landed on a small open place where a creek flowing down through the woods afforded them cool water; here they found several tents put up and a larger party awaiting their return. The river was here a fine, broad, deep, and tranquil stream; trees of many kinds fringed the edge, beyond was the unbroken forest, whose depths had never been pierced by the step of man--so thick and luxuriant was the vegetation that even the Indian could hardly have penetrated through its dark, swampy glades: far as the eye could reach, that impenetrable, interminable wall of verdure stretched away into the far-off distance. All the remainder of that sad day Catharine sat on the grass under a shady tree, her eyes mournfully fixed on the slow-flowing waters, and wondering at her own hard fate in being thus torn from her home and its dear inmates. Bad as she had thought her separation from her father and mother and her brothers, when she first left her home to become a wanderer on the Rice Lake Plains, how much more dismal now was her situation, snatched from the dear companions who had upheld and cheered her on in all her sorrows! Now that she was alone with none to love or cherish or console her, she felt a desolation of spirit that almost made her forgetful of the trust that had hitherto always sustained her in time of trouble or sickness. She looked round, and her eye fell on the strange, unseemly forms of men and women who cared not for her, and to whom she was an object of indifference or aversion; she wept when she thought of the grief her absence would occasion to Hector and Louis; the thought of their distress increased her own. The soothing quiet of the scene, with the low, lulling sound of the little brook as its tiny wavelets fell tinkling over the mossy roots and stones that impeded its course to the river, joined with fatigue and long exposure to the sun and air, caused her at length to fall asleep. The last rosy light of the setting sun was dyeing the waters with a glowing tint when she awoke; a soft blue haze hung upon the trees; the kingfisher and dragon-fly, and a solitary loon, were the only busy things abroad on the river,--the first darting up and down from an upturned root, near the water's edge, feeding its younglings; the dragon-fly hawking with rapid whirring sound for insects; and the loon, just visible from above the surface of the still stream, sailing quietly on companionless like her who watched its movements. The bustle of the hunters returning with game and fish to the encampment roused many a sleepy brown papoose; the fires were renewed, the evening was now preparing, and Catharine, chilled by the falling dew, crept to the enlivening warmth. And here she was pleased at being recognized by one friendly face; it was the mild, benevolent countenance of the widow Snowstorm, who, with her three sons, came to bid her to share their camp fire and food. The kindly grasp of the hand and the beaming smile that were given by this good creature, albeit she was ugly and ill-featured, cheered the sad captive's heart. She had given her a cup of cold water and such food as her log-cabin afforded; in return the good Indian took her to her wigwam and fed, warmed, and cherished her with the loving-kindness of a Christian. During all her sojourn in the Indian camp, the widow Snowstorm was as a tender mother to her, drying her tears and showing her those little acts of attention that even the untaught Indians know are grateful to the sorrowful and destitute. Catharine often forgot her own griefs to repay this worthy creature's kindness, by attending to her little babe, and assisting her in her homely cookery or household work. She knew that a selfish indulgence in sorrow would do her no good, and after the lapse of some days she so well disciplined her own heart as to check her tears, at least in the presence of the Indian women, and to assume an air of comparative cheerfulness. Once she found Indian words enough to ask the Indian widow to convey her back to the lake, but she shook her head and bade her not think anything about it; and added that in autumn, when the ducks came to the rice-beds, they should all return, and then if she could obtain leave from the chief, she would restore her to her lodge on the Plains; but signified to her that patience was her only present remedy, and that submission to the will of the chief was her wisest plan. Comforted by this vague promise, Catharine strove to be reconciled to her strange lot and still stranger companions. She was surprised at the want of curiosity respecting her evinced by the Indians in the wigwam when she was brought thither; they appeared to take little notice that a stranger, and one so dissimilar to themselves, had been introduced into the camp. Catharine learned, by long acquaintance with this people, that an outward manifestation of surprise is considered a want of etiquette and good-breeding, or rather a proof of weakness and childishness. The women, like other females, are certainly less disposed to repress this feeling of inquisitiveness than the men; and one of their great sources of amusement, when Catharine was among them, was examining the difference of texture and colour of her skin and hair, and holding long consultations over them. The young girl and her mother, who had paddled the canoe the day she was carried away to the island, showed her much kindness in a quiet way. The young squaw was grand-daughter to the old chief, and seemed to be regarded with considerable respect by the rest of the women; she was a gay, lively creature, often laughing, and seemed to enjoy an inexhaustible fund of good humour. She extended her patronage to the young stranger by making her eat out of her own bark-dish and sit beside her on her own mat. She wove a chain for her of the sweet-scented grass with which the Indians delight in adorning themselves, likewise in perfuming their lodges with bunches or strewings upon the floor. She took great pains in teaching her how to acquire the proper attitude of sitting, after the fashion of the Eastern nations, which position the Indian women assume when at rest in their wigwams. The Indian name of this little damsel signified the "snow-bird." She was, like that lively, restless bird, always flitting from tent to tent, as garrulous and as cheerful too as that merry little herald of the spring. Once she seemed particularly attracted by Catharine's dress, which she examined with critical minuteness, evincing great surprise at the cut fringes of dressed doe-skin with which Indiana had ornamented the border of the short jacket she had manufactured for Catharine. These fringes she pointed out to the notice of the women, and even the old chief was called in to examine the dress; nor did the leggings and moccasins escape their observation. There was something mysterious about her garments. Catharine was at a loss to imagine what caused those deep guttural exclamations, somewhat between a grunt and a groan, that burst from the lips of the Indians, as they one by one examined her dress with deep attention. These people had recognized in these things the peculiar fashion and handiwork of the young Mohawk girl whom they had exposed to perish by hunger and thirst on Bare Hill; and much their interest was excited to learn by what means Catharine had become possessed of a dress wrought by the hand of one whom they had numbered with the dead. Strange and mysterious did it seem to them, and warily did they watch the unconscious object of their wonder. The knowledge she possessed of the language of her friend Indiana enabled Catharine to comprehend a great deal of what was said; yet she prudently refrained from speaking in the tongue of one to whose whole nation she knew these people to be hostile. But she sedulously endeavoured to learn their own peculiar dialect; and in this she succeeded in an incredibly short time, so that she was soon able to express her own wants, and converse a little with the females who were about her. She had noticed that among the tents there was one which stood apart from the rest, and was only visited by the old chief and his grand-daughter, or by the elder women. At first she imagined it was some sick person, or a secret tent set apart for the worship of the Great Spirit; but one day, when the chief of the people had gone up the river hunting, and the children were asleep, the curtain of skins was drawn back, and a female of singular and striking beauty appeared in the open space in front. She was habited in a fine tunic of white dressed doe-skin, richly embroidered with coloured beads and stained quills; a full petticoat of dark cloth bound with scarlet descended to her ankles; leggings fringed with deerskin, knotted with bands of coloured quills, with richly wrought moccasins on her feet. On her head she wore a coronet of scarlet and black feathers; her long shining tresses of raven hair descended to her waist, each thick tress confined with a braided band of quills, dyed scarlet and blue. She was tall and well-formed; her large, liquid, dark eyes wore an expression so proud and mournful that Catharine felt her own involuntarily fill with tears as she gazed upon this singular being. She would have approached nearer to her, but a spell seemed on her; she shrunk back timid and abashed beneath that wild, melancholy glance. It was she, the Beam of the Morning, the self-made widow of the young Mohawk, whose hand had wrought so fearful a vengeance on the treacherous destroyer of her brother. She stood there, at the tent-door, arrayed in her bridal robes, as on the day when she received her death-doomed victim. And when she recalled her fearful deed, shuddering with horror, Catharine drew back and shrouded herself within the tent, fearing again to fall under the eye of that terrible woman. She remembered how Indiana had told her that since that fatal marriage-feast she had been kept apart from the rest of the tribe,--she was regarded by her people as a sacred character, entitled the _Great Medicine,_ a female _brave,_ a being whom they regarded with mysterious reverence. She had made this great sacrifice for the good of her nation. Indiana said it was believed among her own folk that she had loved the young Mohawk passionately, as a tender woman loves the husband of her youth; yet she had not hesitated to sacrifice him with her own hand. Such was the deed of the Indian heroine--and such were the virtues of the unregenerated Greeks and Romans! CHAPTER XIII. "Now where the wave, with loud, unquiet song, Dashed o'er the rocky channel, froths along, Or where the silver waters soothed to rest, The tree's tall shadow sleeps upon its breast." --COLERIDGE. The Indian camp remained for nearly three weeks on this spot, and then early one morning the wigwams were all taken down, and the canoes, six in number, proceeded up the river. There was very little variety in the scenery to interest Catharine. The river still kept its slow-flowing course between low shores thickly clothed with trees, without an opening through which the eye might pierce to form an idea of the country beyond; not a clearing, not a sight or sound of civilized man was there to be seen or heard; the darting flight of the wild birds as they flitted across from one side to the other, the tapping of the woodpecker, or shrill cry of the blue jay was all that was heard, from sunrise to sunset, on that monotonous voyage. After many hours, a decided change was perceived in the current, which ran at a considerable increase of swiftness, so that it required the united energy of both men and women to keep the light vessels from drifting down the river again. They were in the rapids, and it was hard work to stem the tide and keep the upward course of the waters. At length the rapids were passed, and the weary Indian voyagers rested for a space on the bosom of a small but tranquil lake. The rising moon shed her silvery light upon the calm water, and heaven's stars shone down into its quiet depths, as the canoes with their dusky freight parted the glittering rays with their light paddles. As they proceeded onward the banks rose on either side, still fringed with pines, cedars, and oaks. At an angle of the lake the banks on either side ran out into two opposite peninsulas, forming a narrow passage or gorge, contracting the lake once more into the appearance of a broad river, much wider from shore to shore than any other part they had passed through since they had left the entrance at the Rice Lake. Catharine became interested in the change of scenery; her eye dwelt with delight on the forms of glorious spreading oaks and lofty pines, green cliff-like shores, and low wooded islands; while, as they proceeded, the sound of rapid-flowing waters met her ear, and soon the white and broken eddies, rushing along with impetuous course, were seen by the light of the moon; and while she was wondering if the canoes were to stem those rapids, at a signal from the old chief, the little fleet was pushed to shore on a low flat of emerald verdure, nearly opposite to the last island. Here, under the shelter of some beautiful spreading black oaks, the women prepared to set up their wigwams. They had brought the poles and birch-bark covering from the encampment below, and soon all was bustle and business, unloading the canoes and raising the tents. Even Catharine lent a willing hand to assist the females in bringing up the stores and sundry baskets containing fruits and other small wares. She then kindly attended to the Indian children--certain dark-skinned babes, who, bound upon their wooden cradles, were either set up against the trunks of the trees, or swung to some lowly depending branch, there to remain helpless and uncomplaining spectators of the scene. Catharine thought these Indian babes were almost as much to be pitied as herself, only that they were unconscious of their imprisoned state, having from birth been used to no better treatment, and moreover they were sure to be rewarded by the tender caresses of loving mothers when the season of refreshment and repose arrived but she, alas! was friendless and alone, bereft of father, mother, kindred, and friends. One Father, one Friend, poor Catharine, thou hadst, even he, the Father of the fatherless. That night, when the women and children were sleeping, Catharine stole out of the wigwam, and climbed the precipitous bank beneath the shelter of which the lodges had been erected. She found herself upon a grassy plain, studded with majestic oaks and pines, so beautifully grouped that they might have been planted by the hand of taste upon that velvet turf. It was a delightful contrast to those dense dark forests through which for so many many miles the waters of the Otonabee had flowed on monotonously; here it was all wild and free, dashing along like a restive steed rejoicing in its liberty, uncurbed and tameless. Yes, here it was beautiful! Catharine gazed with joy upon the rushing river, and felt her own heart expand as she marked its rapid course as it bounded murmuring and fretting over its rocky bed. "Happy, glorious waters! you are not subject to the power of any living creature; no canoe can ascend those surging waves. I would that I too, like thee, were free to pursue my onward way; how soon would I flee away and be at rest!" Such thoughts passed through the mind of the lonely captive girl, as she sat at the foot of a giant oak, and looked abroad over those moonlit waters, till oppressed by an overwhelming sense of the utter loneliness of the scene, the timid girl with faltering step hurried down once more to the wigwams, silently crept to the mat where her bed was spread, and soon forgot all her woes and wanderings in deep, tranquil sleep. Catharine wondered that the Indians in erecting their lodges always seemed to prefer the low, level, and often swampy grounds by the lakes and rivers in preference to the higher and more healthy elevations. So disregardful are they of this circumstance, that they do not hesitate to sleep where the ground is saturated with moisture. They will then lay a temporary flooring of cedar or any other bark beneath their feet, rather than remove the tent a few feet higher up, where a drier soil may always be found. This arises either from stupidity or indolence, perhaps from both, but it is no doubt the cause of much of the sickness that prevails among them. With his feet stretched to the fire, the Indian cares for nothing else when reposing in his wigwam, and it is useless to urge the improvement that might be made in his comfort; he listens with a face of apathy, and utters his everlasting guttural, which saves him the trouble of a more rational reply. "Snow-bird" informed Catharine that the lodges would not again be removed for some time, but that the men would hunt and fish, while the squaws pursued their domestic labours. Catharine perceived that the chief of the laborious part of the work fell to the share of the females, who were very much more industrious and active than their husbands; those, when not out hunting or fishing, were to be seen reposing in easy indolence under the shade of the trees, or before the tent fires, giving themselves little concern about anything that was going on. The squaws were gentle, humble, and submissive; they bore without a murmur pain, labour, hunger, and fatigue, and seemed to perform every task with patience and good-humour. They made the canoes, in which the men sometimes assisted them, pitched the tents, converted the skins of the animals which the men shot into clothes, cooked the victuals, manufactured baskets of every kind, wove mats, dyed the quills of the porcupine, sewed the moccasins, and, in short, performed a thousand tasks which it would be difficult to enumerate. Of the ordinary household work, such as is familiar to European females, they of course knew nothing; they had no linen to wash or iron, no floors to clean, no milking of cows, nor churning of butter. Their carpets were fresh cedar boughs spread on the ground, and only renewed when they became offensively dirty from the accumulation of fish-bones and other offal, which are carelessly flung down during meals. Of furniture they had none; their seat the ground, their table the same, their beds mats or skins of animals,--such were the domestic arrangements of the Indian camp. [Footnote: Much improvement has taken place of late years in the domestic economy of the Indians, and some of their dwellings are clean and neat even for Europeans.] In the tent to which Catharine belonged, which was that of the widow and her sons, a greater degree of order and cleanliness prevailed than in any other; for Catharine's natural love of neatness and comfort induced her to strew the floor with fresh cedar or hemlock every day or two, and to sweep round the front of the lodge, removing all unseemly objects from its vicinity. She never failed to wash herself in the river, and arrange her hair with the comb Louis had made for her; and she took great care of the little child, which she kept clean and well fed. She loved this little creature, for it was soft and gentle, meek and playful as a little squirrel; and the Indian mothers all looked with kinder eyes upon the white maiden, for the loving manner in which she tended their children. The heart of woman is seldom cold to those who cherish their offspring, and Catharine began to experience the truth that the exercise of human charities is equally beneficial to those who give and those who receive; these things fall upon the heart as dew upon a thirsty soil, giving and creating a blessing. But we will leave Catharine for a short season, among the lodges of the Indians, and return to Hector and Louis. CHAPTER XIV. "Cold and forsaken, destitute of friends, And all good comforts else, unless some tree Whose speechless chanty doth better ours, With which the bitter east winds made their sport, And sang through hourly, hath invited thee To shelter half a day. Shall she be thus, And I draw in soft slumbers?" BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. It was near sunset before Hector and his companions returned on the evening of the eventful day that had found Catharine a prisoner on Long Island. They had met with good success in hunting, and brought home a fine half-grown fawn, fat and in good order. They were surprised at finding the fire nearly extinguished, and no Catharine awaiting their return. There, it is true, was the food that she had prepared for them, but she was not to be seen. Supposing that she had been tired of waiting for them, and had gone out to gather strawberries, they did not at first feel anxious, but ate of the rice and honey, for they were hungry with long fasting. Then taking some Indian meal cake in their hands, they went out to call her in; but no trace of her was visible. Fearing she had set off by herself to seek them, and had missed her way home again, they hurried back to the happy valley,--she was not there; to Pine-tree Point,--no trace of her there; to the edge of the mount that overlooked the lake,--she was not to be seen: night found them unsuccessful in their search. Sometimes they fancied that she had seated herself beneath some tree and fallen asleep; but no one imagined the true cause, nothing having been seen of the Indians since they had proceeded up the river. Again they retraced their steps back to the house; but they found her not there. They continued their unavailing search till the moon setting left them in darkness, and they lay down to rest, but not to sleep. The first streak of dawn saw them again hurrying to and fro, calling in vain upon the name of the loved and lost companion of their wanderings. Indiana, whose vigilance was untiring--for she yielded not easily to grief and despair--now returned with the intelligence that she had discovered the Indian trail, through the big ravine to the lake-shore; she had found the remains of a wreath of oak leaves which had been worn by Catharine in her hair; and she had seen the mark of feet, Indian feet, on the soft clay at the edge of the lake, and the furrowing of the shingles by the pushing off of a canoe. Poor Louis gave way to transports of grief and despair; he knew the wreath, it was such as Catharine often made for herself, and Mathilde, and petite Louise, and Marie; his mother had taught her to make them; they were linked together by the stalks, and formed a sort of leaf chain. Louis placed the torn relic in his breast, and sadly turned away to hide his grief from Hector and the Indian girl. Indiana now proposed searching the island for further traces, but advised wariness in so doing. They saw, however, neither smoke nor canoes. The Indians had departed while they were searching the ravines and flats round Mount Ararat, and the lake told no tales, The following day they ventured to land on Long Island, and on going to the north side saw evident traces of a temporary encampment having been made, but no trace of any violence having been committed. It was Indiana's opinion that, though a prisoner, Catharine was unhurt, as the Indians rarely killed women and children, unless roused to do so by some signal act on the part of their enemies, when an exterminating spirit of revenge induced them to kill and spare not; but where no offence had been offered, they were not likely to take the life of a helpless, unoffending female. The Indian is not cruel for the wanton love of blood, but to gratify revenge for some injury done to himself or to his tribe. But it was difficult to still the terrible apprehensions that haunted the minds of Louis and Hector. They spent much time in searching the northern shores and the distant islands, in the vain hope of finding her, as they still thought the camp might have been moved to the opposite side of the lake. Inconsolable for the loss of their beloved companion, Hector and Louis no longer took interest in what was going on; they hardly troubled themselves to weed the Indian corn, in which they had taken such great delight; all now seemed to them flat, stale, and unprofitable; they wandered listlessly to and fro, silent and sad; the sunshine had departed from their little dwelling; they ate little, and talked less, each seeming absorbed in his own painful reveries. In vain the gentle Indian girl strove to revive their drooping spirits; they seemed insensible to her attentions, and often left her for hours alone. They returned one evening about the usual hour of sunset, and missed their meek, uncomplaining guest from the place she was wont to occupy. They called, but there was none to reply,--she too was gone. They hurried to the shore just time enough to see the canoe diminishing to a mere speck upon the waters, in the direction of the mouth of the river; they called to her, in accents of despair, to return, but the wind wafted back no sound to their ears and soon the bark was lost to sight, and they sat them down disconsolately on the shore. "What is she doing?" said Hector. "It is cruel to abandon us thus." "She has gone up the river, in the hope of bringing us some tidings of Catharine," said Louis. "How came you to think that such is her intention?" "I heard her say the other day that she would go and bring her back, or die." "What! do you think she would risk the vengeance of the old chief whose life she attempted to take?" "She is a brave girl; she does not fear pain or death to serve those she loves." "How can she, unprotected and alone, dare such perils? Why did she not tell us? We would have shared her danger." "She feared for our lives more than for her own; that poor Indian girl has a noble heart. I care not now what befalls us; we have lost all that made life dear to us," said Louis gloomily, sinking his head between his knees. "Hush, Louis; you are older than I, and ought to bear these trials with more courage. It was our own fault Indiana's leaving us; we left her so much alone to pine after her lost companion, she seemed to think that we did not care for her. Poor Indiana, she must have felt lonely and sad." "I tell you what we will do, Hec,--make a log canoe. I found an old battered one lying on the shore, not far from Pine-tree Point. We have an axe and a tomahawk,--what should hinder us from making one like it?" "True! we will set about it to-morrow." "I wish it were morning, that we might set to work to cut down a good pine for the purpose." "As soon as it is done, we will go up the river; anything is better than this dreadful suspense and inaction." The early dawn saw the two cousins busily engaged chopping at a tree of suitable dimensions. They worked hard all that day, and the next, and the next, before the canoe was hollowed out; but, owing to their inexperience and the bluntness of their tools, their first attempt proved abortive--it was too heavy at one end, and did not balance well in the water. Louis, who had been quite sure of success, was disheartened; not so Hector. "Do not let us give it up: my maxim is perseverance; let us try again, and again--ay, and a fourth and a fifth time. I say, never give it up; that is the way to succeed at last." "You have ten times my patience, Hec." "Yes; but you are more ingenious than I, and are excellent at starting an idea." "We are a good pair then for partnership." "We will begin anew and this time I hope we shall profit by our past blunders." "Who would imagine that it is now more than a month since we lost Catharine?" "I know it--long, long, weary month," replied Louis; and he struck his axe sharply into the bark of the pine as he spoke, and remained silent for some minutes. The boys, wearied by chopping down the tree, rested from their work, and sat down on the side of the condemned canoe to resume their conversation. Suddenly Louis grasped Hector's arm, and pointed to a bark canoe that appeared making for the westernmost point of the island. Hector started to his feet, exclaiming, "It is Indiana returned!" "Nonsense! Indiana!--it is no such thing. Look you, it is a stout man in a blanket coat." "The Indians?" asked Hector, inquiringly. "I do not think he looks like an Indian; but let us watch. What is he doing?" "Fishing. See now, he has just caught a fine bass--another--he has great luck--now he is pushing the canoe ashore." "That man does not move like an Indian--hark! he is whistling. I ought to know that tune. It sounds like the old _chanson_ my father used to sing;" and Louis, raising his voice, began to sing the words of an old French Canadian song, which we will give in the English, as we heard it sung by an old lumberer,-- "Down by those banks where the pleasant waters flow, Through the wild woods we'll wander, and we'll chase the buffalo. And we'll chase the buffalo." "Hush, Louis! you will bring the man over to us," said Hector. "The very thing I am trying to do, mon ami. This is our country, and that may be his; but we are lords here, and two to one, so I think he will not be likely to treat us ill. I am a man now, and so are you, and he is but one; so he must mind how he affronts us," replied Louis, laughing. "Hark, if he is not singing now! ay, and the very chorus of the old song"--and Louis raised his voice to its highest pitch as he repeated,-- "'Through the wild woods we'll wander, And we'll chase the buffalo --And we'll chase the buffalo.' "What a pity I have forgotten the rest of that dear old song. I used to listen with open ears to it when I was a boy. I never thought to hear it again, and to hear it here of all places in the world!" "Come, let us go on with our work," said Hector, with something like impatience in his voice, and the strokes of his axe fell once more in regular succession on the log; but Louis's eye was still on the mysterious fisher, whom he could discern lounging on the grass and smoking his pipe. "I do not think he sees or hears us," said Louis to himself, "but I think I'll manage to bring him over soon;" and he set himself busily to work to scrape up the loose chips and shavings, and soon began to strike fire with his knife and flint. "What are you about, Louis?" asked Hector. "Lighting a fire." "It is warm enough without a fire, I am sure." "I know that; but I want to attract the notice of yonder tiresome fisherman." "And perhaps bring a swarm of savages down upon us, who may be lurking in the bushes of the island." "Pooh, pooh! Hec; there are no savages. I am weary of this place--anything is better than this horrible solitude." And Louis fanned the flame into a rapid blaze, and heaped up the light dry branches till it soared up among the bushes. Louis watched the effect of his fire, and rubbed his hands gleefully as the bark canoe was pushed off from the island, and a few vigorous strokes of the paddle sent it dancing over the surface of the calm lake. Louis waved his cap above his head with a cheer of welcome as the vessel lightly glided into the little cove, near the spot where the boys were chopping, and a stout-framed, weather-beaten man, in a blanket coat, also faded and weather-beaten, with a red worsted sash and worn moccasins, sprang upon one of the timbers of Louis's old raft, and gazed with a keen eye upon the lads. Each party silently regarded the other. A few rapid interrogations from the stranger, uttered in the broad _patois_ of the Lower Province, were answered in a mixture of broken French and English by Louis. A change like lightning passed over the face of the old man as he cried out--"Louis Perron, son of my ancient compagnon!" "Oui! oui!"--with eyes sparkling through tears of joy, Louis threw himself into the broad breast of Jacob Morelle, his father's friend and old lumbering comrade. "Hector, son of la belle Catharine Perron!" and Hector, in his turn, received the affectionate embrace of the warm-hearted old man. "Who would have thought of meeting with the children of my old comrade here at the shore of the Rice Lake? Oh! what a joyful meeting!" Jacob had a hundred questions to ask--Where were their parents? did they live on the Plains now? how long was it since they had left the Cold Springs? were there any more little ones? and so forth. The boys looked sorrowfully at each other. At last the old man stopped for want of breath, and remarked their sad looks. Hector told the old lumberer how long they had been separated from their families, and by what sad accident they had been deprived of the society of their beloved sister. When they brought their narrative down to the disappearance of Catharine, the whole soul of the old trapper seemed moved; he started from the log on which they were sitting, and with one of his national asseverations, declared "that he, her father's old friend, would go up the river and bring her back in safety, or leave his gray scalp behind him among the wigwams." "It is too late, Jacob, to think of starting to-day," said Hector. "Come home with us, and eat some food, and rest a bit." "No need of that, my son I have a lot of fish here in the canoe; and there is an old shanty on the island yonder, if it be still standing--the Trapper's Fort I used to call it some years ago. We will go off to the island and look for it." "No need for that," replied Louis, "though I can tell you the old place is still in good repair, for we used it this very spring as a boiling-house for our maple sap. We have a better place of our own nearer at hand--just two or three hundred yards over the brow of yonder hill. So come with us, and you shall have a good supper, and bed to lie upon." "And you have all these, boys!" said Jacob opening his merry black eyes, as they came in sight of the little log-house and the field of green corn. The old man praised the boys for their industry and energy. "Ha! here is old Wolfe too," as the dog roused himself from the hearth, and gave one of his low grumbling growls. He had grown dull and dreamy, and instead of going out as usual with the young hunters, he would lie for hours dozing before the dying embers of the fire. He pined for the loving hand that used to pat his sides, caress his shaggy neck, and pillow his great head upon her lap, or suffer him to put his huge paws on her shoulders, while he licked her hands and face; but she was gone, and the Indian girl was gone, and the light of the shanty had gone with them. Old Wolfe seemed dying of sorrow. That evening, as Jacob sat on the three-legged stool smoking his short Indian pipe, he again would have the whole story of their wanderings over, and the history of all their doings and contrivances. "And how far do you think you are from the Cold Springs?" "At least twenty miles, perhaps fifty; for it is a long, long time now since we left home--three summers ago." "Well, boys, you must not reckon distance by the time you have been absent," said the old man. "Now, I know the distance through the woods, for I have passed through them on the Indian trail, and by my reckoning, as the bee flies, it cannot be more than seven or eight miles--no, nor that either." The boys opened their eyes. "Jacob, is this possible? So near, and yet to us the distance has been as great as though it were a hundred miles or more." "I tell you, boys, that is the provoking part of it. I remember, when I was out on the St. John lumbering, missing my comrades, and I was well-nigh starving, when I chanced to come back to the spot where we parted; and I verily believe I had not been two miles distant the whole eight days that I was moving round and round, and backward and forward, just in a circle, because, d'ye see, I followed the sun, and that led me astray the whole time." "Was that when you well-nigh roasted the bear?" asked Louis, with a sly glance at Hector. "Well, no--that was another time; your father was out with me then." And old Jacob, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, settled himself to recount the adventure of the bear. Hector, who had heard Louis's edition of the roast bear, was almost impatient at being forced to listen to old Jacob's long-winded history, which included about a dozen other stories, all tagged on to this, like links of a lengthened chain; and he was not sorry when the old lumberer, taking his red night-cap out of his pocket, at last stretched himself out on a buffalo skin he had brought up from the canoe, and soon was soundly sleeping. The morning was yet gray when the old man shook himself from his slumber; and, after having roused up a good fire, which, though the latter end of July, at that dewy hour was not unwelcome, he lighted his pipe, and began broiling a fish for his breakfast; and was thus engaged when Hector and Louis wakened. "I have been turning over in my mind about your sister," said he, "and have come to the resolution of going up the river alone without any one to accompany me. I know the Indians: they are a suspicious people; they deal much in stratagems; and they are apt to expect treachery in others. Perhaps they have had some reason; for the white men have not always kept good faith with them, which I take to be the greater shame, as they have God's laws to guide and teach them to be true and just in their dealing, which the poor benighted heathen have not, the more's the pity. Now, d'ye see, if the Indians see two stout lads with me, they will say to themselves there may be more left behind, skulking in ambush. So, boys, I go to the camp alone; and, God willing, I will bring back your sister, or die in the attempt. I shall not go empty-handed; see, I have here scarlet cloth, beads, and powder and shot. I carry no fire-water: it is a sin and a shame to tempt these poor wretches to their own destruction; it makes fiends of them at once." It was to no purpose that Hector and Louis passionately besought old Jacob to let them share the dangers of the expedition; the old man was firm, and would not be moved from his purpose. "Look you, boys," he said, "if I do not return by the beginning of the rice-harvest, you may suppose that evil has befallen me and the girl. Then I would advise you to take care for your own safety; for if they do not respect my gray head, neither will they spare your young ones. In such case make yourselves a good canoe--a dug-out [Footnote: Log-canoe] will do--and go down the lake till you are stopped by the rapids; [Footnote: Heeley's Falls, on the Trent] make a portage there; but as your craft is too weighty te carry far, e'en leave her and chop out another, and go down to the falls; [Footnote: Crook's Rapids.] then, if you do not like to be at any further trouble, you may make out your journey to the bay [Footnote: Bay Quinte] on foot, coasting along the river; there you will fall in with settlers who know old Jacob Morelle, ay, and your two fathers, and they will put you in the way of returning home. If I were to try ever so to put you on the old Indian trail in the woods, though I know it myself right well, you might be lost, and maybe never return home again. I leave my traps and my rifle with you; I shall not need them. If I come back I may claim the things; if not, they are yours. So now I have said my say, had my _talk_, as the Indians say. Farewell. But first let us pray to Him who alone can bring this matter to a safe issue." And the old man devoutly kneeled down, and prayed for a blessing on his voyage and on those he was leaving; and then hastened down to the beach, and the boys, with full hearts, watched the canoe till it was lost to their sight on the wide waters of the lake. CHAPTER XV. "Where wild in woods the lordly savage ran." --DRYDEN The setting sun was casting long shadows of oak and weeping elm athwart the waters of the river; the light dip of the paddle had ceased on the water, the baying of hounds and life-like stirring sounds from the lodges came softened to the listening ear. The hunters had come in with the spoils of a successful chase; the wigwam tires are flickering and crackling, sending up their light columns of thin blue smoke among the trees; and now a goodly portion of venison is roasting on the forked sticks before the fires. Each lodge has its own cooking utensils. That jar embedded in the hot embers contains sassafras tea, an aromatic beverage in which the squaws delight when they are so fortunate as to procure a supply. This has been brought from the Credit, far up in the west, by a family who have come down on a special mission from some great chief to his brethren on the Otonabee, and the squaws have cooked some in honour of the guests. That pot that sends up such a savoury steam is venison-pottage, or soup, or stew, or any name you choose to give the Indian mess that is concocted of venison, wild rice, and herbs. Those tired hounds that lie stretched before the fire have been out, and now they enjoy the privilege of the fire, some praise from the hunters, and receive withal an occasional reproof from the squaws, if they approach their wishful noses too close to the tempting viands. The elder boys are shooting at a mark on yonder birch-tree, the girls are playing or rolling on the grass, the "Snow-Bird" is seated on the floor of the wigwam braiding a necklace of sweet grass, which she confines in links by means of little bands of coloured quills, Catharine is working moccasins beside her. A dark shadow falls across her work from the open tent door; an exclamation of surprise and displeasure from one of the women makes Catharine raise her eyes to the doorway. There, silent, pale, and motionless, the mere shadow of her former self, stands Indiana; a gleam of joy lights for an instant her large lustrous eyes. Amazement and delight at the sight of her beloved friend for a moment deprive Catharine of the power of speech, then terror for the safety of her friend takes the place of her joy at seeing her. She rises regardless of the angry tones of the Indian woman's voice, and throws her arms about Indiana, as if to shield her from threatened danger, and sobs her welcome in her arms. "Indiana, dear sister! how came you hither, and for what purpose?" "To free you, and then die," was the soft, low, tremulous answer. "Follow me." Catharine, wondering at the calm and fearless manner with which the young Mohawk waved back the dusky matron who approached as if with the design of laying hands upon her unwelcome guest, followed with beating heart till they stood in the entrance of the lodge of the Bald Eagle. It was filled with the hunters, who were stretched on skins on the floor, reposing in quiet after the excitement of the chase. The young Mohawk bent her head down and crossed her arms over her breast, an attitude of submission, as she stood in the opening of the lodge; but she spoke no word till the old chief, waving back the men who, starting to their feet, were gathering round him as if to shield him from danger, and sternly regarding her, demanded from whence she came and for what purpose. "To submit myself to the will of my Ojebwa father," was the meek reply. "May the daughter of the Bald Eagle's enemy speak to her great father?" "Say on," was the brief reply; "the Bald Eagle's ears are open." "The Bald Eagle is a mighty chief, the conqueror of his enemies, and the father of his people," replied the Mohawk girl, and again was silent. "The Mohawk squaw speaks well; let her say on." "The heart of the Mohawk is an open flower; it can be looked upon by the eye of the Great Spirit. She speaks the words of truth. The Ojebwa chief slew his enemies: they had done his good heart wrong; he punished them for the wrong they wrought; he left none living in the lodges of his enemies save one young squaw, the daughter of a brave, the grand-daughter of the Black Snake. The Bald Eagle loves even an enemy that is not afraid to raise the war-whoop or fling the tomahawk in battle. The young girl's mother was a brave." She paused, while her proud eyes were fixed on the face of her aged auditor. He nodded assent, and she resumed, while a flush of emotion kindled her pale cheek and reddened her lips:-- "The Bald Eagle brought the lonely one to his lodge; he buried the hatchet and the scalping-knife, he bade his squaws comfort her: but her heart was lonely, she pined for the homes of her fathers. She said, I will revenge my father, my mother, and my brothers and sisters; and her heart burned within her. But her hand was not strong to shed blood; the Great Spirit was about my Ojebwa father. She failed, and would have fled, for an arrow was in her flesh. The people of the Bald Eagle took her; they brought her down the great river to the council hill; they bound her with thongs, and left her to die. She prayed, and the Great Spirit heard her prayer and sent her help. The white man came; his heart was soft: he unbound her, he gave water to cool her hot lips, he led her to his lodge. The white squaw (and she pointed to Catharine) was there; she bound up her wounds, she laid her on her own bed, she gave her meat and drink, and tended her with love. She taught her to pray to the Good Spirit, and told her to return good for evil, to be true and just, kind and merciful. The hard heart of the young girl became soft as clay when moulded for the pots, and she loved her white sister and brothers, and was happy. The Bald Eagle's people came when my white brothers were at peace; they found a trembling fawn within the lodge; they led her away; they left tears and loneliness where joy and peace had been. The Mohawk squaw could not see the hearth of her white brothers desolate. She took the canoe; she came to the lodge of the great father of his tribe, and she says to him, Give back the white squaw to her home on the Rice Lake, and take in her stead the rebellious daughter of the Ojebwa's enemy, to die or be his servant; she fears not now the knife or the tomahawk, the arrow or the spear: her life is in the hand of the great chief." She sank on her knees as she spoke these last words, and bowing down her head on her breast remained motionless as a statue. There was silence for some minutes, and then the old man rose and said:-- "Daughter of a brave woman, thou hast spoken long, and thou hast spoken well; the ears of the Bald Eagle have been opened. The white squaw shall be restored to her brother's lodge; but thou remainest. I have spoken." Catharine, in tears, cast her arms round her disinterested friend and remained weeping: how could she accept this great sacrifice? She, in her turn, pleaded for the life and liberty of the Mohawk, but the chief turned a cold ear to her passionate and incoherent pleading. He was weary--he was impatient of further excitement--he coldly motioned to them to withdraw; and the friends in sadness retired to talk over all that had taken place since that sad day when Catharine was taken from her home. While her heart was joyful at the prospect of her own release, it was clouded with fears for the uncertain fate of her beloved friend. "They will condemn me to a cruel death," said Indiana; "but I can suffer and die for my white sister." That night the Indian girl slept sweetly and tranquilly beside Catharine. But Catharine could not sleep; she communed with her own heart in the still watches of the night; it seemed as if a new life had been infused within her. She no longer thought and felt as a child; the energies of her mind had been awakened, ripened into maturity, as it were, and suddenly expanded. When all the inmates of the lodges were profoundly sleeping, Catharine arose: a sudden thought had entered into her mind, and she hesitated not to put her design into execution. There was no moon, but a bright arch of light spanned the forest to the north; it was mild and soft as moonlight, but less bright, and cast no shadow across her path; it showed her the sacred tent of the widow of the murdered Mohawk. With noiseless step she lifted aside the curtain of skins that guarded it, and stood at the entrance. Light as was her step, it awakened the sleeper; she raised herself on her arm, and looked up with a dreamy and abstracted air as Catharine, stretching forth her hand, in tones low and tremulous, thus addressed her in the Ojebwa tongue:-- "The Great Spirit sends me to thee, O woman of much sorrow; he asks of thee a great deed of mercy and goodness. Thou hast shed blood, and he is angry. He bids thee to save the life of an enemy--the blood of thy murdered husband flows in her veins. See that thou disobey not the words that he commands." She dropped the curtain and retired as she had come, with noiseless step, and lay down again in the tent beside Indiana. Her heart beat as though it would burst its way through her bosom. What had she done?--what dared? She had entered the presence of that terrible woman alone, at the dead hour of night! she had spoken bold and presumptuous words to that strange being whom even her own people hardly dared to approach uncalled for! Sick with terror at the consequences of her temerity, Catharine cast her trembling arms about the sleeping Indian girl, and, hiding her head in her bosom, wept and prayed till sleep came over her wearied spirit. It was late when she awoke. She was alone; the lodge was empty. A vague fear seized her: she hastily arose to seek her friend. It was evident that some great event was in preparation. The Indian men had put on the war-paint, and strange and ferocious eyes were glancing from beneath their shaggy locks. A stake was driven in the centre of the cleared space in front of the chief's lodge: there, bound, she beheld her devoted friend; pale as ashes, but with a calm, unshaken countenance, she stood. There was no sign of woman's fear in her fixed dark eye, which quailed not before the sight of the death-dooming men who stood round her, armed with their terrible weapons of destruction. Her thoughts seemed far away: perhaps they were with her dead kindred, wandering in that happy land to which the Indian hopes to go after life; or, inspired with the new hope which had been opened to her, she was looking to Him who has promised a crown of life to such as believe in his name. She saw not the look of agony with which Catharine regarded her; and the poor girl, full of grief, sunk down at the foot of a neighbouring tree, and, burying her face between her knees, wept and prayed-oh, how fervently! A hope crept to her heart--even while the doom of Indiana seemed darkest--that some good might yet accrue from her visit to the wigwam of the Great Medicine squaw. She knew that the Indians have great belief in omens, and warnings, and spirits both good and evil; she knew that her mysterious appearance at the tent of the Mohawk's widow would be construed by her into spiritual agency; and her heart was strengthened by this hope. Yet just now there seems little reason to encourage hope: the war-whoop is given, the war-dance is begun--first slow, and grave, and measured; now louder, and quicker, and more wild become both sound and movement. But why is it hushed again? See, a strange canoe appears on the river; anon an old weather-beaten man, with firm step, appears on the greensward, and approaches the area of the lodge. The Bald Eagle greets him with friendly courtesy, the dance ceases and the death-song is hushed; a treaty is begun. It is for the deliverance of the captives. The chief points to Catharine--she is free; his white brother may take her--she is his. But the Indian law of justice must take its course: the condemned, who raised her hand against an Ojebwa chief, must die. In vain are the tempting stores of scarlet cloth and beads for the women, with powder and shot, laid before the chief: the arrows of six warriors are fitted to the string, and again the dance and song commence, as if, like the roll of the drum and, clangour of the trumpet, they were necessary to the excitement of strong and powerful feelings, and the suppression of all tenderer emotions. And now a wild and solemn voice is heard, unearthly in its tones, rising above the yells of those savage men. At the sound every cheek becomes pale: it strikes upon the ear as some funeral wail. Is it the death-song of the captive girl bound to that fearful stake? No; for she stands unmoved, with eyes raised heavenward, and lips apart,-- "In still but brave despair." Shrouded in a mantle of dark cloth, her long black hair unbound and streaming over her shoulders, appears the Mohawk widow, the daughter of the Ojebwa chief. The gathering throng fall back as she approaches, awed by her sudden appearance among them. She stretches out a hand on which dark stains are visible--it is the blood of her husband, sacrificed by her on that day of fearful deeds: it has never been effaced. In the name of the Great Spirit she claims the captive girl--the last of that devoted tribe--to be delivered over to her will. Her right to this remnant of her murdered husband's family is acknowledged. A knife is placed in her hand, while a deafening yell of triumph bursts from the excited squaws, as this their great high priestess, as they deem her, advances to the criminal. But it is not to shed the heart's blood of the Mohawk girl, but to sever the thong that bind her to the deadly stake, for which that glittering blade is drawn, and to bid her depart in peace whithersoever she would go. Then, turning to the Bald Eagle, she thus addresses him: "At the dead of night, when the path of light spanned the sky, a vision stood before mine eyes. It came from the Great and Good Spirit, and bade me to set free the last of a murdered race, whose sun had gone down in blood shed by my hand and by the hands of my people. The vision told me that if I did this my path should henceforth be peace, and that I should go to the better land and be at rest if I did this good deed." She then laid her hands on the head of the young Mohawk, blessed her, and, enveloping herself in the dark mantle, slowly retired back to her solitary tent once more. CHAPTER XVI. "Hame, hame, hame, Hame I soon shall be-- Hame, hame, hame, In mine own countrie" --_Scotch Ballad_ Old Jacob and Catharine, who had been mute spectators of the scene so full of interest to them, now presented themselves before the Ojebwa chief and besought leave to depart. The presents were again laid before him, and this time were graciously accepted. Catharine, in distributing the beads and cloth, took care that the best portion should fall to the grand-daughter of the chief, the pretty, good-humoured "Snow-bird." The old man was not insensible to the noble sacrifice which had been made by the devoted Indiana, and he signified his forgiveness of her fault by graciously offering to adopt her as his child, and to give her in marriage to one of his grandsons, an elder brother of the "Snow-bird;" but the young girl modestly but firmly refused this mark of favour, for her heart yearned for those whose kindness had saved her from death, and who had taught her to look beyond the things of this world to a brighter and a better state of being. She said "she would go with her white sister, and pray to God to bless her enemies, as the Great Spirit had taught her to do." It seems a lingering principle of good in human nature that the exercise of mercy and virtue opens the heart to the enjoyment of social happiness. The Indians, no longer worked up by excitement to deeds of violence, seemed disposed to bury the hatchet of hatred, and the lodge was now filled with mirth and the voice of gladness, feasting, and dancing. A covenant of peace and good-will was entered upon by old Jacob and the chief, who bade Catharine tell her brothers that from henceforth they should be free to hunt the deer, fish, or shoot the wild-fowl of the lake whenever they desired to do so, "he, the Bald Eagle, had said so." On the morrow, with the first dawn of day, the old trapper was astir; the canoe was ready, with fresh cedar boughs strewed at the bottom. A supply of parched rice and dried fish had been presented by the Indian chief for the voyage, that his white brother and the young girls might not suffer from want. At sunrise the old man led his young charges to the lodge of the Bald Eagle, who took a kindly farewell of them. The "Snow-bird" was sorrowful, and her bright, laughing eyes were dimmed with tears at parting with Catharine. She was a gentle, loving thing, as soft and playful as the tame fawn that nestled its velvet head against her arm. She did not let Catharine depart without many tokens of her regard, the work of her own hands,--bracelets of porcupine quills cut in fine pieces, and strung in fanciful patterns, moccasins richly wrought, and tiny bark dishes and boxes, such as might have graced a lady's work-table, so rare was their workmanship. Just as they were about to step into the canoe, the "Snow-bird" reappeared, bearing a richly worked bark box, "From the Great Medicine," she said in a low voice, "to the daughter of the Mohawk brave." The box contained a fine tunic, soft as a lady's glove, embroidered and fringed, and a fillet of scarlet and blue feathers, with the wings and breast of the war-bird as shoulder ornaments. It was a token of reconciliation and good-will worthy of a generous heart. The young girl pressed the gifts to her bosom and to her lips reverentially, and the hand that brought them to her heart, as she said in her native tongue, "Tell the Great Medicine I kiss her in my heart, and pray that she may have peace and joy till she departs for the spirit land." With joyful heart they bade adieu to the Indian lodges, and rejoiced in being once more afloat on the bosom of the great river. To Catharine the events of the past hours seemed like a strange bewildering dream. She longed for the quiet repose of home; and how gladly did she listen to that kind old man's plans for restoring Hector, Louis, and herself to the arms of their beloved parents. How often did she say to herself, "Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest!"--in the shelter of that dear mother's arms whom she now pined for with a painful yearning of the heart that might well be called home-sickness. But in spite of anxious wishes, the little party were compelled to halt for the night some few miles above the lake. There is on the eastern bank of the Otonabee a pretty, rounded knoll, clothed with wild cherries, hawthorns, and pine-trees, just where a creek half hidden by alder and cranberry bushes works its way below the shoulder of the little eminence. This creek grows broader and becomes a little stream, through which the hunters sometimes paddle their canoes, as a short cut to the lower part of the lake near Crook's Rapids. To this creek old Jacob steered his little craft, and bidding the girls collect a few dry sticks and branches for an evening fire on the sheltered side of the little bank, he soon lighted the pile into a cheerful blaze by the aid of birch bark, the hunter's tinder--a sort of fungus that is found in the rotten oak and maple trees--and a knife and flint. He then lifted the canoe, and having raised it on its side, by means of two small stakes which he cut from a bush hard by, he spread down his buffalo robe on the dry grass. "There is a tent fit for a queen to sleep under, _mes cheres filles_," he said, eying his arrangements for their night shelter with great satisfaction. He baited his line, and in a few minutes had a dish of splendid bass ready for the fire. Catharine selected a large flat block of limestone on which the fish when broiled was laid; but old Jacob opened his wide mouth and laughed when she proceeded to lay her bush table with large basswood leaves for platters. Such nicety he professed was unusual on a hunter's table. He was too old a forester to care how his food was dished, so that he had wherewithal to satisfy his hunger. Many were the merry tales he told and the songs he sung, to while away the time, till the daylight faded from the sky, and the deep blue heavens were studded with bright stars, which were mirrored in countless hosts deep deep down in that calm waveless river, while thousands of fire-flies lighted up the dark recesses of the forest's gloom. High in the upper air the hollow booming of the night-hawk was heard at intervals; and the wild cry of the night-owl from a dead branch, shouting to its fellow, woke the silence of that lonely river scene. The old trapper, stretched before the crackling fire, smoked his pipe or hummed some French _voyageur's_ song. Beneath the shelter of the canoe soundly slept the two girls; the dark cheek of the Indian girl pillowed on the arm of her fairer companion, her thick tresses of raven hair mingling with the silken ringlets of the white maiden. They were a lovely pair--one fair as morning, the other dark as night. How gaily did they spring from their low bed, wakened by the early song of the forest birds! The light curling mist hung in fleecy volumes on the river, like a flock of sheep at rest; the tinkling sound of the heavy dew-drops fell in mimic showers upon the stream. See that red squirrel, how lightly he runs along that fallen trunk! how furtively he glances with his sharp bright eye at the intruders on his silvan haunts! Hark! there is a rustling among the leaves; what strange creature works its way to the shore? A mud turtle: it turns, and now is trotting along the little sandy ridge to some sunny spot, where, half buried, it may lie unseen near the edge of the river. See that musk-rat, how boldly he plunges into the stream, and, with his oar-like tail, stems the current till he gains in safety the sedges on the other side. What gurgling sound is that?--it attracts the practised ear of the old hunter. What is that object which floats so steadily down the middle of the stream, and leaves so bright a line in its wake?--it is a noble stag. Look at the broad chest with which he breasts the water so gallantly; see how proudly he carries his antlered head! He has no fear in those lonely solitudes--he has never heard the crack of the hunter's rifle--he heeds not the sharp twang of that bow-string, till the arrow rankles in his neck, and the crimson flood dyes the water around him. He turns, but it is only to present a surer mark for the arrow from the old hunter's bow. And now the noble beast turns to bay, and the canoe is rapidly launched by the hand of the Indian girl. Her eye flashes with the excitement; her whole soul is in the chase; she stands up in the canoe, and steers it full upon the wounded buck, while a shower of blows is dealt upon his head and neck with the paddle. Catharine buries her face in her hands: she cannot bear to look upon the sufferings of the noble animal. She will never make a huntress; her heart is cast in too soft a mould. See they have towed the deer ashore, and Jacob is in all his glory. The little squaw is an Indian at heart--see with what expertness she helps the old man. And now the great business is completed, and the venison is stowed away at the bottom of the canoe. They wash their hands in the river, and come at Catharine's summons to their breakfast. The sun is now rising high above the pine-trees; the morning mist is also rising and rolling off like a golden veil as it catches those glorious rays; the whole earth seems wakening into new life: the dew has brightened every leaf and washed each tiny flower-cup: the pines and balsams give out their resinous fragrance: the aspens flutter and dance in the morning breeze, and return a mimic shower of dew-drops to the stream; the shores become lower and flatter; the trees less lofty and more mossy; the stream expands, and wide beds of rushes spread out on either side; what beds of snowy water-lilies: how splendid the rose tint of those perseicarias that glow so brightly in the morning sun; the rushes look like a green meadow, but the treacherous water lies deep below their grassy leaves; the deer delights in these verdant aquatic fields: and see what flocks of redwings rise from among them as the canoe passes near--their bright shoulder-knots glance like flashes of lightning in the sunbeams. This low swampy island, filled with drift-wood; these gray hoary trees, half choked and killed with gray moss and lichens, those straggling alders and black ash, look melancholy; they are like premature old age, gray-headed youths. That island divides the channel of the river: the old man takes the nearest, the left hand. And now they are upon the broad Rice Lake, and Catharine wearies her eye to catch the smoke of the shanty rising among the trees: one after another the islands steal out into view; the capes, bays, and shores of the northern side are growing less distinct. Yon hollow bay, where the beaver has hidden till now, backed by that bold sweep of hills that look in the distance as if only covered with green ferns, with here and there a tall tree, stately as a pine or oak,--that is the spot where Louis saw the landing of the Indians: now a rising village--Gore's Landing. On yon lofty hill now stands the village church,--its white tower rising amongst the trees forms a charming object from the lake; and there, a little higher up, not far from the plank road, now stand pretty rural cottages: one of these belongs to the spirited proprietor of the village that bears his name. That tasteful garden before the white cottage, to the right, is Colonel Brown's, and there are pretty farms and cultivated spots; but silence and loneliness reigned there at the time of which I write. Where those few dark pines rise above the oak groves like the spires of churches in a crowded city, is Mount Ararat. The Indian girl steers straight between the islands for that ark of refuge, and Catharine's eyes are dimmed with grateful tears as she pictures to herself the joyful greeting in store for her. In the overflowings of her gladness she seizes the old man's rugged hand and kisses it, and flings her arms about the Indian girl and presses her to her heart, when the canoe has touched the old well-remembered landing-place, and she finds herself so near, so very near her lost home. How precious are such moments--how few we have in life! They are created from our very sorrows; without our cares our joys would be less lively. But we have no time to moralize. Catharine flies with the speed of a young fawn to climb the cliff-like shoulder of that steep bank; and now; out of breath, she stands at the threshold of her log-house. How neat and nice it looks compared with the Indians' tents! The little field of corn is green and flourishing. There is Hector's axe in a newly-cut log: it is high noon; the boys ought to have been there taking their mid-day meal, but the door is shut. Catharine lifts the wooden latch, and steps in. The embers are nearly burned out to a handful of gray ashes. Old Wolfe is not there--all is silent; and Catharine sits down to still the beating of her heart, and await the coming of her slower companions, and gladdens her mind with the hope that her brother and Louis will soon be home. Her eye wanders over every old familiar object. All things seem much as she had left them; only, the maize is in the ear, and the top feather waves gracefully in the summer breeze. It promises an abundant crop. But that harvest is not to be gathered by the hands of the young planters: it was left to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field--to those humble reapers who sow not, neither do they gather into barns, for the heavenly Father feedeth them. While the two girls busied themselves in preparing a fine roast of venison, old Jacob stalked away over the hills to search for the boys, and it was not long before he returned with Hector and Louis. I must not tell tales, or I might say what tears of joy were mingled with the rapturous greetings with which Louis embraced his beloved cousin; or I might tell that the bright flush that warmed the dusky cheek of the young Indian and the light that danced in her soft black eyes owed their origin to the kiss that was pressed on her red lips by her white brother. Nor will we say whose hand held hers so long in his, while Catharine related the noble sacrifice made for her sake, and the perils encountered by the devoted Indiana, whose eyes were moistened with tears as the horrors of that fearful trial were described; or who stole out alone over the hills, and sat him down in the hush and silence of the summer night to think of the acts of heroism displayed by that untaught Indian girl, and to dream a dream of youthful love: with these things, my young readers, we have nothing to do. "And now, my children," said old Jacob, looking round the little dwelling, "have you made up your minds to live and die here on the shores of this lake, or do you desire again to behold your fathers' home? Do your young hearts yearn after the hearth of your childhood?"' "After our fathers' home!" was Louis's emphatic reply. "After the home of our childhood!" was Catharine's earnest answer. Hector's lips echoed his sister's words, while a furtive troubled glance fell upon the orphan stranger; but her timid eye was raised to his young face with a trusting look, as if she would have said, "Thy home shall be my home, thy God my God." "Well, I believe, if my old memory fails me not, I can strike the Indian trail that used to lead to the Cold Springs over the pine hills. It will not be difficult for an old trapper to find his way." "For my part, I shall not leave this lovely spot without regret," said Hector. "It would be a glorious place for a settlement--all that one could desire--hill and valley, and plain, wood, and water. I will try and persuade my father to leave the Cold Springs, and come and settle hereabouts. It would be delightful--would it not, Catharine?--especially now we are friends with the Indians." With their heads full of pleasant schemes for the future, our young folks laid them down that night to rest. In the morning they rose, packed up such portable articles as they could manage to carry, and with full hearts sat down to take their last meal in their home--in that home which had sheltered them so long--and then, with one accord, they knelt down upon its hearth, so soon to be left in loneliness, and breathed a prayer to Him who had preserved them thus far in their eventful lives; and then they journeyed forth once more into the wilderness. There was one, however, of their little band they left behind this was the faithful old dog Wolfe. He had pined during the absence of his mistress, and only a few days before Catharine's return he had crept to the seat she was wont to occupy, and there died. Louis and Hector buried him, not without great regret beneath the group of birch-trees on the brow of the slope near the corn-field. CHAPTER XVII. "I will arise, and go to my father."--St. Luke. It is the hour of sunset; the sonorous sound of the cattle-bells is heard, as they slowly emerge from the steep hill-path that leads to Maxwell and Louis Perron's little clearing; the dark shadows are lengthening that those wood-crowned hills cast over that sunny spot, an oasis in the vast forest desert that man, adventurous, courageous man, has hewed for himself in the wilderness. The little flock are feeding among the blackened stumps of the uncleared chopping: those timbers have lain thus untouched for two long years; the hand was wanting that should have given help in logging and burning them up. The wheat is ripe for the sickle, and the silken beard of the corn is waving like a fair girl's tresses in the evening breeze. The tinkling fall of the cold spring in yonder bank falls soothingly on the ear. Who comes from that low-roofed log-cabin to bring in the pitcher of water--that pale, careworn, shadowy figure that slowly moves along the green pasture, as one without hope or joy; her black hair shared with silver, her cheek pale as wax, and her hand so thin it looks as though the light might be seen through if she held it towards the sun? It is the heart-broken mother of Catharine and Hector Maxwell. Her heart has been pierced with many sorrows; she cannot yet forget the children of her love, her first-born girl and boy. Who comes to meet her, and with cheerful voice chides her for the tear that seems ever to be lingering on that pale cheek,--yet the premature furrows on that broad, sunburnt, manly brow speak, too, of inward care? It is the father of Hector and Catharine. Those two fine, healthy boys, in homespun blouses, that are talking so earnestly as they lean across the rail-fence of the little wheat field, are Kenneth and Donald; their sickles are on their arms--they have been reaping. They hear the sudden barking of Bruce and Wallace, the hounds, and turn to see what causes the agitation they display. An old man draws near; he has a knapsack on his shoulders, which he casts down on the corner of the stoup; he is singing a line of an old French ditty; he raps at the open door. The Highlander bids him welcome, but starts with glad surprise as his hand is grasped by the old trapper. "Hah, Jacob Morelle, it is many a weary year since your step turned this way." The tear stood in the eye of the soldier as he spoke. "Can you receive me and those I have with me for the night?" asked the old man; in a husky voice--his kind heart was full. "A spare corner, a shake-down, will do; we travellers in the bush are no wise nice." "The best we have, and kindly welcome, Jacob. How many are ye in all?" "There are just four, besides myself,--young people. I found them where they had been long living, on a lonely lake, and I persuaded them to come with me." The strong features of the Highlander worked convulsively, as he drew his faded blue bonnet over his eyes. "Jacob, did ye ken that we lost our eldest bairns some three summers since?" he faltered in a broken voice. "The Lord, in his mercy, has restored them to you, Donald, by my hand," said the trapper. "Let me see, let me see my children! To Him be the praise and the glory," ejaculated the pious father, raising his bonnet reverently from his head; "and holy and blessed be His name for ever! I thought not to have seen this day. O Catharine, my dear wife, this joy will kill you!" In a moment his children were enfolded in his arms. It is a mistaken idea that joy kills; it is a life restorer. Could you, my young readers, have seen how quickly the bloom of health began to reappear on the faded cheek of that pale mother, and how soon that dim eye regained its bright sparkle, you would have said joy does not kill. "But where is Louis, dear Louis, our nephew, where is he?" Louis, whose impetuosity was not to be restrained by the caution of old Jacob, had cleared the log-fence at a bound, had hastily embraced his cousins Kenneth and Donald, and in five minutes more had rushed into his father's cottage, and wept his joy in the arms of father, mother, and sisters by turns, before old Jacob had introduced the impatient Hector and Catharine to their father. "But while joy is in our little dwelling, who is this that sits apart upon that stone by the log-fence, her face bent sadly down upon her knees, her long raven hair shading her features as with a veil?" asked the Highlander Maxwell, pointing as he spoke to the spot where, unnoticed and unsharing in the joyful recognition, sat the poor Indian girl. There was no paternal embrace for her, no tender mother's kiss imprinted on that dusky cheek and pensive brow; she was alone and desolate in the midst of that scene of gladness. "It is my Indian sister," said Catharine; "she also must be your child." Hector hurried to Indiana, and taking her by the hand led her to his parents, and bade them be kind to and cherish the young stranger, to whom they all owed so much. Time passes on--years, long years have gone by since the return of the lost children to their homes, and many changes have those years effected. The log-houses have fallen to decay--a growth of young pines, a waste of emerald turf with the charred logs that once formed part of the enclosure, now scarcely serve to mark out the old settlement; no trace or record remains of the first breakers of the bush--another race occupy the ground. The traveller as he passes along on that smooth turnpike road that leads from Coburg to Cold Springs, and from thence to Gore's Landing, may notice a green waste by the roadside on either hand, and fancy that thereabouts our Canadian Crusoes' home once stood: he sees the lofty wood-crowned hill, and in spring time--for in summer it is hidden by the luxuriant foliage--the little forest creek; and he may, if thirsty, taste of the pure, fresh, icy water, as it still wells out from a spring in the steep bank, rippling through the little cedar-trough that Louis Perron placed there for the better speed of his mother when filling her water jug. All else is gone. And what wrought the change a few words will suffice to tell. Some travelling fur merchants brought the news to Donald Maxwell that a party of Highlanders had made a settlement above Montreal, and among them were some of his kindred. The old soldier resolved to join them, and it was not hard to prevail upon his brother-in-law to accompany him, for they were all now weary of living so far from their fellow-men; and bidding farewell to the little log-houses at Cold Springs, they now journeyed downwards to the new settlement, where they were gladly received, their long experience of the country making their company a most valuable acquisition to the new-come colonists. Not long after, the Maxwells took possession of a grant of land, and cleared and built for themselves and their family. Hector, now a fine industrious young man, presented at the baptismal font, as a candidate for baptism, the Indian girl, and then received at the altar his newly-baptized bride. Catharine and Louis were married on the same day as Hector and Indiana. They lived happy and prosperous lives; and often, by their firesides, would delight their children by recounting the history of their wanderings on the Rice Lake Plains. THE END. [About this edition: _Lost in the Woods_ was originally published in 1852 under the title _The Canadian Crusoes: A Tale of the Rice Lake Plains_. After several editions, it was republished in 1882 under its present title, as _Lost in the Backwoods_.] 
58987	----	[Frontispiece: THE OLD RAGMAN AND MRS. DEAN.] THE UNTEMPERED WIND BY JOANNA E. WOOD NEW YORK J. SELWIN TAIT AND SONS 65 FIFTH AVENUE COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY J. SELWIN TAIT & SONS. _All Rights Reserved._ THE UNTEMPERED WIND. CHAPTER I. ----"Consider this,-- That, in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation:"-- It was early spring, the maples were but budding, the birds newly come and restless, the sky more gray than blue, and the air still sharp with a tang of frost. Jamestown's streets, however, looked both bright and busy. Groups of children went to school, hurrying out to the street, and looking this way and that for a companion. A mother came to a gate with a little girl, and pointing now to right, now to left, seemed to give her directions which way to go. The little girl started bravely. She wore a pink cap, and carried a new school-bag. "Hurry on!" a girl called to her, and she advanced uncertainly. A hesitating dignity born of the new school-bag forbade a decided run; her friend's haste forbade her to linger. They met and passed on together. An old man, with ophthalmia, feeling his way with a stick and muttering to himself with loose lips, went by. Two brothers crossed the street together, one swinging along easily, smoking a pipe, and carrying an axe over his shoulder; the other advancing with that spasmodic appearance of haste which seems the only gait to which crutches can be compelled. An alert dog rushed madly up the middle of the street, pausing abruptly now and then to look round him with sharp interrogation, as if daring anything to "come on!" His challenge was vain, and he was fain to solace himself by scattering a convention of sparrows, dashing into the midst of them and sending the birds up into the maples, followed by insulting yelps, in reply to which they twittered in derision. Homer Wilson drove his team of heavy brown horses through the street at a trot, his sinewy frame clad in weather-beaten blue jeans, his hat pushed far back on his head, as if to emphasize the defiant breadth of his forehead. The woman still strained her eyes after the little girl, now only distinguishable by the brightness of her cap. They say that mothers often watch by the gateways of life. The groceryman passed to open his store--the baker and butcher were already busy. Through this scene of busy commonplace interest and bustle passed a woman, somewhat below the average height, and of strong but symmetrical build. Her face was down-bent and almost hidden in the depths of a dark sunbonnet of calico. All that could well be discerned in this shadow were two soft, sorrowful eyes, pale cheeks, and down-drooped lips. No one spoke to her, and she addressed no one. She went from place to place, out of one shop into another, with downcast eyes, and with something of that swift directness with which a bird, startled from its nest at evening, darts with folded wings from covert to covert. She was Myron Holder--a mother, but not a wife. When under no more sacred canopy than the topaz of a summer sky--with no other bridal hymn than the choral of the wind among the trees--in obedience to no law but the voice of nature--and the pleading of loved lips--with no other security than the unwitnessed oath of a man--a woman gives herself utterly, then she is doubtless lost. But it must be remembered that the law she breaks is an artificial law enacted solely for her protection: and it must be conceded that there may be a great and self-subversive generosity which permits her to give her all, assuming bonds of sometimes dreadful weight, whilst the recipient goes his way unshackled--uncondemned. There may be nothing to be said in defence of Myron Holder; but there is much that could be told only with bleeding lips, written only by a pen dipped in wormwood, of the attitude of her fellows towards her. The world of to-day sees its Madonna, with haloed head, standing amid lilies. The world of her day saw neither nimbus nor flowers; they saw what, to their unbelieving eyes, was but her shame. Let those who jeer with righteous lips at women such as this poor village outcast, remember that the meek Maid-Mother whom they adore perchance shrank before the cruel taunts and pointing fingers of women at the doorways and the wells. Myron Holder left the butcher's to go to the grocery store; from thence she crossed diagonally to Mrs. Warner's, the woman who, half an hour before, had looked so lingeringly after her child. Myron stood at the back door waiting, whilst Mrs. Warner came down stairs to answer her knock. "Mrs. Deans wanted to know if Mrs. Warner would lend her the quilting-frames." Mrs. Warner would. Mrs. Warner was a very good woman, therefore she looked unutterable contempt at Myron Holder, and left her on the doorstep, whilst she brought out the heavy wooden quilting-frames. Mrs. Warner's husband drove the mail wagon which made one trip daily to the city and back to Jamestown. He would in one hour, as his wife very well knew, pass Mrs. Deans' door, but she did not consider that; and as she had watched her own child out of sight, so she watched Myron Holder's laden form pass down the street, out into the country--a large basket in one hand, and the heavy quilting-frames over her shoulder, pressing sorely upon "the sacred mother-bosom," already yearning for the easing child lips. When clear of the village, Myron Holder slackened her pace a little and setting the basket down for a moment turned back the deep scoop of her sunbonnet, that the cooling wind might breathe its benison upon her cheeks, flushed with shame and hot from the exertion of her rapid walk with her burden. Stooping slowly down sideways, she reached her basket and taking it up proceeded on her way. Her face shone forth from the dark folds of her sunbonnet, and seemed by its purity of line and expression to give the lie to the eyes filmed by acknowledged shame; only filmed, however, for the eyes themselves held no vile meanings, no defiant avowal of guilt, no hint of sinful knowledge, no glance of callous indifference. She walked on steadily, the spongy earth beneath her feet seeming to breathe forth the essence of spring as it inhaled the warmth of the sunshine. [Illustration: SHE PAUSED TO REST.] Presently the sound of wheels came to her. She strove with her burdened hand to brush forward the sheltering folds of her sunbonnet, but in vain, as her haste defeated its object. Her cheeks were shrouded but in a flaming blush as Homer Wilson drove past. He stared at her steadily; but she did not raise her eyes, and he passed on. His springless wagon jolted over all the stones and inequalities of the country roads; just as Homer Wilson neither brushed aside obstacles nor skirted them when they opposed his path, but, in his obstinate, hard-headed way, rode rough-shod over them, feeling, perhaps, the hurt of their opposition, but never showing that he did. Again there was silence on the road. It was too early yet for any insect life, and the sparrows did not fly so far from the houses, but "Above in the wind was the swallow Chasing itself at its own wild will." The flush for a space died out of her cheeks. As she continued on her way the snake-fence changed to a neat board one, that in turn gave place to one of ornate wire. In the middle of this was a little gate, which she passed; then came a wider five-barred gate through which she entered, and found her way to the rear of a large white frame house, standing in an old apple orchard. Her steps were bent to the "cook house," an erection of unplaned pine boards, where, in summer, the kitchen-work of Mrs. Deans' household was carried on. Before Myron Holder crossed its threshold, she sent one long look over to the left, where, leafless yet and gray--save where a cedar made a sullen blotch of green--the trees of Mr. Deans' woodland bounded her vision in a semi-circular sweep. As she turned her to the doorway, a new expression had found place within her eyes--upon her lips--poignant but indecipherable. For resolution, resignation, and despair are sometimes so analogous as to be inseparable. CHAPTER II. "A treasure of the memory, a joy unutterable." "Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried. She could not look at the sweet heaven Either at morn or eventide." Myron Holder's father was Jed Holder, the broom-maker. His death occurred when Myron was eighteen years old. He had clung to his quaint occupation to the last, after factory-made brooms stood even at the store doors in Jamestown. His fortunes had fallen off sadly in the last few years of his life, but he worked away as steadily at his trade as in the old days, when, looking from his door, his eyes were met by the mast-like masses of a Kentish hop orchard. He had planted hopvines all about the fence of his little house in Jamestown. They clambered up the sides of the house, twined insinuatingly about the disdainful sunflowers, and throwing their tendrils abroad from the roots wound round and round the tall stalks of grass, weighing them down with the burden of their unsought embrace. Little Myron was often impressed with the truth that a single leaf broken from a growing hopvine kills the whole spray. She learned to "pick up her feet," as her father expressed it, and step daintily between the wandering vines, so that no slurring footstep might injure them. Jed Holder had carried on the broom-making for many years very systematically. Year by year he rented from Sol Disney a bit of the virgin soil of the woodland, and the tall brown tassel of the broom corn overtopped the stamps in the clearing. Year by year the little patch of corn crept nearer and nearer the limit of Disney's diminishing woodland--seeming, as Jed Holder said, "to sweep the trees off before it," but being in its turn swept aside by waves of golden grain. It was a sore day to Jed Holder when he sent off his first order for Western broom corn, forced to do so by the impossibility of renting ground rich enough to perfect and mature his crop. In the short winter days Jed used to work in Disney's brush helping to "clear" it. In return for his services he received all the young maples they encountered: out of these in the long winter evenings he fashioned his broom handles. Jed never could remember how the knowledge was conveyed to him that broom handles were being made by the thousands by a machine out of the refuse in the wake of logging camps. If the recognition of this iconoclastic fact was not an intuition, it must have been something very like one--some transmission of a half contemptuous thought from the brain of the smart groceryman in the city when he ridiculed the price Jed asked for his hand-made brooms. Jed pondered over the matter much, but never could recall the source of his information. But when he lay in his last illness, watching the shadow of the hopvine on the blinds, all these tormenting thoughts vanished. The murmurs that fell from his lips were all of other days, of hop picking, of England, of Kentish lanes and birds, of one whom he named lovingly as "Myron lass" and yet did not seem to identify with the girl who waited upon him so untiringly, under the direction of her grandmother, an old, old woman, bent with rheumatism, and hard of face and heart, whose lips set cruelly and eyes grew stony when her gray-haired son babbled of "Myron lass." When he lay in his coffin she could not grieve, for raging that he was not to lie with all his kin in Kent. She made Myron suffer vicariously for her long dead mother, whose death coming soon after Myron's birth had driven Jed Holder to seek strange scenes, away from where he had known the fullest happiness of which he was capable. But Myron bore her grandmother's bad temper with patience and without bitterness. Her father often said to her, "The yeast is bitter, but it is the yeast that makes bread sweet." Jed Holder died one day in autumn, when the aromatic green cones had been picked from the hops and lay browning upon paper-covered boards in the sun. The last breath Jed Holder drew savored of their fragrance, and the aroma of the hops dispelled the faint odor of mortality in the death chamber. The winter succeeding his death was a long and bitter one. Fuel was high; and however sparingly bought, still the plainest provisions cost money. Albeit Myron and her grandmother lived frugally, yet they exhausted Jed's poor hoardings very soon. Spring found them penniless. But in summer, life is more easily sustained, and Myron found various occupations which sufficed to keep her grandmother in tolerable comfort. Hoeing and weeding, cleaning house and berrying, doing extra washings, cooking for threshers and harvesters, all had their part in Myron's busy life. Her grandmother was never satisfied either with her ability or her willingness to work; but for all that she worked, and worked well too. There was soon proof positive of this given her grandmother, for after Myron had helped in the half yearly saturnalia of work Mrs. Deans called "house cleaning," the latter arranged to have Myron come to the farm daily to help the bound girl. For that summer Mrs. Deans had boarders--boarders who read, and walked, and brought in great bunches of golden rod, and masses of wild aster, and long trails of virgin bower clematis. There were Mrs. and Miss Rexton, Miss Carpenter and Dr. Henry Willis, a young medico. They had all driven to the lake one day from the Mineral Spring Hotel, where they were stopping. The lake curved in a shining semi-circle round Jamestown, and swept off in ever-widening curves far away, until sky and water blended in a band of blinding silver radiance. The party of four had been caught in a thunderstorm, and sought refuge on Mrs. Deans' veranda. Then and there they had decided that they must come there for the rest of the summer, and with one accord set about persuading Mrs. Deans to give her consent. Of a truth their persuasion would have had little effect upon that worthy woman, had not the remuneration suggested seemed to her quite extravagantly sufficient; therefore she was pleased at length to accede to their request, and a few days later found the quartette comfortably settled at Mrs. Deans'. Miss Carpenter was Dr. Willis' maiden aunt. Miss Rexton believed herself to be his affinity and hoped that he agreed with her. Mrs. Rexton was a chattel of her daughter's. Myron Holder's duties were now made more manifold than ever, but she was well content that it should be so; only the long mile she walked night and morning from and to the village tired her greatly, taking the edge off her vitality in the morning and utterly exhausting her at night. So Mrs. Deans proposed that she should stay all night at the farm; not actuated by any kindly thought for Myron, but because, like the good financier that she was, she wanted to get her money's worth out of her. As for old Mrs. Holder, she had no timid qualms about staying alone: she missed the little scraps of news, however, that Myron always had to tell, and--unconsciously--suffered from lack of some one to berate. The summer passed slowly--autumn came. Mrs. Deans' boarders departed. Myron Holder once more walked the mile night and morning; she had had a hard summer's work. Her hands and wrists were reddened and coarsened; her face was very pale, and _bistre_ shades lingered about her eyes. But she and her grandmother had to live, and after December snows were blowing she still trudged the mile back and forth. It was only by great chance that Mrs. Deans retained Myron's services; but her son, a loutish young man of twenty-two, had fallen from a hickory-nut tree and dislocated his hip. The increasing attention he demanded, and the care of her poultry, and her accumulated sewing kept Mrs. Deans fully occupied. So Myron Holder continued her daily attendance at the Deans farm. January and February passed. March was blowing its wildest, when one day Myron Holder did not come to Mrs. Deans'. The latter waited fuming, resolved, as she expressed it, to "give Myron Holder a fine hearing when she did come." Mrs. Deans was always promising somebody or other a "hearing," which, by the bye, was an exceedingly misleading term, for in the conversation thus referred to the other party did the listening whilst Mrs. Deans talked. The wild wind of the morning had intensified into a bitter sleet, which darted its blasts into the face like sharp-pointed lashes, when Mrs. Deans heard a knock at the side door. She opened it herself to find old Mrs. Holder, bent, wet, furious, standing in the slush. Mrs. Deans bade her come in, with a meaning look at the corn husk mat before the door. Mrs. Holder paid no heed to the look, but with muddy feet stepped into the room fair upon Mrs. Deans' new rag carpet, and standing there, a quaint old figure, clad in the forgotten fashion of thirty years back, proceeded to give Mrs. Deans what that lady herself would have called "a hearing." Mrs. Deans had a ready tongue, an inventive imagination, a fund of vituperative imagery, and a pleasant habit of drowning the voice of any one who chose to contradict her; but in one's own house, to be confronted in this way, abused for some unknown crime, covered with contumely, and showered with contemptuous epithets, and all from an old woman whose granddaughter was honored in doing one's kitchen work, was not conducive to dignity and presence of mind. Mrs. Deans was too old a scold, however, to be routed without an effort to vindicate herself. Finding it vain to wait an opportunity for speech (Mrs. Holder never seemed to pause for breath), she simply began to talk also--Myron's non-appearance, Mrs. Holder's impertinence, and her own mystification giving ample subject-matter for her eloquence to do justice to. But Mrs. Holder talked on, apparently unconscious of Mrs. Deans' remarks--finally she hurled one direct question at the latter: "Did you know--that's what I want to find out--did ye? And if ye did, what d'ye think of yourself? You----" She was about to branch off into a personal description of Mrs. Deans--somewhat unflattering--when the latter seized her cue. "Did I know what?" she demanded. Mrs. Holder came to a dead stop and looked at her. "Did I know what?" reiterated Mrs. Deans majestically. "Did you know--Myron--" she stopped, this thing was difficult to frame in words. "Well?" said Mrs. Deans. "Did you know Myron was--would be--had--" again the voluble Mrs. Holder faltered. Mrs. Deans looked at Mrs. Holder--and something whispered to her what Mrs. Holder could not say. "Do you mean to tell me--" she paused--filling up the hiatus with an eloquent look. Then she loosened the tides of her indignation, and sweeping aside all memories of Myron's honesty, and faithful service, and patience, launched against her the full flood of her invective. Presently Mrs. Holder chimed in: there was something absurd yet tragically repulsive in these two women, but a moment before reviling each other, now absorbed only in the desire to outvie each other in the epithets they hurled against the girl--the granddaughter of the one, the uncomplaining servant of the other. Their attitude, however, was prophetically typical of the treatment Myron Holder was to receive. The whole village forgot its private quarrels to point the finger at its common victim. Beset with all the frightful anticipations of motherhood, bowed beneath the burden of a shame she appreciated and accepted, hounded nearly to madness by her grandmother's jibes and reproaches, Myron Holder's heart was wellnigh desperate. The spring winds brought her dreadful suggestions of despair. The first hepaticas shone up at her as balefully as the lighted fagots to a martyr's eye. The springing hopvines seemed to twine their tendrils tight and tighter about her heart. All the scents and sounds of spring were ever after to her an exquisite torture. But her soul was of strong fibre. Before all the scorn of the village, all the rebukes of Mrs. Deans, all the wrath of her grandmother, all the bitterness and misery and hopelessness of her own heart, Myron Holder was mute. No murmur escaped her lips against the man who had forsaken her. The village knew her shame, but it could not fathom her secret. Myron Holder was deaf to all commands, entreaties, persuasions, sneers. Her face, holy with the divine shadow of coming maternity, turned to her questioners an indecipherable page--writ large with characters of shame and sorrow, but telling naught else. * * * * * * There came a night when Myron Holder descended into that hell of suffering called child-birth--struggled with prolonged agony--helpless and alone--and cried aloud--to that dead father--to that unknown mother--to God--for Death. Myron Holder was a woman and had come to years of knowledge, and her fall was doubtless a sin and a shame to her--black and unforgivable; but far as Myron Holder had fallen, deep as was her humiliation, black as was her shame, inexcusable her error, she still shines in effulgent whiteness when compared with those women who refused her aid that long night through, demanding as recompense for their ministering the betrayal of her betrayer. Myron Holder would not pay their price. The dim gray dawn lighted the pain-scarred face of a sleeping mother, by whose side reposed a fair-haired child; a child the secret of whose parentage was still locked within its mother's heart. * * * * * * "Them kind always lives," Mrs. Warner said to her husband, when, on a June morning, she saw Myron Holder totter past her door. Mrs. Warner should have thanked the God she worshipped, fasting, that it was so: had Myron Holder died, no woman in all Jamestown would have been free from blood-guiltiness. They had beheld a woman in such extremity as moved the hearts of Inquisitors, stayed the torch of persecution, shackled the relentless rack, deferred the vengeance of the law, and had withheld their hands from helping. Those same hands which wrought garments for the heathen and shamed not to offer their alms to God! CHAPTER III. "It is a wild and miserable world, Thorny and full of care, Which every friend can make his prey at will." "Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong." Beneath the quietness of Myron Holder's manner there raged a very chaos of reckless, despairing thought. It is undeniable that at this time no maternal love warmed her heart towards her child. There was one night--one dreadful night--whose memory stained forever even the dark pages of her retrospect. A night through the long hours of which she lay and thought of death--not to herself--but to the sleeping infant at her side. All the tales she had ever heard of desperate women's crimes came to her, assailing her weakened will and tired brain with insidious suggestions of safety, and freedom, and immunity from blame. Pallid, she rose in the early dawn. As she passed the old English mirror in its shabby gilt frame, she caught a fleeting glimpse of burning cheeks, cracking parched lips and bloodshot eyes. She withdrew her glance shuddering. It was very early in the morning. She crossed the kitchen, and softly opening the door looked forth upon the unawakened world. The air was somewhat chilly, but sweet and soft. A heavy dew spread a pearly film over the grass, broken here and there by a silvery shield, where the spider webs held the moisture: gossamers they are in these early morning hours when the world is pure and quiet,--shreds of the Madonna's winding sheet, as we all know. But what are they when the dew is gone and they are laden with the dust and soot and grime of the long hot day? Gossamers still? Down between the trees she could see the dull glimmer of the lake, awaiting the sun to strike it into silver; a few pale stars lingered, loath to bid the world good-by before the moon, which, a wraith-like orb, still soared on high, white and diaphanous. All was calm, passionless, and pure. As Myron Holder looked there grew within her soul a sick shuddering against the woman of the past night. She saw herself vile where all was holy, passionate where all was peace. And from her soul, a plea, indefinite in aspiration, and vaguely voyaging to some unknown haven, went forth, that her old heart might be vouchsafed to her, her own suffering, fearing, trusting, loving, betrayed heart, instead of this throbbing centre of pain with its bitter blood of despair and hate. Slow resolutions began to stir in her heart: she would go through the world "spending and being spent" for others: she would be patient to her grandmother, always remembering she had shamed her: she would be true and faithful and self-sacrificing in every relation she assumed to others; she would be sympathetic to all and she would die soon, very soon, she thought, and the village would mourn her and at last speak of her with loving kindness. Poor Myron! Like "many mighty men," she did not realize the utter barrenness of a posthumous joy or understand how diffident Death can be when wooed. Her mood was jarred by the child's cry and the grandmother's querulous complaint. She turned from the morning just as the sun's rays shot across the lake. As soon as she was able to do so she resumed her work--bending over her toil, a patient figure in a worn blue print gown and dark sunbonnet, a humble mark she seemed for public scorn: yet all the scandal and spite of the scurrilous little village played about her. As Mrs. Disney expressed it, old Mrs. Holder "took it most terrible hard": therefore the village matrons contracted a habit of running in at all hours to the little hop-clad house and condoling with Mrs. Holder, and with her speculating as to the identity of the child's father. Now and then these zealous comforters rather overdid the matter, notably when Mrs. Weaver, with a view of exonerating Mrs. Holder from all blame and relieving her of all responsibility for Myron's behavior, remarked that "It did seem as if bad was born in some people." Old Mrs. Holder rose at that, and speedily made Mrs. Weaver aware that Myron's badness was purely sporadic, and that heredity had nothing to do with it. She did not express herself in this way, but conveyed the same idea much more forcibly. It is possible that, being Myron's grandmother, she felt a slight reflection from Mrs. Weaver's well-meant suggestion that Myron had inherited vice as her birthright; be that as it may, she speedily made Mrs. Weaver aware that if there was any truth in such an idea, she herself must be in a perilous state: the old Englishwoman had managed to glean pretty accurate data about the Jamestown people, and she knew that Mrs. Weaver's mother had "tript in her time." Mrs. Weaver called no more upon Mrs. Holder, but the others showed no abatement of their zeal. These good Jamestown women had a pleasant habit of sitting with Mrs. Holder until Myron's form appeared at noon or night. They gazed at her while she opened the gate, trod the little path past the front door, and until she turned the corner: when Vice in the person of Myron entered the back door, Virtue embodied in one or more of Jamestown's matrons fled from the front door, hearing, ere the gate was reached, the first measures of the jeremiad with which her grandmother greeted her. There was little wonder that Myron Holder grew morbidly nervous and supersensitive. She would scarce have been responsible for any deed, however evil. All the morning the anticipated agony of the ordeal of walking up the path, under these scathing eyes, oppressed and tortured her. No martyr ever contemplated with greater dread the red-hot ploughshares than Myron Holder did those few yards of red trodden earth, bordered by fox grass and burdock leaves. Through the long hours of the slow afternoons she braced herself for the return home at night, but she did not try to elude any of the humiliations of her position. The garden gate was terrible to her as the surgeon's knife to the sufferer--for the hasp was loosened and twisted, the gate had to be lifted before it could be opened, and sometimes she was kept fumbling with the fastening until the blood swam before her eyes in a red mist. Doubtless she should have considered all these painful contingencies and walked more heedfully, but the thought, which the Jamestown matrons often quoted, did not, as they seemed to think it should, dull the pain of the thousand stings she received daily--it only pressed them home. There are many "Dainty themes of grief In sadness to outlast the morn;" but the tale of Myron Holder's expiation is not one of them--it is a sordid theme, yet, being human, not too sordid to be writ out. It is a painful relation; but when one woman lived it, we may not shrink from contemplating it, nor hesitate to view step by step the way one woman trod. The first summer of her child's life wore away. Autumn came before Myron Holder was goaded into any demonstration of her suffering. She was one day working for Mr. Disney, who worked old Mr. Carroll's place on shares. It was the time of the apple harvest. All day long they had been picking, gathering, sorting, and carrying the heavy fruit. Between Mr. Carroll and Mr. Disney was waged a continual war of wits, each endeavoring to get the better of the other. The afternoon was far spent when old Mr. Carroll came, limping out, bent and thin, only his erectness of poise when he stood still evidencing the old soldier. The fruit had been divided into two long heaps, alike in their dimensions, but, as all the pickers knew, of widely different quality. The grass was sere and yellowed, the sapless apple leaves fell in rustling showers at the lightest breath of wind, and now and then an apple fell with a dull sound upon the earth. The brown side of the drive-house formed a neutral background into which all the sombre tints of the little scene blended, save the brilliant reds and yellows of the two long piles of apples. "Well, Mr. Disney--got the apples sorted?" asked Mr. Carroll with affected geniality. Mr. Disney, a shallow-witted man, was betrayed by the smile on the lips into disregard of the cold eyes, and replied with rash effusiveness: "Yes--picked, sorted, divided, sold, almost cooked and eaten." Old Mr. Carroll's smile froze. "Which is my pile?" he asked with an indescribable intonation of sarcastic contempt, which pierced even Disney's denseness and made a slow red gather to his cheeks as he answered--"That one." "Then I'll take this one," replied Mr. Carroll, indicating the other. Disney faltered then--wanted to re-divide--and managed to confuse himself completely. Mr. Carroll listened contemptuously; his keen old eyes had discerned the mud on the apples in the heap assigned to him, and he had decided, rightly enough, that they were windfalls. Disney's half-hearted plea for a re-division was manifestly absurd, and the caustic old man enjoyed a pleasant half-hour in ridiculing the idea. For once he had his enemy fairly "on the hip." The end of it was that presently, when Mr. Warner drove past, he saw old Mr. Carroll enthroned upon an upturned bushel basket, his cynical old eyes gleaming with amusement, his feet shifting restlessly with delight, his tongue irritating Disney almost beyond endurance. He had placed himself on the side of the drive-house door and demanded that his apples be carried in then and there. Disney longed to refuse, but his agreement provided that he perform all the labor of harvesting and storing Mr. Carroll's share. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to obey the irascible old man, who, in numerous playful ways, made the carrying in of the fruit a weariness of the flesh to Disney. He stopped him to pull stray wisps of grass out of his pails, or to examine a purely imaginary blemish in an apple. He let his cane slip down so that Disney tripped over it. He took one of the pails, and pretended to fix one of the handles, which was perfectly secure as it was--and all the time he talked, gently, irritatingly, making the most innocent of pauses for replies that Disney felt he must make, but which he made as briefly as possible. The afternoon waned; finally the last apple of the heap was transferred to the drive-house. Then Mr. Carroll rose, trying his best to conceal the stiffness of his joints from Disney, locked the drive-house door and limped off to his lonely house, solitary but triumphant. A little later he watched the departure of the disgusted Disney and his pickers--Myron Holder dragging wearily home alone, body and heart alike aching; the rest slyly nudging one another, with meaning looks at Disney's sullen face. Still later, when Mr. Carroll blew out his yellow wax candle, he pushed aside the limp white blind, raised the many-paned window and looked forth into the moonlight. It was very clear and quiet. Disney's pile of apples lay roughly outlined beneath its covering of old sacks. Mr. Carroll looked at it amusedly--as he looked a stray apple, left swinging unseen, fell. As the sound reached his ears a malevolent smile irradiated his face. Still smiling, he put the window down, let the blind fall and sought sleep. That night Myron Holder traversed the road home in the deepest dejection; forced to endure all day the covert sneers of the other pickers, with extreme bodily weariness added to her mental burden, helpless as a fly from which a wanton hand has torn the wings, she felt, as she trod her solitary way home, utterly despairing. Ere she was fairly within the doors her grandmother's taunting words met her. Roused from her long apathy of mute endurance, she tore her sunbonnet from her head and flashed one dreadful look of rage and defiance at the old woman--such a look as made Mrs. Holder' stagger back, holding up her hand as if to shield herself from a blow. Terrified at the turmoil in her own breast, Myron turned and fled into her room. She saw the boy's little form upon the blue and white checked counterpane of her bed, she rushed up to the couch, her hands were clenched, her heart seemed throbbing in her throat. Dreadful thoughts circled about her, wild and diverse, but all hung upon the one axis of pain. Half in delirium, she bent over the child. It looked up at her and smiled, and stirred feebly, but yet as if its impulses made towards her. With a cry she caught it to her bosom. There was one creature that yet smiled upon her. Thereafter, from day to day, throughout the long winter, her adoration of her child waxed stronger and stronger. Every instant she could spare from her toiling she held it in her arms. On Sunday, when good Jamestown people did no extra work, Myron Holder had her only pleasure. For then she shut herself into her room with the child, whispering to it, caressing it, soothing it when awake, and during its long sleep holding it with loving avarice in her arms, too greedy of the cherished weight to relinquish it to the couch. Her grandmother managed even from this tenderness to distill some bitter drops to add to Myron's cup. She dwelt long and eloquently upon the wrong Myron had done the child. Slowly the winter passed, and Mrs. Deans once more hired Myron Holder to come to the farm daily. The child was left with old Mrs. Holder, while Myron earned a subsistence for all three. What Myron Holder endured daily no words can tell. By what written sign may we symbolize the agony of a heart, bruised and pierced and crushed day after day? By what language express the torture of a pure soul, stifled in a chrysalis of shame? Some souls may be purified by fire, doubtless, as the old Greeks cleansed their asbestos fabrics; but we should be wary how we thrust our fellows into the furnace, for no base tissue will stand the fire, and a soul, to emerge unsmirched and undestroyed, must be of strong fibre indeed. CHAPTER IV. "O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul, Who may be saved? Who is it may be saved? Who may be made a saint if I fail here?" "As who should say: 'I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!'" There are doubtless a few of us in the world capable of judging and pronouncing sentence upon the rest. It is unfortunately inevitable, however, that such capabilities remain forever underestimated, and the possessors rarely receive the acknowledgments due from an ungrateful world. Mrs. Deans was one of the chosen few who recognize their own infallibility, and accept as a sacred trust the knowledge that they are indispensable. To be a god, Mrs. Deans only lacked the minor attribute of immortality--a want of which she was herself unconscious. Mrs. Deans strove earnestly to better her neighbors and cause them to conform to her standards of what was right. She was a firm believer that "open rebuke is better than secret love," and whatever risk Myron ran, under Mrs. Deans' rule she incurred no danger of being "carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease"--a thing much to be dreaded. Nor was there any possibility of her forgetting, for a half-hour at a time, the light in which Mrs. Deans viewed her, which was, of course, the somewhat trying illumination that the Children of Light project upon the Children of Darkness. Mrs. Deans had a modestly good opinion of herself. "Thou art the salt of the earth" impressed her with all the directness of a personal remark. Those who enjoyed the privileges of Mrs. Deans' household were, first and least, her husband--Henry Deans. He was a small man, with "a little wee face, with a little yellow beard, a Cain-colored beard." It was five years since his horses, running away as he returned from the market town, capsized him over a steep bank, down which the barrel of salt he had bought rolled also, and, striking him in the back, partially paralyzed him. Since that time he had sat under his wife's ministry. In summer the back porch held his chair, in winter the kitchen. By keeping a careful eye upon the bound girl, he sometimes discovered her in a dereliction; it was a happy hour for him when this was the case. It had the effect of distracting his wife's attention from him, for one thing--and when too closely centred upon any one person, Mrs. Deans' regard was apt to prove embarrassing; it also won him much commendation from her--being convinced of the utter depravity of the bound girl, both "individually and collectively," it gratified Mrs. Deans to have her "moral certainty" attested by positive proofs. It made her realize her seer-like qualities. Mrs. Deans' son, Gamaliel, known to his fond mother as "Maley," and to Jamestown as "Male," stood first in his mother's regard. Gamaliel was Mrs. Deans' idea of a "fancy" name. She had hesitated long before bestowing it upon her boy, wavering between Gamaliel and Ambrose. She finally decided upon the former, it being more uncommon. The son of Mrs. Deans' sister-in-law's brother was called Ambrose--and, also, Gamaliel was, as Mrs. Deans said, "more suitable," whether to her son's mental or physical endowments she did not specify. Old Mrs. Holder once said she never could "picture out" any one else being called Gamaliel, nor believe that Mrs. Deans' son could have had any other name. He was a stubborn young lout, whose strong will was only subjective to his mother's because he did not recognize his own strength. She had curbed him as he bitted the huge young Clydesdale colts. Sometimes a well-broken horse realizes its own strength, and we hear a horrid story of torn flesh and trampled limbs when it turns to rend its master. If Gamaliel Deans ever revolted, his mother would suffer. However, he was quiescent enough, for his mother's schemes were all for his benefit. Besides, he appreciated the charms of a quiet life, and had inherited a liberal share of the diplomacy his paralytic father displayed when he feigned sleep for long hours at a stretch, hoping that he might entrap the bound girl into some piece of unwary carelessness. Both Henry Deans and his son Gamaliel had a deeply rooted belief in the value of the bound girl as a counter-irritant. Mrs. Deans had had just a "pigeon pair" of children, as Jamestown put it, but her girl had died when an infant. Mrs. Deans was too good a woman not to bear up under the loss, especially as she did not care for girls. The bound girl made up the regular trio which Mrs. Deans drove before her over roads of her choosing. It is unnecessary to say much of the bound girl. Mrs. Deans described them often--"Evil incarnate," she called them. Mrs. Deans changed her bound girls now and then. They came to her with all the different merits and various vices of their unhappy class. They left her different incarnations of the same weary, broken, deadened spirit of labor and endurance. Their individual characteristics, capabilities and tendencies had nothing whatever to do with their case. Woman and mother as Mrs. Deans was, she was never moved by their peculiar needs. It is requisite, doubtless, to the "Great Plan" that there be bound ones among us, enduring--like the hereditary embalmer--the parischite of Egypt--a loathsome heritage--and yet--the pity of it! But Mrs. Deans was not one to question the Providence which ordained for these bound girls their lot in life. "They're born bad, and bad they are, and bad they'll be--every one of them--evil, root and branch; you can't be up to them and their ways." These were Mrs. Deans' sentiments upon the subject of bound girls, and other opinions do not matter. The hired men Mrs. Deans treated with the deference due to those who must be conciliated and who are free agents. Mrs. Deans, if not exactly harmless as the traditional dove, had at least a smattering of the wisdom of the serpent. Mrs. Deans was distinctly a leader in Jamestown society. She was a very good woman, liberal to the Church, foremost in collecting for missions, ready to head a donation list at any time; therefore every one said Myron Holder was very lucky to have won Mrs. Deans' help. That this "help" consisted in being allowed to do the hardest work under the most intolerable circumstances for very meagre pay, they did not stop to consider. Mrs. Deans said she felt it a "duty" to have Myron Holder. We are all so thoroughly acquainted with the fact that duties are unpleasant, that the Jamestown women are not to be blamed for looking upon Mrs. Deans in the light of a martyr. Mrs. Warner expressed the sense of the village view of the matter when she said, "It beats me how Mrs. Deans can put up with that Myron Holder! Going about as if she was injured, bless your heart, with a face as long as a fiddle and looking as if she was half killed, when she ought to be thankful to be let into a decent house to work." And indeed the hopeless face Myron Holder bore above her aching heart was a public reproach; but we do not see rebuke where we do not look for it, and Jamestown felt itself above censure. In the old Puritan graveyards in the New England States there was a place set apart, where in a common receptacle were buried those who held a different faith from the Puritans, or who avowed no faith at all. This was called the "damned corner." Whether the Puritans, out of zeal to do their Master's work, intended in this way to facilitate the business of separating the sheep from the goats, or whether it was with a view of securing their own sacred dust from contamination, does not appear. But it is a custom which still survives. We all have a "damned corner," where, beneath the intolerable burden of our disapprobation, we deposit those we know are wrong. Of course, common decency requires that we keep these spots swept with our criticism, garnished with invective; and when it is considered that in Mrs. Deans' eyes even Gamaliel sometimes showed faults, it will be understood the worthy woman had no sinecure. Mrs. Deans' mind was somewhat "out of drawing" to her body, which was broad, large, fair, and of generous proportions. Why fat and good-temper should have been so long proverbially associated is difficult to discern; in so far as the ordinary mind can analyze, it would seem as if adipose was a distinct excuse for bad temper. To be hotter than other people in summer and not so cold in winter is one of the simplest and most obvious results of fat--yet who shall say this is conducive to sympathy with other people? Mrs. Deans had been a Warner, and was inclined to goitre. Her large head, with its oily bands of fair hair, was always somewhat inclined backwards. Her general appearance suggested, in a remote way, a colossal and bad-tempered pouter pigeon--a likeness absurdly emphasized sometimes by the redness of her eyes. When Myron Holder crossed the threshold with the quilting-frames, a scene characteristic of the place greeted her. Mrs. Deans stood in the foreground, holding the floor; her husband listened to her eloquence, blinking appreciatively if somewhat apprehensively. You never knew--to use one of her own expressions--when you "had Mrs. Deans, and when you hadn't." She was apt to deflect suddenly from the chase she was engaged in, and start full cry after another's shortcomings. More than once Henry Deans, enjoying himself hugely while his wife browbeat the bound girls, had his joy turned to mourning by suddenly discovering that the peroration of his wife's address had for its inspiration his own shortcomings. His wife was, as he confided to Gamaliel, "onsartain"; it was a perilous joy to listen to her, and, therefore, perhaps, the more exhilarating. The bound girl--a slight, tow-headed child with high, unequal shoulders, and arms, and wrists, developed by her life of toil into absurd disproportion to her body--stood by the stove, listening with a dazed look in her weary eyes. She had broken a seven-cent lamp-glass. Myron put aside the basket of groceries, took the quilting-frames to an empty corner, and set about her preparations for the weekly washing. The bound girl still stood motionless by the fire, and Mrs. Deans still talked; her husband was shifting uneasily in his chair, for her remarks were beginning to wander from the case in point, and her condemnations and criticisms were becoming too sweeping to be altogether pleasant, when, much to the relief of her hearers, Mrs. Deans' attention was distracted by the arrival of the ragman, with his noisy, rattling van, piled high with coarse, bulging sacks of canvas. Mrs. Deans assumed her sunbonnet, and went out to him. He was a man of sixty or so, thin, good-humored, and with what Mrs. Deans called, "An eye to the main chance." Perched high upon the seat of his old-fashioned blue van, he was exposed to all the variableness of the weather; but he took sunshine and rain in good part, and seemed little the worse, save that he was tanned to a fine mahogany tint. He went regular rounds through the country, gathering rags and scrap-iron. His calling is a survival of the old classic system of barter. The interior of his van was filled with an array of pans and pails and all sorts of tin-ware; a drawer at the back held common cutlery, horn-handled knives and forks, and tin spoons, such as his customers used. With these wares he paid for the rags and old iron. Many a thousand pounds of each had he and his old black horse collected. He had a faculty for gauging the weight of a bag of rags that was truly impressive. "That'll go thirty pound," he would say; then weighing it hastily, "Turned at thirty and a half," he would announce with an air of surprise at his own mistake. Then, by a quick fling, the bag would be skillfully bestowed upon the top of the van; his load was always one-sided, but never fell off. Mrs. Deans always had rags for him, and invariably bought pie-plates. "Who is that?" said he to Mrs. Deans, after the chaffering process was over, and she stood, pie-plates in hand, watching him put the wooden peg through the staple to keep the hasp tight. He had caught a glimpse of Myron Holder. "That--oh, Jed Holder's Myron," returned Mrs. Deans, assuming the face with which she taught Sunday school. "'Tis, eh? What do you have her for?" "I feel a duty to have her here, but it goes ag'in me, Mr. Long--it does that; but there, we all have our cross and we must help along as well as we can. Are you going to call at old Mrs. Holder's? She takes it most terrible hard." "Yes, I'll call there; it's a lucky job for the girl she's got such a backer as you, Mrs. Deans. 'Twould be a good thing if there was more like you. It beats all what wimmen is coming to these days! Who's the man?" "Don't ask me--ask her; that's the only place I know to find out; she's that close, though! And stubborn! Even I, for all I've done for her, and put up with, don't know! No more does her grandmother. But I'll find out." "Well, well--that's curious," said the ragman, by this time perched aloft again and shaking the reins over the high, lean haunches of his horse; "good day, Mrs. Deans; you have a fine place here." "Good morning. When'll you be back? Be sure you call." "I'll be round in a couple of months again. Good morning," he replied, as his van jolted away. "It seems to me," said he, soliloquizing, "that Mrs. Deans has washed more'n she can hang out! Jed Holder's daughter can keep her month shet if she makes up her mind to it; I knowed Jed." This ragman had not gathered the rags of Jamestown for thirty years without acquiring some knowledge of the people. "I kin read 'em by their rags," he used to tell his wife. He was justified in doubting Mrs. Deans' ability to perform the task she had set herself--to fathom Myron's secret. "That girl of Jed Holder's has made a fine job of herself!" the ragman said to old Mr. Carroll, as he drove homeward in the evening. "Yes," said old Carroll; "women are a bad lot, a bad, scheming lot." "Oh, come, come; you'll be getting married to some young girl one of these fine days," retorted the astute ragman. "I--no, sir; not such a fool," snorted the old man, highly pleased. "Will you come in and have a drop?" The ragman would; they entered the house together, the black horse meantime reaching down to nibble at the last year's grass, through which the first tender blades of the new growth were pointing. Presently the ragman emerged, looking much happier and warmer; the wind was chill in the evenings yet, and Mr. Carroll's "drop" meant a good, stiff glass of gin. Mr. Carroll came to the door after him. "Mrs. Deans declares she'll find out, but the job will puzzle even her, I'll warrant," the ragman was saying as he climbed nimbly up over the front wheel. "Trust her for that; women are all alike. 'Set a thief to catch a thief,'" replied his host with a sardonic chuckle. (If Mrs. Deans could have heard him!) The ragman loudly evidenced his appreciation of this fine wit, and departed, calling out, "Evening--good evening--you've got a fine, snug place here, Mr. Carroll." His homeward way led through quiet country roads, and long grass-grown "concessions." The promise of spring made sweet the air, and although the night felt gray and chill, it did not numb, as do autumn nights of the same temperature. The ragman's house stood on the outskirts of a little town, and was dwarfed and overshadowed by the barn, which occupied the main portion of the lot. One little corner of this barn was devoted to the big black horse; the rest was given over to rags. If the rags are not sent to the mills as they are collected, they are "sorted," which means that buttons, hooks, and eyes are cut off, and the woollen separated from the cotton rags. The former are sent to the shoddy mills; the paper factories absorb the others. The ragman's trade has its traditions and romances; and the tales of fortunes found by ragpickers are beautiful truths to all of their calling; so this ragpicker, like all others, carefully felt the pockets and linings of the garments that came to him. During his thirty years of rag-picking he had found one two-dollar bill, seven ten-cent pieces, eighteen five-cent bits, one pair of gloves and an average of one lead pencil a year--but he still hoped. Finding a fortune in rags, however, is a little like trying to locate the pot of gold at the rainbow's foot. Myron Holder had heard plainly the ragman's query and Mrs. Deans' reply. Old Henry Deans, blossoming forth like a snail out of its shell, as soon as his wife's back was turned, said with leering facetiousness, "Ah--a fellow askin' after you, Myron," and pointed his fist with a look that made the blood spring to the woman's cheeks and linger there, a painful blot as though the face had been smitten. She bent over her tub in silence, her heart hot within her. The regard of such men and women as Myron Holder lived among may not seem of much moment to us, nor their criticisms of any import at all, but it must be remembered that they formed Myron Holder's world; and their verdict upon her was terrible, inasmuch as with them lay the power of inflicting the penalty they pronounced. Mrs. Deans bustled in, rattling her pie-plates. Every one was at work and unhappy, so after scathing her husband with a contemptuous look, on general principles, she betook herself to the kitchen proper, and soon getting the quilting-frames into position, proceeded to "tie" her quilts, which process consisted in dotting their resplendent red and blue surfaces with fuzzy knots of yellow yarn. That night, when Myron Holder went home, she thought for the first time, once or twice rebelliously, of the portion meted out to her; but that unaccustomed mood passed and left her in her normal condition of self-reproach. It is perhaps true that martyrdom is a form of beatitude; but, if compulsory, it rarely has a spiritualizing effect. Myron Holder was condemned to endure all the "slings and arrows" that a spiteful, narrow-minded village can aim. She arose in the morning and ate her hasty breakfast to the sound of bitter words, directed with the unerring malignity of long-suppressed dislike, at last given an excuse for expression. She worked all day, subject to the taunts of a vulgar virago, the coarseness of that unlicked cub, Gamaliel, the intolerable leers and jibes of the half-paralyzed Henry Deans. She returned at night to be greeted by her grandmother's venomous reproaches. Doubtless she deserved all this--but her acceptance of it might have been different, for Myron Holder had come of no slavish race of down-trodden serfs. She had sprung from a long line of sturdy English forbears, lowly indeed, but free and bold. It would scarcely be a matter for wonder had Myron Holder fought with her back against the wall, defied the world she knew, utterly--its narrow prejudices, cramped conventions, traditionary decencies; but she did not. At this time she neither rebelled nor struggled--she endured; so did Prometheus. CHAPTER V. "Oh, the waiting in the watches of the night! In the darkness, desolation, and contrition and affright; The awful hush that holds us shut away from all delight; The ever-weary memory that ever weary goes, Recounting ever over every aching loss it knows, The ever-weary eyelids gasping ever for repose-- In the dreary, weary watches of the night!" "The flower that smiles to-day To-morrow dies; All that we wish to stay Tempts, and then flies. What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright." One day, shortly after the ragman's call, old Mr. Carroll came to have a talk with Mr. Deans. He did this often. It was not that he had any particular liking for Henry Deans or his wife, but the forced inaction of the former left him unoccupied all day long, and Mr. Carroll dearly liked "to have his talk out" when once he commenced. As a prelude to the talk proper, they discussed for an hour or so the affairs of the village, the crops of their neighbors, the scarcity of pasture and the great number of tramps. Into this part of the conversation Mrs. Deans entered heartily. After these matters were canvassed thoroughly, the men settled themselves more easily in their chairs, and took up the more serious business of the hour. Now there were only two subjects that Mr. Carroll thoroughly enjoyed talking about--politics and war; the former he regarded as the "root of all evil," the latter as the only means of reform. Mr. Deans only cared to discuss religion and crops. Each talked in his own strain about his own hobby, without regard to what his companion was saying. While one was speaking the other waited, absent-eyed, for the first pause for breath, when he promptly took up his parable where he had left off when forced to pause for breath himself. The one never heard what the other said, each being too much occupied in thinking what he should say next to bother about listening to any one else. They derived much of the same mutual benefit and amusement from these conversations as two dogs do when they race madly up and down opposite sides of a fence, barking at each other. Many learned arguments, held in high places, are conducted upon these same lines. The sunny afternoon wore along. Mrs. Deans had yawned several times, yawned audibly and significantly; but her husband, in full cry after the errors of the Catholics and the bigotry of the Church of England, disregarded the danger signal, and went on his conversational way rejoicing. Mr. Carroll, winding his way through the intricacies of the bribery and corruption and scandals of the last election, was oblivious of her yawns, their meaning, and even--ungallant as it may seem--of her presence. Gamaliel, coming in from his plough to refill his water-jug, looked slyly through the door at the trio. "She's putting her ears back," said he to himself, with pleasurable anticipation of a row, as he looked at his mother. He waited a few moments in expectation of a crisis, but at the instant when his hopes were highest an interruption occurred in the arrival of Mrs. Wilson. Mr. Carroll loathed Mrs. Wilson, a well-fed-looking but lugubrious woman, chronically aggrieved. From her own account, she had inherited and endured "all the ills the flesh is heir to," but nevertheless she was plump and comfortable-looking. Her dark eyes were bright, her red cheeks rosy, her nose a pug; her lips showed red against the whiteness of her false teeth--when the teeth were in her lips pouted, when the teeth were out her lips pursed. Mrs. Wilson was somewhat perilously given over to vanities, and had fringe on her black merino dress and a white muslin rose in her black bonnet. She had her knitting with her, an index of her intention to stay for tea, and an encouragement to Mrs. Deans to insist that she should remain. Mrs. Wilson protested she had had no intention of staying, and Mrs. Deans insisted that she should stay. Mrs. Wilson's protestations continued all the while she was laying off her bonnet, and Mrs. Deans' persuasive eloquence flowed freely; finally, with a fine assumption of compulsion, Mrs. Wilson ceased protesting, and allowed herself, knitting in hand, to be led back to the dining-room. By the time the two ladies emerged, Mr. Carroll was hobbling out of the gate and Mr. Deans was enjoying a long-deferred chew. The two women sat down opposite each other in rocking-chairs. Mrs. Wilson produced a black apron, which she donned, and then felt in her pocket for the goose-quill she carried to hold the end of her knitting needle, stuck it in her belt, and proceeded to turn the heel of a carpet-warp sock; at the same time to give Mrs. Deans a full and particular account of her sufferings from erysipelas. Mrs. Deans herself had had some experience with that disease, having once seen a woman in St. Ann's who was bald from its effects. Mrs. Wilson's needles clicked; Mrs. Deans' waxed thread hummed as she vigorously sewed carpet-rags; a distant thud-thud told that Myron Holder was churning. The sun began to sink. Suddenly Mrs. Wilson dropped her hands and her knitting into her lap, and asked, with an explosive abruptness only excusable as an indication of the startling character of the question: "Say, Jane--I want to ask you something! Has Myron Holder named her young one?" Mrs. Deans struck one hand into the other. "Well, it beats all! I never! If you'll believe me, I don't know." "I just wondered whether she had or not, but I never saw you to ask, or if I saw you I forgot, and I didn't hear tell of its being named yet. Now what do you suppose, Jane, speaking confidential between ourselves, and knowing it'll go no further--if you was asked, now, what would you say she'd call it, if 'twas put to you?" "Well, Marian," replied Mrs. Deans, with the air of a baffled astrologer, "since you ask me plain, I'll tell you one thing--I can see as far through a ladder as most people, and if I go falling it ain't through going about with my eyes shut; but all I know about it is one thing, and that ain't two; whatever Myron Holder calls the young one she won't call it Jed, for that old Mrs. Holder won't allow at no rate--for no favor. Not that Myron said anything about it; that ain't her way. She's close--terrible close is Myron, and deep beyond belief. But old Mrs. Holder says--and what she says she'll stick to, being stubborn and fixed in her notions--she says, 'No naming of such brats after my son.' No--not if Myron asks on bended knee, Mrs. Holder won't give in." "But say, Jane," hazarded Mrs. Wilson, as one who advances an improbable and wild suggestion, "supposing Myron Holder don't ask, but just does it? Do you suppose she'd dare?" "'Tain't hardly likely," returned Mrs. Deans, looking judicial; "that would be pretty serious, even for Myron Holder. But I don't know; she's bad clean through--that's easy enough seen; why she makes the greatest time over that young one you ever seen. Why, Mrs. Warner told me that the other Sunday, when she went to Holder's well for a pail of water, that the house being very quiet, she went and looked in the windows, knowing old Mrs. Holder was out to Disney's for milk. She couldn't see nothing in the front room nor the kitchen, but in the bedroom there she seen Myron Holder with the boy. The boy was asleep, and she was kneeling by the bed, talking away to the sleeping child!--'s good's praying to it, Mrs. Warner said." "I've no patience with such goings on as them," said Mrs. Wilson, clicking her needles agitatedly. "I should think she'd be ashamed to act up like that, considering all that's come and gone." "Well, you'd think so," agreed Mrs. Deans, winding up her ball of rags. "But there, Marian! There's no use talking, her kind don't care for nothing." "Well, it's to be hoped she don't throw no slurs on any decent fellow, like your Male or my Homer," said Mrs. Wilson, with dismal foreboding in her voice. "It would be just like her to pick on some fine name. But I warn her of one thing: slurs is something I can't abide and won't put up with." "Nor me, Marian, nor me," said Mia. Deans, her spirit rising in anticipation of the imaginary fray. "Let Myron Holder call her brat Gamaliel, and I'll let her know for once, in her life, that respectable people has their rights. Just only let her, once, and that's all. If I don't show her pretty prompt what's what, blame me!" "Well, 'twould be a most terrible slur on any fellow, that's all I can say," returned Mrs. Wilson. After tea Homer Wilson called for his mother and drove her away, her white muslin rose nodding above the black barége veil she tied across her forehead to ward off neuralgia, her hands clasping lovingly a bottle of liniment distilled from dried "smartweed," which Mrs. Deans had bestowed upon her. Mrs. Deans watched their departure from the veranda; presently she voiced her reflections aloud: "Marian don't crack up Homer as much as she used to do; guess that shoe pinches a bit. Well, served her right! Nobody but a fool gives away his clothes before he's done with them! They shouldn't have been so smart giving Homer the deed." "No, I don't hold with doing that. Don't catch me doing any such business, not I," said Mr. Deans' voice from the kitchen. Mrs. Deans jerked her shoulders impatiently, and took herself and her meditations out of her husband's hearing. She was gone some little time, having walked down to the pasture to look at the lambs. As she entered the cook-house she murmured to herself, "I can't make my mind up to it somehow, but she was anxious, was Marian, terrible anxious about the name--Homer Wilson." Homer Wilson and his mother drove homeward. They passed Myron Holder entering the gate of her home. She had taken off her sunbonnet and held it by the strings, as she fastened the gate. Her hair, loosened and roughened, was massed about her head in such a way as to form a soft, shadowy background, from which the pale oval of her face shone forth almost startlingly. "Guess Mrs. Deans is taking her money's worth out of Myron Holder," said Homer after they passed. "She looks mighty tired out." "Oh, goodness, Homer," said his mother, "don't take up with that girl. 'Tired out!' Serve her right if she is! It's pure charity Jane Deans' having her; and as for stubbornness and badness, Jane says she can't be beat. I guess her old grandmother has a tough time of it! Old folks has a poor chance when young ones get the whip-hand. Give--give--and when you've given all you've got you're no more good! Well, time's short here any way, and a good thing it is! No pleasure after one gets old--only burdens on other people." Here Mrs. Wilson sniffed loudly, and ostentatiously wiped away an imaginary tear. Homer's face burned in the dusk; his heart rose hot against the reflection his mother's speech was meant to cast upon him. But he made no answer; he was used to such things; they drove on without further speech. The loose links in the horses' traces jingled; their hoof-beats sounded soft on the sandy road. They drew near the house before Mrs. Wilson spoke again; then she said briskly: "Homer, don't go speaking to Myron Holder if you meet her; she's a dangerous girl." "She looks it," said Homer, with a touch of sarcasm. "I don't think I'll be hurt by passing a good day with her, though." "That's right--I might have known as much. Get mixed up with her next, as if I hadn't had enough trouble," whined his mother. Homer was getting exasperated. The knowledge that he had that very morning passed Myron Holder in absent-minded silence added to the irritation of his mood. His mother's persistent misconstruction of his motives and actions was at times almost unbearable. He answered out of pure perversity: "She's the best looking girl in the village, by long odds; and as for not speaking to her, I fancy the women do plenty of 'passing by on the other side' business without the men helping them. You won't find many men, I reckon, unwilling to speak to Myron Holder." A strange conviction of the absolute truth of what he was saying smote across his mind, and suddenly Myron Holder's pale face seemed to show out of the gloom before him, as he had seen it a little while before against the dark background of her hair. His mother almost groaned aloud; a dreadful thought flittered momentarily through her mind, but Homer was already pulling up the horses. He helped her out carefully, and she entered the house absorbed in peevish self-pity. Old Mr. Wilson was ready to receive her and eager to hear the "news." When Homer finished attending to his horses and came into the house, he found they had already retired. He heard the murmur of his mother's voice, broken only by a sharp exclamation or a short interrogation from his father. He blew out the lamp and sat down at the open window, laying his head on his hands. The frogs in the pond were uttering their weird and dismal note. No other sound has a more melancholy echo, a more desolate tone. An earthy breath of wind was wafted from across the newly ploughed land near the house. In the sunshine the aroma from fresh furrows is sweeter than the breath of sweet grass; at night it brings the odor of the charnel. The wind died down; it was very still and dark. The dew fell. Presently Homer Wilson rose, and, still in the dark, found his way softly upstairs. His thick brown hair was laden with the night damps, but even the first heavy dews of spring do not leave long, glistening, smarting furrows on the cheeks--do not fall in slow-wrung, scalding drops upon clinched hands, do not linger in salt traces about the lips they touch. When Homer Wilson avowed conversion in the little Methodist Church, his mother confided to Mrs. Deans that she was exceedingly glad thereat. "I can let him go to the city with an easier mind, now that I know he's got religion," she said. Homer had gone to the anxious-seat the night before, during the revival meeting, had been prayed over, and sung over, and had avowed, in a few jerky, hesitating sentences, that "he felt better--happier--there is a load off my mind--I--" But his testimony had been interrupted at this point, greatly to his own relief and his mother's wrath, by enthusiastic Sister Warner beginning to sing, in a high, shrill treble: "Once I was blind, But now I can see; The Light of the World is Jesus." Homer retired from the meeting feeling a little dazed. He knew he had done what was expected of him, and believed it was the right thing to do, but was a bit confused as to the impulse which had prompted him to take the step. The next morning he started for the commercial college, where he was about to take a course. He was alert to the possibilities of life, and was clear-headed enough to see that without education his chances were nil. He had gone, winter after winter, to the village school, and had a wide reputation among the villagers as a mathematician. "It's pretty hard to fool Homer Wilson on figgers," was the general verdict. He was too progressive to dream of spending his life in that little hamlet, so he saved all his earnings, and at last had enough to cover the low expenses of a two-year course at the business college--an institution which, among its numerous advantages, promised "to secure good situations for such of the students as shall obtain our diploma." When Homer Wilson started from the village, he was a good specimen of the country Hercules; tall, sinewy, resolute, with unflinching will and bulldog courage. His conversion, if it had not sprung from his inmost soul or stirred the deepest depths of his heart, had at least awakened and strengthened his better resolutions; his mind was eager to receive the knowledge that he knew meant power. His hopes were high, his heart and temper generous. He met _Her_ shortly after he commenced his course. Her brother was attending the college and took Homer to his home one night. Homer thought her perfection, for his standard of comparison was not high. She had fluffy yellow hair, and pretty eyes, and pretty ways, and pretty speeches galore. She was winning and cordial, and he thought her absurd questions about country ways and country doings very entertaining. She was bright and quick and quite charmed this keen young man, who, for all his shrewdness, proved an easy prey to these trivial acts which girls of her caste exercise so unsparingly. He confided to her all his ambitions, and she listened eagerly. Perhaps he gave her a rather too glowing account of the farm at home. The peaches and grapes were, perhaps, hardly so plentiful, and certainly were not so easily obtained. The harvests were, perhaps, not quite so golden, the garden perhaps not so lovely, as he depicted it, nor his father so admirable, nor his mother so benevolently kind to everybody. But he had left home for the first time, and, after all, despite his ambitions, his heart was yet in the country, with the fields, the sun, the birds and the trees. Under these circumstances a man is prone to forget the tedious process of planting and nursing and cultivating the peach trees until they are fit for fruiting--to overlook the ploughing and sowing and harrowing, and the long days of toil before the fields "whiten to the harvest," and to think and speak of both fruit and grain as springing, with all the beauty of spontaneity, from the gracious Mother Earth. And his listener, if she be a selfish, shallow creature, unthinking and unheeding, is prone to think only of results, and not at all of the toil they represent. So life slipped along with Homer Wilson, studying and loving and writing home. Then came a summer day when he took _Her_ for a day's trip to his home in Jamestown. His mother had outdone herself preparing country dainties. It was the time of strawberries, and there were strawberries and cream, and strawberry shortcake, and crullers, and pies, and boiled ham, and the sun was shining, and _She_ fluttered about, genuinely pleased with many things and affecting to be delighted by everything. Old Mr. Wilson had been at his best. Mrs. Wilson was urbane in a new dress, and Homer strode about, showing _Her_ the farm, erect and happily excited. It was the halcyon day of his life. In the evening there was the trip back to the city, Homer taking care of the basket of strawberries his mother had bestowed upon _Her_. That night she promised to marry him. He wrote to his people, and his mother returned a somewhat unintentionally lugubrious epistle, conveying their good wishes and consent. Weeks and months sped, and Homer had never been home since that day. His old people did not take that amiss, for travelling, as they knew, cost money. But there came a day when his course was completed, the coveted diploma bestowed upon him, and a situation secured for him as bookkeeper in a lumber-yard, at thirty-five dollars a month. He made up his mind to go home for a day or two before starting work. He reached the village elate--fortune seemed within his grasp. His father was surly and harassed-looking; his mother's face looked older and with genuine lines of trouble about the lips, far more significant than the peevish wrinkles of self-pity that creased her brow. He soon learned the cause of these things. The mortgage, which had always seemed as much a matter of course to him as the taxes or the road-work, was about to be foreclosed. The man who had lent them the money would not renew it; he hinted that he feared for his interest, as it seemed there was no young man to take hold of the place, and in the event of the property deteriorating he feared for his principal. The old people before this dilemma seemed numbed. They could think of no expedient, and were apparently incapable of deciding what course to pursue. Homer listened to it all in sick wonder that he had not been told, rejoicing inwardly that he had cost them nothing at least for two years back, though he also realized with bitterness that he had helped them none. He went to his old room that night to fight a hard battle with himself, and to conquer--to give up his ambitions, which, humble as they seem, were yet great to him; to relinquish the joy of seeing _Her_ daily; to return to the old, hopeless struggle of striving to make ends meet, to bend his energies to the circumscribed field of making the most of the few acres of the old farm; to come back and be called a failure by his friends; to have to wait a long, long time before he could call Her "wife." But while that last idea held the bitterest thought of all, in it also lay the kernel of the hope which was to keep his heart alive. He felt he had a sure and certain hope of a happy future, no matter how long deferred, and he remembered, with a pang of pity, that his father and mother had only a past. His brothers and sisters were all married long since, and each had struggle enough to keep the wolf from the door. No help from any one but himself could relieve his old people. The dawn found him resolved. He told his father and mother at the breakfast-table. They were both delighted, but did not know very well how to express it. To a stranger's mind there might have been some doubt as to whether they appreciated the sacrifice or not. They did not in full. No one save, perhaps, a woman who loved him could have known the magnitude of his renunciation. His father and he went that day to see the old man who held the mortgage. He was a shrewd old miser, and was fain to secure himself in every way against anxiety and loss. He insisted that the new mortgage should be made out in Homer's name. He wanted this open-browed, strong, resolute young man for his debtor, and not the vacillating old man, who looked as if no responsibility would trouble him long. So the farm was transferred to Homer's name, and the mortgage also. Homer resumed his old life unfalteringly. He wrote and told _Her_ all about his change of plans, and she replied to his letters regularly. Her letters were not very satisfying; women of her fibre are not usually very fascinating on paper. So Homer felt trebly the sacrifice he was making, for he attributed none of his sense of loss to the lack of real feeling in her letters. On the contrary, he thought those letters, with their stilted beginning and spidery writing, the sweetest of all epistles; and thought to himself how altogether lovely she was, when even such letters as these left him unsatisfied and with heart-hunger unappeased. Homer was not one to put his hand to the plough and then draw back. He threw into his work all the energy of his resolute will, and backed it by the severest physical toil he was capable of. It was up-hill and disheartening work, but he toiled on. He had disappointments enough and to spare, but he wrote them all down to _Her_, and forgot them when he read that she was "so sorry." He had progressive ideas which sometimes worried him sorely, for it was trying to see others availing themselves of modern appliances for cultivating, etc., while Homer felt bound to struggle on with the old implements his father possessed, which called for double the expenditure of labor and time, and even then did not yield satisfactory results. In the spring, too, it took the heart out of him to walk the rows of his peach orchard and find a third of the trees killed, girdled by the teeth of the field-mice. Homer's heart almost failed him when he discovered this last mishap, for he was oppressed by the knowledge that he could have prevented it. It was true that he could not afford the expensive shields of metal for his trees that some of his neighbors had, but if, immediately after that heavy snowstorm of last winter, he had gone out and tramped the snow tightly round each tree, then they would not have been girdled; for the snow, if left undisturbed, never clings close to a peach tree; there is always a space between, and the mice creep round and round the tree in this space, gnawing it to the height of the snow. The peach trees next the fence, where the snow had drifted, were girdled completely up to a height of three or four feet. Homer had visited _Her_ in the winter. The week after the heavy snowstorm had been spent with her. His mother reminded him of this, and he flung out of the house angrily. He was fairly sick over the loss of his trees, and to have anything cold said about Her was too much. He wrote _Her_ all about it; perhaps in his desperate longing for sympathy, loving sympathy and comprehension, he depicted the disaster as even more serious than it really was. He waited for her letter eagerly. It came. Her frivolous, mercenary soul had taken fright. She sheltered herself behind the old excuse for disloyalty--worn thread-bare by women of all stations. She wrote that she felt she "did not love him as she should if she was to be his wife." He had sent the little Home-boy to the Post-Office for the letter; he brought it to the field where Homer was planting out tomato-plants. Homer Wilson read his letter twice or thrice, put it carefully in its envelope, and then safely in his pocket. He went on with his task--slowly--slowly, though, with none of the tremulous haste with which he had been exhausting himself for months. He packed the roots with soil; it was some relief, the hard, resistent pressure of the earth; there was something left to battle against, if nothing left to fight for. So he continued his row, feeling a fierce wrath if one of the shaky little plants would not stand straight, and hushing the Home-boy's chatter with a terrible, pale look. He completed his task, and went about his other work in an atmosphere of enforced calm that was torture. By some chance none of his tasks that day called for any output of physical strength. It was a day of small things, trivial tasks which maddened him by their helpless need for patience, not strength. But the weariest hours pass, and night fell over the village as a veil. Then he wrote to Her a few straightforward, manly lines, setting her free; telling her she had acted rightly if she did not love him. Then he lay down for another night of poignant thought. He recalled Her visit to the farm, and remembered how impatient he had felt when his mother maundered on about sending back the basket the strawberries went in. He had felt a little ashamed of his mother's thrift just then. When the morning came Homer was ready for work, but there had been a distinct decadence in him during the night that was past. He had no longer anything to live for but money; he rose to search for this only good with eager, greedy eyes. For this poor countryman had come of a long race of penurious, grasping men and women, and that mercenary craving for money and land had been latent in his nature since his birth. When he went to the business college it stirred within him vaguely, and might then have developed, but better ambitions ousted it. But these aspirations were gone, and in their place flourished--grown to its full height in a single night--the Upas Tree of Greed. He told his people next day. His mother promptly said, "I knowed how it would be! A big-feeling, handless creature, idle and good for nothing! With her airified ways and her notions; I told you so all along, Homer," etc., etc. But Homer, ere even the second word was spoken, was out of the house and striding along with black brows to his tomatoes. The row he had planted the day before looked limp; by night they were yellow--withered--dead. In replanting them he found each stalk broken clean off below the earth; he had indulged his strength too much in packing the earth about them. Day by day the change in him went on--gradually, almost imperceptibly, but startlingly apparent, had any one contrasted the Homer of the present with the man of the past. It was very pitiful. Worst of all, he was conscious himself of the change, but could not analyze it, so could do nothing to arrest the atrophy of his soul. He began to prosper by fits and starts; later more steadily. He had a balance at the end of the summers now, and invested it in better stock, new implements and fine varieties of fruit. He hid his aching heart under an offensively blustering manner, and was so morbidly afraid of any one knowing his secret that he was too carelessly gay--too full of pointless jests. Often, after a gathering of the village young people, he strolled home under the stars, dazed and wondering, his throat harsh with much speech, his head aching with tuneless laughter. Was he really the man who had chattered on so a few minutes since? he asked himself. And the other young people said, among themselves, "Homer Wilson does like to show off so!" It was an anguish to him when he saw, now and then, a young man leave the village, win what he considered success, and come back smiling, content, and well dressed, for a brief holiday; then back to the world outside again. His temper became irascible. When his horses were refractory he was unmerciful; but after any outbreak against a dumb animal his stifled manhood rose against this last, worst outrage against it. But the horses did not recall the extra feeding and light work as they did the blow, and they shrank and shivered and started nervously when he approached. He noted this, and it cut him to the heart, or stung him into dull wrath against them, as his mood was. The farm did better and better, and well it might; all the honest and generous part of a man's nature was being sunk in it. He began to pay the principal of the loan in instalments; at last he had the farm clear. His brothers and sisters murmured against him. Homer had stolen their birthright, they whispered; he had got hold of the farm just when the hard times were past; he had wheedled the old people into giving it all to him, they said, and they each and every one had worked as hard as he had, and besides he had all his own way, while they had had to work under the old man's orders. So the boys came home with their families, and paid long visits and impressed upon the old man how Homer had "bested him." And the girls returned with their children, and condoled with their mother. They departed, leaving the old man morose, irritable and repining, the old woman in tearful self-pity; and Homer saw it all and smiled grimly, but said no word. So the old people saw grudgingly his hard-won success, although they shared it fully, and spoke of their other children always with the prefix "poor," as if contrasting Homer's prosperous and happy lot with theirs. He had, after all, a grim sense of humor, and this Jacob-like light in which his family viewed him filled him with sneering mirth. Verily they were a miserable tribe of Esaus. But the mirth died out at last, leaving a residuum of rage against his kin, who so persistently misjudged him, and one bitter night he lay and cursed the resolution which had brought him back to rescue his old people from the slough of despond. With the acknowledgment of this regret, the disintegration of his soul would seem to be complete. CHAPTER VI. "And oh, the carven mouth, with all its great Intensity of longing frozen fast In such a smile as well may designate The slowly murdered heart, that, to the last, Conceals each newer wound, and back at fate Throbs Love's eternal lie:--'Lo, I can wait!'" "And all that now is left me, is to bear." That night in the darkness, Homer Wilson's lip curled as he thought of his mother's too ready fears for him, nor could he refrain a sneer at the idea of Mrs. Deans' disinterested benevolence. But after that, he set himself to slumber, but in vain. Sleep, that "Comfortable bird, That broodeth o'er the troubled sea of the mind Till it is hush'd and smooth," would not bestow its benison upon his tired brain and weary heart, for he was haunted by the memory of Myron Holder's hopeless face. It had been, these past years, no unusual thing for this poor countryman to lie the long nights through, tortured by the vision of a woman's face: but it had ever been a fair, pretty, laughing face that had thus enthralled him within the bounds of painful thought; a face that by its brightness cast a shadow upon every other vision that strove to tempt him to forget; a face he had worshipped, and thought on tenderly, as his own; a face he had striven to imagine old; a face he had even dared to think of, dead, and always--always as his own precious possession. But this night his reverie was no selfish one of bygone bliss, or present pain, or future hopelessness; it was wholly of a woman's pale face, carven cameo-like against a night of hair, and exceeding sorrowful. He recalled Myron Holder as she had been, a plump and pretty girl; one whom all the boys in Jamestown had liked, but who had been kept rigidly away from all the village gatherings by her grandmother. He recalled the cadence of her voice, softened always and made richer than the strident Jamestown voice by the English accent she had inherited. He remembered having heard her singing once as he drove past the little hop-clad cottage; as he thought of it, the words came back to him in part: "Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie. * * * * * * Merrily, merrily, shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough." He recollected how a rippling laugh prolonged the song. He had caught a glimpse of her that day; she was standing beneath a cherry tree--her upstretched arms held a blossomed bough, and she gave it little jerks in time to her singing--the white petals of the cherry blooms showered down upon her hair in fragrant snow. Her grandmother called her in--scolding her as an "idle maid"; Myron had fled into the house still laughing, and with the cherry blooms clinging to her dark hair; and as Homer drove on, he thought what a light-hearted girl she was. That was in the first year of his sacrifice--now he caught his breath as he mentally compared the girl beneath the cherry tree finishing her song with thrills of laughter with the woman standing mute in the moonlight as he had so late beheld her. How utterly incongruous it seemed to think of Myron Holder now in connection with that heart-whole girl. How much she had lost! That day when he heard her laughter and her singing, he had compared Myron for a moment to _Her_,--now, alas! she was more like him. This set him off into another train of thought: How much he too had lost! He began to wonder dimly if he had been guilty of any cowardice. A phrase of Jed Holder's came back to him; he was full of trite saws, that little English broom-maker, and when any one lost their courage before misfortune, he used to say they "let their bone go with the dog." Had not he--Homer--let slip some of his self-respect before the loss of his love? He hazily perceived the difference between self-respect and self-seeking, but he could not condemn himself just yet; he began to dissuade himself from this dissatisfaction with himself; he recounted his achievements--the paying off the mortgage--restocking the farm--planting the new orchard--and reshingling the barn--sinking the cistern--his successful experiments--his prudential management--his economy; he marshalled all these arguments against the feeble voice that strove to speak of a narrowed mind, a hardened heart, a bitter spirit, and for the nonce stilled it, only stilled it, however; happily for Homer Wilson, it was not yet stifled utterly. It was pitiable, but natural in one so generous as in reality Homer was, that he should overlook completely his real claims to credit: his patience with his whining mother, his generosity to his father, his tolerance of his ungrateful brothers and sisters. He attained a quasi-self-content after a time, but still tossed restlessly. At last he could endure it no longer; he sprang up, dressed, and going to his window, drew aside the curtain and looked forth toward the village. The dusk of night had given way to the cold darkness of the hour before dawn; as he looked, a dull yellow light illumined the panes of one low window, then it faded out to reappear outside the house; it went (for at that distance its feeble glow did not reveal the hand that bore it)--it went waveringly along some hundred yards, then was lowered, and vanished. There was a space of darkness, then the light was raised, and proceeded back to the house; it vanished round the corner, gleamed a moment from the window, and again journeyed forth in the dusk, again was lowered--again lost to sight--again its feeble gleam traced its pathway toward the dwelling. Homer Wilson knew by the location what house sent forth this wandering light, and following a swift impulse, ran downstairs, pulled on an old pair of soft shoes, let himself out quietly, and sped along the highway to the village. The streets were silent, the dwellings dark, Jamestown still slumbered. As he reached the house where the light was, he entered the garden through a gap in the dilapidated fence, walked along in the darkest shadow until he came to the corner at the point where the light's journeyings ceased, and stood there hidden by an overgrown bush of privet; and then he saw the light come forth: it was a queer old lantern Myron Holder carried, one, indeed, brought from England. It had lighted her mother's happy footsteps along Kentish lanes; but how differently that long dead Myron had sped! "Merry heart makes light foot," her husband used to say; alas, that their child should lack that happy impetus! Myron advanced slowly, unsteadily almost--the four little panes of the lantern lighted dimly by the end of a tallow candle. She carried in her other hand a large pail. Homer could not understand her errand, creeping forth thus in the sleeping night. She came nearer and nearer, and at last he understood. She reached the old well (the best well in Jamestown, and the deepest); set down her lantern, and taking the handle of the windlass began to lower the bucket; creak--creak went the wooden windlass; at last there came a faint splash, and Myron painfully rewound the chain; she emptied the well bucket into her pail, lifted it (throwing, as Homer thought, all her physical strength into the lifting of the heavy pail, and seeming to move by the force of her will alone), and bending far over, proceeded to the house. He traced her footsteps by the lantern's gleam to the kitchen door; he heard the plash of water, and then once more the weary light emerged. Myron Holder was carrying the water for her grandmother's washing before starting for her mile's walk and subsequent day's work at Deans'. Homer Wilson's familiarity with household affairs told him this--whispered also something of her motherhood and its demands upon her, with which this cruel toil so ill accorded. He was only a young countrymen, rough and not refined to careful phrase. "It's damnable!" he said below his breath, and ground his heel into the sand. As she approached the well a second time, he waited till she set down her lantern and pail, and then stepped forth from the shadow--a tall, strong figure in the gloom, uttering her name softly: "Myron--Myron Holder!" For a heart-beat she stood rigid, then her hands clasped: an instant thus she stood, and then stretched forth her arms with an infinitude of yearning helplessness, an agony of tenderness and pleading, a world of relief in the gesture. "You have come," she said. [Illustration: "YOU HAVE COME!"] In all his after-life, Homer Wilson never forgot the awful accent in which these words--meant-to-be-welcoming words to the man for whom she had suffered so much--were uttered. Horrified at the cruel mistake he had caused, he stood for a moment motionless; the next, he had sprung forward--for Myron Holder fathomed her mistake and fell without a sound. Homer caught her before she touched the ground, and holding her in his arms, distraught with self-reproach, strove to awaken her by calling her name. "Myron--Myron," he whispered, with all the intensity of suppressed feeling, "Myron--Myron." Her eyes unclosed; she did not stir, nor flush, nor speak. She only looked at him out of eyes which were terrible in their tragic despair; eyes which seemed to accuse him of his manhood, that rendered him akin to her betrayer. As Homer Wilson looked upon that pallid face, which the wan light of dawn illumined palely, his soul was suddenly smitten with self-contempt. What was the grief before which he had abased himself? What was it to endure beside open shame? Life had seemed to him almost insupportable, endurable only because he felt he had not merited the pain. What must it be to this woman, knowing she had bought contempt at the price of her own folly? He recalled with what morbid care he had concealed the pangs he felt; how he had dreaded lest any eye discern his pain. What must it be to endure, not only sorrow and desertion and betrayal, but to endure it all openly; to meet in every eye a question, to hear on every lip a sneer, to know that every heart held scorn? This is the doom that has driven hermits to the desert, that has tempted women to-- "From the world's bitter wind, Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb," These thoughts did not formulate themselves in his brain; they rushed upon him--instantaneous impressions--and vanished, leaving ineffable compassion in his heart, as he looked at the anguished face of Myron Holder. She was weakly trying to steady herself, and at last said in a lifeless voice, "I can stand alone now." "Forgive me, Myron," said Homer, too much moved to feel any awkwardness; "forgive me--I frightened you." "No," she said, "you did not frighten me; I thought----" She paused. "You thought----" He began, but hesitated. "I thought you were _he_" she said, in breathless tones. Homer shuddered at the inflection of the words. In such accents might one acknowledge Death's dominion over one well-beloved. He threw off the chill at his heart and caught her hands. "Myron," he said, "who is he?" "I cannot tell you," she answered. "Tell me," he urged; "tell me, and be he far or near, high or low, I will bring him to you." "I cannot tell you," she repeated. Then for once moved beyond her self-control, "Oh, that I could!" "Why can't you?" he asked hotly. "It is but common justice--let him bear his part." "I promised," she replied simply, regaining her calm, the momentary glow of impatience dying out of her voice. "Promised!" he echoed. "What's a promise given to _him_ worth? Nothing--absolutely nothing. Promised! He did some fine promising, I dare swear. A promise to him!" "I promised," she said again; then pushing back her head a little that she might look him in the face (for she was hardly of the common height of women), she went on: "I promised, and I will keep my promise; he will come, and I can wait." In an instant her head sank. Her own words had brought before her a terrible mirage of what that waiting meant. He let fall her hands, and stepped back a pace. The action seemed to break the bond that had held at bay the memory of the world. Constraint fell upon Homer Wilson, and Myron's face burned in the dusky light. "Did you want anything?" she asked in uncertain tones. "No," he answered. "I saw your light from the window at home, and I came to see what work was going on so early." "I always do what I can before I go to Mrs. Deans'," she said; "this is wash-day." "You will kill yourself," he cried angrily. "What's your grandmother thinking of?" Myron's head sank. "I deserve it all, you know," she said. "I----" "You've no call to kill yourself," retorted Homer hotly. "Mrs. Deans is an old wretch, and your grandmother's a----" "She's good to my baby," said Myron, checking his speech with a gesture. He recalled the child's existence, and, moved by an odd impulse, said gently: "How is your child, Myron?" She glanced at him with a gratitude so intense that he flushed and moved uneasily--as one accredited with a worthy deed he has not done. "Oh, so well," she said. "He----" She paused, her face flaming. "Oh, do go----" "Let me carry that pailful for you?" he asked, hesitatingly. "No--no--do go!" she returned. Both were now painfully constrained and eager to be alone. "Well, I may as well be going, then," said Homer; and turning, made toward the gap in the fence, through which he had entered the garden. Once on the street, he quickly ran across the two streets of the village, and made his way through the fields, reaching his own barns just as his mother came to the kitchen door. She was looking toward the village, and saying shrilly to her husband: "What did I tell you? Up and gone at this time! Fine doings these, I must say! Oh, I knowed it by the way he spunked up last night when I jest was giving him a hint to look out for her. I tell ye no such woman as that sets her foot in these doors; no, not if he laws on it. I tell ye----" "Did you want me, mother?" asked Homer, showing himself at the stable-door, curry-comb and brush in hand. "Oh, you're there, be ye?" said his mother, with a gasp of surprise. "Yes," said Homer; "do you want me?" "No; oh, no. I was just looking at the morning," said his mother, and vanished. "Just got back in time," soliloquized Homer, contemptuously, as he went back to his work. Left alone, Myron Holder stood a moment motionless. Then she took a few steps forward, into the shadow of the bush that but lately had held for her such cruel delusion. The mists of the morning that still lingered about the bush parted at her passage and clung round her, chill shreds of vapor. The evanescent flush died out of her face; her eyes were dazed with pain--she locked her hands (stained with the rust of the windlass chain) and wrung them cruelly; now she pressed her quivering lips together--now they parted in shuddering respirations. How many tides of hope had swelled within her heart! How stony were the shores on which they had spent themselves! How salt the memory of their floods! But never a wave of them all had risen so high as this one, which had swept her forward to the very haven of hope only to leave her fast upon the sands of despair. She looked from side to side, with pitiable helplessness in her eyes, over the desolate garden. Each bush seemed a mocking sentinel appointed to watch her misery; nay, to her stricken heart each seemed the abiding place of some new cheat that in time would issue forth to delude and torture her. Unfailing tears gathered in her eyes; she let her face fall in her hands and breathed forth a name-- "Like the yearning cry of some bewildered bird Above an empty nest"; but more softly than any plaint of bird was that name uttered, whispered so faintly that no cadence of its sound trembled even amidst the leaves that brushed her down-bent head. Presently Myron Holder stood erect, her face masked by a patience more poignant than pain, more sublime than sorrow, more dreadful than despair. Not all heroic souls are cast in heroic shapes. There was something in this woman's hard-wrought hands, and simple garb, and weary eyes, and tender mouth--nay, in the undefinable meekness of her attitude, that belied her courage. She filled her pail and bore it to the house, setting her face as resolutely toward her fate as she set her hand to carrying the heavy pail; and, heavy as her burden was, she rebelled no more against bearing it than she did against the weight of the pail that she herself had filled. "Earth has seen Love's brightest roses on the scaffold bloom, Mingling with freedom's fadeless laurels there." But easier indeed were it to lay Love's roses in full blossom on a scaffold than to cherish them, as this woman did and other women have done, in the wastes of a betrayed trust--their blossoms dyed a frightful scarlet by the blood of a breaking heart. Love's roses grow in bitter soil ofttimes; their petals are soon spent, but their thorns are amaranthine. CHAPTER VII. "We rest--a dream has power to poison sleep; We rise--one wandering thought pollutes the day." "Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity Until death tramples it to fragments." "The silent workings of the dawns" were past, and the whole sky pearled to an exquisite soft grayness when Myron Holder set out that day to go to Mrs. Deans'. The road swam dizzily before her; the snake fence zig-zagged wildly; the trees whirled round; the very stones appeared as if rolling over and over in awkward gambols; the wayside cows loomed gigantic to her uncertain vision. Her head throbbed heavily--her knees trembled; the physical reaction following supreme mental effort had set in, and her nerves, denied outward expression of the strain put upon them, were racking her frame sorely. She persevered, however, holding a wavering course from one side of the road to the other; at last she reached the little graveyard of Jamestown, wedged in between the farms of Mr. White and Mr. Deans. Its picket-fence was garlanded with long trails of the native virgin-bower clematis, just putting forth its first leaf-buds. The hepaticas, their blossoms past, showed circular clumps of broad, green leaves, standing erect on downy stalks over the prostrate copper-colored ones of last year; the blood-root had lost all its white petals, and its spear-pointed seed-pods and single, broad, green leaves stood in thick masses, like miniature stands of arms, spear and shield; but the trilliums were nodding their triune-leaved blossoms; the wild phlox swayed daintily its cluster of fragile azure blooms; the meadow violets were clustered in dark-blue masses; the bracken ferns were uncoiling their fuzzy fronds; the May apples (mandrake) were pointing through the mellow soil, like so many small wax candles. Now and then a pungent odor came to her as she trod upon the fresh-springing pennyroyal, or bruised the stems of the mint that grew everywhere. She was late already, as she knew, but was moved to go to see her father's sleeping-place. She went slowly between the graves, carefully avoiding treading on any of them. Her father had told her of the ill-luck that follows the foot that treads upon a grave and the hand that casts away bread. By what fearful sacrilege had this woman purchased her fate? Her eyes were clearing now; and as she stood beside her father's grave, she looked upon it steadily enough. She felt a rapt sense of his presence--he had been very good to her in his absent-minded way. If he had lived! The woman found herself grateful that he died before. She rested her thoughts here to ask herself a question: If her father had lived, would she have lost herself? She held her breath for an instant--then turned and sped from his grave. She felt that her gaze defiled it--for, throbbing in each artery, tingling through every vein, poisoning her heart, she felt her whole being rise to affirm its shame--to give the damning answer "Yes" to that poignant self-interrogation. She was certainly late that morning, and Mrs. Deans met her with flushed face and angry eyes. "Well, this is a nice time of day! 'Laziness is much worth when it's well guided.' It would seem to me, Myron Holder, as if you'd try to make some return for the favors I've shown you, and what I've done for you, and what I've put up with. Time and time again, I've said to myself, says I, 'Let her go--what's the good of her? What's the good of keeping a dog and doing your own barking?' But being sorry for you, I never said nothing. But now, I tell you, Myron Holder, this thing's got to quit--either you can come here in decent time, or you can stay home!" Then, in a more insulting tone of voice, she asked: "What time did ye start this morning? I'll ask your grandmother. Pretty doings these, loitering along the roads! I'd have thought you'd had enough of that. Well, don't look at me like that! You're too good to be spoken to, I suppose; it's a pity you didn't do some blushing before now! It's rather late in the day for such delikit feelings--you what? Stopped in the graveyard? I wouldn't wonder, nothing more likely; were you alone? Well 'twasn't your fault, if you were. I guess Jed Holder thinks himself lucky to be rid of the world and such doings as yours. Poor Jed! Little did he know what shame he was leaving behind him. How your grandmother stands it and how she abides that brat, _I_ can't see. One thing I've always said: 'Don't bring me no such brats as them, for I won't be concerned with no such doings!' But there, what's the use of talking? I never say nothing, but I think a lot. I guess your mother must have been a beauty from all I hear tell. Certainly you didn't get your bad blood off Jed Holder, and you must have took it somewhere. 'Like mother, like child'--well--none of such worry for me!" Then, stepping aside suddenly, and thus clearing the passage she had hitherto barred, she went on: "What are you standing looking at? Ain't you going to scrub to-day, or are you come visiting? I'm sorry if you have"--here a fine sarcasm echoed in her tone--"because I can't go and set down and entertain you, for I have my bread and butter to earn. But don't mind me--go right into the setting-room and make yourself at home." Myron having availed herself of the first opportunity to move from under Mrs. Deans' insulting glances, had already divested herself of her sunbonnet, and was getting cloths and water for her scrubbing. Soon she escaped from Mrs. Deans' eyes, but the sound of her jibing tongue came harshly to her in every pause of her work. The forenoon passed. After dinner the hired man brought the newspaper in and gave it to Mrs. Deans. She looked at the price of butter and eggs, and passed it to her husband. He sat blinking by the half-open window: upon the window-sill was a bottle of sarsaparilla, a patch-work pin-cushion, and two or three potatoes Homer Wilson had brought to the Deans as samples--he being agent for a seedsman. Mrs. Deans brought out a big canvas-bag of carpet-balls, and, placing two chairs back to back, began winding the balls into huge skeins. She was going to dye them. Mrs. Deans worked away with her hanks, tying them carefully in separate strands, so that they would dye equally. Mr. Deans read his paper, its leaves rustling in his tremulous fingers. The sound of Myron Holder's scrubbing came raspingly through the air. The bound girl was out in the "yard" raking together dead leaves, bits of old bones, and emptied sarsaparilla bottles, making it tidy for the summer. "Well, Jane!" ejaculated Henry Deans, in a tone of pleased surprise, "who d'ye think's dead?" "Who? Old Mrs. White? Is it her? Or Mrs. Warner's sister up in Ovid? She was took terrible bad a week ago Friday. It's young Emmons! I know it! But say, isn't he owing for that last cord of wood? I never seen anything like it, the way people cheat! It's something awful! But I'll have that four dollars, though, out of Mame Emmons. If she can afford flannel at fifty cents a yard (and Ann White saw her pricing it), she can afford to pay her debts. Well, them Emmonses always was shiftless, but----" "It ain't Emmons, though Homer Wilson says he looks most terrible bad; it's Follett!" "You don't say!" said Mrs. Deans; "you don't say! When was he took?" "It don't tell," answered her husband, screwing his eyes horribly as he read the obituary over again. "It don't tell--oh--yes it does! 'Caught a heavy cold a month ago and settled on his lungs.' Well, he's gone, then." "Not much loss, his kind ain't," said Mrs. Deans contemptuously. "Wonder if he forgot me before he went?" said her husband, with a reflective enjoyment. "That was a pretty good one, wasn't it, Jane?" "Yes; no mistake about it, Henry, you hit the nail on the head that time. I declare it does beat all how time flies. Just think! it's six years full since then----" "Six years full--no, seven," assented Mr. Deans. "No, six," said his wife; "it was just the year before your accident." "So 'twas." A pause, then he said, "I think I'll have some sarsaparilly, Jane." Mrs. Deans got a spoon from the table-drawer, drew out the gummy cork, and gave him a spoonful. "Better have a taste yourself," he suggested. "Don't know but I will," she said, and helped herself to a dram. The cork was replaced; silence fell upon the pair. Henry Deans and his wife had partaken of the closest communion they knew. Mrs. Deans left her rags presently to go out to superintend the placing of some new chicken-coops, and Mr. Deans dozed off into a pleasurable reverie, evoked by the death of Dan Follett. Around the name of Dan Follett clustered the recollections of Mr. Deans' happiest achievement--for, using Dan Follett as an unworthy instrument, he had purged Jamestown of malt and spirituous liquors and brought the village within the temperance fold. It was thus: Dan Follett had come to "keep tavern" in the old Black Horse Inn. This was a quaint brick building that stood at the corner of the Front Street nearest the lake. It had but a narrow frontage on the Front Street, but stretched back, a long building, on the side street. From the corner of the inn hung a sign-board, depending from an iron rod. The sign was a jet black horse, rampant, with the legend, "Black Horse Inn." The front of the inn, rising abruptly, as it did, from the side-walk, was more quaint than inviting, but the side view was very hospitable, for all along the side street a veranda (floored with oak and roofed by the second story of the inn, which overhung it) extended, approached by broad, generous steps. It was an old, old building, with queer nooks and corners in it, quaint brass newel-posts in the stairway, odd sideboards built into the walls, and dark, hardwood floors. It was by far the oldest building in Jamestown, and the huge, untidy willow tree before the door had grown from a switch thrown down by one of the soldiers, when he and his comrades departed after their long billet in Jamestown. Jamestown was not called Jamestown in those days, but Kingsville. Times had changed with the village, and its name with them; but the Black Horse Inn remained unchanged--only the bricks had reddened the mortar between them, so that its walls were all one dark, rich red. "Many a summer's silent fingering" had wrought a green lace-work of ivy over the front and at the corners, and about the chimneys a vivid green stain showed the minute mosses that were gathering there. It was having indeed a green old age; and if the second story was beginning to sag a little between the centre-posts, it conveyed no hint of decay, or lack of safety. The droop only showed a kindly and protective attitude towards the open-armed chairs that stood on the veranda beneath. In the little garden behind the inn, long neglected and overrun, were bushes of acrid wormwood, stray wisps of thyme, straggling roots of rosemary, and bushes of flowering currants. In the spring, from among its springing grasses came whiffs of perfume; for the English violets, planted long, long ago, had spread through and through the tangle of weeds, unkempt grass, and untrimmed bushes. The one ambition that had lived in Jed Holder's saddened breast after he came to Jamestown was to be able to rent the Black Horse Inn. But it was only a vague, purposeless wish to possess the right of that little square garden, amid whose desolation he discerned the traces of an English hand. Like so many of Jed's dreams, this one never materialized. To this house, then, came Dan Follett--displayed his license to sell "wine, beer, malt and other spirituous liquors," set out some hospitable armchairs, erected a horse-trough before the door, and, having assumed a huge and glistening white apron, strode about, a jolly, good-natured, guardian spirit. His rubicund face was always beaming, his little eyes always blinking away tears of laughter. There was but little trade in Jamestown, but Follet managed to make ends meet, for the lake was noted for its fishing, and parties of fishermen were right glad to find a place where they could leave their horses and refresh themselves. But Dan Follett and Dan Follett's business were sore rocks of offence in the eyes of the Jamestown brethren. At "after meeting" many plans were discussed for the discomfiture of Dan Follett, and, incidentally, the devil. Many a "class meeting" evolved an indignation caucus which dealt with the enormity of Dan Follett's calling, which was cited, with many epithets, as the cause of every evil under the sun. But of all this righteous indignation jolly Dan Follett took no heed, and was as ready to lend his stout brown horse to Mr. Deans or Mr. White when their own "odd" horse was busy as he was to hire it to the few fishermen who fancied a ride along the lake shore. Henry Deans brooded long over this unholy thing in their midst, and finally hit upon a plan to put the devil, in the person of Dan Follett, to some discomfiture. Mr. Deans was senior deacon in the Methodist Church and, as such, took it upon himself to provide the bread and wine for sacramental purposes. One Saturday, the day before the spring communion, Mrs. Deans stood admiring her bread. "I reckon Ann White'll open her eyes when she tastes that to-morrow," she said. "There's nothing like making your own yeast--good hop-yeast. I don't take no account with salt-rising bread; may be sure enough, but hops for me every time." These audible meditations were interrupted by a tramp's voice at the open door--a forlorn-looking object, asking for something to eat. Mrs. Deans gave him some good advice about idleness, drinking, and begging, and sent him off. Then she turned her face to the bread again, separating the loaves carefully, and wrapping two of them up in clean towels. A verse flitted through her mind about taking the children's bread and giving it to the dogs; it struck her as apposite, but her good memory, strangely enough, failed to recall anything about "a cup of cold water." "Them tramps!" soliloquized Mrs. Deans. "A likely thing I was goin' to break into the bread for the Lord's table for the like of him!" She was just putting the bread into the tin on the pantry floor, where she kept it, when a sudden thought made her drop the bread and stand upright. "I declare!" she said. "Henry'll never remember the wine! I forgot to tell him when he went away! What in the world will we do now? Borrow it of Ann White I won't; that's settled. Well, if it don't beat all!" Henry Deans returned from the Saturday market about three o'clock; Mrs. Deans met him in the yard and asked him, before the horses stopped: "Did you remember the wine?" A slow smile crept over Henry Deans' face. He pulled up his horses deliberately. "Did you remember the wine?" asked his wife again. "Yes, I remembered it," he answered, still smiling slowly. "Well," said Mrs. Deans, "why didn't you say so at first? I've just been nearly out of my mind a-worrying about it all day. Where is it? Hand it here and I'll take it in." "I haven't got it yet," said her husband, descending nimbly from his perch, and then, for it was dangerous to prolong a joke too far with his wife, he went and whispered in her ear. Mrs. Deans' face slowly became irradiate with a joyful and appreciative glow. "Well, Henry," she said, "you're no slouch, I tell you; I always knew your head was level." "Guess that'll sicken him, eh?" chuckled Henry Deans, and began to unbuckle his harness-straps. For the rest of the afternoon Henry Deans and his wife went about in smiling content, chuckling irrepressibly if they chanced to meet. They had supper at six. Night was already setting in, for the days were not at their longest yet. About half-past seven, Henry Deans got his hat, and, his wife letting him softly out of the front door, took his way to the village. He soon reached its outskirts. Down the unlighted back street he went, across the short transverse one, until the side door of the Black Horse Inn was reached. Dan Follett answered his knock in person. There was a short colloquy between the two; then Dan went his way to the darkened bar-room, and, having declined an invitation to go inside, Henry Deans waited. Presently Dan returned with a bottle and, after a generous demur, accepted the money which Mr. Deans insisted on paying, saying: "I'm not a church-goer myself, Mr. Deans, but I wouldn't begrudge giving a little now and again;" then after repeating his invitation, bade Mr. Deans a cheery "Good-night," and closed the door. Henry Deans went home, hardly able to restrain his mirth. From far down the road he saw a narrow slit of light, showing the front door ajar for him. He slipped inside, to be immediately greeted by his wife. "Did you get it?" she asked, breathlessly. "I got it, and him, too," said Henry Deans; and they laughed together, as they put the bread and wine for the Lord's table in a basket. The next day, a sweet and sunshiny Sunday, the mystery of the Lord's Supper was yet again enacted in Jamestown--the symbolic wine, clear and ruddy as heart's blood; the bread, white as an infant's brow. Next day Henry Deans drove to the market town. On Tuesday Dan Follett was served with a summons to appear before the Court to show why he had broken the law by selling a bottle of wine to one Henry Deans in unlawful hours. Follett's rage was intense, and could only be gauged by the height of Henry Deans' satisfaction. Of course Follett was fined. He had no defence and offered none, but was fain to relieve his mind by attempting to thrash Deans, which only resulted in his being laid under bonds to keep the peace. The whole affair had completely sickened Follett of Jamestown. He departed to new scenes, and the Black Horse Inn again was tenantless. The exploit covered Henry Deans with glory, and he bore the honor with the conscious front of one who feels he is not overestimated. Dan Follett was dead now, and Henry Deans slept the sleep of the just in musing over his memories. And from the lonely garden of the Black Horse Inn the English sweet violets sent up their fragrance to the unperceiving night. CHAPTER VIII. "Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt and taints of blood." Next day, early in the afternoon, Mrs. Deans put away her sewing, and, donning a black bonnet and a large broche shawl folded corner-wise, betook herself out of the house. She went quietly, even sneakingly--this caution was exercised with an object. Mrs. Deans did not want the bound girl to know she had gone. Such knowledge would be too conducive to a sinful peace of mind. Mrs. Deans took her way to the village, intent on getting some dye from the store. She hesitated before the gate of the Holder cottage, then, assuming a look calculated to show the beholder that the milk of human kindness had in her case turned to cream, she entered the garden. Partly out of a desire to show old Mrs. Holder that this was really a neighborly visit, and partly to come upon her unawares if possible and see what she was doing, and also to have an opportunity of seeing the child without asking to see it, Mrs. Deans followed the little footpath round to the back door. It was open. The small kitchen was scrupulously clean; some washtubs stood in one corner full of soapy water, awaiting the return of Myron to empty them. Mrs. Holder had deferred her washing, evidently. A line hung diagonally across one corner of the room, and upon it a row of little ill-shaped garments hung drying, fluttered by the slight breeze from the open door. The rest of the scanty washing Mrs. Deans could see in the garden; old Mrs. Holder never hung a garment of the child's outside. Mrs. Deans scrutinized all these things, standing at the open door, but not knowing where Mrs. Holder might be; and fearful lest the sharp-eyed old Englishwoman had already seen her spying out the land, she felt impelled to knock. This she did, and in a moment Mrs. Holder came from the front room. Seeing Mrs. Deans, she greeted her with the nearest approach to warmth she was capable of displaying, and placed a wooden rocking-chair for her, sitting down herself in a narrow high-backed wooden chair, bolt upright and with her arms folded. Presently she let fall her hands into her lap, twisting them nervously, one within the other; they were bleached an unhealthy pallor, and their palms and fingers tips crinkled like crape, from her washing. "And how are you, Mrs. Deans?" she asked. Her voice held a strong English accent. "Oh, well; for which I ought to be thankful," returned Mrs. Deans. "Considering them as is took that is unprepared, _we_ ought to be grateful that _we're_ spared, for it would seem as if them that _is_ ready would go the first. Dan Follett died last Thursday. How do you find yourself, Mrs. Holder?" "Not well--not at all well," returned the old woman, her voice querulous. "I was took cruel queer last night, a-gasping after breath as wouldn't come. I'm nigh tired enough o' living, if I could die mind-easy, but I can't." "Yes," said Mrs. Deans, pursing her lips and shaking her head, "we all have our troubles; but you have had a terrible affliction, and, as I have often said to Henry, 'Old Mrs. Holder does take it terrible hard.'" "It do be hard," said Mrs. Holder. Then came a pause. Mrs. Deans was in certain ways clever; she knew the futility of attempting to force Mrs. Holder's confidence, therefore she contented herself with a lugubrious shake of her head, a sympathetic expression of eye, and murmured: "Yes--it's terrible hard!" "Yes," began Mrs. Holder, almost reflectively, "to think as it should come to me, being afraid o' being buried, due to not knowing who's going to lay along o' me. It do seem main hard"--here the speaker's tones grew hard and her beady eyes venomous--"but I'll find a way somehow. Myron Kind's daughter and her bastard brat don't never lay alongside o' my son and me." Light now dawned upon Mrs. Deans. She fully appreciated Mrs. Holder's attitude in the matter; she rose to the occasion. "It's the lot up in the cemetery that's worrying you," she said. "Well, so 'twould me, to think a young one sich as that was going to be next hand, touching me in my grave!" At that moment there came a sound from the adjoining bedroom, the door was ajar, a chubby hand reached through the opening, and pulled the door wide, and the next instant, Myron's baby, roused from his sleep by the sound of their voices, came out, and, walking totteringly across the floor, took hold of his grandmother's dress, and stood eying Mrs. Deans with the frank impertinence of babyhood. His yellow hair was tossed and tangled; his blue eyes, a little heavy yet from sleep, were placid and happy; his face was round and dimpled, one cheek flushed a deep rose from the pressure of the pillow. He looked indeed perfect as any cherubic picture. However such children as he may develop--undoubtedly the blond, rosy, dimpled type is the ideal baby. There was something grotesque in these two women: their souls grimed with the dust of their own sins, their hearts hardened beneath a crust of their own self-seeking lusts, their bodies calloused by the world, defiled by their own passions, fearing contamination, living or dead, from too near vicinity to that child. "Run away, My," said his grandmother, giving him a little push. The baby stood still a moment. A gray cat peeped in at the door, and then withdrew its head; with a gurgle of laughter, the child trotted after it. Mrs. Deans had been eying him steadily since his appearance. "Now, who does that young one look like?" said she with emphasis, as if to force an answer by her earnestness. "Nobody," said Mrs. Holder. "He do be 'witched, I think. I never see a child like him afore. You could always see a likeness in some trick or other, but that young one has no tricks with him; them's his ways, such as you've seen: eat--smile--sleep." "Well, it beats all," said Mrs. Deans, feeling exasperated. A trill of inarticulate laughter interrupted them, and the baby appeared at the door, the gray cat in his arms, wriggling to free itself. It did. Putting its hind legs against the baby's breast, it sprang out of his arms; the recoil sent the boy down, but he picked himself up and again began the pursuit. "Now, Mrs. Holder, you was telling me about the cemetery lot," said Mrs. Deans. "Yes;" returned her hostess. "It's this way: there's four graves in the lot, and only one took up. I can't abear to think on it; to think whether I will or no that I have to lie wi' such a lot an' rise wi' 'em at the day." "Well," said Mrs. Deans, in a meditative voice, "well"--a long pause, then she added: "Now, if 'twasn't for offending you, Mrs. Holder, I think I can see my way!" "I'll be right glad if you do," said Mrs. Holder, eagerly; "it's vexing me sore." "Well," began Mrs. Deans, "it's this way. I've done a lot of business, one way and another, and I'm used to seeing through things, and this is what I would suggest, Mrs. Holder--not that I want to make or meddle with other folks' business, but being always willing to do what I can to help along, and what I would suggest is this: Get Muir to call here and fix it with him, so as he'll do whatever's necessary when the time comes; and you give him half the lot for it, so, if anything happens, why everything'll be done up proper; and then he'll stake off half the lot and you needn't be scared; he'll not let it out of his hands. That's what I would suggest, Mrs. Holder, not that I pretend to be anything more than common--but I've done a heap of business in my time." "It do seem fair wonderful, Mrs. Deans," said Mrs. Holder, her face lighting with an ugly expression of gratified malice; "it do be fair wonderful, the mind you have; but how'll I get word to Muir? I don't want Myron to know, of course, and I won't go down street with My flaunting the family shame--and there I be fair stuck." "I'm passing Muir's as I go to the store," said Mrs. Deans, rising. "Oh, no thanks, please; don't thank me. We must all do what we can to help other folks along, you know, in this world, and I don't take it no trouble to do my share." "Well, I take it rare kindly," returned the old woman. "Oh," said her guest, pausing, "I meant specially to ask you about Myron; she was terrible late yesterday morning. I spoke to her about it, and she spunked up dreadful; got 's red 's fire and never said a word. I thought it my duty to tell you, Mrs. Holder, being anxious for her good and knowing you couldn't look after her, when she was out of jour sight." "She was late yesterday morning in starting," said Mrs. Holder, "but I be fair ashamed she should show herself like that to you, after your goodness to her, and bearing with her, as you have done. Oh, Myron has her mother's ways--sulky she is, and close-mouthed." (Alas! was this all the memory left of Myron Kind's gentleness and sweet patience!) "You can see what I have to put up with day in and day out. Come here, My!" This to the child, as she saw him going along the path. "Yes, you have your own times, I'll warrant," said Mrs. Deans. "What did you call the young one?" "My," replied Mrs. Holder. "That's what she always calls it, and I'm bound it's most fitting, being near her own name. I fair hate that name, Mrs. Deans. Myron's mother took my son away from me and she brought me shame; it's fit and well to call the brat that too." "Yes, indeed, you're right there," agreed Mrs. Deans, at once relieved and disappointed; relieved that her Gamaliel was left in undisturbed possession of his name, disappointed that Myron Holder had not given some more definite name to her child--Homer, for instance. Mrs. Deans took her way down street, filled with righteous self-congratulation. The scheme of debarring Myron Holder from ever lying beside her father seemed to her most admirable. Doubtless, from a strictly legal point of view, there might have been difficulties in the way, but who was going to tell Myron that? Mrs. Deans smiled to think of Myron's surprise when she found out. Myron Holder had never done Mrs. Deans any injury, but the latter cherished against her that inexplicable hatred, that alien from rhyme or reason, sometimes fearfully fostered in the human heart. This feeling, mature and enfranchised, made the streets of Paris red with blood; has nerved the hand that hurled a bomb; has steadied the aim of the assassin and, developed by heredity and indulged by training and opportunity, has made the Thugs a people. To inflict what others endure with pain is their life. Half-way down the street Mrs. Deans paused before a door overshadowed by a green painted veranda, supported by spindling posts; upon each side of the door was a window. In one was displayed a mortuary wreath, made of white stucco flowers and a star formed of six nickel-plated coffin-plates, tastefully disposed against a black background, the same being the beaver covering stripped from one of Mr. Muir's defunct tall hats. In the other window was placed a small coffin. This cheerful display was intended to indicate that the Jamestown undertaker was to be found within. As Mrs. Deans entered a bell hung over the top of the door rang, and as its note died away in a harsh tinkle steps began to come from the rear of the shop--slow, solemn footsteps, the echo of one dying away before the other succeeded it, which gave a sepulchral effect to the tread of Mr. Muir. They were indeed a fitting herald of the little undertaker's appearance, which distinctly suggested his vocation. He was short and broad, without being in the least stout. He had a sandy colored beard, so shaggy as to be almost woolly, and which he wore parted in the middle and brushed on either side into the semblance of a gigantic Dundreary. He wore habitually a broadcloth suit, and of these he had always three, one in the last stages of dilapidation that he wore when doing his "chores" in the morning, attending to his two spare-ribbed black horses, oiling the wheels of the hearse, etc.; another he wore when he "kept shop," and when attending to the private offices of his profession; the third was the holiest, and reserved for his public functions at the funerals. The suit always consisted of a frock coat, which fell below his knees and hung around him in folds; a waistcoat buttoned up to the neck, and a pair of trousers that were always too short, but which made up in width for that deficiency. An odd little bird of ill-omen he was. His face was settled into an expression of unalleviated gloom; his features had assumed an attitude of mournful resignation. From this funereal countenance his eyes shone forth strangely--little bright eyes, keen and acquisitive. He advanced, rubbing his hands slowly together. "Mrs. Deans," he said, and bowed. This bow was an acquirement much thought of in Jamestown. What more palliating to bereaved feelings than to behold Mr. Muir, in all the black glory of grief, ushering in the funeral guests with a succession of these bows! He had a clever knack of including the "remains" in each of these genuflections, which were always performed at the door of the room where the dead lay. His appearance upon these official occasions was little less than sublime; the way in which he removed his tall hat from his head was in itself a poem--hardly ostentatious, yet most impressive--exalting the act to a ceremonial and dignifying the performance unspeakably. Mrs. Deans never cared much for Mr. Muir. The little man's eye held a certain proprietary look that chilled one's blood; it was as though he viewed one in the light of prospective "remains"--as who should say, "Go your way in your own fashion _now_; some day you will go _my_ way in _my_ fashion." A tape-line always showed itself from one of his pockets, and this in itself brought as grewsome a suggestion as any one cared to contemplate. "How d'ye do, Mr. Muir?" said Mrs. Deans. "How d'ye do? How's the world treating you these days?" "Oh, well, very well," replied Mr. Muir solemnly, still rubbing his hands together; then he nodded towards the rear of the shop: "Will you go in?" he asked. This was Mr. Muir's way of inviting customers to inspect the coffins. "No, not to-day," said Mrs. Deans hastily. "I haven't called about any work for you, Mr. Muir, but on business." Mr. Muir looked puzzled, the terms evidently bearing some relation to each other in his estimation. "It's for old Mrs. Holder," went on Mrs. Deans. "If it's to do any burying for her, I won't do it unless the council guarantees it," interrupted Mr. Muir, with decision. "Here I have waited and waited for Jed's money, and only got the last of it last week--got it by fifty centses. It ain't satisfying, getting a bill in fifty-cent pieces; it ain't business. They get the coffin in a lump; they ought to pay in a lump. No, I can't do it, Mrs. Deans, not meaning to disoblige you, though; and I hope you won't hold it against me and keep back the favor of your business. Of course doing for you and doing for such as Holders is two stories. Now, for you or your husband, something more after the style of General----" Mrs. Deans broke in hastily. Once upon a time, Mr. Muir had travelled seven hundred miles to see the funeral of a great general. That funeral was to Mr. Muir what a visit to Rome is to an artist; and his description of it was a story to outlast the passing of the pageant it pictured. All Jamestown knew the story, and Mrs. Deans felt that prompt action alone could save her. "It don't concern burying people at all, Mr. Mnir, but burying ground." Mrs. Deans gurgled over her own joke. "And I'll just tell you about it, if you'll wait a minute. You see," looking confidential, "it's like this: Mrs. Holder takes it terrible hard about Myron's goings-on, and when she dies she can't bear to think her and her young one is going to be put right a-touching her, as you may say, which ain't to be wondered at when one considers the importance of the thing." Mrs. Deans paused for breath and to give this time to have due effect upon Mr. Muir, who was once known to complain because people spent more on marrying than on burying. Mr. Muir nodded his approval, and Mrs. Deans continued: "That being the case, Mr. Muir, as I said, it ain't to be wondered at that Mrs. Holder is uneasy and wants to fix it so she 'n' her son'll be undisturbed. So, having asked me about the matter, I siggested to her that you could fix it, if any one could; and so she wants you to call up to see her, because she can't leave My, and she won't bring him out." "Who's My?" asked Mr. Muir. "Why, that's the young one! Didn't you know? That's more of Myron Holder's slyness. But pshaw! What's the use of talking? Them kind's all alike. But fancy naming it after herself! Well, as I said, old Mrs. Holder, she wanted you should come up to see her and make a trade. Now, I hope you'll go, Mr. Muir, being as I specially siggested t' her that you could help her out." "I'll go, Mrs. Deans; I'll go," said Mr. Muir. "Think I'll just slip up by White's and see the lot first; nigh-hand to Warner's, ain't it?" "Yes, nigh close to old man Warner's, which was filled when Ann Eliza was buried. Mr. White did say that Ann Eliza overlapped his lot. But there! it doesn't do to say them things; it ain't me to spread talk. She had a queer look, though, Ann Eliza did when she was laid out, hadn't she, Mr. Muir?" Here Mrs. Deans nodded with much sinister meaning at Mr. Muir. "Yes, a very wretched-looking body she made. I like to see a cheerful-looking corpse; something more after the style of Jed Holder. Now, when he was ready, he was a real credit to me, though his pay was onsatisfactory--very onsatisfactory." "Yes, Jed did smooth out most wonderful," agreed Mrs. Deans. "Then you'll go up to Mrs. Holder's? Better go soon, Mr. Muir; old Warner'll be after more lots some of these days." "Yes, without a doubt, Mrs. Deans," said Mr. Muir. Mrs. Deans pulled the door open, again the harsh bell rang, and she heard its dying tinkle through Mr. Muir's farewells, for he came outside the door with her, and after she betook herself down the street, he still lingered, gloating critically over the arrangement of the coffin-plates in his window. Mrs. Deans proceeded down the street, and soon reached the store. As she paused at the store door, she looked back and saw the undertaker just entering his shop. "He'll never handle any job for me," Mrs. Deans said, recalling the rudeness of his interruption during their conversation. "I'll get Foster from Ovid for Henry." She entered the store, purchased her dyestuffs quickly, and then, all business cares off her mind, set her face steadfastly to go to Mrs. Wilson's. Now, Mrs. Deans was extremely eager to find out if Mrs. Wilson's anxiety about the naming of Myron Holder's child sprang from any knowledge or suspicion of the boy's parentage. As she trod heavily along the sandy footpath to the Wilson farm, she turned the matter over in her mind and considered the best means of getting at the truth, or at least all Mrs. Wilson knew of it. Gossip is something more, perhaps, than a vulgar propensity--there is art in it, as in everything else. There are several ways of inducing others to talk freely of their affairs. Mrs. Deans thoroughly appreciated the distinctions between the methods. One way which Mrs. Deans had found very effective in some cases is to assume high ground; treat the discussion with the careless condescension of one to whom it is an old story; acknowledge every tid-bit of information with a nod signifying thorough acquaintance with the whole matter; the victim, oftentimes irritated by your show of superior knowledge, goes on supplying detail after detail, in the hope of startling you out of your apathy. This plan has however, as Mrs. Deans knew, been known to miss fire, and when it fails, it fails completely. She hesitated to try it with Mrs. Wilson. Another very seductive plan is to assume an air of great meekness and draw your subject out by seeming to believe she knows all about the mooted question--whilst lowly you know nothing. Few women can resist this--the desire to flaunt the knowledge imputed to them is too strong to be denied. Mrs. Deans slowly entered the Wilson gate. The path from the road led up to the house between two rows of large stones, placed at regular intervals from each other, upon the grass at the side of the path. These stones were whitewashed every now and then by Mrs. Wilson, and were considered to give quite an "air" to the place. The spring house-cleaning being just over, they shone dazzlingly white from a fresh coat; their ranks were broken half-way up to the house by two small "rockeries," over which grew "Live Forever," "Old Man," "Winter Verbena," and "Lemon Balm;" they were each crowned by a geranium, the one a sweet-scented one, the other a single scarlet. Close to the house grew two plum trees, one on each side of the path. From the branches of one was suspended a hanging-basket made out of half of a cocoanut-shell, in which grew "Creeping Charlie," whilst the other tree was adorned by a tin pan filled with the luxuriantly-growing jointed stems of the "Wandering Jew." On each side of the steps--for Mrs. Wilson was fond of uniformity--stood a brown shilling crock, one almost hidden beneath a green mat of a trailing vine called "Jacob's Ladder," the other holding an upright and sturdy "Jerusalem Cherry Tree" (known to unimaginative botanists as Solanum), around whose roots were appearing the tiny rosettes of portulaca seedlings. Mrs. Deans noted these things not altogether approvingly, Marian Wilson being in her estimation somewhat perilously given up to vanities. Her knock brought a speedy answer in the person of Mrs. Wilson. "Well, Jane," she ejaculated, "come right in. I was jest expectin' you some of these days; come right into the setting room and lay off your things, and we'll visit together for a spell." "Oh, I ain't come to stop," said Mrs. Deans, suffering herself to be led into the sitting-room. "I ain't come to stop, only as I was just at the store for dye, I thought I'd come on and see you." "You done right," said Mrs. Wilson; "you done right there, and I'm real glad you've come. Got your rags all sewed?" "Yes, forty-two pounds," replied Mrs. Deans, who all this time had been mechanically untying her bonnet-strings and affecting to be oblivious of the actions of Mrs. Wilson, who was unpinning her shawl. Presently, the bonnet-strings being unloosened, Mrs. Wilson dexterously switched away bonnet and shawl, and said triumphantly: "Now, Jane, come and set down." Then, and not till then, Mrs. Deans awoke with a start to the fact that her outdoor garb had been removed. "Why, Marian, I declare," she said, "you do beat all!" Having suffered herself to be led to and installed in a rocking-chair, Mrs. Deans settled herself comfortably for a talk. "What colors are you going to dye, Jane?" asked Mrs. Wilson. "Well," said Mrs. Deans, checking off the list on her fingers, "I've got hickory bark for yellow, and walnut shucks that I saved last fall for brown, and barberry stems to mix with bluing for green; and I've bought red and magenta and blue, and I was thinking that, being as I didn't want much color, that would be enough." "Yes," said Mrs. Wilson, "I never care for a carpet that is just a mess of colored rags. I like a good deal of yellow, though. I seen one in the market the other day; a woman from Ovid had it for sale, and it was real neat-looking. It had a brier twist of yellow and black in the middle of the pattern, and a stripe of red at each side; then there was a wide piece of purple and a narrow stripe of green; the filling up was mixed, with a lot of blue in it, and she had it wove with red warp." "I didn't get any purple," said Mrs. Deans, "but I might get it----" "Say, wouldn't red and blue mix for purple?" asked Mrs. Wilson. "Why, I don't know but they would! Where did she have hers wove?" "Up to Skinner's at the Pinewoods," said Mrs. Wilson. "They do say the Skinnerses keeps back the rags and helps themselves to the warp; but the way I do is to weigh the warp and the rags, and then when I get the carpet back I weigh that." "A very good way, too," agreed Mrs. Deans. "I'd like to see the carpet-wearer that would cheat me!" "Have to get up early in the morning, eh, Jane?" said Mrs. Wilson, approvingly. "Yes, earlier than before night," chuckled Mrs. Deans. "Suppose you heard Dan Follett was gone?" "Yes, Homer seen the funeral; 'twas a most terrible big one, and nothing would do Homer but he must follow on with it to the cemetery. It do seem hard to think how one's son'll go on doing sich things. The idea!" Mrs. Wilson concluded between a sniff and a snort. "Yes," said Mrs. Deans, sympathetically. "Well, there's one good thing, no one would hold you responsible for Homer's doings now. I tell you when men gets his age, they're bound to go their own ways." Then abruptly, "I was at Mrs. Holder's to-day." Here Mrs. Deans looked full at Mrs. Wilson. "You was?" said her hostess. "You was? Who did you see?" "I seen old Mrs. Holder and the young one; it's named----" "What?" asked Mrs. Wilson, breathlessly. "Well, you'd never guess," said Mrs. Deans, maliciously prolonging her hostess' agony. "You'd never guess. I'm sure I never suspicioned she'd call it that. I suppose it's fitting, most fitting, I should say--but there! What's the odds what it's called? I wouldn't let it worry me, no matter what she called it." "What is its name, Jane?" asked Mrs. Wilson, with such directness that Mrs. Deans could not disregard it. "My," answered she, "My--short for Myron." "Well, Jane," gasped Mrs. Wilson, in relief, and affecting that her exclamation was one of surprise; "well, it beats all!" Mrs. Deans felt satisfied on one point: Mrs. Wilson had certainly had grave fears in regard to the naming of the child--too grave to be causeless, Mrs. Deans assured herself. Well, Mrs. Deans had never thought much of Homer Wilson--he was altogether too conceited, and he never spoke in revival meeting any more than that once; and he was too sure of himself, and too independent. So it was Homer Wilson, then! Why hadn't he married her? Why hadn't Myron told? Now, if she--Mrs. Deans--could only expose the two of them, how meritorious that would be! A hazy plan to attack Homer on the question flitted through her brain; to ask him suddenly, when he was unprepared, point-blank--would that startle him into a confession or a betrayal of the truth in spite of himself? Mrs. Deans and Mrs. Wilson talked the afternoon away, peaceably and amicably, and in the twilight Mrs. Deans went home. She met Myron half way to the village and stopped her. "I been in to see your grandmother to-day," she said. "I wonder at you, Myron Holder, that you ain't ashamed to show your face; she's failing fast, your grandmother is, and no wonder! Well, I wouldn't have your conscience for something. Poor old woman, slaving herself to death over a young one like that. But you'll be found out yet, Myron Holder; and when you do, don't look to me, thinking I'll back you up, for I won't; the time for that's past, unless you want to take your last chance and own up the whole of it now." Mrs. Deans paused--her very attitude an interrogation. "Good-night, Mrs. Deans," said Myron, in her soft English voice, and passed on with down-bent head. Mrs. Deans stood for quite a minute amazed, looking after the quiet form going wearily into the dusk of the gathering night--to be left thus was a trifle too much. "I'll take it out of her for that!" said Mrs. Deans, flushing with wrath. "I'll let her know what's what, or my name ain't Deans. The idea! She'll walk off and leave me standing talking to her, will she? Well,----" Mrs. Deans resumed her irate way. Myron Holder held on her path to the village. She was numb alike in mind and body; the accumulated weariness of days of toil and nights of painful thought pressed upon her; it was marvellous how she endured the fatigues of her life without breaking down physically. "As thy days so shall thy strength be!" has hidden a germ of bane as well as blessing. Does it not often seem as if sorrow imbued life with its own bitter tenacity? Was ever such a fearful doom pictured as that of the Eternal Wanderer "mocked with the curse of immortality"? So Myron Holder went home in the twilight, and Mrs. Deans went home revolving fresh schemes for her humiliation, inventing new burdens for her overtaxed shoulders. "God," they say, "builds the nest of the blind bird." Is it man who lines it with thorns? CHAPTER IX. "A sleepy land, where under the same wheel, The same old rut would deepen year by year." "A life of nothings--nothing worth From that first nothing ere his birth To that last nothing under earth." The Jamestown people, in making a pariah of Myron Holder, were not urged to the step by any imperative feeling of hurt honor or pained surprise. Such faults as hers were not uncommon there; but never before had the odium rested upon one only. Besides, there had always been some "goings on" and some "talk" indicative of the affair. In Myron Holder's case, the Jamestown people had been caught napping. In such cases a marriage and reinstatement into public favor was the usual sequel, arrived at after much exhilarating and spicy gossip, much enjoyable speculation, much mediation upon the part of the matrons, and much congratulation that all had ended so well. For another thing, Myron Holder was an outsider, and there was no danger that a word spoken against her would provoke any one else to anger. The Jamestown people were all the descendants of some half-dozen families, the original settlers of the country. They had stagnated year after year, generation after generation marrying and intermarrying. The Jamestown people of Myron Holder's day bore a strange resemblance to one another. The descendants of the same families, subjected to the same mental influences, the same conditions of life, the same climate, the same religion--it was not to be wondered at that every prominent or individualized feature of mind and body had been obliterated and averaged down to a commonplace uniformity. Distinct physical types were rare here, very dark or very fair people being seldom seen. The features were coarse and ill-defined, the nostrils merging into the cheeks, the chins into the necks, the pale lips into the dull-colored faces, with no clear line of demarcation, no pure curve to define form. Certain peculiarities appertained to certain families, however. When one of the few--very few--Jamestown men who had gone forth to the outside world returned, he had not much difficulty in approximating at least the parentage of the children he encountered in the streets; for one had the Deans nose, a pinched-in, miserly, censorious feature, given to the smelling out of scandal; another had the Warner walk, a gait that in a horse would be termed racking; a third might have the Wilson scowl, a peculiar expression that seemed to emanate from sulkiness; a fourth was evidently a scion of the Disney stock, for he gazed out of the Disney eyes, always rheumy and without lashes. There appeared in Jamestown families every now and then an imbecile, presenting, as in a terrible composite picture, the mental and moral weaknesses of his related ancestors. Nearly every family counted, in some of its branches, one or more of these unfortunates. Jamestown's attitude towards these maimed souls was characteristically utilitarian; they were fed and clothed until they arrived at an age when, if they were harmless, they became useful, or if they were violent, their mania became dangerous. In the former case they were given a full quota of work, and kept out of sight so far as possible, toiling early and late, horrible brownies, working unseen, unpaid, unthanked, unpitied. If they were violent, they were sent as paupers to the governmental institutions and forgotten. Jamestown was stirred by no noble ambition, thrilled by no eager hope, excited by no generous impulse, moved by no patriotic enthusiasm, undisturbed by visions, unmoved by wars,--craved neither glory nor fame-- "Though fame is smoke, Its fumes are frankincense to human thought." And how poor a potsherd the human temple is, when savored with no incense of endeavor! Better the bitter breath of failure than the dank vapor of stagnating faculties. The haloes of defeated effort are sweeter than the lotus of inaction. Jamestown's religion? If the God of whom preachers prate so familiarly really exists, with what awful scorn must _He_ behold such worship! As monkeys, mowing and moping, might mock a pageant, so did these people simulate religion. Old Eliza--Mrs. Wilson's mad cousin--worshipped better when she dabbled her hands in the wayside horse-trough, rejoicing in its coolness; when she smoothed with tender fingers the torn fur of a half-shot rabbit; when she replaced the unfledged birds in the nest from which they had fallen--nay, even when she sped across the sunlit fields, her sodden face irradiate with an inarticulate feeling of the warmth and freedom of the air. Nature spread about and before these people all her beauties, unfolded to their gaze all the enchantment of her seasons, but in vain; their eyes were darkened, their hearts hardened; the magical mystery of Spring left them ineloquent; Summer came and lingered, and went reluctantly; Autumn browned, and Winter fulfilled its bitterness, and they were unmoved save by the effect upon the crops. The site of Jamestown and the country surrounding it was historic ground. Here men had fought and bled and died. The fathers and mothers of the present generation told how, when children, they had been hurried off to the woods, to hide there whilst the soldiers ransacked the deserted houses, eating and appropriating all they fancied, and spitefully spilling milk, wantonly cutting holes in the cheeses, and throwing the frying-pans and flatirons down the wells for mischief. These leisurely warriors were not, however, the ones whose blood had darkened the soil in so many adjacent spots. The Jamestown people had no personal reminiscences or knowledge of these sterner fighters, but evidences of their existence and warfare were plentiful. Year by year, the neighboring farmers, in tilling their land, found bullets, broken bayonets, portions of old-fashioned guns, military buttons, and Indian arrow heads of flint. These latter relics were often defaced, pointless, and chipped, but sometimes they had preserved in perfection their venomous pointed form, sharp to sting to the death when hurled through the air from a hostile bow. Year after year, these tokens of conflict were found in the fresh furrows; the supply seemed inexhaustible. It was as though the earth was determined to cast forth from her bosom those deadly fragments whose mission had been to maim and slay her children. Yet Mother Earth is but a cruel stepdame to some of us, less kindly than the bullet, more cruel than the flint arrowhead. The people in Jamestown thought little enough of these relics, though in springtime they were to be found in the pockets of every ploughman; but little Bing White had a collection of some hundreds of them. They had a strange fascination for the little elfish boy. People said he had just escaped being an idiot: that was far from the truth. A keen and acute intelligence shone from his eyes, but perverted by morbid and horrible cravings. He was of a Newtonian and speculative turn of mind also, and was perpetually pondering upon problems of weighty import, suggested to him by the simplest manifestations of every-day life: Why dogs barked at bakers? Why blacksmith-shops were never new? Why buttered bread falls butter-side down? were questions that he strove with. The wonder of the arrowheads appearing year after year in the furrows was to him a source of never-ceasing thought. How was it they came to the surface? What strange grinding went on below the grain and the grass, to produce that flinty grist each springtime? He brooded much over the matter, turning his many specimens over and over with lingering, affectionate touches. Bing kept his treasures in the space between the lath and plaster of the second story and the roof of his father's house. There was no room for garrets there--but there was a space in which Bing's diminutive figure could stand erect. The ingress to this long, low, dark chamber was through a tiny trap-door, in the ceiling of one of the back rooms. Through this, he would wriggle swiftly, replace the trap-door (in reality only a broad board), speed like a cat from joist to joist across the whole length of the house to where, through the round panes of the little gable window, the light fell full upon his collection, laid out in rows upon boards placed across the joists. Each arrowhead of the lot had an individuality for this boy; every misshapen fragment a story. Indeed he dwelt longer over the pointless and defaced specimens than over the others, for more fascinating than any perfection of curve or point was the speculation as to where the fragments of the broken ones rested. Could it be possible that the long tapering point of the arrowhead he held in his hand had pierced some red-clad bosom, some dusky naked breast brought low, some helmeted head, some feather-decked crown, and won a costly coffin for itself to be buried in? Those notches on the side of the heavy white flint one, were they the scars of a conflict between the arrow and armor? Bing White was not an imbecile, but he had strange fancies in that dusky treasure chamber of his, gloating over his arrowheads, whispering to himself of bloody deeds wrought and cruel blows dealt by these flints he held in his palms. There was one long, narrow arrowhead, sharp and keen-edged, that he had a great affection for. He used to take it up lovingly and, baring his forearm, draw it lightly--lightly--close to the skin, his eyes dilating, his nostrils quivering; now and then, his hand faltering, he let it touch the flesh, and the keen edge swiftly brought blood. At the pain he would drop the flint, but at the crimson drops which showed its bite he would gaze hungrily, delightedly, tracing them out in tiny red lines upon the white flesh of his meagre arm until the last vestige had disappeared; and then he would start and tremble, his fingers twitching strangely, his eyes peering here and there through the dusky perspective of his refuge, as if hoping to see some blur of the crimson fluid he loved. Then he would kiss the vicious arrowhead, and fondle it, until, hearing his mother's call, he would lay it down gently and flee across the joists, surefooted and nimble, to the trap-door. By the time he descended his face would have lost the wild irradiation of his hidden joy; but his eyes followed any small creature, the cats, the chickens, the self-satisfied ducks. He whispered to himself in his dreams of a day when he would not deny his desire for blood. A strange impish development of character was his: dangerous by reason of the stubbornness of his race, and strangely blended and nurtured with and by a love of vivid and bright color. This latter characteristic was instilled into the White blood, when one of the far-back Whites, who had been to the war, returned, bringing with him a gypsy camp-follower as his wife, making her the great-grandmother of this boy, who cherished the flint arrowheads for the pain they could inflict, and who dreamt long dreams, the atmosphere of which was crimsoned with blood and vocal with cries of pain. This unhealthy mental state found for itself plenty of sustenance, as all vile plants and animals do, sucking the virus of its unhealthy existence from every phase of nature, every homely incident in village life. He let no chance escape him to enjoy his ghoulish pleasure; the killing of the poultry twice a week for market was a festival he never missed. At the village shambles he was a frequent guest; at a pig-sticking he was always on hand, interested, helpful; no scientist in a clinic ever watched with greater enthusiasm the performance of a new experiment than did Bing White the bleeding of a horse--of all these events he had accurate information. If all these failed him, he sped far down the margin of the lake, to where the gillnets were, and appeased his craving by watching the slow, turgid drops that fell when they prepared the fish. In autumn, when the paths through the ample woods were overhung with crimson canopies of leaves, which the winds brought down like blots of blood to be trodden under foot; when the brambles clung red about the fences or trailed scarlet along the ground; when the bitter-sweet hung in vermilion clusters from its bare stems, and the Virginian creeper clothed the cedars in a fiery mantle--at this time Bing White's eyes were ever gleaming with unholy happiness, only no one ever noticed it. It is from such material as this boy that those morbid murderers are evolved who do murder for murder's sake. Just where in his ante-natal history the love of color flamed into a love of blood, who shall say? But it burned within him, a consuming fire; if quenched, to be quenched only by the annihilation of the being that embodied it. If left to burn? ... He had much knowledge of and liking for animals, but it was the liking of the instinctive vivisector. Inexplicable cases of maimed and killed animals attested his devotion to the gratification of his curiosity. The sudden elongation and apparent telescoping of a cat's paw was a subject that for hours had kept him sleepless. He had solved the riddle first by putting it down to some trick of his eyesight, but the keenness of his vision was proverbial in Jamestown, and that did not long content him. Then he took a tape-line and measured a paw, and waited for the stretching process. It came. The huge Maltese stretched out his forepaws in languorous indolence. Bing promptly caught one and began to measure; the cat instantly contracted its muscles. Bing strove to hold the paw out by force, with the result that the cat (which was of the giant order, and no degenerate descendant of its wild progenitors) fixed its teeth through the fleshy part of his thumb, from which it was with difficulty disengaged. The wound inflamed and festered, but the symptoms disappeared in a week or two. Shortly after the cat died in a fit. The dilation and contraction of the eyes of animals was a source of continual speculation to Bing; a matter he strove in horrid ways to elucidate. There was something hideously repulsive in this boy's secret cruelties, horrible to relate, sickening to contemplate. But the creatures he tormented, maimed, killed, knew neither anticipation nor remembrance; the "corporeal pang" was all. There was a strange and horrible parallel between his nature and the nature of the women who tortured so ceaselessly the woman whom fate had made their victim; a little difference in method, a little divergence of application, a slight change from the physical to the mental world--that was all save a dreadful difference in the victim; but the instinct of cruelty was the same. There is an organized society in one of our great cities for putting dumb animals out of pain--out of existence. It had been well for Myron Holder had she been one of those creatures to which a merciful death is vouchsafed. The lilied purity of her womanhood might be gone, but we do not rend the petals of even spent flowers. It is hard to tread upon even a crushed blossom, and painful to see a broken lily flung to smother in a sewer. CHAPTER X. "Desolation is a delicate thing. It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air, But treads with killing footsteps, and fans with silent wing, The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and gentlest bear; Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above, And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet, Dream visions of aerial joy, and call the monster Love, And wake, and find the shadow Pain...." "The smoke is falling, the ducks and geese are flying about, the maple leaves are turned underside up, the cocks are crowing, the cat is eating grass, the gulls have left the lake and fly over the land, the flies sting, and the cement on the cellar floor is damp, so I think it's going to rain; and if it does, I ain't a-going to begin to color my rags," said Mrs. Deans, standing arms akimbo on the doorstep. "Yes," said her husband, "it's a deal like rain; the moon had a shroud on it last night, and the frogs croaked terrible, and my rheumatics has just been ramping." "Yes," went on Mrs. Deans, "my corns has ached intolerable, and the cows have been lowing since daybreak; there's no doubt but what it's going to rain. I wonder if Myron Holder is a-coming, or if she ain't!" "Oh, she'll be here in time for breakfast!" said Mr. Deans, with would-be sarcasm. "How you can abide that girl and Liz I don't know, Jane; no mortal good's fur's I see. That Liz eats her head off every day she rises, and as for Myron Holder, she picks and pecks and turns up her nose as if the eatin' wasn't good enough for her; it beats me what's the good of 'em." "Well," said his wife, sharply, "there ain't no great call, fur's I see, for you to see whether they're any good or not, an' no need for you to worry over the victuals, for that I'll make shift to attend to. I suppose you'd like me to slave myself to death, and git along without 'em? Well, if that's what's on your mind, just relieve your feelings of it right away--for be a slave to no man I won't, and that settles that!" with which Mrs. Deans betook herself out to the gate to look for further manifestations bearing upon the weather, and to see if Myron Holder was coming. Mr. Deans shrunk up in his chair, blinking as he chewed, and taking his rebuff very philosophically. He was accustomed to his wife's "onsartainness," and when any of his remarks proved a boomerang, he simply consoled himself with the thought of "better luck next time" and subsided. Mrs. Deans went out to the gate. It was early morning, and the sun was rising unseen behind heavy masses of water-charged clouds; there was a soft grayness of impending rain in the air, a fresh smell of springing grass, and new leaves, and newly turned earth; the gulls had deserted the lake, and were soaring in oblique circles through the gray, glisteningly white; the swallows from under the eaves of the barn were journeying forth to the pond for the clay to coat their nests; the sparrows were chirping saucily, as they robbed the young chicks of the grain scattered for them; from the field behind the barn came the bleating of the lambs, and now and then there sounded a distant voice as Gamaliel or the hired men shouted to their horses. The bound girl, coming in from milking, paused to make grimaces at the unconscious back of her benefactress, an accomplishment at which Liz was an adept. After contorting her face horribly for a few moments, accompanying herself mentally with unflattering epithets addressed to the same unconscious back, Liz went on her way to the cellar, having very much enjoyed the relaxation of her facial muscles. Mrs. Deans stood looking down the road. Her eyes were red and watery this morning, and she wiped them on the corner of her apron. Far down towards the village she could descry a vehicle of some kind, but no one on the footpath. She returned to the house, and, satisfied that Myron Holder would not arrive for some time at least, went up to the garret to "sort over" the contributions that had been sent in for the mission-box that was going to the far West. First, however, she called to her husband to watch for Myron Holder's appearance, and rap on the wall with his stick when he saw her, so that she might come down and "be ready for her." Mrs. Deans always welcomed Myron Holder with sneers or rage in the morning, just as her grandmother greeted her with reproaches or revilings at night. There would have been something comic, had it not been so cruel and so sad, in the way these women played battledore with this girl as shuttlecock and tossed her from one to the other to be buffeted. That morning Myron Holder had just got clear of the village, when she heard behind her the rumble of wheels; they drew nearer, and at last her down-cast eyes caught the image of a wagon, but she did not look up, and did not know whose it was until she heard Homer Wilson's voice. "Good-morning, Myron," he said; "are you going out to Deans'?" "Good-morning. Yes," she answered, blushing and ill at ease, for he had pulled up his horses. "Then climb in and have a ride; I'm going to town," he said. "Oh, no; no, thank you!" said Myron, hanging back. "What for? Come, get in," he said. Myron was so well used to being told what to do, and so little used to refusing, that she half made a step towards the wagon then--"No, I mustn't"--she paused--"you know--I----" "Don't be a goose, Myron," returned he with decision. "Climb in here! I never see you these days, and we used to be good friends----" The infrequent tears rushed to her eyes. Without more ado, she went to the side of the wagon and set a foot on the step; the impatient horses started, and she felt herself half lifted in by Homer's strong arm. The horses sprang forward, to be soon checked, though, for Homer was evidently in no hurry that morning; indeed, the horses were restrained to an unwilling walk. "How's things getting on with you, Myron?" asked Homer, trying to speak in a commonplace tone. "Oh, just the same," she answered, unsteadily. "Mrs. Deans kindly keeps me on." "Oh, she does, does she?" asked Homer. "Very good of her, I'm sure; she's a most charitable woman, Mrs. Deans is!" Myron somehow felt her heart sink at this. Of late, aroused from the first bewilderment of her shame, she had wondered once or twice if Mrs. Deans was so wholly admirable in her life and intentions as she said she was; if she herself was so utterly vile. Homer's reply showed her, or so she thought, that she was wrong in doubting Mrs. Deans. "Yes," went on Homer, "Mrs. Deans is what Ma calls a 'mother in Israel,' and no mistake. How many she's mothered! All these Home girls! And now struggling with you! Really, Myron, you might be thought most fortunate to get into such a household." Something in his voice gave Myron courage to look up. She did--but let her eyes fall before the bitter sneer that lurked on his lip, the scorn that shone in his eyes. In that instant she gathered, however, that none of it was for her; the next she was conscious of a desire to say something to Homer of Mrs. Deans' meanness, backbiting, insincerity, hypocrisy. Myron Holder had naturally a sweet disposition, but the happiest of us, even, have sometimes a longing desire to pull another down, and for a moment this temptation assailed her with almost irresistible strength. She was so inured to blame herself, that to hear another dispraised, and that other the woman who embittered each hour of the day for her, was perilously sweet. She half parted her lips, but the generous spirit that had survived so many blows, so much injustice, yet endured and stifled the impulse. She sat silent. A jingling of loose tires, a rattling of loose bolts, and the uneven beating of a lame horse's hoofs struck upon their ears; some one was coming from the village. "Hullo," said Homer, without looking round, "here's old Crow Muir coming!" The young men of Jamestown had an irreverent habit of calling Mr. Muir "Crow"--due to the solemn hue of his garb. A poor compliment any self-respecting crow would have deemed it, at least, when Mr. Muir was attired, as he was this morning, in his oldest suit of black. Mr. Muir's vocation compelling him to travel usually in a silent and slow way, he liked, when not bent upon an official errand, to go as swiftly and noisily as he could. He had an old piebald mare, the original plan of whose anatomy was so obscured by lumps and distorted by twists as to be almost obliterated; she was very lame in the nigh forefoot and had the stringhalt in her off hind leg, so that her gait was somewhat startling to behold; her neck was long and lean, her head heavy, her nose Roman, her eyes set close together in a bald face, her tail was more like a mule's than a horse's; but despite these peculiarities, which by some people might have been considered disabilities, she was the fastest animal in Jamestown, and her progeny was noted far and wide among the local sports. The vehicle behind this gallant steed was as direct a contradiction to the stately hearse as could be imagined. It was a light wagon, set upon ridiculously high wheels, which, being always adjusted loosely at the axle, had a lateral as well as an onward movement; the body of the wagon was not more than five inches deep and painted a bright green (the same paint that coated the undertaker's veranda made his wagon a thing of vernal beauty). The seat was uncushioned and had rungs in the back, like a chair--in fact, it was a section taken from one of the long, old-fashioned desks that had been removed from the school a few years before this time. In this state and equipage, then, did Mr. Muir overtake Homer and Myron. "Homer, good-morning!" said Mr. Muir, solemnly, as he came abreast of them; and then he was past, his wagon jingling crazily, his knees nearly touching his chin, each wheel running at a different angle and leaving wavering tracks in the dust. "Oh, Homer," said Myron. "Well," said Homer, "what's the matter?" "Mr. Muir--he'll talk," she said. "You're quite right there," said Homer, with a vicious tightening of the lips. "It'll do him good." He gave the restive horses a slap with the reins, but the next moment checked their sudden speed. "Don't mind me, Myron," he said, flushing under his brown skin as he felt her nervous start. "I am in a bad temper this morning, and disgusted with the way people gabble about nothing." And then they drove on in silence again. As they passed the little cemetery, they saw the piebald mare, in a ridiculous "stand at ease" position, tied beside the gate. "Hear of any one dead?" asked Homer. "No, not a word," said Myron, her thoughts reverting painfully to her last visit to her father's grave. "Well, maybe old Crow's gone to see if any of 'em are coming up," said Homer. Then, the thought suggested to him by the field of young springing grain opposite, he added, "Not much of a crop from old Crow's planting." After this grim speech there were no further words until they were opposite the wire fence of Deans' so-called garden. "Myron," said Homer hastily, "any time you want a friend for anything, come to me, will you?" "Yes," she said simply, looking at him with ineffable gratitude and wonder in her eyes. "But have you forgotten----" "My memory's as good as most folks' is," said Homer gruffly; then, wishing once for all to let her see he accepted the facts of her life, he said: "What do you call your child, Myron?" "My," she answered, with the indescribable mother-voice of love, "little My." "A very good name, too," said Homer, with conviction. "I'm coming in to see him some day." Myron fairly gasped in terror. "Oh, no," she said, with entreaty in her tones and eyes; "oh, no, promise you won't think of such a thing--promise you won't"--he was drawing up the horses at the Deans' gate, and she clasped both hands over his arm in her urgency. "Promise," she urged. He looked down at her, his face sombre; he gathered the beauty of her face and pleading eyes, his old self awakened for an instant from its bath of bitterness, and his old natural smile made his stern face bright and gentle as he said: "Of course, I won't, if you don't want me to. Is it your grandmother?" "Yes, and----" she unclasped her hands and began to descend. "Thank you so much," she said. "For not coming?" he asked. His face was dark again. "No; for speaking to me," she answered, as she turned quickly to the house, and he went on to the city, as fast now as his horses could spurn the miles, and he had gone some distance before his face lost the expression caused by her last speech; but long ere he reached the town, the old gloom again settled upon his countenance. From the high window Mrs. Deans had watched Myron and Homer as they drove from the foot of the garden; as they passed the corner of the house she sped to a more advantageous window, arriving in time to see Myron unclasp her hands from his arm and descend from the wagon. Mrs. Deans could hardly restrain herself from calling aloud to them, and proclaiming her discovery of their "brazenness," if not from the house-top, at least from the attic window; but with much strength of will she denied herself and kept silent until Homer's wagon vanished, and she heard a vigorous rap-rap down stairs. Then she collapsed upon a heap of winter quilts that were piled in the attic, and communed with herself. "She was doin' some rare begging, but the Wilsons is strong set when they've made up their minds. But such cheek! To drive her up to my door as bold as brass, and in no hurry out of sight, either; at least," bethinking herself, "he did drive off mighty quick, when once she got out; wonder if she wanted me to see him! Well, if that's her idea, 'twon't do her no good! She should have told me when I asked her; I won't take no notice, now; she can't get me to back down from what I've said; it's a terrible disgrace on Marian Wilson--well, they _did_ talk about Marian and that stonecutter one time, but he went away, and it was all smothered up, but I had my own thoughts. Well, this is a judgment on her now; she was too set up when Homer came back to the farm; like's not, he was druv to it! Fine goin's on, I warrant, he had in the city! Thank the Lord, Maley's not sich as Homer Wilson; but then he's been brought up different, and it's all in the bringin' up. And there was something very queer about that stonecutter business; that would account for Homer's being so bad." Mrs. Deans went about her work dreamily, struggling with the problem of Homer's depravity; her philosophy--like some other philosophies--first created a result, and then strove to invent circumstances to justify and explain it. Mrs. Deans was sorely tried to decide what course was best to pursue: she would have liked to go at once to Mrs. Wilson, and proclaim her son's iniquity to her and see "how she took it"; she longed to go to Mrs. Holder's and announce that she had discovered the secret which had so puzzled the village; she would have dearly loved to shower upon Myron Holder the new and expressive epithets that were trembling upon the tip of her tongue, but the peculiar view she had adopted of the situation suggested to her that Myron Holder wanted the secret she had kept so long and so well discovered; and greater than her desire to see her lifelong friend disgraced by the proof of her son's fault--greater than her desire to vindicate her own superior cunning--greater even than her desire to berate Myron Holder, was her determination to make Myron Holder suffer; so she decided to take no active step in the affair, no matter how hard the repression of her righteous wrath might prove. She felt, however, there could be no harm in giving Mrs. White a hint of how things stood, for the Sunday before this Homer Wilson had tied up young Ann White's buggy shafts when he found her at a standstill on the way home from church. Here Mrs. Deans wandered a little from the main track, and dwelt a while on the enormity of Homer Wilson tearing along the roads, or through the woods, or along the lake shore, the whole Sabbath day, instead of going to church; here she recalled, with a shock, that Myron Holder never went to church either, and Mrs. Deans, putting two and two together, decided that not only of sin, but of sacrilege, were these two guilty. Mrs. Deans felt fired with a great zeal for young Ann White's soul: if she should be led into marrying Homer Wilson, what a dreadful thing it would be! Not but what the Whites needed something to take them down a peg; still the pleasure of balking Homer, if he had any thoughts in Ann White's direction, would be something. Besides, although Mrs. Deans did not formulate this to herself, it would relieve the pressure of restraint to tell Mrs. White the circumstances, and Mrs. Deans concluded to herself: "It can't do no harm to let Ann White know. I miss my guess if she has her sorrows to seek; that Bing isn't ten removes off an idiot." So Mrs. Deans contented herself all the forenoon by staring at Myron Holder with a concentrated glare of contempt and triumph, varied only by sudden calls to Liz to "come back from there" whenever she approached Myron, and when Liz "came back," which she did in a hasty and indefinite way, not knowing very well why Myron had suddenly become so dangerous, Mrs. Deans would say: "Haven't you got enough evil in you, but what you must learn more bad off of her?" or, "There ain't no use my striving to bring you up decent, when your natural bent is to be bad," or some other remark to the same effect. In the afternoon, the rain heralded by so many infallible signs made its appearance, and Mrs. Deans perforce remained at home. She took her sewing to the kitchen, and set Myron and the bound girl to work to mend the grain bags; and as the storm outside whipped the maples, and struggled with the oaks, and stripped the horse-chestnut trees of their brittle blossoms, so the storm of Mrs. Deans' vituperation raged over the heads of the two girls sitting on the floor surrounded by the dusty grain bags. Liz was in such a state of nervousness that she was sticking her needle into her fingers at every second stitch, when Myron Holder began to feel the floor rising with her--the bags whirled round and round in a circle of which she was the centre; the floor ceased to rise evenly and tilted up--up--on one edge--tilted until it was perpendicular, and flung Myron Holder off--a long distance off--into an abyss of darkness, through which whirled great wheels of light that rushed toward her as if they would utterly destroy her, but always passed by a hair's breadth; the last one passed, its light vanished, the whirring of its rapid flight died away, even the darkness disappeared--Myron Holder had fainted. She still sat, needle in one hand, bag in the other. Liz reached across for another bag and chanced to knock against her slightly; Myron fell over like a log. "She's dead!" screamed Liz, and sprang up with hysterical cries. Mrs. Deans' face blanched. "You fool, get out of the way!" she said, and pushed Liz aside savagely, as she rushed toward Myron's prostrate figure. "Take hold of her," ordered Mrs. Deans, in a voice that quelled the bound girl's hysterics. Together they got her to the door; Mrs. Deans flung it wide, and Myron opened her eyes with the summer rain beating in her face and the waving masses of green trees and tossing branches before her eyes. To that blankness succeeded a quick memory of its approach, a shuddering recollection of that final plunge into darkness, to be obliterated by physical weakness and nausea; she clung to the door to support herself, and Mrs. Deans released her hold of her arms. "You can go lie down on Liz's bed till you come to," said Mrs. Deans, "and then you can go home for the rest of the day." "Thank you," said Myron, and Mrs. Deans went to the dining-room, while Myron crept to the tiny kitchen bedroom--each unaware of the horrible bathos of Myron's speech. Mrs. Deans did not come to the kitchen for some time, and when she did Myron was gone--out into the storm unseen of any, to struggle through rain and mud to the village, "a reed shaken by the wind" indeed. CHAPTER XI. "All things rejoiced beneath the sun--the weeds, The river, and the cornfields, and the reeds, The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze, And the firm foliage of the larger trees." The rain that brought back sense and sound to Myron Holder lasted for three days, falling steadily during that time; it was succeeded by the most joyous of weather. The spring was past; the grass grew lush and green beside the little waterways that the rain had created by the roadside; these mimic rivers had in miniature all the diversities and beauties of their greater brethren. There was a gradual decline from the inland to the lake, and adown this many of these evanescent streams found their way. The stream that passed the Deans farm was the very epitome of Life. Now a large stone obstructed its course and divided its shallow flood, which crept sadly round either side of this rocky islet, to gush gayly together beyond it; after a short space of calm it rushed against an upturned sod and, broken and ragged, fell in tatters over the brink into the little pool below, in whose tiny vortex floated twigs and bits of last year's grass, and perchance a glistening white feather from the breast of a gull; freed from its durance in the pool and not yet schooled to peace and patience, the stream sped on hastily and noisily, striving to find its way between the interlaced red roots of a cedar; its haste to get out into the sunlight defeated its object, and the close-knit fibres flung it back again and again, but it returned to the charge with tiny banners of foam and ripples of defiance; so the strife continued until the gathering ranks of water rose strong enough to toss the foremost clear over the barriers, and the stream went on its way cheerily until the dark culvert that took it across the road was reached, and as souls that plunge into the darkness of death leave all behind them, so this little stream left its foam, its ripples, its burden of twigs and wisps of grass and all its infinitesimal flotsam and jetsam, and essayed the darksome passage, a naked little stream; once out in the light again, it rippled on reflectively, until at last, its "tribute wave delivered," it merged its identity in the lake--losing (and here we cry with breathless lips, "Let it be like the soul in this also!") losing all puny consciousness of individual existence, only aware of being a part of that shining reservoir, dispensing beneficent gifts to air, and blessing and being blessed by the sun, that shone down more sweetly now upon it than when it was a vain and fretting brook. The broad burdock leaves grew so rapidly in these days that their unstable stalks could not sustain them, and they trailed near the ground, bleached and unhealthy-looking, defacing the plant they should have adorned, like purposes unfulfilled for lack of will. The wood violets spent all their surplus sap in leaves, and their later blooms were smothered in this luxuriance of foliage, as good resolves die 'mid many words. In the maples, besides the singing of birds, there was now to be heard the "lisp of leaves" murmuring nature's alphabet. The swallows did not fly about so wildly, nor the bob-o-link, singing, soar so high--for the swallows hovered ever near the gray eaves of the barns, where, in their clay houses, the white eggs were being patiently warmed to life, and the bob-o-link (that slyest of birds) lingered ever in the grass meadows, where, upon a nest hid most cunningly, its mate sat listening to its singing. The ponds and the margins of the lake were alive with wriggling tadpoles, and Bing White hung enchanted over a pool left at the foot of his father's field where, when the sun was high, the water spiders darted hither and thither. It was not the insects Bing watched, but the shadows cast by them upon the sandy bottom of the pool; for, by a conspiracy between the water and the sun, the minute disks that form the feet of these creatures, and enable them to "walk upon the water" in very truth, were magnified a thousand times, and this enlarged refraction, like spots of gold, wavered through the water in consonance with the spiders' movements on the surface. When the sun shone brightly, the spiders came out in force, and darted about untiringly; it was as though the spiders wove a web of shining water, flinging round golden bobbins through the woof and weft of their fabric. A little fawn-colored wild duck, belated in its journey to the north, came to this pool, a solitary but contented little bird, until Bing stoned it so persistently that it flew away one day, never to return. The spring grains were growing strongly, and the fall wheat was tall and vividly green, except that patches, bare save for knotty roots upthrown upon the surface, showed where, upon the high ground, it had been "winter killed," or spaces of bleached and yellowed blades indicated where, in the hollows, the heavy rains had "drowned it out." The blossoming of the fruit trees was past, that marvellous season of efflorescence and beauty, when the air is heavy with perfume and the paths strewn with petals--the rose and white of the apples, the mother-o'-pearl purity of the cherry, the fragrant ivory of the pears, loose-leaved plum flowers, and the hiding, faint-pink quince blooms--these and the peach blows that made gay and glad the gardens and the orchards. And the woodlands and the lanes rejoiced also--for theirs were the cloyingly sweet blooms of the pea tree and the insignificant-looking but honey-smelling flowers of the locust, the bitter-sweet blossoms of the wild plum, so finely cut in tiny petals, so filled with snow-white stamens, so thickly massed together as to make the tree seem a fragrant snow cloud; then there was the red and pink of the "natural" apples, the ungrafted trees that had sprung up in every neighboring woodland; their taste was insipid, and had a peculiar, smoky flavor, but their blossoms were not less sweet than those of their cultured kinsfolk, and side by side with them stood the "choke cherry" with its long sprays of fragile blossoms that nauseate with their odor. Best of all, either in woodland or garden, orchard or lane, there was the wild crab-apple, upon whose gnarled and thorny branches grew its unspeakably sweet flower. The pink-veined petals folded about its perfumed centre, or opening but an hour or two, to disclose its golden heart, then, paling and falling, overcome by its own breath; for in the perfume of the wild crab-apple there lies all the story of the year, all the life of love; it has taken to itself all the sweetness, the bitterness, the languors, the fever, the desire, the satiety, the distaste, the joy, the sting of winter, the swoon of summer, the expectancy of spring, the overcoming of autumn, taken all, and mingling it with that we dream of, but know not, offers it to us upon thorny branches. And the fruit of these blossoms is bitter. When the bloom was gone from all the trees, then the bees began to hum about the currant bushes, sipping the sweets of their green flowers, and there rose from orchard and field the savor of grape bloom. For Jamestown sent many hundred tons of grapes to the wine factories every year, and around the fences or over the cedars, there grew the "fox" grape, the "chicken" grape, and the bitter wild grape from which they distill a syrup for the throat. Mrs. Deans' garden was "made," planted from side to side with vegetables, daily growing higher; the leaves were thickening on the currant bushes, and the young grape leaves were losing their downy whiteness and growing green and thick. Young turkeys, goslings, ducks, and baby chickens disputed with each other for the food dispensed so liberally to them; but Mrs. Deans ruled her poultry-yard, as she did her other belongings, with a rod of iron. The turkeys were the aristocrats of the place; they ate milk, white curds and chopped lettuce, and boiled eggs minced fine, with pepper; the rest fared on common meal--only all the spare time the bound girl had was spent in digging worms for the ducks. "See that big worm there, Myron," she said one day, pointing to a huge, wriggling worm that two ducks were disputing possession of; "see that worm? Well, that's Mrs. Deans; of all the trouble that contrary critter give me I can't tell! It near wore me out, a-digging and a-digging; now it's in trouble its own self--you see--it'll be torn in two yet, yes--glad of it--there it goes! That'll happen to Mrs. Deans some day, when the Lord gets hold of her. Hush? I won't hush! Ain't she always a jangling? Jangling is something I can't abide, and how she goes it about nothing at all! She'll be tore in two along o' her ways, see if she ain't." With which satisfactory and encouraging prophecy Liz betook herself indoors. Mrs. Deans had never found the time to go to Mrs. White's, but when one day her son Gamaliel told her he had seen Homer Wilson and Myron talking together in the "open village street" the heart of Mrs. Deans burned within her, and she reproached herself that she had not gone sooner; if she waited any longer it might be stale news; if they were brazen enough to talk to each other on the street--people--Jamestown people--would not fail to notice it; now that there was a possibility of other lips telling "young Ann White" of Homer Wilson's badness Mrs. Deans felt it incumbent upon her to act at once, to arise in her strength and baffle the designs of the evil one upon the unsuspecting citadel of young Ann White's heart. Mrs. Deans called it, to herself, "putting Homer Wilson's nose out of joint in that quarter anyhow," but the phrase matters little, the intention expressed being identical. To "stir up the lazy and strengthen the weak" is a proceeding much to be admired doubtless, being enjoined by no less authoritative edict than the Westminster Confession; and however Mrs. Deans regarded the latter half of the injunction, she had nothing to reproach herself with in view of one of its requirements. That Mrs. Deans regarded all people under her as being lazy, as well as the majority of her neighbors, may be taken as granted; it will therefore be seen that she had little time for the latter half of the command. Before she left for Mrs. White's that day, she went to the kitchen and gave Liz and Myron an eloquent extempore narration of their past sins and shortcomings, their present delinquencies, their future state of sin and misery, proceeding to a peroration regarding the probabilities of their immortal lives, and rounding off her address with a pleasant prediction of eternal perdition for both of them. Having given them tasks they could not possibly perform before her return, Mrs. Deans turned her attention to her husband. As he could not move about much, and as he had a maddening gift for holding his tongue, Mrs. Deans was often exasperated by him; upon this occasion, having absolutely no handle to hinge her remarks upon, she contented herself with a few well-considered and audible reflections upon his utter uselessness, "either to God or man" as she put it, which threw such a burden upon her "helpless" shoulders; then she picked up his plug of chewing tobacco and narrowly regarded how much of it was gone, with a view to gauging the quantity he consumed in her absence. He squirmed under this; it affected him more than bitter words. Having made every one as uncomfortable as possible, Mrs. Deans went her way. Myron and Liz went out to their hoeing, Liz saying when once out of earshot of Mr. Deans: "Did ye hear her jist, Myron, with that talk about 'eternal lakes of burning'--what's 'eternal' but 'continual?'--an' if Mrs. Deans ain't a continual burning torment her own self, I'll never drink water! Ain't she now, Myron? Why don't you speak out and say what you think? Keep still? Told us not to talk? Of course she did! She'd stop the dogs from barking if she could; I'll talk all I like! Old Stiffen can't see me till I get past the third currant bush, and I'll take care to be quiet then--old wretch he is! I'd like to scald him some day to see if that would limber him up and take him out of the kitchen, a-watchin' and a-watchin'." Liz, as a matter of fact, talked more than she hoed; but she had worked hard in a compulsory silence since daybreak, so it was hardly to be wondered at that she should be both slow and voluble now. Myron's own eyes were heavy, and as she bent above her hoeing, her hands were none too eager for the toil, nor her feet too ready to advance; she worked on steadily though, and was beginning a new row before Liz completed her first one; as Liz passed her after some time to begin her second row, she said in an explosive undertone: "You can't scare me with no hell-fire after living along o' Mrs. Deans;" then seeing Myron paid no heed, she muttered to herself, "and old Stiffen, too, he'd sicken any devil, a-watchin' and a-watchin'." Liz, it will be seen, was not the model child of story book fame; the girl was the ordinary type of her class, with a thousand inherited failings, a dozen minor vices; but against these she had a heart that ached for love, a tongue that told the truth though it earned a blow; a generous and impulsive soul: but, alas, in Mrs. Deans' house she absorbed naught of good to offset her faults, save the virtue of courage and endurance, which, seeing Myron Holder's bravery, she cultivated through shame. The hours passed. Watching the girls as closely as he could, Henry Deans sat blinking in the sun, like a malevolent lizard lying in wait for flies. Mrs. Deans meantime made her way along the road to Mrs. White's. The White house stood back some distance from the road, and was approached by a long, narrow lane, bordered by weather-beaten rail fences, none too well kept, Mrs. Deans thought wrathfully, as she stumbled over a broken rail; the grass had grown so rank about it that it was almost entirely hidden. Mrs. Deans inveighed against shiftlessness in general, and the White type in particular, all the way to the front door, whose iron handle and heavy knocker bespoke the age of the house; it was, indeed, one of the old landmarks, built at a time when the settlers hewed the finest oak trees in the wood for their kitchen rafters, and begrudged not to use the magnificent black walnuts for their stairs. This house had been the first one in Jamestown to have shutters--massive, solid affairs of oak, adjusted and held in place by heavy bars of iron that extended diagonally across them; the Whites, however, were much distressed by the old style of these shutters, and a year or two previously had substituted modern green slatted shutters upon the front of the house. [Illustration: MRS. DEANS CALLS ON MRS. WHITE.] Young Ann White answered Mrs. Deans' knock, and ushered her in with awkward cordiality. Young Ann White's name was Ossie Annie Abbie Maria White, named after "four aunts and her pa" as Mrs. White said. The Jamestown people pronounced the first three names with a strong accent upon the first syllable, and the middle syllable of Maria they clung to until they lost breath and relinquished it with a gasp; as they uttered it, Miss White's name was a sentence by itself. Mrs. White came bustling in before Mrs. Deans got seated, and after expressing her pleasure at seeing her, saying, "I declare, Jane, the sight of you's good for sore eyes!" entered with great zest into the discussion of village gossip. Mrs. White's sitting room was an apartment that evidenced loudly the taste and industry of Mrs. White and her daughter. It had a "boughten" carpet on the floor, and upon this were strewn hooked mats of strange and wonderful design, trees with roses, daisies and blue flowers of name unknown, growing luxuriantly upon every branch; bright yellow horses and green dogs stood together upon the same mat in millenium-like peace, undisturbed by the red birds and white cats that enjoyed the same vantage ground with them; but finer than any of the others was the black mat placed in the centre of the floor, as being less likely to be trodden upon there; its design was a salmon-pink girl in a green dress. By what was little less than inspiration, Mrs. White had formed the eyes out of two large and glistening black buttons. The chairs were black haircloth, each adorned with a crocheted tidy worked by Miss White; the making of these tidies was her life--by means of them she divided her life into times and seasons. Her one tragedy was compassed by the unholy fate of one which, being just completed, fell into the paws and from thence to the jaws of a mischievous collie puppy, and was speedily reduced to rags. Her great achievement was the making of a "Rose of Sharon" tidy out of No. 100 thread. She could always fix any date by recalling what tidy she was engaged upon at the time. There was the "Spider-web tidy," the "Sheaves of Wheat," the "Rose of Sharon," the "Double Wheel"; one she called a "Fancy patterning tidy," and another was known as the "One in strips." The room had a large old-fashioned mantel-piece of heavy oak; beneath it had been a huge square fireplace, big enough to hold a roaring fire of logs, but the massive fire-board stood before it winter and summer now, for it was never used. The fire-board was also of oak, darkened to that tint that the virtuoso loves and the dealer in spurious antiques strives after in vain. But this year, Mrs. White had papered it over with wall paper, pink roses on a white ground, and a blue border. "It does look so much more genteel and cheerful!" said Mrs. White, and Mrs. Deans agreed with her. The mantel was decked with a gaudy china vase, with paper flowers in it; a lamp, in the oil of which was a piece of red flannel, thought to be decorative as it showed through the glass; a cross cut out of perforated cardboard, and two curious round objects like spheres of finely carven wood; these were clove apples. It was common in polite society in Jamestown to ask "How old is your clove apple?" The answer was usually given in years, and would have greatly surprised any stranger to clove apples. To make a clove apple, they selected the largest specimen of apple to be found (and in Jamestown that meant a very big apple indeed). Having got the apple, the next proceeding was to stick it full of cloves, as closely as possible; that was all--the cloves absorbed and dried the juices of the apple--the apple shrunk and shrunk, wedging the cloves tighter and tighter together; until at last they became so tightly welded together by the pressure that it was absolutely impossible to pull, pry, or cut one out; they were popular ornaments in Jamestown sitting-rooms. Mrs. White, when any reference to clove apples was made, invariably said that she remembered the time when tomatoes were called love apples, and kept for "ornamings," by which she meant ornaments. The walls of Mrs. White's sitting-room were hung with pictures; there was a highly colored print representing a pair of white kittens against a red velvet background, playing with dominoes; there was a glazed chromo of a preternaturally blonde baby, sleeping in a preternaturally green field, bestrewn with preternaturally white daisies; a woodcut of Abraham Lincoln, one of Queen Victoria, and a diploma for the excellence of Mr. White's fat cattle completed the decoration of the walls, except above the door, where purple wools on a perforated cardboard asked again the piercing question, "What is Home Without a Mother?" There was a centre-table, with a large Bible overlaid with a crocheted mat upon it, and a home-made foot-stool that tripped you up every time you entered the room. Mrs. Deans had brought no work with her, and when Mrs. White produced a basket and began to piece a block of a quilt, Mrs. Deans begged for thread and needle. Young Ann White rose to get them, and Mrs. Deans said: "Well, Ann, now who's this quilt for?" The girl bridled and tossed her head until her rough hair stood on end; her dull skin and phlegmatic temperament made blushing an impossibility. Mrs. White broke in with boisterous good humor: "Oh, Ann knows who it's fer all right enough; it's a poor hen can't scratch fer one chick, and that's all Sam and me has got--one apiece--Ann and Bing. Ann's got eight quilts all pieced now; this is the album pattern. When I finish this, I'm going to work on a 'Rising Sun' and--show Mrs. Deans that lace you made fer pilly cases, Ann." Ann went to obey. "She's so set on them things," continued her mother in an undertone, with many nods and headshakings; "so set on 'em. It's really wonderful; it makes me real nervous sometimes. There was Sarah--my cousin twice removed by marriage on Sam's side--and when she had consumpting, nothing would do but she must have a boughten feather; time and time again I argued with her, but never to no account--a boughten feather she would have, and being near the end, and being the only one the Clem Whiteses had, why they took to it that they'd humor her. So one day off Clem started and got the feather; he went to a millingnery store, and he says, says he, 'If the feather don't suit the lady--if it ain't becomin,' he said, for the clerk looked up sharp; 'If it ain't becomin,' Clem said, being always one to use fine language, 'if it ain't becomin,' I'll bring it back and change it for something else.' "So he took the feather home, and three days after Sarah died, real reconciled 'cause she'd got the feather; they was real afraid she'd ask them to bury it with her, she thought so much of it, but they'd head her off if they thought she was going to speak of it, and remind her her end was near, which didn't make her enjoy the feather any the less, but just made her say less about it. Well, when the end came, it came suddent and she had no time to ask any promises; but she held on to it and when they drawed the pilly away, she still had it in her hand; well, her mother took it back to the millingnery store and got a whole black bunnit for the price of that feather. It's terrible what they do ask for them; they say Sam Warner's wife had more than an idea of getting one in the city when they went down to sell the wool, but I guess she thought that would be just a little more than his people would stand, and give up the idea--but pshaw! I wouldn't be surprised any day to see her with a feather; she's bought buttoned shoes for that young one of hers; why, my land! our Ann never had a pair of buttoned shoes till long after she had spoke in after-meeting. "But Ann's so set on them things, it fairly makes me wonder if it ain't a warning that she'll be cut down. You know how 'tis with us all, Jane, 'the flower fadeth.'" Here Ann returned with various rolls of crochet trimming for Mrs. Deans to see; she unpinned the ends, extended them upon her black apron, and waited the praise she deserved. Mrs. Deans gave it liberally, but did not fail to describe the work she had seen at Mrs. Wilson's, left there by one of her market customers who came out to spend the day. Mrs. Deans described this production in such marvellous terms that Ann gathered up her treasures quite sadly, and as she pinned up each fat little roll wondered if by any possibility she could get the pattern. Ann sat down to a tidy of intricate design--her mother babbled on about Bing and Ann, and her chickens and her garden; Mrs. Deans felt irritated. The door of the sitting-room opened upon the veranda; it was flung wide open, and held back by a cloth-covered brick, and the sunshine streamed gloriously across the gaudy mats. Mrs. White was flowery of speech, being much given to the quoting of Scripture and apt to indulge in poetical similes drawn from the poetry of Mrs. Hemans, as used in the school-books. She was herself a poet of wide local repute, having composed the epitaph for a son lost in babyhood; engraved upon his tombstone it read: "Good-by, young William Henry White,-- The fever took you from me quite. The time has come for us to sever; But, William Henry, not forever." Mrs. White wore her hair, still dark and abundant, in rows of curls. It was only after Ann grew up that she discarded the blue ribbon she had affected since her own girlhood. Sitting in the sunshine, Mrs. Deans felt this comfortable self-satisfaction to be an unholy thing upon the part of the Whites. So she said abruptly: "Isn't it a terrible thing about Homer Wilson? Well, it'll teach Marian a lesson; she set too much store on Homer altogether. I knowed what Homer Wilson was long before this came out!" "Why, Jane, I never heard anything against Homer! What do you mean?" asked Mrs. White, looking over her spectacles at Mrs. Deans. "Why, they say--but I don't want this mentioned, Ann; I want this kept particular confidential between us two, and no one else to be the wiser, though the talk's getting round, as others can tell beside me. But what folks tell is that if Myron Holder's young one ain't named Homer, it ain't because it hadn't ought to be." "Well, my lands!" said Mrs. White, whilst her daughter said nothing, but got up and went out of the room. "Yes," said Mrs. Deans, "that's what they say, and I could tell things. But standing in the light of one who's tried to do the best she can for everybody, I never said a word! But there--there's no use talking over them; the point was, I felt it a duty when I heard he was sitting up with your Ann." Mrs. Deans paused--there was no reply--so she continued: "I felt you ought to know the truth of how things stood; so putting aside my own feelings, as I have to do very often, I came to let you know what sort of a fellow Homer Wilson is." "To think of it!" said Mrs. White. "Truly 'this life is but a fleeting show!' Homer Wilson! What he has said to Ann I can't say, not knowing; but as for sitting up, whatever sitting up was done was done irregular, now and then, as luck chanced; there was nothing regular, no promising, no conversational lozenges, no buggy drives. No, Ann ain't no call to be worried, though it's terrible to think how he'll suffer when he knows Ann is not for him, can never be his; no, that hope is gone--no, Homer Wilson, thou must go thy ways withouten help from Ann." Mrs. Deans felt exasperated. "Such stuff and nonsense," she thought. "Homer Wilson would never look at Ann White, if he could get another girl; Ann White, indeed!" She woke from her silence with a start. "Well, I'm glad it's no worse," she said; "only you'd better tell Ann to be careful, for people are so ready with their tongues." "Jest let me hear any one mention Ann's name and his'n," said Mrs. White; "jest let me hear 'em, they'll have to prove their sayings! 'Tell it in the country, tell it in the court,' is my motto. I'd never stand no creepin', sneakin' talk about my folks!" Here she was interrupted by her son Bing, who dashed along the veranda, flung himself down on the open door-step, and ejaculated: "Bats bring bedbugs." "What?" said Mrs. Deans. "For the land's sake, Bing, what are you talking about?" asked his mother. "Bats," said Bing, chattering his words out with his customary rapidity. "Caught one in the back bedroom, between the shatter and the window; bites like the mischief; got round ears that stick up--got fur on it--got leather wings, and bedbugs under 'em." "Well, it beats all," said his mother, and Mrs. Deans looked at him curiously. But keen as her eyes were, they saw no change in him from the boy of four or five years back. For although Bing was between sixteen and seventeen, he was no larger than a child of twelve: an ill-conditioned, withered, hard little figure. His frame was spare, his little face, with its high cheek-bones, was always flushed, as though fevered by a dry and burning heat; his eyes were very light blue, very small, very cruel-looking. They were set in a network of wrinkles. His hands were horny and thin. He stayed but a moment, then rushed off as quickly as he had come. "Bing don't grow much," said Mrs. Deans, with a curious intonation in her voice and a covert glance at Mrs. White. Mrs. White looked a little uncomfortable, and answered rather hastily: "No, the Whites is all slow growers. Sam grew after we was married, and Sam's brother grew till he began to get bald!" Mrs. Deans preserved a disagreeable silence. Young Ann entered the room as composedly as she had left it. "Where have you been, Ann?" asked her mother, a little sharply. "Fixing curds for the turkeys," said the girl, placidly. "Well, I declare, I'd forgotten it entire!" said Mrs. White. "I am glad to find that you have such a thoughtful mind." "Oh, ma!" said young Ann, in an acme of admiration. Mrs. White smiled, as who should say, "I can't restrain my muse," and continued in the same voice: "Shall we go out and see the feathered tribe eat their humble portion?" Mrs. Deans rose gladly, and out they went into the sunshine. It was one of those days--so perfect, if one can enjoy it without toil, in darkened rooms or shady nooks--so intolerable, if bodily toil beneath the blazing sun is demanded. They went about leisurely, watched the melancholy young turkeys picking daintily at their food, encouraged to the attack by the solitary little chicken that was domiciled in their coop. When the turkey eggs were hatching, careful poultry-keepers put one hen egg in with them, so that the chicken might "show them how to eat." This one, vigorous little black Spanish chick, certainly performed its duties nobly--its compact little body darting here and there among the turkeys, staggering about on their long, fragile legs. They passed Bing, lying on his back under a chestnut tree. Mrs. Deans and Mrs. White grew very affable over the poultry, and the clouds dropped down, with the dewy darkness of a moonless summer night, before Mrs. Deans went home. She was, upon the whole, dissatisfied with her visit. Those Whites were so disgustingly equable--so ridiculously pleased with themselves--and that Bing White! of all the objects! Mrs. Deans slept at last, her brows drawn in the ill-natured pose her thoughts suggested. The Whites slumbered peacefully, save where Bing lay, his eyes gleaming in the dark, as he dreamt long, waking dreams of ghastly pleasures; but he too slept at last, his fingers twitching as he slept, his lips like two streaks of blood. Myron Holder slept the too-sound sleep of weariness, her yellow-haired baby on her breast, her face placid and calmed into severe lines of beauty. Homer Wilson tossed and flung his strong arm above his head and murmured a woman's name, and crossed it with another, clinched his upraised hand; and, murmuring, slept. Deeper and deeper fell the silence; darker and darker grew the midnight; heavier and heavier sleep sank upon those different hearts; until they all beat with the measured cadence of oblivion--until, albeit delayed by devious paths and difficult gates, they all reached the poppied meadow of deep sleep. CHAPTER XII. "Lo! where is the beginning, where the end, Of living, loving, longing?" "But were there ever any Writhed not at passed joy? To know the change and feel it, When there is none to heal it, Nor numbed sense to steal it, Was never said in rhyme." It was late summer. The whirring of reaping-machines sounded upon every side; the roads were strewn with grain from the harvest wagons; the air was murmurous with insects; the ground, parched and thirsty; the grass, sere and harsh; the leaves, laden with dust; the birds sang only in the hours of earliest dawn or in the twilight. At noontide, the horses' flanks dripped sweat, and the men's faces and necks were blistered with the heat. The cows stood knee deep in the ponds, and flicked at the flies with their long tails. The ponds were low, and their wide margins of mud were alive with tiny frogs, that hopped about in thousands. Upon the surface of the water was a glaze of curious animalculæ, as red as blood. Clumps of bullrushes and tasselled tufts of reeds grew in the water, and dragon-flies flitted through the green stems, like darting flashes of blue light. The Jamestown children called them darning-needles; and being assured of their propensity for sewing one's ears up, viewed them with serious apprehension. Often the birds, their breasts panting with heat, came to the ponds, and, fluttering to the margin, splashed the water over their little backs. They were timid, though, and liked better to find a spot where the deep imprint of a hoof was filled with water than to bathe in the ponds. The little streams by the roadside had long since disappeared, and the famous stream on the Wilson farm, that welled up from the "living rock," stole along so sluggishly that it scarce stirred the watercresses that grew along its course. It was the culmination of the year's endeavors: a hard season on man and beast; from day-dawn to dark was heard the shouting of men, the trampling of horses, the noise of machines--a feverish season, the fruition of a twelvemonth's expectancy. "A good harvest, and fine harvest weather," said one and all. It was natural that these weeks of incessant labor should tell upon the men--indeed many of them looked utterly worn out, with red rims encircling their eyes, and faces from which each drop of moisture seemed to have oozed; but Homer Wilson, during the excessive heats of that summer, looked worse than any of his neighbors. His blue jeans hung loose upon him; and when he threw aside his smock, his shoulders seemed sharp and thin under his shirt. The outline of his strong jaw was clearly defined, and by reason of the lack of superfluous flesh the contour of his head was strikingly apparent, and suggested almost unpleasantly the dominant force of his character. His eyes were sunken; and although at the end of a long day's work his face might grow ashen, his muscles twitch nervously, and his strong fingers tremble, yet the fire in his eyes remained undimmed. He could not sleep. At night he used to go to the lake--very solitary then, when the fishing season was past--and plunging into the water swim far out in the moonlight. Sometimes he beat his arms upon the water at each stroke, striving to communicate his own excitement to the water, that shone up with such maddening placidity to the stars. Sometimes he would swim out until the shore behind him was but a dimness, seeming as unsubstantial as the clouds; then, turning on his back, he would float there, silent, his eyes searching the sky. The harvest moon-- "The loveliest moon that ever silver'd o'er A shell for Neptune's goblet; she did soar So passionately bright," floated above him. Silence was upon the face of the water, and he, in the embrace of the wave and the night, was alone indeed. "The lidless train of planets" passed him by; the moon drew a mantle of mist about her and sailed away. A premonitory shiver crept along his limbs; he reached the shore, chilled to the bone; but the heat at his heart still parched him with thirst, for there had awakened within him a great longing for loving eyes, a great hunger for woman's touches, a great dread of his own solitariness, a great disgust of himself. He was realizing slowly, numbly, his own decadence, groping for some rope by which he might pull himself up out of the abyss into which he had fallen. It is doubtless nobler to dispense with the rope and climb out of the pit unaided; the rockiest precipice may be hewn into painful steps, but in shifting sands who can form a stairway? "Seems to me, Homer," said Mrs. Wilson one day, as she stood moulding her bread in the early morning, "seems to me you need something; now there's yarbs just hanging up and spilin' for the want of drinking; there ain't anything more buildin' than yarbs is--'The yarbs of the field,' it says in the Bible, which means all yarbs, and I have them mostly there." Here she glanced at the long row of paper bags which, tied round the stems of the dried plants, hung along one side of the kitchen. "Maybe it's ague workin' on you, or m'laria you're sickening for; I'll make up some boneset agin noon and----" "Don't make any brews for me, mother," said Homer. "I don't need any; it's the heat." He was putting oatmeal into the water-pails for the men to take to the field. "There," said his mother, "I knowed it! I'd no hope as you'd be led by me in this any more'n anything else. Well, it's to be expected, I suppose. I know who the nursin' and settin' up will fall on, but I kin stand it; I've had to bear with a good deal in my time, and the Lord 'll give me strength for this, too--but it does seem hard." She sniffed, and, wiping away an imaginary tear with her floury apron, left a smudge of white upon her rubicund countenance. "It is hard," said Homer, very quietly, and went out, pails in hand, to where the horses stood ready harnessed for the day. The hired men were sticking branches of walnut leaves on their bridles and in the backhands, and bathing their flanks and breasts with smartweed oil, to keep off the flies. Homer gave the men their pail of oatmeal and water, and went to his own team. As he passed his horses, he put out his hand to take the nearest one by the bridle. It started and swerved nervously from his extended hand. His face lowered for an instant; the next moment it flushed as though his swarthy cheek felt the impatient blow he had given the horse the day before. He took the lid off his pail and let the horses drink the contents, giving them the pail alternately; each pushed its nose down through the cool water to get at the meal at the bottom, making a great sucking as it did so, and resisting stubbornly the efforts of the other to usurp the pail. They made short work of the draught, but were loath to give up the pail, and stretched their noses after Homer as he hung it upon a fence-stake. He took their bridles and proceeded to the field, their harness-chains clinking, the leaves on their heads and backs rustling, their noses quivering as they licked at the grains of oatmeal sticking to their bits. Homer was reaping the west field. A forty-acre expanse of growing grain it had been a few days before, but now it was all down save a little square in the hollow, at one corner of which stood the self-binder, an ungainly affair, with its windmill-like arrangement for pushing the sheaves along. The shocks of grain stood round and round this square of standing wheat, as if they fain would protect it from the fate that had laid them low; but Homer and his horses threaded their ranks, and soon the lumbering machine was in motion, leaving a track of prostrate sheaves that presently the men would take in pairs, and, putting eight together, leave them for the sun to dry. Through all that long forenoon Homer thought of his mother. It was not "yarb tea" he needed, but "To take in draughts of life from the gold fount Of kind and passionate looks." The heat grew intense. The horses were panting, the sweat lathering from beneath the harness-straps; a stifling dust was rising from the wheels and covering Homer's face with a grayish veil; the grasshoppers fled in thousands before the machine; the grain gleamed dizzily golden in the sun. It was just the color of her hair--perhaps the feverishness of the heat made the thought unpleasant. That hair had been bright enough to drive him almost mad, but it was not brightness he wanted now, nor gayety, nor laughter; he wanted the benison of calm eyes, the shadow of cool hair, the tenderness of tears, the strength of a tried soul, and out of this chaos of longing was slowly evolved a figure. Beginning with a dark cloud, that hovered for a time before him and then floated away fragment by fragment till all was gone save enough to halo round a pale and steadfast face, with dark locks of hair, and the face at first only outlined by the curving tresses, gradually assumed features--dark eyes and "most tender brows, Meant for men's lips, to make them glad of God Who gives them such to kiss"-- pale, sorrowful lips, and a chin which told of strength to endure, yet pleaded most eloquently against a test; and then came patient shoulders and the bosom of a mother. He gazed at this figure long--or so it seemed. It eased his eyes, and the heat was really blinding; even this vision could not blot it out. He closed his eyes. The next moment frightful sounds confused his ears, he felt a sharp pain in his head, heard a cry--surely from the lips he had just seen in his waking dream.... With a great gasp, Homer Wilson came back from his momentary swoon to find himself lying on the ground, his machine a few yards in advance, and Myron Holder bending with tears raining down her white lace. "Oh, Homer--Homer," she cried, "are you killed?" "What is it, Myron?" he said, and tried to put his hand to where the pain was--but failing to reach his head, it faltered and fell upon one of Myron's arms, over which it closed. He realized that her arm was under his head, and that he was leaning heavily upon her. He tried to gather himself together, but one of his feet was held fast. He looked at her inquiringly. At that moment she was the source of life--knowledge--everything to him. The blood was streaming from a cut in his temple. She replied to his unspoken question promptly. "The reins are tangled round your feet," she said. "Oh, I thought I couldn't get here in time! I thought they would surely drag you to death; and you fell so near the wheels, I----" here she gave way to a paroxysm of tears. She tried to stifle them. The sight set Homer's manhood for a moment again upon its throne. He untied the neckerchief he wore, clumsily dried her tears, and then applied it to his own head. She rose. Just then two men came in sight; they had been on their way home to dinner. Turning at the gate, they had seen something was wrong, and hastened back. As they approached, Myron snatched up her sunbonnet from where it had fallen and tied it on with trembling fingers. "How was it, Homer? What's up?" called the men as they drew near. Homer's evanescent strength was gone; he was supporting himself on one elbow, upon which he seemed to be whirling, as on a pivot. He looked at Myron, and she answered for him: "I was looking for Mrs. Deans' turkeys; they've strayed," she said. "As I came over the knoll, I saw him drop the reins and fall; I ran as hard as I could and stopped the horses; they were dragging him; he must have struck on a stone when he fell." She paused; her voice was trembling. "It's the sun," she said; and, turning, was over the crest of the knoll, her sunbonnet disappearing among the stacks on the opposite side, before the men made any comment. As she disappeared, Homer's long-tried elbow gave way, and his head sank upon the stubble. The men untied the leather rein from his foot, tied up his head as well as they could, steadied him as he rose to his feet, and helped him to mount the gray horse. A day's rest set him right. The touch of sunstroke had been neutralized by the cut, whose bleeding had relieved the pressure on the brain and in a measure from his heart, for he no longer battled with intangible desires and maddening uncertainties of purpose; he yearned with his whole heart for the clasp of Myron's Holder's arms. His mother heard the story of his accident and by whom a much more serious one was averted. She was thoroughly enraged and excited. She harped upon the one string until Homer's new-found store of patience reached an end, and he was fain to betake himself out of doors in the evenings until sleep stilled his mother's tongue. It was a week or so after his fall--the wound on his temple had already healed in the wholesome skin--when, one night as dusk fell, he was beset with desire to see Myron. The vision he had had in the field returned to him often now; that strange vision--compound of reality and dream, part wrought of the needs of his own heart, part woven of the glimpses his reeling eyes caught of the woman's figure in the distance. As he had emerged from the chaos of indefinite yearnings to a definite desire, so he had put aside all women for one woman; to his credit be it told, he thought of Myron Holder as she was--the disgraced mother of a fatherless child. He could draw no fine distinction between letter and spirit, deduce no hair-splitting arguments to bear out his views, being only a rough countryman, unused to subtle mental processes. But he decided for himself that it was not muttered rites and outward forms that made the mother, but all the dolorous agonies of maternity. Which of them had this woman not endured? What jot or tittle of woman's horrible heritage had not been hers? And what more holy than a mother? "God knows," he said to himself, as he strode along that night to the village, "a woman needs to be pretty bad before she's not good enough for the average man!" He had reached the fence round the Holder cottage--that fence in which the gaps grew greater and greater as old Mrs. Holder used the pickets for kindling-wood--and was just about to enter quietly, when Gamaliel Deans drove up. He recognized Homer and called out: "Hi, there! Ho! What are you lookin' for?" "A lift out to old Carroll's," said Homer promptly, cursing Gamaliel in his heart. "Well, I'm yer man, then," said Gamaliel. "I'm just goin' for the vet. The sorrel mare's bad--sunstroke." "Too bad," said Homer, springing into the light wagon. "Who was driving her?" "I was--worse luck," said Gamaliel, sulkily. "I seen her stagger, but I thought she could make it to the end of the swathe; but she dropped in her tracks, and there she's laid since, with us pouring water on her head. It don't seem to do her much good, though, and she was beginning to kick out when I hitched up and started." "Well," said Homer, and he had a grim satisfaction in saying it, "if she was beginning to strike out, you may as well go home, for she'll die!" "I guess she will," said Gamaliel, philosophically; "but things was gettin' pretty hot round there, and I thought it safe to make tracks. Marm's in a regular ramp over it!" "No wonder," said Homer severely; "she's a fine mare." The twinkling lights of Mr. Carroll's window were in view. They neared them swiftly. Gamaliel half-pulled up and Homer sprang out. "So 'long!" said Gamaliel. "This is a matter of life and death, ye know," he added, chuckling at his own wit. He drove on quickly, speculating as to whether the mare was dead. She was. Homer meanwhile stood a moment irresolute, as the wagon disappeared. He had spoken upon impulse when, in answer to Gamaliel's inquiry, he said he was going to Mr. Carroll's. It was the first name that entered his head, and chosen for that reason. Homer had once gone a great deal to old Mr. Carroll's, but never had resumed the visits since his return to the farm. He shrank morbidly from observation then, and old Mr. Carroll's eyes were sharp. This night, however, he decided to go in; he feared no man's eyes now. He rapped at the door and waited. He could hear the tapping of the old man's cane, then saw a light beneath the door, as Mr. Carroll called out in well-rounded tones for so old a man: "Who goes there?" "Homer Wilson!" shouted Homer. "Pass Homer Wilson!" said the old soldier, and pulling back the simple bolt, let his visitor enter. Through a dusky narrow hall, to a room with very heavy wooden rafters and whitewashed walls, he led the way. Those walls were a great saving of paper to him, Mr. Carroll was wont to say; and that there was reason in his statement could be readily seen, for all the farm accounts, the taxes, the mill accounts, the dates of any events he wished to remember, with any stray memorandum of a chance reflection or idea he wished to see in words, were pencilled upon the walls. On the last night of the old year, Mr. Carroll had the walls whitewashed, and began a "clean sheet with four big pages," as he said, every New-Year's. One of his pleasantest reflections was that he had never yet needed to begin the new year with any debts staring him in the face, "and no one owing me, either," he would say, as though that too were a triumph; but certain people said old Mr. Carroll was a fool in this; he was so set on carrying out his whim that he whitewashed over accounts that were still due him, because, of course, it was for his own selfish gratification, and not from any generosity that he forgave certain needy families the little debts they owed for flour, and hams, and chicken-feed! Mrs. Deans considered this sinful; and, impelled by her usual sense of self-sacrificing duty, spoke to him upon the subject once, saying, to clinch her argument, that "he'd have more money for foreign missions, if he didn't throw his substance away on those miserable, ailing, complaining paupers over Stedham way." But Carroll had speedily brought the discussion to a close by demanding, with some heat, what possible interest he could have in "a batch of naked niggers, ma'am"--an irreverent way of referring to the interesting heathen, surely. "Sit down, Homer; sit down!" said his host, pushing a chair toward him with a gesture of genuine hospitality; "sit down, and we'll have a glass of something." He went to a cupboard, whose diamond-shaped glass panes were backed by faded green silk, produced an old-fashioned heavy glass decanter, two glasses, some sugar and old silver spoons--talking all the time. His lameness necessitated several trips to the cupboard, and as he brought each object and set it down on the table he would pause a moment, feign a start, and say--"Tut--tut--how forgetful I am!" and jauntily journey back, until he had all the requisites for a brewing of hot whiskey. So well he did the little by-play that he almost believed himself that it was forgetfulness that caused him to make repeated trips for the few articles and not the necessity for a cane, which left him only one free hand. "A cold drink for a cold day, and a hot drink for a hot day; that's my idea," said the old man, settling himself into his chair with a suppressed twinge as he twisted his lame leg. "So now, you put a match to the fire, and we'll see if it's a good one." Homer lit the fire, already laid, and the copper kettle placed upon the stove soon began to sing. Homer had talked readily enough at first, but he was growing absent-minded, his thoughts wandering back to that dilapidated cottage in the village. Presently the glasses of hot whiskey steamed between them. During the process of concoction Mr. Carroll related, with many strong expressions and much richness of detail, the idiocy of Male Deans, by whom he had sent to town for lump sugar. Lump sugar was an unknown commodity to Male, and he insisted there was no such thing, and declared Mr. Carroll couldn't "get the laugh on him that way." At last Mr. Carroll resorted to strategy. He wrote out a list of things he wanted from the grocery store, and smuggling loaf sugar in at the bottom of the list, gave it to Male and told him the grocery man would have all ready for him as he passed from the mill. So he got the lump sugar. Homer was a little hazy himself as to the existence of, or necessity for, lump sugar, but evidently it was of vital import to Mr. Carroll. "Yes," the old man said, splashing another lump into his second glass of hot whiskey, "the ass! I've no doubt he'd put filthy loose sugar in this--floor-sweepings." Then came silence. Homer felt he must say something; he cast about for a subject; an accident of the day suggested itself. "We killed a copperhead snake in the rye, to-day," he said; "the first I've seen in years. I was cutting a road round the field for the machine with the cradle, and it darted at me. I killed it with a fence-rail. It was an ugly beggar, and a good three-foot long." "A snake!" said old Carroll. "A snake! There's many kinds of snakes. Copperheads are dangerous, and rattlesnakes are, but there's worse snakes than either. You killed it with a stick? Did I ever tell you about the man I knew who killed so many snakes?" "No," said Homer, looking at him, for his tone was strange. "No. Who was he?" "He was a man," said Mr. Carroll, looking fixedly at his guest, "he was a man that overcame many snakes of many different kinds, and how he fared at last I'll tell you." He rose, snuffed the two candles, snipping off their wicks adroitly with a pair of old brass snuffers, and sat down, again fixing his gaze upon Homer's face. The tinderwood fire in the stove had died away to a mere glow of crisping embers; the kettle sang in dying cadence; its steam and the steam from the glasses floated athwart Homer's vision of Mr. Carroll's body, seeming to give greater keenness to the alert face, and the eyes which, always bright, seemed to glint to-night with absolute brilliancy. "It was some time ago," said Mr. Carroll, "that this man I speak of used to kill the snakes. He had a peculiar dislike to all snakes, for a friend of his had had the life squeezed out of him in the folds of a serpent, and another friend had been bitten by one, so that he too died, having first gone mad; and another had the very breath of life sucked from him by a sly snake, so that he died--died himself, body and soul, and never knew it: only his friends saw the corpse of his old self, and knew their friend to be gone from their midst and only his semblance left, and they rejoiced much when at last this semblance died also, and they could bury it decently, like other corpses. "There was no wonder my friend hated snakes. "He waged war upon them; and it was his method when he found one, to take it by the tail and, with a sudden jerk, snap its head off. He killed a great many in this way; and it was always his habit to search for the head. He longed to look into the eyes, and learn wherein the power lay by which they deceived and deluded men until they stung them; but he never could find the head. Between disappointment at this, and despair because the more snakes he destroyed the more there seemed to be, my friend grew very sad. He had a horrible pain at his heart too, that no drug could ease. Time went on and the pain grew no better--it even shot through his head sometimes; but my friend persevered, and no snake escaped him. "Well, one day he was walking in his garden, under his own trees, within his own walls, where it would be thought no snake could come, when a snake, more brilliant in color than any he had ever seen, crossed his path. For the first time, he understood a little of the feeling that makes a man spare a snake because it is beautiful; but he put the thought from him, and, catching it by the tail, jerked off its head and flung aside the body. Then he began to search for the head, feeling if he could but look into the jewel eyes of that snake that all the mystery of men's delusions would be revealed to him; and, knowing the secret of their delusions, surely he could dispel them. "He bent to his search, but felt such a great pain in his heart that he stood up, casting his eyes down upon himself, for the pain was so great it seemed his heart would burst the bonds of his ribs; and as he looked, he saw the swelled eyes and forked tongue of the snake's head, for it had fastened on his breast above his heart. He looked again; it was gone. With wild haste, he tore off his coat. "It was not there. His waistcoat--no sign of it. He dragged his clothing from him till he stood like Adam in the garden, and then he knew that that snake's head and all the others were in his own heart. Standing naked in his garden, he felt the snakes in his heart, and knew that his labor for mankind was vain--knew that not till he could rend and read his own living heart would he understand and dispel the delusions of men. The disappointment made him mad. It was the disappointment, nothing else--not the pain of the snakes, for many men have snakes in their breasts, she snakes, that amuse themselves by seeing how tight they can tie their hair about the heart." The old man drained his glass. Homer was glad there was a little left in his tumbler--he swallowed it hastily. "Rattlesnake oil is a grand thing for weak eyes," Mr. Carroll said, composedly; "and for horses' eyes it hasn't any equal." "That's true," said Homer, "but it's pretty expensive--five dollars an ounce." "Yes," returned his host, "old Dargo used to try out the oil and then eat the cracklings; but the best oil for medicine is got after letting the snake hang a while." "So they say," said Homer; "but I never could bring myself to have anything more to do with a snake than to smash it with the first thing I could catch hold of." They talked on a little longer, then Homer rose. "I must be getting along," he said; "I've quite a walk before me." "Well, come back soon," said Mr. Carroll, lighting him to the door with a wavering candle. Homer had his hand on the latch, when the old man said suddenly: "Hold the candle a minute." He felt in his pocket, and drew forth a small black case, opened it, and thrust it before Homer's eyes. "Look at it," he said, "look at it well, and then you'll know a snake the next time you see one--one of the dangerous kind, not a simple copperhead, or a gentle rattler." In the midst of the glow of a golden background, dimmed here and there by a pearl, was a painted face--fair enough to woo a king, false enough to sell a kingdom. Homer looked, and somehow understood all its beauty and treachery. [Illustration: "LOOK AT IT," HE SAID, "LOOK AT IT WELL!"] Mr. Carroll shut the case with a snap, took the candle, and Homer let himself out. "Good-night, Homer," called the old man. "Come back soon." "Good-night. I will," said Homer, and the door closed between them. CHAPTER XIII. "Pleasure is oft a visitant, but pain Clings cruelly to us--" "Whoso encamps To take a fancied city of delight-- Oh, what a wretch is he!" Church was in. That meant that all the respected and self-respecting people of Jamestown had come forth, morally and physically clothed in their best, and bestowed themselves as comfortably as circumstances permitted in the wooden pews of Jamestown's only church. From the preacher's desk, the congregation looked like a human theme with variations, the original motif being a stolid, expressionless mask of flesh, unanimated, immobile, with rudely carven features, and no decided tints. Upon this primitive scale nature had rung every change her shackled hands could compass; but between the highest note, struck perhaps in Ossie Annie Abbie Maria White, whose face was inoffensive, and the lowest personified by old Ann Lemon, whose countenance was a mere mass of flesh, there was but a short thought. The men were sandy-haired, meagre, undersized; or heavy, florid, dark, with lack-lustre eyes and coarse lips. It was a delightful autumnal day--a day more provocative of tears than laughter, more suggestive of retrospect than anticipation; a day to dream old dreams, feel old heartaches, read old books, tell old tales, hear bygone singing, recall lost voices; a pure, sweet day--the air rarefied by the first touch of frost; a day, in short, to remind one of the sweet, the sad, the strange in life; but withal, a day to perfect the tint on the apples, mellow the juices of the late grapes, and promising a "fine spell of good weather for the fall ploughing," as each male member of the congregation had said to each other male member that morning. Mother Earth got but little rest at the hands of these eager seekers. Hardly had her bosom been shorn of its crop of a yellow grain before the keen ploughshares were again plunged into the soil and it was lacerated afresh, and the man looked best content that morning behind whose plough there lay the greatest number of brown furrows, for the fall ploughing was of great furtherance when the rush of the spring came on; so the horses, loosed from the lumbering reaping machine, were yoked to the plough, that most graceful of all farmer's implements, and strained at their collars as it turned the furrow, sending its earthy fragrance to mingle with the fruity savor from the vineyards. Light mists, prophetic of the later haze, floated in shreds and wisps across the fields, and gathered and lingered about the trunks of the trees in the woodland. The birds were silent, and daily V-shaped flights of ducks and wild geese passed over the village, winging their way to the south. Service went on in the church, to the staid and sedate measure of well-understood and long-established usage. Ann Lemon was nodding off the intoxication of the night before in a pew well to the front. Ann felt she needed to assert her religious feelings lest there be some doubt of their existence. Behind her sat Mr. and Mrs. White, young Ann, and Bing--the first three mentioned of the family looking as gloomy and downcast as their self-complacency permitted. Bing blinked wickedly in his corner, making sly swoops at the sluggish flies, and tearing them in bits when he captured any. Across the aisle Clem Humphries flourished. Clem was one of those world-worn wrecks that are cast away and left stranded in nearly every small village the world over. How they drift there no one knows; whence they come no one cares; why they stay they could not tell themselves. Fate rattles us all in her dice-box, and we lie where we fall. Clem was by turns a fisherman, Mr. Muir's assistant, a knife-grinder, a peddler; he had superior skill in making axe-handles, and out of wire he could twist and twine the cunningest of traps. He was acute and wise in his day and generation--at heart a scoffing old vagabond; yet he professed to be most religious, and evidenced it in the same way as the people about him did, by going to church with painful regularity, where he sat, a sore rock of offence to Mrs. Deans, for Clem was fain to relieve the tedium of the service and aggravate Mrs. Deans (whom he hated) by a succession of tricks that irritated her almost beyond endurance. Mrs. Deans sat immediately behind Clem, and pursed her already pursed-up mouth, sniffed her already pinched-in nose, and glared at him fiercely from her chronically inflamed eye, but all to no effect. He was full of offence, and Mrs. Deans had several times accused him in after-meeting of "conduct misbecoming in a Christian," but Clem had answered to the charge so volubly, so diplomatically, so humbly that the rest of the church members, and particularly Mr. Prew, the minister (to whom Clem always ostentatiously removed his hat), decided that Mrs. Deans had "a pick" at Clem, and regretted a little that such a pious woman should stain her noble record by such complaints as she made against this humble follower. He had an evil habit of setting his stout stick upright beside him in the pew, balancing it with a skill all the boys of Jamestown emulated in vain, and then placing his hat upon it, so that in full sight of the congregation, it stood perilously balanced, but never falling, during the entire time of service. A strange minister had once been sadly disconcerted by the sight of the immovable hat in that pew. He could see nothing of what supported it, and could hardly restrain his wrath at the irreverence of the dwarfish individual who sat covered in the Lord's house. Animated by the thought, he seized the sword of the Spirit and began to fight against this evil one. He dilated upon the perils of irreverence until the majority of his listeners dared hardly breathe. He thundered forth the denunciation of the wicked and stubborn of heart until all the women wept, led by Ann Lemon, who, by reason of excessive piety and much gin, had no nerves left at all, and who showed her emotion by a series of subdued howls. He exhausted vituperation and himself, and sat down--a beaten man, for the hat was unmoved, whilst Clem beside it was rolling up his eyes and trying to induce a tear--an effort beyond even his art. When the preacher discovered the true state of affairs, which he did when he saw Clem pick up the cane and its burden, carry it to the door, give it a jerk, bending his head at the same time, and so receive the hat at his own peculiar angle, he felt as if all good was but a dream and a delusion. Clem every Sunday produced a large and not over-clean handkerchief tied in many intricate knots. These he untied painfully and laboriously with teeth and fingers, until he reached the last, which, when untied, disclosed a copper cent, which was his weekly contribution. This performance he made an absolute torment to Mrs. Deans, but with the cent he made her life a burden. He dropped it, and scrambled around on his hands and knees for it. He polished it on his trousers until it seemed as if he might wear the fabric through. Worst of all, he put it on the back of the seat before him, where Mrs. Wilson's plump back must inevitably knock it off. Mrs. Wilson, despite her many trials and the multitude of diseases she believed were concealed about her person, was very stout, and therefore subject to all the fatigues incident to bearing such a burden of flesh. In spite of this, however, Mrs. Wilson was animated by an eager desire to do her duty as became a "mother in Israel," and by her deportment convey the impressive lesson of example to the less holy members of the flock. With this end in view, she strove to attain an upright and rigid position of an uncomfortable piety; but the flesh is weak. Presumably the weakness increases in ratio to the flesh, for before the first prayer was over Mrs. Wilson was beginning to settle. When the preacher announced his text, she usually took a fresh grip of her failing resolution, and assumed a ramrod-like pose, but it was of short duration. She gradually collapsed, her shoulders drooped, the back of the pew dented further and further into the broad black expanse that leaned against it. Clem's penny crept nearer and nearer the edge as the encroaching back advanced. Presently Mrs. Wilson, worn out in her efforts to listen to the sermon and fight against her own lassitude at one and the same time, gave way, and, with a sigh, leaned back restfully. The penny flew off, and Clem, whilst apparently gazing at the preacher so attentively as to be oblivious of all else, reached forward and caught it adroitly, to place it again in jeopardy, and then again to lose sight of its peril. This performance, being repeated a half-dozen times during one service, enraged Mrs. Deans beyond expression. One unlucky day, she prodded Clem in the back with a rigid forefinger, and upon his turning round, which he did with an exaggerated start that vibrated through the whole congregation, she made a sharp gesture of withdrawal, and gazing at the offending penny, just then trembling on the edge, left the rest to Clem's understanding--a perilous thing to do, for Clem chose to interpret the signal in quite a different way than she intended. Down Mrs. Wilson's black merino back there strayed a long light brown hair. To Mrs. Deans' consternation, Clem reached gingerly forward, took the hair, and, with the suddenness Mrs. Deans' gesture had indicated, withdrew his hand. Now the hair had merely strayed, and was not lost from Mrs. Wilson's knot, hence the sharp jerk brought a smothered exclamation and a sudden start from her--a start which sent the detestable copper spinning. Clem caught the coin dexterously with one hand, whilst he turned to offer Mrs. Deans the hair with the other. That worthy woman looked positively apoplectic, and, giving Clem just one look, turned her attention markedly to the preacher. Clem turned, with a fine expression of bewildered disappointment upon his face, replaced the hair on Mrs. Wilson's shoulder and the coin on the ledge, and lost himself in pious meditation. This occurred some time before this autumn Sunday, but Mrs. Deans had suffered in silence since then. She was prone to leave church with her temper thoroughly on edge. Clem was surpassing himself that day: he wore a long-tailed coat of the fashion of many years before, and, when he arrived, which he did just as the first psalm was announced, he deliberately stood up, and, pulling round first one coat-tail and then the other, emptied them of a multitude of small articles--tobacco, pipes, balls of twine, lead sinkers, little twists of wire, a big jack-knife, stray nails, and a varied assortment of bits of iron and buttons. Having put these all on the seat beside him, he deposited himself with the air of a man who puts aside worldly things to listen to better. Hardly was he seated before he imagined the flies were troubling him. He made several spasmodic slaps at his bald head, and then drawing forth his handkerchief, folded it carefully in four and laid it on the top of his head. Thus adorned, he rose to sing, knelt to pray, and finally listened with reverential attention to the sermon. "Few are thy days, and full of woe, O man, of woman born; Thy doom is written, 'Dust thou art And shalt to dust return.'" So they sang; and the wailing air, upborne by the harsh, untrained voices, reverberated from the bare walls of the church, its jangling cadence pierced by one pure and bell-like voice, for Bing White, with the heart of a vulture, had the voice of a lark. One passing outside smiled--half amusedly, half sadly--as he heard the singing, and went on his way with the music following him in ever fainter notes, forcing itself upon him. * * * * * * On Sunday Myron Holder had her only relaxation. Her grandmother, preserving the prejudices of the little Kentish village from which she had come, detested all other religions save the Episcopal. Her folks had all been strong for Church and State, and she scorned the idea of going to the Methodist church, or, as she contemptuously said, "to chapel." Her vocabulary knew no more derisive epithet than "a Methody." This in itself was enough to isolate the Holders in the midst of a community that regarded Episcopalians as being "next door to out-and-out Catholics," and Catholics as surely doomed. As Mrs. Holder did not go to church herself, neither did she allow Myron to go after the work for the day was done, so she was free to lavish her heart on her child. It was her custom, whilst church was in and the streets empty, to take the boy and go out into the fields or lanes with him, severing herself from the house that had held such agony for her and from the woman whose stinging tongue kept her wound raw. Once with her boy--alone in the air and sunshine--she gave herself up to introspective soul-searchings. Upon one side she set herself, and upon the other all things good; in the great gulf between there hovered the shade of the man to whom she owed her misery. In the abandonment of her self-abasement, she did not place herself even upon his level, whilst as for little My--he shone amongst the holiest of those things to which it seemed to her she was herself in such direct opposition and contradiction. The great marvel of her life was this child, who owed its existence to her. She looked at it with eyes of adoration--touched it almost humbly, as the Madonna we are told of may have tended the Christ-child on her breast. The child seemed to embody all the dead delight of her own girlhood, to have absorbed all the peace, all the calm, all the gayety she had lost. There seemed no varying moods to cross its baby mind; it was the embodiment of trusting love. Myron, in the face of this miracle, this perfect blossom which sunned itself in her eyes only and expanded beneath her tenderness, was bewildered and amazed. She began to ponder over the matter, and presently to wonder if there was any phase of the entire situation that made her less blameless--to ask herself in what way she could possibly obliterate shame from her record for his sake. "Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?" The words came to her as a personal and crushing query as the congregation energetically sang them. Little My clapped his hands and laughed delightedly; the music pleased him. So Myron stood outside until the voices died away, and the murmur of prayer succeeded; then taking My up in her arms, that they might make greater speed, she went rapidly out of the village. She turned to her left, and, going a short distance along the road, lifted My over the fence into Mr. Warner's grass meadow. Through the centre of this field ran a deep ditch, to carry off the surface drainage in spring. Its course was marked by a thick growth of low-growing shrubs, among which grew short stubby oaks, whilst here and there great graceful elms sprang up in lofty columns, crowned with drooping branches; parasitic vines, sucking the life-juice of the tree they adorned, crept up these elms; their delicate leaves, already scarlet, showed vividly against the gray bark of the trees, and looked like thin streams of blood trickling down. Particularly was this the case where, upon one of the elms, the creeping-vine had reached the point where a branch had been broken off by the wind. The semblance was thus complete: there was the wound--there the blood, and above, the sighing leaves deplored the pain. At the foot of this tree was a huge and brightly green mound, which, as Myron approached, seemed almost artificial, so close were the leaves set, so impenetrably were the tendrils woven together; for this mound was formed of two oak trees over which, completely hiding them, grew a huge wild grape vine, forming a perfect canopy of dense green, and, more honest than the vine that sapped the elm tree, the grapevine, by its luxuriant growth and the vigor of its stem and branches, seemed to proclaim its settled purpose to smother the trees that supported it if possible. To this Myron bent her footsteps. Pressing into the shrubs some distance below, she won her way through them until she came to the foot of the elm tree, and entered the green tent formed by the grapevine. Between the trunks of the two scrubby oaks was a space of heavy green grass, which, springing up before the vine leaves had shut off the sun, kept green and fresh in their shadow through all the heats of summer. Here she and her child sat down; they were completely shielded from observation--the grape garlands at their backs, before them the masses of shrubs on the other side of the ditch. Myron took a biscuit from her pocket and gave it to the boy, and then, clasping her hands about her knees, lost herself in dreams. She had cast aside her sun-bonnet, and the light, with difficulty piercing the shade, shone upon her in pearly lights and gleams--a colder radiance than shone elsewhere. The soft characterless face of the young girl had been frozen into the enforced calm of passionless despair. Her face gave a strange impression, as of features that would remain unchanged no matter how long time endured for their possessor; as if the voice of pain and shame had bade her life stand still, nor evidence its aging in her countenance. No network of wrinkles, no deep marks of care, could have been half so sad as these youthful outlines veiled by such grief. Her eyes were heavy; her mouth would have been bitter, but that the patience of the face belied all bitterness save that of self-contempt. Underneath this mask of arrested life, vivifying it with tragic meaning and rendering it inexpressibly sad, burned an intense suppressed expectancy, as of one who doth "Espy A hope beyond the shadow of a dream." This lent her face the artistic value of motive, and transformed what might, without it, have been but a sad-faced woman, such as the world holds in countless thousands, into a creature of tragic force. Myron pondered in the shadow, whilst her child played at her side. It was very still. The child's soft breathing as he plucked at the soft grass was the only sound that broke the listening silence; opposite her was a little maple tree; a single leaf near the top was whirling round and round, caught in some miniature tempest that left unmoved the leaves on either side. In the midst of universal calm, this lonely leaf was tossed and troubled, singled out for unrest, as Myron Holder had been set apart for pain. But Myron's thoughts were not upon the leaf, albeit she saw it fluttering. She was struggling against a futile wrath, which welled up in her heart and at times nearly mastered reason--a hot rage against herself--_him_--the village. Her cheeks flushed--her hands involuntarily closed. Why had this lot been meted out to her? In what was she different from these other women whose fault had been no less than hers? Why was continual bitterness her portion whilst they dwelt at ease? Simply because, though tardily, their children had been given a name. She felt a bitter wish spring up within her breast that all those jibing at her were such as she; that all those cruel women might feel the touch of shame; that they might be brought low, and taste the bitter bread that was her portion, and drink the cup they held to her lips. And then she sank into an evil dream. In it she beheld herself sitting in the judgment seat of respectability and meting out judgment to those who so lately had been her judges; for, in her dream, he had returned and justified her; she had risen, and all the rest had fallen; and as they toiled along the thorny path her feet had known, she beheld herself pass by on the other side. How she would withdraw from them (her eyes grew cold)! How she would avert her head (her lips were scornful)! How she would look them up and down with contemptuous condemnation, and turn and whisper her verdict into willing ears. That would bring the blood to their cheeks. That would--she paused, arresting her thoughts with a sudden knowledge of their shame; the cold eyes filled with tears, the scornful lips drooped and trembled; she realized the horrible wickedness of her own thoughts--thoughts--no hope, she owned to herself, and crying aloud, "I am wicked, shameless!" she flung herself upon her face in the grass and wept out the bitterness of her soul. The child crept to her side and strove to turn her face toward him; she kept it hidden, but stretched forth her arm and clasped his little form. My, frightened at the silence with which his overtures were met and at his mother's unusual attitude, and shaken by her sobs, began to cry. Myron roused herself, and taking him in her arms, held him to her breast, rocking back and forth in the abandonment of her grief. The motion soothed and reassured the already drowsy child, and in a few moments he slept, whilst his mother, stilling her sobs that she might not disturb his slumber, bent above him a face wrung by pain. She mused over her late vision of retaliation. With what cruelty had she hit upon the mode of showing her revenge! Alas, the lesson had been well taught her, for she had known the averted gaze, the scornful lip, the contemptuous regard. She had simply chosen those means from which she herself had suffered moat keenly. There came back to her the memory of an early morning, when, standing in the doorway, she had looked out into the dawn and had seen "The horizontal sun Heave his bright shoulders o'er the edge of the world," and had vowed herself to the service of others, and to the atonement of her sin, and hoped for an early death. Here, under the cold rays, of the autumnal sun, and abased before the memory of her late musings, she renewed those vows and scourged her soul with stripes of self-reproach. When My woke, they went forth from their refuge, across the fields, up the street to the village; the streets were empty. A shambling figure in the distance, bespeaking Clem Humphries by the length of the coat-tails and the thinness of the legs, was making toward the lake. It was indeed Clem, going to indulge in a little surreptitious sport as an antidote to the sermon. Clem looked upon his churchgoing as one of his many professions, like the making of wire snares and the digging of graves. "Only," he said to himself as he reflected upon the matter, "give me a grave to dig for choice." Homer Wilson passed the church that day just as they were singing that lugubrious paraphrase. He smiled a little to himself, and went on, saying, "Very cheerful that--very; but they haven't anymore idea of returning to dust than I have, at least not for a while." But it seemed he could not get beyond the echo of the singing. The voices followed him far through the rarefied air; there came to him little snatches of the gloomy words, persistently forcing themselves upon him. He quickened his pace, and was soon beyond the farthest-reaching note, and yet it seemed to vibrate in his ears. Once clear of the village, he struck across country. The sorrel showed red, the ragweed white, between the short stalks of the yellow stubble; here and there in the lanes and by the gateways were spots of bright green verdure, looking unhealthily brilliant among these dull browns and yellows. This was where the over-ripe grain, falling to earth, had sprung up to wither at the touch of the first frost. Homer frowned a little at this. It bespoke careless management, and the instinct of the farmer was strong in him; but his brow speedily cleared, for his thoughts were of far other things. His walk was very silent; the earth had indeed "grown mute of song," and all these resting fields were dumb; no crisping cricket, no whirring insect, no singing bird, nothing disturbed the serenity of the hour. It seemed a hiatus in the processes of nature--a suspension of all activity, a breathless pause of ecstasy or pain, like the instant before a first kiss or the moment before a final farewell. Under these conditions thought was easy, and Homer went on and on, his mind dwelling upon the one all-absorbing theme. "Myron--Myron," he said once, aloud, but his voice seemed at fret with the quietude, and he walked on swiftly, to escape its cheerless echo. Presently he found himself entering the woodland, and knew he was a full ten miles from Jamestown. A straight course through the woodland brought him to the margin of the lake, which bayed in here in a sharp curve. Close to the margin lay great prostrate logs, whitened by wind and weather till they looked like huge bleached bones. Beyond these were stones and a narrow strip of gravelly beach, broken here and there by boulders, against which the water lapped softly in a thousand ripples, wearing away the rock into tiny cells, and honey-combing them with gentle but resistless touches. Stretching out into the water, a succession of large stones showed their stubborn heads, leading by irregular steps out to where the last one, large enough to be a tiny rocky islet, showed two feet high above the encircling water. Homer made his way across these perilous stepping-stones, until he reached the largest; sitting down, he sank into a reverie so profound that he scarcely seemed to breathe. His face grew pale as he sat there minute after minute, the water lap-lapping among the rocks, the trees silent behind him, the sky mute above. Once he murmured a few words, paraphrased with no thought of irreverence: "As a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so she opened not her mouth." His voice faltered in what might have been a sob, but was resolutely forced back. The sun began to fall behind the trees before Homer rose. As he did so, he cast a look at the rock upon which he had been resting; there, caught in a crevice, lay an old-fashioned bullet. He picked it up and looked at it lying in his palm. One could scarcely imagine it speeding through the air upon a hurtful mission. It had wandered on to find a victim, until, its impetus spent, it had fallen ingloriously to lie upon this rock, mocked by the sunlight which it had been meant to darken forever for some living creature. Homer slipped it into his pocket and began to make his way shoreward, leaping lightly from stone to stone. As he sprang to land again, he said between his teeth, "I'd like to hear any she-cat in the crowd open her lips to my wife!" It will be seen his reverie had developed its subject. Homer held his way home happily, his eyes alight, his face aglow with his old generous spirit. He was once more the Homer of the past. Realizing this, he recognized the debt he owed Myron Holder, and paid homage to that strong soul whose mute endurance of ignominy and betrayal had shamed his own sleeping soul into life. It is plain to us that Myron Holder's shame was Homer Wilson's salvation. It is an ugly thought, but inevitable, that such instances may not be rare. But may not that virtue we hold "too high and good for human nature's daily food"--may not even that be bought too dear? What an ugly complexion it would put upon our intolerant attitude to those fallen ones, if we dreamed for one moment that our immaculate virtue was preserved by their vice! It would be hard to ask us to renounce heaven, but if heaven for one meant hell for another, it were at least well for us not to blow the fire. But Homer Wilson was not thinking of any generalizations; he was simply concerned with the debt he owed Myron Holder and how to pay it; for, and be it told with no thought of disparaging Homer Wilson, he felt he would bestow an inestimable benefit upon Myron Holder by making her his wife. He believed he would, at one blow, free her from the shackles of shame. He never thought of the woman-soul that strove to justify itself by rigid adherence to those vows that had seemed so sacred, uttered, as they were, by lips that were almost divine to the listening heart they had betrayed. It must be remembered that Homer was nothing but a plain countryman. It was therefore natural that he should look upon himself somewhat in the light of a deliverer when he considered himself in relation to Myron; and yet, inarticulate but existent, there was a hesitancy in his heart, not born of self-conceit or paltry self-seeking, but rooted in the knowledge of his own weakness in time of trial. But he put aside all this; and as he pushed on towards Jamestown mused happily upon the happiness that was his, for he loved Myron Holder. Poor Homer! "Whoso encamps To take a fancied city of delight, Oh, what a wretch is he!" CHAPTER XIV. "For thy life shall fall as a leaf, and be shed as the rain; And the veil of thine head shall be grief, and the crown shall be pain." It was late autumn. The grapes were all out, although their aroma still filled the air, for stray bunches, super-ripened by the frost, hung visible now upon the leafless stems where they had been concealed by the foliage from the cutters. The late apples were all picked, and in the orchards were great piles of new barrels ready to be filled. Bright green fields checkered the face of the sombre countryside with vivid squares, showing the advance of the fall-sown wheat. The chestnut-burs had opened in the woods, and the hickory-nuts were strewn thick beneath the trees. All the boys in Jamestown had brown-stained fingers, from the shelling of walnuts and butternuts. The Indian corn was being cut and bound into tent-shaped shocks, so that the fields had the appearance of a plain, set thick with tiny wigwams. Now and then, along the roads, a great wagon passed, piled high with apples, windfalls and culls going to the cider mills. Their drivers went out to Ezra Harmon's and loitered about in his big barn where the cider press stood, and watched their apples poured into the wide hopper, heard them grinding and groaning between the wheels, and saw their juices drain out through the clean rye straw into the pails beneath. People began to talk about the threshing of the grain, to bank up their cellars, and to speak of the portents of a severe winter. The leaves were all down. They lay a foot deep along the roads, where the maples grew in regular avenues, and rustled, wind-blown, between the tree trunks in the woodland. The squirrels skimmed about in their efforts to secure their winter hoard. In the woods, great heaps of hickory-nut hulls and emptied chestnut-burs, showed where, with their sharp teeth and persistent paws, they had removed the superfluous covering before storing away the nuts. The horses were growing shaggy and the dogs' fur lengthening. In short, winter was drawing near. In Homer Wilson's orchard all was noise, confusion, and work. Homer himself was packing the apples--putting in a layer of newspapers, then carefully "laying" by hand several rows of apples, before emptying in the pailfuls of picked fruit that were brought to him, for the bottom of a barrel in the orchard is the top of the barrel when it is opened by the dealers. Next in order to Homer was Sam Warner, who was heading the barrels, the tap-tapping of his hammer ringing clear in the frosty air, Homer shouting out directions every now and then in a sepulchral voice from the depths of the barrel. There was a great gathering in the orchard of the neighbors, for a fruit dealer had bought up all the apples in Jamestown to send to England, and they were to be shipped by the car-load upon a certain date. So, following the suggestion of the buyer (to whom time meant money), they had agreed to help each other with the fruit. This was not a usual custom in Jamestown; there was too much jealousy to admit of such interchange of labor. It was Homer Wilson's benefit this day, and both outside in the orchard and within doors all was happy, hurrying confusion. There was nothing remarkable about the day or the scene; but exactly a year after this, Homer Wilson was to act in a somewhat different scene, and after he played his part in that his neighbors recalled this day "just a year ago." They said, "Who would have thought it?" Bing White was in the Wilson orchard, and Si Warner, and other of their cronies. No one ever expected Bing to work; his idleness was looked upon with tolerant indifference, a perilous indication in this neighborhood, where to be a hard worker and a good church-goer meant perfection, and to fail in either grace was to be utterly lost. People began to look at Bing White attentively now and then, and shake their heads with ominous import, for the son and heir of the Whites was daily becoming more elfish-looking, more evil-eyed, more mocking of speech, more stubborn of purpose. After racing here and there over the orchard, he climbed (not without scratched hands and torn clothes) into the heart of a juniper tree that grew in the corner, and, hidden there, began to make what was known among school children in Jamestown as a "wolf-bite" upon his arm. This he did simply by baring the arm, putting his lips to the flesh, and sucking at it until the blood showed in red pin-points at every pore; this was a wolf-bite. There was a thread of savagery running through these Jamestown children--hardly one of them but had a mark of this kind upon his arm. But Bing White's meagre arms looked hideously repulsive--like raw flesh almost--so completely was the skin disfigured by his vampire-like amusement. The fading marks were of an ugly unhealthy color, like a livid bruise, the fresh ones fierily encarnadined and inflamed; for Bing pursued this pastime to a perilous pitch. Another custom indulged in every now and then by the boys and girls in Jamestown was the making of "fox-bites," which meant simply the rubbing with a moistened finger of a spot upon the back of the hand until the skin was worn away and a spot of red flesh left; this was a fox-bite--no cut, burn, or bruise took so long to heal, and in the little schoolhouse there were always some of those hungry-looking sores, attesting the perseverance and fortitude of the sufferers. Rather grewsome pastimes these seem--sprung perhaps from some Indian custom, witnessed by some early settler, described by him to his breathless circle of little ones, by them to be practised in their play and perpetuated in the mysterious manner that makes a meaningless mummery survive as a sacred rite. Myron Holder's grandmother had been failing during the entire summer. She sank rapidly as the autumn advanced, her strength ebbing as the days shortened. Myron went no more to Mrs. Deans', but stayed at home to wait upon her grandmother. The old woman was a querulous invalid, with no specific disease, only a gradual decline of her vitality. Myron waited upon her untiringly, giving her every possible comfort she could devise out of their scanty means and her scantier knowledge. Bitter as her grandmother's tongue had been, harsh as had been her rule, Myron yet shrunk with a sick feeling of defenselessness from the hour when that tongue would be forever silenced, from the moment when, that rule ceasing, she would be left rudderless. In these days of autumn quietude, little My grew dearer and dearer to his mother; she caught him to her in the pauses of her work, to kiss him for a moment. "O soft knees clinging, O tender treadings of soft feet, Cheeks warm with little kissings-- O child, child, what have we made each other?" This was the translation of her heart's mute cry above her boy. Myron Holder, denied the religion of those about her, given no other in its place, founded for herself a new sect, and created for herself a god, and the god was this yellow-haired child, and the worship she accorded him was expressed in every tender tendance of her loving hand. He chattered away to her ceaselessly when he was awake, and the echo of his uncertain tones mingling with her grandmother's bitter words robbed them of their sting. Mrs. Holder sank daily. Her tongue was silent now, save for murmurs of discontent or chiding, for her strength did not permit of much speech; but her eyes shone balefully as they followed Myron's figure about the room; and sometimes, when Myron bent over her, their depths were lighted by malignant mirth, for her thoughts were turned to that little plot in the graveyard where two tiny pine stakes stood now, marking a new boundary. The day the first snow fell, Mrs. Holder's mind, hitherto fixed solely upon her sorrows and Myron's shame, began to wander. She too, like her dead son, began to speak of England, but not so sweetly as he. Old bits of village scandal, flashes of old spites against this one or that, the expression of old dislikes, broke from her lips with painful force, together with reflections upon household affairs and daily needs, which told that she was in spirit back amid the old manners and the old people. One day Myron watched her fall asleep, and then crept out to the kitchen to steal a look at the boy, who was also sleeping. She returned in an instant, but in that time a change had come to her grandmother's bewildered brain. She was awake again, and her eyes met Myron's with cruel scorn, as she paused involuntarily upon the threshold of the bedroom; it was an expression that spoke not only of dislike, but loathing, fury, hatred. Myron would have approached to replace the coverlets that were falling from the couch, but her grandmother grew furious if she advanced a step. "Out of my sight, Myron Kind!" she cried. "Out wi' ye! What? Ye'll follow my son within his own doors, to win him? Out, you! Go--ou--out----" Myron retreated, seeing her grandmother was confusing her with the memory of her mother. Thrice she tried to enter, and thrice withdrew before the rage that seemed to shake the sick woman's frail form so cruelly. Then, feeling she must have aid, Myron hurried to the street, and going to the nearest house, which happened to be Mrs. Warner's, knocked at the door. "Will you come over?" she said, when Mrs. Warner answered her knock. "Grandmother's out of her head; she thinks I'm my mother, and won't let me go near her." "Poor old woman!" said Mrs. Warner, catching at a clean white apron. "Poor old woman! You've made her life a burding to her between you, I'll be bound." In a few moments they were in the cottage again, and Mrs. Warner installed herself in the sickroom, somewhat disconcerted because Mrs. Holder persisted in calling her "Bet," but delighted that circumstances had brought her to the front at such a time, for Mrs. Warner was one of the matrons of the village who, not yet attained to the elect, like Mrs. Deans, Mrs. White and Mrs. Wilson, was yet far in advance of the young wives in experience, and thought herself quite capable of sustaining any responsibility. To be present and assisting at the coming of a life or the passing of a soul was the highest excitement and most precious pleasure these women knew; but this was a height to be attained only after many years of wifehood. And what novitiate of suffering experience--years, knowledge--might fitly prepare for these mysteries! The taking up and laying down of the burden, the beginning and the ending of the spinning--for, from our first moments, our hands are bound to the loom; we must weave our own webs, but Fate doles out the thread and Circumstance dyes the fabric, not as we will, but as Destiny designs, and Death spares no pattern, however lovely, but stops the shuttle when our reel of thread is spun. By what holy purification, by what fastings, by what soul-searchings may we prepare to enter Nature's holy of holies? Surely, ere entering the meanest hut of clay and wattles wherein life springs or withers, we should put the shoes from off our feet. But of all this Mrs. Warner recked nothing. It was not the spirit she was interested in, but the body it was casting off; the gasping lips, and not the vital breath that already almost eluded them. Mrs. Holder sank rapidly. The women began to gather in; Mrs. Warner maintained her place as chiefest in the synagogue, and put aside, with judicial firmness, all hands but her own. Most of the women congregated in the kitchen, where they eyed the scanty furniture and whispered of Myron's hard-heartedness, for she did not weep. She was feeling bitterly her impending loneliness and isolation, for deep down in her heart there yet lived that marvellous tenderness for kith and kin that takes so much to kill. Of a verity, "blood is thicker than water." The woman dying so fast in that inner room was her grandmother, the woman who had borne for her father what she had borne for My. She clasped My in her arms and hid her face in his curls. Mrs. Holder's voice came fitfully through the half-closed door to the women outside. Mrs. Warner came to the door just as Mrs. Deans entered the kitchen, hurrying in from the outer air, and bringing a new excitement with her to intensify the suspense. Mrs. Warner beckoned and whispered: "She's speaking of hearing music and singing, now; they mostly don't last long after that." "They," not "we"! Oh, strange race of dying people, that are set apart from all men by death's approach, that we never identify with ourselves! Oh, weird world to which they go, which doubtless we shall never enter! Oh, dreary passage they must tread, upon whose threshold we shall never stand! Oh, awful pang of severance they must endure, which we will never have to bear--and yet "Fear not then, Spirit, Death's disrobing hand; 'Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour; The transient gulf--dream of a startling sleep!" Mrs. Deans and Mrs. Warner entered the room. Mrs. Deans' experienced eye told her how nearly time was ended for the dying woman. She turned to the kitchen. "You better come in, Myron," she said. Myron, with her child in her arms, entered, fearful yet of her grandmother denying her; but the old woman's eyes held no knowledge of her presence now. They wandered from one to the other of the throng of women impartially, and then as they fastened upon the child and lightened, as eyes might do which behold long-lost ones once dear, she held out wavering arms to the child. "Jed, my own little lad," she said. Myron went swiftly forward and laid My by her grandmother's side. He nestled to her lovingly, and she muttered tender words to him, calling him "Jed" and caressing him with fluttering fingers. He clasped his warm arms about hers, in which the blood was already chilling, and smilingly fell asleep, and a little later sleep came to her also. It was the night after her grandmother's death, and Myron Holder, with a sinking heart, had watched the form of the last visitor pass out of the gate. The early dusk of winter enveloped the house and promised a long, dreary night--a night of terror she was to endure alone, for the Jamestown women had gone each to her own house and left her with her dead and her child. Her imagination, stored with transmitted superstitions, peopled each familiar corner with horrors. She saw in every flickering light a death fire, in every shadow a shroud; each breath of wind spoke of ghostly visitants, each sound seemed to herald a light. She lit the lamp in the kitchen, and proceeded to undress My and put him in his cradle for the night, pausing to listen between each movement. She had been anticipating and fearing this ordeal for days; now that it had come upon her, she sickened at heart. The definite darkness of night set in, and the child slept. She began to hear soft stirrings succeeded by shuddering silences. Beset by a thousand fears, she pursued the worst possible plan: she constrained herself to absolute inaction, and sat--her hands clasped in her lap--an image of fear. The silence about her gradually gave way to a babel of weird voices, through which there suddenly sounded the muffled pat-patting of light footsteps. As she became conscious of this definite sound, all the imaginary murmurs died, and she found herself in deep silence, broken only by the muffled repetition of the soft sound that chilled her heart. This noise, which she recognized as actually existent, stood out against the background of those imaginary fears with frightful distinctness. All the time of fear which had passed seemed now to have been but an interval of listening for what had come. At this moment, the flame of the little lamp which had been for some time burning palely suddenly flared up--once--twice; grew for an instant bluish, then went out, leaving her, in the acme of her terror, in darkness. She closed her eyes and listened to the soft sounds--coming now at intervals only, but linked each to each by fear of the last and anticipation of the next, forming a chain that bound her in the Place of Fear. But at last silence fell again, a silence most horrible. She felt impelled to open her eyes, and did so, gazing with wide lids straight into the gloom; there was nothing there. For a moment her heart was reassured: then came the thought of that open door behind her; slowly she turned her head. Does any one live who has not, at one time or other, recognized that it may require, under certain circumstances, the supremest effort of will to look behind one? That effort Myron Holder made, but sustained the gaze but a moment; for, gleaming from the death chamber, nay, from the very couch of death, shone two balls of livid light. With a moan of extreme terror, Myron slid from her chair and, catching at the boy's cradle, fell helpless to the floor. Homer Wilson did not stand long knocking at the cottage door: his heart misgave him when he saw there was no light. Homer had returned from town late that night; his mother had told him of Mrs. Holder's death. She said no word of Myron, and Homer forebore to question. As he passed his father's and mother's room that night, he heard his mother close the shutters and say: "It's a mighty spooky night. I wouldn't like to be in Myron Holder's shoes, a-settin' death-watch all alone over a woman I had worried into her grave." Homer's heart stood still. Could it be possible those women had left Myron alone? Surely not! When it was customary for five or six to go and stay over night in the house where death was? Surely not! And yet--"The hags!" said Homer to himself, and went down stairs. He was soon on the road, with a lantern. He recalled the death of his sister, and remembered how the neighbor women had sat whispering together in the brilliantly lighted kitchen, brewing tea for themselves, and now and then stealing on tip-toe to look in upon the silent one. Arriving at the gate, the darkness of the cottage gave color to all his vague fears of ill to Myron. As he crossed the little garden, slinking cats, drawn by their ghoulish instincts to the house of death, fled before the light, but pausing as he passed, followed to the threshold, their breath white in the frosty air, their phosphorescent eyes gleaming in the dark. When he saw Myron, lying prostrate and silent, his first sensation was one of relief. He had feared that she had fled into the desolate night; he realized that she had been frightened and had fainted. Raising her in his arms, he called her name softly. Her senses were already reasserting themselves. She soon stirred, looking up at him with eyes of blank terror, which faded slowly into wonderment as she recognized him. She held her hands up to him, and pressed closer to the shelter of his breast. He caught both her hands in one of his, and groped for a chair with the other. In turning, his eyes caught a vision of the open door of the death chamber. He saw dimly the couch, with its rigid burden, and saw those dreadful glaring eyes. For a moment, he caught his breath. Myron, seeing the direction of his gaze, clung shudderingly to him, and hid her face on his arm. An instant more, and Homer perceived the outline behind those gleaming spots. "It's a brute of a cat," he said; and Myron, understanding all at once the origin of the sound, broke down in sobs of relief. She caught up the lantern, whilst he went in and seized the bristling creature, crouching upon the corpse, and flung it out among its lurking companions. "How is it you are in the dark?" asked Homer. "The lamp went out," she answered. "There's some oil in the cupboard." He held the lantern, whilst she filled and re-lit the lamp. Then he explained his presence. "How good you are!" said Myron. "Good?" he said, his eyes fastening upon her forlorn figure bending over the cradle, for My was stirring. "Good?" Then he burst forth, "What beasts these women are to leave you alone!" "It was dreadful," she said, trembling. "The darkness, the noises, the loneliness--those eyes, and _her_!" looking towards the inner room. Then suddenly she caught his sleeve: "Don't leave me till daylight, will you? Oh, don't! I can't stay alone; I am frightened! I--oh, don't leave me, will you?" "Leave you? Of course not. I wish----," he checked himself abruptly. It was on his tongue to say, "I wish I might never leave you," but a sense of her absolute isolation smote him so keenly that the words stuck in his throat. Had he spoken then, how many things might have been different, for Myron, in her utter loneliness, was ready to cling to any outstretched hand. "I'm going to make you some tea," he said. Going to the bedroom door, he closed it, took his lantern out to the little "lean-to" woodshed, and split up some bits of lightwood; with these he roused the dying fire to life. With much precision, he put on the kettle, and when it boiled asked in a matter-of-fact way for the tea. Myron rose, with My half awake in her arms, and went to the pantry-shelf to get it. It was chill there; she wrapped her apron about My's bare toes. He soon went to sleep again, and Myron Holder and Homer Wilson sat down together to drink the tea. Her eyes rested upon him, as if well content, and he noted this with delight. The truth was they dared not yet stray elsewhere, lest the spectres he had banished might jibber at her from the dusky corners of the room. Love is served on strange altars, and the sacrifice of a heart was again proffered in that lonely cottage, whose atmosphere was chill with the dreadful influence of death, whose silence was broken by the soft breathing of a child of shame. Homer looked upon the woman of his heart and loved her. When the first breaking of the skies ushered in the dawn, he left. The women returned early, for it was considered an honorable thing to have the ordering of a funeral--to be able to speak _ex cathedra_ of the mode of procedure. Mr. Muir came. The last ghastly toilet for the grave was made. Nothing remained but to wait for the morrow, when the funeral was to be. The women looked at her curiously when they came that morning, and Mrs. Warner expressed the sentiment of the rest when she said: "That Myron Holder is bad clean through. Any other woman would have been drove crazy last night; but look at her! She's a hardened one!" Mrs. Warner did not consider that this speech cast any reflection upon herself and her friends who had subjected a woman to an ordeal calculated to drive her crazy. Night sank slowly down; and once more the women, departing, cast wondering glances at Myron's pale face, steadfast in the knowledge that she would have some one near her to chase those horrid visions away. When Homer arrived, she was sitting beside her sleeping child, sewing upon an old black skirt of her grandmother's that some of the women, with an eye to funeral effects, had pinned up to suit her shorter stature, and bade her sew, that she might be properly clothed on the morrow. The work was nearly done, and the needle hung loosely between her listless fingers. Her eyes ached for lack of sleep; every joint trembled from fatigue; every nerve tingled from overstrain. She greeted Homer more by a gesture than by speech, and perceiving her exhaustion, he insisted upon her resting. She made some demur, but he overruled it with a word. She rose a little unsteadily, and bent over My. "Where do you want him taken?" asked Homer, and lifted him in his arms. She led the way to the little bedroom off the kitchen, opposite to the one in which in which her grandmother lay. Homer laid My down upon the blue and white checked counterpane--spun in England by Myron's mother. "Good-night!" he said. "Good-night, Myron!" "Good-night!" she answered in almost a whisper, for she was inexpressibly weary. Almost before he had reached the next room, she had sunk down upon her bed. It was broad daylight when Myron awoke and rose, chilled and stiff. Utter weariness had overcome the discomfort of her cramped position; she had slept as she had first thrown herself down; she shivered, as one does who has slept in his clothes. The morning air was cold, and the window-panes glistened with frost. Hurrying out to the kitchen, she found Homer had done what he could for her comfort before leaving. The stove held a glowing mass of hardwood embers; evidently the fire had been well banked up before he stole away at dawn. The kettle stood singing on the stove; the table was drawn up by the fire, and awkwardly set out with dishes for her solitary breakfast. * * * * * * The hour of the funeral was at hand. Mr. Muir, determined to have nothing to blame himself for in regard to his bargain, had come dressed in his official broadcloth. His horses stood outside the gate in all the panoply of sable plumes and black fly-netting, the latter surely superfluous, but ornamental. These horses looked as if they had never appeared before a less stately equipage than a hearse, yet every one had seen them pass that very morning dragging an unpainted lumber-wagon. They looked as if they had never known a baser burden than "stained cherry with mahogany finish, plated handles and bevelled glass," yet an unplaned pine box had constituted their load that morning; and as they passed, each on-looker had said, to the other, "There goes old Mrs. Holder's shell." "Who's Myron Holder goin' with?" said Gamaliel Deans to his mother, as they drove along to the village the day of Mrs. Holder's funeral. "I don't know," answered his mother. "Mrs. Warner's took a mighty lot to do with everything, so like's not she'll take her." "Seems to me Mrs. Warner's been putting herself forward some," suggested Gamaliel, diplomatically. "Indeed she has," agreed Mrs. Deans; "enough sight more'n she's got any call for--considerin' all things." They passed the little graveyard, silent beneath the light snow. "Is there any track?" asked Mrs. Deans, looking across the white expanse, with her hands shielding her rheumy eyes. "Yes," said Gamaliel, "the shell was took out this morning; you can see it from here." He gazed interestedly across to where the corner of an unpainted pine box showed as the terminus of an ugly black track which the wheels of Mr. Muir's wagon had scarred upon the snow. They drove on without further speech. The first snow had fallen in the night. It lay now white and untrodden, over field and lane, over bush and tree, over house and barn. The air seemed spaced in vistas of cloudy whiteness, a purity which suffused itself in the atmosphere, and seemed to fill it with particles of impalpable white dust that the motionless air held in suspension. The trees glistened in the sun, whose rays were silver instead of gold. All the world was rimed with hoar frost--nature presented, in beautiful parable, the story of the iron hand in the velvet glove; for, despite the whiteness, the softness, and the silvery sun, it was intensely cold. Presently through this white world there wended the gloomy little funeral, the more gloomy for the lack of any real grief. They reached the graveyard, where gaped an ugly brown gash, beside which the earth lay in frozen clods. Mr. Frew's brief prayer was ended, and he departed, stamping his feet. There was the bustle as the coffin was lowered; then, one by one, the onlookers straggled away; one by one the vehicles departed, until Myron Holder was left alone by the grave--yet not wholly so, for My shivered in her arms, and old Clem Humphries was hastily pushing the earth atop the coffin. And presently Myron became aware that there was another patient one also, for Homer Wilson came to her side, carrying a buffalo robe in his arms. He laid it down on the frozen ground, and, taking her arm, drew her gently towards it. She looked mute thanks to him from eyes round which the slow tears lingered, rimming them with grief. He came nearer and held out his arms to My, but the child cowered closer to his mother, and looked at Homer from the vantage of her shoulder. The little group embodied all the stages in life's progression. There was the child, cowering in a world already cold to him. There was the woman, bearing in her countenance the ineffaceable traces of woman's agony. There was the young man, strong in the choice of will and heart; the old man, drawing the last coverlet over the last sleep; and, severed from these by only a short depth of kindred substance, she who had passed, her bed rapidly rounding to a grave. At last, Clem began patting the mound with the back of his spade; his work was nearly done. Each echoless blow struck upon Myron's heart; and, thinking of the shame she had wrought the dead woman, she dealt herself those blows that she had been accustomed to endure from her grandmother's bitterness. Homer broke the silence, which seemed deepened instead of lightened by the thud-thud of the spade. "Come, Myron," he said; "you better go home." "Yes," she answered, heavily, "I may as well;" and she turned to the footpath that led across the graveyard to the road. "Not that way," said Homer; "the horses are here." "The horses!" she said; "the horses! Is your mother waitin' for me?" "No," he answered, a little grimly. "No, she isn't; but I am, and the horses are." He recalled the stormy little scene his mother had made but a little while ago: her contemptuous words when he asked her to wait; the scornful and bitter accusation she had flung at him; it had leaped forth from her lips like an arrow held long at the bowstring. It was barbed with all the poison of accumulated suspicion, and winged by the impulse of unreasoning anger, such as springs within mean breasts against hands that succor them; but it had reacted swiftly upon herself, for at the words something came into her son's eyes not good to see--a blending of surprise, indignation, denial, that paled his face, and made it implacable. Before it Mrs. Wilson faltered in her tirade, wavered in her steps, and finally turned and, crossing quickly to where Gamaliel was waiting for his mother, was soon seated with Mrs. Deans in the back seat. Gamaliel backed his horses slowly out of the throng, and they drove away. The incident had not been unnoticed, but no comment had been made, although meaning looks, of which Homer now knew the interpretation, were exchanged. He had seen some such looks pass between his neighbors of late. A hot, impotent rage filled his heart against the false position in which he was placed, but it did not alter his determination. "Are you waiting for anything, Homer?" Mr. Warner could not refrain from calling out before starting. "Yes. What of it?" said Homer, turning round sharply. His brows were knit, his lips firm; an interrogation, not defiant, but direct, was expressed in every line of face and figure. "Yes," he said again, and unmistakable interrogation this time made the answer a question. Mr. Warner shook the reins hastily over his horses. "Oh, nothing--nothing," he said, "I was only wondering." Homer turned away abruptly. "Better keep his wonderment to himself," he muttered, with a frown. "They better all keep their amazement to themselves or----" his hand clinched in a very suggestive fashion. Then he had gone for the buffalo robe for Myron to stand on, and as he gazed at her forlorn figure his anger changed to deep and abiding pity, to stern and righteous wrath. So Homer drove Myron home to the empty cottage, with Clem Humphries sitting in the bottom of the wagon, with his feet dangling over the tailboard, a quid of tobacco in his mouth, peace within his bosom. Clem was, as he expressed it, "a dollar to the good," and he was meditating unctuously upon the quantity of good Canadian Rye he could buy with the money, and speculating where he could beg, borrow, or (be it admitted) steal a jug. He had no mind to pay for one out of the dollar. Mr. Prew, the minister, passed. He regarded Homer and Myron with incredulous horror, and returned Homer's somewhat brusque greeting in a very scandalized way. Clem took off his hat with a labored flourish; Mr. Prew returned his salute with condescending affability, and drove on to Mrs. Deans', where, presently, over hot soda-biscuits, doughnuts, and other good things, he praised Clem as "an humble, but very worthy old man." "Humbugging old hypocrite!" ejaculated the "worthy old man," as soon as his pastor was out of hearing. "Miserable, designing old cuss he is. I'd like to use him for bait!" Then this humble follower relapsed into his reverie upon the _modus operandi_ of getting a jug. No other words were uttered during the ride. Homer and Myron were both silent; both knew that Homer had flung down the gauntlet to the gossips; both realized the import of the step; both pondered upon its significance from the village point of view. Clem jumped off nimbly when they were opposite Mr. Muir's verdant veranda. "You are not angry with me, Myron?" asked Homer. "Oh, no," she cried; "you are so good to me." "I'm good to you for my own sake," he answered. "Don't you see that? Don't you suppose I am looking out for my own happiness?" He paused. "Don't you think I am?" he resumed, an insistent note in his voice. They were near the cottage, but she felt obliged to answer. "But, Homer," she said, "I have no happiness to give anyone! What return can I make for this sacrifice?" They were opposite the cottage. Clustered heads in the window of the Warner house showed how their return had been waited for; Homer discerned the white muslin rose in his mother's black bonnet, and if the sight made his face hard, it softened the touch of his hands as he lifted Myron down from the high seat, and then put the boy in her arms. The little gate stood leaning against the fence. It had been lifted off its hinges, to leave free room for the coffin and its bearers to pass. Myron paused between the gate-posts; Homer bent above her. "I will tell you some day," he said, "what you can give me." [Illustration: "I WILL TELL YOU SOME DAY WHAT YOU CAN GIVE ME."] "Good-by," she said; and, turning, passed down the desolate garden, feeling remorseful that she had left him unthanked. Homer, now that the tenderness evoked by her presence was left unsustained, felt a spiteful defiance waken in his heart. He walked slowly to his horses' heads, pretending to adjust the harness; then, after inspecting them with critical deliberateness, drove slowly past the curious eyes at the window. "Might as well give them the full benefit of the sight," he said to himself; "it seems to strike them as interesting." All day long, as he swung his axe in the woodland, he mused upon Myron as he had seen her last, with pure, uplifted brow and chin, as she said good-by. He returned at night, calm, and braced, as he thought, to receive a storm of reproaches. He found a table "coldly furnished forth" for his supper; the kitchen was deserted, and from his mother's room came the hum of voices. Mrs. Wilson expected to crush her son utterly by this isolation, but it was a treatment he could endure much longer than she could suffer to inflict it, for to women of her type the expression of anger in words is essential; any repression of speech is a physical pang. It was well, though, for this one night that it should be so, for Homer's calm was but as the brittle crust that forms on seething lava, that neither controls nor cools it; that melts at a touch, and offers no restraint to the force beneath. Too hot an anger yet filled his heart to admit of peaceful argument; his hand was too ready to clinch yet when he thought of Warner's tentative question. He ate his supper, smoked a peaceful pipe, and soon slept, dreaming, even as he had done all day, of the calm sweetness of those patient eyes. Myron was having her first of solitude, passing it in brief watches of wakefulness and shorter spaces of sleep. And in the lonely little graveyard a new-made mound was slowly whitening under the falling snow. CHAPTER XV. "This above all--to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." "Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth forever Remorse." Winter lay white over the land--a bitter winter. The road, beaten to a glassy whiteness, glistened between unbroken plains of dull, lustreless white, for the fences were hidden by the heaviest snowfall ever known in Jamestown. The cold was intense; for twenty days the icicles had hung unmelted in the sun. The crows, tamed by hunger, flapped their sluggish wings over the barnyards. Here and there in the fields a black blotch showed where one of them had fallen, half-starved, half-frozen. The foxes, grown bold amid the silence, came to pillage the henroosts in broad daylight. The rabbits, traced by their uneven tracks in the snow, were easy game; numbed by the cold, they were quickly overtaken. The sparrows clustered close together in the barns, winning their way in at every cranny. The last year of Jed Holder's life, he had one day run into the cottage, excitedly calling to Myron and his mother to "Come out and see the sparrow--a real little English sparrow, a regular old-fashioned little spadger." Tears ran over his thin, browned face as he watched it upon the sharp ridge of the cottage roof. He could not cut his wood that day for listening to the familiar fluttering of its wings as it flitted hither and thither in the cottage garden, pushing its way inquisitively into the thickest branches of the privet bushes and bustling out indignantly when it found nothing there worthy of its impertinent scrutiny. It eyed Jed with much friendliness. Two English exiles indeed these were--banished from the red-tiled cottages, the hop orchards, the old meadows, the sunken lanes, the hawthorns, the hollies; but in a few days there came another fluttering sparrow, and resemblance ceased between Jed and the important, bustling bird, busy now in building the nest. Ere the summer was gone there was a chattering little flight of them to swoop down among the placid hens and snatch the grain from their very mouths. Now these birds were regarded by the farmers as a pest, and an overzealous government offered a bounty for their little feathered heads. Clem Humphries proved himself a valiant hunter of this puny prey. He boiled barley and then drew a stiff bristle through each grain. The sparrows ate and died, and Clem drank their blood-money. But they still flourished. The cats waged war against them, and many a palpitant little breast was torn by their pointed teeth. The old Maltese cat at Deans' had perpetually a downy feather sticking to his cruel mouth, and his strong paws were ever stained with red. An ugly brute he was: half of one ear was gone; from the other, hung a tiny blue wool tassel fastened through a hole like an earring; his nose was always scarred and torn, and of his tail only an inch or two survived the teeth of the dogs with which he had waged war. He lay in wait for the sparrows by the hour at the doorstep of the henhouse, and with depressed back and evil eye stole between the fowls as they pecked at the grain; then came a pounce, the hens flounced about hysterically, and the cat, with his captive, came out to sit in the woodshed and devour it at his leisure. The first time he caught a bird, he had tried to torment it after the tender manner of his kind; but at the first toss with his paws the terrified bird had soared far beyond his most vaulting ambition. But, alas, evil minds learn wisdom soon. It was long since then, and now he always gave them short shrift. It was a bitter winter. The horses and cows were covered with exceptionally long hair, and the dogs were shaggy as bears. The hens straggled about with bleeding, frozen combs; the yellow feet of the ducks were white from frostbites; the turkeys' wings drooped dejectedly, and many died; the geese were disconsolate, their white plumage soiled and unsightly, for there was no water for them to bathe in. The snowbirds twittered cheerily for a short space at noontide, but vanished as the day waned. Only where any crumbs or grain might be likely to fall, their tiny footprints were woven in delicate tracery on the snow. The gulls flew over the village, until, their wings wearied, they turned them again to the lake, to rest upon a cake of ice. A long rest it proved to many, for their feet froze to the ice, and they uttered their hoarse cries as they strove in vain to rise. It was a bitter winter. Every pond in Jamestown was frozen solid to the bottom. All day long there were slow processions of cattle passing to and from the lake. The pumps were all frozen, and a great boiler stood on every kitchen stove, melting snow for household uses. The rats swarmed in the houses and the barns. Each person had tales to tell of frozen noses, frostbitten ears, numbed fingers, aching feet. Mrs. Wilson brewed "yarbs" and drank them all day long. Henry Deans grew stiffer and stiffer, and seemed shrunk to a mere shell. Bing White had already killed enough sparrows to buy him a pair of skates. But in the midst of all the winter's white desolation, there glowed the hearth fires of home. Used to the cold, these hardy farmer folk defied it; and if they might not brave its blasts, stayed warm and close indoors. There were tea-meetings and socials, temperance meetings and the half-yearly revivals, shooting matches with poultry as the prize, and raffles for turkeys. Then there was the threshing to be done, and the pig-killing, and next summer's fuel to cut in the woods. The women sewed carpet-rags, patched quilts, and knitted mittens and heavy socks of homemade yarn. It was a terrible winter, and it was going hard with Myron Holder. She had to endure all the rigors of the cold, all the solitude of shame, all the privations of poverty, all the terrors of night's loneliness, all the anxieties of motherhood, all the regrets of remorse, all the hopelessness of dead Hope, all the apprehensions of want: this in a solitary cottage, creaking at every blast, shivering in every wind, swaying in every storm. Think of it, you holy women, who fare delicately, sleeping on soft couches, guarded and consoled, caressed and kept from all evil! For you are like Myron Holder in one thing: Not in suffering, nor shame, nor sorrow; not perhaps in humbleness of heart, nor meekness of spirit, nor in courage, in patience, in faithfulness, nor in hopelessness; not in poverty, nor in endurance; but with her you share, despite yourselves, a common womanhood. Remember that! Remember also she bore upon her brow the marks of motherhood's crown of thorns. Remember who with tears washed Jesus' feet, and do not forget to whom, we are told, He said, "Neither do I condemn thee." Homer Wilson, in defiance of his mother, public opinion, and Myron's own objections, had taken her ample wood for the winter. Old Mr. Carroll had given her a supply of flour and a ham, and hired her to clean up his house and whitewash his kitchen walls against the New Year. She milked Mrs. Warner's cows at night and morn, receiving for this service a small can of milk daily. This was for My. No drop softened the harsh mullein tea she drank herself. Her life was inexpressibly desolate. The wind whistling over the cottage brought her the loneliness of the lost. Sometimes for days she saw no one to speak to, and, worse than all, she began to lack the necessaries of life. Flour means much, so does a ham; but for a woman and a young child more is needed. My began to look white, and at times his face had that expression we called "peaked." Seeing this, Myron took a resolution. It cost her much, for her grandmother had often spoken of the disgrace of "going on the parish," as she put it; but the sight of My's face was too much for his mother, and she resolved to apply to the council for township aid. It was a bitter day's cold when she came to this resolution. Pile the wood as high as she might in the stove, she could not banish the rime from the windows. The latch of the door stuck to her fingers every time she opened it. A tiny slanting rift of snow lay in the little bedroom, where it had crept in through the badly jointed windows. It was Saturday. On Saturday nights the youths of Jamestown went courting. As twilight deepened into night, she heard the frequent jingle of sleigh-bells. They tingled through her heart and awakened a new loneliness in her breast. She sat always in the dark now, for oil cost money. She had but a lampful in the house, and that must be kept in case of emergency. The light from the hearth of the wood fire shot forth dusky little flashes into the darkness of the room. These feeble shafts were not strong enough to banish the hosts of shadows, but they so far prevailed as to leave them lurking in the corners of the room only. But there they held silent carnival--mocking at the lonely woman sitting silent within the wavering circle of the feeble light, stretching out impalpable arms to embrace her, extending icy fingers to touch her, waving their draperies over her head, and always biding their time, until weariness should drive her to her bed; then they sallied forth in their strength, and danced and gestured about her until sleep closed her eyes to fears. My slept upon her knees. The sound of the latest sleigh-bells dying away left the silence seeming still more profound, as a momentary light intensifies the succeeding darkness. She heard footsteps crunching on the snow; then a knock. "Come in," she said. Despite herself, she felt a momentary hope flicker in her heart. The door opened and, entering, Homer said: "It's me, Myron; Homer Wilson." So faint had been her hope that she scarce felt a sting in relinquishing it. "Yes," she said. "Wait until I light the lamp." She did so, and Homer came forward into the light, his broad shoulders seeming to fill the room as he stood, clad in a rough frieze coat that enveloped him from shoulder to heel. He took it off silently, laid it over the chair she had placed for him, and, going at once to her side, put his hands upon her shoulders. "Well, Myron," he said, "do you remember asking what you could do to repay me for what I had done?" "Yes," she said, knowing that her time of trial had come. "Then," he said, bending over her, his face flushing, his tones vibrant, "I can tell you in a moment." He paused, to steady his voice. "Will you marry me, Myron?" There was a moment of breathless suspense--an instant of absolute silence. "No," she said, firmly enough; but her hands closed tremblingly upon his sleeve. "Myron!" he ejaculated. "Myron! You do not mean it! Why--I love you, Myron!" he broke forth, with passion; "I will have you! Do you think I would be bad to you? Do you think I would be unkind to the boy? I can't stand to see you live like this!" He glanced at the bare room, which suddenly seemed to show all its gaunt corners, all its angles, all the scantiness of its meagre comforts. It was the very skeleton of a home. "Myron!" He stopped--she was looking at him with words upon her lips. "Listen," she said. "Do not be angry with me, but tell me one thing: Would you ask Suse Weaver to marry you, or Jenny Church, or Eliza Disney?" "Why, Myron, they're married already," said he, in a maze. "So am I," said Myron, throwing back her head so that her eyes met his, whilst the color flooded her face, giving it a dangerous and triumphant charm. "So am I. When he bade me be silent, he bade me be true. He swore that he would be. He explained to me how little the saying of marriage vows meant. He said it was the keeping of them that made the marriage. I have kept them. I believed his promise under the sky, whilst we were alone, was as true and binding as mine when I said I would be silent and do all he wished me to; and he taught me to see that in this twofold faith lay the real marriage, and not in words spoken before people. He told me the stars were truer witnesses than men. That heaven was nearer there, among the trees, than in the churches; and it did seem near--so near I almost entered in. I believed we were married as sacredly as though Mr. Prew had married us. Believing that, I gave myself to him. He has been false to his promise, but I will never be to mine. I thought myself married then. I will hold myself in marriage bonds until he comes--or death. For the rest, let him look to it!" As she had spoken, Homer's face changed with her changing words, but the resignation of her last words inspired no calm in him; it woke instead a fierce resentment. He was to lose her. She was to continue to suffer the old ignominy; the village was still to have its victim--and all for a brute who had deliberately deluded and deserted her. Homer's next speech began with an impatient oath, but half stifled. "Myron," he said, his tones so determined as to be almost harsh, "have you not realized yet how false his promises were? How wrong his persuasions? How utterly false and untrue all this fine talk about the 'stars as witnesses' and 'heaven being near' was? The stars are very convenient witnesses for curs of his stamp, being silent in face of any perjury. Do you not see the pit he prepared for you? Do you not fall, pierced by the stakes at the bottom? Do you not see that his promises are all lies? Can you not understand, then, that the rest of his twaddle was no better? Why will you continue to bind yourself with a wisp of straw? Your hands are free--give them to me!" "I realize all--I see everything," she cried, "and feel--God! what have I not felt? But--oh, Homer, don't you see how it is? I could not kiss my child--I could not endure to see my own face as I bend over the well, if I thought of another man. Don't you see I would then be vile?" "No, I don't," said Homer. "Marry me--you and the boy will have my name, and let me hear man or woman say one word against it!" "I can't," she said. "Marry me," he urged. "Let me take care of you. Let me show you what a man is. Let me give you a heart and a home. You are lonely, you will be lonely no more; defenseless, I will protect you; sad, I will make you happy; shamed, I will compel them to respect you. Myron"--he held out his arms--"marry me!" Myron Holder had thought of this hour ever since the day of her grandmother's funeral. Her thoughts had all been of his pain. She had never realized how it might mean almost intolerable temptation to herself. The contrast between the picture his words presented and her own life was poignant. She stayed a moment, gazing at that brighter scene, then put it by and turned herself to the reality that she had accepted as her bounden duty. The sense of sacrifice with which she did this showed her how strong was the sorcery of the thought. "No," she said. "Myron," said Homer, paling, "don't you understand? I will take My as my own. I will give him a name in very truth. I--for My's sake, Myron!" It was the supreme temptation. In a moment Myron saw what it meant, the materialization of her evil dream in the meadow--the stilling of the scandal that else must attach itself forever to My; the ending of all her own shame and solitude, or as much of it, at least, as appeared to other's eyes. But sorrow and shame teach subtle truths; etched clear upon the metal of this woman's soul, burned deep upon the tablets of her heart, their acids had graven the symbols of their teachings. Myron had battled against many fears, and knew, with the absolute certainty of conviction, that after the first triumph there would come a bitter reaction. She knew she would be forever at war with her own conscience. She knew that life held no prize high enough to pay for infidelity. There came suddenly athwart the dreary room the mirage of another scene: A wide stretch of sky and water, blended in a far-off blue, a mass of tossing tree-tops, a scent of fresh green ferns and flowering grasses, a swimming sense of light, exhilaration, freedom.... Homer was speaking. She did not hear his words; his voice was but an obligato to other tones that struck across it. She paid no more heed to Homer's voice than she had done that day to the rustle of the leaves, the whispering of the water far below.... "Trust me," a voice was saying in her ear. "Trust me, I will never leave you; believe me, I will never fail you. Why do you distrust me? You do not love me. Do you not understand this is the real church, more holy than any building made with hands. Do you not understand it is the mutual faith makes marriage, and not mere maundering words? Don't you? ... So long as you are true to me, you are in very truth my wife?" ... The voice ceased there, it had said enough. The sky, the water, the tree-tops, and the fresh fragrance of the woodland weeds passed in an instant; but they had left behind an unfaltering resolution. "No," she said; and so brief a time had sufficed for that retrospective vision that Homer did not remark any delay in her reply. Only his heart shrank, for something in her tone bespoke the finality of her decision. The disappointment was cruel. He dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands. She knelt before him, and pulling his hands from his face clasped them close against her breast. She looked up into his face from eyes that spoke of tears held back by bitterness. "You understand, Homer?" she said. "If I cannot justify myself in my own eyes, I shall go mad. To do so, I must indeed remain as I am. I must act as though I were in very truth his wife. What does a wife do for her husband? Give up all? Have not I? Suffer? I have suffered. Obey him? I have obeyed him. Be true to him? I have chosen him before myself. Trust him? I have. I have trusted and waited. I will wait to the end." She ceased. Homer's eyes left her face, to look about the desolate room. The wood fire was dying for lack of attention, and the air was growing colder. "But how am I to make it easier for you?" he asked, at length. "You can't make it easier for me," she said. "'I have made my own bed,' as grandmother often said, and must lie on it. I went against the world's ways, and I suppose it's only right now to expect the world to be against me. No one can help me but him." "Who is he, Myron?" asked Homer; and she saw a sly, venomous look light his eyes. "Homer!" she said, her voice holding reproach and interrogation. "Yes, I would," he said. "I would kill him as readily as I would set my heel on a snake. _Widows_ marry!" There was an ugly emphasis on the word, an emphasis that held unconsciously somewhat of the derision of a sneer. But the sneer was turned against his own impotence. "You are frightening me," said Myron, and the words brought him to himself. He rose, drawing her to her feet beside him. "You are right, of course, Myron," he said. "But--this is the second time I have loved--you remember the girl I brought to the farm one day? Well, I loved her. She and I were to have been married, but I had to come back to the farm, and she changed her mind. Since then I have been a fool--worse, indeed. I have set aside everything for the sake of money. I was fast getting to be such another as old Haines or Jacob Latshem--all pocket and no heart. But I saw your courage, and it made me think shame of myself. You saved me--I thought to save you. It would seem as if I had offered you another shame. You know how little I care what people say of you! Poor girl, they can't say worse than they have done. So, will you let me do what I can to make things better for you? You know I have plenty. Will you let me be your friend, to help you, comfort you, and to see you and talk with you, as friend does with friend?" "Dare you?" she asked. "Try me," he answered. She held out her hand. He took it. It trembled in his grasp. "To think," she said, "of my having a friend!" The smile that lit her face transfigured it. Homer put from him the desire that swelled within his heart to take her in his arms, and began, to talk of her position. "You can't go on like this," he said. "If it was only summer," sighed Myron. "I'll tell you what," he went on, after a moment. "Clem Humphries and Ann Lemon have both applied for help to the township. They'll have to be boarded somewhere. Supposing I get them sent to you to board. The township would allow something for yourself also." Then he added, hastily, "Won't you let me give you enough to put you through the winter? Do, Myron." "No," she said, answering his last proposition first, "but I would be so glad if they'd let me work for Clem and Ann." "Well, I'll see about it," said Homer. A day or two after that, the council, of which Homer was a member, met, and the applications of Ann Lemon and Clem Humphries were laid before them. Homer rose and made a formal proposition on the lines which he had suggested to Myron. It was carried at once. Mr. White was the other Jamestown member of the council, and he was much more concerned about getting home to take his cattle to the lake to water them than about anything else. He made no objection, and the other members of the council had matters relative to their own districts that they were anxious to have considered. The council meetings were open to every one, and the school-house was crowded with village people. Homer observed the looks that passed from one to another, and could not beat back the blood that reddened his swarthy cheeks as he put the formal motion before the council "on behalf of one Myron Holder." "What about the kid? Don't it need any allowance?" a voice said in the corner of the room, and another answered, "Oh, Homer'll attend to that." A roar of laughter followed. Homer grew white enough when he heard this, and turned a look toward the corner whence the voices had come that made the group occupying it stir and shift about uneasily and start fragmentary conversations among themselves, as if to disarm that bitter look and disavow the speech that provoked it. In this group Homer discerned Gamaliel Deans and Lou Disney, the latter the bully of the county. Lou and Gamaliel had been running together all winter, and rumor spoke not very flatteringly of their errands. The meeting dragged along wearisomely to an end, and the men thronged out from the close, warm schoolroom, where the air was heavy with the fumes of tobacco and reeking with the moisture evaporating from the coats hung against the wall, for it had been snowing when the meeting began. Night was just beginning to fall. It had ceased to snow, and the air was keen with intense frost, that crackled under foot and squeaked beneath the runners of the sleighs. There was much stretching and talking and laughing as they went out, and Homer, among the first, heard his own name uttered, followed by a laugh. Then he heard Lou Disney's voice in a disjointed sentence-- "Pretty cheeky, that! First"--Homer lost the words here--"and then ask the council to keep 'em." Homer turned in an instant, flinging himself through the crowd with the relentless impetus of fury. He swept the throng aside regardless of any obstacle, and seized Lou Disney's throat whilst the words still lingered on his lips, choking in that first fierce grasp the laugh that gurgled up to echo its own wit. In a silence that appalled the crowd, used at such a time to much speech and few blows, Homer tore him from the door, to which, with the instinct of a fighter, he had put his back. Pressing him backward through the throng, Homer loosed him, with a curse, when fairly outside the straggling group. "Now," said Homer, "eat your words, Disney, this minute--every lying syllable of them--or I'll thrash the soul out of you!" Disney was no coward. The words had not left Homer's lips before he was tearing off his coat. The next moment they rushed at each other. The fight was so fierce, so furious, so short, that few there could afterwards tell the story of it. Disney was the bigger man, and quite as clever with his hands as Homer; but the latter's arm was nerved by every insult Myron Holder had endured. As Disney sprang forward, he uttered her name, coupled with an epithet that simply maddened Homer. There was no resisting the fury of his attack.... Many hands dragged Homer from the man he had knocked insensible and bade fair to kill, if left alone. He stood trembling, a great bruise darkening on his face, showing where Disney's first savage blow, aimed at the jaw, had fallen. Presently Gamaliel drove Lou off in his cutter, and the throng melted away. Clem Humphries lifted Homer's coat and brought it to him. The old sinner's face glowed with excitement and gratification. [Illustration: CLEM LIFTED HOMER'S COAT AND BROUGHT IT TO HIM.] "You punched him well and he needed it bad," said he. "Never seen a man suffering for a licking more'n Lou Disney was; and he got the cure for his complaint without asking twice, he did. There's something," he went on, keeping pace with Homer, as the latter began to move away, "there's something so satisfying in seeing a man get what he wants, and get it like that, too, and--you should have seen Male Deans' eyes, sticking out like door-knobs, the boiled idiot!" Clem paused in disgust, then went on again: "Why didn't you lick him, too? That would have been oncommon satisfactory!" "There," said Homer hastily, "shut up, Clem! I'm going home." Whereupon he lengthened his stride and set forward at a pace which left Clem far behind, to make his way towards the other end of the village, with much complacency. His wicked old heart was full of pleasure. He had danced from one foot to the other, howling out a stream of encouragement and curses during the progress of the brief fight; had protested vigorously against the hands that pulled Homer from Disney, and had pushed Gamaliel Deans forward with all his might in Homer's way, hoping to enjoy a continuance of the battle. Failing this, he had gone along behind Disney and Gamaliel for some distance, reviling them as they drove off, until, remembering his religious principles, he had arrested himself in the delivery of a choice gibe, to slink behind the school-house corner until the crowd was gone. "He woke up the wrong dog that time," chuckled Clem, thinking of Lou Disney, "and got bit." Clem had a bitter grudge against Gamaliel Deans and every one connected with him. The day of old Mrs. Holder's funeral Clem had searched over all the barns he knew, in the hope of finding an empty jug that he could take to get his dollar's worth of whiskey in. But luck was against him. The cider-jars that had figured at the last threshings had seemingly all been carried away. He was quite disconsolate when, in the late afternoon, he returned to Mr. Muir's. He had hardly arrived there before Mrs. Muir sent him on an errand to Mrs. Deans. Having dispatched his message, Clem sought the barn, and the first thing his eyes lit upon was a fat and capacious brown jug. Gamaliel was in the barn mending harness, and to Clem's request replied that he might take it, adding that it was used at the last threshing. Clem returned to the village late, partook of the somewhat meagre supper Mrs. Muir tendered him, and, going out at once, got his jug, rinsed it at the pump, and with it under his arm, trudged off to town to get it filled. Now, unfortunately for Clem, it had not contained cider, but black oil, for the threshing machine. There was a thick coating of the oil within it, but the cold had fastened it stiff to the sides, and Clem's somewhat perfunctory wash with the icy water from the pump did not remove it. All unconscious of this, Clem proceeded upon his errand, got his whiskey, and started for Jamestown. Manfully he resisted the temptation to take a drink. Clem knew his own weakness and the strength of his appetite when whetted by a taste. He hugged the jug close to him and trudged on. At length he reached Jamestown, and ensconced himself in the hay in Mr. Muir's stable-loft. But the alcohol had acted very differently from the water. It had completely dissolved the oil and incorporated it with itself. Clem's first long mouthful was his last. The mixture was atrocious. Clem cursed till he exhausted himself, arose and broke the jug into the smallest fragments, and ever after hated Gamaliel Deans with a holy hatred, being firmly convinced that he had been intentionally tricked. Thus it was that Clem's delight was so genuine as he made his way to Mr. Muir's barn, where for the present his headquarters were. He entered, and, with a view to a supper of snacks from Mrs. Muir, proceeded to attend to the wants of the two black horses and the piebald mare, stopping to slap his brown old hands on his thin legs every now and then, ejaculating, "The boiled idiot!"--a pet expression of Clem's, not inexpressive of mental softness. Clem moved about stiffly, and it was some time before he sought Mrs. Muir's kitchen door, his knobby old hands stiffened and glazed from holding the handle of the hay-fork. But not only had Clem accomplished his tasks in the barn, but eaten his supper, warmed himself and crawled off to his bed in the hay before Homer Wilson arrested his headlong walk. He had gone far beyond his farm--far, far beyond the farthest light of Jamestown. But at last, his strength leaving him suddenly, he paused and, reeling, turned towards home. It took him hours to retrace his steps. The late dawn of the next wintry day fell upon Homer as he had flung himself down upon his bed, fully dressed, and with shining drops drying upon the livid bruise that disfigured his face. CHAPTER XVI. "Piteous my rhyme is What while I muse of love and pain, Of love misspent, of love in vain, Of love that is not loved again; And is this all, then? As long as time is, Love loveth. Time is but a span, The dalliance space of dying man; And is this all immortals can? The gain was small, then. "Love loves _forever_; And finds a sort of joy in pain, And gives with naught to take again, And loves too well to end in vain; Is the gain small, then? Love laughs at 'never,' Outlives our life, exceeds the span Appointed to mere mortal man: All which love is, and does, and can, Is all in all, then." The talk that grew out of the fight at the school-house, the scandal that succeeded the talk, the gossip that spread the scandal, occupied the attention of the whole village for weeks, and the darkest shade possible was cast upon Homer's share of the affair. Every one felt it a species of self-justification to rail at Homer and excuse Disney, who had a devoted following among the young men of his own age and calibre. His manner was more fortunate than Homer's, though his intentions were far from being so generous. Certain mental preoccupations had kept Homer somewhat apart from the men of his own age in the district--first, his ambitious dreams of a course at the commercial college, which led him to try to keep up his studies during the long summers when he was kept out of school to work; then came his absence in the city, when all his knowledge of the village filtered from the unready pen of his mother. Upon his return to the farm his eyes were yet blinded by the glamour of _her_ hair, so that he found it sweeter to lie upon the grass, with his hands beneath his head, gazing up at the skies and thinking of her, than to join in any of the young people's enjoyments. He saw her eyes in every star, her hair in every moonbeam, her form in every graceful cloud. He felt her breath in every zephyr, he heard her voice in the rippling of the leaves, her laugh in the babble of the brook or the lapping of the lake. Enchanted thus with his own imaginings, he made no effort to grasp the swiftly slipping cable of sympathy with his fellows. When his visions were dispelled and desecrated by her infidelity, well--he had made one or two futile snatches at the vanishing strand that had bound his heart and interests to those of his old school friends. But either it sped too fast from him, or he strove to grasp it too rudely, for he withdrew his hands from the task and found himself loath to make an effort in that direction again. This piteous outreaching for sympathy that is withdrawn sears the soul deeply, even as sliding ropes sear the hands; and yet we must not shrink from the lifeline that is to save us from the flames. We must endure the hurt to escape the greater peril. And it is better to live, even with torn and bleeding palms, than to shrivel in agonizing flames or suffocate in smothering smoke. Withdrawn from temptation, Homer did not go forth to seek it, for he was nauseated of all desire. Thus there was no danger of his soul consuming in the evil fire of his own passions. But how nearly he had succumbed to the miasmatic exhalation that rose from the Slough of Despond into which his faculties had sunk! Now, indeed, he was winning his way out. "Men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things." But it is a painful progress, for each stone must be won from the strong edifice erected by ourselves to bar our way, of which each block is a passion, a sin or a folly, cemented together by selfishness and self-indulgence, based upon self-pity, garrisoned by prideful spirits that mock at our efforts. Driven from the ramparts, they throng about our feet to jostle us from our hard-won stepping-stones. The Sir Galahads of life are much to be admired, and yet shall we not crown those also, who, having fallen, have again found firm footing--those strong souls, overcome once, that have struggled through all this and at last sprung to shore? Let us hope, at least, that they find those long-sought shores flowerful and pleasant. Alas! Homer Wilson looked but upon a barren prospect, waste and drear, disappointing as the alkali lakes that mock the wanderer dying of thirst in the desert. Therefore it was not much wonder that he grew sad-faced and silent. Had the woman he loved been happy, his life would not have been wholly desolate, for his love was of that unselfish type that desires rather the happiness of its beloved than its own gratification. But from Myron's desolate heart-fires there could come no joyful radiance. The only light her life diffused across his path was a pale glimmer of dying hope, that illumined the sorrows of their separate ways. Myron was indeed relieved from the pressure of actual want, for Clem Humphries and Ann Lemon were domiciled with her; but of comfort or peace of heart she had none. Neither Clem nor Ann had ever been compelled before to seek township aid, and, with the perversity of human nature, they agreed in associating Myron with their downfall, and persisted in regarding her as being in some way responsible for it. They both were devoted to stimulants--Clem's choice being whiskey, Ann's gin. When the monthly instalments of money from the council arrived, they both, with one accord, set to work to wheedle some of it from Myron, with a view of gratifying their spirituous desires. In this, however, they were entirely balked. Beneath Myron's meekness and patience an iron will was strengthening. Homer had said: "Don't give either of them any money. I'll give Clem tobacco when he needs it, but don't you begin giving them the money, or there'll be no stop to it." That was enough. No persuasion moved Myron after that, either to yielding or to anger. "She be a fair devil for obstinateness," said Clem upon one of these occasions. "Yes," agreed Ann, venomously, "and who be she to lord it over the likes of us? We're decent, if we be poor." It was, however, only upon these occasions that Clem and Ann agreed at all. They quarrelled continually, taunting each other with a fondness for liquor, and each making mock of the hypocrisy the other displayed in going to church, much upon the principle of one negro calling another a "black nigger." The remarks they indulged in were, to say the least, personal, and each displayed a fiendish aptitude for finding out the weak spots in the other's armor. Ann still cherished the shreds and patches of youthful vanities, mouldy remnants of adornment with which she disfigured herself on high days and holidays. She had a little house in the village, and a lot with some plum trees upon it. In summer she made shift to live very comfortably, what with the plums, and her chickens, and odd days' work. Indeed, she might easily have saved sufficient to keep her during the winter, but Ann was not of those who "go to the ant," and, after due consideration of her ways, become wise. Her habit was, when she had a few dollars by her, to adorn herself with her best, go to town in the mail-wagon, get as much gin as she could for the money, and then give herself over to the enjoyment of her purchase. Upon these days it was no small excitement for the Jamestown children to watch the going and returning of Mr. Warner and his mail-wagon. Long before mail-time Ann might be seen arranging her finery. She wore a black merino skirt, draggled into a tattered fringe at the bottom, and stained here and there by the drops that fell more swiftly as Ann's hand grew less steady. By some chance, she had once bought some bright blue ribbon from a peddler. She put two rows of this round her black skirt. Unfortunately the ribbon proved too short for the two rows, so that in the second one there was a hiatus of some twelve inches between the ends of the ribbon. This to some people might have been a somewhat insurmountable difficulty, but not to Ann. Catching her skirt just at that point where the ribbon failed to connect, she raised it gracefully with one hand, displaying the edge of a red flannel petticoat and a goodly length of robust limb. It is not recorded that she was ever seen so drunk as to forget herself sufficiently to loose her hold of the skirt, although upon several occasions she was carried helpless into her house, laid upon her bed, and left, as the good Samaritans of Jamestown expressed it, to "sober up and be ashamed of herself." Her bodice was only an ordinary calico one, but she covered its deficiencies by a black cashmere tippet of antiquated shape and ample size. It had a tassel between the shoulders, and certain lonely sparkles here and there showed that in the days of its youth and beauty it had been be-bugled. At the neck of this she pinned a knot of faded magenta ribbon, fastening it with a shell pin. But the crowning glory of Ann's holiday toilet was her "front." This "front" was the only bit of false hair in Jamestown, and was regarded as an unholy thing, a direct manifestation of "the Devil and his works." Mrs. Deans always declared that Mrs. Wilson had "as good as owned up" that she would like a similar front; and indeed Mrs. Wilson, good woman, had been moved almost to defiance of public opinion by the evil fascinations of that sinful scrap of tousled hair. As a matter of fact, Ann's "front" was somewhat the worse for wear; the parting was a parting indeed, and several curls being gone at one side, there was a bare spot, where the black-net foundation showed. But Ann's bleared eyes looked out right jauntily from beneath this lopsided coiffure. Perched upon her head was a bonnet. Originally covered with red silk, it had grown glossy and dark from much wear. Upon one side of it was stuck grotesquely a shapeless knot of black crape--limp, rusty, soiled by mud and weather, yet a symbol still of the loss of husband and child, and of a deeper loss than this--the loss of hope, the loss of self-respect, the loss of self-control, and the triumph of an evil appetite. For long ago Ann had had a husband and a bonny daughter, and she herself was a big, buxom woman, fresh-colored and wholesome. But her husband died, and the daughter was carried home dead to her one day, with the water that had drowned her dripping from her long hair and leaving a dotted line upon the floor as it ran from the hand that hung over the edge of the rude bier. Ann never "picked up" after that. Despite the admonitions of her Christian neighbors and their warnings against sinful repining, she yet dwelt ever upon her loss, seeking oblivion when she could in drink. Well, she was wrong, of course, but "the heart knoweth its own bitterness," and in the empty niches of her heart there perhaps lurked the shadow of an excuse for her. In a certain old neckerchief, mottled with gay colors and bordered with purple, were tied a few tawdry relics, a string of black wooden beads, a knot of discolored blue ribbon that had clung to a tress of the drowned girl's hair, a dark pipe with the tobacco still in it, a waistcoat barred with bright stripes of yellow, a heavy plated watchguard--these were all that remained to Ann of the joy of life, and yet upon them fell as bitter tears as ever dimmed a diamond-set portrait or a pearl-clasped lock of hair. This woman, for whose coming husband and child had once watched, was now an amusing spectacle for Jamestown boys. As Mr. Warner drove along the street Ann would go out and await his coming in all the dignity of conscious grandeur. She never started for town until she had enough to pay for her ride there and back, besides the money for her gin, for, as she often said, she wasn't much of a hand at walking. Before getting into the mail-wagon, which was simply an ordinary two-seated light wagon, with a flat canopy upheld at the corners by iron rods, she paid Mr. Warner fifty cents, which was the fare to town and back. Then she mounted to the back seat, where she sat enthroned, her feet upon the canvas mail bag. She enjoyed the drive thoroughly, nodding with much affability to every one they met, irrespective of whether she knew them or not, and saying, "Poor crittur! Who be he, I wonder. He don't know me," when any one failed to return her salute. At the door of the Post-Office Ann got out, having paid no heed to the gingerly hints Mr. Warner had given her about getting out when they came to the town limits. "Wouldn't you like to stretch a bit, Mrs. Lemon, before we get into town?" he would say, tentatively. "No, I ain't a mite stiffened up to-day," she would reply. "Because I'll stop and let you out if you'd rather," Mr. Warner continued. "Oh, I wouldn't put you to no trouble," Ann demurred, politely. "It wouldn't be no trouble," he would feebly protest. But Ann only said: "I'm all right, Mr. Warner. No rheumatics in my knees, thank Providence and red flannels! I can sit, walk, or ride with the best of them yet." Then, animated by sudden concern for him: "But look here, if you're crippled up, jest get out and walk alongside and I'll drive. Do now, just reach the reins acrost here. I can drive as straight as a string." But this ordering of affairs was still less to his liking; so, resigning himself to the inevitable and comforting himself with the thought of the fifty cents, he drove on to the Post-Office. Here Ann alighted, and then began making inquiries as to the precise time of leaving, which side of the street he would be on, whether any one else was going, besides many other details that suggested themselves to her as legitimate excuses for prolonging the conversation, during which she surveyed Warner haughtily. Finally she sailed off, with, a last imperative injunction "to be punkshul." When she returned, she was usually pretty far gone. She rolled in her walk, and fiery glances shot from her eyes. The tippet was usually screwed around, so that the tassel depended like an epaulet upon one shoulder, and the magenta ribbon did duty upon the other. Her bonnet had a trick, that amounted to a habit, of cocking itself hilariously over one ear, and the "front" usually pointed straight at the other. Mr. Warner took care always to be ready to leave when she came. He had a painful recollection of a day when he loitered about the Post-Office longer than usual, and came out at length, mailbag over his shoulders, to find Ann the centre of an admiring group that applauded her whilst she gave a full, particular (and, be it whispered, true) account of the Warner family history. In every little village there are certain stock stories that are told about certain families. If it be a scandal-monging little hole, the stories usually have a tang to them. The tales about the Warner family were particularly spicy ones, the men being notoriously cruel to their horses and "close-fisted" in their dealings. Some of the women were not all they ought to be, and the whole family connection so penurious as to be but one remove from misers. Ann was giving a veritable epic illustrative of each of these family failings, and had just got to the point bearing upon their cruelty to their horses. "The bones of the horses the Warners killed stopped up the drains in Jamestown." Turning, she whipped up the bit of felt saddle-cloth under the harness of the mail-wagon horse, and showed the galled patch on its back; then she drew attention to the raw places on the shoulders that Warner had smeared with black wagon-grease, to render them less noticeable. Warner was furious, and would right gladly have left her there, but he did not know how far her tongue had taken her or how far it could go, and he felt it safer to insist upon her getting into the wagon. Then her mood changed. She insisted he was her best and only friend, embraced him from behind with one arm round his neck until she nearly strangled him, whilst she strove to give him a drink from her black bottle with the other; wept because she could not climb over into the front seat beside him, and finally subsided into maudlin tears of repentance and retrospect, mingled with pious ejaculations of thanks for the comfort she had that day received. Warned by this experience, Warner was always ready, waiting for her when she appeared, and had acquired some skill in persuading her to mount into the wagon immediately upon her arrival. Her untimely demonstrations of affection, however, were never to be guarded against, and his flesh crept upon his bones until he was clear of the town and out into the country. It was decidedly a trial to have Ann for a passenger, only there was one saving mercy about it--afterward Warner had fifty cents more. To the Warner mind that meant a great deal. It was a popular saying in Jamestown that "a Warner would take a kicking for a quarter any day." Without these occasional exhilarations Ann grew morose and vindictive. She glowered at My as he played about the floor, gave Myron a myriad pin-pointed stings anent his existence, saying, with pious unction, that whatever little she had to be thankful for, she never should cease being grateful that she was decent, and relieved the tension upon her feelings by an active and aggressive warfare against Clem. Clem returned her complimentary attentions in kind, and exhausted his ingenuity in planning to torment Ann. There were several battles royal between the two that marked the history of their warfare, as great victories star a campaign. There was the evening, when they all sat round the little table drawn up close to the fire, and Clem, nodding his head with drowsy satisfaction, took the first morsel of a plug of chewing tobacco Homer had given him. Clem half-closed his eyes and gave himself up to its enjoyment. Myron rose softly, to carry the sleeping baby to bed. Ann's eyes wandered malignantly from Clem's contented countenance to the plug of tobacco (so near her hand), and from thence all round the room. She looked longingly at the fire, but shook her head; discovery would be too prompt. Her eyes fell upon a tub of water, set close to the fire to prevent its freezing against the morrow. Her face lighted--an evil inspiration had come to her. Slowly--slowly--she put forth her hand. Clem's eyelids wavered--she withdrew it swiftly--there was a pause. Again her itching fingers approached the square of tobacco--again were withdrawn before a flicker of those eyes. Another breath--then carefully, stealthily, she grabbed the tobacco, withdrew her hand, and, bending far over, slid her prize into the tub of water. Then, to all appearance, sleep suddenly overpowered her. Her head began to nod, her eyes to close, she breathed heavily, and her relaxed hand fell limply by her side. Clem rose presently to build a new fire, and, being extravagantly inclined because of his plentitude of tobacco, ejected his "chew" into the ashes, and, after putting on the wood, returned to his seat and put out his hand for his tobacco. Myron entered at that moment from the bedroom. The fire crackled as it caught the new fuel; old Ann sat like a nodding mandarin, oblivious (outwardly) of everything. Clem's astonishment at its disappearance was great. Nevertheless he did not grow wrathful until he had turned out his many pockets and bestrewn the table with their varied contents. He banged each article viciously upon the table, but Ann still slept. She was somewhat overdoing her rôle, and Clem's smouldering wrath flamed up into active indignation as she sat there calm amidst the storm. "Get up!" he said. "Get up, you stovepipe, and let me see if it ain't under your chair? You know something about it, I'll swear you do! If 'twas a glass of gin, I'll warrant you'd scent it out! Get up, will you?" Saying this, he jerked her chair aside by the back, so that Ann, who was feigning all the languor of one suddenly aroused from deep sleep, slid off the chair to the floor. She improved the occasion, however, by knocking the chair over on Clem's corns as she rose. Clem gave a frightful oath, and Ann stood erect, with a jeering laugh. Myron, anxious to preserve peace, joined Clem in his hunt, whilst Ann stood by. "Call me stovepipe, will you?" she asked. "Stovepipe indeed, and me the best figger of a woman in the village in my time! Stovepipe! With my waist, too! Stovepipe indeed!" An indignant snort rounded off her sentence. The little kitchen was so bare that any search was either easy or hopeless. Myron and Clem searched and searched, going over and over the same ground, as the wisest of us do when we look for something lost--for pleasure in old pain, for joy in bygone voices, for hope in withered joys. Ann waxed more and more derisive. "If 'twas a spoonful of whiskey, now," she began, plagiarizing and paraphrasing his own words to her; "if 'twas a spoonful of whiskey now, I'll go bail you'd nose it out. You'd ha' run ag'in it long ago. You're better at getting whiskey than at getting clean jugs to put it in, though." Clem turned to glare at her, and stubbed his toes against the tub. He cast his eyes down, with a curse, but his gaze was held by something which, even as he looked, sank to the bottom, thoroughly saturated. In a moment he had it out--his tobacco, bloated out of all semblance to its dark-brown self. One glance was enough. With accurate aim, he flung it with all his might at Ann's triumphant countenance. It struck her across the lips, parted for another gibe. She subsided, sputtering, and Clem, gathering up his belongings from the table with one sweep into his handkerchief, flung himself out of the room. Myron's life was passed in a continual jar and fret because of these quarrels. She strove to interpose herself as much as possible between them, for Ann's malice grew more and more venomous, and Clem's dislike threatened to break bounds, and from speech become blows. Ann was persistent in her demands for "somethin' warmin'," and do what she could Myron could not satisfy them. But their bitter words did not sting as her grandmother's had done. Love has a strong potency in pain and pleasure. There is poison upon the tongue of a friend when it turns against us. No dart pricks so deep as one launched by a hand we love. Gall and wormwood are mingled in the draught when the bitter cup is pressed to our lips by the hand that has tended us in childhood. No thorns are so sharp set to pierce our feet as those implanted in our path by one we love. Some years ago there was a marvellous tale told of a woman in the mountains of Africa, wondrous old and beautiful, and exceeding wise. We are told that by the touch of her finger-tip _She_ blanched a snowy streak athwart a girl's dark locks. Later, with another malignant gesture, she reft the girl of life, so that she fell dead in an instant. Myron Holder's soul was being blanched by the pointing fingers of her world. Would they stop there? Or would the cruel allegory be completed? Would those merciless mockers not cease until, deprived of life and hope, Myron Holder faltered and fell to what they pictured her? For there was every chance she might. Her face had gained a pale and--inapplicable as the word seems--lofty beauty. Her eyes held within their depths the secret of all pain, and the storehouses of such knowledge are often more beautiful than those that garner gayer truths. Her lips, softened by the love of her child, were warm and red; his kisses kept them so amid the pallor of her face, like a little hearth in a waste of snow. So small and sweet the mouth was, so tremulous, so shrinking, it seemed the pallor of cheek and chin encroached upon it daily. It did not seem a month for speech: there was but space for sobs and kisses, and yet--it had had kisses, and kisses leave strange savors sometimes, and it had parted in many a sob. Who, then, could tell if the pressure of those lips brought pain or pleasure? And what man but would dare all to know? Behind her lids lay love, too, gleaming through the veil of her sorrows, as the reflected sun shines from a well. At present it was all for her child--later? Nowadays, when on every side they talk so much of the force of "suggestion," it almost makes us wonder if our fellows' lives are not a reflex of our conception of them--if a consensus of opinion that a person is guilty does not tend to make him what we assume him to be. It would seem the Jamestown people did the best they could to aid the devil, whom they professed to sacrifice, when, with the pointed forks of malice, they thrust Myron Holder forward to his fires. Each time Homer Wilson came to sit in the cottage his heart ached more and more for this woman. Against the background of Ann's slovenly form and Clem's squalid coarseness she shone like a jewel in a rough clasp. Each time he departed the wrench was greater, but he could not deny himself the pleasure of seeing her. As for her, his visits were the only alleviation of her life, his visits and My. For the child was beginning to talk now, and pattered after her every step. She had taught him a meaningless baby jingle--"Mama's My," she said; "My's mama," answered My--and when he got to know it well, he would chatter it out in swift alternation with her, until the simple words, expressive of the absolute inviolate bond that united them, pierced her soul with a sense of their isolation, and she caught him to her as of old Hagar may have pressed Ishmael to her dishonored bosom. But out of Homer's visits fresh spite and scandal sprung. For old Ann, denied money for gin, grew bitter and revengeful, and took to going from kitchen to kitchen with the song of her sorrows. Finding her welcome and entertainment proportioned exactly to the amount of news she had to tell, she did her best, like a good laborer, to be worthy of her hire. Every incident of Myron's life was noted and enhanced by Ann's evil imaginings--was bruited from lip to lip. Myron knew this. In the old days, whatever bitterness had awaited her within the walls of the cottage, they had at least shielded her from the curious eye and whispering lip of the village. They did so no longer. Her last refuge was taken from her. She felt she lived in a veritable glass house, pierced by day and night by relentless eyes. The knowledge made her restless and ill at ease. Ann did her best, as has been said, to deserve the welcome she received at Mrs. Dean's, Mrs. White's, Mrs. Warner's, and the other houses she went to. She crawled up from her warm couch to listen at Myron's door at night, and crept back, shivering with cold, and angry that Myron did not justify the vileness of her suspicions. The "long glories of the winter moon" sent shafts of pale light to illumine both the sleepers and the listener. Within the chamber were the two shamed ones--the sinful mother, the child of sin. The two faces close together, both calm--for one heart was ignorant of the world and its cruelty, and the other for a brief space oblivious. Two hands were hidden, close clasped, beneath the coverlet; two lay palms up, so that the moonshine lit them palely--the one pink-palmed, unscarred, unstained; the other so worn, so hard, having lifted such heavy loads and borne such bitter burdens, having been stung by flowers that change to undying nettles, having so often shielded shamed eyes, having so often pressed against a breaking heart, having so often been raised in fruitless supplication, so often wrung in despair. Without the door the listener, tremulous with eagerness, leant, holding her breath, and longing for the confirmation of her evil thoughts. She caught only the cadence of the breathing of mother and child--a music sweet to the old gods long ago, they say, and sacred still to us, the incense of love's devotion and sacrifice of suffering. And is the offering less sacred because ascending from an altar differing in shape from the law's design? In what strange quality were these commingling breaths lacking that they should rise in vain? Love bestows upon many things its own immortality. Why not upon the air, that gives it life? The air that has been breathed by the mutual lips of love can never again commingle with the grosser ether of our earthly atmosphere. It ascends afar, and perchance shall form the winey atmosphere of that fabled Land of Compensation, where, we are told, "the crooked shall be made straight." CHAPTER XVII. "All the secret of the spring Moved in the chambers of the blood." "Lovely spring A brief sweet thing, Is swift on the wing." QUEEN ELEANOR--"...Some Flowers, they say, if one pluck deep enough. Bleed as you gather." BOUCHARD--"That means love, I think. You gather it, and there's the blood at root." Winter was softening to spring. It was the dismal transition period, when half-frozen mud and icy slush take the place of snow. The deep drifts of the winter were gone; only in the fence-corners there yet remained darkened icy ridges, showing their outline. The fields were bare, but the discolored snow still lay in patches on the roads, where it had been beaten hard. The world never looks so desolate and disreputable as at this time, when the earth, looking up inquiringly to a comfortless sun, pleads--or so it would seem--for heat, that its nakedness may be clothed with verdure. The tree-tops in the woodlands clashed together, and the blows seemed to start the sap within them, for their buds began to swell, and all along their branches the satiny receptacles, wherein were coiled the first leaves, glistened. The sugar maples sparkled night and morning with tiny icicles, where the sweet sap that oozed out at noon froze in the colder breath of evening. Every schoolboy in Jamestown had swollen lips from eating these icicles--dainty morsels they were, too, their flavor the very essence of sweetness. All the trees in the forest seemed to stand at "attention," awaiting the command of the sun to leap to life. Only the low-growing witch-hazel, that uncanny tree, associated with the Black Art from time immemorial, had taken upon itself to bedeck its limbs with fuzzy little yellow and brown tufts of bloom. But none of the other trees followed its example. They waited the heat of the sun. From all accounts, the root of the witch-hazel seeks less celestial fires to draw its life from. At any rate, this overwise tree knows all subterranean secrets, all the wonders of the water, all the wind's weird whisperings. Passed along the surface of the earth, does it not divine where, far beneath, the hidden springs gush forth? Launched upon the water, does it not stop and tremble where the drowned one lies? Before the coming of the storm, do its leaves not dance, and nod, and rustle, though moved by no perceptible influence save the intoxication of their own evil sap? Besides, what magical mysteries, what eerie orgies, does it not share with hairs from black cats' tails, and moss from gravestones, and teeth of dead people? Ugh! It is no wonder that its deep, deep roots know where to seek for warmth. The moss upon the rocks that faced the lake front was vividly green. Last year's dead leaves had rotted beneath the snows, and the empty seed-vessels of the tall weeds served as bells for the jesting wind. Whatever suggestions of bygone beauty, whatever anticipations of unborn flowers lurked in the woods, the village at this time looked depressingly squalid. Relying upon the snow's charity in covering a multitude of sins, the untidy housekeepers had imposed upon it. Now they were shamed. The melting snow left exposed all the debris of the winter. Heaps of tea-leaves cast forth by careless hands beside the doors, ashes flung out hastily, bones, broken crockery, and the heads of decapitated chickens bestrewed the streets. Outwardly, at least, Jamestown had been quite a decent village before the snow melted; now, it showed like a hypocrite from whom the robe has been torn away. With the first break in the winter weather, the men began to "go over" the fences, rebuilding those the snow had broken, replacing the rails and boards that the wind had torn off, and sinking new posts where the frosts had heaved the old ones out of the earth. Clem Humphries had long been impatient to leave Myron's and get out of the reach of Ann's irritating tongue, and his eager search for work got the reward of being hired by Mr. White to bore post-holes. He stuck to his task until he earned a few dollars; then his long-saved thirst drove him to town. The money went for the old purpose, and Clem got gloriously drunk. A sudden brief but biting spring frost setting in, he was found next morning in Mr. White's barnyard, lying by the strawstack, his fingers clasping rigidly an empty bottle, his long boots frozen to his feet. They carried him in beside the kitchen stove, cut off his boots, and by noon old Clem was as sprightly as ever; only he cursed sulphurously when he saw the wreck they had made of his foot-gear. This was particularly annoying to him, because he knew that had he "only had sense enough, he could have got a good quart more of rye for them very boots they cut up, as if they weren't worth a cent." Many men might have suffered from this experience, but alcohol has great preservative qualities and old Clem's system was saturated with it. Clem being now "off the township" and exposed to all the inclemencies of Fortune's variable winds, it behooved him to supply himself with a new suit of religion, as the snake takes to himself a new skin. This he did. He spoke piously of his failings, his experiences, his backslidings and beliefs, so that Mrs. White held him in godly commiseration, as one sore beset by the enemy. So Clem fed and fattened, whined diligently, and worked as little as he could help, and laughed in his sleeve at them all. Mrs. Deans said to Homer Wilson, with sneering emphasis: "If you should see that Myron Holder, Homer, I wish you'd tell her I want to speak to her." "Very well," said Homer, unmoved. "Will you be likely to see her?" pursued Mrs. Deans. "Yes," said Homer, in a matter-of-course tone. "Oh, yes, of course I'll see her." "Still, after all," Mrs. Deans hesitated with a fine show of prayerful reflection, "maybe I hadn't ought to ask you to call there? There's no use making things worse than they are, and I'd never forgive myself if I thought I put you in the way of wrongdoing." "I don't understand," said Homer, calmly. "Is there anything wrong about your message?" "Not about my message," answered Mrs. Deans; "but, after all that's come and gone, I dare say you would not like to go to the Holder place. Well, I don't know as I blame you. It's terrible discouragin' to be mixed up with such a story; but there, never mind, I can send Maley. No one would think anything of his going." "Make your mind easy, Mrs. Deans," said Homer, contemptuously. "Ann Lemon, I am sure, has let you know that I am in the habit of going to Myron's as often as she'll let me. I'll be very glad of your message as an excuse to go again." With this Homer departed, leaving Mrs. Deans as nearly dumbstruck as it was possible for her to be. That afternoon Myron stood knocking at Mrs. Deans' kitchen-door, holding My by the hand, whilst he struggled to get away to the collie dog which lay on the porch, its front paws crossed in an attitude of dignified leisure. From the poultry-yard came the mingled babble of the fowls' cries. A thin blue banner of smoke uncoiled in a long spiral from behind the house. It diffused an aroma of herbs and withered grass: the rakings of the garden were being burned. Gamaliel and the hired men were opening a ditch in the field next the house. Their coarse voices and coarser laughing came clearly through the spring air. A sparrow flew down and, laden with a long straw, flew up again to the woodshed eaves, where its mate proceeded to help it to weave the straw into the walls of their nest. The old cat, thinner now than in the winter, looked up at their toiling malignantly. Every now and then the eye was conscious of a dark speck above the line of direct vision, as the swallows soared in long sweeps over the building. The sky was bright, but not very warm; and when one of the many floating clouds interposed a veil betwixt its rays and the earth, there came a quick sense of chill. The men's voices grew higher and more confused. Then, clear above the murmur that they made, came shrill whistles and shouts of "Bob! Bob!" The collie sprang up, and, throwing dignity to the wind, wriggled between the boards of the garden fence and darted across the field, to enjoy presently a hilarious chase after a pair of water-rats that the men had found in the stopped up drain. It was a spring day--all delicate sunshine and shimmering shadow, all soft with tints of mother-o'-pearl, with hints of after-heats and breaths of bygone bitterness. Above floated "the wind-stirred robe of roseate gray," and beneath the earth lay murmurous, sentient, expectant, and eager, with little streams finding their way to the lake, each seeming the bearer of sweeter secrets than we know. "O water, thou that wanderest, whispering, Thou keep'st thy counsel to the last! What spell upon thy bosom should Love cast, His message thence to wring?" A spring day--yet somewhat sad, and strange with the uncertainty of unfulfilled dreams. It was but one minor note in Nature's glad interlude between "winter's rains and ruins" and summer's languorous perfections, fleeting to the eye, elusive to the memory, but lingering long in the heart. Myron knocked and waited. Presently Liz opened the door. She had a knife in one hand, a potato in the other, and her fingers were stained a deep brown. Liz was cutting seed-potatoes, and even as she walked back to her place by the window, dexterously sliced the potato she held into angled bits, preserving in each an eye for growth to spring from. Mrs. Deans came, and when Myron left she had arranged for another summer's toil under her benign influence. Mrs. Deans had decided to raise poultry more extensively than ever this year, and, berate Myron as she might, she recognized fully how valuable her faithful services were. Mrs. Deans proposed that My should be left with Ann Lemon during the day, but Myron said humbly but very decidedly that the child must come with her. Mrs. Deans demurred, but read Myron's pale determination aright, and finally consented. It gave her an excuse, however, for still further reducing the meagre pay she had given Myron the summer before. Myron had been prepared for this, and did not grumble when Mrs. Deans named the lower wage, whereat Mrs. Deans was wroth with herself that she had not said still less. Ann Lemon went back to her own house, and Myron once more went back and forth to the village. The winter had changed her. She no longer shrank from before the gaze of those cold eyes that met hers daily. Instead, she met their glances with firm lips and unmoved eye, not boldly, not appealingly, but with an acceptance of rebuke and scorn that was stronger in its endurance than wrath, with a patience more pathetic than any appeal. No smile ever moved her lips, no anger ever raised her voice. If tears ever dimmed her eyes, they were unseen. If any ray of hope yet flickered within her breast, it was well hidden; its fires never flushed her cheeks nor troubled her eyes, and those humble eyes were "deeper than the depth of waters stilled at even." The spring advanced. Each evening whispered of a new beauty, each night saw the birth of a new mystery, each morning revealed it in nature's mirror, each day bespoke some completion of beauty, some fulfillment of hope. Spring--"all bloom and desire"--is not the time for love to end. It is rather the growing time of every tender joy, and Homer Wilson found himself hoping against hope. He contrived to meet Myron very often now, in the early mornings or late twilight, as she traversed the road between the village and Mrs. Deans'. He had done what he could to dissuade her from going to Mrs. Deans', but a refusal to do so meant a full acceptance of his aid. Myron held back her hand from such overwhelming alms. Homer had done, therefore, what he could for her--ploughed the little lot about her house and planted it with potatoes and vegetables for her, and mended the fence and piled great heaps of split wood in the woodshed. He pleaded with her sometimes, but to no avail--at least none that was perceptible to him. The water beating against a rock does not realize its own victories; but we see the honeycombed cells that attest its persistence, and predict that some day the water will have won a way for itself over the fragments of the rocky barrier. But the springs run dry sometimes, and the rock remains unconquered, but barren and parched, thirsting for the water that loved it once. To each successive plea Myron felt it harder and harder to say "No." When Homer asked for her love, his face shone with that seraphic light that never yet "has shone on land or sea," and she felt it very bitter to banish it. Sometimes he touched her to tears. Sometimes, dry-eyed, she begged him so piteously to desist that he felt himself a cur to have urged her. Indeed, in those calm spring weeks his heart was the abode of perpetual conflict, the place of passion and pain, the home of love and longing-- "O fretted heart, tossed to and fro, Rest was nearer than thou wist." Through all these turbulent times Homer bore himself well. He had again the old genial manner, the old patience, the old generosity. His people presumed upon his unfaltering good-temper, and made their demands more and more exacting. He gave all they sought of his time, trouble, and money, and to their reproaches replied not again. Upon every subject under the sun he heard them patiently, save the one subject next his heart. That he held sacred. His mother had said to him one day: "You'll never marry her, Homer?" "God knows I'm afraid I won't," he said. "Do you mean to say----" began his mother. "There is nothing but this to say," he answered, very quietly, but in a voice that silenced her; "I would give my right hand--my life--everything--if I could persuade Myron Holder to marry me." So he left her; but his mother's incredulous exclamation, "You'll never marry her!" cankered in his heart like a bitter prophecy. Afterwards, when Mrs. Wilson thought over all the days and doings of her son, she thought of this also, and told the conversation to her neighbors, and they all then looked upon Myron Holder as one who, having gotten a man's soul, would not let him assoil himself by marrying her. But this was after. The old rag peddler going his rounds stopped once more at Mrs. Deans' door. Little My trotted out from the kitchen, and the old peddler eyed him with the longing gaze of a childless man. Mrs. Deans bargained for her pie-plates, and My stood gazing reflectively at the big black horse. "Say, Mrs. Deans," said the ragman, "whose young one is that?" "Oh," answered Mrs. Deans, feelingly, "that's Myron Holder's brat!" "You don't say! Well, 'taint much like the Holders. I knowed Jed," he added, after a pause. That night the ragman drove home, his van heavily laden, and his wife helped him to bestow the canvas sacks in the barn, and later looked over his stock of tins and ran over the book. She was a queer little figure. Her dress was of dark woollen stuff that they gave her husband at the shoddy-mills. It was curiously and lavishly adorned with buttons: there were rows of buttons on the sleeves from wrist to elbow, a veritable breast-plate of them on the bodice; they jingled on her shoulders and glistened on her skirts. In a deep-down corner of her miserly little soul there lurked a taste for finery. Denied legitimate expression by her miserliness, it found vent in this barbaric adorning of her gowns. The pearl and crockery buttons she did not use--those she sewed on cards to resell; but all the fancy metal ones she found on the rags, being unsalable, she appropriated toward the decoration of her penurious person, and let her fancy run riot in the arrangement of them. "Where's the little red tin mug?" she asked her husband, as she pored over his ragged daybook. "I don't see it in the van, and I don't see it marked in the sales." Her husband shifted uneasily. "I give it to Myron Holder's young one. He was playing about the wagon at Deans'." "You did!" said his wife. "You did! What for?" "I knowed Jed," began her husband, apologetically; but he was cut short by a contemptuous snub from his wife. This was the chronicling of a little incident that gladdened Myron's heart inexpressibly. In Myron's mind there was slowly forming an idea at this time--an idea of change. It was but dimly shadowed forth yet; but when the time came for it to take definite shape, it did so at once, and was so well established that it seemed the settled and legitimate conclusion of long reasoning. In the mean time the thought only came to her hazily--sometimes in the pauses of her work when she heard Mrs. Deans speaking of the town; sometimes when, in the early morning, she saw far away across the lake the smoke of a steamer; sometimes when, at noontide, the whistle of far-off trains smote through the air, or when, returning to the village at night, she noted the telegraph-poles, with their single wire. They seemed to incline from the village--away from its self-righteous roof-trees and censorious chimneys; away and above its babbling doorsteps and carping streets--and to point out into a wider, freer, unknown world. Often she turned to look along the way they pointed. They took her eyes eastward, and at night the eastern prospect is dull and gray. From this forbidding outlook she would turn her eyes, with a shudder, and they would fall upon the trees of Deans' woodland, illumined by the sun which set behind them. But if the eastern gray made her despond, the western glow behind those trees made her despair. She withdrew her gaze and hastened to the blank twilight of the village. It was summer, and Homer Wilson, walking through his fields, was thinking of Myron Holder. He had gone early to town that morning, and as he passed the cottage she issued, with little My, from the door. The dew lay heavy on the grass; the silence was stirred by the singing of birds; the haze that lay over the land presaged a day of intense heat. The fires were being lighted in the village, and the first smoke was lingering lazily above the roofs. The hopvines about the cottage glistened at every point with drops of dew, and, as the sparrows twittered through the tendrils, they sent sparkling little showers down. The morning-glories that Myron had planted beneath the window were covered with their cup-like blooms. There is no flower on earth more beautiful in delicate fragility of texture, in purity of tint, in shape and translucent color than a morning-glory with the dew upon it. It was a morning to live and love in. And it seemed to Homer Wilson that the whole gracious aspect of the day was completed by the forms of Myron and her boy as they stood without the gate. His heart yearned for her as he helped her into the wagon by his side. At Mrs. Deans' he lifted her down, holding her for an instant in his arms. The keen "possessive pang" that thrilled him shook his spirit with its sacred sweetness. And to-night he was going to her with yet another prayer upon his lips. The sultry day had fulfilled the prophecy of the misty morning. The air was heavy with odors. Every weed and grass, each flower and vine, each bush and tree, had given its quota of perfume to form the frankincense that nature offers to the midsummer moon. The exhalations from a million tiny cells mingled together in that odorous oblation. And as he crossed the fields Homer saw the moon, round and red, rising slowly over the lake. Slowly--slowly--it rose, paling as it attained the higher heavens, until it soared-- "In voluptuous whiteness, Juno-like, A passionate splendor"-- most worthy to be worshipped. As Homer knocked at Myron's door the moon veiled itself behind some close-wreathed clouds, so that from the dimness of the cloudy sky Homer passed within the doorway. * * * * * * The moon was still obscured when he emerged, so that his face was hid. But before him there stretched, at last seen with clear eyes, the definite dreariness of a solitary life. Behind him he knew a woman lay prone upon a bare floor, sobbing and wrestling with the evil of her own nature, with hard-wrought hands half-outstretched to him--half-withdrawn, to cover her shamed eyes. Within his breast he bore the memory, not of rejection or of rebuke, but the echo of a plea for mercy--the broken syllables of a woman's voice raised in an appeal for help against her own weakness. Nor had it been made in vain. For Homer Wilson, in the moment of that supreme temptation, had risen superior to himself--had put aside his own strength to help her weakness--had overcome his passion with his love. He had uttered a passionate word or two of comprehension, offered an incoherent pledge of aid--comfort--approval--and then, stumbling out of the door, hastened away, disregarding, for her sake, the cry of "Homer--Homer!" that seemed to follow him. * * * * * * Each of us has a wilderness and a temptation therein, although oft we pass through it, unrecking of the devils that attend us until they have stolen all they sought. Sometimes our wilderness is a perfumed garden, through which insidious devils dog our laggard footsteps. Sometimes it is a shaded pleasaunce, through which we tread with stately steps, unwitting of the derisive demons that smile as they mock our pageantry of pride. With retrospective agony, we turn to gaze upon the mirages of these scenes, as one views sunlit seas where wrecks have been, and cry aloud, "Here much precious treasure was lost!" But there are other wildernesses wherein we wander, consciously beset with Evil Spirits whose faces we know. It was thus with Myron Holder. Her wilderness was indeed "a land of sand and thorns," thorns whose acrid sap was sucked from salt pools of tears. And the Spectre Demon that beset her there was the Devil of her own passion. By day it lingered round her steps, tempting her with suggestions of the Lethean draught its pleasures would bring, whispering to her how excusable she would be if she yielded to its allurements; for it did not fail to point out that she had no debt of kindness to repay with worthiness. All day she fought against this Tempting One, who speedily enleagued all the other evils of her nature to aid him. The battle raged fiercely, the bright light in her eyes, the flaming cheeks and trembling hands attesting the strife. One night, when the heat of summer made even the night winds sultry, when all nature was in the full height of its development, when the fields were deep in grass and the clover heavy with bloom--on such a night the door of a hop-clad cottage in Jamestown opened softly and closed as gently, and through the sleeping streets and out into the country a wild figure sped. She, for it was a woman, with flushed cheeks and loose-coiled hair, advanced a short distance along the highway, and then, swiftly climbing the fence, made her way diagonally across the fields of dew-drenched grass--across one field, another, and another--holding her slanting course as steadily and unswervingly as though she followed a beaten track. As she ran, the spirit of the night and the intoxicating odor of flowers and grasses entered into her and steeped her senses in a delirium of freedom. She sprang on--now running, now half-dancing, once going a rod or two in the old childish "hippety-hop" fashion. She reached the boundary of Deans' woodland, and plunged into its shadows with as little hesitation as she had entered the field of clover. She threaded the wood swiftly, her eyes fixed straight before her, never seeming to see the obstacles which opposed her path, although she avoided them unerringly. Bats whose eyes have been pierced out exercise this same blind avoidance of obstacles, and it was only this woman's heart that had been wounded. She held on her way. At length she saw a far-off gleam of water, and knew she had all but reached her destination. On she went, and, pushing through the dense mass of witch-hazel bushes that grew along the top of the lake bank, jumped. It seemed a leap to destruction, for Deans' woods bounded the lake here with high, precipitous cliffs; but the path to that spot was marked by her heart-blood, and she had made no error in following it. She had a drop of four feet or so; and then she stood upon a long, narrow, jutting ledge, surrounded by the tops of the trees that grew below it on the bank proper. From the top of the bank it was almost invisible--entirely so, unless the looker penetrated the witch-hazel hedge. From the lake it was plainly seen. Here, then, she paused, looking forth over the water, and being scorned by the moon-- "For so it is, with past delights She taunts men's brains and makes them mad." * * * * * * She stood upon the rocky point and held out her clasped hands despairingly. Her hair, loosened by many a tugging branch, fell about her in wild disorder--now blown across her flushed cheeks, wild eyes and parted lips; now wrenched back by the high wind, its whole weight streaming behind her; now framing her face in dusky convolutions. In the mute agony of her gesture, she seemed a fit emblem of despairing grief--the grief of Psyche for Adonis. The moon broke from the embrace of its clouds and sailed high up into the night, then faded towards the horizon. And still she stood, outwearing her passion by her patience. About her surged all the weird melodies that loneliness and night and despair smite from the heart-strings. The blood sang in her ears, a monotonous _obligato_ to those piercing notes. * * * * * * She looked out into the night. Her eyes demanded from it some balm to soothe their burning; her heart some solace for its pain. Her soul cried out against the silence without, which seemed such a maddening environment to the fightings within. Her whole being demanded an answering emotion from some one or something. "Shake out, carols! Solitary here--the night's carols! Carols of lonesome love! Death's carols! Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon-- Oh, under that moon where she drops almost down into the sea! Oh, reckless, despairing carols!" But the moon was mute, the night silent, and she was alone. She could not analyze her own emotions, nor vivisect her own soul; could not separate shreds of Desire, fibres of loneliness, tissues of misery, until she had disintegrated the whole mass of Despair that was crushing her. She could but suffer. * * * * * * She lay prone upon the ledge of rock, her hands clutching the short, glossy mountain grass; resisting the wooing of the airy space below that called her to oblivion, purchased by one leap outward--a leap--no, one single step--out into the kindly air. How small a price at which to buy immunity from those thorny roads she trod with bleeding feet, alone! Alone? Ah! Little My! ... The leaves were stirring with the morning's breath; the birds had not begun to sing yet, but were moving restlessly upon the branches and uttering their first waking calls--those ineffably sad heraldings of earliest dawn or latest night! "Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns, The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds!" The world lay silent under a reflectionless moonstone dome of gray when Myron Holder, with dew-drenched skirts and hair, relaxed limbs and pallid cheeks, entered the house where her child yet slept. Of the night's turmoil there was no trace save the signs of physical exhaustion. Her face was calm, her lips firm; her eyes shone undimmed with tears, unblurred by passion. CHAPTER XVIII. "Yea, then were all things laid within the scale-- Pleasure and lust, love and desire of fame, Kindness, and hope, and folly, all the tale Told in a moment--as across him came That sudden flash, bright as the lightning flame, Showing the wanderer on the waste how he Has gone astray 'mid dark and misery." Outwardly the lives of Myron Holder and Homer Wilson gave no sign of these conflicts. It is the petty worries and every-day griefs of life that traces lines upon the brow. A fretful discontent often leaves a wrinkle when a great grief obscures itself behind the placidity of despair. Myron Holder's face now shone in unaltered--and it seemed unalterable--calm. That wild night had not been spent in vain. Self-poised, if humble, her life seemed centred calmly at last. As for Homer Wilson; it was different with him. His heart was still parched with the "thirst that thirsteth on," but he no longer sought for draughts to slake it. His attitude approximated that of those who, dying of some dreadful disease, accept their fate and, looking the inevitable in the face, long for the end. One day he found in his pocket the old bullet he had picked up from the crevice in the rock. He turned it over, wondering where he got it; then remembering, a bitter thought crossed his mind that he was like that bullet. His life-impetus gone, he was but a thing for the sun to scorn. Myron, no longer trembling for herself, felt a deep tenderness spring within her heart for Homer, and sought to show him in every way that he was her only friend and that she trusted him. Myron had almost made up her mind to leave Jamestown, and a little incident that occurred one day strengthened this thought to a resolution. The school-house was quite near the Holder cottage: the playground bordered one side of the cottage garden; a fence of slackly hung wires was between them; beyond the fence in the playground was a little ditch with heaped-up sides, on which grew many yellow buttercups. This was a favorite haunt for the younger school children, and their voices came in mingled cadences across Myron's rows of vegetables. One day in later summer Myron was at home from Mrs. Deans', having by that lady's desire brought the weekly washing from the farm, to do it in the cottage. The windows were flung high, and through the rising steam from her wash tubs Myron's eyes followed My's golden head as he trotted about the garden. Looking up once, she saw him standing by the fence, holding to one swaying wire and peering through at the children in the playground. A momentary pang shot through her heart--he seemed so isolated there; and yet the barrier that separated him from the other Jamestown children was so slight--just a slack-wire fence--that any one could see through, that hung irregularly between its supports, now so low that it could be stepped over, again so high it seemed impassable, only where it was so lofty the spaces between the wires were wide enough to creep through. The sunlight shone on both sides the same. The buttercups straggled through to the vegetables, seeming by their persistence to wish to bloom there, and the singing of the catbird in the elm tree was as sweet to My's ears as to Sammy Warner's upon the other side. Nature made no difference; nevertheless there was a barrier. My was effectually severed from the rest of the village, but he himself had not recognized that yet, and the next time Myron looked up she saw My had gone through the fence and had seated himself beside the others. They had taken their places in an irregular row among the buttercups, jostling and nudging each other, saying "Gimme elbow room," and "Quit pushin'," as they settled themselves comfortably to the business of the moment. This was the time-honored trial to decide which of them liked butter, ascertained by holding a spray of buttercups against the throat, so that the reflection was cast upon the uptilted chin. The taste for butter is proportionate to the yellowness of the reflection. Little Jenny Muir was judge and the rest jury, craning their necks forward to look as she passed from one to the other, holding a bunch of buttercups against their chests whilst they tilted their chins far back. The dull blues, washed-out reds, and russet browns of the children's frocks enhanced the brilliant yellow of the flowers. The shadows of the big pear tree, glossy of leaf but barren of fruit, modulated the sunshine, so that the whole group showed in a soft, subdued glow, an idyl of child life not unlovely, for the heads in the row were not yet bent to the dust to search for money, nor lifted to heaven in self-righteous conceit. Time had not dulled the childish gold to brown, nor deadened the flaxen heads to lustreless drab. My placed himself at the end of the row, his head a golden period at the end of the human sentence that spoke of life's beginnings. With unembarrassed childish mimicry, he emulated the gestures and laughter of the others. Myron's heart lightened. She wondered for a moment if My might not in time merge his life with those others and be no longer solitary. The hope soon vanished. Looking out again, she saw My sitting alone, his head tilted far back as he waited for his turn. Just disappearing down the slight decline to the school-house, she saw the other children, their hands held over their mouths, their faces red with suppressed laughter, stepping with elaborate pretence of quiet, and turning now and then to look over their shoulders at My, sitting alone, his face patiently uptilted to the sun, unconscious of his loneliness. Beside him lay the bunch of buttercups, flung down as Jenny Muir clapped her hands over her mouth and fled across the soft sward. In a moment Myron was out of the house, running down the path to the fence side. Ere she reached it, My's tired little neck relaxed, and he looked about him wonderingly, the light fading from his face. His eyes were filled with tears, and his lips quivered when his mother called him. There was a hasty scramble over the ditch, a struggle through the fence, and My was back on his mother's side of the barrier. That straggling fence was, after all, not so easily crossed. My had forgotten the whole affair ten minutes after, as he excitedly chased grasshoppers along the paths; but all day long the laughter of the playing children smote Myron's heart like the crack of a whip that stings. After that day it became a matter of conscience for Myron to play the "buttercup game" with My, and a feverish eagerness fairly consumed her to get away from a place where even the children were cruel. She began to scrimp and save every penny she could, hoarding her meagre gatherings in the bottom of the old clock-case that stood on the shelf beside the window. * * * * * * It was late autumn. Between the tree-tops were skyey lakes of blue more brilliant than any blue of summer sky, more evanescent than any of spring. The sun shone through the tree-tops with an ineffable, clear, cold light, displaying every fibre in their leaves and imparting to them a fragility wholly sad. A light uncertain wind rippled through the sumachs, giving their leaves a delicate, lateral movement, as though upon some aerial lyre they harped their own requiem, touching its invisible strings lightly with blood-tipped fingers, for the autumn coloring stained the green. Between the boughs of the trees glistened those huge octagonal webs that the wood-spiders spin so persistently at this season. There was no sound of birds, only the cheerless shrilling of the autumnal crickets and the dry rustle of dead leaves as the few grasshoppers left alive hopped torpidly from place to place till they came to the spot to die. The katydids, that six weeks before had prophesied so cheerily the frost that was to kill them, lay here and there, little pale-green corpses, wrapped in their lace-like wings. The tall weeds by the pathway, that in summer had disguised themselves with blossoms of different colors and shapes, now stood confessed, with panicles of burs crowning their dishonored heads. It was upon such a day that Homer walked through his woods, searching for a young hickory tree suitable to cut down for axe-handles. His heart, caught in the embrace of the surrounding silence, suddenly stilled its throbbing to a steadier rhythm than it had known of late. He thought out clearly the motive that must actuate his life, the inspiration that must point his path. Passion was indeed eliminated from his heart, but not forgotten. They tell us that when an arm or leg is amputated, one still feels shadowy aches and ghostly pangs, intensifying the desolate sense of incompleteness and loss. The maiming of one part of the body may preserve the whole alive, but yet one looks back with anguished regret to the days when he stood complete. Homer Wilson was learning that each must "dree his ain weird," and the only complaint he made against his Fate was that he could not alter Myron's. Night fell soon and swiftly now. The sun seemed glad to sink out of sight. Its feeble rays brought no heat to the leaves it had called to life. The sad silence of the trees seemed a mute reproach against the light that brought forth but could not sustain, their foliage. That evening in the chill twilight, Homer overtook Myron and her boy returning from Mrs. Deans'. Slackening his pace, he walked with them to the village. The air was very quiet, "silent as a nun breathless with adoration." As they passed along the road there came an earthy breath from the fresh-turned soil in the fields, where they had been lifting the potatoes and the turnips. It had none of the fresh fruitiness of spring: instead it was redolent with sad suggestions, an atmosphere in which one involuntarily lowered the voice and stilled a laugh. They passed the little graveyard where the virgin bower clematis, already denuded of leaves, garlanded the pickets with brittle, bare, brown branches, softened here and there by the downy whorls of seed. Myron was telling Homer of her wish to leave Jamestown, and asking his advice. He had long felt this to be one possible solution of the position, but there were points that troubled him sorely. It was obvious that the best that could happen to Myron would be the return of the man for whom she had suffered so much. Homer confessed to himself that he had no hope that he would return, but yet had grown very uncertain and humble about his own judgment, and he thought Myron still believed in her betrayer's return. If he should return and Myron be gone? Would that not afford him a somewhat tenable excuse for continued infidelity? Suppose he should return and inquire for Myron Holder in the village? Homer sickened to think of the distorted picture that would then be drawn of her patient life. As has been said, Homer had not a shadow of hope that he would return, but he thought Myron had. Sharpened as Homer's perceptions were by pain and love, they were not yet keen enough to grasp clearly how slight a shred of hope remained of all her brave fabric of belief. He could not understand how much of Myron's faithfulness was due to her own womanhood, how little now to any hope of reparation. He therefore hesitated when, laying everything before him, she asked him to decide. As they neared the village they walked yet more slowly. They had much to say, and since that midsummer night Homer had never entered the cottage door. There seemed to issue from its portals forever a voice calling, "Homer, Homer," a voice whose infinite longings and needs shook his soul with a sense of his own impotency. Little My wearied, and Homer raised him in his arms. So they made their way to the cottage--they two alone, for the child slept, and a strange loneliness lay over the quiet road and empty street. Myron took My within doors, and, coming out, she and Homer paced, side by side, up and down the little centre path. On either side were vegetables and withering grass, and down in the far corner the huge yellow globes of the pumpkins showed solidly through the dusk. "Indeed, Myron dear, it would be easier for you if you went," he said, as they stood together in the shadow of the elm tree; "and later on My might have a happier time. For my part, I would have spoken of it long since, only--only----" He paused, and added in lower tones, "I knew the hope you lived in." She bent toward him and said, very quietly but steadily, "I have no vestige of that hope left, Homer." He looked down at her, an eagerness that strove against repression in his eyes. "No," she continued, "My and I must hold our way alone. Tell me, then, Homer, do you think it would be ever so little easier if we went away from here?" Her eyes held his, pleadingly, and filled with tears. It was one of the rare times when she felt self-pity. "Yes, dear," he said, taking her hands, that fluttered nervously; "yes, we will make it easier--we will find a way for you to leave all this behind. You shall go and lose yourself, so that their prying eyes shall never find you, their itching ears never hear of you, their lying lips have nothing to tell of you--only, Myron, you will never try to hide from me, will you?" "Oh, Homer!" she cried, "I would be lost indeed then. Oh, no! I could not bear to have you forget me." His face lighted in the dusk with a happiness that had long been a stranger--a chastened light, perhaps, when compared with the radiance evoked by his first love, but a steadier flame, lit in the heart, not in the eyes alone. "Well, I will think it all out, Myron; to-morrow will surely find me with a way planned for you. I wish, indeed, that I too could go with you, that I also could find a road out of Jamestown." He said good-night, and turned to go. He was almost at the gate when she ran after him. "Wait a moment, Homer," she called softly; "wait!" He turned quickly. "You know how I think of you?" she asked. "You know you are my only friend--my dear friend--my brother? You know this? Do you think that going away from Jamestown will make up for not seeing you? I am afraid--I--I--I think, Homer, I will stay." Homer gave a little laugh, so sweet these words were to him. "My dear, you shall go away, and yet shall see me too, sometimes. I could not stand it to be without a sight of My and you now and then." She clasped her hands. "Oh, could I see you sometimes? Then think hard to-night, Homer, and find out the way to-morrow." There was another good-night, and they parted. The next day Myron, having been sent to the village by Mrs. Deans, went to the grocery store to buy some things for herself, for it was Saturday, and she did not go to Mrs. Deans' on Sunday. Whilst she stood waiting until Mrs. Wilson was served, My ran in and out of the door, a little, tottering figure, clad in a queerly made blue and white checked pinafore. Mrs. Wilson did her shopping leisurely, discoursing upon the pros and cons of asthma the while, for which she strongly recommended the smoking of cigars made of mullein-leaves. She turned from the counter at length, and, passing Myron Holder with uplifted chin, made her way to the door. It was encumbered with an open barrel of salt mackerel, by which stood little My, balancing slowly back and forth on his uncertain feet, the sun glinting on his yellow head. Mrs. Wilson pushed the little form roughly aside and went out. My swayed and fell, striking his head on the step. Hot anger flushed Myron's cheeks at the incident. She picked up the boy, soothed him with a word or two, and gave him a biscuit from the bag the groceryman was weighing for her. My trotted off to the door, and presently crossed the threshold into the street. Myron Holder was just opening the shiny old purse to pay for her small purchase when a confused sound of shouting and exclamations came to her. Through the hum of voices sounded the thud-thud of flying hoof-beats. Her eyes sought My. He was not there! She and the groceryman reached the door in an instant. The street seemed thronged with people. Mrs. Wilson had just emerged from Mrs. Warner's, and stood with her at the door. Homer Wilson was about to untie his team, that stood before the harness-shop just opposite the grocery store. At the same moment that Myron emerged from the store Homer turned his eyes to the street. He saw and understood what Myron's anguished eyes had perceived at the first glance. In the middle of the sandy street, the biscuit in one hand, the corner of his pinafore in the other, his head shining in the sun which bedazzled his eyes, stood little My. Thundering down the street, almost upon the child already, came Disney's great black horse, its huge head outstretched, its nostrils distended--two glowing scarlet pits--its lips drawn back, exposing the gleaming teeth flecked with blood-stained foam, flinging its forefeet out so madly that the glitter of its shoes could be seen from the front. Shreds of its harness clung to it and lashed it to greater fury. Without a second's hesitation, Myron Holder rushed to her child--to death, as she doubted not. But another form sprang forward also. Homer Wilson darted diagonally across the street until he was directly in the pathway of the horse, but a yard or two beyond My. He had not time to steady himself before the brute was upon him. He grasped at the distended nostrils of the horse, caught them, but in a sliding grip,--the horse reared upright. There came two sounds--of hoofs, striking not on the resonant roadway, but with the horrible echoless blow that falls upon flesh, and then the horse swept on; but only one of his shoes was shining now, the rest were dim with blood and dust. [Illustration: HE HAD NO TIME TO STEADY HIMSELF BEFORE THE BRUTE WAS UPON HIM.] Myron snatched her child out of the way as the horse passed by a hand's breadth, and in a moment she was kneeling by Homer's side. He was dying, but a flicker of life bespoke the want that could only go out with life. She raised his head from the dust and kissed him on the mouth. He opened his eyes; they met hers, and an ineffable and unearthly radiance overspread his face. That was all. He had found his way out of Jamestown. Myron's was still to seek. He was quite dead when the others reached him. His chest was battered in, and the calk of one hind shoe had pierced through the thick brown hair and brought death. "He has outsoared the shadow of our night, Envy, and calumny, and hate, and pain; And that unrest which men miscall delight Can touch him not and torture not again. From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure; and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain." Myron knelt by him, calling his name and imploring him to answer her. Rough hands pushed her aside. She fell, half-dazed. When she came to herself, My was crying by her, and a slow throng was moving towards Homer's wagon, where it stood before the harness-shop. Myron rose and ran after them, but was met by a frightful figure of rage. The mother of the dead man, who had witnessed his death, rushed at her, shrieking out names of which "murderess" was the least hard, and would have struck her, but some one caught the upraised arm and bade Myron, with a curse, be gone. Affrighted and bewildered, she caught up My and fled to the cottage. Homer Wilson was carried in due time to the little graveyard. There followed a great train of slowly moving vehicles, for the Wilson family connection was a large one, and his tragic death drew people to come through morbid curiosity. Mr. Prew preached and prayed at length, and the throng lingered long about the grave. Away behind the stone wall that flanked the far side of the graveyard two figures stood hidden, watching the funeral rites from afar. Myron had been refused admittance to the Wilson home when she had gone to plead for one look at Homer's face. She had been forbidden to enter the graveyard. But they could not prevent her bringing My through the desolate fields to watch with baby eyes the burial of the man who had saved his life. There were many black-clad figures that day in the graveyard--many wet eyes--many lamenting lips; but the real mourners stood afar off, as we are told they did one day long ago when a cross with a living Burden was upreared upon a hill. Mrs. Wilson wept that Homer had been "took unprepared." But who can tell what penitence or prayer purged his soul when, between the hoof-beats, he looked death in the eyes? Who can say there was not time for both plea and pardon in those seconds--if, indeed, there be One to whom prayers go, from whom pardons come--if there be One to whom a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night? Well, all these things are for us to strive with, and few there be that bring back any trophy of truth from that warfare; yet "still we peer beyond with craving face." As for Homer Wilson-- "Peace, peace!--he doth not sleep; He hath awakened from the dream of life." CHAPTER XIX. "The road to death is life, the gate of life is death; We who wake shall sleep, we shall wax who wane. Let us not vex our souls for stoppage of a breath, The fall of a river that turneth not again." "All things are vain that wax and wane, For which we waste our breath; Love only doth not wane and is not vain-- Love only outlives death." The winter set in--a dreary, desolate winter of wind and rain, mud and slush. The snow never lay upon the ground for two days together, and the air, unpurified by frosts, hung heavy and dank over the land. A black New Year makes a green graveyard, says the old proverb; and the wisdom of these old saws was demonstrated yet again that year in Jamestown, for there was much sickness. There was hardly a family that had not lost a member, scarcely a house in which there was no illness. "There's a turrible lot of sickness," said Mrs. Deans to Mrs. Wilson one day at the church door. "Yes, a turrible sight of it," agreed Mrs. Wilson. "The old folks is droppin' fast; but what's an ordinary sickness to what I've bore with?" "That's so," said Mrs. Deans. "But a living sorrow's worse than a dead one, they say; and it's turrible when one's own flesh and blood goes wrong." "Yes," replied Mrs. Wilson; "but it's turrible discouragin' when they're cut down in the midst and no one can say, 'What doest Thou?'" Mrs. Wilson's tone implied that there might be some consolation if she were permitted to "talk back" at the Lord. Mrs. Deans noticed this and said warningly: "Don't murmur; whatever you do, don't murmur; we can't tell what a day may bring forth. Look at me, what I have to put up with--Henry all crippled up and not able to earn salt for his bread. No, don't murmur, whatever you do." "I ain't a-murmuring," said Mrs. Wilson, somewhat aggrieved. "I'm sure it ain't Homer; it's his soul I'm thinking on. Might's well be took off in a fiery chariot as killed the way he was." "Oh, it's discouragin', I'm bound to say it is," condescended Mrs. Deans. "Enough to take the ambition out of one altogether. I suppose you haven't heard about old Mr. Carroll, have you?" "Why, no," said Mrs. Wilson, abruptly suspending the task of sniffling into her handkerchief under pretence of weeping. "Why, no; you don't tell me he's sick?" "Yes, it seems he was taken last night with spasms, and they say he might have died and no one been the wiser; but one of that Dedham tribe he was always feeding up came over to beg something, and there he laid on the floor." "Well, for the land's sake!" ejaculated Mrs. Wilson. "Yes, I'm going over after dinner. I sent Myron Holder over to do what's needed this morning. They say the only words the old man's spoke sence he was took was to tell them to send to town for a doctor." Here Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Deans parted, each joining different groups and spreading the news of Mr. Carroll's seizure. The women resolved to go and see the ins and outs of his house for themselves--sickness is such an admirable excuse for impertinent curiosity to gratify itself. The men speculated as to what would become of his property. There had been a story at the time he bought the property, some hint of family trouble, some whisper that he had "money back of him"--a hazy tale that he had come to hide from some sorrow that pursued him. But all conjecture was so vague that, instead of giving birth to any definite idea, it died away, only to be aroused when the village wondered at some act of generosity upon his part. Old Carroll lived among them quietly--paying his taxes, going his own way and expressing himself freely upon every subject but his own affairs. A week after his seizure he died, and a lawyer's clerk came from town and took possession of the house and charge of the funeral--in very different fashion from what his neighbors expected, for the body was taken away and sent to the great city, which in their eyes typified Babylon with all its sin and splendor. The lawyer's clerk spoke with much deference of the dead man, and signified that the name of Carroll was high in the land; whereat the villagers bethought themselves that they had entertained an angel unawares, and were inclined to accuse the dead man of "doing" them. Mrs. Deans boasted much of the intimacy of her husband with the old soldier, and speedily forgot the latter's impious sneers at foreign missions. The farm was advertised for sale, and Disney bought the land he had so long worked on shares. Disney and his family moved into the empty house. Conjecture and interest gradually died away. In the great city a woman with brittle, dyed hair and simpering lips and powdered throat laughed as, turning over a trunk full of odds and ends packed by the lawyer's clerk, she came upon a miniature set in pearls--laughed and looked at the picture long; but the laugh died as she noted the freshness of the pictured face. Crossing the room, she set the miniature against her own cheek and leaned close to a mirror, comparing the two. And presently she cast the painting from her and fled from the mirror with widened eyes. "I am old--old!" she said. "He is dead, and I am old! It is this room, which is too light--it is glaring--horrible!" And she drew even closer the shades of silk, through which the light shone with a soft roseate glow. Then she searched for and found the picture where it had fallen on a soft rug, and again went to the mirror. But if the dimmer light softened the lines in her face, it gave the pictured face another charm--the soft illusion of mystery and youth. The woman gazed at the dual reflection long until her breath blurred the mirror, so that all was blotted out save the brightness of the gold frame and a pair of wild, questioning eyes. A sharp sob parted her lips, and the mirror was empty. Not long after, this woman was found dead. By her side was an empty bottle, such as they sell poison in, and in her hand was a painting of a beautiful woman framed in gold. Those who found her said the picture resembled her a little. But this was far away from Jamestown, where Myron lived and suffered. That winter was a very busy one for her. Tender of touch, strong of arm, brave of heart, she was an ideal nurse. It is said a great grief has before now made a poet out of what was only a man. Myron's sorrows had changed her from a commonplace woman to a creature of most subtle sympathies. The pleading of pained eyes was eloquent to her, and the curves of dumb lips told her the tale of their sufferings. The touch of her hand brought rest, the pressure of her palms, peace; whilst the infinite sympathy from a heart that had itself been smitten eased those pangs which, keener than any physical anguish, rend those that are near death. But Myron herself reaped no blessing of peace from these duties. What a strange fantasy it is to dream, as many do, that the occupation of nursing is one which heals a hurt heart and reconciles yearning hands to their emptiness! What dreary days did Myron not know! What solemn, silent nights, when alone, she sat at Misery's banquet and supped with Sorrow--with shame, regret, and betrayed trust to hand the dish. "We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs." So some one says; and, reckoning by this higher notation, how many centuries of weariness had not Myron lived? The spring months came, scarce changed in sky from those of winter, only the gathering heat of the sun sent up "sorrow from the ground." Malaria, influenza, and typhoid overspread the country. The whole neighborhood was gloomy. The rain fell day after day. The plough horses splashed through mud, and the furrows filled with water behind the plough. Myron had been working at a cousin's of Mrs. Warner's, whose baby was sick unto death. The child died, and its mother, in the first rebellion of grief, had said to Myron: "'Tain't just--I can't think it is--nor right, neither--for my baby to be taken when there's so many left alive that ain't any use. There's old Humphries, and paralytic Henry Deans, and drunken Ann Lemon--what's the good of them to anybody--it's a shame!" Myron soothed her as well as she could, but she burst forth again: "Fancy my child dead! If it had been that young one of yours, now, there would have been some sense in it--a young one without even a name--that would have been a good riddance--but mine--mine!" For once Myron's very soul was shaken with rage. She turned where she stood, and looked the other woman in the face. "Oh!" she cried, "you wicked, wicked woman!" The words carried all the accusation of outraged motherhood in their tones. The woman shrank back, and Myron, taking her boy, set off to the village. It began to rain before they were half way. Myron's thoughts turned to Homer. She never forgot him for long at a time. It falls to the lot of few to be so sincerely sorrowed for. She and My were both wet through when they reached the cottage, and Myron was very weary with the boy's weight. She lit the fire, and My played about in the kitchen. He was of a peculiarly sunny and equable disposition-- "One of those happy souls Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom The world would smell like what it is--a tomb." Myron was glad when the time came for bed, for she was utterly weary. The old clock on the wall was pointing to one o'clock, when Myron suddenly started up, wide awake. The mother instinct, keener than her other faculties, had awakened her, not the boy. For the strange, low, gurgling sound he made would scarce have aroused the lightest sleeper, and Myron had been sunk in the deep sleep of exhaustion. In a moment she had the lamp alight. The boy lay, his blue eyes wide open, his round cheeks scarlet with the fatal flush of fever, his lips swollen and parted in gasping respirations, his body almost rigid with the efforts he made for breath. One glance showed her this. The next instant she was undoing the little nightdress and shirt. With tremulous haste she placed some goose-grease in a little tin and strove to melt it by holding it over the lamp. The light was weak and wavering. She removed the chimney, and thrust the cup into the flame. Her fingers scorched till the skin cracked; she did not know it. She applied the melted oil and flew to wet his parched lips. The horrible, croupy cough cut her to the heart as it issued from My's swollen throat. She used every remedy her homely skill suggested, some of them efficacious enough often--but little My was dying. His blue eyes were filming; his baby lips twitching; the little hands, that had of late grasped her fingers so firmly as to suggest protection, made wavering, feeble movements toward her face and bosom, or clutched with waning strength at his own tortured throat. She knelt beside the bed. She hardly dared touch the little form before her lest the mother in her, which had grown fierce in her dread, should cause her to clasp it too close. She lifted her voice in prayer, and cried aloud in frightful accents of despair, entreaty, expostulation, nay, even of threatening. No prayer more eloquent of human agony ever beat against deaf skies, yet it was but the repetition of one word--"My--My!" An hour crept by. The flush had deepened on My's cheeks; his eyes were glazed. Once again, in surpassing pain, Myron Holder called aloud her child's name. There came no heavenly answer; but the true little heart, beating so faintly, responded once more to the beloved voice. Little My's eyes cleared a space and his fingers closed round his mother's. "My's mama!" He uttered the alliterative little babble in strange, shackled tones. The woman--his mother--felt a stricture at her throat; she strove in vain to force it down as she answered: "Mama's My." A strange change passed over the little gray face, like a gleam of sunlight on a wintry day--hardly that--like the watery nimbus of the sun through a cloud. It was little My's last smile. "Mama's My," the woman whispered; and, true to his love-taught lesson, My strove to give the answer, "My's mama." The first word was articulate, the last but half-shaped ere the stiffening lips were drawn in the convulsion which ended time for little My. Over him "the eclipsing curse of birth" had lost its power. At daybreak nest morning a messenger knocked long at the door of the Holder cottage. He had been sent in haste to summon Myron back to the house she had left in such anger the day before. Finding he could get no response, he lifted the latch and entered the kitchen. It was empty. There was a strong odor of kerosene oil, and absolute silence reigned. The man crossed the kitchen to an open door, and looking in saw the bedroom. Upon a little table stood a lamp which had evidently burned itself out. The chimney was off, and a great sooty blotch against the wall showed how the wick had smoked. In a chair by the bed sat Myron Holder, her eyes fixed straight before her--her pose rigid--her face pale as that of the dead child she held upon her knees. "What is it, Myron?" he gasped. "He's dead," said Myron, in the hoarse tones of one whose throat muscles are constrained and swollen. The man turned and made for Mrs. Warner's. The cottage soon filled. Myron neither stirred nor spoke. They took the child and prepared it for burial. They told her to eat, and she swallowed the bread and tea they placed before her. All her faculties were benumbed, absorbed in an effort to realize her loss. * * * * * * The little plain coffin was in the kitchen, surrounded by a group of people that filled the room--those who considered it part of a Christian's bounden duty to attend funerals. Mr. Prew, sent for by Mrs. Deans, had just finished his address. Myron, with bare head, and hands clasped on her knees, was seated by the coffin, gazing down at the face there, when there was a sudden stir at the door, and Mrs. Wilson pushed herself through the throng. "Wait!" she said, authoritatively, to Mr. Muir, who was advancing to screw down the coffin-lid. "Wait!" Then she turned to Myron Holder. "Listen to me, Myron Holder," she said. "Is that child my grandson?" "No," said Myron, rising to her feet, and giving a helpless look around at the curious faces about her. "What!" said Mrs. Wilson. "What, you'll lie in the very face of your dead child! Lay your hand on that coffin, Myron Holder, and then tell me if that ain't Homer's son!" Myron sank by the coffin and flung her arms athwart it. "_He is not!_" she cried. Then her long calm gave way, and she began to sob and cry. "He belongs to none of you; he is mine--my own baby--my own child--My--My!" Mrs. Wilson left the house. Mr. Muir put aside the clinging arms and prepared the coffin for burial. Some one led Myron to a wagon and she got in. Mr. Muir was not free from fears when they stopped at the paupers' corner of the graveyard. Myron looked around, half-dazed, when she alighted, and, touched Mr. Muir's arm. "Why here?" she asked, pointing to the open grave. "Why not by father?" "Your grandmother sold the other half of the lot," said Mr. Muir hastily. Mrs. Deans watched the little scene with much inward satisfaction. Myron made no further sign, uttered no other word. The coffin was lowered into the grave. Mr. Prew put up a prayer, in which petitions for the "child of sin" and the "sinful mother" were about equally balanced. The throng departed each to his own place. Old Humphries filled up the grave, and Myron was left alone. The next day she went to Mr. Muir's and inquired how much she owed him. He told her, and to his surprise she paid him at once. Then she set out for town, along dreary country roads, betwixt desolate fields, until she came to the outskirts of the straggling town; through these, until she was absorbed in the hurrying throng that crowded the narrow streets. It was very late when she returned to Jamestown, and as she passed the Deans place she encountered Gamaliel, just returning from some expedition with his bosom friend. "Hullo, Myron; where've you been?" he asked. "I've been to town," said Myron, still in those strange, hard tones, and passed on. There was much speculation as to her errand, which was set at rest when a few days later a wagon entered the little graveyard and the men who came with it proceeded to put up a tiny white tablet at the head of a new-made grave. On it there was carved only one word, and that a short one--MY--a word which in its brevity and meaning was not unsuitable as an inscription over that grave. Myron had spent the last penny of her painful savings in marking the spot where her child lay. "Let grief be her own mistress still. She loveth her own anguish deep More than much pleasure. Let her will Be done--to weep or not to weep." So says the humanest of our poets; but such luxurious grieving is for those who fare delicately and live in kings' courts. Myron Holder had her bread to earn--her feet were tied to the treadmill of toil. So she fared forth on her journey as best she might; and then, and for long after, Jamestown women told how Myron Holder perjured herself with her hand on her dead child's coffin. CHAPTER XX. "When some beloved voice, that was to you Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly, And silence, against which you dare not cry, Aches round you like a strong disease and new-- What hope? What help? What music will undo That silence to your sense?" "I'll tell you, hopeless grief is passionless." It was the season of the half-yearly revival meetings in Jamestown. The little Methodist Church filled rapidly. There was a _soupçon_ of pleasurable excitement about a revival which was very enticing to the youth of Jamestown. Besides, all the "stiddy" young men were expected to go, and they always did what was expected of them. Mrs. Deans came in with the minister, her face, with its self-important expression, irradiated with the glow of spiritual as well as worldly well-being. She had proffered her bid for the company of the officiating ministers in good season, and the first of them had been knocked down to her in consequence, much to the chagrin of the Mesdames White, Wilson, Disney, and the rest, for they knew that the second minister on the list was an old personal friend of Mrs. Deans and would doubtless elect to stay at her house; thus they would have no opportunity to display their pious zeal and forehanded housekeeping. Mrs. Deans' self-complacency was veiled, but not obscured, by an anxious air, as who should say, "I am not free of responsibility if all does not go off well." It is a weakness of such women to consider themselves divinely appointed judges of the souls of their neighbors and friends. The minister with her was pretty well hidden among the cluster of men and women to whom Mrs. Deans was introducing him. She introduced him with discrimination, however. She did not propose giving any one the chance of prefixing a remark with "The other night when I was speaking to Mr. Hardman," or "Mr. Hardman said to me the other day," unless she felt quite sure the recipient of the honor was worthy of it. But to her consternation, Mr. Hardman broke bounds, passed the confines of the little group of important church members, and went out from one to another of the men and women, picking out, with the unerring divination of a man whose heart is in sympathy with the sorrows rather than the joys of mankind, the oldest, most forlorn, most miserable-looking of his prospective hearers. To see the minister thus throwing away the apostolic benediction of his smile upon old Ann Lemon and Clem Humphries whilst Mrs. White stood with uplifted nose in the doorway, unnoticed, was an unholy thing, more particularly as Mrs. White, willing to have her discomfiture shared by some one else, turned to Mrs. Deans with a surprised air, and said: "Why, I thought the minister was with you?" "So he is," Mrs. Deans was fain to avow. "We came a few minutes ago. He is great on missions, I think, and young." The latter half of her sentence was given in the tone of a hostess who excuses a guest. For the rest, it is probable that both ladies regarded his present occupation as distinctly a missionary effort. Presently the minister straightened himself and proceeded up the aisle to the platform. Mrs. Deans' expression changed from an anxious, proprietary one to one of spiritualized commiseration. Was the misguided man actually going to begin service without asking one word about the ordinary routine of services in Jamestown Methodist Church? If so, he would make a fine hash of it. Besides she had not informed him that a collection was to be taken up to defray the cost of extra lighting, etc., and she had promised Mr. White at class-meeting to do so. She had thought of telling Mr. Hardman, but preferred waiting until the minister sought for information before imparting it. His opportunity for that was now past, unless, indeed, he descended from the platform to do so. A pleasing thrill, inspired by this idea, turned to a chill as she saw Mr. Hardman take from his pocket a well-thumbed and shabby little Testament, and, opening it, seem to find a place. Then he laid it down, open, upon the big church Bible, and rose to pray. Mrs. Deans' expression of anxiety was now unalleviated by any spiritual exaltation; it was unvariegated gloom. Any man who could disregard the gilt edges, thick covers, and ornate binding of that book, and leave it closed whilst he read from what her experienced eye told her was a Bible Society Testament that probably cost ten cents, was certainly in need of anxious watching. Nor was it to be supposed that a discourse begun upon lines like these would be productive of much good. How many sermons she had heard rounded off by the banging of those covers together! How many final injunctions had been given a dramatic and artistic interest by the holding of that book, half-open, ready to put a period to the peroration by a sanctified thud! Well--Mrs. Deans sighed audibly. Mr. Hardman began to read in a deep and sympathetic voice. He was a tall man, of twenty-eight, muscularly built, but not brawny; his studies had been too close to admit of that. He had square shoulders, rather higher than they should be, and rounded with the stoop that the scholar and the ploughman share. His hands, as he raised them in infrequent gestures, were seen to be rather broad and short--hands, it would seem, of a mechanic, but not toil-stained. Indeed, their whiteness so ill agreed with their shape that a sense of something incongruous forced itself upon one when looking at them. His hair was almost black, and was tossed and disarranged by his habit of running his fingers through it. His face was pale. His brow was square and overhanging--of the penthouse order, rather forbidding; the brow inherited from a generation of toilers, men who, from their own bleak corner of the world, looked forth at the panorama of life with sombre eyes, intrenching themselves behind a barrier of silent endurance, concealing their weakness, their wants, their hopes and fears, their few joys and pitiful ambitions behind an impenetrable mask, until it would seem that their lineaments adjusted themselves to their mental attitudes; and this, their son, presented to the world this square brow, strong, secret, sad. But its sternness, and alas! a great deal of its strength, was negatived by the eyes which looked out from beneath it. Very dark-gray these eyes were, and made eloquent by the expression of infinite love and sympathy for his kind; but their dilating pupils evidenced an emotional nature, and they were somewhat too soft for a man. Yet, looking in steady kindness at the world, they often seemed fit eyes for a strong, calm soul. But Philip Hardman felt himself neither calm nor strong. As he looked upon the expectant faces of those before him, the doubt which was gnawing at the heart-strings of belief suddenly seemed to grip his own heart and brain and threaten each. He had no message to give these people! What were they there for? Was it not all a myth and a delusion? Was it? Then he broke the spell which held him, and his words rushed forth. His congregation stirred and swayed and yielded--not to persuasion, for of that there was none; not to the minister's personality, for they had forgotten him; not in the hope of reward, for he spoke but of wrath and pitiless requital of sin, and merciless judgment, and endless woe--they yielded to their own fears. For this man was lashing his own soul with the copy-righted invective of his sect, pronouncing against himself and (as in the midst of his mental agony he realized) against all mankind a doom of woe and wrath if they did not believe. He strove to terrify his own soul into the submission it denied, and strove to awaken in the people before him a reflex of the emotion he fain would feel. They responded to his words, but not to his feeling. They wept and abased themselves because of the fear, not because they feared unbelief. Cold drops trickled down Mrs. Deans' face and be-dabbled her second-best bonnet-strings. Mrs. Wilson, grew almost hysterical. Ann Lemon wondered vaguely if she had "the horrors," and held on to the pew with both hands, whilst she looked about her with bewildered, lack-lustre eyes. Clem Humphries sat outwardly unmoved, but inwardly vowing if he "once got out of this he'd never be wheedled into a revival meeting again." The younger men thought revival meetings "no slouch," as Gamaliel Deans expressed it; and, comparing the excitement with that of a cock-fight he had attended _sub rosa_ in the old brewery, he decided in favor of the revival. The minister's voice failed and faltered. Like all magnetic natures, his exhausted itself. He paused, looked at the men and women before him, and, realizing the shallowness of their facile emotions, felt the pall of self-disgust envelop his soul. A horrible contempt for himself and them, even for the religion that had inspired this mental debauch, overwhelmed him. He shuddered as he realized the impiousness of his own thought, left the platform, went swiftly down the aisle and out into the darkness. Mr. White closed the meeting, and prayed enthusiastically for the "young brother who had so awakened them," and ended amid a chorus of ejaculations. Mrs. Deans, finding herself so agreeably disappointed, went home content. She wished to-morrow night were come. What crises of emotion might not be expected then! She found Mr. Hardman pacing the veranda slowly, his brow bare to the stars; his frame was relaxed and weary, his eyes tired. He refused any refreshment, and long into the night Mrs. Deans heard him pacing back and forth. * * * * * * Another night had come, and Philip Hardman was again to stand before an assembly of his fellows and voice the truths they held eternal. Mrs. Deans had no doubts now as to his competency. She anticipated an exciting struggle with spiritual foes, and the better to gird herself for the fray, went early, leaving Mr. Hardman to follow. She felt this implied a delicate compliment to the preacher, recognizing in it a simulacrum of John the Baptist's mission in the wilderness. So Philip Hardman was left to walk the mile from the Deans farm-house to the village alone. It was evening--late evening in summer. The air was filled with that indefinite, receptive murmur the earth gives forth as it opens its pores to the dew. Without wind, there was yet a sense of motion in the atmosphere, at once calming and exhilarating. It brought a keen sense of the fact that the world is rushing through space, with its puny burden of men and their works. The sun had set, but the western sky was radiant with an amber afterglow, against which the tree-tops in Mr. Deans' woodland showed a mass of dark, billowy green, the light behind them intensifying the depth of their color, so that they showed sombrely against the sky. Before him stretched the dusty road, the grass at either side parched by the heat; now and then a maple overshadowed him; now and then he startled nested birds from out the low-growing trees of the wild plum. He walked swiftly, the grasshoppers and little whirring insects and dragon-flies flitting about his path. At a turn in the road, where Mr. Deans' land joined Mr. White's, was wedged in the little cemetery of Jamestown. It was fenced with sharp-pointed palings, over which the native virgin bower clematis clung in feathery festoons, just blossoming out in fragile greenish-white flowers. Within, he saw the untidy graves and inebriated gravestones of a country churchyard. Those slanting stones and graves, almost obliterated by masses of periwinkle and white-leaved balm and ribbon grass, appealed to him strongly. He looked at his watch. He had started in fair time, but, lost in thought, had walked very quickly. He had time to linger a few minutes here. Perhaps amid the graves of Jamestown's dead he might learn the open sesame to the hearts of the living. He entered through a gap in the palings, pushing his way through a little thicket of thorny locust bushes that had sprung up in a scattered cluster. The graves were nearly all marked by gravestones. In Jamestown it was considered a mark of respectability to erect a memorial to one's dead, but this done, all care for their graves ceased. Philip Hardman wandered about, noting the weather-beaten grayness of the older stones and reading their inscriptions almost mechanically. One broad, thin slab, with a weeping-willow sculptured upon it, bore a legend in memory of "Amelia Warner, beloved wife of Josiah Warner, aged sixteen years." Poor little wife! In the fifty years of her rest her grave had sunken almost level with the path; the lichen on the stone was striving to obliterate her name there, even as it had been long ago forgotten upon earth. A wild hawthorn bush was springing from under one corner of her tombstone and tilting it over perilously. Some of the more recent graves had odd little jingles of original rhyme carven upon their stones. One, of but a year before, bore the brief prayer, too human for its glistening coldness, "Meet me in Heaven." Hardman read the name on this grave with a little start--"Jennie Best, wife of William Best." Yesterday Mrs. Deans had pointed out William Best and his new-made bride. How futile and absurd the little legend seemed! But Jennie Best slept as securely and as sweetly as though her husband still cherished in his inmost heart these last words of hers and walked as though he hoped to realize them, instead of writing them upon her tombstone and marrying within a year of her death. There were graves of old and young in this little churchyard--men and women, boys and girls, infants of days, and men of many years. Beneath one stone slept seven friends, who "perished in the yacht _Foam_ off the coast"--a narrow space, truly, for seven to occupy, set in this out-of-the-way village; seven such as these who had hoped to fill great places in the world before their lives were laughed out by the little ripples of the lake. The shadows lengthened. Gleaming through the dusk, Hardman noticed a white stone with gilt lettering. "Homer Wilson" was the name it bore, but it meant nothing to the preacher; only he sighed as he noted the age of the man sleeping there, and a half-envious thought crossed him, as he looked around, that "these had completed their journey." Philip Hardman turned his steps to the road again, but he paused yet once more. Close under the shadow of the high stone wall which bounded the graveyard on the village side, he almost stumbled over a woman's figure, which, in the deepening gloom, he had not observed. She was almost prone beside a little mound whereon the sods had not yet taken root. The woman's arms were outstretched toward the grave--almost embraced it. Her whole attitude spoke eloquently of a hopeless and passive despair. Hardman stopped a moment irresolutely; she had not observed him. "You are in great trouble," he said, bending down and touching her shoulder. "Yes," she answered, raising her head without a start. "Yes." Her voice was painfully constrained. The words seemed to issue with difficulty, and the tones were harsh. Speech seemed strangely dissonant with the hour and place. Her mute despair seemed the only fitting emotion for the scene. Her eyes, from out a pallid face, looked up at him, filmed by misery. Her cheeks were hollowed in delicate shadows. Her pale lips drooped. She seemed the Mourning Spirit of the place. "Come and pray," he said, looking at her with infinite pity in his kind eyes. "Come," he urged. He waited for her reply, but none came. She was sitting by the grave now, her hands locked round her knees, her eyes looking hungrily into vacancy and seeing neither hope nor recompense for her pain. A bat held its angled flight past them. He roused himself to a sense of time. He looked down upon the woman at his feet, an expression of ineffable compassion lit his face; then he turned to go. As his eyes left that pallid face the scene seemed to darken suddenly. He realized the lateness of the hour, and, finding his way out of the graveyard, strode rapidly to the church. After all, he was in time--indeed, had a few minutes to spare. He did not, however, again shock Mrs. Deans by a promiscuous friendliness. He went straight to the platform and sat down behind the reading-desk. His thoughts reverted to the woman whom he had just seen, and he felt he ought to have made a more eloquent appeal to her to come to church. Mental habit led him to decide at once that prayer was the only efficacious cure for grief such as hers. It was thus with this man always. In calm moments, when all went well with him, he strove to elucidate those problems of reason and right which presented themselves to him in season and out of season--strove to live a life of austere truth without factitious aid of self-delusion, without hope of ultimate reward. But in times of distress or pain, whether his own or others', he turned again to his old beliefs, and prayer appealed to him as the only panacea. Orthodox folk plead this as a triumphant and sure vindication of the truth of their creeds. It may be in some cases, but in Philip Hardman's it was only the result of inherent weakness of will and vacillating decision, and, alas! a cowardly shrinking from mental torture. Face to face with grief such as this woman's, he could not bear to look the inevitability of such bereavements in the face; could not endure to think of the irreparable loss of a vanished life; could not calmly recognize one single instance of what he was ever mourning over--the sadness and futility of life. He must hallow each blow as a "merciful dispensation;" muffle it from prying eyes with the tabooed veil of "sacred predestination"; set it beyond close scrutiny by asserting to himself the impiety of questioning "divine will"; and at such times the beauty of his solacing faith lit in his soul fresh fervor for the cause. For a few moments Philip Hardman sat motionless. The hands of the clock reached the hour for service to begin. His audience settled themselves in the pews and stilled themselves to attention. Mrs. Deans ostentatiously ceased her whispered remarks to Mrs. Wilson, straightened herself in her seat, looked about with a critical and judicial eye, and then, convinced that all was well, hemmed several times expectantly. Philip Hardman rose, and, in brief words, asked for Divine guidance through the service. He ceased. The bowed heads were raised. He was about to begin the reading of the Scriptures, when, silently, slowly, Myron Holder entered the open door and, advancing only to the nearest seat, which happened to be in the farthest back pew, sat down. So quiet were her movements that, save by a few of the young men who had taken the rear seats the better to observe the antics of the elect, she was unobserved. Philip Hardman, however, had seen her. He changed his intention of reading, and announced a hymn instead. He wanted a few minutes to familiarize himself with that tragic face before attempting to utter any message of love or hope to the woman who had thus obeyed his suggestion. While the singing went on he looked at his audience, and, in a flash, their narrow, sordid, often miserable lives seemed revealed to him. These were the people he had lashed with spiritual fears the night before. As he recalled it, his heart smote him with terrible reproach. His eyes grew dim as he looked at the people before him and saw, shining through their midst, the pallid face of Myron Holder. By what strange chance had this woman come to Jamestown? For he decided at once she was no native of the village. The purely cut, martyr face; the broad brow, sensitive lips, and cameo-like nostrils were too utterly unlike the other faces in the church to be for one moment associated with them. There came to him a fantastic thought, that this woman was sent to bear the griefs of this village, even as One long since--the Carpenter's Son--had borne the griefs of the world and become a "Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief." But alas! this woman had no divine message to give; instead, she was wandering in the wilderness of hopeless despair. But--and Hardman's hand tightened on his Testament--a message she should have. "Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee. Leave, oh, leave me not alone! Oh, protect and comfort me!" So they sang. Philip Hardman found his place-- "All my hopes on Thee are stayed, All my wants to Thee I bring; Cover my defenceless head With the shadow of Thy wing." Rapt in an infinite sorrow for his kind--inspired by the need of this woman of help--exalted by the dependence and confidence expressed in the hymned words--seeing in all his audience but one pallid face--Philip Hardman rose to speak. This choosing of a subject upon the spur of the moment, to meet the needs of one woman, was no disadvantage to him, for he was a fluent and ready speaker, and his whole training had been that spontaneity was absolutely essential. He had none of the measured method that develops a subject into "three heads and an application." The evangelistic sect to which he belonged abjures notes, and hops along to the halting cadence of a quasi-inspiration. Happily, however, it has now and then a man like Philip Hardman, whose words flow freely forth, and never so eloquently as when heart and sympathies are touched. Hardman was never at a loss for words of his own to translate his feelings into language; but this night his sermon was but the enunciation of a sweet and comforting doctrine uttered in the language of the Book which has preserved it. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," he said, and held out as a free gift the inestimable boon of peace. "I will not leave you comfortless," uttered in his vibrant tones, bore the assurance of divinest aid. "Let not your heart be troubled," he voiced as a sacred command to cease from grief, and then the general invitation, "Let whosoever will drink of the water of life freely." With these words as a thesis, a human heart to be comforted, a soul alight with belief and confidence, a rare natural eloquence to frame his plea--was there any wonder that the sermon was effective, any wonder that to the weary heart of the listening woman it appealed almost irresistibly? Perhaps Philip Hardman dwelt too exclusively upon the blessings of his religion, ignored too utterly the thorn in the crown--offered it too freely, avowed it too confidently. But what will you? Even the greatest purists in religions faith find it hard to disabuse their minds of the idea that martyrdom means and merits the Kingdom, and Philip Hardman's theology was not of the sternest sort. He felt, somehow, that this woman had suffered enough to win Heaven, whether she merited it in other respects or not. So he set himself to present his faith to her in the most glowing aspect, always seconding his message with his eyes. Just as Philip Hardman saw but one face in his audience, so Myron Holder was, after the first few moments, unconscious of any other presence save his. Her eyes had won a straight path to his face between the heads and shoulders, and her gaze never faltered. There was a tall, white-shaded lamp on each side of the desk. As she looked, his figure, in strong relief against the light-blue background of the walls, seemed to absorb and radiate the light. It was simply an ordinary optical effect, and Myron Holder herself recognized vaguely that it was "only the light," and yet that pale irradiation around his head seemed to add a dignity and sanctity to the man and lend his utterance a deeper, higher import. Her eyes never left his face--that kind, weak face, so full of contradictions, whose beetling brow seemed ready to do battle for his Faith, whose lips quivered with the feeling in his own voice. Her eyes were hot and dilated from the long strain when, with hands upraised above the standing people, he uttered the benediction, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Amen." Philip Hardman descended from the platform and strove to make his way toward Myron, but he was hemmed in by outstretched hands, and had to make his way slowly through a throng, all eager to say "Good-bye," for he left on the morrow. Myron was just stepping out of the shelter of the porch when he overtook her. He held out his hand, which she took, her own toil-hardened one trembling in the clasp of his softer fingers. He looked down at her and spoke with great gentleness: "Did you take the message I gave you to-night?" "Is it for me?" she asked. "Surely," he answered. "You do not know me; you cannot tell. If you knew"---- "Whosoever will," he replied, with steady emphasis. And in his heart he marvelled at the humbleness of this woman, whose candid brow and clear eyes bespoke her life. Then, the man mingling with the priest in him, he continued, still more gently: "The message is even to the greatest sinner. To see you is to know you have the right of one of the least." She put up two hands, clasped in miserable deprecation; her cheeks flamed red an instant, then paled to a ghastly white; she turned silently, and swiftly went down two steps of the broad entrance stair; then pausing and looking back at him with a gaze such as one might fix upon the flames before he steps into them, she said clearly: "Ask Mrs. Deans who Myron Holder is!" She slipped away, the gloom of the unlighted street absorbing her figure, as though it gathered to itself its righteous belonging. CHAPTER XXI. "We are the voices of the wandering wind, Which seek for quiet, and quiet can never find. Lo! as the wind is, so is mortal life-- A moan, a sob, a sigh, a storm, a strife." Next morning Philip Hardman left Mrs. Deans' early. He was leaving by the first train from the little flag station which was at the far end of the village; besides, he was determined to see Myron Holder. Mrs. Deans had endeavored to dissuade him from this, but he was firm, and, recognizing this, Mrs. Deans suggested that she accompany him upon his mission; but he stated gently, but firmly, that he could achieve better results alone. Mrs. Deans felt bitterly aggrieved at being treated thus, for behind his gentle words she read a settled determination "to keep her out of it," as she phrased it to herself. She bade him good-bye, however, with well-affected geniality, as he stood upon her doorstep; but the shallow smile died very soon, and a malevolent expression replaced it upon her fat features. "I'll speak to Brother Fletcher about this," she said. "That Hardman is sorely puffed up in his own conceit and vainglorious! Well, by himself he can do nothing," she concluded, piously. But whether it was the absence of the Lord or herself from Hardman's side that was going to militate against his success she left undetermined. There might also have been some doubt in the mind of the impartial hearer as to whether she was glad or sorry that his mission was likely to be a failure. Certainly her tone was not indicative of any great grief. She betook herself indoors, and set about preparing a fresh supply of country dainties for the Reverend Fletcher. Philip Hardman's face changed also after he turned it from Mrs. Deans' self-contented countenance, and the new expression was not far removed from one of disgusted contempt; and, it must be confessed, a somewhat sneering bitterness made his keen eyes sombre. He had asked Mrs. Deans the night before who Myron Holder was, and had been told--told! but in such a fashion! Mrs. Deans' evil words still stung his heart with shame for his kind. He felt as though one had smitten his lips with nettles. And the pious speeches with which Mrs. Deans had besprent her tale--bah! It was like sprinkling a weak disinfectant over a heap of filth. It was indeed the "poison of asps" to hear Scripture--nay, the very words of his Master--so defiled. Well, Hardman compressed his lips and hurried on. The morning was sweet and calm, the "shoreless air" very clear and still, and, little by little, his spirit attuned itself to the hour; shred by shred, the mantle of bitterness, fell from him. The memories of the evening mingled with the hopes of the morning, into a draught that was very sweet to him. When he reached the cottage door his eyes were exalted, his lips calm, his heart confident. The door was open, and through it he saw a bare room, the walls stained a deep yellow with ochre; a carpetless floor, comfortless but clean; a square table, with a coarse white cloth covering it, stood in the middle of the room; upon it was some food. Myron sat there alone, but there was another plate laid, beside which stood a battered tin mug. All this he took in at a glance, and then his eyes fastened upon the woman's face. She was as yet unconscious of his presence. She sat at the table in such position that the profile of her face was outlined sharply against the bright yellow of the walls. Her face, as he beheld it thus for the first time in clear daylight, struck him with swift remembrance of an exquisite picture he had once seen, a meek-mouthed Madonna painted on a bright brass plaque. There was the same pose of head, the same heavy knot of nut-brown hair, the same outward sweep of the lashes from the same drooped lids, the same exquisite line where the cheek softened to the throat. But, alas! there was no heavenly nimbus round this living head, no holy glow of happy maternity, no pure halo of womanhood. [Illustration: A MEEK-MOUTHED MADONNA.] At that moment Myron turned towards the doorway, and, as her eyes met his, his imagination suddenly supplied the aureole that before she seemed to lack, and, in completion of the picture, a stray line or two of poetry came back to him with all the happy force of applicability: "Eh, sweet, You have the eyes men choose to paint, you know; And just that soft turn in the little throat, And bluish color in the lower lid, They make saints with." He started as he realized that he was comparing the Madonna to this unblest mother--an ideal of saintly beauty to this sinning one. But all in an instant there came to him a swift certainty that this was not the face of an evil woman. This woman bore in her countenance the indelible lines of pain and suffering, the ineffaceable traces of bodily and mental anguish. She had been bowed beneath the burden of woman's inalienable heritage of agony, had lived through the Gethsemane of childbirth and won to the heights of motherhood's Golgotha--a child's grave. But in all this, remember, there is nothing vile; it is only infinitely pitiful. Whilst he gazed and thought these things swiftly, she had risen from her place and stood with clasped hands and down-bent head--so like a prisoner awaiting sentence that he felt a great throb of pity. He took a step forward and held out his hand. "I am going to the train," he said; "but I came away early, that I might see you." "You are very good," she faltered; "but"--she hesitated. "But what?" he urged gently, holding both her hands and looking down at her. "Do you know who I am?" she asked. "Yes," he answered, "I know everything." "You asked Mrs. Deans!" she said in an incredulous voice. He flushed at the tone. It told so clearly that she fully understood what Mrs. Deans would say; and somehow it seemed to link him with Mrs. Deans, as if he and that worthy woman stood on one side of a river and Myron Holder alone on the other. He could not bear that. "Yes, but I always judge for myself," he said quickly. "Oh!" she said. "You are----" She stopped, but gave the note of those swift glances of ineffable gratitude that had so often stirred Homer's heart. And, looking at her thus, Hardman forgave her everything, "for Love pardons the unpardonable past;" and this man from that moment loved her, although he did not yet know it. "Your child was very dear to you," he said, glancing at the table, where the two plates stood, although there was but one to sit at the board. "Ah, so dear!" she answered. Then, after a moment's pause, she went on swiftly: "Oh, you can understand what it was--surely you can see--you are so good! He was everything to me, absolutely everything! The thought of him kept me from greater sin! I was nearly blind with weariness, and the way was getting dimmer and dimmer to my eyes; but his laugh showed me where the right road lay, and, when I found it again, his steps kept me company! Oh, can you think what it is to see the only creature--the only living thing in all the world--that loves you--die?" She looked at him, an interrogation so poignant as to be imperative in her eyes. "Yes," he said, "we are two lonely souls, Myron. In all the wide earth there is none who cares whether I live or die." "I am so sorry," she said. "Only, you are so good you can have friends for the seeking. As for me, I am not fit to be any one's friend. I had one friend here, but he is dead too"--she added the last sentence with a strange, swift sense of justice. Even though Homer was dead, she could not bear that he be classed with those others who had been so cruel. "Yes," answered Hardman, "I heard of him." "Did she tell you that he died to save My's life?" she asked. "Yes, she told me," he answered. There was a pause, then Myron said: "It was so good of you to come!" He noticed the harsh tones of her voice. "Have you a sore throat?" he asked. "No," she said; "but my child died of suffocation. His throat was swollen with inflammation and croup, and when he tried to speak to me his voice was hard, like mine is now. It made my own throat ache; and ever since, the pain has been there and I have spoken in this way." Thus, simply, Myron told of that marvel, that extraordinary instance of the power of Love. For this was indeed so. In Myron's case had been made manifest one of those marvellous mysteries of the human mechanism that now and again thrills the scientist with a burning zeal to discover the real relation between mind and matter, to enter the penetralia of humanity and learn its secret. That desolate night in the cottage the mother-heart apprehended each pang of the choking child, and the mother endured in her own organism a like agony. How sad to think she had no Divine license to do so! How strange that such a love should spring from shame! Hardman's mind grasped the significance of her words upon the instant. For a moment the realization of this woman's strength held him silent. Then he remembered her loneliness and bent towards her. "Myron," he said, "will you be my friend?" "Oh, do you mean it?" she asked, breathlessly. "Assuredly," he said. Then once more Myron gave her hands as a seal of friendship. There was only a short time left after that--a few moments of earnest prayer from Philip Hardman--a few words asking her to go to the rest of the meetings--a brief promise from her and briefer acknowledgments of his goodness faltering between her sobs--then Hardman had said good-bye, and his form was already vanishing from sight before Myron realized that she was once more alone. Philip Hardman hurried to the station and caught his train. The first stage of his journey was short, only some fifty miles to the city, where he was to meet the Reverend Mr. Fletcher. He found him at the depot, ready to go to Jamestown. In a few hurried words Hardman told him of Myron Holder--of her sin--her punishment--her sorrow. He commended her to Mr. Fletcher's prayers, and asked him to preach so that her diffident heart might find some message in his words. Mr. Fletcher promised, and expressed with some little emphasis a hope that Hardman's own labors might be blest. Then he departed. His train was just pulling out when Hardman ran up to the open window, by which Mr. Fletcher had settled himself. "You'll be gentle with her, Brother Fletcher? She is indeed a bruised reed." There was no time for answer. Mr. Hardman did not witness the scorn with which this advice--no entreaty--was received. He stood looking after the swiftly vanishing train somewhat sadly; then, rousing himself, went to find out about the train that was to take him to his new charge. Philip Hardman's father had been a mechanic, a life-long worker in one of those sooty, befouling foundries where the great furnaces gleam like so many mouths of the Pit--where all day long there is the roar of flames, the blast of hot air, the clang of metal, the heat of Hades, the hiss of molten iron, the angry flight of sparks struck from huge anvils; all the haste and fury and dumb-brutish endurance of men working at the top notch of physical exertion, rushing hither and thither like demons before the fires, or clad in grotesque masks and armor, turning great masses of glowing, cooling metal so that the steam-hammers may forge them into shape. In this atmosphere Philip Hardman's father had spent all his life since he was a little lad, carrying water to the workers--water in which flying sparks quenched themselves, hissing. It would be no wonder if from a race of fathers, such as these blackened workers, gnome-like children were to be born, all action and no thought; swift, tireless, inhuman. But these men, darting about in the glare of the dusky fires, like devil-ridden spectres, had, some of them, time for thought. Indeed, the man who moves unmoved amid these masses of incarnate heat, steps over and around streams of liquid fire, watches those infernal lakes, plumbago-shored, which one single drop of water converts into death-dealing volcanoes, and stands beside a torrent of molten iron as it flows from the crucible, ready to dam its resistless tide on the instant, may well be credited with capacity, if not time, for thought. To Philip Hardman's father during those long, hot hours of breathless haste there came ideas--distorted, meagre, and ill-developed, perhaps--which, when he left the works at night, pallid-faced beneath the grime, still bore him company: nebulous visions of great labor-saving devices by which men forever would be exempt from the dreadful toil that scorched both soul and body. There was many a rich germ dormant in these ideas of his, but lacking the cohesion of long, uninterrupted thought, and wanting the quickening of accurate knowledge. For there lay Philip Hardman's great stumbling-block. To perfect his inventions, he required a knowledge of chemicals and of different forces and their application, and an insight into the cause of the effects he wished to produce. How blindly, painfully and heart-brokenly he toiled after this knowledge no one ever fully appreciated. His son, long years after his death, realized it in some fashion. He did not ask assistance of any one, for he feared, with the traditional dread of the inventor, lest the one from whom he sought advice should steal his idea. He saved, to buy books that were useless to him, and pored over their misleading pages with eyes from which all moisture seemed scorched away, until the very eyeballs themselves felt hot and hard; but he kept them painfully fastened upon those pages from which he strove to wrest a secret they did not hold, to learn those things which would enable him to set free forever his fellows from the necessity of enduring that soul-baking heat. Perhaps his invention, even if perfected, would not have compassed all he dreamed it would, for he was prone to endow it almost with thinking as well as executive powers, and to think of it as animated by a great zeal for mankind as, with its nerveless phalanges, it performed those awful tasks. Perhaps there may be greater ideals than the thought of setting men free from one of the most terrible and exhaustive forms of labor; but none knew better than this man the terrors of heat, none understood more clearly how the mind narrowed as the body shrank before the stifling blasts. And, after all, if we all set ourselves to alleviate the special misery we understand, there would be fewer misshapen lives in the world. Well-- "How many a vulgar Cato has compelled His energies, no longer tameless then, To mould a pin, or fabricate a nail!" Philip Hardman's mother was a woman of a hysteric nature, who scarcely thought enough of this world to make her husband and children comfortable in it. The children were narrow-chested, weak little creatures. They heard from her lips terrible tales of the wrath to come, couched in symbolism they well understood, for their father worked daily amid just such scenes as their mother depicted the abode of the damned to be. The parallel between the Hades her words pictured forth and her husband's life never struck Mrs. Hardman. Even when her husband died--going to his grave a broken-hearted man, barren of achievement, leaving not one labor-saving device, not one little bolt or wheel called by his name--she did not regret or realize the hard life he had had, nor think she might have made it easier. She only tortured herself daily by wondering if she had sufficiently represented to him his lost condition. It is to be feared that she was more interested in convincing herself that she was free of responsibility than that he was saved. In time, however, she began to feel that she had done her best, and, feeling it would be too much like "them Catholics" to pray for the soul of a dead man, she turned all her attention to her own. Doubtless she was right; and yet, is it not a beautiful myth to think that prayer from a loving heart may benefit those we love, even if they have passed "beyond these voices"? If we must needs pick and choose delusions, why not take those unselfish ones, so beautiful, if inutile? Is it not an idea really worthy of a Divinity to think that by our self-flagellations our loved ones may be freed from stripes? Are there not some of us who would gladly thus requite debts of incalculable benefits received--some of us who would dare accept even a Hell to know our loved one had a Heaven? Philip Hardman's father had belonged to various insurance societies, such as workmen form for mutual benefit. It would have sufficed to keep life in all the children until such time as they became self-supporting; but one by one they died, until only Philip was left. He worked in the "pattern-shop" in the works until he was twenty, when his mother died. Then he took the residue of his father's insurance money and his own savings and went to school. It is not strange that he should choose the ministry. He had inherited all his father's love for his kind and much of his mother's fervor of purpose, added to which he had his own birthright of lofty idealism; but he had also something of the weaknesses of both parents. His mother's instability clung to him and made him vacillating, and the secrecy of his father in regard to his inventions survived in him under the guise of habitual reticence. He was deeply impressed with the sadness of life, and thought he saw in religion the one panacea for pain. Besides, he too wished to flee from the wrath to come. He had been preaching some seven years when he visited Jamestown, and during that time he had bitten through to the ashes more than once. The fruit he held against his lips was losing even its fair seeming. His charges were always amid the poor, and he was beginning to rebel against a doctrine that accused a Divine Being of all the cruelties life holds. "The poor have the Gospel preached to them" he had once looked upon as the expression of Divine benefaction; now it struck him as being redolent of a peculiar and brutal sarcasm. Philip Hardman had all his life thought of his religion as only true when environed in an atmosphere of severity. One day, just after a tumult of doubt and a corresponding influx of faith and confidence, he went into a Roman Catholic cathedral. The exact reason for this is hard to divine. Perhaps it may have been some mad thought of attacking Rome in her own citadel. At any rate, he went in and sat down, looking about him with righteous contempt at the "idolatrous images" in their carven niches. His religious dreams had ever been barren of that ecstasy which springs from the grandeur and dignity of gorgeous ceremonials, sonorous chanting, vibrating music. He had never experienced the breathless hush of suspense between the intoned invocation of priests and the thrilling choral response. He had never, at the clear-tongued ringing of a bell, let fall his head and abased his spirit. But now he experienced an emotion such as possessed the monks of the Rosy Cross, when to their fervid vision the stony walls of their cells parted and disclosed vistas of heavenly beauty. He adored with the fervor of the true fanatic The Church--saw her for the first time in the light of a beautiful mistress, to be worshipped alone--for herself--her beauty--her charm--her power. Philip Hardman left the cathedral, his eyes kindled, his step light. He had had doubts of his love, but they were all gone now. He had been dwelling apart from her; he had but heard echoes of her voice; he had never seen her as he should have seen her, at home--mystical, with dim, subdued and vaporous light, clad in gorgeous vestments; incensed with heavenly odors, irradiate with a hundred colors as the sunlight fell through the painted windows and the altar lights smote answering flames from the gold of the altar; served by humble servitors made holy by their service. He had regarded her as a poor bride, without a wedding garment, chilled by the cold breath of the world, abashed by the insulting sneers of the ungodly. He now beheld her as she was, a Queen upon a throne, in all the regal magnificence of her regal state. He was no longer the cherisher of a feeble flame, striving to make it shine in darkness; he was an humble slave of a great lamp, blessed if the farthest-reaching rays from the sacred centre of light shone upon his unworthy head or gilded his outstretched hands. He had thought of his creed pitifully as a "torn leaf out of an old book trampled in the dirt." There was none of that here--no apology--no plea; there was only a triumphant pæan of a glorious creed, a sad mourning over those that were without it. This spiritual exaltation working upon his eager nature imparted to him a physical stimulus exhilarating and strange. He strode along vigorously. He felt that he was "strong and fleet" in spirit, mind, and body. He walked on; the day waned; distinct thought had long since departed. His mood, which in an Oriental would have induced the coma of the hasheesh eater, prompted him hazily to form great plans for the good of his kind. The good of his kind? No, the glory of The Church. He followed few of these plans to any conclusion. They ended as they had begun, in nebulous imaginings of glory. And, as glory is easily transferable from the worshipped to the worshipper, the ending of his dreams included a cloud of incense to himself--the incense of approval, admiration, and the sweet savor of self-inflicted martyrdom. He walked on, pitiably unaware of the St. Simeon Stylites attitude he had assumed. Night dimmed down; the wind rose, dead elm leaves were blown across his path, rustling under foot. The night wind, chill with first frosts, aroused him with a shiver to remember where he was. He found himself in the country; long vistas of barren fields stretched out before him a dreary panorama. The gray sky was darkened by crows flying silently towards their nightly roosts. He passed pools of lifeless water, choked with sodden leaves. A laborer slouched by--a laborer from the railway going home, content because he had earned double pay for a Sunday's work. The odor of decaying vegetables somewhere near struck painfully upon Hardman's senses. This, he thought, with disgust, was the odor of nature--of the world. The night suddenly dropped down from the clouds, and the darkness urged him to seek shelter. He approached a cottage he observed dimly, finding his way to it up an uneven lane bordered by a fantastic fence of uprooted stumps, whose ragged branch-like roots, twisted and distorted, stood out in solid black masses against the insubstantial mist of the night. He shuddered. It seemed to his supersensitive fancy that these grotesque shapes were huge simulacra of the animalculæ that the microscope discovers in water. His muscles shrank as he imagined these huge shapes, unseen but not unseeing, writhing through the air, flourishing their weird forms over and around his head, embracing him with their elastic antennas and moving with him encircled in their horrible, impalpable embrace. With what devilish skill they swept nearer and nearer to him, avoiding him by a hair's breadth, and perceiving how his spirit shrank from their approach! He gazed up into the night, striving to see there the dreadful shapes his fancy had woven into a Dante-like vision. The side glimpses his eyes held of the fantastic forms of the roots projected themselves upon the curtains of the night before him. His breath quickened; he felt stifled; he withdrew his gaze from the clouds and fastened it upon his path, which, to his distorted fancy, seemed to contract until it narrowed down to an impassable barrier of threatening, twining arms. He stumbled on. As he staggered across the threshold of the cottage he brushed through a mass of dried, sweet grass, cut down and left to wither in the pathway. Its snuff-like odor brought back the incense of the afternoon. With a strong revulsion of feeling, he threw off alike the sensuous charm of the odor and the horrid phantasmagoria that his imagination had conjured up. He knocked at the door, feeling a self-disgust that amounted almost to physical nausea. Philip Hardman after this was especially bitter in his sermons against Rome--her priests--her altars--her incense--her teachings. He regarded himself as having escaped, hardly by the skin of his teeth, from the clutches of the Scarlet Woman that sitteth upon the Seven Hills, and besought his hearers oft, with all his own peculiar eloquence, to keep themselves withdrawn from the temptations of Rome, of which, he avowed almost with tears, he had felt the power. This experience has no bearing upon the story of Myron Holder, save inasmuch as it indicates the emotional instability of Philip Hardman. Poor Myron! CHAPTER XXII. "Behold, we know not anything! I can but trust that good shall fall At last--far off--at last, to all; And every winter change to spring." "O Wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?" Mr. Fletcher arrived in Jamestown in due time and was met at the station by Mrs. Deans. Hardly had they started upon their drive to Mrs. Deans' before Mr. Fletcher inquired about Myron Holder. Mrs. Deans launched forth eloquently, and Mr. Fletcher was soon in possession of the same facts and fancies concerning Myron Holder as Philip Hardman had been deluged with; but the Reverend Fletcher viewed the recital differently. He regarded Mrs. Deans' indignation as being the natural feeling of a good woman toward a bad one, and saw in this drawing away of the skirts nothing derogatory to Mrs. Deans' womanhood. The church was filled that evening, and many eyes watched the door eagerly, for the probable appearance of Myron Holder had been a much discussed theme that day. Many of them had missed seeing her the night before, but there certainly was no danger that the like would occur again. The Reverend Mr. Fletcher entered with his hostess, and, like the clever church diplomat that he was, spoke to the class-leaders and the elect, and smiled benignly but condescendingly upon the lesser lights, and then proceeded, without further parley, to the platform. He was a hard-faced man, with hawk-like features, coarsened by wind and weather; keen, hard eyes, wherein passion had left its light but not its warmth; strong, square jaws, that indicated at once the tenacity and stubbornness of the man. The Reverend Fletcher was indeed a good specimen of the evangelist who goes forth with the Sword of the Smiter rather than the Balm of the Healer. There was no fear of his beguiling any one by false promises of perilous peace. When he had taken his position behind the reading-desk, he too began to watch the door. From Mrs. Deans' description of Myron Holder he had formed an idea of her appearance. He looked to see some flaunting, rustic beauty, bold of eye, brazen of deportment, gayly dressed perhaps, and defiant of bearing. It lacked but a moment or two of the time for service when Myron Holder entered the church. She paused a moment in the doorway, looking about her for an inconspicuous seat. There was one but a step from the doorway; she sank into it. The Reverend Fletcher observed her pale face shine, star-like, for a moment against the darkness of the unlighted porch ere she stepped within the church. He decided instantly that this was indeed one of the elect, and gave no further thought to her. His whole attention was absorbed in looking for the sinner for whose soul he was to do battle. He thirsted for the fray, but the minutes passed and no one else entered, so he took up his discourse, and soon had his congregation in a spiritual tumult. Ejaculations came thick and fast from his hearers, and there were as many weeping women as any preacher could desire; but the heart of the Reverend Fletcher was hot within him against She, the godless one, who sat at home whilst the warnings and threatenings prepared for her were poured into the ears of every one else in the village. Meantime Myron sat half-dazed. Truly this was another doctrine than the one she had listened to the night before. Where, amid all these words, was the promise of the pitying Christ? She was out and away the moment Mr. Fletcher uttered his last Amen. As he stood mopping the perspiration from his brow she was speeding through the silent street, and by the time the church was empty she had flung herself, sobbing, on her bed. When the Reverend Mr. Fletcher discovered that, after all, Myron Holder had been in the church, he was decidedly disgusted. He always liked aiming his remarks at some particular person, and always felt as though he were firing blank cartridges when he could not see the target. Therefore he was more than annoyed to find that he had so scattered his fire when he might have taken accurate aim at Myron. He remarked to Mrs. Deans, with some irascibility, that her description of Myron Holder had been somewhat misleading. "Oh, she's deep," said Mrs. Deans; "and that sly there's no being up to her. Always goin' about as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth; but as for wickedness and genuine, inborn badness! Why, Brother Fletcher, it's my belief and solemn opinion that she was jest makin' a set at Brother Hardman with them eyes of her'n. I'm glad, Brother Fletcher, that Brother Hardman was called away. He was very young, Brother Hardman was--very." The Reverend Mr. Fletcher, recalling Hardman's words at the depot, decided that Myron was a dangerous creature--a sly serpent, evidently, in a dove's disguise. The Reverend Fletcher girded his loins to the fray, and was fain to look well to his breastplate of righteousness and to give thanks that it had fallen to his fate to emulate Saint Anthony. Mrs. White and Mrs. Wilson were invited to take tea "along with the minister" next day, and Mrs. Wilson played her role of sorrowing mother to perfection. The two other ladies paid her the delicate compliment of looking fixedly at her for a moment, then shaking their heads lugubriously and exchanging a meaning glance with each other. When the cockles of their hearts were warmed by the Japan tea, they began making allusions to "dispensations," and "afflictions," and "merciful Providences" (terms which in the vocabulary of the sanctified seem to mean the same thing); and Mrs. Wilson began making remarks about "troubles" which were not very intelligible, owing to her beginning them with a sniff and ending in a snivel. All this fired the zeal of the preacher to no small degree. He resolved they should see the strength of the spiritual sword when wielded by his hands. He assured them that the stubborn neck of the offender should be bowed beneath the Scriptural yoke; that the flinty heart of the sinner should be broken, and that the cause of all this trouble and scandal should be made to do penance. These cheerful predictions filled the hearts of his hearers with much joy, and they parted in a little flutter of excitement to meet again at the church, where they anticipated, as Mrs. White expressed it, that "Brother Fletcher would show that Myron Holder up in her true colors." That night Myron sat again in that far-back seat, and again the spiritual thunders of the Reverend Fletcher spent themselves over her head. In all his harangue there was no word to touch her soul. Death--death--death--was the burden of it all. Now death is a bogy to fright happy children with, not weary women. Life had been so bitter to this woman that its antithesis could not be aught but alluring. * * * * * * It was the last night of the Reverend Fletcher's ministration in Jamestown. For three nights he had fired volleys of fire and brimstone at Myron Holder; for three nights she had sat patient, pale, unmoved--her eyes growing wearier and wearier, her face sadder and sadder, as her hope of finding peace grew less and less. It was such a vague hope, not concerned with repentance of sin at all, but wholly comprehended in an ineffable longing for the fabled rest of Philip Hardman's preaching. She had heard no further word of it, and she was beginning to doubt if she had heard aright that night when the sweetness of the words had left a tiny germ of hope behind. The Reverend Mr. Fletcher was also sorely troubled. His reputation as a revivalist was at stake. The eyes of the village were upon him. It is true that he had had a great measure of success. Every night the anxious-seat had been filled with weeping women. Ossie Annie Abbie Maria White had waxed fairly hysterical as she avowed her sins; Ann Lemon had howled forth a lengthy lamentation of her wickedness; Sol Disney had professed conversion, after "resisting the workings of the spirit within him for twenty-seven years," as he testified. But all this garnered grain was but as tares in the sight of the Reverend Fletcher because of that one stubborn thistle that refused to bow its head to the Scriptural sickle. But the Reverend Fletcher was a strategist as well as a fighter. He recalled what Mrs. Deans had said regarding Myron's inordinate love for her child, and, remembering, resolved to win Myron Holder's soul despite herself. With this resolution strong within him, he took his place for the last time before a Jamestown audience. It ought to have been very gratifying to the ministerial eye--that audience--for all the village was there. All--save with one notable exception. Clem Humphries' place before Mrs. Deans' was vacant, and never again would he vex that worthy woman's soul by his presence in the Jamestown Tabernacle. Clem had left Jamestown. The night before this last meeting Clem, willing to sustain his role of a religious individual, rose in his place and in sepulchral tones asked for the prayers of the congregation. It is probable that such a request was never so promptly granted before, for hardly had he resumed his seat before Ann Lemon was upon her feet. Always voluble, Ann had no difficulty in finding words wherewith to address the Lord, which she proceeded to do upon Clem's behalf, as follows: "O Lord," she commenced. "save this sinful man who seeks Thy aid! You know what he is, O Lord! You know his pretences, his hypocrisy, his sinfulness; but save him, for You can! You know what a sinful man he is, far beyond any hope of good in this world; but, oh, save him! You know he drinks, putting an enemy into his mouth to steal away his soul! You know he lies, and is lazy, and is a Sabbath-breaker, spending in sinful sport the hours when he should worship Thee! You know he makes his religion just a cloak for his deceit! You know all this, for nothing is hid from Thee! You know he oppressed the widow all last winter; but save him, Lord, for You can! Save him now, whilst he seeks Thy aid! You know he did it for his own ends, to make people believe in his goodness; but save him now--now, O Lord, when he can't get out! Save him in spite of himself--make him indeed one of Your sheep!" Ann sat down, amid a chorus of Amens, and Clem was eagerly besought to testify; but Clem was literally dumb with rage, and sat mute whilst the Reverend Fletcher prayed that the "new-found brother might be given the gift of holy speech" that he might "show forth the mercy he had found," concluding by giving thanks for the conversion of this great sinner. And this to a man who had been so long a favored one with the godly in the land! It was too much. Clem trembled with rage. Ann's life would hardly have been safe at that moment could Clem have laid hands on her. As it was, she did not fall in his way, and old Clem took French leave of Jamestown that night, shaking the dust from off his feet as a testimony against it. He resolved as he left the village never again to try to keep up with the religious folk. Clem decided they made the place too hot for him. The Reverend Fletcher rose and began his address. Robbed of its exuberance of expression it was an effective one. He concluded with an impassioned appeal to his hearers to accept the truth. "Is there," he said, "none among you to whom there appears a little, lonely grave, whose whispering grasses plead to you to think of the little one buried there? Wandering alone in Heaven, seeking there the love it had on earth, already wearied by its long waiting, already faltering as it searches for the loved face, already heart-sick as it listens to the angels singing the names of the saved on earth--but never, never hears that loved name in the heavenly roll-call? Is there none among you who has an empty heart? Is there none among you who feels, in memory only, the loving touch of baby fingers? Is there none among you who, in dreams only, hears a baby voice cry 'Mother--Mother'? If there is such a mother, will she sit stubbornly silent here whilst her lonely child--orphaned even in Heaven because of her hard-heartedness--searches ever on and on for the mother that will not come to him?" Mr. Fletcher paused. There was breathless silence for a moment, then there was a stir far back near the door. The congregation moved, looked round, and murmured. A woman's figure came swiftly down the aisle, reached the clear space before the platform--stood--wavered. The next moment Myron Holder had fallen to the floor, prostrate as a novice beneath the pall. Myron Holder and the Reverend Fletcher stood alone in the empty church. Mrs. Deans waited impatiently outside. She had never dreamed Mr. Fletcher would treat her thus! The noise of the departing congregation was dying away, and Mr. Fletcher was carrying out a stern resolution he had made. He was talking to Myron Holder of her sin and its enormity; upbraiding her for the past, and cautioning her against the future. She listened meekly, admitting her sin and saying no single word in palliation of it. He was giving her stern advice regarding her attitude towards the rest of the village, when she interrupted him for the first time. "I am leaving Jamestown to-morrow," she said. "What?" said Mr. Fletcher. "I am leaving Jamestown to-morrow," The Reverend Fletcher's brow grew stern. "Is that how you are going to evidence the new mercy you have found--by going out into the world to deceive people?" "I will deceive no one," she said. "I can do nothing here. In winter I shall have to go on the township again. I must go to earn my living." "Evil will come of it. Your influence will not be for good. You will spread a moral pestilence. Once I took a long journey in the cars; the car was very dirty, and there was much soot and smoke, and the black coat I wore absorbed the dust and grime. Well, it lost nothing of its good appearance; it was a black coat, like other black coats--to look at. But listen! One day soon after, in a crowded train, I sat next a woman with a white dress on. What was the result? Her dress was smirched and darkened where her sleeve touched mine. So it was always. That coat defiled everything it touched, until I put it from me. It was a good coat, and I could ill afford to do it, but still less could I afford to pollute whatever I touched. It is thus with you. Out of evil, evil will come. We do not gather figs of thistles. Your life has been evil; your heart is bad. Can good emanate from this? You will go forth to the world in fair seeming, no trace of your sin visible to the eye, and you will spread the contagion of your sin. Listen to me, Myron Holder. Do not dare go forth in silence! Do not dare conceal your real nature! Do not dare! Say to each man and woman with whom you have more than the most brief association, 'Lo, I am one who has sinned; I have been a mother but not a wife!'" Myron gazed at him with horror-wide eyes. His were implacable. "Am I so dreadful?" she said. "Oh, must I proclaim my shame aloud?" "You must," he said. "What! Would you deny your child on earth and hope to meet him in Heaven?" She let fall her face in her hands. There was silence for a space, then she raised her head. "Very well," she said, "I will do as you say." She turned from his side, and made her way down the church. A strange and new distinction of manner seemed to have enveloped her--a dignity of absolute isolation. She passed through the door, and for the last time Mrs. Deans' eyes looked into hers. That steady gaze lasted some seconds, and then Myron Holder went out into the night. But in that last meeting of eyes Myron Holder's were not the ones that faltered. As Cain went forth with his curse, did his eyes fall before any living face? He was subject only to fear of his fate. Myron Holder feared only the years she had to live. That night, in her cottage, Myron Holder sat sewing, fashioning a tiny bag out of one of My's misshapen aprons. When completed, she put something carefully in it and hung it round her neck, concealing it beneath her gown. She folded up her few articles of clean clothing and tied them up, with My's little tin mug, into a neat parcel. She took a last look around the silent rooms, and then went out, closing the door gently behind her, as if heedful not to awaken one who slept. All along the little path voices seemed to bear her company: the voices of her father, her grandmother, Homer's strong, tender tones, and My's uncertain voice, and each awoke a loving echo in her heart--yes, even the strident voice of her grandmother. They each and all whispered "Good-bye--Good-bye," save the little child's: that was inarticulate, and babbled but of childish love and confidence. She made her way along the road she had trodden so many times in anguish. She reached the graveyard, and there held her last vigil by the side of My's grave. The stars were yet in the sky--the mysterious stars of morning skies--when she rose to her feet. She went to each of the other graves that her heart held, and then came back to this one, the newest and smallest of the four. She looked down upon it with the pain of childbirth in her eyes, then up to the "mindful stars." She turned away with a prayer upon her lips--the same in which was uttered her agony in the cottage; the same prayer that had faltered from her lips in the church--not "Lord--Lord," but "My--My!" So Myron Holder left Jamestown, and with her we leave it also. There is much yet that might be told of the place--of the strange death that befell Bing White; of the marriage of Gamaliel Deans to Liz, the bound girl; of the penance of pain that was meted out to Mrs. Deans for the evil she had wrought; of how Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were turned out of their farm by those of their children who had so pitied them whilst Homer lived; of how, after all, the old ragman found a fortune in rags, though not in the way he had dreamed of; of how the new church was built, and of how the old Holder cottage still stands, a ruin amid its garden, peopled only by sparrows; of how a new railway runs through the school playground, and banishes the buttercups by its cinders to the other side of the broken-down fence. There they run riot, having spread even up to the doorstep of the old cottage, where they cluster about the roots of the hopvines. There have been many changes in Jamestown--great factories disfigure the margin of the lake, defile the streams with their refuse, and befoul the atmosphere with their smoke. A long row of workmen's cottages, depressingly alike in gable and window, has crowded the Black Horse Inn out of existence. Its old bricks pave the paths over which the mill-hands go to work; the last vestige of its violets has vanished. The hearts of the Jamestown women, however, have not changed. The same merciless virtue that hounded Myron Holder pursues the poor factory girl who falters on her way. The same pointing fingers sting her soul. The same condemnation, the same cruelty, the same scorn, greet her as were meted out to Myron Holder. In the olden days it was the vestal virgins, charged with keeping alight the fires that burned upon the altars sacred to home, that doomed the fallen gladiator to death; their inflexible gesture negatived the pleading of the upraised hand. There is no single instance given where they exercised the power of pardon vested in them. And to-day the verdict upon the fallen comes from women also; and is there any record of pardons? But, O women, think well before you utter a harsh judgment! Your verdict is the more sacred by virtue of being pronounced upon your own sex, for woman is more nearly allied to woman than man to man. Each woman is linked to her sister women by the indissoluble bond of common pain. "For men must work and women must weep" may have its exceptions as to men who, by favoring fortune or a kindly fate, may escape their heritage of labor; but did a woman ever elude her birthright of tears? It rests with women whether the bitter cup these unhappy ones drink be brimmed to the lip or not. Ah, well! there are many Jamestowns, and many women therein. "By their works ye shall know them." To the Jamestown women we have known through their treatment of Myron Holder we say farewell gladly, only asking them-- "HAVE YE DONE WELL? They moulder flesh and bone, Who might have made this life's envenomed dream A sweeter draught than ye shall ever taste, I deem." CHAPTER XXIII. "God gives him painful bread, and for all wine Doth feed him on sharp salt of simple tears, And bitter fast of blood." "Come--pain ye shall have and be blind to the ending! Come--fear ye shall have 'mid the sky's overcasting! Come--change ye shall have, for far are ye wending! Come--no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting!" Myron Holder, in the blue garb of a professional nurse, stood one spring morning looking out of one of the high windows in the great hospital where she worked. Three years had passed since that daybreak when she turned her back on Jamestown. With what trembling steps she had made her way to town, to the house of the doctor who had attended old Mr. Carroll! He had suggested to her the vocation of professional nursing, having observed her natural aptitude for it when she was tending Mr. Carroll. He had given her his address, and bade her come to him if she decided to adopt the course he had indicated. She had done so, and, through his recommendation, she had obtained admittance to this hospital. Since then she had worked and studied hard, and had gained her certificate as a trained nurse. She had gone forth from Jamestown "lonely as a cloud," and not without sorrow. The wild flower that grows by the bleakest roadside wilts and droops for a time, at least, when transplanted to even the most sheltered garden. The stunted cedar, clinging to a crevice in the granite, drawing its meagre juices hardly from the niggard soil, yellows and dies when rent by the resistless wind from its rocky resting-place. The barrenness of the mountain-side seems kinder to it than the green meadows to which it is hurled. For some little time Myron was bewildered by the strange world which she had entered, but it did not remain long strange; it soon developed familiar phases. She bore forever the burden of the hateful pledge the Reverend Mr. Fletcher had wrung from her. In the old, harsh days of Puritanical prudery and intolerance, the Evil Woman bore upon her breast a flamy insignia of shame--a beacon warning all not to trust their hopes or fears or joys to that perfidious bosom which had been false to its own womanhood, a something which could be seen afar off, a mute, yet eloquent, cry: "Unclean--Unclean!" But the milder methods of modern Christianity were far different. They fastened no physical sign of degradation upon the object of their righteous wrath; no burning letter or brand. Hers was no torch of shame to light the beholder to other paths than that which lay by her side. Hawthorne's stately Evil Woman bore an implacable face above that fatal mark; strode upon her way with "the stern step of vanquished will," defied by her mien her accusers and her judges. Upon her countenance was writ in all the varied hieroglyphics of tint and expression, line and curve, the story of her passion and her shame. Not so this humble village outcast. Her mien showed rather the tender sorrow of a face created for tears--a face whose lips held pain enough prisoned behind their paleness to wail the woe of the whole world; eyes which had looked at death unflinchingly through the pangs of the sublimest torture womanhood knows rather than betray the coward who had forsaken her; eyes which had looked at misery and pain, suffering and death, so often that they seemed to have lost the power of reflecting aught else; eyes which held in their depths nothing but the resignation, despair, and the settled purpose of undeviating will. Sometimes, when the child was alive, there had shone in their depths varying shadows; then there were moments when she allowed herself to wish and hope and fear. But that was past, just as was her mad rebellion against his death. Such was Myron Holder--meek, quiet, hopeless; bearing the burden imposed upon her by convention's unsparing, if righteous, hand. Men, looking at her, instinctively felt their own vileness; and women saw in her a refuge from their own weakness and sins until they knew of hers; then, rejoicing that they yet had power to wound something, crucified her afresh. Many a time her heart bled from stings implanted by lips she had moistened night after night. Many a time her face flushed before the scorn expressed in eyes that would have been forever darkened but for her untiring skill and patience. Truly, to lay upon this woman the task of avowing her guilt to each human being who should ever look upon her with kindly tolerance was a measure that the old Puritans would not have adopted. The stake had not receded quite so far into the dim perspective of the past as it has now; and if they had deemed her worthy of the supremest torture, they would probably have chosen the more merciful flames. Myron indeed stood within the shadow of the cross. But it must be remembered that whilst the cross has been the emblem of much mercy, it was also the symbol beneath which the Inquisition sat in council. It must be conceded that the Church is not very lenient with women. We remember its attitude when chloroform was introduced. The mercy that the Reverend Mr. Fletcher had proffered Myron Holder was much like the salt that Eastern torturers rub into the wounds of their victims. There was little to be seen from the high window where Myron stood--the topmost branches of a horse-chestnut tree just leafing out; a wide arch of gray-blue sky; and, far off, a confused mass of chimneys, where the city lay beneath its veil of smoke. But Myron was not thinking of the busy city, of the tapping chestnut boughs, nor even of the overspan of pellucid sky. She was thinking of a cruel, sordid, babbling little village and of the silent, unkempt field wherein its dead lay. Her musings were interrupted by the ringing of a bell. She turned and hastened from the room--blue-clad, white-capped, capable--to find a new patient had arrived in her ward; a new patient, with thin, broad, stooped shoulders, overhanging pent-house brow, sad and secret, above sunken gray eyes that shone with unalterable love for mankind; a patient who, when he saw her coming, held out his hands and whispered "Myron--Myron!" and gave her such a look as banished all the bitterness of her barren belief and again bestowed the blessed benediction of peace. Thus Philip Hardman and Myron Holder met again. Philip Hardman was no longer a recognized minister of the Church. His doubts had grown too strong for his belief, or his beliefs had grown greater than his creed; and he had gone forth from the church to become an itinerant preacher, like the man Christ Jesus. He was miserably uncertain and unsettled. Little bands of devotees gathered about him in every town he visited. They were those who were mentally maimed, or halt, or blind; those whose aspirations exceeded their capabilities; those in whose hearts a never-healing sore throbbed in unison with the suffering of mankind; those who were, like Philip Hardman, striving to flee from the wrath to come and found themselves bewildered amid the crossways. His followers were, in all places, strangely alike. They gathered to him gradually, and when he left they scattered. There was no unity of purpose among them, no common determination toward one end, to bind them together. The Western worlds are not ready yet for those creedless, formless, Eastern doctrines of Universal Love. Poor Philip Hardman, in an Oriental world, would have made an excellent devotee, to dream away his years in spiritual abstraction with the best of them; nay, he might even have found courage to release his soul by fire from its earthly charnel like the old East Indians; but he made a poor minister; he was a good enough _preacher_, eloquent enough, and earnest enough, pitiful towards others, merciless to himself; but, constantly bewildered by the indefiniteness of his own aspirations, he could not minister any healing balm to the sorrows he deplored. He never felt awkward nor constrained with his followers, only desperately unhappy. They looked to him for a message, and he had none to give them; he raised hopes in their breasts which he could not justify; held out a cup which proved empty when thirsty lips drew near. When he left a town he was haunted for days by the yearning eyes he had left unlit by hope; yet he could not bring himself to desert the cross utterly, for "Ever on the faint and flagging air A doleful spirit with a dreary note Cried in his fearful ear, 'Prepare--Prepare!'" So he had stumbled on, the strong in him strong only to discern the needs, the wants, the sadness and cruelty of the world, not strong enough to evolve a creed of Truth to alleviate its misery; the weak in him only weak enough to make him shrink from giving up utterly the old dogmas that hampered his hands, not weak enough to permit him to steep himself in scriptural ease and spend all his time striving to save his own miserable soul. Hardman had come to the charity ward of the hospital to be treated for that common and troublesome disease familiarly known as "preacher's sore throat." It was a very natural result of speaking night after night in all sorts of weathers in the open air. He had persisted in his preaching, however, until his voice had become attenuated almost to a whisper; then suddenly realizing the gravity of his case, he had fled to the hospital in a panic. Myron's post was in the charity ward, by far the most arduous department in the hospital. Thus Hardman came directly under her care. Relieved from the nervous excitement of his occupation, Hardman's fictitious strength suddenly collapsed, and, having squandered his resources recklessly, he was now left with very little stamina to fall back upon. But Myron tended him night and day, throwing into her efforts all the determination of her strong nature; and, little by little, she conquered. Philip Hardman himself had been as passive during the struggle as a bone for which two dogs fight; but after the fever left him he began to realize how nearly his doubts and surmises had been all solved, and looking at Myron's weary face read in a moment all the meaning of its weariness. From that time her care was seconded by his eager desire for health. Then there fell upon those two that strange enchantment which entered the world when the first bird sang its first love song, which will endure till "the last bird fly into the last night." "What time the mighty moon was gathering light, Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise." What strange paths he has trodden since then! What devious ways he has threaded! What strait gates he has entered! Upon how many sandy shores he has left his immortal footprints! For all the oceans of human life, all its flood tides of hope, all its ebb tides of despair, cannot efface them. Let love once set his signet seal upon a brow, and all the gilding of glory, all the blackness of shame, the rose wreath nor the crown of thorns--nay, even Death itself--cannot blot it out. Life--Love--Death--the true Trinity, teaching all things, could we but decipher them. Of Life we know the ending; of Death, the beginning; of Love, nothing. It springs without sowing, and bears many harvests. To these two lonely souls it brought a gift of "unhoped, great delight." "Love, that all things doth redress," blotted out for a space the toil and moil of their lives. Hardman told Myron how he had loved her ever since he saw her; told her how her name had been mentioned in every prayer his lips had uttered since he left Jamestown; told her how he had written to her, and of how the letter had been, after many days, returned to him from the Dead Letter Office. Myron smiled a little at that; she understood so well the pang it must have cost Mrs. Warner to return it. Indeed, Mrs. Warner (who was postmaster in Jamestown) had suffered real tortures of curiosity and kept the letter twice the regulation time before she sent it to the Dead Letter Office. But "The Government" was a vague and awful power in Mrs. Warner's eyes, and, as she expressed it to her husband, "You never know what it knows, and what it don't." Philip did not tell Myron about his doubts, nor that he had voluntarily forfeited his standing in the orthodox church. And she did not tell him of the promise that the Reverend Mr. Fletcher had exacted from her. Perhaps it was this mutual reticence that wrecked them. But for a short space they were indeed happy. But as Philip grew stronger the inevitable problem of the future presented itself. Philip asked Myron one day if she had attended the rest of the meetings after he left Jamestown. "Yes," she said; "I am a Christian." That calm statement of hers seemed to impose an impassable barrier between them. She had attained the peace he had lost. She held fast the hope that he was all but relinquishing. She was strong in the faith in which he was so weak. She told him of her first struggle in the hospital; of the difficulty she had had in mastering the "book learning" of her profession; of the weariness she endured and the hopelessness she had overcome; and, listening, he thought his heart would break. How could he take from her the Faith that had made this possible? How deprive her of the inspiration that kept her worthy? Poor Philip Hardman thought he had alienated himself from his church utterly; but he had in no wise cast off its bonds; he still clung to the enervating doctrine of dependence upon supernatural help, and could not realize that in Myron's womanhood alone lay the strength, the purity of purpose, and the endurance that had brought her thus far upon her way. Sometimes he wondered if it were possible that he could pass the cup from lip to lip, and the morsel from mouth to mouth, and yet be himself athirst and hungry. Now and then the thought came to him that he was but suffering from some spiritual sickness that would pass from him like a physical disease, and leave him weak, perhaps, but safe in his old beliefs. When he thought of this, he pictured himself in his old position as minister and wondered if to marry Myron would conserve the interests of his Faith. This was the one unworthy thought of which he was guilty. The man was weak, but this was shameful. It seems incredible to us that this man, having, as he knew, this woman's happiness in the hollow of his hand, loving her as he undoubtedly did, should have hesitated. Had he fully understood the conditions of her life, it is impossible to believe he would have done so; but so few of us know each other "face to face." And Philip Hardman was very humble in his estimate of himself. He did not allow himself to think that his life would compensate to Myron Holder for the spiritual benefits she might lose by marrying him. Indeed, this poor, tossed soul sometimes recalled with a shudder that mysterious Sin for which there is no forgiveness, and wondered if he had been guilty of it; then he trembled when Myron Holder approached lest she be contaminated. It seems this poor man was incapable of understanding the true beauty of Love. So that now he would wonder if Myron Holder as his wife would stultify his efforts for the Faith, and presently tremble lest he drag her down to the perdition he feared. At this juncture he deliberately shifted the burden from his own shoulders to those of Myron Holder. He asked her to decide, expressing his own love for her and saying tenderly: "And you, Myron, you love me?" She only looked her answer, but the eloquence of her look seemed to argue and decide the whole case. This conversation occurred in the morning. In the evening, just as dusk fell, Myron came to the ward and sat by him for a little space. Now that the burden was shifted off his own shoulders Philip felt calm and happy. He lay long, and gazed upon her as she sat beside him, gathered the tender strength of her face, the sweet womanliness of her form, the resolution and patience that made bright her brow, and noted all the beauty of her eyes. He pictured their future life together; he thought of her sitting by him in the twilight; of her bidding him good-bye in the morning; of her welcoming him at night; he thought of her looking up at him in the pauses of some household task; he imagined her eyes as they would turn to him for guidance; he dreamed of their comfort when he looked to them for love. He thought of all these things, and then abased himself before the vision of a holy, patient face,--the face of the mother of his child. 'Mid these thoughts speech does not find ready way. They were together silent, hand in hand. The time came for Myron to go. It was almost dark in the ward, and an angled screen hid them from view. "Myron," whispered Philip, and looked at her pleadingly. She looked at him--her head sank near his--he kissed her--her lips were trembling. He passed an arm about her shoulder and gave her a tender, reassuring pressure. "I will know in the morning?" he said. "Yes," she answered, and turned to leave him. She hesitated at the foot of the bed and then turned toward him again. "Good-night," she said. "Good-night, Philip." Then she turned and went swiftly from the ward, passing the night nurse at the door. Hardman felt a moisture on his hand, the hand she had held as she said "Good-night." "She was crying, bless her, and I never knew it," he thought. He soon slept. It would seem that he was content so long as Myron made the decision and thus relieved him from the responsibility and consequences of doing so. Well, we cannot tell. "The heart knoweth its own bitterness," and it is not for us to judge Hardman. But whilst withholding judgment upon him we need not spare to pity Myron, who, prone upon the narrow couch in the bare dormitory, was face to face with her own soul. Whilst Hardman slept, having cast off his burden, she was tasting the bitterness of death. Myron Holder's agony would have indeed bewildered him could he have witnessed it. It was in such strong contrast to the peace of that perfect hour just past. He could not have realized the battle Myron had done with herself, her tears, her fears, whilst she sat by him; and he comforted himself with visions of an illusive future. Alas! Poor Myron--poor Hardman! Not for them was "The House of Fulfillment of Craving," not for them the "Cup with the roses around it." We cannot trace step by step the progress of the struggle. "A sign--a sign!" she cried in her pain. "Oh, what shall I do?" It was at midnight when the sign was given her and the path pointed out. The clock in her room had just struck twelve when the electric bell at her bedside rang, summoning her downstairs. She rose hastily, and quickly dashing a little cold water in her face, assumed her cap and hurried out. She found the entire staff of nurses assembling. They were gathering about the medical officer in charge of the hospital. He held a telegram in his hand. When they had all come, he read it aloud. It was brief. An urgent appeal from a quarantine station asking for volunteer nurses for cholera patients. The doctor read it and waited. The little crowd of women before him murmured confusedly. Some faces reddened, some paled. The doctor read the telegram again, and said quietly: "The need is urgent, but I advise no one. If, however, any of you will go, she must be ready in an hour. The express leaves then." He paused. There was no answer. His face paled a little. He had been very proud of his intrepid nurses, this doctor, and somehow, in this time of trial, they seemed about to be found wanting. "As soon as each one makes up her mind," he said, "she will return to her duties or acquaint me with her determination to go." The group before him parted as if by a single impulse, each seeking to escape unseen to her place. Only one came forward quietly, and said steadily: "I will go, sir, if you will let me." The departing ones stayed their steps and listened. "It is Nurse Myron," they said to each other. "Yes," said the doctor, catching one of these remarks, "it is Nurse Myron, of whom you have made a pariah. Go back to your duties, please." His voice, usually so gentle, was stern and peremptory. They went. An hour later, Myron Holder left the hospital. As she came down from the dormitory, clad in the blue serge gown with its cape and close-fitting hat, she went into the charity ward. Quietly she stole along its length until she came to the bed in the corner. A straight shaft of moonlight fell upon the pillow. It made visible all the strength and beauty of Hardman's brow and showed all the sweetness of his mouth, all the kindly expression of his face. His brow was placid; his lips smiled. To the woman's eyes there was nothing weak, nothing cowardly, in the man before her. He was her saint among men. "He will know in the morning," she said. The doctor beckoned from the door. She murmured again, "He will know in the morning," and so bade him an eternal farewell. [Illustration: "HE WILL KNOW IN THE MORNING."] * * * * * * Next morning Philip Hardman learned from the doctor of Myron's act. "The nurses say you are a minister, and that she loved you," said the doctor. "If praying is your trade, pray for her, man; she has need of it." Then he passed on. He was a little bitter and stern, the good doctor, that morning. There comes a time to some of us, "When happy dreams have just gone by And left us without remedy Within the unpitying hands of life." Those of us who have lived through such an hour can understand what had come to Philip Hardman. He saw now clearly what he ought to have done, but it was too late. He tried to comfort himself with the hope that she would come back, and _then_, he told himself, no power in earth or heaven should come between them. How vain this hope was the event proved; but it was well he had it at the moment, else his self-reproach would have been too poignant. As it was, his fever returned and it was many days before his last tidings of Myron Holder. He was told, and lived. That is all we need say or care to hear of Philip Hardman. "Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, At last he beat his music out." CHAPTER XXIV. "Death comes to set thee free, Oh, meet him cheerily As thy true friend; Then all thy cares shall cease And in eternal peace Thy penance end." "Even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to the sea." The arrival of the new nurse had been announced to the doctor in charge of the quarantine station. He waited for her coming in his office. She entered the room, paused for a moment on the threshold, and then came forward. The light, to which his back was turned, fell full upon her face,--a face devoid of bitterness as it was of joy. Her form, clad in the regulation nurse's garb of blue, showed in strong relief against the unpainted pine walls of the great doctor's office--a somewhat broad, low figure, not slight, nor lissome, but most eloquently womanly. Her lips parted in a question which he did not hear. Time had gone back with him. He stood upon a jutting ledge of rock, which from the ridge hung out into the blue. He was alone, and waiting--waiting with every faculty of his will strained to the utmost; looking through a parting in the leaves between the tree-trunks, he watched for a girl's figure. Far away there was a glimmer of water; somewhere a village band was practising, but distance deadened all sound from it save the throb of the heavy drum which pulsed through the air and seemed to add motion to the heavy, odorous vapor of the summer night and send it eddying up in perfumed waves about the craggy platform. Then he saw one coming, flushed, and "foot gilt with all the blossom dust" of wild venollia, fleabane and spent moondaisies. And then he held once more a trembling maiden form within his clasp. Again from out the hollow of his arm there looked up at him two eyes of clearest, purest glance. Again he dwelt upon the smooth forehead with its faint upraised brows. Again he kissed the white throat bent outward like a singing bird's, as her head rested against him and her eyes met his. Again he saw those eyes grow dim and moist. Again he felt the encircled form tremble. Again he stilled the appealing lips with a kiss. Again he vowed eternal faith. Again he heard her say-- "Will you be good enough to tell me my duties?" the new nurse was saying, in low, strained tones, in a voice without modulation and suggestive of reiteration. "What is your name?" he asked, with unstrung joints. "I am Myron Holder," she said, and looked at him. Her lips did not quiver. Her cheeks did not flush. Her eyes did not falter. All the majesty of a wronged womanhood shone upon her brow. Her glance spoke of a dignity far beyond the gift of man, above the world's honor--a dignity bought at a terrible price and sealed with a terrible seal of loneliness and separation. "Ah!" he said, and leaned upon the table at his side, mentally acknowledging the strength of her presence. "I am Henry Willis," he said. "Did you know me?" "I recognized you when I came into the room," she answered, in a monotonous tone. There was a pause. Her eyes rested upon him unwaveringly, and sent from their depths intolerable meanings of contempt and righteous indignation and hopeless reproach. He came a step nearer. "Let me--" he began. She stepped back--her nostrils dilated. "Would you be good enough to tell me my duties?" she said. "Tell me how you came here." "I am Nurse Myron," she said, and uttered no further word. He waited in a silence she did not break. "If you will come with me," he said at length. She signified her acquiescence and followed him. Days passed--long days and nights which seemed to outlast eternity in their dreary passage. Day by day the nurses and physicians did battle with the foul pestilential scourge they were striving to stifle. The great Dr. Willis, the eminent bacteriologist, peered and pried incessantly over his gelatin films, striving to win the secret of infection and its origin from the minute particles of matter he held prisoned there. But yet more earnestly did he strive to learn the secret of one strong, brave soul, hut in vain. The quality Dr. Willis most admired, respected and understood was Will, but here it reigned in such transcendent strength that he stood appalled before it. From that moment of retrospect and recognition he had awakened with a galling sense of his own inferiority. Never before had Henry Willis owned the domination of a living will. Now the wide earth held no sweetness, all his achievements no triumph for him, unless he could once more possess the woman who had, so long ago, been wholly his. They worked side by side. As the cases multiplied, and two of the men nurses were stricken with the disease, Henry Willis, perforce threw aside his experiments and flung himself into the fray. Day by day saw these two drawn closer and closer together by the exigencies of their peculiar and dreadful position. No more volunteers were forthcoming. The force in the quarantine station was weakening. The physician, albeit wiry and of an iron physique, was pale and thin. Myron Holder's strong frame and brave heart were giving way; only her will sustained each. Her eyes shone neither steadily nor calmly now, but burned with desperate courage. Dr. Willis came to her one day with a newspaper containing reports of their work. The names of Dr. Henry Willis and Nurse Myron were coupled with honorable and enduring encomiums. She read it standing in the corridor before his office door. As she read and gathered the import of the words, a change overspread her face. Her eyes, of late so hot and dry, grew moist; her lips trembled; from brow to chin the color flushed her face, bringing back to it all the charm of a crushed and subordinate womanhood. She read the article over and looked him full in the face. "My name is here and yours," she said. Then, in a voice which had burst from its shackles at last, and rang out clear and high, "They should be read above the grave of a nameless child." She paused a moment--long enough for the man before her to gather the meaning of her words--long enough to allow memory to whelm her own heart and break it at last, and then she sank upon the floor, weeping and crying aloud for her dead child. When Henry Willis carried her to the office, the first paroxysmal symptoms of cholera had set in. * * * * * * All hope was over. Nurse Myron was dying. Every remedy despairing skill could suggest had been resorted to, but in vain. Transfusion of blood had brought not even an evanescent strength. The disease had culminated, and death was simply a question of minutes--an hour at most. Her face had become olive in tint, and shone up with Murillo-like beauty of tint and form from the pillow. Beside her, in all the abandon of shattered hope, knelt Henry Willis. But to all his pleading Myron Holder was deaf, until, by the inspiration of despair, he cried aloud: "For his sake, to give him a name!" Then she consented. In the presence of the remnant of nurses left, blessed by the devoted minister who also lived among these dangers, Myron Holder and Henry Willis took each other for man and wife. They were alone. He held her hand, awed by the supernal brightness of her eyes. "You will write his name above his grave?" she said. "His real name--Henry Willis? Do you know what I called him? My--little My." "Live," he murmured. "Live to let me atone--to be happy--to be adored. Live--you can if you will." "Could I?" she said. "Life holds nothing for me; Death him, or forgetfulness." Her eyes began to film. He bent over her distractedly, calling her tender names, pleading for a look--a sign. "Speak to me--forgive me," he cried. "Myron--Myron!" "I forgive you," she said, looking at him once again with calm and steadfast eye of divine forgetfulness. She sank into a stupor, through which she murmured "My--little My"--tenderly, as to a sleeping child. Then suddenly her eyes opened, a flood of ineffable brightness illumined her face, she stretched forth her arms and uttered a name in a cry of joyous hope, and sank back. The world was over for her. There but remained the involuntary efforts of life against annihilation, efforts which, happily, were few and brief. Twenty minutes after she became a wife, Myron Willis had passed-- "'And surely,' all folk said, 'None ever saw such joy on visage dead.'" They buried her, as the law required, with the rest of those who died of the pest. Upon her breast they found an ill-made little bag of checked blue and white cotton. Within it was a flossy skein of child's hair tangled by many tears and kisses. They brought it to Dr. Willis, and he replaced it upon the dead breast with whose secret sobs and sighs it had risen and fallen for so long. The newspapers gave a pathetic account of the "Romance in a Quarantine Station," and told how the famous Dr. Willis, meeting his "girl love" in the hospital, had married her on her deathbed. The tale cast quite a romantic lustre over the doctor's somewhat prosaic career of medical achievement. There was no word said, however, of their first meeting and parting, nor of a little grave that to this day is unmarked save for a tiny tablet whereon is carven one syllable--MY. 
4389	----	ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH By Susanna Moodie To Agnes Strickland Author of the “Lives of the Queens of England” This simple tribute of affection is dedicated by her sister Susanna Moodie Transcriber's Notes on this Etext Edition. Thank you to The Celebration of Women Writers (Mary Mark Ockerbloom, Editor) for providing the source text. It has since been proof-read and modified by comparison with multiple editions. There is a great deal of variation between different editions ranging from differences in names, spelling and punctuation to differences in what chapters and poems are included. This text is not meant to be authoritative or to match a certain paper edition; rather, its aim is to be be readable and inclusive of various material that appears in different editions. CONTENTS Introduction to the Third Edition I A Visit to Grosse Isle II Quebec III Our Journey up the Country IV Tom Wilson's Emigration V Our First Settlement, and the Borrowing System VI Old Satan and Tom Wilson's Nose VII Uncle Joe and his Family VIII John Monaghan IX Phoebe R----, and our Second Moving X Brian, the Still-Hunter XI The Charivari XII The Village Hotel XIII The Land-Jobber XIV A Journey to the Woods XV The Wilderness, and our Indian Friends XVI Burning the Fallow XVII Our Logging-Bee XVIII A Trip to Stony Lake XIX The “Ould Dhragoon” XX Disappointed Hopes XXI The Little Stumpy Man XXII The Fire XXIII The Outbreak XXIV The Whirlwind XXV The Walk to Dummer XXVI A Change in our Prospects XXVII Adieu to the Woods XXVIII Canadian Sketches Appendix A Advertisement to the Third Edition Appendix B Canada: a Contrast Appendix C Jeanie Burns INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION Published by Richard Bentley in 1854 In most instances, emigration is a matter of necessity, not of choice; and this is more especially true of the emigration of persons of respectable connections, or of any station or position in the world. Few educated persons, accustomed to the refinements and luxuries of European society, ever willingly relinquish those advantages, and place themselves beyond the protective influence of the wise and revered institutions of their native land, without the pressure of some urgent cause. Emigration may, indeed, generally be regarded as an act of severe duty, performed at the expense of personal enjoyment, and accompanied by the sacrifice of those local attachments which stamp the scenes amid which our childhood grew, in imperishable characters, upon the heart. Nor is it until adversity has pressed sorely upon the proud and wounded spirit of the well-educated sons and daughters of old but impoverished families, that they gird up the loins of the mind, and arm themselves with fortitude to meet and dare the heart-breaking conflict. The ordinary motives for the emigration of such persons may be summed up in a few brief words;--the emigrant's hope of bettering his condition, and of escaping from the vulgar sarcasms too often hurled at the less-wealthy by the purse-proud, common-place people of the world. But there is a higher motive still, which has its origin in that love of independence which springs up spontaneously in the breasts of the high-souled children of a glorious land. They cannot labour in a menial capacity in the country where they were born and educated to command. They can trace no difference between themselves and the more fortunate individuals of a race whose blood warms their veins, and whose name they bear. The want of wealth alone places an impassable barrier between them and the more favoured offspring of the same parent stock; and they go forth to make for themselves a new name and to find another country, to forget the past and to live in the future, to exult in the prospect of their children being free and the land of their adoption great. The choice of the country to which they devote their talents and energies depends less upon their pecuniary means than upon the fancy of the emigrant or the popularity of a name. From the year 1826 to 1829, Australia and the Swan River were all the rage. No other portions of the habitable globe were deemed worthy of notice. These were the El Dorados and lands of Goshen to which all respectable emigrants eagerly flocked. Disappointment, as a matter of course, followed their high-raised expectations. Many of the most sanguine of these adventurers returned to their native shores in a worse condition than when they left them. In 1830, the great tide of emigration flowed westward. Canada became the great land-mark for the rich in hope and poor in purse. Public newspapers and private letters teemed with the unheard-of advantages to be derived from a settlement in this highly-favoured region. Its salubrious climate, its fertile soil, commercial advantages, great water privileges, its proximity to the mother country, and last, not least, its almost total exemption from taxation--that bugbear which keeps honest John Bull in a state of constant ferment--were the theme of every tongue, and lauded beyond all praise. The general interest, once excited, was industriously kept alive by pamphlets, published by interested parties, which prominently set forth all the good to be derived from a settlement in the Backwoods of Canada; while they carefully concealed the toil and hardship to be endured in order to secure these advantages. They told of lands yielding forty bushels to the acre, but they said nothing of the years when these lands, with the most careful cultivation, would barely return fifteen; when rust and smut, engendered by the vicinity of damp over-hanging woods, would blast the fruits of the poor emigrant's labour, and almost deprive him of bread. They talked of log houses to be raised in a single day, by the generous exertions of friends and neighbours, but they never ventured upon a picture of the disgusting scenes of riot and low debauchery exhibited during the raising, or upon a description of the dwellings when raised--dens of dirt and misery, which would, in many instances, be shamed by an English pig-sty. The necessaries of life were described as inestimably cheap; but they forgot to add that in remote bush settlements, often twenty miles from a market town, and some of them even that distance from the nearest dwelling, the necessaries of life which would be deemed indispensable to the European, could not be procured at all, or, if obtained, could only be so by sending a man and team through a blazed forest road,--a process far too expensive for frequent repetition. Oh, ye dealers in wild lands--ye speculators in the folly and credulity of your fellow men--what a mass of misery, and of misrepresentation productive of that misery, have ye not to answer for! You had your acres to sell, and what to you were the worn-down frames and broken hearts of the infatuated purchasers? The public believed the plausible statements you made with such earnestness, and men of all grades rushed to hear your hired orators declaim upon the blessings to be obtained by the clearers of the wilderness. Men who had been hopeless of supporting their families in comfort and independence at home, thought that they had only to come out to Canada to make their fortunes; almost even to realise the story told in the nursery, of the sheep and oxen that ran about the streets, ready roasted, and with knives and forks upon their backs. They were made to believe that if it did not actually rain gold, that precious metal could be obtained, as is now stated of California and Australia, by stooping to pick it up. The infection became general. A Canada mania pervaded the middle ranks of British society; thousands and tens of thousands for the space of three or four years landed upon these shores. A large majority of the higher class were officers of the army and navy, with their families--a class perfectly unfitted by their previous habits and education for contending with the stern realities of emigrant life. The hand that has long held the sword, and been accustomed to receive implicit obedience from those under its control, is seldom adapted to wield the spade and guide the plough, or try its strength against the stubborn trees of the forest. Nor will such persons submit cheerfully to the saucy familiarity of servants, who, republicans in spirit, think themselves as good as their employers. Too many of these brave and honourable men were easy dupes to the designing land-speculators. Not having counted the cost, but only looked upon the bright side of the picture held up to their admiring gaze, they fell easily into the snares of their artful seducers. To prove their zeal as colonists, they were induced to purchase large tracts of wild land in remote and unfavourable situations. This, while it impoverished and often proved the ruin of the unfortunate immigrant, possessed a double advantage to the seller. He obtained an exorbitant price for the land which he actually sold, while the residence of a respectable settler upon the spot greatly enhanced the value and price of all other lands in the neighbourhood. It is not by such instruments as those I have just mentioned, that Providence works when it would reclaim the waste places of the earth, and make them subservient to the wants and happiness of its creatures. The Great Father of the souls and bodies of men knows the arm which wholesome labour from infancy has made strong, the nerves which have become iron by patient endurance, by exposure to weather, coarse fare, and rude shelter; and He chooses such, to send forth into the forest to hew out the rough paths for the advance of civilization. These men become wealthy and prosperous, and form the bones and sinews of a great and rising country. Their labour is wealth, not exhaustion; its produce independence and content, not home-sickness and despair. What the Backwoods of Canada are to the industrious and ever-to-be-honoured sons of honest poverty, and what they are to the refined and accomplished gentleman, these simple sketches will endeavour to portray. They are drawn principally from my own experience, during a sojourn of nineteen years in the colony. In order to diversify my subject, and make it as amusing as possible, I have between the sketches introduced a few small poems, all written during my residence in Canada, and descriptive of the country. In this pleasing task, I have been assisted by my husband, J. W. Dunbar Moodie, author of “Ten Years in South Africa.” BELLEVILLE, UPPER CANADA CANADA Canada, the blest--the free! With prophetic glance, I see Visions of thy future glory, Giving to the world's great story A page, with mighty meaning fraught, That asks a wider range of thought. Borne onward on the wings of Time, I trace thy future course sublime; And feel my anxious lot grow bright, While musing on the glorious sight;-- My heart rejoicing bounds with glee To hail thy noble destiny! Even now thy sons inherit All thy British mother's spirit. Ah! no child of bondage thou; With her blessing on thy brow, And her deathless, old renown Circling thee with freedom's crown, And her love within thy heart, Well may'st thou perform thy part, And to coming years proclaim Thou art worthy of her name. Home of the homeless!--friend to all Who suffer on this earthly ball! On thy bosom sickly care Quite forgets her squalid lair; Gaunt famine, ghastly poverty Before thy gracious aspect fly, And hopes long crush'd, grow bright again, And, smiling, point to hill and plain. By thy winter's stainless snow, Starry heavens of purer glow, Glorious summers, fervid, bright, Basking in one blaze of light; By thy fair, salubrious clime; By thy scenery sublime; By thy mountains, streams, and woods; By thy everlasting floods; If greatness dwells beneath the skies, Thou to greatness shalt arise! Nations old, and empires vast, From the earth had darkly pass'd Ere rose the fair auspicious morn When thou, the last, not least, wast born. Through the desert solitude Of trackless waters, forests rude, Thy guardian angel sent a cry All jubilant of victory! “Joy,” she cried, “to th' untill'd earth, Let her joy in a mighty birth,-- Night from the land has pass'd away, The desert basks in noon of day. Joy, to the sullen wilderness, I come, her gloomy shades to bless, To bid the bear and wild-cat yield Their savage haunts to town and field. Joy, to stout hearts and willing hands, That win a right to these broad lands, And reap the fruit of honest toil, Lords of the rich, abundant soil. “Joy, to the sons of want, who groan In lands that cannot feed their own; And seek, in stern, determined mood, Homes in the land of lake and wood, And leave their hearts' young hopes behind, Friends in this distant world to find; Led by that God, who from His throne Regards the poor man's stifled moan. Like one awaken'd from the dead, The peasant lifts his drooping head, Nerves his strong heart and sunburnt hand, To win a potion of the land, That glooms before him far and wide In frowning woods and surging tide No more oppress'd, no more a slave, Here freedom dwells beyond the wave. “Joy, to those hardy sires who bore The day's first heat--their toils are o'er; Rude fathers of this rising land, Theirs was a mission truly grand. Brave peasants whom the Father, God, Sent to reclaim the stubborn sod; Well they perform'd their task, and won Altar and hearth for the woodman's son. Joy, to Canada's unborn heirs, A deathless heritage is theirs; For, sway'd by wise and holy laws, Its voice shall aid the world's great cause, Shall plead the rights of man, and claim For humble worth an honest name; Shall show the peasant-born can be, When call'd to action, great and free. Like fire, within the flint conceal'd, By stern necessity reveal'd, Kindles to life the stupid sod, Image of perfect man and God. “Joy, to thy unborn sons, for they Shall hail a brighter, purer day; When peace and Christian brotherhood Shall form a stronger tie than blood-- And commerce, freed from tax and chain, Shall build a bridge o'er earth and main; And man shall prize the wealth of mind, The greatest blessing to mankind; True Christians, both in word and deed, Ready in virtue's cause to bleed, Against a world combined to stand, And guard the honour of the land. Joy, to the earth, when this shall be, Time verges on eternity.” CHAPTER I A VISIT TO GROSSE ISLE Alas! that man's stern spirit e'er should mar A scene so pure--so exquisite as this. The dreadful cholera was depopulating Quebec and Montreal when our ship cast anchor off Grosse Isle, on the 30th of August 1832, and we were boarded a few minutes after by the health-officers. One of these gentlemen--a little, shrivelled-up Frenchman--from his solemn aspect and attenuated figure, would have made no bad representative of him who sat upon the pale horse. He was the only grave Frenchman I had ever seen, and I naturally enough regarded him as a phenomenon. His companion--a fine-looking fair-haired Scotchman--though a little consequential in his manners, looked like one who in his own person could combat and vanquish all the evils which flesh is heir to. Such was the contrast between these doctors, that they would have formed very good emblems, one, of vigorous health, the other, of hopeless decay. Our captain, a rude, blunt north-country sailor, possessing certainly not more politeness than might be expected in a bear, received his sprucely dressed visitors on the deck, and, with very little courtesy, abruptly bade them follow him down into the cabin. The officials were no sooner seated, than glancing hastily round the place, they commenced the following dialogue:-- “From what port, captain?” Now, the captain had a peculiar language of his own, from which he commonly expunged all the connecting links. Small words, such as “and” and “the,” he contrived to dispense with altogether. “Scotland--sailed from port o' Leith, bound for Quebec, Montreal-- general cargo--seventy-two steerage, four cabin passengers--brig Anne, one hundred and ninety-two tons burden, crew eight hands.” Here he produced his credentials, and handed them to the strangers. The Scotchman just glanced over the documents, and laid them on the table. “Had you a good passage out?” “Tedious, baffling winds, heavy fogs, detained three weeks on Banks--foul weather making Gulf--short of water, people out of provisions, steerage passengers starving.” “Any case of sickness or death on board?” “All sound as crickets.” “Any births?” lisped the little Frenchman. The captain screwed up his mouth, and after a moment's reflection he replied, “Births? Why, yes; now I think on't, gentlemen, we had one female on board, who produced three at a birth.” “That's uncommon,” said the Scotch doctor, with an air of lively curiosity. “Are the children alive and well? I should like much to see them.” He started up, and knocked his head--for he was very tall--against the ceiling. “Confound your low cribs! I have nearly dashed out my brains.” “A hard task, that,” looked the captain to me. He did not speak, but I knew by his sarcastic grin what was uppermost in his thoughts. “The young ones all males--fine thriving fellows. Step upon deck, Sam Frazer,” turning to his steward; “bring them down for doctors to see.” Sam vanished, with a knowing wink to his superior, and quickly returned, bearing in his arms three fat, chuckle-headed bull-terriers, the sagacious mother following close at his heels, and looked ready to give and take offence on the slightest provocation. “Here, gentlemen, are the babies,” said Frazer, depositing his burden on the floor. “They do credit to the nursing of the brindled slut.” The old tar laughed, chuckled, and rubbed his hands in an ecstacy of delight at the indignation and disappointment visible in the countenance of the Scotch Esculapius, who, angry as he was, wisely held his tongue. Not so the Frenchman; his rage scarcely knew bounds--he danced in a state of most ludicrous excitement, he shook his fist at our rough captain, and screamed at the top of his voice-- “Sacre, you bete! You tink us dog, ven you try to pass your puppies on us for babies?” “Hout, man, don't be angry,” said the Scotchman, stifling a laugh; “you see 'tis only a joke!” “Joke! me no understand such joke. Bete!” returned the angry Frenchman, bestowing a savage kick on one of the unoffending pups which was frisking about his feet. The pup yelped; the slut barked and leaped furiously at the offender, and was only kept from biting him by Sam, who could scarcely hold her back for laughing; the captain was uproarious; the offended Frenchman alone maintained a severe and dignified aspect. The dogs were at length dismissed, and peace restored. After some further questioning from the officials, a Bible was required for the captain to take an oath. Mine was mislaid, and there was none at hand. “Confound it!” muttered the old sailor, tossing over the papers in his desk; “that scoundrel, Sam, always stows my traps out of the way.” Then taking up from the table a book which I had been reading, which happened to be Voltaire's History of Charles XII., he presented it, with as grave an air as he could assume, to the Frenchman. Taking for granted that it was the volume required, the little doctor was too polite to open the book, the captain was duly sworn, and the party returned to the deck. Here a new difficulty occurred, which nearly ended in a serious quarrel. The gentlemen requested the old sailor to give them a few feet of old planking, to repair some damage which their boat had sustained the day before. This the captain could not do. They seemed to think his refusal intentional, and took it as a personal affront. In no very gentle tones, they ordered him instantly to prepare his boats, and put his passengers on shore. “Stiff breeze--short sea,” returned the bluff old seaman; “great risk in making land--boats heavily laden with women and children will be swamped. Not a soul goes on shore this night.” “If you refuse to comply with our orders, we will report you to the authorities.” “I know my duty--you stick to yours. When the wind falls off, I'll see to it. Not a life shall be risked to please you or your authorities.” He turned upon his heel, and the medical men left the vessel in great disdain. We had every reason to be thankful for the firmness displayed by our rough commander. That same evening we saw eleven persons drowned, from another vessel close beside us while attempting to make the shore. By daybreak all was hurry and confusion on board the Anne. I watched boat after boat depart for the island, full of people and goods, and envied them the glorious privilege of once more standing firmly on the earth, after two long months of rocking and rolling at sea. How ardently we anticipate pleasure, which often ends in positive pain! Such was my case when at last indulged in the gratification so eagerly desired. As cabin passengers, we were not included in the general order of purification, but were only obliged to send our servant, with the clothes and bedding we had used during the voyage, on shore, to be washed. The ship was soon emptied of all her live cargo. My husband went off with the boats, to reconnoitre the island, and I was left alone with my baby in the otherwise empty vessel. Even Oscar, the Captain's Scotch terrier, who had formed a devoted attachment to me during the voyage, forgot his allegiance, became possessed of the land mania, and was away with the rest. With the most intense desire to go on shore, I was doomed to look and long and envy every boatful of emigrants that glided past. Nor was this all; the ship was out of provisions, and I was condemned to undergo a rigid fast until the return of the boat, when the captain had promised a supply of fresh butter and bread. The vessel had been nine weeks at sea; the poor steerage passengers for the two last weeks had been out of food, and the captain had been obliged to feed them from the ship's stores. The promised bread was to be obtained from a small steam-boat, which plied daily between Quebec and the island, transporting convalescent emigrants and their goods in her upward trip, and provisions for the sick on her return. How I reckoned on once more tasting bread and butter! The very thought of the treat in store served to sharpen my appetite, and render the long fast more irksome. I could now fully realise all Mrs. Bowdich's longings for English bread and butter, after her three years' travel through the burning African deserts, with her talented husband. “When we arrived at the hotel at Plymouth,” said she, “and were asked what refreshment we chose--'Tea, and home-made bread and butter,' was my instant reply. 'Brown bread, if you please, and plenty of it.' I never enjoyed any luxury like it. I was positively ashamed of asking the waiter to refill the plate. After the execrable messes, and the hard ship-biscuit, imagine the luxury of a good slice of English bread and butter!” At home, I laughed heartily at the lively energy with which that charming woman of genius related this little incident in her eventful history--but off Grosse Isle, I realised it all. As the sun rose above the horizon, all these matter-of-fact circumstances were gradually forgotten, and merged in the surpassing grandeur of the scene that rose majestically before me. The previous day had been dark and stormy, and a heavy fog had concealed the mountain chain, which forms the stupendous background to this sublime view, entirely from our sight. As the clouds rolled away from their grey, bald brows, and cast into denser shadow the vast forest belt that girdled them round, they loomed out like mighty giants--Titans of the earth, in all their rugged and awful beauty--a thrill of wonder and delight pervaded my mind. The spectacle floated dimly on my sight--my eyes were blinded with tears--blinded with the excess of beauty. I turned to the right and to the left, I looked up and down the glorious river; never had I beheld so many striking objects blended into one mighty whole! Nature had lavished all her noblest features in producing that enchanting scene. The rocky isle in front, with its neat farm-houses at the eastern point, and its high bluff at the western extremity, crowned with the telegraph--the middle space occupied by tents and sheds for the cholera patients, and its wooded shores dotted over with motley groups--added greatly to the picturesque effect of the land scene. Then the broad, glittering river, covered with boats darting to and fro, conveying passengers from twenty-five vessels, of various size and tonnage, which rode at anchor, with their flags flying from the mast-head, gave an air of life and interest to the whole. Turning to the south side of the St. Lawrence, I was not less struck with its low fertile shores, white houses, and neat churches, whose slender spires and bright tin roofs shone like silver as they caught the first rays of the sun. As far as the eye could reach, a line of white buildings extended along the bank; their background formed by the purple hue of the dense, interminable forest. It was a scene unlike any I had ever beheld, and to which Britain contains no parallel. Mackenzie, an old Scotch dragoon, who was one of our passengers, when he rose in the morning, and saw the parish of St. Thomas for the first time, exclaimed: “Weel, it beats a'! Can thae white clouts be a' houses? They look like claes hung out to drie!” There was some truth in this odd comparison, and for some minutes, I could scarcely convince myself that the white patches scattered so thickly over the opposite shore could be the dwellings of a busy, lively population. “What sublime views of the north side of the river those habitans of St. Thomas must enjoy,” thought I. Perhaps familiarity with the scene has rendered them indifferent to its astonishing beauty. Eastward, the view down the St. Lawrence towards the Gulf, is the finest of all, scarcely surpassed by anything in the world. Your eye follows the long range of lofty mountains until their blue summits are blended and lost in the blue of the sky. Some of these, partially cleared round the base, are sprinkled over with neat cottages; and the green slopes that spread around them are covered with flocks and herds. The surface of the splendid river is diversified with islands of every size and shape, some in wood, others partially cleared, and adorned with orchards and white farm-houses. As the early sun streamed upon the most prominent of these, leaving the others in deep shade, the effect was strangely novel and imposing. In more remote regions, where the forest has never yet echoed to the woodman's axe, or received the impress of civilisation, the first approach to the shore inspires a melancholy awe, which becomes painful in its intensity. Land of vast hills and mighty streams, The lofty sun that o'er thee beams On fairer clime sheds not his ray, When basking in the noon of day Thy waters dance in silver light, And o'er them frowning, dark as night, Thy shadowy forests, soaring high, Stretch forth beyond the aching eye, And blend in distance with the sky. And silence--awful silence broods Profoundly o'er these solitudes; Nought but the lapsing of the floods Breaks the deep stillness of the woods; A sense of desolation reigns O'er these unpeopled forest plains. Where sounds of life ne'er wake a tone Of cheerful praise round Nature's throne, Man finds himself with God--alone. My daydreams were dispelled by the return of the boat, which brought my husband and the captain from the island. “No bread,” said the latter, shaking his head; “you must be content to starve a little longer. Provision-ship not in till four o'clock.” My husband smiled at the look of blank disappointment with which I received these unwelcome tidings, “Never mind, I have news which will comfort you. The officer who commands the station sent a note to me by an orderly, inviting us to spend the afternoon with him. He promises to show us everything worthy of notice on the island. Captain ---- claims acquaintance with me; but I have not the least recollection of him. Would you like to go?” “Oh, by all means. I long to see the lovely island. It looks a perfect paradise at this distance.” The rough sailor-captain screwed his mouth on one side, and gave me one of his comical looks, but he said nothing until he assisted in placing me and the baby in the boat. “Don't be too sanguine, Mrs. Moodie; many things look well at a distance which are bad enough when near.” I scarcely regarded the old sailor's warning, so eager was I to go on shore--to put my foot upon the soil of the new world for the first time--I was in no humour to listen to any depreciation of what seemed so beautiful. It was four o'clock when we landed on the rocks, which the rays of an intensely scorching sun had rendered so hot that I could scarcely place my foot upon them. How the people without shoes bore it, I cannot imagine. Never shall I forget the extraordinary spectacle that met our sight the moment we passed the low range of bushes which formed a screen in front of the river. A crowd of many hundred Irish emigrants had been landed during the present and former day; and all this motley crew--men, women, and children, who were not confined by sickness to the sheds (which greatly resembled cattle-pens) were employed in washing clothes, or spreading them out on the rocks and bushes to dry. The men and boys were in the water, while the women, with their scanty garments tucked above their knees, were trampling their bedding in tubs, or in holes in the rocks, which the retiring tide had left half full of water. Those who did not possess washing-tubs, pails, or iron pots, or could not obtain access to a hole in the rocks, were running to and fro, screaming and scolding in no measured terms. The confusion of Babel was among them. All talkers and no hearers--each shouting and yelling in his or her uncouth dialect, and all accompanying their vociferations with violent and extraordinary gestures, quite incomprehensible to the uninitiated. We were literally stunned by the strife of tongues. I shrank, with feelings almost akin to fear, from the hard-featured, sun-burnt harpies, as they elbowed rudely past me. I had heard and read much of savages, and have since seen, during my long residence in the bush, somewhat of uncivilised life; but the Indian is one of Nature's gentlemen--he never says or does a rude or vulgar thing. The vicious, uneducated barbarians who form the surplus of over-populous European countries, are far behind the wild man in delicacy of feeling or natural courtesy. The people who covered the island appeared perfectly destitute of shame, or even of a sense of common decency. Many were almost naked, still more but partially clothed. We turned in disgust from the revolting scene, but were unable to leave the spot until the captain had satisfied a noisy group of his own people, who were demanding a supply of stores. And here I must observe that our passengers, who were chiefly honest Scotch labourers and mechanics from the vicinity of Edinburgh, and who while on board ship had conducted themselves with the greatest propriety, and appeared the most quiet, orderly set of people in the world, no sooner set foot upon the island than they became infected by the same spirit of insubordination and misrule, and were just as insolent and noisy as the rest. While our captain was vainly endeavouring to satisfy the unreasonable demands of his rebellious people, Moodie had discovered a woodland path that led to the back of the island. Sheltered by some hazel-bushes from the intense heat of the sun, we sat down by the cool, gushing river, out of sight, but, alas! not out of hearing of the noisy, riotous crowd. Could we have shut out the profane sounds which came to us on every breeze, how deeply should we have enjoyed an hour amid the tranquil beauties of that retired and lovely spot! The rocky banks of the island were adorned with beautiful evergreens, which sprang up spontaneously in every nook and crevice. I remarked many of our favourite garden shrubs among these wildings of nature: the fillagree, with its narrow, dark glossy-green leaves; the privet, with its modest white blossoms and purple berries; the lignum-vitae, with its strong resinous odour; the burnet-rose, and a great variety of elegant unknowns. Here, the shores of the island and mainland, receding from each other, formed a small cove, overhung with lofty trees, clothed from the base to the summit with wild vines, that hung in graceful festoons from the topmost branches to the water's edge. The dark shadows of the mountains, thrown upon the water, as they towered to the height of some thousand feet above us, gave to the surface of the river an ebon hue. The sunbeams, dancing through the thick, quivering foliage, fell in stars of gold, or long lines of dazzling brightness, upon the deep black waters, producing the most novel and beautiful effects. It was a scene over which the spirit of peace might brood in silent adoration; but how spoiled by the discordant yells of the filthy beings who were sullying the purity of the air and water with contaminating sights and sounds! We were now joined by the sergeant, who very kindly brought us his capful of ripe plums and hazel-nuts, the growth of the island; a joyful present, but marred by a note from Captain ----, who had found that he had been mistaken in his supposed knowledge of us, and politely apologised for not being allowed by the health-officers to receive any emigrant beyond the bounds appointed for the performance of quarantine. I was deeply disappointed, but my husband laughingly told me that I had seen enough of the island; and turning to the good-natured soldier, remarked, that “it could be no easy task to keep such wild savages in order.” “You may well say that, sir--but our night scenes far exceed those of the day. You would think they were incarnate devils; singing, drinking, dancing, shouting, and cutting antics that would surprise the leader of a circus. They have no shame--are under no restraint--nobody knows them here, and they think they can speak and act as they please; and they are such thieves that they rob one another of the little they possess. The healthy actually run the risk of taking the cholera by robbing the sick. If you have not hired one or two stout, honest fellows from among your fellow passengers to guard your clothes while they are drying, you will never see half of them again. They are a sad set, sir, a sad set. We could, perhaps, manage the men; but the women, sir!--the women! Oh, sir!” Anxious as we were to return to the ship, we were obliged to remain until sun-down in our retired nook. We were hungry, tired, and out of spirits; the mosquitoes swarmed in myriads around us, tormenting the poor baby, who, not at all pleased with her first visit to the new world, filled the air with cries, when the captain came to tell us that the boat was ready. It was a welcome sound. Forcing our way once more through the still squabbling crowd, we gained the landing place. Here we encountered a boat, just landing a fresh cargo of lively savages from the Emerald Isle. One fellow, of gigantic proportions, whose long, tattered great-coat just reached below the middle of his bare red legs, and, like charity, hid the defects of his other garments, or perhaps concealed his want of them, leaped upon the rocks, and flourishing aloft his shilelagh, bounded and capered like a wild goat from his native mountains. “Whurrah! my boys!” he cried, “Shure we'll all be jintlemen!” “Pull away, my lads!” said the captain. Then turning to me, “Well, Mrs. Moodie, I hope that you have had enough of Grosse Isle. But could you have witnessed the scenes that I did this morning--” Here he was interrupted by the wife of the old Scotch dragoon, Mackenzie, running down to the boat and laying her hand familiarly upon his shoulder, “Captain, dinna forget.” “Forget what?” She whispered something confidentially in his ear. “Oh, ho! the brandy!” he responded aloud. “I should have thought, Mrs. Mackenzie, that you had had enough of that same on yon island?” “Aye, sic a place for decent folk,” returned the drunken body, shaking her head. “One needs a drap o' comfort, captain, to keep up one's heart ava.” The captain set up one of his boisterous laughs as he pushed the boat from the shore. “Hollo! Sam Frazer! steer in, we have forgotten the stores.” “I hope not, captain,” said I; “I have been starving since daybreak.” “The bread, the butter, the beef, the onions, and potatoes are here, sir,” said honest Sam, particularizing each article. “All right; pull for the ship. Mrs. Moodie, we will have a glorious supper, and mind you don't dream of Grosse Isle.” In a few minutes we were again on board. Thus ended my first day's experience of the land of all our hopes. OH! CAN YOU LEAVE YOUR NATIVE LAND? A Canadian Song Oh! can you leave your native land An exile's bride to be; Your mother's home, and cheerful hearth, To tempt the main with me; Across the wide and stormy sea To trace our foaming track, And know the wave that heaves us on Will never bear us back? And can you in Canadian woods With me the harvest bind, Nor feel one lingering, sad regret For all you leave behind? Can those dear hands, unused to toil, The woodman's wants supply, Nor shrink beneath the chilly blast When wintry storms are nigh? Amid the shades of forests dark, Our loved isle will appear An Eden, whose delicious bloom Will make the wild more drear. And you in solitude will weep O'er scenes beloved in vain, And pine away your life to view Once more your native plain. Then pause, dear girl! ere those fond lips Your wanderer's fate decide; My spirit spurns the selfish wish-- You must not be my bride. But oh, that smile--those tearful eyes, My firmer purpose move-- Our hearts are one, and we will dare All perils thus to love! [This song has been set to a beautiful plaintive air, by my husband.] CHAPTER II QUEBEC Queen of the West!--upon thy rocky throne, In solitary grandeur sternly placed; In awful majesty thou sitt'st alone, By Nature's master-hand supremely graced. The world has not thy counterpart--thy dower, Eternal beauty, strength, and matchless power. The clouds enfold thee in their misty vest, The lightning glances harmless round thy brow; The loud-voiced thunder cannot shake thy nest, Or warring waves that idly chafe below; The storm above, the waters at thy feet-- May rage and foam, they but secure thy seat. The mighty river, as it onward rushes To pour its floods in ocean's dread abyss, Checks at thy feet its fierce impetuous gushes, And gently fawns thy rocky base to kiss. Stern eagle of the crag! thy hold should be The mountain home of heaven-born liberty! True to themselves, thy children may defy The power and malice of a world combined; While Britain's flag, beneath thy deep blue sky, Spreads its rich folds and wantons in the wind; The offspring of her glorious race of old May rest securely in their mountain hold. On the 2nd of September, the anchor was weighed, and we bade a long farewell to Grosse Isle. As our vessel struck into mid-channel, I cast a last lingering look at the beautiful shores we were leaving. Cradled in the arms of the St. Lawrence, and basking in the bright rays of the morning sun, the island and its sister group looked like a second Eden just emerged from the waters of chaos. With what joy could I have spent the rest of the fall in exploring the romantic features of that enchanting scene! But our bark spread her white wings to the favouring breeze, and the fairy vision gradually receded from my sight, to remain for ever on the tablets of memory. The day was warm, and the cloudless heavens of that peculiar azure tint which gives to the Canadian skies and waters a brilliancy unknown in more northern latitudes. The air was pure and elastic, the sun shone out with uncommon splendour, lighting up the changing woods with a rich mellow colouring, composed of a thousand brilliant and vivid dyes. The mighty river rolled flashing and sparkling onward, impelled by a strong breeze, that tipped its short rolling surges with a crest of snowy foam. Had there been no other object of interest in the landscape than this majestic river, its vast magnitude, and the depth and clearness of its waters, and its great importance to the colony, would have been sufficient to have riveted the attention, and claimed the admiration of every thinking mind. Never shall I forget that short voyage from Grosse Isle to Quebec. I love to recall, after the lapse of so many years, every object that awoke in my breast emotions of astonishment and delight. What wonderful combinations of beauty, and grandeur, and power, at every winding of that noble river! How the mind expands with the sublimity of the spectacle, and soars upward in gratitude and adoration to the Author of all being, to thank Him for having made this lower world so wondrously fair--a living temple, heaven-arched, and capable of receiving the homage of all worshippers. Every perception of my mind became absorbed into the one sense of seeing, when, upon rounding Point Levi, we cast anchor before Quebec. What a scene!--Can the world produce such another? Edinburgh had been the beau ideal to me of all that was beautiful in Nature--a vision of the northern Highlands had haunted my dreams across the Atlantic; but all these past recollections faded before the present of Quebec. Nature has lavished all her grandest elements to form this astonishing panorama. There frowns the cloud-capped mountain, and below, the cataract foams and thunders; wood, and rock, and river combine to lend their aid in making the picture perfect, and worthy of its Divine Originator. The precipitous bank upon which the city lies piled, reflected in the still deep waters at its base, greatly enhances the romantic beauty of the situation. The mellow and serene glow of the autumnal day harmonised so perfectly with the solemn grandeur of the scene around me, and sank so silently and deeply into my soul, that my spirit fell prostrate before it, and I melted involuntarily into tears. Yes, regardless of the eager crowds around me, I leant upon the side of the vessel and cried like a child--not tears of sorrow, but a gush from the heart of pure and unalloyed delight. I heard not the many voices murmuring in my ears--I saw not the anxious beings that thronged our narrow deck--my soul at that moment was alone with God. The shadow of His glory rested visibly on the stupendous objects that composed that magnificent scene; words are perfectly inadequate to describe the impression it made upon my mind--the emotions it produced. The only homage I was capable of offering at such a shrine was tears--tears the most heartfelt and sincere that ever flowed from human eyes. I never before felt so overpoweringly my own insignificance, and the boundless might and majesty of the Eternal. Canadians, rejoice in your beautiful city! Rejoice and be worthy of her--for few, very few, of the sons of men can point to such a spot as Quebec--and exclaim, “She is ours!--God gave her to us, in her beauty and strength!--We will live for her glory--we will die to defend her liberty and rights--to raise her majestic brow high above the nations!” Look at the situation of Quebec!--the city founded on the rock that proudly holds the height of the hill. The queen sitting enthroned above the waters, that curb their swiftness and their strength to kiss and fawn around her lovely feet. Canadians!--as long as you remain true to yourselves and her, what foreign invader could ever dare to plant a hostile flag upon that rock-defended height, or set his foot upon a fortress rendered impregnable by the hand of Nature? United in friendship, loyalty, and love, what wonders may you not achieve? to what an enormous altitude of wealth and importance may you not arrive? Look at the St. Lawrence, that king of streams, that great artery flowing from the heart of the world, through the length and breadth of the land, carrying wealth and fertility in its course, and transporting from town to town along its beautiful shores the riches and produce of a thousand distant climes. What elements of future greatness and prosperity encircle you on every side! Never yield up these solid advantages to become an humble dependent on the great republic--wait patiently, loyally, lovingly, upon the illustrious parent from whom you sprang, and by whom you have been fostered into life and political importance; in the fulness of time she will proclaim your childhood past, and bid you stand up in your own strength, a free Canadian people! British mothers of Canadian sons!--learn to feel for their country the same enthusiasm which fills your hearts when thinking of the glory of your own. Teach them to love Canada--to look upon her as the first, the happiest, the most independent country in the world! Exhort them to be worthy of her--to have faith in her present prosperity, in her future greatness, and to devote all their talents, when they themselves are men, to accomplish this noble object. Make your children proud of the land of their birth, the land which has given them bread--the land in which you have found an altar and a home; do this, and you will soon cease to lament your separation from the mother country, and the loss of those luxuries which you could not, in honor to yourself, enjoy; you will soon learn to love Canada as I now love it, who once viewed it with a hatred so intense that I longed to die, that death might effectually separate us for ever. But, oh! beware of drawing disparaging contrasts between the colony and its illustrious parent. All such comparisons are cruel and unjust;--you cannot exalt the one at the expense of the other without committing an act of treason against both. But I have wandered away from my subject into the regions of thought, and must again descend to common work-a-day realities. The pleasure we experienced upon our first glance at Quebec was greatly damped by the sad conviction that the cholera-plague raged within her walls, while the almost ceaseless tolling of bells proclaimed a mournful tale of woe and death. Scarcely a person visited the vessel who was not in black, or who spoke not in tones of subdued grief. They advised us not to go on shore if we valued our lives, as strangers most commonly fell the first victims to the fatal malady. This was to me a severe disappointment, who felt an intense desire to climb to the crown of the rock, and survey the noble landscape at my feet. I yielded at last to the wishes of my husband, who did not himself resist the temptation in his own person, and endeavored to content myself with the means of enjoyment placed within my reach. My eyes were never tired of wandering over the scene before me. It is curious to observe how differently the objects which call forth intense admiration in some minds will affect others. The Scotch dragoon, Mackenzie, seeing me look long and intently at the distant Falls of Montmorency, drily observed,-- “It may be a' vera fine; but it looks na' better to my thinken than hanks o' white woo' hung out o're the bushes.” “Weel,” cried another, “thae fa's are just bonnie; 'tis a braw land, nae doubt; but no' just so braw as auld Scotland.” “Hout man! hauld your clavers, we shall a' be lairds here,” said a third; “and ye maun wait a muckle time before they wad think aucht of you at hame.” I was not a little amused at the extravagant expectations entertained by some of our steerage passengers. The sight of the Canadian shores had changed them into persons of great consequence. The poorest and the worst-dressed, the least-deserving and the most repulsive in mind and morals, exhibited most disgusting traits of self-importance. Vanity and presumption seemed to possess them altogether. They talked loudly of the rank and wealth of their connexions at home, and lamented the great sacrifices they had made in order to join brothers and cousins who had foolishly settled in this beggarly wooden country. Girls, who were scarcely able to wash a floor decently, talked of service with contempt, unless tempted to change their resolution by the offer of twelve dollars a month. To endeavour to undeceive them was a useless and ungracious task. After having tried it with several without success, I left it to time and bitter experience to restore them to their sober senses. In spite of the remonstrances of the captain, and the dread of the cholera, they all rushed on shore to inspect the land of Goshen, and to endeavour to realise their absurd anticipations. We were favoured, a few minutes after our arrival, with another visit from the health-officers; but in this instance both the gentlemen were Canadians. Grave, melancholy-looking men, who talked much and ominously of the prevailing disorder, and the impossibility of strangers escaping from its fearful ravages. This was not very consoling, and served to depress the cheerful tone of mind which, after all, is one of the best antidotes against this awful scourge. The cabin seemed to lighten, and the air to circulate more freely, after the departure of these professional ravens. The captain, as if by instinct, took an additional glass of grog, to shake off the sepulchral gloom their presence had inspired. The visit of the doctors was followed by that of two of the officials of the Customs--vulgar, illiterate men, who, seating themselves at the cabin table, with a familiar nod to the captain, and a blank stare at us, commenced the following dialogue:-- Custom-house officer (after making inquiries as to the general cargo of the vessel): “Any good brandy on board, captain?” Captain (gruffly): “Yes.” Officer: “Best remedy for the cholera known. The only one the doctors can depend upon.” Captain (taking the hint): “Gentlemen, I'll send you up a dozen bottles this afternoon.” Officer: “Oh, thank you. We are sure to get it genuine from you. Any Edinburgh ale in your freight?” Captain (with a slight shrug): “A few hundreds in cases. I'll send you a dozen with the brandy.” Both: “Capital!” First officer: “Any short, large-bowled, Scotch pipes, with metallic lids?” Captain (quite impatiently): “Yes, yes; I'll send you some to smoke, with the brandy. What else?” Officer: “We will now proceed to business.” My readers would have laughed, as I did, could they have seen how doggedly the old man shook his fist after these worthies as they left the vessel. “Scoundrels!” he muttered to himself; and then turning to me, “They rob us in this barefaced manner, and we dare not resist or complain, for fear of the trouble they can put us to. If I had those villains at sea, I'd give them a taste of brandy and ale that they would not relish.” The day wore away, and the lengthened shadows of the mountains fell upon the waters, when the Horsley Hill, a large three-masted vessel from Waterford, that we had left at the quarantine station, cast anchor a little above us. She was quickly boarded by the health-officers, and ordered round to take up her station below the castle. To accomplish this object she had to heave her anchor; when lo! a great pine-tree, which had been sunk in the river, became entangled in the chains. Uproarious was the mirth to which the incident gave rise among the crowds that thronged the decks of the many vessels then at anchor in the river. Speaking-trumpets resounded on every side; and my readers may be assured that the sea-serpent was not forgotten in the multitude of jokes which followed. Laughter resounded on all sides; and in the midst of the noise and confusion, the captain of the Horsley Hill hoisted his colours downwards, as if making signals of distress, a mistake which provoked renewed and long-continued mirth. I laughed until my sides ached; little thinking how the Horsley Hill would pay us off for our mistimed hilarity. Towards night, most of the steerage passengers returned, greatly dissatisfied with their first visit to the city, which they declared to be a filthy hole, that looked a great deal better from the ship's side than it did on shore. This, I have often been told, is literally the case. Here, as elsewhere, man has marred the magnificent creation of his Maker. A dark and starless night closed in, accompanied by cold winds and drizzling rain. We seemed to have made a sudden leap from the torrid to the frigid zone. Two hours before, my light summer clothing was almost insupportable, and now a heavy and well-lined plaid formed but an inefficient screen from the inclemency of the weather. After watching for some time the singular effect produced by the lights in the town reflected in the water, and weary with a long day of anticipation and excitement, I made up my mind to leave the deck and retire to rest. I had just settled down my baby in her berth, when the vessel struck, with a sudden crash that sent a shiver through her whole frame. Alarmed, but not aware of the real danger that hung over us, I groped my way to the cabin, and thence ascended to the deck. Here a scene of confusion prevailed that baffles description. By some strange fatality, the Horsley Hill had changed her position, and run foul of us in the dark. The Anne was a small brig, and her unlucky neighbour a heavy three-masted vessel, with three hundred Irish emigrants on board; and as her bowspirit was directly across the bows of the Anne, and she anchored, and unable to free herself from the deadly embrace, there was no small danger of the poor brig going down in the unequal struggle. Unable to comprehend what was going on, I raised my head above my companion ladder, just at the critical moment when the vessels were grappled together. The shrieks of the women, the shouts and oaths of the men, and the barking of the dogs in either ship, aided the dense darkness of the night in producing a most awful and stunning effect. “What is the matter?” I gasped out. “What is the reason of this dreadful confusion?” The captain was raging like a chafed bull, in the grasp of several frantic women, who were clinging, shrieking, to his knees. With great difficulty I persuaded the women to accompany me below. The mate hurried off with the cabin light upon the deck, and we were left in total darkness to await the result. A deep, strange silence fell upon my heart. It was not exactly fear, but a sort of nerving of my spirit to meet the worst. The cowardly behaviour of my companions inspired me with courage. I was ashamed of their pusillanimity and want of faith in the Divine Providence. I sat down, and calmly begged them to follow my example. An old woman, called Williamson, a sad reprobate, in attempting to do so, set her foot within the fender, which the captain had converted into a repository for empty glass bottles; the smash that ensued was echoed by a shriek from the whole party. “God guide us,” cried the ancient dame; “but we are going into eternity. I shall be lost; my sins are more in number than the hairs of my head.” This confession was followed by oaths and imprecations too blasphemous to repeat. Shocked and disgusted at her profanity, I bade her pray, and not waste the few moments that might be hers in using oaths and bad language. “Did you not hear the crash?” said she. “I did; it was of your own making. Sit down and be quiet.” Here followed another shock, that made the vessel heave and tremble; and the dragging of the anchor increased the uneasy motion which began to fill the boldest of us with alarm. “Mrs. Moodie, we are lost,” said Margaret Williamson, the youngest daughter of the old woman, a pretty girl, who had been the belle of the ship, flinging herself on her knees before me, and grasping both my hands in hers. “Oh, pray for me! pray for me! I cannot, I dare not, pray for myself; I was never taught a prayer.” Her voice was choked with convulsive sobs, and scalding tears fell in torrents from her eyes over my hands. I never witnessed such an agony of despair. Before I could say one word to comfort her, another shock seemed to lift the vessel upwards. I felt my own blood run cold, expecting instantly to go down; and thoughts of death, and the unknown eternity at our feet, flitted vaguely through my mind. “If we stay here, we shall perish,” cried the girl, springing to her feet. “Let us go on deck, mother, and take our chance with the rest.” “Stay,” I said; “you are safer here. British sailors never leave women to perish. You have fathers, husbands, brothers on board, who will not forget you. I beseech you to remain patiently here until the danger is past.” I might as well have preached to the winds. The headstrong creatures would no longer be controlled. They rushed simultaneously upon deck, just as the Horsley Hill swung off, carrying with her part of the outer frame of our deck and the larger portion of our stern. When tranquillity was restored, fatigued both in mind and body, I sunk into a profound sleep, and did not awake until the sun had risen high above the wave-encircled fortress of Quebec. The stormy clouds had all dispersed during the night; the air was clear and balmy; the giant hills were robed in a blue, soft mist, which rolled around them in fleecy volumes. As the beams of the sun penetrated their shadowy folds, they gradually drew up like a curtain, and dissolved like wreaths of smoke into the clear air. The moment I came on deck, my old friend Oscar greeted me with his usual joyous bark, and with the sagacity peculiar to his species, proceeded to shew me all the damage done to the vessel during the night. It was laughable to watch the motions of the poor brute, as he ran from place to place, stopping before, or jumping upon, every fractured portion of the deck, and barking out his indignation at the ruinous condition in which he found his marine home. Oscar had made eleven voyages in the Anne, and had twice saved the life of the captain. He was an ugly specimen of the Scotch terrier, and greatly resembled a bundle of old rope-yarn; but a more faithful or attached creature I never saw. The captain was not a little jealous of Oscar's friendship for me. I was the only person the dog had ever deigned to notice, and his master regarded it as an act of treason on the part of his four-footed favourite. When my arms were tired with nursing, I had only to lay my baby on my cloak on deck, and tell Oscar to watch her, and the good dog would lie down by her, and suffer her to tangle his long curls in her little hands, and pull his tail and ears in the most approved baby fashion, without offering the least opposition; but if any one dared to approach his charge, he was alive on the instant, placing his paws over the child, and growling furiously. He would have been a bold man who had approached the child to do her injury. Oscar was the best plaything, and as sure a protector, as Katie had. During the day, many of our passengers took their departure; tired of the close confinement of the ship, and the long voyage, they were too impatient to remain on board until we reached Montreal. The mechanics obtained instant employment, and the girls who were old enough to work, procured situations as servants in the city. Before night, our numbers were greatly reduced. The old dragoon and his family, two Scotch fiddlers of the name of Duncan, a Highlander called Tam Grant, and his wife and little son, and our own party, were all that remained of the seventy-two passengers that left the Port of Leith in the brig Anne. In spite of the earnest entreaties of his young wife, the said Tam Grant, who was the most mercurial fellow in the world, would insist upon going on shore to see all the lions of the place. “Ah, Tam! Tam! ye will die o' the cholera,” cried the weeping Maggie. “My heart will brak if ye dinna bide wi' me an' the bairnie.” Tam was deaf as Ailsa Craig. Regardless of tears and entreaties, he jumped into the boat, like a wilful man as he was, and my husband went with him. Fortunately for me, the latter returned safe to the vessel, in time to proceed with her to Montreal, in tow of the noble steamer, British America; but Tam, the volatile Tam was missing. During the reign of the cholera, what at another time would have appeared but a trifling incident, was now invested with doubt and terror. The distress of the poor wife knew no bounds. I think I see her now, as I saw her then, sitting upon the floor of the deck, her head buried between her knees, rocking herself to and fro, and weeping in the utter abandonment of her grief. “He is dead! he is dead! My dear, dear Tam! The pestilence has seized upon him; and I and the puir bairn are left alone in the strange land.” All attempts at consolation were useless; she obstinately refused to listen to probabilities, or to be comforted. All through the night I heard her deep and bitter sobs, and the oft-repeated name of him that she had lost. The sun was sinking over the plague-stricken city, gilding the changing woods and mountain peaks with ruddy light; the river mirrored back the gorgeous sky, and moved in billows of liquid gold; the very air seemed lighted up with heavenly fires, and sparkled with myriads of luminous particles, as I gazed my last upon that beautiful scene. The tow-line was now attached from our ship to the British America, and in company with two other vessels, we followed fast in her foaming wake. Day lingered on the horizon just long enough to enable me to examine, with deep interest, the rocky heights of Abraham, the scene of our immortal Wolfe's victory and death; and when the twilight faded into night, the moon arose in solemn beauty, and cast mysterious gleams upon the strange stern landscape. The wide river, flowing rapidly between its rugged banks, rolled in inky blackness beneath the overshadowing crags; while the waves in mid-channel flashed along in dazzling light, rendered more intense by the surrounding darkness. In this luminous track the huge steamer glided majestically forward, flinging showers of red earth-stars from the funnel into the clear air, and looking like some fiery demon of the night enveloped in smoke and flame. The lofty groves of pine frowned down in hearse-like gloom upon the mighty river, and the deep stillness of the night, broken alone by its hoarse wailings, filled my mind with sad forebodings--alas! too prophetic of the future. Keenly, for the first time, I felt that I was a stranger in a strange land; my heart yearned intensely for my absent home. Home! the word had ceased to belong to my present--it was doomed to live for ever in the past; for what emigrant ever regarded the country of his exile as his home? To the land he has left, that name belongs for ever, and in no instance does he bestow it upon another. “I have got a letter from home!” “I have seen a friend from home!” “I dreamt last night that I was at home!” are expressions of everyday occurrence, to prove that the heart acknowledges no other home than the land of its birth. From these sad reveries I was roused by the hoarse notes of the bagpipe. That well-known sound brought every Scotchman upon deck, and set every limb in motion on the decks of the other vessels. Determined not to be outdone, our fiddlers took up the strain, and a lively contest ensued between the rival musicians, which continued during the greater part of the night. The shouts of noisy revelry were in no way congenial to my feelings. Nothing tends so much to increase our melancholy as merry music when the heart is sad; and I left the scene with eyes brimful of tears, and my mind painfully agitated by sorrowful recollections and vain regrets. The strains we hear in foreign lands, No echo from the heart can claim; The chords are swept by strangers' hands, And kindle in the breast no flame, Sweet though they be. No fond remembrance wakes to fling Its hallowed influence o'er the chords; As if a spirit touch'd the string, Breathing, in soft harmonious words, Deep melody. The music of our native shore A thousand lovely scenes endears; In magic tones it murmurs o'er The visions of our early years;-- The hopes of youth; It wreathes again the flowers we wreathed In childhood's bright, unclouded day; It breathes again the vows we breathed, At beauty's shrine, when hearts were gay And whisper'd truth; It calls before our mental sight Dear forms whose tuneful lips are mute, Bright, sunny eyes long closed in night, Warm hearts now silent as the lute That charm'd our ears; It thrills the breast with feelings deep, Too deep for language to impart; And bids the spirit joy and weep, In tones that sink into the heart, And melt in tears. CHAPTER III OUR JOURNEY UP THE COUNTRY Fly this plague-stricken spot! The hot, foul air Is rank with pestilence--the crowded marts And public ways, once populous with life, Are still and noisome as a churchyard vault; Aghast and shuddering, Nature holds her breath In abject fear, and feels at her strong heart The deadly pangs of death. Of Montreal I can say but little. The cholera was at its height, and the fear of infection, which increased the nearer we approached its shores, cast a gloom over the scene, and prevented us from exploring its infected streets. That the feelings of all on board very nearly resembled our own might be read in the anxious faces of both passengers and crew. Our captain, who had never before hinted that he entertained any apprehensions on the subject, now confided to us his conviction that he should never quit the city alive: “This cursed cholera! Left it in Russia--found it on my return to Leith--meets me again in Canada. No escape the third time.” If the captain's prediction proved true in his case, it was not so in ours. We left the cholera in England, we met it again in Scotland, and, under the providence of God, we escaped its fatal visitation in Canada. Yet the fear and the dread of it on that first day caused me to throw many an anxious glance on my husband and my child. I had been very ill during the three weeks that our vessel was becalmed upon the Banks of Newfoundland, and to this circumstance I attribute my deliverance from the pestilence. I was weak and nervous when the vessel arrived at Quebec, but the voyage up the St. Lawrence, the fresh air and beautiful scenery were rapidly restoring me to health. Montreal from the river wears a pleasing aspect, but it lacks the grandeur, the stern sublimity of Quebec. The fine mountain that forms the background to the city, the Island of St. Helens in front, and the junction of the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa--which run side by side, their respective boundaries only marked by a long ripple of white foam, and the darker blue tint of the former river--constitute the most remarkable features in the landscape. The town itself was, at that period, dirty and ill-paved; and the opening of all the sewers, in order to purify the place and stop the ravages of the pestilence, rendered the public thoroughfares almost impassable, and loaded the air with intolerable effluvia, more likely to produce than stay the course of the plague, the violence of which had, in all probability, been increased by these long-neglected receptacles of uncleanliness. The dismal stories told us by the excise-officer who came to inspect the unloading of the vessel, of the frightful ravages of the cholera, by no means increased our desire to go on shore. “It will be a miracle if you escape,” he said. “Hundreds of emigrants die daily; and if Stephen Ayres had not providentally come among us, not a soul would have been alive at this moment in Montreal.” “And who is Stephen Ayres?” said I. “God only knows,” was the grave reply. “There was a man sent from heaven, and his name was John.” “But I thought this man was called Stephen?” “Ay, so he calls himself; but 'tis certain that he is not of the earth. Flesh and blood could never do what he has done--the hand of God is in it. Besides, no one knows who he is, or whence he comes. When the cholera was at the worst, and the hearts of all men stood still with fear, and our doctors could do nothing to stop its progress, this man, or angel, or saint, suddenly made his appearance in our streets. He came in great humility, seated in an ox-cart, and drawn by two lean oxen and a rope harness. Only think of that! Such a man in an _old ox-cart_, drawn by _rope harness!_ The thing itself was a miracle. He made no parade about what he could do, but only fixed up a plain pasteboard notice, informing the public that he possessed an infallible remedy for the cholera, and would engage to cure all who sent for him.” “And was he successful?” “Successful! It beats all belief; and his remedy so simple! For some days we all took him for a quack, and would have no faith in him at all, although he performed some wonderful cures upon poor folks, who could not afford to send for the doctor. The Indian village was attacked by the disease, and he went out to them, and restored upward of a hundred of the Indians to perfect health. They took the old lean oxen out of the cart, and drew him back to Montreal in triumph. This 'stablished him at once, and in a few days' time he made a fortune. The very doctors sent for him to cure them; and it is to be hoped that in a few days he will banish the cholera from the city.” “Do you know his famous remedy?” “Do I not?--Did he not cure me when I was at the last gasp? Why, he makes no secret of it. It is all drawn from the maple-tree. First he rubs the patient all over with an ointment, made of hog's lard and maple-sugar and ashes, from the maple-tree; and he gives him a hot draught of maple-sugar and ley, which throws him into a violent perspiration. In about an hour the cramps subside; he falls into a quiet sleep, and when he awakes he is perfectly restored to health.” Such were our first tidings of Stephen Ayres, the cholera doctor, who is universally believed to have effected some wonderful cures. He obtained a wide celebrity throughout the colony.[1] [1] A friend of mine, in this town, has an original portrait of this notable empiric--this man sent from heaven. The face is rather handsome, but has a keen, designing expression, and is evidently that of an American, from its complexion and features. The day of our arrival in the port of Montreal was spent in packing and preparing for our long journey up the country. At sunset, I went upon deck to enjoy the refreshing breeze that swept from the river. The evening was delightful; the white tents of the soldiers on the Island of St. Helens glittered in the beams of the sun, and the bugle-call, wafted over the waters, sounded so cheery and inspiring, that it banished all fears of the cholera, and, with fear, the heavy gloom that had clouded my mind since we left Quebec. I could once more hold sweet converse with nature, and enjoy the soft loveliness of the rich and harmonious scene. A loud cry from one of the crew startled me; I turned to the river, and beheld a man struggling in the water a short distance from our vessel. He was a young sailor, who had fallen from the bowsprit of a ship near us. There is something terribly exciting in beholding a fellow-creature in imminent peril, without having the power to help him. To witness his death-struggles--to feel in your own person all the dreadful alternations of hope and fear--and, finally, to see him die, with scarcely an effort made for his preservation. This was our case. At the moment he fell into the water, a boat with three men was within a few yards of the spot, and actually sailed over the spot where he sank. Cries of “Shame!” from the crowd collected upon the bank of the river, had no effect in rousing these people to attempt the rescue of a perishing fellow-creature. The boat passed on. The drowning man again rose to the surface, the convulsive motion of his hands and feet visible above the water, but it was evident that the struggle would be his last. “Is it possible that they will let a human being perish, and so near the shore, when an oar held out would save his life?” was the agonising question at my heart, as I gazed, half-maddened by excitement, on the fearful spectacle. The eyes of a multitude were fixed upon the same object--but not a hand stirred. Every one seemed to expect from his fellow an effort which he was incapable of attempting himself. At this moment--splash! a sailor plunged into the water from the deck of a neighbouring vessel, and dived after the drowning man. A deep “Thank God!” burst from my heart. I drew a freer breath as the brave fellow's head appeared above the water. He called to the man in the boat to throw him an oar, or the drowning man would be the death of them both. Slowly they put back the boat--the oar was handed; but it came too late! The sailor, whose name was Cook, had been obliged to shake off the hold of the dying man to save his own life. He dived again to the bottom, and succeeded in bringing to shore the body of the unfortunate being he had vainly endeavoured to succour. Shortly after, he came on board our vessel, foaming with passion at the barbarous indifference manifested by the men in the boat. “Had they given me the oar in time, I could have saved him. I knew him well--he was an excellent fellow, and a good seaman. He has left a wife and three children in Liverpool. Poor Jane!--how can I tell her that I could not save her husband?” He wept bitterly, and it was impossible for any of us to witness his emotion without joining in his grief. From the mate I learned that this same young man had saved the lives of three women and a child when the boat was swamped at Grosse Isle, in attempting to land the passengers from the Horsley Hill. Such acts of heroism are common in the lower walks of life. Thus, the purest gems are often encased in the rudest crust; and the finest feelings of the human heart are fostered in the chilling atmosphere of poverty. While this sad event occupied all our thoughts, and gave rise to many painful reflections, an exclamation of unqualified delight at once changed the current of our thoughts, and filled us with surprise and pleasure. Maggie Grant had fainted in the arms of her husband. Yes, there was Tam--her dear, reckless Tam, after all her tears and lamentations, pressing his young wife to his heart, and calling her by a thousand endearing pet names. He had met with some countrymen at Quebec, had taken too much whiskey on the joyful occasion, and lost his passage in the Anne, but had followed, a few hours later, in another steam-boat; and he assured the now happy Maggie, as he kissed the infant Tam, whom she held up to his admiring gaze, that he never would be guilty of the like again. Perhaps he kept his word; but I much fear that the first temptation would make the lively laddie forget his promise. Our luggage having been removed to the Custom-house, including our bedding, the captain collected all the ship's flags for our accommodation, of which we formed a tolerably comfortable bed; and if our dreams were of England, could it be otherwise, with her glorious flag wrapped around us, and our heads resting upon the Union Jack? In the morning we were obliged to visit the city to make the necessary arrangements for our upward journey. The day was intensely hot. A bank of thunderclouds lowered heavily above the mountain, and the close, dusty streets were silent, and nearly deserted. Here and there might be seen a group of anxious-looking, care-worn, sickly emigrants, seated against a wall among their packages, and sadly ruminating upon their future prospects. The sullen toll of the death-bell, the exposure of ready-made coffins in the undertakers' windows, and the oft-recurring notice placarded on the walls, of funerals furnished at such and such a place, at cheapest rate and shortest notice, painfully reminded us, at every turning of the street, that death was everywhere--perhaps lurking in our very path; we felt no desire to examine the beauties of the place. With this ominous feeling pervading our minds, public buildings possessed few attractions, and we determined to make our stay as short as possible. Compared with the infected city, our ship appeared an ark of safety, and we returned to it with joy and confidence, too soon to be destroyed. We had scarcely re-entered our cabin, when tidings were brought to us that the cholera had made its appearance: a brother of the captain had been attacked. It was advisable that we should leave the vessel immediately, before the intelligence could reach the health-officers. A few minutes sufficed to make the necessary preparations; and in less than half an hour we found ourselves occupying comfortable apartments in Goodenough's hotel, and our passage taken in the stage for the following morning. The transition was like a dream. The change from the close, rank ship, to large, airy, well-furnished rooms and clean attendants, was a luxury we should have enjoyed had not the dread of cholera involved all things around us in gloom and apprehension. No one spoke upon the subject; and yet it was evident that it was uppermost in the thoughts of all. Several emigrants had died of the terrible disorder during the week, beneath the very roof that sheltered us, and its ravages, we were told, had extended up the country as far as Kingston; so that it was still to be the phantom of our coming journey, if we were fortunate enough to escape from its head-quarters. At six o'clock the following morning, we took our places in the coach for Lachine, and our fears of the plague greatly diminished as we left the spires of Montreal in the distance. The journey from Montreal westward has been so well described by many gifted pens, that I shall say little about it. The banks of the St. Lawrence are picturesque and beautiful, particularly in those spots where there is a good view of the American side. The neat farm-houses looked to me, whose eyes had been so long accustomed to the watery waste, homes of beauty and happiness; and the splendid orchards, the trees at that season of the year being loaded with ripening fruit of all hues, were refreshing and delicious. My partiality for the apples was regarded by a fellow-traveller with a species of horror. “Touch them not, if you value your life.” Every draught of fresh air and water inspired me with renewed health and spirits, and I disregarded the well-meant advice; the gentlemen who gave it had just recovered from the terrible disease. He was a middle-aged man, a farmer from the Upper Province, Canadian born. He had visited Montreal on business for the first time. “Well, sir,” he said, in answer to some questions put to him by my husband respecting the disease, “I can tell you what it is: a man smitten with the cholera stares death right in the face; and the torment he is suffering is so great that he would gladly die to get rid of it.” “You were fortunate, C----, to escape,” said a backwood settler, who occupied the opposite seat; “many a younger man has died of it.” “Ay; but I believe I never should have taken it had it not been for some things they gave me for supper at the hotel; oysters, they called them, oysters; they were alive! I was once persuaded by a friend to eat them, and I liked them well enough at the time. But I declare to you that I felt them crawling over one another in my stomach all night. The next morning I was seized with the cholera.” “Did you swallow them whole, C----?” said the former spokesman, who seemed highly tickled by the evil doings of the oysters. “To be sure. I tell you, the creatures are alive. You put them on your tongue, and I'll be bound you'll be glad to let them slip down as fast as you can.” “No wonder you had the cholera,” said the backwoodsman, “you deserved it for your barbarity. If I had a good plate of oysters here, I'd teach you the way to eat them.” Our journey during the first day was performed partly by coach, partly by steam. It was nine o'clock in the evening when we landed at Cornwell, and took coach for Prescott. The country through which we passed appeared beautiful in the clear light of the moon; but the air was cold, and slightly sharpened by frost. This seemed strange to me in the early part of September, but it is very common in Canada. Nine passengers were closely packed into our narrow vehicle, but the sides being of canvas, and the open space allowed for windows unglazed, I shivered with cold, which amounted to a state of suffering, when the day broke, and we approached the little village of Matilda. It was unanimously voted by all hands that we should stop and breakfast at a small inn by the road-side, and warm ourselves before proceeding to Prescott. The people in the tavern were not stirring, and it was some time before an old white-headed man unclosed the door, and showed us into a room, redolent with fumes of tobacco, and darkened by paper blinds. I asked him if he would allow me to take my infant into a room with a fire. “I guess it was a pretty considerable cold night for the like of her,” said he. “Come, I'll show you to the kitchen; there's always a fire there.” I cheerfully followed, accompanied by our servant. Our entrance was unexpected, and by no means agreeable to the persons we found there. A half-clothed, red-haired Irish servant was upon her knees, kindling up the fire; and a long, thin woman, with a sharp face, and an eye like a black snake, was just emerging from a bed in the corner. We soon discovered this apparition to be the mistress of the house. “The people can't come in here!” she screamed in a shrill voice, darting daggers at the poor old man. “Sure there's a baby, and the two women critters are perished with cold,” pleaded the good old man. “What's that to me? They have no business in my kitchen.” “Now, Almira, do hold on. It's the coach has stopped to breakfast with us; and you know we don't often get the chance.” All this time the fair Almira was dressing as fast as she could, and eyeing her unwelcome female guests, as we stood shivering over the fire. “Breakfast!” she muttered, “what can we give them to eat? They pass our door a thousand times without any one alighting; and now, when we are out of everything, they must stop and order breakfast at such an unreasonable hour. How many are there of you?” turning fiercely to me. “Nine,” I answered, laconically, continuing to chafe the cold hands and feet of the child. “Nine! That bit of beef will be nothing, cut into steaks for nine. What's to be done, Joe?” (to the old man.) “Eggs and ham, summat of that dried venison, and pumpkin pie,” responded the aide-de-camp, thoughtfully. “I don't know of any other fixings.” “Bestir yourself, then, and lay out the table, for the coach can't stay long,” cried the virago, seizing a frying-pan from the wall, and preparing it for the reception of eggs and ham. “I must have the fire to myself. People can't come crowding here, when I have to fix breakfast for nine; particularly when there is a good room elsewhere provided for their accommodation.” I took the hint, and retreated to the parlour, where I found the rest of the passengers walking to and fro, and impatiently awaiting the advent of breakfast. To do Almira justice, she prepared from her scanty materials a very substantial breakfast in an incredibly short time, for which she charged us a quarter of a dollar per head. At Prescott we embarked on board a fine new steam-boat, William IV., crowded with Irish emigrants, proceeding to Cobourg and Toronto. While pacing the deck, my husband was greatly struck by the appearance of a middle-aged man and his wife, who sat apart from the rest, and seemed struggling with intense grief, which, in spite of all their efforts at concealment, was strongly impressed upon their features. Some time after, I fell into conversation with the woman, from whom I learned their little history. The husband was factor to a Scotch gentleman, of large landed property, who had employed him to visit Canada, and report the capabilities of the country, prior to his investing a large sum of money in wild lands. The expenses of their voyage had been paid, and everything up to that morning had prospered them. They had been blessed with a speedy passage, and were greatly pleased with the country and the people; but of what avail was all this? Their only son, a fine lad of fourteen, had died that day of the cholera, and all their hopes for the future were buried in his grave. For his sake they had sought a home in this far land; and here, at the very onset of their new career, the fell disease had taken him from them for ever--here, where, in such a crowd, the poor heart-broken mother could not even indulge her natural grief! “Ah, for a place where I might greet!” she said; “it would relieve the burning weight at my heart. But with sae many strange eyes glowering upon me, I tak' shame to mysel' to greet.” “Ah, Jeannie, my puir woman,” said the husband, grasping her hand, “ye maun bear up; 'tis God's will; an sinfu' creatures like us mauna repine. But oh, madam,” turning to me, “we have sair hearts the day!” Poor bereaved creatures, how deeply I commiserated their grief--how I respected the poor father, in the stern efforts he made to conceal from indifferent spectators the anguish that weighed upon his mind! Tears are the best balm that can be applied to the anguish of the heart. Religion teaches man to bear his sorrows with becoming fortitude, but tears contribute largely both to soften and to heal the wounds from whence they flow. At Brockville we took in a party of ladies, which somewhat relieved the monotony of the cabin, and I was amused by listening to their lively prattle, and the little gossip with which they strove to wile away the tedium of the voyage. The day was too stormy to go upon deck--thunder and lightening, accompanied with torrents of rain. Amid the confusion of the elements, I tried to get a peep at the Lake of the Thousand Isles; but the driving storm blended all objects into one, and I returned wet and disappointed to my berth. We passed Kingston at midnight, and lost all our lady passengers but two. The gale continued until daybreak, and noise and confusion prevailed all night, which were greatly increased by the uproarious conduct of a wild Irish emigrant, who thought fit to make his bed upon the mat before the cabin door. He sang, he shouted, and harangued his countrymen on the political state of the Emerald Isle, in a style which was loud if not eloquent. Sleep was impossible, whilst his stentorian lungs continued to pour forth torrents of unmeaning sound. Our Dutch stewardess was highly enraged. His conduct, she said, “was perfectly ondacent.” She opened the door, and bestowing upon him several kicks, bade him get away “out of that,” or she would complain to the captain. In answer to this remonstrance, he caught her by the foot, and pulled her down. Then waving the tattered remains of his straw hat in the air, he shouted with an air of triumph, “Git out wid you, you ould witch! Shure the ladies, the purty darlints, never sent you wid that ugly message to Pat, who loves them so intirely that he manes to kape watch over them through the blessed night.” Then making us a ludicrous bow, he continued, “Ladies, I'm at yer sarvice; I only wish I could get a dispensation from the Pope, and I'd marry yeas all.” The stewardess bolted the door, and the mad fellow kept up such a racket that we all wished him at the bottom of the Ontario. The following day was wet and gloomy. The storm had protracted the length of our voyage for several hours, and it was midnight when we landed at Cobourg. THERE'S REST (Written at midnight on the river St. Lawrence) There's rest when eve, with dewy fingers, Draws the curtains of repose Round the west, where light still lingers, And the day's last glory glows; There's rest in heaven's unclouded blue, When twinkling stars steal one by one, So softly on the gazer's view, As if they sought his glance to shun. There's rest when o'er the silent meads The deepening shades of night advance; And sighing through their fringe of reeds, The mighty stream's clear waters glance. There's rest when all above is bright, And gently o'er these summer isles The full moon pours her mellow light, And heaven on earth serenely smiles. There's rest when angry storms are o'er, And fear no longer vigil keeps; When winds are heard to rave no more, And ocean's troubled spirit sleeps; There's rest when to the pebbly strand, The lapsing billows slowly glide; And, pillow'd on the golden sand, Breathes soft and low the slumbering tide. There's rest, deep rest, at this still hour-- A holy calm,--a pause profound; Whose soothing spell and dreamy power Lulls into slumber all around. There's rest for labour's hardy child, For Nature's tribes of earth and air,-- Whose sacred balm and influence mild, Save guilt and sorrow, all may share. There's rest beneath the quiet sod, When life and all its sorrows cease, And in the bosom of his God The Christian finds eternal peace,-- That peace the world cannot bestow, The rest a Saviour's death-pangs bought, To bid the weary pilgrim know A rest surpassing human thought. CHAPTER IV TOM WILSON'S EMIGRATION “Of all odd fellows, this fellow was the oddest. I have seen many strange fish in my days, but I never met with his equal.” About a month previous to our emigration to Canada, my husband said to me, “You need not expect me home to dinner to-day; I am going with my friend Wilson to Y----, to hear Mr. C---- lecture upon emigration to Canada. He has just returned from the North American provinces, and his lectures are attended by vast numbers of persons who are anxious to obtain information on the subject. I got a note from your friend B---- this morning, begging me to come over and listen to his palaver; and as Wilson thinks of emigrating in the spring, he will be my walking companion.” “Tom Wilson going to Canada!” said I, as the door closed on my better-half. “What a backwoodsman he will make! What a loss to the single ladies of S----! What will they do without him at their balls and picnics?” One of my sisters, who was writing at a table near me, was highly amused at this unexpected announcement. She fell back in her chair and indulged in a long and hearty laugh. I am certain that most of my readers would have joined in her laugh had they known the object which provoked her mirth. “Poor Tom is such a dreamer,” said my sister, “it would be an act of charity in Moodie to persuade him from undertaking such a wild-goose chase; only that I fancy my good brother is possessed with the same mania.” “Nay, God forbid!” said I. “I hope this Mr. ----, with the unpronounceable name, will disgust them with his eloquence; for B---- writes me word, in his droll way, that he is a coarse, vulgar fellow, and lacks the dignity of a bear. Oh! I am certain they will return quite sickened with the Canadian project.” Thus I laid the flattering unction to my soul, little dreaming that I and mine should share in the strange adventures of this oddest of all odd creatures. It might be made a subject of curious inquiry to those who delight in human absurdities, if ever there were a character drawn in works of fiction so extravagantly ridiculous as some which daily experience presents to our view. We have encountered people in the broad thoroughfares of life more eccentric than ever we read of in books; people who, if all their foolish sayings and doings were duly recorded, would vie with the drollest creations of Hood, or George Colman, and put to shame the flights of Baron Munchausen. Not that Tom Wilson was a romancer; oh no! He was the very prose of prose, a man in a mist, who seemed afraid of moving about for fear of knocking his head against a tree, and finding a halter suspended to its branches--a man as helpless and as indolent as a baby. Mr. Thomas, or Tom Wilson, as he was familiarly called by all his friends and acquaintances, was the son of a gentleman, who once possessed a large landed property in the neighbourhood; but an extravagant and profligate expenditure of the income which he derived from a fine estate which had descended from father to son through many generations, had greatly reduced the circumstances of the elder Wilson. Still, his family held a certain rank and standing in their native county, of which his evil courses, bad as they were, could not wholly deprive them. The young people--and a very large family they made of sons and daughters, twelve in number--were objects of interest and commiseration to all who knew them, while the worthless father was justly held in contempt and detestation. Our hero was the youngest of the six sons; and from his childhood he was famous for his nothing-to-doishness. He was too indolent to engage heart and soul in the manly sports of his comrades; and he never thought it necessary to commence learning his lessons until the school had been in an hour. As he grew up to man's estate, he might be seen dawdling about in a black frock-coat, jean trousers, and white kid gloves, making lazy bows to the pretty girls of his acquaintance; or dressed in a green shooting-jacket, with a gun across his shoulder, sauntering down the wooded lanes, with a brown spaniel dodging at his heels, and looking as sleepy and indolent as his master. The slowness of all Tom's movements was strangely contrasted with his slight, and symmetrical figure; that looked as if it only awaited the will of the owner to be the most active piece of human machinery that ever responded to the impulses of youth and health. But then, his face! What pencil could faithfully delineate features at once so comical and lugubrious--features that one moment expressed the most solemn seriousness, and the next, the most grotesque and absurd abandonment to mirth? In him, all extremes appeared to meet; the man was a contradiction to himself. Tom was a person of few words, and so intensely lazy that it required a strong effort of will to enable him to answer the questions of inquiring friends; and when at length aroused to exercise his colloquial powers, he performed the task in so original a manner that it never failed to upset the gravity of the interrogator. When he raised his large, prominent, leaden-coloured eyes from the ground, and looked the inquirer steadily in the face, the effect was irresistible; the laugh would come--do your best to resist it. Poor Tom took this mistimed merriment in very good part, generally answering with a ghastly contortion which he meant for a smile, or, if he did trouble himself to find words, with, “Well, that's funny! What makes you laugh? At me, I suppose? I don't wonder at it; I often laugh at myself.” Tom would have been a treasure to an undertaker. He would have been celebrated as a mute; he looked as if he had been born in a shroud, and rocked in a coffin. The gravity with which he could answer a ridiculous or impertinent question completely disarmed and turned the shafts of malice back upon his opponent. If Tom was himself an object of ridicule to many, he had a way of quietly ridiculing others that bade defiance to all competition. He could quiz with a smile, and put down insolence with an incredulous stare. A grave wink from those dreamy eyes would destroy the veracity of a travelled dandy for ever. Tom was not without use in his day and generation; queer and awkward as he was, he was the soul of truth and honour. You might suspect his sanity--a matter always doubtful--but his honesty of heart and purpose, never. When you met Tom in the streets, he was dressed with such neatness and care (to be sure it took him half the day to make his toilet), that it led many persons to imagine that this very ugly young man considered himself an Adonis; and I must confess that I rather inclined to this opinion. He always paced the public streets with a slow, deliberate tread, and with his eyes fixed intently on the ground--like a man who had lost his ideas, and was diligently employed in searching for them. I chanced to meet him one day in this dreamy mood. “How do you do, Mr. Wilson?” He stared at me for several minutes, as if doubtful of my presence or identity. “What was that you said?” I repeated the question; and he answered, with one of his incredulous smiles-- “Was it to me you spoke? Oh, I am quite well, or I should not be walking here. By the way, did you see my dog?” “How should I know your dog?” “They say he resembles me. He's a queer dog, too; but I never could find out the likeness. Good night!” This was at noonday; but Tom had a habit of taking light for darkness, and darkness for light, in all he did or said. He must have had different eyes and ears, and a different way of seeing, hearing, and comprehending, than is possessed by the generality of his species; and to such a length did he carry this abstraction of soul and sense, that he would often leave you abruptly in the middle of a sentence; and if you chanced to meet him some weeks after, he would resume the conversation with the very word at which he had cut short the thread of your discourse. A lady once told him in jest that her youngest brother, a lad of twelve years old, had called his donkey Braham, in honour of the great singer of that name. Tom made no answer, but started abruptly away. Three months after, she happened to encounter him on the same spot, when he accosted her, without any previous salutation, “You were telling me about a donkey, Miss ----, a donkey of your brother's--Braham, I think you called him--yes, Braham; a strange name for an ass! I wonder what the great Mr. Braham would say to that. Ha, ha, ha!” “Your memory must be excellent, Mr. Wilson, to enable you to remember such a trifling circumstance all this time.” “Trifling, do you call it? Why, I have thought of nothing else ever since.” From traits such as these my readers will be tempted to imagine him brother to the animal who had dwelt so long in his thoughts; but there were times when he surmounted this strange absence of mind, and could talk and act as sensibly as other folks. On the death of his father, he emigrated to New South Wales, where he contrived to doze away seven years of his valueless existence, suffering his convict servants to rob him of everything, and finally to burn his dwelling. He returned to his native village, dressed as an Italian mendicant, with a monkey perched upon his shoulder, and playing airs of his own composition upon a hurdy-gurdy. In this disguise he sought the dwelling of an old bachelor uncle, and solicited his charity. But who that had once seen our friend Tom could ever forget him? Nature had no counterpart of one who in mind and form was alike original. The good-natured old soldier, at a glance, discovered his hopeful nephew, received him into his house with kindness, and had afforded him an asylum ever since. One little anecdote of him at this period will illustrate the quiet love of mischief with which he was imbued. Travelling from W---- to London in the stage-coach (railways were not invented in those days), he entered into conversation with an intelligent farmer who sat next to him; New South Wales, and his residence in that colony, forming the leading topic. A dissenting minister who happened to be his vis-a-vis, and who had annoyed him by making several impertinent remarks, suddenly asked him, with a sneer, how many years he had been there. “Seven,” returned Tom, in a solemn tone, without deigning a glance at his companion. “I thought so,” responded the other, thrusting his hands into his breeches pockets. “And pray, sir, what were you sent there for?” “Stealing pigs,” returned the incorrigible Tom, with the gravity of a judge. The words were scarcely pronounced when the questioner called the coachman to stop, preferring a ride outside in the rain to a seat within with a thief. Tom greatly enjoyed the hoax, which he used to tell with the merriest of all grave faces. Besides being a devoted admirer of the fair sex, and always imagining himself in love with some unattainable beauty, he had a passionate craze for music, and played upon the violin and flute with considerable taste and execution. The sound of a favourite melody operated upon the breathing automaton like magic, his frozen faculties experienced a sudden thaw, and the stream of life leaped and gambolled for a while with uncontrollable vivacity. He laughed, danced, sang, and made love in a breath, committing a thousand mad vagaries to make you acquainted with his existence. My husband had a remarkably sweet-toned flute, and this flute Tom regarded with a species of idolatry. “I break the Tenth Commandment, Moodie, whenever I hear you play upon that flute. Take care of your black wife,” (a name he had bestowed upon the coveted treasure), “or I shall certainly run off with her.” “I am half afraid of you, Tom. I am sure if I were to die, and leave you my black wife as a legacy, you would be too much overjoyed to lament my death.” Such was the strange, helpless, whimsical being who now contemplated an emigration to Canada. How he succeeded in the speculation the sequel will show. It was late in the evening before my husband and his friend Tom Wilson returned from Y----. I had provided a hot supper and a cup of coffee after their long walk, and they did ample justice to my care. Tom was in unusually high spirits, and appeared wholly bent upon his Canadian expedition. “Mr. C---- must have been very eloquent, Mr. Wilson,” said I, “to engage your attention for so many hours.” “Perhaps he was,” returned Tom, after a pause of some minutes, during which he seemed to be groping for words in the salt-cellar, having deliberately turned out its contents upon the tablecloth. “We were hungry after our long walk, and he gave us an excellent dinner.” “But that had nothing to do with the substance of his lecture.” “It was the substance, after all,” said Moodie, laughing; “and his audience seemed to think so, by the attention they paid to it during the discussion. But, come, Wilson, give my wife some account of the intellectual part of the entertainment.” “What! I--I--I--I give an account of the lecture? Why, my dear fellow, I never listened to one word of it!” “I thought you went to Y---- on purpose to obtain information on the subject of emigration to Canada?” “Well, and so I did; but when the fellow pulled out his pamphlet, and said that it contained the substance of his lecture, and would only cost a shilling, I thought that it was better to secure the substance than endeavour to catch the shadow--so I bought the book, and spared myself the pain of listening to the oratory of the writer. Mrs. Moodie! he had a shocking delivery, a drawling, vulgar voice; and he spoke with such a nasal twang that I could not bear to look at him, or listen to him. He made such grammatical blunders, that my sides ached with laughing at him. Oh, I wish you could have seen the wretch! But here is the document, written in the same style in which it was spoken. Read it; you have a rich treat in store.” I took the pamphlet, not a little amused at his description of Mr. C----, for whom I felt an uncharitable dislike. “And how did you contrive to entertain yourself, Mr. Wilson, during his long address?” “By thinking how many fools were collected together, to listen to one greater than the rest. By the way, Moodie, did you notice farmer Flitch?” “No; where did he sit?” “At the foot of the table. You must have seen him, he was too big to be overlooked. What a delightful squint he had! What a ridiculous likeness there was between him and the roast pig he was carving! I was wondering all dinner-time how that man contrived to cut up that pig; for one eye was fixed upon the ceiling, and the other leering very affectionately at me. It was very droll; was it not?” “And what do you intend doing with yourself when you arrive in Canada?” said I. “Find out some large hollow tree, and live like Bruin in winter by sucking my paws. In the summer there will be plenty of mast and acorns to satisfy the wants of an abstemious fellow.” “But, joking apart, my dear fellow,” said my husband, anxious to induce him to abandon a scheme so hopeless, “do you think that you are at all qualified for a life of toil and hardship?” “Are you?” returned Tom, raising his large, bushy, black eyebrows to the top of his forehead, and fixing his leaden eyes steadfastly upon his interrogator, with an air of such absurd gravity that we burst into a hearty laugh. “Now what do you laugh for? I am sure I asked you a very serious question.” “But your method of putting it is so unusual that you must excuse us for laughing.” “I don't want you to weep,” said Tom; “but as to our qualifications, Moodie, I think them pretty equal. I know you think otherwise, but I will explain. Let me see; what was I going to say?--ah, I have it! You go with the intention of clearing land, and working for yourself, and doing a great deal. I have tried that before in New South Wales, and I know that it won't answer. Gentlemen can't work like labourers, and if they could, they won't--it is not in them, and that you will find out. You expect, by going to Canada, to make your fortune, or at least secure a comfortable independence. I anticipate no such results; yet I mean to go, partly out of a whim, partly to satisfy my curiosity whether it is a better country than New South Wales; and lastly, in the hope of bettering my condition in a small way, which at present is so bad that it can scarcely be worse. I mean to purchase a farm with the three hundred pounds I received last week from the sale of my father's property; and if the Canadian soil yields only half what Mr. C---- says it does, I need not starve. But the refined habits in which you have been brought up, and your unfortunate literary propensities--(I say unfortunate, because you will seldom meet people in a colony who can or will sympathise with you in these pursuits)--they will make you an object of mistrust and envy to those who cannot appreciate them, and will be a source of constant mortification and disappointment to yourself. Thank God! I have no literary propensities; but in spite of the latter advantage, in all probability I shall make no exertion at all; so that your energy, damped by disgust and disappointment, and my laziness, will end in the same thing, and we shall both return like bad pennies to our native shores. But, as I have neither wife nor child to involve in my failure, I think, without much self-flattery, that my prospects are better than yours.” This was the longest speech I ever heard Tom utter; and, evidently astonished at himself, he sprang abruptly from the table, overset a cup of coffee into my lap, and wishing us _good day_ (it was eleven o'clock at night), he ran out of the house. There was more truth in poor Tom's words than at that moment we were willing to allow; for youth and hope were on our side in those days, and we were most ready to believe the suggestions of the latter. My husband finally determined to emigrate to Canada, and in the hurry and bustle of a sudden preparation to depart, Tom and his affairs for a while were forgotten. How dark and heavily did that frightful anticipation weigh upon my heart! As the time for our departure drew near, the thought of leaving my friends and native land became so intensely painful that it haunted me even in sleep. I seldom awoke without finding my pillow wet with tears. The glory of May was upon the earth--of an English May. The woods were bursting into leaf, the meadows and hedge-rows were flushed with flowers, and every grove and copsewood echoed to the warblings of birds and the humming of bees. To leave England at all was dreadful--to leave her at such a season was doubly so. I went to take a last look at the old Hall, the beloved home of my childhood and youth; to wander once more beneath the shade of its venerable oaks--to rest once more upon the velvet sward that carpeted their roots. It was while reposing beneath those noble trees that I had first indulged in those delicious dreams which are a foretaste of the enjoyments of the spirit-land. In them the soul breathes forth its aspirations in a language unknown to common minds; and that language is Poetry. Here annually, from year to year, I had renewed my friendship with the first primroses and violets, and listened with the untiring ear of love to the spring roundelay of the blackbird, whistled from among his bower of May blossoms. Here, I had discoursed sweet words to the tinkling brook, and learned from the melody of waters the music of natural sounds. In these beloved solitudes all the holy emotions which stir the human heart in its depths had been freely poured forth, and found a response in the harmonious voice of Nature, bearing aloft the choral song of earth to the throne of the Creator. How hard it was to tear myself from scenes endeared to me by the most beautiful and sorrowful recollections, let those who have loved and suffered as I did, say. However the world had frowned upon me, Nature, arrayed in her green loveliness, had ever smiled upon me like an indulgent mother, holding out her loving arms to enfold to her bosom her erring but devoted child. Dear, dear England! why was I forced by a stern necessity to leave you? What heinous crime had I committed, that I, who adored you, should be torn from your sacred bosom, to pine out my joyless existence in a foreign clime? Oh, that I might be permitted to return and die upon your wave-encircled shores, and rest my weary head and heart beneath your daisy-covered sod at last! Ah, these are vain outbursts of feeling--melancholy relapses of the spring home-sickness! Canada! thou art a noble, free, and rising country--the great fostering mother of the orphans of civilisation. The offspring of Britain, thou must be great, and I will and do love thee, land of my adoption, and of my children's birth; and, oh, dearer still to a mother's heart-land of their graves! * * * * * * Whilst talking over our coming separation with my sister C----, we observed Tom Wilson walking slowly up the path that led to the house. He was dressed in a new shooting-jacket, with his gun lying carelessly across his shoulder, and an ugly pointer dog following at a little distance. “Well, Mrs. Moodie, I am off,” said Tom, shaking hands with my sister instead of me. “I suppose I shall see Moodie in London. What do you think of my dog?” patting him affectionately. “I think him an ugly beast,” said C----. “Do you mean to take him with you?” “An ugly beast!--Duchess a beast? Why she is a perfect beauty!--Beauty and the beast! Ha, ha, ha! I gave two guineas for her last night.” (I thought of the old adage.) “Mrs. Moodie, your sister is no judge of a dog.” “Very likely,” returned C----, laughing. “And you go to town to-night, Mr. Wilson? I thought as you came up to the house that you were equipped for shooting.” “To be sure; there is capital shooting in Canada.” “So I have heard--plenty of bears and wolves. I suppose you take out your dog and gun in anticipation?” “True,” said Tom. “But you surely are not going to take that dog with you?” “Indeed I am. She is a most valuable brute. The very best venture I could take. My brother Charles has engaged our passage in the same vessel.” “It would be a pity to part you,” said I. “May you prove as lucky a pair as Whittington and his cat.” “Whittington! Whittington!” said Tom, staring at my sister, and beginning to dream, which he invariably did in the company of women. “Who was the gentleman?” “A very old friend of mine, one whom I have known since I was a very little girl,” said my sister; “but I have not time to tell you more about him now. If you so to St. Paul's Churchyard, and inquire for Sir Richard Whittington and his cat, you will get his history for a mere trifle.” “Do not mind her, Mr. Wilson, she is quizzing you,” quoth I; “I wish you a safe voyage across the Atlantic; I wish I could add a happy meeting with your friends. But where shall we find friends in a strange land?” “All in good time,” said Tom. “I hope to have the pleasure of meeting you in the backwoods of Canada before three months are over. What adventures we shall have to tell one another! It will be capital. Good-bye.” * * * * * * “Tom has sailed,” said Captain Charles Wilson, stepping into my little parlour a few days after his eccentric brother's last visit. “I saw him and Duchess safe on board. Odd as he is, I parted with him with a full heart; I felt as if we never should meet again. Poor Tom! he is the only brother left me now that I can love. Robert and I never agreed very well, and there is little chance of our meeting in this world. He is married, and settled down for life in New South Wales; and the rest--John, Richard, George, are all gone--all!” “Was Tom in good spirits when you parted?” “Yes. He is a perfect contradiction. He always laughs and cries in the wrong place. 'Charles,' he said, with a loud laugh, 'tell the girls to get some new music against I return: and, hark ye! if I never come back, I leave them my Kangaroo Waltz as a legacy.'” “What a strange creature!” “Strange, indeed; you don't know half his oddities. He has very little money to take out with him, but he actually paid for two berths in the ship, that he might not chance to have a person who snored sleep near him. Thirty pounds thrown away upon the mere chance of a snoring companion! 'Besides, Charles,' quoth he, 'I cannot endure to share my little cabin with others; they will use my towels, and combs, and brushes, like that confounded rascal who slept in the same berth with me coming from New South Wales, who had the impudence to clean his teeth with my toothbrush. Here I shall be all alone, happy and comfortable as a prince, and Duchess shall sleep in the after-berth, and be my queen.' And so we parted,” continued Captain Charles. “May God take care of him, for he never could take care of himself.” “That puts me in mind of the reason he gave for not going with us. He was afraid that my baby would keep him awake of a night. He hates children, and says that he never will marry on that account.” * * * * * * We left the British shores on the 1st of July, and cast anchor, as I have already shown, under the Castle of St. Louis, at Quebec, on the 2nd of September, 1832. Tom Wilson sailed the 1st of May, and had a speedy passage, and was, as we heard from his friends, comfortably settled in the bush, had bought a farm, and meant to commence operations in the fall. All this was good news, and as he was settled near my brother's location, we congratulated ourselves that our eccentric friend had found a home in the wilderness at last, and that we should soon see him again. On the 9th of September, the steam-boat William IV. landed us at the then small but rising town of ----, on Lake Ontario. The night was dark and rainy; the boat was crowded with emigrants; and when we arrived at the inn, we learnt that there was no room for us--not a bed to be had; nor was it likely, owing to the number of strangers that had arrived for several weeks, that we could obtain one by searching farther. Moodie requested the use of a sofa for me during the night; but even that produced a demur from the landlord. Whilst I awaited the result in a passage, crowded with strange faces, a pair of eyes glanced upon me through the throng. Was it possible?--could it be Tom Wilson? Did any other human being possess such eyes, or use them in such an eccentric manner? In another second he had pushed his way to my side, whispering in my ear, “We met, 'twas in a crowd.” “Tom Wilson, is that you?” “Do you doubt it? I flatter myself that there is no likeness of such a handsome fellow to be found in the world. It is I, I swear!--although very little of me is left to swear by. The best part of me I have left to fatten the mosquitoes and black flies in that infernal bush. But where is Moodie?” “There he is--trying to induce Mr. S----, for love or money, to let me have a bed for the night.” “You shall have mine,” said Tom. “I can sleep upon the floor of the parlour in a blanket, Indian fashion. It's a bargain--I'll go and settle it with the Yankee directly; he's the best fellow in the world! In the meanwhile here is a little parlour, which is a joint-stock affair between some of us young hopefuls for the time being. Step in here, and I will go for Moodie; I long to tell him what I think of this confounded country. But you will find it out all in good time;” and, rubbing his hands together with a most lively and mischievous expression, he shouldered his way through trunks, and boxes, and anxious faces, to communicate to my husband the arrangement he had so kindly made for us. “Accept this gentleman's offer, sir, till to-morrow,” said Mr. S----, “I can then make more comfortable arrangements for your family; but we are crowded--crowded to excess. My wife and daughters are obliged to sleep in a little chamber over the stable, to give our guests more room. Hard that, I guess, for decent people to locate over the horses.” These matters settled, Moodie returned with Tom Wilson to the little parlour, in which I had already made myself at home. “Well, now, is it not funny that I should be the first to welcome you to Canada?” said Tom. “But what are you doing here, my dear fellow?” “Shaking every day with the ague. But I could laugh in spite of my teeth to hear them make such a confounded rattling; you would think they were all quarrelling which should first get out of my mouth. This shaking mania forms one of the chief attractions of this new country.” “I fear,” said I, remarking how thin and pale he had become, “that this climate cannot agree with you.” “Nor I with the climate. Well, we shall soon be quits, for, to let you into a secret, I am now on my way to England.” “Impossible!” “It is true.” “And the farm--what have you done with it?” “Sold it.” “And your outfit?” “Sold that too.” “To whom?” “To one who will take better care of both than I did. Ah! such a country!--such people!--such rogues! It beats Australia hollow; you know your customers there--but here you have to find them out. Such a take-in!--God forgive them! I never could take care of money; and, one way or other, they have cheated me out of all mine. I have scarcely enough left to pay my passage home. But, to provide against the worst, I have bought a young bear, a splendid fellow, to make my peace with my uncle. You must see him; he is close by in the stable.” “To-morrow we will pay a visit to Bruin; but tonight do tell us something about yourself, and your residence in the bush.” “You will know enough about the bush by-and-by. I am a bad historian,” he continued, stretching out his legs and yawning horribly, “a worse biographer. I never can find words to relate facts. But I will try what I can do; mind, don't laugh at my blunders.” We promised to be serious--no easy matter while looking at and listening to Tom Wilson, and he gave us, at detached intervals, the following account of himself:-- “My troubles began at sea. We had a fair voyage, and all that; but my poor dog, my beautiful Duchess!--that beauty in the beast--died. I wanted to read the funeral service over her, but the captain interfered--the brute!--and threatened to throw me into the sea along with the dead bitch, as the unmannerly ruffian persisted in calling my canine friend. I never spoke to him again during the rest of the voyage. Nothing happened worth relating until I got to this place, where I chanced to meet a friend who knew your brother, and I went up with him to the woods. Most of the wise men of Gotham we met on the road were bound to the woods; so I felt happy that I was, at least, in the fashion. Mr. ---- was very kind, and spoke in raptures of the woods, which formed the theme of conversation during our journey--their beauty, their vastness, the comfort and independence enjoyed by those who had settled in them; and he so inspired me with the subject that I did nothing all day but sing as we rode along-- 'A life in the woods for me;' until we came to the woods, and then I soon learned to sing that same, as the Irishman says, on the other side of my mouth.” Here succeeded a long pause, during which friend Tom seemed mightily tickled with his reminiscences, for he leaned back in his chair, and from time to time gave way to loud, hollow bursts of laughter. “Tom, Tom! are you going mad?” said my husband, shaking him. “I never was sane, that I know of,” returned he. “You know that it runs in the family. But do let me have my laugh out. The woods! Ha! ha! When I used to be roaming through those woods, shooting--though not a thing could I ever find to shoot, for birds and beasts are not such fools as our English emigrants--and I chanced to think of you coming to spend the rest of your lives in the woods--I used to stop, and hold my sides, and laugh until the woods rang again. It was the only consolation I had.” “Good Heavens!” said I, “let us never go to the woods.” “You will repent if you do,” continued Tom. “But let me proceed on my journey. My bones were well-nigh dislocated before we got to D----. The roads for the last twelve miles were nothing but a succession of mud-holes, covered with the most ingenious invention ever thought of for racking the limbs, called corduroy bridges; not breeches, mind you,--for I thought, whilst jolting up and down over them, that I should arrive at my destination minus that indispensable covering. It was night when we got to Mr. ----'s place. I was tired and hungry, my face disfigured and blistered by the unremitting attentions of the blackflies that rose in swarms from the river. I thought to get a private room to wash and dress in, but there is no such thing as privacy in this country. In the bush, all things are in common; you cannot even get a bed without having to share it with a companion. A bed on the floor in a public sleeping-room! Think of that; a public sleeping-room!--men, women, and children, only divided by a paltry curtain. Oh, ye gods! think of the snoring, squalling, grumbling, puffing; think of the kicking, elbowing, and crowding; the suffocating heat, the mosquitoes, with their infernal buzzing--and you will form some idea of the misery I endured the first night of my arrival in the bush. “But these are not half the evils with which you have to contend. You are pestered with nocturnal visitants far more disagreeable than even the mosquitoes, and must put up with annoyances more disgusting than the crowded, close room. And then, to appease the cravings of hunger, fat pork is served to you three times a day. No wonder that the Jews eschewed the vile animal; they were people of taste. Pork, morning, noon, and night, swimming in its own grease! The bishop who complained of partridges every day should have been condemned to three months' feeding upon pork in the bush; and he would have become an anchorite, to escape the horrid sight of swine's flesh for ever spread before him. No wonder I am thin; I have been starved--starved upon pritters and port, and that disgusting specimen of unleavened bread, yclept cakes in the pan. “I had such a horror of the pork diet, that whenever I saw the dinner in progress I fled to the canoe, in the hope of drowning upon the waters all reminiscences of the hateful banquet; but even here the very fowls of the air and the reptiles of the deep lifted up their voices, and shouted, 'Pork, pork, pork!'” M---- remonstrated with his friend for deserting the country for such minor evils as these, which, after all, he said, could easily be borne. “Easily borne!” exclaimed the indignant Wilson. “Go and try them; and then tell me that. I did try to bear them with a good grace, but it would not do. I offended everybody with my grumbling. I was constantly reminded by the ladies of the house that gentlemen should not come to this country without they were able to put up with a _little_ inconvenience; that I should make as good a settler as a butterfly in a beehive; that it was impossible to be nice about food and dress in the _Bush_; that people must learn to eat what they could get, and be content to be shabby and dirty, like their neighbours in the _Bush_,--until that horrid word _Bush_became synonymous with all that was hateful and revolting in my mind. “It was impossible to keep anything to myself. The children pulled my books to pieces to look at the pictures; and an impudent, bare-legged Irish servant-girl took my towels to wipe the dishes with, and my clothes-brush to black the shoes--an operation which she performed with a mixture of soot and grease. I thought I should be better off in a place of my own, so I bought a wild farm that was recommended to me, and paid for it double what it was worth. When I came to examine my estate, I found there was no house upon it, and I should have to wait until the fall to get one put up, and a few acres cleared for cultivation. I was glad to return to my old quarters. “Finding nothing to shoot in the woods, I determined to amuse myself with fishing; but Mr. ---- could not always lend his canoe, and there was no other to be had. To pass away the time, I set about making one. I bought an axe, and went to the forest to select a tree. About a mile from the lake, I found the largest pine I ever saw. I did not much like to try my maiden hand upon it, for it was the first and the last tree I ever cut down. But to it I went; and I blessed God that it reached the ground without killing me in its way thither. When I was about it, I thought I might as well make the canoe big enough; but the bulk of the tree deceived me in the length of my vessel, and I forgot to measure the one that belonged to Mr. ----. It took me six weeks hollowing it out, and when it was finished, it was as long as a sloop-of-war, and too unwieldy for all the oxen in the township to draw it to the water. After all my labour, my combats with those wood-demons the black-flies, sand-flies, and mosquitoes, my boat remains a useless monument of my industry. And worse than this, the fatigue I had endured while working at it late and early, brought on the ague; which so disgusted me with the country that I sold my farm and all my traps for an old song; purchased Bruin to bear me company on my voyage home; and the moment I am able to get rid of this tormenting fever, I am off.” Argument and remonstrance were alike in vain, he could not be dissuaded from his purpose. Tom was as obstinate as his bear. The next morning he conducted us to the stable to see Bruin. The young denizen of the forest was tied to the manger, quietly masticating a cob of Indian corn, which he held in his paw, and looked half human as he sat upon his haunches, regarding us with a solemn, melancholy air. There was an extraordinary likeness, quite ludicrous, between Tom and the bear. We said nothing, but exchanged glances. Tom read our thoughts. “Yes,” said he, “there is a strong resemblance; I saw it when I bought him. Perhaps we are brothers;” and taking in his hand the chain that held the bear, he bestowed upon him sundry fraternal caresses, which the ungrateful Bruin returned with low and savage growls. “He can't flatter. He's all truth and sincerity. A child of nature, and worthy to be my friend; the only Canadian I ever mean to acknowledge as such.” About an hour after this, poor Tom was shaking with ague, which in a few days reduced him so low that I began to think he never would see his native shores again. He bore the affliction very philosophically, and all his well days he spent with us. One day my husband was absent, having accompanied Mr. S---- to inspect a farm, which he afterwards purchased, and I had to get through the long day at the inn in the best manner I could. The local papers were soon exhausted. At that period they possessed little or no interest for me. I was astonished and disgusted at the abusive manner in which they were written, the freedom of the press being enjoyed to an extent in this province unknown in more civilised communities. Men, in Canada, may call one another rogues and miscreants, in the most approved Billingsgate, through the medium of the newspapers, which are a sort of safety-valve to let off all the bad feelings and malignant passions floating through the country, without any dread of the horsewhip. Hence it is the commonest thing in the world to hear one editor abusing, like a pickpocket, an opposition brother; calling him a reptile--a crawling thing--a calumniator--a hired vendor of lies; and his paper a smut-machine--a vile engine of corruption, as base and degraded as the proprietor, &c. Of this description was the paper I now held in my hand, which had the impudence to style itself the Reformer--not of morals or manners, certainly, if one might judge by the vulgar abuse that defiled every page of the precious document. I soon flung it from me, thinking it worthy of the fate of many a better production in the olden times, that of being burned by the common hangman; but, happily, the office of hangman has become obsolete in Canada, and the editors of these refined journals may go on abusing their betters with impunity. Books I had none, and I wished that Tom would make his appearance, and amuse me with his oddities; but he had suffered so much from the ague the day before that when he did enter the room to lead me to dinner, he looked like a walking corpse--the dead among the living! so dark, so livid, so melancholy, it was really painful to look upon him. “I hope the ladies who frequent the ordinary won't fall in love with me,” said he, grinning at himself in the miserable looking-glass that formed the case of the Yankee clock, and was ostentatiously displayed on a side table; “I look quite killing to-day. What a comfort it is, Mrs. M----, to be above all rivalry.” In the middle of dinner, the company was disturbed by the entrance of a person who had the appearance of a gentleman, but who was evidently much flustered with drinking. He thrust his chair in between two gentlemen who sat near the head of the table, and in a loud voice demanded fish. “Fish, sir?” said the obsequious waiter, a great favourite with all persons who frequented the hotel; “there is no fish, sir. There was a fine salmon, sir, had you come sooner; but 'tis all eaten, sir.” “Then fetch me some.” “I'll see what I can do, sir,” said the obliging Tim, hurrying out. Tom Wilson was at the head of the table, carving a roast pig, and was in the act of helping a lady, when the rude fellow thrust his fork into the pig, calling out as he did so-- “Hold, sir! give me some of that pig! You have eaten among you all the fish, and now you are going to appropriate the best parts of the pig.” Tom raised his eyebrows, and stared at the stranger in his peculiar manner, then very coolly placed the whole of the pig on his plate. “I have heard,” he said, “of dog eating dog, but I never before saw pig eating pig.” “Sir! do you mean to insult me?” cried the stranger, his face crimsoning with anger. “Only to tell you, sir, that you are no gentleman. Here, Tim,” turning to the waiter, “go to the stable and bring in my bear; we will place him at the table to teach this man how to behave himself in the presence of ladies.” A general uproar ensued; the women left the table, while the entrance of the bear threw the gentlemen present into convulsions of laughter. It was too much for the human biped; he was forced to leave the room, and succumb to the bear. My husband concluded his purchase of the farm, and invited Wilson to go with us into the country and try if change of air would be beneficial to him; for in his then weak state it was impossible for him to return to England. His funds were getting very low, and Tom thankfully accepted the offer. Leaving Bruin in the charge of Tim (who delighted in the oddities of the strange English gentleman), Tom made one of our party to ----. THE LAMENT OF A CANADIAN EMIGRANT Though distant, in spirit still present to me, My best thoughts, my country, still linger with thee; My fond heart beats quick, and my dim eyes run o'er, When I muse on the last glance I gave to thy shore. The chill mists of night round thy white cliffs were curl'd, But I felt there was no spot like thee in the world-- No home to which memory so fondly would turn, No thought that within me so madly would burn. But one stood beside me whose presence repress'd The deep pang of sorrow that troubled my breast; And the babe on my bosom so calmly reclining, Check'd the tears as they rose, and all useless repining. Hard indeed was the struggle, from thee forced to roam; But for their sakes I quitted both country and home. Bless'd Isle of the Free! I must view thee no more; My fortunes are cast on this far-distant shore; In the depths of dark forests my soul droops her wings; In tall boughs above me no merry bird sings; The sigh of the wild winds--the rush of the floods-- Is the only sad music that wakens the woods. In dreams, lovely England! my spirit still hails Thy soft waving woodlands, thy green, daisied vales. When my heart shall grow cold to the mother that bore me, When my soul, dearest Nature! shall cease to adore thee, And beauty and virtue no longer impart Delight to my bosom, and warmth to my heart, Then the love I have cherish'd, my country, for thee, In the breast of thy daughter extinguish'd shall be. CHAPTER V OUR FIRST SETTLEMENT, AND THE BORROWING SYSTEM To lend, or not to lend--is that the question? “Those who go a-borrowing, go a-sorrowing,” saith the old adage; and a wiser saw never came out of the mouth of experience. I have tested the truth of this proverb since my settlement in Canada, many, many times, to my cost; and what emigrant has not? So averse have I ever been to this practice, that I would at all times rather quietly submit to a temporary inconvenience than obtain anything I wanted in this manner. I verily believe that a demon of mischief presides over borrowed goods, and takes a wicked pleasure in playing off a thousand malicious pranks upon you the moment he enters your dwelling. Plates and dishes, that had been the pride and ornament of their own cupboard for years, no sooner enter upon foreign service than they are broken; wine-glasses and tumblers, that have been handled by a hundred careless wenches in safety, scarcely pass into the hands of your servants when they are sure to tumble upon the floor, and the accident turns out a compound fracture. If you borrow a garment of any kind, be sure that you will tear it; a watch, that you will break it; a jewel, that you will lose it; a book, that it will be stolen from you. There is no end to the trouble and vexation arising out of this evil habit. If you borrow a horse, and he has the reputation of being the best-behaved animal in the district, you no sooner become responsible for his conduct than he loses his character. The moment that you attempt to drive him, he shows that he has a will of his own, by taking the reins into his own management, and running away in a contrary direction to the road that you wished him to travel. He never gives over his eccentric capers until he has broken his own knees, and the borrowed carriage and harness. So anxious are you about his safety, that you have not a moment to bestow upon your own. And why?--the beast is borrowed, and you are expected to return him in as good condition as he came to you. But of all evils, to borrow money is perhaps the worst. If of a friend, he ceases to be one the moment you feel that you are bound to him by the heavy clog of obligation. If of a usurer, the interest, in this country, soon doubles the original sum, and you owe an increasing debt, which in time swallows up all you possess. When we first came to the colony, nothing surprised me more than the extent to which this pernicious custom was carried, both by the native Canadians, the European settlers, and the lower order of Americans. Many of the latter had spied out the goodness of the land, and _borrowed_ various portions of it, without so much as asking leave of the absentee owners. Unfortunately, our new home was surrounded by these odious squatters, whom we found as ignorant as savages, without their courtesy and kindness. The place we first occupied was purchased of Mr. B----, a merchant, who took it in payment of sundry large debts which the owner, a New England loyalist, had been unable to settle. Old Joe R----, the present occupant, had promised to quit it with his family, at the commencement of sleighing; and as the bargain was concluded in the month of September, and we were anxious to plough for fall wheat, it was necessary to be upon the spot. No house was to be found in the immediate neighbourhood, save a small dilapidated log tenement, on an adjoining farm (which was scarcely reclaimed from the bush) that had been some months without an owner. The merchant assured is that this could be made very comfortable until such time as it suited R---- to remove, and the owner was willing to let us have it for the moderate sum of four dollars a month. Trusting to Mr. B----'s word, and being strangers in the land, we never took the precaution to examine this delightful summer residence before entering upon it, but thought ourselves very fortunate in obtaining a temporary home so near our own property, the distance not exceeding half a mile. The agreement was drawn up, and we were told that we could take possession whenever it suited us. The few weeks that I had sojourned in the country had by no means prepossessed me in its favour. The home-sickness was sore upon me, and all my solitary hours were spent in tears. My whole soul yielded itself up to a strong and overpowering grief. One simple word dwelt for ever in my heart, and swelled it to bursting--“Home!” I repeated it waking a thousand times a day, and my last prayer before I sank to sleep was still “Home! Oh, that I could return, if only to die at home!” And nightly I did return; my feet again trod the daisied meadows of England; the song of her birds was in my ears; I wept with delight to find myself once more wandering beneath the fragrant shade of her green hedge-rows; and I awoke to weep in earnest when I found it but a dream. But this is all digression, and has nothing to do with our unseen dwelling. The reader must bear with me in my fits of melancholy, and take me as I am. It was the 22nd September that we left the Steam-boat Hotel, to take possession of our new abode. During the three weeks we had sojourned at ----, I had not seen a drop of rain, and I began to think that the fine weather would last for ever; but this eventful day arose in clouds. Moodie had hired a covered carriage to convey the baby, the servant-maid, and myself to the farm, as our driver prognosticated a wet day; while he followed with Tom Wilson and the teams that conveyed our luggage. The scenery through which we were passing was so new to me, so unlike anything that I had ever beheld before, that in spite of its monotonous character, it won me from my melancholy, and I began to look about me with considerable interest. Not so my English servant, who declared that the woods were frightful to look upon; that it was a country only fit for wild beasts; that she hated it with all her heart and soul, and would go back as soon as she was able. About a mile from the place of our destination the rain began to fall in torrents, and the air, which had been balmy as a spring morning, turned as chilly as that of a November day. Hannah shivered; the baby cried, and I drew my summer shawl as closely round as possible, to protect her from the sudden change in our hitherto delightful temperature. Just then, the carriage turned into a narrow, steep path, overhung with lofty woods, and after labouring up it with considerable difficulty, and at the risk of breaking our necks, it brought us at length to a rocky upland clearing, partially covered with a second growth of timber, and surrounded on all sides by the dark forest. “I guess,” quoth our Yankee driver, “that at the bottom of this 'ere swell, you'll find yourself to hum;” and plunging into a short path cut through the wood, he pointed to a miserable hut, at the bottom of a steep descent, and cracking his whip, exclaimed, “'Tis a smart location that. I wish you Britishers may enjoy it.” I gazed upon the place in perfect dismay, for I had never seen such a shed called a house before. “You must be mistaken; that is not a house, but a cattle-shed, or pig-sty.” The man turned his knowing, keen eye upon me, and smiled, half-humorously, half-maliciously, as he said-- “You were raised in the old country, I guess; you have much to learn, and more, perhaps, than you'll like to know, before the winter is over.” I was perfectly bewildered--I could only stare at the place, with my eyes swimming in tears; but as the horses plunged down into the broken hollow, my attention was drawn from my new residence to the perils which endangered life and limb at every step. The driver, however, was well used to such roads, and, steering us dexterously between the black stumps, at length drove up, not to the door, for there was none to the house, but to the open space from which that absent but very necessary appendage had been removed. Three young steers and two heifers, which the driver proceeded to drive out, were quietly reposing upon the floor. A few strokes of his whip, and a loud burst of gratuitous curses, soon effected an ejectment; and I dismounted, and took possession of this untenable tenement. Moodie was not yet in sight with the teams. I begged the man to stay until he arrived, as I felt terrified at being left alone in this wild, strange-looking place. He laughed, as well he might, at our fears, and said that he had a long way to go, and must be off; then, cracking his whip, and nodding to the girl, who was crying aloud, he went his way, and Hannah and myself were left standing in the middle of the dirty floor. The prospect was indeed dreary. Without, pouring rain; within, a fireless hearth; a room with but one window, and that containing only one whole pane of glass; not an article of furniture to be seen, save an old painted pine-wood cradle, which had been left there by some freak of fortune. This, turned upon its side, served us for a seat, and there we impatiently awaited the arrival of Moodie, Wilson, and a man whom the former had hired that morning to assist on the farm. Where they were all to be stowed might have puzzled a more sagacious brain than mine. It is true there was a loft, but I could see no way of reaching it, for ladder there was none, so we amused ourselves, while waiting for the coming of our party, by abusing the place, the country, and our own dear selves for our folly in coming to it. Now, when not only reconciled to Canada, but loving it, and feeling a deep interest in its present welfare, and the fair prospect of its future greatness, I often look back and laugh at the feelings with which I then regarded this noble country. When things come to the worst, they generally mend. The males of our party no sooner arrived than they set about making things more comfortable. James, our servant, pulled up some of the decayed stumps, with which the small clearing that surrounded the shanty was thickly covered, and made a fire, and Hannah roused herself from the stupor of despair, and seized the corn-broom from the top of the loaded waggon, and began to sweep the house, raising such an intolerable cloud of dust that I was glad to throw my cloak over my head, and run out of doors, to avoid suffocation. Then commenced the awful bustle of unloading the two heavily-loaded waggons. The small space within the house was soon entirely blocked up with trunks and packages of all descriptions. There was scarcely room to move, without stumbling over some article of household stuff. The rain poured in at the open door, beat in at the shattered window, and dropped upon our heads from the holes in the roof. The wind blew keenly through a thousand apertures in the log walls; and nothing could exceed the uncomfortableness of our situation. For a long time the box which contained a hammer and nails was not to be found. At length Hannah discovered it, tied up with some bedding which she was opening out in order to dry. I fortunately spied the door lying among some old boards at the back of the house, and Moodie immediately commenced fitting it to its place. This, once accomplished, was a great addition to our comfort. We then nailed a piece of white cloth entirely over the broken window, which, without diminishing the light, kept out the rain. James constructed a ladder out of the old bits of boards, and Tom Wilson assisted him in stowing the luggage away in the loft. But what has this picture of misery and discomfort to do with borrowing? Patience, my dear, good friends; I will tell you all about it by-and-by. While we were all busily employed--even the poor baby, who was lying upon a pillow in the old cradle, trying the strength of her lungs, and not a little irritated that no one was at leisure to regard her laudable endeavours to make herself heard--the door was suddenly pushed open, and the apparition of a woman squeezed itself into the crowded room. I left off arranging the furniture of a bed, that had been just put up in a corner, to meet my unexpected, and at that moment, not very welcome guest. Her whole appearance was so extraordinary that I felt quite at a loss how to address her. Imagine a girl of seventeen or eighteen years of age, with sharp, knowing-looking features, a forward, impudent carriage, and a pert, flippant voice, standing upon one of the trunks, and surveying all our proceedings in the most impertinent manner. The creature was dressed in a ragged, dirty purple stuff gown, cut very low in the neck, with an old red cotton handkerchief tied over her head; her uncombed, tangled locks falling over her thin, inquisitive face, in a state of perfect nature. Her legs and feet were bare, and, in her coarse, dirty red hands, she swung to and fro an empty glass decanter. “What can she want?” I asked myself. “What a strange creature!” And there she stood, staring at me in the most unceremonious manner, her keen black eyes glancing obliquely to every corner of the room, which she examined with critical exactness. Before I could speak to her, she commenced the conversation by drawling through her nose, “Well, I guess you are fixing here.” I thought she had come to offer her services; and I told her that I did not want a girl, for I had brought one out with me. “How!” responded the creature, “I hope you don't take me for a help. I'd have you to know that I'm as good a lady as yourself. No; I just stepped over to see what was going on. I seed the teams pass our'n about noon, and I says to father, 'Them strangers are cum; I'll go and look arter them.' 'Yes,' says he, 'do--and take the decanter along. May be they'll want one to put their whiskey in.' 'I'm goin to,' says I; so I cum across with it, an' here it is. But, mind--don't break it--'tis the only one we have to hum; and father says 'tis so mean to drink out of green glass.” My surprise increased every minute. It seemed such an act of disinterested generosity thus to anticipate wants we had never thought of. I was regularly taken in. “My good girl,” I began, “this is really very kind--but--” “Now, don't go to call me 'gall'--and pass off your English airs on us. We are _genuine_ Yankees, and think ourselves as good--yes, a great deal better than you. I am a young lady.” “Indeed!” said I, striving to repress my astonishment. “I am a stranger in the country, and my acquaintance with Canadian ladies and gentlemen is very small. I did not mean to offend you by using the term girl; I was going to assure you that we had no need of the decanter. We have bottles of our own--and we don't drink whiskey.” “How! Not drink whiskey? Why, you don't say! How ignorant you must be! may be they have no whiskey in the old country?” “Yes, we have; but it is not like the Canadian whiskey. But, pray take the decanter home again--I am afraid that it will get broken in this confusion.” “No, no; father told me to leave it--and there it is;” and she planted it resolutely down on the trunk. “You will find a use for it till you have unpacked your own.” Seeing that she was determined to leave the bottle, I said no more about it, but asked her to tell me where the well was to be found. “The well!” she repeated after me, with a sneer. “Who thinks of digging wells when they can get plenty of water from the creek? There is a fine water privilege not a stone's-throw from the door,” and, jumping off the box, she disappeared as abruptly as she had entered. We all looked at each other; Tom Wilson was highly amused, and laughed until he held his sides. “What tempted her to bring this empty bottle here?” said Moodie. “It is all an excuse; the visit, Tom, was meant for you.” “You'll know more about it in a few days,” said James, looking up from his work. “That bottle is not brought here for nought.” I could not unravel the mystery, and thought no more about it, until it was again brought to my recollection by the damsel herself. Our united efforts had effected a complete transformation in our uncouth dwelling. Sleeping-berths had been partitioned off for the men; shelves had been put up for the accommodation of books and crockery, a carpet covered the floor, and the chairs and tables we had brought from ---- gave an air of comfort to the place, which, on the first view of it, I deemed impossible. My husband, Mr. Wilson, and James, had walked over to inspect the farm, and I was sitting at the table at work, the baby creeping upon the floor, and Hannah preparing dinner. The sun shone warm and bright, and the open door admitted a current of fresh air, which tempered the heat of the fire. “Well, I guess you look smart,” said the Yankee damsel, presenting herself once more before me. “You old country folks are so stiff, you must have every thing nice, or you fret. But, then, you can easily do it; you have stacks of money; and you can fix everything right off with money.” “Pray take a seat,” and I offered her a chair, “and be kind enough to tell me your name. I suppose you must live in the neighbourhood, although I cannot perceive any dwelling near us.” “My name! So you want to know my name. I arn't ashamed of my own; 'tis Emily S----. I am eldest daughter to the _gentleman_ who owns this house.” “What must the father be,” thought I, “if he resembles the young _lady_, his daughter?” Imagine a young lady, dressed in ragged petticoats, through whose yawning rents peeped forth, from time to time, her bare red knees, with uncombed elf-locks, and a face and hands that looked as if they had been unwashed for a month--who did not know A from B, and despised those who did. While these reflections, combined with a thousand ludicrous images, were flitting through my mind, my strange visitor suddenly exclaimed-- “Have you done with that 'ere decanter I brought across yesterday?” “Oh, yes! I have no occasion for it.” I rose, took it from the shelf, and placed it in her hand. “I guess you won't return it empty; that would be mean, father says. He wants it filled with whiskey.” The mystery was solved, the riddle made clear. I could contain my gravity no longer, but burst into a hearty fit of laughter, in which I was joined by Hannah. Our young lady was mortally offended; she tossed the decanter from hand to hand, and glared at us with her tiger-like eyes. “You think yourselves smart! Why do you laugh in that way?” “Excuse me--but you have such an odd way of borrowing that I cannot help it. This bottle, it seems, was brought over for your own convenience, not for mine. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have no whiskey.” “I guess spirits will do as well; I know there is some in that keg, for I smells it.” “It contains rum for the workmen.” “Better still. I calculate when you've been here a few months, you'll be too knowing to give rum to your helps. But old country folks are all fools, and that's the reason they get so easily sucked in, and be so soon wound-up. Cum, fill the bottle, and don't be stingy. In this country we all live by borrowing. If you want anything, why just send and borrow from us.” Thinking that this might be the custom of the country, I hastened to fill the decanter, hoping that I might get a little new milk for the poor weanling child in return; but when I asked my liberal visitor if she kept cows, and would lend me a little new milk for the baby, she burst out into high disdain. “Milk! Lend milk? I guess milk in the fall is worth a York shilling a quart. I cannot sell you a drop under.” This was a wicked piece of extortion, as the same article in the town, where, of course, it was in greater request, only brought three-pence the quart. “If you'll pay me for it, I'll bring you some to-morrow. But mind--cash down.” “And when do you mean to return the rum?” I said, with some asperity. “When father goes to the creek.” This was the name given by my neighbours to the village of P----, distant about four miles. Day after day I was tormented by this importunate creature; she borrowed of me tea, sugar, candles, starch, blueing, irons, pots, bowls--in short, every article in common domestic use--while it was with the utmost difficulty we could get them returned. Articles of food, such as tea and sugar, or of convenience, like candles, starch, and soap, she never dreamed of being required at her hands. This method of living upon their neighbours is a most convenient one to unprincipled people, as it does not involve the penalty of stealing; and they can keep the goods without the unpleasant necessity of returning them, or feeling the moral obligation of being grateful for their use. Living eight miles from ----, I found these constant encroachments a heavy burden on our poor purse; and being ignorant of the country, and residing in such a lonely, out-of-the-way place, surrounded by these savages, I was really afraid of denying their requests. The very day our new plough came home, the father of this bright damsel, who went by the familiar and unenviable title of Old Satan, came over to borrow it (though we afterwards found out that he had a good one of his own). The land had never been broken up, and was full of rocks and stumps, and he was anxious to save his own from injury; the consequence was that the borrowed implement came home unfit for use, just at the very time that we wanted to plough for fall wheat. The same happened to a spade and trowel, bought in order to plaster the house. Satan asked the loan of them for _one_ hour for the same purpose, and we never saw them again. The daughter came one morning, as usual, on one of these swindling expeditions, and demanded of me the loan of some fine slack. Not knowing what she meant by fine slack, and weary of her importunities, I said I had none. She went away in a rage. Shortly after she came again for some pepper. I was at work, and my work-box was open upon the table, well stored with threads and spools of all descriptions. Miss Satan cast her hawk's eye into it, and burst out in her usual rude manner-- “I guess you told me a tarnation big lie the other day.” Unaccustomed to such language, I rose from my seat, and pointing to the door, told her to walk out, as I did not choose to be insulted in my own house. “Your house! I'm sure it's father's,” returned the incorrigible wretch. “You told me that you had no fine slack, and you have stacks of it.” “What is fine slack?” said I, very pettishly. “The stuff that's wound upon these 'ere pieces of wood,” pouncing as she spoke upon one of my most serviceable spools. “I cannot give you that; I want it myself.” “I didn't ask you to give it. I only wants to borrow it till father goes to the creek.” “I wish he would make haste, then, as I want a number of things which you have borrowed of me, and which I cannot longer do without.” She gave me a knowing look, and carried off my spool in triumph. I happened to mention the manner in which I was constantly annoyed by these people, to a worthy English farmer who resided near us; and he fell a-laughing, and told me that I did not know the Canadian Yankees as well as he did, or I should not be troubled with them long. “The best way,” says he, “to get rid of them, is to ask them sharply what they want; and if they give you no satisfactory answer, order them to leave the house; but I believe I can put you in a better way still. Buy some small article of them, and pay them a trifle over the price, and tell them to bring the change. I will lay my life upon it that it will be long before they trouble you again.” I was impatient to test the efficacy of his scheme That very afternoon Miss Satan brought me a plate of butter for sale. The price was three and ninepence; twice the sum, by-the-bye, that it was worth. “I have no change,” giving her a dollar; “but you can bring it me to-morrow.” Oh, blessed experiment! for the value of one quarter dollar I got rid of this dishonest girl for ever; rather than pay me, she never entered the house again. About a month after this, I was busy making an apple-pie in the kitchen. A cadaverous-looking woman, very long-faced and witch-like, popped her ill-looking visage into the door, and drawled through her nose-- “Do you want to buy a rooster?” Now, the sucking-pigs with which we had been regaled every day for three weeks at the tavern, were called roasters; and not understanding the familiar phrases of the country, I thought she had a sucking-pig to sell. “Is it a good one?” “I guess 'tis.” “What do you ask for it?” “Two Yorkers.” “That is very cheap, if it is any weight. I don't like them under ten or twelve pounds.” “Ten or twelve pounds! Why, woman, what do you mean? Would you expect a rooster to be bigger nor a turkey?” We stared at each other. There was evidently some misconception on my part. “Bring the roaster up; and if I like it, I will buy it, though I must confess that I am not very fond of roast pig.” “Do you call this a pig?” said my she-merchant, drawing a fine game-cock from under her cloak. I laughed heartily at my mistake, as I paid her down the money for the bonny bird. This little matter settled, I thought she would take her departure; but that rooster proved the dearest fowl to me that ever was bought. “Do you keep backy and snuff here?” says she, sideling close up to me. “We make no use of those articles.” “How! Not use backy and snuff? That's oncommon.” She paused, then added in a mysterious, confidential tone-- “I want to ask you how your tea-caddy stands?” “It stands in the cupboard,” said I, wondering what all this might mean. “I know that; but have you any tea to spare?” I now began to suspect what sort of a customer the stranger was. “Oh, you want to borrow some? I have none to spare.” “You don't say so. Well now, that's stingy. I never asked anything of you before. I am poor, and you are rich; besides, I'm troubled so with the headache, and nothing does me any good but a cup of strong tea.” “The money I have just given you will buy a quarter of a pound of the best.” “I guess that isn't mine. The fowl belonged to my neighbour. She's sick; and I promised to sell it for her to buy some physic. Money!” she added, in a coaxing tone, “Where should I get money? Lord bless you! people in this country have no money; and those who come out with piles of it, soon lose it. But Emily S---- told me that you are tarnation rich, and draw your money from the old country. So I guess you can well afford to lend a neighbour a spoonful of tea.” “Neighbour! Where do you live, and what is your name?” “My name is Betty Fye--old Betty Fye; I live in the log shanty over the creek, at the back of your'n. The farm belongs to my eldest son. I'm a widow with twelve sons; and 'tis ---- hard to scratch along.” “Do you swear?” “Swear! What harm? It eases one's mind when one's vexed. Everybody swears in this country. My boys all swear like Sam Hill; and I used to swear mighty big oaths till about a month ago, when the Methody parson told me that if I did not leave it off I should go to a tarnation bad place; so I dropped some of the worst of them.” “You would do wisely to drop the rest; women never swear in my country.” “Well, you don't say! I always heer'd they were very ignorant. Will you lend me the tea?” The woman was such an original that I gave her what she wanted. As she was going off, she took up one of the apples I was peeling. “I guess you have a fine orchard?” “They say the best in the district.” “We have no orchard to hum, and I guess you'll want sarce.” “Sarce! What is sarce?” “Not know what sarce is? You are clever! Sarce is apples cut up and dried, to make into pies in the winter. Now do you comprehend?” I nodded. “Well, I was going to say that I have no apples, and that you have a tarnation big few of them; and if you'll give me twenty bushels of your best apples, and find me with half a pound of coarse thread to string them upon, I will make you a barrel of sarce on shares--that is, give you one, and keep one for myself.” I had plenty of apples, and I gladly accepted her offer, and Mrs. Betty Fye departed, elated with the success of her expedition. I found to my cost, that, once admitted into the house, there was no keeping her away. She borrowed everything that she could think of, without once dreaming of restitution. I tried all ways of affronting her, but without success. Winter came, and she was still at her old pranks. Whenever I saw her coming down the lane, I used involuntarily to exclaim, “Betty Fye! Betty Fye! Fye upon Betty Fye! The Lord deliver me from Betty Fye!” The last time I was honoured with a visit from this worthy, she meant to favour me with a very large order upon my goods and chattels. “Well, Mrs. Fye, what do you want to-day?” “So many things that I scarce know where to begin. Ah, what a thing 'tis to be poor! First, I want you to lend me ten pounds of flour to make some Johnnie cakes.” “I thought they were made of Indian meal?” “Yes, yes, when you've got the meal. I'm out of it, and this is a new fixing of my own invention. Lend me the flour, woman, and I'll bring you one of the cakes to taste.” This was said very coaxingly. “Oh, pray don't trouble yourself. What next?” I was anxious to see how far her impudence would go, and determined to affront her if possible. “I want you to lend me a gown, and a pair of stockings. I have to go to Oswego to see my husband's sister, and I'd like to look decent.” “Mrs. Fye, I never lend my clothes to any one. If I lent them to you, I should never wear them again.” “So much the better for me,” (with a knowing grin). “I guess if you won't lend me the gown, you will let me have some black slack to quilt a stuff petticoat, a quarter of a pound of tea and some sugar; and I will bring them back as soon as I can.” “I wonder when that will be. You owe me so many things that it will cost you more than you imagine to repay me.” “Sure you're not going to mention what's past, I can't owe you much. But I will let you off the tea and the sugar, if you will lend me a five-dollar bill.” This was too much for my patience longer to endure, and I answered sharply-- “Mrs. Fye, it surprises me that such proud people as you Americans should condescend to the meanness of borrowing from those whom you affect to despise. Besides, as you never repay us for what you pretend to borrow, I look upon it as a system of robbery. If strangers unfortunately settle among you, their good-nature is taxed to supply your domestic wants, at a ruinous expense, besides the mortification of finding that they have been deceived and tricked out of their property. If you would come honestly to me and say, 'I want these things, I am too poor to buy them myself, and would be obliged to you to give them to me,' I should then acknowledge you as a common beggar, and treat you accordingly; give or not give, as it suited my convenience. But in the way in which you obtain these articles from me, you are spared even a debt of gratitude; for you well know that the many things which you have borrowed from me will be a debt owing to the Day of Judgment.” “S'pose they are,” quoth Betty, not in the least abashed at my lecture on honesty, “you know what the Scripture saith, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'” “Ay, there is an answer to that in the same book, which doubtless you may have heard,” said I, disgusted with her hypocrisy, “'The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.'” Never shall I forget the furious passion into which this too apt quotation threw my unprincipled applicant. She lifted up her voice and cursed me, using some of the big oaths temporarily discarded for conscience sake. And so she left me, and I never looked upon her face again. When I removed to our own house, the history of which, and its former owner, I will give by-and-by, we had a bony, red-headed, ruffianly American squatter, who had “left his country for his country's good,” for an opposite neighbour. I had scarcely time to put my house in order before his family commenced borrowing, or stealing from me. It is even worse than stealing, the things procured from you being obtained on false pretences--adding lying to theft. Not having either an oven or a cooking stove, which at that period were not so cheap or so common as they are now, I had provided myself with a large bake-kettle as a substitute. In this kettle we always cooked hot cakes for breakfast, preferring that to the trouble of thawing the frozen bread. This man's wife was in the habit of sending over for my kettle whenever she wanted to bake, which, as she had a large family, happened nearly every day, and I found her importunity a great nuisance. I told the impudent lad so, who was generally sent for it; and asked him what they did to bake their bread before I came. “I guess we had to eat cakes in the pan; but now we can borrow this kettle of your'n, mother can fix bread.” I told him that he could have the kettle this time; but I must decline letting his mother have it in future, for I wanted it for the same purpose. The next day passed over. The night was intensely cold, and I did not rise so early as usual in the morning. My servant was away at a quilting bee, and we were still in bed, when I heard the latch of the kitchen-door lifted up, and a step crossed the floor. I jumped out of bed, and began to dress as fast as I could, when Philander called out, in his well-known nasal twang-- “Missus! I'm come for the kettle.” I (through the partition ): “You can't have it this morning. We cannot get our breakfast without it.” Philander: “Nor more can the old woman to hum,” and, snatching up the kettle, which had been left to warm on the hearth, he rushed out of the house, singing, at the top of his voice-- “Hurrah for the Yankee Boys!” When James came home for his breakfast, I sent him across to demand the kettle, and the dame very coolly told him that when she had done with it I _might_ have it, but she defied him to take it out of her house with her bread in it. One word more about this lad, Philander, before we part with him. Without the least intimation that his company would be agreeable, or even tolerated, he favoured us with it at all hours of the day, opening the door and walking in and out whenever he felt inclined. I had given him many broad hints that his presence was not required, but he paid not the slightest attention to what I said. One morning he marched in with his hat on, and threw himself down in the rocking-chair, just as I was going to dress my baby. “Philander, I want to attend to the child; I cannot do it with you here. Will you oblige me by going into the kitchen?” No answer. He seldom spoke during these visits, but wandered about the room, turning over our books and papers, looking at and handling everything. Nay, I have even known him to take a lid off from the pot on the fire, to examine its contents. I repeated my request. Philander: “Well, I guess I shan't hurt the young 'un. You can dress her.” I: “But not with you here.” Philander: “Why not? _We_ never do anything that we are ashamed of.” I: “So it seems. But I want to sweep the room--you had better get out of the dust.” I took the broom from the corner, and began to sweep; still my visitor did not stir. The dust rose in clouds; he rubbed his eyes, and moved a little nearer to the door. Another sweep, and, to escape its inflictions, he mounted the threshold. I had him now at a fair advantage, and fairly swept him out, and shut the door in his face. Philander (looking through the window ): “Well, I guess you did me then; but 'tis deuced hard to outwit a Yankee.” This freed me from his company, and he, too, never repeated his visit; so I found by experience, that once smartly rebuked, they did not like to try their strength with you a second time. When a sufficient time had elapsed for the drying of my twenty bushels of apples, I sent a Cornish lad, in our employ, to Betty Fye's, to inquire if they were ready, and when I should send the cart for them. Dan returned with a yellow, smoke-dried string of pieces, dangling from his arm. Thinking that these were a specimen of the whole, I inquired when we were to send the barrel for the rest. “Lord, ma'am, this is all there be.” “Impossible! All out of twenty bushels of apples!” “Yes,” said the boy, with a grin. “The old witch told me that this was all that was left of your share; that when they were fixed enough, she put them under her bed for safety, and the mice and the children had eaten them all up but this string.” This ended my dealings with Betty Fye. I had another incorrigible borrower in the person of old Betty B----. This Betty was unlike the rest of my Yankee borrowers; she was handsome in her person, and remarkably civil, and she asked for the loan of everything in such a frank, pleasant manner, that for some time I hardly knew how to refuse her. After I had been a loser to a considerable extent, and declined lending her any more, she refrained from coming to the house herself, but sent in her name the most beautiful boy in the world; a perfect cherub, with regular features, blue, smiling eyes, rosy cheeks, and lovely curling auburn hair, who said, in the softest tones imaginable, that mammy had sent him, with her compliments, to the English lady to ask the loan of a little sugar or tea. I could easily have refused the mother, but I could not find it in my heart to say nay to her sweet boy. There was something original about Betty B----, and I must give a slight sketch of her. She lived in a lone shanty in the woods, which had been erected by lumberers some years before, and which was destitute of a single acre of clearing; yet Betty had plenty of potatoes, without the trouble of planting, or the expense of buying; she never kept a cow, yet she sold butter and milk; but she had a fashion, and it proved a convenient one to her, of making pets of the cattle of her neighbours. If our cows strayed from their pastures, they were always found near Betty's shanty, for she regularly supplied them with salt, which formed a sort of bond of union between them; and, in return for these little attentions, they suffered themselves to be milked before they returned to their respective owners. Her mode of obtaining eggs and fowls was on the same economical plan, and we all looked upon Betty as a sort of freebooter, living upon the property of others. She had had three husbands, and he with whom she now lived was not her husband, although the father of the splendid child whose beauty so won upon my woman's heart. Her first husband was still living (a thing by no means uncommon among persons of her class in Canada), and though they had quarrelled and parted years ago, he occasionally visited his wife to see her eldest daughter, Betty the younger, who was his child. She was now a fine girl of sixteen, as beautiful as her little brother. Betty's second husband had been killed in one of our fields by a tree falling upon him while ploughing under it. He was buried upon the spot, part of the blackened stump forming his monument. In truth, Betty's character was none of the best, and many of the respectable farmers' wives regarded her with a jealous eye. “I am so jealous of that nasty Betty B----,” said the wife of an Irish captain in the army, and our near neighbour, to me, one day as we were sitting at work together. She was a West Indian, and a negro by the mother's side, but an uncommonly fine-looking mulatto, very passionate, and very watchful over the conduct of her husband. “Are you not afraid of letting Captain Moodie go near her shanty?” “No, indeed; and if I were so foolish as to be jealous, it would not be of old Betty, but of the beautiful young Betty, her daughter.” Perhaps this was rather mischievous on my part, for the poor dark lady went off in a frantic fit of jealousy, but this time it was not of old Betty. Another American squatter was always sending over to borrow a small-tooth comb, which she called a vermin destroyer; and once the same person asked the loan of a towel, as a friend had come from the States to visit her, and the only one she had, had been made into a best “pinny” for the child; she likewise begged a sight in the looking-glass, as she wanted to try on a new cap, to see if it were fixed to her mind. This woman must have been a mirror of neatness when compared with her dirty neighbours. One night I was roused up from my bed for the loan of a pair of “steelyards.” For what purpose think you, gentle reader? To weigh a new-born infant. The process was performed by tying the poor squalling thing up in a small shawl, and suspending it to one of the hooks. The child was a fine boy, and weighed ten pounds, greatly to the delight of the Yankee father. One of the drollest instances of borrowing I have ever heard of was told me by a friend. A maid-servant asked her mistress to go out on a particular afternoon, as she was going to have a party of her friends, and wanted the loan of the drawing-room. It would be endless to enumerate our losses in this way; but, fortunately for us, the arrival of an English family in our immediate vicinity drew off the attention of our neighbours in that direction, and left us time to recover a little from their persecutions. This system of borrowing is not wholly confined to the poor and ignorant; it pervades every class of society. If a party is given in any of the small villages, a boy is sent round from house to house, to collect all the plates and dishes, knives and forks, teaspoons and candlesticks, that are presentable, for the use of the company. During my stay at the hotel, I took a dress out of my trunk, and hung it up upon a peg in my chamber, in order to remove the creases it had received from close packing. Returning from a walk in the afternoon, I found a note upon my dressing table, inviting us to spend the evening with a clergyman's family in the village; and as it was nearly time to dress, I went to the peg to take down my gown. Was it a dream?--the gown was gone. I re-opened the trunk, to see if I had replaced it; I searched every corner of the room, but all in vain; nowhere could I discover the thing I sought. What had become of it? The question was a delicate one, which I did not like to put to the young ladies of the truly respectable establishment; still, the loss was great, and at that moment very inconvenient. While I was deliberating on what course to pursue, Miss S---- entered the room. “I guess you missed your dress,” she said, with a smile. “Do you know where it is?” “Oh, sure. Miss L----, the dressmaker, came in just after you left. She is a very particular friend of mine, and I showed her your dress. She admired it above all things, and borrowed it, to get the pattern for Miss R----'s wedding dress. She promised to return it to-morrow.” “Provoking! I wanted it to-night. Who ever heard of borrowing a person's dress without the leave of the owner? Truly, this is a free-and-easy country!” One very severe winter night, a neighbour borrowed of me a blanket--it was one of my best--for the use of a stranger who was passing the night at her house. I could not well refuse; but at that time, the world pressed me sore, and I could ill spare it. Two years elapsed, and I saw no more of my blanket; at length I sent a note to the lady, requesting it to be returned. I got a very short answer back, and the blanket, alas! worn threadbare; the borrower stating that she had sent the article, but really she did not know what to do without it, as she wanted it to cover the children's bed. She certainly forgot that I, too, had children, who wanted covering as well as her own. But I have said so much of the ill results of others' borrowing, that I will close this sketch by relating my own experience in this way. After removing to the bush, many misfortunes befel us, which deprived us of our income, and reduced us to great poverty. In fact we were strangers, and the knowing ones took us in; and for many years we struggled with hardships which would have broken stouter hearts than ours, had not our trust been placed in the Almighty, who among all our troubles never wholly deserted us. While my husband was absent on the frontier during the rebellion, my youngest boy fell very sick, and required my utmost care, both by night and day. To attend to him properly, a candle burning during the night was necessary. The last candle was burnt out; I had no money to buy another, and no fat from which I could make one. I hated borrowing; but, for the dear child's sake, I overcame my scruples, and succeeded in procuring a candle from a good neighbour, but with strict injunctions (for it was _her last_), that I must return it if I did not require it during the night. I went home quite grateful with my prize. It was a clear moonlight night--the dear boy was better, so I told old Jenny, my Irish servant, to go to bed, as I would lie down in my clothes by the child, and if he were worse I would get up and light the candle. It happened that a pane of glass was broken out of the window frame, and I had supplied its place by fitting in a shingle; my friend Emilia S---- had a large Tom-cat, who, when his mistress was absent, often paid me a predatory or borrowing visit; and Tom had a practice of pushing in this wooden pane, in order to pursue his lawless depredations. I had forgotten all this, and never dreaming that Tom would appropriate such light food, I left the candle lying in the middle of the table, just under the window. Between sleeping and waking, I heard the pane gently pushed in. The thought instantly struck me that it was Tom, and that, for lack of something better, he might steal my precious candle. I sprang up from the bed, just in time to see him dart through the broken window, dragging the long white candle after him. I flew to the door, and pursued him half over the field, but all to no purpose. I can see him now, as I saw him then, scampering away for dear life, with his prize trailing behind him, gleaming like a silver tail in the bright light of the moon. Ah! never did I feel more acutely the truth of the proverb, “Those that go a-borrowing go a-sorrowing,” than I did that night. My poor boy awoke ill and feverish, and I had no light to assist him, or even to look into his sweet face, to see how far I dared hope that the light of day would find him better. OH CANADA! THY GLOOMY WOODS A song Oh Canada! thy gloomy woods Will never cheer the heart; The murmur of thy mighty floods But cause fresh tears to start From those whose fondest wishes rest Beyond the distant main; Who, 'mid the forests of the West, Sigh for their homes again. I, too, have felt the chilling blight Their shadows cast on me, My thought by day--my dream by night-- Was of my own country. But independent souls will brave All hardships to be free; No more I weep to cross the wave, My native land to see. But ever as a thought most bless'd, Her distant shores will rise, In all their spring-tide beauty dress'd. To cheer my mental eyes. And treasured in my inmost heart, The friends I left behind; But reason's voice, that bade us part, Now bids me be resign'd. I see my children round me play, My husband's smiles approve; I dash regretful tears away, And lift my thoughts above: In humble gratitude to bless The Almighty hand that spread Our table in the wilderness, And gave my infants bread. CHAPTER VI OLD SATAN AND TOM WILSON'S NOSE “A nose, kind sir! Sure mother Nature, With all her freaks, ne'er formed this feature. If such were mine, I'd try and trade it, And swear the gods had never made it.” After reducing the log cabin into some sort of order, we contrived, with the aid of a few boards, to make a bed-closet for poor Tom Wilson, who continued to shake every day with the pitiless ague. There was no way of admitting light and air into this domicile, which opened into the general apartment, but through a square hole cut in one of the planks, just wide enough to admit a man's head through the aperture. Here we made Tom a comfortable bed on the floor, and did the best we could to nurse him through his sickness. His long, thin face, emaciated with disease, and surrounded by huge black whiskers, and a beard of a week's growth, looked perfectly unearthly. He had only to stare at the baby to frighten her almost out of her wits. “How fond that young one is of me,” he would say; “she cries for joy at the sight of me.” Among his curiosities, and he had many, he held in great esteem a huge nose, made hollow to fit his face, which his father, a being almost as eccentric as himself, had carved out of boxwood. When he slipped this nose over his own (which was no beautiful classical specimen of a nasal organ), it made a most perfect and hideous disguise. The mother who bore him never would have recognised her accomplished son. Numberless were the tricks he played off with this nose. Once he walked through the streets of ----, with this proboscis attached to his face. “What a nose! Look at the man with the nose!” cried all the boys in the street. A party of Irish emigrants passed at the moment. The men, with the courtesy natural to their nation, forbore to laugh in the gentleman's face; but after they had passed, Tom looked back, and saw them bent half double in convulsions of mirth. Tom made the party a low bow, gravely took off his nose, and put it in his pocket. The day after this frolic, he had a very severe fit of the ague, and looked so ill that I really entertained fears for his life. The hot fit had just left him, and he lay upon his bed bedewed with a cold perspiration, in a state of complete exhaustion. “Poor Tom,” said I, “he has passed a horrible day, but the worst is over, and I will make him a cup of coffee.” While preparing it, Old Satan came in and began to talk to my husband. He happened to sit directly opposite the aperture which gave light and air to Tom's berth. This man was disgustingly ugly. He had lost one eye in a quarrel. It had been gouged out in the barbarous conflict, and the side of his face presented a succession of horrible scars inflicted by the teeth of his savage adversary. The nickname he had acquired through the country sufficiently testified to the respectability of his character, and dreadful tales were told of him in the neighbourhood, where he was alike feared and hated. The rude fellow, with his accustomed insolence, began abusing the old country folks. The English were great bullies, he said; they thought no one could fight but themselves; but the Yankees had whipped them, and would whip them again. He was not afear'd of them, he never was afear'd in his life. Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when a horrible apparition presented itself to his view. Slowly rising from his bed, and putting on the fictitious nose, while he drew his white nightcap over his ghastly and livid brow, Tom thrust his face through the aperture, and uttered a diabolical cry; then sank down upon his unseen couch as noiselessly as he had arisen. The cry was like nothing human, and it was echoed by an involuntary scream from the lips of our maid-servant and myself. “Good God! what's that?” cried Satan, falling back in his chair, and pointing to the vacant aperture. “Did you hear it? did you see it? It beats the universe. I never saw a ghost or the devil before!” Moodie, who had recognised the ghost, and greatly enjoyed the fun, pretended profound ignorance, and coolly insinuated that Old Satan had lost his senses. The man was bewildered; he stared at the vacant aperture, then at us in turn, as if he doubted the accuracy of his own vision. “'Tis tarnation odd,” he said; “but the women heard it too.” “I heard a sound,” I said, “a dreadful sound, but I saw no ghost.” “Sure an' 'twas himsel',” said my lowland Scotch girl, who now perceived the joke; “he was a-seeken' to gie us puir bodies a wee fricht.” “How long have you been subject to these sort of fits?” said I. “You had better speak to the doctor about them. Such fancies, if they are not attended to, often end in madness.” “Mad!” (very indignantly) “I guess I'm not mad, but as wide awake as you are. Did I not see it with my own eyes? And then the noise--I could not make such a tarnation outcry to save my life. But be it man or devil, I don't care, I'm not afear'd,” doubling his fist very undecidedly at the hole. Again the ghastly head was protruded--the dreadful eyes rolled wildly in their hollow sockets, and a yell more appalling than the former rang through the room. The man sprang from his chair, which he overturned in his fright, and stood for an instant with his one-eyeball starting from his head, and glaring upon the spectre; his cheeks deadly pale; the cold perspiration streaming from his face; his lips dissevered, and his teeth chattering in his head. “There--there--there. Look--look, it comes again!--the devil!--the devil!” Here Tom, who still kept his eyes fixed upon his victim, gave a knowing wink, and thrust his tongue out of his mouth. “He is coming!--he is coming!” cried the affrighted wretch; and clearing the open doorway with one leap, he fled across the field at full speed. The stream intercepted his path--he passed it at a bound, plunged into the forest, and was out of sight. “Ha, ha, ha!” chuckled poor Tom, sinking down exhausted on his bed. “Oh that I had strength to follow up my advantage, I would lead Old Satan such a chase that he should think his namesake was in truth behind him.” During the six weeks that we inhabited that wretched cabin, we never were troubled by Old Satan again. As Tom slowly recovered, and began to regain his appetite, his soul sickened over the salt beef and pork, which, owing to our distance from ----, formed our principal fare. He positively refused to touch the sad bread, as my Yankee neighbours very appropriately termed the unleavened cakes in the pan; and it was no easy matter to send a man on horseback eight miles to fetch a loaf of bread. “Do, my dear Mrs. Moodie, like a good Christian as you are, give me a morsel of the baby's biscuit, and try and make us some decent bread. The stuff your servant gives us is uneatable,” said Wilson to me, in most imploring accents. “Most willingly. But I have no yeast; and I never baked in one of those strange kettles in my life.” “I'll go to old Joe's wife and borrow some,” said he; “they are always borrowing of you.” Away he went across the field, but soon returned. I looked into his jug--it was empty. “No luck,” said he; “those stingy wretches had just baked a fine batch of bread, and they would neither lend nor sell a loaf; but they told me how to make their milk-emptyings.” “Well, discuss the same;” but I much doubted if he could remember the recipe. “You are to take an old tin pan,” said he, sitting down on the stool, and poking the fire with a stick. “Must it be an old one?” said I, laughing. “Of course; they said so.” “And what am I to put into it?” “Patience; let me begin at the beginning. Some flour and some milk--but, by George! I've forgot all about it. I was wondering as I came across the field why they called the yeast _milk_-emptyings, and that put the way to make it quite out of my head. But never mind; it is only ten o'clock by my watch. I having nothing to do; I will go again.” He went. Would I had been there to hear the colloquy between him and Mrs. Joe; he described it something to this effect:-- Mrs. Joe: “Well, stranger, what do you want now?” Tom: “I have forgotten the way you told me how to make the bread.” Mrs. Joe: “I never told you how to make bread. I guess you are a fool. People have to raise bread before they can bake it. Pray who sent you to make game of me? I guess somebody as wise as yourself.” Tom: “The lady at whose house I am staying.” Mrs. Joe: “Lady! I can tell you that we have no ladies here. So the old woman who lives in the old log shanty in the hollow don't know how to make bread. A clever wife that! Are you her husband?” (Tom shakes his head.)--“Her brother?”--(Another shake.)--“Her son? Do you hear? or are you deaf?” (Going quite close up to him.) Tom (moving back): “Mistress, I'm not deaf; and who or what I am is nothing to you. Will you oblige me by telling me how to make the mill-emptyings; and this time I'll put it down in my pocket-book.” Mrs. Joe (with a strong sneer): “Mill-emptyings! Milk, I told you. So you expect me to answer your questions, and give back nothing in return. Get you gone; I'll tell you no more about it.” Tom (bowing very low): “Thank you for your civility. Is the old woman who lives in the little shanty near the apple-trees more obliging?” Mrs. Joe: “That's my husband's mother. You may try. I guess she'll give you an answer.” (Exit, slamming the door in his face.) “And what did you do then ?” said I. “Oh, went of course. The door was open, and I reconnoitred the premises before I ventured in. I liked the phiz of the old woman a deal better than that of her daughter-in-law, although it was cunning and inquisitive, and as sharp as a needle. She was busy shelling cobs of Indian corn into a barrel. I rapped at the door. She told me to come in, and in I stepped. She asked me if I wanted her. I told her my errand, at which she laughed heartily.” Old woman: “You are from the old country, I guess, or you would know how to make milk-emptyings. Now, I always prefer bran-emptyings. They make the best bread. The milk, I opine, gives it a sourish taste, and the bran is the least trouble.” Tom: “Then let us have the bran, by all means. How do you make it?” Old woman: “I put a double handful of bran into a small pot, or kettle, but a jug will do, and a teaspoonful of salt; but mind you don't kill it with salt, for if you do, it won't rise. I then add as much warm water, at blood-heat, as will mix it into a stiff batter. I then put the jug into a pan of warm water, and set it on the hearth near the fire, and keep it at the same heat until it rises, which it generally will do, if you attend to it, in two or three hours' time. When the bran cracks at the top, and you see white bubbles rising through it, you may strain it into your flour, and lay your bread. It makes good bread.” Tom: “My good woman, I am greatly obliged to you. We have no bran; can you give me a small quantity?” Old woman: “I never give anything. You Englishers, who come out with stacks of money, can afford to buy.” Tom: “Sell me a small quantity.” Old woman: “I guess I will.” (Edging quite close, and fixing her sharp eyes on him.) “You must be very rich to buy bran.” Tom (quizzically): “Oh, very rich.” Old woman: “How do you get your money?” Tom (sarcastically): “I don't steal it.” Old woman: “Pr'aps not. I guess you'll soon let others do that for you, if you don't take care. Are the people you live with related to you?” Tom (hardly able to keep his gravity): “On Eve's side. They are my friends.” Old woman (in surprise): “And do they keep you for nothing, or do you work for your meat?” Tom (impatiently): “Is that bran ready?” (The old woman goes to the binn, and measures out a quart of bran.) “What am I to pay you?” Old woman: “A York shilling.” Tom (wishing to test her honesty): “Is there any difference between a York shilling and a shilling of British currency?” Old woman (evasively): “I guess not. Is there not a place in England called York?” (Looking up and leering knowingly in his face.) Tom (laughing): “You are not going to come York over me in that way, or Yankee either. There is threepence for your pound of bran; you are enormously paid.” Old woman (calling after him): “But the recipe; do you allow nothing for the recipe?” Tom: “It is included in the price of the bran.” “And so,” said he, “I came laughing away, rejoicing in my sleeve that I had disappointed the avaricious old cheat.” The next thing to be done was to set the bran rising. By the help of Tom's recipe, it was duly mixed in the coffee-pot, and placed within a tin pan, full of hot water, by the side of the fire. I have often heard it said that a watched pot never boils; and there certainly was no lack of watchers in this case. Tom sat for hours regarding it with his large heavy eyes, the maid inspected it from time to time, and scarce ten minutes were suffered to elapse without my testing the heat of the water, and the state of the emptyings; but the day slipped slowly away, and night drew on, and yet the watched pot gave no signs of vitality. Tom sighed deeply when we sat down to tea with the old fare. “Never mind,” said he, “we shall get some good bread in the morning; it must get up by that time. I will wait till then. I could almost starve before I could touch these leaden cakes.” The tea-things were removed. Tom took up his flute, and commenced a series of the wildest voluntary airs that ever were breathed forth by human lungs. Mad jigs, to which the gravest of mankind might have cut eccentric capers. We were all convulsed with laughter. In the midst of one of these droll movements, Tom suddenly hopped like a kangaroo (which feat he performed by raising himself upon tip-toes, then flinging himself forward with a stooping jerk), towards the hearth, and squinting down into the coffee-pot in the most quizzical manner, exclaimed, “Miserable chaff! If that does not make you rise nothing will.” I left the bran all night by the fire. Early in the morning I had the satisfaction of finding that it had risen high above the rim of the pot, and was surrounded by a fine crown of bubbles. “Better late than never,” thought I, as I emptied the emptyings into my flour. “Tom is not up yet. I will make him so happy with a loaf of new bread, nice home-baked bread, for his breakfast.” It was my first Canadian loaf. I felt quite proud of it, as I placed it in the odd machine in which it was to be baked. I did not understand the method of baking in these ovens; or that my bread should have remained in the kettle for half an hour, until it had risen the second time, before I applied the fire to it, in order that the bread should be light. It not only required experience to know when it was in a fit state for baking, but the oven should have been brought to a proper temperature to receive the bread. Ignorant of all this, I put my unrisen bread into a cold kettle, and heaped a large quantity of hot ashes above and below it. The first intimation I had of the result of my experiment was the disagreeable odour of burning bread filling the house. “What is this horrid smell?” cried Tom, issuing from his domicile, in his shirt sleeves. “Do open the door, Bell (to the maid); I feel quite sick.” “It is the bread,” said I, taking the lid of the oven with the tongs. “Dear me, it is all burnt!” “And smells as sour as vinegar,” says he. “The black bread of Sparta!” Alas! for my maiden loaf! With a rueful face I placed it on the breakfast table. “I hoped to have given you a treat, but I fear you will find it worse than the cakes in the pan.” “You may be sure of that,” said Tom, as he stuck his knife into the loaf, and drew it forth covered with raw dough. “Oh, Mrs. Moodie! I hope you make better books than bread.” We were all sadly disappointed. The others submitted to my failure good-naturedly, and made it the subject of many droll, but not unkindly, witicisms. For myself, I could have borne the severest infliction from the pen of the most formidable critic with more fortitude than I bore the cutting up of my first loaf of bread. After breakfast, Moodie and Wilson rode into the town; and when they returned at night brought several long letters for me. Ah! those first kind letters from home! Never shall I forget the rapture with which I grasped them--the eager, trembling haste with which I tore them open, while the blinding tears which filled my eyes hindered me for some minutes from reading a word which they contained. Sixteen years have slowly passed away--it appears half a century--but never, never can home letters give me the intense joy those letters did. After seven years' exile, the hope of return grows feeble, the means are still less in our power, and our friends give up all hope of our return; their letters grow fewer and colder, their expressions of attachment are less vivid; the heart has formed new ties, and the poor emigrant is nearly forgotten. Double those years, and it is as if the grave had closed over you, and the hearts that once knew and loved you know you no more. Tom, too, had a large packet of letters, which he read with great glee. After re-perusing them, he declared his intention of setting off on his return home the next day. We tried to persuade him to stay until the following spring, and make a fair trial of the country. Arguments were thrown away upon him; the next morning our eccentric friend was ready to start. “Good-bye!” quoth he, shaking me by the hand as if he meant to sever it from the wrist. “When next we meet it will be in New South Wales, and I hope by that time you will know how to make better bread.” And thus ended Tom Wilson's emigration to Canada. He brought out three hundred pounds, British currency; he remained in the country just four months, and returned to England with barely enough to pay his passage home. THE BACKWOODSMAN Son of the isles! rave not to me Of the old world's pride and luxury; Why did you cross the western deep, Thus like a love-lorn maid to weep O'er comforts gone and pleasures fled, 'Mid forests wild to earn your bread? Did you expect that Art would vie With Nature here, to please the eye; That stately tower, and fancy cot, Would grace each rude concession lot; That, independent of your hearth, Men would admit your claims to birth? No tyrant's fetter binds the soul, The mind of man's above control; Necessity, that makes the slave, Has taught the free a course more brave; With bold, determined heart to dare The ills that all are born to share. Believe me, youth, the truly great Stoop not to mourn o'er fallen state; They make their wants and wishes less, And rise superior to distress; The glebe they break--the sheaf they bind-- But elevates a noble mind. Contented in my rugged cot, Your lordly towers I envy not; Though rude our clime and coarse our cheer, True independence greets you here; Amid these forests, dark and wild, Dwells honest labour's hardy child. His happy lot I gladly share, And breathe a purer, freer air; No more by wealthy upstart spurn'd, The bread is sweet by labour earn'd; Indulgent heaven has bless'd the soil, And plenty crowns the woodman's toil. Beneath his axe, the forest yields Its thorny maze to fertile fields; This goodly breadth of well-till'd land, Well-purchased by his own right hand, With conscience clear, he can bequeath His children, when he sleeps in death. CHAPTER VII UNCLE JOE AND HIS FAMILY “Ay, your rogue is a laughing rogue, and not a whit the less dangerous for the smile on his lip, which comes not from an honest heart, which reflects the light of the soul through the eye. All is hollow and dark within; and the contortion of the lip, like the phosophoric glow upon decayed timber, only serves to point out the rotteness within.” Uncle Joe! I see him now before me, with his jolly red face, twinkling black eyes, and rubicund nose. No thin, weasel-faced Yankee was he, looking as if he had lived upon 'cute ideas and speculations all his life; yet Yankee he was by birth, ay, and in mind, too; for a more knowing fellow at a bargain never crossed the lakes to abuse British institutions and locate himself comfortably among despised Britishers. But, then, he had such a good-natured, fat face, such a mischievous, mirth-loving smile, and such a merry, roguish expression in those small, jet-black, glittering eyes, that you suffered yourself to be taken in by him, without offering the least resistance to his impositions. Uncle Joe's father had been a New England loyalist, and his doubtful attachment to the British government had been repaid by a grant of land in the township of H----. He was the first settler in that township, and chose his location in a remote spot, for the sake of a beautiful natural spring, which bubbled up in a small stone basin in the green bank at the back of the house. “Father might have had the pick of the township,” quoth Uncle Joe; “but the old coon preferred that sup of good water to the site of a town. Well, I guess it's seldom I trouble the spring; and whenever I step that way to water the horses, I think what a tarnation fool the old one was, to throw away such a chance of making his fortune, for such cold lap.” “Your father was a temperance man?” “Temperance!--He had been fond enough of the whiskey bottle in his day. He drank up a good farm in the United States, and then he thought he could not do better than turn loyal, and get one here for nothing. He did not care a cent, not he, for the King of England. He thought himself as good, any how. But he found that he would have to work hard here to scratch along, and he was mightily plagued with the rheumatics, and some old woman told him that good spring water was the best cure for that; so he chose this poor, light, stony land on account of the spring, and took to hard work and drinking cold water in his old age.” “How did the change agree with him?” “I guess better than could have been expected. He planted that fine orchard, and cleared his hundred acres, and we got along slick enough as long as the old fellow lived.” “And what happened after his death, that obliged you to part with your land?” “Bad times--bad crops,” said Uncle Joe, lifting his shoulders. “I had not my father's way of scraping money together. I made some deuced clever speculations, but they all failed. I married young, and got a large family; and the women critters ran up heavy bills at the stores, and the crops did not yield enough to pay them; and from bad we got to worse, and Mr. C---- put in an execution, and seized upon the whole concern. He sold it to your man for double what it cost him; and you got all that my father toiled for during the last twenty years of his life for less than half the cash he laid out upon clearing it.” “And had the whiskey nothing to do with this change?” said I, looking him in the face suspiciously. “Not a bit! When a man gets into difficulties, it is the only thing to keep him from sinking outright. When your husband has had as many troubles as I have had, he will know how to value the whiskey bottle.” This conversation was interrupted by a queer-looking urchin of five years old, dressed in a long-tailed coat and trousers, popping his black shock head in at the door, and calling out, “Uncle Joe!--You're wanted to hum.” “Is that your nephew?” “No! I guess 'tis my woman's eldest son,” said Uncle Joe, rising, “but they call me Uncle Joe. 'Tis a spry chap that--as cunning as a fox. I tell you what it is--he will make a smart man. Go home, Ammon, and tell your ma that I am coming.” “I won't,” said the boy; “you may go hum and tell her yourself. She has wanted wood cut this hour, and you'll catch it!” Away ran the dutiful son, but not before he had applied his forefinger significantly to the side of his nose, and, with a knowing wink, pointed in the direction of home. Uncle Joe obeyed the signal, drily remarking that he could not leave the barn door without the old hen clucking him back. At this period we were still living in Old Satan's log house, and anxiously looking out for the first snow to put us in possession of the good substantial log dwelling occupied by Uncle Joe and his family, which consisted of a brown brood of seven girls, and the highly-prized boy who rejoiced in the extraordinary name of Ammon. Strange names are to be found in this free country. What think you, gentle reader, of Solomon Sly, Reynard Fox, and Hiram Dolittle and Prudence Fidget; all veritable names, and belonging to substantial yeomen? After Ammon and Ichabod, I should not be at all surprised to meet with Judas Iscariot, Pilate, and Herod. And then the female appellations! But the subject is a delicate one and I will forbear to touch upon it. I have enjoyed many a hearty laugh over the strange affectations which people designate here very handsome names. I prefer the old homely Jewish names, such as that which it pleased my godfather and godmothers to bestow upon me, to one of those high-sounding christianities, the Minervas, Cinderellas, and Almerias of Canada. The love of singular names is here carried to a marvellous extent. It is only yesterday that, in passing through one busy village, I stopped in astonishment before a tombstone headed thus: “Sacred to the memory of Silence Sharman, the beloved wife of Asa Sharman.” Was the woman deaf and dumb, or did her friends hope by bestowing upon her such an impossible name to still the voice of Nature, and check, by an admonitory appellative, the active spirit that lives in the tongue of woman? Truly, Asa Sharman, if thy wife was silent by name as well as by nature, thou wert a fortunate man! But to return to Uncle Joe. He made many fair promises of leaving the residence we had bought, the moment he had sold his crops and could remove his family. We could see no interest which could be served by his deceiving us, and therefore we believed him, striving to make ourselves as comfortable as we could in the meantime in our present wretched abode. But matters are never so bad but that they may be worse. One day when we were at dinner, a waggon drove up to the door, and Mr. ---- alighted, accompanied by a fine-looking, middle-aged man, who proved to be Captain S----, who had just arrived from Demarara with his wife and family. Mr. ----, who had purchased the farm of Old Satan, had brought Captain S---- over to inspect the land, as he wished to buy a farm, and settle in that neighbourhood. With some difficulty I contrived to accommodate the visitors with seats, and provide them with a tolerable dinner. Fortunately, Moodie had brought in a brace of fine fat partridges that morning; these the servant transferred to a pot of boiling water, in which she immersed them for the space of a minute--a novel but very expeditious way of removing the feathers, which then come off at the least touch. In less than ten minutes they were stuffed, trussed, and in the bake-kettle; and before the gentlemen returned from walking over the farm, the dinner was on the table. To our utter consternation, Captain S---- agreed to purchase, and asked if we could give him possession in a week! “Good heavens!” cried I, glancing reproachfully at Mr. ----, who was discussing his partridge with stoical indifference. “What will become of us? Where are we to go?” “Oh, make yourself easy; I will force that old witch, Joe's mother, to clear out.” “But 'tis impossible to stow ourselves into that pig-sty.” “It will only be for a week or two, at farthest. This is October; Joe will be sure to be off by the first of sleighing.” “But if she refuses to give up the place?” “Oh, leave her to me. I'll talk her over,” said the knowing land speculator. “Let it come to the worst,” he said, turning to my husband, “she will go out for the sake of a few dollars. By-the-by, she refused to bar the dower when I bought the place; we must cajole her out of that. It is a fine afternoon; suppose we walk over the hill, and try our luck with the old nigger?” I felt so anxious about the result of the negotiation, that, throwing my cloak over my shoulders, and tying on my bonnet without the assistance of a glass, I took my husband's arm, and we walked forth. It was a bright, clear afternoon, the first week in October, and the fading woods, not yet denuded of their gorgeous foliage, glowed in a mellow, golden light. A soft purple haze rested on the bold outline of the Haldimand hills, and in the rugged beauty of the wild landscape I soon forgot the purport of our visit to the old woman's log hut. On reaching the ridge of the hill, the lovely valley in which our future home lay smiled peacefully upoon us from amidst its fruitful orchards, still loaded with their rich, ripe fruit. “What a pretty place it is!” thought I, for the first time feeling something like a local interest in the spot, springing up in my heart. “How I wish those odious people would give us possession of the home which for some time has been our own.” The log hut that we were approaching, and in which the old woman, R----, resided by herself--having quarrelled years ago with her son's wife--was of the smallest dimensions, only containing one room, which served the old dame for kitchen, and bed-room, and all. The open door, and a few glazed panes, supplied it with light and air; while a huge hearth, on which crackled two enormous logs--which are technically termed a front and a back stick--took up nearly half the domicile; and the old woman's bed, which was covered with an unexceptionally clean patched quilt, nearly the other half, leaving just room for a small home-made deal table, of the rudest workmanship, two basswood-bottomed chairs, stained red, one of which was a rocking-chair, appropiated solely to the old woman's use, and a spinning wheel. Amidst this muddle of things--for small as was the quantum of furniture, it was all crowded into such a tiny space that you had to squeeze your way through it in the best manner you could--we found the old woman, with a red cotton handkerchief tied over her grey locks, hood-fashion, shelling white bush-beans into a wooden bowl. Without rising from her seat, she pointed to the only remaining chair. “I guess, miss, you can sit there; and if the others can't stand, they can make a seat of my bed.” The gentlemen assured her that they were not tired, and could dispense with seats. Mr. ---- then went up to the old woman, and proffering his hand, asked after her health in his blandest manner. “I'm none the better for seeing you, or the like of you,” was the ungracious reply. “You have cheated my poor boy out of his good farm; and I hope it may prove a bad bargain to you and yours.” “Mrs. R----,” returned the land speculator, nothing ruffled by her unceremonious greeting, “I could not help your son giving way to drink, and getting into my debt. If people will be so imprudent, they cannot be so stupid as to imagine that others can suffer for their folly.” “Suffer!” repeated the old woman, flashing her small, keen black eyes upon him with a glance of withering scorn. “You suffer! I wonder what the widows and orphans you have cheated would say to that? My son was a poor, weak, silly fool, to be sucked in by the like of you. For a debt of eight hundred dollars--the goods never cost you four hundred--you take from us our good farm; and these, I s'pose,” pointing to my husband and me, “are the folk you sold it to. Pray, miss,” turning quickly to me, “what might your man give for the place?” “Three hundred pounds in cash.” “Poor sufferer!” again sneered the hag. “Four hundred dollars is a very _small_ profit in as many weeks. Well, I guess, you beat the Yankees hollow. And pray, what brought you here to-day, scenting about you like a carrion-crow? We have no more land for you to seize from us.” Moodie now stepped forward, and briefly explained our situation, offering the old woman anything in reason to give up the cottage and reside with her son until he removed from the premises; which, he added, must be in a very short time. The old dame regarded him with a sarcastic smile. “I guess, Joe will take his own time. The house is not built which is to receive him; and he is not a man to turn his back upon a warm hearth to camp in the wilderness. You were _green_ when you bought a farm of that man, without getting along with it the right of possession.” “But, Mrs. R----, your son promised to go out the first of sleighing.” “Wheugh!” said the old woman. “Would you have a man give away his hat and leave his own head bare? It's neither the first snow nor the last frost that will turn Joe out of his comfortable home. I tell you all that he will stay here, if it is only to plague you.” Threats and remonstrances were alike useless, the old woman remained inexorable; and we were just turning to leave the house, when the cunning old fox exclaimed, “And now, what will you give me to leave my place?” “Twelve dollars, if you give us possession next Monday,” said my husband. “Twelve dollars! I guess you won't get me out for that.” “The rent would not be worth more than a dollar a month,” said Mr. ----, pointing with his cane to the dilapidated walls. “Mr. Moodie has offered you a year's rent for the place.” “It may not be worth a cent,” returned the woman; “for it will give everybody the rheumatism that stays a week in it--but it is worth that to me, and more nor double that just now to him. But I will not be hard with him,” continued she, rocking herself to and fro. “Say twenty dollars, and I will turn out on Monday.” “I dare say you will,” said Mr. ----, “and who do you think would be fool enough to give you such an exorbitant sum for a ruined old shed like this?” “Mind your own business, and make your own bargains,” returned the old woman, tartly. “The devil himself could not deal with you, for I guess he would have the worst of it. What do you say, sir?” and she fixed her keen eyes upon my husband, as if she would read his thoughts. “Will you agree to my price?” “It is a very high one, Mrs. R----; but as I cannot help myself, and you take advantage of that, I suppose I must give it.” “'Tis a bargain,” cried the old crone, holding out her hard, bony hand. “Come, cash down!” “Not until you give me possession on Monday next; or you might serve me as your son has done.” “Ha!” said the old woman, laughing and rubbing her hands together; “you begin to see daylight, do you? In a few months, with the help of him,” pointing to Mr. ----, “you will be able to go alone; but have a care of your teacher, for it's no good that you will learn from him. But will you really stand to your word, mister?” she added, in a coaxing tone, “if I go out on Monday?” “To be sure I will; I never break my word.” “Well, I guess you are not so clever as our people, for they only keep it as long as it suits them. You have an honest look; I will trust you; but I will not trust him,” nodding to Mr. ----, “he can buy and sell his word as fast as a horse can trot. So on Monday I will turn out my traps. I have lived here six-and-thirty years; 'tis a pretty place and it vexes me to leave it,” continued the poor creature, as a touch of natural feeling softened and agitated her world-hardened heart. “There is not an acre in cultivation but I helped to clear it, nor a tree in yonder orchard but I held it while my poor man, who is dead and gone, planted it; and I have watched the trees bud from year to year, until their boughs overshadowed the hut, where all my children, but Joe, were born. Yes, I came here young, and in my prime; and I must leave it in age and poverty. My children and husband are dead, and their bones rest beneath the turf in the burying-ground on the side of the hill. Of all that once gathered about my knees, Joe and his young ones alone remain. And it is hard, very hard, that I must leave their graves to be turned by the plough of a stranger.” I felt for the desolate old creature--the tears rushed to my eyes; but there was no moisture in hers. No rain from the heart could filter through that iron soil. “Be assured, Mrs. R----,” said Moodie, “that the dead will be held sacred; the place will never be disturbed by me.” “Perhaps not; but it is not long that you will remain here. I have seen a good deal in my time; but I never saw a gentleman from the old country make a good Canadian farmer. The work is rough and hard, and they get out of humour with it, and leave it to their hired helps, and then all goes wrong. They are cheated on all sides, and in despair take to the whiskey bottle, and that fixes them. I tell you what it is, mister--I give you just three years to spend your money and ruin yourself; and then you will become a confirmed drunkard, like the rest.” The first part of her prophecy was only too true. Thank God! the last has never been fulfilled, and never can be. Perceiving that the old woman was not a little elated with her bargain, Mr. ---- urged upon her the propriety of barring the dower. At first, she was outrageous, and very abusive, and rejected all his proposals with contempt; vowing that she would meet him in a certain place below, before she would sign away her right to the property. “Listen to reason, Mrs. R----,” said the land speculator. “If you will sign the papers before the proper authorities, the next time your son drives you to C----, I will give you a silk gown.” “Pshaw! Buy a shroud for yourself; you will need it before I want a silk gown,” was the ungracious reply. “Consider woman; a black silk of the best quality.” “To mourn in for my sins, or for the loss of the farm?” “Twelve yards,” continued Mr. ----, without noticing her rejoinder, “at a dollar a yard. Think what a nice church-going gown it will make.” “To the devil with you! I never go to church.” “I thought as much,” said Mr. ----, winking to us. “Well, my dear madam, what will satisfy you?” “I'll do it for twenty dollars,” returned the old woman, rocking herself to and fro in her chair; her eyes twinkling, and her hands moving convulsively, as if she already grasped the money so dear to her soul. “Agreed,” said the land speculator. “When will you be in town?” “On Tuesday, if I be alive. But, remember, I'll not sign till I have my hand on the money.” “Never fear,” said Mr. ----, as we quitted the house; then, turning to me, he added, with a peculiar smile,” That's a devilish smart woman. She would have made a clever lawyer.” Monday came, and with it all the bustle of moving, and, as is generally the case on such occasions, it turned out a very wet day. I left Old Satan's hut without regret, glad, at any rate, to be in a place of my own, however humble. Our new habitation, though small, had a decided advantage over the one we were leaving. It stood on a gentle slope; and a narrow but lovely stream, full of pretty speckled trout, ran murmuring under the little window; the house, also, was surrounded by fine fruit trees. I know not how it was, but the sound of that tinkling brook, for ever rolling by, filled my heart with a strange melancholy, which for many nights deprived me of rest. I loved it, too. The voice of waters, in the stillness of night, always had an extraordinary effect upon my mind. Their ceaseless motion and perpetual sound convey to me the idea of life--eternal life; and looking upon them, glancing and flashing on, now in sunshine, now in shade, now hoarsely chiding with the opposing rock, now leaping triumphantly over it, creates within me a feeling of mysterious awe of which I never could wholly divest myself. A portion of my own spirit seemed to pass into that little stream. In its deep wailings and fretful sighs, I fancied myself lamenting for the land I had left for ever; and its restless and impetuous rushings against the stones which choked its passage, were mournful types of my own mental struggles against the destiny which hemmed me in. Through the day the stream still moaned and travelled on,--but, engaged in my novel and distasteful occupations, I heard it not; but whenever my winged thoughts flew homeward, then the voice of the brook spoke deeply and sadly to my heart, and my tears flowed unchecked to its plaintive and harmonious music. In a few hours I had my new abode more comfortably arranged than the old, although its dimensions were much smaller. The location was beautiful, and I was greatly consoled by this circumstance. The aspect of Nature ever did, and I hope ever will continue-- “To shoot marvellous strength into my heart.” As long as we remain true to the Divine Mother, so long will she remain faithful to her suffering children. At that period my love for Canada was a feeling very nearly allied to that which the condemned criminal entertains for his cell--his only hope of escape being through the portals of the grave. The fall rains had commenced. In a few days the cold wintry showers swept all the gorgeous crimson from the trees; and a bleak and desolate waste presented itself to the shuddering spectator. But, in spite of wind and rain, my little tenement was never free from the intrusion of Uncle Joe's wife and children. Their house stood about a stone's-throw from the hut we occupied, in the same meadow, and they seemed to look upon it still as their own, although we had literally paid for it twice over. Fine strapping girls they were, from five years old to fourteen, but rude and unnurtured as so many bears. They would come in without the least ceremony, and, young as they were, ask me a thousand impertinent questions; and when I civilly requested them to leave the room, they would range themselves upon the door-step, watching my motions, with their black eyes gleaming upon me through their tangled, uncombed locks. Their company was a great annoyance, for it obliged me to put a painful restraint upon the thoughtfulness in which it was so delightful to me to indulge. Their visits were not visits of love, but of mere idle curiosity, not unmingled with malicious pleasure at my awkward attempts at Canadian house-wifieries. The simplicity, the fond, confiding faith of childhood is unknown in Canada. There are no children here. The boy is a miniature man--knowing, keen, and wide awake; as able to drive a bargain and take an advantage of his juvenile companion as the grown-up, world-hardened man. The girl, a gossipping flirt, full of vanity and affectation, with a premature love of finery, and an acute perception of the advantages to be derived from wealth, and from keeping up a certain appearance in the world. The flowers, the green grass, the glorious sunshine, the birds of the air, and the young lambs gambolling down the verdant slopes, which fill the heart of a British child with a fond ecstacy, bathing the young spirit in Elysium, would float unnoticed before the vision of a Canadian child; while the sight of a dollar, or a new dress, or a gay bonnet, would swell its proud bosom with self-importance and delight. The glorious blush of modest diffidence, the tear of gentle sympathy, are so rare on the cheek, or in the eye of the young, that their appearance creates a feeling of surprise. Such perfect self-reliance in beings so new to the world is painful to a thinking mind. It betrays a great want of sensibility and mental culture, and a melancholy knowledge of the arts of life. For a week I was alone, my good Scotch girl having left me to visit her father. Some small baby-articles were needed to be washed, and after making a great preparation, I determined to try my unskilled hand upon the operation. The fact is, I knew nothing about the task I had imposed upon myself, and in a few minutes rubbed the skin off my wrists, without getting the clothes clean. The door was open, as it generally was, even during the coldest winter days, in order to let in more light, and let out the smoke, which otherwise would have enveloped us like a cloud. I was so busy that I did not perceive that I was watched by the cold, heavy, dark eyes of Mrs. Joe, who, with a sneering laugh, exclaimed-- “Well, thank God! I am glad to see you brought to work at last. I hope you may have to work as hard as I have. I don't see, not I, why you, who are no better than me, should sit still all day, like a lady!” “Mrs. R----,” said I, not a little annoyed at her presence, “what concern is it of yours whether I work or sit still? I never interfere with you. If you took it into your head to lie in bed all day, I should never trouble myself about it.” “Ah, I guess you don't look upon us as fellow-critters, you are so proud and grand. I s'pose you Britishers are not made of flesh and blood like us. You don't choose to sit down at meat with your helps. Now, I calculate, we think them a great deal better nor you.” “Of course,” said I, “they are more suited to you than we are; they are uneducated, and so are you. This is no fault in either; but it might teach you to pay a little more respect to those who are possessed of superior advantages. But, Mrs. R----, my helps, as you call them, are civil and obliging, and never make unprovoked and malicious speeches. If they could so far forget themselves, I should order them to leave the house.” “Oh, I see what you are up to,” replied the insolent dame; “you mean to say that if I were your help you would turn me out of your house; but I'm a free-born American, and I won't go at your bidding. Don't think I came here out of regard to you. No, I hate you all; and I rejoice to see you at the wash-tub, and I wish that you may be brought down upon your knees to scrub the floors.” This speech only caused a smile, and yet I felt hurt and astonished that a woman whom I had never done anything to offend should be so gratuitously spiteful. In the evening she sent two of her brood over to borrow my “long iron,” as she called an Italian iron. I was just getting my baby to sleep, sitting upon a low stool by the fire. I pointed to the iron upon the shelf, and told the girl to take it. She did so, but stood beside me, holding it carelessly in her hand, and staring at the baby, who had just sunk to sleep upon my lap. The next moment the heavy iron fell from her relaxed grasp, giving me a severe blow upon my knee and foot; and glanced so near the child's head that it drew from me a cry of terror. “I guess that was nigh braining the child,” quoth Miss Amanda, with the greatest coolness, and without making the least apology. Master Ammon burst into a loud laugh. “If it had, Mandy, I guess we'd have cotched it.” Provoked at their insolence, I told them to leave the house. The tears were in my eyes, for I felt that had they injured the child, it would not have caused them the least regret. The next day, as we were standing at the door, my husband was greatly amused by seeing fat Uncle Joe chasing the rebellious Ammon over the meadow in front of the house. Joe was out of breath, panting and puffing like a small steam-engine, and his face flushed to deep red with excitement and passion. “You ---- young scoundrel!” he cried, half choked with fury, “If I catch up to you, I'll take the skin off you!” “You ---- old scoundrel, you may have my skin if you can get at me,” retorted the precocious child, as he jumped up upon the top of the high fence, and doubled his fist in a menacing manner at his father. “That boy is growing too bad,” said Uncle Joe, coming up to us out of breath, the perspiration streaming down his face. “It is time to break him in, or he'll get the master of us all.” “You should have begun that before,” said Moodie. “He seems a hopeful pupil.” “Oh, as to that, a little swearing is manly,” returned the father; “I swear myself, I know, and as the old cock crows, so crows the young one. It is not his swearing that I care a pin for, but he will not do a thing I tell him to.” “Swearing is a dreadful vice,” said I, “and, wicked as it is in the mouth of a grown-up person, it is perfectly shocking in a child; it painfully tells he has been brought up without the fear of God.” “Pooh! pooh! that's all cant; there is no harm in a few oaths, and I cannot drive oxen and horses without swearing. I dare say that you can swear too when you are riled, but you are too cunning to let us hear you.” I could not help laughing outright at this supposition, but replied very quietly, “Those who practice such iniquities never take any pains to conceal them. The concealment would infer a feeling of shame; and when people are conscious of the guilt, they are in the road to improvement.” The man walked whistling away, and the wicked child returned unpunished to his home. The next minute the old woman came in. “I guess you can give me a piece of silk for a hood,” said she, “the weather is growing considerable cold.” “Surely it cannot well be colder than it is at present,” said I, giving her the rocking-chair by the fire. “Wait a while; you know nothing of a Canadian winter. This is only November; after the Christmas thaw, you'll know something about the cold. It is seven-and-thirty years ago since I and my man left the U-ni-ted States. It was called the year of the great winter. I tell you, woman, that the snow lay so deep on the earth, that it blocked up all the roads, and we could drive a sleigh whither we pleased, right over the snake fences. All the cleared land was one wide white level plain; it was a year of scarcity, and we were half starved; but the severe cold was far worse nor the want of provisions. A long and bitter journey we had of it; but I was young then, and pretty well used to trouble and fatigue; my man stuck to the British government. More fool he! I was an American born, and my heart was with the true cause. But his father was English, and, says he, 'I'll live and die under their flag.' So he dragged me from my comfortable fireside to seek a home in the far Canadian wilderness. Trouble! I guess you think you have your troubles; but what are they to mine?” She paused, took a pinch of snuff, offered me the box, sighed painfully, pushed the red handkerchief from her high, narrow, wrinkled brow, and continued: “Joe was a baby then, and I had another helpless critter in my lap--an adopted child. My sister had died from it, and I was nursing it at the same breast with my boy. Well, we had to perform a journey of four hundred miles in an ox-cart, which carried, besides me and the children, all our household stuff. Our way lay chiefly through the forest, and we made but slow progress. Oh! what a bitter cold night it was when we reached the swampy woods where the city of Rochester now stands. The oxen were covered with icicles, and their breath sent up clouds of steam. 'Nathan,' says I to my man, 'you must stop and kindle a fire; I am dead with cold, and I fear the babes will be frozen.' We began looking about for a good spot to camp in, when I spied a light through the trees. It was a lone shanty, occupied by two French lumberers. The men were kind; they rubbed our frozen limbs with snow, and shared with us their supper and buffalo skins. On that very spot where we camped that night, where we heard nothing but the wind soughing amongst the trees, and the rushing of the river, now stands the great city of Rochester. I went there two years ago, to the funeral of a brother. It seemed to me like a dream. Where we foddered our beasts by the shanty fire now stands the largest hotel in the city; and my husband left this fine growing country to starve here.” I was so much interested in the old woman's narrative--for she was really possessed of no ordinary capacity, and, though rude and uneducated might have been a very superior person under different circumstances--that I rummaged among my store, and soon found a piece of black silk, which I gave her for the hood she required. The old woman examined it carefully over, smiled to herself, but, like all her people, was too proud to return a word of thanks. One gift to the family always involved another. “Have you any cotton-batting, or black sewing-silk, to give me, to quilt it with?” “No.” “Humph!” returned the old dame, in a tone which seemed to contradict my assertion. She then settled herself in her chair, and, after shaking her foot awhile, and fixing her piercing eyes upon me for some minutes, she commenced the following list of interrogatories:-- “Is your father alive?” “No; he died many years ago, when I was a young girl.” “Is your mother alive?” “Yes.” “What is her name?” I satisfied her on this point. “Did she ever marry again?” “She might have done so, but she loved her husband too well, and preferred living single.” “Humph! We have no such notions here. What was your father?” “A gentleman, who lived upon his own estate.” “Did he die rich?” “He lost the greater part of his property from being surety for another.” “That's a foolish business. My man burnt his fingers with that. And what brought you out to this poor country--you, who are no more fit for it than I am to be a fine lady?” “The promise of a large grant of land, and the false statements we heard regarding it.” “Do you like the country?” “No; and I fear I never shall.” “I thought not; for the drop is always on your cheek, the children tell me; and those young ones have keen eyes. Now, take my advice: return while your money lasts; the longer you remain in Canada the less you will like it; and when your money is all spent, you will be like a bird in a cage; you may beat your wings against the bars, but you can't get out.” There was a long pause. I hoped that my guest had sufficiently gratified her curiosity, when she again commenced:-- “How do you get your money? Do you draw it from the old country, or have you it with you in cash?” Provoked by her pertinacity, and seeing no end to her cross-questioning, I replied, very impatiently, “Mrs. R----, is it the custom in your country to catechise strangers whenever you meet with them?” “What do you mean?” she said, colouring, I believe, for the first time in her life. “I mean,” quoth I, “an evil habit of asking impertinent questions.” The old woman got up, and left the house without speaking another word. THE SLEIGH-BELLS 'Tis merry to hear, at evening time, By the blazing hearth the sleigh-bells chime; To know the bounding steeds bring near The loved one to our bosom dear. Ah, lightly we spring the fire to raise, Till the rafters glow with the ruddy blaze; Those merry sleigh-bells, our hearts keep time Responsive to their fairy chime. Ding-dong, ding-dong, o'er vale and hill, Their welcome notes are trembling still. 'Tis he, and blithely the gay bells sound, As glides his sleigh o'er the frozen ground; Hark! he has pass'd the dark pine wood, He crosses now the ice-bound flood, And hails the light at the open door That tells his toilsome journey's o'er. The merry sleigh-bells! My fond heart swells And throbs to hear the welcome bells; Ding-dong, ding-dong, o'er ice and snow, A voice of gladness, on they go. Our hut is small, and rude our cheer, But love has spread the banquet here; And childhood springs to be caress'd By our beloved and welcome guest. With a smiling brow, his tale he tells, The urchins ring the merry sleigh-bells; The merry sleigh-bells, with shout and song They drag the noisy string along; Ding-dong, ding-dong, the father's come The gay bells ring his welcome home. From the cedar-swamp the gaunt wolves howl, From the oak loud whoops the felon owl; The snow-storm sweeps in thunder past, The forest creaks beneath the blast; No more I list, with boding fear, The sleigh-bells' distant chime to hear. The merry sleigh-bells, with soothing power Shed gladness on the evening hour. Ding-dong, ding-dong, what rapture swells The music of those joyous bells. [Many versions have been given of this song, and it has been set to music in the States. I here give the original copy, written whilst leaning on the open door of my shanty, and watching for the return of my husband.] CHAPTER VIII JOHN MONAGHAN “Dear mother Nature! on thy ample breast Hast thou not room for thy neglected son? A stern necessity has driven him forth Alone and friendless. He has naught but thee, And the strong hand and stronger heart thou gavest, To win with patient toil his daily bread.” A few days after the old woman's visit to the cottage, our servant James absented himself for a week, without asking leave, or giving any intimation of his intention. He had under his care a fine pair of horses, a yoke of oxen, three cows, and a numerous family of pigs, besides having to chop all the firewood required for our use. His unexpected departure caused no small trouble in the family; and when the truant at last made his appearance, Moodie discharged him altogether. The winter had now fairly set in--the iron winter of 1833. The snow was unusually deep, and it being our first winter in Canada, and passed in such a miserable dwelling, we felt it very severely. In spite of all my boasted fortitude--and I think my powers of endurance have been tried to the uttermost since my sojourn in this country--the rigour of the climate subdued my proud, independent English spirit, and I actually shamed my womanhood and cried with the cold. Yes, I ought to blush at evincing such unpardonable weakness; but I was foolish and inexperienced, and unaccustomed to the yoke. My husband did not much relish performing the menial duties of a servant in such weather, but he did not complain, and in the meantime commenced an active inquiry for a man to supply the place of the one we had lost; but at that season of the year no one was to be had. It was a bitter, freezing night. A sharp wind howled without, and drove the fine snow through the chinks in the door, almost to the hearth-stone, on which two immense blocks of maple shed forth a cheering glow, brightening the narrow window-panes, and making the blackened rafters ruddy with the heart-invigorating blaze. The toils of the day were over, the supper things cleared away, and the door closed for the night. Moodie had taken up his flute, the sweet companion of happier days, at the earnest request of our homesick Scotch servant-girl, to cheer her drooping spirits by playing some of the touching national airs of the glorious mountain land, the land of chivalry and song, the heroic North. Before retiring to rest, Bell, who had an exquisite ear for music, kept time with foot and hand, while large tears gathered in her soft blue eyes. “Ay, 'tis bonnie thae songs; but they mak' me greet, an' my puir heart is sair, sair when I think on the bonnie braes and the days o'lang syne.” Poor Bell! Her heart was among the hills, and mine had wandered far, far away to the green groves and meadows of my own fair land. The music and our reveries were alike abruptly banished by a sharp blow upon the door. Bell rose and opened it, when a strange, wild-looking lad, barefooted, and with no other covering to his head than the thick, matted locks of raven blackness that hung like a cloud over his swarthy, sunburnt visage, burst into the room. “Guidness defend us! Wha ha'e we here?” screamed Bell, retreating into a corner. “The puir callant's no cannie.” My husband turned hastily round to meet the intruder, and I raised the candle from the table the better to distinguish his face; while Bell, from her hiding-place, regarded him with unequivocal glances of fear and mistrust, waving her hands to me, and pointing significantly to the open door, as if silently beseeching me to tell her master to turn him out. “Shut the door, man,” said Moodie, whose long scrutiny of the strange being before us seemed upon the whole satisfactory; “we shall be frozen.” “Thin faith, sir, that's what I am,” said the lad, in a rich brogue, which told, without asking, the country to which he belonged. Then stretching his bare hands to the fire, he continued, “By Jove, sir, I was never so near gone in my life!” “Where do you come from, and what is your business here? You must be aware that this is a very late hour to take a house by storm in this way.” “Thrue for you, sir. But necessity knows no law; and the condition you see me in must plade for me. First, thin, sir, I come from the township of D----, and want a masther; and next to that, bedad! I want something to ate. As I'm alive, and 'tis a thousand pities that I'm alive at all at all, for shure God Almighty never made sich a misfortunate crather afore nor since; I have had nothing to put in my head since I ran away from my ould masther, Mr. F----, yesterday at noon. Money I have none, sir; the divil a cent. I have neither a shoe to my foot nor a hat to my head, and if you refuse to shelter me the night, I must be contint to perish in the snow, for I have not a frind in the wide wurld.” The lad covered his face with his hands, and sobbed aloud. “Bell,” I whispered; “go to the cupboard and get the poor fellow something to eat. The boy is starving.” “Dinna heed him, mistress, dinna credit his lees. He is ane o' those wicked Papists wha ha' just stepped in to rob and murder us.” “Nonsense! Do as I bid you.” “I winna be fashed aboot him. An' if he bides here, I'll e'en flit by the first blink o' the morn.” “Isabel, for shame! Is this acting like a Christian, or doing as you would be done by?” Bell was as obstinate as a rock, not only refusing to put down any food for the famished lad, but reiterating her threat of leaving the house if he were suffered to remain. My husband, no longer able to endure her selfish and absurd conduct, got angry in good earnest, and told her that she might please herself; that he did not mean to ask her leave as to whom he received into his house. I, for my part, had no idea that she would realise her threat. She was an excellent servant, clean, honest, and industrious, and loved the dear baby. “You will think better of it in the morning,” said I, as I rose and placed before the lad some cold beef and bread, and a bowl of milk, to which the runaway did ample justice. “Why did you quit your master, my lad?” said Moodie. “Because I could live wid him no longer. You see, sir, I'm a poor foundling from the Belfast Asylum, shoved out by the mother that bore me, upon the wide wurld, long before I knew that I was in it. As I was too young to spake for myself intirely, she put me into a basket, wid a label round my neck, to tell the folks that my name was John Monaghan. This was all I ever got from my parents; and who or what they were, I never knew, not I, for they never claimed me; bad cess to them! But I've no doubt it's a fine illigant gintleman he was, and herself a handsome rich young lady, who dared not own me for fear of affronting the rich jintry, her father and mother. Poor folk, sir, are never ashamed of their children; 'tis all the threasure they have, sir; but my parents were ashamed of me, and they thrust me out to the stranger and the hard bread of depindence.” The poor lad signed deeply, and I began to feel a growing interest in his sad history. “Have you been in the country long?” “Four years, madam. You know my masther, Mr. F----; he brought me out wid him as his apprentice, and during the voyage he trated me well. But the young men, his sons, are tyrants, and full of durty pride; and I could not agree wid them at all at all. Yesterday, I forgot to take the oxen out of the yoke, and Musther William tied me up to a stump, and bate me with the raw hide. Shure the marks are on me showlthers yet. I left the oxen and the yoke, and turned my back upon them all, for the hot blood was bilin' widin me; and I felt that if I stayed it would be him that would get the worst of it. No one had ever cared for me since I was born, so I thought it was high time to take care of myself. I had heard your name, sir, and I thought I would find you out; and if you want a lad, I will work for you for my kape, and a few dacent clothes.” A bargain was soon made. Moodie agreed to give Monaghan six dollars a month, which he thankfully accepted; and I told Bell to prepare his bed in a corner of the kitchen. But mistress Bell thought fit to rebel. Having been guilty of one act of insubordination, she determined to be consistent, and throw off the yoke altogether. She declared that she would do no such thing; that her life and that all our lives were in danger; and that she would never stay another night under the same roof with that Papist vagabond. “Papist!” cried the indignant lad, his dark eyes flashing fire, “I'm no Papist, but a Protestant like yourself; and I hope a deuced dale better Christian. You take me for a thief; yet shure a thief would have waited till you were all in bed and asleep, and not stepped in forenint you all in this fashion.” There was both truth and nature in the lad's argument; but Bell, like an obstinate woman as she was, chose to adhere to her own opinion. Nay, she even carried her absurd prejudices so far that she brought her mattress and laid it down on the floor in my room, for fear that the Irish vagabond should murder her during the night. By the break of day she was off; leaving me for the rest of the winter without a servant. Monaghan did all in his power to supply her place; he lighted the fires, swept the house, milked the cows, nursed the baby, and often cooked the dinner for me, and endeavoured by a thousand little attentions to show the gratitude he really felt for our kindness. To little Katie he attached himself in an extraordinary manner. All his spare time he spent in making little sleighs and toys for her, or in dragging her in the said sleighs up and down the steep hills in front of the house, wrapped up in a blanket. Of a night, he cooked her mess of bread and milk, as she sat by the fire, and his greatest delight was to feed her himself. After this operation was over, he would carry her round the floor on his back, and sing her songs in native Irish. Katie always greeted his return from the woods with a scream of joy, holding up her fair arms to clasp the neck of her dark favourite. “Now the Lord love you for a darlint!” he would cry, as he caught her to his heart. “Shure you are the only one of the crathers he ever made who can love poor John Monaghan. Brothers and sisters I have none--I stand alone in the wurld, and your bonny wee face is the sweetest thing it contains for me. Och, jewil! I could lay down my life for you, and be proud to do that same.” Though careless and reckless about everything that concerned himself, John was honest and true. He loved us for the compassion we had shown him; and he would have resented any injury offered to our persons with his best blood. But if we were pleased with our new servant, Uncle Joe and his family were not, and they commenced a series of petty persecutions that annoyed him greatly, and kindled into a flame all the fiery particles of his irritable nature. Moodie had purchased several tons of hay of a neighbouring farmer, for the use of his cattle, and it had to be stowed into the same barn with some flax and straw that belonged to Uncle Joe. Going early one morning to fodder the cattle, John found Uncle Joe feeding his cows with his master's hay, and as it had diminished greatly in a very short time, he accused him in no measured terms of being the thief. The other very coolly replied that he had taken a little of the hay in order to repay himself for his flax, that Monaghan had stolen for the oxen. “Now by the powers!” quoth John, kindling into wrath, “that is adding a big lie to a dirthy petty larceny. I take your flax, you ould villain! Shure I know that flax is grown to make linen wid, not to feed oxen. God Almighty has given the crathers a good warm coat of their own; they neither require shifts nor shirts.” “I saw you take it, you ragged Irish vagabond, with my own eyes.” “Thin yer two eyes showed you a wicked illusion. You had betther shut up yer head, or I'll give you that for an eye-salve that shall make you see thrue for the time to come.” Relying upon his great size, and thinking that the slight stripling, who, by-the-bye, was all bones and sinews, was no match for him, Uncle Joe struck Monaghan over the head with the pitchfork. In a moment the active lad was upon him like a wild cat, and in spite of the difference of his age and weight, gave the big man such a thorough dressing that he was fain to roar aloud for mercy. “Own that you are a thief and a liar, or I'll murther you!” “I'll own to anything whilst your knee is pressing me into a pancake. Come now--there's a good lad--let me get up.” Monaghan felt irresolute, but after extorting from Uncle Joe a promise never to purloin any of the hay again, he let him rise. “For shure,” he said, “he began to turn so black in the face, I thought he'd burst intirely.” The fat man neither forgot nor forgave this injury; and though he dared not attack John personally, he set the children to insult and affront him upon all occasions. The boy was without socks, and I sent him to old Mrs. R----, to inquire of her what she would charge for knitting him two pairs of socks. The reply was, a dollar. This was agreed to, and dear enough they were; but the weather was very cold, and the lad was barefooted, and there was no other alternative than either to accept her offer, or for him to go without. In a few days, Monaghan brought them home; but I found upon inspecting them that they were old socks new-footed. This was rather too glaring a cheat, and I sent the lad back with them, and told him to inform Mrs. R---- that as he had agreed to give the price for new socks, he expected them to be new altogether. The avaricious old woman did not deny the fact, but she fell to cursing and swearing in an awful manner, and wished so much evil to the lad, that, with the superstitious fear so common to the natives of his country, he left her under the impression that she was gifted with the evil eye, and was an “owld witch.” He never went out of the yard with the waggon and horses, but she rushed to the door, and cursed him for a bare-heeled Irish blackguard, and wished that he might overturn the waggon, kill the horses, and break his own worthless neck. “Ma'am,” said John to me one day, after returning from C---- with the team, “it would be betther for me to lave the masther intirely; for shure if I do not, some mischief will befall me or the crathers. That wicked owld wretch! I cannot thole her curses. Shure it's in purgatory I am all the while.” “Nonsense, Monaghan! you are not a Catholic, and need not fear purgatory. The next time the old woman commences her reprobate conduct, tell her to hold her tongue, and mind her own business, for curses, like chickens come home to roost.” The boy laughed heartily at the old Turkish proverb, but did not reckon much on its efficacy to still the clamorous tongue of the ill-natured old jade. The next day he had to pass her door with the horses. No sooner did she hear the sound of the wheels, than out she hobbled, and commenced her usual anathemas. “Bad luck to yer croaking, yer ill-conditioned owld raven. It is not me you are desthroying shure, but yer own poor miserable sinful sowl. The owld one has the grief of ye already, for 'curses, like chickens, come home to roost'; so get in wid ye, and hatch them to yerself in the chimley corner. They'll all be roosting wid ye by-and-by; and a nice warm nest they'll make for you, considering the brave brood that belongs to you.” Whether the old woman was as superstitious as John, I know not; or whether she was impressed with the moral truth of the proverb--for, as I have before stated, she was no fool--is difficult to tell; but she shrunk back into her den, and never attacked the lad again. Poor John bore no malice in his heart, not he; for, in spite of all the ill-natured things he had to endure from Uncle Joe and his family, he never attempted to return evil for evil. In proof of this, he was one day chopping firewood in the bush, at some distance from Joe, who was engaged in the same employment with another man. A tree in falling caught upon another, which, although a very large maple, was hollow and very much decayed, and liable to be blown down by the least shock of the wind. The tree hung directly over the path that Uncle Joe was obliged to traverse daily with his team. He looked up, and perceived, from the situation it occupied, that it was necessary for his own safety to cut it down; but he lacked courage to undertake so hazardous a job, which might be attended, if the supporting tree gave way during the operation, with very serious consequences. In a careless tone, he called to his companion to cut down the tree. “Do it yourself, H----,” said the axe man, with a grin. “My wife and children want their man as much as your Hannah wants you.” “I'll not put axe to it,” quoth Joe. Then, making signs to his comrade to hold his tongue, he shouted to Monaghan, “Hollo, boy! you're wanted here to cut down this tree. Don't you see that your master's cattle might be killed if they should happen to pass under it, and it should fall upon them.” “Thrue for you, Masther Joe; but your own cattle would have the first chance. Why should I risk my life and limbs, by cutting down the tree, when it was yerself that threw it so awkwardly over the other?” “Oh, but you are a boy, and have no wife and children to depend upon you for bread,” said Joe, gravely. “We are both family men. Don't you see that 'tis your duty to cut down the tree?” The lad swung the axe to and fro in his hand, eyeing Joe and the tree alternately; but the natural kind-heartedness of the creature, and his reckless courage, overcame all idea of self-preservation, and raising aloft his slender but muscular arm, he cried out, “If it's a life that must be sacrificed, why not mine as well as another? Here goes! and the Lord have mercy on my sinful sowl!” The tree fell, and, contrary to their expectations, without any injury to John. The knowing Yankee burst into a loud laugh. “Well, if you arn't a tarnation soft fool, I never saw one.” “What do you mane?” exclaimed John, his dark eyes flashing fire. “If 'tis to insult me for doing that which neither of you dared to do, you had better not thry that same. You have just seen the strength of my spirit. You had better not thry again the strength of my arm, or, may be, you and the tree would chance to share the same fate;” and, shouldering his axe, the boy strode down the hill, to get scolded by me for his foolhardiness. The first week of March, all the people were busy making maple sugar. “Did you ever taste any maple sugar, ma'am?” asked Monaghan, as he sat feeding Katie one evening by the fire. “No, John.” “Well, then, you've a thrate to come; and it's myself that will make Miss Katie, the darlint, an illigant lump of that same.” Early in the morning John was up, hard at work, making troughs for the sap. By noon he had completed a dozen, which he showed me with great pride of heart. I felt a little curious about this far-famed maple sugar, and asked a thousand questions about the use to which the troughs were to be applied; how the trees were to be tapped, the sugar made, and if it were really good when made? To all my queries, John responded, “Och! 'tis illigant. It bates all the sugar that ever was made in Jamaky. But you'll see before to-morrow night.” Moodie was away at P----, and the prospect of the maple sugar relieved the dulness occasioned by his absence. I reckoned on showing him a piece of sugar of our own making when he came home, and never dreamt of the possibility of disappointment. John tapped his trees after the most approved fashion, and set his troughts to catch the sap; but Miss Amanda and Master Ammon upset them as fast as they filled, and spilt all the sap. With great difficulty, Monaghan saved the contents of one large iron pot. This he brought in about nightfall, and made up a roaring fire, in order to boil in down into sugar. Hour after hour passed away, and the sugar-maker looked as hot and black as the stoker in a steam-boat. Many times I peeped into the large pot, but the sap never seemed to diminish. “This is a tedious piece of business,” thought I, but seeing the lad so anxious, I said nothing. About twelve o'clock he asked me, very mysteriously, for a piece of pork to hang over the sugar. “Pork!” said I, looking into the pot, which was half full of a very black-looking liquid; “what do you want with pork?” “Shure an' 'tis to keep the sugar from burning.” “But, John, I see no sugar!” “Och, but 'tis all sugar, only 'tis molasses jist now. See how it sticks to the ladle. Aha! But Miss Katie will have the fine lumps of sugar when she awakes in the morning.” I grew so tired and sleepy that I left John to finish his job, went to bed, and soon forgot all about the maple sugar. At breakfast I observed a small plate upon the table, placed in a very conspicuous manner on the tea-tray, the bottom covered with a hard, black substance, which very much resembled pitch. “What is that dirty-looking stuff, John?” “Shure an 'tis the maple sugar.” “Can people eat that?” “By dad, an' they can; only thry it, ma'arm.” “Why, 'tis so hard, I cannot cut it.” With some difficulty, and not without cutting his finger, John broke a piece off, and stuffed it into the baby's mouth. The poor child made a horrible face, and rejected it as if it had been poison. For my own part, I never tasted anything more nauseous. It tasted like a compound of pork grease and tobacco juice. “Well, Monaghan, if this be maple sugar, I never wish to taste any again.” “Och, bad luck to it!” said the lad, flinging it away, plate and all. “It would have been first-rate but for the dirthy pot, and the blackguard cinders, and its burning to the bottom of the pot. That owld hag, Mrs. R----, bewitched it with her evil eye.” “She is not so clever as you think, John,” said I, laughing. “You have forgotten how to make the sugar since you left D----; but let us forget the maple sugar, and think of something else. Had you not better get old Mrs. R---- to mend that jacket for you; it is too ragged.” “Ay, dad! an it's mysel' is the illigant tailor. Wasn't I brought up to the thrade in the Foundling Hospital?” “And why did you quit it?” “Because it's a low, mane thrade for a jintleman's son.” “But, John, who told you that you were a gentleman's son?” “Och! but I'm shure of it, thin. All my propensities are gintale. I love horses, and dogs, and fine clothes, and money. Och! that I was but a jintleman! I'd show them what life is intirely, and I'd challenge Masther William, and have my revenge out of him for the blows he gave me.” “You had better mend your trousers,” said I, giving him a tailor's needle, a pair of scissors, and some strong thread. “Shure, an' I'll do that same in a brace of shakes,” and sitting down upon a ricketty three-legged stool of his own manufacturing, he commenced his tailoring by tearing off a piece of his trousers to patch the elbows of his jacket. And this trifling act, simple as it may appear, was a perfect type of the boy's general conduct, and marked his progress through life. The present for him was everything; he had no future. While he supplied stuff from the trousers to repair the fractures in the jacket, he never reflected that both would be required on the morrow. Poor John! in his brief and reckless career, how often have I recalled that foolish act of his. It now appears to me that his whole life was spent in tearing his trousers to repair his jacket. In the evening John asked me for a piece of soap. “What do you want with soap, John?” “To wash my shirt, ma'am. Shure an' I'm a baste to be seen, as black as the pots. Sorra a shirt have I but the one, an' it has stuck on my back so long that I can thole it no longer.” I looked at the wrists and collar of the condemned garment, which was all of it that John allowed to be visible. They were much in need of soap and water. “Well, John, I will leave you the soap, but can you wash?” “Och, shure, an' I can thry. If I soap it enough, and rub long enough, the shirt must come clane at last.” I thought the matter rather doubtful; but when I went to bed I left what he required, and soon saw through the chinks in the boards a roaring fire, and heard John whistling over the tub. He whistled and rubbed, and washed and scrubbed, but as there seemed no end to the job, and he was a long washing this one garment as Bell would have been performing the same operation on fifty, I laughed to myself, and thought of my own abortive attempts in that way, and went fast asleep. In the morning John came to his breakfast, with his jacket buttoned up to his throat. “Could you not dry your shirt by the fire, John? You will get cold wanting it.” “Aha, by dad! it's dhry enough now. The divil has made tinder of it long afore this.” “Why, what has happened to it? I heard you washing all night.” “Washing! Faith, an' I did scrub it till my hands were all ruined intirely, and thin I took the brush to it; but sorra a bit of the dirth could I get out of it. The more I rubbed the blacker it got, until I had used up all the soap, and the perspiration was pouring off me like rain. 'You dirthy owld bit of a blackguard of a rag,' says I, in an exthremity of rage, 'You're not fit for the back of a dacent lad an' a jintleman. The divil may take ye to cover one of his imps;' an' wid that I sthirred up the fire, and sent it plump into the middle of the blaze.” “And what will you do for a shirt?” “Faith, do as many a betther man has done afore me, go widout.” I looked up two old shirts of my husband's, which John received with an ecstacy of delight. He retired instantly to the stable, but soon returned, with as much of the linen breast of the garment displayed as his waistcoat would allow. No peacock was ever prouder of his tail than the wild Irish lad was of the old shirt. John had been treated very much like a spoiled child, and, like most spoiled children, he was rather fond of having his own way. Moodie had set him to do something which was rather contrary to his own inclinations; he did not object to the task in words, for he was rarely saucy to his employers, but he left the following stave upon the table, written in pencil upon a scrap of paper torn from the back of an old letter:-- “A man alive, an ox may drive Unto a springing well; To make him drink, as he may think, No man can him compel. “JOHN MONAGHAN.” THE EMIGRANT'S BRIDE A Canadian ballad The waves that girt my native isle, The parting sunbeams tinged with red; And far to seaward, many a mile, A line of dazzling glory shed. But, ah, upon that glowing track, No glance my aching eyeballs threw; As I my little bark steer'd back To bid my love a last adieu. Upon the shores of that lone bay, With folded arms the maiden stood; And watch'd the white sails wing their way Across the gently heaving flood. The summer breeze her raven hair Swept lightly from her snowy brow; And there she stood, as pale and fair As the white foam that kiss'd my prow. My throbbing heart with grief swell'd high, A heavy tale was mine to tell; For once I shunn'd the beauteous eye, Whose glance on mine so fondly fell. My hopeless message soon was sped, My father's voice my suit denied; And I had promised not to wed, Against his wish, my island bride. She did not weep, though her pale face The trace of recent sorrow wore; But, with a melancholy grace, She waved my shallop from the shore. She did not weep; but oh! that smile Was sadder than the briny tear That trembled on my cheek the while I bade adieu to one so dear. She did not speak--no accents fell From lips that breathed the balm of May; In broken words I strove to tell All that my broken heart would say. She did not speak--but to my eyes She raised the deep light of her own. As breaks the sun through cloudy skies, My spirit caught a brighter tone. “Dear girl!” I cried, “we ne'er can part, My angry father's wrath I'll brave; He shall not tear thee from my heart. Fly, fly with me across the wave!” My hand convulsively she press'd, Her tears were mingling fast with mine; And, sinking trembling on my breast, She murmur'd out, “For ever thine!” CHAPTER IX PHOEBE R----, AND OUR SECOND MOVING “She died in early womanhood, Sweet scion of a stem so rude; A child of Nature, free from art, With candid brow and open heart; The flowers she loved now gently wave Above her low and nameless grave.” It was during the month of March that Uncle Joe's eldest daughter, Phoebe, a very handsome girl, and the best of the family, fell sick. I went over to see her. The poor girl was very depressed, and stood but a slight chance for her life, being under medical treatment of three or four old women, who all recommended different treatment and administered different nostrums. Seeing that the poor girl was dangerously ill, I took her mother aside, and begged her to lose no time in procuring proper medical advice. Mrs. Joe listened to me very sullenly, and said there was no danger; that Phoebe had caught a violent cold by going hot from the wash-tub to fetch a pail of water from the spring; that the neighbours knew the nature of her complaint, and would soon cure her. The invalid turned upon me her fine dark eyes, in which the light of fever painfully burned, and motioned me to come near her. I sat down by her, and took her burning hand in mine. “I am dying, Mrs. Moodie, but they won't believe me. I wish you would talk to mother to send for the doctor.” “I will. Is there anything I can do for you?--anything I can make for you, that you would like to take?” She shook her head. “I can't eat. But I want to ask you one thing, which I wish very much to know.” She grasped my hand tightly between her own. Her eyes looked darker, and her feverish cheek paled. “What becomes of people when they die?” “Good heavens!” I exclaimed involuntarily; “can you be ignorant of a future state?” “What is a future state?” I endeavoured, as well as I was able, to explain to her the nature of the soul, its endless duration, and responsibility to God for the actions done in the flesh; its natural depravity and need of a Saviour; urging her, in the gentlest manner, to lose no time in obtaining forgiveness of her sins, through the atoning blood of Christ. The poor girl looked at me with surprise and horror. These things were all new to her. She sat like one in a dream; yet the truth seemed to flash upon her at once. “How can I speak to God, who never knew Him? How can I ask Him to forgive me?” “You must pray to him.” “Pray! I don't know how to pray. I never said a prayer in my life. Mother; can you teach me how to pray?” “Nonsense!” said Mrs. Joe, hurrying forward. “Why should you trouble yourself about such things? Mrs. Moodie, I desire you not to put such thoughts into my daughter's head. We don't want to know anything about Jesus Christ here.” “Oh, mother, don't speak so to the lady! Do Mrs. Moodie, tell me more about God and my soul. I never knew until now that I had a soul.” Deeply compassionating the ignorance of the poor girl, in spite of the menaces of the heathen mother--for she was no better, but rather worse, seeing that the heathen worships in ignorance a false God, while this woman lived without acknowledging a God at all, and therefore considered herself free from all moral restraint--I bid Phoebe good-bye, and promised to bring my bible, and read to her the next day. The gratitude manifested by this sick girl was such a contrast to the rudeness and brutality of the rest of the family, that I soon felt a powerful interest in her fate. The mother did not actually forbid me the house, because she saw that my visits raised the drooping spirits of her child, whom she fiercely loved, and, to save her life, would cheerfully have sacrificed her own. But she never failed to make all the noise she could to disturb my reading and conversation with Phoebe. She could not be persuaded that her daughter was really in any danger, until the doctor told her that her case was hopeless; then the grief of the mother burst forth, and she gave way to the most frantic and impious complainings. The rigour of the winter began to abate. The beams of the sun during the day were warm and penetrating, and a soft wind blew from the south. I watched, from day to day, the snow disappearing from the earth, with indescribable pleasure, and at length it wholly vanished; not even a solitary patch lingered under the shade of the forest trees; but Uncle Joe gave no sign of removing his family. “Does he mean to stay all the summer?” thought I. “Perhaps he never intends going at all. I will ask him, the next time he comes to borrow whiskey.” In the afternoon he walked in to light his pipe, and, with some anxiety, I made the inquiry. “Well, I guess we can't be moving afore the end of May. My missus expects to be confined the fore part of the month, and I shan't move till she be quite smart agin.” “You are not using us well, in keeping us out of the house so long.” “Oh, I don't care a curse about any of you. It is my house as long as I choose to remain in it, and you may put up with it the best way you can,” and, humming a Yankee tune, he departed. I had borne patiently the odious, cribbed-up place during the winter, but now the hot weather was coming, it seemed almost insupportable, as we were obliged to have a fire in the close room, in order to cook our provisions. I consoled myself as well as I could by roaming about the fields and woods, and making acquaintance with every wild flower as it blossomed, and in writing long letters to home friends, in which I abused one of the finest countries in the world as the worst that God ever called out of chaos. I can recall to memory, at this moment, the few lines of a poem which commenced in this strain; nor am I sorry that the rest of it has passed into oblivion:-- Oh! land of waters, how my spirit tires, In the dark prison of thy boundless woods; No rural charm poetic thought inspires, No music murmurs in thy mighty floods; Though vast the features that compose thy frame, Turn where we will, the landscape's still the same. The swampy margin of thy inland seas, The eternal forest girdling either shore, Its belt of dark pines sighing in the breeze, And rugged fields, with rude huts dotted o'er, Show cultivation unimproved by art, That sheds a barren chillness on the heart. How many home-sick emigrants, during their first winter in Canada, will respond to this gloomy picture! Let them wait a few years; the sun of hope will arise and beautify the landscape, and they will proclaim the country one of the finest in the world. The middle of May at length arrived, and, by the number of long, lean women, with handkerchiefs of all colours tied over their heads, who passed my door, and swarmed into Mrs. Joe's house, I rightly concluded that another young one had been added to the tribe; and shortly after, Uncle Joe himself announced the important fact, by putting his jolly red face in at the door, and telling me, that “his missus had got a chopping boy; and he was right glad of it, for he was tired of so many gals, and that he should move in a fortnight, if his woman did kindly.” I had been so often disappointed that I paid very little heed to him, but this time he kept his word. The _last_ day of May, they went, bag and baggage, the poor sick Phoebe, who still lingered on, and the new-born infant; and right joyfully I sent a Scotch girl (another Bell, whom I had hired in lieu of her I had lost), and Monaghan, to clean out the Augean stable. In a few minutes John returned, panting his indignation. “The house,” he said, “was more filthy than a pig-sty.” But that was not the worst of it, Uncle Joe, before he went, had undermined the brick chimney, and let all the water into the house. “Oh, but if he comes here agin,” he continued, grinding his teeth and doubling his fist, “I'll thrash him for it. And thin, ma'am, he has girdled round all the best graft apple-trees, the murtherin' owld villain, as if it could spile his digestion our ating them.” “It would require a strong stomach to digest apple-trees, John; but never mind, it can't be helped, and we may be very thankful that these people are gone at last.” John and Bell scrubbed at the house all day, and in the evening they carried over the furniture, and I went to inspect our new dwelling. It looked beautifully clean and neat. Bell had whitewashed all the black, smoky walls and boarded ceilings, and scrubbed the dirty window-frames, and polished the fly-spotted panes of glass, until they actually admitted a glimpse of the clear air and the blue sky. Snow-white fringed curtains, and a bed, with furniture to correspond, a carpeted floor, and a large pot of green boughs on the hearthstone, gave an air of comfort and cleanliness to a room which, only a few hours before, had been a loathsome den of filth and impurity. This change would have been very gratifying, had not a strong, disagreeable odour almost deprived me of my breath as I entered the room. It was unlike anything I had ever smelt before, and turned me so sick and faint that I had to cling to the door-post for support. “Where does this dreadful smell come from?” “The guidness knows, ma'am; John and I have searched the house from the loft to the cellar, but we canna find out the cause of thae stink.” “It must be in the room, Bell; and it is impossible to remain here, or live in this house, until it is removed.” Glancing my eyes all round the place, I spied what seemed to me a little cupboard, over the mantel-shelf, and I told John to see if I was right. The lad mounted upon a chair, and pulled open a small door, but almost fell to the ground with the dreadful stench which seemed to rush from the closet. “What is it, John?” I cried from the open door. “A skunk! ma'am, a skunk! Shure, I thought the divil had scorched his tail, and left the grizzled hair behind him. What a strong perfume it has!” he continued, holding up the beautiful but odious little creature by the tail. “By dad! I know all about it now. I saw Ned Layton, only two days ago, crossing the field with Uncle Joe, with his gun on his shoulder, and this wee bit baste in his hand. They were both laughing like sixty. 'Well, if this does not stink the Scotchman out of the house,' said Joe, 'I'll be contint to be tarred and feathered;' and thin they both laughed until they stopped to draw breath.” I could hardly help laughing myself; but I begged Monaghan to convey the horrid creature away, and putting some salt and sulphur into a tin plate, and setting fire to it, I placed it on the floor in the middle of the room, and closed all the doors for an hour, which greatly assisted in purifying the house from the skunkification. Bell then washed out the closet with strong ley, and in a short time no vestige remained of the malicious trick that Uncle Joe had played off upon us. The next day, we took possession of our new mansion, and no one was better pleased with the change than little Katie. She was now fifteen months old, and could just begin to prattle, but she dared not venture to step alone, although she would stand by a chair all day, and even climb upon it. She crept from room to room, feeling and admiring everything, and talking to it in her baby language. So fond was the dear child of flowers, that her father used to hold her up to the apple-trees, then rich in their full spring beauty, that she might kiss the blossoms. She would pat them with her soft white hands, murmuring like a bee among the branches. To keep her quiet whilst I was busy, I had only to give her a bunch of wild flowers. She would sit as still as a lamb, looking first at one and then another, pressing them to her little breast in a sort of ecstacy, as if she comprehended the worth of this most beautiful of God's gifts to man. She was a sweet, lovely flower herself, and her charming infant graces reconciled me, more than aught else, to a weary lot. Was she not purely British? Did not her soft blue eyes, and sunny curls, and bright rosy cheeks for ever remind me of her Saxon origin, and bring before me dear forms and faces I could never hope to behold again? The first night we slept in the new house, a demon of unrest had taken possession of it in the shape of a countless swarm of mice. They scampered over our pillows, and jumped upon our faces, squeaking and cutting a thousand capers over the floor. I never could realise the true value of Whittington's invaluable cat until that night. At first we laughed until our sides ached, but in reality it was no laughing matter. Moodie remembered that we had left a mouse-trap in the old house; he went and brought it over, baited it, and set it on the table near the bed. During the night no less than fourteen of the provoking vermin were captured; and for several succeeding nights the trap did equal execution. How Uncle Joe's family could have allowed such a nuisance to exist astonished me; to sleep with these creatures continually running over us was impossible; and they were not the only evils in the shape of vermin we had to contend with. The old logs which composed the walls of the house were full of bugs and large black ants; and the place, owing to the number of dogs that always had slept under the beds with the children, was infested with fleas. It required the utmost care to rid the place of these noisome and disgusting tenants. Arriving in the country in the autumn, we had never experienced any inconvenience from the mosquitoes, but after the first moist, warm spring days, particularly after the showers, these tormenting insects annoyed us greatly. The farm, lying in a valley cut up with little streams in every direction, made us more liable to their inflictions. The hands, arms, and face of the poor babe were covered every morning with red inflamed bumps, which often threw out blisters. The banks of the little streams abounded with wild strawberries, which, although small, were of a delicious flavour. Thither Bell and I, and the baby, daily repaired to gather the bright red berries of Nature's own providing. Katie, young as she was, was very expert at helping herself, and we used to seat her in the middle of a fine bed, whilst we gathered farther on. Hearing her talking very lovingly to something in the grass, which she tried to clutch between her white hands, calling it “Pitty, pitty;” I ran to the spot, and found that it was a large garter-snake that she was so affectionately courting to her embrace. Not then aware that this formidable-looking reptile was perfectly harmless, I snatched the child up in my arms, and ran with her home; never stopping until I gained the house, and saw her safely seated in her cradle. It had been a very late, cold spring, but the trees had fully expanded into leaf, and the forest world was glorious in its beauty. Every patch of cleared land presented a vivid green to the eye; the brook brawled in the gay sunshine, and the warm air was filled with soft murmurs. Gorgeous butterflies floated about like winged flowers, and feelings allied to poetry and gladness once more pervaded my heart. In the evening we wandered through the woodland paths, beneath the glowing Canadian sunset, and gathered rare specimens of strange plants and flowers. Every object that met my eyes was new to me, and produced that peculiar excitement which has its origin in a thirst for knowledge, and a love of variety. We had commenced gardening, too, and my vegetables did great credit to my skill and care; and, when once the warm weather sets in, the rapid advance of vegetation in Canada is astonishing. Not understanding much about farming, especially in a climate like Canada, Moodie was advised by a neighbouring settler to farm his farm upon shares. This advice seemed very reasonable; and had it been given disinterestedly, and had the persons recommended (a man and his wife) been worthy or honest people, we might have done very well. But the farmer had found out their encroaching ways, was anxious to get rid of them himself, and saw no better way of doing so than by palming them upon us. From our engagement with these people commenced that long series of losses and troubles to which their conduct formed the prelude. They were to live in the little shanty that we had just left, and work the farm. Moodie was to find them the land, the use of his implements and cattle, and all the seed for the crops; and to share with them the returns. Besides this, they unfortunately were allowed to keep their own cows, pigs, and poultry. The produce of the orchard, with which they had nothing to do, was reserved for our own use. For the first few weeks, they were civil and obliging enough; and had the man been left to himself, I believe we should have done pretty well; but the wife was a coarse-minded, bold woman, who instigated him to every mischief. They took advantage of us in every way they could, and were constantly committing petty depredations. From our own experience of this mode of farming, I would strenuously advise all new settlers never to embrace any such offer, without they are well acquainted with the parties, and can thoroughly rely upon their honesty; or else, like Mrs. O----, they may impudently tell you that they can cheat you as they please, and defy you to help yourself. All the money we expended upon the farm was entirely for these people's benefit, for by their joint contrivances very little of the crops fell to our share; and when any division was made, it was always when Moodie was absent from home; and there was no person present to see fair play. They sold what apples and potatoes they pleased, and fed their hogs ad libitum. But even their roguery was more tolerable than the irksome restraint which their near vicinity, and constantly having to come in contact with them, imposed. We had no longer any privacy, our servants were cross-questioned, and our family affairs canvassed by these gossiping people, who spread about a thousand falsehoods regarding us. I was so much disgusted with this shareship, that I would gladly have given them all the proceeds of the farm to get rid of them, but the bargain was for twelve months, and bad as it was, we could not break our engagement. One little trick of this woman's will serve to illustrate her general conduct. A neighbouring farmer's wife had presented me with some very pretty hens, who followed to the call of old Betty Fye's handsome game-cock. I was always fond of fowls, and the innocent Katie delighted in her chicks, and would call them round her to the sill of the door to feed from her hand. Mrs. O---- had the same number as I had, and I often admired them when marshalled forth by her splendid black rooster. One morning I saw her eldest son chop off the head of the fine bird; and I asked his mother why she had allowed him to kill the beautiful creature. She laughed, and merely replied that she wanted it for the pot. The next day my sultan walked over to the widowed hens, and took all his seraglio with him. From that hour I never gathered a single egg; the hens deposited all their eggs in Mrs. O----'s hen-house. She used to boast of this as an excellent joke among her neighbours. On the 9th of June, my dear little Agnes was born. A few days after this joyful event, I heard a great bustle in the room adjoining to mine, and old Dolly Rowe, my Cornish nurse, informed me that it was occasioned by the people who came to attend the funeral of Phoebe R----. She only survived the removal of the family a week; and at her own request had been brought all the way from the ---- lake plains to be interred in the burying ground on the hill which overlooked the stream. As I lay upon my pillow I could distinctly see the spot, and mark the long funeral procession, as it wound along the banks of the brook. It was a solemn and imposing spectacle, that humble funeral. When the waggons reached the rude enclosure, the coffin was carefully lifted to the ground, the door in the lid opened, and old and young approached, one after another, to take a last look at the dead, before consigning her to the oblivion of the grave. Poor Phoebe! Gentle child, of coarse, unfeeling parents, few shed more sincerely a tear for thy early fate than the stranger whom they hated and despised. Often have I stood beside that humble mound, when the song of the lark was above me, and the bee murmuring at my feet, and thought that it was well for thee that God opened the eyes of thy soul, and called thee out of the darkness of ignorance and sin to glory in His marvellous light. Sixteen years have passed away since I heard anything of the family, or what had become of them, when I was told by a neighbour of theirs, whom I accidentally met last winter, that the old woman, who now nearly numbers a hundred years, is still living, and inhabits a corner of her son's barn, as she still quarrels too much with his wife to reside with Joe; that the girls are all married and gone; and that Joe himself, although he does not know a letter, has commenced travelling preacher. After this, who can doubt the existence of miracles in the nineteenth century? THE FAITHFUL HEART THAT LOVES THEE STILL I kneel beside the cold grey stone That tells me, dearest, thou art gone To realms more bless'd--and left me still To struggle with this world of ill. But oft from out the silent mound Delusive fancy breathes a sound; My pent-up heart within me burns, And all the blessed past returns. Thy form is present to mine eye, Thy voice is whispering in mine ear, The love that spake in days gone by; And rapture checks the starting tear. Thy deathless spirit wakes to fill The faithful heart that loves thee still. For thee the day's bright glow is o'er, And summer's roses bloom no more; The song of birds in twilight bowers, The breath of spring's delicious flowers, The towering wood and mountain height, The glorious pageantry of night; Which fill'd thy soul with musings high, And lighted up thy speaking eye; The mournful music of the wave Can never reach thy lonely grave. Thou dost but sleep! It cannot be That ardent heart is silent now-- That death's dark door has closed on thee; And made thee cold to all below. Ah, no! the flame death could not chill, Thy tender love survives thee still. That love within my breast enshrined, In death alone shall be resign'd; And when the eve, thou lovest so well, Pours on my soul its soothing spell, I leave the city's busy scene To seek thy dwelling, cold and green,-- In quiet sadness here to shed Love's sacred tribute o'er the dead-- To dream again of days gone by, And hold sweet converse here with thee; In the soft air to feel thy sigh, Whilst winds and waters answer me. Yes!--though resign'd to Heaven's high will, My joy shall be to love thee still! CHAPTER X BRIAN, THE STILL-HUNTER “O'er memory's glass I see his shadow flit, Though he was gathered to the silent dust Long years ago. A strange and wayward man, That shunn'd companionship, and lived apart; The leafy covert of the dark brown woods, The gleamy lakes, hid in their gloomy depths, Whose still, deep waters never knew the stroke Of cleaving oar, or echoed to the sound Of social life, contained for him the sum Of human happiness. With dog and gun, Day after day he track'd the nimble deer Through all the tangled mazes of the forest.” It was early day. I was alone in the old shanty, preparing breakfast, and now and then stirring the cradle with my foot, when a tall, thin, middle-aged man walked into the house, followed by two large, strong dogs. Placing the rifle he had carried on his shoulder, in a corner of the room, he advanced to the hearth, and without speaking, or seemingly looking at me, lighted his pipe and commenced smoking. The dogs, after growling and snapping at the cat, who had not given the strangers a very courteous reception, sat down on the hearth-stone on either side of their taciturn master, eyeing him from time to time, as if long habit had made them understand all his motions. There was a great contrast between the dogs. The one was a brindled bulldog of the largest size, a most formidable and powerful brute; the other a staghound, tawny, deep-chested, and strong-limbed. I regarded the man and his hairy companions with silent curiosity. He was between forty and fifty years of age; his head, nearly bald, was studded at the sides with strong, coarse, black curling hair. His features were high, his complexion brightly dark, and his eyes, in size, shape, and colour, greatly resembled the eyes of a hawk. The face itself was sorrowful and taciturn; and his thin, compressed lips looked as if they were not much accustomed to smile, or often to unclose to hold social communion with any one. He stood at the side of the huge hearth, silently smoking, his eyes bent on the fire, and now and then he patted the heads of his dogs, reproving their exuberant expression of attachment, with--“Down, Music; down, Chance!” “A cold, clear morning,” said I, in order to attract his attention and draw him into conversation. A nod, without raising his head, or withdrawing his eyes from the fire, was his only answer; and, turning from my unsociable guest, I took up the baby, who just then awoke, sat down on a low stool by the table, and began feeding her. During this operation, I once or twice caught the stranger's hawk-eye fixed upon me and the child, but word spoke he none; and presently, after whistling to his dogs, he resumed his gun, and strode out. When Moodie and Monaghan came in to breakfast, I told them what a strange visitor I had had; and Moodie laughed at my vain attempt to induce him to talk. “He is a strange being,” I said; “I must find out who and what he is.” In the afternoon an old soldier, called Layton, who had served during the American war, and got a grant of land about a mile in the rear of our location, came in to trade for a cow. Now, this Layton was a perfect ruffian; a man whom no one liked, and whom all feared. He was a deep drinker, a great swearer, in short, a perfect reprobate; who never cultivated his land, but went jobbing about from farm to farm, trading horses and cattle, and cheating in a pettifogging way. Uncle Joe had employed him to sell Moodie a young heifer, and he had brought her over for him to look at. When he came in to be paid, I described the stranger of the morning; and as I knew that he was familiar with every one in the neighbourhood, I asked if he knew him. “No one should know him better than myself,” he said; “'tis old Brian B----, the still-hunter, and a near neighbour of your'n. A sour, morose, queer chap he is, and as mad as a March hare! He's from Lancashire, in England, and came to this country some twenty years ago, with his wife, who was a pretty young lass in those days, and slim enough then, though she's so awful fleshy now. He had lots of money, too, and he bought four hundred acres of land, just at the corner of the concession line, where it meets the main road. And excellent land it is; and a better farmer, while he stuck to his business, never went into the bush, for it was all bush here then. He was a dashing, handsome fellow, too, and did not hoard the money, either; he loved his pipe and his pot too well; and at last he left off farming, and gave himself to them altogether. Many a jolly booze he and I have had, I can tell you. Brian was an awful passionate man, and, when the liquor was in, and the wit was out, as savage and as quarrelsome as a bear. At such times there was no one but Ned Layton dared go near him. We once had a pitched battle, in which I was conqueror; and ever arter he yielded a sort of sulky obedience to all I said to him. Arter being on the spree for a week or two, he would take fits of remorse, and return home to his wife; would fall down at her knees, and ask her forgiveness, and cry like a child. At other times he would hide himself up in the woods, and steal home at night, and get what he wanted out of the pantry, without speaking a word to any one. He went on with these pranks for some years, till he took a fit of the blue devils. “'Come away, Ned, to the ---- lake, with me,' said he; 'I am weary of my life, and I want a change.' “'Shall we take the fishing-tackle?' says I. 'The black bass are in prime season, and F---- will lend us the old canoe. He's got some capital rum up from Kingston. We'll fish all day, and have a spree at night.' “'It's not to fish I'm going,' says he. “'To shoot, then? I've bought Rockwood's new rifle.' “'It's neither to fish nor to shoot, Ned: it's a new game I'm going to try; so come along.' “Well, to the ---- lake we went. The day was very hot, and our path lay through the woods, and over those scorching plains, for eight long miles. I thought I should have dropped by the way; but during our long walk my companion never opened his lips. He strode on before me, at a half-run, never once turning his head. “'The man must be the devil!' says I, 'and accustomed to a warmer place, or he must feel this. Hollo, Brian! Stop there! Do you mean to kill me?' “'Take it easy,' says he; 'you'll see another day arter this--I've business on hand, and cannot wait.' “Well, on we went, at the same awful rate, and it was mid-day when we got to the little tavern on the lake shore, kept by one F----, who had a boat for the convenience of strangers who came to visit the place. Here we got our dinner, and a glass of rum to wash it down. But Brian was moody, and to all my jokes he only returned a sort of grunt; and while I was talking with F----, he steps out, and a few minutes arter we saw him crossing the lake in the old canoe. “'What's the matter with Brian?' says F----; 'all does not seem right with him, Ned. You had better take the boat, and look arter him.' “'Pooh!' says I; 'he's often so, and grows so glum nowadays that I will cut his acquaintance altogether if he does not improve.' “'He drinks awful hard,' says F----; 'may be he's got a fit of the delirium-tremulous. There is no telling what he may be up to at this minute.' “My mind misgave me, too, so I e'en takes the oars, and pushes out, right upon Brian's track; and, by the Lord Harry! if I did not find him, upon my landing on the opposite shore, lying wallowing in his blood with his throat cut. 'Is that you, Brian?' says I, giving him a kick with my foot, to see if he was alive or dead. 'What on earth tempted you to play me and F---- such a dirty, mean trick, as to go and stick yourself like a pig, bringing such a discredit upon the house?--and you so far from home and those who should nurse you?' “I was so mad with him, that (saving your presence, ma'am) I swore awfully, and called him names that would be ondacent to repeat here; but he only answered with groans and a horrid gurgling in his throat. 'It's a choking you are,' said I, 'but you shan't have your own way, and die so easily, either, if I can punish you by keeping you alive.' So I just turned him upon his stomach, with his head down the steep bank; but he still kept choking and growing black in the face.” Layton then detailed some particulars of his surgical practice which it is not necessary to repeat. He continued-- “I bound up his throat with my handkerchief, and took him neck and heels, and threw him into the bottom of the boat. Presently he came to himself a little, and sat up in the boat; and--would you believe it?--made several attempts to throw himself in the water. 'This will not do,' says I; 'you've done mischief enough already by cutting your weasand! If you dare to try that again, I will kill you with the oar.' I held it up to threaten him; he was scared, and lay down as quiet as a lamb. I put my foot upon his breast. 'Lie still, now! or you'll catch it.' He looked piteously at me; he could not speak, but his eyes seemed to say, 'Have pity upon me, Ned; don't kill me.' “Yes, ma'am; this man, who had just cut his throat, and twice arter that tried to drown himself, was afraid that I should knock him on the head and kill him. Ha! ha! I shall never forget the work that F---- and I had with him arter I got him up to the house. “The doctor came, and sewed up his throat; and his wife--poor crittur!--came to nurse him. Bad as he was, she was mortal fond of him! He lay there, sick and unable to leave his bed, for three months, and did nothing but pray to God to forgive him, for he thought the devil would surely have him for cutting his own throat; and when he got about again, which is now twelve years ago, he left off drinking entirely, and wanders about the woods with his dogs, hunting. He seldom speaks to any one, and his wife's brother carries on the farm for the family. He is so shy of strangers that 'tis a wonder he came in here. The old wives are afraid of him; but you need not heed him--his troubles are to himself, he harms no one.” Layton departed, and left me brooding over the sad tale which he had told in such an absurd and jesting manner. It was evident from the account he had given of Brian's attempt at suicide, that the hapless hunter was not wholly answerable for his conduct--that he was a harmless maniac. The next morning, at the very same hour, Brian again made his appearance; but instead of the rifle across his shoulder, a large stone jar occupied the place, suspended by a stout leather thong. Without saying a word, but with a truly benevolent smile, that flitted slowly over his stern features, and lighted them up, like a sunbeam breaking from beneath a stormy cloud, he advanced to the table, and unslinging the jar, set it down before me, and in a low and gruff, but by no means an unfriendly voice, said, “Milk, for the child,” and vanished. “How good it was of him! How kind!” I exclaimed, as I poured the precious gift of four quarts of pure new milk out into a deep pan. I had not asked him--had never said that the poor weanling wanted milk. It was the courtesy of a gentleman--of a man of benevolence and refinement. For weeks did my strange, silent friend steal in, take up the empty jar, and supply its place with another replenished with milk. The baby knew his step, and would hold out her hands to him and cry, “Milk!” and Brian would stoop down and kiss her, and his two great dogs lick her face. “Have you any children, Mr. B----?” “Yes, five; but none like this.” “My little girl is greatly indebted to you for your kindness.” “She's welcome, or she would not get it. You are strangers; but I like you all. You look kind, and I would like to know more about you.” Moodie shook hands with the old hunter, and assured him that we should always be glad to see him. After this invitation, Brian became a frequent guest. He would sit and listen with delight to Moodie while he described to him elephant-hunting at the Cape; grasping his rifle in a determined manner, and whistling an encouraging air to his dogs. I asked him one evening what made him so fond of hunting. “'Tis the excitement,” he said; “it drowns thought, and I love to be alone. I am sorry for the creatures, too, for they are free and happy; yet I am led by an instinct I cannot restrain to kill them. Sometimes the sight of their dying agonies recalls painful feelings; and then I lay aside the gun, and do not hunt for days. But 'tis fine to be alone with God in the great woods--to watch the sunbeams stealing through the thick branches, the blue sky breaking in upon you in patches, and to know that all is bright and shiny above you, in spite of the gloom that surrounds you.” After a long pause, he continued, with much solemn feeling in his look and tone-- “I lived a life of folly for years, for I was respectably born and educated, and had seen something of the world, perhaps more than was good, before I left home for the woods; and from the teaching I had received from kind relatives and parents I should have known how to have conducted myself better. But, madam, if we associate long with the depraved and ignorant, we learn to become even worse than they are. I felt deeply my degradation--felt that I had become the slave to low vice; and in order to emancipate myself from the hateful tyranny of evil passions, I did a very rash and foolish thing. I need not mention the manner in which I transgressed God's holy laws; all the neighbours know it, and must have told you long ago. I could have borne reproof, but they turned my sorrow into indecent jests, and, unable to bear their coarse ridicule, I made companions of my dogs and gun, and went forth into the wilderness. Hunting became a habit. I could no longer live without it, and it supplies the stimulant which I lost when I renounced the cursed whiskey bottle. “I remember the first hunting excursion I took alone in the forest. How sad and gloomy I felt! I thought that there was no creature in the world so miserable as myself. I was tired and hungry, and I sat down upon a fallen tree to rest. All was still as death around me, and I was fast sinking to sleep, when my attention was aroused by a long, wild cry. My dog, for I had not Chance then, and he's no hunter, pricked up his ears, but instead of answering with a bark of defiance, he crouched down, trembling, at my feet. 'What does this mean?' I cried, and I cocked my rifle and sprang upon the log. The sound came nearer upon the wind. It was like the deep baying of a pack of hounds in full cry. Presently a noble deer rushed past me, and fast upon his trail--I see them now, like so many black devils--swept by a pack of ten or fifteen large, fierce wolves, with fiery eyes and bristling hair, and paws that seemed hardly to touch the ground in their eager haste. I thought not of danger, for, with their prey in view, I was safe; but I felt every nerve within me tremble for the fate of the poor deer. The wolves gained upon him at every bound. A close thicket intercepted his path, and, rendered desperate, he turned at bay. His nostrils were dilated, and his eyes seemed to send forth long streams of light. It was wonderful to witness the courage of the beast. How bravely he repelled the attacks of his deadly enemies, how gallantly he tossed them to the right and left, and spurned them from beneath his hoofs; yet all his struggles were useless, and he was quickly overcome and torn to pieces by his ravenous foes. At that moment he seemed more unfortunate than even myself, for I could not see in what manner he had deserved his fate. All his speed and energy, his courage and fortitude, had been exerted in vain. I had tried to destroy myself; but he, with every effort vigorously made for self-preservation, was doomed to meet the fate he dreaded! Is God just to his creatures?” With this sentence on his lips, he started abruptly from his seat, and left the house. One day he found me painting some wild flowers, and was greatly interested in watching the progress I made in the group. Late in the afternoon of the following day he brought me a large bunch of splendid spring flowers. “Draw these,” said he; “I have been all the way to the ---- lake plains to find them for you.” Little Katie, grasping them one by one, with infantile joy, kissed every lovely blossom. “These are God's pictures,” said the hunter, “and the child, who is all nature, understands them in a minute. Is it not strange that these beautiful things are hid away in the wilderness, where no eyes but the birds of the air, and the wild beasts of the wood, and the insects that live upon them, ever see them? Does God provide, for the pleasure of such creatures, these flowers? Is His benevolence gratified by the admiration of animals whom we have been taught to consider as having neither thought nor reflection? When I am alone in the forest, these thoughts puzzle me.” Knowing that to argue with Brian was only to call into action the slumbering fires of his fatal malady, I turned the conversation by asking him why he called his favourite dog Chance? “I found him,” he said, “forty miles back in the bush. He was a mere skeleton. At first I took him for a wolf, but the shape of his head undeceived me. I opened my wallet, and called him to me. He came slowly, stopping and wagging his tail at every step, and looking me wistfully in the face. I offered him a bit of dried venison, and he soon became friendly, and followed me home, and has never left me since. I called him Chance, after the manner I happened with him; and I would not part with him for twenty dollars.” Alas, for poor Chance! he had, unknown to his master, contracted a private liking for fresh mutton, and one night he killed no less than eight sheep that belonged to Mr. D----, on the front road; the culprit, who had been long suspected, was caught in the very act, and this mischance cost him his life. Brian was sad and gloomy for many weeks after his favourite's death. “I would have restored the sheep fourfold,” he said, “if he would but have spared the life of my dog.” My recollections of Brian seemed more particularly to concentrate in the adventures of one night, when I happened to be left alone, for the first time since my arrival in Canada. I cannot now imagine how I could have been such a fool as to give way for four-and-twenty hours to such childish fears; but so it was, and I will not disguise my weakness from my indulgent reader. Moodie had bought a very fine cow of a black man, named Mollineux, for which he was to give twenty-seven dollars. The man lived twelve miles back in the woods; and one fine, frosty spring day--(don't smile at the term frosty, thus connected with the genial season of the year; the term is perfectly correct when applied to the Canadian spring, which, until the middle of May, is the most dismal season of the year)--he and John Monaghan took a rope, and the dog, and sallied forth to fetch the cow home. Moodie said that they should be back by six o'clock in the evening, and charged me to have something cooked for supper when they returned, as he doubted not their long walk in the sharp air would give them a good appetite. This was during the time that I was without a servant, and living in old Mrs. ----'s shanty. The day was so bright and clear, and Katie was so full of frolic and play, rolling upon the floor, or toddling from chair to chair, that the day passed on without my feeling remarkably lonely. At length the evening drew nigh, and I began to expect my husband's return, and to think of the supper that I was to prepare for his reception. The red heifer that we had bought of Layton, came lowing to the door to be milked; but I did not know how to milk in those days, and, besides this, I was terribly afraid of cattle. Yet, as I knew that milk would be required for the tea, I ran across the meadow to Mrs. Joe, and begged that one of her girls would be so kind as to milk for me. My request was greeted with a rude burst of laughter from the whole set. “If you can't milk,” said Mrs. Joe, “it's high time you should learn. My girls are above being helps.” “I would not ask you but as a great favour; I am afraid of cows.” “Afraid of cows! Lord bless the woman! A farmer's wife, and afraid of cows!” Here followed another laugh at my expense; and, indignant at the refusal of my first and last request, when they had all borrowed so much from me, I shut the inhospitable door, and returned home. After many ineffectual attempts, I succeeded at last, and bore my half-pail of milk in triumph to the house. Yes! I felt prouder of that milk than many an author of the best thing he ever wrote, whether in verse or prose; and it was doubly sweet when I considered that I had procured it without being under any obligation to my ill-natured neighbours. I had learned a useful lesson of independence, to which, in after-years, I had often again to refer. I fed little Katie and put her to bed, made the hot cakes for tea, boiled the potatoes, and laid the ham, cut in nice slices, in the pan, ready to cook the moment I saw the men enter the meadow, and arranged the little room with scrupulous care and neatness. A glorious fire was blazing on the hearth, and everything was ready for their supper; and I began to look out anxiously for their arrival. The night had closed in cold and foggy, and I could no longer distinguish any object at more than a few yards from the door. Bringing in as much wood as I thought would last me for several hours, I closed the door; and for the first time in my life I found myself at night in a house entirely alone. Then I began to ask myself a thousand torturing questions as to the reason of their unusual absence. Had they lost their way in the woods? Could they have fallen in with wolves (one of my early bugbears)? Could any fatal accident have befallen them? I started up, opened the door, held my breath, and listened. The little brook lifted up its voice in loud, hoarse wailing, or mocked, in its babbling to the stones, the sound of human voices. As it became later, my fears increased in proportion. I grew too superstitious and nervous to keep the door open. I not only closed it, but dragged a heavy box in front, for bolt there was none. Several ill-looking men had, during the day, asked their way to Toronto. I felt alarmed, lest such rude wayfarers should come to-night and demand a lodging, and find me alone and unprotected. Once I thought of running across to Mrs. Joe, and asking her to let one of the girls stay with me until Moodie returned; but the way in which I had been repulsed in the evening prevented me from making a second appeal to their charity. Hour after hour wore away, and the crowing of the cocks proclaimed midnight, and yet they came not. I had burnt out all my wood, and I dared not open the door to fetch in more. The candle was expiring in the socket, and I had not courage to go up into the loft and procure another before it went finally out. Cold, heart-weary, and faint, I sat and cried. Every now and then the furious barking of the dogs at the neighbouring farms, and the loud cackling of the geese upon our own, made me hope that they were coming; and then I listened till the beating of my own heart excluded all other sounds. Oh, that unwearied brook! how it sobbed and moaned like a fretful child;--what unreal terrors and fanciful illusions my too active mind conjured up, whilst listening to its mysterious tones! Just as the moon rose, the howling of a pack of wolves, from the great swamp in our rear, filled the whole air. Their yells were answered by the barking of all the dogs in the vicinity, and the geese, unwilling to be behind-hand in the general confusion, set up the most discordant screams. I had often heard, and even been amused, during the winter, particularly on thaw nights, with hearing the howls of these formidable wild beasts; but I had never before heard them alone, and when one dear to me was abroad amid their haunts. They were directly in the track that Moodie and Monaghan must have taken; and I now made no doubt that they had been attacked and killed on their return through the woods with the cow, and I wept and sobbed until the cold grey dawn peered in upon me through the small dim window. I have passed many a long cheerless night, when my dear husband was away from me during the rebellion, and I was left in my forest home with five little children, and only an old Irish woman to draw and cut wood for my fire, and attend to the wants of the family, but that was the saddest and longest night I ever remember. Just as the day broke, my friends the wolves set up a parting benediction, so loud, and wild, and near to the house, that I was afraid lest they should break through the frail window, or come down the low wide chimney, and rob me of my child. But their detestable howls died away in the distance, and the bright sun rose up and dispersed the wild horrors of the night, and I looked once more timidly around me. The sight of the table spread, and the uneaten supper, renewed my grief, for I could not divest myself of the idea that Moodie was dead. I opened the door, and stepped forth into the pure air of the early day. A solemn and beautiful repose still hung like a veil over the face of Nature. The mists of night still rested upon the majestic woods, and not a sound but the flowing of the waters went up in the vast stillness. The earth had not yet raised her matin hymn to the throne of the Creator. Sad at heart, and weary and worn in spirit, I went down to the spring and washed my face and head, and drank a deep draught of its icy waters. On returning to the house I met, near the door, old Brian the hunter, with a large fox dangling across his shoulder, and the dogs following at his heels. “Good God! Mrs. Moodie, what is the matter? You are early abroad this morning, and look dreadful ill. Is anything wrong at home? Is the baby or your husband sick?” “Oh!” I cried, bursting into tears, “I fear he is killed by the wolves.” The man stared at me, as if he doubted the evidence of his senses, and well he might; but this one idea had taken such strong possession of my mind that I could admit no other. I then told him, as well as I could find words, the cause of my alarm, to which he listened very kindly and patiently. “Set your heart at rest; your husband is safe. It is a long journey on foot to Mollineux, to one unacquainted with a blazed path in a bush road. They have stayed all night at the black man's shanty, and you will see them back at noon.” I shook my head and continued to weep. “Well, now, in order to satisfy you, I will saddle my mare, and ride over to the nigger's, and bring you word as fast as I can.” I thanked him sincerely for his kindness, and returned, in somewhat better spirits, to the house. At ten o'clock my good messenger returned with the glad tidings that all was well. The day before, when half the journey had been accomplished, John Monaghan let go the rope by which he led the cow, and she had broken away through the woods, and returned to her old master; and when they again reached his place, night had set in, and they were obliged to wait until the return of day. Moodie laughed heartily at all my fears; but indeed I found them no joke. Brian's eldest son, a lad of fourteen, was not exactly an idiot, but what, in the old country, is very expressively termed by the poor people a “natural.” He could feed and assist himself, had been taught imperfectly to read and write, and could go to and from the town on errands, and carry a message from one farm-house to another; but he was a strange, wayward creature, and evidently inherited, in no small degree, his father's malady. During the summer months he lived entirely in the woods, near his father's dwelling, only returning to obtain food, which was generally left for him in an outhouse. In the winter, driven home by the severity of the weather, he would sit for days together moping in the chimney-corner, without taking the least notice of what was passing around him. Brian never mentioned this boy--who had a strong, active figure; a handsome, but very inexpressive face--without a deep sigh; and I feel certain that half his own dejection was occasioned by the mental aberration of his child. One day he sent the lad with a note to our house, to know if Moodie would purchase the half of an ox that he was going to kill. There happened to stand in the corner of the room an open wood box, into which several bushels of fine apples had been thrown; and, while Moodie was writing an answer to the note, the eyes of the idiot were fastened, as if by some magnetic influence, upon the apples. Knowing that Brian had a very fine orchard, I did not offer the boy any of the fruit. When the note was finished, I handed it to him. The lad grasped it mechanically, without removing his fixed gaze from the apples. “Give that to your father, Tom.” The boy answered not--his ears, his eyes, his whole soul, were concentrated in the apples. Ten minutes elapsed, but he stood motionless, like a pointer at dead set. “My good boy, you can go.” He did not stir. “Is there anything you want?” “I want,” said the lad, without moving his eyes from the objects of his intense desire, and speaking in a slow, pointed manner, which ought to have been heard to be fully appreciated, “I want ap-ples!” “Oh, if that's all, take what you like.” The permission once obtained, the boy flung himself upon the box with the rapacity of a hawk upon its prey, after being long poised in the air, to fix its certain aim; thrusting his hands to the right and left, in order to secure the finest specimens of the coveted fruit, scarcely allowing himself time to breathe until he had filled his old straw hat, and all his pockets, with apples. To help laughing was impossible; while this new Tom o' Bedlam darted from the house, and scampered across the field for dear life, as if afraid that we should pursue him, to rob him of his prize. It was during this winter that our friend Brian was left a fortune of three hundred pounds per annum; but it was necessary for him to return to his native country, in order to take possession of the property. This he positively refused to do; and when we remonstrated with him on the apparent imbecility of this resolution, he declared that he would not risk his life, in crossing the Atlantic twice for twenty times that sum. What strange inconsistency was this, in a being who had three times attempted to take away that which he dreaded so much to lose accidentally! I was much amused with an account which he gave me, in his quaint way, of an excursion he went upon with a botanist, to collect specimens of the plants and flowers of Upper Canada. “It was a fine spring day, some ten years ago, and I was yoking my oxen to drag in some oats I had just sown, when a little, fat, punchy man, with a broad, red, good-natured face, and carrying a small black leathern wallet across his shoulder, called to me over the fence, and asked me if my name was Brian B----? I said, 'Yes; what of that?' “'Only you are the man I want to see. They tell me that you are better acquainted with the woods than any person in these parts; and I will pay you anything in reason if you will be my guide for a few days.' “'Where do you want to go?' said I. “'Nowhere in particular,' says he. 'I want to go here and there, in all directions, to collect plants and flowers.' “That is still-hunting with a vengeance, thought I. 'To-day I must drag in my oats. If to-morrow will suit, we will be off.' “'And your charge?' said he. 'I like to be certain of that.' “'A dollar a day. My time and labour upon my farm, at this busy season, is worth more than that.' “'True,' said he. 'Well, I'll give you what you ask. At what time will you be ready to start?' “'By daybreak, if you wish it.' “Away he went; and by daylight next morning he was at my door, mounted upon a stout French pony. 'What are you going to do with that beast?' said I. 'Horses are of no use on the road that you and I are to travel. You had better leave him in my stable.' “'I want him to carry my traps,' said he; 'it may be some days that we shall be absent.' “I assured him that he must be his own beast of burthen, and carry his axe, and blanket, and wallet of food upon his own back. The little body did not much relish this arrangement; but as there was no help for it, he very good-naturedly complied. Off we set, and soon climbed the steep ridge at the back of your farm, and got upon ---- lake plains. The woods were flush with flowers; and the little man grew into such an ecstacy, that at every fresh specimen he uttered a yell of joy, cut a caper in the air, and flung himself down upon them, as if he was drunk with delight. 'Oh, what treasures! what treasures!' he cried. 'I shall make my fortune!' “It is seldom I laugh,” quoth Brian, “but I could not help laughing at this odd little man; for it was not the beautiful blossoms, such as you delight to paint, that drew forth these exclamations, but the queer little plants, which he had rummaged for at the roots of old trees, among the moss and long grass. He sat upon a decayed trunk, which lay in our path, I do believe for a long hour, making an oration over some greyish things, spotted with red, that grew upon it, which looked more like mould than plants, declaring himself repaid for all the trouble and expense he had been at, if it were only to obtain a sight of them. I gathered him a beautiful blossom of the lady's slipper; but he pushed it back when I presented it to him, saying, 'Yes, yes; 'tis very fine. I have seen that often before; but these lichens are splendid.' “The man had so little taste that I thought him a fool, and so I left him to talk to his dear plants, while I shot partridges for our supper. We spent six days in the woods, and the little man filled his black wallet with all sorts of rubbish, as if he wilfully shut his eyes to the beautiful flowers, and chose only to admire ugly, insignificant plants that everybody else passes by without noticing, and which, often as I had been in the woods, I never had observed before. I never pursued a deer with such earnestness as he continued his hunt for what he called 'specimens.' “When we came to the Cold Creek, which is pretty deep in places, he was in such a hurry to get at some plants that grew under the water, that in reaching after them he lost his balance and fell head over heels into the stream. He got a thorough ducking, and was in a terrible fright; but he held on to the flowers which had caused the trouble, and thanked his stars that he had saved them as well as his life. Well, he was an innocent man,” continued Brian; “a very little made him happy, and at night he would sing and amuse himself like a child. He gave me ten dollars for my trouble, and I never saw him again; but I often think of him, when hunting in the woods that we wandered through together, and I pluck the wee plants that he used to admire, and wonder why he preferred them to the fine flowers.” When our resolution was formed to sell our farm, and take up our grant of land in the backwoods, no one was so earnest in trying to persuade us to give up this ruinous scheme as our friend Brian B----, who became quite eloquent in his description of the trials and sorrows that awaited us. During the last week of our stay in the township of H----, he visited us every evening, and never bade us good-night without a tear moistening his cheek. We parted with the hunter as with an old friend; and we never met again. His fate was a sad one. After we left that part of the country, he fell into a moping melancholy, which ended in self-destruction. But a kinder, warmer-hearted man, while he enjoyed the light of reason, has seldom crossed our path. THE DYING HUNTER TO HIS DOG Lie down, lie down, my noble hound! That joyful bark give o'er; It wakes the lonely echoes round, But rouses me no more. Thy lifted ears, thy swelling chest, Thine eye so keenly bright, No longer kindle in my breast The thrill of fierce delight; As following thee, on foaming steed, My eager soul outstripp'd thy speed. Lie down, lie down, my faithful hound! And watch this night with me. For thee again the horn shall sound, By mountain, stream, and tree; And thou, along the forest glade, Shall track the flying deer When, cold and silent, I am laid In chill oblivion here. Another voice shall cheer thee on, And glory when the chase is won. Lie down, lie down, my gallant hound! Thy master's life is sped; And, couch'd upon the dewy ground, 'Tis thine to watch the dead. But when the blush of early day Is kindling in the sky, Then speed thee, faithful friend, away, And to my Agnes hie; And guide her to this lonely spot, Though my closed eyes behold her not. Lie down, lie down, my trusty hound! Death comes, and now we part. In my dull ear strange murmurs sound-- More faintly throbs my heart; The many twinkling lights of Heaven Scarce glimmer in the blue-- Chill round me falls the breath of even, Cold on my brow the dew; Earth, stars, and heavens are lost to sight-- The chase is o'er!--brave friend, good-night! CHAPTER XI THE CHARIVARI Our fate is seal'd! 'Tis now in vain to sigh For home, or friends, or country left behind. Come, dry those tears, and lift the downcast eye To the high heaven of hope, and be resign'd; Wisdom and time will justify the deed, The eye will cease to weep, the heart to bleed. Love's thrilling sympathies, affections pure, All that endear'd and hallow'd your lost home, Shall on a broad foundation, firm and sure, Establish peace; the wilderness become, Dear as the distant land you fondly prize, Or dearer visions that in memory rise. The moan of the wind tells of the coming rain that it bears upon its wings; the deep stillness of the woods, and the lengthened shadows they cast upon the stream, silently but surely foreshow the bursting of the thunder-cloud; and who that has lived for any time upon the coast, can mistake the language of the waves; that deep prophetic surging that ushers in the terrible gale? So it is with the human heart--it has its mysterious warnings, its fits of sunshine and shade, of storm and calm, now elevated with anticipations of joy, now depressed by dark presentiments of ill. All who have ever trodden this earth, possessed of the powers of thought and reflection, of tracing effects back to their causes, have listened to these voices of the soul, and secretly acknowledged their power; but few, very few, have had courage boldly to declare their belief in them: the wisest and the best have given credence to them, and the experience of every day proves their truth; yea, the proverbs of past ages abound with allusions to the same subject, and though the worldly may sneer, and the good man reprobate the belief in a theory which he considers dangerous, yet the former, when he appears led by an irresistible impulse to enter into some fortunate, but until then unthought-of speculation; and the latter, when he devoutly exclaims that God has met him in prayer, unconsciously acknowledge the same spiritual agency. For my own part, I have no doubts upon the subject, and have found many times, and at different periods of my life, that the voice in the soul speaks truly; that if we gave stricter heed to its mysterious warnings, we should be saved much after-sorrow. Well do I remember how sternly and solemnly this inward monitor warned me of approaching ill, the last night I spent at home; how it strove to draw me back as from a fearful abyss, beseeching me not to leave England and emigrate to Canada, and how gladly would I have obeyed the injunction had it still been in my power. I had bowed to a superior mandate, the command of duty; for my husband's sake, for the sake of the infant, whose little bosom heaved against my swelling heart, I had consented to bid adieu for ever to my native shores, and it seemed both useless and sinful to draw back. Yet, by what stern necessity were we driven forth to seek a new home amid the western wilds? We were not compelled to emigrate. Bound to England by a thousand holy and endearing ties, surrounded by a circle of chosen friends, and happy in each other's love, we possessed all that the world can bestow of good--but _wealth_. The half-pay of a subaltern officer, managed with the most rigid economy, is too small to supply the wants of a family; and if of a good family, not enough to maintain his original standing in society. True, it may find his children bread, it may clothe them indifferently, but it leaves nothing for the indispensable requirements of education, or the painful contingencies of sickness and misfortune. In such a case, it is both wise and right to emigrate; Nature points it out as the only safe remedy for the evils arising out of an over-dense population, and her advice is always founded upon justice and truth. Up to the period of which I now speak, we had not experienced much inconvenience from our very limited means. Our wants were few, and we enjoyed many of the comforts and even some of the luxuries of life; and all had gone on smoothly and lovingly with us until the birth of our first child. It was then that prudence whispered to the father, “you are happy and contented now, but this cannot always last; the birth of that child whom you have hailed with as much rapture as though she were born to inherit a noble estate, is to you the beginning of care. Your family may increase, and your wants will increase in proportion; out of what fund can you satisfy their demands? Some provision must be made for the future, and made quickly, while youth and health enable you to combat successfully with the ills of life. When you married for inclination, you knew that emigration must be the result of such an act of imprudence in over-populated England. Up and be doing, while you still possess the means of transporting yourself to a land where the industrious can never lack bread, and where there is a chance that wealth and independence may reward virtuous toil.” Alas! that truth should ever whisper such unpleasant realities to the lover of ease--to the poet, the author, the musician, the man of books, of refined taste and gentlemanly habits. Yet he took the hint, and began to bestir himself with the spirit and energy so characteristic of the glorious North, from whence he sprung. “The sacrifice,” he said, “must be made, and the sooner the better. My dear wife, I feel confident that you will respond to the call of duty, and, hand-in-hand and heart-in-heart we will go forth to meet difficulties, and, by the help of God, to subdue them.” Dear husband! I take shame to myself that my purpose was less firm, that my heart lingered so far behind yours in preparing for this great epoch in our lives; that, like Lot's wife, I still turned and looked back, and clung with all my strength to the land I was leaving. It was not the hardships of an emigrant's life I dreaded. I could bear mere physical privations philosophically enough; it was the loss of the society in which I had moved, the want of congenial minds, of persons engaged in congenial pursuits, that made me so reluctant to respond to my husband's call. I was the youngest in a family remarkable for their literary attainments; and, while yet a child, I had seen riches melt away from our once prosperous home, as the Canadian snows dissolve before the first warm days of spring, leaving the verdureless earth naked and bare. There was, however, a spirit in my family that rose superior to the crushing influences of adversity. Poverty, which so often degrades the weak mind, became their best teacher, the stern but fruitful parent of high resolve and ennobling thought. The very misfortunes that overwhelmed, became the source from whence they derived both energy and strength, as the inundation of some mighty river fertilises the shores over which it first spreads ruin and desolation. Without losing aught of their former position in society, they dared to be poor; to place mind above matter, and make the talents with which the great Father had liberally endowed them, work out their appointed end. The world sneered, and summer friends forsook them; they turned their backs upon the world, and upon the ephemeral tribes that live but in its smiles. From out of the solitude in which they dwelt, their names went forth through the crowded cities of that cold, sneering world, and their names were mentioned with respect by the wise and good; and what they lost in wealth, they more than regained in well-earned reputation. Brought up in this school of self-denial, it would have been strange indeed if all its wise and holy precepts had brought forth no corresponding fruit. I endeavoured to reconcile myself to the change that awaited me, to accommodate my mind and pursuits to the new position in which I found myself placed. Many a hard battle had we to fight with old prejudices, and many proud swellings of the heart to subdue, before we could feel the least interest in the land of our adoption, or look upon it as our home. All was new, strange, and distasteful to us; we shrank from the rude, coarse familiarity of the uneducated people among whom we were thrown; and they in return viewed us as innovators, who wished to curtail their independence, by expecting from them the kindly civilities and gentle courtesies of a more refined community. They considered us proud and shy, when we were only anxious not to give offense. The semi-barbarous Yankee squatters, who had “left their country for their country's good,” and by whom we were surrounded in our first settlement, detested us, and with them we could have no feeling in common. We could neither lie nor cheat in our dealings with them; and they despised us for our ignorance in trading and our want of smartness. The utter want of that common courtesy with which a well-brought-up European addresses the poorest of his brethren, is severely felt at first by settlers in Canada. At the period of which I am now speaking, the titles of “sir” or “madam” were very rarely applied by inferiors. They entered your house without knocking; and while boasting of their freedom, violated one of its dearest laws, which considers even the cottage of the poorest labourer his castle, and his privacy sacred. “Is your man to hum?”--“Is the woman within?” were the general inquiries made to me by such guests, while my bare-legged, ragged Irish servants were always spoken to, as “sir” and “mem,” as if to make the distinction more pointed. Why they treated our claims to their respect with marked insult and rudeness, I never could satisfactorily determine, in any way that could reflect honour on the species, or even plead an excuse for its brutality, until I found that this insolence was more generally practised by the low, uneducated emigrants from Britain, who better understood your claims to their civility, than by the natives themselves. Then I discovered the secret. The unnatural restraint which society imposes upon these people at home forces them to treat their more fortunate brethren with a servile deference which is repugnant to their feelings, and is thrust upon them by the dependent circumstances in which they are placed. This homage to rank and education is not sincere. Hatred and envy lie rankling at their heart, although hidden by outward obsequiousness. Necessity compels their obedience; they fawn, and cringe, and flatter the wealth on which they depend for bread. But let them once emigrate, the clog which fettered them is suddenly removed; they are free; and the dearest privilege of this freedom is to wreak upon their superiors the long-locked-up hatred of their hearts. They think they can debase you to their level by disallowing all your claims to distinction; while they hope to exalt themselves and their fellows into ladies and gentlemen by sinking you back to the only title you received from Nature--plain “man” and “woman.” Oh, how much more honourable than their vulgar pretensions! I never knew the real dignity of these simple epithets until they were insultingly thrust upon us by the working-classes of Canada. But from this folly the native-born Canadian is exempt; it is only practised by the low-born Yankee, or the Yankeefied British peasantry and mechanics. It originates in the enormous reaction springing out of a sudden emancipation from a state of utter dependence to one of unrestrained liberty. As such, I not only excuse, but forgive it, for the principle is founded in nature; and, however disgusting and distasteful to those accustomed to different treatment from their inferiors, it is better than a hollow profession of duty and attachment urged upon us by a false and unnatural position. Still it is very irksome until you think more deeply upon it; and then it serves to amuse rather than to irritate. And here I would observe, before quitting this subject, that of all follies, that of taking out servants from the old country is one of the greatest, and is sure to end in the loss of the money expended in their passage, and to become the cause of deep disappointment and mortification to yourself. They no sooner set foot upon the Canadian shores then they become possessed with this ultra-republican spirit. All respect for their employers, all subordination, is at an end; the very air of Canada severs the tie of mutual obligation which bound you together. They fancy themselves not only equal to you in rank, but that ignorance and vulgarity give them superior claims to notice. They demand in terms the highest wages, and grumble at doing half the work, in return, which they cheerfully performed at home. They demand to eat at your table, and to sit in your company; and if you refuse to listen to their dishonest and extravagant claims, they tell you that “they are free; that no contract signed in the old country is binding in 'Meriky'; that you may look out for another person to fill their place as soon as you like; and that you may get the money expended in their passage and outfit in the best manner you can.” I was unfortunately persuaded to take out a woman with me as a nurse for my child during the voyage, as I was in very poor health; and her conduct, and the trouble and expense she occasioned, were a perfect illustration of what I have described. When we consider the different position in which servants are placed in the old and new world, this conduct, ungrateful as it then appeared to me, ought not to create the least surprise. In Britain, for instance, they are too often dependent upon the caprice of their employers for bread. Their wages are low; their moral condition still lower. They are brought up in the most servile fear of the higher classes, and they feel most keenly their hopeless degradation, for no effort on their part can better their condition. They know that if once they get a bad character, they must starve or steal; and to this conviction we are indebted for a great deal of their seeming fidelity and long and laborious service in our families, which we owe less to any moral perception on their part of the superior kindness or excellence of their employers, than to the mere feeling of assurance, that as long as they do their work well, and are cheerful and obedient, they will be punctually paid their wages, and well housed and fed. Happy is it for them and their masters when even this selfish bond of union exists between them! But in Canada the state of things in this respect is wholly reversed. The serving class, comparatively speaking, is small, and admits of little competition. Servants that understand the work of the country are not easily procured, and such always can command the highest wages. The possession of a good servant is such an addition to comfort, that they are persons of no small consequence, for the dread of starving no longer frightens them into servile obedience. They can live without you, and they well know that you cannot do without them. If you attempt to practise upon them that common vice of English mistresses, to scold them for any slight omission or offence, you rouse into active operation all their new-found spirit of freedom and opposition. They turn upon you with a torrent of abuse; they demand their wages, and declare their intention of quitting you instantly. The more inconvenient the time for you, the more bitter become their insulting remarks. They tell you, with a high hand, that “they are as good as you; that they can get twenty better places by the morrow, and that they don't care a snap for your anger.” And away they bounce, leaving you to finish a large wash, or a heavy job of ironing, in the best way you can. When we look upon such conduct as the reaction arising out of their former state, we cannot so much blame them, and are obliged to own that it is the natural result of a sudden emancipation from former restraint. With all their insolent airs of independence, I must confess that I prefer the Canadian to the European servant. If they turn out good and faithful, it springs more from real respect and affection, and you possess in your domestic a valuable assistant and friend; but this will never be the case with a servant brought out with you from the old country, for the reasons before assigned. The happy independence enjoyed in this highly-favoured land is nowhere better illustrated than in the fact that no domestic can be treated with cruelty or insolence by an unbenevolent or arrogant master. Forty years has made as great a difference in the state of society in Canada as it has in its commercial and political importance. When we came to the Canadas, society was composed of elements which did not always amalgamate in the best possible manner. We were reckoned no addition to the society of C----. Authors and literary people they held in supreme detestation; and I was told by a lady, the very first time I appeared in company, that “she heard that I wrote books, but she could tell me that they did not want a Mrs. Trollope in Canada.” I had not then read Mrs. Trollope's work on America, or I should have comprehended at once the cause of her indignation; for she was just such a person as would have drawn forth the keen satire of that far-seeing observer of the absurdities of our nature, whose witty exposure of American affectation has done more towards producing a reform in that respect, than would have resulted from a thousand grave animadversions soberly written. Another of my self-constituted advisers informed me, with great asperity in her look and tone, that “it would be better for me to lay by the pen, and betake myself to some more useful employment; that she thanked her God that she could make a shirt, and see to the cleaning of her house!” These remarks were perfectly gratuitous, and called forth by no observation of mine; for I tried to conceal my blue stockings beneath the long conventional robes of the tamest common-place, hoping to cover the faintest tinge of the objectionable colour. I had spoken to neither of these women in my life, and was much amused by their remarks; particularly as I could both make a shirt, and attend to the domestic arrangement of my family, as well as either of them. I verily believe that they expected to find an author one of a distinct species from themselves; that they imagined the aforesaid biped should neither eat, drink, sleep, nor talk like other folks;--a proud, useless, self-conceited, affected animal, that deserved nothing but kicks and buffets from the rest of mankind. Anxious not to offend them, I tried to avoid all literary subjects. I confined my conversation to topics of common interest; but this gave greater offence than the most ostentatious show of learning, for they concluded that I would not talk on such subjects, because I thought them incapable of understanding me. This was more wounding to their self-love than the most arrogant assumption on my part; and they regarded me with a jealous, envious stand-a-loofishness, that was so intolerable that I gave up all ideas of visiting them. I was so accustomed to hear the whispered remark, or to have it retailed to me by others, “Oh, yes; she can write, but she can do nothing else,” that I was made more diligent in cultivating every branch of domestic usefulness; so that these ill-natured sarcasms ultimately led to my acquiring a great mass of most useful practical knowledge. Yet--such is the contradiction inherent in our poor fallen nature--these people were more annoyed by my proficiency in the common labours of the household, than they would have been by any displays of my unfortunate authorship. Never was the fable of the old man and his ass so truly verified. There is a very little of the social, friendly visiting among the Canadians which constitutes the great charm of home. Their hospitality is entirely reserved for those monster meetings in which they vie with each other in displaying fine clothes and costly furniture. As these large parties are very expensive, few families can afford to give more than one during the visiting season, which is almost exclusively confined to the winter. The great gun, once fired, you meet no more at the same house around the social board until the ensuing year, and would scarcely know that you had a neighbor, were it not for a formal morning call made now and then, just to remind you that such individuals are in the land of the living, and still exist in your near vicinity. I am speaking of visiting in the towns and villages. The manners and habits of the European settlers in the country are far more simple and natural, and their hospitality more genuine and sincere. They have not been sophisticated by the hard, worldly wisdom of a Canadian town, and still retain a warm remembrance of the kindly humanities of home. Among the women, a love of dress exceeds all other passions. In public they dress in silks and satins, and wear the most expensive ornaments, and they display considerable taste in the arrangement and choice of colours. The wife of a man in moderate circumstances, whose income does not exceed two or three hundred pounds a-year, does not hesitate in expending ten or fifteen pounds upon one article of outside finery, while often her inner garments are not worth as many sous; thus sacrificing to outward show all the real comforts of life. The aristocracy of wealth is bad enough; but the aristocracy of dress is perfectly contemptible. Could Raphael visit Canada in rags, he would be nothing in their eyes beyond a common sign-painter. Great and manifold, even to the ruin of families, are the evils arising from this inordinate love for dress. They derive their fashions from the French and the Americans--seldom from the English, whom they far surpass in the neatness and elegance of their costume. The Canadian women, while they retain the bloom and freshness of youth, are exceedingly pretty; but these charms soon fade, owing, perhaps, to the fierce extremes of their climate, or the withering effect of the dry metallic air of stoves, and their going too early into company and being exposed, while yet children, to the noxious influence of late hours, and the sudden change from heated rooms to the cold, biting, bitter winter blast. Though small of stature, they are generally well and symmetrically formed, and possess a graceful, easy carriage. The early age at which they marry, and are introduced into society, takes from them all awkwardness and restraint. A girl of fourteen can enter a crowded ball-room with as much self-possession, and converse with as much confidence, as a matron of forty. The blush of timidity and diffidence is, indeed, rare upon the cheek of a Canadian beauty. Their education is so limited and confined to so few accomplishments, and these not very perfectly taught, that their conversation seldom goes beyond a particular discussion on their own dress, or that of their neighbours, their houses, furniture, and servants, sometimes interlarded with a _little harmless gossip_, which, however, tells keenly upon the characters of their dear friends. Yet they have abilities, excellent practical abilities, which, with a little mental culture, would render them intellectual and charming companions. At present, too many of these truly lovely girls remind one of choice flowers half buried in weeds. Music and dancing are their chief accomplishments. In the former they seldom excel. Though possessing an excellent general taste for music, it is seldom in their power to bestow upon its study the time which is required to make a really good musician. They are admirable proficients in the other art, which they acquire readily, with the least instruction, often without any instruction at all, beyond that which is given almost intuitively by a good ear for time, and a quick perception of the harmony of motion. The waltz is their favorite dance, in which old and young join with the greatest avidity; it is not unusual to see parents and their grown-up children dancing in the same set in a public ball-room. Their taste in music is not for the sentimental; they prefer the light, lively tunes of the Virginian minstrels to the most impassioned strains of Bellini. On entering one of the public ball-rooms, a stranger would be delighted with such a display of pretty faces and neat figures. I have hardly ever seen a really plain Canadian girl in her teens; and a downright ugly one is almost unknown. The high cheek-bones, wide mouth, and turned-up nose of the Saxon race, so common among the lower classes in Britain, are here succeeded in the next generation, by the small oval face, straight nose, and beautifully-cut mouth of the American; while the glowing tint of the Albion rose pales before the withering influence of late hours and stove-heat. They are naturally a fine people, and possess capabilities and talents, which when improved by cultivation will render them second to no people in the world; and that period is not far distant. Idiots and mad people are so seldom met with among natives of the colony, that not one of this description of unfortunates has ever come under my own immediate observation. To the benevolent philanthropist, whose heart has bled over the misery and pauperism of the lower classes in Great Britain, the almost entire absence of mendicity from Canada would be highly gratifying. Canada has few, if any, native beggars; her objects of charity are generally imported from the mother country, and these are never suffered to want food or clothing. The Canadians are a truly charitable people; no person in distress is driven with harsh and cruel language from their doors; they not only generously relieve the wants of suffering strangers cast upon their bounty, but they nurse them in sickness, and use every means in their power to procure them employment. The number of orphan children yearly adopted by wealthy Canadians, and treated in every respect as their own, is almost incredible. It is a glorious country for the labouring classes, for while blessed with health they are always certain of employment, and certain also to derive from it ample means of support for their families. An industrious, hard-working man in a few years is able to purchase from his savings a homestead of his own; and in process of time becomes one of the most important and prosperous class of settlers in Canada, her free and independent yeomen, who form the bones and sinews of this rising country, and from among whom she already begins to draw her senators, while their educated sons become the aristocrats of the rising generation. It has often been remarked to me by people long resident in the colony, that those who come to the country destitute of means, but able and willing to work, invariably improve their condition and become independent; while the gentleman who brings out with him a small capital is too often tricked and cheated out of his property, and drawn into rash and dangerous speculations which terminate in his ruin. His children, neglected and uneducated, yet brought up with ideas far beyond their means, and suffered to waste their time in idleness, seldom take to work, and not unfrequently sink down to the lowest class. But I have dwelt long enough upon these serious subjects; and I will leave my husband, who is better qualified than myself, to give a more accurate account of the country, while I turn to matters of a lighter and a livelier cast. It was towards the close of the summer of 1833, which had been unusually cold and wet for Canada, while Moodie was absent at D----, inspecting a portion of his government grant of land, that I was startled one night, just before retiring to rest, by the sudden firing of guns in our near vicinity, accompanied by shouts and yells, the braying of horns, the beating of drums, and the barking of all the dogs in the neighborhood. I never heard a more stunning uproar of discordant and hideous sounds. What could it all mean? The maid-servant, as much alarmed as myself, opened the door and listened. “The goodness defend us!” she exclaimed, quickly closing it, and drawing a bolt seldom used. “We shall be murdered. The Yankees must have taken Canada, and are marching hither.” “Nonsense! that cannot be it. Besides they would never leave the main road to attack a poor place like this. Yet the noise is very near. Hark! they are firing again. Bring me the hammer and some nails, and let us secure the windows.” The next moment I laughed at my folly in attempting to secure a log hut, when the application of a match to its rotten walls would consume it in a few minutes. Still, as the noise increased, I was really frightened. My servant, who was Irish (for my Scotch girl, Bell, had taken to herself a husband and I had been obliged to hire another in her place, who had only been a few days in the country), began to cry and wring her hands, and lament her hard fate in coming to Canada. Just at this critical moment, when we were both self-convicted of an arrant cowardice, which would have shamed a Canadian child of six years old, Mrs. O---- tapped at the door, and although generally a most unwelcome visitor, from her gossiping, mischievous propensities, I gladly let her in. “Do tell me,” I cried, “the meaning of this strange uproar?” “Oh, 'tis nothing,” she replied, laughing; “you and Mary look as white as a sheet; but you need not be alarmed. A set of wild fellows have met to charivari Old Satan, who has married his fourth wife to-night, a young gal of sixteen. I should not wonder if some mischief happens among them, for they are a bad set, made up of all the idle loafers about Port H---- and C----.” “What is a charivari?” said I. “Do, pray, enlighten me.” “Have you been nine months in Canada, and ask that question? Why I thought you knew everything! Well, I will tell you what it is. The charivari is a custom that the Canadians got from the French, in the Lower Province, and a queer custom it is. When an old man marries a young wife, or an old woman a young husband, or two old people, who ought to be thinking of their graves, enter for the second or third time into the holy estate of wedlock, as the priest calls it, all the idle young fellows in the neighborhood meet together to charivari them. For this purpose they disguise themselves, blackening their faces, putting their clothes on hind part before, and wearing horrible masks, with grotesque caps on their head, adorned with cocks' feathers and bells. They then form in a regular body, and proceed to the bridegroom's house, to the sound of tin kettles, horns, and drums, cracked fiddles, and all the discordant instruments they can collect together. Thus equipped, they surround the house where the wedding is held, just at the hour when the happy couple are supposed to be about to retire to rest--beating upon the door with clubs and staves, and demanding of the bridegroom admittance to drink the bride's health, or in lieu there of to receive a certain sum of money to treat the band at the nearest tavern. “If the bridegroom refuses to appear and grant their request, they commence the horrible din you hear, firing guns charged with peas against the doors and windows, rattling old pots and kettles, and abusing him for his stinginess in no measured terms. Sometimes they break open the doors, and seize upon the bridegroom; and he may esteem himself a very fortunate man, under such circumstances, if he escapes being ridden upon a rail, tarred and feathered, and otherwise maltreated. I have known many fatal accidents arise out of an imprudent refusal to satisfy the demands of the assailants. People have even lost their lives in the fray; and I think the government should interfere, and put down these riotous meetings. Surely, it is very hard, that an old man cannot marry a young gal, if she is willing to take him, without asking the leave of such a rabble as that. What right have they to interfere with his private affairs?” “What, indeed?” said I, feeling a truly British indignation at such a lawless infringement upon the natural rights of man. “I remember,” continued Mrs. O----, who had got fairly started upon a favorite subject, “a scene of this kind, that was acted two years ago, at ----, when old Mr. P---- took his third wife. He was a very rich storekeeper, and had made during the war a great deal of money. He felt lonely in his old age, and married a young, handsome widow, to enliven his house. The lads in the village were determined to make him pay for his frolic. This got wind, and Mr. P---- was advised to spend the honeymoon in Toronto; but he only laughed, and said that 'he was not going to be frightened from his comfortable home by the threats of a few wild boys.' In the morning, he was married at the church, and spent the day at home, where he entertained a large party of his own and the bride's friends. During the evening, all the idle chaps in the town collected round the house, headed by a mad young bookseller, who had offered himself for their captain, and, in the usual forms, demanded a sight of the bride, and liquor to drink her health. They were very good-naturedly received by Mr. P----, who sent a friend down to them to bid them welcome, and to inquire on what terms they would consent to let him off, and disperse. “The captain of the band demanded sixty dollars, as he, Mr. P----, could well afford to pay it. “'That's too much, my fine fellows!' cried Mr. P---- from the open window. 'Say twenty-five, and I will send you down a cheque upon the bank of Montreal for the money.' “'Thirty! thirty! thirty! old boy!' roared a hundred voices. 'Your wife's worth that. Down with the cash, and we will give you three cheers, and three times three for the bride, and leave you to sleep in peace. If you hang back, we will raise such a 'larum about your ears that you shan't know that your wife's your own for a month to come!' “'I'll give you twenty-five,' remonstrated the bridegroom, not the least alarmed at their threats, and laughing all the time in his sleeve. “'Thirty; not one copper less!' Here they gave him such a salute of diabolical sounds that he ran from the window with his hands to his ears, and his friend came down stairs to the verandah, and gave them the sum they required. They did not expect that the old man would have been so liberal, and they gave him the 'Hip, hip, hip hurrah!' in fine style, and marched off the finish the night and spend the money at the tavern.” “And do people allow themselves to be bullied out of their property by such ruffians?” “Ah, my dear! 'tis the custom of the country, and 'tis not so easy to put it down. But I can tell you that a charivari is not always a joke. “There was another affair that happened, just before you came to the place, that occasioned no small talk in the neighbourhood; and well it might, for it was a most disgraceful piece of business, and attended with very serious consequences. Some of the charivari party had to fly, or they might have ended their days in the penitentiary. “There was runaway nigger from the States came to the village, and set up a barber's poll, and settled among us. I am no friend to the blacks; but really Tom Smith was such a quiet, good-natured fellow, and so civil and obliging, that he soon got a good business. He was clever, too, and cleaned old clothes until they looked almost as good as new. Well, after a time he persuaded a white girl to marry him. She was not a bad-looking Irish woman, and I can't think what bewitched the creature to take him. “Her marriage with the black man created a great sensation in the town. All the young fellows were indignant at his presumption and her folly, and they determined to give them the charivari in fine style, and punish them both for the insult they had put upon the place. “Some of the young gentlemen in the town joined in the frolic. They went so far as to enter the house, drag the poor nigger from his bed, and in spite of his shrieks for mercy, they hurried him out into the cold air--for it was winter--and almost naked as he was, rode him upon a rail, and so ill-treated him that he died under their hands. “They left the body, when they found what had happened, and fled. The ringleaders escaped across the lake to the other side; and those who remained could not be sufficiently identified to bring them to trial. The affair was hushed up; but it gave great uneasiness to several respectable families whose sons were in the scrape.” “Good heavens! are such things permitted in a Christian country? But scenes like these must be of rare occurrence?” “They are more common than you imagine. A man was killed up at W---- the other day, and two others dangerously wounded, at a charivari. The bridegroom was a man in middle life, a desperately resolute and passionate man, and he swore that if such riff-raff dared to interfere with him, he would shoot at them with as little compunction as he would at so many crows. His threats only increased the mischievous determination of the mob to torment him; and when he refused to admit their deputation, or even to give them a portion of the wedding cheer, they determined to frighten him into compliance by firing several guns, loaded with peas, at his door. Their salute was returned from the chamber windows, by the discharge of a double-barrelled gun, loaded with buck-shot. The crowd gave back with a tremendous yell. Their leader was shot through the heart, and two of the foremost in the scuffle dangerously wounded. They vowed they would set fire to the house, but the bridegroom boldly stepped to the window, and told them to try it, and before they could light a torch he would fire among them again, as his gun was reloaded, and he would discharge it at them as long as one of them dared to remain on his premises. “They cleared off; but though Mr. A---- was not punished for the _accident_, as it was called, he became a marked man, and lately left the colony, to settle in the United States. “Why, Mrs. Moodie, you look quite serious. I can, however, tell you a less dismal tale, A charivari would seldom be attended with bad consequences if people would take it as a joke, and join in the spree.” “A very dignified proceeding, for a bride and bridegroom to make themselves the laughing-stock of such people!” “Oh, but custom reconciles us to everything; and 'tis better to give up a little of our pride than endanger the lives of our fellow-creatures. I have been told a story of a lady in the Lower Province, who took for her second husband a young fellow, who, as far as his age was concerned, might have been her son. The mob surrounded her house at night, carrying her effigy in an open coffin, supported by six young lads, with white favours in their hats; and they buried the poor bride, amid shouts of laughter, and the usual accompaniments, just opposite her drawing-room windows. The widow was highly amused by the whole of their proceedings, but she wisely let them have their own way. She lived in a strong stone house, and she barred the doors, and closed the iron shutters, and set them at defiance. “'As long as she enjoyed her health,' she said, 'they were welcome to bury her in effigy as often as they pleased; she was really glad to be able to afford amusement to so many people.' “Night after night, during the whole of that winter, the same party beset her house with their diabolical music; but she only laughed at them. “The leader of the mob was a young lawyer from these parts, a sad, mischievous fellow; the widow became aware of this, and she invited him one evening to take tea with a small party at her house. He accepted the invitation, was charmed with her hearty and hospitable welcome, and soon found himself quite at home; but only think how ashamed he must have felt, when the same 'larum commenced, at the usual hour, in front of the lady's house! “'Oh,' said Mrs. R----, smiling to her husband, 'here come our friends. Really, Mr. K----, they amuse us so much of an evening that I should feel quite dull without them.' “From that hour the charivari ceased, and the old lady was left to enjoy the society of her young husband in quiet. “I assure you, Mrs. M----, that the charivari often deters old people from making disgraceful marriages, so that it is not wholly without its use.” A few days after the charivari affair, Mrs. D---- stepped in to see me. She was an American; a very respectable old lady, who resided in a handsome frame-house on the main road. I was at dinner, the servant-girl, in the meanwhile, nursing my child at a distance. Mrs. D---- sat looking at me very seriously until I concluded my meal, her dinner having been accomplished several hours before. When I had finished, the girl give me the child, and then removed the dinner-service into an outer room. “You don't eat with your helps,” said my visitor. “Is not that something like pride?” “It is custom,” said I; “we were not used to do so at home, and I think that keeping a separate table is more comfortable for both parties.” “Are you not both of the same flesh and blood? The rich and the poor meet together, and the Lord is the maker of them all.” “True. Your quotation is just, and I assent to it with all my heart. There is no difference in the flesh and blood; but education makes a difference in the mind and manners, and, till these can assimilate, it is better to keep them apart.” “Ah! you are not a good Christian, Mrs. Moodie. The Lord thought more of the poor than he did of the rich, and he obtained more followers from among them. Now, _we_ always take our meals with our people.” Presently after, while talking over the affairs of our households, I happened to say that the cow we had bought of Mollineux had turned out extremely well, and gave a great deal of milk. “That man lived with us several years,” she said; “he was an excellent servant, and D---- paid him his wages in land. The farm he now occupies formed a part of our U.E. grant. But, for all his good conduct, I never could abide him, for being a _black_.” “Indeed! Is he not the same flesh and blood as the rest?” The colour rose into Mrs. D----'s sallow face, and she answered with much warmth-- “What! do you mean to compare _me_ with a _nigger!_” “Not exactly. But, after all, the colour makes the only difference between him and uneducated men of the same class.” “Mrs. Moodie!” she exclaimed, holding up her hands in pious horror; “they are the children of the devil! God never condescended to make a nigger.” “Such an idea is an impeachment of the power and majesty of the Almighty. How can you believe such an ignorant fable?” “Well, then,” said my monitress, in high dudgeon, “if the devil did not make them, they are descended from Cain.” “But all Cain's posterity perished in the flood.” My visitor was puzzled. “The African race, it is generally believed, are the descendants of Ham, and to many of their tribes the curse pronounced against him seems to cling. To be the servant of servants is bad enough, without our making their condition worse by our cruel persecutions. Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost; and in proof of this inestimable promise, he did not reject the Ethiopian eunuch who was baptised by Philip, and who was, doubtless, as black as the rest of his people. Do you not admit Mollineux to your table with your other helps?” “Mercy sake! do you think that I would sit down at the same table with a nigger? My helps would leave the house if I dared to put such an affront upon them. Sit down with a dirty black, indeed!” “Do you think, Mrs. D----, that there will be any negroes in heaven?” “Certainly not, or I, for one, would never wish to go there;” and out of the house she sallied in high disdain. Yet this was the woman who had given me such a plausible lecture on pride. Alas, for our fallen nature! Which is more subversive of peace and Christian fellowship--ignorance of our own characters, or the characters of others? Our departure for the woods became now a frequent theme of conversation. My husband had just returned from an exploring expedition to the backwoods, and was delighted with the prospect of removing thither. The only thing I listened to in their praise, with any degree of interest, was a lively song, which he had written during his brief sojourn at Douro:-- TO THE WOODS!--TO THE WOODS! To the woods!--to the woods!--The sun shines bright, The smoke rises high in the clear frosty air; Our axes are sharp, and our hearts are light, Let us toil while we can and drive away care. Though homely our food, we are merry and strong, And labour is wealth, which no man can deny; At eve we will chase the dull hours with a song, And at grey peep of dawn let this be our cry, To the woods!--to the woods!--&c. Hark! how the trees crack in the keen morning blast, And see how the rapids are cover'd with steam; Thaw your axes, my lads, the sun rises fast, And gilds the pine tops with his bright golden beam. To the woods!--to the woods!--&c. Come, chop away, lads! the wild woods resound, Let your quick-falling strokes in due harmony ring; See, the lofty tree shivers--it falls to the ground! Now with voices united together we'll sing-- To the woods!--to the woods!--The sun shines bright, The smoke rises high in the clear frosty air; Our axes are sharp, and our hearts are light, Let us toil while we can and drive away care, And drive away care. J.W.D.M. CHAPTER XII THE VILLAGE HOTEL Well, stranger, here you are all safe and sound; You're now on shore. Methinks you look aghast,-- As if you'd made some slight mistake, and found A land you liked not. Think not of the past; Your leading-strings are cut; the mystic chain That bound you to your fair and smiling shore Is sever'd now, indeed. 'Tis now in vain To sigh for joys that can return no more. Emigration, however necessary as the obvious means of providing for the increasing population of early-settled and over-peopled countries, is indeed a very serious matter to the individual emigrant and his family. He is thrown adrift, as it were, on a troubled ocean, the winds and currents of which are unknown to him. His past experience, and his judgment founded on experience, will be useless to him in this new sphere of action. In an old country, where generation after generation inhabits the same spot, the mental dispositions and prejudices of our ancestors become in a manner hereditary, and descend to their children with their possessions. In a new colony, on the contrary, the habits and associations of the emigrant having been broken up for ever, he is suddenly thrown on his own internal resources, and compelled to act and decide at once; not unfrequently under pain of misery or starvation. He is surrounded with dangers, often without the ordinary means which common-sense and prudence suggest of avoiding them,--because the _experience_ on which these common qualities are founded is wanting. Separated for ever from those warm-hearted friends, who in his native country would advise or assist him in his first efforts, and surrounded by people who have an interest in misleading and imposing upon him, every-day experience shows that no amount of natural sagacity or prudence, founded on experience in other countries, will be an effectual safeguard against deception and erroneous conclusions. It is a fact worthy of observation, that among emigrants possessing the qualities of industry and perseverance so essential to success in all countries, those who possess the smallest share of original talent and imagination, and the least of a speculative turn of mind, are usually the most successful. They follow the beaten track and prosper. However humbling this reflection may be to human vanity, it should operate as a salutary check on presumption and hasty conclusions. After a residence of sixteen years in Canada, during which my young and helpless family have been exposed to many privations, while we toiled incessantly and continued to hope even against hope, these reflections naturally occur to our minds, not only as the common-sense view of the subject, but as the fruit of long and daily-bought experience. After all this long probation in the backwoods of Canada, I find myself brought back in circumstances nearly to the point from whence I started, and am compelled to admit that had I only followed my own unassisted judgment, when I arrived with my wife and child in Canada, and quietly settled down on the cleared farm I had purchased, in a well-settled neighbourhood, and with the aid of the means I then possessed, I should now in all probability have been in easy if not in affluent circumstances. Native Canadians, like Yankees, will make money where people from the old country would almost starve. Their intimate knowledge of the country, and of the circumstances of the inhabitants, enables them to turn their money to great advantage; and I must add, that few people from the old country, however avaricious, can bring themselves to stoop to the unscrupulous means of acquiring property which are too commonly resorted to in this country. These reflections are a rather serious commencement of a sketch which was intended to be of a more lively description; one of my chief objects in writing this chapter being to afford a connecting link between my wife's sketches, and to account for some circumstances connected with our situation, which otherwise would be unintelligible to the reader. Before emigrating to Canada, I had been settled as a bachelor in South Africa for about twelve years. I use the word settled, for want of a better term--for a bachelor can never, properly, be said to be settled. He has no object in life--no aim. He is like a knife without a blade, or a gun without a barrel. He is always in the way, and nobody cares for him. If he work on a farm, as I did, for I never could look on while others were working without lending a hand, he works merely for the sake of work. He benefits nobody by his exertions, not even himself; for he is restless and anxious, has a hundred indescribable ailments, which no one but himself can understand; and for want of the legitimate cares and anxieties connected with a family, he is full of cares and anxieties of his own creating. In short, he is in a false position, as every man must be who presumes to live alone when he can do better. This was my case in South Africa. I had plenty of land, and of all the common necessaries of life; but I lived for years without companionship, for my nearest English neighbour was twenty-five miles off. I hunted the wild animals of the country, and had plenty of books to read; but, from talking broken Dutch for months together, I almost forgot how to speak my own language correctly. My very ideas (for I had not entirely lost the reflecting faculty) became confused and limited, for want of intellectual companions to strike out new lights, and form new combinations in the regions of thought; clearly showing that man was not intended to live alone. Getting, at length, tired of this solitary and unproductive life, I started for England, with the resolution of placing my domestic matters on a more comfortable footing. By a happy accident, at the house of a literary friend in London, I became acquainted with one to whose cultivated mind, devoted affections, and untiring energy of character, I have been chiefly indebted for many happy hours, under the most adverse circumstances, as well as for much of that hope and firm reliance upon Providence which have enabled me to bear up against overwhelming misfortunes. I need not here repeat what has been already stated respecting the motives which induced us to emigrate to Canada. I shall merely observe that when I left South Africa it was with the intention of returning to that colony, where I had a fine property, to which I was attached in no ordinary degree, on account of the beauty of the scenery and delightful climate. However, Mrs. Moodie, somehow or other, had imbibed an invincible dislike to that colony, for some of the very reasons that I liked it myself. The wild animals were her terror, and she fancied that every wood and thicket was peopled with elephants, lions, and tigers, and that it would be utterly impossible to take a walk without treading on dangerous snakes in the grass. Unfortunately, she had my own book on South Africa to quote triumphantly in confirmation of her vague notions of danger; and, in my anxiety to remove these exaggerated impressions, I would fain have retracted my own statements of the hair-breadth escapes I had made, in conflicts with wild animals, respecting which the slightest insinuation of doubt from another party would have excited my utmost indignation. In truth, before I became familiarised with such danger, I had myself entertained similar notions, and my only wonder, in reading such narratives before leaving my own country, was how the inhabitants of the country managed to attend to their ordinary business in the midst of such accumulated dangers and annoyances. Fortunately, these hair-breadth escapes are of rare occurrence; but travellers and book-makers, like cooks, have to collect high-flavoured dishes, from far and near, the better to please the palates of their patrons. So it was with my South African adventures; I threw myself in the way of danger from the love of strong excitement, and I collected all my adventures together, and related them in pure simplicity, without very particularly informing the reader over what space of time or place my narrative extended, or telling him that I could easily have kept out of harm's way had I felt so inclined. All these arguments, however, had little influence on my good wife, for I could not deny that I had seen such animals in abundance in South Africa; and she thought she should never be safe among such neighbours. At last, between my wife's fear of the wild animals of Africa, and a certain love of novelty, which formed a part of my own character, I made up my mind, as they write on stray letters in the post-office, to “try Canada.” So here we are, just arrived in the village of C----, situated on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Mrs. Moodie has already stated that we procured lodgings at a certain hotel in the village of C---- kept by S----, a truly excellent and obliging American. The British traveller is not a little struck, and in many instances disgusted, with a certain air of indifference in the manners of such persons in Canada, which is accompanied with a tone of equality and familiarity exceedingly unlike the limber and oily obsequiousness of tavern-keepers in England. I confess I felt at the time not a little annoyed with Mr. S----'s free-and-easy manner, and apparent coolness and indifference when he told us he had no spare room in his house to accommodate our party. We endeavoured to procure lodgings at another tavern, on the opposite side of the street; but soon learned that, in consequence of the arrival of an unusual number of immigrants, all the taverns in the village were already filled to overflowing. We returned to Mr. S----, and after some further conversation, he seemed to have taken a kind of liking to us, and became more complaisant in his manner, until our arrangement with Tom Wilson, as already related, relieved us from further difficulty. I _now_ perfectly understand the cause of this apparent indifference on the part of our host. Of all people, Englishmen, when abroad, are the most addicted to the practice of giving themselves arrogant airs towards those persons whom they look upon in the light of dependents on their bounty; and they forget that an American tavern-keeper holds a very different position in society from one of the same calling in England. The manners and circumstances of new countries are utterly opposed to anything like pretension in any class of society; and our worthy host, and his excellent wife--who had both held a respectable position in the society of the United States--had often been deeply wounded in their feelings by the disgusting and vulgar arrogance of English _gentleman_ and _ladies_, as they are called. Knowing from experience the truth of the saying that “what cannot be cured must be endured,” we were particularly civil to Mr. S----; and it was astonishing how quickly his manners thawed. We had not been long in the house before we were witnesses of so many examples of the purest benevolence, exhibited by Mr. S---- and his amiable family, that it was impossible to regard them with any feeling but that of warm regard and esteem. S---- was, in truth, a noble-hearted fellow. Whatever he did seemed so much a matter of habit, that the idea of selfish design or ostentation was utterly excluded from the mind. I could relate several instances of the disinterested benevolence of this kind-hearted tavern-keeper. I shall just mention one, which came under my own observation while I lived near C----. I had frequently met a young Englishman, of the name of M----, at Mr. S----'s tavern. His easy and elegant manners, and whole deportment, showed that he had habitually lived in what is called the best society. He had emigrated to Canada with 3,000 or 4,000 pounds, had bought horses, run races, entertained many of the wealthy people of Toronto, or York, as it was then called, and had done a number of other exceedingly foolish things. Of course his money was soon absorbed by the thirsty Canadians, and he became deeply involved in debt. M---- had spent a great deal of money at S----'s tavern, and owed him 70 or 80 pounds. At length he was arrested for debt by some other party, was sent to the district gaol, which was nearly two miles from C----, and was compelled at first to subsist on the gaol allowance. What greatly aggravated the misfortunes of poor M----, a man without suspicion or guile, was a bitter disappointment in another quarter. He had an uncle in England, who was very rich, and who intended to leave him all his property. Some kind friend, to whom M---- had confided his expectations, wrote to England, informing the old man of his nephew's extravagance and hopes. The uncle there-upon cast him off, and left his property, when he died, to another relative. As soon as the kind-hearted tavern-keeper heard of the poor fellow's imprisonment, he immediately went to see him, and, though he had not the slightest hope of ever being paid one farthing of his claim, Mr. S----, for many months that poor M---- lay in gaol, continued to send him an excellent dinner every day from his tavern, to which he always added a bottle of wine; for as Mr. S---- remarked, “Poor M----, I guess, is accustomed to live well.” As soon as Mr. S---- found that we did not belong to that class of people who fancy they exalt themselves by insulting others, there were no bounds to the obligingness of his disposition. As I had informed him that I wished to buy a cleared farm near Lake Ontario, he drove me out every day in all directions, and wherever he thought farms were to be had cheap. Before proceeding further in my account of the inhabitants, I shall endeavour to give the reader some idea of the appearance of the village and the surrounding country. Of course, from the existence of a boundless forest, only partially cleared, there is a great sameness and uniformity in Canadian scenery. We had a stormy passage from Kingston to C----, and the wind being directly ahead, the plunging of the steam-boat between the sharp seas of Lake Ontario produced a “motion” which was decidedly “unconstitutional;” and, for the first time since we left England, we experienced a sensation which strongly reminded us of sea-sickness. The general appearance of the coast from the lake was somewhat uninviting. The land appeared to be covered everywhere with the dense unbroken forest, and though there were some gently sloping hills and slight elevations, showing the margin of extensive clearings, there was a general want of a background of high hills or mountains, which imparts so much interest to the scenery of every country. On reaching C----, however, we found that we had been much deceived as to the features of the country, when viewed at a less distance. Immediately on the shores of the great lake, the land is generally flat for two or three miles inland; and as the farms are there measured out in long, narrow strips, a mile and a quarter long, and a quarter of a mile wide, the back parts of the lots, which are reserved for firewood, are only visible at a distance. This narrow belt of the primeval forest, which runs along the rear of all the lots in the first line of settlements, or concession as it is here called, necessarily conceals the houses and clearings of the next concession, unless the land beyond rises into hills. This arrangement, however convenient, tends greatly to mar the beauty of Canadian scenery. The unvarying monotony of rail-fences and quadrangular enclosures, occasions a tiresome uniformity in the appearance of the country, which is increased by the almost total absence of those little graceful ornaments in detail, in the immediate neighbourhood of the homesteads, which give such a charm to English rural scenery. The day after our arrival, we had an opportunity to examine the town, or rather village, of C----. It then consisted chiefly of one long street, parallel with the shore of the lake, and the houses, with very few exceptions, were built of wood; but they were all finished, and painted with such a degree of neatness, that their appearance was showy, and in some instances elegant, from the symmetry of their proportions. Immediately beyond the bounds of the village, we, for the first time, witnessed the operation of clearing up a thick cedar-swamp. The soil looked black and rich, but the water stood in pools, and the trunks and branches of the cedars were leaning in all directions, and at all angles, with their thick foliage and branches intermingled in wild confusion. The roots spread along the uneven surface of the ground so thickly that they seemed to form a vast net-work, and apparently covered the greater part of the surface of the ground. The task of clearing such a labyrinth seemed utterly hopeless. My heart almost sickened at the prospect of clearing such land, and I was greatly confirmed in my resolution of buying a farm cleared to my hand. The clearing process, however, in this unpromising spot, was going on vigorously. Several acres had been chopped down, and the fire had run through the prostrate trees, consuming all the smaller branches and foliage, and leaving the trunks and ground as black as charcoal could make them. Among this vast mass of ruins, four or five men were toiling with yoke of oxen. The trees were cut into manageable lengths, and were then dragged by the oxen together, so that they could be thrown up into large log-heaps to burn. The men looked, with their bare arms, hands, and faces begrimed with charcoal, more like negroes than white men; and were we, like some shallow people, to compare their apparent condition with that of the negro slaves in more favoured regions, we should be disposed to consider the latter the happier race. But this disgusting work was the work of freemen, high-spirited and energetic fellows, who feared neither man nor wild beast, and trusted to their own strong arms to conquer all difficulties, while they could discern the light of freedom and independence glimmering through the dark woods before them. A few years afterwards, I visited C----, and looked about for the dreadful cedar-swamp which struck such a chill into my heart, and destroyed the illusion which had possessed my mind of the beauty of the Canadian woods. The trees were gone, the tangled roots were gone, and the cedar-swamp was converted into a fair grassy meadow, as smooth as a bowling-green. About sixteen years after my first visit to this spot, I saw it again, and it was covered with stone and brick houses; and one portion of it was occupied by a large manufactory, five or six stories high, with steam-engines, spinning-jennies, and all the machinery for working up the wool of the country into every description of clothing. This is civilisation! This is freedom! The sites of towns and villages in Canada are never selected at random. In England, a concurrence of circumstances has generally led to the gradual formation of hamlets, villages, and towns. In many instances, towns have grown up in barbarous ages around a place of refuge during war; around a fortalice or castle, and more frequently around the ford over a river, where the detention of travellers has led to the establishment of a place of entertainment, a blacksmith's or carpenter's shop. A village or town never grows to any size in Canada without a saw or a grist mill, both which require a certain amount of water-power to work the machinery. Whenever there is a river or stream available for such purposes, and the surrounding country is fertile, the village rapidly rises to be a considerable town. Frame-houses are so quickly erected, and the materials are so easily procured near a saw-mill, that, in the first instance, no other description of houses is to be found in our incipient towns. But as the town increases, brick and stone houses rapidly supplant these less substantial edifices, which seldom remain good for more than thirty or forty years. Mr. S----'s tavern, or hotel, was an extensive frame-building of the kind common in the country. All the lodgers frequent the same long table at all their meals, at one end of which the landlord generally presides. Mr. S----, however, usually preferred the company of his family in another part of the house; and some one of the gentlemen who boarded at the tavern, and who possessed a sufficiently large organ of self-esteem, voted himself into the post of honour, without waiting for an invitation from the rest of the company. This happy individual is generally some little fellow, with a long, protruding nose; some gentleman who can stretch his neck and backbone almost to dislocation, and who has a prodigious deal of talk, all about nothing. The taverns in this country are frequented by all single men, and by many married men without children, who wish to avoid the trouble and greater expense of keeping house. Thus a large portion of the population of the towns take all their meals at the hotels or taverns, in order to save both expense and time. The extraordinary despatch used at meals in the United States has often been mentioned by travellers. The same observation equally applies to Canada, and for the same reason. Wages are high, and time is, therefore, valuable in both countries, and as one clerk is waiting in the shop while another is bolting his dinner, it would of course be exceedingly unkind to protract unnecessarily the sufferings of the hungry expectant; no one possessing any bowels of compassion could act so cruelly. For the same reason, every one is expected to take care of himself, without minding his neighbours. At times a degree of compassion is extended by some naturalised old countryman towards some diffident, over-scrupulous new comer, by offering to help him first; but such marks of consideration, except to ladies, to whom all classes in Canada are attentive, are never continued a bit longer than is thought sufficient for becoming acquainted with the ways of the country. Soon after our arrival at C----, I remember asking a person, who was what the Canadians call “a hickory Quaker,” from the north of Ireland, to help me to a bit of very nice salmon-trout, which was vanishing alarmingly fast from the breakfast-table. Obadiah very considerately lent a deaf ear to my repeated entreaties, pretending to be intently occupied with his own plate of fish; then, transferring the remains of the salmon-trout to his own place, he turned round to me with the most innocent face imaginable, saying very coolly, “I beg your pardon, friend, did you speak to me? There is such a noise at the table, I cannot hear very well.” Between meals there is “considerable of drinking,” among the idlers about the tavern, of the various ingenious Yankee inventions resorted to in this country to disturb the brain. In the evening the plot thickens, and a number of young and middle-aged men drop in, and are found in little knots in the different public rooms. The practice of “treating” is almost universal in this country, and, though friendly and sociable in its way, is the fruitful source of much dissipation. It is almost impossible, in travelling, to steer clear of this evil habit. Strangers are almost invariably drawn into it in the course of business. The town of C---- being the point where a large number of emigrants landed on their way to the backwoods of this part of the colony, it became for a time a place of great resort, and here a number of land-jobbers were established, who made a profitable trade of buying lands from private individuals, or at the government sales of wild land, and selling them again to the settlers from the old country. Though my wife had some near relatives settled in the backwoods, about forty miles inland, to the north of C----, I had made up my mind to buy a cleared farm near Lake Ontario, if I could get one to my mind, and the price of which would come within my limited means. A number of the recent settlers in the backwoods, among whom were several speculators, resorted frequently to C----; and as soon as a new batch of settlers arrived on the lake shore, there was a keen contest between the land-jobbers of C---- and those of the backwoods to draw the new comer into their nets. The demand created by the continual influx of immigrants had caused a rapid increase in the price of lands, particularly of wild lands, and the grossest imposition was often practiced by these people, who made enormous profits by taking advantage of the ignorance of the new settlers and of their anxiety to settle themselves at once. I was continually cautioned by these people against buying a farm in any other locality than the particular one they themselves represented as most eligible, and their rivals were always represented as unprincipled land-jobbers. Finding these accusations to be mutual, I naturally felt myself constrained to believe both parties to be alike. Sometimes I got hold of a quiet farmer, hoping to obtain something like disinterested advice; but in nine cases out of ten, I am sorry to say, I found that the rage for speculation and trading in land, which was so prevalent in all the great thoroughfares, had already poisoned their minds also, and I could rarely obtain an opinion or advice which was utterly free from self-interest. They generally had some lot of land to sell--or, probably, they would like to have a new comer for a neighbour, in the hope of selling him a span of horses or some cows at a higher price than they could obtain from the older settlers. In mentioning this unamiable trait in the character of the farmers near C----, I by no means intend to give it as characteristic of the farmers in general. It is, properly speaking, a _local_ vice, produced by the constant influx of strangers unacquainted with the ways of the country, which tempts the farmers to take advantage of their ignorance. STANZAS Where is religion found? In what bright sphere Dwells holy love, in majesty serene Shedding its beams, like planet o'er the scene; The steady lustre through the varying year Still glowing with the heavenly rays that flow In copious streams to soften human woe? It is not 'mid the busy scenes of life, Where careworn mortals crowd along the way That leads to gain--shunning the light of day; In endless eddies whirl'd, where pain and strife Distract the soul, and spread the shades of night, Where love divine should dwell in purest light. Short-sighted man!--go seek the mountain's brow, And cast thy raptured eye o'er hill and dale; The waving woods, the ever-blooming vale, Shall spread a feast before thee, which till now Ne'er met thy gaze--obscured by passion's sway; And Nature's works shall teach thee how to pray. Or wend thy course along the sounding shore, Where giant waves resistless onward sweep To join the awful chorus of the deep-- Curling their snowy manes with deaf'ning roar, Flinging their foam high o'er the trembling sod, And thunder forth their mighty song to God! J.W.D.M. CHAPTER XIII THE LAND-JOBBER Some men, like greedy monsters of the deep, Still prey upon their kind;--their hungry maws Engulph their victims like the rav'nous shark That day and night untiring plies around The foamy bubbling wake of some great ship; And when the hapless mariner aloft Hath lost his hold, and down he falls Amidst the gurgling waters on her lee, Then, quick as thought, the ruthless felon-jaws Close on his form;--the sea is stain'd with blood-- One sharp wild shriek is heard--and all is still! The lion, tiger, alligator, shark-- The wily fox, the bright enamelled snake-- All seek their prey by force or stratagem; But when--their hunger sated--languor creeps Around their frames, they quickly sink to rest. Not so with man--_he_ never hath enough; He feeds on all alike; and, wild or tame, He's but a cannibal. He burns, destroys, And scatters death to sate his morbid lust For empty fame. But when the love of gain Hath struck its roots in his vile, sordid heart,-- Each gen'rous impulse chill'd,--like vampire, now, He sucks the life-blood of his friends or foes Until he viler grows than savage beast. And when, at length, stretch'd on his bed of death, And powerless, friendless, o'er his clammy brow The dark'ning shades descend, strong to the last His avarice lives; and while he feebly plucks His wretched coverlet, he gasps for breath, And thinks he gathers gold! J.W.D.M. I had a letter of introduction to a gentleman of large property, at C----, who, knowing that I wished to purchase a farm, very kindly drove me out to several lots of land in the immediate neighbourhood. He showed me seven or eight very eligible lots of cleared land, some of them with good houses and orchards; but somehow or other, on inquiry, I found they all belonged to himself, and, moreover, the prices were beyond my limited means. For one farm he asked 1000 pounds; for another, 1500 pounds, and so on. After inquiring in other quarters, I saw I had no chance of getting a farm in that neighbourhood for the price I could afford to pay down, which was only about 300 pounds. After satisfying myself as to this fact, I thought it the wiser course at once to undeceive my very obliging friend, whose attentions were obviously nicely adjusted to the estimate he had formed in his own mind of my pecuniary resources. On communicating this discouraging fact, my friend's countenance instantly assumed a cold and stony expression, and I almost expected that he would have stopped his horses and set me down, to walk with other poor men. As may well be supposed, I was never afterwards honoured with a seat in his carriage. He saw just what I was worth, and I saw what his friendship was worth; and thus our brief acquaintance terminated. Having thus let the cat out of the bag, when I might, according to the usual way of the world, have sported for awhile in borrowed plumage, and rejoiced in the reputation of being in more prosperous circumstances without fear of detection, I determined to pursue the same course, and make use of the little insight I had obtained into the ways of the land-jobbers of Canada, to procure a cleared farm on more reasonable terms. It is not uncommon for the land speculators to sell a farm to a respectable settler at an unusually low price, in order to give a character to a neighbourhood where they hold other lands, and thus to use him as a decoy duck for friends or countrymen. There was very noted character at C----, Mr. Q----, a great land-jobber, who did a large business in this way on his own account, besides getting through a great deal of dirty work for other more respectable speculators, who did not wish to drink at taverns and appear personally in such matters. To Mr. Q---- I applied, and effected a purchase of a farm of one hundred and fifty acres, about fifty of which were cleared, for 300 pounds, as I shall mention more particularly in the sequel. In the meantime, the character of this distinguished individual was--for he was long gone to give an account of his misdeeds in the other world--so remarkable, that I must endeavour to describe it for the edification of the reader. Q---- kept a shop, or store, in C----; but he left the principal management of this establishment to his clerks; while, taking advantage of the influx of emigrants, he pursued, with unrivalled success, the profitable business of land-jobbing. In his store, before taking to this business, he had been accustomed for many years to retail goods to the farmers at high prices, on the usual long credit system. He had thus got a number of farmers deeply in his debt, and, in many cases, in preference to suing them, had taken mortgages on their farms. By this means, instead of merely recovering the money owing to him by the usual process of law, he was enabled, by threatening to foreclose the mortgages, to compel them to sell their farms nearly on his own terms, whenever an opportunity occurred to re-sell them advantageously to new comers. Thus, besides making thirty or forty per cent. on his goods, he often realised more than a hundred per cent. on his land speculations. In a new country, where there is no great competition in mercantile business, and money is scarce, the power and profits of store-keepers are very great. Mr. Q---- was one of the most grasping of this class. His heart was case-hardened, and his conscience, like gum, elastic; it would readily stretch, on the shortest notice, to any required extent, while his well-tutored countenance betrayed no indication of what was passing in his mind. But I must not forget to give a sketch of the appearance, or outward man, of this highly-gifted individual. He was about the middle size, thin and limber, and somewhat loose in his lower joints, like most of the native Canadians and Yankees. He had a slight stoop in his shoulders, and his long, thin neck was continually stretched out before him, while his restless little cunning eyes were roaming about in search of prey. His face, when well watched, was an index to his selfish and unfeeling soul. Complexion he had none, except that sempiternally enduring red-and-tawny mixture which is acquired by exposure and hard drinking. His cheeks and the corners of his eyes were marked by an infinity of curved lines, and, like most avaricious and deceitful men, he had a long, crooked chin, and that peculiar prominent and slightly aquiline nose which, by people observant of such indications, has been called “the rogue's nose.” But how shall I describe his eye--that small hole through which you can see an honest man's heart? Q----'s eye was like no other eye I had ever seen. His face and mouth could assume a good-natured expression, and smile; but his eye was still the same--it never smiled, but remained cold, hard, dry, and inscrutable. If it had any expression at all, it was an unhappy one. Such were the impressions created by his appearance, when the observer was unobserved by him; for he had the art of concealing the worst traits of his character in an extraordinary degree, and when he suspected that the curious hieroglyphics which Nature had stamped on his visage were too closely scanned, he knew well how to divert the investigator's attention to some other object. He was a humorist, besides, in his way, because he found that jokes and fun admirably served his turn. They helped to throw people off their guard, and to conceal his hang-dog look. He had a hard head, as well as hard heart, and could stand any quantity of drink. His drinking, however, like everything else about him, had a motive; and, instead of trying to appear sober, like other drunkards, he rather wished to appear a little elevated. In addition to his other acquirements, Q---- was a most accomplished gambler. In short, no virtuous man, who employs every passing moment of his short life in doing good to his fellow-creatures, could be more devoted and energetic in his endeavours to serve God and mankind, than Q---- was in his endeavours to ease them of their spare cash. He possessed a great deal of that free-and-easy address and tact which distinguish the Canadians; and, in addition to the current coin of vulgar flattery which is found so useful in all countries, his quick eye could discover the high-minded gentleman by a kind of instinct, which did not seem quite natural to his sordid character, and, knowing that such men are not to be taken by vulgar adulation, he could address them with deferential respect; against which no minds are entirely secure. Thus he wriggled himself into their good graces. After a while the unfavourable impression occasioned by his sinister countenance would become more faint, while his well-feigned kindness and apparent indulgence to his numerous debtors would tell greatly in his favour. My first impression of this man was pretty nearly such as I have described; and, though I suspected and shunned him, I was sure to meet him at every turn. At length this unfavourable feeling wore off in some degree, and finding him in the best society of the place, I began to think that his countenance belied him, and I reproached myself for my ungenerous suspicions. Feeling a certain security in the smallness of my available capital, I did not hesitate in applying to Mr. Q---- to sell me a farm, particularly as I was aware of his anxiety to induce me to settle near C----, for the reasons already stated. I told him that 300 pounds was the very largest sum I could give for a farm, and that, if I could not get one for that price, I should join my friends in the backwoods. Q----, after scratching his head, and considering for a few minutes, told me that he knew a farm which he could sell me for that price, particularly as he wished to get rid of a set of Yankee rascals who prevented emigrants from settling in that neighbourhood. We afterwards found that there was but too good reason for the character he gave of some of our neighbours. Q---- held a mortgage for 150 pounds on a farm belonging to a certain Yankee settler, named Joe H----, as security for a debt incurred for goods at his store, in C----. The idea instantly struck Q---- that he would compel Joe H---- to sell him his farm, by threatening to foreclose the mortgage. I drove out with Mr. Q---- next day to see the farm in question. It was situated in a pretty retired valley, surrounded by hills, about eight miles from C----, and about a mile from the great road leading to Toronto. There was an extensive orchard upon the farm, and two log houses, and a large frame-barn. A considerable portion of the cleared land was light and sandy; and the uncleared part of the farm, situated on the flat, rocky summit of a high hill, was reserved for “a sugar bush,” and for supplying fuel. On the whole, I was pleased with the farm, which was certainly cheap at the price of 300 pounds; and I therefore at once closed the bargain with Mr. Q----. At that time I had not the slightest idea but that the farm actually belonged to the land-jobber; and I am to this day unable to tell by what means he succeeded in getting Mr. H---- to part with his property. The father of Joe H---- had cleared the farm, and while the soil was new it gave good crops; but as the rich surface, or “black muck,” as it is called, became exhausted by continual cropping, nothing but a poor, meagre soil remained. The early settlers were wretched farmers; they never ploughed deep enough, and never thought of manuring the land. After working the land for several years, they would let it lie waste for three or four years without sowing grass-seeds, and then plough it up again for wheat. The greater part of the hay raised on these farms was sold in the towns, and the cattle were fed during the long severe winter on wheat-straw. The natural result of this poor nourishment was, that their cattle continually degenerated, and great numbers died every spring of a disease called the “hollow horn,” which appears to be peculiar to this country. When the lands became sterile, from this exhausting treatment, they were called “worn-out farms;” and the owners generally sold them to new settlers from the old country, and with the money they received, bought a larger quantity of wild lands, to provide for their sons; by whom the same improvident process was recommenced. These early settlers were, in fact, only fit for pioneers to a more thrifty class of settlers. Joe H----, or “Uncle Joe,” as the country people call any acquaintance, after a fashion borrowed, no doubt, from the Dutch settlers of the State of New York, was, neither by his habits nor industry, likely to become more prosperous than his neighbours of the same thoughtless class. His father had worked hard in his time, and Uncle Joe thought he had a good right to enjoy himself. The nearest village was only five miles from his place, and he was never without some excuse for going thither every two or three days. His horse wanted shoeing, or his plough or waggon wanted “to be fixed” by the blacksmith or carpenter. As a matter of course, he came home “pretty high;” for he was in the constant habit of pouring a half-tumbler of whiskey down his throat, standing bolt upright at the bar of the tavern, after which he would drink about the same quantity of cold water to wash it down. These habits together with bad farming, and a lazy, slovenly helpmate, in a few years made Joe as poor as he could desire to be; and at last he was compelled to sell his farm to Mr. Q----. After we had got settled down on this farm, I had often occasion to drive into C----, for the purpose of buying groceries and other necessaries, as we then thought them, at the store of Mr. Q----. On these occasions I always took up my quarters, for the time, at the tavern of our worthy Yankee friend, Mr. S----. As I drove up to the door, I generally found S---- walking about briskly on the boarded platform, or “stoop,” in front of the house, welcoming his guests in his own peculiar free-and-easy style, looking after their horses, and seeing that his people were attentive to their duties. I think I see him now before me with his thin, erect, lathy figure, his snub nose, and puckered-up face, wriggling and twisting himself about, in his desire to please his customers. On stopping in front of the tavern, shortly after our settlement on the farm, Mr. S---- stepped up to me, in the most familiar manner imaginable, holding out his hand quite condescendingly,--“Ah, Mister Moodie, ha-a-w do you do?--and ha-a-w's the old woman?” At first I could not conceive whom he meant by this very homely appellation; and I very simply asked him what person he alluded to, as I had no old woman in my establishment. “Why, _your_ old woman, to be sure--your missus--Mrs. Moodie, I guess. You don't quite understand our language yet.” “O! now I understand you; she's quite well, I thank you; and how is our friend Mrs. S----?” I replied, laying a slight emphasis on the _Mrs_., by way of a gentle hint for his future guidance. “Mrs. S----, I guess she's smart, pret-ty _con_-siderable. She'll be right glad to see you, for you're pretty considerable of a favour-_ite_ with her, I tell you; but now tell me what you will drink?--for it's my treat.” As he said these words, he strutted into the tavern before me, throwing his head and shoulders back, and rising on his tiptoes at every step. Mrs. S---- had been a very handsome woman, and still retained much of her good looks. She was a most exemplary housewife and manager. I was often astonished to witness the incessant toil she had to ensure in attending to the wants of such a numerous household. She had plenty of Irish “helps” in the kitchen; but they knew as much of cookery as they did of astronomy, and poor Mrs. S----'s hands, as well as her head, were in constant requisition. She had two very pretty daughters, whom she would not suffer to do any rough work which would spoil their soft white hands. Mrs. S----, no doubt, foresaw that she could not expect to keep such fair creatures long in such a marrying country as Canada, and, according to the common caution of divines, she held these blessings with a loose hand. There was one sweet little girl, whom I had often seen in her father's arms, with her soft dark eyes, and her long auburn ringlets hanging in wild profusion over his shoulders. “I guess she likes pa, _some_,” Mr. S---- would say when I remarked her fondness for him. This little fairy had a natural genius for music, and though she was only four years old, she would sit for an hour at a time at the door of our room to hear me play on the flute, and would afterwards sing all the airs she picked up, with the sweetest voice in the world. Humble as the calling of a tavern-keeper may be considered in England, it is looked upon in the United States, where Mrs. S---- was “raised,” as extremely respectable; and I have never met with women, in any class of society elsewhere, who possessed more of the good-feeling and unobtrusive manners which should belong to ladies than in the family of this worthy tavern-keeper. When I contrast their genuine kindness and humanity with the haughty, arrogant airs assumed by some ladies of a higher standing in society from England who sojourned in their house at the same time with ourselves--when I remember their insolent way of giving their orders to Mrs. S----, and their still more wounding condescension--I confess I cannot but feel ashamed of my countrywomen. All these patronising airs, I doubt not, were assumed purposely to impress the minds of those worthy people with an idea of their vast superiority. I have sometimes, I confess, been a little annoyed with the familiarity of the Americans, Canadians as well as Yankees; but I must say that experience has taught me to blame myself at least as much as them. If, instead of sending our youthful aristocracy to the continent of Europe, to treat the natives with contempt and increase the unpopularity of the British abroad, while their stock of native arrogance is augmented by the cringing complaisance of those who only bow to their superiority in wealth, they were sent to the United States, or even to Canada, they would receive a lesson or two which would be of infinite service to them; some of their most repulsive prejudices and peculiarities would soon be rubbed off by the rough towel of democracy. It is curious to observe the remarkable diversity in the accounts given by recent emigrants to this country of their treatment, and of the manners and character of the people in the United States and in Canada. Some meet with constant kindness, others with nothing but rudeness and brutality. Of course there is truth in both accounts; but strangers from an aristocratical country do not usually make sufficient allowance for the habits and prejudices of a people of a land, in which, from the comparatively equal distribution of property, and the certain prosperity attendant on industry, the whole constitution of society is necessarily democratical, irrespectively of political institutions. Those who go to such a country with the notion that they will carry everything before them by means of pretence and assumption, will find themselves grievously deceived. To use a homely illustration, it is just as irrational to expect to force a large body through a small aperture. In both cases they will meet with unyielding resistance. When a poor and industrious mechanic, farmer, or labourer comes here without pretensions of any kind, no such complaints are to be heard. He is treated with respect, and every one seems willing to help him forward. If in after-years the manners of such a settler should grow in importance with his prosperity--which is rarely the case--his pretensions would be much more readily tolerated than those of any unknown or untried individual in a higher class of society. The North Americans generally are much more disposed to value people according to the estimate they form of their industry, and other qualities which more directly lead to the acquisition of property, and to the benefit of the community, than for their present and actual wealth. While they pay a certain mock homage to a wealthy immigrant, when they have a motive in doing so, they secretly are more inclined to look on him as a well-fledged goose who has come to America to be plucked. In truth, many of them are so dexterous in this operation that the unfortunate victim is often stripped naked before he is aware that he has lost a feather. There seems to be a fatality attending riches imported into Canada. They are sure to make to themselves wings and flee away, while wealth is no less certain to adhere to the poor and industrious settler. The great fault of the Canadian character is an unwillingness to admit the just claims of education and talent, however unpretending, to some share of consideration. In this respect the Americans of the United States are greatly superior to the Canadians, because they are better educated and their country longer settled. These genuine Republicans, when their theory of the original and natural equality among them is once cheerfully admitted, are ever ready to show respect to _mental_ superiority, whether natural or acquired. My evenings on visiting C---- were usually spent at Mr. S----'s tavern, where I was often much amused with the variety of characters who were there assembled, and who, from the free-and-easy familiarity of the colonial manners, had little chance of concealing their peculiarities from an attentive observer. Mr Q----, of course, was always to be found there, drinking, smoking cigars, and cracking jokes. To a casual observer he appeared to be a regular boon companion without an object but that of enjoying the passing hour. Among his numerous accomplishments, he had learnt a number of sleight-of-hand tricks from the travelling conjurors who visit the country, and are generally willing to sell their secrets singly, at a regulated price. This seemed a curious investment for Q----, but he knew how to turn everything to account. By such means he was enabled to contribute to the amusement of the company, and thus became a kind of favourite. If he could not manage to sell a lot of land to an immigrant or speculator, he would carelessly propose to some of the company to have a game at whist or loo, to pass the time away; and he never failed to conjure most of their money into his pockets. At this time a new character made his appearance at C----, at Mr. B----, an English farmer of the true yeoman breed. He was a short-legged, long-bodied, corpulent little man. He wore a brown coat, with ample skirts, and a vast expanse of vest, with drab-coloured small-clothes and gaiters. B---- was a jolly, good-natured looking man, with an easy blunt manner which might easily pass for honesty. Q---- had sold him a lot of wild land in some out-of-the-way township, by making Mr. B---- believe that he could sell it again very soon, with a handsome profit. Of course his bargain was not a good one. He soon found from its situation that the land was quite unsaleable, there being no settlements in the neighbourhood. Instead of expressing any resentment, he fairly acknowledged that Q---- was his master at a bargain, and gave him full credit for his address and cunning, and quite resolved in his own mind to profit by the lesson he had received. Now, with all their natural acuteness and habitual dexterity in such matters, the Canadians have one weak point; they are too ready to believe that Englishmen are made of money. All that an emigrant has to do to acquire the reputation of having money, is to seem quite easy, and free from care or anxiety for the future, and to maintain a certain degree of reserve in talking of his private affairs. Mr. B---- perfectly understood how to play his cards with the land-jobber; and his fat, jolly physiognomy, and rustic, provincial manners and accent, greatly assisted him in the deception. Every day Q---- drove him out to look at different farms. B---- talked carelessly of buying some large “block” of land, that would have cost him some 3000 or 4000 pounds, providing he could only find the kind of soil he particularly liked for farming purposes. As he seemed to be in no hurry in making his selection, Q---- determined to make him useful, in the meantime, in promoting his views with respect to others. He therefore puffed Mr. B---- up to everybody as a Norfolk farmer of large capital, and always appealed to him to confirm the character he gave of any farm he wished to sell to a new comer. B----, on his side, was not slow in playing into Q----'s hand on these occasions, and without being at all suspected of collusion. In the evening, Mr. B---- would walk into the public room of the tavern, apparently fatigued with his exertions through the day; fling himself carelessly on a sofa, and unbutton his gaiters and the knees of his small-clothes. He took little notice of anybody unless he was spoken to, and his whole demeanour seemed to say, as plainly as words, “I care for nobody, nobody cares for me.” This was just the kind of man for Q----. He instantly saw that he would be an invaluable ally and coadjutor, without seeming to be so. When B---- made his appearance in the evening, Q---- was seldom at the tavern, for his time had not yet come. In the meanwhile, B---- was sure to be drawn gradually into conversation by some emigrants, who, seeing that he was a practical farmer, would be desirous of getting his opinion respecting certain farms which they thought of purchasing. There was such an appearance of blunt simplicity of character about him, that most of these inquirers thought he was forgetting his own interest in telling them so much as he did. In the course of conversation, he would mention several farms he had been looking at with the intention of purchasing, and he would particularly mention some one of them as possessing extraordinary advantages, but which had some one disadvantage which rendered it ineligible for him; such as being too small, a circumstance which, in all probability, would recommend it to another description of settler. It is hard to say whether Q---- was or was not deceived by B----; but though he used him for the present as a decoy, he no doubt expected ultimately to sell him some of his farms, with a very handsome profit. B----, however whose means were probably extremely small, fought shy of buying; and after looking at a number of farms, he told Q---- that, on mature reflection, he thought he could employ his capital more profitably by renting a number of farms, and working them in the English manner, which he felt certain would answer admirably in Canada, instead of sinking his capital at once in the purchase of lands. Q---- was fairly caught; and B---- hired some six or seven farms from him, which he worked for some time, no doubt greatly to his own advantage, for he neither paid rent nor wages. Occasionally, other land-speculators would drop into the tavern, when a curious game would be played between Q---- and them. Once of the speculators would ask another if he did not own some land in a particular part of the country, as he had bought some lots in the same quarter, without seeing them, and would like to know if they were good. The other would answer in the affirmative, and pretend to desire to purchase the lots mentioned. The former, in his turn, would pretend reluctance, and make a similar offer of buying. All this cunning manoeuvring would be continued for a time, in the hope of inducing some third party or stranger to make an offer for the land, which would be accepted. It often happened that some other person, who had hitherto taken no part in the course of these conversations, and who appeared to have no personal interest in the matter, would quietly inform the stranger that he knew the land in question, and that it was all of the very best quality. It would be endless to describe all the little artifices practised by these speculators to induce persons to purchase from them. Besides a few of these unprincipled traders in land, some of whom are found in most of the towns, there are a large number of land-speculators who own both wild and improved farms in all parts of the colony who do not descend to these discreditable arts, but wait quietly until their lands become valuable by the progress of improvement in their neighbourhood, when they readily find purchasers--or, rather, the purchasers find them out, and obtain their lands at reasonable prices. In 1832, when we came to Canada, a great speculation was carried on in the lands of the U.E. (or United Empire) Loyalists. The sons and daughters of these loyalists, who had fled to Canada from the United States at the time of the revolutionary war, were entitled to free grants of lots of wild land. Besides these, few free grants of land were made by the British Government, except those made to half-pay officers of the army and navy, and of course there was a rapid rise in their value. Almost all the persons entitled to such grants had settled in the eastern part of the Upper Province, and as the large emigration which had commenced to Canada had chiefly flowed into the more western part of the colony, they were, in general, ignorant of the increased value of their lands, and were ready to sell them for a mere trifle. They were bought by the speculators at from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 9d. per acre, and often for much less, and were sold again, with an enormous profit, at from 5s. to 20s., and sometimes even 40s. per acre, according to their situation. As to personally examining these lands, it was a thing never thought of, for their price was so low that it was almost impossible to lose by the purchase. The supply of U.E. Loyalists' lands, or claims for land, for a long time seemed to be almost inexhaustible; for the loyal refugees appear to have been prolific beyond all precedent, and most of those who held office at the capital of the province, or who could command a small capital, became speculators and throve prodigiously. Many persons, during the early days of the colony, were thus enriched, without risk or labour, from the inexhaustible “quivers” of the U.E. Loyalists. Though the bulk of the speculators bought lands at haphazard, certain parties who found favour at the government offices managed to secure the best lands which were for sale or location, before they were exposed to fair competition at the periodical public sales in the different districts. Thus a large portion of the wild lands in the colony were and are still held: the absentee proprietors profiting from the increased value given to their property by the improvements of the actual settlers, while they contribute little or nothing to the cultivation of the country. The progress of the colony has thus been retarded, and its best interests sacrificed, to gratify the insatiable cupidity of a clique who boasted the exclusive possession of all the loyalty in the country; and every independent man who dared to raise his voice against such abuses was branded as a Republican. Mr. Q---- dealt largely in these “U.E. Rights,” as they were called, and so great was the emigration in 1832 that the lands he bought at 2s. 6d. per acre he could readily sell again to emigrants and Canadians at from 5s. to 15s. per acre, according to situation and the description of purchasers he met with. I have stated that the speculators generally buy lands at hap-hazard. By this I mean as to the quality of the lands. All colonists accustomed to observe the progress of settlement, and the local advantages which hasten improvement, acquire a peculiar sagacity in such matters. Unfortunately for many old countrymen, they are generally entirely destitute of this kind of knowledge, which is only acquired by long observation and experience in colonies. The knowledge of the causes which promote the rapid settlement of a new country, and of those in general which lead to the improvement of the physical condition of mankind may be compared to the knowledge of a language. The inhabitant of a civilised and long-settled country may speak and write his own language with the greatest purity, but very few ever reflect on the amount of thought, metaphor, and ingenuity which has been expended by their less civilised ancestors in bringing that language to perfection. The barbarian first feels the disadvantage of a limited means of communicating his ideas, and with great labour and ingenuity devises the means, from time to time, to remedy the imperfections of his language. He is compelled to analyse and study it in its first elements, and to augment the modes of expression in order to keep pace with the increasing number of his wants and ideas. A colony bears the same relation to an old-settled country that a grammar does to a language. In a colony, society is seen in its first elements, the country itself is in its rudest and simplest form. The colonist knows them in this primitive state, and watches their progress step by step. In this manner he acquires an intimate knowledge of the philosophy of improvement, which is almost unattainable by an individual who has lived from his childhood in a highly complex and artificial state of society, where everything around him was formed and arranged long before he came into the world; he sees the effects, the causes existed long before his time. His place in society--his portion of the wealth of the country--his prejudices--his religion itself, if he has any, are all more or less hereditary. He is in some measure a mere machine, or rather a part of one. He is a creature of education, rather than of original thought. The colonist has to create--he has to draw on his own stock of ideas, and to rouse up all his latent energies to meet all his wants in his new position. Thus his thinking principle is strengthened, and he is more energetic. When a moderate share of education is added to these advantages--for they are advantages in one sense--he becomes a superior being. I have indulged in these reflections, with manifest risk of being thought somewhat prosy by my more lively readers, in order to guard my countrymen, English, Scotch, and Irish, against a kind of presumption which is exceedingly common among them when they come to Canada--of fancying that they are as capable of forming correct opinions on local matters as the Canadians themselves. It is always somewhat humbling to our self-love to be compelled to confess what may be considered an error of judgment, but my desire to guard future settlers against similar mistakes overpowers my reluctance to own that I fell into the common error of many of my countrymen, of purchasing wild land, on speculation, with a very inadequate capital. This was one of the chief causes of much suffering, in which for many years my family became involved; but through which, supported by trust in Providence, and the energy of a devoted partner, I continued by her aid to struggle, until when least expected, the light of hope at length dawned upon us. In reflecting on this error--for error and imprudence it was, even though the result had been fortunate--I have still this poor comfort, that there was not one in a hundred of persons similarly situated but fell into the same mistake, of trusting too much to present appearances, without sufficient experience in the country. I had, as I have already stated, about 300 pounds when I arrived in Canada. This sum was really advantageously invested in a cleared farm, which possessed an intrinsic and not a merely speculative value. Afterwards a small legacy of about 700 pounds fell into my hands, and had I contented myself with this farm, and purchased two adjoining cleared farms containing two hundred acres of land of the finest quality which were sold far below their value by the thriftless owners, I should have done well, or at all events have invested my money profitably. But the temptation to buy wild land at 5s. an acre, which was expected to double in value in a few months, with the example of many instances of similar speculation proving successful which came under my notice, proved irresistible. In 1832 emigration was just at its height, and a great number of emigrants, several of whom were of the higher class, and possessed of considerable capital, were directed to the town of C----, in the rear of which extensive tracts of land were offered to settlers at the provincial government sales. Had this extensive emigration continued, I should have been enabled to double my capital, by selling my wild lands to settlers; but, unfortunately, the prevalence of cholera during that year, and other causes, gave such a serious check to emigration to Canada that it has never been renewed to the same extent since that time. Besides the chance of a check to emigration generally, the influx of strangers is often extremely capricious in the direction it takes, flowing one year into one particular locality, and afterwards into another. Both these results, neither of which was foreseen by any one, unfortunately for me, ensued just at that time. It seemed natural that emigrants should flow into a fertile tract of land, and emigration was confidently expected steadily to increase; these were our anticipations, but neither of them was realised. Were it suitable to the character of these sketches, I would enter into the subject of emigration and the progress of improvement in Canada, respecting which my judgment has been matured by experience and observation; but such considerations would be out of place in volumes like the present, and I shall therefore proceed with my narrative. I had obtained my cleared farm on easy terms, and, in so far as the probability of procuring a comfortable subsistence was concerned, we had no reason to complain; but comfort and happiness do not depend entirely on a sufficiency of the necessaries of life. Some of our neighbours were far from being agreeable to us. Being fresh from England, it could hardly be expected that we could at once accommodate ourselves to the obtrusive familiarity of persons who had no conception of any differences in taste or manners arising from education and habits acquired in a more refined state of society. I allude more particularly to some rude and demoralised American farmers from the United States, who lived in our immediate neighbourhood. Our neighbours from the same country were worthy, industrious people; but, on the whole, the evil greatly predominated over the good amongst them. At a few miles' distance from our farm, we had some intelligent English neighbours, of a higher class; but they were always so busily occupied with their farming operations that they had little leisure or inclination for that sort of easy intercourse to which we had been accustomed. If we called in the forenoon, we generally found our neighbour hard at work in the fields, and his wife over head and ears in her domestic occupations. We had to ring the bell repeatedly before we could gain admittance, to allow her time to change her ordinary dress. Long before this could be effected, or we could enter the door, sundry reconnoitring parties of the children would peep at us round the corners of the house, and then scamper off to make their reports. It seems strange that sensible people should not at once see the necessity of accommodating their habits to their situation and circumstances, and receive their friends without appearing to be ashamed of their employments. This absurdity, however, is happily confined to the would-be-genteel people in the country, who visit in the towns, and occasionally are ambitious enough to give large parties to the aristocracy of the towns. The others, who do not pretend to vie with the townspeople in such follies, are a great deal more easy and natural in their manners, and more truly independent and hospitable. Now that we are better acquainted with the country, we much prefer the conversation of the intelligent and unpretending class of farmers, who, though their education has been limited, often possess a rich fund of strong commonsense and liberality of sentiment, and not unfrequently great observation and originality of mind. At the period I refer to, a number of the American settlers from the United States, who composed a considerable part of the population, regarded British settlers with an intense feeling of dislike, and found a pleasure in annoying and insulting them when any occasion offered. They did not understand us, nor did we them, and they generally mistook the reserve which is common with the British towards strangers for pride and superciliousness. “You Britishers are too superstitious,” one of them told me on a particular occasion. It was some time before I found out what he meant by the term “superstitious,” and that it was generally used by them for “supercilious.” New settlers of the lower classes were then in the habit of imitating their rudeness and familiarity, which they mistook for independence. To a certain extent, this feeling still exists amongst the working class from Europe, but they have learnt to keep it within prudent bounds for their own sakes; and the higher class have learnt to moderate their pretensions, which will not be tolerated here, where labourers are less dependent on them for employment. The character of both classes, in fact, has been altered very much for the better, and a better and healthier feeling exists between them--much more so, indeed, than in England. The labouring class come to this country, too often with the idea that the higher class are their tyrants and oppressors; and, with a feeling akin to revenge, they are often inclined to make their employers in Canada suffer in their turn. This feeling is the effect of certain depressing causes, often remote and beyond the reach of legislation, but no less real on that account; and just in proportion to the degree of poverty and servility which exists among the labouring class in the particular part of the United Kingdom from which they come, will be the reaction here. When emigrants have been some years settled in Canada, they find out their particular and just position, as well as their duties and interests, and then they begin to feel truly happy. The fermentation arising from the strange mixture of discordant elements and feelings gradually subsides, but until this takes place, the state of society is anything but agreeable or satisfactory. Such was its state at C----, in 1832; and to us it was distasteful, that though averse, for various reasons, to commence a new settlement, we began to listen to the persuasions of our friends, who were settled in the township of D----, about forty miles from C----, and who were naturally anxious to induce us to settle among them. Mrs. Moodie's brother, S----, had recently formed a settlement in that township, and just before our arrival in Canada had been joined by an old brother officer and countryman of mine, Mr. T----, who was married to Mrs. Moodie's sister. The latter, who like myself, was a half-pay officer, had purchased a lot of wild land, close to the farm occupied by S----. Mr. S---- S---- had emigrated to Canada while quite a youth, and was thoroughly acquainted with the backwoods, and with the use of the felling-axe, which he wielded with all the ease and dexterity of a native. I had already paid some flying visits to the backwoods and found the state of society, though rude and rough, more congenial to our European tastes and habits, for several gentlemen of liberal education were settled in the neighbourhood, among whom there was a constant interchange of visits and good offices. All these gentlemen had recently arrived from England, Ireland, or Scotland, and all the labouring class were also fresh from the old country and consequently very little change had taken place in the manners or feelings of either class. There we felt we could enjoy the society of those who could sympathise with our tastes and prejudices, and who, from inclination as well as necessity, were inclined to assist each other in their farming operations. There is no situation in which men feel more the necessity of mutual assistance than in clearing land. Alone, a man may fell the trees on a considerable extent of woodland; but without the assistance of two or three others, he cannot pile up the logs previous to burning. Common labours and common difficulties, as among comrades during a campaign, produce a social unity of feeling among backwoods-men. There is, moreover, a peculiar charm in the excitement of improving a wilderness for the benefit of children and posterity; there is in it, also, that consciousness of usefulness which forms so essential an ingredient in true happiness. Every tree that falls beneath the axe opens a wider prospect, and encourages the settler to persevere in his efforts to attain independence. Mr. S---- had secured for me a portion of the military grant of four hundred acres, which I was entitled to as a half-pay officer, in his immediate neighbourhood. Though this portion amounted to only sixty acres, it was so far advantageous to me as being in a settled part of the country. I bought a clergy reserve of two hundred acres, in the rear of the sixty acres for 1 pound per acre, for which immediately afterwards I was offered 2 pounds per acre, for at that period there was such an influx of settlers into that locality that lands had risen rapidly to a fictitious price. I had also purchased one hundred acres more for 1 pound 10s. per acre, from a private individual; this also was considered cheap at the time. These lots, forming altogether a compact farm of three hundred and sixty acres, were situated on the sloping banks of a beautiful lake, or, rather, expansion of the river Otonabee, about half-a-mile wide, and studded with woody islets. From this lake I afterwards procured many a good meal for my little family, when all other means of obtaining food had failed us. I thus secured a tract of land which was amply sufficient for the comfortable subsistence of a family, had matters gone well with me. It should be distinctly borne in mind by the reader, that uncleared land in a remote situation from markets possesses, properly speaking, no intrinsic value, like cleared land, for a great deal of labour or money must be expended before it can be made to produce anything to sell. My half-pay, which amounted to about 100 pounds per annum of Canadian currency, was sufficient to keep us supplied with food, and to pay for clearing a certain extent of land, say ten acres every year, for wheat, which is immediately afterwards sown with grass-seeds to supply hay for the cattle during winter. Unfortunately, at this period, a great change took place in my circumstances, which it was impossible for the most prudent or cautious to have foreseen. An intimation from the War-office appeared in all the newspapers, calling on half-pay officers either to sell their commissions or to hold themselves in readiness to join some regiment. This was a hard alternative, as many of these officers were situated; for a great many of them had been tempted to emigrate to Canada by the grants of land which were offered them by government, and had expended all their means in improving these grants, which were invariably given to them in remote situations, where they were worse than worthless to any class of settlers but those who could command sufficient labour in their own families to make the necessary clearings and improvements. Rather than sell my commission, I would at once have made up my mind to join a regiment in any part of the world; but, when I came to think of the matter, I recollected that the expense of an outfit, and of removing my family--to say nothing of sacrificing my property in the colony--would render it utterly impossible for me to accept this unpleasant alternative after being my own master for eighteen years, and after effectually getting rid of all the habits which render a military life attractive to a young man. Under these circumstances, I too hastily determined to sell out of the army. This, of course, was easily managed. I expected to get about 600 pounds for my commission; and, before the transaction was concluded, I was inquiring anxiously for some mode of investing the proceeds, as to yield a yearly income. Unfortunately, as it turned out, I made a bargain with Mr. Q---- for twenty-five shares, of 25 pounds each, in a fine steamer, which had just been built at C----, and which was expected to pay at least twenty-five per cent. to the shareholders. This amount of stock Q---- offered me for the proceeds of my commission, whatever amount it might be sold for; offering at the same time to return all he should receive above 600 pounds sterling. As I had nothing but his word for this part of the agreement, he did not recollect it when he obtained 700 pounds, which was 100 pounds more than I expected. Some boats on Lake Ontario, while the great emigration lasted, and there was less competition, yielded more than thirty per cent.; and there seemed then no reason to doubt that the new boat would be equally profitable. It is possible that Q---- foresaw what actually happened; or, more probably, he thought he could employ his money better in land speculations. As soon as the steamer began to run, a quarrel took place between the shareholders who resided at C----, where she was built, and those who lived at the capital of the Upper Province--York, as it was then called. The consequence was that she remained idle a long time, and at last she came under the entire control of the shareholders at York, who managed the boat as they liked, and to suit their own interests. Afterwards, though the boat continued to be profitably employed, somehow or other all her earnings were consumed in repairs, &c., and for several years I never received a penny for my shares. At last the steamer was sold, and I only received about a fourth part of my original stock. This, as may be supposed, was a bitter disappointment to me; for I had every reason to think that I had not only invested my money well, but very profitably, judging from the profits of the other boats on the lake. Had I received the proceeds of my commission, and bought bank stock in the colony--which then and still yields eight per cent.--my 700 pounds sterling, equal to 840 pounds currency, would have given me 60 pounds per annum, which, with my own labour, would have kept my family tolerably well, have helped to pay servants, and have saved us all much privation and harassing anxiety. Having thus supplied the painful details of a transaction, a knowledge of which was necessary to explain many circumstances in our situation, otherwise unintelligible, I shall proceed with my narrative. The government did not carry out its intention with respect to half-pay officers in the colonies; but many officers, like myself, had already sold their commissions, under the apprehension of being compelled to accept this hard alternative. I was suddenly thrown on my own resources, to support a helpless and increasing family, without any regular income. I had this consolation, however, under my misfortune, that I had acted from the best motives, and without the most remote idea that I was risking the comfort and happiness of those depending upon me. I found very soon, that I had been too precipitate, as people often are in extraordinary positions; though, had the result been more fortunate, most people would have commended my prudence and foresight. We determined, however, to bear up manfully against our ill-fortune, and trust to that Providence which never deserts those who do not forget their own duties in trying circumstances. It is curious how, on such occasions, some stray stanzas which hang about the outskirts of the memory, will suddenly come to our aid. Thus, I often caught myself humming over some of the verses of that excellent moral song “The Pilot,” and repeating, with a peculiar emphasis, the concluding lines of each stanza, “Fear not! but trust in Providence, Wherever thou may'st be.” Such songs do good; and a peculiar blessing seems to attend every composition, in prose or verse, which inculcates good moral sentiments, or tends to strengthen our virtuous resolutions. This fine song, I feel assured, will live embalmed in the memory of mankind long after the sickly, affected, and unnatural ditties of its author have gone to their merited oblivion. Sometimes, however, in spite of my good resolutions, when left alone, the dark clouds of despondency would close around me, and I could not help contrasting the happy past in our life with my gloomy anticipations of the future. Sleep, which should bring comfort and refreshment, often only aggravated my painful regrets, by recalling scenes which had nearly escaped my waking memory. In such a mood the following verses were written:-- OH, LET ME SLEEP! Oh, let me sleep! nor wake to sadness The heart that, sleeping, dreams of gladness; For sleep is death, without the pain-- Then wake me not to life again. Oh, let me sleep! nor break the spell That soothes the captive in his cell; That bursts his chains, and sets him free, To revel in his liberty. Loved scenes, array'd in tenderest hue, Now rise in beauty to my view; And long-lost friends around me stand, Or, smiling, grasp my willing hand. Again I seek my island home; Along the silent bays I roam, Or, seated on the rocky shore, I hear the angry surges roar. And oh, how sweet the music seems I've heard amid my blissful dreams! But of the sadly pleasing strains, Nought save the thrilling sense remains. Those sounds so loved in scenes so dear, Still--still they murmur in my ear: But sleep alone can bless the sight With forms that face with morning's light. J.W.D.M. CHAPTER XIV A JOURNEY TO THE WOODS 'Tis well for us poor denizens of earth That God conceals the future from our gaze; Or Hope, the blessed watcher on Life's tower, Would fold her wings, and on the dreary waste Close the bright eye that through the murky clouds Of blank Despair still sees the glorious sun. It was a bright frosty morning when I bade adieu to the farm, the birthplace of my little Agnes, who, nestled beneath my cloak, was sweetly sleeping on my knee, unconscious of the long journey before us into the wilderness. The sun had not as yet risen. Anxious to get to our place of destination before dark, we started as early as we could. Our own fine team had been sold the day before for forty pounds; and one of our neighbours, a Mr. D----, was to convey us and our household goods to Douro for the sum of twenty dollars. During the week he had made several journeys, with furniture and stores; and all that now remained was to be conveyed to the woods in two large lumber sleighs, one driven by himself, the other by a younger brother. It was not without regret that I left Melsetter, for so my husband had called the place, after his father's estate in Orkney. It was a beautiful, picturesque spot; and, in spite of the evil neighbourhood, I had learned to love it; indeed, it was much against my wish that it was sold. I had a great dislike to removing, which involves a necessary loss, and is apt to give to the emigrant roving and unsettled habits. But all regrets were now useless; and happily unconscious of the life of toil and anxiety that awaited us in those dreadful woods, I tried my best to be cheerful, and to regard the future with a hopeful eye. Our driver was a shrewd, clever man, for his opportunities. He took charge of the living cargo, which consisted of my husband, our maid-servant, the two little children, and myself--besides a large hamper, full of poultry, a dog, and a cat. The lordly sultan of the imprisoned seraglio thought fit to conduct himself in a very eccentric manner, for at every barn-yard we happened to pass, he clapped his wings, and crowed so long and loud that it afforded great amusement to the whole party, and doubtless was very edifying to the poor hens, who lay huddled together as mute as mice. “That 'ere rooster thinks he's on the top of the heap,” said our driver, laughing. “I guess he's not used to travelling in a close conveyance. Listen! How all the crowers in the neighbourhood give him back a note of defiance! But he knows that he's safe enough at the bottom of the basket.” The day was so bright for the time of year (the first week in February), that we suffered no inconvenience from the cold. Little Katie was enchanted with the jingling of the sleigh-bells, and, nestled among the packages, kept singing or talking to the horses in her baby lingo. Trifling as these little incidents were, before we had proceeded ten miles on our long journey, they revived my drooping spirits, and I began to feel a lively interest in the scenes through which we were passing. The first twenty miles of the way was over a hilly and well-cleared country; and as in winter the deep snow fills up the inequalities, and makes all roads alike, we glided as swiftly and steadily along as if they had been the best highways in the world. Anon, the clearings began to diminish, and tall woods arose on either side of the path; their solemn aspect, and the deep silence that brooded over their vast solitudes, inspiring the mind with a strange awe. Not a breath of wind stirred the leafless branches, whose huge shadows reflected upon the dazzling white covering of snow, lay so perfectly still, that it seemed as if Nature had suspended her operations, that life and motion had ceased, and that she was sleeping in her winding-sheet, upon the bier of death. “I guess you will find the woods pretty lonesome,” said our driver, whose thoughts had been evidently employed on the same subject as our own. “We were once in the woods, but emigration has stepped ahead of us, and made our'n a cleared part of the country. When I was a boy, all this country, for thirty miles on every side of us, was bush land. As to Peterborough, the place was unknown; not a settler had ever passed through the great swamp, and some of them believed that it was the end of the world.” “What swamp is that?” asked I. “Oh, the great Cavan swamp. We are just two miles from it; and I tell you that the horses will need a good rest, and ourselves a good dinner, by the time we are through it. Ah, Mrs. Moodie, if ever you travel that way in summer, you will know something about corduroy roads. I was 'most jolted to death last fall; I thought it would have been no bad notion to have insured my teeth before I left C----. I really expected that they would have been shook out of my head before we had done manoeuvring over the big logs.” “How will my crockery stand it in the next sleigh?” quoth I. “If the road is such as you describe, I am afraid that I shall not bring a whole plate to Douro.” “Oh, the snow is a great leveller--it makes all rough places smooth. But with regard to this swamp, I have something to tell you. About ten years ago, no one had ever seen the other side of it; and if pigs or cattle strayed away into it, they fell a prey to the wolves and bears, and were seldom recovered. “An old Scotch emigrant, who had located himself on this side of it, so often lost his beasts that he determined during the summer season to try and explore the place, and see if there were any end to it. So he takes an axe on his shoulder, and a bag of provisions for a week, not forgetting a flask of whiskey, and off he starts all alone, and tells his wife that if he never returned, she and little Jock must try and carry on the farm without him; but he was determined to see the end of the swamp, even if it led to the other world. He fell upon a fresh cattle-track, which he followed all that day; and towards night he found himself in the heart of a tangled wilderness of bushes, and himself half eaten up with mosquitoes and black-flies. He was more than tempted to give in, and return home by the first glimpse of light. “The Scotch are a tough people; they are not easily daunted--a few difficulties only seem to make them more eager to get on; and he felt ashamed the next moment, as he told me, of giving up. So he finds out a large thick cedar-tree for his bed, climbs up, and coiling himself among the branches like a bear, he was soon fast asleep. “The next morning, by daylight, he continued his journey, not forgetting to blaze with his axe the trees to the right and left as he went along. The ground was so spongy and wet that at every step he plunged up to his knees in water, but he seemed no nearer the end of the swamp than he had been the day before. He saw several deer, a raccoon, and a ground-hog, during his walk, but was unmolested by bears or wolves. Having passed through several creeks, and killed a great many snakes, he felt so weary towards the close of the second day that he determined to go home the next morning. But just as he began to think his search was fruitless he observed that the cedars and tamaracks which had obstructed his path became less numerous, and were succeeded by bass and soft maple. The ground, also, became less moist, and he was soon ascending a rising slope, covered with oak and beech, which shaded land of the very best quality. The old man was now fully convinced that he had cleared the great swamp; and that, instead of leading to the other world, it had conducted him to a country that would yield the very best returns for cultivation. His favourable report led to the formation of the road that we are about to cross, and to the settlement of Peterborough, which is one of the most promising new settlements in this district, and is surrounded by a splendid back country.” We were descending a very steep hill, and encountered an ox-sleigh, which was crawling slowly up it in a contrary direction. Three people were seated at the bottom of the vehicle upon straw, which made a cheap substitute for buffalo-robes. Perched, as we were, upon the crown of the height, we looked completely down into the sleigh, and during the whole course of my life I never saw three uglier mortals collected into such a narrow space. The man was blear-eyed, with a hare-lip, through which protruded two dreadful yellow teeth that resembled the tusks of a boar. The woman was long-faced, high cheek-boned, red-haired, and freckled all over like a toad. The boy resembled his hideous mother, but with the addition of a villanous obliquity of vision which rendered him the most disgusting object in this singular trio. As we passed them, our driver gave a knowing nod to my husband, directing, at the same time, the most quizzical glance towards the strangers, as he exclaimed, “We are in luck, sir! I think that 'ere sleigh may be called Beauty's egg-basket!” We made ourselves very merry at the poor people's expense, and Mr. D----, with his odd stories and Yankeefied expressions, amused the tedium of our progress through the great swamp, which in summer presents for several miles one uniform bridge of rough and unequal logs, all laid loosely across huge sleepers, so that they jump up and down, when pressed by the wheels, like the keys of a piano. The rough motion and jolting occasioned by this collision is so distressing that it never fails to entail upon the traveller sore bones and an aching head for the rest of the day. The path is so narrow over these logs that two waggons cannot pass without great difficulty, which is rendered more dangerous by the deep natural ditches on either side of the bridge, formed by broad creeks that flow out of the swamp, and often terminate in mud-holes of very ominous dimensions. The snow, however, hid from us all the ugly features of the road, and Mr. D---- steered us through in perfect safety, and landed us at the door of a little log house which crowned the steep hill on the other side of the swamp, and which he dignified with the name of a tavern. It was now two o'clock. We had been on the road since seven; and men, women, and children were all ready for the good dinner that Mr. D---- had promised us at this splendid house of entertainment, where we were destined to stay for two hours, to refresh ourselves and rest the horses. “Well, Mrs. J----, what have you got for our dinner?” said our driver, after he had seen to the accommodation of his teams. “Pritters[1] and pork, sir. Nothing else to be had in the woods. Thank God, we have enough of that!” [1] Vulgar Canadian for potatoes. D---- shrugged up his shoulders, and looked at us. “We've plenty of that same at home. But hunger's good sauce. Come, be spry, widow, and see about it, for I am very hungry.” I inquired for a private room for myself and the children, but there were no private rooms in the house. The apartment we occupied was like the cobbler's stall in the old song, and I was obliged to attend upon them in public. “You have much to learn, ma'am, if you are going to the woods,” said Mrs. J----. “To unlearn, you mean,” said Mr. D----. “To tell you the truth, Mrs. Moodie, ladies and gentlemen have no business in the woods. Eddication spoils man or woman for that location. So, widow (turning to our hostess), you are not tired of living alone yet?” “No, sir; I have no wish for a second husband. I had enough of the first. I like to have my own way--to lie down mistress, and get up master.” “You don't like to be put out of your old way,” returned he, with a mischievous glance. She coloured very red; but it might be the heat of the fire over which she was frying the pork for our dinner. I was very hungry, but I felt no appetite for the dish she was preparing for us. It proved salt, hard, and unsavoury. D---- pronounced it very bad, and the whiskey still worse, with which he washed it down. I asked for a cup of tea and a slice of bread. But they were out of tea, and the hop-rising had failed, and there was no bread in the house. For this disgusting meal we paid at the rate of a quarter of a dollar a-head. I was glad when the horses being again put to, we escaped from the rank odour of the fried pork, and were once more in the fresh air. “Well, mister; did not you grudge your money for that bad meat?” said D----, when we were once more seated in the sleigh. “But in these parts, the worse the fare the higher the charge.” “I would not have cared,” said I, “if I could have got a cup of tea.” “Tea! it's poor trash. I never could drink tea in my life. But I like coffee, when 'tis boiled till it's quite black. But coffee is not good without plenty of trimmings.” “What do you mean by trimmings?” He laughed. “Good sugar, and sweet cream. Coffee is not worth drinking without trimmings.” Often in after years have I recalled the coffee trimmings, when endeavouring to drink the vile stuff which goes by the name of coffee in the houses of entertainment in the country. We had now passed through the narrow strip of clearing which surrounded the tavern, and again entered upon the woods. It was near sunset, and we were rapidly descending a steep hill, when one of the traces that held our sleigh suddenly broke. D---- pulled up in order to repair the damage. His brother's team was close behind, and our unexpected stand-still brought the horses upon us before J. D---- could stop them. I received so violent a blow from the head of one of them, just in the back of the neck, that for a few minutes I was stunned and insensible. When I recovered, I was supported in the arms of my husband, over whose knees I was leaning, and D---- was rubbing my hands and temples with snow. “There, Mr. Moodie, she's coming to. I thought she was killed. I have seen a man before now killed by a blow from a horse's head in the like manner.” As soon as we could, we resumed our places in the sleigh; but all enjoyment of our journey, had it been otherwise possible, was gone. When we reached Peterborough, Moodie wished us to remain at the inn all night, as we had still eleven miles of our journey to perform, and that through a blazed forest-road, little travelled, and very much impeded by fallen trees and other obstacles; but D---- was anxious to get back as soon as possible to his own home, and he urged us very pathetically to proceed. The moon arose during our stay at the inn, and gleamed upon the straggling frame-houses which then formed the now populous and thriving town of Peterborough. We crossed the wild, rushing, beautiful Otonabee river by a rude bridge, and soon found ourselves journeying over the plains or level heights beyond the village, which were thinly wooded with picturesque groups of oak and pine, and very much resembled a gentleman's park at home. Far below, to our right (for we were upon the Smith-town side) we heard the rushing of the river, whose rapid waters never receive curb from the iron chain of winter. Even while the rocky banks are coated with ice, and the frost-king suspends from every twig and branch the most beautiful and fantastic crystals, the black waters rush foaming along, a thick steam rising constantly above the rapids, as from a boiling pot. The shores vibrate and tremble beneath the force of the impetuous flood, as it whirls round cedar-crowned islands and opposing rocks, and hurries on to pour its tribute into the Rice Lake, to swell the calm, majestic grandeur of the Trent, till its waters are lost in the beautiful bay of Quinte, and finally merged in the blue ocean of Ontario. The most renowned of our English rivers dwindle into little muddy rills when compared with the sublimity of the Canadian waters. No language can adequately express the solemn grandeur of her lake and river scenery; the glorious islands that float, like visions from fairy land, upon the bosom of these azure mirrors of her cloudless skies. No dreary breadth of marshes, covered with flags, hide from our gaze the expanse of heaven-tinted waters; no foul mud-banks spread their unwholesome exhalations around. The rocky shores are crowned with the cedar, the birch, the alder, and soft maple, that dip their long tresses in the pure stream; from every crevice in the limestone the hare-bell and Canadian rose wave their graceful blossoms. The fiercest droughts of summer may diminish the volume and power of these romantic streams, but it never leaves their rocky channels bare, nor checks the mournful music of their dancing waves. Through the openings in the forest, we now and then caught the silver gleam of the river tumbling on in moonlight splendour, while the hoarse chiding of the wind in the lofty pines above us gave a fitting response to the melancholy cadence of the waters. The children had fallen asleep. A deep silence pervaded the party. Night was above us with her mysterious stars. The ancient forest stretched around us on every side, and a foreboding sadness sunk upon my heart. Memory was busy with the events of many years. I retraced step by step the pilgrimage of my past life, until arriving at that passage in its sombre history, I gazed through tears upon the singularly savage scene around me, and secretly marvelled, “What brought me here?” “Providence,” was the answer which the soul gave. “Not for your own welfare, perhaps, but for the welfare of your children, the unerring hand of the Great Father has led you here. You form a connecting link in the destinies of many. It is impossible for any human creature to live for himself alone. It may be your lot to suffer, but others will reap a benefit from your trials. Look up with confidence to Heaven, and the sun of hope will yet shed a cheering beam through the forbidding depths of this tangled wilderness.” The road now became so bad that Mr. D---- was obliged to dismount, and lead his horses through the more intricate passages. The animals themselves, weary with their long journey and heavy load, proceeded at foot-fall. The moon, too, had deserted us, and the only light we had to guide us through the dim arches of the forest was from the snow and the stars, which now peered down upon us, through the leafless branches of the trees, with uncommon brilliancy. “It will be past midnight before we reach your brother's clearing” (where we expected to spend the night), said D----. “I wish, Mr. Moodie, we had followed your advice, and staid at Peterborough. How fares it with you, Mrs. Moodie, and the young ones? It is growing very cold.” We were now in the heart of a dark cedar-swamp, and my mind was haunted with visions of wolves and bears; but beyond the long, wild howl of a solitary wolf, no other sound awoke the sepulchral silence of that dismal-looking wood. “What a gloomy spot!” said I to my husband. “In the old country, superstition would people it with ghosts.” “Ghosts! There are no ghosts in Canada!” said Mr. D----. “The country is too new for ghosts. No Canadian is afear'd of ghosts. It is only in old countries, like your'n, that are full of sin and wickedness, that people believe in such nonsense. No human habitation has ever been erected in this wood through which you are passing. Until a very few years ago, few white persons had ever passed through it; and the Red Man would not pitch his tent in such a place as this. Now, ghosts, as I understand the word, are the spirits of bad men that are not allowed by Providence to rest in their graves but, for a punishment, are made to haunt the spots where their worst deeds were committed. I don't believe in all this; but, supposing it to be true, bad men must have died here before their spirits could haunt the place. Now, it is more than probable that no person ever ended his days in this forest, so that it would be folly to think of seeing his ghost.” This theory of Mr. D----'s had the merit of originality, and it is not improbable that the utter disbelief in supernatural appearances which is common to most native-born Canadians, is the result of the same very reasonable mode of arguing. The unpeopled wastes of Canada must present the same aspect to the new settler that the world did to our first parents after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden; all the sin which could defile the spot, or haunt it with the association of departed evil, is concentrated in their own persons. Bad spirits cannot be supposed to linger near a place where crime has never been committed. The belief in ghosts, so prevalent in old countries, must first have had its foundation in the consciousness of guilt. After clearing this low, swampy portion of the wood, with much difficulty, and the frequent application of the axe, to cut away the fallen timber that impeded our progress, our ears were assailed by a low, roaring, rushing sound, as of the falling of waters. “That is Herriot's Falls,” said our guide. “We are within two miles of our destination.” Oh, welcome sound! But those two miles appeared more lengthy than the whole journey. Thick clouds, that threatened a snow-storm, had blotted out the stars, and we continued to grope our way through a narrow, rocky path, upon the edge of the river, in almost total darkness. I now felt the chillness of the midnight hour, and the fatigue of the long journey, with double force, and envied the servant and children, who had been sleeping ever since we left Peterborough. We now descended the steep bank, and prepared to cross the rapids. Dark as it was, I looked with a feeling of dread upon the foaming waters as they tumbled over their bed of rocks, their white crests flashing, life-like, amid the darkness of the night. “This is an ugly bridge over such a dangerous place,” said D----, as he stood up in the sleigh and urged his tired team across the miserable, insecure log bridge, where darkness and death raged below, and one false step of his jaded horses would have plunged us into both. I must confess I drew a freer breath when the bridge was crossed, and D---- congratulated us on our safe arrival in Douro. We now continued our journey along the left bank of the river, but when in sight of Mr. S----'s clearing, a large pine-tree, which had newly fallen across the narrow path, brought the teams to a standstill. The mighty trunk which had lately formed one of the stately pillars in the sylvan temple of Nature, was of too large dimensions to chop in two with axes; and after about half an hour's labour, which to me, poor, cold, weary wight! seemed an age, the males of the party abandoned the task in despair. To go round it was impossible; its roots were concealed in an impenetrable wall of cedar-jungle on the right-hand side of the road, and its huge branches hung over the precipitous bank of the river. “We must try and make the horses jump over it,” said D----. “We may get an upset, but there is no help for it; we must either make the experiment, or stay here all night, and I am too cold and hungry for that--so here goes.” He urged his horses to leap the log; restraining their ardour for a moment as the sleigh rested on the top of the formidable barrier, but so nicely balanced, that the difference of a straw would almost have overturned the heavily-laden vehicle and its helpless inmates. We, however, cleared it in safety. He now stopped, and gave directions to his brother to follow the same plan that he had adopted; but whether the young man had less coolness, or the horses in his team were more difficult to manage, I cannot tell: the sleigh, as it hung poised upon the top of the log, was overturned with a loud crash, and all my household goods and chattels were scattered over the road. Alas, for my crockery and stone china! scarcely one article remained unbroken. “Never fret about the china,” said Moodie; “thank God the man and the horses are uninjured.” I should have felt more thankful had the crocks been spared too; for, like most of my sex, I had a tender regard for china, and I knew that no fresh supply could be obtained in this part of the world. Leaving his brother to collect the scattered fragments, D---- proceeded on his journey. We left the road, and were winding our way over a steep hill, covered with heaps of brush and fallen timber, and as we reached the top, a light gleamed cheerily from the windows of a log house, and the next moment we were at my brother-in-law's door. I thought my journey was at an end; but here I was doomed to fresh disappointment. His wife was absent on a visit to her friends, and it had been arranged that we were to stay with my sister, Mrs. T----, and her husband. With all this I was unacquainted; and I was about to quit the sleigh and seek the warmth of the fire when I was told that I had yet further to go. Its cheerful glow was to shed no warmth on me, and, tired as I was, I actually buried my face and wept upon the neck of a hound which Moodie had given to Mr. S----, and which sprang up upon the sleigh to lick my face and hands. This was my first halt in that weary wilderness, where I endured so many bitter years of toil and sorrow. My brother-in-law and his family had retired to rest, but they instantly rose to receive the way-worn travellers; and I never enjoyed more heartily a warm welcome after a long day of intense fatigue, than I did that night of my first sojourn in the backwoods. THE OTONABEE Dark, rushing, foaming river! I love the solemn sound That shakes thy shores around, And hoarsely murmurs, ever, As thy waters onward bound, Like a rash, unbridled steed Flying madly on its course; That shakes with thundering force The vale and trembling mead. So thy billows downward sweep, Nor rock nor tree can stay Their fierce, impetuous way; Now in eddies whirling deep, Now in rapids white with spray. I love thee, lonely river! Thy hollow restless roar, Thy cedar-girded shore; The rocky isles that sever, The waves that round them pour. Katchawanook[1] basks in light, But thy currents woo the shade By the lofty pine-trees made, That cast a gloom like night, Ere day's last glories fade. Thy solitary voice The same bold anthem sung When Nature's frame was young. No longer shall rejoice The woods where erst it rung! Lament, lament, wild river! A hand is on thy mane[2] That will bind thee in a chain No force of thine can sever. Thy furious headlong tide, In murmurs soft and low, Is destined yet to glide To meet the lake below; And many a bark shall ride Securely on thy breast, To waft across the main Rich stores of golden grain From the valleys of the West. [1] The Indian name for one of the many expansions of this beautiful river. [2] Alluding to the projected improvements on the Trent, of which the Otonabee is a continuation. Fifteen years have passed away since this little poem was written; but the Otonabee still rushes on in its own wild strength. Some idea of the rapidity of this river may be formed from the fact that heavy rafts of timber are floated down from Herriot's Falls, a distance of nine miles from Peterborough, in less than an hour. The shores are bold and rocky, and abound in beautiful and picturesque views. CHAPTER XV THE WILDERNESS, AND OUR INDIAN FRIENDS Man of strange race! stern dweller of the wild! Nature's free-born, untamed, and daring child! The clouds of the preceding night, instead of dissolving in snow, brought on a rapid thaw. A thaw in the middle of winter is the most disagreeable change that can be imagined. After several weeks of clear, bright, bracing, frosty weather, with a serene atmosphere and cloudless sky, you awake one morning surprised at the change in the temperature; and, upon looking out of the window, behold the woods obscured by a murky haze--not so dense as an English November fog, but more black and lowering--and the heavens shrouded in a uniform covering of leaden-coloured clouds, deepening into a livid indigo at the edge of the horizon. The snow, no longer hard and glittering, has become soft and spongy, and the foot slips into a wet and insidiously-yielding mass at every step. From the roof pours down a continuous stream of water, and the branches of the trees collecting the moisture of the reeking atmosphere, shower it upon the earth from every dripping twig. The cheerless and uncomfortable aspect of things without never fails to produce a corresponding effect upon the minds of those within, and casts such a damp upon the spirits that it appears to destroy for a time all sense of enjoyment. Many persons (and myself among the number) are made aware of the approach of a thunder-storm by an intense pain and weight about the head; and I have heard numbers of Canadians complain that a thaw always made them feel bilious and heavy, and greatly depressed their animal spirits. I had a great desire to visit our new location, but when I looked out upon the cheerless waste, I gave up the idea, and contented myself with hoping for a better day on the morrow; but many morrows came and went before a frost again hardened the road sufficiently for me to make the attempt. The prospect from the windows of my sister's log hut was not very prepossessing. The small lake in front, which formed such a pretty object in summer, now looked like an extensive field covered with snow, hemmed in from the rest of the world by a dark belt of sombre pine-woods. The clearing round the house was very small, and only just reclaimed from the wilderness, and the greater part of it covered with piles of brushwood, to be burnt the first dry days of spring. The charred and blackened stumps on the few acres that had been cleared during the preceding year were everything but picturesque; and I concluded, as I turned, disgusted, from the prospect before me, that there was very little beauty to be found in the backwoods. But I came to this decision during a Canadian thaw, be it remembered, when one is wont to view every object with jaundiced eyes. Moodie had only been able to secure sixty-six acres of his government grant upon the Upper Katchawanook Lake, which, being interpreted, means in English, the “Lake of the Waterfalls,” a very poetical meaning, which most Indian names have. He had, however, secured a clergy reserve of two hundred acres adjoining; and he afterwards purchased a fine lot, which likewise formed part of the same block, one hundred acres, for 150 pounds.[1] This was an enormously high price for wild land; but the prospect of opening the Trent and Otonabee for the navigation of steamboats and other small craft, was at that period a favourite speculation, and its practicability, and the great advantages to be derived from it, were so widely believed as to raise the value of the wild lands along these remote waters to an enormous price; and settlers in the vicinity were eager to secure lots, at any sacrifice, along their shores. [1] After a lapse of fifteen years, we have been glad to sell these lots of land, after considerable clearings had been made upon them, for less than they originally cost us. Our government grant was upon the lake shore, and Moodie had chosen for the site of his log house a bank that sloped gradually from the edge of the water, until it attained to the dignity of a hill. Along the top of this ridge, the forest road ran, and midway down the hill, our humble home, already nearly completed, stood, surrounded by the eternal forest. A few trees had been cleared in its immediate vicinity, just sufficient to allow the workmen to proceed, and to prevent the fall of any tree injuring the building, or the danger of its taking fire during the process of burning the fallow. A neighbour had undertaken to build this rude dwelling by contract, and was to have it ready for us by the first week in the new year. The want of boards to make the divisions in the apartments alone hindered him from fulfilling his contract. These had lately been procured, and the house was to be ready for our reception in the course of a week. Our trunks and baggage had already been conveyed thither by Mr. D----; and, in spite of my sister's kindness and hospitality, I longed to find myself once more settled in a home of my own. The day after our arrival, I was agreeably surprised by a visit from Monaghan, whom Moodie had once more taken into his service. The poor fellow was delighted that his nurse-child, as he always called little Katie, had not forgotten him, but evinced the most lively satisfaction at the sight of her dark friend. Early every morning, Moodie went off to the house; and the first fine day, my sister undertook to escort me through the wood, to inspect it. The proposal was joyfully accepted; and although I felt rather timid when I found myself with only my female companion in the vast forest, I kept my fears to myself, lest I should be laughed at. This foolish dread of encountering wild beasts in the woods, I never could wholly shake off, even after becoming a constant resident in their gloomy depths, and accustomed to follow the forest-path, alone, or attended with little children, daily. The cracking of an old bough, or the hooting of the owl, was enough to fill me with alarm, and try my strength in a precipitate flight. Often have I stopped and reproached myself for want of faith in the goodness of Providence, and repeated the text, “The wicked are afraid when no man pursueth: but the righteous are as bold as a lion,” as if to shame myself into courage. But it would not do; I could not overcome the weakness of the flesh. If I had one of my infants with me, the wish to protect the child from any danger which might beset my path gave me for a time a fictitious courage; but it was like love fighting with despair. It was in vain that my husband assured me that no person had ever been attacked by wild animals in the woods, that a child might traverse them even at night in safety; whilst I knew that wild animals existed in those woods, I could not believe him, and my fears on this head rather increased than diminished. The snow had been so greatly decreased by the late thaw, that it had been converted into a coating of ice, which afforded a dangerous and slippery footing. My sister, who had resided for nearly twelve months in the woods, was provided for her walk with Indian moccasins, which rendered her quite independent; but I stumbled at every step. The sun shone brightly, the air was clear and invigorating, and, in spite of the treacherous ground and my foolish fears, I greatly enjoyed my first walk in the woods. Naturally of a cheerful, hopeful disposition, my sister was enthusiastic in her admiration of the woods. She drew such a lively picture of the charms of a summer residence in the forest that I began to feel greatly interested in her descriptions, and to rejoice that we, too, were to be her near neighbours and dwellers in the woods; and this circumstance not a little reconciled me to the change. Hoping that my husband would derive an income equal to the one he had parted with from the investment of the price of his commission in the steam-boat stock, I felt no dread of want. Our legacy of 700 pounds had afforded us means to purchase land, build our house, and give out a large portion of land to be cleared, and, with a considerable sum of money still in hand, our prospects for the future were in no way discouraging. When we reached the top of the ridge that overlooked our cot, my sister stopped, and pointed out a log-house among the trees. “There, S----,” she said, “is your home. When that black cedar-swamp is cleared away, that now hides the lake from us, you will have a very pretty view.” My conversation with her had quite altered the aspect of the country, and predisposed me to view things in the most favourable light. I found Moodie and Monaghan employed in piling up heaps of bush near the house, which they intended to burn off by hand previous to firing the rest of the fallow, to prevent any risk to the building from fire. The house was made of cedar logs, and presented a superior air of comfort to most dwellings of the same kind. The dimensions were thirty-six feet in length, and thirty-two in breadth, which gave us a nice parlour, a kitchen, and two small bed-rooms, which were divided by plank partitions. Pantry or store-room there was none; some rough shelves in the kitchen, and a deal cupboard in a corner of the parlour, being the extent of our accommodations in that way. Our servant, Mary Tate, was busy scrubbing out the parlour and bed-room; but the kitchen, and the sleeping-room off it, were still knee-deep in chips, and filled with the carpenter's bench and tools, and all our luggage. Such as it was, it was a palace when compared to Old Satan's log hut, or the miserable cabin we had wintered in during the severe winter of 1833, and I regarded it with complacency as my future home. While we were standing outside the building, conversing with my husband, a young gentleman, of the name of Morgan, who had lately purchased land in that vicinity, went into the kitchen to light his pipe at the stove, and, with true backwood carelessness, let the hot cinder fall among the dry chips that strewed the floor. A few minutes after, the whole mass was in a blaze, and it was not without great difficulty that Moodie and Mr. R---- succeeded in putting out the fire. Thus were we nearly deprived of our home before we had taken up our abode in it. The indifference to the danger of fire in a country where most of the dwellings are composed of inflammable materials, is truly astonishing. Accustomed to see enormous fires blazing on every hearth-stone, and to sleep in front of these fires, his bedding often riddled with holes made by hot particles of wood flying out during the night, and igniting beneath his very nose, the sturdy backwoodsman never dreads an enemy in the element that he is used to regard as his best friend. Yet what awful accidents, what ruinous calamities arise, out of this criminal negligence, both to himself and others! A few days after this adventure, we bade adieu to my sister, and took possession of our new dwelling, and commenced “a life in the woods.” The first spring we spent in comparative ease and idleness. Our cows had been left upon our old place during the winter. The ground had to be cleared before it could receive a crop of any kind, and I had little to do but to wander by the lake shore, or among the woods, and amuse myself. These were the halcyon days of the bush. My husband had purchased a very light cedar canoe, to which he attached a keel and a sail; and most of our leisure hours, directly the snows melted, were spent upon the water. These fishing and shooting excursions were delightful. The pure beauty of the Canadian water, the sombre but august grandeur of the vast forest that hemmed us in on every side and shut us out from the rest of the world, soon cast a magic spell upon our spirits, and we began to feel charmed with the freedom and solitude around us. Every object was new to us. We felt as if we were the first discoverers of every beautiful flower and stately tree that attracted our attention, and we gave names to fantastic rocks and fairy isles, and raised imaginary houses and bridges on every picturesque spot which we floated past during our aquatic excursions. I learned the use of the paddle, and became quite a proficient in the gentle craft. It was not long before we received visits from the Indians, a people whose beauty, talents, and good qualities have been somewhat overrated, and invested with a poetical interest which they scarcely deserve. Their honesty and love of truth are the finest traits in characters otherwise dark and unlovely. But these are two God-like attributes, and from them spring all that is generous and ennobling about them. There never was a people more sensible of kindness, or more grateful for any little act of benevolence exercised towards them. We met them with confidence; our dealings with them were conducted with the strictest integrity; and they became attached to our persons, and in no single instance ever destroyed the good opinion we entertained of them. The tribes that occupy the shores of all these inland waters, back of the great lakes, belong to the Chippewa or Missasagua Indians, perhaps the least attractive of all these wild people, both with regard to their physical and mental endowments. The men of this tribe are generally small of stature, with very coarse and repulsive features. The forehead is low and retreating, the observing faculties large, the intellectual ones scarcely developed; the ears large, and standing off from the face; the eyes looking towards the temples, keen, snake-like, and far apart; the cheek-bones prominent; the nose long and flat, the nostrils very round; the jaw-bone projecting, massy, and brutal; the mouth expressing ferocity and sullen determination; the teeth large, even, and dazzlingly white. The mouth of the female differs widely in expression from that of the male; the lips are fuller, the jaw less projecting, and the smile is simple and agreeable. The women are a merry, light-hearted set, and their constant laugh and incessant prattle form a strange contrast to the iron taciturnity of their grim lords. Now I am upon the subject, I will recapitulate a few traits and sketches of these people, as they came under my own immediate observation. A dry cedar-swamp, not far from the house, by the lake shore, had been their usual place of encampment for many years. The whole block of land was almost entirely covered with maple trees, and had originally been an Indian sugar-bush. Although the favourite spot had now passed into the hands of strangers, they still frequented the place, to make canoes and baskets, to fish and shoot, and occasionally to follow their old occupation. Scarcely a week passed away without my being visited by the dark strangers; and as my husband never allowed them to eat with the servants (who viewed them with the same horror that Mrs. D---- did black Mollineux), but brought them to his own table, they soon grew friendly and communicative, and would point to every object that attracted their attention, asking a thousand questions as to its use, the material of which it was made, and if we were inclined to exchange it for their commodities? With a large map of Canada, they were infinitely delighted. In a moment they recognised every bay and headland in Ontario, and almost screamed with delight when, following the course of the Trent with their fingers, they came to their own lake. How eagerly each pointed out the spot to his fellows; how intently their black heads were bent down, and their dark eyes fixed upon the map. What strange, uncouth exclamations of surprise burst from their lips as they rapidly repeated the Indian names for every lake and river on this wonderful piece of paper. The old chief, Peter Nogan, begged hard for the coveted treasure. He would give “Canoe, venison, duck, fish, for it; and more by and by.” I felt sorry that I was unable to gratify his wishes; but the map had cost upwards of six dollars, and was daily consulted by my husband, in reference to the names and situations of localities in the neighbourhood. I had in my possession a curious Japanese sword, which had been given to me by an uncle of Tom Wilson's--a strange gift to a young lady; but it was on account of its curiosity, and had no reference to my warlike propensities. This sword was broad, and three-sided in the blade, and in shape resembled a moving snake. The hilt was formed of a hideous carved image of one of their war-gods; and a more villanous-looking wretch was never conceived by the most distorted imagination. He was represented in a sitting attitude, the eagle's claws, that formed his hands, resting upon his knees; his legs terminated in lion's paws; and his face was a strange compound of beast and bird--the upper part of his person being covered with feathers, the lower with long, shaggy hair. The case of this awful weapon was made of wood, and, in spite of its serpentine form, fitted it exactly. No trace of a join could be found in this scabbard, which was of hard wood, and highly polished. One of my Indian friends found this sword lying upon the bookshelf, and he hurried to communicate the important discovery to his companions. Moodie was absent, and they brought it to me to demand an explanation of the figure that formed the hilt. I told them that it was a weapon that belonged to a very fierce people who lived in the east, far over the Great Salt Lake; that they were not Christians as we were, but said their prayers to images made of silver, and gold, and ivory, and wood, and that this was one of them; that before they went into battle they said their prayers to that hideous thing, which they had made with their own hands. The Indians were highly amused by this relation, and passed the sword from one to the other, exclaiming, “A god!--Owgh!--A god!” But, in spite of these outward demonstrations of contempt, I was sorry to perceive that this circumstance gave the weapon a great value, in their eyes, and they regarded it with a sort of mysterious awe. For several days they continued to visit the house, bringing along with them some fresh companion to look at Mrs. Moodie's god!--until, vexed and annoyed by the delight they manifested at the sight of the eagle-beaked monster, I refused to gratify their curiosity by not producing him again. The manufacture of the sheath, which had caused me much perplexity, was explained by old Peter in a minute. “'Tis burnt out,” he said. “Instrument made like sword--heat red-hot--burnt through--polished outside.” Had I demanded a whole fleet of canoes for my Japanese sword, I am certain they would have agreed to the bargain. The Indian possesses great taste, which is displayed in the carving of his paddles, in the shape of his canoes, in the elegance and symmetry of his bows, in the cut of his leggings and moccasins, the sheath of his hunting-knife, and in all the little ornaments in which he delights. It is almost impossible for a settler to imitate to perfection an Indian's cherry-wood paddle. My husband made very creditable attempts, but still there was something wanting--the elegance of the Indian finish was not there. If you show them a good print, they invariably point out the most natural, and the best-executed figure in the group. They are particularly delighted with pictures, examine them long, and carefully, and seem to feel an artist-like pleasure in observing the effect produced by light and shade. I had been showing John Nogan, the eldest son of old Peter, some beautiful coloured engravings of celebrated females; to my astonishment he pounced upon the best, and grunted out his admiration in the most approved Indian fashion. After having looked for a long time at all the pictures very attentively, he took his dog Sancho upon his knee, and showed him the pictures, with as much gravity as if the animal really could have shared in his pleasure. The vanity of these grave men is highly amusing. They seem perfectly unconscious of it themselves and it is exhibited in the most child-like manner. Peter and his son John were taking tea with us, when we were joined by my brother, Mr. S----. The latter was giving us an account of the marriage of Peter Jones, the celebrated Indian preacher. “I cannot think,” he said, “how any lady of property and education could marry such a man as Jones. Why, he's as ugly as Peter here.” This was said, not with any idea of insulting the red-skin on the score of his beauty, of which he possessed not the smallest particle, but in total forgetfulness that our guest understood English. Never shall I forget the red flash of that fierce dark eye as it glared upon my unconscious brother. I would not have received such a fiery glance for all the wealth that Peter Jones obtained with his Saxon bride. John Nogan was highly amused by his father's indignation. He hid his face behind the chief; and though he kept perfectly still, his whole frame was convulsed with suppressed laughter. A plainer human being than poor Peter could scarcely be imagined; yet he certainly deemed himself handsome. I am inclined to think that their ideas of personal beauty differ very widely from ours. Tom Nogan, the chief's brother, had a very large, fat, ugly squaw for his wife. She was a mountain of tawny flesh; and, but for the innocent, good-natured expression which, like a bright sunbeam penetrating a swarthy cloud, spread all around a kindly glow, she might have been termed hideous. This woman they considered very handsome, calling her “a fine squaw--clever squaw--a much good woman;” though in what her superiority consisted, I never could discover, often as I visited the wigwam. She was very dirty, and appeared quite indifferent to the claims of common decency (in the disposal of the few filthy rags that covered her). She was, however, very expert in all Indian craft. No Jew could drive a better bargain than Mrs. Tom; and her urchins, of whom she was the happy mother of five or six, were as cunning and avaricious as herself. One day she visited me, bringing along with her a very pretty covered basket for sale. I asked her what she wanted for it, but could obtain from her no satisfactory answer. I showed her a small piece of silver. She shook her head. I tempted her with pork and flour, but she required neither. I had just given up the idea of dealing with her, in despair, when she suddenly seized upon me, and, lifting up my gown, pointed exultingly to my quilted petticoat, clapping her hands, and laughing immoderately. Another time she led me all over the house, to show me what she wanted in exchange for _basket_. My patience was well nigh exhausted in following her from place to place, in her attempt to discover the coveted article, when, hanging upon a peg in my chamber, she espied a pair of trousers belonging to my husband's logging-suit. The riddle was solved. With a joyful cry she pointed to them, exclaiming “Take basket. Give them!” It was with no small difficulty that I rescued the indispensables from her grasp. From this woman I learned a story of Indian coolness and courage which made a deep impression on my mind. One of their squaws, a near relation of her own, had accompanied her husband on a hunting expedition into the forest. He had been very successful, and having killed more deer than they could well carry home, he went to the house of a white man to dispose of some of it, leaving the squaw to take care of the rest until his return. She sat carelessly upon the log with his hunting-knife in her hand, when she heard the breaking of branches near her, and turning round, beheld a great bear only a few paces from her. It was too late to retreat; and seeing that the animal was very hungry, and determined to come to close quarters, she rose, and placed her back against a small tree, holding her knife close to her breast, and in a straight line with the bear. The shaggy monster came on. She remained motionless, her eyes steadily fixed upon her enemy, and as his huge arms closed around her, she slowly drove the knife into his heart. The bear uttered a hideous cry, and sank dead at her feet. When the Indian returned, he found the courageous woman taking the skin from the carcass of the formidable brute. What iron nerves these people must possess, when even a woman could dare and do a deed like this! The wolf they hold in great contempt, and scarcely deign to consider him as an enemy. Peter Nogan assured me that he never was near enough to one in his life to shoot it; that, except in large companies, and when greatly pressed by hunger, they rarely attack men. They hold the lynx, or wolverine, in much dread, as they often spring from trees upon their prey, fastening upon the throat with their sharp teeth and claws, from which a person in the dark could scarcely free himself without first receiving a dangerous wound. The cry of this animal is very terrifying, resembling the shrieks of a human creature in mortal agony. My husband was anxious to collect some of the native Indian airs, as they all sing well, and have a fine ear for music, but all his efforts proved abortive. “John,” he said to young Nogan (who played very creditably on the flute, and had just concluded the popular air of “Sweet Home”), “cannot you play me one of your own songs?” “Yes,--but no good.” “Leave me to be the judge of that. Cannot you give me a war-song?” “Yes,--but no good,” with an ominous shake of the head. “A hunting-song?” “No fit for white man,”--with an air of contempt. “No good, no good!” “Do, John, sing us a love-song,” said I, laughing, “if you have such a thing in your language.” “Oh! much love-song--very much--bad--bad--no good for Christian man. Indian song no good for white ears.” This was very tantalising, as their songs sounded very sweetly from the lips of their squaws, and I had a great desire and curiosity to get some of them rendered into English. To my husband they gave the name of “the musician,” but I have forgotten the Indian word. It signified the maker of sweet sounds. They listened with intense delight to the notes of his flute, maintaining a breathless silence during the performance; their dark eyes flashing into fierce light at a martial strain, or softening with the plaintive and tender. The cunning which they display in their contests with their enemies, in their hunting, and in making bargains with the whites (who are too apt to impose on their ignorance), seems to spring more from a law of necessity, forced upon them by their isolated position and precarious mode of life, than from any innate wish to betray. The Indian's face, after all, is a perfect index of his mind. The eye changes its expression with every impulse and passion, and shows what is passing within as clearly as the lightning in a dark night betrays the course of the stream. I cannot think that deceit forms any prominent trait in the Indian's character. They invariably act with the strictest honour towards those who never attempt to impose upon them. It is natural for a deceitful person to take advantage of the credulity of others. The genuine Indian never utters a falsehood, and never employs flattery (that powerful weapon in the hands of the insidious), in his communications with the whites. His worst traits are those which he has in common with the wild animals of the forest, and which his intercourse with the lowest order of civilised men (who, in point of moral worth, are greatly his inferiors), and the pernicious effects of strong drink, have greatly tended to inflame and debate. It is a melancholy truth, and deeply to be lamented, that the vicinity of European settlers has always produced a very demoralising effect upon the Indians. As a proof of this, I will relate a simple anecdote. John, of Rice Lake, a very sensible, middle-aged Indian, was conversing with me about their language, and the difficulty he found in understanding the books written in Indian for their use. Among other things, I asked him if his people ever swore, or used profane language towards the Deity. The man regarded me with a sort of stern horror, as he replied, “Indian, till after he knew your people, never swore--no bad word in Indian. Indian must learn your words to swear and take God's name in vain.” Oh, what a reproof to Christian men! I felt abashed, and degraded in the eyes of this poor savage--who, ignorant as he was in many respects, yet possessed that first great attribute of the soul, a deep reverence for the Supreme Being. How inferior were thousands of my countrymen to him in this important point. The affection of Indian parents to their children, and the deference which they pay to the aged, is another beautiful and touching trait in their character. One extremely cold, wintry day, as I was huddled with my little ones over the stove, the door softly unclosed, and the moccasined foot of an Indian crossed the floor. I raised my head, for I was too much accustomed to their sudden appearance at any hour to feel alarmed, and perceived a tall woman standing silently and respectfully before me, wrapped in a large blanket. The moment she caught my eye she dropped the folds of her covering from around her, and laid at my feet the attenuated figure of a boy, about twelve years of age, who was in the last stage of consumption. “Papouse die,” she said, mournfully clasping her hands against her breast, and looking down upon the suffering lad with the most heartfelt expression of maternal love, while large tears trickled down her dark face. “Moodie's squaw save papouse--poor Indian woman much glad.” Her child was beyond all human aid. I looked anxiously upon him, and knew, by the pinched-up features and purple hue of his wasted cheek, that he had not many hours to live. I could only answer with tears her agonising appeal to my skill. “Try and save him! All die but him.” (She held up five of her fingers.) “Brought him all the way from Mutta Lake[1] upon my back, for white squaw to cure.” [1] Mud Lake, or Lake Shemong, in Indian. “I cannot cure him, my poor friend. He is in God's care; in a few hours he will be with Him.” The child was seized with a dreadful fit of coughing, which I expected every moment would terminate his frail existence. I gave him a teaspoonful of currant jelly, which he took with avidity, but could not retain a moment on his stomach. “Papouse die,” murmured the poor woman; “alone--alone! No papouse; the mother all alone.” She began re-adjusting the poor sufferer in her blanket. I got her some food, and begged her to stay and rest herself; but she was too much distressed to eat, and too restless to remain. She said little, but her face expressed the keenest anguish; she took up her mournful load, pressed for a moment his wasted, burning hand in hers, and left the room. My heart followed her a long way on her melancholy journey. Think what this woman's love must have been for that dying son, when she had carried a lad of his age six miles, through the deep snow, upon her back, on such a day, in the hope of my being able to do him some good. Poor heart-broken mother! I learned from Joe Muskrat's squaw some days after that the boy died a few minutes after Elizabeth Iron, his mother, got home. They never forget any little act of kindness. One cold night, late in the fall, my hospitality was demanded by six squaws, and puzzled I was how to accommodate them all. I at last determined to give them the use of the parlour floor during the night. Among these women there was one very old, whose hair was as white as snow. She was the only gray-haired Indian I ever saw, and on that account I regarded her with peculiar interest. I knew that she was the wife of a chief, by the scarlet embroidered leggings, which only the wives and daughters of chiefs are allowed to wear. The old squaw had a very pleasing countenance, but I tried in vain to draw her into conversation. She evidently did not understand me; and the Muskrat squaw, and Betty Cow, were laughing at my attempts to draw her out. I administered supper to them with my own hands, and after I had satisfied their wants (which is no very easy task, for they have great appetites), I told our servant to bring in several spare mattresses and blankets for their use. “Now mind, Jenny, and give the old squaw the best bed,” I said; “the others are young, and can put up with a little inconvenience.” The old Indian glanced at me with her keen, bright eye; but I had no idea that she comprehended what I said. Some weeks after this, as I was sweeping over my parlour floor, a slight tap drew me to the door. On opening it I perceived the old squaw, who immediately slipped into my hand a set of beautifully-embroidered bark trays, fitting one within the other, and exhibiting the very best sample of the porcupine quill-work. While I stood wondering what this might mean, the good old creature fell upon my neck, and kissing me, exclaimed, “You remember old squaw--make her comfortable! Old squaw no forget you. Keep them for her sake,” and before I could detain her she ran down the hill with a swiftness which seemed to bid defiance to years. I never saw this interesting Indian again, and I concluded that she died during the winter, for she must have been of a great age. My dear reader, I am afraid I shall tire you with my Indian stories; but you must bear with me patiently whilst I give you a few more. The real character of a people can be more truly gathered from such seemingly trifling incidents than from any ideas we may form of them from the great facts in their history, and this is my reason for detailing events which might otherwise appear insignificant and unimportant. A friend was staying with us, who wished much to obtain a likeness of Old Peter. I promised to try and make a sketch of the old man the next time he paid us a visit. That very afternoon he brought us some ducks in exchange for pork, and Moodie asked him to stay and take a glass of whiskey with him and his friend Mr. K----. The old man had arrayed himself in a new blanket-coat, bound with red, and the seams all decorated with the same gay material. His leggings and moccasins were new, and elaborately fringed; and, to cap the climax of the whole, he had a blue cloth conical cap upon his head, ornamented with a deer's tail dyed blue, and several cock's feathers. He was evidently very much taken up with the magnificence of his own appearance, for he often glanced at himself in a small shaving-glass that hung opposite, with a look of grave satisfaction. Sitting apart, that I might not attract his observation, I got a tolerably faithful likeness of the old man, which after slightly colouring, to show more plainly his Indian finery, I quietly handed over to Mr. K----. Sly as I thought myself, my occupation and the object of it had not escaped the keen eye of the old man. He rose, came behind Mr. K----'s chair, and regarded the picture with a most affectionate eye. I was afraid that he would be angry at the liberty I had taken. No such thing! He was as pleased as Punch. “That Peter?” he grunted. “Give me--put up in wigwam--make dog too! Owgh! owgh!” and he rubbed his hands together, and chuckled with delight. Mr. K---- had some difficulty in coaxing the picture from the old chief; so pleased was he with this rude representation of himself. He pointed to every particular article of his dress, and dwelt with peculiar glee on the cap and blue deer's tail. A few days after this, I was painting a beautiful little snow-bird, that our man had shot out of a large flock that alighted near the door. I was so intent upon my task, to which I was putting the finishing strokes, that I did not observe the stealthy entrance (for they all walk like cats) of a stern-looking red man, till a slender, dark hand was extended over my paper to grasp the dead bird from which I was copying, and which as rapidly transferred it to the side of the painted one, accompanying the act with the deep guttural note of approbation, the unmusical, savage “Owgh.” My guest then seated himself with the utmost gravity in a rocking-chair, directly fronting me, and made the modest demand that I should paint a likeness of him, after the following quaint fashion:-- “Moodie's squaw know much--make Peter Nogan toder day on papare--make Jacob to-day--Jacob young--great hunter--give much duck--venison--to squaw.” Although I felt rather afraid of my fierce-looking visitor, I could scarcely keep my gravity; there was such an air of pompous self-approbation about the Indian, such a sublime look of conceit in his grave vanity. “Moodie's squaw cannot do everything; she cannot paint young men,” said I, rising, and putting away my drawing-materials, upon which he kept his eye intently fixed, with a hungry, avaricious expression. I thought it best to place the coveted objects beyond his reach. After sitting for some time, and watching all my movements, he withdrew, with a sullen, disappointed air. This man was handsome, but his expression was vile. Though he often came to the house, I never could reconcile myself to his countenance. Late one very dark, stormy night, three Indians begged to be allowed to sleep by the kitchen stove. The maid was frightened out of her wits at the sight of these strangers, who were Mohawks from the Indian woods upon the Bay of Quinte, and they brought along with them a horse and cutter. The night was so stormy, that, after consulting our man--Jacob Faithful, as we usually called him--I consented to grant their petition, although they were quite strangers, and taller and fiercer-looking than our friends the Missasaguas. I was putting my children to bed, when the girl came rushing in, out of breath. “The Lord preserve us, madam, if one of these wild men has not pulled off his trousers, and is a-sitting, mending them behind the stove! and what shall I do?” “Do?--why, stay with me, and leave the poor fellow to finish his work.” The simple girl had never once thought of this plan of pacifying her outraged sense of propriety. Their sense of hearing is so acute that they can distinguish sounds at an incredible distance, which cannot be detected by a European at all. I myself witnessed a singular exemplification of this fact. It was mid-winter; the Indians had pitched their tent, or wigwam, as usual, in our swamp. All the males were absent on a hunting expedition up the country, and had left two women behind to take care of the camp and its contents, Mrs. Tom Nogan and her children, and Susan Moore, a young girl of fifteen, and the only truly beautiful squaw I ever saw. There was something interesting about this girl's history, as well as her appearance. Her father had been drowned during a sudden hurricane, which swamped his canoe on Stony Lake; and the mother, who witnessed the accident from the shore, and was near her confinement with this child, boldly swam out to his assistance. She reached the spot where he sank, and even succeeded in recovering the body; but it was too late; the man was dead. The soul of an Indian that has been drowned is reckoned accursed, and he is never permitted to join his tribe on the happy hunting-grounds, but his spirit haunts the lake or river in which he lost his life. His body is buried on some lonely island, which the Indians never pass without leaving a small portion of food, tobacco, ammunition, to supply his wants; but he is never interred with the rest of his people. His children are considered unlucky, and few willingly unite themselves to the females of the family, lest a portion of the father's curse should be visited on them. The orphan Indian girl generally kept aloof from the rest, and seemed so lonely and companionless, that she soon attracted my attention and sympathy, and a hearty feeling of good-will sprang up between us. Her features were small and regular, her face oval, and her large, dark, loving eyes were full of tenderness and sensibility, but as bright and shy as those of the deer. A rich vermilion glow burnt upon her olive cheek and lips, and set off the dazzling whiteness of her even and pearly teeth. She was small of stature, with delicate little hands and feet, and her figure was elastic and graceful. She was a beautiful child of nature, and her Indian name signified “the voice of angry waters.” Poor girl, she had been a child of grief and tears from her birth! Her mother was a Mohawk, from whom she, in all probability, derived her superior personal attractions; for they are very far before the Missasaguas in this respect. My friend and neighbour, Emilia S----, the wife of a naval officer, who lived about a mile distant from me, through the bush, had come to spend the day with me; and hearing that the Indians were in the swamp, and the men away, we determined to take a few trifles to the camp, in the way of presents, and spend an hour in chatting with the squaws. What a beautiful moonlight night it was, as light as day!--the great forest sleeping tranquilly beneath the cloudless heavens--not a sound to disturb the deep repose of nature but the whispering of the breeze, which, during the most profound calm, creeps through the lofty pine tops. We bounded down the steep bank to the lake shore. Life is a blessing, a precious boon indeed, in such an hour, and we felt happy in the mere consciousness of existence--the glorious privilege of pouring out the silent adoration of the heart to the Great Father in his universal temple. On entering the wigwam, which stood within a few yards of the clearing, in the middle of a thick group of cedars, we found Mrs. Tom alone with her elvish children, seated before the great fire that burned in the centre of the camp; she was busy boiling some bark in an iron spider. The little boys, in red flannel shirts which were their only covering, were tormenting a puppy, which seemed to take their pinching and pummelling in good part, for it neither attempted to bark nor to bite, but, like the eels in the story, submitted to the infliction because it was used to it. Mrs. Tom greeted us with a grin of pleasure, and motioned to us to sit down upon a buffalo-skin, which, with a courtesy so natural to the Indians, she had placed near her for our accommodation. “You are all alone,” said I, glancing round the camp. “Ye'es; Indian away hunting--Upper Lakes. Come home with much deer.” “And Susan, where is she?” “By and by. (Meaning that she was coming.) Gone to fetch water--ice thick--chop with axe--take long time.” As she ceased speaking, the old blanket that formed the door of the tent was withdrawn, and the girl, bearing two pails of water, stood in the open space, in the white moonlight. The glow of the fire streamed upon her dark, floating locks, danced in the black, glistening eye, and gave a deeper blush to the olive cheek! She would have made a beautiful picture; Sir Joshua Reynolds would have rejoiced in such a model--so simply graceful and unaffected, the very beau ideal of savage life and unadorned nature. A smile of recognition passed between us. She put down her burden beside Mrs. Tom, and noiselessly glided to her seat. We had scarcely exchanged a few words with our favourite, when the old squaw, placing her hand against her ear, exclaimed, “Whist! whist!” “What is it?” cried Emilia and I, starting to our feet. “Is there any danger?” “A deer--a deer--in bush!” whispered the squaw, seizing a rifle that stood in a corner. “I hear sticks crack--a great way off. Stay here!” A great way off the animal must have been, for though Emilia and I listened at the open door, an advantage which the squaw did not enjoy, we could not hear the least sound: all seemed still as death. The squaw whistled to an old hound, and went out. “Did you hear anything, Susan?” She smiled, and nodded. “Listen; the dog has found the track.” The next moment the discharge of a rifle, and the deep baying of the dog, woke up the sleeping echoes of the woods; and the girl started off to help the old squaw to bring in the game that she had shot. The Indians are great imitators, and possess a nice tact in adopting the customs and manners of those with whom they associate. An Indian is Nature's gentleman--never familiar, coarse, or vulgar. If he take a meal with you, he waits to see how you make use of the implements on the table, and the manner in which you eat, which he imitates with a grave decorum, as if he had been accustomed to the same usages from childhood. He never attempts to help himself, or demand more food, but waits patiently until you perceive what he requires. I was perfectly astonished at this innate politeness, for it seems natural to all the Indians with whom I have had any dealings. There was one old Indian, who belonged to a distant settlement, and only visited our lakes occasionally on hunting parties. He was a strange, eccentric, merry old fellow, with a skin like red mahogany, and a wiry, sinewy frame, that looked as if it could bid defiance to every change of temperature. Old Snow-storm, for such was his significant name, was rather too fond of the whiskey-bottle, and when he had taken a drop too much, he became an unmanageable wild beast. He had a great fancy for my husband, and never visited the other Indians without extending the same favour to us. Once upon a time, he broke the nipple of his gun; and Moodie repaired the injury for him by fixing a new one in its place, which little kindness quite won the heart of the old man, and he never came to see us without bringing an offering of fish, ducks, partridges, or venison, to show his gratitude. One warm September day, he made his appearance bare-headed, as usual, and carrying in his hand a great checked bundle. “Fond of grapes?” said he, putting the said bundle into my hands. “Fine grapes--brought them from island, for my friend's squaw and papouse.” Glad of the donation, which I considered quite a prize, I hastened into the kitchen to untie the grapes and put them into a dish. But imagine my disappointment, when I found them wrapped up in a soiled shirt, only recently taken from the back of the owner. I called Moodie, and begged him to return Snow-storm his garment, and to thank him for the grapes. The mischievous creature was highly diverted with the circumstance, and laughed immoderately. “Snow-storm,” said he, “Mrs. Moodie and the children are obliged to you for your kindness in bringing them the grapes; but how came you to tie them up in a dirty shirt?” “Dirty!” cried the old man, astonished that we should object to the fruit on that score. “It ought to be clean; it has been washed often enough. Owgh! You see, Moodie,” he continued, “I have no hat--never wear hat--want no shade to my eyes--love the sun--see all around me--up and down--much better widout hat. Could not put grapes in hat--blanket-coat too large, crush fruit, juice run out. I had noting but my shirt, so I takes off shirt, and brings grape safe over the water on my back. Papouse no care for dirty shirt; their lee-tel bellies have no eyes.” In spite of this eloquent harangue, I could not bring myself to use the grapes, ripe and tempting as they looked, or give them to the children. Mr. W---- and his wife happening to step in at that moment, fell into such an ecstasy at the sight of the grapes, that, as they were perfectly unacquainted with the circumstance of the shirt, I very generously gratified their wishes by presenting them with the contents of the large dish; and they never ate a bit less sweet for the novel mode in which they were conveyed to me! The Indians, under their quiet exterior, possess a deal of humour. They have significant names for everything, and a nickname for every one, and some of the latter are laughably appropriate. A fat, pompous, ostentatious settler in our neighbourhood they called Muckakee, “the bull frog.” Another, rather a fine young man, but with a very red face, they named Segoskee, “the rising sun.” Mr. Wood, who had a farm above ours, was a remarkably slender young man, and to him they gave the appellation of Metiz, “thin stick.” A woman, that occasionally worked for me, had a disagreeable squint; she was known in Indian by the name of Sachabo, “cross eye.” A gentleman with a very large nose was Choojas, “big, or ugly nose.” My little Addie, who was a fair, lovely creature, they viewed with great approbation, and called Anoonk, “a star;” while the rosy Katie was Nogesigook, “the northern lights.” As to me, I was Nonocosiqui, a “humming-bird;” a ridiculous name for a tall woman, but it had reference to the delight I took in painting birds. My friend, Emilia, was “blue cloud;” my little Donald, “frozen face;” young C----, “the red-headed woodpecker,” from the colour of his hair; my brother, Chippewa, and “the bald-headed eagle.” He was an especial favourite among them. The Indians are often made a prey of and cheated by the unprincipled settlers, who think it no crime to overreach a red-skin. One anecdote will fully illustrate this fact. A young squaw, who was near becoming a mother, stopped at a Smith-town settler's house to rest herself. The woman of the house, who was Irish, was peeling for dinner some large white turnips, which her husband had grown in their garden. The Indian had never seen a turnip before, and the appearance of the firm, white, juicy root gave her such a keen craving to taste it that she very earnestly begged for a small piece to eat. She had purchased at Peterborough a large stone-china bowl, of a very handsome pattern (or, perhaps, got it at the store in exchange for _basket_), the worth of which might be half-a-dollar. If the poor squaw longed for the turnip, the value of which could scarcely reach a copper, the covetous European had fixed as longing a glance upon the china bowl, and she was determined to gratify her avaricious desire and obtain it on the most easy terms. She told the squaw, with some disdain, that her man did not grow turnips to give away to “Injuns,” but she would sell her one. The squaw offered her four coppers, all the change she had about her. This the woman refused with contempt. She then proffered a basket; but that was not sufficient; nothing would satisfy her but the bowl. The Indian demurred; but opposition had only increased her craving for the turnip in a tenfold degree; and, after a short mental struggle, in which the animal propensity overcame the warnings of prudence, the squaw gave up the bowl, and received in return one turnip! The daughter of this woman told me this anecdote of her mother as a very clever thing. What ideas some people have of moral justice! I have said before that the Indian never forgets a kindness. We had a thousand proofs of this, when overtaken by misfortune, and withering beneath the iron grasp of poverty, we could scarcely obtain bread for ourselves and our little ones; then it was that the truth of the eastern proverb was brought home to our hearts, and the goodness of God fully manifested towards us, “Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days.” During better times we had treated these poor savages with kindness and liberality, and when dearer friends looked coldly upon us they never forsook us. For many a good meal I have been indebted to them, when I had nothing to give in return, when the pantry was empty, and “the hearthstone growing cold,” as they term the want of provisions to cook at it. And their delicacy in conferring these favours was not the least admirable part of their conduct. John Nogan, who was much attached to us, would bring a fine bunch of ducks, and drop them at my feet “for the papouse,” or leave a large muskinonge on the sill of the door, or place a quarter of venison just within it, and slip away without saying a word, thinking that receiving a present from a poor Indian might hurt our feelings, and he would spare us the mortification of returning thanks. Often have I grieved that people with such generous impulses should be degraded and corrupted by civilised men; that a mysterious destiny involves and hangs over them, pressing them back into the wilderness, and slowly and surely sweeping them from the earth. Their ideas of Christianity appeared to me vague and unsatisfactory. They will tell you that Christ died for men, and that He is the Saviour of the World, but they do not seem to comprehend the spiritual character of Christianity, nor the full extent of the requirements and application of the law of Christian love. These imperfect views may not be entertained by all Christian Indians, but they were very common amongst those with whom I conversed. Their ignorance upon theological, as well as upon other subjects, is, of course, extreme. One Indian asked me very innocently if I came from the land where Christ was born, and if I had ever seen Jesus. They always mention the name of the Persons in the Trinity with great reverence. They are a highly imaginative people. The practical meaning of their names, and their intense admiration for the beauties of Nature, are proof of this. Nothing escapes their observing eyes. There is not a flower that blooms in the wilderness, a bird that cuts the air with its wings, a beast that roams the wood, a fish that stems the water, or the most minute insect that sports in the sunbeams, but it has an Indian name to illustrate its peculiar habits and qualities. Some of their words convey the direct meaning of the thing implied--thus, che-charm, “to sneeze,” is the very sound of that act; too-me-duh, “to churn,” gives the noise made by the dashing of the cream from side to side; and many others. They believe in supernatural appearances--in spirits of the earth, the air, the waters. The latter they consider evil, and propitiate before undertaking a long voyage, by throwing small portions of bread, meat, tobacco, and gunpowder into the water. When an Indian loses one of his children, he must keep a strict fast for three days, abstaining from food of any kind. A hunter, of the name of Young, told me a curious story of their rigid observance of this strange rite. “They had a chief,” he said, “a few years ago, whom they called 'Handsome Jack'--whether in derision, I cannot tell, for he was one of the ugliest Indians I ever saw. The scarlet fever got into the camp--a terrible disease in this country, and doubly terrible to those poor creatures who don't know how to treat it. His eldest daughter died. The chief had fasted two days when I met him in the bush. I did not know what had happened, but I opened my wallet, for I was on a hunting expedition, and offered him some bread and dried venison. He looked at me reproachfully. “'Do white men eat bread the first night their papouse is laid in the earth?' “I then knew the cause of his depression, and left him.” On the night of the second day of his fast another child died of the fever. He had now to accomplish three more days without tasting food. It was too much even for an Indian. On the evening of the fourth, he was so pressed by ravenous hunger, that he stole into the woods, caught a bull-frog, and devoured it alive. He imagined himself alone; but one of his people, suspecting his intention, had followed him, unperceived, to the bush. The act he had just committed was a hideous crime in their eyes, and in a few minutes the camp was in an uproar. The chief fled for protection to Young's house. When the hunter demanded the cause of his alarm, he gave for answer, “There are plenty of flies at my house. To avoid their stings I came to you.” It required all the eloquence of Mr. Young, who enjoyed much popularity among them, to reconcile the rebellious tribe to their chief. They are very skilful in their treatment of wounds, and many diseases. Their knowledge of the medicinal qualities of their plants and herbs is very great. They make excellent poultices from the bark of the bass and the slippery elm. They use several native plants in their dyeing of baskets and porcupine quills. The inner bark of the swamp-alder, simply boiled in water, makes a beautiful red. From the root of the black briony they obtain a fine salve for sores, and extract a rich yellow dye. The inner bark of the root of the sumach, roasted, and reduced to powder, is a good remedy for the ague; a teaspoonful given between the hot and cold fit. They scrape the fine white powder from the large fungus that grows upon the bark of the pine into whiskey, and take it for violent pains in the stomach. The taste of this powder strongly reminded me of quinine. I have read much of the excellence of Indian cookery, but I never could bring myself to taste anything prepared in their dirty wigwams. I remember being highly amused in watching the preparation of a mess, which might have been called the Indian hotch-potch. It consisted of a strange mixture of fish, flesh, and fowl, all boiled together in the same vessel. Ducks, partridges, muskinonge, venison, and muskrats, formed a part of this delectable compound. These were literally smothered in onions, potatoes, and turnips, which they had procured from me. They very hospitably offered me a dishful of the odious mixture, which the odour of the muskrats rendered everything but savoury; but I declined, simply stating that I was not hungry. My little boy tasted it, but quickly left the camp to conceal the effect it produced upon him. Their method of broiling fish, however, is excellent. They take a fish, just fresh out of the water, cut out the entrails, and, without removing the scales, wash it clean, dry it in a cloth, or in grass, and cover it all over with clear hot ashes. When the flesh will part from the bone, they draw it out of the ashes, strip off the skin, and it is fit for the table of the most fastidious epicure. The deplorable want of chastity that exists among the Indian women of this tribe seems to have been more the result of their intercourse with the settlers in the country than from any previous disposition to this vice. The jealousy of their husbands has often been exercised in a terrible manner against the offending squaws; but this has not happened of late years. The men wink at these derelictions in their wives, and share with them the price of their shame. The mixture of European blood adds greatly to the physical beauty of the half-race, but produces a sad falling-off from the original integrity of the Indian character. The half-caste is generally a lying, vicious rogue, possessing the worst qualities of both parents in an eminent degree. We have many of these half-Indians in the penitentiary, for crimes of the blackest dye. The skill of the Indian in procuring his game, either by land or water, has been too well described by better writers than I could ever hope to be to need any illustration from my pen, and I will close this long chapter with a droll anecdote which is told of a gentleman in this neighbourhood. The early loss of his hair obliged Mr. ---- to procure the substitute of a wig. This was such a good imitation of nature, that none but his intimate friends and neighbours were aware of the fact. It happened that he had had some quarrel with an Indian, which had to be settled in one of the petty courts. The case was decided in favour of Mr. ----, which so aggrieved the savage, who considered himself the injured party, that he sprang upon him with a furious yell, tomahawk in hand, with the intention of depriving him of his scalp. He twisted his hand in the looks which adorned the cranium of his adversary, when--horror of horrors!--the treacherous wig came off in his hand, “Owgh! owgh!” exclaimed the affrighted savage, flinging it from him, and rushing from the court as if he had been bitten by a rattlesnake. His sudden exit was followed by peals of laughter from the crowd, while Mr. ---- coolly picked up his wig, and drily remarked that it had saved his head. THE INDIAN FISHERMAN'S LIGHT The air is still, the night is dark, No ripple breaks the dusky tide; From isle to isle the fisher's bark Like fairy meteor seems to glide; Now lost in shade--now flashing bright On sleeping wave and forest tree; We hail with joy the ruddy light, Which far into the darksome night Shines red and cheerily! With spear high poised, and steady hand, The centre of that fiery ray, Behold the Indian fisher stand Prepared to strike the finny prey; Hurrah! the shaft has sped below-- Transfix'd the shining prize I see; On swiftly darts the birch canoe; Yon black rock shrouding from my view Its red light gleaming cheerily! Around yon bluff, whose pine crest hides The noisy rapids from our sight, Another bark--another glides-- Red meteors of the murky night. The bosom of the silent stream With mimic stars is dotted free; The waves reflect the double gleam, The tall woods lighten in the beam, Through darkness shining cheerily! CHAPTER XVI BURNING THE FALLOW There is a hollow roaring in the air-- The hideous hissing of ten thousand flames, That from the centre of yon sable cloud Leap madly up, like serpents in the dark, Shaking their arrowy tongues at Nature's heart. It is not my intention to give a regular history of our residence in the bush, but merely to present to my readers such events as may serve to illustrate a life in the woods. The winter and spring of 1834 had passed away. The latter was uncommonly cold and backward; so much so that we had a very heavy fall of snow upon the 14th and 15th of May, and several gentlemen drove down to Cobourg in a sleigh, the snow lying upon the ground to the depth of several inches. A late, cold spring in Canada is generally succeeded by a burning hot summer; and the summer of '34 was the hottest I ever remember. No rain fell upon the earth for many weeks, till nature drooped and withered beneath one bright blaze of sunlight; and the ague and fever in the woods, and the cholera in the large towns and cities, spread death and sickness through the country. Moodie had made during the winter a large clearing of twenty acres around the house. The progress of the workmen had been watched by me with the keenest interest. Every tree that reached the ground opened a wider gap in the dark wood, giving us a broader ray of light and a clearer glimpse of the blue sky. But when the dark cedar-swamp fronting the house fell beneath the strokes of the axe, and we got a first view of the lake, my joy was complete; a new and beautiful object was now constantly before me, which gave me the greatest pleasure. By night and day, in sunshine or in storm, water is always the most sublime feature in a landscape, and no view can be truly grand in which it is wanting. From a child, it always had the most powerful effect upon my mind, from the great ocean rolling in majesty, to the tinkling forest rill, hidden by the flowers and rushes along its banks. Half the solitude of my forest home vanished when the lake unveiled its bright face to the blue heavens, and I saw sun and moon, and stars and waving trees reflected there. I would sit for hours at the window as the shades of evening deepened round me, watching the massy foliage of the forests pictured in the waters, till fancy transported me back to England, and the songs of birds and the lowing of cattle were sounding in my ears. It was long, very long, before I could discipline my mind to learn and practice all the menial employments which are necessary in a good settler's wife. The total absence of trees about the doors in all new settlements had always puzzled me, in a country where the intense heat of summer seems to demand all the shade that can be procured. My husband had left several beautiful rock-elms (the most picturesque tree in the country) near our dwelling, but alas! the first high gale prostrated all my fine trees, and left our log cottage entirely exposed to the fierce rays of the sun. The confusion of an uncleared fallow spread around us on every side. Huge trunks of trees and piles of brush gave a littered and uncomfortable appearance to the locality, and as the weather had been very dry for some weeks, I heard my husband daily talking with his choppers as to the expediency of firing the fallow. They still urged him to wait a little longer, until he could get a good breeze to carry the fire well through the brush. Business called him suddenly to Toronto, but he left a strict charge with old Thomas and his sons, who were engaged in the job, by no means to attempt to burn it off until he returned, as he wished to be upon the premises himself, in case of any danger. He had previously burnt all the heaps immediately about the doors. While he was absent, old Thomas and his second son fell sick with the ague, and went home to their own township, leaving John, a surly, obstinate young man, in charge of the shanty, where they slept, and kept their tools and provisions. Monaghan I had sent to fetch up my three cows, as the children were languishing for milk, and Mary and I remained alone in the house with the little ones. The day was sultry, and towards noon a strong wind sprang up that roared in the pine tops like the dashing of distant billows, but without in the least degree abating the heat. The children were lying listlessly upon the floor for coolness, and the girl and I were finishing sun-bonnets, when Mary suddenly exclaimed, “Bless us, mistress, what a smoke!” I ran immediately to the door, but was not able to distinguish ten yards before me. The swamp immediately below us was on fire, and the heavy wind was driving a dense black cloud of smoke directly towards us. “What can this mean?” I cried, “Who can have set fire to the fallow?” As I ceased speaking, John Thomas stood pale and trembling before me. “John, what is the meaning of this fire?” “Oh, ma'am, I hope you will forgive me; it was I set fire to it, and I would give all I have in the world if I had not done it.” “What is the danger?” “Oh, I'm terribly afear'd that we shall all be burnt up,” said the fellow, beginning to whimper. “Why did you run such a risk, and your master from home, and no one on the place to render the least assistance?” “I did it for the best,” blubbered the lad. “What shall we do?” “Why, we must get out of it as fast as we can, and leave the house to its fate.” “We can't get out,” said the man, in a low, hollow tone, which seemed the concentration of fear; “I would have got out of it if I could; but just step to the back door, ma'am, and see.” I had not felt the least alarm up to this minute; I had never seen a fallow burnt, but I had heard of it as a thing of such common occurrence that I had never connected with it any idea of danger. Judge then, my surprise, my horror, when, on going to the back door, I saw that the fellow, to make sure of his work, had fired the field in fifty different places. Behind, before, on every side, we were surrounded by a wall of fire, burning furiously within a hundred yards of us, and cutting off all possibility of retreat; for could we have found an opening through the burning heaps, we could not have seen our way through the dense canopy of smoke; and, buried as we were in the heart of the forest, no one could discover our situation till we were beyond the reach of help. I closed the door, and went back to the parlour. Fear was knocking loudly at my heart, for our utter helplessness annihilated all hope of being able to effect our escape--I felt stupefied. The girl sat upon the floor by the children, who, unconscious of the peril that hung over them, had both fallen asleep. She was silently weeping; while the fool who had caused the mischief was crying aloud. A strange calm succeeded my first alarm; tears and lamentations were useless; a horrible death was impending over us, and yet I could not believe that we were to die. I sat down upon the step of the door, and watched the awful scene in silence. The fire was raging in the cedar-swamp immediately below the ridge on which the house stood, and it presented a spectacle truly appalling. From out the dense folds of a canopy of black smoke, the blackest I ever saw, leaped up continually red forks of lurid flame as high as the tree tops, igniting the branches of a group of tall pines that had been left standing for saw-logs. A deep gloom blotted out the heavens from our sight. The air was filled with fiery particles, which floated even to the door-step--while the crackling and roaring of the flames might have been heard at a great distance. Could we have reached the lake shore, where several canoes were moored at the landing, by launching out into the water we should have been in perfect safety; but, to attain this object, it was necessary to pass through this mimic hell; and not a bird could have flown over it with unscorched wings. There was no hope in that quarter, for, could we have escaped the flames, we should have been blinded and choked by the thick, black, resinous smoke. The fierce wind drove the flames at the sides and back of the house up the clearing; and our passage to the road, or to the forest, on the right and left, was entirely obstructed by a sea of flames. Our only ark of safety was the house, so long as it remained untouched by the consuming element. I turned to young Thomas, and asked him, how long he thought that would be. “When the fire clears this little ridge in front, ma'am. The Lord have mercy upon us, then, or we must all go!” “Cannot you, John, try and make your escape, and see what can be done for us and the poor children?” My eye fell upon the sleeping angels, locked peacefully in each other's arms, and my tears flowed for the first time. Mary, the servant-girl, looked piteously up in my face. The good, faithful creature had not uttered one word of complaint, but now she faltered forth-- “The dear, precious lambs!--Oh! such a death!” I threw myself down upon the floor beside them, and pressed them alternately to my heart, while inwardly I thanked God that they were asleep, unconscious of danger, and unable by their childish cries to distract our attention from adopting any plan which might offer to effect their escape. The heat soon became suffocating. We were parched with thirst, and there was not a drop of water in the house, and none to be procured nearer than the lake. I turned once more to the door, hoping that a passage might have been burnt through to the water. I saw nothing but a dense cloud of fire and smoke--could hear nothing but the crackling and roaring of the flames, which were gaining so fast upon us that I felt their scorching breath in my face. “Ah,” thought I--and it was a most bitter thought--“what will my beloved husband say when he returns and finds that his poor Susy and his dear girls have perished in this miserable manner? But God can save us yet.” The thought had scarcely found a voice in my heart before the wind rose to a hurricane, scattering the flames on all sides into a tempest of burning billows. I buried my head in my apron, for I thought that our time was come, and that all was lost, when a most terrific crash of thunder burst over our heads, and, like the breaking of a water-spout, down came the rushing torrent of rain which had been pent up for so many weeks. In a few minutes the chip-yard was all afloat, and the fire effectually checked. The storm which, unnoticed by us, had been gathering all day, and which was the only one of any note we had that summer, continued to rage all night, and before morning had quite subdued the cruel enemy, whose approach we had viewed with such dread. The imminent danger in which we had been placed struck me more forcibly after it was past than at the time, and both the girl and myself sank upon our knees, and lifted up our hearts in humble thanksgiving to that God who had saved us by an act of His Providence from an awful and sudden death. When all hope from human assistance was lost, His hand was mercifully stretched forth, making His strength more perfectly manifested in our weakness:-- “He is their stay when earthly help is lost, The light and anchor of the tempest-toss'd.” There was one person unknown to us, who had watched the progress of that rash blaze, and had even brought his canoe to the landing, in the hope of us getting off. This was an Irish pensioner named Dunn, who had cleared a few acres on his government grant, and had built a shanty on the opposite shore of the lake. “Faith, madam! an' I thought the captain was stark, staring mad to fire his fallow on such a windy day, and that blowing right from the lake to the house. When Old Wittals came in and towld us that the masther was not to the fore, but only one lad, an' the wife an' the chilther at home,--thinks I, there's no time to be lost, or the crathurs will be burnt up intirely. We started instanther, but, by Jove! we were too late. The swamp was all in a blaze when we got to the landing, and you might as well have thried to get to heaven by passing through the other place.” This was the eloquent harangue with which the honest creature informed me the next morning of the efforts he had made to save us, and the interest he had felt in our critical situation. I felt comforted for my past anxiety, by knowing that one human being, however humble, had sympathised in our probable fate, while the providential manner in which we had been rescued will ever remain a theme of wonder and gratitude. The next evening brought the return of my husband, who listened to the tale of our escape with a pale and disturbed countenance; not a little thankful to find his wife and children still in the land of the living. For a long time after the burning of that fallow, it haunted me in my dreams. I would awake with a start, imagining myself fighting with the flames, and endeavouring to carry my little children through them to the top of the clearing, when invariably their garments and my own took fire just as I was within reach of a place of safety. THE FORGOTTEN DREAM Ere one ruddy streak of light Glimmer'd o'er the distant height, Kindling with its living beam Frowning wood and cold grey stream, I awoke with sudden start, Clammy brow and beating heart, Trembling limbs, convulsed and chill, Conscious of some mighty ill; Yet unable to recall Sights that did my sense appal; Sounds that thrill'd my sleeping ear With unutterable fear; Forms that to my sleeping eye Presented some strange phantasy-- Shadowy, spectral, and sublime, That glance upon the sons of time At moments when the mind, o'erwrought, Yields reason to mysterious thought, And night and solitude in vain Bind the free spirit in their chain. Such the vision wild that press'd On tortur'd brain and heaving chest; But sight and sound alike are gone, I woke, and found myself alone; With choking sob and stifled scream To bless my God 'twas but a dream! To smooth my damp and stiffen'd hair, And murmur out the Saviour's prayer-- The first to grateful memory brought, The first a gentle mother taught, When, bending o'er her children's bed, She bade good angels guard my head; Then paused, with tearful eyes, and smiled On the calm slumbers of her child-- As God himself had heard her prayer, And holy angels worshipped there. CHAPTER XVII OUR LOGGING-BEE There was a man in our town, In our town, in our town-- There was a man in our town, He made a logging-bee; And he bought lots of whiskey, To make the loggers frisky-- To make the loggers frisky At his logging-bee. The Devil sat on a log heap, A log heap, a log heap-- A red hot burning log heap-- A-grinning at the bee; And there was lots of swearing, Of boasting and of daring, Of fighting and of tearing, At that logging bee. J.W.D.M. A logging-bee followed the burning of the fallow, as a matter of course. In the bush, where hands are few, and labour commands an enormous rate of wages, these gatherings are considered indispensable, and much has been written in their praise; but to me, they present the most disgusting picture of a bush life. They are noisy, riotous, drunken meetings, often terminating in violent quarrels, sometimes even in bloodshed. Accidents of the most serious nature often occur, and very little work is done when we consider the number of hands employed, and the great consumption of food and liquor. I am certain, in our case, had we hired with the money expended in providing for the bee, two or three industrious, hard-working men, we should have got through twice as much work, and have had it done well, and have been the gainers in the end. People in the woods have a craze for giving and going to bees, and run to them with as much eagerness as a peasant runs to a race-course or a fair; plenty of strong drink and excitement making the chief attraction of a bee. In raising a house or barn, a bee may be looked upon as a necessary evil, but these gatherings are generally conducted in a more orderly manner than those for logging. Fewer hands are required; and they are generally under the control of the carpenter who puts up the frame, and if they get drunk during the raising they are liable to meet with very serious accidents. Thirty-two men, gentle and simple, were invited to our bee, and the maid and I were engaged for two days preceding the important one, in baking and cooking for the entertainment of our guests. When I looked at the quantity of food we had prepared, I thought it could never be all eaten, even by thirty-two men. It was a burning hot day towards the end of July, when our loggers began to come in, and the “gee!” and “ha!” to encourage the oxen resounded on every side. There was my brother S----, with his frank English face, a host in himself; Lieutenant ---- in his blouse, wide white trousers, and red sash, his broad straw hat shading a dark manly face that would have been a splendid property for a bandit chief; the four gay, reckless, idle sons of ----, famous at any spree, but incapable of the least mental or physical exertion, who considered hunting and fishing as the sole aim and object of life. These young men rendered very little assistance themselves, and their example deterred others who were inclined to work. There were the two R----s, who came to work and to make others work; my good brother-in-law, who had volunteered to be the Grog Boss, and a host of other settlers, among whom I recognised Moodie's old acquaintance, Dan Simpson, with his lank red hair and freckled face; the Youngs, the hunters, with their round, black, curly heads and rich Irish brogue; poor C---- with his long, spare, consumptive figure, and thin sickly face. Poor fellow, he has long since been gathered to his rest! There was the ruffian squatter P----, from Clear Lake,--the dread of all honest men; the brutal M----, who treated oxen as if they had been logs, by beating them with handspikes; and there was Old Wittals, with his low forehead and long nose, a living witness of the truth of phrenology, if his large organ of acquisitiveness and his want of consciousness could be taken in evidence. Yet in spite of his derelictions from honesty, he was a hard-working, good-natured man, who, if he cheated you in a bargain, or took away some useful article in mistake from your homestead, never wronged his employer in his day's work. He was a curious sample of cunning and simplicity--quite a character in his way--and the largest eater I ever chanced to know. From this ravenous propensity, for he eat his food like a famished wolf, he had obtained his singular name of “Wittals.” During the first year of his settlement in the bush, with a very large family to provide for, he had been often in want of food. One day he came to my brother, with a very long face. “Mr. S---- I'm no beggar, but I'd be obliged to you for a loaf of bread. I declare to you on my honour that I have not had a bit of wittals to dewour for two whole days.” He came to the right person with his petition. Mr. S---- with a liberal hand relieved his wants, but he entailed upon him the name of “Old Wittals,” as part payment. His daughter, who was a very pretty girl, had stolen a march upon him into the wood, with a lad whom he by no means regarded with a favourable eye. When she returned, the old man confronted her and her lover with this threat, which I suppose he considered “the most awful” punishment that he could devise. “March into the house, Madam 'Ria (Maria); and if ever I catch you with that scamp again, I'll tie you up to a stump all day, and give you no wittals.” I was greatly amused by overhearing a dialogue between Old Wittals and one of his youngest sons, a sharp, Yankeefied-looking boy, who had lost one of his eyes, but the remaining orb looked as if it could see all ways at once. “I say, Sol, how came you to tell that tarnation tearing lie to Mr. S---- yesterday? Didn't you expect that you'd catch a good wallopping for the like of that? Lying may be excusable in a man, but 'tis a terrible bad habit for a boy.” “Lor', father, that worn't a lie. I told Mr. S---- our cow worn't in his peas. Nor more she wor; she was in his wheat.” “But she was in the peas all night, boy.” “That wor nothing to me; she worn't in just then. Sure I won't get a licking for that?” “No, no, you are a good boy; but mind what I tell you, and don't bring me into a scrape with any of your real lies.” Prevarication, the worst of falsehoods, was a virtue in his eyes. So much for the old man's morality. Monaghan was in his glory, prepared to work or fight, whichever should come uppermost; and there was old Thomas and his sons, the contractors for the clearing, to expedite whose movements the bee was called. Old Thomas was a very ambitious man in his way. Though he did not know A from B, he took into his head that he had received a call from Heaven to convert the heathen in the wilderness; and every Sunday he held a meeting in our loggers' shanty, for the purpose of awakening sinners, and bringing over “Injun pagans” to the true faith. His method of accomplishing this object was very ingenious. He got his wife, Peggy--or “my Paggy,” as he called her--to read aloud to him a text from the Bible, until he knew it by heart; and he had, as he said truly, “a good remembrancer,” and never heard a striking sermon but he retained the most important passages, and retailed them secondhand to his bush audience. I must say that I was not a little surprised at the old man's eloquence when I went one Sunday over to the shanty to hear him preach. Several wild young fellows had come on purpose to make fun of him; but his discourse, which was upon the text “We shall all meet before the judgment-seat of Christ,” was rather too serious a subject to turn into a jest, with even old Thomas for the preacher. All went on very well until the old man gave out a hymn, and led off in such a loud, discordant voice, that my little Katie, who was standing between her father's knees, looked suddenly up, and said, “Mamma, what a noise old Thomas makes.” This remark led to a much greater noise, and the young men, unable to restrain their long-suppressed laughter, ran tumultuously from the shanty. I could have whipped the little elf; but small blame could be attached to a child of two years old, who had never heard a preacher, especially such a preacher as the old backwoodsman, in her life. Poor man! He was perfectly unconscious of the cause of the disturbance, and remarked to us, after the service was over, “Well, ma'am, did we not get on famously? Now, worn't that a _bootiful_ discourse?” “It was, indeed; much better than I expected.” “Yes, yes; I knew it would please you. It had quite an effect on those wild fellows. A few more such sermons will teach them good behaviour. Ah, the bush is a bad place for young men. The farther in the bush, say I, the farther from God, and the nearer to hell. I told that wicked Captain L---- of Dummer so the other Sunday; 'an',' says he, 'if you don't hold your confounded jaw, you old fool, I'll kick you there.' Now ma'am--now, sir, was not that bad manners in a gentleman, to use such appropriate epitaphs to a humble servant of God, like I?” And thus the old man ran on for an hour, dilating upon his own merits and the sins of his neighbors. There was John R----, from Smith-town, the most notorious swearer in the district; a man who esteemed himself clever, nor did he want for natural talent, but he had converted his mouth into such a sink of iniquity that it corrupted the whole man, and all the weak and thoughtless of his own sex who admitted him into their company. I had tried to convince John R---- (for he often frequented the house under the pretence of borrowing books) of the great crime that he was constantly committing, and of the injurious effect it must produce upon his own family, but the mental disease had taken too deep a root to be so easily cured. Like a person labouring under some foul disease, he contaminated all he touched. Such men seem to make an ambitious display of their bad habits in such scenes, and if they afford a little help, they are sure to get intoxicated and make a row. There was my friend, old Ned Dunn, who had been so anxious to get us out of the burning fallow. There was a whole group of Dummer Pines: Levi, the little wiry, witty poacher; Cornish Bill, the honest-hearted old peasant, with his stalwart figure and uncouth dialect; and David, and Nedall good men and true; and Malachi Chroak, a queer, withered-up, monkey-man, that seemed like some mischievous elf, flitting from heap to heap to make work and fun for the rest; and many others were at that bee who have since found a rest in the wilderness: Adam T----, H----, J. M----, H. N----. These, at different times, lost their lives in those bright waters in which, on such occasions as these, they used to sport and frolic to refresh themselves during the noonday heat. Alas! how many, who were then young and in their prime, that river and its lakes have swept away! Our men worked well until dinner-time, when, after washing in the lake, they all sat down to the rude board which I had prepared for them, loaded with the best fare that could be procured in the bush. Pea-soup, legs of pork, venison, eel, and raspberry pies, garnished with plenty of potatoes, and whiskey to wash them down, besides a large iron kettle of tea. To pour out the latter, and dispense it round, devolved upon me. My brother and his friends, who were all temperance men, and consequently the best workers in the field, kept me and the maid actively employed in replenishing their cups. The dinner passed off tolerably well; some of the lower order of the Irish settlers were pretty far gone, but they committed no outrage upon our feelings by either swearing or bad language, a few harmless jokes alone circulating among them. Some one was funning Old Wittalls for having eaten seven large cabbages at Mr. T----'s bee, a few days previous. His son, Sol, thought himself, as in duty bound, to take up the cudgel for his father. “Now, I guess that's a lie, anyhow. Fayther was sick that day, and I tell you he only ate five.” This announcement was followed by such an explosion of mirth that the boy looked fiercely round him, as if he could scarcely believe the fact that the whole party were laughing at him. Malachi Chroak, who was good-naturedly drunk, had discovered an old pair of cracked bellows in a corner, which he placed under his arm, and applying his mouth to the pipe, and working his elbows to and fro, pretended that he was playing upon the bagpipes, every now and then letting the wind escape in a shrill squeak from this novel instrument. “Arrah, ladies and jintlemen, do jist turn your swate little eyes upon me whilst I play for your iddifications the last illigant tune which my owld grandmother taught me. Och hone! 'tis a thousand pities that such musical owld crathers should be suffered to die, at all at all, to be poked away into a dirthy, dark hole, when their canthles shud be burnin' a-top of a bushel, givin' light to the house. An' then it is she that was the illigant dancer, stepping out so lively and frisky, just so.” And here he minced to and fro, affecting the airs of a fine lady. The suppositious bagpipe gave an uncertain, ominous howl, and he flung it down, and started back with a ludicrous expression of alarm. “Alive, is it ye are? Ye croaking owld divil, is that the tune you taught your son? “Och! my old granny taught me, but now she is dead, That a dhrop of nate whiskey is good for the head; It would make a man spake when jist ready to dhie, If you doubt it--my boys!--I'd advise you to thry. “Och! my owld granny sleeps with her head on a stone,-- 'Now, Malach, don't throuble the galls when I'm gone!' I thried to obey her; but, och, I am shure, There's no sorrow on earth that the angels can't cure. “Och! I took her advice--I'm a bachelor still; And I dance, and I play, with such excellent skill, (Taking up the bellows, and beginning to dance.) That the dear little crathurs are striving in vain Which furst shall my hand or my fortin' obtain.” “Malach!” shouted a laughing group. “How was it that the old lady taught you to go a-courting?” “Arrah, that's a sacret! I don't let out owld granny's sacrets,” said Malachi, gracefully waving his head to and fro to the squeaking of the bellows; then, suddenly tossing back the long, dangling black elf-locks that curled down the sides of his lank, yellow cheeks, and winking knowingly with his comical little deep-seated black eyes, he burst out again-- “Wid the blarney I'd win the most dainty proud dame, No gall can resist the soft sound of that same; Wid the blarney, my boys--if you doubt it, go thry-- But hand here the bottle, my whistle is dhry.” The men went back to the field, leaving Malachi to amuse those who remained in the house; and we certainly did laugh our fill at his odd capers and conceits. Then he would insist upon marrying our maid. There could be no refusal--have her he would. The girl, to keep him quiet, laughingly promised that she would take him for her husband. This did not satisfy him. She must take her oath upon the Bible to that effect. Mary pretended that there was no bible in the house, but he found an old spelling-book upon a shelf in the kitchen, and upon it he made her swear, and called upon me to bear witness to her oath, and that she was now his betrothed, and he would go next day with her to the “praist.” Poor Mary had reason to repent her frolic, for he stuck close to her the whole evening, tormenting her to fulfill her contract. After the sun went down, the logging-band came in to supper, which was all ready for them. Those who remained sober ate the meal in peace, and quietly returned to their own homes; while the vicious and the drunken stayed to brawl and fight. After having placed the supper on the table, I was so tired with the noise, and heat, and fatigue of the day, that I went to bed, leaving to Mary and my husband the care of the guests. The little bed-chamber was only separated from the kitchen by a few thin boards; and unfortunately for me and the girl, who was soon forced to retreat thither, we could hear all the wickedness and profanity going on in the next room. My husband, disgusted with the scene, soon left it, and retired into the parlour, with the few of the loggers who at that hour remained sober. The house rang with the sound of unhallowed revelry, profane songs and blasphemous swearing. It would have been no hard task to have imagined these miserable, degraded beings fiends instead of men. How glad I was when they at last broke up; and we were once more left in peace to collect the broken glasses and cups, and the scattered fragments of that hateful feast. We were obliged to endure a second and a third repetition of this odious scene, before sixteen acres of land were rendered fit for the reception of our fall crop of wheat. My hatred to these tumultuous, disorderly meetings was not in the least decreased by my husband being twice seriously hurt while attending them. After the second injury he received, he seldom went to them himself, but sent his oxen and servant in his place. In these odious gatherings, the sober, moral, and industrious man is more likely to suffer than the drunken and profane, as during the delirium of drink these men expose others to danger as well as themselves. The conduct of many of the settlers, who considered themselves gentlemen, and would have been very much affronted to have been called otherwise, was often more reprehensible than that of the poor Irish emigrants, to whom they should have set an example of order and sobriety. The behaviour of these young men drew upon them the severe but just censures of the poorer class, whom they regarded in every way as their inferiors. “That blackguard calls himself a gentleman. In what respect is he better than us?” was an observation too frequently made use of at these gatherings. To see a bad man in the very worst point of view, follow him to a bee: be he profane, licentious, quarrelsome, or a rogue, all his native wickedness will be fully developed there. Just after the last of these logging-bees, we had to part with our good servant Mary, and just at a time when it was the heaviest loss to me. Her father, who had been a dairyman in the north of Ireland, an honest, industrious man, had brought out upwards of one hundred pounds to this country. With more wisdom than is generally exercised by Irish emigrants, instead of sinking all his means in buying a bush farm, he hired a very good farm in Cavan, with cattle, and returned to his old avocation. The services of his daughter, who was an excellent dairymaid, were required to take the management of the cows; and her brother brought a wagon and horses all the way from the front to take her home. This event was perfectly unexpected, and left me without a moment's notice to provide myself with another servant, at a time when servants were not to be had, and I was perfectly unable to do the least thing. My little Addie was sick almost to death with the summer complaint, and the eldest still too young to take care of herself. This was but the beginning of trouble. Ague and lake fever had attacked our new settlement. The men in the shanty were all down with it; and my husband was confined to his bed on each alternate day, unable to raise hand or foot, and raving in the delirium of the fever. In my sister and brother's families, scarcely a healthy person remained to attend upon the sick; and at Herriot's Falls, nine persons were stretched upon the floor of one log cabin, unable to help themselves or one another. After much difficulty, and only by offering enormous wages, I succeeded in procuring a nurse to attend upon me during my confinement. The woman had not been a day in the house before she was attacked by the same fever. In the midst of this confusion, and with my precious little Addie lying insensible on a pillow at the foot of my bed--expected at every moment to breathe her last--on the night of the 26th of August the boy I had so ardently coveted was born. The next day, old Pine carried his wife (my nurse) away upon his back, and I was left to struggle through, in the best manner I could, with a sick husband, a sick child, and a newborn babe. It was a melancholy season, one of severe mental and bodily suffering. Those who have drawn such agreeable pictures of a residence in the backwoods never dwell upon the periods of sickness, when, far from medical advice, and often, as in my case, deprived of the assistance of friends by adverse circumstances, you are left to languish, unattended, upon the couch of pain. The day that my husband was free of the fit, he did what he could for me and his poor sick babes, but, ill as he was, he was obliged to sow the wheat to enable the man to proceed with the drag, and was therefore necessarily absent in the field the greater part of the day. I was very ill, yet for hours at a time I had no friendly voice to cheer me, to proffer me a drink of cold water, or to attend to the poor babe; and worse, still worse, there was no one to help that pale, marble child, who lay so cold and still, with “half-closed violet eyes,” as if death had already chilled her young heart in his iron grasp. There was not a breath of air in our close, burning bed-closet; and the weather was sultry beyond all that I have since experienced. How I wished that I could be transported to a hospital at home, to enjoy the common care that in such places is bestowed upon the sick. Bitter tears flowed continually from my eyes over those young children. I had asked of Heaven a son, and there he lay helpless by the side of his almost equally helpless mother, who could not lift him up in her arms, or still his cries; while the pale, fair angel, with her golden curls, who had lately been the admiration of all who saw her, no longer recognized my voice, or was conscious of my presence. I felt that I could almost resign the long and eagerly hoped-for son, to win one more smile from that sweet suffering creature. Often did I weep myself to sleep, and wake to weep again with renewed anguish. And my poor little Katie, herself under three years of age, how patiently she bore the loss of my care, and every comfort. How earnestly the dear thing strove to help me. She would sit on my sick-bed, and hold my hand, and ask me to look at her and speak to her; would inquire why Addie slept so long, and when she would awake again. Those innocent questions went like arrows to my heart. Lieutenant ----, the husband of my dear Emilia, at length heard of my situation. His inestimable wife was from home, nursing her sick mother; but he sent his maid-servant up every day for a couple of hours, and the kind girl despatched a messenger nine miles through the woods to Dummer, to fetch her younger sister, a child of twelve years old. Oh, how grateful I felt for these signal mercies; for my situation for nearly a week was one of the most pitiable that could be imagined. The sickness was so prevalent that help was not to be obtained for money; and without the assistance of that little girl, young as she was, it is more than probable that neither myself nor my children would ever have risen from that bed of sickness. The conduct of our man Jacob, during this trying period, was marked with the greatest kindness and consideration. On the days that his master was confined to his bed with the fever, he used to place a vessel of cold water and a cup by his bedside, and put his honest English face in at my door to know if he could make a cup of tea, or toast a bit of bread for the mistress, before he went into the field. Katie was indebted to him for all meals. He baked, and cooked, and churned, milked the cows, and made up the butter, as well and as carefully as the best female servant could have done. As to poor John Monanghan, he was down with fever in the shanty, where four other men were all ill with the same terrible complaint. I was obliged to leave my bed and endeavour to attend to the wants of my young family long before I was really able. When I made my first attempt to reach the parlour I was so weak, that, at every step, I felt as if I should pitch forward to the ground, which seemed to undulate beneath my feet like the floor of a cabin in a storm at sea. My husband continued to suffer for many weeks with the ague; and when he was convalescent, all the children, even the poor babe, were seized with it, nor did it leave us until late in the spring of 1835. THE EMIGRANT'S FAREWELL Rise, Mary! meet me on the shore, And tell our tale of sorrow o'er; There must we meet to part no more-- Rise, Mary, rise! Come, dearest, come! tho' all in vain; Once more beside yon summer main We'll plight our hopeless vows again-- Unclose thine eyes. My bark amidst the surge is toss'd, I go, by evil fortunes cross'd, My earthly hopes for ever lost-- Love's dearest prize. But when thy hand is clasp'd in mine, I'll laugh at fortune, nor repine; In life, in death, for ever thine-- Then check these sighs. They move a bosom steel'd to bear Its own unwonted load of care, That will not bend beneath despair-- Rise, dearest, rise. Life's but a troubled dream at best; There comes a time when grief shall rest, Kind, faithful hearts shall yet be bless'd 'Neath brighter skies! CHAPTER XVIII A TRIP TO STONY LAKE Oh Nature! in thy ever-varying face, By rocky shore, or 'neath the forest tree, What love divine, what matchless skill, I trace! My full warm heart responsive thrills to thee. Yea, in my throbbing bosom's inmost core, Thou reign'st supreme; and, in thy sternest mood, Thy votary bends in rapture to adore The Mighty Maker, who pronounced thee good. Thy broad, majestic brow still bears His seal; And when I cease to love, oh, may I cease to feel. My husband had long promised me a trip to Stony Lake, and in the summer of 1835, before the harvest commenced, he gave Mr. Y----, who kept the mill at the rapids below Clear Lake, notice of our intention, and the worthy old man and his family made due preparation for our reception. The little girls were to accompany us. We were to start at sunrise, to avoid the heat of the day, to go up as far as Mr. Y----'s in our canoe, re-embark with his sons above the rapids in birch-bark canoes, go as far up the lake as we could accomplish by daylight, and return at night; the weather being very warm, and the moon at full. Before six o'clock we were all seated in the little craft, which spread her white sail to a foaming breeze, and sped merrily over the blue waters. The lake on which our clearing stood was about a mile and a half in length, and about three quarters of a mile in breadth; a mere pond, when compared with the Bay of Quinte, Ontario, and the inland seas of Canada. But it was _our_ lake, and, consequently, it had ten thousand beauties in our eyes, which would scarcely have attracted the observation of a stranger. At the head of the Katchawanook, the lake is divided by a long neck of land, that forms a small bay on the right-hand side, and a very brisk rapid on the left. The banks are formed of large masses of limestone; and the cardinal-flower and the tiger-lily seem to have taken an especial fancy to this spot, and to vie with each other in the display of their gorgeous colours. It is an excellent place for fishing; the water is very deep close to the rocky pavement that forms the bank, and it has a pebbly bottom. Many a magic hour, at rosy dawn, or evening grey, have I spent with my husband on this romantic spot; our canoe fastened to a bush, and ourselves intent upon ensnaring the black bass, a fish of excellent flavour that abounds in this place. Our paddles soon carried us past the narrows, and through the rapid water, the children sitting quietly at the bottom of the boat, enchanted with all they heard and saw, begging papa to stop and gather water-lilies, or to catch one of the splendid butterflies that hovered over us; and often the little Addie darted her white hand into the water to grasp at the shadow of the gorgeous insects as they skimmed along the waves. After passing the rapids, the river widened into another small lake, perfectly round in form, and having in its centre a tiny green island, in the midst of which stood, like a shattered monument of bygone storms, one blasted, black ash-tree. The Indians call this lake Bessikakoon, but I do not know the exact meaning of the word. Some say that it means “the Indian's grave,” others “the lake of the one island.” It is certain that an Indian girl is buried beneath that blighted tree; but I never could learn the particulars of her story, and perhaps there was no tale connected with it. She might have fallen a victim to disease during the wanderings of her tribe, and been buried on that spot; or she might have been drowned, which would account for her having been buried away from the rest of her people. This little lake lies in the heart of the wilderness. There is but one clearing upon its shores, and that had been made by lumberers many years before; the place abounded with red cedar. A second growth of young timber had grown up in this spot, which was covered also with raspberry-bushes--several hundred acres being entirely overgrown with this delicious berry. It was here annually that we used to come in large picnic parties, to collect this valuable fruit for our winter preserves, in defiance of black-flies, mosquitoes, snakes, and even bears, all which have been encountered by berry-pickers upon this spot, as busy and as active as themselves, gathering an ample repast from Nature's bounteous lap. And, oh! what beautiful wild shrubs and flowers grew up in that neglected spot! Some of the happiest hours I spent in the bush are connected with reminiscences of “Irving's shanty,” for so the raspberry-grounds were called. The clearing could not be seen from the shore. You had to scramble through a cedar-swamp to reach the sloping ground which produced the berries. The mill at the Clear Lake rapids was about three miles distant from our own clearing; and after stemming another rapid, and passing between two beautiful wooded islands, the canoe rounded a point, and the rude structure was before us. A wilder and more romantic spot than that which the old hunter had chosen for his homestead in the wilderness could scarcely be imagined. The waters of Clear Lake here empty themselves through a narrow, deep, rocky channel, not exceeding a quarter of a mile in length, and tumble over a limestone ridge of ten or twelve feet in height, which extends from one bank of the river to the other. The shores on either side are very steep, and the large oak-trees which have anchored their roots in every crevice of the rock, throw their fantastic arms far over the foaming waterfall, the deep green of their massy foliage forming a beautiful contrast with the white, flashing waters that foam over the shoot at least fifty feet below the brow of the limestone rock. By a flight of steps cut in the banks we ascended to the platform above the river on which Mr. Y----'s house stood. It was a large, rough-looking, log building, surrounded by barns and sheds of the same primitive material. The porch before the door was covered with hops, and the room of general resort, into which it immediately opened, was of large dimensions, the huge fire-place forming the most striking feature. On the hearth-stone, hot as was the weather, blazed a great fire, encumbered with all sorts of culinary apparatus, which, I am inclined to think, had been called into requisition for our sole benefit and accommodation. The good folks had breakfasted long before we started from home, but they would not hear of our proceeding to Stony Lake until after we had dined. It was only eight o'clock a.m., and we had still four hours to dinner, which gave us ample leisure to listen to the old man's stories, ramble round the premises, and observe all the striking features of the place. Mr. Y---- was a Catholic, and the son of a respectable farmer from the south of Ireland. Some few years before, he had emigrated with a large family of seven sons and two daughters, and being fond of field sports, and greatly taken with the beauty of the locality in which he had pitched his tent in the wilderness, he determined to raise a mill upon the dam which Nature had provided to his hands, and wait patiently until the increasing immigration should settle the townships of Smith and Douro, render the property valuable, and bring plenty of grist to the mill. He was not far wrong in his calculations; and though, for the first few years, he subsisted entirely by hunting, fishing, and raising what potatoes and wheat he required for his own family, on the most fertile spots he could find on his barren lot, very little corn passed through the mill. At the time we visited his place, he was driving a thriving trade, and all the wheat that was grown in the neighbourhood was brought by water to be ground at Y----'s mill. He had lost his wife a few years after coming to the country; but his two daughters, Betty and Norah, were excellent housewives, and amply supplied her loss. From these amiable women we received a most kind and hearty welcome, and every comfort and luxury within their reach. They appeared a most happy and contented family. The sons--a fine, hardy, independent set of fellows--were regarded by the old man with pride and affection. Many were his anecdotes of their prowess in hunting and fishing. His method of giving them an aversion to strong drink while very young amused me greatly, but it is not every child that could have stood the test of his experiment. “When they were little chaps, from five to six years of age, I made them very drunk,” he said; “so drunk that it brought on severe headache and sickness, and this so disgusted them with liquor, that they never could abide the sight of it again. I have only one drunkard among the seven; and he was such a weak, puling crathur, that I dared not try the same game with him, lest it should kill him. 'Tis his nature, I suppose, and he can't help it; but the truth is, that to make up for the sobriety of all the rest, he is killing himself with drink.” Norah gave us an account of her catching a deer that had got into the enclosure the day before. “I went out,” she said, “early in the morning, to milk the cows, and I saw a fine young buck struggling to get through a pale of the fence, in which having entangled his head and horns, I knew, by the desperate efforts he was making to push aside the rails, that if I was not quick in getting hold of him, he would soon be gone.” “And did you dare to touch him?” “If I had had Mat's gun I would have shot him, but he would have made his escape long before I could run to the house for that, so I went boldly up to him and got him by the hind legs; and though he kicked and struggled dreadfully, I held on till Mat heard me call, and ran to my help, and cut his throat with his hunting-knife. So you see,” she continued, with a good-natured laugh, “I can beat our hunters hollow--they hunt the deer, but I can catch a buck with my hands.” While we were chatting away, great were the preparations making by Miss Betty and a very handsome American woman, who had recently come thither as a help. One little barefooted garsoon was shelling peas in an Indian basket, another was stringing currants into a yellow pie-dish, and a third was sent to the rapids with his rod and line, to procure a dish of fresh fish to add to the long list of bush dainties that were preparing for our dinner. It was in vain that I begged our kind entertainers not to put themselves to the least trouble on our account, telling them that we were now used to the woods, and contented with anything; they were determined to exhaust all their stores to furnish forth the entertainment. Nor can it be wondered at, that, with so many dishes to cook, and pies and custards to bake, instead of dining at twelve, it was past two o'clock before we were conducted to the dinner-table. I was vexed and disappointed at the delay, as I wanted to see all I could of the spot we were about to visit before night and darkness compelled us to return. The feast was spread in a large outhouse, the table being formed of two broad deal boards laid together, and supported by rude carpenter's stools. A white linen cloth, a relic of better days, concealed these arrangements. The board was covered with an indescribable variety of roast and boiled, of fish, flesh, and fowl. My readers should see a table laid out in a wealthy Canadian farmer's house before they can have any idea of the profusion displayed in the entertainment of two visitors and their young children. Besides venison, pork, chickens, ducks, and fish of several kinds, cooked in a variety of ways, there was a number of pumpkin, raspberry, cherry, and currant pies, with fresh butter and green cheese (as the new cream-cheese is called), molasses, preserves, and pickled cucumbers, besides tea and coffee--the latter, be it known, I had watched the American woman boiling in the frying-pan. It was a black-looking compound, and I did not attempt to discuss its merits. The vessel in which it had been prepared had prejudiced me, and rendered me very sceptical on that score. We were all very hungry, having tasted nothing since five o'clock in the morning, and contrived, out of the variety of good things before us, to make an excellent dinner. I was glad, however, when we rose to prosecute our intended trip up the lake. The old man, whose heart was now thoroughly warmed with whiskey, declared that he meant to make one of the party, and Betty, too, was to accompany us; her sister Norah kindly staying behind to take care of the children. We followed a path along the top of the high ridge of limestone rock, until we had passed the falls and the rapids above, when we found Pat and Mat Y---- waiting for us on the shore below, in two beautiful new birch-bark canoes, which they had purchased the day before from the Indians. Miss Betty, Mat, and myself, were safely stowed into one, while the old miller, and his son Pat, and my husband, embarked in the other, and our steersmen pushed off into the middle of the deep and silent stream; the shadow of the tall woods, towering so many feet above us, casting an inky hue upon the waters. The scene was very imposing, and after paddling for a few minutes in shade and silence, we suddenly emerged into light and sunshine, and Clear Lake, which gets its name from the unrivalled brightness of its waters, spread out its azure mirror before us. The Indians regard this sheet of water with peculiar reverence. It abounds in the finest sorts of fish, the salmon-trout, the delicious white fish, maskinonge, and black and white bass. There is no island in this lake, no rice beds, nor stick nor stone to break its tranquil beauty, and, at the time we visited it, there was but one clearing upon its shores. The log hut of the squatter P----, commanding a beautiful prospect up and down the lake, stood upon a bold slope fronting the water; all the rest was unbroken forest. We had proceeded about a mile on our pleasant voyage, when our attention was attracted by a singular natural phenomenon, which Mat Y---- called the battery. On the right-hand side of the shore rose a steep, perpendicular wall of limestone, that had the appearance of having been laid by the hand of man, so smooth and even was its surface. After attaining a height of about fifty feet, a natural platform of eight or ten yards broke the perpendicular line of the rock, when another wall, like the first, rose to a considerable height, terminating in a second and third platform of the same description. Fire, at some distant period, had run over these singularly beautiful terraces, and a second growth of poplars and balm-of-gileads, relieved, by their tender green and light, airy foilage, the sombre indigo tint of the heavy pines that nodded like the plumes of a funeral-hearse over the fair young dwellers on the rock. The water is forty feet deep at the base of this precipice, which is washed by the waves. After we had passed the battery, Mat Y---- turned to me and said, “That is a famous place for bears; many a bear have I shot among those rocks.” This led to a long discussion on the wild beasts of the country. “I do not think that there is much danger to be apprehended from them,” said he; “but I once had an ugly adventure with a wolf two winters ago, on this lake.” I was all curiosity to hear the story, which sounded doubly interesting told on the very spot, and while gliding over those lovely waters. “We were lumbering at the head of Stony Lake, about eight miles from here, my four brothers, myself, and several other hands. The winter was long and severe; although it was the first week in March, there was not the least appearance of a thaw, and the ice on these lakes was as firm as ever. I had been sent home to fetch a yoke of oxen to draw the saw-logs down to the water, our chopping being all completed, and the logs ready for rafting. “I did not think it necessary to encumber myself with my rifle, and was, therefore, provided with no weapon of defence but the long gad I used to urge on the cattle. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I rounded Sandy Point, that long point which is about a mile a-head of us on the left shore, when I first discovered that I was followed, but at a great distance, by a large wolf. At first, I thought little of the circumstance, beyond a passing wish that I had brought my gun. I knew that he would not attack me before dark, and it was still two long hours to sundown; so I whistled, and urged on my oxen, and soon forgot the wolf--when, on stopping to repair a little damage to the peg of the yoke, I was surprised to find him close at my heels. I turned, and ran towards him, shouting as loud as I could, when he slunk back, but showed no inclination to make off. Knowing that he must have companions near, by his boldness, I shouted as loud as I could, hoping that my cries might be heard by my brothers, who would imagine that the oxen had got into the ice, and would come to my assistance. I was now winding my way through the islands in Stony Lake; the sun was setting red before me, and I had still three miles of my journey to accomplish. The wolf had become so impudent that I kept him off by pelting him with snowballs; and once he came so near that I struck him with the gad. I now began to be seriously alarmed, and from time to time, shouted with all my strength; and you may imagine my joy when these cries were answered by the report of a gun. My brothers had heard me, and the discharge of a gun, for a moment, seemed to daunt the wolf. He uttered a long howl, which was answered by the cries of a large pack of the dirty brutes from the wood. It was only just light enough to distinguish objects, and I had to stop and face my enemy, to keep him at bay. “I saw the skeleton forms of half-a-dozen more of them slinking among the bushes that skirted a low island; and tired and cold, I gave myself and the oxen up for lost, when I felt the ice tremble on which I stood, and heard men running at a little distance. 'Fire your guns!' I cried out, as loud as I could. My order was obeyed, and such a yelling and howling immediately filled the whole forest as would have chilled your very heart. The thievish varmints instantly fled away into the bush. “I never felt the least fear of wolves until that night; but when they meet in large bands, like cowardly dogs, they trust to their numbers, and grow fierce. If you meet with one wolf, you may be certain that the whole pack are at no great distance.” We were fast approaching Sandy Point, a long white ridge of sand, running half across the lake, and though only covered with scattered groups of scrubby trees and brush, it effectually screened Stony Lake from our view. There were so many beautiful flowers peeping through the dwarf, green bushes, that, wishing to inspect them nearer, Mat kindly ran the canoe ashore, and told me that he would show me a pretty spot, where an Indian, who had been drowned during a storm off that point, was buried. I immediately recalled the story of Susan Moore's father, but Mat thought that he was interred upon one of the islands farther up. “It is strange,” he said, “that they are such bad swimmers. The Indian, though unrivalled by us whites in the use of the paddle, is an animal that does not take readily to the water, and those among them who can swim seldom use it as a recreation.” Pushing our way through the bushes, we came to a small opening in the underwood, so thickly grown over with wild Canadian roses in full blossom, that the air was impregnated with a delightful odour. In the centre of this bed of sweets rose the humble mound that protected the bones of the red man from the ravenous jaws of the wolf and the wild cat. It was completely covered with stones, and from among the crevices had sprung a tuft of blue harebells, waving as wild and free as if they grew among the bonny red heather on the glorious hills of the North, or shook their tiny bells to the breeze on the broom-encircled commons of England. The harebell had always from a child been with me a favourite flower; and the first sight of it in Canada, growing upon that lonely grave, so flooded my soul with remembrances of the past, that, in spite of myself, the tears poured freely from my eyes. There are moments when it is impossible to repress those outgushings of the heart-- “Those flood-gates of the soul that sever, In passion's tide to part for ever.” If Mat and his sister wondered at my tears, they must have suspected the cause, for they walked to a little distance, and left me to the indulgence of my feelings. I gathered those flowers, and placed them in my bosom, and kept them for many a day; they had become holy, when connected with sacred home recollections, and the never-dying affections of the heart which the sight of them recalled. A shout from our companions in the other canoe made us retrace our steps to the shore. They had already rounded the point, and were wondering at our absence. Oh, what a magnificent scene of wild and lonely grandeur burst upon us as we swept round the little peninsula, and the whole majesty of Stony Lake broke upon us at once; another Lake of the Thousand Isles, in miniature, and in the heart of the wilderness! Imagine a large sheet of water, some fifteen miles in breadth and twenty-five in length, taken up by islands of every size and shape, from the lofty naked rock of red granite to the rounded hill, covered with oak-trees to its summit; while others were level with the waters, and of a rich emerald green, only fringed with a growth of aquatic shrubs and flowers. Never did my eyes rest on a more lovely or beautiful scene. Not a vestige of man, or of his works, was there. The setting sun that cast such a gorgeous flood of light upon this exquisite panorama, bringing out some of these lofty islands in strong relief, and casting others into intense shade, shed no cheery beam upon church spire or cottage pane. We beheld the landscape, savage and grand in its primeval beauty. As we floated among the channels between these rocky picturesque isles, I asked Mat how many of them there were. “I never could succeed,” he said, “in counting them all. One Sunday Pat and I spent a whole day in going from one to the other, to try and make out how many there were, but we could only count up to one hundred and forty before we gave up the task in despair. There are a great many of them; more than any one would think--and, what is very singular, the channel between them is very deep, sometimes above forty feet, which accounts for the few rapids to be found in this lake. It is a glorious place for hunting; and the waters, undisturbed by steam-boats, abound in all sorts of fish. “Most of these islands are covered with huckleberries; while grapes, high and low-bush cranberries, blackberries, wild cherries, gooseberries, and several sorts of wild currants grow here in profusion. There is one island among these groups (but I never could light upon the identical one) where the Indians yearly gather their wampum-grass. They come here to collect the best birch-bark for their canoes, and to gather wild onions. In short, from the game, fish, and fruit which they collect among the islands of this lake, they chiefly depend for their subsistence. They are very jealous of the settlers in the country coming to hunt and fish here, and tell many stories of wild beasts and rattlesnakes that abound along its shores, but I, who have frequented the lake for years, was never disturbed by anything, beyond the adventure with the wolf, which I have already told you. The banks of this lake are all steep and rocky, and the land along the shore is barren, and totally unfit for cultivation. “Had we time to run up a few miles further, I could have showed you some places well worth a journey to look at; but the sun is already down, and it will be dark before we get back to the mill.” The other canoe now floated alongside, and Pat agreed with his brother that it was high time to return. With reluctance I turned from this strangely fascinating scene. As we passed under one bold rocky island, Mat said, laughingly, “That is Mount Rascal.” “How did it obtain that name?” “Oh, we were out here berrying, with our good priest, Mr. B----. This island promised so fair, that we landed upon it, and, after searching for an hour, we returned to the boat without a single berry, upon which Mr. B---- named it 'Mount Rascal.'” The island was so beautiful, it did not deserve the name, and I christened it “Oak Hill,” from the abundance of oak-trees which clothed its steep sides. The wood of this oak is so heavy and hard that it will not float in the water, and it is in great request for the runners of lumber-sleighs, which have to pass over very bad roads. The breeze, which had rendered our sail up the lakes so expeditious and refreshing, had stiffened into a pretty high wind, which was dead against us all the way down. Betty now knelt in the bow and assisted her brother, squaw fashion, in paddling the canoe; but, in spite of all their united exertions, it was past ten o'clock before we reached the mill. The good Norah was waiting tea for us. She had given the children their supper four hours ago, and the little creatures, tired with using their feet all day, were sound asleep upon her bed. After supper, several Irish songs were sung, while Pat played upon the fiddle, and Betty and Mat enlivened the company with an Irish jig. It was midnight when the children were placed on my cloak at the bottom of the canoe, and we bade adieu to this hospitable family. The wind being dead against us, we were obliged to dispense with the sail, and take to our paddles. The moonlight was as bright as day, the air warm and balmy; and the aromatic, resinous smell exuded by the heat from the balm-of-gilead and the pine-trees in the forest, added greatly to our sense of enjoyment as we floated past scenes so wild and lonely--isles that assumed a mysterious look and character in that witching hour. In moments like these, I ceased to regret my separation from my native land; and, filled with the love of Nature, my heart forgot for the time the love of home. The very spirit of peace seemed to brood over the waters, which were broken into a thousand ripples of light by every breeze that stirred the rice blossoms, or whispered through the shivering aspen-trees. The far-off roar of the rapids, softened by distance, and the long, mournful cry of the night-owl, alone broke the silence of the night. Amid these lonely wilds the soul draws nearer to God, and is filled to overflowing by the overwhelming sense of His presence. It was two o'clock in the morning when we fastened the canoe to the landing, and Moodie carried up the children to the house. I found the girl still up with my boy, who had been very restless during our absence. My heart reproached me, as I caught him to my breast, for leaving him so long; in a few minutes he was consoled for past sorrows, and sleeping sweetly in my arms. A CANADIAN SONG Come, launch the light canoe; The breeze is fresh and strong; The summer skies are blue, And 'tis joy to float along; Away o'er the waters, The bright-glancing waters, The many-voiced waters, As they dance in light and song. When the great Creator spoke, On the long unmeasured night The living day-spring broke, And the waters own'd His might; The voice of many waters, Of glad, rejoicing waters, Of living, leaping waters, First hailed the dawn of light. Where foaming billows glide To earth's remotest bound; The rushing ocean tide Rolls on the solemn sound; God's voice is in the waters; The deep, mysterious waters, The sleepless, dashing waters, Still breathe its tones around. CHAPTER XIX THE “OULD DHRAGOON” [I am indebted to my husband for this sketch.] Behold that man, with lanky locks, Which hang in strange confusion o'er his brow; And nicely scan his garments, rent and patch'd, In colours varied, like a pictured map; And watch his restless glance--now grave, now gay-- As saddening thought, or merry humour's flash Sweeps o'er the deep-mark'd lines which care hath left; As when the world is steep'd in blackest night, The forked lightning flashes through the sky, And all around leaps into life and light, To sink again in darkness blacker still. Yes! look upon that face lugubrious, long, As thoughtfully he stands with folded arms Amid his realm of charr'd and spectral stumps, Which once were trees, but now, with sprawling roots, Cling to the rocks which peep above the soil. Ay! look again, And say if you discern the faintest trace Of warrior bold;--the gait erect and proud, The steady glance that speaks the fearless soul, Watchful and prompt to do what man can do When duty calls. All wreck'd and reckless now;-- But let the trumpet's soul-inspiring sound Wake up the brattling echoes of the woods, Then watch his kindling eye--his eagle glance-- While thoughts of glorious fields, and battles won, And visions bright of joyous, hopeful youth Sweep o'er his soul. A soldier now once more-- Touch'd by the magic sound, he rears his head, Responsive to the well-known martial note, And stands again a hero 'mid his rags. It is delightful to observe a feeling of contentment under adverse circumstances. We may smile at the rude and clumsy attempts of the remote and isolated backwoodsman to attain something like comfort, but happy he who, with the buoyant spirits of the light-hearted Irishman, contrives to make himself happy even when all others would be miserable. A certain degree of dissatisfaction with our present circumstances is necessary to stimulate us to exertion, and thus to enable us to secure future comfort; but where the delusive prospect of future happiness is too remote for any reasonable hope of ultimate attainment, then surely it is true wisdom to make the most of the present, and to cultivate a spirit of happy contentment with the lot assigned to us by Providence. “Ould Simpson,” or the “Ould Dhragoon,” as he was generally called, was a good sample of this happy character; and I shall proceed to give the reader a sketch of his history, and a description of his establishment. He was one of that unfortunate class of discharged soldiers who are tempted to sell their pensions often far below their true value, for the sake of getting a lot of land in some remote settlement, where it is only rendered valuable by the labour of the settler, and where they will have the unenviable privilege of expending the last remains of their strength in clearing a patch of land for the benefit of some grasping storekeeper who has given them credit while engaged in the work. The old dragoon had fixed his abode on the verge of an extensive beaver-meadow, which was considered a sort of natural curiosity in the neighbourhood; and where he managed, by cutting the rank grass in the summer time, to support several cows, which afforded the chief subsistence of his family. He had also managed, with the assistance of his devoted partner, Judy, to clear a few acres of poor rocky land on the sloping margin of the level meadow, which he planted year after year with potatoes. Scattered over this small clearing, here and there might be seen the but-end of some half-burnt hemlock tree, which had escaped the general combustion of the log heaps, and now formed a striking contrast to the white limestone rocks which showed their rounded surfaces above the meagre soil. The “ould dhragoon” seemed, moreover, to have some taste for the picturesque, and by way of ornament, had left standing sundry tall pines and hemlocks neatly girdled to destroy their foliage, the shade of which would have been detrimental to the “blessed praties” which he designed to grow in his clearing, but which, in the meantime, like martyrs at the stake, stretched their naked branches imploringly towards the smiling heavens. As he was a kind of hermit, from choice, and far removed from other settlers, whose assistance is so necessary in new settlements, old Simpson was compelled to resort to the most extraordinary contrivances while clearing his land. Thus, after felling the trees, instead of chopping them into lengths, for the purpose of facilitating the operation of piling them preparatory to burning, which would have cost him too much labour, he resorted to the practice of “niggering,” as it is called; which is simply laying light pieces of round timber across the trunks of the trees, and setting fire to them at the point of contact, by which means the trees are slowly burned through. It was while busily engaged in this interesting operation that I first became acquainted with the subject of this sketch. Some twenty or thirty little fires were burning briskly in different parts of the blackened field, and the old fellow was watching the slow progress of his silent “niggers,” and replacing them from time to time as they smouldered away. After threading my way among the uncouth logs, blazing and smoking in all directions, I encountered the old man, attired in an old hood, or bonnet, of his wife Judy, with his patched canvas trousers rolled up to his knees; one foot bare, and the other furnished with an old boot, which from its appearance had once belonged to some more aristocratic foot. His person was long, straight, and sinewy, and there was a light springiness and elasticity in his step which would have suited a younger man, as he skipped along with a long handspike over his shoulder. He was singing a stave from the “Enniskillen Dragoon” when I came up with him. “With his silver-mounted pistols, and his long carbine, Long life to the brave Inniskillen dragoon.” His face would have been one of the most lugubrious imaginable, with his long, tangled hair hanging confusedly over it, in a manner which has been happily compared to a “bewitched haystack,” had it not been for a certain humorous twitch or convulsive movement, which affected one side of his countenance, whenever any droll idea passed through his mind. It was with a twitch of this kind, and a certain indescribable twinkle of his somewhat melancholy eye, as he seemed intuitively to form a hasty conception of the oddity of his appearance to a stranger unused to the bush, that he welcomed me to his clearing. He instantly threw down his handspike, and leaving his “niggers” to finish their work at their leisure, insisted on our going to his house to get something to drink. On the way, I explained to him the object of my visit, which was to mark out, or “blaze,” the sidelines of a lot of land I had received as part of a military grant, immediately adjoining the beaver-meadow, and I asked him to accompany me, as he was well acquainted with the different lots. “Och! by all manner of manes, and welcome; the dhevil a foot of the way but I know as well as my own clearing; but come into the house, and get a dhrink of milk, an' a bite of bread an' butther, for sorrow a dhrop of the whiskey has crossed my teeth for the last month; an' it's but poor intertainment for man or baste I can offer you, but shure you're heartily welcome.” The precincts of the homestead were divided and subdivided into an infinity of enclosures, of all shapes and sizes. The outer enclosure was a bush fence, formed of trees felled on each other in a row, and the gaps filled up with brushwood. There was a large gate, swung with wooden hinges, and a wooden latch to fasten it; the smaller enclosures were made with round poles, tied together with bark. The house was of the rudest description of “shanty,” with hollowed basswood logs, fitting into each other somewhat in the manner of tiles for a roof, instead of shingles. No iron was to be seen, in the absence of which there was plenty of leathern hinges, wooden latches for locks, and bark-strings instead of nails. There was a large fireplace at one end of the shanty, with a chimney, constructed of split laths, plastered with a mixture of clay and cowdung. As for windows, these were luxuries which could well be dispensed with; the open door was an excellent substitute for them in the daytime, and at night none were required. When I ventured to object to this arrangement, that he would have to keep the door shut in the winter time, the old man replied, in the style so characteristic of his country, “Shure it will be time enough to think of that when the could weather sets in.” Everything about the house wore a Robinson Crusoe aspect, and though there was not any appearance of original plan or foresight, there was no lack of ingenious contrivance to meet every want as it arose. Judy dropped us a low curtsey as we entered, which was followed by a similar compliment from a stout girl of twelve, and two or three more of the children, who all seemed to share the pleasure of their parents in receiving strangers in their unpretending tenement. Many were the apologies that poor Judy offered for the homely cheer she furnished us, and great was her delight at the notice we took of the “childher.” She set little Biddy, who was the pride of her heart, to reading the Bible; and she took down a curious machine from a shelf, which she had “conthrived out of her own head,” as she said, for teaching the children to read. This was a flat box, or frame, filled with sand, which saved paper, pens, and ink. Poor Judy had evidently seen better days, but, with a humble and contented spirit, she blessed God for the food and scanty raiment their labour afforded them. Her only sorrow was the want of “idication” for the children. She would have told us a long story about her trials and sufferings, before they had attained their present comparative comfort and independence, but, as we had a tedious scramble before us, through cedar-swamps, beaver-meadows, and piny ridges, the “ould dhragoon” cut her short, and we straightway started on our toilsome journey. Simpson, in spite of a certain dash of melancholy in his composition, was one of those happy fellows of the “light heart and thin pair of breeches” school, who, when they meet with difficulty or misfortune, never stop to measure its dimensions, but hold in their breath, and run lightly over, as in crossing a bog, where to stand still is to sink. Off, then, we went, with the “ould dhragoon” skipping and bounding on before us, over fallen trees and mossy rocks; now ducking under the low, tangled branches of the white cedar, then carefully piloting us along rotten logs, covered with green moss, to save us from the discomfort of wet feet. All this time he still kept one of his feet safely ensconced in the boot, while the other seemed to luxuriate in the water, as if there was something amphibious in his nature. We soon reached the beaver-meadow, which extended two or three miles; sometimes contracting into a narrow gorge, between the wooded heights, then spreading out again into an ample field of verdure, and presenting everywhere the same unvarying level surface, surrounded with rising grounds, covered with the dense unbroken forest, as if its surface had formerly been covered by the waters of a lake; which in all probability has been the case at some not very remote period. In many places the meadow was so wet that it required a very large share of faith to support us in passing over its surface; but our friend, the dragoon, soon brought us safe through all dangers to a deep ditch, which he had dug to carry off the superfluous water from the part of the meadow which he owned. When we had obtained firm footing on the opposite side, we sat down to rest ourselves before commencing the operation of “blazing,” or marking the trees with our axes, along the side-line of my lot. Here the mystery of the boot was explained. Simpson very coolly took it off from the hitherto favoured foot, and drew it on the other. He was not a bit ashamed of his poverty, and candidly owned that this was the only boot he possessed, and he was desirous of giving each of his feet fair play. Nearly the whole day was occupied in completing our job, in which the “dhragoon” assisted us, with the most hearty good-will, enlivening us with his inexhaustible fund of good-humour and drollery. It was nearly dark when we got back to his “shanty,” where the kind-hearted Judy was preparing a huge pot of potatoes and other “combustibles,” as Simpson called the other eatables, for our entertainment. Previous to starting on our surveying expedition, we had observed Judy very earnestly giving some important instructions to one of her little boys, on whom she seemed to be most seriously impressing the necessity of using the utmost diligence. The happy contentment which now beamed in poor Judy's still comely countenance bespoke the success of the messenger. She could not “call up spirits from the vasty deep” of the cellar, but she had procured some whiskey from her next-door neighbour--some five or six miles off, and there it stood somewhat ostentatiously on the table in a “greybeard,” with a “corn cob,” or ear of Indian corn, stripped of its grain, for a cork, smiling most benevolently on the family circle, and looking a hundred welcomes to the strangers. An indescribably enlivening influence seemed to exude from every pore of that homely earthen vessel, diffusing mirth and good-humour in all directions. The old man jumped and danced about on the rough floor of the “shanty”; and the children sat giggling and nudging each other in a corner, casting a timid look, from time to time, at their mother, for fear she might check them for being “over bould.” “Is it crazy ye are intirely, ye ould omadhawn!” said Judy, whose notions of propriety were somewhat shocked with the undignified levity of her partner; “the likes of you I never seed; ye are too foolidge intirely. Have done now wid your diviltries, and set the stools for the gintlemens, while I get the supper for yes.” Our plentiful though homely meal was soon discussed, for hunger, like a good conscience, can laugh at luxury; and the “greybeard” made its appearance, with the usual accompaniments of hot water and maple sugar, which Judy had scraped from the cake, and placed in a saucer on the table before us. The “ould dhragoon,” despising his wife's admonitions, gave way freely to his feelings, and knew no bounds to his hilarity. He laughed and joked, and sang snatches of old songs picked up in the course of his service at home and abroad. At length Judy, who looked on him as a “raal janius,” begged him to “sing the gintlemens the song he made when he first came to the counthry.” Of course we ardently seconded the motion, and nothing loth, the old man, throwing himself back on his stool, and stretching out his long neck, poured forth the following ditty, with which I shall conclude my hasty sketch of the “ould dhragoon”:-- Och! it's here I'm intirely continted, In the wild woods of swate 'Mericay; God's blessing on him that invinted Big ships for our crossing the say! Here praties grow bigger nor turnips; And though cruel hard is our work, In ould Ireland we'd nothing but praties, But here we have praties and pork. I live on the banks of a meadow, Now see that my maning you take; It bates all the bogs of ould Ireland-- Six months in the year it's a lake. Bad luck to the beavers that dammed it! I wish them all kilt for their pains; For shure though the craters are clever, Tis sartin they've drown'd my domains. I've built a log hut of the timber That grows on my charmin' estate; And an illigant root-house erected, Just facing the front of my gate. And I've made me an illigant pig-sty, Well litter'd wid straw and wid hay; And it's there, free from noise of the chilther, I sleep in the heat of the day. It's there I'm intirely at aise, sir, And enjoy all the comforts of home; I stretch out my legs as I plase, sir, And dhrame of the pleasures to come. Shure, it's pleasant to hear the frogs croakin', When the sun's going down in the sky, And my Judy sits quietly smokin' While the praties are boil'd till they're dhry. Och! thin, if you love indepindence, And have money your passage to pay, You must quit the ould counthry intirely, And start in the middle of May. J.W.D.M. CHAPTER XX DISAPPOINTED HOPES Stern Disappointment, in thy iron grasp The soul lies stricken. So the timid deer, Who feels the foul fangs of the felon wolf Clench'd in his throat, grown desperate for life, Turns on his foes, and battles with the fate That hems him in--and only yields in death. The summer of '35 was very wet; a circumstance so unusual in Canada that I have seen no season like it during my sojourn in the country. Our wheat crop promised to be both excellent and abundant; and the clearing and seeding sixteen acres, one way or another, had cost us more than fifty pounds, still, we hoped to realise something handsome by the sale of the produce; and, as far as appearances went, all looked fair. The rain commenced about a week before the crop was fit for the sickle, and from that time until nearly the end of September was a mere succession of thunder showers; days of intense heat, succeeded by floods of rain. Our fine crop shared the fate of all other fine crops in the country; it was totally spoiled; the wheat grew in the sheaf, and we could scarcely save enough to supply us with bad, sticky bread; the rest was exchanged at the distillery for whiskey, which was the only produce which could be obtained for it. The storekeepers would not look at it, or give either money or goods for such a damaged article. My husband and I had worked hard in the field; it was the first time I had ever tried my hand at field-labour, but our ready money was exhausted, and the steam-boat stock had not paid us one farthing; we could not hire, and there was no help for it. I had a hard struggle with my pride before I would consent to render the least assistance on the farm, but reflection convinced me that I was wrong--that Providence had placed me in a situation where I was called upon to work--that it was not only my duty to obey that call, but to exert myself to the utmost to assist my husband, and help to maintain my family. Ah, glorious poverty! thou art a hard taskmaster, but in thy soul-ennobling school, I have received more godlike lessons, have learned more sublime truths, than ever I acquired in the smooth highways of the world! The independent in soul can rise above the seeming disgrace of poverty, and hold fast their integrity, in defiance of the world and its selfish and unwise maxims. To them, no labour is too great, no trial too severe; they will unflinchingly exert every faculty of mind and body, before they will submit to become a burden to others. The misfortunes that now crowded upon us were the result of no misconduct or extravagance on our part, but arose out of circumstances which we could not avert nor control. Finding too late the error into which we had fallen, in suffering ourselves to be cajoled and plundered out of our property by interested speculators, we braced our minds to bear the worst, and determined to meet our difficulties calmly and firmly, nor suffer our spirits to sink under calamities which energy and industry might eventually repair. Having once come to this resolution, we cheerfully shared together the labours of the field. One in heart and purpose, we dared remain true to ourselves, true to our high destiny as immortal creatures, in our conflict with temporal and physical wants. We found that manual toil, however distasteful to those unaccustomed to it, was not after all such a dreadful hardship; that the wilderness was not without its rose, the hard face of poverty without its smile. If we occasionally suffered severe pain, we as often experienced great pleasure, and I have contemplated a well-hoed ridge of potatoes on that bush farm, with as much delight as in years long past I had experienced in examining a fine painting in some well-appointed drawing-room. I can now look back with calm thankfulness on that long period of trial and exertion--with thankfulness that the dark clouds that hung over us, threatening to blot us from existence, when they did burst upon us, were full of blessings. When our situation appeared perfectly desperate, then were we on the threshold of a new state of things, which was born out of that very distress. In order to more fully illustrate the necessity of a perfect and child-like reliance upon the mercies of God--who, I most firmly believe, never deserts those who have placed their trust in Him--I will give a brief sketch of our lives during the years 1836 and 1837. Still confidently expecting to realise an income, however small, from the steam-boat stock, we had involved ourselves considerably in debt, in order to pay our servants and obtain the common necessaries of life; and we owed a large sum to two Englishmen in Dummer, for clearing ten more acres upon the farm. Our utter inability to meet these demands weighed very heavily upon my husband's mind. All superfluities in the way of groceries were now given up, and we were compelled to rest satisfied upon the produce of the farm. Milk, bread, and potatoes during the summer became our chief, and often for months, our only fare. As to tea and sugar, they were luxuries we could not think of, although I missed the tea very much; we rang the changes upon peppermint and sage, taking the one herb at our breakfast, the other at our tea, until I found an excellent substitute for both in the root of the dandelion. The first year we came to this country, I met with an account of dandelion coffee, published in the New York Albion, given by a Dr. Harrison, of Edinburgh, who earnestly recommended it as an article of general use. “It possesses,” he says, “all the fine flavour and exhilarating properties of coffee, without any of its deleterious effects. The plant being of a soporific nature, the coffee made from it when drunk at night produces a tendency to sleep, instead of exciting wakefulness, and may be safely used as a cheap and wholesome substitute for the Arabian berry, being equal in substance and flavour to the best Mocha coffee.” I was much struck with this paragraph at the time, and for several years felt a great inclination to try the Doctor's coffee; but something or other always came in the way, and it was put off till another opportunity. During the fall of '35, I was assisting my husband in taking up a crop of potatoes in the field, and observing a vast number of fine dandelion roots among the potatoes, it brought the dandelion coffee back to my memory, and I determined to try some for our supper. Without saying anything to my husband, I threw aside some of the roots, and when we left work, collecting a sufficient quantity for the experiment, I carefully washed the roots quite clean, without depriving them of the fine brown skin which covers them, and which contains the aromatic flavour, which so nearly resembles coffee that it is difficult to distinguish it from it while roasting. I cut my roots into small pieces, the size of a kidney-bean, and roasted them on an iron baking-pan in the stove-oven, until they were as brown and crisp as coffee. I then ground and transferred a small cupful of the powder to the coffee-pot, pouring upon it scalding water, and boiling it for a few minutes briskly over the fire. The result was beyond my expectations. The coffee proved excellent--far superior to the common coffee we procured at the stores. To persons residing in the bush, and to whom tea and coffee are very expensive articles of luxury, the knowledge of this valuable property of a plant scattered so abundantly through their fields, would prove highly beneficial. For years we used no other article; and my Indian friends who frequented the house gladly adopted the root, and made me show them the whole process of manufacturing it into coffee. Experience taught me that the root of the dandelion is not so good when applied to this purpose in the spring as it is in the fall. I tried it in the spring, but the juice of the plant, having contributed to the production of leaves and flowers, was weak, and destitute of the fine bitter flavour so peculiar to coffee. The time of gathering the potato crop is the best suited for collecting and drying the roots of the dandelion; and as they always abound in the same hills, both may be accomplished at the same time. Those who want to keep a quantity for winter use may wash and cut up the roots, and dry them on boards in the sun. They will keep for years, and can be roasted when required. Few of our colonists are acquainted with the many uses to which this neglected but most valuable plant may be applied. I will point out a few which have come under my own observation, convinced as I am that the time will come when this hardy weed, with its golden flowers and curious seed-vessels, which form a constant plaything to the little children rolling about and luxuriating among the grass, in the sunny month of May, will be transplanted into our gardens, and tended with due care. The dandelion planted in trenches, and blanched to a beautiful cream-colour with straw, makes an excellent salad, quite equal to endive, and is more hardy and requires less care. In many parts of the United States, particularly in new districts where vegetables are scarce, it is used early in the spring, and boiled with pork as a substitute for cabbage. During our residence in the bush we found it, in the early part of May, a great addition to the dinner-table. In the township of Dummer, the settlers boil the tops, and add hops to the liquor, which they ferment, and from which they obtain excellent beer. I have never tasted this simple beverage, but I have been told by those who use it that it is equal to the table-beer used at home. Necessity has truly been termed the mother of invention, for I contrived to manufacture a variety of dishes almost out of nothing, while living in her school. When entirely destitute of animal food, the different variety of squirrels supplied us with pies, stews, and roasts. Our barn stood at the top of the hill near the bush, and in a trap set for such “small deer,” we often caught from ten to twelve a day. The flesh of the black squirrel is equal to that of the rabbit, and the red, and even the little chipmunk, is palatable when nicely cooked. But from the lake, during the summer, we derived the larger portion of our food. The children called this piece of water “Mamma's pantry”; and many a good meal has the munificent Father given to his poor dependent children from its well-stored depths. Moodie and I used to rise at daybreak, and fish for an hour after sunrise, when we returned, he to the field, and I to dress the little ones, clean up the house, assist with the milk, and prepare the breakfast. Oh, how I enjoyed these excursions on the lake; the very idea of our dinner depending upon our success added double zest to our sport! One morning we started as usual before sunrise; a thick mist still hung like a fine veil upon the water when we pushed off, and anchored at our accustomed place. Just as the sun rose, and the haze parted and drew up like a golden sheet of transparent gauze, through which the dark woods loomed out like giants, a noble buck dashed into the water, followed by four Indian hounds. We then discovered a canoe, full of Indians, just below the rapids, and another not many yards from us, that had been concealed by the fog. It was a noble sight, that gallant deer exerting all his energy, and stemming the water with such matchless grace, his branching horns held proudly aloft, his broad nostrils distended, and his fine eye fixed intently upon the opposite shore. Several rifle-balls whizzed past him, the dogs followed hard upon his track, but my very heart leaped for joy when, in spite of all his foes, his glossy hoofs spurned the opposite bank and he plunged headlong into the forest. My beloved partner was most skilful in trolling for bass and muskinonge. His line he generally fastened to the paddle, and the motion of the oar gave a life-like vibration to the queer-looking mice and dragon-flies I used to manufacture from squirrel fur, or scarlet and white cloth, to tempt the finny wanderers of the wave. When too busy himself to fish for our meals, little Katie and I ventured out alone in the canoe, which we anchored in any promising fishing spot, by fastening a harrow tooth to a piece of rope, and letting it drop from the side of little vessel. By the time she was five years old, my little mermaid could both steer and paddle the light vessel, and catch small fish, which were useful for soup. During the winter of '36, we experienced many privations. The ruffian squatter P----, from Clear Lake, drove from the barn a fine young bull we were rearing, and for several weeks all trace of the animal was lost. We had almost forgotten the existence of poor Whiskey, when a neighbor called and told Moodie that his yearling was at P----'s, and that he would advise him to get it back as soon as possible. Moodie had to take some wheat to Y----'s mill, and as the squatter lived only a mile further, he called at his house; and there, sure enough, he found the lost animal. With the greatest difficulty he succeeded in regaining his property, but not without many threats of vengeance from the parties who had stolen it. To these he paid no regard; but a few days after, six fat hogs, on which we depended for all our winter store of animal food, were driven into the lake, and destroyed. The death of these animals deprived us of three barrels of pork, and half-starved us through the winter. That winter of '36, how heavily it wore away! The grown flour, frosted potatoes, and scant quantity of animal food rendered us all weak, and the children suffered much from the ague. One day, just before the snow fell, Moodie had gone to Peterborough for letters; our servant was sick in bed with the ague, and I was nursing my little boy, Dunbar, who was shaking with the cold fit of his miserable fever, when Jacob put his honest, round, rosy face in at the door. “Give me the master's gun, ma'am; there's a big buck feeding on the rice-bed near the island.” I took down the gun, saying, “Jacob, you have no chance; there is but one charge of buck-shot in the house.” “One chance is better nor none,” said Jacob, as he commenced loading the gun. “Who knows what may happen to oie? Mayhap oie may chance to kill 'un; and you and the measter and the wee bairns may have zummut zavory for zupper yet.” Away walked Jacob with Moodie's “Manton” over his shoulder. A few minutes after, I heard the report of the gun, but never expected to see anything of the game; when Jacob suddenly bounced into the room, half-wild with delight. “Thae beast iz dead az a door-nail. Zure, how the measter will laugh when he zees the fine buck that oie a'zhot.” “And have you really shot him?” “Come and zee! 'Tis worth your while to walk down to the landing to look at 'un.” Jacob got a rope, and I followed him to the landing, where, sure enough, lay a fine buck, fastened in tow of the canoe. Jacob soon secured him by the hind legs to the rope he had brought; and, with our united efforts, we at last succeeded in dragging our prize home. All the time he was engaged in taking off the skin, Jacob was anticipating the feast that we were to have; and the good fellow chuckled with delight when he hung the carcass quite close to the kitchen door, that his “measter” might run against it when he came home at night. This event actually took place. When Moodie opened the door, he struck his head against the dead deer. “What have you got here?” “A fine buck, zur,” said Jacob, bringing forward the light, and holding it up in such a manner that all the merits of the prize could be seen at a glance. “A fine one, indeed! How did we come by it?” “It was zhot by oie,” said Jacob, rubbing his hands in a sort of ecstacy. “Thae beast iz the first oie ever zhot in my life. He! he! he!” “You shot that fine deer, Jacob?--and there was only one charge in the gun! Well done; you must have taken good aim.” “Why, zur, oie took no aim at all. Oie just pointed the gun at the deer, and zhut my oeys an let fly at 'un. 'Twas Providence kill'd 'un, not oie.” “I believe you,” said Moodie; “Providence has hitherto watched over us and kept us from actual starvation.” The flesh of the deer, and the good broth that I was able to obtain from it, greatly assisted in restoring our sick to health; but long before that severe winter terminated we were again out of food. Mrs. ---- had given to Katie, in the fall, a very pretty little pig, which she had named Spot. The animal was a great favorite with Jacob and the children, and he always received his food from their hands at the door, and followed them all over the place like a dog. We had a noble hound called Hector, between whom and the pet pig there existed the most tender friendship. Spot always shared with Hector the hollow log which served him for a kennel, and we often laughed to see Hector lead Spot round the clearing by his ear. After bearing the want of animal food until our souls sickened at the bad potatoes and grown flour bread, we began--that is the elders of the family--to cast very hungry eyes upon Spot; but no one liked to propose having him killed. At last Jacob spoke his mind upon the subject. “Oi've heard, zur, that the Jews never eat pork; but we Christians dooz, and are right glad ov the chance. Now, zur, oi've been thinking that 'tis no manner ov use our keeping that beast Spot. If he wor a zow, now, there might be zome zenze in the thing; and we all feel weak for a morzel of meat. S'poze I kill him? He won't make a bad piece of pork.” Moodie seconded the move; and, in spite of the tears and prayers of Katie, her uncouth pet was sacrificed to the general wants of the family; but there were two members of the house who disdained to eat a morsel of the victim; poor Katie and the dog Hector. At the self-denial of the first I did not at all wonder, for she was a child full of sensibility and warm affections, but the attachment of the brute creature to his old playmate filled us all with surprise. Jacob first drew our attention to the strange fact. “That dog,” he said, as we were passing through the kitchen while he was at dinner, “do teach uz Christians a lesson how to treat our friends. Why, zur, he'll not eat a morzel of Spot. Oie have tried and tempted him in all manner ov ways, and he only do zneer and turn up his nose when oie hould him a bit to taste.” He offered the animal a rib of the fresh pork as he finished speaking, and the dog turned away with an expression of aversion, and on a repetition of the act, walked from the table. Human affection could scarcely have surpassed the love felt by this poor animal for his playfellow. His attachment to Spot, that could overcome the pangs of hunger--for, like the rest of us, he was half-starved--must have been strong indeed. Jacob's attachment to us, in its simplicity and fidelity, greatly resembled that of the dog; and sometimes, like the dog, he would push himself in where he was not wanted, and gratuitously give his advice, and make remarks which were not required. Mr. K----, from Cork, was asking Moodie many questions about the partidges of the country; and, among other things, he wanted to know by what token you were able to discover their favourite haunts. Before Moodie could answer this last query a voice responded, through a large crack in the boarded wall which separated us from the kitchen, “They always bides where they's drum.” This announcement was received with a burst of laughter that greatly disconcerted the natural philosopher in the kitchen. On the 21st of May of this year, my second son, Donald, was born. The poor fellow came in hard times. The cows had not calved, and our bill of fare, now minus the deer and Spot, only consisted of bad potatoes and still worse bread. I was rendered so weak by want of proper nourishment that my dear husband, for my sake, overcame his aversion to borrowing, and procured a quarter of mutton from a friend. This, with kindly presents from neighbours--often as badly off as ourselves--a loin of a young bear, and a basket, containing a loaf of bread, some tea, some fresh butter, and oatmeal, went far to save my life. Shortly after my recovery, Jacob--the faithful, good Jacob--was obliged to leave us, for we could no longer afford to pay wages. What was owing to him had to be settled by sacrificing our best cow, and a great many valuable articles of clothing from my husband's wardrobe. Nothing is more distressing than being obliged to part with articles of dress which you know that you cannot replace. Almost all my clothes had been appropriated to the payment of wages, or to obtain garments for the children, excepting my wedding dress, and the beautiful baby-linen which had been made by the hands of dear and affectionate friends for my first-born. These were now exchanged for coarse, warm flannels, to shield her from the cold. Moodie and Jacob had chopped eight acres during the winter, but these had to be burnt off and logged-up before we could put in a crop of wheat for the ensuing fall. Had we been able to retain this industrious, kindly English lad, this would have been soon accomplished; but his wages, at the rate of thirty pounds per annum, were now utterly beyond our means. Jacob had formed an attachment to my pretty maid, Mary Pine, and before going to the Southern States, to join an uncle who resided in Louisville, an opulent tradesman, who had promised to teach him his business, Jacob thought it as well to declare himself. The declaration took place on a log of wood near the back-door, and from my chamber window I could both hear and see the parties, without being myself observed. Mary was seated very demurely at one end of the log, twisting the strings of her checked apron, and the loving Jacob was busily whittling the other extremity of their rustic seat. There was a long silence. Mary stole a look at Jacob, and he heaved a tremendous sigh, something between a yawn and a groan. “Meary,” he said, “I must go.” “I knew that afore,” returned the girl. “I had zummat to zay to you, Meary. Do you think you will miss oie?” (looking very affectionately, and twitching nearer.) “What put that into your head, Jacob?” This was said very demurely. “Oie thowt, may be, Meary, that your feelings might be zummat loike my own. I feel zore about the heart, Meary, and it's all com' of parting with you. Don't you feel queerish, too?” “Can't say that I do, Jacob. I shall soon see you again.” (pulling violently at her apron-string.) “Meary, oi'm afear'd you don't feel like oie.” “P'r'aps not--women can't feel like men. I'm sorry that you are going, Jacob, for you have been very kind and obliging, and I wish you well.” “Meary,” cried Jacob, growing desperate at her coyness, and getting quite close up to her, “will you marry oie? Say yeez or noa?” This was coming close to the point. Mary drew farther from him, and turned her head away. “Meary,” said Jacob, seizing upon the hand that held the apron-string. “Do you think you can better yoursel'? If not--why, oie'm your man. Now, do just turn about your head and answer oie.” The girl turned round, and gave him a quick, shy glance, then burst out into a simpering laugh. “Meary, will you take oie?” (jogging her elbow.) “I will,” cried the girl, jumping up from the log, and running into the house. “Well, that bargain's made,” said the lover, rubbing his hands; “and now oie'll go and bid measter and missus good-buoy.” The poor fellow's eyes were full of tears, for the children, who loved him very much, clung, crying, about his knees. “God bless yees all,” sobbed the kind-hearted creature. “Doan't forget Jacob, for he'll neaver forget you. Good-buoy!” Then turning to Mary, he threw his arms round her neck, and bestowed upon her fair cheek the most audible kiss I ever heard. “And doan't you forget me, Meary. In two years oie will be back to marry you; and may be oie may come back a rich man.” Mary, who was an exceedingly pretty girl, shed some tears at the parting; but in a few days she was as gay as ever, and listening with great attention to the praises bestowed upon her beauty by an old bachelor, who was her senior by five-and-twenty years. But then he had a good farm, a saddle mare, and plenty of stock, and was reputed to have saved money. The saddle mare seemed to have great weight in old Ralph T----h's wooing, and I used laughingly to remind Mary of her absent lover, and beg her not to marry Ralph T----h's mare. THE CANADIAN HUNTER'S SONG The northern lights are flashing, On the rapids' restless flow; And o'er the wild waves dashing, Swift darts the light canoe. The merry hunters come. “What cheer?--what cheer?”-- “We've slain the deer!” “Hurrah!--You're welcome home!” The blithesome horn is sounding, And the woodman's loud halloo; And joyous steps are bounding To meet the birch canoe. “Hurrah!--The hunters come.” And the woods ring out To their merry shout As they drag the dun deer home! The hearth is brightly burning, The rustic board is spread; To greet the sire returning The children leave their bed. With laugh and shout they come-- That merry band-- To grasp his hand, And bid him welcome home! CHAPTER XXI THE LITTLE STUMPY MAN There was a little man-- I'll sketch him if I can, For he clung to mine and me Like the old man of the sea; And in spite of taunt and scoff We could not pitch him off, For the cross-grained, waspish elf Cared for no one but himself. Before I dismiss for ever the troubles and sorrows of 1836, I would fain introduce to the notice of my readers some of the odd characters with whom we became acquainted during that period. The first that starts vividly to my recollection is the picture of a short, stumpy, thickset man--a British sailor, too--who came to stay one night under our roof, and took quiet possession of his quarters for nine months, and whom we were obliged to tolerate from the simple fact that we could not get rid of him. During the fall, Moodie had met this individual (whom I will call Mr. Malcolm) in the mail-coach, going up to Toronto. Amused with his eccentric and blunt manners, and finding him a shrewd, clever fellow in conversation, Moodie told him that if ever he came into his part of the world he should be glad to renew their acquaintance. And so they parted, with mutual good-will, as men often part who have travelled a long journey in good fellowship together, without thinking it probable they should ever meet again. The sugar season had just commenced with the spring thaw; Jacob had tapped a few trees in order to obtain sap to make molasses for the children, when his plans were frustrated by the illness of my husband, who was again attacked with the ague. Towards the close of a wet, sloppy day, while Jacob was in the wood, chopping, and our servant gone to my sister, who was ill, to help to wash, as I was busy baking bread for tea, my attention was aroused by a violent knocking at the door, and the furious barking of our dog, Hector. I ran to open it, when I found Hector's teeth clenched in the trousers of a little, dark, thickset man, who said in a gruff voice-- “Call off your dog. What the devil do you keep such an infernal brute about the house for? Is it to bite people who come to see you?” Hector was the best-behaved, best-tempered animal in the world; he might have been called a gentlemanly dog. So little was there of the unmannerly puppy in his behaviour, that I was perfectly astonished at his ungracious conduct. I caught him by the collar, and not without some difficulty, succeeded in dragging him off. “Is Captain Moodie within?” said the stranger. “He is, sir. But he is ill in bed--too ill to be seen.” “Tell him a friend” (he laid a strong stress upon the last word), “a particular friend must speak to him.” I now turned my eyes to the face of the speaker with some curiosity. I had taken him for a mechanic, from his dirty, slovenly appearance; and his physiognomy was so unpleasant that I did not credit his assertion that he was a friend of my husband, for I was certain that no man who possessed such a forbidding aspect could be regarded by Moodie as a friend. I was about to deliver his message, but the moment I let go Hector's collar, the dog was at him again. “Don't strike him with your stick,” I cried, throwing my arms over the faithful creature. “He is a powerful animal, and if you provoke him, he will kill you.” I at last succeeded in coaxing Hector into the girl's room, where I shut him up, while the stranger came into the kitchen, and walked to the fire to dry his wet clothes. I immediately went into the parlour, where Moodie was lying upon a bed near the stove, to deliver the stranger's message; but before I could say a word, he dashed in after me, and going up to the bed, held out his broad, coarse hand, with “How are you, Mr. Moodie? You see I have accepted your kind invitation sooner than either you or I expected. If you will give me house-room for the night, I shall be obliged to you.” This was said in a low, mysterious voice; and Moodie, who was still struggling with the hot fit of his disorder, and whose senses were not a little confused, stared at him with a look of vague bewilderment. The countenance of the stranger grew dark. “You cannot have forgotten me--my name is Malcolm.” “Yes, sir; I remember you now,” said the invalid holding out his burning, feverish hand. “To my home, such as it is, you are welcome.” I stood by in wondering astonishment, looking from one to the other, as I had no recollection of ever hearing my husband mention the name of the stranger; but as he had invited him to share our hospitality, I did my best to make him welcome though in what manner he was to be accommodated puzzled me not a little. I placed the arm-chair by the fire, and told him that I would prepare tea for him as soon as I could. “It may be as well to tell you, Mrs. Moodie,” said he sulkily, for he was evidently displeased by my husband's want of recognition on his first entrance, “that I have had no dinner.” I sighed to myself, for I well knew that our larder boasted of no dainties; and from the animal expression of our guest's face, I rightly judged that he was fond of good living. By the time I had fried a rasher of salt pork, and made a pot of dandelion coffee, the bread I had been preparing was baked; but grown flour will not make light bread, and it was unusually heavy. For the first time I felt heartily ashamed of our humble fare. I was sure that he for whom it was provided was not one to pass it over in benevolent silence. “He might be a gentleman,” I thought, “but he does not look like one;” and a confused idea of who he was, and where Moodie had met him, began to float through my mind. I did not like the appearance of the man, but I consoled myself that he was only to stay for one night, and I could give up my bed for that one night, and sleep on a bed on the floor by my sick husband. When I re-entered the parlour to cover the table, I found Moodie fallen asleep, and Mr. Malcolm reading. As I placed the tea-things on the table, he raised his head, and regarded me with a gloomy stare. He was a strange-looking creature; his features were tolerably regular, his complexion dark, with a good colour, his very broad and round head was covered with a perfect mass of close, black, curling hair, which, in growth, texture, and hue, resembled the wiry, curly hide of a water-dog. His eyes and mouth were both well-shaped, but gave, by their sinister expression, an odious and doubtful meaning to the whole of his physiognomy. The eyes were cold, insolent, and cruel, and as green as the eyes of a cat. The mouth bespoke a sullen, determined, and sneering disposition, as if it belonged to one brutally obstinate, one who could not by any gentle means be persuaded from his purpose. Such a man in a passion would have been a terrible wild beast; but the current of his feelings seemed to flow in a deep, sluggish channel, rather than in a violent or impetuous one; and, like William Penn, when he reconnoitred his unwelcome visitors through the keyhole of the door, I looked at my strange guest, and liked him not. Perhaps my distant and constrained manner made him painfully aware of the fact, for I am certain that, from the first hour of our acquaintance, a deep-rooted antipathy existed between us, which time seemed rather to strengthen than diminish. He ate of his meal sparingly, and with evident disgust, the only remarks which dropped from him were-- “You make bad bread in the bush. Strange, that you can't keep your potatoes from the frost! I should have thought that you could have had things more comfortable in the woods.” “We have been very unfortunate,” I said, “since we came to the woods. I am sorry that you should be obliged to share the poverty of the land. It would have given me much pleasure could I have set before you a more comfortable meal.” “Oh, don't mention it. So that I get good pork and potatoes I shall be contented.” What did these words imply?--an extension of his visit? I hoped that I was mistaken; but before I could lose any time in conjecture my husband awoke. The fit had left him, and he rose and dressed himself, and was soon chatting cheerfully with his guest. Mr. Malcolm now informed him that he was hiding from the sheriff of the N---- district's officers, and that it would be conferring upon him a great favour if he would allow him to remain at his house for a few weeks. “To tell you the truth, Malcolm,” said Moodie, “we are so badly off that we can scarcely find food for ourselves and the children. It is out of our power to make you comfortable, or to keep an additional hand, without he is willing to render some little help on the farm. If you can do this, I will endeavour to get a few necessaries on credit, to make your stay more agreeable.” To this proposition Malcolm readily assented, not only because it released him from all sense of obligation, but because it gave him a privilege to grumble. Finding that his stay might extend to an indefinite period, I got Jacob to construct a rude bedstead out of two large chests that had transported some of our goods across the Atlantic, and which he put in a corner of the parlour. This I provided with a small hair-mattress, and furnished with what bedding I could spare. For the first fornight of his sojourn, our guest did nothing but lie upon that bed, and read, and smoke, and drink whiskey-and-water from morning until night. By degrees he let out part of his history; but there was a mystery about him which he took good care never to clear up. He was the son of an officer in the navy, who had not only attained a very high rank in the service, but, for his gallant conduct, had been made a Knight-Companion of the Bath. He had himself served his time as a midshipman on board his father's flag-ship, but had left the navy and accepted a commission in the Buenos-Ayrean service during the political struggles in that province; he had commanded a sort of privateer under the government, to whom, by his own account, he had rendered many very signal services. Why he left South America and came to Canada he kept a profound secret. He had indulged in very vicious and dissipated courses since he came to the province, and by his own account had spent upwards of four thousand pounds, in a manner not over creditable to himself. Finding that his friends would answer his bills no longer, he took possession of a grant of land obtained through his father's interest, up in Harvey, a barren township on the shores of Stony Lake; and, after putting up his shanty, and expending all his remaining means, he found that he did not possess one acre out of the whole four hundred that would yield a crop of potatoes. He was now considerably in debt, and the lands, such as they were, had been seized, with all his effects, by the sheriff, and a warrant was out for his own apprehension, which he contrived to elude during his sojourn with us. Money he had none; and, beyond the dirty fearnought blue seaman's jacket which he wore, a pair of trousers of the coarse cloth of the country, an old black vest that had seen better days, and two blue-checked shirts, clothes he had none. He shaved but once a week, never combed his hair, and never washed himself. A dirtier or more slovenly creature never before was dignified by the title of a gentleman. He was, however, a man of good education, of excellent abilities, and possessed a bitter, sarcastic knowledge of the world; but he was selfish and unprincipled in the highest degree. His shrewd observations and great conversational powers had first attracted my husband's attention, and, as men seldom show their bad qualities on a journey, he thought him a blunt, good fellow, who had travelled a great deal, and could render himself a very agreeable companion by a graphic relation of his adventures. He could be all this, when he chose to relax from his sullen, morose mood; and, much as I disliked him, I have listened with interest for hours to his droll descriptions of South American life and manners. Naturally indolent, and a constitutional grumbler, it was with the greatest difficulty that Moodie could get him to do anything beyond bringing a few pails of water from the swamp for the use of the house, and he often passed me carrying water up from the lake without offering to relieve me of the burden. Mary, the betrothed of Jacob, called him a perfect “beast”; but he, returning good for evil, considered _her_ a very pretty girl, and paid her so many uncouth attentions that he roused the jealousy of honest Jake, who vowed that he would give him a good “loomping” if he only dared to lay a finger upon his sweetheart. With Jacob to back her, Mary treated the “zea-bear,” as Jacob termed him, with vast disdain, and was so saucy to him that, forgetting his admiration, he declared he would like to serve her as the Indians had done a scolding woman in South America. They attacked her house during the absence of her husband, cut out her tongue, and nailed it to the door, by way of knocker; and he thought that all women who could not keep a civil tongue in their head should be served in the same manner. “And what should be done to men who swear and use ondacent language?” quoth Mary, indignantly. “Their tongues should be slit, and given to the dogs. Faugh! You are such a nasty fellow that I don't think Hector would eat your tongue.” “I'll kill that beast,” muttered Malcolm, as he walked away. I remonstrated with him on the impropriety of bandying words with our servants. “You see,” I said, “the disrespect with which they treat you; and if they presume upon your familiarity, to speak to our guest in this contemptuous manner, they will soon extend the same conduct to us.” “But, Mrs. Moodie, you should reprove them.” “I cannot, sir, while you continue, by taking liberties with the girl, and swearing at the man, to provoke them to retaliation.” “Swearing! What harm is there in swearing? A sailor cannot live without oaths.” “But a gentleman might, Mr. Malcolm. I should be sorry to consider you in any other light.” “Ah, you are such a prude--so methodistical--you make no allowance for circumstances! Surely, in the woods we may dispense with the hypocritical, conventional forms of society, and speak and act as we please.” “So you seem to think; but you see the result.” “I have never been used to the society of ladies, and I cannot fashion my words to please them; and I won't, that's more!” he muttered to himself as he strode off to Moodie in the field. I wished from my very heart that he was once more on the deck of his piratical South American craft. One night he insisted on going out in the canoe to spear maskinonge with Moodie. The evening turned out very chill and foggy, and, before twelve, they returned, with only one fish, and half frozen with cold. Malcolm had got twinges of rheumatism, and he fussed, and sulked, and swore, and quarrelled with everybody and everything, until Moodie, who was highly amused by his petulance, advised him to go to his bed, and pray for the happy restoration of his temper. “Temper!” he cried, “I don't believe there's a good-tempered person in the world. It's all hypocrisy! I never had a good-temper! My mother was an ill-tempered woman, and ruled my father, who was a confoundedly severe, domineering man. I was born in an ill-temper. I was an ill-tempered child; I grew up an ill-tempered man. I feel worse than ill-tempered now, and when I die it will be in an ill-temper.” “Well,” quoth I, “Moodie has made you a tumbler of hot punch, which may help to drive out the cold and the ill-temper, and cure the rheumatism.” “Ay; your husband's a good fellow, and worth two of you, Mrs. Moodie. He makes some allowance for the weakness of human nature, and can excuse even my ill-temper.” I did not choose to bandy words with him, and the next day the unfortunate creature was shaking with the ague. A more intractable, outrageous, _Im_-patient I never had the ill-fortune to nurse. During the cold fit, he did nothing but swear at the cold, and wished himself roasting; and during the fever, he swore at the heat, and wished that he was sitting, in no other garment than his shirt, on the north side of an iceberg. And when the fit at last left him, he got up, and ate such quantities of fat pork, and drank so much whiskey-punch, that you would have imagined he had just arrived from a long journey, and had not tasted food for a couple of days. He would not believe that fishing in the cold night-air upon the water had made him ill, but raved that it was all my fault for having laid my baby down on his bed while it was shaking with the ague. Yet, if there were the least tenderness mixed up in his iron nature, it was the affection he displayed for that young child. Dunbar was just twenty months old, with bright, dark eyes, dimpled cheeks, and soft, flowing, golden hair, which fell round his infant face in rich curls. The merry, confiding little creature formed such a contrast to his own surly, unyielding temper, that, perhaps, that very circumstance made the bond of union between them. When in the house, the little boy was seldom out of his arms, and whatever were Malcolm's faults, he had none in the eyes of the child, who used to cling around his neck, and kiss his rough, unshaven cheeks with the greatest fondness. “If I could afford it, Moodie,” he said one day to my husband, “I should like to marry. I want some one upon whom I could vent my affections.” And wanting that some one in the form of woman, he contented himself with venting them upon the child. As the spring advanced, and after Jacob left us, he seemed ashamed of sitting in the house doing nothing, and therefore undertook to make us a garden, or “to make garden,” as the Canadians term preparing a few vegetables for the season. I procured the necessary seeds, and watched with no small surprise the industry with which our strange visitor commenced operations. He repaired the broken fence, dug the ground with the greatest care, and laid it out with a skill and neatness of which I had believed him perfectly incapable. In less than three weeks, the whole plot presented a very pleasing prospect, and he was really elated by his success. “At any rate,” he said, “we shall no longer be starved on bad flour and potatoes. We shall have peas, and beans, and beets, and carrots, and cabbage in abundance; besides the plot I have reserved for cucumbers and melons.” “Ah,” thought I; “does he, indeed, mean to stay with us until the melons are ripe?” and my heart died within me, for he not only was a great additional expense, but he gave a great deal of additional trouble, and entirely robbed us of all privacy, as our very parlour was converted into a bed-room for his accommodation; besides that, a man of his singularly dirty habits made a very disagreeable inmate. The only redeeming point in his character, in my eyes, was his love for Dunbar. I could not entirely hate a man who was so fondly attached to my child. To the two little girls he was very cross, and often chased them from him with blows. He had, too, an odious way of finding fault with everything. I never could cook to please him; and he tried in the most malicious way to induce Moodie to join in his complaints. All his schemes to make strife between us, however, failed, and were generally visited upon himself. In no way did he ever seek to render me the least assistance. Shortly after Jacob left us, Mary Pine was offered higher wages by a family at Peterborough, and for some time I was left with four little children, and without a servant. Moodie always milked the cows, because I never could overcome my fear of cattle; and though I had occasionally milked when there was no one else in the way, it was in fear and trembling. Moodie had to go down to Peterborough; but before he went, he begged Malcolm to bring me what water and wood I required, and to stand by the cattle while I milked the cows, and he would himself be home before night. He started at six in the morning, and I got the pail to go and milk. Malcolm was lying upon his bed, reading. “Mr. Malcolm, will you be so kind as to go with me to the fields for a few minutes while I milk?” “Yes!” (then, with a sulky frown), “but I want to finish what I am reading.” “I will not detain you long.” “Oh, no! I suppose about an hour. You are a shocking bad milker.” “True; I never went near a cow until I came to this country; and I have never been able to overcome my fear of them.” “More shame for you! A farmer's wife, and afraid of a cow! Why, these little children would laugh at you.” I did not reply, nor would I ask him again. I walked slowly to the field, and my indignation made me forget my fear. I had just finished milking, and with a brimming pail was preparing to climb the fence and return to the house, when a very wild ox we had came running with headlong speed from the wood. All my fears were alive again in a moment. I snatched up the pail, and, instead of climbing the fence and getting to the house, I ran with all the speed I could command down the steep hill towards the lake shore; my feet caught in a root of the many stumps in the path, and I fell to the ground, my pail rolling many yards a-head of me. Every drop of my milk was spilt upon the grass. The ox passed on. I gathered myself up and returned home. Malcolm was very fond of new milk, and he came to meet me at the door. “Hi! hi!--Where's the milk?” “No milk for the poor children to-day,” said I, showing him the inside of the pail, with a sorrowful shake of the head, for it was no small loss to them and me. “How the devil's that? So you were afraid to milk the cows. Come away, and I will keep off the buggaboos.” “I did milk them--no thanks to your kindness, Mr. Malcolm--but--” “But what?” “The ox frightened me, and I fell and spilt all the milk.” “Whew! Now don't go and tell your husband that it was all my fault; if you had had a little patience, I would have come when you asked me, but I don't choose to be dictated to, and I won't be made a slave by you or any one else.” “Then why do you stay, sir, where you consider yourself so treated?” said I. “We are all obliged to work to obtain bread; we give you the best share--surely the return we ask for it is but small.” “You make me feel my obligations to you when you ask me to do anything; if you left it to my better feelings we should get on better.” “Perhaps you are right. I will never ask you to do anything for me in future.” “Oh, now, that's all mock-humility. In spite of the tears in your eyes, you are as angry with me as ever; but don't go to make mischief between me and Moodie. If you'll say nothing about my refusing to go with you, I'll milk the cows for you myself to-night.” “And can you milk?” said I, with some curiosity. “Milk! Yes; and if I were not so confoundedly low-spirited and--lazy, I could do a thousand other things too. But now, don't say a word about it to Moodie.” I made no promise; but my respect for him was not increased by his cowardly fear of reproof from Moodie, who treated him with a kindness and consideration which he did not deserve. The afternoon turned out very wet, and I was sorry that I should be troubled with his company all day in the house. I was making a shirt for Moodie from some cotton that had been sent me from home, and he placed himself by the side of the stove, just opposite, and continued to regard me for a long time with his usual sullen stare. I really felt half afraid of him. “Don't you think me mad!” said he. “I have a brother deranged; he got a stroke of the sun in India, and lost his senses in consequence; but sometimes I think it runs in the family.” What answer could I give to this speech, but mere evasive common-place! “You won't say what you really think,” he continued; “I know you hate me, and that makes me dislike you. Now what would you say if I told you I had committed a murder, and that it was the recollection of that circumstance that made me at times so restless and unhappy?” I looked up in his face, not knowing what to believe. “'Tis fact,” said he, nodding his head; and I hoped that he would not go mad, like his brother, and kill me. “Come, I'll tell you all about it; I know the world would laugh at me for calling such an act _murder_; and yet I have been such a miserable man ever since, that I _feel_ it was. “There was a noted leader among the rebel Buenos-Ayreans, whom the government wanted much to get hold of. He was a fine, dashing, handsome fellow; I had often seen him, but we never came to close quarters. One night, I was lying wrapped up in my poncho at the bottom of my boat, which was rocking in the surf, waiting for two of my men, who were gone on shore. There came to the shore, this man and one of his people, and they stood so near the boat, that I could distinctly hear their conversation. I suppose it was the devil who tempted me to put a bullet through the man's heart. He was an enemy to the flag under which I fought, but he was no enemy to me--I had no right to become his executioner; but still the desire to kill him, for the mere devilry of the thing, came so strongly upon me that I no longer tried to resist it. I rose slowly upon my knees; the moon was shining very bright at the time, both he and his companion were too earnestly engaged to see me, and I deliberately shot him through the body. He fell with a heavy groan back into the water; but I caught the last look he threw upon the moonlight skies before his eyes glazed in death. Oh, that look!--so full of despair, of unutterable anguish; it haunts me yet--it will haunt me for ever. I would not have cared if I had killed him in strife--but in cold blood, and he so unsuspicious of his doom! Yes, it was murder; I know by this constant tugging at my heart that it was murder. What do you say to it?” “I should think as you do, Mr. Malcolm. It is a terrible thing to take away the life of a fellow-creature without the least provocation.” “Ah! I knew you would blame me; but he was an enemy after all; I had a right to kill him; I was hired by the government under whom I served to kill him; and who shall condemn me?” “No one more than your own heart.” “It is not the heart, but the brain, that must decide in questions of right and wrong,” said he. “I acted from impulse, and shot that man; had I reasoned upon it for five minutes, the man would be living now. But what's done cannot be undone. Did I ever show you the work I wrote upon South America?” “Are you an author,” said I, incredulously. “To be sure I am. Murray offered me 100 pounds for my manuscript, but I would not take it. Shall I read to you some passages from it?” I am sorry to say that his behaviour in the morning was uppermost in my thoughts, and I had no repugnance in refusing. “No, don't trouble yourself. I have the dinner to cook, and the children to attend to, which will cause a constant interruption; you had better defer it to some other time.” “I shan't ask you to listen to me again,” said he, with a look of offended vanity; but he went to his trunk, and brought out a large MS., written on foolscap, which he commenced reading to himself with an air of great self-importance, glancing from time to time at me, and smiling disdainfully. Oh, how glad I was when the door opened, and the return of Moodie broke up this painful tete-a-tete. From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. The very next day, Mr. Malcolm made his appearance before me, wrapped in a great-coat belonging to my husband, which literally came down to his heels. At this strange apparition, I fell a-laughing. “For God's sake, Mrs. Moodie, lend me a pair of inexpressibles. I have met with an accident in crossing the fence, and mine are torn to shreds--gone to the devil entirely.” “Well, don't swear. I'll see what can be done for you.” I brought him a new pair of fine, drab-colored kersey-mere trousers that had never been worn. Although he was eloquent in his thanks, I had no idea that he meant to keep them for his sole individual use from that day thenceforth. But after all, what was the man to do? He had no trousers, and no money, and he could not take to the woods. Certainly his loss was not our gain. It was the old proverb reversed. The season for putting in the potatoes had now arrived. Malcolm volunteered to cut the sets, which was easy work that could be done in the house, and over which he could lounge and smoke; but Moodie told him that he must take his share in the field, that I had already sets enough saved to plant half-an-acre, and would have more prepared by the time they were required. With many growls and shrugs, he felt obliged to comply; and he performed his part pretty well, the execrations bestowed upon the mosquitoes and black-flies forming a sort of safety-valve to let off the concentrated venom of his temper. When he came in to dinner, he held out his hands to me. “Look at these hands.” “They are blistered with the hoe.” “Look at my face.” “You are terribly disfigured by the black-flies. But Moodie suffers just as much, and says nothing.” “Bah!--The only consolation one feels for such annoyances is to complain. Oh, the woods!--the cursed woods!--how I wish I were out of them.” The day was very warm, but in the afternoon I was surprised by a visit from an old maiden lady, a friend of mine from C----. She had walked up with a Mr. Crowe, from Peterborough, a young, brisk-looking farmer, in breeches and top-boots, just out from the old country, who, naturally enough, thought he would like to roost among the woods. He was a little, lively, good-natured manny, with a real Anglo-Saxon face,--rosy, high cheek-boned, with full lips, and a turned-up nose; and, like most little men, was a great talker, and very full of himself. He had belonged to the secondary class of farmers, and was very vulgar, both in person and manners. I had just prepared tea for my visitors, when Malcolm and Moodie returned from the field. There was no affectation about the former. He was manly in his person, and blunt even to rudeness, and I saw by the quizzical look which he cast upon the spruce little Crowe that he was quietly quizzing him from head to heel. A neighbour had sent me a present of maple molasses, and Mr. Crowe was so fearful of spilling some of the rich syrup upon his drab shorts that he spread a large pocket-hankerchief over his knees, and tucked another under his chin. I felt very much inclined to laugh, but restrained the inclination as well as I could--and if the little creature would have sat still, I could have quelled my rebellious propensity altogether; but up he would jump at every word I said to him, and make me a low, jerking bow, often with his mouth quite full, and the treacherous molasses running over his chin. Malcolm sat directly opposite to me and my volatile next-door neighbour. He saw the intense difficulty I had to keep my gravity, and was determined to make me laugh out. So, coming slyly behind my chair, he whispered in my ear, with the gravity of a judge, “Mrs. Moodie, that must have been the very chap who first jumped Jim Crowe.” This appeal obliged me to run from the table. Moodie was astonished at my rudeness; and Malcolm, as he resumed his seat, made the matter worse by saying, “I wonder what is the matter with Mrs. Moodie; she is certainly very hysterical this afternoon.” The potatoes were planted, and the season of strawberries, green-peas, and young potatoes come, but still Malcolm remained our constant guest. He had grown so indolent, and gave himself so many airs, that Moodie was heartily sick of his company, and gave him many gentle hints to change his quarters; but our guest was determined to take no hint. For some reason best known to himself, perhaps out of sheer contradiction, which formed one great element in his character, he seemed obstinately bent upon remaining where he was. Moodie was busy under-bushing for a fall fallow. Malcolm spent much of his time in the garden, or lounging about the house. I had baked an eel-pie for dinner, which if prepared well is by no means an unsavoury dish. Malcolm had cleaned some green-peas and washed the first young potatoes we had drawn that season, with his own hands, and he was reckoning upon the feast he should have on the potatoes with childish glee. The dinner at length was put upon the table. The vegetables were remarkably fine, and the pie looked very nice. Moodie helped Malcolm, as he always did, very largely, and the other covered his plate with a portion of peas and potatoes, when, lo and behold! my gentleman began making a very wry face at the pie. “What an infernal dish!” he cried, pushing away his plate with an air of great disgust. “These eels taste as if they had been stewed in oil. Moodie, you should teach your wife to be a better cook.” The hot blood burnt upon Moodie's cheek. I saw indignation blazing in his eye. “If you don't like what is prepared for you, sir, you may leave the table, and my house, if you please. I will put up with your ungentlemanly and ungrateful conduct to Mrs. Moodie no longer.” Out stalked the offending party. I thought, to be sure, we had got rid of him; and though he deserved what was said to him, I was sorry for him. Moodie took his dinner, quietly remarking, “I wonder he could find it in his heart to leave those fine peas and potatoes.” He then went back to his work in the bush, and I cleared away the dishes, and churned, for I wanted butter for tea. About four o'clock Mr. Malcolm entered the room. “Mrs. Moodie,” said he, in a more cheerful voice than usual, “where's the boss?” “In the wood, under-bushing.” I felt dreadfully afraid that there would be blows between them. “I hope, Mr. Malcolm, that you are not going to him with any intention of a fresh quarrel.” “Don't you think I have been punished enough by losing my dinner?” said he, with a grin. “I don't think we shall murder one another.” He shouldered his axe, and went whistling away. After striving for a long while to stifle my foolish fears, I took the baby in my arms, and little Dunbar by the hand, and ran up to the bush where Moodie was at work. At first I only saw my husband, but the strokes of an axe at a little distance soon guided my eyes to the spot where Malcolm was working away, as if for dear life. Moodie smiled, and looked at me significantly. “How could the fellow stomach what I said to him? Either great necessity or great meanness must be the cause of his knocking under. I don't know whether most to pity or despise him.” “Put up with it, dearest, for this once. He is not happy, and must be greatly distressed.” Malcolm kept aloof, ever and anon casting a furtive glance towards us; at last little Dunbar ran to him, and held up his arms to be kissed. The strange man snatched him to his bosom, and covered him with caresses. It might be love to the child that had quelled his sullen spirit, or he might really have cherished an affection for us deeper than his ugly temper would allow him to show. At all events, he joined us at tea as if nothing had happened, and we might truly say that he had obtained a new lease of his long visit. But what could not be effected by words or hints of ours was brought about a few days after by the silly observation of a child. He asked Katie to give him a kiss, and he would give her some raspberries he had gathered in the bush. “I don't want them. Go away; I don't like you, you little stumpy man!” His rage knew no bounds. He pushed the child from him, and vowed that he would leave the house that moment--that she could not have thought of such an expression herself; she must have been taught it by us. This was an entire misconception on his part; but he would not be convinced that he was wrong. Off he went, and Moodie called after him, “Malcolm, as I am sending to Peterborough to-morrow, the man shall take in your trunk.” He was too angry even to turn and bid us good-bye; but we had not seen the last of him yet. Two months after, we were taking tea with a neighbour, who lived a mile below us on the small lake. Who should walk in but Mr. Malcolm? He greeted us with great warmth for him, and when we rose to take leave, he rose and walked home by our side. “Surely the little stumpy man is not returning to his old quarters?” I am still a babe in the affairs of men. Human nature has more strange varieties than any one menagerie can contain, and Malcolm was one of the oddest of her odd species. That night he slept in his old bed below the parlour window, and for three months afterwards he stuck to us like a beaver. He seemed to have grown more kindly, or we had got more used to his eccentricities, and let him have his own way; certainly he behaved himself much better. He neither scolded the children nor interfered with the maid, nor quarrelled with me. He had greatly discontinued his bad habit of swearing, and he talked of himself and his future prospects with more hope and self-respect. His father had promised to send him a fresh supply of money, and he proposed to buy of Moodie the clergy reserve, and that they should farm the two places on shares. This offer was received with great joy, as an unlooked-for means of paying our debts, and extricating ourselves from present and overwhelming difficulties, and we looked upon the little stumpy man in the light of a benefactor. So matters continued until Christmas Eve, when our visitor proposed walking into Peterborough, in order to give the children a treat of raisins to make a Christmas pudding. “We will be quite merry to-morrow,” he said. “I hope we shall eat many Christmas dinners together, and continue good friends.” He started, after breakfast, with the promise of coming back at night; but night came, the Christmas passed away, months and years fled away, but we never saw the little stumpy man again! He went away that day with a stranger in a waggon from Peterborough, and never afterwards was seen in that part of Canada. We afterwards learned that he went to Texas, and it is thought that he was killed at St. Antonio; but this is mere conjecture. Whether dead or living, I feel convinced that-- “We ne'er shall look upon his like again.” OH, THE DAYS WHEN I WAS YOUNG! Oh, the days when I was young, A playful little boy, When my piping treble rung To the notes of early joy. Oh, the sunny days of spring, When I sat beside the shore, And heard the small birds sing;-- Shall I never hear them more? And the daisies scatter'd round, Half hid amid the grass, Lay like gems upon the ground, Too gay for me to pass. How sweet the milkmaid sung, As she sat beside her cow, How clear her wild notes rung;-- There's no music like it now. As I watch'd the ship's white sail 'Mid the sunbeams on the sea, Spreading canvas to the gale-- How I long'd with her to be. I thought not of the storm, Nor the wild cries on her deck, When writhed her graceful form 'Mid the hurricane and wreck. And I launch'd my little ship, With her sails and hold beneath; Deep laden on each trip, With berries from the heath. Ah, little did I know, When I long'd to be a man, Of the gloomy cares and woe, That meet in life's brief span. Oh, the happy nights I lay With my brothers in their beds, Where we soundly slept till day Shone brightly o'er our heads. And the blessed dreams that came To fill my heart with joy. Oh, that I now could dream, As I dreamt, a little boy. The sun shone brighter then, And the moon more soft and clear, For the wiles of crafty men I had not learn'd to fear; But all seemed fair and gay As the fleecy clouds above; I spent my hours in play, And my heart was full of love. I loved the heath-clad hill, And I loved the silent vale, With its dark and purling rill That murmur'd in the gale. Of sighs I'd none to share, They were stored for riper years, When I drain'd the dregs of care With many bitter tears. My simple daily fare, In my little tiny mug, How fain was I to share With Cato on the rug. Yes, he gave his honest paw, And he lick'd my happy face, He was true to Nature's law, And I thought it no disgrace. There's a voice so soft and clear, And a step so gay and light, That charms my listening ear In the visions of the night. And my father bids me haste, In the deep, fond tones of love, And leave this dreary waste, For brighter realms above. Now I am old and grey, My bones are rack'd with pain, And time speeds fast away-- But why should I complain? There are joys in life's young morn That dwell not with the old. Like the flowers the wind hath torn, From the strem, all bleak and cold. The weary heart may mourn O'er the wither'd hopes of youth, But the flowers so rudely shorn Still leave the seeds of truth. And there's hope for hoary men When they're laid beneath the sod; For we'll all be young again When we meet around our God. J.W.D.M. CHAPTER XXII THE FIRE Now, Fortune, do thy worst! For many years, Thou, with relentless and unsparing hand, Hast sternly pour'd on our devoted heads The poison'd phials of thy fiercest wrath. The early part of the winter of 1837, a year never to be forgotten in the annals of Canadian history, was very severe. During the month of February, the thermometer often ranged from eighteen to twenty-seven degrees below zero. Speaking of the coldness of one particular day, a genuine brother Jonathan remarked, with charming simplicity, that it was thirty degrees below zero that morning, and it would have been much colder if the thermometer had been longer. The morning of the seventh was so intensely cold that everything liquid froze in the house. The wood that had been drawn for the fire was green, and it ignited too slowly to satisfy the shivering impatience of women and children; I vented mine in audibly grumbling over the wretched fire, at which I in vain endeavoured to thaw frozen bread, and to dress crying children. It so happened that an old friend, the maiden lady before alluded to, had been staying with us for a few days. She had left us for a visit to my sister, and as some relatives of hers were about to return to Britain by the way of New York, and had offered to convey letters to friends at home, I had been busy all the day before preparing a packet for England. It was my intention to walk to my sister's with this packet, directly the important affair of breakfast had been discussed; but the extreme cold of the morning had occasioned such delay that it was late before the breakfast-things were cleared away. After dressing, I found the air so keen that I could not venture out without some risk to my nose, and my husband kindly volunteered to go in my stead. I had hired a young Irish girl the day before. Her friends were only just located in our vicinity, and she had never seen a stove until she came to our house. After Moodie left, I suffered the fire to die away in the Franklin stove in the parlour, and went into the kitchen to prepare bread for the oven. The girl, who was a good-natured creature, had heard me complain bitterly of the cold, and the impossibility of getting the green wood to burn, and she thought that she would see if she could not make a good fire for me and the children, against my work was done. Without saying one word about her intention, she slipped out through a door that opened from the parlour into the garden, ran round to the wood-yard, filled her lap with cedar chips, and, not knowing the nature of the stove, filled it entirely with the light wood. Before I had the least idea of my danger, I was aroused from the completion of my task by the crackling and roaring of a large fire, and a suffocating smell of burning soot. I looked up at the kitchen cooking-stove. All was right there. I knew I had left no fire in the parlour stove; but not being able to account for the smoke and the smell of buring, I opened the door, and to my dismay found the stove red hot, from the front plate to the topmost pipe that let out the smoke through the roof. My first impulse was to plunge a blanket, snatched from the servant's bed, which stood in the kitchen, into cold water. This I thrust into the stove, and upon it threw cold water, until all was cool below. I then ran up to the loft, and by exhausting all the water in the house, even to that contained in the boilers upon the fire, contrived to cool down the pipes which passed through the loft. I then sent the girl out of doors to look at the roof, which, as a very deep fall of snow had taken place the day before, I hoped would be completely covered, and safe from all danger of fire. She quickly returned, stamping and tearing her hair, and making a variety of uncouth outcries, from which I gathered that the roof was in flames. This was terrible news, with my husband absent, no man in the house, and a mile and a quarter from any other habitation. I ran out to ascertain the extent of the misfortune, and found a large fire burning in the roof between the two stove pipes. The heat of the fires had melted off all the snow, and a spark from the burning pipe had already ignited the shingles. A ladder, which for several months had stood against the house, had been moved two days before to the barn, which was at the top of the hill, near the road; there was no reaching the fire through that source. I got out the dining-table, and tried to throw water upon the roof by standing on a chair placed upon it, but I only expended the little water that remained in the boiler, without reaching the fire. The girl still continued weeping and lamenting. “You must go for help,” I said. “Run as fast as you can to my sister's, and fetch your master.” “And lave you, ma'arm, and the childher alone wid the burnin' house?” “Yes, yes! Don't stay one moment.” “I have no shoes, ma'arm, and the snow is so deep.” “Put on your master's boots; make haste, or we shall be lost before help comes.” The girl put on the boots and started, shrieking “Fire!” the whole way. This was utterly useless, and only impeded her progress by exhausting her strength. After she had vanished from the head of the clearing into the wood, and I was left quite alone, with the house burning over my head, I paused one moment to reflect what had best be done. The house was built of cedar logs; in all probability it would be consumed before any help could arrive. There was a brisk breeze blowing up from the frozen lake, and the thermometer stood at eighteen degrees below zero. We were placed between the two extremes of heat and cold, and there was as much danger to be apprehended from the one as the other. In the bewilderment of the moment, the direful extent of the calamity never struck me; we wanted but this to put the finishing stroke to our misfortunes, to be thrown naked, houseless, and penniless, upon the world. “What shall I save first?” was the thought just then uppermost in my mind. Bedding and clothing appeared the most essentially necessary, and without another moment's pause, I set to work with a right good will to drag all that I could from my burning home. While little Agnes, Dunbar, and baby Donald filled the air with their cries, Katie, as if fully conscious of the importance of exertion, assisted me in carrying out sheets and blankets, and dragging trunks and boxes some way up the hill, to be out of the way of the burning brands when the roof should fall in. How many anxious looks I gave to the head of the clearing as the fire increased, and the large pieces of burning pine began to fall through the boarded ceiling, about the lower rooms where we were at work. The children I had kept under a large dresser in the kitchen, but it now appeared absolutely necessary to remove them to a place of safety. To expose the young, tender things to the direful cold was almost as bad as leaving them to the mercy of the fire. At last I hit upon a plan to keep them from freezing. I emptied all the clothes out of a large, deep chest of drawers, and dragged the empty drawers up the hill; these I lined with blankets, and placed a child in each drawer, covering it well over with the bedding, giving to little Agnes the charge of the baby to hold between her knees, and keep well covered until help should arrive. Ah, how long it seemed coming! The roof was now burning like a brush-heap, and, unconsciously, the child and I were working under a shelf, upon which were deposited several pounds of gunpowder which had been procured for blasting a well, as all our water had to be brought up hill from the lake. This gunpowder was in a stone jar, secured by a paper stopper; the shelf upon which it stood was on fire, but it was utterly forgotten by me at the time; and even afterwards, when my husband was working on the burning loft over it. I found that I should not be able to take many more trips for goods. As I passed out of the parlour for the last time, Katie looked up at her father's flute, which was suspended upon two brackets, and said-- “Oh, dear mamma! do save papa's flute; he will be so sorry to lose it.” God bless the dear child for the thought! the flute was saved; and, as I succeeded in dragging out a heavy chest of cloths, and looked up once more despairingly to the road, I saw a man running at full speed. It was my husband. Help was at hand, and my heart uttered a deep thanksgiving as another and another figure came upon the scene. I had not felt the intense cold, although without cap, or bonnet, or shawl; with my hands bare and exposed to the bitter, biting air. The intense excitement, the anxiety to save all I could, had so totally diverted my thoughts from myself, that I had felt nothing of the danger to which I had been exposed; but now that help was near, my knees trembled under me, I felt giddy and faint, and dark shadows seemed dancing before my eyes. The moment my husband and brother-in-law entered the house, the latter exclaimed, “Moodie, the house is gone; save what you can of your winter stores and furniture.” Moodie thought differently. Prompt and energetic in danger, and possessing admirable presence of mind and coolness when others yield to agitation and despair, he sprang upon the burning loft and called for water. Alas, there was none! “Snow, snow; hand me up pailsful of snow!” Oh! it was bitter work filling those pails with frozen snow; but Mr. T---- and I worked at it as fast as we were able. The violence of the fire was greatly checked by covering the boards of the loft with this snow. More help had now arrived. Young B---- and S---- had brought the ladder down with them from the barn, and were already cutting away the burning roof, and flinging the flaming brands into the deep snow. “Mrs. Moodie, have you any pickled meat?” “We have just killed one of our cows, and salted it for winter stores.” “Well, then, fling the beef into the snow, and let us have the brine.” This was an admirable plan. Wherever the brine wetted the shingles, the fire turned from it, and concentrated into one spot. But I had not time to watch the brave workers on the roof. I was fast yielding to the effects of over-excitement and fatigue, when my brother's team dashed down the clearing, bringing my excellent old friend, Miss B----, and the servant-girl. My brother sprang out, carried me back into the house, and wrapped me up in one of the large blankets scattered about. In a few minutes I was seated with the dear children in the sleigh, and on the way to a place of warmth and safety. Katie alone suffered from the intense cold. The dear little creature's feet were severely frozen, but were fortunately restored by her uncle discovering the fact before she approached the fire, and rubbing them well with snow. In the meanwhile, the friends we had left so actively employed at the house succeeded in getting the fire under before it had destroyed the walls. The only accident that occurred was to a poor dog, that Moodie had called Snarleyowe. He was struck by a burning brand thrown from the house, and crept under the barn and died. Beyond the damage done to the building, the loss of our potatoes and two sacks of flour, we had escaped in a manner almost miraculous. This fact shows how much can be done by persons working in union, without bustle and confusion, or running in each other's way. Here were six men, who, without the aid of water, succeeded in saving a building, which, at first sight, almost all of them had deemed past hope. In after years, when entirely burnt out in a disastrous fire that consumed almost all we were worth in the world, some four hundred persons were present, with a fire-engine to second their endeavours, yet all was lost. Every person seemed in the way; and though the fire was discovered immediately after it took place, nothing was done beyond saving some of the furniture. Our party was too large to be billetted upon one family. Mrs. T---- took compassion upon Moodie, myself, and the baby, while their uncle received the three children to his hospitable home. It was some weeks before Moodie succeeded in repairing the roof, the intense cold preventing any one from working in such an exposed situation. The news of our fire travelled far and wide. I was reported to have done prodigies, and to have saved the greater part of our household goods before help arrived. Reduced to plain prose, these prodigies shrink into the simple, and by no means marvellous fact, that during the excitement I dragged out chests which, under ordinary circumstances, I could not have moved; and that I was unconscious, both of the cold and the danger to which I was exposed while working under a burning roof, which, had it fallen, would have buried both the children and myself under its ruins. These circumstances appeared far more alarming, as all real danger does, after they were past. The fright and over-exertion gave my health a shock from which I did not recover for several months, and made me so fearful of fire, that from that hour it haunts me like a nightmare. Let the night be ever so serene, all stoves must be shut up, and the hot embers covered with ashes, before I dare retire to rest; and the sight of a burning edifice, so common a spectacle in large towns in this country, makes me really ill. This feeling was greatly increased after a second fire, when, for some torturing minutes, a lovely boy, since drowned, was supposed to have perished in the burning house. Our present fire led to a new train of circumstances, for it was the means of introducing to Moodie a young Irish gentleman, who was staying at my brother's house. John E---- was one of the best and gentlest of human beings. His father, a captain in the army, had died while his family were quite young, and had left his widow with scarcely any means beyond the pension she received at her husband's death, to bring up and educate a family of five children. A handsome, showy woman, Mrs. E---- soon married again; and the poor lads were thrown upon the world. The eldest, who had been educated for the Church, first came to Canada in the hope of getting some professorship in the college, or of opening a classical school. He was a handsome, gentlemanly, well-educated young man, but constitutionally indolent--a natural defect which seemed common to all the males of the family, and which was sufficiently indicated by their soft, silky, fair hair and milky complexions. R---- had the good sense to perceive that Canada was not the country for him. He spent a week under our roof, and we were much pleased with his elegant tastes and pursuits; but my husband strongly advised him to try and get a situation as a tutor in some family at home. This he afterwards obtained. He became tutor and travelling companion to the young Lord M----, and has since got an excellent living. John, who had followed his brother to Canada without the means of transporting himself back again, was forced to remain, and was working with Mr. S---- for his board. He proposed to Moodie working his farm upon shares; and as we were unable to hire a man, Moodie gladly closed with his offer; and, during the time he remained with us, we had every reason to be pleased with the arrangement. It was always a humiliating feeling to our proud minds, that hirelings should witness our dreadful struggle with poverty, and the strange shifts we were forced to make in order to obtain even food. But John E---- had known and experienced all that we had suffered, in his own person, and was willing to share our home with all its privations. Warm-hearted, sincere, and truly affectionate--a gentleman in word, thought, and deed--we found his society and cheerful help a great comfort. Our odd meals became a subject of merriment, and the peppermint and sage tea drank with a better flavour when we had one who sympathised in all our trials, and shared all our toils, to partake of it with us. The whole family soon became attached to our young friend; and after the work of the day was over, greatly we enjoyed an hour's fishing on the lake. John E---- said that we had no right to murmur, as long as we had health, a happy home, and plenty of fresh fish, milk, and potatoes. Early in May, we received an old Irishwoman into our service, who for four years proved a most faithful and industrious creature. And what with John E---- to assist my husband on the farm, and old Jenny to help me to nurse the children, and manage the house, our affairs, if they were no better in a pecuniary point of view, at least presented a more pleasing aspect at home. We were always cheerful, and sometimes contented and even happy. How great was the contrast between the character of our new inmate and that of Mr. Malcolm! The sufferings of the past year had been greatly increased by the intolerable nuisance of his company, while many additional debts had been contracted in order to obtain luxuries for him which we never dreamed of purchasing for ourselves. Instead of increasing my domestic toils, John did all in his power to lessen them; and it always grieved him to see me iron a shirt, or wash the least article of clothing for him. “You have too much to do already; I cannot bear to give you the least additional work,” he would say. And he generally expressed the greatest satisfaction at my method of managing the house, and preparing our simple fare. The little ones he treated with the most affectionate kindness, and gathered the whole flock about his knees the moment he came in to his meals. On a wet day, when no work could be done abroad, Moodie took up his flute, or read aloud to us, while John and I sat down to work. The young emigrant, early cast upon the world and his own resources, was an excellent hand at the needle. He would make or mend a shirt with the greatest precision and neatness, and cut out and manufacture his canvas trousers and loose summer-coats with as much adroitness as the most experienced tailor; darn his socks, and mend his boots and shoes, and often volunteered to assist me in knitting the coarse yarn of the country into socks for the children, while he made them moccasins from the dressed deer-skins that we obtained from the Indians. Scrupulously neat and clean in his person, the only thing which seemed to ruffle his calm temper was the dirty work of logging; he hated to come in from the field with his person and clothes begrimed with charcoal and smoke. Old Jenny used to laugh at him for not being able to eat his meals without first washing his hands and face. “Och! my dear heart, yer too particular intirely; we've no time in the woods to be clane.” She would say to him, in answer to his request for soap and a towel, “An' is it soap yer a-wantin'? I tell yer that that same is not to the fore; bating the throuble of makin', it's little soap that the misthress can get to wash the clothes for us and the childher, widout yer wastin' it in makin' yer purty skin as white as a leddy's. Do, darlint, go down to the lake and wash there; that basin is big enough, any how.” And John would laugh, and go down to the lake to wash, in order to appease the wrath of the old woman. John had a great dislike to cats, and even regarded with an evil eye our old pet cat, Peppermint, who had taken a great fancy to share his bed and board. “If I tolerate our own cat,” he would say, “I will not put up with such a nuisance as your friend Emilia sends us in the shape of her ugly Tom. Why, where in the world do you think I found that beast sleeping last night?” I expressed my ignorance. “In our potato-pot. Now, you will agree with me that potatoes dressed with cat's hair is not a very nice dish. The next time I catch Master Tom in the potato-pot, I will kill him.” “John, you are not in earnest. Mrs. ---- would never forgive any injury done to Tom, who is a great favourite.” “Let her keep him at home, then. Think of the brute coming a mile through the woods to steal from us all he can find, and then sleeping off the effects of his depredations in the potato-pot.” I could not help laughing, but I begged John by no means to annoy Emilia by hurting her cat. The next day, while sitting in the parlour at work, I heard a dreadful squall, and rushed to the rescue. John was standing, with a flushed cheek, grasping a large stick in his hand, and Tom was lying dead at his feet. “Oh, the poor cat!” “Yes, I have killed him; but I am sorry for it now. What will Mrs. ---- say?” “She must not know it. I have told you the story of the pig that Jacob killed. You had better bury it with the pig.” John was really sorry for having yielded, in a fit of passion, to do so cruel a thing; yet a few days after he got into a fresh scrape with Mrs. ----'s animals. The hens were laying, up at the barn. John was very fond of fresh eggs, but some strange dog came daily and sucked the eggs. John had vowed to kill the first dog he found in the act. Mr. ---- had a very fine bull-dog, which he valued very highly; but with Emilia, Chowder was an especial favourite. Bitterly had she bemoaned the fate of Tom, and many were the inquiries she made of us as to his sudden disappearance. One afternoon John ran into the room. “My dear Mrs. Moodie, what is Mrs. ----'s dog like?” “A large bull-dog, brindled black and white.” “Then, by Jove, I've shot him!” “John, John! you mean me to quarrel in earnest with my friend. How could you do it?” “Why, how the deuce should I know her dog from another? I caught the big thief in the very act of devouring the eggs from under your sitting hen, and I shot him dead without another thought. But I will bury him, and she will never find it out a bit more than she did who killed the cat.” Some time after this, Emilia returned from a visit at P----. The first thing she told me was the loss of the dog. She was so vexed at it, she had had him advertised, offering a reward for his recovery. I, of course, was called upon to sympathise with her, which I did with a very bad grace. “I did not like the beast,” I said; “he was cross and fierce, and I was afraid to go up to her house while he was there.” “Yes; but to lose him so. It is so provoking; and him such a valuable animal. I could not tell how deeply she felt the loss. She would give four dollars to find out who had stolen him.” How near she came to making the grand discovery the sequel will show. Instead of burying him with the murdered pig and cat, John had scratched a shallow grave in the garden, and concealed the dead brute. After tea, Emilia requested to look at the garden; and I, perfectly unconscious that it contained the remains of the murdered Chowder, led the way. Mrs. ---- whilst gathering a handful of fine green-peas, suddenly stooped, and looking earnestly at the ground, called to me-- “Come here, Susanna, and tell me what has been buried here. It looks like the tail of a dog.” She might have added, “of my dog.” Murder, it seems, will out. By some strange chance, the grave that covered the mortal remains of Chowder had been disturbed, and the black tail of the dog was sticking out. “What can it be?” said I, with an air of perfect innocence. “Shall I call Jenny, and dig it up?” “Oh, no, my dear; it has a shocking smell, but it does look very much like Chowder's tail.” “Impossible! How could it come among my peas?” “True. Besides, I saw Chowder, with my own eyes, yesterday, following a team; and George C---- hopes to recover him for me.” “Indeed! I am glad to hear it. How these mosquitoes sting. Shall we go back to the house?” While we returned to the house, John, who had overheard the whole conversation, hastily disinterred the body of Chowder, and placed him in the same mysterious grave with Tom and the pig. Moodie and his friend finished logging-up the eight acres which the former had cleared the previous winter; besides putting in a crop of peas and potatoes, and an acre of Indian corn, reserving the fallow for fall wheat, while we had the promise of a splendid crop of hay off the sixteen acres that had been cleared in 1834. We were all in high spirits and everything promised fair, until a very trifling circumstance again occasioned us much anxiety and trouble, and was the cause of our losing most of our crop. Moodie was asked to attend a bee, which was called to construct a corduroy-bridge over a very bad piece of road. He and J. E---- were obliged to go that morning with wheat to the mill, but Moodie lent his yoke of oxen for the work. The driver selected for them at the bee was the brutal M----y, a man noted for his ill-treatment of cattle, especially if the animals did not belong to him. He gave one of the oxen such a severe blow over the loins with a handspike that the creature came home perfectly disabled, just as we wanted his services in the hay-field and harvest. Moodie had no money to purchase, or even to hire a mate for the other ox; but he and John hoped that by careful attendance upon the injured animal he might be restored to health in a few days. They conveyed him to a deserted clearing, a short distance from the farm, where he would be safe from injury from the rest of the cattle; and early every morning we went in the canoe to carry poor Duke a warm mash, and to watch the progress of his recovery. Ah, ye who revel in this world's wealth, how little can you realise the importance which we, in our poverty, attached to the life of this valuable animal! Yes, it even became the subject of prayer, for the bread for ourselves and our little ones depended greatly upon his recovery. We were doomed to disappointment. After nursing him with the greatest attention and care for some weeks, the animal grew daily worse, and suffered such intense agony, as he lay groaning upon the ground, unable to rise, that John shot him to put him out of pain. Here, then, were we left without oxen to draw in our hay, or secure our other crops. A neighbour, who had an odd ox, kindly lent us the use of him, when he was not employed on his own farm; and John and Moodie gave their own work for the occasional loan of a yoke of oxen for a day. But with all these drawbacks, and in spite of the assistance of old Jenny and myself in the field, a great deal of the produce was damaged before it could be secured. The whole summer we had to labour under this disadvantage. Our neighbours were all too busy to give us any help, and their own teams were employed in saving their crops. Fortunately, the few acres of wheat we had to reap were close to the barn, and we carried the sheaves thither by hand; old Jenny proving an invaluable help, both in the harvest and hay-field. Still, with all these misfortunes, Providence watched over us in a signal manner. We were never left entirely without food. Like the widow's cruise of oil, our means, though small, were never suffered to cease entirely. We had been for some days without meat, when Moodie came running in for his gun. A great she-bear was in the wheat-field at the edge of the wood, very busily employed in helping to harvest the crop. There was but one bullet, and a charge or two of buckshot, in the house; but Moodie started to the wood with the single bullet in his gun, followed by a little terrier dog that belonged to John E----. Old Jenny was busy at the wash-tub, but the moment she saw her master running up the clearing, and knew the cause, she left her work, and snatching up the carving-knife, ran after him, that in case the bear should have the best of the fight, she would be there to help “the masther.” Finding her shoes incommode her, she flung them off, in order to run faster. A few minutes after, came the report of the gun, and I heard Moodie halloo to E----, who was cutting stakes for a fence in the wood. I hardly thought it possible that he could have killed the bear, but I ran to the door to listen. The children were all excitement, which the sight of the black monster, borne down the clearing upon two poles, increased to the wildest demonstrations of joy. Moodie and John were carrying the prize, and old Jenny, brandishing her carving-knife, followed in the rear. The rest of the evening was spent in skinning, and cutting up, and salting the ugly creature, whose flesh filled a barrel with excellent meat, in flavour resembling beef, while the short grain and juicy nature of the flesh gave to it the tenderness of mutton. This was quite a Godsend, and lasted us until we were able to kill two large, fat hogs, in the fall. A few nights after, Moodie and I encountered the mate of Mrs. Bruin, while returning from a visit to Emilia, in the very depth of the wood. We had been invited to meet our friend's father and mother, who had come up on a short visit to the woods; and the evening passed away so pleasantly that it was near midnight before the little party of friends separated. The moon was down. The wood, through which we had to return, was very dark; the ground being low and swampy, and the trees thick and tall. There was, in particular, one very ugly spot, where a small creek crossed the road. This creek could only be passed by foot-passengers scrambling over a fallen tree, which, in a dark night, was not very easy to find. I begged a torch of Mr. ----; but no torch could be found. Emilia laughed at my fears; still, knowing what a coward I was in the bush of a night, she found up about an inch of candle, which was all that remained from the evening's entertainment. This she put into an old lanthorn. “It will not last you long; but it will carry you over the creek.” This was something gained, and off we set. It was so dark in the bush, that our dim candle looked like a solitary red spark in the intense surrounding darkness, and scarcely served to show us the path. We went chatting along, talking over the news of the evening, Hector running on before us, when I saw a pair of eyes glare upon us from the edge of the swamp, with the green, bright light emitted by the eyes of a cat. “Did you see those terrible eyes, Moodie?” and I clung, trembling, to his arm. “What eyes?” said he, feigning ignorance. “It's too dark to see anything. The light is nearly gone, and, if you don't quicken your pace, and cross the tree before it goes out, you will, perhaps, get your feet wet by falling into the creek.” “Good Heavens! I saw them again; and do just look at the dog.” Hector stopped suddenly, and, stretching himself along the ground, his nose resting between his forepaws, began to whine and tremble. Presently he ran back to us, and crept under our feet. The cracking of branches, and the heavy tread of some large animal, sounded close beside us. Moodie turned the open lanthorn in the direction from whence the sounds came, and shouted as loud as he could, at the same time endeavouring to urge forward the fear-stricken dog, whose cowardice was only equalled by my own. Just at that critical moment the wick of the candle flickered a moment in the socket, and expired. We were left, in perfect darkness, alone with the bear--for such we supposed the animal to be. My heart beat audibly; a cold perspiration was streaming down my face, but I neither shrieked nor attempted to run. I don't know how Moodie got me over the creek. One of my feet slipped into the water, but, expecting, as I did every moment, to be devoured by master Bruin, that was a thing of no consequence. My husband was laughing at my fears, and every now and then he turned towards our companion, who continued following us at no great distance, and gave him an encouraging shout. Glad enough was I when I saw the gleam of the light from our little cabin window shine out among the trees; and, the moment I got within the clearing I ran, without stopping until I was safely within the house. John was sitting up for us, nursing Donald. He listened with great interest to our adventure with the bear, and thought that Bruin was very good to let us escape without one affectionate hug. “Perhaps it would have been otherwise had he known, Moodie, that you had not only killed his good lady, but were dining sumptuously off her carcass every day.” The bear was determined to have something in return for the loss of his wife. Several nights after this, our slumbers were disturbed, about midnight, by an awful yell, and old Jenny shook violently at our chamber door. “Masther, masther, dear! Get up wid you this moment, or the bear will desthroy the cattle intirely.” Half asleep, Moodie sprang from his bed, seized his gun, and ran out. I threw my large cloak round me, struck a light, and followed him to the door. The moment the latter was unclosed, some calves that we were rearing rushed into the kitchen, closely followed by the larger beasts, who came bellowing headlong down the hill, pursued by the bear. It was a laughable scene, as shown by that paltry tallow-candle. Moodie, in his night-shirt, taking aim at something in the darkness, surrounded by the terrified animals; old Jenny, with a large knife in her hand, holding on to the white skirts of her master's garment, making outcry loud enough to frighten away all the wild beasts in the bush--herself almost in a state of nudity. “Och, masther, dear! don't timpt the ill-conditioned crathur wid charging too near; think of the wife and the childher. Let me come at the rampaging baste, an' I'll stick the knife into the heart of him.” Moodie fired. The bear retreated up the clearing, with a low growl. Moodie and Jenny pursued him some way, but it was too dark to discern any object at a distance. I, for my part, stood at the open door, laughing until the tears ran down my cheeks, at the glaring eyes of the oxen, their ears erect, and their tails carried gracefully on a level with their backs, as they stared at me and the light, in blank astonishment. The noise of the gun had just roused John E---- from his slumbers. He was no less amused than myself, until he saw that a fine yearling heifer was bleeding, and found, upon examination, that the poor animal, having been in the claws of the bear, was dangerously, if not mortally hurt. “I hope,” he cried, “that the brute has not touched my foal!” I pointed to the black face of the filly peeping over the back of an elderly cow. “You see, John, that Bruin preferred veal; there's your 'horsey,' as Dunbar calls her, safe, and laughing at you.” Moodie and Jenny now returned from the pursuit of the bear. E---- fastened all the cattle into the back yard, close to the house. By daylight he and Moodie had started in chase of Bruin, whom they tracked by his blood some way into the bush; but here he entirely escaped their search. THE BEARS OF CANADA Oh! _bear_ me from this savage land of _bears_, For 'tis indeed _unbearable_ to me: I'd rather cope with vilest worldly cares, Or writhe with cruel sickness of the sea. Oh! _bear_ me to my own _bear_ land of hills,[1] Where I'd be sure brave _bear_-legg'd lads to see-- _bear_ cakes, _bear_ rocks, and whiskey stills, And _bear_-legg'd nymphs, to smile once more on me. I'd _bear_ the heat, I'd _bear_ the freezing air Of equatorial realm or Arctic sea, I'd sit all _bear_ at night, and watch the Northern _bear_, And bless my soul that he was far from me. I'd _bear_ the poor-rates, tithes, and all the ills John Bull must _bear_, (who takes them all, poor sinner! As patients do, when forced to gulp down pills, And water-gruel drink in lieu of dinner). I'd _bear_ the _bareness_ of all barren lands Before I'd _bear_ the _bearishness_ of this; _bear_ head, _bear_ feet, _bear_ legs, _bear_ hands, _bear_ everything, but want of social bliss. But should I die in this drear land of _bears_, Oh! ship me off, my friends, discharge the sable wearers, For if you don't, in spite of priests and prayers, The _bear_ will come, and eat up corpse and _bearers_. J.W.D.M. [1] The Orkney Isles. CHAPTER XXIII THE OUTBREAK Can a corrupted stream pour through the land Health-giving waters? Can the slave, who lures His wretched followers with the hope of gain, Feel in his bosom the immortal fire That bound a Wallace to his country's cause, And bade the Thracian shepherd cast away Rome's galling yoke; while the astonish'd world-- Rapt into admiration at the deed-- Paus'd, ere she crush'd, with overwhelming force, The man who fought to win a glorious grave? The long-protracted harvest was at length brought to a close. Moodie had procured another ox from Dummer, by giving a note at six months date for the payment; and he and John E---- were in the middle of sowing their fall crop of wheat, when the latter received a letter from the old country, which conveyed to him intelligence of the death of his mother, and of a legacy of two hundred pounds. It was necessary for him to return to claim the property, and though we felt his loss severely, we could not, without great selfishness, urge him to stay. John had formed an attachment to a young lady in the country, who, like himself, possessed no property. Their engagement, which had existed several years, had been dropped, from its utter hopelessness, by mutual consent. Still the young people continued to love each other, and to look forward to better days, when their prospects might improve so far that E---- would be able to purchase a bush farm, and raise a house, however lowly, to shelter his Mary. He, like our friend Malcolm, had taken a fancy to buy a part of our block of land, which he could cultivate in partnership with Moodie, without being obliged to hire, when the same barn, cattle, and implements would serve for both. Anxious to free himself from the thraldom of debts which pressed him sore, Moodie offered to part with two hundred acres at less than they cost us, and the bargain was to be considered as concluded directly the money was forthcoming. It was a sorrowful day when our young friend left us; he had been a constant inmate in the house for nine months, and not one unpleasant word had ever passed between us. He had rendered our sojourn in the woods more tolerable by his society, and sweetened our bitter lot by his friendship and sympathy. We both regarded him as a brother, and parted with him with sincere regret. As to old Jenny, she lifted up her voice and wept, consigning him to the care and protection of all the saints in the Irish calendar. For several days after John left us, a deep gloom pervaded the house. Our daily toil was performed with less cheerfulness and alacrity; we missed him at the evening board, and at the evening fire; and the children asked each day, with increasing earnestness, when dear E---- would return. Moodie continued sowing his fall wheat. The task was nearly completed, and the chill October days were fast verging upon winter, when towards the evening of one of them he contrived--I know not how--to crawl down from the field at the head of the hill, faint and pale, and in great pain. He had broken the small bone of his leg. In dragging, among the stumps, the heavy machine (which is made in the form of the letter V, and is supplied with large iron teeth), had hitched upon a stump, and being swung off again by the motion of the oxen, had come with great force against his leg. At first he was struck down, and for some time was unable to rise; but at length he contrived to unyoke the team, and crawled partly on his hands and knees down the clearing. What a sad, melancholy evening that was! Fortune seemed never tired of playing us some ugly trick. The hope which had so long sustained me seemed about to desert me altogether; when I saw him on whom we all depended for subsistence, and whose kindly voice ever cheered us under the pressure of calamity, smitten down helpless, all my courage and faith in the goodness of the Divine Father seemed to forsake me, and I wept long and bitterly. The next morning I went in search of a messenger to send to Peterborough for the doctor; but though I found and sent the messenger, the doctor never came. Perhaps he did not like to incur the expense of a fatiguing journey with small chance of obtaining a sufficient remuneration. Our dear sufferer contrived, with assistance, to bandage his leg; and after the first week of rest had expired, he amused himself with making a pair of crutches, and in manufacturing Indian paddles for the canoe, axe-handles, and yokes for the oxen. It was wonderful with what serenity he bore this unexpected affliction. Buried in the obscurity of those woods, we knew nothing, heard nothing of the political state of the country, and were little aware of the revolution which was about to work a great change for us and for Canada. The weather continued remarkably mild. The first great snow, which for years had ordinarily fallen between the 10th and 15th of November, still kept off. November passed on, and as all our firewood had to be chopped by old Jenny during the lameness of my husband, I was truly grateful to God for the continued mildness of the weather. On the 4th of December--that great day of the outbreak--Moodie was determined to take advantage of the open state of the lake to carry a large grist up to Y----'s mill. I urged upon him the danger of a man attempting to manage a canoe in rapid water, who was unable to stand without crutches; but Moodie saw that the children would need bread, and he was anxious to make the experiment. Finding that I could not induce him to give up the journey, I determined to go with him. Old Wittals, who happened to come down that morning, assisted in placing the bags of wheat in the little vessel, and helped to place Moodie at the stern. With a sad, foreboding spirit I assisted to push off from the shore. The air was raw and cold, but our sail was not without its pleasure. The lake was very full from the heavy rains, and the canoe bounded over the waves with a free, springy motion. A slight frost had hung every little bush and spray along the shores with sparkling crystals. The red pigeon-berries, shining through their coating of ice, looked like cornelian beads set in silver, and strung from bush to bush. We found the rapids at the entrance of Bessikakoon Lake very hard to stem, and were so often carried back by the force of the water, that, cold as the air was, the great exertion which Moodie had to make use of to obtain the desired object brought the perspiration out in big drops upon his forehead. His long confinement to the house and low diet had rendered him very weak. The old miller received us in the most hearty and hospitable manner; and complimented me upon my courage in venturing upon the water in such cold, rough weather. Norah was married, but the kind Betty provided us an excellent dinner, while we waited for the grist to be ground. It was near four o'clock when we started on our return. If there had been danger in going up the stream, there was more in coming down. The wind had changed, the air was frosty, keen, and biting, and Moodie's paddle came up from every dip into the water loaded with ice. For my part, I had only to sit still at the bottom of the canoe, as we floated rapidly down with wind and tide. At the landing we were met by old Jenny, who had a long story to tell us, of which we could make neither head nor tail--how some gentleman had called during our absence, and left a large paper, all about the Queen and the Yankees; that there was war between Canada and the States; that Toronto had been burnt, and the governor killed, and I know not what other strange and monstrous statements. After much fatigue, Moodie climbed the hill, and we were once more safe by our own fireside. Here we found the elucidation of Jenny's marvelous tales: a copy of the Queen's proclamation, calling upon all loyal gentlemen to join in putting down the unnatural rebellion. A letter from my sister explained the nature of the outbreak, and the astonishment with which the news had been received by all the settlers in the bush. My brother and my sister's husband had already gone off to join some of the numerous bands of gentlemen who were collecting from all quarters to march to the aid of Toronto, which it was said was besieged by the rebel force. She advised me not to suffer Moodie to leave home in his present weak state; but the spirit of my husband was aroused, he instantly obeyed what he considered the imperative call of duty, and told me to prepare him a few necessaries, that he might be ready to start early in the morning. Little sleep visited our eyes that night. We talked over the strange news for hours; our coming separation, and the probability that if things were as bad as they appeared to be, we might never meet again. Our affairs were in such a desperate condition that Moodie anticipated that any change must be for the better; it was impossible for them to be worse. But the poor, anxious wife thought only of a parting which to her put a finishing stroke to all her misfortunes. Before the cold, snowy morning broke, we were all stirring. The children, who had learned that their father was preparing to leave them, were crying and clinging round his knees. His heart was too deeply affected to eat; the meal passed over in silence, and he rose to go. I put on my hat and shawl to accompany him through the wood as far as my sister Mrs. T----'s. The day was like our destiny, cold, dark, and lowering. I gave the dear invalid his crutches, and we commenced our sorrowful walk. Then old Jenny's lamentations burst forth, as, flinging her arms round my husband's neck, she kissed and blessed him after the fashion of her country. “Och hone! Och hone!” she cried, wringing her hands, “masther dear, why will you lave the wife and the childher? The poor crathur is breakin' her heart intirely at partin' wid you. Shure an' the war is nothin' to you, that you must be goin' into danger; an' you wid a broken leg. Och hone! Och hone! Come back to your home--you will be kilt, and thin what will become of the wife and the wee bairns?” Her cries and lamentations followed us into the wood. At my sister's, Moodie and I parted; and with a heavy heart I retraced my steps through the wood. For once, I forgot all my fears. I never felt the cold. Sad tears were flowing over my cheeks; when I entered the house, hope seemed to have deserted me, and for upwards of an hour I lay upon the bed and wept. Poor Jenny did her best to comfort me, but all joy had vanished with him who was my light of life. Left in the most absolute uncertainty as to the real state of public affairs, I could only conjecture what might be the result of this sudden outbreak. Several poor settlers called at the house during the day, on their way down to Peterborough, but they brought with them the most exaggerated accounts. There had been a battle, they said, with the rebels, and the loyalists had been defeated; Toronto was besieged by sixty thousand men, and all the men in the backwoods were ordered to march instantly to the relief of the city. In the evening, I received a note from Emilia, who was at Peterborough, in which she informed me that my husband had borrowed a horse of Mr. S----, and had joined a large party of two hundred volunteers, who had left that morning for Toronto; that there had been a battle with the insurgents; that Colonel Moodie had been killed, and the rebels had retreated; and that she hoped my husband would return in a few days. The honest backwoodsman, perfectly ignorant of the abuses that had led to the present position of things, regarded the rebels as a set of monsters, for whom no punishment was too severe, and obeyed the call to arms with enthusiasm. The leader of the insurgents must have been astonished at the rapidity with which a large force was collected, as if by magic, to repel his designs. A great number of these volunteers were half-pay officers, many of whom had fought in the continental wars with the armies of Napoleon, and would have been found a host in themselves. I must own that my British spirit was fairly aroused, and as I could not aid in subduing the enemies of my beloved country with my arm, I did what little I could to serve the good cause with my pen. It may probably amuse my readers, to give them a few specimens of these loyal staves, which were widely circulated through the colony at the time. AN ADDRESS TO THE FREEMEN OF CANADA Canadians! will you join the band-- The factious band--who dare oppose The regal power of that bless'd land From whence your boasted freedom flows? Brave children of a noble race, Guard well the altar and the hearth; And never by your deeds disgrace The British sires who gave you birth. What though your bones may never lie Beneath dear Albion's hallow'd sod, Spurn the base wretch who dare defy, In arms, his country and his God! Whose callous bosom cannot feel That he who acts a traitor's part, Remorselessly uplifts the steel To plunge it in a parent's heart. Canadians! will you see the flag, Beneath whose folds your fathers bled, Supplanted by the vilest rag[1] That ever host to rapine led? Thou emblem of a tyrant's sway, Thy triple hues are dyed in gore; Like his, thy power has pass'd away-- Like his, thy short-lived triumph's o'er. Ay! Let the trampled despot's fate Forewarn the rash, misguided band To sue for mercy, ere too late, Nor scatter ruin o'er the land. The baffled traitor, doomed to bear A people's hate, his colleagues' scorn, Defeated by his own despair, Will curse the hour that he was born! By all the blood for Britain shed On many a glorious battle-field, To the free winds her standard spread, Nor to these base insurgents yield. With loyal bosoms beating high, In your good cause securely trust; “God and Victoria!” be your cry, And crush the traitors to the dust. [1] The tri-coloured flag assumed by the rebels. This outpouring of a national enthusiasm, which I found it impossible to restrain, was followed by THE OATH OF THE CANADIAN VOLUNTEERS Huzza for England!--May she claim Our fond devotion ever; And, by the glory of her name, Our brave forefathers' honest fame, We swear--no foe shall sever Her children from their parent's side; Though parted by the wave, In weal or woe, whate'er betide, We swear to die, or save Her honour from the rebel band Whose crimes pollute our injured land! Let the foe come--we will not shrink To meet them if they dare; Well must they fight, ere rashly think To rend apart one sacred link That binds our country fair To that dear isle, from whence we sprung; Which gave our fathers birth; Whose glorious deeds her bards have sung; The unrivall'd of the earth. The highest privilege we claim, To own her sway--to bear her name. Then, courage, loyal volunteers! God will defend the right; That thought will banish slavish fears, That blessed consciousness still cheers The soldier in the fight. The stars for us shall never burn, The stripes may frighten slaves, The Briton's eye will proudly turn Where Britain's standard waves. Beneath its folds, if Heaven requires, We'll die, as died of old our sires! In a week, Moodie returned. So many volunteers had poured into Toronto that the number of friends was likely to prove as disastrous as that of enemies, on account of the want of supplies to maintain them all. The companies from the back townships had been remanded, and I received with delight my own again. But this re-union did not last long. Several regiments of militia were formed to defend the colony, and to my husband was given the rank of captain in one of those then stationed in Toronto. On the 20th of January, 1838, he bade us a long adieu. I was left with old Jenny and the children to take care of the farm. It was a sad, dull time. I could bear up against all trials with him to comfort and cheer me, but his long-continued absence cast a gloom upon my spirit not easily to be shaken off. Still his very appointment to this situation was a signal act of mercy. From his full pay, he was enabled to liquidate many pressing debts, and to send home from time to time sums of money to procure necessaries for me and the little ones. These remittances were greatly wanted; but I demurred before laying them out for comforts which we had been so long used to dispense with. It seemed almost criminal to purchase any article of luxury, such as tea or sugar, while a debt remained unpaid. The Y----y's were very pressing for the thirty pounds that we owed them for the clearing; but they had such a firm reliance upon the honour of my husband, that, poor and pressed for money as they were, they never sued us. I thought it would be a pleasing surprise to Moodie, if, with the sums of money which I occasionally received from him, I could diminish this debt, which had always given him the greatest uneasiness; and, my resolution once formed, I would not allow any temptation to shake it. The money was always transmitted to Dummer. I only reserved the sum of two dollars a month, to pay a little lad to chop wood for us. After a time, I began to think the Y----y's were gifted with secondsight; for I never received a money-letter, but the very next day I was sure to see some of the family. Just at this period I received a letter from a gentleman, requesting me to write for a magazine (the Literary Garland) just started in Montreal, with promise to remunerate me for my labours. Such an application was like a gleam of light springing up in the darkness; it seemed to promise the dawning of a brighter day. I had never been able to turn my thoughts towards literature during my sojourn in the bush. When the body is fatigued with labour, unwonted and beyond its strength, the mind is in no condition for mental occupation. The year before, I had been requested by an American author, of great merit, to contribute to the North American Review, published for several years in Philadelphia; and he promised to remunerate me in proportion to the success of the work. I had contrived to write several articles after the children were asleep, though the expense even of the stationery and the postage of the manuscripts was severely felt by one so destitute of means; but the hope of being of the least service to those dear to me cheered me to the task. I never realised anything from that source; but I believe it was not the fault of the editor. Several other American editors had written to me to furnish them with articles; but I was unable to pay the postage of heavy packets to the States, and they could not reach their destination without being paid to the frontier. Thus, all chance of making anything in that way had been abandoned. I wrote to Mr. L----, and frankly informed him how I was situated. In the most liberal manner, he offered to pay the postage on all manuscripts to his office, and left me to name my own terms of remuneration. This opened up a new era in my existence; and for many years I have found in this generous man, to whom I am still personally unknown, a steady friend. I actually shed tears of joy over the first twenty-dollar bill I received from Montreal. It was my own; I had earned it with my own hand; and it seemed to my delighted fancy to form the nucleus out of which a future independence for my family might arise. I no longer retired to bed when the labours of the day were over. I sat up, and wrote by the light of a strange sort of candles, that Jenny called “sluts,” and which the old woman manufactured out of pieces of old rags, twisted together and dipped in pork lard, and stuck in a bottle. They did not give a bad light, but it took a great many of them to last me for a few hours. The faithful old creature regarded my writings with a jealous eye. “An', shure, it's killin' yerself that you are intirely. You were thin enough before you took to the pen; scribblin' an' scrabblin' when you should be in bed an' asleep. What good will it be to the childhren, dear heart! If you die afore your time, by wastin' your strength afther that fashion?” Jenny never could conceive the use of books. “Sure, we can live and die widout them. It's only a waste of time botherin' your brains wid the like of them; but, thanks goodness! the lard will soon be all done, an' thin we shall hear you spakin' again, instead of sittin' there doubled up all night, desthroying your eyes wid porin' over the dirthy writin'.” As the sugar-making season drew near, Jenny conceived the bold thought of making a good lump of sugar, that the “childher” might have something to “ate” with their bread during the summer. We had no sugar-kettle, but a neighbour promised to lend us his, and to give us twenty-eight troughs, on condition that we gave him half the sugar we made. These terms were rather hard, but Jenny was so anxious to fulfil the darling object that we consented. Little Sol. and the old woman made some fifty troughs more, the trees were duly tapped, a shanty in the bush was erected of small logs and brush and covered in at the top with straw; and the old woman and Solomon, the hired boy, commenced operations. The very first day, a terrible accident happened to us; a large log fell upon the sugar-kettle--the borrowed sugar-kettle--and cracked it, spilling all the sap, and rendering the vessel, which had cost four dollars, useless. We were all in dismay. Just at that time Old Wittals happened to pass, on his way to Peterborough. He very good-naturedly offered to get the kettle repaired for us; which, he said, could be easily done by a rivet and an iron hoop. But where was the money to come from? I thought awhile. Katie had a magnificent coral and bells, the gift of her godfather; I asked the dear child if she would give it to buy another kettle for Mr. T----. She said, “I would give ten times as much to help mamma.” I wrote a little note to Emilia, who was still at her father's; and Mr. W----, the storekeeper, sent us a fine sugar-kettle back by Wittals, and also the other mended, in exchange for the useless piece of finery. We had now two kettles at work, to the joy of Jenny, who declared that it was a lucky fairy who had broken the old kettle. While Jenny was engaged in boiling and gathering the sap in the bush, I sugared off the syrup in the house; an operation watched by the children with intense interest. After standing all day over the hot stove-fire, it was quite a refreshment to breathe the pure air at night. Every evening I ran up to see Jenny in the bush, singing and boiling down the sap in the front of her little shanty. The old woman was in her element, and afraid of nothing under the stars; she slept beside her kettles at night, and snapped her fingers at the idea of the least danger. She was sometimes rather despotic in her treatment of her attendant, Sol. One morning, in particular, she bestowed upon the lad a severe cuffing. I ran up the clearing to the rescue, when my ears were assailed by the “boo-hooing” of the boy. “What has happened? Why do you beat the child, Jenny?” “It's jist, thin, I that will bate him--the unlucky omadhawn! Has not he spilt and spiled two buckets of syrup, that I have been the live-long night bilin'. Sorra wid him; I'd like to strip the skin off him, I would! Musha! but 'tis enough to vex a saint.” “Ah, Jenny!” blubbered the poor boy, “but you have no mercy. You forget that I have but one eye, and that I could not see the root which caught my foot and threw me down.” “Faix! an' 'tis a pity that you have the one eye, when you don't know how to make a betther use of it,” muttered the angry dame, as she picked up the pails, and, pushing him on before her, beat a retreat into the bush. I was heartily sick of the sugar-making, long before the season was over; however, we were well paid for our trouble. Besides one hundred and twelve pounds of fine soft sugar, as good as Muscovado, we had six gallons of molasses, and a keg containing six gallons of excellent vinegar. Fifty pounds went to Mr. T----, for the use of his kettle; and the rest (with the exception of a cake for Emilia, which I had drained in a wet flannel bag until it was almost as white as loaf sugar), we kept for our own use. There was no lack, this year, of nice preserves and pickled cucumbers, dainties found in every native Canadian establishment. Besides gaining a little money with my pen, I practised a method of painting birds and butterflies upon the white, velvety surface of the large fungi that grow plentifully upon the bark of the sugar-maple. These had an attractive appearance; and my brother, who was a captain in one of the provisional regiments, sold a great many of them among the officers, without saying by whom they were painted. One rich lady in Peterborough, long since dead, ordered two dozen to send as curiosities to England. These, at one shilling each, enabled me to buy shoes for the children, who, during our bad times, had been forced to dispense with these necessary coverings. How often, during the winter season, have I wept over their little chapped feet, literally washing them with my tears! But these days were to end; Providence was doing great things for us; and Hope raised at last her drooping head to regard with a brighter glance the far-off future. Slowly the winter rolled away; but he to whom every thought turned was still distant from his humble home. The receipt of an occasional letter from him was my only solace during his long absence, and we were still too poor to indulge often in this luxury. My poor Katie was as anxious as her mother to hear from her father; and when I did get the long-looked-for prize, she would kneel down before me, her little elbows resting on my knees, her head thrown back, and tears trickling down her innocent cheeks, eagerly drinking in every word. The spring brought us plenty of work; we had potatoes and corn to plant, and the garden to cultivate. By lending my oxen for two days' work, I got Wittals, who had no oxen, to drag me in a few acres of oats, and to prepare the land for potatoes and corn. The former I dropped into the earth, while Jenny covered them up with the hoe. Our garden was well dug and plentifully manured, the old woman bringing the manure, which had lain for several years at the barn door, down to the plot, in a large Indian basket placed upon a hand-sleigh. We had soon every sort of vegetable sown, with plenty of melons and cucumbers, and all our beds promised a good return. There were large flights of ducks upon the lake every night and morning; but though we had guns, we did not know how to use them. However, I thought of a plan, which I flattered myself might prove successful; I got Sol to plant two stakes in the shallow water, near the rice beds, and to these I attached a slender rope made by braiding long strips of the inner bark of the basswood together; to these again I fastened, at regular intervals, about a quarter of a yard of whipcord, headed by a strong perch-hook. These hooks I baited with fish offal, leaving them to float just under the water. Early next morning, I saw a fine black duck fluttering upon the line. The boy ran down with the paddles, but before he could reach the spot, the captive got away by carrying the hook and line with him. At the next stake he found upon the hooks a large eel and a cat-fish. I had never before seen one of those whiskered, toad-like natives of the Canadian waters (so common to the Bay of Quinte, where they grow to a great size), that I was really terrified at the sight of the hideous beast, and told Sol to throw it away. In this I was very foolish, for they are esteemed good eating in many parts of Canada; but to me, the sight of the reptile-like thing is enough--it is uglier, and far more disgusting-looking than a toad. When the trees came into leaf, and the meadows were green and flushed with flowers, the poor children used to talk constantly to me of their father's return; their innocent prattle made me very sad. Every evening we walked into the wood, along the path that he must come whenever he did return home, to meet him, and though it was a vain hope, and the walk was taken just to amuse the little ones, I used to be silly enough to feel deeply disappointed when we returned alone. Donald, who was a mere baby when his father left us, could just begin to put words together. “Who is papa?” “When will he come?” “Will he come by the road?” “Will he come in a canoe?” The little creature's curiosity to see this unknown father was really amusing; and oh! how I longed to present the little fellow, with his rosy cheeks and curling hair, to his father; he was so fair, so altogether charming in my eyes. Emilia had called him Cedric the Saxon; and he well suited the name, with his frank, honest disposition, and large, loving blue eyes. June had commenced; the weather was very warm, and Mr. T---- had sent for the loan of old Jenny to help him for a day with his potatoes. I had just prepared dinner when the old woman came shrieking like a mad thing down the clearing, and waving her hands towards me. I could not imagine what had happened. “Ninny's mad!” whispered Dunbar; “she's the old girl for making a noise.” “Joy! Joy!” bawled out the old woman, now running breathlessly toward us. “The masther's come--the masther's come!” “Where?--where?” “Jist above in the wood. Goodness gracious! I have run to let you know--so fast--that my heart--is like to--break.” Without stopping to comfort poor Jenny, off started the children and myself, at the very top of our speed; but I soon found that I could not run--I was too much agitated. I got to the head of the bush, and sat down upon a fallen tree. The children sprang forward like wild kids, all but Donald, who remained with his old nurse. I covered my face with my hands; my heart, too, was beating audibly; and now that he was come, and was so near me, I scarcely could command strength to meet him. The sound of happy young voices roused me up; the children were leading him along in triumph; and he was bending down to them, all smiles, but hot and tired with his long journey. It was almost worth our separation, that blissful meeting. In a few minutes he was at home, and the children upon his knees. Katie stood silently holding his hand, but Addie and Dunbar had a thousand things to tell him. Donald was frightened at his military dress, but he peeped at him from behind my gown, until I caught and placed him in his father's arms. His leave of absence only extended to a fortnight. It had taken him three days to come all the way from Lake Erie, where his regiment was stationed, at Point Abino; and the same time would be consumed in his return. He could only remain with us eight days. How soon they fled away! How bitter was the thought of parting with him again! He had brought money to pay the Y----y's. How surprised he was to find their large debt more than half liquidated. How gently did he chide me for depriving myself and the children of the little comforts he had designed for us, in order to make this sacrifice. But never was self-denial more fully rewarded; I felt happy in having contributed in the least to pay a just debt to kind and worthy people. You must become poor yourself before you can fully appreciate the good qualities of the poor--before you can sympathise with them, and fully recognise them as your brethren in the flesh. Their benevolence to each other, exercised amidst want and privation, as far surpasses the munificence of the rich towards them, as the exalted philanthropy of Christ and his disciples does the Christianity of the present day. The rich man gives from his abundance; the poor man shares with a distressed comrade his all. One short, happy week too soon fled away, and we were once more alone. In the fall, my husband expected the regiment in which he held his commission would be reduced, which would again plunge us into the same distressing poverty. Often of a night I revolved these things in my mind, and perplexed myself with conjectures as to what in future was to become of us. Although he had saved all he could from his pay, it was impossible to pay several hundreds of pounds of debt; and the steam-boat stock still continued a dead letter. To remain much longer in the woods was impossible, for the returns from the farm scarcely fed us; and but for the clothing sent us by friends from home, who were not aware of our real difficulties, we should have been badly off indeed. I pondered over every plan that thought could devise; at last, I prayed to the Almighty to direct me as to what would be the best course for us to pursue. A sweet assurance stole over me, and soothed my spirit, that God would provide for us, as He had hitherto done--that a great deal of our distress arose from want of faith. I was just sinking into a calm sleep when the thought seemed whispered into my soul, “Write to the Governor; tell him candidly all you have suffered during your sojourn in this country; and trust to God for the rest.” At first I paid little heed to this suggestion; but it became so importunate that at last I determined to act upon it as if it were a message sent from heaven. I rose from my bed, struck a light, sat down, and wrote a letter to the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir George Arthur, a simple statement of facts, leaving it to his benevolence to pardon the liberty I had taken in addressing him. I asked of him to continue my husband in the militia service, in the same regiment in which he now held the rank of captain, which, by enabling him to pay our debts, would rescue us from our present misery. Of the political character of Sir George Arthur I knew nothing. I addressed him as a man and a Christian, and I acknowledge, with the deepest and most heartfelt gratitude, the generous kindness of his conduct towards us. Before the day dawned, my letter was ready for the post. The first secret I ever had from my husband was the writing of that letter; and, proud and sensitive as he was, and averse to asking the least favour of the great, I was dreadfully afraid that the act I had just done would be displeasing to him; still, I felt resolutely determined to send it. After giving the children their breakfast, I walked down and read it to my brother-in-law, who was not only much pleased with its contents, but took it down himself to the post-office. Shortly after, I received a letter from my husband, informing me that the regiment had been reduced, and that he should be home in time to get in the harvest. Most anxiously I awaited a reply to my application to the Governor; but no reply came. The first week in August our dear Moodie came home, and brought with him, to our no small joy, J. E----, who had just returned from Ireland. E---- had been disappointed about the money, which was subject to litigation; and, tired of waiting at home until the tedious process of the law should terminate, he had come back to the woods, and, before night, was reinstated in his old quarters. His presence made Jenny all alive; she dared him at once to a trial of skill with her in the wheat-field, which E---- prudently declined. He did not expect to stay longer in Canada than the fall, but, whilst he did stay, he was to consider our house his home. That harvest was the happiest we ever spent in the bush. We had enough of the common necessaries of life. A spirit of peace and harmony pervaded our little dwelling, for the most affectionate attachment existed among its members. We were not troubled with servants, for the good old Jenny we regarded as an humble friend, and were freed, by that circumstance, from many of the cares and vexations of a bush life. Our evening excursions on the lake were doubly enjoyed after the labours of the day, and night brought us calm and healthful repose. The political struggles that convulsed the country were scarcely echoed in the depths of those old primeval forests, though the expulsion of Mackenzie from Navy Island, and the burning of the Caroline by Captain Drew, had been discussed on the farthest borders of civilisation. With a tribute to the gallant conduct of that brave officer, I will close this chapter:-- THE BURNING OF THE CAROLINE A sound is on the midnight deep-- The voice of waters vast; And onward, with resistless sweep, The torrent rushes past, In frantic chase, wave after wave, The crowding surges press, and rave Their mingled might to cast Adown Niagara's giant steep; The fretted billows foaming leap With wild tumultuous roar; The clashing din ascends on high, In deaf'ning thunders to the sky, And shakes the rocky shore. Hark! what strange sounds arise-- 'Tis not stern Nature's voice-- In mingled chorus to the skies! The waters in their depths rejoice. Hark! on the midnight air A frantic cry uprose; The yell of fierce despair, The shout of mortal foes; And mark yon sudden glare, Whose red, portentous gleam Flashes on rock and stream With strange, unearthly light; What passing meteor's beam Lays bare the brow of night? From yonder murky shore What demon vessel glides, Stemming the unstemm'd tides, Where maddening breakers roar In hostile surges round her path, Or hiss, recoiling from her prow, That reeling, staggers to their wrath; While distant shores return the glow That brightens from her burning frame, And all above--around--below-- Is wrapt in ruddy flame? Sail on!--sail on!--No mortal hand Directs that vessel's blazing course; The vengeance of an injured land Impels her with resistless force 'Midst breaking wave and fiery gleam, O'er-canopied with clouds of smoke; Midway she stems the raging stream, And feels the rapids' thundering stroke; Now buried deep, now whirl'd on high, She struggles with her awful doom,-- With frantic speed now hurries by To find a watery tomb. Lo, poised upon the topmost surge, She shudders o'er the dark abyss; The foaming waters round her hiss And hoarse waves ring her funeral dirge; The chafing billows round her close; But ere her burning planks are riven, Shoots up one ruddy spout of fire,-- Her last farewell to earth and heaven. Down, down to endless night she goes! So may the traitor's hope expire, So perish all our country's foes! Destruction's blazing star Has vanish'd from our sight; The thunderbolt of war Is quench'd in endless night; Nor sight, nor sound of fear Startles the listening ear; Naught but the torrent's roar, The dull, deep, heavy sound, From out the dark profound, Echoes from shore to shore. Where late the cry of blood Rang on the midnight air, The mournful lapsing of the flood, The wild winds in the lonely wood, Claim sole dominion there. To thee, high-hearted Drew! And thy victorious band Of heroes tried and true A nation's thanks are due. Defender of an injured land! Well hast thou taught the dastard foe That British honour never yields To democratic influence, low, The glory of a thousand fields. Justice to traitors, long delay'd, This night was boldly dealt by thee; The debt of vengeance thou hast paid, And may the deed immortal be. Thy outraged country shall bestow A lasting monument of fame, The highest meed of praise below-- A British patriot's deathless name! CHAPTER XXIV THE WHIRLWIND [For the poem that heads this chapter, I am indebted to my brother, Mr. Strickland, of Douro, C.W.] Dark, heavy clouds were gathering in the west, Wrapping the forest in funereal gloom; Onward they roll'd, and rear'd each livid crest, Like Death's murk shadows frowning o'er earth's tomb. From out the inky womb of that deep night Burst livid flashes of electric flame. Whirling and circling with terrific might, In wild confusion on the tempest came. Nature, awakening from her still repose, Shudders responsive to the whirlwind's shock, Feels at her mighty heart convulsive throes, And all her groaning forests to earth's bosom rock. But hark!--What means that hollow, rushing sound, That breaks the death-like stillness of the morn? Red forked lightnings fiercely glare around, Sharp, crashing thunders on the winds are borne, And see yon spiral column, black as night, Rearing triumphantly its wreathing form; Ruin's abroad, and through the murky light-- Drear desolation marks the spirit of the storm. S.S. The 19th of August came, and our little harvest was all safely housed. Business called Moodie away for a few days to Cobourg. Jenny had gone to Dummer, to visit her friends, and J. E---- had taken a grist of the new wheat, which he and Moodie had threshed the day before, to the mill. I was consequently left alone with the children, and had a double portion of work to do. During their absence it was my lot to witness the most awful storm I ever beheld, and a vivid recollection of its terrors was permanently fixed upon my memory. The weather had been intensely hot during the three preceding days, although the sun was entirely obscured by a blueish haze, which seemed to render the unusual heat of the atmosphere more oppressive. Not a breath of air stirred the vast forest, and the waters of the lake assumed a leaden hue. After passing a sleepless night, I arose, a little after day-break, to superintend my domestic affairs. E---- took his breakfast, and went off to the mill, hoping that the rain would keep off until after his return. “It is no joke,” he said, “being upon these lakes in a small canoe, heavily laden, in a storm.” Before the sun rose, the heavens were covered with hard-looking clouds, of a deep blue and black cast, fading away to white at their edges, and in the form resembling the long, rolling waves of a heavy sea--but with this difference, that the clouds were perfectly motionless, piled in long curved lines, one above the other, and so remained until four o'clock in the afternoon. The appearance of these clouds, as the sun rose above the horizon, was the most splendid that can be imagined, tinged up to the zenith with every shade of saffron, gold, rose-colour, scarlet, and crimson, fading away into the deepest violet. Never did the storm-fiend shake in the face of a day a more gorgeous banner; and, pressed as I was for time, I stood gazing like one entranced upon the magnificent pageant. As the day advanced, the same blue haze obscured the sun, which frowned redly through his misty veil. At ten o'clock the heat was suffocating, and I extinguished the fire in the cooking-stove, determined to make our meals upon bread and milk, rather than add to the oppressive heat. The thermometer in the shade ranged from ninety-six to ninety-eight degrees, and I gave over my work and retired with the little ones to the coolest part of the house. The young creatures stretched themselves upon the floor, unable to jump about or play; the dog lay panting in the shade; the fowls half-buried themselves in the dust, with open beaks and outstretched wings; all nature seemed to droop beneath the scorching heat. Unfortunately for me, a gentlemen arrived about one o'clock from Kingston, to transact some business with my husband. He had not tasted food since six o'clock, and I was obliged to kindle the fire to prepare his dinner. It was one of the hardest tasks I ever performed; I almost fainted with the heat, and most inhospitably rejoiced when his dinner was over, and I saw him depart. Shortly after, my friend Mrs. C---- and her brother called in, on their way from Peterborough. “How do you bear the heat?” asked Mrs. C----. “This is one of the hottest days I ever remember to have experienced in this part of the province. I am afraid that it will end in a hurricane, or what the Lower Canadians term 'l'orage.'” About four o'clock they rose to go. I urged them to stay longer. “No,” said Mrs. C----, “the sooner we get home the better. I think we can reach it before the storm breaks.” I took Donald in my arms, and my eldest boy by the hand, and walked with them to the brow of the hill, thinking that the air would be cooler in the shade. In this I was mistaken. The clouds over our heads hung so low, and the heat was so great, that I was soon glad to retrace my steps. The moment I turned round to face the lake, I was surprised at the change that had taken place in the appearance of the heavens. The clouds, that had before lain so motionless, were now in rapid motion, hurrying and chasing each other round the horizon. It was a strangely awful sight. Before I felt a breath of the mighty blast that had already burst on the other side of the lake, branches of trees, leaves, and clouds of dust were whirled across the lake, whose waters rose in long sharp furrows, fringed with foam, as if moved in their depths by some unseen but powerful agent. Panting with terror, I just reached the door of the house as the hurricane swept up the hill, crushing and overturning everything in its course. Spell-bound, I stood at the open door, with clasped hands, unable to speak, rendered dumb and motionless by the terrible grandeur of the scene; while little Donald, who could not utter many intelligible words, crept to my feet, appealing to me for protection, while his rosy cheeks paled even to marble whiteness. The hurrying clouds gave to the heavens the appearance of a pointed dome, round which the lightning played in broad ribbons of fire. The roaring of the thunder, the rushing of the blast, the impetuous down-pouring of the rain, and the crash of falling trees were perfectly deafening; and in the midst of this uproar of the elements, old Jenny burst in, drenched with wet, and half-dead with fear. “The Lord preserve us!” she cried, “this surely is the day of judgment. Fifty trees fell across my very path, between this an' the creek. Mrs. C---- just reached her brother's clearing a few minutes before a great oak fell on her very path. What thunther!--what lightning! Misthress, dear!--it's turn'd so dark, I can only jist see yer face.” Glad enough was I of her presence; for to be alone in the heart of a great forest, in a log hut, on such a night, was not a pleasing prospect. People gain courage by companionship, and in order to re-assure each other, struggle to conceal their fears. “And where is Mr. E----?” “I hope not on the lake. He went early this morning to get the wheat ground at the mill.” “Och, the crathur! He's surely drowned. What boat could stan' such a scrimmage as this?” I had my fears for poor John; but as the chance that he had to wait at the mill till others were served was more than probable, I tried to still my apprehensions for his safety. The storm soon passed over, after having levelled several acres of wood near the house and smitten down in its progress two gigantic pines in the clearing, which must have withstood the force of a thousand winters. Talking over the effects of this whirlwind with my brother, he kindly sent me the following very graphic description of a whirlwind which passed the town of Guelph in the summer of 1829. [Written by Mr. Strickland, of Douro.] “In my hunting excursions and rambles through the Upper Canadian forests, I had frequently met with extensive wind-falls; and observed with some surprise that the fallen trees lay strewn in a succession of circles, and evidently appeared to have been twisted off the stumps. I also remarked that these wind-falls were generally narrow, and had the appearance of a road, slashed through the forest. From observations made at the time, and since confirmed, I have no doubt that Colonel Reid's theory of storms is the correct one, viz., that all wind-storms move in a circular direction, and the nearer the centre the more violent the force of the wind. Having seen the effects of several similar hurricanes since my residence in Canada West, I shall proceed to describe one which happened in the township of Guelph during the early part of the summer of 1829. “The weather, for the season of the year (May), had been hot and sultry, with scarcely a breath of wind stirring. I had heard distant thunder from an early hour in the morning, which, from the eastward, is rather an unusual occurrence. About 10 A.M., the sky had a most singular, and I must add a most awful appearance, presenting to the view a vast arch of rolling blackness, which seemed to gather strength and density as it approached the zenith. All at once the clouds began to work round in circles, as if chasing one another through the air. Suddenly the dark arch of clouds appeared to break up into detached masses, whirling and mixing through each other in dreadful commotion. The forked lightning was incessant, accompanied by heavy thunder. In a short time, the clouds seemed to converge to a point, which approached very near the earth, still whirling with great rapidity directly under this point; and apparently from the midst of the woods arose a black column, in the shape of a cone, which instantly joined itself to the depending cloud. The sight was now grand, and awful in the extreme. Picture to your imagination a vast column of smoke, of inky blackness, reaching from the earth to heaven, gyrating with fearful velocity--bright lightnings issuing from the vortex--the roar of the thunder--the rushing of the blast--the crash of timber--the limbs of trees, leaves and rubbish, mingled with clouds of dust, whirling through the air;--you then have a faint idea of the scene. “I had ample time for observation, as the hurricane commenced its devastating course about two miles from the town, through the centre of which it took its way, passing within fifty yards of where a number of persons, myself among the rest, were standing, watching its fearful progress. “As the tornado approached, the trees seemed to fall like a pack of cards before its irresistible current. After passing through the clearing made around the village, the force of the wind gradually abated, and in a few minutes died away entirely. “As soon as the storm was over, I went to see the damage it had done. From the point where I first observed the black column to rise from the woods and join the cloud, the trees were twisted in every direction. A belt of timber had been levelled to the ground about two miles in length, and about one hundred yards in breadth. At the entrance of the town it crossed the river Speed, and uprooted about six acres of wood, which had been thinned out, and left by Mr. Galt (late superintendent of the Canada Company), as an ornament to his house. “The Eremosa road was completely blocked up for nearly half-a-mile, in the wildest confusion possible. In its progress through the town the storm unroofed several houses, levelled many fences to the ground, and entirely demolished a frame barn. Windows were dashed in; and, in one instance, the floor of a log house was carried through the roof. Some hair-breadth escapes occurred; but, luckily, no lives were lost. “About twelve years since a similar storm occurred in the north part of the township of Douro, but was of much less magnitude. I heard an intelligent settler, who resided some years in the township of Madoc, state that, during his residence in that township, a similar hurricane to the one I have described, though of a much more awful character, passed through a part of Marmora and Madoc, and had been traced, in a north-easterly direction, upwards of forty miles into the unsurveyed lands; the uniform width of which appeared to be three quarters of a mile. “It is very evident, from the traces which they have left behind them, that storms of this description have not been unfrequent in the wooded districts of Canada; and it becomes a matter of interesting consideration whether the clearing of our immense forests will not, in a great measure, remove the cause of these phenomena.” A few minutes after our household had retired to rest, my first sleep was broken by the voice of J. E----, speaking to old Jenny in the kitchen. He had been overtaken by the storm, but had run his canoe ashore upon an island before its full fury burst, and turned it over the flour; while he had to brave the terrors of the pitiless tempest--buffeted by the wind, and drenched with torrents of rain. I got up and made him a cup of tea, while Jenny prepared a rasher of bacon and eggs for his supper. Shortly after this, J. E---- bade a final adieu to Canada, with his cousin C. W----. He volunteered into the Scotch Greys, and we never saw him more; but I have been told that he was so highly respected by the officers of the regiment that they have subscribed for his commission; that he rose to the rank of lieutenant; accompanied the regiment to India, and was at the taking of Cabul; but from himself we never heard again. The 16th of October, my third son was born; and a few days after, my husband was appointed pay-master to the militia regiments in the V. District, with the rank and full pay of captain. This was Sir George Arthur's doing. He returned no answer to my application, but he did not forget us. As the time that Moodie might retain this situation was very doubtful, he thought it advisable not to remove me and the family until he could secure some permanent situation; by so doing, he would have a better opportunity of saving the greater part of his income to pay off his old debts. This winter of 1839 was one of severe trial to me. Hitherto I had enjoyed the blessing of health; but both the children and myself were now doomed to suffer from dangerous attacks of illness. All the little things had malignant scarlet fever, and for several days I thought it would please the Almighty to take from me my two girls. This fever is so fatal to children in Canada that none of my neighbors dared approach the house. For three weeks Jenny and I were never undressed; our whole time was taken up nursing the five little helpless creatures through the successive states of their alarming disease. I sent for Dr. Taylor; but he did not come, and I was obliged to trust to the mercy of God, and my own judgment and good nursing. Though I escaped the fever, mental anxiety and fatigue brought on other illness, which for nearly ten weeks rendered me perfectly helpless. When I was again able to creep from my sick bed, the baby was seized with an illness, which Dr. B---- pronounced mortal. Against all hope, he recovered, but these severe mental trials rendered me weak and nervous, and more anxious than ever to be re-united to my husband. To add to these troubles, my sister and her husband sold their farm, and removed from our neighbourhood. Mr. ---- had returned to England, and had obtained a situation in the Customs; and his wife, my friend Emilia, was keeping a school in the village; so that I felt more solitary than ever, thus deprived of so many kind, sympathising friends. A SONG OF PRAISE TO THE CREATOR Oh, thou great God! from whose eternal throne Unbounded blessings in rich bounty flow, Like thy bright sun in glorious state alone, Thou reign'st supreme, while round thee as they go, Unnumber'd worlds, submissive to thy sway, With solemn pace pursue their silent way. Benignant God! o'er every smiling land, Thy handmaid, Nature, meekly walks abroad, Scattering thy bounties with unsparing hand, While flowers and fruits spring up along her road. How can thy creatures their weak voices raise To tell thy deeds in their faint songs of praise? When, darkling o'er the mountain's summit hoar, Portentous hangs the black and sulph'rous cloud, When lightnings flash, and awful thunders roar, Great Nature sings to thee her anthem loud. The rocks reverberate her mighty song, And crushing woods the pealing notes prolong. The storm is pass'd; o'er fields and woodlands gay, Gemm'd with bright dew-drops from the eastern sky, The morning sun now darts his golden ray, The lark on fluttering wing is poised on high; Too pure for earth, he wings his way above, To pour his grateful song of joy and love. Hark! from the bowels of the earth, a sound Of awful import! From the central deep The struggling lava rends the heaving ground, The ocean-surges roar--the mountains leap-- They shoot aloft,--Oh, God! the fiery tide Has burst its bounds, and rolls down Etna's side. Thy will is done, great God! the conflict's o'er, The silvery moonbeams glance along the sea; The whispering waves half ripple on the shore, And lull'd creation breathes a prayer to thee! The night-flower's incense to their God is given, And grateful mortals raise their thoughts to heaven. J.W.D.M. CHAPTER XXV THE WALK TO DUMMER We trod a weary path through silent woods, Tangled and dark, unbroken by a sound Of cheerful life. The melancholy shriek Of hollow winds careering o'er the snow, Or tossing into waves the green pine tops, Making the ancient forest groan and sigh Beneath their mocking voice, awoke alone The solitary echoes of the place. Reader! have you ever heard of a place situated in the forest-depths of this far western wilderness, called Dummer? Ten years ago, it might not inaptly have been termed “The last clearing in the world.” Nor to this day do I know of any in that direction which extends beyond it. Our bush-farm was situated on the border-line of a neighbouring township, only one degree less wild, less out of the world, or nearer to the habitations of civilisation than the far-famed “English Line,” the boast and glory of this terra incognita. This place, so named by the emigrants who had pitched their tents in that solitary wilderness, was a long line of cleared land, extending upon either side for some miles through the darkest and most interminable forest. The English Line was inhabited chiefly by Cornish miners, who, tired of burrowing like moles underground, had determined to emigrate to Canada, where they could breathe the fresh air of Heaven, and obtain the necessaries of life upon the bosom of their mother earth. Strange as it may appear, these men made good farmers, and steady, industrious colonists, working as well above ground as they had toiled in their early days beneath it. All our best servants came from Dummer; and although they spoke a language difficult to be understood, and were uncouth in their manners and appearance, they were faithful and obedient, performing the tasks assigned to them with patient perseverance; good food and kind treatment rendering them always cheerful and contented. My dear old Jenny, that most faithful and attached of all humble domestic friends, came from Dummer, and I was wont to regard it with complacency for her sake. But Jenny was not English; she was a generous, warm-hearted daughter of the Green Isle--the Emerald gem set in the silver of ocean. Yes, Jenny was one of the poorest children of that impoverished but glorious country where wit and talent seem indigenous, springing up spontaneously in the rudest and most uncultivated minds; showing what the land could bring forth in its own strength, unaided by education, and unfettered by the conventional rules of society. Jenny was a striking instance of the worth, noble self-denial, and devotion which are often met withand, alas! but too often disregarded--in the poor and ignorant natives of that deeply-injured, and much abused land. A few words about my old favourite may not prove uninteresting to my readers. Jenny Buchanan, or as she called it, Bohanon, was the daughter of a petty exciseman, of Scotch extraction (hence her industry) who, at the time of her birth, resided near the old town of Inniskillen. Her mother died a few months after she was born; and her father, within the twelve months, married again. In the meanwhile, the poor orphan babe had been adopted by a kind neighbour, the wife of a small farmer in the vicinity. In return for coarse food and scanty clothing, the little Jenny became a servant-of-all-work. She fed the pigs, herded the cattle, assisted in planting potatoes and digging peat from the bog, and was undisputed mistress of the poultry-yard. As she grew up to womanhood, the importance of her labours increased. A better reaper in the harvest-field, or footer of turf in the bog, could not be found in the district, or a woman more thoroughly acquainted with the management of cows and the rearing of young cattle; but here poor Jenny's accomplishments terminated. Her usefulness was all abroad. Within the house she made more dirt than she had the inclination or the ability to clear away. She could neither read, nor knit, nor sew; and although she called herself a Protestant, and a Church of England woman, she knew no more of religion, as revealed to man through the Word of God, than the savage who sinks to the grave in ignorance of a Redeemer. Hence she stoutly resisted all ideas of being a sinner, or of standing the least chance of receiving hereafter the condemnation of one. “Och, sure thin,” she would say, with simple earnestness of look and manner, almost irresistible. “God will never throuble Himsel' about a poor, hard-working crathur like me, who never did any harm to the manest of His makin'.” One thing was certain, that a benevolent Providence had “throubled Himsel'” about poor Jenny in times past, for the warm heart of this neglected child of nature contained a stream of the richest benevolence, which, situated as she had been, could not have been derived from any other source. Honest, faithful, and industrious, Jenny became a law unto herself, and practically illustrated the golden rule of her blessed Lord, “to do unto others as we would they should do unto us.” She thought it was impossible that her poor services could ever repay the debt of gratitude that she owed to the family who had brought her up, although the obligation must have been entirely on their side. To them she was greatly attached--for them she toiled unceasingly; and when evil days came, and they were not able to meet the rent-day, or to occupy the farm, she determined to accompany them in their emigration to Canada, and formed one of the stout-hearted band that fixed its location in the lonely and unexplored wilds now known as the township of Dummer. During the first year of their settlement, the means of obtaining the common necessaries of life became so precarious, that, in order to assist her friends with a little ready money, Jenny determined to hire out into some wealthy house as a servant. When I use the term wealth as applied to any bush-settler, it is of course only comparatively; but Jenny was anxious to obtain a place with settlers who enjoyed a small income independent of their forest means. Her first speculation was a complete failure. For five long, hopeless years she served a master from whom she never received a farthing of her stipulated wages. Still her attachment to the family was so strong, and had become so much the necessity of her life, that the poor creature could not make up her mind to leave them. The children whom she had received into her arms at their birth, and whom she had nursed with maternal tenderness, were as dear to her as if they had been her own; she continued to work for them although her clothes were worn to tatters, and her own friends were too poor to replace them. Her master, Captain N----, a handsome, dashing officer, who had served many years in India, still maintained the carriage and appearance of a gentleman, in spite of his mental and moral degradation arising from a constant state of intoxication; he still promised to remunerate at some future day her faithful services; and although all his neighbours well knew that his means were exhausted, and that that day would never come, yet Jenny, in the simplicity of her faith, still toiled on, in the hope that the better day he spoke of would soon arrive. And now a few words respecting this master, which I trust may serve as a warning to others. Allured by the bait that has been the ruin of so many of his class, the offer of a large grant of land, Captain N---- had been induced to form a settlement in this remote and untried township; laying out much, if not all, of his available means in building a log house, and clearing a large extent of barren and stony land. To this uninviting home he conveyed a beautiful young wife, and a small and increasing family. The result may be easily anticipated. The want of society--a dreadful want to a man of his previous habits--the absence of all the comforts and decencies of life, produced inaction, apathy, and at last, despondency, which was only alleviated by a constant and immoderate use of ardent spirits. As long as Captain N---- retained his half-pay, he contrived to exist. In an evil hour he parted with this, and quickly trod the downhill path to ruin. And here I would remark that it is always a rash and hazardous step for any officer to part with his half-pay; although it is almost every day done, and generally followed by the same disastrous results. A certain income, however small, in a country where money is so hard to be procured, and where labour cannot be obtained but at a very high pecuniary remuneration, is invaluable to a gentleman unaccustomed to agricultural employment; who, without this reserve to pay his people, during the brief but expensive seasons of seed-time and harvest, must either work himself or starve. I have known no instance in which such sale has been attended with ultimate advantage; but, alas! too many in which it has terminated in the most distressing destitution. These government grants of land, to half-pay officers, have induced numbers of this class to emigrate to the backwoods of Canada, who are totally unfit for pioneers; but, tempted by the offer of finding themselves landholders of what, on paper, appear to them fine estates, they resign a certainty, to waste their energies, and die half-starved and broken-hearted in the depths of the pitiless wild. If a gentleman so situated would give up all idea of settling on his grant, but hire a good farm in a favourable situation--that is, not too far from a market--and with his half-pay hire efficient labourers, of which plenty are now to be had, to cultivate the land, with common prudence and economy, he would soon obtain a comfortable subsistence for his family. And if the males were brought up to share the burthen and heat of the day, the expense of hired labour, as it yearly diminished, would add to the general means and well-being of the whole, until the hired farm became the real property of the industrious tenants. But the love of show, the vain boast of appearing richer and better-dressed than our neighbours, too often involves the emigrant's family in debt, from which they are seldom able to extricate themselves without sacrificing the means which would have secured their independence. This, although a long digression, will not, I hope, be without its use; and if this book is regarded not as a work of amusement but one of practical experience, written for the benefit of others, it will not fail to convey some useful hints to those who have contemplated emigration to Canada: the best country in the world for the industrious and well-principled man, who really comes out to work, and to better his condition by the labour of his hands; but a gulf of ruin to the vain and idle, who only set foot upon these shores to accelerate their ruin. But to return to Captain N----. It was at this disastrous period that Jenny entered his service. Had her master adapted his habits and expenditure to his altered circumstances, much misery might have been spared, both to himself and his family. But he was a proud man--too proud to work, or to receive with kindness the offers of service tendered to him by his half-civilised, but well-meaning neighbours. “Hang him!” cried an indignant English settler (Captain N---- was an Irishman), whose offer of drawing wood had been rejected with unmerited contempt. “Wait a few years, and we shall see what his pride will do for him. I _am_ sorry for his poor wife and children; but for himself, I have no pity for him.” This man had been uselessly insulted, at the very moment when he was anxious to perform a kind and benevolent action; when, like a true Englishman, his heart was softened by witnessing the sufferings of a young, delicate female and her infant family. Deeply affronted by the captain's foolish conduct, he now took a malignant pleasure in watching his arrogant neighbour's progress to ruin. The year after the sale of his commission, Captain N---- found himself considerably in debt, “Never mind, Ella,” he said to his anxious wife; “the crops will pay all.” The crops were a failure that year. Creditors pressed hard; the captain had no money to pay his workmen, and he would not work himself. Disgusted with his location, but unable to change it for a better; without friends in his own class (for he was the only gentleman then resident in the new township), to relieve the monotony of his existence with their society, or to afford him advice or assistance in his difficulties, the fatal whiskey-bottle became his refuge from gloomy thoughts. His wife, an amiable and devoted creature, well-born, well-educated, and deserving of a better lot, did all in her power to wean him from the growing vice. But, alas! the pleadings of an angel, in such circumstances, would have had little effect upon the mind of such a man. He loved her as well as he could love anything, and he fancied that he loved his children, while he was daily reducing them, by his favourite vice, to beggary. For awhile, he confined his excesses to his own fireside, but this was only for as long a period as the sale of his stock and land would supply him with the means of criminal indulgence. After a time, all these resources failed, and his large grant of eight hundred acres of land had been converted into whiskey, except the one hundred acres on which his house and barn stood, embracing the small clearing from which the family derived their scanty supply of wheat and potatoes. For the sake of peace, his wife gave up all her ornaments and household plate, and the best articles of a once handsome and ample wardrobe, in the hope of hiding her sorrows from the world, and keeping her husband at home. The pride, that had rendered him so obnoxious to his humbler neighbours, yielded at length to the inordinate craving for drink; the man who had held himself so high above his honest and industrious fellow-settlers, could now unblushingly enter their cabins and beg for a drop of whiskey. The feeling of shame once subdued, there was no end to his audacious mendacity. His whole time was spent in wandering about the country, calling upon every new settler, in the hope of being asked to partake of the coveted poison. He was even known to enter by the window of an emigrant's cabin, during the absence of the owner, and remain drinking in the house while a drop of spirits could be found in the cupboard. When driven forth by the angry owner of the hut, he wandered on to the distant town of P----, and lived there in a low tavern, while his wife and children were starving at home. “He is the filthiest beast in the township,” said the afore-mentioned neighbour to me; “it would be a good thing for his wife and children if his worthless neck were broken in one of his drunken sprees.” This might be the melancholy fact, but it was not the less dreadful on that account. The husband of an affectionate wife--the father of a lovely family--and his death to be a matter of rejoicing!--a blessing, instead of being an affliction!--an agony not to be thought upon without the deepest sorrow. It was at this melancholy period of her sad history that Mrs. N---- found, in Jenny Buchanan, a help in her hour of need. The heart of the faithful creature bled for the misery which involved the wife of her degraded master, and the children she so dearly loved. Their want and destitution called all the sympathies of her ardent nature into active operation; they were long indebted to her labour for every morsel of food which they consumed. For them, she sowed, she planted, she reaped. Every block of wood which shed a cheering warmth around their desolate home was cut from the forest by her own hands, and brought up a steep hill to the house upon her back. For them, she coaxed the neighbours, with whom she was a general favourite, out of many a mess of eggs for their especial benefit; while with her cheerful songs, and hearty, hopeful disposition, she dispelled much of the cramping despair which chilled the heart of the unhappy mother in her deserted home. For several years did this great, poor woman keep the wolf from the door of her beloved mistress, toiling for her with the strength and energy of a man. When was man ever so devoted, so devoid of all selfishness, so attached to employers, yet poorer than herself, as this uneducated Irishwoman? A period was at length put to her unrequited services. In a fit of intoxication her master beat her severely with the iron ramrod of his gun, and turned her, with abusive language, from his doors. Oh, hard return for all her unpaid labours of love! She forgave this outrage for the sake of the helpless beings who depended upon her care. He repeated the injury, and the poor creature returned almost heart-broken to her former home. Thinking that his spite would subside in a few days, Jenny made a third effort to enter his house in her usual capacity; but Mrs. N---- told her, with many tears, that her presence would only enrage her husband, who had threatened herself with the most cruel treatment if she allowed the faithful servant again to enter the house. Thus ended her five years' service to this ungrateful master. Such was her reward! I heard of Jenny's worth and kindness from the Englishman who had been so grievously affronted by Captain N----, and sent for her to come to me. She instantly accepted my offer, and returned with my messenger. She had scarcely a garment to cover her. I was obliged to find her a suit of clothes before I could set her to work. The smiles and dimples of my curly-headed, rosy little Donald, then a baby-boy of fifteen months, consoled the old woman for her separation from Ellie N----; and the good-will with which all the children (now four in number) regarded the kind old body, soon endeared to her the new home which Providence had assigned to her. Her accounts of Mrs. N----, and her family, soon deeply interested me in her fate; and Jenny never went to visit her friends in Dummer without an interchange of good wishes passing between us. The year of the Canadian rebellion came, and brought with it sorrow into many a bush dwelling. Old Jenny and I were left alone with the little children, in the depths of the dark forest, to help ourselves in the best way we could. Men could not be procured in that thinly-settled spot for love nor money, and I now fully realised the extent of Jenny's usefulness. Daily she yoked the oxen, and brought down from the bush fuel to maintain our fires, which she felled and chopped up with her own hands. She fed the cattle, and kept all things snug about the doors; not forgetting to load her master's two guns, “in case,” as she said, “the ribels should attack us in our retrate.” The months of November and December of 1838 had been unnaturally mild for this iron climate; but the opening of the ensuing January brought a short but severe spell of frost and snow. We felt very lonely in our solitary dwelling, crouching round the blazing fire, that scarcely chased the cold from our miserable log-tenement, until this dreary period was suddenly cheered by the unexpected presence of my beloved friend, Emilia, who came to spend a week with me in my forest home. She brought her own baby-boy with her, and an ample supply of buffalo robes, not forgetting a treat of baker's bread, and “sweeties” for the children. Oh, dear Emilia! best and kindest of women, though absent in your native land, long, long shall my heart cherish with affectionate gratitude all your visits of love, and turn to you as to a sister, tried, and found most faithful, in the dark hour of adversity, and, amidst the almost total neglect of those from whom nature claimed a tenderer and holier sympathy. Great was the joy of Jenny at this accession to our family party; and after Mrs. S---- was well warmed, and had partaken of tea--the only refreshment we could offer her--we began to talk over the news of the place. “By-the-bye, Jenny,” said she, turning to the old servant, who was undressing the little boy by the fire, “have you heard lately from poor Mrs. N----? We have been told that she and the family are in a dreadful state of destitution. That worthless man has left them for the States, and it is supposed that he has joined Mackenzie's band of ruffians on Navy Island; but whether this be true or false, he has deserted his wife and children, taking his eldest son along with him (who might have been of some service at home), and leaving them without money or food.” “The good Lord! What will become of the crathurs?” responded Jenny, wiping her wrinkled cheek with the back of her hard, brown hand. “An' thin they have not a sowl to chop and draw them firewood; an' the weather so oncommon savare. Och, hone! what has not that _baste_ of a man to answer for?” “I heard,” continued Mrs. S----, “that they have tasted no food but potatoes for the last nine months, and scarcely enough of them to keep soul and body together; that they have sold their last cow; and the poor young lady and her second brother, a lad of only twelve years old, bring all the wood for the fire from the bush on a hand sleigh.” “Oh, dear!--oh, dear!” sobbed Jenny; “an' I not there to hilp them! An' poor Miss Mary, the tinder thing! Oh, 'tis hard, terribly hard upon the crathurs, an' they not used to the like.” “Can nothing be done for them?” said I. “That is what we want to know,” returned Emilia, “and that was one of my reasons for coming up to D----. I wanted to consult you and Jenny upon the subject. You, who are an officer's wife, and I, who am both an officer's wife and daughter, ought to devise some plan of rescuing this poor, unfortunate lady and her family from her present forlorn situation.” The tears sprang to my eyes, and I thought, in the bitterness of my heart, upon my own galling poverty, that my pockets did not contain even a single copper, and that I had scarcely garments enough to shield me from the inclemency of the weather. By unflinching industry, and taking my part in the toil of the field, I had bread for myself and family, and this was more than poor Mrs. N---- possessed; but it appeared impossible for me to be of any assistance to the unhappy sufferer, and the thought of my incapacity gave me severe pain. It was only in moments like the present that I felt the curse of poverty. “Well,” continued my friend, “you see, Mrs. Moodie, that the ladies of P---- are all anxious to do what they can for her; but they first want to learn if the miserable circumstances in which she is said to be placed are true. In short, my dear friend, they want you and me to make a pilgrimage to Dummer, to see the poor lady herself; and then they will be guided by our report.” “Then let us lose no time in going upon our own mission of mercy.” “Och, my dear heart, you will be lost in the woods!” said old Jenny. “It is nine long miles to the first clearing, and that through a lonely, blazed path. After you are through the beaver-meadow, there is not a single hut for you to rest or warm yourselves. It is too much for the both of yees; you will be frozen to death on the road.” “No fear,” said my benevolent friend; “God will take care of us, Jenny. It is on His errand we go; to carry a message of hope to one about to perish.” “The Lord bless you for a darlint,” cried the old woman, devoutly kissing the velvet cheek of the little fellow sleeping upon her lap. “May your own purty child never know the want and sorrow that is around her.” Emilia and I talked over the Dummer scheme until we fell asleep. Many were the plans we proposed for the immediate relief of the unfortunate family. Early the next morning, my brother-in-law, Mr. T----, called upon my friend. The subject next to our heart was immediately introduced, and he was called into the general council. His feelings, like our own, were deeply interested; and he proposed that we should each provide something from our own small stores to satisfy the pressing wants of the distressed family; while he promised to bring his cutter the next morning, and take us through the beaver-meadow, and to the edge of the great swamp, which would shorten four miles, at least, of our long and hazardous journey. We joyfully acceded to his proposal, and set cheerfully to work to provide for the morrow. Jenny baked a batch of her very best bread, and boiled a large piece of beef; and Mr. T---- brought with him, the next day, a fine cooked ham, in a sack, into the bottom of which he stowed the beef and loaves, besides some sugar and tea, which his own kind wife, the author of “the Backwoods of Canada,” had sent. I had some misgivings as to the manner in which these good things could be introduced to the poor lady, who, I had heard, was reserved and proud. “Oh, Jenny,” I said, “how shall I be able to ask her to accept provisions from strangers? I am afraid of wounding her feelings.” “Oh, darlint, never fear that! She is proud, I know; but 'tis not a stiff pride, but jist enough to consale her disthress from her ignorant English neighbours, who think so manely of poor folk like her who were once rich. She will be very thankful to you for your kindness, for she has not experienced much of it from the Dummer people in her throuble, though she may have no words to tell you so. Say that old Jenny sent the bread to dear wee Ellie, 'cause she knew she would like a loaf of Jenny's bakin'.” “But the meat.” “Och, the mate, is it? May be, you'll think of some excuse for the mate when you get there.” “I hope so; but I'm a sad coward with strangers, and I have lived so long out of the world that I am at a great loss what to do. I will try and put a good face on the matter. Your name, Jenny, will be no small help to me.” All was now ready. Kissing our little bairns, who crowded around us with eager and inquiring looks, and charging Jenny for the hundredth time to take especial care of them during our absence, we mounted the cutter, and set off, under the care and protection of Mr. T----, who determined to accompany us on the journey. It was a black, cold day; no sun visible in the grey, dark sky; a keen wind, and hard frost. We crouched close to each other. “Good heavens, how cold it is!” whispered Emilia. “What a day for such a journey!” She had scarcely ceased speaking, when the cutter went upon a stump which lay concealed under the drifted snow; and we, together with the ruins of our conveyance, were scattered around. “A bad beginning,” said my brother-in-law, with a rueful aspect, as he surveyed the wreck of the cutter from which we had promised ourselves so much benefit. “There is no help for it but to return home.” “Oh, no,” said Mrs. S----; “bad beginnings make good endings, you know. Let us go on; it will be far better walking than riding such a dreadful day. My feet are half-frozen already with sitting still.” “But, my dear madam,” expostulated Mr. T----, “consider the distance, the road, the dark, dull day, and our imperfect knowledge of the path. I will get the cutter mended to-morrow; and the day after we may be able to proceed.” “Delays are dangerous,” said the pertinacious Emilia, who, woman-like, was determined to have her own way. “Now, or never. While we wait for the broken cutter, the broken-hearted Mrs. N---- may starve. We can stop at Colonel C----'s and warm ourselves, and you can leave the cutter at his house until our return.” “It was upon your account that I proposed the delay,” said the good Mr. T----, taking the sack, which was no inconsiderable weight, upon his shoulder, and driving his horse before him into neighbour W----'s stable. “Where you go, I am ready to follow.” When we arrived, Colonel C----'s family were at breakfast, of which they made us partake; and after vainly endeavouring to dissuade us from what appeared to them our Quixotic expedition, Mrs. C---- added a dozen fine white fish to the contents of the sack, and sent her youngest son to help Mr. T---- along with his burthen, and to bear us company on our desolate road. Leaving the colonel's hospitable house on our left, we again plunged into the woods, and after a few minutes' brisk walking, found ourselves upon the brow of a steep bank that overlooked the beaver-meadow, containing within its area several hundred acres. There is no scenery in the bush that presents such a novel appearance as those meadows, or openings, surrounded as they invariably are, by dark, intricate forests; their high, rugged banks covered with the light, airy tamarack and silver birch. In summer they look like a lake of soft, rich verdure, hidden in the bosom of the barren and howling waste. Lakes they certainly have been, from which the waters have receded, “ages, ages long ago”; and still the whole length of these curious level valleys is traversed by a stream, of no inconsiderable dimensions. The waters of the narrow, rapid creek, which flowed through the meadow we were about to cross, were of sparkling brightness, and icy cold. The frost-king had no power to check their swift, dancing movements, or stop their perpetual song. On they leaped, sparkling and flashing beneath their ice-crowned banks, rejoicing as they revelled on in their lonely course. In the prime of the year, this is a wild and lovely spot, the grass is of the richest green, and the flowers of the most gorgeous dyes. The gayest butterflies float above them upon painted wings; and the whip-poor-will pours forth from the neighbouring woods, at close of dewy eve, his strange but sadly plaintive cry. Winter was now upon the earth, and the once green meadow looked like a small forest lake covered with snow. The first step we made into it plunged us up to the knees in the snow, which was drifted to a great height in the open space. Mr. T---- and our young friend C---- walked on ahead of us, in order to break a track through the untrodden snow. We soon reached the cold creek; but here a new difficulty presented itself. It was too wide to jump across, and we could see no other way of passing to the other side. “There must be some sort of a bridge here about,” said young C----, “or how can the people from Dummer pass constantly during the winter to and fro. I will go along the bank, and halloo to you if I find one.” In a few minutes he gave the desired signal, and on reaching the spot, we found a round, slippery log flung across the stream by way of bridge. With some trouble, and after various slips, we got safely on the other side. To wet our feet would have been to ensure their being frozen; and as it was, we were not without serious apprehension on that score. After crossing the bleak, snowy plain, we scrambled over another brook, and entered the great swamp, which occupied two miles of our dreary road. It would be vain to attempt giving any description of this tangled maze of closely-interwoven cedars, fallen trees, and loose-scattered masses of rock. It seemed the fitting abode of wolves and bears, and every other unclean beast. The fire had run through it during the summer, making the confusion doubly confused. Now we stooped, half-doubled, to crawl under fallen branches that hung over our path, then again we had to clamber over prostrate trees of great bulk, descending from which we plumped down into holes in the snow, sinking mid-leg into the rotten trunk of some treacherous, decayed pine-tree. Before we were half through the great swamp, we began to think ourselves sad fools, and to wish that we were safe again by our own firesides. But, then, a great object was in view,--the relief of a distressed fellow-creature, and like the “full of hope, misnamed forlorn,” we determined to overcome every difficulty, and toil on. It took us an hour at least to clear the great swamp, from which we emerged into a fine wood, composed chiefly of maple-trees. The sun had, during our immersion in the dark shades of the swamp, burst through his leaden shroud, and cast a cheery gleam along the rugged boles of the lofty trees. The squirrel and chipmunk occasionally bounded across our path; the dazzling snow which covered it reflected the branches above us in an endless variety of dancing shadows. Our spirits rose in proportion. Young C---- burst out singing, and Emilia and I laughed and chatted as we bounded along our narrow road. On, on for hours, the same interminable forest stretched away to the right and left, before and behind us. “It is past twelve,” said my brother T---- thoughtfully; “if we do not soon come to a clearing, we may chance to spend the night in the forest.” “Oh, I am dying with hunger,” cried Emilia. “Do C----, give us one or two of the cakes your mother put into the bag for us to eat upon the road.” The ginger-cakes were instantly produced. But where were the teeth to be found that could masticate them? The cakes were frozen as hard as stones; this was a great disappointment to us tired and hungry wights; but it only produced a hearty laugh. Over the logs we went again; for it was a perpetual stepping up and down, crossing the fallen trees that obstructed our path. At last we came to a spot where two distinct blazed roads diverged. “What are we to do now?” said Mr. T----. We stopped, and a general consultation was held, and without one dissenting voice we took the branch to the right, which, after pursuing for about half a mile, led us to a log hut of the rudest description. “Is this the road to Dummer?” we asked a man, who was chopping wood outside the fence. “I guess you are in Dummer,” was the answer. My heart leaped for joy, for I was dreadfully fatigued. “Does this road lead through the English Line?” “That's another thing,” returned the woodman. “No, you turned off from the right path when you came up here.” We all looked very blank at each other. “You will have to go back, and keep the other road, and that will lead you straight to the English Line.” “How many miles is it to Mrs. N----'s?” “Some four, or thereabouts,” was the cheering rejoinder. “'Tis one of the last clearings on the line. If you are going back to Douro to-night, you must look sharp.” Sadly and dejectedly we retraced our steps. There are few trifling failures more bitter in our journey through life than that of a tired traveller mistaking his road. What effect must that tremendous failure produce upon the human mind, when at the end of life's unretraceable journey, the traveller finds that he has fallen upon the wrong track through every stage, and instead of arriving at a land of blissful promise, sinks for ever into the gulf of despair! The distance we had trodden in the wrong path, while led on by hope and anticipation, now seemed to double in length, as with painful steps we toiled on to reach the right road. This object once attained, soon led us to the dwellings of men. Neat, comfortable log houses, surrounded by well-fenced patches of clearing, arose on either side of the forest road; dogs flew out and barked at us, and children ran shouting indoors to tell their respective owners that strangers were passing their gates; a most unusual circumstance, I should think, in that location. A servant who had hired two years with my brother-in-law, we knew must live somewhere in this neighbourhood, at whose fireside we hoped not only to rest and warm ourselves, but to obtain something to eat. On going up to one of the cabins to inquire for Hannah J----, we fortunately happened to light upon the very person we sought. With many exclamations of surprise, she ushered us into her neat and comfortable log dwelling. A blazing fire, composed of two huge logs, was roaring up the wide chimney, and the savoury smell that issued from a large pot of pea-soup was very agreeable to our cold and hungry stomachs. But, alas, the refreshment went no further! Hannah most politely begged us to take seats by the fire, and warm and rest ourselves; she even knelt down and assisted in rubbing our half-frozen hands; but she never once made mention of the hot soup, or of the tea, which was drawing in a tin teapot upon the hearth-stone, or of a glass of whiskey, which would have been thankfully accepted by our male pilgrims. Hannah was not an Irishwoman, no, nor a Scotch lassie, or her very first request would have been for us to take “a pickle of soup,” or “a sup of thae warm broths.” The soup was no doubt cooking for Hannah's husband and two neighbours, who were chopping for him in the bush; and whose want of punctuality she feelingly lamented. As we left her cottage, and jogged on, Emilia whispered, laughing, “I hope you are satisfied with your good dinner? Was not the pea-soup excellent?--and that cup of nice hot tea!--I never relished anything more in my life. I think we should never pass that house without giving Hannah a call, and testifying our gratitude for her good cheer.” Many times did we stop to inquire the way to Mrs. N----'s, before we ascended the steep, bleak hill upon which her house stood. At the door, Mr. T---- deposited the sack of provisions, and he and young C---- went across the road to the house of an English settler (who, fortunately for them, proved more hospitable than Hannah J----), to wait until our errand was executed. The house before which Emilia and I were standing had once been a tolerably comfortable log dwelling. It was larger than such buildings generally are, and was surrounded by dilapidated barns and stables, which were not cheered by a solitary head of cattle. A black pine-forest stretched away to the north of the house, and terminated in a dismal, tangled cedar-swamp, the entrance to the house not having been constructed to face the road. The spirit that had borne me up during the journey died within me. I was fearful that my visit would be deemed an impertinent intrusion. I knew not in what manner to introduce myself, and my embarrassment had been greatly increased by Mrs. S---- declaring that I must break the ice, for she had not courage to go in. I remonstrated, but she was firm. To hold any longer parley was impossible. We were standing on the top of a bleak hill, with the thermometer many degrees below zero, and exposed to the fiercest biting of the bitter, cutting blast. With a heavy sigh, I knocked slowly but decidedly at the crazy door. I saw the curly head of a boy glance for a moment against the broken window. There was a stir within, but no one answered our summons. Emilia was rubbing her hands together, and beating a rapid tattoo with her feet upon the hard and glittering snow, to keep them from freezing. Again I appealed to the inhospitable door, with a vehemence which seemed to say, “We are freezing, good people; in mercy let us in!” Again there was a stir, and a whispered sound of voices, as if in consultation, from within; and after waiting a few minutes longer--which, cold as we were, seemed an age--the door was cautiously opened by a handsome, dark-eyed lad of twelve years of age, who was evidently the owner of the curly head that had been sent to reconnoitre us through the window. Carefully closing the door after him, he stepped out upon the snow, and asked us coldly but respectfully what we wanted. I told him that we were two ladies, who had walked all the way from Douro to see his mamma, and that we wished very much to speak to her. The lad answered us, with the ease and courtesy of a gentleman, that he did not know whether his mamma could be seen by strangers, but he would go in and see. So saying he abruptly left us, leaving behind him an ugly skeleton of a dog, who, after expressing his disapprobation at our presence in the most disagreeable and unequivocal manner, pounced like a famished wolf upon the sack of good things which lay at Emilia's feet; and our united efforts could scarcely keep him off. “A cold, doubtful reception this!” said my friend, turning her back to the wind, and hiding her face in her muff. “This is worse than Hannah's liberality, and the long, weary walk.” I thought so too, and began to apprehend that our walk had been in vain, when the lad again appeared, and said that we might walk in, for his mother was dressed. Emilia, true to her determination, went no farther than the passage. In vain were all my entreating looks and mute appeals to her benevolence and friendship; I was forced to enter alone the apartment that contained the distressed family. I felt that I was treading upon sacred ground, for a pitying angel hovers over the abode of suffering virtue, and hallows all its woes. On a rude bench, before the fire, sat a lady, between thirty and forty years of age, dressed in a thin, coloured muslin gown, the most inappropriate garment for the rigour of the season, but, in all probability, the only decent one that she retained. A subdued melancholy looked forth from her large, dark, pensive eyes. She appeared like one who, having discovered the full extent of her misery, had proudly steeled her heart to bear it. Her countenance was very pleasing, and, in early life (but she was still young), she must have been eminently handsome. Near her, with her head bent down, and shaded by her thin, slender hand, her slight figure scarcely covered by her scanty clothing, sat her eldest daughter, a gentle, sweet-looking girl, who held in her arms a baby brother, whose destitution she endeavoured to conceal. It was a touching sight; that suffering girl, just stepping into womanhood, hiding against her young bosom the nakedness of the little creature she loved. Another fine boy, whose neatly-patched clothes had not one piece of the original stuff apparently left in them, stood behind his mother, with dark, glistening eyes fastened upon me, as if amused, and wondering who I was, and what business I could have there. A pale and attenuated, but very pretty, delicately-featured little girl was seated on a low stool before the fire. This was old Jenny's darling, Ellie, or Eloise. A rude bedstead, of home manufacture, in a corner of the room, covered with a coarse woollen quilt, contained two little boys, who had crept into it to conceal their wants from the eyes of the stranger. On the table lay a dozen peeled potatoes, and a small pot was boiling on the fire, to receive their scanty and only daily meal. There was such an air of patient and enduring suffering to the whole group, that, as I gazed heart-stricken upon it, my fortitude quite gave way, and I burst into tears. Mrs. N---- first broke the painful silence, and, rather proudly, asked me to whom she had the pleasure of speaking. I made a desperate effort to regain my composure, and told her, but with much embarrassment, my name; adding that I was so well acquainted with her and her children, through Jenny, that I could not consider her as a stranger; that I hoped that, as I was the wife of an officer, and like her, a resident in the bush, and well acquainted with all its trials and privations, she would look upon me as a friend. She seemed surprised and annoyed, and I found no small difficulty in introducing the object of my visit; but the day was rapidly declining, and I knew that not a moment was to be lost. At first she coldly rejected all offers of service, and said that she was contented, and wanted for nothing. I appealed to the situation in which I beheld herself and her children, and implored her, for their sakes, not to refuse help from friends who felt for her distress. Her maternal feelings triumphed over her assumed indifference, and when she saw me weeping, for I could no longer restrain my tears, her pride yielded, and for some minutes not a word was spoken. I heard the large tears, as they slowly fell from her daughter's eyes, drop one by one upon her garments. At last the poor girl sobbed out, “Dear mamma, why conceal the truth? You know that we are nearly naked, and starving.” Then came the sad tale of domestic woes:--the absence of the husband and eldest son; the uncertainty as to where they were, or in what engaged; the utter want of means to procure the common necessaries of life; the sale of the only remaining cow that used to provide the children with food. It had been sold for twelve dollars, part to be paid in cash, part in potatoes; the potatoes were nearly exhausted, and they were allowanced to so many a day. But the six dollars she had retained as their last resource. Alas! she had sent the eldest boy the day before to P----, to get a letter out of the post-office, which she hoped contained some tidings of her husband and son. She was all anxiety and expectation, but the child returned late at night without the letter which they had longed for with such feverish impatience. The six dollars upon which they had depended for a supply of food were in notes of the Farmer's Bank, which at that time would not pass for money, and which the roguish purchaser of the cow had passed off upon this distressed family. Oh! imagine, ye who revel in riches--who can daily throw away a large sum upon the merest toy--the cruel disappointment, the bitter agony of this poor mother's heart, when she received this calamitous news, in the midst of her starving children. For the last nine weeks they had lived upon a scanty supply of potatoes; they had not tasted raised bread or animal food for eighteen months. “Ellie,” said I, anxious to introduce the sack, which had lain like a nightmare upon my mind, “I have something for you; Jenny baked some loaves last night, and sent them to you with her best love.” The eyes of all the children grew bright. “You will find the sack with the bread in the passage,” said I to one of the boys. He rushed joyfully out, and returned with Mrs. ---- and the sack. Her bland and affectionate greeting restored us all to tranquillity. The delighted boy opened the sack. The first thing he produced was the ham. “Oh,” said I, “that is a ham that my sister sent to Mrs. N----; 'tis of her own curing, and she thought that it might be acceptable.” Then came the white fish, nicely packed in a clean cloth. “Mrs. C---- thought fish might be a treat to Mrs. N----, as she lived so far from the great lakes.” Then came Jenny's bread, which had already been introduced. The beef, and tea, and sugar, fell upon the floor without any comment. The first scruples had been overcome, and the day was ours. “And now, ladies,” said Mrs. N----, with true hospitality, “since you have brought refreshments with you, permit me to cook something for your dinner.” The scene I had just witnessed had produced such a choking sensation that all my hunger had vanished. Before we could accept or refuse Mrs. N----'s kind offer, Mr. T---- arrived, to hurry us off. It was two o'clock when we descended the hill in front of the house, that led by a side-path round to the road, and commenced our homeward route. I thought the four miles of clearings would never be passed; and the English Line appeared to have no end. At length we entered once more the dark forest. The setting sun gleamed along the ground; the necessity of exerting our utmost speed, and getting through the great swamp before darkness surrounded us, was apparent to all. The men strode vigorously forward, for they had been refreshed with a substantial dinner of potatoes and pork, washed down with a glass of whiskey, at the cottage in which they had waited for us; but poor Emilia and I, faint, hungry, and foot-sore, it was with the greatest difficulty we could keep up. I thought of Rosalind, as our march up and down the fallen logs recommenced, and often exclaimed with her, “Oh, Jupiter! how weary are my legs!” Night closed in just as we reached the beaver-meadow. Here our ears were greeted with the sound of well-known voices. James and Henry C---- had brought the ox-sleigh to meet us at the edge of the bush. Never was splendid equipage greeted with such delight. Emilia and I, now fairly exhausted with fatigue, scrambled into it, and lying down on the straw which covered the bottom of the rude vehicle, we drew the buffalo robes over our faces, and actually slept soundly until we reached Colonel C----'s hospitable door. An excellent supper of hot fish and fried venison was smoking on the table, with other good cheer, to which we did ample justice. I, for one, never was so hungry in my life. We had fasted for twelve hours, and that on an intensely cold day, and had walked during that period upwards of twenty miles. Never, never shall I forget that weary walk to Dummer; but a blessing followed it. It was midnight when Emilia and I reached my humble home; our good friends the oxen being again put in requisition to carry us there. Emilia went immediately to bed, from which she was unable to rise for several days. In the meanwhile I wrote to Moodie an account of the scene I had witnessed, and he raised a subscription among the officers of the regiment for the poor lady and her children, which amounted to forty dollars. Emilia lost no time in making a full report to her friends at P----; and before a week passed away, Mrs. N---- and her family were removed thither by several benevolent individuals in the place. A neat cottage was hired for her; and, to the honour of Canada be it spoken, all who could afford a donation gave cheerfully. Farmers left at her door, pork, beef, flour, and potatoes; the storekeepers sent groceries and goods to make clothes for the children; the shoemakers contributed boots for the boys; while the ladies did all in their power to assist and comfort the gentle creature thus thrown by Providence upon their bounty. While Mrs. N---- remained at P---- she did not want for any comfort. Her children were clothed and her rent paid by her benevolent friends, and her house supplied with food and many comforts from the same source. Respected and beloved by all who knew her, it would have been well had she never left the quiet asylum where for several years she enjoyed tranquillity and a respectable competence from her school; but in an evil hour she followed her worthless husband to the Southern States, and again suffered all the woes which drunkenness inflicts upon the wives and children of its degraded victims. THE CONVICT'S WIFE Pale matron! I see thee in agony steep The pillow on which thy young innocents sleep; Their slumbers are tranquil, unbroken their rest, They know not the grief that convulses thy breast; They mark not the glance of that red, swollen eye, That must weep till the fountain of sorrow is dry; They guess not thy thoughts in this moment of dread, Thou desolate widow, but not of the dead! Ah, what are thy feelings, whilst gazing on those, Who unconsciously smile in their balmy repose,-- The pangs which thy grief-stricken bosom must prove Whilst gazing through tears on those pledges of love, Who murmur in slumber the dear, cherish'd name Of that sire who has cover'd his offspring with shame,-- Of that husband whom justice has wrench'd from thy side Of the wretch, who the laws of his country defied? Poor, heart-broken mourner! thy tears faster flow, Time can bring no oblivion to banish thy woe; The sorrows of others are soften'd by years. Ah, what now remains for thy portion but tears? Anxieties ceaseless, renew'd day by day, While thy heart yearns for one who is ever away. No hope speeds thy thoughts as they traverse the wave To the far-distant land of the exile and slave. And those children, whose birth with such rapture was hail'd, When the holiest feelings of nature prevail'd, And the bright drops that moisten'd the father's glad cheek Could alone the deep transport of happiness speak; When he turn'd from his first-born with glances of pride, In grateful devotion to gaze on his bride, The loved and the loving, who, silent with joy, Alternately gazed from the sire to his boy. Ah! what could induce the young husband to fling Love's garland away in life's beautiful spring, To scatter the roses Hope wreath'd for her brow In the dust, and abandon his partner to woe? The wine-cup can answer. The Bacchanal's bowl Corrupted life's chalice, and poison'd his soul. It chill'd the warm heart, added fire to the brain, Gave to pleasure and passion unbridled the rein; Till the gentle endearments of children and wife Only roused the fell demon to anger and strife. By conscience deserted, by law unrestrain'd, A felon, convicted, unblushing, and chain'd; Too late from the dark dream of ruin he woke To remember the wife whose fond heart he had broke; The children abandon'd to sorrow and shame, Their deepest misfortune the brand of his name. Oh, dire was the curse he invoked on his soul, Then gave his last mite for a draught of the bowl! CHAPTER XXVI A CHANGE IN OUR PROSPECTS The future flower lies folded in the bud,-- Its beauty, colour, fragrance, graceful form, Carefully shrouded in that tiny cell; Till time and circumstance, and sun and shower, Expand the embryo blossom--and it bursts Its narrow cerements, lifts its blushing head, Rejoicing in the light and dew of heaven. But if the canker-worm lies coil'd around The heart o' the bud, the summer sun and dew Visit in vain the sear'd and blighted flower. During my illness, a kind neighbour, who had not only frequently come to see me, but had brought me many nourishing things, made by her own fair hands, took a great fancy to my second daughter, who, lively and volatile, could not be induced to remain quiet in the sick chamber. The noise she made greatly retarded my recovery, and Mrs. H---- took her home with her, as the only means of obtaining for me necessary rest. During that winter and through the ensuing summer, I only received occasional visits from my little girl, who, fairly established with her new friends, looked upon their house as her home. This separation, which was felt as a great benefit at the time, greatly estranged the affections of the child from her own people. She saw us so seldom that she almost regarded us, when she did meet, as strangers; and I often deeply lamented the hour when I had unwittingly suffered the threefold cord of domestic love to be unravelled by absence, and the flattering attentions which fed the vanity of a beautiful child, without strengthening her moral character. Mrs. H----, whose husband was wealthy, was a generous, warm-hearted girl of eighteen. Lovely in person, and fascinating in manners, and still too young to have any idea of forming the character of a child, she dressed the little creature expensively; and, by constantly praising her personal appearance, gave her an idea of her own importance which it took many years to eradicate. It is a great error to suffer a child, who has been trained in the hard school of poverty and self-denial, to be transplanted suddenly into the hot-bed of wealth and luxury. The idea of the child being so much happier and better off blinds her fond parents to the dangers of her new situation, where she is sure to contract a dislike to all useful occupation, and to look upon scanty means and plain clothing as a disgrace. If the re-action is bad for a grown-up person, it is almost destructive to a child who is incapable of moral reflection. Whenever I saw little Addie, and remarked the growing coldness of her manner towards us, my heart reproached me for having exposed her to temptation. Still, in the eye of the world, she was much better situated than she could possibly be with us. The heart of the parent could alone understand the change. So sensible was her father of this alteration, that the first time he paid us a visit he went and brought home his child. “If she remain so long away from us, at her tender years,” he said, “she will cease to love us. All the wealth in the world would not compensate me for the love of my child.” The removal of my sister rendered my separation from my husband doubly lonely and irksome. Sometimes the desire to see and converse with him would press so painfully on my heart that I would get up in the night, strike a light, and sit down and write him a long letter, and tell him all that was in my mind; and when I had thus unburdened my spirit, the letter was committed to the flames, and after fervently commending him to the care of the Great Father of mankind, I would lay down my throbbing head on my pillow beside our first-born son, and sleep tranquilly. It is a strange fact that many of my husband's letters to me were written at the very time when I felt those irresistible impulses to hold communion with him. Why should we be ashamed to admit openly our belief in this mysterious intercourse between the spirits of those who are bound to each other by the tender ties of friendship and affection, when the experience of every day proves its truth? Proverbs, which are the wisdom of ages collected into a few brief words, tell us in one pithy sentence that “if we talk of the devil he is sure to appear.” While the name of a long-absent friend is in our mouth, the next moment brings him into our presence. How can this be, if mind did not meet mind, and the spirit had not a prophetic consciousness of the vicinity of another spirit, kindred with its own? This is an occurrence so common that I never met with any person to whom it had not happened; few will admit it to be a spiritual agency, but in no other way can they satisfactorily explain its cause. If it were a mere coincidence, or combination of ordinary circumstances, it would not happen so often, and people would not be led to speak of the long-absent always at the moment when they are just about to present themselves before them. My husband was no believer in what he termed my fanciful, speculative theories; yet at the time when his youngest boy and myself lay dangerously ill, and hardly expected to live, I received from him a letter, written in great haste, which commenced with this sentence: “Do write to me, dear S----, when you receive this. I have felt very uneasy about you for some days past, and am afraid that all is not right at home.” Whence came this sudden fear? Why at that particular time did his thoughts turn so despondingly towards those so dear to him? Why did the dark cloud in his mind hang so heavily above his home? The burden of my weary and distressed spirit had reached him; and without knowing of our sufferings and danger, his own responded to the call. The holy and mysterious nature of man is yet hidden from himself; he is still a stranger to the movements of that inner life, and knows little of its capabilities and powers. A purer religion, a higher standard of moral and intellectual training may in time reveal all this. Man still remains a half-reclaimed savage; the leaven of Christianity is surely working its way, but it has not yet changed the whole lump, or transformed the deformed into the beauteous child of God. Oh, for that glorious day! It is coming. The dark clouds of humanity are already tinged with the golden radiance of the dawn, but the sun of righteousness has not yet arisen upon the world with healing on his wings; the light of truth still struggles in the womb of darkness, and man stumbles on to the fulfilment of his sublime and mysterious destiny. This spring I was not a little puzzled how to get in the crops. I still continued so weak that I was quite unable to assist in the field, and my good old Jenny was sorely troubled with inflamed feet, which required constant care. At this juncture, a neighbouring settler, who had recently come among us, offered to put in my small crop of peas, potatoes, and oats, in all not comprising more than eight acres, if I would lend him my oxen to log-up a large fallow of ten acres, and put in his own crops. Trusting to his fair dealing, I consented to this arrangement; but he took advantage of my isolated position, and not only logged-up his fallow, but put in all his spring crops before he sowed an acre of mine. The oxen were worked down so low that they were almost unfit for use, and my crops were put in so late, and with such little care, that they all proved a failure. I should have felt this loss more severely had it happened in any previous year; but I had ceased to feel that deep interest in the affairs of the farm, from a sort of conviction in my own mind that it would not long remain my home. Jenny and I did our best in the way of hoeing and weeding; but no industry on our part could repair the injury done to the seed by being sown out of season. We therefore confined our attention to the garden, which, as usual, was very productive, and with milk, fresh butter, and eggs, supplied the simple wants of our family. Emilia enlivened our solitude by her company, for several weeks during the summer, and we had many pleasant excursions on the water together. My knowledge of the use of the paddle, however, was not entirely without its danger. One very windy Sunday afternoon, a servant-girl, who lived with my friend Mrs. C----, came crying to the house, and implored the use of my canoe and paddles, to cross the lake to see her dying father. The request was instantly granted; but there was no man upon the place to ferry her across, and she could not manage the boat herself--in short, had never been in a canoe in her life. The girl was deeply distressed. She said that she had got word that her father could scarcely live till she could reach Smith-town; that if she went round by the bridge, she must walk five miles, while if she crossed the lake she could be home in half an hour. I did not much like the angry swell upon the water, but the poor creature was in such grief that I told her, if she was not afraid of venturing with me, I would try and put her over. She expressed her thanks in the warmest terms, accompanied by a shower of blessings; and I took the paddles and went down to the landing. Jenny was very averse to my “tempting Providence,” as she termed it, and wished that I might get back as safe as I went. However, the old woman launched the canoe for me, pushed us from the shore, and away we went. The wind was in my favour, and I found so little trouble in getting across that I began to laugh at my own timidity. I put the girl on shore, and endeavoured to shape my passage home. But this I found was no easy task. The water was rough, and the wind high, and the strong current, which runs through that part of the lake to the Smith rapids, was dead against me. In vain I laboured to cross this current; it resisted all my efforts, and at each repulse I was carried farther down towards the rapids, which were full of sunken rocks, and hard for the strong arm of a man to stem--to the weak hand of a woman their safe passage was impossible. I began to feel rather uneasy at the awkward situation in which I found myself placed, and for some time I made desperate efforts to extricate myself, by paddling with all my might. I soon gave this up, and contented myself by steering the canoe in the path that it thought fit to pursue. After drifting down with the current for some little space, until I came opposite a small island, I put out all my strength to gain the land. In this I fortunately succeeded, and getting on shore, I contrived to drag the canoe so far round the headland that I got her out of the current. All now was smooth sailing, and I joyfully answered old Jenny's yells from the landing, that I was safe, and would join her in a few minutes. This fortunate manoeuvre stood me in good stead upon another occasion, when crossing the lake, some weeks after this, in company with a young female friend, during a sudden storm. Two Indian women, heavily laden with their packs of dried venison, called at the house to borrow the canoe, to join their encampment upon the other side. It so happened that I wanted to send to the mill that afternoon, and the boat could not be returned in time without I went over with the Indian women and brought it back. My young friend was delighted at the idea of the frolic, and as she could both steer and paddle, and the day was calm and bright, though excessively warm, we both agreed to accompany the squaws to the other side, and bring back the canoe. Mrs. Muskrat has fallen in love with a fine fat kitten, whom the children had called “Buttermilk,” and she begged so hard for the little puss, that I presented it to her, rather marvelling how she would contrive to carry it so many miles through the woods, and she loaded with such an enormous pack; when, lo! the squaw took down the bundle, and, in the heart of the piles of dried venison, she deposited the cat in a small basket, giving it a thin slice of the meat to console it for its close confinement. Puss received the donation with piteous mews; it was evident that mice and freedom were preferred by her to venison and the honour of riding on a squaw's back. The squaws paddled us quickly across, and we laughed and chatted as we bounded over the blue waves, until we were landed in a dark cedar-swamp, in the heart of which we found the Indian encampment. A large party were lounging around the fire, superintending the drying of a quantity of venison which was suspended on forked sticks. Besides the flesh of the deer, a number of musk-rats were skinned, and extended as if standing bolt upright before the fire, warming their paws. The appearance they cut was most ludicrous. My young friend pointed to the musk-rats, as she sank down, laughing, upon one of the skins. Old Snow-storm, who was present, imagined that she wanted one of them to eat, and very gravely handed her the unsavoury beast, stick and all. “Does the old man take me for a cannibal?” she said. “I would as soon eat a child.” Among the many odd things cooking at that fire there was something that had the appearance of a bull-frog. “What can that be?” she said, directing my eyes to the strange monster. “Surely they don't eat bull-frogs!” This sally was received by a grunt of approbation from Snow-storm; and, though Indians seldom forget their dignity so far as to laugh, he for once laid aside his stoical gravity, and, twirling the thing round with a stick, burst into a hearty peal. “Muckakee! Indian eat muckakee?--Ha! ha! Indian no eat muckakee! Frenchmans eat his hind legs; they say the speckled beast much good. This no muckakee!--the liver of deer, dried--very nice--Indian eat him.” “I wish him much joy of the delicate morsel,” said the saucy girl, who was intent upon quizzing and examining everything in the camp. We had remained the best part of an hour, when Mrs. Muskrat laid hold of my hand, and leading me through the bush to the shore, pointed up significantly to a cloud, as dark as night, that hung loweringly over the bush. “Thunder in that cloud--get over the lake--quick, quick, before it breaks.” Then motioning for us to jump into the canoe, she threw in the paddles, and pushed us from shore. We saw the necessity of haste, and both plied the paddle with diligence to gain the opposite bank, or at least the shelter of the island, before the cloud poured down its fury upon us. We were just in the middle of the current when the first peal of thunder broke with startling nearness over our heads. The storm frowned darkly upon the woods; the rain came down in torrents; and there were we exposed to its utmost fury in the middle of a current too strong for us to stem. “What shall we do? We shall be drowned!” said my young friend, turning her pale, tearful face towards me. “Let the canoe float down the current till we get close to the island; then run her into the land. I saved myself once before by this plan.” We did so, and were safe; but there we had to remain, wet to our skins, until the wind and the rain abated sufficiently for us to manage our little craft. “How do you like being upon the lake in a storm like this?” I whispered to my shivering, dripping companion. “Very well in romance, but terribly dull in reality. We cannot, however, call it a dry joke,” continued she, wringing the rain from her dress. “I wish we were suspended over Old Snow-storm's fire with the bull-frog, for I hate a shower-bath with my clothes on.” I took warning by this adventure, never to cross the lake again without a stronger arm than mine in the canoe to steer me safely through the current. I received much kind attention from my new neighbour, the Rev. W. W----, a truly excellent and pious clergyman of the English Church. The good, white-haired old man expressed the kindest sympathy in all my trials, and strengthened me greatly with his benevolent counsels and gentle charity. Mr. W---- was a true follower of Christ. His Christianity was not confined to his own denomination; and every Sabbath his log cottage was filled with attentive auditors, of all persuasions, who met together to listen to the word of life delivered to them by a Christian minister in the wilderness. He had been a very fine preacher, and though considerably turned of seventy, his voice was still excellent, and his manner solemn and impressive. His only son, a young man of twenty-eight years of age, had received a serious injury in the brain by falling upon a turf-spade from a loft window when a child, and his intellect had remained stationary from that time. Poor Harry was an innocent child; he loved his parents with the simplicity of a child, and all who spoke kindly to him he regarded as friends. Like most persons of his caste of mind, his predilection for pet animals was a prominent instinct. He was always followed by two dogs, whom he regarded with especial favour. The moment he caught your eye, he looked down admiringly upon his four-footed attendants, patting their sleek necks, and murmuring, “Nice dogs--nice dogs.” Harry had singled out myself and my little ones as great favourites. He would gather flowers for the girls, and catch butterflies for the boys; while to me he always gave the title of “dear aunt.” It so happened that one fine morning I wanted to walk a couple of miles through the bush, to spend the day with Mrs. C----; but the woods were full of the cattle belonging to the neighbouring settlers, and of these I was terribly afraid. Whilst I was dressing the little girls to accompany me, Harry W---- came in with a message from his mother. “Oh, thought I, here is Harry W----. He will walk with us through the bush, and defend us from the cattle.” The proposition was made, and Harry was not a little proud of being invited to join our party. We had accomplished half the distance without seeing a single hoof; and I was beginning to congratulate myself upon our unusual luck, when a large red ox, maddened by the stings of the gad-flies, came headlong through the brush, tossing up the withered leaves and dried moss with his horns, and making directly towards us. I screamed to my champion for help; but where was he?--running like a frightened chipmunk along the fallen timber, shouting to my eldest girl, at the top of his voice-- “Run Katty, run!--The bull, the bull! Run, Katty!--The bull, the bull!”--leaving us poor creatures far behind in the chase. The bull, who cared not one fig for us, did not even stop to give us a passing stare, and was soon lost among the trees; while our valiant knight never stopped to see what had become of us, but made the best of his way home. So much for taking an innocent for a guard. The next month most of the militia regiments were disbanded. My husband's services were no longer required at B----, and he once more returned to help to gather in our scanty harvest. Many of the old debts were paid off by his hard-saved pay; and though all hope of continuing in the militia service was at an end, our condition was so much improved that we looked less to the dark than to the sunny side of the landscape. The potato crop was gathered in, and I had collected my store of dandelion-roots for our winter supply of coffee, when one day brought a letter to my husband from the Governor's secretary, offering him the situation of sheriff of the V---- district. Though perfectly unacquainted with the difficulties and responsibilities of such an important office, my husband looked upon it as a gift sent from heaven to remove us from the sorrows and poverty with which we were surrounded in the woods. Once more he bade us farewell; but it was to go and make ready a home for us, that we should no more be separated from each other. Heartily did I return thanks to God that night for all his mercies to us; and Sir George Arthur was not forgotten in those prayers. From B----, my husband wrote to me to make what haste I could in disposing of our crops, household furniture, stock, and farming implements; and to prepare myself and the children to join him on the first fall of snow that would make the roads practicable for sleighing. To facilitate this object, he sent me a box of clothing, to make up for myself and the children. For seven years I had lived out of the world entirely; my person had been rendered coarse by hard work and exposure to the weather. I looked double the age I really was, and my hair was already thickly sprinkled with grey. I clung to my solitude. I did not like to be dragged from it to mingle in gay scenes, in a busy town, and with gaily-dressed people. I was no longer fit for the world; I had lost all relish for the pursuits and pleasures which are so essential to its votaries; I was contented to live and die in obscurity. My dear Emilia rejoiced, like a true friend, in my changed prospects, and came up to help me to cut clothes for the children, and to assist me in preparing them for the journey. I succeeded in selling off our goods and chattels much better than I expected. My old friend, Mr. W----, who was a new comer, became the principal purchaser, and when Christmas arrived I had not one article left upon my hands save the bedding, which it was necessary to take with us. THE MAGIC SPELL The magic spell, the dream is fled, The dream of joy sent from above; The idol of my soul is dead, And naught remains but hopeless love. The song of birds, the scent of flowers, The tender light of parting day-- Unheeded now the tardy hours Steal sadly, silently away. But welcome now the solemn night, When watchful stars are gleaming high, For though thy form eludes my sight, I know thy gentle spirit's nigh. O! dear one, now I feel thy power, 'Tis sweet to rest when toil is o'er, But sweeter far that blessed hour When fond hearts meet to part no more. J.W.D.M. CHAPTER XXVII ADIEU TO THE WOODS Adieu!--adieu!--when quivering lips refuse The bitter pangs of parting to declare; And the full bosom feels that it must lose Friends who were wont its inmost thoughts to share; When hands are tightly clasp'd, 'mid struggling sighs And streaming tears, those whisper'd accents rise, Leaving to God the objects of our care In that short, simple, comprehensive prayer-- _Adieu!_ Never did eager British children look for the first violets and primroses of spring with more impatience than my baby boys and girls watched, day after day, for the first snow-flakes that were to form the road to convey them to their absent father. “Winter never means to come this year. It will never snow again?” exclaimed my eldest boy, turning from the window on Christmas Day, with the most rueful aspect that ever greeted the broad, gay beams of the glorious sun. It was like a spring day. The little lake in front of the window glittered like a mirror of silver, set in its dark frame of pine woods. I, too, was wearying for the snow, and was tempted to think that it did not come as early as usual, in order to disappoint us. But I kept this to myself, and comforted the expecting child with the oft-repeated assertion that it would certainly snow upon the morrow. But the morrow came and passed away, and many other morrows, and the same mild, open weather prevailed. The last night of the old year was ushered in with furious storms of wind and snow; the rafters of our log cabin shook beneath the violence of the gale, which swept up from the lake like a lion roaring for its prey, driving the snow-flakes through every open crevice, of which there were not a few, and powdering the floor until it rivalled in whiteness the ground without. “Oh, what a dreadful night!” we cried, as we huddled, shivering, around the old broken stove. “A person abroad in the woods to-night would be frozen. Flesh and blood could not long stand this cutting wind.” “It reminds me of the commencement of a laughable extempore ditty,” said I to my young friend, A. C----, who was staying with me, “composed by my husband, during the first very cold night we spent in Canada”-- Oh, the cold of Canada nobody knows, The fire burns our shoes without warming our toes; Oh, dear, what shall we do? Our blankets are thin, and our noses are blue-- Our noses are blue, and our blankets are thin, It's at zero without, and we're freezing within! (Chorus)--Oh, dear, what shall we do? “But, joking apart, my dear A----, we ought to be very thankful that we are not travelling this night to B----.” “But to-morrow,” said my eldest boy, lifting up his curly head from my lap. “It will be fine to-morrow, and we shall see dear papa again.” In this hope he lay down on his little bed upon the floor, and was soon fast asleep; perhaps dreaming of that eagerly-anticipated journey, and of meeting his beloved father. Sleep was a stranger to my eyes. The tempest raged so furiously without that I was fearful the roof would be carried off the house, or that the chimney would take fire. The night was far advanced when old Jenny and myself retired to bed. My boy's words were prophetic; that was the last night I ever spent in the bush--in the dear forest home which I had loved in spite of all the hardships which we had endured since we pitched our tent in the backwoods. It was the birthplace of my three boys, the school of high resolve and energetic action in which we had learned to meet calmly, and successfully to battle with the ills of life. Nor did I leave it without many regretful tears, to mingle once more with a world to whose usages, during my long solitude, I had become almost a stranger, and to whose praise or blame I felt alike indifferent. When the day dawned, the whole forest scenery lay glittering in a mantle of dazzling white; the sun shone brightly, the heavens were intensely blue, but the cold was so severe that every article of food had to be thawed before we could get our breakfast. The very blankets that covered us during the night were stiff with our frozen breath. “I hope the sleighs won't come to-day,” I cried; “we should be frozen on the long journey.” About noon two sleighs turned into our clearing. Old Jenny ran screaming into the room, “The masther has sent for us at last! The sleighs are come! Fine large sleighs, and illigant teams of horses! Och, and its a cowld day for the wee things to lave the bush.” The snow had been a week in advance of us at B----, and my husband had sent up the teams to remove us. The children jumped about, and laughed aloud for joy. Old Jenny did not know whether to laugh or cry, but she set about helping me to pack up trunks and bedding as fast as our cold hands would permit. In the midst of the confusion, my brother arrived, like a good genius, to our assistance, declaring his determination to take us down to B---- himself in his large lumber-sleigh. This was indeed joyful news. In less than three hours he despatched the hired sleighs with their loads, and we all stood together in the empty house, striving to warm our hands over the embers of the expiring fire. How cold and desolate every object appeared! The small windows, half blocked up with snow, scarcely allowed a glimpse of the declining sun to cheer us with his serene aspect. In spite of the cold, several kind friends had waded through the deep snow to say, “God bless you!--Good-bye;” while a group of silent Indians stood together, gazing upon our proceedings with an earnestness which showed that they were not uninterested in the scene. As we passed out to the sleigh, they pressed forward, and silently held out their hands, while the squaws kissed me and the little ones with tearful eyes. They had been true friends to us in our dire necessity, and I returned their mute farewell from my very heart. Mr. S---- sprang into the sleigh. One of our party was missing. “Jenny!” shouted my brother, at the top of his voice, “it is too cold to keep your mistress and the little children waiting.” “Och, shure thin, it is I that am comin'!” returned the old body, as she issued from the house. Shouts of laughter greeted her appearance. The figure she cut upon that memorable day I shall never forget. My brother dropped the reins upon the horses' necks, and fairly roared. Jenny was about to commence her journey to the front in three hats. Was it to protect her from the cold? Oh, no; Jenny was not afraid of the cold! She could have eaten her breakfast on the north side of an iceberg, and always dispensed with shoes, during the most severe of our Canadian winters. It was to protect these precious articles from injury. Our good neighbour, Mrs. W----, had presented her with an old sky-blue drawn-silk bonnet, as a parting benediction. This, by way of distinction, for she never had possessed such an article of luxury as a silk bonnet in her life, Jenny had placed over the coarse calico cap, with its full furbelow of the same yellow, ill-washed, homely material, next to her head; over this, as second in degree, a sun-burnt straw hat, with faded pink ribbons, just showed its broken rim and tawdry trimmings; and, to crown all, and serve as a guard to the rest, a really serviceable grey-beaver bonnet, once mine, towered up as high as the celebrated crown in which brother Peter figures in Swift's “Tale of a Tub.” “Mercy, Jenny! Why, old woman, you don't mean to go with us that figure?” “Och, my dear heart! I've no band-box to kape the cowld from desthroying my illigant bonnets,” returned Jenny, laying her hand upon the side of the sleigh. “Go back, Jenny; go back,” cried my brother. “For God's sake take all that tom-foolery from off your head. We shall be the laughing-stock of every village we pass through.” “Och, shure now, Mr. S----, who'd think of looking at an owld crathur like me! It's only yersel' that would notice the like.” “All the world, everybody would look at you, Jenny. I believe that you put on those hats to draw the attention of all the young fellows that we shall happen to meet on the road. Ha, Jenny!” With an air of offended dignity, the old woman returned to the house to re-arrange her toilet, and provide for the safety of her “illigant bonnets,” one of which she suspended to the strings of her cloak, while she carried the third dangling in her hand; and no persuasion of mine would induce her to put them out of sight. Many painful and conflicting emotions agitated my mind, but found no utterance in words, as we entered the forest path, and I looked my last upon that humble home consecrated by the memory of a thousand sorrows. Every object had become endeared to me during my long exile from civilised life. I loved the lonely lake, with its magnificent belt of dark pines sighing in the breeze; the cedar-swamp, the summer home of my dark Indian friends; my own dear little garden, with its rugged snake-fence which I had helped Jenny to place with my own hands, and which I had assisted the faithful woman in cultivating for the last three years, where I had so often braved the tormenting mosquitoes, black flies, and intense heat, to provide vegetables for the use of the family. Even the cows, that had given a breakfast for the last time to my children, were now regarded with mournful affection. A poor labourer stood in the doorway of the deserted house, holding my noble water-dog, Rover, in a string. The poor fellow gave a joyous bark as my eyes fell upon him. “James J----, take care of my dog.” “Never fear, ma'am, he shall bide with me as long as he lives.” “He and the Indians at least feel grieved for our departure,” I thought. Love is so scarce in this world that we ought to prize it, however lowly the source from whence it flows. We accomplished only twelve miles of our journey that night. The road lay through the bush, and along the banks of the grand, rushing, foaming Otonabee river, the wildest and most beautiful of forest streams. We slept at the house of kind friends, and early in the morning resumed our long journey, but minus one of our party. Our old favourite cat, Peppermint, had made her escape from the basket in which she had been confined, and had scampered off, to the great grief of the children. As we passed Mrs. H----'s house, we called for dear Addie. Mr. H---- brought her in his arms to the gate, well wrapped up in a large fur cape and a warm woollen shawl. “You are robbing me of my dear little girl,” he said. “Mrs. H---- is absent; she told me not to part with her if you should call; but I could not detain her without your consent. Now that you have seen her, allow me to keep her for a few months longer?” Addie was in the sleigh. I put my arm about her. I felt I had my child again, and I secretly rejoiced in the possession of my own. I sincerely thanked him for his kindness, and Mr. S---- drove on. At Mr. R----'s, we found a parcel from dear Emilia, containing a plum-cake and other good things for the children. Her kindness never flagged. We crossed the bridge over the Otonabee, in the rising town of Peterborough, at eight o'clock in the morning. Winter had now set in fairly. The children were glad to huddle together in the bottom of the sleigh, under the buffalo skins and blankets; all but my eldest boy, who, just turned of five years old, was enchanted with all he heard and saw, and continued to stand up and gaze around him. Born in the forest, which he had never quitted before, the sight of a town was such a novelty that he could find no words wherewith to express his astonishment. “Are the houses come to see one another?” he asked. “How did they all meet here?” The question greatly amused his uncle, who took some pains to explain to him the difference between town and country. During the day, we got rid of old Jenny and her bonnets, whom we found a very refractory travelling companion; as wilful, and far more difficult to manage than a young child. Fortunately, we overtook the sleighs with the furniture, and Mr. S---- transferred Jenny to the care of one of the drivers; an arrangement that proved satisfactory to all parties. We had been most fortunate in obtaining comfortable lodgings for the night. The evening had closed in so intensely cold that although we were only two miles from C----, Addie was so much affected by it that the child lay sick and pale in my arms, and, when spoken to, seemed scarcely conscious of our presence. My brother jumped from the front seat, and came round to look at her. “That child is ill with the cold; we must stop somewhere to warm her, or she will hardly hold out till we get to the inn at C----.” We were just entering the little village of A----, in the vicinity of the court-house, and we stopped at a pretty green cottage, and asked permission to warm the children. A stout, middle-aged woman came to the sleigh, and in the kindest manner requested us to alight. “I think I know that voice,” I said. “Surely it cannot be Mrs. S----, who once kept the ---- hotel at C----?” “Mrs. Moodie, you are welcome,” said the excellent woman, bestowing upon me a most friendly embrace; “you and your children. I am heartily glad to see you again after so many years. God bless you all!” Nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality of this generous woman; she would not hear of our leaving her that night, and, directing my brother to put up his horses in her stable, she made up an excellent fire in a large bedroom, and helped me to undress the little ones who were already asleep, and to warm and feed the rest before we put them to bed. This meeting gave me real pleasure. In their station of life, I seldom have found a more worthy couple than this American and his wife; and, having witnessed so many of their acts of kindness, both to ourselves and others, I entertained for them a sincere respect and affection, and truly rejoiced that Providence had once more led me to the shelter of their roof. Mr. S---- was absent, but I found little Mary--the sweet child who used to listen with such delight to Moodie's flute--grown up into a beautiful girl; and the baby that was, a fine child of eight years old. The next morning was so intensely cold that my brother would not resume the journey until past ten o'clock, and even then it was a hazardous experiment. We had not proceeded four miles before the horses were covered with icicles. Our hair was frozen as white as old Time's solitary forelock, our eyelids stiff, and every limb aching with cold. “This will never do,” said my brother, turning to me; “the children will freeze. I never felt the cold more severe than this.” “Where can we stop?” said I; “we are miles from C----, and I see no prospect of the weather becoming milder.” “Yes, yes; I know, by the very intensity of the cold, that a change is at hand. We seldom have more than three very severe days running, and this is the third. At all events, it is much warmer at night in this country than during the day; the wind drops, and the frost is more bearable. I know a worthy farmer who lives about a mile ahead; he will give us house-room for a few hours; and we will resume our journey in the evening. The moon is at full; and it will be easier to wrap the children up, and keep them warm when they are asleep. Shall we stop at Old Woodruff's?” “With all my heart.” My teeth were chattering with the cold, and the children were crying over their aching fingers at the bottom of the sleigh. A few minutes' ride brought us to a large farm-house, surrounded by commodious sheds and barns. A fine orchard opposite, and a yard well-stocked with fat cattle and sheep, sleek geese, and plethoric-looking swine, gave promise of a land of abundance and comfort. My brother ran into the house to see if the owner was at home, and presently returned, accompanied by the staunch Canadian yeoman and his daughter, who gave us a truly hearty welcome, and assisted in removing the children from the sleigh to the cheerful fire, that made all bright and cozy within. Our host was a shrewd, humorous-looking Yorkshireman. His red, weather-beaten face, and tall, athletic figure, bent as it was with hard labour, gave indications of great personal strength; and a certain knowing twinkle in his small, clear grey eyes, which had been acquired by long dealing with the world, with a quiet, sarcastic smile that lurked round the corners of his large mouth, gave you the idea of a man who could not easily be deceived by his fellows; one who, though no rogue himself, was quick in detecting the roguery of others. His manners were frank and easy, and he was such a hospitable entertainer that you felt at home with him in a minute. “Well, how are you, Mr. S----?” cried the farmer, shaking my brother heartily by the hand. “Toiling in the bush still, eh?” “Just in the same place.” “And the wife and children?” “Hearty. Some half-dozen have been added to the flock since you were our way.” “So much the better--so much the better. The more the merrier, Mr. S----; children are riches in this country.” “I know not how that may be; I find it hard to clothe and feed mine.” “Wait till they grow up; they will be brave helps to you then. The price of labour--the price of labour, Mr. S----, is the destruction of the farmer.” “It does not seem to trouble you much, Woodruff,” said my brother, glancing round the well-furnished apartment. “My son and S---- do it all,” cried the old man. “Of course the girls help in busy times, and take care of the dairy, and we hire occasionally; but small as the sum is which is expended in wages during seed-time and harvest, I feel it, I can tell you.” “You are married again, Woodruff?” “No, sir,” said the farmer, with a peculiar smile; “not yet;” which seemed to imply the probability of such an event. “That tall gal is my eldest daughter; she manages the house, and an excellent housekeeper she is. But I cannot keep her for ever.” With a knowing wink, “Gals will think of getting married, and seldom consult the wishes of their parents upon the subject when once they have taken the notion into their heads. But 'tis natural, Mr. S----, it is natural; we did just the same when we were young.” My brother looked laughingly towards the fine, handsome young woman, as she placed upon the table hot water, whiskey, and a huge plate of plum-cake, which did not lack a companion, stored with the finest apples which the orchard could produce. The young girl looked down, and blushed. “Oh, I see how it is, Woodruff! You will soon lose your daughter. I wonder that you have kept her so long. But who are these young ladies?” he continued, as three girls very demurely entered the room. “The two youngest are my darters, by my last wife, who, I fear, mean soon to follow the bad example of their sister. The other _lady_,” said the old man, with a reverential air, “is a _particular_ friend of my eldest darter's.” My brother laughed slily, and the old man's cheek took a deeper glow as he stooped forward to mix the punch. “You said that these two young ladies, Woodruff, were by your last wife. Pray how many wives have you had?” “Only three. It is impossible, they say in my country, to have too much of a good thing.” “So I suppose you think,” said my brother, glancing first at the old man and then towards Miss Smith. “Three wives! You have been a fortunate man, Woodruff, to survive them all.” “Ay, have I not, Mr. S----? But to tell you the truth, I have been both lucky and unlucky in the wife way,” and then he told us the history of his several ventures in matrimony, with which I shall not trouble my readers. When he had concluded, the weather was somewhat milder, the sleigh was ordered to the door, and we proceeded on our journey, resting for the night at a small village about twenty miles from B----, rejoicing that the long distance which separated us from the husband and father was diminished to a few miles, and that, with the blessing of Providence, we should meet on the morrow. About noon we reached the distant town, and were met at the inn by him whom one and all so ardently longed to see. He conducted us to a pretty, neat cottage, which he had prepared for our reception, and where we found old Jenny already arrived. With great pride the old woman conducted me over the premises, and showed me the furniture “the masther” had bought; especially recommending to my notice a china tea-service, which she considered the most wonderful acquisition of the whole. “Och! who would have thought, a year ago, misthress dear, that we should be living in a mansion like this, and ating off raal chaney? It is but yestherday that we were hoeing praties in the field.” “Yes, Jenny, God has been very good to us, and I hope that we shall never learn to regard with indifference the many benefits which we have received at His hands.” Reader! it is not my intention to trouble you with the sequel of our history. I have given you a faithful picture of a life in the backwoods of Canada, and I leave you to draw from it your own conclusions. To the poor, industrious working man it presents many advantages; to the poor gentleman, none! The former works hard, puts up with coarse, scanty fare, and submits, with a good grace, to hardships that would kill a domesticated animal at home. Thus he becomes independent, inasmuch as the land that he has cleared finds him in the common necessaries of life; but it seldom, if ever, in remote situations, accomplishes more than this. The gentleman can neither work so hard, live so coarsely, nor endure so many privations as his poorer but more fortunate neighbour. Unaccustomed to manual labour, his services in the field are not of a nature to secure for him a profitable return. The task is new to him, he knows not how to perform it well; and, conscious of his deficiency, he expends his little means in hiring labour, which his bush-farm can never repay. Difficulties increase, debts grow upon him, he struggles in vain to extricate himself, and finally sees his family sink into hopeless ruin. If these sketches should prove the means of deterring one family from sinking their property, and shipwrecking all their hopes, by going to reside in the backwoods of Canada, I shall consider myself amply repaid for revealing the secrets of the prison-house, and feel that I have not toiled and suffered in the wilderness in vain. THE MAPLE-TREE A CANADIAN SONG Hail to the pride of the forest--hail To the maple, tall and green; It yields a treasure which ne'er shall fail While leaves on its boughs are seen. When the moon shines bright, On the wintry night, And silvers the frozen snow; And echo dwells On the jingling bells As the sleighs dart to and fro; Then it brightens the mirth Of the social hearth With its red and cheery glow. Afar, 'mid the bosky forest shades, It lifts its tall head on high; When the crimson-tinted evening fades From the glowing saffron sky; When the sun's last beams Light up woods and streams, And brighten the gloom below; And the deer springs by With his flashing eye, And the shy, swift-footed doe; And the sad winds chide In the branches wide, With a tender plaint of woe. The Indian leans on its rugged trunk, With the bow in his red right-hand, And mourns that his race, like a stream, has sunk From the glorious forest land. But, blythe and free, The maple-tree Still tosses to sun and air Its thousand arms, While in countless swarms The wild bee revels there; But soon not a trace Of the red man's race Shall be found in the landscape fair. When the snows of winter are melting fast, And the sap begins to rise, And the biting breath of the frozen blast Yields to the spring's soft sighs, Then away to the wood, For the maple, good, Shall unlock its honied store; And boys and girls, With their sunny curls, Bring their vessels brimming o'er With the luscious flood Of the brave tree's blood, Into cauldrons deep to pour. The blaze from the sugar-bush gleams red; Far down in the forest dark, A ruddy glow on the trees is shed, That lights up their rugged bark; And with merry shout, The busy rout Watch the sap as it bubbles high; And they talk of the cheer Of the coming year, And the jest and the song pass by; And brave tales of old Round the fire are told, That kindle youth's beaming eye. Hurrah! For the sturdy maple-tree! Long may its green branch wave; In native strength sublime and free, Meet emblem for the brave. May the nation's peace With its growth increase, And its worth be widely spread; For it lifts not in vain To the sun and rain Its tall, majestic head. May it grace our soil, And reward our toil, Till the nation's heart is dead. CHAPTER XXVIII CANADIAN SKETCHES The preceding sketches of Canadian life, as the reader may well suppose, are necessarily tinctured with somewhat somber hues, imparted by the difficulties and privations with which, for so many years the writer had to struggle; but we should be sorry should these truthful pictures of scenes and characters, observed fifteen or twenty years ago, have the effect of conveying erroneous impressions of the present state of a country, which is manifestly destined, at no remote period, to be one of the most prosperous in the world. Had we merely desired to please the imagination of our readers, it would have been easy to have painted the country and the people rather as we could have wished them to be, than as they actually were, at the period to which our description refers; and, probably, what is thus lost in truthfulness, it would have gained in popularity with that class of readers who peruse books more for amusement than instruction. When I say that Canada is destined to be one of the most prosperous countries in the world, let it not be supposed that I am influenced by any unreasonable partiality for the land of my adoption. Canada may not possess mines of gold or silver, but she possesses all those advantages of climate, geological structure, and position, which are essential to greatness and prosperity. Her long and severe winter, so disheartening to her first settlers, lays up, amidst the forests of the West, inexhaustible supplies of fertilising moisture for the summer, while it affords the farmer the very best of natural roads to enable him to carry his wheat and other produce to market. It is a remarkable fact, that hardly a lot of land containing two hundred acres, in British America, can be found without an abundant supply of water at all seasons of the year; and a very small proportion of the land itself is naturally unfit for cultivation. To crown the whole, where can a country be pointed out which possesses such an extent of internal navigation? A chain of river navigation and navigable inland seas, which, with the canals recently constructed, gives to the countries bordering on them all the advantages of an extended sea-coast, with a greatly diminished risk of loss from shipwreck! Little did the modern discoverers of America dream, when they called this country “Canada,” from the exclamation of one of the exploring party, “Aca nada,”--“there is nothing here,” as the story goes, that Canada would far outstrip those lands of gold and silver, in which their imaginations revelled, in that real wealth of which gold and silver are but the portable representatives. The interminable forests--that most gloomy and forbidding feature in its scenery to the European stranger, should have been regarded as the most certain proof of its fertility. The severity of the climate, and the incessant toil of clearing the land to enable the first settlers to procure the mere necessaries of life, have formed in its present inhabitants an indomitable energy of character, which, whatever may be their faults, must be regarded as a distinguishing attribute of the Canadians, in common with our neighbours of the United States. When we consider the progress of the Northern races of mankind, it cannot be denied, that while the struggles of the hardy races of the North with their severe climate, and their forests, have gradually endowed them with an unconquerable energy of character, which has enabled them to become the masters of the world; the inhabitants of more favoured climates, where the earth almost spontaneously yields all the necessaries of life, have remained comparatively feeble and inactive, or have sunk into sloth and luxury. It is unnecessary to quote any other instances in proof of this obvious fact, than the progress of Great Britain and the United States of America, which have conquered as much by their industry as by their swords. Our neighbours of the United States are in the habit of attributing their wonderful progress in improvements of all kinds to their republican institutions. This is no doubt quite natural in a people who have done so much for themselves in so short a time; but when we consider the subject in all its bearings, it may be more truly asserted that, with any form of government not absolutely despotic, the progress of North America, peopled by a civilised and energetic race, with every motive to industry and enterprise in the nature of the country itself, must necessarily have been rapid. An unbounded extent of fertile soil, with an increasing population, were circumstances which of themselves were sufficient to create a strong desire for the improvement of internal communications; as, without common roads, rail-roads, or canals, the interior of the country would have been unfit to be inhabited by any but absolute barbarians. All the first settlers of America wanted was to be left to themselves. When we compare the progress of Great Britain with that of North America, the contrast is sufficiently striking to attract our attention. While the progress of the former has been the work of ages, North America has sprung into wealth and power almost within a period which we can remember. But the colonists of North America should recollect, when they indulge in such comparisons, that their British ancestors took many centuries to civilise themselves, before they could send free and intelligent settlers to America. The necessity for improvements in the internal communications is vastly more urgent in a widely extended continent than in an island, no part of which is far removed from the sea-coast; and patriotism, as well as self-interest, would readily suggest such improvements to the minds of a people who inherited the knowledge of their ancestors, and were besides stimulated to extraordinary exertions by their recently-acquired independence. As the political existence of the United States commenced at a period when civilisation had made great progress in the mother-country, their subsequent improvement would, for various reasons, be much more rapid than that of the country from which they originally emigrated. To show the influence of external circumstances on the characters of men, let us just suppose two individuals, equal in knowledge and natural capacity, to be placed, the one on an improved farm in England, with the necessary capital and farm-stock, and the other in the wilds of America, with no capital but his labour, and the implements required to clear the land for his future farm. In which of these individuals might we reasonably expect to find the most energy, ingenuity, and general intelligence on subjects connected with their immediate interests? No one who has lived for a few years in the United States or Canada can hesitate for a reply. The farmer in the more improved country generally follows the beaten track, the example of his ancestors, or the successful one of his more intelligent contemporaries; he is rarely compelled to draw upon his individual mental resources. Not so with the colonist. He treads in tracks but little known; he has to struggle with difficulties on all sides. Nature looks sternly on him, and in order to preserve his own existence, he must conquer Nature, as it were, by his perseverance and ingenuity. Each fresh conquest tends to increase his vigour and intelligence, until he becomes a new man, with faculties of mind which, but for his severe lessons in the school of adversity, might have lain for ever dormant. While America presents the most forbidden aspect to the new settler, it at the same time offers the richest rewards to stimulate his industry. On the one hand, there is want and misery; on the other, abundance and prosperity. There is no middle course for the settler; he must work or starve. In North America there is another strong incentive to improvement, to be found in the scarcity of labour; and still more, therefore, than in Europe must every mechanical contrivance which supersedes manual labour tend to increase the prosperity of the inhabitants. When these circumstances are duly considered, we need no longer wonder at the rapid improvements in labour-saving machinery, and in the means of internal communication throughout the United States. But for the steam-engine, canals, and railroads, North America would have remained for ages a howling wilderness of endless forests, and instead of the busy hum of men, and the sound of the mill and steam-engine, we should now have heard nothing but “The melancholy roar of unfrequented floods.” The scenes and characters presented to the reader in the preceding pages, belong, in some measure, rather to the past than the present state of Canada. In the last twenty years great changes have taken place, as well in the external appearance of the country, as in the general character of its inhabitants. In many localities where the land was already under the plough, the original occupants of the soil have departed to renew their endless wars with the giants of the forest, in order to procure more land for their increasing families where it could be obtained at a cheaper price. In the back-woods, forests have been felled, the blackened stumps have disappeared, and regular furrows are formed by the ploughman, where formerly he had not time or inclination to whistle at his work. A superior class of farmers has sprung up, whose minds are as much improved by cultivation as their lands, and who are comfortably settled on farms supposed to be exhausted of their fertility by their predecessors. As the breadth of land recovered from the forest is increased, villages, towns, and cities have grown up and increased in population and wealth in proportion to the productiveness of the surrounding country. In Canada, it is particularly to be noted, that there is hardly any intermediate stage between the rude toil and privation of the back-woods, and the civilisation, comfort, and luxury of the towns and cities, many of which are to outward appearance entirely European, with the encouraging prospect of a continual increase in the value of fixed property. When a colony, capable, from the fertility of the soil and abundance of moisture, of supporting a dense population, has been settled by a civilised race, they are never long in establishing a communication with the sea-coast and with other countries. When such improvements have been effected, the inhabitants may be said at once to take their proper place among civilised nations. The elements of wealth and power are already there, and time and population only are required fully to develope the resources of the country. Unhappily the natural progress of civilised communities in our colonies is too often obstructed by the ignorance of governments, and unwise or short-sighted legislation; and abundance of selfish men are always to be found in the colonies themselves, who, destitute of patriotism, greedily avail themselves of this ignorance, in order to promote their private interests at the expense of the community. Canada has been greatly retarded in its progress by such causes, and this will in a great measure account for its backwardness when compared with the United States, without attributing the difference to the different forms of government. It was manifestly the intention of the British government, in conferring representative institutions on Canada, that the people should enjoy all the privileges of their fellow-subjects in the mother-country. The more to assimilate our government to that of its great original, the idea was for some time entertained of creating a titled and hereditary aristocracy, but it was soon found that though “The King can make a belted knight, A marquis, duke, an' a' that,” it was not in his power to give permanency to an institution which, in its origin, was as independent as royalty itself, arising naturally out of the feudal system: but which was utterly inconsistent with the genius and circumstances of a modern colony. The sovereign might endow the members of such an aristocracy with grants of the lands of the crown to support their dignity, but what benefit could such grants be, even to the recipients, in a country covered with boundless forests and nearly destitute of inhabitants? It is obvious that no tenants could be found to pay rents for such lands, or indeed even to occupy them, while lands could be purchased on easy terms in the United States, or in Canada itself. Had this plan been carried out, Canada would have been a doomed country for centuries. The strongest incitements to industry are required, those of proprietorship and ultimate independence, to induce settlers to encounter all the privations and toil of a new settlement in such a country. A genuine aristocracy can only exist in a country already peopled, and which has been conquered and divided among the conquerors. In such a state of things, aristocracy, though artificial in its origin, becomes naturalised, if I may use the expression, and even, as in Great Britain, when restrained within proper limits, highly beneficial in advancing civilization. Be it for good or be it for evil, it is worse than useless to disguise the fact that the government of a modern colony, where every conquest is made from the forest by little at a time, must be essentially republican. Any allusion to political parties is certainly foreign to the object of the preceding sketches; but it is impossible to make the British reader acquainted with the various circumstances which retarded the progress of this fine colony, without explaining how the patronage of the local government came formerly to be so exclusively bestowed on one class of the population,--thus creating a kind of spurious aristocracy which disgusted the colonists, and drove emigration from our shores to those of the United States. After the American Revolution, considerable numbers of loyalists in the United States voluntarily relinquished their homesteads and property, and came to Canada, which then, even on the shores of Lake Ontario, was a perfect wilderness. Lands were of course granted to them by the government, and very naturally these settlers were peculiarly favoured by the local authorities. These loyalists were generally known by the name of “tories,” to distinguish them from the republicans, and forming the great mass of the population. Any one who called himself a reformer was regarded with distrust and suspicion, as a concealed republican or rebel. It must not, however, be supposed that these loyalists were really tories in their political principles. Their notions on such subjects were generally crude and undefined, and living in a country where the whole construction of society and habits of feeling were decidedly republican, the term tory, when adopted by them, was certainly a misnomer. However, hated by, and hating as cordially, the republican party in the United States, they by no means unreasonably considered that their losses and their attachment to British institutions, gave them an almost exclusive claim to the favour of the local government in Canada. Thus the name of U.E. (United Empire) Loyalist or Tory came to be considered an indispensable qualification for every office in the colony. This was all well enough so long as there was no other party in the country. But gradually a number of other American settlers flowed into Canada from the United States, who had no claim to the title of tories or loyalists, but who in their feelings and habits were probably not much more republican than their predecessors. These were of course regarded with peculiar jealousy by the older or loyalist settlers from the same country. It seemed to them as if a swarm of locusts had come to devour their patrimony. This will account for the violence of party feeling which lately prevailed in Canada. There is nothing like a slight infusion of self-interest to give point and pungency to party feeling. The British immigrants, who afterwards flowed into this colony in greater numbers, of course brought with them their own particular political predilections. They found what was called toryism and high churchism in the ascendant, and self-interest or prejudice induced most of the more early settlers of this description to fall in with the more powerful and favoured party; while influenced by the representations of the old loyalist party they shunned the other American settlers as republicans. In the meantime, however, the descendants of the original loyalists were becoming numerous, while the government became unable to satisfy them all according to their own estimation of their merits; and as high churchism was, unfortunately for the peace of society, associated with toryism, every shade of religious dissent as well as political difference of opinion generally added to the numbers and power of the reform party, which was now beginning to be known in the colony. Strange to say, the great bulk of the present reform party is composed of the descendants of these U.E. Loyalists, while many of our most ultra tories are the descendants of republican settlers from the United States. As may be supposed, thirty years of increasing emigration from the mother-country has greatly strengthened the reform party, and they now considerably out-number the conservatives. While the mass of the people held tory, or, I should rather call them, _conservative_ principles, our government seemed to work as well as any representative government may be supposed to work without the necessary check of a constitutional opposition. Favouritism was, of course, the order of the day; and the governor, for the time being, filled up all offices according to his will and pleasure, without many objections being made by the people as to the qualifications of the favourite parties, provided the selections for office were made from the powerful party. Large grants of land were given to favoured individuals in the colony, or to immigrants who came with commendations from the home government. In such a state of matters the people certainly possessed the external form of a free government, but as an opposition party gradually acquired an ascendancy in the lower House of Parliament, they were unable to carry the measures adopted by their majority into operation, in consequence of the systematic opposition of the legislative and executive councils, which were generally formed exclusively from the old conservative party. Whenever the conservatives obtained the majority in the House of Assembly, the reformers, in retaliation, as systematically opposed every measure. Thus a constant bickering was kept up between the parties in Parliament; while the people, amidst these attentions, lost sight of the true interests of the country, and improvements of all kinds came nearly to a stand-still. As matters were then conducted, it would have been much better had the colony been ruled by a governor and council; for, in that case, beneficial measures might have been carried into effect. Such a state of things could not last long; and the discontent of a large portion of the people, terminating, through the indiscretion of an infatuated local government, in actual rebellion, soon produced the remedy. The party generally most powerful in the Legislative Assembly, and the members of which had been so long and so unconstitutionally excluded from holding offices under the government, at once obtained the position which they were entitled, and the people being thus given the power of governing by their majorities in Parliament, improvements of all kinds are steadily advancing up the present moment, and their prosperity and contentment have increased in an equal proportion. Had the first settlement of Canada been conducted on sound and philosophical principles, much hardship and privation, as well as loss of capital in land speculations, would have been saved to its first settlers, and the country, improved and improving as it now is, would have presented a very different aspect at the present time. With the best intentions, the British government may be justly accused of gross ignorance of the true principles of colonisation, and the local governments are still more open to the accusation of squandering the resources of the colony--its lands--in building up the fortunes of a would-be aristocracy, who being non-resident proprietors of wild lands, necessarily obstructed the progress of improvement, while the people were tantalised with the empty semblance of a free government. No sooner did emigrants from Great Britain begin to pour into Upper Canada, so as to afford a prospect of the wild lands becoming saleable, than a system of land speculation was resorted to by many of the old colonists. This land speculation has no doubt enriched many individuals, but more than any other abuse has it retarded the natural progress of the country, and the interests of the many have thus been sacrificed to those of the few. Almost all other speculations may be said, in one shape or another, to do good; but land speculation has been an unmitigated curse to Canada, because it occasions a monopoly of the soil, and prevents it from being cleared and rendered productive, until the speculators can obtain their own price for it. The lands granted to soldiers and sailors who had served in Canada, and those granted to the U.E. loyalists, were bought up, often at merely nominal prices, from the original grantees and their children, and sold again with an immense profit to new settlers from the old country, or retained for many years in an unproductive state. A portion of the lands granted to the U.E. loyalists was, of course, occupied by the heads of families; but the lands to which their children became entitled, under the same benevolent provision of the government, were generally drawn in remote situations. By far the larger portion of these grants, however, were not located or rendered available by the grantees, but remained in the shape of U.E. rights, which were purchased at very low prices by the speculators. These U.E. rights were bought at the rate of 1s. 3d., 2s. 6d., or 3s. 9d. per acre; and it was by no means uncommon for old soldiers to sell one hundred acres of land for two or three dollars, or even for a bottle of rum, so little value did they set on such grants in the then state of Canada. These grants, though well meant, and with respect to the U.E. Loyalists, perhaps, unavoidable, have been most injurious to the country. The great error in this matter, and which could have been avoided, was the opening of too great an extent of land _at once_ for settlement. A contrary system, steadily pursued, would have produced a concentrated population; and the resources of such a population would have enabled the colonists, by uniting their labour and capital, to make the means of communication, in some degree, keep pace with the settlement of the lands; and Upper Canada would now have been as well provided with canals and railroads as the United States. The same abuses, no doubt, existed formerly to as great an extent in that country, but, being longer settled, it has outgrown the evil. Enough has been said on this subject to show some of the causes which have retarded improvements in Canada. Another chief cause of the long and helpless torpor in which the country lay, was the absence of municipal governments in the various rural localities. It indeed seems strange, that such a simple matter as providing the means of making roads and bridges by local assessment could not have been conceded to the people, who, if we suppose them to be gifted with common sense, are much more capable of understanding and managing their own parish business, than any government, however well disposed to promote their interests. Formerly the government of Upper Canada was deluged with petitions for grants of money from Parliament to be expended in improvements in this or that locality, of the reasonableness of which claims the majority of the legislators were, of course, profoundly ignorant. These money grants became subjects of a species of jobbing, or manoeuvering, among the members of the House of Assembly; and he was considered the best member who could get the most money for his county. Commissioners resident in the particular localities were appointed to superintend these public works; and as these commissioners were generally destitute of practical knowledge, these Parliamentary grants were usually expended without producing equivalent results. Nothing in the abstract is more reasonable than that any number of individuals should be allowed to associate themselves for the purpose of effecting some local improvement, which would be beneficial to others as well as to themselves; but nothing of this could be attempted without an Act of Parliament, which, of course, was attended with expense and delay, if not disappointment. The time and attention of the provincial parliament were thus occupied with a mass of parish business, which could have been much better managed by the people themselves on the spot. When the union of the two provinces was in contemplation, it became evident that the business of such an extended colony could not be carried on in the United Parliament, were it to be encumbered and distracted with the contending claims of so many localities. This consideration led to the establishment of the District (now County) Municipal Councils. These municipal councils were denounced by the conservative party at the time as a step towards republicanism! Were this true, it would only prove that the government of our republican neighbours is better than our own; for these municipal institutions have been eminently beneficial to Canada. But municipal councils are necessarily no more republican in their nature, than the House of Commons in England. However this may be, the true prosperity of Upper Canada may be mainly attributed to their influence on the minds of the people. Possessing many of the external forms of a parliament, they are admirable political schools for a free people. The most intelligent men in the different townships are freely elected by the inhabitants, and assemble in the county town to deliberate and make by-laws, to levy taxes, and, in short, to do everything which in their judgment will promote the interest of their constituents. Having previously been solely occupied in agricultural pursuits, it might naturally be expected that their first notions would be somewhat crude, and that they would have many long-cherished prejudices to overcome. Their daily intercourse with the more educated inhabitants of the towns, however, tended to remove these prejudices, while new ideas were continually presented to their minds. The rapidity with which this species of practical education is acquired is remarkable, and also, how soon men with such limited opportunities of acquiring knowledge, learn to think and to express their views and opinions in appropriate language. These municipal councillors go home among their constituents, where they have to explain and defend their proceedings; while so engaged, they have occasion to communicate facts and opinions, which are fairly discussed, and thus enlightened views are diffused through the mass of people. The councillors, at first, were averse to the imposition or increase of taxation, however desirable the object might be; but pride and emulation very soon overcame this natural reluctance; and the example of some neighbouring county, with that natural desire to do good, which, more or less, influences the feelings and conduct of all public men, were not long in producing their beneficial results, even with the risk of offending their constituents. When the County Municipal Councils were first established, the warden or president of the council, and also the treasurer, were appointed by the governor; but both these offices were afterwards made elective, the warden being elected by the council from their own body, and the treasurer being selected by them, without previous election by the people. Lately, councils have been also established in each township for municipal purposes affecting the interest of the township only, the reeves, or presidents, of which minor councils form the members of the county council. This general system of municipalities, and a late act of the provincial parliament, enabling the inhabitants to form themselves into road companies, have converted the formerly torpid and inactive townships into busy hives of industry and progressive improvement. Our agricultural societies have also played no mean part in furthering the progress of the colony. In colonies fewer prejudices are entertained on the subject of agricultural matters than on any others, and the people are ever ready to try any experiment which offers any prospect of increased remuneration for labour. Education, of late, has also made rapid advances in this province; and now, the yeomanry of the more improved townships, though they may be inferior to the yeomanry of England in the acquirements derived from common school education, are certainly far superior to them in general intelligence. Their minds are better stocked with ideas, and they are infinitely more progressive. When we consider the relative periods at which the first settlements were formed in the United States and in Upper Canada, and the accumulation of capital in the former, it will not be difficult to show that the progress of Canada has been much more rapid. The excavation of the Erie Canal, the parent of all the subsequent improvements of a similar nature in the United States, opened-up for settlement a vast country to the westward, which would otherwise for many years have remained a wilderness, unfit for the habitation of man. The boundless success of this experiment necessarily led to all the other similar undertakings. The superior advantages Canada enjoyed in her river and lake navigation, imperfect as that navigation was, operated in a manner rather to retard than to accelerate improvements of this kind; while the construction of the Erie Canal was a matter of prospective necessity, in order to provide for a rapidly increasing population and immigration. In the same manner, the recent completion of the works on the St. Lawrence, and the enlargement of the Welland Canal, connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario, will just as necessarily be followed by similar results, with the additional advantage of the whole colony being greatly benefitted by the commerce of the United States, in addition to her own. We have now, thanks to responsible government, municipal councils, and common schools, no longer any reason to consider their institutions better calculated to develope the resources of the colony, than our own. Our interests are almost identical, and with our canals and railroads on both sides mutually beneficial, our former hostility has merged into a friendly rivalry in the march of intellect, and we may now truly say that, without wishing for any change in political institutions, which are most congenial to the feelings of the people where they exist, each country now sincerely rejoices in the prosperity of its neighbour. Before concluding this chapter, I shall endeavour to give the reader a short description of the county of Hastings, in which I have held the office of sheriff for the last twelve years, and which, I believe, possesses many advantages as a place of settlement, over all the other places I have seen in the Upper Province. I should premise, however, lest my partiality for this part of the colony should be supposed to incline me to overrate its comparative advantages to the settler, that my statements are principally intended to show the progress of Upper Province generally; and that when I claim any superiority for this part of it, I shall give, what I trust the reader will consider, satisfactory reasons for my conclusion. The settlement of a thickly-wooded country, when it is left to chance, is a most uncertain and capricious matter. The narrow views and interests of a clique in the colony, or even of an influential individual, often direct emigration out of its natural course, involving unnecessary suffering to the settler, a waste or absolute loss of capital, and a retarding of the progress of the country. The circumstances and situation of the United States were less productive of these evils than those of Upper Canada, because settlement went on more uniformly from the seacoast towards the interior. The mighty rivers and lakes of Canada, though productive of boundless prosperity, operated in the first period of its settlement, most unfavourably on the growth of the colony, by throwing open for settlement an extensive inland coast, at that time unconnected with the ocean by means of canals. Hence numerous detached, feeble, and unprogressive settlements, came into existence, where the new settlers had to struggle for years with the most disheartening difficulties. European settlers know but little of the value of situation. In most cases they are only desirous of acquiring a large extent of land at a low price, and thus, unless restrained by the wise regulations of a provident government, they too often ruin themselves, and waste their capital in a wilderness, where it does good to no one. When emigration from the United Kingdom began to set in to Upper Canada, the pernicious speculation in wild lands commenced in earnest. As most of the land speculators possessed shares in the steam-boats on Lake Ontario, the interests of both speculations were combined. It was, of course, the interest of the steam-boat proprietors to direct emigration as far to the westward as possible; and influenced by their interested representations and those of the land speculators settled in Toronto, Cobourg, and Hamilton, the greater portion of the emigrants possessing capital were thrown into these towns, near which they were led to expect desirable locations. In the same manner the agents of the Canada Land Company, who were to be found on every steamer, were actively employed in directing the emigrants to the Huron tract. By a simple inspection of the map of Upper Canada, it will be seen, that as the Bay of Quinte was out of the general route of the steamers, and too near the lower end of the lake navigation, it did not suit the views of the parties most interested to direct emigration to its shores. Thus the beautiful Bay of Quinte, with the most fertile land on its shores, and scenery which exceeds in variety and picturesque beauty that of any part of Upper Canada, Hamilton and Niagara alone excepted, has been passed by for years for situations much less desirable or attractive to European settlers. The forbidding aspect of the country near Kingston, which is situated at the entrance of the bay from the St. Lawrence, where the soil has a rocky and barren appearance, has no doubt deterred emigrants from proceeding in this direction. The shores of the Bay of Quinte were originally occupied principally by U.E. loyalists and retired officers, who had served during the late war with the United States, but the emigration from Europe has chiefly consisted of the poorer class of Irish Catholics, and of Protestants from the North of Ireland, settled in two very thriving townships in the county of Hastings. There is also a sprinkling of Scotch and English in different parts of the county. Comparatively few possessing any considerable amount of capital have found their way here, as the county town, Belleville, is not in the line of the summer travel on the lakes. The scenery along the shores of the bay is exceedingly beautiful all the way from Kingston to the head, where a large river, the Trent, discharges itself into it at a thriving village, of about a thousand inhabitants, called Trent Port. A summer ride along the lower portion of this river presents scenery of a bolder and grander character than is often met with in Upper Canada, and it is enlivened by spectacles of immense rafts of timber descending the rapids, and by the merry chorus of the light-hearted lumbermen, as they pursue their toilsome and perilous voyage to Quebec. Belleville was originally a spot reserved for the Mississagua Indians, and was laid out in 1816 for a village, when there were only two or three white men settled among them as traders in the place. It was only during the last year that the two frame farm-houses, situated about a quarter of a mile apart, were removed to make room for more substantial buildings. Belleville remained nearly stationary for several years, during which a few persons realised handsome fortunes, by means of large profits, not withstanding the limited extent of their business. It at length began to grow in importance as the fine country in its neighbourhood was cleared and rendered productive. In 1839, when the county of Hastings was set apart from the Midland district, under the name of the District of Victoria, and Belleville became the District town, the population of the county, including Belleville, was about 12,000, and that of Belleville about 1500. In 1850 the population of the county had reached 23,454, of which that of Belleville was 3326. By the census just taken, on a much more correct principle than formerly, the population of Belleville in 1852 appears to be 4554, showing an increase of 1228 in two years. During the same period, from 1850 to 1852, the population of Cobourg on Lake Ontario, which town formerly enjoyed the full benefit of a large emigration, has risen from 3379 to 3867, showing an increase of only 488. The town of Dundas in the same time has increased its population from 2311 in 1850 to 3519 in 1852, showing an increase of 1208. The population of the city of Hamilton in 1850 was 10,312, and now, in 1852, it is said to exceed 13,000. In 1838 the then _town_ of Hamilton contained a population of only 3116. When I first visited that place in 1832 it was a dull insignificant village, which might, I suppose, contain a population of 1200 or 1500. I can hardly describe my surprise on revisiting it in 1849, to behold a city grown up suddenly, as if by enchantment, with several handsome churches and public and private buildings of cut stone, brought from the fine freestone quarries in the precipitous mountains or tableland behind the city. Little need be said of the capital of the province, the city of Toronto, the progress of which has been less remarkable in the same period, for the obvious reason that its merits were sooner appreciated or known by the emigrants from Europe. The population of Toronto, then called Little York, in 1826 was 1677, while that of the now city of Kingston was 2329. In 1838 the population of Toronto was 12,571, and that of Kingston 3877. In 1850 the population of Toronto was 25,166, and that of Kingston 10,097. These few facts will enable the reader to form some idea of the comparative progress of different towns in Upper Canada, under circumstances similar in some cases and different in others. When it is considered that all of these last-mentioned towns have for many years reaped the full benefit of the influx of emigration and capital from the mother country, while the shores of the Bay of Quinte were little known or appreciated, it will appear that the progress of Belleville has been at least equal to that of any of them. The prosperity of Belleville may in fact be almost entirely attributed to the gradual development of its own internal resources, the fertility of the lands in its vicinity, and a large exportation, of late years, of lumber of all kinds to the United States. Having no desire unnecessarily to trouble the reader with dry statistical tables, I shall merely quote the following facts and figures, kindly furnished me by G. Benjamin, Esq., the present warden of the county of Hastings, to whose business talents and public spirit the county is largely indebted for its progress in internal improvement. The increase of business at the port of Belleville has been most extraordinary. In 1839, the total amount of duties paid at this port amounted to 280l; and in the year (1850) the amount reached 3659l. 12s. 4d. The total arrivals at this port from the United States are as follows: No. of Tons Hands Vessels employed British propellers ........... 8 2,400 104 British sailing vessels ...... 81 4,140 375 Foreign do. do. .............. 124 12,643 730 --------- ---------- --------- Total ........................ 213 19,183 1209 This in addition to our daily steamers. Our exports to the United States are ............ L52,532 17 5 And British ports below Belleville .............. 153,411 16 6 ---------------------- L205,944 13 11 L s d Total imports from United States 25,067 2 6 Total acceptances from United States 17,435 0 0 Total importations from lower ports, including drafts and other resources 130,294 0 0 172,796 2 6 ----------------- --------------------- Showing the balance of trade in favour of this port to be ........................ L33,148 11 5 Our exports to the lower ports are made up as follows: 3,485 barrels of Potash .................... L27,880 0 0 33,198 “ Flour ..................... 33,198 0 0 357 bushels of Grass seed ................ 133 17 6 1,450 “ Barley .................... 181 5 0 4,947 “ Peas ...................... 594 14 0 4,349 “ Rye ....................... 434 18 0 37,360 “ Wheat ..................... 7,472 0 0 198 barrels of Pork ...................... 396 0 0 54 “ Beef ...................... 74 5 0 1,141 Sheep-skins .......................... 114 2 0 4,395,590 feet square Timber ................... 74,903 2 6 173 kegs of Butter ....................... 540 12 6 Furs ................................. 716 0 0 Fatted Cattle ........................ 1,840 0 0 High Wines ........................... 3,098 0 0 Whiskey .............................. 1,830 0 0 ------------------------- L153,411 16 6 Our exports to the United States are made up as follows: 30,686 bushels of Wheat ..................... L6,137 4 11 3,514 “ Rye ....................... 351 8 0 3,728 “ Peas ...................... 466 0 0 90 “ Barley .................... 9 0 0 316 “ Grass seed ................ 118 10 0 18,756 barrels of Flour ..................... 18,756 0 0 338 “ Potash .................... 2,366 0 0 1,000 bushels of Potatoes .................. 62 10 0 92 M. Shingles .................. 23 0 0 117 M. Laths ..................... 43 15 0 18,210 lbs. Rags ...................... 190 0 0 9,912 lbs. Wool ...................... 481 19 6 466 Sheep-skins .......................... 57 10 0 61 kegs of Butter ....................... 122 0 0 19,648,000 feet sawed Lumber .................... 21,296 0 0 513 Cows ................................. 2,052 0 0 ------------------------ L52,532 17 5 The River Moira passing through Belleville, where it discharges itself into the Bay of Quinte, is one principal source of its prosperity. The preceding statement will show the quantity of sawed lumber exported, most of which is furnished by the saw-mills of Belleville, or its immediate vicinity. Besides saw and flour-mills, there are cloth and paper manufactories, a manufactory of edge tools; pail manufactories, where great quantities of these useful articles are made at a low price by machinery; planing machines, several iron foundries, breweries, distilleries, &c., in almost all of which establishments steam-engines, or water-power from the river, are used. A remarkable feature in Belleville, in common with other towns in Canada, is the great number of tailoring and shoe-making establishments, when compared with towns of an equal population in Great Britain. This shows, more than anything I am aware of, the general prosperity of the people, who can afford to be large consumers of such articles. There is very little difference to be observed in the costliness of the clothing of the different classes of society in Upper Canadian towns and cities, and much less difference in the taste with which these articles are selected, than might be expected. With the exception of the lower class of labourers, all persons are well and suitably clad, and they can afford to be so. Twelve years ago there were not more than five or six piano-fortes in Belleville. Now there are nearly one hundred of a superior description, costing from 80 to 150 pounds. Another remarkable circumstance in Upper Canada is the number of lawyers in all the towns. In Belleville there are about a dozen, which seems to be a large number for a town containing only 4554 inhabitants, when in an English town of the same size there is often not more than one. Of course, I do not mention this as any particular advantage, but to show the great difference in the amount of transactions, and of subjects of contention, in an old and a new country. The same may be said of the number of newspapers, as indicative of commercial activity. Two newspapers, representing the two political parties, are well-supported in Belleville, both by their subscribers, and the number of advertisements. The mouth of the Moira River, which widens out at its junction with the Bay of Quinte, is completely covered with saw-logs and square timber of various kinds during the summer months. This river, at Belleville, is often dammed up by confused piles of timber. No sooner are these removed than its waters are covered over by vast quantities of oak staves, which are floated down separately to be rafted off like the squared lumber for the Quebec market. The greater proportion of the saw-logs are, however, cut up for exportation to the United States by the various saw-mills on the river, or by a large steam saw-mill with twenty or thirty run of saws, erected on a little island in the mouth of the river. Several large schooners are constantly loading with sawed lumber, and there are two or three steamboats always running between Belleville and Kingston, carrying passengers to and fro, and generally heavily laden with goods or produce. The Bay of Quinte offers more than common facilities in the summer months for rapid and safe communication with other places; and, in the winter time, being but slightly affected by the current of the river Trent, it affords excellent sleighing. Large quantities of wheat and other farm produce are transported over the ice to Belleville from the neighbouring county of Prince Edward, which is an exceedingly prosperous agricultural settlement, yielding wheat of the finest quality, and particularly excellent cheese and butter. The scenery on the shores of Prince Edward is exceedingly picturesque, and there are numerous wharfs at short distances, from whence the farmers roll their barrels of flour and other articles on board the steamers on their way to market. I have seen no scenery in Upper Canada presenting the same variety and beauty as that of the shores of Prince Edward in particular. The peninsular situation of this county is its only disadvantage--being out of the line of the land travel and of the telegraphic communication which passes through Belleville. The county of Prince Edward having nearly exhausted its exportation lumber--the people are thus freed from the evils of a trade that is always more or less demoralising in its tendency and can now give their undivided attention to the cultivation of their farms. Certain it is, that more quiet, industrious, and prosperous settlers, are not to be found in the Province. A few miles below Belleville, on the south side of the bay, is a very remarkable natural curiosity, called “The Stone Mills.” On the summit of a table-land, rising abruptly several hundred feet above the shore of the bay, there is a lake of considerable size and very great depth, and which apparently receives a very inadequate supply from the elevated land on which it is situated. The lake has no natural outlet, and the common opinion is that it is unfathomable, and that it is supplied with water by means of a subterranean communication with Lake Huron, or some other lake at the same level. This is, of course, extremely improbable, but there can be no doubt of its great depth, and that it cannot be supplied from the Bay of Quinte, so far beneath its level. As a small rivulet runs into this lake from the flat ground in its vicinity, and as the soil of this remarkable excavation, however it may have been originally formed, is tenacious, I think we require no such improbable theory to account for its existence. Availing himself of the convenient position of this lake, a farmer in the neighbourhood erected a mill, which gives its name to the lake, on the shore of the Bay of Quinte, and which he supplied with water by making a deep cutting from the lake to the edge of the precipice, from whence it is conveyed in troughs to the mill. There is a somewhat similar lake in the township of Sidney in the county of Hastings, covering some hundred acres. This lake is also of great depth, though situated on the summit of a range of high hills, from whence it gets the name of the “Oak Hill Pond.” The Bay of Quinte abounds in excellent fish of various kinds, affording excellent sport to those who are fond of fishing. When the ice breaks up in the spring, immense shoals of pickerel commence running up the Moira river, at Belleville, to spawn in the interior. At that time a number of young men amuse themselves with spearing them, standing on the flat rocks at the end of the bridge which crosses the river. They dart their spears into the rushing waters at hap-hazard in the darkness, bringing up a large fish at every second or third stroke. My eldest son, a youth of fifteen, sometimes caught so many fish in this manner in two or three hours, that we had to send a large wheelbarrow to fetch them home. Formerly, before so many mills were erected, the fish swarmed in incredible numbers in all our rivers and lakes. In the back-woods there is excellent deer-hunting, and parties are often formed for this purpose by the young men, who bring home whole waggon-loads of venison. While speaking of Belleville, I may mention, as one of its chief advantages, the long period for which the sleighing continues in this part of the country, when compared with other places on the shore of Lake Ontario. Nearly the whole winter there is excellent sleighing on the Bay of Quinte; and on the land we have weeks of good sleighing for days in most other places. This is owing to the influence of a large sheet of frozen water interposed between us and Lake Ontario, which is never frozen. The county of Prince Edward is a peninsula connected with the main land by a narrow isthmus of low swampy land about four miles wide. Through this neck of land it has long been in contemplation to cut a canal to enable the lake steam-boats to take Belleville in their route between Kingston and Toronto, thus affording a safe navigation in stormy weather. The effect of such a work on the prosperity of the counties of Hastings and Prince Edward would be very great, as European emigrants would have an opportunity of seeing a country which has hitherto escaped their notice, from the causes already mentioned. Besides the usual variety of churches, there is a grammar-school, and also four large common schools, which latter are free schools, being supported by assessments on the people of the town. Every Saturday, which is the great day for business from the country, the streets are crowded with farmers' waggons or sleighs, with their wives and pretty daughters, who come in to make their little purchases of silk gowns and ribbons, and to sell their butter and eggs, which are the peculiar perquisites for the females in this country. The counties of Hastings and Prince Edward are celebrated for female beauty, and nowhere can you see people in the same class more becomingly attired. At the same time there is nothing rustic about them, except genuine good nature and unaffected simplicity of manners. To judge by their light elastic step and rosy smiling countenances, no people on earth seem to enjoy a greater share of health and contentment. Since the establishment of the county municipal councils, plank and macadamised roads have branched out in all directions from the various central county towns, stretching their ramifications like the veins of the human body, conveying nourishment and prosperity throughout the country, increasing the trade and the travel, connecting man with man and promoting intelligence and civilisation; while the magnetic telegraph, now traversing the whole length of the country, like the nervous system, still further stimulates the inhabitants to increased activity. The people of this county have not been behind their neighbours in these improvements. The first plank-road which they constructed was from Belleville to Canniff's Mills, a distance of three miles over a road which at the time was often knee-deep in mud, with a solid foundation of flat limestone rock, which prevented the escape of the water. So infamous was this road, that, on some parts of it, it was a matter of serious doubt whether a boat or waggon would be the better mode of conveyance. Notwithstanding the badness of this road, it was the greatest thoroughfare in the county, as it was the only approach to a number of mills situated on the river, and to Belleville, from the back country. It was, however, with the utmost difficulty that the warden could induce the other members of the county-council to sanction the construction of a plank-road at the expense of the county; so little was then known in Canada of the effects of such works. The profits yielded by this road are unusually large, amounting, it is said, to seventy or eighty per cent. This extraordinary success encouraged the people to undertake other lines, by means of joint-stock companies formed among the farmers. All these plank-roads are highly remunerative, averaging, it is stated, fourteen per cent. over and above all expenses of repair. More than thirty miles of plank-road is already constructed in the county. In a few years plank or gravel roads will be extended through every part of the country, and they will be most available as feeders to the great line of railway which will very soon be constructed through the entire length of the province, and which has been already commenced at Toronto and Hamilton. A single track plank-road costs from 375 to 425 pounds per mile, according to the value of the land to be purchased, or other local causes. The cost of a gravel road, laid twelve feet wide and nine inches deep, and twenty-two feet from out to out, is from 250 to 325 pounds, and it is much more lasting, and more easily repaired than a plank-road. Macadamised or gravel roads will no doubt entirely supersede the others. In the present circumstances of the colony, however, plank-roads will be preferred, because they are more quickly constructed, and with less immediate outlay of money in the payment of labourers' wages, as our numerous saw-mills enable the farmers to get their own logs sawed, and they thus pay the greater portion of their instalments on the stock taken in the roads. In fact, by making arrangements with the proprietors of saw-mills they can generally manage to get several months' credit, so that they will receive the first dividends from the road before they will be required to pay any money. The mode of making these roads is exceedingly simple. The space required for the road is first levelled, ditched, and drained, and then pieces of scantling, five or six inches square, are laid longitudinally on each side, at the proper distance for a road-way twelve feet wide, and with the ends of each piece sawn off diagonally, so as to rest on the end of the next piece, which is similarly prepared, to prevent the road from settling down unequally. The pieces of scantling thus connected are simply bedded firmly in the ground, which is levelled up to their upper edges. Pine planks, three inches thick, are then laid across with their ends resting on the scantling. The planks are closely wedged together like the flooring of a house, and secured here and there by strong wooden pins, driven into auger-holes bored through the planks into the scantling. The common way is to lay the plank-flooring at right angles with the scantling, but a much better way has been adopted in the county of Hastings. The planks are here laid diagonally, which of course requires that they should be cut several feet longer. This ensures greater durability, as the shoes of the horses cut up the planks much more when the grain of the wood corresponds in direction with their sharp edges. When a double track is required, three longitudinal courses of scantling are used, and the ends of the planks meet on the centre one. Very few, if any, iron nails are generally used. The great advantage of a plank-road is the large load it enables the horses to draw. Whilst on a common road a farmer can only carry twenty-five bushels of wheat in his waggon, a plank-road will enable him to carry forty or fifty bushels of the same grain with a pair of horses. The principal disadvantage of the plank-roads is, that they are found by experience to be injurious to horses, particularly when they are driven quickly on them. They are best adapted for a large load drawn at a slow pace. I shall not attempt to describe the country in the neighbourhood of Belleville, or the more northern parts of the county. It will suffice to observe, that the country is generally much varied in its surface, and beautiful, and the soil is generally excellent. Within the last ten or twelve years the whole country has been studded with good substantial stone or brick houses, or good white painted frame houses, even for thirty miles back, and the farms are well fenced and cultivated, showing undeniable signs of comfort and independence. Streams and water are abundant, and there are several thriving villages and hamlets scattered through the county,--the village of Canniff's Mills, three miles from Belleville, and soon destined to form a part of it, alone containing a population of about a thousand. In describing the progress of this county, I may be understood as describing that of most other counties in the Upper Province; the progress of all of them being rapid, though varying according to the advantages of situation or from causes already alluded to. From what has been said, the reader will perceive that the present condition of Canada generally is exceedingly prosperous, and when the resources of the country are fully developed by the railroads now in progress of construction, and by the influx of capital and population from Europe, no rational person can doubt that it will ultimately be as prosperous and opulent as any country in the world, ancient or modern. It may be said, “should we not then be hopeful and contented with our situation and prospects.” And so the people are in the main, and the shrewd capitalists of England think so, or they would not be so ready to invest their money in our public works. But some deduction from this general state of contentment and confidence must be made for those little discontents and grumblings created by the misrepresentations of certain disappointed politicians and ambitious men of all parties, who expect to gain popularity by becoming grievance-mongers. Much has been done, and a great deal still remains to be done in the way of reform, here as elsewhere. But there never was any just cause or motive in that insane cry for “annexation” to the United States, which was raised some years ago, and by the tories, too, of all people in the world! The “annexation” mania can now only be regarded as indicative of the last expiring struggle of a domineering party--it would not be correct to call it a political party--which had so long obstructed the progress of Canada by its selfish and monopolising spirit, when it found that its reign had ceased for ever. Great sacrifices have been, and will be made, by men of loyalty and principle in support of institutions, which are justly dear to every Briton and to every freeman; but this feeling necessarily has its limits among the mass of mankind; and the loyalty of a people must be supported by reason and justice. They should have good reason to believe that their institutions are more conducive to happiness and prosperity than those of all other countries. Without this conviction, loyalty in a people who have by any means been deprived of the power of correcting the abuses of their government, would be hardly rational. Canadians now have that power to its full extent. Why, then, should we not be loyal to the constitution of our country which has stood the test of ages, purifying itself and developing its native energies as a vigorous constitution outgrows disease in the human frame. The government of Canada is practically more republican than that of the mother country and nearly as republican as that of the United States. Our government is also notoriously much less expensive. Our public officers are also, practically, much more responsible to the people, though indirectly, because they are appointed by a Colonial Ministry who are elected by the people, and whose popularity depends in a great degree on the selections they make and upon their watchfulness over their conduct. The government of the United States is not a cheap government, because all officers being elective by the people, the responsibility of the selections to office is divided and weakened. Moreover, the change or prospect of the electors being the elected inclines them to put up with abuses and defalcations which would be considered intolerable under another form of government. The British Government now holds the best security for the continued loyalty of the people of Canada, in their increasing prosperity. To Great Britain they are bound by the strongest ties of duty and interest; and nothing but the basest ingratitude or absolute infatuation can ever tempt them to transfer their allegiance to another country. I shall conclude this chapter with a few verses written two years ago, and which were suggested by an indignant feeling at the cold manner with which the National Anthem was received by some persons who used to be loud in their professions of loyalty on former public occasions. Happily, this wayward and pettish, I will not call it disloyal spirit, has passed away, and most of the “Annexationists” are now heartily ashamed of their conduct. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN God save the Queen. The time has been When these charmed words, or said or sung, Have through the welkin proudly rung; And, heads uncovered, every tongue Has echoed back--“God save the Queen!” God save the Queen! It was not like the feeble cry That slaves might raise as tyrants pass'd, With trembling knees and hearts downcast, While dungeoned victims breathed their last In mingled groans of agony! God save the Queen! Nor were these shouts without the will, Which servile crowds oft send on high, When gold and jewels meet the eye, When pride looks down on poverty, And makes the poor man poorer still! God save the Queen! No!--it was like the thrilling shout-- The joyous sounds of price and praise That patriot hearts are wont to raise, 'Mid cannon's roar and bonfires blaze, When Britain's foes are put to rout-- God save the Queen! For 'mid those sounds, to Britons dear, No dastard selfish thoughts intrude To mar a nation's gratitude: But one soul moves that multitude-- To sing in accents loud and clear-- God save the Queen! Such sounds as these in days of yore, On war-ship's deck and battle plain, Have rung o'er heaps of foemen slain-- And with God's help they'll ring again, When warriors' blood shall flow no more, God save the Queen! God save the Queen! let patriots cry; And palsied be the impious hand Would guide the pen, or wield the brand, Against our glorious Fatherland. Let shouts of freemen rend the sky, God save the Queen!--and Liberty! Reader! my task is ended. APPENDIX A ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION Published by Richard Bentley in 1854 In justice to Mrs. Moodie, it is right to state that being still resident in the far-west of Canada, she has not been able to superintend this work whilst passing through the press. From this circumstance some verbal mistakes and oversights may have occurred, but the greatest care has been taken to avoid them. Although well known as an authoress in Canada, and a member of a family which has enriched English literature with works of very high popularity, Mrs. Moodie is chiefly remembered in this country by a volume of Poems published in 1831, under her maiden name of Susanna Strickland. During the rebellion in Canada, her loyal lyrics, prompted by strong affection for her native country, were circulated and sung throughout the colony, and produced a great effect in rousing an enthusiastic feeling in favour of law and order. Another of her lyrical compositions, the charming Sleigh Song, printed in the present work [at the end of chapter VII], has been extremely popular in Canada. The warmth of feeling which beams through every line, and the touching truthfulness of its details, won for it a reception there as universal as it was favourable. The glowing narrative of personal incident and suffering which she gives in the present work, will no doubt attract general attention. It would be difficult to point out delineations of fortitude under privation, more interesting or more pathetic than those contained in her second volume. London, January 22, 1852 APPENDIX B CANADA: A CONTRAST Introductory Chapter to the First Canadian Edition (1871) In the year 1832 I landed with my husband, J.W. Dunbar Moodie, in Canada. Mr. Moodie was the youngest son of Major Moodie, of Mellsetter, in the Orkney Islands; he was a lieutenant in the 21st Regiment of Fusileers, and had been severely wounded in the night-attack upon Bergen-op-Zoom, in Holland. Not being overgifted with the good things of this world--the younger sons of old British families seldom are--he had, after mature deliberation, determined to try his fortunes in Canada, and settle upon the grant of 400 acres of land ceded by the Government to officers upon half-pay. Emigration, in most cases--and ours was no exception to the general rule--is a matter of necessity, not of choice. It may, indeed, generally be regarded as an act of duty performed at the expense of personal enjoyment, and at the sacrifice of all those local attachments which stamp the scenes in which our childhood grew in imperishable characters upon the heart. Nor is it, until adversity has pressed hard upon the wounded spirit of the sons and daughters of old, but impoverished, families, that they can subdue their proud and rebellious feelings, and submit to make the trial. This was our case, and our motive for emigrating to one of the British colonies can be summed up in a few words. The emigrant's hope of bettering his condition, and securing a sufficient competence to support his family, to free himself from the slighting remarks too often hurled at the poor gentleman by the practical people of the world, which is always galling to a proud man, but doubly so when he knows that the want of wealth constitues the sole difference between him and the more favoured offspring of the same parent stock. In 1830 the tide of emigration flowed westward, and Canada became the great landmark for the rich in hope and poor in purse. Public newspapers and private letters teemed with the almost fabulous advantages to be derived from a settlement in this highly favoured region. Men, who had been doubtful of supporting their families in comfort at home, thought that they had only to land in Canada to realize a fortune. The infection became general. Thousands and tens of thousands from the middle ranks of British society, for the space of three or four years, landed upon these shores. A large majority of these emigrants were officers of the army and navy, with their families: a class perfectly unfitted, by their previous habits and standing in society, for contending with the stern realities of emigrant life in the backwoods. A class formed mainly from the younger scions of great families, naturally proud, and not only accustomed to command, but to recieve implicit obedience from the people under them, are not men adapted to the hard toil of the woodman's life. Nor will such persons submit cheerfully to the saucy familiarity of servants, who, republicans at heart, think themselves quite as good as their employers. Too many of these brave and honest men took up their grants of wild land in remote and unfavourable localities, far from churches, schools, and markets, and fell an easy prey to the land speculators that swarmed in every rising village on the borders of civilization. It was to warn such settlers as these last mentioned, not to take up grants and pitch their tents in the wilderness, and by so doing reduce themselves and their families to hopeless poverty, that my work “Roughing it in the Bush” was written. I gave the experience of the first seven years we passed in the woods, attempting to clear a bush farm, as a warning to others, and the number of persons who have since told me, that my book “told the history” of their own life in the woods, ought to be the best proof to every candid mind that I spoke the truth. It is not by such feeble instruments as the above that Providence works when it seeks to reclaim the waste places of the earth, and make them subservient to the wants and happiness of its creatures. The great Father of the souls and bodies of men knows the arm which wholesome labour from the infancy has made strong, the nerves that have become iron by patient endurance, and He chooses such to send forth into the forest to hew out the rough paths for the advance of civilization. These men became wealthy and prosperous, and are the bones and sinews of a great and rising country. Their labour is wealth, not exhaustion; it produces content, not home-sickness and despair. What the backwoods of Canada are to the industrious and ever-to-be-honoured sons of honest poverty, and what they are to the refined and polished gentleman, these sketches have endeavoured to show. The poor man is in his native element; the poor gentleman totally unfitted, by his previous habits and education, to be a hewer of the forest and a tiller of the soil. What money he brought out with him is lavishly expended during the first two years in paying for labour to clear and fence lands which, from his ignorance of agricultural pursuits, will never make him the least profitable return and barely find coarse food for his family. Of clothing we say nothing. Bare feet and rags are too common in the bush. Now, had the same means and the same labour been employed in the cultivation of a leased farm, or one purchased for a few hundred dollars, near a village, how different would have been the results, not only to the settler, but it would have added greatly to the wealth and social improvement of the country. I am well aware that a great and, I must think, a most unjust prejudice has been felt against my book in Canada because I dared to give my opinion freely on a subject which had engrossed a great deal of my attention; nor do I believe that the account of our failure in the bush ever deterred a single emigrant from coming to the country, as the only circulation it ever had in the colony was chiefly through the volumes that often formed a portion of their baggage. The many who have condemned the work without reading it will be surprised to find that not one word has been said to prejudice intending emigrants from making Canada their home. Unless, indeed, they ascribe the regret expressed at having to leave my native land, so natural in the painful home-sickness which, for several months, preys upon the health and spirits of the dejected exile, to a deep-rooted dislike to the country. So far from this being the case, my love for the country has steadily increased from year to year, and my attachment to Canada is now so strong that I cannot imagine any inducement, short of absolute necessity, which could induce me to leave the colony where as a wife and mother, some of the happiest years of my life have been spent. Contrasting the first years of my life in the bush with Canada as she now is, my mind is filled with wonder and gratitude at the rapid strides she has made towards the fulfilment of a great and glorious destiny. What important events have been brought to pass within the narrow circle of less than forty years! What a difference since _now_ and _then_. The country is the same only in name. Its aspect is wholly changed. The rough has become smooth, the crooked has been made straight, the forests have been converted into fruitful fields, the rude log cabin of the woodsman has been replaced by the handsome, well-appointed homestead, and large populous cities have pushed the small clap-boarded village into the shade. The solitary stroke of the axe that once broke the uniform silence of the vast woods is only heard in remote districts, and is superseded by the thundering tread of the iron horse and the ceaseless panting of the steam-engine in our sawmills and factories. Canada is no longer a child, sleeping in the arms of nature, dependant for her very existence on the fostering care of her illustrious mother. She has outstepped infancy, and is in the full enjoyment of a strong and vigorous youth. What may not we hope for her maturity ere another forty summers have glided down the stream of time! Already she holds in her hand the crown of one of the mightiest empires that the world has seen, or is yet to see. Look at her vast resources--her fine healthy climate--her fruitful soil--the inexhaustible wealth of her pine forests--the untold treasures hidden in her unexplored mines. What other country possesses such an internal navigation for transporting its products from distant Manitoba to the sea, and from thence to every port in the world! If an excellent Government, defended by wise laws, a loyal people, and a free Church, can make people happy and proud of their country, surely we have every reason to rejoice in our new Dominion. When we first came to the country it was a mere struggle for bread to the many, while all the offices of emolument and power were held by a favoured few. The country was rent to pieces by political factions, and a fierce hostility existed between the native born Canadians--the first pioneers of the forest--and the British emigrants, who looked upon each other as mutual enemies, who were seeking to appropriate the larger share of the new country. Those who had settled down in the woods were happily unconscious that these quarrels threatened to destroy the peace of the colony. The insurrection of 1837 came upon them like a thunder clap; they could hardly believe such an incredible tale. Intensely loyal, the emigrant officers rose to a man to defend the British flag and chastise the rebels and their rash leader. In their zeal to uphold British authority, they made no excuse for the wrongs that the dominant party had heaped upon a clever and high-spirited man. To them he was a traitor, and, as such, a public enemy. Yet the blow struck by that injured man, weak as it was, without money, arms, or the necessary munitions of war, and defeated and broken in its first effort, gave freedom to Canada, and laid the foundation of the excellent constitution that we now enjoy. It drew the attention of the Home Government to the many abuses then practised in the colony, and made them aware of its vast importance in a political point of view, and ultimately led to all our great national improvements. The settlement of the long-vexed clergy reserves question, and the establishment of common schools was a great boon to the colony. The opening up of new townships, the making of roads, the establishments of municipal councils in all the old districts, leaving to the citizens the free choice of their own members in the council for the management of their affairs, followed in rapid succession. These changes of course took some years to accomplish, and led to others equally important. The Provincial Exhibitions have done much to improve the agricultural interests, and have led to better and more productive methods of cultivation than were formerly practiced in the Province. The farmer gradually became a wealthy and intelligent landowner, proud of his improved flocks and herds, of his fine horses and handsome homestead. He was able to send his sons to college and his daughters to boarding school, and not uncommonly became an honourable member of the Legislative Council. While the sons of poor gentlemen have generally lost caste and sunk into useless sots, the children of these honest tillers of the soil have steadily risen to the highest class, and have given to Canada some of her best and wisest legislators. Men who rest satisfied with the mere accident of birth for their claims to distinction, without energy and industry to maintain their position in society, are sadly at discount in a country which amply rewards the worker, but leaves the indolent loafer to die in indigence and obscurity. Honest poverty is encouraged, not despised, in Canada. Few of her prosperous men have risen from obscurity to affluence without going through the mill, and therefore have a fellow-feeling for those who are struggling to gain the first rung on the ladder. Men are allowed in this country a freedom enjoyed by few of the more polished countries in Europe--freedom in religion, politics, and speech; freedom to select their own friends and to visit with whom they please without consulting the Mrs. Grundys of society--and they can lead a more independent social life than in the mother country, because less restricted by the conventional prejudices that govern older communities. Few people who have lived many years in Canada and return to England to spend the remainder of their days, accomplish the fact. They almost invariably come back, and why? They feel more independent and happier here; they have no idea what a blessed country it is to live in until they go back and realize the want of social freedom. I have heard this from so many educated people, persons of taste and refinement, that I cannot doubt the truth of their statements. Forty years has accomplished as great a change in the habits and tastes of the Canadian people as it has in the architecture of their fine cities and the appearance of the country. A young Canadian gentleman is as well educated as any of his compeers across the big water, and contrasts very favourably with them. Social and unaffected, he puts on no airs of offensive superiority, but meets a stranger with the courtesy and frankness best calculated to shorten the distance between them and to make his guest feel perfectly at home. Few countries possess a more beautiful female population. The women are elegant in their tastes, graceful in their manners, and naturally kind and affectionate in their dispositions. Good housekeepers, sociable neighbours, and lively and active in speech and movement, they are capital companions and make excellent wives and mothers. Of course there must be exceptions to every rule; but cases of divorce, or desertion of their homes, are so rare an occurrence that it speaks volumes for their domestic worth. Numbers of British officers have chosen their wives in Canada, and I never heard that they had cause to repent of their choice. In common with our American neighbours, we find that the worst members of our community are not Canadian born, but importations from other countries. The Dominion and Local Governments are now doing much to open up the resources of Canada by the Intercolonial and projected Pacific Railways and other Public Works, which, in time, will make a vast tract of land available for cultivation, and furnish homes for multitudes of the starving populations of Europe. And again, the Government of the flourishing Province of Ontario--of which the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald is premier--has done wonders during the last four years by means of its Immigration policy, which has been most successfully carried out by the Hon. John Carling, the Commissioner, and greatly tended to the development of the country. By this policy liberal provision is made for free grants of land to actual settlers, for general education, and for the encouragement of the industrial Arts and Agriculture; by the construction of public roads and the improvement of the internal navigable waters of the province; and by the assistance now given to an economical system of railways connecting these interior waters with the leading railroads and ports on the frontier; and not only are free grants of land given in the districts extending from the eastern to the western extremity of the Province, but one of the best of the new townships has been selected in which the Government is now making roads, and upon each lot is clearing five acres and erecting thereon a small house, which will be granted to heads of families, who, by six annual instalments, will be required to pay back to the Government the cost of these improvements--not exceeding $200, or 40 pounds sterling--when a free patent (or deed) of the land will be given, without any charge whatever, under a protective Homestead Act. This wise and liberal policy would have astonished the Colonial Legislature of 1832, but will, no doubt, speedily give to the Province a noble and progressive back country, and add much to its strength and prosperity. Our busy factories and foundries--our copper, silver, and plumbago mines--our salt and petroleum--the increasing exports of native produce--speak volumes for the prosperity of the Dominion and for the government of those who are at the head of affairs. It only requires the loyal co-operation of an intelligent and enlightened people to render this beautiful and free country the greatest and the happiest upon the face of the earth. When we contrast forest life in Canada forty years ago with the present state of the country, my book will not be without interest and significance. We may truly say, old things have passed away, all things have become new. What an advance in the arts and sciences and in the literature of the country has been made during the last few years. Canada can boast of many good and even distinguished authors, and the love of books and booklore is daily increasing. Institues and literary associations for the encouragement of learning are now to be found in all the cities and large towns in the Dominion. We are no longer dependent upon the States for the reproduction of the works of celebrated authors; our own publishers, both in Toronto and Montreal, are furnishing our handsome bookstores with volumes that rival, in cheapness and typographical excellence, the best issues from the large printing establishments in America. We have no lack of native talent or books, or of intelligent readers to appreciate them. Our print shops are full of the well-educated designs of native artists. And the grand scenery of our lakes and forests, transferred to canvas, adorns the homes of our wealthy citizens. We must not omit in this slight sketch to refer to the number of fine public buildings which meet us at every turn, most of which have been designed and executed by native architects. Montreal can point to her Victoria Bridge, and challenge the world to produce its equal. This prodigy of mechanical skill should be a sufficient inducement to strangers from other lands to visit our shores, and though designed by the son of the immortal George Stephenson, it was Canadian hands that helped him to execute his great project--to raise that glorious monument to his fame, which we hope, will outlast a thousand years. Our new Houses of Parliment, our churches, banks, public halls, asylums for the insane, the blind, and the deaf and dumb are buildings which must attract the attention of every intelligent traveller; and when we consider the few brief years that have elapsed since the Upper Province was reclaimed from the wilderness, our progress in mechanical arts, and all the comforts which pertain to modern civilization, is unprecedented in the history of older nations. If the Canadian people will honestly unite in carrying out measures proposed by the Government for the good of the country, irrespective of self-interest and party prejudices, they must, before the close of the present century, become a great and prosperous nationality. May the blessing of God rest upon Canada and the Canadian people! Susanna Moodie Belleville, 1871 APPENDIX C JEANIE BURNS [This chapter was originally intended by Mrs. Moodie for inclusion in the first edition of Roughing it in the Bush but was instead published in the periodical Bentley's Miscellany, in August 1852. It was later revised and included in the book Life in the Clearings versus the Bush by the same author.] “Ah, human hearts are strangely cast, Time softens grief and pain; Like reeds that shiver in the blast, They bend to rise again. “But she in silence bowed her head, To none her sorrow would impart; Earth's faithful arms enclose the dead, And hide for aye her broken heart!” Our man James came to me to request the loan of one of the horses, to attend a funeral. M---- was absent on business, and the horses and the man's time were both greatly needed to prepare the land for the fall crops. I demurred; James looked anxious and disappointed; and the loan of the horse was at length granted, but not without a strict injunction that he should return to his work the moment the funeral was over. He did not come back until late that evening. I had just finished my tea, and was nursing my wrath at his staying out the whole day, when the door of the room (we had but one, and that was shared in common with the servants) opened, and the delinquent at last appeared. He hung up the new English saddle, and sat down by the blazing hearth without speaking a word. “What detained you so long, James? You ought to have had half an acre of land, at least, ploughed to-day.” “Verra true, mistress. It was nae fau't o' mine. I had mista'en the hour. The funeral didna' come in afore sun-down, and I cam' awa' directly it was ower.” “Was it any relation of yours?” “Na, na, jist a freend, an auld acquaintance, but nane o' mine ain kin. I never felt sare sad in a' my life, as I ha' dune this day. I ha' seen the clods piled on mony a heid, and never felt the saut tear in my e'en. But, puir Jeanie! puir lass. It was a sair sight to see them thrown doon upon her.” My curiosity was excited; I pushed the tea-things from me, and told Bell to give James his supper. “Naething for me the night, Bell--I canna' eat--my thoughts will a' rin on that puir lass. Sae young--sae bonnie, an' a few months ago as blythe as a lark, an' now a clod o' the earth. Hout we maun all dee when our ain time comes; but, somehow, I canna' think that Jeanie ought to ha' gane sae sune.” “Who is Jeanie Burns? Tell me, James, something about her.” In compliance with my request, the man gave me the following story. I wish I could convey it in his own words, but though I can perfectly understand the Scotch dialect when spoken, I could not write it in its charming simplicity: that honest, truthful brevity, which is so characteristic of this noble people. The smooth tones of the blarney may flatter our vanity, and please us for the moment; but who places any confidence in those by whom it is employed. We know that it is only uttered to cajole and deceive, and when the novelty wears off, the repetition awakens indignation and disgust; but who mistrusts the blunt, straightforward speech of the land of Burns--for good or ill, it strikes home to the heart. “Jeanie Burns was the daughter of a respectable shoemaker, who gained a comfortable living by his trade in a small town in Ayrshire. Her father, like herself, was an only child, and followed the same vocation, and wrought under the same roof that his father had done before him. The elder Burns had met with many reverses, and now helpless and blind, was entirely dependent upon the charity of his son. Honest Jock had not married until late in life, that he might more comfortably provide for the wants of his aged parent. His mother had been dead for some years. She was a meek, pious woman, and Jock quaintly affirmed, 'That it had pleased the Lord to provide a better inheritance for his dear auld mither than his arm could win, proud and happy as he would have been to have supported her when she was no longer able to work for him.' “Jock's paternal love was repaid at last; chance threw in his way a cannie young lass, baith guid and bonnie: they were united, and Jeanie was the sole fruit of this marriage. But Jeanie proved a host in herself, and grew up the best natured, the prettiest, and the most industrious lass in the village, and was a general favourite both with young and old. She helped her mother in the house, bound shoes for her father, and attended to all the wants of her dear old grandfather, Saunders Burns; who was so much attached to his little handmaid, that he was never happy when she was absent. “Happiness is not a flower of long growth in this world; it requires the dew and sunlight of heaven to nourish it, and it soon withers, removed from its native skies. The cholera visited the remote village. It smote the strong man in the pride of his strength, and the matron in the beauty of her prime; while it spared the helpless and the aged, the infant of a few days, and the parent of many years. Both Jeanie's parents fell victims to the fatal disease, and the old blind Saunders and the young Jeanie were left to fight alone a hard battle with poverty and grief. The truly deserving are never entirely forsaken. God may afflict them with many trials, but he watches over them still, and often provides for their wants in a manner truly miraculous. Sympathizing friends gathered round the orphan girl in her hour of need, and obtained for her sufficient employment to enable her to support her old grandfather and herself, and provide for them the common necessaries of life. “Jeannie was an excellent sempstress, and what between making waistcoats and trousers for the tailors and binding shoes for the shoemakers, a business that she thoroughly understood, she soon had her little hired room neatly furnished, and her grandfather as clean and spruce as ever. When she led him into the kirk of a Sabbath morning, all the neighbours greeted the dutiful daughter with an approving smile, and the old man looked so serene and happy that Jeanie was fully repaid for her labours of love. “Her industry and piety often formed the theme of conversation to the young lads of the village. 'What a guid wife Jeanie Burns will mak',' cried one. 'Aye,' said another, 'he need na complain of ill-fortin, who has the luck to get the like o' her.' “'An' she's sae bonnie,' would Willie Robertson add with a sigh. 'I would na' covet the wealth o' the hale world an she were mine.' “Willie was a fine active young man, who bore an excellent character, and his comrades thought it very likely that Willie was to be the fortunate man. “Robertson was the youngest son of a farmer in the neighbourhood. He had no land of his own, and he was one of a very large family. From a boy he had assisted his father in working the farm for their common maintenance; but after he took to looking at Jeanie Burns at kirk, instead of minding his prayers, he began to wish that he had a homestead of his own, which he could ask Jeanie and her grandfather to share. He made his wishes known to his father. The old man was prudent. A marriage with Jeanie Burns offered no advantages in a pecuniary view. But the girl was a good honest girl, of whom any man might be proud. He had himself married for love, and had enjoyed great comfort in his wife. “'Willie, my lad,' he said, 'I canna' gi'e ye a share o' the farm. It is ower sma' for the mony mouths it has to feed. I ha'e laid by a little siller for a rainy day, an' this I will gi'e ye to win a farm for yersel' in the woods o' Canada. There is plenty o' room there, an' industry brings its ain reward. If Jeanie Burns lo'es you, as weel as yer dear mither did me, she will be fain to follow you there.' “Willie grasped his father's hand, for he was too much elated to speak, and he ran away to tell his tale of love to the girl of his heart. Jeanie had long loved Robertson in secret, and they were not long in settling the matter. They forgot in their first moments of joy that old Saunders had to be consulted, for they had determined to take the old man with them. But here an obstacle occurred of which they had not dreamed. Old age is selfish, and Saunders obstinately refused to comply with their wishes. The grave that held the remains of his wife and son was dearer to him than all the comforts promised to him by the impatient lovers in that far foreign land. Jeanie wept--but Saunders, deaf and blind, neither heard nor saw her grief, and, like a dutiful child, she breathed no complaint to him, but promised to remain with him until his head rested upon the same pillow with the dead. “This was a sore and great trial to Willie Robertson, but he consoled himself for his disappointment with the thought that Saunders could not live long, and that he would go and prepare a place for his Jean, and have everything ready for her reception against the old man died. “'I was a cousin of Willie's,' continued James, 'by the mither's side, and he persuaded me to accompany him to Canada. We set sail the first day of May, and were here in time to chop a small fallow for a fall crop. Willie Robertson had more of this world's gear than I, for his father had provided him with sufficient funds to purchase a good lot of wild land, which he did in the township of M----, and I was to work with him on shares. We were one of the first settlers in that place, and we found the work before us rough and hard to our heart's content. But Willie had a strong motive for exertion--and never did man work harder than he did that first year on his bush-farm, for the love of Jeanie Burns.' “We built a comfortable log-house, in which we were assisted by the few neighbours we had, who likewise lent a hand in clearing ten acres we had chopped for fall crop. “All this time Willie kept up a constant correspondence with Jeanie Burns, and he used to talk to me of her coming out, and his future plans, every night when our work was done. If I had not loved and respected the girl mysel' I should have got unco' tired o' the subject. “We had just put in our first crop of wheat, when a letter came from Jeanie bringing us the news of her grandfather's death. Weel I ken the word that Willie spak' to me when he closed that letter. 'Jamie, the auld man is gane at last--an', God forgi'e me, I feel too gladsome to greet. Jeanie is willin' to come whenever I ha'e the means to bring her out, an', hout man, I'm jist thinkin' that she winna' ha'e to wait lang.' “Good workmen were getting very high wages just then, and Willie left the care of the place to me, and hired for three months with auld Squire Jones. He was an excellent teamster, and could put his hand to any sort of work. When his term of service expired he sent Jeanie forty dollars to pay her passage out, which he hoped she would not delay longer than the spring. “He got an answer from Jeanie full of love and gratitude, but she thought that her voyage might be delayed until the fall. The good woman, with whom she had lodged since her parents died, had just lost her husband, and was in a bad state of health, and she begged Jeanie to stay with her until her daughter could leave her service in Edinburgh and come to take charge of the house. This person had been a kind and steadfast friend to Jeanie in all her troubles, and had helped her nurse the old man in his dying illness. I am sure it was just like Jeanie to act as she did. She had all her life looked more to the comforts of others than to her ain. But Robertson was an angry man when he got that letter, and he said, 'If that was a' the lo'e that Jeanie Burns had for him, to prefer an auld woman's comfort, who was naething to her, to her betrothed husband, she might bide awa' as lang as she pleased, he would never trouble himsel' to write to her again.' “I did na' think that the man was in earnest, an' I remonstrated with him on his folly an' injustice. This ended in a sharp quarrel atween us, and I left him to gang his ain gate, an' went to live with my uncle, who kept a blacksmith's forge in the village. “After a while, we heard that Willie Robertson was married to a Canadian woman--neither young nor good-looking, and very much his inferior in every way, but she had a good lot of land in the rear of his farm. Of course I thought that it was all broken off with puir Jeanie, and I wondered what she would spier at the marriage. “It was early in June, and our Canadian woods were in their first flush o' green--an' how green an' lightsome they be in their spring dress--when Jeanie Burns landed in Canada. She travelled her lane up the country, wondering why Willie was not at Montreal to meet her as he had promised in the last letter he sent her. It was late in the afternoon when the steam-boat brought her to C----, and, without waiting to ask any questions respecting him, she hired a man and cart to take her and her luggage to M----. The road through the bush was very heavy, and it was night before they reached Robertson's clearing, and with some difficulty the driver found his way among the logs to the cabin-door. “Hearing the sound of wheels, the wife, a coarse ill-dressed slattern, came out to see what could bring strangers to such an out-o'-the-way place at that late hour. “Puir Jeanie! I can weel imagine the fluttering o' her heart when she spier'd of the woman for ane Willie Robertson, and asked if he was at hame?' “'Yes,' answered the wife gruffly. 'But he is not in from the fallow yet--you may see him up yonder tending the blazing logs.' “While Jeanie was striving to look in the direction which the woman pointed out, and could na' see through the tears that blinded her e'e, the driver jumped down from the cart, and asked the puir girl where he should leave her trunks, as it was getting late, and he must be off? “'You need not bring these big chests in here,' said Mrs. Robertson, 'I have no room in my house for strangers and their luggage.' “'Your house!' gasped Jeanie, catching her arm. 'Did ye na' tell me that _he_ lived here?--and wherever Willie Robertson bides Jeanie Burns sud be a welcome guest. Tell him,' she continued, trembling all ower, for she told me afterwards that there was something in the woman's look and tone that made the cold chills run to her heart, 'that an auld friend from Scotland has jist come off a lang wearisome journey to see him.' “'You may speak for yourself!' cried the woman angrily, 'for my husband is now coming down the clearing.' “The word husband was scarcely out o' her mouth than puir Jeanie fell as ane dead across the door-step. “The driver lifted up the unfortunate girl, carried her into the cabin, and placed her in a chair, regardless of the opposition of Mrs. Robertson, whose jealousy was now fairly aroused, and who declared that the bold huzzie should not enter her doors. “It was a long time before the driver succeeded in bringing Jeanie to herself, and she had only just unclosed her eyes when Willie came in. “'Wife,' he said, 'whose cart is this standing at the door, and what do these people want here?' “'You know best,' cried the angry woman, bursting into tears; 'that creature is no acquaintance of mine, and if she is suffered to remain here, I will leave the house at once.' “'Forgi'e me, gude woman, for having unwittingly offended ye,' said Jeanie, rising. 'But, merciful Father! how sud I ken that Willie Robertson, my ain Willie, had a wife? Oh, Willie!' she cried, covering her face in her hands to hide all the agony that was in her heart. 'I ha' come a lang way, an' a weary to see ye, an' ye might ha' spared me the grief--the burning shame o' this. Farewell, Willie Robertson, I will never mair trouble ye nor her wi' my presence, but this cruel deed of yours has broken my heart!' “She went away weeping, and he had not the courage to detain her, or say one word to comfort her, or account for his strange conduct; yet, if I know him right, that must ha' been the most sorrowfu' moment in his life. “Jeanie was a distant connexion of my uncle's, and she found us out that night, on her return to the village, and told us all her grief. My aunt, who was a kind good woman, was indignant at the treatment she had received; and loved and cherished her as if she had been her own child. “For two whole weeks she kept her bed, and was so ill that the doctor despaired of her life; and when she did come again among us, the colour had faded from her cheeks, and the light from her sweet blue eyes, and she spoke in a low subdued voice, but she never spoke of _him_ as the cause of her grief. “One day she called me aside and said-- “'Jamie, you know how I lo'ed an' trusted _him,_ an' obeyed his ain wishes in comin' out to this strange country to be his wife. But 'tis all over now,' and she pressed her sma' hands tightly over her breast to keep doon the swelling o' her heart. 'Jamie, I know now that it is a' for the best; I lo'ed him too weel--mair than ony creature sud lo'e a perishing thing o' earth. But I thought that he wud be sae glad an' sae proud to see his ain Jeanie sae sune. But, oh!--ah, weel!--I maun na think o' that; what I wud jist say is this,' an' she took a sma' packet fra' her breast, while the tears streamed down her pale cheeks. 'He sent me forty dollars to bring me ower the sea to him--God bless him for that, I ken he worked hard to earn it, for he lo'ed me then--I was na' idle during his absence. I had saved enough to bury my dear auld grandfather, and to pay my ain expenses out, and I thought, like the gude servant in the parable, I wud return Willie his ain with interest; an' I hoped to see him smile at my diligence, an' ca' me his bonnie gude lassie. Jamie, I canna' keep this siller, it lies like a weight o' lead on my heart. Tak' it back to him, an' tell him fra' me, that I forgi'e him a' his cruel deceit, an' pray to God to grant him prosperity, and restore to him that peace o' mind o' which he has robbed me for ever.' “I did as she bade me. Willie looked stupified when I delivered her message. The only remark he made, when I gave him back the money, was, 'I maun be gratefu', man, that she did na' curse me.' The wife came in, and he hid away the packet and slunk off. The man looked degraded in his own eyes, and so wretched, that I pitied him from my very heart. “When I came home, Jeanie met me at my uncle's gate. 'Tell me,' she said in a low anxious voice, 'tell me, cousin Jamie, what passed atween ye. Had he nae word for me?' “'Naething, Jeanie, the man is lost to himsel', to a' who ance wished him weel. He is not worth a decent body's thought.' “She sighed deeply, for I saw that her heart craved after some word fra' him, but she said nae mair, but pale an' sorrowfu', the very ghaist o' her former sel', went back into the house. “From that hour she never breathed his name to ony of us; but we all ken'd that it was her love for him that was preying upon her life. The grief that has nae voice, like the canker-worm, always lies ne'est to the heart. Puir Jeanie! she held out during the simmer, but when the fall came, she just withered awa' like a flower, nipped by the early frost, and this day we laid her in the earth. “After the funeral was ower, and the mourners were all gone, I stood beside her grave, thinking ower the days of my boyhood, when she and I were happy weans, an' used to pu' the gowans together on the heathery hills o' dear auld Scotland. An' I tried in vain to understan' the mysterious providence o' God, who had stricken her, who seemed sae gude and pure, an' spared the like o' me, who was mair deservin' o' his wrath, when I heard a deep groan, an' I saw Willie Robertson standing near me beside the grave. “'Ye may as weel spare your grief noo,' said I, for I felt hard towards him, 'an' rejoice that the weary is at rest.' “'It was I murdered her,' said he, 'an' the thought will haunt me to my last day. Did she remember me on her death bed?' “'Her thoughts were only ken'd by Him who reads the secrets of a' hearts, Willie. Her end was peace, an' her Saviour's blessed name was the last sound upon her lips. But if ever woman died fra' a broken heart, there she lies.' “'Oh, Jeanie!' he cried, 'mine ain darling Jeanie! my blessed lammie! I was na' worthy o' yer love--my heart, too, is breaking. To bring ye back aince mair, I wad lay me down an' dee.' “An' he flung himsel' upon the grave and embraced the fresh clods, and greeted like a child. “When he grew more calm, we had a long conversation about the past, and truly I believe that the man was not in his right senses when he married yon wife; at ony rate, he is not lang for this warld; he has fretted the flesh aff his banes, an' before many months are ower, his heid will lie as low as puir Jeanie Burns's.” While I was pondering this sad story in my mind, Mrs. H---- came in. “You have heard the news, Mrs. M----?” I looked inquiringly. “One of Clark's little boys that were lost last Wednesday in the woods has been found.” “This is the first I have heard about it. How were they lost?” “Oh, 'tis a thing of very common occurrence here. New settlers, who are ignorant of the danger of going astray in the forest, are always having their children lost. This is not the first instance by many that I have known, having myself lived for many years in the bush. I only wonder that it does not more frequently happen. “These little fellows are the sons of a poor man who came out this summer, and who has taken up some wild land about a mile back of us, towards the plains. Clark is busy logging up a small fallow for fall wheat, on which his family must depend for bread during the ensuing year; and he is so anxious to get it ready in time, that he will not allow himself an hour at noon to go home to his dinner, which his wife generally sends in a basket to the woods by his eldest daughter. “Last Wednesday the girl had been sent on an errand by her mother, who thought, in her absence, that she might venture to trust the two boys to take the dinner to their father. The boys were from seven to five years old, and very smart and knowing for their age. They promised to mind all her directions, and went off quite proud of the task, carrying the basket between them. “How they came to ramble away into the woods, the younger child is too much stupified to tell; and perhaps he is too young to remember. At night the father returned, and scolded the wife for not sending his dinner as usual; but the poor woman (who all day had quieted her fears with the belief that the children had stayed with their father), instead of paying any regard to his angry words, demanded, in a tone of agony, what had become of her children? “Tired and hungry as Clark was, in a moment he comprehended their danger, and started off in pursuit of the boys. The shrieks of the distracted woman soon called the neighbours together, who instantly joined in the search. “It was not until this afternoon that any trace could be obtained of the lost children, when Brian, the hunter, found the youngest boy, Johnnie, lying fast asleep upon the trunk of a fallen tree, fifteen miles back in the bush.” “And the other boy?” “Will never, I fear, be heard of again,” said she. “They have searched for him in all directions and have not discovered him. The story little Johnnie tells is to this effect. During the first two days of their absence, the food they had brought in the basket for their father's dinner, sustained life; but to-day it seems that the little Johnnie grew very hungry, and cried continually for bread. William, the elder boy, he says, promised him bread if he would try and walk further; but his feet were bleeding and sore, and he could not stir another step. William told him to sit down upon the log on which he was found, and not stir from the place until he came back, and he would run on until he found a house and brought him something to eat. He then wiped his eyes, and bade him not to be frightened or to cry, and kissed him and went away. “This is all the little fellow knows about his brother; and it is very probable the generous-hearted boy has been eaten by the wolves. The Indians traced him for more than a mile along the banks of a stream, when they lost his trail altogether. If he had fallen into the water, they would have discovered his body, but they say that he has been dragged into some hole in the bank among the tangled cedars and devoured. “Since I have been in the country,” continued Mrs. H----, “I have known many cases of children, and even of grown persons, being lost in the woods, who were never heard of again. It is a frightful calamity to happen to any one, and mothers cannot be too careful in guarding their children against rambling alone into the bush. Persons, when once they lose sight of the beaten track, get frightened and bewildered and lose all presence of mind; and instead of remaining where they are, which is their only chance of being discovered, they plunge desperately on, running hither and thither, in the hope of getting out, while they only involve themselves more deeply among the mazes of the interminable forest. “Two winters ago, the daughter of a settler in the remote township of Dummer, where my husband took up his grant of wild land, went with her father to the mill, which was four miles from their log shanty and the road lay entirely through the bush. For a while the girl, who was about twelve years of age, kept up with her father, who walked briskly ahead with his bag of corn on his back, for, as their path lay through a tangled swamp, he was anxious to get home before night. After a time Sarah grew tired, and lagged a long way behind. The man felt not the least apprehensive when he lost sight of her, expecting that she would soon come up with him again. Once or twice he stopped and shouted, and she answered, 'Coming, father;' and he did not turn to look after her again. He reached the mill--saw the grist ground, resumed his burthen and took the road home, expecting to meet Sarah by the way. He trod the path alone, but still thought that the girl, tired of the long walk, had turned back, and that he should find her safe at home. “You may imagine, Mrs. M----, his consternation and that of the family, when they found that the girl was lost. “It was now dark, and all search for her was given up for the night as hopeless. By day-break the next morning, the whole settlement, which was then confined to a few lonely log tenements inhabited by Cornish miners, were roused from their sleep to assist in the search. “The men turned out with guns and arms, and parties started in different directions. Those who first discovered the girl were to fire their guns, which was to be the signal to guide the rest to the spot. It was not long before they found the object of their search seated under a tree, about half a mile from the path she had lost on the preceding day. “She had been tempted by the beauty of some wild berries to leave the road, and when once in the bush she grew bewildered and could not find her way back. At first she ran to and fro in an agony of terror at finding herself in the woods all alone, and uttered loud and frantic cries, but her father had by this time reached the mill and was out of hearing. “With a sagacity beyond her years and not very common to her class, instead of wandering further into the labyrinth which surrounded her, she sat down under a large tree, covered her face with her apron, said the Lord's Prayer--the only one she knew--and hoped that God would send her father back to find her the moment he discovered that she was lost. “When night came down upon the dark forest (and oh how dark night is in the woods!), the poor girl said, that she felt horribly afraid of being eaten by the wolves which abound in those dreary swamps. But she did not cry, for fear they should hear her. Simple girl! she did not know that the scent of a wolf is far keener that his ear, but that was her notion, and she lay down close to the ground and never once raised her head, for fear of seeing something dreadful standing beside her, until overcome by terror and fatigue she fell fast asleep, and did not awake until roused by the shrill braying of the horns and the shouts of the party who were seeking her.” “What a dreadful situation! I am sure that I should not have had the courage of this poor girl, but should have died with fear.” “We don't know how much we can bear, Mrs. M----, until we are tried. This girl was more fortunate than a boy of the same age, who was lost in the same township, just as the winter set in. The lad was sent by his father, an English settler, in company with two boys of his own age, to be measured for a pair of shoes. George Desne, who followed the double employment of farmer and shoemaker, lived about three miles from the clearing known by the name of the English line. After the lads left the clearing, their road lay entirely through the bush. But it was a path they had often travelled both alone and with their parents, and they felt no fear. “There had been a slight fall of snow, just enough to cover the ground, and the day was clear and frosty. The boys in this country always hail with delight the first fall of snow, and they ran races and slid over all the shallow pools until they reached George Desne's cabin. “He measured young Brown for a strong pair of winter boots, and the boys went on their homeward way, shouting and laughing in the glee of their hearts. “About halfway they suddenly missed their companion, and ran back nearly a mile to find him. Not succeeding in this, they thought that he had hidden behind some of the trees, and pretended to be lost, in order to frighten them, and after shouting at the top of their voices, and receiving no answer, they determined to go home without him. They knew that he was well acquainted with the road, and that it was still broad day, and that he could easily find his way home alone. When his father inquired for George, they said that he was coming, and went to their respective homes. “Night came, and the lad did not return, and his parents began to be alarmed at his absence. Mr. Brown went over to the neighbouring cabins, and made the lads tell him all they knew about his son. They described the place where they first missed him; but they concluded that he had either run home before them, or gone back to spend the night with the young Desnes, who had been very urgent for him to stay. This account pacified the anxious father. Early the next morning he went to Desne's himself to bring home the boy, but the lad had not been there. “His mysterious disappearance gave rise to a thousand strange surmises. The whole settlement turned out in search of the boy. His steps were traced from the road a few yards into the bush, and entirely disappeared at the foot of a large tree. The moss was rubbed from the trunk of the tree, but the tree was lofty, and the branches so far from the ground, that it was almost impossible for any boy, unassisted, to have raised himself to such a height. There was no track of any animal all around in the unbroken snow, no shred of garment or stain of blood,--that boy's fate will ever remain a great mystery, for he was never found.” “He must have been carried up that tree by a bear, and dragged down into the hollow trunk,” said I. “If that had been the case, there would have been the print of the bear's feet in the snow. It does not, however, follow that the boy is dead, though it is more than probable. I knew of a case where two boys and a girl were sent into the woods by their mother to fetch home the cows. The children were lost; the parents mourned them for dead, for all search for them proved fruitless, and after seven years the eldest son returned. They had been overtaken and carried off by a party of Indians, who belonged to a tribe inhabiting the islands in Lake Huron, several hundred miles away from their forest-home. The girl, as she grew into woman, married one of the tribe; the boys followed the occupation of hunters and fishers, and from their dress and appearance might have passed for the red sons of the forest. The eldest boy, however, never forgot the name of his parent, and the manner in which he had been lost, and took the first opportunity of making his escape, and travelling back to the home of his childhood. “When he made himself known to his mother, who was a widow, but still resided upon the same spot, he was so dark and Indian-like, that she could not believe that he was her son, until he brought to her mind a little incident, that, forgotten by her, had never left his memory. “Mother, don't you remember saying to me on that afternoon, 'Ned, you need not look for the cows in the swamp, they went off towards the big hill.' “The delighted mother clasped him in her arms, exclaiming, 'You say truly,--you are indeed my own, my long lost son!'” 
8132	----	Life in the Clearings versus the Bush by Mrs. Moodie Author of "Roughing it in the Bush," &c. "I sketch from Nature, and the draught is true. Whate'er the picture, whether grave or gay, Painful experience in a distant land Made it mine own." TO JOHN WEDDERBURN DUNBAR MOODIE, ESQ. SHERRIFF OF THE COUNTY OF HASTINGS, UPPER CANADA, THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, BY HIS ATTACHED FRIEND AND WIFE, SUSANNA MOODIE Contents Introduction I Belleville II Local Improvements--Sketches of Society III Free Schools--Thoughts on Education IV Amusements V Trials of a Travelling Musician VI The Singing Master VII Camp Meetings VIII Wearing Mourning for the Dead IX Odd Characters X Grace Marks XI Michael Macbride XII Jeanie Burns XIII Lost Children XIV Toronto XV Lunatic Asylum XVI Provincial Agricultural Show XVII Niagara XVIII Goat Island XIX Conclusion INTRODUCTION "Dear foster-mother, on whose ample breast The hungry still find food, the weary rest; The child of want that treads thy happy shore, Shall feel the grasp of poverty no more; His honest toil meet recompense can claim, And Freedom bless him with a freeman's name!" S.M. In our work of "Roughing it in the Bush," I endeavoured to draw a picture of Canadian life, as I found it twenty years ago, in the Backwoods. My motive in giving such a melancholy narrative to the British public, was prompted by the hope of deterring well-educated people, about to settle in this colony, from entering upon a life for which they were totally unfitted by their previous pursuits and habits. To persons unaccustomed to hard labour, and used to the comforts and luxuries deemed indispensable to those moving in the middle classes at home, a settlement in the bush can offer few advantages. It has proved the ruin of hundreds and thousands who have ventured their all in this hazardous experiment; nor can I recollect a single family of the higher class, that have come under my own personal knowledge, that ever realised an independence, or bettered their condition, by taking up wild lands in remote localities; while volumes might be filled with failures, even more disastrous than our own, to prove the truth of my former statements. But while I have endeavoured to point out the error of gentlemen bringing delicate women and helpless children to toil in the woods, and by so doing excluding them from all social intercourse with persons in their own rank, and depriving the younger branches of the family of the advantages of education, which, in the vicinity of towns and villages, can be enjoyed by the children of the poorest emigrant, I have never said anything against the REAL benefits to be derived from a judicious choice of settlement in this great and rising country. God forbid that any representations of mine should deter one of my countrymen from making this noble and prosperous colony his future home. But let him leave to the hardy labourer the place assigned to him by Providence, nor undertake, upon limited means, the task of pioneer in the great wilderness. Men of independent fortune can live anywhere. If such prefer a life in the woods, to the woods let them go; but they will soon find out that they could have employed the means in their power in a far more profitable manner than in chopping down trees in the bush. There are a thousand more advantageous ways in which a man of property may invest his capital, than by burying himself and his family in the woods. There never was a period in the history of the colony that offered greater inducements to men of moderate means to emigrate to Canada than the present. The many plank-roads and railways in the course of construction in the province, while they afford high and remunerative wages to the working classes, will amply repay the speculator who embarks a portion of his means in purchasing shares in them. And if he is bent upon becoming a Canadian farmer, numbers of fine farms, in healthy and eligible situations, and in the vicinity of good markets, are to be had on moderate terms, that would amply repay the cultivator for the money and labour expended upon them. There are thousands of independent proprietors of this class in Canada--men who move in the best society, and whose names have a political weight in the country. Why gentlemen from Britain should obstinately crowd to the Backwoods, and prefer the coarse, hard life of an axeman, to that of a respectable landed proprietor in a civilised part of the country, has always been to me a matter of surprise; for a farm under cultivation can always be purchased for less money than must necessarily be expended upon clearing and raising buildings upon a wild lot. Many young men are attracted to the Backwoods by the facilities they present for hunting and fishing. The wild, free life of the hunter, has for an ardent and romantic temperament an inexpressible charm. But hunting and fishing, however fascinating as a wholesome relaxation from labour, will not win bread, or clothe a wife and shivering little ones; and those who give themselves entirely up to such pursuits, soon add to these profitless accomplishments the bush vices of smoking and drinking, and quickly throw off those moral restraints upon which their respectability and future welfare mainly depend. The bush is the most demoralizing place to which an anxious and prudent parent could send a young lad. Freed suddenly from all parental control, and exposed to the contaminating influence of broken-down gentlemen loafers, who hide their pride and poverty in the woods, he joins in their low debauchery, and falsely imagines that, by becoming a blackguard, he will be considered an excellent backwoodsman. How many fine young men have I seen beggared and ruined in the bush! It is too much the custom in the woods for the idle settler, who will not work, to live upon the new comer as long as he can give him good fare and his horn of whisky. When these fail, farewell to your _good-hearted_, roystering friends; they will leave you like a swarm of musquitoes, while you fret over your festering wounds, and fly to suck the blood of some new settler, who is fool enough to believe their offers of friendship. The dreadful vice of drunkenness, of which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter, is nowhere displayed in more revolting colours, or occurs more frequently, than in the bush; nor is it exhibited by the lower classes in so shameless a manner as by the gentlemen settlers, from whom a better example might be expected. It would not be difficult to point out the causes which too often lead to these melancholy results. Loss of property, incapacity for hard labour, yielding the mind to low and degrading vices, which destroy self-respect and paralyse honest exertion, and the annihilation of those extravagant hopes that false statements, made by interested parties, had led them to entertain of fortunes that might be realised in the woods: these are a few among the many reasons that could be given for the number of victims that yearly fill a drunkard's dishonourable grave. At the period when the greatest portion of "Roughing it in the Bush" was written, I was totally ignorant of life in Canada, as it existed in the towns and villages. Thirteen years' residence in one of the most thriving districts in the Upper Province has given me many opportunities of becoming better acquainted with the manners and habits of her busy, bustling population, than it was possible for me ever to obtain in the green prison of the woods. Since my residence in a settled part of the country, I have enjoyed as much domestic peace and happiness as ever falls to the lot of poor humanity. Canada has become almost as dear to me as my native land; and the homesickness that constantly preyed upon me in the Backwoods, has long ago yielded to the deepest and most heartfelt interest in the rapidly increasing prosperity and greatness of the country of my adoption,--the great foster-mother of that portion of the human family, whose fatherland, however dear to them, is unable to supply them with bread. To the honest sons of labour Canada is, indeed, an El Dorado--a land flowing with milk and honey; for they soon obtain that independence which the poor gentleman struggles in vain to realise by his own labour in the woods. The conventional prejudices that shackle the movements of members of the higher classes in Britain are scarcely recognised in Canada; and a man is at liberty to choose the most profitable manner of acquiring wealth, without the fear of ridicule and the loss of caste. The friendly relations which now exist between us and our enterprising, intelligent American neighbours, have doubtless done much to produce this amalgamation of classes. The gentleman no longer looks down with supercilious self-importance on the wealthy merchant, nor does the latter refuse to the ingenious mechanic the respect due to him as a man. A more healthy state pervades Canadian society than existed here a few years ago, when party feeling ran high, and the professional men and office holders visited exclusively among themselves, affecting airs of aristocratic superiority, which were perfectly absurd in a new country, and which gave great offence to those of equal wealth who were not admitted into their clique. Though too much of this spirit exists in the large cities, such as Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto, it would not be tolerated in the small district towns and villages, where a gentleman could not take a surer method of making himself unpopular than by exhibiting this feeling to his fellow-townsmen. I have been repeatedly asked, since the publication of "Roughing it in the Bush," to give an account of the present state of society in the colony, and to point out its increasing prosperity and commercial advantages; but statistics are not my forte, nor do I feel myself qualified for such an arduous and important task. My knowledge of the colony is too limited to enable me to write a comprehensive work on a subject of vital consequence, which might involve the happiness of others. But what I do know I will endeavour to sketch with a light pencil; and if I cannot convey much useful information, I will try to amuse the reader; and by a mixture of prose and poetry compile a small volume, which may help to while away an idle hour, or fill up the blanks of a wet day. Belleville, Canada West, Nov. 24th, 1852. Indian Summer. By the purple haze that lies On the distant rocky height, By the deep blue of the skies, By the smoky amber light, Through the forest arches streaming. Where nature on her throne sits dreaming, And the sun is scarcely gleaming Through the cloudlet's snowy white, Winter's lovely herald greets us, Ere the ice-crown'd tyrant meets us. A mellow softness fills the air-- No breeze on wanton wing steals by, To break the holy quiet there, Or make the waters fret and sigh. Or the golden alders shiver, That bend to kiss the placid river, Flowing on and on for ever; But the little waves seem sleeping, O'er the pebbles slowly creeping, That last night were flashing, leaping, Driven by the restless breeze, In lines of foam beneath yon trees. Dress'd in robes of gorgeous hue-- Brown and gold with crimson blent, The forest to the waters blue Its own enchanting tints has lent. In their dark depths, life-like glowing, We see a second forest growing, Each pictur'd leaf and branch bestowing A fairy grace on that twin wood, Mirror'd within the crystal flood. 'Tis pleasant now in forest shades;-- The Indian hunter strings his bow To track, through dark entangled glades, The antler'd deer and bounding doe; Or launch at night his birch canoe, To spear the finny tribes that dwell On sandy bank, in weedy cell, Or pool the fisher knows right well,-- Seen by the red and livid glow Of pine-torch at his vessel's bow. This dreamy Indian summer-day Attunes the soul to tender sadness: We love, but joy not in the ray,-- It is not summer's fervid gladness, But a melancholy glory Hov'ring brightly round decay, Like swan that sings her own sad story, Ere she floats in death away. The day declines.--What splendid dyes, In flicker'd waves of crimson driven, Float o'er the saffron sea, that lies Glowing within the western heaven! Ah, it is a peerless even! See, the broad red sun has set, But his rays are quivering yet Through nature's veil of violet, Streaming bright o'er lake and hill; But earth and forest lie so still-- We start, and check the rising tear, 'Tis beauty sleeping on her bier. LIFE IN THE CLEARINGS VERSUS THE BUSH CHAPTER I Belleville "The land of our adoption claims Our highest powers,--our firmest trust-- May future ages blend our names With hers, when we shall sleep in dust. Land of our sons!--last-born of earth, A mighty nation nurtures thee; The first in moral power and worth,-- Long mayst thou boast her sovereignty! Union is strength, while round the boughs Of thine own lofty maple-tree; The threefold wreath of Britain flows, Twined with the graceful fleur-de-lis; A chaplet wreathed mid smiles and tears, In which all hues of glory blend; Long may it bloom for future years, And vigour to thy weakness lend." Year after year, during twenty years' residence in the colony, I had indulged the hope of one day visiting the Falls of Niagara, and year after year, for twenty long years, I was doomed to disappointment. For the first ten years, my residence in the woods of Douro, my infant family, and last, not least, among the list of objections, that great want,--the want of money,--placed insuperable difficulties in the way of my ever accomplishing this cherished wish of my heart. The hope, resigned for the present, was always indulged as a bright future--a pleasant day-dream--an event which at some unknown period, when happier days should dawn upon us, might take place; but which just now was entirely out of the question. When the children were very importunate for a new book or toy, and I had not the means of gratifying them, I used to silence them by saying that I would buy that and many other nice things for them when "our money cart came home." During the next ten years, this all-important and anxiously anticipated vehicle did not arrive. The children did not get their toys, and my journey to Niagara was still postponed to an indefinite period. Like a true daughter of romance, I could not banish from my mind the glorious ideal I had formed of this wonder of the world; but still continued to speculate about the mighty cataract, that sublime "thunder of waters," whose very name from childhood had been music to my ears. Ah, Hope! what would life be, stripped of thy encouraging smiles, that teach us to look behind the dark clouds of to-day for the golden beams that are to gild the morrow. To those who have faith in thy promises, the most extravagant fictions are possible; and the unreal becomes material and tangible. The artist who placed thee upon the rock with an anchor for a leaning post, could never have experienced any of thy vagrant propensities. He should have invested thee with the rainbow of Iris, the winged feet of Mercury, and the upward pointing finger of Faith; and as for thy footstool, it should be a fleecy white cloud, changing its form with the changing breeze. Yet this hope of mine, of one day seeing the Falls of Niagara, was, after all, a very enduring hope; for though I began to fear that it never would be realized, yet, for twenty years, I never gave it up entirely; and Patience, who always sits at the feet of Hope, was at length rewarded by her sister's consenting smile. During the past summer I was confined, by severe indisposition, almost entirely to the house. The obstinate nature of my disease baffled the skill of a very clever medical attendant, and created alarm and uneasiness in my family: and I entertained small hopes of my own recovery. Dr. L---, as a last resource, recommended change of air and scene; a remedy far more to my taste than the odious drugs from which I had not derived the least benefit. Ill and languid as I was, Niagara once more rose before my mental vision, and I exclaimed, with a thrill of joy, "The time is come at last--I shall yet see it before I die." My dear husband was to be the companion of my long journey in search of health. Our simple arrangements were soon made, and on the 7th of September we left Belleville in the handsome new steam-boat, "The Bay of Quinte," for Kingston. The afternoon was cloudless, the woods just tinged with their first autumnal glow, and the lovely bay, and its fairy isles, never appeared more enchanting in my eyes. Often as I had gazed upon it in storm and shine, its blue transparent waters seemed to smile upon me more lovingly than usual. With affectionate interest I looked long and tenderly upon the shores we were leaving. There stood my peaceful, happy home; the haven of rest to which Providence had conducted me after the storms and trials of many years. Within the walls of that small stone cottage, peeping forth from its screen of young hickory trees, I had left three dear children,--God only could tell whether we should ever meet on earth again: I knew that their prayers would follow me on my long journey, and the cherub Hope was still at my side, to whisper of happy hours and restored health and spirits. I blessed God, for the love of those young kindred hearts, and for having placed their home in such a charming locality. Next to the love of God, the love of nature may be regarded as the purest and holiest feeling of the human breast. In the outward beauty of his creation, we catch a reflection of the divine image of the Creator, which refines the intellect, and lifts the soul upward to Him. This innate perception of the beautiful, however, is confined to no rank or situation, but is found in the most barren spots, and surrounded by the most unfavourable circumstances; wherever the sun shines and warms, or the glory of the moon and stars can be seen at night, the children of genius will find a revelation of God in their beams. But there is not a doubt that those born and brought up among scenes of great natural sublimity and beauty, imbibe this feeling in a larger degree, and their minds are more easily imbued with the glorious colouring of romance,--the inspired visions of the poet. Dear patient reader! whether of British or Canadian origin, as I wish to afford you all the amusement in my power, deign to accompany me on my long journey. Allow me a woman's privilege of talking of all sorts of things by the way. Should I tire you with my desultory mode of conversation, bear with me charitably, and take into account the infirmities incidental to my gossiping sex and age. If I dwell too long upon some subjects, do not call me a bore, or vain and trifling, if I pass too lightly over others. The little knowledge I possess, I impart freely, and wish that it was more profound and extensive, for your sake. Come, and take your seat with me on the deck of the steamer; and as we glide over the waters of this beautiful Bay of Quinte, I will make you acquainted with every spot worthy of note along its picturesque shores. An English lady, writing to me not long ago, expressed her weariness of my long stories about the country of my adoption, in the following terms:--"Don't fill your letters to me with descriptions of Canada. Who, _in England_, thinks anything of _Canada!_" Here the pride so common to the inhabitants of the favoured isles spoke out. This is perhaps excusable in those who boast that they belong to a country that possesses, in an eminent degree, the attributes bestowed by old Jacob on his first-born,--"the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power." But, to my own thinking, it savoured not a little of arrogance, and still more of ignorance, in the fair writer; who, being a woman of talent, should have known better. A child is not a man, but his progress is regarded with more attention on that account; and his future greatness is very much determined by the progress he makes in his youth. To judge Canada by the same standard, she appears to be a giant for her years, and well worthy the most serious contemplation. Many are the weary, overtasked minds in that great, wealthy, and powerful England, that turn towards this flourishing colony their anxious thoughts, and would willingly exchange the golden prime of the mother country for the healthy, vigorous young strength of this, her stalwart child, and consider themselves only too happy in securing a home upon these free and fertile shores. Be not discouraged, brave emigrant. Let Canada still remain the bright future in your mind, and hasten to convert your present day-dream into reality. The time is not far distant when she shall be the theme of many tongues, and the old nations of the world will speak of her progress with respect and admiration. Her infancy is past, she begins to feel her feet, to know her own strength, and see her way clearly through the wilderness. Child as you may deem her, she has already battled bravely for her own rights, and obtained the management of her own affairs. Her onward progress is certain. There is no _if_ in her case. She possesses within her own territory all the elements of future prosperity, and _she must be great!_ The men who throng her marts, and clear her forests, are _workers_, not _dreamers_,--who have already realized Solomon's pithy proverb, "In all labour is profit;" and their industry has imbued them with a spirit of independence which cannot fail to make them a free and enlightened people. An illustration of the truth of what I advance, can be given in the pretty town we are leaving on the north side of the bay. I think you will own with me that your eyes have seldom rested upon a spot more favoured by Nature, or one that bids fairer to rise to great wealth and political importance. Sixty years ago, the spot that Belleville now occupies was in the wilderness; and its rapid, sparkling river and sunny upland slopes (which during the lapse of ages have formed a succession of banks to the said river), were only known to the Indian hunter and the white trader. Where you see those substantial stone wharfs, and the masts of those vessels, unloading their valuable cargoes to replenish the stores of the wealthy merchants in the town, a tangled cedar swamp spread its dark, unwholesome vegetation into the bay, completely covering with an impenetrable jungle those smooth verdant plains, now surrounded with neat cottages and gardens. Of a bright summer evening (and when is a Canadian summer evening otherwise?) those plains swarm with happy, healthy children, who assemble there to pursue their gambols beyond the heat and dust of the town; or to watch with eager eyes the young men of the place engaged in the manly old English game of cricket, with whom it is, in their harmless boasting, "Belleville against Toronto-Cobourg; Kingston, the whole world." The editor of a Kingston paper once had the barbarity to compare these valiant champions of the bat and ball to "singed cats--ugly to look at, but very devils to go." Our lads have never forgiven the insult; and should the said editor ever show his face upon their ground, they would kick him off with as little ceremony as they would a spent ball. On that high sandy ridge that overlooks the town eastward--where the tin roof of the Court House, a massy, but rather tasteless building, and the spires of four churches catch the rays of the sun--a tangled maze of hazel bushes, and wild plum and cherry, once screened the Indian burying-ground, and the children of the red hunter sought for strawberries among the long grass and wild flowers that flourish profusely in that sandy soil. Would that you could stand with me on that lofty eminence and look around you! The charming prospect that spreads itself at your feet would richly repay you for toiling up the hill. We will suppose ourselves standing among the graves in the burying-ground of the English church; the sunny heavens above us, the glorious waters of the bay, clasping in their azure belt three-fourths of the landscape, and the quiet dead sleeping at our feet. The white man has so completely supplanted his red brother, that he has appropriated the very spot that held his bones; and in a few years their dust will mingle together, although no stone marks the grave where the red man sleeps. From this churchyard you enjoy the finest view of the town and surrounding country; and, turn your eyes which way you will, they cannot fail to rest on some natural object of great interest and beauty. The church itself is but a homely structure; and has always been to me a great eyesore. It is to be regretted that the first inhabitants of the place selected their best and most healthy building sites for the erection of places of worship. Churches and churchyards occupy the hills from whence they obtain their springs of fresh water,--and such delicious water! They do not at present feel any ill-consequences arising from this error of judgment; but the time will come, as population increases, and the dead accumulate, when these burying-grounds, by poisoning the springs that flow through them, will materially injure the health of the living. The English church was built many years ago, partly of red brick burnt in the neighbourhood, and partly of wood coloured red to make up the deficiency of the costlier material. This seems a shabby saving, as abundance of brick-earth of the best quality abounds in the same hill, and the making of bricks forms a very lucrative and important craft to several persons in the town. Belleville was but a small settlement on the edge of the forest, scarcely deserving the name of a village, when this church first pointed its ugly tower towards heaven. Doubtless its founders thought they had done wonders when they erected this humble looking place of worship; but now, when their descendants have become rich, and the village of log-huts and frame buildings has grown into a populous, busy, thriving town, and this red, tasteless building is too small to accommodate its congregation, it should no longer hold the height of the hill, but give place to a larger and handsomer edifice. Behold its Catholic brother on the other side of the road; how much its elegant structure and graceful spire adds to the beauty of the scene. Yet the funds for rearing that handsome building, which is such an ornament to the town, were chiefly derived from small subscriptions, drawn from the earnings of mechanics, day-labourers, and female servants. If the Church of England were supported throughout the colony, on the voluntary principle, we should soon see fine stone churches, like St. Michael, replacing these decaying edifices of wood, and the outcry about the ever-vexed question of the Clergy Reserves, would be merged in her increased influence and prosperity. The deep-toned, sonorous bell, that fills the steeple of the Catholic church, which cost, I have been told, seven hundred pounds, and was brought all the way from Spain, was purchased by the voluntary donations of the congregation. This bell is remarkable for its fine tone, which can be heard eight miles into the country, and as far as the village of Northport, eleven miles distant, on the other side of the bay. There is a solemn grandeur in the solitary voice of the magnificent bell, as it booms across the valley in which the town lies, and reverberates among the distant woods and hills, which has a very imposing effect. A few years ago the mechanics in the town entered into an agreement that they would only work from six to six during the summer months, and from seven till five in the winter, and they offered to pay a certain sum to the Catholic church for tolling the bell at the said hours. The Catholic workmen who reside in or near the town, adhere strictly to this rule, and, if the season is ever so pressing, they obstinately refuse to work before or after the stated time. I have seen, on our own little farm, the mower fling down his scythe in the swathe, and the harvest-man his sickle in the ridge, the moment the bell tolled for six. In fact, the bell in this respect is looked upon as a great nuisance; and the farmers in the country refuse to be guided by it in the hours allotted for field labour; as they justly remark that the best time for hard work in a hot country is before six in the morning, and after the heat of the day in the evening. When the bell commences to toll there is a long pause between each of the first four strokes. This is to allow the pious Catholic time for crossing himself and saying a short prayer. How much of the ideal mingles with this worship! No wonder that the Irish, who are such an imaginative people, should cling to it with such veneration. Would any other creed suit them as well? It is a solemn thing to step into their churches, and witness the intensity of their devotions. Reason never raises a doubt to shake the oneness of their faith. They receive it on the credit of their priests, and their credulity is as boundless as their ignorance. Often have I asked the poor Catholics in my employ why such and such days were holy days? They could seldom tell me, but said that "the priest told them to keep them holy, and to break them would be a deadly sin." I cannot but respect their child-like trust, and the reverence they feel for their spiritual teachers; nor could I ever bring myself to believe that a conscientious Catholic was in any danger of rejection from the final bar. He has imposed upon himself a heavier yoke than the Saviour kindly laid upon him, and has enslaved himself with a thousand superstitious observances which to us appear absurd; but his sincerity should awaken in us an affectionate interest in his behalf, not engender the bitter hatred which at present forms an adamantine barrier between us. If the Protestant would give up a little of his bigotry, and the Catholic a part of his superstition, and they would consent to meet each other half way, as brothers of one common manhood, inspired by the same Christian hope, and bound to the same heavenly country, we should no longer see the orange banner flaunting our streets on the twelfth of July, and natives of the same island provoking each other to acts of violence and bloodshed. These hostile encounters are of yearly occurrence in the colony, and are justly held in abhorrence by the pious and thinking portion of the population of either denomination. The government has for many years vainly endeavoured to put them down, but they still pollute with their moral leprosy the free institutions of the country, and effectually prevent any friendly feeling which might grow up between the members of these rival and hostile creeds. In Canada, where all religions are tolerated, it appears a useless aggravation of an old national grievance to perpetuate the memory of the battle of the Boyne. What have we to do with the hatreds and animosities of a more barbarous age. These things belong to the past: "Let the dead bury their dead," and let us form for ourselves a holier and truer present. The old quarrel between Irish Catholics and Protestants should have been sunk in the ocean when they left their native country to find a home, unpolluted by the tyrannies of bygone ages, in the wilds of Canada. The larger portion of our domestics are from Ireland, and, as far as my experience goes, I have found the Catholic Irish as faithful and trustworthy as the Protestants. The tendency to hate belongs to the race, not to the religion, or the Protestant would not exhibit the same vindictive spirit which marks his Catholic brother. They break and destroy more than the Protestants, but that springs from the reckless carelessness of their character more than from any malice against their employers, if you may judge by the bad usage they give their own household goods and tools. The principle on which they live is literally to care as little as possible for the things of to-day, and to take no thought at all for the morrow. "Shure, Ma'am, it can be used," said an Irish girl to me, after breaking the spout out of an expensive china jug, "It is not a hair the worse!" She could not imagine that a mutilated object could occasion the least discomfort to those accustomed to order and neatness in their household arrangements. The Irish female servants are remarkably chaste in their language and deportment. You are often obliged to find fault with them for gross acts of neglect and wastefulness, but never for using bad language. They may spoil your children by over-indulgence, but they never corrupt their morals by loose conversation. An Irish girl once told me, with beautiful simplicity, "that every bad word a woman uttered, made the blessed Virgin _blush_." A girl becoming a mother before marriage is regarded as a dreadful calamity by her family, and she seldom, if ever, gets one of her own countrymen to marry her with this stain on her character. How different is the conduct of the female peasantry in the eastern counties of England, who unblushingly avow their derelictions from the paths of virtue. The crime of infanticide, so common there, is almost unknown among the Irish. If the priest and the confessional are able to restrain the lower orders from the commission of gross crime, who shall say that they are without their use? It is true that the priest often exercises his power over his flock in a manner which would appear to a Protestant to border on the ludicrous. A girl who lived with a lady of my acquaintance, gave the following graphic account of an exhortation delivered by the priest at the altar. I give it in her own words:-- "Shure, Ma'am, we got a great scould from the praste the day." "Indeed, Biddy, what did he scold you for?" "Faix, and it's not meself that he scoulded at all, at all, but Misther Peter N--- and John L---, an' he held them up as an example to the whole church. 'Peter N---' says he, 'you have not been inside this church before to-day for the last three months, and you have not paid your pew-rent for the last two years. But, maybe, you have got the fourteen dollars in your pocket at this moment of spaking; or maybe you have spint it in buying pig-iron to make gridirons, in order to fry your mate of a Friday; and when your praste comes to visit you, if he does not see it itself, he smells it. And you, John L---, Alderman L---, are not six days enough in the week for work and pastime, that you must go hunting of hares on a holiday? And pray how many hares did you catch, Alderman John?'" The point of the last satire lay in the fact that the said Alderman John was known to be an ambitious, but very poor, sportsman; which made the allusion to the _hares_ he had shot the unkindest cut of all. Such an oration from a Protestant minister would have led his congregation to imagine that their good pastor had lost his wits; but I have no doubt that it was eminently successful in abstracting the fourteen dollars from the pocket of the dilatory Peter N---, and in preventing Alderman John from hunting hares on a holiday for the time to come. Most of the Irish priests possess a great deal of humour, which always finds a response in their mirth-loving countrymen, to whom wit is a quality of native growth. "I wish you a happy death, Pat S---," said Mr. R---, the jolly, black-browed priest of P---, after he had married an old servant of ours, who had reached the patriarchal age of sixty-eight, to an old woman of seventy. "D--- clear of it!" quoth Pat, smiting his thigh, with a look of inimitable drollery,--such a look of broad humour as can alone twinkle from the eyes of an emeralder of that class. Pat was a prophet; in less than six months he brought the body of the youthful bride in a waggon to the house of the said priest to be buried, and, for aught I know to the contrary, the old man is living still, and very likely to treat himself to a third wife. I was told two amusing anecdotes of the late Bishop Macdonald; a man whose memory is held in great veneration in the province, which I will give you here. The old bishop was crossing the Rice Lake in a birch bark canoe, in company with Mr. R---, the Presbyterian minister of Peterboro'; the day was rather stormy, and the water rough for such a fragile conveyance. The bishop, who had been many years in the country, knew there was little danger to be apprehended if they sat still, and he had perfect reliance in the skill of their Indian boatman. Not so Mr. R---, he had only been a few months in the colony, and this was the first time he had ever ventured upon the water in such a tottleish machine. Instead of remaining quietly seated in the bottom of the canoe, he endeavoured to start to his feet, which would inevitably have upset it. This rash movement was prevented by the bishop, who forcibly pulled him down into a sitting posture, exclaiming, as he did so, "Keep still, my good sir; if you, by your groundless fears, upset the canoe, your protestant friends will swear that the old papist drowned the presbyterian." One hot, sultry July evening, the celebrated Dr. Dunlop called to have a chat with the bishop, who, knowing the doctor's weak point, his fondness for strong drinks, and his almost rabid antipathy to water, asked him if he would take a draught of Edinburgh ale, as he had just received a cask in a present from the old country. The doctor's thirst grew to a perfect drought, and he exclaimed that nothing at that moment could afford him greater pleasure. The bell was rung; the spruce, neat servant girl appeared, and was forthwith commissioned to take the bishop's own silver tankard and draw the thirsty doctor a pint of ale. The girl quickly returned: the impatient doctor grasped the nectarian draught, and, without glancing into the tankard--for the time "Was that soft hour 'twixt summer's eve and close,"-- emptied the greater part of its contents down his throat. A spasmodic contortion and a sudden rush to the open window surprised the hospitable bishop, who had anticipated a great treat for his guest: "My dear sir," he cried, "what can be the matter!" "Oh, that diabolical stuff!" groaned the doctor. "I am poisoned." "Oh, never fear," said the bishop, examining the liquid that still remained in the tankard, and bursting into a hearty laugh, "It may not agree with a Protestant's stomach, but believe me, dear doctor, you never took such a wholesome drink in your life before. I was lately sent from Rome a cask of holy water,--it stands in the same cellar with the ale,--I put a little salt into it, in order to preserve it during this hot weather, and the girl, by mistake, has given you the consecrated water instead of the ale." "Oh, curse her!" cried the tortured doctor. "I wish it was in her stomach instead of mine!" The bishop used to tell this story with great glee whenever Dr. Dunlop and his eccentric habits formed the theme of conversation. That the Catholics do not always act with hostility towards their Protestant brethren, the following anecdote, which it gives me great pleasure to relate, will sufficiently show:-- In the December of 1840 we had the misfortune to be burnt out, and lost a great part of our furniture, clothing, and winter stores. Poor as we _then_ were, this could not be regarded in any other light but as a great calamity. During the confusion occasioned by the fire, and, owing to the negligence of a servant to whose care he was especially confided, my youngest child, a fine boy of two years old, was for some time missing. The agony I endured for about half an hour I shall never forget. The roaring flames, the impending misfortune that hung over us, was forgotten in the terror that shook my mind lest he had become a victim to the flames. He was at length found by a kind neighbour in the kitchen of the burning building, whither he had crept from among the crowd, and was scarcely rescued before the roof fell in. This circumstance shook my nerves so completely that I gladly accepted the offer of a female friend to leave the exciting scene, and make her house my home until we could procure another. I was sitting at her parlour window, with the rescued child on my lap, whom I could not bear for a moment out of my sight, watching the smoking brands that had once composed my home, and sadly pondering over our untoward destiny, when Mrs. ---'s servant told me that a gentleman wanted to see me in the drawing-room. With little Johnnie still in my arms I went to receive the visitor; and found the Rev. Father B---, the worthy Catholic priest, waiting to receive me. At that time I knew very little of Father B---. Calls had been exchanged, and we had been much pleased with his courteous manners and racy Irish wit. I shall never forget the kind, earnest manner in which he condoled with me on our present misfortune. He did not, however, confine his sympathy to words, but offered me the use of his neat cottage until we could provide ourselves with another house. "You know," he said, with a benevolent smile, "I have no family to be disturbed by the noise of the children; and if you will accept the temporary home I offer you, it is entirely at your service; and," he continued, lowering his voice, "if the sheriff is in want of money to procure necessaries for his family, I can supply him until such time as he is able to repay me." This was truly noble, and I thanked him with tears in my eyes. We did not accept the generous offer of this good Samaritan; but we have always felt a grateful remembrance of his kindness. Mr. B--- had been one of the most active among the many gentlemen who did their best in trying to save our property from the flames, a great portion of which was safely conveyed to the street. But here a system of pillage was carried on by the heartless beings, who regard fires and wreck as their especial harvest, which entirely frustrated the efforts of the generous and brave men who had done so much to help us. How many odd things happen during a fire, which would call up a hearty laugh upon a less serious occasion. I saw one man pitch a handsome chamber-glass out of an upper window into the street, in order to _save_ it; while another, at the risk of his life, carried a bottomless china jug, which had long been useless, down the burning staircase, and seemed quite elated with his success; and a carpenter took off the doors, and removed the window-sashes, in order to preserve them, and, by sending a rush of air through the burning edifice, accelerated its destruction. At that time there was only one fire engine in the town, and that was not in a state to work. Now they have two excellent engines, worked by an active and energetic body of men. In all the principal towns and cities in the colony, a large portion of the younger male inhabitants enrol themselves into a company for the suppression of fire. It is a voluntary service, from which they receive no emolument, without an exemption from filling the office of a juryman may be considered as an advantage. These men act upon a principle of mutual safety; and the exertions which are made by them, in the hour of danger, are truly wonderful, and serve to show what can be effected by men when they work in unison together. To the Canadian fire-companies the public is indebted for the preservation of life and property by a thousand heroic acts; deeds, that would be recorded as surprising efforts of human courage, if performed upon the battlefield; and which often exhibit an exalted benevolence, when exercised in rescuing helpless women and children from such a dreadful enemy as fire. The costume adopted by the firemen is rather becoming than otherwise;--a tight-fitting frock-coat of coarse red cloth, and white trousers in summer, which latter portion of their dress is exchanged for dark blue in the winter. They wear a glazed black leather cap, of a military cut, when they assemble to work their engines, or walk in procession; and a leather hat like a sailor's nor-wester, with a long peak behind, to protect them from injury, when on active duty. Their members are confined to no particular class. Gentlemen and mechanics work side by side in this fraternity, with a zeal and right good will that is truly edifying. Their system appears an excellent one; and I never heard of any dissension among their ranks when their services were required. The sound of the ominous bell calls them to the spot, from the greatest distance; and, during the most stormy nights, whoever skulks in bed, the fireman is sure to be at his post. Once a year, the different divisions of the company walk in procession through the town. On this occasion their engines are dressed up with flags bearing appropriate mottoes; and they are preceded by a band of music. The companies are generally composed of men in the very prime of life, and they make a very imposing appearance. It is always a great gala day in the town, and terminates with a public dinner; that is followed by a ball in the evening, at which the wives and daughters of the members of the company are expected to appear. Once a month the firemen are called out to practise with the engine in the streets, to the infinite delight of all the boys in the neighbourhood, who follow the engine in crowds, and provoke the operators to turn the hose and play upon their merry ranks: and then what laughing and shouting and scampering in all directions, as the ragged urchins shake their dripping garments, and fly from the ducking they had courted a few minutes before! The number of wooden buildings that compose the larger portion of Canadian towns renders fire a calamity of very frequent occurrence, and persons cannot be too particular in regard to it. The negligence of one ignorant servant in the disposal of her ashes, may involve the safety of the whole community. As long as the generality of the houses are roofed with shingles, this liability to fire must exist as a necessary consequence. The shingle is a very thin pine-board, which is used throughout the colony instead of slate or tiles. After a few years, the heat and rain roughen the outward surface, and give it a woolly appearance, rendering the shingles as inflammable as tinder. A spark from a chimney may be conveyed from a great distance on a windy day, and lighting upon the furry surface of these roofs, is sure to ignite. The danger spreads on all sides, and the roofs of a whole street will be burning before the fire communicates to the walls of the buildings. So many destructive fires have occurred of late years throughout the colony that a law has been enacted by the municipal councils to prevent the erection of wooden buildings in the large cities. But without the additional precaution of fire-proof roofs, the prohibition will not produce very beneficial effects. Two other very pretty churches occupy the same hill with the Catholics and Episcopal,--the Scotch Residuary, and the Free Church. The latter is built of dark limestone, quarried in the neighbourhood, and is a remarkably graceful structure. It has been raised by the hearty goodwill and free donations of its congregation, and affords another capital illustration of the working of the voluntary principle. To the soul-fettering doctrines of John Calvin I am myself no convert; nor do I think that the churches established on his views will very long exist in the world. Stern, uncompromising, unloveable and unloved, an object of fear rather than of affection, John Calvin stands out the incarnation of his own Deity; verifying one of the noblest and truest sentences ever penned by man:--"As the man, so his God. God is his idea of excellence, the compliment of his own being." The Residuary church is a small neat building of wood, painted white. For several years after the great split in the National Church of Scotland, it was shut up, the few who still adhered to the old way being unable to contribute much to the support of a minister. The church has been reopened within the last two years, and, though the congregation is very small, has a regular pastor. The large edifice beneath us, in Pinacle street, leading to the bay, is the Wesleyan Methodist church, or chapel, as it would be termed at home. Thanks to the liberal institutions of the country, such distinctions are unknown in Canada. Every community of Christian worshippers is rightly termed a church. The Church is only arrogated by one. The Wesleyans, who have been of infinite use in spreading the Gospel on the North American continent, possess a numerous and highly respectable congregation in this place. Their church is always supplied with good and efficient preachers, and is filled on the Sabbath to overflowing. They have a very fine choir, and lately purchased an organ, which was constructed by one of their own members, a genius in his way, for which they gave the handsome sum of a thousand dollars. There is also an Episcopal Methodist church, composed of red brick, at the upper end of the town, by the river side, which is well attended. You can scarcely adopt a better plan of judging of the wealth and prosperity of a town, than by watching, of a Sabbath morning, the congregations of the different denominations going to church. Belleville weekly presents to the eye of an observing spectator a large body of well-dressed, happy-looking people,--robust, healthy, independent-looking men, and well-formed, handsome women;--an air of content and comfort resting upon their comely faces,--no look of haggard care and pinching want marring the quiet solemnity of the scene. The dress of the higher class is not only cut in the newest French fashion, imported from New York, but is generally composed of rich and expensive materials. The Canadian lady dresses well and tastefully, and carries herself easily and gracefully. She is not unconscious of the advantages of a pretty face and figure; but her knowledge of the fact is not exhibited in an affected or disagreeable manner. The lower class are not a whit behind their wealthier neighbours in outward adornments. And the poor emigrant, who only a few months previously had landed in rags, is now dressed neatly and respectably. The consciousness of their newly-acquired freedom has raised them in the scale of society, in their own estimation, and in that of their fellows. They feel that they are no longer despised; the ample wages they receive has enabled them to cast off the slough of hopeless poverty, which once threw its deadening influence over them, repressing all their energies, and destroying that self-respect which is so necessary to mental improvement and self-government, The change in their condition is apparent in their smiling, satisfied faces. This is, indeed, a delightful contrast to the squalid want and poverty which so often meet the eye and pain the heart of the philanthropist at home. Canada is blessed in the almost total absence of pauperism; for none but the wilfully idle and vicious need starve here, while the wants of the sick and infirm meet with ready help and sympathy from a most charitable public. The Wesleyan Methodists wisely placed their burying-ground at some distance from the town; and when we first came to reside at Belleville, it was a retired and lovely spot, on the Kingston road, commanding a fine view of the bay. The rapid spread of the village into a town almost embraces in its arms this once solitary spot, and in a few years it will be surrounded with suburban residences. There is a very large brick field adjoining this cemetery, which employs during the summer months a number of hands. Turn to the north, and observe that old-fashioned, red-brick house, now tottering to decay, that crowns the precipitous ridge that overlooks the river, and which doubtless at some very distant period once formed its right bank. That house was built by one of the first settlers in Belleville, an officer who drew his lot of wild land on that spot. It was a great house in those days, and he was a great man in the eyes of his poorer neighbours. This gentleman impoverished himself and his family by supplying from his own means the wants of the poor emigrants in his vicinity during the great Canadian famine, which happened about fifty years ago. The starving creatures promised to repay him at some future period. Plenty again blessed the land; but the generous philanthropist was forgotten by those his bounty had saved. Peace to his memory! Though unrewarded on earth, he has doubtless reaped his reward in heaven. The river Moira, which runs parallel with the main street of the town, and traverses several fine townships belonging to the county of Hastings in its course to the bay, is a rapid and very picturesque stream. Its rocky banks, which are composed of limestone, are fringed with the graceful cedar, soft maple, and elegant rock elm, that queen of the Canadian forest. It is not navigable, but is one great source of the wealth and prosperity of the place, affording all along its course excellent sites for mills, distilleries, and factories, while it is the main road down which millions of feet of timber are yearly floated, to be rafted at the entrance of the bay. The spring floods bring down such a vast amount of lumber, that often a jam, as it is technically called, places the two bridges that span the river in a state of blockade. It is a stirring and amusing scene to watch the French Canadian lumberers, with their long poles, armed at the end with sharp spikes, leaping from log to log, and freeing a passage for the crowded timbers. Handsome in person, and lithe and active as wild cats, you would imagine, to watch their careless disregard of danger, that they were born of the waters, and considered death by drowning an impossible casualty in their case. Yet never a season passes without fatal accidents thinning their gay, light-hearted ranks. These amphibious creatures spend half their lives in and on the waters. They work hard in forming rafts at the entrance of the bay during the day, and in the evening they repair to some favourite tavern, where they spend the greater part of the night in singing and dancing. Their peculiar cries awaken you by day-break, and their joyous shouts and songs are wafted on the evening breeze. Their picturesque dress and shanties, when shown by their red watch-fires along the rocky banks of the river at night, add great liveliness, and give a peculiarly romantic character to the water scene. They appear a happy, harmless set of men, brave and independent; and if drinking and swearing are vices common to their caste and occupation, it can scarcely be wondered at in the wild, reckless, roving life they lead. They never trouble the peaceful inhabitants of the town. Their broils are chiefly confined to their Irish comrades, and seldom go beyond the scene of their mutual labour. It is not often that they find their way into the jail or penitentiary. A young lady told me an adventure that befell her and her sister, which is rather a droll illustration of the manners of a French Canadian lumberer. They were walking one fine summer evening along the west bank of the Moira, and the narrator, in stooping over the water to gather some wild-flowers that grew in a crevice of the rocks, dropped her parasol into the river. A cry of vexation at the loss of an article of dress, which is expensive, and almost indispensable beneath the rays of a Canadian summer sun, burst from her lips, and attracted the attention of a young man whom she had not before observed, who was swimming at some distance down the river. He immediately turned, and dexterously catching the parasol as it swiftly glided past him, swam towards the ladies with the rescued article, carried dog-fashion, between his teeth. In his zeal to render this little service, the poor fellow forgot that he was not in a condition to appear before ladies; who, startled at such an extraordinary apparition, made the best of their heels to fly precipitately from the spot. "I have no doubt," said Miss ---, laughing, "that the good-natured fellow meant well, but I never was so frightened and confounded in my life." The next morning the parasol was returned at the street door, with "Jean Baptiste's compliments to the young ladies." So much for French Canadian gallantry. It is a pretty sight. A large raft of timber, extending perhaps for a quarter of a mile, gliding down the bay in tow of a steamer, decorated with red flags and green pine boughs, and managed by a set of bold active fellows, whose jovial songs waken up the echoes of the lonely woods. I have seen several of these rafts, containing many thousand pounds worth of timber, taking their downward course in one day. The centre of the raft is generally occupied by a shanty and cooking apparatus, and at night it presents an imposing spectacle, seen by the red light of their fires, as it glides beneath the shadow of some lofty bank, with its dark overhanging trees. I have often coveted a sail on those picturesque rafts, over those smooth moonlighted waters. The spring-floods bring with them a great quantity of waste timber and fallen trees from the interior; and it is amusing to watch the poor Irishwomen and children wading to the waist in the water, and drawing out these waifs and strays with hooked sticks, to supply their shanties with fuel. It is astonishing how much an industrious lad can secure in a day of this refuse timber. No gleaner ever enters a harvest-field in Canada to secure a small portion of the scattered grain; but the floating treasures which the waters yield are regarded as a providential supply of firing, which is always gathered in. These spring-floods are often productive of great mischief, as they not infrequently carry away all the dams and bridges along their course. This generally happens after an unusually severe winter, accompanied with very heavy falls of snow. The melting of the snows in the back country, by filling all the tributary creeks and streams, converts the larger rivers into headlong and destructive torrents, that rush and foam along with "curbless force," carrying huge blocks of ice and large timbers, like feathers upon their surface. It is a grand and beautiful sight, the coming down of the waters during one of these spring freshets. The river roars and rages like a chafed lion; and frets and foams against its rocky barrier, as if determined to overcome every obstacle that dares to impede its furious course. Great blocks of ice are seen popping up and down in the boiling surges; and unwieldy saw-logs perform the most extravagant capers, often starting bolt upright; while their crystal neighbours, enraged at the uncourteous collision, turn up their glittering sea-green edges with an air of defiance, and tumble about in the current like mad monsters of the deep. The blocks of ice are sometimes lifted entirely out of the water by the force of the current, and deposited upon the top of the bank, where they form an irregular wall of glass, glittering and melting leisurely in the heat of the sun. A stranger who had not witnessed their upheaval, might well wonder by what gigantic power they had been placed there. In March, 1844, a severe winter was terminated by a very sudden thaw, accompanied by high winds and deluges of rain. In a few days the snow was all gone, and every slope and hill was converted into a drain, down which the long-imprisoned waters rushed continuously to the river. The roads were almost impassable, and, on the 12th of the month, the river rose to an unusual height, and completely filled its rocky banks. The floods brought down from the interior a great jam of ice, which, accumulating in size and altitude at every bridge and dam it had carried away in its course towards the bay, was at length arrested in its progress at the lower bridge, where the ice, though sunk several feet below the rushing waters, still adhered firmly to the shore. Vast pieces of ice were piled up against the abutments of the bridge, which the mountain of ice threatened to annihilate, as well as to inundate the lower end of the town. It presented to the eager and excited crowd, who, in spite of the impending danger rushed to the devoted bridge, a curious and formidable spectacle. Imagine, dear reader, a huge mass, composed of blocks of ice, large stones, and drift timber, occupying the centre of the river, and extending back for a great distance; the top on a level with the roofs of the houses. The inhabitants of the town had everything to dread from such a gigantic battering-ram applied to their feeble wooden bridge. A consultation was held by the men assembled on the bridge, and it was thought that the danger might be averted by sawing asunder the ice, which still held firm, and allowing a free passage for the blocks that impeded the bridge. The river was soon covered with active men, armed with axes and poles, some freeing the ice at the arch of the bridge, others attempting to push the iceberg nearer to the shore, where, if once stranded, it would melt at leisure. If the huge pile of mischief could have found a voice, it would have laughed at their fruitless endeavours. While watching the men at their dangerous, and, as it proved afterwards, hopeless work, we witnessed an act of extraordinary courage and presence of mind in two brothers, blacksmiths in the town. One of these young men was busy cutting away the ice just above the bridge, when quite unexpectedly the piece on which he was standing gave way, and he was carried with the speed of thought under the bridge. His death appeared inevitable. But quick as his exit was from the exciting scene, the love in the brother's heart was as quick in taking measures for his safety. As the ice on which the younger lad stood parted, the elder sprang into the hollow box of wood which helped to support the arch of the bridge, and which was filled with great stones. As the torrent swept his brother past him and under the bridge, the drowning youth gave a spring from the ice on which he still stood, and the other bending at the instant from his perch above, caught him by the collar, and lifted him bodily from his perilous situation. All was the work of a moment; yet the spectators held their breath, and wondered as they saw. It was an act of bold daring on the one hand, of cool determined courage on the other. It was a joyful sight to see the rescued lad in his brave brother's arms. All day we watched from the bridge the hill of ice, wondering when it would take a fresh start, and if it would carry away the bridge when it left its present position. Night came down, and the unwelcome visitant remained stationary. The air was cold and frosty. There was no moon, and the spectators were reluctantly forced to retire to their respective homes. Between the watches of the night we listened to the roaring of the river, and speculated upon the threatened destruction. By daybreak my eager boys were upon the spot, to ascertain the fate of the bridge. All was grim and silent. The ice remained like a giant slumbering upon his post. So passed the greater part of the day. Curiosity was worn out. The crowd began to disperse, disappointed that the ruin they anticipated had not taken place; just as some persons are sorry when a fire, which has caused much alarm by its central position in a town or city, is extinguished, without burning down a single house. The love of excitement drowns for a time the better feelings of humanity. They don't wish any person to suffer injury; but they give up the grand spectacle they had expected to witness with regret. At four o'clock in the afternoon most of the wonder-watchers had retired, disgusted with the tardy movements of the ice monster, when a cry arose from the banks of the river, to warn the few persons who still loitered on the bridge, to look out. The ice was in motion. Every one within hearing rushed to the river. We happened to be passing at the time, and, like the rest, hurried to the spot. The vast pile, slowly, almost imperceptibly, began to advance, giving an irresistible impulse to the shore ice, that still held good, and which was instantly communicated to the large pieces that blocked the arch of the bridge, over which the waves now poured in a torrent, pushing before them the great lumps which up to the present moment had been immoveably wedged. There was a hollow, gurgling sound, a sullen roar of waters, a cracking and rending of the shore-bound ice, and the ponderous mass smote the bridge; it parted asunder, and swift as an arrow the crystal mountain glided downwards to the bay, spurning from its base the waves that leaped and foamed around its path, and pouring them in a flood of waters over the west bank of the river. Beyond the loss of a few old sheds along the shore, very little damage was sustained by the town. The streets near the wharfs were inundated for a few hours, and the cellars filled with water; but after the exit of the iceberg, the river soon subsided into its usual channel. The winter of 1852 was one of great length and severity. The snow in many of the roads was level with the top rail of the fences, and the spring thaw caused heavy freshets through the colony. In the upper part of the province, particularly on the grand river, the rising of the waters destroyed a large amount of valuable mill property. One mill-owner lost 12,000 saw logs. Our wild, bright Moira was swollen to the brim, and tumbled along with the impetuosity of a mountain torrent. Its course to the bay was unimpeded by ice, which had been all carried out a few days before by a high wind; but vast quantities of saw logs that had broken away from their bosoms in the interior were plunging in the current, sometimes starting bolt upright, or turning over and over, as if endued with the spirit of life, as well as with that of motion. Several of these heavy timbers had struck the upper bridge, and carried away the centre arch. A poor cow, who was leisurely pacing over to her shed and supper, was suddenly precipitated into the din of waters. Had it been the mayor of the town, the accident could scarcely have produced a greater excitement. The cow belonged to a poor Irishman, and the sympathy of every one was enlisted in her fate. Was it possible that she could escape drowning amid such a mad roar of waves? No human arm could stem for a moment such a current; but fortunately for our heroine, she was not human, but only a stupid quadruped. The cow for a few seconds seemed bewildered at the strange situation in which she found herself so unexpectedly placed. But she was wise enough and skilful enough to keep her head above water, and she cleared two mill-dams before she became aware of the fact; and she accommodated herself to her critical situation with a stoical indifference which would have done credit to an ancient philosopher. After passing unhurt over the dams, the spectators who crowded the lower bridges to watch the result, began to entertain hopes for her life. The bridges are in a direct line, and about half a mile apart. On came the cow, making directly for the centre arch of the bridge on which we stood. She certainly neither swam, nor felt her feet, but was borne along by the force of the stream. "My eyes! I wish I could swim as well as that ere cow," cried an excited boy, leaping upon the top of the bridge. "I guess you do," said another. "But that's a game cow. There's no boy in the town could beat her." "She will never pass the arch of the bridge," said a man, sullenly; "she will be killed against the abutment." "Jolly! she's through the arch!" shouted the first speaker. "Pat has saved his cow!" "She's not ashore yet," returned the man. "And she begins to flag." "Not a bit of it," cried the excited boy. "The old daisy-cropper looks as fresh as a rose. Hurrah, boys! let us run down to the wharf, and see what becomes of her." Off scampered the juveniles; and on floated the cow, calm and self-possessed in the midst of danger. After passing safely through the arch of the bridge, she continued to steer herself out of the current, and nearer to the shore, and finally effected a landing in Front-street, where she quietly walked on shore, to the great admiration of the youngsters, who received her with rapturous shouts of applause. One lad seized her by the tail, another grasped her horns, while a third patted her dripping neck, and wished her joy of her safe landing. Not Venus herself, when she rose from the sea, attracted more enthusiastic admirers than did the poor Irishman's cow. A party, composed of all the boys in the place, led her in triumph through the streets, and restored her to her rightful owner, not forgetting to bestow upon her three hearty cheers at parting. A little black boy, the only son of a worthy negro, who had been a settler for many years in Belleville, was not so fortunate as the Irishman's cow. He was pushed, it is said accidentally, from the broken bridge, by a white boy of his own age, into that hell of waters, and it was many weeks before his body was found; it had been carried some miles down the bay by the force of the current. Day after day you might see his unhappy father, armed with a long pole, with a hook attached to it, mournfully pacing the banks of the swollen river, in the hope of recovering the remains of his lost child. Once or twice we stopped to speak to him, but his heart was too full to answer. He would turn away, with the tears rolling down his sable cheeks, and resume his melancholy task. What a dreadful thing is this prejudice against race and colour! How it hardens the heart, and locks up all the avenues of pity! The premature death of this little negro excited less interest in the breasts of his white companions than the fate of the cow, and was spoken of with as little concern as the drowning of a pup or a kitten. Alas! this river Moira has caused more tears to flow from the eyes of heart-broken parents than any stream of the like size in the province. Heedless of danger, the children will resort to its shores, and play upon the timbers that during the summer months cover its surface. Often have I seen a fine child of five or six years old, astride of a saw-log, riding down the current, with as much glee as if it were a real steed he bestrode. If the log turns, which is often the case, the child stands a great chance of being drowned. Oh, agony unspeakable! The writer of this lost a fine talented boy of six years--one to whom her soul clave--in those cruel waters. But I will not dwell upon that dark hour, the saddest and darkest in my sad eventful life. Many years ago, when I was a girl myself, my sympathies were deeply excited by reading an account of the grief of a mother who had lost her only child, under similar circumstances. How prophetic were those lines of all that I suffered during that heavy bereavement!-- The Mother's Lament. "Oh, cold at my feet thou wert sleeping, my boy, And I press on thy pale lips in vain the fond kiss! Earth opens her arms to receive thee, my joy, And all my past sorrows were nothing to this The day-star of hope 'neath thine eye-lid is sleeping, No more to arise at the voice of my weeping. "Oh, how art thou changed, since the light breath of morning Dispersed the soft dewdrops in showers from the tree! Like a beautiful bud my lone dwelling adorning, Thy smiles call'd up feelings of rapture in me: I thought not the sunbeams all gaily that shone On thy waking, at night would behold me alone. "The joy that flash'd out from thy death-shrouded eyes, That laugh'd in thy dimples, and brighten'd thy cheek, Is quench'd--but the smile on thy pale lip that lies, Now tells of a joy that no language can speak. The fountain is seal'd, the young spirit at rest,-- Oh, why should I mourn thee, my lov'd one--my blest!" The anniversary of that fatal day gave birth to the following lines, with which I will close this long chapter:-- The Early Lost. "The shade of death upon my threshold lay, The sun from thy life's dial had departed; A cloud came down upon thy early day, And left thy hapless mother broken-hearted-- My boy--my boy! "Long weary months have pass'd since that sad day, But naught beguiles my bosom of its sorrow; Since the cold waters took thee for their prey, No smiling hope looks forward to the morrow-- My boy--my boy! "The voice of mirth is silenced in my heart, Thou wert so dearly loved--so fondly cherish'd; I cannot yet believe that we must part,-- That all, save thine immortal soul, has perish'd-- My boy--my boy! "My lovely, laughing, rosy, dimpled, child, I call upon thee, when the sun shines clearest; In the dark lonely night, in accents wild, I breathe thy treasured name, my best and dearest-- My boy--my boy! "The hand of God has press'd me very sore-- Oh, could I clasp thee once more as of yore, And kiss thy glowing cheeks' soft velvet bloom, I would resign thee to the Almighty Giver Without one tear,--would yield thee up for ever, And people with bright forms thy silent tomb. But hope has faded from my heart--and joy Lies buried in thy grave, my darling boy!" CHAPTER II Local Improvements--Sketches of Society "Prophet spirit! rise and say, What in Fancy's glass you see-- A city crown this lonely bay? No dream--a bright reality. Ere half a century has roll'd Its waves of light away, The beauteous vision I behold Shall greet the rosy day; And Belleville view with civic pride Her greatness mirror'd in the tide." S.M. The town of Belleville, in 1840, contained a population of 1,500 souls, or thereabouts. The few streets it then possessed were chiefly composed of frame houses, put up in the most unartistic and irregular fashion, their gable ends or fronts turned to the street, as it suited the whim or convenience of the owner, without the least regard to taste or neatness. At that period there were only two stone houses and two of brick in the place. One of these wonders of the village was the court-house and gaol; the other three were stores. The dwellings of the wealthier portion of the community were distinguished by a coat of white or yellow paint, with green or brown doors and window blinds; while the houses of the poorer class retained the dull grey, which the plain boards always assume after a short exposure to the weather. In spite of the great beauty of the locality, it was but an insignificant, dirty-looking place. The main street of the town (Front-street, as it is called) was only partially paved with rough slabs of limestone, and these were put so carelessly down that their uneven edges, and the difference in their height and size, was painful to the pedestrian, and destruction to his shoes, leading you to suppose that the paving committee had been composed of shoemakers. In spring and fall the mud was so deep in the centre of the thoroughfare that it required you to look twice before you commenced the difficult task of crossing, lest you might chance to leave your shoes sticking fast in the mud. This I actually saw a lady do one Sunday while crossing the church hill. Belleville had just been incorporated as the metropolitan town of the Victoria District, and my husband presided as Sheriff in the first court ever held in the place. Twelve brief years have made a wonderful, an almost miraculous, change in the aspect and circumstances of the town. A stranger, who had not visited it during that period, could scarcely recognize it as the same. It has more than doubled its dimensions, and its population has increased to upwards of 4,500 souls. Handsome commodious stores, filled with expensive goods from the mother country and the States, have risen in the place of the small dark frame buildings; and large hotels have jostled into obscurity the low taverns and groceries that once formed the only places of entertainment. In 1840, a wooded swamp extended almost the whole way from Belleville to Cariff's Mills, a distance of three miles. The road was execrable; and only a few log shanties, or very small frame houses, occurred at intervals along the road-side. Now, Cariff's Mills is as large as Belleville was in 1840, and boasts of a population of upwards of 1000 inhabitants. A fine plank road connects it with the latter place, and the whole distance is one continuous street. Many of the houses by the wayside are pretty ornamental cottages, composed of brick or stone. An immense traffic in flour and lumber is carried on at this place, and the plank road has proved a very lucrative speculation to the shareholders. In 1840, there was but one bank agency in Belleville, now there are four, three of which do a great business. At that period we had no market, although Saturday was generally looked upon as the market-day; the farmers choosing it as the most convenient to bring to town their farm produce for sale. Our first market-house was erected in 1849; it was built of wood, and very roughly finished. This proved but poor economy in the long run, as it was burnt down the succeeding year. A new and more commodious one of brick has been erected in its place, and it is tolerably supplied with meat and vegetables; but these articles are both dearer and inferior in quality to those offered in Kingston and Toronto. This, perhaps, is owing to the tardiness shown by the farmers in bringing in their produce, which they are obliged to offer first for sale in the market, or be subjected to a trifling fine. There is very little competition, and the butchers and town grocery-keepers have it their own way. A market is always a stirring scene. Here politics, commercial speculations, and the little floating gossip of the village, are freely talked over and discussed. To those who feel an interest in the study of human nature, the market affords an ample field. Imagine a conversation like the following, between two decently dressed mechanics' wives: "How are you, Mrs. G---?" "Moderate, I thank you. Did you hear how old P--- was to-day?" "Mortal bad." "Why! you don't say. Our folks heard that he was getting quite smart. Is he _dangerous_?" "The doctor has given him up entirely." "Well, it will be a bad job for the family if he goes. I've he'rd that there won't be money enough to pay his debts. But what of this marriage? They do say that Miss A--- is to be married to old Mister B---." "What are her friends thinking about to let that young gal marry that old bald-headed man?" "The money to be sure--they say he's rich." "If he's rich, he never made his money honestly." "Ah, he came of a bad set,"--with a shake of the head. And so they go on, talking and chatting over the affairs of the neighbourhood in succession. It is curious to watch the traits of character exhibited in buyer and seller. Both exceed the bounds of truth and honesty. The one, in his eagerness to sell his goods, bestowing upon them the most unqualified praise; the other depreciating them below their real value, in order to obtain them at an unreasonably low price. "Fine beef, ma'am," exclaims an anxious butcher, watching, with the eye of a hawk, a respectable citizen's wife, as she paces slowly and irresolutely in front of his stall, where he has hung out for sale the side of an ox, neither the youngest nor fattest. "Fine grass-fed beef, ma'am--none better to be had in the district. What shall I send you home--sirloin, ribs, a tender steak?" "It would be a difficult matter to do that," responds the good wife, with some asperity in look and tone. "It seems hard and old; some lean cow you have killed, to save her from dying of the consumption." "No danger of the fat setting fire to the lum"--suggests a rival in the trade. "Here's a fine veal, ma'am, fatted upon the milk of two cows." "Looks," says the comely dame, passing on to the next stall, "as if it had been starved upon the milk of one." Talking of markets puts me in mind of a trick--a wicked trick--but, perhaps, not the less amusing on that account, that was played off in Toronto market last year by a young medical student, name unknown. It was the Christmas week, and the market was adorned with evergreens, and dressed with all possible care. The stalls groaned beneath the weight of good cheer--fish, flesh, and fowl, all contributing their share to tempt the appetite and abstract money from the purse. It was a sight to warm the heart of the most fastidious epicure, and give him the nightmare for the next seven nights, only dreaming of that stupendous quantity of food to be masticated by the jaws of man. One butcher had the supreme felicity of possessing a fine fat heifer, that had taken the prize at the provincial agricultural show; and the monster of fat, which was justly considered the pride of the market, was hung up in the most conspicuous place in order to attract the gaze of all beholders. Dr. C---, a wealthy doctor of laws, was providing good cheer for the entertainment of a few choice friends on Christmas-day, and ordered of the butcher four ribs of the tempting-looking beef. The man, unwilling to cut up the animal until she had enjoyed her full share of admiration, wrote upon a piece of paper, in large characters, "Prize Heifer--four ribs for Dr. C---;" this he pinned upon the carcase of the beast. Shortly after the doctor quitted the market, and a very fat young lady and her mother came up to the stall to make some purchases. Our student was leaning carelessly against it, watching with bright eyes the busy scene; and being an uncommonly mischievous fellow, and very fond of practical jokes, a thought suddenly struck him of playing off one upon the stout young lady. Her back was towards him, and dexterously abstracting the aforementioned placard from the side of the heifer, he transferred it to the shawl of his unsuspecting victim, just where its ample folds comfortably encased her broad shoulders. After a while the ladies left the market, amidst the suppressed titters and outstretched fore-fingers of butchers and hucksters, and all the idle loafers the generally congregate in such places of public resort. All up the length of King street walked the innocent damsel, marvelling that the public attention appeared exclusively bestowed upon her. Still, as she passed along, bursts of laughter resounded on all sides, and the oft-repeated words, "Prize Heifer--four ribs for Dr. C---;" it was not until she reached her own dwelling that she became aware of the trick. The land to the east, north, and west of Belleville, rises to a considerable height, and some of the back townships, like Huntingdon and Hungerford, abound in lofty hills. There is in the former township, on the road leading from Rawdon village to Luke's tavern, a most extraordinary natural phenomenon. The road for several miles runs along the top of a sharp ridge, so narrow that it leaves barely breadth enough for two waggons to pass in safety. This ridge is composed of gravel, and looks as if it had been subjected to the action of water. On either side of this huge embankment there is a sheer descent into a finely wooded level plain below, through which wanders a lonely creek, or small stream. I don't know what the height of this ridge is above the level of the meadow, but it must be very considerable, as you look down upon the tops of the loftiest forest trees as they grow far, far beneath you. The road is well fenced on either side, or it would require some courage to drive young skittish horses along this dangerous pass. The settlers in that vicinity have given to this singular rise the name of the "Ridge road." There is a sharp ridge of limestone at the back of the township of Thurlow, though of far less dimensions, which looks as if it had been thrown up in some convulsion of the earth, as the limestone is shattered in all directions. The same thing occurs on the road to Shannonville, a small but flourishing village on the Kingston road, nine miles east of Belleville. The rock is heaved up in the middle, and divided by deep cracks into innumerable fragments. I put a long stick down one of these deep cracks without reaching the bottom; and as I gathered a lovely bunch of harebells, that were waving their graceful blossoms over the barren rock, I thought what an excellent breeding place for snakes these deep fissures must make. But to return to Belleville. The west side of the river--a flat limestone plain, scantily covered with a second growth of dwarf trees and bushes--has not as yet been occupied, although a flourishing village that has sprung up within a few years crowns the ridge above. The plain below is private property, and being very valuable, as affording excellent sites for flour and saw mills, has been reserved in order to obtain a higher price. This circumstance has, doubtless, been a drawback to the growth of the town in that direction; while, shutting out the view of the river by the erection of large buildings will greatly diminish the natural beauties of this picturesque spot. The approach to Belleville, both from the east and west, is down a very steep hill, the town lying principally in the valley below. These hills command a beautiful prospect of wood and water, and of a rich, well-cleared, and highly cultivated country. Their sides are adorned with fine trees, which have grown up since the axe first levelled the primeval forests in this part of the colony; a circumstance which, being unusual in Canada round new settlements, forms a most attractive feature in the landscape. A more delightful summer's evening ride could scarcely be pointed out than along the Trent, or Kingston roads, and it would be a difficult thing to determine which afforded the most varied and pleasing prospect. Residing upon the west hill, we naturally prefer it to the other, but I have some doubts whether it is really the prettiest. I have often imagined a hundred years to have passed away, and the lovely sloping banks of the Bay of Quinte, crowned with rural villages and stately parks and houses, stretching down to these fair waters. What a scene of fertility and beauty rises before my mental vision! My heart swells, and I feel proud that I belong to a race who, in every portion of the globe in which they have planted a colony, have proved themselves worthy to be the sires of a great nation. The state of society when we first came to this district, was everything but friendly or agreeable. The ferment occasioned by the impotent rebellion of W.L. Mackenzie had hardly subsided. The public mind was in a sore and excited state. Men looked distrustfully upon each other, and the demon of party reigned preeminent, as much in the drawing-room in the council-chamber. The town was divided into two fierce political factions; and however moderate your views might be, to belong to the one was to incur the dislike and ill-will of the other. The Tory party, who arrogated the whole loyalty of the colony to themselves, branded, indiscriminately, the large body of Reformers as traitors and rebels. Every conscientious and thinking man who wished to see a change for the better in the management of public affairs, was confounded with those discontented spirits, who had raised the standard of revolt against the mother country. In justice even to them, it must be said, not without severe provocation; and their disaffection was more towards the colonial government, and the abuses it fostered, than any particular dislike to British supremacy or institutions. Their attempt, whether instigated by patriotism or selfishness--and probably it contained a mixture of both--had failed, and it was but just that they should feel the punishment due to their crime. But the odious term of rebel, applied to some of the most loyal and honourable men in the province, because they could not give up their honest views on the state of the colony, gave rise to bitter and resentful feelings, which were ready, on all public occasions, to burst into a flame. Even women entered deeply into this party hostility; and those who, from their education and mental advantages, might have been friends and agreeable companions, kept aloof, rarely taking notice of each other, when accidentally thrown together. The native-born Canadian regarded with a jealous feeling men of talent and respectability who emigrated from the mother country, as most offices of consequence and emolument were given to such persons. The Canadian, naturally enough, considered such preference unjust, and an infringement upon his rights as a native of the colony, and that he had a greater claim, on that account, upon the government, than men who were perfect strangers. This, owing to his limited education, was not always the case; but the preference shown to the British emigrant proved an active source of ill-will and discontent. The favoured occupant of place and power was not at all inclined to conciliate his Canadian rival, or to give up the title to mental superiority which he derived from birth and education; and he too often treated his illiterate, but sagacious political opponent, with a contempt which his practical knowledge and experience did not merit. It was a miserable state of things; and I believe that most large towns in the province bore, in these respects, a striking resemblance to each other. Those who wished to see impartial justice administered to all had but an uncomfortable time of it, both parties regarding with mistrust those men who could not go the whole length with them in their political opinions. To gain influence in Canada, and be the leader of a party, a man must, as the Yankees say, "go the whole hog." The people in the back woods were fortunate in not having their peace disturbed by these political broils. In the depths of the dark forest, they were profoundly ignorant of how the colony was governed; and many did not even know which party was in power, and when the rebellion actually broke out it fell upon them like a thunder-clap. But in their ignorance and seclusion there was at least safety, and they were free from that dreadful scourge--"the malicious strife of tongues." The fever of the "Clergy Reserves question" was then at its height. It was never introduced in company but to give offence, and lead to fierce political discussions. All parties were wrong, and nobody was convinced. This vexed political question always brought before my mental vision a ludicrous sort of caricature, which, if I had the artistic skill to delineate, would form no bad illustration of this perplexing subject. I saw in my mind's eye a group of dogs in the marketplace of a large town, to whom some benevolent individual, with a view to their mutual benefit, had flung a shank of beef, with meat enough upon the upper end to have satisfied the hunger of all, could such an impossible thing as an equal division, among such noisy claimants, have been made. A strong English bull-dog immediately seized upon the bone, and for some time gnawed away at the best end of it, and contrived to keep all the other dogs at bay. This proceeding was resented by a stout mastiff, who thought that he had as good a right to the beef as the bull-dog, and flung himself tooth and claw upon his opponent. While these two were fighting and wrangling over the bone, a wiry, active Scotch terrier, though but half the size of the other combatants, began tugging at the small end of the shank, snarling and barking with all the strength of his lungs, to gain at least a chance of being heard, even if he did fail in putting in his claims to a share of the meat. An old cunning greyhound, to whom no share had been offered, and who well knew that it was of no use putting himself against the strength of the bull-dog and mastiff, stood proudly aloof, with quivering ears and tail, regarding the doings of the others with a glance of sovereign contempt; yet, watching with his keen eye for an opportunity of making a successful spring, while they were busily engaged in snarling and biting each other, to carry off the meat, bone and all. A multitude of nondescript curs, of no weight in themselves, were snapping and snuffling round the bone, eagerly anticipating the few tit bits, which they hoped might fall to their share during the prolonged scuffle among the higher powers: while the figure of Justice, dimly seen in the distance, was poising her scales, and lifting her sword to make an equal division; but her voice failed to be heard, and her august presence regarded, in the universal hubbub. The height to which party feeling was carried in those days had to be experienced before it could be fully understood. Happily for the colony, this evil spirit, during the last three years, has greatly diminished. The two rival parties, though they occasionally abuse and vilify each other, through the medium of the common safety valve--the public papers--are not so virulent as in 1840. They are more equally matched. The union of the provinces has kept the reform party in the ascendant, and they are very indifferent to the good or ill opinion of their opponents. The colony has greatly progressed under their administration, and is now in a most prosperous and flourishing state. The municipal and district councils, free schools, and the improvement in the public thoroughfares of the country, are owing to them, and have proved a great blessing to the community. The resources of the country are daily being opened up, and both at home and abroad Canada is rising in public estimation. As a woman, I cannot enter into the philosophy of these things, nor is it my intention to do so. I leave statistics for wiser and cleverer male heads. But, even as a woman, I cannot help rejoicing in the beneficial effects that these changes have wrought in the land of my adoption. The day of our commercial and national prosperity has dawned, and the rays of the sun already brighten the hill-tops. To those persons who have been brought up in the old country, and accustomed from infancy to adhere to the conventional rules of society, the mixed society must, for a long time, prove very distasteful. Yet this very freedom, which is so repugnant to all their preconceived notions and prejudices, is by no means so unpleasant as strangers would be led to imagine. A certain mixture of the common and the real, of the absurd and the ridiculous, gives a zest to the cold, tame decencies, to be found in more exclusive and refined circles. Human passions and feelings are exhibited with more fidelity, and you see men and women as they really are. And many kind, good, and noble traits are to be found among those classes, whom at home we regard as our inferiors. The lady and gentleman in Canada are as distinctly marked as elsewhere. There is no mistaking the superiority that mental cultivation bestows; and their mingling in public with their less gifted neighbours, rather adds than takes from their claims to hold the first place. I consider the state of society in a more healthy condition than at home; and people, when they go out for pleasure here, seem to enjoy themselves much more. The harmony that reigns among the members of a Canadian family is truly delightful. They are not a quarrelsome people in their own homes. No contradicting or disputing, or hateful rivalry, is to be seen between Canadian brothers and sisters. They cling together through good and ill report, like the bundle of sticks in the fable; and I have seldom found a real Canadian ashamed of owning a poor relation. This to me is a beautiful feature in the Canadian character. Perhaps the perfect equality on which children stand in a family, the superior claim of eldership, so much upheld at home, never being enforced, is one great cause of this domestic union of kindred hearts. Most of the pretence, and affected airs of importance, occasionally met with in Canada, are not the genuine produce of the soil, but importations from the mother country; and, as sure as you hear any one boasting of the rank and consequence they possessed at home, you may be certain that it was quite the reverse. An old Dutch lady, after listening very attentively to a young Irishwoman's account of the grandeur of her father's family at home, said rather drily to the self-exalted damsel,-- "Goodness me, child! if you were so well off, what brought you to a poor country like this? I am sure you had been much wiser had you staid to hum--" "Yes. But my papa heard such fine commendations of the country, that he sold his estate to come out." "To pay his debts, perhaps," said the provoking old woman. "Ah, no, ma'am," she replied, very innocently, "he never paid them. He was told that it was a very fine climate, and he came for the good of our health." "Why, my dear, you look as if you never had had a day's sickness in your life." "No more I have," she replied, putting on a very languid air, "but I am very _delicate_." This term _delicate_, be it known to my readers is a favourite one with young ladies here, but its general application would lead you to imagine it another term for _laziness_. It is quite fashionable to be _delicate_, but horribly vulgar to be considered capable of enjoying such a useless blessing as good health. I knew a lady, when I first came to the colony, who had her children daily washed in water almost hot enough to scald a pig. On being asked why she did so, as it was not only an unhealthy practice, but would rob the little girls of their fine colour, she exclaimed,-- "Oh, that is just what I do it for. I want them to look _delicate_. They have such red faces, and are as coarse and healthy as country girls." The rosy face of the British emigrant is regarded as no beauty here. The Canadian women, like their neighbours the Americans, have small regular features, but are mostly pale, or their faces are only slightly suffused with a faint flush. During the season of youth this delicate tinting is very beautiful, but a few years deprive them of it, and leave a sickly, sallow pallor in its place. The loss of their teeth, too, is a great drawback to their personal charms, but these can be so well supplied by the dentist that it is not so much felt; the thing is so universal that it is hardly thought detrimental to an otherwise pretty face. But, to return to the mere pretenders in society, of which, of course, there are not a few here, as elsewhere. I once met two very stylishly-dressed women at a place of public entertainment. The father of these ladies had followed the lucrative but unaristocratic trade of a tailor in London. One of them began complaining to me of the mixed state of society in Canada, which she considered a dreadful calamity to persons like her and her sister; and ended her lamentations by exclaiming,-- "What would my pa have thought could he have seen us here to-night? Is it not terrible for ladies to have to dance in the same room with storekeepers and their clerks?" Another lady of the same stamp, the daughter of a tavern-keeper, was indignant at being introduced to a gentleman, whose father had followed the same calling. Such persons seem to forget, that as long as people retain their natural manners, and remain true to the dignity of their humanity, they cannot with any justice be called vulgar; for vulgarity consists in presumptuously affecting to be what we are not, and in claiming distinctions which we do not deserve and which no one else would admit. The farmer, in his homespun, may possess the real essentials which make the gentleman--good feeling, and respect for the feelings of others. The homely dress, weather-beaten face, and hard hands, could not deprive him of the honest independence and genial benevolence he derived from nature. No real gentleman would treat such a man, however humble his circumstances, with insolence or contempt. But place the same man out of his class, dress him in the height of fashion, and let him attempt to imitate the manners of the great, and the whole world would laugh at the counterfeit. Uneducated, ignorant people often rise by their industry to great wealth in the colony; to such the preference shown to the educated man always seems a puzzle. Their ideas of gentility consist in being the owners of fine clothes, fine houses, splendid furniture, expensive equipages, and plenty of money. They have all these, yet even the most ignorant feel that something else is required. They cannot comprehend the mysterious ascendancy of mind over mere animal enjoyments; yet they have sense enough, by bestowing a liberal education on their children, to endeavour, at least in their case, to remedy the evil. The affectation of wishing people to think that you had been better off in the mother country than in Canada, is not confined to the higher class of emigrants. The very poorest are the most remarked for this ridiculous boasting. A servant girl of mine told me, with a very grand toss of the head, "that she did not choose to _demane_ herself by scrubbing a floor; that she belonged to the _ra'al gintry_ in the ould counthry, and her papa and mamma niver brought her up to hard work." This interesting scion of the aristocracy was one of the coarsest specimens of female humanity I ever beheld. If I called her to bring a piece of wood for the parlour fire, she would thrust her tangled, uncombed red head in at the door, and shout at the top of her voice, "Did yer holler?" One of our working men, wishing to impress me with the dignity of his wife's connexions, said with all becoming solemnity of look and manner-- "Doubtless, ma'am, you have heard in the ould counthry of Connor's racers. Margaret's father kept those racers." When I recalled the person of the individual whose fame was so widely spread at home, and thought of the racers, I could hardly keep a "straight face," as an American friend terms laughing, when you are bound to look grave. One want is greatly felt here; but it is to be hoped that a more liberal system of education and higher moral culture will remedy the evil. There is a great deficiency among our professional men and wealthy traders of that nice sense of honour that marks the conduct and dealings of the same class at home. Of course many bright exceptions are to be found in the colony, but too many of the Canadians think it no disgrace to take every advantage of the ignorance and inexperience of strangers. If you are not smart enough to drive a close bargain, they consider it only fair to take you in. A man loses very little in the public estimation by making over all his property to some convenient friend, in order to defraud his creditors, while he retains a competency for himself. Women whose husbands have been detained on the limits for years for debt, will give large parties and dress in the most expensive style. This would be thought dishonourable at home, but is considered no disgrace here. "Honour is all very well in an old country like England," said a lady, with whom I had been arguing on the subject; "but, Mrs. M---, it won't do in a new country like this. You may as well cheat as be cheated. For my part, I never lose an advantage by indulging in such foolish notions." I have no doubt that a person who entertained such principles would not fail to reduce them to practice. The idea that some country people form of an author is highly amusing. One of my boys was tauntingly told by another lad at school, "that his ma' said that Mrs. M--- invented lies, and got money for them." This was her estimation of works of mere fiction. Once I was driven by a young Irish friend to call upon the wife of a rich farmer in the country. We were shewn by the master of the house into a very handsomely furnished room, in which there was no lack of substantial comfort, and even of some elegancies, in the shape of books, pictures, and a piano. The good man left us to inform his wife of our arrival, and for some minutes we remained in solemn state, until the mistress of the house made her appearance. She had been called from the washtub, and, like a sensible woman, was not ashamed of her domestic occupation. She came in wiping the suds from her hands on her apron, and gave us a very hearty and friendly welcome. She was a short, stout, middle-aged woman, with a very pleasing countenance; and though only in her coloured flannel working-dress, with a nightcap on her head, and spectacled nose, there was something in her frank good-natured face that greatly prepossessed us in her favour. After giving us the common compliments of the day, she drew her chair just in front of me, and, resting her elbows on her knees, and dropping her chin between her hands, she sat regarding me with such a fixed gaze that it became very embarrassing. "So," says she, at last, "you are Mrs. M---?" "Yes." "The woman that writes?" "The same." She drew back her chair for a few paces, with a deep-drawn sigh, in which disappointment and surprise seemed strangely to mingle. "Well, I have he'rd a great deal about you, and I wanted to see you bad for a long time; but you are only a humly person like myself after all. Why I do think, if I had on my best gown and cap, I should look a great deal younger and better than you." I told her that I had no doubt of the fact. "And pray," continued she, with the same provoking scrutiny, "how old do you call yourself?" I told her my exact age. "Humph!" quoth she, as if she rather doubted my word, "two years younger nor me! you look a great deal older nor that." After a long pause, and another searching gaze, "Do you call those teeth your own?" "Yes," said I, laughing; for I could retain my gravity no longer; "in the very truest sense of the word they are mine, as God gave them to me." "You luckier than your neighbours," said she. "But airn't you greatly troubled with headaches?" "No," said I, rather startled at this fresh interrogatory. "My!" exclaimed she, "I thought you must be, your eyes are so sunk in your head. Well, well, so you are Mrs. M--- of Belleville, the woman that writes. You are but a humly body after all." While this curious colloquy was going on, my poor Irish friend sat on thorns, and tried, by throwing in a little judicious blarney, to soften the thrusts of the home truths to which he had unwittingly exposed me. Between every pause in the conversation, he broke in with--"I am sure Mrs. M--- is a fine-looking woman--a very young-looking woman for her age. Any person might know at a glance that those teeth were her own. They look too natural to be false." Now, I am certain that the poor little woman never meant to wound my feelings, nor give me offence. She literally spoke her thoughts, and I was too much amused with the whole scene to feel the least irritated by her honest bluntness. She expected to find in an author something quite out of the common way, and I did not come up at all to her expectations. Her opinion of me was not more absurd than the remarks of two ladies who, after calling upon me for the first time, communicated the result of their observations to a mutual friend. "We have seen Mrs. M---, and we were so surprised to find her just like other people!" "What did you expect to see in her?" "Oh, something very different. We were very much disappointed." "That she was not sitting upon her head," said my friend, smiling; "I like Mrs. M---, because she is in every respect like other people; and I should not have taken her for a blue-stocking at all." The sin of authorship meets with little toleration in a new country. Several persons of this class, finding few minds that could sympathise with them, and enter into their literary pursuits, have yielded to despondency, or fallen victims to that insidious enemy of souls, _Canadian whisky_. Such a spirit was the unfortunate Dr. Huskins, late of Frankfort on the river Trent. The fate of this gentleman, who was a learned and accomplished man of genius, left a very sad impression on my mind. Like too many of that highly-gifted, but unhappy fraternity, he struggled through his brief life, overwhelmed with the weight of undeserved calumny, and his peace of mind embittered with the most galling neglect and poverty. The want of sympathy experienced by him from men of his own class, pressed sorely upon the heart of the sensitive man of talent and refinement; he found very few who could appreciate or understand his mental superiority, which was pronounced as folly and madness by the ignorant persons about him. A new country, where all are rushing eagerly forward in order to secure the common necessaries of life, is not a favourable soil in which to nourish the bright fancies and delusive dreams of the poet. Dr. Huskins perceived his error too late, when he no longer retained the means to remove to a more favourable spot,--and his was not a mind which could meet and combat successfully with the ills of life. He endeavoured to bear proudly the evils of his situation, but he had neither the energy nor the courage to surmount them. He withdrew himself from society, and passed the remainder of his days in a solitary, comfortless, log hut on the borders of the wilderness. Here he drooped and died, as too many like him have died, heartbroken and alone. A sad mystery involves the last hours of his life: it is said that he and Dr. Sutor, another talented but very dissipated man, had entered into a compact to drink until they both died. Whether this statement is true cannot now be positively ascertained. It is certain, however, that Dr. Sutor was found dead upon the floor of the miserable shanty occupied by his friend, and that Dr. Huskins was lying on his bed in the agonies of death. Could the many fine poems composed by Dr. Huskins in his solitary exile, be collected and published, we feel assured that posterity would do him justice, and that his name would rank high among the bards of the green isle. To The Memory of Dr. Huskins. "Neglected son of genius! thou hast pass'd In broken-hearted loneliness away; And one who prized thy talents, fain would cast The cypress-wreath above thy nameless clay. Ah, could she yet thy spirit's flight delay, Till the cold world, relenting from its scorn, The fadeless laurel round thy brows should twine, Crowning the innate majesty of mind, By crushing poverty and sorrow torn. Peace to thy mould'ring ashes, till revive Bright memories of thee in deathless song! True to the dead, Time shall relenting give The meed of fame deserved--delayed too long, And in immortal verse the Bard again shall live!" Alas! this frightful vice of drinking prevails throughout the colony to an alarming extent. Professional gentlemen are not ashamed of being seen issuing from the bar-room of a tavern early in the morning, or of being caught reeling home from the same sink of iniquity late at night. No sense of shame seems to deter them from the pursuit of their darling sin. I have heard that some of these regular topers place brandy beside their beds that, should they awake during the night, they may have within their reach the fiery potion for which they are bartering body and soul. Some of these persons, after having been warned of their danger by repeated fits of _delirium tremens_, have joined the tee-totallers; but their abstinence only lasted until the re-establishment of their health enabled them to return to their old haunts, and become more hardened in their vile habits than before. It is to be questioned whether the signing of any pledge is likely to prove a permanent remedy for this great moral evil. If an appeal to the heart and conscience, and the fear of incurring the displeasure of an offended God, are not sufficient to deter a man from becoming an active instrument in the ruin of himself and family, no forcible restraint upon his animal desires will be likely to effect a real reformation. It appears to me that the temperance people begin at the wrong end of the matter, by restraining the animal propensities before they have convinced the mind. If a man abstain from drink only as long as the accursed thing is placed beyond his reach, it is after all but a negative virtue, to be overcome by the first strong temptation. Were incurable drunkards treated as lunatics, and a proper asylum provided for them in every large town, and the management of their affairs committed to their wives or adult children, the bare idea of being confined under such a plea would operate more forcibly upon them than by signing a pledge, which they can break or resume according to the caprice of the moment. A drunkard, while under the influence of liquor, is a madman in every sense of the word, and his mental aberration is often of the most dangerous kind. Place him and the confirmed maniac side by side, and it would be difficult for a stranger to determine which was the most irrational of the two. A friend related to me the following anecdote of a physician in his native town:--This man, who was eminent in his profession, and highly respected by all who knew him, secretly indulged in the pernicious habit of dram-drinking, and after a while bade fair to sink into a hopeless drunkard. At the earnest solicitations of his weeping wife and daughter he consented to sign the pledge, and not only ardent spirits but every sort of intoxicating beverage was banished from the house. The use of alcohol is allowed in cases of sickness to the most rigid disciplinarians, and our doctor began to find that keeping his pledge was a more difficult matter than he had at first imagined. Still, for _examples' sake_, of course, a man of his standing in society had only joined for _examples' sake_; he did not like openly to break it. He therefore feigned violent toothache, and sent the servant girl over to a friend's house to borrow a small phial of brandy. The brandy was sent, with many kind wishes for the doctor's speedy recovery. The phial now came every night to be refilled; and the doctor's toothache seemed likely to become a case of incurable _tic douloureux_. His friend took the alarm. He found it both expensive and inconvenient, providing the doctor with his nightly dose; and wishing to see how matters really stood, he followed the maid and the brandy one evening to the doctor's house. He entered unannounced. It was as he suspected. The doctor was lounging in his easy chair before the fire, indulging in a hearty fit of laughter over some paragraph in a newspaper, which he held in his hand. "Ah, my dear J---, I am so glad to find you so well. I thought by your sending for the brandy, that you were dying with the toothache." The doctor, rather confounded--"Why, yes; I have been sadly troubled with it of late. It does not come on, however, before eight o'clock, and if I cannot get a mouthful of brandy, I never can get a wink of sleep all night." "Did you ever have it before you took the pledge?" "Never," said the doctor emphatically. "Perhaps the cold water does not agree with you?" The doctor began to smell a rat, and fell vigorously to minding the fire. "I tell you what it is, J---," said the other; "the toothache is a _nervous affection_. It is the _brandy_ that is the _disease_. It may cure you of an imaginary toothache; but I assure you, that it gives your wife and daughter an _incurable heartache_." The doctor felt at that moment a strange palpitation at his own. The scales fell suddenly from his eyes, and for the first time his conduct appeared in its true light. Returning the bottle to his friend, he said, very humbly--"Take it out of my sight; I feel my error now. I will cure their heartache by curing myself of this beastly vice." The doctor, from that hour, became a temperate man. He soon regained his failing practice, and the esteem of his friends. The appeal of his better feelings effected a permanent change in his habits, which signing the pledge had not been able to do. To keep up an appearance of consistency he had had recourse to a mean subterfuge, while touching his heart produced a lasting reform. Drinking is the curse of Canada, and the very low price of whisky places the temptation constantly in every one's reach. But it is not by adopting by main force the Maine Liquor law, that our legislators will be able to remedy the evil. Men naturally resist any oppressive measures that infringe upon their private rights, even though such measures are adopted solely for their benefit. It is not wise to thrust temperance down a man's throat; and the surest way to make him a drunkard is to insist upon his being sober. The zealous advocates of this measure (and there are many in Canada) know little of their own, or the nature of others. It would be the fruitful parent of hypocrisy, and lay the foundation of crimes still greater than the one it is expected to cure. To wean a fellow-creature from the indulgence of a gross sensual propensity, as I said before, we must first convince the mind: the reform must commence there. Merely withdrawing the means of gratification, and treating a rational being like a child, will never achieve a great moral conquest. In pagan countries, the missionaries can only rely upon the sincerity of the converts, who are educated when children in their schools; and if we wish to see drunkenness banished from our towns and cities, we must prepare our children from their earliest infancy to resist the growing evil. Show your boy a drunkard wallowing in the streets, like some unclean animal in the mire. Every side-walk, on a market-day, will furnish you with examples. Point out to him the immorality of such a degrading position; make him fully sensible of all its disgusting horrors. Tell him that God has threatened in words of unmistakable import, that he will exclude such from his heavenly kingdom. Convince him that such loathsome impurity must totally unfit the soul for communion with its God--that such a state may truly be looked upon as the second death--the foul corruption and decay of both body and soul. Teach the child to pray against drunkenness, as he would against murder, lying, and theft; shew him that all these crimes are often comprised in this one, which in too many cases has been the fruitful parent of them all. When the boy grows to be a man, and mingles in the world of men, he will not easily forget the lesson impressed on his young heart. He will remember his early prayers against this terrible vice--will recall that disgusting spectacle--and will naturally shrink from the same contamination. Should he be overcome by temptation, the voice of conscience will plead with him in such decided tones that she will be heard, and he will be ashamed of becoming the idiot thing he once feared and loathed. The Drunkard's Return. "Oh! ask not of my morn of life, How dark and dull it gloom'd o'er me; Sharp words and fierce domestic strife, Robb'd my young heart of all its glee,-- The sobs of one heart-broken wife, Low, stifled moans of agony, That fell upon my shrinking ear, In hollow tones of woe and fear; As crouching, weeping, at her side, I felt my soul with sorrow swell, In pity begg'd her not to hide The cause of grief I knew too well; Then wept afresh to hear her pray That death might take us both away! "Away from whom? Alas! What ill Press'd the warm life-hopes from her heart? Was she not young and lovely still? What made the frequent tear-drops start From eyes, whose light of love could fill My inmost soul, and bade me part From noisy comrades in the street, To kiss her cheek, so cold and pale, To clasp her neck, and hold her hand, And list the oft-repeated tale Of woes I could not understand; Yet felt their force, as, day by day, I watch'd her fade from life away. "And _he_, the cause of all this woe, Her mate--the father of her child, In dread I saw him come and go, With many an awful oath reviled; And from harsh word, and harsher blow, (In answer to her pleadings mild,) I shrank in terror, till I caught From her meek eyes th' unwhisper'd thought-- 'Bear it, my Edward, for thy mother's sake! He cares not, in his sullen mood, If this poor heart with anguish break.' That look was felt, and understood By her young son, thus school'd to bear His wrongs, to soothe her deep despair. "Oh, how I loath'd him!--how I scorn'd His idiot laugh, or demon frown,-- His features bloated and deform'd; The jests with which he sought to drown The consciousness of sin, or storm'd, To put reproof or anger down. Oh, 'tis a fearful thing to feel Stern, sullen hate, the bosom steel 'Gainst one whom nature bids us prize The first link in her mystic chain; Which binds in strong and tender ties The heart, while reason rules the brain, And mingling love with holy fear, Renders the parent doubly dear. "I cannot bear to think how deep The hatred was I bore him then; But he has slept his last long sleep, And I have trod the haunts of men; Have felt the tide of passion sweep Through manhood's fiery heart, and when By strong temptation toss'd and tried, I thought how that lost father died; Unwept, unpitied, in his sin; Then tears of burning shame would rise, And stern remorse awake within A host of mental agonies. He fell--by one dark vice defiled; Was I more pure--his erring child? "Yes--erring child; but to my tale. My mother loved that lost one still, From the deep fount which could not fail (Through changes dark, from good to ill,) Her woman's heart--and sad and pale, She yielded to his stubborn will; Perchance she felt remonstrance vain,-- The effort to resist gave pain. But carefully she hid her grief From him, the idol of her youth; And fondly hoped, against belief, That her deep love and stedfast truth Would touch his heart, and win him back From Folly's dark and devious track. "Vain hope! the drunkard's heart is hard as stone, No grief disturbs his selfish, sensual joy; His wife may weep, his starving children groan, And Poverty with cruel gripe annoy. He neither hears, nor heeds their famish'd moan, The glorious wine-cup owns no base alloy. Surrounded by a low, degraded train, His fiendish laugh defiance bids to pain; He hugs the cup--more dear than friends to him-- Nor sees stern ruin from the goblet rise, Nor flames of hell careering o'er the brim,-- The lava flood that glads his bloodshot eyes Poisons alike his body and his soul, Till reason lies self-murder'd in the bowl. "It was a dark and fearful winter night, Loud roar'd the tempest round our hovel home; Cold, hungry, wet, and weary was our plight, And still we listen'd for his step to come. My poor sick mother!--'twas a piteous sight To see her shrink and shiver, as our dome Shook to the rattling blast; and to the door She crept, to look along the bleak, black moor. He comes--he comes!--and, quivering all with dread, She spoke kind welcome to that sinful man. His sole reply,--'Get supper--give me bread!' Then, with a sneer, he tauntingly began To mock the want that stared him in the face, Her bitter sorrow, and his own disgrace. "'I have no money to procure you food, No wood, no coal, to raise a cheerful fire; The madd'ning cup may warm your frozen blood-- We die, for lack of that which you desire!' She ceased,--erect one moment there he stood, The foam upon his lip; with fiendish ire He seized a knife which glitter'd in his way, And rush'd with fury on his helpless prey. Then from a dusky nook I fiercely sprung, The strength of manhood in that single bound: Around his bloated form I tightly clung, And headlong brought the murderer to the ground. We fell--his temples struck the cold hearth-stone, The blood gush'd forth--he died without a moan! "Yes--by my hand he died! one frantic cry Of mortal anguish thrill'd my madden'd brain, Recalling sense and mem'ry. Desperately I strove to raise my fallen sire again, And call'd upon my mother; but her eye Was closed alike to sorrow, want, and pain. Oh, what a night was that!--when all alone I watch'd my dead beside the cold hearth-stone. I thought myself a monster--that the deed To save my mother was too promptly done. I could not see her gentle bosom bleed, And quite forgot the father, in the son; For her I mourn'd--for her, through bitter years, Pour'd forth my soul in unavailing tears. "The world approved the act; but on my soul There lay a gnawing consciousness of guilt, A biting sense of crime, beyond control: By my rash hand a father's blood was spilt, And I abjured for aye the death-drugg'd bowl. This is my tale of woe; and if thou wilt Be warn'd by me, the sparkling cup resign; A serpent lurks within the ruby wine, Guileful and strong as him who erst betray'd The world's first parents in their bowers of joy. Let not the tempting draught your soul pervade; It shines to kill, and sparkles to destroy. The drunkard's sentence has been seal'd above,-- Exiled for ever from the heaven of love!" CHAPTER III Free Schools--Thoughts on Education "Truth, Wisdom, Virtue--the eternal three, Great moral agents of the universe-- Shall yet reform and beautify the world, And render it fit residence for Him In whom these glorious attributes combined, To render perfect manhood one with God!" S.M. There is no calculating the immense benefit which the will colony will derive from the present liberal provision made for the education of the rising generation. A few years ago schools were so far apart, and the tuition of children so expensive, that none but the very better class could scrape money enough together to send their children to be instructed. Under the present system, every idle ragged child in the streets, by washing his face and hands, and presenting himself to the free school of his ward, can receive the same benefit as the rest. What an inestimable blessing is this, and how greatly will this education of her population tend to increase the wealth and prosperity of the province! It is a certain means of a calling out and making available all the talent in the colony; and as, thanks be to God, genius never was confined to any class, the poor will be more benefited by this wise and munificent arrangement than the rich. These schools are supported by a district tax, which falls upon the property of persons well able to pay it; but avarice and bigotry are already at work, to endeavour to deprive the young of his new-found blessing. Persons grumble at having to pay this additional tax. They say, "If poor people want their children taught, let them pay for it: their instruction has no right to be forced from our earnings." What a narrow prejudice is this--what miserable, short-sighted policy! The education of these neglected children, by making them better citizens, will in the long run prove a great protection both to life and property. Then the priests of different persuasions lift up their voices because no particular creed is allowed to be taught in the seminaries, and exclaim--"The children will be infidels. These schools are godless and immoral in the extreme." Yes; children will be taught to love each other without any such paltry distinctions as party and creed. The rich and the poor will meet together to learn the sweet courtesies of a common humanity, and prejudice and avarice and bigotry cannot bear that. There is a spirit abroad in the world--and an evil spirit it is--which through all ages has instigated the rich to look down with contemptuous feelings of superiority on the humble occupations and inferior circumstances of the poor. Now, that this spirit is diametrically opposed to the benevolent precepts of Christianity, the fact of our blessed Lord performing his painful mission on earth in no higher capacity than that of a working mechanic, ought sufficiently to show. What divine benevolence--what god-like humility was displayed in this heroic act! Of all the wonderful events in his wonderful history, is there one more astonishing than this-- "That Heaven's high Majesty his court should keep In a clay cottage, by each blast controll'd,-- That Glory's self should serve our hopes and fears, And free Eternity submit to years?" What a noble triumph was this, over the cruel and unjust prejudices of mankind! It might truly be termed the divine philosophy of virtue. This condescension on the part of the great Creator of the universe, ought to have been sufficient to have rendered labour honourable in the minds of his followers; and we still indulge the hope, that the moral and intellectual improvement of mankind will one day restore labour to her proper pedestal in the temple of virtue. The chosen disciples of our Great Master--those to whom he entrusted the precious code of moral laws that was destined to overthrow the kingdom of Satan, and reform a degraded world--were poor uneducated men. The most brilliant gems are often enclosed in the rudest incrustations; and He who formed the bodies and souls of men, well knew that the most powerful intellects are often concealed amidst the darkness and rubbish of uneducated minds. Such minds, enlightened and purified by his wonder-working Spirit, He sent forth to publish his message of glad tidings through the earth. The want of education and moral training is the only _real_ barrier that exists between the different classes of men. Nature, reason, and Christianity, recognise no other. Pride may say nay; but pride was always a liar, and a great hater of the truth. Wealth, in a hard, abstract point of view, can never make any. Take away the wealth from an ignorant man, and he remains just the same being he was before he possessed it, and is no way bettered from the mere circumstance of his having once been rich. But let that wealth procure for him the only true and imperishable riches--knowledge, and with it the power to do good to himself and others, which is the great end of moral and religious training--and a mighty structure is raised which death itself is unable to destroy. The man has indeed changed his nature, and is fast regaining the resemblance he once bore to his Creator. The soil of man is no rank, sex, or colour. It claims a distinction far above all these; and shall we behold its glorious energies imprisoned in the obscene den of ignorance and want, without making the least effort to enlighten its hideous darkness? It is painful to reflect upon the vast barren wilderness of human intellect which on every side stretches around us--to know that thousands of powerful minds are condemned by the hopeless degradation of their circumstances to struggle on in obscurity, without one gleam of light. What a high and noble privilege has the Almighty conferred upon the wealthy and well-educated portion of mankind, in giving them the means of reclaiming and cultivating those barren minds, and of lifting them from the mire of ignorance in which they at present wallow, to share with them the moral dignity of thinking men! A small portion of the wealth that is at present bestowed upon mere articles of luxury, or in scenes of riot and dissipation, would more than effect this great purpose. The education of the poorer classes must add greatly to the well-being and happiness of the world, and tend to diminish the awful amount of crimes and misery, which up to the present moment has rendered it a vale of tears. The ignorance of the masses must, while it remains, for ever separate them from their more fortunate brethren. Remove this stumbling block out of the way, and the hard line of demarcation which now divides them will soften, and gradually melt away. Their supposed inferiority lies in their situation alone. Turn to the history of those great men whom education has rescued from the very lowest walks of life, and you will find a mighty host, who were in their age and day the companions, the advisers, the friends of princes--men who have written their names with the pen and sword upon the pillars of time, and, if immortality can exist in a world of constant change, have been rendered immortal by their words or deeds. Let poverty and bigotry do their utmost to keep such spirits, while living, in the shades of obscurity, death, the great equalizer, always restores to its possessors the rights of mind, and bids them triumph for ever over the low prejudices of their fellow-men, who, when reading the works of Burns, or gazing on the paintings of Raphael, reproach them with the lowliness of their origin; yea, the proudest who have taste to appreciate their glorious creations, rejoice that genius could thus triumph over temporary obstacles. It has often been asserted by the rich and nobly-born, that if the poorer classes were as well educated as themselves, it would render them familiar and presumptuous, and they would no longer pay to their superiors in station that deference which must exist for the well-being of society. We view the subject with far other eyes, and conclude from analogy, that that which has conferred such incalculable benefits on the rich, and helped mainly to place them in the position they now hold, could not be detrimental to the poor. The man who knows his duty, is more likely to perform it well than the ignorant man, whose services are compulsory, and whose actions are influenced by the moral responsibility which a right knowledge must give. My earnest wish for universal education involves no dislike to royal rule, or for those distinctions of birth and wealth which I consider necessary for the well-being of society. It little matters by what name we call them; men of talent and education will exert a certain influence over the minds of their fellow-men, which will always be felt and acknowledged in the world if mankind were equalized to-morrow. Perfect, unadulterated republicanism, is a beautiful but fallacious chimera which never has existed upon the earth, and which, if the Bible be true, (and we have no doubts on the subject,) we are told never will exist in heaven. Still we consider that it would be true wisdom and policy in those who possess a large share of the good things of this world, to make labour honourable, by exalting the poor operative into an intelligent moral agent. Surely it is no small privilege to be able to bind up his bruised and broken heart--to wipe the dust from his brow, and the tears from his eyes--and bid him once more stand erect in his Maker's image. This is, indeed, to become the benefactor both of his soul and body; for the mind, once convinced of its own real worth and native dignity, is less prone to fall into low and degrading vices, than when struggling with ignorance and the galling chain of despised poverty. It is impossible for the most depraved votary of wealth and fashion _really_ to despise a poor, honest, well-informed man. There is an aristocracy of virtue as well as of wealth; and the rich man who dares to cast undeserved contempt upon his poor, but high-minded brother, hears a voice within him which, in tones which cannot be misunderstood, reproves him for blaspheming his Maker's image. A glorious mission is conferred on you who are rich and nobly born, which, if well and conscientiously performed, will make the glad arch of heaven ring with songs of joy. Nor deem that you will be worse served because your servant is a religious, well educated man, or that you will be treated with less respect and attention by one who knows that your station entitles you to it, than by the rude, ignorant slave, who hates you in his heart, and performs his appointed services with an envious, discontented spirit. When we consider that ignorance is the fruitful parent of crime, we should unite with heart and voice to banish it from the earth. We should devote what means we can spare, and the talents with which God has endowed us, in furthering every national and benevolent institution set on foot for this purpose; and though the progress of improvement may at first appear slow, this should not discourage any one from endeavouring to effect a great and noble purpose. Many months must intervene, after sowing a crop, before the husbandman can expect to reap the harvest. The winter snows must cover, the spring rains vivify and nourish, and the summer sun ripen, before the autumn arrives for the ingathering of his labour, and then the increase, after all his toil and watching, must be with God. During the time of our blessed Lord's sojourn upon earth, he proclaimed the harvest to be plenteous and the labourers few; and he instructed his disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send more labourers into the field. Does it not, therefore, behove those who live in a more enlightened age--when the truth of the Gospel, which he sealed with his blood, has been preached in almost every country--to pray the Father of Spirits to proportion the labourers to the wants of his people, so that Christian kindness, brotherly love, and moral improvement, may go hand in hand, and keep pace with increasing literary and scientific knowledge? A new country like Canada cannot value the education of her people too highly. The development of all the talent within the province will in the end prove her real worth, for from this source every blessing and improvement must flow. The greatness of a nation can more truly be estimated by the wisdom and intelligence of her people, than by the mere amount of specie she may possess in her treasury. The money, under the bad management of ignorant rulers, would add but little to the well-being of the community, while the intelligence which could make a smaller sum available in contributing to the general good, is in itself an inexhaustible mine of wealth. If a few enlightened minds are able to add so much strength and importance to the country to which they belong, how much greater must that country become if all her people possessed this intelligence! How impossible it would be to conquer a country, if she could rely upon the united wisdom of an educated people to assist her in her hour of need! The force of arms could never subdue a nation thus held together by the strong hands of intellectual fellowship. To the wisdom of her educated men, Britain owes the present position she holds among the nations. The power of mind has subdued all the natural obstacles that impeded her course, and has placed her above all her competitors. She did not owe her greatness to extent of territory. Look at the position she occupies upon the map--a mere speck, when compared with several European nations. It was not to her superior courage, great as that is acknowledged to be; the French, the Germans, the Spaniards, are as brave, as far as mere courage is concerned, are as ready to attack and as slow to yield, as the lion-hearted king himself. No, it is to the moral power of her educated classes that she owes her superiority. It is more difficult to overcome mind than matter. To contend with the former, is to contend with God himself, for all true knowledge is derived from him; to contend with the latter, is to fight with the grosser elements of the earth, which being corruptible in their nature, are more easily overcome. From her educated men have sprung all those wonderful discoveries in science, which have extended the commerce of Great Britain, enlarged her capacity for usefulness, and rendered her the general benefactress of mankind. If education has accomplished these miracles--for they would have been regarded as such in a more remote period of the world's history--think of what importance it is to Canada to bestow this inestimable gift upon her children. Yet I should be sorry to see the sons of the poor emigrant wasting their valuable time in acquiring Latin and Greek. A man may be highly educated, may possess the most lofty and comprehensive mind, without knowing one syllable of either. The best years of a boy's life are often thrown away in acquiring the Latin language, which often proves of little use to him in after life, and which, for the want of practice, becomes to him a dead letter, as well as a dead language. Let the boy be taught to think, to know the meaning thoroughly of what he learns, and, by the right use of his reflective faculties, be enabled to communicate the knowledge thus acquired to others. A comprehensive knowledge of the arts and sciences, of history, geography, chemistry, and mathematics, together with a deep and unbigoted belief in the great truths of Christianity, would render a man or woman a highly intellectual and rational companion, without going beyond the pale of plain English. "Light! give me more light!" were the dying words of Goethe; and this should be the constant prayer of all rational souls to the Father of light. More crimes are committed through ignorance than through the influence of bad and malignant passions. An ignorant man is incapable of judging correctly, however anxious he may be to do so. He gropes in the dark, like a blind man; and if he should happen to stumble on the right path, it is more by accident than from any correct idea which has been formed in his mind respecting it. The mind which once begins to feel a relish for acquiring knowledge is not easily satisfied. The more it knows, the less it thinks of its own acquirements, and the more anxious it becomes to arrive at the truth; and finding that perfection is not a growth of earth, it carries its earnest longings beyond this world, and seeks it in communion with the Deity. If the young could once be fully persuaded that there was no disgrace in labour, in honest, honourable poverty, but a deep and lasting disgrace in ignorance and immorality, their education would be conducted on the most enlightened plan, and produce the most beneficial results. The poor man who could have recourse to a book for amusement, instead of wasting a leisure hour in the barroom of a tavern, would be more likely to promote the comfort and respectability of his family. Why should the labourer be debarred from sharing with the rich the great world of the past, and be able to rank amongst his best friends the distinguished men of all creeds and countries, and to feel for these dead worthies (who, thanks to the immortal art of printing, still live in their works) the warmest gratitude and admiration? The very mention of some names awaken in the mind the most lively emotion. We recall their beautiful thoughts to memory, and repeat them with as much earnestness as though the dead spake again through our lips. Of all the heaven-inspired inventions of man, there are none to which we are so greatly indebted as to the art of printing. To it we shall yet owe the emancipation of the larger portion of mankind from a state of mental and physical slavery. What floods of light have dawned upon the world since that silent orator, the press, set at liberty the imprisoned thoughts of men, and poured the wealth of mind among the famishing sons of earth! Formerly few could read, because manuscript books, the labours of the pen, were sold at such an enormous price that only men of rank or great wealth could afford to purchase them. The peasant, and the landholder who employed him, were alike ignorant; they could not obtain books, and therefore learning to read might well be considered in those dark ages a waste of time. This profound ignorance gave rise to all those superstitions which in the present enlightened age are regarded with such astonishment by thinking minds. "How could sensible, good men, condemn poor old women to death for being witches?" was a question once asked me by my nephew, a fine, intelligent boy, of eight years of age. Now this boy had read a good deal, young as he was, and thought more, and was wiser in his day and generation than these same pious bigots. And why? The boy had read the works of more enlightened men, and, making a right use of his reason, he felt convinced that these men were in error (although he had been born and brought up in the backwoods of Canada)--a fact which the great Mathew Hale was taught by bitter experience. I have said more on this subject than I at first intended, but I feel deeply impressed with the importance of it; and, though I confess myself wholly inadequate to do it the justice it deserves, I hope the observations I have made will attract the attention of my Canadian readers, and lead them to study it more profoundly for themselves. Thanks be to God! Canada is a free country; a land of plenty; a land exempt from pauperism, burdensome taxation, and all the ills which crush and finally sink in ruin older communities. While the vigour of young life is yet hers, and she has before her the experience of all other nations, it becomes an act of duty and real _patriotism_ to give to her children the best education that lies in her power. The Poet. "Who can read the Poet's dream, Shadow forth his glorious theme, And in written language tell The workings of the potent spell, Whose mysterious tones impart Life and vigour to his heart? 'Tis an emanation bright, Shooting from the fount of light; Flowing in upon the mind, Like sudden dayspring on the blind; Gilding with immortal dyes Scenes unknown to common eyes; Revealing to the mental sight Visions of untold delight. 'Tis the key by Fancy brought, That opens up the world of thought; A sense of power, a pleasing madness, A hope in grief, a joy in sadness, A taste for beauty unalloyed, A love of nature never cloyed; The upward soaring of a soul Unfetter'd by the world's control, Onward, heavenward ever tending, Its essence with the Eternal blending; Till, from 'mortal coil' shook free, It shares the seraph's ecstacy." CHAPTER IV Amusements "Life hath its pleasures, stern Death hath its fears, Joy hath gay laughter, and Grief bitter tears; Rejoice with the one, nor shrink from the other,-- Yon cloud hides the sun, and death is life's brother! As the beam to the day, so the shade to the night-- Be certain that Heaven orders all for the right." S.M. My dear reader, before we proceed further on our journey, it may be as well to give you some idea of how the Canadian people in towns spend their time. I will endeavour to describe to you the various sources from whence they derive pleasure and amusement. In large cities, like Montreal and Toronto, the higher classes are as refined and intellectual as ladies and gentlemen at home, and spend their lives much in the same manner. Their houses abound in all the elegancies and luxuries of life, and to step into their drawing-rooms you would imagine yourself still in England. They drive handsome carriages, and ride fine spirited horses; and if they are encumbered with fewer domestic pests in the shape of pampered servants, they have, in this respect, a decided advantage over their European friends. They dress well and expensively, and are very particular to have their clothes cut in the newest fashion. Men and women adopt the reigning mode so universally, that they look all dressed alike. The moment a fashion becomes at all obsolete, the articles of dress made to suit it are discarded. In England, a lady may please herself in the choice of colours, and in adopting as much of a fashion as suits her style of person and taste, but in Canada they carry this imitation of the fashions of the day to extremes. If green was the prevailing colour, every lady would adopt it, whether it suited her complexion or no; and, if she was ever so stout, that circumstance would not prevent her from wearing half-a-dozen more skirts than was necessary, because that absurd and unhealthy practice has for a long period prevailed. Music is taught very generally. Though very few attain any great perfection in the science, a great many perform well enough to gratify their friends, and contribute to the enjoyment of a social evening. You will find a piano in every weathy Canadian's house, and even in the dwellings of most of the respectable mechanics. I never met with a Canadian girl who could not dance, and dance well. It seems born in them, and it is their favourite amusement. Polkas, waltzes, and quadrilles, are the dances most approved in their private and public assemblies. The eight Scotch reel has, however, its admirers, and most parties end with this lively romping dance. Balls given on public days, such as the Queen's birthday, and by societies, such as the Freemasons', the Odd Fellows', and the Firemen's, are composed of very mixed company, and the highest and lowest are seen in the same room. They generally contrive to keep to their own set--dancing alternately--rarely occupying the floor together. It is surprising the goodwill and harmony that presides in these mixed assemblies. As long as they are treated with civility, the lower classes shew no lack of courtesy to the higher. To be a spectator at one of these public balls is very amusing. The country girls carry themselves with such an easy freedom, that it is quite entertaining to look at and listen to them. At a freemasons' ball, some years ago, a very amusing thing took place. A young handsome woman, still in her girlhood, had brought her baby, which she carried with her into the ball-room. On being asked to dance, she was rather puzzled what to do with the child; but, seeing a young lawyer, one of the _elite_ of the town, standing with folded arms looking on, she ran across the room, and, putting the baby into his arms, exclaimed--"You are not dancing, sir; pray hold my baby for me, till the next quadrille is over." Away she skipped back to her partner, and left the gentleman overwhelmed with confusion, while the room shook with peals of laughter. Making the best of it, he danced the baby to the music, and kept it in high good humour till its mother returned. "I guess," she said, "that you are a married man?" "Yes," said he, returning the child, "and a mason." "Well, I thought as much any how, by the way you acted with the baby." "My conduct was not quite free from selfishness--I expect a reward." "As how?" "That you will give the baby to your husband, and dance the next set with me." "With all my heart. Let us go a-head." If legs did not do their duty, it was no fault of their pretty owner, for she danced with all her strength, greatly to the amusement of her aristocratic partner. When we first came to Belleville, evening parties commenced at the primitive and _rational_ hour of six o'clock, but now invitations are issued for eight; the company, however, seldom assemble before nine, and those who wish to be very fashionable don't make their appearance before ten. This is rather absurd in a country, but Folly, as well as Wisdom, is justified of her children. Evening parties always include dancing and music, while cards are provided for those gentlemen who prefer whist to the society of the ladies. The evening generally closes with a splendid supper, in which there is no lack of the good things which the season affords. The ladies are always served first, the gentlemen waiting upon them at supper; and they never sit down to the table, when the company is large, until after the ladies have returned to the drawing-room. This custom would not be very agreeable to some English epicures, but it is an universal one with Canadian gentlemen, whose politeness and attention to the other sex is one of the most pleasing traits in their character. The opportunities of visiting the theatre occur very seldom, and only can be enjoyed by those who reside in the _cities_ of Canada. The young men of the place sometimes get up an amateur performance, in which they act the part of both ladies and gentlemen, greatly to the delight and amusement of their audience. I must say that I have enjoyed a play in one of these private houses more than ever I did at Drury Lane or Covent Garden. The lads act with their whole hearts, and I have seen them shed real tears over the sorrows they were called upon to pourtray. They did not feign--they really felt the part. Of course, there was little artistic skill, but a good deal of truth and nature. In the summer, riding and boating parties take the place of dancing. These are always regular picnics, each party contributing their share of eatables and drinkables to the general stock. They commonly select some pretty island in the bay, or shady retired spot on the main land, for the general rendezvous, where they light a fire, boil their kettles, and cook the vegetables to eat with their cold prog, which usually consists of hams, fowls, meat pies, cold joints of meat, and abundance of tarts and cakes, while the luxury of ice is conveyed in a blanket at the bottom of one of the boats. These water parties are very delightful. The ladies stroll about and gather wild fruit and flowers, while the gentlemen fish. The weather at that season of the year is sure to be fine, and the water scenery beautiful in the extreme. Those who possess good voices sing, and the young folks dance on the greensward. A day spent thus happily with nature in her green domain, is one of pure and innocent enjoyment. There is always a reunion, in the evening, of the party, at the house of one of the married ladies who were present at the picnic. In a riding party, some place is selected in the country, and those who are invited meet at a fixed hour on the appointed ground. The Oakhill pond, near the village of Rawdon, and about sixteen miles from Belleville, is a very favourite spot, and is one of singular beauty. This Oakhill pond is a small, clear, and very deep lake, on the summit of a high hill. It is about two miles in circumference, and being almost circular, must nearly be as broad as it is long. The waters are intensely blue, the back-ground is filled up with groves of dark pine, while the woods in front are composed of the dwarf oaks and firs, which are generally found on these table lands, interspersed with low bushes--the sandy soil abounding with every Canadian variety of wild fruits and flowers. There is an excellent plank road all the way from Belleville to Rawdon. The Oakhills lie a little to the left, and you approach them by a very steep ascent, from the summit of which you obtain as fine a prospect as I have seen in this part of Canada. A vast country lies stretched beneath your feet, and you look down upon an immense forest, whose tree-tops, moved by the wind, cause it to undulate like a green ocean. From this spot you may trace the four windings of the bay, to its junction with the blue waters of the Ontario. The last time I gazed from the top of this hill a thunder-storm was frowning over the woods, and the dense black clouds gave an awful grandeur to the noble picture. The village of Rawdon lies on the other side of this table land, quite in a valley. A bright, brisk little stream runs through it, and turns several large mills. It is a very pretty rural place, and is fast rising towards the dignity of a town. When we first came to Belleville, the spot on which Rawdon now stands belonged principally, if not altogether, to an enterprising Orkney man, Edward Fidlar, Esq., to whose energy and industry it mainly owes its existence. Mr. Fidlar might truly be termed the father of the village. A witty friend suggested, that instead of Rawdon, it ought more properly to be called "Fidlar's Green." There is a clean country inn just at the foot of the long hill leading to the Oakhill pond, kept by a respectable widow-woman of the name of Fairman. If the pic-nic party does not wish to be troubled with carrying baskets of provisions so far, they send word to Mrs. Fairman the day previous, to prepare dinner for so many guests. This she always does in the best possible country style, at the moderate charge of half-a-dollar per head. A dinner in the country in Canada, taken at the house of some substantial yeoman, is a very different affair from a dinner in the town. The table literally groans with good cheer; and you cannot offer a greater affront to your hostess, than to eat sparingly of the dainties set before you. They like to have several days' warning of your intended visit, that they may go "to trouble," as they most truly term making such magnificent preparations for a few guests. I have sat down to a table of this kind in the country, with only Mr. M. and myself as guests, and we have been served with a dinner that would have amply fed twenty people. Fowls of several sorts, ham, and joints of roast and boiled meat, besides quantities of pies, puddings, custards, and cakes. Cheese is invariably offered to you with apple pie; and several little, glass dishes are ranged round your plate, for preserves, honey, and apple sauce, which latter dainty is never wanting at a country feast. The mistress of the house constantly presses you to partake of all these things, and sometimes the accumulation of rich food on one plate, which it is impossible for you to consume, is everything but agreeable. Two ladies, friends of mine, went to spend the day at one of these too hospitable entertainers. The weather was intensely hot. They had driven a long way in the sun, and both ladies had a headache, and very little appetite in consequence. The mistress of the house went "to trouble," and prepared a great feast for her guests; but, finding that they partook very sparingly of her good cheer, her pride was greatly hurt, and rising suddenly from her seat, and turning to them with a stern brow, she exclaimed,-- "I should like to know what ails my victuals, that you don't choose to eat." The poor ladies explained the reason of their appetites having failed them; but they found it a difficult matter to soothe their irritated hostess, who declared that she would never go "to trouble" for them again. It is of no use arguing against this amiable weakness, for as eating to uneducated people is one of the greatest enjoyments of life, they cannot imagine how they could make you more comfortable, by offering you less food, and of a more simple kind. Large farmers in an old cleared country live remarkably well, and enjoy within themselves all the substantial comforts of life. Many of them keep carriages, and drive splendid horses. The contrast between the pork and potato diet, (and sometimes of potatoes alone without the pork), in the backwoods, is really striking. Before a gentleman from the old country concludes to settle in the bush, let him first visit these comfortable abodes of peace and plenty. The Hon. R. B---, when canvassing the county, paid a round of visits to his principal political supporters, and they literally almost killed him with kindness. Every house provided a feast in honour of their distinguished guest, and he was obliged to eat at all. Coming to spend a quiet evening at our house, the first words he uttered were--"If you have any regard for me, Mrs. M---, pray don't ask me to eat. I am sick of the sight of food." I can well imagine the amount of "trouble" each good wife had taken upon herself on this great occasion. One of the most popular public exhibitions is the circus, a sort of travelling Astley's theatre, which belongs to a company in New York. This show visits all the large towns, once during the summer season. The performances consists of feats of horsemanship, gymnastics, dancing on the tight and slack rope, and wonderful feats of agility and strength; and to those who have taste and nerve enough to admire such sights, it possesses great attractions. The company is a large one, often exceeding forty persons; it is provided with good performers, and an excellent brass band. The arrival of the circus is commonly announced several weeks before it makes its actual entree, in the public papers; and large handbills are posted up in the taverns, containing coarse woodcuts of the most exciting scenes in the performance. These ugly pictures draw round them crowds of little boys, who know the whole of the programme by heart, long before the caravans containing the tents and scenery arrive. Hundreds of these little chaps are up before day-break on the expected morning of the show, and walk out to Shannonville, a distance of nine miles, to meet it. However the farmers may grumble over bad times and low prices, the circus never lacks its quantum of visitors; and there are plenty of half-dollars to be had to pay for tickets for themselves and their families. The Indians are particularly fond of this exhibition, and the town is always full of them the day the circus comes in. A large tent is pitched on the open space between the Scotch church and the old hospital, big enough to contain at least a thousand people, besides a wide area for the performance and the pit. An amphitheatre of seats rise tier above tier, to within a few feet of the eaves of the tent, for the accommodation of the spectators; and the whole space is lighted by a large chandelier, composed of tin holders, filled with very bad, greasy, tallow candles, that in the close crowded place emit a very disagreeable odour. The show of horses and feats of horsemanship are always well worth seeing, but the rest grows very tiresome on frequent repetition. Persons must be very fond of this sort of thing who can twice visit the circus, as year after year the clown repeats the same stale jests, and shows up the same style of performers. The last time I went, in order to please my youngest son, I was more amused by the antics of a man who carried about bull's-eyes and lemonade, than by any of the actors. Whenever he offered his tray of sweets to the ladies, it was with such an affectedly graceful bend; and throwing into his voice the utmost persuasion, he contrived to glance down on the bulls'-eyes with half an eye, and to gaze up at the ladies he addressed with all that remained of the powers of vision, exclaiming, with his hand on his heart,--"How sweet they a-r-e!" combining a recommendation of his bulls'-eyes with a compliment to the fair sex. The show opens at two o'clock, P.M., and again at half-past seven in the evening. The people from a distance, and the young children, visit the exciting scene during the day; the town's-people at night, as it is less crowded, cooler, and the company more select. Persons of all ranks are there; and the variety of faces and characters that nature exhibits gratis, are far more amusing to watch than the feats of the Athletes. Then there is Barnham's travelling menagerie of wild animals, and of tame darkie melodists, who occupy a tent by themselves, and a _white nigger_ whom the boys look upon with the same wonder they would do at a white rat or mouse. Everybody goes to see the wild beasts, and to poke fun at the elephants. One man who, born and brought up in the Backwoods, had never seen an elephant before, nor even a picture of one, ran half frightened home to his master, exclaiming as he bolted into the room, "Oh, sir! sir! you must let the childer go to the munjery. Shure there's six huge critters to be seen, with no eyes, and a tail before and behind." The celebrated General Tom Thumb paid the town a visit last summer. His presence was hailed with enthusiastic delight, and people crowded from the most remote settlements to gaze upon the tiny man. One poor Irishwoman insisted "that he was not a human crathur, but a poor fairy changeling, and that he would vanish away some day, and never be heard of again." Signor Blitz, the great conjuror, occasionally pays us a visit, but his visits are like angel visits, few and far between. His performance never fails in filling the large room in the court-house for several successive nights, and his own purse. Then we have lecturers from the United States on all subjects, who commonly content themselves with hiring the room belonging to the Mechanics' Institute, where they hold forth, for the moderate sum of a York shilling a head, on mesmerism, phrenology, biology, phonography, spiritual communications, etc. These wandering lectures are often very well attended, and their performance is highly entertaining. Imagine a tall, thin, bearded American, exhibiting himself at a small wooden desk between two dingy tallow candles, and holding forth in the genuine nasal twang on these half-supernatural sciences on which so much is advanced, and of which so little is at present understood. Our lecturer, however, expresses no doubts upon the subject of which he treats. He proves on the persons of his audience the truth of phrenology, biology, and mesmerism, and the individuals he pitches upon to illustrate his facts perform their parts remarkably well, and often leave the spectators in a maze of doubt, astonishment, and admiration. I remember, about three years ago, going with my husband to hear the lecturers of a person who called himself Professor R---. He had been lecturing for some nights running at the Mechanics' Institute for nothing; and had drawn together a great number of persons to hear him, and witness the strange things he effected by mesmerism on the persons of such of the audience, who wished to test his skill. This would have been but a poor way of getting his living. But these American adventurers never give their time and labour for nothing. He obtained two dollars for examining a head phrenologically, and drawing out a chart; and as his lectures seldom closed without securing him a great many heads for inspection, our disinterested professor contrived to pocket a great deal of money, and to find his cheap lectures an uncommonly profitable speculation. We had heard a great deal of his curing a blacksmith of _tic-douloureux_ by mesmerizing him. The blacksmith, though a big, burly man, had turned out an admirable clairvoyant, and by touching particular bumps in his cranium, the professor could make him sing, dance, and fight all in a breath, or transport him to California, and set him to picking gold. I was very curious to witness this man's conduct under his alleged mesmeric state, and went accordingly. After a long lecture, during which the professor put into a deep sleep a Kentuckian giant, who travelled with him, the blacksmith was called upon to satisfy the curiosity of the spectators. I happened to sit near this individual, and as he rose to comply with the vociferous demands of the audience, I shall never forget the sidelong knowing glance he cast across the bench to a friend of his own; it was, without exception, the most intelligent telegraphic despatch that it was possible for one human eye to convey to another, and said more plainly than words could--"You shall see how I can humbug them all." That look opened my eyes completely to the farce that was acting before me, and entering into the spirit of the scene, I must own that I enjoyed it amazingly. The blacksmith was mesmerised by a _look_ alone, and for half an hour went on in a most funny manner, keeping the spectators with their eyes open, and in convulsions of laughter. After a while, the professor left him to enjoy his mesmeric nap, and chose another subject, in the person of a man who had lectured a few nights before on the science of mnemonics, and had been disappointed in a very scanty attendance. After a decent time had elapsed, the new subject yielded very easily to the professor's magic passes, and fell into a profound sleep. The mesmerizer then led him, with his eyes shut, to the front of the stage, and pointed out to the spectators the phrenological development of his head; he then touched the bump of language, and set the seeming automaton talking. But here the professor was caught in his own trap. After once setting him going, he of the mnemonics refused to hold his tongue until he had given, to his weary listeners, the whole lecture he had delivered a few nights before. He pranced to and fro on the platform, declaiming in the most pedantic voice, and kept us for one blessed hour before he would suffer the professor to deprive him of the unexpected opportunity thus afforded him of being heard. It was a droll scene: the sly blacksmith in a profound fox's sleep--the declaimer pretending to be asleep, and wide awake all the time--and the thin, long-faced American, too wise to betray his colleagues, but evidently annoyed beyond measure at the trick they had played him. I once went to hear a lecture at the Mechanics' Institute, delivered by a very eccentric person, who styled himself the Hon. James Spencer Lidstone--_the Great Orator of the West_. My astonishment may be guessed better than described, when he gave out for the subject of his lecture--"Great women, from Eve down to Mrs. M---." Not wishing to make myself a laughing-stock, to a pretty numerous audience, I left the room. Going up the street next morning, a venerable white-haired old man ran after me, and pulling me by the shawl, said, "Mrs. M---, why did you leave us last night? He did you justice--indeed he did. You should have stayed and heard all the fine things he said of you." Besides scientific lecturers, Canada is visited by singers and musicians of every country, and of every age and sex--from the celebrated Jenny Lind, and the once celebrated Braham, down to pretenders who can neither sing nor play, worth paying a York shilling to hear. Some of these wandering musicians play with considerable skill, and are persons of talent. Their life is one of strange vicissitudes and adventure, and they have an opportunity of making the acquaintance of many odd characters. In illustration of this, I will give you a few of the trials of a travelling musician, which I took down from the dictation of a young friend, since dead, who earned a precarious living by his profession. He had the faculty of telling his adventures without the power of committing them to paper; and, from the simplicity and truthfulness of his character, I have no doubt of the variety of all the amusing anecdotes he told. But he shall speak for himself in the next chapter. A May-Day Carol. "There's not a little bird that wings Its airy flight on high, In forest bowers, that sweetly sings So blithe in spring as I. I love the fields, the budding flowers, The trees and gushing streams; I bathe my brow in balmy showers, And bask in sunny beams. "The wanton wind that fans my cheek, In fancy has a voice, In thrilling tones that gently speak-- Rejoice with me, rejoice! The bursting of the ocean-floods, The silver tinkling rills, The whispering of the waving woods, My inmost bosom fills. "The moss for me a carpet weaves Of patterns rich and rare; And meekly through her sheltering leaves The violet nestles there. The violet!--oh, what tales of love, Of youth's sweet spring are thine! And lovers still in field and grove, Of thee will chaplets twine. "Mine are the treasures Nature strews With lavish hand around; My precious gems are sparkling dews, My wealth the verdant ground. Mine are the songs that freely gush From hedge, and bush, and tree; The soaring lark and speckled thrush Discourse rich melody. "A cloud comes floating o'er the sun, The woods' green glories fade; But hark! the blackbird has begun His wild lay in the shade. He hails with joy the threaten'd shower, And plumes his glossy wing; While pattering on his leafy bower, I hear the big drops ring. "Slowly at first, but quicker now, The rushing rain descends; And to each spray and leafy bough A crown of diamonds lends. Oh, what a splendid sight appears! The sun bursts forth again; And, smiling through sweet Nature's tears, Lights up the hill and plain. "And tears are trembling in my eyes, Tears of intense delight; Whilst gazing upward to the skies, My heart o'erflows my sight. Great God of nature! may thy grace Pervade my inmost soul; And in her beauties may I trace The love that form'd the whole!" CHAPTER V Trials of a Travelling Musician "The man that hath not music in his soul." I will say no more. The quotation, though but too true, I is too well known; but it will serve as the best illustration I can give to the various annoyances which beset the path of him who is musically inclined, and whose soul is in unison with sweet sounds. This was my case. I loved music with all my heart and soul, and in order to give myself wholly up to my passion, and claim a sort of moral right to enjoy it, I made it a profession. Few people have a better opportunity of becoming acquainted with the world than the travelling musician; yet such is the absorbing nature of his calling, that few make use of it less. His nature is open, easy, and unsuspecting; pleased with his profession, he hopes always to convey the same pleasure to his hearers; and though doubts will sometimes cross his mind, and the fear of ridicule make him awkward and nervous, yet, upon the whole, he is generally sure of making a favourable impression on the simple-hearted and generous among his hearers. The musician moves among his fellow-men as a sort of privileged person; for who ever suspects him of being a rogue? His first attempt to deceive would defeat its own object, and prove him to be a mere pretender. His hand and voice must answer for his skill, and form the only true test of his abilities. If tuneless and bad, the public will not fail to condemn him. The adventures of the troubadours of old, if they were more full of sentiment and romance than the every-day occurrences that beset the path of the modern minstrel, were not more replete with odd chances and ludicrous incident. Take the following for an example of the many droll things which have happened to me during my travels. In the summer of 1846 I was making a professional tour through the United States, and had advertised a concert for the ensuing evening at the small town of ---, and was busy making the necessary arrangements, when I was suddenly accosted, as I left the hotel, by a tall, thin, lack-a-daisical looking man, of a most unmusical and unprepossessing appearance: "How-do-ye-do? I'm highly tickled to see you. I s'pose you are going to give an extra sing here--ain't you?" "Yes; I intend giving a concert here this evening." "Hem! How much dew you ax to come in? That is--I want to say--what are you goin' to chearge a ticket?" "Half a dollar--the usual price." "How?" inclining his ear towards me, as if he doubted the soundness of the organ. "Half a dollar?" repeated I, carelessly. "Tis tew much. You had better chearge twenty-five cents. If you dew, you'll have a pretty good house. If you make it twelve and a half cents, you'll have a _smasher_. If, mister, you'll lower that agin to six and a quarter cents, you'll have to take a field,--there ain't a house would hold 'em." After a pause, scratching his head, and shuffling with his feet, "I s'pose you ginnerally give the profession tickets?" "Sometimes." "I'm a _leetle_ in your line myself. Although I'm a shoe-maker by trade, I leads the first Presbyterian choir upon the hill. I should like to have you come up, if you stay long enough." "As that is the case, perhaps you can tell me if I am likely to have a good house to-night?" "I kind a reckon as how you will; that is, if you don't chearge tew much." "Where shall I get the best room?" "Well, I guess, you had better try the old meetin' house." "Thank you. Allow me, sir, to present you with a ticket." I now thought that I had got rid of him, and amply paid him for the information I had received. The ticket was for a single admission. He took it, turned it slowly round, held it close to his eyes, spelt it carefully over, and then stared at me. "What next?" thought I. "There's my wife. Well--I s'pose she'd like to come in." "You wish me to give you a double ticket?" "I don't care if you dew," again turning the new ticket in his hand; and, scratching his head more earnestly, he said, "I've one of the smartest boys you ever seed; he's a fust-rate ear for music; he can whistle any tune he hears right straight off. Then there's my wife's sister a-staying with us jist now; she's very fond of music tew." "Perhaps," said I, losing all patience, "you would prefer a family ticket?" "Well; I'd be obliged. It don't cost you any, mister; and if we don't use it, I'll return it to-morrow." The stranger left me, and I saw no more of him, until I spied him in the concert-room, with a small family of ten or twelve. Presently, another man and a dog arrived. Says he to the doorkeeper, "What's a-goin on here?" "It's a concert--admission, half-a-dollar." "I'm not a-goin' to give half-a-dollar to go in here. I hire a pew in this here church by the year, and I've a right to go in whenever the door's open." So in he went with his dog. The evening turned out very wet, and these people happened to form all my audience; and as I did not feel at all inclined to sing for their especial benefit, I returned to my lodgings. I learned from my doorkeeper the next morning, that my friends waited for an hour and a half for my reappearance, which could not reasonably have been expected under existing circumstances. I thought I had got rid of the musical shoemaker for ever, but no such good luck. Before I was out of my bed, he paid me a visit. "You will excuse my calling so early," says he, "but I was anxious to see you before you left the town." Wishing him at the bottom of the Mississippi, I put on my dressing gown, and slipped from my bed, whilst he continued his introductory address. "I was very sorry that you had not a better attendance last night; and I s'pose that accounted for your leaving us as you did. We were all kinder disappointed. You'd have had a better house, only the people thought there was a _leetle_ humbug about this," and he handed me one of my programmes. It is well known to most of my readers, that in writing these bills the name of the composer generally follows the song, particularly in any very popular compositions, such as Grand Introduction to Pianoforte .............. HENRY HERTZ. Life on the Ocean Wave ........................ HENRY RUSSELL. Old English Gentleman ......................... Melody by MART. LUTHER. "Humbug!" said I, attempting to take the bill, in order to see that no mistake had originated in the printing, but my tormentor held it fast. "Look," said he; "Now where is Henry Hertz; and Henry Russell, where is he? And the Old English Gentleman, Martin Luther, what has become of him? The folks said that he was dead, but I didn't believe that, for I didn't think that you would have had the face to put his name in your bill if he was." Thus ended my acquaintance with the enlightened shoemaker of the Mississippi. I was travelling in one of the western canal boats the same summer, and was sauntering to and fro upon the deck, admiring the beauty of the country through which we were passing, when I observed a very tall, thin-laced, sharp looking man, regarding me with very fixed attention. Not knowing who or what he was, I was at last a little annoyed by the pertinacity of this steady stare. It was evident that he meditated an attack upon me in some shape or other. Suddenly he came up to me, and extending his hand, exclaimed,-- "Why, Mister H---, is this you? I have not seen you since you gave your _consort_ at N---; it seems a tarnation long while ago. I thought, perhaps, you had got blowed up in one of those exploded steam-boats. But here you are as large as life--and that's not over large neither, (glancing at the slight dimensions of my figure,) and as ready to raise the wind as ever. I am highly gratified to meet with you, as I have one of the greatest songs you ever he'rd to show you. If you can but set it to music, and sing it in New York city, it will immortalize you, and immortalize me tew." Amused at the earnestness with which the fellow spoke, I inquired the subject of his song. "Oh, 'tis des-crip-tive; 'tis tre-men-dous. It will make a sensation all over the Union." "But what is it about?--Have you got it with you?" "No--no, mister; I never puts these things down on paper, lest other folk should find them and steal them. But I'll give you some _idee_ of what it is. Look you, mister. I was going from Syracuse to Rochester, on the canal-boat. We met on our way a tre-men-dous storm. The wind blew, and the rain came down like old sixty, and everything looked as black as my hat; and the passengers got scared and wanted to get off, but the captain sung out, 'Whew--let 'em go, Jem!' and away we went at the rate of tew miles an hour, and they could not stop. By and by we struck a rock, and down we went." "Indeed!" said I, "that's very unusual in a canal-boat; were any lives lost?" "No, but we were all dreadfully sceared and covered with mud. I sat down by the _en-gine_ till I got dry, and then I wrote my pome. I will repeat what I can to you, and what I can't I will write right off when I gets hum.--Hold on--hold on--" he continued, beating his forehead with the back of his hand, as if to awaken the powers of memory--"I have it now--I have it now,--'tis tre-men-dous--" "Oh Lord, who know'st the wants of men, Guide my hand, and guide my pen, And help me bring the truth to light, Of that dread scene and awful night, Ri, tu, ri, tu, ri, tu. There was Mister Cadoga in years a-bud, Was found next morning in tew feet mud; He strove--he strove--but all in vain, The more he got up, he fell down again. Ri, tu, ri, tu, ri, tu." The poet paused for a moment to gain breath, evidently overcome by the recollection of the awful scene. "Is not that bee-u-tiful?" he exclaimed. "What a fine effect you could give to that on the pee-a-ne, humouring the keys to imitate his squabbling about in the mud. Let me tell you, mister, it would beat Russell's 'Ship on Fire' all hollow." Wiping the perspiration from his face, he recommenced-- "The passengers rushed unto the spot, Together with the crew; We got him safe out of the mud, But he had lost his shoe. Ri, tu, ri, tu, ri, tu." I could not listen to another line of this sublime effusion, the passengers who had gathered around us drowning his nasal drawl in a complete roar of laughter. Seeing that I was as much infected as the rest, the poet turned to me, with an air of offended dignity,-- "I don't take the trouble, mister, to repeat any more of my _pomes_ to you; nor do I take it kind at all, your laughing at me in that ere way. But the truth is, you can't comprehend nor appreciate anything that is sublime, or out of the common way. Besides, I don't think you could set it to music; it is not in you, and you can't fix it no-how." This singular address renewed our mirth; and, finding myself unable to control my inclination to laugh, and not wishing to hurt his feelings, I was about to leave him, when the man at the helm sung out, "Bridge!" The passengers lowered their heads to ensure their safety--all but my friend the poet, who was too much excited to notice the signal before he came in contact with the bridge, which sent him sprawling down the gangway. He picked himself up, clambered up the stairs, and began striding up and down the deck at a tremendous rate, casting from time to time indignant glances at me. I thought, for my part, that the man was not in his right senses, or that the blow he had received had so dulled his bump of caution, that he could no longer take care of himself; for the next moment he stumbled over a little child, and would have been hurt severely if I had not broken his fall, by catching his arm before he again measured his length on the deck. My timely assistance mollified his anger, and he once more became friendly and confidential. "Here, take this piece of poetry, Mister H---, and see if you can set _it_ to music. Mind you, it is none of mine; but though not _quite_ so good, it is som'at in my style. I cut it out of a newspaper down East. You are welcome to it," he continued, with a patronizing nod, "that is, if you are able to do justice to the subject." I took the piece of dirty crumpled newspaper from his hand; and, struck with the droll quizzing humour of the lines, I have preserved them ever since. As I have never seen them before or since, I will give you them here. To The Falls Of Niagara. "I wonder how long you've been roarin' At this infernal rate; I wonder if all you've been pourin' Could be cipher'd on a slate. "I wonder how such a thunderin' sounded When all New York was woods; 'Spose likely some Injins have been drownded, When the rains have raised your floods. "I wonder if wild stags and buffaloes Have stood where now I stand; Well--s'pose being scared at first, they stubb'd their toes; I wonder where they'd land. "I wonder if that rainbow has been shinin' Since sun-rise at creation; And this waterfall been underminin' With constant spatteration. "That Moses never mention'd ye--I've wonder'd, While other things describin'; My conscience!--how ye must have foam'd and thunder'd When the deluge was subsidin'! "My thoughts are strange, magnificent, and deep, When I look down on thee;-- Oh, what a glorious place for washing sheep Niagara would be! "And oh, what a tremendous water power Is wash'd over its edge; One man might furnish all the world with flour, With a single privilege. "I wonder how many times the lakes have all Been emptied over here; Why Clinton did not feed the grand Canal Up here--I think is queer. "The thoughts are very strange that crowd my brain, When I look up to thee; Such thoughts I never expect to have again, To all eternity." After reading the lines, I begged my friend to excuse me, as I wanted to go below and take a nap. I had not been long in the cabin before he followed me. To get rid of him I pretended to be asleep. After passing me two or three times, and leaning over me in the most inquisitive manner, until his long nose nearly went into my eye, and humming a bow-wow tune in my ear to ascertain if I were really napping, he turned from me with a dissatisfied grunt, flung himself into a settee, and not long after was puffing and blowing like a porpoise. I was glad of this opportunity to go on deck again, and "I left him alone in his glory." But, while I was congratulating myself on my good fortune, I found him once more at my side. Good heavens! how I wished him at the bottom of the canal, when he commenced telling me some _awful_ dream he had had. I was too much annoyed at being pestered with his company to listen to him, a circumstance I now rather regret, for had his dreams been equal to his poetry, they certainly must have possessed the rare merit of originality; and I could have gratified my readers with something entirely out of the common way. Turning abruptly from him, I entered into conversation with another gentleman, and quite forgot my eccentric friend until I retired for the night, when I found him waiting for me in the cabin. "Ho, ho, mister,--is that you? I was afear'd we had put you ashore. What berth are you goin' to take?" I pointed to No. 4. "Then," said he, "would you have any objection to my locating in the one above you, as I feel a _leetle afear'd?_ It is so awful dark out-doors, and the clouds look tre-mend-ous black, as if they'd be a-pourin' all night. The reason why I prefer the upper berth is this," he continued confidentially; "if we should fall in with a storm, and all go to the bottom, I should have a better chance of saving myself. But mind you, if she should sink I will give you half of my berth, if you'll come up." I thanked him for his offer, and not being at all apprehensive, I told him that I preferred staying where I was. Soon after I retired, hoping to sleep, but I had not calculated on the powers of annoyance possessed by my quondam friend. I had just laid myself comfortably down, when I felt one of his huge feet on the side of my berth. Looking out, I espied him crawling up on all-fours to his place of security for the night. His head had scarcely touched the pillow before he commenced telling me some long yarn; but I begged him, in no very gentle tone, to hold on till the morning, as I had a very severe headache, and wanted to go to sleep. I had fallen into a sort of doze, when I thought I heard some one talking in a low voice close to my ear. I started into a sitting posture, and listened a moment. It was pitch dark; I could see nothing. I soon, however, discovered that the mysterious sounds proceeded from the berth above me. It was my friend reciting, either for my amusement or his own, the poem he had favoured me with in the morning. He was apparently nearly asleep, and he drawled the half-uttered sentences through his nose in the most ludicrous manner. He was recapitulating the disastrous condition of Mr. Cadoga:-- "There was Mister Ca-do-ga--in years a-bud-- Next morning--tew--feet--mud-- He strove--he--but--in vain; The more he fell--down--he got up--a-g-a-in. Ri--tu--ri--tu." Here followed a tremendous snore, and I burst into a prolonged fit of laughter, which fortunately did not put a stop to the sonorous bass of my companion overhead, whose snoring I considered far more tolerable than his conversation. Just at this moment the boat struck the bank, which it frequently does of a very dark night, which gave the vessel such a shock, that it broke the cords that secured the poet's bed to the beam above, and down he came, head foremost, to the floor. This accident occasioned me no small discomfort, as he nearly took my berth with him. It was fortunate for me that I was awake, or he might have killed me in his descent; as it was, I had only time to throw myself back, when he rushed past me with the speed of an avalanche, carrying bed and bed-clothes with him in one confused heap; and there he lay upon the floor, rolling and roaring like some wild beast caught in a net. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! I wonder where I is; what a tre-men-dous storm--what a dreadful night--not a soul can be saved,--I knew it--I dreampt it all. Oh Lord! we shall all go to the bottom, and find eternity there--Captain captain--where be we?" Here a child belonging to one of the passengers, awakened by his bellowing, began to cry. "Oh, dear! Some one else sinking.--Captain--captain--confound him! I s'pose he's drownded, like the rest. Thank heaven! here's something to hold on to, to keep me from sinking;" and, clutching at the table in the dark, he upset it, and broke the large lamp that had been left upon it. Down came the broken glass upon him in a shower which, doubtless, he took for the waves breaking over him, for he raised such a clatter with his hands and feet, and uttered such doleful screams, that the passengers started simultaneously from their sleep,-- "What's the matter? is that man mad or drunk?" exclaimed several voices. The gentleman beneath the bed-clothes again groaned forth,--"We are all lost. If I once get upon dry land, you'll never catch me in a canal-boat agin." Pitying his distress I got up, groped my way to the steward's berth, and succeeded in procuring a light. When I returned to the cabin, I found the poet lying on the floor, with the table upon him, and he holding it fast with both hands, crying vehemently, "I will never let go. I will hang on to the last." "You are dreaming," said I; "come, get up. The cords of your bed were not strong enough to hold you, and you have got a tumble on to the floor; nothing else is the matter with you." As I ceased speaking the vessel again struck the bank, and my friend, in his eagerness to save himself, upset me, light and all. I again upset all the small pieces of furniture in my reach, to the great amusement of the passengers, who were sitting up in their berths listening to; and laughing at our conversation. We were all once more in the dark, and I can assure my readers that my situation was everything but comfortable, as the eccentric gentleman had hold of both my legs. "You foolish fellow," cried I, kicking with all my might to free myself. "There is no harm done; the boat has only struck again upon the bank." "Where is the bank?" said he, still labouring under the delusion that he was in the water. "Give me a hold on it. If I can only get on the bank I shall be safe." Finding it impossible to convince him how matters really stood, I left him to unroll himself to his full dimensions on the floor, and groping my way to a sofa, laid myself down once more to sleep. When the passengers met at the breakfast-table, the poor poet and his misfortunes during the night gave rise to much quizzing and merriment, particularly when he made his appearance with a black eye, and the skin rubbed off the tip of his nose. One gentleman, who was most active in teasing him, cried out to me,--"Mr. H---, do try and set last night's adventures to music, and sing them this evening at your concert. They would make a _tre-men-dous sensation_, I assure you." The poet looked daggers at us, and seizing his carpet-bag, sprang to the deck, and from the deck to the shore, which he fortunately reached in safety, without casting a parting glance at his tormentors. The Mountain Air. "Rave not to me of your sparkling wine; Bid not for me the goblet shine; My soul is athirst for a draught more rare, A gush of the pure, fresh mountain air! "It wafts on its currents the rich perfume Of the purple heath, and the honied broom; The golden furze, and the hawthorn fair, Shed all their sweets to the mountain air. "It plays round the bank and the mossy stone, Where the violet droops like a nun alone; Shrouding her eyes from the noon-tide glare, But breathing her soul to the mountain-air. "It gives to my spirits a tone of mirth-- I bound with joy o'er the new-dress'd earth, When spring has scatter'd her blossoms there, And laden with balm the mountain air. "From nature's fountain my nectar flows, 'Tis the essence of each sweet bud that blows; Then come, and with me the banquet share, Let us breathe together the mountain air!" CHAPTER VI The Singing Master The Singing-School. "Conceit's an excellent great-coat, and sticks Close to the wearer for his mortal life; It has no spot nor wrinkle in his eyes, And quite cuts out the coats of other men." S.M. "He had a fiddle sadly out of tune, A voice as husky as a raven croaking, Or owlet hooting to the clouded moon, Or bloated bull-frog in some mud-hole choking." During my professional journies through the country, I have often had the curiosity to visit the singing-schools in the small towns and villages through which I passed. These are often taught by persons who are perfectly ignorant of the common rules of music--men who have followed the plough all their lives, and know about as much of the divine science they pretend to teach as one of their oxen. I have often been amused at their manner of explaining the principles of their art to their pupils, who profit so little by their instructions, that they are as wise at the end of their quarter as when they began. The master usually endeavours to impress upon them the importance of making themselves heard, and calls him the smartest fellow who is able to make the most noise. The constant vibration they keep up through their noses gives you the idea that their teacher has been in the habit of raising sheep, and had caught many of their peculiar notes. This style he very kindly imparts to his pupils; and as apt scholars generally try to imitate their master, choirs taught by these individuals resemble a flock of sheep going bahing one after another over a wall. I will give you a specimen of one of these schools, that I happened to visit during my stay in the town of W---, in the western states. I do not mean to say that all music masters are like the one I am about to describe, but he bears a very close resemblance to a great many of the same calling, who practise their profession in remote settlements, where they are not likely to find many to criticise their performance. I had advertised a concert for the 2nd of January, 1848, to be given in the town of W---. I arrived on the day appointed, and fortunately made the acquaintance of several gentlemen amateurs, who happened to be boarding at the hotel to which I had been recommended. They kindly manifested a lively interest in my success, and promised to do all in their power to procure me a good house. While seated at dinner, one of my new friends received a note, which he said came from a singing master residing in a small village a few miles back of W---. After reading the epistle, and laughing heartily over its contents, he gave it to me. To my great astonishment it ran as follows:-- "My Dear Roberts, "How do you do? I hope you will excuse me for troubling you on this occasion; but I want to ax you a partic'lar question. Is you acquainted with the man who is a-goin' to give a sing in your town to-night? If you be, jist say to him, from me, that if he will come over here, we will get him up a house. If he will--or won't cum--please let me know. I am teaching a singing-school over here, and I can do a great deal for him, if he will only cum. "Yours, most respectfully, "John Browne." "You had better go, Mr. H---," said Roberts. "This John Browne is a queer chap, and I promise you lots of fun. If you decide upon going we will all accompany you, and help to fill your house." "By all means," said I. "You will do me a great favour to return an answer to the professional gentleman to that effect. I will send him some of my programmes, and if he can get a tolerable piano, I will go over and give them a concert next Saturday evening." The note and the bills of performance were duly despatched to ---, and the next morning we received an answer from the singing master to say that all was right, and that Mr. Browne would be happy to give Mr. H--- his valuable assistance; but, if possible, he wished that I could come out on Friday, instead of Saturday, as his school met on that evening at six o'clock, and he would like me to witness the performance of his scholars, which would only last from five in the evening till six, and consequently need not interfere at all with my concert, which was to commence at eight. We ordered a conveyance immediately, and as it was the very day signified in the note, we started off for the village of ---. On our arrival we were met at the door of the only hotel in the place, by the man a "_leetle_ in my line." "Is this you, Mr. Thing-a-my. I can't for the life of me think of your name. But no matter. Ain't you the chap as is a-goin' to give us the con-sort this evening?" I answered in the affirmative, and he continued-- "What a leetle fellow you be. Now I stand six feet four inches in my boots, and my voice is high in proportion. But I s'pose you can sing. Small fellows allers make a great noise. A bantam roaster allers crows as loud as an game crower, to make folks believe that the dung-hill is his'n." I was very much amused at his comparing me to a bantam cock, and felt almost inclined to clap my wings and crow. "I have sent all your bills about town," continued the odd man, "and invited all the tip-tops to cum and hear you. I have engaged a good room, and a forty pound pee-a-ne. I s'pose it's worth as much, for 'tis a terrible smart one. It belongs to Deacon S---; and his two daughters are the prettiest galls hereabouts. They play 'Old Dan Tucker,' and all manner of tunes. I found it deuced hard to get the old woman's consent; but I knew she wouldn't refuse me, as she is looking out to cotch me for one of the daughters. She made many objections--said that she would rather the cheese-press and the cook-stove, and all the rest of the furniture went out of the house than the pee-a-ne, as she afear'd that the strings would break, and all the keys spill out by the way. The strings are rusty, and keys loose enough already. I told the old missus that I would take good care that the right side was kept uppermost; and that if any harm happened to the instrument, you could set it all right agin." "I am sorry," said I, "to hear such a poor account of the instrument. It is impossible to sing well to a bad piano--" "Phoo, phoo, man! there's nobody here that ever he'rd a better. Bad or good, it's the only one in the village. I play on this pee-a-ne a _leetle_ myself, and that _ought_ to be some encouragement to you. I am goin' to do a considerable business in the singing line here. I have stirred up all the _leetle_ girls and boys in the place, and set them whistling an' playing on the Jew's harp. Then I goes to the old 'uns, and says to them, what genuses for music these young 'uns be! it is your duty to improve a talent that providence has bestowed on your children. I puts on a long face, like a parson, when I talks of providence and the like o'that, and you don't know how amazingly it takes with the old folks. They think that providence is allers on the look out to do them some good turn. "'What do you charge, Mr. Browne?' says they, instanter. "Oh, a mere trifle, say I, instanter. Jist half-a-dollar a quarter--part in cash, part in _produce_. "''Tis cheap,' says they agin. "Tew little, says I, by half. "'Well, the children shall go,' says the old man. 'Missus, you see to it.' "The children like to hear themselves called genuses, and they go into it like smoke. When I am tuning my voice at my lodgings in the evening, just by way of recreation, the _leetle_ boys all gets round my winder to listen to my singing. They are so fond of it I can't get them away. They make such a confounded noise, in trying to imitate my splendid style. But I'll leave you to judge of that for yourself. 'Spose you'll be up with me to the singing-school, and then you will hear what I can do." "I shall be most happy to attend you." "You see, Mr. Thing-a-my, this is my first lesson, and you must make all allowances, if there should be any trouble, or that all should not go right. You see one seldom gets the hang of it the first night, no how. I have been farming most of my life, but I quits that about five weeks ago, and have been studying hard for my profession ever since. I have got a large school here, another at A--- and another at L---; and before the winter is over, I shall be qualified to teach at W---. I play the big bass fiddle and the violin right off, and--" Here a little boy came running up to say that his father's sheep had got out of the yard, and had gone down to Deacon S---; and, said he, "The folks have sent for you, Mister Browne, to cum and turn 'em out." "A merciful intervention of providence," thought I, who was already heartily weary of my new acquaintance, and began to be afraid that I never should get rid of him. To tell the truth, I was so tired of looking up at him, that I felt that I could not converse much longer with him without endangering the elasticity of my neck, and he would have been affronted if I had asked him to walk in and sit down. He was not very well pleased with Deacon S---'s message. "That comes of borrowing, mister. If I had not asked the loan of the pee-a-ne, they never would have sent for me to look arter their darned sheep. I must go, however. I hope you'll be able to keep yourself alive in my absence. I have got to string up the old fiddle for to-night. The singing-school is about a mile from this. I will come down with my old mare arter you, when its just time to be a-goin'. So good-bye." Away he strode at the rate of six miles an hour; his long legs accomplishing at one step what would have taken a man of my dimensions three to compass. I then went into the hotel to order dinner for my friends, as he had allowed me no opportunity to do so. The conceited fellow had kept me standing a foot deep in snow for the last hour, while listening to his intolerably dull conversation. My disgust and disappointment afforded great amusement to my friends; but in spite of all my entreaties, they could not be induced to leave their punch and a warm fire to accompany me in my pilgrimage to the singing-school. We took dinner at four o'clock, and the cloth was scarcely drawn, when my musical friend made his appearance with the old mare, to take me along to the school. Our turn-out was everything but prepossessing. A large unwieldy cutter of home manufacture, the boards of which it was composed unplained and unpainted, with rope harness, and an undressed bull's hide by way of buffalo's, formed our equipage. But no description that I could give you would do justice to the old mare. A sorry beast she was--thick legged, rough coated, and of a dirty yellow-white. Her eyes, over one of which a film was spread, were dull as the eyes of a stale fish, and her temples so hollow, that she looked as if she had been worn out by dragging the last two generations to their graves. I was ashamed of adding one more to the many burdens she must have borne in her day, and I almost wished that she had realized in her own person the well-known verse in the Scotch song-- "The auld man's mare's dead, A mile ayont Dundee," before I ever had set my eyes upon her. "Can she carry us?" said I, pausing irresolutely, with my foot on the rough heavy runner of the cutter. "I guess she can," quoth he. "She will skim like a bird over the snow; so get into the sleigh, and we will go straight off to the singing-school." It was intensely cold. I drew the collar of my great-coat over my ears, and wrapped my half of the bull's hide well round my feet, and we started. The old mare went better than could have been expected from such a skeleton of a beast. To be sure, she had no weight of flesh to encumber her motions, and we were getting on pretty well, when the music master drove too near a stump, which suddenly upset us both, and tumbled him head foremost into a bank of snow. I fortunately rolled out a-top of him, and soon extricated myself from the difficulty; but I found it no easy matter to drag my ponderous companion from beneath the snow, and the old bull's hide in which he was completely enveloped. The old mare stood perfectly still, gazing with her one eye intently on the mischief she had done, as if she never had been guilty of such a breach of manners before. After shaking the snow from our garments, and getting all right for a second start, my companion exclaimed in an agonized tone-- "My fiddle! Where, where is my fiddle? I can do nothing without my fiddle." We immediately went in search of it; but we did not succeed in finding it for some time. I had given it up in despair, and, half-frozen with cold, was stepping into the cutter to take the benefit of the old bull's hide, when, fortunately for the music master one of the strings of the lost instrument snapped with the cold. We followed the direction of the sound, and soon beheld the poor fiddle sticking in a snow-bank, and concealed by a projecting stump. The instrument had sustained no other injury than the loss of three of the strings. "Well, arn't that too bad?" says he. "I have no more catgut without sending to W---. That's done for, at least for to-night." "It's very cold," I cried, impatiently, seeing that he was in no hurry to move on. "Do let us be going. You can examine your instrument better in the house than standing up to your knees in the snow." "I was born in the Backwoods," say he; "I don't feel the cold." Then jumping into the cutter, he gave me the fiddle to take care of, and pointing with the right finger of his catskin gloves to a solitary house on the top of a bleak hill, nearly a mile a-head, he said, "That white building is the place where the school is held." We soon reached the spot. "This is the old Methodist church, mister, and a capital place for the voice. There is no furniture or hangings to interrupt the sound. Go right in, while I hitch the mare; I will be arter you in a brace of shakes." I soon found myself in the body of the old dilapidated church, and subjected to the stare of a number of very unmusical-looking girls and boys, who, certainly from their appearance, would never have led you to suppose that they ever could belong to a Philharmonic society. Presently, Mr. Browne made his debut. Assuming an air of great importance as he approached his pupils, he said--"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to your notice Mr. H---, the celebrated vocalist. He has cum all the way from New York on purpose to hear you sing." The boys grinned at me and twirled their thumbs, the girls nudged one another's elbows and giggled, while their eloquent teacher continued-- "I don't know as how we shall be able to do much tonight; we upset, and that spilt my fiddle into the snow. You see,"--holding it up--"it's right full of it, and that busted the strings. A dropsical fiddle is no good, no how. Jist look at the water dripping out of her." Again the boys laughed, and the girls giggled. Said he-- "Hold on, don't laugh; it's no laughing matter, as you'll find." After a long pause, in which the youngsters tried their best to look grave, he went on-- "Now all of you, girls and boys, give your attention to my instructions this evening. I'm goin' to introduce a new style, for your special benefit, called the Pest-a-lazy (Pestalozzi) system, now all the fashion. If you are all ready, produce your books. Hold them up. One--two--three! Three books for forty pupils? That will never do! We can't sing to-night; well, never mind. You see that black board; I will give you a lesson to-night upon that. Who's got a piece of chalk?" A negative shake of the head from all. To me: "Chalk's scarce in these diggings." To the boys: "What, nobody got a piece of chalk? That's unlucky; a piece of charcoal out of the stove will do as well." "No 'ar won't," roared out a boy with a very ragged coat. "They be both the same colour." "True, Jenkins, for you; go out and get a lump of snow. Its darnation strange if I can't fix it somehow." "Now," thought I, "what is this clever fellow going to do?" The boys winked at each other, and a murmur of suppressed laughter ran through the old church. Jenkins ran out, and soon returned with a lump of snow. Mr. Browne took a small piece, and squeezing it tight, stuck it upon the board. "Now, boys, that is Do, and that is Re, and that is Do again, and that is Mi, this Do, and that Fa; and that, boys, is a part of what we call a _scale_." Then turning to a tall, thin, shabby-looking man, very much out at the elbows, whom I had not seen before, he said--"Mr. Smith, how is your _base viol?_ Hav'nt you got it tuned up yet?" Well, squire, I guess it's complete." "Hold on; let me see," and taking a tuning-fork from his pocket, and giving it a sharp thump upon the stove, he cried out in a still louder key--"Now, that's A; jist tune up to A." After Mr. Smith had succeeded in tuning his instrument, the teacher proceeded with his lucid explanations:--"Now, boys, start fair; give a grand chord. What sort of a noise do you call that? (giving a luckless boy a thump over the head with his fiddle-stick). You bray through your nose like a jackass. I tell you to quit; I don't want discord." The boy slunk out of the class, and stood blubbering behind the door. "Tune up again, young shavers! Sing the notes as I have made them on the board,--Do, re-do, mi, do-fa. Now, when I count four commence. One--two--three--four. Sing! Hold on!--hold on! Don't you see that all the notes are running off, and you can't sing running notes yet." Here he was interrupted by the noise of some one forcing their way into the church, in a very strange and unceremonious manner, and "The chorister's song, that late was so strong, Grew a quaver of consternation." The door burst open, and a ghastly head was protruded through the aperture. "A ghost!--a ghost!" shrieked out all the children in a breath; and jumping over the forms, they huddled around the stove, upsetting the solitary tallow candle, the desk, and the bass viol, in their flight. One lad sprang right upon the unfortunate instrument, which broke to pieces with a terrible crash. We were now left in the dark. The girls screamed, and clung round me for protection, while the ghastly apparition continued to stare upon us through the gloom, with its large, hollow eyes, I must confess that I felt rather queer; but I wisely kept my fears to myself, while I got as far from the door as I possibly could. Just as our terror had reached a climax, the grizzly phantom uttered a low, whining neigh. "It's the old mare! I'll be darned if it isn't!" cried one of the older boys, at the top of his voice. This restored confidence to the rest; and one rather bolder than his comrades at length ventured to relight the fallen candle at the stove, and holding it up, displayed to our view the old white mare, standing in the doorway. The poor beast had forced her way into the porch to protect herself from the cold; and she looked at her master, as much as to say, "I have a standing account against you." No doubt her sudden intrusion had been the means of shortening her term of probation by at least half an hour, and of bringing the singing-school to a close. She had been the innocent cause of disabling both the musical instruments, and Mr. Browne could not raise a correct note without them. Turning to his pupils, with a very rueful countenance, and speaking in a very unmusical voice, but very expressive withal, he said--"Chore (meaning choir), you are dimissed. But, hold on!--don't be in such a darnation hurry to be off. I was a-going to tell you, this ere gentleman, Mr. H--- (my name, for a wonder, poppping into his head at that minute) is to give a _con-sort_ to-morrow night. It was to have been to-night; but he changed his mind that he might have the pleasure of hearing you. I shall assist Mr. H--- in the singing department; so you must all be sure to cum. Tickets for boys over ten years, twenty-five cents; under ten, twelve and a half cents. So you _leetle_ chaps will know what to do. The next time the school meets will be when the fiddles are fixed. Now scamper." The children were not long in obeying the order. In the twinkling of an eye they were off, and we heard them shouting and sky-larking in the lane. "Cum, Mr. H---," said the music-master, buttoning his great-coat up to his chin, "let us be a-goin'." On reaching the spot where we had left the cutter, to our great disappointment, we found only one-half of it remaining; the other half, broken to pieces, strewed the ground. Mr. Browne detained me for another half-hour, in gathering together the fragments. "Now you, Mr. Smith, you take care of the crippled fiddles, while I take care of the bag of oats. The old mare has been trying to hook them out of the cutter, which has been the cause of all the trouble. You, Mr. H---, mount up on the old jade, and take along the bull's hide, and we will follow on foot." "Yes," said I, "and glad of the chance, for I am cold and tired." Not knowing a step of the way, I let Mr. Browne and his companion go a-head; and making a sort of pack-saddle of the old hide, I curled myself up on the back of the old mare, and left her to her own pace, which, however, was a pretty round trot, until we reached the outskirts of the town, where, dismounting, I thanked my companions, very insincerely I'm afraid, for my evening's amusement, and joined my friends at the hotel, who were never tired of hearing me recount my adventures at the singing-school. I had been obliged to postpone my own concert until the next evening, for I found the borrowed piano such a poor one, and so miserably out of tune, that it took me several hours rendering it at all fit for service. Before I had concluded my task, I was favoured with the company of Mr. Browne, who stuck to me closer than a brother, never allowing me out of his sight for a moment. This persevering attention, so little in unison with my feelings, caused me the most insufferable annoyance. A thousand times I was on the point of dismissing him very unceremoniously, by informing him that I thought him a most conceited, impertinent puppy; but for the sake of my friend Roberts, who was in some way related to the fellow, I contrived to master my anger. About four o'clock he jumped up from the table, at which he had been lounging and sipping hot punch at my expense for the last hour, exclaiming-- "I guess it's time for me to see the pee-a-ne carried up to the con-sort room." "It's all ready," said I. "Perhaps, Mr. Browne, you will oblige me by singing a song before the company arrives, that I may judge how far your style and mine will agree;" for I began to have some horrible misgivings on the subject. "If you will step upstairs, I will accompany you on the piano. I had no opportunity of hearing you sing last night." "No, no," said he, with a conceited laugh; "I mean to astonish you by and by. I'm not one of your common amateurs, no how. I shall produce quite a sensation upon your audience." So saying, he darted through the door, and left me to finish my arrangements for the night. The hour appointed for the concert at length arrived. It was a clear, frosty night, the moon shining as bright as day. A great number of persons were collected about the doors of the hotel, and I had every reason to expect a full house. I was giving some directions to my door-keeper, when I heard a double sleigh approaching at an uncommon rate; and looking up the road, I saw an old-fashioned, high-backed vehicle, drawn by two shabby-looking horses, coming towards the hotel at full gallop. The passengers evidently thought that they were too late, and were making up for lost time. The driver was an old farmer, and dressed in the cloth of the country, with a large capote of the same material drawn over his head and weather-beaten face, which left his sharp black eyes, red nose, and wide mouth alone visible. He flourished in his hand a large whip of raw hide, which ever and anon descended upon the backs of his rawboned cattle like the strokes of a flail. "Get up--go along--waye," cried he, suddenly drawing up at the door of the hotel. "Well, here we be at last, and jist in time for the con-sort." Then hitching the horses to the post, and flinging the buffalo robes over them, he left the three females he was driving in the sleigh, and ran directly up to me,--"Arn't you the con-sort man? I guess you be, by them ere black pants and Sunday-goin' gear." I nodded assent. "What's the damage?" "Half a dollar." "Half a dollar? You don't mean to say that!" "Not a cent less." "Well, it will be _expensive_. There's my wife and two darters, and myself; and the galls never seed a con-sort." "Well," said I, "as there are four of you, you may come in at a dollar and a half." "How; a dollar and a harf! I will go and have a talk with the old woman, and hear what she says to it." He returned to the sleigh, and after chatting for a few minutes with the women, he helped them out, and the four followed me into the common reception room of the inn. The farmer placed a pail of butter on the table, and said with a shrewd curl of his long nose, and a wink from one of his cunning black eyes, "There's some pretty good butter, mister." I was amused at the idea, and replied, "Pretty good butter! What is that to me? I do not buy butter." "Not buy butter! Why you don't say! It is the very best article in the market jist now." For a bit of fun I said,--"Never mind; I will take your butter. What is it worth?" "It was worth ten cents last week, mister; I don't know what it's worth now. It can't have fallen, no-how." I took my knife from my pocket, and in a very business-like manner proceeded to taste the article. "Why," said I, "this butter is not good." Here a sharp-faced woman stepped briskly up, and poking her head between us, said, at the highest pitch of her cracked voice,--"Yes, it is good; it was made this morning _express-ly_ for the _con-sort_." "I beg your pardon, madam. I am not in the habit of buying butter. To oblige you, I will take this. How much is there of it?" "I don't know. Where are your steelyards?" "Oh," said I, laughing, "I don't carry such things with me. I will take it at your own valuation, and you may go in with your family." "'Tis a bargain," says she. "Go in, galls, and fix yourselves for the _con-sort_." As the room was fast filling, I thought it time to present myself to the company, and made my entrance, accompanied by that incorrigible pest, the singing master, who, without the least embarrassment, took his seat by the piano. After singing several of my best songs, I invited him to try his skill. "Oh, certainly," said he; "to tell you the truth, I am a _leetle_ su rprised that you did not ask me to lead off." "I would have done so; but I could not alter the arrangement of the programme." "Ah, well, I excuse you this time, but it was not very polite, to say the least of it." Then, taking my seat at the piano with as much confidence as Braham ever had, he run his hand over the keys, exclaiming "What shall I sing? I will give you one of Russell's songs; they suit my voice best. Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to favour you by singing Henry Russell's celebrated song, 'I love to roam,' and accompany myself upon the pee-a-ne-forty." This song is so well known to most of my readers, that I can describe his manner of singing it without repeating the whole of the words. He struck the instrument in playing with such violence that it shook his whole body, and produced the following ludicrous effect: "Some love to ro-o-o-a-me O'er the dark sea fo-o-ome, Where the shrill winds whistle fre-e-e; But a cho-o-sen ba-a-and in a mountain la-a-a-and, And life in the woo-o-ds for me-e-e." This performance was drowned in an uproar of laughter, which brought our vocalist to a sudden stop. "I won't sing another line if you keep up that infernal noise," he roared at the top of his voice. "When a fellow does his best, he expects his audience to appreciate his performance; but I allers he'rd as how the folks at W--- knew nothing about music." "Oh, do stop," exclaimed an old woman, rising from her seat, and shaking her fist at the unruly company,--"can't yee's; he do sing _butiful_; and his voice in the winds do sound so _natural_, I could almost hear them an 'owling. It minds me of old times, it dew." This voluntary tribute to his genius seemed to console and reassure the singing master, and, stemming with his stentorian voice the torrent of mistimed mirth, he sang his song triumphantly to the end; and the clapping of hands, stamping of feet, and knocking of benches, were truly deafening. "What will you have now?" cried he. "I thought you would comprehend good singing at last." "Give them a comic song," said I, in a whisper. "A comic song! (aloud) Do you think that I would waste my talents in singing trash that any jackass could bray? No, sirra, my style is purely _sentimental_. I will give the ladies and gentlemen the 'Ivy Green.'" He sang this beautiful original song, which is decidedly Russell's best, much in the same style as the former one, but, getting a little used to his eccentricities, we contrived to keep our gravity until he came to the chorus, "Creeping, creeping, creeping," for which he substituted, "crawling, crawling, crawling," when he was again interrupted by such a burst of merriment that he was unable to crawl any further. "Well," said he, rising; "if you won't behave, I will leave the instrument to Mr. H---, and make one of the audience." He had scarcely taken his seat, when the farmer from whom I had bought the butter forced his way up to the piano. Says he, "There's that pail; it is worth ten cents and a half. You must either pay the money, or give me back the pail.--(Hitching up his nether garments)--I s'pose you'll do the thing that's right." "Oh, certainly, there are twelve and a half cents." "I hav'nt change," said he, with a knowing look. "So much the better; keep the difference." "Then we're square, mister," and he sank back into his place. "Did he pay you the money?" I heard the wife ask in an anxious tone. "Yes, yes; more than the old pail was worth by a long chalk. I'd like to deal with that chap allers." I now proceeded with the concert. The song of the drowning child saved by the Newfoundland dog drew down thunders of applause. When the clamour had a little subsided, a tall man rose from his seat at the upper end of the room, and, after clearing his throat with several loud hems, he thus addressed me,--"How do you do, Mr. H---? I am glad, sir, to make your acquaintance. This is my friend, Mr. Derby," drawing another tall man conspicuously forward before all the spectators. "He, tew, is very happy to make your acquaintance. We both want to know if that dog you have been singing about belongs to you. If so, we should be glad to buy a pup." He gravely took his seat, amid perfect yells of applause. It was impossible to be heard in such a riot, and I closed the adventures of the evening by giving out "'Hail, Columbia,' to be sung by all present." This _finale_ gave universal satisfaction, and the voice of my friend the singing master might be heard far above the rest. I was forced, in common politeness, to invite Mr. Browne to partake of the oyster supper I had provided for my friends from W---. "Will you join our party this evening, Mr. Browne?" "Oh, by all manner of means," said he, rubbing his hands together in a sort of ecstasy of anticipation; "I knew that you would do the thing handsome at last. I have not tasted an i'ster since I sang at Niblo's in New York. But did we not come on famously at the _con-sort?_ Confess, now, that I beat you holler. You sing _pretty_ well, but you want confidence. You don't give expression enough to your voice. The applause which followed my first song was tremendous." "I never heard anything like it, Mr. Browne. I never expect to merit such marks of public approbation." "All in good time, my _leetle_ friend," returned he, clapping me familiarly on the shoulder. "Rome was not built in a day, and you are a young man--a very young man--and very _small_ for your age. Your voice will never have the volume and compass of mine. But I smell the i'sters: let's in, for I'm tarnation hungry." Gentle reader! you would have thought so to have seen him eat. My companions looked rather disconcerted at the rapidity with which they disappeared within his capacious jaws. After satisfying his enormous appetite, he washed down the oysters with long draughts of porter, until his brain becoming affected, he swung his huge body back in his chair, and, placing his feet on the supper-table, began singing in good earnest,--not one song in particular, but a mixture of all that had appeared in the most popular Yankee song books for the last ten years. I wish I could give you a specimen of the sublime and the ridiculous, thus unceremoniously huddled together. The effect was so irresistible, when contrasted with the grave exterior of the man; that we laughed until our side ached at his absurdities. Exhausted by his constant vociferations, the musician at length dropped from his chair in a drunken sleep upon the floor, and we carried him into the next room and put him to bed; and, after talking over the events of the evening, we retired about midnight to our respective chambers, which all opened into the great room in which I held the concert. About two o'clock in the morning my sleep was disturbed by the most dismal cries and groans, which appeared to issue from the adjoining apartment. I rubbed my eyes, and sat up in the bed and listened, when I recognized the well-known voice of the singing master, exclaiming in tones of agony and fear--"Landlord! landlord! cum quick. Somebody cum. Landlord! landlord! there's a man under my bed. Oh, Lord! I shall be murdered! a man under my bed!" As I am not fond of such nocturnal visitors myself, not being much gifted with physical strength or courage, I listened a moment to hear if any one was coming. The sound of approaching footsteps along the passage greatly aided the desperate effort I made to leave my comfortable pillow, and proceed to the scene of action. At the chamber door I met the landlord, armed with the fire-tongs and a light. "What's all this noise about?" he cried in an angry tone. I assured him that I was as ignorant as himself of the cause of the disturbance. Here the singing master again sung out-- "Landlord! landlord! there's a _man_ under the _bed_. Cum! somebody cum!" We immediately entered his room, and were joined by two of my friends from W---. Seeing our party strengthened to four, our courage rose amazingly, and we talked loudly of making mincemeat of the intruder, kicking him down stairs, and torturing him in every way we could devise. We found the singing master sitting bolt upright in his bed, his small-clothes gathered up under his arm ready for a start; his face as pale as a sheet, his teeth chattering, and his whole appearance indicative of the most abject fear. We certainly did hear very mysterious sounds issuing from beneath the bed, which caused the boldest of us to draw back. "He is right," said Roberts; "there is some one under the bed." "What a set of confounded cowards you are!" cried the landlord; "can't you lift the valance and see what it is?" He made no effort himself to ascertain the cause of the alarm. Roberts, who, after all, was the boldest man of the party, seized the tongs from the landlord, and, kneeling cautiously down, slowly raised the drapery that surrounded the bed. "Hold the light here, landlord." He did so, but at arm's length. Roberts peeped timidly into the dark void beyond, dropped the valance, and looked up with a comical, quizzing expression, and began to laugh. "What is it?" we all cried in a breath. "Landlord! landlord!" he cried, imitating the voice of the singing master, "cum quick! Somebody cum! There's a dog under the bed! He will bite me! Oh, dear! oh, dear! I shall die of hydrophobia. I shall be smothered in a feather-bed!" "A dog!" said the landlord. "A dog!" cried we all. "Aye, a black dog." "You don't say!" cried the singing master, springing from his bed. "Where is he? I'm able for _him_ any how." And seizing a corn broom that stood in a corner of the room, he began to poke at the poor animal, and belabour him in the most unmerciful manner. The dog, who belonged to a drover who penned his cattle in the inn-yard for the night, wishing to find a comfortable domicile, had taken a private survey of the premises when the people were out of the way, and made his quarters under Mr. Browne's bed. When that worthy commenced snoring, the dog, to signify his approbation at finding himself in the company of some one, amused himself by hoisting his tail up and down; now striking the sacking of the bed, and now tapping audibly against the floor. These mysterious salutations became, at length, so frequent and vehement that they awoke the sleeper, who, not daring to ascertain the cause of the alarm, aroused the whole house with his clamours. Mr. Browne finding himself unable to thrash the poor brute out of his retreat, and having become all of a sudden very brave, crawled under the bed and dragged the dog out by his hind legs. "You see I'm enough for him; give me the poker, and I'll beat out his brains." "You'll do no such thing, sir," said the landlord, turning the animal down the stairs. "The dog belongs to a quiet decent fellow, and a good customer, and he shall meet with no ill usage here. Your mountain, Mr. Browne, has brought forth a mouse." "A dog sir," quoth the singing master, not in the least abashed by the reproof. "If the brute had cut up such a dido under your bed, you would have been as 'turnal sceared as I was." "Perhaps, Mr. Browne," said I, "you took it for the ghost of the old mare?" "Ghost or no ghost," returned the landlord, "he has given us a great deal of trouble, and nearly frightened himself into fits." "The fear was not all on my side," said the indignant vocalist; "and I look upon you as the cause of the whole trouble." "As how?" "If the dog had not cum to your house, he never would have found his way under my bed. When I pay for my night's lodging, I don't expect to have to share it with a strange dog--no how." So saying he retreated, grumbling, back to his bed, and we gladly followed his example. I rose early in the morning to accompany my friends to W---. At the door of the hotel I was accosted by Mr. Browne-- "Why, you arn't goin' to start without bidding me good-bye? Besides, you have not paid me for my assistance at the _con-sort_." I literally started with surprise at this unexpected demand. "Do you expect a professional price for your services?" "Well, I guess the _con-sort_ would have been nothing without my help; but I won't be hard upon you, as you are a young beginner, and not likely to make your fortune in that line any how. There's that pail of butter; if you don't mean to take it along, I'll take that; we wants butter to hum. Is it a bargain?" "Oh, yes; if you are satisfied, I am well pleased." (I could have added, to get rid of you at any price.) "You will find it on the table in the hall." "Not exactly; I took it hum this morning--I thought how it would end. Good-bye to you, Mr. H---. If ever you come this way again, I shall be happy to lend you my assistance." I never visited that part of the countryside since, but I have no doubt that Mr. Browne is busy in his vocation, and flattering himself that he is one of the first vocalists in the Union. I think he should change his residence, and settle down for life in _New Harmony_. To Adelaide,[1] A Beautiful Young Canadian Lady. "Yes, thou art young, and passing fair; But time, that bids all blossoms fade, Will rob thee of the rich and rare; Then list to me, sweet Adelaide. He steals the snow from polish'd brow, From soft bewitching eyes the blue, From smiling lips their ruby glow, From velvet cheeks their rosy hue. "Oh, who shall check the spoiler's power?-- 'Tis more than conquering love may dare; He flutters round youth's summer bower, And reigns o'er hearts like summer fair. He basks himself in sunny eyes, Hides 'mid bright locks, and dimpled smiles; From age he spreads his wings and flies,-- Forgets soft vows, and pretty wiles. "The charms of mind are ever young, Their beauty never owns decay; The fairest form by poet sung, Before their power must fade away. The mind immortal wins from time Fresh beauties as its years advance; Its flowers bloom fresh in every clime-- They cannot yield to change and chance. "E'en over love's capricious boy They hold an undiminish'd sway; For chill and storm can ne'er destroy The blossoms of eternal day. Then deem these charms, sweet Adelaide, The brightest gems in beauty's zone: Make these thine own,--all others fade; They live when youth and grace are flown." [1] The daughter of Colonel Coleman, of Belleville; now Mrs. Easton. CHAPTER VII Camp Meetings "On--on!--for ever brightly on, Thy lucid waves are flowing: Thy waters sparkle as they run, Their long, long journey going." S.M. We have rounded Ox Point, and Belleville is no longer in sight. The steamboat has struck into mid channel, and the bold shores of the Prince Edward District are before us. Calmly we glide on, and islands and headlands seem to recede from us as we advance; and now they are far in the distance, half seen through the warm purple haze that rests so dreamily upon woods and waters. Heaven is above us, and another heaven--more soft, and not less beautiful--lies mirrored beneath; and within that heaven are traced exquisite forms of earth--trees, and flowers, and verdant slopes, and bold hills, and barren rugged rocks. The scene is one of surpassing loveliness, and we open our hearts to receive its sweet influences, while our eyes rest upon it with intense delight, and the inner voice of the soul whispers--God is here! Dost thou not catch the reflection of his glory in this superb picture of Nature's own painting, while the harmony that surrounds his throne is faintly echoed by the warm balmy wind that stirs the lofty branches of the woods, and the waves that swell and break in gentle undulation against these rocky isles? "So smiled the heavens upon the vestal earth, The morn she rose exulting from her birth; A living harmony, a perfect plan Of power and beauty, ere the rebel man Defiled with sin, and stain'd with kindred blood, The paradise his God pronounced as good." That rugged point to the left contains a fine quarry of limestone, which supplies excellent building materials. The stones are brought by the means of a scow, a very broad flat-bottomed boat, to Belleville, where they are sawn into square blocks, and dressed for doors sills and facings of houses. A little further on, the Salmon river discharges its waters into the bay, and on its shores the village of Shannonville has risen, as if by magic, within a very few years. Three schooners are just now anchored at its mouth, receiving cargoes of sawn lumber to carry over to Oswego. The timber is supplied from the large mill, the din of whose machinery can be heard distinctly at this distance. Lumber forms, at present, the chief article of export from this place. Upwards of one million of sawn lumber was shipped from this embryo town during the past year. Shannonville owes its present flourishing prospects to the energy and enterprise of a few individuals, who saw at a glance its capabilities, and purchased for a few hundred pounds the site of a town which is now worth as many thousands. The steamboats do not touch at Shannonville, in their trips to and from Kingston. The mouth of the river is too narrow to admit a larger vessel than a schooner, but as the place increases, wharfs will be built at its entrance into the bay. On the road leading from Belleville to this place, which is in the direct route to Kingston, there is a large tract of plain land which is still uncultivated. The soil is sandy, and the trees are low and far apart, a natural growth short grass and flowering shrubs giving it very much the appearance of a park. Clumps of butternut, and hiccory trees, form picturesque groups; and herds of cattle, belonging to the settlers in the vicinity, roam at large over these plains that sweep down to the water's edge. This is a very favourite resort of summer parties, as you can drive light carriages in all directions over this elevated platform. It used formerly to be a chosen spot for camp-meetings, and all the piously disposed came hither to listen to the preachers, and "get religion." I never witnessed one of these meetings, but an old lady gave me a very graphic description of one of them that was held on this spot some thirty years ago. There were no churches in Belleville then, and the travelling Methodist ministers used to pitch their tents on these plains, and preach night and day to all goers and comers. A pulpit, formed of rough slabs of wood, was erected in a conveniently open space among the trees, and they took it by turns to read, exhort, and pray, to the dwellers in the wilderness. At right they kindled large fires, which served both for light and warmth, and enabled the pilgrims to this sylvan shrine to cook their food, and attend to their wants of their little ones. Large booths, made of the boughs of trees, sheltered the worshippers from the heat of the sun during the day, or from the occasional showers produced by some passing thunder cloud at night. "Our bush farm," said my friend, "happened to be near the spot, and I went with a young girl, a friend and neighbour, partly out of curiosity and partly out of fun, to hear the preaching. It was the middle of July, but the weather was unusually wet for that time of year, and every tent and booth was crowded with men, women, and children, all huddled together to keep out of the rain. Most of these tents exhibited some extraordinary scene of fanaticism and religious enthusiasm; the noise and confusion were deafening. Men were preaching at the very top of their voice; women were shrieking and groaning, beating their breasts and tearing their hair, while others were uttering the most frantic outcries, which they called _ejaculatory prayers_. One thought possessed me all the time, that the whole assembly were mad, and that they imagined God to be deaf, and that he could not hear them without their making this shocking noise. It would appear to you like the grossest blasphemy were I to repeat to you some of their exclamations; but one or two were so absurdly ridiculous, that I cannot help giving them as I heard them. "One young woman, after lying foaming and writhing upon the ground, like a creature possessed, sprang up several feet into the air, exclaiming, 'I have got it! I have got it! I have got it!' To which others responded--'Keep it! keep it! keep it!' I asked a bystander what she meant. He replied, 'she has got religion. It is the Spirit that is speaking in her.' I felt too much shocked to laugh out, yet could scarcely retain my gravity. "Passing by one of the tents, I saw a very fat woman lying upon a bench on her face, uttering the most dismal groans, while two well-fed, sleek-looking ministers, in rusty black coats and very dirty-looking white chokers, were drumming upon her fat back with their fists, exclaiming--'Here's glory! here's glory, my friends! Satan is departing out of this woman. Hallelujah!' This spectacle was too shocking to provoke a smile. "There was a young lady dressed in a very nice silk gown. Silk was a very scarce and expensive article in those days. The poor girl got dreadfully excited, and was about to fling herself down upon the wet grass, to show the depth of her humility and contrition, when she suddenly remembered the precious silk dress, and taking a shawl of less value from her shoulders, carefully spread it over the wet ground. "Ah, my dear friend," continued the old lady, "one had a deal to learn at that camp-meeting. A number of those people knew no more what they were about than persons in a dream. They worked themselves up to a pitch of frenzy, because they saw others carried away by the same spirit; and they seemed to try which could make the most noise, and throw themselves into the most unnatural positions. Few of them carried the religious zeal they manifested in such a strange way at that meeting, into their own homes. Before the party broke up it was forgotten, and they were laughing and chatting about their worldly affairs. The young lads were sparking the girls, and the girls laughing and flirting with them. I remarked to an old farmer, who was reckoned a very pious man, 'that such conduct, in persons who had just been in a state of despair about their sins, was very inconsistent, to say the least of it;' and he replied, with a sanctimonious smile--'It is only the Lord's lambs, playing with each other.'" These camp-meetings seldom take place near large towns, where the people have the benefit of a resident minister, but they still occur on the borders of civilization, and present the same disorderly mixture of fanaticism and vanity. More persons go for a frolic than to obtain any spiritual benefit. In illustration of this, I will tell you a story which a very beautiful young married lady told to me with much glee, for the thing happened to herself, and she was the principal actor in the scene. "I had an aunt, the wife of a very wealthy yeoman, who lived in one of the back townships of C---, on the St. Lawrence. She was a very pious and hospitable woman, and none knew it better than the travelling ministers, who were always well fed and well lodged at her house, particularly when they assembled to hold a camp-meeting, which took place once in several years in that neighbourhood. "I was a girl of fifteen, and was staying with my aunt for the benefit of the country-air, when one of these great gatherings took place. Having heard a great deal about their strange doings at these meetings, I begged very hard to be allowed to make one of the spectators. My aunt, who knew what a merry, light-hearted creature I was, demurred for some time before she granted my request. "'If the child does not _get religion_,' she said, 'she will turn it all into fun, and it will do her more harm than good.' "Aunt was right enough in her conjunctures; but still she entertained a latent hope, that the zeal of the preachers, the excitement of the scene, and the powerful influence produced by the example of the pious, might have a beneficial effect on my young mind, and lead to my conversion. Aunt had herself been reclaimed from a state of careless indifference by attending one of these meetings, and at last it was determined that I was to go. "First came the ministers, and then the grand feed my aunt had prepared for them, before they opened the campaign. Never shall I forget how those holy men devoured the good things set before them. I stood gazing upon them in utter astonishment, wondering when their meal would come to an end. They none wore whiskers, and their broad fat faces literally shone with high feeding. When I laughed at their being such excellent knife and fork men, aunt gravely reproved my levity, by saying, 'that the labourer was worthy of his hire; and that it would be a great sin to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn; that field preaching was a very exhausting thing, and that these pious men required a great deal of nourishment to keep up their strength for the performance of good work.' "After they were gone, I dressed and accompanied my aunt to the scene of action. "It was a lovely spot, about a mile from the house. The land rose in a gentle slope from the river, and was surrounded on three sides by lofty woods. The front gave us a fine view of the St. Lawrence, rushing along in its strength, the distant murmur of the waves mingling with the sigh of the summer breeze, that swept the dense foliage of the forest trees. The place had been cleared many years before, and was quite free from stumps and fallen timber, the ground carpeted with soft moss and verdant fresh looking turf. "The area allotted for the meeting was fenced around with the long thin trunks of sapling trees, that were tied together with strips of bass-wood. In the centre of the enclosure was the platform for the preachers, constructed of rough slabs, and directly behind this rural pulpit was a large tent connected with it by a flight of board steps. Here the preachers retired, after delivering their lectures, to rest and refresh themselves. Fronting the platform was a sort of amphitheatre of booths, constructed of branches of trees, and containing benches of boards supported at either end by a round log laid lengthwise at the sides of the tent. Behind these rough benches persons had placed mattrasses, which they had brought with them in their waggons, that such as came from a distance might not want for a bed during their stay--some of these meetings lasting over a week. "The space without the enclosure was occupied by a double line of carts, waggons, light carriages, and ox sleds, while the animals undivested of their harness were browsing peacefully among the trees. The inner space was crowded with persons of all classes, but the poorer certainly predominated. Well dressed, respectable people, however, were not wanting; and though I came there to see and to be seen, to laugh and to make others laugh, I must confess that I was greatly struck with the imposing and picturesque scene before me, particularly when a number of voices joined in singing the hymn with which the service commenced." There is something very touching in this blending of human voices in the open air--this choral song of praise borne upwards from the earth, and ascending through the clear atmosphere to heaven. Leaving my friend and her curious narrative for a few minutes, I must remark here the powerful effect produced upon my mind by hearing "God save the King," sung by the thousands of London on the proclamation of William IV. It was impossible to distinguish good or bad voices in such a mighty volume of sound, which rolled through the air like a peal of solemn thunder. It thrilled through my heart, and paled my cheek. It seemed to me the united voice of a whole nation rising to the throne of God, and it was the grandest combination of sound and sentiment that ever burst upon human ears. Long, long may that thrilling anthem rise from the heart of England, in strains of loyal thanksgiving and praise, to the throne of that Eternal Potentate in whose hand is the fate of princes! "There were numbers of persons who, like myself, came there for amusement, and who seemed to enjoy themselves quite as much as I did. The preaching at length commenced with a long prayer, followed by an admonitory address, urging those present to see their danger, repent of their sins, and flee from the wrath to come. "Towards the middle of his discourse, the speaker wrought himself up into such a religious fury that it became infectious, and cries and groans resounded on all sides; and the prayers poured out by repentant sinners for mercy and pardon were heart-rending. The speaker at length became speechless from exhaustion, and stopping suddenly in the midst of his too eloquent harangue, he tied a red cotton handkerchief round his head, and hastily descended the steps, and disappeared in the tent provided for the accommodation of the ministers. His place was instantly supplied by a tall, dark, melancholy looking man, who, improving upon his reverend brother's suggestions, drew such an awful picture of the torments endured by the damned, that several women fainted, while others were shrieking in violent hysterics. "I had listened to the former speaker with attention and respect, but this man's violent denunciations rather tended to harden my heart, and make me resist any religious feeling that had been growing up in my breast. I began to tire of the whole thing, and commenced looking about for some object that might divert my thoughts into a less gloomy channel. "The bench on which I, together with a number of persons, was sitting, was so insecurely placed on the round rolling logs that supported it, that I perceived that the least motion given to it at my end would capsize it, and bring all the dear groaning creatures who were sitting upon it, with their eyes turned up to the preacher, sprawling on the ground. "'Would it not be glorious fun?' whispered the spirit of mischief--perhaps the old one himself--in my ears. 'I can _do it_, and I _will do it_--so here goes!' As I sat next to the round log that supported my end of the plank, I had only to turn my face that way, and apply my foot like a lever to the round trunk, on which the end of the bench had the slightest possible hold, and the contemplated downfall became a certainty. No sooner thought than done. The next moment old and young, fat and lean, women and children, lay sprawling together on the ground, in the most original attitudes and picturesque confusion. I, for my part, was lying very comfortably on one of the mattrasses, laughing until real tears, but not of contrition, streamed down my face. "Never shall I forget a fat old farmer, who used to visit at my aunt's, as he crawled out of the human heap on all fours, and shook his head at me-- "'You wicked young sinner, this is all your doings.' "Before the storm could burst upon me, I got up and ran laughing out of the tent, and hid myself among the trees to enjoy my wicked thoughts alone. Here I remained for a long time, watching, at a safe distance, the mad gesticulations of the preacher, who was capering up and down on the platform, and using the most violent and extravagant language, until at length, overcome by his vehemence, he too tied the invariable red handkerchief round his head, and tumbled back into the tent, to be succeeded by another and another. "Night, with all her stars, was now stealing upon us; but the light from a huge pile of burning logs, and from torches composed of fat pine, and stuck in iron grates supported on poles in different parts of the plain, scattered the darkness back to the woods, and made it as light as noon-day. "The scene was now wild in the extreme: the red light streamed upon the moving mass of human beings who pressed around the pulpit, glaring upon clenched fists and upturned faces, while the preacher standing above them, and thrown into strong relief, with his head held back and his hands raised towards heaven, looked like some inspired prophet of old, calling down fire from heaven to consume the ungodly. It was a spectacle to inspire both fear and awe, but I could only view it in the most absurd light, and laugh at it. "At length I was determined to know what became of the preachers, after tying the red handkerchief round their heads and retreating to their tents. I crept carefully round to the back of this holy of holies, and applying my eyes to a little aperture in the canvas, I saw by the light of a solitary candle several men lying upon mattrasses fast asleep, their noses making anything but a musical response to the hymns and prayers without. While I was gazing upon these prostrate forms, thus soundly sleeping after the hubbub and excitement their discourse had occasioned among their congregation, the last speaker hastily entered the tent, and flinging himself on to the floor, exclaimed, in a sort of ecstacy of gratitude--'Well, thank God my task is ended for the night; and now for a good sleep!' "While I was yet pondering these things in my heart, I felt the grasp of a hand upon my shoulder. I turned with a shriek; it was my aunt seeking me. 'What are you doing here?' she said, rather angrily. "'Studying my lesson, aunt,' said I, gravely, pointing to the sleepers. 'Do these men preach for their own honour and glory, or for the glory of God? I have tried to find out, but I can't tell.' "'The night's grown chilly, child,' said my aunt, avoiding the answer I expected; 'it is time you were in bed.' "We went home. I got a sound lecture for the trick I had played, and I never went to a camp-meeting again; yet, in spite of my bad conduct as a child, I believe they often do good, and are the means of making careless people think of the state of their souls." Though the steamboats do not stop at Shannonville, they never fail to do so at the pretty town of Northport, on the other side of the bay, in order to take in freight and passengers. Northport rises with a very steep slope from the water's edge, and the steamer runs into the wharf which projects but a few feet froth the shore. Down the long hill which leads to the main street, men and boys are running to catch a sight of the steamboat, and hear the news. All is bustle and confusion. Barrels of flour are being rolled into the boat, and sheep and cattle are led off--men hurry on board with trunks and carpet-bags--and women, with children in their arms or led by the hand, hasten on board;--while our passengers, descending to the wharf, are shaking hands with merchants and farmers, and talking over the current prices of grain and merchandise at their respective towns. The bell rings--the cable that bound us to the friendly wharf is cast off and flung on the deck the steamer opens her deep lungs, and we are once more stemming our way towards Kingston. While we sail up that romantic part of the Bay of Quinte, called the "Long Reach," at the head of which stands the beautiful town of Picton, I will give you a few reminiscences of Northport. It is a most quiet and primitive village, and one might truly exclaim with Moore-- "And I said if there's peace to be found on the earth, The heart that is humble might hope for it here." No gentler picture of society in a new country could be found, than the one exhibited by the inhabitants of Northport. The distinctions, unavoidable among persons of wealth and education, are hardly felt or recognised here. Every one is a neighbour in the strictest sense of the word and high and low meet occasionally at each other's houses. Even the domestics are removed by such a narrow line of demarcation, that they appear like members of one family. The Prince Edward district, one of the wealthiest rural districts in Upper Canada, was settled about sixty years ago by U.E. loyalists; and its inhabitants are mainly composed of the descendants of Dutch and American families. They have among them a large sprinkling of Quakers, who are a happy, hospitable community, living in peace and brotherly kindness with all men. The soil of this district is of the best quality for agricultural purposes; and though the march of improvement has been slow, when compared with the rapid advance of other places that possessed fewer local advantages, it has gone on steadily progressing, and the surface of a fine undulating country is dotted over with large well-cleared farms, and neat farmhouses. One of the oldest and wealthiest inhabitants of Northport, Captain ---, is a fine specimen of the old school of Canadian settlers; one of nature's gentlemen, a man respected and beloved by all who know him, whose wise head, and keen organs of observation, have rendered him a highly intelligent and intellectual man, without having received the benefit of a college education. His house is always open for the reception of friends, neighbours, and strangers. He has no children of his own, but has adopted several orphan children, on whom he has bestowed all the affection and care of a real parent. This system of adopting children in Canada is one of great benevolence, which cannot be too highly eulogized. Many an orphan child, who would be cast utterly friendless upon the world, finds a comfortable home with some good neighbour, and is treated with more consideration, and enjoys greater privileges, than if his own parents had lived. No difference is made between the adopted child and the young ones of the family; it is clothed, boarded, and educated with the same care, and a stranger would find it difficult to determine which was the real, which the transplanted scion of the house. Captain --- seldom dines alone; some one is always going and coming, stepping in and taking pot-luck, by accident or invitation. But the Captain can afford it. Sociable, talkative, and the soul of hospitality, he entertains his guests like a prince. "Is he not a glorious old fellow?" said our beloved and excellent chief-justice Robinson; "Captain --- is a credit to the country." We echoed this sentiment with our whole heart. It is quite a treat to make one of his uninvited guests, and share the good-humoured sociability of his bountiful table. You meet there men of all grades and conditions, of every party and creed,--the well-educated, well-dressed clergymen of the Establishment, and the travelling dispensers of gospel truths, with shabbier coats and less pretensions. No one is deemed an intruder--all find excellent cheer, and a hearty welcome. Northport does not want its native poet, though the money-making merchants and farmers regard him with a suspicious and pitying eye. The manner in which they speak of his unhappy malady reminds me of what an old Quaker said to me regarding his nephew, Bernard Barton--"Friend Susanna, it is a great pity, but my nephew Bernard is sadly addicted to literature." So Isaac N---, gentleman farmer of the township of Ameliasburgh, is sadly gifted with the genuine elements of poetry, and, like Burns, composes verses at the plough-tail. I have read with great pleasure some sweet lines by this rural Canadian bard; and were he now beside me, instead of "Big bay" lying so provokingly between, I would beg from him a specimen of his rhyming powers, just to prove to my readers that the genuine children of song are distinguished by the same unmistakeable characteristics in every clime. I remember being greatly struck by an overcoat, worn by a clergyman I had the pleasure of meeting many years ago at this village, which seemed to me a pretty good substitute for the miraculous purse of Fortunatus. The garment to which I allude was long and wide, and cut round somewhat in the shape of a spencer. The inside lining formed one capacious pocket, into which the reverend gentleman could conveniently stow away newspapers, books, and sermons, and, on a pinch, a fat fowl, a bottle of wine, or a homebaked loaf of bread. On the present occasion, the kind mistress of the house took care that the owner should not travel with it empty; so, to keep him fairly balanced on his horse, she stowed away into this convenient garment such an assortment of good things, that I sat and watched the operation in curious amazement. Some time after I happened to dine with a dissenting minister at Mr. ---'s hous e. The man had a very repulsive and animal expression; he ate so long and lustily of a very fat goose, that he began to look very uncomfortable, and complained very much of being troubled with _dyspepsy_ after his meals. He was a great teetotaller, or professed to be one, but certainly had forgotten the text, "Be ye moderate in all things;" for he by no means applied the temperance system to the substantial creature comforts, of which he partook in a most immoderately voracious manner. "I know what would cure you, Mr. R---," said my friend, who seemed to guess at a glance the real character of his visitor; "but then I know that you would never consent to make use of such a remedy." "I would take anything that would do me good," said black-coat with a sigh. "What think you of a small wine-glass of brandy just before taking dinner?" "Against my principles, Sir; it would never do," with a lugubrious shake of the head. "There is nothing on earth so good for your complaint." "Do you _reelly_ think it would serve me?" with a sudden twinkle of his heavy fishy eyes. "Not a doubt of the fact" (pouring out a pretty large dram); "it will kill the heartburn, and do away with that uncomfortable feeling you experience after eating rich food. And as to principles, your pledge allows it in case of disease." "True," said black-coat, coquetting with the glass; "still I should be sorry to try an _alcoholic_ remedy while another could be found." "Perhaps you would prefer _eating less_," said my friend slyly, "which, I have been told by a medical man, is generally a certain cure if persevered in." "Oh, ah, yes. But, Sir, my constitution would never stand that. I think for _once_ I will try the effect of your first prescription; but, remember, it is only _medicinally_." The next moment the glass was returned to the table empty, and the good man took his leave. "Now, Mr. ---, was it not too bad of you to make that man break his pledge?" observed a person at table. "My dear Sir, that man requires very little temptation to do that. The total abstinence of a glutton is entirely for the public." The houses built by the Dutch settlers have very little privacy, as one bed-chamber invariably opens into another. In some cases, the sleeping apartments all open into a common sitting-room occupied by the family. To English people, this is both an uncomfortable and very unpleasant arrangement. I slept for two nights at Mr. ---'s house, with my husband, and our dormitory had no egress but through another bed-chamber; and as that happened to be occupied on the first night by a clergyman, I had to wait for an hour, after my husband was up and down stairs rejoicing in the fresh air of a lovely summer morning, before I could escape from my chamber,--my neighbour; who was young and very comely, taking a long time for his prayers, and the business of the toilet. My husband laughed very heartily at my imprisonment, as he termed it; but the next day I had the laugh against him, for our sleeping neighbours happened to be a middle-aged Quaker, with a very sickly delicate wife. I, of course, was forced to go to bed when she did, or be obliged to pass through her chamber after brother Jonathan had retired for the night. This being by no means desirable, I left a very interesting argument, in which my husband, the Quaker, and the poet were fighting an animated battle on reform principles, against the clergyman and my very much respected Tory host. How they got on I don't know, for the debate was at its height when I was obliged to beat my retreat to bed. After an hour or so I heard Jonathan tumble upstairs to bed, and while undressing he made the following very innocent remark to his wife,--"Truly, Hannah, I fear that I have used too many words tonight. My uncle is a man of many words, and one is apt to forget the rules of prudence when arguing with him." If the use of many words was looked upon as a serious transgression by honest Jonathan, my husband, my friend, and the poet, must have been very guilty men, for they continued their argument until the "sma' hours ayont the twal." My husband had to pass through the room occupied by the Friends, in order to reach mine, but he put a bold face upon the matter, and plunged at once through the difficulty, the Quaker's nose giving unmistakeable notice that he was in the land of Nod. The pale sickly woman just opened her dreamy black eyes, but hid them instantly beneath the bed-clothes, and the passage, not of arms, but of the bed-chamber, was won. The next morning we had to rise early to take the boat, and Jonathan was up by the dawn of day; so that I went through as bold as a lion, and was busily employed in discussing an excellent breakfast, while my poor partner was sitting impatiently nursing his appetite at the foot of his bed, and wishing the pale Quakeress across the bay. The steamer was in sight before he was able to join us at the breakfast-table. I had now my revenge, and teased him all the way home on being kept a prisoner, with only a sickly woman for a jailor. A young lady gave me an account of a funeral she witnessed in this primitive village, which may not be uninteresting to my English readers, as a picture of some of the customs of a new country. The deceased was an old and very respectable resident in the township; and as the Canadians delight in large funerals, he was followed to his last home by nearly all the residents for miles round. The use of the hearse is not known in rural districts, and, indeed, is seldom used in towns or cities here. The corpse is generally carried to the grave, the bearers being chosen from among the gentlemen of most note in the neighbourhood, who, to the honour of the country be it spoken, never refuse to act on these mournful occasions. These walking funerals are far more imposing and affecting spectacles than the hearse with its funeral plumes; and the simple fact of friends and neighbours conveying a departed brother to his long home, has a more solemn and touching effect upon the mind, than the train of hired mourners and empty state-carriages. When a body is brought from a distance for interment, it is conveyed in a waggon, if in summer, spring, or autumn, and on a sleigh during the winter season, and is attended to the grave by all the respectable yeomen in the township. I cannot resist the strong temptation of digressing from my present subject, in order to relate a very affecting instance I witnessed at one of these funerals of the attachment of a dog to his deceased master, which drew tears from my eyes, and from the eyes of my children. The body of a farmer had been brought in a waggon from one of the back townships, a distance of twenty or thirty miles, and was, as usual in such cases, attended by a long train of country equipages. My house fronted the churchyard, and from the windows you could witness the whole of the funeral ceremonial, and hear the service pronounced over the grave. When the coffin was lifted by the stalwart sons of the deceased from the waggon, and the procession formed to carry it into the church, I observed a large, buff Flemish dog fall into the ranks of the mourners, and follow them into the sacred edifice, keeping as near the coffin as those about it would permit him. After the service in the church was ended, the creature persevered in following the beloved remains to the grave. When the crowd dispersed, the faithful animal retired to some distance, and laid himself quietly down upon a grave, until the sexton had finished his mournful task, and the last sod was placed upon the fresh heap that had closed for ever over the form he loved. When the man retired, the dog proceeded to the spot, walked carefully round it, smelt the earth, lifted his head, and uttered the most unearthly howls. He then endeavoured to disinter the body, by digging a large hole at one end of the grave; but finding that he could not effect his purpose, he stretched himself at full length over it, as if to guard the spot, with his head buried between his fore-paws, his whole appearance betokening the most intense dejection. All that day and night, and the next day and night, he never quitted his post for an instant, at intervals smelling the earth, and uttering those mournful, heart-rending cries. My boys took him bread and meat, and tried to coax him from the grave; but he rejected the food and their caresses. The creature appeared wasted and heartbroken with grief. Towards noon of the third day, the eldest son of his late master came in search of him; and the young man seemed deeply affected by this instance of the dog's attachment to his father. Even his well-known voice failed to entice him from the grave, and he was obliged to bring a collar and chain, and lift him by force into his waggon, to get him from his post. Oh, human love! is thy memory and thy faith greater than the attachment of this poor, and, as we term him, unreasoning brute, to his dead master? His grief made an impression on my mind, and on that of my children, which will never be forgotten. But to return to the village funeral. The body in this case was borne to the church by the near relatives of the deceased; and a clergyman of the establishment delivered a funeral sermon, in which he enumerated the good qualities of the departed, his long residence among them, and described the trials and hardships he had encountered as a first settler in that district, while it was yet in the wilderness. He extolled his conduct as a good citizen, and faithful Christian, and a public-spirited man. His sermon was a very complete piece of rural biography, very curious and graphic in its way, and was listened to with the deepest attention by the persons assembled. When the discourse was concluded, and the blessing pronounced, one of the sons of the deceased rose and informed the persons present, that if any one wished to take a last look of the dear old man, now was the time. He then led the way to the aisle, in which the coffin stood upon the tressels, and opening a small lid in the top, revealed to the astonishment of my young friend the pale, ghastly face of the dead. Almost every person present touched either the face, hands, or brow of the deceased; and after their curiosity had been fully satisfied, the procession followed the remains to their last resting-place. This part of the ceremony concluded, the indifferent spectators dispersed to their respective homes, while the friends and relations of the dead man returned to dine at the house of one of his sons, my friend making one of the party. In solemn state the mourners discussed the merits of an excellent dinner,--the important business of eating being occasionally interrupted by remarks upon the appearance of the corpse, his age, the disease of which he died, the probable division of his property, and the merits of the funeral discourse. This was done in such a business-like matter-of-fact manner, that my friend was astonished how the blood relations of the deceased could join in these remarks. After the great business of eating was concluded the spirits of the party began to flag. The master of the house perceiving how matters were going, left the room, and soon returned with a servant bearing a tray with plates and fork, and a large dish of hiccory nuts. The mourners dried their tears, and set seriously to work to discuss the nuts, and while deeply engaged with their mouse-like employment, forgot for awhile their sorrow for the dead, continuing to keep up their spirits until the announcement of tea turned their thoughts into a new channel. By the time all the rich pies, cakes, and preserves were eaten, their feelings seemed to have subsided into their accustomed everyday routine. It is certain that death is looked upon by many Canadians more as a matter of business, and a change of property into other hands, than as a real domestic calamity. I have heard people talk of the approaching dissolution of their nearest ties with a calm philosophy which I never could comprehend. "Mother is old and delicate; we can't expect her to last long," says one. "My brother's death has been looked for these several months past; you know he's in the consumption." My husband asked the son of a respectable farmer, for whom he entertained an esteem, how his father was, for he had not seen him for some time? "I guess," was the reply, "that the old man's fixing for the other world." Another young man, being asked by my friend, Captain ---, to spend the evening at his house, replied--"No, can't--much obliged; but I'm afear'd that grandfather will give the last kicks while I'm away." Canadians flock in crowds to visit the dying, and to gaze upon the dead. A doctor told me that being called into the country to visit a very sick man, he was surprised on finding the wife of his patient sitting alone before the fire ill the lower room, smoking a pipe. He naturally inquired if her husband was better? "Oh, no, sir, far from that; he is dying!" "Dying! and _you_ here?" "I can't help that, sir. The room is so crowded with the neighbours, that I can't get in to wait upon him." "Follow me," said the doctor. "I'll soon make a clearance for you." On ascending the stairs that led to the apartment of the sick man, he found them crowded with people struggling to get in, to take a peep at the poor man. It was only by telling them that he was the doctor, that he forced his way to the bedside. He found his patient in a high fever, greatly augmented by the bustle, confusion, and heat, occasioned by so many people round him. With great difficulty he cleared the room of these intruders, and told the brother of his patient to keep every one but the sick man's wife out of the house. The brother followed the doctor's advice, and the man cheated the curiosity of the death-seekers, and recovered. The Canadians spend a great deal of money upon their dead. An old lady told me that her nephew, a very large farmer, who had the misfortune to lose his wife in childbed, had laid out a great deal of money--a little fortune she termed it--on her grave-clothes. "Oh, my dear," she said, "it is a thousand pities that you did not go and see her before she was buried. She was dressed so expensively, and she made such a beautiful corpse! Her cap was of real thread lace, trimmed with white French ribbons, and her linen the finest that could be bought in the country." The more ostentatious the display of grief for the dead, the less I have always found of the reality. I heard two young ladies, who had recently lost a mother, not more than sixteen years older than the eldest of the twain, lamenting most pathetically that they could not go to a public ball, because they were in mourning for ma'! Oh, what a pitiful farce is this, of wearing mourning for the dead! But as I have a good deal to say to sensible people on that subject, I will defer my long lecture until the next chapter. Random Thoughts. "When is Youth's gay heart the lightest?-- When the torch of health burns brightest, And the soul's rich banquet lies In air and ocean, earth and skies; Till the honied cup of pleasure Overflows with mental treasure. "When is Love's sweet dream the sweetest?-- When a kindred heart thou meetest, Unpolluted with the strife, The selfish aims that tarnish life; Ere the scowl of care has faded The shining chaplet Fancy braided, And emotions pure and high Swell the heart and fill the eye; Rich revealings of a mind Within a loving breast enshrined, To thine own fond bosom plighted, In affection's bonds united: The sober joys of after years Are nothing to those smiles and fears. "When is Sorrow's sting the strongest?-- When friends grow cold we've loved the longest, And the bankrupt heart would borrow Treacherous hopes to cheat the morrow; Dreams of bliss by reason banish'd, Early joys that quickly vanish'd, And the treasured past appears Only to augment our tears; When, within itself retreating, The spirit owns life's joys are fleeting, Yet, racked with anxious doubts and fears, Trusts, blindly trusts to future years. "Oh, this is grief, the preacher saith,-- The world's dark woe that worketh death! Yet, oft beneath its influence bowed, A beam of hope will burst the cloud, And heaven's celestial shore appears Slow rising o'er the tide of years, Guiding the spirit's darkling way Through thorny paths to endless day. Then the toils of life are done, Youth and age are both as one; Sorrow never more can sting, Neglect or pain the bosom wring; And the joys bless'd spirits prove, Far exceeds all earthly love!" CHAPTER VIII Wearing Mourning for the Dead "What is death?--my sister, say." "Ask not, brother, breathing clay. Ask the earth on which we tread, That silent empire of the dead. Ask the sea--its myriad waves, Living, leap o'er countless graves!" "Earth and ocean answer not, Life is in their depths forgot." Ask yon pale extended form, Unconscious of the coming storm, That breathed and spake an hour ago, Of heavenly bliss and penal woe;-- Within yon shrouded figure lies "The mystery of mysteries!" S.M. Among the many absurd customs that the sanction of time and the arbitrary laws of society have rendered indispensable, there is not one that is so much abused, and to which mankind so fondly clings, as that of _wearing mourning for the dead!_--from the ostentatious public mourning appointed by governments for the loss of their rulers, down to the plain black badge, worn by the humblest peasant for the death of parent or child. To attempt to raise one feeble voice against a practice sanctioned by all nations, and hallowed by the most solemn religious rites, appears almost sacrilegious. There is something so beautiful, so poetical, so sacred, in this outward sign of a deep and heartfelt sorrow, that to deprive death of his sable habiliments--the melancholy hearse, funeral plumes, sombre pall, and a long array of drooping night-clad mourners, together with the awful clangour of the doleful bell--would rob the stern necessity of our nature of half its terrors, and tend greatly to destroy that religious dread which is so imposing, and which affords such a solemn lesson to the living. Alas! Where is the need of all this black parade? Is it not a reproach to Him, who, in his wisdom, appointed death to pass upon all men? Were the sentence confined to the human species, we might have more reason for these extravagant demonstrations of grief; but in every object around us we see inscribed the mysterious law of change. The very mountains crumble and decay with years; the great sea shrinks and grows again; the lofty forest tree, that has drank the dews of heaven, laughed in the sunlight, and shook its branches at a thousand storms, yields to the same inscrutable destiny, and bows its tall forehead to the dust. Life lives upon death, and death reproduces life, through endless circles of being, from the proud tyrant man down to the blind worm his iron heel tramples in the earth. Then wherefore should we hang out this black banner for those who are beyond the laws of change and chance? "Yea, they have finish'd: For them there is no longer any future. No evil hour knocks at their door With tidings of mishap--far off are they, Beyond desire or fear." It is the dismal adjuncts of death which have invested it with those superstitious terrors that we would fain see removed. The gloom arising from these melancholy pageants forms a black cloud, whose dense shadow obscures the light of life to the living. And why, we ask, should death be invested with such horror? Death in itself is not dreadful; it is but the change of one mode of being for another--the breaking forth of the winged soul from its earthly chrysalis; or, as an old Latin poet has so happily described it-- "Thus life for ever runs its endless race, Death as a line which but divides the space-- A stop which can but for a moment last, A _point_ between the _future_ and the _past_." Nature presents in all her laws such a beautiful and wonderful harmony, that it is as impossible for death to produce discord among them, as for night to destroy, by the intervention of its shadow, the splendour of the coming day. Were men taught from infancy to regard death as a natural consequence, a fixed law of their being, instead as an awful pumshment for sin--as the friend and benefactor of mankind, not the remorseless tyrant and persecutor--to die would no longer be considered an evil. Let this hideous skeleton be banished into darkness, and replaced by a benignant angel, wiping away all tears, healing all pain, burying in oblivion all sorrow and care, calming every turbulent passion, and restoring man, reconciled to his Maker, to a state of purity and peace; young and old would then go forth to meet him with lighted torches, and hail his approach with songs of thanksgiving and welcome. And this is really the case with all but the desperately wicked, who show that they despise the magnificent boon of life by the bad use they make of it, by their blasphemous defiance of God and good, and their unwillingness to be renewed in his image. The death angel is generally met with more calmness by the dying than by surviving friends. By the former, the dreaded enemy is hailed as a messenger of peace, and they sink tranquilly into his arms, with a smile upon their lips. The death of the Christian is a beautiful triumph over the fears of life. In Him who conquered death, and led captivity captive, he finds the fruition of his being, the eternal blessedness promised to him in the Gospel, which places him beyond the wants and woes of time. The death of such a man should be celebrated as a sacred festival, not lamented as a dreary execution,--as the era of a new birth, not the extinction of being. It is true that death is a profound sleep, from which no one can awaken to tell his dreams. But why on that account should we doubt that it is less blessed than its twin brother, whose resemblance it bears, and whose presence we all sedulously court? Invest sleep, however, with the same dismal garb; let your bed be a coffin, your canopy a pall, your night-dress a shroud; let the sobs of mourners, and the tolling of bells lull you to repose,--and few persons would willingly, or tranquilly, close their eyes to sleep. And then, this absurd fashion of wearing black for months and years for the dead; let us calmly consider the philosophy of the thing, its use and abuse. Does it confer any benefit on the dead? Does it afford any consolation to the living? Morally or physically, does it produce the least good? Does it soften one regretful pang, or dry one bitter tear, or make the wearers wiser or better? If it does not produce any ultimate benefit, it should be at once discarded as a superstitious relic of more barbarous times, when men could not gaze on the simple, unveiled face of truth, but obscured the clear daylight of her glance under a thousand fantastic masks. The ancients were more consistent in their mourning than the civilized people of the present day. They sat upon the ground and fasted, with rent garments, and ashes strewn upon their heads. This mortification of the flesh was a sort of penance inflicted by the self-tortured mourner for his own sins, and those of the dead. If this grief were not of a deep or lasting nature, the mourner found relief for his mental agonies in humiliation and personal suffering. He did not array himself in silk, and wool, and fine linen, and garments cut in the most approved fashion of the day, like our modern beaux and belles, when they testify to the public their grief for the loss of relation or friend, in the most expensive and becoming manner. Verily, if we must wear our sorrow upon our sleeve, why not return to the sackcloth and ashes, as the most consistent demonstration of that grief which, hidden in the heart, surpasseth show. But, then, sackcloth is a most unmanageable material. A handsome figure would be lost, buried, annihilated, in a sackcloth gown; it would be so horribly rough; it would wound the delicate skin of a fine lady; it could not be confined in graceful folds by clasps of jet, and pearl, and ornaments in black and gold. "Sackcloth? Faugh!--away with it. It smells of the knotted scourge and the charnel-house." We, _too_, say, "Away with it!" True grief has no need of such miserable provocatives to woe. The barbarians who cut and disfigured their faces for the dead, showed a noble contempt of the world, by destroying those personal attractions which the loss of the beloved had taught them to despise. But who now would have the fortitude and self-denial to imitate such an example? The mourners in crape, and silk, and French merino, would rather _die themselves_ than sacrifice their beauty at the shrine of such a monstrous sorrow. How often have I heard a knot of gossips exclaim, as some widow of a gentleman in fallen circumstances glided by in her rusty weeds, "What shabby black that woman wears for her husband! I should be ashamed to appear in public in such faded mourning." And yet, the purchase of that _shabby black_ may have cost the desolate mourner and her orphan children the price of many a necessary meal. Ah, this putting of a poor family into black, and all the funeral trappings for pallbearers and mourners, what a terrible affair it is! what anxious thoughts! what bitter heartaches it costs! But the usages of society demand the sacrifice, and it must be made. The head of the family has suddenly been removed from his earthly toils, at a most complicated crisis of his affairs, which are so involved that scarcely enough can be collected to pay the expenses of the funeral, and put his family into decent mourning, but every exertion must be made to do this. The money that might, after the funeral was over, have paid the rent of a small house, and secured the widow and her young family from actual want, until she could look around and obtain some situation in which she could earn a living for herself and them, must all be sunk in conforming to a useless custom, upheld by pride and vanity in the name of grief. "How will the funeral expenses ever be paid?" exclaims the anxious, weeping mother. "When it is all over, and the mourning bought, there will not remain a single copper to find us in bread." The sorrow of obtaining this useless outward show of grief engrosses all the available means of the family, and that is expended upon the dead which might, with careful management, have kept the living from starving. Oh, vanity of vanities! there is no folly on earth that exceeds the vanity of this! There are many persons who put off their grief when they put on their mourning, and it is a miserable satire on mankind to see these somber-clad beings in festal halls mingling with the gay and happy, their melancholy garments affording a painful contrast to light laughter, and eyes sparkling with pleasure. Their levity, however, must not be mistaken for hypocrisy. The world is in fault, not they. Their grief is already over,--gone like a cloud from before the sun; but they are forced to wear black for a _given time_. They are true to their nature, which teaches them that "no grief with man is permanent," that the storms of to-day will not darken the heavens to-morrow. It is complying with a _lying custom_ makes them _hypocrites_; and, as the world always judges by appearances, it so happens that by adhering to one of its conventional rules, appearances in this instance are against them. Nay, the very persons who, in the first genuine outburst of natural grief besought them to moderate their sorrow, to dry their tears, and be comforted for the loss they had sustained, are among the _first_ to censure them for following advice so common and useless. Tears are as necessary to the afflicted as showers are to the parched earth, and are the best and sweetest remedy for excessive grief. To the mourner we would say--Weep on; nature requires your tears. They are sent in mercy by Him who wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus. The man of sorrows himself taught us to weep. We once heard a very beautiful volatile young lady exclaim, with something very like glee in her look and tone, after reading a letter she had received by the post, with its ominous black bordering and seal--"Grandmamma is dead! We shall have to go into deep mourning. I am so glad, for black is so becoming to me!" An old aunt, who was present, expressed her surprise at this indecorous avowal; when the young lady replied, with great _naivete_--"I never saw grandmamma in my life. I cannot be expected to feel any grief for her death." "Perhaps not," said the aunt. "But why, then, make a show of that which you do not feel?" "Oh, it's the custom of the world. You know we must. It would be considered _shocking_ not to go into very _deep_ mourning for such a near relation." The young lady inherited a very nice legacy, too, from her grandmamma; and, had she spoken the truth, she would have said, "I cannot weep for joy." Her mourning, in consequence, was of the deepest and most expensive kind; and she really did look charming in her "love of a black crape bonnet!" as she skipped before the glass, admiring herself and it, when it came home fresh from the milliner's. In contrast to the pretty young heiress, we knew a sweet orphan girl whose grief for the death of her mother, to whom she was devotedly attached, lay deeper than this hollow tinsel show; and yet the painful thought that she was too poor to pay this mark of respect to the memory of her beloved parent, in a manner suited to her birth and station, added greatly to the poignancy of her sorrow. A family who had long been burthened with a cross old aunt, who was a martyr to rheumatic gout, and whose violent temper kept the whole house in awe, and whom they dared not offend for fear of her leaving her wealth to strangers, were in the habit of devoutly wishing the old lady a happy release from her sufferings. When this long anticipated event at length took place, the very servants were put into the deepest mourning. What a solemn farce--we should say, lie--was this! The daughters of a wealthy farmer had prepared everything to attend the great agricultural provincial show. Unfortunately, a grandfather to whom they all seemed greatly attached died most inconveniently the day before, and as they seldom keep a body in Canada over the second day, he was buried early in the morning of the one appointed for their journey. They attended the remains to the grave, but after the funeral was over they put off their black garments and started for the show, and did not resume them again until after their return. People may think this very shocking, but it was not the laying aside the black that was so, but the fact of their being able to go from a grave to a scene of confusion and gaiety. The black clothes had nothing to do with this want of feeling, which would have remained the same under a black or a scarlet vestment. A gentleman in this neighbourhood, since dead, who attended a public ball the same week that he had seen a lovely child consigned to the earth, would have remained the same heartless parent dressed in the deepest sables. No instance that I have narrated of the business-like manner in which Canadians treat death, is more ridiculously striking than the following:-- The wife of a rich mechanic had a brother lying, it was supposed, at the point of death. His sister sent a note to me, requesting me to relinquish an engagement I had made with a sewing girl in her favour, as she wanted her immediately to make up her mourning, the doctor having told her that her brother could not live many days. "Mrs. --- is going to be beforehand with death," I said, as I gave the girl the desired release. "I have known instances of persons being too late with their mourning to attend a funeral, but this is the first time I ever heard of it being made in anticipation." After a week the girl returned to her former employment. "Well, Anne, is Mr. --- dead?" "No, ma'am, nor likely to die this time; and his sister is so vexed that she bought such expensive mourning, and all for no purpose!" The brother of this provident lady is alive to this day, the husband of a very pretty wife, and the father of a family, while she, poor body, has been consigned to the grave for more than three years. During her own dying illness, a little girl greatly disturbed her sick mother with the noise she made. Her husband, as an inducement to keep the child quiet, said, "Mary, if you do not quit that, I'll whip you; but if you keep still like a good girl, you shall go to ma's funeral." An artist cousin of mine was invited, with many other members of the Royal Academy, to attend the funeral of the celebrated Nollekens the sculptor. The party filled twelve mourning coaches, and were furnished with silk gloves, scarfs, and hatbands, and a dinner was provided after the funeral was over at one of the large hotels. "A merrier set than we were on that day," said my cousin, "I never saw. We all got jovial, and it was midnight before any of us reached our respective homes. The whole affair vividly brought to my mind that description of the 'Gondola,' given so graphically by Byron, that it 'Contain'd much fun, Like mourning coaches when the funeral's done.'" Some years ago I witnessed the funeral of a young lady, the only child of very wealthy parents, who resided in of Bedford-square. The heiress of their enviable riches was a very delicate, fragile-looking girl, and on the day that she attained her majority her parents gave a large dinner party, followed by a ball in the evening, to celebrate the event. It was during the winter; the night was very cold, the crowded rooms overheated, the young lady thinly but magnificently clad. She took a chill in leaving the close ballroom for the large, ill-warmed supper-room, and three days after, the hope of these rich people lay insensible on her bier. I heard from every one that called upon Mrs. L---, the relative and friend with whom I was staying, of the magnificent funeral would be given to Miss C---. Ah, little heeded that pale crushed flower of yesterday, the pomp that was to convey her from the hot-bed of luxury to the cold, damp vault of St. Giles's melancholy looking church! I stood at Mrs. L---'s window, which commanded a view of the whole square, to watch the procession pass up Russell-street to the place of interment. The morning was intensely cold, and large snow-flakes fell lazily and heavily to the earth. The poor dingy sparrows, with their feathers ruffled up, hopped mournfully along the pavement in search of food; they, "In spite of all their feathers, were a-cold." The mutes that attended the long line of mourning coaches stood motionless, leaning on their long staffs wreathed with white, like so many figures that the frost-king had stiffened into stone. The hearse, with its snowy plumes, drawn by six milk-white horses, might have served for the regal car of his northern majesty, so ghost-like and chilly were its sepulchral trappings. At length the coffin, covered with black velvet, and a pall lined with white silk and fringed with silver, was borne from the house and deposited in the gloomy depths of the stately hearse. The _hired_ mourners, in their sable dresses and long white hatbands and scarfs, rode slowly forward mounted on white horses, to attend this bride of death to her last resting place. The first three carriages that followed contained the family physician and surgeon, a clergyman, and the male servants of the house, in deep sables. The family carriage too was there, but _empty_, and of a procession in which 145 private carriages made a conspicuous show, all but those enumerated above were _empty_. Strangers drove strange horses to that vast funeral, and _hired servants_ were the only members of the family that conducted the last scion of that family to the grave. Truly, it was the most dismal spectacle we ever witnessed, and we turned from it sick at heart, and with eyes moist with tears not shed for the dead, for she had escaped from this vexatious vanity, but from the heartless mockery of all this fictitious woe. The expense of such a funeral probably involved many hundred pounds, which had been better bestowed on charitable purposes. Another evil arising out of this absurd custom, is the high price attached to black clothing, on account of the necessity that compels people to wear it for so long a period after the death of a near relation, making it a matter of still greater difficulty for the poorer class to comply with the usages of society. "But who cares about the poor, whether they go into mourning for their friends or no? it is a matter of no consequence." Ah, there it is. And this is not the least forcible argument we have to advance against this useless custom. If it becomes a moral duty for the rich to put on black for the death of a friend, it must be morally necessary for the poor to do the same. We see no difference in the degrees of moral feeling; the soul of man is of no rank, but of equal value in our eyes, whether belonging to rich or poor. But this usage is so general, and the neglect of it considered such a disgrace, that it leaves a very wide door open for the entrance of false pride. Poverty is an evil which most persons, however humble their stations may be, most carefully endeavour to conceal. To avoid an exposure of their real circumstances, they will deprive themselves of the common necessaries of life, and incur debts which they have no prospect of paying, rather than allow their neighbours to suspect that they cannot afford a _handsome funeral_ and good _mournings_ for any deceased member of their family. If such persons would but follow the dictates of true wisdom, honesty, and truth, no dread of the opinion of others should tempt them to do what they cannot afford. Their grief for the dead would not be less sincere if they followed the body of the beloved in their ordinary costume to the grave; nor is the spectacle less imposing divested of all the solemn foppery which attends the funeral of persons who move in respectable society. Some years ago, when it was the fashion in England (and may be it remains the fashion still) to give black silk scarfs and hatbands at funerals, mean and covetous persons threw themselves in the way of picking up these stray loaves and fishes. A lady, who lived in the same town with me after I was married, boasted to me that her husband (who always contrived to be a necessary attendant on such occasions) found her in all the black silk she required for articles of dress, and that he had not purchased a pair of gloves for many years. About two years before old King George the Third died, a report got about that he could not survive many days. There was a general rush among all ranks to obtain mourning. Up went the price of black goods; Norwich crapes and bombazines rose ten per cent, and those who were able to secure a black garment at any price, to shew their loyalty, were deemed very fortunate. And after all this fuss, and hurry, and confusion, the poor mad old king disappointed the speculators in sables, and lived on in darkness and mental aberration for two whole years. The mourning of some on that occasion was _real_, not imaginary. The sorrow with them was not for the _kings' death_, but that he had _not died_. On these public occasions of grief, great is the stir and bustle in economical families, who wish to show a decent concern for the death of the monarch, but who do not exactly like to go to the expense of buying new clothes for such a short period as a court mourning. All the old family stores are rummaged carefully over, and every stuff gown, worn ribbon, or shabby shawl, that can take a black dye, is handed over to the vat; and these second-hand black garments have a more _mournful appearance_ than the glossy suits of the gay and wealthy, for it is actually humiliating to wear such, as they are both unbecoming to the young and old. Black, which is the most becoming and convenient colour for general wear, especially to the old and middle-aged; would no longer be regarded with religious horror as the type of mortality and decay, but would take its place on the same shelf with the gay tints that form the motley groups in our handsome stores. Could influential people be found to expose the folly and vanity of this practice, and refuse to comply with its demands, others would soon be glad to follow their example, and, before many years, it would sink into contempt and disuse. If the Americans, the most practical people in the world, would but once take up the subject and publicly lecture on its absurdity, this dismal shadow of a darker age would no longer obscure our streets and scare our little ones. Men would wear their grief in their hearts and not around their hats; and widows would be better known by their serious deportment than by their weeds. I feel certain that every thinking person, who calmly investigates the subject, will be tempted to exclaim with me, "Oh, that the good sense of mankind would unite in banishing it for ever from the earth!" The Song Of Faith. "House of clay!--frail house of clay! In the dust thou soon must lie; Spirit! spread thy wings--away, Strong in immortality; To worlds more bright Oh wing thy flight, To win the crown and robe of light. "Hopes of dust!--false hopes of dust! Smiling as the morning fair; Why do we confiding trust In trifles light as air? Like flowers that wave Above the grave, Ye cheer, without the power to save. "Joys of earth!--vain joys of earth! Sandy your foundations be; Mortals overrate your worth, Sought through life so eagerly. Too soon we know That tears must flow,-- That bliss is still allied to woe! "Human love!--fond human love! We have worshipp'd at thy shrine; Envying not the saints above, While we deem'd thy power divine. But ah, thy light, So wildly bright, Is born of earth to set in night. "Love of heaven!--love of heaven! Let us pray for thine increase; Happiness by thee is given, Hopes and joys that never cease. With thee we'll soar Death's dark tide o'er, Where earth can stain the soul no more." CHAPTER IX Odd Characters "Dear merry reader, did you ever hear, Whilst travelling on the world's wide beaten road, The curious reasoning, and opinions queer, Of men, who never in their lives bestow'd One hour on study; whose existence seems A thing of course--a practical delusion-- A day of frowning clouds and sunny gleams-- Of pain and pleasure, mix'd in strange confusion; Who feel they move and breathe, they know not why-- Are born to eat and drink, and sleep and die." S.M. The shores of the Prince Edward District become more bold and beautiful as the steamer pursues her course up the "Long Reach." Magnificent trees clothe these rugged banks to their very summits, and cast dense shadows upon the waters that slumber at their feet. The slanting rays of the evening sun stream through their thick foliage, and weave a network of gold around the corrugated trunks of the huge oak and maple trees that tower far above our heads. The glorious waters are dyed with a thousand changeful hues of crimson and saffron, and reflect from their unruffled surface the gorgeous tints of a Canadian sunset. The pines, with their hearse-like plumes, loom out darkly against the glowing evening sky, and frown austerely upon us, their gloomy aspect affording a striking contrast to the sun-lighted leaves of the feathery birch and the rock elm. It is a lonely hour, and one that nature seems to have set apart for prayer and praise; a devotional spirit seems to breathe over the earth, the woods, and waters, softening and harmonising the whole into one blessed picture of love and peace. The boat has again crossed the bay, and stops to take in wood at "Roblin's wharf." We are now beneath the shadow of the "Indian woods," a reserve belonging to the Mohawks in the township of Tyendenaga, about twenty-four miles by water from Belleville. A broad belt of forest land forms the background to a cleared slope, rising gradually from the water until it reaches a considerable elevation above the shore. The frontage to the bay is filled up with neat farm houses, and patches of buck-wheat and Indian corn, the only grain that remains unharvested at this season of the year. We have a fine view of the stone church built by the Indians, which stands on the top of the hill about a mile from the water. Queen Anne presented to this tribe three large marble tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments, which, after following them in all their ramblings for a century and a half, now grace the altar of this church, and are regarded with great veneration by the Indian settlers, who seem to look upon them with a superstitious awe. The church is built in the gothic style, and is one of the most picturesque village churches that I have seen in Canada. The Indians contributed a great part of the funds for erecting this building. I was never within the walls of the sacred edifice; but I have wandered round the quiet peaceful burial-ground, and admired the lovely prospect it commands of the bay and the opposite shores. One side of the churchyard is skirted by a natural grove of forest trees, which separates it from the parsonage, a neat white building that fronts the water, and stands back from it at the head of a noble sweep of land covered with velvet turf, and resembling greatly a gentleman's park at home, by the fine groups of stately forest trees scattered over it, and a semicircular belt of the original forest, that, sloping from the house on either side, extends its wings until it meets the blue waters of the bay, leaving between its green arms a broad space of cleared land. The first time my eyes ever rested on this beautiful spot it appeared to me a perfect paradise. It was a warm, balmy, moonlight evening in June. The rich resinous odour of the woods filled the air with delicious perfume; fire-flies were glancing like shooting stars among the dark foliage that hung over the water, and the spirit of love and peace sat brooding over the luxurious solitude, whose very silence was eloquent with praise of the great Maker. How I envied the residents of the parsonage their lovely home! How disappointed I felt, when Mrs. G--- told me that she felt it dull and lonely, that she was out of society, and that the Indians were very troublesome neighbours! Now, I have no doubt that this was all very true, and that I should have felt the same want that she did, after the bewitching novelty of the scene had become familiar; but it sadly destroyed the romance and poetry of it to me at the time. This part of the township of Tyendenaga belongs almost exclusively to the Mohawk Indians, who have made a large settlement here, while the government has given them a good school for instructing their children in the Indian and English languages; and they have a resident clergyman of the Establishment always at hand, to minister to them the spiritual consolations of religion, and impart to them the blessed truths of the gospel. The Rev. S. G--- was for some years the occupant of the pretty parsonage-house, and was greatly beloved by his Indian congregation. The native residents of these woods clear farms, and build and plant like their white neighbours. They rear horses, cattle, and sheep, and sow a sufficient quantity of grain to secure them from want. But there is a great lack of order and regularity in all their agricultural proceedings. They do not make half as much out of their lands--which they suffer to be overgrown with thorns and thistles--as their white neighbours; and their domestic arrangements within doors are never marked by that appearance of comfort and cleanliness, which is to be seen in the dwellings of the native Canadians and emigrants from Europe. The red man is out of his element when he settles quietly down to a farm, and you perceive it at a glance. He never appears to advantage as a resident among civilized men; and he seems painfully conscious of his inferiority, and ignorance of the arts of life. He has lost his identity, as it were, and when he attempts to imitate ihe customs and manners of the whites, he is too apt to adopt their vices without acquiring their industry and perseverance, and sinks into a sottish, degraded savage. The proud independence we admired so much in the man of the woods, has disappeared with his truthfulness, honesty, and simple manners. His pure blood is tainted with the dregs of a lower humanity, degenerated by the want and misery of over-populous European cities. His light eyes, crisp hair, and whitey-brown complexion, too surely betray his mixed origin; and we turn from the half educated, half-caste Indian, with feelings of aversion and mistrust. There is a Mohawk family who reside in this township of the name of Loft, who have gained some celebrity in the colony by their clever representations of the manners and customs of their tribe. They sing Indian songs, dance the war-dance, hold councils, and make grave speeches, in the characters of Indian chiefs and hunters, in an artistic manner that would gain the applause of a more fastidious audience. The two young squaws, who were the principal performers in this travelling Indian opera, were the most beautiful Indian women I ever beheld. There was no base alloy in their pure native blood. They had the large, dark, humid eyes, the ebon locks tinged with purple, so peculiar to their race, and which gives such a rich tint to the clear olive skin and brilliant white teeth of the denizens of the Canadian wilderness. Susannah Loft and her sister were the _beau ideal_ of Indian women; and their graceful and symmetrical figures were set off to great advantage by their picturesque and becoming costume, which in their case was composed of the richest materials. Their acting and carriage were dignified and queen-like, and their appearance singularly pleasing and interesting. Susannah, the eldest and certainly the most graceful of these truly fascinating girls, was unfortunately killed last summer by the collision of two steam-carriages, while travelling professionally with her sister through the States. Those who had listened with charmed ears to her sweet voice, and gazed with admiring eyes upon her personal charms, were greatly shocked at her untimely death. A little boy and girl belonging to the same talented family have been brought before the public, in order to supply her place, but they have not been able to fill up the blank occasioned by her loss. The steamboat again leaves the north shore, and stands across from the stone mills, which are in the Prince Edward district, and form one of the features of the remarkable scenery of what is called the "high shore." This mountainous ridge, which descends perpendicularly to the water's edge, is still in forest; and, without doubt, this is the most romantic portion of the bay, whose waters are suddenly contracted to half their former dimensions, and glide on darkly and silently between these steep wood-crowned heights. There is a small lake upon the highest portion of this table-land, whose waters are led down the steep bank, and made to work a saw-mill, which is certainly giving a very unromantic turn to them. But here, as in the States, the beautiful and the ideal are instantly converted into the real and the practical. This "lake of the mountains" is a favourite place for picnics and pleasure trips from Northport and Belleville. Here the Sabbath-school children come, once during the summer, to enjoy a ramble in the woods, and spread their feast beneath the lordly oaks and maples that crown these heights. And the teetotallers marshall their bands of converts, and hold their cold water festival, beside the blue deep waters of this mysterious mountain-lake. Strange stories are told of its unfathomable depth; of the quicksands that are found near it, and of its being supplied from the far-off inland ocean of Lake Huron. But like the cove in Tyendenaga, of which everybody in the neighbourhood has heard something, but which nobody has seen, these accounts of the lake of the mountain rest only upon hearsay. The last rays of the sun still lingered on wood and stream when we arrived at Picton, which stands at the head of the "long reach." The bay here is not wider than a broad river. The banks are very lofty, and enclose the water in an oblong form, round which that part of the town which is near the shore is built. Picton is a very beautiful place viewed from the deck of the steamer. Its situation is novel and imposing, and the number of pretty cottages that crown the steep ridge that rises almost perpendicularly from the water, peeping out from among fine orchards in full bearing, and trim gardens, give it quite a rural appearance. The steamboat enters this fairy bay by a very narrow passage; and, after delivering freight and passengers at the wharf, backs out by the way she came in. There is no turning a large vessel round this long half-circle of deep blue water. Few spots in Canada would afford a finer subject for the artist's pencil than this small inland town, which is so seldom visited by strangers and tourists. The progress to wealth and importance made by this place is strikingly behind that of Belleville, which far exceeds it in size and population. Three years ago a very destructive fire consumed some of the principal buildings in the town, which has not yet recovered from its effects. Trade is not so brisk here as in Belleville, and the streets are dull and monotonous, when compared with the stir and bustle of the latter, which, during the winter season, is crowded with sleighs from the country. The Bay of Quinte during the winter forms an excellent road to all the villages and towns on its shores. The people from the opposite side trade more with the Belleville merchants than with those in their own district; and during the winter season, when the bay is completely frozen from the mouth of the Trent to Kingston, loaded teams are passing to and fro continually. It is the favourite afternoon drive of young and old, and when the wind, sweeping over such a broad surface of ice, is not _too cold_, and you are well wrapped up in furs and buffalo robes, a sleigh ride on the ice is very delightful. Not that I can ever wholly divest myself of a vague, indistinct sense of danger, whilst rapidly gliding over this frozen mirror. I would rather be out on the bay, in a gale of wind in a small boat, than overtaken by a snow storm on its frozen highways. Still it is a pleasant sight of a bright, glowing, winter day, when the landscape glitters like a world composed of crystals, to watch the handsome sleighs, filled with well-dressed men and women, and drawn by spirited horses, dashing in all directions over this brilliant field of dazzling white. Night has fallen rapidly upon us since we left Picton in the distance. A darker shade is upon the woods, the hills, the waters, and by the time we approach Fredericksburg it will be dark. This too is a very pretty place on the north side of the bay; beautiful orchards and meadows skirt the water, and fine bass-wood and willow-trees grow beside, or bend over the waves. The green smooth meadows, out of which the black stumps rotted long ago, show noble groups of hiccory and butter-nut, and sleek fat cows are reposing beneath them, or standing mid-leg in the small creek that wanders through them to pour its fairy tribute into the broad bay. We must leave the deck and retreat into the ladies' cabin, for the air from the water grows chilly, and the sense of seeing can no longer be gratified by remaining where we are. But if you open your eyes to see, and your ears to hear, all the strange sayings and doings of the odd people you meet in a steamboat, you will never lack amusement. The last time I went down to Kingston, there was a little girl in the cabin who rejoiced in the possession of a very large American doll, made so nearly to resemble an infant, that at a distance it was easy to mistake it for one. To render the deception more striking, you could make it cry like a child by pressing your hand upon its body. A thin, long-laced farmer's wife came on board, at the wharf we have just quitted, and it was amusing to watch her alternately gazing at the little girl and her doll. "Is that your baby, Cissy?" "No; it's my doll." "Mi! what a strange doll! Isn't that something _oncommon?_ I took it for a real child. Look at its bare feet and hands, and bald head. Well, I don't think it's 'zactly right to make a piece of wood look so like a human critter." The child good-naturedly put the doll into the woman's hands, who, happening to take it rather roughly, the wooden baby gave a loud squall; the woman's face expressed the utmost horror, and she dropped it on the floor as if it had been a hot coal. "Gracious, goodness me, the thing's alive!" The little girl laughed heartily, and, taking up the discarded doll, explained to the woman the simple method employed to produce the sound. "Well, it do sound quite _nataral_," said her astonished companion. "What will they find out next? It beats the railroad and the telegraph holler." "Ah, but I saw a big doll that could speak when I was with mamma in New York," said the child, with glistening eyes. "A doll that could speak? You don't say. Oh, do tell!" While the young lady described the automaton doll, it was amusing to watch the expressions of surprise, wonder, and curiosity, that flitted over the woman's brig cadaverous face. She would have made a good study for a painter. A young relative of mine went down in the steamboat, to be present at the Provincial Agricultural Show that was held that year in the town of Buckville, on the St. Lawrence. It was the latter end of September; the weather was wet and stormy, and the boat loaded to the water's edge with cattle and passengers. The promenade decks were filled up with pigs, sheep and oxen. Cows were looking sleepily in at the open doors of the ladies' cabin, and bulls were fastened on the upper deck. Such a motley group of bipeds and quadrupeds were never before huddled into such a narrow space; and, amidst all this din and confusion, a Scotch piper was playing lustily on the bagpipes, greatly to the edification, I've no doubt, of himself and the crowd of animal life around him. The night came on very dark and stormy, and many of the women suffered as much from the pitching of the boat as if they had been at sea. The ladies' cabin was crowded to overflowing; every sofa, bed, and chair was occupied; and my young friend, who did not feel any inconvenience from the storm, was greatly entertained by the dialogues carried on across the cabin by the women, who were reposing in their berths, and lamenting over the rough weather and their own sufferings in consequence. They were mostly the wives of farmers and respectable mechanics, and the language they used was neither very choice nor grammatical. "I say, Mrs. C---, how be you?" "I feel bad, any how," with a smothered groan. "Have you been sick?" "Not yet; but feel as if I was going to." "How's your head coming on, Mrs. N---?" "It's just splitting, I thank you." "Oh, how awful the boat do pitch!" cries a third. "If she should sink, I'm afeard we shall all go to the bottom." "And think of all the poor sheep and cattle!" "Well, of course, they'd have to go too." "Oh, mi! I'll get up, and be ready for a start, in case of the worst," cried a young girl. "Mrs. C---, do give me something good out of your basket, to keep up my spirits." "Well, I will. Come over here, and you and I will have some talk. My basket's at the foot of my berth. You'll find in it a small bottle of brandy and some crulls." So up got several of the sick ladies, and kept up their spirits by eating cakes, chewing gum, and drinking cold brandy punch. "Did Mrs. H--- lose much in the fire last night?" said one. "Oh, dear, yes; she lost all her clothes, and three large jars of preserves she made about a week ago, and _sarce in accordance!_" [A common Yankee phrase, often used instead of the word proportion.] There was an honest Yorkshire farmer and his wife on board, and when the morning at length broke through pouring rain and driving mist, and the port to which they were bound loomed through the haze, the women were very anxious to know if their husbands, who slept in the gentlemen's cabin, were awake." "They arn't stirring yet," said Mrs. G---, "for I hear Isaac (meaning her husband) _breezing_ below"--a most expressive term for very hard snoring. The same Isaac, when he came up to the ladies' cabin to take his wife on shore, complained, in his broad Yorkshire dialect, that he had been kept awake all night by a jovial gentleman who had been his fellow-traveller in the cabin. "We had terrible noisy chap in t'cabin. They called him Mr. D---, and said he 'twas t'mayor of Belleville; but I thought they were a-fooning. He wouldn't sleep himself, nor let t'others sleep. He gat piper, an' put him top o' table, and kept him playing all t'night." One would think that friend Isaac had been haunted by the vision of the piper in his dreams; for, certes, the jovial buzzing of the pipes had not been able to drown the deep drone of his own nasal organ. A gentleman who was travelling in company with Sir A--- told me an anecdote of him, and how he treated an impertinent fellow on board one of the lake boats, that greatly amused me. The state cabins in these large steamers open into the great saloon; and as they are often occupied by married people, each berth contains two beds, one placed above the other. Now it often happens, when the boat is greatly crowded, that two passengers of the same sex are forced to occupy the same sleeping room. This was Sir A---'s case, and he was obliged, though very reluctantly, to share his sleeping apartment with a well-dressed American, but evidently a man of low standing, from the familiarity of his manners and the bad grammar he used. In the morning, it was necessary for one gentleman to rise before the other, as the space in front of their berths was too narrow to allow of more than one performing his ablutions at a time. Our Yankee made a fair start, and had nearly completed his toilet, when he suddenly spied a tooth-brush and a box of tooth-powder in the dressing-case his companion had left open on the washstand. Upon these he pounced, and having made a liberal use of them, flung them back into the case, and sat down upon the only chair the room contained, in order to gratify his curiosity by watching how his sleeping partner went through the same process. Sir A---, greatly annoyed by the fellow's assurance, got out of bed; and placing the washhand basin on the floor, put his feet into the water, and commenced scrubbing his toe-nails with the desecrated tooth-brush. Jonathan watched his movements for a few seconds in silent horror; at length, unable to contain himself, he exclaimed. "Well, stranger! that's the dirtiest use I ever see a toothbrush put to, any how." "I saw it put to a dirtier, just now," said Sir A--- very coolly. "I always use that brush for cleaning my toes." The Yankee turned very green, and fled to the deck, but his nausea was not sea-sickness. The village of Nappanee, on the north side of the Bay, is situated on a very pretty river that bears the same name,--Nappanee, in the Mohawk language, signifying flour. The village is a mile back from the bay, and is not much seen from the water. There are a great many mills here, both grist and saw mills, from which circumstance it most likely derives its name. Amherst Island, which is some miles in extent, stands between Ontario and the Bay of Quinte, its upper and lower extremity forming the two straits that are called the Upper and Lower Gap, and the least breeze, which is not perceptible in the other portions of the bay, is felt here. Passing through these gaps on a stormy day creates as great a nausea as a short chopping sea on the Atlantic, and I have seen both men and women retreat to their berths to avoid disagreeable consequences. Amherst Island is several miles in extent, and there are many good farms in high cultivation upon it, while its proximity on all sides to the water affords excellent sport to the angler and gunner, as wild ducks abound in this vicinity. Just after you pass the island and enter the lower gap, there are three very small islands in a direct line with each other, that are known as the three brothers. A hermit has taken up his abode on the centre one, and built a very Robinson Crusoe looking hut near the water, composed of round logs and large stones cemented together with clay. He gets his living by fishing and fowling, and you see his well-worn, weather-beaten boat, drawn up in a little cove near his odd dwelling. I was very curious to obtain some particulars of the private history of this eccentric individual, but beyond what I have just related, my informants could tell me nothing, or why he had chosen this solitary abode in such an exposed situation, and so far apart from all the comforts of social life. The town of Bath is the last place of any note on this portion of the Bay, until you arrive at Kingston. A Morning Song. "The young wheat is springing All tender and green, And the blackbird is singing The branches between; The leaves of the hawthorn Have burst from their prison, And the bright eyes of morn On the earth have arisen. "While sluggards are sleeping, Oh hasten with me; While the night mists are weeping Soft showers on each tree, And nature is glowing Beneath the warm beam, The young day is throwing O'er mountain and stream. "And the shy colt is bounding Across the wide mead, And his wild hoofs resounding, Increases his speed; Now starting and crossing At each shadow he sees, Now wantonly tossing His mane in the breeze. "The sky-lark is shaking The dew from her wing, And the clover forsaking, Soars upwards to sing, In rapture outpouring Her anthem of love, Where angels adoring Waft praises above. "Shake dull sleep from your pillow, Young dreamer arise, On the leaves of the willow The dew-drop still lies, And the mavis is trilling His song from the brake, And with melody filling The wild woods--awake!" CHAPTER X Grace Marks "I dare not think--I cannot pray; To name the name of God were sin: No grief of mine can wash away The consciousness of guilt within. The stain of blood is on my hand, The curse of Cain is on my brow;-- I see that ghastly phantom stand Between me and the sunshine now! That mocking face still haunts my dreams, That blood-shot eye that never sleeps, In night and darkness--oh, it gleams, Like red-hot steel--but never weeps! And still it bends its burning gaze On mine, till drops of terror start From my hot brow, and hell's fierce blaze Is kindled in my brain and heart. I long for death, yet dare not die, Though life is now a weary curse; But oh, that dread eternity May bring a punishment far worse!" So much has been written about the city of Kingston, so lately the seat of government, and so remarkable for its fortifications, and the importance it ever must be to the colony as a military depot and place of defence, that it is not my intention to enter into a minute description of it here. I was greatly pleased, as I think every stranger must be, with its general aspect, particularly as seen from the water, in which respect it has a great advantage over Toronto. The number of vessels lying at the different wharfs, and the constant arrival of noble steamers both from the United States and the Upper and Lower Province, give it a very business-like appearance. Yet, upon landing, you are struck with the want of stir and bustle in the principal thoroughfares, when contrasted with the size and magnitude of the streets. The removal of the seat of government has checked the growth of Kingston for a while; but you feel, while examining its commanding position, that it must always be the key of the Upper Province, the great rallying point in case of war or danger. The market house is a very fine building, and the wants of the city could be supplied within its area, were it three times the size that it is at present. The market is decidedly one of the chief attractions of the place. The streets are wide and well paved, and there are a great many fine trees in and about Kingston, which give to it the appearance of a European town. The houses are chiefly of brick and stone along the public thoroughfares, and there are many neat private dwellings inclosed in trim well-kept gardens. The road leading to the Provincial Penitentiary runs parallel with the water, and forms a delightful drive. It is about three years ago that I paid a visit with my husband to the Penitentiary, and went over every part of it. I must own that I felt a greater curiosity to see the convicts than the prison which contained them, and my wishes were completely gratified, as my husband was detained for several hours on business, and I had a long interval of leisure to examine the workshops, where the convicts were employed at their different trades, their sleeping cells, chapel, and places of punishment. The silence system is maintained here, no conversation being allowed between the prisoners. I was surprised at the neatness, cleanliness, order, and regularity of all the arrangements in the vast building, and still more astonished that forty or fifty strong active looking men, unfettered, with the free use of their limbs, could be controlled by one person, who sat on a tall chair as overseer of each ward. In several instances, particularly in the tailoring and shoemaking department, the overseers were small delicate-looking men; but such is the force of habit, and the want of moral courage which generally accompanies guilt, that a word or a look from these men was sufficient to keep them at work. The dress of the male convicts was warm and comfortable, though certainly not very elegant, consisting (for it was late in the fall) of a thick woollen jacket, one side of it being brown, the other yellow, with trowsers to correspond, a shirt of coarse factory cotton, but very clean, and good stout shoes, and warm knitted woollen socks. The letters P.P. for "Provincial Penitentiary," are sewed in coloured cloth upon the dark side of the jacket. Their hair is cut very short to the head, and they wear a cloth cap of the same colours that compose their dress. The cells are narrow, just wide enough to contain a small bed, a stool, and a wash-bowl, and the prisoners are divided from each other by thick stone walls. They are locked in every night at six o'clock, and their cell is so constructed, that one of the keepers can always look in upon the convict without his being aware of the scrutiny. The bedding was scrupulously clean, and I saw a plain Bible in each cell. There is a sort of machine resembling a stone coffin, in which mutinous convicts are confined for a given time. They stand in an upright position; and as there are air holes for breathing, the look and name of the thing is more dreadful than the punishment, which cannot be the least painful. I asked the gentleman who showed us over the building, what country sent the most prisoners to the Penitentiary? He smiled, and told me "guess." I did so, but was wrong. "No," said he; "we have more French Canadians and men of colour. Then Irish, English, and run-a-way loafers from the States. Of the Scotch we have very few; but they are very bad--the most ungovernable, sullen, and disobedient. When a Scotchman is bad enough to be brought here, he is like Jeremiah's bad figs--only fit for the gallows." Mr. Moodie's bailiffs had taken down a young fellow, about twenty years of age, who had been convicted at the assizes for stealing curious coins from a person who had brought them out to this country as old family relics. The evidence was more circumstantial than positive, and many persons believed the lad innocent. He had kept up his spirits bravely on the voyage, and was treated with great kindness by the men who had him in custody; but when once within the massy walls of the huge building, his courage seemed to forsake him all at once. We passed him as he sat on the bench, while the barber was cutting his hair and shaving off his whiskers. His handsome suit had been removed--he was in the party-coloured dress before described. There was in his face an expression of great anguish, and tears were rolling in quick succession down his cheeks. Poor fellow! I should hardly have known him again, so completely was he humbled by his present position. Mr. M---y told me that they had some men in the Penitentiary who had returned three different times to it, and had grown so attached to their prison that they preferred being there, well clothed and well fed, to gaining a precarious living elsewhere. Executions in Canada are so rare, even for murder, that many atrocious criminals are found within these walls--men and women--who could not possibly have escaped the gallows in England. At twelve o'clock I followed Mr. M--- to the great hall, to see the prisoners dine. The meal consisted of excellent soups, with a portion of the meat which had been boiled in it, potatoes, and brown bread, all very clean and good of their kind. I took a plate of the soup and a piece of the bread, and enjoyed both greatly. I could not help thinking, while watching these men in their comfortable dresses, taking their wholesome, well-cooked meal, how much better they were fed and lodged than thousands of honest industrious men, who had to maintain large families upon a crust of bread, in the great manufacturing cities at home. Most of these men had very bad countenances, and I never felt so much convinced of the truth of phrenology as while looking at their heads. The extraordinary formation, or rather mal-formation, of some of them, led me to think that their possessors were hardly accountable for their actions. One man in particular, who had committed a very atrocious murder, and was confined for life, had a most singular head, such as one, indeed, as I never before saw on a human body. It was immensely large at the base, and appeared perfectly round, while at the crown it rose to a point like a sugar-loaf. He was of a dull, drab-coloured complexion, with large prominent eyes of a pale green colour; his expression, the most repulsively cruel and sinister. The eye involuntarily singled him out among all his comrades, as something too terrible to escape observation. Among such a number of men, 448, who were there present, I was surprised at seeing so few with red or fair hair. I noticed this to my companion. He had never observed it before, but said it was strange. The convicts were mostly of a dull grey complexion, large eyed, stolid looking men, or with very black hair, and heavy black brows. I could only account for this circumstance from the fact, that though fair-haired people are often violently passionate and easily excited, their anger is sudden and quick, never premeditated, but generally the work of the moment. Like straw on a fire, it kindles into a fierce blaze, but it is over in an instant. They seldom retain it, or bear malice. Not so the dull, putty-coloured, sluggish man. He is slow to act, but he broods over a supposed affront or injury, and never forgets it. He plans the moment of retaliation, and stabs his enemy when least prepared. There were many stolid, heavy-looking men in that prison--many with black, jealous, fiery-looking eyes, in whose gloomy depths suspicion and revenge seemed to lurk. Even to look at these men as they passed on, seemed to arouse their vindictive feelings, and they scowled disdainfully upon us as they walked on to their respective places. There was one man among these dark, fierce-looking criminals, who, from his proud carriage and bearing, particularly arrested my attention. I pointed him out to Mr. ---. "That man has the appearance of an educated person. He looks as if he had been a gentleman." "You are right," was his reply. "He was a gentleman, the son of a district judge, and brought up to the law. A clever man too; but these walls do not contain a worse in every respect. He was put in here for arson, and an attempt to murder. Many a poor man has been hung with half his guilt." "There are two men near him," I said, "who have not the appearance of criminals at all. What have they done?" "They are not felons, but two soldiers put in here for a week for disorderly conduct." "What a shame," I cried, "to degrade them in this manner! What good can it do?" "Oh," said he, laughing; "it will make them desert to the States the moment they get out." "And those two little boys; what are they here for?" "For murder!" whispered he. I almost sprang from my seat; it appeared too dreadful to be true. "Yes," he continued. "That child to the right is in for shooting his sister. The other, to the left, for killing a boy of his own age with a hoe, and burying him under the roots of a fallen tree. Both of these boys come from the neighbourhood of Peterboro'. Your district, by the bye, sends fewer convicts to the Penitentiary than any part of the Upper Province." It was with great pleasure I heard him say this. During a residence of thirteen years at Belleville, there has not been one execution. The county of Hastings is still unstained with the blood of a criminal. There is so little robbery committed in this part of the country, that the thought of thieves or housebreakers never for a moment disturbs our rest. This is not the case in Hamilton and Toronto, where daring acts of housebreaking are of frequent occurrence. The constant influx of runaway slaves from the States has added greatly to the criminal lists on the frontier. The addition of these people to our population is not much to be coveted. The slave, from his previous habits and education, does not always make a good citizen. During the last assizes at Cobourg, a black man and his wife were condemned to be hung for a most horrible murder, and their son, a young man of twenty years of age, offered the sheriff to hang his own father and mother for a new suit of clothes. Those who laud the black man, and place him above the white, let them produce in the whole annals of human crime a more atrocious one than this! Yet _it was not a hanging matter_. I heard a gentleman exclaim with honest indignation, when this anecdote was told in his hearing--"If a man were wanting to hang that monster, I would do it myself." But leaving the male convicts, I must now introduce my reader to the female inmates of this house of woe and crime. At the time of my visit, there were only forty women in the Penitentiary. This speaks much for the superior moral training of the feebler sex. My chief object in visiting their department was to look at the celebrated murderess, Grace Marks, of whom I had heard a great deal, not only from the public papers, but from the gentleman who defended her upon her trial, and whose able pleading saved her from the gallows, on which her wretched accomplice closed his guilty career. As many of my English readers may never have heard even the name of this remarkable criminal, it may not be uninteresting to them to give a brief sketch of the events which placed her here. About eight or nine years ago--I write from memory, and am not very certain as to dates--a young Irish emigrant girl was hired into the service of Captain Kinnaird, an officer on half-pay, who had purchased a farm about thirty miles in the rear of Toronto; but the name of the township, and the county in which it was situated, I have forgotten; but this is of little consequence to my narrative. Both circumstances could be easily ascertained by the curious. The captain had been living for some time on very intimate terms with his housekeeper, a handsome young woman of the name of Hannah Montgomery, who had been his servant of all work. Her familiarity with her master, who, it appears, was a very fine looking, gentlemanly person, had rendered her very impatient of her former menial employments, and she soon became virtually the mistress of the house. Grace Marks was hired to wait upon her, and perform all the coarse drudgery that Hannah considered herself too fine a lady to do. While Hannah occupied the parlour with her master, and sat at his table, her insolent airs of superiority aroused the jealousy and envy of Grace Marks, and the man-servant, MacDermot; who considered themselves quite superior to their self-elected mistress. MacDermot was the son of respectable parents; but from being a wild, ungovernable boy, he became a bad, vicious man, and early abandoned the parental roof to enlist for a soldier. He was soon tired of his new profession, and, deserting from his regiment, escaped detection, and emigrated to Canada. Having no means of his own, he was glad to engage with Captain Kinnaird as his servant, to whom his character and previous habits were unknown. These circumstances, together with what follows, were drawn from his confession, made to Mr. Mac--ie, who had conducted his defence, the night previous to his execution. Perhaps it will be better to make him the narrator of his own story. "Grace Marks was hired by Captain Kinnaird to wait upon his housekeeper, a few days after I entered his service. She was a pretty girl, and very smart about her work, but of a silent, sullen temper. It was very difficult to know when she was pleased. Her age did not exceed seventeen years. After the work of the day was over, she and I generally were left to ourselves in the kitchen, Hannah being entirely taken up with her master. Grace was very jealous of the difference made between her and the house-keeper, whom she hated, and to whom she was often very insolent and saucy. Her whole conversation to me was on this subject. 'What is she better than us?' she would say, 'that she is to be treated like a lady, and eat and drink of the best. She is not better born than we are, or better educated. I will not stay here to be domineered over by her. Either she or I must soon leave this.' Every little complaint Hannah made of me, was repeated to me with cruel exaggerations, till my dander was up, and I began to regard the unfortunate woman as our common enemy. The good looks of Grace had interested me in her cause; and though there was something about the girl that I could not exactly like, I had been a very lawless, dissipated fellow, and if a woman was young and pretty, I cared very little about her character. Grace was sullen and proud, and not very easily won over to my purpose; but in order to win her liking, if possible, I gave a ready ear to all her discontented repinings. "One day Captain Kinnaird went to Toronto, to draw his half-year's pay, and left word with Hannah that he would be back by noon the next day. She had made some complaint against us to him, and he had promised to pay us off on his return. This had come to the ears of Grace, and her hatred to the housekeeper was increased to a tenfold degree. I take heaven to witness, that I had no designs against the life of the unfortunate woman when my master left the house. "Hannah went out in the afternoon, to visit some friends she had in the neighbourhood, and left Grace and I alone together. This was an opportunity too good to be lost, and, instead of minding our work, we got recapitulating our fancied wrongs over some of the captain's whisky. I urged my suit to Grace; but she would not think of anything, or listen to anything, but the insults and injuries she had received from Hannah, and her burning thirst for revenge. 'Dear me,' said I, half in jest, 'if you hate her so much as all that, say but the word, and I will soon rid you of her for ever.' "I had not the least idea that she would take me at my word. Her eyes flashed with a horrible light. 'You dare not do it!' she replied, with a scornful toss of her head. "'Dare not do what?' "'Kill that woman for me!' she whispered. "'You don't know what I dare, or what I dar'n't do!' said I, drawing a little back from her. 'If you will promise to run off with me afterwards, I will see what I can do with her.' "'I'll do anything you like; but you must first kill her.' "'You are not in earnest, Grace?' "'I mean what I say!' "'How shall we be able to accomplish it? She is away now, and she may not return before her master comes back.' "'Never doubt her. She will be back to see after the house, and that we are in no mischief.' "'She sleeps with you?' "'Not always. She will to-night.' "'I will wait till you are asleep, and then I will kill her with a blow of the axe on the head. It will be over in a minute. Which side of the bed does she lie on?' "'She always sleeps on the side nearest the wall and she bolts the door the last thing before she puts out the light. But I will manage both these difficulties for you. I will pretend to have the toothache very bad, and will ask to sleep next the wall to-night. She is kind to the sick, and will not refuse me; and after she is asleep, I will steal out at the foot of the bed, and unbolt the door. If you are true to your promise, you need not fear that I shall neglect mine.' "I looked at her with astonishment. 'Good God!' thought I, 'can this be a woman? A pretty, soft-looking woman too--and a mere girl! What a heart she must have!' I felt equally tempted to tell her she was a devil, and that I would have nothing to do with such a horrible piece of business; but she looked so handsome, that somehow or another I yielded to the temptation, though it was not without a struggle; for conscience loudly warned me not to injure one who had never injured me. "Hannah came home to supper, and she was unusually agreeable, and took her tea with us in the kitchen, and laughed and chatted as merrily as possible. And Grace, in order to hide the wicked thoughts working in her mind, was very pleasant too, and they went laughing to bed, as if they were the best friends in the world. "I sat by the kitchen fire after they were gone, with the axe between my knees, trying to harden my heart to commit the murder; but for a long time I could not bring myself to do it. I thought over all my past life. I had been a bad, disobedient son--a dishonest, wicked man; but I had never shed blood. I had often felt sorry for the error of my ways, and had even vowed amendment, and prayed God to forgive me, and make a better man of me for the time to come. And now, here I was, at the instigation of a young girl, contemplating the death of a fellow-creature, with whom I had been laughing and talking on apparently friendly terms a few minutes ago. Oh, it was dreadful, too dreadful to be true! and then I prayed God to remove the temptation from me, and to convince me of my sin. 'Ah, but,' whispered the devil, 'Grace Marks will laugh at you. She will twit you with your want of resolution, and say that she is the better man of the two.' "I sprang up, and hastened at their door, which opened into the kitchen. All was still. I tried the door;--for the damnation of my soul, it was open. I had no need of a candle, the moon was at full; there was no curtain to their window, and it shone directly upon the bed, and I could see their features as plainly as by the light of day. Grace was either sleeping, or pretending to sleep--I think the latter, for there was a sort of fiendish smile upon her lips. The housekeeper had yielded to her request, and was lying with her head out over the bed-clothes, in the best possible manner for receiving a death-blow upon her temples. She had a sad, troubled look upon her handsome face; and once she moved her hand, and said 'Oh dear!' I wondered whether she was dreaming of any danger to herself and the man she loved. I raised the axe to give the death-blow, but my arm seemed held back by an invisible hand. It was the hand of God. I turned away from the bed, and left the room; I could not do it. I sat down by the embers of the fire, and cursed my own folly. I made a second attempt--a third--and fourth; yes, even to a ninth--and my purpose was each time defeated. God seemed to fight for the poor creature; and the last time I left the room I swore, with a great oath, that if she did not die till I killed her, she might live on till the day of judgment. I threw the axe on to the wood heap in the shed, and went to bed, and soon fell fast asleep. "In the morning, I was coming into the kitchen to light the fire, and met Grace Marks with the pails in her hand, going out to milk the cows. As she passed me, she gave me a poke with the pail in the ribs, and whispered with a sneer, 'Arn't you a coward!' "As she uttered those words, the devil, against whom I had fought all night, entered into my heart, and transformed me into a demon. All feelings of remorse and mercy forsook me from that instant, and darker and deeper plans of murder and theft flashed through my brain. 'Go and milk the cows,' said I with a bitter laugh, 'and you shall soon see whether I am the coward you take me for.' She went out to milk, and I went in to murder the unsuspicious housekeeper. "I found her at the sink in the kitchen, washing her face in a tin basin. I had the fatal axe in my hand, and without pausing for an instant to change my mind--for had I stopped to think, she would have been living to this day I struck her a heavy blow on the back of the head with my axe. She fell to the ground at my feet without uttering a word; and, opening the trap-door that led from the kitchen into a cellar where we kept potatoes and other stores, I hurled her down, closed the door, and wiped away the perspiration that was streaming down my face. I then looked at the axe and laughed. 'Yes; I have tasted blood now, and this murder will not be the last. Grace Marks, you have raised the devil--take care of yourself now!' "She came in with her pails, looking as innocent and demure as the milk they contained. She turned pale when her eye met mine. I have no doubt but that I Iooked the fiend her taunt had made me. "'Where's Hannah?' she asked, in a faint voice. "'Dead,' said I. 'What! are you turned coward now?' "'Macdermot, you look dreadful. I am afraid of you, not of her.' "'Aha, my girl! you should have thought of that before. The hound that laps blood once will lap again. You have taught me how to kill, and I don't care who, or how many I kill now. When Kinnaird comes home I will put a ball through his brain, and send him to keep company below with the housekeeper.' "She put down the pails,--she sprang towards me, and, clinging to my arm, exclaimed in frantic tones-- "'You won't kill him?' "'By ---, I will! why should he escape more than Hannah? And hark you, girl, if you dare to breathe a word to any one of my intention, or tell to any one, by word or sign, what I have done, I'll kill you!' "She trembled like a leaf. Yes, that young demon trembled. 'Don't kill me,' she whined, 'don't kill me, Macdermot! I swear that I will not betray you; and oh, don't kill him!' "'And why the devil do you want me to spare him?' "'He is so handsome!' "'Pshaw!' "'So good-natured!' "'Especially to you. Come, Grace; no nonsense. If I had thought that you were jealous of your master and Hannah, I would have been the last man on earth to have killed her. You belong to me now; and though I believe that the devil has given me a bad bargain in you, yet, such as you are, I will stand by you. And now, strike a light and follow me into the cellar. You must help me to put Hannah out of sight.' "She never shed a tear, but she looked dogged and sullen, and did as I bid her. "That cellar presented a dreadful spectacle. I can hardly bear to recall it now; but then, when my hands were still red with her blood, it was doubly terrible. Hannah Montgomery was not dead, as I had thought; the blow had only stunned her. She had partially recovered her senses, and was kneeling on one knee as we descended the ladder with the light. I don't know if she heard us, for she must have been blinded with the blood that was flowing down her face; but she certainly heard us, and raised her clasped hands, as if to implore mercy. "I turned to Grace. The expression of her livid face was even more dreadful than that of the unfortunate woman. She uttered no cry, but she put her hand to her head, and said,-- "'God has damned me for this.' "'Then you have nothing more to fear,' says I. 'Give me that handkerchief off your neck.' She gave it without a word. I threw myself upon the body of the housekeeper,--and planting my knee on her breast, I tied the handkerchief round her throat in a single tie, giving Grace one end to hold, while I drew the other tight enough to finish my terrible work. Her eyes literally started from her head, she gave one groan, and all was over. I then cut the body in four pieces, and turned a large washtub over them. "'Now, Grace, you may come up and get my breakfast.' "Yes, Mr. M---. You will not perhaps believe me, yet I assure you that we went upstairs and ate a good breakfast; and I laughed with Grace at the consternation the captain would be in when he found that Hannah was absent. "During the morning a pedlar called, who travelled the country with second-hand articles of clothing, taking farm produce in exchange for his wares. I bought of him two good linen-breasted shirts, which had been stolen from some gentleman by his housekeeper. While I was chatting with the pedlar, I remarked that Grace had left the house, and I saw her through the kitchen-window talking to a young lad by the well, who often came across to borrow an old gun from my master to shoot ducks. I called to her to come in, which she appeared to me to do very reluctantly. I felt that I was in her power, and I was horribly afraid of her betraying me in order to save her own and the captain's life. I now hated her from my very soul, and could have killed her without the least pity or remorse. "'What do you want, Macdermot!' she said sullenly. "'I want you. I dare not trust you out of my sight. I know what you are,--you are plotting mischief against me; but if you betray me I will be revenged; if I have to follow you to--for that purpose.' "'Why do you doubt my word, Macdermot? Do you think I want to hang myself?' "'No, not yourself, but me. You are too bad to be trusted. What were you saying just now to that boy?' "'I told him that the captain was not at home, and I dared not lend him the gun.' "'You were right. The gun will be wanted at home.'. "She shuddered and turned away. It seems that she had had enough of blood, and shewed some feeling at last. I kept my eye upon her, and would not suffer her for a moment out of my sight. "At noon the captain drove into the yard, and I went out to take the horse. Before he had time to alight, he asked for Hannah. I told him that she was out, that she went off the day before, and had not returned, but that we expected her in every minute. "He was very much annoyed, and said that she had no business to leave the house during his absence,--that he would give her a good rating when she came home. "Grace asked if she should get his breakfast? "He said, 'He wanted none. He would wait till Hannah came back, and then he would take a cup of coffee.' "He then went into the parlour; and throwing himself down upon the sofa, commenced reading a magazine he had brought with him from Toronto. "'I thought he would miss the young lady,' said Grace. 'He has no idea how close she is to him at this moment. I wonder why I could not make him as good a cup of coffee as Hannah. I have often made it for him when he did not know it. But what is sweet from her hand, would be poison from mine. But I have had my revenge!' "Dinner time came, and out came the captain to the kitchen, book in hand. "'Isn't Hannah back yet?' "'No,--Sir.' "'It's strange. Which way did she go?' "'She did not tell us where she was going; but said that, as you were out, it would be a good opportunity of visiting an old friend.' "'When did she say she would be back?' "'We expected her last night,' said Grace. "'Something must have happened to the girl, Macdermot,' turning to me. 'Put the saddle on my riding horse. I will go among the neighbours, and inquire if they have seen her.' "Grace exchanged glances with me. "'Will you not stay till after dinner, Sir?' "'I don't care,' he cried impatiently, 'a --- for dinner. I feel too uneasy about the girl to eat. Macdermot, be quick and saddle Charley; and you, Grace, come and tell me when he is at the door.' "He went back into the parlour, and put on his riding-coat; and I went into the harness-house, not to obey his orders, but to plan his destruction. "I perceived that it was more difficult to conceal a murder than I had imagined; that the inquiries he was about to make would arouse suspicion among the neighbours, and finally lead to a discovery. The only way to prevent this was to murder him, take what money he had brought with him from Toronto, and be off with Grace to the States. Whatever repugnance I might have felt at the commission of this fresh crime, was drowned in the selfish necessity of self-preservation. My plans were soon matured, and I hastened to put them in a proper train. "I first loaded the old duck gun with ball, and, putting it behind the door of the harness-house, I went into the parlour. I found the captain lyinig on the sofa reading, his hat and gloves beside him on the table. He started up as I entered. "'Is the horse ready?' "'Not yet, Sir. Some person has been in during the night, and cut your new English saddle almost to pieces. I wish you would step out and look at it. I cannot put it on Charley in its present state.' "'Don't bother me, he cried angrily; 'it is in your charge,--you are answerable for that. Who the devil would think it worth their while to break into the harness house to cut a saddle, when they could have carried it off entirely? Let me have none of your tricks, Sir! You must have done it yourself!' "'That is not very likely, Captain Kinnaird. At any rate, it would be a satisfaction to me if you would come and look at it.' "'I'm in too great a hurry. Put on the old one.' "I still held the door in my hand. 'It's only a step from here to the harness-house.' "He rose reluctantly, and followed me into the kitchen. The harness-house formed part of a lean-to off the kitchen, and you went down two steps into it. He went on before me, and as he descended the steps, I clutched the gun I had left behind the door, took my aim between his shoulders, and shot him through the heart. He staggered forward and fell, exclaiming as he did so, 'O God, I am shot!' "In a few minutes he was lying in the cellar, beside our other victim. Very little blood flowed from the wound; he bled internally. He had on a very fine shirt; and after rifling his person, and possessing myself of his pocketbook, I took off his shirt, and put on the one I had bought of the pedlar." "Then," cried Mr. Mac--ie, to whom this confession was made, "that was how the pedlar was supposed to have had a hand in the murder. That circumstance confused the evidence, and nearly saved your life." "It was just as I have told you," said Macdermot. "And tell me, Macdermot, the reason of another circumstance that puzzled the whole court. How came that magazine, which was found in the housekeeper's bed saturated with blood, in that place, and so far from the spot where the murder was committed?" "That, too, is easily explained, though it was such a riddle to you gentlemen of the law. When the captain came out to look at the saddle, he had the book open in his hand. When he was shot, he clapped the book to his breast with both his hands. Almost all the blood that flowed from it was caught in that book. It required some force on my part to take it from his grasp after he was dead. Not knowing what to do with it, I flung it into the housekeeper's bed. While I harnessed the riding-horse into his new buggy, Grace collected all the valuables in the house. You know, Sir, that we got safe on board the steamer at Toronto; but, owing to an unfortunate delay, we were apprehended, sent to jail, and condemned to die. "Grace, you tell me, has been reprieved, and her sentence commuted into confinement in the Penitentiary for life. This seems very unjust to me, for she is certainly more criminal than I am. If she had not instigated me to commit the murder, it never would have been done. But the priest tells me that I shall not be hung, and not to make myself uneasy on that score." "Macdermot," said Mr. Mac--ie, "it is useless to flatter you with false hopes. You will suffer the execution of your sentence to-morrow, at eight o'clock, in front of the jail. I have seen the order sent by the governor to the sheriff, and that was my reason for visiting you to-night. I was not satisfied in my own mind of your guilt. What you have told me has greatly relieved my mind; and I must add, if ever man deserved his sentence, you do yours." "When this unhappy man was really convinced that I was in earnest--that he must pay with his life the penalty of his crime," continued Mr. Mac--ie, "his abject cowardice and the mental agonies he endured were too terrible to witness. He dashed himself on the floor of his cell, and shrieked and raved like a maniac, declaring that he could not, and would not die; that the law had no right to murder a man's soul as well as his body, by giving him no time for repentance; that if he was hung like a dog, Grace Marks, in justice, ought to share his fate. Finding that all I could say to him had no effect in producing a better frame of mind I called in the chaplain, and left the sinner to his fate. "A few months ago I visited the Penitentiary; and as my pleading had been the means of saving Grace from the same doom, I naturally felt interested in her present state. I was permitted to see and speak to her; and Mrs. M---, I never shall forget the painful feelings I experienced during this interview. She had been five years in the Penitentiary, but still retained a remarkably youthful appearance. The sullen assurance that had formerly marked her countenance, had given place to a sad and humbled expression. She had lost much of her former good looks, and seldom raised her eyes from the ground. "'Well, Grace,' I said, 'how is it with you now?' "'Bad enough, Sir,' she answered, with a sigh; 'I ought to feel grateful to you for all the trouble you took on my account. I thought you my friend then, but you were the worst enemy I ever had in my life.' "'How is that, Grace?' "'Oh, Sir, it would have been better for me to have died with Macdermot than to have suffered for years, as I have done, the torments of the damned. Oh, Sir, my misery is too great for words to describe! I would gladly submit to the most painful death, if I thought that it would put an end to the pangs I daily endure. But though I have repented of my wickedness with bitter tears, it has pleased God that I should never again know a moment's peace. Since I helped Macdermot to strangle Hannah Montgomery, her terrible face and those horrible bloodshot eyes have never left me for a moment. They glare upon me by night and day, and when I close my eyes in despair, I see them looking into my soul--it is impossible to shut them out. If I am at work, in a few minutes that dreadful head is in my lap. If I look up to get rid of it, I see it in the far corner of the room. At dinner, it is in my plate, or grinning between the persons who sit opposite to me at table. Every object that meets my sight takes the same dreadful form; and at night--at night--in the silence and loneliness of my cell, those blazing eyes make my prison as light as day. No, not as day--they have a terribly hot glare, that has not the appearance of anything in this world. And when I sleep,--that face just hovers above my own, its eyes just opposite to mine; so that when I awake with a shriek of agony, I find them there. Oh! this is hell, Sir--these are the torments of the damned! Were I in that fiery place, my punishment could not be greater than this.' "The poor creature turned away, and I left her, for who could say a word of comfort to such grief? it was a matter solely between her own conscience and God." Having heard this terrible narrative, I was very anxious to behold this unhappy victim of remorse. She passed me on the stairs as I proceeded to the part of the building where the women were kept; but on perceiving a stranger, she turned her head away, so that I could not get a glimpse of her face. Having made known my wishes to the matron, she very kindly called her in to perform some trifling duty in the ward, so that I might have an opportunity of seeing her. She is a middle-sized woman, with a slight graceful figure. There is an air of hopeless melancholy in her face which is very painful to contemplate. Her complexion is fair, and must, before the touch of hopeless sorrow paled it, have been very brilliant. Her eyes are a bright blue, her hair auburn, and her face would be rather handsome were it not for the long curved chin, which gives, as it always does to most persons who have this facial defect, a cunning, cruel expression. Grace Marks glances at you with a sidelong stealthy look; her eye never meets yours, and after a furtive regard, it invariably bends its gaze upon the ground. She looks like a person rather above her humble station, and her conduct during her stay in the Penitentiary was so unexceptionable, that a petition was signed by all the influential gentlemen in Kingston, which released her from her long imprisonment. She entered the service of the governor of the Penitentiary, but the fearful hauntings of her brain have terminated in madness. She is now in the asylum at Toronto; and as I mean to visit it when there, I may chance to see this remarkable criminal again. Let us hope that all her previous guilt may be attributed to the incipient workings of this frightful malady. To The Wind. "Stern spirit of air, wild voice of the sky! Thy shout rends the heavens, and earth trembles with dread; In hoarse hollow murmurs the billows reply, And ocean is roused in his cavernous bed. "On thy broad rushing pinions destruction rides free, Unfettered they sweep the wide deserts of air; The hurricane bursts over mountain and sea, And havoc and death mark thy track with despair. "When the thunder lies cradled within its dark cloud, And earth and her tribes crouch in silence and dread, Thy voice shakes the forest, the tall oak is bowed, That for ages had shook at the tempest its head. "When the Lord bowed the heavens, and came down in his might, Sublimely around were the elements cast; At his feet lay the dense rolling shadows of night, But the power of Omnipotence rode on the blast. "From the whirlwind he spake, when man wrung with pain, In the strength of his anguish dare challenge his God; 'Mid its thunders he told him his reasoning was vain, Till he bowed to correction, and kiss'd the just rod. "When call'd by the voice of the prophet of old, In the 'valley of bones,' to breathe over the dead; Like the sands of the sea, could their number be told, They started to life when the mandate had sped. "Those chill mouldering ashes thy summons could bind, And the dark icy slumbers of ages gave way; The spirit of life took the wings of the wind, Rekindling the souls of the children of clay. "Shrill trumpet of God! I shrink at thy blast, That shakes the firm hills to their centre with dread, And have thought in that conflict--earth's saddest and last-- That thy deep chilling sigh will awaken the dead!" CHAPTER XI Michael Macbride "His day of life is closing--the long night Of dreamless rest a dusky shadow throws, Between the dying and the things of earth, Enfolding in a chill oblivious pall The last sad struggles of a broken heart. Yes! ere the rising of to-morrow's sun, The bitter grief that brought him to this pass Will be forgotten in the sleep of death." S.M. We left Kingston at three o'clock, P.M., in the "Passport," for Toronto. From her commander, Captain Towhy, a fine British heart of oak, we received the kindest attention; his intelligent conversation, and interesting descriptions of the many lands he had visited during a long acquaintance with the sea, greatly lightening the tedium of the voyage. When once fairly afloat on the broad blue inland sea of Ontario, you soon lose sight of the shores, and could imagine yourself sailing on a calm day on the wide ocean. There is something, however, wanting to complete the deception,--the invigorating freshness--the peculiar smell of the salt water, that is so exhilarating, and which produces a sensation of freedom and power that is never experienced on these fresh-water lakes. They want the depth, the fulness, the grandeur of the ocean, though the wide expanse of water and sky are, in all other respects, the same. The boat seldom touches at any place before she reaches Cobourg, which is generally at night. We stopped a short time at the wharf to put passengers and freight on shore, and to receive fresh passengers and freight in return. The sight of this town, which I had not seen for many years, recalled forcibly to my mind a melancholy scene in which I chanced to be an actor. I will relate it here. When we first arrived in Canada, in 1832, we remained for three weeks at an hotel in this town, though, at that period, it was a place of much less importance than it is at present, deserving little more than the name of a pretty rising village, pleasantly situated on the shores of Lake Ontario. The rapid improvement of the country has converted Cobourg into a thriving, populous town, and it has trebled its population during the lapse of twenty years. A residence in a house of public entertainment, to those who have been accustomed to the quiet and retirement of a country life, is always unpleasant, and to strangers as we were, in a foreign land, it was doubly repugnant to our feelings. In spite of all my wise resolutions not to give way to despondency, but to battle bravely against the change in my circumstances, I found myself daily yielding up my whole heart and soul to that worst of all maladies, home-sickness. It was during these hours of loneliness and dejection, while my husband was absent examining farms in the neighbourhoods that I had the good fortune to form an quaintance with Mrs. C---, a Canadian lady, who boarded with her husband in the same hotel. My new friend was a young woman agreeable in person, and perfectly unaffected in her manners, which were remarkably frank and kind. Hers was the first friendly face I had seen in the colony, and it will ever be remembered by me with affection and respect. One afternoon while alone in my chamber, getting my baby, a little girl of six months old, to sleep, and thinking many sad thoughts, and shedding some bitter tears for the loss of the dear country and friends I had left for ever, a slight tap at the door roused me from my painful reveries, and Mrs. C--- entered the room. Like most of the Canadian women, my friend was small of stature, slight and delicately formed, and dressed with the smartness and neatness so characteristic of the females of this continent, who, if they lack some of the accomplishments of English women, far surpass them in their taste in dress, their choice of colours, and the graceful and becoming manner in which they wear their clothes. If my young friend had a weakness, it was on this point; but as her husband was engaged in a lucrative mercantile business, and they had no family, it was certainly excusable. At this moment her pretty neat little figure was a welcome and interesting object to the home-sick emigrant. "What! always in tears," said she, carefully closing the door. "What pleasure it would give me to see you more cheerful! This constant repining will never do." "The sight of you has made me feel better already," said I, wiping my eyes, and trying to force a smile. "M--- is away on a farm-hunting expedition, and I have been alone all day. Can you wonder, then, that I am so depressed? Memory is my worst companion; for by constantly recalling scenes of past happiness, she renders me discontented with the present, and hopeless of the future, and it will require all your kind sympathy to reconcile me to Canada." "You will like it better by and by; a new country always improves upon acquaintance." "Ah, never! Did I only consult my own feelings, I would be off by the next steam-boat for England; but then my husband, my child, our scanty means. Yes! yes! I must submit, but I find it a hard task." "We have all our trials, Mrs. M---; and, to tell you the truth, I do not feel in the best spirits myself this afternoon. I came to ask you what I am certain you will consider a strange question." This was said in a tone so unusually serious, that I looked up from the cradle in surprise, which her solemn aspect, and pale, tearful face, did not tend to diminish. Before I could ask the cause of her dejection, she added quickly-- "Dare you read a chapter from the Bible to a dying man?" "Dare I? Yes, certainly! Who is ill? Who is dying?" "It's a sad story," she continued, wiping the tears from her kind eyes. "I will tell you, however, what I know of it, just to satisfy you as to the propriety of my request. There is a poor young man in this house who is very sick--dying, I believe, of consumption. He came here about three weeks ago, without food, without money, and in a dreadfully emaciated state. He took our good landlord, Mr. S---, on one side, and told him how he was situated, and begged that he would give him something to eat and a night's lodging, promising that if ever he was restored to health, he would repay the debt in work. You know what a kind, humane man, Mr. S--- is, although," she added, with a sly smile, "_he is a Yankee_, and so am I by right of parentage, though not of birth. Mr. S--- saw at a glance that the suppliant was an object of real charity, and instantly complied with his request. Without asking further particulars, he gave him a good bed, sent him up a bowl of hot soup, and bade him not distress himself about the future, but try and get a good night's rest. The next day, the young man was too ill to leave his chamber. Mr. S--- sent for old Dr. Morton, who, after examining the lad, informed his employer that he was in the last stage of consumption, and had not many days to live, and it would be advisable for Mr. S--- to have him removed to the hospital (a pitiful shed erected for emigrants who may chance to arrive ill with the cholera). Mr. S--- not only refused to send the young man away, but has nursed him with the greatest care, his wife and daughters taking it by turns to sit up nightly with the poor patient." My friend said nothing about her own attendance on the invalid, which, I afterwards learned from Mrs. S--- had been unremitting. "And what account does the lad give of himself?" said I. "All that we know about him is, that his name is Macbride, [Michael Macbride was not the real name of this poor young man, but is one substituted by the author.] and that he is nephew to Mr. C---, of Peterboro', an Irishman by birth, and a Catholic by religion. Some violent altercation took place between him and his uncle a short time ago, which induced Michael to leave his house, and look out for a situation for himself. Hearing that his parents had arrived in this country, and were on their way to Peterboro', he came down as far as Cobourg in the hope of meeting them, when his steps were arrested by poverty and sickness on this threshold. "By a singular coincidence, his mother came to the hotel yesterday evening to inquire the way to Peterboro', and Mr. S--- found out, from her conversation, that she was the mother of the poor lad, and he instantly conducted her to the bedside of her son. I was sitting with him when the interview between him and his mother took place, and I assure you that it was almost too much for my nerves--his joy and gratitude were so great at once more beholding his parent, while the grief and distraction of the poor woman, on seeing him in a dying state, was agonising; and she gave vent to her feelings in uttering the most hearty curses against the country, and the persons who by their unkindness had been the cause of his sickness. The young man seemed shocked at the unfeminine conduct of his mother, and begged me to excuse the rude manner in which she answered me; 'for,' says he, 'she is ignorant and beside herself, and does not know what she is saying or doing.' "Instead of expressing the least gratitude to Mr. S--- for the attention bestowed on her son, by some strange perversion of intellect she seems to regard him and us as his especial enemies. Last night she ordered us from his room, and declared that her 'precious _bhoy_ was not going to die like a _hathen_, surrounded by a parcel of heretics;' and she sent off a man on horseback for the priest and for his uncle--the very man from whose house he fled, and whom she accuses of being the cause of her son's death. Michael anticipates the arrival of Mr. C--- with feelings bordering on despair, and prays that God may end his sufferings before he reaches Cobourg. "Last night Mrs. Macbride sat up with Michael herself, and would not allow us to do the least thing for him. This morning her fierce temper seems to have subsided, until her son awoke from a broken and feverish sleep, and declared that he would not die a Roman Catholic, and earnestly requested Mr. S--- to send for a Protestant clergyman. This gave rise to a violent scene between Mrs. Macbride and her son, which ended in Mr. S--- sending for Mr. B---, the clergyman of our village, who, unfortunately, had left this morning for Toronto, and is not expected home for several days. Michael eagerly asked if there was any person present who would read to him from the Protestant Bible. This excited in the mother such a fit of passion, that none of us dared attempt the task. I then thought of you, that, as a perfect stranger, she might receive you in a less hostile manner. If you are not afraid to encounter the fierce old woman, do make the attempt for the sake of the dying creature, who languishes to hear the words of life. I will watch the baby while you are gone." "She is asleep, and needs no watching. I will go as you seem so anxious about it," and I took my pocket Bible from the table. "But you must go with me, for I do not know my way in this strange house." Carefully closing the door upon the sleeping child, I followed the light steps of Mrs. C--- along the passage, until we reached the head of the main staircase, then, turning to the right, we entered the large public ballroom. In the first chamber of many that opened into this spacious apartment we found the object that we sought. Stretched upon a low bed, with a feather fan in his hand, to keep off the flies that hovered in tormenting clusters round his head, lay the dying Michael Macbride. The face of the young man was wasted by disease and mental anxiety; and if the features were not positively handsome, they were well and harmoniously defined, and a look of intelligence and sensibility pervaded his countenance, which greatly interested me in his behalf. His face was deathly pale, as pale as marble, and his large sunken eyes shone with unnatural brilliancy, their long dark lashes adding an expression of intense melancholy to the patient endurance of suffering that marked his fine countenance. His nose was shrunk and drawn in about the nostrils, his feverish lips apart, in order to admit a free passage for the labouring breath, their bright red glow affording a painful contrast to the ghastly glitter of the brilliant white teeth within. The thick black curls that clustered round his high forehead were moist with perspiration, and the same cold unwholesome dew trickled in large drops down his hollow temples. It was impossible to mistake these signs of approaching dissolution--it was evident to all present that death was not far distant. An indescribable awe crept over me. He looked so tranquil, so sublimed by suffering, that I felt my self unworthy to be his teacher. "Michael," I said, taking the long thin white hand that lay so listlessly on the coverlid, "I am sorry to see you so ill." He looked at me attentively for a few minutes.--"Do not say sorry, Ma'am; rather say glad. I am glad to get away from this bad world--young as I am--I am so weary of it." He sighed deeply, and tears filled his eyes. "I heard that you wished some one to read to you." "Yes, the Bible!" he cried, trying to raise himself in the bed, while his eager eyes were turned to me with an earnest, imploring expression. "I have it here. Are you able to read it for yourself?" "I can read--but my eyes are so dim. The shadows of death float between me and the world; I can no longer see objects distinctly. But oh, Madam, if my soul were light, I should not heed this blindness. But all is dark here," laying his hand on his breast,--"dark as the grave." I opened the sacred book, but my own tears for a moment obscured the page. While I was revolving in my own mind what would be the best to read to him, the book was rudely wrenched from my hand by a tall, gaunt woman, who just then entered the room. "Och! what do you mane by disturbing him in his dying moments wid yer thrash? It is not the likes o' you that shall throuble his sowl! The praste will come and administher consolation to him in his last exthremity." Michael shook his head, and turned his face sorrowfully to the wall. "Oh, mother," he murmured, "is that the way you treat the lady?" "Lady, or no lady, and I mane no disrispict; it is not for the like o' her to take this on hersel'. If she will be rading, let her rade this," and she tried to force a book of devotional prayers into my hand. Michael raised himself, and with an impatient gesture exclaimed-- "Not that--not that! It speaks no comfort to me. I will not listen to it. Mother, mother! do not stand between me and my God. I know that you love me--that what you do is done for the best; but the voice of conscience will be heard above your voice. I hunger and thirst to hear the word as it stands in the Bible, and I cannot die in peace unsatisfied. For the love of Christ, Ma'am, read a few words of comfort to a dying sinner!" Here the mother again interposed. "My good woman," I said gently putting her back, "you hear your son's earnest request. If you really love him, you will offer no opposition to his wishes. It is not a question of creeds that is here to be determined, as to which is the best--yours or mine. I trust that all the faithful followers of Christ, however named, hold the same faith, and will be saved by the same means. I shall make no comment on what I read to your son. The Bible is its own interpreter. The Spirit of God, by whom it was dictated, will make it clear to his comprehension. Michael, shall I commence now?" "Yes," he replied, "with the blessing of God!" After putting up a short prayer I commenced reading, and continued to do so until night, taking care to select those portions of Scripture most applicable to his case. Never did human creature listen with more earnestness to the words of truth. Often he repeated whole texts after me, clasping his hands together in a sort of ecstasy, while tears streamed from his eyes. The old woman glared upon me from a far corner, and muttered over her beads, as if they were a spell to secure her against some diabolical art. When I could no longer see to read, Michael took my hand, and said with great earnestness-- "May God bless you, Madam! You have made me very happy. It is all clear to me now. In Christ alone I shall obtain mercy and forgiveness for my sins. It is his righteousness, and not any good works of my own, that will save me. Death no longer appears so dreadful to me. I can now die in peace." "You believe that God will pardon you, Michael, for Christ's sake; but have you forgiven all your enemies?" I said this in order to try his sincerity, for I had heard that he entertained hard thoughts against his uncle. He covered his face with his thin, wasted hands, and did not answer for some minutes; at length he looked up with a calm smile upon his lips, and said-- "Yes, I have forgiven all--even _him_!--" Oh, how much was contained in the stress laid so strongly and sadly upon that little word _Him!_ How I longed to hear the story of his wrongs from his own lips! but he was too weak and exhausted for me to urge such a request. Just then Dr. Morton came in, and after standing for some minutes at the bed-side, regarding his patient with fixed attention, he felt his pulse, spoke a few kind words, gave some trifling order to his mother and Mrs. C---, and left the room. Struck by the solemnity of his manner, I followed him into the outer apartment. "Excuse the liberty I am taking Dr. Morton; but I feel deeply interested in your patient. Is he better or worse?" "He is dying. I did not wish to disturb him in his last moments. I can be of no further use to him. Poor lad, it's a pity! he is really a fine young fellow." I had judged from Michael's appearance that he had not long to live, but I felt inexpressibly shocked to find his end so near. On returning to the sick room, Michael eagerly asked what the doctor thought of him? I did not answer--I could not. "I see," he said, "that I must die. I will prepare myself for it. If I live until the morning, will you, Madam, come and read to me again?" I promised him that I would--or during the night, if he wished it. "I feel very sleepy," he said. "I have not slept for many nights, but for a few minutes at a time. Thank God, I am entirely free from pain: it is very good of Him to grant me this respite." His mother and I adjusted his pillows, and in a few seconds he was slumbering as peacefully as a little child. The feelings of the poor woman seemed softened towards me, and for the first time since I entered the room she shed tears. I asked the age of her son? She told me that he was two-and-twenty. She wrung my hand hard as I left the room, and thanked me for my kindness to her poor _bhoy_. It was late that night when my husband returned from the country, and we sat for several hours talking over our affairs, and discussing the soil and situation of the various farms he had visited during the day. It was past twelve when we retired to rest, but my sleep was soon disturbed by some one coughing violently, and my thoughts instantly reverted to Michael Macbride, as the hoarse sepulchral sounds echoed through the large empty room beyond which he slept. The coughing continued for some minutes, and I was so much overcome by fatigue and the excitement of the evening that I fell asleep, and did not awake until six o'clock the following morning. Anxious to hear how the poor invalid had passed the night, I dressed myself and hurried to his chamber. On entering the ball-room I found the doors and windows all open, as well as the one that led to the sick man's chamber. My foot was arrested on the threshold--for death was there. Yes! that fit of coughing had terminated his life--Michael had expired without a struggle in the arms of his mother. The gay broad beams of the sun were not admitted into that silent room. The window was open, but the green blinds were carefully closed, admitting a free circulation of air, and just light enough to render the objects within distinctly visible. The body was laid out upon the bed enveloped in a white sheet; the head and hands alone were bare. All traces of sorrow and disease had passed away from the majestic face, that, interesting in life, now looked beautiful and holy in death--and happy, for the seal of heaven seemed visibly impressed upon the pure pale brow. He was at peace, and though tears of human sympathy for a moment dimmed my sight, I could not regret that it was so. While I still stood in the door-way, Mrs. Macbride, whom I had not observed until then, rose from her knees beside the bed. She seemed hardly in her right mind, and began talking and muttering to herself. "Och hone! he is dead--my fine bhoy is dead--widout a praste to pray wid him, or bless him in the last hour--wid none of his frinds and relations to lamint iver him, or wake him, but his poor heartbroken mother--Och hone! och hone! that I should ever live to see this day. Get up, my fine bhoy--get up wid ye! Why do you lie there?--owlder folk nor you are abroad in the sunshine.--Get up, and show them how supple you are!" Then laying her cheek down to the cold cheek of the dead, she exclaimed, amid broken sobs and groans-- "Oh, spake to me--spake to me, Mike--my own Mike--'tis the mother that axes ye." There was a deep pause, when the bereaved parent again broke forth-- "Mike, Mike--why did your uncle rare you like a jintleman to bring you to this. Och hone! och hone!--oh, never did I think to see your head lie so low.--My bhoy! my bhoy!--why did you die?--Why did You lave your frinds, and your money, and your good clothes, and your poor owld mother?" Convulsive sobs again choked her utterance. She flung herself upon the neck of the corpse, and bathed the face and hands of him, who had once been her own, with burning tears. I now came forward, and offered a few words of consolation. Vain--all in vain. The ear of sorrow is deaf to all save its own agonised moans. Grief is as natural to the human mind as joy, and in their own appointed hour both will have their way. The grief of this unhappy Irish mother, like the down-pouring of a thunder shower, could not be restrained. But her tears soon flowed in less violent gushes--exhaustion rendered her more calm. She sat upon the bed, and looked cautiously round--"Hist!--did not you hear a voice? It was him who spake--yes--it was his own swate voice. I knew he was not dead. See, he moves!" This was the fond vain delusion of maternal love. She took his cold hand, and clasped it to her heart. "Och hone!--he is gone, and left me for ever and ever. Oh, that my cruel brother was here--that I might point to my murthered child, and curse him to his face!" "Is Mr. C--- your brother?" said I, taking this opportunity to divert her grief into another channel. "Yes--yes--he is my brother, bad cess to him! and uncle to the bhoy. Listen to me, and I will tell you some of my mind. It will ease my sorrow, for my poor heart is breaking entirely, and he is there," pointing to the corpse, "and he knows that what I am afther telling you is thrue. "I came of poor but dacent parints. There was but the two of us, Pat C--- and I. My father rinted a good farm, and he sint Pat to school, and gave him the eddication of a jintleman. Our landlord took a liking for the bhoy, and gave him the manes to emigrate to Canady. This vexed my father intirely, for he had no one barring myself to help him on the farm. Well, by and by, I joined myself to one whom my father did not approve--a bhoy he had hired to work wid him in the fields--an' he wrote to my brother (for my mother had been dead ever since I was a wee thing) to ax him in what manner he had best punish my disobedience; and he jist advises him to turn us off the place. I suffered, wid my husband, the extremes of poverty: we had seven childer, but they all died of the faver, and hard times, save Mike and the two weeny ones. In the midst of our disthress, it plased the Lord to remove my father, widout softenin' his heart towards me. But he left my Mike three hunder pounds; to be his whin he came to a right age; and he appointed my brother Pat guardian to the bhoy. "My brother returned to Ireland when he got the news of my father's death, in order to get his share of the property, for my father left him the same as he did my son. He took away my bhoy wid him to Canady, in order to make a landed jintleman of him. Och hone! I thought my heart would broken thin, whin he took away my swate bhoy; but I was to live to see a darker day yet." Here a long burst of passionate weeping interrupted her story. "Many long years came an' wint, and we niver got the scrape of a pen from my brother to tell us of the bhoy at all at all. He might jist as well have been dead, for aught we knew to the conthrary; but we consowled oursilves wid the thought, that he would niver go about to harm his own flesh and blood. "At last a letther came, written in Mike's own hand; and a beautiful hand it was that same,--the good God bless him for the throuble he took in makin' it so nate an' aisy for us poor folk to rade. It was full of love and respict to his poor parents, an' he longin' to see them in 'Meriky; but he said he had written by stealth, for he was very unhappy intirely,--that his uncle thrated him hardly, becaze he would not be a praste,--an' wanted to lave him, to work for himsel'; an' he refused to buy him a farm wid the money his grandfather left him, which he was bound by the will to do, as Mike was now of age, an' his own masther. "Whin we got the word from the lad, we gathered our little all together, an' took passage for Canady, first writin' to Mike whin we should start, an' the name of the vessel; an' that we should wait at Cobourg until sich time as he came to fetch us himsel' to his uncle's place. "But oh, Ma'am, our throubles had only begun. My poor husband and my youngest bhoy died of the cholera comin' out; an' I saw their prechious bodies cast into the salt, salt saa. Still the hope of seeing Mike consowled me for all my disthress. Poor Pat an' I were worn out entirely whin we got to Kingston, an' I left the child wid a frind, an' came on alone,--I was so eager to see Mike, an' tell him all my throubles; an' there he lies, och hone! my heart, my poor heart, it will break entirely." "And what caused your son's separation from his uncle?" said I. The woman shook her head. "The thratement he got from him was too bad. But shure he would not disthress me by saying aught agin my mother's son. Did he not break his heart, and turn him dying an' pinniless on the wide world? An' could he have done worse had he stuck a knife into his heart?" "Ah!" she continued, with bitterness, "it was the gowld, the dhirty gowld, that kilt my poor bhoy. His uncle knew that if Mike were dead, it would come to Pat as the ne'est in degree, an' he could keep it all to himsel' for the ne'est ten years." This statement appeared only too probable. Still there was a mystery about the whole affair that required a solution, and it was several years before I accidentally learned the sequel of this sad history. In the meanwhile the messenger, despatched by the kind Mr. S--- to Peterboro' to inform Michael's uncle of the dying state of his nephew, returned without that worthy, and with this unfeeling message--that Michael Macbride had left him without any just cause, and should receive no consolation from him in his last moments. Mr. S--- did not inform the poor bereaved widow of her brother's cruel message; but finding that she was unable to defray the expenses attendant on her son's funeral, like a true Samaritan, he supplied them out of his own pocket, and followed the remains of the unhappy stranger that Providence had cast upon his charity to the grave. In accordance with Michael's last request, he was buried in the cemetry of the English church. Six years after these events took place, Mr. W--- called upon me at our place in Douro, and among other things told me of the death of Michael's uncle, Mr. C---. Many things were mentioned by Mr. W---, who happened to know him, to his disadvantage. "But of all his evil acts," he said, "the worst thing I knew of him was his conduct to his nephew." "How was that?" said I, as the death-bed of Michael Macbride rose distinctly before me. "It was a bad business. My housekeeper lived with the old man at the time, and from her I heard all about it. It seems that he had been left guardian to this boy, whom he brought out with him some years ago to this country, together with a little girl about two years younger, who was the child of a daughter of his mother by a former marriage, so that the children were half-cousins to each other. Elizabeth was a modest, clever little creature, and grew up a very pretty girl. Michael was strikingly handsome, had a fine talent for music, and in person and manners was far above his condition. There was some property, to the amount of several hundred pounds, coming to the lad when he reached the age of twenty-one. This legacy had been left him by his grandfather, and Mr. C--- was to invest it in land for the boy's use. This, for reasons best known to himself, he neglected to do, and brought the lad up to the service of the altar, and continually urged him to become a priest. This did not at all accord with Michael's views and wishes, and he obstinately refused to study for the holy office, and told his uncle that he meant to become a farmer as soon as he obtained his majority. "Living constantly in the same house, and possessing a congeniality of tastes and pursuits, a strong affection had grown up between Michael and his cousin, which circumstance proved the ostensible reason given by Mr. C--- for his ill conduct to the young people, as by the laws of his church they were too near of kin to marry. Finding that their attachment was too strong to be wrenched asunder by threats, and that they had actually formed a design to leave him, and embrace the Protestant faith, he confined the girl to her chamber, without allowing her a fire during a very severe winter. Her constitution, naturally weak, sunk under these trials, and she died early in the spring of 1832, without being allowed the melancholy satisfaction of seeing her lover before she closed her brief life. "Her death decided Michael's fate. Rendered desperate by grief, he reproached his bigoted uncle as the author of his misery, and demanded of him a settlement of his property, as it was his intention to quit his roof for ever. Mr. C--- laughed at his reproaches, and treated his threats with scorn, and finally cast him friendless upon the world. "The poor fellow played very well upon the flute, and possessed an excellent tenor voice; and, by the means of these accomplishments, he contrived for a few weeks to obtain a precarious living. "Broken-hearted and alone in the world, he soon fell a victim to hereditary disease of the lungs, and died, I have been told, at an hotel in Cobourg; and was buried at the expense of Mr. S---, the tavern-keeper, out of charity." "The latter part of your statement I know to be correct; and the whole of it forcibly corroborates the account given to me by the poor lad's mother. I was at Michael's deathbed; and if his life was replete with sorrow and injustice, his last hours were peaceful and happy." I could now fully comprehend the meaning of the sad stress laid upon the one word which had struck me so forcibly at the time, when I asked him if he had forgiven _all_ his enemies, and he replied, after that lengthened pause, "Yes; I have forgiven them all--even _him!_" It did, indeed, require some exertion of Christian forbearance to forgive such injuries. Song. "There's hope for those who sleep In the cold and silent grave, For those who smile, for those who weep, For the freeman and the slave! "There's hope on the battle plain, 'Mid the shock of charging foes; On the dark and troubled main, When the gale in thunder blows. "He who dispenses hope to all, Withholds it not from thee; He breaks the woe-worn captive's thrall, And sets the prisoner free!" CHAPTER XII Jeanie Burns "Ah, human hearts are strangely cast, Time softens grief and pain; Like reeds that shiver in the blast, They bend to rise again. But she in silence bowed her head, To none her sorrow would impart; Earth's faithful arms enclose the dead, And hide for aye her broken heart!" S.M. While the steamboat is leaving Cobourg in the distance, and, through the hours of night and darkness, holds on her course to Toronto, I will relate another true but mournful history from the romance of real life, that was told to me during my residence in this part of the country. One morning our man-servant, James N---, came to me to request the loan of one of the horses to attend a funeral. M--- was absent on business at Toronto, and the horses and the man's time were both greatly needed to prepare the land for the full crop of wheat. I demurred; James looked anxious and disappointed; and the loan of the horse was at length granted, but not without a strict injunction that he should return to his work directly the funeral was over. He did not come back until late that evening. I had just finished my tea, and was nursing my wrath at his staying out the whole day, when the door of the room (we had but one, and that was shared in common with the servants) opened, and the delinquent at last appeared. He hung up the new English saddle, and sat down before the blazing hearth without speaking a word. "What detained you so long, James? You ought to have had half an acre of land, at least, ploughed to-day." "Verra true, mistress; it was nae fau't o' mine. I had mista'en the hour; the funeral did na come in afore sundoon, an' I cam' awa' as sune as it was owre." "Was it any relation of yours?" "Na', na', jest a freend, an auld acquaintance, but nane o' mine ain kin. I never felt sae sad in a' my life as I ha'e dune this day. I ha'e seen the clods piled on mony a heid, an' never felt the saut tear in my een. But puir Jeanie! puir lass! it was a sair sight to see them thrown down upon her." My curiosity was excited; I pushed the tea-things from me, and told Bell, my maid, to give James his supper. "Naething for me the night, Bell. I canna' eat; my thoughts will a' run on that puir lass. Sae young, sae bonnie, an' a few months ago as blythe as a lark, an' noo a clod o' the airth. Hout! we maun a' dee when our ain time comes; but, somehow, I canna think that Jeanie ought to ha'e gane sae sune." "Who is Jeanie Burns? Tell me, James, something about her?" In compliance with my request, the man gave me the following story. I wish I could convey it in his own words; but though I perfectly understand the Scotch dialect when I hear it spoken, I could not write it in its charming simplicity,--that honest, truthful brevity, which is so characteristic of this noble people. The smooth tones of the blarney may flatter our vanity, and please us for the moment, but who places any confidence in those by whom it is employed? We know that it is only uttered to cajole and deceive; and when the novelty wears off, the repetition awakens indignation and disgust. But who mistrusts the blunt, straightforward speech of the land of Burns? For good or ill, it strikes home to the heart. Jeanie Burns was the daughter of a respectable shoemaker, who gained a comfortable living by his trade in a small town of Ayrshire. Her father, like herself, was an only child, and followed the same vocation, and wrought under the same roof that his father had done before him. The elder Burns had met with many reverses, and now, helpless and blind, was entirely dependent upon the charity of his son. Honest Jock had not married until late in life, that he might more comfortably provide for the wants of his aged parents. His mother had been dead for some years. She was a good, pious woman, and Jock quaintly affirmed "that it had pleased the Lord to provide a better inheritance for his dear auld mither than his arm could win, proud an' happy as he wud ha'e been to ha'e supported her, when she was nae langer able to work for him." Jock's filial love was repaid at last. Chance threw in his way a cannie young lass, baith gude an' bonnie, an' wi' a hantel o' siller. They were united, and Jeanie was the sole fruit of the marriage. But Jeanie proved a host in herself, and grew up the best-natured, the prettiest, and the most industrious girl in the village, and was a general favourite with young and old. She helped her mother in the house, bound shoes for her father, and attended to all the wants of her dear old grandfather, Saunders Burns, who was so much attached to his little handmaid, that he was never happy when she was absent. Happiness, however, is not a flower of long growth in this world; it requires the dew and sunlight of heaven to nourish it, and it soon withers, removed from its native skies. The cholera visited the remote village; it smote the strong man in the pride of his strength, and the matron in the beauty of her prime, while it spared the helpless and the aged, the infant of a few days, and the patriarch of many years. Both Jeanie's parents fell victims to the fatal disease, and the old blind Saunders and the young Jeanie were left to fight alone a hard battle with poverty and grief. The truly deserving are never entirely forsaken; God may afflict them with many trials, but He watches over them still, and often provides for their wants in a manner truly miraculous. Sympathizing friends gathered round the orphan girl in her hour of need, and obtained for her sufficient employment to enable her to support her old grandfather and herself, and provide for them the common necessaries of life. Jeanie was an excellent sempstress, and what between making waistcoats and trousers for the tailors, and binding shoes for the shoemakers,--a business that she thoroughly understood,--she soon had her little hired room neatly furnished, and her grandfather as clean and spruce as ever. When she led him into the kirk of a sabbath morning, all the neighbours greeted the dutiful daughter with an approving smile, and the old man looked so serene and happy that Jeanie was fully repaid for her labours of love. Her industry and piety often formed the theme of conversation to the young lads of the village. "What a guid wife Jeanie Burns wull mak'!" cried one. "Aye," said another; "he need na complain of ill fortin who has the luck to get the like o' her." "An' she's sae bonnie," would Willie Robertson add, with a sigh; "I wud na covet the wealth o' the hale world an' she were mine." Willie Robertson was a fine active young man, who bore an excellent character, and his comrades thought it very likely that Willie was to be the fortunate man. Robertson was the son of a farmer in the neighbourhood; he had no land of his own, and he was the youngest of a very large family. From a boy he had assisted his father in working the farm for their common maintenance; but after he took to looking at Jeanie Burns at kirk, instead of minding his prayers, he began to wish that he had a homestead of his own, which he could ask Jeanie and her grandfather to share. He made his wishes known to his father. The old man was prudent. A marriage with Jeanie Burns offered no advantages in a pecuniary view; but the girl was a good, honest girl, of whom any man might be proud. He had himself married for love, and had enjoyed great comfort in his wife. "Willie, my lad," he said, "I canna gi'e ye a share o' the farm. It is owre sma' for the mony mouths it has to feed. I ha'e laid by a hantel o' siller for a rainy day, an' this I maun gi'e ye to win a farm for yoursel' in the woods of Canada. There is plenty o' room there, an' industry brings its ain reward. If Jeanie Burns lo'es you as weel as your dear mither did me, she will be fain to follow you there." Willie grasped his father's hand, for he was too much elated to speak, and he ran away to tell his tale of love to the girl of his heart. Jeanie had long loved Robertson in secret, and they were not long in settling the matter. They forgot, in their first moments of joy, that old Saunders had to be consulted, for they had determined to take the old man with them. But here an obstacle occurred, of which they had not dreamed. Old age is selfish, and Saunders obstinately refused to comply with their wishes. The grave that held the remains of his wife and son, was dearer to him than all the comforts promised to him by the impatient lovers in that far foreign land. Jeanie wept, but Saunders, deaf and blind, neither heard nor saw her grief, and like a dutiful child she breathed no complaint to him, but promised to remain with him until his head rested on the same pillow with the dead. This was a sore and great trial to Willie Robertson, but he consoled himself for the disappointment with the reflection that Saunders, in the course of nature, could not live long; and that he would go and prepare a place for his Jean, and have everything ready for her reception against the old man died. "I was a cousin of Willie's," continued James, "by the mither's side, an' her persuaded me to go wi' him to Canada. We set sail the first o' May, an' were here in time to chop a sma' fallow for our fall crop. Willie had more o' the warld's gear than I, for his father had provided him wi' sufficient funds to purchase a good lot o' wild land, which he did in the township of M---, an' I was to wark wi' him on shares. We were amang the first settlers in that place, an' we found the wark before us rough an' hard to our heart's content. Willie, however, had a strong motive for exertion, an' neever did man wark harder than he did that first year on his bush-farm, for the love o' Jeanie Burns. We built a comfortable log-house, in which we were assisted by the few nieighbours we had, who likewise lent a han' in clearing ten acres we had chopped for fall crop. "All this time Willie kept up a correspondence wi' Jeanie; an' he used to talk to me o' her comin' out, an' his future plans, every night when our wark was dune. If I had na lovit and respected the girl mysel', I sud ha'e got unco tired o' the subject. "We had jest put in our first crop o' wheat, when a letter cam' frae Jeanie bringin' us the news o' her grandfather's death. Weel I ken the word that Willie spak' to me when he closed the letter,--'Jamie, the auld man's gane at last; an' God forgi'e me, I feel too gladsome to greet. Jeanie is willin' to come whenever I ha'e the means to bring her out; an' hout, man, I'm jest thinkin' that she winna ha'e to wait lang.' "Guid workmen were gettin' very high wages jest then, an' Willie left the care o' the place to me, an' hired for three months wi' auld squire Jones, in the next township. Willie was an unco guid teamster, an' could put his han' to ony kind o' wark; an' when his term o' service expired, he sent Jeanie forty dollars to pay her passage out, which he hoped she would not delay longer than the spring. "He got an answer frae Jeanie full o' love an' gratitude; but she thought that her voyage might be delayed until the fall. The guid woman with whom she had lodged sin' her parents died had jest lost her husband, an' was in a bad state o' health, an' she begged Jeanie to bide wi' her until her daughter could leave her service in Edinburgh, an' come to tak' charge o' the house. This person had been a kind an' steadfast frin' to Jeanie in a' her troubles, an' had helped her to nurse the auld man in his dyin' illness. I am sure it was jest like Jeanie to act as she did; she had all her life looked more to the comforts of others than to her ain. Robertson was an angry man when he got that letter, an' he said,--'If that was a' the lo'e that Jeanie Burns had for him, to prefer an auld wife's comfort, wha was naething to her, to her betrothed husband, she might bide awa' as lang as she pleased; he would never fash himsel' to mak' screed o' a pen to her agen.' "I could na think that the man was in earnest, an' I remonstrated wi' him on his folly an' injustice. This ended in a sharp quarrel atween us, and I left him to gang his ain gate, an' went to live with my uncle, who kept the smithy in the village. "After a while, we heard that Willie Robertson was married to a Canadian woman, neither young nor good-looking, an' varra much his inferior every way; but she had a guid lot o' land in the rear o' his farm. Of course I thought it was a' broken aff wi' puir Jean, an' I wondered what she wud spier at the marriage. "It was early in June, an' the Canadian woods were in their first flush o' green,--an' how green an' lightsome they be in their spring dress!--when Jeanie Burns landed in Canada. She travelled her lane up the country, wonderin' why Willie was not at Montreal to meet her, as he had promised in the last letter he sent her. It was late in the afternoon when the steamboat brought her to Cobourg, an' without waitin' to ask any questions respectin' him, she hired a man an' cart to take her an' her luggage to M---. The road through the bush was varra heavy, an' it was night before they reached Robertson's clearin'. Wi' some difficulty the driver fund his way among the charred logs to the cabin door. "Hearin' the sound o' wheels, the wife--a coarse, ill-dressed slattern--cam' out to spier wha' could bring strangers to sic' an out-o'-the-way place at that late hour. Puir Jeanie! I can weel imagin' the flutterin' o' her heart, when she spiered o' the coarse wife 'if her ain Willie Robertson was at hame?' "'Yes,' answered the woman, gruffly; 'but he is not in frae the fallow yet. You maun ken him up yonder, tending the blazing logs.' "Whiles Jeanie was strivin' to look in the direction which the woman pointed out, an' could na see through the tears that blinded her e'e, the driver jumped down frae the cart, an' asked the puir lass whar he sud leave her trunks, as it was getting late, and he must be aff. "'You need na bring thae big kists in here,' quoth Mistress Robertson; 'I ha'e na room in my house for strangers an' their luggage.' "'Your house!' gasped Jeanie, catchin' her arm. 'Did ye na tell me that _he_ lived here?--an' wherever Willie Robertson bides, Jeanie Burns sud be a welcome guest. Tell him,' she continued, tremblin' all owre,--for she telt me afterwards that there was somethin' in the woman's look an' tone that made the cold chills run to her heart, 'that an auld frind frae Scotland has jest come aff a lang, wearisome journey, to see him.' "'You may spier for yoursel',' said the woman, angrily. 'My husband is noo comin' dune the clearin'.' "The word husband was scarcely out o' her mouth, than puir Jeanie fell as ane dead across the door-stair. The driver lifted up the unfortunat' girl, carried her into the cabin, an' placed her in a chair, regardless o' the opposition of Mistress Robertson, whose jealousy was now fairly aroused, an' she declared that the bold hizzie sud not enter her doors. "It was a long time afore the driver succeeded in bringin' Jeanie to hersel'; an' she had only jest unclosed her een, when Willie cam' in. "'Wife,' he said, 'whose cart is this standin' at the door? an' what do these people want here?' "'You ken best,' cried the angry woman. 'That creater is nae acquaintance o' mine; an' if she is suffered to remain here, I will quit the house.' "'Forgi'e me, gude woman, for having unwittingly offended you,' said Jeanie, rising; 'but mercifu' Father! how sud I ken that Willie Robertson--my ain Willie--had a wife? Oh, Willie!' she cried, coverin' her face in her hands, to hide a' the agony that was in her heart, 'I ha'e come a lang way, an' a weary, to see ye, an' ye might ha'e spared me the grief, the burnin' shame o' this. Fareweel, Willie Robertson! I will never mair trouble ye nor her wi' my presence; but this cruel deed o' yours has broken my heart!' "She went her lane weepin'; an' he had na the courage to detain her, or speak ae word o' comfort in her sair distress, or attempt to gi'e ony account o' his strange conduct. Yet, if I ken him right, that must ha'e been the most sorrowfu' moment in his life. "Jeanie was a distant connexion o' my aunt's; an' she found us out that night, on her return to the village, an' tould us a' her grief. My aunt was a kind, guid woman, an' was indignant at the treatment she had received, an' loved and cherished her as if she had been her ain bairn. For two whole weeks she kept her bed, an' was sae ill that the doctor despaired o' her life; and when she did come amang us agen, the rose had faded aff her cheek, an' the light frae her sweet blue e'e, an' she spak' in a low, subdued voice; but she never accused him o' being the cause o' her grief. One day she called me aside and said-- "'Jamie, you ken'd how I lo'ed an' trusted him, an' obeyed his ain wish in comin' out to this wearisome country to be his wife. But 'tis a' owre now.' An' she passed her sma' hands tightly owre her breast, to keep doon the swellin' o' her heart. 'Jamie, I ken that this is a' for the best; I lo'ed him too weel,--mair than ony creature sud lo'e a perishin' thing o' earth. But I thought that he wud be sae glad an' sae proud to see his ain Jeanie sae sune. But, oh! ah, weel; I maun na think o' that. What I wud jest say is this'--and she tuk a sma' packet frae her breast, while the saut tears streamed doon her pale cheeks--'he sent me forty dollars to bring me owre the sea to him. God bless him for that! I ken he worked hard to earn it, for he lo'ed me then. I was na idle during his absence; I had saved enough to bury my dear auld grandfather, an' to pay my expenses out; an' I thought, like the guid servant in the parable, I wud return Willie his ain wi' interest, an' I hoped to see him smile at my diligence, an' ca' me his dear, bonnie lassie. Jamie, I canna keep his siller; it lies like a weight o' lead on my heart. Tak' it back to him, an' tell him frae me, that I forgi'e him a' his cruel deceit, an' pray God to grant him prosperity, an' restore to him that peace o' mind o' which he has robbed me for ever.' "I did as she bade me. Willie Robertson looked stupified when I delivered her message. The only remark he made when I gied him back the siller was, 'I maun be gratefu' man, that she did na curse me.' The wife cam' in, an' he hid awa' the packet and slunk aff. The man looked degraded in his ain sight, an' sae wretched, that I pitied him frae my heart. "When I cam' home, Jeanie met me at the yet. 'Tell me,' she said, in a dowie, anxious voice,--'tell me, cousin Jamie, what passed atween ye. Had Willie nae word for me?' "'Naething, Jeanie. The man is lost to himsel'--to a' who ance wished him weel. He is na worth a decent body's thought.' "She sighed sairly; an' I saw that her heart craved after some word or token frae him. She said nae mair; but pale an' sorrowfu', the verra ghaist o' her former sel', went back into the house. "Frae that hour she never breathed his name to ony o' us; but we all ken'd that it was her lo'e for him that was wearin' out her life. The grief that has nae voice, like the canker-worm, lies ne'est the heart. Puir Jean, she held out durin' the simmer, but when the fa' cam', she jest withered awa', like a flower nipped by the early frost; an' this day we laid her in the earth. "After the funeral was owre, an' the mourners a' gane, I stood beside her grave, thinking owre the days o' my boyhood, when she an' I were happy weans, an' used to pu' the gowans together, on the heathery hills o' dear auld Scotland. An' I tried in vain to understan' the mysterious providence o' God that had stricken her, who seemed sae guid an' pure, an spared the like o' me, who was mair deservin' o' his wrath, when I heard a deep groan, an' I saw Willie Robertson standin' near me, beside the grave. "'You may as weel spare your grief noo,' said I, for I felt hard towards him, 'an' rejoice that the weary is at rest.' "'It was I killed her,' said he; 'an' the thought will haunt me to my last day. Did she remember me on her death-bed?' "'Her thoughts were only ken'd by Him, Willie, wha reads the secrets of a' hearts. Her end was peace; and her Saviour's blessed name was the last sound on her lips. If ever woman died o' a broken heart, there she lies.' "'Ah, Jeanie!' he cried, 'my ain darlin' Jeanie! my blessed lammie! I was na worthy o' yer luve. My heart, too, is breakin'. To bring ye back ance mair, I would gladly lay me doon an' dee.' "An' he flung himsel' upon the fresh piled sods, an' greeted like a child. "When he grew more calm, we had a long conversation about the past; an' truly I think that the man was na in his right senses, when he married yon wife. At ony rate, he is nae lang for this world; he has fretted the flesh aff his banes, an' afore mony months are owre, his heid wul lie as low as puir Jeanie Burns." My Native Land. "My native land, my native land! How many tender ties, Connected with thy distant strand, Call forth my heavy sighs! "The rugged rock, the mountain stream, The hoary pine-tree's shade, Where often in the noon-tide beam, A happy child I played. "I think of thee, when early light Is trembling on the hill; I think of thee at dead of night, When all is dark and still. "I think of those whom I shall see On this fair earth no more; And wish in vain for wings to flee Back to thy much-loved shore." CHAPTER XIII Lost Children "Oh, how I love the pleasant woods, when silence reigns around, And the mighty shadows calmly sleep, like giants on the ground, And the fire-fly sports her fairy lamp beside the moonlit stream, And the lofty trees, in solemn state, frown darkly in the beam!" S.M. There was a poor woman on board the steamer, who was like myself in search of health, and was going to the West to see her friends, and to get rid of (if possible) a hollow, consumptive cough. She looked to me in the last stage of pulmonary consumption; but she seemed to hope everything from the change of air. She had been for many years a resident in the woods, and had suffered great hardships; but the greatest sorrow she ever knew, she said, and what had pulled her down the most, was the loss of a fine boy, who had strayed away after her through the bush, when she went to nurse a sick neighbour; and though every search had been made for the child, he had never been found. "It is a many years ago," she said, "and he would be a fine young man now, if he were alive." And she sighed deeply, and still seemed to cling to the idea that he might possibly be living, with a sort of forlorn hope, that to me seemed more melancholy than the certainty of his death. This brought to my recollection many tales that I had been told, while living in the bush, of persons who had perished in this miserable manner. Some of these tales may chance to interest my readers. I was busy sewing one day for my little girl, when we lived in the township of Hamilton, when Mrs. H---, a woman whose husband farmed our farm on shares, came running in quite out of breath, and cried out-- "Mrs. M---, you have heard the good news?--One of the lost children is found!" I shook my head, and looked inquiringly. "What! did not you hear about it? Why, one of Clark's little fellows, who were lost last Wednesday in the woods, has been found." "I am glad of it. But how were they lost?" "Oh, 'tis a thing of very common occurrence here. New settlers, who are ignorant of the danger of going astray in the forest, are always having their children lost. I take good care never to let my boys go alone to the bush. But people are so careless in this respect, that I wonder it does not more frequently happen. "These little chaps are the sons of a poor emigrant who came out this summer, and took up a lot of wild land just at the back of us, towards the plains. Clark is busy logging up his fallow for fall wheat, on which his family must depend for bread during the ensuing year; and he is so anxious to get it ready in time, that he will not allow himself an hour at noon to go home to get his dinner, which his wife generally sends in a basket to the woods by his eldest daughter, a girl of fourteen. "Last Wednesday, the girl had been sent on an errand by her mother, who thought that, in her absence, she might venture to trust the two boys to take the dinner to their father. The boys, who are from five to seven years old, and very smart and knowing for their age, promised to mind all her directions, and went off quite proud of the task, carrying the little basket between them. "How they came to ramble off into the woods, the younger child, who has been just found, is too much stupified to tell, and perhaps he is too young to remember. "At night Clark returned from his work, and scolded his wife for not sending his dinner as usual; but the poor woman, (who all day had quieted her fears with the belief that the children had stayed with their father,) instead of paying any regard to his angry words, demanded, in a tone of agony, what had become of her children? "Tired and hungry as Clark was, he instantly comprehended the danger to which his boys were exposed, and started off in pursuit of them. The shrieks of the distracted woman soon called the neighbours together, who instantly joined in the search. It was not until this afternoon that any trace could be discovered of the lost children, when Brian, the hunter, found the youngest boy, Johnnie, lying fast asleep upon the trunk of a fallen tree, fifteen miles back in the bush." "And the brother?" "Will never, I fear, be heard of again. They have searched for him in all directions, and have not discovered him. The story little Johnnie tells is to this effect. During the first two days of their absence, the food they had brought in the basket for their father's dinner sustained life; but to-day, it seems that little Johnnie grew very hungry, and cried continually for bread. William, the eldest boy, promised him bread if he would try and walk farther; but his feet were bleeding and sore, and he could not walk another step. For some time the other little fellow carried him upon his back; but growing tired himself, he bade Johnnie sit down upon a fallen log, (the log on which he was found,) and not stir from the place until he came back. He told the child that he would run on until he found a house, and would return as soon as he could, and bring him something to eat. He then wiped his eyes, and told him not to cry, and not to be scared, for God would take care of him till he came back, and he kissed him several times, and ran away. "This is all the little fellow knows about his brother; and it is very probable that the generous-hearted boy has been eaten by the wolves that are very plenty in that part of the forest where the child was found. The Indians traced him for more than a mile along the banks of the creek, when they lost his trail altogether. If he had fallen into the water, it is so shallow, that they could scarcely have failed in discovering the body; but they think that he has been dragged into some hole in the bank among the tangled cedars, and devoured. "Since I have been in the country," continued Mrs. H---, "I have known many cases of children, and even of grown persons, being lost in the woods, who were never heard of again. It is a frightful calamity to happen to any one; for should they escape from the claws of wild animals, these dense forests contain nothing on which life can be supported for any length of time. The very boughs of the trees are placed so far from the ground, that no child could reach or climb to them; and there is so little brush and small bushes among these giant trees, that no sort of fruit can be obtained, on which they might subsist while it remained in season. It is only in clearings, or where the fire has run through the forest, that strawberries or raspberries are to be found; and at this season of the year, and in the winter, a strong man could not exist many days in the wilderness let alone a child. "Parents cannot be too careful in guarding their young folks against rambling alone in the bush. Persons, when once they get off the beaten track, get frightened and bewildered, and lose all presence of mind; and instead of remaining where they are when they first discover their misfortune--which is the only chance they have of being found--they plunge desperately on, running hither and thither, in the hope of getting out, while they only involve themselves more deeply among the mazes of the interminable forest. "Some winters ago, the daughter of a settler in the remote township of Dummer (where my husband took up his grant of wild land, and in which we lived for two years) went with her father to the mill, which was four miles from their log-shanty, and the road lay entirely through the bush. For awhile the girl, who was about twelve years of age, kept up with her father, who walked briskly ahead with his bag of corn on his back; for as their path lay through a tangled swamp, he was anxious to get home before night. After some time, Sarah grew tired with stepping up and down over the fallen logs that strewed their path, and lagged a long way behind. The man felt not the least apprehensive when he lost sight of her, expecting that she would soon come up with him again. Once or twice he stopped and shouted, and she answered, 'Coming, father!' and he did not turn to look after her again. He reached the mill, saw the grist ground, resumed his burden, and took the road home, expecting to meet Sarah by the way. He trod the long path alone; but still he thought that the girl, tired with her walk in the woods, had turned back, and he should find her safe at home. "You may imagine, Mrs. M---, his consternation, and that of the family, when they found that the girl was lost. "It was now dark, and all search for her was given up for that night as hopeless. By day-break the next morning the whole settlement which was then confined to a few lonely log tenements, inhabited solely by Cornish miners, were roused from their sleep to assist in the search. "The men turned out with guns and horns, and divided into parties, that started in different directions. Those who first discovered Sarah were to fire their guns, which was to be the signal to guide the rest to the spot. It was not long before they found the object of their search, seated under a tree about half a mile from the path she had lost on the preceding day. "She had been tempted by the beauty of some wild flowers to leave the road; and, when once in the forest, she grew bewildered, and could not find her way back. At first she ran to and fro, in an agony of terror at finding herself in the woods all alone, and uttered loud and frantic cries; but her father had by this time reached the mill, and was out of hearing. "With a sagacity beyond her years, and not very common to her class, instead of wandering further into the labyrinth which surrounded her, she sat down under a large tree, covered her face with her apron, said the Lord's prayer--the only one she knew, and hoped that God would send her father back to find her the moment he discovered that she was lost. "When night came down upon the forest, (and oh! how dark night is in the woods!) the poor girl said that she felt horribly afraid of being eaten by the wolves that abound in those dreary swamps; but she did not cry, for fear they should hear her. Simple girl! she did not know that the scent of a wolf is far keener than his ear; but this was her notion, and she lay down close to the ground and never once uncovered her head, for fear of seeing something dreadful standing beside her; until, overcome by terror and fatigue, she fell fast asleep, and did not awake till roused by the shrill braying of the horns, and the shouts of the party who were seeking her." "What a dreadful situation! I am sure that I should not have had the courage of this poor girl, but should have died with fear." "We don't know how much we can bear till we are tried. This girl was more fortunate than a boy of the same age, who was lost in the same township just as the winter set in. The lad was sent by his father, an English settler, in company with two boys of his own age, the sons of neighbours, to be measured for a pair of shoes. George Desne, who followed the double occupation of farmer and shoemaker, lived about three miles from the clearing known as the English line. After the lads left their home, the road lay entirely through the bush. It was a path they had often travelled, both alone and with their parents, and they felt no fear. "There had been a slight fall of snow, just enough to cover the ground, and the day was clear and frosty. The boys in this country always hail with delight the first fall of snow; and they ran races and slid over all the shallow pools, until they reached George Desne's cabin. He measured young Brown for a strong pair of winter boots, and the boys returned on their homeward path, shouting and laughing in the glee of their hearts. "About half-way they suddenly missed their companion, and ran back nearly a mile to find him; not succeeding, they thought that he had hidden himself behind some of the trees, and, in order to frighten them, was pretending to be lost; and after shouting his name at the top of their voices, and receiving no answer, they determined to defeat his trick, and ran home without him. They knew he was well acquainted with the road, that it was still broad day, and he could easily find his way home alone. When his father inquired for George, they said he was coming, and went to their respective cabins. "Night came on and the lad did not return, and his parents began to feel alarmed at his absence. Mr. Brown went over to the neighbouring settlements, and made the lads repeat to him all they knew about his son. The boys described the part of the road where they first missed him; but they had felt no uneasiness about him, for they concluded that he had either run home before them, or had gone back to spend the night with the young Desnes, who had been very importunate for him to stay. This account pacified the anxious father. Early the next morning he went to Desne's himself to bring home the boy, but, to his astonishment and grief, he had not been there. "His mysterious disappearance gave rise to a thousand strange surmises. The whole settlement turned out in search of the boy. His steps were traced off the road a few yards into the bush, and entirely disappeared at the foot of a large oak tree. The tree was lofty, and the branches so far from the ground, that it was almost impossible for any boy, unassisted, to have raised himself to such a height. There was no track of any animal to be seen on the new fallen snow--no shred of garment, or stain of blood. That boy's fate will always remain a great mystery, for he was never found." "He must have been carried up the tree by a bear, and dragged down into the hollow trunk," said I. "If that had been the case, there would have been the track of the bear's feet in the snow. It does not, however, follow that the boy is dead, though it is more than probable. I knew of a case where two boys and a girl were sent into the woods by their mother to fetch home the cows. The children were lost. The parents mourned them for dead, for all search after them proved fruitless. At length, after seven years, the eldest son returned. The children had been overtaken and carried off by a party of Indians, who belonged to a tribe who inhabited the islands in Lake Huron, and who were out on a hunting expedition. They took them many hundred miles away from their forest home, and adopted them as their own. The girl, when she grew up, married one of the tribe; the boys followed the occupation of hunters and fishers, and, from their dress and appearance, might have passed for aborigines of the forest. The eldest boy, however, never forgot his own name, or the manner in which he had been separated from his parents. He distinctly remembered the township and the natural features of the locality, and took the first opportunity of making his escape, and travelling back to the home of his childhood. "When he made himself known to his mother, who was a widow, but resided on the same spot, he was so dark and Indian-like that she could not believe that it was really her son, until he brought back to her mind a little incident that, forgotten by her, had never left his memory. "'Mother, don't you remember saying to me on that afternoon, Ned, you need not look for the cows in the swamp,--they went off towards the big hill!' "The delighted mother immediately caught him to her heart, exclaiming, 'You say truly,--you are my own, my long-lost son!'" [This, and the two preceding chapters, were written for "Roughing it in the Bush," and were sent to England to make a part of that work, but came too late for insertion, which will account to the reader for their appearance here.] The Canadian Herd-Boy. "Through the deep woods, at peep of day, The careless herd-boy wends his way, By piny ridge and forest stream, To summon home his roving team-- Cobos! cobos! from distant dell Shy echo wafts the cattle-bell. "A blithe reply he whistles back, And follows out the devious track, O'er fallen tree and mossy stone-- A path to all, save him, unknown. Cobos! cobos! far down the dell More faintly falls the cattle-bell. "See the dark swamp before him throws A tangled maze of cedar boughs; On all around deep silence broods, In nature's boundless solitudes. Cobos! cobos! the breezes swell, As nearer floats the cattle-bell. "He sees them now--beneath yon trees His motley herd recline at ease; With lazy pace and sullen stare, They slowly leave their shady lair. Cobos! cobos!--far up the dell Quick jingling comes the cattle-bell!" CHAPTER XIV Toronto "Fiction, however wild and fanciful, Is but the copy memory draws from truth. 'Tis not in human genius to _create_: The mind is but a mirror that reflects Realities that are, or the dim shadows Left by the past upon its placid surface Recalled again to life." The glow of early day was brightening in the east, as the steamer approached Toronto. We rounded the point of the interminable, flat, swampy island, that stretches for several miles in front of the city, and which is thinly covered with scrubby-looking trees. The land lies so level with the water, that it has the appearance of being half-submerged, and from a distance you only see the tops of the trees. I have been informed that the name of Toronto has been derived from this circumstance, which in Indian literally means, "Trees in the water." If the island rather takes from, than adds to, the beauty of the place, it is not without great practical advantages, as to it the city is mainly indebted for its sheltered and very commodious harbour. After entering the harbour, Toronto presents a long line of frontage, covered with handsome buildings, to the eye. A grey mist still hovered over its many domes and spires; but the new University and the Lunatic Asylum stood out in bold relief, as they caught the broad red gleam of the coming day. It was my first visit to the metropolitan city of the upper province, and with no small degree of interest I examined its general aspect as we approached the wharf. It does not present such an imposing appearance from the water as Kingston, but it strikes you instantly as a place of far greater magnitude and importance. There is a fresh, growing, healthy vitality about this place, that cannot fail to impress a stranger very forcibly the first time he enters it. He feels instinctively that he sees before him the strong throbbing heart of this gigantic young country, and that every powerful vibration from this ever increasing centre of wealth and civilisation, infuses life and vigour through the whole length and breadth of the province. Toronto exceeded the most sanguine expectations that I had formed of it at a distance, and enabled me to realize distinctly the rising greatness and rapid improvement of the colony. It is only here that you can form any just estimate of what she now is, and what at no very distant period she must be. The country, for some miles round the city, appears to the eye as flat as a floor; the rise, though very gradual, is, I am told, considerable; and the land is sufficiently elevated above the lake to escape the disagreeable character of being low and swampy. Anything in the shape of a slope or hill is not distinguishable in the present area on which Toronto is built; but the streets are wide and clean, and contain many handsome public buildings; and the beautiful trees which everywhere abound in the neat, well-kept gardens, that surround the dwellings of the wealthier inhabitants, with the broad, bright, blue inland sea that forms the foreground to the picture, give to it such a lively and agreeable character, that it takes from it all appearance of tameness and monotony. The wharfs, with which our first practical acquaintance with the city commenced, are very narrow and incommodious. They are built on piles of wood, running out to some distance in the water, and covered with rotten, black-looking boards. As far as comfort and convenience go, they are far inferior to those of Cobourg and Kingston, or even to those of our own dear little "City of the Bay," as Belleville has not inaptly been christened by the strange madcap, calling himself the "Great Orator of the West." It is devoutly to be hoped that a few years will sweep all these decayed old wharfs into the Ontario, and that more substantial ones, built of stone, will be erected in their place. Rome, however, was not built in a day; and the magic growth of this city of the West is almost as miraculous as that of Jonah's celebrated gourd. The steamboat had scarcely been secured to her wharf before we were surrounded by a host of cabmen, who rushed on board, fighting and squabbling with each other, in order to secure the first chance of passengers and their luggage. The hubbub in front of the ladies' cabin grew to a perfect uproar; and, as most of the gentlemen were still in the arms of Morpheus, these noisy Mercuries had it all their own way--swearing and shouting at the top of their voices, in a manner that rivalled civilized Europe. I was perfectly astonished at their volubility, and the pertinacity of their attentions, which were poured forth in the true Milesian fashion--an odd mixture of blarney, self-interest, and audacity. At Kingston these gentry are far more civil and less importunate, and we witnessed none of this disgraceful annoyance at any other port on the lake. One of these Paddies, in his hurry to secure the persons and luggage of several ladies, who had been my fellow-passengers in the cabin, nearly backed his crazy old vehicle over the unguarded wooden wharf into the lake. We got safely stowed at last into one of these machines, which, internally, are not destitute of either comfort or convenience; and driving through some of the principal avenues of the city, were safely deposited at the door of a dear friend, who had come on board to conduct us to his hospitable home; and here I found the rest and quiet so much needed by an invalid after a long and fatiguing journey. It was some days before I was sufficiently recovered to visit any of the lions of the place. With a minute description of these I shall not trouble my readers. My book is written more with a view to convey general impressions, than to delineate separate features,--to while away the languid heat of a summer day, or the dreary dulness of a wet one. The intending emigrant, who is anxious for commercial calculations and statistical details, will find all that he can require on this head in "Scobie's Almanack," and Smith's "Past, Present, and Future of Canada,"--works written expressly for that purpose. Women make good use of their eyes and ears, and paint scenes that amuse or strike their fancy with tolerable accuracy; but it requires the strong-thinking heart of man to anticipate events, and trace certain results from particular causes. Women are out of their element when they attempt to speculate upon these abstruse matters--are apt to incline too strongly to their own opinions--and jump at conclusions which are either false or unsatisfactory. My first visit was to King-street, which may be considered as the Regent-street of Toronto. It is the great central avenue of commerce, and contains many fine buildings, and handsome capacious stores, while a number of new ones are in a state of progress. This fine, broad, airy thoroughfare, would be an ornament to any town or city, and the bustle and traffic through it give to strangers a tolerably just idea of the wealth and industry of the community. All the streets terminate at the water's edge, but Front-street, which runs parallel with it, and may be termed the "west end" of Toronto; for most of the wealthy residents have handsome houses and gardens in this street, which is open through the whole length of it to the lake. The rail-road is upon the edge of the water along this natural terrace. The situation is uncommonly lively, as it commands a fine view of the harbour, and vessels and steamboats are passing to and fro continually. The St. Lawrence market, which is near the bottom of King-street, is a handsome, commodious building, and capitally supplied with all the creature-comforts--fish, flesh, and fowl--besides abundance of excellent fruits and vegetables, which can be procured at very reasonable prices. The town-hall is over the market-place, and I am told--for I did not visit it--that it is a noble room, capable of accommodating a large number of people with ease and comfort. Toronto is very rich in handsome churches, which form one of its chief attractions. I was greatly struck with the elegant spire of Knox's church, which is perhaps the most graceful in the city. The body of the church, however, seems rather too short, and out of proportion, for the tall slender tower, which would have appeared to much greater advantage attached to a building double the length. Nothing attracted my attention, or interested me more, than the handsome, well-supplied book stores. Those of Armour, Scobie, and Maclean, are equal to many in London in appearance, and far superior to those that were to be found in Norwich and Ipswich thirty years ago. This speaks well for the mental improvement of Canada, and is a proof that people have more leisure for acquiring book lore, and more money for the purchase of books, than they had some years ago. The piracies of the Americans have realized the old proverb, "That 'tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good." Incalculable are the benefits that Canada derives from her cheap reprints of all the European standard works, which, on good paper and in handsome bindings, can be bought at a quarter the price of the English editions. This circumstance must always make the Canadas a bad market for English publications. Most of these, it is true, can be procured by wealthy individuals at the book stores mentioned above, but the American reprints of the same works abound a hundred-fold. Novels form the most attractive species of reading here for the young; and the best of these, in pamphlet form, may be procured for from twenty-five to fifty cents. And here I must claim the privilege of speaking a few words in defence of both novel readers and novel writers, in spite of the horror which I fancy I see depicted on many a grave countenance. There are many good and conscientious persons who regard novels and novel writers with devout horror, who condemn their works, however moral in their tendency, as unfit for the perusal of responsible and intelligent creatures, who will not admit into their libraries any books but such as treat of religious, historical, or scientific subjects, imagining, and we think very erroneously, that all works of fiction have a demoralizing effect, and tend to weaken the judgment, and enervate the mind. We will, however, allow that there is both truth and sound sense in some of these objections; that if a young person's reading is entirely confined to this class of literature, and that of an inferior sort, a great deal of harm may be the result, as many of these works are apt to convey to them false and exaggerated pictures of life. Such a course of reading would produce the same effect upon the mind as a constant diet of sweetmeats would upon the stomach; it would destroy the digestion, and induce a loathing for more wholesome food. Still, the mind requires recreation as well as the body, and cannot always be engaged upon serious studies without injury to the brain, and the disarrangement of some of the most important organs of the body. Now, we think it could be satisfactorily proved, in spite of the stern crusade perpetually waged against works of fiction by a large portion of well-meaning people, that much good has been done in the world through their instrumentality. Most novels and romances, particularly those of the modern school, are founded upon real incidents, and, like the best heads in the artist's picture, the characters are drawn from life; and the closer the drawing or story approximates to nature, the more interesting and popular will it become. Though a vast number of these works are daily pouring from the British and American press, it is only those of a very high class that are generally read, and become as familiar as household words. The tastes of individuals differ widely on articles of dress, food, and amusement; but there is a wonderful affinity in the minds of men, as regards works of literature. A book that appeals strongly to the passions, if true to nature, will strike nearly all alike, and obtain a world-wide popularity, while the mere fiction sinks back into obscurity--is once read and forgotten. The works of Smollett and Fielding were admirable pictures of society as it existed in their day; but we live in a more refined age, and few young people would feel any pleasure in the coarse pictures exhibited in those once celebrated works. The novels of Richardson, recommended by grave divines from the pulpit as perfect models of purity and virtue, would now be cast aside with indifference and disgust. They were considered quite the reverse in the age he wrote, and he was regarded as one of the great reformers of the vices of his time. We may therefore conclude, that, although repugnant to our taste and feelings, they were the means of effecting much good in a gross and licentious age. In the writings of our great modern novelists, virtue is never debased, nor vice exalted; but there is a constant endeavour to impress upon the mind of the reader the true wisdom of the one, and the folly of the other; and where the author fails to create an interest in the fate of his hero or heroine, it is not because they are bad or immoral characters, like Lovelace in Clarissa Harlowe, and Lord B--- in Pamela, but that, like Sir Charles Grandison, they are too good for reality, and their very faultlessness renders them, like the said Sir Charles, affected and unnatural. Where high moral excellence is represented as struggling with the faults and follies common to humanity, sometimes yielding to temptation, and reaping the bitter fruits, and at other times successfully resisting the allurements of vice, all our sympathies are engaged in the contest; it becomes our own, and we follow the hero through all his trials, weep over his fall, or triumph in his success. Children, who possess an unsophisticated judgment in these matters, seldom feel much interest in the model boy of a moral story; not from any innate depravity of mind, which leads them to prefer vice to virtue, for no such preference can exist in the human breast,--no, not even in the perverted hearts of the worst of men--but because the model boy is like no other boy of their acquaintance. He does not resemble them, for he is a piece of unnatural perfection. He neither fights, nor cries, nor wishes to play when he ought to be busy with his lessons; he lectures like a parson, and talks like a book. His face is never dirty; he never tears his clothes, nor soils his hands with making dirt pies, or puddling in the mud. His hair is always smooth, his face always wears a smile, and he was never known to sulk, or say _I won't!_ The boy is a perfect stranger--they can't recognise his likeness, or follow his example--and why? because both are unnatural caricatures. But be sure, that if the naughty boy of the said tale creates the most interest for his fate in the mind of the youthful reader, it is simply because he is drawn with more truthfulness than the character that was intended for his counterpart. The language of passion is always eloquent, and the bad boy is delineated true to his bad nature, and is made to speak and act naturally, which never fails to awaken a touch of sympathy in beings equally prone to err. I again repeat that few minds (if any) exist than can find beauty in deformity, or aught to admire in the hideousness of vice. There are many persons in the world who cannot bear to receive instruction when conveyed to them in a serious form, who shrink with loathing from the cant with which too many religious novels are loaded; and who yet might be induced to listen to precepts of religion and morality, when arrayed in a more amusing and attractive garb, and enforced by characters who speak and feel like themselves, and share in all things a common humanity. Some of our admirable modern works of fiction, or rather truths disguised, in order to make them more palatable to the generality of readers, have done more to ameliorate the sorrows of mankind, by drawing the attention of the public to the wants and woes of the lower classes, than all the charity sermons that have been delivered from the pulpit. Yes, the despised and reprobated novelist, by daring to unveil the crimes and miseries of neglected and ignorant men, and to point out the abuses which have produced, and are still producing, the same dreadful results, are missionaries in the cause of humanity, the real friends and benefactors of mankind. The selfish worldling may denounce as infamous and immoral, the heart-rending pictures of human suffering and degradation that the writings of Dickens and Sue have presented to their gaze, and declare that they are unfit to meet the eyes of the virtuous and refined--that no good can arise from the publication of such revolting details--and that to be ignorant of the existence of such horrors is in itself a species of virtue. Daughter of wealth, daintily nurtured, and nicely educated, _Is blindness nature?_ Does your superiority over these fallen creatures spring from any innate principle in your own breast, which renders you more worthy of the admiration and esteem of your fellow-creatures? Are not you indebted to the circumstances in which you are placed, and to that moral education, for every virtue that you possess? You can feel no pity for the murderer, the thief, the prostitute. Such people may aptly be termed the wild beasts of society, and, like wild beasts, should be hunted down and killed, in order to secure the peace and comfort of the rest. Well, the law has been doing this for many ages, and yet the wild beasts still exist and prey upon their neighbours. And such will still continue to be the case until Christianity, following the example of her blessed Founder, goes forth into the wilderness of life on her errand of mercy, not to condemn, but to seek and to save that which is lost. The conventional rules of society have formed a hedge about you, which renders any flagrant breach of morality very difficult,--in some cases almost impossible. From infancy the dread commandments have been sounding in your ears,--"Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt not commit adultery!"--and the awful mandate has been strengthened by the admonitions of pious parents and good ministers, all anxious for your eternal welfare. You may well be honest; for all your wants have been supplied, and you have yet to learn that where no temptation exists, virtue itself becomes a negative quality. You do not covet the goods which others possess. You have never looked down, with confusion of face and heartfelt bitterness, on the dirty rags that scarcely suffice to conceal the emaciation of your wasted limbs. You have never felt hunger gnawing at your vitals, or shuddered at the cries of famishing children, sobbing around your knees for bread. You have dainties to satiety every day, and know nothing of the agonies of sacrificing your virtue for the sake of a meal. If you are cold, you have a good fire to warm you, a comfortable mansion to protect you from the inclemency of the weather, and garments suitable to every season of the year. How can you be expected to sympathize with the ragged, houseless children of want and infamy! You cannot bear to have these sad realities presented to your notice. It shocks your nerves. You cannot bring yourself to admit that these outcasts of society are composed of the same clay; and you blame the authors who have dared to run a tilt against your prejudices, and have not only attested the unwelcome fact, but have pointed out the causes which lead to the hopeless degradation and depravity of these miserable fellow-creatures. You cannot read the works of these humane men, because they bid you to step with them into these dirty abodes of guilt and wretchedness, and see what crime really is, and all the horrors that ignorance and poverty, and a want of self-respect, never fail to bring about. You cannot enter into these abodes of your neglected and starving brothers and sisters--these forlorn scions of a common stock--and view their cold hearths and unfurnished tables, their beds of straw and tattered garments, without defilement--or witness their days of unremitting toil, and nights of unrest; and worse, far worse, to behold the evil passions and crimes which spring from a state of ignorance, producing a moral darkness that can be felt. You are insulted and offended at being seen in such bad company; and cannot for a moment, imagine that a change in your relative positions might have rendered you no wiser or better than them. But, let me ask you candidly, has not the terrible scene produced some effect? Can you forget its existence,--its shocking reality? The lesson it teaches may be distasteful, but you cannot shake off a knowledge of its melancholy facts. The voice of conscience speaks audibly to your heart; that still small voice--that awful record of himself that God has placed in every breast (and woe be to you, or any one, when it ceases to be heard!)--tells you that you cannot, without violating the divine mandate, "love thy neighbour as thyself," leave these miserable creatures to languish and die, without making one effort to aid in rescuing them from their melancholy fate. "But what can I do?" I hear you indignantly exclaim. Much; oh, how much! You have wealth, a small part of which cannot be better bestowed than in educating these poor creatures; in teaching them to recognise those divine laws which they have broken; in leading them step by step into those paths of piety and peace they have never known. Ignorance has been the most powerful agent in corrupting these perishing criminals. Give them healthful employment, the means of emigrating to countries where labour is amply remunerated, and will secure for them comfort, independence, and self-respect. In Canada, these victims of over-population prove beneficial members of society, while with you they are regarded as a blight and a curse. Numbers of this class are yearly cast upon these shores, yet the crimes which are commonly committed by their instrumentality in Britain, very rarely occur with us. We could not sleep with unfastened doors and windows near populous towns, if the change in their condition did not bring about a greater moral change in the character of these poor emigrants. They readily gain employment; their toils are amply remunerated; and they cease to commit crime to procure a precarious existence. In the very worst of these people some good exists. A few seeds remain of divine planting, which, if fostered and judiciously trained, might yet bear fruit for heaven. The authors, whose works you call disgusting and immoral, point out this, and afford you the most pathetic illustrations of its truth. You need not fear contamination from the vices which they portray. Their depravity is of too black a hue to have the least attraction, even to beings only removed a few degrees from the same guilt. Vice may have her admirers when she glitters in gold and scarlet; but when exposed in filth and nakedness, her most reckless devotees shrink back from her in disgust and horror. Vice, without her mask, is a spectacle too appalling for humanity; it exhibits the hideousness, and breathes of the corruption of hell. If these reprobated works of fiction can startle the rich into a painful consciousness of the wants and agonies of the poor, and make them, in spite of all the conventional laws of society, acknowledge their kindred humanity, who shall say that their books have been written in vain? For my own part, I look upon these authors as heaven-inspired teachers, who have been commissioned by the great Father of souls to proclaim to the world the wrongs and sufferings of millions of his creatures; to plead their cause with unflinching integrity, and, with almost superhuman eloquence, demand for them the justice which the world has so long denied. These men are the benefactors of their species, to whom the whole human race owe a vast debt of gratitude. Since the publication of Oliver Twist, and many other works of the same class, inquiries have been made by thinking and benevolent individuals into the condition of the destitute poor in great cities and manufacturing districts. These works brought to light deeds of darkness, and scenes of oppression and cruelty, scarcely to be credited in modern times and in Christian communities. The attention of the public was directed towards this miserable class of beings, and its best sympathies enlisted in their behalf. It was called upon to assist in the liberation of these white slaves, chained to the oar for life in the galleys of wealth, and to recognize them as men and brethren. Then sprang up the ragged schools,--the institutions for reclaiming the youthful vagrants of London, and teaching the idle and profligate the sublime morality of sobriety and industry. Persons who were unable to contribute money to these truly noble objects of charity, were ready to assist in the capacity of Sunday-school teachers, and add their mite in the great work of moral reform. In over-peopled countries like England and France, the evils arising out of extreme poverty could not be easily remedied; yet the help thus afforded by the rich, contributed greatly in ameliorating the distress of thousands of the poorer classes. To the same source we may trace the mitigation of many severe laws. The punishment of death is no longer enforced, but in cases of great depravity. Mercy has stepped in, and wiped the blood from the sword of justice. Hood's "Song of the Shirt" produced an almost electric effect upon the public mind. It was a bold, truthful appeal to the best feelings of humanity, and it found a response in every feeling heart. It laid bare the distress of a most deserving and oppressed portion of the female operatives of London; and the good it did is at this moment in active operation. Witness the hundreds of work-women landed within the last twelve months on these shores, who immediately found liberal employment. God's blessing upon thee, Thomas Hood! The effect produced by that work of divine charity of thine, will be felt long after thou and thy heart-searching appeal have vanished into the oblivion of the past. But what matters it to thee if the song is forgotten by coming generations? It performed its mission of mercy on earth, and has opened for thee the gates of heaven. Such a work of fiction as "The Caxtons" refreshes and invigorates the mind by its perusal; and virtue becomes beautiful for its own sake. You love the gentle humanity of the single-hearted philosopher, the charming simplicity of his loving helpmate, and scarcely know which to admire the most--Catherine in her conjugal or maternal character--the noble but mistaken pride of the fine old veteran Roland, the real hero of the tale--or the excellent young man, his nephew, who reclaims the fallen son, and is not too perfect to be unnatural. As many fine moral lessons can be learned from this novel, as from most works written expressly for the instruction and improvement of mankind; and they lose nothing by the beautiful and attractive garb in which they are presented to the reader. Our blessed Lord himself did not disdain the usc of allegory, which is truth conveyed to the hearer under a symbolical form. His admirable parables, each of which told a little history, were the most popular methods that could be adopted to instruct the lower classes, who, chiefly uneducated, require the illustration of a subject in order to understand it. Aesop, in his inimitable fables, pourtrayed through his animals the various passions and vices of men, admirably adapting them to the characters he meant to satirize, and the abuses he endeavoured through this medium to reform. These beautiful fictions have done much to throw disgrace upon roguery, selfishness, cruelty, avarice and injustice, and to exalt patience, fidelity, mercy, and generosity, even among Christians who were blessed with a higher moral code than that enjoyed by the wise pagan; and they will continue to be read and admired as long as the art of printing exists to render them immortal. Every good work of fiction is a step towards the mental improvement of mankind, and to every such writer, we say God speed! The Earthquake. "Hark! heard ye not a sound?" "Aye, 'tis the sullen roar Of billows breaking on the shore." "Hush!--'tis beneath the ground, That hollow rending shock, Makes the tall mountains rock,-- The solid earth doth like a drunkard reel; Pale nature holds her breath, Her tribes are mute as death. In silent dread the coming doom they feel." "Ah, God have mercy!--hark! those dismal cries-- Man knows his danger now, And veils in dust his brow. Beneath, the yawning earth--above, the lurid skies! Mortal, behold the toil and boast of years In one brief moment to oblivion hurled. So shall it be, when this vain guilty world Of woe, and sad necessity and tears, Sinks at the awful mandate of its Lord, As erst it rose to being at his word." CHAPTER XV Lunatic Asylum "Alas! poor maniac; For thee no hope can dawn--no tender tie Wake in thy blighted heart a thrill of joy; The immortal mind is levelled with the dust, Ere the tenacious chords of life give way!" S.M. Our next visit was to the Lunatic Asylum. The building is of white brick,--a material not very common in Canada, but used largely in Toronto, where stone has to be brought from a considerable distance, there being no quarries in the neighbourhood. Brick has not the substantial, august appearance that stone gives to a large building, and it is more liable to injury from the severe frosts of winter in this climate, The asylum is a spacious edifice, surrounded by extensive grounds for the cultivation of fruits and vegetables. These are principally worked by the male patients, who are in a state of convalescence, while it affords them ample room for air and exercise. A large gang of these unfortunates were taking their daily promenade, when our cab stopped at the entrance gate. They gazed upon us with an eager air of childish curiosity, as we alighted from our conveyance, and entered the building. We were received very politely by one of the gentlemen belonging to the establishment, who proceeded to show us over the place. Ascending a broad flight of steps, as clean as it was possible for human hands to make them, we came to a long wide gallery, separated at either end by large folding-doors, the upper part of which were of glass; those to the right opening into the ward set apart for male patients, who were so far harmless that they were allowed the free use of their limbs, and could be spoken to without any danger to the visitors. The female lunatics inhabited the ward to the left, and to these we first directed our attention. The long hall into which their work-rooms and sleeping apartments opened was lofty, well lighted, well aired, and exquisitely clean; so were the persons of the women, who were walking to and fro, laughing and chatting very sociably together. Others were sewing and quilting in rooms set apart for that purpose. There was no appearance of wretchedness or misery in this ward; nothing that associated with it the terrible idea of madness I had been wont to entertain--for these poor creatures looked healthy and cheerful, nay, almost happy, as if they had given the world and all its cares the go-by. There was one thin, eccentric looking woman in middle life, who came forward to receive us with an air of great dignity; she gave us her hand in a most condescending manner, and smiled most graciously when the gentleman who was with us inquired after her _majesty's_ health. She fancies herself Victoria, and in order to humour her conceit, she is allowed to wear a cap of many colours, with tinsel ornaments. This person, who is from the lowest class, certainly enjoys her imaginary dignity in a much greater degree than any crowned monarch, and is perhaps far prouder of her fool's cap than our gracious sovereign is of her imperial diadem. The madwomen round her appeared to consider her assumption of royalty as a very good joke, for the homage they rendered her was quizzical in the extreme. There are times when these people seem to have a vague consciousness of their situation; when gleams of sense break in upon them, and whisper the awful truth to their minds. Such moments must form the drops of bitterness in the poisoned cup of life, which a mysterious Providence has presented to their lips. While I was looking sadly from face to face, as these benighted creatures flitted round me, a tall stout woman exclaimed in a loud voice-- "That's Mrs. M---, of Belleville! God bless her! Many a good quarter dollar I've got from her;" and, running up to me, she flung her arms about my neck, and kissed me most vehemently. I did not at first recognise her; and, though I submitted with a good grace to the mad hug she gave me, I am afraid that I trembled not a little in her grasp. She was the wife of a cooper, who lived opposite to us during the first two years we resided in Belleville; and I used to buy from her all the milk I needed for the children. She was always a strange eccentric creature when sane--if, indeed, she ever had enjoyed the right use of her senses; and, in spite of the joy she manifested at the unexpected sight of me, I remember her once threatening to break my head with an old hoop, when I endeavoured to save her little girl from a frightful flagellation from the same instrument. I had stepped across the street to her husband's workshop, to order a new meat barrel. I found him putting a barrel together, assisted by a fine little girl of ten years of age, who embraced the staves with her thin supple arms, while the father slipped one of the hoops over them in order to secure them in their place. It was a pretty picture; the smiling rosy face of the girl looking down upon her father, as he stooped over the barrel adjusting the hoop, his white curling hair falling over her slender arms. Just then the door was flung open, and Mrs. --- rushed in like a fury. "Katrine, where are you?" "Here, mother," said the child, very quietly. How dar'd you to leave the cradle widout my lave?" "Father called me," and the child turned pale, and began to tremble. "I came for a moment to help him." "You little wretch!" cried the unjust woman, seizing the child by the arm. "I'll teach you to mind him more nor you mind me. Take that, and _that_." Here followed an awful oath, and such a blow upon the bare neck of the unhappy child, that she left her hold of the barrel, and fairly shrieked with pain. "Let the girl alone, Mary; it was my fault," said the husband. "Yes, it always is your fault! but she shall pay for it;" and, taking up a broken hoop, she began to beat the child furiously. My woman's heart could stand it no longer. I ran forward, and threw my arms round the child. "Get out wid you!" she cried; "what business is it of yours? I'll break your head if you are not off out of this." "I'm not afraid of you, Mrs. ---; but I would not see you use a dog in that manner, much less a child, who has done nothing to deserve such treatment." "Curse you all!" said the human fiend, flinging down her ugly weapon, and scowling upon us with her gloomy eyes. "I wish you were all in ---." A place far too warm for this hot season of the year, I thought, as I walked sorrowfully home. Bad as I then considered her, I have now no doubt that it was the incipient workings of her direful malady, which certainly comes nearest to any idea we can form of demoniacal possession. She is at present an incurable but harmless maniac; and, in spite of the instance of cruelty that I have just related towards her little girl, now, during the dark period of her mind's eclipse, gleams of maternal love struggled like glimpses of sunshine through a stormy cloud, and she inquired of me earnestly, pathetically, nay, even tenderly, for her children. Alas, poor maniac! How could I tell her that the girl she had chastised so undeservedly had died in early womanhood, and her son, a fine young man of twenty, had committed suicide, and flung himself off the bridge into the Moira river only a few months before. Her insanity saved her from the knowledge of events, which might have distracted a firmer brain. She seemed hardly satisfied with my evasive answers, and looked doubtingly and cunningly at me, as if some demon had whispered to her the awful truth. It was singular that this woman should recognise me after so many years. Altered as my appearance was by time and sickness, my dearest friends would hardly have known me,--yet she knew me at a single glance. What was still more extraordinary, she remembered my daughter, now a wife and mother, whom she had not seen since she was a little girl. What a wonderful faculty is memory!--the most mysterious and inexplicable in the great riddle of life; that plastic tablet on which the Almighty registers with unerring fidelity the records of being, making it the depository of all our words, thoughts, and deeds--this faithful witness against us for good or evil; at the great assize that hereafter must determine our eternal fate, when conscience, at his dread command, shall open up this book of life! "Keep thy heart, my son, for out of it are the issues of life." Be sure that memory guards well that secret treasure. All that the heart ever felt, the mind ever thought, the restless spirit ever willed, is there. Another woman--wild, dark, and fierce-looking, with her hands in mufflers--flitted after us from room to room, her black, flashing eyes fixed intently on my daughter. "Yes, it is my own Mary! but she won't speak to me." The gentleman in attendance begged us to take no notice of this person, as she was apt to be very violent. Another stout, fair-haired matron, with good features and a very pleasant face, insisted on shaking hands with us all round. Judging from her round, sonsy, rosy face, you never could have imagined her to have been mad. When we spoke in admiration of the extreme neatness and cleanness of the large sleeping apartment, she said very quietly-- "Ah, you would not wonder at that could you see all the water-witches at night cleaning it." Then she turned to me, and whispered very confidentially in my ear, "Are you mad? You see these people; they are all mad--as mad as March hares. Don't come here if you can help it. It's all very well at first, and it looks very clean and comfortable; but when the doors are once shut, you can't get out--no, not if you ask it upon your knees." She then retreated, nodding significantly. Leaving this ward, we visited the one which contained the male lunatics. They appeared far more gloomy and reserved than the women we had left. One young man, who used to travel the country with jewellery, and who had often been at our house, recognised us in a moment; but he did not come forward like Mrs. --- to greet us, but ran into a corner, and, turning to the wall, covered his face with his hands until we had passed on. Here was at least a consciousness of his unfortunate situation, that was very painful to witness. A gentlemanly man in the prime of life, who had once practised the law in Toronto, and was a person of some consequence, still retained the dress and manners belonging to his class. He had gone to the same school with my son-in-law, and he greeted him in the most hearty and affectionate manner, throwing his arm about his shoulder, and talking of his affairs in the most confidential manner. His mental aberration was only displayed in a few harmless remarks, such as telling us that this large house was his, that it had been built with his money, and that it was very hard he was kept a prisoner in his own dwelling; that he was worth millions; and that people were trying to cheat him of all his money, but that if once he could get out, he would punish them all. He then directed my son-in-law to bring up some law books that he named, on the morrow, and he would give him a dozen suits against the parties from whom he had received so many injuries. In the balcony, at the far end of the gallery, we found a group of men walking to and fro for the sake of air, or lounging listlessly on benches, gazing, with vacant eyes, upon the fine prospect of wood and water dressed in the gorgeous hues of an autumnal sunset. One very intelligent-looking man, with a magnificent head, was busy writing upon a dirty piece of paper with a pencil, his table furnished by his knee, and his desk the cover of his closed but well worn Bible. He rose as we drew near him, and bowing politely, gave us a couple of poems which he drew from his waistcoat pocket. "These were written some time ago," he said; "One of them is much better than the other. There are some fine lines in that ode to Niagara--I composed them on the spot." On my observing the signature of _Delta_ affixed to these productions, he smiled, and said, with much complacency, "My name is David Moir." This, upon inquiry, we found was really the case, and the mad poet considered that the coincidence gave him a right to enjoy the world-wide fame of his celebrated namesake. The poems which he gave us, and which are still in my possession, contain some lines of great merit; but they are strangely unconnected, and very defective in rhyme and keeping. He watched our countenances intently while reading them, continually stepping in, and pointing out to us his favourite passages. We were going to return them, but he bade us keep them. "He had hundreds of copies of them," he said, "in his head." He then took us on one side, and intreated us in the most pathetic manner to use our influence to get him out of that place. "He was," he said, "a good classic scholar, and had been private tutor in several families of high respectability, and he could shew us testimonials as to character and ability. It is hard to keep me here idling," he continued, "when my poor little boys want me so badly at home; poor fellows! and they have no mother to supply my place." He sighed heavily, and drew his hand across his brow, and looked sadly and dreamily into the blue distance of Ontario. The madman's thoughts were far away with his young sons, or, perhaps, had ranged back to the rugged heathery hills of his own glorious mountain land! There were two boys among these men who, in spite of their lunacy, had an eye to business, and begged pathetically for coppers, though of what use they could be to them in that place I cannot imagine. I saw no girls under twelve years of age. There were several boys who appeared scarcely in their teens. Mounting another flight of snowy stairs, we came to the wards above those we had just inspected. These were occupied by patients that were not in a state to allow visitors a nearer inspection than observing them through the glass doors. By standing upon a short flight of broad steps that led down to their ward, we were able to do this with perfect security. The hands of all these women were secured in mufflers; some were dancing, others running to and fro at full speed, clapping their hands, and laughing and shouting with the most boisterous merriment. How dreadful is the laugh of madness! how sorrowful the expressions of their diabolical mirth! tears and lamentations would have been less shocking, for it would have seemed more natural. Among these raving maniacs I recognised the singular face of Grace Marks--no longer sad and despairing, but lighted up with the fire of insanity, and glowing with a hideous and fiend-like merriment. On perceiving that strangers were observing her, she fled shrieking away like a phantom into one of the side rooms. It appears that even in the wildest bursts of her terrible malady, she is continually haunted by a memory of the past. Unhappy girl! when will the long horror of her punishment and remorse be over? When will she sit at the feet of Jesus, clothed with the unsullied garments of his righteousness, the stain of blood washed from her hand, and her soul redeemed, and pardoned, and in her right mind? It is fearful to look at her, and contemplate her fate in connexion with her crime. What a striking illustration does it afford of that awful text, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord!" There was one woman in this ward, with raven hair and eyes, and a sallow, unhealthy complexion, whom the sight of us transported into a paroxysm of ungovernable rage. She rushed to the door, and doubled her fists at us, and began cursing and swearing at a furious rate, and then she laughed--such a laugh as one might fancy Satan uttered when he recounted, in full conclave, his triumph over the credulity of our first mother. Presently she grew outrageous, and had to be thrown to the ground, and secured by two keepers; but to silence her was beyond their art. She lay kicking and foaming, and uttering words too dreadful for human ears to listen to; and Grace Marks came out from her hiding-place, and performed a thousand mad gambols round her: and we turned from the piteous scene,--and I, for one, fervently thanked God for my sanity, and inwardly repeated those exquisite lines of the peasant bard of my native county: "Oh, Thou, who bidd'st the vernal juices rise, Thou on whose blast autumnal foliage flies; Let peace ne'er leave me, nor my heart grow cold, Whilst life and sanity are mine to hold." We cast but a cursory glance on the men who occupied the opposite ward. We had seen enough of madness, and the shrieks from the outrageous patients above, whom strangers have seldom nerve enough to visit, quickened our steps as we hurried from the place. We looked into the large ball-room before we descended the stairs, where these poor creatures are allowed at stated times to meet for pleasure and amusement. But such a spectacle would be to me more revolting than the scene I had just witnessed; the delirium of their frightful disease would be less shocking in my eyes than the madness of their mirth. The struggling gleams of sense and memory in these unhappy people reminded me a beautiful passage in "Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy": "On all things created remaineth the half-effaced signature of God; Somewhat of fair and good, though blotted by the finger of corruption." What a sublime truth! How beautifully and forcibly expressed! With what a mournful dignity it invests our fallen nature! Sin has marred the Divine image in which we were made, but the soul in its intense longing after God and good bears, in its sorrowful servitude to evil, the impress of the hand that formed it happy and free. Yes, even in the most abject and fallen, some slight trace of good remains--some spark of the Divine essence that still lingers amid the darkness and corruption of guilt, to rekindle the dying embers, and restore them once more to life and liberty. The madman raving in his chains still remembers his God, to bless or blaspheme his name. We are astonished at his ecstatic dream of happiness, or shocked beyond measure at the blackness of his despair. His superhuman strength fills us with wonder; and, even in the extinction of reason, we acknowledge the eternal presence of God, and perceive flashes of his Spirit breaking through the dark material cloud that shades, but cannot wholly annihilate the light of the soul, the immortality within. The poor, senseless idiot, who appears to moral eyes a mere living machine, a body without a soul, sitting among the grass, and playing with the flowers and pebbles in the vacancy of his mind, is still a wonderful illustration of the wisdom and power of God. We behold a human being inferior in instinct and intelligence of the meanest orders of animal life, dependent upon the common charities of his kind for subsistence, yet conscious of the friend who pities his helplessness, and of the hand that administers to his wants. The Spirit of his Maker shall yet breathe upon the dull chaos of his stagnant brain, and open the eyes of this blind of soul into the light of his own eternal day! What a lesson to the pride of man--to the vain dwellers in houses of clay! Returning from the asylum, we stopped to examine Trinity College, which is on the opposite side of the road. The architect, K. Tully, Esq., has shown considerable taste and genius in the design of this edifice, which, like the asylum, is built of white brick, the corners, doors, and windows faced with cut stone. It stands back from the road in a fine park-like lawn, surrounded by stately trees of nature's own planting. When the college is completed, it will be one of the finest public buildings in the province, and form one of the noblest ornaments to this part of the city. The Maniac. "The wind at my casement scream'd shrilly and loud, And the pale moon look'd in from her mantle of cloud; Old ocean was tossing in terrible might, And the black rolling billows were crested with light. Like a shadowy dream on my senses that hour, Stole the beautiful vision of grandeur and power; And the sorrows of life that brought tears to mine eye, Were forgot in the glories of ocean and sky. "'Oh nature!' I cried, 'in thy beautiful face All the wisdom and love of thy Maker I trace; Thy aspect divine checks my tears as they start, And fond hopes long banish'd flow back to my heart!' Thus musing, I wander'd alone to the shore, To gaze on the waters, and list to their roar, When I saw a poor lost one bend over the steep Of the tall beetling cliff that juts out o'er the deep. "The wind wav'd her garments, and April's rash showers Hung like gems in her dark locks, enwreath'd with wild flowers; Her bosom was bared to the cold midnight storm, That unsparingly beat on her thin fragile form; Her black eyes flash'd sternly whence reason had fled, And she glanc'd on my sight like some ghost of the dead, As she sang a loud strain to the hoarse dashing surge, That rang on my ears like the plaint of a dirge. "And he who had left her to madness and shame, Who had robb'd her of honour, and blasted her fame-- Did he think in that hour of the heart he had riven, The vows he had broken, the anguish he'd given?-- And where was the infant whose birth gave the blow To the peace of his mother, and madden'd her woe? A thought rush'd across me--I ask'd for her child,-- With a wild laugh of triumph the maniac replied-- "'Where the dark tide runs strongest, the cliff rises steep, Where the wild waters eddy, I've rock'd him to sleep: His sleep is so sound that the rush of the stream, When the winds are abroad, cannot waken his dream. And see you that rock, with its surf-beaten side, There the blood of my false love runs red with the tide; The sea-mew screams shrilly, the white breakers rave-- In the foam of the billow I'll dance o'er his grave!' "'Mid the roar of the tempest, the wind's hollow moan, There rose on my chill'd ear a faint dying groan; The billows raged on, the moon smiled on the flood, But vacant the spot where the maniac had stood. I turn'd from the scene--on my spirit there fell A question that sadden'd my heart like a knell; I look'd up to heav'n, but I breath'd not a word, For the answer was given--'Trust thou in the Lord!'" CHAPTER XVI Provincial Agricultural Show "A happy scene of rural mirth, Drawn from the teeming lap of earth, In which a nation's promise lies. Honour to him who wins a prize!-- A trophy won by honest toil, Far nobler than the victor's spoil." S.M. Toronto was all bustle and excitement, preparing for the Provincial Agricultural Show; no other subject was thought of or talked about. The ladies, too, taking advantage of the great influx of strangers to the city, were to hold a bazaar for the benefit of St. George's Church; the sum which they hoped to realise by the sale of their fancy wares to be appropriated to paying off the remaining debt contracted for the said saint, in erecting this handsome edifice dedicated to his name--let us hope not to his service. Yet the idea of erecting a temple for the worship of God, and calling it the church of a saint of _very doubtful sanctity_, is one of those laughable absurdities that we would gladly see banished in this enlightened age. Truly, there are many things in which our wisdom does not exceed the wisdom of our forefathers. The weather during the two first days of the exhibition was very unpropitious; a succession of drenching thunder showers, succeeded by warm bursts of sunshine, promising better things, and giving rise to hopes in the expectant visitants to the show, which were as often doomed to be disappointed by returns of blackness, storm, and pouring rain. I was very anxious to hear the opening address, and I must confess that I was among those who felt this annihilation of hope very severely; and, being an invalid, I dared not venture upon the grounds before Wednesday morning, when this most interesting part of the performance was over. Wednesday, however, was as beautiful a September day as the most sanguine of the agricultural exhibitors could desire, and the fine space allotted for the display of the various objects of industry was crowded to overflowing. It was a glorious scene for those who had the interest of the colony at heart. Every district of the Upper Province had contributed its portion of labour, talent, and ingenuity, to furnish forth the show. The products of the soil, the anvil, and the loom, met the eye at every turn. The genius of the mechanic was displayed in the effective articles of machinery, invented to assist the toils and shorten the labour of human hands, and were many and excellent in their kind. Improvements in old implements, and others entirely new, were shown or put into active operation by the inventors,--those real benefactors to the human race, to whom the exploits of conquerors, however startling and brilliant, are very inferior in every sense. Mechanical genius, which ought to be regarded as the first and greatest effort of human intellect, is only now beginning to be recognised as such. The statesman, warrior, poet, painter, orator, and man of letters, all have their niche in the temple of fame--all have had their worshippers and admirers; but who among them has celebrated in song and tale the grand creative power which can make inanimate metals move, and act, and almost live, in the wondrous machinery of the present day! It is the mind that conceived, the hand that reduced to practical usefulness these miraculous instruments, with all their complicated works moving in harmony, and performing their appointed office, that comes nearest to the sublime Intelligence that framed the universe, and gave life and motion to that astonishing piece of mechanism, the human form. In watching the movements of the steam-engine, one can hardly divest one's self of the idea that it possesses life and consciousness. True, the metal is but a dead agent, but the spirit of the originator still lives in it, and sways it to the gigantic will that first gave it motion and power. And, oh, what wonders has it not achieved! what obstacles has it not overcome! how has it brought near things that were far off, and crumbled into dust difficulties which, at first sight, appeared insurmountable. Honour to the clear-sighted, deep-thinking child of springs and wheels, at whose head stands the great Founder of the world, the grandest humanity that ever trode the earth! Rejoice, and shout for joy, ye sons of the rule and line! for was he not one of you? Did he not condescend to bow that God-like form over the carpenter's bench, and handle the plane and saw? Yours should be termed the Divine craft, and those who follow it truly noble. Your great Master was above the little things of earth; he knew the true dignity of man--that virtue conferred the same majesty upon its possessor in the workshop or the palace--that the soul's title to rank as a son of God required neither high birth, nor the adventitious claims of wealth--that the simple name of a good man was a more abiding honour, even in this world, than that of kings or emperors. Oh! ye sons of labour, seek to attain this true dignity inherent in your nature, and cease to envy the possessors of those ephemeral honours that perish with the perishing things of this world. The time is coming--is now even at the doors--when education shall give you a truer standing in society, and good men throughout the whole world shall recognise each other as brothers. "An' o'er the earth gude sense an' worth Shall bear the gree an' a' that." Carried away from my subject by an impetuous current of thought, I must step back to the show from which I derived a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure. The space in which it was exhibited contained, I am told, about sixteen acres. The rear of this, where the animals were shown, was a large grove covered with tall spreading trees, beneath the shade of which, reposing or standing in the most picturesque attitudes, were to be seen the finest breeds of cattle, horses, and sheep, in the province. This inclosure was surrounded by a high boarded fence, against which pens were erected for the accommodation of plethoric-looking pigs, fat sleepy lambs, and wild mischievous goats; while noble horses were led to and fro by their owners or their servants, snorting and curveting in all the conscious pride of strength and beauty. These handsome, proud-looking creatures, might be considered the aristocracy of the animal department; yet, in spite of their prancing hoofs, arched necks, and glances of fire, they had to labour in their vocation as well as the poorest pig that grunted and panted in its close pen. There was a donkey there--a solitary ass--the first of his kind I ever beheld in the province. Unused to such a stir and bustle, he lifted up his voice, and made the grove ring with his discordant notes. The horses bounded and reared, and glanced down upon him in such mad disdain, that they could scarcely be controlled by their keepers. I can imagine the astonishment they must have felt on hearing the first bray of an ass; they could not have appeared more startled at a lion's roar. Whoever exhibited Mr. Braham was a brave man. A gentleman, who settled in the neighbourhood of Peterboro twenty years ago, brought out a donkey with him to Canada, and until the day of his death he went by no other name than the undignified one of Donkey. I cannot help thinking, that the donkey would be a very useful creature in the colony. Though rather an untractable democrat, insisting on having things his own way, he is a hardy, patient fellow, and easily kept; and though very obstinate, is by no means insensible to kind treatment, or incapable of attachment; and then, as an _exterminator of Canadian thistles_, he would prove an invaluable reformer by removing these agricultural pests out of the way. Often have I gazed upon the _Canadian thistle_--that prolific, sturdy democrat of the soil, that rudely jostles aside its more delicate and valued neighbours, elbowing them from their places with its wide-spreading and armed foliage--and asked myself for what purpose it grew and flourished so abundantly? Surely, it must have some useful qualities; some good must lie hidden under its hardy structure and coat of mail, independently of its exercising those valuable qualities in man--patience and industry--which must be called into active operation in order to root it out, and hinder it from destroying the fruits of his labour. The time, perhaps, may arrive when its thick milky juices and oily roots may be found to yield nutricious food, or afford a soothing narcotic to alleviate the restless tossings of pain. I firmly believe that nothing has been made in vain; that every animate and inanimate substance has its use, although we may be ignorant of it; that the most perfect and beautiful harmony reigns over the visible world; that although we may foolishly despise those animals, plants, and insects, that we consider noxious, because their real utility has never been tested by experience, they are absolutely necessary as links in the great chain of Providence, and appointed to fulfil a special purpose and end. "What shall we do for firewood when all the forests are burned?" was a very natural question asked us the other day by a young friend, who, with very scanty means, contemplated with a sort of horror the increased demand for fuel, and its increasing price. Tupper has an admirable answer for all such queries:-- "Yet man, heedless of a God, counteth up vain reckonings, Fearing to be jostled and starved out by the too prolific increase of his kind, And asketh, in unbelieving dread, for how few years to come Will the black cellars of the world yield unto him fuel for his winter. Might not the wide waste sea be bent into narrower bounds? Might not the arm of diligence make the tangled wilderness a garden? And for aught thou can'st tell, there may be a thousand methods Of comforting thy limbs in warmth, though thou kindle not a spark. Fear not, son of man, for thyself, nor thy seed--with a multitude is plenty: God's blessing giveth increase, and with it larger than enough." Surely it is folly for any one to despair of the future, while the providence of God superintends the affairs of the universe. Is it not sinful to doubt the power of that Being, who fed a vast multitude from a few loaves and small fishes? Is His arm shortened, that he can no longer produce those articles that are indispensable and necessary for the health and comfort of the creatures dependent upon his bounty? What millions have been fed by the introduction of the potato plant--that wild, half-poisonous native of the Chilian mountains! When first exhibited as a curiousity by Sir Walter Raleigh, who could have imagined the astonishing results,--not only in feeding the multitudes that for several ages in Ireland it has fed, but that the very blight upon it, by stopping an easy mode of obtaining food, should be the instrument in the hands of the great Father to induce these impoverished, starving children of an unhappy country, to remove to lands where honest toil would be amply remunerated, and produce greater blessings for them than the precarious support afforded by an esculent root? We have faith, unbounded faith, in the benevolent care of the Universal Father,--faith in the fertility of the earth, and her capabilities of supporting to the end of time her numerous offspring. The over-population of old settled countries may appear to a casual thinker a dreadful calamity; and yet it is but the natural means employed by Providence to force the poorer classes, by the strong law of necessity, to emigrate and spread themselves over the earth, in order to bring into cultivation and usefulness its waste places. When the world can no longer maintain its inhabitants, it will be struck out of being by the fiat of Him who called it into existence. Nothing has contributed more to the rapid advance of the province than the institution of the Agricultural Society, and from it we are already reaping the most beneficial results. It has stirred up a spirit of emulation in a large class of people, who were very supine in their method of cultivating their lands; who, instead of improving them, and making them produce not only the largest quantity of grain, but that of the best quality, were quite contented if they reaped enough from their slovenly farming to supply the wants of their family, of a very inferior sort. Now, we behold a laudable struggle among the tillers of the soil, as to which shall send the best specimens of good husbandry to contend for the prizes at the provincial shows, where very large sums of money are expended in providing handsome premiums for the victors. All the leading men in the province are members of this truly honourable institution; and many of them send horses, and the growth of their gardens, to add to the general bustle and excitement of the scene. The summer before last, my husband took the second prize for wheat at the provincial show, and I must frankly own that I felt as proud of it as if it had been the same sum bestowed upon a prize poem. There was an immense display of farm produce on the present occasion at Toronto, all excellent in their kind. The Agricultural Hall, a large, temporary building of boards, was completely filled with the fruits of the earth and the products of the dairy-- "A glorious sight, if glory dwells below, Where heaven's munificence makes all the show." The most delicious butter and tempting cheese, quite equal, perhaps, to the renowned British in every thing but the name, were displayed in the greatest abundance. A Mr. Hiram Ranney, from the Brock district, contributed a monster cheese, weighing 7 cwt., not made of "double skimmed sky-blue," but of milk of the richest quality, which, from its size and appearance, might have feasted all the rats and mice in the province for the next twelve months. It was large enough to have made the good old deity of heathen times--her godship of the earth--an agricultural throne; while from the floral hall, close at hand, a crown could have been woven, on the shortest notice, of the choicest buds from her own inexhaustible treasury. A great quantity of fine flax and hemp particularly attracted my attention. Both grow admirably in this country, and at no very distant period will form staple articles for home manufacture and foreign export. The vast improvement in home-manufactured cloth, blankets, flannels, shawls, carpeting, and counterpanes, was very apparent over the same articles in former years. In a short time Canada need not be beholden to any foreign country for articles of comfort and convenience. In these things her real wealth and strength are shown; and we may well augur from what she has already achieved in this line, how much more she can do--and do well--with credit and profit to herself. The sheep in Canada are not subject to the diseases which carry off so many yearly in Britain; and though these animals have to be housed during the winter, they are a very profitable stock. The Canadian grass-fed mutton is not so large as it is in England, and in flavour and texture more nearly resembles the Scotch. It has more of a young flavour, and, to my thinking, affords a more wholesome, profitable article of consumption. Beef is very inferior to the British; but since the attention of the people has been more intently directed to their agricultural interests, there is a decided improvement in this respect, and the condition of all the meat sent to market now-a-days is ten per cent better than the lean, hard animals we used to purchase for winter provisions, when we first came to the province. At that time they had a race of pigs, tall and gaunt, with fierce, bristling manes, that wandered about the roads and woods, seeking what they could devour, like famished wolves. You might have pronounced them, without any great stretch of imagination, descended from the same stock into which the attendant fiends that possessed the poor maniacs of Galilee had been cast so many ages ago. I knew a gentleman who was attacked in the bush by a sow of this ferocious breed, who fairly treed him in the woods of Douro, and kept him on his uncomfortable perch during several hours, until his swinish enemy's patience was exhausted, and she had to give up her supper of human flesh for the more natural products of the forest, acorns and beech-mast. Talking of pigs and sheep recals to my mind an amusing anecdote, told to me by a resident of one of our back townships, which illustrates, even in a cruel act of retaliation, the dry humour which so strongly characterizes the lower class of emigrants from the emerald isle. I will give it in my young friend's own words:-- "In one of our back townships there lived an old Dutchman, who was of such a vindictive temper that none of his neighbours could remain at peace with him. He made the owners of the next farm so miserable that they were obliged to sell out, and leave the place. The farm passed through many hands, and at last became vacant, for no one could stay on it more than a few months; they were so worried and annoyed by this spiteful old man, who, upon the slightest occasion, threw down their fences and injured their cattle. In short, the poor people began to suspect that he was the devil himself, sent among them as a punishment for their sins. "At last an Irish emigrant lately out was offered the place very cheap, and, to the astonishment of all, bought it, in spite of the bad _karacter_, for the future residence of himself and family. "He had not been long on the new place when one of his sheep, which had got through a hole in the Dutchman's fence, came hobbling home with one of its legs stuck through the other. Now, you must know that this man, who was so active in punishing the trespasses of his neighbours' cattle and stock, was not at all particular in keeping his own at home. There happened to be an old sow of his, who was very fond of Pat's _potaties_, and a constant _throuble_ to him, just then in the field when the sheep came home. Pat took the old sow (not very tenderly, I'm afraid) by the ear, and drawing out his jack-knife, very deliberately slit her mouth on either side as far as he could. By and by, the old Dutchman came puffing and blowing along; and seeing Pat sitting upon his door-step, enjoying the evening air, and comfortably smoking his pipe, he asked him if he had seen anything of his sow? "'Well, neighbour,' said Pat, putting on one of his gravest faces, 'one of the strangest things happened a short while ago that I ever saw. A sheep of mine came home with its leg slit and the other put through it, and your old sow was so amused with the odd sight that she split her jaws with laughing.'" This turned the tables upon the spiteful old man, and completely cured him of all his ill-natured tricks. He is now one of the best neighbours in the township. This was but a poor reparation to the poor sheep and the old sow. Their sufferings appear to have been regarded by both parties as a very minor consideration. The hall set apart for the display of fancy work and the fine arts appeared to be the great centre of attraction, for it was almost impossible to force your way through the dense crowd, or catch a glimpse of the pictures exhibited by native artists. The show of these was highly creditable indeed. Eight pictures, illustrative of Indian scenery, character, and customs, by Mr. Paul Kane, would have done honour to any exhibition. For correctness of design, beauty of colouring, and a faithful representation of the peculiar scenery of this continent, they could scarcely be surpassed. I stood for a long time intently examining these interesting pictures, when a tall fellow, in the grey homespun of the country, who, I suppose, thought that I had my share of enjoyment in that department, very coolly took me by the shoulders, pulled me back into the crowd, and possessed himself of my vacant place. This man should have formed a class with the two large tame bears exhibited on the ground appropriated to the poultry; but I rather think that Bruin and his brother would have been ashamed of having him added to their fraternity; seeing that their conduct was quite unexceptionable, and they could have a set a good example to numbers of the human bipeds, who pushed and elbowed from side to side anything that obstructed their path, while a little common courtesy would have secured to themselves and others a far better opportunity of examining everything carefully. The greatest nuisance in this respect was a multitude of small children, who were completely hidden in the press, and whose feet, hands, and head, dealt blows, against which it was impossible to protect yourself, as you felt severely without being able to ward off their home-thrusts. It is plain that they could not see at all, but were determined that every one should sensibly _feel_ their disappointment. It was impossible to stop for a moment to examine this most interesting portion of the Exhibition; and one was really glad to force a passage out of the press into the free air. Large placards were pasted about in the most conspicuous places, warning visitors to the grounds to look out for pickpockets! Every one was on the alert to discover these gentry--expecting them, I suppose, to be classed like the animal and vegetable productions of the soil; and the vicinity of a knowing-looking, long-bearded pedlar, who was selling Yankee notions at the top of his voice, and always surrounded by a great mob, was considered the most likely locality for these invisible personages, who, I firmly believe, existed alone in the fancy of the authors of the aforesaid placards. There was a very fine display of the improved and foreign breeds of poultry; and a set of idle Irish loungers, of the lower class, were amusing themselves by inserting the bowls of their pipes into the pens that contained these noble fowls, and giving them the benefit of a good smoking. The intoxicating effects of the fumes of the tobacco upon the poor creatures appeared to afford their tormentors the greatest entertainment. The stately Cochin-China cocks shook their plumed heads, and turned up their beaks with unmistakeable signs of annoyance and disgust; and two fine fowls that were lying dead outside the pens, were probably killed by this novel sport. I was greatly struck by the appearance of Okah Tubee, the celebrated Indian doctor, who was certainly the most conspicuous-looking person in the show, and on a less public occasion would have drawn a large number of spectators on his own hook. Okah Tubee is a broad, stout, powerfully built man, with a large fat face, set off to the least possible advantage by round rings of braided hair, tied with blue ribbons, and with large gold ear-rings in his ears. Now, it certainly is true that a man has a perfect right to dress his hair in this fashion, or in any fashion he pleases; but a more absurd appearance than the blue ribbons gave to his broad, brown, beardless face, it is impossible to imagine. The solemn dignity, too, with which he carried off this tomfoolery was not the least laughable part of it. I wonder which of his wives--for I was told he had several--braided all these small rings of hair, and confined them with the blue love-knots; but it is more than probable that the grave Indian performed his own toilet. His blue surtout beaver hat accorded ill with his Indian leggings and moccassins. I must think that the big man's dress was in shocking bad taste, and decided failure. I missed the sight of him carrying a flag in the procession, and mounted on horseback; if his riding-dress matched his walking costume, it must have been rich. Leaving the show-ground, we next directed our steps to the Ladies' Bazaar, that was held in the government buildings, and here we found a number of well-dressed, elegant women, sitting like Mathew at the receipt of custom; it is to be hoped that their labours of love received an ample recompense, and that the sale of their pretty toys completely discharged the debt that had been incurred for their favourite saint. Nor was the glory of old England likely to be forgotten amid such a display of national flags as adorned the spacious apartment. The Banner Of England. "The banner of old England flows Triumphant in the breeze-- A sign of terror to our foes, The meteor of the seas A thousand heroes bore it In battle fields of old; All nations quail'd before it, Defended by the bold. "Brave Edward and his gallant sons Beneath its shadow bled; And lion-hearted Britons That flag to glory led. The sword of kings defended, When hostile foes drew near; The sheet whose colours bended-- Memorials proud and dear! "The hist'ry of a nation Is blazon'd on its page, A brief and bright relation Sent down from age to age. O'er Gallia's hosts victorious, It turn'd their pride of yore; Its fame on earth is glorious, Renown'd from shore to shore. "The soldier's heart has bounded When o'er the tide of war; Where death's brief cry resounded, It flash'd a blazing star. Or floating over leaguer'd wall, It met his lifted eye; Like war-horse to the trumpet's call, He rush'd to victory! "No son of Britain e'er will see A foreign band advance, To seize the standard of the free, That dared the might of France. Bright banner of our native land, Bold hearts are knit to thee; A hardy, brave, determined band, Thy champions yet shall be!" CHAPTER XVII Niagara "Come and worship at a shrine, Rear'd by hands eternal, Where the flashing waters shine, And the turf is ever vernal, And nature's everlasting voice For ever cries--rejoice, rejoice!" S.M. The night had been one of pouring rain, and the day dawned through a thick veil of misty clouds, on the morning of which we were to start from Toronto to visit the Falls of Niagara. "It is always so," I thought, as I tried to peer through the dense mist that floated round the spire of St. George's church, in order to read what promise there might lurk behind its gray folds of a fine day. "What we most wish for is, for some wise purpose inscrutable to our narrow vision, generally withheld. But it may clear up after all. At all events, we must bide the chance and make the experiment." By seven o'clock we were on board the "Chief Justice," one of the steamers that daily ply between Toronto and Queenstone. A letter that I got, in passing the post-office, from the dear children at home, diverted my thoughts for a long while from the dull sky and the drizzling rain; and when it had been read and re-read, and pondered over for some time, and God inwardly thanked for the affection that breathed in every line, and the good news it contained, the unpromising mist had all cleared away, and the sun was casting bright silvery gleams across the broad bosom of the beautiful Ontario. We did not meet with a solitary adventure on our very pleasant voyage; the deep blue autumnal sky, and the gently-undulating waters, forming the chief attraction, and giving rise to pleasant trains of thought, till the spirit blended and harmonized with the grand and simple elements that composed the scene. There were no passengers in the ladies' cabin, and we never left the deck of the steamer until she came to her wharf at Queenstone. The lake for some miles before you reach the entrance of the Niagara river assumes a yellowish-green tint, quite different from the ordinary deep blue of its waters. This is probably owing to the vast quantity of soil washed down by the rapids from the high lands above. The captain told us that after a storm, such as we had experienced on the preceding night, this appearance, though it always existed, was more apparent. You catch a distant glance of the Falls from this part of the lake; but it is only in the shape of a light silvery cloud hovering on the edge of the horizon. We listened in vain for any sound to give us an indication of their near vicinity. The voice of nature was mute. The roar of the great cataract was not distinguishable at that distance. The entrance to the Niagara river is very interesting. You pass between the two strong stone forts, raised for the protection of their respective countries; and a hostile vessel would stand but a small chance of keeping clear from danger in passing either Cerberus. It is devoutly to be hoped that all such difficulties will be avoided, by the opposite shores remaining firm friends and allies. The town of Niagara is a quaint, old-fashioned looking place, and belongs more to the past than the present of Canada; for it has not made much progress since it ceased to be the capital of the Upper Province, in spite of its very advantageous and beautiful locality. As you approach Queenstone, the river is much contracted in its dimensions, and its banks assume a bold and lofty appearance, till they frown down upon the waters in stern and solemn grandeur, and impart a wild, romantic character to the scene, not often found in the Upper Province. I never beheld any water that resembled the deep green of the Niagara. This may be owing, perhaps, to the immense depth of the river, the colour of the rocks over which it flows, or it may be reflected from the beautiful trees and shrubs that clothe its precipitous banks; but it must strike every person who first gazes upon it as very remarkable; You cannot look down into it, for it is not pellucid but opaque in its appearance, and runs with a smooth surface more resembling oil than water. The waters of the St. Lawrence are a pale sea-green, and so transparently clear that you see through them to a great depth. At sunrise and sunset they take all the hues of the opal. The Ottawa is a deep blue. The Otonabee looks black, from the dark limestone bed over which it foams and rushes. Our own Moira is of a silvery or leaden hue, but the waters of the Niagara are a bright deep green; and did any painter venture to transfer their singular colour to his canvas, it would be considered extravagant and impossible. The new Suspension Bridge at Queenstone is a beautiful object from the water. The river here is six hundred feet in width; the space between the two stone towers that support the bridge on either shore is eight hundred and fifty feet; the height above the water, two hundred feet. The towers are not built on the top of the bank, but a platform for each has been quarried out of the steep sides of the precipice, about thirty feet below the edge of the cliffs. The road that leads up from the Queenstone ferry has been formed by the same process. It is a perilous ascent, and hangs almost over the river, nor is there any sufficient barrier to prevent a skittish horse from plunging from the giddy height into the deep, swift stream below. I should not like to travel this romantic road of a dark October night, even on foot. The Queenstone cab-drivers rattle up and down this fearful path without paying the least regard to the nerves of their passengers. At the entrance to the bridge, a space is quarried out of the bank to allow heavy teams to turn on to the bridge, which is done with the greatest ease and safety. Several heavy loaded teams were crossing from the other side, and it was curious to watch the horses, when they felt the vibratory motion, draw back close to the vehicles, and take high, short steps, as if they apprehended some unknown danger. It is surprising how well they behave on this trying occasion, for a horse, though a very brave animal, is one of the most nervous ones in creation. These beautiful, airy-looking structures, are a great triumph of mechanical art over a barrier which had long been considered as insurmountable, except by water. The ready mode of communication which by their means has been established between the opposite shores, must prove of incalculable advantage to this part of the colony. It is to be hoped that similar bridges will soon span the many rapid rivers in Canada. A sudden spring thaw gives such volume and power to most of the streams, that few bridges constructed on the old plan are long able to resist the impetuosity of the current, but are constantly liable to be carried away, occasioning great damage in their vicinity. The Suspension Bridge, by being raised above the possible action of the water, is liable to none of the casualties that operate against the old bridge, whose piers and arches, though formed of solid masonry, are not proof against the powerful battering-rams formed by huge blocks of ice and heavy logs of wood, aided by the violent opposing force of the current. The light and graceful proportions of the Suspension Bridge add a great charm to the beauty of this charming landscape. It is well worth paying a visit to Niagara, if it possessed no object of greater interest in its neighbourhood than these wonderful structures. The village of Queenstone is built at the foot of the hill, and is a very pretty romantic-looking place. Numerous springs wind like silvery threads along the face of the steep bank above; and wherever the waters find a flat ledge in their downward course, water-cresses of the finest quality grow in abundance, the sparkling water gurgling among their juicy leaves, and washing them to emerald brightness. Large portions of the cliff are literally covered with them. It was no small matter of surprise to me when told that the inhabitants made no use of this delicious plant, but laugh at the eagerness with which strangers seek it out. The Queenstone Heights, to the east of the village, are a lofty ridge of land rising three hundred feet above the level of the country below. They are quite as precipitous as the banks of the river. The railroad winds along the face of this magnificent bank. Gigantic trees tower far above your head, and a beautiful fertile country lies extended at your feet. There, between its rugged banks, winds the glorious river; and, beyond forest and plain, glitters the Ontario against the horizon, like a mimic ocean, blending its blue waters with the azure ocean of heaven. Truly it is a magnificent scene, and associated with the most interesting historical events connected with the province. Brock's monument, which you pass on the road, is a melancholy looking ruin, but by no means a picturesque one, resembling some tall chimney that has been left standing after the house to which it belonged had been burnt down. Some time ago subscriptions were set on foot to collect money to rebuild this monument; but the rock on which it stands is, after all, a more enduring monument to the memory of the hero than any perishable structure raised to commemorate the desperate struggle that terminated on this spot. As long as the heights of Queenstone remain, and the river pours its swift current to mingle with the Ontario, the name of General Brock will be associated with the scene. The noblest tablet on which the deeds of a great man can be engraved, is on the heart of his grateful country. Were a new monument erected on this spot to-morrow, it is more than probable that it would share the fate of its predecessor, and some patriotic American would consider it an act of duty to the great Republic to dash it out of _creation_. From Queenstone we took a carriage on to Niagara, a distance of about eight miles, over good roads, and through a pleasant, smiling tract of country. This part of the province might justly be termed the garden of Canada, and partakes more of the soft and rich character of English scenery. The ground rises and falls in gentle slopes; the fine meadows, entirely free from the odious black stumps, are adorned with groups of noble chestnut and black walnut trees; and the peach and apple orchards in full bearing, clustering around the neat homesteads, give to them an appearance of wealth and comfort, which cannot exist for many years to come in more remote districts. The air on these high table-lands is very pure and elastic; and I could not help wishing for some good fairy to remove my little cottage into one of the fair enclosures we passed continually by the roadside, and place it beneath the shade of some of the beautiful trees that adorned every field. Here, for the first time in Canada, I observed hedges of the Canadian thorn--a great improvement on the old snake fence of rough split timber which prevails all through the colony. What a difference it would make in the aspect of the country if these green hedgerows were in general use! It would take from the savage barrenness given to it by these crooked wooden lines, that cross and recross the country in all directions: no object can be less picturesque or more unpleasing to the eye. A new clearing reminds one of a large turnip field, divided by hurdles into different compartments for the feeding of sheep and cattle. Often, for miles on a stretch, there is scarcely a tree or bush to relieve the blank monotony of these ugly, uncouth partitions of land, beyond charred stumps and rank weeds, and the uniform belt of forest at the back of the new fields. The Canadian cuts down, but rarely plants trees, which circumstance accounts for the blank look of desolation that pervades all new settlements. A few young maples and rock elms, planted along the roadsides, would, at a very small expense of labour, in a very few years remedy this ugly feature in the Canadian landscape, and afford a grateful shade to the weary traveller from the scorching heat of the summer sun. In old countries, where landed property often remains for ages in the same family, the present occupant plants and improves for future generations, hoping that his son's sons may enjoy the fruit of his labours. But in a new country like this, where property is constantly changing owners, no one seems to think it worth their while to take any trouble to add to the beauty of a place for the benefit of strangers. Most of our second growth of trees have been planted by the beautiful hand of nature, who, in laying out her cunning work, generally does it in the most advantageous manner; and chance or accident has suffered the trees to remain on the spot from whence they sprung. Trees that grow in open spaces after the forest has been cleared away, are as graceful and umbrageous as those planted in parks at home. The forest trees seldom possess any great beauty of outline; they run all to top, and throw out few lateral branches. There is not a tree in the woods that could afford the least shelter during a smart shower of rain. They are so closely packed together in these dense forests, that a very small amount of foliage, for the size and length of the trunk, is to be found on any individual tree. One wood is the exact picture of another; the uniformity dreary in the extreme. There are no green vistas to be seen; no grassy glades beneath the bosky oaks, on which the deer browse, and the gigantic shadows sleep in the sunbeams. A stern array of rugged trunks, a tangled maze of scrubby underbrush, carpetted winter and summer with a thick layer of withered buff leaves, form the general features of a Canadian forest. A few flowers force their heads through this thick covering of leaves, and make glad with their beauty the desolate wilderness; but those who look for an Arcadia of fruits and flowers in the Backwoods of Canada cannot fail of disappointment. Some localities, it is true, are more favoured than others, especially those sandy tracts of table-land that are called plains in this country; the trees are more scattered, and the ground receives the benefit of light and sunshine. Flowers--those precious gifts of God--do not delight in darkness and shade, and this is one great reason why they are so scarce in the woods. I saw more beautiful blossoms waving above the Niagara river, from every crevice in its rocky banks, than I over beheld during my long residence in the bush. These lovely children of light seem peculiarly to rejoice in their near vicinity to water, the open space allowed to the wide rivers affording them the air and sunshine denied to them in the close atmosphere of the dense woods. The first sight we caught of the Falls of Niagara was from the top of the hill that leads directly into the village. I had been intently examining the rare shrubs and beautiful flowers that grew in an exquisite garden surrounding a very fine mansion on my right hand, perfectly astonished at their luxuriance, and the emerald greenness of the turf at that season, which had been one of unprecedented drought, when, on raising my head, the great cataract burst on my sight without any intervening screen, producing an overwhelming sensation in my mind which amounted to pain in its intensity. Yes, the great object of my journey--one of the fondest anticipations of my life--was at length accomplished; and for a moment the blood recoiled back to my heart, and a tremulous thrill ran through my whole frame. I was so bewildered--so taken by surprise--that every feeling was absorbed in the one consciousness, that the sublime vision was before me; that I had at last seen Niagara; that it was now mine forever, stereotyped upon my heart by the unerring hand of nature; producing an impression which nothing but madness or idiotcy could efface! It was some seconds before I could collect my thoughts, or concentrate my attention sufficiently to identify one of its gigantic features. The eye crowds all into the one glance, and the eager mind is too much dazzled and intoxicated for minor details. Astonishment and admiration are succeeded by curious examination and enjoyment; but it is impossible to realize this at first. The tumultuous rush of feeling, the excitement occasioned by the grand spectacle, must subside before you can draw a free breath, and have time for thought. The American Fall was directly opposite, resembling a vast rolling cylinder of light flashing through clouds of silvery mist, and casting from it long rays of indescribable brightness. I never could realize in this perfect image of a living and perpetual motion, a _fall_ of waters; it always had to my eyes this majestic, solemn, rotatory movement, when seen from the bank above. The Horse-shoe Fall is further on to the right, and you only get a side view of it from this point. The Falls are seen to the least possible advantage from the brow of the steep bank. In looking down upon them, you can form no adequate idea of their volume, height, and grandeur; yet that first glance can never be effaced. You feel a thrilling, triumphant joy, whilst contemplating this master-piece of nature--this sublime idea of the Eternal--this wonderful symbol of the power and strength of the divine Architect of the universe. It is as if the great heart of nature were laid bare before you, and you saw and heard all its gigantic throbbings, and watched the current of its stupendous life flowing perpetually forward. I cannot imagine how any one could be disappointed in this august scene; and the singular indifference manifested by others;--it is either a miserable affectation of singularity, or a lamentable want of sensibility to the grand and beautiful. The human being who could stand unmoved before the great cataract, and feel no quickening of the pulse, no silent adoration of the heart towards the Creator of this wondrous scene, would remain as indifferent and as uninspired before the throne of God! Throwing out of the question the romantic locality,--the rugged wooded banks, the vast blocks of stone scattered at the edge of the torrent, the magic colour of the waters, the overhanging crags, the wild flowers waving from the steep, the glorious hues of the ever-changing rainbow that spans the river, and that soft cloud of silvery brightness for ever flowing upward into the clear air, like the prayer of faith ascending from earth to heaven,--the enormous magnitude of the waters alone, their curbless power, and eternal motion, are sufficient to give rise to feelings of astonishment and admiration such as never were experienced before. Not the least of these sensations is created by the deep roar of the falling torrent, that shakes the solid rocks beneath your feet, and is repeated by the thousand hidden echoes among those stern craggy heights. It is impossible for language to convey any adequate idea of the grandeur of the Falls, when seen from below, either from the deck of the "Maid of the Mist,"--the small steamer that approaches within a few yards of the descending sheet of the Horse-shoe Falls--or from the ferry boat that plies continually between the opposite shores. From the frail little boat, dancing like a feather upon the green swelling surges, you perhaps form the best notion of the vastness and magnitude of the descending waters, and of your own helplessness and insignificance. They flow down upon your vision like moving mountains of light; and the shadowy outline of black mysterious-looking rocks, dimly seen through clouds of driving mist, adds a wild sublimity to the scene. While the boat struggles over the curling billows, at times lifted up by the ground-swells from below, the feeling of danger and insecurity is lost in the whirl of waters that surround you. The mind expands with the scene, and you rejoice in the terrific power that threatens to annihilate you and your fairy bark. A visible presence of the majesty of God is before you, and, sheltered by His protecting hand, you behold the glorious spectacle and live. The dark forests of pine that form the background to the Falls, when seen from above, are entirely lost from the surface of the river, and the descending floods seem to pour down upon you from the skies. The day had turned out as beautiful as heart could wish; and though I felt very much fatigued with the journey, I determined to set all aches and pains at defiance whilst I remained on this enchanted ground. We had just time enough to spare before dinner to walk to the table rock, following the road along the brow of the steep bank. On the way we called in at the Curiosity Shop, kept by an old grey-haired man, who had made for himself a snug little California by turning all he touched into gold; his stock-in-trade consisting of geological specimens from the vicinity of the Falls--pebbles, plants, stuffed birds, beasts, and sticks cut from the timber that grows along the rocky banks, and twisted into every imaginable shape. The heads of these canes were dexterously carved to imitate snakes, snapping turtles, eagles' heads, and Indian faces. Here, the fantastic ends of the roots of shrubs from which they were made were cut into a grotesque triumvirate of legs and feet; here a black snake, spotted and coloured to represent the horrid reptile, made you fancy its ugly coils already twisting in abhorrent folds about your hands and arms. There was no end to the old man's imaginative freaks in this department, his wares bearing a proportionate price to the dignity of the location from which they were derived. A vast amount of Indian toys, and articles of dress, made the museum quite gay with their tawdry ornaments of beads and feathers. It is a pleasant lounging place, and the old man forms one of its chief attractions. Proceeding on to the table rock, we passed many beautiful gardens, all bearing the same rich tint of verdure, and glowing with fruit and flowers. The showers of spray, rising from the vast natural fountain in their neighbourhood, fill the air with cool and refreshing moisture, which waters these lovely gardens, as the mists did of yore that went up from the face of the earth to water the garden of Eden. The Horse-shoe Fall is much lower than its twin cataract on the American side; but what it loses in height, it makes up in power and volume, and the amount of water that is constantly discharged over it. As we approached the table rock, a rainbow of splendid dyes spanned the river; rising from out the driving mist from the American Fall, until it melted into the leaping snowy foam of the great Canadian cataract. There is a strange blending, in this scene, of beauty and softness with the magnificent and the sublime: a deep sonorous music in the thundering of the mighty floods, as if the spirits of earth and air united in one solemn choral chant of praise to the Creator; the rocks vibrate to the living harmony, and the shores around seem hurrying forward, as if impelled by the force of the descending torrent of sound. Yet, within a few yards of all this whirlpool of conflicting elements, the river glides onward as peacefully and gently as if it had not received into its mysterious depths this ever-falling avalanche of foaming waters. Here you enjoy a splendid view of the Rapids. Raising your eyes from the green, glassy edge of the Falls, you see the mad hubbub of boiling waves rushing with headlong fury down the watery steep, to take their final plunge into the mist-covered abyss below. On, on they come--that white-crested phalanx of waves pouring and crowding upon each other in frantic chase! "Things of life, and light, and motion, Spirits of the unfathom'd ocean, Hurrying on with curbless force, Like some rash unbridled horse; High in air their white crests flinging, And madly to destruction springing." These boiling breakers seem to shout and revel in a wild ecstasy of freedom and power; and you feel inclined to echo their shout, and rejoice with them. Yet it is curious to mark how they slacken their mad speed when they reach the ledge of the fall, and melt into the icy smoothness of its polished brow, as if conscious of the superior force that is destined to annihilate their identity, and dash them into mist and spray. In like manner the waves of life are hurried into the abyss of death, and absorbed in the vast ocean of eternity. Niagara would be shorn of half its wonders divested of these glorious Rapids, which form one of the grandest features in the magnificent scene. We returned to our inn, the Clifton House, just in time to save our dinner: having taken breakfast in Toronto at half-past six, we were quite ready to obey the noisy summons of the bell, and follow our sable guide into the eating room. The Clifton House is a large, handsome building, directly fronting the Falls. It is fitted up in a very superior style, and contains ample accommodations for a great number of visitors. It had been very full during the summer months, but a great many persons had left during the preceding week, which I considered a very fortunate circumstance for those who, like myself, came to see instead of to be seen. The charges for a Canadian hotel are high; but of course you are expected to pay something extra at a place of such general resort, and for the grand view of the Falls, which can be enjoyed at any moment by stepping into the handsome balcony into which the saloon opens, and which runs the whole length of the side and front of the house. The former commands a full view of the American, the latter of the Horse-shoe Fall; and the high French windows of this elegantly furnished apartment give you the opportunity of enjoying both. You pay four dollars a-day for your board and bed; this does not include wine, and every little extra is an additional charge. Children and servants are rated at half-price, and a baby is charged a dollar a-day. This item in the family programme is something new in the bill of charges at an hotel in this country; for these small gentry, though they give a great deal of trouble to their lawful owners, are always entertained gratis at inns and on board steamboats. The room in which dinner was served could have accommodated with ease treble the number of guests. A large party, chiefly Americans, sat down to table. The dishes are not served on the table; a bill of fare is laid by every plate, and you call for what you please. This arrangement, which saves a deal of trouble, seemed very distasteful to a gentleman near us, to whom the sight of good cheer must have been almost as pleasant as eating it, for he muttered half aloud--"that he hated these new-fangled ways; that he liked to see what he was going to eat; that he did not choose to be put off with kickshaws; that he did not understand the French names for dishes. He was not French, and he thought that they might be written in plain English." I was very much of the same opinion, and found myself nearly in the same predicament with the grumbler at my left hand; but I did not betray my ignorance by venturing a remark. This brought forcibly to my mind a story that had recently been told me by a dear primitive old lady, a daughter of one of the first Dutch settlers in the Upper Province, over which I had laughed very heartily at the time; and now it served as an illustration of my own case. "You know, my dear," said old Mrs. C---, "that I went lately to New York to visit a nephew of mine, whom I had not seen from a boy. Well, he has grown a very great man since those days, and is now one of the wealthiest merchants in the city. I never had been inside such a grandly furnished house before. We know nothing of the great world in Canada, or how the rich people live in such a place as New York. Ours are all bread and butter doings when compared with their grand fixings. I saw and heard a great many things, such as I never dreamed of before, and which for the life of me I could not understand; but I never let on. "One morning, at luncheon, my nephew says to me, 'Aunty C---, you have never tasted our New York cider; I will order up some on purpose to see how you like it.' "The servant brought up several long-necked bottles on a real silver tray, and placed them on the table. 'Good Lord!' thinks I, 'these are queer looking cider bottles. P'raps it's champagne, and he wants to get up a laugh against me before all these strange people.' I had never seen or tasted champagne in all my life, though there's lots of it sold in Canada, and our head folks give champagne breakfasts, and champagne dinners; but I had heard how it acted, and how, when you drew the corks from the bottles, they went pop--pop. So I just listened a bit, and held my tongue; and the first bounce it gave, I cried out, 'Mr. R---, you may call that cider in New York, but we call it champagne in Canada!' "'Do you get champagne in Canada, Aunty?' says he, stopping and looking me straight in the face. "'Oh, don't we?' says I; 'and it's a great deal better than your _New York cider_.' "He looked mortified, I tell you, and the company all laughed; and I drank off my glass of champagne as bold as you please, as if I had been used to it all my life. When you are away from home, and find yourself ignorant of a thing or two, never let others into the secret. Watch and wait, and you'll find it out by and by." Not having been used to French dishes during my long sojourn in Canada, I was glad to take the old lady's advice, and make use of my eyes and ears before I ordered my own supplies. It would have done Mrs. Stowe's heart good to have seen the fine corps of well-dressed negro waiters who served the tables, most of whom were runaway slaves from the States. The perfect ease and dexterity with which they supplied the guests, without making a single mistake out of such a variety of dishes, was well worthy of notice. It gave me pleasure to watch the quickness of all their motions, the politeness with which they received so many complicated orders, and the noiseless celerity with which they were performed. This cost them no effort, but seemed natural to them. There were a dozen of these blacks in attendance, all of them young, and some, in spite of their dark colouring, handsome, intelligent looking men. The master of the hotel was eloquent in their praise, and said that they far surpassed the whites in the neat and elegant manner in which they laid out a table,--that he scarcely knew what he would do without them. I found myself guilty of violating Lord Chesterfield's rules of politeness, while watching a group of eaters who sat opposite to me at table. The celerity with which they despatched their dinner, and yet contrived to taste of everything contained in the bill of fare, was really wonderful. To them it was a serious matter of business; they never lifted their eyes from their plates, or spoke a word beyond ordering fresh supplies, during feeding time. One long-ringletted lady in particular attracted my notice, for she did more justice to the creature comforts than all the rest. The last course, including the dessert, was served at table, and she helped herself to such quantities of pudding, pie, preserves, custard, ice, and fruit, that such a medley of rich things I never before saw heaped upon one plate. Some of these articles she never tasted; but she seemed determined to secure to herself a portion of all, and to get as much as she could for her money. I wish nature had not given me such a quick perception of the ridiculous--such a perverse inclination to laugh in the wrong place; for though one cannot help deriving from it a wicked enjoyment, it is a very troublesome gift, and very difficult to conceal. So I turned my face resolutely from contemplating the doings of the long-ringletted lady, and entered into conversation with an old gentleman from the States--a _genuine_ Yankee, whom I found a very agreeable and intelligent companion, willing to exchange, with manly, independent courtesy, the treasures of his own mind with another; and I listened to his account of American schools and public institutions with great interest. His party consisted of a young and very delicate looking lady, and a smart active little boy of five years of age. These I concluded were his daughter and grandson, from the striking likeness that existed between the child and the old man. The lady, he said, was in bad health--the boy was hearty and wide-awake. After dinner the company separated; some to visit objects of interest in the neighbourhood, others to the saloon and the balcony. I preferred a seat in the latter; and ensconcing myself in the depths of a large comfortable rocking chair, which was placed fronting the Falls, I gave up my whole heart and soul to the contemplation of their glorious beauty. I was roused from a state almost bordering on idolatry by a lady remarking to another, who was standing beside her, "that she considered the Falls a great humbug; that there was more fuss made about them than they deserved; that she was satisfied with having seen them once; and that she never wished to see them again." I was not the least surprised, on turning my head, to behold in the speaker the long-ringletted lady. A gentleman to whom I told these remarks laughed heartily.--"That reminds me of a miller's wife who came from Black Rock, near Buffalo, last summer, to see the Falls. After standing here, and looking at them for some minutes, she drawled through her nose--'Well, I declare, is that all? And have I come eighteen miles to look at you? I might ha' spared myself the expense and trouble; my husband's mill-dam is as good a sight,--only it's not just as _high_.'" This lady would certainly have echoed the sublime sentiment expressed by our friend the poet,-- "Oh, what a glorious place for washing sheep Niagara would be!" In the evening my husband hired a cab, and we drove to see the Upper Suspension Bridge. The road our driver took was very narrow, and close to the edge of the frightful precipice that forms at this place the bank of the river, which runs more than two hundred feet below. The cabman, we soon discovered, was not a member of the temperance society. He was very much intoxicated; and, like Jehu the son of Nimshi, he drove furiously. I felt very timid and nervous. Sickness makes us sad cowards, and what the mind enjoys in health, becomes an object of fear when it is enfeebled and unstrung by bodily weakness. My dear husband guessed my feelings, and placed himself in such a manner as to hide from my sight the danger to which we were exposed by our careless driver. In spite of the many picturesque beauties in our road, I felt greatly relieved when we drove up to the bridge, and our short journey was accomplished. The Suspension Bridge on which we now stood--surveying from its dizzy height, two hundred and thirty feet above the water, the stream below--seems to demand from us a greater amount of interest than the one at Queenstone, from the fact of its having been the first experiment of the kind ever made in this country,--a grand and successful effort of mechanical genius over obstacles that appeared insurmountable. The river is two hundred feet wider here than at Queenstone, and the bridge is of much larger dimensions. The height of the stone tower that supports it on the American side is sixty-eight feet, and of the wooden tower on the Canadian shore fifty feet. The number of cables for the bridge is sixteen; of strands in each cable, six hundred; of strands in the ferry-cable, thirty-seven, the diameter of which is seven-eighths of an inch. The ultimate tension is six thousand five hundred tons, and the capacity of the bridge five hundred. A passage across is thrillingly exciting. The depth of the river below the bridge is two hundred and fifty feet, and the water partakes more largely of that singular deep green at this spot than I had remarked elsewhere. The American stage crossed the bridge as we were leaving it, and the horses seemed to feel the same mysterious dread which I have before described. A great number of strong wooden posts that support the towers take greatly from the elegance of this bridge; but I am told that these will shortly be removed, and their place supplied by a stone tower and buttresses. We returned by another and less dangerous route to the Clifton House, just in time to witness a glorious autumnal sunset. The west was a flood of molten gold, fretted with crimson clouds; the great Horse-shoe Fall caught every tint of the glowing heavens, and looked like a vast sheet of flame, the mist rising from it like a wreath of red and violet-coloured smoke. This gorgeous sight, contrasted by the dark pine woods and frowning cliffs which were thrown into deep shade, presented a spectacle of such surpassing beauty and grandeur, that it could only be appreciated by those who witnessed it. Any attempt to describe it must prove a failure. I stood chained to the spot, mute with admiration, till the sun set behind the trees, and the last rays of light faded from the horizon; and still the thought uppermost in my mind was--who could feel disappointed at a scene like this? Can the wide world supply such another? The removal of all the ugly mills along its shores would improve it, perhaps, and add the one charm it wants, by being hemmed in by tasteless buildings,--the sublimity of solitude. Oh, for one hour alone with Nature, and her great master-piece Niagara! What solemn converse would the soul hold with its Creator at such a shrine,--and the busy hum of practical life would not mar with its jarring discord, this grand "thunder of the waters!" Realities are unmanageable things in some hands, and the Americans are gravely contemplating making their sublime Fall into a motive power for turning machinery. Ye gods! what next will the love of gain suggest to these gold-worshippers? The whole earth should enter into a protest against such an act of sacrilege--such a shameless desecration of one of the noblest works of God. Niagara belongs to no particular nation or people. It is an inheritance bequeathed by the great Author to all mankind,--an altar raised by his own almighty hand, at which all true worshippers must bow the knee in solemn adoration. I trust that these free glad waters will assert their own rights, and dash into mist and spray any attempt made to infringe their glorious liberty. But the bell is ringing for tea, and I must smother my indignation with the reflection, that "sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." A Freak Of Fancy. "I had a dream of ocean, In stern and stormy pride; With terrible commotion, Dark, thundering, came the tide. High on the groaning shore Upsprang the wreathed spray; Tremendous was the roar Of the angry, echoing bay. "Old Neptune's snowy coursers Unbridled trode the main, And o'er the foaming waters Plunged on in mad disdain: The furious surges boiling, Roll mountains in their path; Beneath their white hoofs coiling, They spurn them in their wrath. "The moon at full was streaming Through rack and thunder-cloud, Like the last pale taper gleaming On coffin, pall, and shroud. The winds were fiercely wreaking Their vengeance on the wave, A hoarse dirge wildly shrieking O'er each uncoffin'd grave. "I started from my pillow-- The moon was riding high, The wind scarce heav'd a billow Beneath that cloudless sky. I look'd from earth to heaven, And bless'd the tranquil beam; My trembling heart had striven With the tempest of a dream." CHAPTER XVIII Goat Island "Adown Niagara's giant steep, The foaming breakers crowding leap, With wild tumultuous roar; The mighty din ascends on high, In deafening thunder to the sky, And shakes the rocky shore." S.M. The lady with the ringlets was absent with her party from the tea-table; I was not sorry to learn that she was gone. I had conceived a prejudice against her from the remark I heard her make about the Falls. Her gustativeness predominated so largely over her ideality, that she reminded me of a young lady who, after describing to me a supper of which by her own account she had largely partaken, said, with a candour almost shocking in its simplicity-- "To tell you the plain truth, my dear Mrs. M---, my art (she was English, and cockney, and dreadfully mangled the letter _h_ whenever it stumbled into a speech) is in my _stomach_." The cup of excellent tea was most refreshing after the fatigues of the day; and, while enjoying it, I got into an agreeable chat with several pleasant people, but we were all strangers even in name to each other. The night was misty and intensely dark, without moon or stars. How I longed for one glimpse of the former, to shed if only a wandering gleam upon the Falls! The awful music of their continuous roar filled the heavens, and jarred the windows of the building with the tremulous motion we feel on board a steam-boat. And then I amused myself with picturing them, during one of our desolating thunderstorms, leaping into existence out of the dense darkness, when revealed by the broad red flashes of lightning; and I wished that my limited means would allow me to remain long enough in their vicinity, to see them under every change of season and weather. But it was not to be; and after peering long and anxiously into the dark night, I retreated to an unoccupied sofa in a distant part of the saloon, to watch and listen to all that was passing around me. Two young American ladies, not of a highly educated class, were engaged in a lively conversation with two dashing English officers, who, for their own amusement, were practising upon their credulity, and flattering their national prejudices with the most depreciating remarks on England and the English people. "I am English," cried number one; "but I am no great admirer of her people and institutions. The Americans beat them hollow." "All the world think so but themselves," said the younger lady; "they are such a vain, arrogant set!" "Decidedly so. The men are bad enough, but the women,--I dare say you have heard them called handsome?" "Ah, yes," in a very lively tone; "but I never believed it. I never in my life saw a pretty English woman among all that I have seen in New York. To my thinking, they are a sad set of frights. Stiff, formal, and repulsive, they dress in shocking bad taste, and consider themselves and their uncouth fashions as the standards of perfection." "My dear madam, you are right. They are odious creatures. The beauty for which they were once renowned has vanished with the last generation. Our modern English girls are decided barbarians. It is impossible to meet with a pretty English woman now-a-days. I have made a vow to cut them altogether; and if ever I commit such a foolish thing as matrimony, to take to myself an _American_ wife." "Are you in earnest?" with a very fascinating smile, and flashing upon him her fine dark eyes. "Quite so. But, now, you must not take me for a rich English Coelebs in search of a wife. I am an unfortunate scapegrace, have run out all my means, and am not worth a York shilling to jingle on a tombstone. I was obliged to borrow money of my landlord--he's a capital fellow--to pay my washerwoman's bill this morning. So don't fall in love with me. I assure you, on my honour, it would be a bad spec." "Don't be alarmed," returned the dark-eyed girl, evidently much pleased with her odd companion. "Are you very young?" "I was never young. My mother told me that I had cut my wisdom-teeth when I was born. I was wide awake, too, like your clever people, and have kept my eyes open ever since. "You have seen a great deal of the world?" "Yes, too much of it; but 'tis a tolerable world to live in after all." "Were you ever in the United States?" "Only crossed from the other side a few days ago. Did you not notice the arrival of Mr. P--- among the list of distinguished foreigners that honoured your great city with their presence?" "And what struck you most when you got there?" "Oh, the beauty and elegance of the women, of course." "You flatter us." "Fact, upon honour," with a quizzical application of his hand to his heart. "What did you admire in them?" "Their straight up and down figures. They have no vulgar redundancies--no red cheeks and pug noses; and then their voices are so sweet and harmonious, their pronunciation so correct, so every way superior to the boisterous, hearty frankness of our British girls!" "English women have very bad noses--I have remarked that; and they are so horribly fat, and they laugh so loud, and talk in such a high key! My! I often wondered where they learned their manners." "Oh! 'tis all natural to them--it comes to them without teaching." "I have been told that London is a shocking place." "Dreadful; and the climate is disgusting. It rains there every day, and fogs are so prevalent that during the winter months, they burn candles all day to see to eat. As to the sun, he never comes out but once or twice during the summer, just to let us know that he has not been struck out of creation. And the streets, my dear young lady, are so filthy that the women have to wear pattens in their carriages." "You don't say?" "Just to keep their petticoats out of the mud, which is so deep that it penetrates through the bottom of the carriages." "I never will go to England, I declare." "You will be better appreciated in your free and glorious country. Slavery thrives there, and you make slaves of us poor men." "Now, do stop there, and have done with your blarney." "Blarney! I'm not Irish. Englishmen always speak the truth when talking to the ladies." Here he paused, quite out of breath, and his companion in mischief commenced with the other lady. "Who is that tall, stout, handsome man, with the fat lady on his arm, who has just entered the room?" "That's an American from the south; he's worth his weight in gold, and that fleshy woman's his wife. My! is he not handsome! and he's so clever--one of our greatest senators." "If size makes a man great, and he has the distinguished honour of being one of _your_ senators, he must be a great--a very great man. "He's a splendid orator; you should hear him speak." "He has kept his mouth shut all day; and when he does open it, it is only to speak in French to his wife. My curiosity is excited; it would be quite a treat to hear him talk on any subject." "When _he_ speaks, it's always to the purpose. But there's no one here who is able to appreciate talents like his." "He's an American aristocrat." "We have no aristocrats with us. He's a great slave-owner, and immensely rich." "Very substantial claims to distinction, I must confess. You are wiser in these matters than we are. What do you think of Canada?" "I don't know; it's very well for a young place. I only came here with sister last night; we are on our way to Quebec." "To visit friends?" "We have no friends in Canada. We want to see Lord Elgin." "Lord Elgin!" "Yes. We have seen a great many curious things, but we never saw an English lord." "And you are going to Quebec for no other purpose than to look at Lord Elgin? His lordship should feel himself highly flattered. What sort of an animal do you suppose him to be?" "A man, of course; but I assure you that the Boston ladies thought a great deal of him. Sister and I have plenty of time and money at our disposal, and we wanted to see if their opinion was correct." "Well, I hope you may be gratified, and agree with the Boston ladies that he is a very clever man." "Is he handsome?" "He has an English nose." "Oh, shocking!" "A decided Anglo-Saxon face." "I'm sure I shan't admire him." "But I'll not anticipate. A man may be a fine looking fellow in spite of his nose. But what do you think of the Falls?" "Well, I have not _quite_ made up my mind about them. I should like to ride down to the edge of the river to look at them from below." "I will order a carriage to-morrow morning, and drive you down." "Thank you; I can do that for myself, if I have a mind to. I should like to ride down on horseback." "The path is too steep; no one ventures down that terrible road on horseback." "But I'm a capital rider." "No matter; they use cows for that purpose here." "Cows!" "They are very safe, sure-footed animals. All the ladies ride down to the Falls on cows." "Are they fools?" "Wise women. Did not you see that fine drove of cows pass the hotel at sunset?" "I did. I thought they were driven into the yard to be milked." "Why, yes; but those cows are making Mr. ---'s fortune. They serve a double purpose, providing delicious butter and cream for his customers, and acting as horses for the ladies. I will pick out the most docile among them for your excursion to-morrow morning, and see it bridled and saddled myself." This was too much for the gravity of any one. My son-in-law ran out of the room, and I laughed aloud. The poor girls began to find out that they were sold, and retreated into the balcony. An hour afterwards, as I was pacing through the long gallery that led to our sleeping apartment, one of the many doors on either side softly opened, and the youngest of these bright-eyed damsels stole out. "I want to ask you a question," she said, laying her very white hand confidingly on my arm; "were those Englishmen quizzing my sister and me?" "Need you ask that question?" said I, not a little amused at her simplicity. "I never suspected it till I saw your son laughing to himself, and then I guessed something was wrong. It was a great shame of those rude fellows to amuse themselves at our expense; but your son is quite a different person--so handsome and gentlemanly. We admire him so much. Is he married?" "His wife is my daughter." I can't tell why my answer struck the fair inquirer dumb; she drew back suddenly into her chamber, and closed the door without bidding me good night, and that was the last time I saw or heard of her and her companion. "A summer spent at the Clifton House would elicit more extraordinary traits of character than could be gathered from the chit-chat of a dozen novels," thought I, as I paced on to No. 50, the last room on the long tier. I was up by daybreak the next morning to see the Falls by sunrise, and was amply repaid for leaving my warm bed, and encountering the bright bracing morning air, by two hours' enjoyment of solemn converse alone with God and Niagara. The sun had not yet lifted his majestic head above the pine forest, or chased with his beams the dark shadows of night that rested within the curved sides of the great Horse-shoe. The waters looked black as they rolled in vast smooth masses downward, till, meeting the projecting rocks, they were tossed high into the air in clouds of dazzling foam--so pure, so stainlessly white, when contrasted with the darkness, that they looked as if belonging to heaven rather than to earth. Anon, that dancing feathery tumult of foam catches a rosy gleam from the coming day. A long stream of sunlight touches the centre of the mighty arch, and transforms the black waters into a mass of smooth transparent emerald green, and the spray flashes with myriads of rubies and diamonds; while the American Fall still rolls and thunders on in cold pure whiteness, Goat Island and its crests of dark pines shrouding it in a robe of gloom. The voice of the waters rising amidst the silence that reigns at that lovely calm hour, sounds sonorous and grand. Be still, O my soul! earth is pouring to her Creator her morning anthem of solemn praise! Earth! how beautiful thou art! When will men be worthy of the paradise in which they are placed? Did our first father, amidst the fresh young beauty of his Eden, ever gaze upon a spectacle more worthy of his admiration than this? We will except those moments when he held converse with God amid the cool shades of that delicious garden. "That's a sublime sight!" said a voice near me. I turned, and found the old American gentleman at my side. "I can see a change in the appearance of these Falls," he continued, "since I visited them some forty years ago. Time changes everything; I feel that I am changed since then. I was young and active, and clambered about these rugged banks with the careless hardihood of a boy who pants for excitement and adventure, and how I enjoyed my visit to this place! A change has taken place--I can scarcely describe in what respect; but it looks to me very different to what it did then." "Perhaps," I suggested, "the fall of that large portion of the table-rock has made the alteration you describe." "You have just hit it," he said; "I forgot the circumstance. The Horse-shoe is not so perfect as it was." "Could these Falls ever have receded from Queenstone?" said I. He turned to me with a quick smile--"If they have, my dear Madam, the world is much older by thousands of ages than we give it credit for; but--" continued he, gazing at the mighty object in dispute, "it is possible that these Falls are of more recent date than the creation of the world. An earthquake may have rent the deep chasm that forms the bed of that river, and in a few seconds of time the same cause might break down that mighty barrier, and drain the upper lakes, by converting a large part of your fine province into another inland sea. But this is all theory. Fancy, you know, is free, and I often amuse myself by speculating on these things." "Your daughter, I hope, is not ill," I said; "I did not see her at tea last night with her little son." Instead of his usual shrewd smile, the old man laughed heartily. "So you take that young lady for my daughter!" "Is she not? The child, however, must be your grandson, for he is the picture of you." "I flatter myself that he is. That young lady is my wife--that little boy my son. Isn't he a fine clever little chap?" and his keen grey eye brightened at the growing promise of his boy. "I have another younger than him." "Heavens!" thought I, "what a mistake I have made! How M--- will laugh at me, and how delighted this old man seems with my confusion!" I am always making these odd blunders. Not long ago I mistook a very old-looking young man for his father, and congratulated him on his daughter's marriage; and asked a young bride who was returning her calls, and who greatly resembled a married cousin who lived in the same town, _how her baby was?_ And now I had taken a man's wife for his daughter his son for a grandson. But I comforted myself with the idea that the vast disparity between their ages was some excuse, and so slipped past one of the horns of that dilemma. As soon as we had taken breakfast, we set off in company with the American and his little boy to pay a visit to Goat Island, and look at the Falls from the American side. The child fully realized his father's description. He was a charming, frank, graceful boy, full of life and intelligence, and enjoyed the excitement of crossing the river, and the beauties it revealed to us, with a keen appreciation of the scene, which would have been incomprehensible to some of the wonder-seekers we had met the day before. All nature contributed to heighten our enjoyment. The heavens were so blue and cloudless, the air so clear and transparent, the changing tints on the autumnal foliage so rich, the sun so bright and warm, that we seemed surrounded by an enchanted atmosphere, and the very consciousness of existence was delightful; but, with those descending floods of light towering above us, and filling the echoing shores with their sublime melody, we were doubly blessed! When our little boat touched the American shore, the question arose as to which method would be the best to adopt in ascending the giddy height. A covered way leads to the top of the bank, which is more than two hundred feet in perpendicular height. Up this steep our ingenious neighbours have constructed on an inclined plane of boards a railway, on which two cars run in such a manner that the weight of the descending car draws up the other to the top of the bank. Both are secured by a strong cable. By the side of this railway, and under the same roof, 200 steps lead to the road above. I was too weak to attempt the formidable flight of steps; and though I felt rather cowardly while looking at the giddy ascent of the cars, there was no alternative between choosing one or the other, or remaining behind. The American and his little boy were already in the car, and I took my seat behind them. When we were half-way, the question rose in my mind--"What if the cable should give way, where should we land?" "You'll know that when the tail breaks," as the Highlander said when holding on to the wild boar; and I shut my eyes, determined not to disturb my mind or waken my fears by another glance below. "Why do you shut your eyes?" said the American. "I thought the English were all brave." "I never was a coward till after I came to North America," said I, laughing; and I felt that I ought to be as brave as a lion, and not injure the reputation of my glorious country by such childish fears. When the car stopped, we parted company with the American and his brave little son. He had friends to visit in Manchester, and I saw them no more. Our path lay through a pretty shady grove to the village. Groups of Indian women and children were reposing beneath the shade of the trees, working at their pretty wares, which they offered for sale as we passed by. Following the winding of the road, we crossed a rural bridge, from which we enjoyed a fine view of the glorious Rapids, and entered Goat Island. This beautiful spot is still in forest, but the underbrush has been cleared away, and a path cut entirely round it. The trunks of these trees are entirely covered with the names and initials of persons who at different times have visited the spot, and they present the most curious appearance. After a few minutes' walk through the wood, we reached the bank of the river, which here is not very high, and is covered with evergreen shrubs and wild flowers; and here the wide world of tumbling waters are flashing and foaming in the sunlight--leaping and racing round the rocky, pine-covered islands, that vainly oppose their frantic course. Oh, how I longed to stem their unstemmed tides; to land upon those magic islands which the foot of man or beast never trod, whose beauty and verdure are guarded by the stern hand of death! The Falls are more wonderful, but not more beautiful, than this sublime confusion and din of waters-- "Of glad rejoicing waters, Of living leaping waters." Their eternal voice and motion might truly be termed the "joy of waves." On the American Side, the view of the great cataracts is not so awful and overwhelming, but they are more beautiful in detail, and present so many exquisite pictures to the eye. They are more involved in mystery, as it were; and so much is left for the imagination to combine into every varied form of beauty. You look down into the profound abyss; you are wetted with that shower of silvery spray that rises higher than the tree tops, and which gives you in that soft rain an actual consciousness of its living presence. I did not cross the bridge, which extends within a few yards of the great plunge, or climb to the top of the tower; for my strength had so entirely failed me, that it was with difficulty I could retrace my steps. I sat for about an hour beneath the shadow of the trees, feasting my soul with beauty; and with reluctance, that drew tears from my eyes, bade adieu to the enchanting spot--not for ever, I hope, for should God prolong my life, I shall try and visit the Falls again. Like every perfect work, the more frequently and closely they are examined, the more wonderful they must appear; the mind and eye can never weary of such an astonishing combination of sublimity and power. We stopped at a pretty cottage at the edge of the wood to get a glass of water, and to buy some peaches. For these we had to pay treble the price at which they could be procured at Toronto; but they proved a delicious refreshment, the day was very warm, and I was parched with thirst. Had time permitted, I should have enjoyed greatly a ramble through the town; as it was, my brief acquaintance with the American shores left a very pleasing impression on my mind. The little that I have seen of intelligent, well-educated Americans, has given me a very high opinion of the people. Britain may be proud of these noble scions from the parent tree, whose fame, like her own, is destined to fill the world. "The great daughter of a great mother," America claims renown for her lawful inheritance; and it is to be deeply regretted that any petty jealousy or party feeling should ever create a rivalry between countries so closely united by the ties of blood; whose origin, language, religion and genius are the same; whose industry, energy, and perseverance, derived from their British sires, have procured for them the lofty position they hold, and made them independent of the despots of earth. The Land Of Our Birth. "There is not a spot in this wide-peopled earth, So dear to the heart as the land of our birth; 'Tis the home of our childhood! the beautiful spot By mem'ry retain'd when all else is forgot. May the blessing of God Ever hallow the sod, And its valleys and hills by our children be trode! "Can the language of strangers, in accents unknown, Send a thrill to the bosom like that of our own! The face may be fair, and the smile may be bland, But it breathes not the tones of our dear native land. There's no spot on earth Like the home of our birth, Where heroes keep guard o'er the altar and hearth. "How sweet is the language that taught us to blend The dear names of father, of husband, and friend; That taught us to lisp on our mother's fond breast, The ballads she sang as she rock'd us to rest! May the blessing of God Ever hallow the sod, And its valleys and hills by our children be trode! "May old England long lift her white crest o'er the wave, The birth-place of science, the home of the brave! In her cities may peace and prosperity dwell! May her daughters in beauty and virtue excel! May their beauty and worth Bless the land of their birth, While heroes keep guard o'er the altar and hearth!" CHAPTER XIX Conclusion "Why dost thou fear to speak the honest truth? Speak boldly, fearlessly, what thou think'st right, And time shall justify thy words and thee!" S.M. We left Niagara at noon. A very pleasant drive brought us to Queenstone, and we stepped on board the "Chief Justice" steamboat, that had just touched the wharf, and was on her return trip to Toronto. Tired and ill, I was glad to lie down in one of the berths in the ladies' cabin to rest, and, if possible, to obtain a little sleep. This I soon found was out of the question. Two or three noisy, spoiled children kept up a constant din; and their grandmother, a very nice-looking old lady, who seemed nurse-general to them all, endeavoured in vain to keep them quiet. Their mother was reading a novel, and took it very easy; reclining on a comfortable sofa, she left her old mother all the fatigue of taking care of the children, and waiting upon herself. This is by no means an uncommon trait of Canadian character. In families belonging more especially to the middle class, who have raised themselves from a lower to a higher grade, the mother, if left in poor circumstances, almost invariably holds a subordinate position in her wealthier son or daughter's family. She superintends the servants, and nurses the younger children; and her time is occupied by a number of minute domestic labours, that allow her very little rest in her old age. I have seen the grandmother in a wealthy family ironing the fine linen, or broiling over the cook-stove, while her daughter held her place in the drawing-room. How differently in my own country are these things ordered! where the most tender attention is paid to the aged, all their wants studied, and their comfort regarded as a sacred thing. Age in Canada is seldom honoured. You would imagine it almost a crime for any one to grow old--with such slighting, cold indifference are the aged treated by the young and strong. It is not unusual to hear a lad speak of his father, perhaps, in the prime of life, as the "old fellow," the "old boy," and to address a grey-haired man in this disrespectful and familiar manner. This may not be apparent to the natives themselves, but it never fails to strike every stranger that visits the colony. To be a servant is a lot sufficiently hard--to have all your actions dictated to you by the will of another--to enjoy no rest or recreation, but such as is granted as a very great favour; but to be a humble dependent in old age on children, to whom all the best years of your life were devoted with all the energy of maternal love, must be sad indeed. But they submit with great apparent cheerfulness, and seem to think it necessary to work for the shelter of a child's roof, and the bread they eat. The improved circumstances of families, whose parents, in the first settlement of the country, had to work very hard for their general maintenance, may be the cause of this inversion of moral duties, and the parents not being considered properly on an equality with their better dressed and better educated offspring; but from whatever cause it springs, the effect it produces on the mind of a stranger is very painful. It is difficult to feel much respect for any one who looks down upon father or mother as an inferior being, and, as such, considers them better qualified to perform the coarse drudgeries of life. Time, we hope, will remedy this evil, with many others of the same class. There was a bride, too, on board--a very delicate looking young woman, who was returning from a tour in the States to her native village. She seemed very much to dread the ordeal she had yet to pass through--in sitting dressed up for a whole week to receive visitors. Nor did I in the least wonder at her repugnance to go through this trying piece of ceremonial, which is absolutely indispensable in Canada. The Monday after the bride and bridegroom make their first appearance at church, every person in the same class prepares to pay them a visit of congratulation; and if the town is large, and the parties well known, the making of visits to the bride lasts to the end of the week. The bride, who is often a young girl from sixteen to twenty years of age, is doomed for this period to sit upon a sofa or reclined in an easy chair, dressed in the most expensive manner, to receive her guests. Well she knows that herself, her dress, the furniture of her room, even her cake and wine, will undergo the most minute scrutiny, and be the theme of conversation among all the gossips of the place for the next nine days. No wonder that she feels nervous, and that her manners are constrained, and that nothing looks easy or natural about her, from her neck-ribbon to her shoe-tie. "Have you seen the bride yet? What do you think of her? How was she dressed? Is she tall, or short? Pretty, or plain? Stupid, or clever? Lively, or quiet?" are all questions certain to be asked, and answered according to the taste and judgment of the parties to whom they are put; besides those thousand little interludes which spring from envy, ill-nature, and all uncharitableness. The week following they, in courtesy, must return all these visits; and, oh, what a relief it must be when all this stiff complimentary nonsense is over, and they are once more at home to themselves and their own particular friends! There is another custom, peculiar to Canada and the United States, which I cordially approve, and should be very much grieved for its discontinuance. On New-Year's day all the gentlemen in the place call upon their friends, to wish them a happy new year, and to exchange friendly greetings with the ladies of the family, who are always in readiness to receive them, and make them a return for these marks of neighbourly regard, in the substantial form of rich cakes, fruit, wine, coffee, and tea. It is generally a happy, cheerful day; all faces wear a smile, old quarrels are forgotten, and every one seems anxious to let ill-will and heart-burnings die with the old year. A gentleman who wishes to drop an inconvenient acquaintance, has only to omit calling upon his friend's wife and daughters on New-Year's day, without making a suitable apology for the omission of this usual act of courtesy, and the hint is acknowledged by a direct cut the next time the parties meet in public. It is an especial frolic for all the lads who have just returned from school or college to enjoy their Christmas holidays. Cakes and sweetmeats are showered upon them in abundance, and they feel themselves of vast importance, while paying their compliments to the ladies, and running from house to house, with their brief congratulatory address--"I wish you all a happy New Year!" It would be a thousand pities if this affectionate, time-honoured, hospitable custom, should be swept away by the march of modern improvement. Some ladies complain that it gives a number of vulgar, underbred men the opportunity of introducing themselves to the notice and company of their daughters. There may be some reasonable truth in this remark; but after all it is but for one day, and the kindly greetings exchanged are more productive of good than evil. The evening of New-Year's day is generally devoted to dancing parties, when the young especially meet to enjoy themselves. The Wesleyan Methodists always "pray the old year out and the new year in," as it is termed here, and they could not celebrate its advent in a more rational and improving manner. Their midnight anthem of praise is a sacred and beautiful offering to Him, whose vast existence is not meted out like ours, and measured by days and years. Large parties given to very young children, which are so common in this country, are very pernicious in the way in which they generally operate upon youthful minds. They foster the passions of vanity and envy, and produce a love of dress and display which is very repulsive in the character of a child. Little girls who are in the constant habit of attending these parties, soon exchange the natural manners and frank simplicity so delightful at their age, for the confidence and flippancy of women long hacked in the ways of the world. For some time after I settled in the town, I was not myself aware that any evil could exist in a harmless party of children playing together at the house of a mutual friend. But observation has convinced me that I was in error; that these parties operate like a forcing bed upon young plants, with this difference, that they bring to maturity the seeds of _evil_, instead of those of goodness and virtue, and that a child accustomed to the heated atmosphere of pleasure, is not likely in maturer years to enjoy the pure air and domestic avocations of home. These juvenile parties appear to do less mischief to boys than to girls. They help to humanize the one, and to make heartless coquets of the other. The boys meet for a down-right romping play with each other; the girls to be caressed and admired, to show off their fine dresses, and to gossip about the dress and appearance of their neighbours. I know that I shall be called hard-hearted for this assertion; but it is true. I have frequently witnessed what I relate, both at my own house and the houses of others; and those who will take the pains to listen to the conversation of these miniature women, will soon yield a willing assent to my observations, and keep their little ones apart from such scenes, in the pure atmosphere of home. The garden or the green field is the best place for children, who can always derive entertainment and instruction from nature and her beautiful works. Left to their own choice, the gay party would be a _bore_, far less entertaining than a game of blind-man's buff in the school-room, when lessons were over. It is the vanity of parents that fosters the same spirit in their children. The careless, disrespectful manner often used in this country by children to their parents, is an evil which in all probability originates in this early introduction of young people into the mysteries of society. They imagine themselves persons of consequence, and that their opinion is quite equal in weight to the experience and superior knowledge of their elders. We cannot imagine a more revolting sight than a young lad presuming to treat his father with disrespect and contempt, and daring presumptuously to contradict him before ignorant idlers like himself. "You are wrong, Sir; it is not so"--"Mamma, that is not true; I know better," are expressions which I have heard with painful surprise from young people in this country; and the parents have sunk into silence, evidently abashed at the reproof of an insolent child. These remarks are made with no ill-will, but with a sincere hope that they may prove beneficial to the community at large, and be the means of removing some of the evils which are to be found in our otherwise pleasant and rapidly-improving society. I know that it would be easier for me to gain the approbation of the Canadian public, by exaggerating the advantages to be derived from a settlement in the colony, by praising all the good qualities of her people, and by throwing a flattering veil over their defects; but this is not my object, and such servile adulation would do them no good, and degrade me in my own eyes. I have written what I consider to be the truth, and as such I hope it may do good, by preparing the minds of emigrants for what they will _really find_, rather than by holding out fallacious hopes that can never be realized. In "Roughing it in the Bush," I gave an honest personal statement of _facts_. I related nothing but what had really happened; and if illustrations were wanting of persons who had suffered _as much_, and been reduced to the same straits, I could furnish a dozen volumes without having to travel many hundred miles for subjects. We worked hard and struggled manfully with overwhelming difficulties, yet I have been abused most unjustly by the Canadian papers for revealing some of the mysteries of the Backwoods. Not one word was said _against the country_ in my book, as was falsely asserted. It was written as a warning to well-educated persons not to settle in localities for which they were unfitted by their _previous habits and education_. In this I hoped to confer a service both on them and Canada; for the _prosperous_ settlement of such persons on cleared farms must prove more beneficial to the colony than their _ruin in the bush_. It was likewise very cruelly and falsely asserted, that I had spoken ill of the _Irish people_, because I described the revolting scene we witnessed at Grosse Isle, the actors in which were principally Irish emigrants of the _very lowest class_. Had I been able to give the whole details of what we saw on that island, the terms applied to the people who furnished such disgusting pictures would have been echoed by their own countrymen. This was one of those cases in which it was _impossible_ to reveal the _whole truth_. The few Irish characters that occur in my narrative have been drawn with an _affectionate_, not a malignant hand. We had very few Irish settlers round us in the bush, and to them I never owed the least obligation. The contrary of this has been asserted, and I am accused of _ingratitude_ by one editor for benefits I never received, and which I was too proud to ask, always preferring to work with my own hands, rather than to _borrow_ or _beg_ from others. All the kind acts of courtesy I received from the _poor Indians_ this gentleman thought fit to turn over to the Irish, in order to hold me up as a monster of ingratitude to his countrymen. In the case of Jenny Buchannon and John Monaghan, _the only two Irish people_ with whom I had anything to do, the benefits were surely mutual. Monaghan came to us a runaway apprentice,--not, by-the-bye, the best recommendation for a servant. We received him starving and ragged, paid him good wages, and treated him with great kindness. The boy turned out a grateful and attached creature, which cannot possible confer the opposite character upon us. _Jenny's love and affection_ will sufficiently prove _our ingratitude_ to _her_. To the good qualities of these people I have done ample justice. In what, then, does my ingratitude to the _Irish people_ consist? I should feel much obliged to the writer in the _London Observer_ to enlighten me on this head, or those editors of Canadian papers, who, without reading for themselves, servilely copied a _falsehood_. It is easy to pervert people's words, and the facts they may represent, to their injury; and what I have said on the subject of education may give a handle to persons who delight in misrepresenting the opinions of others, to accuse me of republican principles; I will, therefore, say a few words on this subject, which I trust will exonerate me from this imputation. That all men, morally speaking, are equal in the eyes of their Maker, appears to me a self-evident fact, though some may be called by His providence to rule, and others to serve. That the welfare of the most humble should be as dear to the country to which he belongs as the best educated and the most wealthy, seems but reasonable to a reflective mind, who looks upon man as a responsible and immortal creature; but, that _perfect equality_ can exist in a world where the labour of man is required to procure the common necessaries of life--where the industry of one will create wealth, and the sloth of another induce poverty--we cannot believe. Some master spirit will rule, and the masses will bow down to superior intellect, and the wealth and importance which such minds never fail to acquire. The laws must be enforced, and those to whom the charge of them is committed will naturally exercise authority, and demand respect. Perfect equality never did exist upon earth. The old republics were more despotic and exclusive in their separation of the different grades than modern monarchies; and in the most enlightened, that of Greece, the plague spot of slavery was found. The giant republic, whose rising greatness throws into shade the once august names of Greece and Rome, suffers this heart-corroding leprosy to cleave to her vitals, and sully her fair fame, making her boasted vaunt of _equality_ a base lie--the scorn of all Christian men. They thrust the enfranchised African from their public tables--born beneath their own skies, a native of their own soil, a free citizen by their own Declaration of Independence; yet exclaim, in the face of this _black_ injustice--"Our people enjoy equal rights." Alas! for Columbia's _sable sons!_ Where is their equality? On what footing do they stand with their white brethren? What value do they place upon the negro beyond his price in dollars and cents? Yet is he equal in the sight of Him who gave him a rational soul, and afforded him the means of attaining eternal life. We are advocates for _equality of mind_--for a commonwealth of intellect; we earnestly hope for it, ardently pray for it, and we feel a confident belief in the possibility of our theory. We look forward to the day when honest labour will be made honourable; when he who serves, and he who commands, will rejoice in this freedom of soul together; when both master and servant will enjoy a reciprocal communion of mind, without lessening the respect due from the one to the other. But equality of station is a dream--an error which is hourly contradicted by reality. As the world is at present constituted, such a state of things is impossible. The rich and the educated will never look upon the poor and ignorant as their equals; and the voice of the public, that is ever influenced by wealth and power, will bear them out in their decision. The country is not yet in existence that can present us a better government and wiser institutions than the British. Long may Canada recognise her rule, and rejoice in her sway! Should she ever be so unwise as to relinquish the privileges she enjoys under the sovereignty of the mother country, she may seek protection _nearer_ and _fare worse!_ The sorrows and trials that I experienced during my first eight years' residence in Canada, have been more than counterbalanced by the remaining twelve of comfort and peace. I have long felt the deepest interest in her prosperity and improvement. I no longer regard myself as an alien on her shores, but her daughter by adoption,--the happy mother of Canadian children,--rejoicing in the warmth and hospitality of a Canadian Home! May the blessing of God rest upon the land! and her people ever prosper under a religious, liberal, and free government! For London. A National Song. "For London! for London! how oft has that cry From the blue waves of ocean been wafted on high, When the tar through the grey mist that mantled the tide, The white cliffs of England with rapture descried, And the sight of his country awoke in his heart Emotions no object save home can impart! For London! for London! the home of the free, There's no part in the world, royal London, like thee! "Old London! what ages have glided away, Since cradled in rushes thy infancy lay! In thy rude huts of timber the proud wings lay furl'd Of a spirit whose power now o'ershadows the world, And the brave chiefs who built and defended those towers, Were the sires of this glorious old city of ours. For London! for London! the home of the free, There's no city on earth, royal London, like thee! "The Roman, the Saxon, the Norman, the Dane, Have in turn sway'd thy sceptre, thou queen of the main! Their spirits though diverse, uniting made one, Of nations the noblest beneath yon bright sun; With the genius of each, and the courage of all, No foeman dare plant hostile flag on thy wall. For London! for London! the home of the free, There's no city on earth, royal London, like thee! "Old Thames rolls his waters in pride at thy feet, And wafts to earth's confines thy riches and fleet; Thy temples and towers, like a crown on the wave, Are hail'd with a thrill of delight by the brave, When, returning triumphant from conquests afar, They wreathe round thy altars the trophies of war. For London! for London! the home of the free, There's no part in the world, royal London, like thee! "Oh, London! when we, who exulting behold Thy splendour and wealth, in the dust shall be cold, May sages, and heroes, and patriots unborn, Thy altars defend, and thy annals adorn! May thy power be supreme on the land of the brave, The feeble to succour, the fallen to save, And the sons and the daughters now cradled by thee, Find no city on earth like the home of the free!"